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Certainly, [free man of color Captain Andre Cailloux's] death became a symbol for the northern antislavery cause and particularly for black abolitionists. The flag Cailloux had carried at Port Hudson was prominently displayed at the National Negro Convention presided over by Frederick Douglass in October 1864. Cailloux's death -- configured as heroic sacrifice -- made a powerful case for blacks' rights to citizenship in the nation they had given so much to save.Here's another one:
Spiritualists held their first national convention in Chicago in 1864, marking a growing prominence and self-consciousness that extended well beyond the realm of popular amusement. "Virtually everyone," historian R. Laurence Moore has observed, "conceded that spirit communication was at least a possibility." Amid a war that was erasing not only lives but identities, the promise, as one spiritualist spokesman wrote, of the "imperishability of the individual and the continuation of the identical Ego" after death was for many irresistible.Interesting that in both cases, the holding of the convention in and of itself is a symbol of something -- the dawning awareness of exactly why the Civil War was being fought, and the desperate need to believe that the Union and Confederate dead were not beyond all reach. | <urn:uuid:237c45e5-822b-4c3b-9ca4-aa9d08376abb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pcmaconvene.blogspot.com/2011/02/convene-reads-this-republic-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973787 | 263 | 3.234375 | 3 |
The two main parties in the US, the Republicans and the Democrats, both consist of coalitions, or groups of people who vote consistently in that party line. This particular election shows yet another shift in the coalition trends.
A coalition is likely to be a majority of a particular demographic who associate together. In this case, under one of the two parties.
and/or segregation are the cause of the first coalition lines between parties. The south was Democrat, and the north was Republican, as a direct result of pro-slavery south and anti-slavery north. What caused the change is debatable. 1948 civil rights movements by the Democratic party could have been the initial change. In 1960 southern white Protestant votes for the president went Republican for the first time. By the 1980s there was a striking clear swap, the south was now Republican, with a huge percentage of minorities associating with the opposing Democrat party.
- Race minorities, African Americans/Asians/etc.
- Other minorities, Gays/Lesbians/Marginalized groups
- Middle class
- Religious (if you go to church weekly, you're likely voting Republican)
Ninety percent of McCain's supporters were white, according to exit polls. Obama attracted a significantly more diverse coalition: 61 percent white, 23 percent black. Palin helped get the small town vote for the Republican ticket. "Obama had a far broader generational coalition as well -- nearly a quarter of his voters were under 30, compared with 13 percent of McCain's. Obama beat McCain by better than 2 to 1 with them, far exceeding Bill Clinton's 19-point win in 1996. Obama won whites under 30 by 10 points, the first time a Democrat has picked up a majority of these voters going back to 1972." (Washington Post)
- 56% to 43% women vote
- African American 95%, Hispanic 67%, Asian 62%
- 66% Youth vote
- 60+ age 51%
- Protestants 54%
- 53% small town/Rural
- 55% white vote
Trends and changes
Whether or not coalitions had anything to do with increased voter turnout, 2008 was a record setter. 66,882,230 people voted for Obama, and 58,343,671 people voted for McCain, making this election the highest percentage turn out ever. Voter turnout was 64%, with numbers 8 million higher than the 2004 election.
The changes in the coalitions are as follows. First, the south was heading back to the Republicans in the past 20 years, but this election sparked a revitalization for Democrat trends. The obvious reason is the strong showing Obama had for non-white races. Second, the under 30 vote, with a strong 2:1 Obama showing. Third, an over all shrinking of the Republican coalition. They are increasingly only white, middle class, less educated, religious, and from rural areas. (In some cases, all of those) The Democrats coalition is increasingly becoming diversified, with no demographic preferably the coalition majority. This is possibly why Democrat rights movements are appealing, because it pulls in the minority votes. Additionally, the Republican coalition seems to be alienating the educated vote more and more.
Suburban and Rural voting
"Suburban voters want a 'family agenda, which is not abortion and gay marriage but drug-free schools and good public education," he said. 'Tax cuts and gay marriage and Iraq don't sell as strongly in suburban areas -- it's education and health care and the economy.'"
"Some Republicans offer a similar diagnosis. 'It is a problem for Republicans. As they continue to cater to their culturally conservative rural base, they continue to alienate educated voters,' said Rep. Tom Davis, who is retiring and whose Fairfax County district was taken over by the Democrats on Tuesday. 'The suburban vote is steadily slipping away, and the party's trying to ignore it and pretend it's not happening.'" (Washington Post) | <urn:uuid:f6519d0b-62b6-4d01-bd65-f8dabbe92ff1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://everything2.com/title/US+political+party+coalitions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00048-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969556 | 803 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Philosophical naturalism—the worldview undergirding evolutionism—can provide only three explanations. First, the universe is merely an illusion. This notion carries little weight in an age of scientific enlightenment.
Second, the universe sprang from nothing. This proposition flies in the face of both the laws of cause and effect and energy conservation. As has been well said, “Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could.” Or, to put it another way, there simply are no free lunches. The conditions that hold true in this universe prevent any possibility of matter springing out of nothing.Third, the universe eternally existed. The law of entropy, which predicts that a universe that has eternally existed would have died an “eternity ago” of heat loss, devastates this hypothesis.
There is, however, one other possibility. It is found in the first chapter of the first book of the Bible: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” In an age of empirical science, nothing could be more certain, clear, or correct.
For further study, see James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door: A Basic Worldview Catalog, third ed. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1997); C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952).
“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible
qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—
have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” | <urn:uuid:923ab825-ff44-462e-907a-f0a2f337c43c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.equip.org/bible_answers/how-many-explanations-are-there-for-the-existence-of-our-universe/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00078-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909315 | 334 | 2.78125 | 3 |
The Reclamation Project Authorization Act of 1972 was passed on October 20th, 1972 and gave authorization to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to construct, operate and maintain the Closed Basin Division in a series of five stages. The Closed Basin Division is located in Alamosa and SaguacheCounties. Click here to view a map of the Closed Basin Project.
The large section of the San Luis Valley, north of the Rio Grande between Del Norte and Blanca does not have a surface outlet into the Rio Grande and is what coined the term “The Closed Basin Area.” At the Southern end of the Closed Basin area is a hydraulic divide that separates the internal drainage area of 2,940 square miles from the Rio Grande mainstream. Although the Closed Basin area waters are still tributary waters, as dictated by laws set by the State of Colorado and the United States, they have been “duly appropriated for the project by the Rio Grande Water Conservation District (RGWCD)”.
The purpose and first priority of the Closed Basin Project is to deliver water to the Rio Grande to assist the State of Colorado in meeting its delivery requirements under the Rio Grande Compact of 1939 and the Rio Grande Convention of 1906. The second priority of the project is to maintain the Alamosa National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), provided, that the amount of project salvaged water delivered to the NWR and The Blanca Wildlife Habitat Area (WHA) shall not exceed 5300 acre feet annually. The third priority is to apply to the reduction and the elimination of any accumulated deficit in deliveries by Colorado and is no longer applicable since the spill of Elephant Butte in 1985. The fourth and final priority is for irrigation or other beneficial uses in Colorado. The project also delivers mitigation water to San Luis Lake complex and its recreational facilities
The Closed Basin Project obtains its water from the salvaged unconfined aquifer ground water within the ClosedBasin and is delivered to the Rio Grande by a 42-mile conveyance channel. The RGWCD owned the rights of up to 117,000 acre feet of water per year from the water that is salvaged from the Closed Basin Project. Due to inadequate water supply the RGWCD voluntarily reduced the right to 83,000 acre feet per year. Approximately 43,000 Acre Feet has been decreed absolute and the remaining 40,000 acre feet are still a conditional right. As of 2000 the total project delivery (amount of water delivered to the River and refuges (BLM and USFWS) has averaged approximately, 17,300 acre feet per year.
When the project was constructed 170 water salvage wells were completed and comprised the core of the Closed Basin Division. Currently, there are only about 110 to 120 water salvage wells that are pumping due to draw downs, water quality and iron bacteria. These wells pump from the unconfined aquifer and range from about 85 to 110 feet in depth and do not penetrate the “Blue Clay” layer. The original wells are enclosed in concrete vaults below ground and pump 50 to 400 gallons per minute. Even though all existing 170 wells are in a vault; there have been 65 re-drilled, putting the well–head above ground due to bio fouling issues in the original wells.
Currently, there is a network of over 132 wells that are used to measure water level or pressure data from both the confined and unconfined aquifers. The data that is retrieved from these measurements is used to operate the Closed Basin Project within the limits that are prescribed by the authorizing legislation.
There are about 115 miles of pipeline laterals within the ClosedBasin project. These laterals operate under low pressure and transport the salvaged water from the salvage wells to the conveyance channel.
The conveyance channel is about 42 miles in length and a width that has a design capacity increasing from 45 ft3/s to a maximum of 160 ft3/s.” The conveyance channel collects the salvage water from the pipeline laterals and delivers it to the Rio Grande at a flow velocity of about 1ft/s. There is also an additional five miles of pipe carrying the salvaged water from stage five.
Programmable Master Supervisory Control System (PMSC)
The PMSC is a remote system that is located at the office of the Bureau of Reclamation in Alamosa. The PMSC helps maintain the required water quality at the point of delivery; it regulates water deliveries, detects equipment problems, and obtains and stores operation data using remote terminal units (RTU’s). The RTU’s are located at each salvage and observation well sites along with other control points and use ultra high frequency (UTF) communication to transmit the data to the master station in a cost efficient manner.
Operation and Maintenance
The RGWCD provides the civil maintenance on the Closed Basin Project as agreed upon in the cooperative agreement while the Bureau of Reclamation operates and maintains the project.
As part of the operating criteria there is an operating committee which monitors the Closed Basin Project. The operating committee is composed of three members:
One member is appointed by the Secretary of the Interior
One member is appointed by the Colorado Water Conservation Board
One member is appointed by the Rio Grande Water Conservation District
This operating committee is to determine if the requirements of Section 102 of Public Law 92-514 as amended are being complied with.
San Luis Lakes State Park
The Bureau of Reclamation, the Colorado Water Conservation Board and the Colorado Division of Wildlife worked together to construct recreation facilities at the San Luis lakes. Funding for the park is primarily provided by the state of Colorado, but when additional funding is needed RGWCD lends a helping hand. | <urn:uuid:ccbaa130-21fc-426c-ab7d-b815a09b3c93> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rgwcd.org/page21.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949986 | 1,167 | 2.828125 | 3 |
What is the Living Wage?
The term Living Wage refers to the minimum hourly wage necessary for a person to achieve a higher standard of living.
Santa Fe's Living Wage
The City of Santa Fe Living Wage Ordinance was adopted to establish minimum hourly wages.
Effective March 1, 2016 all employers are required to pay employees an hourly wage of $10.91 per hour. This includes part-time and temporary employees.
The March 1, 2016 Living Wage increase is in accordance with City Ordinance and corresponds to the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the Western Region for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers. All employers required to have a business license or registration from the City must pay at least the adjusted 2016 Living Wage to employees for all hours worked within the Santa Fe city limits.
Who is affected?
The City of Santa Fe shall pay the minimum wage to all full-time permanent workers employed by the City. Contractors for the City who have a contract requiring the performance of a service including construction services but excluding purchases of goods, shall pay the minimum wage to their workers and subcontractors performing work under the contract if the total contract amount with the City is, or by way of amendment becomes, equal to or greater than thirty thousand dollars ($30,000). Businesses receiving assistance relating to economic development in the form of grants, subsidies, loan guarantees or industrial revenue bonds in excess of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) to those employed by such entity for the duration of the City grant or subsidy shall pay the minimum wage to their workers for all hours worked within the city of Santa Fe. Businesses required to have a business license or business registration from the City of Santa Fe and nonprofit organizations shall pay the minimum wage to their workers for all hours worked within the city of Santa Fe that month.
For more information, download the following documents or contact Constituent Services by email at [bot protected email address], or by phone at (505) 955-6949. | <urn:uuid:6d5a56c9-c426-4264-b55f-6e8ad908d0b1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.santafenm.gov/living_wage_1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935618 | 411 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The Scott Memorial,
an outstanding introductory work on
Theosophy by a Student of Katherine Tingley entitled “Elementary Theosophy”
1847 – 1929
Founder & President of the
Point Loma Theosophical Society 1896 -1929
She and her students produced a series of informative
Theosophical works in the early years of the 20th century
A Student of Katherine Tingley
The Seven in
Man and Nature
When, as children, we begin our study of science, we are told that matter exists in three states: solid, liquid and gaseous. That does very well as a first step.
In the same way the student of Theosophy will begin by Paul's division of human nature into body, soul and spirit.
But in both cases, as soon as we come close to the subject, we find that the three will not do, will not carry us far beyond the threshold of our study.
Human nature, and nature without, are alike sevenfold. The number seven runs across the pattern in every direction. Science knows of many sevens, but she has not yet learned to regard seven as a sort of abstract map by means of which she could walk much faster in every field of investigation. For ages, Theosophy has known it to be one of the keys to which the universe is tuned. Let us study it first in the nature which is outside us.
The finest particles of ordinary matter are called molecules. Sometimes these fly free from each other; that we call the gaseous state of matter. But short of that entire freedom there is the liquid state, where the molecules move readily around each other, but remain in closer contact.
And thirdly there is the solid state. But of this there are two divisions, the crystalline and the colloid or gelatinous. And again, of the colloid there are two conditions, living and not living. The flesh of man and animals and the growing tissues of plants are composed of living colloid.
In all these states matter is molecular, exists as molecules. But under certain conditions the molecules break up into the still smaller particles called atoms. We then have atomic matter, said to constitute one of the sets of rays emitted by radium.
And again, the atoms themselves may break up into the still finer particles called corpuscles or electrons. These constitute still another set of rays.
So from this point of view the seven states of matter are:
Corpuscular or subatomic
with numbers 3 through 7 being molecular.
But the seven runs across nature in another way. A famous Russian chemist found that if all the elements known to chemistry were arranged one after another in the order of their atomic weights, beginning with the lightest, the eighth, fifteenth, twenty-second, and so on, had similar properties to the first; the ninth, sixteenth, and so on, to the second. Thus it became clear that there was a natural arrangement of all the chemical elements into seven great families. The seven notes of the musical scale, and the seven colors of the prismatic scale, are of course familiar to every one.
In respect to motion, the American mathematician Southwell, dealing with the nebular theory, has also worked out a natural seven which he thus states:
If two masses are moving in the same plane and at the same mean distance from the sun and are situated at an angular distance greater than 60° and less than 180° from each other, as viewed from the sun, their mutual perturbations will cause them to approach each other until the distance becomes equal to 60°.
But if they are nearer than 60° to each other,
their mutual perturbations will cause them to recede from each other until their distance apart becomes equal to 60°; and they will always remain in a condition of stable equilibrium at that distance apart, and will revolve around the sun forever free from mutual disturbance.
Sixty degrees is of course a sixth of a circle, which with the controlling center occupied by the sun, gives the seven.
Theosophy goes further than any of this. To the higher students it is shown that one form of matter which, as we have seen, exists in seven states, is itself the seventh of a greater series. And that that white light (white to our vision) which breaks up into our seven colors, is itself a member of a set of seven lights, none really white, but standing to ultimate light as one of our spectrum colors stands to the light we call white.
But here we are of course far beyond the realm of present human senses. Yet in the course of special training, and much more slowly, yet inevitably, for us all in the normal course of our evolution, all these scales will become evident to us.
Theosophy also concurs with the proverb which gives man seven senses, two of which in most people are almost inactive, dealing with finer forms and essences.
Some idea of the sixth of these may be gained from a study of the life of the woman known as the Seeress of Prevorst. In her, however, it was abnormally and prematurely unveiled by a peculiar form of ill-health.
Man as a part of greater nature must of course exhibit the seven in many ways. Most obvious of the seven is of course one's body, called in Theosophy by the
Sanskrit word sthula-sarira. But within it is another, made of altogether subtler matter, the astral model-body or linga-sarira. And it is because of the presence of this other, which is, as it were, a sort of architect's plan, that the millions of separate cells are able to arrange themselves in harmony, to form coherent organs, and to assume separate forms for the discharge of separate kinds of work. It is this which translates latent life, omnipresent in space, into life or prana, adapted for the use of the cells. Shortly after death its remains are occasionally visible as the spook of so many ghost stories.
Here then we have three of the human principles the visible body, the subtler architect's plan body, and the vital force. The last Theosophy, disagreeing on this point with current physiology, teaches to be a form of energy peculiar to itself.
Let us note now, for the fourth principle, that by body Paul meant the animal desires of the body or kama-rupa. These, in too many cases, dominate the man.
But if he would be really man, would really show himself to be a soul, he must reverse that. It is through thought that he begins to establish himself as a man. Mind or manas is the fifth of the human principles. Animals show the first traces of it, but they cannot even begin that inquiry which seeks an answer to the question, What am I? They are living units, and inwardly indestructible; but they are not yet self-conscious souls.
The sixth principle or buddhi, is the crown of mind, that department of man's conscious nature from which come the inspirations of genius.
Towards it ascend in their highest moments the musician, the poet, the artist. It is the soul in its own essentially spiritual nature. What it knows and feels when it is there, what it sees of divine truth, it must as far as possible bring down to the mind for expression on earth. Much is necessarily lost on the way. We all know that there are things which we feel but to which we can give no expression.
Lastly, the highest of the seven is spirit or atma, that which sustains all the rest and is their life; that which may be felt and known in the heart, but whose being is inexpressible in any kind of language. All the religious wars and quarrels that have ever rent mankind have come from attempts to dogmatize in words and terms about this indescribable presence and sustainer.
Theosophy as a whole, says H. P. Blavatsky, is based absolutely on the ubiquitous presence of God, the Absolute Deity; and if it itself is not speculated upon, as being too sacred and yet incomprehensible as a unit to the finite intellect, yet the entire philosophy is based upon its divine powers as being the source of all that lives and breathes and has its existence. Man, however, is not limited to his finite intellect, the fifth of his seventh. He can know with another faculty which to intellect is unknowable, that which by language is inexpressible.
The path to this knowledge lies through aspiration renewed from day to day, meditation, duty, compassion towards all that lives, self-mastery, and study.
For more info on Theosophy
A selection of articles relating to the esoteric
significance of the Number 7 in Theosophy
Try these if you are looking for a
local Theosophy Group or Centre
Wales Theosophy Links Summary | <urn:uuid:e931b4e3-dc37-451f-b123-bc8897dd88af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.southofheaven.theosophywales.org.uk/elementaryseveninmanandnature.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00042-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963946 | 1,862 | 3.015625 | 3 |
In popular music, chorus is used to mean the refrain of a song, which often sharply constrasts the verse melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically, and assumes a higher level of dynamics and activity, often with added instrumentation. Chorus form, or strophic form, is a sectional and/or additive way of structuring a piece of music based on the repetition of one formal section or block played repeatedly.
When two or more sections of the song have basically identical music and lyrics these sections are probably instances of the chorus or similar at least. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)
The chorus is the repeated section of a song that usually contains the title.
Click below for the best in free Chorus lessons available on the web. | <urn:uuid:4e59c857-2034-4954-8f96-0945eabd38f4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.angelfire.com/fl4/moneychords/chorus.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00031-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94775 | 154 | 3.796875 | 4 |
Charles Evans explains some differences between economics and finance, such as how an economist would look at inflation in contrast to how a financial investor would analyze and react to it. He also mentions a disparity in the concept of value, subjective value against accounting value.
From an economic perspective, Evans engages in the analysis of the Austrian School business cycle theory and shows how applying this theory can help investors to better predict the effects of current political and economic trends, applying the theory of Ludwig von Mises as the main source of knowledge.
Further on, he discusses market structure and public goods and provides a brief explanation of the different type of options: call and put options. The lecture ends with suggestions to spot potential financial bubbles and artificial credit booms.
Portfolio Management and Austrian School Business Cycle Theory Charles Evans
Universidad Francisco Marroquín Guatemala, May 11, 2012
A New Media - UFM production. Guatemala, May 2012 Camera: Joni Vasquez; digital editing: Mynor de León; index and synopsis: Jorge Estrada; content reviser: Sofía Díaz; publication: Mynor de León, Daphne Ortiz
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 License Este trabajo ha sido registrado con una licencia Creative Commons 3.0
Charles Evans is finance and economics instructor. He is the founder of Pecuniology.com, which is dedicated to the promotion of financial and economic literacy. Evans holds a BS in Modern Language Education from Florida International University; a MA in Economics from George Mason University and a PhD in Finance from Florida Atlantic University. | <urn:uuid:2a9ad4a7-42e4-4ef0-9342-ffaee5b797da> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://newmedia.ufm.edu/gsm/index.php?title=Evanscycletheory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.871779 | 333 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Pioneer Author in Realistic Fiction
Rebecca Harding Davis (1831-1910) was a journalist and author who began writing realistic fiction more than two decades before the height of American literary realism. Her most important work, the novella Life in the Iron Mills, was published in the April 1861 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, which quickly made her an established female writer. Throughout her lifetime, Davis sought to effect social change for blacks, women, Native Americans, immigrants and the working class by writing about the plight of these marginalized groups.
Rebecca Blaine Harding was born on June 24, 1831, the oldest of five children of Richard and Rachel Wilson Harding. The couple lived in Huntsville, Alabama; yet, Rachel traveled to her sister's home in Washington, Pennsylvania, to deliver Rebecca. In 1837, when Rebecca was six, the Harding family moved to Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia).
Public schools were not yet available in her hometown, and Rebecca's education was mainly undertaken by her mother, with occasional instruction from tutors. While being home-schooled, Rebecca read such authors as Harriet Beecher Stowe, sisters Anna and Susan Warner and Maria Cummins, which initiated her interest in literature. Without any other knowledge of literature she began to write.
Despite Wheeling's productivity and its accessible location along the Ohio River, Davis described her childhood as having belonged to a slower, simpler time, writing in her 1904 autobiography Bits of Gossip that "there were no railways in it, no automobiles or trolleys, no telegraphs, no sky-scraping houses. Not a single man in the country was the possessor of huge accumulations of money."
Rebecca returned to Washington, Pennsylvania when she was fourteen to live with her mother's sister and attend Washington Female Seminary. She described the school as "enough math to do accounts, enough astronomy to point out constellations, a little music and drawing and French, history, literature at discretion." She graduated as class valedictorian in 1848, at the age of seventeen.
After returning home, Rebecca returned home to assume the domestic life expected of a young woman of her age and class. She continued her education by reading and conversing with her brother Hugh, who was attending Washington College and frequently brought her books.
At the time, Wheeling was developing into a productive factory town, the concentration of which was iron and steel mills, and Rebecca witnessed the impoverishment that went along with working in the mills.
She worked for a time as a reporter for the Wheeling Intelligencer, submitting reviews, stories, poems and editorials, and serving briefly as an editor in 1859. She socialized very little, staying largely within her own family circle, and continued this isolated way of life for thirteen years.
In 1860, Harding submitted her first and most famous work, the groundbreaking novella Life in the Iron Mills, to the Atlantic Monthly. It was accepted in January and published in April 1861. A startling story about the laboring class, the book began her pioneer work as a writer of realistic fiction, which includes real-life situations that many people face.
Life in the Iron Mills was one of the first works to explore industrialization in American literature. It is set in a small village whose center is industrial work. It is described as a polluted and oppressive village, inhabited by laborers, mostly "masses of men, with dull, besotted faces bent to the ground, sharpened here and there by pain or cunning; skin and muscle and flesh begrimed with smoke and ashes."
The novella's protagonist is Hugh Wolfe, an iron mill worker who possesses artistic talent and a spiritual desire for higher forms of pleasure and fulfillment. Despite the hopefulness of Wolfe's artistic drive, he becomes the story's tragic hero, as his yearning for a better life leads to his imprisonment and ultimate death.
Although realism is the genre most prominently used in Harding's works, naturalism is also prevalent in her writing style. Where realists strive to depict reality, naturalists also delve into the psychological influences on characters due to their environments. In Life in the Iron Mills, the two genres are blended to create a realistic portrayal of the everyday life of iron mill worker Hugh Wolfe, as well as to illustrate the effects of that environment on him.
Few people in Wheeling could have imagined that this novella about the struggles of workers in the mills had been written by their 30-year-old spinster neighbor, Rebecca Harding. She had obviously been influenced by the change in Wheeling from an idyllic Virginia village to a smoke-filled mill town.
The Civil War created an even more dramatic change in Wheeling and in her subsequent work, she told of the savagery of war and the "general wretchedness, the squalid misery, which entered into every individual life."
At the request of editor James Fields, Harding submitted more stories the Atlantic Monthly. Her first novel Margaret Howth (published in 1862) was first serialized in six installments in the Atlantic Monthly beginning in October 1861. At Fields' suggestion, Harding reluctantly wrote a happier ending to the novel in order to make it more appealing to the public.
Set in an Indiana mill town during the fall and winter of 1860, it depicts the suffering of the working poor at a time when industrialization was growing across America. The story opens as Margret Howth begins her new job working on the ledgers at a woolen mill. She works alone, in a dirty room high in the mill; on the floors below, workers slave in suffocating heat and deafening noise, amid the caustic fumes of dyes.
Howth has taken the job to make money to take care of her impoverished parents; her father, a former schoolteacher, has gone blind and can no longer support the family. Through this character Harding illustrates the power that patriarchal society has over the nineteenth-century female, while also presenting a strong female character who recognizes her moral independence.
Harding goes further in her exploration of the true female identity by addressing the role domesticity plays in the lives of her characters. Domesticity, which once defined the roles of nineteenth-century women, is altered by her placement of women in the iron mills. By describing the harsh conditions under which these women labored, she shows that women are capable of integrating work life and home life.
Rebecca Harding quickly rose to literary prominence, and in June 1862, she traveled with her brother Wilson to Boston and New York. Her travels included visits with family friends General John C. Fremont and his wife Jessie Benton Fremont. This trip around the North originated with James Fields' desire to meet Harding personally. In Boston, she spent the summer with Fields and his wife Annie, and the two women became close friends.
At Concord, Massachusetts, Harding was introduced to Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May Alcott, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. While staying at the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, she also became acquainted with Ralph Waldo Emerson, who acknowledged her as a "brave new voice." Her head must have been spinning to meet these writers, whom she so greatly admired.
Marriage and Family
After Life was published, Harding had received a letter from an apprentice attorney, L. Clarke Davis, admiring her work. Over time he continued to correspond with her. On her journey back home, Harding met Davis in Philadelphia. They fell in love and became engaged one week after meeting.
Rebecca Harding married L. Clarke Davis on March 5, 1863 and took up residence in Philadelphia. Clarke was four years younger than Rebecca and not yet financially or professionally established in the world. They had three children: the first son named Richard Harding Davis after her father was born on April 18, 1864, Charles Belmont Davis was born on January 24, 1866 and their daughter Nora Davis was born in 1872.
Although Rebecca battled debilitating depression in the early years of her marriage, she was the primary income provider for the family while Clarke worked to establish his law career. She became a regular contributor to the New York Tribune and later the New York Independent and the Saturday Evening Post.
From 1863 to 1893 Harding Davis wrote for Peterson's Magazine, writing potboiler romances and melodramatic suspense stories. She wrote mainly to help support her family, although she was against the women's suffrage movement. With "In Pro Aris et Focis-A Plea for Our Altars and Hearths" (1870), Davis stated her belief that in marriage and childbearing women find their true vocation.
She went on to publish ten novels and a collection of short stories in book form, an additional sixteen serialized novels, hundreds of short stories and essays for adults, more than a hundred short stories for juveniles, and a memoir. Her writings addressed major political and social issues of the 19th century - the relationship of capitalists and laborers, abolition, the Civil War, Reconstruction and the changing roles of women.
However, by 1870 Harding Davis had faded substantially from the literary world. That year Clarke Davis stopped practicing law and became the managing editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer. From 1893 until his death in 1904 Clarke Davis was editor of the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Throughout the remainder of her life Harding Davis tried to write another story which would bring her the fame that Life in the Iron Mills had, but she was never able to duplicate the success of her first publication. Always a supporter of human rights, she authored "Put Out of the Way," exposing mental institutions and the treatment of the insane. In 1892, she received a small critical and popular success with Silouettes of American Life but it was her last.
Rebecca's son Richard Harding Davis became the most celebrated journalist of his era. On his mother's seventieth birthday in 1901, he wrote in tribute:
From the day you struck the first blow for labor in the iron mills, on to the editorials... with all the good the novels, the stories brought to people, you were always making the ways straighter, lifting up people, making them happier and better. No woman ever did better for her time than you and no shrieking suffragette will ever understand the influence you wielded, greater than hundreds of thousands of women's votes.
After her husband's death in 1904, she spent much of her time at Richard's estate at Mt. Kisko, New York. In the last decade of her life, she wrote children's stories, reflecting her continued concern with moral uplift. Her last published work was a short story in 1909, which appeared in Scribner's.
Rebecca Harding Davis died at her son's estate on September 29, 1910, at the age of 79.
Her obituary in The New York Times on September 30, 1910, read "...mother of Richard Harding Davis, the novelist and dramatist, and herself a novelist and editorial writer of power, died here tonight of heart disease at Cross Roads Farm, the home of her son."
A prolific writer, Rebecca Harding Davis is credited with over 500 published works, but was almost forgotten by the time of her death. However, she was rediscovered in the very early 1970s by feminist writer Tillie Olsen, who found a collection of Harding Davis' works in a junk shop.
Olsen quickly recognized the talent and significance of Davis' writings, and personally endeavored to reintroduce Davis' work. In 1972, The Feminist Press published Life in the Iron Mills with Olsen's own biographical interpretation of Rebecca Harding Davis' life.
Most scholars now recognize Harding Davis as the realist writer whose theory of the "commonplace" preceded that of William Dean Howells' work, a legacy that may be traced from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Harding Davis to Howells. Her critique of industrialism and important nineteenth-century social issues is matched only by the fervor of her compassionate spirit. | <urn:uuid:2696a64c-a1e7-4eed-8328-531d799403ab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://civilwarwomenblog.com/rebecca-harding-davis/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00126-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978965 | 2,457 | 3 | 3 |
Are Rainforest Alliance Certified Coffee Plantations Bird-Friendly?
This study evaluates several key questions that will contribute to the debate about ecosystem services in a biological corridor, and sustainable management practices in coffee farming. I evaluated ecosystem services provided by coffee plantations, such as habitat for avian biodiversity, and contribution to the conservation of genetic diversity through the facilitation of movement corridors. I examined the relative survivorship rates for forest birds within large patches of natural forest, small forest fragments, certified (Rainforest Alliance) coffee plantations, technified coffee plantations, and open farmland. Also, I asked if migratory bird species, visiting for the winter, have higher survivorship and/or site fidelity in any of these habitats. And I asked if dispersing forest birds selected certain habitats more than others within the corridor for movement across it. Since I used mist net capture data to consider these questions, first I evaluated the detectability (capture probability) of the study species, so that data from the different habitat treatments could be compared and contrasted. | <urn:uuid:045caa55-f052-480e-b5d9-3f7942850c99> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/es/node/3644 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00185-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914261 | 208 | 2.859375 | 3 |
How mapping the Ebola outbreak may ease future health crises
What if a website could spot a global health crisis before health researchers could?
One may be up to the challenge.
HealthMap is an open-source network that is constantly collecting information from news reports, health officials, social media and governments around the world to deliver real-time intelligence on a broad range of emerging infectious diseases.
The site, which has been around since 2006, actually pinpointed early signals that helped the World Health Organization determine the West Africa Ebola virus outbreak was occurring.
“In many parts of the world, we’re dealing with limited public health infrastructure, so in many cases, some the information coming from these social networks, from local news stories is the first time that we know about an event that’s unfolding,” HealthMap co-founder John Brownstein said. And so these sources, what we call “informal surveillance,” are actually helping us understand events on the ground very early on — sometimes earlier than public health can identify these things.”
Watch NewsHour’s Hari Sreenivasan’s full interview with HealthMap co-founders Clark Freifeld and John Brownstein below.
With the aggregated content passed on to libraries, local health departments and international travelers, Brownstein and fellow co-founder Clark Freifeld hope that HealthMap can lead to better response and management of future health crises.
“Our goal is to give governments and epidemiologists the most accurate and exact information as early as possible, so governments can respond better to infectious diseases,” Brownstein said.
To see health alerts in your area, see the site’s outbreak map here. | <urn:uuid:6e4f5fc8-3ead-4585-9bbb-ed3bdb6b8ab4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/mapping-ebola-outbreak-may-help-future-health-crises/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402479.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941107 | 357 | 3 | 3 |
The first image of the surface of a Sun-like star has been captured.
Altair is a rapidly rotating star and is elongated in shape
It confirms that Altair, one of the brightest stars in the night sky, is a rapidly spinning, non-spherical body.
Until now, telescopes have only been powerful enough to zoom in on the Sun or on rare giant stars outside of the Solar System.
But researchers, writing in the journal Science, say they got around this problem by combining the light from four separate telescopes.
Lead researcher John Monnier, an astronomer at the University of Michigan, US, said: "What may not be obvious to most people is that until now we have not really had the zoom-up capability with our telescopes to make images of stars that are like the Sun."
Compared with the Sun, which can be imaged in spectacular detail, and some rare gas giants, stars outside of the Solar System simply appear as specks of light through even the most powerful telescopes.
Professor Monnier said: "Even Altair, which is pretty close at 15 light-years away and very bright, would be very challenging to zoom-up on. In order to do this, you would need a telescope that is about 300m (1,000ft) across - and that is a long way beyond our engineering capabilities."
To image Altair, which is the brightest star in the Aquila constellation (The Eagle) and clearly visible to the naked eye, the researchers harnessed the power of four telescopes at Georgia State University's Center for High Resolution Angular Astronomy (Chara).
Altair appears as a speck from other telescopes
Professor Monnier told the BBC News website: "By combining and processing the light from the four smaller telescopes, using a new instrument called the Michigan Infrared Combiner, we are creating an image as if it is coming from a much bigger telescope."
The result was a detailed surface image of Altair.
Previous research had suggested that this bright star was spinning very rapidly - about 60 times faster than our home star. But until now, the effect of the rapid rotations on its shape was not clear.
Professor Monnier said: "Computer models had given very basic predictions of what happens if you have a star that is spinning very fast, but our image definitely confirmed that this star was elongated in shape."
The Sun has been imaged in spectacular detail
The centrifugal forces created as the star was spinning were flattening it into an oval shape, he said.
However, the image also revealed that the amount of distortion and changes in surface temperature at the equator differed from current models.
Professor Monnier said: "Since we have a lot more data and the images are very powerful, we can do the modelling again to give a new level of detail.
"We're testing the theories of how stars work in much more detail than ever before." | <urn:uuid:37f07d6d-6946-40bd-9310-5c3a1600d86d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6709345.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00164-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966172 | 605 | 3.703125 | 4 |
5 Easy Steps for Healthy Futures Challenge
It’s time for Alaska’s Healthy Futures Challenge. Starting Sunday, Feb. 3, 142 elementary schools across the state will encourage kids to get out and play every day. The Challenge is fun and free. To find out if your child’s school is participating, look at the list of schools posted on the Healthy Futures website.
Each school has a slightly different way of completing the Challenge, but many schools send the logs home to parents so families can keep track of a child’s physical activity together. Parents of children who attend elementary schools may get a folder that comes home in their child’s backpack.
Watch for the Healthy Futures log that will be coming your way soon, if it hasn’t already come home with your child.
Play Every Day is a campaign with the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services to increase awareness about childhood obesity in Alaska, give tips for raising healthy kids in Alaska, and encourage children and their families to be physically active for good health. For more information, visit www.playeveryday.alaska.gov. | <urn:uuid:23b45df9-67a8-4666-bf72-38d21f4afa6e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.akbizmag.com/Alaska-Business-Monthly/January-2013/5-Easy-Steps-for-Healthy-Futures-Challenge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393463.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00069-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930065 | 234 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The beehive is a rather curious symbol, and it has always posed a problem for the
The problem doesn’t lie in what the beehive symbolizes – industry and cooperation,
two perfectly good Masonic virtues. The thing that sets it apart is actually its variance
with the main categories of Craft Symbology.
The first of these categories is a group of architectural objects: the square, compasses,
level, etc. They come from the age of Gothic cathedrals, and illustrate man’s place in
the universe by the tools of operative Masons.
The other is a group of Biblical symbols: Jacob’s ladder, King Solomon’s Temple,
etc. They tap more directly into the world’s spiritual heritage and bring the fruits of
ancient wisdom to the Craft.
Curiously, the beehive does not fit either category. Although it promotes co-operative
labor, it is not really an architectural symbol; and while the Bible occasionally
mentions milk and honey, that scarcely qualifies the beehive as a Biblical symbol.
This places it among a small group of Masonic icons that lie outside the mainstream.
So, where did this peculiar item originate, and what does it have to do with
An Obscure Origin
The answer may lie in an obscure piece of church symbology: the beehive has long
been associated with St. Bernard of Clairvaux. Shortly after the start of the Twelfth
Century, a French knight named Hugues de Payens approached Bernard – then
serving as Abbot of Clairvaux – for help in promoting an order of knights he had just
organized. The project grew from de Payen’s grand vision of leading an armed force
to patrol the road from Joppa to Jerusalem.
In those days, many pilgrims made a heroic effort traveling to the Holy Land; only to
die of thirst or fall prey to bandits on the last 50 kilometers of their journey. De
Payens saw the need for protection on that final, short leg of the pilgrimage; but he
had only a handful of followers and no financial resources.
To make his plan work, he needed official recognition from the church, money for
munitions and supplies, and new recruits. To secure all these, he needed help from
That’s where Abbot Bernard came in. He gave de Payens his complete support, using
his eloquence to its fullest in arguing the knight’s case to the church hierarchy. Within
two years, de Payens had a monastic Rule for his knightly order and that made it
official. Bernard’s support also gave him a leg up in his efforts to raise funds and
The new Order, now universally known as the Knights Templar, became one of the
most famous organizations in the world. It held sway in both church and military
circles for nearly 200 years. Even now, centuries after its demise, it remains a
centerpiece in the romance of the Crusades.
