Quick Guide to AI and ML Universe for Business Leaders
This article was published as a part of the Data Science Blogathon.
Ever since the advent of Globalisation, the environment in which a business operates is constantly changing. An important component of the business environment is the technological environment. Technology, also, as we all know is constantly changing, updating with new trends coming in every day.
Thus, it becomes imperative for businesses to understand and keep up with the technology trends to survive in the market.
One thing that has taken the IT industry by a storm is Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. AI and ML have innumerable applications which can upgrade and transform the way your business works.
So, whether or not, your business is in the IT sector, it is essential that Business Leaders know the AI and ML trends and can keep up with the pace and change of the business environment.
What are AI and ML?
Artificial Intelligence can be defined as a field of development of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. Some of the activities that involve artificial intelligence are Speech Recognition(how Google Assistant or Siri listens to your commands) or Computer Vision(how Google Lens works).
Machine Learning is the field of study that will enable computers to learn without being explicitly programmed.
Machine Learning is a subset of Artificial Intelligence.
Common ML Techniques
There are broadly three types of machine learning; Supervised, Unsupervised, and Reinforcement Learning.
Start with the question, “Do you have a Target Variable?” If the answer is ‘Yes’, it is a supervised learning problem, and if the answer is ‘No’, it is an unsupervised learning problem.
To illustrate this, predicting whether a person will default on a loan or not. For this, you have a target variable i.e. ‘defaulting on loan’, which is a supervised learning problem. On the other hand, customer segmentation in a market has no target variable which makes it an unsupervised learning problem.
Supervised Learning can further be divided into two categories namely Regression and Classification.
Classification, as the name suggests, involves classifying a variable into two or more types. The loan default example we discussed above is an example of Classification, to be specific, binary classification, as it has two classes, default on loan and no default on loan. There can also be multi-class classification which for example, is classifying different species of flowers.
Regression, on the other hand, is used when the target variable is continuous. Predicting sales is one of the examples of a regression problem.
Unsupervised Learning involves clustering. Clustering, as the name suggests, is making groups or clusters of data based on their similarity.
All this has been put together in this flowchart below for your easy reference.
Lastly, Reinforcement Learning is a machine learning technique in which the agent learns itself in an environment by trial and error.
An analogy that can be brought up to explain reinforcement learning is, a child learning to walk. Child(agent) tries walking, falls, gets up again and walks again, and finally by trial and error, learns to walk completely.
Applications of ML and AI in the real world
Now, let us come to the real deal and learn how AI and ML are applied across different industries and how they prove useful.
Banking and the financial sector use AI and ML to cut down on risks and increase their profits.
Various applications of AI and ML in Banking can be summarised as follows:
- Customer Acquisition: Banks use AI and ML for market segmentation and predicting the probability of acquiring customers through different marketing channels. Banks also use geospatial data science to identify where they can set up their new branches.
- Customer Management: As a bank acquires a new customer, it gets loads of data about that customer which can be used in conjunction with existing data to make important decisions such as revising interest rates, credit limits, etc. Chatbots also ensure better customer management as they provide round-the-clock availability and can help provide information or perform some pre-defined tasks like checking account balance, requesting a checkbook, etc.
- Risk Management: One of the most common applications is running anti-money laundering checks. Another application is assessing credit risk analysis. Fraud detection across credit cards, insurance, and loans can also be done using machine learning.
The E-Commerce industry heavily relies on artificial intelligence to stand its way through the cut-throat competition in the industry. Some of the ways in which AI and ML are applied by e-commerce businesses are:
- Customer Acquisition: We see a product online and whoosh, now you will see its ad everywhere. This is nothing but an application which is known as retargeting. These websites see if you visited and didn’t buy the product and will show you the ad with the intention to retarget you to buy that product. Another way they use AI and ML is personalization for a customer which is based on the customer’s demographics, purchase history, interests, etc.
- Product Pricing: As a business person, you might be well aware how the pricing of a product depends on various factors; and in a competitive market, all these factors have to be collectively analyzed to determine the prices of not just one but many products in real-time and here, machine learning proves utterly useful.
- Customer Management: Recommendation systems, chatbots, managing product returns are some of the ways in which machine learning can help in better customer management.
- Content Management: Machine learning can help identify counterfeit products which may be posted by some sellers. Another application is advanced and improved search. It is very important to show the right products when searched so as to retain that customer. Lately, there has been an addition to searching in terms of image search also where people can search a product through a similar image. Some sellers indulge in getting fake reviews which might dwindle the customers’ trust in the e-commerce website. Machine Learning and intelligence may help here in identifying fake reviews.
- Managing Logistics and Supply Chain: Using machine learning to forecast the level of demand helps maintain inventory in a better manner so as to tap the market correctly, don’t lose out the business to competitors, and save costs.
- Medical Imaging: For areas where we have sufficient data, machine learning can help in diagnosis and medical imaging many times faster than a human and in some cases even more accurately. This is indispensably helpful in critical cases.
- Personalized Medicines: Giving standard medicines to everyone may not ensure recovery for all in a similar manner. On the other hand, personalizing medication according to an individual may prove extremely useful and this can disrupt the healthcare industry in a positive manner.
- Drug Discovery: The current drug discovery process is expensive both in terms of money and time. ML can change how it works. For instance, deep learning can help researchers parse through researches and make it easier for them to study then. Predictions can be made on how certain drugs or drug combinations may prove successful.
- Health Monitoring: Fitbits and health trackers which track your activity, heart rate, sleep etc. can help detect any anomalies in your health and help avoid emergencies.
- Robot-Assisted Surgeries: As robots are far more precise than humans, robots can help improve surgeries several times.
Similar to the applications discussed above, the Telecom industry also uses AI and ML for customer acquisition, customer management and infrastructure management.
But, one of the most important areas is Customer Churn as there is cut-throat competition in the telecom industry. Data analytics can be used to predict which customers are likely to churn and then relevant practices can be applied to ensure customer retention.
AI and ML in Functions
AI Engines can help identify the right source for sourcing the candidate. NLP can also help screen resumes to shortlist candidates. Nowadays, even for first-level screening, AI bots are being used for video interviews. This can help save time and improve the recruitment process.
But an HR’s role doesn’t end after recruitment and selection. Employee engagement is also an essential role that can be improved through AI. Innovative training methods can be recommended through machine learning.
Sales start with acquiring customers. AI can analyze the business goals you input in conjunction with numerous data points and then suggest the most relevant opportunities for customer acquisition. Price optimization can also be done with the help of AI and ML for maximizing profit. AI and ML can also help in improving recommendations to customers and also market basket analysis for better sales.
- Personalizing Customer Experience: Call center management using voice bots, chatbots to chat, and using recommendation systems to personalize the customer experience are few examples wherein routine operations can be improved using AI and ML to save huge costs and time.
- Risk Management: Anomalies can be detected using AI to rightly detect frauds.
- Automating repetitive tasks: Document classification can be done using Deep Learning and Natural Language Processing which will be much faster than a manual job. AI Robots can be used in manufacturing which will make the production process faster, less error-prone, and more efficient.
