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There is another reason for men to quit smoking — it can increase risk of death due to prostate cancer by 61%.
In a study made at the Harvard University, data showed that men who smoke up their chances of dying of prostate cancer and recurrence of prostate cancer. In a feature from the Voice of America, researcher Stacy Kenfield said “We looked at the amounts that current smokers were smoking, and we did see an increase in prostate cancer mortality if you smoked more cigarettes.”
Every year, there are 900,000 prostate cancer cases all over the world, and about a quarter of this figure eventually die of the disease.
The study also relates prostate cancer and former smokers. Those who quit for at least ten years before they were diagnosed to have the illness were performing as people who never smoked did.
Kenfield suggests the probable reasons why smokers are more likely to die of this type of cancer. She says the cancer-causing chemicals in cigarettes are to blame as well as hormones that are disrupted by smoking. “Studies have found an association between current smoking and increased testosterone, which is known to stimulate prostate cancer growth. And other studies have shown that nicotine induces angiogenesis, or the formation of new blood vessels.”
It was also observed that smokers have a more dangerous form of prostate cancer than those who do not smoke.Tags: prostate cancer, smoking cancer, smoking prostate cancer, smoking risks
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The winter months have been highly variable in terms of precipitation and temperature. One week would bring a winter thaw; the next, a cold spell. Minimum daily temperatures were -45 C or lower in northern Ontario.
Meanwhile, southern Ontario had maximum temperatures above 15 C, and new record highs were set January 11-13, and again on January 29 and 30.
Winter precipitation can be summed up as below-average snowpack conditions coupled with above-average rainfall events. Large rainfall totals were observed across southwest and central areas. In fact, for a number of locations throughout south central Ontario, this was the second-wettest January on record. Snowfall amounts for locations in the typical snowbelts off Georgian Bay were well below average in January and below average in February.
Habitat conditions are rated as fair in south central and southwest areas due to poor frost seal and moderate snowpack conditions. Northern Ontario has variable snowpack conditions but wetland levels appear to be good.
Inland wetlands are still covered in ice and snow, while some Great Lakes coastal zones have a combination of shallow ice cover or open water.
Of greatest concern, water levels are very low throughout the Great Lakes. Levels on lakes Huron and Michigan are the lowest they’ve been since record keeping began in 1918. The lakes are about 1 meter below their long-term average, which is drying out emergent coastal wetlands and revealing extended mudflats. Lakes Superior, Erie and Ontario are not as low but are still well below average for this time of year. The chief cause of these water level declines is a combination of reduced precipitation throughout their watersheds, as well as increased evaporation due to higher ambient temperatures over the last two decades. The short-term result could be poor migratory habitat for waterfowl using the Great Lakes for resting and feeding during their migration northward.
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Due to relatively poor ice development throughout the nearshore areas of the Great Lakes, more waterfowl than normal overwintered in the area.
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The roboter MARS ROVERor also called Bridget should explore the mars planet in 2011. It is 3m x 1,8m large. EADS Astrium is developing the first European Mars rover and it will demonstrate flight and in-situ qualification of key exploration enabling technologies to support the European ambitions for future robotic and human exploration missions. The main technology demonstration objectives are: - Entry, Descent and Landing (EDL) of a large payload on the surface of Mars, - surface mobility using a rover with a mobility range of several kilometres, - access to sub-surface using a drill to acquire samples at depths of down to two metres, - autonomous navigation using stereo cameras to map a 3D image of the surrounding terrain, - automatic sample preparation and distribution for analyses of scientific experiments. In parallel, important scientific objectives will be accomplished through a state-of-the art scientific payload.
© EADS 2010
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Unprecedented sea-level rise over 20th century pins down future of rising oceans
Sea-level rises from global warming remain one of the big unknowns in the jostling crowd of climate threats. We know that warming water expands - and so coastal communities will be threatened, as the sea swells in response to rising temperatures. But what about the melting of the land-based ice-sheets of Greenland and Antarctica? And the disappearing mountain glaciers of the Rockies and the Andes? How will a warming world spill these frozen waters into the sea, and so back onto our low-lying cities? Those questions are something that climate scientists try to model, but which they still find difficult to predict.
One way to help knock down that uncertainty is to turn to past records of sea-level fluctuations, to see if they can point to the future. Tie these records tightly enough to detailed temperature records, and scientists may get a better grasp on what their models should be showing. That's what a research team, including Penn State's Michael Mann, have done - looking to North Carolina's salt marshes for a fresh insight into the sea-level conundrum. The results are published online in today's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The international team of scientists turned to North Carolina, in part because this area of the world has been geologically quiet for many millennium. Previous sea-level reconstructions are in those parts of the world still on the move - due to tectonic shifts, or where the land is rebounding from the burden of the last Ice Age. That makes deciphering which sea-level changes are down to temperature fluctuations more difficult.
But the marshes off of the US east coast have had a much simpler history - so taking account of the slow resettling of the earth's foundations is much easier here. In order to work out the level of the sea over the last two-thousand years, the team looked at thick slices of muddy sediment in the sheltered waters of the Pamlico Sound. These contain foramnifera, microscopic fossils which can tell scientists the depth of the overlying waters. They were dated accurately using a combination of radiocarbon and pollen sequences.
The results tallied well with other reconstructions, and with local and global tidal gauge records. 'The temperature and sea level reconstructions were determined independently from each other, and yet each shows what we would expect based on the other," said Mann. "Higher temperatures correspond with higher rates of sea level change and vice versa."
The story of sea level changes fitted a reasonably well-known narrative - and emphasized the suddenness of the most recent changes ascribed to man's tinkering with the climate.
From 100 years BC until 950 AD, sea levels held fairly constant, but with the regional warming of the northern hemisphere, known as the Medieval Warming period, sea levels rose by 2 inches per century. That rise halted with the onset of the 'Little Ice Age' when sea-levels fell slightly. But once the industrialization of the 19th century was well underway, the tide turned firmly back to rising sea levels - and dramatically so.
Over the last century, sea-levels rose at the equivalent of 8-inches per century - a rate unprecedented in the 2000 year-old record. The paper concludes "..in North Carolina the mean rate of rise was 2.1 mm/y in response to 20th century warming. This historical rate of rise was greater than any other persistent, century-scale trend during the past 2,100 years,' the researchers report. That can be seen as an ominous pointer to the future for low-lying communities.
Top Image Credit: © Wollwerth Imagery
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Critical Analysis of Eve Merriam's Onomatopoeia
Critical Analysis of Eve Merriam's “Onomatopoeia”
“Onomatopoeia” by Eve Merriam allows the reader to enter a world of reality by expressing sounds with the use of vivid words along with graphic imagery. The poem makes the reader envision an old, leaky faucet, dripping droplets of water. It continues to drip one after another, smacking the bottom of a metal sink. Suddenly, after anxiously waiting, the water begins to pour out in full force and flows freely.
“Onomatopoeia” contains several different themes. First, “A healthy dose of reality is needed for fun” (Ruby 136). Absurdity is a very important concept in this poem. It helps brighten up the reading instead of it being dull. The poem is absurd because it goes into full detail to just describe a leaky faucet. For example, it is like writing five pages of instructions for someone just to teach them how to throw a ball. But nevertheless, it is fun without being boring or confusing at all.
Another theme in this poem is language and meaning. Poets often use words that extend beyond their apparent meaning in order to connect to people through as many words as possible. Poetry can become challenging for the poet and the reader when they realize that a word can have more than one connotation. These connotations came about because various cultures use the word differently throughout the years. To a poet with acute hearing, every word sounds like something it represents (Ruby 135). The sounds and the words we use are “intrinsically related” to what they are trying to say (135).
This poem lacks structure and is not very complex at all. But it is still an extremely powerful and interesting poem. As the reader looks at the poem, “the
words drip one by one down the page, occasionally becoming a sputter of smattering drops” (Ruby 136). There is no real rhyme scheme either but many of the words do rhyme such as utter, sputter, and splutter. Out of the twenty-nine words in this poem, twenty-four of them are related by one or more rhyming elements. Merriam uses many literary devices also. The main device she uses...
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With solar and wind energies maturing as recognized alternative-power sources, there are other alternatives providing clean power on scales both large and small. These power generators are distinctive in how they create electricity and are a growing business for electrical contractors (ECs) that take note of them.
Biomass is the most commercially established “other” alternative energy. Popularly used to create biofuels, such energy sources are being used for on-site power cogeneration or distributed generation. Biofuel is sustainable, offering carbon-neutral emissions output. A nonfossil-fuel source, its most popular “feedstocks,” as they are called, include wood waste, agricultural residues (straw, manure, grasses) and municipal solid waste. When used to create energy, feedstocks become the fuel for biopower.
Biofuel is certainly not a new idea. Wood was North America’s primary heating source until coal. By the 1950s, electricity and natural gas displaced wood heat. The energy crisis of the 1970s brought new attention, research and new ideas to biomass as an alternative-energy source. By the 1980s, biomass power plants were being built in North America. Today, the Biomass Power Association (BPA) in Portland, Maine, represents 80 biomass power plants in 20 states across the country. Biopower systems are typically direct-fired, co-fired, gasification or modular (transportable).
A growing sector
Industrial Info Resources (IIR) in Texas, a provider of global market intelligence for industrial, heavy manufacturing and energy markets, reports more than $3 billion in U.S. biomass power-generation projects are scheduled to begin construction this year. Research by Biomass Power and Thermal magazine reveals a 20 percent increase in proposed biomass projects going into this year.
The top 10 states with the most operating plants and proposed projects are California (22), Florida (16), New York (14), New Hampshire (14), Maine (11), Michigan (11), Massachusetts (10), Minnesota (9), Pennsylvania (9) and Connecticut (8). In addition, the California Energy Commission has set an ambitious goal to add as much as 2,200 megawatts (MW) of biomass power by 2020, part of that state’s goal to achieve 33 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by that year.
Though biomass currently plays a relatively small role in the U.S. electric power-generation market-—it represents about 10 gigawatts (GW) of electricity generation, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy—the BPA reports biomass supplies more than half of the United States’ renewable electricity. This niche will continue to grow along with other alternative energies, at a pace partially dictated by the price of natural gas. In its Annual Energy Outlook 2011, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects renewables will constitute 14 percent of all electric-power generation, just behind nuclear (17 percent) by 2035. In the U.S. consumption of liquid fuels, biofuels are projected to make up 3 percent.
Success in landfill gas
Though a niche market, ECs are finding competitive work in alternative-power generation. Some contractors have been involved in such work for years. O’Connell Electric Co. Inc., Victor, N.Y., entered the world of landfill gas-to-energy some 20 years ago when it was approached by representatives from a county landfill.
“In New York, landfills are required to flare off the gas they produce or do something with it,” said Tim Ehmann, senior manager for O’Connell Electric. “Some choose to generate electricity, capturing and reprocessing the gas from the landfill.”
Producing wholesale power for utilities is a major application. But there are others, too. Interface, a carpet tile manufacturer based in LaGrange, Ga., uses the city’s landfill gas to supplant its facility’s natural gas usage by 20 percent.
Landfill gas is about 40–60 percent methane, with the remainder being mostly carbon dioxide (CO2). Typical landfill-to-gas projects use compressors, blowers, switchgear, engine controls, gas compression controls, power distribution, lighting and a utility substation. Such operations offer many opportunities for the savvy electrical contractor.
“The gas has to be conditioned before it goes into a generator,” Ehmann said. “There are mechanical concerns and specialty engineering that goes into the gas preparation. Essentially, you collect, pressurize and regulate the gas flow. We needed to partner with specialty engineers to design the mechanics.”
Ehmann said today’s major landfill gas-to-energy customers are larger waste generators, such as Waste Management Inc. That company asserts that its landfill gas projects create enough energy to power 400,000 homes every day and offsets almost 2 million tons of coal per year. Waste Management currently has 110 landfill gas facilities.
“In the last six years, we’ve seen an increase in alternative- energy developers (private or co-op, biomass people) working to install power generators for landfill gas and utilize the carbon credits,” Ehmann said. “They are calling us.”
O’Connell Electric also is performing other biopower work involving large dairy farms. Central Vermont Public Service calls it “cow power.” It has six Vermont farms providing power to the grid that are estimated to produce between 0.78 and 3.5 megawatt--hours of electricity per year. The process is simple. An anaerobic digester creates biogas from dry, processed manure. The biogas fuels a modified natural gas engine-powered generator that, in turn, creates electricity that is fed into the grid. O’Connell Electric is involved in two such projects providing the wiring for the biofuel process and power generators and the interconnections and relay work to the grid. A farm might generate more power than it can use and would then sell the power back to the utility.
“Our work in biogas and landfill gas is really side work for us,” Ehmann said. “It falls in between two existing divisions: line and alternative-energy work. Relay work and power protection and testing are services we provide to pull this project work together. We’ve seen a rebirth in this work, in part due to rates going up and its rediscovery as an alternative-energy green power.”
Ehmann said his company has to compete.
“The electrical interconnection business competition is maybe one in 10 instead of one in 100 for us,” he said. “We have the history, which helps us win the work. We also have our technicians earn their certification in the commissioning of the electrical interconnection (relays and utility’s relay testing). This has helped open the doors for new and repeat business. Ultimately, our customers turn to us to help maintain their systems.”
In New York, landfill gas operations need to be certified through the New York Independent System Operator (NYISO), in part, so the operations can properly avoid faults and be able to properly disconnect from the grid at the utility’s request.
Newkirk Electric Associates Inc., based in Muskegon, Mich., also has more than a 20-year history with biomass projects. It also works with dairy farms helping design, power and “interconnect” digester sites for electric power generation and for producing pipeline-grade biogas. It, too, is involved in a number of landfill gas-to-energy projects—55 to date. The company has its own power and controls specialists that allow it to offer project design.
“Biopower represents a very broad customer base, ranging from major utilities and municipal utilities, to paper mills using its industrial paper waste for energy, to farmers using livestock manure,” said Mary Carter, vice president of business development for Newkirk. “There seems to be endless creativity in biomass projects. We just finished a project that used human solid waste, a digester and ethanol to create power for a wastewater treatment plant. We did the electrical work and construction. This technology is evolving.”
A family business now 50 years old, Newkirk Electric started out assisting utilities in their power generation and distribution. It developed a favored reputation. Like O’Connell Electric, their first biomass project was a landfill gas project in the 1980s.
“The majority of our work in biomass is landfill gas, but in the early ’90s, we were the primary EC for two large biomass utility projects,” Carter said. “The 36.2-MW Grayling station burns wood waste from local sawmills and the foresting industry. The 35-MW Genesee Power Station burns up to 700 tons of wood waste each day. The power is tied into the grid to produce energy. Both power stations are owned by the utility.”
Ever the mother of invention, Newkirk Electric is working with Hilarides Dairy in Lindsay, Calif., to design and construct a biogas-upgrading skid that takes a manure digester’s raw biogas and cleans and compresses it for use in natural gas burning vehicles. The dairy’s semi trucks are the first cow-powered trucks in the United States.
“Biopower holds some advantages over solar and wind. It doesn’t have the intermittent power dips and has no need for energy storage,” Carter said. “It is also available 24/7.”
While biopower is a small market for Newkirk Electric, like O’Connell Electric, it is still a key sector for the company and has grown significantly in the past 5 years. The firm does business across the country and has completed projects in 34 states from California to Florida, where Newkirk Electric has an office. The company is currently involved in 10 projects outside Michigan.
“For interested ECs, it depends on what role they want to play in this green-energy work,” Carter said. “If it’s just electrical install, power is power. At the very least, develop partnerships with mechanical contractors. If you want to be an added resource to your customer, you have to develop specialized skills. For us, its electrical controls, switchgear, facility interface, line work, substation design and build, and helping fill out paperwork for the cogeneration connection with the utility. Knowing the behind-the-scenes required to successfully running biomass and landfill gas projects puts you ahead of the pack as go after this work.”
GAVIN is the owner of Gavo Communications, a marketing services firm serving the construction, landscaping and related design industries. He can be reached at [email protected].
| 3.302006 |
The West Nile virus
Infectious diseases are creeping in from abroad
IN 1999 crows in New York started dying in unusual numbers. But it took weeks of further clues, including the deaths of two flamingos and a cormorant at the Bronx Zoo, for officials to find the culprit. The West Nile virus had invaded New York. It was the first time the virus had been recorded in the Western hemisphere. Since then, West Nile has reappeared each summer. As of August 29th cases were up 40% from a week earlier, reaching 1,590, with 66 deaths.
Mosquitoes contract the virus when they bite infected birds. Then, with their typical generosity, they give the virus to humans. Eighty per cent show no symptoms. The rest may get a fever, nausea or a rash. About one in 150, however, will develop a serious illness, such as inflammation of the brain.
This year’s outbreak is notable mainly for its scale, and the apprehension that future years will unleash equal havoc. Nearly half of the cases have been in Texas, no stranger to vaguely biblical events. The winter was mild, the spring and summer hot. Throughout the year, it has rained intermittently—in short, ideal conditions for mosquitoes.
The centre of the outbreak is Dallas. By August 15th county leaders had reported some 200 West Nile infections and ten deaths. The mayor declared a state of emergency and authorised aerial spraying—the first time Dallas has done so since 1969, according to the Dallas Morning News. Health officials started fogging, distributing larvicide and bug repellent, and scouting for standing water. Complicating matters, Dallas County also includes 30 or so smaller towns; some were wary of aerial spraying.
West Nile is not the only developing-country disease that has seeped into America. Since 2001 three states have seen outbreaks of dengue fever. The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that 300,000 people in the United States, overwhelmingly immigrants, are infected with Chagas disease, caught from parasites that feed on the face and are usually found in Central and South America. A CDC survey found that 14% of Americans have been exposed to toxocara, roundworms that often cause no symptoms, but which can damage inner organs and the eye. Worryingly, the CDC found higher rates among those who are poor and black.
A study of Houston observed that West Nile was more common among the homeless. In general, mosquitoes find the poor inviting hosts, explains Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine. They often live near potholed roads, with standing water, and are less likely to have insect spray and window screens.
By August 29th the number of documented West Nile infections in Dallas had reached 309, and the deaths had crept to 13. In better news, the Dallas city council announced that it had set out five mosquito traps, and that none of the insects it caught carried the virus. If the outbreak is abating, though, it is too soon to be complacent. It will not be the last.
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Blood or body fluids may contain pathogens (germs) that can cause disease. If there is an accident at work involving blood or body fluids, these germs can be spread. The most common and serious bloodborne pathogens are the hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Other bloodborne germs include syphilis and malaria. Once these germs infect you, they can spread to your loved ones. The three bloodborne germs described below are the most common causes of infections in the workplace.
Hepatitis B can cause severe damage to the liver and can even lead to death.
A vaccine is available to help prevent hepatitis B infection. This vaccine is given as several injections over a period of time.
Like hepatitis B, hepatitis C can cause severe damage to the liver and can lead to death.
There is no known vaccine for HCV.
HIV makes it harder for the body to fight infection. HIV causes acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is a serious illness that can lead to death.
There is no known vaccine for HIV.
How You Could Get Infected at Work
Bloodborne diseases can infect you when:
You help an injured person without using a protective barrier between you and the infected person's blood or body fluids.
An object or surface with infected blood or body fluids on it touches your broken skin.
You smoke, eat, or touch your eyes, nose, or mouth after getting someone else's infected blood or body fluids on your hands.
You are pricked or scratched by a sharp object (such as broken glass) that has infected blood or body fluids on it.
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Jun 24, 2011 / ENERGY GLOBE Award
Project presentation - "Learning from and with nature"
The rural community of La Soledad in the province of Salsa in northwest Argentina is battling poverty and malnutrition. It is not easy to learn with an empty stomach.
Teachers at the school La Soledad know this as well. Therefore they want to provide food for their pupils. However, the school and its dormitory are quite remote and everything has to be delivered on horseback. The solution is farming as part of the curriculum. Under the title “Learning from Nature” the school became nutritionally self-sufficient.
The school’s own farm now grows fruits, spices and vegetables, raises seedlings and keeps honeybees and livestock (pigs, poultry, rabbits, …). The students also handle processing of the foods together with their teachers and project initiator Ana Trabucco. Other elements of the project include recycling of biowaste as fertilizer and solar energy production.
Thus the children learn by experience how biological systems work and simultaneously create the basis for successful graduation: Regular, balanced school meals have profoundly improved school performance.
More information: www.ciudadaniasolidaria.org
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Armenian literature. The Armenian Church fostered literature, and the principal early works are religious or hagiographical, most of them translations. The first major Armenian literary work is a 5th cent. translation of the Bible; its language became the standard of classical Armenian. Early Mesopotamian influence resulted in Syriac translations (Aphraates and St. Ephraem Syrus). Armenia then turned to the West for literary inspiration, producing translations of many religious works (Athanasius, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzen, and John Chrysostom). Among secular works are renderings of Aristotle and of the romance of Alexander. The original writings of the golden age are confined to saints' lives and histories. The 5th-century history of Moses of Khorni contains practically all that is known of pre-Christian Armenia, its folklore and epics. Later historians include Thomas Ardzruni (10th cent.), Matthew of Edessa, who described the Crusades, and Stephanos Orbelian, who wrote of the Mongol hordes (13th cent.). A tradition of nationalistic epic poetry, influenced by Muslim form, emerged; the best-known example is David of Sassoun. The principal figure of the 12th cent. is Catholicos Narses IV, a prelate and poet notable for his literary style. After the decline of Armenian cultural centers in the 14th cent., the literature of Armenians abroad was heavily influenced by their host countries. In 18th-century Constantinople, Mechitar (1676–1749), a monk of the Catholic Armenians, founded a community (the Mechitarists) to cultivate Armenian letters. Their headquarters are now in Venice, and they are the principal Armenian publishers. Anticipated by the late 18th-century folk poetry of Sayat Nova ( = Haroutioum Sayadian), the 19th cent. saw a considerable revival of Armenian letters and the establishment of a modern literary language. The major novelists of the 19th cent. were Khachatur Abovian and Hagop Melik-Agopian (called "Raffi"). The 1915 Turkish massacres sent many Armenian writers (including Hagop Ochagan, Nigoghos Sarafian, and Zareh Vorpuni) into exile, which became the subject of their writing. After the incorporation of part of Armenia into the Soviet Union in 1921 the poet Leguiche Tcharentz and novelist Alexander Bakountz perished in Stalin's purges. Notable writers of the period were the poet Avetik Issahakian and the historical novelist Derenik Demirdjian. More recent figures include the poets Parouyr Sevak, Hovhannes Chiraz, and Hrant Matevosian.
See Z. C. Boyajian, ed., Armenian Legends and Poems (2d ed. 1959); J. Etmekjian, An Anthology of Western Armenian Literature (1980).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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palomino horse, American light horse that, contrary to popular opinion, is not a breed but a color type. The palomino is a characteristic golden, creamy tan, with an almost white mane and tail. White stripes on the face and white stockings are common. This coloring occurs in several breeds of light horse. Palominos were probably first selected for their beautiful color in Spain. They accompanied the conquistadors to the New World, where they were perpetuated by early Mexican horse breeders. They were discovered by Americans in California during the Mexican-American War, and are now popular parade and show horses; fanciers in the United States are trying to establish the palomino as a breed. Palominos have Arabian or Thoroughbred features, stand about 15 hands (60 in./150 cm) high, and weigh about 1,100 lb (500 kg).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
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Galago - Bush Baby, Tiny African Primate
The galago or bush baby is a small primate which can be found across many countries, mainly in Africa. No one is really sure how the term "bush baby" came to be used but it has been suggested that the name is either due to their appearance or their sharp cry. This species is a very small primate which has an average size of approximately 5 inches (13 cm).
