EDUCATIONAL SURVEY COMMITTEE
Agency History #327
The Educational Survey Committee (1939-1940) was created by the Twenty-Third Legislature as a fact finding body to make a study of education in Utah through legislation passed March 9, 1939 (House bill no. 276, Laws of Utah, 1939, chapter 82). Governor Henry H. Blood appointed the fifteen member Committee and called their first meeting to be held on June 19, 1939.
Two significant challenges then facing the state educational system led to the legislation which created the Committee. One was the soaring cost of education caused by increasing enrollment and expanding programs. The other was an increasing number of requests for the organization of junior colleges throughout the State. The Committee terminated activity upon completion of their official report in July 1940.
The Committee was assigned "to make a complete study and report of 1) the scholastic and vocational objectives of all the branches of the system of public schools as defined by article ten of the constitution, including junior colleges and the state training school; 2) the purposes for which money allotted to the various branches thereof is used; 3) the degree to which the existing educational objectives are adapted to the needs and the welfare of the state and its people; 4) the ability of the state to maintain the system as now established; 5) desirable changes, if any; and 6) means of stabilizing support to all the units of the system" (Ibid.).
The Committee worked with local and national educators to find answers to these questions. The law required the Committee "to render its findings, conclusions and recommendations to the Governor...on or before July 1, 1940" (Ibid.).
An Executive Board was elected by secret ballot at the Committee's second meeting, on July 1, 1939 to facilitate Committee action. Stanley N. Child was designated as the Chairman, Maude B. Jacob as the Vice-Chairman, and George A. Critchlow as the Secretary. At the subsequent Committee meeting held on July 22, 1939 two new members were named to the Executive Board by the Chairman. The new members were Mrs. Frank B. Muir and George R. Hill, Jr.
The fifteen Committee members served on a voluntary basis without pay. One Sub-Committee was formed from within their ranks to direct a finance study. Five individuals were appointed to serve in this capacity: E.G. Bennett as Chairman, and George A. Critchlow, Paul H. Hunt, S.M. Jorgensen and George D. Preston as supporting members.
The Committee utilized the professional skills of a number of consultants and researchers in gathering information. However, "from the beginning of the survey to its end, the Committee insisted upon making its own decisions about the meanings of assembled facts and about policy that should be recommended." Two individuals were employed full time by the Committee, Dr. Calvin S. Smith as the Director of Research and Madeleine Keough as the executive secretary. Leading educators from local and national institutions provided their expertise. The American Council on Education made a notable contribution with their report on the State's system of higher education.
|Heber Bennion, Jr.|
|Clark T. Callister|
|Stanley N. Child (Chairman)|
|George A. Critchlow (Secretary)|
|George R. Hill, Jr.|
|Paul H. Hunt|
|Mrs. Maude B. Jacob (Vice-Chairman)|
|Mrs. Frank B. Muir|
|George D. Preston|
|Elred M. Royle|
|Mrs. James H. Wolfe|
COMPILED BY: Anissa Taylor, June 2001
Child, Stanley N. "Legislation Creating the Educational Survey Committee" The Utah Educational Review 33, no. 3 (December 1939): 110-112, (Series 1217).
Educational Survey Committee. Minutes, (Series 23749).
Educational Survey Committee. Public Education in Utah: A Report of the Fact Finding Body. Salt Lake City: 1 July 1940, (Series 23746).
Legislature. Laws of Utah, Chapter 82, 1939, (Series 83155).


EVENT: History of Tyranny – The ongoing persecution of Hazaras in Afghanistan
The Hazara community is a visible ethnic minority in Afghanistan and many follow the minority Shia tradition in Islam. This has always made them vulnerable in Afghanistan.
The 25th of September marks a day of remembrance for atrocities committed on Hazaras between 1880 and 1901 under the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman. When the Pashtun Rahman started to extend his influence from Kabul by force to other parts of the country, the Hazaras were the first ethnic group to revolt against his expansionism. Pashtun tribes were sent to the central highlands to crush the revolt.
Rahman’s suppression of the Hazara community ranged from issuing unwarranted taxes, to assaults on Hazara women, massacres, looting and pillaging of homes, enslavement of Hazara children, women and men, and replacement of Shi’a clerics with their Sunni religious counterparts. The Hazarajat region was occupied by Rahman in 1893 and about 60 per cent of the Hazara population were killed under his rule.
Join this sofa talk to understand the significance of the 25th September as a memorial day for Hazaras, and how this history persists in their lived reality of persecution in present-day Afghanistan.
- Dr. Niamatullah Ibrahimi is a Lecturer in International Relations at La Trobe University in Melbourne. He completed his PhD at the Australian National University in 2018, where his doctoral thesis examined the dynamics of contentious politics in Afghanistan since 2001. He has published extensively on Afghanistan’s politics and history. He is the author of, ‘The Hazaras and the Afghan State: Rebellion, Exclusion and Struggle for Recognition’ (London: Hurst & Co. 2017), and co-author (with Professor William Maley) of ‘Afghanistan: Politics and Economics in a Globalising State’ (London: Routledge, 2020).
- Dr. Melissa Kerr Chiovenda is an assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. She has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork on collective and cultural trauma among Hazaras in Afghanistan, and on placemaking among Hazara refugees in Greece.
Moderated by Prof. Joshua Castellino, Executive Director of Minority Rights Group.
When? 24 September 2021, 12.00 BST / 13.00 CEST. The event will last one hour.
Where? Click here to watch the event on Facebook. No account is required.
Watch the event replay
Photo: Members of the Hazara community in Bamiyan province attending Dambura Festival. Credit: Eshaq Akrami.
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Most women are aware that their fertility declines more rapidly than other—often more visible—signs of aging. In fact, the ovaries have very unique properties. They begin a prolonged hibernation-like state from infancy until the start of puberty. During this ten to fourteen year period, the ovaries remain inactive; producing neither hormones nor mature eggs. However, there are still biological signs of aging taking place within the resting ovary but at a much slower pace than after the menstrual cycles begin. Then throughout the reproductive years a group of eggs is lost each month. In some women—depending on their diet and lifestyle—eggs may be lost at a faster pace. This happens for instance in women that use tobacco products. As I’ve written about previously, the blood test for the hormone AntiMullerian Hormone (AMH) is considered by most fertility specialists today to be the most reliable assessment of a woman’s ovarian reserve (the approximate number of immature eggs that she has available at any given time). Now there are also new ways to actually measure how we age physiologically as well.
One study recently demonstrated that people do age at variable rates. They quantified the aging process by measuring various physiologic and genetic markers over a 12 year period in 954 individuals beginning at age 26. They correlated their findings with each test subject’s appearance and their quality of life. They found that those that appeared to be aging faster also had measureable changes in their physiology, cognition and physical complaints consistent with their appearance. The researchers also analyzed their DNA. Their analysis supported that some individuals were aging faster than others and that diet and lifestyle seemed to be a major influence on the rate of aging. In fact, some people seemed to age 3 years for each 1 year that passed on the calendar while others didn’t seem to be aging at all during the 12 years of the project. So taking steps to improve your health and wellness may in fact slow your rate of aging. However, there are still some changes taking place that can’t be delayed indefinitely.
In most species, females are able to conceive throughout their natural lifespan. Humans are unique from most other mammals in that women typically live about half of their life after their fertility has ceased. It has also been reported that women that conceive later in life tend to live longer. Efforts to look at the genetic relationship have found that there are 17 genetic markers that explain about 30% of the occurrence of premature ovarian failure. That means that most ovarian aging is related to other factors including damage to the egg’s DNA (telomere length) that naturally occurs over time. There are also changes that occur in the egg’s power house, the mitochondria. Each egg has 20,000 to 800,000 of these important power units. Each mitochondrion has its own small strand of DNA. We inherit all of our mitochondria from our mother. As women age, the DNA of mitochondria within the eggs becomes damaged. This damage cannot be repaired. As a result, the mitochondria are intimately linked to egg quality. They not only impact the chance that an egg will fertilize and grow successfully but also the health of the child that results. There are also other ways that delaying pregnancy may influence the child’s health but in a more positive way. There is considerable evidence that children born to older mothers may have more positive cognitive and behavioral outcomes.
There is a growing trend for women to delay childbearing. Doing so is associated with higher socioeconomic status, increased educational achievement, higher income level and smaller family size. It may be due to any or all of these reasons or it may be due to greater readiness for pregnancy or more that children of older mothers tend to fair better when it comes to cognitive and behavioral measures. Others feel that it may due to a more mature mother-child interaction. Whatever the reason the benefits are present without any elevated risks in psychiatric problems. So even though cause and effect cannot be established in the available studies, advanced maternal age seems to have a protective effect upon the psychological and cognitive development of children. Now there is also evidence that carrying a pregnancy may in turn have healthy implications on the aging of the mother as well.
A new series of investigations is finding that a healthy pregnancy may slow aging process. In animal studies, it has been a consistent finding that pregnancy has a rejuvenating effect upon mother through a process called parabiosis (connecting the circulation between the young and the old). In humans, studies have found measureable benefits including improved liver functioning, improved reparative abilities within the central nervous system and protective effects upon the heart following a healthy pregnancy. There is also data suggesting that unhealthy pregnancies can identify women at risk of age-related conditions like diabetes, stroke and heart disease—possibly identifying those at risk so that preventive measures can be initiated. So it seems that healthy women have a longer opportunity to conceive and that when women in their later years get pregnant that they remain healthier longer.
In summary, the links between fertility and healthy aging are far more complicated than previously believed. We can reassure women that taking steps during their younger years to live a healthy lifestyle should optimize their opportunities for pregnancy. We can not only track a woman’s fertility status through ovarian reserve testing but now we can also freeze/store eggs to extend their reproductive years. Then, by taking steps to optimize a women’s health during pregnancy, women may both have a healthier child as well as slow their own aging.