- Warehousing: Manual labor can be reduced by a great percentage using AI bots.
Digital marketing has taken the marketing world by storm. Email Marketing can be improved by segmentation, optimizing subject lines through AI which plays a very important role, and analyzing the best time for sending these emails.
75% of users don’t go on Page 2 of Google Search. This rightly emphasizes the importance of search engine optimization. AI can analyze and help improve the SEO process.
Social Media Advertising through AI can help sure that efforts and investment are made in the right direction for successful marketing.
Building AI Capabilities in your Organisation
Now, you might have a fair understanding of what AI and ML are and how they can be applied in your business for better efficiency. Let us now look at how you can build AI capabilities in your organization.
Level of Change
After you have set down your end goal, the first thing to identify is what level of change you want to bring in. Is it a function level change, a project level change, or an organization level change? The right level of change depends on your position in the organization, budget, time constraints, etc.
Building your AI Strategy
Remember the ABCDE framework for building an AI strategy for your enterprise.
- Assess your organization capabilities
- Create organization buy-in
- Identify the core team
- Define the problems for the AI team
- Execute and Implement
Roles in an AI/ML Team
- Data related roles: Data engineer, data analyst, data scientist
- Hardware related roles: Hardware engineer, IoT engineer
- Software related roles: AI Software engineer
- Business Expert: Domain Expert, Project Manager
Keys to recruiting the top AI/ML talent
It is important to identify clearly what roles you require and understand the subtle, important, and often ignored differences between them, especially data-related roles.
You need to prepare a well-written job description with reasonable required skills and education lest it shoos away good talent.
In addition to external hiring, which may sometimes prove useful is retraining existing team members from a Computer Science background.
Third-party sources can also be tapped if the above ones fail.
Remember, recruiting good AI/ML talent is not a cakewalk and should be executed patiently.
As we have seen, AI and ML can change the scene of your business and if implemented right, can reap great benefits for your business. Thus, AI and ML become imperative for business leaders to keep up with the trends in technology as much as any other trends in the market.
Of course, there is much more to this and if you want to learn in much more detail, check this out.
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The Franciscan chapel of Dominus Flevit (Latin, the Lord wept) was built in 1955, near the site which medieval pilgrims identified as the place where Jesus wept over the city. The site, acquired by the Franciscans in 1881, was on a procession route from the Mount of Olives to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Archeological excavations carried out prior to construction uncovered the foundations of a 5th-century monastery and chapel.
The modern sanctuary was designed by Antonio Barluzzi, the architect of several shrines and sanctuaries built during the first half of the 20th century for the Franciscan Custody of the Holy Land. In a radical departure from his usual conservative style, Barluzzi designed the chapel as a stylized tear-shaped building, constructed in the form of a Greek cross. A window behind the altar in the west wall frames a view of the Old City.
Sources: Israeli Foreign Ministry


Symphyotrichum campestre facts for kids
Quick facts for kidsSymphyotrichum campestre
Symphyotrichum campestre (formerly Aster campestris) is a species of aster known as western meadow aster. It is native to much of western North America from British Columbia, California, and the Rocky Mountains region to Arizona and New Mexico, where it grows in many habitat types, generally at some elevation.
It is a perennial herb growing to a maximum height near 40 centimetres (16 in) from a long rhizome. The thin brown stems are covered in rough hairs and resin glands. The leaves are a few centimeters long, linear to oval in shape, and often hairy. The glandular inflorescence holds several flower heads containing many violet ray florets around a center of long yellow disc florets. The fruit is a hairy achene.
Symphyotrichum campestre Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.


Martin Luther King VS. Malcolm X
Disclaimer: This work has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional academic writers. You can view samples of our professional work here.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.
Published: Mon, 5 Dec 2016
The United States is the land of racism. No matter how long it takes and no matter how far the government and social groups try to achieve equality among the races in the United States, it means nothing. Racism has been a major issue among the population in the United States for a long period of time, and it still occurs nowadays. There are a lot of people with all different types of skin colors and ethnic groups in the States, which are Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Mexican Americans. In addition, the main widespread problem of racism in America is the white majority against ethnic groups, especially the black people.
It can be said that equality is the concept in which it does not exist at all in the land of America. Racism in the United States is the unstoppable problem, and it could not solve until in these days. It can also lead to many areas of problems such as education, employment, and housing. There are many policies that try to change things within the country, but they are failed because they do not look at the real problem and absolutely cannot change people’s thoughts. These are just forces for people to like each other. Furthermore, there are several groups in America that try to give the black people more opportunity and have a better life in the States. They also call for racial equality in the society. Two famous and important black leaders that represent themselves and call for the rights for all black Americans are Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had a different background of their lives, and they also grew up in a completely distinct environment. Martin Luther King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, America. He came from a comfortable middle-class family, had a high education, and was raised with the strong values of self-worth (Degnan-Veness, p.2). Unlike Martin Luther King, Malcolm X was born on May 19, 1925 and came from underprivileged home. He was a little educated man and rose to the greatness on his own intelligence. In addition, he was raised with fear, anger, and bitterness because his family was demolished. His house was burned by the Klu Klux Klan, a secret organization of white men who hated African Americans, in which this painful situation led to the death of his father. Several years after the death of his father, his mother suffered an emotional breakdown and then his family was separated. Malcolm X had to live his whole life with the haunted nightmare that occurred from this situation, and he became hatred and wanted to take revenge (Biography of Malcolm X, 2001). This could probably say that Martin Luther King enjoyed his best life, especially the love of his parents whereas Malcolm X was a lonely man who suffered a lot from being separated and facing the bad situation since when he was young.
Their attitudes towards the White Americans
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X had an enormous influence on African Americans and became the icons of their culture. Nevertheless, both of them had a completely different attitude towards the White Americans. Martin Luther King had a positive thought and focused on the peaceful way of calling for African Americans rights while the point of view of Malcolm X towards the White Americans was pessimistic, brutal, and violent including the most desire to get back to the world that was treated him pretty much unfairly.
Martin Luther King: Social Inclusion
In the past, people in America were treated unequally. The Blacks had to be separated to the Whites. Some were forced to use separate all black schools, stores, restaurants, water fountains, entrances of hospital, etc. Furthermore, some parts of the States, the blacks had no right or were denied to vote (Struggle for Equality: Quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr., 2011). Therefore, it made the black people need to have equality and the rights like the white people. This led to the beginning of civil rights movement, and Martin Luther King was one of all the leaders that made the progress about this.
Martin Luther King was an idealistic person and had the attitude in terms of peace and non-violence towards the White Americans. He believed that peaceful arguments and demonstrations would led the African Americans achieve the equality and to be accepted in the society like the White Americans someday. He also believed that the Blacks and the Whites could be united and lived together in terms of peace. “King was basically a peaceful leader who urged non-violence to his followers. He travelled about the country giving speeches that inspired black and white listeners to work together for racial harmony.” (Patterson, p. 135) In addition, Martin Luther King was a Baptist minister father and a school teacher mother, and then he became the voice of the movement which heard by millions of people around the world. His civil rights movement in this essay will be divided into early civil rights movement and late civil rights movement.
