text
stringlengths 187
640k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 11
values | url
stringlengths 14
1.94k
| file_path
stringlengths 125
138
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.65
1
| token_count
int64 49
156k
| score
float64 2.52
5.06
| int_score
int64 3
5
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Sepsis is responsible for a large percentage of human deaths each year and the mortality has remained unchanged despite advances
in critical care. In small animals, sepsis is also a frequent contributor to morbidity and mortality. Septic peritonitis
in animals may be the presenting complaint to the emergency service, or may be a complication of a surgical procedure such
as enterotomy or gastric resection.
In sepsis, the local systemic response to infection that is designed to be protective becomes systemic and affects other body
systems. The classic scenario for the cascade of events that result in sepsis begins with exposure to endotoxin, a component
of the cell wall of gram-negative bacteria (or lipoteichoic acid in the case of gram positive bacteria). Exposure to endotoxin
activates neutrophils and macrophages to secrete inflammatory cytokines, the most well studied cytokines being tumor necrosis
factor (TNF), interleukin-1 (IL-1), and interleukin 6 (IL-6). Under normal circumstances, cytokines and other inflammatory
mediators are responsible for the early clinical signs of sepsis (fever, neutropenia) and normally interact to neutralize
the infection and generate a mild inflammatory response. If this immune response is overwhelmed, excessive inflammatory mediators
are released leading ultimately to organ failure, shock and death.
The key changes associated with massive release of inflammatory mediators have important therapeutic implications and include
disruption of microvascular permeability, nitric oxide mediated vasodilation, activation of coagulation with consumption of
endogenous anticoagulants, and myocardial depression.
Systemic Inflammatory Response Syndrome (SIRS) is described as the systemic response to a variety of clinical insults including
bacteria, fungal, or tissue injury. In order for a dog to have SIRS, 2 out of the following 4 criteria should be present:
Tachycardia, leukocytosis or leukopenia, hypo-or hyperthermia, and tachypnea. A big limiting factor to the clinical usefulness
of these criteria is that dog, unlike people, pant and therefore the respiratory component of these criteria is subjectively
evaluated. In cats, similar criteria have been proposed (but not validated), with a tentative diagnosis of SIRS if 3 out of
4 criteria are fulfilled. Cats have a tendency to be bradycardic when shock is present, so in cats tachycardia or bradycardia
is included for the diagnosis of SIRS. It is important to note that these criteria are far from ideal. Sepsis is considered
the systemic response to a documented infection. Animals are septic if they have an infection in addition to SIRS. Because
of this, the definition of sepsis in people includes evidence of SIRS (2/4 criteria listed above), along with 'gross, histopathological,
or microbiological evidence of infection or a strong suspicion of infection'.
Severe sepsis describes sepsis along with evidence of organ dysfunction (hyperbilirubinemia, thrombocytopenia, azotemia, altered
mental state). Septic shock describes sepsis along with hypotension that is refractory to therapy and requires vasopressor
therapy. Many dogs that present to the emergency room collapsed with evidence of sepsis are erroneously diagnosed with septic
shock. They may be experiencing shock, and they may be septic, but they can only be diagnosed with septic shock if hypotension
persists despite adequate fluid resuscitation. Parameters that can be used to guide fluid therapy include calculation of
a shock dose of crytalloids or colloids, central venous pressure monitoring (difficult to use in an emergency situation due
to the need for a central line), lactate concentration, and echocardiography to look for left ventricular filling. | <urn:uuid:f9893b94-84ef-4795-9439-038f3753e4c9> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://veterinarycalendar.dvm360.com/avhc/Medicine/Management-of-septic-peritonitis-more-than-surgery/ArticleStandard/Article/detail/830369?contextCategoryId=47597 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010980041/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091620-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898904 | 828 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Here are some methods to help you begin your Bible study program.
How should you begin? Several time-tested Bible study methods have proven to be helpful. One is to simply read through the Scriptures book by book, fixing the context of verses clearly in mind.
Another is to do word studies to find out what various expressions mean. A word study is an examination of many or all of the verses that contain a specific word or phrase from the original Hebrew or Greek. (However, keep in mind that many times the same English expression has been used to translate different Hebrew or Greek expressions, which can be confusing.)
Helpful tools for Hebrew and Greek word studies would be concordances such as Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible , expository dictionaries such as Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words and Bible computer software.
You should also read the Bible for inspiration and encouragement. The book of Psalms and chapters 5-7 of Matthew—known as Jesus' Sermon on the Mount—are inspiring sections of Scripture.
Perhaps the best way to fully grasp biblical truths, though, is to study specific topics. Many people assume or reason an entire belief or doctrine from a single scripture. But that is generally not the way to understand God's Word. Biblical teachings are best understood in the light of all the scriptures on the subject.
Unlike most books, the message of the Bible is, in some ways, like a jigsaw puzzle. Only when all the pieces are arranged properly can a clear picture emerge. Consider the example of Jesus Christ, who quoted dozens of relevant scriptures from all parts of the Old Testament to make His points. The first chapter of Hebrews draws pertinent passages from Psalms, 2 Samuel, Deuteronomy and Isaiah—an example of what Paul said in 2 Timothy:2:15: "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
To fully understand what the Bible has to say on any given subject, we must look up all the verses that bear on that topic. Then, rather than human interpretations of God's Word, we will have God's own explanation of what He means.
For more information and help in your studies, please read our Free Bible Study Course online or request your own physical copy. | <urn:uuid:42b04d68-0732-4611-955c-4bf42bb3ca35> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ucg.org/bible-faq/how-do-i-begin-bible-study-program | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010980041/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091620-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934483 | 480 | 3 | 3 |
HOUSTON — HOUSTON (AP) - A historic drought has depleted Texas aquifers to lows rarely seen since 1948, and it could take months - or even years - for the groundwater supplies to fully recharge, scientists who study NASA satellite data said Wednesday.
Climatologists, hydrologists and even local residents had suspected the drought that has parched Texas for 14 months was significantly hurting the precious aquifers that course beneath the Lone Star State. Data compiled by NASA satellites combined with information from the University of Nebraska's National Drought Mitigation Center confirm those fears.
"We can say with more confidence that yes, the groundwater storage is being reduced," said drought center climatologist Brian Fuchs.
Texas has received a little more than 12 inches of rain this year, which is 15.5 inches below normal, said Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon. He noted that despite some recent rain, the deficit has actually grown since last month by about an inch.
NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, satellites are unique because rather than measuring light on wavelengths, they measure gravity based on mass variations, making them sensitive to changes in water on or below the Earth's surface, no matter how deep, explained NASA hydrologist Matthew Rodell. Scientists took that data and combined it with other information to create a numerical model that simulates the water redistribution after it rains. They were then able to conclude that the aquifers are at lows seen only 2 percent of the time since 1948, when mapping began.
"People rely on groundwater, especially in times like this when it's dry, because groundwater provides a reserve of water when it doesn't rain," Rodell said. "But we're in a deficit now. We're drawing down our bank account."
It doesn't look like those supplies will be replenished by rain in the coming months, Fuchs said. The La Nina weather pattern currently cooling the Pacific Ocean typically causes warmer, drier weather in Texas and other parts of the South. The best hope for rain, he believes, will be in the spring.
"The likelihood of recovery or any substantial improvements is probably not going to be there," Fuchs said.
The longer the drought persists, the more the groundwater is depleted - not only because rain is not recharging the aquifers, but also because more people are using that water. As the aquifers are depleted, some people may have to drill deeper wells, Rodell said. Others may not have that luxury; the wells may already be as deep as possible.
Some recent rains appear to have improved the soil quality in parts of Texas, Rodell said, but it will take much more to recharge the aquifers. A few days of constant rain could help, he added, but typically most of that rain runs off. Really, Texas needs a few rainy months - or a wet year - to replenish its groundwater supply.
"Typically, it's going to take months to years of above average rainfalls to bring aquifers back up," he said.
You can follow Ramit Plushnick-Masti at https://twitter.com/RamitMastiAP | <urn:uuid:dab69830-3110-4de3-9fac-a88c341abd6e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/nov/30/nasa-satellites-find-texas-aquifers-at-record/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678702159/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024502-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966698 | 657 | 3.328125 | 3 |
I am a huge fan of the webcomic, XKCD, which is a very geeky and amusing comic for those of you who haven’t read it. On Friday, the following comic was posted:
And this of course reminded me of when I first started programming — I started with assembly language in 2000 with an 80286 I got out of the trash. I quickly became interested in low-level system programming, and created a number of MBR-based programs and other random programs in assembly. I haven’t programmed in assembly in a couple years, but this was pretty simple once I started going.
In any case, the comic has inspired me to write a Windows-based program that can write a “love note” to the MBR and display it when the computer starts. And of course, just for fun it shows the “Missing operating system” message as well. Shown is a screenshot:
OBVIOUSLY this can be a very dangerous program, and could very well destroy your computer. In fact, I would assume any antivirus program worth its salt would detect this as a virus (I haven’t formally tested this assumption). So, don’t use it unless you really know what you’re doing. The number of people that would fit that description is around 0.001% of the population of computer programmers.
- Don’t use this program if you do not know how to uninstall this program
manually. For that reason, there is no uninstaller.
- Don’t use this on 64-bit machines or ones with EFI — I really have no idea if it will work on those machines, but I seriously doubt it would. If you don’t know what EFI is, don’t use this program.
- Don’t use this on machines with GRUB, it will kill your system.
- Don’t use this on any system that is important to you or one that you do not own/control, it may kill that system, and you will get in trouble.
- Don’t use this program if you cannot pass the following quiz without any
references. Especially don’t use this program if you have no idea how to
decode the answers to the quiz.
- What is the difference between an MBR and a boot sector?
- What does interrupt 0×19 do?
- What offset does the partition table start at in an MBR, and how many bytes is each entry?
- What offset is the “signature” of the MBR located at, and what is it?
Quiz Answers (encoded in ROT13)
- Obbg frpgbef ner qrsvarq cre cnegvgvba, gurer vf bayl bar (hfrq) ZOE.
- Vg vf gur vagreehcg pnyyrq gb obbg sebz n qvfx.
- 0k1OR, fvkgrra olgrf
- Vg vf ybpngrq ng 0k1sr, naq vf 0k55 sbyybjrq ol 0kNN
How it works
You run love.exe in Windows, and it asks you for a message to put on the MBR. After clicking “destroy”, it does it. It will work in XP as administrator. It actually writes the love note to sector 3, the original MBR to sector 2, and a custom MBR to the MBR that displays the note, waits for a key to be pressed, and then loads the original MBR — at which point the computer will continue booting.
I used NASM to compile the MBR code, and Visual Studio 2005 to compile the Windows
installation program. I’ve never coded with MFC before, and this experience has not
motivated me to do it again anytime in the near future.
If you have any questions/comments/bug reports for this, feel free to contact me.
Download link: http://www.virtualroadside.com/software/
Note: In response to the comment by Criveti Mihai, the binary for the MBR sector actually is in the zip file at src/love/love/mbr.bin .. except if you were to install it via DD, you would need to install a message on sector 3 as well.
Note II: apparently the 4th answer to the quiz was incorrect for the last year or so… heh. Told you it was hard! Anyways, thanks to cm for pointing this out. | <urn:uuid:f62f3fe9-ae44-4511-bbf5-a25b6f0ff4d6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.virtualroadside.com/blog/index.php/2007/11/11/inspired-by-xkcd-mbr-love-note/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010491371/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090811-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926805 | 983 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Monday, February 26, 2007
In order for my students to appreciate this week's Limerick, I first have to instruct them in the patois of New York pick-up basketball. You see, those of us who frequent the hard-scrabble asphalt courts of the City have developed our own expressions. For example, sometimes a call in a game can be simultaneously fair and charitable. For example, a player may travel or double-dribble, but only because -- oh, I don't know -- perhaps the sun was in his eyes, or he got scared when a bigger player came up to guard him. In such a case, the traveling player might call out that he was fouled and the other players might agree that allowing the foul would be both fair and charitable, or to use the vernacular "fairitable."
I swear, the word is used all the time in pick-up basketball games. If you don't believe me, just try using it. When someone calls a foul on you, just look him in the eye and say, "Okay, that's fairitable." You will get no argument.
It is for that reason, and not (heavens forfend) because I was desparate for a rhyme, that the word, "fairitable" appears in this Limerick.
Allegheny College v. National Chautauqua County Bank
Although her estate was inheritable,
Ms. Johnston chose to be chartible.
A bargain was struck;
Her heir's out of luck:
To the College Cardozo was fairitable. | <urn:uuid:5ff7d92b-597b-4c37-a0be-f24d2a2104f7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/contractsprof_blog/2007/02/limerick_of_the_3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011030107/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091710-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967618 | 329 | 2.75 | 3 |
Continuing education interests of licensed New York State psychologists serving the zero to five-year-old population
Continuing education (CE) is an essential part of maintaining professional competency. In addition to personal responsibility, professionals also have ethical and legal obligations to remain current with the changes that naturally occur in their respective fields. Psychology is one such profession that relies on CE to keep psychologists abreast of new information. These developments arise from research in the field, as well as medical, technological and legal advances. Increased awareness of CE and professional development has also been brought on by the public's demand for competent professionals, the need for a skilled professional workforce and regulatory and professional associations' ongoing development of standards for practice. ^ Graduate training requires that students remain current in their course of study. However, once new professionals enter the field, their knowledge quickly becomes outdated. The area of infant and early childhood psychology is one such field that has experienced significant changes in the ways professionals work with infants, young children and their families. In New York State, where any child with a pronounced delay in one area of development can qualify for Early Intervention (EI) or Committee on Preschool Special Education (CPSE) services, psychologists are among the first to meet with children and their parents and often provide recommended psychological services after a child is recognized as having special needs and is officially diagnosed. However, there are no available statistics to indicate how psychologists across New York State were trained, in what capacity they currently work, nor how they maintain their professional knowledge about children from birth to five-years-old. To address this gap in information, the Infant and Early Childhood Survey project was established. ^ The Infant and Early Childhood Survey, developed by members of the research task force of the New York Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychologists (formally NYAECIP), now renamed the Association of Early Childhood and Infant Psychologists, (AECIP), was used to gather information about infant and early childhood psychology practice throughout New York. Topics addressed in the Infant and Early Childhood Survey included practitioner's training, practice and, specific to this study, CE interests. Surveys were sent to 2,851 licensed psychologists, one-third of the population of licensed psychologists in New York State at the time the database was acquired. (Abstract shortened by UMI.) ^
Education, Adult and Continuing|Psychology, Clinical
Scott F Gallagher,
"Continuing education interests of licensed New York State psychologists serving the zero to five-year-old population"
(January 1, 2006).
ETD Collection for Pace University. | <urn:uuid:d966c42b-dd83-4826-ad32-9b65e910e589> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://digitalcommons.pace.edu/dissertations/AAI3200173/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968087 | 529 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Liverpool from the Mersey
|Area:||1,909 square miles|
|County flower:||Red rose |
Lancashire is a large and heavily populated county, in population second only to Yorkshire. It runs up the west coast from the Mersey north to Morecambe Bay with a further part north of the sands at Furness.
Lancashire was at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, its cotton mills supplying the Empire and the World. Although competition and changed technology have swept many of the great mills away nevertheless Lancashire is still home to industrial might, and the great towns and cities which grew up in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries still thrive.
Away from the industrial and urban areas, Lancashire contains scenery of much beauty and jarring contrasts. The Furness district in the north sits on the sea at Barrow-in-Furness, a shipyard and industrial town. Behind Barrow though is a land of lakeland fells, forested and mountainous, forming part of the Lake District. Coniston Water, the west bank of Windermere lie in this part of Lancashire.
In the northern part of Lancashire's main body lies Lancaster itself, a modest county town tumbling charmingly down its hill from the Castle to the River Lune. Here the county is fairly narrow, the Pennine Mountains approaching the sea, and the Yorkshire boundary with them.
Between Morecambe Bay and the Ribble Valley, Fylde reaches westward, a broad, flat peninsula whose inland parts are farmland but whose coast is a string of holiday resorts centred on the best known of them all; Blackpool.
Lancashire broadens further south. The coast from the Ribble towards the conurbations of the south has more modest coastal resorts. Inland farmland begins to jostle with industrial towns, the latter becoming bigger and closer together until the great industrial conurbations of south Lancashire. In the southernmost part of the county are Liverpool and Manchester, two of the greatest cities in Britain, whose suburbs spread across not just Lancashire but into Cheshire too.
Liverpool, founded in 1207, was built around its vast docks from the Irish trade then the Atlantic and African trade routes. King John founded his new port at a marshy spot on the Mersey, at the point where the great gulf of the Mersey narrows again into a pinch before entering the Irish Sea. Now though great buildings stand on the waterside, the "Three Graces", and the city has spread all along the Mersey gulf and up the Irish Sea coast.
Manchester, now Britain's most populous city after London, is an older and a younger city; it was a town in Roman days and a fortress borough in Anglo-Saxon times, but it only became a town of national and indeed world significance in the Victorian period, as the heart of the manufacturing revolution. An inland city, its civic arms show a ship and the crest shows the world covered in bees; Manchester's industry reaching the world. The Manchester Ship Canal does indeed link Manchester to the oceans, by way of the Mersey.
|Extreme points of the county|
|Highest||Old Man of Coniston (2,634 ft) (SD27249783)|
|North||Nab Island, Elter Water (NY335041)|
|South||Hale Head (SJ473809)|
|West||Shope Tree Scar, Walney Island (SD167724)|
|East||White Hill (SD995130)|
|Counties of the United Kingdom|
Aberdeen • Anglesey • Angus • Antrim • Argyll • Armagh • Ayr • Banff • Bedford • Berks • Berwick • Brecknock • Buckingham • Bute • Caernarfon • Caithness • Cambridge • Cardigan • Carmarthen • Chester • Clackmannan • Cornwall • Cromarty • Cumberland • Denbigh • Derby • Devon • Dorset • Down • Dumfries • Dunbarton • Durham • East Lothian • Essex • Fermanagh • Fife • Flint • Glamorgan • Gloucester • Hants • Hereford • Hertford • Huntingdon • Inverness • Kent • Kincardine • Kinross • Kirkcudbright • Lanark • Lancaster • Leicester • Lincoln • Londonderry • Merioneth • Middlesex • Midlothian • Monmouth • Montgomery • Moray • Nairn • Norfolk • Northampton • Northumberland • Nottingham • Orkney • Oxford • Peebles • Pembroke • Perth • Radnor • Renfrew • Ross • Roxburgh • Rutland • Selkirk • Shetland • Salop • Somerset • Stafford • Stirling • Suffolk • Surrey • Sussex • Sutherland • Tyrone • Warwick • West Lothian • Westmorland • Wigtown • Wilts • Worcester • York | <urn:uuid:2142b060-9a88-4613-8f5a-791e0b48d754> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://wikishire.co.uk/wiki/Lancashire | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.854443 | 1,036 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Our work > The Threat Posed to the Planet by Climate Change
The Threat Posed to the Planet by Climate Change
What Does 'Climate Change' Actually Mean?
Climate is determined by many dynamic and complex interactions between atmosphere, oceans, cryosphere and land surface, including vegetation. Greenhouses gases in Earth’s atmosphere play a role in this, by trapping energy from the sun, which helps to maintain Earth’s stable temperature (the ‘greenhouse effect’).
Mankind has affected this temperature regulation by releasing increasing quantities of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide into our atmosphere, mainly through burning carbon stored in fossil fuels. This means more heat is trapped by the greenhouse gases, which gradually causes the planet to warm. The complexities of climate regulation make the effects of CO2 difficult to detect, but current scientific consensus is that anthropogenic activities are definitely causing unprecedented global warming.
Predicted Climate Changes
Temperature is predicted to rise by 2 - 4.5°C (global average) by the end of this century. However the effects on climate are not limited to temperature
How Does Climate Change Affect Plants?
Find out how climate change is already effecting plants - the keystone of nearly every biological chain.
Gran Canaria Declaration on Climate Change and Plant Conservation
In issuing its ‘Gran Canaria Declaration on Climate Change and Plant Conservation’ the Gran Canaria Group, whose membership includes many botanic gardens around the world, calls on the international community to take urgent action to protect global plant diversity.
Challenges in Botanical Research and Climate Change
The 2nd World Botanic Gardens Scientific Congresswill be held in Delft, the Netherlands, on 29 June - 4 July 2008. The main themes are Conservation and Climate Change, Bionics, New Systematics and Future Issues. Registration for those wishing to contribute a paper is 15 December
The No-nonsense Guide to Climate Change (Dinyar Godrej, 2001)
This easy to read overview of climate change sifts scientific theory from scientific fact and presents the impacts on health, farming and wildlife, along with an analysis of political negotiations on the issue and potential solutions to it. | <urn:uuid:75c3bdce-9c0d-4943-8919-62f3b692f966> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.bgci.org/ourwork/climate_change_threat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919245 | 445 | 3.625 | 4 |
There’s new controversy swirling around that little yellow packet of Splenda many Americans stir into their morning coffee.
Consumer watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has downgraded sucralose (known by the brand name Splenda) from a “safe” rating to “caution” in its Chemical Cuisine guide after an Italian laboratory found the sweetener caused leukemia in mice.
“Sucralose may prove to be safer than saccharin, aspartame, and acesulfame potassium, but the forthcoming Italian study warrants careful scrutiny before we can be confident that the sweetener is safe for use in food,” said CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson in a statement.
Note that the publication of the Italian study is still forthcoming, a point that McNeil Nutritionals, maker of Splenda, cites in its response to the CSPI downgrade:
“The Center for Science in the Public Interest is basing recent comments about sucralose on data from an Italian research lab that has not been published and, to our knowledge, not peer reviewed. Previous research from this lab has been questioned by global food safety authorities, partly because it did not follow accepted standards essential for assessing safety,” says the company in a statement provided to TakePart.
Lisa Lefferts, a senior scientist with CSPI, says it’s true the laboratory does not follow the usual protocols, but in fact, uses a superior protocol that is better able to detect cancer.
“We have the abstract of the study and what the laboratory said about leukemia. We don’t have the full data yet. That’s why we put ‘caution’ instead of ‘avoid.’ When there is evidence that something causes cancer, we take that pretty seriously. [Sucralose] caused cancer in the animals. We thought that we should pass that information on, and couldn’t, in good conscious, say it was safe,” Lefferts says.
Despite concerns about risks posed by artificial sweeteners, CSPI says consumers who drink soda are still better off consuming diet soda than sugar-sweetened, but urges consumers to swtich to water or drinks like seltzer or unsweetened ice tea. The alternative sweetener Stevoa also remains on the group’s “safe” list.
If you’re not sure what that “caution” label really means, CSPI defines it this way: a substance that “may pose a risk and needs to be better tested. Try to avoid.” Its “avoid” label, which has not yet been attached to Splenda, is defined as: “unsafe in amounts consumed or is very poorly tested and not worth any risk.”
New York University professor of nutrition, food studies and public health Marion Neslte regularly addresses artificial sweeteners on her widely read Food Politics blog. When asked about the new concerns over Splenda, she tells TakePart, “Splenda is and always will be a non-starter for me. One of my top food rules is never to eat anything artificial. If you eat real food, you don’t have to give a thought to whether Splenda is good, bad or indifferent. It’s simply off the table, where I think it should be.”
Lefferts said a release date for the full study has not yet been announced. In the meantime, the food industry continues to work on a bevy of new sweeteners, including Monatin, which is not yet in use in the U.S.
“Companies are also looking at sweetness enhancers—when added to other natural or artificial sweeteners means you won’t need as much,” says Lefferts. | <urn:uuid:d3ffa82d-cc08-4024-990e-770b2b990d83> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://news.yahoo.com/splenda-may-not-splendid-194239789.html?.tsrc=warhol | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678703748/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024503-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949692 | 812 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Streaming video by Ustream
Participating will be Jim Erickson, the project manager for the Curiosity mission; Joy Crisp, a deputy project scientist; and Joe Melko, sampling activity lead. All three scientists work at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Canada Flintridge.
» The latest on traffic, delays and road construction delivered to your mobile phone. Click to sign up to receive text alerts!
The rover is just 10 months into its two-year mission to investigate the area inside the Mars' Gale crater, NASA officials say, but already it has accomplished many of its original goals, including finding evidence of ancient environmental conditions favorable for microbial life.
In the months since the rover survived its "seven minutes of terror" and landed safely on the red planet, it has already discovered rounded rocks that provide evidence of an ancient stream bed on the planet, helped scientists determine how much radiation an astronaut would have to endure on a trip to Mars, and sent back plenty of pictures of itself and its surroundings.
It also got to take a one-month break when the sun came between the Earth and Mars, making it impossible to contact the rover.
To find out what's next for the Mars rover, tune in at 11:30. | <urn:uuid:58dda971-2275-4223-ab26-a6f40834aad3> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.mcall.com/topic/la-sci-sn-nasa-hosts-live-curiosity-update-watch-it-live-here-20130605,0,1751637.story | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678703748/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024503-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944903 | 253 | 2.765625 | 3 |
THE MISNOMER 'INTERPRETATION'
.By Noel Huntley, Ph.D.
Clearly, the two broad factors determining instrumental performance are: technique and artistry. Technique or skill is achieved by training and thus is a product of past experience, in contrast to musical (artistic) ability which is in present time, and is a qualitative expression created in the moment from what we would vaguely call the soul level.
Technique, being fully mechanistic, can easily be evaluated and described in words or even measured, whereas musical ability, in its purest sense, cannot be intellectualised or contrived and is an innate ability endowed at birth. When this statement may be found to be contradictory it is due to a blockage or suppression of the ability which then was released by the person's efforts in overcoming some inhibitory factor.
Thus strictly speaking, musical expression can't be thought out. It is not a property of the conscious mind or intellect. Some may disagree and state that one can analyse a piece of music and make conscious decisions regarding whether to play the notes, say, louder or faster, etc. and the result is an enhancement of artistic expression. It is true that minor improvements in musical sound can be achieved by these contrivances but it is extremely limited and will contribute almost negligible merit to the performance when a high level of talent is being considered. Moreover, and this is the whole point, these deliberations are not dictated by musical ability. Thus even if it sounds better there is no musical control underlying the expression---it will not be integrated holistically.
Musical ability is spontaneous; the higher centres of consciousness automatically cause subtle variations in volume, smoothness, and timing, creating an effect which is merely observed after it has occurred by the performer's conscious mind. When it is occurring, one needn't know any details of how it is happening. Technique depends on space and time, whereas musical ability transcends space and time; it is holistic---it spans space and time as one whole. This is the nature of aesthetics. If, however, the conscious mind tries to observe this, it (the conscious mind) will break down---quantum reduce---the integration into separate components. That is, even in listening to music, the attention must drift away from conscious observation or intellectual analysis to experience the music. This is so rapid and subtle that one will think one is doing both simultaneously.
Consider a musical passage being played on an instrument when the aesthetics of the musical passage is being grasped. The input of energy to the learning patterns controlling the movements, transfers from deliberate conscious control of individual and combined movements directly, to a higher frequency input which spans space and time to a certain degree. This whole input energy works with the holistic nature of the learning patterns in such a way that the individual sounds covered by these learning patterns, spanning maybe a second or two in time, interrelates the degrees of loudness, smoothness and timing, spontaneously and automatically. All these elements exist in a state of unity within a certain interval of time; the learning patterns then provide a spacetime breakdown so that the energies separate out to provide muscular action in space and time. When this occurs the tensions in the muscles are perfectly regulated by this higher process---and the actions are all interrelated and reference one whole (to form the unity of the music). The fine nuances regulated by the aesthetic mind, generally, will not be observable to the conscious mind.
The musical essence of a good composition is a single whole---a single idea. At a higher dimensional level it could be grasped as one whole. However, it is automatically broken down when the conscious mind perceives it but then all parts within that whole must relate to the whole. When we are appreciating music, our attention is spanning time to some degree---as one whole, not as some psychologists have surmised: intellectually combining memory of the past sounds, the present, and future (anticipation). In musical performance the learning patterns can duplicate this unity and the interrelationship of the expressive features, on an instrument that is capable of manifesting such expression.
Let us look at the factors of musical performance as it applies to the individual. The musician's ability is the sum and interrelationship of technique and artistic talent, but also there are numerous other factors. There are personality characteristics which influence the resultant performance. Positive and negative behaviour patterns, such as depressive or excessively cheerful ones, should automatically be overridden by the aesthetics involved in such expression. A talented musician will not be influenced by lower emotions (lower frequencies in the scale: emotions ranging up to aesthetics). Nevertheless different individuals will have different foibles, preferences, dynamism, in addition to, of course, variations in technique/athletic ability and musical perception/understanding.
The influence on the musical expression of many of these personality preferences, peculiarities, and the differences from person to person has led to the use of the term 'interpretation', meaning each individual has his or her own rendering, and it is considered that the merit of this determines the musical accomplishment. Different people may have a different need to express in different ways but these 'ego' characteristics have been allowed to obscure the true meaning of ' interpretation' which is in fact duplication, or recreating the original aesthetic concepts of the composer.
This may be highlighted by a thought experiment in which we create or find a brilliant pianist, technically that is, with no music ability, such as a robot not programmed musically. An expressive piece of music is chosen for the 'robot' to play and compared with each performance by numerous top concert pianists. The difference will be so marked that the observer will detect a common theme of expression for all the concert pianists (but still depending on their true musical understanding). This common theme is the duplication and recreation of the aesthetic content of the music. The personality side or interpretation, which is a relative factor, is now superimposed on the basic absolute aesthetics of the original concepts of the composer.
Another indication of this absolute element is the following. The composer writes the score as well as can be with expression marks such as accents, crescendos, etc. These are only guides, but generally good guides, since intellectual rendering, which is what this is, cannot remotely duplicate aesthetics. However, a very musical individual could pay no attention to these markings, but exhibit the same effects, or very closely, by his or her own creative playing. Thus the expressive marks are inherent in the music.
The essence of the musical concepts of a composer is translated into a musical score. This process has significant limitations in providing a full translation. It cannot give the extreme subtle variations in volume, smoothness and timing, necessary to finalise the procedure of expressing the composer's concepts. It's a little like conceiving a perfect circle mentally (the perfect composition) but to have available only, say, short straight lines to express (draw) it. It thus only suggests a circle. The perceiving or performing individual, say, recognises the circle (understands the music) and adds the extra curvature to the joined straight lines, now producing the actual circle---expressing more fully the composer's aesthetic concepts and intention. The musician adds the extra musical dimension which the score can't handle.
If one considers, say, the top ten concert pianists and have them play a musical composition of some depth, such as Chopin's Ballade number 1, it can be observed that in fact they play it very similarly---the underlying subtle musical renderings are very much the same. As they should be. The personality adulterates or enhances these effects of course. One may not see this duplication factor to the degree that one is not fully grasping (non-intellectually) the music and is filling in the gaps of understanding with one's own conscious contrivances.
This may even apply to top performers and conductors. There are very different degrees in musical understanding and as stated, where inadequacies exist---such as wondering what to do with a particular passage---the musician will contrive a rendering based on conscious thinking, preferences, past knowledge etc. These might be called adulterations and they will sound artificial to a sensitive perception but nevertheless a few of these contrivances are achieved successfully. An example of this would be Cherkassky's renderings in which he clearly trained and directed himself to highlight the melody in some of his piano performances to a degree greater than other pianists. In pieces such as Chopin's Etude number 3 in which the melody is the upper note in continuous chord structures, advanced technique is required to bring out the melody and Cherkassky pulls this off very successfully. Also, further examples of this constructive control of performance qualities, where repeated short passages are encountered, are: to deliberately reduce the volume of the repeat group of notes to advantage, or in fact alter the overall speed in longer duplicated (repeated) passages---Cherkassky does both of these.
In the example of deliberately playing the melody much louder, say, with the right hand, than the left-hand accompaniment---but done aesthetically---one may ask how will one know it was contrived consciously rather than motivated by the musical ability spontaneously. One will know this when the performer overdoes this feature of performance, such as playing a left hand quietly when in fact it is aesthetically interesting and should be brought out more. This can't happen when the aesthetic sensibility, or musical understanding, is in control.
In making a comparison of the performance ability of concert pianists one finds it is much more complex than to simply judge the relative technical and artistic merits. One finds that most pianists have not developed a uniformity of technical aptitude amongst the different movements or muscle groups involved. One pianist may develop a higher standard of technique for the fingers, yet another may be superior in rapid chord passages, for example, octaves.
To complicate matters further the reaction time involved in repetitive movements, such as rapidly repeated octaves, varies from person to person and is not related to degree of practice or, in other words, technical standard. Of course, a certain level of technique is necessary to execute rapid octaves so that the reaction time is the limiting factor, and that it is not due to sluggish movements.
It is thus possible to have a superior pianist playing octave passages, such as in Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody number 6, a little slower than an inferior pianist. This reaction time limitation varies from about eight or nine to eleven or twelve repetitions per second. (For the non-pianist, try tapping rapidly on the table.)
We see that the musician may develop movement agility which varies within the ranges, finger dexterity to whole arm action, to wrist rotational ability, resulting in performances which have some dependence on the compositional requirements. For example, in the presto finale passage of Chopin's Ballade number 1, Horowitz is unsurpassed for speed where rotational wrist and chord actions, including whole arm work, is concerned. But Gavrilov will surpass Horowitz for speed in the fast Chopin's Etudes, requiring predominantly finger speed, by a significant margin.
Regarding musical ability, one might consider that comparing standards, say, even of concert pianists, would not be so difficult, on the basis of sufficient perception and understanding of the musical expression and aesthetics, since if the musical ability of one concert pianist is higher than another, then surely that pianist would play more or less all pieces of music better than the other. However, it is not so straight forward. The reason is---and this has positive and negative aspects---that professional pianists will, quite correctly, study under and be influenced by masters and, further, even if they are developing beyond the need for guidance, they will often copy or allow themselves to be influenced by musical interpretations from those they consider are, or might be, better than themselves. This is inevitable. Note, however, that a very high musical understanding or one involving a complete grasp of the musical context that the composer is expressing will not need to be influenced in this way.
The result of all this 'copying' is that certain well-established standards are associated with pieces of music causing greater similarities of performance than would be the case normally, where individuality dominates. Thus this is a further complication in the analysis of musical ability and performance. Owing to this merging of ideas as to how something should be played one finds concert pianist A may play one piece of music better than concert pianist B. But then with another piece, B plays better than A, and so on. Note that because of the general higher musical ability we are considering, the 'copying' can usually be done with sensitivity.
This standardisation process makes the music critic's difficult job easier, since it means the critic can learn these standards and make instant comparison. The academic mind builds strong contextual structures which are instantly and unconsciously 'fitted' to the item to be judged (see articles on education). A very few critics will have sufficient ability not to have to utilise this, quite acceptable, crutch or prop. Unfortunately the down side of this learned standard for evaluation of other pianists is that if they encounter any deviation from this standard, it will quite likely be considered deficient---even, in some cases, when the musical ability of the pianist being judged is higher.
An analysis of performance, then, is quite complex but we can ignore the idiosyncrasies, personal renderings, and isolate and perceive the extent to which the musician is eliciting the musical meaning of the composition; that is, the aesthetic concepts of the composer at the time of the creation. How well is the pianist rounding off the incomplete 'circle' (music score) to form the perfect 'circle' (the complete communication of the aesthetics of the composer's concept for this piece of music)? Thus performers are doing better than 'interpret' the music, they are recreating aesthetically and emotionally, that is, regenerating, the original musical concepts of the composer.
In spite of this rather rigid analysis we must, for the complex human world, give some validation to these significant and relative factors (mentioned), which some refer to as 'style' and from which the term 'interpretation' arises. The more absolute factors of this 'style', which work in phase with the music, may mould the duplication this way or that without detracting from, in fact, preferably enhancing, the musical effect inherent in the aesthetic concepts.
Return to Home Page | <urn:uuid:97ad22c3-8d93-4ecd-8314-71e145ad2df4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~noelh/Musical_performance.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999652921/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060732-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947706 | 2,983 | 2.828125 | 3 |
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In natural history: One who occupies himself mainly or exclusively in naming and describing species, without inclination to study, or perhaps without, ability to grasp, their significance as biological facts; a specialist in species, who cares little or nothing for broader generalizations.
- n. One who is finical in drawing up specific diagnoses, or given to distinctions without a difference.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
The bulk of knowledge of specific characters and the necessity of specialisation bade fair to make every species-monger a dry and narrow pedant; and the pedants quarrelled about the characters and limits of their species. | <urn:uuid:bcab258b-057a-4a0e-a016-5a8a71c28fcf> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | https://www.wordnik.com/words/species-monger | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999652921/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060732-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.892047 | 143 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The R/V Marcus G. Langseth completed the initial portion of the NoMelt experiment on Dec 29, 2011. In the subsequent year, scientists began analyzing the active-source seismic data collected on that cruise, constructing initial models of the oceanic plate. The full analysis awaits the so-called “passive source” data – the year-long recordings of earthquakes and natural electrical and magnetic signals on the instruments that remain on the seafloor.
On Dec. 18, 2012, the R/V Melville departed San Diego to recover remainder of the NoMelt instruments and data. The expedition includes two scientists from Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory: Post-doctoral scientist Patty Lin and graduate student Natalie Accardo. Natalie is sending regular reports from the ship, and I will post them here.
Post 1: Natalie Accardo, Dec. 19, 2012.
In the early hours of Dec. 18, a team of scientists aboard R/V Melville set out from San Diego to a remote portion of the Pacific Ocean on a trip that will take 28 days and cover more than 8,500 kilometers. On this voyage, we aim to recover 27 ocean bottom seismographs (OBS) instruments that have been sitting silently on the ocean floor for nearly a year. Throughout their stay on the seafloor, the OBS have been continuously listening and recording the shaking caused by distant earthquakes all over the world. By recording ground motion, we can constrain seismic wave properties and in turn the geologic characteristics of the oceanic plate. With this information, we hope to answer the multilayered question of what defines a tectonic plate.
For decades, geologists have focused most of their attention on locations where tectonic plates come together (i.e. subduction zones like Japan) and break apart (i.e. rift settings like the East African Rift System). Yet to better understand the complex processes happening at those sites, we must first understand the fundamental characteristics of a tectonic plate. For further information concerning instrument deployment and other aspects of this project, please refer to previous blog entries.
It takes seven days to make the 4,300 km journey from San Diego to the NoMelt OBS sites. During the transit time, we use instruments aboard the Melville to map topography and gravity of the ocean floor. Additionally, at regular intervals we toss “drifter” instruments overboard. These so-call “instruments of opportunity” were designed by students at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) to be deployed by any research vessel traveling through an area of interest. They are completely autonomous and will record sea surface information (temperature, salinity, etc.) wherever the currents take them, data that will be of use to oceanographers at UCSD.
Today marks only our second day on board and has given us our first true glimpse of the open ocean. Rocky seas have confined most of the science party to their bunks in a group effort to retain what is left of our last meal. However, the promise of calmer weather in the coming days has brought some cheer to the entire crew. | <urn:uuid:56635e57-d451-4317-abb7-183a824aee35> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/12/30/one-year-later-return-to-the-nomelt-site/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918875 | 654 | 2.9375 | 3 |
In 1914 New Zealand was the richest country in the world in terms of GDP per capita and we were still ranked third in 1960. According to the IMF we are now 25th, just behind Italy, and the United Nations make us 29th, below New Caledonia. While I accept that the international markets we have had to compete within have changed (the EEC, trade protectionism and the growth of multinational monopolies), I do think there are internal factors that have caused a drop in productivity and competitiveness. If we look at only one aspect, New Zealand's workforce, we have been experiencing dropping productivity (around .3% annually) since 2006. While the Government claims that the global recession and the Christchurch earthquake are responsible for our lack of productivity and economic success, I think this is a copout.
There are seven factors that I think have a large impact on our low levels of productivity:
- Low wages.
- Poor employment conditions
- Growing income inequity
- Fewer high value jobs
- Struggling manufacturing sector
- Lack of investment in research and development
- Reducing the status and value of jobs.
New Zealand is increasingly becoming a low wage economy, median weekly earnings for all wage and salary earners is around $42,000 a year and this means half of our workers earn this or less. We have a growing number of part-time workers who are looking for full-time work and a drive from employers to have a higher level of casualization. Workers have also not received wage increases for some time that reflects any increases in productivity. The real value of wages is falling as costs such as housing and power are rising faster than inflation. Although the Port of Auckland workers had dramatically lifted their output they were rewarded with reduced employment conditions and enforced casualistion. Working harder in New Zealand does not generally relate to increases in income. New Zealand wages are around 30% less than Australia and the level of union membership and collective agreements is also much less.
Many jobs that used to be regarded as full-time are being casualised and this reduces the employers responsibility to provide employment certainty and normal rights such as sick leave and redundancy pay. Workers who used to be wage earners are now contract workers and although their incomes may be low they are often then required to pay for their training and the costs of transport and tools. Many employers have the luxury of a workforce that they have little responsibility for and can turn on and off the supply as they wish. However, this also means that there is little loyalty to the employer and a lower level of collegial support within the workforce as they have to compete against each other for jobs. Our health and safety record is now three times worse than the average in the OECD and we have around 1000 premature deaths annually from work related illness and 100 fatal injuries. Pike River was an extreme example of the disregard we have for worker health and safety.
We are seeing the wealthy of New Zealand being rewarded with tax cuts and huge salaries for CEOs appears to be accepted practice. The richest New Zealanders saw a 20% increase in their wealth last year and the growth of income inequity is more pronounced in New Zealand than most other countries in the world. In many jobs there little incentive for workers to seek promotions as the minimal increase in remuneration involved is not seen as enough for the increased workload or responsibility. I know this is true in teaching and much of the public sector and the CEO of Fonterra recently received a 41% increase in salary while a wage freeze was in force for other management positions.
There is a scarcity of high paying, well qualified jobs in New Zealand. 25% of our university graduates head overseas to get jobs and those that remained earned an average of $29,000 in 2010. 15% of our 20-24 year old graduates are unemployed and many of those who are, are in jobs that they are over qualified for. The Government has cut almost 4,000 well qualified jobs from the public sector.
It has been estimated that up to 20,000 jobs have been lost from the manufacturing sector in New Zealand since 2008. Our high dollar has put the squeeze on exporters and many New Zealand businesses like Fisher and Pykel are outsourcing production and are being bought out by overseas companies. The Government itself has not supported our skilled workforce and the outsourcing of rail engines and rolling stock saw the closure of the Hillside workshop that once employed 1200 workers.
Many of our best scientists and researchers are leaving New Zealand because of an under-funding of research and development that places us well behind the majority in the OECD. Professor Jacqueline Rowarth is adamant that our agricultural sector will only thrive through greater investment in R+D and claims our level of investment in this area ranks us with Mexico.
When jobs are dramatically cut from the state sector it implies that those jobs were not necessary in the first place and often diminishes the status of those that remain. We even have the situation where jobs that were once considered highly responsible positions are being filled by people with no relevant qualifications or experience. The introduction of Charter Schools that allows non qualified teachers to front classrooms and the government's lowered expectation of qualified teachers in Early Childhood (from 100% to 80%) has seen a huge drop in status for the teaching profession. Even the job of delivering post has had lowered status to the extent that Queenstown discovered around 20,000 undelivered items due to little appreciation of the responsibilities and ethical standards necessary for the role. Few rest homes in New Zealand manage to achieve even basic standards of care, largely due to the fact that rest home operators improve profit margins by keeping wages low. Those who work in caregiving jobs are amongst the lowest paid workers despite the experience and skill needed to do the job well. It appears that the Novapay debacle may not have happened if more qualified people with a deeper understanding of the sector had been employed to do the work. I wonder how much those who were doing the data entry got paid?
If we wanted to see a stronger economy we need a workforce that is well qualified and well supported by technology and research. A worker would be more productive and take pride in their work when what they do is valued and they are provided with safe environments and are well remunerated. Workers are more likely to be productive when they work collaboratively and feel a loyalty to their employer. Any worker will invest more in their work if they think it has long term prospects and has job security. Finally workers are more likely to concentrate and be more productive when their wages enable them to live comfortably in good homes and have financial security. All this seems like common sense to me but perhaps John Key and Bill English know something I don't. | <urn:uuid:b5228b77-048c-4c91-b057-edd16a21651a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.com/2012/11/valuing-workers-and-increasing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980767 | 1,357 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Date Written: c. 150 BC
Judith is often characterized as an early historical novel. Yet ironically, its content is unhistorical. The book begins by telling us that Nebuchadnezzer was the king of
The book of Judith is not trying to narrate an historical event nor is it presenting a regular historical novel with fictional characters in a "real" setting. Rather, Judith is iconic of all of
The general Holofernes, whom Judith assassinates, represents the worst of the oppressors. He is bringing 182,000 troops against a small city in a corner of
It is crucial to see the irony of the story and of Judith's words. For example, the Ammonite Achior who Holofernes rejected was supposed to share the cruel fate of the Israelites at the hand of the Assyrians, but he is saved with the Israelites instead (6:5-9). Judith uses the phrase "my lord" (Adonai in Heb.) several times, but it is unclear whether she is referring to Holofernes or to God. The great nation is defeated by a humble woman. The story is similar to the famous David and Goliath episode. The reader should look for ironic moments where a character's intentions or statements are fulfilled, but in the way that he or she would least expect.
The book of Judith is divided into basically two sections, ch. 1-7 and 8-16. The first seven chapters lay out the "historical" background and describe the political situation which led to Holofernes attack on
Judith is a book of the Bible that is meant to be enjoyed. By enjoying the story and the Lord's victory over the great nations through Judith, we can appreciate the paradoxical way God chooses to work on earth, using the weak to conquer the strong, the poor to outdo the rich.
By Mark Giszczak | <urn:uuid:bd4fbd35-9a97-4a12-a40e-2ab292ed273b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/resources/bible/introduction-to-the-old-testament/judith/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959766 | 394 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Sojourner: Then Until Now
1890 -- Frances Titus collects $44 from Truth's friends around the country, along with funds from Battle Creek community leaders, and uses the money to erect a monument on Truth's gravesite. The inscription reads, "Born a slave in Ulster Co., New York in the 18th century, died in Battle Creek, Mich., Nov. 26, 1883, aged about 105 years. -- 'Is God Dead' --" The incorrect age cited on the tombstone has been the source of confusion over the years.
1892 -- Frances Titus commissions Albion artist Frank Courter to paint the meeting between Truth and president Lincoln.
1935 -- Memorial stone to Sojourner Truth is placed in the Stone History Tower in Monument Park, downtown Battle Creek.
1946 -- New grave marker is erected in Oak Hill Cemetery by the Sojourner Truth Memorial Association. The original inscription is copied onto the new monument.
1961 -- An historical marker, commemorating the members of Truth's family who are buried with her in the Oak Hill cemetery plot, is erected by the Sojourner Truth Memorial Association, at the urging of local historian Berenice Lowe.
1976 -- As part of the nation's bicentennial celebration, the Calhoun County portion of state highway M-66 is designated as the "Sojourner Truth Memorial Highway."
1981 -- Truth is inducted into the national Woman's Hall of Fame in Seneca Fall, New York.
1983 -- Truth is in the first group of women inducted into the Michigan Woman's Hall of Fame in Lansing.
1987 -- Truth is the sixth Michigan citizen chosen to honored by the State Bar of Michigan with a Michigan Milestone Marker, recognizing her contribution to the legal system.
1987 -- A marker is erected by the Battle Creek Club of the National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women's Clubs. This is part of a state-wide theme trail developed by the Michigan Women's Studies Association, honoring twenty-one women from all around the state for their contributions to society. The Battle Creek Club also sponsors an annual Sojourner Truth luncheon and award program to recognize dedicated students and civic leaders.
1997 -- Sojourner Truth honored with a Mars probe of the same name. Read more.
1997 -- A community-wide, year-long celebration of the 200th anniversary of Sojourner Truth's birth is held in Battle Creek. The observance culminated in the Battle Creek National Woman's Conference held during the Week of Truth from October 12 - 18. Scholars and leaders on women's issues from around the country led a week-long symposium on Sojourner Truth, her issues and her legacy. In addition, a larger-than-life size monument of Sojourner Truth is commissioned from artist Tina Allen. The statue is scheduled to be dedicated in the fall of 1999. | <urn:uuid:1b8e9079-a512-4e0f-a714-ed4ad5af5f16> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.sojournertruth.org/History/Biography/SinceSojourner.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011372778/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092252-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922422 | 595 | 2.921875 | 3 |
Question: Which insect stings typically cause most allergic reactions?
Answer: Well first of all allergic reactions, the ones we're talking about, really are related to stinging insects. So that's really different from biting insects.
Biting insects like mosquitoes or black flies can cause swelling and itching. And some people actually are allergic and get abnormal swelling, but the more severe or dangerous reactions really happen with stinging insects and not biting insects.
The stinging insects include several groups: the bees, like honeybees or bumblebees. They include a general group of wasps, we call them vespids and they include yellow jackets, hornets and paper wasps. And there's a separate group of stinging ants and these are not just biting ants. These are ants that actually have a stinger and will sting and can cause the same allergic reactions as any of the other stinging insects.
These stinging ants are primarily in the southeast third of the United States and Gulf Coast. They're called imported "imported fire ants" because they were actually, they arrived from South America and have made their home in parts of this country.
There are a range of different kinds of yellow jackets and hornets and wasps in different areas of the country. And the ones most likely to cause a reaction are different in different areas. In agricultural areas or vineyards it's more likely to be honeybees. In the southeast, in the southern coastal areas, the Gulf Coast, Louisiana and Texas much more wasp stings. In general in this country it's more yellow jackets than anything else.
Previous: What Are The Common Symptoms Of Stinging Insect Allergy? | <urn:uuid:40922934-7a9d-4ca9-9a7e-7928957a4370> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://abcnews.go.com/Health/AllergiesOther/story?id=4521932 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678664178/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024424-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965683 | 341 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Red Rock Crab
The Red Rock Crab (Grapsus grapsus), is one of the most common crabs along the western coast of South America. It can also be seen along the entire coast of Central America and Mexico, and nearby islands. It is one of the many charismatic species that inhabits the Galapagos Islands, and is often seen in photos of the archipelago, sometimes sharing the seaside rocks with the marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus).
The Red Rock Crab is a typically-shaped crab, with five pairs of legs, the front two bearing small, blocky, symmetrical chelae. The other legs are broad and flat, with only the tips touching the substrate. The crab’s round, flat carapace is just over 8 cm (3 inches) in length. The young are black or dark brown in color and camouflage well on the black lava coasts of volcanic islands. Adults are quite variable in color. Some are muted brownish-red, some mottled or spotted brown, pink, or yellow. The ones seen on photographs of tropical island fauna are often bright orange or red with stripes or spots dorsally, blue and green ventrally, and sporting red claws and pink or blue eyes.
This crab lives amongst the rocks at the often turbulent, windy shore, just above the limit of the sea spray. It feeds on algae primarily, sometimes sampling plant matter and dead animals. It is a quick-moving and agile crab, and hard to catch, but not considered very edible by humans. It is used as bait by fishermen.
This crab is also sometimes referred to as “˜abuete negro’, and, together with other crabs such as Percnon gibbesi, as “˜Sally Lightfoot’. | <urn:uuid:ea528efc-4d33-4258-92c5-0ce2b6129a5e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.redorbit.com/education/reference_library/animal_kingdom/crustacea/2580370/red_rock_crab/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678664178/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024424-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948048 | 378 | 3.375 | 3 |
January 20, 1978
DHHS (NIOSH) Publication Number
Current Intelligence Bulletin 20: Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene)
Ankilostin — NIOSH-RTECS KX28500
Antisal 1 — Tetracap
Cas 127-18-4 — Tetrachlorethylene
Didakene — Tetrachloroethene
Ethylene — tetrachloride Tetraguer
Fedal-Un — Tetraleno
Nema — Tetropil
Perclene — Tetlen
PerSec — 1,1,2,2-Tetrachloroethylene
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) recommends that it is prudent to handle tetrachloroethylene (perchloroethylene) in the workplace as if it were a human carcinogen. The recommendation is based on a recent study by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) indicating that tetrachloroethylene causes liver cancer in laboratory mice.1 This Bulletin is to advise you of the findings of the NCI study, other pertinent data, their implications for occupational health, and precautions for handling tetrachloroethylene.
Animal studies are valuable in helping identify human carcinogens. Substances that cause cancer in experimental animals must be considered to pose a potential cancer risk in man. Safe levels of exposure to carcinogens have not been demonstrated, but the probability of cancer development is lowered with decreasing exposure to carcinogens. Thus NIOSH recommends that occupational exposure to tetrachloroethylene be minimized and is providing suggested industrial hygiene practices. This is an interim recommendation while the carcinogenic potential of tetrachloroethylene in the workplace is being further evaluated.
The current Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standard for occupational exposure to tetrachloroethylene is 100 ppm, (8-hour time-weighted average). In July 1976 NIOSH 3 recommended an exposure limit of 50 ppm (time-weighted average for up to a 10-hour workday, 40-hour workweek). Neither of these levels may provide adequate protection from potential carcinogenic effects because they were selected to prevent toxic effects other than cancer.
Potential Occupational Exposures
Tetrachloroethylene is a volatile liquid with an odor detectable at about 50 ppm. It is a solvent widely used in dry cleaning, fabric finishing, metal degreasing, and other applications. NIOSH estimates that approximately 500,000 workers are currently at risk of exposure to tetrachloroethylene in the United States. Over 20,000 dry cleaning establishments and a large number of other industries manufacture or use this substance. About 700 million pounds of tetrachloroethylene are currently produced in the United States each year.
Two-thirds of the domestically consumed tetrachloroethylene is used for dry cleaning and for the processing and finishing of textiles. Tetrachloroethylene is used by three-quarters of the dry cleaners in the United States because it is an excellent cleaner of most fabrics, is easily recycled, and is not flammable.
Metal cleaning accounts for approximately fifteen percent of the domestic consumption of tetrachloroethylene, where exposures can occur during degreasing and cold cleaning. Tetrachloroethylene also serves as a chemical intermediate in the synthesis of trichlorotrifluoroethane (fluorocarbon 113), dichlorotetrafluoroethane (fluorocarbon 114), chloropentafluoroethane (fluorocarbon 115), and hexafluoroethane (fluorocarbon 116). Tetrachloroethylene exposures may also occur in extraction processes, during its use as an industrial solvent, as a heat exchange fluid, and as a drug in treatment of internal parasite infestations.
Laboratory Animal Studies for Carcinogenicity
The long term animal study reported by NCI demonstrates tetrachloroethylene to be carcinogenic in laboratory mice. In the study, B6C3F1 mice were force fed tetrachloroethylene for 78 weeks. Male mice were treated at two dose levels (536 or 1072 mg/kg/day) and female mice were treated at two different dose levels (386 or 772 mg/kg/day). A significant increase of hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) was observed in both sexes of treated mice when compared with control animals. At both dose levels more than 50% of the male mice and 40% of the female mice (each from groups of approximately 50 animals) developed liver cancer. By comparison, cancer developed in 12% or less of the groups of untreated or vehicle-matched controls. This NCI report is the first definitive association of tetrachloroethylene with cancer. To relate some of the above information to the work environment a 70 kg man breathing a typical 10 cu m/day (over an 8-hour work shift) of air contaminated with 100 ppm of tetrachloroethylene would have an inhalation exposure of about 100 mg/kg/day.
In the same NCI report, Osborne-Mendel rats showed no significant increase of liver cancer under the same experimental procedure. Because many of the rats died early in the study, this bioassay was considered inadequate for the carcinogenicity testing of tetrachloroethylene. However there was a high incidence of kidney damage observed in both the rats and mice treated with tetrachloroethylene.
A study by The Dow Chemical Company 2 found many tumors in Sprague-Dawley rats exposed by inhalation to 300 or 600 ppm tetrachloroethylene, but for most tumors there was no statistically significant difference in tumor incidence between exposed and control rats. Some tumors were found in higher incidence in control animals. The only tumor seen at higher incidence in exposed animals was adrenal pheochromocytoma in female rats at the lower exposure level only. Pheochromocytoma is a tumor which gives rise to high blood pressure and hyperglycemia due to release of adrenalin and noradrenalin into the blood. Increased mortality occurred in male rats exposed to 600 ppm tetrachloroethylene.
Other Laboratory Animal Studies
The liver is a principal target organ of tetrachloroethylene exposure in animals. Typical toxic effects are fatty liver) liver enlargement and abnormal liver function tests, Tetrachloroethylene has also been shown to cause kidney damage in mice following intraperitoneal injection and in rats and rabbits following inhalation.
Neurophysiological effects of tetrachloroethylene are reflected in the distinct alterations of the electroencephalogram (EEG) in rats. Central nervous system (CNS) depression including abnormal weakness, handling intolerance intoxication, restlessness, irregular respiration, muscle incoordination, and unconsciousness have been observed in exposed animals.
Tetrachloroethylene has been shown to be a primary eye and skin irritant in rabbits. Other effects of tetrachloroethylene exposure in laboratory animals include lung damage (excessive fluid accumulation inflammation, congestion, or hemorrhage, cardiac depression, decreased blood pressure depressed respiration, decreased oxygen consumption, and depression in growth rate.
One study suggests the teratogenic potential of tetrachloroethylene. Fetal and maternal toxicity was observed in mice and rats exposed to tetrachloroethylene on days 615 of gestation. In this study a decrease in the maternal weight gain in rats, an increase in the relative weight of the liver in pregnant mice, an increase of fetal reabsorption in rats, a decrease in fetal body weight and an increase of subcutaneous edema in fetal mice, were all associated with exposure to tetrachloroethylene. Delayed ossification of skull bones and split sternebrae were possible teratogenic effects observed in mice.
Clinical evidence accumulated over the years clearly demonstrates that tetrachloroethylene is toxic to the liver and kidneys in humans. Liver impairment has been noted in cases of exposure to tetrachloroethylene as evidenced by abnormal liver function tests. Also, toxic chemical hepatitis, and enlargement of the liver and spleen have been associated with exposure to tetrachloroethylene. Tetrachloroethylene vapor is irritating to the eyes and upper respiratory tract, and may cause frontal sinus congestion and headache. Direct contact with skin can cause burns, blistering, and erythema due to the "degreasing" effect of tetrachloroethylene on the skin. Over a period of time this can result in extreme skin dryness with cracking and associated infection.
Altered physiological and behavioral responses observed in subjects exposed to tetrachloroethylene include vague nonspecific complaints generally attributed to CNS depression. These symptoms include vertigo, impaired memory, confusion fatigue drowsiness irritability loss of appetite nausea and vomiting. Motor coordination following tetrachloroethylene exposure requires additional mental effort, which along with memory impairment and fatigue have important implications for worker safety. Various disturbances of the peripheral nervous system such as tremors and numbness have also been associated with exposure to tetrachloroethylene. Excessive absorption of tetrachloroethylene can cause severe depression of the CNS leading to coma; ultimately death may occur from respiratory paralysis or circulatory failure.
Tetrachloroethylene is most commonly absorbed through the lungs and can be absorbed from the intestines if ingested. The skin is a less important absorption site. Physical exercise can significantly increase the amount of tetrachloroethylene absorbed through the lungs because of greater respiration and increased blood flow.
Metabolism and elimination of tetrachloroethylene is relatively slow. It is deposited in body fat and the biologic halflife of tetrachloroethylene in man is estimated at six days.
NIOSH Action on Tetrachloroethylene
- NIOSH has contracted for a retrospective mortality study of persons employed in dry cleaning establishments where there had been exposure to tetrachloroethylene. The contract will be monitored by the Biometry Section of the NIOSH Industry-wide Studies Branch.
- The NIOSH Industrial Hygiene Section of the Industry-wide Studies Branch plans an industrial hygiene assessment of dry cleaning workers exposed to tetrachloroethylene.
- The NIOSH Behavioral and Motivational Factors Branch is undertaking a tetrachloroethylene behavioral teratology study. The study results should be available in late 1978.
- NIOSH has contracted for a control technology assessment of the dry cleaning industry. The contract will be monitored by the NIOSH Control Technology Research Branch.
- NIOSH will coordinate research on tetrachloroethylene with the National Cancer Institute (NCI) which is also examining the mortality experience of persons employed in dry cleaning establishments.
- NIOSH has contracted for a study to evaluate the potential teratogenicity and the mutagenicity of tetrachloroethylene. This contract will be monitored by the NIOSH Experimental Toxicology Branch.
- Currently available NIOSH publications on tetrachloroethylene include:
- Criteria for a recommended standard .... Occupational Exposure to Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene). HEW Publication No. (NIOSH) 76-185.
- Health and Safety Guide for Laundries and Dry Cleaners. HEW Publication No. (NIOSH) 75-151.
- Effects of Perchloroethylene/Drug Interaction on Behavior and Neurological Function HEW Publication No. (NIOSH) 77-124 191.
- A Behavioral and Neurological Evaluation of Dry Cleaners Exposed Perchloroethylene. HEW Publication No. (NIOSH) 77-214.
Edward J. Baier
Suggested Procedures for Minimizing Employee Exposure to Etrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene)
Control of Overexposures
NIOSH recommends that it is prudent to handle tetrachloroethylene in the workplace as if it were a human carcinogen and that occupational exposure to tetrachloroethylene be minimized. Exposure to tetrachloroethylene should be limited to as few employees as possible while minimizing workplace exposure levels. The area in which it is used should be restricted to those employees necessary to the process or operation. Furthermore, consideration should be given to isolating the tetrachloroethylene exposure area so that adjacent workers are not also exposed.
- Exposure monitoring
The NIOSH Occupational Exposure Sampling Strategy Manual, NIOSH publication #77-173, may be helpful in developing efficient programs to monitor employee exposures to tetrachloroethylene. The manual discusses determination of the need for exposure measurements, selection of appropriate employees for sampling, and selection of sampling times.
Employee exposure measurement samples can be obtained and analyzed using the guidelines in NIOSH method #P&CAM l27 in the second edition of the NIOSH Manual of Analytical Methods, NIOSH publication #77-157. Exposure measurements should consist of 8-hour TWA exposure estimates calculated from personal or breathing zone samples (air that would most nearly represent that inhaled by the employees).
- Engineering controls
Engineering and work practice controls should be used to minimize employee exposure to tetrachloroethylene.
To ensure that ventilation equipment is working properly, it is advised that effectiveness be checked at least every three months (e.g., air velocity, static pressure or air volume). System effectiveness should also be checked within five days of any change in production, process, or control which might result in significant increases in airborne exposures to tetrachloroethylene.
- Respiratory protection
Exposure to tetrachloroethylene should not be controlled with the use of respirators except:
During the time period necessary to install or implement engineering or work practice controls; or
In work situations in which engineering and work practice controls are technically not feasible; or
To supplement engineering and work practice controls when such controls fail to adequately control exposure to tetrachloroethylene; or
For operations which require entry into tanks or closed vessels; or
Respirators should be approved by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) or by the Mining Enforcement and Safety Administration (MESA). Refer to NIOSH Certified Equipment, December 15, 1975, NIOSH publication #76-145 and Cumulative Supplement June 1977, NIOSH Certified Equipment, NIOSH Publication #77-195. The use of face seal coverlets or socks with any respirator voids NIOSH/MESA approvals.
Quantitative faceseal fit test equipment (such as sodium chloride or PDOP) should be used. Refer to A Guide to Industrial Respiratory Protection, NIOSH publication #76-189 for guidelines on appropriate respiratory protection programs.
Where respirators are used under the preceding guidelines, NIOSH recommends that for routine use the employer provide either a) Self-contained breathing apparatus with a full facepiece operated in pressure-demand for other positive pressure mode (30 CFR 11.70(a)) or b) A combination respirator which includes a Type-C supplied-air respirator with a full facepiece operated in pressure-demand or other positive pressure or continuous flow mode and an auxiliary self-contained breathing apparatus operated in pressure-demand or positive pressure mode (30 CFR 11.70(b)). For firefighting, the employer should provide a) Self-contained breathing apparatus with a full facepiece operated in pressure-demand or other positive pressure mode (30 CFR 11.70(a)). For escape the employer should provide a) Any gas mask providing protection against organic vapors (30 CFR 11.90) or b) Any escape self-contained breathing apparatus (30 CFR 11.70(a)).
Personal Protective Equipment
Employers should provide impervious, gloves, face shields (8-inch minimum) and other appropriate clothing necessary to prevent repeated or prolonged skin contact with liquid tetrachloroethylene.
Employers should see that employee clothing wet with liquid tetrachloroethylene is placed in closed containers for storage until it can be discarded or until the employer provides for the removal of tetrachloroethylene from the clothing. If the clothing is to be laundered or otherwise cleaned to remove the tetrachloroethylene, the employer should inform the person performing the operation of the hazardous properties of tetrachloroethylene including the fact that it is a possible human carcinogen.
Employers should see that permeable clothing which becomes contaminated with liquid tetrachloroethylene be removed promptly and not reworn until the tetrachloroethylene is removed from the clothing.
Employers should see that employees who handle liquid tetrachloroethylene wash their hands thoroughly with soap or mild detergent before eating, smoking or using toilet facilities.
Employers should see that employees whose skin becomes contaminated with liquid tetrachloroethylene promptly wash or shower with soap and mild detergent and water to remove any tetrachloroethylene from the skin.
- Bioassay of Tetrachloroethylene for Possible Carcinogenicity, DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 77-813. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, October, 1977.
- Rampy, L. W., J. F. Quast, B.K.J. Leong and P.J. Gehring, Results of longterm inhalation toxicity studies on rats of 1,1, trichloroethane and perchloroethylene formulations. Toxicology Research Laboratory, Dow Chemical, U.S.A., Poster presentation International Congress of Toxicology, Toronto, Canada, April, 1977.
- Criteria for a recommended standard .... Occupational Exposure to Tetrachloroethylene (Perchloroethylene). HEW Publication No. (NIOSH) 76-185. U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Public Health Service, Center for Disease Control, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, July, 1976.