National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the National Academy of Medicine (NAM).
|Formation||March 3, 1863|
|Founders||Alexander Dallas Bache|
|Founded at||2101 Constitution Ave NW, Washington, D.C., U.S. 20418|
|Endowment||$554.0 million (2019)|
As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research. Election to the National Academy is one of the highest honors in the scientific field. Members of the National Academy of Sciences serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation" on science, engineering, and medicine. The group holds a congressional charter under Title 36 of the United States Code.
Founded in 1863 as a result of an Act of Congress that was approved by Abraham Lincoln, the NAS is charged with "providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology. … to provide scientific advice to the government 'whenever called upon' by any government department."
The Academy receives no compensation from the government for its services.
As of 2016[update], the National Academy of Sciences includes about 2,350 NAS members and 450 foreign associates. It employed about 1,100 staff in 2005. The current members annually elect new members for life. Up to 84 members who are US citizens are elected every year; up to 21 foreign citizens may be elected as foreign associates annually. Approximately 190 members have won a Nobel Prize. By its own admission in 1989, the addition of women to the Academy "continues at a dismal trickle", at which time there were 1,516 male members and 57 female members.
The National Academy of Sciences is a member of the International Council for Science (ICSU). The ICSU Advisory Committee, which is in the Research Council's Office of International Affairs, facilitates the participation of members in international scientific unions and serves as a liaison for U.S. national committees for individual scientific unions. Although there is no formal relationship with state and local academies of science, there often is informal dialogue. The National Academy is governed by a 17-member Council, made up of five officers (president, vice president, home secretary, foreign secretary, and treasurer) and 12 Councilors, all of whom are elected from among the Academy membership. Agencies of the United States government fund about 85 percent of the Academy's activities. Further funding comes from state governments, private foundations, and industrial organizations.
The Council has the ability ad-hoc to delegate certain tasks to committees. For example, the Committee on Animal Nutrition has produced a series of Nutrient requirements of domestic animals reports since at least 1944, each one being initiated by a different sub-committee of experts in the field for example on dairy cattle.
The National Academy of Sciences meets annually in Washington, D.C., which is documented in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, its scholarly journal. The National Academies Press is the publisher for the National Academies, and makes more than 5,000 publications freely available on its website.
From 2004 to 2017, the National Academy of Sciences administered the Marian Koshland Science Museum to provide public exhibits and programming related to its policy work. The museum's exhibits focused on climate change and infectious disease. In 2017 the museum closed and made way for a new science outreach program called LabX.
The National Academy of Sciences maintains multiple buildings around the United States.
The National Academy of Sciences Building is located at 2101 Constitution Avenue, in northwest Washington, D.C.; it sits on the National Mall, adjacent to the Marriner S. Eccles Federal Reserve Board Building and in front of the headquarters of the U.S. State Department. The building has a neoclassical architectural style and was built by architect Bertram Grosvenor Goodhue. The building was dedicated in 1924 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Goodhue engaged a team of artists and architectural sculptors including Albert Herter, Lee Lawrie, and Hildreth Meiere to design interior embellishments celebrating the history and significance of science. The building is used for lectures, symposia, exhibitions, and concerts, in addition to annual meetings of the NAS, NAE, and NAM. The 2012 Presidential Award for Math and Science Teaching ceremony was held here on March 5, 2014. Approximately 150 staff members work at the NAS Building. In June 2012, it reopened to visitors after a major two-year restoration project which restored and improved the building's historic spaces, increased accessibility, and brought the building's aging infrastructure and facilities up to date.
More than 1,000 National Academies staff members work at The Keck Center of the National Academies at 500 Fifth Street in northwest Washington, D.C. The Keck Center provides meeting space and houses the National Academies Press Bookstore. The Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences – formerly located at 525 E St., N.W. – hosted visits from the public, school field trips, traveling exhibits, and permanent science exhibits.
The NAS also maintains conference centers in California and Massachusetts. The Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center is located on 100 Academy Drive in Irvine, California, near the campus of the University of California, Irvine; it offers a conference center and houses several NAS programs. The J. Erik Jonsson Conference Center located at 314 Quissett Avenue in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, is another conference facility.
The Act of Incorporation, signed by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863, created the National Academy of Sciences and named 50 charter members. Many of the original NAS members came from the so-called "Scientific Lazzaroni," an informal network of mostly physical scientists working in the vicinity of Cambridge, Massachusetts (c. 1850).
In 1863, enlisting the support of Alexander Dallas Bache and Charles Henry Davis, a professional astronomer who had been recently recalled from the Navy to Washington to head the Bureau of Navigation. They also elicited support from Swiss-American geologist Louis Agassiz and American mathematician Benjamin Peirce, who together planned the steps whereby the National Academy of Sciences was to be established. Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts was to name Agassiz to the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution.
Agassiz was to come to Washington at the government's expense to plan the organization with the others. This bypassed Joseph Henry, who was reluctant to have a bill for such an academy presented to Congress. This was in the belief that such a resolution would be "opposed as something at variance with our democratic institutions". Nevertheless, Henry soon became the second President of NAS. Agassiz, Davis, Peirce, Benjamin Gould, and Senator Wilson met at Bache's house and "hurriedly wrote the bill incorporating the Academy, including in it the name of fifty incorporators".
During the last hours of the session, when the Senate was immersed in the rush of last minute business before its adjournment, Senator Wilson introduced the bill. Without examining it or debating its provisions, both the Senate and House approved it, and President Lincoln signed it.
Although hailed as a great step forward in government recognition of the role of science in American society, at the time, the National Academy of Sciences created enormous ill-feelings among scientists, whether or not they were named as incorporators.
The Act states:
[T]he Academy shall, whenever called upon by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment, and report upon any subject of science or art, the actual expense of such investigations, examinations, experiments, and reports to be paid from appropriations which may be made for the purpose, but the Academy shall receive no compensation whatever for any services to the Government of the United States.
The National Academies did not solve the problems facing a nation in Civil War as the Lazzaroni had hoped, nor did it centralize American scientific efforts. However, election to the National Academy did come to be considered "the pinnacle of scientific achievement for Americans" until the establishment of the Nobel Prize at the end of the 19th Century.:30
In 1870, the congressional charter was amended to remove the limitation on the number of members.
In 2013, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson was asked to write a speech for the 150th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address in which he made the point that one of Lincoln's greatest legacies was establishing the National Academy of Sciences in that same year, which had the long-term effect of "setting our Nation on a course of scientifically enlightened governance, without which we all may perish from this Earth".
The president is the head of the Academy, elected by a majority vote of the membership to serve in this position for a term to be determined by the governing Council, not to exceed six years, and may be re-elected for a second term. The Academy has had 22 presidents since its foundation. The current president is geophysicist Marcia K. McNutt, the first woman to hold this position. Her term expires on June 30, 2022.
- 1863–1867 Alexander Dallas Bache
- 1868–1878 Joseph Henry
- 1879–1882 William Barton Rogers
- 1883–1895 Othniel Charles Marsh
- 1895–1900 Wolcott Gibbs
- 1901–1907 Alexander Agassiz
- 1907–1913 Ira Remsen
- 1913–1917 William Henry Welch
- 1917–1923 Charles Doolittle Walcott
- 1923–1927 Albert Abraham Michelson
- 1927–1931 Thomas Hunt Morgan
- 1931–1935 William Wallace Campbell
- 1935–1939 Frank Rattray Lillie
- 1939–1947 Frank Baldwin Jewett
- 1947–1950 Alfred Newton Richards
- 1950–1962 Detlev Wulf Bronk
- 1962–1969 Frederick Seitz
- 1969–1981 Philip Handler
- 1981–1993 Frank Press
- 1993–2005 Bruce Michael Alberts
- 2005–2016 Ralph J. Cicerone
- 2016–present Marcia McNutt
The Academy gives a number of different awards:
- Membership of the National Academy of Sciences (including foreign associates)
- John J. Carty Award for the Advancement of Science
- William O. Baker Award for Initiatives in Research, formerly NAS Award for Initiatives in Research
- NAS Award for Scientific Reviewing
- NAS Award for Scientific Discovery
- Public Welfare Medal
- Raymond and Beverly Sackler Prize in Convergence Research
- Behavioral/Social Sciences
- Biology and Medicine
- Earth and Environmental Sciences
- Alexander Agassiz Medal
- Arthur L. Day Prize and Lectureship
- Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal
- Mary Clark Thompson Medal
- NAS Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences
- Charles Doolittle Walcott Medal, part of the NAS Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences since 2008
- Stanley Miller Medal, part of the NAS Award in Early Earth and Life Sciences since 2008
- G. K. Warren Prize
- Engineering and Applied Sciences
- J.C. Hunsaker Award - aeronautical engineering
- Gibbs Brothers Medal - naval architecture, marine engineering
- NAS Award for the Industrial Application of Science
- NAS Prize in Food and Agriculture Science
- Mathematics and Computer Science
Joint Declaration on Global WarmingEdit
In 2005, the national science academies of the G8 forum (including the National Academy of Sciences) and science academies of Brazil, China, and India (three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world) signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change had become sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action.
On May 7, 2010, a letter signed by 255 Academy members was published in Science magazine, decrying "political assaults" against climate change scientists. This was in response to a civil investigative demand on the University of Virginia (UVA) by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, seeking a broad range of documents from Michael E. Mann, a former UVA professor from 1999-2005. Mann, who currently works at Penn State, is a climate change researcher, and Cuccinelli alleges that Mann may have defrauded Virginia taxpayers in the course of his environmental research. Investigations had cleared Mann of charges that he falsified or suppressed data.
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- National Digital Library Program (NDLP)
- List of members of the National Academy of Sciences
- National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)
- National Science Foundation (NSF)
- National Academy of Sciences' Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy
- National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoirs
- National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
- 1873, Edward C. Pickering (1846–1919) was the youngest scientist elected
- 1924, Florence R. Sabin (1871-1953) was the first lifetime woman member to be elected
- 1965, David Blackwell (1919-2010) was the first African-American elected
- 2013, Ben Barres was the first openly transgender scientist elected
- As of June 30, 2019. "U.S. and Canadian 2019 NTSE Participating Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year 2019 Endowment Market Value, and Percentage Change in Market Value from FY18 to FY19 (Revised)". National Association of College and University Business Officers and TIAA. Retrieved September 19, 2020.
- "Overview: NAS Mission". National Academies of Science. Retrieved April 25, 2015.
- "About NAS: Membership". National Academy of Sciences. 2013.
- Alberts, Bruce (2005). "Summing Up: Creating a Scientific Temper for the World" (PDF). National Academy of Sciences.
- "Overview: Membership". nasonline.org. Retrieved April 2, 2018.
- "News of the week from the science world". Journals. San Francisco Examiner. May 20, 1989. p. D-2 – via Newspapers.com.
- "Constitution". National Academy of Sciences. Retrieved July 20, 2014.
- "Division on Engineering and Physical Sciences FAQ". The National Academies. Archived from the original on April 13, 2009. Retrieved June 8, 2019.
- "Newsroom". National-Academies.org. June 2, 2011. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
- National Academy of Sciences. "The NAS Building ... a Temple of Science". Archived from the original on December 29, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2010.
- "A Home for Science in America". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved July 27, 2015.
- "Restoration of Historic National Academy of Sciences Building". CPNAS. National Academy of Sciences. 2013. Retrieved August 12, 2013.
- National Academy of Sciences. "Visiting Our Buildings". Retrieved October 12, 2010.
- "Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences". Retrieved October 12, 2010.
- ITS. "Founding of the National Academy of Sciences". .nationalacademies.org. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
- For an analysis of the motives by Alexander Dallas Bache for founding the NAS, see Jansen, Axel (2011). Alexander Dallas Bache: Building the American Nation through Science and Education in the Nineteenth Century. Campus. p. 285-314.
- Miller, Lillian; Voss, Frederick; Hussey, Jeannette (1972). The Lazzaroni: science and scientists in mid-nineteenth-century America. Smithsonian Institution Press. p. 121. Retrieved October 26, 2007.
- OCGA. "An Act to Incorporate the National Academy of Sciences". .nationalacademies.org. Retrieved March 12, 2012.
- Stankus, Tony (1990). Scientific journals: Improving library collections through analysis of publishing trends. Haworth Press. ISBN 0-886656-905-7 – via Internet Archive.CS1 maint: ignored ISBN errors (link)
- A Chronicle of Public Laws Calling for Action by the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, [and] National Research Council. Washington, DC: National Academies. 1985. p. 5. NAP:11820. Retrieved March 22, 2014. [16 Stat. 277 and 36 U.S.C. § 252], Accessed at Google Books
- Neil deGrasse Tyson's Gettysburg Reply - "The Seedbed"
- "Leadership and Governance". National Academy of Sciences. 2016.
- Alberts, Bruce; Fulton, Kenneth R. (2005). "Editorial: Election to the National Academy of Sciences: Pathways to membership". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 102 (21): 7405–7406. Bibcode:2005PNAS..102.7405A. doi:10.1073/pnas.0503457102. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 1140467. PMID 16586925.
- "Statement on Global Response to Climate Change". The Royal Society. June 7, 2005.
- Helderman, Rosalind (May 9, 2010). "U-Va. urged to fight Cuccinelli subpoena in probe of scientist". Washington Post. p. C5.
- "Open letter: Climate change and the integrity of science". The Guardian. May 6, 2010.
- "Curriculum Vitae: Michael E. Mann". psu dot edu. Retrieved July 5, 2013.
- Helderman, Rosalind (May 9, 2010). "U-Va. urged to fight Cuccinelli subpoena in probe of scientist". Washington Post. p. C5.
- Foley, Henry C.; Alan W. Scaroni; Candice A. Yekel (February 3, 2010). "RA-10 Inquiry Report: Concerning the Allegations of Research Misconduct Against Dr. Michael E. Mann, Department of Meteorology, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University" (PDF). The Pennsylvania State University. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 15, 2010. Retrieved February 7, 2010.
- "Membership FAQ". NAS.
- Trans News Editors (May 11, 2013). "Neurobiologist Becomes First Transgender Scientist Selected For U.S. National Academy of Science Membership". Trans News. Trans Media Network.
- Nader, Ralph (1975). Introduction. The brain bank of America: An inquiry into the politics of science. By Boffey, Philip. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0070063686.
- Hilgartner, Stephen (2000). Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama. Writing science. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804736466. 634.
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It seems logical to think that eating a high-fat diet would tip the scale upward, but a new study suggests that might not be the case. What's more, eating more of certain types of fats may help move the scale in the other direction.
Men and women in the study who followed a high-fat, Mediterranean diet that was rich in either olive oil or nuts lost more weight and reduced their waist circumference more than the people in the study who were simply instructed to reduce their fat intake, according to the study.
The Mediterranean diet, rich in healthy fats and plant proteins, has been linked in previous studies to a wide range of health benefits, including a reduced risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes — two conditions that are also linked to obesity. [5 Diets That Fight Diseases]
But despite such benefits, "obese people [have] continued to be reluctant to eat vegetable fats such as extra-virgin olive oil and nuts, because they believe these foods lead to weight gain," said Dr. Ramon Estruch, an internal medicine physician at the University of Barcelona in Spain and the lead author of the study.
The findings of the new study show, on the other hand, that a diet rich in dietary fats and vegetables, such as the Mediterranean diet, does not promote weight gain, Estruch said.
In the study, the researchers looked at data on people who had participated in the PREDIMED trial, a five-year study in Spain that looked at the effects of the Mediterranean diet on heart health. There were nearly 7,500 older adults in the study, the majority of whom were overweight or obese and all of whom had either type 2 diabetes or at least three risk factors for heart disease.
The people in the study were asked to follow one of three diets: a Mediterranean diet with at least 4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil each day, a Mediterranean diet with at least three servings of nuts each week or a control diet, where the participants were advised to generally avoid fat in their diet.
Both olive oil and nuts contain relatively high amounts of fat, but the fat in them is primarily monounsaturated fat, which is thought to be better for health than the saturated fat found in animal-based foods such as meat and cheese.
The study received funding from both olive oil and nut industry groups. However, these funders had no role in designing the study, in collecting, analyzing and interpreting the data or in writing the report, the researchers wrote in the study, published today (June 6) in the journal The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
The researchers found that after five years, the people in the olive oil group had lost a small but statistically significant amount of weight, compared to the control group: The people in the olive oil group lost about 1 lb. (0.4 kilograms) more, on average, than those in the control group.
The people in the nut group also lost a small amount of weight as well, compared to the control group. However, the difference between the olive oil group and the nut group was not statistically significant (meaning it could have been due to chance).
In addition, both the olive oil and nut groups experienced slight reductions in their waist circumferences compared to the control group, according to the study.
The key finding is that neither diet, although rich in fats, led to weight gain or increases in waist circumference, Estruch told Live Science.
The researchers noted that although the participants in the olive oil and nut groups were not instructed to limit their calorie intake, the people in both groups did end up consuming fewer calories on average than they had consumed before the study started. This may have been due to the filling effects of fat, the researchers wrote in their study.
Maintaining a certain body weight requires balancing the calories you consume versus the calories you burn, but it seems that calories from vegetable fats have different effects on weight than calories from animal fats, Estruch said. [10 New Ways to Eat Well]
Though the participants in the study were overweight or obese older adults, Estruch said that he believes that the benefits of the Mediterranean diet on weight and waist circumference could extend to people of any age and weight, including young men and women.
This is not the first study to suggest that eating more plant-based fats does not lead to a larger waistline.
The results of this study are consistent with a range of observational studies suggesting that eating more fat is not linked to a change in people's weights, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and the dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University, who was not involved in the new study. Mozaffarian wrote an editorial that was published alongside the study in the journal.
People should focus more on eating healthy foods, rather than worrying about dietary fats, Mozaffarian told Live Science.
The new study may in fact have underestimated the health benefits of the Mediterranean diet, Mozaffarian added. Because the study took place in Spain, where people already eat a Mediterranean-style diet, there may not have been as big a change in eating patterns as there would have been if people had shifted from an American-style diet, for example, he said.
Originally published on Live Science.
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Sexual intimacy refers to personal familiarity through sex. It implies sexual intercourse, but also includes a wide range of sensuous acts. Sexual intimacy may involve kissing, petting, public displays of affection, and oral sex among other acts. It involves at least two people. It does not require a contract or relationship to have sexual intimacy.
As with other forms of intimacy, it takes time, communication, and awareness to build and nurture sexual intimacy. This needs the involvement of two people, and cannot be achieved when only one is working towards it. Sexual intimacy can be rewarding. It can be the start of a relationship. It also has innate risks, such as unwanted pregnancies and exposure to sexually transmitted diseases.


