NEW YORK - NEW YORK (AP) - Do you spend time with a lot of friends? That might mean a particular part of your brain is larger than usual.
It's the amygdala, which lies deep inside. Brain scans of 58 volunteers in a preliminary study indicated that the bigger the amygdala, the more friends and family the volunteers reported seeing regularly.
That makes sense because the amygdala is at the center of a brain network that's important for socializing, says Lisa Feldman Barrett, an author of the work published online Sunday by the journal Nature Neuroscience.
For example, the network helps us recognize whether somebody is a stranger or an acquaintance, and a friend or a foe, said Barrett, of Northeastern University in Boston.
But does having a bigger amygdala lead to more friends, or does socializing with a lot of friends create a bigger amygdala? The study can't sort that out. But Barrett said it might be a bit of both.
She said her study now must be replicated by further research.
The work, supported by the federal government, was aimed at uncovering basic knowledge rather than producing any immediate practical payoff, she said. But it might someday lead to ways to help people maintain active social lives, she said.
People have one amygdala in the left half of the brain and another in the right half. The findings of the new study held true for each one.
Arthur Toga, a brain-mapping expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, who didn't participate in the study, called the work well done and the statistical results strong. The idea of linking a brain structure to human behavior is "interesting and important," he said.
Amygdala research made headlines earlier this month when researchers reported on a woman without a working amygdala. The woman felt no fear in threatening situations.
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Hiccups: A hiccup is an extraordinary type of respiratory movement involving a sudden inspiration (intake of air) due to an involuntary contraction of the diaphragm accompanied by closure of the glottis (the vocal apparatus of the larynx).
The abrupt inspiration is the result of a sudden contraction of the diaphragm. Closure of the glottis then halts the incoming air. The column of air strikes the closed glottis to produce the characteristic sound: a hiccup.
Hiccups are often rhythmic. They are usually just a minor nuisance, but prolonged hiccups can become a major medical problem.
The word "hiccup" was in use by 1530. It is an instance of onomatopoeia, the imitation of natural sounds by words. Alternative forms of "hiccups" include "hiccough" and "hickup."


Discuss and debate the issues that mean the most to you.
In Philadelphia last week, the Democratic National Convention was a celebration of her achievement. The party’s most well-liked and well-respected faces gathered to laud the former Secretary of State’s credentials and commitment.
When she addressed the nation on Thursday night, she made sure to underscore what her victory meant to girls and women in the United States.
“When any barrier falls in America,” she proclaimed before a rapt crowd. “It clears the way for everyone.”
This was her time to continue the journey that was halted in 2008 by then-Senator Barack Obama. After dropping out of the presidential race, Clinton told the world that 18 million cracks had been put into the mythic glass ceiling that has long stunted women’s achievement. She was referring to the number of votes she received in primaries.
As she accepted the nomination at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Clinton reflected on finally succeeding in breaking through. “When there are no ceilings, the sky’s the limit,” she declared, capturing the optimism of American Exceptionalism.
But while Clinton’s win has been billed as a watershed moment for all women in the United States, questions persist about for whom her rise signals change.
The answer is unclear to black women who continue to fight for visibility and safety inside and outside of the political arena; consequently, for some, feelings about her big win are mixed and expectations about whom she’ll represent are low.
Any lack of confidence black women have in an accomplishment that supposedly opens doors for all is rooted in racist history that has kept them sidelined in mainstream activism for women’s rights since the days of the suffrage movement. Black and white American women have rarely gained rights or protections together. While white women can celebrate securing the vote in 1920 by the 19th amendment, black women would have to agitate and organize while being harassed and beaten for decades more before they were assured of the same ability to go to the polls.
Though black women’s work has been instrumental in every feminist movement, they have had to fight for recognition of that fact. Beverly Guy-Sheftall writes in the opening of the black feminist anthology Words of Fire: “The history of American feminism has been primarily a narrative about the heroic deeds of white women.”
The Democratic party’s nominee can’t escape the past, and her embodiment of an exclusive, second wave feminism reminds black women of the interlocking oppressions they’ve faced, said Evelyn M. Simien, professor of political Sscience at the University of Connecticut and author of Historic Firsts: How Symbolic Empowerment Changes U.S. Politics.
“For some African American women, Clinton can appear to be yet another privileged white woman who will be entering the White House,” Simien says.
“African American women have always viewed white women in this kind of class-based relationship whereby she is more privileged [and] has greater resources economically to pursue her own life goals and careers. Surely, Hillary Clinton is just that.”
18-year-old Jada Peten agrees with this assessment. She attended the DNC as a Bernie Sanders delegate. Jada is from a small town in Arkansas and would not have been able to afford the trip without donations from Sanders supporters. She even used use some of the money she had saved for her first year at St. Louis University.
Showing up for her candidate was a priority, and Clinton’s nomination is a blow. Peten knows sexism exists, but this moment doesn’t mean much to her. That much-talked-about glass ceiling simply doesn’t exist in her mind. “I had always known that women could do it,” she relayed.
Her biggest reservation is that Clinton is too far removed from the average person’s economic concerns to be a viable candidate.
“I know what it’s like to struggle and be poor,” says Peten.
Hillary Clinton does not have that experience. She grew up in the affluent suburban enclave of Park Ridge, Illinois. NPR reporter Tamara Keith described the circumstances of her upbringing as the equivalent of “growing up in a Norman Rockwell painting.”
That background and her voting record make Peten wary. “She definitely appeals more to the billionaires than the poor here in America.”
For these reasons, she is not sure if she will vote for Clinton in the fall.
Despite the teenager’s uncertainty, other black women will show up. And, if the past two presidential elections and this year’s primaries are any indication, they will do so in huge numbers. Since the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, black women have been reliable Democratic voters. And in 2008 and 2012 they came out at a higher rate than any other demographic group.
Peten, however, is an important reminder that feelings for Clinton are not the same across all segments of black women. “We have to look closer at age, generation, and the cohorts within these groups,” says Simien. There has been a distinct generational divide. Black voters under 30 were more likely to vote for Sanders in the race to the nomination than their older counterparts. Black women over the age of 45 were Clinton’s most loyal voting bloc and that same group represents a growing share of Democratic voters.
Party loyalties and ideological commitments, however, are not going to close the enthusiasm gap, Simien notes. Any group of black women is unlikely to feel the same sense of pride for Clinton’s triumph as they did for Barack Obama’s in 2008.
Melissa Robbins certainly does not. The 43-year-old military veteran, political organizer, and mother of four describes herself as an “overjoyed” Obama voter. So excited, in fact, that the Pennsylvania-native was the first person in line at her polling station on November 4, 2008. “I was like a child in a candy store,” she recalls of the campaign that aimed to return hope and change to the political landscape. Robbins arrived at the DNC an elected Bernie delegate and plans to vote for Clinton in the general election. Like Peten, she’s not moved either.
“I don’t know if the shattering of that ceiling means more for me,” she says.
Robbins’ policy priorities and her lack of zeal are not unexpected. A black woman’s racial identity is more likely to influence her vote than her gender, says Simien. Black women’s needs are distinct from those of women of other races; therefore, they cannot be collapsed into a singular, gendered agenda.
Hillary Clinton’s legislative reputation still suffers from her connection to policies instituted in the 80s and 90s that disproportionately affected black women and the communities they are a part of, says Leah Rigueur, professor of public policy at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
Clinton was First Lady when the disastrous welfare reform legislation was signed by her husband, the result of which was to sink more families into intractable poverty. Holding a wife responsible for the misdeeds of her husband is misguided and, likely, sexist, but Clinton was a proactive voice for the much maligned Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. In 1996, she endorsed it by referring to young black men as “super predators.” In her remarks, she also describes them as “kids with no conscience and no empathy” that needed to be “brought to heel.”
Those words and the Clintons’ role in bolstering the prison industrial complex still give Robbins pause. “To know men and women have sat in cages for 30-40 years,” she explains. “Families have been broken. Grandfathers, fathers, sons, and uncles have rotted away in cells—I can’t turn a blind eye to that,” she says.
But Clinton is now trying to make amends. Thanks to activists and organizers she has had to address criminal justice reform and mass incarceration explicitly. After being confronted by a black female activist, Ashley Williams, at a fundraiser in February, she expressed regret for invoking the debunked “super-predators” theory.
Now Clinton is vying not only for black women’s votes, but their trust. Her campaign has attempted to make it clear that her regard for them extends beyond rhetoric. The most visible nod to black women’s work and policy interests occurred on the second night of the DNC. Nine women whose children were killed in gun violence, called Mothers of the Movement, took the stage to remember their lost and attest to Clinton’s compassion. The women revealed that Clinton has met with them privately at length and invited them to share their stories on the campaign trail. Their sincerity and fervor meant to ease the discomfort many have about Clinton’s seemingly opportunistic shifts on the issues of the day. The reception was mixed.
Robbins is tentatively hopeful that the displays are genuine: “I want to believe that the Secretary heard their words,” she says.
Peten, on the other hand, is put off by the political theater. “It’s kind of distasteful to me.”
There can be no denying the historical significance of Hillary Clinton winning the Democratic nomination. Rigueur confirmed, “In the context of a larger political history, this is very much historic and should be treated as such.” But she does have a responsibility to tend to the internal conflict some black women are facing.
That black women’s lived experiences preclude them from seeing themselves as future Hillarys is a reflection of the many fights they face on the front lines of classism, racism, and sexism. To begin to surmount the limits of symbolic representation, Clinton will have to unpack lots of historical baggage, plenty of which she created.
Hillary will get the votes, but a sustained trust requires her to show up consistently for black women’s needs. There can be no good-will without consistency.
This post originally appeared on fortune.com: What Hillary Clinton's Historic Nomination Means for Black Women in America; Kimberly FosterOther stories from Fortune you might be into:


Providence, RI – Today, the Obama administration announced that it will not update critical air quality standards for ozone pollution―commonly known as smog. This decision was made despite a unanimous recommendation by the independent board of air experts and scientists created under the Clean Air Act that the current standard be strengthened to protect public health. Exposure to smog triggers asthma attacks, causes permanent lung damage, and can even lead to premature death. In fact, according the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, approximately 5,000 asthma-related deaths occur each year in the United States. In Rhode Island, 72,855 adults and 22,087 children suffer from asthma, according to the American Lung Association.
“For too long, smog pollution has left our children gasping for breath,” said Channing Jones, Field Associate with Environment Rhode Island. “Unfortunately, rather than acting decisively to protect our kids from this dangerous air pollution, the White House today chose to kick the can down the road. Our kids, senior citizens, and those suffering from respiratory problems will suffer as a consequence and certainly deserve better.”
Power plants alone spew 1.9 million tons of smog-forming pollution into our air every year. Environment Rhode Island's recent report, “Dirty Energy’s Assault on our Health: Ozone,” catalogues smog-forming emissions from all power plants in the United States, and highlights the states where pollution is the worst. In order to protect public health and our environment, Environment Rhode Island continued its call to clean up the largest sources of smog-forming pollution, reduce overall energy use, and transition to clean, renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.


EDINBURGH, Scotland, July 11 (UPI) -- A British Antarctic Survey team says it has discovered underwater volcanoes in waters around the remote Sandwich Islands.
Using sea-floor mapping technology during research cruises, the scientists found 12 volcanoes beneath the sea surface, some almost 10,000 feet high, and 3-mile-wide diameter craters left by collapsing volcanoes, a release from the survey group said Monday.
The researchers also identified seven active volcanoes visible above the sea as a chain of islands, it said.
Researchers say the findings are important for understanding what happens when volcanoes erupt or collapse under water and their potential for creating serious hazards such as tsunamis.
"There is so much that we don't understand about volcanic activity beneath the sea -- it's likely that volcanoes are erupting or collapsing all the time," survey researcher Phil Leat said at the International Symposium on Antarctic Earth Sciences in Edinburgh, Scotland.
"The technologies that scientists can now use from ships not only give us an opportunity to piece together the story of the evolution of our Earth, but they also help shed new light on the development of natural events that pose hazards for people living in more populated regions on the planet."


Despite our 'modernity,' we continue to use the ancient Babylonian sexaguesimal (base 60) counting system to measure angles and time. Understanding this system is therefore important. It is even more important because it helps us better understand our modern decimal system of numbers.
In this video I demonstrate how to add using Babylonian (cuneiform) numerals. I then show how to add our modern measures of angles and time using the same system (on a white board).
You will also learn a little about John Wallis, a contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton, who generalised the symbols that we use to keep track of what each column represents (i.e. degrees, minutes and seconds)!
John Wallis was not the first, however. For many years, Arabic and Persian scholars had been making astronomical calculations using sexaguesimal notation. In order to understand how they did this we need to understand place value in our current decimal system. When we write our decimals numbers, we are really writing a list of fractions with a decimal point as a marker. Hence 6.438 means 6 + 4/10 + 3/100 + 8/1000.
In an almost identical way, Arabic and Persian scholars (such as al-Kashi, c.1380-1429) wrote their sexaguesimal fractions in columns. For them the number 3 6 14 43 29 would mean 3 + 6/60 + 14/3600 + 43/216000 + 29/12960000 (where 60×60 = 3600, 60×60×60 = 216000 and 60×60×60×60 = 12960000). It is astounding that the Babylonians coped so well with this system!
In order for them to keep track of which number was in which column, they used to be written in tables with labels written at the head of each column. By the time this system was being translated into Latin for Europeans to read, the sexaguesimal parts were labelled primae minutiae, secundae minutiae, tertiae minutiae, etc. and these Latin terms meant (quite literally), first little bits, second little bits, third little bits, etc. These subdivisions were denoted by writing Roman numerals as superscripts. I am not quite sure how it happened, but the second and third and fourth parts were called just that ... seconds, thirds and fourths. The primes, however, took their name from the other term in primae minutiae, and came to be known as minutes (from minutiae). Hence, now that we have dispensed with thirds and fourths, and so on, we now speak of sexaguesimal fractions in terms of minutes and seconds (rather than primes and seconds)! You will recognise that we still divide our hours (time) and degrees (angles) in this way.
John Wallis and other European scholars adopted this same notation (from the Arabic and Persian scholars). You can see an example here, from page 53 of Wallis' famous 1657 text, Mathesis Universalis:


Council of Europe report makes NATO responsible for the death of 63 refugees
9 April 2012
NATO bears a high degree of responsibility for the deaths of 63 refugees, who died of thirst last spring in the Mediterranean en route from Libya to Italy. This is the conclusion of a preliminary report issued by the Council of Europe.
The small inflatable boat with 72 refugees on board was in serious distress during its 15-day odyssey and was spotted several times by NATO helicopters and warships, but they refused to come to the aid of the desperate people on board. Finally, the boat ran aground in Libya with just 10 survivors. They were arrested immediately, and one woman died due to lack of medical care.
This tragedy took place at a time when one of the largest naval operations was taking place in the waters between Libya and Italy. More than 20 warships from 10 NATO countries, including aircraft and helicopter carriers, supported the NATO war against Libya. The fleet was equipped with high-quality radar and other tracking devices, was monitored by AWACS aircraft and was also equipped with satellite imagery.
At the same time, the European border agency Frontex was conducting Operation Hermes, searching for and finding refugee boats off the coasts of Italy and Malta. Also in the region were vessels and planes belonging to the Italian border police, who routinely monitor the strait between the Italian island of Lampedusa and the North African coast.
In spring 2011, this portion of the sea was one of the most watched in the world, and an Italian officer said at the time that “the crossing from Libya to Italy is like a slalom between warships”.
Nevertheless, over the course of two weeks, it was apparently impossible to come to the aid of the floundering refugee vessel and its passengers, who were slowly dying of thirst. In fact, the refugees could have been saved with ease, as the Council of Europe report reveals. Instead, they became the victims of NATO’s inhumane policies, which first drove the desperate refugees to flee as a result of the war in Libya, and then left them to their fate.
In no previous year have so many people lost their lives fleeing across the Mediterranean as in 2011. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) counted more than 1,500 refugees who drowned or died of thirst, and the true figure is likely far greater.
The Council of Europe, which is not an institution of the European Union (EU), but is charged with monitoring compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights within the 49 member states, conducted an investigation to find out why so many people died in 2011 on the Mediterranean despite its being monitored more closely than ever before.
Dutch Council of Europe senator Tineke Strik (Green Party) looked in detail at the March 2011 incident. She spoke to survivors of the tragedy, as well as to official representatives of NATO, the Italian rescue services and the European Union. But while the survivors provided virtually identical accounts of the events when questioned independently, military and government officials were either evasive or refused to answer.
On March 26, 2011, the 72 refugees from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Ghana and Sudan, including 20 women and 2 babies, started out from Tripoli in the expectation that within 18 hours they would reach the small Italian island of Lampedusa. But bad weather and the inexperience of the skipper put the vessel in distress. During the late afternoon of March 27, the skipper made contact with an Eritrean priest in Rome via satellite phone, who immediately alerted the Italian Coast Guard.
The satellite phone enabled the precise location of the boat to be identified, and the Coast Guard sent several emergency calls through various channels to all ships and also to the NATO high command in Naples.
According to corroborating reports by survivors, shortly thereafter, a military helicopter appeared and lowered a rope to provide water and biscuits to those on the boat. But the refugees waited in vain for further help to arrive.
After about 10 days, half of the refugees had died of thirst; the boat, which had lost the ability to manoeuvre, approached a large warship. The soldiers on board could see the refugees through their binoculars, and photos were taken. In desperation, the refugees even showed those on board their dead babies, but the ship sailed away without providing any help.
Strik tried in vain to find out where the helicopter came from and which warship had been involved. Although there are records indicating that the Spanish frigate Mendez Nunez and the Italian warship ITS Borsini were only 11 and 37 nautical miles away from the damaged refugee boat, the competent authorities and ministries of defence stonewalled the request for information from the Council of Europe, either referring the request to NATO as the competent authority or simply denying there had been a maritime distress call.
A NATO representative in Brussels told Strik that the emergency call had been passed on, but refused to divulge the identity of the vessel which had been in the vicinity of the refugee boat.
The United States and Britain have refused to provide any information about whether their warships were in the vicinity of the damaged boat. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s foreign and security policy representative, only responded to Strik five months after she had received the request for information, and then asserted that the EU had no satellite imagery of the Mediterranean and pointed to its being NATO’s jurisdiction.
The denials of responsibility, the claims about no longer having any records and the buck-passing to other national or supra-national authorities are meant to cover up a crime.
Strik’s draft report is couched diplomatically and speaks mainly of failures, shortcomings and negligence. At the end of her report, however, the Council of Europe senator is more explicit and declares that “the boat’s occupants could have been saved if the actors involved had complied with their obligations”. Under the current law of the sea, captains must take all necessary steps to rescue those who are in distress. In plain language, this means that the 63 refugees who died miserably on the high seas were the victims of a failure by others to come to their assistance. The NATO war fleet is directly to blame for the deaths of these victims of its own war.
The refusal of NATO to cooperate in the investigation of this offence is not only intended to cover up the immediate crime, but also to conceal the real causes of the war against Libya.
The NATO operation against the regime of Muammar al-Gaddafi was conducted under the cynical name of “Unified Protector” and was officially justified as providing the “protection of civilians” against attack by Libyan government troops. The fate of the Mediterranean refugees exposes the fact that this was merely a pretext for an imperialist war. NATO never had the slightest interest in protecting the lives of civilians and refugees, Libyan or otherwise.
Immediately after the first NATO air strikes, the UNHRC warned of the possibility of a large wave of refugees from Libya, particularly since some migrants in Libya were accused of being Gaddafi’s mercenaries and had become the targets of rebel troops. For the stranded refugees and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Tripoli, the choice was between falling into the clutches of the imperialist-backed rebel troops or attempting to flee across the Mediterranean.
Frontex, the border protection agency, refused to help, because EU refugee policy is aimed at repelling refugees. In the past 25 years, nearly 15,000 refugees have paid for this inhumane policy with their lives.


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Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust
Explore the ID Cards to learn more about personal experiences during the Holocaust
Stefania was born to a Catholic family in a village near Przemysl. They lived on a large farm and cultivated several different crops. While her father worked with the farmhands in the fields, Stefania's mother, a trained midwife, managed the house and cared for her eight children.
1933-39: Stefania's father died in 1938 after an illness. With her mother's approval, she joined her sister in Przemysl in 1939. At 14 she worked in a grocery store owned by the Diamants, a Jewish family. They treated her like family, and she moved in with them when the Germans invaded [Poland] on September 14, 1939. But two weeks later, the Soviets occupied the city [under the German-Soviet Pact]. The grocery store stayed open; Stefania shopped in the market for food to sell to their customers.
1940-44: The Germans again occupied the city in June 1941. Like all Jews in Przemysl, the Diamants were forced into a ghetto. Stefania's mother was sent to Germany for forced labor; Stefania was 16 and left to care for her 6-year-old sister. She found an apartment outside the ghetto and traded clothes for food. In 1942 news spread that the ghetto was being liquidated. Stefania decided to help some Jews escape the final roundups by hiding them. She moved into a cottage for more space. Soon, 13 Jews were living in a secret space in her attic.
Przemysl was liberated on July 27, 1944. The Jews that 17-year-old Stefania helped to hide all survived the war. In 1961 she moved to the United States with Josef Diamant, whom she married.
Eva was the only child born to nonreligious Jewish parents. Her father was a journalist. Eva enjoyed spending time with her cousin Susie, who was two years older. Eva also took special vacations with her mother. Sometimes they went skiing in the Austrian alps, and on other occasions they stayed at her uncle's cabin along the Danube River.
1933-39: When the Germans annexed Austria in 1938, life changed. Eva's father was harassed by the Gestapo for writing articles against the Germans. Her good friends called her bad names because she was Jewish. Eva's parents said they had to escape. Eva and her parents fled by train to Paris. One day there, in her third-grade class, bombs began falling. They raced to the air-raid shelter and put on gas masks. The smell of rubber was overwhelming. Eva felt like she was choking.
1940-44: After the Germans entered Paris in 1940, Eva's family escaped to the unoccupied south. Two years later, when she was 13, Germans occupied the south and they were forced to move on again. During the treacherous trek in the mountains between Switzerland and France, they took refuge in the small French village of St. Martin. The village priest, Father Longeray, let Eva's parents hide in his basement. Eva lived openly in the parish house as a shepherdess. She attended church with the other children and learned the Catholic mass in Latin.
Eva and her parents remained hidden in St. Martin. They were liberated at the end of 1944. In 1948, when Eva was 18, she and her parents immigrated to the United States.
Lisa was one of three children born to a religious Jewish family. Following the German occupation of her hometown in 1939, Lisa and her family moved first to Augustow and then to Slonim (in Soviet-occupied eastern Poland). German troops captured Slonim in June 1941, during the invasion of the Soviet Union. In Slonim, the Germans established a ghetto which existed from 1941 to 1942. Lisa eventually escaped from Slonim, and went first to Grodno and then to Vilna, where she joined the resistance movement. She joined a partisan group, fighting the Germans from bases in the Naroch Forest. Soviet forces liberated the area in 1944. As part of the Brihah ("flight," "escape") movement of 250,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors from eastern Europe, Lisa and her husband Aron sought to leave Europe. Unable to enter Palestine, they eventually settled in the United States.
Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. After the German occupation, Sarah (then just three years old) and her mother were forced into a ghetto. One day, a Polish Catholic policeman warned them that the ghetto was about to be liquidated. He sheltered Sarah and her mother first in his house, then in a potato storage bunker, and then in a chicken coop on his property. Sarah hid there for more than two years, until the area was liberated by Soviet forces. After the war, Sarah emigrated from Europe—first to Israel in 1947 and then to the United States in 1963.
Hanne's family owned a photographic studio. In October 1940, she and other family members were deported to the Gurs camp in southern France. In September 1941, the Children's Aid Society (OSE) rescued Hanne and she hid in a children's home in Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. Her mother perished in Auschwitz. In 1943, Hanne obtained false papers and crossed into Switzerland. She married in Geneva in 1945 and had a daughter in 1946. In 1948, she arrived in the United States.
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We are in the Early Childhood Education class at James Rumsey Technical Institute. FCCLA (Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America) is our career and technical student organization. When we were asked to "Focus on Children" and to identify concerns, we chose to focus on divorce and how it impacts children.
We believe that divorce has become the norm, and that it is overlooked. It has increased drastically since the late 1900s and continues to rise. People are unhappy, but everyone does not realize the harm it puts on the children in the home as well. Even if the child does not hear any of the arguing they still know when mom or dad moves out or if they move to a new house away from one parent. Children do not understand completely and it is not good to hide things from them because it causes worry and stress.
We have studied psychologist Erik Erikson. His research shows that children develop and go through emotional stages which are critical to their growth. Erikson states "During the first year of life children need safe, consistent, predictable and reliable care, if a child receive this they develop a sense of trust which will carry with them to other relationships, and they will feel secure even when threatened." If children are not developing properly they may be mistrusting of the world and have anxiety as well as high insecurities. If parents divorce even after this time period of development many children still obtain many of the problems stated before due to the fact the home life has changed drastically.
Erickson also states "In young adulthood they will begin to make intimate connections with people outside of the family. If successful in this stage they will feel comfortable, safe, and cared for in their relationship. Avoiding intimacy, fearing commitment and relationships can lead to isolation, loneliness, and depression." Children who experience divorce may become fearful of being in intimate relationships because of what they went through as a child and how they felt during the experience.
Suggestions you may want to try to help children through a divorce:
1. Make sure both parents stay in the children's life
2. Stay neutral and do not argue about the child. Try to come to terms on things.
3. Communicate with the other parent, do not make the child the messenger.
4. Remind the child it is not their fault
5. Tell the truth as much as possible
6. Say "I love you." A lot.
7. Express the changes that may be happening and explain what the children needs to prepare for.
8. Acknowledge the children's feelings and listen to what they have to say.