- Fishbein, L., Industrial mutagens and potential mutagens I. Halogenated aliphatic derivatives. Mutat. Res., 32: 267-308, 1976.
- Fujii, T., Variation in the liver function of rabbits after administration of chlorinated hydrocarbons, Jap. J. Ind. Hlth., 17: 81-88, 1975.
- Duprat, P., L. Delsaut and D. Gradiski, Irritant potency of the principal aliphatic chloride solvents on the skin and ocular mucous membranes of rabbits. Europ. J. Toxicol., 3: 171-177, 1976.
- Brancaccio, A., V. Mazza and R. Di Paolo, Renal function in experimental tetrachloroethylene poisoning. Folia Med., 54: 233-237, 197l.
- Mazza, V., Enzymatic changes in experimental tetrachloroethylene poisoning. Folia Med., 55: 373-381, 1972.
- Korn, J., How many more? Perchloroethylene intoxication in coin drycleaning establishments. Ugeskr. laeg., 139: 303-304, 1977.
- Weichardt, H., and J. Lindner, Health hazards due to perchloroethylene in chemical drycleaning enterprises from the viewpoint of occupational medicine and toxicology. Staub Reinhalt Luft, 35: 416-420, 1975.
- Medek, V., and J. Kovarik, The effect of perchloroethylene on the health of workers. Pracovni lekarstvi, 25: 339-341, 1973.
- Larsen, N. B. Nielsen, and A. RaynNielsen, Perchloroethylene intoxication. A hazard in the use of coin laundries. Ugeskr. Laeg., 139: 270-275, 1977.
- Schwetz, B.A., KJ. Leong and P.J. Gehring, The effect of maternally inhaled trichloroethylene, perchloroethylene, methyl chloroform and methylene chloride on embryonal and fetal development in mice and rats. Toxicol. Appl. Pharmacol., 32: 84-96, 1975.
- Ikeda, M., and T. Imamura, Biological halflife of trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in human subjects. Int. Arch. Arbeitsmed., 31: 209-224) 1973.
- National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
TTY: (888) 232-6348
- New Hours of Operation
- Contact CDC-INFO | <urn:uuid:184dca96-0730-452c-b2bc-54822f14aab1> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/1970/78112_20.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.88361 | 4,438 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Saving Australia’s River Red Gums
Published 26th October 2010 - 2 comments - 786 views -
On our recent visit to Hattah-Kulkyne National Park, we came across a cemetery at Lake Mournpall. Perhaps one hundred mature trees stood dead on the flood plain, a stark reminder of the impact of severe drought and competing demands for water in recent years. My earlier post Australia’s Not-So-Civil Water War has some background on these issues.
River Red Gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) are iconic trees in Australia. Of the 800 eucalyptus species, they hold a very special place in our national psyche. They grow to 45 metres and can live for 500 years or more. They live beside rivers, lakes and on flood plains and rely on regular flooding for their survival.
The good news is that governments have taken action in recent years to allocate ‘environmental water’ to areas such as Hattah Lakes and the Barmah forest on the Murray River:
The Commonwealth allocated 7,300ML of environmental water to the Hattah Lakes in Winter 2010. This water will help ensure the long term sustainability of this iconic site, provide refuge for waterbirds and benefit fringing river red gums and will fill a number of lakes that have not been full since 1996.
Environmental watering: Murray catchment
The following slideshow, River Reds, shows some of the benefits of this policy. Thanks to Heather Milton for the photographs taken at Hattah.
About the author
- TCKTCK: Got only 10 years to save ourselves!
- Denmark cries in Sea of Blood, 950 Whales and Dolphins KILLED…
- Micro pigs - the ultimate sweetheart energy saver
- If you want to see nude people click here
- Do we really care about our planet? Think twice before answering.
- Evolutions in the history of Environment Part 2
- Bunnies for fuels: not a good story to share in a grade school classroom | <urn:uuid:83c37f83-d38a-4a90-a0cc-8851a5bba598> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://climatechange.thinkaboutit.eu/think4/post/saving_australias_river_red_gums/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999653645/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060733-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899236 | 421 | 3.375 | 3 |
Original Editors - Sarah Ansburg from Bellarmine University's Pathophysiology of Complex Patient Problems project.
Top Contributors -
An autosomal recessive inherited genetic disorder of metabolism in
which a dangerous level of a fatty substance called glucocerebroside collects in the liver, spleen, bone marrow, lungs, and at times in the brain. Gaucher disease is caused by mutations in a gene called GBA. Changes in the GBA gene cause low levels of glucocerebrosidase. An individual with thisdisorder inherits a mutated copy of the GBA gene from each of his or her parents. Signs and symptoms of this disease can vary broadly among individuals and types.
Gaucher disease occurs in about 1 in 50,000 to 100,000 individuals in the overall general population. Type 1 is the most common form and is frequent among individuals who are of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. Type 1 is seen in 1 in 500 to 1000 people of this type of Jewish descent and roughly 1 in 14 Ashkenazi Jews is a carrier. Type 2 and 3 of this disease are not as common.
Signs and symptoms for this disorder vary greatly upon the type of the disorder and the individual themselves, but may include:
- Fractures & bone pain
- Easy to bruise
- Cognitive problems
- Enlarged spleen (splenomegaly)
- Enlarged liver (hepatomegaly)
- Skin Changes
- Heart valve impairments
- Lung Diseases
- Swelling at birth
| Type|| Presentation|
| Type 1||
Most common form of this condition and is named Non-neuronopathic Gaucher Disease due to the lack of involvement of the brain and spinal cord. Symptoms at this stage can range from very mild to severe at times and can develop at any age. Chief signs and symptoms may include enlargement of the spleen and liver (hepatosplenomegaly), a decrease in blood platelets causing, bruising (thrombocytopenia), lung disease, decrease in number of red blood cells (anemia), and bone defects such as deep pain felt in the bone, arthritis and fractures.
| Type 2|| Classified as a neuropathic form of the disease due to its involvement of the brain and spinal cord (central nervous system). At this stage, liver and spleen enlargement can be evident as early as 3 months of age. Individuals may have substantial brain damage, seizures, abnormal eye movements and usually die prior to the age of 2. |
| Type 3|| Type 3 is also categorized as a neuronopathic disorder because it also affects the central nervous system, but progresses at a slower rate than type 2. At this stage, spleen and liver magnification is unpredictable, and brain association including seizures steadily become evident. Key signs and symptoms can include eye movement disorders, blood disorders, and skeletal abnormalities.|
| Perinatal Lethal Form || This category causes life-threatening problems beginning prior to birth or in infancy.Elements of this category may include significant swelling caused by fluid accumulation before birth (hydrops fetalis), dry skin (ichthyosis) enlarged spleen and liver, distinct facial features; and severe neurological problems. Most infants with this form only survive for a few days after birth.|
| Cardiovascular Type || This form mainly affects the heart. It causes the heart valves to harden or calcify. Individuals with this form may also have eye abnormalities, swelling of the spleen and bone disease.|
Co-morbidities associated with Gaucher disease include the following:
- Increased occurance of malignancy (multiple myeloma and other lymphoproliferative disorders)
- Impaired glucose tolerance
- Neurologic disorders (including parkinsonian syndrome and peripheral neuropathy)
- Enzyme Replacment Therapy (Cerezyme), (VPRIV), (Ceredase)
- Substrate Replacment Therapy (Miglustat (MIH glue stat)
- Bone Marrow Transplant
Diagnostic Tests/Lab Tests/Lab Values
- Diagnosis of Gaucher Disease is focused on lab testing and clustering of clinical signs/symptoms.
Gaucher disease is thought to be a possible diagnosis in individuals with the following:
- Enlarged liver/spleen (hepatosplenomegaly)
- Bone pain/abnormalities
- Tendency to bruise and bleed very easily from low platelets
- Possible signs of neurological involvement
- Alterations in red blood cell levels.
Laboratory testing includes the following:
- Blood work and a blood test called an enzyme assay are used to determine the activity level of the enzyme
- Individuals diagnosed with Gaucher disease have extremely low levels of the glucocerebrosidase activity.
- Analysis of DNA. This analysis looks for the GBA gene and the four most frequent GBA mutations.
- When the GBA gene mutation is known in a family, DNA testing should be completed and used to correctly recognize any carriers.
- Gaucher disease is caused by a mutated gene called GBA. It is inherited in an autosomal recessive way when a person has two copies of the genes that supply directions for constructing the enzyme, For healthy people, both genes work correctly. When one of the genes is not functioning appropriately the person becomes a carrier for the disorder.
- Carriers do not have the disease because they have one functioning gene that creates adequate amounts of the enzyme for normal body function. When an individual inherits a mutated gene from each carrier parent, he or she then develops Gaucher disease.
- Carrier parents have a 1 in 4 or 25% chance to conceive a child born with the disease. They have a 1 in 2, or 50 % chance to have a child who is a carrier, and a 1 in 4, or 25% chance to produce a child who is neither has the disease or is a carrier.
- Splenomegaly (most common symptom in all three types)
- Hypersplenism contributing to pancytopenia
- Mechanical interference with bowel, kidney, diaphragm or circulation
- Replacement of bone marrow with Gaucher cells
- Bone pain
- Femoral head necrosis
- Pathologic fractures at the femoral neck and long bones
- Collapse of vertebral bodies with risk of thoracic kyphosis and spinal cord compression
- Bone infarction
- Hypoxia due to pulmonary infiltrationand liver disease
- Restrictive lung disease
- Pulmonary function abnormalities
- Pulmonary hypertension
- Restrictive pericarditis
- Myocardial infilitration
- Valve calicification
- Brown-yellow pigmentation of the skin
Neurological System
- damage to the brain in types 2 and 3
Medical Management (current best evidence)
- Enzyme replacement therapy is utilized for individuals with types 1 and 3 of the disease. Enzyme therapy works by decreasing skeletal abnormalities, decreasing liver and spleen size/inflammation, and reversesother symptoms of the disorder, including abnormal blood counts. The treatment includes a modified form of the glucocerbrosidase by IV infusion every two weeks.Enzyme therapy has no effects on the neurological aspects of the disorder.
- The most effective dosing regimen of ERT is still debatable. Believers in of low dose regimens focus on the high costs of the enzyme. Others argue that high doses are necessary for the ideal effect to alleviate the severity of the disease, especially in children.
- One strategy used is called top-down, with the dose being fairly high in the beginning and then slowly decreased to reach a maintenance level.
- Another strategy used is called the step-up approach, in which the dose is low in the beginning and then built up if necessary, during the disease.
- Both approaches have been compared in a recent study showing similar results for hematologic and visceral components, and a higher dose was better for improvement in surrogate factors including chitotriosidase and bone marrow involvement.
- Some evidence shows that sudden cessation of therapy is not suggested due to a rebound phenomena occurance. A paper published by de Fost et al. shows that, in stable patients, the sudden reduction of the of the enzyme from weekly/biweekly infusions to a single monthly infusion, with a stable monthly dose may result in therapeutic failure in some patients.
- A different study from Spain shows that after 2–3 years of initial biweekly enzyme replacement therapy treatment, infusion intervals were extended to 3 weeks with a 33% decline of the monthly dose. Within a few years, all of participants with the disease had to restart the original enzyme replacement therapy schedule because of a symptomatic setback of the disease.
|Effects of Enzyme Replacement Therapy||Description|
|Surrogate Parameters & Biomarkers||
U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved velaglucerase alfa for injection (VPRIV) for long-term enzyme replacement therapy for Type 1 Gaucher disease. VPRIV is an alternative to Cerezyme (imiglucerase), another enzyme replacement therapy which is currently in short supply.
“The approval of VPRIV will provide a safe and effective alternative treatment for patients with Gaucher disease,” said Julie Beitz, M.D., director of the FDA’s Office of Drug Evaluation III. “Patients who previously received Cerezyme as an enzyme replacement therapy for their Type 1 Gaucher disease can be safely switched to VPRIV.”
- Substrate Reduction Therapy (SRT) slows the build-up of unwanted fatty substance in Gaucher cells. Lysosomes then are able to try to catch up and eliminate the extra fatty substance. SRT is taken orally by mouth every day in pill form. It provides another option to enzyme replacement therapy.
- Miglustat (Zavesca, N-butyldeoxynojirimycin, OGT 918) was introduced 6 years ago. This inhibits glucosylceramide synthase, which stops new synthesis of glucosylceramide in addition to the accumulated lipid.
- There are currently less than ten clinical studies on miglustat published in the literature today. These current studies show that miglustat is useful in most patients with only mild disease at controlling the hematologic and visceral problems.
- Miglustat is not tolerated as well as enzyme replacment therapy due to problems such as weight loss and diarrhea.
- Concerns about miglustat-induced cognitive problems have been resolved currently. The impact of miglustat, on neurological types of Gaucher disease is still under the investigation phase of development. In Europe, patients who cannot receive enzyme replacment therapy are able to receive miglustat as an alternative.
- Bone marrow transplantation can help reverse the non-neurological effects of type 1, but has a high death rate due to defective donor matches.
- There is no effective treatment for brain damage with types 2 and 3.
Physical Therapy Management (current best evidence)
- There currently is no protocol or best treatment plans for gaucher disease, but exercise has been shown to be essential for children and adults that are diagnosed with Gaucher disease.
- Moderate exercise >3 days/week is recommended with a healthy diet for proper health and weight management
Reasoning for Exercise Include:
- Counteract weight gain after enzyme replacement therapy due to better absorption in the GI tract & increase in appetite
- Exercise helps patients improve depression or sadness related to feeling wronged by the disease
- Help sufferers feel like they are in control of something about the disease and their life
- Help children feel like they belong and are normal like everyone else
Special Cautions to Exercise:
- Talk with your physican before beginning exercise
- Those with enlarged spleens there is a possibility to bleed because of low platelet count, and all are advised to stay away from contact sports due to increased risk of pathological fracture
- Swimming is a good exercise for many patients due to gravity lessened movement. It strengthens muscles with minmized pressure on joint
- Those with hip/knee replacements should avoid exercises such as jogging and downhill skiing due to high impact.
Alternative/Holistic Management (current best evidence)
- There are not any scientifically proven substitutes to the standard treatments of enzyme replacement therapy, substrate replacement therapy, medication, and bone marrow transplant, but the National Gaucher Foundation finds that daily moderate exercise may help ease some of the symptoms associated with the disease. These may include improvement in bone health and abdominal core strength.
The following may be associated with and/or differentially diagnosed for Gaucher disease:
- Saposin C Deficiency
- Lysosomal Storage Disorders
- Niemann-Pick Disease
- Wolman Disease
- Mucopolysaccharidosis Type 1
- Mucopolysaccharidosis Type 2
- Legg-Calve Perthes Disease
- Hydrops Fetalis
- Mucopolysaccharidosis Type IV
- GM1 Gangliosidosis
- Metachromatic Leudodystrophy
- Myoclonic Seizures
- Faber's Disease
- Multiple Myeloma
- Hodgkin Disease
- Acute lymphocytic leukemia
- Acute myelogenous leukemia
Case Reports/ Case Studies
- Case Report-Gaucher Disease Type 2 in a Malian family
- Case Report-Gaucher Disease Type III C: Unusual cause of intracardiac calcification
- A Case of Type I Gaucher Disease Associated with Nonhodgkin Lymphoma
- Neonatal Gaucher Disease presenting as persistent Thrombocytopenia
- Bone Marrow Transplantation Corrected Gaucher Disease
National Gaucher Foundation
2227 Idlewood Road, Suite 12
Tucker, GA 30084
National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD)
P.O. Box 1968
(55 Kenosia Avenue)
Danbury, CT 06813-1968
Tel: 203-744-0100 Voice Mail 800-999-NORD (6673)
National Human Genome Research Institute – Learning About Gaucher Disease
National Institute of Neurological Disease and Stroke – Gaucher’s Disease Information
Recent Related Research (from Pubmed)<divclass="researchbox">
- The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) support research innovative ways to treat and prevent lipid storage disorders. This includes clinical studies by the NINDS Developmental and Metabolic Neurology Branch.
- Research on Gaucher disease and a link between Gaucher disease and Parkinson disease is currently being done at the Medical Genetics Branch of the National Human Genome Research Institute by Dr. Ellen Sidransky. Information about the research on Gaucher disease can be found at www.genome.gov/Staff/Sidransky.
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 1.7 National Human Genome Research Institute. Learning about gaucher disease. National Human Genome Research Institute: genome.gov. http://www.genome.gov/25521505. Updated September 2, 2010. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Office of Communications and Public Liaison. NINDS gaucher disease information page. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke: National Institutes of Health. http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/gauchers/gauchers.htm. Updated October 27, 2010. Accessed March 2, 2011.
- ↑ Brave Community: Shire Human Genetic Therapies.Gaucher Disease Description. http://www.bravecommunity.com/condition/gaucher-disease/. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 National Library of Medicine. Genetics home reference: Gaucher disease. National Library of Medicine: National Institutes of Health. http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/gaucher-disease. Updated January 2008. Published March 13, 2011. Accessed March 14, 2011.
- ↑ Genzyme Therapeutics Corporation. Gaucher disease information. fckLRhttp://www.cerezyme.com/healthcare/disease/cz_hc_disease.aspfckLRAccessed April 2, 2011.
- ↑ Kaneshiro, N.K., Zieve,D. Medline Plus: U.S. National Library of Medicine/National Institutes of Health: Gaucher Disease. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/000564.htm. Updated November 12, 2010. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Genzyme Corporation. Gaucher disease diagnostic opportunities for the hematologist. http://www.makethediagnosis.com/hem/mtd_hem_opportunities.aspfckLR. Accessed April 2, 2011.
- ↑ http://jorieee.glogster.com/Gauchers-Disease-2/. Updated 2 years ago. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ Hughes, D. European Gaucher Leadership Forum: Unmet needs of the gaucher patient. Genzyme Corporation Europe. http://www.gaucherleadershipforum.org/healthcare/01/glf_hc_highlights01h.asp.fckLR Accessed April 4, 2011.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Cambridge University Hospitals: NHS Foundation Trust. Gaucher.fckLRhttp://www.cuh.org.uk/addenbrookes/services/clinical/lysosomal/disorders/gaucher.html. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 Genzyme. Lysosomal Learning. fckLRhttp://www.lysosomallearning.com/healthcare/about/lsd_hc_abt_gaucher1.aspfckLRAccessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 14.Genzyme Corporation. Gaucher Care. fckLRhttp://www.gauchercare.com/en/healthcare/information/SignsAndSymptoms.aspx. Accessed April 1, 2011
- ↑ News Broadcast Network. Shire Announces FDA Approval of VPRIV for Gaucher Disease. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVAX4_Q-woE. Accessed on April 2, 2011.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 National Human Genome Research Institute. Learning about gaucher disease. National Human Genome Research Institute: genome.gov. http://www.genome.gov/25521505. Updated September 2, 2010. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 15.4 15.5 15.6 15.7 15.8 15.9 Schmitz, J., Poll, W.L., Dahl, S. Therapy of adult Gaucher disease. Haematologica, Vol 92, Issue 2, 148-152 doi:10.3324/haematol.11193.fckLRhttp://www.haematologica.org/cgi/content/full/92/2/148/T10920148
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 Gansz, E.B. FDA Approves Therapy to Treat Gaucher Disease New drug will offer a treatment alternative for patients with rare genetic disorder. Food and Drug Admnistration. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm202288.htm. Updated April 9, 2010. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 17.0 17.1 Pfizer, Inc. Treating gaucher disease. Pfizer, Inc: gaucherpartners.com. http://www.gaucherpartners.com/what-is-gaucher.aspx. Accessed March 5, 2011.
- ↑ Patterson, M.C. The Role of Small Molecule Inhibition in the Balance for Inborn Errors of Metabolism. Medscape Education. 2011. http://www.medscape.org/viewarticle/523700_2. Accessed April 2, 2011.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Accordant Health Services: CVS Caremark. Exercise and Gaucher Disease.fckLRhttp://www.cvscaremarkspecialtyrx.com/patients/condition-resources-tools/lysosomal-storage-disorders/gaucher-disease/staying-healthy/exerc. Updated April 30, 2010. Accessed April 1, 2011.
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 Pfizer, Inc. Gaucher Partners.com. Diagnosing Gaucher disease. http://www.gaucherpartners.com/diagnosing-gaucher.aspx. Accessed April 1, 2011.
Become a Physiopedia Member
Support Physiopedia, receive exclusive benefits and boost your professional development | <urn:uuid:09f9b50f-347e-482b-8f6d-6201b17956e2> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.physio-pedia.com/index.php?title=Gaucher_Disease | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999653645/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060733-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.864787 | 4,517 | 3.578125 | 4 |
||Arrhythmias and Transposition of the Great Arteries, L-Type
Also known as Congenitally Corrected Transposition of the Great Arteries. The circulation is normal in this defect. However, the anatomy and the conduction system are abnormal and the aberrant pathways may cause arrhythmias to develop. Arrhythmias also arise because of the defects that are frequently associated with this condition, such as ventricular septal defects (VSDs), narrowing of the pulmonary artery (Pulmonary Stenosis), defective tricuspid valve, and a defective sinoatrial node (natural pacemaker). Conduction abnormalities, such as atrial tachycardia, may also be caused by the incisions and/or subsequent scarring caused by the surgical correction of these defects.
The most common postoperative difficulties involve heart block (the impulses from the heart's natural pacemaker (sinotrial node) are delayed or blocked), which may occur despite extreme care to avoid interruption of the conduction pathways. External or internal pacemakers may be implemented to correct these problems. In extreme cases, there may be the development of third degree, or complete, heart block, in which the atrial and ventricular pumping become completely out of synch.
Both atrial and ventricular arrhythmias may arise over time as the functional left ventricle begins to lose its ability to support the systemic circulation (a task undertaken by the other anatomic ventricle in the normal heart). In some cases, persistent ventricular tachycardia (a lethal arrhythmia) is observed. Systemic ventricular dysfunction is especially common in cases where a large VSD or narrowing of the pulmonary valve (Pulmonary Stenosis) was present.
Treatment may involve medications and/or the implantation of pacemakers or ICDs (implantable cardioverter defibrillators that detect arrhythmias and shock the heart in order to restore normal rhythm). Radiofrequency ablations (non-surgical procedures in which the heart tissue that is causing the arrhythmia is neutralized) may be performed, as well as "surgical maze procedures," in which a series of incisions are made in the walls of the atria to interrupt conduction pathways and discourage the development of arrhythmias. | <urn:uuid:49e314f4-d1df-4ebc-b7ad-03f94e348b6f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.pted.org/?id=arrhythmias7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999653645/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060733-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927507 | 487 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Cinzia Cervato, Professor in Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, acknowledges that administering an exam is a well-tested method of assessing student learning. In her class of approximately 500 students, however, she also uses exams as learning tools. The assessment/learning activity begins with each student first completing a standard bubble-sheet multiple-choice exam. Then, after handing in their answers, students get together in small groups and retake the exam collaboratively using textbooks and notes. Grades are based 75% on their first try, and 25% on the answers they come up with working together.
More Teaching Tips and Techniques for Large Classes at Iowa State | <urn:uuid:e1cb2aca-3c70-450f-8992-a34fce390742> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.celt.iastate.edu/teaching/large_class/cinzia.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960475 | 131 | 3 | 3 |
Imagine tapping into the mind of a coma patient, or watching one’s own dream on YouTube. With a cutting-edge blend of brain imaging and computer simulation, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, are bringing these futuristic scenarios within reach.
Using functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and computational models, UC Berkeley researchers have succeeded in decoding and reconstructing people’s dynamic visual experiences – in this case, watching Hollywood movie trailers.
As yet, the technology can only reconstruct movie clips people have already viewed. However, the breakthrough paves the way for reproducing the movies inside our heads that no one else sees, such as dreams and memories, according to researchers.
“This is a major leap toward reconstructing internal imagery,” said Professor Jack Gallant, a UC Berkeley neuroscientist and coauthor of the study published online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Current Biology. “We are opening a window into the movies in our minds.”
Eventually, practical applications of the technology could include a better understanding of what goes on in the minds of people who cannot communicate verbally, such as stroke victims, coma patients and people with neurodegenerative diseases.
And if you dream of doing ____, the pre-crime police can lock you up? Guess this means the tin foil hat folks are just ahead of their time.
For those of you too young to understand the dream police and Cheap Trick reference, click here. | <urn:uuid:e059f890-ced9-49f3-8a22-16f12e558a90> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.dvorak.org/blog/2011/09/23/cheap-tricks-dream-police-not-just-for-song-lyrics-anymore/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91269 | 303 | 2.515625 | 3 |
DESCRIPTION OF CAVE DEPOSITS
Cave deposits in Guadalupe caves are discussed using the classification scheme of Pettijohn (1957), whereby clastic deposits are described first, followed by the primary precipitates (gypsum and chert), mineral deposits (endellite-montmorillonite-palygorskite, sulfur, and carbonate speleothems related to speleogenesis problems), and biological deposits (bat guano and animal bones).
A clastic deposit is one which is composed of fragments of material. Clastic fragments in caves can be large (e.g. breakdown blocks), small (silt and sand particles), angular (breccia), or rounded (cobbles). The clastic deposits in Guadalupe caves are discussed in order of decreasing clast size, starting with breakdown and ending with mud.
Breakdown is bedrock which has fallen from the ceilings or walls to the floor of a cave. Breakdown pieces originating on cave ceilings often break along bedding planes (e.g. Seven Rivers Formation, Cottonwood Cave), and breakdown pieces originating along cave walls often exfoliate along vertical joints (e.g. the main corridor of Ogle Cave). The most common causes of breakdown collapse are: (1) loss of buoyancy and the drying out of rock directly after water recedes from a cave passage, (2) crystal-wedging of rock by crystalline material such as gypsum which forces bedding planes apart during a subaerial episode, and (3) earthquake tremors. The shape of breakdown pieces depends on whether the rock is bedded or not: breakdown in the bedded Seven Rivers Formation tends to be tabular, whereas in the massive Capitan reef it tends to be equant. Size of breakdown blocks varies from small, fist-size blocks up to blocks tens-of-meters high. The largest known piece of breakdown in any Guadalupe cave is Iceberg Rock in the Main Corridor of Carlsbad Cavern, which was estimated by Bullington (1968, p. 22) to be "170 feet in length and to weigh over 200,000 tons."
Breccia is a clastic deposit which consists of angular fragments or clasts sometimes cemented together by matrix material, Breccia occurs in some Guadalupe caves, most notably in Virgin Cave and Carlsbad Cavern (Table 7), and it has also been observed in other caves including Cottonwood, Ogle, and New (M. Queen, pers. comm. 1984). The breccia is exposed in the bedrock walls and ceilings of cave passages, its clasts and matrix material having completely filled early-stage cavities in the rock which have been later truncated by the dissolution of the large cave passages.
TABLE 7Breccia deposits in Guadalupe Caves.
Virgin CaveBreccia deposits are displayed in cave walls and ceilings at the bottom of the first drop, all the way to the Four O'clock Staircase, and beyond to the Cavernacle. The breccia is composed of centimeter to 0.3 m long clasts cemented in a crystalline calcite or mudstone matrix. Many of these clasts appear to have been sheared in place. Virgin Cave is located near the contact of the backreef Seven Rivers and Queen(?) Formations with the Capitan Limestone reef facies. Almost the entire cave seems to be developed along a brecciated zone at or near this contact (Hill, 1984c).
Carlsbad CavernBreccia deposits in Carlsbad Cavern are also located primarily at or near the contact of backreef beds with the Capitan Limestone (Fig. 30). Queen (1981) recognized two joint-controlled trends of the breccia in Carlsbad Cavern which he noted as being continuous or parallel to breccia-filled clastic matrix and spar-filled joints in surface-bedrock exposures above the cave.
One of the best breccia exposures in Carlsbad Cavern is in the north wall of the upper Guadalupe Room, near where blocky beds of the Yates Formation interfinger along the wall. In this occurrence breccia clasts, 0.3 m or more in length, are oriented at various angles in a fine-grained, tan to dark-gray mudstone matrix (Pl. 1A). Also in this area, breccia clasts of similar size occur in a matrix of crystalline calcite spar (Fig. 67).
Queen (1981) identified five breccia localities in the Appetite Hill-Iceberg Rock section of the Main Corridor. The breccia consists of abundant dark-gray, fine-grained clasts set in a dark carbonate and mudstone matrix composed of similar material as the clasts themselves. Mudstone clasts along with limestone clasts in a dark-orange matrix are present also along the Shortcut Route near Iceberg Rock. In other breccia occurrences at Iceberg Rock (along the trail climbing up Appetite Hill), individual clasts exist in the limestone not as cavity fillings, but as isolated, angular pieces of mudstone and limestone.
One of the most perplexing deposits in Carlsbad Cavern is the cobble gravel, rounded clasts which appear sporadically all the way from Bat Cave, down the Main Corridor, in Upper Devil's Den, down into Secondary Stream Passage, andmost dramatically of allin Lower Cave, 150 m below the surface (Fig. 31). Only one other Guadalupe cave, Pink Fink Owlcove near Frank's Cave high in the escarpment above Black Canyon, is known to contain rounded clastic deposits. Description of the gravel in these two caves is summarized in Table 8.
TABLE 8Cobble-gravel deposits in Guadalupe Caves.
Pink Fink OwlcoveThis is a small cave about 15 m long, 9 m high, and 6 m wide, developed at the contact of the massive Capitan Limestone with its reef-talus member. Along a small ledge in the lower part of the chamber near the east wall is a lens of cemented gravel about 10 cm thick, both overlain and underlain by yellowish-tan silt. Many of the pebbles in the gravel are characterized by centers which are either hollow or filled with a dry moonmilk-like powder.
Carlsbad CavernAlong the Main Corridor, near and in the boneyard maze that eventually leads to the Guadalupe Room, is an occurrence of pebble-cobble conglomerate overlain by laminated silt layered roughly parallel to the underlying horizontal bedrock surface. Pebble gravel can be seen packed into a ledge directly along the trail; if one follows the trail to where it turns abruptly, a "nest" of cobbles can be seen along a continuation of the ledge (Fig. 32). The gravel of the Main Corridor can be followed about 12 m into a maze of side passages in the wall, where cobbles and pebbles are overlain by, and mixed with, orange silt.
The next appearance of cobbles is about 30 m down the Main Corridor in Upper Devil's Den, where the first cobbles encountered are located under a pile of huge breakdown to the left of the trail. These cobbles occur below a layer of orangish silt about 15 cm thick. Approximately 7 m further along the trail and directly next to it, cobbles can be seen included in the upper portion of a gypsum deposit.
In the Secondary Stream Passage, 60 m vertically below Upper Devil's Den, cobbles again appear abruptly under breakdown, near where the Secondary Stream Passage ascends up into Lower Devil's Den. Rounded limestone clasts in this passage are up to 45 cm in diameter; that is, a few of them are boulder-sized (>256 mm), but most are cobble- and pebble-sized. The cobbles continue intermittently along the Secondary Stream Passage all the way to the Lunch Room, where in places they are partly covered by floor flowstone, while in other places they can be seen filling solution pockets in the cave wall at floor level. The cobbles disappear again, equally as abruptly, where the Secondary Stream Passage joins with the Lunch Room.
The cobble gravel in Secondary Stream Passage is both overlain with silt and interbedded with it. Where the Secondary Stream Passage meets with the Lunch Room, orange silt is interbedded with lenses of lighter-colored, matrixed conglomerate. At this location the cobbles are mantled by laminated orange silt. At the Y-Junction, about 30 m into the Secondary Stream Passage from the Lunch Room, 0.6 m of orange silt is interbedded with 0.5 m of gravel in an orangish matrix. Orange silt once covered the exposed gravel to a depth of 1.5 m at this location, as is evidenced by the presence of orange silt in solution pockets up to 1.5 m above the present level of the cobble gravels, but this thick silt covering has been mostly eroded away. A shallow (0.3 m) trench dug at the Y-Junction revealed that most cobbles at this locality (ca 80%) do not directly touch one another; instead, the interstices between individual cobbles are filled with 3-4 cm of matrix material made up of semi-indurated pebble, sand, and silt. The larger cobbles make molds in the finer material if pried loose from the matrix.
The most extensive cobble-gravel deposits in Carlsbad Cavern occur in Lower Cave (Fig. 33) where they appear intermittently all the way from the Green Clay Room almost to Nicholson's Pit. The most peculiar aspect of the Lower Cave cobbles is their distribution: they do not seem to come from, or go, anywhere. The "upstream" limit of the cobbles is at the Green Clay Room where cobbles occur in a whirlpool-like floor depression about 1 m deep. The Green Clay Room continues on towards the Naturalist Room via a labyrinth of tight crawlways, but there is no evidence (such as cobbles hung-up in the crawlways) that the cobbles entered Lower Cave by this tortuous route. The "downstream" end of Lower Cave is no less an enigma. The cobbled "stream" channel abruptly ends about 30 m before Nicholson's Pit; yet, no cobbles fill the pit, as would be expected if the pit had antedated the cobbles.
Bretz (1949) claimed to have traced the direction of "stream flow" in Lower Cave by noting the gradient of the passage and by the imbrication of the cobbles. However, most of the cobbles examined during the course of this study do not appear imbricated, the possible exceptions being five cobbles in the "cobblestone" floor at Nooges Realm. The average strike of the five cobbles is 56°, with a range of 37-79° and the cobbles imbricate 146° "upstream," not "downstream," in the direction of the 1-1.5° gradient of passage slope in lower Cave.
The cobble gravel of Lower Cave, unlike that of the Main Corridor and Secondary Stream Passage, is not interbedded with silt, but instead is overlain with orange silt in banks up to 7 m high. These two types of deposits, the gravel and the silt, are completely dissimilar: the cobble gravel contains rounded limestone cobbles up to 19.5 cm in diameter imbedded in a light-tan, well-indurated, and sometimes sparry matrix, whereas the orange silt consists of fine-grained, well-sorted, loosely consolidated material which does not contain a single cobble or pebble-sized clast. Furthermore, the contact between the two deposits is sharp, with the silt resting on top of an undulating cobble-gravel horizon. The contrast in composition between the two deposits and the sharp undulating contact between them suggest that an unconformity exists between the cobble gravel and silt in Lower Cave. The best localities to view this possible unconformity are along a loop-around side passage in the Junction Room (Pl. 1B) and in Nooges Realm; at the latter location, the undulate "cobblestone" can be traced underneath a 1 m high orange silt bank (Fig. 34).
In order to study the possible unconformity, and also to investigate the cobble gravel at depth, a 0.3 m square, 1 m deep pit was dug in the silt and cobble gravel of Nooges Realm, Lower Cave (Fig. 34). Size, sphericity, roundness, and other parameters were ascertained for the cobble gravel excavated. The results for sieved samples of this gravel are shown in Table 9. The size data shows that the cobbles are flattened and disk-shaped according to Zingg's classification of shape (Krumbein and Sloss, 1963), with the average long axis of the cobbles more than twice as long as the short axis. According to the Power's roundness scale (Folk, 1968), the cobbles range from subangular to well-rounded. The cobbles in the "cobblestone" floor and in Level 1 of the pit are larger than those in Levels 2, 3, and 4, but below Level 1 there is no statistical difference in cobble size.
TABLE 9Data on gravel excavated from a trench in Lower Cave, Carlsbad Cavern.
The cobble gravel exposed in the pit is heterogeneous, poorly sorted, and lacks internal stratification. Essentially, the gravel contains a chaotic size mixture of debris. The cobbles usually do not touch each other, but instead are matrix-supported. The matrix contains smaller particles of pebble, sand, and silt; it is light-colored and semi-indurated (i.e. the cobbles and pebbles can be dug out from the matrix with a knife but not with the fingers). Many of the cobbles in Lower Cave have fine-grained, moonmilk-like centers similar to those in Pink Fink Owlcove. Cobbles filled with this moonmilk-like substance can lie directly adjacent to completely crystalline limestone cobbles: both have the same outward appearance, but upon breaking the moonmilk-filled cobbles fall apart like talcum powder.
Almost all (99%) of the debris removed from the Lower Cave pit was composed of limestone with the exception of a few (1%) pieces of chert, iron-oxide fragments, and calcite spar. The chert fragments are angular, white or black, and vary in length from 1.5 mm to 12 mm (Table 9). Semi-rounded, thin pieces of iron oxide were found at all levels in the pit. These look as if they might have once been surface coatings over bedrock which broke off from the rock and then became semirounded. In Level 1 of the pit were found three pieces of spar, which may have once been part of a single rounded crystal.
Sand and silt
Compared with caves like Flint-Mammoth, Kentucky, which have kilometers of sediment-filled passages, the caves of the Guadalupe Mountains are relatively devoid of sediment. Where sand and silt do occur on cave floors, the source of these deposits can almost always be traced to nearby silty or sandy bedrock. Deposits which clearly display this relationship to bedrock units are: (1) Sand Passage, Carlsbad Cavern; (2) New Mexico Room, Carlsbad Cavern; (3) Bottomless Pit area, Carlsbad Cavern; (4) Sand Floor, Sand Cave; (5) Flat Floor Room, McKittrick Cave; (6) Green Lake Room, Endless Cave; and (7) Sand Slope, Cottonwood Cave. For the petrography of some of these deposits see Table 10. Carlsbad Cavern has the best exposures of fine-grained clastics; these are the only deposits that will be elaborated on. Clastic sediment lines the walls of parts of Left Hand Tunnel, covers the floor of a major part of Lower Cave, and occurs sporadically throughout the Big Room (Fig. 35).
TABLE 10Petrographic description of some sand, silt, and mud deposits in Guadalupe Caves. Roundness according to Powers Scale, size classification after Folk (1968).
Left Hand TunnelOrange-silt banks up to 1.5 m high line sections of Left Hand Tunnel (Fig. 36). Many of these banks have been excavated for trail building, an activity which has exposed the slumped and layered nature of the silt. The silt banks are level along the walls on opposite sides of Left Hand Tunnel, but slump toward the middle of the passage wherever a canyon dissects the floor. The orange silt in Left Hand Tunnel appears and disappears in accordance with the appearance and disappearance of the reef-talus and reef-core facies (compare Figs. 18 and 35). Reef-talus sections are characterized by vertical canyons rather than horizontal mazes, by a lack of travertine deposits, by crude bedding planes which dip approximately 30° to the south, by fossiliferous (brachiopods, crinoids, fusulinid foraminifera) bedrock, and bypods of orange silt in the limestone and orange silt on the floor.
Lower CaveThe most extensive deposits in Carlsbad Cavern are in Lower Cave, where flat-topped silt terraces and banks up to 7 m high line the passage walls (Fig. 37). The sediment directly overlies cobble gravel in many places along Lower Cave (Pl. 1B), and is itself overlain by subaerially formed crustal or dripstone deposits (Fig. 69).
Dunham (1972) described the clastic material of Lower Cave as a reddish-tan gypsiferous silt containing particles coated with a hydrated ferric-iron oxide, and crystals of gypsum along with scarce fragments of quartz, dolomite, and calcite. Observations made during this study agree with those of Dunham: silt-sized, clay-coated quartz grains, and calcite and gypsum crystals comprise the bulk of the orange sediment of Lower Cave (Table 10). As elsewhere in the cave, the orange silt of Lower Cave contains no cobbles, pebbles, or montmorillonite-endellite clay.
DuChene (1972) collected samples of silt in Lower Cave (both below the Jumping Off Place and further down the passage near Stegosaurus Rock) and performed a statistical size analysis on them. The mean particle size of the sediment in Lower Cave is 4.65 phi units (0.04 mm), with a standard deviation of 0.158. Thus, the sediments of Lower Cave are a very well-sorted, coarse-grained silt. DuChene also determined a water-soluble-salt content of 2.5% for the water-soluble salts of sodium and magnesium, and a carbonate content of between 15% and 40% for the two collection sites, respectively. The 40% carbonate content for the Segosaurus Rock site is perhaps representative of the carbonate content in the upper parts of the sediment banks where they are covered with carbonate coralline crusts. The sediment near the Jumping Off Place, with a 15% carbonate content, was collected near a site of dripping water and, as such, has probably been leached of part of its carbonate content.
In some places in Lower Cave the silt displays a laminated texture highlighted by bands of lighter carbonate material between laminae. Three sets of bands are most pronounced, the sequence varying from place to place. There is a faint banding at 1 mm between laminae, more conspicuous bands 1-2 cm apart, and the lightest, most conspicuous bands 2-4 cm apart (Pl. 2A). Laminations are usually best preserved in sediment banks located under protected alcoves, but they also can be seen in silt banks within the largest passages in Lower Cave, such as at DuChene's Stegosaurus Rock collection site.
Like the sediment banks in Left Hand Tunnel, the tops of the Lower Cave banks are essentially level, both across the passage and all the way along the entire length of Lower Cave (Table 11). The original upper surface of the flat-topped terraces is difficult to determine because remnant patches of orange silt partially fill solution pockets in the limestone up to 1.5 m above the upper terrace level of the banks. This probably signifies that the silt has compacted since its initial deposition; thus, the sediment bank heights listed in Table 11 should be considered approximate values, varying as much as a meter or so, but not more, from the height of the originally deposited material.
TABLE 11Sediment bank elevations, Lower Cave, Carlsbad Cavern.
The sediment banks in Lower Cave have been entrenched into erosional V's with slope angles of 30° or more (Fig. 37). A meandering pattern of downcutting is evident along a few segmented portions of Lower Cave, with the meanders confined by the walls of the cave. Downcutting continued throughout the entire silt horizon but stopped once the more competent, underlying cobble-gravel horizon was breached; indurated cobble gravel below the silt has not been downcut more than half a meter or so.
New Mexico RoomAlong the east wall of the New Mexico Room are piles of clean white sand which represent residual sediment from the dissolution of light-colored, steeply dipping sandstone beds which comprise part of the east wall. The identity of these sandstone beds has been the subject of much debate. Black (1954) reported the occurrence of siliciclastic beds in the New Mexico Room which he interpreted as a possible basinward continuation of lower Yates sands. Moran (1955) speculated that the beds represented shelfward tongues of the sandstones of the Delaware Mountain Group (Bell Canyon Formation), possibly deposited on the basinward flank of an early reef. Candelaria (1982) thought that either interpretation was equivocal since neither of these sandstones is continuous enough to be traceable shelfward or basinward. This study favors Moran's contention that the sandstone beds in the New Mexico Room are part of the Bell Canyon Formation. It also favors Moran's definition of the Bell Canyon Formation; that is, that all sandstones on the basinward flank of the Capitan Limestone belong to the Bell Canyon. Evidence supporting a Bell Canyon origin for the New Mexico Room sandstone is:
(1) Strike and dip of beds in the New Mexico Room as measured by Moran (1955), Good (1957), and in this study are N70°E, 20-30°S; N65°E 33°S; and N62°E, 36°S respectively; i.e. the beds dip steeply toward the basin. In contrast to these measurements, backreef beds of the Artesia Group dip 3-4° toward the reef.
(2) Newell et al. (1953) and Grauten (1965) described the sandstone of the Bell Canyon Formation as a white, remarkably clean, homogeneous unit containing angular to well-sorted grains in the coarse-silt to fine-sand category. Moran (1955) found the light-tan to white sandstone of the New Mexico Room to be a coarse silt to sand, with over 50% of the particles in the very fine- to fine-sand category, and with negligible hydrocarbon content (0.015 mg/g). This study found the sandstone to be a clean, white, subarkosic (feldspar determined by the Mueller Process), homogeneous, fine-grained unit (Table 10). Where it is pure sand (99% sand, Table 27), it has a porosity and permeability of 28% and 61 millidarcies, respectively; if the carbonate content is greater and the sand content less (35% sand, Table 27), then the porosity and permeability is much lower (4.5% and 0.01 millidarcies, respectively). As is typical of Bell Canyon sands, porosity and permeability varies over short distances (about 5 m for the two collection sites in the New Mexico Room, Table 12).
TABLE 12Porosity and permeability of bedrock, Carlsbad Cavern, and Bell Canyon Formation, Delaware Basin.
(3) The New Mexico Room is too low for the sandstone to be part of the silty and sandy Yates Formation. The lowermost Yates beds crop out at the top of the Guadalupe Room, almost 100 m higher than the New Mexico Room level (Fig. 17).
(4) The altitude of the Bell Canyon Formation in the basin 0.5 km south of Carlsbad Cavern is at about 740 m (2,470 ft) (Fig. 12). If Bell Canyon beds dip 10-30° at their intersection with the reef, as King (1942) stated and as the measured dips in the New Mexico Room indicate might be true, then the Bell Canyon sandstone could intersect the Capitan reef at about the Big Room-New Mexico Room level.
(5) The steeply dipping sandstone in the New Mexico Room is the site of sulfur mineralization. The fact that the sulfur occurs on the undersides of bedrock and gypsum speleothems is important because it indicates that the source of the sulfur (i.e. hydrogen-sulfide gas) may have come from below, or updip from the basin, along the clean, white, porous beds and into the cave. Moran (1955, p. 258) offered a similar opinion, but regarding oil rather than hydrogen-sulfide migration: "such sandstone tongues could serve as possibly conduits for oil from basin to porous reef. Lack of hydrocarbons may indicate that the sandstones have been effectively flushed, perhaps during the period of formation of Carlsbad Caverns."
Big RoomSediment in the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern differs significantly from sediment in other parts of the cave and also from sediment in other Guadalupe caves. Instead of being a homogeneous orange-tan color, the Big Room sediment varies from cream to brick-red to green, brown, ochre-yellow, and purple. In some places the deposits overlie montmorillonite-endellite clay and/or are interbedded with chert (Fig. 70).
The sand and silt in the Big Room have been previously described by Good (1957) and Queen (1981). Clay (montmorillonite-endellite) beds are usually overlain by silt and then by sand, but this trend is locally variable. Sand is commonly disseminated throughout the clay and silt, with the sand sometimes in layers of less than 1 cm thick and with each successive layer containing only minor amounts of other size fractions. The upper part of the sand unit is commonly quite pure and consists of very fine-grained, frosted or clear, angular to well-rounded quartz grains, with some of the grains containing black inclusions (Good, 1957).
Other silt deposits of the Big Room show a regular vertical succession of colors, from green and chocolate brown through red and orange to light-orange, yellow, and rarely light-purple (Queen, 1981). Specific colors may be missing at some locations, but the colors never change order. Brick-red silt occurs both on the floor of Bottomless Pit and at the Salt Flats. The Salt Flats silt shows crude to well-developed bedding parallel to the upper surface of the sediment mound except for near the top of the sediment bank where bedding has been highly deformed and folded (Pl. 2B).
A local type of silt deposit in the Big Room is the silt breccia, a 15 cm thick deposit composed of angular fragments of red, yellow, and tan silt and angular pieces of flowstone in a brown silt matrix. The silt breccia is located just to the right of the Texas Trail where it takes off from the main trail. The silt breccia partially underlies flowstone travertine (Fig. 70).
At the Bottomless Pit, along the west wall near the Breast of Venus, and also along the south wall between the Jumping Off Place and the Bottomless Pit, are white- to buff- to cream-colored sands (Fig. 38) that are similar in color, texture, and size distribution to the clean white sands of the New Mexico Room. The sand along the south wall and near the Breast of Venus occurs in semicircular, conical piles called "half cones" by Good (1957), "flowstone-covered alluvial sand cones" by Sanchez (1964), and "sand domes" by Bullington (1968). These white "quartz-sand half cones" of the Big Room are about 3 m high and 6 m in diameter, and abut directly up against the cave walls. The cone at the Breast of Venus is overlain by travertine flowstone, and, where the light-colored sediment has been excavated for trail building, a conical shell of flowstone has been left free standing. The sand of the cone is iron-stained along its upper part, near its contact with the flowstone.
The "sand" of the half cones is actually not pure sand but a mixture of coarse-grained silt and fine-grained sand, as are the other fine-grained clastic deposits in the cave (Table 10). The silt-sand is clean, well sorted, and according to Queen (1981) some of the clastic particles display beautiful quartz overgrowths.
The presence of the light-colored quartz-sand half cones in Carlsbad Cavern is most curious because this type of deposit is unknown in any other Guadalupe cave. Also, the half cones do not seem to be related to joints, bedding, sandstone dikes, or other such features in the wall limestone. In the Breast of Venus occurrence, the apex of the half cone corresponds to a hole in a section of wall directly above it. The sediment appears to have filtered down from above and through the hole, but if one climbs up onto the apex of the cone and looks straight up through the hole, one cannot trace the sand to any pertinent feature in the limestone ceiling. In the four south-wall occurrences, the apices of the cones do not correspond to any particular feature in the wall, not even to a hole along which the sand could have filtered down.
Like the clean, white sands in the New Mexico Room, the light-colored silt-sand at the Bottomless Pit and the quartz-sand half cones of the Big Room are thought to be part of the Bell Canyon Formation (Fig. 18).
(1) Strike and dip of the tilted beds at Bottomless Pit range between N60°E-N90°E and 20-50°S (for six readings; J. Roth, pers. comm. 1986).
(2) As with the New Mexico Room sands, the Big Room sands are too low to be part of the Yates Formation. Furthermore, the bedrock at Bottomless Pit differs compositionaily from Yates Formation outcrops. The Yates Formation in Sand Cave contains 0.08% silica, while the Bottomless Pit bedrock contains 2.8% silica (Table 26). The interfingering of the Yates Formation at the Auditorium, Carlsbad Cavern, contains 1.7% of insoluble residue, while the bedrock at Bottomless Pit contains 11.7% of insoluble residue (Table 27).
(3) While there are no bedding planes in the quartz-sand half cones, so that strike and dip cannot be measured, the sand is remarkably white, clean, and well sorted, like the light-colored sand of the Bell Canyon Formation. Good (1957) found the sand of the Big Room half cones to be similar to the sand of the New Mexico Room except for a higher percentage of larger grain sizes. Microscopic examination done during this study showed that the sand of the quartz-sand half cones near the Breast of Venus is nearly identical to that found in the New Mexico Room and at Bottomless Pit (Table 10).
(4) Jagnow (1977) and Queen (1981) were of the opinion that the quartz-sand half cones in the Big Room represent sand-filled fractures in the Capitan Limestone. This interpretation seems doubtful because sandstone fractures are nowhere to be found, The sand of the half cones does not crop out as thin, branching dikes according to either Hayes' (1964) or Dunham's (1972) descriptions. They are conical masses of slumped sand, and as Good (1957) noted, with gradational, not dike-like, contacts. In the two south end exposures of the Big Room, the half cones appear almost like sand balls or sand lenses in the wall which have slumped down into half-cone piles as the cave walls receded by dissolution.
(5) Sulfur occurs at the south end of the Big Room, very near the quartz sand half cones along the wall (see Sheet 2).
Clastic deposits found only in Carlsbad Cavern are the thin-layered, orange-brown, variegated siltstones exposed in wall cavities or in pieces of breakdown on the floor and usually associated with overlying, well-indurated, cave rafts (Fig. 39). Queen (1981) named these deposits "granular flowstones" because they are banded like flowstone and are characterized by grains which reflect light. However, Queen's name is misleading because "flowstone" implies a secondary, subaerially formed, travertine deposit, and "granular" implies that detrital grains such as sand in the deposit reflect the light. Rather than being a flowstone or sandstone, the orange-brown deposit is actually a calcified siltstone with crystalline calcite cement comprising about 80% of the mass and with the remaining 20% composed of silt-sized debris with minor sand (Table 10). The calcite-cement crystal domains are what give the deposit its granular, sparkling texture. The siltstone is banded dark brown and orange, the darker color being caused by a relatively higher percentage of iron and manganese.
The best localities of calcified siltstone are in the Guadalupe Room, Main Corridor, and Lower Devil's Den sections of Carlsbad Cavern (Table 13), and also in lower passages off the New Section. All of these localities are at or near the contact of backreef beds with the Capitan Limestone (Fig. 40). The calcified siltstone always rests on an upfacing surface (Fig. 39) and is usually overlain by cave rafts which have been well indurated and thickened with post-depositional calcite.
TABLE 13Calcified-siltstonecave-raft deposits, Carlsbad Cavern.
In the Guadalupe Room, Lower Devil's Den, and New Section the sequence of calcified siltstonecave rafts can be observed within small cavities, pockets, or alcoves in the bedrock which have been planed off concordant to the cave walls. In the Guadalupe Room and Lower Devil's Den areas siltstone-rafts are also found in floor breakdown, while in the Main Corridor (just beyond the tunnel before reaching the Green Lake Room) the deposits are in a mass of breakdown directly adjacent to the trail.
Dark-brown mud deposits have been found in many Guadalupe cavesCottonwood, Endless, Little Sand, McKittrick, Spider, Three Fingers, Virgin, Cave Tree, Jurnigan, Madonna, and Vanishing River. In a side alcove of McKittrick Cave and in the Root Cellar Room of Three Fingers Cave, twig remnants can be picked out of the mud. In the Helictite Room of Spider Cave, leaves and fungus are associated with the mud and there is a light-brown mud line on helictite and flowstone decorations from a back-up of muddy water in the cave. The floor in the Mud Room of Cottonwood Cave is layered with a brown sticky mud of heavy-grease consistency (Boyer, 1964). A microscopic examination of this mud revealed tiny coagulated clumps of dark-brown, uncrystallized material (Table 10). In the Mud Crack Room of Endless Cave, the floor mud is semilaminated, with 1 cm thick lighter layers alternating with darker layers. No leaves or twigs were found in the Endless Cave mud, but fungus was observed growing on top of it. In one place the mud was measured to a depth of 0.3 m; in another place it was found to overlie a gypsum block. Major mud influxes have also occurred in the lower passage in the Cave of the Madonna and in the Mud Room-Grunge Hall and Thanksgiving Room-Deep Throat areas of Virgin Cave (D. Davis, pers. comm. 1984). The Virgin case is interesting because the mud evidently entered at an intermediate level; then a semifluid mudflow poured from the Thanksgiving Room down the Midterm side of the Four O'clock Staircase before reaching the lowest part of the cave. Hill (1984c) tried to correlate the occurrence of mud in Virgin Cave with a valley depression on the surface and speculated that the mud entered the cave via a brecciated zone along which both the depression and cave passages developed.
Gypsum blocks and rinds
Gypsum in Guadalupe caves occurs as (1) blocks and rinds, and (2) speleothems. Blocks and rinds are an alabaster-like, granular type of massive-gypsum deposit, whereas gypsum speleothems are secondary deposits such as stalactites, stalagmites, cave flowers, and selenite needles. Gypsum blocks occur as floor deposits up to 10 m in height (Fig. 41); most are segmented into sections and blocks, but some are continuous across sections of the cave floor. Gypsum rinds occur as wall deposits up to 1 m thick, which drape over bedrock or silt (Fig. 42). A description of the massive-gypsum deposits in Guadalupe caves is summarized in Table 14, and their location in Carlsbad Cavern is shown on Sheet 2 (in yellow).
Gypsum blocks and rinds are composed of massive-granular gypsum with individual crystals ca 1 mm long. Crystals larger than this are tabular and cover the outside surfaces of the blocks or rinds. The gypsum making up blocks and rinds can be porous and friable like talcum powder (e.g. the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern) or it can be dense, hard, and compact (e.g. the McKittrick Hill caves). One attempt to drill a core into the gypsum blocks of the Big Room failed because it was like drilling into loose, uncompacted sugar. The gypsum making up blocks and rinds is white to light yellow except where it has been stained a darker yellow by bat guano or iron oxide. In Lower Devil's Den, Carlsbad Cavern, small segments of a few gypsum blocks are tinted a light mint green from traces of montmorillonite clay (C. M. Seanor and R. North, pers. comm. 1985).
Many gypsum blocks possess a crystalline crust sharply delineated from the main mass of more compacted and less crystalline gypsum. These "overgrowth crusts," as they are called, are up to 30 cm thick and are generally more white and porous than the underlying gypsum. Overgrowth crusts do not possess laminations and other textural features present in the blocks themselves, but occasionally a thin layer of overgrowth crust will highlight lamination ridges in the textured gypsum beneath it. Good examples of overgrowth crusts on gypsum blocks occur in the Big Room, Talcum Passage, and New Mexico Room of Carlsbad Cavern, and in the Balcony Room of Dry Cave. At the Jumping Off Place, Big Room, a 10-20 cm thick, coarse, porous overgrowth crust overlies the regular mass of gypsum (Queen, 1981). In the Talcum Passage and in the Balcony Room of Dry Cave, overgrowth crusts have slumped down along the vertical sides of gypsum blocks (Fig. 43).
Gypsum blocks and rinds exist in caves throughout the Guadalupe Mountains. The lowest elevation at which this gypsum has been found is 1,080 m, in Lower Cave, Carlsbad Cavern, and the highest altitude is 2,073 m, in Wonderland, Cottonwood Cave. Gypsum blocks and rinds have been observed in Carlsbad, New, Cottonwood, Lechuguilla, Black, Hell Below, McKittrick, Dry, Sand, Endless, Little Sand, Virgin, Pink Panther, Three Fingers, and Spider Caves (Hill, 1973e). In Black Cave and New Cave only a few gypsum blocks have survived dissolution.
Within each cave, gypsum blocks and rinds display certain distributional trends. Gypsum deposits seem to be more sparsely distributed and/or more highly dissolved in long, linear passages such as Bat Cave, the Main Corridor, and Left Hand Tunnel of Carlsbad Cavern (Sheet 2); the Entrance Hall of Cottonwood Cave (Sheet 5); and the Expressway Passages of Endless and Dry Caves. Gypsum rinds are usually found in boneyard side passages; gypsum blocks usually reside on the floors of large rooms. As a rule, gypsum deposits are more abundant in middle cave levels than in upper and lower levels, a trend best demonstrated in the McKittrick Hill caves. The middle level (Middle Maze) of Endless Cave is choked with gypsum blocks 0.6-1.2 m high in a 1.2 m high passage, while the upper level (the Expressway) is nearly devoid of gypsum and the lower level (Lower Maze) has gypsum deposits 0.3-0.6 m high in a 2 m high passage. Gypsum once completely choked off the Middle Maze as evidenced by remnant gypsum pillars which reach from the cave floor to the ceiling (Fig. 44), and by gypsum blocks which have surfaces parallel to undulations in the ceiling bedrock (Fig. 45). In Cottonwood Cave, gypsum blocks occur at all levels in the Gypsum Passage, but primarily in the middle section intermediate between Wonderland and the lower Gypsum Passage. The lower Gypsum Passage contains many gypsum blocks, but most of these appear to have fallen from above; wherever a bedrock bridge has protected a low section from falling debris, gypsum blocks do not exist on the floor. In Carlsbad Cavern, massive gypsum blocks are rare above the Big Room-Talcum Passage level (Upper Devil's Den and the Music Room Balcony are the exceptions); also, gypsum is much less abundant at the Lower Cave level than at the Big Room level.
Where cave floors slope, such as in the McKittrick Hill caves, gypsum blocks lie at the approximate angle of floor repose. In McKittrick Cave, the slope of the floor gypsum mimics the dip of bedding except where vadose drippage has dissolved the gypsum away (Fig. 46). In Endless Cave, the slope of the floor gypsum approximates the passage dip even in areas where gypsum pillars extend from the floor to the ceiling (Fig. 44). In caves where the floor is roughly horizontal, as in the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern, gypsum blocks may slope toward the center of a room. The slope, delineated by the top surface of the blocks, can be traced even where the blocks have been separated by erosion (Fig. 47). In Talcum Passage, Carlsbad Cavern, the gypsum blocks slope along the entire length of the passage, from a high of 7 m at the southern end of the passage to where the gypsum completely disappears at the northern end of the passage (R. Lipinski, written comm. 1984).
Another trend seen in some Guadalupe caves is that the height of gypsum blocks is approximately 10-30% the height of the passage in which the blocks reside. In the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern for example, the blocks are 4.5-6.0 m high in a 45 m high passage. The McKittrick Hill caves have a gypsum/passage height ratio averaging ca 30%. Davis (1980) also noted this correlation between passage height and gypsum-block height.
At many localities, such as the Lower Maze, Endless Cave, and Lower Cave and Upper Devil's Den, Carlsbad Cavern, gypsum floor blocks are continuous with wall rinds, the gypsum thinning upwards along the wall as it grades from a block into a rind (Fig. 48). At other localities, such as Lower Cave and the Polar Regions, Carlsbad Cavern, gypsum blocks thin into rinds in the downward direction-along bedrock beneath floor blocks. Gypsum is only rarely attached to cave ceilings, one example of this being the archway ceiling of gypsum in the Gyp Joint of Hell Below Cave (Fig. 49) and another being the ceiling crustal rinds in Rim City and Windy City, Lechuguilla Cave (Table 14).
TABLE 14Gypsum blocks and rinds in Guadalupe Caves.
Textural features in the gypsum blocks and rinds of Guadalupe caves provide important clues to its origin, and also to its mode of coalescence and solidification. Such textural features are highly variable not only in gypsum deposits of different caves, but also within adjacent gypsum blocks in the same cave or even within the same gypsum block or rind over a distance of a few centimeters.
LaminationsMany of the gypsum blocks and rinds in Guadalupe caves display a laminated texture, but these are not obvious to the causal observer because one must look very closely to see them and because overgrowth crusts often hide them. Laminations in the cave gypsum represent a two-component system of colorless selenite alternating with opaque gypsum. Laminae are usually transparent white-translucent white, but in some caves, such as Cottonwood, the layering is a more visible white-gray. Despite their resemblance to the varves in the anhydrite beds of the Castile Formation in the Gypsum Plain, neither the white-gray couplets nor the transparent-translucent couplets contain calcite as do the gypsum-calcite varves of the Castile Formation. An attempt was made to drill into the gypsum blocks of the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, in order to correlate lamination sequences similarly to Anderson et al. (1972) in the Castile Formation of the Gypsum Plain. This attempt failed because the cave gypsum at this location has a sugar-like consistency, making the retrieval of a solid core impossible.
Examination of the cave-gypsum laminae in thin section revealed thicker (1 mm) transparent layers alternating with thinner (0.5 mm) opaque layers. One measured section displayed 12-15 laminae/cm. Pods of gypsum, reminiscent of nodular structures in the Castile Formation as described by Dean (1967; pl. 2E), distort some of the laminae, and often the laminae are not continuous but end abruptly. Laminated texture in the gypsum varies from equant in the more transparent layers to felty in the more opaque layers. The more felty-looking crystals show preferred alignment perpendicular to layering. In one thin section, a vertical array of large, lath-like gypsum crystals was superimposed upon the smaller, felted crystals, a texture which most likely represents a partial recrystallization of the gypsum.
Laminations in gypsum blocks and rinds are oriented roughly parallel to the surface against which the gypsum rests. Where a limestone wall or ledge is vertical, horizontal, inclined, or curved, the laminations are likewise disposed. In floor blocks, the laminations are usually horizontal or very gently inclined (Pl. 3A). In wall rinds, such as the 0.3-0.6 m thick rinds in the upper Gypsum Passage of Cottonwood Cave, the laminations are vertical or inclined parallel to the wall. In the area of Mirror Lake, Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, gently tilted laminated layers of gypsum are overlain by horizontally laminated gypsum, looking like rock layers which have been separated by an angular unconformity. In the first trail arch at the Jumping Off Place, Big Room, tiny faults offset laminations in the gypsum.
MicrofoldingMicrofolded laminations are a common feature in the anhydrite of the Castile Formation of the Gypsum Plain (Kirkland and Anderson, 1970). The cave gypsum also sometimes displays a microfolded texture, best developed in the gypsum blocks of the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern. Folding in the cave gypsum is not as tight, regular, or symmetrical as that in the anhydrite of the Castile Formation; it is more gentle and undulant (Pl. 3A). In rare instances, small faults occur at the microfold bends.
SlickensidesSlickensides can be seen in the gypsum blocks at the Jumping Off Place, Carlsbad Cavern, inside of the second of the two trail tunnels (Pl. 3B). They are grooved structures which occur at the contact of an overgrowth crust with the underlying gypsum mass. The grooves are not laminations nor do they appear to be mechanical cuts made while tunneling through the gypsum. The striations most closely resemble slickensides created where adjacent rocks have slid past each other. Two small patches of gypsum have slickenside surfaces: one patch is 8 cm long and 5 cm wide, and the other one (below and to the right of the first) is 10 cm long and 7 cm wide, In each case the striations are 1 mm or less apart and are inclined approximately 5-10° from the vertical.
BrecciaSmall-scale breccia texture, consisting of jumbled masses of laminated angular fragments, occurs in the gypsum blocks of the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern (Fig. 50). The breccia closely resembles the brecciated texture in the Castile Formation of the Gypsum Plain (see Dean, 1967, pl. 1G); however, unlike the breccia texture of the Castile Formation, the breccia in the cave gypsum does not seem to be related to microfolding. Breccia texture has been observed only in certain sections of the Big Room such as the Salt Flats, and then usually only in the upper part of the gypsum.
Bedrock inclusionsPieces of bedrock varying from 1 cm long fragments to large angular blocks are included within the cave gypsum. The bedrock inclusions are in various stages of replacement by gypsum: of five inclusions found in the gypsum blocks of the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, three still effervesce in acid (they are still limestone), whereas two do not react (they have altered to gypsum, at least on their surfaces). At one locality in the Big Room, two limestone pieces can be seen vertically arrayed in the gypsum as if they had fallen from a single point on the ceiling (Fig. 51).
In Cottonwood Cave, dolomite inclusions derived from the Seven Rivers Formation are in various stages of being replaced by gypsum. Some inclusions have totally altered to gypsum, some only have calcite veins remaining of their original bedrock mass, some are altered only around their edges, and others still remain unaltered dolomite. One inclusion in the gypsum of the upper Gypsum Passage consists of a dolomite core 10 cm in diameter, surrounded by a dark, 3-4 cm wide gypsum reaction rim (Fig. 52). A thin section made of one Cottonwood Cave inclusion revealed only gypsum crystals except for a few "ghost" calcite-spar crystals of high, but masked, birefringence.