In this Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs) short guide we will share with you the basics that you need to know about the NFT world. You can then use this knowledge to explore the world of NFTs more and even get involved in the creation, buying and selling of them.
- A) A Unique Digital Certificate
An NFT is a digital certificate that is unique and stored on a blockchain such as the Ethereum network. This digital certificate details certain ownership rights for the digital asset. An example of an NFT could be a piece of digital art. The digital world is renowned for copying. It is essential to have something like an NFT which cannot be copied to prove ownership of an asset. Only one person can own an NFT at a time. They can sell it to other people and they become the sole owner. This does not stop an NFT being copied but it will never be the genuine article.
- B) Non-Fungible Versus Fungible
An NFT is a non-fungible asset. This means that every one is unique and has a different value. Cryptocurrencies such as Dogecoin and Bitcoin are fungible. You can hold many units of these currencies and they have the same value. It is the same in the fiat currency world with the US$1 bill for example.
- C) NFTs created with Smart Contracts
The correct term for creating NFTs is “minting”. All NFTs are minted in association with a smart contract. Smart contracts are programs that are store on blockchain networks. You can use a smart contract to define things about an NFT. One of the major benefits of NFTs is that the creators can retain the original contract and add royalties for additional income. A buyer that purchases an NFT may want to resell this in the future. When the resale transaction occurs, the original NFT creator can receive a commission on the sale. This is all in the smart contract of the NFT.
- D) You need a Crypto Wallet (Digital Wallet) for NFTs
If you want to create your own NFTs, buy them or sell them, you will need a crypto wallet to do this. NFT creators can store the token information in their crypto wallet. When someone purchases an NFT, the token will pass to their crypto wallet. The blockchain network where the NFT is stored is used to enact any transactions. What is happening here is that the ownership of an NFT is transferred from one crypto wallet to another. Crypto wallets are also used to store cryptocurrency.
- E) NFTs are usually ScarceOne of the most attractive things about NFTs is their scarcity. Buyers know that an NFT is unique and that it is easy to prove provenance and authenticity. A lot of people create NFTs for art and collectors understand that there can only be one owner.It is possible for an NFT creator to provide a limited number of their NFTs for the same item through the smart contract. Potential buyers can easily see how many NFTs are part of the limited edition and base their purchasing decision on this.
- E) All NFTs use Blockchain
An NFT cannot exist without a blockchain network. All NFTs have to be minted on a blockchain network such as Ethereum. This creates a unique token that all users can access to confirm ownership and other essential metadata.
If you would like to know more about the crypto world we have an easy to beginner training guide with over 120 pages that will educate you about what digital currencies are and how they work, cryptocurrency trading, digital wallets, crypto exchanges, blockchain technology, staking, crypto airdrop and much more.
We would like to reminder you that in the website menu you can find a variety of products and services that can help to boost your business.