Reading for adults is akin to escaping into another world, away from the mundane and out of the real world. Many of us have developed the habit of reading because we started young. Our parents would read to us and that is what made reading fun! It was never thought of has a chore or an obligation, and this sort of carried forward into our adult lives. Reading to children has proven to significantly enhance their development because the areas in their brain supporting comprehension and mental imagery are highly engaged.
Here are 4 more reasons why you should be reading to children:
Increased Vocabulary & Improved Comprehension
Reading to your child can greatly increase their vocabulary, helping them differentiate between the written and spoken language. Books use much more complex sentence structures than the type of communication that is used at home. Eventually, children would be able to make sense of what they are reading, by inferring the meaning of certain unfamiliar words as well; making them independent readers.
Cultivating the habit of reading to children is one of the proven ways to improve the bond between the reader (parent, sibling, family member, etc) and the child. It’s the perfect one-on-time time with your child, where you have each other’s undivided attention. Moreover, the more you read together, the less screen-time your child has, which is always a great thing!
Enhanced Concentration and Discipline
Reading to kids, especially pre-schoolers, will give them a head-start even before they start school. They’ll get used to seeing letters and how these letters make up words, how they sound etc., without knowing the alphabet! At first, kids probably won’t make it till the end of the book without getting distracted. However, eventually, with some patience and love, they’ll sit through the whole book. It’ll teach them a stronger sense of self-discipline, increasing their attention span, and better memory retention which will all help them in school.
Imagination is the Key
When children watch some form of visual content, the story is spoon-fed to them. However, since most children’s books are illustrated, by using different voices, you can bring the characters to life. As they grow older, and move onto books with less imagery, they’ll have the skill-set to use their imagination to create the world of the characters and they are free to create the experience they want.
Children who are read to earlier on life tend to be a step ahead than their peers. Other than being academically advanced, they would also see reading as a fun activity not a chore! Moreover, children that enjoy story-time would be more likely to pick up a book than a tablet (or any other device), which would in turn, reduce screen-time for them.


Space cryocoolers are miniature refrigerators designed to cool sensitive spacecraft components to cryogenic temperatures. NASA programs in Earth and space science observe a wide range of phenomena, from atmospheric physics and chemistry to stellar birth. Many of the instruments require low-temperature refrigeration to enable use of cryogenic detector technologies that increase sensitivity, improve dynamic range, or to extend wavelength coverage. The largest utilization of coolers is currently in Earth Science instruments operating at temperatures near the boiling point of liquid Nitrogen at 77 K (-321°F). However, in support of studies of the origin of the universe and the search for planets around distant stars, interest has peaked in systems of low temperature refrigerators providing cooling down to 50 mK. This is just 0.05 degrees above absolute zero (-460°F). NASA's development of a 20 K cryocooler for the European Planck spacecraft and its 2002 Advanced Cryocooler Technology Development Program (ACTDP) for 6-18 K coolers are examples of the thrusts to provide low temperature cooling for this class of missions.
JPL Cryocooler Program Focus
Since the 1980s, JPL has had a strong interest in cryocoolers and has had a focused multi-year cryocooler development program. In the 1990s, the JPL cryocooler program included the procurement/development of pulse tube cryocoolers for the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) and Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) instruments, the conduct of extensive characterization testing of industry-developed cryocoolers, and the development and flight-testing of a wide variety of cryocooler integration technologies. Following those early activities, JPL focused on developing two 20 K sorption coolers for the Planck mission (launched in 2009) and on leading NASA's Advanced Cryocooler Technology Development Program (ACTDP) to develop 6 K cryocoolers for future NASA observatory missions, particularly the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Based on the TRW ACTDP cryocooler design concept, The 6K Mid Infrared Instrument (MIRI) cooler is currently (2013) in the fabrication and qualification phase for JWST at Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems (NGAS) in Redondo Beach. Other recent JPL cryocooler missions include the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) mission, which uses an NGAS HEC cooler, and the CheMin instrument on the Mars rover Curiosity, which landed on Mars in August 2012, and uses a Ricor K508 miniature Stirling cooler. To their credit, the coolers launched into space over the past several years are continuing to work flawlessly. For example, the AIRS instrument that was launched in May 2002, continues to operate 24/7 in orbit after 11 years.
Reviews of the overall JPL and NASA cryocooler programs are presented in the review papers at the head of the references section. Most of the cryocooler work at JPL has involved a combination of NASA and DoD sponsorship, and a close working relationship with the worldwide cryocooler development community. Links to the various JPL cryocooler activities are available through the above photo buttons and the entries on the left NavBar.
The JPL cryocooler program has been focused in four areas:
Dr. Ronald Ross
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I have the following instruction, "Use trigonometric identities to transform one side of the equation into the other" ?
First I don't exactly understand what the instructions are saying.
The problem is as follows
cos Θ sec Θ = 1
The book gives me the solution which is
cos Θ sec Θ = 1 = 1
( 0 < Θ < π/2) (I guess this means Θ is an acute angle)
It also doesn't provide any specific angle it just states the following
The actual problem to be solved is...
The solution is...
"Simplify the expression on the left-hand side of the equation until you obtain the right side"
= = 1