A Lasting Legacy
The details of the Templars’ story, their heroism and piety, depicts virtues to which
everyone can aspire and lessons everyone should heed.
Surely it is no coincidence that the beehive, the emblem of Bernard’s eloquence, the
very key to the Templars’ initial success, entered the symbology of a fraternity that,
centuries later, would claim descent from the Order.
Not Exactly Proof
Of course this is far from proof that Freemasonry descended from the Templars. At
most it shows that some long-forgotten Mason introduced the symbol to
commemorate a legendary connection, which he himself might not have thought
But as the beehive is neither architectural nor Biblical, we must look elsewhere for
the basis of its association with the Craft.
In that regard, its subtle connection with St. Bernard provides a satisfying answer. It
explains why the beehive belongs among the fraternity’s symbols. And his connection
with the Templars shows what this curious symbol has to do with virtues that Masons
have always held dear. | <urn:uuid:48df0334-f7b7-4c62-a596-99e6fb7e9126> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://themasonicleader.com/the-beehive/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943898 | 867 | 2.953125 | 3 |
- Historic Sites
December 1991 | Volume 42, Issue 8
She did. In May 1940 Churchill, newly made prime minister, entered the sturdy cellar suite. “This is the room from which I’ll direct the war,” he said. With great care and skill the Imperial War Museum has made it possible to visit these chambers and to get a sense of the tremendous business that was conducted there. A tape-recorded tour lets you go at the pace you choose through the cabinet room (where you hear the proceedings of October 15, 1940, a day no better or worse than any other that appalling year: shortages everywhere, dire choices, business as usual), the radio room whence Churchill broadcast the speeches that, along with radar and the Spitfire, were about the only advantages Britain had just then, and the converted broom closet where Churchill spoke to his transatlantic counterpart over the world’s first hot line. This last was done in the greatest secrecy; a small brass washroom register on the door read “engaged” when he was inside, and while he patiently drew Roosevelt closer to the conflict, many of his aides thought the prime minister was suffering severe gastric difficulties.
Most impressive, perhaps, is the map room, where wall-size charts of the Atlantic are peppered nearly black with the million pinpricks that marked the convoys’ progress. On the map of Europe a blue wool thread runs a zigzag line down through the suburbs of Moscow—as far east as the Germans ever got. While these pins and their threads moved back and forth by inches and fractions of inches, men fought their way up the spine of Italy and across France and Belgium, Hitler’s great corpse factories started up and ran full blast, and fifty million people died.
Nobody died in the Cabinet War Rooms (although the stands of rifles in the corridors remind us that in 1940 the occupants were prepared to have the war end here), and yet they are as haunting as the Normandy beaches.
A very different echo of those times can be found half an hour outside London at Cliveden, the glorious country house that was home to Frederick, Prince of Wales, three dukes—and the Astors. Now a hotel, it is magnificently restored, and one can stay where Churchill and Mountbatten and Charlie Chaplin once visited. It’s ruinously expensive and worth every penny—the only way I know to get some idea of what it was like to be a guest in a grand stately home. A marvelously informative tape takes you on a two-hour tour of gardens splendid enough to touch even my mulishly nonagrarian soul. There is much history offered (you can swim in the pool where John Profumo met Christine Keeler), but what is interesting is that the thing the place is best remembered for is nowhere mentioned. The Cliveden Set, who gathered about Nancy Astor in the 1930s, despised Churchill as a reactionary. They all loved Britain, to be sure, but in Hitler’s dynamism and efficiency they saw a force that needed to be understood and accommodated.
When Churchill, newly made prime minister, entered the cellar suite he said, “This is the room from which I’ll direct the war.”
You can feel the incalculable distance between 1935 and 1940 in the dark magnificence of Cliveden’s main hall. Go have a glass of whisky in the pleasant little library beyond it. The room seems to have been the repository for books left behind by weekend guests. There they are on the shelves, novels from the thirties, in moss-colored bindings with titles like Mist Be My Mantle. Then the decade turns, and on the next shelf is Squadrons Up with its frontispiece showing “The Hawker Hurricane, Miracle Fighter.” Inside, a fragile clipping from the Daily Express of December 4, 1940, carries the American publisher Ralph Ingersoll’s account of Pilot Officer Hart, a twenty-two-year-old flier who had been shot down six times (the last one wasn’t worth talking about, Hart said, because “absolutely nothing happened”).
Hart kept going up; they all kept going up, rising from the green folds of country beyond Cliveden’s wide windows, climbing through the beautiful weather of the long-ago summer of 1940 to meet the Heinkels and Messerschmitts so high up that no sound reached the ground below, where the watchers could only try to read their fate in the momentous white scribble of contrails. They kept going up while Churchill followed the progress from his War Rooms, and Roosevelt from across the ocean, until at last Hitler, frustrated, turned against Russia instead, and the Yanks came from the prairies, and from Niagara, and from gangster-ridden Chicago to add their weight to the balance. | <urn:uuid:431f32a8-17b8-439d-9a75-a8ef1ec1c498> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.americanheritage.com/content/london-calling?page=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00137-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965947 | 1,018 | 2.671875 | 3 |
TRAAC [US Navy]
TRAAC (Transit Research And Attitude Control) tested gravity gradient stabilisation for the operational Transit satellites. Additionally, it carried Solar Cell Experiments and a Neutron Detector. TRAAC was launched with Transit 4B on a Thor-DM21 Able-Star launch vehicle.
The objectives of the mission were:
Since Satellite 4B met all objectives, the first objective was not necessary. Objectives 3 and 4 were met. TRAAC contained the first gravity gradient stabilization system orbited (Objective No. 2). This system responded to the extension command but, shortly thereafter, a drive motor malfunctioned and the 60-foot gravity gradient stabilization boom did not extend fully. After launch, it was difficult to execute operational commands while the TRAAC doppler transmitters were on, so that this system was maintained in the off position for substantial periods.
TRAAC contributed some early measurement data of the space environment resulting from the Pacific high altitude nuclear tests (Johnson Island). The albedo neutron flux was measured over a nine-month period. The gravity gradient libration damping spring operated satisfactorily.
This satellite was the first to employ electromagnets for temporary magnetic stabilization.
The satellite had an operating life of 270 days. As with Satellite 4-B, the TRAAC power system was greatly affected by artificial radiation and the satellite ceased transmitting 12 August 1962.
|Type / Application:||Technology|
|Contractors:||Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL)|
|Power:||Solar cells, batteries|
|Lifetime:||270 days (design)|
|Orbit:||957 km × 1109 km, 32.4°|
|TRAAC||1961 αη 2||15.11.1961||CC LC-17B||Thor-DM21 Able-Star||with Transit 4B| | <urn:uuid:64a927de-7412-4f30-ba33-749b5137bf2a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/traac.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00166-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863482 | 397 | 3.234375 | 3 |
The sail buoy is similar in shape and size to a surfboard. It measures two meters in length and under prime wind conditions maintains an average speed of 1-2 knots.
The sail buoy is equipped with two-way satellite communication for real-time data streaming and waypoint updates. It is transmitting data to the Deep-C Operations Center at regular intervals as it moves along a planned course in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Deep-C sail buoy is one of a new generation of research vehicles designed for marine observations that are enabling scientists to expand and intensify the study of our seas and oceans. It is capable of holding in place at a specific location or traveling from point-to-point.
Deep-C (Deep Sea to Coast Connectivity in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico) Consortium is a long-term, interdisciplinary study of deep sea to coast connectivity in the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. The study is investigating the consequences of petroleum hydrocarbon release in the deep Gulf on living marine resources and ecosystem health.
Deep-C consists of ten major institutions that have been actively involved in assessing the impact of the Gulf oil spill. The institutions are Florida State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Dauphin Island Sea Lab, Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennis Space Center, Norwegian Meteorological Institute, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science, Science Application International Corporation, University of South Florida, University of West Florida and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
The mission of Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory is to conduct innovative, interdisciplinary research focused on the coastal and marine ecosystems of the northeastern Gulf of Mexico, with a focus on solving the ecological problems faced by the region by providing the scientific underpinnings for informed policy decisions.
- 2015: An Unforgettable Year for Florida State
- Faculty member receives 2015 Dance Magazine Award
- Professor featured in 2016 National Education Technology Plan
- Kiplinger's names FSU a 'best value'
- New physician assistant program names founding director
- Recent FSU graduates receive Directors Guild of America Awards
- FSU receives national recognition for undergraduate research achievements
- President Thrasher sees a transformational year ahead for FSU
- How to support FSU shooting victim | <urn:uuid:6bbc56ff-7201-4e19-9307-d7e9fa231cdc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fsu.edu/indexTOFStory.html?lead.buoy | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00024-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90965 | 458 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Teaching at West Virginia and Howard University
In 1926 Percy Julian became a professor of chemistry at West Virginia Collegiate Institute, now West Virginia State University. For two years Julian was the only member of the chemistry department at this all-black institution.
The labs didn’t have very much equipment to work with, which was typical of black colleges at that time, and also of many colleges for whites in West Virginia, a relatively poor state. Julian played a role in getting West Virginia State accredited Accreditation is a sign that a college has high-quality education. It is given by a group of teachers or professors who are experts in how to manage colleges. If a college gets accredited, this shows that it has become a better place to learn. If it loses accreditation, this means that its education has gotten worse. in 1927, which meant that it offered an education equal to that of neighboring white colleges.
Despite the equipment limitations, Julian started doing research in organic chemistry again. When he was not teaching, he began to re-create the experiments of a famous Austrian chemist named Ernst Späth. Späth had made, or synthesized , naturally occurring chemical compounds in the laboratory, and Julian, who was interested in the compounds found in plants, began synthesizing plant compounds like nicotine and ephedrine.
After two years at West Virginia, Julian was ready to move on again. In 1928 he moved to Washington, D.C., to become chair of the chemistry department at Howard University, replacing St. Elmo Brady, the man who first inspired him to become a chemist. Howard University was and still is one of the most important and respected historically black colleges or universities in the United States. At Howard, Julian designed a new chemistry lab that cost more than $1 million, something he could never have done at a less prestigious school like West Virginia. He didn’t stay at Howard very long, because in 1929 Julian finally got his chance to go back to graduate school and earn his Ph.D. He packed his bags and headed to the University of Vienna, Austria, to study under Ernst Späth, the man whose experiments he had tried to duplicate three years earlier. | <urn:uuid:f8d5f445-a2f7-44e3-bef8-56f17c0d1d9a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chemheritage.org/percy-julian/history/3.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395548.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983991 | 446 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Louisiana Rice: 2014 Disease Management Starts Now
Most first crop harvesting is done, and the second crop is developing; therefore, it is time to start thinking about next year. One of the most important decisions a rice producer makes before the season starts is which variety to plant. One of the most important characteristics, besides yield and milling, is the disease reaction of those varieties.
Severe disease can devastate a crop; therefore, picking the most resistant or a less susceptible variety can mean the difference between a profit and a loss. Although we have been growing many susceptible and very susceptible varieties over the years, there are alternatives with resistance. If you pick a susceptible or very susceptible variety, make a commitment to manage it correctly by planting early, using the recommended N rate, making timely fungicide applications, etc.
Below in Table 1 are the three-year average disease ratings (some varieties only have one or two years of data as noted) and reactions of various rice varieties to blast, sheath blight, narrow brown leaf spot (Cercospora), and bacterial panicle blight.
Table 1. Rice varietal average disease ratings (0-9 scales) and reactions to rotten neck blast (Blast), sheath blight (SB), narrow brown leaf spot (NBLS), and bacterial panicle blight (BPB) in Louisiana disease nurseries (2011-2013).
AgFax Weekend: IRSPayroll Changes; FFA Drone Regs; British Farmer Subsidies and More… | <urn:uuid:38520d30-9443-4252-acd6-2ffd4edd8e92> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://agfax.com/2013/09/26/louisiana-rice-time-to-start-planning-for-next-year/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.915497 | 305 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Created in the aftermath of the Treaty of Nice, the Convention on the future of Europe aims to form a new European Constitution for the European Union in time for the accession of new member states in 2004. The final report is due to be published in June 2003 in time for an EU Summit in Greece. If all goes to plan, then a treaty could be prepared for signing in May 2004, during the Italian presidency, making a new Treaty of Rome, which is what set up the European Community.
Why does the EU need it?
The European Union was initially founded with 6 member states. It now has 15 and next year this will grow to 25. So far, all this has happened without major structural changes to the European Union. Quite how the convention is presented depends on the presenter. For example, one excuse for it is to "streamline" the organisation of the EU and to cut down on bureaucracy. Another is the integration of the various EU treaties into one document. Others see it as an attempt to form a European super state by which France can enforce their tyranny across the world.
Who's in it?
There are 108 members of the convention. These represent:
The President of the convention is Valéry Giscard d'Estaing
, a former French
President. The two vice-presidents are both former Prime Minister
s: Giuliano Amato
and Jean-Luc Dehaene
What is it talking about?
The areas that the convention should discuss were decided at the Laeken summit:
- The division of responsibilities between the EU and member states.
- Simplification of European treaties to make them more accessible and transparent.
- The role of national parliaments in the union.
- The legal status of the European Charter for Fundamental Rights.
What has it suggested?2
- It has been suggested that the EU be renamed something along the lines of the United States of Europe and that the constitution refer to a "federal system". Euro-sceptics claim this is a clear sign of the institution of an evil super state. Pro-Europeans see the word as meaning what the European Union actually is. So far, the convention has stopped short of using the word "federal" and instead refers to a "community method". The USE idea has also been shelved.
- A President of Europe
- A "powerful figurehead" for the European Union, representing whatever it is meant to stand for. This idea appears to be going forward despite opposition by small states. However, under current proposals, the President will not be directly elected by European citizens but instead by the leaders of EU states.
- A European Foreign Minister
- This appears to be a bit pipe dream since the divisions over Gulf War II but European federalists want to have the EU speak as one voice on the international scene. It is suggested that a foreign minister be elected by similar procedures as the president mentioned above and that member states "actively and unreservedly support the union's common foreign and security policy in a spirit of loyalty and mutual solidarity".
Ultimately, such a policy may lead to a European seat in organisations such as the World Trade Organisation and the U.N. Security Council. However, that is unlikely to happen especially due to the belligerence of the two countries already intimately involved in the latter.
- Majority voting
- At the moment in order for something to be passed in the EU, everyone has to agree to it. As the EU grows, the chances of unanimity shrink so some have called for the introduction of qualified majority as the default method voting for legislation. Although this system is currently used in some cases, it is not widespread. This effectively removes the veto on legislation held by every member state.
- Exclusion of non-euro states from euro-related policy
- Since the introduction of the Euro there has been a growing divide between those who are in and those who are not. Those who are in tend to believe that those who are out should not have an influence on Euro-related policy.
- Criminal Prosecution
- The idea of a supranational European public prosecutor was rejected during the negotiations of the Nice Treaty but the European Commission has again suggested it. Such a post would largely involve the prosecution of those responsible for cross-border fraud. Opponents of the concept argue that it would remove the accountability of criminal prosecution to national parliaments.
1I am aware that reads a bit like an introduction to some kind of international Blind Date. I apologise.
2The proposals written here have a UK-related bias because that's where I live. Sorry. Also, what it suggests is subject to change because that's what politicians are like.
"Britain rejects EU prosecutor", The Times, May 23, 2003
"Giscard offers Blair concessions - but disputes continue", The Independent, May 26, 2003 | <urn:uuid:9eda2a69-33a0-43db-93d2-f5e0d952644e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://everything2.com/title/Convention+on+the+Future+of+Europe | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959691 | 999 | 3.28125 | 3 |
The past decade has witnessed tremendous growth in networking protocols, technologies, and provisioning. Networks now include media, such as wired, wireless, ad hoc, WiFi, WiMax, and satellite. In essence, the entire planet is engulfed in information overflow because of networked computing devices, such as supercomputer centers, data repositories, and data centers. The aforementioned advancements are plausible and must be appreciated. However, researchers have not actively explored novel computer network architectures and communication protocols that reduce carbon footprint. | <urn:uuid:b8ba7522-b92b-4ece-8f35-57fe493d56d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/green-networks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922387 | 99 | 2.640625 | 3 |
1. Why does Flanders pursue multilateral cooperation?
The Belgian Communities and Regions have exclusive competence for the international aspects of their areas of competence, including the conclusion of international treaties. In this context Flanders invests in multilateral cooperation because the great challenges of the 21st century transcend national or regional boundaries and increasingly require global answers. Moreover, the activities of multilateral organisations have an important impact on the policy and measures of the Government of Flanders.
Within the multilateral forums important standards are set which are to be transposed into (sub-) national legislation and which are subsequently subject to reporting obligations. Multilateral organisations are also laboratories for new ideas and the exchange of best practices between Member States. In addition, they are often called on to provide development assistance, given the large multiplier effect and their inherent legitimacy.
Finally, multilateral organisations are beacons for defending human rights and safeguarding the international legal order.
2. What is Flanders' multilateral approach?
Flemish multilateral cooperation consists of two complementary tracks. Work is done both within the Belgian membership of multilateral organisations and via direct relations between Flanders and the organisation concerned.
Within the framework of the Belgian membership of multilateral organisations Flanders has an impact on the political and strategic orientations of these institutions. For instance, the Flemish contributions are taken into consideration in the Belgian positions and contributions for reports and questionnaires through the intra-federal consultation body for multilateral coordination (COORMULTI). These positions are put forward at board meetings and expert meetings of the multilateral organisations. These meetings are also attended by Flemish experts and/or Government of Flanders representatives, who are accredited to UN institutions in Geneva or to UNESCO, the OECD and the Council of Europe in Paris, as members of the Belgian delegation. The Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs is responsible for defending the Flemish positions and looks for opportunities within the multilateral forums. When more than two Flemish policy areas are involved the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs ensures the Flemish coordination through the Strategic Consultation Body for International Affairs (Strategisch Overlegorgaan voor Internationale Aangelegenheden or SOIA).
The Government of Flanders also maintains direct relations with several multilateral organisations. Cooperation agreements are an important instrument in this context. Their aim is to create a true partnership between both actors. Sometimes, this goes hand in hand with the establishment of trust funds and the contribution of expertise by non-governmental actors. Cooperation agreements have already been concluded with the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNESCO, UNAIDS, the International Trade Centre (ITC), UNWTO and the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
The direct cooperation also reveals itself in a wide range of opportunities for funding to multilateral organisations. The Government of Flanders provides both direct budget support (core funding) and funds for the support of specific programmes and projects, whether or not through a trust fund, and for studies.
3. Which organisations does the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs cooperate with?
The Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs assumes a coordinating role when more than two policy areas are active within a multilateral organisation (as is the case with UNESCO, the OECD and the Council of Europe). Activities of multilateral organisations are also monitored by the department when they are relevant for the subject matters of the Foreign Affairs policy area, which are development cooperation, international enterprise and tourism (just think of ITC, UNAIDS or UNWTO) - or because they pertain to important cross-policy area topics, such as decent work, children's and human rights, the fight against HIV/AIDS, and reproductive health (such as ILO, UNICEF, the United Nations Human Rights Council, UNAIDS and WHO).
Other Flemish departments and agencies also have close relations with multilateral organisations, such as the Department of Environment, Nature and Energy within the framework of international environmental policy, or the Department of the Services for the General Government Policy in the context of international policy on sustainable development.
Finally, the Flemish Department of Foreign Affairs also develops a number of complementary measures to increase the support for multilateral cooperation in Flanders and to enhance Flanders' visibility within multilateral organisations. Grants are allocated to so-called UN promoters, in this case the United Nations Association Flanders Belgium and the UNESCO Platform Flanders. Through the funding programme for internships with international organisations the department is working to create more opportunities for young people, to disseminate Flemish expertise and to establish a network of Flemish people within multilateral organisations. | <urn:uuid:c5410777-4d58-4b8e-921e-53beed161284> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vlaanderen.be/int/en/multilateral-policy-0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917788 | 946 | 2.546875 | 3 |
As society struggles against the threats of surging population, climate change, biodiversity loss and degraded land, water and marine systems, what on earth could we possibly learn from a near-pristine atoll free of people in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?
I went diving at Palmyra Atoll to find out.
Palmyra sits 1,000 miles south of Hawai‛i. The Nature Conservancy purchased Palmyra in 2000 in order to save it. Others had tried to buy it to convert to a nuclear waste dump, a rocket launch pad, a retirement development, or a casino. Except for a brief stint during World War II when the US Navy used it as a troop transport station, Palmyra has essentially been free of people.
Palmyra's isolation has allowed it to escape most of the damage usually caused by human populations. It's free of the pollution, overfishing, development and nutrient runoff that damage most coasts today. Palmyra allows us to look back in time to see what a healthy ecosystem should really look like.
Just one example -- scientific studies show that sharks and other large predators comprise more than half of the fish biomass at Palmyra. (See this amazing footage from my dive -- any experienced diver will confirm that this is a very large number of sharks). This is a much bigger proportion of apex predators than scientists had expected. Knowing this is important as we train managers of marine protected areas around the world and they seek to restore fisheries. We need to inspire them to aim very high.
Palmyra is also a good laboratory for studying the impacts of climate change on marine systems. Sadly, we know that, all over the world, climate change is bleaching and killing coral reefs. Even at pristine Palmyra, corals have been bleached by events like El Niño. But on Palmyra, the bleached corals recover quickly instead of dying, or new corals settle in to take the place of those that didn't survive.
Likewise, climate change dramatically increases ocean acidification. This is a very big deal, of course, because acidification makes corals brittle and weak. This reduces their ability to grow, reproduce and resist disease. But here again Palmyra's corals show much less disease. They grow and reproduce much more quickly than corals around developed areas.
The lesson seems to be that if pollution and over-fishing are kept to a minimum, corals are stronger and much more resilient than previously thought.
Photo by Eric Conklin.
This is good news for a number of reasons. It shows there is hope. If we can constrain pollution and over-fishing, coral reefs have a fighting chance.
Coral reefs harbor 25 percent of all marine fish species. They not only provide food and livelihoods to some 500 million people, they are also used in the treatment of cancer, HIV, cardiovascular diseases and ulcers. They protect our shorelines. Healthy coral reefs are essential to people around our planet.
Scientists, however, estimate that we could lose up to 70 percent of the world's coral reefs by 2050. The recent Reefs at Risk report co-authored by The Nature Conservancy and the World Resources Institute provides a detailed assessment of the status of and threats to the world's coral reefs.
There is a lot to worry about here. Coral reefs around the world are under attack and are very vulnerable. But the research at Palmyra demonstrates that we can take action now and do something about it. If we reduce pollution, curtail agricultural run-off and develop sustainable fishing practices, corals will have a much better chance of surviving. | <urn:uuid:bc3808be-b64f-4da7-8d3f-22bcb55566c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-tercek/sharks-healthy-marine-systems_b_857997.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399117.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00181-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958122 | 735 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Israeli occupation didn't start until '67
In the Jan. 4 letter, "Occupation exactly what conflict is about," the author simply makes up "facts" in asserting that Jews carved out Israel from an Arab state of Palestine.
The word "Palestine" first appeared around the year 130 AD, when imperial Rome conquered and renamed the Jewish kingdom of Judea. To remove the Jewish nature of the country, Rome renamed it "Palestine," a word whose linguistic origin means "invader."
The Muslim Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East until the end of World War I. Israel was within the Ottoman "Syrian administrative district" -- no state of Palestine.
After World War I, the League of Nations granted Britain a mandate in Palestine -- which included present-day Israel and Jordan. For the first time in more than a thousand years, Palestine was again a political entity. Starting in the 1920s, Arab Muslims attacked and massacred Jews there. Then Jews accepted and Arabs rejected a U.N. vote to divide Palestine into Jewish and Arab states.
The "occupation" arose because Israel was victorious in a defensive war in 1967. The Palestine Liberation Organization was founded in 1964, before any occupation; Their plan: drive the Jews into the sea. Those who hate never let verifiable facts hinder them.
Bratton's style is not what Oakland needs
What a sad statement this paper makes every time reporters fail to acknowledge that there are readers who are completely and utterly against William Bratton and the discredited Broken Windows "justification" for an increased police presence on our streets.
This sad state was not more apparent when in the Jan. 4 edition Matthew Artz goes out of his way -- as a journalist should -- to find and quote opponents of the planned Lake Merritt dog park, yet fails to engage and quote an opponent of the Bratton style of policing.
Stop-and-frisk is not just an "issue in our city" as Bratton quips, but an issue for tens of thousands of black and brown youth across the nation who are tracked into the system of mass incarceration each year. The struggle against stop-and-frisk is growing (see New York City) and will be resisted in Oakland regardless of how Bratton and his overpaid professionals will seek to soften it for our city.
I am hopeful that residents of good conscience of Rockridge and Montclair will see Bratton and his broken theories for what they are: the local versions of Donald Rumsfeld and the Patriot Act that have eaten away at the civil liberties of people of color beyond recognition of what the Bill of Rights guarantees all people in America, regardless of geography.
It is time to do away with the half-baked theories of consultants who continue to profit from the bloodshed in our streets.
Local news great, but report more on crime
I am a regular reader of The Montclarion. I appreciate its focus on more local concerns in the context of events going on in Oakland in particular and the East Bay and even the state of California in general. The profiles on Piedmont and hills residents are also interesting for the most part. They remind us that we live in a diverse community of individuals who have many different talents that can improve the quality of life for all of us.
I liked the extensive coverage of the Rockridge Safeway plans as well as the articles on Blair Park. These provided my wife and me with much needed specifics and thus a better understanding of the overall context in which they were being raised.
The op-ed pieces on the editorial page are usually insightful and well written. Even when I do not agree with what has been articulated at any one particular time I find that it at least stimulates me to consider alternative points of view about community, educational and/or social issues.
There is one thing I would like more coverage on, however: CRIME. The fact that a recent edition had two letters addressing citizen concerns about this issue demonstrates that it is on the top of many other people's list as well. My wife and I moved here in the summer of 2010 from a smaller and thus 'safer' community of maybe 200,000 people where there was much less street crime, many fewer burglaries and auto thefts and very few homicides a year. There have been many burglaries, a couple of home invasion assaults and burglaries and one murder in our immediate neighborhood (Piedmont Pines) in recent months. Thus it has become, and will continue to be, an ongoing concern for my wife and me.
More specifically, I would like more coverage of the efforts being made by Oakland police to cope with, if not try to lessen the incidence of, crime. TV news, etc. and the weekly police reports in your newspapers give enough info about specific events. But more needs to be shared about efforts being made to reduce the incidence of crime.
Thank you for your efforts to move The Montclarion and The Piedmonter into a more community-friendly direction. We look forward to seeing how you continue to do this. | <urn:uuid:ff5f2fae-9340-474f-b18b-d45f3cf3315f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_22347675/piedmont-montclair-letters-israeli-occupation-didnt-start-until | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962498 | 1,035 | 2.546875 | 3 |
PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICE
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
NATIONAL AERONAUTICS AND SPACE ADMINISTRATION
PASADENA, CALIF. 91109. (818) 354-5011
Contact: Mary A. Hardin
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 23, 1991
More than two years after Voyager 2 looked Neptune's Great Dark Spot in the eye and darted past the frozen surface of its moon Triton, both Voyager spacecraft are continuing to return data about interplanetary space and some of our stellar neighbors near the edges of the Milky Way.
After the Voyager spacecraft flew by the four giant outer planets -- Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune -- their mission might have been over. But, in fact, these 14-year-old twins are just beginning a new phase of their journey, called the Voyager Interstellar Mission (VIM).
As the Voyagers cruise gracefully in the solar wind, their fields, particles and waves instruments are studying the space around them while searching for the elusive heliopause -- the outer edge of our solar system.
The heliopause is the outermost boundary of the solar wind, where the interstellar medium restricts the outward flow of the solar wind and confines it within a magnetic bubble called the heliosphere. The solar wind is made up of electrically charged atomic particles, composed primarily of ionized hydrogen, that stream outward from the Sun. "The termination shock is the first signal that we are approaching the heliopause. It's the area where the solar wind starts slowing down," said Voyager Project Scientist and JPL's Director, Dr. Edward C. Stone. Mission scientists now anticipate that the spacecraft may cross the termination shock by the end of the century. Exactly where the heliopause is remains a mystery. Its long been thought to be located some 75 to 150 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun. (One AU is equal to 150 million kilometers (93 million miles), or the distance from the Earth to the Sun.) Any speculation about where the heliopause is or what it is like, has come only from computer models and theories. "Voyager 1 is likely to return the first direct evidence from the heliopause and what lies beyond it," Stone said.
Yet the Voyagers are not sitting idly by as they wait to cross over into interstellar space. Both spacecraft are involved in an extensive program of ultraviolet astronomy that allows them to study active galaxies, quasars and white dwarf stars, in ways unlike any other spacecraft or telescope in existence.
Voyager's ultraviolet spectrometers are the only way scientists can currently observe celestial objects in a unique region in the short end of the ultraviolet portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. "Voyager's instruments allow it to observe things at wavelengths that are for the most part unavailable to other spacecraft," said Dr. Jay Holberg, a member of Voyager's ultraviolet subsystem team.
The Voyagers have become space-based ultraviolet observatories and their unique location in the universe gives astronomers the best vantage point they have ever had for looking at celestial objects that emit ultraviolet radiation. "The light that Voyager is sensitive to has to be observed in outer space," said Holberg.
Voyager's ultraviolet instruments are best suited to study the two extreme phases of a star's life -- its birth and its death. Thus the Voyagers are currently gathering data on early blue stars as well as other white dwarf stars nearing the end of their lifetime. "Voyager is helping us get a better handle on exactly how much energy these hot stars emit," Holberg said.
Now that Voyager's primary mission of exploring the outer planets is over, there are fewer constraints on the science team when it comes to programming the spacecrafts' observations. "We can sit on these things for very long periods of time and watch these stars go through their phases," Holberg said.
Stars can be very active, but also unpredictable. "We don't know when a star will do something. If we want to sit there and wait, we can do it in the hopes that the star will go through an outburst and Voyager will be there to observe it," he continued. Voyager can now stare at an object for days and even weeks at a time to thoroughly map it and the region around it.
Since the beginning of the interstellar mission, the Voyager project has been conducting a guest observer program which allows astronomers from around the world to make proposals and apply for time to use the Voyager ultraviolet spectrometer in much the same way that astronomers apply for time at ground-based observatories. This program enables scientists to make simultaneous observations of the same object using Voyager and ground-based telescopes.
The cameras on the spacecraft have been turned off and the ultraviolet instrument is the only experiment on the scan platform that is still functioning. Voyager scientists expect to continue to receive data from the ultraviolet spectrometers at least until the year 2000. At that time, there will not be enough electrical power for the heaters to keep the ultraviolet instrument warm enough to operate.
Yet there are several other fields and particle instruments that can continue to send back data as long as the spacecraft stay alive. They include: the cosmic ray subsystem, the low-energy charged particle instrument, the magnetometer, the plasma subsystem, the plasma wave subsystem and the planetary radio astronomy instrument. Barring any catastrophic events, JPL should be able to retrieve this information for at least the next 20 and perhaps even the next 30 years.
"In exploring the four outer planets, Voyager has already had an epic journey of discovery. Even so, their journey is less than half over with more discoveries awaiting the first contact with interstellar space," Stone said. "The Voyagers revealed how limited our imaginations really were about our solar system, and I expect that as they continue toward interstellar space, they will again surprise us with unimagined discoveries of this never-before-visited place which awaits us beyond our planetary neighborhood."
Voyager 1 is now 7 billion kilometers (4.3 billion miles) from Earth, traveling at a heliocentric velocity of 63,800 km/hr (39,700 mph). Voyager 2, traveling in the opposite direction from its twin, is 5.3 billion kilometers (3.3 billion miles) from Earth with a heliocentric velocity of 59,200 km/hr (36,800 mph).
The Voyager Interstellar Mission is managed by JPL and sponsored by NASA's Office of Space Science and Applications, Washington, DC.
Note to Editors: There is a color 8x10 graphic which depicts the Voyagers' position in the solar system or a 1:30 minute piece of animation video available from the JPL Public Information Office. | <urn:uuid:8557f66a-effb-4deb-a378-deeaca223ecf> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/releases/91/release_1991_1400.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00149-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933556 | 1,396 | 3.578125 | 4 |
This six part, 33 chapter book, by Dava Sobel, has two themes running through it:
Theme #1: Decribes thoroughly the life and times of Galileo Galilei (1564 to 1642).
Theme #2: Describes the life of Galileo's daughter (1600 to 1634) through some of the actual letters she wrote to her father.
This is first and foremost a solid, easy to read biography of Galileo. His life is traced from him first entering a monastery before deciding to lead a life of scientific inquiry and discovery. Actual letters or parts of letters (translated from the original Latin, French, or Italian by various experts) by Galileo and others are included in the main narrative. Throughout, we are told of his numerous inventions and discoveries. Perhaps the most sensational is that his telescopes allowed him to reveal a new reality in the heavens and to reinforce the Copernican argument that the Earth moves around the Sun. For this belief, he was brought before the Holy Inquisition, accused of heresy, and forced eventually to spend his last years under house arrest. All the translated papers pertaining to these inquisition days are included and make for fascinating reading.
My favorite Inquisition story is with respect to the June 1633 renunciation or "confession" document (reproduced in this book) Galileo was to speak out aloud. The main point of this document is that the Earth does not move around the Sun and that the Earth does not move at all. After reading it aloud, it is said that he muttered under his breath "Eppur si muove" (translation: "But it does move.")
One of Galileo's daughters born "Virginia" and later appropriately named "Sister Maria Celeste," had the intelligence and sensibility of her father. As indicated by her letters, her loving support, which Galileo repaid in kind, proved to be her father's greatest source of strength through his most productive but tumultuous years. Sobel herself translated these letters from the original Italian. They are expertly woven into the main narrative adding an emotional element to this biography.
This book contains almost twenty-five complete letters and numerous large and small fragments from other letters by Sister Celeste. All letters she wrote begin with a statement showing love and respect for her father. Example: "Most Illustrious Lord Father." The first complete letter is dated May 10, 1623 and the last complete letter is dated December 10, 1633. Those letters Galileo wrote to his daughter have not survived.
Almost 75 illustrations are found throughout this book. They add (besides the actual letters of Galileo's daughter) yet another dimension to the narrative. Two of my favorite pictures are entitled "Moon drawings by Galileo in 1609" and "Sunspot drawings by Galileo."
Another intriguing aspect of this book is a chronology after the main narrative ends entitled "In Galileo's Time." This is not just a timeline of important events that occurred during Galileo's life but includes all significant events (especially scientific ones) between 1543 to 1999 inclusive. For example, what happened in 1687? According to this chronology, "Newton's laws of motion and universal gravitation are published in his [book] 'Principia.'" What happened in 1989? Answer: "[NASA] launches [the] 'Galileo' spacecraft [or space probe] to study the moons of Jupiter at close range."
Where did the author obtain all the fascinating information needed to write such an intriguing book? Answer: from the over 130 references found in the bibliography.
I noticed in the book's "Appreciation" section that the author gives thanks to many people. (Dr.) Frank Drake, who helped with the celestrial mechanics found in this book, caught my eye. She co-authored with him the excellent book "Is Anyone Out There?: The Scientific Search for Extraterrestral Intelligence" (paperback, 1994).
Finally, my only minor complaint is with the book's title. As mentioned above, there are two interconnected themes running through this book. Thus, I think a more appropriate title might have been "Galileo and his Daughter."
In conclusion, this book is a thorough biography of Galileo that includes some translated letters from one of his daugters. It is truly, as the book's subtitle states, "A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith, and Love!!!"
on June 29, 2004
Dava Sorbel (in case you wondered, it's s a woman) has written a thoroughly entertaining and gripping account of Galileo Galilei's life from an unusual angle. This is based on the surviving letters from his eldest child to the astronomer and scientist; from her there are 124 extant letters, but not one of his remains. (However, there are numerous of his other writings and correspondence that the author also draws upon, both directly, and indirectly). Even from the letters alone, it quickly becomes apparent that the reader needs to suspend ideas of parenthood and morality as we would know them. This is seventeenth century Italy, and completely different rules apply.
Suor (or Sister) Maria Celeste took orders in the convent of St Clare at the age of 13, and the tone of her letters is of sheer reverence of her father, and there is a joy in her performing menial task for him, her brother and others in the family. The vow of poverty that Virginia (her name was changed upon entering the convent) took was real, and sometimes there is more than a hint of begging in her letters to Galileo. She also at times was given the responsibility of sending begging letters to possible patrons on behalf of the convent.
Intricate details of everyday life are given throughout; the account of the plague in central Italy in 1630 is particularly good. The continual return to such matters follows the ebb and flow of the letters. Often, letters were sent with some items that had been prepared, and there are requests to send a basket back, or some similar items. Details of convent life are an important backdrop to the writings of Galileo, and Suor Maria Celeste understood both (she helped make fair copy of some of her father's writings prior to publication).
Sorbel also takes a stance on the trial of Galileo in 1633, indicating that it is so unlikely as to be impossible that the man uttered "Yet it does move" or something similar at the end of his trial. The trial not only gave Galileo anguish, but also his daughter. In spite of everything, Galileo considered himself to be a good catholic. In the book that was to be placed on the banned list by the papal authorities, Galileo attempted to divert criticism by having a hypothetic dialogue between exponents of a geo-centric world order, and those of a sun-centred system. "Dialogue on the Two Chief World System: Ptolomaic and Copernican" was to remain on the Papal list of Prohibited Books until 1835!