Earth Day 2011 will be a day to remember for about 250 students and 30 teachers at Smiths Station Elementary.
The April 21st Earth Day event was planned to help instruct students about the environment. Ten representatives from local and federal agencies and others interested in the environment set up and gave presentations in tents along the perimeter of the school grounds. The students rotated among the exhibitors.
The Lee County NRCS/SWCD set up a booth that featured the Enviroscape. DC Jason Gardner, DAC Dana Sizemore, Technician Jesi King and Earth Team volunteer Ann Miller took turns educating the children on how to protect the environment. The interaction with the Enviroscape allowed the children to visually see how soil erosion, pesticides, and runoff impact a watershed and helped them learn ways to protect the environment.


Let's take a little side journey here and talk about something very fundamental to Yii2: Namespacing. Using namespaces is a way to encapsulate a collection of related items. As a concrete example, the file foo.txt can exist in both directory /home/first and in /home/other, but two copies of foo.txt cannot co-exist in the same directory. In addition, to access the foo.txt file outside of the /home/first directory, we must prepend the directory name to the file name using the directory separator to get /home/first/foo.txt. This same principle extends to namespaces in programming Yii.
Namespaces in PHP solve two serious problems run into when creating complex software systems that reuse code elements such as classes or functions. You need to keep them straight as to which apply where.
- Name collisions between code you create, and internal PHP classes/functions/constants or third-party classes/functions/constants.
- Ability to alias (or shorten) Extra_Long_Names that would normally be used to alleviate the first problem, thus improving readability of source code.
An example of a name collision would be if you tried to create your own custom object as:
You would not be able to because there already exists in PHP a
object. This is referred to as a name collision.
PHP Namespaces provide a way in which to group related classes, interfaces, functions and constants. Here is an example of namespace syntax in PHP:
yii\foo\printout() // output: Zig
yii\bar\printout() // output: Zag
Accessing the global namespace
What if in file2.php you wanted to use the PHP reserved object:
You would get an error similar to yii\bar\DateTime object not found. To use the PHP defined DateTime object, you will need to express it as this, with a slash:
This places it in the global namespace where PHP defined objects are located.
Let's say you have file4.php and you want to access yii\foo\printout(), but don't want to type out the entire yii\foo\printout() string. You can set up your script as follows:
printout() // output: Zig


The Telescope Optical Unit BreadBoard is the first built TOU model. It was done during the PLATO Phase A Study in 2010-211.
The TOU BreadBoard optics consist in a set of custom made lenses as close as possible to the final design lenses, differing only for some of the glasses and for the usage of a spherical lens instead of the aspherical one (L1), which is foreseen in the FMs (in addition to that, the usage of a spherical lens instead of the aspheric one imposes also the change of L2 to maintain the on-axis performances).
The lack of asphericity on L1 in the BreadBoard has no impact on the alignment procedure (only the central part of the lenses are used during the alignment).
The BreadBoard mechanical structure is equivalent to the TOU final structure, in terms of thermal behavior (to mimic the relative movements of the lenses when going from “warm” to “cold” conditions) and interfaces to the FPA.
The purpose of such a BreadBoard is to test the alignment procedure and eventually test the on-axis optical performance of the system – both in warm and in cold conditions – to validate the “warm” AIT in flight environment.
Results have been published in To PLAnetary Transit or not? An extremely large field of view camera with a CaF2 component tested in thermo-vacuum, Bergomi, M., Magrin, D., Farinato, J., Viotto, V., Ragazzoni, R., Brunelli, A., Dima, M., Christiansen, P., Ghigo, M., Laubier, D., Pasquier, H., Piazza, D., Pagano, I., Piotto, G., Basile, G., Catala, C.,
2012, Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE) Conference Series 8442,


1. Political Parties and European Integration: The Historical Perspective
2. Transnational Party Co-operation in the European Parliament: the Euro-parliamentary Groups and the Growth of Politicisation
3. The New Transnational Party Organisational Dimension and the Process towards Direct Elections
4. The National Party Frameworks and Transnational Party Co-operation
5. The Direct Elections Campaign and Transnational Party Co-operation
6. The Results of Direct Elections: A Transnational Party Perspective
7. Conclusion: Towards a European Community Party System?