PCB Incoming Inspection
Printed circuit board (PCB) designs are getting increasingly demanding and complicated due to new technology. Innovations in PCB technology continues to break new grounds and require more advanced footprints. This complexity also means that components are more expensive and they become difficult to produce. It is essential that the PCB incoming inspection process takes more priority and relevance in the manufacturing process.
PCB incoming inspection helps to ensure that the quality of the final product of the PCB production line is impeccable. It is, therefore, essential that every part and component involved in PCB designs undergo an incoming material inspection before they are part of any final assembly.
A rigorous PCB incoming inspection process ensures that components do not ship with problems. It ensures that the pressure from the marketplace does not lead to high error rates from the manufacturing process. The inspection also reduces failure rates in electronics down the line. A PCB factory with a poor PCB incoming quality control will lose most of its clients due to reliability and quality assurance issues.
This process helps to identify parts that may be defective before they become part of the production flow or the inventory. All parts and materials must undergo rigorous inspection according to a strict PCB incoming inspection standard:
PCBs are of many different types and quality classes. This means that the complexity of the testing and inspection methods may vary. During PCB fabrication, it is essential to ensure that there is a strict inspection to ensure that the quality of PCBs is according to the design requirements of the client. The incoming inspection process depends on the standards of the manufacturer, industrial standards, and technological demands of the PCB design.
PCB incoming inspection includes:
- Visual inspection: These checks involve making sure that the board thickness, surface roughness, and dimensions are accurate. You can use a ruler, precise calipers, or a magnifying glass for the inspection. This also includes checking the quality of the plating flux, positioning of components, and the electrical connectors.
- General electrical inspection: This involves two types of tests. A connecting performance test ensures that the connectivity of conductive patterns is in line with expectations. An insulating performance test also checks the insulating resistors on the PCB planes are functioning correctly and pass all quality assurance checks.
- Electrostatic Discharge (ESD): Many components are sensitive to electrostatic discharge and an ESD test ensures that production follows all safe handling procedures. Elements that are part of highly sensitive electronics like cameras, digital scales, and measuring devices need to pass an ESD check to identify defects.
Incoming inspection procedure manufacturing is a function of quality assurance personnel and they ensure that incoming materials are appropriate. This process ensures that orders are accurate, reduce production costs, and it also helps to increase production quality.
Here at MOKO Technology, no component or part leaves the production floor without passing through a strict incoming inspection quality control process. This is why we are one of the leading PCB manufacturers and well respected in the world. In addition, our record of excellent customer service and reliability speaks for itself. And we remain committed to providing the best service in electronics manufacturing and satisfaction for our clients.


by Kathy Lloyd, Montana Native Plant Society
Captain Meriwether Lewis collected a specimen of common monkeyflower, also called yellow monkeyflower, on July 4, 1806. Lewis and nine men had separated from William Clark and the rest of the explorers the day before on July 3 rd . With some misgivings, the captains had split the party into two groups and Lewis headed east to explore the Marias River area while Clark turned south to eventually make his way down the Yellowstone River. Lewis's group was accompanied for a short distance by five Indians who showed them the way to present-day Lewis & Clark Pass. Lewis said in his journal on July 3, 1806, "These people now informed me that the road which they shewed me at no great distance from our Camp would lead us up the East branch of Clark's river and a river they called Cokahlarishkit or the river of the road to buffaloe and thence to medicine river and the falls of the Missouri where we wished to go." This route would lead the travelers up the Clark Fork and Blackfoot Rivers, north along Alice Creek and over Lewis & Clark Pass to the present-day Sun River, called the Medicine River by Lewis. This is just one instance of the invaluable assistance given to the expedition by the original inhabitants of the country.
The specimen Lewis collected along the Blackfoot River, above its confluence with the Clark Fork River, in Missoula County, is housed today in the Lewis & Clark Herbarium at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. Lewis does not mention monkeyflower in his journal and it is one of two specimens collected on July 4 th that still exist. The other is Lewis's mockorange or Philadelphus lewisii. The common monkeyflower specimen bears a label attached by the botanist Frederick Pursh that reads, " On the Waters of Clarks River. Jul. 4th 1806." Pursh was a botanist who was engaged to look at plant specimens from the expedition and prepare drawings of some of the plant species. Lewis's collection of common monkeyflower traveled over Lewis & Clark Pass, down the Missouri River and eventually made its way to St. Louis and then to Philadelphia where Pursh examined it. The specimen was part of a group of plants that were presumed lost until they were fortunately rediscovered in 1896 at the American Philosophical Society and subsequently put on permanent loan to the Academy of Natural Sciences.
Common monkeyflower, or Mimulus guttatus, is a member of the figwort family (Scrophulariaceae), as are garden snapdragons. The resemblance is clear. The plant is variable and can be either an annual with fibrous roots or a perennial with stout stolons. These aboveground stems creep along the soil surface and spread the plant, as do strawberry runners. Common monkeyflower can be as high as three feet or a short dwarf with small leaves. The leaves are opposite on the stem and the lower leaves are attached with a stalk (petiole) to the stem while the upper leaves are stalkless (sessile). The leaves are usually coarsely toothed on the margins. The yellow flowers have red or maroon spots on the wide, hairy throat of the lower lip petal; in fact guttatus means spotted or speckled. The flowers are arranged in a terminal raceme or arise singly from the upper leaf axils.
Common monkeyflower is found in wet places from sea level to mid-elevations in the mountains across northern North America and south from Alaska to northern Mexico. In Montana it is a common sight along creeks, seeps, beaver dams and wet places in the mountains. It has been introduced in Europe, as well. Pursh, in his 1814 Flora Americae Septentrionalis, says of common monkeyflower, "It has lately been introduced into the gardens, and will be a fine addition to our hardy perennial plants." It is hoped that common monkeyflower remains benign in Europe and doesn't become an undesirable pest, as did some of the garden plants introduced from Europe to North America.
Native Indian tribes in North America had several uses for common monkeyflower. A decoction of the stems and leaves was used as a steam bath for soreness in the chest or back. Sacagawea's Shoshone tribe used a poultice of crushed leaves for rope burns or wounds. Other tribes used the plant in tea form for stomachache. Indians and early white settlers also ate the leaves raw or cooked and it is said to have a slightly bitter taste. Muskrats don't seem to mind the taste though, and use the plant throughout the summer.
The name Mimulus comes from a Latin word and refers to "mime," a reference to the funny clown-face made by the fat flower shape. Monkeyflower is another reference to the supposed funny shape of the flower. Funny or not, common monkeyflower is a beautiful native plant with unique historical significance. Its preferred wet habitat is often fragile and should be protected so we can continue to enjoy common monkeyflower and all the other forms of life found in wet places in Montana.