The bush baby has long, fuzzy wool-like fur which can be either a shade of silvery gray or brown. Their ears are very large with four ridges which allow them to bend back easily and wrinkle up. They also have characteristically large eyes. Other interesting characteristics of this species include its advanced hearing, thickened pads on its toes to allow it to cling and climb safely and also its second tongue. This second tongue is situated below their normal tongue and is used specifically in conjunction with their front teeth for grooming. It’s interesting to think the bush baby has evolved to have an actual appendage designed solely for grooming!
The bush baby is especially well known for its amazing jumping abilities. In fact, this species can jump up to 6.6 feet (2 m) in the air and it is believed this is due to elastic energy stored in the tendons of their lower legs. Without these special tendons, they would not be able to jump as high as they can because of their comparatively small size.
Bush babies have a gestation period of between 110 and 130 days. The young are born with their eyes half-closed and for the first few days of their life they cannot move independently. After the first few days of life, the mother will carry the infant round in their mouth and puts it down on branches when it is time to feed.
There are many different subspecies of bush baby including the Rondo bush baby and Dusky bush baby. They can be found all across Africa and they are a really cuddly looking creature. Of course as a wild animal they are very timid and shy but it can’t hurt to look at them!
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Plants yielding fibers have been second only to food plants in their usefulness to humans and their influence on the furthering of civilization. Primitive humans in their attempts to obtain the three most important necessities for life: food, shelter & clothing, focused on plants. Even though animal products were available, some form of clothing was needed that was lighter and cooler than skins and hides. It was easier to obtain from plants such items as bowstrings, nets, snares, etc. Also plant products were available from the leaves, stems and roots of many plants to construct shelter.
Very early on plant fibers have had a more extensive use than silk, wool and other animal fibers. Gradually as humans’ needs multiplied, the use of vegetable fibers increased greatly until presently they continue to be of great importance even after the onset of plastics. It is impossible to estimate the number of species of fiber plants, but over a thousand species of plants have yielded fibers in America alone, and over 800 occur in the Philippines. However, plant fibers of commercial importance ore relatively few, the greater number being native species used locally by primitive peoples in all parts of the world. Their durability often exceeds those of synthetic manufacture, one example being sisal & Manila hemps.
The most prominent fibers of the present are of great antiquity. The cultivation of flax, for example, dates back to the Stone Age of Europe, as discovered in the remains of the Swiss Lake Dwellers. Linen was used in Ancient Egypt and cotton was the ancient national textile of India, being used by all the aboriginal peop0les of the New World as well. Ramie or China grass has been grown in the Orient many thousands of years.
Plastic materials are often used instead of natural products because they cost less and sometimes tend to be more durable. However, natural plant products continue to have some superior attributes and are used when materials are readily available. There are six principal groups of fibers distinguished according to the way in which they are used.
Textile Fibers are the most important in that they are used for fabrics, cordage and netting. To make fabrics and netting flexible fibers are twisted together into thread or yarn and then either spun, knitted, woven or in some other way utilized. Fabrics include cloth for wearing apparel, domestic use, awnings, sails, etc., and also coarser materials such as gunny and burlap. Fabric fibers are all of some commercial value. Netting fibers that are used for hammocks, lace and all forms of nets include many of the commercial fabric fibers and a number of native fibers as well. Both commercial and native fibers are used for cordage. For this the individual fibers are twisted together instead of being woven. Binder Twine, fish lines, hawsers, rope and cables are among the many types.
Brush Fibers are stiff tough fibers including small stems and twigs that are utilized for making brooms and brushes.
Rough Weaving & Plaitling Fibers. Plaits are fibrous, flat and pliable strands that are interlaced to make straw hats, baskets, sandals, chair seats, etc. The most elastic strands are woven together for mattings and the thatched roofs of houses. The supple twigs or woody fibers are for making chairs, baskets and other wickerwork.
Filling Fibers are used for stuffing mattresses, cushions and in upholstery; for caulking seams in boats and in casks and barrels; as stiffening in plaster and as packing material.
Natural Fabrics are usually obtained from tree basts that are extracted from bark in layers or sheets and pounded into rough substitutes for lace or cloth.
Fibers for Paper Manufacture includes textile fibers and wood fibers that are used in either the raw or manufactured state.
A plant cannot be restricted absolutely to any single group because the same fiber may be used for different purposes. Also, a plant may yield more than one kind of fiber. Thus the following discussion includes species that are considered in the group in which they are of the greatest importance.
All fibers are similar in that they are sclerenchyma cells that serve as part of the plant skeleton. They are predominantly long cells with thick walls and small cavities and usually pointed ends. The walls often contain lignin as well as cellulose. Fibers occur singly or in small groups, but they are more apt to form sheets of tissue with the individual cells overlapping and interlocking.
Fibers may occur in almost any part of a plant: stems, leaves, fruits, seeds, etc. The four main types grouped according to their origin include bast fibers, wood fibers, sclerenchyma cells associated with the vascular bundle strands in leaves, and surface fibers that are hair like outgrowths on the seeds of the plants. The term “bast fiber” is subject to criticism, as it gives no indication as to the particular tissue or region in which the fibers occur. It might be preferable to designate those fibers that occur in the outer parts of the stem as cortical fibers, pericyclic fibers or phloem fibers. But “bast” is a term that has been in use for a long time and is so established in commerce that it will be used in this discussion.
Fibers of economic importance occur in many different plant families, especially those from the tropics. Some of the more important families are the Palmaceae, Gramineae, Liliaceae, Musaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Malvaceae, Urticaceae, Linaceae, Moraceae, Tiliaceae, Bromeliaceae, Bombacaceae, and Luguminosae.
These fibers must be long and possess a high tensile strength and cohesiveness with pliability. They must have a fine, uniform, lustrous staple and must be durable and abundantly available. Only a small number of the different kinds of fibers possess these traits and are thus of commercial importance. The principal textile fibers are grouped into three classes: surface fibers, soft fibers and hard fibers, with the last two often referred to as long fibers.
Surface or short fibers include the so-called cottons. The soft fibers are the bast fibers that are found mainly in the pericycle or secondary phloem of dicotyledon stems. Bast fibers are capable of subdivision into very fine flexible strands and are used for the best grades of cordage and fabrics. Included are hemp, jute, flax and ramie.
Hard or mixed fibers are structural elements found mainly in the leaves of many tropical monocots, although they may be found in fruits and stems. They are used for the more coarse textiles. Sisal, abacá, henequén, agaves, coconut and pineapple are examples of plants with hard fibers.
Cotton is one of the greatest of all industrial crops. it is the principal fiber plant as well as one of the oldest and most economical. It was known since ancient times and well before written records. There are references to cotton by the ancient Greeks and Romans. Cotton was found in India before 1,800 B.C. The Hindus were believed to be one of the first people to weave cloth in the Eastern Hemisphere, although reference to Nordic traders of woven goods in North America during the Bronze Age has been made by Fell 1982 (http://faculty.ucr.edu/~legneref/bronze/fell2.htm). Cotton was introduced to Europe by the Arabs who called the plant “qutn.” The plant had several origins because Columbus found it in cultivation in the West Indies, and it was known to the Amerindians of Neotropical America in Pre-Columbian times. Cotton became a commercial crop in the united States after 1787..
Several species of the genus Gossypium provide what we call cotton. The fine fibrous hairs that occur on the seeds constitute the raw material. These hairs are flattened, twisted and tubular. They compose the lint, floss or staple. Their length and other qualities vary with the different varieties. The plant is a perennial shrub or small tree naturally, but under cultivation it is treated as an annual. It branches freely and grows to a height of 4-8 ft. Cotton thrives in sandy soil in humid regions that are near water. This environment is typified in the southern United States and in the river valleys of India and Egypt. Cotton matures in 5-6 months and is ready to harvest soon after.
Hundreds of varieties have been developed from wild ancestors or produced by breeding during the long period of cultivation. Varieties differ in fiber character as well as other morphological features. Cotton is a difficult group to classify and the exact number of species is subject to argument. Cultivated cottons of commercial importance are usually referred to one or another of four species: Gossypium barbadense and G. hirsutum in the Western Hemisphere and G. arboreum and G. herbaceum in the Eastern Hemisphere.
1.--Gossypium barbadense probably originated in tropical South America. The flowers are bright yellow with purple spots. The fruit, or boll, has three valves, and the seeds are fuzzy only at the ends. Two distinct types exist:
Sea-Island Cotton. This type has never been found in the wild as it was already being cultivated at the time of Columbus. It has fine, strong and light cream-colored fibers that are regular in the number and uniformity of the twists and they have a silky appearance. These characteristics are valuable and sea-island cotton was formerly in great demand for the finest textiles, yarns, and lace and spool cotton. Sea-island cotton was brought to the United States from the West Indies in 1785. The finest types were developed on the islands off the South Carolina coast and adjacent mainland. Here strong and firm stables of two inches or more in length were produced. Another form of sea-island cotton was grown along the coast in Georgia to Florida and in the West Indies and South America. This has a staple of 1.5-1.75 in. in length. The yield of sea-island cotton was lower than other kinds of cotton, but this was compensated for by the greater value of the fiber. The boll weevil almost completely eradicated production of sea-island cotton before control measures were discovered.
Egyptian Cotton This cotton is grown in the Nile basin of Egypt where it was introduced from Central America. The plant is similar in appearance to sea-island cotton and is believed to be a hybrid. However, the staple is brown in color and shorter. Its length, strength, and firmness make this cotton suitable for thread, undergarments, hosiery, and fine dress goods. Egyptian cotton was brought to the United States in 1902 as an experimental crop and 10 years later it was recommended to farmers in the semiarid regions that were under irrigation. It was then grown in the western states of California, New Mexico and Arizona. Repeated selection and breeding resulted in the development of new strains of which Pima Cotton is of highest quality.
2.--Gossypium hirsutum is a native American species that was grown by Pre-Columbian civilizations. It is usually called Upland Cotton, and is the easiest and most economical kind of cotton to grow. It constitutes the greater part of the cultivated cotton of the world. The flowers are white or light yellow and unspotted. The bolls are four- or five-valved, and the seeds are covered with fuzz. Upland cotton thrives under a variety of conditions but does best in a sandy soil with abundant moisture during the growing and fruiting season and dryness during the time of boll opening and harvest as well as a temperature of 60-90 deg. Fahrenheit. The northern limit of economic growth is 37 deg. N. Lat. The Cotton Belt of the southern United States grows mostly upland cotton. The fibers are white with a wide range in staple length (5/8ths to 1.3/8ths in.). There are over 1210 named varieties, many of which were developed through breeding experiments. The species probably originated in Guatemala or southern Mexico and spread northward to its present limits in North America. A well-marked variety, often recognized as a distinct species, occurs in the West Indies and along the dry coastal areas of South America as far as Ecuador and Brazil. Another variety occurs in Central America, northward along the Gulf of Mexico to Florida and the Bahamas and in the Greater Antilles.
3.--Gossypium arboreum is the perennial tree cotton of Africa, India and Arabia. It was most likely the first to be used commercially, but production is now confined to India. The staples are coarse and very short (3/8ths to 34 in. long), but they are strong.
4.--Gossypium herbaceum is the principal cotton of Asia. It was grown in Indian in ancient times and continues to be used locally there and in Iran, China and Japan. Its chief use is for fabrics, carpets and blankets and is often blended with wool.
There are additionally several wild species of Gossypium in some tropical and subtropical areas.
Cotton used to be an expensive material because it was difficult to remove the fibers from the seed. The cotton gin developed by Eli Whitney in 1793 changed this situation and a revolution of the industry was started. Cotton then assumed a very prominent position in world commerce. The economics of cotton has had a profound effect on both the producing and purchasing nations. It is well accepted that slavery was perpetuated in America because of this crop.
There are several steps necessary in the preparation of raw cotton fiber in order to prepare it for the textile industry. These operations involve ginning in either a saw-tooth or a roller gin, baling, transporting to the mills, picking to remove any foreign matter and delivers the cotton in a uniform layer, lapping where three layers are combined into one, carding, combing and drawing where the short fibers are extracted and the others straightened and evenly distributed, and finally twisting the fibers into thread.
Cotton is used either by itself or in combination with other fibers in the manufacture of all types of textiles. Unspun cotton is extensively used for stuffing purposes. Treating the fibers with caustic soda, which imparts a high luster and silky appearance, makes Mercerized Cotton. Absorbent Cotton consists of fibers that have been cleaned and from which the oily covering layer has been removed. It is almost pure cellulose and makes up one of the basic raw materials of various cellulose industries.
A noteworthy advance in the cotton industry was the utilization of what were formerly waste products. In the early stages of the industry the cotton seed along with its fuzzy covering of short hairs or linters was discarded. However, all parts of the plant are now conserved to yield products that are valuable. The stalks contain a fiber that can be used to make paper or fuel and the roots possess a crude drug. The seeds are used for oil extraction and for livestock feed. The linters give wadding, stuffing for pads, cushions, pillows, mattress, etc; absorbent cotton; low grade yarn for twine, ropes and carpets; and cellulose. The hulls are also livestock feed; fertilizer; lining oil wells to prevent cave-ins of the sides; as a source of Xylose, a sugar that can be converted into alcohol or various explosives and industrial solvents. The kernels yield an important fatty oil, cottonseed oil; and oil cake and meal are used for fertilizer, livestock feed, and flour and as a dye.
Once the most valuable and useful of fibers, flax gradually became less important as synthetics and cotton assumed more prominent roles. Flax is more durable than cotton and can yield a very fine fabric. The plant has been under cultivation for so long that its point of origin is unknown. It was used by the Swiss Lake Dwellers and was known to the ancient Hebrews and is frequently noted in the Bible. The ancient Egyptians wore linen and used it for the burial cloths. They carved pictures of the flax plant on their tombs. Long before the Christian era the Greek imported flax, and it is believed that the plant was being cultivated prior to 3,000 B.C.
Flax is in the genus Linum that contains several wild species of no economic importance as well as Linum usitatissimum, the source of the commercial fiber. The plant is an annual herb with blue or white flowers and small leaves. It grows to a height of from 1-4 ft. The fibers are formed in the pericycle and are made up of very tough, stringy strands from 1-3 ft. long that are aggregates of many long pointed cells with very thick cellulose walls. Flax does best in soil that is rich in organic matter and moisture and in temperate regions, but it may be grown elsewhere. Preparation of the fibers is a more expensive procedure than for cotton. The crop is harvested and a process known as rippling breaks the stems. The fibers may then be rotted out by submerging the stems in water or by exposing them to dew. During this process called retting and enzyme dissolves the calcium pectate of the middle lamella, which holds the cells together, and frees the fibers. After retting the straw is dried and cleaned and the fibers are completely separated from the other tissues of the stem by an operation known as scutching. Finally the shorter fibers that constitute the tow are separated from the longer fibers. The long fibers are the only ones suited for spinning.
The fibers of flax have great tensile strength, staple length, durability and fineness. They are used in the manufacture of linen cloth and thread, canvas, duck, strong twine, carpets, fish and seine lines, cigarette paper, writing paper and insulating materials. Fibers from the stalks of flax grown for seed are too harsh and brittle for spinning but may be used for other purposes.
The principal production area was Northern Europe, with Russia producing around 70 percent of the world crop. Some of the finest flax is grown in Belgium. The Pilgrims introduced flax into North America and these and other colonists were growing sufficient amount for domestic use until 1900. Flax is a good crop with which to reclaim native soil and for a long time its cultivation was confined to the frontier. Flax is grown for its seed in areas with low rainfall. The seed is used in medicine and as a source of linseed oil.
The term “hemp” is applied loosely to include a number of very different plants and fibers. The true hemp is Cannabis sativa, a plant native to Central and Western Asia but has spread worldwide where it often occurs as a troublesome weed.
The plant is a stout, bushy, branching annual that varies from 5-15 ft in height. It is dioecious with hollow stems and palmate leaves. The best grade of fiber is obtained from male plants. Hemp requires a mild humid climate and a rich loamy soil with an abundance of humus. Calcareous soils are especially suitable.
The fiber is white bast that develops in the pericycle. It is valuable because of its length that varies from 3-15 ft, its strength and great durability. However, it lacks the flexibility and elasticity of flax because of its lignification. Yields are usually high with one acre producing 2-3 tons of stems, 25 percent of which is fibrous material. The plants are harvested and shocked and dried. The fibers are separated from the rest of the bark by retting, either in dew or in water. They are then broken, scutched and hackled. Hemp must be harvested when the male flowers are in full bloom or the fibers are too week or too brittle to be of value.
Hemp is an ancient crop that had been grown in China before 2,000 B.C. It was introduced into Europe around 1,500 B.C. It reached North America in early colonial days and became a viable industry in Kentucky and Wisconsin. By the 21st Century very little of the crop was being grown in North America.
Hemp has been used to make ropes, carpets, twine, and sailcloth, yacht cordage, binder twine, sacks, bags and webbing. The waste and woody fibers of the stem were sometimes used to make paper. The finer grades can be woven into a cloth that resembles coarse linen. The short fibers or tow and ravelings constitute Oakum. This is used for caulking the seams between the plants in shipbuilding, in cooperage and as packing for pumps, engines, etc. In the tropics hemp is grown for its seed, and also for a drug that is gotten from the flowering tops and leaves. The seeds contain oil that is useful in the soap and paint industries as a substitute for linseed oil. The drug, known as Hashish, is a resinous substance that contains several powerful alkaloids. In America this type of hemp is known as Marijuana. Ganja is a specially cultivated and harvested grade of hemp used for smoking and in beverages and candies. It has high resin content.
Jute has been used almost extensively as cotton even though it is much less valuable than either cotton of flax. It is a bast fiber obtained from the secondary phloem of two species of Corchorus of Asia. The best quality is from C. capsularis, a species with round pods that is grown in lowland areas subject to flooding. The plant is a tall, slender, somewhat shrubby annual with yellow flowers that grows to a height of 8-10 ft. It requires a warm climate and a rich, loamy alluvial soil. Fiber from C. olitorius, and upland species with long pods, is somewhat inferior but the two are not separated in commerce.
Harvest occurs within 3-4 months after planting and while the flowers are still in full bloom. The stems are retted in pools or tanks for several days to rot out the softer gummy tissues, and whipping the stems on the surface of the water then loosens the jute, or Gunny, strands. The pale-yellow fibers are very long, from 6-10 ft. in length, and they are very stiff being highly lignified. They have a silky luster. They are produced in abundance, but are not especially strong and they tend to deteriorate when exposed to moisture. Despite these disadvantages they are economical and easily spun. Plastics have replaced many of the products formerly made from jute, however.
Jute has been used mainly for rough weaving into burlap bags, gunnysacks and covers for cotton bales. The fiber is also used for twine, carpets, curtains and coarse cloth. Short fibers and pieces from the lower ends of the stalks make up jute butts that have been used in paper manufacture. India has the largest acreage of jute.
Baehmeria nivea is a perennial, herbaceous or shrubby plant without branches when cultivated. It has slender stalks that reach a height of 3-6 ft. and they bear heart-shaped leaves that are green above and white beneath. The plant is from Asia and was grown in China in ancient times. It requires a fertile, well-drained soil. Several crops per year compensate for a rather low yield, especially in North America.
Fine fibers are obtained from the bast, which are very long, strong and durable. They also have a high degree of luster and would be desirable for textile purposes were it not for difficulties in the extraction and cleaning process. The stems are first immersed in water. The bark is then peeled off and the outer portions and green tissue are scraped off or are removed by oiling or mechanical means. The fibers that remain are heavily coated with gum and require further treatment before they can be used. They make up the China Grass, or Filasse, that is used in the manufacture of grass cloth and other dress goods in Asia. Ramie has been used in Europe for under garments, upholstery, thread and paper. Although it is one of the strongest fibers known, being three times as strong as hemp, ramie has not been generally used because the treatment necessary to remove the fibers is very costly. The development of a simpler process has not increased the use of ramie.
Another variety, Boehmeria nivea var. tenacissima, is sometimes called Rhea. This plant is native to Malaya and resembles ramie except that the leaves are green on both sides. Rhea fiber is included under ramie in industry.
Crotalaria juncea is an important fiber plant in Asia. It has been cultivated since ancient times and there are no known wild ancestors. It is the earliest fiber to be mentioned in Sanskrit writings (Hill 1952). It is a shrubby annual legume from 6-12 ft tall with bright yellow flowers. It is grown primarily in southern India.
Almost all the members of the Malvaceae yield bast fibers that can be used in textiles. Some of the most important are as follows:
China Jute or Indian Mallow (Abutilon theophrasti) is an annual plant that yields a strong, coarse, grayish-white lustrous fiber with characteristics similar to jute. It has been extensively grown in China and was introduced into North America where it can thrive. The fibers have great tensile strength, take dyes readily and are used in China for making rugs and paper.
Kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus) is a tall herb that yields a fiber with has over 129 names, among them Deccan, Ambari or Gambo Hemp, Java Jute and Mesta Fiber. It is a substitute for hemp and jute in the manufacture of coarse canvas, gunnysacks, cordage, matting and fishing nets. The plant is adapted to a wide range of climates and soils. Harvest is right after the flowers come into bloom. The fibers are 5-10 ft. long and are usually extracted by retting. Kenaf seed yields up to 20 percent of edible oil on being refined.
Roselle or Rama (Hibiscus sabdariffa) is cultivated in India, Southeastern Asia and some Pacific islands as a substitute for jute and for its edible fruit. The light-brown fibers are silky, soft and lustrous. Roselle is adapted to well-drained fertile soil where there is a 20-in. rainfall. It grows fast and can be harvested 90 days after planting. Retting is accomplished in 10-12 days, and the fibers are easily slipped from the bark. The red fleshy calices and involucels surrounding the young fruits are acid and provide a sour relish. The juice is used for flavoring and in making jellies, jams and wine.
Aramina or Cadillo (Urena lobata) occurs as a weed in most tropical countries. It provides a yellowish-white fiber that is more durable than jute and is used as a substitute in some industries. It has been grown commercially in Cuba, Madagascar, Nigeria, the Congo and Brazil where it is made into coffee sacks.
Other malvaceous species that yield fibers but which are of minor importance include Okra, Hibiscus esculentus, Majagua, Hibiscus tiliaceus, and several species of the genus Sida. Sida acuta is an extremely easy plant to harvest and prepare and the fibers are twice as strong as jute.
The Amerindians used the bast fibers of different plant for their bowstrings, nets, etc. Colorado River Hemp, Sesbania exaltata, was widely used by the western groups, while Indian Hemp, Apocynum cannabinum, and Milkweed, Asclepias syriaca, yielded important fibers for eastern groups of Amerindians.
This is a premier cordage material that is obtained from several species of wild plantain or banana. Musa textilis is the principal source. It resembles the true banana but has narrow more tufted leaves and inedible fruits. The plant forms a clump of 12-30 sheathing leafstalks 10-20 ft. high with a crown of spreading leaf blades 3-6 ft long. The fiber is secured from the outer portion of the leafstalks. Mature stalks are cut at the roots and split open lengthwise. The pulp and the fiber strands are removed, and the strands are washed and dried.