Mass Spectrometry for Food Analysis: The Example of Fat Soluble Vitamins A and K
Mass Spectrometry for the Analysis of Milk Oligosaccharides
Mass Spectrometry in Protein, Peptide and Amino Acid Analysis
Mass Spectrometry in Phytonutrient Research
Addressing the Health Beneficial Aspects of Nutrition—The Example of the Obesity Epidemic
Mass Spectrometry, Diet and Cardiovascular Disease: What will They Mean for Food?
About this book
Mass spectrometry has developed into a platform for the assessment of health, sensory, quality and safety aspects of food. Current nutrition research focuses on unravelling the link between acute or chronic dietary and nutrient intake and the physiological effects at cellular, tissue and whole body level. The bioavailability and bioefficacy of food constituents and dose-effect correlations are key to understanding the impact of food on defined health outcomes. To generate this information, appropriate analytical tools are required to identify and quantify minute amounts of individual compounds in highly complex matrices (such as food or biological fluids) and to monitor molecular changes in the body in a highly specific and sensitive manner. Mass spectrometry has become the method of choice for such work and now has broad applications throughout all areas of nutrition research. This book focuses the contribution of mass spectrometry to the advancement of nutrition research. Aimed at students, teachers and researchers, it provides a link between nutrition and analytical biochemistry. It guides nutritionists to the appropriate techniques for their work and introduces analytical biochemists to new fields of application in nutrition and health. The first part of the book is dedicated to the assessment of macro- and micro-nutrient status with a view to making dietary recommendations for the treatment of diet-related diseases. The second part shows how mass spectrometry has changed nutrition research in fields like energy metabolism, body composition, protein turnover, immune modulation and cardiovascular health.
Dr. Laurent B. Fay is currently the Head of the Nutrition and Health Department at the NestlÚ Research Center in Switzerland. After a Master in Nutrition in 1981 he completed his PhD in Biochemistry at Dijon University in 1985, and joined NestlÚ in 1989 after three years in the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. FayÆs current research aims at developing nutritional approaches that promote health and wellness throughout life. His research team focuses on providing practical food and beverage solutions for optimal physical and cognitive performance, growth and development, protection, and weight management. Composed of nutritionists and biologists from diverse fields including microbiology, molecular biology, immunology, allergy, gut physiology and cognitive science, they apply the scientific advances of today to meet the nutrition needs of tomorrow. Dr. Fay is the author of more than 160 peer-reviewed publications. He is honorary member of the Swiss Group for Mass Spectrometry. Prof. Dr. Martin Kussmann leads the Functional Genomics Group at the NestlÚ Research Centre and is Honorary Professor at Aarhus University, Denmark. His team at NestlÚ is responsible for Nutrigenomics and Nutrigenetics. They develop and integrate gene and protein expression profiling with bioinformatics and computational molecular science. Major application fields are immunology, diabesity, and physical performance. Being educated as an analytical biochemist, Prof. Kussmann has acquired research experience in the pharmaceutical, biotechnological and nutritional industry. Prof. Kussmann holds a M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Chemistry, obtained at the Universities of Aachen and Konstanz, Germany, and at the University of California, San Francisco, USA. During his doctorate and post-doctorate, he has specialised in analytical biochemistry, proteomics and genomics.


Is it the agency or the instructor that’s important?
I told her the answer is simple. “But,” I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a really important question before I answer yours? How do you learn? What type of “student” are you?”
In their most basic form, the triggers or stimuli that change our understanding of a topic and cause us to modify our behavior based on new-found knowledge fall into three broad categories: auditory, visual and experiential. Based on this, we can say that students are either Listeners, Watchers or Doers. I suggested she sip her coffee and allow me to explain in a little more detail, because to answer her question, I needed her to think about mine.
I told her that in academic sessions, each of these broad learning groups identifies themselves as follows.
Auditory learners listen to instructions attentively. During classroom sessions, they take notes, sit in the front of the room, avoid outside distractions, and—as my university classmates would confirm—often repeat important points to themselves in a mumble (sub-vocalize) as they take notes.
I explained to her that if like me, she too was a listener, she will rehearse and repeat information out loud sometimes reading out loud. She will make extensive use of mnemonics, often ones she makes up herself. Listeners do better on a test if they read the questions out loud to themselves much to the annoyance of folks around them. And listeners may memorize key points and terms by thinking how the words sound as much as what they mean.
On the other hand, visual learners often make charts or diagrams covering key points. These folks think in pictures. They highlight notes with big arrows, underlinings, stars and asterisks. If you are a visual learner, you doodle on printed notes and handouts, draw boxes around and circle key points. You scribble in the margins of textbooks. You scan those books for diagrams, graphs, charts and pictures and study these before anything else.
You tend to link basic concepts and new information to things and concepts you already know and understand. You may make flash cards to help memorize new ideas. Your books sport Post-it notes, and you often study “the basics” before sitting in a classroom. Oh, and if your pre-classroom studies use the so-called “Cornell Note” system, chances are you prefer this style of learning.
Kinesthetic (or experience) learners are doers. They fidget in a classroom setting and get distracted during straight lectures, preferring to ask questions and participate in the discussion. They ask what-if type questions and personalize concepts, often asking for examples of how the topic under discussion applies to them or imagining personal scenarios and asking if they have the “right idea.”
During a break, these folks get up and amble about, stretching, bending and generally “shaking out the cobwebs.” They do better when classroom sessions are short and sweet, punctuated with hourly “breakout sessions” during which they can bounce ideas around with classmates. If you have one of those squishy stress balls in one hand and a book in the other while studying, chances are that you are a kinesthetic learner.
Real world approaches
Once out of the classroom and faced with a challenge to solve—a practical test or having to apply a recently learned concept to real-world circumstances—these three learning types present more distinctive approaches.
I gave an example of how that works. Let’s say the “problem” presented to a group of recently certified open-water divers is to go away and research how many litres (or cubic feet) of gas are needed for a 30-minute dive to 18 metres (60 feet).
The listeners will call a more experienced buddy and ask for his or her advice. They may call a shop or drop in and speak face-to-face with an instructor to learn how to solve the problem. These folks best respond to the administrations of mentors.
Seeing learners will go online and use Google. They may go to a dive shop, but their preference would be to find a book on dive planning. They might find a YouTube video that explains the concept via charts and diagrams. These folks do best studying alone.
Doers will strap on a tank, go to 18 metres and use a stop-watch to time how long it takes to drain a tank! They were the kids who jumped off their parents’ garage roof trying out their new glider design ...
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The families of flowering plants
Habit and leaf form. Large, erect herbs (from 75700cm tall). Perennial; with a basal aggregation of leaves, or without conspicuous aggregations of leaves; cormous. Leaves alternate; distichous; long petiolate; sheathing. Leaf sheaths tubular. Leaves simple. Lamina entire; elliptic or oblong; pinnately veined (with a prominent midrib, from which diverge obliquely the numerous, parallel secondary veins, which arch and merge to form a marginal vein). Leaves eligulate. Lamina margins entire. Leaf development not graminaceous. Vernation convolute.
General anatomy. Plants with crystal sand, or without crystal sand. Plants with silica bodies (rectangular, in associaton with the vascular bundles).
Leaf anatomy. Epidermis without silica bodies. Stomata present; paracytic, or tetracytic. The mesophyll containing mucilage cells (with raphides); containing crystals. The crystals raphides (and/or crystal sand). Foliar vessels absent. Minor leaf veins without phloem transfer cells.
Axial (stem, wood) anatomy. Secondary thickening absent. The axial xylem without vessels.
Root anatomy. Root xylem with vessels; vessel end-walls scalariform.
Reproductive type, pollination. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Floral nectaries present. Nectar secretion from the gynoecium (via septal nectaries). Pollination ornithophilous.
Inflorescence, floral, fruit and seed morphology. Flowers aggregated in inflorescences; in panicles. The ultimate inflorescence units cymose (monochasial). Inflorescences scapiflorous, or not scapiflorous; borne on an erect peduncle, consisting of a large, flattened erect or drooping thyrse, often with a conspicuously geniculate axis, each lateral branch subtended by a stiff, usually boat shaped, sometimes quite large and often showy (green, red, orange) bract, the lateral branches consisting of dense monochasial cymes which may be almost concealed in the bract axils; spatheate. Flowers bracteate (the floral bracts smaller and thinner than the cincinnal bracts); very irregular; strongly zygomorphic (the symmetry inverted relative to Costaceae, Musaceae, Strelitziaceae and Zingiberaceae, the the median tepal of the outer whorl being posterior, adaxial). The floral irregularity involving the perianth and involving the androecium. Flowers 3 merous; cyclic. Perigone tube present to absent (the five joined tepals plus the one one more or less free tepal forming a tube, which can widen without bursting when visited by relatively broad-beaked birds).
Perianth of tepals; 6; joined (the median member of the outer series more or less free from the rest, which are fused to form a five-dentate or five-lobed, boat shaped upper lip); 2 whorled; isomerous; petaloid; similar in the two whorls to different in the two whorls.
Androecium 6. Androecial members free of the perianth; free of one another. Androecium including staminodes. Staminodes 1 (the odd member of the outer series, closing the slit in the perianth tube); petaloid (somewhat), or non-petaloid (then subulate). Stamens 5; reduced in number relative to the adjacent perianth. Anthers basifixed; tetrasporangiate. Microsporogenesis successive. Pollen grains nonaperturate; 2-celled.
Gynoecium 3 carpelled. Carpels isomerous with the perianth. The pistil 3 celled. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; inferior. Ovary 3 locular. Gynoecium stylate. Styles 1 (often somewhat curved and slightly clavate); apical. Stigmas 1, or 3; wet type; papillate. Placentation basal to axile. Ovules 1 per locule; non-arillate; anatropous; bitegmic; crassinucellate. Embryo-sac development Polygonum-type. Endosperm formation nuclear.
Fruit fleshy; a schizocarp. Mericarps (2–)3; comprising drupelets, or comprising berrylets (?). Fruit 3 seeded. Seeds copiously endospermic. Perisperm present. Seeds triangular. Embryo weakly differentiated (at least when the seed first matures). Cotyledons 1. Embryo straight. Testa operculate (at the micropylar end); without phytomelan; often blue.
Seedling. Hypocotyl internode present (short). Seedling collar conspicuous. Cotyledon hyperphyll compact; non-assimilatory. Coleoptile absent (but with pronounced cotyledon sheath lobes). Seedling cataphylls present. First leaf dorsiventral. Primary root ephemeral.
Physiology, phytochemistry. Not cyanogenic. Proanthocyanidins present.
Geography, cytology. Neotropical. Tropical. Tropical America. X = 12.
Taxonomy. Subclass Monocotyledonae. Dahlgren et al. Superorder Zingiberiflorae; Zingiberales. APG 3 core angiosperms; Superorder Lilianae; commelinid Monocot; Order Zingiberales.
Species 80. Genera 1; only genus, Heliconia.
Illustrations. • Technical details: Heliconia. • Technical details: Heliconia (Lindley).
The descriptions are offered for casual browsing only. We strongly advise against extracting comparative information from them. This is much more easily achieved using the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, distributions of character states within any set of taxa, geographical distribution, genera included in each family, and classifications (Dahlgren; Dahlgren, Clifford, and Yeo; Cronquist; APG).
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The families of flowering plants: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 16th May 2016. delta-intkey.com’.