Early Civil Rights Movement
The first step of the change between the Black Americans and the White Americans by Martin Luther King began in December 1955 in Montgomery. At that time, there was segregation on city buses in which the Blacks had to give seats to the Whites, and they could not sit in the same row. Many black people were angry and did not satisfied, but they could do nothing. Moreover, they wanted to start a boycott in Montgomery. Rosa Parks, a forty-year-old black woman, made Martin Luther King see the civil rights movement come into action. She was forced to give the seat to the white passenger by the driver, however, she refused it. Therefore, the driver called the police, and she was arrested by them. Later, Martin Luther King took charge of this situation to call for African Americans rights cooperated by Nixon, the NAACP worker, Abernathy, and Rosa Parks and led to the boycott of the Montgomery city buses (Cozzens, 1997). On December 5, 50,000 boycotters spoke with their feet “We will not ride on segregated buses again!” (Degnan-Veness, p.10) This made the Bus Company and white politicians angry and wanted to destroy the boycott because they lost money. Nevertheless, the marches still continued. Martin Luther King became the leader of this civil rights campaign, and he and his followers would not fight back to the Whites even though they tried so hard to fight them with violence. For example, the Klu Klux Klan bombed Martin Luther King’s home. This made a lot of black people in front of his house mad and wanted to attack the Whites, but Martin Luther King bravely told them “I want you to go home. We must love our white brothersâ€¦ We must meet hate with love.” (Degnan-Veness, p.13) This can prove that Martin Luther King resisted on his own peaceful way against the Whites. This protest took about 382 days to overcome, and the US government passed a new law in which the segregation on buses in all states was illegal. After this Montgomery Bus Boycott ended, Martin Luther King gave speeches all over the country, and he was ready for another fight which was voting rights for all African Americans in which the ideas of protest was inspired by Mahatma Gandhi. He wanted President Eisenhower to help African Americans in the south because they were segregated and had no rights to vote by asking the help from Richard Nixon, the closet man to the President. However, it changed nothing. Therefore, in 1957, he organized SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference) with 115 black leaders in Montgomery to help African Americans get the rights to vote. Martin Luther King also said “The SCLC is church-orientated because of the very structure of the Negro community in the South.” (Trueman, 2000) This also led to the black students protest who were prohibited from public places such as restaurant, bar, and swimming pool. Martin Luther King joined with them and was arrested. However, he was helped by John F. Kennedy to be free.
Late Civil Rights Movement
After all situations from above, these became another student protest in 1961 which was called “Freedom Rides”. Protesters were not the Blacks only but also some of the Whites, and they were hurt badly from the violent actions of the Klu Klux Klan. Martin Luther King was worried about it and asked the help from JFK’s brother, Robert Kennedy. Finally, the protesters reached their goal, and segregation in bus stations in the South ended by the request of Robert Kennedy at Interstate Commerce Commission (Cozzens, 1997). Next, Martin Luther King wanted to take his campaign in Birmingham, Alabama where ruling black population by fear. He was the big enemy to the city’s police chief, Eugene “Bull” Connor, who hated black people and their civil rights campaign. When people, including children, marched for integration demand, Connor took all of them in jail with violent method such as dogs and water (A Conflict in Black and White, 2011). Later, because of the Alabama state court sent a letter to Martin Luther King in 1963 that black demonstration was illegal; he was arrested again after he announced in public “The court will not stop me” (Degnan-Veness, p.23). Therefore, he decided to write a letter from Birmingham jail, and this letter made city leaders agreed to unite bathrooms, drinking water machines, lunch bars, and employed more black people. This Birmingham protest changed the nation by President John F. Kennedy proposed a bill that outlawed racial discrimination. People, black Americans and white Americans, marched together to Washington in 1963 to support this bill of rights and call for jobs and freedom. Martin Luther King also gave a speech “I have a dream”, and it was about for all Americans to be equal no matter what color skin they have just a heart and mind of person were important. He was one of history’s public speaker, important icon of civil rights movement, and got the Nobel Prize in 1964 for his non-violent protest to end racial discrimination and prejudice (Martin Luther King and the Movement, 2000).
Malcolm X: Social Exclusion
Unlike Martin Luther King, Malcolm X had a strongly negative towards the White Americans because his life and his family were treated unfairly and brutally. From having a hopeless life, he wanted to change and fight back for all African Americans by using violent method towards the Whites. He believed that only though revolution and force that could make black people get the right place, and he would do any necessary means to achieve equality. For example, he encouraged his followers by giving speeches to make them rise up and fight against their white enemies. This could be said that his speeches came from and based on his brutal life that had a negative though towards the Whites since he was young. The movement of Malcolm X will be divided into three parts which are Pre-Nation of Islam period, Nation of Islam period, and Post-Nation of Islam period.
Pre-Nation of Islam
Malcolm X was brought up in a violent atmosphere. He was suffered not only from abuse by the Whites, but also from domestic violence. His father abused his mother, and both of them abused their children, including him. He could not dream, go to school with the Whites, and was looking down by the Whites. After his family was split up from the burning house by the Klu Klux Klan, he turned from a good boy to a bad man. His dream was to be a lawyer, but he was told from his teacher that it was no realistic goal for a nigger. Therefore, he dropped out from school and lived his life with no destination. He also lived his life with no fear and used every kind of drugs. He worked several odd jobs to earn money by himself in Boston, Massachusetts, and then moved to Harlem, New York where he committed crimes. For example, he formed a house of robbing gang and gambling rings. This led him go to jail for seven years (Biography of Malcolm X, 2001).
Nation of Islam
For seven years in the prison, he used this opportunity to change himself to a new man. He gained the knowledge and educated himself. In addition, during in the prison, he was bias to Christian because he thought that Christian was a tool of the White Americans to keep the Blacks down. Therefore, this led him want to find the suitable religion for black people and then he joined the Nation of Islam, the Black Muslim Movement. The belief of Islam was the Black Pride and Black Nationalism. Later, he adopted the name of Malcolm X. Within a short period of time, Malcolm X became the main spokesperson for the leader which was Elijah Muhammad (Smith, 2005). The goal of Nation of Islam was not integration, and it wanted the Blacks to establish their own schools, churches, and support network (Malcolm X and the Nation of Islam, 2008). In addition, he promoted that he was so proud of being black. His personal commitment made the Nation of Islam worldwide. He devoted himself in the Nation of Islam for 12 years. He preached that the white man was the devil and the “Honorable Elijah Muhammad” was God’s messenger. As a result, “Malcolm X recommended a separatist and nationalist strategy for black survival,” (Clarke, p. 57) Moreover, he gave the speech, “Definition of a Revolution”, in 1963 which openly justified violence as a way to gain equality. “And if it is right for America to draft us and teach us how to be violent in defense of the country, then isn’t it right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country,” (Clarke, p. 253). He strongly rose up the African Americans to fight against the White Americans though revolution. “Revolution is bloody, revolution is hostile, revolution knows no compromise, revolution overturns and destroys everything that gets in its way,” (Clarke, p. 255) Malcolm X became very popular, and the jealous time became while he was the member of Nation of Islam. He heard the rumor that Elijah Muhammad had children with women in the organization, so in 1964 he announced that he was leaving the Nation of Islam (Nosotro, 2003).