Inclusions within the gypsum have derived from nearby bedrock either as pieces fallen from the ceiling or pieces exfoliated from the wall. In the upper Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave, inclusions are bedded pieces of dolomite corresponding in thickness to bedding in the Seven Rivers wallrock.
Included bat guano and bat bonesPockets of orange to red material occur within some of the gypsum blocks of the Big Room and Talcum Passage, Carlsbad Cavern (Pl. 4A). This material is bat guano which has filtered down into the gypsum along cracks, dissolved sections, or drip tubes.
A partial bat skeleton (long bones and skull) has been found in a gypsum block near the trail, Bottomless Pit, Big Room, 4-5 cm down from the top of the gypsum. The bones look as if they fell into a drip hole or depression in the gypsum and then were covered over with a powdery mixture of gypsum and limestone.
Insoluble residueThe gypsum deposits of Guadalupe caves are almost devoid of insoluble residue. Two samples of gypsum, one from the Lower Maze of Endless Cave and one from near the Bottomless Pit, Carlsbad Cavern, were collected in order to determine their insoluble-residue content. The gypsum, when dissolved in 50% hydrochloric acid, produced a solution that was not even slightly discolored. However, tiny (0.05-0.1 mm) pieces of angular chert and quartz were identified in the gypsum from both localities; in addition, the Bottomless Pit sample contained black specks (of magnetite?). Insoluble residue in the Bottomless Pit sample was 0.01%, and in the Endless Cave sample it was <0.1% (Table 15). Hydrocarbon content of the gypsum, as determined from a carbon-tetrachloride extract, was only 0.5 ppm. The remarkable purity of the gypsum is also supported by the iron content as determined by whole-rock analyses. At four cave localities, the gypsum blocks had less or much less than 0.12% of ferric and 0.03% of ferrous iron (Table 26).
TABLE 15Insoluble residue and hydrocarbon content of gypsum blocks, Guadalupe Caves.
There are a few exceptions to the general rule of residue-free gypsum. In the Pump Room of Carlsbad Cavern and in the Balcony Room of Dry Cave, the top surfaces of the gypsum are banded with orange layers (Pl. 4B). Microscopic examination of the layers revealed that the residue is a fine-grained silt. The silt layers are not necessarily laterally continuous; sometimes the layers disappear suddenly as if their deposition had not been originally continuous. Another occurrence of gypsum that contains silt is an eroded gypsum pillar at the end of the Expressway Passage, Dry Cave. The silt occurs as a 6 cm thick band or "belt" in the gypsum mass together with pieces of limestone (Pl. 5A). The orange silt and limestone pieces are believed to be clastic debris which slumped from a rear passage into the gypsum at the time of its deposition or consolidation.
Flow featuresEgemeier (1981) compared the consistency of wet gypsum in the caves of the Big Horn Basin, Wyoming, to that of mud. Flow features in the cave gypsum of the Guadalupe Mountains attest to the fact that it also had a mud-like, semiplastic consistency when still wet. The overgrowth crusts in the Talcum Passage, Carlsbad Cavern, apparently have slid down over underlying gypsum; additionally, in the Talcum Passage, a lower section of a gypsum block looks like it crept down into cracks within the underlying limestone (Fig. 53). The gypsum of the Balcony in Dry Cave appears as if it flowed over the edge of the balcony limestone (Lindsley and Lindsley, 1978); also in Dry Cave, a spectacular cascade of pure-white crystalline gypsum approximately 2 m long plummets like a frozen alabaster waterfall into the Insane Rain Drain Trench Pit.
Replacement featuresQueen et al. (1977a) reported numerous replacement textures in the gypsum of the upper Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave. These include pisolites, fossils, travertine, breccia, relict bedding, primary pores, and light/dark laminations. Also, dolomite clasts have been reported in various stages of replacement in the same gypsum (Fig. 52).
Replacement textures in the gypsum deposits of other Guadalupe caves are not nearly so pronounced. Of the numerous gypsum blocks examined in the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, only a few possible cases of replacement gypsum were found. The limestone inclusions mentioned previously have been, at least partially, replaced by gypsum on their surfaces. Gypsum laminations cross-cut limestone inclusions in one of the floor blocks of the Big Room, another possible indication of replacement (Fig. 54). A calcified fossil foraminifer was noted in one thin section made from a piece of a gypsum block taken from the Big Room; only a partial test was preserved, the rest apparently having been dissolved away. A thin (<1 cm), patchy crust of possible replacement-solution gypsum has been observed over limestone bedrock near the Bottomless Pit, Carlsbad Cavern. No replacement textures could be seen in this gypsum crust under microscopic examination. Other possible replacement features have been observed in the gypsum blocks of Glacier Bay, Lechuguilla Cave (Hill, 1986).
Recrystallization featuresMuch of the massive gypsum in Guadalupe caves is recrystallized, sometimes so severely as to completely obscure primary textures. Recrystallization is especially apparent in overgrowth crusts which are typically covered with tabular gypsum crystals 2-3 mm long and 1 mm thick. In Hell Below Cave, recrystallization has produced large crystal faces and perhaps even flower-like forms in the archway of gypsum in the Gyp Joint. Recrystallization may account for the lath-like gypsum laminae which were seen in thin section, and it may also be an alternative explanation for laminations which cross-cut inclusions (Fig. 54).
In addition to textural features, gypsum deposits in Guadalupe caves exhibit a variety of dissolution features.
Drip tubesGypsum is a soluble material and dripping water readily dissolves vertical holes in blocks. Good (1957) first named such dripping water forms in gypsum "drip tubes," and they have been subsequently referred to as "drip-drill pits" or "drill holes." Drip tubes in gypsum are always vertical (if the gypsum has not been tilted subsequent to drilling). They are found beneath limestone pendants, joints, or stalactites where water drips into the cave, and they are usually vertically fluted due to slight positional changes in the overhanging drip (Figs. 55, 57). In rare instances, drip tubes can become filled with carbonate speleothems such as stalagmites; the dripping water first carves out the tube and then the stalagmite fills it (Fig. 56).
Where a drip tube extends entirely through a gypsum block, water drops splash onto the floor limestone and create a spray. The spray of water then dissolves the bottom of the gypsum block into a dome-shaped form concentric around the drip tube. Such "splash undercuts," can be observed in the gypsum blocks of the Polar Regions, Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, where they are about 1 m in diameter (Figs. 55, 57).
Commode holesThey resemble drip tubes in that, as viewed from above, they possess round to ellipsoidal holes, but they differ from drip holes in size, spatial configuration, and origin (Fig. 57). Typically, commode holes are of larger circumference than drip tubes, being about 15-100 cm in diameter; also, they are smooth on their insides and have overhanging upper lips or a rounded crown of gypsum partially rimming the hole. Commode holes also differ from drip tubes in that (1) they do not correspond to overhead limestone pendants, joints, or stalactites; (2) they are not necessarily vertical, but often have sloping insides; (3) they are never vertically fluted, but may be horizontally grooved; and (4) their position is a continuation of holes in the floor limestone (Figs. 44, 57). Commode holes are best developed in gypsum blocks that have been case-hardened on their outer surfaces, but still have granular and uncompacted interiors. The softer, interior gypsum is dissolved away preferentially between the case-hardened upper surface of gypsum and the underlying bedrock limestone.
Commode holes have been identified in Glacier Bay, Lechuguilla Cave, the upper Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave, the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern, the Gyp Joint, Hell Below Cave, and the entrance area, Spider Cave, but they are best developed in the McKittrick Hill caves, especially in the Lower Maze, Endless Cave (Kunath, 1978). Many of the commode holes in Endless Cave have been modified by gypsum-rim speleothemic material along their tops, and this has caused them to assume bizarre shapes. The Commode of Endless Cave is the classic form of a compound commode hole-rim speleothem feature: the commode hole in this formation extends 1.5 m below floor level where it connects with a maze of small holes in the limestone, and the rim part of this formation projects about 1 m up and around the hole (Fig. 58). Commode holes are usually not vertical; the few vertical ones are called "post holes." Exceptionally large post-hole commodes occur in Glacier Bay, Lechuguilla Cave, and at the Polar Regions of the Big Room, Carlsbad Cavern. The largest of the Carlsbad ones, the "Giant's Commode," is 2 m wide and 2.5 m deep; the largest in Lechuguilla are 3 m wide and 10 m deep. In the upper Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave, a post hole in a gypsum block has exposed an overgrowth crust and a partially replaced dolomite inclusion.
Occasionally, commode holes can be found in other unconsolidated material, such as silt. In the Hall of the White Giant, Carlsbad Cavern, at the bottom of the first pit, is a post hole 0.2 m in diameter and 0.5 m deep in laminated silt. Other commode holes in the silt are not vertical, but wind their way through the silt like worm holes.
Streamlined surfacesMany gypsum blocks exhibit extremely smooth, rounded surfaces, especially near pits or in areas where one cave level connects with another. Good examples of streamlined gypsum blocks can be seen in the Big Room of Carlsbad Cavern at the Bottomless Pit (Fig. 38), and next to the pits near the Jumping Off Place. In the Talcum Passage, Carlsbad Cavern, gypsum which is highly scoured along its bottom side completely obstructs a fissure (J. McLean, pers. comm. 1979). Also, many of the gypsum blocks in the Talcum Passage show a high degree of rounding (Fig. 41). Other notable examples of streamlined gypsum occur in the upper Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave, where, like in the Talcum Passage, the undersides of many of the gypsum blocks are smooth and scoured-looking. In the Mud Crack Room, Endless Cave, gypsum blocks are truncated flush with the limestone against which they rest, and in the Expressway Passage, Dry Cave, a 1 m high gypsum pillar has been dissolved concordant with the walls and ceiling (Pl. 5A).
ScallopsIn the lower Gypsum Passage, Cottonwood Cave, directly next to the floor gate, is a collapse block of gypsum containing scallop marks on its surface (Fig. 59).
Molds and castsIn the Alabaster Balcony, Virgin Cave, dissolution of a gypsum block has left an unusual form: a 0.6 m high tube of calcite 7.5 cm in diameter, which is a cast of a drip tube in gypsum (D. Davis, pers. comm. 1984). The cast formed like a conulite speleothem does in mud: calcite lined a drip tube in gypsum, and when the gypsum was removed by erosion, the more resistant calcite cast was left standing.
A possible mold of a gypsum block exists in the Crystal Springs Dome region of Carlsbad Cavern, where a flow stone cascade about 2 m2 surrounds a pentagonal hole. This hole may possibly be a mold of a gypsum block which was dissolved away as the flowstone deposited over it.
Chert is a dense, cryptocrystalline, amorphous variety of quartz which displays conchoidal fracture. The only Guadalupe cave in which chert has been found is Carlsbad Cavern, and there it occurs as an up to 40 cm thick, gray to tan, chalcedonic chert interbedded with colorful silt deposits in a number of areas in the Big Room (Table 16).
TABLE 16Chert deposits, Carlsbad Cavern.
The most impressive exposure of chert is in the area of the Salt Flats, Big Room, where 30-40 cm thick chert is interbedded with brick-red to ocher-yellow silt. The chert is not a continuous deposit in the silt but is lens-like, extending for about a meter or so, and then pinching out. Chert lenses are usually single deposits located near the top of a silt bank, but in one place in the Salt Flats' exposure, two lensesone directly overlying the other but separated from it by about 5 cm of siltcan be seen between colorful silt layers. The silt bank of the Salt Flats has been excavated for trail building so that lenses of chert now lie on the floor where they were undermined of silt. One large piece of undermined chert, which has slid some distance toward the base of a silt bank and onto a gypsum block, displays a remarkable internal structure: three bands of finely laminated micritic chert, each 4-6 cm thick, are interbedded with three other, more porous, granular bands, each 6-9 cm thick (Pl. 5B). Other chert lenses also display this rhythmic sequence, but do not have as many bands. In all observed cases, a porous-chert band is at the bottom of a sequence, while a micritic layer is at the top. As seen in thin section, the porous layers display angular to well-rounded quartz grains 0.1-1 mm in diameter, contained in a matrix of chert. The micritic layers are composed of pure chert. Some minor calcite fills veins and pods in the porous layers, most usually in the zone between the micritic and porous sections.
Another important exposure of chert is in the Big Room along the Texas Trail next to a light fixture, where chert can be seen filling in polygonal cracks in the silt (Queen, 1981). Good exposures of chert showing stratigraphic relationship to other types of deposits in the Big Room also exist along the Texas Trail (near to the main trail) and under breakdown past the Salt Flats near the stalagmite called the Totem Pole (Fig. 70).
In Carlsbad Cavern and other caves of the Guadalupe Mountains, waxy, colorful (blue, blue-green, pure-white, and lavender) clay, and less waxy, soapy-feeling, colorful (gray-green, pink, brick-red, and brown) clay fills sponge-work pockets in the limestone or underlies clastic sediment. The waxy clay usually occurs as veins, pods, or stringers within the soapy-feeling clay, with a sharp color differentiation displayed by the two clay types.
Three minerals have been found to constitute these clay deposits: montmorillonite, (Na,Ca)0.33(Al,Mg)2 Si4O10(OH)2·nH2O; palygorskite (attapulgite), (Mg,Al)2Si4O10(OH)·4H2O; and endellite, Al2Si2O3(OH)4·2H2O. Davis (1964a, b) reported that the soapy-feeling, gray-green deposits are composed of montmorillonite, with a minor amount of endellite. The pink deposits he found to be a mixture of roughly equal amounts of "attapulgite" and montmorillonite, ("Attapulgite" is an obsolete name for palygorskite; Fleischer, 1983.) At Davies' collection site in Lower Cave, Carlsbad Cavern, the pink "attapulgite"-rich clay directly overlies the gray-green montmorillonite clay, and both partially fill a phreatic solution pocket. The pink clay, which occurs in an exposed position in the pocket, has been hardened by calcite.
The montmorillonite clay is composed primarily of spherical aggregates ca 2.5-3.0 p.m in diameter plus a minor amount (<1%) of clay- and silt-size quartz. Trace amounts of feldspar, a fibrous mineral (possibly gypsum), and an extremely fine, black, opaque mineral (magnetite?) are present in the montmorillonite. The surface of one specimen had a brownish-red stain caused by the precipitation of iron minerals (limonite and some hematite) along a fracture.
The waxy clay mineral in Guadalupe caves is endellite. Endellite and its dehydration product, halloysite, are kaolinitic sheet-silicate minerals. Endellite is the stable mineral species under cave conditions of high humidity, but when removed from a cave to a less humid environment, it dehydrates rapidly and irreversibly to halloysite (Bates et al., 1950; Diamond and Bloor, 1970). Collected samples of the waxy mineral have been x-rayed and reported as the mineral halloysite by a number of investigators (Freisen, 1967; Davies and Moore, 1957; Davies, 1964a); however, since endellite is the actual mineral species in the caves, all such clay deposits are hereafter referred to as endellite.
Endellite and montmorillonite have been found primarily in Carlsbad Cavern (Sheet 2, green areas), but these minerals also occur in Cottonwood Cave, Endless Cave, and Dry Cave (Table 17). Bretz (1949) noted that the colorful clay deposits in Carlsbad Cavern have a vertical extent almost as great as the cave itself. The most extensive deposits in Carlsbad are in Lower Cave, where gray-green montmorillonite and, to a lesser extent, blue endellite fill sponge-work voids in the limestone (Pl. 6A). These clay deposits have dried, compacted, and cracked so that they are now sluffing out of the spongework and are piling up as talus debris on the cave floor.
TABLE 17Endellite-montmorrillonite-palygorskite deposits in Guadalupe Caves.
Where endellite and montmorillonite occur together, the endellite forms veins, pods, nodules, and stringers within the surrounding montmorillonite matrix. For example, at the Top of the Cross, Big Room, and in the Mystery Room past the entrance to the Cable Slot, pure-white to light-blue, waxy endellite forms vein-like deposits between the limestone and surrounding brick-red clay matrix (Pl. 6B). Endellite-montmorillonite clay associations display various color combinations with the most usual being sky-blue or blue-green endellite in a matrix of gray-green montmorillonite, or pure-white endellite in an orange-red or brown matrix. Davies and Moore (1957, p. 24) reported: "white clay 6 in. to a foot thick in irregular beds consisting of nodules of the clay mineral endellite . . . in an orange red to brown clay bank in the New Mexico Room. On their outer surface is a layer of black angular quartz grains."
Elemental sulfur has been found in Lechuguilla Cave, Cottonwood Cave, and Carlsbad Cavern. In three of its six occurrences in these three caves, the sulfur is admixed with gypsum, and in three occurrences sulfur crystals directly coat bedrock and speleothems. The description of sulfur deposits in Guadalupe caves is summarized in Table 18.
TABLE 18Native-sulfur deposits in Guadalupe Caves.
Two occurrences of sulfur exist in the lower Gypsum Passage of Cottonwood Cave, one near a large gypsum stalactite known as the Chandelier, and one about 80 m south of the Chandelier. Respectively, these two occurrences are: (1) a vein-like deposit 45 cm wide and 15 m long, in gypsum exposed along a ceiling joint (Davis, 1973; Pl. 7A); and (2) a crystalline deposit filling 1.2 m long and 0.3 m wide cavities within a gypsum block (Pl. 7B). In the vein-like occurrence near the Chandelier, the massive, dense, light-yellow sulfur sometimes projects out in relief from the gypsum in such a manner as to produce an almost stalactitic form. In the cavity occurrence, the gypsum block which encloses the crystalline, canary-yellow sulfur looks like it either slumped or fell into its present position on the floor. In both of these occurrences, the gypsum looks like it has been eroded away so as to expose the sulfur within it. A sample collected from the vein occurrence of sulfur was examined for the presence of sulfur bacteria. This examination proved negative; the sulfur had neither fossilized or living sulfur bacteria associated with it (D. Caldwell, pers. comm. 1980).
In Carlsbad Cavern, native sulfur is present in the Big Room, New Mexico Room, and in a side passage off of the Christmas Tree Room (Sheet 2, red dots). The Big Room sulfur is located at the Jumping Off Place, just past the second trail tunnel in a block of gypsum and about 2.5 m above the floor. The pale-yellow sulfur covers an area approximately 0.6 m high and 0.3 m wide, where it (1) resides on an overgrowth crust which lines a drip tube in the gypsum block, (2) occurs as a light covering on dense gypsum where the overgrowth crust has been eroded away, and (3) fills cracks separating the overgrowth crust and the more compacted underlying gypsum. The sulfur occurs on the underside of the cracks and surfaces.
The New Mexico Room sulfur is not admixed with gypsum, but rather directly coats limestone bedrock (Pl. 8A) and also subaerially formed gypsum flower and crustal speleothems (Pl. 8B). The sulfur crystals lightly cover the undersides or vertical faces of the bedrock or speleothems, but never the top sides.
The Christmas Tree Room sulfur directly overlies bedrock, crinkle blisters, and popcorn. It also coats, and fills the spaces between, indurated masses of stacked cave rafts. Where the crystals overlie bedrock, they usually occur on the undersides of dipping forereef beds or on projecting fins of limestone. The fins are covered with a thin (<1 mm), yellowish-brown, iron-rich, slaggy crust which directly underlies the sulfur crystals. Elsewhere on the bedrock surface, yellowish-brown "spots" occur with the sulfur crystals and are the same size as the crystals.
A speleothem is a secondary mineral deposit which has formed in a cave. Examples of speleothems are stalactites and stalagmites. Only those speleothem types that are related to speleogenesis problems are discussed in Part I; refer to Part II for a detailed discussion of all speleothem types that occur in Guadalupe caves.
Types related to speleogenesis
SparDogtooth and nailhead spar line bedrock or fill solution cavities in the walls, ceilings, and floors of Guadalupe caves. Dogtooth spar consists of scalenohedrons of calcite and nailhead spar is a more blunted form of calcite consisting of combined flat rhombohedrons and prisms which display uneven-sided triangular patterns. Spar crystals are found in practically every cave in the Guadalupe Mountains, but the finest specimens occur in Carlsbad, Cottonwood, Three Fingers, Geode, Idono Crystal, Crystal, Virgin, Frank's, and Pink Fink Owlcove. The spar in Guadalupe caves can be very large (up to 50 cm in length), and some of it is colored (pale blue) or zoned (transparent centers overlain by an outer zone of milky calcite).
At least two spar episodes are clearly discernible in Guadalupe caves: (1) a spar matrix which fills the spaces between clasts in wall breccia (Fig. 67), and (2) large, well-developed spar crystals which protrude out from cavities or walls (Fig. 60). Large spar crystals are preserved in protected alcoves or spongework cavities. This relationship can best be seen in the Spar Room of the Secondary Stream Passage, Carlsbad Cavern, where large spar crystals occur in protected wall recesses, rounded and highly corroded spar occurs where the recesses open up into the Spar Room (Pl. 9A), and spar molds occur in the center of the room (Fig. 61). In a side passage off of Left Hand Tunnel, rounded and highly etched spar crystals, attached only by thin pieces of corroded limestone or crystalline calcite, project outward in relief from the wall.
In the Mystery Room, Carlsbad Cavern, nailhead spar predominates over dogtooth spar and occurs as columnar crystal linings overlying bedrock. In the Nailhead Spar Lining Room, at the very bottom of the Mystery Room, the crystal linings are 6-10 cm thick and are still in place except where a few sections have fallen to the floor, leaving a linoleum-like, triangular pattern imprinted on the bedrock. A large breakdown block in the middle of the Mystery Room (near the Mabel's Room Overlook) also displays the linoleum pattern, but the spar lining that once covered the breakdown has since been almost completely dissolved away.
Cave raftsThin planar deposits of calcite and aragonite which precipitate on the surface of a body of water. Cave rafts are a common speleothem type which form on the surfaces of many small cave pools (Pl. 13B). However, in Carlsbad Cavern this speleothem type takes on added significance because well-indurated cave rafts are found exposed in wall cavities where they overlie calcified siltstone (Fig. 39), and because huge conical piles of cave rafts (called cones) litter the floor in places such as the Balcony of the Lake of the Clouds Passage and the East Annex of the New Mexico Room. Three definable episodes of raft formation are displayed in Carlsbad Cavern: (1) Type 1 rafts, well-indurated deposits which are associated with underlying calcified siltstone and are truncated by the large cave passages; (2) Type 2 rafts, semiconsolidated rafts usually in the form of cave cones which occur in areas where the corrosion of speleothems and bedrock is pronounced; and (3) Type 3 rafts which can be seen floating on top of shallow cave pools or which have sunk to the floor of these pools. Type 1 and Type 2 cave rafts are believed related to speleogenesis problems and are discussed in this part of the paper. Type 3 rafts are discussed in Part II.
Type 1 rafts have been significantly widened by post-depositional calcite (an estimated 80% of their mass is post-depositional), and individual rafts have become cemented together with calcite so that they appear stacked like shingled plates (Fig. 39). These consolidated cave rafts usually directly overlie calcified siltstone without any other type of deposit intermediate in the sequence, and they are always the topmost deposit of a sequence, with either air space or subaerially formed travertine above the rafts. In their association with calcified siltstone, Type 1 cave rafts appear to have been packed into wall solution pockets before truncation by the large cave passages.
Type 2 rafts and cones of the Lake of the Clouds and East Annex areas also overlie silt, but both the silt and rafts are not well indurated. In the New Section, Carlsbad Cavern, the consolidation of floor rafts is more complete, but the silt underlying the rafts is not similarly indurated. In the Hall of the White Giant, at the bottom of the first pit, semi-indurated raft ledges 15-20 cm thick extend out from the wall, while laminated, non-indurated silt has compacted about 0.3 m beneath the ledges. Even lower in the New Section, raft bridges reportedly extend across the floor of the passage (D. Davis, pers. comm. 1984).
PopcornA type of knobular-shaped coralloid speleothem which decorates many cave passages in the Guadalupe Mountains. Usually this speleothem has no significance to speleogenesis problems, but in Hell Below Cave and Carlsbad Cavern "popcorn lines" cover walls and/or speleothems, lines which may possibly relate to speleogenesis events.
Moore (1960a) was the first to comment on the popcorn line in Carlsbad Cavern, and suggested that there might be a correlation between the level of the line and the tops of the gypsum blocks in the Big Room. Moore's suggestion has not been substantiated by recent leveling surveys (Table 19). The tops of the gypsum blocks at the Jumping Off Place in the Big Room are almost 6 m higher than the nearest popcorn line at the Temple of the Sun. It is probably just a coincidence that the gypsum blocks and popcorn line are nearly at the same elevation in the Big Room, since gypsum blocks exit in many other Guadalupe caves that do not have popcorn lines. Thrailkill (1965b) thought the line was an upper limit of a splash zone, while Jagnow (1977) thought it was a "waterline" corresponding to a past base level. Geologists M. Queen and J. McLean have informally hypothesized that air currents might be the cause of the line: dry-air currents moving into the cave could cause more evaporation and subsequent popcorn development near the floor, while more humid-air currents going out of the cave could be responsible for a lack of popcorn near the ceiling.
The popcorn line in Carlsbad Cavern is characterized by the following features:
(1) The line corresponds to a position of maximum passage width or "notch" in the passage, and it is marked by popcorn growth below the line, but not above it (Pl. 9B). The top of the line is not sharp; it is a zone 0.3-0.6 m thick.
(2) The line is nearly horizontal all the way along Left Hand Tunnel and the Big Room, with an average dip of only 1° that Jagnow (1979) ascribed to regional tilting subsequent to passage development.
(3) The line near the Green Lake Room is at exactly the same elevation as the line in the Big Room-Left Hand Tunnel (Table 19), even though the two localities are in different parts of the cave (Fig. 62).
TABLE 19Comparison of altitudes of the tops of gypsum blocks and the popcorn line, Carlsbad Cavern.
(4) In many places in the Left Hand Tunnel, Big Room, Secondary Stream Passage, and elsewhere, sprays of flat-bottomed popcorn (trays) occur below the line.
(5) The popcorn line is associated with pronounced corrosion: above the line speleothems and bedrock are highly corroded, whereas below the line they are not corroded.
(6) According to Jagnow (1979), the line disappears in the Big Room just south of the Hall of Giants, descending abruptly near the Temple of the Sun. Also, the line seems to "fall" into cross joints, with 30° dips over short distances (M. Queen, pers. comm. 1983).
(7) Except for the Green Lake area, the main popcorn line is not recorded at the Big Room level in other areas such as the New Mexico Room or Appetite Hill. Vague lines do occur in the Mystery Room and Lower Cave below the level of the Big Room.
(8) The popcorn of the popcorn line covers massive speleothems, both in the Lion's Tail area of the Big Room and in the Green Lake Room area of the cave.
(9) The line is not directly associated with pool speleothems such as rimstone, shelfstone, cave rafts, or subaqueous coralloids or coatings.
RimsA cave rim is a projection of crystalline material on bedrock or speleothems which is smooth and scoured on the inside and rough and coralline on the outside. In Guadalupe caves, rims are composed of either carbonate (usually aragonite) or sulfate (gypsum) material. Sulfate rims line commode holes in gypsum blocks and these can build up around the commode hole so as to create bizarre shapes (Fig. 58). Carbonate rims line holes in bedrock or form as a continuation of a corroded area on speleothems (Fig. 63). They are another speleothem type associated with corrosion and late-stage speleogenesis events.
Many speleothems are severely corroded in sections of Carlsbad Cavern, Spider Cave, and Wind (Hicks) Cave. Chalk-white and flaky, they assume an almost ghostly appearance (Pl. 10A). In some cases, these speleothems have been corroded down to their very cores along with adjacent corrosion of cave walls and ceilings (Pl. 10B). The speleothems look almost as if they have been wind-eroded because they are planed off concordant with the bedrock (Palmer and Palmer, 1975; Hill, 1976c, 1979). Speleothems in Spider Cave are highly corroded in the Ghost Chambers, a series of rooms named for their "unearthly ... dead, chalk-like stalagmites and curtains" (Nymeyer, 1938, p. 40). Corrosion features are most dramatically represented in Carlsbad Cavern in the Left Hand Tunnel, Lake of the Clouds-Bell Cord Room-Bifrost Room area, Mystery Room, Taffy Hill, and East Annex and Balcony areas of the New Mexico Room. Corroded speleothems include stalactites, stalagmites, draperies, and "cloud" linings (Fig. 64). In sections of Carlsbad Cavern where speleothem corrosion is pronounced, and also in Spider and Wind (Hicks) Caves, two generations of speleothems are recognizable: (1) chalk-white, corroded speleothems which grew prior to corrosion, and (2) "normal," uncorroded speleothems which grew subsequent to corrosion (Pl. 11A). The first generation of speleothems is often corroded on one side and in a preferred direction (Fig. 63). In the Lake of the Clouds-Bell Cord Room-Bifrost Room area, the direction of corrosion consistently points towards the Lake of the Clouds (Fig. 93). In the upper part of the Mystery Room, the direction of corrosion faces the Cable Slot, not towards the lower chambers of the room (where speleothems are uncorroded).
Corroded stalagmites may be preferentially weathered along one side (Fig. 63), or they may possess hollow centers. A stalagmite and its hollow center form from the same drip point on the ceiling; the stalagmite formed from saturated water, the hollow center from undersaturated and corrosive water. Hollow-centered stalagmites of calcite and aragonite occur in the Big Room (along the trail) and in the Christmas Tree Room near the Lake of the Clouds Passage.
Carlsbad Cavern is world-famous for its bats. Allison (1937, p. 80) estimated that the cavern had a population of over 8.7 million bats, and compared an evening bat flight to "smoke pouring out from a volcano." The bats usually reside in Bat Cave (the upper level of Carlsbad), but isolated bats can also be seen in other parts of the cave and at any level, either live or mummified (Baker, 1963, Fig. 102). Likewise, bat guano is found at all levels in the cavern. The guano is in various stages of decay; it ranges from fresh, pungent droppings to material unrecognizable except by a chemical analysis (Table 20). Other Guadalupe caves that contain extensive bat-guano deposits are Dry Cave, McKittrick Hill; White Mule Cave, Big Canyon; and Ogle and New Caves, Slaughter Canyon, both of which were mined for guano in the 1930's and 1940's.
TABLE 20Composition of bat guano in Carlsbad Cavern and New Cave.
Decayed bat guano closely resembles cave silt and much care must be taken to distinguish between these two types of deposits. In general, bat guano is more uncompacted and fluffy than clastic silt; one typically sinks down into guano but stands firm on silt. Bat bones are usually present in guano and absent in silt, but this is not a hard and fast rule because bats can fall into cave silt or bat guano can be mixed with large amounts of silt.
The bat guano of New Cave is unusual in that it has a high silica (silt) content (D. DesMarais, pers. comm. 1983). Also, bat bones in the guano-silt have a distribution which suggests that they have been water-washed (S. Altenbach, pers. comm. 1983). Heavier jaw bones and solid finger bones tend to be located deeper in the guano deposits, whereas lighter long bones and skull parts tend to be located near the top of the deposit.
Animal bones have been found in Carlsbad Cavern, Musk Ox Cave (Fig. 65), Dry Cave, Hermit's Cave, Burnet (Rocky Arroyo) Cave, Pratt Cave, Dust Cave, Upper Sloth Cave, Lower Sloth Cave, Pink Panther Cave, Dark Canyon Cave, and Williams Cave (Table 21). One of the most important of these paleontological finds is the ground sloth, Nothrotheriops shastensis, discovered in Lower Devil's Den, Carlsbad Cavern, in 1947 and then at another site in the cave (which has not been relocated) in 1959 (Hill and Gillette, 1985, 1987). Most of the sloth bone fragments that still remain in Lower Devil's Den are highly disturbed, but a few in-situ shards of bone on top of undisturbed silt occur in a 4-5 m radius around the site and look as if they might have been gently washed and water-laid. At the second site, the bones were covered by a thin coating of mud.
TABLE 21Paleontology of Guadalupe Caves.
Last Updated: 28-Jun-2007 | <urn:uuid:d3611247-87fa-423d-919c-b4484c007b38> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/geology/publications/state/nm/1987-117/sec4-1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921653 | 19,726 | 3.78125 | 4 |
A couple popular articles have challenged how well the scientific method works. David H. Freeman in The Atlantic, and Jonah Lehrer The Truth Wears Off, in The New Yorker.
Lehrer argues that effect sizes tend to get smaller over time in a broad range of disciplines, including in the physical sciences(More on that later.) According to Lehrer, “The decline effect is troubling because it reminds us how difficult it is to prove anything.”
John P. A. Ioannidis argues that in some fields the majority of positive findings are flat out wrong and are not corrected quickly. Even when corrected, not everyone notices. The science may not be as quickly self correcting as we like to think. Ioannidis found that 11 of 45 highly cited studies had never been even been retested. More disturbing, when others were tested and found to be incorrect, it sometimes took years for the word to spread. (Consider the Autism/vaccination link, for example.)
Some conventional explanations for problems include:
- Regression to the mean: This is probably the easiest to see. Early results are likely to be wrong because they result from small samples with a large standard error. As the sample size increases, the value will ”regress” towards its true value. Large effects in early work are likey to encourage follow up.
- Publication bias: Smaller effects or results that are not significant can be hard to publish. If they are not rejected by the publisher, the discouraged researcher might decide that the work is not interesting. Either way, the bias is to notice large effect measurements and forget send the smaller ones down the memory hole.
- Researcher bias: Scientific dispassion is as great a myth as the “mad scientist” see [Mitroff, 74]. Researchers work hard on their pet theories. They make their reputation with interesting and unexpected results. Researchers can select approaches most likely to get the desired results and they will look harder at results that don’t conform to their expectations. The problem is made worse by financial incentives, publish or perish, and flexible research designs.
- Population or environmental differences: Success in a specific situation may not carry over to another. For example, if drug, technique, or a treatment helps a well defined group, say people in a given age group who have a specific disease with a specific symptom, then it is likely to be tried with other similar, but different groups. If it is less effective with the new group, those numbers will used in the overall result, thus reducing the effect sized measurement. This wouldn’t explain the axial vector coupling referred to by Lehrer, but I challenge that example anyway.
- Chance (and publication bias): Significance at the p=0.05 level, means that 1 in 20 experiments a true null will still appear to have a significant effect.
- Significance Chasing: “If you torture the data long enough, it will confess”. (Attributed to Ronald Coase) If the originally planned experiment shows no statistically significant results, so one works the data, removes outliers, and scans for other effects. This is especially problematic when the research approach and objectives are flexible. This plays to the strong incentives of academics to publish.
- Large data sets. This often goes with data mining and statistically significant, but practically insignificant effects. Paul Meehl once demonstrated how easy it is to find correlations in a * large* data set. Large samples can detect much smaller effects.
(See also http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010/12/science_is_not_dead.php, from whom I’ve adapted some of these ideas)
But the problems are deeper. In a field where we know the yield is low, that is the likelihood of a real positive result is low, most positive findings will be false. That’s just bayesianism. Consider the typical 80% power, 5% p experiment. The statistical approach has an implicit assumption of an uninformative prior, don’t really know if a positive result is likely or not. What if the field is very low yield, very unlikely to produce a result? If we get a positive result, the most likely reason is chance rather than a real effect. This works in reverse as well.
Less well known explanations include more subtle statistical arguments
Andrew Gelman: statistical significance testing can be biased towards large results. Statistical significance relies on both sample size and effect size. Especially with small sample and large errors, only a large measured effect will appear as statistically significant. Gelman recommends a retrospective power analysis to make explicit the effect size that could be resolved with the final sample.
Donald Berry and James Berger: statistical significance testing is overrated. Berry and Berger showed how the inverse probablity (significance testing assumes the probablity of Y if NOT X, Bayes probability would be Given Y, how likely is X) can be very different from the statisical significance calculation”1-p”. For very small p, one can underestimate the probability of an outlier by chance by orders of magnitude. Berry and Berger would recommend applying Bayesian analysis.
Most of these issues wouldn’t be a problem, the method is, after all, self correcting. But academics don’t get famous for repeating others’s work. Most work is not replicated. But it also seems likely that this is also less cited and less important.
in Why most published research findings are False, Ioannidis does a pretty good jo of laying out a number of problems.
Lord Rutherford: “If your experiment requires statistics, you ought to have done a better experiment.”
David H. Freeman, Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science, November 2010, The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2010/11/lies-damned-lies-and-medical-science/8269/
Johah Lehrer,, The Truth Wears Off, Is there something Wrong with the Scientific Method? December 13 2010, The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/12/13/101213fa_fact_lehrer
Why most published research findings are False, John P. A. Ioannidis,PLoS Med. 2005 August; 2(8): e124. Published online 2005 August 30. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/
Ian Mitroff, Norms and Counter Norms in a select group of the Apollo Moon Scientists: A case study of the Amvbialence of Scientists. American Sociological Review, vol 39, Aug 1974.
Andrew Gelman. Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science, , December 13, 2010, http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2010/12/the_truth_wears.html
Berger, J. O. & Berry, D. A. (1988). Statistical analysis and illusion of objectivity. American Scientist, 76, 159-165. | <urn:uuid:519d73c2-0d34-437c-88f5-828a60a0c43b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://billnichols.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/does-the-truth-wear-out-how-do-we-relly-know-what-we-know/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915551 | 1,512 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Java software is used to run many of the applets
and tools used within Blackboard. It is necessary for users to have an
up-to-date JRE (Java Runtime Environment) installed and functioning
in order to access and use these Blackboard
IMPORTANT NOTE: Due to recent security concerns with Java, Java
may be blocked in your operating system or browser settings. To re-enable it temporarily, refer
to STEP 2-to locate your OS, and follow the steps to make sure it is
enabled there. Then under STEP3-locate your browser and follow the steps
shown to make sure it is enabled there.
If the System Test reports a problem with the Java installation on your
computer, first verify the problem by visiting this alternative test site:
If that site indicates
Java is installed and working correctly, there is no need to
do anything further.
If that site indicates Java is not installed or
not working, refer
to the following troubleshooting steps:
Note: Be sure to restart your browser (close and re-open a new browser window) and re-run the System Test after completing
each of these step to determine if is
Java is functioning. Simply re-loading the page will not provide
STEP 1. Download
the latest JAVA version Use the appropriate link below. After
saving the file, you must double click on the file to start the
installation process. After
installation is complete, re-start your system and open a new browser
window to test it.
Java for PC
Java for Mac (OS 10.4 to 10.6) -
Use the Software Update feature (on the Apple menu) to check
that you have the most up-to-date version of Java for your Mac.
Java for Mac (OS 10.7) With this particular
OS, Java is no longer installed
by default as part of the OS, you will need to download it using the link provided here.
STEP 2. Check that Java is enabled within your Operating System
a. From the Start
menu, select Settings, then Control Panel.
b. Double-click to open Java Control Panel.
c. Click the
d. Click on + icon next to
Default Java for browsers.
Make sure the box next to Internet Explorer or Mozilla is checked.
it is not checked, click the checkbox to enable Java for your Web
g. Click Apply.
a. From Finder, click on the Go Menu and select Utilities.
Double click on the Java Preferences icon.
c. On the General tab, check Enable applet plug-in and Web Start
d. Close Java Preferences
and restart your browser.
STEP 3. Check that Java is enabled within your
Browser (locate specific browser below)
Internet Explorer 8 or 9
a. On the Internet Explorer top menu, click
Tools, click Manage Add-Ons
b. Click Toolbars and Extensions
c. Under the "Sun Microsystems, Inc."
section, make sure all of the items within this section are
Note: If nothing is shown within the Sun
Microsystems section, or it does not appear in the Add-ons area, it
means that Java is not installed.
Firefox for Windows
From the Firefox or Tools menu, select Add-ons
b. Select the Plugins panel.
c. Click on the Java item to select it.
d. Click Enable. (If it shows Disable, it
is already enabled.)
Chrome for Windows
Type: about:plugins in the address bar.
b. From the list of plugins, verify the Java Plug-in is enabled.
Safari for Mac
a. From the Safari menu. select the
b. In the top window, click on the Security
c. Under the Web Content area, make sure the "Enable Java"
checkbox is selected.
d. Close the window.
Firefox for Mac:
a. From the Firefox
top menu, click Preferences, then click
b. Place checkmark next to "Enable Java" setting.
c. Close the window.
STEP 4. Check for/Remove multiple or older versions of Java
a. Click Start, click Control Panel
b. Double click the Add/Remove
Programs control panel icon.
c. This will display a list of software on your system,
scroll down to the "Java" section.
d. If multiple versions of Java are listed, uninstall
all of them. (Do not remove anything besides Java)
e. Install the latest version of Java from:
STEP 5. Clear the Java Cache (Follow the steps shown below)
Windows Users -Clearing Java Cache
a. From the Windows Start button, click Settings, click Control Panel.
b. Double-click Java icon to open the Java Control Panel
c. Under the Temporary Internet Files section, click the
d. On the next screen, click the Delete Files button, make
sure Applications & Applets is checked and click OK.
e. Continue to click OK, until you exit from the Control
f. Restart (close and re-open) your browser.
Mac Users - Clearing Java Cache
b. Go to Applications.
c. Find the Utilities folder.
the Java folder and go to J2SE folder, where you will find Java
Preferences. Open this file.
e. When the Java
Preferences window opens, select Delete Files under the General tab.
f. When the Delete Temporary Files window opens, make sure all
boxes are checked. Select OK.
The ZoneAlarm Pro software firewall can block Java.
The NoScript extension for Firefox will block Java.
The Adblock extension for Firefox can cause Java to stop working if OBJ-TABS are
If Java version "1.6.0_03" is installed on Vista w/Firefox,
there is a known bug which will prevent the Java Plug-in
from loading. Update Java to the latest version to
resolve this issue. | <urn:uuid:66c17b30-805b-41a7-a04a-cc21727ac609> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://ddlcampus.cmich.edu/browsercheck/cgi-bin/java_troubleshoot.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.760037 | 1,280 | 2.59375 | 3 |
A working, educational landscape that re-uses demolition debris in the construction of a “landfill garden” utilizing concrete planks sawn from an existing ash storage tank and crushed asphalt from an existing parking area, both of which were removed to make way for the new project . The use of these materials in the garden diverted approximately 90 tons of debris from Rhode Island’s Central Landfill. The garden, located to the south of the Narragansett Bay Commission’s new Operations Center, performs as a water retention and filtration system integrated with an outdoor room for staff and for educational groups that frequently tour the center.
OPERATIONS CENTER and BIOLOGICAL NUTRIENT REMOVAL
The Field’s Point Wastewater Treatment Facility upgrade employs the largest integrated fixed-film activated sludge treatment process in the world for biological nutrient removal. The process reduces nitrogen levels in the Providence River and Narragansett Bay to meet Rhode Island Pollution Elimination System effluent permit limits as part of a four-year, $65m, modernization and construction effort. As part of the design of a newly integrated campus, an operations center was constructed. The landfill garden is part of the operations center site, in which all of the new computer control systems for Biological Nutrient Removal, the Tunnel Pump Station, the Ernest Street Pumping Station and wastewater operations are located.
NYSSA SYLVATICA MEANDER
A line of Nyssa sylvatica, or tupelo, meanders across the undulating earthwork mounds on the north side of the Operations Center. The line of trees establishes a resilient, dynamic scrim of vegetation that initiates the re-population of the species on the peninsula of land on which the Narragansett Bay Commission is situated. The earthwork mounds are partially constructed with soil excavated from the site in preparation for the construction of the Operations Center.
The Rhode Island State Building Code Standards Committee approved an appeal to allow the use of an extensive green roof on the Narragansett Bay Commission Operations Building which was previously precluded due to the proximity to the hurricane-prone shore of Narragansett Bay.
This is the first green roof to be approved under the 2006 IBC Building Code and this victory establishes a national precedent and is an important milestone for the approval of extensive green roof systems in hurricane prone zones throughout the United States.
On-site infiltration, retention, and reuse of rainwater supports the project’s initiative of reducing contaminated urban and suburban runoff into Narragansett Bay, the second largest bay on the East coast of The United States.
The Narragansett Bay Commission received Federal Aviation Administration approval to install three wind turbines each with maximum heights of 360 feet at the Field’s Point Waste Water Treatment Facility. Following that, the City of Providence Zoning Board of Review granted a height restriction variance for three wind turbines, Rhode Island’s first wind farm.
These 1,500 kW wind turbines will be capable of supplying between 35 to 45 percent of the current electrical power demand of the Field’s Point WWTF. The electricity produced by these turbines offsets approximately 3,000 tons/year of carbon dioxide that would have been released from fossil fuel generated electricity.
The Wind Farm was part of an overall integrated campus plan for innovative energy and water systems that included the Landfill Garden.
Landfill Garden | Providence USA
L+A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
in collaboration with
Kite Architects - Albert Garcia, Principal-in-charge
IMAGES and TEXT: L+A LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE | <urn:uuid:da409c65-e29a-416b-8dae-580990d56c6c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/landfill-garden-providence-usa-la-landscape-architecture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00020-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.911286 | 750 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Newborn Screening Program
The Newborn Screening Area Service Center (NBS ASC) at Children’s Hospital works to protect and improve the health of all babies born in California. Under the auspices of the Genetic Disease Branch (GDB) of the California Department of Health Services, The California Newborn Screening Program provides cost effective testing and follow-up, permitting early diagnosis of four congenital disorders, thereby minimizing or preventing adverse outcomes or other serious long term disabilities.
Newborn Screening is recognized nationally as an essential preventive public health measure. All states in the nation and the District of Columbia have established newborn screening programs. The State of California began its Newborn Screening Program in 1966 with the testing for phenylketonuria (PKU). In October 1980, the program was expanded to include galactosemia, primary congenital hypothyroidism, and a more comprehensive follow-up system. In 1990, screening for sickle cell disease was added to the State’s existing program. This also allowed for the identification of some of the related non-sickling hemoglobin disorders, including beta thalassemia major, and Hb E-Beta Thalassemia. In 1999, the Program implemented screening for hemoglobin H and hemoglobin H - Constant Spring disease.
About Newborn Screening
- Fewer than 10% of babies born in the US currently get comprehensive screening for all metabolic, endocrine and hematologic disorders already detectable through existing routine newborn screening programs.
- Six babies are born every day in the US alone that have disorders detectable through newborn screening, but go undetected because they aren't screened.
- Newborn screening can detect more than 35 disorders.
- Most disorders detectable through newborn screening are treated by diet restrictions.
- Over 99% of the babies born in California are screened. The actual sample of newborn blood is obtained before the sixth day of life by a heel-stick. To decrease the chances of a false positive (requiring additional testing) or false negative (resulting in a missed case), the NBS Program requires that babies be screened when they are at least 12 hours of age.
Newborn Screening Team
Our staff consists of the RN project director, RN coordinators, a community liaison, and administrative support. Our medical director is Susan Winter, M.D., a Pediatric Medicine and Metabolic Geneticist.
Newborn Screening Services
The seven NBS ASCs across the state are designated and funded by the California Department of Health Services to provide:
- Reporting to primary care providers and assuring follow-up of all screening referrals: inadequate specimens, positive results, untested newborns, and those who are screened too early.
- Consultation and technical assistance to all Program participants (i.e., hospitals, physicians, public health departments, etc)
- Training and educational activities to all participants and the community.
- Monitoring NBS providers for compliance with state newborn screening regulations and guidelines.
- The California Newborn Screening Program screens for several diseases, including Classical PKU, Galactosemia, Primary Congenital Hypothyroidism, and Sickle Cell Disease and other Hemoglobinopathies.
Newborn Screening Resources
California Screening Site
Home page for the California Department of Health Service's Newborn Screening Program.
Expanded Newborn Screening Program Links:
This newborn screening laboratory provides comprehensive programs for clinically significant metabolic disorders throughout the world.
Baylor offers comprehensive testing, interpretation of test results, consultation, research information, and any necessary referrals to specialized laboratories for metabolic services, physicians or support groups.
Provides screening blood tests on newborns that can identify metabolic and endocrine disorders before symptoms ever appear. Learn more about these tests, which can mean the difference between severe health problems and healthy, normal development for your newborn.
American Sickle Cell Association - one of the oldest sickle cell research, education, and social services organization in the United States.
Biotinidase Deficiency Family Support Group - devoted to supporting those effected by biotinidase deficiency
CARES Foundation (CAH) - purpose is to educate the public and physicians about all forms of Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia, its symptoms, diagnostic protocols, treatment, genetic frequency, the necessity for early intervention, and benefits of newborn screening.
Children's PKU Network - addresses the special needs and concerns of individuals with PKU and their families.
Cochrane Cystic Fibrosis & Genetic Disorders Group - international network of health care professionals, researchers, and consumers preparing, maintaining, and disseminating systematic reviews of randomized control trials in the treatment of cystic fibrosis and other genetic disorders.
Cystic Fibrosis Foundation - The mission of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is to assure
the development of the means to cure and control cystic fibrosis and to improve the quality of life for those with the disease.
Fatty Oxidation Disorder Family Support Group - resource for families, friends, doctors, researchers, and others who would like to support, educate, and provide a forum for the sharing of ideas and concerns for those whose lives have been touched by a Fatty Oxidation Disorder.
National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) - A recognized leader and resource in maternal and child health.
MSUD Family Support Group - dedicated to: Providing opportunities for support and personal contact for those with MSUD and their families, distributing information and raising public awareness of MSUD, strengthening the liaison between families and professionals, encouraging newborn screening programs, and research for MSUD.
National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation - links families, friends and professionals who are dedicated to the identification, treatment and cure of urea cycle disorders.
Organic Acidemia Association - providing information and support to families of children with inborn errors of metabolism.
Gene Gateway - Introduces various Internet tools that anyone can use to investigate genetic disorders, chromosomes, genome maps, genes, sequence data, genetic variants, and molecular structures.
Parents of Galactosemic Children - provide information, support, and networking opportunities to families affected by galactosemia.
Save Babies - Newborn Screening Saves Babies One foot at a time, helps raise awareness of newborn screening issues
United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation - promote research for cures and treatments of mitochondrial disorders and to provide support to affected individuals and families.
Newborn Screening Innovations
Very early detection permits the metabolic disorders PKU and galactosemia to be treated with a diet, and hypothyroidism with thyroid hormones, thus preventing the development of mental retardation and other severe health problems. Detection of sickle cell disease in newborns makes possible early entry into comprehensive care, which includes the initiation penicillin prophylaxis and parent education, factors which have been shown to reduce morbidity and mortality. Early detection of thalassemia disorders allows for close monitoring for infections and anemia. Ongoing health care and close monitoring help children with hemoglobin disorders stay as healthy as possible. | <urn:uuid:3763e2ce-d4bc-41a8-a90d-8a1c4551fa80> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.childrenscentralcal.org/Services/clinical/newbornscreening/Pages/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999636779/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060716-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908506 | 1,451 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Say I love you in Spanish to the one you love!
How do you say I love you in Spanish?
¡ Te quiero!
I love you!
"quiero" comes from the verb, querer, which means - to love in Spanish, or to like.
...and, if you're feeling really romantic ...
¡ Te adoro!
which means I adore you! in Spanish.
Note: the Spanish use of the upside down exclamation mark at the beginning of an exclamation, "¡", as well as the normal exclamation mark to show the end.
More words & phrases to go with I love you in Spanish
You really want to study these ones up before you go on the date. Grabbing for your phrase-book and leafing through it at the crunch point, before you gush out your true feelings, might just ruin the moment a bit...
So there you are gazing into your Hispanic lover's eyes here are a few phrases you wish to gush out movie-star like...
- You have such beautiful eyes in Spanish is:
- Tienes unos ojos muy bonitos...
- I am in love with you in Spanish is:
- Estoy enamorado de ti or...
- Estoy enamorada de ti
- What you hope to hear in reply is:
- Yo también de ti.
- which is "Me too with you...!"
- What you are probably hoping not to hear is:
- Ya tengo pareja.
- .... which means 'I already have a partner in Spanish...
Hopefully you will have a technique to easily remember all the above phrases. If you haven't, if your mind does draw a blank at times, if you cannot remember names read on....
Learn more words, quicker and easier?
You can learn to say 'I love you in Spanish', and learn lots of other words, phrases and exclamations an easier way, and quicker way....
What is more you will remember them.
Modern techniques can easily get you to these rates of learning and dramatically increase your memory and retention of these words!
Click on the link to find out more.
Say I love you in Spanish & learn 200 words a day!
More Spanish Lessons Free
Adjectives | Adverbs | Animals | Argentine | Clock | Colors | Common Mistakes | Conjugate Verbs | Counting | Days of Week | Find a Word | Genders | Grammar | Greetings | Gustar | Hello | Happy Birthday | Imperfect | Months | Numbers | Prepositions | Preterite | Pronouns | Pronunciation | Tener | Thank you | Verbs | Word Stress | Vegetables | Time | Word a Day | Contact Us | Home |
I love you in Spanish
A Free Spanish Lesson to help you Learn Spanish© 2004-2011 Learn Spanish Help – A Resource for the those Learning to speak Spanish
32 Alverton, Great Linford, Milton Keynes, MK14 5EF, United Kingdom | <urn:uuid:edd6ce62-473f-4915-a20f-79d90849cead> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.learn-spanish-help.com/I-love-you-in-spanish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999636779/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060716-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.870655 | 648 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
- (nautical) The area of sea around a land mass where the depth gradually increases before it plunges into the ocean deeps
the area of sea around a land mass
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations. | <urn:uuid:d78d1da6-f414-41de-a3af-dbf7bb972403> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/continental_shelf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999654285/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060734-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.768112 | 87 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Posted by sogasex on March 3, 2008
By Steve Archer, Plymouth Marine Laboratory
I can watch albatross for hours; they are the ultimate ’surfers’ of ocean swell and wind. It’s a challenge for them today and certainly was yesterday; the conditions in this part of the South Atlantic are almost too calm; every now and then the albatross have to give an undignified flap or two to keep airborne. It is excellent weather for scientists who are getting equipment set-up as the ship makes good time towards our study site.
Albatross and our work are not completely disconnected. I’m part of a collaborative effort between the University of Hawaii and Plymouth Marine Laboratory in the UK. This collaboration builds on similar work we carried out last summer in the North Atlantic. We’re interested in quantifying the emission of a sulphur gas, dimethyl sulphide (DMS for short) from the ocean to the atmosphere. Humans can detect this gas at comparatively low concentration; it is part of the smell you associate with seaweed-covered beaches. Research suggests that seabirds, like albatross, are much better DMS detectors than we are and may use the gas to identify different regions of the ocean as they navigate to and from feeding areas. DMS is a product of the photosynthetic microbes, the phytoplankton, that inhabit the surface waters of the oceans (see the blog on 29th February). Once in the atmosphere, DMS has an impact on aerosol and cloud formation and so, like CO2, there is another intriguing link between ocean biology, atmospheric chemistry and our changing climate.
I’m trying to measure DMS concentrations in the seawater as often as I can to tie-in with the air-side measurements that Byron Blomquist (Uni of Hawaii) will measure to generate estimates of sea-to-air flux of DMS. In combination, this information will help to explain what controls how much of the gas produced by the ocean biology, finds its way into the atmosphere. What is more, like you and I, our instruments are pretty accurate at ’smelling’ DMS compared to CO2 and so this information will hopefully help to explain some of the controls on CO2 flux to and from the ocean.
The DMS concentrations in the seawater are gradually increasing as we move away from the land masses and into more oceanic water, probably as a result of changes in composition of the phytoplankton. As you can see from the two photographs, the dolphins were taken yesterday evening and the albatross earlier this morning, that we’ve cruised into bluer, more oceanic water today. Different species of phytoplankton produce different amounts of the precursor to DMS, a compound that abbreviates to DMSP. For reasons that we are still unclear about, phytoplankton that inhabit more oceanic waters generally produce relatively more DMSP and DMS and it is in the remote oceanic atmosphere that this gas is likely to have most impact on climate.
Wandering albatross surfing a mini ocean swell in the South Atlantic today.
One of the pairs of dolphins that visited the Ronald H. Brown yesterday. | <urn:uuid:66cf1442-b170-46e6-894c-5283ee32eea3> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://sogasex.wordpress.com/2008/03/03/ocean-essence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999654285/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060734-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941173 | 679 | 2.671875 | 3 |
And provides lots and lots of Warmist approved talking points that skirt science and history
(Reuters) The world’s oceans have absorbed more than 90 percent of global warming since the mid-20th century, making accurate measurements of deep ocean temperatures vital to predicting how much global temperatures and sea levels are going to rise.
In 1999, a group of 30 countries launched the Argo program as the first global, subsurface ocean observing system.
It will improve on the earlier patchwork of observations dating as far back as Britain’s HMS Challenger in 1873, which dropped a weighted thermometer overboard on a hemp line 8 millimeters [app. 1/3 of an inch] thick.
The Argo floats are rather more sophisticated with an inflatable chamber and a pump that changes the buoyancy of the float by changing its volume. It can sink from the surface to 2,000 meters [6560 feet] depth and then resurface, measuring temperatures and salinity as it goes.
The data so far confirm a warming trend in the oceans over the past century.
Significantly, two recent publications suggest that the deep oceans have warmed particularly quickly in the past decade.
Here’s the question: do we have tons and tons of data to support this going back thousands of years that covers the majority of the oceans? Also, if the upper oceans aren’t warming that much, how is it that the heat just appears in the deep oceans? And, couldn’t any heat have more to do with natural conditions, such as underwater vulcanism? But, it really comes back to not having long term data, which wouldn’t matter to Warmists in the first place, because they would simply adjust/falsify/hide data that doesn’t conform.
According to those surface temperatures, 11 of the 12 hottest years in the past 150 have been since 2000, NASA data show, illustrating a clear warming trend.
First, that would be expected during a natural warm period. Second, much of the world has seen very cold conditions 4 of the last 5 years (which Warmists blame on man-induced climate change, of course). Third, the 30′s were warmer. Fourth, the entire point of the one sided opinion piece from Reuters writer Gerard Wynn is to continue the un-scientific meme that the warming, missing for 17 years, is hiding in the deep oceans, the better to continue pushing for more and more Progressivism and bigger government. | <urn:uuid:ef004e22-830f-48a9-991c-ef4193c78872> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.thepiratescove.us/2013/08/21/reuters-delves-into-the-heat-is-hiding-in-the-deep-oceans-meme/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999654285/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060734-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941439 | 512 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Early Results Show VISTA Has Significant Impact on Student and Teacher Learning
Posted: January 13, 2014 at 5:02 am, Last Updated: January 16, 2014 at 6:44 am
After three years in operation, the Virginia Initiative for Science Teaching and Achievement (VISTA), led by George Mason University, looks promising in delivering quality education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields.
To date, more than 480 elementary or secondary teachers have completed or are currently participating in VISTA professional development programs, along with 62 school division science coordinators from 82 school districts. Science education faculty members from more than half of the 35 universities with science or elementary education programs in Virginia have participated in a VISTA academy. Collectively, these professionals are impacting 625,000 students statewide.
In 2011-12, the first year of the VISTA program, 87 teachers and 937 students participated in the Elementary Science Institute. Results showed that economically disadvantaged students of elementary school science teachers who participated in VISTA professional development scored 14 points higher on the state science achievement test than students who had teachers that did not receive this professional development.
According to Donna Sterling, VISTA’s principal investigator and professor of science education in George Mason’s College of Education and Human Development, the student achievement results from this group of teachers confirm that VISTA is having a statistically significant and positive impact on economically disadvantaged students at the elementary level.
“These results show that the changes in classroom practice that VISTA is teaching are making improvements in students’ achievements,” says Sterling. “The program has the effect of reducing the achievement gap in fifth-grade science test scores between economically disadvantaged and nondisadvantaged groups.”
Positive effects were also seen for elementary school English language learners and students with disabilities. However, Sterling notes that sample sizes at this early point in the project were too small for those results to be statistically significant.
Additional research revealed that VISTA positively impacts teachers’ beliefs about science instruction, assessment and how students learn; their confidence in teaching; their classroom practices; and their science content knowledge. Teachers also report that the content and strategies they learned from VISTA were directly relevant to their classroom instruction and would help them improve instruction in the upcoming year.
Results are still being analyzed for the second and third years of the VISTA program, but Sterling says that early research results show a positive impact on student achievement. She also notes that VISTA is succeeding at building a strong community of practice for science education from kindergarten through college graduate-level education across the state.
“VISTA will continue to build on this success over the next two years and will roll out statewide science teacher discussion groups and other interactive communities,” says Sterling.
“A new line of VISTA implementation research just getting underway promises to yield new insights into what works in science education. And VISTA will continue to work with our partners, the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia Association of Science Teachers, to identify and deliver new resources targeted to support science teachers.”
VISTA is a statewide partnership among more than 80 Virginia school districts, six Virginia universities (George Mason University, William & Mary, Virginia Commonwealth University, Virginia Tech, James Madison and the University of Virginia), and the Virginia Department of Education. The initiative is funded by a five-year, $34 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, which includes a $5.7 million private sector matching requirement.
This article was previously published in a slightly different format in the fall 2013 Center for Restructuring Education in Science and Technology newsletter.
Write to Catherine Probst at [email protected] | <urn:uuid:0e1b8494-2d68-411d-a2f8-b3d166c195d1> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://newsdesk.gmu.edu/2014/01/early-results-show-vista-significant-impact-student-teacher-learning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999676283/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060756-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951013 | 757 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The Baath Party was the political party in power in Iraq until Saddam Hussein was ousted as President. It is still in control in Syria. It is secular (nonreligious) and socialist. It also sets as a main goal the political union of all Arabs. By its definition, it is anti-American culture. Its followers want to protect Arab culture from Western (American/European) influences.
Iraq is home to 2.5 million Assyrian Christians, mostly in the city of Mosul. The Assyrians have been oppressed by the Persians, Mongols, Turks, and Arabs over the last several centuries. Nearly two thirds of the Assyrian population has died in the last 50 years. Another 1.8 million Assyrians live outside of Iraq in Iran, Syria, the U.S., Australia, and Europe.
Iraqi Turkoman Front
Political party backed by Turkey; stands in opposition to the KDP.
Kurds are a non-Arab, Middle Eastern minority who live in a region known as Kurdistan. They are devout Sunni Muslims who claim the region of Kurdistan as home. Kurdistan is not an independent nation, but a region in Southwest Asia that includes parts of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Armenia. As of the late 1990s, more than 20 million Kurds lived in the Kurdistan region, about half of them in Turkey.
Kurdish Workers' Party (PDD)
The PKK used northern Iraq as a base during its 15-year war with Turkey that left more than 30,000 civilians dead. They are a communist group of Kurds.
Iraq's 40,000 Marsh Arabs live in the southern marshlands near where the Tigris and Euphrates rivers meet. The population at one time numbered 250,000. The mostly Shiite population were discriminated against because they opposed Saddam Hussein's rule and hid opposition leaders in the oil-rich marshlands. In the 1990s, Hussein drained the marshes.
Former Iraqi leaders who were exiled from Iraq when Saddam Hussein came to power. Many want to come back to their native country and assume leadership positions in a new government. Other opposition leaders remained in Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule, but were persecuted.
Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK)
The PUK's ultimate goal is an independent state for Kurds in northern Iraq. They have been backed by Syria, Lybia, and Iran. The PUK supports the U.S. war in Iraq. It fought a war with its rival, the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), in 1996 because the KDP joined with Iraqi forces to elminate the PUK. The two groups are currently working together to support the U.S. efforts in Iraq. Most members of the PUK live in northern Iraq.
A militia of Kurdish freedom fighters; the unofficial military arm of the PUK.
The third-largest ethnic group after the Kurds and Arabs, the Turkoman number about 2.5 million. Most live in the north and central parts of Iraq in Mosul, Erbil, Kirkuk, and Deyalah. They are represented in the Iraqi government by the Iraqi National Turkoman Party. The Turkoman are not otherwise recognized within Iraq. They are not counted in the national census and are not allowed to speak their language.
Shiite or Shia Muslims
Shiite Muslims are the majority Muslim sect in Iraq. The word Shiite comes from the Arabic shiat Ali, meaning the party of Ali. It is the second-largest branch of Islam, accounting for 10 to 15 percent of all Muslims.
Sunni Muslims represent the vast majority of Muslims, but in Iraq they are in the minority. However, Sunni Muslims dominated Hussein's Baath Party government.
The differences between Sunnis and Shiites date back to the beginning of Islam in the first century. The Shiites, or Shia sect, take their leaders from the descendents of Mohammed and his son-in-law.
The larger Sunni sect does not recognize the heirs of Ali as having power by birthright. They elect their leaders.
Shiites were left out of Iraq's 10th-century government. They became the poor in both the cities and rural areas. Sunnis are now the middle and upper class in Iraq, working in the government and owning businesses.
Tribal law/tribal system
Iraq's society is feudalists, with at least three-quarters of the country's population belonging to a tribe. For example, people in Tikrit are generally understood to be part of Saddam Hussein's regime because his family is from Tikrit. Members of Iraq's 150 tribes look to their regional tribal leaders for protection and economic support. The tribal leaders represent their members in disputes and government related issues. | <urn:uuid:eabfe4f8-ca49-4176-91d7-1003fee54700> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/war-iraq/new_govt/index.asp?article=glossary | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010701848/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091141-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966933 | 965 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Final Glory Of The Boeing B-29 Superfortress
Freezing cold in the winter and roasting in the summer the new USAF flew around the clock in Korea to drive the enemy from the air and smash him on the ground. A grateful Korea remembered with a special medal 50 years later.
In spite of the daunting threat of enemy jet fighters, Boeing B-29s served throughout the Korean War.
At 4 a.m. on June 25, 1950, North Korean troops poured across the 38th parallel into South Korea. The Soviet Union had supplied North Korea with large quantities of military equipment, including tanks, artillery, trucks, guns, ammunition, uniforms, rations and all the supporting elements necessary to field a modern military force. The North Korean air force was equipped with 62 Ilyushin-10 ground-attack aircraft, 70 Yakovlev Yak-3 and Yak-7B fighters, 22 Yak-16 transports and 8 Polikarpov Po-2 trainers. The force completely outclassed South Korea's air force.