wrote the Bible?
Dr. Herbert Samworth
this question we must note what the Bible says about itself. In
the second letter of Peter, in the first chapter and verse twenty-one,
we read the following words, "men moved by the Holy Spirit
spoke from God."
we might think that this is talking about oral speech but the context
shows that Peter is speaking about the Scriptures and the confidence
we may have in believing what they reveal to us.
verse tells us that men spoke. So the first part of the answer to
the question is that men wrote the Word of God. The Bible is a unique
book that was written over the period of nearly fifteen hundred
years. We believe there were at least forty persons who wrote books.
Some of these individuals are well known because they identified
themselves as the authors. For example, persons such as Paul, James,
and Peter said that they wrote books. Other books, including Kings
and Chronicles of the Old Testament, are not identified with specific
authors. However, we believe that persons, including Ezra the Scribe,
studied the official records and compiled the books from them.
differed in many ways. Some were Pharisees, including Paul. Others
were fishermen such as Peter and John. Matthew was a tax collector.
David was the King of Israel and the man after God's own heart.
Amos was a shepherd from Judah who was sent to prophesy against
the nation of Israel. Although their backgrounds and occupations
were vastly different, they were men who accomplished the will of
It is an
amazing thing to consider that the Bible, written by over forty
men and over a period of fifteen hundred years, has a common theme:
the redemption of sinful man by a gracious and loving God.
of the theme leads us to the second part of the answer regarding
who wrote the Bible. The Bible claims to be the word of the living
God. So a short answer is that God wrote the Bible. It is His book.
How did God accomplish this wonderful task? While He did through
the instrumentality of men, He superintended its writing through
the power and ministry of the Holy Spirit.
state definitively exactly how God oversaw the writing of the book.
Theologians have used such terms as "organic inspiration"
that means God used the background experiences and personality traits
of the persons but still caused them to write the message that He
desired to have communicated. Whatever may have been the exact method,
we can be confident that the Bible has come directly from God. The
Bible is the Gospel or the good news of how sinful man can be reconciled
is what one person has called a "linguistic incarnation?"
What does that mean? Simply stated it means that the Bible is 100%
the word of man and 100% the word of God.
we should be that God has communicated His message of grace to us.
Perhaps you still have questions regarding its source. The best
suggestion is to take the Bible and begin to read it. Before you
do that, ask the Lord to give insight and understanding of what
it means and how it applies to your life. As you do this, you will
discover that what the Bible claims about itself is true. "Holy
men have spoken from God."


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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
Spain where both languages are understood and spoken by the peasants. This zone varies considerably in width. By the city ofthere is a deep recess cut in the Basque. Castilian
being the official language, andthe capital of the province, the people in its vicinity have been compelled to adopt this language. They have forgotten their native Basque tongue entirely. At Bilbao, also an official city, the Spanish is actively forcing its way in; although the Basque language has more persistently held its own along this side. All along the frontier in Spain the Basque is on the retreat, much of the movement having taken place since the sixteenth century. In France, on the other hand, the Basque tongue holds its own. The line of demarcation between the Basque and the Bearnais-French patois is clean and clear cut. There is no evidence of an invasion of territory by the


Linux Exposed: Attacks Exposed
Jul 15, 2003, 08:30 (3 Talkback[s])
[ Thanks to pascal for this link.
"How serious a particular attack type is depends on two things:
how the attack is carried out, and what damage is done to the
compromised system. An attacker being able to run code on his
machine is probably the most serious kind of attack for a home
user. For an e-commerce company, a denial of service (DoS) attack
or information leakage may be of more immediate concern. Each
vulnerability that can lead to compromise can be traced to a
particular category, or class, of attack.The properties of each
class give you a rough feel for how serious an attack in that class
is, as well as how hard it is to defend against. In this article,
we explain each of the attack classes in detail, including what
kinds of damage they can cause the victim, as well as what the
attacker can gain by using them.
"As we mentioned, attacks can be placed into one of a few
categories. Our assertion regarding the severity of attack is
something we should look into for a little better understanding.
Attacks can lead to anything from leaving your systems without the
ability to function, to giving a remote attacker complete control
of your systems to do whatever he pleases.We discuss severity of
attacks later in this article, placing them on a line of severity.
Let's first look at the different types of attacks and discuss
them. In this article, we examine seven categorized attack


The acronym STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In the 2010 State of the Union address, the President of the United States emphasized the need for advancing educational initiatives in the areas of math and science. While the US remains the world leader in scientific research and discovery, economists have noted that foreign countries have created competition for jobs by making significant advances in STEM industries. Since we know our economy is driven by innovation, more than ever before, we need to equip our children with STEM skills so that they are prepared to compete in the global marketplace.
At Jack Anderson, we are preparing our students to be college and career ready by providing a curriculum emphasizing STEM opportunities at an early age. Our STEM lab is a dedicated space for teachers to encourage discovery, critical thinking, exploratory learning, use of technology, and to actively engage our students in hands-on problem solving activities.
Jack Anderson Elementary is committed to:
- enriching every student, every day, in integrated learning experiences that are relevant and necessary for the next level of success.
- empowering learners to interact with purposeful dialogue as they ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve.
- ensuring a collaborative culture exists to increase the capacity of staff as we evolve in professional and leadership opportunities.
- entrusting strong community partners who provide guidance and assistance ncecessary for sustaining innovative progress.
Our STEM Goals
- To continue to implement a STEM curriculum that creates STEM literate students who define problems, problem-solve, test, and make improvements both in collaborative teams and individually using science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
- To fund weekly K-5 STEM problem-solving challenges.
- To continue free before and after school enrichment opportunities to reach under-represented groups in STEM fields.
- To continue to provide STEM professional development to support ongoing STEM integration across content areas.
- To facilitate one STEM speaker per quarter per grade group.
- To increase STEM community partners to fund the STEM program.
JAE STEM Lab
The STEM lab initiative is financially supported by our parents, PTO, and our before/after school program, Jags Tree House. The lab is equipped with 24 iPads, stainless steel lab tables and stools, numerous educational models, and an abundance of science and mathematics resources to promote STEM collaborative exploration.
STEM Outdoor Classroom
The STEM Outdoor Classroom allows two classrooms of students to utilize the open-air space simultaneously. The classroom contains mostly native species of plants and has all of the necessary components to make it a certified Monarch Waystation. The space, which can also be used as a weather station, is equipped with a rain barrel, and other scientific testing instruments to help students learn about weather, plant life-cycles, environmental resource management, and sustainability.
Sponsored by the school’s PTO, the classroom was designed by local landscape architect R. Hartley Scott of Long Hollow Gardens and Nursery in Gallatin. Both the design and most of the plant materials were donated by Long Hollow Gardens and Nursery, and their experienced staff is a STEM learning partner for the school’s growing STEM program. Other partners and supporters in the Outdoor Classroom project include the Sumner County Schools Maintenance Department, The Memorial Foundation, The Sutt Family, Botsko Builders, Garrott Brothers, Stark Truss, Inc., Eagle Scout Matthew Flood & Troop 75, Northern Middle Tennessee FCA, Gupton Motors, Inc., 84 Lumber, Tabor Dental, and TCS Roofing.