Galileo was concerned about more than just a sun-centred universe; telescopes, the moon of Jupiter, sunspots, tidal flows and the motion of pendulums are just some of the matters that he wrote about. These ideas are presented in clarity, sometimes exposing what now seems the crazy ideas of his contemporaries. (Consider that one cardinal could see the image of Jupiter's moons using a telescope, but believed that the telescope itself had introduced the image. Another theory was introduced in order to retain the Aristotelian view that everything outside the orbit of the moon in a geocentric universe is unchanging.)
I hope that this well researched and historically accurate book inspires readers to explore other recent books from the History of Science. Be warned, however; not all will meet the excellent standard of this volume. It excels for the background material that has been drawn upon, and for the compelling nature of the read.
on March 19, 2004
Despite the title, the book is not about Galileo's daughter. While her correspondence with her father figures prominently throughout the book and details of her life factor into the story, the book is largely a biography of her father, the preeminent Renaissance physicist and astronomer, Italian Galileo Galillei.
Dava Sobel manages to capture her subject from a more intimate prospective than many biographers by using correspondence, mainly that from his daughter Virginia (later Sister Maria Celeste) to illuminate the more personal aspects of his life. None of the great man's own letters to his daughter remain--the author opines this was because the sister was not allowed to possess anything and such letters might therefore have been destroyed or removed to another location--so his replies are unknown except through references made to them by the sister.
The details of Galileo's life as a youth and as a scientist were known to me to some limited degree through other reading and by means of a play based on his life that I attended at the Children's Theater here in Minneapolis, but the author's book more clearly develops the scientist's life as a family man, devout Catholic, and confidant of the world's contemporary intelligentsia.
For me the most interesting aspect of Galileo's story is still the ordeal he was subjected to as a result of his astronomical observations and beliefs. The author makes it much more obvious that this was no insignificant event in the scientist's life, using Sister Maria Celeste's letters to illuminate the precariousness of the scientist's political situtation and health.
She also makes it clearer that much of the issue was inspired by political events outside of the country that impacted the Roman Catholic Church and its hierarchy, which is something of which I had been unaware. Having undergone an earlier losing confrontation with the inquisition, the scientist had actually discussed his proposed scientific play with the Pope and had submitted the manuscript to not one but two official scrutinies. He had made the changes they required and gone to press, when enemies within the religious and academic communities, both in Italy and abroad, conspired to ruin him by bringing charges of heresy against him.
At this time, Pope Urban VIII was involved in an expensive war with various political entities in Europe over the control of the Holy Roman Empire and over the issue of Protestantism in the contended territory. His capacity to "protect the faith" was being called into question by the discontented in Italy who were being pressed to finance the furtherance of the war, and he needed to prove to them that he could in fact stand firm on religious questions. Galileo managed to get in the way, just at that point in history. Urban, who was himself scientifically inclined and fairly open minded, was also an astute politician caught between a rock and a hard place. Ultimately he had to have known that what was being discovered by the world's scientists would be proven fact in the end and could not be indefinitely supressed. He was probably aware as well that the heresy of which Galileo's work was accused was more of a literary technicality than anything. But he also had to protect his reputation and that of the church in order to maintain its integrity as an institution during a difficult time.
To his credit and that of his peers, up until Urban's time much of science had been speculation and philosophy and "truth" and "reality" were defined by the reputation and status of the proponent of the theory and not by objective data. Equipment used to quantify scientific proposals was just only beginning to be invented during Urban and Galileo's lifetimes and was very new, untested, and not widely understood. The telescope, microscope, thermometer, and barometer were all devised at this time. Furthermore, many charlatans had used mechanical devices to defraud and delude their victims. That one might look through a telescope like Galileo's and see exotic and unexpected things that might well prove to be untrue, seemed entirely logical given the status of science and culture at the time.
An interesting book on an interesting topic and an interesting time in history.
on February 26, 2004
I give this book five stars, because it is absolutely essential reading for anyone wanting a schoalrly, balanced account of "the Galileo incident" at the center of modern science, and modern supposed conflicts between science and religion.
Dava Sobel presents Galileo Galilei in a manner too few historians have: as a man of his times; deepy inquisitive, but, more importantly, devoutly Catholic. Galileo did not see a dichotomy between science and true religion (which he felt to be Catholic Christianity). Rather, in his scientific study of the cosmos he saw a reflection of man's sojourn to his ultimate destiny, Heaven.
A biography of Galileo, this book is also an autobiography of his oldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, a Poor Clare Nun. Dava's translations of her letters are the only ones I know of to have been made into English.
Even so, this book is much, much more than a translation of Sister Maria's letters. I say this in case any prospective male readers feel that this book may be a chronicle of feminist manifestos. It isn't.
This book, perhaps most importantly, is the most readable account of Galileo's history, and his scientific theories, for the general reader that I have ever read.
It's reading is a must for the serious student of science, history, and religion. Be prepared to compare what you think you know, with what actually was, of the Renaissance and the origins of modern science.
on February 16, 2004
In her intimately drawn book, "Galileo's Daughter," Dava Sobel brings us the story of Galileo the Scientist, interwoven with letters from his daughter, which allow us to see Galileo the devout Catholic, and kindly father, as well.
The letters that his daughter, Suor Maria Celeste, wrote to her father over the course of her life serve as the backdrop and force behind Galileo's life and of Sobel's book. Sobel has carefully translated these letters and brought to light not only the life of Galileo, but the daily life details of a seventeenth century Italian nun. Suor Maria writes, for example, "Here are some cakes I made a few days ago, hoping to give them to you when you came...I am still not well...but by now I am so accustomed to poor health that I hardly think about it, seeing how it pleases the Lord to keep testing me always with some little pain or other" (121).
In over 124 letters, we see that Suor Maria Celeste and the nuns of San Matteo are a big part of Galileo's life. Writes Sobel, "Thus, all the while Galileo was inventing modern physics...and defending his bold theories...he was also buying thread for Suor Luisa, choosing organ music for Mother Achillea...and supplying his homegrown citrus fruits, wine, and rosemary leaves for the kitchen and apothecary of San Matteo" (119). In this way we see a Galileo who is deeply involved in the cloistered life of his daughter while at the same time making significant scientific contributions to the world at large.
It is at times a plodding discourse due to the significant amount of historical detail she embeds in virtually every page but it is also a delight to have such a plethora of information in one book.
Sobel has crafted a wonderful narrative, meticulously researched and skillfully presented. Through her portrayal of Galileo, the reader is taken to that point in time when the schism between science and religion first emerged.
on January 18, 2004
I thought this would be historical fiction, a novel, and when its turn came to read, and I picked it up to figure out what it was, I got really excited about what I was about to learn. Inside the front cover, it reads, "Inspired by a long fascination with Galileo, and by the remarkable surviving letters of Galileo's daughter, a cloistered nun, Dava Sobel has written a biography unlike any other of the man Albert Einstein called "the father of modern physics -- indeed of modern science altogher." I noted the diagrams and illustrations of the people, Galileo's equations and inventions.
But what I didn't anticipate was the kind of learning I would be exposed to and how moving the book would be. It turned out to be one of the best books I've ever read, incorporating so many facets in a well-written memoir that challenged and fulfilled.
Of course, I learned quite a bit about the advance of understanding of science and the universe from the story of Galileo's life. His father wanted him to be a physician, but he preferred mathematics and matriculated at the University in Pisa. From there, he took various positions in Italy, eventually ending up as court philosopher and mathematician for the Medici family in Florence. Under their patronage, he was able to maintain the income of a professorship in another city without having to show up to teach. He invented tools to supplement his income, and had three children with a woman he didn't marry, two daughters and a son. The daughters he placed in a convent in Florence, thinking they would be unlikely to marry due to their illegitimacy (apparently, scholars often remained unmarried), and the son he eventually legitimized through a church action. Sobel writes of the progression of Galileo's understanding of the universe after procuring a telescope and modifying it to improve his vision of the sky. He also concentrated heavily on the laws of motion.
Galileo was deeply religious and deeply devoted to the Catholic Church; he was also "connected" through his work as court philosopher for the Medicis in Florence. Though the pope who preceded Urban VIII was not a friend to Galileo and resisted Galileo's advancement of Copernicus's theory of the sun as the center of the universe, rather than the earth, Urban VIII knew Galileo, and the mathematician was able to have an audience with him soon after he ascended to the office. (Though this relationship would have to submit in the end to Urban's declining political position and would not save Galileo from the inquisitors.)
What emerges here is the incredible control over the minds of its subjects the Catholic church enjoyed/enforced in Italy in the 1500s and 1600s. While those Catholics outside Italy were more likely to dispense with papal orders, those within Italy lived in a society structured to control them rigorously. Loyal Galileo, while writing his Dialogue that sought to educate readers on the various theories of the movement of the universe, submitted his work to official inquisitors, the pope's advisers, etc., and willingly changed what they instructed him to out of deference to the church.
The daughter of this book's title is Virginia, whose name became Maria Celeste when she took her vows as a Poor Clare in her convent near Florence. Her younger sister also took vows at the convent, but was not close to her father, and was an unwilling, whining, hypochondriacal nun. In this book, Suor Maria Celeste's 100-plus letters to her father are translated and published for the first time in English, inserted into the narrative in response to events Sobel is reporting in Galileo's life. The letters are sweet and respectful, and show Maria Celeste's dependence on her father for resources as well as her willingness to do for him. She mixed him remedies in the convent's pharmacy, cooked sweets for him and rewrote his manuscripts for him as asked. The two could only visit through a grill at the convent, as Maria Celeste could never leave the grounds, but her letters (his to her did not survive) show a doting, close and mutually rewarding relationship between Galileo and his older daughter.
The book brings to life the daily routines and realities of early 17th century life in Italy, as Sobel makes real what life would be like without clocks, long difficult journeys, onlsaughts of the plague and political intrigues at the Vatican and the local inquisitors'. These tangential explanations, along with the recounting of Galileo's trial in Rome for his DIALOGUE, and his personal and religious sadness over being listed on the church's Index of Prohibited Books, and his daughter's responses and caretaking love of her father, make Galileo a real man, rather than an ancient archetype or a note on a timeline. We see what his questioning intellect cost him and the pleasure and sustenance he derived from his close relationship with his loving and faithful daughter.
The final pages of the book contain such a moving and tender apotheosis of the relationship between Galileo and Suor Maria Celeste. While the book was fabulous, the ending was fulfilling in a wholly unexpected way. I'm grateful for this book, for all I learned from it, and for all I came to understand.
Dava Sobel's fascinating book, 'Galileo's Daughter', is an historical text, but done in a wonderfully innovative manner. 'Galileo's daughter, born of his long illicit liaison with the beautiful Marina Gamba of Venice, entered the world in the summer heat of a new century, on August 13, 1600--the same year the Dominican friar Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in Rome for insisting, among his many heresies and blasphemies, that the Earth traveled around the sun, instead of remaining motionless at the centre of the universe. In a world that did not yet know its place, Galileo would engage this same cosmic conflict with the Church, treading a dangerous path between the Heaven he revered as a good Catholic and the heavens he revealed through his telescope.'
This daughter, christened Virginia, but taking the name Maria Celeste at the convent to which she was remanded, was an intellectual, well versed in the matters which made her father controversial, and, luckily for historians, a frequent correspondent with many around Galileo.
This book chronicles, with reliance upon Sister Maria Celeste's correspondence as well as a prodigious amount of supporting material, Galileo's struggle to be faithful and obedient both to the call of the Church and the call of scientific truth. In this we see not a militant revolutionary or a man bent on defiance and rebellion, as Galileo is so oft cast, but as a solitary man, an often lonely man, engaged in strenuous effort to be prayerful and concerned for all.
Galileo held many positions of teaching and research in his life. His output of written work was extensive, much of which no longer exists. His daughter likewise produced much, of which only her letters remain. Galileo produced works on mathematics (often with practical, i.e., military, emphasis), astronomy, and philosophy (the dividing line between these fields being rather hard to maintain during the Renaissance). Galileo shared the stage roughly with Copernicus, Brahe, and Kepler; Isaac Newton was born the year of Galileo's death.
Alas, part of Galileo's problem was a political miscalculation. While Pope Urban VIII was a man personally known to him (Galileo had demonstrated the telescope to him some time before his ascension to the lofty heights of Roman hierarchy), and known to be an intellectually interested and astute man, he nonetheless had political and dogmatic concerns (and, perhaps as important, other powerful people surrounding him with such concerns) that he could not ignore.
'When Galileo's book arrived in Rome in the summer of 1632, Urban could take no time to read it. Anonymous advisers judged it for him, however, as an egregious insult. Galileo's enemies in Rome, whose number was legion, saw the Dialogue as a scandalous glorification of Copernicus. And the pope, already loudly accused of flagging Catholic zeal on the battlefronts of Europe, could not allow a new affront to go unpunished.'
Not long after his censure from the papal commission, Galileo lost his eyesight, and, despite being published outside Italy, still chose to remain close to family and Church in Italy. Galileo's work was seen not only as a blight on his intellectual pursuit, but as a personal flaw, and the commission passed judgement 'on his book and his person'. Galileo was sentenced to prison (actually, he could have been burned at the stake, the preferred method for dealing with heretical challengers of the Church's worldview), but this was softened by friends who saw to it his terms of imprisonment were spent in bishopric and ambassadorial accommodations.
'The Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican' was listed on the next Index of Prohibited books, in 1664, where it would remain listed for almost 200 years. Of course, the Vatican made headlines throughout the 1990s by re-opening the case of Galileo and finding 'faults', in fact, that 'a tragic mutual incomprehension has been interpreted as the reflection of a fundamental opposition between science and faith'.
Too little too late? Perhaps. This book is a wonderful recast of the standard history on Galileo, seen primarily through the admittedly biased view of his beloved and loving daughter.
on September 12, 2002
I consider myself fortunate to have received the book Galileo's Daughter as a gift, becausI don't think that I would have purchased in on my own. Based on the title and cover one maassume that the book is just a biography, which it is. But it is so much more. It documents thsetting in which modern science was born.
Today, for the most part people are comfortable with science and the many ways it make our lives safer and more comfortable. However, during Galileo's lifetime it took great courage to seek the truth through scientific means. The book documents what it meant to live in a society that was controlled completely by the Church. To be an independent thinker meant putting your entire world at risk. This book makes one realize that only in the last few hundred years have people been able to study how nature works. This book illustrates that science can arrive at different conclusions than religion or philosophy about the world around us.
The book inspired me to explore how mankind has arrived at our current way of thinking about uncertainty, opportunity and our place in nature. In other words about the meaning of life and what is our purpose. It is amazing how much we accept as true about nature and the meaning of life just because someone else said that the way it is. This book inspired me to write my book "The Meaning of Life: If life is a Journey You Need Good Directions"
on June 4, 2002
This is an outstanding novel about the legendary Galileo and his life. Not having a passion for Galileo and knowledge limited to what I had learned in high school prior to this reading, I chose this book solely on the basis of the human interest element. I had never heard that he had a daughter much less an enduring record of such a relationship.
What I found most fascinating was the brilliance of Galileo and his inventions. Although he was criticized and later penalized by the Catholic Church he devoted his life to understanding the world and proving his hypotheses through his numerous experiments and inventions. His life is truly amazing as is the background we get from Sobel about Italy and Italian culture at that time.
The relationship that is established between himself and his daughter Suor Maria Celeste is clearly evidenced through the letters that she sends to her father. Unfortunately, there are no surviving letters from Galileo himself. How poignant are her inquiries about her father's work, health and home arrangements. It is clear from these letters that she holds her father in the highest esteem and that he returns this affection for her. Very interesting in itself is her life in the Poor Clare Convent and the trials she must endure in her life up until her untimely death from dysentery at age 34.
I had the opportunity to see the author, Dava Sobel, speak in my community and she is a wonderful speaker. Her sheer determination to write this book was amazing. She learned Italian so that she could translate the letters! If you ever have a chance to see her lecture you won't be disappointed. An outstanding book with a goldmine of information that will inspire you.
on November 1, 2015
I picked this book up after having read and enjoyed Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time. While "Galileo's Daughter" is not quite as good, I still enjoyed it as I knew very little about the life of Galileo. Essentially, this is a simple biography of the man, focusing on the years that he produced his famous works, so if you are looking for new material, you won't find that here. Instead, this book gives you a new perspective on an old story. We see Galileo's life through his relationship with his daughter. More specifically, the book is structured around her letters to him, as his were destroyed after she died. It's a lovely book, but it would have been nice to know more about the personal characters of both his daughters, as the book is mainly about him really. I suppose this is because not much is really known. For those who are less than scientifically inclined, it may be hard going, but it's worth it. A fine little book really, and recommended. | <urn:uuid:222ac97e-df7e-49c2-95e8-fd9991f3d97b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.amazon.ca/product-reviews/0802779654 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397636.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981137 | 5,980 | 3.296875 | 3 |
One of the most common problems encountered by the aquarist is maintaining a constant pH level. Many hobbyists fail to understand the importance pH plays in the aquarium and what factors influence the pH reading.
When considering pH, rather than having a goal of a specific reading, you should have a goal of stability. Although 7.0 may be the optimal pH level for a given fish, the same fish will likely thrive at a constant level anywhere between 6.6 and 7.4. It may even survive at constant levels between 6.2 and 7.8. It is the drastic swings which can occur in pH that we as hobbyists are trying to prevent. Our goal as aquarists should be to establish a very consistent pH level, even if that level is slightly outside the “ideal” pH reading for a given species. In other words, a constant pH of 6.6 is better than a pH value which fluctuates between 6.6 and 7.0, even for a fish which prefers a 7.0 reading.
The property of water to resist changes in pH is known as buffering capacity. You can determine the capacity of your buffering system by measuring total hardness. A reading of 4-6 dH or higher is usually adequate to keep the buffering system in place and maintain a stable pH. A reading under 4 dH means there isn't enough of a buffering system and the pH is likely to drop. For higher pH levels, you will probably want to aim for 6-12 dH. Many hobbyists choose to measure only Carbonate Hardness (KH), which is a measure of the calcium carbonates in your water. This test is also effective in maintaining a proper buffer system. When testing for Carbonate Hardness, a reading of 75-100 mg/L is adequate for most aquariums, while a reading of 100-200 mg/L would be desired for higher pH levels. For the purpose of freshwater aquariums, measuring either total hardness or carbonate hardness is necessary, but measuring both independently would not be needed.
Fortunately, your aquarium water usually has a natural supply of dissolved minerals which make up a buffer system to keep your pH stable. All of these dissolved minerals together make up the total hardness of your aquarium. As aquarists, in addition to testing the pH of your water, you need to test for total hardness. Knowing your pH reading alone does not tell the entire story. Only by testing total hardness can you predict that your pH will remain stable after you adjust it to the appropriate level. This is due to natural biological processes that occur in your aquarium, such as fish respiration and organic waste breakdown, which result in acids that neutralize the bicarbonate ions that make up the buffer system. Aquarists replenish these buffers and increase total hardness with partial water changes, and help keep the buffer system intact with routine aquarium maintenance, such as cleaning filter pads and vacuuming the substrate.
I would like to briefly address why each of these parts of your aquarium maintenance routine are necessary for stabilizing pH in the aquarium. You need to know that anywhere in your aquarium where detritus (a fancy term for dirt) accumulates is a source of Phosphate production. As detritus accumulates in your gravel bed and on your filter pads, the Phosphate levels in your aquarium rise. Free Phosphate ions may bond with calcareous buffering material, precipitating calcium from your aquarium, and reducing your aquariums ability to keep pH stable. This is why it is so very important to clean your filter pads regularly and vacuum the aquarium gravel with each water change. In addition, your tap water contains buffering ions. Doing regular partial water changes will help to replenish the buffers which have been lost. This is important in all aquariums, because fish respiration and organic wastes alone will cause a gradual drop in the ability of your aquarium to buffer against pH swings.
Now the question becomes what to do if the fish you want to keep have very special pH requirements. If your fish prefer a pH level which is reasonably close to the pH your aquarium water is naturally buffered to, then I do not recommend you make any changes at all. Unless you are keeping an extremely specialized fish your fish will be fine. On the other hand, if your fish have pH requirements which are far from the values in your tank, then you have work to do.
Let us consider methods of raising the pH of your tap water. There are many additives on the market today which claim to raise your pH. I have found most of the liquid products to be 50/50 success at best when used alone. You also need to use a product to increase the buffering ability of your aquarium. To maintain a stable pH in the upper levels of the pH scale for fishkeeping, I would recommend using a buffering substrate such as crushed coral. You can add crushed coral to your existing aquarium. I personally place the crushed coral in a mesh bag and place the bag under my gravel substrate. You will want about 1 kg of crushed coral per 40 liters of water to buffer the water to hold a pH around 7.6. Alternatively, some hobbyists choose to place a mesh bag of crushed coral in their power filter. This method does not allow for the use of large quantities of crushed coral, but can be effective if you only need to make small adjustments to your aquariums buffering ability. If you prefer not to used crushed coral, there are many buffering powders available on the market which are effective at increasing the hardness and/or alkalinity of your aquarium. You simply add the powder to your aquarium water according to the directions. This method tends to create more rapid changes in your water hardness, which can be dangerous if you are not experienced in adjusting hardness and pH. The safest method is to use crushed coral. By first increasing your aquariums ability to buffer the water, you can now adjust your tap water pH to the appropriate level and add it to your aquarium. There are many products on the market to accomplish this. It is often the case that your tap water naturally has a high pH and no adjustment is necessary. You probably only need to add crushed coral to help your aquariums buffer system maintain a high pH.
Lowering the pH is a more extensive task. If you simply add a product such as “pH Down” this will not work. Your buffering system will simply very quickly raise the pH back to its original state. You must remove the buffering ions from your tap water so that you may lower the pH. The best way to accomplish this is to purchase a Tap Water Purifier unit. These units filter the water from your faucet using an ion exchange resin. The resulting water is free of the salts and minerals which buffer your water. Aquarium Pharmaceuticals makes a nice compact Tap Water Purifier specifically designed for aquarium use. This is the only reliable method I know of to reduce the buffering ability of your aquarium water and to lower pH. Without purified water, you may be able to lower your pH for a day or two, but without first removing the buffering ions your pH will climb again to natural levels. This fluctuation in pH is much worse than having the wrong pH to begin with. As an additional option, I should mention that many hobbyists use peat to soften their water. By running peat in your power filter, or by placing a layer of peat under your gravel, you will soften your water. This technique can work well, but is more complicated, less predictable, and probably best avoided by the inexperienced hobbyist.
I have personally found that it is easier to buy fish which fit the pH of your water supply, especially if your tap water has a high pH. There are literally hundreds of fish available in the hobby which can thrive in the 6.6 to 7.8 pH range. I am certain that regardless of your pH level, there are fish which you will enjoy keeping and which will thrive in your aquarium.
Be assured that attempting to control pH is the most frustrating experience for a new hobbyist. I would guess that 50% of the problems encountered in new aquariums are a result of the aquarist attempting to change the pH level. Few fish keepers actually need to adjust their pH. For the majority of aquarists your tap water pH will be adequate. The dangers of adjusting the pH incorrectly far outweigh any benefit you may receive by moving your pH a few points on the scale.
Remember, when it comes to adjusting your pH, less is more! Stability is most important. Routine maintenance is the key to keeping your pH stable and your fish healthy!
In the text it is said that a build up of phosphates will end up destroying the buffering capacity of the water, but my understanding has always been that phosphates are themselves buffering ions, so I believe it would be more accurate to state that an accumulation of phosphates will tend to buffer the water at a lower level. The difference is that a phosphate-buffered water in the wrong pH should be almost as hard to correct as a carbonate buffered one, in contrast to the idea that a water that lost its buffering capacity is easy to correct.
My most painful personal aquarium disaster occurred several years ago when I decided to use a phosphate remover in a 4 year old planted tank with some of the favorite fish I've every kept, just to help me with algae control. It turned out that over the years the water had been buffered at about 6.5 by the phosphate and when the resin removed it the pH swung to 8.5 or more overnight, killing nearly all of my 4 year old fish :-(
Finally, the Tap Water Purifier method certainly works very well as described, but I lived for 2 years in a city where the tap water was extremely hard and alkaline, and as a consequence the resin lasted very little and it became very troublesome and costly to replace it all the time. The solution I found at the time was to simply go to the supermarket next door and stock up gallons of distilled water for the water changes. At a cost of US$0.29 per gallon it was a much cheaper solution (at least for my small tank), and all I had to do was mix in a bit of tap water before using it in the tank.
I am so amazed to see that someone has addressed the issue of phosphates in a freshwater tank! Most don't address the issue unless you are specifically looking for a reason for an algae bloom or are into saltwater tanks. Being new to this hobby I need as much info to maintain a healthy aquarium. I have purchased and read several books and have done tons of research on the net. Most books and websites simply stress the need for basic tests, i.e. ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, but not phosphates. I had no idea I should be testing for phosphates, until my tank crashed. One major algae bloom and nine dead fish later, I have learned a lesson at the expense of my poor fish. My phosphates were so high that within seconds of adding the last chemical reagent to the test tube, the results surpassed the highest on the color key. After numerous water changes and adding phosphate pads to both my filters, my phosphates are now within acceptable ranges and we are now adding a few new fish. Thank you so much for this important information, I didn't find it until it was to late, but now I know and this will NOT happen to my fish again!
Two years ago I used crushed coral, placing it in with my gravel; it slowly raised and kept the pH constant at around 7.2; unfortunately, over time, the coral broke down and caused the water to become extremely cloudy. The only solution in the end after trying all types of filtration etc. was to empty my 270 liter tank and remove all coral, a most tedious and exhausting task. Now I'm waiting for my tank to recycle. I, therefore, do not recommend using coral unless you are willing to pay a high price in the end.
I live in an area where the tapwater isn't very conducive to fish health, with an alkalinity hovering around 8.5 and hardness maxing out commercial test strips. My solution was simple and affordable. I filled my tank with distilled (reverse osmosis) water from the local supermarket, and then added freshwater aquarium salt to give myself the correct ion composition for buffering. I'd say the total cost of setting up the water in a 280 L tank was under $20. I will do small water top-ups with treated tapwater, but larger water changes are done with distilled to keep the hardness withing the range of test strips. As a side note, a pleco is an excelent indicator of water hardness, at least my bristlenose is. When the water gets too hard he simply stops moving and lies on his belly on the bottom of the tank/rock (not suctioned upside down or against anything) and will actually refuse to move unless poked. I do an agressive water change and he's back to chasing the loach.
I'm happy to find a discussion about pH and phosphates. I have well water that contains a high carbonate hardness level, that keeps the buffer for pH very high (80 ppm). The only solution I have found is to bring in water from the city that uses reverse osmosis in their filtering (0-4 ppm). I assumed that testing for general hardness was enough. Carbonate hardness is the most important in managing the pH of an aquarium. Only after speaking with the water plant engineer and running tests in the lab that I work in, did I figure out how to get around the buffer.
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Lead is a metal found in natural deposits as ores containing other elements. It is sometimes used in household plumbing materials or in water service lines used to bring water from the main to the home. See how to identify and purchase lead-free faucets.
Why is Lead being regulated?
In 1974, Congress passed the Safe Drinking Water Act. This law requires EPA to determine safe levels of chemicals in drinking water which do or may cause health problems. These non-enforceable levels, based solely on possible health risks and exposure, are called Maximum Contaminant Level Goals, which are set at zero because EPA believes this level of protection would not cause any potential health problems.
How will Lead be detected in and removed from my drinking water?
Since lead contamination generally occurs from corrosion of household lead pipes, it cannot be directly detected or removed by the water system. EPA is requiring water systems to control the corrosiveness of their water if the level of lead at home taps exceeds an Action Level. The Action Level for lead has been set at 15 parts per billion (ppb) because EPA believes, given present technology and resources, this is the lowest level to which water systems can reasonably be required to control this contaminant should it occur in drinking water at their customers home taps.
These drinking water standards and the regulations for ensuring these standards are met, are called National Primary Drinking Water Regulations. All public water supplies must abide by these regulations. If contaminant levels are found to be consistently above the Action level, your water supplier must take steps to reduce the amount of lead so that it is consistently below that level. Corrosion control has been approved by EPA for controlling lead.
If the levels of lead exceed the Action Level, the system must notify the public via newspapers, radio, TV and other means. Customers will be informed of what they can do at home to lower their exposure to lead. Additional actions, such as providing alternative drinking water supplies, may be required to prevent serious risks to public health.
Have your water tested for lead
We removed all known lead service lines in the 1980s and have been replacing brass meters with lead-free meters since 2002. However, some homes in San Francisco may have increased levels of lead in their tap water caused by deterioration of household plumbing materials that contain lead. Infants and young children are typically at the greatest health risk. If you are concerned about elevated lead levels in your water, flush your tap for 30 seconds to 2 minutes before using the water, whenever the tap has not been used for several hours or have it tested.
Please complete the Lead Analysis Application and send it along with payment to:
What are the health effects?
SFPUC Water Quality Division
Environmental Services Section
Attn: Lead Program Coordinator
1657 Rollins Road
Burlingame, CA 94010
Short- and Long-term effects: Lead can cause a variety of adverse health effects when people are exposed to it at levels above the MCL for relatively short periods of time. These effects may include interference with red blood cell chemistry, delays in normal physical and mental development in babies and young children, slight deficits in the attention span, hearing, and learning abilities of children, and slight increases in the blood pressure of some adults.
Long-term effects: Lead has the potential to cause the following effects from a lifetime exposure at levels above the MCL: stroke and kidney disease; cancer.
How much Lead is produced and released to the environment?
Lead may occur in drinking water either by contamination of the source water used by the water system, or by corrosion of lead plumbing or fixtures. Corrosion of plumbing is by far the greatest cause for concern. All water is corrosive to metal plumbing materials to some degree. Grounding of household electrical systems to plumbing may also exacerbate corrosion. Over time, lead-containing plumbing materials will usually develop a scale that minimizes further corrosion of the pipe.
What happens to Lead when it is released to the environment?
When released to land, lead binds to soils and does not migrate to ground water. In water, it binds to sediments. It does not accumulate in fish, but does in some shellfish, such as mussels.
Learn more about your drinking water!
The EPA strongly encourages people to learn more about their drinking water, and to support local efforts to protect and upgrade the supply of safe drinking water. Your water bill or telephone books government listings are a good starting point. Your local water supplier can give you a list of the chemicals they test for in your water, as well as how your water is treated.
For help in locating these agencies or for information on drinking water in general, call: EPAs Safe Drinking Water Hotline: (800) 424-5323. | <urn:uuid:6b5b59d5-79e0-4750-b848-81c66e002545> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sfwater.org/index.aspx?page=356 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00017-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952202 | 1,300 | 3 | 3 |
He was “the father of California wine,” and July 6 is the 140th anniversary of Agoston Haraszthy’s untimely demise.
Born to a noble Hungarian family in 1812, Haraszthy sailed for New York in 1840, in search of his future, and embarked upon a tour of America, which included a visit with President John Tyler “in my full Hungarian Guard dress uniform,” as he reported in his 1844 book, “Travels in North America.”
Hooked on the new country, Haraszthy settled in Wisconsin for a few years, but something lured him westward: the California sun and the future state’s golden allure, already being reported to the outside world. On Christmas Day, 1848, Haraszthy, his wife and their six kids set out for California, traveling along the Santa Fe Trail and reaching their destination nearly a year later. The family struck down its roots in San Diego, where an important event occurred: he was introduced to local grapegrowing and winemaking by the Spanish padres, who acquainted him with the Mission grape. “Haraszthy quickly noted its defects and became convinced that plantings of nobler varieties could be commercially viable,” writes a biographer, Robert Lawrence Balzer, adding, “He sensed that by planting vines brought directly from Europe, he could realize his old dream of producing wine of a quality that could complete with good Hungarian and other European wines.”
Haraszthy made good in San Diego, getting elected Sheriff and, following that, to the State Legislature, which at that time met in the city of Vallejo, just south of Napa Valley. That brought Haraszthy into contact with Northern California, which he realized was the best place to grow winegrapes. He purchased, in 1852, a plot of land in San Francisco’s Mission District and planted several hundred acres, but it wasn’t long before he discovered that San Francisco’s cool, foggy climate could never ripen grapes. One thing led to another, and in 1857, General Mariano Vallejo, the leading vintner in Sonoma County, invited Haraszthy to visit. “With his first glimpse of Sonoma Valley,” Balzer writes, “[Haraszthy] sensed instantly that his long search had ended.” Haraszthy bought 6,000 acres at the foothills of the Mayacamas Mountains and planted his estate, which he named Buena Vista.
It was, of course, Haraszthy’s 1862 book, “Grape Culture, Wines and Wine-Making,” which he wrote as a report to the Legislature, that made Haraszthy famous. That, and his importation to Buena Vista of hundreds of thousands of cuttings of 1,400 different varieties he gathered on his tour of the winemaking regions of Europe.
Haraszthy loved California and was the first great believer in its future as a world-class wine-producing region. “The California climate, with the exception of the sea-coast, is eminently adapted for the culture of grape-vines,” he wrote in his book. “…[T]here is no doubt in my mind that before long there will be localities discovered which will furnish as noble wines as Hungary, Spain, France, or Germany ever have produced.” Haraszthy was far ahead of his time; for all the talk about mountain vineyards and volcanic soils we hear today, one is amazed to hear Harasthy recommend that vintners “look for a soil which is made by volcanic eruptions, containing red clay and soft rocks…This kind of soil never cracks, and retains the moisture during the summer admirably.”
Haraszthy died in Nicaragua on July 6, 1869, reportedly eaten by crocodiles. I wish he could be around today to see how his hopes for California wine have been realized many times over. He is one of the giants of California wine, on a par with Robert Mondavi and Andre Tchelistcheff, the kind of person the wine industry produces only a few times a century. | <urn:uuid:dd7bb40e-d227-4329-8a39-112365b8b76f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.steveheimoff.com/index.php/2009/07/02/rip-agoston/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00095-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976624 | 898 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Jewish general of the eighth century; appointed by Tariḳ; fought valiantly at Xerez against the Visigoths at the head of his army of Jews and Berbers, and occupied a part of Catalonia. He rose against the tyrannical Al-Ḥurr ibn 'Abd al-Raḥman, governor of Spain. Al-Ḥurr attacked him with a superior army and compelled him to retreat toward Lerida. There he was defeated, taken, and executed (718). The Jews in his army, pursued by Al-Ḥurr, were hospitably received by their coreligionists in the cities of Catalonia.
- Rios, Hist. i. 117 et seq., 244 et seq.;
- Grätz, Gesch. v. 186. | <urn:uuid:5b7b5d43-cb78-4c8c-b58c-8ba1a0877c3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/9247-kaula-al-yahudi | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396872.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987083 | 166 | 2.84375 | 3 |
The Carmelite Calendar
In the old Carmelite calendar in both the Ancient Observance and the Discalced Order, this was the feast of St Brocard considered one of the founders of the Order in the Latin Rite. What follows is a short summary of his life, based on a slap-dash translation by me of the second nocturn in the old office of Matins for his feast day. (Corrections welcomed; your servant presumeth to erudition but he hath it not.
St Brocard was born in Jerusalem and was greatly given to the study of the things of the Lord. He entered he Order of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel. There he shone with sanctity. And at the death of the holy Berthold, the first of the Latin priors general, he was elected prior general by unanimous consent of the brethren. That he might foster a more regular religious observance, he begged a Rule from the blessed Albert, the Patriarch of Jerusalem. By this brief compendium, the institution of the Order was completed. At his direction the young Order grew in numbers and in merit.
Knowing his prudence and sanctity, the blessed Patriarch Albert sent him to Damascus to Saladin, the king of Syria and Egypt, to arrange a treaty. While there he was considered by all a wise and knowledgeable man and was thus importuned by Soldanus, the vice-regent, who had contracted leprosy. To the river Jordan he led him and baptized him, thus cleansing him in both body and soul. So becoming a faithful defender of the name of Christ, he led him to Carmel where in the habit of Carmel and in the Carmelite observances he faultlessly persevered, growing always closer to Christ. By this and similar tales did this holy man shine in glory and miracles.
When he had reached the 80th year of his life, and arrived at his death agony, he exhorted the brethren this way: “Sons, into this Order and among the number of the hermits God has called you, and by His singular gift we re called the Brethren of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary. Therefore after my death, take care lest any false name be taken up by you. Remain firmly constant in goodness, revile riches, condemn the world, observe a righteous life after the pattern of Mary and Elias.” Acquiting himself of these things, he breathed forth his soul.
The collect for his feast:Sanctify Thy servants, Lord, who humbly beseech Thee on the feast of blessed Brocard, hermit of Mount Carmel and Thy confessor, so that by his salutary patronage our life maybe everywhere protected in adversity : through Christ our Lord. Amen. | <urn:uuid:a1343d25-6c51-497a-83d2-b699df9f0cf9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thesixbells.blogspot.com/2006_09_01_thesixbells_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396224.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971694 | 568 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Kindergarten and Pre-K classes
The Pre-K and Kindergarten years are devoted to nurturing the imaginative and social development of the young child. These are the years when a child learns primarily through imitation and creative play. The Pre-Kindergarten/Kindergarten bridges the transition from home life to school. The classroom is a pleasing and inviting environment of warm colors, natural materials, simple handcrafted toys, and objects from nature. The daily and seasonal rhythms, which are so comforting to young children, include such activities as songs, storytelling, painting, baking, nature walks, and time for creative play.
Cedarwood has traditional mixed-age kindergartens, in which the children’s ages range from four to six years. These classes meets five days a week. We also have two pre-kindergartens for children ages three to four. These classes meet three and five days a week.
The Pre-Kindergartens (three day – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; five day – Monday-Friday) and Kindergartens (five day) begin at 8:30am and release at 12:30pm every day. Parent-Child classes are Mondays and Fridays 9:00am-11:30am. We offer full day programming until 3:30pm and extended care until 6 pm for all Pre-K and Kindergarten classes.