On June 27, 1950, the United Nations authorized the use of military force to stop North Korea's attack. Eight hours after the authorization, the United States Far East Air Force (FEAF), the air element of the Far East Command (FEC), began flying the first combat air sorties over South Korea. President Harry S. Truman directed General Douglas MacArthur to supply South Korea's military forces from U.S. quartermaster depots in Japan and to commit available U.S. forces to attack North Korean forces crossing the 38th parallel. American ground troops would be supported by land- and sea-based airstrikes. As the ground situation worsened for the retreating South Korean forces, Truman authorized MacArthur to expand airstrikes north of the 38th parallel against North Korean supply depots, railyards and supporting strategic targets.
On June 28, 1950, four Boeing B-29 Superfortresses of the 19th Bombardment Group (BG), which had been transferred from Andersen Air Force Base on Guam to Kadena Air Base on Okinawa, attacked Communist troops north of Seoul. On June 30, 15 B-29s of the 19th BG dropped 260-pound fragmentation bombs on suspected North Korean troops and equipment along the north bank of the Han River. After the strike, a close ground examination revealed there had been no North Korean troops or equipment within the designated bombing area. Either U.S. Intelligence had erred or the North Korean troops had shifted locations prior to the air attack. It was recommended that future direct-support bombing strikes by the B-29s be conducted only if the ground situation was absolutely hopeless. The B-29 was not designed to be a ground support or tactical aircraft.
In August, the 98th Bombardment Group arrived at Yakota Air Base on Okinawa from Fairchild Air Force Base in the United States. The 98th BG was temporarily quartered in a hastily built lean-to adjoining the base's gymnasium. The majority of American military dependents at the base were shipped back to the States shortly after North Korea attacked the South, however, and their family housing units were then modified to serve as quarters for the B-29 aircrews. Many of the 98th's initial complement of aircrews had flown combat missions during World War II and had completed five years of intense and specialized Strategic Command training between 1945 and 1950. To reduce the flow of replacement military equipment, armament and supplies to North Korean forces south of the 38th parallel, B-29s were ordered to bomb enemy strategic and military targets in the north. The majority of those targets were concentrated around Pyongyang, Chongyin, Wonsan, Hungnam and Rashin. Militarily, it probably would have been better to use incendiary bombs on those targets, but for political reasons only general purpose (GP) bombs were used. The possible uproar over using incendiaries on North Korea so soon after the destruction of Japanese cities by Twentieth Air Force B-29s during World War II was something President Truman did not want to face at home. Consequently, it would require more B-29s per target, or repeated B-29 strikes, to knock out a target. The GP bombs were fitted with delayed-action fuses to thwart North Korean attempts to repair bomb damage or defuse unexploded munitions.
A typical B-29 load consisted of 40 500-pound GP bombs. Each bomb was fitted with a delayed-action fuse, consisting of a propeller on the bomb's nose. After the bomb was released from the B-29's bomb bay, the propeller turned and tightened a threaded rod running through the bomb's nose. The rod continued turning until it ruptured an acetone-filled vial. The nose fuse was filled with Plexiglas disks surrounding the acetone vial--the number of disks determined the detonation delay time. When the acetone vial was broken, the acetone began to dissolve the Plexiglas disks, triggering the bomb's predetermined detonation time--from one to 144 hours.
To prevent the North Koreans from easily defusing the delayed-action bombs, a groove was milled into the main body of the fuse. As the fuse was screwed into the bomb by B-29 armaments specialists, the ball bearing was forced into the deepest section of the bomb's milled groove. Any attempt to remove the fuse after the bomb was dropped caused the ball bearing to rotate into the shallow section of the fuse, locking it into position. To further frustrate bomb disarmament efforts, a small rod was connected to the end of the fuse, and any attempt to remove the fuse triggered the bomb's explosion. A 500 GP bomb was filled with 250 pounds of RDX composition D explosive, which is more powerful than TNT. The external casing of the GP bomb was scored so that, when detonated, metal fragments (shrapnel) would shower the area around the explosion.
B-29 operations were not restricted to visual bombing conditions. When clouds obscured a target, radar located the offset aiming points (OAPs) that set up the correct bomb release run into the target. Although weather conditions in Korea were better than B-29 aircrews had expected, weather forecasting for Korea was difficult because the country's weather patterns were generated in the Mongolian steppes, outside of FEAF's weather reporting area. At first, FEAF weathermen tuned in to Russian weather broadcasts from Vladivostok, but eventually they decided not to put too much faith in the validity of those reports.
Using visual and radar bombing releases, B-29s had destroyed North Korea's strategic targets by September 15, and the decision was made to halt further attacks on those targets. In response to the B-29 attacks, North Korea increased the number of anti-aircraft defenses against the B-29s. The Soviet Union and China shipped in large numbers of anti-aircraft artillery and ammunition, and the probable B-29 attack routes were more effectively defended. By late November 1950, increased numbers of Communist flak batteries along the bomber routes forced the B-29s to fly at 20,000 feet in an attempt to avoid the flak. In doing so, however, the B-29s faced a new threat--MiG-15 fighters.
On November 12, the 98th BG attacked Nampojin. Flak hit B-29 No. 6371 in the No. 2 engine, holing the propeller and producing a runaway (out of control) engine that could not be feathered. The bomber's crew began preparations to bail out of the aircraft while the navigator hurriedly gave the pilot a heading toward the nearest emergency airfield. Other B-29s of the 98th BG flew near the damaged bomber in case the crew did bail out, so they could watch the crew's exit from the aircraft, provide rescue directions and coordinate air cover support. The pilot brought the damaged B-29 in for an emergency landing at the Marine Corps fighter airfield at Yanpo. The base's Marine Corps commander informed the crew members that Chinese soldiers were approaching the air base and that he did not know if the field could be defended. The commander told the crewmen they had two options: They could be issued weapons and help defend the airfield, or they could leave for Japan on a Douglas C-54 that was due to land at the base shortly. The crew choose to fly to Japan. Without the help of the crewmen, the Marines at Yanpo repulsed the Chinese assault. When no Air Force personnel returned for the damaged B-29, the Marine Corps commander wondered if the damaged engine could be repaired. The Marines were able to locate a P2V R-3350 engine, but before it could be flown to the base, a C-54 landed with an Air Force maintenance crew and the replacement bomber engine. Once that was installed and ground tested, a ferry crew flew the damaged B-29 to Japan for a complete rework.
B-29s were used in a wide variety of missions during the Korean War. One B-29 of the 19th BG flew a decoy mission over the Korean Bay in the North Yellow Sea. Flying a racetrack pattern toward the mouth of the Yalu River, the B-29 would turn 180 degrees as it neared the river, coming no closer than five miles to the North Korean coastline. Meanwhile, the rest of the 19th was attacking a target near Pyongyang. The 19th BG's Intelligence officer had told the crew of the decoy B-29 that Chinese Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15 jet fighters would probably not venture over the Yellow Sea. As the B-29 approached the coastline, however, the radar officer identified a blip on the radar coming toward the bomber at 12 o'clock and from below. The MiG did not attack and flew away at the 6 o'clock position. This cat-and-mouse game continued for approximately five hours, during which time the decoy B-29 completed 12 orbits. The B-29 also received reports from ground-based radar that there were 20 to 30 MiGs circling inland, directly opposite the decoy B-29's orbit area.
The growing danger of being stalked by MiGs and the large number of Communist flak batteries made it necessary for the B-29s to fly at night. The bombers usually flew in a stream formation with a 500-foot altitude separation, stepped up and at three-minute intervals. North Korean anti-aircraft gunners soon began to anticipate where the bombers might fly, however, so the Americans modified their target approach tactics. B-29 intervals were altered to between one and five minutes, and the separations between aircraft in the same bomber stream were mixed.
Lieutenant General James V. Edmundson, commander of the 22nd BG, stated that fighter opposition was no problem in 1950 but that it increased as the war progressed. Initially, the flak encountered by the 22nd BG was generally meager and inaccurate. Later, though, the Communists increased their number of flak batteries.
The B-29s were still able to achieve remarkable success when bombing North Korean targets. On one nighttime mission, the third B-29 in the 19th BG's bomber stream dropped its bombs on a bridge and completed a 60-degree turn away from the target. In order to take photographs of the strike, each B-29 was carrying two photoflash bombs mixed within the bombload. The photographs from the first two B-29s showed a supply train crossing the bridge. Bombs from the first two B-29s straddled the bridge while the trailing B-29's bombs struck the bridge dead center. The trailing bomber's tail gunner had a bird's-eye view of the spectacular result: The train crossing the bridge disappeared in a series of explosions and the violent secondary detonation of its load of ammunition. The tail gunner reported that the explosions turned the black night into day for almost 30 seconds.
As North Korean targets became scarce, B-29s began attacking more hazardous areas. In September 1952, the 96th, 19th and 307th BGs were directed to attack the Siuho Dam on the Yalu River. Up until that time, B-29 targets were never located within 12 miles of the Yalu River. The bombers' approach tactics were altered for the dangerous mission. The B-29s flew low until they reached the southern tip of Korea; then they climbed to their bombing altitude. Upon reaching 16,000 feet, one B-29 of the 19th BG reported severe icing on its wings, making the plane difficult to control and keep in formation. The aircraft commander decided to abort the mission and notified Seoul Command of his decision. Seoul Command informed him not to abort, however, but to head east toward the coastline and then north to rejoin the bomber stream. Weather officers believed they had identified a possible warm air trough near the coast that should melt the ice on the bomber's wings. The warmer air did melt the ice, permitting the bomber to turn back north. When the B-29 reached Wonsan Harbor, it turned onto a westerly heading and slowly worked its way back into the bomber stream.
As the bombers approached the Siuho Dam, they were illuminated by radar-directed searchlights, followed a few seconds later by anti-aircraft fire. They continued toward the target while being buffeted by both flak bursts and variations in jet stream winds. The B-29s were able to drop their bombs and damage the dam, although not enough to put it out of operation. The flak was intense throughout the bomb run to and from the target, with 18 of the 19 B-29s holed by flak.
When targets were located in the western part of North Korea, B-29s turned toward the east after their bombs were dropped and then continued toward the central part of Korea, where they turned south for Okinawa. One confused 19th BG navigator directed a pilot to make a 360-degree turn. The pilot automatically followed the navigator's instructions, but on rollout the pilot and crew recognized the heading error. They quickly completed a 180-degree turn to get back onto the proper course.
Meanwhile, the B-29 that had been behind the off-course bomber reached its post-target turn point and executed the correct heading toward the central part of Korea. That B-29's flight engineer was tired, however, and did not properly monitor the bomber's engines, allowing them to torch. (When the fuel-air mixture becomes too rich, it causes the fuel at the end of the exhaust pipes to burn.) The bombardier on the B-29 that had made the incorrect turn saw the four exhaust plumes of the torching engines. Believing he had four MiGs in his gunsights, he began firing 50-caliber shells toward the flames, holing the higher B-29, with one spent shell landing within the navigatorradio operator's compartment. Even experienced B-29 crews had problems on combat missions, and there never seemed to be enough trained crews.
From the very start of the Korean War, it was apparent that B-29 strength in the FEAF had to be increased and a qualified crew replacement source established. It took three months to produce an 11-man B-29 combat crew. The three-month training program was divided into two phases--one 30- day transition period (becoming familiar with and able to fly the B-29) and then a 60-day combat-training period. Virtually all crews were assigned to Strategic Air Command (SAC) after graduation and were shipped to the FEAF.
As the replacement crews arrived and became combat qualified, veteran crews were shipped home, although there was one exception. General MacArthur retained five atomic bombqualified B-29 bomber crews within the combat zone so that, if the war escalated, U.S. forces could respond with nuclear weapons. President Truman and his military and foreign-policy advisers, however, were firmly committed to keeping the war limited because they were more concerned with a potential Soviet armed incursion into Western Europe. It would have been unrealistic for MacArthur to initiate a widened ground offensive or launch airstrikes north of the Yalu River, but just in case, the five atomic bombqualified crews alternated on 10-day ground alert and 10-day off status. The retained crews also served as combat instructors for newly arrived replacement aircrews. Even though atomic bombs were never used in the Korean War, MacArthur's contingency plans provided grist for speculation about what might have happened if they had been used.
When U.N. troops retreated from North Korea, FEAF aircrews were called upon to provide tactical interdiction. Using conventional bombs, the aircrews greatly delayed the southward advance of the Chinese Fourth Field Army, giving the U.S. Eighth Army time to prepare defenses. The FEAF inflicted an estimated 40,000 causalities on the advancing Chinese, decimating a force equivalent to five divisions.
Although B-29 atomic-qualified crews had demonstrated their ability to attack fixed positions (permanent strategic targets), there was still some reason to believe that the U.N. command forces were not well enough prepared to use atomic weapons effectively against moving ground troops (tactical targets). In any case, U.S. Intelligence did not identify hostile concentrations at Taechon and in the Iron Triangle in November 1950 until they were breaking up. And atomic attacks against Imjin and Wonju would have been close enough to U.N. troop elements to cause casualties.
The threat of using atomic weapons, however, did help to end the war. On May 22, 1953, U.S. Secretary of State John Dulles sent a message to the Chinese leadership via the Indian diplomatic corps. The Chinese were raising unnecessary barriers to an armistice agreement ending the Korean War, said Dulles, and if peace was not forthcoming, the United States would bring in atomic weapons. Within 11 days, the Chinese accepted the armistice plan, with minor changes.
By January 1951, it was necessary to restrict B-29 operations to steer clear of "MiG Alley"--the area between the Chongchon and Yalu rivers where MiG-15s based in the Antung complex in Manchuria constituted a particular threat. B-29s were withdrawn after Chinese troops captured the U.S. Air Force fighter airfields at Kimpo and Suwon, compelling the Americans to withdraw their North American F-86 Sabres to air bases in Japan. Since the B-29s were highly vulnerable to MiG attack, they required supporting fighters.
Nevertheless, the B-29s continued to pound other Communist targets with effective results. During November 1952, B-29s attacked three airfields that the Chinese were trying to build at the southern end of MiG Alley, north of the Chongchon River. Repeated B-29 attacks forced the Chinese engineers to stop work on those three airfields, as well as their attempts to repair previously damaged airfields.
In order to keep up such devastating attacks, the B-29s required extensive post-mission maintenance to make their three-day turnaround times. Post-mission maintenance consisted of inspecting the bomber's engines and skin for flak damage, washing dirt and oil off the aircraft to maintain maximum aircraft speed, tightening oil connections and any loose equipment, and checking oil sump plugs for metallic shavings, the presence of which indicated the onset of engine wear and probable future engine failure. Maintenance personnel also had to clear bomber crew post-mission write-ups and then complete engine tests to monitor correct operational limits. B-29s needed 7,000 gallons of aviation fuel, and oil reservoir tanks and lines had to be topped off prior to the next mission.
Weather was an important factor in the aircraft mechanics' work--Korea tended to be mild in the fall and spring, bitterly cold in the winter and oppressively hot in the summer. Typhoons were a severe threat to the B-29 bombers on Okinawa. One typhoon warning forced an evacuation of the B-29s and supporting aircraft to Andersen Air Force Base on Guam. The majority of the ground personnel remained behind and waited out the storm. When the B-29s returned, maintenance personnel identified critical fuel-feed problems in the engines. The higher octane fuel used on Guam was eating into the seals of engine fuel-pump gaskets and causing them to leak. The B-29 fuel tanks had to be drained and the fuel-pump gaskets changed prior to the bombers being certified for the next mission.
During another typhoon alert, the winds were determined to be within the B-29's structural tolerance, so the bombers were not evacuated to Guam. The B-29s were lined up on the runway, and the crews and maintenance climbed on board to ride out the storm. Sandbags were piled to wing level around one landing gear, while hydraulic lines were disconnected from the brakes on the other landing gear to let the bombers swing into the changing wind. The force of the winds, which reached 91 mph, caused the B-29's propellers to turn. The crews reported it was an awesome experience, and the damage to the base was approximately $1 million. The next evening, the B-29s were ready to strike North Korean targets. Riding out the storm saved maintenance personnel three to six days of work.
Regardless of careful mission planning, fighter protection and night bombing attacks, B-29 aircrews operated in a dangerous environment. Communist anti-aircraft gunners and MiGs unloaded their vengeance on the B-29s. After the war, U.S. Intelligence studies indicated that the Communists' inexperience in aerial warfare prevented them from making the most of their fighter force. F-86 pilots believed that most of the experienced pilots they encountered were probably from the Soviet Union or Eastern bloc countries, while the newer pilots were Chinese and North Korean. With the end of the Cold War, Air Force Intelligence was able to use Soviet records to confirm that many MiGs encountered by U.S. pilots in MiG Alley and officially reported to be Chinese and North Korean were, in fact, flown by Russian and Polish pilots. Those pilots were rotated through Chinese fighter squadrons for six weeks to gain practical combat experience against U.S. pilots. The Soviet involvement was heavily classified, but early in the war Soviet pilots were heard on radio during combat engagements. Some Soviet pilots were shot down, but the exact number has never been officially confirmed by either U.S. or Soviet air force records.
On January 10, 1953, one B-29 from the 307th BG was badly damaged by a MiG. The aircraft commander kept the bomber flying straight and level so that the crew could bail out. He stayed with the damaged bomber too long, however, and was unable to bail out. (The commander was posthumously awarded the Silver Star for saving the crew.) When the B-29's left gunner reached the ground, a compassionate North Korean farm woman took care of his wounds before North Korean troops captured him. The gunner was then placed in solitary prison confinement until early May 1953. At that time, with about 10 or 12 other captured B-29 crewmen, he was transported to a larger prisoner of war (POW) camp.
The downed radar operator had also been quickly captured and spent three months in solitary confinement. Since he was an officer, the North Koreans made an exceptional effort to play mind games with him. At one point, he was dragged in front of a firing squad in the compound's center courtyard. A North Korean officer barked a command, the soldiers raised their rifles at him and then held that position for several minutes. Of course, the radar officer thought he was about to be killed--as many downed crewmen were. Unexpectedly, however, the North Korean officer barked another command that made the soldiers lower their rifles and laugh at the badly shaken American officer. The radar officer was then dragged back to his cell.
American airmen suffered greatly while in Communist captivity. The food was bad and medical care practically nonexistent. Captured B-29 crewmen were usually held in isolated or solitary confinement for approximately three months and were fed two cups of rice a day. The prisoners wore the clothing they had on when captured, regardless of the condition, and slept on a dirt floor, usually without blankets. The Korean winters are very harsh and cold, and POWs suffered from all the effects of exposure. Periodically, the captured crewmen would be removed from solitary for interrogation, usually lasting three hours, and then were returned to their cells.
When the three-month initial confinement and interrogation phase was completed, the airmen were transported to a central, Chinese-run POW camp. Life was somewhat better there, but not much. Prisoners were allowed limited exercise, which had been prohibited in the North Koreanrun prison. They were still completely isolated from any outside contact, including non-Communist radio broadcasts, newspapers, magazines and letters, and were not allowed to have writing materials. In the Chinese camps POWs were issued some clothing, and crude shelter was provided, but captured U.N. personnel certainly were not treated according to the rules and standards set by the Geneva Convention. The 19th BG personnel who had survived when their B-29 was shot down on January 10, 1953, remained in Communist captivity until August 21, 1953. On that date, they were loaded in trucks along with other POWs and taken to the U.N.Communist POW exchange point.
Responding to Communist propaganda techniques, the United States used B-29s to drop leaflets to persuade North Korean troops to surrender. In early April 1953, for example, a B-29 propaganda drop scattered thousands of leaflets that stated: "Many thousands of North Korean soldiers have been killed! Many thousands of young North Korean women will never have husbands! Blame the Communists!" Those leaflets were designed to arouse homesickness among the North Korean soldiers and to incite them to rebel against their commanders and leaders for continuing the war in the face of relentless air and ground attacks. The leaflet drops were only an occasional diversion, however, from the main bombing campaign.
A 98th BG mission on July 20, 1953, was typical of the late war attacks against North Korean targets. On the afternoon of the 20th, more than 180 aircrews sat in the briefing room, waiting for the mission briefing to begin. The wing commander quickly walked onto the platform, took his seat in front of the crewmen and ordered them to take their seats. The operations officer waited behind the podium while another officer stood to the right of a large, drape-covered wall map. The crews drew a quick breath as the drape was pulled to one side, revealing their evening targets--two airfields near Pyongyang. The operations officer began describing the mission, "First aircraft takeoff will be to the north at 1830 hours," and as he gave locations and routes, the second officer pointed each out on the map. The Intelligence officer then briefed the crews on the general shape, size and location of the two targets, mentioning what the pre-strike reconnaissance photographs revealed about the target, its defenses, landmarks and the selected offset aiming points (OAPs). When the Intelligence officer was finished, the communications, weather and engineering officers added their information to the briefing. As the crews exited the briefing room, many crewmen were asking each other: "What do you think? Will this be the last mission?"
At 4 p.m., the crews began reassembling to be issued personal equipment--parachutes, side arms, flight helmets, earphones and other equipment needed to perform the mission. The crews then boarded trucks for the trip to the B-29s parked on the steel and cement runways. Each B-29 was a beehive of activity as flight crews began their preflight aircraft inspection. Crews examined every inch of their bomber's fuselage, wings, tires, guns, propellers and all the other items on their preflight checklist. Each aircraft commander then lined up his crew with their equipment piled behind. He slowly moved down the line of men, inspecting each piece of equipment to verify everything was combat ready. At his command, the crewmen donned their Mae West life jackets and parachutes and began loading all the equipment into the waiting bomber. "How about it, Captain, is this the last mission?" the crewmen asked. He could only answer, "It's the last one...for tonight!" But all questions were soon put aside as the control tower cleared the crew's B-29 for takeoff.
As the B-29 rumbled off its assigned parking hardstand and taxied to position on the runway, the crewmen's anticipation grew. The B-29 turned onto the end of the runway, and the pilot put on the bomber's brakes and ran the engines up to full power. The aircraft was vibrating, then it surged forward as takeoff power was applied and the brakes released. The four screaming engines pulled the heavy bomber down the runway into the air toward its assigned target near Pyongyang.
The B-29s encountered heavy clouds that obscured the target, even though they were flying under the light from the moon. That was a very dangerous time for the bombers because they had to fly straight and level and could be tracked by prowling Communist night fighters. The bombardiers used radar to locate their target, releasing their 500-pound bombs through the clouds. Even with the thick cloud base, brilliant flashes of flame could be seen through the cloud layer. The B-29s were being tracked by radar-directed anti-aircraft artillery, and flak burst among the bombers. All B-29 crewmen scanned the night sky looking for enemy fighters, but on this mission none approached the bombers. As each B-29 dropped its bombs, it turned away from the target and headed back to base. The crews relaxed when the aircraft landed and were parked back on their hardstand, but the evening's mission was not over until after the post-mission debriefing.
In the trucks heading for the debriefing, the crewmen returned to the question of whether they had just flown the war's last mission. As each crew entered the debriefing room, chaplains met them, welcoming them home and giving each a cup of hot chocolate. The crewmen unzipped their flight suits, wet with sweat and stained with dirt, as they went to the assigned debriefing table, where the Intelligence specialist tried to draw out as much information about the mission as possible. Dawn streaked the eastern horizon as the crewmen finally exited the building, moving slowly toward their quarters. At the same time, other men were getting up, ready for the heavy work of preparing the bombers for the next mission.
The mission had been part of the FEAF's airfield neutralization program, which Brig. Gen. Richard Carmichael called a "blaze of glory." Those bombing raids against North Korea's airfields were designed to render them unserviceable for conventional and jet aircraft. The Chinese, under the cover of inclement weather, had flown in approximately 200 aircraft to Uiju airfield in early July 1953. Once the planes had landed, they had been quickly towed to scattered dispersal revetments in the hills adjoining the hard surface highway between Uiju and Sinuiju. Most of these aircraft received some shrapnel damage during the B-29s' airfield bombing raids.
The Chinese could still ferry in replacement aircraft before the neutral nations' inspection teams arrived at the various North Korean airfields to record how many aircraft were at the base. Communist combat engineers were authorized to repair the dirt-surfaced runways after the bombings to permit landings of replacement aircraft, but they could not maintain full combat operations. The replacement aircraft were towed into the aircraft revetments to wait for the inspection team's visit. Once the inspection team counted the number of aircraft on the North Korean airfields, the fields could be brought up to full operational capabilities. The armistice agreement between the U.N. and the Communists included a statement that guaranteed North Korea the right to retain the number of aircraft that were on the airfields and operational at the time the armistice agreement became effective. On July 27, 1953, the last day of the war, two B-29s of the 98th BG and two of the 91st BG flew over North Korea delivering a final round of psychological leaflets.
B-29s flew 1,076 days during the 1,106-day air war in Korea, dropping 160,000 tons of bombs on Communist targets--a greater bomb tonnage than had been dropped on Japan during World War II. Regardless of the many obstacles they faced, B-29 crews performed brilliantly, destroying industrial and military strategic targets in North Korea and supporting U.N. ground troops. The FEAF lost a grand total of 1,406 aircraft and suffered 1,144 men killed and 306 wounded during the war. Thirty FEAF men who had been declared missing were eventually returned to military control, 214 POWs were repatriated under the terms of the armistice agreement, while 35 men were still being held in Communist captivity as of June 1954. The men who flew and supported the B-29s in the Far East Command were an important part of the air war over Korea, but their contribution has seldom been recognized.
|Links & Recommended Sites | Oneliners, Stories, etc.|
|About The Military And Wars | Link To Us | Site Navigation | Parting Shots|
My Other Sites:
Cruisin' - A Little Drag Racin', Nostalgia And My Favorite Rides |
The Eerie Side Of Things |
It's An Enigma |
That"s Entertainment |
Just For The Fun Of It |
Gender Wars |
Golf And Other Non-Contact Sports |
JCS Group, Inc., A little business... A little fun... |
John Wayne: American, The Movies And The Old West |
Something About Everything Military |
The Spell Of The West |
Once Upon A Time |
By The People, For The People |
Something About Everything Racin' |
Baseball and Other Contact Sports | The St. Louis Blues At The Arena |
What? Strange? Peculiar? Maybe.
Questions? Anything Not Work? Not Look Right? My Policy Is To Blame The Computer. | <urn:uuid:90469941-940a-4343-8965-61b8ef2d7269> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.jcs-group.com/military/war1950assault/boeingb29.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011149514/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091909-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975493 | 7,103 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Americans in the mid nineteen thirties turned increasingly pessimistic about the possibility of preventing the outbreak of wars through international cooperation and instead moved toward measures designed to prevent the United States from intervening in any foreign war that might occur. In this lesson students examine a series of primary source documents that will help them understand why these laws were passed, and how they were applied in the mid- to late-1930s.
Although antiwar organizations existed even before World War I, it was during the interwar period that pacifism became the fastest-growing movement in America. Numerous American politicians, businessmen, journalists, and activists made proposals for multilateral agreements on arms control and collective security. Through an examination of memoirs, photographs, and other primary source documents, students examine the rise of antiwar sentiment in the United States, as well as some of the concrete measures taken during the 1920s to prevent the outbreak of future wars.
This lesson engages students in the debate over the Social Security Act that engrossed the nation during the 1930s.
In this lesson which focuses on two of FDR's Fireside Chats, students gain a sense of the dramatic effect of FDR's voice on his audience, see the scope of what he was proposing in these initial speeches, and make an overall analysis of why the Fireside Chats were so successful.
This lesson asks students to explore the various roles that Eleanor Roosevelt a key figure in several of the most important social reform movements of the twentieth century took on, among them: First Lady, political activist for civil rights, newspaper columnist and author, and representative to the United Nations.
The Civilian Conservation Corps, a New Deal recovery and relief program provided more than a quarter of a million young black men with jobs during the Depression. By examining primary source documents students analyze the impact of this program on race relations in America and assess the role played by the New Deal in changing them.
This lesson shows students how broadly the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941 empowered the federal government—particularly the President—and asks students to investigate how FDR promoted the program in speeches and then in photographs.
After a close reading and comparison of Edward Hopper's painting House by the Railroad and Edward Hirsch's poem about the painting, students explore the types of emotion generated by each work in the viewer or reader and examine how the painter and poet each achieved these responses.
This lesson plan highlights the importance of First Amendment rights by examining Norman Rockwell’s painting of The Four Freedoms. Students discover the First Amendment in action as they explore their own community and country through newspapers, art, and role playing.
After learning that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor, thus ensuring that the United States would enter World War II, Prime Minister Winston Churchill breathed a sigh of relief. "Hitler's fate was sealed," he would later recall. "Mussolini's fate was sealed. As for the Japanese, they would be ground to powder. All the rest was merely the proper application of overwhelming force."
Churchill's sentiment was easy to understand. In terms of raw materials and industrial capacity the United States alone was far superior to Germany, Italy, and Japan combined. Now that America had joined Great Britain and the Soviet Union in the fight against the Axis, victory seemed assured.
Yet it was neither raw materials nor industrial capacity alone that was able to overcome the Axis Powers. No doubt the Allies had tremendous advantages in terms of technology and productive capacity, but ultimately World War II was won by members of the armed forces—real, flesh-and-blood men (and sometimes women) who risked death and dismemberment in the name of freedom. They fought everywhere from the steppes of Russia to the jungles of Southeast Asia, from the icy waters of the North Atlantic to the sun-drenched deserts of North Africa. And after nearly four long years they achieved victory.
In this unit, students will examine the role that the United States played in bringing about this victory. They will learn about the strategies that were developed, and how they played out in reality. They will become familiar with the two major theaters of the war—Pacific and European—and how developments in one affected the course of the fighting in the other. Finally, they will learn how the various military campaigns—on land and sea, and in the air—all contributed to the war's successful conclusion.
Review each lesson plan. Locate and bookmark suggested materials and links from EDSITEment-reviewed websites. Download and print out selected documents and duplicate copies as necessary for student viewing. Alternatively, excerpted versions of these documents are available as part of the downloadable PDF, such as this one for Lesson Plan One (see sidebar under "Additional Student/Teacher Resources" for full list of files).
Download the blackline masters for each lesson, available as a PDFs, such as this one for Lesson Plan One. This file contains excerpted versions of the documents used in the first and second activities, as well as questions for students to answer. Print out and make an appropriate number of copies of the handouts you plan to use in class.
Perhaps most importantly, you should become familiar with the interactive maps which accompany this unit, and which show the locations of important events in both the European and Pacific theaters:
Clicking on these locations will bring up pop-ups that include a paragraph or two of basic information about what happened there, as well as links to pages with more in-depth coverage, plus relevant campaign maps, photographs, and/or personal accounts by those who were there.
If your students lack experience in dealing with primary sources, you might use one or more preliminary exercises to help them develop these skills. The Learning Page at the American Memory Project of the Library of Congress includes a set of such activities. Another useful resource is the Digital Classroom of the National Archives, which features a set of Document Analysis Worksheets. Finally, History Matters offers pages on "Making Sense of Maps" and "Making Sense of Oral History" which give helpful advice to teachers in getting their students to use such sources effectively. | <urn:uuid:f52c9455-7527-499e-a26e-59241851d698> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://edsitement.neh.gov/category/subject-areas/history-and-social-studies/us/great-depression-and-world-war-ii-1929-1945?page=21 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021384410/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120944-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968137 | 1,245 | 4.0625 | 4 |
Ghatula, a village 40 miles (65 km) southeast of Dhamtari, Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh), India, at the edge of a rich agricultural valley, was a Mennonite (Mennonite Church) mission station established in 1916 under the direct management of George J. and Esther E. Lapp. The Bible training school for Christian workers was moved from Rudri to Ghatula the same year. Ultimately on the station ground of seven acres living quarters were built for missionaries, employees, Christian workers, and Bible school students, as well as a Bible school, a medical dispensary, and nurses' quarters; on an adjacent plot was built a primary school for village children with Christian teachers. The Ghatula field covered more than 2,000 square miles. There were opportunities for Indian Christians to obtain employment and purchase land in Ghatula and surrounding villages, with the result that a substantial Christian community with a well-organized church was established, which in 1955 had 81 members.
In 1929 the Bible school was merged into the Bible department of the Christian Academy at Dhamtari, from which time Ghatula was more particularly an evangelistic and primary educational center. In 1929-1939 a girls' industrial school was operated, giving instruction in handwork, homemaking, field work, and elementary subjects. The industrial school was under the management of Minnie Kanagy and Gladys Weaver.
|Author(s)||George J Lapp|
Cite This Article
Lapp, George J. "Ghatula (Madhya Pradesh, India)." Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. 1956. Web. 14 Mar 2014. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ghatula_(Madhya_Pradesh,_India)&oldid=81148.
Lapp, George J. (1956). Ghatula (Madhya Pradesh, India). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. Retrieved 14 March 2014, from http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ghatula_(Madhya_Pradesh,_India)&oldid=81148.
Herald Press website.
©1996-2014 by the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:1038af3e-d7c2-44e3-8184-15d5fd8ba571> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Ghatula_(Madhya_Pradesh,_India) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678692158/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024452-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944205 | 481 | 2.6875 | 3 |
— Trevor Share Your Story Flag as offensiveGet a Park Passport. It's an inexpensive souvenir, and a good reminder of your visit. Our family loves to collect them.
Antietam National Battlefield
The Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, on September 17, 1862, was the tragic culmination of Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North. That one fateful day more than 23,110 men were killed, wounded, or listed as missing. Approximately 4,000 were killed, and in the days that followed, many more died of wounds or disease. The peaceful village of Sharpsburg turned into a huge hospital and burial ground extending for miles in all directions. The battle led to Lincoln's issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. | <urn:uuid:1eedeb47-a9d8-4778-970b-af0d6f2a123c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nationalparks.org/explore-parks/antietam-national-battlefield | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999642168/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060722-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967611 | 157 | 3.234375 | 3 |
‘Monster’ cosmic blast zipped harmlessly by Earth
WASHINGTON — Astronomers call it the monster. It was the biggest and brightest cosmic explosion ever witnessed. Had it been closer, Earth would have been toast.
Orbiting telescopes got the fireworks show of a lifetime last spring when they spotted what is known as a gamma ray burst in a far-off galaxy.
The only bigger display astronomers know of was the Big Bang — and no one, of course, was around to witness that.
“This burst was a once-in-a-century cosmic event,” NASA astrophysics chief Paul Hertz said at a news conference Thursday.
But because this blast was 3.7 billion light-years away, mankind was spared. In fact, no one on Earth could even see it with the naked eye.
A gamma ray burst happens when a massive star dies, collapses into a brand-new black hole, explodes in what’s called a supernova and ejects energetic radiation. The radiation is as bright as can be as it travels across the universe at the speed of light. | <urn:uuid:4c99d6ae-fc09-4d03-b1d5-0fd93d83470c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.chieftain.com/news/world/2036552-120/burst-nasa-cosmic-gamma | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999677941/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060757-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968716 | 228 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Definitions for banga
This page provides all possible meanings and translations of the word banga
The Nuttall Encyclopedia
the Hindu name for the Delta of the Ganges.
Banga is a City and a Municipal council in the Shahid Bhagat Singh Nagar district of Punjab, India. Banga is also one of the sub-division headquarters of the district. It is located on the Punjab Plain. In 1961, its population was 10,212 which grew to 11,885 in 1971. It is currently estimated to have a population of about 23,000 and is classified as a class 2 Municipality. The city also incorporates the former village of Jindowal apart from Banga town. Banga is now Tehsil/Sub Division.
Translations for banga
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary
a moving ridge, larger than a ripple, moving on the surface of water
rolling waves; a boat tossing on the waves.
- ondaPortuguese (BR)
- die WelleGerman
- bylgja, alda, báraIcelandic
- كول، اوشان او شان كول، څپه موج) غورځنګ: سمندر، سين (شاعرانه): دويښتانو موړه، دويښتانو لوړې ژورې چې څپوته ورته وي: رپ، رپا، سوريدنه: بوك وزمه، كويان ډوله: ګډوډي، پار يدنه: څپه (دوړانګو دغږPashto
- 波浪Chinese (Trad.)
- 波浪Chinese (Simp.)
Get even more translations for banga »
Find a translation for the banga definition in other languages:
Select another language: | <urn:uuid:8300aebe-e4f0-4930-a0d9-a226b20303c5> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.definitions.net/definition/banga | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999677941/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060757-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.717562 | 505 | 3 | 3 |
CHAPEL HILL -- Rugby union, a full-body-contact team sport played in the United States but more popular in other English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, has much in common with U.S. football.
Among the similarities are blocking, tackling, passing and strenuous attempts to get a ball across a goal line while preventing the opposing team from doing likewise.
And, of course, frequent injuries, a small percentage of which are catastrophic, life-altering events that turn recreation into tragedy.
A new study conducted by researchers at the universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, now shows part of the reason why.
Protective equipment used in rugby union has only limited effectiveness in preventing injuries.
"We found that the risk of concussion was not reduced by the use of padded headgear or mouthguards," said lead researcher Dr. Stephen Marshall, assistant professor of epidemiology and assistant professor of orthopaedics at the UNC schools of public health and medicine.
Hard-shell helmets and most body padding like U.S. football players wear are not permitted in rugby union, said Marshall, also a biostatistician at the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center.
"We did show, however, that use of mouthguards tended to lower the risk of mouth and face injuries by close to 50 percent, and padded headgear appeared to lower the risk of damage to the scalp and to ears by about 40 percent," he said. "Support sleeves cut the risk of sprains and strains about close to 40 percent as well."
He and colleagues found no evidence that shinguards and application of tape or grease protected players.
A report on the UNC Injury Prevention Research Center findings appears in the February issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Besides Marshall, UNC authors are Dr. Dana P. Loomis, professor of epidemiology, and Dr. Anna E. Waller, research assistant professor of emergency medicine. Other authors are David J. Chalmers and Yvonne N. Bird of the University of Otago; Kenneth L. Quarrie, now of the New Zealand Rugby Union; and Michael Feehan, formerly of Otago and Harvard universities and now owner of Observant LLV, a private Wellesley, Mass., research consulting company.
The study involved analyzing data gathered from 304 rugby players in Dunedin, New Zealand, each week during the 1993 season. The detailed information concerned injuries, protective equipment use and participation in practice and games.
"I think the bottom line is that rugby is a wonderful but dangerous sport, and that new types of protective equipment need to be developed if we are reduce the toll of injury," Marshall said.
Cite This Page: | <urn:uuid:99d5bcf3-e653-4252-b303-0c4eed478650> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050212195828.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999677941/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060757-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955499 | 568 | 2.734375 | 3 |
By Hudson George
Following a particular political ideology as the norm for Grenada is a waste of time, similar to the old traditional belief that producing large amounts of agriculture products will make the economy grow and the nation will prosper. However, it is no hidden secret that the majority of Grenadians are comfortable with the present government’s decision to join ALBA.
Hudson George has a BA in Social Science from York University, Toronto, Canada. He has been writing since his early teenage years and now contributes letters and articles to a number of Caribbean newspapers
As a small country in the Caribbean Basin, Grenada cannot survive economically on its own without any assistance from richer nations. For example, Canada, the US and Mexico form the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) as their trading bloc. However, the Caribbean, Central and South American countries are not part of NAFTA. And while old colonial Britain is a member of the European Union (EU); therefore, those former British colonies have no other choice but to look somewhere else to find a trading bloc.
The late President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela created ALBA as an alternative to NAFTA and some of the English-speaking Caribbean countries are members of ALBA through the invitation of the Chavez-led government. On the other hand, Grenada, which is also a former British colony just 87 miles north of Venezuela, was not a member of ALBA until just recently. The Keith Mitchell government signed on as the newest member at a recently held summit in Cuba. According to news reports coming from the Spice Isle, Grenada will be a full member in a month’s time, when all the paperwork is done.
However, it is no hidden secret why Grenada as an independent country took so long to join ALBA, even though Grenadians are experiencing economic hard times, due to two major hurricanes and a global recession. However, based on Grenada’s past political history during the Maurice Bishop-led people’s revolution that was part of the Cold War era between the US, Russia and Cuba, some Grenadian politicians are nervous that it might upset the US if they advocate for Grenada to join ALBA.
In addition, with Hugo Chavez’s anti-American policy that is still popular among Venezuelan voters, it is obvious why the former NDC government led by Tillman Thomas refused to be a part of ALBA. And even though Mr Thomas associated himself with left wing political activists and politicians to defeat the Keith Mitchell NNP in the 2008 general election, his political loyalty to the US never wavered. Mr Thomas is not a practical politician as Dr Mitchell.
In addition, we can say that all leaders who governed Grenada after the people’s revolution find themselves obligated to please the US administration, due to fact that the US invaded Grenada and restored the traditional democratic system of government. However, some of those leaders understand the fact that they must be non aligned if they want to be successful and serve the people‘s interest. They realise that the US will not give Grenada enough financial aid and technical assistance as most Grenadians had expected after the invasion.
However, after the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG) crumbled and democracy was restored in the tri-island state and the interim period ended, the Herbert Blaize NNP was elected to govern the country. Blaize’s NNP government was very much pro-America and anti-Cuba because the Cold War was still affecting Grenada politics; and the Grenadian people were very much confused about the power struggle and bloodshed that took place between the Maurice Bishop and Bernard Coard warring factions within the PRG.
During the course of Blaize’s NNP five-year administration, conflicts occurred between Blaize and some of his elected members of parliament. Blaize prorogued parliament to stay in office and he died during that period. Blaize’s successor Ben Jones finished the term and the Nicolas Braithwaite-led NDC party won the election. The NDC stayed on a similar political course as the former Blaize NNP, trying to please the US administration without rocking the political boat, while the Grenadian people’s well-being was compromised by the political elites.
The NDC government led by Braithwaite and later on by George Brizan suffered the same political fate as the Blaize and Ben Jones NNP. The NDC was defeated by Dr Keith Mitchell’s NNP in the general election. When Mitchell took office he made a sort of political shift and portrayed himself as a practical leader who recognised the needs of the people. Mitchell opened up relationships with Cuba. Fidel Castro was invited to visit Grenada. Castro visited Grenada and received the biggest welcome from the Grenadian people to a foreign leader. From then on, Cuba has been helping Grenada in health and education.
Now that Mitchell’s NNP is back in office after defeating the Thomas NDC government in the 2012 election, Mitchell seems to be making another practical decision by joining ALBA. He realises that Grenada needs financial assistance and cheaper oil and gas for local consumption. Therefore, if Venezuela is willing to help Grenada as Cuba is doing, the Grenadian people will be happy with Dr Mitchell’s decision to join ALBA.
Basically, Grenada is too small and underdeveloped to play big power politics. Grenada needs a practical leader that is willing to seek the best interest for the Grenadian people. Presently, Grenada is excluded from NAFTA and the only alternative is to join ALBA in the interest of the Grenadian people. | <urn:uuid:47796ad4-b267-4818-bcce-b51b70d0b25b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.caribbeannewsnow.com/headline-Commentary:-Grenada-and-ALBA-19814.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010749774/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091229-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977178 | 1,168 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Science and Technology Workshop
Overarching aims of the Latin America and the Caribbean Regional Science and Technology Workshop: o To ensure that the best available science, including social science, is integrated into policy recommendations resulting from Rio+20. o To ensure that relevant policies resulting from Rio+20 take account of the needs of international and national science, as strengthening science, technology and innovation will be essential for accelerating implementation of sustainable development. o To incorporate specific regional concerns and priorities into the global agenda of Rio+20. o To use Rio+20 as an opportunity to consolidate and strengthen regional and sub-regional policy frameworks for sustainable development.
Objectives of the Regional Workshop: o To prepare agreed upon positions as a concerted input by the regional scientific and technological community into the intergovernmental Regional Preparatory Meetings. o To organize a science – policy dialogue at the regional level prior to the Regional Preparatory Meetings. o To organize a multi-stakeholder dialogue with other “Major Groups”, including business & industry.
Key questions to be addressed at the Workshop: 1. What are the priority issues for Rio+20, as seen by the scientific and technological community from the region, taking into account the UN GA outline of Rio+20 in 2012? 2. How can the link between science, education and policy be strengthened in order to ensure early detection of emerging crises and quick response actions?
In addition to measures already being implemented by countries, what additional measures are needed to enable countries to strengthen resilience to shocks emanating from new and emerging challenges?
What are the needs of science and technology in the region, in order to be able to contribute best to sustainable development in the region and to international endeavours of sustainability science?
What are the major contributions from the sciences and engineering to sustainable development at local, national, and regional scales?
How can science and engineering contribute to a Green Economy, also taking into account the role of the private sector in science, engineering and technology?
What role can the different stakeholders and Major Groups play in enhancing regional science and technology for sustainable development, and what are their needs from science and technology?
Participants: o Natural scientists, social scientists and engineers o High-level policy makers/ government representatives o Representatives of Major Groups o Co-sponsors | <urn:uuid:55e8cf56-0c9e-43f0-8483-7f580b40ee81> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.earthtrends.wri.org/event/2011/08/latin-america-and-caribbean-regional-science-and-technology-workshop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011167968/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091927-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910692 | 469 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Fibroids are the most common growths in a woman’s reproductive system. Many women with fibroids have no symptoms at all, while others have symptoms ranging from heavy bleeding and pain to incontinence or infertility. These information pages explain what fibroids are, how they can affect your health and what your options are for treatment. For more information on heavy bleeding orhysterectomy, visit our pages on these topics.
What are fibroids?
Fibroids are tumours that grow in the uterus (womb). They are benign, which
means they are not cancerous, and are made up of muscle fibers. Fibroids can be
as small as a pea and can grow as large as a melon. It is estimated that 20-50%
of women have, or will have, fibroids at some time in their lives. They are rare
in women under the age of 20, most common in women in their 30s and 40s, and
tend to shrink after the menopause.
Although the exact cause of fibroids is unknown, they seem to be influenced
by oestrogen. This would explain why they appear during a woman’s middle years
(when oestrogen levels are high) and stop growing after the menopause (when
oestrogen levels drop).
According to US studies, fibroids occur up to nine times more often in black
women than in white women, and tend to appear earlier. The reason for this is
unclear. Also women who weigh over 70kg may be more likely to have fibroids.
This is thought to be due to higher levels of oestrogen in heavier women.
In the past, the contraceptive pill was thought to increase the risk of
fibroids, but that was when the pill contained higher levels of oestrogen than
it does today. Some studies suggest that the newer combined pill (oestrogen and
progestogen) and the mini pill (progestogen only) may actually help prevent or
slow the growth of fibroids.
Types of fibroids
Fibroids are categorised by where they grow in the uterus:
Intramural — these grow in the wall of the womb and are the
most common type of fibroid.
Subserous— these fibroids grow from the outer layer of the
womb wall and sometimes grow on stalks (called pedunculated fibroids). Subserous
fibroids can grow to be very large.
Submucous — submucous fibroids develop in the muscle
underneath the inner lining of the womb. They grow into the womb and can also
grow on stalks which, if long enough, can hang through the cervix.
Cervical — cervical fibroids grow in the wall of the cervix
(neck of the womb) and are difficult to remove without damaging the surrounding
If you have fibroids, you may have one or many. You may also have one type of
fibroid or a number of different types.
As the cause of fibroids is still unknown, there are no clear guidelines for
preventing them. However, there are some things you could do that may help
reduce your risk:
• Keep your weight in check. This will minimize estrogen
levels in your body. | <urn:uuid:b729bb4a-795f-4489-9bae-27f1733513a4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blackdoctor.org/2783/black-women-and-fibroids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95127 | 719 | 3.421875 | 3 |
Special Status and SEIS Special Attention Species Habitat
Protect, manage, and conserve federal listed and proposed species and their habitats to achieve their recovery in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, approved recovery plans, and Bureau special status species policies.
Manage for the conservation of federal candidate and Bureau sensitive species and their habitats so as not to contribute to the need to list and to recover the species.
Manage for the conservation of state listed species and their habitats to assist the state in achieving management objectives.
Protect and manage assessment species where possible so as to not elevate their status to any higher level of concern.
Protect SEIS special attention species so as not to elevate their status to any higher level of concern.
Study, maintain or restore community structure, species composition, and ecological processes of special status plant and animal habitat.
Land Use Allocations
All of the major land allocations in this plan are designed in part to benefit special status species in the aggregate.
Management Actions/Direction - Late-Successional Reserves
Design projects for recovery of threatened or endangered animal and plant species even if they result in some reduction of habitat quality for late-successional species. These projects will be designed for least impact to late-successional species.
Management Actions/Direction - All Land Use Allocations
Special Status Species
Review all proposed actions to determine whether or not special status species occupy or use the affected area or if habitat for such species is affected. Tables 2 and 3 in Appendix C list the special status plant and animal species known or suspected to occur on the district.
Conduct field surveys according to protocols and other established procedures. This includes surveying during the proper season unless surveys are deemed unnecessary through watershed analysis, project planning, and environmental assessment. For example, field surveys may not be conducted in all cases depending on the number and timing of previous surveys conducted, whether previous surveys looked for all species that a new survey would, and the likelihood of potential habitat. The intensity of field surveys will also vary depending on the same factors.
Consult/conference with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) or National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) for any proposed action that may affect federal listed or proposed species or their critical or essential habitat. Based on the results of consultation/conferencing, modify, relocate, or abandon the proposed action. Request technical assistance from one of these agencies for any proposed action that may affect federal candidate species or their habitat.
Coordinate with the USFWS, NMFS, and other appropriate agencies and organizations and jointly endeavor to recover federal listed and proposed plant and animal species and their habitats.
Modify, relocate, or abandon a proposed action to avoid contributing to the need to list federal candidate species, state listed species, Bureau sensitive species, or their habitats.
Coordinate and cooperate with the State of Oregon to conserve state-listed species.
Identify impacts of proposed actions, if any, to Bureau sensitive and assessment species as a whole and clearly describe impacts in environmental analyses. As funding permits and as species conservation dictates, actively manage the Bureau sensitive and assessment species.
Retain under federal management, or other appropriate management organization, habitat essential for the survival or recovery of listed and proposed species. Retain habitat of proposed, candidate, or Bureau sensitive species where disposal would contribute to the need to list the species.
Where appropriate opportunities exist, acquire land to contribute to recovery, reduce the need to list, or enhance special status species habitat.
Coordinate with other agencies and groups in management of species across landscapes. Coordination will be accomplished through conservation plans or similar agreements that identify actions to conserve single or multiple species and/or habitats. Such strategies could preclude the need for intensive inventories or modifications to some projects where the conservation plan provides adequate protection for the species and meets the intent of policy.
Where plans exist for species no longer on the special status list, continue with the prescribed conservation actions if determined to be required to avoid relisting or further consideration for listing. In the case of interagency plans or agreements, this determination will be mutually decided. Such plans may be modified as needed based on adequacy of existing range-wide conditions and conservation management.
Pursue opportunities for public education about conservation of species.
Where appropriate, pursue opportunities to increase the number of populations of species under BLM management through land acquisition and/or species reintroduction in coordination with other responsible agencies.
SEIS Special Attention Species
This incorporates the "Survey and Manage" and "Protection Buffer" species and standards and guidelines from the SEIS ROD.
Survey and Manage
Implement the survey and manage provision of the SEIS ROD within the range of SEIS special attention species and the particular habitats that they are known to occupy. Table C-1 in Appendix C shows which species are covered by this provision, and which of the following four categories and management actions/direction are to be applied to each:
Provide protection buffers for specific rare and locally endemic species and other species in the upland forest matrix. A list of these species and related management actions/direction are presented in Table C-1 of Appendix C and the section on Special Status and SEIS Special Attention Species and Habitat. These species are likely to be assured viability if they occur within reserves. However, there might be occupied locations outside reserves that will be important to protect as well.
Apply the following management actions/direction:
For newly discovered habitat of other special attention species requiring protection buffers, apply the management action/direction in the SEIS Record of Decision.
Conduct surveys to determine the presence of roosting bats, including fringed myotis, silver-haired bats, long-eared myotis, long-legged myotis, and pallid bats. Surveys will be conducted according to protocol defined in the SEIS ROD and in any subsequent revisions to the protocol.
As an interim measure, allow no timber harvest within 250 feet of sites containing bats. Develop mitigation measures in project or activity plans involving these sites. The intent of these measures is to protect sites from destruction, vandalism, disturbance from road construction or blasting, or any other activity that could change cave or mine temperatures or drainage patterns.
When Townsend's big-eared bats are found on federal land, notify the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. For any located sites, develop management prescriptions that include special consideration for potential impacts on this species.
Listed and Proposed Threatened and Endangered Species - General
Implement the land use allocations and management actions/direction of this proposed resource management plan that are designed to enhance and maintain habitat for threatened and endangered species.
Northern Spotted Owl (federal threatened species)
In the Matrix, retain 100 acres of the best northern spotted owl habitat as close as possible to a nest site or owl activity center for all known (as of January 1, 1994) spotted owl activity centers.
Fall no trees within 0.25 mile of all active northern spotted owl nest sites from approximately March 1 to September 30 to avoid disturbance and harm to young owls.
With minor exceptions, restrict human activities that could disturb owl nestingespecially use of large power equipment within 0.25 mile of all active spotted owl nest sites from approximately March 1 to September 30. Restrictions on activities would usually not be required for owl nests and activity centers located near roads or in other areas of permanent human activity.
Marbled Murrelet (federal threatened species)
Conduct two years of survey prior to any human disturbance of marbled murrelet habitat.
Protect contiguous existing and recruitment habitat for marbled murrelets (i.e., stands that are capable of becoming marbled murrelet habitat within 25 years) within a 0.5 mile radius of any site where the birds' behavior indicates occupation (e.g., active nest, fecal ring or eggshell fragments, and birds flying below, through, into, or out of the forest canopy within or adjacent to a stand).
Do not conduct nor allow harvest of timber within occupied marbled murrelet habitatat least until completion of the Marbled Murrelet Recovery Plan.
During silvicultural treatments of non-habitat within the 0.5-mile circle, protect or enhance suitable or replacement habitat.
Amend or revise management direction as appropriate when the recovery plan is completed.
Bald Eagle (federal threatened species)
Comply with the Pacific Bald Eagle Recovery and Implementation Plans and existing, site-specific habitat management plans.
Provide a 440-yard radius buffer around known and future nest sites. Protect all snags within 550 yards of nest and roost sites.
Consider the acquisition of up to 120 acres every two miles along 5th order and larger streams where no publically owned lands exist. Acquire privately-owned lands surrounding bald eagle nests when possible. Manage immediately adjacent lands to reduce the fire hazard in nesting areas.
Peregrine Falcon (federal endangered species)
Comply with the Peregrine Falcon Recovery Plan and existing, site-specific habitat management plans.
Aleutian Canada Goose (federal threatened species)
Comply with the Aleutian Canada Goose Recovery Plan and the New River ACEC Management Plan. Continue to explore opportunities for acquiring potential habitat in the New River area. Coordinate with the USFWS to acquire habitat and population information on Aleutian Canada geese in the New River area.
Western Snowy Plover (federal threatened species)
Coordinate with the Snowy Plover Working Group and the Recovery Team, when established, for management of plover habitat on district lands on the North Spit of Coos Bay and in the New River area. Consider acquisition of parcels within the district that could facilitate recovery of the species. Protect nesting areas from disturbance from human activities and predation. Continue to gather habitat and nesting information on the species in coordination with ODFW, the Oregon Heritage Program, the Dunes National Recreation Area, and USFWS. Continue to improve and maintain habitat for the snowy plover on the North Spit of Coos Bay and at New River through direction provided by the Snowy Plover Working Group and in line with the Recovery Plan when approved.
Plants (Listed and Proposed Endangered and Threatened Species) - General
Implement the land use allocations and management actions/direction of this proposed resource management plan that are designed to enhance and maintain habitat for all endangered and threatened species.
Western lily (Lilium occidentale) (federal proposed)
Participate in recovery efforts for the western lily. If populations are found on BLM-administered lands, management action/direction will be developed.
Participate in research efforts that may help recover the species, including experimental introduction, seed collection and propagation, inventories, and population monitoring. | <urn:uuid:2e827cca-daa8-4bd3-84d8-f5aa05cf7454> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.blm.gov/or/plans/files/CoosBayRMP/specialstatus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905273 | 2,230 | 2.84375 | 3 |
African researchers identify strong candidate for possible single-dose malaria cure
1st September 2012
A recently discovered compound from the aminopyridine class not only has the potential to become part of a single-dose cure for all strains of malaria, but might also be able to block transmission of the parasite from person to person.
That's according to a research collaboration involving the Medicines for Malaria Venture (MMV), based in Switzerland, and the Drug Discovery and Development Centre (H3-D) at the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
An extensive screening campaign looked at 6 million different compounds and selected the most promising from the series to be optimised and retested. Within just 18 months, the team had found a candidate suitable for preclinical development.
H3-D, led by Professor Kelly Chibale, identified a molecule named MMV390048 which was selected in July by MMV's Expert Scientific Advisory Committee for further development. This promising new compound shows potent activity against multiple stages in the malaria parasite's life cycle. Animals given a single dose orally were completely cured and the medicine was effective against a wide range of strains, with no reported side effects. Human clinical trials are now set to begin in late 2013. If successful, a pill derived from this compound may become available by 2020.
The World Health Organisation estimates that in 2010, there were 216 million documented cases of malaria. Around 655,000 people died from the disease - or about 2.2% of all deaths worldwide - and it caused 24% of child deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. The actual number of deaths may be significantly higher, as precise statistics are unavailable in many rural areas, and many cases go undocumented.
Malaria is associated with poverty and is a major hindrance to economic development. Recent efforts to combat the disease have included genetic modification of mosquitoes, which has met with some success. However, the search for a cure-all has proved elusive. This new compound offers fresh hope to millions of people.
Dr Tim Wells, MMV's Chief Scientific Officer, said: "This is a great achievement and an excellent example of the quality of research that can be fostered in Africa. We look forward to seeing more exciting compounds emerge from Kelly's team and are proud to be collaborating with H3-D; not only is it conducting excellent science today, but it is also providing world-class training for the next generation of African scientists." | <urn:uuid:47b470f6-511d-4eea-9d19-2047c337b12c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.futuretimeline.net/blog/2012/09/1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962569 | 498 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Gama Pehlwan & Imam Bakhsh
written by Farid Azam
The pre-partition India produced so many good wrestlers. During the past wrestling was sponsored by the Indian Rulers. The champion wrestler, Great Gama (1878-1960) and his younger brother Imam Baksh (1883-1977), were the sons of Wrestler Aziz Baksh. Aziz Pahalwan devoted his life to the sport of wrestling in India and fought many matches. Wrestling has always been a famous sport in Indo-Pakistan form several thousand years old. In ancient times, it was trained for combat and self-defense. Archeological findings, dating back to 3000 B.C., indicated many enduring legends describing the Gama wrestling bouts between between human and the supernatural. In feudal times, wrestling matches were often fought to the death. The wrestlers were admired, respected and heavily rewarded. All the requirements, rations and miscellaneous expenses of the wrestlers were Bourne by the heads of State to promote wrestling in their country. Wrestler Aziz Baksh (the Grand father of Bholu Pahalwan) initially started his career in Amritsar. But then proceeded to the State of Datia in Central India, where the ruler, Maharaja Bhawani Singh employed him. Unlike Kashmir, Datia was a place full of hospitality, decorum and appreciation. This was the city where the people were liberal and the political conditions were favorable for all. The ruler Bhawani Singh was a wrestling devotee. He welcomed the wrestler in his empire. He sponsored tournaments in Datia in the early 1870’s where Aziz Baksh remained undefeated. Maharaja Bhawani Singh rewarded him enormously. Aziz Baksh then settled down permanently in the State of Datia. In 1876, Aziz Baksh married the daughter of a Wrestler, Amir Baksh Noon Pahalwan. The Amir Baksh Noon Pahalwan was the maternal grand father of Great Gama of India. He was also employed as a wrestler for the Maharaja like Aziz Baksh. And so the two wrestling families united in the State of Datia. Great Gama (Noonwala) was born in 1878 in Datia. The birth of a male child in the house of a wrestler was considered a good sign in the days of wrestling oriented Emperor. Therefore the occasion was celebrated by them. But the joy was short lived. Because in 1883 wrestler Aziz Baksh died under mysterious circumstances. Shortly after the passing away of the big wrestler, his son Imam Baksh was born an orphan in his house. Imam got employed as a wrestler in the State of Patiala.
IMAM BAKSH Pahalwan was a superior fighter. The Descendant of a family of great wrestlers with tremendous wrestling talent. The Maharaja Bhopinder Singh employed him as a wrestler in his Empire. They have witnessed him fighting a wild bear in the forest.
Born in Amritsar, the GOLDEN CITY in 1883. As he lost his father at an early age, the mantle of grooming him fell on Hakim Bhai Madho Singh of Lahore "Sitara-e-Hind" who helped heck of a lot in bringing him up. When his Guru was satisfied with him, he allowed him to take part in some minor and later some major conflicts. In 1908 his bout was fixed with Bhawani Singh at Lahore. Which he won. In Sabzi Mandi Lahore he fought against Karam Dad Khan and later drew with Suleman Pahalwan. On January 17, 1919 he fought the famous Ghulam Mohiuddin "Aftab-e-Hind" in Serai Data Ganj Baksh Bhati Darwaza Lahore. It may be recalled that his opponent had given a tough time to Gama and was considered mostly at par with him. The struggle lasted for 2 hours 15 mins. And though it did not produce any definite result, his name sprang as a major wrestling surprise of the early years of the 20th Century. He polished off his opposition with an ease that suggested something more then an average class. By 1910 he measured his strength with most of the leading lights of India. When Mr. R.B Benjamin, an Englishman planned a trip to England. The troupe consisted of Gama, Imam Bux, Ahmad Bux Bhakiwala and Gamu Pahalwan Jalandhary.
On September 5, 1910 he was locked in a battle with John lemm, the champion of Switzerland. He was the second man among the five from India. Although some observers thought that he might actually be a better wrestler than Gama himself. John Lemm was a leading professional, a thick-set with his muscles enormously built, who had won the Alhambra and Hengler’s tournaments and who for the past couple of years had been trying to get a match with Hackenschmidt or Gotch. In 1908, when the ill-fated Professional Wrestling Board of Control selected four men to wrestle for the Championship, John Lemm was one of the four (along with Gotch, Hackenschmidt, and Zbyszko). Lemm was short for a heavyweight, about five foot seven, but he weighed 200 pounds and was quick and strong, being known for a determined, rushing style. He was very powerfully built, particularly in the legs, and I think he may have claimed a world record performance in the squat at one time. Once again the Alhambra was packed for the contest. As the two men stepped on the mat they presented a contrast in physique: Lemm short and heavily muscled, Imam Bux six foot tall, rather gangly and loose limbed. The weights were announced as Lemm 14 stone (196 pounds), Imam Bux 14 stone 8 pounds (204 pounds). At the signal to start Lemm rushed out in his usual style and seized Imam Bux in a waist hold. After a brief struggle he used a back heel and Imam Bux went down flat on his back. Recovering immediately, he escaped any follow up, and from that point on, Lemm was never in it. Soon after, Imam Bux lifted Lemm up "easily" and threw him to the ground, following up immediately and putting on a half nelson and crotch hold. He turned Lemm over and. He won the 1st fall in 3 minutes and 1 second. Though the Swiss proved an easy match for the Indian. After a ten-minute rest, the second bout started and "Once more the Indian astonished his rival by his tremendous quickness." Imam Bux went for the legs and both men went down, interlocked. They struggled and there was an awkward moment for Imam as Lemm caught his leg, but he escaped and then Lemm was underneath – and again he was fixed in a half nelson, as Imam Bux applied his full weight. Lemm seemed to use every ounce of his strength in trying to resist, rocking from shoulder to shoulder to avoid the pin, but the second fall was won in 1 minute and 68 seconds.
Imam Bux’s victory over Lemm in a little over four minutes of wrestling was a sensation. Lemm himself was disappointed, but shook Imam’s hand and congratulated him. The press was full of praise for the Indian, saying that "with such pertinacity did Bux pursue his course that he made Lemm – the hero of so many protracted battles – look quite commonplace." Imam Bux was "really like a great cat, wonderfully quick and agile, able to turn and twist with lightning-like dexterity," and overall it was a "marvellous performance." A fulsome summing up was given in Health and Strength, the writer stating that the match was "one mighty thrill from start to finish." The Indian Imam Bux and the great Swiss wrestler, John Lemm, come to grapple, that really was a wonderful match – a fight in which both men wrestled like the masters of the art they were; they wrestled as though they had staked all upon the issue, and though it did not last long, it was great, positively great. Five minutes of actual wrestling, more variety of holds and locks and throws, more dramatic, soul-stirring incident witnessed after many years. A few big matches like this one, and the grappling game was to become the greatest game of all.