Individual fibers are 6-12 ft. long, lustrous and variable in color from white to light ocher. They are light, elastic, stiff and very strong, durable and resistant to both fresh and salt water. Therefore, the main use of abacá has been in the manufacture of high-grade cordage, especially marine cables. Plastic cables are frequently substituted but they are not as easy to manage on ships as true abacá. Other products made from this kind of hemp are binder twine, bagging, strong tissue paper, papier-mâché, wrapping paper and Manila paper for sacks. In Japan Manila hemp was used in making movable partitions in houses. The individual fibers cannot be spun, but strands of fibers are used to make the lustrous cloth known as Sinamay.
Musa textilis has been of commercial importance only in the Philippines although it grows in other Asian countries as well. The plant was known and used by the inhabitants of the region centuries before the arrival of the first European explorers early in the 16th Century. The first shipment was made to North America in 1818. From then until 1918 it was the main export of the Philippines, amounting to over 300-thousand pounds annually (Hill 1952). More recently sugar and sometimes copra have exceeded it in production.
Manila help requires a warm climate, fertile soil, shade, good drainage, abundant moisture and an elevation lower than 3,000 ft. Suckers and rootstalks propagate it. The crop is grown in small fields or on large plantations and matures in 18-36 months.
After several failures, abacá was successfully introduced into the Western Hemisphere in 1925 in Panama, but did not develop into a commercial item. However, with World War II the serious shortages of Manila hemp became a serious threat to the war effort and the United States government financed a project in several Central American countries. Machines for cleaning the leaves were devised and installed, and soon some 26,000 acres were being cultivated that produced 3-million pounds of fiber. At the end of the war the industry was soundly established in Costa Rica.
By the middle of the 20th Century agave fibers were next to cotton in importance in America. By 1952 their value sometimes amounted to over 36 million dollars per year. But due to labor costs and the availability of synthetic alternatives their production declined thereafter. These plants are stemless perennials with basal rosettes of erect fleshy leaves. The leaves contain fibers that are removed either by hand or machine. There are numerous species of local occurrence. They are very drought tolerant and flourish in dry sterile soils. Several kinds of commercial importance are discussed as follows:
Amerindian groups have used this native Mexican species since ancient times. By the mid 20th Century Cuba and the Yucatan Peninsula produced most of the crop. The leaves bear spines that make them difficult to handle. The light straw colored fiber is scraped out from the leaf tissue. It is hard, elastic and wiry, measuring 2-5 ft. in length. It was used mainly for binder twine, lariats and durable mats. It is not suited for marine or hoisting cables, as it is heavy and weak. Tablemats constructed from this fiber have a beautiful luster and are resistant to stains. Agave letonae from El Salvador is a related species. Production declined dramatically by the 21st Century.
This is very similar in appearance to henequén but the leaves bear few spines. Native to Mexico and Central America it was cultivated in Hawaii, the East and West Indies and in several parts of Africa. The plant is very drought resistant and will grow where other species fail. Little cultivation is required. The coarse, stiff, light yellow to white fibers are removed, cleaned, dried and packed in bales for shipment. Synthetic fibers also largely replaced sisal by the 21st Century.
In ancient times there were several fibers used in Mexico under the names of Istle, Ixtle or Tampico Fiber. Three species of most importance are Jaumaveistle, Agave funkiana, Tula Istle, A. lecheguilla, and Palma Istle, Samuela carnerosana. Several species of Yucca were also grouped under the category of Istle. The fibers are obtained from immature leaves of wild plants. Although these fibers are shorter than those of sisal and henequén, they are very strong and durable. They were formerly used for brushes and as a cheap substitute for sisal and abacá to make bagging, twine and rope.
Manila Maguey or Cantala, Agave cantala, is a species from Mexico that was introduced into India and Southeastern Asia. It was grown commercially in the Philippines, Java and elsewhere as a substitute for sisal. Mexican Maguey is obtained from different species of Agave and the fibers are valued only locally by the inhabitants of the region in which it grows. It was nevertheless a highly valued plant by Amerindians who used it to make the fermented beverages of Pulque and Mescal.
Leaves of the green aloe, Furcraea gigantea, are the source of Mauritius hemp. The plant is native to tropical America but is grown worldwide, where local inhabitants use its fiber. It has been grown commercially in Mauritius, Madagascar, St. Helena and South Africa, India, Venezuela and Brazil, where it is know as Piteira. The plant resembles an agave but has larger, less rigid leaves and a very long peduncle or flower stalk that can reach of height of 20-40 ft. The fibers are very long, 4-7 ft., and they are white, soft, very flexible and elastic. They are not as strong as sisal and are used either alone or in a mixture for making bags, hammocks, coarse twine and other cordage.
Several other species of Furcraea yield fibers of local importance in tropical America. Included are Fique, Furcraea macrophylla, of Colombia; Cabuya, F. cabuya, of Central America; and Pitre, F. hexapetala, of the West Indies and sometimes called Cuban Hemp.
Also called New Zealand Flax, Phormium tenax is from the leaves of an iris like plant. It is native to wet areas of New Zealand but has been transported throughout the tropics and temperate regions of the world. In North America it serves as an ornamental. The fibers are very long, 3-7 ft. in length, and have a high luster. They are softer and more flexible than abacá and are used mainly for towlines, twine and other forms of cordage and mattings, and sometimes for cloth.
Many species of the genus Sansevieria occur as wild plants in parts of tropical Asia and Africa. These bowstring hemps are herbaceous perennials with basal rosettes of sword like leaves that arise from a creeping rootstalk. The leaves contain a strong white elastic fiber that has been used since ancient times for mats, hammocks, bowstrings and other types of cordage. Wild plants are generally utilized but some species have been cultivated. The fibers are removed by hand or mechanically. Important species include Sansevieria thyrsiflora of tropical Africa, S. roxburghiana of India and S. zeylanica of Sri Lanka. Several species were introduced into North America among which is the Florida Bowstring Hemp, S. longifolia.
This is a term applied to the short, coarse and rough fibers that make up a large part of the husk of coconut fruits, Cocos nucifera. It is the only prominent fiber that is obtained from fruits. Unripe coconuts are soaked in salt water for several months to loosen the fibers. They are then beaten to separate the fibers that are then washed and dried. The product has varied uses. In tropical Asia and Pacific Islands it is the source of Sennit Braid that is used for cables, small cordage and hawsers. Coconut fibers are superior to all others for this purpose because they re very light and elastic and resistant to water. Coir has also been used for brush bristles, doormats, sacks, floor coverings, some textiles, upholstery, and stuffing for the bearings of railroad cars and as a substitute for oakum. Sri Lanka has been the center for commercial production. In Puerto Rico coir was used in horticulture as a substitute for peat.
Pineapple, Ananas comosus, is the source of fibers of great strength and fine qualities. They are shiny white, very durable and flexible and are not harmed by water. When grown for the fiber pineapples are planted closer together and develop longer leaves. The best fibers are gathered from leaves that have not attained their maximum length. Two-year old leaves are usually harvested and the fibers scraped out by hand, which is an expensive process. After drying and combing, the fibers are tied end to end and can be woven. In the Philippines Piña Cloth is one of the most delicate and expensive of fabrics made from these fibers.
Aechmea magdalenae is a plant that resembles pineapple. It is native to the dry alluvial soils from southern Mexico to Ecuador. The long leaves have a fiber of high quality known as Pita Floja or Pita. These fibers are the basis of one of the most ancient and most important native industries in Oaxaca and have also been used in Central America and Colombia. The fibers are 5-8 ft. long, white or light cream colored, lustrous, finer and more flexible than other hard fibers and with a high tensile strength. They are very resistant to salt water so they are used to make fish lines and nets. They are also used for sewing leather.
This fiber is a substitute for jute. It is from Neoglaziovia variegata a bromeliad of the dry, hot arid areas of northeastern Brazil. The leaves yield a soft, flexible, white elastic fiber three times as strong as jute. Caroá is used for rugs, sacks, textiles, cordage, twine and paper.
Brushes, brooms and whisks are made from various vegetable fibers. These fibers need to be strong, stiff and elastic with a high flexibility. Sometimes whole twigs, fine stems or roots are used, or the fibers are secured from leafstalks. Several important brush fibers are as follows:
A few species of palms that grow in tropical America and Africa are the source of brush fibers called commercially Piassava, Piassaba or Bass Fiber. These trees have leaf stalks or leaf sheaths that yield the stiff, coarse, brown or black fibers in making brushes for sweeping large areas such as sidewalks and streets
West African Piassava is obtained from a wine palm, Raphia vinifera that grows in profusion in the tidal bayous and creeks of Liberia and other parts of West Africa. The leafstalks are retted and the bundles beaten. The long fibers are used to make mats and brushes. A wine is fermented from the palm tree sap.
Brazilian Piassava is from two species of palm found in profusion in the lowlands of the Amazon and Orinoco regions. Attalea funifera is the source of Bahia Piassava. The fibers are wiry, stiff and brown and almost like bristles. They are removed from the swollen bases of the leafstalks with an ax. They have been used primarily for street-cleaning machine brushes because the fibers are very durable and retain their resiliency even when wet. Para Piassava fibers are formed on the margins of the leaf petioles of Leopoldinia piassaba. They are used not only for brushes and brooms but also for hats, baskets and ropes.
Some other coarse fibers such as Palmyra and Kittul Fiber are classed as piassava in commerce. Palmyra Fiber is from the Palmyra palm, Borassus flabellifer, of the East Indies. This palm is one of the most useful as all parts of the plant are used for some purpose. The fibers are made into twine, paper, rope and machine brushes. Kittul Fiber is finer, softer and more pliable. It is obtained from the leaf sheaths of the toddy palm, Caryota urens, of Sri Lanka and the East Indies. The black bristles are made into strong ropes or into soft brushes. They also are substitutes for horsehair and oakum.
Cabbage palm, Sabal palmetto, of coastal southeastern North America yields a valuable fiber called Palmetto Fiber. The highest-grade fiber is obtained from young leaf stalks that are still in the bud. Coarser fibers come from mature leaves or the bases of old leaf stalks surrounding the bud. There was one an industry in Florida that processed this fiber for use as a substitute for palmyra in brushes. Palmetto fibers are reddish tan in color and 8-20 in. long. The bud of the palm is edible and the roots contain tannin.
The sorghum, Sorghum vulgare var. technicum, differs from other sorghums by having a panicle with long straight branches. This inflorescence or seed head is the “brush” that is made into brooms. A dwarf variety exists that furnishes fiber for whiskbrooms, while the normal sized variety is used for carpet brooms. Harvest is before the end of flowering season by cutting the stems a few inches below the head. The heads are sorted, threshed and dried. Another species, Spartina spartinae, is a native grass of the southern Coastal Plain from Florida to Mexico that has been used in combination with the sorghum. Brooms often consist of as much as 50 percent Spartina surrounded by broomcorn.
Broomroot or Zacaton, Muhlenbergia macroura, is used to manufacture cheaper brushes. The plant is a grass found from Texas to Central America, especially in the mountainous regions of Mexico. It is a perennial with tufted wiry culms and coarse roots. The roots are the plant part utilized. They are harvested year-round, washed, cleaned and dried. They are then cut from the tops, graded according to quality, length and color and baled for export.
There are relatively few materials that are manufactured for plaited or coarsely woven articles. The raw materials include the rushes, stems of reeds, willows, bamboo, grasses, rattan and leaves and roots. They are used entirely or split. They are woven or twisted together in a simple manner and made into sandals, mats, hats, matting, screens, chair seats, baskets, etc.
In many parts of the Eastern Hemisphere, rice, barley, wheat and rye are grown for the purpose of making braids or straw plaits for hats. The plants are grown close together so that they will have few leaves, and they are harvested before they mature. The stems are split lengthwise before plaiting. The Leghorn Hats and Tuscan Hats of Italy are some of the best of the straw hats.
Panama Hats are made from the leaves of Toquilla, Carludovica palmata, a stem less, palm like plant that grows wild in the forests from southern Mexico to Peru. It has been cultivated in Ecuador and parts of Colombia. The Panama hat industry is concentrated in Ecuador. Young leaves are collected while they are still folded in the bud and treated with hot water. The coarse veins are removed and the plaits are separated and split lengthwise into slender strips that are slowly dried and bleached. They gradually roll inward forming fine cylindrical strands known as Jipijapa. The hats are woven by hand from these strands. About six leaves are necessary to make one hat. The best quality Panama hats are uniform and have a fine texture, are strong, durable and elastic and resistant to water. The Puerto Rican Hats are made from the leaves of the hat palm, Sabal causiarum.
In the Eastern Hemisphere commercial mattings have been made from several rushes, grasses and sedges. Usually the stalks or leaves are used alone, but they may be combined with cotton of hemp. Some of the species utilized are Chinese Mat Grass, Cyperus tegetiformis, and Japanese Mat Rush, Juncus effusus.
The Screw Pines, Pandanus tectorius and P. utilis are important in Southeastern Asia and Oceania for making mats. The leaves of these species are also used for sugar bags, cordage, hats and thatching.
Baskets have been and are continuously being made from an array of plant species worldwide. Roots, stems, leaves and even woody splints have been used. Commercial baskets are usually made from rushes, cereal straw, osiers or willows, and ash or white oak splints. Sweet grass baskets are made from Hierochloe odorata, a common species in lowlands along the coast and Great Lakes. Another important source of basket fiber is the raffia palm, Raffia pedunculata, native to Madagascar. Strips of the lower epidermis of the leaves are the raffia of commerce. The fiber is so soft and silk like that it can be woven. It is especially useful as a tie material for nurseries and gardens.
This includes chair seats, chairs, infant carriages, hampers and other light articles of furniture. Willows, rattan and bamboo are the main plants used.
Rattan is obtained from several species of climbing palms, Calamus spp., that grow in the humid forests of the East Indies and other parts of tropical Asia. The stems of these plants are long, strong, flexible and uniform. They are used either entirely or as splits in Asia for furniture, canes, baskets and other items. A considerable quantity of rattan is exported for making furniture.
Bamboos occur in most tropical areas, but they are especially abundant in the monsoon regions of Eastern Asia. They are the largest of the grasses with woody stems that sometimes reach one foot in diameter and a height of over 10 feet. There are many species in the families Arundinaria, Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Gigantochloa, Phyllostachys, and other genera. The stems are used for all kinds of construction in areas where these plants grow. Exported bamboo is used in the manufacture of furniture, fishing rods and implements of various kinds. Bamboo splits are made into baskets and brushes.
In the Western Hemisphere bamboos have not been extensively utilized. Guadua angustifolia is a species with very strong culms and has been used in Ecuador to make furniture and in house construction.
Many plant fibers have been used to stuff pillows, cushions, furniture, mattresses, etc. They are also used to caulk the seams of vessels, in the making of staff for buildings, as stiffening for plaster, packing for bulkheads and machine bearings, and for the protection of delicate objects during shipment. Synthetic materials frequently take the place of these long used products, but in some ways they retain some superiority. Surface fibers are commonly used for stuffing because their staples are too short to be spun and thus are not valued in the textile industry. Bast fibers are too costly, and hard fibers are frequently too stiff and coarse. The silk cottons are the most important source for stuffing.
This is the most popular silk cotton and most valuable of all the stuffing substances. Kapok is the floss produced in the pods of the kapok tree, Ceiba pentandra. Originally confined to the American tropics, it is now found worldwide. It is an irregular tree, 50-100 ft. tall, with a buttressed base and weird growth habit. It grows rapidly and begins to bare when only 15 ft. tall. A mature tree can produce more than 600 pods and from 6-10 lbs. of the cottony fibers. Pods are clipped from the branches and opened. The floss is removed and the seeds separated by centrifugal force. The floss is 1/2-1 1/2 in. long and whitish, yellowish or brownish in color. It is very fluffy, light and elastic and is thus an ideal stuffing material for mattresses and pillows. The fibers have a low specific gravity. They are five times more buoyant than cork and are impervious to water. Therefore, kapok is valuable as a filling for life preservers, cushions, portable pontoons, etc. Its low thermal conductivity and its high ability to absorb sound make kapok an excellent material for insulating small refrigerators and for soundproofing rooms. It has also been used for the linings of sleeping bags, gloves for handling dry ice and in the tropics as surgical dressings. Kapok seeds have 45 percent fatty oil that is extracted and used for soap and food.
There are a number of other plants with seed hairs or floss that can be used as a substitute for kapok. The Red Silk Cotton Tree or Simal, Salmalia malabarica, is a very large ornamental tree. It supplies reddish floss known as Indian Kapok that has been important as a stuffing in India for centuries. The White Silk Cotton Tree, Cochlospermum religiosum, yields a fiber of some importance. This handsome tree is native to India but is now widespread in the world tropics. It is also one source of Kadaya Gum.
Madar, Calotropis gigantea, and the related Akund, Calotropis procera, are shrubs native to Southern Asia and Africa that produce a silk of some importance. Although inferior to kapok, this substance is often used in mixtures with kapok.
The Pochotes of Mexico, Ceiba aesculifolia, C. acuminata, etc., yield a silk cotton almost equal to kapok in buoyancy and resiliency. Palo Borracho, Chorisia insignis, and Samohu, Chorisia speciosa, of South America yield large amounts of a glossy, white silk cotton with properties similar to kapok.
<bot183> Pink-flowering Floss Silk Tree [Chorisia speciosa], Concordia, Argentina
All of the milkweeds have silky hairs on their seeds and several species are a source of stuffing materials. Milkweed floss is one of the lightest materials. it is very buoyant and a perfect insulator. It was used during World War II as a substitute for kapok. The pods contain oil and a wax that may have future applications. Some species yield textile fibers. In North America, Asclepias syriaca and A. incarnata produce abundant floss. In the Neotropics, A. curassavica has some value.
There are innumerable plants and fibers that have use as filling materials. Included are cereal straw, cornhusks, Spanish Moss and Crin Végétal.
Spanish Moss, Tillandsia usneoides, is a conspicuous tree epiphyte in Southeastern North America. This is an excellent substitute for horsehair after it is processed. The plant is pulled from the trees with rakes or hooks, or it is collected from the ground or water. It is then fermented in order to rot off the gray outer covering and ginned to remove impurities. The prepared fiber is brown or black, lustrous and very resilient. It has been used in upholstery and for automobile cushions.
Crin Végétal. Chamaerop humilis a dwarf fan palm of Northern Africa and the Mediterranean region in which the leaves have shredded and twisted fibers. These have been used as stuffing material.
Some trees have basts with tough interlacing fibers that can be extracted from the bark in layers or sheets and can then be pounded into rough substitutes for cloth. Tapa Cloth is one of these as it once constituted the main clothing in Polynesia and parts of Eastern Asia. The material is obtained from the bark of the paper mulberry, Broussonetia papyrifera. Strips of bark are peeled from the trunk and the outer coating is scraped away. After soaking in water and cleaning these strips are placed on a hardwood log and pounded with a mallet. Overlapping the edges and beating them together unite the individual strips. The finished product varies according to thickness from muslin like material to one of leather. Tapa cloth is frequently dyed.
Similar bark cloths have been manufactured from different sources since antiquity. In South America the Amerindians used the Tauary, Couratari tauari, and other species of the same genus. In Mozambique the wild fig, Ficus nekbudu, was used as a source of Mutshu Cloth. The Upas Tree, Antiaris toxicaria, of Sri Lanka furnishes a bark cloth. it is also the source of an important poison used with arrows.
Lace Bark is the produce of Lagetta lintearia, a small tree of Jamaica. The inner bark is removed in sheets and can be stretched into a lacelike material with pentagonal meshes. It is suitable as a textile and ornament.
Cuba Bast is from Hibiscus elatus, a small bushy tree of the West Indies. The inner bark is removed in long ribbon-like strips that have been used in millinery and for tying cigars.
The vegetable sponges, Luffa cylindrica and L. acutangula, yield a unique fiber. These are climbing cucumbers of the tropics that bear edible fruits containing a lacy network of stiff curled fibers. This material is extracted by retting in water. After cleaning it is used for making hats, for washing and scouring machinery, in certain types of oil filters and as a substitute for bath sponges. A large amount of this material used to be exported by Japan.
The manufacture of paper requires the use of cellulose present in plant fibers. This subject is discussed under Forest Products
The artificial fibers in use in the textile industry are mostly organic in nature, with synthetic glass fibers being the exception. The organic materials utilized are cellulose, plant and animal proteins, and synthetic resins, such as nylon that is made from soft coal, water and air. The cellulose fibers are discussed under Forest Products, while the protein fibers of only minor importance. Although they have many of the general properties of wool, their low strength when wet is a serious detriment. Soybeans, corn and peanuts are the main plant sources of protein fibers.
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water rice-based systems and wetlands to mangrove and coastal strips used primarily for fishing.
Much irrigation (mainly rice) is practised in the coastal low-lying areas where drainage is often difficult due to lack of slope.
Assessment of the impacts of the tsunami will address the damage by flooding (duration), erosion, scouring, deposition and salinity in these fragile tropical agro-ecosystems.
This will require mapping the aquatic and agro-ecosystems and diagnosing the physical impact of the tsunami (extent, severity and type).
High resolution global irrigation maps show no irrigation in coastal areas in Aceh and North Sumatra, none or almost none in Thailand's affected areas.
This suggests a concentration of likely effects to irrigated rice production in South-Eastern India, West Coast and the middle of Southern Coast of Sri Lanka. Very roughly, the coastline of the affected areas would be 700 to 800 km in Sri Lanka, 2000 km in Aceh, and 2000 km in South-east India.
Areas of intervention
Assessment of the land and water resources and agriculture-related damages
Appraisal and mapping of the different types, extent and severity of damages
Identification and prioritisation of the types of rehabilitation/intervention (short, medium and long term)
Estimates of the costs of the proposed rehabilitation/interventions
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- Safe chemical and equipment
- Safe and security
- Always available
- Professional uniforms
There are thousands of varieties of cockroaches, but only about thirty of them can comfortably live with humans. The four main species of pests in the United States are the American, German, Asian, and Oriental cockroaches. (These names have little bearing on origin?the American roach was introduced to the United States from Africa as early as 1625). Roaches vary in size from about 1/2" (German), up to 2" (American). Ironically in America, the species that is most common in homes is the German variety.
German roaches prefer warm, moist environments, particularly kitchens, boiler rooms and heating systems in large buildings. They can swim, fly (although they rarely do), climb smooth surfaces (including the ceiling) easily and hide in inaccessible places. They are brown to dark brown in color and can be found all over the world. This species increases in population at a very rapid rate: a single female and her offspring can produce over 30,000 individuals in a year. This is the roach that roach exterminators are most often called on to eliminate. They are resilient and best able to withstand home roach control products.
The American roach is the species that people find most repulsive. It is the largest of these common species and can easily reach two inches in length. We see these roaches crawling over garbage and other waste, skittering out of sight when the light is turned on, interrupting their feeding activities. They access buildings and contaminate food, shed skin, deposit waste and saliva and create an unpleasant odor when enough gather. They prefer dark, moist, warm areas. American cockroaches are found in basements, boiler rooms, and laundry rooms. The adult American roach is reddish brown in appearance with a pale-brown or yellow band behind the head.