Example of a daily schedule in the Kindergarten at Cedarwood School:
- Circle time
- Free play
- Snack preparation
- Activities such as painting, sewing, finger knitting, crafts, baking
- Cleanup and snack
- Story time
- Outside playtime
- Depart for home
Rosebud Parent-Child classes
Welcoming parents with infants and toddlers as we explore the wealth of Waldorf education, in light of the very young child. We will meet together one day each week in our lovely and cozy early childhood classroom, providing a warm and nurturing environment for the children and parents to grow.
Our mornings together are offered Monday or Fridays from 9 AM to 11:30 AM. On these mornings we will be singing seasonal songs and nursery rhymes in our circle time. We will dance and move as we sing and simply celebrate each day with the joys of being together with friends. Creative playtime will give us the opportunity to explore the toys and play with our friends as well as socialize and the plant seeds of our community. We will knead and bake bread during the morning and enjoy it together as we share our snack. Each morning we will end with a small seasonal puppet show and journey outside to play in the park.
Together we will appreciate the children’s growth and development while gaining healthy parenting skills to support the growing child. Our Rosebud classes will take place within the rhythm of the school year, growing together through the seasons from September into June. | <urn:uuid:c91d59b9-3527-4323-a658-c89a4efa9636> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.cedarwoodschool.org/curriculum/kindergarten-and-pre-k/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395992.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953789 | 596 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Imperial Conference, assembly of representatives of the self-governing members of the British Empire, held about every four years until World War II. The meetings prior to 1911—in 1887, 1897, 1902, and 1907—were known as Colonial Conferences, and were chiefly concerned with defense problems and the possibility of imperial tariff preference. Relatively informal, they were held when colonial representatives came to Great Britain for royal celebrations. More formalized meetings were held in 1907, 1911, 1917–18, 1921, 1923, 1926, 1930, 1936, and 1937. The conferences were designed to strengthen imperial ties by exchange of ideas, but their decisions had no legal effect. The two main focal points of discussion remained defense and economic policy. In 1917–18 the Imperial War Conference acknowledged the importance of the whole empire in defense policy by admitting India, not yet self-governing, to the conference. There was an acknowledged need on the part of Britain for practical support from the dominions in military and naval resources, and a parallel desire for participation in the decision-making initiative on the part of the dominions. The dominions also wanted to be able to pursue independent foreign policies, within the bounds of imperial cooperation. The constitution of the conferences themselves and the status of the dominions were the chief problems discussed at meetings during the 1920s. The resolutions of the conferences were given legal effect by the Statute of Westminster (1931; see Westminster, Statute of), which declared the legislatures of the several dominions on an equal footing with that of Great Britain. A standing Imperial Economic Committee concerned itself with coordination of economic matters. After World War II, it was replaced by the biennial Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers and yearly meetings of finance ministers.
See M. Ollivier, ed., The Colonial and Imperial Conferences from 1887 to 1939 (1954).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:2c2187b6-26ef-4514-899b-2ed181f697ca> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/history/imperial-conference.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95822 | 400 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Table of contents
The National Herbarium and Botanic Gardens of Malawi
(NHBG) is a parastatal botanical institution. It is the principal authority
on botanical and related matters in Malawi. The NHBG administrative headquarters
is located about 3 km N.W. of Zomba town centre overlooking the Government
Press, Parliament, and Malawi National Examinations Board.
The National herbarium houses over 90, 000 plant specimens
(including mushrooms, ferns, mosses, algae, lichens) collected all over
Malawi and a carpological collection of about 200 accessions. The herbarium
therefore is Malawi’s plant data bank and hence is very important for plant
identification, taxonomic research, reference and loan exchange of herbarium specimens
between herbaria. Using information from herbarium specimen labels staff
at the National Herbarium can provide phenological data of most plant species,
their distributions, habitats and uses.
|The National Herbarium
history of herbaria in Malawi dates back to 1930 when the Department of
Agriculture, Division of Plant Pathology established the first herbarium
in Zomba. This was later transferred to Chitedze Agricultural Research
Station, Lilongwe. Another herbarium was established in 1956 in Zomba by
the Department of Forestry and was later transferred to Chongoni Silvicultural
Research Station, Dedza (Now Malawi College of Forestry and Wildlife).
A university herbarium was established in 1966 at Chichiri campus, Biology
Department and inherited all specimens from the Agricultural herbarium.
This herbarium was expected to develop into a broader independent botanical
institution useful in the field of conservation, botanical research, education
and technical services. The university and the Forestry herbaria merged
to form the National Herbarium of Malawi in 1987. The National herbarium
is located in Zomba with regional herbaria in Lilongwe and Mzuzu. | <urn:uuid:148240bc-5936-404f-901b-9de8a950eff7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sdnp.org.mw/enviro/herb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.874949 | 434 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Mothers who are exposed to particulate air pollution of the type emitted by vehicles, urban heating and coal power plants are significantly more likely to bear children of low birth weight, an international study has revealed.
The study, led by co-principal investigator Tracey J. Woodruff, PhD, MPH, professor of obstetrics and gynecology and reproductive sciences at UC San Francisco along with Jennifer Parker, PhD, of the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the largest of its kind ever performed.
It analyzed data collected from more than three million births in nine nations at 14 sites in North America, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia.
The researchers found that at sites worldwide, the higher the pollution rate, the greater the rate of low birth weight.
Low birth weight (a weight below 2500 grams or 5.5 pounds) is associated with serious health consequences, including increased risk of postnatal morbidity and mortality and chronic health problems in later life, noted lead author Payam Dadvand, MD, PhD, of the Centre for Research in Environmental Epidemiology (CREAL) in Barcelona, Spain.
In the study, the team assessed data collected from research centres in the International Collaboration on Air Pollution and Pregnancy Outcomes, an international research collaborative established in 2007 to study the effects of pollution on pregnancy outcomes. Most of the data assessed was collected during the mid-1990s to the late 2000s, and in some cases, earlier.
"What's significant is that these are air pollution levels to which practically everyone in the world is commonly exposed. These microscopic particles, which are smaller than the width of a human hair, are in the air that we all breathe," said Woodruff.
Woodruff noted that nations with tighter regulations on particulate air pollution have lower levels of these air pollutants.
Whether these pregnancy exposures can have effects later in life, currently is under investigation through an epidemiological follow-up of some of the children included in these studies.
The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. (ANI) | <urn:uuid:33d3bd34-d352-43ea-8721-87f395ec5e51> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sify.com/news/air-pollution-linked-to-low-birth-weight-news-international-nchlunbehij.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954529 | 430 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Recently, McAuliffe Elementary (McAuliffe) students created a petition for Microsoft to change something they consider to be a “stone tablet” – the Floppy Disc Icon.
The idea to petition the Floppy Disc change developed after a school-wide lesson about communication and the evolution of how humankind has saved information – a lesson provoking meaningful and relevant work to engage students in profound learning.
“The floppy disc was retired last year, yet Microsoft still uses it as an icon to save,” McAuliffe Librarian Linda Thiebaud said. “Teachers have to teach children what it is and explain it no longer exists. Depending on what version of Microsoft they have, some call it the blue box.”
To bring awareness to the necessary change, students turned to Change.org, a web-based petition platform, to create The Floppy Disc Project petitioning Microsoft’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer and Microsoft to retire the floppy disc icon.
On the petition, students point out how the floppy discs ceased production last year, making it extinct.
“We digital natives, children of the 21st century, request for this icon to be retired,” McAuliffe Elementary students said. “We want it changed to something everyone in the world will understand. The floppy disc is the stone tablet of the 21st century.”
So what’s next for McAullife students in their process to change the dated icon? While waiting to gain more signatures, students plan to film a video showcasing the evolution of saving documents, as well as host a school-wide contest for students to create a replacement icon. Once the petition reaches its goal, students will send it, along with the video and replacement icon suggestions, to Microsoft.
“How we save information is changing,” Thiebaud said. “We are saving to a ‘cloud’ and the floppy disc is no longer a common language students understand. We are reaching out to the world to help us convince Microsoft to change this.”
More than 200 people have signed the petition thus far. Do you think it’s time for this icon to retire? If so, sign the petition today. | <urn:uuid:edb77b34-8352-4b19-a73b-9d7d60c0caed> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://yourlewisville.dallasnews.com/2013/04/18/mcauliffe-students-floppy-disc-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00151-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922842 | 457 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Electrocardiogram (ECG) and Pressure blood is a main source for doctors to diagnose the health condition and pathology of heart. The magnitudes of ECG signals are usually approximate 1 mV. The Electrocardiogram signals are affected by environment noises. The mostly sources of these errors are the power line of 50 HZ. In this paper we present an advance develop of Wireless pads using embedded system and ZigBEE protocol to avoid white Gaussian noise and 50 Hz Power line noise from ECG and Pressure Blood measurements signals. The user-doctor can acquire from the internet in real time the electrocardiograph and the pressure blood of patient. On system can be connected Bio-instrumentations via RS 232 protocol. Finally all information can be imported in BioBench Software. | <urn:uuid:0516c7cc-82c0-4edc-8200-4df0f72a8098> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/abstractKeywords.jsp?reload=true&arnumber=4621547&contentType=Conference+Publications | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.866995 | 159 | 2.875 | 3 |
R This software, put together by some 40 volunteers around the world,
implements a "dialect" of the S statistical computation and graphics
language. Interestingly, one of the developers of S, John M.
Chambers, is also a developer of R. The major difference with respect
to S is that R employs "lexical scoping," which can make for more
natural functional expressions. "Most S code will run under R."
Besides standard functions, C and Fortran code can be called by R
routines. The program is available under the "GNU General Public
License," so the source code is freely available. There are also
binaries for a variety of platforms. This site also contains an
extensive number of contributed packages that extend the language as
well as extensive documentation. | <urn:uuid:82ad38f9-aa28-482c-ad77-543255ee45ff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.aeaweb.org/rfe/showRes.php?rfe_id=1372&cat_id=89 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00080-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92126 | 170 | 2.734375 | 3 |
General information on Ruptured Disc
Ruptured Discs can come on slowly or rapidly. This condition is very painful for the dog.
The disc is a cushion made of cartilage (fibrous connective tissue) that sits between the vertebrae.
There are two types of ruptured disc. The Hansen type 1 is when the disc ruptures on the inside causing it to impinge on the spinal cord. The Hansen type 2 is when the disc bulges outward. Type 1 occurs more in smaller dogs, especially the dachshund. Type 2 occurs more in larger breeds including Labrador Retrievers and German Shepherds.
Symptoms of Ruptured Disc
Symptoms of the type 1 Ruptured Disc may include gradual pain and the dog may cry when handled or touched in the affected area. The dog may also have an unsteady gate, lameness, weakness and may refuse to walk up or down stairs. The symptoms may appear suddenly after a mild trauma and the dog may have complete hindquarter paralysis. If the rupture is in the neck, this will be very painful and the dog may refuse to lower its head to eat. The dog may cry when patted on the head and front leg lameness or paralysis can also occur.
Symptoms of type 2 usually appear gradually over time as the dog ages.
Treatments for Ruptured Disc
Treatment of Ruptured Discs may include corticosteroids. There can be partial recovery with this method. Surgery may also be an option.
See your vet as soon as possible for an evaluation.
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Remember, this information is for reference only. Always contact your vet or pet profesional for advice.
The information contained on this site is for the sole purpose of
being informative and is not and should not be used or relied upon as medical
Seek the advice of your vet
or other qualified pet care provider before you decide on any treatment or
for answers to any questions you may have regarding a canine medical symptom or medical condition. | <urn:uuid:1a03b353-7690-40c0-8380-0707248d3c45> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.helpmyhound.com/diagnosis.php?dname=1349 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396100.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00014-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927265 | 476 | 2.875 | 3 |
Before the Japanese air attack on the U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, less than one percent of all workers in American aeronautical factories were female. Just two years later, more than 475,000 women would help to manufacture aircraft for the war effort. Another 350,000 would join the Armed Forces.
Due to acute labor shortages throughout the nation, the Office of War Information turned to advertisers for their help with a "Basic Program Plan for Womanpower." The ads would target women who had never before held jobs and, as the plan stated, "These jobs will have to be glorified as a patriotic war service if American women are to be persuaded to take them and stick to them. Their importance to a nation engaged in total war must be convincingly presented."
Women were urged to take all types of jobs, not just positions in defense plants and factories. Without the influx of women entering the work force, according to the Office of War Information, "civilian life would break down." More than six million women entered the work force for the first time, taking jobs as clerks, telephone and elevator operators, and even farmers.
Visitors to the Library of Congress Web site can watch a video presentation by Sheridan Harvey, of the Humanities and Social Sciences Division, who has this to say about Norman Rockwell's Saturday Evening Post cover of Rosie the Riveter (below), the iconic female defense worker: "She wears goggles and a shield. In reality, it's unlikely that she would have worn both.... On her lapel you can see various pins—for blood donation, victory, her security badge.... She's wearing loafers. Only after July 1943 were safety shoes with metal toes produced for women. There had been no need to manufacture these shoes in women's sizes before, because women didn't customarily work in dangerous jobs where such shoes were needed. Most women wore their own shoes."
To hear real-life Rosies talking about their work on the homefront (including work at the Goodyear Aircraft factory, in the Army Air Corps, and at various shipyards), visit the Library of Congress Veterans History Project. | <urn:uuid:5c7406f3-8dcd-43e2-8acf-042b11d7fa0a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/the-victory-of-advertising-174591294/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00073-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975127 | 440 | 3.46875 | 3 |
VANCOUVER — A young Calgary man says he was recently told he cannot play in the All Native Basketball tournament because he lacks the required aboriginal bloodlines, despite being a member of the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella, B.C. Experts say the process for determining who is aboriginal in Canada is complicated:
What is blood quantum?
Canadian rules governing who is aboriginal do not specify that a person must have a specific bloodline. Other countries, such as the United States, have requirements saying a person must have a certain amount of aboriginal ancestry to qualify as aboriginal.
Sometimes people conflate the American system with the Canadian system, says Brian Thom, a professor of anthropology at the University of Victoria.
Josiah Wilson has been barred from the All Native Basketball Tournament in Prince Rupert, B.C. (Facebook)
Blood quantum is a simple label for a complex issue with deep historical roots, says Chris Andersen, interim dean of the University of Alberta's faculty of native studies.
"We use a term like blood quantum like it's this kind of straightforward math, but because of how sexism and patriarchy in the Indian Act work, it isn't straight ahead. It all depends on whether the person's mother or father is a status Indian," he says.
In the beginning
The Indian Act was established in 1876, laying out requirements for who was legally aboriginal in Canada. Under the original act, women did not have any status on their own and instead gained it from their father or husband.
"Women could loose status in all sorts of ways that men couldn't. And one of the major ways that women lost status was through what was called 'marrying out,'" says Andersen.
Aboriginal women who married men who were not status Indians lost their status. But aboriginal men who married women who were not status Indians kept theirs. The wife of the aboriginal man, and any children they had, also became status Indians.
"Over time, what you start to get is these generations of people who don't have status," Andersen says. "And because of the way this has kind of worked intergenerationally, we've come to kind of use a blood quantum logic to make arguments about how much status somebody has."
An indigenous Canadian man is seen at his booth after a performance during the International Aborigines Festival on Oct. 24, 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. (Photo: Mohd Samsul Mohd Said/Getty Images)
Under the Indian Act, tens of thousands of women were stripped of their status when they married non-status men, Andersen says.
The Canadian government sought to address the discrimination by bringing in Bill C-31 in 1985, which allowed the women and their children to apply to have their status restored. The grandchildren of the women who lost status could not apply to gain status.
Several people argued that the amendments Bill C-31 made to the Indian Act didn't go far enough.
Sharon McIvor launched a court case in 1989, arguing that her grandchildren should have status, too.
British Columbia's Court of Appeal eventually found the amendments in Bill C-31 unconstitutional, and the Canadian government responded by bringing in Bill C-3 in 2011.
Under the new law, McIvor's grandchildren, and the grandchildren of other women who had lost status, could apply for status.
The government estimated about 45,000 people would be entitled to register for status as a result.
The Indian Act still governs who is a status Indian today, but membership in a First Nation is decided separately.
The number of non-status people grows with each generation, and each First Nation makes its own decisions about whether those people are members based on factors that may not include legal status, Andersen says.
A person could have legal status in the eyes of the government, but not be a member of a First Nation, he says.
"(Aboriginal) is a big category," says Thom. "Depending on what criteria you're looking at, you either fall into the federal government's category of who's a status Indian and who's not, or a particular band's category of who's a member and who's not."
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Elected MP for Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River, Saskatchewan
Elected MP for Niagara Centre, Ontario | <urn:uuid:2c3781ba-8dcc-407b-b016-b1723f0b2d9c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/02/13/determining-aboriginal-status-complex-historically-rooted-experts_n_9223262.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00015-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96631 | 984 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Jubba (jōˈbä) [key], Ital. Giuba, river, c.1,000 mi (1,610 km) long, formed at the Ethiopia–Somalia border, E Africa, by the confluence of the Dawa and Genale rivers, both of which rise in the highlands of S Ethiopia. The Jubba River meanders S through SW Somalia to the Indian Ocean near Kismayo. It is navigable for shallow craft to Bardero. The only perennial river of Somalia, the Jubba has flood seasons in both spring and autumn. The valley is part of the nation's chief agricultural region, and the river is extensively used for irrigation.
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:e35c05e8-8118-4f3a-a788-85c813703748> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/world/jubba-river-africa.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00061-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90718 | 165 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Researchers on a £3 million research programme called “Cleaning Land for Wealth” (CL4W) are confident they’ll be able to use flowers and plants to clean soil of poisonous materials (environmental remediation) and to recover platinum (phyto-mining). From the Nov. 21, 2012 news item on Nanowerk,
A consortium of researchers led by WMG (Warwick Manufacturing Group) at the University of Warwick are to embark on a £3 million research programme called “Cleaning Land for Wealth” (CL4W), that will use a common class of flower to restore poisoned soils while at the same time producing perfectly sized and shaped nano sized platinum and arsenic nanoparticles for use in catalytic convertors, cancer treatments and a range of other applications.
The Nov. 20, 2012 University of Warwick news release, which originated the news item, describes both how CL4W came together and how it produced an unintended project benefit,
A “Sandpit” exercise organised by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) allowed researchers from WMG (Warwick Manufacturing group) at the University of Warwick, Newcastle University, The University of Birmingham, Cranfield University and the University of Edinburgh to come together and share technologies and skills to come up with an innovative multidisciplinary research project that could help solve major technological and environmental challenges.
The researchers pooled their knowledge of how to use plants and bacteria to soak up particular elements and chemicals and how to subsequently harvest, process and collect that material. They have devised an approach to demonstrate the feasibility in which they are confident that they can use common classes of flower and plants (such as Alyssum), to remove poisonous chemicals such as arsenic and platinum from polluted land and water courses potentially allowing that land to be reclaimed and reused.
That in itself would be a significant achievement, but as the sandpit progressed the researchers found that jointly they had the knowledge to achieve much more than just cleaning up the land.
As lead researcher on the project Professor Kerry Kirwan from WMG at the University of Warwick explained:
“The processes we are developing will not only remove poisons such as arsenic and platinum from contaminated land and water courses, we are also confident that we can develop suitable biology and biorefining processes (or biofactories as we are calling them) that can tailor the shapes and sizes of the metallic nanoparticles they will make. This would give manufacturers of catalytic convertors, developers of cancer treatments and other applicable technologies exactly the right shape, size and functionality they need without subsequent refinement. We are also expecting to recover other high value materials such as fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, anti-oxidants etc. from the crops during the same biorefining process.”
I last mentioned phyto-mining in my Sept. 26, 2012 post with regard to an international project being led by researchers at the University of York (UK). The biorefining processes (biofactories) mentioned by Kirwan takes the idea of recovering platinum, etc. one step beyond phyto-mining recovery.
Here’s a picture of the flower (Alyssum) mentioned in the news release,From the Wikipedia essay (Note: I have removed links],
Alyssum is a genus of about 100–170 species of flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae, native to Europe, Asia, and northern Africa, with the highest species diversity in the Mediterranean region. The genus comprises annual and perennial herbaceous plants or (rarely) small shrubs, growing to 10–100 cm tall, with oblong-oval leaves and yellow or white flowers (pink to purple in a few species). | <urn:uuid:bf12355d-9806-4929-ae33-41f2877dfa04> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.frogheart.ca/?tag=the-university-of-birmingham | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00130-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934809 | 761 | 3.203125 | 3 |
MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (JULY 2, 2012) - The dangers of fast food are well documented; the portions are often larger and the food is generally high in calories and low in nutrients. Now, University of Minnesota School of Public Health researchers have examined the eating habits of residents in Singapore and found new evidence that a diet heavy in fast food increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes and coronary heart disease.
The latest research, published online today by the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, found that people who consume fast food even once a week increase their risk of dying from coronary heart disease by 20 percent in comparison to people who avoid fast food. For people eating fast food two-three times each week, the risk increases by 50 percent, and the risk climbs to nearly 80 percent for people who consume fast food items four or more times each week.
Eating fast food two or more times a week was also found to increase the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 27 percent.
According to University of Minnesota researchers, the few existing studies on the association of fast food and metabolic risk have looked almost exclusively at Western-Caucasian populations from the United States.
"We wanted to examine the association of Western-style fast food with cardio-metabolic risk in a Chinese population in Southeast Asia that has become a hotbed for diabetes and heart disease," said the study's lead researcher, University of Minnesota post-doctoral researcher Andrew Odegaard, Ph.D., M.P.H. "What we found was a dramatic public health impact by fast food, a product that is primarily a Western import into a completely new market."
To arrive at their results, School of Public Health researchers worked alongside researchers from the National University of Singapore. Together, they examined results of a study conducted over a period of 16 years beginning in 1993, which looked at the eating habits of 52,000 Chinese residents of Singapore who have experienced a recent and sudden transition from traditional foods to Western-style fast food.
"What's interesting about the results is that study participants who reported eating fast food most frequently were younger, better educated, smoked less and were more likely to be physically active," said Odegaard. "This profile is normally associated with lower cardio-metabolic risk."
According to the study's senior researcher, Mark Pereira, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the School of Public Health's Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, the new research provides an important perspective on global health and the nutrition transfer when cultures developing in different parts of the world start moving away from their traditional diet and mode of exercise.
"The big picture is that this [fast food] aspect of globalization and exportation of U.S. and Western culture might not be the best thing to spread to cultures around the world," he said. "Global public health efforts should focus on maintaining the positive aspects of traditional cultures, while preventing the spread of outside influences thought to be harmful based on the scientific evidence."
Funding for the research was provided by the National Institutes of Health grant nos. NCI RO1 CA055069, R35 CA053890, R01 CA080205, R01 CA098497, and R01 CA144034.
For more than 60 years, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health has been among the top accredited schools of public health in the nation. With a mission focused on research, teaching, and service, the school attracts nearly $100 million in sponsored research each year, has more than 100 faculty members and more than 1,300 students, and is engaged in community outreach activities locally, nationally and in dozens of countries worldwide. For more information, visit www.sph.umn.edu. The School's Centers for Public Health Education and Outreach promotes lifelong learning to bridge academic and public health practice communities. | <urn:uuid:00696d6f-697d-4cef-8276-3351c1b123fb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/uoma-ffi062912.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00198-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962328 | 793 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Intuitively, the close community spirit of village life and the crowded bustle of the big city suggest very different qualities of social life. A paper published today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface finds, however, that the social networks of city dwellers are not so different from those of village dwellers.
Scientists from SFI and the MIT Senseable City Lab teamed up with researchers from British Telecommunications and Orange Labs to examine social relationships of people living in towns and cities in Portugal and the UK.
Sociologists have long been interested in the way cities affect social interactions, but previous methods of quantifying these interactions relied on traditional surveys – essentially asking people who they talked to and how often, a time-consuming approach that depends heavily on the accuracy of the respondents' answers.
Today, telecommunications companies keep records of every call made by every customer – information that includes call time, duration, location, and numbers dialed. These data, stripped of all identifying personal information, offer much more extensive records of social interactions than is possible through traditional surveys.
As the basis for their study, the researchers obtained a dataset comprising the majority of landline calls made in the UK during a one-month period in 2005, and another dataset of millions of mobile phone calls in Portugal during a 15-month period in 2006 and 2007. Together, these two datasets represent several billion phone calls.
“This is unprecedented raw material for analysis, poised to change our understanding of society – potentially opening the way to something that some people have started calling ‘computational social sciences’,” says Carlo Ratti, director of the MIT Senseable City Lab, one of the paper’s co-authors.
The researchers then constructed networks of phone interactions for each town in the UK and Portugal, with each individual user represented by a node, and connections between them indicated by a link.
The team’s analyses of the network data revealed that the number of calls made by an individual, as well as his or her total number of connections, depends on the town's size according to a mathematical relation: the larger the town you live in, the more people you call and the more calls you make. Interestingly, this relation is "superlinear," meaning that on average, as the size of a town doubles, the total number of social interactions will more than double in a predictable way.
The team also found, however, that the group clustering of social circles (the odds that your friends mutually know one another) does not change with city size, regardless of whether you live in the five square-mile town of Lixa in northern Portugal or the bustling capital city of Lisbon.
Social networks derived from mobile phone data in Portugal: An average urban dweller of Lisbon has approximately twice as many contacts than an average individual in the rural town of Lixa. However, the odds that an individual's contacts mutually know one another remains largely constant. (Credit: Kael Greco, MIT Senseable City Lab)
The findings point to the conclusion that human beings living in small towns and large cities alike instinctively form tight social communities. But if you live in a small community, your social circle is more or less determined by those who live around you, whereas in a large city you have more freedom to select which of the thousands of people around you will constitute your social circle.
“It seems that even in large cities we tend to build a tightly-knit community, or ‘village,’ around ourselves”, says Ratti. “In a real village, connections might be defined by proximity, while in a large city we can elect a community based on affinity, interest, or sexual preference, for example.”
“People tend to think of cities as people, buildings, roads, pipes, and so on,” he says. “But at a more fundamental level, cities are really about connections. These connections form networks of people and organizations that enable the production of all products of civilization, from modern economies and fast innovation to complex bureaucracies and political institutions.”
“That social interactions per person increase with city size begins to explain how so many socioeconomic quantities, from GDP to violent crime, scale superlinearly,” he adds. “We had developed theory that predict the superlinear growth of social connections in the way we observe here, but this is the first time that we can observe this phenomenon directly and explore it in detail! It is tremendously exciting.”
Markus Schläpfer of MIT’s Senseable City Lab and SFI, the corresponding author on the paper, says the team’s findings have important implications for the way information and ideas diffuse throughout a city. Ultimately, this may also help researchers understand phenomena such as the prevalence of certain contagious diseases.
“This was an incredible opportunity, made possible by today’s widespread use of mobile communication technologies”, he says. “Data of this type keep getting better and better. It will be extraordinary to use them in the future to see how cities around the world reproduce the patterns we observed for Portugal and the UK, and watch fast-growing cities develop as immense social networks. It throws open lots of possibilities to study the organization and dynamics of entire cities.”
Co-authors of the paper, titled “The scaling of human interactions with city size,” include Schläpfer; Bettencourt; West; Ratti; Mathias Raschke of Raschke Software Engineering, Sébastian Grauwin of the Senseable City Lab, Rob Claxton of British Telecommunications, and Zbigniew Smoreda of Orange Labs. The project was developed as part of Ericsson’s “Signature of Humanity” project.
Read the paper in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface (July 2, 2014, subscription required)
Read the article in New Statesman (July 17, 2014)
Read the article in Spiegel (July 7, 2014)
|All SFI News||About SFI||Follow SFI||Support SFI||SFI Home| | <urn:uuid:adc6b1ca-4dd7-4ed0-9d50-1df959ef32d5> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/interface-bettencourt-west-village-networks/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396455.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947907 | 1,264 | 2.6875 | 3 |
This video tutorial will walk you through, step-by-step, how to Clone a VirtualBox Virtual Machine in Oracle VirtualBox.
This post explains How to Clone a VirtualBox Virtual Machine in Sun VirtualBox with very simple steps.
What is Cloning of Virtual Machine?
Cloning virtual machines allows duplicating pre installed and configured virtual machines very easily without re installing OS and other programs. This is the ideal method to create multiple similar virtual machines in short time.
1. Select the virtual machine you want to clone in the left pane of the VirtualBox main window. Right Click and select Clone
2. The wizard that opens with a simple two-step process. The first step requires you to give the clone a name
Note: Give this clone a different name than the source virtual machine name
3. The second step of the wizard asks the type of clone you want to create. You want to create a full clone. | <urn:uuid:9c86dacb-5f07-4c96-a1b2-dd95dd4cd84b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.avoiderrors.net/how-to-clone-a-virtualbox-virtual-machine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.83279 | 191 | 2.5625 | 3 |
“At Christmas I no more desire a rose than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,” Lord Berowne declares near the beginning of Love’s Labour’s Lost.
It is a sentiment that is nearly obsolete in a world where supermarket aisles burst with out-of-season fruits, nevermind flowers, and where you are always just a few clicks away from pretty much anything at anytime. But the word “new-fangled” remains current even 400 years after William Shakespeare coined it—and it is just one of the estimated 1,700 words he invented and that we still use today, including pageantry, assassination, moonbeam, zany, gossip, eyeball and, fittingly, critic. Shakespeare’s astonishing number of neologisms, the scholar Alfred Hart marveled in 1943, only goes to show “how deep and apparently inexhaustible were the wells of his memory and invention.”
Or perhaps not. According to a recent Boston Globe column, statistical analyses suggest that Shakespeare actually used a narrower vocabulary than obscure peers such as Robert Greene and George Peele. The estimated number of words Shakespeare coined has dropped from 3,200 at the time Alfred Hart was writing, and even “new-fangled” is in question—the Oxford English Dictionary doesn’t give Shakespeare credit for it.
But does the estimated number of words Shakespeare invented matter? As Russ McDonald, professor of English literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the Globe, “Theatrical and literary history attests to his unparalleled use of the same materials as everybody else.” Mere invention is not enough to shift a paradigm; real disruption requires ingenuity in the service of a larger vision.
Ingenuity is the theme of this issue, beginning with director Julie Taymor, who is profiled on page 27 by Shakespeare scholar and Smithsonian columnist Ron Rosenbaum because of her truly innovative new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Most of the rest of the issue is devoted to those individuals working in America today who are taking the same materials everyone else has access to—tinfoil, tape recorders, musical chords, video editing software, computer chips—to create ideas and tools and artworks that are wonderfully new and truly transformative. We tapped the Smithsonian Institution’s vast expertise to help identify the recipients of our second annual American Ingenuity Awards, the best and brightest minds working in America today in a range of disciplines.
You can get another view of these creative revolutionaries on the Smithsonian Channel’s Genius in America, premiering November 21. And you can go to Smithsonian.com/ingenuity for a look at the November 19 celebration, at which each winner will receive this year’s award, which was designed by no less an innovator than the perpetually new-fangled Jeff Koons.
Michael Caruso, Editor in Chief | <urn:uuid:7b062feb-7869-492a-b958-9cb8f8829194> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.smithsonianmag.com/magazine/from-the-editor-8-180947624/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935511 | 610 | 2.515625 | 3 |
The computer gaming industry was launched using just a few primitive elements.
Two or three colored pixels were all that was necessary to construct a story in the minds of viewers: a red pixel might represent a missile trying to knock out that green pixel before it hits blue pixel earth.
Later would come photo-realistic graphics, complex story lines and motion sensitive technology. But the most important step-- turning viewers into believers-- was achieved with just a few basic visual symbols. Our imaginations did the rest.
It's amazing how a visual image--even a single red pixel-- gives our minds a starting place for belief in scenarios where mere words might fail to persuade. Even the most far fetched ideas become more plausible once we can visualize them.
The newly released movie Argo tells the true story of the rescue of American diplomats hiding in the Canadian embassy in 1979 after a mob of Islamic militants took over the US embassy. To smuggle the diplomats out of Iran, A CIA “exfiltration” expert made up a wild story about the diplomats being a movie crew scouting locations in Iran for a Hollywood space fantasy called “Argo.”
As one film critic recounts:
“You don’t have a better bad idea than this?” a State Department official asks the CIA. ”This is the best bad idea we have,” is the reply.... They can’t fake any of the usual identities for the Americans because they are too easy to disprove. The normal reasons for foreigners to be abroad — teaching, studying, aid — are not plausible. Only something completely outrageous could be true.But how to persuade the fanatical Iranian border guards who were skeptical of all foreign devils? Why should they believe such a far fetched tale? Because the CIA showed them Jack Kirby's concept drawings for the "film."
They really liked the drawings.
Once the guards saw the pictures, they were able to visualize the movie and became persuaded. They let the diplomats go. Whether you're playing video games or smuggling hostages out of Iran, the principle that "seeing is believing" pays off time and again. People who dismiss pictures as the mere illusion of reality underestimate the reality of illusion. | <urn:uuid:76bf599f-7c19-4ac8-8824-1b9f44d0a82d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2012/10/believing-in-red-pixel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397562.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00063-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936892 | 453 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Structural basis of phospho-peptide recognition by the BRCT domain of BRCA1, structure with phosphopeptide
[BRCA1_HUMAN] Defects in BRCA1 are a cause of susceptibility to breast cancer (BC) [MIM:114480]. A common malignancy originating from breast epithelial tissue. Breast neoplasms can be distinguished by their histologic pattern. Invasive ductal carcinoma is by far the most common type. Breast cancer is etiologically and genetically heterogeneous. Important genetic factors have been indicated by familial occurrence and bilateral involvement. Mutations at more than one locus can be involved in different families or even in the same case. Note=Mutations in BRCA1 are thought to be responsible for 45% of inherited breast cancer. Moreover, BRCA1 carriers have a 4-fold increased risk of colon cancer, whereas male carriers face a 3-fold increased risk of prostate cancer. Cells lacking BRCA1 show defects in DNA repair by homologous recombination. Defects in BRCA1 are a cause of susceptibility to familial breast-ovarian cancer type 1 (BROVCA1) [MIM:604370]. A condition associated with familial predisposition to cancer of the breast and ovaries. Characteristic features in affected families are an early age of onset of breast cancer (often before age 50), increased chance of bilateral cancers (cancer that develop in both breasts, or both ovaries, independently), frequent occurrence of breast cancer among men, increased incidence of tumors of other specific organs, such as the prostate. Note=Mutations in BRCA1 are thought to be responsible for more than 80% of inherited breast-ovarian cancer. Defects in BRCA1 are a cause of susceptibility to ovarian cancer (OC) [MIM:167000]. The term ovarian cancer defines malignancies originating from ovarian tissue. Although many histologic types of ovarian tumors have been described, epithelial ovarian carcinoma is the most common form. Ovarian cancers are often asymptomatic and the recognized signs and symptoms, even of late-stage disease, are vague. Consequently, most patients are diagnosed with advanced disease. Defects in BRCA1 are a cause of susceptibility to pancreatic cancer type 4 (PNCA4) [MIM:614320]. A malignant neoplasm of the pancreas. Tumors can arise from both the exocrine and endocrine portions of the pancreas, but 95% of them develop from the exocrine portion, including the ductal epithelium, acinar cells, connective tissue, and lymphatic tissue.
[BRCA1_HUMAN] E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase that specifically mediates the formation of 'Lys-6'-linked polyubiquitin chains and plays a central role in DNA repair by facilitating cellular responses to DNA damage. It is unclear whether it also mediates the formation of other types of polyubiquitin chains. The E3 ubiquitin-protein ligase activity is required for its tumor suppressor function. The BRCA1-BARD1 heterodimer coordinates a diverse range of cellular pathways such as DNA damage repair, ubiquitination and transcriptional regulation to maintain genomic stability. Regulates centrosomal microtubule nucleation. Required for normal cell cycle progression from G2 to mitosis. Required for appropriate cell cycle arrests after ionizing irradiation in both the S-phase and the G2 phase of the cell cycle. Involved in transcriptional regulation of P21 in response to DNA damage. Required for FANCD2 targeting to sites of DNA damage. May function as a transcriptional regulator. Inhibits lipid synthesis by binding to inactive phosphorylated ACACA and preventing its dephosphorylation. Contributes to homologous recombination repair (HRR) via its direct interaction with PALB2, fine-tunes recombinational repair partly through its modulatory role in the PALB2-dependent loading of BRCA2-RAD51 repair machinery at DNA breaks. Component of the BRCA1-RBBP8 complex which regulates CHEK1 activation and controls cell cycle G2/M checkpoints on DNA damage via BRCA1-mediated ubiquitination of RBBP8.
Publication Abstract from PubMed
The BRCT repeats in BRCA1 are essential for its tumor suppressor activity and interact with phosphorylated protein targets containing the sequence pSer-X-X-Phe, where X indicates any residue. The structure of the tandem BRCA1 BRCT repeats bound to an optimized phosphopeptide reveals that the N-terminal repeat harbors a conserved BRCT phosphoserine-binding pocket, while the interface between the repeats forms a hydrophobic groove that recognizes the phenylalanine. Crystallographic and biochemical data suggest that the structural integrity of both binding sites is essential for peptide recognition. The diminished peptide-binding capacity observed for cancer-associated BRCA1-BRCT variants may explain the enhanced cancer risks associated with these mutations.
Structural basis of phosphopeptide recognition by the BRCT domain of BRCA1.,Williams RS, Lee MS, Hau DD, Glover JN Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2004 Jun;11(6):519-25. Epub 2004 May 9. PMID:15133503
From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine. | <urn:uuid:031825fb-0ade-4fcd-a313-cb89bc628838> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://proteopedia.org/wiki/index.php/1t2v | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912404 | 1,190 | 2.59375 | 3 |
Cherries in one part of the country are now more expensive than pork, a leading economic indicator.
Cherry prices at Chonqing markets have surpassed pork prices, traditionally a leading economic indicator for Chinese consumers.