In London England, in one his major wrestling matches Imam Bakhsh defeated the English Champion, Tom Cannon. Then he defeated Pat Connolly in 10 minutes. During his stay in London he challenged the Turkish, American and Polish wrestlers but it was disgusting that his stay was short lived in England and this strongman could not get much work there and for this reason returned home disappointed. However even if Imam was stationed elsewhere in Punjab, the City of Lahore was a major importance to him. Coming back home he met his old rival the famous Hassan Baksh of Multan at the Industrial exhibition Allahabad. He defeated Hassan Baksh after 2 and a half hour. But when his opponent claimed this accidental victory, Imam resumed the match again and according to GAMA’S biographer Faheemuddin Fehmi. Imam defeated him again. However according to the Indian wrestling supporter, T.M Alexander, the Allahabad Match continued for 2 damn days without producing any results. Imam Baksh fought the "Multan Man" 7 times during his life. But success was not so easy to come. Whenever they grappled. Imam had really a spell of real tough going. In the Dehli Darbar in 1911, where as many as 150 wrestlers competed in tournament, he was again an obstacle in his way when the pair fought for grueling five hours and still without any decisive result. They also had very fierce battles at Lahore and Amritsar. In 1914 he battled to a historic draw with Khalifa Ghulam Mohiuddin at Kolhapur. The struggle for supremacy lasted for about an hour. In 1918, when his elder brother Gama Pahalwan relinquished the Indian crown in his favor (thinking that he himself holds the world title). Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala challenged his supremacy. Immediately at a wrestling festival in Kolhapur, a bout was arranged which lasted 55 minutes. In the end due to his old age Injury Rahim could not go on further and had to give up. As a token for this victory he was presented with a beautiful mace called "Nauratan Gurj" the nine-flanged mace of gold and silver weighing about twenty-two pounds. But perhaps the greatest fights of his career were with the legendary Goonga Baliwala. These two titans collided on five different occasions. Except the first fight which was held in 1924 in Lahore, which Imam lost due to drug abuse, otherwise he was always successful. THE evening's wrestling matches were unusually interesting, specially the match between Goonga and Imam Bux of Patiala. Goonga was rated as a top wrestler in later years. His bout with Imam Bakhsh earned him fame across India. But before that he had fought with more than 300 wrestlers and was never defeated, except by Imam Bakhsh who downed him twice at Patiala and Amritsar after the famous 'dangal' at Minto Park.It was a cool afternoon in October, a few years before partition, when thousands of people thronged to Minto Park (now Iqbal Park) to see two titans clashing — Goonga Pehlwan, known as the ‘mountain of power’, and Imam Bukhsh, who had become the Rusatm-i-Hind a few years earlier. The baton-wielding colonial police, equipped to combat all eventualities, were present in large numbers, throwing a cordon round the huge temporary stadium which was prepared especially for the occassion. Rulers of eight princely states of Northern India — Kashmir, Patiala, Nagar, Tekamgarh, Dilhousie, Indore, Jodhpur and Hakamgarh in Rajputana (now Rajasthan) — came to witness the 'bout of the year' along with their royal entourage. Like a traditional Lahore carnival, the entire park was decorated with colourful flags and buntings. The presence of vendors, pickpockets, pimps from the adjacent red light area, the Unionist Party and the All India Muslim League leaders, added to its traditional colour. A leading feudal lord, Nawab Mohammad Ali Qizalbash, also came. He and Khan Bahadur Sheikh Mohammad Naqi were the judges. The crowd did not comprise Lahoris alone, hundreds had come from Kashmir, the NWFP, Amritsar, Ferozepur and even Jallandhar and Patiala. The fight went on for three hours and with the thundering sound of hundreds of drums beating in the background, the two giants engaged in the greatest of bouts. The bout had produced no result virtually. When Imam Bakhsh faltered and fell in a small ditch, the judges declared Goonga as winner because he had shown more wrestling techniques than his rival and dominated the game most of the time. But Imam Bakhsh did not surrender because Goonga had failed in knocking him down as was required under the rules of this local genre of wrestling. And he was right. Stories of this dangal still reverberate within the local wrestling circle. These two were very famous wrestles. Their return matches were greater still and Imam won thrice in a row, leaving no room for doubt about his supremacy. The stadium, constructed to seat thirty thousands, was over-crowded. His Highness the Maharaja Dhiraj drove in State to the Race Course where the wrestling matches were held. The procession attracted several thousands, a sign of His Highness popularity. As soon as he entered the enclosure he was profusely cheered by the crowd. In their Patiala clash, Goonga and Imam Bux entered the arena amid public acclamation. To begin with, he blasted Goonga from pillar to post to sap his strength and when he seemed sagged he threw him with a thud. In their last clash they fought for five grueling hours on silver jubilee day of King George V in 1935. This did not bring any results. The city of Lahore was a special attraction to him as it was an action-packed destination of the Punjab region. And for this reason Imam had built another house there. In early 1920's he defeated Gama Yekka in Lahore in one and half minute in the presence of Prince of Wales who was visiting the city. The most significant feature of that bout was that Imam applied "Puthi" (body lift and back throw) on him and he fell with a thud. Remaining unconscious for nearly half an hour. In May 1936, he toppled Kramer, a famous German wrestler in Bombay in about a minute. He was so savagely hit, lifted and slammed on floor that it broke his neck. With that victory the newspapers introduced his wrestling abilities as never before. That was perhaps his last serious public engagement. He had held the top most position of the ranking for a number of years and had enough of it. According to some experts, he was a better fighter then his fabulous brother. It may or not be but it is a fact that throughout his career he shielded him like a wall. Any contender seeking a shot at the great champ had to tackle Imam firstly. And there were very few who could get past him. He had mastered a number of holds to handle his opponents but nobody had even the slightest of a chance to save himself from his onslaught when he locked the armpits. The main characteristic of his style was that he never gave his opponent any breathing space. Relentlessness, giving no breather to his adversaries, had been his hallmark throughout. Beside these most of his matches are with famous Indian wrestlers. Imam Baksh led a pious life. He was married to the daughter of Rehmani Pahalwan of Amritsar (the father of famous Hamida Pahalwan). The secrets of his success were three. The first was physical strength; the second is agility in applying various holds and grips, and the third is courage and confidence. He knew many famous holds which were unknown to the western wrestlers of the past era. The most important thing was the application of the proper hold at the proper moment. And for that he had a lot of experience. Regarding foods he only liked fresh stuff grown locally in his farm and does not trusted anything with artificial additives. The Indian wrestling history is full of mysterious incidents. Rumor has it that Imam even wrestled a Genie in the earlier times but survived. During the end days he spent most of his time in prayers. Rearing of Pigeons and partridges took a large slice of his leisure time. He also spent time in preparing native medicines for diseases such as asthma, tuberculosis and Jaundice to be distributed free among the poor and the needy people. It involved him a good deal of expenditures, but he believed that it was a kind of prayer. It was an experience to meet this lion in his olden days in Pakistan. Anybody visiting him had the true feeling as if he had met a true Dervish, a true Yogi. An embodiment of India's true cultural heritage. He always recollected the days passed in the princely State of Patiala. And repented why did his family ever left that place. That was the Golden era of Indian wrestling, when the country was full of real Rustams. The days of the Gama fighter.
It is India that is home to what many historians consider to be the greatest legitimate wrestler who ever lived. Consequently the Great Gama, "Lion of the Punjab" is rated 96 on the list of sports 100 most influential personalities. The elder brother of Imam Baksh, The World Champion, "GREAT GAMA" of India was the absolute Wrestling force of his own time. His real name was Ghulam Hussain. Also known as the Gama Pahalwan Noonwala in India. There was a time when Great Gama was invincible and perhaps no Earthling among the twenty five hundred million people living across the planet could beat him in wrestling. He had enough strength to tear a metal sheet apart as if it was a piece of paper. He possessed extraordinary wrestling skill and crushed all his opponents to defeat. He spent his childhood playing with the Raj Kumar “Govind Singh” of Datia who later became the ruler of Datia in 1907. In 1887 Gama (9) competed in wrestling championship held in Jodhpur by Maharaja Jaswant Singh. Gama was just a kid at that time but he was allowed to compete because he was the son of a wrestler. In 1895, the 17 year old Gama wrestled the most prominent Indian wrestler, Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala to a draw in Junagadh. Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala was a 30 year old Champion Grappler. He bombarded Gama with his dangerous maneuvers and dominated the Junagadh wrestling scene for more then One hour (01:10). Gama was like a kid in front of Rahim Sultaniwala and beaten throughout the match but he didnt gave up. Until The Nawab of Junagadh, Muhammad Rasool Khan asked the referee to stop the bout for some reason. Therefore this first match between Gama and the Veteran Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala remained a draw. If there would have been anyone else beside Gama then he would have lost to Rahim Baksh.
Gama Pahalwan (Noonwala) acquired his name “Noonwala” from his maternal grandfather Amir Baksh Noon Pahalwan. And that happened for two reasons. Firstly because his Maternal Grandfather Amir Baksh Noon adopted him as a son and brought him up when he became an orphan. Therefore Gama was named after Noon Pahalwan. And secondly to distinguish Gama Pahalwan (Noonwala) from other wrestlers with similar names, such as Gama Pahalwan (Kaluwala). Since there were many Pahalwan's operating with similar names. therefore the identical names had to be differentiated by the use of additional names to discriminate wrestlers with similar names. For example, the name of his trainer was annexed with a wrestler’s name. However Maharaja Bhawani Singh employed Gama Pahalwan (Noonwala) as a wrestler in the commencing days. But during the later years the Maharaja of Patiala managed to sponsor him. In 1898 Gama (20) challenged the wrestlers of the Subcontinent. In 1898 he fought Ghulam Mohiuddin of Datia and defeated him. Gama received a prize of 20 thousand Rupees and a 22Kg Siver Trophy (Gurz) in Datia. In Baroda , Gama (21) defeated Dood Singh. This was an invitation from Maharaja Khandey Rao in 1899. In 1901, Gama Pahalwan wrestled Califa Ghulam Mohiuddin of Kohapur to a draw. This match discontinued due to rainfall. Imam Baksh also wrestled Calipha Ghulam Mohiuddin in Lahore on another day. In Takamgarh, Gama defeated Dhakar Singh on an invitation from Raja Mahindar Singh. Imam baksh defeated Khairu Pahalwan of Takamgarh. Khairu was a pupil of Dhakar Singh. In Gavaliar in 1901, Gama defeated Lala Agrawala. The Emperor of Gawaliar, Madhu Maharaj rewarded Gama with a jeweled necklace . In 1902, the superheavyweight champ from Bhopal, Partab Singh challenged him. The game was not contested but was postponed due to his uncle's illness. But a few months later Gama defeated Partab Singh in a brief encounter. In 1904, Gama comes across Badri Brahman Pahalwan in Revan. On the day of the match the Brahman Pahalwan lost his sense of balance and hit the floor. His back touched the sands and ref awarded victory to Gama. Perhaps Brahman was confused and had something else on mind that day. However this was an easy victory for Gama. Later the same year Gama went on to fight the champions of Indor. This place was the home of Emperor, Shiv G. Raohalkar in the pre partition India. Here Gama tangles with the 6'.4" tall, muscular behemoth, ALI Baba Sain. This guy was really tough. He had previously beaten the men like NOORA "the Giant of Datia", Rehmani Pahalwan (the father of Hamida Pahalwan), MAKLA (the brother of Gamu Baliwala), Rajab Pahalwan and Lassu. Ali had also wrestled the Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala to a draw sometime back. Rahim was a top wrestler. Even Gama could not defeat him for many years. While Ali Baba Sain was the champion grappler of Indor. The Emperor, Raohalkar sponsored the combat between the 26 year old Gama and the 25 year old Ali. Special arena was built for the two greatest Indian wrestlers of their own time. The Emperor himself was the Chief Guest of this event. Gama tackled Ali offensively and dominated the match throughout until a powerful drop kick made Ali hit the sands. As per rule of the contest the victory was awarded to Gama. After this victory the Emperor offered Gama to join his club and settle in his country, which Gama politely refused. The Emperor then called another champion wrestler and Student of Buta Lahori known as "Gamu Baliwala" to tackle Gama. In this match Gama defeated Gamu Baliwala after a brief conflict. But the Raohalkar wanted to see some more action therefore he invited the arch wrestler, Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala to his territory to compete with Gama. Rahim Sultaniwala had previously fought this Giant to a draw in Junagadh. As soon as the big wrestler arrived in the city, the Emperor announced a reward of 30 thousand Rupees for the winner of this bout. This was a 1904 wrestling match. Rupees thirty thousand was a huge amount in the bygone days. However the second match between Gama and the 39 year old Rahim Sultaniwala proved interesting. Both men fought like Lions for more then 2 hours. But Gama soon dominated the scene of the match while Rahim fought defensively. During the match, Gama made 14 dangerous moves to subdue his opponent . Which Rahim managed to escape swiftly. This was the era when Gama was unbeatable. The sun had risen in his favor. But Rahim Sultaniwala was a big match. Consequently the Emperor was very impressed and stopped the battle. He rewarded One hundred thousand cash to Gama Pahalwan. And thirty thousand to Sultaniwala. After this match Gama didnt contested for 3 years as nobody wanted to scuffle with him. In 1907, Gama announced a reward of Seven Thousand bucks to anybody who could beat him in wrestling. A few weeks later the Hasan Baksh of Multan accepted his challenge and met in Calcutta. They fought in the Sandpit and Gama was victorious. Hasan Baksh Multani suffered humiliating defeat because he just came there to grab some money and was not ready for him. Gama left Calcutta after his victory over the Multan Man. In Lukhnow he announced to re-compete with his previous opponents. And welcomed his foes to try their lucks once again. Taking advantage the Mulatan Man, Hasan Baksh showed up. But this time he was ready. Therefore the Luckhnow match between Gama and Hasan Baksh Multani took a bit long to concede. But Gama proved his worth and succeeded for a second time. In Lahore he confronted Hasan Baksh of Multan for a third and final time. But this time he punished his opponent and gave him severe thrashing during the bout. After this match Hasan Baksh Multani never crossed his path but wrestled Gama's younger brother Imam Baksh eleven times. In 1909, Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala arrived in Lahore and confronted Gama for the 3rd time. This match was staged at Minto park between the 31 year old Gama and the 44 year old Rahim Sultaniwala. Both men brawled gallantly for more then 2 hours while Gama remaining dominant. During the 3rd hour the people began to feel that one of these guys might get killed if the match continued any further. Therefore the match stopped by the management. The approximate time of this match was 2 hours and 20 minutes (02:20:00). However Gama insisted that he was at the brink of victory and that he should be given a chance to finish his opponent. But Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala was in no condition to wrestle and the match was postponed for 30 days by the management. Unfortunately Rahim Sultaniwala did not recover from his injuries within 1 month and Gama left for England to compete in the world championship. Before his trip to London in 1910 Gama got married in India. Managed by an English wrestling promoter Mr. Benjamin, They arrived in England in April. Some Indian writers have stated that Gama intended to take part in the John Bull wrestling tournament but was refused entry because of his relatively small size. In fact, there was no John Bull Tournament, John Bull, was the popular magazine which seemed to sponsor Gama’s cause throughout his time in England, and it’s unlikely that Gama’s size would have been any problem: the much lighter Esai Maeda (Yamato) competed successfully against heavyweights in the Alhambra Tournament, and Gama, at a little over 200 pounds, was not small by the standards of the day. Anyway, by early May the Indians were settled in their training quarters, and Health and Strength announced "The Invasion of the Indian Wrestlers" in its May 14 issue. The members of the troupe were listed as India’s Catch-as-catch-can Champions.Gama, undefeated Champion of India, winner of over 200 legitimate matches, Imam Bux, Champion of Lahore; Ahmed Bux, Champion of Amritsar; and Gamu, Champion of Jullundhur. Their weights ranged from about 198 to 206 pounds, and the article noted that none of the wrestlers trained with dumbbells or barbells. And these wrestlers were all British subjects. They would rise at 5:30, wrestle for two hours, then drink a quart (two pints) of milk with Indian spices. Breakfast at around 11:00 would consist of eggs, dahl, and rice, prepared by their own cook, who had travelled from India with them. A rest followed and then at 3:30 there would be two hours of exercise. About 7 o’clock, the main meal of chicken or mutton would be eaten. Finally, before retiring for the night at 9:30, another quart of milk with spices: the wrestlers had brought twenty varieties of spice with them.
Gama, was to throw any three men, without any restriction as to weight, in 30 minutes, any night during this engagement, and competitors are asked to present themselves, either publicly or through the management. The Indians, according to contract, were forced to meet all champions on the above terms. All champions were invited to the compete with Gama and no one was debarred. Any man proving he has been refused will be presented with Five payments from the Indian wages. The Indian wrestlers were also ready to meet the best. Gama issued an actual challenge, they were, in a way, intruding into a somewhat cool world of licensed wrestling which operated largely as a "business.". Till July "Gama tried to find a serious opponent. call it cowardice or what you will" of the new breed of professional wrestlers. Gama had, in fact, had many offers of "well-paid employment" if only he would be willing to "lose the match" or take part in fixed fights. But Gama simply never understood what that meant. So the professionals were not willing to engage in real competition, therefore no challengers came forward. Gama’s challenges were also printed in the magazine. He guaranteed to beat any challenger in actual wrestling time. One most important thing is that Gama wrestles ‘freely’ all the time."
After sometime later Gama’s challenge was taken up by the well-known American professional, Benjamin Doc Roller. Ben Roller was a medical doctor from Pennsylvania; an athlete and a football player turned wrestler in 1906. He was thirty years old. It’s difficult to say how skilled he really was, but he had worked with the World Champion, Frank Gotch and was a busy professional: he seemed a decent first test for Gama. The contest between Gama and Doc Roller took place at the Alhambra Theatre on the afternoon of August 8, 1910. It had been organized by the John Bull magazine which supported wrestling tournament throughout his time in England, thus giving rise to the idea that there was a John Bull wrestling tournament that Gama entered and won. The contest was best of three falls, with the stranglehold and full nelson barred. The Alhambra was "Jam packed," and the atmosphere was electric with excitement." When the men came together, it was clear that Roller was much taller than the "stocky native of the Punjab." The weights were announced as Roller 16 stone 10 pounds (234 pounds) and Gama 14 stone 4 pounds (200 pounds). When the ring announcer stated that "no money would ever buy Gama for an arranged match, there was a bust of complimentary shouts." As soon as the signal to start was given, Gama came out with his "curious kind of galloping action" and immediately dived for a leg hold that Roller only just managed to escape. The moment the contest started it could be seen that Gama was full of confidence, and displaying prodigious strength, he had the mastery throughout. The American tried to use his additional weight to stall but an outside click almost had him over again. Gama then brought Roller down beyond the edge of the mat. After the referee ordered the men back to the middle of the wrestling area, he attacked again, taking Roller’s leg and then applying "a lovely back heel" which sent Doc down to the mat with a crash. Gama immediately put on a half nelson with body roll and turned Roller over for the first fall. It had taken just 1 minute 40 seconds. The whirlwind swiftness of that first bout; the people gasped as they looked on, and they cried with one accord, ‘There’s no swank there!’ As the second round started Roller was, understandably, much more wary and a lot of time was spent sparring for a favourable position. Roller seemed unsettled by Gama’s feinting, and then the Indian dived for the leg and Roller was down, with Gama onto him immediately. Now the rest of the bout was a struggle for the pin-fall: Roller always on the defensive and Gama always on top, often drawing favourable comment for his excellent leg work. Roller was in difficulties throughout (at one point he winced when Gama put on a powerful body hold) and although he broke free from holds several times, Gama was always quicker and would immediately apply another move. Eventually Roller, trapped from all sides," was turned over for the second fall after 9 minutes 10 seconds of wrestling. Gama’s victory received "considerable interest." It was also welcomed by the the media and some reporters thought (rather plainly) that it could lead to a renewal of ultimate wrestling. Not once in either fall did Roller venture upon the initiative; indeed, he had his work cut out all the time to keep his shoulders off the mat… After the match it was informed that Doc Roller had suffered two fractured ribs. (Health and Strength said one broken rib on his right side.) The consensus was that the injury had occurred in the first bout when Roller had been brought down off the mat, and credit was given to him for wrestling on, showing little sign of the damage except maybe when he gasped as Gama put on a body hold. According to the reports Roller was taken to Charing Cross Hospital and attended to by Dr. Edward B. Calthrop, who diagnosed fractures of the seventh and eighth ribs on the left side. In the evening Roller was visited at his hotel by a Sporting Life reporter who found him with his body bandaged and "in excruciating pain." Roller was disappointed that the injury had handicapped him during the bout; he felt that he could have done better if he had been unhurt, but still considered Gama "a great wrestler." At the end of the contest, while Gama was being applauded, the famous Polish wrestler Stanislaus Zbyszko came forward and shake hand with him to congratulate on his victory. An announcement was made that Zbyszko and Gama would meet in a month’s time, September 10, at the Shepherd’s Bush Stadium. And on behalf of Gama a challenge was issued to the world champion Frank Gotch. Gotch’s agent, who happened to be present, said that Gotch would be happy to meet any wrestler who visited America.
Gama become popular in London as he had defeated around 200 wrestlers. Then in White City, London, England he competed for WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP belt held at the Shepherds Bush Stadium. And within the next 1 month Gama finally met Stanley Zbysko in the Final. On September 10, 1910, Gama wrestled Zbysko for more then 2 hours in the Catch as Catch Can wrestling match but the match remained undecided. The match lasted for 154 minutes. As for remembering the Zbysko versus Gama match in our memoirs, the two grapplers firstly met in 1910 and then in 1928. The first time, Gama Pahalwan was touring Europe with a carnival troupe and Zbysko was one of the few “world champions” of Europe at the time to step forward and accept Gama’s challenge. However, Zbyszko found himself severely outmatch, and hugged the match for nearly 2 hours, until darkness sets in and the match was called off. Both guys were to resume the match next week on 17th September 1910 but Zbysko didn’t turn up. For some anonymous reason the former world champ remained absent that day. Therefore the Judges awarded the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BELT to Gama for overall performance. Gama defeated the former World Champion Stanley Zbysko on technical grounds after which he was crowned World Champion in London. Gama was awarded a Silver Belt by the wrestling management in London. He was also presented a Bronze Indian Trophy called GURZ. The Gurz is the symbol of Rustam-e-Zaman (Indian World Champion). Gama crowned a world champ by a wrestling federation of the past and was recognized accordingly in India and England. But not recognized by any of the presently surviving wrestling alliances. The official world heavyweight title history below shows Stanislaus Zbyszko as the 2 time’s world heavyweight champion in the American and Asian circle but doesn’t show Gama Pahalwan anywhere.
|The World Heavyweight Title history (American and Asian version) # 1901 George Hackenschmidt, # 1908 Frank Gotch Chicago, IL Retires as champion in 1913. # 1915 Charlie Cutler #1915 Joe Stecher (3rd time). # 1916 John Olin, # 1917 Earl Caddock, #1917 Ed "Strangler" Lewis (6 times world champion) # 1920 Joe Malcewicz [2 times], #1921 Stanislaus Zbyszko (2 times world champion) , # 1925 Wayne Munn, # 1935 Danno O'Mahoney , # 1935 Dick Shikat, # 1936 Ali Baba.|
When Gama returned from England in he was the World Champ and the solely recognized Rustam-e-Zaman of the Indian Subcontinent. While Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala was the Indian Champion. In 1911 the 33 year old Gama met the 46 year old Rahim Baksh Sultaniwala in the arena for the 4th time. The bout commenced at the Industrial exhibition in Allahabad, between the world champion and the Indian Champ to decide who's the best. Gama was at his prime while Rahim Sultaniwala was getting old. This was the only opponent whom Gama had not defeated yet. Both men fought aggressively throughout the match. The match preceded swiftly holding thousands of spectators in a state of shock and suspense. In the 43rd minute Gama attempted a maneuver that just worked fine and Rahim was thrown off balance. He hit's the floor with a thud, and Lost the Match. Some people who saw this match claim that he accidentally broke his ribs by hitting the pole hard during this fight.. Later When Maharaja Bhopinder Singh went to France for treatment Gama was working for him in India. Singh met Patterson in Paris. He wanted to fight Gama.Therefore he came to India.
In his personal life Gama was a loving father. During the following years Gama Pahalwan (Noonwala) had five sons and four daughters. None of his sons survived to become a wrestler like him. They all died young therefore Gama focused himself on the training of his nephews the Bholu Brothers of Wrestling as long as he lived.
There were times, when the sport of wrestling was very popular in the Indian Subcontinent. Wrestling was a part of the Indian culture and the legendary Indian grapplers ruled the wrestling world. Some of them were the most dominant force in the game. India was a tough place to wrestle and the resident champions like Bholu Pahalwan, Aslam, Gama and Imam Baksh were believed to be the most superior on the planet. | <urn:uuid:df6dbeb4-f160-4a79-9f42-ed0a5b5c66c3> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.oocities.org/worlddwebb/bholu_brothers1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021542591/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121222-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986262 | 8,431 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Twain–Ament indemnities controversy
The Twain–Ament indemnities controversy was a major cause célèbre in the United States of America in 1901 as a consequence of the published reactions of American humorist Mark Twain to reports of Rev. William Scott Ament and other missionaries collecting indemnities from Chinese people in the aftermath of the Boxer Uprising.
- 1 Origins of the Controversy
- 2 Criticisms of Ament and his actions
- 3 Reactions to the Controversy
- 3.1 Critics of Ament
- 3.2 Supporters of Ament
- 3.3 Newspaper Retractions
- 3.4 “To My Missionary Critics” (April 1901)
- 3.5 Ament's Response
- 3.6 Further Responses
- 4 Assessment of Ament
- 5 Consequences
- 6 References
- 7 Sources and Further Reading
Origins of the Controversy
In 1900, attacks took place across China in connection with the Boxer Rebellion which targeted Christians and foreigners. Many missionaries with their children, as well as native Christians were killed and much property was destroyed. While most missionaries, including those of the largest affected mission agency, the China Inland Mission led by Hudson Taylor, refused to even accept payment for loss of property or life "in order to demonstrate the meekness of Christ to the Chinese" when the allied nations were demanding compensation from the Chinese government, not all missionaries acted with similar restraint.
In 1901 veteran American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions missionary Rev. Dr. William Scott Ament, who had served in China since 1877, became embroiled in a controversy regarding his activities (and those of other Christian missionaries, including Pierre-Marie-Alphonse Favier, Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of North Chihli) subsequent to the Boxer Uprising. "In the war's aftermath came a war of words. Missionary triumphalism clashed with the sarcastic sallies of Mark Twain, who lampooned the apologias for looting given by American missionary William Scott Ament."
Ament's attitude and actions
While Ament through his own personal initiative was able to rescue the ABCFM missionaries at Tungchow, there was still significant loss of lives. Thirteen ABCFM adult missionaries and five children were killed by the Boxers. Included were Miss Mary Susan Morrill (born 1863 in Portland, Maine) and Miss Annie Allender Gould, were among the eleven foreign missionaries, four children, and about fifty Chinese Christians killed in Baoding from 30 June 1900. Additionally, there was much damage to ABCFM property. The ABCFM Mission compound was razed, as was the Emily Ament Memorial School (named in honour of Ament's daughter) on Sixth Street, Peking. Ament estimated that by the end of July 1900 that losses for the ABCFM Peking station was about $71,000 gold.
Occupation of the Mongolian Fu
On 11 August 1900, Ament indicated in a letter to his wife, that:
- "Mr. Conger told me to-day that on the arrival of the troops he would see that we - our mission - had given over to us that Mongol Fu - palace - just east of us on Teng Shih K'ou....Our poor people - those who are saved - not many, must be settled in homes and efforts made to secure indemnity for them as well as for ourselves. My heart bleeds for them. They are aliens in their own country and pronounced as "bandits" by imperial decree."
Ament was able to occupy the Mongolian Fu, a suspected Boxer headquarters adjacent to the ABCFM chapel, by 20 August 1900. Ament was able to write to his wife:
- "I have here about two hundred Christian refugees, poor worn persecuted ones whom I am feeding on food taken from the rich families near by. They ought to suffer in view of all the misery they have created....Our poor people come in with their tales of woe which would break a heart of stone. Many have been killed and I shall act as avenger if I can meet the brutes in human form. No one thinks that mercy should be shown them."
Demand for indemnities
On 20 August 1900, Ament with nineteen other American Protestant missionaries sent a note to United States Minister, Edwin H. Conger, demanding
- "indemnity for native Christians for loss of life and property, education reforms in China, abolition of the literacy test of merit in the civil service and the introduction of suitable branches of Western learning, abolition of the worship of Confucius as a compulsory rite, and reforms of criminal civil processes so that non-Christians and alike Christians had the same rights in court etc."
These demands were transmitted to John Hay (8 October 1838; 1 July 1905), United States Secretary of State (1898–1905), with only the demands for indemnities and the abolition of the examination system ultimately included in the Boxer Protocol. According to Wong,
- "Ament explained that to demand China entering upon a course of reform at the direction and practically under the direction of foreign powers would certainly be most irritating and militate ultimately against the constantly essential doctrine of preserving the integrity of the empire. China must be left to work out her own salvation by her own method."
On 25 August 1900, Ament revealed his plans to punish the Boxers for their actions:
- "The city is stagnant and only very slowly are people coming out of hiding. I shall soon begin some punitive measures on Boxers. China seems a ruined country. We may all have to leave. Our people from the country and the region of Shantung come with horrible stories of Boxer cruelties. Our churches are simply wiped out. Only a small remnant will remain. We must reconstruct as best we can. We find buried silver in good quantities and plenty of grain, so that our people have plenty to eat and to wear."
Again, Ament indicated:
- "Boxer leaders must be sought out and punished so far as possible. I shall begin in that line soon. It would not be right for such men to remain unpunished."
Collection of indemnities
From 13 September 1900, Ament, and an assistant, Reverend Elwood Gardner Tewksbury (born 1865, West Newbury, Massachusetts), accompanied by the U.S. 6th Cavalry, searched the areas adjacent to Beijing for Boxers, collecting indemnities for Christians who had been killed by the Boxers, and ordering the burning of some homes and even allegedly executing suspected Boxers.Ament had been chosen by his fellow missionaries "as the one who would be honorable and just to all." Ament reported to Mary, his wife, on 18 September 1900:
- "I have been absent on an expedition for five days....Captain Forsythe and two hundred cavalry troops went - I as guide and interpreter - to Sha Ho and other places east of Peking. We burned two Boxer headquarters, destroyed some arms and brought in sixteen refugees, Christians who had been in hiding."
On 1 January 1901, Ament, writing to his wife, confided:
- "I led a troop of horsemen through San Ho District, and because I wanted certain Boxers hunted out and punished I was spoken of as vindictive and bloodthirsty. Now it comes out that this expedition has to be repeated, because of the softness of the Americans in dealing with the Chinese!"
Ament is quoted as advocating the necessity of the use of force to ensure genuine regret among the Chinese:
- "If you deal with the Chinese with a soft hand, they will take advantage of it."
In a letter to ABCFM corresponding secretary Dr. Judson Smith of 13 November 1900 (received by Smith on 7 January 1901), Ament says:
I have been in Cho Chou. This time I proposed to settle affairs without the aid of soldiers or legations. It was a complete success. Every one of our dispossessed church-members has been reinstated and a money compensation made for his losses. This has been done by appealing to the sense of justice among the villages where our people lived and where they are respected by all decent people. The villagers were extremely grateful because I brought no foreign soldiers and were glad to settle on the terms proposed. After our conditions were known many villagers came of their own accord and brought their money with them.
Apparently, the actions of Russian, French and German soldiers, "who looted and killed on every hand, often taking delight in shooting every person visible... determined Dr. Ament not to go again with soldiers in his efforts to secure the replacing of the Christian in their homes, or to enforce the reasonable demands for indemnity for the great losses sustained by the church-members." Ament wrote in a letter on 27 September 1900, about a month after the occupation of the Mongol Fu (palace): "I am selling off the bric-a-brac, silks, furs found in the Fu for the benefit of the Christians." Ament, writing to Rev. Dr. Judson Smith on 27 December 1900, before he became aware of any criticism, gives this account of the collection of indemnities:
After a month of very hard work, I am glad to report progress to you. I visited - beginning on the south - Wen An, Pao Ting Hsien, Pa Chou, P'ing Ting, Cho Chou, Liang Hsiang, and on the east, Shun Yi. I found the officials in all these places exceedingly friendly and anxious to settle the affairs of the converts, recognizing the right and the need of such claims. I have made no use of foreign soldiers and brought no external pressure to bear, relying on the justice of our claims. Mr. Conger has supported us in the measures and methods taken, though the military people have not failed to make criticisms. The survivors in all our country stations have been recouped for all their losses, again reinstated in their villages, with some money in hand, and a promise of houses restored next spring. Over and above restoration for the converts there has been gathered a fund for the support of widows and orphans, who have no homes and have no one to look after them."
Criticisms of Ament and his actions
Wilbur Chamberlin and New York Sun article (24 December 1900)
An interview that Wilbur Chamberlin of the New York Sun conducted with Ament elevated the indulgences issue into a cause célèbre. Chamberlin had first met Ament in Beijing on 14 October 1900. In a letter to his wife, Chamberlin indicated:
The Rev. A.[ment] is a missionary, and he appears to be a very good sort of a fellow, but I cannot for the life of me approve of his methods....You see, when the soldiers came to Peking and these missionaries were safe, some of them began at once to clamor for damages that they said they had sustained. The first thing that they did was to get for living places the palaces of the rich Chinese Princes, and when they had them they started in clearing them out. They took everything of value and sold it for a song. Then they let their native Christians go out hunting and stealing more loot, and then they sold that. They said it was no sin and eased their consciences by saying they had the right to reimburse themselves for the losses they sustained. It was just as if a man had stolen something from me, and, to get square, I went and stole something from him. In other words, two wrongs make a right. That may be all right, but I don't think so. At A.'s home, which was the palace of Prince Pei, a Manchu, before the trouble, I met a lot more missionaries."
While Chamberlin thought it unlikely that the Sun publish his reports about the looting by missionaries and their followers, he felt that should they be printed that he would be
- "roundly damned by a big proportion of ...the class that support the missionaries, some of whom out here have disgraced the Church and Christianity....It had been my intention to write nothing at all about them unless I was ordered to do so....It is sufficient to say that their conduct to-day is not improved in the least. They are still living in stolen houses and paying their expenses from the proceeds of the sale of their thefts. Some of them are still selling stuff that they individually stole or was stolen by their so-called Christians under their personal direction."
The Rev. Mr. Ament, of the American Board of Foreign Missions, has returned from a trip which he made for the purpose of collecting indemnities for damages done by Boxers. Everywhere he went he compelled the Chinese to pay. He says that all his native Christians are now provided for. He had 700 of them under his charge, and 300 were killed. He has collected 300 taels for each of these murders, and has compelled full payment for all the property belonging to Christians that was destroyed. He also assessed fines amounting to THIRTEEN TIMES the amount of the indemnity. This money will be used for the propagation of the Gospel.
Mr. Ament declares that the compensation he has collected is moderate, when compared with the amount secured by the Catholics, who demand, in addition to money, head for head. They collect 500 taels for each murder of a Catholic. In the Wenchiu country, 680 Catholics were killed, and for this the European Catholics here demand 750,000 strings of cash and 680 heads.
In the course of a conversation, Mr. Ament referred to the attitude of the missionaries toward the Chinese. He said: "'I deny emphatically that the missionaries are vindictive, that they generally looted, or that they have done anything since the siege that the circumstances did not demand. I criticise the Americans. The soft hand of the Americans is not as good as the mailed fist of the Germans. If you deal with the Chinese with a soft hand they will take advantage of it.'
"The statement that the French Government will return the loot taken by the French soldiers, is the source of the greatest amusement here. The French soldiers were more systematic looters than the Germans, and it is a fact that to-day Catholic Christians, carrying French flags and armed with modern guns, are looting villages in the Province of Chili."
Chamberlin indicated in a letter to his wife dated 28 December 1900, that he had interviewed Ament that day about missionary looting, and that Ament believed he had done nothing for which he was ashamed. Chamberlin confided to his wife that
- "He is the boss American missionary out here. He really is a fine man, and during the siege one of the bravest....It was what happened after the siege was over, when the looting began, that I find fault with. At least, I don't find fault with it, but it seems to me that it needs explanation."
In a subsequent letter to his wife, dated 29 January 1901, Chamberlin indicates that
- "A.[ment] tries to justify himself by saying that everyone did it, which doesn't seem to me to be a good defense at all. It is too much in the two-wrongs-make-a-right plan to suit your humble servant."
Mark Twain: “To the Person Sitting in Darkness” (February 1901)
Mark Twain was "an outspoken critic of American involvement in the Philippines and China", and "one of the mammoth figures in anti-imperialism, and certainly the foremost anti-imperialist literary figure" of his days, having become in January 1901 a vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League of New York.
Twain decided to use the Sun article as the basis of a sustained attack on both the missionary enterprise and its imperialist tendencies. "Twain lampooned missionary morality and likened it to questionable American activities in the Philippines". According to Foner, Twain used the conduct of Ament to "drive home the point that the missionary movement served as a front for imperialism. "Without any doubt 'To the Person Sitting in Darkness' is Twain's most famous anti-imperialist piece. The satire is incredibly dark and Twain does not hesitate to taunt those whom he considers to be immoral including McKinley as the "Master of the Game," the missionaries, and the trusts." The title of the article is "an ironic reference to Matthew 4:16 — "The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light"", "and used by the Christian missionaries when referring to the “savage,” “heathen,” “uncivilized” populations of the lands the imperialists were conquering." It was also a reaction to the intervention philosophy of British writer Rudyard Kipling's pro-imperialistic February 1899 poem."The White Man's Burden", The title was "a play upon the idea of western civilization being "enlightened". Kipling had used the image when he wrote of the:
- The cry of those ye humor
- (Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
- 'Why brought ye us from bondage,
- Our loved Egyptian night?'
In this article, Twain especially targeted Ament. According to Susan Harris:
“To the Person Sitting in Darkness,” which Mark Twain published in the North American Review in 1901, attacks Western imperialism as it was manifesting itself in South Africa, China, Cuba, and the Philippines. It names its villains – William McKinley, Joseph Chamberlain, the Kaiser, the Czar – and their instruments, especially the Reverend William Ament, a Congregationalist minister who was affiliated with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
According to Twain biographer Albert Bigelow Paine, "Twain, of course, was fiercely stirred. The missionary idea had seldom appealed to him, and coupled with this business of bloodshed, it was less attractive than usual. He printed the clippings in full, one following the other; then he said:
By happy luck we get all these glad tidings on Christmas Eve—just the time to enable us to celebrate the day with proper gaiety and enthusiasm. Our spirits soar and we find we can even make jokes; taels I win, heads you lose.
"He went on to score Ament, to compare the missionary policy in China to that of the Pawnee Indians, and to propose for him a monument— subscriptions to be sent to the American Board. He denounced the national policies in Africa, China, and the Philippines, and showed by the reports and by the private letters of soldiers home, how cruel and barbarous and fiendish had been the warfare made by those whose avowed purpose was to carry the blessed light of civilization and Gospel “to the benighted native”—how in very truth these priceless blessings had been handed on the point of a bayonet to the “Person Sitting in Darkness.” Mark Twain never wrote anything more scorching, more penetrating in its sarcasm, more fearful in its revelation of injustice and hypocrisy, than his article “To the Person Sitting in Darkness.” He put aquafortis on all the raw places, and when it was finished he himself doubted the wisdom of printing it.
James Smylie somewhat whitewashes the controversy, saying, "Twain went after the respected Congregationalist minister, Reverend William Scott Ament, director of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Ament joined other powers in seeking indemnities from the Chinese after the Boxer Rebellion against western exploitation in 1900. Twain, perhaps unfairly, was shocked that Ament would use such blood money for the "propagation of the Gospel" and to promote the "blessings of civilization" to brothers and sisters who "sit in darkness." He summoned to missionaries: Come home and Christianize Christians in the states!"
Reactions to the Controversy
After its publication in The North American Review for February 1901, as the opening article, there was a huge controversy. This article "created a national sensation as well as a savage debate between Twain and the American Board of Foreign Missions; it is a masterful and satiric polemic condemning imperialism and the West for military intervention in China, South Africa, and the Philippines." According to Paine,
Every paper in England and America commented on it editorially, with bitter denunciations or with eager praise, according to their lights and convictions. At 14 West Tenth Street [Twain's residence] letters, newspaper clippings, documents poured in by the bushel—laudations, vituperations, denunciations, vindications; no such tumult ever occurred in a peaceful literary home. It was really as if he had thrown a great missile into the human hive, one-half of which regarded it as a ball of honey and the remainder as a cobblestone. Whatever other effect it may have had, it left no thinking person unawakened.
After its magazine publication, the Anti-Imperialist League of New York published the essay as a pamphlet and seems to have distributed as many as 125,000 copies. However, "Even within the Anti-Imperialist League, reaction to Mark Twain’s essay was mixed. Though the League reprinted it as a pamphlet (it had the widest circulation of any League publication) League censors excised significant passages, included the author’s quotation from the New York Sun on the prevailing squalor in the slums of Manhattan’s Lower East Side, as well as his bitter condemnation of the activities of Christian missionaries in China."
Critics of Ament
The New York Times
On 26 January 1901, the editor of The New York Times, in an editorial entitled "Loot and Indemnity in China", after describing the "various unprovoked and unpunished acts of murder, arson, robbery and rape" by the Allied forces, attacked the missionaries in China as "the most vociferous plauditors of the operations, the most implacable demanders of Chinese blood" and indicated that "the accounts that have reached us have represented the missionaries as having been as active in the looting of Chinese property as they had been in instigating the promiscuous taking of Chinese lives."
Ament was arrested by German and French troops near Tungchow, and charged with trying to extort money from the Chinese villagers. On 5 February 1901, The New York Times reported that Ament had been arrested (along with two British subjects) on a charge of "endeavoring to extort money from the Chinese villagers" near Tungchow (now the Tongzhou District, Beijing). While the two British subjects were released, Ament was held pending an appeal to United States Minister Edwin H. Conger. Two days later, The Times reported that Ament "had been arrested by French and German officers on the painful charge of blackmailing Chinese villages....The charge has terrible plausibility. Apparently the only relevant answer the inculpated missionary could make to the charge is the ancient rejoinder "You're another," which the other doubtless was. But what a predicament for a missionary to be placed in with reference to avowed looters."
The New York Times, in an editorial of 7 February 1901, echoed the previous criticisms of Ament: "The plain fact is that the ministers of the gospel of CHRIST have been a disturbing factor in the Chinese situation." Quoting the opinion of then British Prime Minister, Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, who indicated that "missionaries in general have been an international nuisance", The Times indicated that "the missionaries in China were showing a vindictiveness, in respect to the outrages and the situation which did not exactly comport with the Gospel they professed to be spreading." The Times concludes: "Upon the whole, it seems safe to say, that the Rev, Mr. Ament has missed his vocation, and that, for the particular function which incumbed on him, of propagating the Christian Gospel in foreign parts, he was not the most eligible person that could have been imagined or even secured."
Ament was subsequently released at the direction of the German military commander, Count Alfred von Waldersee. Wilbur Chamberlin, a reporter for the New York Sun, sent to China, reported in a letter dated 9 February 1901 to his wife:
My missionary friend, the Rev. A.[ment], is out of limbo....Quite a long time ago he had a scheme for collecting damages for all his native Christians and his church from the Chinese themselves. He went around to some forty villages and collected 80,000 taels. A few days ago he went back there and was promptly arrested at the instigation of some Roman Catholics. It appears they had the same sort of scheme, but A. got there first, and when they went around to these same villages to make their collections, they found out that he had all the money there was. Naturally, they were enraged, so they made complaint against A., and declared that he had been blackmailing the villages....I really think, myself, that A. might have left a little for the Catholics. I don't like to see a man take it all, even if he is a missionary."
Chamberlin indicated that the French and Germans, under pressure from the Americans, released him, insisting that he was never under arrest.
On 31 March 1901, the New York Times reported that the collection of "private indemnities" by Ament and others in China might disqualify them from any claim for payments when the United States government tendered its indemnity claims on China. It further indicated that the United States government could not make any claims for Chinese Christians as they were not American citizens, and that "Dr. Ament's recent complaint that the powers would do nothing in the way of collecting indemnity for these Christian Chinamen has not tended to raise the estimate of missionary intelligence among diplomats here [Washington D.C.]".
Thomas F. Millard
Ardent anti-imperialist American war correspondent Thomas Franklin Fairfax Millard (born 1868; died 8 September 1942 in Seattle, Washington), considered "the founding father of American journalism in China" who later "probably has had a greater influence on contemporary newspaper journalism than any other American journalist in China,” then a special correspondent for the New York Herald in China since 1900, who also had his reports published in Britain's The Daily Mail, and American magazines including Scribner's Magazine and The Cosmopolitan, and the English-language Kobe Weekly Chronicle of Japan, criticised Ament for his actions on the military expedition to San Ho in September 1900. Millard charged in Scribner's Magazine that the allied insistence on revenge was criminal. "Seized with a vertigo of indiscriminating vengeance, the powers are trifling with the peace of the world. Events such as the months of September, October and November brought to China have carried war back to the Dark Ages, and will leave a taint in the moral atmosphere of the world for a generation to come". Upon his return to the United States in January 1901, in response to a letter urging the editor of The New York Times to retract his editorial of 26 January 1901 on "Loot and Indemnity in China", Millard wrote
I hope you will not retract your statements. They are well within the facts, as I know from personal observation. It may serve no good purpose to stir this matter up, but how can Christianity reform its mission work as long as it persists in its present hallucinations."
Supporters of Ament attributed Millard's critique to prejudice. For example, ABCFM missionary George D. Wilder in writing to Rev. Judson Smith, secretary of the ABCFM, indicated:
you ask who Mr. Millard is and what reason lies in his prejudice against Missions in general. Mr. Ament does not know him and I have inquired of several missionaries in Peking, none of whom know anything about him. He wrote to the Mail as late as Jan. 12th from Peking. You have probably seen his articles in some of the magazines of America – Scribners or Cosmopolitan. These reporters come through Japan where there is a strong prejudice against Christianity, especially in newspaper circles, and then they stop a few days among the clubs in Shanghai where they are filled with all the yarns about missionaries. I have known of three or four who have admitted that they came north with prejudices against missionaries and that they vanished on acquaintance with our Peking and Tung Chou people. Chamberlain of the Sun was one of these and I think it was he who rebuked another reporter for his tirade against missions by saying "That is the way I felt, too, when I first came but I have changed my mind since I have known the missionaries." We have received copies of a five-column interview with Mr. Ament in the Kobe Herald. He had been terribly slandered by the Kobe Chronicle, whose Editor has announced his purpose to do all the harm to the cause of Christianity that he can, so that we are glad to see an explanation in the same city. We expect Mr. Ament to do much good in setting these things right in the public mind.
One of Millard's proteges, Edgar Snow described Millard's "anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, pro-independence, pro-equality of nations, pro-Republican, pro-self-determination and very pro-American [views.]."
John Ames Mitchell wrote sarcastically in his Life magazine that "The Rev. Ament seems to be a good collector. When he gets out of his Chinese scrape he ought to be able to find a place in the Tammany police force....Mark Twain had hung up the hide of the Reverend Ament, missionary in China." Charles Fletcher Lummis, editor of The Land of Sunshine, agreed with Twain's assessment of the situation: "Dr. Ament, American missionary to China, who extorted from innocent paupers a manifold retribution in blood and money for the sins of the Boxers."
In the Eighth series of Ethical Addresses (1901), after referring to "Ament and his pious frauds', Ament's motivations are explored: "It is because the Rev. Mr. Ament loved his church and her temporal possessions more than ...ethical principles....It is because men love their churches more than righteousness that iniquities done in the name of the church are condoned." In the same publication, however, referring to Ament: "The truth of the matter is, that the missionary has been made the scapegoat by conspiring and corrupt native officials, and by immoral foreigners now in China and their ignorant brethren here in the United States."
The Socialist Party of America supported Twain's attack on Ament and the other missionaries in an editorial in the 29 April 1901 edition of the Daily People by Daniel DeLeon:
When, however, Twain ... mercilessly exposed the vandalism of the missionaries in China, when he showed that they had looted the palaces and despoiled the temples, and then sold their booty; he was pounced upon by the whole clergymanic body. He was reviled, he was insulted in a most Christianly way, he was called a liar, a rough, uneducated person, a defamer of good men, a boor, and various other things. Had he treated all the actions of our black coated Huns in China in an abstract way, he could have received forgiveness. It was only when he held the Rev. Ament up as the chief of a band of thieves that he transgressed, and closed forever the wellsprings of mercy.
Supporters of Ament
The reaction among the missionaries, and proponents of imperialism was swift and predictable. They charged Twain with treason. "Twain's caustic indictment generated, in turn, a defensive apologetics on the part of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Both Judson Smith and Gilbert Reid claimed that missionary looting was "high ethics," and added that American missionaries had only looted to provide money for the relief of Chinese Christians."
Rev. Dr. Judson Smith (born 28 June 1837 in Middlefield, Massachusetts; died 29 June 1906 in Roxbury, Massachusetts), who had been one of Ament's professors at Oberlin College, the corresponding secretary of Ament's sponsoring mission (1884-1906), The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), in letters to both the New York Herald and Tribune in February 1901 denied the accuracy of the Sun clipping of 24 December 1900, indicating that the cable report had “grossly exaggerated” the amount of Mr. Ament’s collections. Instead of thirteen times the indemnity it should have read “one and a third times” the indemnity. Further, Smith defended Ament, declaring that Ament had suffered in the Boxer Rebellion and that Twain's “brilliant article would produce an effect quite beyond the reach of plain argument,” and that it would do an innocent man an injustice. Smith demanded an apology from Twain. Replying in a letter to the New York Tribune, Twain insisted that Ament had arraigned himself.
Rev. Gilbert Reid (born 29 November 1857; died 1927) (founder of the Mission among the Higher Classes in China (MHCC)) wrote an article entitled "The Ethics of Loot" in the July edition of Forum, in which he justified the motives and methods of the missionaries in collecting indemnities.
North China Mission
At the end of January 1901 fourteen members of the North China Mission of the ABCFM endorsed the actions of Ament and Tewksbury: "Voted, That Dr. Ament and Mr. Tewksbury were justified in the following the advice of the United States Minister and selling the moveable property in the Tau-lu-po-fu and the Yu-wang-fu for the benefit of the distressed Chinese refugees and for the extraordinary expenses after the siege was raised;..."
Peking Missionary Society
On 21 March 1901, the Peking Missionary Association demanded Twain retract the statements he made attacking Ament in the February issue of The North American Review "concerning monies he collected from rural Chinese in payment for properties destroyed and people killed during the Boxer rebellion." The PMA secretary cabled the editor of The North American Review:
Peking Missionary Association demands public retraction. Mark Twain's gross libel against Ament utterly false. SECRETARY.
Twain indicated that he could not comment for publication, but would respond in the April edition of The North American Review. His representative indicated: "He hopes that both the Peking Missionary Association and the American Board of Foreign Missions will like it, but he has his doubts."
George D. Wilder
George D. Wilder, an ABCFM colleague of Ament in China, wrote in a letter to Judson Smith on 25 March 1901:
Mr. Ament left us this morning after a delay here of five days. The Mark Twain article in the North American Review cut him like a knife and weighs deeply on him, but he takes it in a most beautiful spirit. The sympathy of all the Peking missionaries, and their absolute confidence in his integrity and the uprightness of his course has been a great help to him, and I think he goes back well prepared to set things right so far as he can in person. He plans to write a series of articles telling exactly what he has done. It will be a story worth telling, even if there were no occasion for it as a vindication of his character. I have been with him all this first week since he heard about the Sun and the Review articles. The calm and sweet spirit in which he has taken it and his brave resolution to set the matter right so far as in him lies, is answer enough for those who know of it.
Ament was not just defended by his colleagues or other Christian organisations. An editorial in the Boston Journal, entitled "A Humorist Astray", defends Ament:
Mark Twain had better stick to his last. He is a capital humorist but when he poses as a publicist he gets into trouble straightway. His article in the North American Review is not good humor, and is very bad politics. Some of it, moreover, seems to be recklessly and even libellously untrue....
Mr. Ament, against whom Mark aims the hasty shafts of his ridicule and denunciation, is one of the heroic men of peace who distinguished themselves in the defense of the British Legation. He has been a leader in the great and urgent work of relieving the necessities of the native Christians of the northern provinces, or of those who escaped the Boxer sword. In pursuance of this work, he has secured money contributions from the villages where the native Christians suffered. It does not appear that Mr. Ament has used any force to accomplish this. It does not appear that he has secured any more money than was essential to feed and clothe his native wards, and to re-establish them in dwellings. This is a work of Christian charity, defensible on the most elementary grounds of justice. When Mark Twain accuses Dr. Ament and his fellow missionaries of "looting" he manifests a mental and moral obliquity which astonishes and pains his New England neighbors and admirers.The trouble with our genial humorist is that he is beyond his depth. He would not make a success if he turned statesman. He would not make much of a success if he turned missionary; as a humorist he is incomparable. Every man to his trade. Let Mark remember this, and let him choose as a target for his satire something other than the heroic men who have been through the nightmare of blood and ruin in China, while he has been comfortably basking in the sunlight that makes eternal summer for a genius admired of both old world and new.
Prominent New York lawyer, and future United States Secretary of State, Henry Stimson, responding to a New York Times editorial criticising Ament and the other missionaries in China, wrote in a letter published in The Times on 21 March 1901: "In our time no group of Americans have won no more enduring honor for their country or done the world a greater benefit than have our missionaries in North China. In common decency, is it not time that if at home the full meed of honor cannot not be given them they be at least shielded from deprecating apology and unjust disparagement?"
Edwin Hurd Conger (7 March 1843 – 18 May 1907), the United States Minister to China (1898–1905), consistently defended the actions of Ament and the other missionaries. For example, on 25 April 1901, The New York Times reprinted an interview with Conger, originally conducted in Kobe, Japan on 6 April 1901 while both men were en route to the United States. Conger defended the actions of Ament, indicating confiscated goods had been sold to ensure the survival of Chinese Christians. Conger indicated that the missionaries "only appropriated their property for justifiable ends."
On the same day a Boston newspaper reported: "Dr. Ament explains the sale of goods in the Mongol prince's house in which he took up his quarters by saying that those with him were without food and that he sold the goods on the advice of Mr. Conger. Had they not taken possession of the place it would have been destroyed by the Russians. The amount realized by the sale was devoted to the needs of the native Christians." The same despatch quoting from Mr. Conger says:
There were really no actions on the part of the missionaries there that were not entirely justified. There was no government, no organization. There were houses of men who had been firing on the foreign quarter; their property had been abandoned as a result of a state of war, and it was taken in order to succor hundreds of suffering and destitute Chinese whose lives the original owners had been laboring to destroy. Winter was coming on, measures of some kind were imperative, and the appropriation of property for the ends in view was unquestionably justified. I am prepared to justify the conduct of the American missionaries before the siege, during the siege and after the siege.
Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald
Colonel Sir Claude Maxwell MacDonald (1852–1915), the chief British diplomat in Beijing during the Boxer Uprising, and the commander of the defence of the besieged foreign legations, also defended the missionaries:
If all looting is wrong, as in theory it is, then they have been to blame: but there are times when the laws of nature assert themselves over the laws of civilization, and this was a case in point. You must remember that these men had just endured a long siege, that they had been bereft of everything they possessed and that they had hundreds of men, similarly destitute, who were dependent upon them. What was their position? Had they come to me and said, 'Give us money and food,' I could only have replied in the negative, or, at all events, to the effect that I could not feed their converts, and so they took the law into their own hands. It has been a case of poetical or primitive justice. But, granted that this sort of justice was admissible, I do not admit that the missionaries abused it. I have not heard of a single instance of a missionary looting for any purpose other than that of feeding themselves and their converts who were dependent on them.
Charles Harvey Denby (1830–1904), the United States Minister to China (1885–1898) in his posthumously published China and Her People (1905), supported Ament directly and criticised Twain implicitly: "The raid made on Doctor Ament some years ago is an example of how incautious people, who especially yearn to be funny, handle this subject....Doctor Ament's conduct was in accordance with Chinese" customs.
During the controversy both the New York Times and the New York Sun issued corrections.
New York Times
On 17 February 1901, the New York Times issued a retraction after receiving a different account of Ament's actions from Dr Judson Smith of the ABCFM, based on Ament's letter of 13 November 1900 to Smith. The Times reported that in Ament's own letter he indicated the compensation for the losses of the converts obtained by him had been "by appealing to the sense of justice among the villages where our people had lived." The Times concluded: "It seems that we have been led into doing an injustice to him....In that case we have to express our sincere regret."
New York Sun
On 5 March 1901, Wilbur Chamberlin, the journalist who started the controversy, telegraphed to the New York Sun the following, which appeared in that paper under the heading: "A Clean Bill for the Missionaries.":
Minister Conger will give a letter to the missionaries here stating that the collection of indemnities was not extortion, but the payment was voluntary on the part of the Chinese officials, and was moderate in amount. The seizure of the property was justified by the prospect that a severe famine was inevitable, and there was no government to look after the distressed people. The proceeds of the seizures were used entirely for these people.
Also in March the New York Sun printed an interview with Ament that indicated that the indemnity was not thirteen times the loss, but only one and one-third of the loss. Dr. Porter, Ament's biographer, a fellow missionary in Beijing, considered this an amende honorable.
“To My Missionary Critics” (April 1901)
Twain apparently "liked the attention he was getting and wrote to a correspondent that he was in "hot water with the clergy and other goody-goody people, but I am enjoying it more than I have ever enjoyed hot water before." In response to an open letter from the ABCFM demanding an apology, Twain penned "To My Missionary Critics," which offered no apologies, although it ended by acknowledging that missionaries no doubt mean well. The essay, originally entitled "The Case of Rev. Dr. Ament, Missionary," was published in the North American Review in April 1901. According to Fitch, "To My Missionary Critics" (1901) recapitulates the charges mounted against Reverend William Ament in "To the Person Sitting in Darkness" and underscores Twain's contempt for the American-Christian missionaries' role in imperialism."
Twain explored the delicate moral difference between a demand thirteen times as great as it should be and a demand that was only one and a third times the correct amount. As Paine explains, "The point had been made by the board that it was the Chinese custom to make the inhabitants of a village responsible for individual crimes; and custom, likewise, to collect a third in excess of the damage, such surplus having been applied to the support of widows and orphans of the slain converts."
Focusing on the exaggerated indemnity, Twain said:
To Dr. Smith the “thirteen-fold-extra” clearly stood for “theft and extortion,” and he was right, distinctly right, indisputably right. He manifestly thinks that when it got scaled away down to a mere “one-third” a little thing like that was some other than “theft and extortion.” Why, only the board knows! I will try to explain this difficult problem so that the board can get an idea of it. If a pauper owes me a dollar and I catch him unprotected and make him pay me fourteen dollars thirteen of it is “theft and extortion.” If I make him pay only one dollar thirty-three and a third cents the thirty-three and a third cents are “theft and extortion,” just the same.
In this article, Twain offered some further illustrations, including the “Tale of a King and His Treasure” and another tale entitled “The Watermelons.” Twain wrote:
I have it now. Many years ago, when I was studying for the gallows, I had a dear comrade, a youth who was not in my line, but still a scrupulously good fellow though devious. He was preparing to qualify for a place on the board, for there was going to be a vacancy by superannuation in about five years. This was down South, in the slavery days. It was the nature of the negro then, as now, to steal watermelons. They stole three of the melons of an adoptive brother of mine, the only good ones he had. I suspected three of a neighbor’s negroes, but there was no proof, and, besides, the watermelons in those negroes’ private patches were all green and small and not up to indemnity standard. But in the private patches of three other negroes there was a number of competent melons. I consulted with my comrade, the understudy of the board. He said that if I would approve his arrangements he would arrange. I said, “Consider me the board; I approve; arrange.” So he took a gun and went and collected three large melons for my brother-on-the-halfshell, and one over. I was greatly pleased and asked:It caused him to reflect. But there was no result. The justice of the peace was a stern man. On the trial he found fault with the scheme and required us to explain upon what we based our strange conduct—as he called it. The understudy said:“On the custom of the niggers. They all do it.”
“Who gets the extra one?” “Widows and orphans.”
“A good idea, too. Why didn’t you take thirteen?”
“It would have been wrong; a crime, in fact-theft and extortion.”
“What is the one-third extra—the odd melon—the same?”
The justice forgot his dignity and descended to sarcasm. “Custom of the niggers! Are our morals so inadequate that we have to borrow of niggers?”
Then he said to the jury: “Three melons were owing; they were collected from persons not proven to owe them: this is theft; they were collected by compulsion: this is extortion. A melon was added for the widows and orphans. It was owed by no one. It is another theft, another extortion. Return it whence it came, with the others. It is not permissible here to apply to any purpose goods dishonestly obtained; not even to the feeding of widows and orphans, for this would be to put a shame upon charity and dishonor it.” He said it in open court, before everybody, and to me it did not seem very kind.
When Ament became aware of the criticism of his activities and the subsequent controversy, he was affected adversely. Ament admitted the strain in a letter to his wife on Sunday, 27 January 1901: "I am doing what I do not recall that I ever did before, remaining at home deliberately and missing all the services. I need the rest and felt that it was imperative. You see there is no let up for me. It is a constant strain from morning till night." Missionary colleague Miss Nellie Naomi Russell (born Ontonagon, Michigan, 31 March 1862; died 22 August 1911 in China) records:
...when he was weary in body and mind, there came like a thunderbolt the article by Mark Twain in the North American Review. I remember that day I went to his study on a matter of business, and found him sitting at his desk as if stricken at the heart. I exclaimed, "What is it? Are you ill?" "If I am what that man says, I am not fit for you to speak to me ! I feel as though I should go off and hide myself in a cave in the mountain, never again to be seen of man." I thought he had gone out of his head with all his cares, and I replied, " What you need is rest and a doctor, and I am going to send for one." If the writer of that article could have seen how he suffered he would have felt that every cent he received for that article would be a red hot coal of fire. A brave, masterful man he was, ever ready to relieve, not to add to the sum of human suffering, and while in some things he may have been unwise, his mistakes, whatever they may have been, were of the head and not the heart.
After Twain's initial article, ABCFM secretary, Rev. Dr. Judson Smith wrote to Agent, and enquired as to the propriety of missionaries collecting indemnity, Ament and Tewksbury both replied that the Chinese themselves preferred this to being subjected to extortionate measures from local officials. Additionally, Ament and Tewksbury indicated that their activities had been approved by the other missionaries. Ament indicated in a letter to his wife on 18 February 1901:
I reviewed my whole work in collecting indemnity and they [Dr. and Mrs. Sheffield] fully approved and are prepared to defend the course taken. The correspondents who have written were all in the dark, and had made no proper inquiries. I have invited correspondents to come and see what was being done, but they did not come. I have been very unjustly treated by these writers, and my friends are coming to the front in defense, as all the missions have done the same things, and all believe they are right. So also does Mr. Conger, who is our good friend. Do not be disturbed by anything you see in the papers. The correspondents jump on to the missionaries when they are out of matter, and news has been very scarce this winter. Dr. Sheffield thinks it better for the work that I return home now than wait a little longer and make my class reunion in 1902.
Ament left Beijing on 26 March 1901 to return to the United States to make his case, clear his name and defend the reputation of the other missionaries. On 1 April 1901, Ament, refusing to be a scapegoat in the affair, cabled the following to the ABCFM:
Nothing has been done except after consultation with colleagues and the full approval of the United States Minister. I will secure a certificate from Mr. [Edwin H.] Conger to that effect."
On 30 March 1901, the New York Tribune, reported Ament's rationale for his actions:
There seemed very little hope of native Christians receiving anything through the instrumentality of their officials, nor did the foreign powers think they were called upon to provide indemnity for these. All the survivors of the churches were reduced to absolute poverty. They were harmless, inoffensive people who had no feuds with their neighbors and had not intruded their religion on any one. This at least was true of the Protestant Christians. If a missionary, by means of his personal influence and by the assistance of the local official who might be friendly to him, could bring the neighbors of his persecuted people to see the error of their ways, and persuade them to contribute money for the rebuilding of destroyed houses and for the support of the survivors of the families, I think he was justified in so doing.
Ament arrived back in the United States on 25 April 1901. On the same day, The New York Times reprinted an interview with Ament, originally conducted in Kobe, Japan on 6 April 1901 while Ament was en route to the United States. In this article, Ament admitted
the American and English missionaries looted the premises of Prince Yu and other Chinese magnates and sold the plunder for the benefit of the missions, the sale lasting two weeks. After disposing of all the loot, and finding that the demand for sables and other valuable things was undiminished, they purchased other plundered articles from the Russian and East Indian soldiers and sold these at a profit.
Ament only received $75 from the British Loot Committee. Previous to this, a sale of garments and curios was held, and the $400 netted was given to the American Board of Foreign Missions, "with which Dr. Ament is connected. Dr. Ament explained that from the sale of goods plundered from the Mongol Prince's house only $4000 was realized, and this was devoted to the needs of the native Christians."
In May 1901 Ament responded to his critics during a brief visit to the United States of America in 1901 prior to his return to China. In response to the criticisms of Twain and others, Ament denied that the missionaries forced the Chinese to accept Christianity, and that "We treat their beliefs kindly, try to extract the good, and never interfere with their customs, except where they interfere with Christianity."
In response to Twain's specific allegations, Ament said:
The clan in China is responsible for the individuals and in collecting from the clans we did only what it is the settled policy of the Chinese themselves to do. It would have been impossible to have done otherwise....As to the 'extra' indemnities, we had to provide them for the widows and orphans left penniless and homeless, and who had lost no property to be paid for because they had none. We collected an extra one-third with the consent of the authorities, and distributed it among these people....It was considered perfectly just and fair by everyone there. Then, too, we had to provide for these people, and so we went to the abandoned grain shops and took what we could find. If we had not done so the Chinese would have. We promised to pay for everything we took. We also sold off all the furniture and goods in the place and used the money to support our Christians. I have been surprised to hear that this was criticised.
On 16 May 1901, Ament addressing guests at the third annual Asiatic Society of America dinner in New York, again defended himself and his fellow missionaries:
The missionaries in China, of whom I am proud to be one, represent a class of American citizens whose work in the Orient have been purposefully misrepresented....The missionaries' words have been twisted, wring interpretations made. The persistency of work like this can only justify the feeling that the root of this un-American warfare is due, not so much to what is seen or known of the deeds of missionaries, but the opposition to Christianity itself. The purpose was fixed before China was reached at all, and this murderous spirit stops not at injustice to individuals.