Post-Nation of Islam
After he left the Nation of Islam, he realized that he was taught in wrong way. He set up a new organization by himself, and this was called the Muslim Mosque. He also made a pilgrimage to Mecca. He found Afro-American Unity, including all people of African descent in the Western hemisphere. It made the tensions between himself and the Nation of Islam increased further, to the point where the Nation of Islam leadership were asserted to have directly ordered the assassination of Malcolm and his family. This group made a further step of violence and served as a political attempt to unite black cause in America, built ties to African community, and needed to unite with civil rights movement to advance the Blacks in America to an international level (Malcolm X Biography, n.d.). Unluckily, he was murdered, so this legacy did not get much attention.
Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were different in many things; however, they had the same goal in their mind, which was to achieve equality between all races. Both of them were the great leaders who fought for a difference and change in the Black Americans.
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More info on the Photo project:
Where Wild Dogs roam
Unique study aims to save the Endangered African Wild Dog by understanding where they wander
ONCE considered vermin, colonial governments ordered widespread eradication of the African Wild Dog. Today, Wild Dog numbers are still on the decrease in some regions due to loss of habitat and prey, as well as direct persecution by livestock and game farmers.
The Wild Dog is Africa’s rarest large carnivore, after the Critically Endangered Ethiopian Wolf. Classified as Endangered on the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, the only viable contiguous population of Wild Dogs in South Africa can be found in the Kruger National Park (KNP). Census results reveal that even here, numbers have decreased, from 434 in 1995 to about 140 in 2009.
In recent years, their numbers may have stabilized around the relatively small amount of Wild Dogs now present.“ The small size of the population exposes them to more risk,” says Dr Sam Ferreira, SANParks Large Mammal Ecologist. “If for example”, he adds, “a disease breaks out in the Kruger population, there are not enough animals to serve as a buffer and allow immunity to develop effectively. This could lead to a dramatic decrease in numbers or even local extinction of this population”. Small populations may also carry higher risks of inbreeding.
Wild Dog packs roam over long distances, and packs within the KNP population could possibly be moving outside of the park’s borders into unprotected areas. For the first time, researchers are now focusing their attention exactly there – where the KNP’s borders stop. The purpose of the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s (EWT) Kruger Western Boundary Project is to investigate if Wild Dogs and Cheetahs are moving beyond the park’s borders and if so, where are they moving and how their movements are affected by different land uses. The study also aims to gather information on human attitudes and tolerance towards these animals, and the threats these species face. The EWT is partnering with SANParks, Rhodes University, Jaguar Land Rover South Africa and a number of land owners, managers and communities to make this unique project happen.
Making it happen
The project is focusing on the movement behaviour of Wild Dogs beyond the western and southern boundaries of the KNP. Starting in 2010, the project is using questionnaires and interviews to investigate Wild Dog and Cheetah distribution, land use, threats and attitudes towards these two species. The land adjoining the park, including private nature reserves, hunting and game farms as well as lodges and crop farms, is being surveyed. This gives researchers an idea of the geographic layout, land-use practices and obstacles (such as negative attitudes and physical elements like roads) that affect the animals’ distribution or survival.
Researchers have also asked land-owners to provide them with sighting records and photographs of any Wild dogs and Cheetahs from the last 15 years. These will be analysed to identify individual animals from their unique coat and spot patterns providing information on movement and survival of animals.
To date, says principal researcher, Jessica Watermeyer, a Master’s student at Rhodes University, the project has received more than 14 000 photographs of Wild dogs, and 9 000 of Cheetahs. Preliminary results show that several Wild Dog packs use substantial areas outside of the KNP in the private nature reserves along the western boundary, and one pack has a home range that does not include any areas inside the park. Wild Dogs come into conflict with humans outside the park and deaths have been reported from shooting, snaring, poisoning. They also seem to be susceptible to being killed in road traffic accidents. Watermeyer says that there has been no clear indication that snaring has a detrimental effect on Wild Dog numbers but better information on the baseline population will be necessary to really explore this.
The research team is hoping that those involved will acquire the knowledge to educate others in related land use practices about the threatened status of Wild Dogs and Cheetahs and the importance of their conservation. It is also hoped that the project will contribute to the development of management strategies that aim to improve human tolerance, appreciation and understanding of both species.
Ferreira adds that the project will afford the KNP a more global picture of the Wild Dogs. Wild Dogs regularly exploring areas outside the borders of the KNP may experience significantly more threats associated with humans than those spending most of the time inside KNP. The existence of the KNP population may be at risk if it cannot sustain the risks for dogs leaving the park. Alternatively, it is possible that the protection Wild Dogs experience within the park could compensate for losses outside KNP.
According to project field worker Grant Beverley from the EWT, “people must realize that their actions outside the park are affecting the population inside the protected area”.
*Grant Beverley is stationed in the lowveld. If you have any sightings information on Wild Dogs or Cheetahs, or need further information on these two species please contact him on
0832256214 or firstname.lastname@example.org


In Middle Tennessee, the combat outside of Murfreesboro on New Year’s Eve had nearly destroyed Major-General William S. Rosecrans’s Federal army. But the Federals still held their line of retreat back to Nashville, even if Rosecrans was not yet ready to use it. He held a council of war with his officers in the dark early hours of New Year’s Day to determine what their next move should be.
Major-General Alexander McCook, whose right wing had been hit hardest by the Confederates, urged retreat. Major-General Thomas L. Crittenden, whose left wing had seen minimal action compared to the rest of the army, deferred to Rosecrans. When Rosecrans asked Major-General George H. Thomas, commanding the Federal center, Thomas declared, “General, I know of no better place to die than right here.”
Rosecrans conducted a night inspection and saw light behind his lines. Since he had prohibited his men from lighting fires, Rosecrans concluded that the light must be coming from Confederates in his rear. He therefore decided to stay and directed his men to “prepare to fight or die.” But Rosecrans was unaware that the light was actually coming from Federal troops disobeying his orders, not Confederates attempting to surround him. His orders stood nonetheless.
General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Confederate Army of Tennessee, believed that he had soundly defeated the Federals, and he fully expected Rosecrans to start retreating when dawn came on New Year’s Day. His cavalry commander, Brigadier-General Joseph Wheeler, reported seeing long lines of wagons heading back up the Nashville turnpike, indicating that Bragg had guessed correctly. But these wagons were actually going back to Nashville to get more supplies, not to lead a retreat. Bragg therefore made no plans to follow up his victory, thereby giving Rosecrans a full day to strengthen his defenses.
The Federals withdrew from their salient at the Round Forest, taking up strong positions further north along Stones River. McCook’s line on the Federal right ran northwest along the Nashville Turnpike; Crittenden held the Federal left along Stones River, and Thomas remained in the center. Lieutenant-General Leonidas Polk’s Confederate corps took the positions in the Round Forest that the Federals abandoned. Federal supplies dwindled as wagon trains had to travel under heavy guard, but Rosecrans assured his men, “Our supplies may run short, but we will have our trains out tomorrow. We will keep right on, and eat corn for a week, but we will win this battle. We can and will do it.”