Oriental (or Common) Cockroaches
Oriental cockroaches are very dark brown to shiny black in color and roughly an inch to 1 and 1/2 inches in length. They are often thought of as a water bug or black beetle. They have wings but cannot fly. These pests like to live outdoors when the weather is warm, but they move indoors during extremes of heat, cold or drought. They like garbage storage areas, basements and crawl spaces, spaces between the soil and building foundations, the undersides of stoops and sidewalks, landscaping mulches, water meters, basements and their floor drains, and other such moist places. These cockroaches frequently live in floor drains that drain directly outside; these drains are also used as entrances to homes. The Oriental roach prefers starchy food, and builds up populations around garbage cans. They tolerate lower temperature ranges than other roaches and may winter in rock walls or such protected sites. These cockroaches are more sensitive to lack of water than other roaches.
Asian cockroaches are essentially outdoor roaches; their populations are seasonal. They have successfully colonized urban neighborhoods after being introduced into Tampa, Florida. They live outside and gather under fallen leaves and ground cover. They favor shady, moist areas, and swarm under trees. Unlike most roaches, they are attracted to light. Adults fly to lighted windows, doors, yard lights, and parking lot lights at dusk. From these points they often crawl into buildings or fly to indoor room lights. Asian cockroaches begin building up their population in spring, and produce several generations through the summer. They are limited to warm, moist regions and may become a serious problem in areas of the United States Gulf Coast area where temperate climate conditions allow for population increases earlier in the year.
Look at further information we provide about getting rid of roaches, roach extermination, cockroach control, bed bugs, pest control services, termites, common pests, and animal control services, or take a look at our blog for recent news articles about cockroach identification.
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Cuba: Chinese Food and a Festival
Chinese Food in Central and South America
Spring Volume: 2002 Issue: 9(1) page(s): 13, 14, 16, 17, and 20
To understand how Chinese food came to Cuba, a little history is important. Long before Columbus knew anything about Cuba, the native Arawak people had developed a successful civilization. Columbus blundered upon the island in 1492, and by the early 1500's Spain had taken over killing natives and importing Africans as slaves for the sugar cane industry. Spain held firm until 1898 when Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders liberated Cuba. Sadly, the good feelings this engendered between the United States and Cuba soon dissipated. By 1963, things had soured so much that an embargo was imposed.
From 1847 through 1883, one hundred fifty thousand Chinese migrant workers were shipped to Cuban ports to replace freed African slaves and their descendants. The first boatload of Chinese arrived in Havana harbor on June 3, 1847. Immigrants continued to come, from Guangdong, Fujian, Haikou, Macao, and Hong Kong, when it was called Ziang gang. Chinese were brought to Cuba in ships owned by France, Spain, England, North American, Portugal, Holland, Russia, and a handful of other countries. By the 1860's, some thirty thousand Chinese arrived annually. In 1877 immigration peaked at forty thousand men, but had slipped to five thousand by 1970. Only a handful of Chinese move to Cuba these days.
The earliest Chinese immigrants to Cuba lived under worse conditions than the African slaves and thay faced near constant and inhumane exploitation. In another wave, some five thousand Chinese came after attempting to strike it rich in California’s gold rush. Failure to find gold was one reason they left the Pacific Coast. Chinese men had also been victimized by the United States xenophobia; and they were often denounced by Cuba’s first President, Jose Marti. Chinese immigrants were a steady source of cheap labor. They continued entering Cuba through the first decades of the 20th century. They usually settled in urban areas of Cuba and came to be known as hard workers and enterprising traders. Commonly employed at sugar cane plantations, the Chinese men had to either intermarry with African or Creole women, or stay single. Many could not stand the harsh new world and left or committed suicide. Others simply waited it out until their eight-year contracts expired, knowing they could never return to China. Quite a few joined the Cuban liberation movement. They achieved varying ranks in the military and they actively participated in the Cuban War of Emancipation.
During the end of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries, many Chinese workers gained their freedom and began serious cultural resurgence efforts by forming Chinese associations. These associations provided social infrastructure, cemeteries, drug stores, theaters, homes for aged, banks, newspapers, and more. Chinese people had traditionally created associations delineated by their territory of origin, but the associations in Cuba were free to center around other ties, such as economics, arts, sports, political ideas either public or secret, or the need for national representation. Because the immigrants were nearly always male, most marriages that took place were between a Chinese father and Cuban born mother. Most Cubans learned early to spot the phenotypical diversity among Cuban people of Chinese origin.
By 1980, there were more than four thousand Cantonese living in Cuba, but in 2002, there are only three hundred pure-blooded Chinese Cubans, half living in Havana, and most of them elderly. Major associations not in Havana’s Barrio Chino are spread across Cuba in Santa Clara, Camaguey, Crego de Avila, Santiago de Cuba, and Guantanamo. Still, Chinese blood is highly diffused throughout tens of thousands of Cubans, many of whom are called, in a non-derogatory manner, 'Chino' or 'China.'
Chinese culture continues to permeate many aspects of life in Cuba today. Any libertine knows that music is right up there with rum and cigars as Cuba’s finest products, but many are unaware that Cuba’s traditional music groups use three instruments that were first imported by the Chinese: the cornet, the Chinese box, and a drum Cubans call tambares, the same drum used in the traditional Chinese lion dance. In the visual arts, Wilfredo Lam, arguably Cuba’s most famous international artist, is typically Cuban, in that he has a Cuban mother and a Chinese father, with some African blood as well, presumably on his mother’s side. Like many Cubans, Lam is honest about his mixed ancestry.
Early Chinese settlers introduced, cultivated, and helped assimilate into the Cuban diet a number of new vegetables, including pumpkin, cabbage, long green beans, and cucumber. Indeed, in Havana’s marketplace, Mercado Agropecuario Egido on Avenida de Belgica, the only green beans are the very long Chinese variety often called 'snake beans.' Roughly the size of a one hundred fifty seat outdoor café, it is hard to fathom how Cuba’s main food market has no more than fifty foodstuffs.
It seems that while there is an adequate amount of food to feed Cuba’s eleven million people, there is no overabundance of comestibles and severely curtailed selection. The gleam of Havana as a mid-20th century paradise, the world’s hottest nightspot, and a top cruise ship destination for international jet setters, is gone, nothing more than memories and a faded swizzle stick or two. Lobster is now endangered, a result of slaughter for tourist plates or export for hard currency, yet it is still available. We ate a luscious home-cooked Cuban Lobster Enchilada in a deep and delicate tomato and aji cachucha sauce. Sea turtles have already been eaten into near extinction and rare to see on menus although during the 1970's large tour groups were fed turtle steak regularly.
Restaurants, snack bars, and markets alike might have one, two, three or six offerings on a given day. Small signs are posted in racks that can advertise a maximum of eight items. People wait in long lines for things like fresh bread and newspapers, some only to sell it to those who can afford to pay a little extra not to have to wait in line. We did not see anyone starving but neither did we see any food going to waste. It has been a long time since Cubans have enjoyed the full marketplaces they enjoyed when things were flush. There no longer exists the diverse larder of ingredients needed to ignite Cuba’s rich international culinary heritage, and it has been so long that many people would not know nor recall the proper taste of a given dish. It is sad to see Cuba’s superb culinary tradition wither.
Cuba’s countryside remains gorgeous, breathtaking. Each province boasts natural beauties, perhaps none as spectacular as Pinar Del Rio, where royal palms sway mightily in fertile valleys ringed by craggy, weather-beaten mountain ranges. Cuba has many fruit orchards with trees of Chinese origin, like the Chinese orange, of which nineteen types exist in Cuba. The traditional fruit hawker’s cry of 'Naranjas China dulce' (sweet Chinese oranges) is part of the Cuban oral tradition. Nearly all the fruit we ate, however, was less than good. How can guavas (guayaba), mangos, soursop (guanábana), and papaya (called fruta bomba because 'papaya' has become slang for female anatomy) from a tropical clime taste so unsatisfying--is it a lack of proper care or lack of good fertilizer?
There are two types of Chinese gunip trees now common in Cuba, Oleaginous trees like the Chinese Oil Tree, used in industries, and the Lauraceous species like the Chinese Cinnamon tree which is ornamental, aromatic, and medicinal. Also popular are delicate blue Chinese violets, known as Pensamiento Chino or Chinese thought, the traditional Chinese minimalist symbol of meditation and celestial movement.
Information about the history of Chinese in Cuba is not readily available. For example, the Lonely Planet guidebook to Cuba cites nothing Chinese in its index or map, although it does contain some tidbits corroborating the extensive data gleaned from Chinese Presence in Cuba, a fact, map, and graph-laden brochure prepared by Jesus Guanche Perez. The film: 'Ancestors in the Americas: Coolies, Sailors, Settlers,' a film by Loni Ding, and a small green book Los Chinos en Cuba provide more information, as does Mis Imagenes by Mercedes Crespo Villate. This Cuban Chinese lady writes about the Chinese presence in Cuba, her motivations, and the reasons for Chinese immigration. She discusses Cuban reactions to the pobre culis or poor coolies. The book has information on the Cuban War of Independence from Spain, including lists of Chinese participants, as well as copies of documents, photographs, a bibliography, and it has information about Chinese culture in general.
In his informative brochure, Dr. Perez asks: “What are the reasons why we Cuban people assume this millenary heritage as a patrimony for ourselves” and then answers his own question by talking about China’s 'five virtues' of: Kindness, honesty, decorousness, wisdom, and faithfulness. Perhaps things Chinese quickly intimated themselves into Cuban civilization because both peoples share these universal values of human duty.
Cuba, a nation of mixed ancestry, has developed a 'native' cuisine flavored with foods imported from China, Africa, and places in the Caribbean. Africans brought their traditional starch known as fufu. It is made from plantains. In the 19th century, French coffee planters from Haiti brought Congri Orientale with them, a dish of rice cooked with red kidney beans. In Cuba’s vast Oriente region, black beans are substituted for the red kidneys, and the dish is famously renamed Moros y Christianos, a common dish on every Cuban table, every day, and a distant reminder of their colonists.
The two colors in this typical Cuban platter reference the famous war between the White Christian Spaniards and the Black Moors and can be compared to the racial mix of Cuba itself. History and politics in cuisine? We’re definitely in Cuba now. Today, Havana’s Chinatown is concentrated in an area just west of Cuba’s Capitolio Nacional, which is based on the same architectural plans as the U.S. capitol, except larger and grander. The easiest way to find Chinatown is to start at the famous Malecon, the broad ocean-side boulevard that is the last bit of land between Havana and the United States. Turn south at the intersection of Malecon and Avenida Italia, often called by its older name, Avenida Galiano. Walk about ten blocks until you pass a gated park with tall columns painted with Chinese characters and the Spanish words: Barrio China--Playa las Columnas.
The park’s white columns carry inscriptions such as: Lucky, Happiness, Shi Bo Ping Yan (Peace for You), and Sun Yi Shing Long (May Business Prosper Well). On a sunny Saturday in September the gated park was loaded with Cubans whiling away the afternoon around café tables. There was a birthday party where dozens of swankily dressed celebrants danced elegantly to a sixteen-piece son band that played for hours without a break. There is one bottle of soy, and one menu, with a brief history of Chinese in Cuba, shared among some one hundred customers, most of whom were drinking beer, huffing cigars, and snacking on scoops of pitiful fried rice on paper plates or slices of ham flanked by slices of a pickle on the same plates. The summer Havana atmosphere was thick with the feel of a 1953 Buick four-hole Special.
Barrio China de la Habana, alternately called Miramar, Cayo Hueso, and Chinatown, which first began as a neighborhood with residences and trade, then hostelries, and finally restaurants plying international customers, a huge portico inexplicably incised 'Barri Hino' instead of 'Barrio Chino' on Amistad Avenue was the mark of the Western edge of the twelve-square mile Chinese barrio squared in by San Miguel, Estrella and Belascoain.
As far as tourists know, however, Chinatown’s principal, and shortest, street is a few blocks east. Delineated by a small gate and garish red lanterns Calle Cuchillo, angles off of Italia and Zanja, surrounded by San Nicolas, Rayo, and Dragones. Standing out from the rest of Havana like a bright red persimmon amid dusty potatoes, Calle Cuchillo is a true kitsch extravaganza of Chinese dragons, lanterns and silks. In keeping with the Oriental atmosphere, most of Havana’s pet bird merchants operate in Chinatown. On payday, the small shops are flooded with Cubans buying imported umbrellas, hair supplies, toys and other inexpensive plastic items made in China. Daytime, there is a small food market in a curved alley south of there, but even though it’s Chinatown, the offerings are indistinguishable from those at other Cuban markets. On Saturday nights at eight in the evening, one of the associations hosts a Lion Dance, intended more to draw customers than scare away evil spirits.
Here are ten restaurants on the short and narrow artery called Cuchillo, each with its own tout, usually a Cuban in Chinese costume enticing passersby with the basic menu of Chinese food the world over: soup, egg roll, fried rice, and chop suey. There are plenty of traditional Cuban snacks available through tiny windows in and around Chinatown, just like the New York’s Canal Street where hot dog carts circle around the rice and noodle shops to cater to those who are in Chinatown but can not stomach Chinese food.
We learn more about Cuban Chinese culture, and visit the Casa de Arte y Tradicion China at Calle Salucci 313, between Gervasio and Escobar. This big, largely open-air building serves as the center for many Chinese traditional art forms and also is home to the Grupo Promotor Barrio China de la Havana, a kind of Chamber of Commerce for Cuban Chinese. They can direct you to any and all of the current activities in Cuba’s Chinese community and provide excellent maps and brochures highlighting places like Cementerio Chino de la Habana, a very large Chinese-only cemetery in the heart of Havana.
Currently, there are thirteen Chinese associations in Havana, the principal one being Chung Wah. Other large ones are Say Jo Jon Sociedad Wushu Kungfu and Chueng Shan Society. The Long Sai Li Society, which was founded in 1909 for instruction and recreation and is still housed in a restaurant. It is upstairs and hiding behind intricately etched glass doors. There is also a Chinese language newspaper, the Kwong Wah Po Diario Popular.
Lung Sai Li’s Chinese doorman said he had a Cuban mom, a Cantonese dad, and a Spanish grandma. His family’s favorite dish is whole fish steamed with ginger and scallion. Cuban locals invariably say that soups are their favorite Chinese offerings, with Chicken Chop Suey a close second. Fried Rice with black beans and sliced cabbage and chunks of yucca comes in cajitas (hand-cut grey cardboard takeout boxes). These common takeout snacks can be upgraded to a full meal with a fried pork chop and/or greasy gravy made from bits of fried pork. I thought it was Chinese food, since it was being purveyed in Chinatown, but later learned it was the Cuban staple, Moros y Cristianos, which natives know to be best in and around Cuchillo. The black beans are different than the black Chinese fermented soybean, but the two cuisines do share an affinity for hearty beans, white rice, onions, garlic, and other staples that facilitate culinary fusion. Its apparently a solid foundation for the many Cuban-owned Spanish-Chinese restaurants in New York, Miami, and elsewhere.
Intent on tasting standard Chinese Cuban fare, we headed to the Sociedead Regionalista, Chung Shan’s Los Dos Dragones Restaurante y Bar con Comida China Original which is the Chung Shan Regional Society’s Two Dragons Restaurant and Bar with Original Chinese Food. It was upstairs on Calle Dragones no 311 between Rayo and San Nicolas Streets. The grand dining room had seen more glorious days. President Castro had eaten here in mid-century, and there is a prominently displayed photograph of Fidel and compatriots happily chopsticking an authentic looking Chinese spread, complete with Coca Cola.
Two Dragon’s open kitchen was full of a variety of big cast iron pots and pans but there was only a single wok for use by the three Cuban and two Chinese chefs. Every Cuban diner seemed to be eating soup and fried wontons. We worked our waiter hard until he finally relented and allowed us to order a plate of fairly decent bok choy, instead of chop suey vegetables. Tip Pan Chicken turned out to be quite tasty. A giant, flattened, boneless chicken steak, incorporating both breast and thigh was battered and just barely cooked through. To accommodate the steak-loving Cuban palate, the Golden Fried Fillet was kept whole, rather than chopped as is the Chinese tradition. Mixed Ingredient Fried Rice was drier than it looked and overburdened with handfuls of smoked meats, sickly bean sprouts and scallions. Lacking any hint of the flavor of rice it was, to be fair, sustenance.
Costillitas Ahumadas Estilo Oriental or smoked Oriental-style spare ribs were overdone, their smokiness seemed to derive more from repeated re-heatings than from intentional flavoring. The wontons in the soup were the tastiest thing on the table. These delicate noodle packets bore the telltale marks of hand-rolling, but the broth was thin and the other ingredients proved inconsequential. All told, a meal for four cost twenty-one dollars U.S. with the bok choy plate being surprisingly more expensive than the big chicken dish. Both salt and soy are on the tables, as are Italian toothpicks (carezzadente) in a container featuring an image of a Japanese samurai swordsman.
After the sub-par meal, we headed for one of the last macho fortresses, the Partagas Cigar Factory’s private smoking room, where we made the acquaintance of Orlando Quiroga, a gentlemanly septuagenarian who had just published a book, The Art and Mysticism of Habanos (in Cuba, Cuban cigars are called Habanos). While enjoying a Montecristo Number 4, a perfect afternoon cigar, Mr. Quiroga recalled Chinese influences on his life in Cuba. He spoke about the concepts of Yin and Yang and pointed out the best cigar roller in Cuba who is nicknamed Chinita, (little Chinese girl) even though she is a grown and a rather large Filipina woman.
Mr. Quiroga recalled the day when thousands of Chinese flooded the streets of Havana to celebrate Chiang Kai Shek’s victory. He believes that fried rice is not originally Chinese, and knew about the taste differences between white, yellow, and brown-colored fried rice. Quiroga recalled going to see exotic foreign films in the 1950s at the Chinatown theater called Shanghai, which devolved into a pornographic theater before it closed after the Revolution. There was also a Chinese-only movie theater on Zanja Street. There used to be two traditional Chinese herbal medicine shops, one in Chinatown and the other in the Old Havana neighborhood, catering to non-Chinese clientele. Mr. Quiroga discussed the effectiveness of the Chinese metal balls used to relieve stress, the functional qualities of Tiger Balm salve, and said that Cuban hospitals, which offer some of the world’s finest doctors at bargain prices, still use some Chinese methods. He noted how much Cubans love Chinese clothing, antiques, and knick-knacks, as well as ice cream and other Chinese foods. A true epicure, Quiroga’s favorite Chinese dishes are whole fish, and duck in orange sauce. I wish I had asked Quiroga if he’d ever seen Chinese food outside the Barrio, which we did not. Also wonder what he knows about one of the world’s prettiest and fanciest restaurants, Havana’s Café del Oriente. Though they do not serve any thoroughly Chinese foods, this el sittio del gourmet or 'place for gourmets' is worth a visit for the décor alone. The classy and pricey antique wood and stained-glass establishment is located in La Habana Viejo at Oficios 112, at the corner of Amargura, ([email protected]).
Eschew the Westernized offerings at homogenous Chinatown dives like El Pacifico, La Muralla, and Tong Po Lau, a bodeguita or small food shop which specializes in Comida China Sabor y Magia or 'Chinese food, flavor and magic' and features the Masonic logo on its business card. Instead, head for Havana’s only Chinese restaurant with over one hundred dishes. Called Tien Tan, it is on Cuchillo no 17, between Zanja and san Nicolas, and is open 11 to 11 daily ([email protected]). On the walk through the kitchen to the toilet, the one Chinese chef among nine kitchen workers did not respond to Ni Hao Ma the classic 'Hi, how are you' in Chinese. Even though it is the best of the Barrio, Tien Tan seems typically Cuban in its sullen resolve not to live up to its full potential.
In keeping with the public’s wish to be 'transported' to exotic Asia, Tien Tan is full of tacky Chinese décor mixed with photos of local VIPS. Sandalwood incense is sold and the small pass through window from the kitchen to the dining room plays stereotypical 'ching chong' Chinese music until the orders are picked up. Chefs on break eat fresh spinach and rice with chopsticks while most of the patrons are cradling soup with Chinese porcelain spoons and stabbing at fried wontons with forks.
Easily the most authentic Chinese restaurant in Havana, we plunged into Tien Tan’s fresh spinach which, while slightly immature, was earthy and perfectly cooked with fresh garlic. The rice tasted like it had been reheated a second time but the Seafood Meat Soup had broad flavor developed from long cooking. The multi-layered soup was authentic and complex, but unfortunately the ingredients had been overcooked to achieve the heady broth. A plate of Chinese ravioli was homemade, their perfect skin much better than their lifeless filling. Both the Wonton Soup and the Special Chinese Soups (which appear to be the same except the Special soup has egg and black mushroom) were meals in a bowl. The big soups harbored all the flavors of wonton, just without the wrapper. Pig’s kidney with green onion and hot pepper was tasty but very salty. Fried Noodles with Fish were greasy and plain. A mound of Fried Rice with Meat and Scallions was the same dry starch that has somehow insinuated itself into every Cuban Chinese restaurant.
On a second visit, a Chinese chef from Shanghai helped us order. He suggested a thick and fine hot and sour soup, spicy shrimp, and a plate of mixed Chinese vegetables. Loads of small shrimps fought for space with scallions, red and green peppers and decoratively cut carrots and turnip. The dish was very spicy with la chew jow (Chinese hot pepper oil) but suffered from a distinct lack of ginger flavor. The mixed vegetable dish was equally middle-of-the-road, with overcooked bok choy, string beans, bean sprouts, and tasty little wads of spinach. The waitress, typically Cuban in that she was open to discussing her ancestry with strangers, said her mother’s father was from Guangdong; her father’s mother was half-Spanish and half-Japanese but Cuban by birth. So she happily described herself as having a Japanese head, a Chinese body and a Cuban heart.
The menu from Tien Tan, The Temple of Heaven, Restaurant, has a photo of a group of Chinese-Cubans sitting in front of the restaurant, and claims to be "a genuine restaurant of national flavor. There are more than one hundred different dishes cooked the Chinese way with Chinese seasonings. The special dishes are more delicious cooking by Chinese cookers. Please choose and taste. Wish you are satisfied by our service.” The Chinese, Spanish and English menu poetically translate the Spanish word for appetizer, apertivos as 'Whet the appetite.' All of the platos familiars category, or their 'economic dishes,' are soups. The traditional dairy-free Chinese Congee is mislabeled Cremas Chinas in Spanish but called 'Chinese Thick Soup' in English. The most interesting desert is a Canoa China or 'Chinese Canoe' and consists of an oval-shaped flan filled with ice cream and fruits. The bar features a Mai Tai like drink, 'Coctel Tien Tan' as well as imported Qing Dao and local Tinimes beer. Chop sticks are available, but only on request, and there is a charge for rice and tea.
Tien Tan must be Cuba’s only Chinese location listing specialty items such as frog’s legs, fish balls, and lamb. The most interesting category on the menu, which consists mainly of Cantonese and Shanghai dishes with a few royal Beijing options, is the Solo Reservar column of foods available only by 'subscription,' meaning they must be ordered three days in advance. These offerings include Fried Chicken Integrity with Eight Eatables (treasures); Stewed Meat with red color and sweet; Stewed Pigs--their uppermost part of leg with soy sauce; Sauteed Dofu Chilli Sauce or Sea-foods or Meat and Black Mushroom; Savoury and Crispy Duck; Integrity Duck Soup with orange skin and soy sauce; Stewed Red Duck with sweet sauce special; and Stewed Integrity Duck with Eight Eatables.