Chongqing cherries -- of "average quality" -- now cost an average 40RMB (a little over $6) per pound, what some users say is double last year's prices. That's almost double the average price of pork established by Soozhu.com, a leading independent pork industry research company. Sichuan produce industry leaders attributed the sudden spike in prices to low crop yields.
China has long used the rising cost of pork as indicator of consumer good pricing.
"The price of pork in China could soon rival U.S. payrolls as the world's most watched economic indicator," according to Reuters. "There are few better ways to gauge [domestic demand in China, the world's second-largest economy] than by tracking staple food prices that directly hit discretionary consumer spending," which constitutes 40 percent of China's yearly GDP growth.
And pork prevails as the leading meat on Chinese tables. Some users seemed to wonder why anyone would compare the cost of cherries and an important staple like pork.
"You can't subsist on cherries. You just have a few and you're done. There's nothing terrible about this," wrote user Sichuan Luoer.
"Whether I eat cherries or not is of little importance. It's not one of life's necessities. Who cares," wrote Lao Wang's Wayne.
"[The rising cost] is only natural. Last year, cherries cost a bit over 30.Every year prices go up. Why must we compare cherries to pork? One is fruit, one is meat. The only valid comparison is that you can eat both. [This discussion] is dizzying," wrote user Cheng Yeye. | <urn:uuid:2d8bea6b-30e4-418c-84f0-2897875d5982> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/what-chinas-talking-about-today-odd-price-changes-in-staples/255467/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962984 | 395 | 2.5625 | 3 |
1. Electromagnetic Cannon
This is one of the earliest moon base designs, submitted to NASA in 1977. It proposes setting up manned bases (the four cylinders depicted) for lunar miners. The miners would collect moon rocks in the day and transport them into an orbiting engineering crew by using a high velocity launch cannon (the diagonal line in this picture). The orbiting crew would process the materials and use them to build further bases. | <urn:uuid:48c29c7a-c5bb-4dd1-9a21-f9dc892f5e6f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sparknotes.com/mindhut/2013/02/18/blast-off-with-these-awesome-lunar-and-martian-base-designs/slide/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931504 | 86 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Insert a Picture into a Pie Chart
Tutorials Shared by the Internet Community
Total Hits - 33023
Total Votes - 99 votes
Vote Up - 42 votes
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Domain - www.excel-tutorials.org
Category - MS Excel/Charts and Graphs
Submitted By - Devesh Khanna
Submitted on - 2008-04-27 00:27:38
We all know that Excel takes dull number figures and makes them eye appealing in graphs and charts, but did you know that you can also jazz up graphs and charts with pictures. You can, and it’s so easy in Excel 2007. In this short tutorial, I will show you how to insert a picture in a pie chart slice.
Please Note: Before formatting the pie chart with a picture, have an idea of what picture you want to use and where you have it located in your computer so that you don’t waste time searching for it when working with the pie chart. More detail... | <urn:uuid:8d6541b9-9518-4a0e-aa7c-1976ffca5970> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tutorialspoint.com/listtutorial/Insert-a-Picture-into-a-Pie-Chart/2742 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00065-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873352 | 213 | 2.625 | 3 |
Did Moses See the Face of God?
Click here to listen to this article:
The apostle John, through the Holy Spirit wrote, “No one has seen God at anytime” (John 1:18; 1 John 4:12). The Old Testament, however records some instances where God’s people were said to see some aspect of God. Exodus 24:10 tell us that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders “saw the God of Israel.” Moses was even said to have had the unique honor of speaking to God “face to face” (Deut. 34:10). Did Moses actually see the face of God?
To answer this, we must first understand one of the terms that Scripture uses. The word that is translated “face” in Exodus 33:20 is the Hebrew word panim. While this word can have a specific, literal, and anatomical sense in reference to the front of a person’s head (Exod. 10:28), it can also refer to the surface of something – “the face (panim) of the earth” (Exod. 33:16), the front of something – “the forefront (panim) of the tent” (Exod. 26:9), it can mean to be before someone – “your males shall appear before (panim) the Lord GOD” (Exod. 23:17), or it can even refer to the presence of someone – “they were driven out from Pharaoh’s presence (panim)” (Exod. 10:11).
When it comes to God, it is clear that panim can have these same distinct applications in different contexts. For example, while God told Moses “My face (panim) shall not be seen” (Exod. 33:23), He also promised the Israelites a few verses before this “My Presence (panim) will go with you and I will give you rest” (Exod. 33:14). What we must conclude is that there is some element of the grandeur of God that cannot be witnessed by human beings, that Exod. 33:20-23 calls His “face (panim).” At the same time, we must also conclude that there is some other limited aspect of His glory that can be seen, to which the same word can sometimes apply—and most translations call His “Presence (panim).”
Let’s notice a few things that support this conclusion. In Exodus 24:10 Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders go up on the mountain. We know that Moses was allowed to go further (Exod. 24:2), but the others were to “worship from afar” (Exod. 24:1). It is from this more remote distance that it is said:
- …They saw the God of Israel. And there was under His feet as it were a paved work of sapphire stone, and it was like the very heavens in its clarity. But on the nobles of the children of Israel He did not lay His hand. So they saw God, and they ate and drank (Exod. 24:10-11, NKJV).
Now then, if this was all we had we might conclude that they saw the full grandeur of God but were spared death, since it says God did not “lay His hand” on them. However, there is more to it. What they were allowed to see, was some aspect of what Exodus 24:16 calls “the glory of the Lord,” that came down on the mountain. Its appearance is described as “a consuming fire” (Exod. 24:17). Was this the full glory of the Lord?No. After this even, Moses begs the Lord, “Show me your glory” (Exod. 33:18). It is in response to this that God covers Moses in the “hollow of his hand,” sets him in the “cleft of the rock” and passes before Moses (Exod. 33:19-23). It is in this context that God allows Moses to see his “back” (33:23) but declares, “You cannot see My face (panim); for no man shall see Me, and live” (Exod. 33:20). It is clear in this text that when God says “see Me” He does not mean his “back” (Exod. 33:23), nor whatever aspect of His glory that Aaron and the other saw (Exod. 24:10). What God calls His “face (panim)” in Exodus 33:20 and 33:23 must be some fuller manifestation of His glory. As noted at the beginning of our study, New Testament writers confirm this distinction. When John wrote, “No one has seen God at anytime” (John 1:18; 1 John 4:12), he is clearly talking about that fullest part of God’s glory that no one has yet seen. To see some aspect of God is not to behold the fullness of His glory. That honor belongs only to the “blessed” in heaven. Jesus promised, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8).
Finally, let’s notice a couple of things that help us further clarify this. The expression “face to face” is an important phrase used in Scripture. Throughout the Old Testament it is used of the close relationship that God had to Moses (and with Israel). It is first used when Jacob wrestled with the Lord and God named him “Israel.” Jacob says, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved” (Gen 32:30). Now this can’t mean that he saw what God calls His face in Exodus 33:20 or he would be dead, and the New Testament claims that no one has seen God would be false. So, what does it mean? Jacob saw some aspect of God’s glory, but not His full “face (panim).” Even so, he was blessed with a close encounter (if you will) with Deity. As noted at the beginning, the same is said of Moses numerous times (Exod. 33:11; Num. 12:8; Deut. 5:4; 34:10), but it is also said of God’s treatment of the Israelites:
- …You, LORD, are among these people; that You, LORD, are seen face to face and that Your cloud stands above them; and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night (Num. 14:14).
Now obviously the Israelites as a whole hadn’t even seen what Moses saw of God’s glory, but it is still described as knowing Him “face to face.” This makes it clear that what is being described is the closeness of the relationship between God and Israel and even more so, between God and Moses.
Another example of this is found in the book of Judges. What is called the “Angel of the Lord” appeared to Gideon (6:12) and Gideon later declared, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For I have seen the Angel of the LORD face to face” (6:22). It is often unclear in Scripture when the phrase “Angel of the Lord” is talking about an angelic being sent by God, and when it means some manifestation of God’s presence. Numbers 14:14 described Israel as seeing the Lord “face to face” but then refers to the pillar of cloud and of fire. Exodus 14:19 uses the term “Angel of God” to describe the glory of the pillar of fire. This seems to indicate that this was some manifestation of God. In the same context in which God passed before Moses, God’s “Angel” is promised to go before the Israelites in taking Canaan (Exod. 33:2). This is what allows them to be described as having a “face to face” relationship with God (Num. 14:14), and may even be called His “Presence (panim)” (Exod. 33:14). Clearly, however, this is a restricted aspect of His presence. If His full presence had come into “their midst” they would have been consumed (Exod. 33:3, 5). That consuming power probably refers to the same thing He calls His “face (panim)” elsewhere, that no one has seen, nor can see lest he die. | <urn:uuid:95e9a1ef-9234-4e6d-85d9-69bed34dcac9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://focusmagazine.org/did-moses-see-the-face-of-god.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399106.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00090-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970661 | 1,863 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Autism symptoms, causes, treatment and more
Autism is a developmental disorder that can affect a child's basic skills, such as socialising or forming relationships, communication and using imagination. A child with autism may also have a limited range of interests.
The world around them will appear very different to a child with autism than the way it is seen by children without the condition.
What are the symptoms of autism?
Symptoms typically appear before a child is three years old and last throughout life. Children with autism can display a wide range of symptoms, which can vary in severity from mild to disabling. General symptoms that may be present to some degree in a child with autism include:
- Difficulty with verbal communication, including problems using and understanding language.
- Inability to participate in a conversation, even when the child has the ability to speak.
- Difficulty with nonverbal communication, such as gestures and facial expressions.
- Difficulty with social interaction, including relating to people and to his or her surroundings.
- Inability to make friends and preferring to play alone.
- Unusual ways of playing with toys and other objects, such as only lining them up a certain way.
- Lack of imagination.
- Difficulty adjusting to changes in routine or familiar surroundings, or an unreasonable insistence on following routines in detail.
- Repetitive body movements, or patterns of behaviour, such as hand flapping, spinning and head banging.
- Preoccupation with unusual objects or parts of objects.
People with a form of autism, called savantism, have exceptional skills in specific areas such as music, art, and numbers. People with savantism are able to perform these skills without lessons or practise.
What are the warning signs that a child may have autism?
Babies develop at their own pace, some more quickly than others. However, you should consider an evaluation for autism if any of the following apply:
- Your child does not babble or coo by 12 months of age.
- Your child does not gesture, such as point or wave, by 12 months of age.
- Your child does not say single words by 16 months.
- Your child does not say two-word phrases on his or her own (rather than just repeating what someone else says) by 24 months.
- Your child has lost any language or social skills (at any age).
What causes autism?
The exact cause of autism is not known, but research has pointed to several possible factors, including genetics (heredity) and environmental factors.
Studies strongly suggest that some people have a genetic predisposition to autism, meaning that a susceptibility to develop the condition may be passed on from parents to children. Researchers are looking for clues about which genes contribute to this increased vulnerability. In some children, environmental factors may also play a role. Studies of people with autism have found abnormalities in several regions of the brain, which suggest that autism results from a disruption of early brain development while still in the uterus.
Other theories suggest:
- The body's immune system may inappropriately produce antibodies that attack the brains of children causing autism.
- Abnormalities in brain structures cause autistic behaviour.
- Children with autism have abnormal timing of the growth of their brains. Early in childhood, the brains of autistic children grow faster and larger than those of children without autism. Later, when the brains of children without autism get bigger and better organised, autistic children's brains grow more slowly. | <urn:uuid:e3b0ec2c-884f-4882-bff4-a766f9ec9fb3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webmd.boots.com/children/guide/mental-health-autism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394605.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00023-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961691 | 710 | 3.53125 | 4 |
Click on images
Fruits and rat eaten seed. Copyright W. T. Cooper
Male flowers. Copyright B. Gray
Scale bar 10mm. Copyright CSIRO
10th leaf stage. Copyright CSIRO
Cotyledon stage, durian germination. Copyright CSIRO
Hylandia dockrillii Airy Shaw
Airy Shaw, H.K. (1974) Kew Bulletin 29: 329. Type: Queensland, State Forest Reserve 756, Maple L. A.; holo: K, iso: QRS.
Bark dark brown. Branches supple but tough and difficult to break.
Leaf blades about 8-20 x 3.5-9.5 cm. Midrib and main lateral veins raised on the upper surface of the leaf blade. One or two raised glands may be present on the upper surface at the junction of the leaf blade and petiole. Freshly cut twigs may produce a sticky exudate. Pith of older twigs generally red.
Fruits clothed in ferruginous hairs until maturity, depressed globular, laterally compressed, +/- 2-lobed and longitudinally ribbed, about 20-30 x 35-45 mm. Seeds +/- globular, about 12-15 mm diam. Testa hard and horny, about 1-1.5 mm thick.
At the first pair of leaves or before the first pair of leaves develop, stem swollen, slightly bottle-shaped at and below ground level. At the tenth leaf stage: leaf blade obovate, apex acuminate, base cuneate, upper surface glabrous, midrib and lateral veins raised on the upper surface of the leaf blade; two glands present on the upper surface of the leaf blade at its junction with the petiole; petiole hairy towards the apex; stipules caducous, small, triangular, hairy.
Distribution and Ecology
Seeds eaten by native rats. Cooper & Cooper (1994).
Produces compounds active against cancers cells.
Produces a useful general purpose timber.
Wood specific gravity 0.56. Cause et al. (1989). | <urn:uuid:a7677b5f-53e0-4bc6-a404-e8b7397154b8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://keys.trin.org.au/key-server/data/0e0f0504-0103-430d-8004-060d07080d04/media/Html/taxon/Hylandia_dockrillii.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404405.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.766916 | 445 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Leaders in business, government, and academia assert that education in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) is vital not only to U.S. innovation capacity but also as a foundation for successful employment, including (but not limited to) work in the STEM fields. K-12 STEM education, including standards and assessments, has tended to focus on the individual subjects, most often science and mathematics. The T and E of STEM have received relatively little attention. However, recent reform efforts, like the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), are stressing STEM connections—in the case of NGSS, between science and engineering.
Integration in K–12 STEM Education examines current efforts to connect the STEM disciplines in K–12 education. This report identifies and characterizes existing approaches to integrated STEM education, both in formal and after- and out-of-school settings. The report reviews the evidence for the impact of integrated approaches on various student outcomes, and it proposes a set of priority research questions to advance the understanding of integrated STEM education. Integration in K-12 STEM Education proposes a framework to provide a common perspective and vocabulary for researchers, practitioners, and others to identify, discuss, and investigate specific integrated STEM initiatives within the K-12 education system of the United States.
Integration in K–12 STEM Education makes recommendations for designers of integrated STEM experiences, assessment developers, and researchers to design and document effective integrated STEM education. This report will help to further their work and improve the chances that some forms of integrated STEM education will make a positive difference in student learning and interest and other valued outcomes.
This is a joint report from the National Academy of Engineering and the Board on Science Education.
Information about the project and committee | <urn:uuid:20533ff3-8eb6-4aae-8010-f46d047fe7c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sites.nationalacademies.org/DBASSE/BOSE/STEM_Integration_in_K-12_Education/index.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947055 | 353 | 3.65625 | 4 |
New air quality rules are necessary to protect Grand Valley, West Slope
By Karen Sjoberg and Charles Kerr
Coloradans have an extraordinary opportunity to improve air quality in Colorado. In February, the Colorado Air Quality Control Commission will consider new air pollution control measures for the oil and gas industry that, if adopted, will dramatically improve air quality statewide.
These protections were drafted by the state Health Department after receiving input from people here and across the state and are strongly supported by a broad spectrum of Colorado, including Anadarko Petroleum, Encana USA, Noble Energy, Gov. John Hickenlooper, environmental groups and many local governments.
The regulations will require the use of existing technologies to reduce oil and gas leaks into the air we breathe, and they require the industry to conduct inspections and to repair any leaks that are discovered.
Citizens for Clean Air supports the new rules and urges area citizens and elected officials to back this effort to safeguard our air quality.
Formed a year ago, Citizens for Clean Air is a Grand Valley organization made up of a growing group of volunteers working cooperatively with governments, businesses, nonprofits and concerned citizens committed to addressing our deteriorating air quality. Our diverse membership proves that a desire for clean air in the Grand Valley is not a partisan issue.
Citizens for Clean Air is surprised and disappointed that some of our local elected officials have come out in opposition to the draft rules. Even though we have major air pollution problems here, they believe the rules should only apply to the Front Range.
We need these regulations as much as the Front Range. The Grand Junction airshed is already compromised. With new oil and gas development on the horizon, we need these rules to prevent further deterioration.
Air pollution is a serious problem. The oil and gas industry is the largest source of volatile organic compounds in Colorado. The Health Department estimates that the oil and gas industry is responsible for 54 percent of the VOCs produced by humans statewide.
VOCs are an ingredient in ground-level ozone. Ground-level ozone is harmful to people, plants (including our vineyards and orchards) and animals. In people, ozone can cause breathing problems — especially in the elderly, children, those with heart problems and people who have compromised lung function. Adverse health impacts on humans have been recorded at ozone levels less than 60 parts per billion, a level we routinely exceed.
In agriculture, high levels of ozone reduce yields and reduce the quality of the harvest. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports “Ground-level ozone causes more damage to plants than all other air pollutants combined.” Measurable economic damage to plants begins at ozone concentration levels of 40 ppb.
We all know we have an air quality problem in the Grand Valley. We can see it easily during inversions. The numbers back up what our eyes tell us. Ozone levels in Palisade are in the 60 to 70 ppb range with spikes as high as 90 ppb. The three-year average for ground level ozone in Palisade is 67 ppb. The federal standard is currently at 75 ppb, but this is widely recognized as too high for human health. For most countries, standard ozone levels are well below this (e.g. 61 ppb in the European Union; 65 ppb in Canada).
Anyone who has spent a winter in the Grand Valley knows what our inversions can do to our air quality. They may last for months, blot out our views of the Colorado National Monument and the Grand Mesa, and send some of our neighbors to the emergency room.
There are 1,060 active oil and gas wells in Mesa County now, but development of oil and gas is expected to increase in coming years (Fram Operating, LLC has submitted a development plan to the BLM for the construction of up to 108 new wells south of Palisade). The Western Slope desperately needs the tighter protections this rule provides, and it needs these protections to be in place when new drilling occurs.
The CCA supports the draft rule. At the same time, we believe the rule needs to get stronger, not weaker, by adding protections for residences, schools and other public buildings in close proximity to oil and gas operations. For example, the current draft would allow the industry to wait five to 15 days to repair a leak. We contend that if a major leak is discovered near a home or school it should be repaired within hours, not days.
Leaders in the oil and gas industry have said that complying with these protections is cost-effective. Indeed, pollutants like methane will be captured and sold. They are valuable products.
Industry leaders know something has to be done to protect human health. As Hickenlooper told The Daily Sentinel earlier this month, “The people that operate 60 or 70 percent of the oil and gas wells in Colorado, they want regulation. They don’t want the irresponsible operators to tarnish their reputations.”
We agree with the responsible oil and gas operators. We can have oil and gas development, good jobs and cleaner air. We are hopeful that residents, the agricultural community and businesses throughout western Colorado will support these common-sense protections.
Karen Sjoberg, chairwoman of Citizens for Clean Air. Charles Kerr is a long-standing member of the Mesa County Air Quality Planning Committee and a member of CCA. | <urn:uuid:c354b43f-764a-4906-9ca2-207fb9403a9e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gjsentinel.com/opinion/articles/new-air-quality-rules-are-necessary-8232to-protect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950697 | 1,104 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Halloween safety tips for children and parents/guardians:
Costumes should be flame-retardant and should allow children to walk freely without tripping.
Wear reflective or bright costumes at night.
Avoid facial masks which may impair your children's ability to see, hear, and move, use non-toxic face paint and makeup instead.
Children should carry a flashlight.
Plan your tick-or-treat route ahead of time, staying in your own immediate neighborhood (or at least familiar ones) and only along well-lit streets.
Always trick-or-treat with friends and stay in a group, there is safety in numbers.
Extra care should be taken on streets and at crossings, especially at dusk and after dark.
Avoid crossing through yards, driveways and poorly lit areas.
Teach children to never approach a home that is not well lit inside and out.
Children should never enter a home or a car for a treat.
An adult should always examine Halloween treats before children eat them. Never eat open or unwrapped Halloween foods.
Halloween Safety Tips for Homeowners:
Make your home inviting for trick-or treaters; light up your home inside and out.
Clear your yard and walkways of any obstructions for the trick-or-treaters.
Use battery powered candles or glow sticks in your jack o'lanterns instead of real flames.
Secure your pets to ensure they do not get frightened and inadvertently bite trick-or-treaters.
Consider healthy food alternatives (fruit roll ups or crackers) or non-food treats such as pencils, bouncy balls or temporary tattoos for trick-or-treaters | <urn:uuid:44a76252-7666-4b37-8bfe-470e28c1a4a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ci.boca-raton.fl.us/police/stories/halloweensafety.shtm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913194 | 354 | 2.84375 | 3 |
With Instructables you can share what you make with the world, and tap into an ever-growing community of creative experts.
This is how you make goo out of paper.
-paper -blender -screened strainer -plastic container -water -fork
Rip paper into blender. fill about half way.
Fill about 1/4 way with water.
Blend on high for about 20 seconds.
Pour into the screened strainer till no water is dripping out.
Stir with a fork.
once your done playing store in a plastic container.
if it gets dried out add water.
Glowing Goo using cheap, easy to get, ingredientsby hairyconiption
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© 2016 Autodesk, Inc. | <urn:uuid:5a986537-8173-4032-be7e-fa2e5dade659> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.instructables.com/id/Recycled-Goo/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00039-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.831377 | 220 | 2.625 | 3 |
Family: Asteraceae, Aster view all from this family
Description Native annual or perennial. Spreads by seed and root to form large colonies. Leaf and flower have unpleasant odors when crushed.
Habit: multiple erect, hairy stems rising from a stout woody base.
Height: 4-5 ft (1.2-1.5 m) or more, rarely to 9 ft (2.7 m).
Leaf: highly dissected, resembling green hairs emerging irregularly from the stem.
Flower: very small white flowers, held in wispy arching clusters.
Fruit: smooth achene, 1/16 in (1.5 mm) long.
Habitat Overgrazed pastures, disturbed sites, meadows, pond borders, ditches, roadsides; most common on dry, sandy soils; at 30-1000 ft (10-300 m).
Range Native to the southeastern U.S.; now widely naturalized from south Florida, west to east Texas, and north to Oklahoma, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New Jersey; sometimes north along the East Coast to Massachusetts.
Discussion Also known as: dog-fennel thoroughwort. Considered an aggressive weed in many locations; listed as endangered in New Jersey. | <urn:uuid:c5cbbc4f-10ce-4134-aa38-cdf8f46a4b04> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?shapeID=1130&curGroupID=11&lgfromWhere=&curPageNum=10 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00104-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.870491 | 267 | 3.078125 | 3 |
What To Do If A Volcano Erupts
How to be Prepared for an Ashfall
-- How to protect your children, pets, home and car --
What is Volcanic Ash? Volcanic ash is rock that has been pulverized into dust or sand by volcanic activity. In very large eruptions, ash is accompanied by rocks having the weight and density of hailstones. Volcanic ash is hot near the volcano, but it is cool when it falls at greater distances. Ashfall blocks sunlight, reducing visibility and sometimes causing darkness. Ashfall can be accompanied by lightning.
Fresh volcanic ash is gritty, abrasive, sometimes corrosive, and always unpleasant.
Although ash is not highly toxic, it can trouble infants, the elderly and those with
respiratory ailments. Small ash particles can abrade the front of the eye under windy and
Ash abrades and jams machinery. It contaminates and clogs ventilation, water supplies
and drains. Ash also causes electrical short circuits -- in transmission lines (especially
when wet), in computers, and in microelectronic devices. Power often goes out during and
after Ashfall. Long-term exposure to wet ash can corrode metal.
Ash accumulates like heavy snowfall, but doesn't melt. The weight of ash can cause
roofs to collapse. A one-inch layer of ash weighs 5-10 pounds per square foot when dry,
but 10-15 pounds per square foot when wet. Wet ash is slippery. Ash re-suspended by wind,
and human activity can disrupt lives for months after an eruption.
What to do in case of an Ashfall
- Know in advance what to expect and how to deal with it; that will make it manageable.
- In ashy areas, use dust masks and eye protection. If you don't have a dust mask, use a
- As much as possible, keep ash out of buildings, machinery, air and water supplies,
downspouts, storm-drains, etc.
- Stay indoors to minimize exposure -- especially if you have respiratory ailments.
- Minimize travel -- driving in ash is hazardous to you and your car.
- Don't tie up phone line with non-emergency calls.
- Use your radio for information on the Ashfall.
What to do before an Ashfall
Whether in a car, at home, at work or play, you should always be
prepared. Intermittent Ashfall and re-suspension of ash on the ground may continue for
Keep these items in your home in case of any natural hazards emergency:
- Extra dust masks.
- Enough non-perishable food for at least three days.
- Enough drinking water for at least three days (one gallon per person per day).
- Plastic wrap (to keep ash out of electronics).
- First aid kit and regular medications.
- Battery-operated radio with extra batteries.
- Lanterns or flashlights with extra batteries.
- Extra wood, if you have a fireplace or wood stove.
- Extra blankets and warm clothing.
- Cleaning supplies (broom, vacuum, shovels, etc.).
- Small amount of extra cash (ATM machines may not be working).
- Explain what a volcano is and what they should expect and do if ash falls.
- Know your school's emergency plan.
- Have quiet games and activities available.
- Store extra food and drinking water.
- Keep extra medicine on hand.
- Keep your animals under cover, if possible.
Any vehicle can be considered a movable, second home. Always carry a few items in your
vehicle in case of delays, emergencies, or mechanical failures.
- Dust masks and eye protection.
- Blankets and extra clothing.
- Emergency food and drinking water.
- General emergency supplies: first aid kit, flashlight, fire extinguisher, took lit,
flares, matches, survival manual, etc.
- Waterproof tarp, heavy tow rope.
- Extra air and oil filters, extra oil, windshield wiper blades and windshield washer
- Cell phone with extra battery.
What to do during and after an ash fall
- Close doors, windows and dampers. Place damp towels at door thresholds and other draft
sources; tape drafty windows.
- Dampen ash in yard and streets to reduce resuspension.
- Put stoppers in the tops of your drainpipes (at the gutters).
- Protect dust sensitive electronics.
- Since most roofs cannot support more than four inches of wet ash, keep roofs free of
thick accumulation. Once Ashfall stops, sweep or shovel ash from roofs and gutters. Wear
your dust mask and use precaution on ladders and roofs.
- Remove outdoor clothing before entering a building. Brush, shake and pre-soak ashy
clothing before washing.
- If there is ash in your water, let it settle and then use the clear water. In rare cases
where there is a lot of ash in the water supply, do not use your dishwasher or washing
- You may eat vegetables from the garden, but wash them first.
- Dust often using vacuum attachments rather than dust cloths, which may become abrasive.
- Use battery operated radio to receive information.
- Follow school's directions for care of children at school.
- Keep children indoors; discourage active play in dusty settings. Dust masks do not fit
well on small children.
- Keep pets indoors. If pets go out, brush or vacuum them before letting them indoors.
- Make sure livestock have clean food and water.
- Discourage active play in dusty settings.
- If possible, do not drive; ash is harmful to vehicles.
- If you must drive, drive slowly, use headlights, and use ample windshield washer fluid.
- Change oil, oil filters, and air-filters frequently (every 50 to 100 miles in heavy
dust, i.e., less than 50 feet visibility; every 500 to 1,000 miles in light dust).
- Do not drive without an air filter. If you cannot change the air filter, clean it by
blowing air through from the inside out.
- If car stalls or brakes fail, push car to the side of the road to avoid collisions. Stay
with your car.
What to do during the clean up period
- Minimize driving and other activities that re-suspend ash.
- Remove as much ash as you can from frequently used areas. Clean from the top down. Wear
a dust mask.
- Prior to sweeping, dampen ash to ease removal. Be careful to not wash ash into
drainpipes, sewers, storm drains, etc.
- Use water sparingly. Widespread use of water for clean-up may deplete public water
- Maintain protection for dust-sensitive items (e.g., computers, machinery) until the
environment is really ash-free.
- Seek advice from public officials regarding disposal of volcanic ash in your community.
- Wet ash can be slippery. Use caution when climbing on ladders and roofs.
- Establish childcare to assist parents involved in cleanup.
|For more information call:
Washington State Emergency Management
Division at (800) 562-6108, or visit our web site at: www.wa.gov/wsem/
U.S. Geological Survey at (360) 993-8900, or visit our web-site at: vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/
Or call your local Emergency Management Office | <urn:uuid:356f15aa-1b3e-482b-b4f2-e0e16091afce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.osstation.com/volcanic_ash.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396538.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.882132 | 1,598 | 3.65625 | 4 |
In the Ramayana the story is told of their birth. Their mother, the goddess Diti, wanted to give birth to a son who would rival Indra in power, so she planned to remain pregnant for an entire century to accomplish this. Indra learned of this and was worried about it. To upset her plan, he hurled his thunderbolt at her womb while she was still pregnant, shattering it. The Maruts were born from the single, splintered fetus.
The Maruts were minor storm deities who in Vedic times were the sons of Rudra and the attendants of Indra. There number is variously given as two, twenty-seven, or sixty. They were aggressive and violent in character. They were the drivers of the clouds, the bringers of wind, the fellers of trees, and the crushers of mountains. They sometimes accompanied Indra into battle, and attended him at his court. | <urn:uuid:8eea9686-164c-43b3-8033-565e0d71e46c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/maruts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993764 | 185 | 2.84375 | 3 |
More Green Jay Sightings
by Ro Wauer
When one of North America's most colorful and charismatic tropical birds begin to appear in numbers, while only a few lone sightings were found previously, it suggests the species is more than just a casual visitor. When two green jays appeared in my yard in mid-October 2004, I assumed that those birds were little more than strays. Birds often have a tendency to wander widely after the nesting season, and green jays are no exception. Green jay populations have become established throughout the South Texas Brushlands, from Del Rio to Live Oak and Bee counties, in recent years. But when Christmas Bird Count participants (Paul Julian’s team) discovered 10 individuals off Lower Mission Valley Road in Victoria County in late December, and six or more individuals visited my yard on January 7, those sightings suggest more than just wanderers.
My green jay yard birds were attracted to one on my birdbaths located along the edge of my yard. A few dozen robins, several cardinals, and a few other songbirds - catbird, white-eyed vireo, pine warbler, and chipping, field, and white-throated sparrows - had already converged on that birdbath when the jays were first discovered. Perhaps they had been there longer. They remained only for a couple hours and I was able to take a few distant photos. But all the while they were shy and reticent to spend much time in the open with me sitting about 60 feet away with camera in hand. Green jays, even in the Valley, seldom spend time in the open; they prefer thorn scrub woodland and thick brushy areas. And also in the Valley they seem to thrive very well in well-vegetated residential areas.
Green jays might be considered the epitome of a tropical bird that has become established north of the Rio Grande. It is one of the most sought after birds that birders come to Texas to see; a target species for thousands of birders who flock to South Texas annually. Yet, in the Lower Rio Grande Valley it is commonplace. But somehow, even after one has seen it dozens of times, it is one of those marvelous birds that one cannot help but look at time and time again. About the same size as our common blue jay, the green jay has a green back, yellow outer tail feathers, pale green underparts, black bib, and a blue and black head pattern. That description hardly does it justice; one needs to actually see one in person to truly appreciate its gorgeous plumage.
Because green jays are sulkers, spending much time out of sight, they often are first detected by their rather distinct calls, like "chi-chi-chi-chi-chih" or "shrink, shrink, shrink." They also have a dry rattle call and short low 'snore" note. And when disturbed by a predator or human observer, they can give a thin screech call.
In "Nesting Birds of a Tropical Frontier," Tim Brush’s recent and excellent book (Texas A&M Univ. Press, 2005) about birds in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, there is an optimistic comment about green jays' ability to survive in developed areas. He claims that it is able "to maintain high population densities in thorn forest and in places where Bronzed Cowbird parasitism is highest. Their ability to detect and avoid aflatoxin-tainted grain at feeders may be beneficial. Negative factors include rapid human population growth and the possible harmful effects if xerification continues in the Valley."
Although it is still too early to assume green jays will become a full-time resident in Victoria and adjacent counties, although they already are resident in Goliad and Bee counties. What with heavy development in the Lower Rio Grande Valley and the fact of global warming, if forced to guess what will occur with green jays in the next few years, I suspect they will become more and more numerous and even nest in Victoria County. They surely would be welcome in my yard! | <urn:uuid:589dc4f9-c4c9-47f5-8b63-d4b9d79cce6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://texasnature.blogspot.com/2006/01/more-green-jay-sightings-by-ro-wauer.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396959.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972061 | 840 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Grammar Dos and Don’ts
1. Do not begin sentences with pronouns.
Reasons: Pronouns are not as clear as referencing the noun. Consistency is also and issue.
Examples of the mistake: This is the rule. At three, he went home.
2. Spell out contractions
Reasons: Contractions are informal, and some teachers do not like them. Making contractions everywhere you can is often difficult—spelling them out is easier to do consistently.
Example of the mistake: It’s a rule that you cannot break pool sticks.
Fix: It is a rule that you cannot break pool sticks.
3. Do not overuse words like “however”
Reasons: Students tend to use word such as “however” often in papers, and the redundancy is hard to miss. Shorter words such as “but” can sneak by a little more often. You should vary your sentence structure, so you are not forced to use conjunctions and/or interjections.
4. Avoid using the word “get” in all of its conjugations
Reason: You need to be using better verbs.
Example of mistake: I got a book from my teacher.
Fix: I received a book from my teacher.
5. Stay away from using phrases such as “I think” and “I believe”
Reasons: Generally, these phrases are unnecessary the opinions in the paper should be your own and when they are not you must clearly attribute the quotes and paraphrase.
Example of mistake: I think that you are wrong.
Fix: You are wrong.
6. Make your verbs active, not passive
Reasons: Passive voice lacks efficiency and immediacy.
Examples of the mistake: The dog was walked by me.
Fixes: I walked the dog.
7. Also, keep from using phrases such as “there are” and “it is”
Reason: These statements lack efficiency.
Example of mistake: It is Chris who runs the office.
Fix: Chris runs the office.
8. Limit the amount of questions that you ask in a paper to one, if that.
Reasons: Students tend to ask questions when writing the paper. The reader does not have to know about the process of writing the paper; they need to know your answers.
9. Eliminate words such as “very,” “just,” “really,” etc. from your writing.
Reason: These words do not add meaning.
10. Do not use absolutes such as “all,” “everyone,” “always,” “never,” etc.
Reason: Absolutes can cause your argument to be flawed.
11. Employ gender-neutral terms and be politically correct.
Reasons: You want to neither offend nor belittle a group of people.
Examples of mistake: The fireman slide down the pole and grabbed his hat. Thanksgiving celebrates the Indians and Pilgrims’ harvest.
Fixes: The firefighter slid down the pole and grabbed his or her hat. Thanksgiving celebrates the Native Americans and Pilgrims’ harvest.
12. If you put a dash in your paper, use the symbol for a dash (--) instead of a hyphen (-)
Reasons: A hyphen is a different type of punctuation and they are not interchangeable.
Example of mistake: The student-teacher’s assignment makes no sense-I will ask her about it.
Fix: The student-teacher’s assignment makes no sense—I will ask her about it.
13. An ellipsis is three spaced dots.
Reasons: MLA formats the ellipsis as three spaced dots, and we apply MLA style in this class.
Good Example: I was going down the road . . . going where the water tasted like wine.
14. Limit your usage of the verb “is” and its varied conjugations.
Reason: You can avail yourself of better verbs and limit unnecessary repetition.
15. Ensure that you are using the words “that” and “who” correctly.
Reasons: “That” qualifies ideas and things while “who” restricts people.
Example of mistake: The doctor that put my arm in a cast has broken his arm.
Fix: The doctor who put my arm in a cast has broken his arm.
16. Keep from using words such as “possibly,” “probably,” “seems,” “appears,” etc.
Reasons: These words make you sound less than sure about your argument, thereby weakening your argument.
Example of Mistake: The stereotype is possibly due to the elephant being Republican party’s symbol.
Fix: The stereotype is due to the elephant being the Republican party’s symbol.
17. Exclamation points have no place in academic writing.
Reason: Your MLA Handbook reads “[e]xcept in direct quotation, avoid exclamation points in research writing."
18. You do not need to use the word “obviously.”
Reasons: You need to be explaining why you think it is obvious.
The views and opinions expressed in this page are strictly those of Michele Reese. The contents of this page have not been reviewed or approved by the University of South Carolina. | <urn:uuid:089aeadc-a8d3-4d10-aba1-ca75a387a4db> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.uscsumter.edu/~mnreese/Grammar.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949122 | 1,165 | 3.765625 | 4 |
On August 15, 16 and 17, 1969, just a month after the famous moon landing of Apollo 11, the world witnessed another giant leap of sorts. This time it was the Woodstock music festival in upstate New York. An estimated 500,000 people converged on one small town to hear three days of music. The fact that this many people would come this far for the sake of song told us something about the human experience at that time -- although exactly what it told is unclear.
Even though you probably weren't there, it's quite likely you've heard of the event known as Woodstock. You might have heard that there were sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Or maybe you heard that there were problems with food, sanitation, parking, traffic and even potable water. You've possibly heard that the music was fantastic -- a musical lineup that's unlikely to be ever reproduced in any era. And all of this is true, so let's take a look at exactly how it all happened.
The first thing you need to recognize is that 1969 was prime time for "counterculture" in America. The counterculture included drug use, anti-war protests, anti-capitalism, the concept of free love, the Women's Liberation movement, communal living and much more. America was divided. On one side were a group of Americans sporting "America: Love it or Leave it" bumper stickers and supporting the Vietnam War. On the other side were a group of Americans known as the hippies -- a term that became mainstream sometime around 1967.