On the night of the 1st, a division of Crittenden’s wing under Colonel Samuel Beatty crossed Stones River and seized the high ground facing Major General John C. Breckinridge’s Confederates on the east bank. This comprised Rosecrans’s strong new left flank. Both sides traded sporadic artillery and rifle fire throughout the day, but no major moves were made.
As the day progressed, it became increasingly apparent to Bragg that the Federals were not retreating like he thought. Worse, returns from the New Year’s Eve battle showed that he had lost nearly a third of his army. Even if he wanted to renew the attack on Rosecrans, he would have much fewer men to do it with, against an enemy that had spent the whole day strengthening its defenses. Men on both sides readied for the fight that they expected to resume the next morning.
- Angle, Paul M., A Pictorial History of the Civil War Years. New York: Doubleday, 1967.
- Catton, Bruce and Long, E.B. (ed.), Never Call Retreat: Centennial History of the Civil War Book 3. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc. (Kindle Edition), 1965.
- Cozzens, Peter, No Better Place to Die: The Battle of Stones River. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press (Kindle Edition), 1990.
- Crocker III, H. W., The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Civil War. Washington: Regnery Publishing, 2008.
- Davis, Jefferson, The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government: All Volumes. Heraklion Press, Kindle Edition 2013, 1889.
- Foote, Shelby, The Civil War, A Narrative: Fredericksburg to Meridian. New York: Vintage Civil War Library, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (Kindle Edition), 2011.
- Long, E.B. with Long, Barbara, The Civil War Day by Day. New York: Da Capo Press, Inc., 1971.
- McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era. Oxford History of the United States Book 6, Oxford University Press (Kindle Edition), 1988.
- Pollard, Edward A., Southern History of the War (facsimile of the 1866 edition). New York: Fairfax Press, 1990.
- Stanchak, John E. (Patricia L. Faust ed.), Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War. New York: Harper & Row, 1986.
- Street, Jr., James, The Struggle for Tennessee: Tupelo to Stones River. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1983.


PARCC and Core to College
Public Feedback Requested
May 8—PARCC closed the public comment period on the draft grade- and subject-specific performance level descriptors (PLDs) in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. The national PARCC Governing Board and Advisory Committee on College Readiness will vote on the adoption of the final PLDs during their joint session on June 26, 2013.
Future Ready Summit
May 20—The Future Ready Summit was held at the DCU Center in Worcester, MA. Future Ready Massachusetts is a public communication campaign designed to promote awareness and understanding of what it takes for all students (youth and adult learners) to be “college and career ready.”
College and Career “Readiness” Definition Approved
March 12—The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) voted to accept a new definition of what it takes for students to become ready for life after high school. The BHE action followed a “yes” vote on the state’s new college & career readiness definition taken by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education on February 26th.
Voting on the definition marked the first time the two boards overseeing the state’s K-12 schools and public colleges and universities partnered in formal agreement on what it means to be prepared for success in college and in the workplace. The three-page definition (.PDF) is intended to provide better coordination between schools and colleges, with the goal of aligning curriculum and expectations for students.
PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career Readiness) and Core to College are K-16 initiatives to ensure that "college-bound" means "college-ready." The primary activities are:
- Full implementation of the Common Core State Standards;
- Creation of a next-generation assessment system based on the Standards; and
- Development of a definition of "college and career readiness."
The goals are to:
- Increase college readiness among high school graduates and increase the understanding of college expectations among parents, students and teachers;
- Reduce disparities among different school districts and populations;
- Reduce the need for remediation in college;
- Increase completion rates of college students;
- Improve assessment tools for 21st century learning; and
- Ensure global competitiveness of K-12 and college graduates.
The overarching strategy is collaboration at the national, state, regional and local levels and among K-12 and higher education educators and administrators.
National PARCC Initiative (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)


1. Education must be understood as producing not only knowledge but also political subjects.
2. Ethics must be seen as a central concern of critical pedagogy.
3. Critical pedagogy needs to focus on the issue of difference in an ethically challenging and politically transformative way.
4. Critical pedagogy needs a language that allows for competing solidarities and political vocabularies that do not reduce the issues of power, justice, struggle, and inequality to a single script, a master narrative that suppresses the contingent, historical and the everyday as a serious object of study. This suggests that curriculum knowledge not be treated as a sacred text but developed as part of an ongoing engagement with a variety of narratives and traditions that can be re-read and re-formulated in politically diffferent terms.
5. Critical pedagogy needs to create new forms of knowledge through its emphasis on breaking down disciplinary boundaries and creating new spaces where knowledge can be produced.
6. The Enlightenment notion of reason needs to be reformulated within a critical pedagogy... Reason implicates and is implicated in the intersection of power, knowledge, and politics.
7. Critical pedagogy needs to regain a sense of alternatives by combining a language of critique and possibility. Postmodern feminism exemplifies this in both its critique of patriarchy and its search to construct new forms of identity and social relations.
8. Critical pedagogy needs to develop a theory of teachers as transformative intellectuals who occupy specifiable political and social locations... Critical pedagogy would represent itself as the active construction rather than transmission of particular ways of life.
9. Central to the notion of critical pedagogy is a politics of voice that combines a postmodern notion of difference with a feminist emphasis on the primacy of the political.
The following students have responded...
This page was created by Kathryn Polking and Andrea Schroeder
Background Image Copyright © 1998 Michael J. Bonnell www.mikebonnell.com


"Thor Heyerdahl was a Norwegian adventurer and ethnographer with a background in zoology, botany, and geography. Heyerdahl is notable for his Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947, in which he sailed 8,000 km across the Pacific Ocean in a handbuilt raft from South America to the Tuamotu Islands." ( Wikipedia)
Heyerdahl repeatedly risked his life sailing across the Pacific in a raft, proving Trans-cultural diffusion between ancient peoples was possible. Heyerdahl accomplished this with rudimentary tools, gathered materials, and a few volunteers.
Today, from the comfort of a desk chair with computer technology and the internet, ideas and technology-shared between individuals and entire countries should be simple. So, why can't the nations of the world aggressively address the issue of global warming?
Recycled materials, woven copper, steel wire, chemical patina, polychrome 18" x 24" x 2".


United Way Works for a Healthier America
Whether it is a child without a safe place to exercise, a neighbor without health insurance, a victim of abuse, or someone struggling with mental illness or an addiction, the Souris Valley United was is working to ensure everyone has access to a healthy lifestyle and affordable and quality care.
Since 2008, the United Way Worldwide has been working to achieve our bold, 10-year goal: to increase by one-third the number of youth and adults who are healthy and avoid risky behaviors by 2018.
Achieving our goal requires us all to become more aware of health risks and the potential effects they have on ourselves and others, starting from before birth. Working to change policies, practices, and behaviors, will enable more people to live healthier lives.