On December 7, 2001 The New York Times reported delivery of the first of several planned shipments of goods from the nited States to be purchased by Cuba since embargo was imposed nearly forty years ago. The Cuban government paid thirty million dollars for meat and grain, including fifty-five million pounds of corn, in a purchase made possible by a 2000 Congressional legislation exempting food and medicine from the still-active 1963 trade embargo. John Kavulich II, president of the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, feels this was more of a political than economic purchase, as Cuba could have gotten the same goods for less money and with enhanced delivery from other countries. Since 1963, President Fidel Castro had always insisted that Cuba would not buy 'even a grain of rice' under the stringent terms of the embargo. His country has suffered greatly, blaming the U.S. for shortages in food, milk and medicine. Cuban officials insist that this recent purchase was a one-time emergency measure necessary after this October’s devastating Hurricane Michele destroyed crops and housing. U.S. officials warn agricultural companies that Cuba, which cannot place its famous cigars and rums in the Fifty States, does not have the cash for continued purchases, and feel that the purchase is a sign of Cuba’s severely withered economy. Above all, and contrary to President Bush’s tough stance, Cuba wants the embargo to end.
After the revolution, most upper class Chinese left Cuba for the United States and elsewhere, leaving behind lesser educated Chinese who may be kind and good but do not have modern education or business acumen. Time has marched on, but most things cultural remain mired in pre-1959 torpor. There is no contemporary exchange with China, so Chinese nationals in Cuba are ignorant of China’s current status, and Mainland Chinese thinking is foreign to them. Still, the Cubans have muy respeto los Chineses or much respect for the Chinese. In America, even rich Chinese are somehow considered second-class citizens and poor Chinese are relegated to third or fourth class, but in Cuba even the poor Chinese are considered first class citizens. The utter lack of racism and the ability to talk openly about skin color and race, are two of Cuba’s most endearing characteristics.
Newcomers to New York are incredulous when they hear of Chinese Cuban restaurants, thinking it an improbable combination. No Cuban, however, would have such qualms about two kinds of black beans on one menu. It was only after visiting Cuba that this New Yorker realized that Broadway Cuban-Chinese haunts like La Victoria China were not named after a Chinese gal called Victoria, but rather named in honor of Fidel’s victorious revolution.
There used to be a restaurant on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, the world’s most diverse neighborhood, called La Isla (The Island). They served Chinese, Polynesian, Spanish, Dominican, and other national dishes under one roof. I always thought their name referred to the islands from which their various cuisines originated. After visiting Havana, however, it became clear that all of these cuisines had long ago begun to rub shoulders in one of the world’s most diverse countries, Cuba, known to its natives as, quite simply, La Isla.
In a country with next to no economy, thousands of locals line up for inexpensive treats on Sunday nights in an entire park devoted to selling ice cream. Doctors and teachers are the highest paid citizens, earning no more than twenty or thirty US dollars per month. Socialized education and medicine is first rate in Cuba, but most people will never have enough money to visit other parts of the world. Surely, all Cubans have heard about Chinese food, but most have never experienced its taste. Pilo, an affable and highly motivated high school English teacher from San Diego de Los Banos, a village of three thousand known for medicinal baths and tobacco, summed it up best when he said, with great wonderment in his voice, “I never had the pleasure of eating in a Chinese restaurant. I want to but I cannot. I hear they have this amazing thing called Fried Rice.”
Now that you have read this article, perhaps Flavor and Fortune has enticed you to head for Havana. There could be no better time than May 30th through June 3, 2002, for the Festival Des Chinos De Ultramar, known in English as 'The Fifth Festival Chinese Over The Seas.' Registration is not without its costs. Participants need to shell out US$120.00, their companions pay only US$80:00. This includes: free access to all events, welcome cocktail, lunches, receptions and closing, presentation of Chinese arts and traditions, sight seeing around historical, cultural and amusing places, and free access to the Fair. If anyone does go, Flavor and Fortune wants to hear about your experiences there; I do, too.
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Copyright (c) 1994-2013 by ISACC, all rights reserved
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A thorough critique of the genus in Florida, by Florida firebush expert Roger L. Hammer
Butterflies and hummingbirds are constant reminders of why gardeners who live in southern and coastal Central Florida cultivate our native Firebush (Hamelia patens var. patens). This ever-blooming shrub or small tree (to 15′) seems to always have butterflies around the flowers. Hummingbirds, bees, and wasps frequent the flowers as well. As an added bonus, fruit-eating birds such as mockingbirds, catbirds, and blue-headed vireos savor the small purple fruits, and the leaves serve as larval food for the Pluto Sphinx, a hummingbird-like moth that can be seen visiting the blossoms at dusk, or laying eggs on the leaves.
Florida’s native Firebush has many horticultural attributes, but it is decidedly cold sensitive and can only be cultivated successfully outdoors in USDA Zones 10, 11, and the warmer portions of Zone 9. In Zone 8 northward it will be killed in winter, so it is sometimes grown in those colder regions as an annual. The broadly lanceolate leaves are in whorls of 3-4 (typically 3) and are often tinged with red, especially when grown in full sun. The leaves and young stems are covered with appressed (flattened) hairs. Narrow, tubular, orange-red flowers are in terminal and axillary clusters, each flower ranging from 1/2-1″ long and about 1/8″ wide. The flowers can be yellowish when in bud, turning orange after opening, and then orange-red once they are pollinated – but the dominant color on open flowers is typically red, or orange-red.
Hamelia patens var. patens has the widest natural range of any other species in the genus. It occurs from Marion County in Florida south through the Florida Keys, the West Indies, and Mexico into South America. Its distribution in South America is mostly from Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador to Peru, with isolated populations in Paraguay, Bolivia, Brazil, and Argentina. It is regarded as one of the most common shrubs in tropical America and is the only member of the genus native to Florida and the Bahamas.
Hamelia is a small genus of 16 species with a mostly tropical American distribution and commemorates French botanist Henri Louis DuHamel de Monceau (1700-1782). The name means “spreading,” alluding to the growth habit.
Sometime in the mid-1980s, a non-native variety of Hamelia patens was introduced into the Florida nursery trade, but, oddly enough, the material came from a botanical garden in Pretoria, South Africa. The plant quickly became popular under the misnomer Hamelia patens ‘African’ or “African Firebush,” and erroneously sold as a Florida native by many nurseries and garden centers throughout the state. Its correct botanical name is Hamelia patens var. glabra, which has a natural range that encompasses extreme southern Mexico through Central America and into northern South America, as well as Trinidad and Tobago. As the name glabra implies, the leaves are glabrous (without hairs) and are whorled in groups of 3-4 (typically 4). The flowers of this variety are mostly yellow with a reddish orange base, often with thin red lines along the outside of the floral tube. By examining the bottom of a leaf through a magnifying lens, small hairs on the veins are visible, but the leaf blade is essentially smooth.
Hamelia patens var. glabra is also sold under the trade name ‘Firefly,’ and this cultivar is advertised as having slightly smaller leaves.
Quite a number of Florida nurseries offer Hamelia patens ‘Compacta’ and there is much confusion involving this cultivar name. Some nurseries offer a variety of Hamelia patens var. patens with a rounded, compact growth form and dark red flowers. All Native LLC offers this form under the trademark name ‘Calusa.’ Other nurseries, both in Florida and on the Internet, offer a compact version of Hamelia patens var. glabra, with its typical orange-based yellow flowers, and refer to it as ‘Compacta’ as well. It is also sold as “Dwarf Firebush,” even though the plant may eventually exceed eight feet in height unless it is pruned. A large number of Florida nurseries also offer Hamelia nodosa as “Dwarf Firebush” but this is nothing more than a botanical synonym of Hamelia patens var. glabra.
Another species that has become popular in the nursery trade is Hamelia cuprea, which is advertised by many Florida nurseries as “Bahama Firebush.” This common name is another misnomer because Hamelia cuprea does not occur in the Bahamas. It is native to Jamaica, Cuba, Haiti, and the Cayman Islands. Perhaps “Antillean Firebush” would be a more appropriate common name. This very ornamental small tree (to 20′) has glossy, light green or copper-colored (cuprea means “coppery”) elliptic leaves in whorls of 3, which average 3″ long and 1 1/2″ wide. The bell-shaped yellow flowers are mostly 1-1/4″ long and 3/4″ wide, turning reddish orange with age. The flowers have six thin red longitudinal stripes and six reflexed lobes. Bees frequent the flowers along with occasional hummingbirds and butterflies.
To complicate things even further, Hamelia cuprea hybridizes with Hamelia patens, and the hybrids produce flowers that are intermediate between the two species, resembling Hamelia cuprea in color but are much narrower, measuring about 1-1/4″ long and 1/4″ wide.
At present, no other members of the genus are available commercially in Florida although one Florida nursery currently advertises Hamelia macrantha, but this is likely a misidentification of Hamelia cuprea. However, a quick check on the Internet revealed one other Florida nursery advertising Hamelia macrantha with an accompanying photo of a Hamelia cuprea x Hamelia patens hybrid. True Hamelia macrantha is not known to be in Florida. It is a rainforest species native from Costa Rica south through Panama and Colombia to Ecuador. Its flowers are bell-shaped, wider than Hamelia cuprea, and solid yellow.
Whether or not any of the non-native members of this genus will escape into natural areas in Florida and become a problem for resource managers has yet to be seen. Non-native Hamelia patens var. glabra readily escapes from seed around cultivated specimens and may contaminate the gene pool of Florida’s native Firebush through hybridization, so it appears to be the plant to watch, especially with its increasing popularity as a landscape plant in Florida.
Elias, Thomas. 1976. Memoirs of the New York Botanical Garden: A Monograph of the Genus Hamelia (RUBIACEAE); 26(4): 81–144. New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York
About the author: Roger Hammer, is a Miami-Dade County naturalist, author, and photographer. He served as Senior Interpretive Naturalist for Miami-Dade County Parks & Recreation Department for 33 years and has a statewide reputation for botanical knowledge. Roger discovered two new orchids in Florida, now listed as endangered species, has received numerous awards and is a frequent invited speaker at plant-related events, including having twice been the opening ceremony speaker for the World Orchid Conference. He is the author of three FalconGuide® reference books: Everglades Wildflowers, Florida Keys Wildflowers, Everglades National Park, and folding laminated wildflower identification cards for Southeastern Florida, Southwestern Florida, and Central Florida. His books and plant ID cards are available at all major bookstores.
And take a class on great plants for Zones 10-11 on Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2011 in Fort Myers. Click for details and to register.
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Editor’s note: An update from the author has been added to this article on September 20, 2012.
Antarctic sea ice set another record this past week, with the most amount of ice ever recorded on day 256 of the calendar year (September 12 of this leap year). Please, nobody tell the mainstream media or they might have to retract some stories and admit they are misrepresenting scientific data.
National Public Radio (NPR) published an article on its website last month claiming, “Ten years ago, a piece of ice the size of Rhode Island disintegrated and melted in the waters off Antarctica. Two other massive ice shelves along the Antarctic Peninsula had suffered similar fates a few years before. The events became poster children for the effects of global warming. … There’s no question that unusually warm air triggered the final demise of these huge chunks of ice.”
NPR failed to mention anywhere in its article that Antarctic sea ice has been growing since satellites first began measuring the ice 33 years ago and the sea ice has been above the 33-year average throughout 2012.
Indeed, none of the mainstream media are covering this important story. A Google News search of the terms Antarctic, sea ice and record turns up not a single article on the Antarctic sea ice record. Amusingly, page after page of Google News results for Antarctic sea ice record show links to news articles breathlessly spreading fear and warning of calamity because Arctic sea ice recently set a 33-year low.
Sea ice around one pole is shrinking while sea ice around another pole is growing. This sure sounds like a global warming crisis to me.
Update: To provide more perspective on global warming and Antarctica, I would like to update this column with some additional information:
As meteorologist Anthony Watts explains, new data show ice mass is accumulating on the Antarctic continent as well as in the ocean surrounding Antarctica. The new data contradict an assertion by global warming alarmists that the expanding Antarctic sea ice is coming at the expense of a decline in Antarctic continental ice.
The new data also add context to sensationalist media stories about declining ice in small portions of Antarctica, such as portions of West Antarctica and the Antarctic Peninsula (see here, for example). The mainstream media frequently publish stories focusing on ice loss in these two areas, yet the media stories rarely if ever mention that ice is accumulating over the larger area of East Antarctica and that the continent as a whole is gaining snow and ice mass.
Interestingly, a new NASA study finds Antarctica once supported vegetation similar to that of present-day Iceland.
“The southward movements of rain bands associated with a warmer climate in the high-latitude southern hemisphere made the margins of Antarctica less like a polar desert, and more like present-day Iceland,” a co-author of the NASA study reports.
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At various points along the path toward productive nanosystems for molecular manufacturing it would be useful to be able to calculate the properties and reactions of assemblies of atoms of various sizes. Within the domain of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, such information is supplied by the Schrödinger equation, but this can only be solved analytically for the hydrogen atom and ions with only one electron. For larger atoms and molecules, numerical solutions require compromises between computational feasibility and accuracy. Recent work from researchers at Argonne National Laboratory suggests that machine learning can be an efficient alternative to numerical computations. A hat tip to KurzweilAI.net for pointing to this New Scientist article by Lisa Grossman “Molecules from scratch without the fiendish physics“:
A SUITE of artificial intelligence algorithms may become the ultimate chemistry set. Software can now quickly predict a property of molecules from their theoretical structure. Similar advances should allow chemists to design new molecules on computers instead of by lengthy trial-and-error.
Our physical understanding of the macroscopic world is so good that everything from bridges to aircraft can be designed and tested on a computer. There’s no need to make every possible design to figure out which ones work. Microscopic molecules are a different story. “Basically, we are still doing chemistry like Thomas Edison,” says Anatole von Lilienfeld of Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Illinois.
The chief enemy of computer-aided chemical design is the Schrödinger equation. In theory, this mathematical beast can be solved to give the probability that electrons in an atom or molecule will be in certain positions, giving rise to chemical and physical properties.
But because the equation increases in complexity as more electrons and protons are introduced, exact solutions only exist for the simplest systems: the hydrogen atom, composed of one electron and one proton, and the hydrogen molecule, which has two electrons and two protons. …
The researchers developed a machine learning model to calculate the atomisation energy—the energy of all the bonds holding a molecule together and applied it to a database of 7165 small organic molecules of known structure and atomization energy and containing up to seven atoms of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, or sulfur, plus the number of hydrogen atoms necessary to saturate the bonds. These molecules had atomization energies ranging from 800 to 2000 kcal/mol. The model was trained on a subset of 1000 compounds and then used to calculate the energies of the remaining molecules in the database. The results showed a mean error of only 9.9 kcal/mol, comparable to the accuracy of methods based upon the Schrödinger equation, but the computations were done in milliseconds rather than hours. The authors suggest that extensions of their approach might permit rational molecule design or molecular dynamics calculations of systems of atoms undergoing chemical reactions.
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Our main goal is keeping kids safe online while encouraging them to be educated and savvy digital citizens. We realize parents and educators everywhere are concerned about how best to keep their children safe online. Below are some helpful tools to get the conversation started and help both adults and kids better understand the best ways to stay safe and secure online.
Information for Parents to help keep their family safe online.
The nature of evolving technology sees the emergence of new trends and behavior among young people and new efforts by government and industry to combat harmful behaviors. FOSI provides periodic information to keep you informed about these issues.
The Global Resource & Information Directory (GRID) provides information on the state of online safety around the world. On an individual country basis it details online safety initiatives, education and legislation along with a family online safety directory.
FOSI provides a directory detailing point of contact, by country, for the reporting of illegal material found on the Internet.
FOSI provides a compendium of websites covering Internet safety arranged by country.
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BOSTON—According to the American Cancer Society, about one in eight women will develop breast cancer in her lifetime. This year, nearly 40,000 women in the United States will die from the disease. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death for women in the United States, after lung cancer. Erica Mayer, MD, M.P.H., is a breast cancer expert at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She says there are at least five simple ways women can reduce their risk of getting the disease:
1. Get a mammogram
It's recommended women get a mammogram starting at age 40. “Mammography screening does not prevent or cure breast cancer, but it may detect the disease before symptoms occur,” said Dr. Mayer.
2. Eat a healthy diet and keep your weight under control
The American Cancer Society recommends a diet rich in vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and fiber. “High-fat diets can lead to being overweight or obese, which is a risk factor for breast cancer,” said Dr. Mayer.
There's growing evidence that physical activity reduces a woman's breast cancer risk. According to one small study, women who engaged in 10 to 19 hours of physical activity per week during their reproductive years or after menopause experienced a 30% reduced risk of developing breast cancer. “Women who exercise regularly appear to be less likely to develop breast cancer. Cancer survivors who are active may have less risk of cancer recurrence compared to those who are more sedentary,” said Dr. Mayer.
4. Limit alcohol
Research has shown having too much alcohol can increase your risk of breast cancer. “The more alcohol you drink, the greater your risk of developing breast cancer. If you choose to drink alcohol — including beer, wine or liquor — limit yourself to no more than one half to one drink a day on average,” adds Dr. Mayer.
5. Determine if you have family history of breast cancer
Twenty to 30 percent of people who develop breast cancer have a family history of the disease. About five to ten-percent of women carry a BRCA1 or 2 mutation, the so called “breast cancer genes.” “For women with a family history of breast cancer, genetic testing can offer information about their personal and family risk of developing breast cancer. And if a woman is found to have a gene mutation, options are available to significantly reduce their risk of cancer,” said Dr. Mayer.
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is a principal teaching affiliate of the Harvard Medical School and is among the leading cancer research and care centers in the United States. It is a founding member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, designated a comprehensive cancer center by the National Cancer Institute. It provides adult cancer care with Brigham and Women's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and it provides pediatric care with Boston Children's Hospital as Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center.
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Throughout life there are many times when outside influences change or influence decision-making. The young child has inner motivation to learn and explore, but as he matures, finds outside sources to be a motivating force for development, as well. Along with being a beneficial influence, there are moments when peer pressure can overwhelm a child and lead him down a challenging path. And, peer pressure is a real thing – it is not only observable, but changes the way the brain behaves.
As a young adult, observational learning plays a part in development through observing and then doing. A child sees another child playing a game in a certain way and having success, so the observing child tries the same behavior. Albert Bandura was a leading researcher in this area. His famous bobo doll studies found that the young child is greatly influenced by observing other’s actions. When a child sees something that catches his attention, he retains the information, attempts to reproduce it, and then feels motivated to continue the behavior if it is met with success.
Observational learning and peer pressure are two different things – one being the observing of behaviors and then the child attempting to reproduce them based on a child’s own free will. Peer pressure is the act of one child coercing another to follow suit. Often the behavior being pressured is questionable or taboo, such as smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.
Peer Pressure and the Brain
Recent studies find that peer pressure influences the way our brains behave, which leads to better understanding about the impact of peer pressure and the developing child. According to studies from Temple University, peer pressure has an effect on brain signals involved in risk and reward department, especially when the teen’s friends are around. Compared to adults in the study, teenagers were much more likely to take risks they would not normally take on their own when with friends. Brain signals were more activated in the reward center of the brain, firing greatest during at risk behaviors.
Peer pressure can be difficult for young adults to deal with, and learning ways to say “no” or avoid pressure-filled situations can become overwhelming. Resisting peer pressure is not just about saying “no,” but how the brain functions. Children that have stronger connections among regions in their frontal lobes, along with other areas of the brain, are better equipped to resist peer pressure. During adolescence, the frontal lobes of the brain develop rapidly, causing axioms in the region to have a coating of fatty myelin, which insulates them and causes the frontal lobes to more effectively communicate with other brain regions. This helps the young adult to develop judgment and self-control needed to resist peer pressure.
Along with the frontal lobes contributing to the brain and peer pressure, other studies find that the prefrontal cortex plays a role in how teens respond to peer pressure. Just as with the previous study, children that were not exposed to peer pressure had greater connectivity within the brain as well as abilities to resist peer pressure.
Working through Peer Pressure
The teenage years are exciting years. The young adult is often going through physical changes due to puberty, adjusting to new friends and educational environments, and learning how to make decisions for themselves. Adults can offer a helping and supportive hand to young adults when dealing with peer pressure by considering the following:
Separation: Understanding that this is a time for the child to separate and learn how to be his own individual is important. It is hard to let go and allow the child to make mistakes for himself, especially when you want to offer input or change plans and actions, but allowing the child to go down his own path is important. As an adult, offering a helping hand if things go awry and being there to offer support is beneficial.
Talk it Out: As an adult, take a firm stand on rules and regulations with your child. Although you cannot control whom your child selects as friends, you can take a stand on your control of your child. Setting specific goals, rules, and limits encourages respect and trust, which must be earned in response. Do not be afraid to start talking with your child early about ways to resist peer pressure. Focus on how it will build your child’s confidence when he learns to say “no” at the right time and reassure him that it can be accomplished without feeling guilty or losing self-confidence.
Stay Involved: Keep family dinner as a priority, make time each week for a family meeting or game time, and plan family outings and vacations regularly. Spending quality time with kids models positive behavior and offers lots of opportunities for discussions about what is happening at school and with friends.
If at any time there are concerns a child is becoming involved in questionable behavior due to peer pressure, ask for help. Understand that involving others in helping a child cope with peer pressure, such as a family doctor, youth advisor, or other trusted friend, does not mean that the adult is not equipped to properly help the child, but that including others in assisting a child, that may be on the brink of heading down the wrong path, is beneficial.
By Sarah Lipoff. Sarah is an art educator and parent. Visit Sarah’s website here.
Read More →
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Prescribed Fires Burn Hazardous Fuels at Supawna Meadows Grasslands
Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge staff recently used prescribed fire to control hazardous fuels and reduce the chances of wildfire on refuge land.
Fire control officers burned two areas on the refuge February 19th. Refuge managers targeted one burn area because it was covered mostly by phragmites, a tall, reed-like non-native plant that has invaded marshlands and become a fire hazard. The burn will improve wildlife habitat by returning nutrients to the soil as well as open the marsh to native vegetation.
The project was supported by employees and equipment from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, five national wildlife refuges, the Northeast Region's Zone Fire Program and the Service's New Jersey field office. Fish and Wildlife Service staff came from Blackwater, Supawna Meadows, Great Swamp, Wallkill, and Cape May refuges to work on the project.
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A description of the North Riding of Yorkshire
from Bulmer's Gazetteer (1890)
GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF NORTH YORKSHIRE.
Yorkshire is the largest of our English counties, and in commercial enterprise,
mineral resources, and population, one of the most important in the kingdom.
It is situated about the centre of the island of Great Britain, with natural and
well-defined boundaries of mountains, rivers, and sea, as will be seen from the
map which accompanies this volume. Measured between its most extreme
points, Caldron Snout, on the borders of Westmoreland, and Spurn Head, at the
mouth of the Humber, its length is a little short of 130 miles; but its average
length from north to south is about 80 miles; and from east to west about 90.