After Ament's death in January 1909, Judson Smith's successor, Dr. James Levi Barton (1855–1936) wrote in an obituary published in The Congregationalist:
The cruel and baseless attack made upon him [Ament] in this country by Mark Twain, in 1901, left a deep wound in his heart, in spite of the fact that it was clearly shown that his acts had been above criticism. He said one night, as we were sitting in a Chinese inn upon our way to Shansi, "I presume there are many in the United States who regard me as little better than a thief and a robber." I tried to assure him that no missionary was more honored than he, none more absolutely trusted, as it had been proven that the charges had no foundation in fact. He replied, "That is true, but do the people believe the proof, and will the truth ever catch up with the charge?'
By the end of May 1901 ABCFM Board secretary Dr Judson Smith silenced Ament, as he believed further comments were damaging Ament and his colleagues. Smith attempted a final defence of Ament and the other missionaries in May in an essay entitled "The Missionaries and Their Critics."
Arthur Henderson Smith
"Somewhat at a disadvantage in this exchange, missionary leaders nevertheless attempted to influence opinion in treaty port China; Arthur Smith joined Reid and Judson Smith in writing letters to the North-China Herald justifying missionary actions and criticizing Twain." In a letter to the ABCFM, which was in part published in the 5 May 1901 edition of the New York Times, Arthur Henderson Smith, writing from Beijing, defends Ament:
At the close of the siege Dr. Ament found himself with several hundred Chinese Christians on his hands, homeless, and absolutely dependent on their foreign pastor. With the permission of the Russian military authorities and with the aid of the United States Legation, Mr. Ament took possession of a Mongol house near the former mission premises, and as it was the headquarters for the Boxers who destroyed those premises, it was judged right and proper by all the authority then existing that the contents of this house should be regarded as confiscated and should be sold for the benefit of the Christians, which was done. This is the basis of the oft-repeated charge of 'missionary looting', and it is a total misuse of terms.
Smith, in his China in Convulsion (1901) indicated
representatives of nine of the important missionary societies in China issued, both in English and in Chinese, a "Statement" in regard to the connection between missionaries and the present crisis. It is of the nature of an explanation, and incidentally a defence, and has attracted favourable comment from the leading foreign journals of Shanghai for its conspicuous fairness and moderation of language. A paragraph from an article in the " North China Daily News " dealing with should be quoted:
The charge that missionaries have manifested an improper desire to see vengeance done on the perpetrators of last year's outrages is, except in possible isolated cases, as unfounded as Mark Twain's ignorant charges against Dr. Ament and his colleagues in Peking and its vicinity. Men who have examined the whole question with an honest desire to arrive at the truth without prejudice or partiality allow that the behaviour of the missionaries as a body has not only been above reproach, but worthy of praise and gratitude. They have been anxious, as we have all been anxious, to see outrages such as those of last year made impossible in the future, and as long as human nature is what it is, men must be deterred from crime by the conviction that it will be followed by punishment ; and not to have punished, and punished severely, the culprits of last year, would have been to invite a repetition of their crimes."
It is incidentally a gratification to many whose sense of justice has been outraged by the captious criticisms of those with neither knowledge nor candour to comprehend existing conditions, to see that Mr. Conger has not hesitated to take the responsibility for his own advice consistently given to American citizens acting in times of storm and stress. He has comprehensively replied to all the current criticism by the remark : " I am prepared to justify the conduct of the missionaries before the siege, during the siege, and after the siege."
Assessment of Ament
"Twain had considerable popular support, and he did not budge from his positions, but forthrightly defended them in speeches and articles over the next several years." In a letter to his best friend, Congregational clergyman Rev. Joseph Twichell in June 1901, Twain was unrepentant, referring to "Christian pirates like Ament and professional hypocrites and liars like Rev. Judson Smith of the American Board....Whenever you ask people to support them [foreign missions] Joe, do bar China. Their presence there is forbidden by the Bible and by every sentiment of humanity - and fair dealing. And they have done vast mischief there. I would bar no other country."
A recent biography portrays Ament in a sympathetic light but concludes that he was "a brave and resourceful man whose heroism was tarnished by hubris and looting...William Ament, the most successful missionary in north China, the best evangelist, and the most dedicated pastor had committed a grave error....That others were no better, and many even worse was no excuse."
In October 1901 The Foreign Christian Missionary Society held Mark Twain's attack on Ament responsible for its decrease in income. However, Dr E.E. Strong of Ament's own mission board, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, indicated that Twain's attacks actually helped the ABCFM financially:
We answered the charges so superabundantly that I think they affected very few of our givers....Of course, they made a difference with some who had no inclination to look into the matter. On the other hand, they helped us financially.
- Broomhall, Marshall (1901). Martyred Missionaries of The China Inland Mission; With a Record of The Perils and Sufferings of Some Who Escaped. London: Morgan and Scott. ISBN 0-8370-6027-3.
- Bickers & Tiedemann, Boxers, xv.
- List of the Martyred Protestant Missionaries during the Boxer Crisis of 1900#American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
- Paul Hattaway, China's Christian Martyrs (Oxford, UK and Grand Rapids, MI: Monarch, 2007):196-210
- Luella Miner, China's Book of Martyrs: A Record of Heroic Martyrdoms and Marvelous Deliverances of Chinese Christians During the Summer of 1900, (Jennings and Pye, 1903): 240.
- Robert Hart; John King Fairbank; Katherine Frost Bruner; Elizabeth MacLeod Matheson; and James Duncan Campbell, The I. G. in Peking: Letters of Robert Hart, Chinese Maritime Customs, 1868-1907 (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975): 879.
- Porter, 189.
- William Scott Ament, Letter to Mary P. Ament, quoted in Porter, 191-192.
- Porter, 197.
- W.S. Ament to Mary Ament, 20 August 1900, quoted in Porter, 197.
- Wong, 29.
- Wong, 30-31.
- W.S. Ament to M.P. Ament, 25 August 1900, quoted in Porter 198.
- Porter, 199.
- William H. Brackney, "Elwood Gardner Tewksbury", Biographical Dictionary of Chinese Christianity, http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/t/tewksbury-elwood-gardner.php
- L. Terry Oggel (13 May 2013). J.R. LeMaster; James D. Wilson, eds. The Routledge Encyclopedia of Mark Twain. Routledge. p. 23. ISBN 978-1-135-88128-3.
- Martha Emily Parmelee Rose, The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs, National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection (Library of Congress) (Euclid Print. Co., 1914): 133.
- W.S. Ament to M.P. Ament, 18 September 1900, in Porter, 207.
- W.S. Ament to M.P. Ament, 1 January 1901; quoted in Porter, 219.
- Cited in S.C. Miller, "Ends and Means: Missionary Justification of Force in Nineteenth Century China," in The Missionary Enterprise, 276.
- W.S. Ament to Judson Smith, 13 November 1900; quoted in Porter, 233.
- Porter, 226.
- William Scott Ament, Letter (27 September 1900); quoted in Porter, 241-242.
- W.S. Ament to Judson Smith, 27 December 1900, quoted in Porter, 230.
- Chamberlin, Ordered, 97-98.
- Chamberlin, letter to his wife, 11 December 1900, in Chamberlin, Ordered, 190.
- Robert A. Bickers and R. G. Tiedemann, The Boxers, China, and the World (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007): 104). ISBN 0-7425-5395-7, ISBN 978-0-7425-5395-8.
- The New York Sun (24 December 1900), quoted by Mark Twain, "The Person Sitting in Darkness", The North American Review 172 (February 1901).
- Chamberlin, Ordered, 212-213.
- Chamberlin, Ordered, 241.
- Maverick Marvin Harris, "China", 142, in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia.
- Philip Sheldon Foner, Mark Twain: Social Critic (International Publishers, 1958): 280.
- Everett H. Emerson, Mark Twain: A Literary Life (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000):257.
- Bickers & Tiedemann, Boxers, 104.
- Literature and Anti-Imperialism
- R. Titta, "Mark Twain and the Onset of the Imperialist Period" The Internationalist (September–October 1997). http://www.internationalist.org/marktwain3.html
- Albert Bigelow Paine, Mark Twain: A Biography, Chapter 214
- Smylie, page 10.
- J.C.B. Kinch, "Europe and Elsewhere", The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, 261.
- R. Titta, "Mark Twain and the Onset of the Imperialist Period". http://www.internationalist.org/marktwain3.html
- "Loot and Indemnity in China", The New York Times (26 January 1901):8; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9F06E7D6143DE433A25755C2A9679C946097D6CF
- J.A, Mitchell, Life (1901): 154.
- "A Missionary Arrested", The New York Times (5 February 1900):5
- "Our Missionaries in China", New York Times (7 February 1901):8
- "Mr. Ament Still in Custody: But a Dispatch to London Says Count von Waldersee Has Ordered His Release." New York Times (6 February 1901):6.
- Porter, 221.
- Chamberlin, Ordered, 253-254.
- "Missionaries' Indemnities", New York Times (31 March 1901)
- John Maxwell Hamilton, Edgar Snow: A Biography (LSU Press, 2003):xvi.
- See obituary: The New York Times (9 September 1942):23; http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10B1FF63558167B93CBA91782D85F468485F9&scp=1&sq=9+september+1942+millard&st=p
- Mitchel P. Roth and James Stuart Olson, eds., Historical Dictionary of War Journalism (Greenwood Publishing Group, 1997):203-204).
- Missouri newspaperman. First went to China for New York Herald to cover Boxer uprising in 1900. Later correspondent, New York Times, and editor, English-language newspaper in China, 1900–1932. Founder of China Weekly Review (Shanghai). Stephen R. MacKinnon and Oris Friesen, eds., China Reporting: An Oral History of American Journalism in the 1930s and 1940s (Berkeley: University of California Press, c1987):xxii; 1987. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1s2004h3; http://www.escholarship.org/editions/view?docId=ft1s2004h3&chunk.id=d0e85&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=ucpress;query=millard#1
- Jane Leung Larson, "ARTICULATING CHINA’S FIRST MASS MOVEMENT: KANG YOUWEI, LIANG QICHAO, THE BAOHUANGHUI, AND THE 1905 ANTI-AMERICAN BOYCOTT", Twentieth-Century China 33:1 (November 2007):17; http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/twentiethcentury_china/v033/33.1larson.pdf. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
- Mordechai Rozanski in MacKinnon and Friesen, 23.
- J.B. Powell, “The Journalistic Field,” in American University Men in China 1936; quoted in "Yankee Journalists in old China" (19 February 2008); http://www.historic-shanghai.com/?p=52. Retrieved 2 April 2009. Millard later founded and edited The China Press in 1911, and from 1917 founded Millard’s Review of the Far East (In June 1923 renamed The China Weekly Review) and edited by J.B. Powell).
- John Maxwell Hamilton, "The Missouri News Monopoly and American Altruism in China: Thomas F.F. Millard, J. B. Powell, and Edgar Snow", The Pacific Historical Review 55:1 (February 1986):27-48; http://www.jstor.org/stable/3639111
- You Li, "THE MILITARY VERSUS THE PRESS: JAPANESE MILITARY CONTROLS OVER ONE U.S. JOURNALIST, JOHN B. POWELL, IN SHANGHAI DURING THE SINO-JAPANESE WAR, 1937-1941", A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School at the University of Missouri In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts (December 2008): 35.; http://edt.missouri.edu/Fall2008/Thesis/LiY-121208-T11732/research.pdf
- "STARTS A PAPER IN SHANGHAI: Thomas F. Millard of St. Louis to be Editor of The Press", The New York Times (30 August 1911):6; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C01EFDC1131E233A25753C3A96E9C946096D6CF. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
- George D. Wilder, letter to Dr. Judson Smith (7 May 1901) from Tientsin, China; quoted in The Wilders of North China, Part 2: 1901-1904, Volume III of The Wilder-Stanley Saga, comp. & ed. Donald Wilder Menzi, pp. 27-28.; http://reced.org/dmenzi/wilders/Wilderlets_1901-1904.pdf. Retrieved 2 April 2009.
- Thomas F. Millard, "Punishment and Revenge in China." Scribner's Magazine 29 (1901):187- 194; quoted in James Louis Hevia, English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China (Duke University Press, 2003):238-239.
- Arthur D. Berry, "Missionaries in China" (26 January 1901), The New York Times (29 January 1901):8; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9C00E1D71039E733A2575AC2A9679C946097D6CF. Retrieved 3 April 2009.
- Thomas F. Millard, letter to the Editor, 31 January 1901, from 235 East 19th Street, New York; The New York February 1901):18; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9C05E7D7133EE333A25750C0A9649C946097D6CF (accessed 2 April 2009).
- Edgar Snow, Journey to the Beginning (New York: Random House, 1958):31.
- J.A. Mitchell, Life 37 (1901): 184.
- Charles Fletcher Lummis, The Land of Sunshine 14 (F.A. Pattee, 1901): 237.
- , Frederic Harrison, "The Religion of Duty", Ethical Addresses, Volume 8. American Ethical Union. (S. Burns Weston, 1901):92-93.
- , Ethical Addresses, Volume 8. American Ethical Union. (S. Burns Weston, 1901):35.
- Daniel De Leon, "Mark Twain on Missionaries." Daily People 1:303 (29 April 1901):1. online:
- General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches of the United States, The Year Book of the Congregational Christian Churches of the United States of America (General Council of the Congregational and Christian Churches of the United States Executive Committee, 1907):38.
- Daniel Coit Gilman; Harry Thurston Peck; and Frank Moore Colby, eds. The New International Encyclopæeia Volume 18 (Dodd, Mead and company, 1909):261.
- The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, 23.
- Ralph R. Covell, "Gilbert Reid", http://www.bdcconline.net/en/stories/r/reid-gilbert.php
- Tsou Mingteh, "Christian Missionary as Confucian Intellectual: Gilbert Reid (1857-1927) and the Reform Movement in the Late Qing", in Christianity in China, ed. Daniel H. Bays (Stanford University Press, 1999): 73-90.
- "Action of Missionaries Indorsed", The New York Times (22 March 1901): 6.
- Howard Culbertson, "Missions History: It Happened Today"
- "Demand That Twain Retract", The New York Times (22 March 1901):16
- Quoted in Porter, 236.
- George D. Wilder, Letter to Judson Smith (25 March 1901) from Tientsen, China; The Wilders of North China, Part 2: 1901-1904, Volume III of The Wilder-Stanley Saga, comp. & ed. Donald Wilder Menzi, page 19.; http://reced.org/dmenzi/wilders/Wilderlets_1901-1904.pdf (accessed 2 April 2009).
- "A Humorist Astray", Boston Journal; quoted in Porter, 236-237.
- "The Missionaries: They Will Still Go On". Letter to the Editor of the New York Times, from Henry Stimson, 21 March 1901, published New York Times (24 March 1901).
- "The Missionaries Defended: Interviews in Japan with Minister Conger and Dr. Ament: Goods Sold to Succor Native Christians." Kobe Herald (24 April 1901). Reprinted in The New York Times (25 April 1901):2.
- A History of the Precious Metals from the Earliest Times to the Present, 358.
- Edwin Conger, quoted in Porter, 242.
- Sir Claude MacDonald, quoted in Porter, 244.
- Charles Denby, China and Her People, 217-218.
- Editorial, The New York Times (17 February 1901)
- "A Clean Bill for Missionaries", Sun (March 1901); quoted in Porter, 236.
- POrter, 236.
- Emerson, 258.
- Miss N.N. Russell, quoted in Porter 210.
- Young, The Rhetoric of Empire, 193-194.
- Porter, 222.
- The Current Encyclopedia: A Monthly Record of Human Progress. Volume 1. (Modern Research Society, 1901):37.
- William Ament, cable to ABCFM, 1 April 1901, in The Open Court: Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea by Paul Carus (The Open Court Pub. Co., 1901):329.
- Ament, quoted in Porter, 251-252.
- A History of the Precious Metals from the Earliest Times to the Present, 355.
- "Dr. Ament Answers Critics", The New York Times (10 May 1901)
- New York Times (10 May 1901)
- "The Asiastic Society Honors Mr. Conger"
- J.L. Barton, "A Loss to Both China and America", The Congregationalist (1909); quoted in Porter, 365.
- See Judson Smith, "The Missionaries and their Critics," North American Review 172 (May 1901).
- Oggel, 23.
- Defends Dr. Ament's Course, 5 May 1901
- Arthur Henderson Smith, China in Convulsion, (New York: Fleming H. Revell Co., 1901):730-732.
- Mark Twain, quoted in William E. Phipps, Mark Twain's Religion (Mercer University Press, 2003): 212.
- Thompson, Larry Clinton. William Scott Ament: Heroism, Hubris, and the Ideal Missionary." Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009, pp. 2, 214
- "Twain's Attack on Missions", Special to The New York Times (16 October 1901):9; http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?res=9A07E4DD1E39EF32A25755C1A9669D946097D6CF.
Sources and Further Reading
- American Asiatic Association. Journal of the American Asiatic Association 2 (1901–1902):10. John Foord, 1901.
- American Home Missionary Association, and Congregational Home Missionary Society. The Home Missionary 74-76 (1901–1903):7. Executive Committee of the American Home Missionary Society, 1902.
- American Missionary Association, and Congregational Home Missionary Society. The American Missionary (1901):198.
- Barton, James L. "An Appreciation of Dr. Ament". Missionary Herald (February 1909).
- Bellamy, Francis Rufus. Article in New Outlook. Outlook Publishing Company, Inc., 1901. See pages 377-388 for Ament.
- Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen (U.S.). Locomotive Firemen's Magazine. Vol. 31. Brotherhood of Locomotive Fireman, 1901. Page 292.
- Chautauqua Institution. The Chautauquan 34 (1902):13. Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, 1902.
- Conant, William Cowper, ed. "Justice to the Missionaries in China." Salvation: A New Evangelical Monthly 3 (1901):205.
- De Leon, Daniel. "Mark Twain on Missionaries." Daily People 1:303 (29 April 1901):1. online: .
- Episcopal Church Board of Missions. The Spirit of Missions 73 (1908):630. Episcopal Church Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. J.L. Powell, 1908.
- Fenn, Courtenay H. "In the Matter of Loot". The Presbyterian Banner. 11 April 1901.
- Fibre & Fabric: A Record of American Textile Industries in the Cotton and Woolen Trade 33 (1901). Details arrest of Ament.
- General Convention of the Christian Church. Herald of Gospel Liberty 112:1-26 (1920):515. Christian Pub. Association, 1920.
- "The Giant Awakened", Gleanings in Bee Culture 37 (1909):23ff. Published by A. I. Root Co., 1909. Article on Ament with reference to his pastorate in Medina, Ohio.
- Gilman, Daniel Coit; Harry Thurston Peck; and Frank Moore Colby. "William Scott Ament", 435. In The New International Encyclopaedia. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1902.
- Hubbard, Elbert, ed. The Philistine: A Periodical of Protest. 14 (December 1901 - May 1902):88. Society of the Philistines (East Aurora, N.Y.).
- Literary Digest 23:2 (1901):36-37.
- Methodist Magazine and Review. Vol. 55 (January to June 1902). W. Briggs, 1902. See pages 377-378.
- Mind 9 (1901–1902):100. Discusses Reid's Ethics of Loot.
- Mitchell, John Ames, ed. Life. Vol. 37 (1901). Page 298.
- Post, Louis Freeland; Alice Thatcher Post; and Stoughton Cooley. The Public. Vol. 3. Louis F. Post, 1900. Page 724.
- Reid, Gilbert. "The Ethics of the Last War," Forum 32 (1902):446-55.
- Reid, Gilbert. "The Ethics of Loot," Forum 31:5 (July 1901):581-86.
- Reid, Gilbert. North-China Herald, (27 March 1901):602-3.
- Shaw, Albert. The American Monthly Review of Reviews 23 (1901):748.
- Smith, Arthur Henderson. North-China Herald (19 June 1901):1193-94.
- Smith, Judson. "The Missionaries and their Critics," North American Review 172 (May 1901):724-733.
- Smith, Judson. North-China Herald (3 April 1901):660-61.
- Smylie, James H. "The Preacher: Mark Twain and Slaying Christians". Theology Today (January 2001).
- Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (Great Britain). The East and the West. 6 (1908):146. Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts., 1908.
- Twain, Mark. "To My Missionary Critics". The North American Review 172 (April 1901):520. On-line:
- Twain, Mark. "To the Person Sitting in Darkness". The North American Review 172 (February 1901):161. On-line:
- United Free Church of Scotland Women's Foreign Mission. The Women's Missionary Magazine of the United Free Church of Scotland No. 1-24 (1901–1902): 43. Publications Office [United Free Church], 1901.
- United States War Dept. Report of the Lieutenant-General Commanding the Army, in Seven Parts: Military Operations in China. 1900. See page 138 for reference to Ament.
- University of Chicago. The University Record. Vol. 6. University of Chicago, 1901. Page 335.
- Wilder, G.D. "Wm. Scott Ament," Chinese Recorder (May 1909):276-81.
- 李佳白与尚贤堂—清末民初在华传教士活动个案研究 ["Gilbert Reid and the International Institute of China: A Case Study of Foreign Missionary Activities in Late Qing and Early Republic China".] Journal of Historical Science (September 2005). ISSN: 0583-0214(2005)09-0057-06.
- Gibson, William M. "Mark Twain and Howells: Anti-Imperialists." The New England Quarterly (December 1947): 435ff.
- Hevia, James L. "Leaving a Brand on China: Missionary Discourse in the Wake of the Boxer Movement," Modern China 18:3 (July 1992).
- Hevia, James L. "Looting Beijing, 1860, 1900", 192-213, in Tokens of Exchange: The Problem of Translation in Global Circulations. Edited by Lydia He Liu. Duke University Press, 1999.
- Hevia, James L. "Loot's Fate: The Economy of Plunder and the Moral Life of Objects from the Summer Palace of the Emperor of China." History and Anthropology, 6:4 (1994):319-345.
- Hunt, Michael H. "The Forgotten Occupation: Peking, 1900-1901." The Pacific Historical Review 48:4 (November 1979):501-529.
- Kinch, J.C.B. "Europe and Elsewhere", in The Mark Twain Encyclopedia. Page 261.
- King, H.H. "The Boxer Indemnity: 'Nothing but Bad'" Modern Asian Studies 40:3 (2006):663-689.
- Maier-Katkin, Birgit and Daniel Maier-Katkin. "At the Heart of Darkness: Crimes Against Humanity and the Banality of Evil". Human Rights Quarterly 26:3 (August 2004):584-604.
- Newman, Rhoda. "Mark Twain, Internationalist: Travel writer and diplomat wannabe waxes satirically on envoys, imperialism." Foreign Service Journal (February 1996):18-23; http://www.twainweb.net/filelist/intl01.html.
- Scully, Eileen P. "Taking the Low Road to Sino-American Relations: "Open Door" Expansionists and the Two China Markets". The Journal of American History 82:1 (June 1995):62-83. Discusses Reid's "Ethics of Looting".
- Titta, R. "Mark Twain and the Onset of the Imperialist Period." The Internationalist (September–October 1997).
- Tsou Mingteh. "Christian Missionary as Confucian Intellectual: Gilbert Reid (1857-1927) and the Reform Movement in the Late Qing", 73-90. In Christianity in China, ed. Daniel H. Bays. Stanford University Press, 1999.
- Allen, Roland. The Siege of the Peking Legations: Being the Diary of the Rev. Roland Allen ... With Maps and Plans. Smith, Elder, 1901. Page 23.
- American Council of Learned Societies Devoted to Humanistic Studies, Dictionary of American Biography. Volume 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1964. See page 241 for article on Ament.
- Barton, James L. The Missionary and His Critics. New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1906.
- Beach, Harlan Page. A Geography and Atlas of Protestant Missions: Their Environment, Forces, Distribution, Methods, Problems, Results and Prospects at the Opening of the Twentieth Century. Vol. 1. Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions, 1901. Page 290.
- Carus, Paul. The Open Court: Devoted to the Science of Religion, the Religion of Science, and the Extension of the Religious Parliament Idea. The Open Court Pub. Co., 1901. Page 329.
- Chamberlin, Georgia Louise, ed. Ordered to China: Letters of Wilbur J. Chamberlin Written from China While Under Commission from the New York Sun During the Boxer Uprising of 1900 and the International Complications which Followed. F. A. Stokes company, 1903. Chamberlin sent the initial despatch that fueled the Indemnity Controversy between Twain and Ament.
- Clark, Francis Edward. Memories of Many Men in Many Lands: An Autobiography. United Society of Christian Endeavor, 1922.
- Coleman, George William. Searchlights. Arakelyan Press, 1909. Page 85.
- Conger, Sarah Pike. Letters from China: With Particular Reference to the Empress Dowager and the Women of China. A.C. McClurg & Co., 1910.
- Cromer, Jeremiah C. "William S Ament: An Ideal Missionary". Pamphlet, Envelope Series 12, no. 2 (July 1909).
- Denby, Charles. China and Her People: Being the Observations, Reminiscences, and Conclusions of an American Diplomat. L.C. Page & company, 1905. Denby defends Ament's role in collecting indemnities after the Boxer Uprising. See pages 217-218.
- Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes. The International Anarchy, 1904-1914. 1926.
- Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes. Letters from John Chinaman and Other Essays. 1901.
- Fullerton, William Young and Charles Edward Wilson. New China: A Story of Modern Travel. Morgan and Scott, 1932. Page 129.
- Gamewell, Mary Porter and Alexander Harrison Tuttle. Mary Porter Gamewell and Her Story of the Siege in Peking. Eaton & Mains, 1907.
- Griffis, William Elliot. China's Story: In Myth, Legend, And Annals. Rev. ed. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1935.
- Harrison, Frederic. "The Religion of Duty", in Ethical Addresses. Vol. 8. American Ethical Union. S. Burns Weston, 1901. Pages 35, 92-93.
- Ketler, Isaac Conrad. The Tragedy of Paotingfu: An Authentic Story of the Lives, Services and Sacrifices of the Presbyterian, Congregational and China Inland Missionaries who Suffered Martyrdom at Paotingfu, China, 30 June and 1 July 1900. Revell, 1902.
- Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A History of Christian Missions in China. The Macmillan company, 1929.
- Lobenstein, Edwin Carlyle et al., eds. The China Christian Year Book. Kwang Hsüeh, 1910. Page viii.
- Lumis, Charles Fletcher. The Land of Sunshine. Vol. 14. F.A. Pattee, 1901. Page 237.
- McIntosh, Gilbert. Is There Anything in It?: Some After-crisis Vindications. Morgan & Scott, 1902. Pages 48–56.
- Mateer, Ada Haven. Siege Days: Personal Experiences of American Women and Children During the Peking Siege. Fleming H. Revell, 1903.
- Mather, Amasa Stone. Extracts from the Letters, Diary and Note Books of Amasa Stone Mather: June 1907 to December 1908. Vol. 2. Privately printed by the Arthur H. Clark Co., 1910. See page 40.
- Memoriam William Scott Ament, 1851-1909: Memorial Addresses, Tungchou, 1909, 47pp.
- Miner, Luella. China's Book of Martyrs: A Record of Heroic Martyrdoms and Marvelous Deliverances of Chinese Christians During the Summer of 1900. Jennings and Pye, 1903. Pages 79, 243.
- Morrison, George Ernest. The Correspondence of G.E. Morrison. Vol. 1: 1895-1912. Ed., Hui-min Lo. CUP Archive, 1976.
- National Council of the Congregational Churches in the United States. Addresses, Reports, Statements of Benevolent Societies, Constitution, Minutes, Roll of Delegates, Etc. Vol. 12. Congregational Churches in the United States National Council, 1904. Page 209.
- Oberlin College. "Annual Reports". (September 1908-October 1909):384-385.
- Paine, Albert Bigelow. Mark Twain: A Biography: The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Langhorne Clemens. "Mark Twain and the Missionaries." Chapter CCXIV.
- Porter, Henry Dwight. William Scott Ament: Missionary of the American Board to China. Revell, 1911. On-line:
- Roberts, James Hudson. A Flight for Life and an Inside View of Mongolia. The Pilgrim press, 1903. Page 31.
- Rose, Martha Emily Parmelee. The Western Reserve of Ohio and Some of Its Pioneers, Places and Women's Clubs, National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection. Euclid Print. Co., 1914. See page 133.
- Rowe, Henry Kalloch. History of Andover Theological Seminary. n.p., 1933. Ament is described as a distinguished alumnus.
- Russell, Nellie Naomi. Gleanings from Chinese Folklore: With some of her stories of life in China, to which are added memorial sketches of the author from associates and friends.. Comp. Mary Harriet Porter. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1915. Page 34.
- Shaw, William. The Evolution of an Endeavorer: An Autobiography. Boston: Christian Endeavor World, 1924. See pages 227-228, 319-320.
- Smith, Stanley Peregrine . China from Within: Or, The Story of the Chinese Crisis. Marshall Bros., 1901.
- Twain, Mark. Mark Twain: Collected Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays: Volume 2: 1891-1910. Library of America, 1992.
- William Scott Ament: Addresses Given at the Memorial Services Held at Teng Shih K'ou Congregational Church, Peking, China, Sunday, February Fourteenth, Nineteen Hundred Nine. North China Union College Press, 1909.
- Wolferstan, Bertram. The Catholic Church in China from 1860 to 1907. Sands & Co., 1909. See pages 35–36.
- Austin, Alvyn. China's Millions: The China Inland Mission and Late Qing Society, 1832-1905. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007.
- Barlow, Tani E. Formations of Colonial Modernity in East Asia. Duke University, 1997. Page 126.
- Bickers, Robert A. and R. G. Tiedemann. The Boxers, China, and the World. Rowman & Littlefield, 2007. ISBN 0-7425-5395-7, ISBN 978-0-7425-5395-8.
- Chamberlain, E. Russell. Loot!: The Heritage of Plunder. New York: Facts on File, 1983.
- Chʼên, Jerome. China and the West: Society and Culture, 1815-1937. Indiana University Press, 1979. Discusses ethics of looting.
- Cohen, Paul A. History in Three Keys: The Boxers as Event, Experience, and Myth. Columbia University Press, 1997.
- Deane, Hugh. Good Deeds & Gunboats: Two Centuries of American-Chinese Encounters. China Books & Periodicals, 1990. See page 66 for the Ament-Twain controversy.
- Edwards, Dwight Woodbridge. Yenching University. United Board for Christian Higher Education in Asia, 1959. Pages 13, 34.
- Elliott, Jane E. Some Did it for Civilisation, Some Did it for Their Country: A Revised View of the Boxer War. Chinese University Press, 2002.
- Emerson, Everett H. Mark Twain: A Literary Life. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. Page 257.
- Esherick, Joseph W. The Origins of the Boxer Uprising. University of California Press, 1988. Page 310 for missionary looting.
- Ewing, Charles Edward; and Bessie Smith Ewing. Death Throes of a Dynasty: Letters and Diaries of Charles and Bessie Ewing, Missionaries to China. Ed. E. G. Ruoff. Kent State University Press, 1990.
- Falkenstine, Mike. The Chinese Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together for a Deeper Understanding of China and Her Church. Xulon Press, 2008. See page 29 for references to missionary looting defended.
- Foner, Philip Sheldon. Mark Twain: Social Critic. International Publishers, 1958. See page 280.
- Geismar, Maxwell David. Mark Twain: An American Prophet. Houghton Mifflin, 1970. See 207-209 for analysis of Twain's attack on Ament.
- Greene, Felix. A Curtain of Ignorance: How the American Public Has Been Misinformed about China. Doubleday, 1964.
- Greenlee, James Grant and Charles Murray Johnston. Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918. McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 1999. See pages 110-114 especially for missionaries as "good citizens" and indemnities.
- [Gu, Changsheng] [顾长声]. 从马礼逊到司徒雷登—来华新教传教士评传 [From Morrison to Stuart: Critical Reviews on Protestant Missionaries in China. 上海人民出版社 [Shanghai: Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe], 1985. Includes Ament.
- Harris, Susan K. "Mark Twain and America's Christian Mission Abroad", In A Companion to Mark Twain, eds. Peter Messent and Louis J. Budd. Blackwell, 2005. ISBN 978-1-4051-2379-2.
- Hevia, James L. English Lessons: The Pedagogy of Imperialism in Nineteenth-Century China. Duke University, 2003. See page 218 for account of Ament exacting indemnity in September 1900 and sanctioned "looting of several homes of the village".
- Hunter, Jane. The Gospel of Gentility: American Women Missionaries in Turn-of-the-Century China. Yale University Press, 1984.
- Laurence, Patricia Ondek, trans. Lily Briscoe's Chinese Eyes: Bloomsbury, Modernism, and China. University of South Carolina Press, 2003.
- Lodwick, Kathleen, ed. The "Chinese Recorder" Index: A Guide to Christian Missions in Asia, 1867-1941. Rowman & Littlefield, 1986. See index on page 7 for extensive list of articles by both William & Mary Ament.
- Lutz, Jesse Gregory. China and the Christian Colleges, 1850-1950. Cornell University Press, 1971.
- Martin, William Alexander Parsons. The Siege in Peking, China Against the World: By an Eye Witness. Adamant Media, 2002. See page 136 for reference to Ament.
- Miller, Stuart Creighton. "Ends and Means: Missionary Justification of Force in Nineteenth Century China," The Missionary Enterprise in China and America, ed. J.K. Fairbank (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974):249-282.
- Oggel, L. Terry. "American Board of Foreign Missions", p. 23. In The Mark Twain Encyclopedia, edited by J. R. LeMaster; James Darrell Wilson; and Christie Graves Hamric. Taylor & Francis, .
- Olson, James Stuart; Robert Shadle; Ross Marlay; William Ratliff; and Joseph M. Rowe, eds. Historical Dictionary of European Imperialism. Greenwood Publishing Group, 1991. Pages 73–74 for Boxer Rebellion, 128-130 for "China".
- Phipps, William E. Mark Twain's Religion. Mercer University Press, 2003.
- Preston, Diana. Besieged in Peking: The Story of the 1900 Boxer Rising. Constable, 1999. Page 69.
- Preston, Diana. The Boxer Rebellion: The Dramatic Story of China's War on Foreigners that Shook the World in the Summer of 1900. Walker, 2000; See page 395. Berkley Books, 2001. See page 291 for a description of missionary "looting".
- Reinders, Eric Robert. Borrowed Gods and Foreign Bodies: Christian Missionaries Imagine Chinese Religion. University of California Press, 2004.
- Scully, Eileen P. Bargaining with the State from Afar: American Citizenship in Treaty Port China, 1844-1942. Columbia University Press, 2001. Discusses Reid's "The Ethics of Looting".
- Shavit, David. The United States in Asia: A Historical Dictionary. Greenwood, 1990. See pages 6–7 for an article on Ament.
- Strong, William Ellsworth. The Story of the American Board: An Account of the First Hundred Years of the American Board for Foreign Missions. Arno Press, 1969.
- Thompson, Larry Clinton. William Scott Ament and the Boxer Rebellion: Heroism, Hubris and the Ideal Missionary. McFarland & Company, March 2009.
- Varg, Paul A. Missionaries, Chinese, and Diplomats: The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890-1952. Princeton University Press, 1958. See page 49, n.35 for discussion of Twain & Ament.
- Young, Marilyn Blatt. The Rhetoric of Empire: American China Policy, 1895-1901. Harvard University Press, 1969.
- Zwick, Jim. Confronting Imperialism: Essays on Mark Twain and the Anti-Imperialist League. Infinity Publishing, November 2007.
- Zwick, Jim, ed. Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War. Syracuse University Press, 1992.
Dissertations and Theses
- Wong, Lai Hang. "Protestant Missionary Concepts Of and Revolutions in China, 1895-1911." A Dissertation. Presented to the Faculty of Arts in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts, University of Hong Kong, 1976. | <urn:uuid:341a3a67-4ff8-434c-80cd-01741daffd5e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twain-Ament_Indemnities_Controversy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678694630/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024454-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948427 | 21,574 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Associated Cultures: Umatilla
This report is an evaluation of 18 cultural objects in the ethnological collections of the Department of Anthropology of the National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) to determine if they are eligible for repatriation under the National Museum of the American Indian Act. The report provides an analysis of available documentation of the objects in NMNH records, in conjunction with historical and cultural information from archival and published sources. Information provided by the requesting Native American tribes relevant to the assessment of the cultural affiliation of the objects and their status as funerary objects under the law was also used.
Eighteen beads on a single rawhide string are requested as unassociated funerary objects by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR). These beads were recently identified as potential funerary objects and fall under a prior claim submitted by the CTUIR in 2002.
The beads were acquired by Emile Granier sometime prior to his sale of these and numerous other Native American objects to the NMNH in 1898. The only provenience information available is an original tag attached to the beads which indicated that the beads were collected from a Umatilla grave in Umatilla, Oregon.
A preponderance of evidence indicates that these beads are unassociated funerary objects taken from a Umatilla grave in Umatilla, Oregon and are culturally affiliated with the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. It is recommended that this string of beads be offered for return to the CTUIR.
These beads were repatriated to the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation on November 4, 2008.
Back to top | <urn:uuid:5f1269e2-5d86-45de-b547-5957c3741b60> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://anthropology.si.edu/repatriation/reports/regional/plateau/umatillafo.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94989 | 343 | 2.828125 | 3 |
A large, monoecious, deciduous tree that has dark grayish bark and most often a buttressed base. Leaves are alternate, simple, and entire. The acorn has a flattened base, with the cup covering about one-quarter inch of the nut. This is a short-lived oak (75 years on average).
Wildlife – Larval host of the Horace duskywing, Erynnis horatius, and white “M” hairstreak, Parrhasius m-album, butterflies.
Native Americans ate the acorns; they also used their oil for cooking and flavoring other foods such as hominy. | <urn:uuid:3ed3603b-69ad-4406-910b-83cd2660a9be> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://broward.org/Parks/FindNature/Pages/LaurelOak.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944348 | 137 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Sometimes what happens in the real world is more weird than what you make up for science fiction.
Take this Russian tank design from 1917 for example, this is a 1/35th scale model of the tank.
The drive assembly consisted of two 240 hp Maybach engines, one for each big wheel. The wheels themselves (designed by Zhukovskiy) had a T-shaped metal mid-section. A wooden overlay was then fastened to the shelf of the T-beam. The drive itself was very simple. Each engine drove an automobile wheels, who was in it’s turn pressed down (by means of a railway carriage spring) until it touched the wooden overlay of the big wheel, and by counterrotating, the automobile wheel transferred the energy from the engine to the big running wheel. (In case of over-heating, the driving wheels disengaged and protected the engine from seizing.) It was thought that the Nepotir should be able to reach a top speed of some 17 km/h – which was pretty impressive compared to other WW1 AFV:s.
The hull of the vehicle would have one top-mounted centrally placed turret, equipped with MG:s and/or light cannons, giving the Lebedenko a total height of some 12 meters. In addition to this, at the outer flanks of the hull, small MG sponsons was to be placed. There was also a small weapons turret placed underneath the belly of the beast.
The construction progressed pretty quick and at the end of July 1915, the Nepotir was ready for it’s first trials. Because of it’s weight and size, it was designed to be transported in sub-assemblies, to be assembled again before action at the front (like it was later envisioned for the huge German K-Wagen). This procedure was followed, and the sub-assemblies were transported to the testing ground, some 60 km from Moscow. At the re-assembly it was found out that the weight of the machine exceeded calculations with some 50%, due to the use of thicker metal. In August the test began in front of a high commission. It started well. The vehicle moved well over some firm ground, crashed a tree, but then went into a soft patch, where the small double wheel got stuck in a ditch. Soon it was obvious that the engines were to small, as they were unable to free the rear double wheel.
After this fiasco, two of the designers, Mikulin and Stechkin, worked on equipping the vehicle with more powerful engines, but this plan was never fulfilled. The military had decided against the project. It was simply too expensive, it had thus far cost some 250.000 roubles. Also the vehicle (and then primarily it’s wheels) was deemed to be too vulnerable to artillery fire, which probably was quite true. (And by this time both France and Britain were near to completing new types of all-terrain armoured fighting vehicles, running on caterpillar tracks.)
The Lebedenko stood there, bogged down, for the rest of the war, but was finally scrapped in 1923.
This is certainly something that would sit very well in a Victorian Science Fiction scenario. Also if you play alternative world war one scenarios then this would of course work well too, well it was designed for that war. | <urn:uuid:ea62e127-dc1b-4ba9-8641-275c69fba0b7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ifelix.net/gamingblog/?p=5836 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980886 | 687 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Destroys superoxide anion radicals which are normally produced within the cells and which are toxic to biological systems. Genetic variation in SOD2 is associated with susceptibility to microvascular complications of diabetes type 6 (MVCD6). These are pathological conditions that develop in numerous tissues and organs as a consequence of diabetes mellitus. They include diabetic retinopathy, diabetic nephropathy leading to end-stage renal disease, and diabetic neuropathy. Diabetic retinopathy remains the major cause of new- onset blindness among diabetic adults. It is characterized by vascular permeability and increased tissue ischemia and angiogenesis. Belongs to the iron/manganese superoxide dismutase family. 2 isoforms of the human protein are produced by alternative splicing. Note: This description may include information from UniProtKB.
Protein type: EC 184.108.40.206; Oxidoreductase; Mitochondrial
Molecular Function: identical protein binding; DNA binding; manganese ion binding; superoxide dismutase activity; oxygen binding
Biological Process: oxygen homeostasis; positive regulation of nitric oxide biosynthetic process; removal of superoxide radicals; heart development; response to lipopolysaccharide; locomotory behavior; response to L-ascorbic acid; protein homotetramerization; post-embryonic development; negative regulation of cell proliferation; response to selenium ion; glutathione metabolic process; regulation of mitochondrial membrane potential; acetylcholine vasodilation involved in regulation of systemic arterial blood pressure; regulation of catalytic activity; regulation of blood pressure; response to gamma radiation; hemopoiesis; response to axon injury; negative regulation of neuron apoptosis; response to electrical stimulus; response to drug; erythrophore differentiation; response to superoxide; release of cytochrome c from mitochondria; superoxide metabolic process; liver development; negative regulation of fat cell differentiation; response to manganese ion; regulation of transcription from RNA polymerase II promoter; iron ion homeostasis; response to silicon dioxide; response to hyperoxia; response to cadmium ion; response to hydrogen peroxide; DNA damage response, signal transduction resulting in induction of apoptosis; age-dependent response to reactive oxygen species; detection of oxygen; response to zinc ion; negative regulation of fibroblast proliferation; response to hypoxia; neuron development; response to activity; superoxide release; induction of apoptosis by oxidative stress; hydrogen peroxide biosynthetic process
SS: The number of records in which this modification site was determined using site-specific methods. SS methods include amino acid sequencing, site-directed mutagenesis, modification site-specific antibodies, specific MS strategies, etc. | <urn:uuid:b87063d1-ef46-4a07-a0a2-1bbed3f21b21> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.phosphosite.org/proteinAction.do?id=10596 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999679238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060759-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883892 | 575 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Family Tree Friday: Slave Schedules
If you’ve been watching the new NBC show, Who Do You Think You Are?, you may have seen a recent episode where slavery in America was discussed. Researchers with slave ancestors often have trouble because there just aren’t a lot of federal records which list slaves by name.
One type of federal record that researchers often use to trace their slave ancestors are the U.S. slave schedules. Taken in 1850 and 1860 with the regular population schedules, primarily in the slave states, the slave schedules list slave owners by name, with a statistical count of their slaves. Slaves are not enumerated by name, except in rare instances. The slave schedules can still be useful for research, however, as many slaves took their former owners’ names when they were emancipated. Because of the limitations inherent in these records, they should be used in conjunction with other sources which do list names – for example, later census records and county level records such as wills and probate records.
Here we see an 1860 Monroe County, Alabama slave schedule. William Peary has three slaves – a thirty-five year old female, a nine year old female, and a three year old male. Because the slave schedule doesn’t provide their names, we can’t tell if they are related. But as I mentioned above, if you use this with other records, you may be able to find more information and prove that they are related.
The slave schedules are organized by state and county. They are available on microfilm and online at Ancestry.com. | <urn:uuid:21c66700-f832-4786-891c-729a7153540b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=1256 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010824553/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091344-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964521 | 326 | 2.625 | 3 |
What causes Cushing's syndrome?
The most common cause of Cushing's syndrome is taking corticosteroids orally (by mouth) every day for weeks to months. These medicines are usually prescribed to treat inflammatory disease, such as lupus and rheumatoid arthritis. Prednisone is the most common corticosteroid medicine that's taken this way. Other medicines include dexamethasone and methylprednisone.
Inhaled steroid medicines for asthma and steroid skin creams for eczema and other skin conditions don't usually cause Cushing's syndrome. Even oral medicines taken every day for short periods of time or every other day for longer periods don't often cause Cushing's syndrome.
The next most common cause of Cushing's syndrome is when the body makes too much cortisol. A tumor in the pituitary gland can be one cause of Cushing's syndrome. The pituitary gland is located at the bottom of the brain and controls the body's production of cortisol. These small tumors can cause the adrenal glands, which are near the kidneys, to make too much cortisol.
The tumors on the pituitary gland in Cushing's syndrome aren't usually malignant (cancercous). However, if these tumors get too big, they can cause problems with your eyesight.
Cushing's Disease: Clinical Manifestations and Diagnostic Evaluation by LF Kirk, Jr., M.D., RB Hash, M.D., HP Katner, M.D., and T Jones, M.D. (American Family Physician September 01, 2000, http://www.aafp.org/afp/20000901/1119.html)
Written by familydoctor.org editorial staff | <urn:uuid:9d58b8ec-b7be-49f0-840f-209f5e5d431b> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://familydoctor.org/familydoctor/en/diseases-conditions/cushings-syndrome/causes-risk-factors.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010824553/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091344-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935546 | 358 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Prime Minister Julia Gillard launched a cyber education program at Yates Avenue Public School at Dundas Valley this morning.
The bCyberwise program, developed by Life Education and McAfee, will address the skills, knowledge and attitudes children need to ensure safe online experiences.
It will focus on core life skills such as building positive and respectful relationships online, communicating effectively and making decisions in social situations.
Consultant for the bCyberwise module, and leading psychologist and educator Doctor Helen McGrath endorsed the program's relevance.
''Digital media has become an important and mostly positive aspect of the education, leisure and social lives of today’s children but it also creates some potential risks to their safety and wellbeing,'' Dr McGrath said.
''The most harmful of these risks appears to be cyberbullying.
“The provision of this type of cyber safety curriculum in their early learning years will help children to cope safely and respectfully in this new digital environment.''
The program will be delivered to more than 3200 schools across Australia.
At the launch Ms Gillard also announced the federal government’s new guidelines to help combat cyber-bullying were agreed to by social media sites including Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo.
The guidelines commit companies to:
■Set out clear information about its acceptable use guidelines;
■Undertake education and awareness raising activities about what behaviour is acceptable and unacceptable online;
■Have a single point of contact for government; and
■Have a robust process for reviewing and acting on complaints. | <urn:uuid:3e7cdd7e-21bd-419a-80ce-75012b618a09> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.parramattasun.com.au/story/1238511/pm-launches-cyber-safety-program-in-dundas-valley/?cs=1245 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011192582/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091952-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932818 | 312 | 2.6875 | 3 |
In 1948, Modern Woodmen of America developed this contest to offer students an opportunity to develop skills in clear thinking and public speaking. Today, it is an important event in schools across the nation.
Students at St. Joseph School will first participate with their speeches in a school wide (5-8 grade) competition. Our school competition is scored by a panel of three independent judges and takes place in our main church. The two top scoring speeches will represent St. Joseph Catholic School at the District level. If honored with a win at District level, our student(s) and their speech(es) will advance to the State level of competition and then finally on to the National level of competition.
By preparing and giving a three- to five-minute speech for this contest, participants learn skills that will help with school projects, job interviews and even careers. The contest gives students a chance to:
Contestants will be judged using the following 100-point system
40 points for material organization
This accounts for theme and subject adherence, structure, content, logic and color.
40 points for delivery and presentation
This includes voice, pronunciation, enunciation, gestures and poise.
20 points for overall effectiveness
This scores impression and effect.
This year's contest date is TBD | <urn:uuid:6e1d286b-546c-4d2c-a124-c061a7a2f530> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.stjoesbb.com/school/activities/modernwoodman.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011192582/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091952-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946773 | 261 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
2002 August 5
Explanation: This aurora was a bit of a surprise. For starters, last Friday morning, no intense auroral activity was expected at all. Possibly more surprising, however, the aurora appeared to show an usual structure of green rays from some locations. In the above image, captured from North Dakota, USA, a picket fence of green rays stretches toward the horizon. Mirroring the green rays is a red band, somewhat rare in its own right. Lights from the cities of Bismarck and Mandan are visible near the horizon. Large sunspot groups indicate that activity from the currently active Sun is relatively likely, possibly causing other streams of energetic particles to cascade onto the Earth and so causing more auroras.
Authors & editors:
Jerry Bonnell (USRA)
NASA Technical Rep.: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA/ GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U. | <urn:uuid:a4fdc4f9-5e56-44ea-89e6-fe08b56991cd> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap020805.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021727061/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121527-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920745 | 227 | 3.015625 | 3 |
The Russian Sheepdog, also known as the South Russian Shepherd or South Russian Ovcharka, is a large white Russian dog, which resembles an oversized Briard. It is a strong and robust dog with big head, relatively small hanging ears, oval-shaped dark eyes and a large black nose. Its muscular body is covered in a profuse, long-haired (four to six inches) and water-resistant double coat which may have shades of gray or yellow. Though internationally recognized, this Russian dog breed is still rare outside of Russia and Ukraine, where they call it South Russian Ovcharka (sheep dog in Russian) or SAO.
The history of the Russian Sheepdog can be traced back to 18th century Russia, where its ancestors lived in the region of Crimea. It is still unclear whether this breed is a Russian native breed or it developed from various European sheepdogs that were used to drive flocks of sheep from Spain to Russia. Anyway it was bred very protective and territorial to become an excellent Russian guard dog, alongside with Caucasian dog, Central Asian dog, Russian Terrier, Moscow Dog, and Russian German Shepherd. Protecting sheep from wolves, bears and thieves this white Russian dog was usually left on its own to perform this function.
During the communist revolution and civil war the main breeding kennels in Ukraine and Crimea were fully plundered and destroyed.The Red Army took charge of the breed. The SRO became a secret army and almost disappeared from the public eye. He only reappeared in our European countries in 1980.
The SRO has a dominant personality. Its nature requires a large family, an extensive property and other animals this Russian guard dog can protect. Compared to Caucasian dog and Central Asian dog the South Russian Shepherd is the most biddable of all Russian sheepdogs. It is extremely devoted to its family, does well with children and other pets it grew up with, and can be very affectionate.
This white Russian dog is generally healthy, though may suffer from some large dog health conditions like hip and elbow dysplasia. Its coat is shedding heavily twice a year, and should be brushed often to avoid mats and tangles. The life expectancy for the Russian Sheepdog is 9-11 years.
The South Russian Shepherd is not very demanding, but it is not for inexperienced or spiritless owner. It needs a strong minded leader who has enough patience and will to train it properly. The obedience training and socialization should begin early. This Russian dog breed is not so well suited for full-time in-house living and needs plenty of exercise.
More about the nature of the SRO as Fientje has grown up !
Training: This breed needs a very dominant and leading owner who will not spoil it. They become very unstable if not given a strong leader. They do best if trained when they are young with a firm but positive hand. They should never be spoiled, however, as they can attack with little warning. This breed needs space, animals and its human family to protect. Training should be based on a relationship of mutual respect, not completely domineering, but firmly letting the dog know you are the boss. Training should be fair and consistent.
Learning Rate: Medium.
Obedience - Low.
Activity: High. They like to inspect their guarding territories, thus providing adequate exercise for themselves.
Special Needs: Firm training, fenced yard, leash, a job or activity, moderate exercise, extensive socialization and grooming.
Living Environment: This breed is not suited to be around a lot of strangers and it needs a lot of space, and should therefore never be kept in an apartment. They are actually quite weatherproof. They would do best if they are given a job to do, animals and a property to guard, and firm training from a dominant person. The best owner for this breed would be a dog-experienced owner living in a rural home with a yard. In most circumstances, this breed is not suitable as a pet.
Litter Size: 5 - 10 puppies
Height: over 26 inches
Weight: 110 to 140 pounds
Russian Sheepdog, South Russian Shepherd Dog, South Russian Shepherd, South Russian Sheepdog, South Russian Ovcharka, Yuzhnorusskaya Ovcharka, Ioujnorousskaïa Ovtcharka, South Russian Ovtcharka, Yuzhak, SAO | <urn:uuid:fdbe5411-f8cd-4f52-a026-bc84d32598e8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://southrussian.webs.com/ukbreedinfo.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999657340/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060737-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961952 | 908 | 2.84375 | 3 |
- What we do
- Climate Bonds intro
- Useful links
- Media stories
- News Room
Using Climate Bonds to fund a Feed-In Tariff
Electricity generation is responsible for 41% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. As the International Energy Authority (IEA) has said, decarbonising electricity generation is critical to meeting emission reduction goals. The IEA has called for mechanisms “ambitious new policies to push for a more efficient use of electricity”. We propose such an ambitious policy that would borrow against future economic benefits for the investment needed to reap those benefits.
A common feature of new technologies is that their cost of application tends to drop with rollout and time. This has certainly been the case with renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar thermal. Photovoltaic technologies started their journey with a higher cost base than many other renewables, but have been dropping in cost at a faster rate — for example, the cost of manufacturing photovoltaic cells in China is reported to have dropped by half in the past year.
Philip Wolfe, former Director General of the Renewable Energy Association, explains that some technologies that still seem too high on the price curve have exceptional cost reduction potential. Photovoltaic cells, for example, are basically semiconductor components, he says, and should mirror computer chips in dramatically reducing costs as volumes build.
That falling cost curve means that electricity generated from renewable sources will eventually be cost-competitive with conventional fossil fuel sources – a cross-over point termed ‘grid parity’. When is it likely to occur? In the case of solar photovoltaic systems, there are many estimates available in the open literature. It might come as early as four to five years in the case of solar PV installations, and 10 years in the case of wind, and in any case by the 2020s at the latest. The cross-over will occur at different times in different countries due the prevailing market prices and renewable resource levels.
There are many sources of evidence for such an assertion. Researchers from McKinsey (Lorenz, Pinner et al. 2008) estimate that even without subsidies, solar energy could become cost-competitive with conventional electricity in parts of the United States (California and the Southwest) and in Italy, Japan, Spain and Australia within the next three to seven years. As shown in Figure 3, the cost curves of solar PV cross the retail electricity price curve as early as around 2008; and are largely competitive by 2020; even in the most unfavourable scenario the two cross around the year 2032.
The idea of using Climate Bonds to fund a Feed-In Tariff exploits the idea that the cost of renewable energy generation is continuing to drop, and will become cheaper than fossil fuel energy generation. Critically, it requires (or contracts) a constant, government-regulated energy price per kilowatt hour, paid by energy consumers to the utility company providing them with energy services and then “borrows” against future savings in renewable energy costs to pay for a premium energy tariff in the present.
For example, the government could fix electricity prices paid by electricity consumers for the next 30 years at the average inflation-adjusted electricity price of the past five years. This fixed price reflects the energy costs characteristic of today’s electricity supply, which is mostly composed of fossil and nuclear energy.
Initially, the costs to a power producer of building and operating renewable energy power plants will be higher, on average, than the costs of building and operating fossil-fuelled power plants (absent a significant carbon emissions charge).
By issuing Climate Bonds to raise money for building and operating renewable energy capacity, an investment fund buying power from renewable energy providers (at a price premium over fossil power, in the near term) nevertheless achieves a positive return on investment, by effectively “borrowing” against future savings in energy generation costs. (The investment fund will profit from the difference between the lower cost of power produced from renewable energy infrastructure compared to the higher price of power produced from fossil fuels, in a future time when renewable power is consistently cheaper than fossil power). These future higher net revenues pay for a premium energy tariff in the present.
The intervention is also important since this cost reduction curve would be sharpened given an increased scale of investments, sufficient to provide rapidly escalating economies of scale. Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariffs and carbon prices can deliver increased investment.
The model could work either as a simple government bond whose revenue funds the Feed-in Tariff, or as a public-private partnership that does the same.
- An Energy Investment Fund, let’s call it “EnerFund”, enters into a long-term contract to supply renewable energy to the grid. The Government guarantees that a fixed (inflation-adjusted) price per kWh will be paid to EnerFund for any renewable electricity it supplies for 30 years. This price is inline with the regulators expectation for energy prices – not higher and not lower.
- EnerFund raises money, secured by the purchase contract, by issuing Climate Bonds to spend on a defined amount of Feed-in Tariff subsidies to support new renewable energy capacity designed to accelerate economies of scale. This is borrowing money to build generation now.
A variation on the Energy Investment Fund model is that Govt would be involved in setting up the Fund or as a cornerstone investor (with the govt guarantees implied).
- EnerFund commissions a large solar thermal plant next year and arranges a contract with a local utility to take and supply the power under the contract it has with government.
- In the short term the power from the solar plant is more expensive than payment received from the utility via the governments contract. So the renewable power producer must be paid a higher rate per kWh than the price paid by power consumers (this is how a Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff works).
- EnerFund absorbs these operating losses (the net cost of the Feed-in Tariff) until cost-convergence is achieved.
- The renewable energy cost reduction curve would be sharpened given the increased scale of investments, sufficient to provide rapidly escalating economies of scale.
- EnerFund is building many such projects around the world under similar contract and each time the costs go down. Fifteen years later it goes back and builds a new solar thermal plant next to its first, and this time the plant produces energy at considerably lower costs, so much so that it can earn a substantial profit from its government power contract. With these and subsequent projects it is able to repay the climate bonds used to fund the initial losses plus interest.
- Governments provide other forms of guarantees for specific renewable energy projects. For example, the World Bank currently agrees to take first the 20% hit on any losses on some selected developing nation projects; national governments could do the same with, for example, a big wave-power project that was seen as more risky but important to the development of the country’s capabilities. This approach is unpopular in rich nations because it’s seen as “picking winners” (and this is more traditionally done through targeted tax-break schemes), but it is common in developing nations, notably with big hydro schemes. Big hydro is now becoming unattractive; the model could switch to, say, big solar thermal in Rajasthan.
This approach requires a constant, government-regulated contracted energy price per kilowatt hour, paid by energy consumers to the utility company providing them with energy services. It then “borrows” against future savings in renewable energy costs to pay for a premium energy tariff in the present.
Scale, aggregation and ubiquity
An obstacle to the raising of conventional funds is the relatively small-scale of many energy projects. While this small scale can encourage experimentation and innovation, it retards implementation and system transformation.
A Climate Bond can be used as a financial instrument that enables an issuing institution or government to aggregate many such initiatives and thereby equip them for commercial scale operation much earlier than would be achieved without such assistance. It can also be used as easily in developing countries as developed countries which again increase market and scale up.
For example, many renewable energy projects are rendered uncompetitive not because of technical inadequacies but because they are forced to pay higher interest rates for loans from very conservative banks.
A Climate Bond might raise funds that could then be disbursed as low-interest loans to renewable energy providers. The issuer of the Bond would need to be regulated in the same way as other financial institutions, to ensure probity and transparency, as well as compliance with climate bond procedures and standards.
We know this can be done because private institutions already issue bonds designed to aggregate and standardize aspects of economic activity such as provision of infrastructure. The Australian institution Macquarie Bank Ltd devised such a scheme in the way that it aggregated infrastructure assets up to the point where they could be used to underpin the issuance of a new fund which would attract investments from private investors; this was done initially with toll-roads, and then with airports; and then with fast-growth forests, and so on. Exactly the same thinking and principles would inform the issuance of Climate Bonds.
Climate bonds for feed-in tariffs could be structured financially in any number of ways. The bond could be designed as an instrument that pays an annual interest (coupon) at a competitive rate – like the World Bank ‘Green Bond 2009’. Or it could be a ‘zero coupon’ instrument that pays no annual return but at maturity guarantees the repayment of principal plus some agreed amount (such as an amount that is, say, 1% in excess of growth in underlying GDP in the country concerned – like the EIB zero-coupon bond issued through Dresdner Kleinwort in 2007). Such an arrangement (where any excess accumulated by the issuing institution is redistributed to the bond holders on maturity) would be designed with a view to making it attractive to institutional investors who are required by fiduciary obligations to seek out such guaranteed investments. If the issuer itself is a government that is undertaking to reduce carbon emissions and build renewable energy industries, then the cumulative positive outcome is reinforced – the issuer has every incentive to make the circumstances of the issue come true.
PV installations on homes and offices compete with the delivered price of energy which is considerably higher that the ex-power station price.. | <urn:uuid:842b80cf-2d01-4b23-ba3a-b6771441afca> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.climatebonds.net/what-we-do/project-models/renewable-energy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010048333/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090048-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949025 | 2,130 | 3.125 | 3 |
Chapter 5: Concurrency and Race Conditions
Thus far, we have paid little attention to the problem of concurrency -- i.e., what happens when the system tries to do more than one thing at once. The management of concurrency is, however, one of the core problems in operating systems programming. Concurrency-related bugs are some of the easiest to create and some of the hardest to find. Even expert Linux kernel programmers end up creating concurrency-related bugs on occasion.
In early Linux kernels, there were relatively few sources of concurrency. Symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) systems were not supported by the kernel, and the only cause of concurrent execution was the servicing of hardware interrupts. That approach offers simplicity, but it no longer works in a world that prizes performance on systems with more and more processors, and that insists that the system respond to events quickly. In response to the demands of modern hardware and applications, the Linux kernel has evolved to a point where many more things are going on simultaneously. This evolution has resulted in far greater performance and scalability. It has also, however, significantly complicated the task of kernel programming. Device driver programmers must now factor concurrency into their designs from the beginning, and they must have a strong understanding of the facilities provided by the kernel for concurrency management.
The purpose of this chapter is to begin the process of creating that understanding. To that end, we introduce facilities that are immediately applied to the scull driver from Chapter 3. Other facilities presented here are not put to use for some time yet. But first, we take a look at what could go wrong with our simple scull driver and how to avoid these potential problems. | <urn:uuid:980a9228-ad5e-4b40-beab-1c54bf8f668f> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.linuxinsight.com/linux_device_drivers_concurrency_and_race_conditions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010048333/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090048-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970159 | 345 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Student Activity - Establishing butterfly transects
In this activity, students set up and walk a transect to observe and record butterfly sightings. Butterfly sightings are then recorded on the Monarch Butterfly New Zealand Trust website.
Modify this activity to suit to your management needs. If parent help is available, the entire class can set up and monitor several transects. Alternatively, set up a single transect with an envirogroup or other small group of interested students.
By the end of this activity, students should be able to:
- know what a transect is and why they are used for ecological monitoring
- appreciate the importance of systematic observation (the act of noting and recording something) rather than merely looking
- understand that collection of data over a number of years provides scientists with information about a species’ population size and provides information on population decline or increase
- appreciate that citizen scientists work in partnership with scientists to answer interesting and relevant questions.
Download the Word file (see link above) for:
- introduction/background notes
- instructions on what you need and what to do
- discussion questions
- student handout.
- Nature of Science
Scientific investigations involve the collection of relevant data in a systematic manner according to clear protocols. In this activity, the transect data is used to answer questions about yearly population assessments and habitat management.
Read about one teacher’s experience of walking transects and tagging butterflies for the NZMBT. | <urn:uuid:186cbbc3-588c-47d6-a3ea-c09c575f3229> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/Science-Stories/Butterflies/Establishing-butterfly-transects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010048333/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090048-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.887483 | 311 | 3.15625 | 3 |
The Parable of the Shepherd
By Steven P. Wickstrom
Once upon a time there was shepherd who owned a pasture in far off land. Since the shepherd lived far away from the pasture, he had hired some men to watch over his sheep and take good care of them. One day he decided to visit his pasture to see how his sheep were doing. So he made the long journey to the far off pasture. When he came to the pasture, he was shocked when he noticed that all of the sheep were dead. Not one sheep of his flock was alive. The shepherd walked through the pasture looking around in dismay at the carnage.
He searched for and quickly found the men that he had hired to watch over his flock. They were lounging near a gate at the far end of the pasture. He started questioning the men whom he had hired and quickly discovered that the men did not care that the sheep were dead. The hired men requested their salary and said that they had more important things to do with their time than to watch over dead sheep. The shepherd became very angry and chased the hired men out of his pasture.
The hired men became disgusted with the shepherd and plotted to kill him. When they settled on a plan, they seized the shepherd and killed him. They dragged the shepherd out to the center of the pasture where they left his dead body. After all, they had other, more important things to do.
The spirit of the dead shepherd went down to the underworld where he fought with the king of the dead. It was a titanic struggle but the king of the dead was no match for the shepherd. The shepherd won the fight and was raised from the dead. The shepherd was now alive again. He went for a walk through the pasture looking at his dead sheep.
He opened the mouths of a few of his sheep and poured his life into them. Every sheep who accepted his gift became alive. The sheep ran around greeting each other and were very happy to be among the living again. Then they noticed something strange. Their wool was as white as freshly fallen snow. There was not a spec of dirt to be found on them. Not only that, but their wool glowed with white light.
The sheep ran up to the shepherd to ask him about their wool. That was when they noticed that the shepherd was also as white as fresh snow, and that he was also emitting light. The shepherd was in fact whiter than white and brighter than the sun. The sheep all bowed down and worshiped the shepherd. They all realized that the shepherd was God Himself.
The Shepherd smiled at His sheep and lovingly patted them on their heads. He explained to them that His life was flowing through their veins. Their hearts were pumping His blood throughout their bodies. His life was now their life because they had accepted His gift. It was His blood that made their wool spotless. It was His blood that shone through like pure light and made their wool glow. Because they had accepted his gift, they would now live forever. Then He gave them an assignment; they were to take His gift and give it to other dead sheep. The sheep were delighted and ran off to give the gift to the other dead sheep.