How a child is born: a series of breathtaking photographs showing the development of the fetus until birth
The photographer Lennart Nilsson spent 10 years of his life documenting human fetus growth, from pregnancy to birth.
The world first heard about Lennart Nilsson in 1965, when "Life" magazine published 16-pages of photographs of human fetuses. Immediately after, the photographs were also published in famous magazines like the Sunday Times, Paris Match, and more.
Microscopes and cameras were Nilsson's passion even in childhood. Over time, his ambitions became reality and he could show the world the beauty of the human body at the microscopic level. He managed to capture the first images of a fetus already in 1957, but they weren't good enough to publish.
Nilsson was able to capture the most accurate images with a Cystoscope – a medical instrument used to examine the inside of the bladder. He attached a camera along with a small light, and took thousands of pictures in the life of a fetus inside of his mother's uterus.
Nilsson has produced something fantastic: for the first time, people were able to see with their own eyes the birth process and the initial phase of the development of human life.
Sperm cell traveling along the fallopian tube towards the egg
The critical moment
One of the 200 million sperm cells of the father penetrate the membrane of the egg
The perspective of the sperm cell. The head contains all the genetic information
A week later, the fetus wanders to the uterus, as he floats down through the fallopian tube
Another week has passed, and the fetus attaches to the uterus wall.
The fetus after 22 days growth. The gray part will become the child's brain
After 18 days of development, the fetus's heart starts working
28 days after fertilization
At the fifth week, the fetus is 9mm long; You can now see face with openings of mouth, eyes and nostrils.
40 days. The outer cells of the fetus join the uterus wall loose area to form the placenta.
8 weeks of development
10 weeks. The eyelids are half open already. Within a few days they will be completed.
In 10 weeks the fetus already use his hands to examine the environment
You can now see the lines of blood vessels through the skin
18 weeks. The fetus can hear noises from the outside world
20 weeks. In 20 cm length, hair starts to grow on his head.
6 months ago
36 weeks. Within a month, the baby will be born
Nilsson's book, A Child is Born, was published in 1965.燱ithin a few days it was sold out in stores, and it was published again many times afterwards, to become the most popular photo book of all time.
Today Lennart Nilsson is 94 years old, and still interested in science and photography.


By Michelle Schober, MD
James Baldwin said, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can change until it is faced.” Many who previously doubted the existence of racial inequity in our society now finally accept it as a grave problem. Sadly, many of the newly convinced fail to internalize the realization, thus perpetuating racial inequity by inaction.
Individual inaction often stems from the unconscious separation many create between “society” and our day-to-day lives. Compartmentalization of the racial inequity “out there” separate from our professional and personal lives perpetuates racial inequity. If we truly want change, each one of us must de-compartmentalize and act. What does de-compartmentalization and action mean for health care professionals? What does it mean for the Neurocritical Care Society (NCS)?
Action begins with gaining understanding of how racial inequity was created in the United States. The history of racial inequity begins with the arrival of the first enslaved Africans to Jamestown in 1619, continues through the de facto slavery imposed on African Americans between the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 until the Civil Rights Act of 1968 on to the present day. As a result of economic and cultural segregation over many generations, Black Americans today have lower rates of homeownership, inherited wealth, opportunities for socioeconomic advancement and income, among other socioeconomic indices, relative to White Americans.
What about racial inequity, specifically regarding Black Americans, in the field of neurocritical care? Unlike racial representation data in many other areas of professional endeavor, statistics on Black Americans in this field are not readily available. However, available information suggests that racial inequity also exists among neurocritical care professionals. First, Blacks account for about half of the percentage of physicians and surgeons than they would if racial inequity did not exist, as shown in Figure 1. In contrast, gender disparities have almost disappeared.
Figure 1. Data obtained by Data USA.
Lane-Fall, et al (Diversity in the Emerging Critical Care Workforce: Analysis of Demographic Trends in Critical Care Fellows from 2004–2014, published in Critical Care Medicine in 2017) stated the number of critical care fellows rose in that time period, but the percentage of Black critical care fellows remained unchanged (5% in 2004 compared to 4% in 2013-2014). Information on neurointensivists in practice or training is not readily available using public sources, such as PubMed. Navigating websites for the four groups endorsing the Neurocritical Care Boards (American Board of Anesthesiology, American Board of Emergency Medicine, American Board of Neurological Surgery, and the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology) did not yield any data. Finally, the NCS website did not provide this information.
How can we address racial inequity among neurocritical care providers without rich and readily available information on racial representation in our profession? How can we change what we cannot see?
Diversity in the workforce matters. From the business to the entertainment world, inclusivity has yielded great gains in companies’ finances and corporate well-being and has improved product quality due to the broader set of perspectives on a given problem or idea that was achieved. Proven methodologies to increase diversity exist in business, entertainment arenas and in the sciences among others. As an example, the American Physics Society increased recruitment and retention of individuals from underrepresented racial, ethnic and socioeconomic groups using a methodical approach. For more information, see “Making Physics More Inclusive” by T. Hodapp and E. Brown (Nature 557, 629-632 (2018)).
In Neuroscience research, racial inequity is even deeper. As outlined in detail by Abiodun SJ in “Seeing Color, A Discussion of the Implications and Applications of Race in the Field of Neuroscience” published in August of 2019 in Front. Hum. Neuroscience, Blacks constitute a still exceedingly small percentage of researchers, tenured professors and funded researchers. Blacks remain underrepresented as research subjects. It is now recognized that many instances of past research in Black populations were unethical. Clearly, racial inequity exists not only in the clinical but in the research arenas of neurocritical care.
Increased racial diversity in neurocritical Care would help address some of the gaps in research into neurologic conditions such as stroke, depression and dementia, to name a few, that disproportionately impact Blacks. As an example of these health conditions, the American Heart Association in 2017 reported that the magnitude of association between systolic blood pressure (SBP) levels and stroke risk is three times greater in African Americans than in Whites; a 10–mm Hg difference in SBP is associated with an 8% (95% CI, 0–16) increase in the stroke risk in whites but a 24% (95% CI, 14–35) increase in non-Whites. Stroke mortality has fallen by 80% across all ages over the past 60 years, but no meaningful decrease in the magnitude of the African American to White racial disparity in stroke mortality has occurred in that time span.
A pooled analysis of ARIC and the CHS (Cardiovascular Health Study) showed that the RR of intracerebral hemorrhage for African Americans versus Whites was 5.8 at 45 years, 1.7 at 65 years, and 0.94 at 75 years of age.21 Among 45- to 64-year-olds in REGARDS, the incidence rate of intracerebral hemorrhage (per 100 000) was doubled for African Americans (46.0; 95% CI, 26.5–79.7) compared with Whites (21.5; 95% CI, 11.2–41.2).
Black Americans are less likely to receive anti-depressant therapy before completing suicide and less likely to receive second-generation antipsychotics than White Americans. Of relevance to police brutality, people with untreated mental illness are 16 times more likely to be killed in an encounter with law enforcement, as found by a report from the Treatment Advocacy Center in 2015. Addressing racial inequity in society would also indirectly improve stroke outcomes, as anticipated based on the fact that perceived racial discrimination is associated with all aspects of health, including hypertension, obesity, persistent inflammation and cardiovascular disease. Finally, healthcare delivery improves when patients and providers share similar perspectives and can communicate effectively, as shown in the SUCCEED study.
We can only change what we face. If we as neurocritical care professionals care about racial inequity, we must obtain and share a diagnostic overview of how racial inequity shows itself in our field. Once we face that, we can change.
NCS approved a diversity, equality and inclusion statement during its 2019 Board meeting, and this is integrated into the Strategic Plan for 2020-2022. In September 2020, the Board approved the new committee, Inclusion In Neurocritical Care (INCC), to oversee processes to increasing inclusiveness and advise the Society on methods to increase membership among the underrepresented. This committee receives reports from the Women In Neurocritical Care (WINCC), Sexual and Gender Minorities (SGM) and underrepresented Races and Ethnicities in Healthcare and Intersection Concepts (UREHIC) subcommitteees. This effort moves NCS closer to embracing its diversity and ensuring that all Society members are engaged in diversity efforts.