What We're Doing
The Souris Valley United Way is committed to improving people's health. We fund and support programs like YMCA summer day camps, which give kids a safe place to learn and exercise when not in school, the Caring Program for Children which provides free primary and preventive health and dental care for uninsured children in ND who fall through the cracks in our health care system, and the Minot Commission on Aging which provides free, hot, and healthy meals delivered to vulnerable seniors in our community, Community Action Partnership which provides food to vulnerable seniors, along with several other programs and services.
- More than 33% of children and adolescents are overweight or obese. That’s 25 million kids and teenagers.
- Children with health coverage are better prepared to learn in school and succeed in life.1
- The number of Americans without health insurance has increased steadily since the beginning of the century, now totaling about 47 million. More than 80% are working families.2
- 8.7 million children live without health insurance – more than the total number enrolled in the first and second grades in U.S. public schools.3
1Institute of Medicine. From Neurons to Neighborhood: The Science of Early Childhood Development. Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2000.)
2Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates from the March Current Population Survey, 2007 Supplement.
3Compiled by the State Health Access Data Assistance Center (SHADAC), University of Minnesota School of Public Health, using data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey 2007.


There are many ways in which prohibition of alcohol consumption in the United States of America, damaged the very economic and social aspects of American culture, that it was designed to heal. Prohibition did not achieve its goals. Instead, it added to the problems it was intended to solve. On 16th January 1920, one of the most common personal habits and customs of American society came to a halt. The eighteenth amendment was implemented, making all importing, exporting, transporting, selling and manufacturing of intoxicating liquors absolutely prohibited. This law was created in the hope of achieving the reduction of alcohol consumption, which in turn would reduce: crime, poverty, death rates, and improve both the economy, and the quality of life for all Americans.
These goals were far from achieved. The prohibition amendment of the 1920's was ineffective because it was unenforceable. Instead, it caused various social problems such as: the explosive growth of organized crime, increased liquor consumption, massive murder rates and corruption among city officials. Prohibition also hurt the economy because the government wasnt collecting taxes on the multi-billion dollar a year industry. One of the main reasons that prohibition failed, was because it was difficult to control the mass flow of illegal liquor from various countries, mainly Canada. Bootleggers smuggled liquor from oversees and Canada, stole it from government warehouses, and produced their own.
The newly established Federal Prohibition Bureau had only 1,550 agents, and with 18,700 miles of vast and virtually unpoliceable coastline, it was clearly impossible to prevent immense quantities of liquor from entering the country. Not even 5% of smuggled liquor was ever actually captured and seize from the hands of the bootleggers. Bootlegging had become a very competitive and lucrative market with the adaptation of prohibition. This illegal underground economy fell into the hands of organized gangs who over powered most of the authorities. Most of these gangsters, secured their businesses by bribing an immense number of city officials. Mainly government agents and people with high political status such as: Mayors, Judges, Police Chiefs, Senators and Governors, found their names on gangsters payroll.
To some surprise, the consumption of liquor in the years before prohibition, was actually very lower then that of the years throughout prohibition. As a result of this new law, a new social problem arose. Seldom has law been more flagrantly violated. Not only did Americans continue to manufacture, barter, and possess alcohol; they drank more of it.
Americans who supported prohibition, argued that if drinking alcohol was illegal, the public would recognize and respect the law, and in turn, would give it up. During the start of prohibition, it appeared as though it was working. But, what was really going on, was that since the transportation and production was not allowed, bootleggers had to find ways to do it without being caught. The price of beer rose, because it had to be transported in large barrels, which was more difficult. As a result, people started drinking more potent hard liquor. It took less to get drunk, therefore it was easier to transport, thus, it was cheaper.
Americans would drink this potent liquor and get drunk a lot faster, for less money. As a downfall, however, the liquor had no standards. The rate of alcohol related deaths due to poisoning drastically increased from 1,064 in 1920, to 4,154 in 1925. One of the biggest outcomes of prohibition was the development of organized crime. Because liquor was no longer legally available, the public turned to gangsters who took on the bootlegging industry and supplied them with liquor. Because the industry was so immensely profitable, more gangs participated.
As a result of the money involved in the bootlegging industry, there was much rival between gangs. The profit motive caused over four hundred gang related murders a year in Chicago alone. The most infamous gangster of all time, was Al Capone. He ran his business out of Chicago.
It is estimated that he alone, pulled in over 100 million dollars a year, as a result of prohibition. These numbers could never be confirmed for sure, because he didnt report his earnings to the tax man. Capone dominated the prostitution and protection business as well as bootlegging. Any rival gang who was seen as a threat, was simply wiped out. Capone had a gang of about 2,000 thugs, and payed off everyone from the chief of police, to federal agents and judges.
Everybody was on Capone payroll. There were also illegal speak-easies which replaced saloons after the start of prohibition. By 1925, there were over 100,000 speak-easies operating out of New York City alone. Alcohol had become easier to acquire during prohibition, then before prohibition.
The bootlegging business was so immense that customers could easily obtain alcohol by simply walking down almost any street. The speak-easies that replaced the saloons were hidden in basements, office buildings, and anywhere that could be found. They admitted only those with membership cards, and had the most modern alarm systems to avoid being shut down. There were twice as many speak-easies in Rochester, New York, as saloons closed by Prohibition.
Another factor that proves the increase of alcohol consumption is the increase in deaths and drunkenness. The drop in alcohol related deaths before prohibition quickly rose during prohibition. Arrests for drunkenness and disorderly conduct increased 41 percent, while arrests for drunk driving increased 81 percent during prohibition. There were several economic problems that grew out of prohibition. The main one, was the fact that the government wasnt taxing this billion dollar a year industry.
Every penny the bootlegger made, went into the pockets of themselves, bribed city officials, and their own thugs. The American Government never saw one dollar of it. Instead, they were busy at work spending tax payers money on programs to enforce this law. A new task force called the Federal Prohibition Bureau was established.
It was the job of these 1,500 federal officers to enforce the prohibition law. Many of those officers found themselves in the midst of the exchange of dirty money between the bootleggers and themselves. Tax dollars were also spent on prosecuting bootleggers who got captured. Millions of dollars annually were spent convicting and keeping the prisoners in jails. Other economic problems were that citizens found themselves drinking away their pay cheques.
These economic problems resulted in the government not taking in as much money as they could have, and spending money in areas that could have been avoided, if prohibition hadnt existed in the first place. It was apparent that Prohibition didnt achieve its goals, instead, it added to the existing economic and social problems, as well as creating new problems that would be prominent in todays society. Organized crime grew into an empire, disrespect for the law grew, the per capita consumption of alcohol increased dramatically, city officials fell to gangsters, and the government lost money. It is obvious that prohibition was a miserable failure from all points of view.
Reasonable measures were not taken to enforce the laws, so they were practically ignored.


A compilation of articles on practical advice and strategies for handling ADHD/ADD at home and at school.
Clues to the symptoms of ADHD if you think one of your students may have the disorder; as well as 105 strategies in managing classrooms that are not only helpful to students with ADHD, but are also helpful to the whole classroom.
Harold R. Meyer and Susan K. Lasky take you through various steps in order to efficiently write emails.