The second thing to recognize is rock music was becoming a very big phenomenon. Woodstock was about counterculture musicians like Joan Baez, Grateful Dead, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. Booking dozens of counterculture bands all in one place turned Woodstock into a magnet that attracted people from all over the country. | <urn:uuid:aa0c03a2-90b2-44d8-ba3f-d0145e2f326b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://history.howstuffworks.com/american-history/woodstock.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981812 | 396 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Defining Gender in the XXI Century: Conversations with men and women around the world
Between June 2010 and February 2011, the World Bank launched local research teams into the field across 20* countries from 6 developing regions to hear first-hand about how men and women "do gender" in their everyday lives. The researchers met separately with small groups of males and females from three generations, convening a total of 500 groups with 4000 individuals.
The discussion groups examined whether and how gender roles and norms are changing, and reflected on questions such as: How did you decide to end your education? Are men and women better at different jobs? Do women and men save differently? What makes a good husband? A good wife? and What are some of the common causes of tensions or fights between men and women in this community? The findings from the rapid assessment will be informing the World Development Report 2012, and national, regional and global reports drawing from this dataset will also be posted here in the months following the WDR's release.
Assessment Scope and Design
To inform the 2012 World Development Report on Gender Equality and Development (WDR 2012), rapid qualitative assessments were undertaken in 20* countries to explore trends in gender roles and norms, and what women and men say drive their major economic decisions.
The purpose of the rapid assessment is to explore: i) women's and men's subjective views of, and experiences with, making key economic decisions, such as how to make a living and how to build and protect major assets; and ii) whether and how the gender norms that surround these choices may be shifting, for example, as educational opportunities expand, as the economic structure changes and as connectivity beyond the community increases.
The overall assessment approach and data collection tools build on the World Bank's previous global qualitative research programs, Voices of the Poor and Moving Out of Poverty . The methodology is designed to enable comparative analysis of differences between males and females across three generations, urban and rural communities, and diverse country contexts. The five data collection methods for the assessment are outlined below. They include a community questionnaire, three focus group discussions (one each for adolescents, youths, and adults), and a mini case study. The tools were piloted in urban and rural communities of Peru and Liberia in June 2010.
Local researchers convened approximately 500 focus groups, meeting separately with male and female adolescents, youths, and adults. The groups discussed a wide range of topics, including reasons for happiness and favorite free time activities; decisions surrounding when to leave school, where to work, and family formation; and gender differences in accumulating savings and controlling major assets. Questions also explored problems of domestic violence, public safety, and women's physical mobility. One module charted how young women and men spend their days, and another explored different levels of power and freedom that a women or a man might have in their communities.
Although extensive quantitative analysis on some gender dimensions of development is possible (and has been done) using household surveys, their insights are limited because most do not examine intra-household and community-level dynamics, and they often cover only a limited set of economic, demographic, and human development factors. In particular, contextual factors and how they interact with the deeper influences of power relations and norms on women's and men's decisions are difficult topics for even well-designed household surveys to explore effectively. Yet, a lack of understanding of the role of these factors limits our understanding of these issues and the possible levers for policy action.
For the full methodology, see: C. Turk, P. Petesch and A. M. Munoz Boudet. 2010. Gender and Economic Choice: Methodology Guide. World Bank. Also, see the Data collection tools and respondents Table.
Regions and Countries
The assessment sample is large and diverse. It covers nearly 100 communities across 20* countries from six developing regions. Country contexts range from low to upper middle income economies, and from conflict-affected or fragile to peaceful and stable states.
At the community level, the samples were designed to capture a mix of urban and rural contexts as well as more modern and traditional gender norms. In every country, teams conducted fieldwork in both middle income and poorer neighborhoods of cities and towns, as well as in prosperous and poor villages. Teams also travelled to areas with important minority ethnic, caste, religious and tribal groups, such as a Roma settlement in Serbia, an indigenous highland community of Peru, a tribal village of Orissa, India, and a nomadic community in the northern region of North Yemen.
- Burkina Faso
- North Sudan
- South Africa
and the Pacific
- Papua New Guinea
and Central Asia
and the Caribbean
and North Africa
Meet the Teams
Global Assessment Team
World Development Report Team &
Lead Social Scientist, Europe and Central Asia Region,
Consultant, World Development Report Team
Ana Maria Muñoz Boudet
World Development Report Team
Jane Henrici, Allison Helmut
Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) | <urn:uuid:190013c7-fa66-40ef-9810-e9fed2d01072> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://econ.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/EXTDEC/EXTRESEARCH/EXTWDRS/EXTWDR2012/0,,contentMDK:22850827~menuPK:8157427~pagePK:64167689~piPK:64167673~theSitePK:7778063,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933915 | 1,029 | 3.25 | 3 |
April 6, 2011
Do snails need their slime trails to move ahead? It's a sticky question, Stanford researchers say
High-resolution videos of moving snails and slugs reveal the details of how snails get around on their own distinctive brand of slime.
By Sandeep Ravindran
The researchers found that snails didn't need their special mucus to travel horizontally, although it comes in handy when they're traveling up a wall. (Photo courtesy of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid)
It's tough to get around on one foot. Yet this limitation doesn't appear to hold back snails and slugs.
A snail uses its single long, muscular foot to crawl on a layer of mucus-like slime that it secretes. This mucus has unusual physical properties, and scientists assumed that these sticky properties were essential for snail movement.
But in a recent study, Stanford graduate student Janice Lai used high-resolution videos and lasers to study moving snails and slugs, and discovered that they don't really need their slime to be special.
"We were surprised to find that the special mucus properties weren't essential," said Lai. "Mucus is still very important, but we found that there are other mechanisms that the snail uses to generate the traction to move forward."
It was already known that snails and slugs propel themselves by generating a series of muscular pulses on their feet. These waves of muscle contraction and relaxation travel along the central portion of the foot from tail to head. The waves move much faster than the snail itself, and generate enough force to push the snail forward.
Lai found out that these muscular waves are sufficient to propel the snail forward on a flat surface, without needing the special mucus to provide more traction. The mucus does help the snail stick to surfaces, however, and comes in handy when traveling up a wall or across a ceiling, upside down.
Possible applications in robotics
Lai shot high-resolution videos of crawling snails and used a laser to measure how the muscle waves moved back and forth and up and down on a snail's foot. She also measured the forces that a snail generated when crawling on a gel. Her detailed measurements of how snails move could help other research groups that work on snail-like robots.
Researchers discovered nearly 30 years ago that snail mucus has some unusual properties. It allows the animal to stick to a surface while moving, with the mucus changing its characteristics according to how firmly the snail presses on it. The slime initially acts like glue, sticking the snail to the surface. But when the snail's foot presses down hard enough on the mucus, it becomes more liquid, allowing it to flow underneath the moving snail. Existing theories assumed that this special characteristic of snail mucus was always necessary for the snail to push off and move forward.
But Lai and her coworkers, professors Juan C. del Álamo and Juan Lasheras at UC-San Diego, and Javier Rodriguez, from Carlos III University of Madrid, noticed that snails could move horizontally just fine on a thin film of water, and wondered whether the mucus' special properties were really necessary.
Lasheras' lab had previously developed tools to study the movement of cells. He studied the movement of a single-cell amoeba as a model for how human cells move during development, during immune responses, and when rebuilding damaged tissues. Lai adapted Lasheras' tools to study snails and slugs. Snails are similar to our cells "in that they both have to move and adhere to a surface at the same time," she said.
Lai's experiments echoed Eadweard Muybridge's famous stop-motion photographs from the late 1800s. His photos – taken on what is now the Stanford campus – proved that all four of a horse's hooves are off the ground at the same time during a gallop. In Lai's case, she used high-resolution videos to show that parts of a snail's foot lift off the ground as the waves of motion travel through it.
If the snail's foot never lifted off the ground, then the animal would need the special mucus to achieve enough force to push itself across a horizontal surface.
But if, however, a part of the snail's foot lifted up as the waves traveled through it then the animal could produce enough thrust to push itself forward even without the special physical properties of the mucus. Lifting part of its foot reduces the amount of friction the snail has to overcome to move. This would be similar to a caterpillar, which lifts the middle part of its body up and stretches forward as it moves.
Lai tracked the movement of snails on a horizontal glass surface, using a high-resolution camera placed underneath. She measured the back-and-forth waves of muscle contractions by tracking the movement of distinctive speckles on the foot. She also used a laser to measure the distance that the foot waves moved up-and-down off the glass surface.
To measure forces, she placed the snails on a gel and measured how the gel deformed as the snails moved across it. She already knew how much force it took to deform the gel, so she was able to calculate how much force it took to produce the observed deformation.
Vertical vs. horizontal travel
Based on their new measurements, the researchers found that the snails didn't require the special mucus to travel horizontally. The lifting of the snail's foot as the waves travelled through it produced enough force to propel the animal even without the slime. The slime's adhesive ability still plays a crucial role, however, in allowing the animal to crawl upside down and up vertical surfaces.
Apart from changing how we view snail locomotion, the work has practical applications as well. A number of other research groups have been making robots that move like snails. Lai is currently working on a more detailed mathematical model of snail movement that could help refine these robots.
"Now that we understand the mechanism and have models, the next step is to apply them to robots," said Lai.
A group at MIT has already built snail robots that can move on vertical walls and upside down, and researchers from Tohoku University in Japan are building an endoscope, a tool that doctors use to look inside the body, that would move like a snail. Snail-like robots are less complicated to build as "there are no legs sticking out," said Lai, and their crawling motion allows them to traverse a wide variety of surfaces.
Lai, a mechanical engineer, was the first author of the study published last October in the Journal of Experimental Biology. In November, she presented an updated mathematical model of snail locomotion at the annual conference of the American Physical Society.
Lai started working on snail locomotion in 2007 as an undergraduate, when she spent a summer doing research with Lasheras, the paper's senior author. Lai's summer project went so well she continued the project after coming to Stanford in 2008. "I started the project with snails caught in my adviser's backyard, so it's been very fun and satisfying to get to this point," she said.
Sandeep Ravindran is a science-writing intern at the Stanford News Service. | <urn:uuid:03608aed-6bc7-4e66-a09a-65a082b70c26> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2011/pr-snail-slime-trails-040611.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972735 | 1,504 | 3.953125 | 4 |
Continued from Page One
Even without financing in place, engineers have begun the design process leading up to construction, which could begin as early as 2000.
Seven design firms have responded to requests for proposals. Each was given $100,000 in federal highway grant money to begin developing plans. They will compete later this year for the job of designing the finished product, including: two spans, a drawbridge, a height of 70 feet. Officials also have specified the the bridge design incorporate some kind of arches to echo other federal city motifs.
"After the design contest is over, by the end of this year, then we'll be able to give a more definitive idea of how the construction will proceed," said Maryland's chief bridge engineer, Earl "Jock" Freedman, who predicts that construction will be extremely complicated, given that there is little vacant land to store materials or stage construction on the Virginia shoreline.
Once a design is in hand, the Federal Highway Administration can seek bids from builders.
The first step probably will be construction of watertight boxes in the river, which will then be pumped free of water to provide a dry environment for building the bridge pilings.
Called cofferdams, the boxes will be built during the winter to protect Potomac River grasses from silt damage, engineers say. Ideally, construction on the dams will begin in the fall of 2000.
The Alexandria waterfront is likely to be home to a fleet of construction barges for years as the bridge goes up, and a rail spur in northern Old Town that leads to the Robinson Terminal dock could also provide access for materials.
Hundreds of bridge workers will be descending on the job site. According to a Federal Highway Administration formula, 7,900 jobs for welders, steel and concrete specialists, and other workers are created directly by every $1 billion spent on a project, though not all of them are at the site. In addition, an estimated 19,700 other jobs making supplies and materials are created for every $1 billion spent.
The Financial Hurdle
When construction funding for the first Wilson Bridge was decided in 1954, lawmakers earmarked $15 million, but it would take at least 100 times that much to build the 12-lane replacement. The bridge would be transferred from federal ownership to a regional authority made up of representatives from Maryland, Virginia, and the District.
Assuming Congress does not finance the full construction cost, some of the remaining money would come directly from the states. The rest could come from other financing plans that have been developed by state and federal officials over the past year.
One plan under serious discussion would allow a bridge authority to sell construction bonds that would be backed and paid off by the federal government.
"We need this innovative financing added to this act," said Virginia Transportation Secretary Shirley Ybarra. "It is the best option we've come up with."
The method is unusual enough to raise some eyebrows on Capitol Hill, though it has been used to finance other federal projects such as air traffic control equipment and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's international space station project.
Once Congress decides on its share, the states will have to decide whether the money is enough to begin moving forward with construction.
Federal highway officials agree that there are places to scale back the design, shoulders to trim, extra asphalt that could be pared down, and interchanges, which range in cost from $115 million to $320 million apiece, that could shrink.
But so far, the states have also taken the position that they will settle for nothing less than full federal funding of the bridge span, and no less than the normal 80 percent federal funding of the interchanges.
Backers of a new bridge say the only alternative is forcing trucks onto other highways that run through other local communities. Bruce Orkin, 43, of Bethesda, a surgeon who moved to the area nine years ago, understands what that would mean to him and his Montgomery County neighbors.
"If traffic is diverted, it would turn what is a mild nightmare now to a horrific nightmare," he said.
© Copyright 1998 The Washington Post Company | <urn:uuid:f25ad90d-4197-452c-980c-067aac8d4d8e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/wilson/bridge0426b.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961771 | 845 | 2.984375 | 3 |
“How could this happen to me?” I’m often asked. My answer? Anyone can be infected by genital herpes very easily, especially if they fail to make love like the porcupine - very, very carefully. Today, it’s estimated that 50 million North Americans have genital herpes and each year another 500,000 are diagnosed with the infection. But there are many misconceptions about this common and worrying problem.
Myth # 1- You can’t get herpes from sitting on a toilet seat.
Doctors have said for years that the herpes virus dies quickly on exposure to air. But Dr. Trudy Larsen, a researcher at The University of California, startled the medical world several years ago. She asked a patient with an active herpes lesion to sit on a toilet seat. Four hours later she took cultures from the seat and found the virus was still alive and well. I doubt that many patients are infected in this way. But I think it’s prudent not to push your luck by sitting on a public toilet seat.
Myth # 2 - I can’t have sex again if I have herpes.
It’s possible to have an active sex life, if you avoid sex while lesions are still present. But you must also remember that viral shedding can occur even when there are no lesions. This is why it’s important to always use a condom. This reduces the chance of passing the infection to your partner, but does not completely rule out the possibility.
Myth # 3 - You can’t spread genital herpes to other parts of the body.
If you touch the genital area and then rub your eye or other parts of the body, you can spread the virus. It’s vitally important to wash your hands after you touch the genital area, as eye infections are serious.
Myth # 4 - Genital herpes can cause sterility.
Not so. But other sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea and chlamydia can cause infertility. That is why patients with herpes should always have tests done to rule out these diseases. Prompt treatment can cure these problems.
Myth # 5 - Cold sores are an infection unrelated to herpes.
Cold sores are cousins of the genital herpes virus. So the virus can be transferred to the genital area by either your hands or by oral sex. It’s interesting that patients are devastated psychologically by genital herpes, but give oral herpes little thought.
Myth # 6 - It’s not safe to have children if you have herpes.
Patients can have a normal vaginal delivery of a fetus if there are no active lesions. But if lesions are present, a Caesarean section should be done to prevent infecting the newborn.
Myth # 7 - If your partner develops herpes, he or she, must be cheating on you.
Today, with the liberal sexual mores of our society, that may be the correct answer. But you may be wrong to jump to that conclusion. Long before you met, your partner may have been infected with the virus and be unaware of it due to mild symptoms. Now, a stressful event may trigger an active lesion. And don’t forget that one culprit, the toilet seat.
Myth # 8 - You need to have several sexual partners to get herpes.
Sex is like playing Russian roulette. The more often you pull the trigger, the greater the chance of leaving this world. And since as many as one in five North Americans have genital herpes, your luck could run out even on the first sexual encounter.
Myth # 9 -You never know when an attack of herpes has occurred.
Every person is different. But some patients develop a tingling, burning, or pain in the genital area several days before an attack occurs. Or feel they may be developing the flu.
Myth # 10 – I don’t need to tell my partner immediately that I have herpes.
It’s not a good idea to suddenly say “I have herpes” on the first date. Or use words like “incurable”. Unless your date is a member of the Hell’s Angels, it may be the last date. But don’t delay too long. Choose the moment carefully, and never have sex before telling your partner about this infection.
THE DOCTOR GAME: Dr. Gifford-Jones' common sense-based medical column offered with the occasional dash of humour has been published in Canadian newspapers for 30 years.
for the month of
Cannot be applied to industry discounted prices, previous orders or tests not listed on our website. One coupon code per order. Coupon code expires at Midnight EST. | <urn:uuid:b83f28cb-fdcd-4f5b-8cd7-4d58e0b247cc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://requestatest.com/2010/06/21/myths-about-herpes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935775 | 971 | 2.53125 | 3 |
- "A flimsiplast map. How quaint."
- ―Sinjir Rath Velus
Flimsiplast, sometimes shortened to flimsi, was a substance formed into flat thin sheets suitable for writing on. During the age of the Galactic Empire, flimsiplast was a more common physical writing medium than paper. Nonetheless, by the end of the Empire's reign, flimsiplast maps were regarded as a curiosity.
- The Rebellion Begins (First appearance)
- Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks
- "The Perfect Weapon" | <urn:uuid:9b65f746-ecb1-4d41-adb4-b5d53557360d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Flimsiplast | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00200-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946171 | 121 | 3.046875 | 3 |
Published on August 27th, 2012 | by Joshua S Hill6
One Third Less Life on Planet Earth than Previous Estimates
August 27th, 2012 by Joshua S Hill
Researchers have found that previous estimates about the total mass of life on our planet have been a little too generous, having to decrease the estimate by one third.
The study behind the discovery was published in the current online issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science and was led by Dr. Jens Kallmeyer of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and University of Potsdam.
“About half of the world’s ocean is extremely nutrient-poor. For the last 10 years it was already suspected that subseafloor biomass was overestimated” explains Dr. Jens Kallmeyer the motivation behind his study. “Unfortunately there were no data to prove it.”
Now there is.
According to previous estimates, approximately one thousand billion tonnes of carbon were stored in living organisms, of which 30 percent was found in single-cell microbes living on the ocean floor, and 55 percent in land plants.
Kallmeyer’s team have had to revise the number after they collected sediment cores from areas that were far away from any coasts and islands. The work took six years to accomplish, and in the end showed that there were one hundred thousand times less cells in sediments from open-ocean areas than in coastal sediments.
With this new data in tow, the scientists were able to revise their estimate of the total biomass in marine sediments: instead of 300 billion tonnes of carbon, there are really only 4 billion tonnes of carbon stored in subseafloor microbes.
Source: Helmholtz Centre Potsdam
Keep up to date with all the most interesting green news on the planet by subscribing to our (free) Planetsave newsletter. | <urn:uuid:17102acb-7564-4a21-8856-604e8b51f4c8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://planetsave.com/2012/08/27/one-third-less-life-on-planet-earth-than-previous-estimates/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967502 | 389 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Grades are all over the place, but what are they? Well, I guess there are a few questions. What is a grade? What is the grade supposed to be? Why do we give grades?
I think the grade is supposed to be a measure of a students’ understanding of the material. Probably everyone would agree with that description. But, it is still a bit tricky. Who (or what) determines what a student should understand? Who determines what an “A” means? Fortunately, there is not a governing body (yet at least in physics) that says what an “A” grade means. It is left up to the expert evaluations of faculty. I am not saying this is ideal, but what happens when you try to get everyone to formally agree? Standardized tests. These are inherently evil. It is just extremely difficult to make a test that accurately measures the understanding of many students.
Why do we (faculty) give grades? I know some people would say “because we just do – that is the way the university works”. These are the people that just do what has been done before. Others will say “if you don’t give grades, the students won’t work”. Again, this leads to a problem. If students are just going to school to get grades, why don’t we just give them the grades? If grades are the point – let them have grades.
We are supposed to give grades so that we can share our evaluation of the student with other institutions or jobs or parents or whatever. Of course, there is no universality of grades (and I am not pushing for that because it would be disaster). A grade in intro physics at MIT might mean as well as be interpreted differently than the same grade in the same course (with the same course description) at a 2 year community college. Should they be interpreted differently? They should mean the same thing.
Ok, one last thing. What about giving a grade because a student deserves that grade. You know this student worked hard, should the student get at least a B? With my interpretation of a grade, unfortunately the answer would be “no”. I want to be nice, but grades are not about being nice. Grades are about evaluating what a student knows. At the end of the semester, if a student thinks they deserve a higher grade, I am open to that possibility. However, that student would have to clearly demonstrate they understand the material. If the final exam didn’t accurately evaluate the student, maybe the student working a problem on the board can do the trick. Really, if I had the time, I would prefer to just meet with students at the end of the semester and talk about physics. After half an hour, I am sure we (me and the student) could agree on a grade that would represent the student’s level of understanding.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article. | <urn:uuid:35cc0739-c356-4fd9-aacc-46bb358a64f8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wired.com/2010/05/what-is-a-grade/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00143-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978457 | 616 | 3.046875 | 3 |
5 Stages of Activity and Hibernation
The stages differ in biochemistry, physiology, appetite, and level of activity. The onset and duration of the stages are genetically programmed to fit regional norms of food availability, which differ across America.
For example, around Ely, fall food is scarce, so bears begin hibernating in September or October and remain in dens for 6 or 7 months until April. If supplemental food is provided to these bears in fall, they abandon it to begin hibernating on time, as they are genetically programmed to do. Bears around Ely usually continue hibernating through winter thaws.
The activity schedule is very different in eastern North America where acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts, and other foods become available in fall and some foods remain available all winter. Bears there are genetically programmed to delay hibernation until late November or December and hibernate less than 5 months. Hibernation there is typically not as deep, and some bears emerge to forage during winter thaws. Food sometimes remains available throughout winter there, and some bears continue foraging throughout winter.
Experimental studies with captive bears revealed the following:
Stage 1—Hibernation is continuous dormancy with distinct decreases in heart rate and metabolic rate. Bears use up to 4,000 kcal per day, mainly body fat, but do not eat, drink, urinate, or defecate. They can reduce oxygen consumption and metabolic rate by half and breathe only once every 45 seconds. Heart rate can drop periodically to 8-21 beats per minute, and blood flow to skeletal muscle, particularly the legs, can be reduced by 45% or more, making some bears slow to arouse and run away in winter. Blood perfusion rates of peripheral tissues can fall below levels needed for aerobic metabolism in humans.
Stage 2—Walking hibernation is the 2-3 weeks following emergence when metabolic processes adjust to normal summer levels. During walking hibernation, bears voluntarily eat and drink less than they will later during normal activity. They also excrete less urine, nitrogen, calcium, phosphorus, and magnesium.
Stage 3—Normal activity typically lasts from green-up in spring to the onset of hyperphagia in midsummer or fall, depending upon region. During this stage, bears with unlimited food eat 5,000 to 8,000 kcal per day. If they are denied water and food during this stage, they cannot duplicate hibernation responses. Instead, they become dehydrated, utilize muscle for energy, and accumulate nitrogenous wastes in the blood, which can be fatal.
Stage 4—Hyperphagia is a period of excessive eating and drinking to fatten for hibernation. Black bears with unlimited food and water ate 15,000 to 20,000 kcal per day and drank several gallons. Large amounts of water are needed to process the large amounts of food and rid the body of nitrogenous waste. Daily urine volumes for two bears were 2-4 gallons (8-16 liters). Nitrogen losses were 2.4 to 3.7 ounces (69-104 grams) (Nelson et al. 1983).
Stage 5—Fall transition is a period after hyperphagia when metabolic processes change in preparation for hibernation. Bears voluntarily eat less but continue to drink to purge body wastes. They become increasingly lethargic, resting 22 or more hours per day, often near water. Active heart rates fall from 80-100 per minute to 50-60 per minute, and sleeping heart rates fall from 66-80 per minute to less than 22 per minute.
Folk, G. E., M. A. Folk, and J. G. Minor. 1972. Physiological condition of three species of bears in winter dens. Ursus 2: 107-125.
Folk, G. E., A. Larson, and M. A. Folk. 1976. Physiology of hibernating bears. Ursus 3:373-380.
Guyton, A. C. 1981. Textbook of medical physiology. Sixth ed. W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1,074 pp.
Nelson, R. Al, G. Edgar Folk, Jr, E. W. Pfeiffer, John J. Craighead, C. J. Jonkel, and D. L. Steiger. 1983. Behavior, biochemistry, and hibernation in black, grizzly, and polar bears. Ursus 5:284-290.
Rogers, L. L., and S. C. Durst. 1987. Evidence that black bears reduce peripheral blood flow during hibernation. J. Mammal. 68(4):872-875.
Watts, P. D. et al. 1981. Mammalian hibernation and the oxygen consumption of a denning black bear. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A. Comparative Physiology 69:121-123. | <urn:uuid:69420af2-5bed-4da5-836b-3259da27896d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://bear.org/website/bear-pages/black-bear/hibernation/191-5-stages-of-activity--and-hibernation.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403823.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00036-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913539 | 1,010 | 3.59375 | 4 |
As the war in Europe raged through the early 1940s, Germany built thousands of concrete bunkers to defend the continent’s western shore from an Allied sea attack. This Atlantic Wall stretched from Norway to the border of France and Spain, and what remains all these decades later is darkly beautiful.
Photographer Stephan Vanfleteren, 44, grew up near some of these structures as a child living in Belgium, but never thought much of them. They were just crumbling concrete relics of the past. That changed last year, however, when he returned to the Belgian coast to photograph bunkers for the Museum Atlantikwall at Raversyde–Belgium. Seeing them with fresh eyes, he was immediately taken by their graceful, elegant design. He produced a series of beautiful black and white photographs that soon will be released as a book.
“Some of the buildings reminded me of the Guggenheim museum or the Fallingwater house by Frank Lloyd Wright,” says Vanfleteren, who still lives in Belgium. “These were buildings made for strategic defense but there was also real beauty and a connection with modern architecture.”
Vanfleteren was of course acutely aware of the history associated with the buildings, so he made sure to balance his approach. Although he found the buildings beautiful, he didn’t try to stylize or dramatize them by shooting with artificial lights or at night. Instead, his work is purely documentary, an attempt to let the structures speak for themselves. “The buildings are innocent,” he says, “but there’s still the association.”
While shooting, Vanfleteren says he thought a lot about the immensity of the project, which the Nazis built between 1942 and 1945. The Atlantic Wall was an enormous and a mindboggling undertaking: The Third Reich built thousands of bunkers along 1,670 miles of coastline, many of them in remote and rugged areas that required great feats of engineering and often left him wondering, “How did this get here?”
Even now, many bunkers remain difficult to reach, and Vanfleteren occasionally found himself in dangerous spots. While shooting on the Channel Islands, an enormous wave caught him off guard and swept thousands of dollars of his camera equipment into the sea. He escaped injury, but the experience put a scare in him. “As I saw my bag drifting away I thought, ‘That could be me,'” he says.
Many of the bunkers are located along beautiful settings on the Atlantic coast, so the landscape often is as important as the structure in the photograph. And after decades of neglect–little effort was made in the decades after the war to preserve the bunkers–many of them have slowly eroded away and are themselves becoming part of the landscape. When Vanfleteren talked to locals, many told him the eroding bunkers have become a symbol of environmental changes. Bunkers that used to sit well back from the ocean are now right at the waters edge, for example, and many locals consider this a barometer, a sign of global climate change and a rising sea.
Maps posted online reveal the location of many bunkers, and there are forums in which people describe them. Yet there were times when Vanfleteren would arrive at a spot expecting to find a bunker and instead see nothing. On some occasions, he’d call his wife and asked her to check Google Earth for directions. Other times, he’d simply wander about until he found what he’d come for. It was a lonely endeavor–a point conveyed in the photos–but a welcome relief from the hustle and bustle of modern life. Vanfleteren could only work on the project for a couple weeks at a time, but began to cherish his time alone with his camera.
“After a while it wasn’t a commission but instead a mission,” he says. “I became very addicted to the project.”Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article. | <urn:uuid:cb843bf9-b944-43cc-a5f2-27a829729f0c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.wired.com/2014/05/stephan-vanfleteren-atlantic-wall/?mbid=synd_yahootech | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00049-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982948 | 843 | 2.953125 | 3 |
- Gurkha units of British army deployed to fight in the Falklands War in 1982
- The Nepal-born troops are a product of Britain's colonial past
- Their regiment was part of British task force sent to repel Argentine invasion of islands
Thirty-one years ago, the four men serving me tea at the table of an attractive house in Nepal's capital were taking punishment from the Antarctic weather and an equally unforgiving enemy on a remote island chain in the South Atlantic.
"Suddenly we were in the coldest part of the country, with clothing and things not suitable for a climate like that," said Chandra Kumar Pradhan, as he recalled his time as a soldier serving with the British Army during the Falklands War in 1982.
"You're walking with all those loads and everything, six or seven hours, you were sweating like hell; and then suddenly you stop, as soon as you stop you started digging and sweat more, and then... you were freezing, because the wind was blowing into the sweat, it was horrible."
Despite the fact that the 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha Rifles Regiment were a part of the British task force sent to repel an Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands -- known as the Malvinas by Argentina, who also claim them -- their role has been largely absent from media accounts of the conflict.
This is probably because they never got to fire a shot against their enemy -- though they felt the brunt of Argentine bombs throughout the 74-day conflict, with many of their number injured by flying shrapnel.
By the end of the conflict Argentina put its death toll from the conflict at around 645, while Britain's civil and military losses amounted to 255, according to the Ministry of Defense.
The four comrades -- Bhuwansing Limbu, Chandra Kumar Pradhan, Deoman Limbu and Nirbahadur Tamang -- are Nepalese and veterans of a detachment of a British Army that harks back to its colonial past. The Brigade of Gurkhas, composed of more than 3,000 soldiers of Nepalese descent, who traditionally served in the British Indian Army before India became independent in 1947.
The four were also talking to an Argentine for the first time in their lives, which may have been a problem if the deep silence that followed this revelation was anything to go by.
Fortunately, two things saved the interview. First, I live in Hong Kong, where they were based and trained for many years before Britain's handover of the territory to China in 1997. Secondly, we share a passion for hiking -- a hugely popular pastime in Hong Kong -- and a conversation about the city's trails helped defuse the uneasiness.
These men had joined the army in the 1960s, having had their first experience of war during the Borneo Confrontation -- a conflict between British-backed Malaysia and Indonesia that ended in 1966.
"I was very new at the time, I had been with the regiment for, I think, two weeks," Pradhan said. He was just 18 when he first saw action.
On leaving the British Army in the 1990s, the men could have chosen to live in the country they had defended. But they chose their home in the Himalayas.
"I have been around the world, and Nepal is the only country where you can see the mountains from your window," Pradhan said.
"I love Nepal, most of our relatives and friends are here," Bhuwansing Limbu added.
"One [of my] daughters and two [of my] sons have UK citizenship, but they don't like to go there, therefore, I like to stay here in my motherland," Nirbahadur Tamang explained.
These men who have seen the world but never visited Argentina.
"I always tell my daughter, one day I will definitely go to Argentina," said Pradhan. "But if we go to Argentina and if they know we are Gurkhas who fought in the Falklands, will they be angry with us?"
I couldn't reply that question. Nationalists exist everywhere but I believe most Argentines want to forgive, forget and get on with their lives. At the end of the day, most of the men sent by my country to fight one of the most professional armies on Earth were still teenagers.
"You could see on the faces of these guys, they were not fully trained for the war," Pradhan recalled. "They were conscripts -- we knew that later on," Deoman Limbu added.
As the men cycled through their wartime memories one thing became apparent: there was no clear advantage for either side during the confrontation.
"They had better assets, they had better clothing," Pradhan said. "All of their weapons were deployed there," Deoman Limbu continued.
The men described having had one of their best battlefield meals from abandoned Argentine rations.
And this led to a second silence in the conversation while they pondered something else. What would have happened if the Argentine military had enjoyed a more favorable outcome?
The hemisphere's bloodiest dictatorship would have been strengthened and lengthened.
Fortunately, the ruling junta in Buenos Aires fell shortly after our defeat. I was just an eight-year-old boy when democracy finally ended our plight, and I am lucky to have almost no recollection of those bitter years; I belong to the "almost-unscathed generation."
One of the most emotional parts of our encounter -- well after the end of our formal interview -- came when I thanked these aging Nepali men, who were once young and thirsty for adventure, for helping to bring freedom to my country -- even if they didn't know it and despite the cost in human lives, British and Argentine. | <urn:uuid:d118215c-d459-4031-9266-f7c8edae6d10> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/14/world/asia/nepal-gurkha-falklands-war/index.html?hpt=ila_mid | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985532 | 1,199 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Sexual Assault & Depression: Recognizing the Signs
By August 30, 2011 2,365 4
Rape and sexual assault can put great psychological and emotional strain on victims. One of the most common results of these is depression.
Clinical depression can be tricky to recognize, because people experience many of its symptoms as normal reactions to events in their life. Certainly a traumatic event like rape or sexual assault would cause someone to feel upset. As a result, early symptoms of depression in rape and sexual assault victims may go unnoticed or be attributed to a normal period of adjustment following the attack.
But depression is different from normal feelings of sadness, grief or low energy. It is not fleeting and it is not something that someone can make himself or herself "snap out of."
And clinical depression is an especially common reaction to this type of trauma: In fact, victims of rape, sexual abuse, and sexual assault are included in one of the highest percentages of people who at some time experience depression.
Depression may take the form of fear, anxiety or self-hatred, numbness, loss of appetite, disturbed sleep or include other physical indications of stress. After being assaulted many victims also experience a sense of meaninglessness.
The two most common general symptoms of depression are:
- Feeling sad or hopeless nearly every day for at least 2 weeks.
- Losing interest in or not getting pleasure from most daily activities nearly every day for at least 2 weeks.
For a full list of other symptoms of depression, go to the “Health Center” section of this website.
If you are suffering from depression because of rape or sexual assault, it’s important to remember you are not alone or at fault. Experiencing depression is not a sign of weakness, and you may need help to overcome it. Contact a mental health professional in your area or call one of these free, confidential hotlines:
National Domestic Violence Hotline
1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY)
Abuse is physical and emotional. If you or someone you know might be in an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline for support and information. It is free and anonymous. You can also visit their website at http://www.thehotline.org/ for resources, information and support.
National Dating Abuse Helpline
1-866-331-9474 or 1-866-331-8453 (TTY)
If you feel like you might be in an abusive relationship, please call the National Dating Abuse Hotline. You can also call the Helpline for more information about dating violence or other resources specific for teens, or visit their website at http://www.loveisrespect.org/.
National Sexual Assault Hotline
If you have experienced sexual assault or rape, please contact the sexual assault hotline. At any given moment, more than 1,100 trained volunteers are on duty and available to help victims at RAINN-affiliated crisis centers across the country. When you call, you are connected to the nearest member center. Your call is anonymous, confidential and free. You can also visit their website for information and help. | <urn:uuid:b4b66a24-09c8-48b0-ac7f-498ea9c254e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.depressionconnect.com/depression-articles/6-sexual-assault-amp-depression-recognizing-the-signs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930824 | 659 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Holling Clancy Holling
Full color and black & white illustrations
As with Big Tree, Tree in the Trail uses the life of a tree to portray both the passing of history and life cycles of nature. Where Big Tree uses a Redwood to survey the founding moments of Western Civilization, Tree in the Trail is about a Cottonwood and the things that happened within the tree’s view over two hundred years along the Santa Fe Trail in the American Southwest. There are animals and people that bring to life the history, both natural and human, of this amazing part of the world. And through all the dramatic changes, the tree continues to stand and grow.
Like Holling’s other books, this one is packed with story and teaching; with life itself. | <urn:uuid:0086d671-ae06-4d19-ab8f-06753a385d90> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.waldorfbooks.com/item_981.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397744.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00170-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931377 | 157 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Oct. 26, 2010
International Space Station Water System Successfully Activated
WASHINGTON -- NASA has announced the successful activation of new hardware that will support water production services aboard the International Space Station.
The Sabatier system can create up to 530 gallons of water per year from byproducts of the station's Oxygen Generation System and Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly. The process is named for Paul Sabatier, a 1912 Nobel Prize winner in chemistry.
"This is an important step forward in NASA's commercialization endeavors and shows how successful private industry can be at providing solutions on its own," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for Space Operations at the agency's Headquarters in Washington. "The ability to produce this water will be important for sustaining space station operations once the shuttle is retired."
The system was integrated into the space station's Water Recovery System during the week of Oct. 11. Activation, checkout and first use of the system were completed Oct. 22, running for over eight hours.
The Sabatier process uses a nickel catalyst to interact with hydrogen and carbon dioxide at elevated temperatures and pressures to produce water and methane. The water is retained for recycling processes, and the methane is vented outside of the space station.
Prior to adding the Sabatier system, hydrogen produced while generating station oxygen was considered waste gas and vented overboard. Carbon dioxide generated by crew metabolism also was vented overboard. With the Sabatier system, these two former waste gases will generate a valuable product for the space station: water.
Under contract to NASA, Hamilton Sundstrand supplied the flight hardware and operational support for a Sabatier-reaction-based system that operates as part of the station's Environmental Control and Life Support System. This contract is unique because NASA did not participate in design reviews or impose any specifications on the design, except for those defined in the safety, interface and acceptance requirements met by Hamilton Sundstrand.
The company developed, procured, and built the flight hardware and support equipment needed for operations and training. The in-orbit operational portion of the contract runs until Sept. 30, 2014.