The circuit of the county is about 460 miles, comprising within it an area which
exceeds the united areas of Lincolnshire and Devonshire - the two counties which
most nearly approach it in size - by upwards of 600 square miles.
The difficulty of administering the law over so wide a district necessitated,
at an early period, the division of the shire into three parts, called Trithings or
thirds, corrupted in later times into Ridings, and named, from situations,
their North, East, and West Ridings. Each Riding has a separate Lieutenancy,
Magistracy, Clerk of the Peace, Treasurer, and other public officers and courts;
but all of them are amenable to the superior courts held for the whole shire at
York Castle, within the bounds of the city of York, which is also a county of
itself. Under the Local Government Act of 1888, each riding is a separate
administrative county for all purposes of the Act. The extent, population, &c.,
of each of these divisions, as given in the Census Returns of 1881, are as
Acres. Persons. Males. Females. Inhabited Increase of population
Houses. between 1871 and 1881.
North Riding 1,361,664 346,147 174,674 171,473 68,954 52,869
East Riding 750,828 310,830 154,986 155,894 64,722 42,864
York City 1,979 54,198 25,787 28,411 11,582 10,402
West Riding 1,768,380 2,175,134 1,063,319 1,111,815 450,280 344,319
Yorkshire 3,882,851 2,886,309 1,418,716 1,467,593 595,488 449,954
The North Riding, which more immediately concerns us in the present volume,
occupies the northern portion of the county, extending from the river Tees, which
separates it from Durham, almost to the walls of York, and from the borders of
Westmoreland to the shore of the German Ocean. A glance at the map will
show that this Riding, in common with the rest of the county, embraces three
distinctly marked natural districts, each possessing its own characteristic scenery
and vegetation and distinctive geological strata. On the west is a broad band of
mountains and moorlands; on the eastern side is another belt of hills and
moorlands; and between these lies the Plain of York, extending from the river Tees to
southern confines of the county.
The Western Moorlands
The Western Moorlands form part of the Pennine Chain, otherwise known
as the Backbone of England, which extends from the Cheviots to the Peak in
Derbyshire, and forms the western boundary of Yorkshire. In this range and its
offshoots occur some of the highest summits in England, but these lie north of
Yorkshire. The chain enters the county with a diminished elevation, but even
here many of its peaks rise to a height exceeding 2,000 feet. Mickle Fell, in the
north-western corner of the riding, overtops 2,500 feet; a little further south is
Nine Standards, 2,008 feet, Great Shunnor Fell, 2,346 feet, Stags Fell, 2,213 feet,
Lunds Fell, 2,186 feet, Dodd Fell, 2,189 feet, and Buckden Pike, 2,304 feet, all
within the North Riding. From this axial line branch off numerous spurs,
separated from each other by deep winding valleys, which open out in the great
plain or vale of York. Among these hills and dales is to be found some of the
wildest and most romantic scenery in England, possessing a beauty peculiarly its
own, which differs most markedly from that of the hills on the eastern side.
This characteristic beauty arises from the different geological formation of the
two ranges. These western hills are composed chiefly of hard millstone grit and
Yoredale rocks, through which breaks, in Wensleydale and other places, the
carboniferous limestone, forming bold and picturesque scars. This latter supports
a sweet green herbage, short it may be in the higher parts of the hills, but
affording a marked contrast to the brown heath of the gritstone moors, which
constitute a large portion of this western band. The scenery in these western
moors is often wild and weird, but the deep narrow valleys of the Tees, Swale,
and Ure, with their numerous rills and waterfalls, present scenes full of
picturesque and varied beauty scarcely surpassed by any in the north of England.
Eastern side of the Riding
On the eastern side of the Riding is another belt of hills and moors,
belonging to the Oolitic and Lias formations. This is known by the general name of
North York Moors. There is no well defined axial line as on the west side, nor
do any of the summits attain so great an elevation. In the north of this Oolitic
plateau are the Cleveland Hills, which have become famous in recent years
through the discovery of immense deposits of iron ore. The most remarkable
eminence in the group is Roseberry Topping, which rises like a sugar loaf to the
height of 1,022 feet. On the west the escarpment of the plateau is formed by
the Hambleton Hills (1,289 feet), which look down from their bleak precipitous
cliffs on the fertile Vale of Mowbray. The land on the top is generally level, and
has long been a well known training ground for race-horses. The higher grounds
command extensive and varied prospects, extending westward over the Vale of
York as far as the hills of Craven and Wensleydale, and southward to York's
noble minster. A little to the south of Hambleton a range of highlands, called
the Howardian Hills, forms the fringe of this Oolitic plateau, but none of its
summits reach a thousand feet. From its foot stretches the lake-like hollow of
Pickering Vale, supposed to have been in pre-historic times either a river course
or a lake opening to the sea.
The scenery of these eastern moors is generally of a dreary unattractive
character, but in some of the river valleys, especially in Eskdale, Ryedale, and
the valley traversed by the Whitby and Pickering Railway, there are many highly
picturesque and beautiful prospects.
Between these two belts of moorland lies the great Central Plain, or Vale of
York, described by Chevalier Bunsen in somewhat extravagant language as "the
most beautiful and romantic vale in the world, the Vale of Normandy excepted."
In geological sequence this level band rests on the Triassic or New Red Sandstone
series, and to these softer strata the plain owes its fertile soil and external
configuration. Throughout its whole length from the Tees to the Don there is
scarcely an eminence that reaches 200 feet. A portion of this great level,
stretching from the base of the Hambleton Hills past the town of Thirsk and the river
Codbeck, is distinctively known as the Vale of Mowbray, from the great Norman
barons that formerly owned it.
Scan, OCR and html by Colin Hinson. Checking and correction by Peter Nelson.
This page is copyright. Do not copy any part of this page or website other than for personal
use or as given in the conditions of use.
Web-page generated by "DB2html" data-base extraction software ©CRH 2006
If you find an error (small or large) in the text or a bad link, please drop me a line via
my error reporting form.
[Last updated at 16.12 on Sunday, 29 May 2011, by Colin Hinson. ©2011]
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The European Union's Emissions Trading System (ETS) is the world's biggest scheme for trading greenhouse gas emissions allowances. Launched in 2005, it covers some 11,000 power stations and industrial plants in 30 countries, whose carbon emissions make up almost 50% of Europe's total.
A cap on the total emissions allowed within the scheme is set, and allowances adding up to the cap are provided to the companies regulated by the scheme. The companies are required to measure and report their carbon emissions and to hand in one allowance for each tonne they release. Companies can trade their allowances, providing an incentive for them to reduce their emissions.
The current cap is set to fall by 1.74% annually to achieve a target of reducing emissions in 2020 to 21% below their level in 2005. In June 2011 the price of an allowance was around €16. The trade in permits is worth around $150bn annually, dwarfing other emissions trading schemes (the Clean Development Mechanism market established by the UN is valued at $1.5bn annually).
In a basic sense the ETS has worked. It has set a cap on half of Europe's carbon emissions, which were previously unregulated, and the companies covered by the scheme are no longer free to pollute. Carbon has a price and this influences the economics of burning fossil fuels.
For example, burning coal creates more carbon pollution than burning gas, so coal plant operators need more permits. The higher the price of the permits, the more expensive it is to use coal rather than gas. Power companies choosing how to generate electricity therefore have an extra cost associated with the more polluting options, so they'll choose gas over coal more of the time.
Putting precise numbers on how far the ETS has worked in practice is difficult, as it means estimating what the level of pollution would have been if the ETS was not in place. It is likely, however, that in its first few years, the scheme was responsible for turning an anticipated increase in emissions into a decline of 2.5-5%. One in-depth study analysed background emissions, economic trends and weather patterns, and concluded that between 2005 and 2007 the ETS reduced emissions by 120-300m tonnes, with a best guess of 210m tonnes across Europe.
These are fairly modest gains – especially in the context of rapidly of increasing imports of carbon-intensive goods from China and elsewhere – and although steeper reductions have been set for the third 'phase' of the ETS, which runs from 2013 to 2020, the policy has been heavily criticised and beset with problems, not least of which is the large number of permits expected to be held over from the current phase. Nonetheless, Europe has a price on carbon and a working mechanism to limit and reduce climate pollution, which puts it further ahead than other major regions in the world.
The ultimate climate change FAQ
This editorial is free to reproduce under Creative Commons
This post by The Guardian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.
Based on a work at guardian.co.uk
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By Robert Lucke
All winter recreationalists should be aware that weather factors play a big part in avalanche activity in most all mountains. The U.S. Forest Service has some weather related tips.
Wind - Even during clear weather, sustained winds of over 15 mph may cause danger to increase rapidly when loose surface snow is available for transport. Snow plumes from ridges and peaks indicate that snow is being moved onto leeward slopes. This can create dangerous situations. Leeward slopes are dangerous because wind-deposited snows add depth and may create unstable wind slabs. Windward slopes generally have less snow and the snow is compacted and usually more stable toward the leeward slopes.
Storms - A high percentage of all avalanches occur shortly before, during, and after storms. Be extra cautious during these periods.
Rate of Snowfall - Snow falling at one inch per hour or more increases avalanche danger rapidly.
Crystal Types - Observe snow-crystal types by letting them fall on a dark ski mitt or parka sleeve. Small crystals, needles, and pellets often result in more dangerous conditions than the classic star-shaped crystals.
New Snow - Be alert to dangerous conditions with a foot or more of new snow. Remember that new snow depth may vary considerably with slope elevation and aspect.
Old Snow - When snow depth covers natural anchors, such as rocks and brush, new snow layers slide more readily. The nature of the old snow surface is important. For example, cold snow falling on hard refrozen snow, such as rain crusts, may form a weak bond. Also a loose underlying snow level is more dangerous than a compacted one. Check the underlying snow layer with a ski pole, ski, or probe.
Temperature - Cold temperatures will maintain an unstable snowpack while warm temperatures (near or just above freezing) allow for snow settlement and increasing stability. Storms starting with low temperatures and dry snow, followed by rising temperatures, are more likely to cause avalanches. The dry snow at the start forms a poor bond to the old snow surface and has insufficient strength to support the heavier snow deposited late in the storm.
Temperature Inversion - It may be warmer at higher elevation when warm air moves over cold air trapped near the ground. This weather situation can occur in avalanche terrain throughout the Northwest and may produce dangerous and unpredictable changes in local snow stability.
Wet Snow - Rainstorms or spring weather with warm winds and cloudy nights can warm the snow cover. Percolating water may cause wet snow avalanches. Wet snow avalanches are more likely on south slopes and slopes under exposed rocks.
Danger Signs - Old slide paths. Generally, avalanches occur in the same areas. Watch for avalanche paths. Look for pushed-over small trees or trees with limbs broken off. Avoid steep, open gullies and slopes.
Recent Avalanche Activity - If you see new avalanches, suspect dangerous conditions. Beware when snowballs or "cartwheels" roll down the slope.
Sounds and Cracks - If the snow sounds hollow, particularly on a leeward slope, conditions are probably dangerous. If the snow cracks and the snow cracks run, this indicates a slab avalanche danger is high.
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From: Dictionary of American Fighting Ships
A city in Illinois on the Kaskaskia River. Vandalia was the state capital from 1820 to 1839 and today is the seat of Fayette County. The origin of the name is uncertain, but the name probably is derived from the Germanic Vandal tribe. Other explanations of the name hold that it is a latinization of a Dutch family name or that it refers to a small Indian tribe of the early 19th century.
(Slp: t. 614; l. 127'4"; b. 34'6"; dr. 16'6"; cpl. 150; a. 1 8" Sg., 16 32-pdrs.; cl. Boston)
The first Vandalia-an 18-gun sloop-of-war-was laid down at the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1825, launched in 1828, and commissioned on 6 November of that year, Comdr. John Gallagher in command.
Vandalia left Philadelphia on 16 December 1828, bound for duty with the Brazil Squadron off the eastern seaboard of South America. She remained off the coasts of Brazil and Argentina for the next three years, helping to protect American citizens and mercantile interests during a period of continuing political unrest on the continent of South America. She returned to Norfolk, Va., on 18 December 1831; was decommissioned the next day, and remained inactive until 4 October 1832 when she was recommissioned for service with the West Indies Squadron. Vandalia again put into Norfolk in August 1834 and was decommissioned there on the 24th for major repairs. Recommissioned on the last day of the year, she joined the West Indies Squadron in January 1835 and served with that organization into the summer of 1838 protecting American citizens and property in the West Indies, cooperating with land forces in Florida during the second Seminole Indian War, and helping to suppress the slave trade. After almost three months laid up undergoing repairs from 30 August to 24 November, the ship was reactivated and returned to duty for a year in the Caribbean, ending when her commissioning pennant was again hauled down at Norfolk on 23 November 1839.
Following more than two years on the stocks, the ship was returned to commission on 3 February 1842, joined the newly created Home Squadron in 1842, and performed routine patrol and reconnaissance duties at scattered points as far north as Newfoundland and as far south as the mouth of the Amazon River. During a visit to Haiti in the early spring of 1845, an epidemic of yellow fever broke out in the ship. She returned immediately to Norfolk, was decommissioned on 30 April, and was laid up. During the sloop's period in ordinary which lasted until 1849, she was lengthened by 13 feet in 1848. The renovated Vandalia was recommissioned on 9 August 1849 and joined the Pacific Squadron on 5 September 1849 as that organization was expanding to service the territory which the United States had recently acquired on the Pacific coast. She made several visits to the Hawaiian Islands in 1851 before returning to the New York Navy Yard on 6 October 1852 and going out of commission again on the 14th.
Vandalia's rest ended on Valentine's Day 1853, and the ship soon joined Commodore Matthew C. Perry's East Indies Squadron. She was present at Commodore Perry's historic entrance into Tokyo Bay on 13 February 1854 and in 1855 helped to protect American interests in China during the Taiping Rebellion. Vandalia was decommissioned at the Portsmouth (N.H.) Navy Yard on 30 September 1856 but was recommissioned on 11 November 1857 for duty with the Pacific Squadron. In 1859, the warship rescued survivors of the American clipper ship Wild Wave, wrecked off Oeno and Pitcairn Islands, and conducted an expedition against natives at Waya, Fiji Islands, following the murder of two American citizens. Vandalia returned to the New York Navy Yard early in 1860 and was decommissioned on 6 January of that year but was recommissioned there on 8 November and assigned to duty with the East Indies Squadron
With the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861 Vandalia was called back home and assigned to the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron on 31 May for blockade duty off Charleston and Bull's Bay, S.C. There, she captured the schooner Henry Middleton on 21 August and assisted in the capture of the sailing ship Thomas Watson in 15 October. The vessel also participated in the successful amphibious assault upon Roanoke Island, N.C., on 7 and 8 November. This victory closed the supply lines to Confederate-held Norfolk Navy Yard and was largely responsible for the evacuation of that vital naval facility six months later. Vandalia put into New York on 24 November to deliver the officers and crew of the wrecked steamer Governor.
Vandalia soon returned to duty with the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron and was deployed off Tybee Roads Ga., in December. She remained at Tybee until April i862, at which time she was ordered to proceed to the blockade at Wassaw Sound, Ga. The sloop returned to Port Royal, S.C., in June and took up blockade duty off Charleston in July. She served at Port Royal as a guardship in September and was repaired and resupplied there in November. Later that month and in December, she cruised along the outside line of the blockade off Charleston and Port Royal Bay, performing reconnaissance duties as well as giving practical sailing experience to recent Naval Academy graduates. On 12 December, the vessel was ordered north for major structural repairs at New York.
Vandalia was decommissioned at the New York Navy Yard on 4 Februarv 1863 and then sailed for Portsmouth, N.H., on 17 October for use as a receiving and guard ship. She remained at Portsmouth until broken up there sometime between 1870 and 1872.
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October 12, 1492 was the day that a sailor on the Pinta sighted land. It wasn't until 1792 that we have a record of the United States celebrating Columbus Day. The celebration was organized by the Society of St. Tammany, also known as the Columbian Order, to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Columbus' landing.
According to http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/oct12.html :
The 400th anniversary of the event inspired the first official Columbus Day holiday in the United States. President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation in 1892, “recommending to the people the observance in all their localities of the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America…” and describing Columbus as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.” Since then, school programs, plays, and community festivities have been organized across the country in celebration of Columbus Day.
Today, Columbus Day is a federal holiday observed on the second Monday of October.
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Alagille syndrome is a genetic condition characterized by liver disease, typical facial features, heart murmurs or defects, vertebral changes, and eye changes as well as a variety of less frequently noted features. Alagille syndrome is also called arteriohepatic dysplasia, cholestasis with peripheral pulmonary stenosis, syndromatic hepatic ductular hypoplasia, and Alagille-Watson syndrome.
Alagille syndrome is a rare condition occurring either sporadically or in an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance. Approximately 70% of cases are caused by changes in the Jagged1 gene on chromosome 20. However, the diagnosis of Alagille syndrome is based on clinical features and family history. Obtaining medical information about family members can be difficult as some people with Alagille syndrome are so mildly affected or have variable symptoms that the condition may go unrecognized. Prognosis depends on the extent of major organ involvement, especially of the liver, heart, and kidneys. Liver transplantation is needed in some cases. Prenatal testing is available to families in which a genetic change has been identified. The interpretation of this testing is limited by the variability of clinical features, even within the same family. People with the same genetic change can have a wide range of medical problems with varying degrees of severity.
Alagille syndrome occurs sporadically in 15-56% of cases, but has been noted to follow an autosomal dominant pattern of inheritance in some families. In
Changes in a gene called the Jagged1 (Jag1) gene on the short arm of chromosome 20 have been shown to be the underlying defect in many patients. The Jag1 gene encodes a cell surface protein that plays a role in the regulation of development. The protein is active in many cell types and directs cells to their proper place in the embryo. Seventy to 75% of Alagille syndrome probands have had an identifiable change within this gene. Of that 70%, 6% have been shown to have a small deletion of a piece of the short arm of chromosome 20 (20p), which includes the Jag1 gene, using a laboratory technique called fluorescent in situ hybridization. There are a variety of other molecular changes in the gene that have been detected by sequencing the gene. Thirty percent of people with the condition do not have an identifiable change in this gene. It is possible that there are other genes that cause the disease in these families.
Alagille syndrome is rare, occurring in one in 70,000-100,000 live births. The condition affects males and females equally. Most patients with Alagille syndrome come to medical attention in the first four months of life with jaundice, an enlarged liver, severe itching of skin, or multiple raised nodular areas on the skin.
One of the most common and most serious symptoms of Alagille syndrome is liver disease. Liver disease occurs in 90-100% of patients and often leads to growth delay or failure as a result of malnutrition. Because there is a reduction in the number of bile ducts in the liver, there are elevated bile acids in the blood and an arrest of bile excretion from the body. This results in jaundice, pruritus (severe skin itching), and xanthomas (raised nodules on the skin, especially at skin creases or areas of friction). Some patients have mild or no liver problems, while others have progressive liver failure.
Heart defects and murmurs have been noted in 85-95% of patients with Alagille syndrome. The most common type of defect is pulmonary artery stenosis, although other types of defects also occur. Many of these defects do not have clinical significance to the patient. However, complex and severe heart defects occur and are one of the more common causes of mortality in patients with Alagille syndrome.
An important diagnostic feature of Alagille syndrome is a particular eye finding called posterior embryotoxon. This is an anterior chamber defect of the eye caused by a prominent, centrally positioned Schwalbe ring. This feature can be seen through a split lamp examination and does not affect vision. Since 56-90% of patients have this or other changes in the eye, including retinal pigmentary changes, an eye examination can aid in diagnosis.
A particular finding called a butterfly vertebra is associated with Alagille syndrome. The term butterfly vertebra refers to the appearance of the space around the vertebrae due to clefting or disruption of formation of a vertebra. There are usually no physical problems associated with this radiological finding. The frequency of butterfly vertebrae in this syndrome is uncertain, with estimates from 33-87% in different studies. Other skeletal malformations are also noted in these patients, such as spina bifida occulta and hemivertebrae. Therefore, radiological examination of the spine may aid in diagnosis.
The occurrence of particular facial features has been noted in 70-95% of patients with Alagille syndrome. The facial features include a prominent forehead, deep-set and widely spaced eyes, a pointed chin, and a straight nose with a bulbous tip. These features are more subjective, but one of the most consistent features of the diagnosis.
Problems with the structure and function of kidneys have been noted with an occurrence of 40-70%. Most often symptoms are mild, but renal disease has caused mortality in severe cases. Mild delays in gross motor function have been noted in 16% of children. Most of these children were those with severe organ disease. Intracranial bleeding has also been noted with increased frequency and is associated with mortality in this syndrome.
The diagnosis of Alagille syndrome is based on clinical features and can be made by the presence of liver disease plus two of the other major features. An ultrasound of the liver can rule out other causes of liver disease and a liver biopsy can determine if there is a reduction in the number of bile ducts. However, this finding occurs in other conditions as well as Alagille syndrome, and the timing of the biopsy is important. Older patients are more likely to have fewer bile ducts than patients under five years of age. An echocardiogram for heart defects, a radiological examination of the spine, blood tests for renal function, an ophthalmologic examination, and an examination of facial features are important diagnostic tools. A careful family history is also important in diagnosis. When a first- or second-degree relative has already been diagnosed with Alagille syndrome, the presence of even one feature of the condition may constitute a diagnosis.
Once a diagnosis has been made in an individual, the parents should undergo an evaluation for subtle features of the condition. If a parent is diagnosed, then evaluation for appropriate extended family members would be offered. A correct diagnosis is important since there are other syndromes that exhibit similar liver disease, heart defects, and eye findings. These syndromes are inherited in different ways, so the recurrence risk for offspring and other family members may be different.
Two different types of testing are used: fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), which detects the small percentage of patients who have a deletion of the entire gene; and sequencing, which looks at changes within the gene. Sequencing is not clinically available. New technologies may make gene sequencing for mutations more readily available in the near future. If a genetic change is identified in the family, prenatal testing would be available through chorionic villus sampling or amniocentesis. However, the interpretation of this testing is difficult since the presence of a gene change does not allow one to predict the severity of the condition or which medical problems may occur.
Treatment and management
Liver transplantation is needed in 15-20% of patients. Other treatments depend on which of the other features of the condition are present and the degree of severity. Repair of heart defects is another surgical treatment needed in some cases.
Prognosis for Alagille syndrome is quite variable and depends on the degree of liver, heart, and kidney disease and the presence of intracranial bleeding. Overall, survival rates are 72-85%. The survival rate of those undergoing liver transplantation is 60-80%. There is currently no method to determine which patients will reach end-stage liver disease.
Jones, Kenneth Lyons. Smith's Recognizable Patterns of Human Malformation. 5th ed. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders, 1997.
McKusick, Victor. Mendelian Inheritance in Man: A Catalog of Human Genes and Genetic Disorders. 12th ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Scriver, Charles, et al. The Metabolic and Molecular Bases of Inherited Disease. 8th ed. McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Emerick, Karan, et al. "Features of Alagille Syndrome in 92 Patients: Frequency and Relation to Prognosis." Hepatology (1999): 822-828.
Krantz, Ian, et al. "Alagille Syndrome." Journal of Medical Genetics (February 1997): 152-157.