After a while, the sheep returned to the Shepherd. There were now many more white glowing sheep in the flock. They had questions for the shepherd. They wanted to know why only a few of the dead sheep would accept the gift. Most of the dead sheep did not want to become alive. They did not understand why anyone would pass up such a tremendous gift.
The shepherd explained to them that some sheep prefer to be dead. They think that being dead is more fun than being than alive. Other sheep don't know that they are dead; they think that they are alive even though they are not. He then explained that it was His desire that all dead sheep become alive. But He knew however that many dead sheep would not accept His gift. He sent His sheep out to the whole world to give His gift to any who would receive it. The sheep are still out there to this very day; freely giving the gift of the life.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! TRUST JESUS NOW
Read more articles by Steven Wickstrom or search for articles on the same topic or others. | <urn:uuid:4f5d1b46-01a9-4a81-b085-5c4994e37d98> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=2470 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021866360/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121746-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.995777 | 894 | 2.5625 | 3 |
In the latest episode of Acchi Kocchi, we saw Hime driven up the wall by having to choose between calling her gift to her friends either honmei (romantic) or giri (obligation) chocolate. While this is no doubt just a case of friends teasing each other, why does it often happen that we end up torn between two extremes and have trouble explaining our middle-way?
It turns out the issue is linked to human cognition. I have mentioned before that humans feel the need to categorize anything and everything. One of the characteristics of this categorization is magnet behavior. Just like magnets, categorization attracts and repels ideas.
Attraction is the ability to ignore insignificant differences between objects and unite them under a single label. If you think about it, there are no two identical apples in this world, and this should make it difficult to define what an apple actually is, not to mention doing your shopping according to the shopping list your mother left on the fridge. But thankfully, any object just has to be similar enough to the prototype apple in our heads for it to count as an apple, small differences be damned. You can see this principle at work in little children, who will often call many different animals dogs because they all have four legs and so look similar enough.
If objects that were similar to begin with are treated as one thanks to attraction, what about those that are different from all known prototypes, or stuck between two of them? There’s always the option of acknowledging a new prototype, of course, and that is what children do (over time) to solve the multiple dog problem mentioned above. But we are social creatures, and unless someone gives us a helping hand in broadening our categories, we do not often make up our own. After all, it would not help us communicate much if we made up something nobody else would recognize.
This is where plan B, repulsion kicks in. It forcefully categorizes borderline cases as one of the more extreme variants on an ad hoc basis, even if they don’t really fit. It seems that to the human mind, mistakes are the lesser evil when compared to complete incomprehension and a resulting brain freeze. ‘Do you love me or hate me’ might be one line we’re used to hearing in soap opera fights between couples, but it demonstrates nicely how comfortable the mind is with narrow and radical thinking.
This basically explains Hime’s predicament – Japanese society only accepts two kinds of chocolate gifts, those romantic and those that are little more than common courtesy. No matter how complex the actual feelings behind a gift are, everyone’s interpretation will gravitate towards one of the pre-established molds. Any attempt at an explanation will be quickly shot down as wriggling out of giving a clear answer.
While the existence of a limited number of such molds makes communication within a single society much easier (or even possible in the first place,) it can be quite a headache when it comes to cross-cultural exchange. Everyone thinks their way of categorizing the world around is the obvious and natural way, but somehow different cultures ended up with different results. The Japanese have historically used one word, aoi, for both the colors blue and green, which basically means the two were considered different shades of the same color. On the other hand, they do have separate words for raw rice, fried rice, crushed rice, export rice, fresh rice, old rice, early-harvest rice, polished rice… and many more. You can often guess what the most important aspects of a given culture are through the density of some of its lexical fields. But the differences make translation errors and various misunderstandings between foreigners a common occurrence.
Personally, I always wonder why English doesn’t seem to have a common term for the numbers from 11 to 19, a staple in my own language…
On a side note, Yumeka has started a ‘Fundamentals of Japanese‘ series on her blog for everyone starting their study of the language or just looking for some trivia to make the anime experience even more enjoyable. One more reason to visit her blog. | <urn:uuid:eb6da7ac-6bdb-4eff-8e39-4a791fd284d4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://yaranakya.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/seventy-nine-percent-romantic-chocolate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021866360/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305121746-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957199 | 856 | 2.734375 | 3 |
|Product #: EMC0751070_TQ|
Daily Math Practice (Grade 2, Week 30) (Resource Book Only) eBookGrade 2
Please Note: This ebook is a digital download, NOT a physical product. After purchase, you will be provided a one time link to download ebooks to your computer. Orders paid by PayPal require up to 8 business hours to verify payment and release electronic media. For immediate downloads, payment with credit card is required.
This second grade math unit provides daily practice in computation and other skills (odd/even numbers, money, 2- and 3-digit addition & subtraction, patterns, shapes, data analysis, and more). On Friday, students solve a word problem using tally marks on a graph and complete their Daily Progress Record.
Submit a review | <urn:uuid:0b87a7b9-6bc0-4964-b3cf-5c298fec33ec> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.schoodoodle.com/home/sch/page_62826_4951/daily-math-practice-grade-2-week-30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678699721/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024459-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.850477 | 164 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Life at the surface of the Earth is protected from the harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation of the Sun by the stratospheric ozone layer. Over the last several decades, synthetic chemical compounds, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons, were developed to provide a new generation of refrigerants, insulating foams, fire retardants, and other products. Unfortunately, after extensive use of these compounds, it was discovered that they remain inert in the atmosphere until they reach the stratosphere, where they break down into an active form that destroys ozone. One chlorine atom originating from a CFC molecule can destroy thousands of protective ozone molecules.
Satellite and ground-based observations confirm that losses of ozone are occurring seasonally, particularly in the springtime polar vortex of the Antarctic stratosphere, leading to what is known as the ozone "hole." Also of concern is the more moderate ozone depletion observed in mid-latitudes, where a large portion of the Earth's population resides. In the absence of changes in clouds or pollution, decreases in atmospheric ozone will increase ground-level UV radiation.
Analyses of data related to human health, Antarctic marine phytoplankton production, and careful field and laboratory experiments on the impacts of elevated UV exposure, indicate that increased UV radiation at the surface could have substantial negative impacts on human health, fish populations, and many terrestrial and marine ecosystems. In humans and other animals, impacts include immune system suppression, increased incidence of serious sunburn, cataracts and epidermal lesions, reduced vitamin D synthesis, and cancer. In plants, exposure to enhanced UV radiation can inhibit the essential process of photosynthesis. Increased UV radiation can also influence agricultural productivity and cause deterioration of synthetic materials such as plastics.
Due to global recognition of the implications of ozone depletion, emissions of many CFCs and halons are to be phased out over the next few years. Global observations of CFC concentrations in the atmosphere indicate that actions taken in response to the Montreal Protocol and its amendments are having the desired effect. Atmospheric measurements of trichloroethane, a short-lived ozone-depleting substance, indicate that its concentrations are actually declining. | <urn:uuid:3dac386a-2a6f-48e7-add4-8c69a111c40a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.gcrio.org/ocp96/ch4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999650916/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060730-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935181 | 447 | 3.9375 | 4 |
Source: Babycenter Community
Ages: 4- 8+ years
Instructions:Materials you will need:
1. Gather a few rose leaves
2. Wash the leaves and dry them carefully.
3. Ash an adult to pour the hot water into the pan.
4. Carefully place the bowl inside the pan (make sure that the water does not get in the bowl).
5. Place some of the chocolate in the bowl (the heat from the water will melt the chocolate; it turns into a thick liquid).
6. Remove the bowl of chocolate from the pan (with the pot holder) and place it on the table.
7. Paint the chocolate onto the top of the leaves using the paintbrush
When the chocolate starts to cool, it turns back into a solid and takes on the shape of the leaves. Peel away the real leaves to reveal the new chocolate leaves.
Similar activities:Color Experiment, Balloon experiment, Slime Experiment, Water Experiment, Coin Experiment, Gyro Experiment, Leaf Experiment, Chocolate Covered Pretzels, Chocolate Dreidels, Chocolate Caramels, Chocolate Popcorn, Chocolate Bark, Chocolate Fudge, Food Batteries Experiment, Precipitation Science Experiment
8 more ways to have fun this winter
Coloring book pages | <urn:uuid:3a426db1-d497-471b-9648-7ee9d600313c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.babycenter.com/210_chocolate-leaves_5675.bc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999664754/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060744-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.826365 | 265 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Best Known For
Writer and aviation pioneer Anne Morrow Lindbergh was married to aviator Charles Lindbergh. The couple's child was kidnapped for ransom and murdered in 1932.
As World War II began to escalate, Anne Morrow Lindbergh, like her husband, also began to voice her opposition to America's entry into the war.
Watch a short video about Anne Morrow Lindbergh and discover which of her several books she was best known for.
As Charles Lindbergh began his family by marrying Anne Morrow, they tried to keep their life private despite constant interruption by the news media.
An inside look at the trial of Richard Hauptmann and the kidnapping and death of Charles Lindbergh's newborn son.
Think you know about Biography?
Answer questions and see how you rank against other players.Play Now
They eventually had five more children: two daughters, Anne (who died in 1993) and Reeve, and three more sons, Jon, Land and Scot.
Morrow Lindbergh's first book, North to the Orient, an account of one of the aerial voyages she made with her husband, became a bestseller in 1935. She went on to write more than two dozen works of prose and poetry, including five volumes of her own diaries. With Gift from the Sea, published in 1955, Morrow Lindbergh became a hero to millions of readers, especially women, for her thoughtful and lyrical meditation on the lives of women in the twentieth century. The book remained on the nonfiction bestseller list of The New York Times for a formidable 80 weeks, including 47 weeks at No. 1, and sold five million copies in hardcover and paperback during its first 20 years in print.
In the years leading up to the Second World War, Charles Lindbergh became greatly impressed by the growing power of Germany's air force. He visited Germany numerous times, even receiving a special decoration as a pilot from Hitler's Air Minister Hermann Goring at a state dinner in 1938. Back in the U.S., Lindbergh made a number of speeches advocating American neutrality during World War II, a stance that earned him a great deal of criticism, most notably from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and even drew charges of anti-Semitism. Morrow Lindbergh herself was criticized for the positive views she expressed about the leadership of Germany and Italy in her controversial 1940 book The Wave of the Future.
The Lindberghs lived as quietly and privately as possible in the years following the war, keeping homes in Connecticut and on the Hawaiian island of Maui. In his later years, Charles Lindbergh became an active supporter of various environmental causes, and Anne Morrow Lindbergh continued to write.
After Charles' death of cancer in Hawaii in 1974, Morrow Lindbergh moved back to Connecticut, where she spent most of the next 25 years living in seclusion and writing and editing her own diaries for publication. Anne Morrow Lindbergh died on February 7, 2001, in her home in Passumpsic, Vermont, at the age of 94.
© 2014 A+E Networks. All rights reserved.
profile name: Anne Morrow Lindbergh profile occupation:
Sign in with Facebook to see how you and your friends are connected to famous icons.
Your Friends' Connections
Included In These Groups
Famous Cancerians 589 people in this group
Famous Pilots 21 people in this group
Famous People Named Anne 17 people in this group | <urn:uuid:b06aee8d-aede-4bf9-8bfe-904b768a6a34> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.biography.com/people/anne-morrow-lindbergh-9542041?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010980041/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091620-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967939 | 715 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Yamato Shrimp – Caridina japonica
Species name: caridina japonica
Common name: Amano Algae Eating Shrimp, Amano Shrimp, Yamato Shrimp, Yamato numa-ebi, and Japanese Marsh Shrimp
Maximum size: 2 Inches / 5 cm
Coloration: Brown or opaque looking color. Small tan spots from lines down the back of the shrimp. Along its sides are small red dots forming broken lines from front to rear. Commonly there are a few black or white spots throughout the body of the shrimp.
Environment: Freshwater / Brackish Water
Origin: Yamato region of Japan
Company: Smaller tetra and community fish. No larger or aggressive natured fish.
Yamato Shrimp - Picture by Dragon Goby
Aquarium setup: Medium to heavy planted tank with stable water conditions. The shrimp will quickly adapt to freshwater and ph conditions but are susceptible to even low levels of ammonia and nitrites.
Feeding: Crab Bites, Algae, Filter Feeders of fallen food, black beard algae, brown algae
Breeding: Extremely hard to breed. Larvae must be hatched in brackish water than can slowly be acclimated to freshwater after the first week
Other Shrimp profiles:
Central American Cichlids
Frogs and Turtles
Lake Victoria Cichlids
Marine Aquarium Fish
Responsible Fish Keeping
South American Cichlids
Tropical Fish Food | <urn:uuid:92fe8049-26e7-4eb9-8c4b-e0198638bf56> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.aquaticcommunity.com/shrimp/amano.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678702159/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024502-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.768917 | 315 | 2.578125 | 3 |
The Histopolis Place-of-the-Day for Sunday, September 26, 2010 is Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas.
"Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery is located in San Antonio, Texas, adjoining the Fort Sam Houston Military Post. As early as 1846, the residents of San Antonio attempted to establish a permanent military facility in their town. During the Mexican War, the U.S. Army established a quartermaster depot at San Antonio and a training camp at San Pedro Spring. In 1849, San Antonio was named the headquarters of the U.S. Army, Eighth Military District and the Alamo was leased from the Catholic Church to use as a storage facility.
"A formal request for an Army post was made in 1870, but Secretary of War W. W. Belknap opposed it. As a result, funding was delayed until 1875 and construction of the fort on 93 acres donated by the city did not begin until June 1876. In 1885 and 1891, 43 acres and 60 buildings were added, respectively, to what would become the post. In 1890 the military post at San Antonio was re-designated Fort Sam Houston by President Benjamin Harrison. Prominent visitors to the post included Chief Geronimo, who was held there in 1886 before his exile to Florida and Theodore Roosevelt, who stopped with his men at the base to receive provisions before leaving for Cuba in 1898.
"By 1917 the installation had been raised to general depot status and was supplying the Mexican frontier, including troops engaged in General John J. Pershing's pursuit of Francisco “Pancho” Villa. In 1940, it was the largest army post in the United States and it served as a major internment center for prisoners of war during World War II. By 1949, Fort Sam Houston had 1,500 buildings on more than 3,300 acres and was the headquarters for the Fourth U.S. Army.
"Although the post was established in 1875, the land upon which Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery is located did not become a burial ground until approximately half a century later. Interments of men from the post were made in a portion of the city cemetery until 1867, when the United States acquired the tract by donation from the city government and designated it San Antonio National Cemetery. Even at that early date, the city completely surrounded the new national cemetery and the possibility for expansion was extremely limited. As the years passed, the number of military personnel grew with a corresponding increase in the number of post deaths. This created a need for more burial facilities.
"In recognition of this need, in 1924 a portion of the military reservation was set aside to be used as a post cemetery. The first interment was made two years later in 1926. On Aug. 6, 1931, the War Department announced the transfer of 60 acres, including the post cemetery, from the military reservation and designated the tract an addition to San Antonio National Cemetery. It retained this status until 1937 when the War Department formally renamed it Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. Remains from one-time frontier posts in Texas such as Fort Ringgold, Fort Clark, and Fort McIntosh were reinterred in Fort Sam Houston when those facilities closed in 1947."
Source: Cemeteries - Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery - Burial and Memorial Benefits
The Histopolis Grave Index for Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery contains 79,718 entries with 15,866 unique surnames.
Explore Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery on Histopolis now. If you have a place that you would like to see featured as the Histopolis Place-of-the-Day, contact the webmaster to suggest it. | <urn:uuid:3d158302-af04-41d4-9b84-1df30a78523a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.histopolis.com/PlaceOfTheDay.aspx?date=2010-09-26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678702159/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024502-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978483 | 750 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Better Students Ask More Questions.
How did the Federalists attempt to deny Republicans full control of the government in...
2 Answers | add yours
Middle School Teacher
Posted by askteacherz on April 28, 2011 at 7:24 PM (Answer #1)
The best known way in which the Federalist tried to do this was through the appointment of the "midnight judges" that led to the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison. They also did a couple of other things having to do with the judicial branch.
After being voted out of office, Pres. John Adams tried to increase the number of Federalist judges in important positions. To do this, he appointed 16 new judges as federal circuit judges and he appointed 50 other men as justices of the peace for the District of Columbia. In addition to doing this, Adams appointed his own Secretary of State, a man named John Marshall, to be the new Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Finally, Congress reduced the size of the Supreme Court from 6 to 5, effective with the next vacancy. This would preven Jefferson from appointing a successor to the next Justice who left the Court.
In these ways, the Federalists tried to keep control of the judicial branch after they were voted out of office in 1800.
Posted by pohnpei397 on April 28, 2011 at 11:15 AM (Answer #2)
Join to answer this question
Join a community of thousands of dedicated teachers and students. | <urn:uuid:731d9342-8248-4df8-98ab-185fb51964e1> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/how-did-federalists-attempt-deny-republicans-full-256205 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999651907/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060731-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976204 | 301 | 3.375 | 3 |
ACADIA NATURE NOTES
LADY'S SLIPPER or MOCCASIN FLOWER
May - June
Cypripedium acaule - Orchid family.
One of the loveliest harbingers of spring in the shaded woodlands.
The name "moccasin flower" is an excellent tribute to the American Indian who loved the same woodland haunts. The scientific name is literally Venus' Slipper.
The Orchid family is the most peculiar in the vegetable world in the structure of its flowers. It has three outer sepals and three inner petals of which one is peculiar in shape. This one is considered a petal although in the Lady's Slipper it is in the form of a pouch. Technically it is called the lip of the flower. This large lip is open with a narrow slit in the front, the edges of which are turned inward. This forms a trap easy to get into but hard to get out of. A bee enters this open door and once satisfied with nectar she looks for a way out. She finds a way but not the way she came in. At the top of the flower on either side of the column (a single organ formed by the stamens and petals united), she finds the passage out, just big enough to push through. In pushing out she brushes against the sticky pollen mass of the stamens and carries away some of it on her hairy sides. When she enters another flower, she deposits some of this pollen on the stigma of that flower, thus accomplishing cross-fertilization. Observers tell us that this contrivance is so elaborate that it often defeats its own end and the plants are propagated chiefly by the root.
Late May - Early June
Kalmia polifolia - Heath family.
Generally in bogs or on shores of cold ponds.
Found from Labrador to Alaska, also in Greenland.
Honey made from the Kalmia has been found to be poisonous. The foliage also is very destructive to cattle and sheep because it contains a dangerous substance which, when eaten, is more dangerous than strychnine. The Indians were familiar with the poisonous nature of the leaves and from them made a drink with which they committed suicide. The leaves are also brewed illegally to make a drink like cheap liquor.
Late May - August
Lathyrus maritimus - Pea family.
Trailing over the loose gravelly sea beaches of the Island is the Beach Pea.
Named after a similar plant of the bean family by the Greek botanist Theophrastus.
Often called Vetchling because of its resemblance to the field vetch.
The blossom also looks like cultivated sweet peas.
FRINGED POLYGALA or GAY-WINGS
Polygala paucifolia - Milkwort family.
Perennial. A delicate plant with very handsome rose-colored flowers, found in open woods, fields, and meadows of light sandy soils.
Pollinated by bees and bee-like flies. Nectar-bearing.
An old name composed of polus, much, and gala, milk, from a fancied property that increases this secretion.
The Polygala blossom is beautiful in form and color, but very puzzling in structure. This is due to the fact that the five sepals are neither symmetrical in shape nor alike in color. Three are greenish and of sepal like character, two drop their sepal look, become larger than the others and rose colored -- in short, group themselves with the petals.
Late May - early June.
Rhododendron canadense - Heath family.
"Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why
One of Acadia's finest flower shows comes the last week in May or early June when Great Meadow is one expanse of color. It is there that Rhodora comes into all her glory and with characteristic New England pride shows her gorgeous colors. She is typically New England and found in no other National Park.
Late May - June
Streptopus roseus - Lily family.
Found in cold moist woods.
Scientific name from the Greek for twisted foot.
This plant is often confused with Solomon's Seal and False Spikenard. The main points of difference are:
Solomon's Seal - Flowers drooping from leaf axils, in a regular row.
False Spikenard - Flower a plume of small blossoms at the tip of the stem.
Twisted Stalk - Flowers, usually solitary, nodding from leaf axils not in a regular row.
|<<< Previous||> Cover <||Next >>>| | <urn:uuid:1970e276-4de7-45e1-b656-935a389a5435> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/acad/notes/vol5-1g.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999651907/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060731-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944723 | 975 | 3.171875 | 3 |
The inverse square law describes how the brightness of an object appears to decrease with distance. The intensity, I, of light on the surface of a sphere of radius, r, with a point source of light at its center is:
where L is the total power output (luminosity) of the light source. According to the inverse square law, the amount of light from a star or a supernova collected by a telescope decreases as the square of the telescope's distance from the object. Thus, an object twice as far away will appear four times less bright. This relation between brightness and distance allows astronomers to determine the distance to standard candles by measuring their brightness. | <urn:uuid:9b6bed76-7096-4831-9d2a-f6bb8a008dfb> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.learner.org/courses/physics/unit/math_includes/unit11/math_1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999669324/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060749-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944318 | 134 | 4.0625 | 4 |
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - View original article
Born in Pinjarra, Western Australia, Fairbridge graduated from Queen’s University in Ontario and earned his master’s degree from Oxford. In 1941, he earned a doctorate in geology from the University of Western Australia.
He taught at Columbia University from 1955 until his 1982 retirement. While there, he was supervising editor for the Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences. In the early 1960s, he developed the so-called Fairbridge Curve. a record of changes in sea levels over the last 10,000 years.
|This Australian scientist article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.| | <urn:uuid:a4c7d94d-f427-4901-85c1-6f41550bda91> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blekko.com/wiki/Rhodes_Fairbridge?source=672620ff | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010491371/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090811-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93498 | 138 | 2.734375 | 3 |
posted with permission:
Geography in Classical Antiquity. By Daniela Dueck with a chapter by Kai Brodersen. Key Themes in Ancient History. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Pp. xvi + 142. Paper, $29.99. ISBN 978-0-521-12025-8.
Reviewed by Brian Turner, Portland State University
Pliny the Elder (NH 3.1.1-2) long ago bemoaned the near impossible task of writing about geography, an assignment which was, he wrote, “not easily handled without any criticism.” Recognizing the difficulty of encapsulating so much of human knowledge in a single volume, he claimed that he would neither “blame nor refute” any of his sources. Alas, Pliny did not have to write book reviews. It is, then, a relief to recommend Dueck’s brief but effective primer on the topic of geography in the Greek and Roman world. The pace and breadth of the text will require an active and prepared instructor (not to mention an array of supplementary readings) to help guide students through topics that are often only introduced and then overwhelmed by new concepts, developments, and items of evidence. But the topic of geography in antiquity relies on so much and so varied evidence-even (as I note below) more than the text emphasizes-that the authors can hardly be faulted for brevity in such a concise and necessary introduction.
The book consists of five chapters. A bibliography and index are by no means exhaustive but should at least offer students a starting point for the pursuit of further study. There is also a chronological table listing authors, texts, and principal events. Polybius might have preferred to be included in the 2nd rather than 3rd century bce (xi), and certainly Ammianus Marcellinus, since he is discussed in the text itself (50), deserves inclusion. But such quibbles aside, the table will helpfully introduce new students to the large number of texts available for the study of ancient geography.
The bulk of the volume is organized according to groups of sources rather than chronological development, so that the three main chapters deal with as many different approaches to the study of geography in antiquity. Chapter 2, “Descriptive Geography,” explores the presentation of geographic material in poetry, prose, and even travelogues including periploi, itineraria,and other more detailed travel narratives. The next chapter, “Mathematical Geography,” examines how ancient scientists “used numbers and calculations” (69) along with theoretical approaches regarding form and symmetry to determine the shape and size of the world as well as the nature of the peoples who inhabited it.
A description of how geographic coordinates, principally longitude and latitude, were calculated or estimated closes the discussion and offers a neat transition to the next chapter on the practice (or lack) of cartography in classical antiquity. Kai Brodersen (who wrote the chapter) warns readers of the dangers of applying a modern worldview that is too map-centric onto the ancients, and quite rightly concludes that the “pre-modern Greco-Roman world generally managed without maps” (109). The argument against the use of maps for practical purposes (e.g. for travel or military plans), however correct, tends to overpower the fact that cartographic depictions did exist in antiquity, even if only for the illustration of power and might. Even discounting the difficult problem of the form of Agrippa’s famous depiction of the orbis terrarum, there is more than enough evidence to illustrate mapping on a grand scale, especially during the Roman imperial period (for which see Richard Talbert’s chapter in Ancient Perspectives: Maps and Their Place in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome (Chicago 2012)). Although the precise form of such maps is beyond reconstruction, their existence and value should not be doubted.
Three principal themes, outlined in the first (“Introduction”) and final (“Geography in Practice”) chapters, underpin the entire work. Two of the themes are specifically introduced as such in the introduction (5). The first notes the reciprocal relationship between expansion, whatever its principal motives, and geographic knowledge. The second focuses on the comparison between Greek and Roman geographic knowledge, its development and its practical uses.
The third theme is not specifically introduced like the others, but it nevertheless dominates the volume and illustrates a fundamental element of modern discussions about the nature of ancient geography. With minor exceptions, the volume emphasizes text as the dominant medium through which geographic knowledge was created and transmitted. Though such a view appears throughout, it is, perhaps, best summed up in the volume’s final line: “All these [the motives, methods, and tools of geography] enabled these pre-modern societies to break new ground and to record their experience and thoughts in writing” (121). Brodersen’s warning (100) that pre-modern societies lacked the ability to copy and transmit illustrations such as maps should be taken as a warning against such textual emphasis and should offer a reason why we ought to expand and emphasize that non-literary evidence which does exist. As it stands, discussions of artistic creations do appear in the volume, but only fleetingly. The geographic and ethnographic information presented on the Sebasteion in Aphrodisias, for example, makes only a brief appearance at the beginning and end of the work (9 and 121) and is overwhelmed by the text’s conclusion that “geography” is predominantly understood as the “writing” about the earth.
In the end, this little book successfully enhances the curiosity of the reader. Even though it is meant to be a basic introduction, the book sparks debate. It is, therefore, a reflection of the difficulty and the potential of the topic, and is a most welcome addition to the ongoing discussion.
©2013 by The Classical Association of the Middle West and South. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:4a591aa9-d68a-41e6-9d90-8a4a14514c3a> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://rogueclassicism.com/2013/08/30/cj-online-review-dueck-and-broderson-geography-in-classical-antiquity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010491371/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090811-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938811 | 1,250 | 3.453125 | 3 |
what is Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis is the disease which affects the bones inside the body of the human beings. Osteoporosis can be defined as the condition which makes the bones porous due to lack of intake of calcium by the individual. This is the condition in which the bones of the patient become weak and light weight and they loose substantial amount of bone issues throughout the whole a skeleton of the patients suffering from the condition of Osteoporosis.
Osteoporosis can affect any individual and this is actually attributed to lack of concern and lack of intake of calcium knowingly or unknowingly by the individual patient.
Osteoporosis also generally affects women in their postmenopausal stage. The direct effect of the condition of Osteoporosis can be seen in the form of patient getting fracture in the bones very easily. Extra calcium supplement should be taken in order to prevent the condition of Osteoporosis. | <urn:uuid:6c2af0d8-a4fe-4e4d-9bbc-c7f25992b1c6> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://openegg.proweblog.com/archives/2009/01/21/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011278480/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092118-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945387 | 197 | 3.765625 | 4 |
The Big Issues - Background Summary
Animal-to-human transplantation: Should Canada proceed?
Xenotransplantation involves taking living cells, tissues or organs from one species of animal to another. This discussion is about transplanting from animals to humans.
- Doctors transplant living cells, tissues and organs from one human to another human. These transplants are used to treat diseases or to keep people alive after one of their organs has stopped working.
- Scientists are exploring transplanting animal cells, tissues and organs into humans. Organs include hearts, livers and kidneys. Cells and tissues might be used to treat diseases like diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
- Transplanting animal cells, tissues and organs into humans raises a lot of questions. Is this a good way to save lives and cure people? Is it safe? Who should pay for it? Should humans use animals in this way?
This paper looks at eight key issues.
- Issue #1: Is xenotransplantation needed?
- Issue #2: Will xenotransplantation work?
- Issue #3: How far should we go to save a life?
- Issue #4: Is there a risk to the public?
- Issue #5: What are the legal issues?
- Issue #6: Is it okay to use animals in this way?
- Issue #7: How much will xenotransplantation cost?
- Issue #8: What regulations would be needed in Canada?
Issue #1: Is xenotransplantation needed?
- In 1999, there were 3,544 people on waiting lists for organs in Canada but only 1,667 received one (including 378 kidneys donated by living people). More than 3 out of 4 people on the waiting list needed a kidney. The rest were waiting for livers, hearts, lungs or pancreases.
- About 3 out of 10 of these people die before an organ becomes available. It appears that the number of people waiting for organs will continue to grow as the number of people over the age of 60 grows.
- Compared to some other countries, very few organs are donated for transplants in Canada. This is partly because fewer people die from car crashes and gunshots than in other countries.
- Many people say Canada’s organ donation rate could be a lot higher. Perhaps more people would donate if they knew about the people on the waiting lists. Also, some of the organs that are donated are wasted because hospitals don’t have the time and money to get them to the people who need them.
- Some countries have an organ donor policy called “presumed consent.” This means that instead of leaving it to people to make sure the government knows they want to donate their organs when they die, it is up to the people who do not want to donate to tell the government.
- In some countries, human organs are sold. It is estimated that each year 200 to 300 Americans buy organs from poor people in developing countries. However, many people believe that selling human organs is wrong.
- Different ways to cure diseases and keep people alive are being studied. For example, some researchers are trying to build better artificial organs, such as mechanical hearts. Others are trying to grow organs using stem cells (cells that can develop into any type of tissue). This is very new, however, and a lot more work is needed.
- Preventing disease is one way to deal with the demand for organs, tissues and cells for transplant. Exercise, healthy eating and less alcohol and tobacco use are all ways to reduce disease and the need for organ transplants. These approaches take time, however, and there will still be people who need an organ, tissue or cell transplant to survive.
Issue #2: Will xenotransplantation work?
- Transplanting animal organs and tissues into humans has been tried many times in the past but most patients died soon after the transplant. The main problem has been “organ rejection.” The animal cells and organs are attacked and killed by the patient’s immune system.
- Some drugs can suppress a patient’s immune system so that the transplant can survive. These drugs have been used with human-to-human transplants. However, transplanted animal organs are more foreign to a patient’s immune system and the drugs have not yet worked for xenotransplants.
- Scientists are trying to make animal cells, tissues and organs more acceptable to humans by inserting human genes into animal cells. This is called “genetic modification.” Animals that carry human genes are called “transgenic” animals. Transgenic pigs have been developed and are being used for xenotransplantation research in Canada.
- Scientists in Canada are now experimenting with xenotransplants between two different species of animals, such as from pigs to baboons. Some experts think it is time to try xenotransplants with people but others say it is too early.
Issue #3: How far should we go to save a human life?
- Xenotransplantation raises several questions. Is it interfering with nature? Does it change what it means to be human? These same questions were asked 40 years ago when human-to-human transplants were new.
- The major religions do not have policies or formal opinions on xenotransplantation. It would seem that most religions would be willing to accept it if there is as little animal suffering as possible.
- Some people disagree with genetically changing animals. (See “transgenic” animals, above.) Arguments against genetic modification are that boundaries exist between species for their protection and that we do not know what may result from this in the future.
- Arguments for genetic modification are that it is just like animal breeding and selection and that genes change on their own over time.
Issue #4: Is there a risk to the public?
- No technology or medical procedure is risk free. Scientists do not yet know about all the risks of xenotransplantation. However, the biggest risk may be transferring animal diseases to patients, who may then transfer these diseases to other people. An animal infection transferred to humans is called “zoonosis.”
- There is no evidence that past experiments of animal-to-human transplants led to zoonoses. However, most patients died before there was time to develop symptoms.
- Scientists now know more about zoonotic infections. For example, HIV (which causes AIDS) almost certainly originated as an ape or monkey virus that infected humans. Scientists also know that “retroviruses” in animal cells can also infect human cells and exist for many years before any symptoms are shown.
- Because animals like apes and monkeys are the most similar to humans, their diseases tend to be most easily transferred to humans. Apes, monkeys, humans, chimpanzees and baboons are called “primates.” Non-primates can also cause zoonotic infections. Ten patients with diabetes were transplanted with pig cells in Sweden in 1993. They developed antibodies to pig viruses but none has become sick from them.
- Many scientists now think that pigs are the best animals to use for xenotransplantation. Pigs for xenotransplantation are being bred in germ-free laboratories but scientists have not been able to produce pigs with no viruses. Because drugs will be used to suppress a xenotransplant patient’s immune system, animal infections may easily survive in the patients. Transgenic pigs with human genes may transfer pig viruses and diseases to people more easily.
- Today, it is impossible to say exactly what will or will not happen with xenotransplantation because scientists do not have all the answers. Some say the only way to get the answers is by carefully experimenting with human volunteers or “clinical trials.” Others do not think it is worth the risk to the public.
Issue #5: What are the legal issues?
- One of xenotransplantation’s major legal questions involves “informed consent.” This means that xenotransplantation volunteers would probably have to understand and agree to rules that would limit their freedom. The rules would try to protect the public from infectious diseases that may result from xenotransplantation.
- No country has finalized these rules yet, but patients may have to agree to:
- never travelling outside their country or region,
- never having children,
- identifying all their sexual partners to authorities,
- never donating blood,
- being monitored by authorities for as long as they live, and/or
- having a post-mortem after death.
- Because it could take years for a zoonotic disease to develop, patients would probably never be allowed to change their mind about agreeing to all the rules. New laws may have to be created to enforce these rules. Some experts believe the rules would be impossible to enforce.
- Other legal questions include:
- Who decides what risks are acceptable?
- Who is responsible if something goes wrong?
Issue #6: Is it okay to use animals in this way?
- Primates, pigs, dogs, rabbits and rodents are currently being used in large numbers for xenotransplantation research all over the world.
- Pigs are the first choice for xenotransplantation because they are easy to breed, have the right size of organs for humans and are less likely to transmit diseases than primates.
- There are different opinions about how animals should be used by humans. Some people accept any use of animals, such as for food, labour, clothing and experiments. Some accept certain kinds of uses, such as for medical experiments but not cosmetic and chemical testing. Others feel that animals are not for humans to eat, experiment on or use for clothing or entertainment.
- Opinion polls show that most people accept some use of animals, especially if they are not treated cruelly and there is a direct benefit to humans.
- Animals being raised for xenotransplantation live in cages in sterile laboratories to reduce the risk of infection in humans.
Issue #7: How much will xenotransplantation cost?
- At this time, no one knows for sure how much xenotransplant would cost if it is accepted as a medical treatment for humans.
- A xenotransplant would probably cost at least as much as other transplants. The cost of a kidney transplant in British Columbia is about $20,000 plus $6,000 a year for the anti-rejection drugs. The average cost of a heart transplant is said to be $80,000. Ontario spends about $47 million a year on organ transplants and that amount is expected to more than double in four years.
- The cost of xenotransplants would also include the cost of breeding, feeding, housing and collecting the organs and tissues, as well as the cost of monitoring patients and studying the effects over time.
- Xenotransplants may reduce the cost of treating people waiting for organ transplants. For example, transplanting a kidney costs less than dialysis treatment over five years.
Issue #8: What regulations would be needed in Canada?
- New laws and regulations would probably be needed if xenotransplantation becomes an accepted medical treatment.
- Clinical trials of any kind (with human volunteers) can only take place with Health Canada’s permission. The decision is based on safety, quality, effectiveness and the expected results. The Minister of Health can ban xenotransplantation tests with human volunteers to protect the public health.
- There are no Canadian laws that specifically protect animals used for xenotransplantation. Some provinces have laws about how animals can be used for research and experiments but there is no federal law. Canada’s Criminal Code has a provision that forbids “causing unnecessary pain, suffering, or injury to an animal or bird.”
- The Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) investigates all new substances before they can be sold in Canada. This is to make sure new products are safe to the environment and human health. This would include animal tissues and organs for xenotransplantation. | <urn:uuid:f768e71f-127c-473d-9f7f-cc9cd2b74a9c> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.cpha.ca/en/activities/xeno/background-summary.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011278480/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092118-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961838 | 2,532 | 3.3125 | 3 |
What is it?
Rhubarb is an herbal medicine used to treat diarrhea (low doses) and constipation (higher doses). Teas made from Rhubarb may help an infection caused by bacteria.
Other names for Rhubarb include: Rheum officinale Baill, Rheum palmatum, Chinese Rhubarb, and Da Huang. Garden rhubarb is also known as Rheum rhaponticum.
Ask your doctor, nurse, or pharmacist if you need more information about this medicine or if any information in this leaflet concerns you.
Tell your doctor if you
- are taking medicine or are allergic to any medicine (prescription or over-the-counter (OTC) or dietary supplement)
- are pregnant or plan to become pregnant while using this medicine
- are breastfeeding
- have any other health problems, such as high blood pressure or heart or blood vessel disease
Talk with your caregiver about how much Rhubarb you should take. The amount depends on the strength of the medicine and the reason you are taking Rhubarb. If you are using this medicine without instructions from your caregiver, follow the directions on the medicine bottle. Do not take more medicine or take it more often than the directions tell you to.
To store this medicine:
Keep all medicine locked up and away from children. Store medicine away from heat and direct light. Do not store your medicine in the bathroom, near the kitchen sink, or in other damp places. Heat or moisture may cause the medicine to break down and not work the way it should work. Throw away medicine that is out of date or that you do not need. Never share your medicine with others.
Drug and Food Interactions:
Do not take Rhubarb without talking to your doctor first if you are taking:
- Blood thinning medicine (examples: warfarin (Coumadin(R)), clopidogrel (Plavix(R)), aspirin, enoxaparin (Lovenox(R)), dalteparin (Fragmin(R)))
- Before taking Rhubarb, tell your doctor if you are pregnant or breastfeeding
- Do not take Rhubarb without talking to your doctor first if you have intestinal (gut) problems, including hemorrhoids, or have kidney stones or urinary problems
- Do not take Rhubarb longer than 8 to 10 days
- Rhubarb leaves can be poisonous and should not be eaten
- Children less than 12 years should not take Rhubarb, except under the direct supervision of your healthcare giver
Stop taking your medicine right away and talk to your doctor if you have any of the following side effects. Your medicine may be causing these symptoms which may mean you are allergic to it.
- Breathing problems or tightness in your throat or chest
- Chest pain
- Skin hives, rash, or itchy or swollen skin
Other Side Effects:
You may have the following side effects, but this medicine may also cause other side effects. Tell your doctor if you have side effects that you think are caused by this medicine.
- Bloody diarrhea or blood seen in vomit (throw up)
- Large amounts of Rhubarb may cause vomiting, stomach cramps, or diarrhea
1. Bradley PR (ed.): British Herbal Compendium, vol. 1. British Herbal Medicine Association, Bournemouth, UK; 1992.
2. Brinker F: Herb Contraindications and Drug Interactions, 2nd ed. Eclectic Institute, Sandy, OR; 1998.
3. Mabey R (ed): The Complete New Herbal. Elm Tree Books, London, UK; 1988.
4. Chevallier, A: The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Plants. DK Publishing Company, New York, NY; 1996.
5. Frohne D & Pfander HJ: A Colour Atlas of Poisonous Plants. Wolfe Pub, London, UK; 1984.
6. Mitchell J & Rook A: Botanical Dermatology. Greengrass, Vancouver, BC; 1979.
7. McGuffin M, Hobbs C, Upton R et al (eds). American Herbal Product's Association's Botanical Safety Handbook: guidelines for the safe use and labeling for herbs in commerce. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL; 1997.
8. Norred CL & Brinker F: Potential coagulation effects of preoperative complementary and alternative medicines. Alt Ther 2001; 7(6):58-67.
Last Updated: 1/4/2011 | <urn:uuid:484d58ef-f1ec-4c4d-aaed-da0585f137f8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.methodisthospital.org/_layouts/encyclopedia/Thomson%20Alternative%20Medicine/48/10147.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011278480/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305092118-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.86192 | 948 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Geothermal energy is increasingly contributing to the power supply world wide. Iceland is world-leader in expanding development of geothermal utilization: in recent years the annual power supply here doubled to more than 500 MW alone in the supply of electricity. And also in Germany, a dynamic development is to be seen: over 100 MW of heat are currently being provided through geothermal energy. Alone in the region of Travale, in the pioneering country Italy, a team of european scientists have localizied geothermal reservoirs, holding a potential comparable to the effectiveness of 1.000 wind power plants. This is one of the results presented at the international final conference of the project „I-GET” (Integrated Geophysical Exploration Technologies for deep fractured geothermal systems) in Potsdam. The aim of this European Union project, in which seven european nations participated, was the development of cutting-edge geophysical methods with which potential geothermal reservoirs can be safely explored and directly tapped.
Read more …. | <urn:uuid:f18d1279-cb19-4d73-a4f8-f3b0240de41e> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://techknowbits.com/intelligent-use-of-the-earths-heat/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394023865238/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305125105-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919489 | 206 | 3.03125 | 3 |
How does sudo work internally? How is it possible that it can become root without having the root password, unlike su? What syscalls, etc. are involved in the process? And why is however sudo does it ...
I want one administrator to be able to edit the /etc/fstab file but one administrator to not be able to edit the fstab file. Both administrators need access to all other administrative tasks. Is ...
There are two unix accounts A and B.I want to execute a unix command from account B such that the command behaves as if it was executed from account A .How can I do this ? The problem here is that ...
I have a rackspace server and I'm having problems with configuration. I need to lock it down and throw away the key, because right now I can only login with root to do anything substantial. I also am ...
I would like to have the root account in safety even if my unprivileged user is compromised. On Ubuntu you can only use sudo for "security reasons" by default. However I am not sure it is any safer ... | <urn:uuid:c680b2a6-c284-48c5-95d1-8cf03aeb30ef> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/sudo+privileges | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678703748/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024503-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957278 | 227 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Swimming is the second most popular sports activity in America and one of the best aerobic exercises. It can increase stamina and boost lung performance, because it is easy to do longer workouts in the water, and the controlled breathing of strokes helps increase lung capacity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that swimmers have about half the risk of death as inactive people.
Three Weekly Workouts
You can swim any stroke to get a good workout, but the President's Council on Physical Fitness recommends workouts of at least 20 minutes at least three times a week. If you are not a trained swimmer, get basic stroke instruction at a fitness center, including proper breathing technique. Always get a physical checkup before starting any new exercise program.
Begin a swim training program slowly, both in speed and distance, and increase workouts gradually. Warm up with stretches before you get in the pool. Start swimming your easiest stroke. Most swimmers exercise with the basic crawl, but some find the breaststroke easier. Rest at every pool length at first, then increase the number of lengths between pauses as your body adapts.
Use swim intervals to increase both stamina and lung capacity. Once your body has adapted to a basic swim workout, intersperse intervals of higher intensity. Swim one length as fast as you can, pause, then swim a normal length back. This "overload principle" will gradually accustom your body to working harder. Increase the length and intensity of intervals gradually to build stamina.
Control your breathing so you take in as much air as possible on each stroke. Build your lung capacity by altering your breathing pattern. Breathe only every other stroke, for instance, as your capacity increases. Do this also in intervals. Breathe every stroke for one length, every other stroke the next. Change strokes to help with breathing -- you may find it easier to breathe on breaststroke, for instance.
Your aerobic power or maximum oxygen uptake will increase with training. Studies show that training 30 minutes three times a week for six months can increase VO2 max by 15 to 20 percent, but these results can vary widely with age, body size and sex. Men have higher maximums and lower body fat percentages than women.
- Sports Fitness Advisor: VO2 Max, Aerobic Power& Maximal Oxygen Uptake
- President's Council on Fitness: Exercise and Weight Control
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Health Benefits of Water-Based Exercise
- American College of Sports Medicine: Aerobic High-Intensity Intervals Improve VO2 max More Than Moderate Training
- European Journal of Applied Physiology: The VO2 Slow Component in Swimming
- Peak Performance: The "Slow Component" of VO2
- Fitness magazine: Insider's Guide to Swimming
- Senior Stamina: Top 10 Exercises to Increase Stamina | <urn:uuid:22681b77-6b6d-4fac-9070-7eed382128bf> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://healthyliving.azcentral.com/swimming-increase-stamina-lung-capacity-5818.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010554119/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090914-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923308 | 574 | 3.078125 | 3 |
The second Multi-Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) for the International Space Station (ISS), named Raffaello, is moved out of the "Beluga" Super Transporter at the Shuttle Landing Facility. One of Italy's major contributions to the ISS program, the MPLM is a reusable logistics carrier and the primary delivery system used to resupply and return station cargo requiring a pressurized environment. Weighing nearly 4.5 tons, the module measures 21 feet long and 15 feet in diameter. Raffaello will join Leonardo, the first Italian-built MPLM, in the Space Station Processing Facility for testing. NASA, Boeing, the Italian Space Agency and Alenia Aerospazio will provide engineering support. (Photo Release Date: 08/05/1999 )
KSC-99PP-1015 - Raw ASCII Text Caption file
KSC-99PP-1015 - Low (GIF Format, 320x240 pixels x 256 colors, approx 50 Kbytes)
KSC-99PP-1015 - Medium (JPEG format, 1024x768 pixels x 256 colors, approx 250 Kbytes)
KSC-99PP-1015 - High (JPEG, 2040x2640 pixels x 16 million colors, approx 400 Kbytes)
STS-100 KSC Photo IndexNext Image KSC-99PP-1016
DISCLAIMER: No copyright protection is asserted for these photographs.
If a recognizable person appears in this photograph, use for commercial purposes may infringe a right of privacy or publicity. It may not be used to state or imply the endorsement by NASA of a commercial product. These photographs are available for preview and download in electronic digital form ONLY. They may not be ordered from NASA in photograph form. (See NASA Copyright Notice) | <urn:uuid:3f71ff3b-73e4-4245-a0ba-3747bb0ba9ed> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://science.ksc.nasa.gov/shuttle/missions/sts-100/images/captions/KSC-99PP-1015.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010554119/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090914-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.787873 | 372 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Find the Latest Resources in Education Today
Five tools every science teacher should use
Scott Barber, a 7th grade science teacher in the Berea City School District in suburban Cleveland, Ohio, shares five ed-tech tools worth using in the classroom.
I encourage and promote the educational use of mobile devices in my classroom. These powerful and mobile devices need to be used in all levels of education. Students need to experience using their personal devices in an educational setting on a daily basis.
In my science class mobile phones are great for collecting data via pictures/video, conversion tools, as a calculator, and as personal organization/reminders. Moreover, there are an array of educational apps that can be used on mobile phones.
Remind101 is a free web/app texting service for one way communication to parents and students. This useful app has become a critical communication tool that has really bridged the conversation outside of school. Remind101 can transform how a teacher communicates with students and parents.
Twitter has allowed me to connect and share with teachers, educational professionals, organizations, and others to access and share ideas, resources, and information that directly impacts the quality of education in my classroom. Tweets containing data in the form of pictures, graphs, and charts have made their way into the classroom and are part of discussion, analysis, and assessments. I make it a point to model for students that social media can have a positive impact on teaching and learning.
Moodle is an open source virtual learning environment. Moodle broke down the walls of the traditional classroom and extends the opportunity for learning, sharing, collaborating, and communicating outside of the 50 minutes that students spend in my classroom. Students have embraced and taken ownership of our class Moodle resource to realize that active learning doesn’t always need to happen face to face. I can’t imagine teaching without the virtual complement to the regular classroom.
With the implementation of Common Core Standards and Next Generation Science Standards finding a variety of free high quality aligned resources can be challenging. PBS LearningMedia has quickly become my go to content resource.
Have great tech essentials you’d like to share with readers? Send your contribution here.
Scott Barber is a 7th grade science teacher in the Berea City School District. | <urn:uuid:67aeb768-92e5-4e3b-9716-592276089d94> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.eschoolnews.com/2014/02/17/tools-science-teachers-441/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010554119/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305090914-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941456 | 462 | 3.640625 | 4 |
The best guess of neuroscientists and psychiatrists is that this happens because of a major transformation in our brains at that point in life.
[R]emarkable changes occur in the brain as it prunes away neuronal connections and makes the major transition from childhood to adulthood. Irwin Feinberg, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and director of the UC Davis Sleep Laboratory [tells us], "Our outcome confirms that the brain goes through a remarkable amount of reorganization during puberty that is necessary for complex thinking." Feinberg explained that scientists have generally assumed that a vast number of synapses are needed early in life to recover from injury and adapt to changing environments. These multiple connections, however, impair the efficient problem solving and logical thinking required later in life.From here.
A study together with two related prior studies of the same children described in the linked story above tracked EEG readings of sleeping children over ten years (for two nights ever si months) has directly documented this transition taking place.
EEG fluctuations during the deepest (delta or slow wave) phase of sleep, when the brain is most recuperative, consistently declined for 9- to 18-year-olds. . . . This led the team to conclude that the streamlining of brain activity — or "neuronal pruning" — required for adult cognition occurs together with the timing of reproductive maturity. . . . [S]ynaptic density in the cerebral cortex reaches its peak at age 8 and then begins a slow decline. The recent findings . . . confirm that the period of greatest and most accelerated decline occurs between the ages of 12 and 16-1/2 years, at which point the drop markedly slows.
"Discovering that such extensive neuronal remodeling occurs within this 4-1/2 year timeframe during late adolescence and the early teen years confirms our view that the sleep EEG indexes a crucial aspect of the timing of brain development," said Feinberg.Psychosis, the leading theories to explain it hypothesize, happens when defectively thin connections between different parts of the brain lack enough capacity to distinguish between true sensory signals and noise, leading to cognitive hallucinations as the mind tries to make sense of mere random noise, or emotional whiplash as false triggers for mood changes cascade into intense mood swings that have no real environmental basis.
In childhood, the excess of synapes in place before adolescent pruning of synapses provide enough excess connective capacity to make adequate signal-noise distinctions in the brain. But, when this excess synaptic capacity is pruned in adolescence, the too thin connections that remain can no longer do their job and the descent into psychosis begins.
The finding also have relevance for educators and parents.
The synapses that survive the pruning the adolescence are the ones the brain sees being used at the time.
Some kinds of learning, perhaps foreign language learning, mathematics, musical ability and the task of being able to override "what you think you see" to draw what you actually see, all require considerable brain plasticisty that is at its peak from ages eight to twelve, and may be profoundly more difficult to master at age seventeen and beyond. Our peak learning capacity may be in the late elementary and middle school years, with our ability to learn many kinds of things greatly diminished by the time we are college aged.
Given that developmental reality, it may be foolish to focus immense economic resources and attention of the best higher educational system in the world, while leaving elementary and middle school education to happenstance with far less attention and far fewer resources. | <urn:uuid:056d039e-c678-4b6b-a6bf-e4ea725758b4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2013/03/why-does-psychosis-manifest-when-it-does.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94195 | 719 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Garbose Surname History
The family history of the Garbose last name is maintained by the AncientFaces community. Join the community by adding to to our knowldge of the Garbose:
- Garbose family history
- Garbose country of origin, nationality, & ethnicity
- Garbose last name meaning & etymology
- Garbose spelling & pronunciation
Latest photos on AncientFaces
No one from the Garbose community has shared photos. Here are new photos on AncientFaces:
Garbose Country of Origin, Nationality, & Ethnicity
No one has submitted information on Garbose country of origin, nationality, or ethnicity. Add to this section
No content has been submitted about the Garbose country of origin. The following is speculative information about Garbose. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The nationality of Garbose is often very difficult to determine in cases which country boundaries change over time, making the original nationality a mystery. The original ethnicity of Garbose may be in dispute based on whether the surname came about naturally and independently in various locales; e.g. in the case of family names that are based on a profession, which can appear in multiple places independently (such as the name "Brewster" which refers to a female brewer).
Garbose Meaning & Etymology
No one has submitted information on Garbose meaning and etymology. Add to this section
No content has been submitted about the meaning of Garbose. The following is speculative information about Garbose. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
The meaning of Garbose come may come from a craft, such as the name "Fisher" which was given to fishermen. Some of these trade-based last names might be a profession in some other language. Because of this it is useful to know the country of origin of a name, and the languages used by its ancestors. Many names like Garbose come from religious texts such as the Bhagavadgītā, the Bible, the Quran, and so on. In many cases these family names relate to a religious sentiment such as "Grace of God".
Garbose Pronunciation & Spelling Variations
No one has added information on Garbose spellings or pronunciations. Add to this section
No content has been submitted about alternate spellings of Garbose. The following is speculative information about Garbose. You can submit your information by clicking Edit.
In times when literacy was uncommon, names such as Garbose were written down based on their pronunciation when people's names were written in government records. This could have resulted in misspellings of Garbose. Surnames like Garbose transform in their pronunciation and spelling as they travel across tribes, family unions, and countries across time. Understanding misspellings and spelling variations of the Garbose family name are important to understanding the etymology of the name.
Last names similar to GarboseGarboshian, Garbosin, Garboske, Garboski, Garbosky, Garbosnik, Garboso, Garboss, Garbossa, Garbosso, Garbot, Garbota, Garboti, Garbotini, Garbotoff, Garbotow, Garbotsch, Garbotschenko, Garbott, Garbotta
Garbose Family Tree
Here are a few of the Garbose biographies shared by AncientFaces users. Click here to see more Garboses
- Sarah Garbose 1884 - 1982
- Madeline Garbose 1913 - 1975
- Abraham Garbose 1897 - 1983
- Samuel Garbose 1896 - 1983
- Dora Garbose 1900 - 1987
- Gertrude Garbose 1886 - 1982
- Bertha B Garbose 1900 - 1989
- Esther Garbose 1910 - 2005
- Samuel Garbose 1922 - 2004
- William Garbose 1915 - 1994 | <urn:uuid:9416d488-b953-4b8e-8722-22ae5d3f1804> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.ancientfaces.com/surname/garbose-family-history/342329 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930102 | 839 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Convert between kilograms or grams and other major units of mass.
The unit of mass in SI, equal to the mass of the International Prototype Kilogram, a platinum-iridium cylinder kept by the BIPM at Sèvres, France. The present definition dates from the 1901 3rd CGPM, though the Prototype was made in the 1880's. About 2.2046 pounds avoirdupois. Symbol, kg.
The kilogram is one of SI's seven base units. It is unique in being the only SI unit still defined by a physical prototype, and the only one that incorporates one of the decimal multiplier prefixes in its name. To be completely consistent, the gram should have been the unit of mass.
In 1989, the CIPM interpreted the 1901 definition of the kilogram to make it the mass of the International Prototype just after it has been washed using procedures newly developed by the BIPM.1 Without such cleaning, the Prototype gains almost 1 microgram per year.
The standards which most accurately reflect the mass of the International Prototype are kilogram standards. The masses of submultiple standards (e.g., gram standards) and multiples are all necessarily less certain.
Work has continued on replacing the definition that depends on the perishable Prototype with one based on fundamental physical constants. Recommendation 1, passed at the 94th meeting of the CIPM in 2005, anticipated that the kilogram would be redefined at the 24th CGPM in 2011. At that meeting (Paris, October 2011), the CGPM, in resolution 1, while not yet ready to redefine the kilogram and many other units, gave much fuller details of the form the redefinitions will take.
The value of the Planck constant will be made a matter of definition, rather than something to be determined experimentally. The new value will be exactly 6.626 06X × 10−34 joule-seconds, where X stands for one or more yet-to-be-determined digits.
In SI base units, the Planck constant is meter2 kilogram second−1. The second has been fixed by defining the frequency of light emitted by certain cesium atoms. The meter has been fixed by defining the speed of light. So defining the numerical value of the Planck constant fixes the size of the kilogram. Upon redefinition, the mass of the International Prototype will be 1 kg with a relative uncertainty equal to the recommended value of Planck's constant just before the redefinition. In the future, the prototype's mass will be determined experimentally.
The new definition will not be adopted before 2014 at the earliest, and, in any case, will have no effect at all on everyday life. Its purpose, besides freeing us from dependence on an artefact, is to give scientists the extra decimal places needed for some types of investigations.
1. Procès-Verbaux des Séances du Comité International des Poids et Mesures, vol. 57, pages 104-105 (1989) and Procès-Verbaux, vol. 58, 95-97 (1990).
history of the kilogram
future of the kilogram
The kilogram originated in the reforms of the French Revolution. Conceptually, it was to be the mass of a cubic decimeter of water at water's maximum density. It was originally called a grave, but the name was changed to kilogram in 1795. In the same year Lefèvre-Gineau was given the job of determining just how massive a cubic decimeter of water was. In the meantime, a provisional kilogram was made which was expected to be close enough to the final value for commercial purposes.
The method that Lefèvre-Gineau chose depends on the principle that the difference between the weight of an object in air and its weight immersed in water is the weight of the water it displaces. He made a hollow brass cylinder, just heavy enough to sink in water, whose dimensions were measured repeatedly. After corrections were made for changes in size due to thermal expansion, the cylinder's volume was calculated to be 11.28 cubic decimeters at 0°C. To weigh the cylinder, special weights were made of brass of the same density as the brass of the cylinder, to compensate for the buoyancy in air of the weights.
After months of subtle and precise work, the researchers concluded that the mass of a cubic decimeter of water at its maximum density was 99.92072% of the mass of the provisional kilogram.
To create platinum standards for the new system of weights and measures, the former royal jeweller, Marc Etienne Janety (Janetti), was recalled to Paris. (He had fled when the revolution started.) By 1796 he was making kilogram masses. One of these, a cylinder 39.4 millimeters in diameter and 39.7 millimeters high, was legally declared the official prototype of the kilogram in 1799. Since then it has been called the Kilogramme des Archives.
In the 1870s the French government sponsored a series of conferences (1870, 1872) to discuss how metric standards ought best be designed, produced and distributed. One of the conference's conclusions was that new standards ought to be made of a platinum-iridium alloy rather than pure platinum. The first attempts to do so were failures. The Metric Convention (1875), which led to the establishment of the BIPM, gave fresh impetus to the work, and preparation of the alloy was entrusted to the London firm of Johnson, Matthey, who specialized in precious metals. They did succeed in casting the alloy, the French produced standards from it, and the new standards were ready for distribution before the first CGPM in 1889. This conference recognized one of the new platinum-iridium standards—the one whose mass most closely matched that of the Kilogramme des Archives—as the new prototype of the kilogram. It is that object, made in the 1870s, which is referred to as the International Prototype Kilogram.
Modern measurements of the mass of water have shown that a cubic decimeter of water has a mass that is about 28 parts per million less than a kilogram—but that doesn't matter, because the kilogram hasn’t been defined in terms of the mass of a cubic decimeter of water since 1799, when the Kilogramme des Archives was accepted as the unit’s prototype.
Gerrit Moll, writing in 1831, on variations in the mass of the early standards for the kilogram.
The continued dependence of the kilogram on a physical prototype makes metrologists uneasy. The last time the International Prototype Kilogram was compared with the national standard kilograms, (1988 – 1992), it was less massive than the average of the masses of the national kilograms. The probable explanation is that the Prototype's mass has decreased, for some unknown reason, by about 30 micrograms over the past century. Besides, because of the risk of damaging it, the unique prototype can't be used very often—the use being comparisons with the various national standards laboratories' standard kilograms. Although currently the prototype meets all needs for accuracy, physicists have been searching for a way of defining the kilogram in terms of fundamental physical constants.
A means of defining the kilogram in terms of electric units has been proposed by B. P. Kibble at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington, England, and explored there and at the United States’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. The method uses a movable coil of wire in a magnetic field and exploits the precision with which the volt and ohm can now be defined using quantum effects. From measurements of the coil's velocity, the acceleration due to gravity, the coil's velocity, and the current and voltage in the coil, the mass of the coil can be calculated. As of 1993, the accuracy was not as good as that obtained with the Prototype Kilogram, but in the future this or some similar technique is bound to lead to a definition that will supplant the Prototype Kilogram.
Terry J. Quinn.
The kilogram: The present state of our knowledge.
IEEE Transactions on Instrumentation and Measurement, volume 40, pages 81-85. (April 1991)
R. Steiner, E. R. Williams, D. B. Newell and R. Liu.
Towards an electronic kilogram: an improved measurement of the Planck constant and electron mass.
Metrologia, vol. 42, pages 431-441. (2005)
NIST on the “electronic kilogram”:
NIST on the redefinition of the kilogram:
Copyright © 2000-2011 Sizes, Inc. All rights reserved.
Last revised: 26 October 2011 | <urn:uuid:034a1b31-6f09-4bc7-a841-4314fb25af05> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.sizes.com/units/kilogram.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011076681/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091756-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938115 | 1,815 | 3.75 | 4 |
For a nation obsessed with fitness, it’s a small wonder that so many Americans manage to keep gaining weight. Despite an ever-growing choice of diet products and weight-loss programs, more and more Americans are losing the struggle against an expanding girth—or not fighting it at all. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, rates of obesity surged 60 percent during the past decade and, today, one in five Americans is considered obese, or 30 percent above his or her ideal weight.
People who are serious about effectively battling obesity have generally turned to fitness instructors or nutritionists. But at Yale, fat is also the stuff of serious science, pursued by nearly 100 epidemiologists, pediatricians, endocrinologists, biologists, nurses, biochemists and psychologists, among others. They are all part of the Yale Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center, led by Robert S. Sherwin, M.D., the C.N.H. Long Professor of Medicine and past president of the American Diabetes Association. Founded in 1993 with a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Yale diabetes center provides the infrastructure for an active interdisciplinary team representing 16 departments. Its mission is not to trim the American waistline but to find ways to prevent and treat an often-serious consequence of obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus.
Type 2 diabetes occurs when beta cells in the pancreas lose their ability to produce enough insulin to compensate for defects in glucose metabolism. Unlike type 1 diabetes, an autoimmune disease that destroys the beta cells and all of the body’s insulin-making ability, type 2 diabetes leaves patients capable of producing insulin but unable to use it effectively. This can result in kidney and heart disease, stroke, blindness, nerve damage and loss of limbs. In 1997, the American Diabetes Association (ADA) estimated that 16 million Americans had diabetes. According to Sherwin, the number has increased by at least 6 percent a year since then, largely in tandem with the rise in obesity.
Worse, type 2 diabetes, long thought of as an adults-only illness, is now striking increasing numbers of young people, particularly Native Americans, African-Americans, Asians and Latinos. “We are seeing obesity running rampant, particularly in young adults,” says Sherwin. “It’s a major health problem that has gotten increasingly worse in the past five years.”
The Yale group has focused its efforts on understanding the biology of type 2 diabetes and on crafting strategies to prevent its occurrence in key groups of patients at risk for the disease. These approaches draw in a diverse group of investigators who are interested in everything from the biochemical pathways of glucose metabolism to the best ways to encourage at-risk children and older adults to exercise and follow a healthy diet.
In vivo biochemistry
Gerald I. Shulman, M.D., Ph.D., has spent the past 15 years exploring the cellular mechanisms of insulin resistance, the defect in the body’s ability to use insulin that characterizes type 2 diabetes. Insulin resistance has been shown to be the best predictor for whether or not an individual with a family history of type 2 diabetes will go on to develop diabetes. Recently, his team proposed a new mechanism to explain how an excess of fatty acids in the bloodstream increases the risk of diabetes by interfering with glucose metabolism. “Clearly too much fat is bad for you and somehow it interferes with insulin’s ability to stimulate glucose uptake into skeletal muscle. We wanted to know how,” says Shulman. To find out, he and collaborators including Douglas L. Rothman, Ph.D., Kitt F. Petersen, M.D., Robert G. Shulman, Ph.D. (no relation to Gerald) and Gary W. Cline, Ph.D., have used the tools of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to perform what Shulman calls “in vivo biochemistry in real time.” Their techniques allow researchers to measure metabolic changes noninvasively and with much greater sensitivity than was possible before.
“In the old days, we would have had to perform muscle biopsies to assess the concentration of a metabolite in a particular tissue. Even then we wouldn’t have had nearly as clear a picture of what was going on inside the cell because a cell doesn’t behave the same once you remove it from the body,” says Shulman, the associate director of the Yale Diabetes Endocrinology Research Center, professor of medicine and of cellular and molecular physiology, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator.
An example of the power of the NMR technique was recently demonstrated in a study in which his group used it to measure the amount of fat inside the muscle cells of normal volunteers. They found that higher levels of such intracellular fat are the best indicator of whether or not an individual is insulin resistant.
In order to determine the way in which fatty acids trigger the chemical defects that interfere with insulin’s ability to stimulate glucose transport, the Yale researchers infused fatty acids into healthy volunteers and found that they could induce insulin resistance temporarily within five to six hours—demonstrating an inverse link between the presence of fatty acids and the body’s ability to metabolize glucose. In subsequent studies the Yale team found that excess fatty acids block insulin’s ability to activate phosphoinositol 3-kinase, a key enzyme responsible for mediating insulin’s capacity to stimulate glucose transport. This is the same step that the Yale scientists, in a study published last year in The New England Journal of Medicine, found to be defective in patients with type 2 diabetes. Further research into this pathway could lead to the development of new drugs that are more precisely targeted and carry fewer side effects.
In another study, the Shulman group examined whether or not exercise training might be able to reverse the defect in insulin-stimulated glucose transport in the offspring of patients with type 2 diabetes. In 1995, Shulman’s team demonstrated that exercise alone can reduce or reverse this abnormality. In that study, also published in The New England Journal, the team examined 10 sedentary adults whose parents had both developed type 2 diabetes and who consequently faced a 40 percent lifetime risk of getting the disease themselves. All of the subjects were insulin resistant but none was obese. The exercise routine consisted of three 15-minute sessions on a stair-climbing machine, four times a week for six weeks. The researchers gave the volunteers glucose intravenously and took blood samples to monitor how well they processed sugar. After one workout, the muscle cells’ ability to store glucose improved by 69 percent; after six weeks, by 102 percent. At the end of the study, insulin sensitivity, the ability of the body to use its own insulin, improved by 43 percent. “It’s clear that exercise training can reverse the major defect responsible for insulin resistance in these individuals,” says Shulman, “and that it is likely to be an effective means in preventing or even reversing type 2 diabetes.”