For information about the International Space Station, visit:
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Back to NASA Homepage | <urn:uuid:697f6069-1c94-4c5c-a71a-2263799ca259> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2010/oct/HQ_10-275_Sabatier.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396459.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904975 | 507 | 3.03125 | 3 |
Telomeres are to chromosomes what plastic caps are to the ends of shoelaces - they stop them unravelling as they age. Without telomeres, chromosomes would gradually lose their genetic information as cells replicate. For this reason - backed by some research - scientists believe longer telomeres are better for health. But now a new genomic study suggests longer telomeres may also increase the risk of developing deadly brain cancers known as gliomas.
Led by the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), the study focuses on two common variants of telomere-related genes known as TERT and TERC that lead to longer telomeres. TERT is carried by 51% of people and TERC is carried by 72%.
However, it is rather unusual for common variants to increase risk of disease, so the researchers suggest perhaps a genetic balancing act is going on between benefit and risk. On the benefit side, carrying longer telomere variants generally promotes overall health, while on the risk side, carrying them can also raise risk of high-grade gliomas, but for most carriers, the benefit trumps the risk, as gliomas, although nearly always fatal, are relatively rare.
"There are clearly high barriers to developing gliomas, perhaps because the brain has special protection," explains senior author, Margaret Wrensch, professor of Neurological Surgery and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UC San Francisco, who with colleagues reports the findings in the journal Nature Genetics.
To illustrate the point, she notes that the comment "I've never been sick in my life," is not uncommon from people diagnosed with glioma.
One explanation for this genetic balancing act between benefit and risk could be that in general, slowing cellular aging is good for overall health. But perhaps this also means some cells will live longer than they are supposed to, which is a hallmark of cancer.
In a large genomic dataset that the researchers used in their analysis, covering 40,000 people, they found shorter telomeres were linked to higher risk of cardiovascular disease - a good example of where longer telomeres are generally linked to better health.
Study confirms link to TERT and identifies new link between TERC and glioma risk
But first, the team analyzed another genome-wide dataset from 1,644 glioma patients and 7,736 healthy controls. This confirmed an already established link between TERT and gliomas, but also, for the first time, identified TERC as a glioma risk.
Scientists believe longer telomeres have health benefits, but the new study suggests they may also increase the risk of developing deadly brain cancers.
As it had already been established that both these genes help regulate telomerase - an enzyme that controls telomere length - the team then looked at the other, larger, dataset and found the same variants tied to glioma risk were also linked to longer telomeres.
Ever since Elizabeth Blackburn, a professor of biochemistry and biophysics at UCSF, and colleagues solved the puzzle of how chromosomes stop themselves degrading when they replicate - and also won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for it - there have been many studies looking at links between telomere length and health and aging, and also diseases like cancer.
Also, because cancer cells keep themselves alive longer by keeping their telomeres long, drug companies have been searching for compounds that can target and block telomerase in tumors - in the hope that the ends of cancer cells' chromosomes begin to unravel so they accumulate genetic damage and die.
An example of this avenue of research is a study published in September 2013, where scientists at the University of California Santa Cruz used a new technique to reveal structural and mechanical properties of telomeres that could help the development of anti-cancer drugs.
Study opens research avenues for other diseases linked to TERT and TERC
This latest study should extend the research beyond gliomas, says the team. This is because TERT variants have also been implicated in other cancers, including of the prostate, lung, testicle and breast, and TERC variants in colon cancer, leukemia and multiple myeloma. Plus, variants in both genes have been linked to raised risk of the progressive lung disease idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.
In some of these diseases, the variants make the telomeres longer, and in others, they make them shorter, so the authors conclude that "both longer and shorter telomere length may be pathogenic, depending on the disease under consideration." | <urn:uuid:5488109a-2a20-4296-930a-e8c0bdd9c800> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/277964.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961562 | 932 | 3.375 | 3 |
Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team
Early Nazi Leaders
Nazi Racial Laws
Sinti & Roma
Life and Times of Sir Oswald Mosley &
the British Union of Fascists
Sir Oswald Mosley was born on the 16 November 1896 into an aristocratic family, from which he inherited his title. Oswald Mosley was educated at Winchester and at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst following a well worn path for his social class.
At the age of eighteen the First World War broke out and he served in the Sixteenth Lancers in France and then in the Royal Flying Corps, the forerunner of the RAF.
His experiences during the First World War had a profound effect on him, shaping many of the views that he took into politics.
Between 1918 and 1931 Mosley was a Tory, then an Independent Tory, and then a member of the Labour Party. Oswald Mosley became the youngest MP in the House of Commons after winning the seat of Harrow for the Conservative Party in the 1918 General Election.
In 1920 he married Cynthia Curzon the daughter of Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the daughter of the former Viceroy of India. Mosley however was not the dutiful husband he had numerous affairs, including relationships with his wife’s younger sister Alexandra Metcalfe and with their stepmother Grace Curzon.
Mosley became disillusioned with the Conservative Party and he again became re-elected as the MP for Harrow, as an independent candidate in the 1922 General Election. Two years later Mosley joined the Independent Labour Party and in 1926 he was elected to represent Smethwick in the General Election, and in the following year he was elected to the National Executive Committee of the Labour Party.
After the cabinet of the second Labour Government refused to endorse his plans for national reconstruction, a task that had been allotted to him as chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he resigned from office in May 1930 and founded the New Party.
Supporters of the New Party included John Strachey, William Joyce, John Becket and Harold Nicholson, but in the 1931 General Election not one of the New Party candidates were elected.
Within this timeframe the British Facisti was formed in 1923 and the Imperial Fascist League was established in 1928. The former, associated particularly with R. Lintorn Orman, did not last long, but the latter associated predominantly with Arnold S. Leese continued its existence until Leese’s death in 1948.
With the crushing defeat of the New Party in the 1931 general election, Mosley began to move toward the most infamous phase of his career. In October 1932 after a visit to Benito Mussolini in Italy during January 1932, he disbanded the New Party and formed the British Union of Fascists: commonly know by its initials the BUF.
The BUF quickly developed the appearance of a major political party, with a membership of 40,000, but by 1934 its progress was hindered by the withdrawal of respectable support such as the Rothermere press, which is covered below.
Mosley appointed William Joyce, the infamous traitor who broadcast pro-Nazi radio broadcasts from Germany, and was known as Lord Haw – Haw, as the BUF’s full time Propaganda Director. Joyce along with Mosley and Mick Clarke were the organisations three main public speakers.
On the 7 June 1934 the BUF held a large rally at Olympia in London, about 500 anti-fascists managed to infiltrate the hall, when they began heckling they were attacked by 1,000 black-shirted stewards. Several of the protestors were badly beaten up by the black-shirts, a public outcry ensued and Lord Rothermere and his Daily Mail newspaper withdrew its support and over the next few months membership of the BUF went into decline.
By 1936, after Mosley had failed to make further political headway, considerable energy was pumped into the local politics of the East End of London, Mosley and the BUF saw the opportunity to exploit anti-Semitism for political gain. This resulted in violent clashes on the streets of the East End, this conflict was symbolised by the “Battle of Cable Street” in October 1936, in which the BUF and anti-fascist groups fought each other.
After a series of well-supported marches through the East End of London which had attracted little opposition, Mosley decided to hold a mass rally on 4 October 1936 to mark the fourth anniversary of the founding of the party. The intention was that the BUF should assemble at Royal Mint Street at 2.30 p.m. for an inspection by Mosley. This would be followed by a march through the East End and he was due to speak at Salmon Lane, Limehouse, at 5 p.m.; Stafford Road, Bow, half an hour later; Victoria Park Square at 6 p.m. and Aske Street, Shoreditch, at 6.30 p.m.
The BUF began to assemble at 1.25 p.m. but they had been pre-empted by a group of some 500 or so communists who were already there, with the Communist 'Daily Worker' being sold in Leman and Cable Streets. By 2.15 it was estimated that there were around 2,000 communists and anti-BUF demonstrators in the Aldgate area, about half of whom had blocked the Commercial Road at Gardiner's Corner. At 3 p.m. the BUF, still in Royal Mint Street, now totaled around 2,000 including women and cadets and four bands.
At 3.30 p.m, Sir Philip Simon after receiving reports from the police of the potential for trouble decided that he did not have the resources to keep the communists and BUF apart and consequently forbade the march. He instead allowed the BUF to march West through the City and the BUF moved off at 4 p.m, ending their march at Somerset House in the Strand at 4.30 p.m.
Meanwhile the communists in Cable Street had overturned a lorry; timber was expropriated from a builder's yard, along with bricks with which to pelt the police. Broken glass was strewn across the road to hamper and injure the police horses and the battle between the police and communists lasted for some hours, overall there were dozens of injured police and 70 arrests.
Special Branch police report of November 1936 concluded:
"The general cry was that the entire population of East London had risen against Mosley and had declared that he and his followers should not pass and that they did not pass owing to the solid front presented by the workers of East London. This statement is, however, far from reflecting accurately the state of affairs. There is abundant evidence that the BUF has been steadily gaining ground in many parts of East London and it has strong support in such districts as Stepney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Hackney and Bow.
There can he no doubt that the unruly element in the crowd was very largely Communist-inspired. A number of well-known active communists were seen at, or near, points where actual disorder occurred. While attempts by the Communist Party to raise enthusiasm over the 'Fascist defeat' were comparative failures the BUF, during the week following the banning of their march, conducted the most successful series of meetings since the beginning of the movement.
In Stepney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Stoke Newington and Limehouse, crowds estimated at several thousands of people (the highest being 12,000) assembled and accorded the speakers an enthusiastic reception; opposition was either non-existent or negligible and no disorder took place".
That year the Government became anxious about the threat to public order, passed the Public Order Act, which banned the wearing of uniforms in public, meant that the BUF could not wear its hallmark black shirts and the appeal of the BUF was curtailed.
In addition the economy recovered during the 1930’s and the rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany did not assist the BUF’s cause, but the BUF was active until the outbreak of the Second World War and Mosley continued to attract large crowds at public meetings.
Oswald Mosley began an affair with Diana Mitford the daughter of the 2nd Baron Redesdale, one of his wealthy supporters. Diana left her husband but Mosley refused to desert his wife. It was not until Cynthia Curzon died of peritonitis that Mosley agreed to marry Diana. In October 1936 Diana and Mosley secretly married in the house of the Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. Adolf Hitler was one of only six guests at the ceremony.
While in Nazi Germany Diana talked to Hitler about the possibility of establishing a pro-Nazi radio station in Britain, but it never materialised. Diana and Mosley had two sons, Alexander born in 1938 and Max born in 1940 who became famous as the president of the Federation Internationale de L’Automobile (FIA).
In his book entitled "Fascism" Mosley outlines and answers 100 questions related to his policies, beliefs and goals, some of which are illustrated here:
Why is the Movement called Fascist ?
Fascism is the name by which the modern Movement has come to be known in the world. It would have been possible to avoid misrepresentation by calling our Movement by another name. But it was more honest to call it Fascism and thus to let everyone know exactly where we stood. It is up to us to defeat misrepresentation by propaganda and explanation of the real policy and method of Fascism as it will operate in Britain. In the long run straightforward dealing is not only honest but also pays best.
The alternative name for the modern Movement is the National Socialism used in Germany. But the German Movement also is known throughout the outside world as Fascist, which is the name commonly used to describe the phenomenon of the modern Movement whether in Britain, Germany or Italy...
Do you believe in the racial theories of the German Nazi Movement ?
They are German and we are English, therefore our views and our methods on many subjects will be different. In this particular we possess a great Empire comprising many different races. They possess no such Empire, and their aim is a revived German race, geographically united. We believe profoundly in our own British race which has created the Empire, but we know also it would be bad for the Empire to stigmatize by law other races within it as inferior or outcast. We have created that Empire without race mixture or pollution, by reason of the British social sense and pride of race.
That is an achievement unique in history, and we can trust the British genius in this respect in the future as in the past. It should not be necessary to secure British racial purity by act of law. It should only be necessary by education and propaganda to teach the British what racial mixtures are bad. If a Briton understands that some action is bad for his race he will not do it. With the British this is a matter for the teacher rather than the legislator, but if legislation was ever necessary to preserve the race, Fascism would not hesitate to introduce it.
What alterations, if any, will you make in the laws governing the immigration of alien races into Great Britain ?
All immigration will be stopped. Britain for the British, is our motto, and all of Britain is required for the British. Further, all foreigners who have already been naturalized will be deported unless they have proved themselves valuable citizens of Great Britain.
What is the Fascist attitude towards the Jews ?
Jews must put the interests of Britain before those of Jewry, or be deported from Britain. This is not a principle of racial or religious persecution. Any well-governed nation must insist that its citizens owe allegiance to the nation, and not to co-racialists and co-religionists resident outside its borders or organized as a state within the State.
The Jews, as a whole, have chosen to organize themselves as a nation within the Nation and to set their interests before those of Great Britain. They must, like everyone else, put "Britain First" or leave Britain.
Is not this hard on the minority of Jews who put " Britain First "?
Minorities always suffer from the faults of the majority. Races, as a whole, suffer from the mistakes of the majority of the race when a mistaken policy is pursued. Such Jews would certainly not be molested, let alone persecuted. But they can no more complain of suffering from the errors of Jewry as a whole, than members of any other nation can complain of suffering for the mistakes of the majority and the blunders of its Government.
Will the Jews then be persecuted or ill-treated ?
It is untrue to suggest that Jews will be persecuted under Fascism in Britain. Bullying or persecution of any kind is foreign to the British character. We shall not keep Jews here to bully them. Those who have been guilty of anti-British conduct will be deported. Those against whom no such charge rests will be treated as foreigners, but in accordance with the traditional British treatment of foreigners within these shores, will not be ill-treated or molested.
On the other hand, foreigners who have not proved themselves worthy citizens of Britain will be deported.
Will they be allowed the right of citizenship or permitted to be officials or M.P.'s in the Fascist State ?
As stated above, the Jews have deliberately maintained themselves as a foreign community in Britain, setting their racial interests above the national interest. As such, therefore, they will be treated, and none can complain of treatment which accords with their own actions. We do not permit foreigners to be M.P.'s or officials, or afforded the full rights of British citizenship, and Jews will not be afforded these privileges. Anyone in the service of the State under Fascism must be entirely British.
Will Jews, who are deported, be able to take their money with them ?
They will be able to take anything they have honestly earned.
The outbreak of the Second World War with Nazi Germany soon resulted in the restriction of the BUF activity, although it never disappeared completely. On the 21 May 1940 leading members of the BUF, including Mosley and key members of his organisation such as Neil Francis Hawkins and Alexander Raven Thomson, were interned under Regulation 18B(1A), which permitted the government to detain persons who had associations with enemy powers, Arnold S. Leese was among the other fascist internees. Mosley and his wife lived in a small house in Holloway prison, with a small garden.
Oswald Mosley was released from internment in November 1943, but the BUF was no more, after the war Mosley reconstructed his political organisation as the Union Movement and attempted to launch a National Party of Europe, but both failed and this resulted in Mosley’s decision to leave Britain and live in Ireland.
Mosley briefly returned to England in order to fight the 1959 General Election at Kensington North, a year following the Notting Hill race riots and concerns over immigration was a central theme to Mosley’s campaign. He contested the 1966 General Election at Shoreditch and Finsbury but he fared even worse than in 1959.
Mosley set about reconstructing the past on his terms. In his autobiography, “My Life” which was published in 1968, he denied that he had ever been an anti-Semite.
Sir Oswald Mosley died in his Orsay, near Paris home on the 3 December 1980 from natural causes.
Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
Oswald Mosley Biography
"Facism" by Oswald Mosley
Haw-Haw: the tragedy of William and Margaret Joyce, Nigel Farndale, Macmillan, London, 2005
Rules of the Game, Beyond the Pale, Nicholas Mosley
Oswald Mosley Website "Friends of Oswald Mosley" | <urn:uuid:01b9e57d-5d46-47fd-a661-8b12db0e551a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org/holoprelude/mosley.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396027.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9791 | 3,272 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Fleas & Ticks
There are several parasites that affect cats, but the most common are fleas and ticks. You should examine your cat for these parasites every time you groom him, or at least once a week. Indoor cats have a very small chance of acquiring these creatures, but they should be regularly checked anyway, just in case.
If your cat has fleas, you will rarely see an actual flea, but only the droppings they leave behind. These tiny droppings will be found at the base of your cat’s fur. If you think your cat has fleas, take a trip to the veterinarian as soon as possible. She can recommend the best method of treatment for ridding both your cat and your home of fleas.
Ticks are bloodsuckers that will bury themselves in your cat’s fur, particularly in the neck and ear areas. Cats will remove most ticks during regular cleaning, but sometimes a tick will imbed itself in a spot that is hard to reach. If you find a tick on your cat, grasp it with tweezers and pull it out slowly. Then, apply an antiseptic to prevent infection. Don’t use other home remedies (such as matches or alcohol) that could potentially be harmful to your pet. If you don’t feel comfortable removing the tick yourself, your veterinarian can do the job. | <urn:uuid:b4224831-01c3-4cc2-9f63-e983328943f9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://petuniversity.com/cats/health--nutrition/common-health-issues/fleas--ticks.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943825 | 285 | 2.703125 | 3 |
By now, you have probably heard of The Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The name conjures the image of a floating island made of familiar plastic trash such as soda bottles and plastic bags, disposable utensils and lighters. However, this image doesn’t really capture the full spectrum of plastic debris that is out there. While some of the plastic pieces swirling in the Pacific Ocean are large, many of them are closer to the size of a popcorn kernel—and certainly small enough for fish to eat, at least in theory. While we have lots of evidence that sea turtles, seabirds, and marine mammals eat ocean plastic, less is known about plastic eaten by marine fish.
Enter marine ecologists Peter Davison and Rebecca Asch. On their 2009 Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastics Expedition (SEAPLEX) to the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, they collected fish from the mesopelagic layer (aka the twilight zone), where only some filtered sunlight can be found. Thirty to three-hundred feet (10 to 100 meters) below the surface, the twilight zone is sandwiched between the sunny photic zone above and the deep dark ocean below. Approximately 95 percent of the world’s fish inhabit the mesopelagic layer, and a whopping 58 million tons of these fish live in the gyre according to a 1980 count. Many of them migrate to the surface at night to feed and swim to deeper waters to avoid hungry birds during the day. The researchers wanted to know whether these fish were eating plastic from the gyre to better understand the consequences of ocean plastic.
They collected fish with four different nets: hand-held dip nets and manta nets scooped fish at the surface, paired bongo nets captured them 650 feet (200 meters) below the surface, and the Oozeki trawl collected them between 650 and 2,600 feet (200 and 800 meters). As the manta, bongo, and Oozeki nets were towed through the water, marine life and debris were captured, funneled through the net, and into a removable container attached to the end. When the nets were hauled back aboard the research ship, the container was detached and emptied into a bucket to bring the fish back to the lab. In the bucket, they found 141 twilight zone fish representing 27 different species, including big-eyed lanternfish, hatchetfish, and bristlemouths. Peter and Rebecca removed the stomach of each fish and searched for plastic fragments.
In their study published in June 2011, the two scientists found plastic fragments in 9.2 percent of the fish they dissected. As expected, they found more plastic in the bellies of the fish that migrated to the surface (where floating plastic bits are more common) than those fish that remained in the twilight zone. Although 9.2 percent seems like a small amount, consider this fact: based on their findings, fish of the North Pacific Central Gyre have eaten an estimated 12,000 to 24,000 tons of plastic! Because many of these fish live for only one year, Peter and Rebecca believe that figure represents the amount of plastic that Gyre fish eat every single year.
The results of this study indicate that plastic has indeed entered the food chain. While it’s unlikely that we’re ingesting actual plastic fragments when we eat fish, it remains to be seen whether plastic chemicals absorbed by these twilight zone fish are being transferred up the food chain, including to us. And the situation has certainly not improved in the few years since Peter and Rebecca's research; a recent study found that eight million metric tons of plastic waste makes its way into the world’s oceans each year, and that number is on the rise.
Simply stated, our throw-away habits are polluting our food supply. And it won’t get any better until we change. Practice any or all of the following five quick and easy ways to reduce the amount of plastic that makes its way to the ocean:
- Double-check the plastic RECYCLING guidelines in your area. Most types of plastic can be recycled—water bottles; yogurt cups; milk containers; cereal box liners; the stiff plastic packaging we fight to remove from items; shrink wrap; meat trays, etc.
- In restaurants, ask for your leftovers in boxes or wrapped in foil. REFUSE Styrofoam products. Better yet, bring your own container to cart leftovers home. Also, REFUSE a straw when you order a drink.
- REDUCE your single-use plastic consumption by using bar soaps packaged in cardboard or paper instead of liquid soaps that come in plastic bottles, or buy liquid soap in bulk and reuse containers. Whenever you shop, seek out packaging made of compostable material rather than plastic, which is nearly indestructible.
- Bring REUSEABLE bags to the grocery store. Because they're easy to forget when rushing out the door, always keep one or two small ones in your purse or backpack.
- Cut down on those plastic coffee cup lids by bringing a REUSABLE travel mug for your favorite barista to fill. And for water, bring your own bottle filled from the tap.
- And don’t forget about microbeads, tiny plastic beads found in a variety of products that look like fish food. Avoid facial scrubs, soaps and toothpaste with the tiny polyethylene and polypropylene microbeads, which escape water treatment facilities to enter our waterways. If you must exfoliate, look for products that use non-plastic alternatives such as apricot kernel shells and jojoba beads.
Editor's Note: Patricia Newman and Annie Crawley are the author/photographer team behind Plastic, Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (Millbrook Press), winner of the Green Earth Book Award, one of the Bank Street College’s Best Books for 2015, a Junior Library Guild Selection, and finalist for the AAAS/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Excellence in Science Books. Their goal is to help kids become ocean stewards. | <urn:uuid:221c9063-ce62-4832-88b1-27ce4c91ddfd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ocean.si.edu/blog/fishing-plastic-science-great-pacific-garbage-patch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00176-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946654 | 1,262 | 3.625 | 4 |
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This climate climate zone covers from about 44°N to 50°N latitude mostly east of the 100th meridian in North America. However, it can be found as far north as 54°N, and further west in the Canadian Prairie Provinces and below 40°N in the high Appalachians. In Europe this subtype reaches its most northerly latitude at nearly 61° N. Areas featuring this subtype of the continental climate have an average temperature in the warmest month below 22°C (22°F). Summer high temperatures in this zone typically average between 21-28°C (70-82°F) during the daytime and the average temperatures in the coldest month are generally far below the -3 °C (27°F) mark.
The Köppen Climate Classification subtype for this climate is "Dfb". (Warm Summer Continental Climate).
The average temperature for the year in Alfred is 45.1°F (7.3°C). The warmest month, on average, is July with an average temperature of 67.1°F (19.5°C). The coolest month on average is January, with an average temperature of 22.2°F (-5.4°C).
The highest recorded temperature in Alfred is 101.0°F (38.3°C), which was recorded in July. The lowest recorded temperature in Alfred is -35.0°F (-37.2°C), which was recorded in February.
The average amount of precipitation for the year in Alfred is 36.5" (927.1 mm). The month with the most precipitation on average is June with 3.9" (99.1 mm) of precipitation. The month with the least precipitation on average is February with an average of 2.0" (50.8 mm). There are an average of 153.0 days of precipitation, with the most precipitation occurring in January with 15.0 days and the least precipitation occurring in August with 10.0 days.
In terms of liquid precipitation, there are an average of 155.1 days of rain, with the most rain occurring in December with 15.8 days of rain, and the least rain occurring in August with 10.2 days of rain.
In Alfred, there's an average of 79.1" of snow (0 cm). The month with the most snow is January, with 17.0" of snow (43.2 cm). | <urn:uuid:63a68b8d-79f4-4cb5-a523-e2a1f9e5a87c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.weatherbase.com/weather/weather-summary.php3?s=580003&cityname=Alfred%2C+New+York%2C+United+States+of+America&units= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947641 | 510 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The Young Sperm, Poised for Greatness
University of Utah, Huntsman Cancer Institute scientists uncover early steps of totipotency in sperm precursors
Source Newsroom: Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah
Newswise — SALT LAKE CITY— In the body, a skin cell will always be skin, and a heart cell will always be heart. But in the first hours of life, cells in the nascent embryo become totipotent: they have the incredible flexibility to mature into skin, heart, gut, or any type of cell.
It was long assumed that the joining of egg and sperm launched a dramatic change in how and which genes were expressed. Instead, new research shows that totipotency is a step-wise process, manifesting as early as in precursors to sperm, called adult germline stem cells (AGSCs), which reside in the testes.
The study was co-led by Bradley Cairns, Ph.D., University of Utah professor of oncological sciences, and Huntsman Cancer Institute investigator, and Ernesto Guccione, Ph.D., of the Agency for Science Technology and Research in Singapore. They worked closely with first author and Huntsman Cancer Institute postdoctoral fellow, Saher Sue Hammond, Ph.D. The research was published online in the journal Cell Stem Cell.
Typically, sperm precursors live a mundane life. They divide, making more cells like themselves, until they receive the signal instructing them to mature into sperm.
There is evidence, however, that these cells have the potential to do more. Under the unusual conditions that promote the cells to form dense cancerous masses called testicular teratomas, the young sperm transform into precursors of skin, muscle, and gut.
This realization prompted the investigators to examine the gene program within sperm precursors. They wondered, would it be like that of a cell that is destined to become a single cell type, or like that of a cell with the potential to become anything?
The answer, they found, is that the sperm precursors are somewhere in between. The most telling evidence is the status of a quartet of genes: Lefty, Sox2, Nanog, and Prdm14. When activated, the genes can trigger a cascade of events that give cells stem cell properties. In cells limited to becoming one cell type, the genes are silent.
Yet in sperm precursors, the genes bear a code of chemical tags, called methylation groups, indicating that the four genes are silenced, but poised to become active. In other words, embedded within these cells, is the potential to become totipotent.
Cairns compares the tags on the poised genes to bookmarks. “Sperm cells and their precursors put ‘bookmarks’ at all the important genes they need to access quickly.” Once fertilization occurs, he explains, cells have to become fully totipotent in a short amount of time. “Then, when the sperm and egg come together, all you have to do is complete the job that you had already started.”
The engineering principal, as he calls it, ensures the transition occurs rapidly and accurately.
The result is just one of many that together comprise a detailed playbook documenting genetic and epigenetic changes that take place along the journey to becoming totipotent. The rich resource will guide future studies toward a deeper understanding of totipotency, cancer, and fertilization.
About Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah
Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) is one of the world’s top academic research and cancer treatment centers. HCI manages the Utah Population Database - the largest genetic database in the world, with more than 16 million records linked to genealogies, health records, and vital statistics. Using this data, HCI researchers have identified cancer-causing genes, including the genes responsible for melanoma, colon and breast cancer, and paraganglioma. HCI is a member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (a 25-member alliance of the world's leading cancer centers) and is a National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Center. HCI treats patients with all forms of cancer and operates several high-risk clinics that focus on melanoma and breast, colon, and pancreas cancers. The HCI Cancer Learning Center for patient and public education contains one of the nation's largest collections of cancer-related publications. The institute is named after Jon M. Huntsman, Sr., a Utah philanthropist, industrialist, and cancer survivor. | <urn:uuid:50cbb792-d691-4239-a9b7-3dd407dfa9f1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/618081/?sc=rssn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934822 | 949 | 2.734375 | 3 |
The genome of the western painted turtle (Chrysemys picta bellii) one of the most widespread, abundant and well-studied turtles in the world, is published this week in Genome Biology. The data show that, like turtles themselves, the rate of genome evolution is extremely slow; turtle genomes evolve at a rate that is about a third that of the human genome and a fifth that of the python, the fastest lineage analyzed.
As a group, turtles are long-lived, can withstand low temperatures including freezing solid, can survive for long periods with no oxygen, and their sex is usually determined by the temperature at which their eggs develop rather than genetically. The painted turtle is most anoxia-tolerant vertebrate and can survive up to four months under water depending on the temperature. Turtles and tortoises are also the most endangered major vertebrate group on earth, with half of all species listed as endangered. This is the first turtle, and only the second non-avian reptile genome to be sequenced, and the analysis reveals some interesting insights about these bizarre features and adaptations, many of which are only known in turtles.
The western painted turtle is a freshwater species, and the most widespread turtle native to North America. Bradley Shaffer and colleagues place the western painted turtle genome into a comparative evolutionary context, showing that turtles are more closely related to birds and crocodilians than to any other vertebrates. They also find 19 genes in the brain and 23 in the heart whose expression is increased in low oxygen conditions - including one whose expression changes nearly 130 fold. Further experiments on turtle hatchlings indicated that common microRNA was involved in freeze tolerance adaptation.
This work consistently indicates that common vertebrate regulatory networks, some of which have analogs in human diseases, are often involved in the western painted turtle achieving its extraordinary physiological capacities. The authors argue that the painted turtle may offer important insights into the management of a number of human health disorders, particularly those involved with anoxia and hypothermia.
Dr Hilary Glover
Scientific Press Officer, BioMed Central
Tel: +44 (0) 20 3192 2370
Mob: +44 (0) 778 698 1967
1. The western painted turtle genome, a model for the evolution of extreme physiological adaptations in a slowly evolving lineage H Bradley Shaffer, Patrick Minx, Daniel E Warren, Andrew M Shedlock, Robert C Thomson, Nicole Valenzuela, John Abramyan, Chris T Amemiya, Daleen Badenhorst, Kyle K Biggar, Glen M Borchert, Christopher W Botka, Rachel M Bowden, Edward L Braun, Anne M Bronikowski, Benoit G Bruneau, Leslie T Buck, Blanche Capel, Todd A Castoe, Mike Czerwinski, Kim D Delehaunty, Scott V Edwards, Catrina C Fronick, Matthew K Fujita, Lucinda Fulton, Tina A Graves, Richard E Green, Wilfried Haerty, Ramkumar Hariharan, Omar Hernandez, LaDeana W Hillier, Alisha K Holloway, Daniel Janes, Fredric J Janzen, Cyriac Kandoth, Lesheng Kong, A P Jason de Koning, Yang Li, Robert Literman, Suzanne E McGaugh, Lindsey Mork, Michelle O'Laughlin, Ryan T Paitz, David D Pollock, Chris P Ponting, Srihari Radhakrishnan, Brian J Raney, Joy M Richman, John St. John, Tonia Schwartz, Arun Sethuraman, Phillip Q Spinks, Kenneth B Storey, Nay Thane, Tomas Vinar, Laura M Zimmerman, Wesley C Warren, Elaine R Mardis, and Richard K Wilson Genome Biology 2013, 14:R28 doi:10.1186/gb-2013-14-3-r28
Please name the journal in any story you write. If you are writing for the web, please link to the article. All articles are available free of charge, according to BioMed Central's open access policy.
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4. Genome Medicine and Genome Biology are hosting the Beyond the Genome conference, 1-3 October 2013 at the Mission Bay Conference Centre, San Francisco. Registration is still open! @beyondthegenome #btg13 | <urn:uuid:5d1fb419-78f8-47a0-abba-6d1ceafcbb22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-03/bc-gut032613.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00180-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886766 | 968 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Siege of Orléans
From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
|Siege of Orléans|
|Part of the Hundred Years' War|
"You cannot break zis wall!"
|Poutine-Hungry Frenchies||Power-Hungry Englishmen|
|Joan of Arc||Earl John Talbot|
|A few poorly armed peasants, a big wall and God||A lot of powerfully armed soldiers, bigger catapults than the French wall and a whole lot of lack of common sense|
“Orleans? I love that pizza place!”
“Orleans is that place with a lot of flooding, right?”
The Siege of Orléans was a battle between the French and the English during the Hundred Years' War where the English were trying to destroy the French's lovely city of high tax rates and low humour. Joan of Arc, an earlier form of Abraham Lincoln that was treated badly because of her gender (female) and her obsessive religious ideas about God and the Virgin Mary happened to be passing by before the Siege began. The outcome of the Siege is what made Joan loved by what was left of Orléans, and made the English Generals beating themselves up for losing to a bitch like her.
edit Start of the Siege
It was 1428 and the English decided they had to win the war against the French in the fourteenth century after dismally failing in the previous one. King Henry V seemed to have wrapped up the war in 1415 at Agincourt but had died in 1422 with the job only half done. His son Henry VI had become king of both England and France but as he was only eight at this time, he had trouble controlling his own bowels, let alone two countries. So in effect the government was run by his uncle Duke John of Bedford and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. It was they who decided that the French needed a thorough kicking and organised the attack on the city of Orléans.
The essence of the English's plan was "Hey, let's beat them the only way we know how... bomb them with catapults until they give up!", to which the French, unknowing of what they had just said, noticed they were being surrounded by catapults stolen from the now conquered French villages and towns surrounding Orléans. Joan wondered what idiot placed weak villages in perfect vantage points towards Orléans. So, she decided that the almighty God and herself can be the new leader (temporarily, she hated that dump) to fix the errors and defeat the English.
However, the French Dauphin, Charles, didn't care about the towns being conquered because they were too focused on their last strongholds, Orleans (They didn't know what the cities had as an advantage in a fight along with catapults - lots and lots of idiots), their capital Paris and their "Ile de Paradise" which was an island that was used as a getaway and was very expensive, but all proceeds go to the Dauphin. They noticed when the English had an army of around ten thousand people hitting their friends with clubs, and became paranoid, and told their favourite tool, Joan of Arc, to somehow convince the residents of Orleans to come to Paris and provide more tax money for the Dauphin. Joan thought her idea to defeat them with God was a better idea. She had a plan that would almost surely be certain to not really work.
edit Joan's (God's) plan
God was up in the heaven's during the ordeal, and became mildly curious of this plan Joan was speaking of. He decided that helping her with this plan could make the English atheists convert to Catholicism and more people will pray for him without him proving that he exists. In Joan's mind, she thought that God would give her an idea. However, none came when the English started saying their regular speeches to the French saying that "Resistance is futile" and "There is no hope for you", but the French couldn't understand a word they were saying and didn't care either. Joan had an idea from this mix of languages; she would draw them to the other wall of Orléans by saying a bunch of English words she heard them say in a large speaker horn. The English heard "All your base are belong to us" and were confused by the awful English, but decided that joining their brethren Englishmen on the other side could help them defeat the already failing French. Joan set many soldiers to the towers to shoot a volley of arrows when the time came that the English arrived to the other wall, but when they did, the volley didn't do much since there were almost no French soldiers in the first place. Talbot, the English earl sent to lead the invasion, laughed at their stupidity and claimed that the French couldn't shoot for shit. He did move around to avoid getting struck, however. Because of the French soldiers' poor aim, they fired an arrow 2 feet to the left of Talbot and he dodge 2 feet to the left to avoid the arrow in case it's heading directly for him, and he was struck. He gasped and sputtered blood, and said that being beaten by a French soldier disgraced him, and quickly yelled at the nearest English soldier for killing their leader. The soldier was subsequently clubbed to death.
In the meantime, Joan was upset that her plan didn't really work, and knew that once the English shot a volley of arrows, it would all over. She decided to throw in the towel and ditch the city on the wall that was free before the city went to hell.
Joan was about to leave Orléans, but then the Virgin Mary and God supposedly said to her a divine message: <In french> "Hey, if you stay, I'll help kill 'em for you" to which Joan was amazed that God would actually help her. She was so proud by this that she went to the front of the battle in the later years of the war, believing God was with her. She was taken, held captive and burned to the stake the next day.
In Orléans, the citizens were becoming distressed at this awful occurrence that happened by them, so Joan assured them that they will be okay if they go and fight the English head on with pitchforks and weak utensils. The soldiers were also sent to do this, and so they went on a suicide mission to save themselves, believing God was with them all. By the time they reached the English, Joan watched and the pitchforks turned to swords and shovels turned into maces; leather turned into steel and hair turned into a plate helm. They were heavily armed and doing well, but they had the same armour and weapons the English had, albeit without training or numbers. They battled and the French were all killed (except Joan) and the English still had a fair number to them. One soldier declared that they won, and headed to the wall to break it down. It crumbled and collapsed, but landed on all of the English soldiers and killed them all. Joan, still inside the city, was ecstatic and thanked God, but looked around and found that she won for no one. She left Orléans in a slump, stating that she should find a new God.
When the English generals heard that the battle was lost and won, they realized that God obviously helped to defeat the English, but also realized that the city was empty, which also meant they beat God, which would be theoretically impossible if he existed. The generals were confused by this statement and they stayed atheists and no one was converted. God was angry at this, but thought of an idea to create a New Orleans Sometime in the future to recreate the events and try to convert people again. This plan didn't work, however, since the only thing to happen to the new city was to have a lot of floods due to being placed next to Atlantis.
The French Dauphin was happy by the outcome since he didn't have to pay for the citizens health care and still technically owned the city so he still had a little more influence. The ruins of the city became a second Jerusalem, by the idea that God's power still resided in that place. | <urn:uuid:48ec9cf0-3d14-46fb-9f4b-1e721934f017> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Siege_of_Orl%C3%A9ans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991748 | 1,699 | 2.75 | 3 |
Cerylonid SeriesJames A. Robertson and Joseph V. McHugh
This tree diagram shows the relationships between several groups of organisms.
The root of the current tree connects the organisms featured in this tree to their containing group and the rest of the Tree of Life. The basal branching point in the tree represents the ancestor of the other groups in the tree. This ancestor diversified over time into several descendent subgroups, which are represented as internal nodes and terminal taxa to the right.
You can click on the root to travel down the Tree of Life all the way to the root of all Life, and you can click on the names of descendent subgroups to travel up the Tree of Life all the way to individual species.close box
The “Cerylonid Series” (C.S.) is a cluster of presumably highly derived families within Cucujoidea comprising Alexiidae, Bothrideridae, Cerylonidae, Coccinellidae, Corylophidae, Discolomatidae, Endomychidae, and Latridiidae.