Mosaic is the name of the first widely-used web browser that revolutionized the Internet by introducing graphical interface. Designed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and released in 1993, Mosaic allowed users to view text and images together on the same page for the first time. Its user-friendly interface laid the groundwork for subsequent browsers and hugely contributed to the rapid growth of the World Wide Web.
The phonetic spelling of “Mosaic” is: /moʊˈzeɪ.ɪk/
- Mosaic is often credited as being one of the first web browsers to provide a graphical user interface, highly contributing to the popularity of the world wide web.
- Developed by a team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), including Marc Andreessen, Mosaic was officially released in 1993. It was instrumental in escalating the growth of the commercial web in the 1990s.
- Mosaic has left an enduring legacy by being the basis for many later web browsers. Netscape, often seen as the first commercial web browser, was directly based on Mosaic, and the web browser Internet Explorer was indirectly based on it, resulting in enduring influence on the kind and format of content available on the internet.
Mosaic is a significant term in the field of technology because it refers to the first widely used web browser that helped popularize the World Wide Web. Developed by a team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, including Marc Andreessen, at the University of Illinois, Mosaic was released in 1993. It was the first software to provide a user-friendly interface with integrated graphics that could navigate the Internet using a graphical user interface (GUI), which was a revolutionary concept at that time. It laid the foundation for future browsers, contributed greatly to the rapid adoption of the internet, and led to the internet’s profound impact on society and business. Thus, Mosaic is a crucial term associated with the history of Internet development and the evolution of web technology.
Mosaic is a crucial web browser in the timeline of internet technology development. Unveiled in 1993 by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), Mosaic was one of the earliest web browsers to be developed with a graphical user interface and this pioneering innovation played an imperative role in popularizing the World Wide Web. Its purpose was to make the internet more user-friendly, interactive, and accessible to users by introducing and enabling multimedia interactions, including images, sounds, videos, and text in a seamless browsing environment. Mosaic is extensively used for surfing the internet to retrieve information. Unlike previous text-based browsers, it allowed users to view text and images together on the same page, which dramatically improved the user experience and interaction with web-based content. It also enabled the use of hyperlinks, allowing users to navigate between webpages easily. Despite being overshadowed by subsequent browsers, Mosaic’s groundbreaking features, including user-friendliness and interface simplicity, formed the blueprint for the modern web browsing experience. It essentially revolutionized the way people use the internet by transforming it from a specialized tool for academics and researchers into a medium accessible to the general public.
1. Mosaic Web Browser: Released in 1993, the Mosaic web browser played a significant role in popularizing the World Wide Web. The key feature of this technology was its ability to display images inline with text instead of displaying them in a separate window. Mosaic’s technology served as the foundation for later web browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.2. Mosaic Software in Image Processing: Mosaic technology is often used in the field of image processing. A primary example is Google Earth where satellite or aerial photos are taken at different times and from different angles and are “stitched” together to form a complete image of the Earth’s surface.3. Streaming Mosaics: In the broadcasting industry, Mosaic technology is used in digital television and streaming to provide viewers with a preview of multiple live events simultaneously. Mosaic platforms like Simplestream’s Live-2-VOD or the Red Bee’s Video Mosaic can integrate up to 25 live streams into a single view, enhancing the audience’s browsing and viewing experience.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQ)
Q: What is Mosaic in technology?A: Mosaic is a web browser that was popular in the historic period of the internet and was released in 1993 by NCSA. It is often credited with popularizing the World Wide Web.Q: Who developed the Mosaic web browser?A: Mosaic was developed by a team at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.Q: Why was the Mosaic web browser significant?A: Mosaic is historically significant because it was the first web browser to display images in-line with text instead of displaying images in a separate window, creating a more user-friendly and immersive internet experience. Q: What impact did Mosaic have on the popularity of the internet?A: Mosaic helped to promote the growth of the WWW by providing a more visually appealing and easy-to-navigate internet experience. Its user-friendly approach brought the Internet into the mainstream.Q: Is Mosaic still in use today?A: No, Mosaic is not in use today. However, it laid the groundwork for future browsers like Netscape Navigator and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.Q: What operating systems supported Mosaic?A: Originally, Mosaic was developed for Unix. However, versions were later developed for the Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows.Q: What happened to Mosaic?A: Development of Mosaic ceased in 1997. Some of Mosaic’s original authors left NCSA and founded Netscape Communications Corporation, where they developed Netscape Navigator, a direct descendant of Mosaic. Furthermore, Microsoft licensed the technology to create Internet Explorer. Q: Was Mosaic the first web browser?A: No, Mosaic was not the first web browser. The first web browser was developed by Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web. However, Mosaic was the first web browser to gain significant popularity and usage.
Related Tech Terms
- Web Browser
- HTML (HyperText Markup Language)
- NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications)
- URL (Uniform Resource Locator)
- HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)


Scientists wish to set up a gene bank which would store tissues of peoples threatened with extinction. This biological repository of the planet's vanishing people will then be used to reveal how humanity colonized the globe over the past 100,000 years. There is increasing urgency since many human groups that could provide important information are now threatened.
Researchers have asked the Human Genome Organization (Hugo), which coordinates the international project for mapping all the human genes, to oversee research.
The Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential is a collaboration between UIA and Mankind 2000, started in 1972. It is the result of an ambitious effort to collect and present information on the problems with which humanity is confronted, as well as the challenges such problems pose to concept formation, values and development strategies. Problems included are those identified in international periodicals but especially in the documents of some 60,000 international non-profit organizations, profiled in the Yearbook of International Organizations.
The Encyclopedia includes problems which such groups choose to perceive and act upon, whether or not their existence is denied by others claiming greater expertise. Indeed such claims and counter-claims figure in many of the problem descriptions in order to reflect the often paralyzing dynamics of international debate. In the light of the interdependence demonstrated among world problems in every sector, emphasis is placed on the need for approaches which are sufficiently complex to encompass the factions, conflicts and rival worldviews that undermine collective initiative towards a promising future.
Non-profit, apolitical, independent, and non-governmental in nature, the UIA has been a pioneer in the research, monitoring and provision of information on international organizations, international associations and their global challenges since 1907.


Design Web Format (DWF) represents 2D/3D drawing in compressed format for viewing, reviewing or printing design files. It contains graphics and text as part of design data and reduce the size of the file due to its compressed format. The reduced file size makes the distribution and communication of rich design data efficient. DWF doesn’t require the recipient to know about the usage of CAD software that created the original drawing. The contents of DWF file format can be simple and include just a single sheet or complex enough to have fonts, color, and images.
Autodesk introduced the DWF file format in 1995 as part of Netscape Navigation plug-in, WHIP. The format evolved from 2D-only format to include 3D contents with the passage of time. Many of third-party applications also make use of this format.
DWF File Format
DWF is an open, secure format designed specifically for sharing rich engineering design data. It is independent of the original application software, hardware, and operating system used to create that design data. This enables team members who do not use CAD applications to participate in the digital processes by viewing building, GIS, or product designs. A DWF file archive consists of several XML and binary files that are packaged together in a compressed archive created with ZIP compression. You can rename a DWF file extension to ZIP and view the contents of the file. The DWF package can contain many kinds of design data such as 2D graphics, 3D graphics, package and section metadata, and other resource files.
DWF metadata files – XML files that contain information pertaining to metadata and structure (author, title, creation time, section dependencies, section ordering, resource file descriptions, roles, mimetypes, etc.) and pertaining to the section (page information, design metadata, etc.). The structural metadata is used to create logical objects (collections of files to represent a part or page, etc.).
Resource files – media or other content files that are referenced from the package/section metadata and are usually presentations of design data in various formats (ZGL, W2D, JPG, PNG, AVI, XML, TXT, DOC, etc.)
File Format Details
DWF files are organized into three main sections as shown below.
File identification header
File data block
File termination trailer
File Identifier Header
The file identifier header allows for identification of DWF files by applications. It also identifies which version of DWF specifications was used for encoding the file. It is a 12 byte header that is arranged as follow:
Here is a summary of this table:
The first six bytes of the header always represent ASCII characters “(DWF V”
The following 5 bytes contain information about the version number e.g. “00.30” with the major and minor version value of the format
Applications creating a DWF file should specify the lowest possible version number that a reader application need to support in order to properly use the data.
File Data Block
The file data block starts at the 13th byte of a DWF file, and is a series of opcode and operand pairs, as in following table.
A DWF file can contain opcode-operand pairs as readable ASCII as well as code binary or a mix of both of these. All DWF operations have a readable ASCII opcode/operand form, and most operations also have a coded binary opcode/operand form. Opcodes are in single byte allowing for over 200 operations. Extended ASCII and extended binary are exceptional cases. The values of Opcodes can range from 0-255 with some exceptions. Except for the two special types of opcodes extended ASCII and extended binary, a file reader must know how to compute the operand length.
The ASCII representations for the following cannot be used as opcodes:
Following ASCII representations can not be used as opcodes:
ASCII digits 0-9 (0x30 - 0x39)
Carriage return (0x0D)
Line feed (0x0A)
Single Quotation Mark (0x27)
Double quotation mark (0x22)
Parenthesis (0x28 and 0x29)
Curly brackets (0x7B and 0x7D)
Square brackets (0x5B and 0x5D)
Backwards slash (0x5C)
File Termination Trailer
The file termination trailer for DWF is simply a special opcode indicating the end of the file. Some applications can store non-DWF data following the termination opcode.The trailer is as shown below:


- as nations strive to reduce their CO2 emissions and companies come under pressure to decrease their carbon footprint, the maritime industry is finding itself under growing scrutiny
- Carbon emissions and dangerous particulates emitted by cruise ships are caused by the quantity and quality of the fuel used by these floating citadels
The cruise industry transported over 26 million customers last year and was worth upwards of $117 billion in 2017. All market projections show that the industry will continue to grow as operators continue to build new state-of-the-art ships with the latest in leisure opportunities. However, as nations strive to reduce their CO2 emissions and companies come under pressure to decrease their carbon footprint, the maritime industry is finding itself under growing scrutiny . Whilst commercial shipping has always been at the center of environmental concerns, the issues surrounding cruise ships are being increasingly called out in the port cities in which they dock.
Leisure & Pollution
Cruise ships have often been described as ‘floating cities’, and as environmental groups have pointed out that they are just as if not more polluting. A passenger’s carbon footprint triples in size when taking a cruise and the emissions produced can contribute to serious health issues. On top of the pollution caused by their exhaust fumes, cruise ships have been caught discarding trash, fuel, and sewage directly into the ocean.
Last year, the German watchdog Nabu surveyed 77 cruise ships and found that all but one used toxic heavy fuel oil that the group described as “dirtiest of all fuels”. This came a year after the same watchdog blew the whistle on German cruise operators for failing to adhere to their own air quality safety standards. The data collected reveals that standing on the deck of a cruise ship is similar to being in one of the world’s most polluted cities, with health experts warning of the issues surrounding poor air quality.
In France, 10% of air pollution in the port city of Marseilles can be directly contributed to the shipping industry. Locals lament the increase in pollution and health issues with more luxury cruise liners docking in the harbor, and now environmental groups and the regional government are implementing emissions tests and issuing fines to the offending cruise lines. It is estimated that over 50,000 Europeans die prematurely every year as a result of shipping-based pollution.
Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, local environmental groups have demonstrated that a single cruise ship can emit as much pollution as 700 trucks and as much particulate matter as a million cars. It has been estimated that between 40,000 and 100,000 Britons die prematurely every year as a result of emissions from the shipping and cruise industries, with major port-cities such as Southampton, Grimsby and Liverpool particularly affected. In recent years there have been several moves towards reducing the amount of pollution being emitted by ships, however, half the UK seashore lacks the legal protection of maritime pollution laws.
Solutions Versus Reality
Carbon emissions and dangerous particulates emitted by cruise ships are caused by the quantity and quality of the fuel used by these floating citadels . The biggest issues with cruise emissions are the levels of nitrogen oxide, which has been linked to acid rain, higher rates of cancer and other forms of respiratory diseases. As such, cruise operators have been urged to switch to cleaner fuel alternatives with a lower sulfur content by 2020, but few have heeded these calls.
Safer fuel, such as liquefied natural gas, is more expensive and operators have favored using scrubbers, which have been called “emission cheat” systems. These scrubbers wash cheap fuel in order to meet environmental standards, but then discharge the pollutants collected directly into the ocean, as independent shipping analyst Ned Molloy explains: “This is sulfurous waste going into the sea. It would be illegal to just dump this anywhere on land anywhere in the EU, except in specialist facilities.”
The dumping of sewage and other such pollutants into the ocean has only aggravated environmental groups and governments charged with cleaning it up, leading the decisions made by some in the cruise industry’s to release more pollutants to be met with widespread condemnation. There exists a range of new technologies aimed at reducing the waste produced by cruise liners, such as onboard incineration plants, recycling programs, as well as cheaper, less polluting fuel options such as LNG. However, without homogenized standards and strictly enforced international rules, the cruise and shipping industry is likely to continue side-stepping many of the possible solutions.


Snow a welcome sight for farmers
Recent snowfalls contribute to production and cut costs on the farm.
As Michigan farmers look to the New Year and growing season ahead, recent snows encourage optimism. In northern climates, snow can account for a significant portion of annual precipitation, increasing soil moisture essential for plant growth. Beyond this clear advantage, snow positively impacts other aspects of agriculture from soil fertility to global trade.
Snow blankets a small dairy farm. Photo credit: James DeDecker, MSUE
Michigan receives average annual snowfall totals ranging from 30 inches in the southeast to as much as 200 inches in parts of the Upper Peninsula. This may seem like quite a bit, but it takes approximately 10 inches of snow to provide 1 inch of water. Annual precipitation totals vary much less across the state ranging between 30 and 38 inches on average. Therefore, snow accumulation provides between 7 and 66 percent of total annual precipitation. With nearly half of the state still facing abnormally dry conditions, the value of this winter precipitation is magnified. A few more significant snow events could put the drought of 2012 officially behind us.
However, growers need not wait until a spring thaw to realize the benefits of snow. In its frozen physical state, snow provides value beyond the water it contains. For example, air caught within accumulating snow acts as insulation for the soil ecosystem. Two to 4 inches of snow can raise the soil’s surface temperature 30 to 35 degrees Fahrenheit. Many overwintered crops are dependent on this insulation factor. Wheat requires at least 3 inches of cover to avoid significant winterkill in cold climates; 4 to 6 inches provide additional protection.
Some livestock systems benefit from snow as well. Healthy cattle can ingest much of their water requirement as snow when grazed on winter pasture. Grazing snow is a learned behavior, and Michigan State University Extension recommends that cattle be observed closely as they adjust. Snow must be abundant, and not compacted or icy. Still, the right kind of snow may allow cattleman to extend the grazing season on stockpiled forage or crop residues without a winterized watering system.
Snow can also contribute to soil fertility. Snowflakes trap dissolved organic nitrogen, nitrate and ammonium in the atmosphere, delivering it free-of-charge to cold and quiet fields. Rain and snow together provide between 2 and 22 lbs of nitrogen per acre each year. Even the wildest winter storm would not be cause to cancel your fertilizer order, but could be worth as much as $18 per acre in urea equivalency.
Far downstream from the farm, snow keeps the gears of agricultural trade turning. Channel depths on the Mississippi River fell dramatically during the drought. The Army Corps of Engineers is removing rock pinnacles from the river bottom, and shippers worry that the Coast Guard will soon tighten restrictions on barge traffic. Recent snows and dam adjustments on the Missouri River temporarily halted the decline. With any luck, the New Year will be white well into April to continue the recovery.
- Watering Cattle with Snow, Agriculture Knowledge Centre, Saskatchewan Ministry of Agriculture
- Snow Cover’s Importance to Winter Wheat, The Progressive Farmer


Bibliographic record and links to related information available from the Library of Congress catalog. Note: Contents data are machine generated based on pre-publication provided by the publisher. Contents may have variations from the printed book or be incomplete or contain other coding.
Almanac Contents 1. Mobilization - industrial conversion, industrial-military complex institutionalized, employment expansion, end of Great Depression, government war agencies and commissions to promote home front mobilization 2. Financing the War - taxes, war bond drives, scrap drives, controlling the wartime economy, wage and price controls, rationing, victory gardens, consumer goods controls, Federal Revenue stamps 3. Farming Prosperity - production expands and prices rise, fewer but bigger farms, rise in status of farmers 4. Working Women - industry jobs, managing home life, service women's clubs 5. Women in Uniform - military roles on the home front 6. Miracle of War Production - industrial expansion and population relocations 7. Politics During the War - presidential politics in 1940 and 1944, end of some New Deal programs, congressional elections of 1942, congressional actions, Victory Tax, conservative coalition 8. Ethnicity on the Home Front - Black Americans, Japanese internment, Mexican braceros program, German Americans, Italian Americans 9. Wartime Entertainment - Hollywood productions, USO shows, recruiting and bond posters, book clubs, rise of the paperback, radio programs, patriotic songs, the pin-up, jitterbug dance 10. Home Front Organizations - military bases, U.S. merchant marine, U.S. Public Health Service, Army Transportation Corps, American Red Cross, support organizations, community centers, Selective Service, German and Italian POW camps 11. Civil Defense - Civil Defense, Civil Air Patrol, Coast Guard auxiliary, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Service, 12. Everyday Life - a cross-section of how America's regions changed and made adjustments to war, blackouts, curfews 13. Transition to Peacetime (1943-1945) - postwar industrial transition to consumer good production, G.I. Bill education and home ownership, baby boom, television media growth, big business versus small business in transition, legacies of the Home Front experience
Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication: World War, 1939-1945 United States Juvenile literature, World War, 1939-1945 Social aspects United States Juvenile literature, United States History 1933-1945 Juvenile literature, United States Social conditions 1933-1945 Juvenile literature


Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is currently the largest outside the five nuclear powers recognised by the NPT and will probably overtake Britain by the end of this decade.
Pakistan began its nuclear programme after the Indian nuclear test of 1974 and this accelerated when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. Its not known when exactly Pakistan became a nuclear power, however the period from 1979-1983 is a good bet. Certainly after the mid eighties all parties concerned treated Pakistan as a defacto nuclear power. In 1998, in response to the Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan tested on its own and became a declared nuclear power.
Pakistani Delivery systems
- Ballistic Missiles
- Pakistan has a variety of land based missiles, with both liquid fuel and solid fuelled systems. All Pakistani missiles carry two designations, the first one is ' Hataf <Number>' which is what the military refers to it and a second designation which is what the manufacturer uses. Hataf means spear in Persian.
- Shaheen:. Literally "Falcon". Shaheen is a series of missiles with solid rocket motors.
- Shaheen I: A 700Km range single warhead missile
- Shaheen 1-A,. Modified version of the above. Range is classified, but estimated in the 1500-2500 km range. Features a new warhead able to better destroy protected targets and avoid Anti Ballistic Missile
- Shaheen II. A long range, 2 stage missile. Range is estimated between 2500- 4500 km. It can carry MIRV (3 of them) and it contain manoeuvrable re-entry vehicles, meaning the the RV's are able to change their trajectory in the terminal phase , fine tuning accuracy and incidentally making an Anti Missile System worse than useless. Its is  in India as it can is mobile and can be launched in minutes. It has made all strategic targets in India vulnerable, from cities and strategic weapon sites, to the heavily hardened bunkers which will protect the Indian leadership in time of war.
- Ghauri: A liquid fueled missiles system with a range between 1500-2500 km. Now considered obsolete, Derived from the Scud system, which in itself was based upon the V-2. So it is in essence the ultimate V-2.
- Short Range Missiles: A very wide variety of them. From the Nasr, with a range of 60 km all the way to the Ghaznavi, with a range of 400 km.
- Cruise Missiles
- Babur: An air and sea launched missile.Range from 700 to 1500 km. Interestingly it is based upon the US Tomahawk when some Tomahawks fell in Pakistan after the US attacks on Afghanistan in 1998.
- Ra'ad: Meaning Thunder: 500 km range air launched cruise missile.
- JF-17. A Pakistani designed multi role aircraft with a range of about 3000 km. Can probably carry Ra'ad CM making it a potent platform
- F-16: US made aircraft, although it is controversial whether they have been modified to carry such warheads (Note) While the aircraft sold to Pakistan is not designed to carry nuclear payloads, it can be modified to do so.
- ROSE Mirage: Pakistani up gradation of the French Mirage aircraft, about equivalent in capability to a mid to late model F-16. ROSE? Retrofit of Strike Element (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_ROSE).
PAK, in persian means "Pure" and PAK is also the first syllabal of Pakistan and a often used (in country) as a short form of the name. So Pak Attack; Pure attack, referring to the ultimate offensive nature of nuclear weapons.


Success in health is something elusive to many. They may start to eat a cleaner diet and even work out a few times per week, but they never feel they've achieved optimal health. What they are missing is vitamins and minerals, and the following tips and tricks should help you learn about this topic.
Never ignore the product warnings on vitamin levels. Vitamin and supplements can have serious side effects when taken with prescription and over the counter medicines. Ginseng can be very dangerous if you have high blood pressure or take heart medications. Lycopene can be deadly if you have a tomato allergy. Always read the warning labels or ask your pharmacist or doctor before taking any vitamins or supplements.
Often people experience aches without knowing why. Rather than seeking medical care, increase your mineral and vitamin intake. Vitamin E is a great vitamin to start out with because it is safe and can help reduce the amount of toxins in your body.
Track the number of vitamins and minerals you take. If you're a person that takes a lot of supplements, you could be getting too much of certain vitamins or minerals. This is usually the case with fat-soluble vitamins like K, D, A, and E. If the risks worry you or if you take prescriptions, you should talk to a physician.
Any supplement with fat needs to be taken on a full stomach. Vitamin E is one great example of this. They work their best when you've eaten fatty foods.
If you are planning on taking any vitamins and minerals, you should try to schedule them around mealtimes. When you eat and digest your food, stomach acid is produced. This can help break down any vitamins you are consuming, which means that they will be a lot more effective.
As adults, we all know how important vitamins and minerals are to our diets but what about our children? Despite the energy they often have, they are burning away what the body needs to promote health and fight off infection. Remember to give your child vitamins in order for them to maintain good health during the growing years.
Juicing is very popular these days, and it is a http://www.amazon.com/Probiotics-1030-Supplement-Acidophilus-Bifidobacterium/dp/B01BZC1QWM/keywords=acidophilus great way to consume healthy fruits and vegetables. Many people add a powdered vitamin and mineral supplement to their juice drink to create a healthy breakfast smoothie they can enjoy every day. This drink is not only very healthy, but also helps increase energy levels.
Take your calcium carbonate with food in order to boost bone health. You can take calcium citrate when your stomach is empty, but calcium carbonate has to be consumed with food. If you do not, it will not absorb correctly, making it a waste.
Do not purchase vitamins online unless you are sure that the seller is reputable. There are many companies that create vitamins that contain fillers and very little of the necessary nutrients. Knowing your seller can help you avoid this problem. Do ample research before trusting an unknown entity with something as important as your health.
While vegetarian and vegan diets can be very healthy, people often are lacking in certain vitamins and nutrients. Vitamin B12 and iron are two helpful nutrients that often need supplemented by vegetarians. Vegans often need to supplement their calcium and vitamin D intake to ensure they get the proper nutrients.
Consider whether you need to take thiamin, or vitamin B1, when eating healthy. You may be deficient in thiamin if you experience fatigue, weakness, psychosis, or nerve damage. It can be found in asparagus, whole grains, pork, oranges, and spinach. However, since it's water soluble, it may be lost during cooking due http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Autoimmune+Disorders to water loss. If that is an issue for you, there are thiamin supplements.
Be careful with taking vitamins such as vitamin E, vitamin A and iron. These vitamins aren't water-soluble, which means they build up in your fat and stay in your body if you get too much. This can lead to side effects which can leave you feeling your worst, so talk to your doctor before taking them.
Juicing is very popular these days, and it is a great way to consume healthy fruits and vegetables. Many people add a powdered vitamin and mineral supplement to their juice drink to create a healthy breakfast smoothie they can enjoy every day. This drink is not only very healthy, but also helps increase energy levels.
If you see any vitamin or mineral supplement that claims to cure an illness or treat a specific disease, it is false and illegal. Supplements are not drugs and therefore cannot claim to treat any disease or cure any illness. The DSHEA of 1994 makes it a crime for any manufacturer to make false claims like this on their supplements.
Children are highly energetic and in need of far more vitamins and minerals than they receive in their food. Maybe you notice they crash after a long day of playing or they simply have difficulties focusing or remembering what they recently did. Try supplementing their diet with essential vitamins and minerals to offer food for the brain to remain clear and fuel that allows their little bodies to recover form physical activity much sooner.
If you are taking iron or zinc, be sure not to take it at the same time as your calcium supplements. Calcium stops the absorption of the other two minerals when they are in the intestine together, and that defeats the whole purpose of taking those supplements. Just take them a few hours apart.
It is important that the any multivitamins you take is 100% RDA, or the recommended daily allowance of each nutrient. This will give you a full allotment of vitamins at once.
If you have dairy sensitivities, you need to be careful which supplements you buy. Be sure to ask the staff at the store you are purchasing from whether or not the supplement contains any dairy products. There are many non-dairy alternatives available, so you don't have to suffer to get your vitamins and minerals.
You should now be aware of the importance of taking vitamins and minerals in your everday life. Without them your body lacks the key tools it needs to give you lots of energy. Since most people are always on the go, taking vitamins and minerals should be the first thing you take each day.
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