Krantz, Ian, et al. "Clinical and Molecular Genetics of Alagille Syndrome." Current Opinions in Pediatrics (December 1999): 558-563.
Quiros-Tejeira, Ruben, et al. "Variable Morbidity in Alagille Syndrome: A Review of 43 Cases." Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (October 1999): 431-437.
Rand, Elizabeth. "The Genetic Basis of Alagille Syndrome." Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition (February 1998): 234-237.
Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, WA. Gene Tests: Genetic Testing Resource. <http://www.genetests.org/> (February 20, 2001).
Sonja Rene Eubanks
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Everett -- Thumbnail History
HistoryLink.org Essay 7397
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Once called the “City of Smokestacks,” Everett has a long association with industry and labor. Its first beginnings were two Native American settlements at opposite sides of the heavily wooded region, one on the Snohomish River and the other on Port Gardner Bay. Platted in the 1890s and named after the son of an early investor, it soon attracted the attention of East Coast money. Over the next 100 years, Everett would be a formidable logging mill and industrial center. In 2005, Everett numbered 96,000 citizens.
The Port Gardner Peninsula is a point of land bound by the Snohomish River on its east flank and northern tip and by Port Gardner Bay on the west. People have inhabited the Everett Peninsula for more than 10,000 years. In recent centuries, Hibulb (or Hebolb), the principal village of the Snohomish tribe stood at the northwest point of the peninsula. Its location near the mouth of the Snohomish River and next to Port Gardner Bay provided both abundant food and transportation. Other villages were located across the waterways. The Snohomish fortified Hibulb with a stockade made of Western red cedar posts to guard against their local enemies, the Makah, Cowichan, Muckleshoot, and the occasional northern raider.
On June 4, 1792, George Vancouver landed on the beach south of the village and claimed the entire area for the King of England. He named the bay Port Gardner for a member of his party. He apparently did not explore the river. After this first contact with the Snohomish, the next 50 years were quiet until traders with the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Columbia River ventured through in 1824. Hudson's Bay Company records show that they explored the Snohomish River. They named it “Sinnahamis.” Its present name “Snohomish” dates from the U.S. Coastal Survey of 1854 when it was charted.
In 1853, Washington Territory was formed. That same year the first white settlers in what would become Snohomish County established a water-powered sawmill on Tulalip Bay across the water from Hibulb. When the Treaty of 1855 created a reservation there for the Snohomish and other regional Indians, the settlers abandoned the operation and turned it over to the tribes. Gradually groups of white men from Port Gamble, Port Ludlow, Utsaladdy, and other Puget Sound points began to show up on the heavily forested peninsula to cut its giant timbers. They set up small logging camps in places reserved for homesteads.
During the Indian wars that erupted in King and Pierce counties after the treaty signings, the Snohomish area remained peaceful. Enterprising men making plans for a military road between Fort Bellingham and Fort Steilacoom in 1859 stimulated the exploration of the Snohomish River and its valleys. A ferry was planned at the spot where the road would cross the river. When Congress stopped funding the project, some of the young men working on the military road stayed there anyway. E. C. Ferguson claimed his own place and named it Snohomish City (1859). He was first to describe the area near present day Everett as full of trees:
“with their long strings of moss hanging from branches, which nearly shut out the sunlight ... At the time the opening at the head of Steamboat Slough was not more than fifty feet wide" (Dilgard and Riddle).
First Settlers on the Peninsula
Dennis Brigham was the first permanent settler in the area that would become Everett. A carpenter from Worcester, Massachusetts, he came in 1861 the same year Snohomish County was organized. He built a cabin on 160 acres along Port Gardner Bay and lived alone. Cut off from his nearest neighbors by the deep forests, he still had enough contact to gain the name of “Dirty Plate Face.”
In 1863, the area saw increased settlement. Erskine D. Kromer, telegraph operator and lineman for the World Telegraph, took a claim just south of Brigham. When the venture ended he settled down with a Coast Salish wife and raised a family. Leander Bagley and H. A. Taylor opened the first store in the area on the point next to Helbo. Indians pushed out by homesteaders and loggers came by to trade. The store would change ownership several times.
Also in 1863, on the snag-filled Snohomish River, E. D. Smith set up a logging camp at an angled bend in the river. Here the water was deep and an undercutting current kept his log booms against the bank. At the time there were no mills in Snohomish County. Logs were rafted down river and sent to mills around the sound. Everett’s future was foreshadowed when, during that same year, Jacob and David Livingston set up the first steam sawmill in the county near present day Harbor View Park on the bayside. It was a short-lived venture.
Settlement continued, although one early passerby in 1865 wrote that he saw nothing but woods. The settlers were there. Ezra Hatch claimed land in what would become downtown Everett and George Sines claimed land on the riverside. Together with Kromer, they would hold the most valuable holdings in the future city. There were others: Benjamin Young, George and Perrin Preston, J. L. Clark, and William Shears. They lived in simple log cabins scattered around in the woods, but when Bagley sold his share of the store to J. D. Tullis with the right to lease a portion back for a home and shipyard, Everett industry arrived. In 1886 he built the small sloop Rebecca which he sailed throughout the area. Eventually, the Prestons bought out all the shares to the store. George and Perrin Preston with his Snohomish wife Sye-Dah-bo-Deitz or Peggy would give the name Preston Point to the ancient Snohomish center.
Between the 1870 and 1880 census the white population in Snohomish County increased from 400 to 1,387, of which a minimal amount was found on the peninsula. Neil Spithill and his Snohomish wife Anastasia, the daughter of Chief Bonaparte, settled on the river where the peninsula jutted into it like a left-hand thumb. In 1872, Jacob Livingston filed the first townsite (“Western New York”) on Port Gardner Bay not far from his failed sawmill. John Davis settled at Preston Point where 50 acres were diked, and between the Snohomish River and the sloughs crops of oats, hay, hops, wheat, barley potatoes, and fruit began to appear. E. D. Smith continued to expand his logging businesses, employing 150 men. The area’s first postmaster, Smith platted the town of Lowell in 1872. In 1883, the U.S. government began snag-removal and cleared other impediments on the river. With the coming of mechanized lumber and cedar shingle production, several mills located in the area. Smith began construction on his own mill in 1889 the same year Washington became a state.
Booms and Busts
Statehood brought celebration and speculation. Connection to the area via the Seattle and Montana Railway was close at hand, but when James J. Hill announced that his Great Northern Railway would come over the Cascades to Puget Sound, many people thought that meant the railroad would come to the peninsula. There was money to be made.
First came the Rucker Brothers, Wyatt and Bethel and their mother. They bought the old Dennis Brigham homestead property on the bayside in 1890. They built a house and planned to start the townsite of “Port Gardner.” Joining them was William Swalwell and his brother Wellington. The Swalwells picked up a large section of the Spitlhill’s claim on the river covered with a growth of “timber so dense that trees on all sides touched the little cabin” (Roth). Frank Friday, who bought the old Kramer homestead from Kramer's widow added to the real estate mix. This juxtaposition of bayside to riverside settlements set the layout of the future city streets, though the Swalwell’s Landing, as it became known, was separated from the bay by “a mile of second-growth timber, impassable underbrush and a marshy area near the center of the peninsula” (Dilgard and Riddle). Things began to heat up when Tacoma lumberman and land speculator Henry Hewitt Jr. (1840-1918) arrived in the spring of 1890 with $400,000 of his own money, dreaming of a great industrial city.
After learning that one of John D. Rockefeller’s associates, Charles L. Colby (1839-1896), was looking for a site for the American Steel Barge Company of which he was president, Hewitt met with him. He convinced him that the peninsula with its river and bay access offered the perfect location for that and other industrial concerns. Impressed, Colby talked it up with friends and relatives. Once they were on board, Hewitt immediately approached the Ruckers, Friday, and Salwell and enticed them to join him. They transferred half of their holdings, nearly 800 acres, to the syndicate backed with the East Coast money of Rockefeller, Colby, and Colgate Hoyt, a director of the Great Northern Railroad. Hewitt also bargained with E. D. Smith for a paper mill.
In November 1890, the group incorporated the Everett Land Company. They made Hewitt president. For a time they met in offices at E. D. Smith’s boarding house in Lowell. By spring of 1891, the peninsula began to hum as land was cleared for a nail factory, the barge works, a paper mill, and smelter. Five hundred men graded, surveyed, and platted the townsite. Hewitt Avenue, one and half mile long and 100 feet wide, was cut from bay side to riverside. The townsite of stumps became Everett, after the son of Charles Colby.
Over the months, the city of Everett saw astonishing growth. Before the Everett Land Company lots went on sale, Swalwell jumped the gun and began selling his own lots on banks of the Snohomish River in September 1891. He built a large dock for the sternwheel steamer traffic. Dubbed the “cradle of Everett,” Swalwell’s Landing boomed at the riverside foot of Hewitt, at intersection of Chestnut and Pacific. The Pacific/Chestnut community was a wild west town with gambling and prostitution along with the offices of Brown Engineering Company in charge of platting the townsite, "Workingman’s Grocery,” a small shoe store, another grocery store, a tent hotel, meat market, and barber shop. The streets were muck choked, its sidewalks made of thrown down planks. Farther south at Lowell, Smith built a dock for his new paper mill already in production.
On the bayside, the Everett Land Company built a long wharf at 14th Street on which a sawmill was built at the end. They also built an immense warehouse of some 400 feet and a fancy brick hotel, the Monte Cristo, three stories high. By the time the company started selling their residential and commercial property in late 1891, the building frenzy had attracted the nation. “An Army of Men at Work On a Mammoth Establishment,” the headline in the newly established Port Gardner News boasted in September 1891.
By the spring of 1892, Everett resembled a city albeit with stumps. There were frame homes, schools, churches (land provided by the Everett Land Company), and theaters as well as 5,600 citizens, a third of them foreign born (mostly English and Scandinavian) enjoying streetcar service, electricity, streetlights, and telephones. The Everett Land Company won a suit to own the waterfront. The promise of riches in the mines in the Cascades spurred the building of the Everett-Monte Cristo railroad from there to a smelter on the peninsula.
In April 1893, Everett incorporated by election. Then came trouble. In May, the Silver Panic caused a national depression that slammed into Everett. Factories closed down. Banks failed. Wages dropped 60 percent. The railroads either failed or faltered. People left in droves. By 1895, Rockefeller started to withdraw his investments. Hewitt was dismissed from the Everett Land Company. Colby took over. The lack of return on fees nearly bankrupted the city government. The streetlights were turned off. Against this background the town of Snohomish fought the struggling city of Everett over which would be the county seat. Everett finally took the claim away in 1897.
A Second Wind
Everett began to recover in 1899 after Rockefeller's Everett Land Company transferred its holdings to James J. Hill's Everett Improvement Company. The railroad magnate saw benefits for his Great Northern Railroad. He sent 42-year-old John McChesney as his representative. Industrial growth improved. Work continued on dredging the river and the bay. Frederick Weyerhaeuser, neighbor of Hill in St. Paul, Minnesota, came to Everett and founded the Weyerhaeuser Timber Company. He built the world’s largest lumber mill which produced 70 million feet by 1912. David A. Clough and Harry Ramwell formed the American Tugboat Company.
By 1903, the Polk Everett City Directory boasted of 10 sawmills, 12 shingle mils, a paper mill, flouring mill, foundries and machine shops, planing mills, a smelter, an arsenic plant, a refinery, “creosoting” works, a brewer, a sash and door plant, an ice and cold storage plant, and a creamery. Industry employed more than 2,835 men. Telephone subscriptions went from 493 in 1901 to 980 with 23 women employees and eight linemen.
Secret societies as wide ranging as the Elks and the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Catholic Order of Foresters and the Improved Order of Red Men “meeting at next great camp in the Hunting Grounds of Aberdeen” (Polk) flourished. Times were good.
In 1907, Everett passed the First Class City Charter and boomed after the San Francisco earthquake and fire brought huge orders for Northwest lumber. The city’s own big fire in 1909 destroyed parts of the city, but did not deter future growth. Three years later its population reached three times its size in 1900 -- 25,000. Ninety-five manufacturing plants, “including 11 lumber mills, 16 shingle mills and 17 mills producing both” (Shoreline Historical Survey,) dominated the area.
Unions also dominated the city, making it one of the most unionized in the country. There were 25 unions in all. Of these, the International Shingle Weavers Union of the American Federation of Labor was the strongest. The work they did at shingle mills was dangerous. The bolter used a circular saw with a blade that stood 50 inches in diameter and had three-inch teeth. A man pushed the log toward it at waist height with his knee and hands. Men fell or were pulled into it. Of the 224 people who died in Everett in 1909, 35 were killed in the mills -- almost one a week. Labor unrest grew and strikes threatened.
In 1916, the shingle weaver’s strike culminated in a bloody confrontation at the city dock when two boatloads of Industrial Workers of the World members sailed up from Seattle to demonstrate support of striking shingle mill workers and free speech. Five workers on the steamer Verona and two deputies on the dock were killed. Some 30 others were wounded. The strike ended not long after. This became known as the Everett Massacre.
During World War I, Everett benefited from the demand for lumber, but for the rest of the twentieth century the city saw many down times as it went through a national depression in 1920, the Great Depression, and problems with continual silting in the river channels.
Always a lumber and industrial town, it began to diversify. A Works Progress Administration project in 1936 created Paine Field on 640 acres of land owned by Merrill Ring Logging and the Pope and Talbot Company eight miles southwest of the city. The airfield established aviation and eventually a military presence in the area. The county matched federal dollars.
During World War II the field became a military base. Its name was changed to Paine Field in honor of Lt. Topliff Olin Paine, pioneer aviator from Everett killed in a 1922 Air Mail Service crash. An Army Air Corps unit moved in and stayed for five years. Runways were improved and fueling capabilities added for certain aircraft types. Alaska Airlines started a presence. The military returned during the Korean War (1950-1953) taking over the control tower, but withdrew in 1968. This opened the way for Boeing Corporation. Already owners of acreage north of the airfield, Boeing built the world’s largest building by volume (472 million cubic feet) for their radically new 747 jetliner.
Construction on Naval Station Everett began in November 1987. In January 1994, Navy personnel moved into the completed Fleet Support and Administration buildings and officially began operations. Currently, Everett is home to three frigates, one nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, one destroyer, and a Coast Guard buoy tender. It is the United States Navy’s most modern base.
In 2005, the city of Everett enjoyed growth and revitalization. During the past 20 years, the downtown area has been upgraded and some of the historic structures have been restored. Restaurants, shops, and parks line the bayside of the city. Industrial parks are planned for riverside. A community college and homes stand around Preston Point. Dennis Brigham and E. D. Smith would both be amazed. Henry Hewitt would say that his dream has gone on.
Don Benry, The Lowell Story, (Everett: Lowell Civil Association, 1985), 18-37; David Dilgard, Margaret Riddle and Kristin Ravetz, A Survey of Everett’s Historical Properties (Everett: Everett Public Library and Department of Planning and Community Development, 1996); David Dilgard and Margaret Riddle, Shoreline Historical Survey Report (Everett: Shoreline Master Plan Committee for City of Everett, 1973), 2-28 and 66-73; David Dilgard, Mill Town Footlights (Everett: Everett Public Library, 2001); Lawrence E. O’Donnell, Everett Past and Present (Everett: K & H Printers, 1993), 2-15; Everett City Directory (Seattle: R. L. Polk, 1893), 47-66; Everett City Directory (Seattle: R. L Polk, 1903), 64; Norman H. Clark, Mill Town (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1970); History of Snohomish County, Washington Vols. I and 2 ed. by William Whitfield (Chicago: Pioneer Historical Publishing Company, 1926); The History of Skagit and Snohomish Counties, Washington (Interstate Publishing Company, 1906), 253-258 and 314-331; Elof Norman, The Coffee Chased Us Up Monte Cristo Memories (Seattle: Mountaineers, 1977); "Early History of Snohomish River and Vicinity," Everett Herald, January 14, 1936; Snohomish Eye, September 1893-1894; Advertisements, Everett Herald, December 17, 1891; Snohomish Sun, 1891; Everett Herald December 10, 1891 through 1892; "Puget Sound Paper Mill," Port Gardner News, September 11, 1893; "Local News," The Eye, August 22, 1893; Everett Herald, December 10, 1891; The Snohomish Story: From Ox team to Jet Stream (Snohomish: Snohomish Centennial Association, 1959).
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Hewitt Avenue looking east, Everett
Postcard Courtesy Everett Public Library
Swalwell's Landing, site of newly platted Everett, 1891
Photo by Frank La Roche, Courtesy Everett Public Library (Image No. 1056)
Birdseye view of the Everett Peninsula, ca. 1893
Courtesy City of Smokestacks
William Weahlub of the Tulalip Reservation smoking salmon and roe on the beach, 1906
Photo by Norman Edson, Courtesy UW Special Collections
Great Northern Railway Depot, Everett, 1920s
Clark-Nickerson Lumber Mill, Everett, 1900s
Night, downtown Everett, 1920s
Hewitt Avenue and Commerce Block, Everett, 1914
Hewitt Avenue looking east, Everett, 1920s
Looking west along Hewitt Avenue across Wetmore, Everett, 1920s
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Everett, September 28, 2005
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Everett, September 28, 2005
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The underworld was surrounded by a series of rivers. In the book The Everything Classical Mythology (Bolton 2002) describes the following rivers surrounding the Greek underworld:
Acheron: The River of Woe
Cocytuys: The River of Wailing
Lethe: The River of Forgiveness
Pyriphlegethon: The River of Fire
Styx: The river of Hate
To enter the underworld it was required to cross one of the rivers. A ferryman named Charon ferried the spirits of the dead across the rivers to the underworld. Both the Greeks and Romans buried their dead with a coin in the mouth to pay Charon for the trip. After crossing the river, the dead would pass gates guarded by a three-headed dog. Next the spirits came before one of the judges of the dead (one of the three sons of Zeus) who directed the soul to one of three areas of the underworld Elysium, the Asphodel Fields or Tartarus. Though in practice, it was only the gods or goddess who directed a person wither to Elysium or Tartarus.
Elysium was the island for a chosen few. The gods permitted only heroes or very good people to enter into this area.
The Asphodel Fields were for the spirits of the common Greek. The majority of the population would be directed to here after death. Those who went to the Asphodel Fields were people who were neither particularly good or evil during their lives.
Tartarus was an area for those who were to be punished. In this place punishments were severe and unending. It was to Tartarus that Zeus sent the Titans after winning the battles against them. Mortals also could end up in Tartarus for crimes such as raping a daughter, hording wealth, committing fraud, and other more severe crimes.
Charon Ferrying the Sades by Subleyras, Pierre Musee du louvre, Paris
Major Gods and Goddesses
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Born: July 30, 1863
Died: April 7, 1947
Henry Ford did not invent the automobile, but he did masterfully develop the methods that made mass-production of automobiles possible. He is perhaps the person most responsible for launching the “car culture” in the United States.
Ford was born in Dearborn, Michigan, the son of Irish immigrants who fled the potato famine in the 1840s. As a child Ford attended a one-room school for eight years and helped his father work the family farm. At age 16, the industrious Ford walked to Detroit to find work in its machine shops. It was in these shops that he had his first contact with the internal combustion engine. In internal combustion engines, the engine produces power by sucking in a mixture of gasoline and air and igniting it with a spark. The force of this explosion provides power to operate a vehicle or other machine.
Ford married Clara Bryant in 1888 and five years later welcomed their only child, son Edsel. In 1891 Ford became an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company in Detroit. Within just a couple of years he was promoted to Chief Engineer. This promotion gave him enough time and money to conduct his own experiments on internal combustion engines. By the end of 1893 he had built his first working gasoline engine. Three years later he constructed his first horseless carriage, the Quadricycle. It was a four-horsepower vehicle with the chassis of a buggy frame mounted on four bicycle tires.
Ford dreamed of manufacturing automobiles, but his first two attempts at establishing a company failed. Financial backers pressured him to release a passenger automobile, but Ford insisted on waiting. Finally, in 1903, Ford was ready to market an automobile. The Ford Motor Company was incorporated with a mere $28,000 in cash put up by ordinary citizens, because Ford had already antagonized the wealthiest men in Detroit.
Ford’s idea of mass-producing a car affordable enough for the average worker met with resistance from the automobile industry. Nevertheless, Ford stuck to his goal, beginning production of the Model T in 1908. He gradually adapted the production line and in 1913 his plant incorporated the first moving assembly line, allowing for greater production. Demand for the affordable car soared; by 1927, fifteen million had been sold, and Ford was the leading auto manufacturer in the country. In addition to the moving assembly line, Ford revolutionized the auto industry by increasing the pay and decreasing the hours of his employees. During the Model T era, Ford bought out his shareholders so he had complete financial control of the now vast corporation. He continued to innovate, but competitors, growing more powerful though fewer in number, began to cut into Ford's market share.
The unprecedented scale of his competitor’s success, together with Ford's absolute control of the firm, set the stage for decline. Trusting in what he believed was an unerring market instinct, Ford refused to follow other automobile manufacturers in offering innovative features. When he was finally convinced that the marketplace had changed and was demanding more than a purely utilitarian vehicle, he shut down his plants for five months to retool. In December 1927, he introduced the Model A. The new model enjoyed solid, but not impressive, success. Ford's stubbornness had cost him his leadership position in the industry: the Model A was outsold by General Motors's Chevrolet and Chrysler's Plymouth and was discontinued in 1931.
A similar pattern of inflexibility and stubbornness marked Ford's attitude toward his workers. The $5 day that brought him so much attention in 1914 came at the cost of workers’ individualism and independence. It was, moreover, no guarantee for the future. In 1929 Ford instituted a $7 day, but in 1932, as part of the fiscal stringency imposed by falling sales and the Great Depression, that was cut to $4, below standard industry wages. Ford used company police, labor spies, and violence in a protracted effort to prevent unionization. He continued to do so even after General Motors and Chrysler came to terms with the United Automobile Workers. When the UAW finally succeeded in organizing Ford workers in 1941, he considered shutting down before he was persuaded to sign a union contract.
Henry Ford was an idiosyncratic and complex personality. Away from the shop floor he exhibited a variety of enthusiasms and prejudices. His dictum that "history is more or less bunk" was widely known. One of Ford's most publicized acts was his chartering of an ocean liner to conduct himself and a party of pacifists to Europe in November 1915 in an attempt to end the war by means of "continuous mediation." The so-called Peace Ship episode was widely ridiculed. In 1918, with the support of President Woodrow Wilson, Ford ran for the U.S. Senate. He was narrowly defeated after a campaign of personal attacks by his opponent and never ran for office again. Also in 1918, Ford bought The Dearborn Independent newspaper and used it to publish a series of anti-Semitic attacks. In 1927 he formally retracted his attacks and sold the paper. He expressed admiration for Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.
On the other hand, Henry Ford was also recognized for several civic contributions: he established small village factories; built one-room schools in which vocational training was emphasized; experimented with soybeans for food and durable goods; sponsored a weekly radio hour on which quaint essays were read to "plain folks"; and constructed Greenfield Village, a restored rural town. He also built what later was named the Henry Ford Museum and filled it with American artifacts and antiques from the era of his youth. In the 1920s, Ford decided to move his hero and friend Thomas Edison’s Menlo Park invention factory to the museum. He and Edison went to New Jersey to recover the buildings but found that most had been removed or were in disrepair. Ford then had his staff reconstruct the Menlo Park buildings from photographs and a few surviving original materials. Today the Henry Ford Museum & Greenfield Village houses a vast collection of Edison artifacts.