Crowson’s (1955) original concept of the Cerylonid Series included Cerylonidae, Coccinellidae, Corylophidae, Discolomatidae, Endomychidae, Merophysiidae and Latridiidae. Since then the constitution of the group has been modified via family-level refinement that was accomplished primarily by the work of Lawrence (1980, 1982, 1985, 1991). Lawrence (1982, 1991) elevated the endomychid subfamily Sphaerosomatinae to familial status (= Alexiidae), although the distinctness of Sphaerosomatinae and the need for its elevation to family status had been recognized previously (e.g., Sen Gupta and Crowson, 1973). Merophysiidae was subordinated within Endomychidae (Lawrence, 1982, 1991). The subfamily Bothriderinae was removed from the tenebrionoid family Colydiidae (= Zopheridae) and recognized as a distinct family (Lawrence, 1980; in accord with earlier suggestions by Craighead, 1920) within the C.S. of Cucujoidea (Lawrence 1980, 1985, 1991; Pal and Lawrence 1986).
Although only eight families make up the C.S., the group is incredibly diverse including 39 subfamilies and more than half the genera (646 of 1,237) and species (9,600 of 19,090) of the entire superfamily Cucujoidea (Lawrence, 1991; Lawrence and Newton, 1995). It is one of the few large groupings of Cucujoidea that has been hypothesized to form a clade (Hunt et al. 2007; Robertson et al., 2008; Sen Gupta and Crowson, 1973; Ślipiński, 1990; Ślipiński and Pakaluk, 1991).
Cerylonid Series beetles have exploited a wide variety of natural resources. Host utilization within the C.S. ranges from diverse forms of mycophagy (e.g., utilizing Basidiomycetes, Ascomycetes, & Zygomycetes), to phytophagy, myxomycophagy, predation, cleptoparasitism and parasitoidism. Cerylonid Series beetles are often associated with fungi or decaying plant matter. They are commonly collected in leaf litter, on vegetation, and on or under the bark of dead and dying trees. Many C.S. taxa are attracted to lights. The predaceous forms are often swept from vegetation where their prey occur.
The Cerylonid Series is characterized by the following morphological features:
- Tarsal formula reduced (4-4-4 or 3-3-3) (Fig. 1)
- Hind wings lacking a closed radial cell (Fig. 2)
- Hind wings with anal veins reduced (Fig. 2)
- Aedeagus resting on side when retracted (Fig. 3)
- Phallobase (tegmen) reduced (Fig. 4)
- Pretarsal claw unisetose
- Spiracles usually annular
- Sensory appendage of 2nd antennomere usually as long as the 3rd antennomere.
As reviewed by Ślipiński and Pakaluk (1991), the above suite of defining characters for the C.S. is somewhat problematic. For instance, many of the characters used to recognize the C.S. are reductions. Other proposed synapomorphies are widespread in unrelated groups (e.g., aedeagus resting on side when retracted occurs in other cucujoid families) or are lacking in some C.S. taxa (e.g., a well developed phallobase occurs in Coccinellidae; a closed radial cell occurs in the bothriderid genus Deretaphrus). Furthermore, the use of larval characters is problematic because so few C.S. taxa are known in their larval stage.
Several studies of the classification of the Cerylonid Series have been provided (e.g., Pal and Lawrence, 1986; Paulian, 1988; Sasaji, 1987; Sen Gupta and Crowson, 1973; Ślipiński and Pakaluk, 1991); however, until recently (see below) none was based on a formal phylogenetic analysis. Ślipiński and Pakaluk (1991) reviewed the classification of the C.S. and pointed out many serious problems and expressed concerns about the present family limits and the lack of resolution within the C.S.
Two molecular phylogenetic studies including C.S. taxa have recently emerged: Hunt et al. (2007) and Robertson et al. (2008). Hunt et al.’s (2007) paper focused on reconstructing the higher-level relationships within the order Coleoptera using 18S, 16S and COI and a broad taxon sampling across all major beetle groups. While investigating the relationships among C.S. taxa was not the primary goal of their study, Hunt et al. (2007) did include 21 C.S. taxa in their 320 taxon analysis and recovered the C.S. as monophyletic. While Hunt et al.’s (2007) study indicates that the C.S. families Endomychidae and Cerylonidae are paraphyletic, most of the C.S. inter-familial and subfamilial clades were not resolved (Fig. 5A; see Fig. S1, Hunt et al., 2007). Noteworthy C.S. internal relationships that were recovered in this study include a sister group of Corylophidae and the endomychid Merophysiinae (as “Holoparamecinae”). Hunt et al. (2007) also recovered a well-supported clade comprising Bothrideridae, Cerylonidae and Discolomatidae (though Bothrideridae and Cerylonidae are not recovered as monophyletic) that in turn forms the sister group to the remaining C.S. taxa.
Fig. 5. Hypotheses of phylogenetic relationship of Cerylonid Series taxa. (A) After Hunt et al. (2007). Fig. S1, redrawn with condensed terminals. (B) After Robertson et al. (2008) Fig. 2, redrawn with condensed terminals.
The monophyly of the C.S. was also supported by the first formal phylogenetic analysis to focus on C.S. relationships, Robertson et al. (2008), a molecular analysis that included 61 C.S. taxa, representing 7 of the 8 families and 20 of 39 C.S. subfamilies. This study also supported the monophyly of many C.S. families and subfamilies, while revealing the paraphyletic nature of some higher-level taxa, including Endomychidae, potentially Latridiidae, and multiple subfamilies (e.g., Corylophinae, Chilocorinae, Scymninae). Nonetheless, it should be noted that the analysis of Robertson et al. (2008) lacked many key taxa; therefore, the monophyly and the internal relationships of multiple C.S. taxa remain equivocal. Thus although recovered as monophyletic, the tests of monophyly for the families Cerylonidae, Bothrideridae and Corylophidae were weak due to the small and unrepresentative taxon sampling included for these taxa.
Notable internal relationships recovered in Robertson et al.’s (2008) study (Fig. 5B; see Fig. 2 in Robertson et al., 2008) include a sister grouping of the endomychid subfamily Anamorphinae + Corylophidae, and this clade is unresolved with the Coccinellidae clade and the clade comprising the remaining Endomychidae. This analysis also suggests a close affiliation of Bothrideridae, Cerylonidae, and Discolomatidae.
The studies of Hunt et al. (2007) and Robertson et al. (2008) both suggest a basal dichotomy of two superfamilial clades: one clade comprising Bothrideridae, Cerylonidae, and Discolomatidae; the second clade includes Corylophidae, Coccinellidae and Endomychidae. Latridiidae is placed sister to the clade of Bothrideridae, Cerylonidae, and Discolomatidae in Robertson et al.’s (2008) tree, while in the Hunt et al. (2007) analysis Latridiidae is included in the Corylophidae, Coccinellidae and Endomychidae clade.
Nonetheless, with roughly only half of the C.S. subfamilies represented in the Hunt et al. (2007) and Robertson et al. (2008) studies, the above hypotheses of C.S. phylogeny should be taken as preliminary. The inclusion of all C.S. families, subfamilies, and major or enigmatic tribes and genera in future studies will certainly influence the hypotheses of relationships and monophyletic taxa (e.g., monophyletic Cerylonidae in Robertson et al., 2008) and is necessary to clarify the historically problematic relationships among this diverse cucujoid lineage.
Craighead, C. F. 1920. Biology of some Coleoptera of the families Colydiidae and Bothrideridae. Proc. Ent. Soc. Wash. 22: 1-13.
Crowson, R. A. 1955. The natural classification of the families of Coleoptera. Nathaniel Lloyd, London.
Hunt, T., J. Bergsten, Z. Levkanicova, A. Papadopoulou, O. St John, R. Wild, P. M. Hammond, D. Ahrens, M. Balke, M.S. Caterino, J. Gómez-Zurita, I. Ribera, T. G. Barraclough, M. Bocakova, L. Bocak, and A. P. Vogler. 2007. A comprehensive phylogeny of beetles reveals the evolutionary origins of a super-radiation. Science 318: 1913-1916.
Lawrence, J. F. 1980. A new genus of Indo-Australian Gempylodini with notes on the constitution of Colydiidae (Coleoptera. J. Aust. Ent. Soc. 19: 293-310.
Lawrence, J.F. 1982. Coleoptera. In S. P. Parker (ed) Synopsis and classification of living organisims. McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, pp. 482-553.
Lawrence, J. F. 1985. The genus Teredolaemus Sharp (Coleoptera) in Australia. J. Aust. Ent. Soc. 24: 205-206.
Lawrence, J. F. 1991. Bothrideridae (Cucujoidea). In F. W. Stehr (ed) Bothrideridae (Cucujoidea). Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co., Dubuque, Iowa, pp. 477-479.
Lawrence, J. F. and A. F. Newton. 1995. Families and subfamilies of Coleoptera (with selected genera, notes, references and data on family-group names). In J. Pakaluk and S. A. Slipinski (eds), Families and subfamilies of Coleoptera (with selected genera, notes, references and data on family-group names). Muzeum i Instytut Zoologii PAN, Warszawa, pp. 779-1006.
Pal, T. K. and J. F. Lawrence. 1986. A new genus and subfamily of mycophagous Bothrideridae (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea) from the Indo-Australian region, with notes on related families. Jour. Aust. Entomol. Soc. 25: 185-210.
Paulian, R. 1988. Biologies des Coleopteres. Lechevalier, Paris.
Robertson, J. A., M. F. Whiting and J. V. McHugh. 2008. Searching for natural lineages within the Cerylonid Series (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 46:193-205.
Sasaji, H. 1987b. On the higher classification of the Endomychidae and their relative families (Coleoptera). Entom. J. Fukui 1: 44-51.
Sen Gupta, T. and R. A. Crowson. 1973. A review of the classification of Cerylonidae (Coleoptera: Clavicornia). Trans. R. ent. Soc. Lond. 124: 365-446.
Ślipiński, S. A. 1990. A monograph of the world Cerylonidae (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea) Part I - Introduction and higher classification. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale "Giacomo Doria" 33: 1-273.
Ślipiński, S. A. and J. Pakaluk. 1991. Problems in the classification of the Cerylonid series of Cucujoidea (Coleoptera). In M. Zunino, X. Belles and M. Blas (eds), Problems in the classification of the Cerylonid series of Cucujoidea (Coleoptera). European Association of Coleopterology. Silvestrelli and Cappelletto, Torino, pp. 79-88.
We thank all members of the McHugh lab for their assistance with this project. We especially thank Floyd W. Shockley for providing assistance with the development of this web page and for reviewing the content. Support for the construction of this page was provided by an NSF AToL grant EF-0531665 to M.F. Whiting (subcontract to J.V. McHugh) and through an NSF PEET grant (DEB-0329115) to J.V. McHugh, M.F. Whiting, and K.B. Miller.
Joseph V. McHugh
University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to James A. Robertson at and Joseph V. McHugh at
Page copyright © 2011 and Joseph V. McHugh
Page: Tree of Life Cerylonid Series. Authored by James A. Robertson and Joseph V. McHugh. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.
- First online 23 June 2008
- Content changed 23 March 2011
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Robertson, James A. and Joseph V. McHugh. 2011. Cerylonid Series. Version 23 March 2011. http://tolweb.org/Cerylonid_Series/117918/2011.03.23 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/ | <urn:uuid:0a0d01d4-11c9-4051-a1e1-aefce15affa1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.tolweb.org/Cerylonid_Series | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00087-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863477 | 3,534 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Plight of the Bobwhite
Organizations work to restore quail habitat through boom and bust.
By Robert Perez and Steve Lightfoot
One of the most unmistakable heralds of spring is the male bobwhite quail. Its namesake mating call “bob, bob, bob-white” holds fond yet fading memories for many of us. Unfortunately, it’s a sound that has become increasingly rare across much of Texas as bobwhites have dramatically declined throughout their range. Bobwhites were once abundant across 35 states but remain in healthy numbers only in parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
There’s no shortage of theories about the demise of bobwhites. Coffee shop conjecture includes a long list of natural predators and some not-so-natural culprits like wild turkey and roadrunners. Fire ants, feral hogs and hunters are also blamed, but the fundamental reason for declining bobwhite populations is loss of habitat. In fact, entire regions have been drastically altered by fire suppression, changes in agricultural practices, invasive plants and human population growth. These changes occurred slowly over the past century, resulting in a loss of the native prairies and savannas that quail and other grassland species depend on.
Fortunately, Texas is home to many conservation-minded organizations with programs targeting the restoration and conservation of quail. National recovery efforts are spearheaded by the National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative, headquartered at the University of Tennessee. The initiative, which sets habitat and population goals for bobwhite, was created in 2002 and has recently been completely revised from a paper plan to a Web-based interactive tool designed to aid conservation planning and implementation all the way down to the local level.
Statewide and regional efforts include initiatives and programs through the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Farm Service Agency, Texas AgriLife, Audubon Texas, the Nature Conservancy and sportsmen’s organizations like Quail Coalition, Quail Forever and the National Wild Turkey Federation.
With so many concerned groups, why haven’t bobwhites recovered? Just as habitats were not lost overnight, they can’t be restored overnight. In the eastern third or so of Texas, native habitats are often highly fragmented into parcels too small or too far removed from one another to support viable populations. But when neighbors work collectively through wildlife management associations, prairies and savannas can be restored to a level that can sustain bobwhites.
Success stories include the Wildlife Habitat Federation (http://whf-texas.org) and the Western Navarro Bobwhite Restoration Initiative (http://navarroquail.org). Models like these could be reproduced in other areas of the state if folks take the initiative and are willing to work together.
The Panhandle and South Texas regions hold the greatest densities of quail, but frequent drought limits reproductive success. There is a boom-or-bust nature to bobwhite populations that allows them to quickly take advantage of favorable environmental conditions. In these vast rangelands, quail conservation depends on proactive habitat management that plans for and mitigates the effects of drought by leaving enough residual ground cover. This approach lessens the “bust” and sets the stage for quicker recovery.
No matter which region of the state, the future of bobwhites relies on actions taken today by Texas land stewards. Many landowners may be willing to help old “bob” but are unsure how to proceed.
Thankfully, there is a wealth of information available on the habitat requirements and management of bobwhites and a long list of resource agencies and organizations that offer technical and financial assistance. A good starting point is the TPWD quail Web page listed below along with other helpful links.
Bobwhites are considered an “indicator species” whose decline is linked to the disappearance of prairie and savanna ecosystems and the species they support. As these systems are restored, we all reap the benefits of cleaner air and water and, of course, hearing that familiar springtime call.
• TPWD Quail Resource Page: www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/ wild/game_management/quail
• National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative: www.bringbackbobwhites.org
• Habitat Management Resources: www.hmrtexas.org | <urn:uuid:bb933360-a48b-421c-a50d-aa75993a7fce> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tpwmagazine.com/archive/2011/sep/scout1_bobwhite/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00184-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921962 | 895 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Optical Fiber Communication System Performance Using MZI Switching
First a simple all-optical logic device, called Mach Zhender Inferometer is composed by using a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier (SOA) and an optical coupler. This device is used for generating the logical functions (AND, XOR) and a multiplexer and an Encoder is obtained using this device in Optical Tree Architecture. The simulation of Encoder and Multiplexer is done at a rate of 10 Gbit/s and both are simulated for different input logical combinations. Simulations indicate that the device is suitable to operate at much higher bit rate and also for different logical entities. | <urn:uuid:ad8ad037-53e3-4a7d-9167-ac5150db4a90> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.techrepublic.com/resource-library/whitepapers/optical-fiber-communication-system-performance-using-mzi-switching/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.18/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00145-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902614 | 137 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Gouter Rockfall - the facts
During mid afternoon of 24 August there was a significant rockfall in the Grand Couloir on the Mont Blanc "normal route".
This follows a sustained period of warm weather with freezing levels above 4000m for several days and nights.
A BMG guide who was near the couloir doing a reconnaissance at the time described the size as "totally unbelievable. Blocks were flying past us as we sprinted into the campground above the Tete Rousse hut".
A team of geologists are inspecting the site to determine its stability. In the meantime the Chamonix and St Gervais guides have suspended ascents of Mont Blanc until the weather cools down.
The Office de Haute Montagne described the route as "fortement déconseillé". This translates to "I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole if I were you."
However, there is no formal closure of the route and the Tete Rousse hut remains open.
According to the PGHM there were no fatalities and one injury. However, they advise waiting until the weather cools down before attempting Mont Blanc by this route.
The Chamonix weather forecast predicts a lowering of the freezing level from 4000m to 2400m during the night of 26-27 August. | <urn:uuid:2c70efce-bdae-4da3-b6a6-d8dd3ad983a0> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.andypmountainguide.com/index.php/eng/Community/News/Gouter-Rockfall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00150-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96651 | 266 | 2.625 | 3 |
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
Los Alamos working to create national park
Fat Man Aug. 9, 1945
Tucked away in one of northern New Mexico’s pristine mountain canyons is an old log cabin that was the birthplace not of a famous person, but a top-secret mission that forever changed the world. Pond Cabin, along with a nearby small and stark building where the second person died while developing the nuclear bomb, are among a number of structures scattered in and around the modern day Los Alamos National Laboratory that are being proposed as sites for a new national park commemorating the Manhattan Project. It’s an odd place for a national park, many admit. Besides the fact that some of the sites are behind the gates to what is supposed to be one of the most secure research facilities in the world, nuclear critics have called the plan an expensive glorification of an ugly chapter in history. Supporters, however, note that good or bad, the Manhattan Project transformed history. And they argue that key sites that have not already been bulldozed should be preserved and the public should be allowed to visit them. Among the proposed park’s biggest supporters are lab workers like McGehee. She has been working since an act was passed in 2004 to study creation of such parks, to help identify and preserve areas in town and within lab property to include. Potential park properties include some buildings in downtown Los Alamos, a town that was essentially created to support the lab, as well as 17 buildings in six “industrial sites” within the lab’s fence. They include the V-site, where the first atomic bomb to be detonated at the Trinity Site was assembled, as well as the areas where the Little Boy and Fat Man nuclear bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, were assembled. Also on the list is the Pajarito site, which includes Pond Cabin and the Slotin Building. Pond Cabin had been part of a boys’ school and dude ranch that was purchased and taken over to create Los Alamos lab. It was turned into a key plutonium research office after the first so-called “criticality accident” killed physicist Harry Daghlian, prompting officials to move research to the cabin in a more remote area. A few hundred yards away is the Slotin Building, where Louis Alexander Slotin was killed after a slipped screwdriver accidentally began a fission reaction, making him the second casualty of the Manhattan Project. Legislation to create the parks at the nation’s nuclear sites passed the House and one Senate committee earlier this year. If it is passed and signed into law, the parks would be limited to areas involved in the Manhattan Project that created the first nuclear weapons. But McGehee has also been busy researching and documenting other now closed areas of the lab. For example, during a 70th anniversary commemoration this summer, lab officials took a media tour and workers and their families on tours of what until recently had been secret tunnel where the nation’s nuclear stockpile was stored after World War II...more | <urn:uuid:e21acc30-8018-475c-a20e-29d6f836ba91> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thewesterner.blogspot.com/2013/11/los-alamos-working-to-create-national.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00174-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974926 | 729 | 2.625 | 3 |
Street, George Edmund (1824-81)
Memorial Brass, Westminster Abbey, Designed by G.F.Bodley
George Edmund Street was born at Woodford in Essex. He was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839. For a few months he was in his father’s business in Philpot Lane, but on his father’s death he went to live with his mother and sister at Exeter. There his thoughts first turned to architecture, and in 1841 his mother obtained a place for him as pupil in the office of Mr Owen Carter at Winchester. Afterwards he worked for five years as an improver with Sir George Gilbert Scott in London.
At an early age Street became deeply interested in the principles of Gothic architecture, and devoted an unsparing amount of time and labor to studying and sketching the finest examples of medieval buildings in England and on the Continent. His first commission was for the designing of Biscovey Church, Cornwall. In 1849 he took an office of his own. He was a draughtsman of a very high order; his sketches are masterpieces of spirit and brilliant touch. In 1855 he published a very careful and well illustrated work on The Brick and Marble Architecture of Northern Italy, and in 1865 a book on The Gothic Architecture of Spain, with very beautiful drawings by his own hand. In 1856/7 Philip Webb was Street’s senior clerk and the young William Morris one of his apprentices. These two designers worked together on Red House (London) that became an iconic memorial to William Morris’s design principles and includes work by many of his now-famous friends.
Street’s personal taste led him in most cases to select for his design the 13th century Gothic of England or France, his knowledge of which was very great, especially in the skillful use of rich mouldings. The competition for The Royal Courts of Justice on The Strand in London was prolonged and much diversity of opinion was expressed. Thus, the judges wanted Street to make the exterior arrangements and Charles Barry the interior, while a special committee of lawyers recommended the designs of Alfred Waterhouse. In June 1868, however, Street was appointed sole architect; but the building was not complete at the time of his death in December 1881.
Street was elected an associate of the Royal Academy in 1866, and a fellow in 1871; at the time of his death he was professor of architecture to the Royal Academy, where he had delivered a very interesting course of lectures on the development of medieval architecture. He was also president of the Royal Institute of British Architects. He was a member of the Royal Academy of Vienna, and in 1878, in reward for drawings sent to the Paris Exhibition, he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour.
Street was twice married, first on 17 June 1852 to Mariquita, second daughter of Robert Proctor, who died in 1874, and secondly on 11 January 1876 to Jessie, second daughter of William Holland, who died in the same year. The architect’s own death, on 18 December 1881, was hastened by overwork and professional worries connected with the erection of the law courts. He was buried on 29 December 1881 in the nave of Westminster Abbey. | <urn:uuid:03268518-6638-43f8-9903-630ac051afcb> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://archiseek.com/2009/george-edmund-street-1824-81/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399522.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990893 | 711 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Myriam lives in the small Egyptian village of Harrania. In the distance she can see the pyramids of the ancient pharaohs, and nearby flows the famous Nile River. But to Myriam and many of the other children, the most interesting thing about their village is the Wissa Wassef School. The children attend a regular school to learn to read, write, and do math; then they go to the Wissa Wassef School to weave. This school is teaching the teachers and parents of the world some important things about children.
At Wissa Wassef, Myriam weaves tapestries—pictures woven into fabrics that are admired as wall decorations. She works on a big loom, a large wooden rectangle with a row of pegs on each end. First she threads cotton string up and down the loom, fastening it to the pegs. Then the fun begins. She chooses her colors from among the many bright yarns tinted with natural dyes made from the plants growing around the school. With her fingers she pushes the yarns back and forth, over and under the vertical strings. Then she pushes down on each part of the row of yarn she has woven with a comb or knife to make it tight. It takes her many days to complete a tapestry.
While she is working, Myriam can see and hear the sights and sounds of her village. Between the homes and buildings are tall, domed pigeon houses. Young children play, and dogs and sometimes chickens and sheep run in the street. She watches grown-ups leading camels loaded with dates, oranges, eggs, vegetables, and meats to the markets. A mother hen stops in the school yard to teach her chicks to scratch for food. A water buffalo plods slowly in a circle turning a waterwheel. A flock of birds flies high against the clear blue sky, sometimes alighting in a big tree to scold the donkeys grazing in the shade. Pigeons swirl and then dive into their houses. These sights give Myriam ideas for her tapestries, but she uses her imagination too. She has never seen a blue or pink sheep, but sometimes she weaves one into her tapestry. She likes to make patterns of colors—her trees have leaves with colors never seen in nature.
Sometimes grown-ups come to visit Myriam’s school. They walk around and look at the tapestries that Myriam and the other children are making, but they are not allowed to give advice about what the children should weave. This is what makes the Wissa Wassef School unusual. Professor Ramses Wissa Wassef believes that every person is a natural artist but that by the time most people grow up they have learned not to be artists.
The professor set up his school in Myriam’s quiet little village to prove his idea. He provided looms for several children, ranging in ages from six to eleven, and taught them how to string the looms and how to weave. Then he told them to make up their own designs. He did not allow them to follow patterns or to copy someone else’s work. Grown-ups were not allowed to criticize the things the children made. An artist once asked one of the children how she could weave without first drawing what she was going to weave. The girl replied, “I can’t draw; I can only weave.”
Myriam and the other children have proved that they can produce works of art. People have bought the tapestries to hang in their homes, museums, and art galleries, so the children are paid for their work.
People are learning from Myriam and her classmates that God has given all His children special talents. If we use our imaginations and work to develop our talents as Myriam has done, we can create beauty, too, in painting, drawing, music, drama, writing, sewing, building—or weaving. | <urn:uuid:121c6fed-398d-42b0-a8cb-99fa85104f60> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | https://www.lds.org/friend/1978/10/myriam-weaves-at-wissa-wassef?lang=eng | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399385.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00177-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975689 | 824 | 2.96875 | 3 |
The national flag is blue with a yellow Nordic or Scandinavian cross (a representation of Christianity) that extends to the borders. The actual intersection of the cross is situated slightly left of the centre. The left is where it is hoisted and the left half of the flag is called the hoist. The blue is symbolic of truth, vigilance, perseverance, loyalty and justice;while the yellow is representative of generosity.
The colours of the flag are considered to have been inspired by the Swedish Coat of Arms, which is blue and gold. The history of this flag stems back to the 12th century but it is based on mythology as much reputable information from that time is not available. From records the Swedish national state flag seems to date back to 1569.
The present flag design and shape has been in use since June 1906. Although the current flag is rectangular, it was in bygone days double tailed and triple tailed. All Scandinavian countries have the Scandinavian cross on their national flags.
No one may use the state flag without proper authorisation. The way the state flag is flown carries meaning and etiquette in its use is highly enforced. The flag is raised up the flag pole or hoisted briskly and lowered with more ceremony and slowly.
An upside down flag denotes distress. While a half hoisted flag (taken half way up the flag pole) displays grief or mourning. Dragging a flag along the floor is not at all dignified and displays disrespect to the Swedish country.
It is highly disrespectful to draw, mark, tear or adorn the flag with any additional markings or decorations. When a flag of Sweden does become worn with age, it is advisable to destroy it in a respectful way.
Burning an old worn flag in privacy with care is the generally way of placing an end to such a flag.
In Sweden there are designated flag days. On these allocated days the national flag is hoisted and flown on all public flag poles and buildings, from sunrise to sunset. Private poles may also fly the flag as well on the days. The following are national flag days:
•New year’s day on 1 January
•Namesday of the King on 28 January – For each day in the calendar year there is the Old Swedish name day calendar set up by the Swedish Academy in 1901. There is an intention to update the list every 15 years.
•Namesday of the Heiress Apparent – 28 March
•Easter Sunday - First Sunday after the first full moon on or after 21 March
•Birthday of the King – 30 April
•May Day – 1 May traditionally a spring festival and currently International Workers Day
•Pentecost - Seventh Sunday after Easter Sunday
•National Day of Sweden – 6 June
•Midsummer Day - Saturday between 20 June and 26 June
•Birthday of the Heiress Apparent – 14 July
•Namesday of the Queen – 8 August
•Election Day – Second Sunday of September
•United Nations Day – 24 October
•Gustavus Adolphus Day – 6 November is when a unique pastry with a chocolate or marzipan medallion of the king is sold to the public
•Alfred Nobel Day – 10 December
•Birthday of the Queen – 23 December
•Christmas Day – 25 December | <urn:uuid:05f07f07-b14d-4867-97d5-1234e1386fc9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sweden.org.za/swedens-flag.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397748.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929187 | 680 | 3.234375 | 3 |
News Release Article from
Governments of Canada and the United States announce phosphorus reduction targets of 40 percent to improve Lake Erie water quality
New targets to reduce toxic and nuisance algae blooms affecting Lake Erie
February 22, 2016 – Washington, D.C. – Environment and Climate Change Canada
Canada’s Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna and United States Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy today announced that Canada and the United States have adopted targets to reduce phosphorus entering Lake Erie.
Algae occur naturally in freshwater systems. They are essential to the aquatic food web and healthy ecosystems. However, too much algae, linked to high amounts of phosphorus, can lead to conditions that can harm human health and the environment.
Through the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, Canada and the United States committed to combat the growing threat of toxic and nuisance algae development in Lake Erie, and agreed to develop updated binational phosphorus reduction targets for Lake Erie by February 2016.
“Canada recognizes the urgency and magnitude of the threat to Lake Erie water quality and ecosystem health posed by toxic and nuisance algal blooms. By establishing these targets, we strengthen our resolve to work with our American neighbours, and Canadian and United States stakeholders who share these waters, to protect the tremendous natural resource that is Lake Erie.”
– The Honourable Catherine McKenna, Minister of Environment and Climate Change
“To protect public health, we must restore the Great Lakes for all those who depend on them. The first step in our urgent work together to protect Lake Erie from toxic algae, harmful algal blooms, and other effects of nutrient runoff, is to establish these important phosphorus limits. But, establishing these targets is not the end of our work together. We are already taking action to meet them.”
– Gina McCarthy, Administrator, United States Environmental Protection Agency
- The 2015 harmful algal bloom in Lake Erie was recorded as the largest bloom this century.
- More than 40 Canadian and American experts formed a binational team under the leadership of Environment and Climate Change Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency to develop the targets.
- In Canada, more than 50 individuals, groups and agencies representing agricultural and other non‑governmental organizations, Conservation Authorities, municipal governments, Ontario government agencies, First Nations, and universities commented on the draft targets through an online tool and face‑to‑face discussions.
For additional information on the joint targets, please visit Binational.net.
Office of the Minister of Environment and Climate Change
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Search for related information by keyword
Hon. Catherine McKenna Environment and Climate Change Canada Nature and Environment
- Date modified: | <urn:uuid:1db02af2-69bb-4d4d-8167-5465bd7d1ac7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.gc.ca/web/article-en.do?mthd=index&crtr.page=1&nid=1035469&_ga=1.150700918.1585794806.1449154923 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00165-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905338 | 537 | 3.203125 | 3 |
A microcontroller is a small computer (SoC) on a single integrated circuit
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A microcontroller is a compact microcomputer designed to govern the operation
of embedded systems in motor vehicles, robots, office machines, complex ... | <urn:uuid:a9df288c-f975-4728-9c25-4df019f56214> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ask.com/web?q=Microcontroller&o=2603&l=dir&qsrc=3139&gc=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00019-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.789056 | 314 | 3.3125 | 3 |
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The eBook copy of this book is not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
Principles of American Journalismintroduces students to the core values of journalism and its singularly important role in a democracy. From the First Amendment to Facebook, Stephanie Craft and Charles Davis provide a comprehensive exploration of the guiding principles of journalism, the ethical and legal foundations of the profession, its historical and modern precepts, the economic landscape of journalism, the relationships among journalism and other social institutions, and the key issues and challenges that contemporary journalists face. Case studies and exercises throughout are designed to build students' ability to think critically about how well journalism performs its function in society, making students more mindful practitioners of journalism and more informed media consumers. This textbook is ideal for use in introductory Principles of Journalism courses, and the companion website provides a full complement of student and instructor resources to enhance the learning experience and connect to the latest news issues and events. | <urn:uuid:35347374-b2b5-4f44-a0f0-c9af10d9fd7d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ecampus.com/principles-american-journalism/bk/9780415890168 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397873.63/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00122-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922008 | 258 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Today is Tuesday, March 19, the 78th day of 2013. There are 287 days left in the year.
In 1687, French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle - the first European to navigate the length of the Mississippi River - was murdered by mutineers in present-day Texas.
In 1918, Congress approved Daylight-Saving Time.
In 1945, 724 people were killed when a Japanese dive bomber attacked the carrier USS Franklin off Japan; the ship, however, was saved.
In 2003, President George W. Bush ordered the start of war against Iraq. (Because of the time difference, it was early March 20 in Iraq.) | <urn:uuid:ec765ce1-8d0c-45bd-9735-298409c64e0a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://thetimes-tribune.com/1.1460335 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00007-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960225 | 143 | 3 | 3 |
Building, renovating or even just inhabiting a home requires that we pay attention to countless details. This week's Torah portion concludes the architectural and construction designs for another house: the House of worship and meeting for the Israelites in the desert, the Mishkan (Sanctuary). This house, like any other, requires organization of a great many details. And the Torah enumerates virtually them all: It tells us of the construction of the Mishkan itself, plus the design of its altars, utensils, table, the Menorah, the Ark, its curtain and many decorative items.
The Talmud tells of a discussion between the two principle builders of the Mishkan. In articulating God's instructions for the Mishkan, Moses tells its architect, Betzalel, that he should design -- in this order -- "an ark, utensils, and the Sanctuary." Betzalel responds by respectfully suggesting that Moses has got the order wrong. The architect argues that rather, the natural way to proceed would be first to build the building, and then to fill it with the smaller items such as the Ark and the utensils.
Both sides of the argument have merit. Moses prioritizes knowing what goes inside before building the outside; Betzalel emphasizes the need to focus on the walls of the structure before putting something inside of it.
Commentators have puzzled over this story, recognizing not just the literal differences but also the symbolic ones. Is Moses (by prioritizing the Ark) emphasizing the Torah over the rest of Jewish law, while Betzalel does the opposite? Or does Moses believe simply that Torah learning is more important than the location in which it takes place? Or maybe Moses' order emphasizes people's inner, private lives, while Betzalel's highlights the external things, the behaviors we display.
There's something else in the Talmudic story: a distinction between soul and body. Moses' instruction emphasizes the more spiritual things -- as represented by the Ark housing the Torah, our ethical instruction manual. Betzalel, however, emphasizes the physical. He is fixated on buildings. For Moses' soul, we have Betzalel's body.
Jewish prayer voices this distinction. Traditionally, upon arising in the morning, some of the first words a Jew speaks are those of a blessing, thanking God for the healthy functioning of the body. Moments later, however, there is another blessing, this one acknowledging the existence of a soul -- pure, God-given and as intangible as breath itself &'173; to go with that body.
Which one is more important? Which more central? Judaism is neither all physical nor all spiritual. We constantly use the physical as a means to something else. That is what a great deal of Jewish life is about. We light the Shabbat candles in order to set a mood of peace and love. We cover our heads so that we might remind ourselves of the omnipresence of the divine, even in moments God might easily be forgotten. We put our hands to work, to reach out to assist others, leave the world more beautiful than we found it, or clench our fists against evil.
And we build a building, not for the sake of having a stunning edifice, but so that we might find within its walls more opportunities for doing God's work on earth.
So who is right, Moses or Betzalel? In the end, it is Moses who accedes to the wishes of his colleague. The Torah tells us that Betzalel, a master craftsman, is also blessed with a "wise heart." It is by using his hands -- his physical, bodily existence -- that he exhibits wisdom.
In the everyday work of creating our own homes, we can emulate the Torah's master architect -- by building spaces that constantly imbue our lives with holiness. With the works of our hands, in every little detail, we bring a spark of the divine into earthly life.
Shawn Fields-Meyer, of Los Angeles, is rabbi at Congregation Etz Hadar in Redlands. She is an instructor of liturgy at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the University of Judaism. | <urn:uuid:923c4249-09b0-4cdd-93e7-6b482a0001a9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.jewishjournal.com/articles/item/where_the_heart_is_20000310 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00077-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948321 | 867 | 2.765625 | 3 |
WPCNR HEALTH ISSUE. From the Westchester County Department of Health. August 14, 2014:
Bats are back, making their way into Westchester homes this month, and the Westchester County Health Department wants residents to know what to do if these unwelcome visitors drop in.
“We’d like everyone to catch the bat,” said Health Commissioner Sherlita Amler, MD. “Most of the time, the bats tested are not rabid, so you and your family can be spared unneeded treatment. But rabies is fatal, so without the bat to test, you will most likely have to get rabies shots.”
During the first week in August, 43 bats were brought to the health department for testing because they were found in a home. Since none of those bats tested positive for rabies, none of these residents had to be treated preventively for rabies. However, so far this month, 17 people who were exposed to a bat but did not catch it for testing had to begin preventive treatment for rabies.
There is a better way. If you find a bat in your home, don’t panic and never let the bat fly out the window. To learn how to safely capture a bat in your home, watch the video on the health department website at www.westchestergov.com/health. If there’s a chance that a person or pet in your house had contact with the bat, catch that bat and call the health department at 914-813-5000 to arrange to have it tested for rabies.
For those who capture the bat, 97 percent of the bats tested do not have rabies, so those residents are spared the series of rabies shots. As long as the bat is not rabid, no one will need rabies shots. But if the bat is rabid, a series of life-saving vaccines must begin soon.
For each of the past five years, about 148 Westchester residents have required rabies treatment after being exposed to bats that could not be caught for testing. In most cases, treatment could have been avoided if the bat had been caught and tested for rabies. Whenever a bat is found in a room with a sleeping or mentally impaired person or with a young child or pet, contact with the bat must be suspected and it is essential to call the Westchester County Health Department at (914) 813-5000.
Here’s how to safely catch a bat:
1. Close windows and doors so the bat cannot escape.
2. Wear thick gloves and grab a container (such as a coffee can), a piece of cardboard and some tape.
3. Wait until the bat has settled on a wall.
4. Place the container over the bat, trapping it against the wall.
5. Slide the cardboard between the wall and container to trap the bat inside.
6. Tape the cardboard to the container
7. It’s critical to keep it on ice in a cooler or double-bag it and place it in the freezer.
8. Call the Health Department at (914) 813-5000 for advice on submitting the bat for testing.
It’s also a good idea to learn how to bat-proof your home, by adding screens to your eaves and attic openings. Another favorite place for bats to hang out is inside your closed patio umbrella, so beware when you open it.
From 1995 to 2011, 49 people died of rabies in the U.S; 35 of them had been exposed to bats, according to the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention.
For more information on rabies, Like us at www.Facebook.com/wchealthdept, Follow us on Twitter @wchealthdept, call the Westchester County Health Department at (914) 813-5000, or visit our website at www.westchestergov.com/health. | <urn:uuid:8b61c502-9b41-4490-bb9c-c8fe6d210ddd> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://whiteplainscnr.com/2014/08/13/if-you-find-a-bat-in-your-home-capture-it-for-testing-heres-how-bat-population-up/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393442.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00155-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951467 | 813 | 2.578125 | 3 |
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