Screen 56 Up with similar documentaries from other countries that were inspired by the Up series. Films have been made featuring children from the former Soviet Union, South Africa, Australia and the United States. Encourage people to identify events and issues that are universal and those that are specific to particular cultures, classes or locations.
Document yourself and/or your family. Take (or review) your own home movies and compare across time. Consider sharing your records with others, perhaps via a social media site.
Host a block party so people in your neighborhood can learn more about each other and to celebrate the diversity in your own community. Decorate with displays of photos that record the span of years that each person has lived in the neighborhood. Invite the people in the photos to share stories about what neighborhood life was like in the year that each photo was taken.
Research sociological patterns of marriage, divorce and childbirth for the years covered in 56 Up (1964, 1970, 1977, 1984, 1991, 1998, 2005 and 2012). Investigate the historical context that might have influenced people’s lives in each of these years and assess how typical or representative the film’s subjects were.


Having respiratory illnesses is not solely caused by smoking. Sometimes, even the healthiest individuals will not be spared from lung conditions simply because they’re exposed to high levels of radon for a long period of time.
Radon is a silent killer that can be present in your own home or offices. That’s why radon testing services in Utah are increasing in number. Before you get alarmed, it’s important to understand what it is to manage and prevent it from posing serious health conditions.
What is radon?
Radon is present everywhere albeit in really low amounts. It’s found in soil and is a colorless, odorless radioactive gas produced by decaying uranium. Therefore, people breathe in radon every day. However, there are certain areas that have high radon concentration. This can be anywhere from your office, stores, schools, or even your home.
How does it get to your home?
Radon can seep into your home through wall pores and concrete. However, gaps in windows and doors are one of the most common culprits. A huge amount of radon can enter your home through these gaps and remain trapped inside. You and your family might unknowingly be living and breathing radon for years now. That’s why it’s important to get checked regularly.
Does your home need radon testing?
Not because your neighbor has high radon levels does not mean your home has, too. Every property is different. There are no tell-tale signs signifying that your home has high radon levels. It takes years for the body to react for too much radon exposure. Therefore, it pays to have your home tested regularly and take the necessary steps needed if the levels are found to be too high.
It’s never too late to have your home tested for radon. The earlier you know about it, the lesser damage can be done to you and your family’s health.


The study from Orb Media claimed that around 93% of bottled water tested show ‘some sign of microplastic contamination’; but the industry points out that microplastic particles are found across the environment in soil, air and water.
The study found roughly twice as many plastic particles (>100um) in bottled water as tap water; and more particles in plastic bottles than in glass bottles. The authors of the study say that the data suggests contamination is ‘at least partially coming from the packaging and/or the bottling process’.
However, the International Bottled Water Association (IBWA) says the findings ‘do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers’, given that the study is not peer reviewed and there is no scientific consensus on testing methodology or the potential health impact of microplastic particles.
The study from Orb Media, a non-profit journalism organization, examined 259 bottles from nine countries and 11 brands: including Aquafina (PepsiCo), Dasani (Coca-Cola), evian (Danone), Nestlé Pure Life and San Pellegrino (Nestlé).
Scientists from the State University of New York in Fredonia used a Nile Red stain, a fluorescent dye that attaches itself to polymeric material, to assess samples.
It examined plastic particles >100 um (approximately the diameter of a human hair); and also detected particles <100um which ‘were not spectroscopically confirmed to be microplastics...[but] rationally expected to be plastic or of some other anthropogenic origin.’
“The densities of microplastic contamination are quite variable ranging from 17 bottles with no contamination to one bottle that showed an excess of 10,000 microplastic particles per liter,” says the study.
The study also compared one lot of glass with one lot of plastic from the same source.
“While both of these packaged waters have the same water source, there was considerably less microplastic contamination within the water bottled in glass as compared to that packaged in plastic. This indicates that some of the microplastic contamination is likely coming from the water source, but a larger contribution might be originating from the packaging itself”.
IBWA challenges ‘probably plastic’ claim
The International Bottled Water Association (IBWA), British Soft Drink Association (BSDA), PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Danone have responded to the study, all standing by the safety of bottled water and emphasizing high quality standards and adherence with regulations.
Impact on health?
With regard to what impact plastic particles have on health, ‘the short answer is that scientists don’t really know yet’, says Orb Media in its investigation.
While some scientists suggest microplastics pass through the gut without leaving an impression, others suggest that particles could be taken up by intestinal tissue.
Orb Media concludes that the knowledge gap is in itself reason for concern; particularly given the level of exposure to plastics on a day-to-day basis.
The WHO has announced it will review the potential risks of plastic in drinking water, saying that ‘although there was not yet any evidence on impacts on human health, it was aware it was an emerging area of concern’.
All warn against drawing conclusions from a study that has not been peer reviewed and has a number of limitations.
The IBWA goes as far as to say that Orb Media ‘has preconceived positions on issues'.
“The study’s “probably plastic” findings are weak at best and reporting it as news is alarmist and not responsible journalism,” it says.
The bottled water industry adds that thousands of other food products also use plastic containers and that microplastic particles are found in all aspects of the environment (such as soil, air and water), adding there is no evidence or scientific consensus on the potential impacts of microplastics on human health.
However, manufacturers say they will support research into microplastics, which is still an emerging field.
Here is what the industry has to say:
Danone (evian): “Microplastic is an emerging issue that we, at Danone Waters but also with the rest of the bottled water industry and the scientific community, are following closely.
“To date, there is no applicable regulatory framework or scientific consensus with respect to the adequate testing methodology or potential impacts of microplastic particles which could be found in any bottling environment.
“Concerning Orb Media study: Danone Waters is not in a position to comment as some aspects of the testing methodology used remain unclear and there are no details regarding the statistical significance versus the blank value.
“In general, there is still limited data on the topic and conclusions differ dramatically from one study to another. For example, a recent scientific study published in the peer-reviewed journal Water Research in February 2018 concluded that no statistically-relevant amount of microplastic can be found in water in single-use plastic bottles.
“Preserving the purity of our spring and natural mineral waters requires high-quality packaging, and we conduct extensive qualification testing before use. All our packaging is food grade and does not migrate into the water. Our bottling process respects the highest hygiene, quality and food safety standards."
Coca-Cola: “The quality of our products and safety of our consumers are of paramount importance to us and we take them extremely seriously.
“We have some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry, and the water we use in our drinks is subject to multi-step filtration processes prior to production.
"As Orb Media’s own reporting has shown, microscopic plastic fibers appear to be ubiquitous, and therefore may be found at minute levels even in highly treated products. We stand by the safety of our products, and welcome continued study of plastics in our environment.”
Nestlé: “To date, we have not found micro-plastic compounds beyond a trace level in our products and know that false-positives related to compounds naturally present in the water can be an issue.
"Nestlé Waters is at the forefront of further research on microplastics and, although no regulatory limits exist, and recent scientific investigations show that they can be present in the air, it is something we continue to monitor and research using state-of-the-art techniques.
"We are open to discuss and collaborate with Orb Media and to work with the wider scientific community to develop a better understanding around test methods and the science behind micro-plastics."
Aquafina (PepsiCo): "Aquafina maintains rigorous quality control measures, sanitary manufacturing practices, filtration and other food safety mechanisms which yield a reliably safe product for enjoyment anywhere in the world.
“The science on microplastics and microfibers is an emerging field, in its infancy, which requires further scientific analysis, peer-reviewed research and greater collaboration across many stakeholders. Microplastic particles may be created from innumerable sources and are found across our environment – including the soil, air and water. We are interested in being part of any serious scientific research into micro-plastics. Aquafina continues to maintain the highest safety and quality standards for our products.”
IBWA: “The non-peer reviewed study released by Orb Media is not based on sound science, and there is no scientific consensus on testing methodology or the potential health impacts of microplastic particles. Therefore, this study’s findings do nothing more than unnecessarily scare consumers.
“Scientific experts in the field told the BBC News, “The particles below 100 microns had not been identified as plastic” [emphasis added] and that “since the alternatives would not be expected in bottled water, they could be described as probably plastic" [emphasis added]. Those not-identified substances made up the vast majority of particles counted. The study even acknowledged that the make-up of those particles was not confirmed but could "rationally expected to be plastic.”
“The study’s “probably plastic” findings are weak at best and reporting it as news is alarmist and not responsible journalism.” (full statement here)
BSDA: “It is important to note that thousands of other food products also use plastic containers and that microplastic particles are found in all aspects of our environment – soil, air and water.
“There is no evidence or scientific consensus worldwide about the potential impacts of microplastic particles on human health. The study by Orb Media has not been through a scientific peer review and has a number of limitations.
“Our members have some of the most stringent quality standards in the industry, with all bottled water products produced using a multi-barrier approach. We stand by the safety of our bottled water and remain committed to providing consumers with the highest quality products.”
* You can read about Orb Media’s investigation, including a link to the study, here.