An aggressive approach to treatment
While researchers including Shulman are doing the kind of basic research that leads to new drugs, clinicians are working directly with people vulnerable to the disease, especially children.
“There have never been so many obese children,” says Sonia Caprio, M.D., associate professor of pediatrics in the section of endocrinology. She has shown that excess weight clearly carries with it the risk of type 2 diabetes. Last year at the ada meeting in San Antonio, Caprio reported that 19 percent of 180 children she tested during the course of treatment for weight disorders had impaired glucose tolerance. “That is not to say that all these children will become diabetic—because it’s not too late,” she says. “If they do improve their weight and increase exercise, they can prevent it.”
Still, a decade ago it was rare for more than 5 percent of all pediatric diabetes cases to manifest themselves in the type 2 form of the disease; most children had type 1 diabetes. Today, in some clinics that number has soared as high as 40 percent, according to Caprio. The phenomenon is so new that epidemiologists haven’t yet compiled national statistics by age. To understand what is happening, Caprio began a five-year study last year to determine the metabolic reasons behind the explosion of new cases of type 2 diabetes in children. “We want to learn more about the pathway and where the defect is,” she says.
Meanwhile, the race is on to find better ways to treat this new subset of patients before complications set in. Because people with type 2 diabetes usually develop it in middle age, complications often do not arise until their 60s or 70s. For the pediatric patients, the prospect of kidney failure or cardiovascular disease may come decades earlier, in their 30s or 40s.
In August, Caprio was awarded a $3.5 million grant over seven years as the principal investigator at Yale for a multicenter trial to compare standard medical therapies such as insulin and glucophage to newer drugs that have not yet been used in children and adolescents. These include inhaled insulin, insulin sensitizers and insulin secretagogues such as nateglinide. “We propose to be very aggressive in treating the disease in children, rather than taking the usual, laid-back approach,” Caprio says. “It used to be the case that you would try to improve diet a little and try a little exercise. But in 10 years, the pancreas is out of shape and the damage is done.”
At the other end of the age spectrum are participants in studies conducted by Loretta A. di Pietro, M.P.H. ’85, Ph.D. ’88, an associate professor of epidemiology and public health and associate fellow at the John B. Pierce Laboratory in New Haven. Working with adults 60 and older, she is studying how fat is deposited and teasing out the differences between the physical changes caused by normal aging and those attributable to lack of exercise. Di Pietro is in the midst of a study including dozens of female volunteers at Heritage Village retirement community in Southbury, a 45-minute drive from her office at Yale. The aim is to study the impact of nine months of exercise training on hormonal regulation and sugar and fat metabolism. Participants agree to provide blood samples and muscle biopsies that will yield information about precisely how exercise seems to reverse or prevent insulin resistance.
The women are divided into three groups. One group does high-intensity aerobic training, jogging on mini-trampolines at about 85 percent of their maximum capacity as measured by heart rate. The second group jogs at moderate intensity. The third group, considered the placebo group, does stretching, tai chi or yoga. The mini-trampolines provide aerobic exercise without the jarring impact of running on the ground. About five women can work out at a time, which di Pietro says makes the routine more fun and motivates the women to continue exercising when the study is completed.
Fat in the abdominal area, which increases postmenopausally due to the drop in sex hormones, is linked to an increased risk of diabetes, says di Pietro, who is expanding the study to senior centers in New Haven and West Haven. These fat deposits, the deep kind that cover tissues within the abdominal cavity, are much more metabolically active than fat cells in the thighs and buttocks. In addition, there is a decline in both the quantity and quality of muscle mass with aging and disuse.
Researchers theorize that when abdominal fat is broken down, it goes directly to the liver, where it interferes with insulin function and glucose metabolism. di Pietro and research assistant Jodi Crimmins, M.S., are studying hormonal responses to exercise and, in particular, the effect of exercise on growth hormone, insulin-like growth factor and cortisol and how these hormonal changes relate to improvements in whole-body glucose metabolism. The goal is to study how much exercise a subject must perform to garner the anti-diabetes effects. Are there gains after one bout of exercise or is long-term training necessary? Is moderate-intensity exercise sufficient? Must one exercise a little bit every day or is one intense training session a week just as good?
As any dieter knows, gaining weight is a breeze compared to losing it. The reason, as is becoming increasingly apparent, has more to do with the evolution of the human species than with gluttony. Humans evolved into a sturdy species because of an inherited ability to prevent starvation, says Sherwin. “We evolved on a planet where food was scarce and you had to work hard to get it. You needed a gene pool to hold onto calories.” In other words, those who survived long enough to produce offspring were able to pass along their calorie-hoarding genes. Those who dropped pounds easily died young. That was good for the survival of the species but is frustrating for those trying to lose weight today.
Recent clues derived from studying the basic biology of the fat cell are lending credence to this theory. Several studies have shown that when individuals reduce their food intake, they also slow metabolism and increase their appetite, thereby negating the impact of fewer calories. Hunger and metabolism are controlled by an intricate system of hormonal signals to and from within the brain. A minor shift in this chemical balance can have a dramatic impact on weight loss or gain.
For instance, a slight change in the hormonal milieu could prompt a craving for, say, an extra hundred calories a day and lead to a gain of 10 pounds in one year. Multiply that by five years, and the average-sized person becomes obese. Sherwin and others at Yale have been studying how leptin, a protein signal released by fat cells, controls appetite. The name for leptin, identified in 1994 by scientists at Rockefeller University, comes from the Greek word leptos, which means thin, and its discovery prompted speculation that a better diet pill was on the way. Further research has revealed a much more complex picture, and many questions remain to be answered about leptin and its role in controlling appetite.
Sherwin has shown that leptin acts by binding to receptors in specific regions at the base of the hypothalamus, triggering a cascade of hormonal changes. The leptin cascade, he says, “is a complex system that seems to have an enormous impact on how much we eat.
“Theoretically, if a person has too much fat, the body would stop eating; if there is not enough, the body would increase feeding,” says Sherwin. The problem is that individuals who are obese appear to have an altered set point for leptin. “It takes more leptin to shut off feeding. Then you go on a diet and leptin drops, so you want to eat again.” Researchers hope these insights into the leptin receptor will lead to a new approach to weight loss, perhaps a drug that would latch onto the receptor and minimize appetite without slowing metabolism.
As for the genetically blessed—those annoyingly lean people who eat whatever they want without gaining an ounce—scientists have a hunch that they may be endowed with more so-called brown fat than white fat. According to this theory, supported by animal studies, brown fat cells, so named because they have a redder hue due to an increased blood supply, burn calories faster than do white fat cells. The goal, then, for drug-makers would be to somehow increase the proportion of brown cells, promoting fat burning rather than storage.
“We are trying to turn the tables on millions of years of evolution,” says Sherwin. “We are not doing too well yet, but at least we are beginning to understand and recognize the problem.” | <urn:uuid:f126a9ad-e459-4879-b110-19baf6c8b0a4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://medicine.yale.edu/publications/yalemedicine/autumn2001/features/feature/53829 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678664178/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024424-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955893 | 3,275 | 3 | 3 |
It's hard to imagine Roger Federer or Serena Williams pulling a wooden racquet out of their bag at Wimbledon, but they're not as ancient as you might think.
Tennis racquets are now made with ultra-light materials
The centuries old sport of tennis has seen many changes in the size and shape of its racquets.
Curved heads, square heads, triangular heads - players have tried just about every variation down the years to try and hit that ball as sweetly as possible.
But the really exciting changes came during the late 20th century.
The 1960s: Wood v Metal
Early racquet strings were made from animal gut. Some of the best ones still are today, but they're mostly made from synthetic material
The tension of the strings on a racquet is almost as important as the choice of frame.
High tension in the strings gives more control and spin, while less tension equals more power
Top players usually have their racquets restrung after every match
Tennis technology took off in the 1960s, when Wilson developed a revolutionary racquet called the T2000.
Made of steel and with a round head, the T2000 was lighter and moved quicker through the air than its wooden contemporaries.
American legend Jimmy Connors used it for most of his playing career, and it helped him win Wimbledon in 1982.
In 1968 Spalding launched an aluminium racquet, called The Smasher.
Aluminium is lighter and more flexible than steel, but stiffer - and therefore less accurate - than wood.
Because of this, most of the top players still preferred to use wooden frames - and a decade later they were still in use.
They certainly worked for Bjorn Borg. The Swedish legend won 11 Grand Slam titles in the 1970s and 80s using a wooden racquet.
The 1980s: A new breed
In 1982 Dunlop launched the Maxply McEnroe - a racquet that combined the accuracy of wood with the increased power and durability of fibreglass.
New balls, please
1902: Each ball was hand sewn and no two were alike. Balls were made from rubber with wool cloth covering
1929: Balls made using a vulcanising process and by cementing the cloth onto the core
1937: Special refrigerated container is introduced to maintain the correct temperature of the balls
1954: Nylon-Armour introduced. This was a coating on the covering to improve wear and prolong playing characteristics
1986: Yellow balls are used at the Championship for the first time to make visibility easier for players, spectators and the television audience
2002: The ball is treated with a water repellent barrier called Hydroguard. Great for the British weather!
The racquet was a big success, but the emergence of a new material meant the days of the wooden frame were numbered. The last wooden racquet appeared at Wimbledon in 1987.
The new material in question was graphite.
Still used by the stars of today, graphite is a form of carbon fibre that can be used to make racquets on its own, or combined with other materials such as fibreglass.
Graphite racquets have all the advantages of wood with none of the drawbacks.
They are strong, light, powerful and durable - and they can always be relied upon to hit the required shot.
Hitting the 'sweet spot'
To make this easier, oversize racquets were introduced in the early 1980s.
As the name suggests, the racquet heads are larger which means they have bigger 'sweet spots'.
The downside is they're harder to control, and better players usually choose smaller head sizes.
For many, the one thing that makes today's game different from 20 years ago is the huge increase in power.
Technology has undoubtedly played a big part, in particular the development of the wide body racquet.
Wider than a traditional racquet, this design provides added power but reduces flexibility. It's a hugely popular racquet, but not everyone is impressed.
Past tennis greats like John McEnroe have complained that the modern game is too reliant on power and boring to watch as a result.
The likes of Andre Agassi, Roger Federer and Maria Sharapova might just disagree! | <urn:uuid:b57255c1-6d48-401a-a697-5744ec960c01> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/rules_and_equipment/4227178.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678664178/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024424-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972233 | 890 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Water is still running, but that doesn't change the fact that we're in a drought.
"We've never seen water levels this low before," Dave Nelms, USGS Groundwater Specialist says.
This well is in McGaheysville, it's one of two in the Valley that are used to test the groundwater...here it's 10 feet lower than it's ever been.
"It's important because in the Valley it's a major supplier of home water supplies," Nelms says.
There are 270 of these wells across the state; most are only tested once a month, is that enough?
"You're not going to know if you're going to lose your water supply-it is one well so it's monitoring a small area, but it gives you a general idea," Nelms says.
This is a real-time well. A measurement is taken electronically every three hours, that means more up to date information and less chance for problems.
In Pennsylvania there's a real time well in every single county with the most up to date information about the drought, in Virginia there's only two in the whole state.
The closest one is in Clarke County.
"We talked to the county and told them it would be beneficial to convert this to a real-time and they gave us the funds," Nelms says.
"Is it possible Rockingham could get a real time gage? Sure all they have to do is contact us," Nelms says.
In the meantime, to measure the drought, the USGS relies on the number of wells that have run dry, which is now more than 4-thousand across the state, also other wells and stream flow gages.
Stream flow and ground water are one system...this gage can show if there's a problem with either one.
"The streams tend to peak right after a rainfall and then quickly go down and that's telling you the groundwater supply is low," Nelms says.
There are five of these gages in the Valley...both them and the wells can be monitored on the Internet.
"Really what people will want to look at is how this well responds in the winter and we will also look at the precip. and snowfall," Nelms says.
All that matters is keeping the groundwater up.
"Just as long as it doesn't go below the bottom of the well so we can't measure it," Nelms says.
Rockingham County is looking into getting a real-time well. Which is good news. But, in the meantime, you can go to va.water.usgs.gov for the most up to date information.
whsv.com Extended Web Coverage
Virginia Drought Impact
Impact on Public Water Systems
Impact on Surface and Ground Water
- Mandatory water restrictions are in place in most of the Commonwealth due to Executive Order #33. Only southwest Virginia, parts of northern Virginia and the Eastern Shore are not included in the order.
- Reservoir and stream levels that support public water supplies have improved slightly since late August. The town of Orange is anticipating a water shortage emergency within two weeks. The town has made emergency plans to pipe water about 20 miles from a location near Culpeper using a surface laid pipeline.
- The Albemarle/Charlottesville and Portsmouth public water supply reservoirs are approaching 50 percent capacity.
- Ground water-based public water supplies in Amherst, Appomattox, Augusta, Botetourt, Caroline, Clarke, Fluvanna, Fauquier, Loudoun, Nottoway, Shenandoah and Warren counties have reported dropping ground water levels or reduced yields.
- Streamflows in the Shenandoah, Potomac, James and Roanoke River Basins are generally below the normal range of flow observed during September but above monthly minimum levels.
- Streamflows in the Chowan, Kanawha, Big Sandy and Tennessee River Basin are in the normal range of flow. However, the low levels of ground water storage will speed the decline in these streamflows without additional precipitation.
- Ground water levels continue to decline. Levels of large reservoirs such as Smith Mountain Lake, Kerr Reservoir and Philpott Reservoir continue to decline despite variances to required minimum discharges. Lake Moomaw is currently operating under a reduced release that is supplying less than one half of the flow measured in the James River near Richmond. Streamflows over the majority of the Commonwealth are well below levels expected in August. Record minimum flows for the period are expected at streamgauges in the Shenandoah, Rappahannock, York, James and Chowan River basins.
- Virginia Department of Health issued over 2,900 private well replacement permits for private water supply wells that have failed since July 1. Average water conservation savings at large public water supplies of six to 12 percent have been reported since the implementation of the Governor's Executive Order #33 on Aug. 30.
- The Department of Environmental Quality met with large users on the Roanoke River on Sept. 19 to begin discussions regarding allocating the limited flow in this river.
Impact on Agriculture
- Scattered rainfall during the last month did little to improve the agricultural conditions across the state. Without significant sustained rainfall soon, the agricultural situation in Virginia will continue to deteriorate creating major problems for farmers over most of the state. The lack of subsoil moisture may prevent the planting of many fall crops.
- The number of federal drought disaster designation requests submitted to Gov. Mark Warner more than doubled between August and September, from 30 to 73. The requests come from 60 separate counties, with 13 submitting a second request for additional damages experienced since their original submissions.
- The U.S. Secretary of Agriculture has approved primary disaster designation for 10 of the localities (Bedford, Brunswick, Buckingham, Cumberland, Fluvanna, Goochland, Louisa, Orange, Prince Edward and Rockbridge counties) and denied disaster designation for six localities (Augusta, Bland, Nelson, Page, Rockingham and Wythe counties) whose loss of production did not meet the 30% federal requirement.
- Thirty-eight contiguous counties were also approved for federal assistance and eight localities that received primary designation have also received secondary designation.
The Governor has requested federal designation for 40 other localities whose approval is still pending. Damage assessment reports (DAR) are pending from USDA for 17 localities (Albemarle, Alleghany, Amelia, Amherst, Campbell (2nd request), Charlotte, Chesterfield, Culpeper, Dinwiddie, Essex, Fauquier, Isle of Wight, Louisa (2nd request) Prince George, Pulaski, Scott and Warren counties).
Impact on the Environment
- Light rainfall during September has helped to minimize short-term wildfire activity across the state. In spite of the much-needed rain, drought indices remain higher than normal throughout the Commonwealth and statewide conditions are again favorable for increased and extended wildfire activity.
- The Department of Forestry has cancelled all prescribed burning projects in support of the Governor's executive order and is urging other concerns to follow suit.
- Due to significant drops in stream and lake levels throughout most of the state, access at boat ramps and fishing piers is increasingly limited and recreational opportunities are reduced. Of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' 225 public boat access sites, 131 still support normal launching, 71 report low water but may be used, 19 report no water on ramp but hand launching of small boats is possible and four are closed for repairs.
- There has been some increased fish mortality at one Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' trout hatchery and fish stress levels have increased at all hatcheries. Flows at trout rearing facilities have decreased by 20 to 40 percent in the past eight weeks. Though there have been no drought-related fish kills reported in public waters, private pond owners have reported very low levels and some ponds have dried up resulting in loss of fish. | <urn:uuid:dcbd38c6-a233-478a-9d15-23ad435fb9ba> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.whsv.com/home/headlines/136782.html?site=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394678705051/warc/CC-MAIN-20140313024505-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957832 | 1,664 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Astronomy is related to the scientific study of the universe, the motions, positions, and behavior etc. of astronomical objects. The theory follows the laws of nature.
Astronomy accurately describes and predicts natural phenomena. Therefore research in it is considered as science.
In a nutshell Astronomy adheres to the scientific method, and accurately describes and predicts natural phenomena.
Astrology is the study of the positions of the planets in the belief that their motions affect human beings and their behavior. It is belief that the nature is outside the realm of science. Therefore research in astrology is considered as pseudoscience.
In astrology consistent observations leads to theories and hypotheses about natural phenomena that results in false predictions. | <urn:uuid:4f0c7df9-8c66-49b0-b189-a2b1854946a4> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.chegg.com/homework-help/the-sciences-an-integrated-approach-6th-edition-solutions-9781118009635 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999674642/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060754-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933998 | 145 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Gut-wrenching fears of snakes and spiders may start early for many women. Before their first birthdays, girls but not boys adeptly learn to link the sight of these creatures to the frightened reactions of others, a new study suggests.
Neither infant girls nor boys link happy faces with snakes and spiders, reports study author David Rakison of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in an upcoming Evolution & Human Behavior. Youngsters of both sexes also don’t tend to associate images of flowers and mushrooms with either fearful or happy faces, he finds.
Note: To comment, Science News subscribing members must now establish a separate login relationship with Disqus. Click the Disqus icon below, enter your e-mail and click “forgot password” to reset your password. You may also log into Disqus using Facebook, Twitter or Google. | <urn:uuid:557ce5cb-7658-4ebf-bf6f-ba3691805e75> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | https://www.sciencenews.org/node/13263 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1393999674642/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305060754-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87094 | 173 | 3.1875 | 3 |
On the cuteness scale, few things compare to a tiny puppy who is brand new to the world. Birth is a miraculous thing, magical to witness. A mother dog instinctively prepares for her young, and she begins to care for her puppies once they arrive. Tragically, stillbirth is a part of life, and just as instinctively, a mother dog seems to know what to do.
The Stillborn Pup
The wriggling litter has arrived, and the new mother takes action, but one puppy isn't moving. Oftentimes, a new mother will consume the stillborn puppy seemingly in an act of cannibalism -- while this may be hard to understand, the mother dog is doing what's best for her surviving pups. If she doesn't eat the puppy, she will likely remove it from the birthing nest and move it away, or try to bury it in the house. The mother dog is driven to this behavior by the same instinct, to protect her living young.
Doing What is Best
If the mother fails to tend to her deceased pup, remove it from the whelping area. Not doing so can cause harm or even death to the entire litter, especially if the puppy is infected with canine herpesvirus. A sexually transmitted disease, canine herpesvirus can be spread multiple ways. It can transmit to the unborn puppy through the placenta and during birth through vaginal secretions. It can also turn airborne and be inhaled by the surviving puppies. Once puppies show signs they've contracted the virus, most die within 24 to 48 hours.
In order to determine the stillborn's cause of death, a veterinarian can perform a necropsy. Similar to the autopsy, this process can rule out canine herpesvirus, and the information obtained can assist in post-birth care of the surviving puppies should they become ill. Whether or not the puppies and their mother show any sign of trauma or illness, all should be seen by a veterinarian.
The Choice to Spay
Perhaps the best way to avoid stillbirth, and potential disease to newborn puppies, is to have your dog spayed. This not only controls pet overpopulation, but it can add to the longevity of your dog's life. Spaying your female pet helps control undesirable behavior, and can help avoid numerous health issues. A female, when spayed prior to entering her first heat cycle, has a nearly zero possibility of developing mammary cancer and has a lower risk of developing uterine cancer. Whether or not you choose to spay, proper veterinary care is always the best bet for increasing your pet's chance of having a long and happy life with you, her best friend.
- Comstock/Comstock/Getty Images | <urn:uuid:7c97130e-39be-4275-a8b9-577bddca5889> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://dogcare.dailypuppy.com/momma-dog-her-stillborn-puppies-5374.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010650250/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091050-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953264 | 554 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Creating the Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement (CIRCLE) Project
Historically, many Native American nations had effective, socially centered systems of governance. With the growing dominance of western culture, indigenous methods of governance and social control began to wane. By the
late 20th century, these losses combined with other impacts of colonization could have contributed to significant crime and
public safety problems in Indian Country. Reports of violent crime, victimization, domestic abuse, drug-related crime and
gang activity dominated the conversation about reservation policing.
In response to these concerns, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) began to look for better ways to support law enforcement
and public safety in Indian Country. It invested in several initiatives to strengthen Native American nations' law enforcement
and justice systems and, through evaluation, began to learn from them. These federal initiatives included:
- The Tribal Strategies Against Violence Program.
- The Indian Country Justice Initiative.
- Tribal partnerships in the Weed and Seed programs.
With the U.S. Department of the Interior, DOJ convened the Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Enforcement Improvements to make recommendations to the President for improving safety in Indian Country. DOJ also recognized more American Indian
tribes as eligible recipients of grant funds.
DOJ's efforts led to a three-year collaborative funding initiative known as the Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community
and Law Enforcement (CIRCLE) Project. The CIRCLE Project provided $46.4 million in grants between federal fiscal year 1999 and fiscal year 2001 to the Pueblo of Zuni, Northern Cheyenne Tribe and Oglala Sioux Tribe. Tribes were encouraged to use grant funds to:
- Buy equipment and computer technology.
- Hire and train law enforcement personnel.
- Build corrections facilities.
- Enhance tribal courts.
- Create or improve juvenile justice programs.
- Improve victim services for women and children.
A system of governance is "a set of rules — institutions — that societies put in place to organize themselves and get done
what they need to get done, and the mechanisms they use to implement and enforce those rules" (Manley A. Begay, Stephen Cornell,
Miriam Jorgensen and Joseph P. Kalt, "Development, Governance, Culture: What Are They, and What Do They Have to Do with Rebuilding
Native Nations?" in Miriam Jorgensen (ed.), Rebuilding Native Nations: Strategies for Governance and Development, Tucson:
University of Arizona, p. 41.)
See, for example, International Association of Chiefs of Police, "Improving Safety in Indian Country: Recommendations from
the IACP 2001 Summit," Alexandria, Va., October 2001.
The CIRCLE Project — the Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement — was a partnership of several
agencies in the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) with the Northern Cheyenne Tribe, Oglala Sioux Tribe and Pueblo of Zuni to
strengthen the tribes' criminal justice systems. As part of the initiative, the National Institute of Justice and its DOJ
partners funded an evaluation of the CIRCLE Project. Learn more about the CIRCLE Project and its evaluation.
Funds came from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, Corrections Program Office, Bureau of Justice Assistance,
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office for Victims of Crime, Office on Violence Against Women Office,
and Office of the Comptroller. Some of this money would have been invested in Indian Country anyway; however, the native nations
that participated in CIRCLE received between 40 percent and 400 percent more from participating DOJ agencies than comparable
Date Modified: January 20, 2010 | <urn:uuid:ae26ae18-7849-49b2-964f-262b37581dd0> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.nij.gov/topics/tribal-justice/circle/Pages/origins.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394010650250/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091050-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921123 | 774 | 3.015625 | 3 |
If kids who live in close proximity to farm animals seem to develop asthma at lower-than-average rates, can urban or suburban children reap the same benefits by acquiring a dog or cat?
That was our first question after reading a recent WSJ story by Shirley Wang, which covered a study suggesting the greater variety of microbes farm kids are exposed to seem to be beneficial. The first author of the study told Wang that conventional house pets wouldn’t likely offer the same benefit; the pig and cow exposure seemed to confer the benefit.
The theory behind the general “hygiene hypothesis” is that we’re all born with a predilection for allergies, but early exposure to microbes can help tilt the developing immune system in the other direction, says Leonard Bielory, an allergist and immunologist at Rutgers University’s Center for Environmental Prediction and director of the STARx Allergy and Asthma Center. “The more sterile the environment, the more [the disposition to allergies] remains,” he tells the Health Blog. All this happens in the first couple of years of life.
Leonard Bacharier, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Washington University School of Medicine and a co-author of a 2003 commentary on pets and childhood asthma published in Pediatrics, says the jury is still out on whether early life exposure to furry domesticated pets can help fend off asthma — studies have come down on either side of the question. Not all varieties of dirt and grime — from cat dander to cockroaches to dust mites — are helpful, he says. “There are very specific things [prompting] very specific immune reactions,” he says.
And we don’t yet know exactly what’s important. One theory is that endotoxin, a component of a certain type of bacteria found in the feces of animals, notably farm animals, is the beneficial element. But endotoxin levels may just be a marker for exposure to bacteria, Bacharier says.
One thing is certain: exposing older kids to pets in the hopes of preventing or ameliorating allergies or asthma isn’t going to help, and in the case of existing disease, will likely hurt. The 2003 commentary says that while pediatricians shouldn’t recommend removing furry pets from a home before a baby comes along, “it seems a poor choice to suggest that parents with asthma acquire cats or dogs before a child is born in an attempt to prevent future allergic disease, as siblings or the parents themselves may be sensitive and have more illness because of the pets.” Nor is bringing a pet into a home “consistently and completely protective,” it says. | <urn:uuid:603f62c6-a09f-4695-bbc0-a4c28456f440> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://blogs.wsj.com/health/2011/02/25/can-living-with-dogs-or-cats-prevent-asthma-in-kids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942794 | 556 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Depleted uranium may post health hazardMay 9th, 2007 in Medicine & Health / Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes
A U.S. study suggests exposure to particles of depleted uranium might increase the risk of genetic damage and lung cancer.
Depleted uranium is the material remaining after removal or depletion of the U-238 isotope. With a density about twice that of lead, depleted uranium is ideal for use in military armor and munitions.
But now John Pierce Wise Sr. and colleagues at the University of Southern Maine have discovered depleted uranium dust produced in combat creates potentially frequent and widespread exposure for soldiers and non-combatants inhaling such dust particles.
In their study, the researchers tested the effects of depleted uranium dust on cultures of human lung cells.
"These data suggest that exposure to particulate DU may pose a significant genotoxic risk and could possibly result in lung cancer," the scientists said.
The study is to be reported in the May 21 issue of the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
Copyright 2007 by United Press International
"Depleted uranium may post health hazard." May 9th, 2007. http://phys.org/news97907711.html | <urn:uuid:83b4fb1d-fb08-474f-879e-2de90ae2cdd8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://phys.org/print97907711.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908021 | 243 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Who Discovered America Before Christopher Columbus?
I learned in school that Columbus discovered America but that is not true. Who discovered America before Christopher Columbus? I'm writing an essay and for part of it I need to know who discovered America.
How do we know that Christopher Columbus really discovered America? Everyone recognizes that many people were in America long before Columbus.
Also some mention other people came to America first but they weren't so interested in invading the territory so they left and never came back.
Did the Chinese people find America before Christopher Columbus? | <urn:uuid:abdb8643-d5e0-4e5e-becf-39dd2a793cc8> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://uaddit.com/discussions/showthread.php?t=15700&goto=nextnewest | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958207 | 111 | 3.078125 | 3 |
COLUMBIA — Looking for a new and more effective method for delivering important messages about HIV/AIDS to teens, USC researchers turned to the graphic novel format.
Aiming for a story line that would grab those readers, they turned to students at the Department of Juvenile Justice for ideas. The result is “AIDS in the End Zone,” a graphic novel that relays a story of high school sports, teen jealousy and unprotected sex to teach about HIV/AIDS.
Coming up with new and effective methods for getting out the message are among the goals of National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day, which is today.
Kendra Albright and Karen Gavigan, research professors in USC’s school of library and information science, plan to give the graphic novel format a test drive this spring. They’ll talk with teens during special events at local library branches — asking them questions about HIV/AIDS before and after they read the graphic novel.
“AIDS in the End Zone” certainly is a non-traditional way to get across a health safety message. Graphic novels use a comic book-like format to tell a story. At 34 pages, this one takes five to 10 minutes to read.
Albright is a believer in tailoring the message to the audience. During her HIV/AIDS research work in Africa, the most effective way to reach Ugandans was via radio and drama. That makes sense in a country with a strong tradition of oral history, she said.
Some efforts to disperse HIV/AIDS information to African-American adults in South Carolina have focused on barbershops and hair salons, where many topics traditionally have been discussed.
Albright and Gavigan thought graphic novels seemed appropriate for broaching HIV/AIDS talk with teens. They recruited illustrator Sarah Petrulis to ink the novel. Tailoring the message to the teen age group, however, seemed beyond the professors.
“What can two white, middle-aged women say to African-American teens that they will listen to?” Albright said.
For ideas, they went to the Department of Juvenile Justice’s school in Columbia, where about 900 students in grades 4-12 attend classes while incarcerated or detained. Over eight weeks of discussion, the students came up with characters, a plot and a moral message to go with the health lesson.
A new student moves to a fictional South Carolina town and takes over as the quarterback for the high school football team. The spoiled rich kid he replaces at quarterback plots to punish him. The former quarterback decides to set up the new guy with a young woman who only a few kids at the school know is HIV positive.
The students worked on character development, coming up with family backgrounds for each of the main characters. They offered suggestions to Petrulis on high school clothes and settings.
The messages dropped in along the way involve alcohol consumption, sexual abstinence, condom use, HIV testing and living with HIV/AIDS. Those messages can be found in plenty of other places — textbooks, brochures, pamphlets.
“But the existing items on HIV/AIDS are boring, and that makes a difference on what information they retain,” Gavigan said.
Some studies have found the knowledge retention from a graphic novel format was better than a textbook for young people. The USC study aims to test that idea on an important health topic. | <urn:uuid:b47e4bb4-5cdc-48dc-b6ae-35215fbb3295> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.thestate.com/2013/04/09/2716198/graphic-novel-aims-to-teach-sc.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953334 | 699 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Gaza and West Bank start DST on March 30, 2012
The Gaza Strip and the West Bank will both start daylight saving time (DST) on Friday, March 30, 2012. Clocks in the Palestinian Territories will move forward one hour at midnight between Thursday, March 29 and Friday, March 30 to 1am (01:00) local time.
The end date has yet to be announced, but the switch back to standard time normally occurs in late September or early October.
DST during Ramadan?
It is not often that Gaza and the West Bank start DST on the same date. Last year, daylight saving time in Gaza started and ended on different dates than in the West Bank, leading to a temporary one-hour time difference between the two territories. The same was the case in 2010 and 2008.
Time in Gaza and West Bank
The local time during winter in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is Eastern European Time, UTC +2 hours. During daylight saving time (often called summer time) they will both be on Eastern European Summer Time, UTC +3 hours.
- March 30, 2014: Europe starts Daylight Saving Time
- Sunday, March 9, 2014: DST starts in USA and Canada
- Chile Extends DST to April 27, 2014
- Turkey delays DST start by one day
- Brazil ends DST on February 16, 2014
- Will Russia revert to “winter time” in 2014?
More about Daylight Saving Time
- Daylight Saving Time
- List of countries that observe Daylight Saving Time in 2014
- Upcoming Daylight Saving Time Clock Changes
- Daylight Savings Time vs Daylight Saving Time
- Spring Forward, Fall Back and Similar Expressions | <urn:uuid:546392fb-9317-441c-b796-3e84f1dfb086> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/gaza-west-bank-dst-2012.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394011118294/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305091838-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918547 | 352 | 2.859375 | 3 |
Name: King Richard III
Born: October 2, 1452 at Fotheringhay Castle, Northamptonshire
Parents: Richard, Duke of York, and Cecily Neville
Relation to Elizabeth II: 14th great-granduncle
House of: York
Ascended to the throne: June 26, 1483 aged 30 years
Crowned: July 6, 1483 at Westminster Abbey
Married: Anne Neville, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales and daughter of Earl of Warwick
Children: One son, plus several illegitimate children before his marriage
Died: August 22, 1485 at Battle of Bosworth, Leicestershire, aged 32 years, 10 months, and 19 days
Buried at: Leicester
Reigned for: 2 years, 1 month, and 27 days
Succeeded by: his distant cousin Henry VII
King of England from 1483. The son of Richard, Duke of York, he was created Duke of Gloucester by his brother Edward IV, and distinguished himself in the Wars of the Roses. On Edward's death 1483 he became protector to his nephew Edward V, and soon secured the crown for himself on the plea that Edward IV's sons were illegitimate. He proved a capable ruler, but the suspicion that he had murdered Edward V and his brother undermined his popularity. In 1485 Henry, Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII), raised a rebellion, and Richard III was defeated and killed at Bosworth. After Richard's death on the battlefield his rival was crowned King Henry VII and became the first English monarch of the Tudor dynasty which lasted until 1603.
Richard was the last English king to die in battle. His body was taken to Leicester where it was buried at Greyfriars Church in a Franciscan Friary which was subsequently destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries 1536 to 1541. In September 2012 archeologists uncovered remains of the church buried underneath a car park and found a skeleton of a male showing curvature of the spine, a major head wound, and an arrowhead lodged in his spine. On 4 Feb 2013 experts anounced that DNA from the bones matched that of descendants of the kings's family. Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley, from the University of Leicester, told a press conference: “Beyond reasonable doubt it's Richard.” There are plans to have his remains re-buried in Leicester cathedral. Bones of King Richard III
|King Richard III's Signature|
|Timeline for King Richard III|
|1483||Richard III declares himself King after confining and possibly ordering the murder of his two nephews, Edward V and Richard Duke of York, in the Tower of London|
|1483||The Duke of Buckingham is appointed Constable and Great Chamberlain of England|
|1483||In October Richard crushes a rebellion led by his former supporter, the Duke of Buckingham. Buckingham is captured, tried, and put to death.|
|1483||At the cathedral of Rheims, Henry Tudor swears a solemn oath to marry Elizabeth of York in the presence of the Lancastrian Court in exile.|
|1484||Richard establishes his military headquarters behind the battlements of Nottingham Castle.|
|1484||Death of Richard’s only son and heir, Edward, aged 9 years.|
|1484||A Papal Bull is issued against witchcraft.|
|1484||Parliamentary statutes are written down in English for the first time and printed.|
|1485||Death of Richard’s wife, Queen Anne.|
|1485||Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, lands at Milford Haven in West Wales in early August and gathers support as the Lancastrian claimant to the Yorkist-held throne.|
|1485||Richard is defeated and killed by Henry Tudor’s army at Bosworth Field. The Wars of the Roses come to an end.|
Richard III (2 October 1452 – 22 August 1485) was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 in the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty. His defeat at Bosworth Field, the decisive battle of the Wars of the Roses, is sometimes regarded as the end of the Middle Ages in England. He is the subject of the play Richard III by William Shakespeare.
When his brother Edward IV died in April 1483, Richard was named Lord Protector of the realm for Edward's son and successor, the 12-year-old King Edward V. As the young king travelled to London from Ludlow, Richard met and escorted him to lodgings in the Tower of London where Edward V's brother Richard joined him shortly afterwards. Arrangements were made for Edward's coronation on 22 June 1483, but before the young king could be crowned, his father's marriage to his mother Elizabeth Woodville was declared invalid, making their children illegitimate and ineligible for the throne. On 25 June, an assembly of lords and commoners endorsed the claims. The following day, Richard III began his reign, and he was crowned on 6 July 1483. The young princes were not seen in public after August, and a number of accusations circulated that the boys had been murdered on Richard's orders, giving rise to the legend of the Princes in the Tower.
There were two major rebellions against Richard. The first, in October 1483, was led by staunch allies of Edward IV and also by Richard's former ally, Henry Stafford, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, his first cousin once removed. The revolt collapsed and Stafford was executed at Salisbury near the Bull's Head Inn. In August 1485, another rebellion against Richard was led by Henry Tudor and his uncle, Jasper Tudor. Henry Tudor landed in his birthplace, Pembrokeshire, with a small contingent of French troops, and marched through Wales recruiting foot soldiers and skilled archers. Richard died during the Battle of Bosworth Field, the last English king to die in battle (and the only one to die in battle on English soil since Harold II at the Battle of Hastings in 1066).
Because of the circumstances of his accession and in consequence of Henry VII's victory, Richard III's remains received burial without pomp and were lost for more than five centuries. In 2012, an archaeological excavation was conducted on a city council car park on the site once occupied by Greyfriars, Leicester. The University of Leicester confirmed on 4 February 2013 that a skeleton found in the excavation was, beyond reasonable doubt, that of Richard III, based on a combination of evidence from radiocarbon dating, comparison with contemporary reports of his appearance, and a comparison of his mitochondrial DNA with two matrilineal descendants of Richard III's eldest sister, Anne of York
The last of England's line of Plantagenet kings, Richard III, was born at Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire on 2nd October, 1452, the eleventh child in a large family and the fourth surviving son of Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York, (premier descendant of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, the third son of Edward III) and Cecily Neville. Cecily was the daughter of Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland and Joan Beaufort, Joan herself was the illegitimate daughter of John of Gaunt.
His was a difficult birth, his mother was at a precarious age for childbearing in the middle ages and the child was a breech. As an infant Richard was weak and sickly and not expected to survive the perils of childhood in the late middle ages.
The young Richard grew up amidst the violent civil strife of the Wars of the Roses, it formed and moulded him and he was very much the product of that turbulent age. His father, Richard , Duke of York, challenged the Lancastrian King Henry VI's right to the throne. After a prolonged struggle for possession of England's crown, both his father and his brother, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, were killed by Lancastrian forces under Margaret of Anjou at Sandal Castle, at Christmas, 1460. Their heads, York's crowned with a paper coronet in derision, were struck on the walls of York.
The Yorkist claim to the throne passed to the young Richard's eldest brother, Edward, a competent general, he defeated the Lancastrians, deposed Henry VI and was crowned at Westminster Abbey as King Edward IV in 1461. Richard received his education at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire in the household of his influential maternal cousin, Richard Neville, later to be known to history as Warwick the Kingmaker. Anne and Richard were first cousins once removed, both descended from Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmorland and Joan Beaufort, the daughter of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, 3rd surviving son of Edward III.
He was created Duke of Gloucester on 1st November 1461, after the accession of his brother, Edward IV, to the throne. The title was traditionally a royal one, previous holders included Thomas of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward III and Humphrey, son of Henry IV. Richard adopted the white boar (see right) as his personal badge, along with the motto 'Loyaulte me lie' (Loyalty binds me.)
Richard, Duke of Gloucester
On the death of the mighty Earl of Warwick at the Battle of Barnet, Richard married his recently widowed younger daughter, Anne Neville. Anne had previously been the wife of Edward, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, who had been killed during or after the decisive Yorkist victory at Tewkesbury.
Richard had first met his future wife when he was taken into her father's household at Middleham Castle on the death of Richard Duke of York, his father, in 1460. Contemporary accounts vary as to how Anne's first husband actually met his death, some state he was killed in battle, others that he was murdered during its aftermath by Edward IV, Richard and Lord Hastings.
Anne was taken to Coventry from Tewkesbury then moved to her sister Isabel and the George, Duke of Clarence's home in London. Richard of Gloucester, then in his late teens, requested, and was granted, permission to marry Anne, who was co-heiress to her father's vast estates. Clarence, who was eager to secure the whole Neville inheritance for himself, opposed the marriage. There are varying accounts of what happened subsequently, one states that she escaped from Clarence's household and sought refuge in a London cookshop disguised as a servant. Richard is said to have traced her and escorted her to sanctuary at the Church of St Martin le Grand. The couple were married on 12th July 1472, at Westminster Abbey, Richard and Clarence then engaged in a lengthy dispute over who should inherit a bulk of the Neville and Beauchamp estates, although Anne's mother, Anne Beauchamp was still living, her property was divided beteen her two sons-in-law.
The marriage produced one child, Edward of Middleham, later Prince of Wales, born in December 1473, although Richard is known to have at least two illegitimate children, a son, John of Gloucester (who was later executed by Henry VII) and a daughter, Katherine, who was married to the Earl of Huntingdon.
Richard made his power base in the north, where he now owned vast estates and acted as his brother's lieutenant in the region. Disliking the Queen, Elizabeth Woodville and her upstart and grasping relations, he stayed away from court as much as was practically possible, living mainly at Middleham in Yorkshire.
Richard was said to ressemble his father. Unlike his brothers Edward IV and George, Duke of Clarence, both tall and well built, Richard was short, slightly built and dark haired. He suffered from scoliosis, or curvature of the spine, which meant that one shoulder would have been highrer than the other, the condition is different from kyphosis, which is a condition of a curving of the spine that causes a bowing or rounding of the back, which leads to a hunchback.
No evidence was found on his remains of a withered arm, Shakespeares 'blasted sapling'. Richard was sickly as a child, the fifteenth century Silesian nobleman Nicolas von Poppelau, who met Richard and clearly liked him stated Richard was taller and slimmer than himself, not so solid and far leaner with delicate arms and legs. John Rous recorded Richard was “slight in body and weak in strength”. Katherine FitzGerald, who is said to have once danced with him at the court of Edward IV, described him as handsome.
On the 25th August 2012 an archaeological project undertaken by Leicester University, in partnership with the Richard III Society and Leicester city council, began with the aim of discovering whether Richard III's remains still lie buried at the site of the Greyfriars Franciscan Friary, which was lost during for centuries, but was believed to be situated beneath a social services car park, which was located using historic maps.
The Greyfriars Project, which attracted extraordinary global media attention, unearthed the remains of the medieval church, where Richard is recorded as being buried after his death at the Battle of Bosworth. Medieval finds from the dig include inlaid floor tiles from the cloister walk of the friary, elements of the stained glass windows of the church and a stone frieze believed to be from its choir stalls.They also found paving stones which they believe were part of a garden which belonged to a mayor of Leicester, Robert Herrick, where, historically, it is recorded that there was a memorial to Richard III. In the seventeenth century Christopher Wren, father of the architect, recorded seeing a 3 feet high stone pillar in the garden with the inscription: “Here lies the body of Richard III sometime King of England”, which post dated reports that the body had been thrown into the River Soar when the friary was disolved under Henry VIII.
During the third week of the dig on the 12th September, 2012, archaeologists announced that human remains have been found in the area of the choir. Richard Taylor from the University of Leicester commented “What we have uncovered is truly remarkable and today we will be announcing to the world that the search for King Richard III has taken a dramatic new turn.” Lead archaeologist Richard Buckley said, 'We were very lucky it was a car park, and the remains, at the entrance to the choir, were just under the trench we dug, when there were several buildings at the friary.”
The male skeleton, which was buried in a grave without a coffin underwent an initial examination which revealed spinal abnormalities, it is thought the individual would have had severe scoliosis ” an individual form of spinal curvature, which makes his right shoulder visibly higher than his left shoulder.” The skeleton was not a hunchback.
What was thought to be barbed metal arrowhead was found between vertebrae of the skeleton's upper back, (but on closer examination this turned out to be a Roman nail) and the skull appears to have suffered significant near death trauma “A bladed implement appears to have cleaved part of the rear of the skull”. The skull injury appears consistent with, although not certainly caused by, an injury received in battle. Richard was hacked down at Bosworth after being surrounded by his enemies and one historical account suggests that the blow which finally felled him was so hard that fragments of his helmet were left in his skull.
DNA tests were conducted, the remains were tested for a match with Canadian born Michael Ibsen, who shares the same mitochondrial DNA with Richard III. His mother, Joy Ibsen, traced by John Ashdown-Hill, is a direct descendant in the female line from Richard's elders sister, Anne of York and the King's 16th generation grand-niece. Mitochondrial DNA is passed directly down the female line. Similar techniques were used to identify the remains of Czar Nicholas II and other members of Russia's royal family, who were killed in 1918 during the Russian Revolution.
Researchers had stated that if the king was found, one option would be for his remains to be interred at Leicester Cathedral. Campaigners from York said the remains, should they prove to be the king, ought to come to them as Richard had expressed a desire to be buried at York Minster. Following discussion about where the remains should eventually be laid to rest, the government has since confirmed that they will be interred in Leicester Cathedral.
A formal announcement by Leicester University was made on the results of the tests on Monday, 4th February 2013, at which the project's lead archaeologist Richard Buckley stated “It is the academic conclusion of the University of Leicester that the individual exhumed at Grey Friars, Leicester, in August 2012, is indeed Richard III, the last Plantagenet King of England.” DNA, genealogy, carbon dating and other scientific methods were used to confirm the identity of the former king beyond any doubt.
News of a second anonymous relative was also revealed. Michael Ibsen, whose DNA matched exactly that of the king's remains, said he reacted with “stunned silence” when told the closely-guarded results on Sunday. Dr Turi King, who carried out the DNA analysis, stated “The type of DNA we extracted is extremely rare, shared by only a few per cent of the population. Taken together with the other evidence, it is a very strong and compelling case.” The bones had also undergone radiocarbon dating which indicated the date of death as sometime between 1485 and 1550. Buckley revealed that the position of the hands suggested that they might have been bound together.
Archaeologists stated that the remains bore the marks of ten injuries inflicted shortly before death, 8 to the skull and 2 to the body. The contemporary chronicles state that he was urged to flee following the desertion of some of his followers and the collapse of his vanguard. Polydore Vergil, one of the early chroniclers of the battle, states that Richard replied that 'on that day he would make an end either of wars or of his life, such was the great boldness and great force of spirit in him’. Richard instead chose to lead a charge straight at Henry Tudor, killing several men and toppled Henry's standard, killing his standard-bearer William Brandon, and unhorsed the jousting champion Sir John Cheney, who stood in his way, thrusting him to the ground and forcing a path for himself through the press of steel.
Polydore Vergil recorded that 'King Richard, alone, was killed fighting manfully in the thickest press of his enemies.' According to the Burgundian chronicler Jean Molinet, Richard's horse became stuck in a marsh and then 'unhorsed and overpowered, the king was hacked to death by Welsh soldiers'. Molinet adds that a Welshman struck the death-blow with a halberd. The contemporary Welsh poet Guto'r Glyn also states that a Welshman, Rhys ap Thomas, or one of his men, delivered the fatal blow. Even afer Richard was dead, the of blows continued on his battered body continued, one source describes how Richard’s head was battered to the point that his basinet was driven into his head, ‘until his brains came out with blood’.
The tests revealed ” He was killed by one of two fatal injuries to the skull, one possibly from a sword and one possibly from a halberd. The base of the skull had been sliced off by a blow, believed to be from a halberd, an axe blade mounted on a wooden pole, which was swung at Richard at very close range. The blade probably penetrated several centimetres into his brain and he would have been unconscious at once and dead almost as soon. There were other, non-fatal injuries to the cranium and the face that could have been caused by knives or daggers.
The body of King Richard III, which was recovered from the pile of corpses around Henry's banner, was treated with much indignity. Trussed naked over a horse and besmirched with mud, it was borne in parade to Leicester, a sad spectacle. It was exposed for two days at the Church of the Greyfriars at Leicester, where Richard III was later unceremoniously buried.
Osteoarchaeologist Dr Jo Appleby discussed a series of “humiliation injuries” inflicted on Richard III after his death. These included a dagger mark on his ribcage and a sword wound on the inside of the pelvis from a violent injury to the right buttock. She said: “This injury was caused by a thrust through the right buttock, not far from the midline of the body. “These two wounds are also likely to have been inflicted after armour had been removed from the body. This leads us to speculate that they may also represent post-mortem humiliation injuries inflicted on this individual after death.” Historical accounts report that after Richard's defeat at Bosworth, his body was stripped, thrown over the back of a horse to be taken back to Leicester. It is believed that the “humiliation injuries” may have been inflicted at this time.
The skeleton was that of a man whose age at death was between 30 and 33, which is consistent with the age of the 32-year-old king. The skeleton revealed idiopathic adolescent-onset scoliosis which developed after the age of 10. Scoliosis is defined as a lateral curvature of the spine greater than 10 degrees accompanied by vertebral rotation. Richard was around 5 feet 8 inches tall, although his disability meant he would have stood up to a foot shorter and his right shoulder would be higher than the left.
It also revealed that the individual had a high protein diet, including significant amounts of seafood. Dr Appleby also said that the skeleton bore no evidence of a withered arm. She said: “The analysis of the skeleton proved that it was an adult male, but with an unusually slender, almost feminine, build for a man. This is in keeping with historical sources which describe Richard as being of very slender build. “There is, however, no indication that he had a withered arm; both arms were of a similar size and both were used normally during life.”
Layers of muscle and skin were added by computer to a scan of the skull by Caroline Wilkinson, professor of craniofacial identification at the University of Dundee, the result was made into a three-dimensional plastic model which was unveiled by the Richard III Society at the Society of Antiquaries in London.
Researchers have also attempted to reconstruct the voice of the king. Dr Philip Shaw, from the University of Leicester, studied the king's use of grammar and spelling in contemporary letters, and concluded that the king's accent “could probably associate more or less with the West Midlands.”
On the death of his brother Edward in April, 1483, Richard interrupted the progress of the new king, his nephew, Edward V, to London at Stony Stratford. Woodville, Grey and others of the boy's escort were sent to Richard's power base in the north. Anthony Woodville and Richard Grey, despite reassurals to the contrary, were later executed on Richard of Gloucester's orders. The young King, now in the custody of his uncle Richard and the Duke of Buckingham, continued on his progress to London. News of the dramatic occurrences at Stony Stratford raced ahead of them, Queen Elizabeth Woodville, in a state of agitation, fled to Westminster Abbey with her daughters and her younger son, Richard, Duke of York. Avaricious as ever, she took all her possessions into sanctuary with her.
Gloucester and Buckingham entered London with the young king and a large body of armed men from the north. Panic spread, most people had been taken by surprise and astonishment was rife at the speed of events. An unmistakable atmosphere of coup d'etat gripped the city. While the grasping Woodvilles had been unpopular, King Edward IV had been much loved by the people, and therefore most were loyal to his son. Richard of Gloucester eased apprehension by explaining he was only countering a Woodville conspiracy aimed at himself and “the old nobility of the realm”. This explaination was generally accepted and the fears which had gripped the city were calmed.
The young King Edward V was lodged in the Tower of London ostensibly awaiting his coronation. There was nothing sinister detected in this at the time when the Tower was a royal residence as well as a prison. On the pretext that his brother required his company and the Queen was being foolish, the ten year old Richard, Duke of York, was removed from the safety of sanctuary at Westminster and taken to join him in the Tower.
At a meeting of the council at the Tower on the thirteenth of June, ostensibly to discuss Edward V's coronation, Gloucester, the Lord Protector, had William, Lord Hastings suddenly and unexpectedly arrested on a charge of treason. Hastings, while he detested the Woodvilles, had been a close friend of Edward IV and would never have countenanced the disinheriting of his children. He was executed, without trial, the same day on a block of wood.
The legitimacy of the young Edward V then began to be actively questioned, and the old claim of Edward IV not being the true son of Richard, Duke of York was resurrected by Buckingham, who stated that the late King's true father had been an archer named Blackburn, who was supposed to have had an adulterous affair with Cecily, Duchess of York. The two young princes had been seen playing in the Tower gardens at various times until then. Gradually, they began to appear less frequently. The last person to see them alive was Edward V's physician, Dr. Argentine, who had attended him at the Tower and found him in a state of abject melancholy.
It remains debatable as to whether Richard had Edward and his younger brother, Richard, Duke of York, murdered in the Tower, revisionists claim that his ally the Duke of Buckingham, or his successor, Henry Tudor had just as much cause to remove them from his path to the throne as did Richard. Opinion about his role in his nephew's disappearance has oscillated between two extremes, one is the picture painted by Shakespeare of a murderous monster who ruthlessly liquidated all who stood in his path to power, the other is of a much maligned and conscientious ruler.
Much evidence to support both claims has been raised. At a distance of more than five hundred years it is impossible to state with certainty who was responsible for ordering the murder of Edward V and his young brother, all that can be said with certainty is that rumour was rife at this time that they had been done away with and that they were never seen alive again. (For an account of the mysterious disappearance of the two Princes in the Tower, see our section on Edward V) Richard's coronation took place on 6th July 1483, Buckingham was created Constable and great Chamberlain of England and magnificently clad, held the King's train at the ceremony.
King Richard III then set out on a royal progress. When he reached the city of York, where he was popular, England's only north country King was well received. His son, Edward of Middleham, was created Prince of Wales in a magnificent ceremony at York Minster.
Sheriff Hutton Castle
In July, 1484, during the period when he served as Lord of the North, Richard established Sheriff Hutton Castle, around six miles (10km) from York, as one of the headquarters of the Council of the North, the other was at Sandal Castle. The council was to last for a century and a half.
Richard acquired the castle from his father-in-law, Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, or 'Warwick the Kingmaker' whose lands he inherited on the death of the latter at the Battle of Barnet in 1471.
Edward, Earl of Warwick, the young son of George Duke of Clarence and at the time under attainder, was sent to Sheriff Hutton in 1484 for safekeeping, as was Richard's nephew and heir, John de la Pole, Earl of Lincoln. Richard's niece, Elizabeth of York, later destined to become the mother of the formidable Henry VIII, was also housed at the castle for a spell, when her suspected arrangement to marry the then pretender, Henry Tudor, (later Henry VII) placed her under suspicion.
Sheriff Hutton Castle was founded by one Bertram de Bulmer, Sheriff of York, who died in 1166. It later passed by marriage to the influential Neville family. In 1382 John, Lord Neville of Raby, acquired a licence to crenallate. The Neville lands were partitioned in the mid thirteenth century, between the two elder sons of Ralph, Earl of Westmorland. The younger, Ralph, retained the title and Westmorland estates, whilst the eldest son, Richard, Earl of Warwick, later known to history as 'Warwick the Kingmaker', obtained the family's Yorkshire estates.
The castle was repaired in 1537 by its then owner the second Duke of Norfolk, but, following the Council's relocation to York in the mid sixteenth century, the castle went into decline.
The castle is quadrangular in form, with four rectangular corner towers connected by ranges of buildings, enclosing an inner courtyard. The northern and western sides are straight, whereas those on the south and east contain obtuse, outward pointing angles at their centres. The entrance lies in the east wall, protected by a gatehouse. Only sections of the towers stand to their original height, and the ranges of buildings and curtain walls between have now largely gone. A middle and outer ward originally existed, but these are now covered by the adjacent farm.
A monument to Richard's only legitimate son, Edward of Middleham, Prince of Wales, stands in the medieval church of St. Helen and Holy Cross, in the village of Sheriff Hutton. The prince died suddenly at Middleham Castle in Yorkshire in 1484, the exact date of his death remains a matter of controversy, with some sources citing 31st March as the date and others 9th April. Both Richard and his wife Anne Neville were reported to have been distracted by their grief. Richard later appointed his sister's son, John de la Pole, as his successor.
Edward, earlier known as Earl of Salisbury, was born at Middleham Castle between April 1473 and December 1474. It is suspected that Edward, believed to have been a delicate child, was too ill to travel to his parents' coronation at Westminster Abbey on 6th July, 1483, but was appointed nominal Lord Lieutenant of Ireland on 19th July . He was invested as Prince of Wales at a ceremony at York Minster on 24th August.
The mutilated white alabaster effigy, believed to be that of Edward of Middleham, in the church at Sheriff Hutton is not a tomb but a cenotaph (i.e. it is empty).
The monument was dimantled at some unknown date, attempts at cleaning and conservation were made in the nineteenth century and the monument was finally reassembled in the twentieth century and provided with a new core and damp course at the expense of the Richard III Society.
Richard III sat uneasily on his throne in 1483, the deep distrust of the nobility had been engendered by the manner of Lord Hastings demise and the apparent disappearance of the Edward V and his brother. At Lincoln, on 11th October, Richard received the disconcerting news that his greatest ally, the Duke of Buckingham, had deserted his cause and risen against him. Buckingham's reasons remain obscure, he was said to regret his former conduct, but it may have been that he did not feel himself rewarded richly enough for it. It has been suggested that, as he was directly descended from Edward III's youngest son himself, his earlier support of Richard was part of a design to clear his own path to the throne.
In conspiracy with the Woodvilles and the Lancastrian pretender, Henry Tudor, he rose simultaneously with them. The Duke of Norfolk, who remained loyal to the king, blocked their way to London. Buckingham's army began to desert. Morton, who had probably incited the rebellion himself, fled to Flanders. Buckingham then abandoned the remnants of his army but was captured and his requests for an audience with the king refused, he was beheaded on Richard's orders.
Parliament passed the Act of Titulus Regius, ratifying Richard's claim to the throne and bastardising Edward IV's children. To acquire a trusted ally, Richard married his illegitimate daughter, Katherine, to the Earl of Huntingdon and promoted him to high office in Wales. The King relied in the north on the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, and Lord Stanley, an unwise action, since the latter was married to Henry Tudor's mother, Lady Margaret Beaufort.
Tragically, in April, Richard's only son, Edward of Middleham, a delicate child, died, possibly of tuberculosis. He was buried at Sherrif Hutton, in Yorkshire. Both Richard and his wife Anne Neville were said to be distracted with grief. Many in that superstitious age saw it as divine retribution for his treatment of his brother's sons. Clarence had left a son Edward, Earl of Warwick, but he still remained under his father's attainder and Richard decided to appoint his sister Elizabeth's son, John, Earl of Lincoln, as his heir.
Elizabeth Woodville's daughters were received at court and Elizabeth of York, the eldest of them, inciting much gossip, was provided with dresses similar to the Queen's. In March 1485, when Queen Anne Neville died of tuberculosis, her husband was said to be unwilling to visit her in her quarters. After Anne's death rumours arose that he had poisoned her, though ungrounded in fact, they amply illustrate Richard's subjects suspicions of him. He was forced to make an humiliating public denial of the rumours, stating that he was not glad at her death “but as sorry and as heavy in heart as a man can be” and to deny that he harboured plans for an incestuous marriage with his niece.
By the spring of 1485 the King was aware that Henry Tudor planned a further invasion. He waited at Nottingham for news, to ensure the loyalty of Lord Stanley, he kept his eldest son, George, Lord Strange, hostage by his side.
The house in Shrewsbury where Henry Tudor is said to have lodged on his march to Bosworth
Henry Tudor embarked from Harfleur and landed at Milford Haven in South Wales on 7 Aug, then celebrated as the Feast of the Transfiguration. He was accompanied by his Lancastrian supporters and around 2,000 French mercenaries. Reinforcements were gathered on the march through Wales, he proceeded to progress through Shrewsbury, Stafford and Atherstone.
The Posthumous Reputation of Richard III
The posthumous reputation of King Richard III has undergone many fluctuations throughout the proceeding centuries since his death on Bosworth Field. The city of York, where he had been highly popular, sincerely lamented his death in the aftermath of the battle. His successor, Henry VII did his utmost to blacken the name of his rival. Sir Thomas More's history of the reign was used by Shakespeare, who immortalized Richard III as the humped back, evil villain of the popular imagination.
It was not until after the death of England's last Tudor monarch, that George Buck felt secure to challenge the accepted view of the king in his history of Richard's reign, which was written in 1619. A century and a half later the antiquarian, Horace Walpole, son of the Prime Minister, Robert Walpole, published his 'Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of Richard III' in which he gave a sceptical examination of Richard's supposed crimes.
Sir Clements Markham rode into the lists as Richard's champion in 1906 with his 'Richard III : his life and character', whereby the king's reputation reached its zenith. 'The Fellowship of the White Boar' was founded in 1924, later to become the Richard III Society, which has dedicated itself to clearing his name. Paul Murray Kendal's biography of 1955 looked closely at the evidence, but came down on the side of the traditional view of Richard. Controversy has continued to rage ever since as to whether he was in fact guilty of his nephew Edward V's murder and the other crimes attributed to him.
Skeletons which are presumed to be those of the Princes in the Tower were discovered in 1674, when workmen employed in demolishing a staircase within the Tower of London, leading to the chapel of the White Tower, made the discovery of the bones of two children in an elm chest, at around a depth of ten feet. They were originally thrown aside with some rubble until their significance as the possible bones of the two princes was recognised. Charles II, then the reigning monarch, asked the architect Sir Christopher Wren to design a white marble container and they were reverently placed in the Henry VII chapel at Westminster Abbey, close to the tomb of the Prince's sister, Elizabeth of York.
These bones were subject to a medical examination in 1933, which was conducted by Lawrence Tanner, the Abbey archivist, Professor William Wright, one of the leading anatomists of his day, and George Northcroft, then president of the Dental Association. Tanner and Wright concluded that they believed these were the bones of two children, the eldest aged twelve to thirteen and the younger nine to eleven, they further stated that a blood stain on the elder skull was consistent with death by suffocation, and that congenital missing teeth and certain bilateral Wormian bones of unusual size on both crania were evidence of consanguinity. The lower jaw of the elder child exhibited extensive evidence of the bone disease, osteomyelitis.
The Tanner and Wright report has been subject to expert scrutiny on many occasions since then. Modern conclusions vary. There is consensus of opinion among modern experts that Wright's determination of the ages of the skeletons and the age differential between the two sets of bones is approximately correct, although great differences of age calculated by the development of bones and teeth has been observed in studies. Later reports claim to be unable to determine the sex of either skeleton. Determination of consanguinity by congenitally missing teeth or bilateral Wormian bones remains disputed. As regards the staining which is present on one of the skulls, it is unproven that it is actually a blood stain and modern experts deny it being proof of suffocation. In the absence of modern carbon dating or DNA analysis on the forensic evidence of the bones, it is still not possible to say that these are the bones of Edward V and his brother. The Abbey authorities have to date refused a second examination.
With regard to Richard's other alleged victims, there are several versions concerning how Edward, the Lancastrian Prince of Wales, met his end, one states he was cut down as he fled north in the aftermath of the Battle of Tewkesbury, another states that following the rout of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury, a small contingent of men under the Duke of Clarence found Edward near a grove, where he was immediately beheaded on a makeshift block, despite pleas for mercy to his brother-in-law Clarence. An alternative version was given by three other sources: The Great Chronicle of London, Polydore Vergil and Edward Hall, which was the version used by Shakespeare. This records, that Edward, having survived the battle and was taken captive and brought before Edward IV who was with George, Duke of Clarence; Richard, Duke of Gloucester; and William, Lord Hastings. The king received the prince graciously, and asked why he had taken up arms against him. The prince replied defiantly, “I came to recover my father's heritage.” The king then struck the prince across his face with his gauntlet hand and those present with the king then suddenly stabbed Prince Edward with their swords.
The Yorkist version of Henry VI's end, that he died of “pure melancholy and displeasure” on hearing on of his son's death was not much accepted, even at the time. Due to controversy over the manner of his death, George V gave permission to exhume the body of King Henry VI in 1910. The skeleton was found to have been dismembered before being placed in the box and not all the bones were present. Three very worn teeth were found and the only piece of jaw present had lost its teeth before death. The bones were recorded as being those of a strong man measuring five feet nine to five feet ten inches tall. Light brown hair found matted with blood on the skull confirmed that Henry VI had died as a result of violence.
The majority of contemporary chroniclers believed Henry had been murdered. Richard, Duke of Gloucester was present at the Tower that night, as were many others. After the passage of over five hundred years, the facts of the enigma can never be properly ascertained. Ultimately, the responsibility for Henry VI's murder can only be laid at the feet of Edward IV.
University of Leicester | <urn:uuid:4096b479-47ec-4560-a914-29c48bfbdf61> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://gaukartifact.com/2013/04/03/king-richard-iii-1483-1485-plantagenet-of-york/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985386 | 8,623 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Love this article and want to save it to read again later? Add it to your favourites! To find all your favourite posts, check out My Favourites on the menu bar.
Native American Pottery
by Leonidas Tapia
Native American Artist Leonidas Tapia
Leonidas Tapia (c 1916-1977) was a Native American Artist who specialized in Native American Pottery. She is from Ohkay Owingeh, New Mexico, United States and was married to Jose Blas Tapia. Together they had two children, a daughter Mary Trujillo (b. 1937) and a son Tom Tapia (b. 1946).
dna testing, dna ancestry testing, ancestry, genealogy, indian genealogy records, paternity testing, turquoise jewelry, native american jewelry
Leonidas Tapia made traditional San Juan redware bowls, jars and wedding vases. She also made micaceous pottery. Some of the designs she incorporated into her pottery included the water serpent, kiva steps and clouds. Leonidas participated in the Santa Fe Indian Market from 1970-1976.
Native American Pottery Continues
Leonida’s craftsmanship has not been lost. Her son, Tom Tapia, learned to make pottery by working with his mother and has continued the Native American Pottery tradition with the sgraffito style and has won numerous awards for his pottery. He also makes pottery with his wife Sue Tapia.
Leonida’s daughter, Mary Trujillo, married Helen Cordero’s son, Leonard, from Cochiti Pueblo. She learned to make storyteller figures from her mother-in-law Helen who was the first and most famous maker of Cochiti storytellers and has won numerous awards. | <urn:uuid:f447f965-eb59-4079-9bca-e18ac80217b7> | CC-MAIN-2014-10 | http://nativeamericanencyclopedia.com/native-american-artist-leonidas-tapia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2014-10/segments/1394021227262/warc/CC-MAIN-20140305120707-00021-ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97198 | 370 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Subsets and Splits