Choosing a professional or other specialists to help counsel, diagnose or treat you or your child with ADHD can be tricky. It is important to find a specialist that is a good fit for you or your child. The right match can be found with help from this guide that provides strategies and tips for searching for the right professionals, interviews with counselors, the roles of the parents throughout the process, questions to ask specialists, etc.
Personal income tax is due in April, and getting your financial records ready in time is difficult, even for people without ADHD. To help you efficiently get through it all without feeling overwhelmed, think of the process of tax prep as a project with various tasks to complete throughout the month. Below are seven tasks you can create to help make reporting income tax a more feasible project to complete.
Links to parenting tips and resources from the NIH.
Learn 12 easy ways to improve your life and happiness.
Tips on how to talk to and understand a child’s reaction when there is an infectious disease outbreak.
Managing ADHD at School
When teens with ADHD take reckless risks, their parents are understandably upset. But grounding the teen or yanking his driver’s license can backfire.


Please print Parental Consent Form for your student to be able to participate in the Reality Fair.
When: September 12th
Where: Rosa Scott
Reality Fair is an interactive financial literacy tool for high school students. The Reality Fair concept is a unique opportunity for students to experience some of the financial challenges they will face when they start life on their own. It’s a hands-on experience in which students identify their career choice and starting salaries based on their GPA and participate in various stations requiring them to live within their monthly salary while paying for basic needs such as housing, utilities, transportation, clothing, and food.


The make-up of Great Britain’s power system changes constantly. Demand is always changing; in winter it may peak at 50 gigawatts (GW) but overnight in summer it will be less than 20 GW. Some days wind is the biggest source of the country’s electricity generation, other days it’s gas. Then there are days when, for a few hours, solar takes the top spot in the middle of the day and nuclear during the night.
In the past, Great Britain’s electricity came almost entirely from big coal and nuclear power stations. But as the need for decarbonisation has grown, so has the number of sources feeding electricity to the grid, creating an ever more complex and varied system made up of technologies that behave in very different ways. For example, some sources are weather dependent and can’t generate all day every day others stop and start flexibly to smooth out changes in demand or intermittent generation.
But in the event all sources are available, what dictates which sources actually generate, and when? The overriding influence is economics – the costs of starting up and running a turbine, the price of fuel or taxes on carbon emissions.
In Great Britain, electricity’s wholesale price is not set in stone by an entity such as a regulator. Instead it’s negotiated via trading over the course of a day between generators (power stations, storage and wind turbines) and suppliers, who transmit that electricity to consumers.
As a result, the price of electricity fluctuates every half hour, responding to factors such as demand, cost of fuels, availability of resources (such as sun and wind), and carbon taxes.
For an example of the scale at which it fluctuates, we can look at the period 1-4 June this year, when the index price of electricity ranged from over £55/MWh down to around £5/MWh (see chart, above).
But while these figures speak to the overall price of a megawatt on the system, they don’t reflect all the individual sources, nor their individual costs. Each of the multiple sources on the grid have their own operating costs fluctuating on a similar basis.
These changing prices give rise to what is known as the merit order, a fluid, theoretical ranking of generation sources. This is not set by any regulator, economist or even by traders. Rather it is a naturally occurring, financial occurrence that explains what sources of electricity generation are feeding power onto the grid day-to-day.
What is the merit order?
The merit order dictates which sources of generation will deliver power to the grid by ranking them in ascending order of price together with the amount of electricity generated. This then determines the order in which power sources are brought onto the system. Ultimately, suppliers want the right amount of electricity for the best possible price, so in a system made up of many sources, it is the lowest cost, highest yield option that is brought online first, which in theory helps keep overall electricity prices down.
This means it is often sources such as wind and solar, which have no fuel costs, that sit at the top of the merit order. Nuclear may come next as it continually generates a large amount of power for a low cost, while taking a long time to turn down or off. At the opposite end of the merit order are sources like coal and oil, which have high fuel and carbon dioxide (CO2) emission costs (such as carbon taxes and the European Emission Trading scheme).
However, the merit order isn’t a set of hard and fast rules. “It’s an assumption used by traders or market commentators to guide what is likely to run and thereby the likely market price,” says Ian Foy, Drax Head of Ancillary Services. “There is no published merit order. It is like Santa Claus – it doesn’t exist, but it makes explaining Christmas easier.”
The intricacies of being in and out of merit
If a generating unit is required to meet demand then it’s described as ‘in merit’, if it is not required at any particular point in time then it’s ‘out of merit’ – there’s no point in suppliers paying for another power station, for example, to start generating if demand is already being met.
“If the market is efficient, we generate from the lowest cost source at all times,” says Foy. “Costs are not simple, for example, you have to take into account the cost of starting or shutting down generating units. However, costs are not publicly shared so there’s no single view of the merit order. Each party has its own perspective on it.”
It means the merit order changes from season-to-season, day-to-day and hour-to-hour, as rates of supply and demand, and the availability of resources change.
“An obvious example is gas tends to be cheaper in summer than winter, when it’s not being used for heating. Coal and gas also switch as global prices change,” says Foy. “Availability also changes over the year. There’s more solar in summer, but none in the morning and evening peaks of winter.”
There are also practical issues, such as repairs being made on wind and hydro turbines or planned maintenance outages on thermal and nuclear power stations, putting those generators out of action and knocking them out of merit.
And because the merit order is not an implemented working scheme, it can be deliberately manipulated by outside forces. One of the ways this is most clearly seen is in carbon pricing.
Merit in a changing system
The Carbon Price Support tax paid by coal and gas generators in Great Britain, alongside the European Emissions Trading System have increased the cost of fossil fuel generation: gas, oil and coal. Levied as £/tonne of CO2 emitted this has the effect of pushing fossil generation down the merit order. With coal emitting double the CO2 per unit of electricity compared to gas, we can see how the merit order can be influenced to achieve environmental outcomes.
This has helped steer Great Britain towards record breaking coal-free periods and stimulated the building of low carbon generation sources.
Other sources, such as interconnection with Europe and power storage facilities, also slot into the merit order. Their position often shifts due to highly variable prices dependent on power generation in neighbouring countries or the amount of electricity that can be stored at a low cost, respectively.
The grid is ever-changing. Over the last two decades we’ve seen huge shifts in how power is generated and delivered. This is unlikely to slow down in the near future, but the merit order will remain. Like the grid, it is in a constant state of change, adapting to the many moving parts of the electricity system. As long as Great Britain maintains its open electricity trading market, the merit order will continue to dictate where the country’s power comes from.


1 Million Species Face Extinction, Says U.N. Report (#GotBitcoin?)
Humans are to blame for eroding habitats essential to survival of many plants and animals, say scientists. 1 Million Species Face Extinction, Says U.N. Report (#GotBitcoin?)
Nature is in more trouble now than at any other time in human history, with extinction looming over 1 million species of plants and animals, scientists said Monday in the United Nations’ first comprehensive report on biodiversity.
It is all because of humans, but it isn’t too late to fix the problem, the report said.
Species loss is accelerating to a rate tens or hundreds of times faster than in the past, the report said. More than half a million species on land “have insufficient habitat for long-term survival” and are likely to go extinct, many within decades, unless their habitats are restored. The oceans aren’t any better off.
“Humanity unwittingly is attempting to throttle the living planet and humanity’s own future,” said George Mason University biologist Thomas Lovejoy, who has been called the godfather of biodiversity for his research. He wasn’t part of the report.
“The biological diversity of this planet has been really hammered, and this is really our last chance to address all of that,” Mr. Lovejoy said.
Conservation scientists from around the world convened in Paris to issue the report, which exceeded 1,000 pages. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services involved more than 450 researchers who used 15,000 scientific and government reports. The report’s summary had to be approved by representatives of all 109 nations.
Some nations hit harder by the losses, like small island countries, wanted more in the report. Others, such as the U.S., were cautious in the language they sought but they agreed “we’re in trouble,” said Rebecca Shaw, chief scientist for the World Wildlife Fund, who observed the final negotiations.
“This is the strongest call we’ve seen for reversing the trends on the loss of nature,” Ms. Shaw said.
The findings aren’t just about saving plants and animals but about preserving a world that is becoming harder for humans to live in, said Robert Watson, a former top NASA and British scientist who headed the report.
“We are indeed threatening the potential food security, water security, human health and social fabric” of humanity, Mr. Watson said. He said the poor in less developed countries bear the greatest burden.
The report’s 39-page summary highlighted five ways in which people are reducing biodiversity:
• Turning forests, grasslands and other areas into farms, cities and other developments. The habitat loss leaves plants and animals homeless. About three-quarters of Earth’s land, two-thirds of its oceans and 85% of crucial wetlands have been severely altered or lost, making it harder for species to survive, the report said.
• Overfishing the world’s oceans. A third of the world’s fish stocks are overfished.
• Permitting climate change from the burning of fossil fuels to make it too hot, wet or dry for some species to survive. Almost half of the world’s land mammals—not including bats—and nearly a quarter of the birds have already had their habitats hit hard by global warming.
Polluting land and water. Every year, 300 to 400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents and toxic sludge are dumped into the world’s waters.
• Allowing invasive species to crowd out native plants and animals. The number of invasive alien species per country has risen 70% since 1970, with one species of bacteria threatening nearly 400 amphibian species.
Fighting climate change and saving species are equally important, the report said, and working on both environmental problems should go hand in hand. Both problems exacerbate each other because a warmer world means fewer species, and a less biodiverse world means fewer trees and plants to remove heat-trapping carbon dioxide from the air, Mr. Lovejoy said.
The world’s coral reefs are a perfect example of where climate change and species loss intersect. If the world warms an additional 0.9 degrees (0.5 degrees Celsius), which other reports say is likely, coral reefs will probably dwindle by 70% to 90%, the report said. At 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius), the report said, 99% of the world’s coral will be in trouble.
“Business as usual is a disaster,” Mr. Watson said.
At least 680 species with backbones have already gone extinct since 1600. The report said 559 domesticated breeds of mammals used for food have disappeared. Threatened with extinction are more than 40% of the world’s amphibian species, more than one-third of the marine mammals and nearly one-third of sharks and fish.
The report relies heavily on research by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, or IUCN, which comprises biologists who maintain a list of threatened species.
The IUCN calculated in March that 27,159 species are threatened, endangered or extinct in the wild out of nearly 100,000 species biologists examined in depth. That includes 1,223 mammal species, 1,492 bird species and 2,341 fish species. Nearly half the threatened species are plants.
Scientists have examined only a small fraction of the estimated 8 million species on Earth.
The report comes up with 1 million species in trouble by extrapolating the IUCN’s 25% threatened rate to the rest of the world’s species and using a lower rate for the estimated 5.5 million species of insects, Mr. Watson said.
Outside scientists, such as Mr. Lovejoy and others, said that is a reasonable assessment.
The report gives only a generic “within decades” time frame for species loss because it is dependent on many variables, including taking the problem seriously, which can reduce the severity of the projections, Mr. Watson said.
“We’re in the middle of the sixth great extinction crisis, but it’s happening in slow motion,” said ecologist Lee Hannah of Conservation International and University of California Santa Barbara, who wasn’t part of the report.
Five times in the past, Earth has undergone mass extinctions where much of life on Earth blinked out, like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Mr. Watson said the report was careful not to call what is going on now as a sixth big die-off because current levels don’t come close to the 75% level in past mass extinctions.
Many of the worst effects can be prevented by changing the way we grow food, produce energy, deal with climate change and dispose of waste, the report said. That involves concerted action by governments, companies and people.
Individuals can help with simple changes to the way they eat and use energy, said the co-chairman of the report, ecological scientist Josef Settele of the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research in Germany. That doesn’t mean becoming a vegetarian or vegan, but balancing meat, vegetables and fruit, and walking and biking more, Mr. Watson said.
“We can actually feed all the coming billions of people without destroying another inch of nature,” Mr. Lovejoy said. Much of that can be done by eliminating food waste and being more efficient, he said.
Your Questions And Comments Are Greatly Appreciated.
Monty H. & Carolyn A.Go back


Holy Week in Salamanca
Salamanca has been named a City of the Heritage
of Humanity, and celebrates its Semana Santa (Holy Week) with
One of the oldest customs, and one which lasted through all the years of the Republic, is the celebration of Los Oficios (Holy Office) in the chapel of the old university. The liturgical and academic ceremony is held on Maundy Thursday, and considered by the university staff as a supplementary staff meeting. As los oficios was traditionally held in the morning, a typical breakfast of hot chocolate, cakes and sweet sponge was served to the worshippers, and although now the time of the ceremony has changed, the customary 'breakfast' is still served.
The taking down of the figure of Christ is a ceremony not to be missed by the Holy Week tourist. It is hung between two other crosses, in a setting of the cathedral's Patio Chico (small patio), with the tower of the cock and the garden of Melibea on either side. Salamanca's Holy Week has the advantage of its natural surroundings: the Plaza de la Universidad, the Casa de las Conchas, Clerecía, the two cathedrals, San Esteban, el Arrabal and the Roman Bridge.
Each procession through Salamanca passes through a piece of history, invoked by a house, a palace, a temple or a tower.
The fraternity of el Cristo del Amor y de la Paz (Christ of Love and Peace) forms a procession that takes an unusual route; starting with the climb towards the city from the suburbs of Lázaro, on the other side of the river Tormes, it passes along the river bank and across the Roman bridge, arrives at calle Tentenecio (with its tale of the miracle of San Juan de Sahagún when he tamed a mad bull), approaches the Plaza Mayor, and returns via the university quarter to the river bank. On the same day the Procesión del Cristo de la Agonía leaves from the Plaza de las Úrsulas, and at dawn on Friday there are the processions of el Santísimo Cristo de la Buena Muerte, Nuestro Padre Jesús de la Pasión, Nuestra Señora de los Dolores and of la Virgen de la Esperanza, promoted by Salamancan writers and journalists.
Visitors to Salamanca ought also to see the reproduction of the Holy Shroud of Turin preserved by the Augustine Mothers in their convent, where it has been since 1665 due to the intercession of Queen Margarita of Austria, the wife of Felipe III.