After his death, Ford's stock holdings went to the Ford Foundation, which had been set up in 1936 as a means of retaining family control of the firm. The Ford Foundation has subsequently became one of the richest private foundations in the world.
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Ptosis Correction Surgery:
Ptosis Correction Surgery India offers information on Ptosis Correction Surgery in India, Ptosis Correction Surgery cost India, Ptosis Correction Surgery hospital in India, Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad & Bangalore, Ptosis Correction Surgeon in India.
Ptosis is the medical term for drooping of the upper eyelid, a condition that may affect one or botheyes.
The ptosis may be mild - in which the lid partially covers the pupil; or severe - in which the lid completely covers the pupil.
When does Ptosis occur?
Ptosis can occur at any age. When present since birth it is called congenital ptosis. When present in the elderly it is called acquired ptosis.
What causes Ptosis?
While the cause of congenital ptosis is often unclear, the most common reason is improper development of the levator muscle. The levator muscle is the major muscle responsible for elevating the upper eyelid. In adults ptosis is generally due to weakening / dehiscence of the levator muscle. It may also occur following injury to the muscle as after lid injuries and eye surgeries. Rarely it may be due to myasthenia gravis ( a condition where there is progressive weakness of muscles).
Why should Ptosis be treated?
Children with significant ptosis may need to tilt their head back into a chin-up position, lift their eyelid with a finger, or raise their eyebrows in an effort to see from under their drooping eyelid. Children with congenital ptosis may also have amblyopia ("lazy eye"), strabismus or squint (eyes that are not properly aligned or straight), refractive errors, astigmatism, or blurred vision. In addition, drooping of the eyelid may result in an undesired facial appearance and difficult social life. In moderate ptosis there is a loss of the upper field of vision by the drooping upper lid.
How is Ptosis treated?
The eye condition Ptosis is trated by a specified sugery called ptosis surgery.
Ptosis is treated surgically, with the specific operation based on the severity of the ptosis and the strength of the levator muscle. If the ptosis is not severe, surgery is generally performed when the child is between 3 and 5 years of age (the "pre-school" years). However, when the ptosis interferes with the child's vision, surgery is performed at an earlier age to allow proper visual development. Ptosis repair is usually completed under general anesthesia in infants and young children and under local anesthesia in adults.
What to expect after surgery ?
Most patients will tolerate the procedure very well and have a rapid recovery. Cold packs may need to be applied to the operated eyelid for the first 48 hours following surgery. Antibiotic ointments applied to the incision are sometimes recommended. The elevation of the eyelid will often be immediately noticeable, though in some cases bruising and swelling will obscure this finding. Most patients will have sutures that need removing about a week following surgery. In children, absorbable sutures are often used.
The bruising and swelling associated with the surgery will usually resolve in two to three weeks. Some patients may need adjustment of the sutures to better align the lid height. This may or may not require additional anaesthesia or a trip to the operating room.
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What Is It?
Cholecystectomy is the surgical removal of the gallbladder, the small saclike organ located near the liver in the upper right side of the abdomen. It is attached to the main duct that carries bile from the liver into the intestine. Bile helps your body to break down and absorb fats. The gallbladder temporarily stores bile from the liver. When you eat, the gallbladder contracts and squeezes extra bile into the intestine to aid digestion.
There are two ways to remove the gallbladder:
- Traditional surgery. The surgeon cuts open the abdomen and removes the gallbladder through an incision that is about 6 inches long. The abdomen is then stitched closed again.
- Laparoscopic surgery. The surgeon makes four small (less than an inch) incisions for a laparoscope and instruments. A laparoscope is a tube-like instrument with a camera for viewing, and with it the surgeon can guide the surgical instruments to remove the gallbladder. The gallbladder is cut away from the liver and the bile duct and removed through one of the small incisions.
Surgeons remove about 500,000 gallbladders in the United States each year. About 90% of the time, laparoscopic surgery is used because it requires a shorter hospital stay, is less painful, and has a shorter recovery time compared to traditional surgery. In the remaining 10%, traditional surgery is used because the person has significant abdominal scarring from prior surgery, severe inflammation, unusual anatomy, or other factors that make surgery with a laparoscope very difficult and riskier.
Most people have no side effects from living without a gallbladder. Bile can still pass directly from the liver to the intestines, so the gallbladder usually is not necessary. Occasionally, people notice a tendency to diarrhea after the gallbladder is removed.
What It's Used For
Surgeons remove gallbladders to prevent complications from gallstones, which are rocklike lumps that form inside the gallbladder. Gallstones can cause symptoms as simple as intermittent crampy pain after eating, but they also can lead to cholecystitis cholangitis or pancreatitis. Cholecystitis is an inflammation or infection of the gallbladder that develops when a gallstone blocks the bile duct (or tube) that leads from the gallbladder to the main bile duct. Cholecystitis causes fever, nausea or vomiting, and pain in the upper right side of the abdomen. Cholangitis is an infection of the bile ducts that may occur when a gallstone passes out of the gallbladder and blocks the main bile duct between the liver and intestine. Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas that can be caused by a gallstone blocking the duct coming from the pancreas (this pancreatic duct is attached to the bile duct). This leads to pancreatic enzymes irritating and inflaming the pancreas. Cholecystitis is not usually a severe problem, but cholangitis and pancreatitis can be.
Your doctor will review your allergies and your medical and surgical history. If there is any chance that you may be pregnant or you are trying to get pregnant, tell your doctor before your surgery.
About one week before surgery, you will need to stop taking blood-thinning medications. Beginning at midnight on the night before your surgery, you must not eat or drink anything. This reduces the risk of vomiting during surgery.
You will need to have someone drive you home after surgery.
How It's Done
No matter which type of surgery you have, you will be put under general anesthesia, making you unconscious during your surgery. An intravenous (IV) line inserted into one of your veins will deliver fluids and medications.
- Traditional surgery. The surgeon cuts a 6-inch incision in the upper right side of your abdomen and removes your gallbladder. Often, a test called cholangiography is done during the operation to look for any stones that may have passed into the main bile duct (in this test, a dye is injected into the bile ducts and X-rays are taken). If stones are seen on the X-rays, they may be removed, and a tube may then be placed in the common bile duct (and coming out of the skin) for drainage, until some time after the surgery. After the gallbladder is removed, the incision is closed with stitches. While in the hospital, you gradually will resume eating a normal diet and get out of bed. Usually you stay in the hospital for two to five days.
- Laparoscopic surgery. The surgeon makes a small incision at the navel and puts air into the abdomen to make it easier to see. This help to avoid damaging any organs with the incisions or instruments. Next the laparoscope is inserted through the small incision at your navel. Once the laparoscope is inside your abdomen, a camera on the laparoscope transmits images to a viewing screen. Three smaller incisions are made, and the surgical instruments are inserted through these incisions. The surgeon cuts out the gallbladder, and removes the gallbladder through one of the incisions, usually the one at your bellybutton. All of the instruments are removed, and the surgeon closes the incisions with stitches or surgical tape. After you wake up from anesthesia, the IV line remains in place until you can drink fluids on your own, usually within a few hours after surgery. If you are having a same-day procedure, you can leave the hospital when you feel well enough to go home safely. You may be able to eat a light meal later that day (in the evening). Sometimes patients stay in the hospital until the next morning.
If there are any difficulties during a laparoscopic surgery, the surgeon will switch to a traditional cholecystectomy. This may happen if there is too much bleeding, if there is much scarring from previous surgery, if the gallbladder is difficult to remove, or if there is severe infection.
You will need to visit your doctor for follow-up sometime after you leave the hospital. This may be within a few days to a few weeks after you return home from the hospital. Your doctor will check the healing of your incisions and remove any stitches. After laparoscopic surgery, you usually can return to work within three to seven days. After traditional surgery, you may need to wait three to six weeks before going back to work. Check with your doctor before resuming specific activities, such as sports, heavy labor and lifting.
Possible complications of a cholecystectomy include infection, bleeding, blood clots, damage to bile ducts, retained gall stones, and injury to surrounding organs. Occasionally, people have diarrhea after cholecystectomy. A medication called cholestyramine (Questran) can help to treat the diarrhea.
When to Call a Professional
Once you return home from the hospital, call your doctor immediately if you develop a fever or if your incision becomes red, tender or swollen.
American College of Surgeons (ACS)
633 North Saint Clair St.
Chicago, IL 60611-3211
American Liver Foundation
75 Maiden Lane
New York, NY 10038
National Institutes of Health Information about Digestive Diseases
2 Information Way
Bethesda, MD 20892-3570
| 3.648685 |
Paget's Disease of Bone
What Is It?
Bones in your body continuously break down and form again in a natural and tightly balanced process called bone remodeling. This bone remodeling also occurs in response to stress or injury placed on the bone. For example, weight-bearing exercise leads to increased bone formation.
In Paget's disease, more bone breaks down than usual and more new bone forms than usual. These changes in the bone can lead to bone enlargement and deformity. The new bone growth tends to be softer and more fragile than normal bone, and can develop in a haphazard pattern. Because of this, the bone can fracture. The long bones, especially the legs, tend to bow, and the skull may enlarge, particularly over the forehead.
Paget's disease is the second most common bone disorder in people over 50, after osteoporosis. It is rarely diagnosed in young adults.
Although the cause is unknown, genetics may play a role because the disease sometimes runs in families. Research suggests a slow-growing virus may trigger the disease; some cells in the bone of people with Paget's disease look like they are infected with a virus. However, no virus has been identified.
The condition is rare in certain parts of the world, such as Japan, but more common in the United States and Australia. In the United States, an estimated 10% of people older than age 80 have Paget's disease.
In about 20% of people with Paget's disease, only one area of the body - the spine, pelvis, thighs, lower legs or skull - is affected. The rest have many areas involved. In serious cases, complications can include deafness, congestive heart failure (caused by the extra blood flow required by the diseased bone), an elevated calcium level and cancer of the bone.
An estimated 70% of people with Paget's disease do not have any symptoms. Symptoms are more likely to occur in people who have many areas of the body affected. Symptoms can include:
- Bone pain and warmth
- Head enlargement
- Bowing of the legs
- Hearing loss
Because many people with Paget's disease do not have symptoms, the condition often is not discovered until an X-ray or blood test (called the alkaline phosphatase) obtained for other reasons suggests the disease may be present. If your doctor thinks you may have Paget's disease, specific blood and urine tests can measure the levels of certain byproducts of bone formation and breakdown. More detailed X-rays or a bone scan also may be done. In rare instances, a doctor may recommend a bone biopsy to confirm the diagnosis and exclude other possibilities. In a bone biopsy, a small piece of bone is removed with a needle so it can be examined in a laboratory.
Paget's disease cannot be cured, but treatment can control the symptoms.
There is no way to prevent Paget's disease.
Treatment is generally reserved for people with symptoms. In rare cases, a doctor may recommend treatment even if you don't have symptoms if X-rays, blood tests and a bone biopsy detect enough disease.
Medications such as including aspirin, mild pain relievers and anti-inflammatory drugs can help treat pain and inflammation. In advanced cases, your doctor may recommend medications such as alendronate (Fosamax), risedronate (Actonel), pamidronate (Aredia), zoledronic acid (Reclast, Zometa) or calcitonin (Miacalcin) to reduce the activity of cells that remodel bone.
Surgery to correct deformities is rarely necessary. If Paget's disease causes significant damage to a hip, hip replacement surgery may be considered. Hearing aides may be helpful if Paget's disease affects the bones inside the ear.
A person with Paget's disease will be monitored carefully for complications such as heart failure or an elevation in blood calcium, and these conditions will be treated if necessary.
When to Call a Professional
Contact your doctor if you experience any of the symptoms of Paget's disease for more than two weeks.
Paget's disease itself is not fatal, however, it is associated with an increased risk of a cancerous bone tumor, called osteosarcoma. Paget's disease is a long-lasting (chronic) condition. The outlook is generally good, especially if the condition is diagnosed and treated before major changes in bones have occurred and when there is no osteosarcoma.
American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS)
6300 North River Rd.
Rosemont, IL 60018-4262
The Paget Foundation
120 Wall St.
New York, NY 10005-4001
| 3.795979 |
Deoxidation is the removal of excess oxygen from molten metal. The procedure involves adding materials with a high affinity for oxygen, the oxides of which
are either gaseous or readily form slags. The deoxidation of steel is usually performed by adding Mn, Si and Al, or rarely by adding
Cr, V, Ti, Zr and B.
The deoxidation of molten steel shows a paradox. By increasing the concentration of deoxidizer in the melt over some critical value reoxidation of steel
takes place. A few examples of the reoxidation of steel by adding the usual deoxidizers (Si and Al) are examined in this article.
Deoxidation is the last stage in steelmaking. In the Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF) and other similar steelmaking practices the steel bath as the time of tapping
contains 400 to 800 ppm activity of oxygen. Deoxidation is carried out during tapping by adding into the tap-ladle appropriate amounts of ferromanganese,
ferrosilicon and/or aluminum or other special deoxidizers. If at the end of the blow the carbon content of the steel is below specifications, the metal
is also recarburized in the ladle. However, large additions in the ladle are undesirable, because of the adverse effect on the temperature of the metal.
Eight typical conditions of commercial ingots, cast in identical bottle-top molds, in relation to the degree of suppression of gas evolution are shown
schematically in Figure 1. The dotted line indicates the height to which the steel originally was poured in each ingot mold. Depending on the carbon
content and particularly of the oxygen content, the ingot structures range from that of a fully killed or dead-killed ingot N°1 to that of a violently
rimmed ingot N°8. Included in the series are indicated in figure 1 i.e. killed steel N°1, semikilled steel N°2, capped steel N°5,
and rimmed steel N°7.
Figure 1: Series of typical ingot structures
Rimmed steel usually is tapped without having made additions of deoxidizers to the steel in the furnace or only small additions to the molten steel
in ladle, in order to have sufficient oxygen present to give the desired gas evolution by reacting in the mold with carbon. The exact procedures followed
depend upon whether the steel has a carbon content in the higher ranges i.e. %C=0.12-0.15 or in the lower ranges, e.g. %C=max 0.10 .When the metal in the
ingot mold begins to solidify, there is a brisk evolution of carbon monoxide, resulting in an outer ingot skin of relatively clean metal low in carbon and
other solutes. Such ingots are best suited for the manufacture of steel sheets.
Capped steel practice is a variation of rimmed steel practice. The rimming action is allowed to begin normally, but is then terminated after a minute
or more by sealing the mold with a cast-iron cap. In steels with a carbon content greater than 0.15% the capped ingot practice is usually applied to sheet,
strip, wire and bars.
Semikilled steel is deoxidized less than killed steel and there is enough oxygen present in the molten steel to react with carbon forming sufficient
carbon monoxide to counterbalance the solidification shrinkage. The steel generally has a carbon content within the range %C=0.15-0.30 and finds wide
application in structural shapes.
Killed steel is deoxidized to such an extent that there is no gas evolution during solidification. Aluminum is used for deoxidation, together with
ferro-alloys of manganese and silicon; in certain cases calcium silicide or other special strong deoxidizers are used. In order to minimize piping, almost
all killed steels are cast in hot-topped big-end up molds.
Killed steels are generally used when a homogeneous structure is required in the finished steels. Alloy steels, forging steels and steels for carburizing
are of this type, when the essential quality is soundness. In producing certain extra-deep-drawing steels, a low-carbon (%C=max 0.12) steel is killed,
usually with a substantial amount of aluminum that is added in the ladle, in the mold or both.
Although the deoxidation of steel by aluminum suppresses the formation of carbon monoxide during solidification, and hence suppresses blow holes, there
are many steel processing operations where aluminum killing of steel is undesirable. For example, it is widely recognized that certain alloy steels to be
cast as large ingots should not be subject to aluminum killing, because of the piping and of deleterious effects of alumina inclusions on the subsequent
processing of ingots for certain applications, e.g. generator-rotor shafts.
It has been recognized from the early days of the continuous-casting operation nearly two decades ago that casting difficulties and poor surface conditions
are often experienced with aluminum-killed steels. It is for these reasons that other forms of deoxidation are often preferred in a number of steel-processing
operations, e.g. silico-managanese deoxidation and/or vacuum carbon deoxidation.
Deoxidation reactions can be described using the deoxidation equilibrium constant. A wide spectrum of deoxidation equilibria pertaining to the most common
deoxidants for steel is summarized in Table 1 as a log-log plot of the concentration of oxygen in solution in liquid steel against that of the added elements.
Table 1: Solubility of the products of deoxidation in liquid iron.
|Equilibrium constant K*
||K at 1600°C
||< 1 ppm Al
||1.1 x 10-15
||-71600/T + 23.28
||< 1 ppm Al
||4.3 x 10-14
||-62780/T + 20.17
||1.3 x 10-8
||> 0.02% C
||2.0 x 10-3
||-1168/T - 2.07
||> 3% Cr
||1.1 x 10-4
||-40740/T + 17.78
||> 1% Mn
||5.1 x 10-2
||-14450/T + 6.43
||> 20 ppm Si
||2.2 x 10-5
||-30410/T + 11.59
||< 0.3% Ti
||2.8 x 10-6
||> 5% Ti
||1.9 x 10-3
||< 0.10 V
||8.9 x 10-8
||-48060/T + 18.61
||> 0.3% V
||2.9 x 10-6
||-43200/T + 17.52
In all cases, the oxygen and the alloying element in solution are in equilibrium with the appropriate gas, liquid or solid oxide phases at 1600°C, e.g. 1 atm CO,
pure B2O3, pure Al2O3 etc. The curves for Mn, Si and C are from compiled data. The curves for
Cr, V, B, Ti and Al are based on the recent work done in this laboratory by Fruehan using the oxygen galvanic cell previously
described in measuring the equilibrium oxygen potentials.
- Activities are chosen such that aMn ≡ %Mn and aO ≡ %O when %M→O
- Square brackets [ ] denote component present in molten steel
- Temperature (T) is on the Kelvin scale.
Deoxidation reactions can be described using the deoxidation equilibrium constant. The reaction when the alloying element (M) is added to the steel can be represented by:
MxOy = xM + Yo .....(1)
The deoxidation constant assuming pure MxOy forms (i.e. unit activity for MxOy) is given by:
K = (hM)x(hO)y .....(2)
Where hM and hO are the Henrian activities defined such that activity of the components is equal to its weight percent at infinite dilution in iron.
Hi = fi(wt.% i) .....(3)
The activity coefficient fi can be corrected for alloying elements by use of the interaction parameter eji
(d log fi/d log wt%j) = eji .....(4)
Table 2 shows the coefficients of interaction for the common elements of carbon and stainless steels at 1600°C.
Table 2: The coefficients of interaction for the common elements of carbon and stainless steels at 1600°C
|Carbon steel 1600°C
|Stainless steel 1600°C
For most low alloy steels encountered in ladle metallurgy the activity coefficient can be taken as unity and equation 2 reduces to:
KM = (%M)x(%O)y .....(5)
To illustrate how to use these constants consider a steel containing 0.1%Si at 1600°C (2912°F) in equilibrium with SiO2.
The value of KSi is given by:
KSi = (%Si)(%O)2 .....(6)
KSi = 2.2 x 10-5
(%O)2 = 2.2 x 10-4
(%O) ≈ 0.015 or 150 ppm.
It is important to remember that these calculations are for soluble oxygen content; the total oxygen content which includes both the soluble oxygen and
the oxygen associated with inclusions could be much higher.
For single element deoxidation, the solubility of oxygen in liquid iron at 1600°C (2912°F) is given as a function of the concentration of
the alloying element. In each case, the melt is in equilibrium with the respective pure oxide; e.g. SiO2, Al2O3 etc.
It can be clearly seen that aluminum is the strongest of the common deoxiders followed by titanium. Rare earths are about as strong aluminum as deoxidizers
and will be discussed later in detail.
| 3.47152 |
Electricity and magnetism
The dot product Introduction to the vector dot product.
The dot product
⇐ Use this menu to view and help create subtitles for this video in many different languages. You'll probably want to hide YouTube's captions if using these subtitles.
- Let's learn a little bit about the dot product.
- The dot product, frankly, out of the two ways of multiplying
- vectors, I think is the easier one.
- So what does the dot product do?
- Why don't I give you the definition, and then I'll give
- you an intuition.
- So if I have two vectors; vector a dot vector b-- that's
- how I draw my arrows.
- I can draw my arrows like that.
- That is equal to the magnitude of vector a times the
- magnitude of vector b times cosine of the
- angle between them.
- Now where does this come from?
- This might seem a little arbitrary, but I think with a
- visual explanation, it will make a little bit more sense.
- So let me draw, arbitrarily, these two vectors.
- So that is my vector a-- nice big and fat vector.
- It's good for showing the point.
- And let me draw vector b like that.
- Vector b.
- And then let me draw the cosine, or let me, at least,
- draw the angle between them.
- This is theta.
- So there's two ways of view this.
- Let me label them.
- This is vector a.
- I'm trying to be color consistent.
- This is vector b.
- So there's two ways of viewing this product.
- You could view it as vector a-- because multiplication is
- associative, you could switch the order.
- So this could also be written as, the magnitude of vector a
- times cosine of theta, times-- and I'll do it in color
- appropriate-- vector b.
- And this times, this is the dot product.
- I almost don't have to write it.
- This is just regular multiplication, because these
- are all scalar quantities.
- When you see the dot between vectors, you're talking about
- the vector dot product.
- So if we were to just rearrange this expression this
- way, what does it mean?
- What is a cosine of theta?
- Let me ask you a question.
- If I were to drop a right angle, right here,
- perpendicular to b-- so let's just drop a right angle
- there-- cosine of theta soh-coh-toa so, cah cosine--
- is equal to adjacent of a hypotenuse, right?
- Well, what's the adjacent?
- It's equal to this.
- And the hypotenuse is equal to the magnitude of a, right?
- Let me re-write that.
- So cosine of theta-- and this applies to the a vector.
- Cosine of theta of this angle is equal to ajacent, which
- is-- I don't know what you could call this-- let's call
- this the projection of a onto b.
- It's like if you were to shine a light perpendicular to b--
- if there was a light source here and the light was
- straight down, it would be the shadow of a onto b.
- Or you could almost think of it as the part of a that goes
- in the same direction of b.
- So this projection, they call it-- at least the way I get
- the intuition of what a projection is, I kind of view
- it as a shadow.
- If you had a light source that came up perpendicular, what
- would be the shadow of that vector on to this one?
- So if you think about it, this shadow right here-- you could
- call that, the projection of a onto b.
- Or, I don't know.
- Let's just call it, a sub b.
- And it's the magnitude of it, right?
- It's how much of vector a goes on vector b over-- that's the
- adjacent side-- over the hypotenuse.
- The hypotenuse is just the magnitude of vector a.
- It's just our basic calculus.
- Or another way you could view it, just multiply both sides
- by the magnitude of vector a.
- You get the projection of a onto b, which is just a fancy
- way of saying, this side; the part of a that goes in the
- same direction as b-- is another way to say it-- is
- equal to just multiplying both sides times the magnitude of a
- is equal to the magnitude of a, cosine of theta.
- Which is exactly what we have up here.
- And the definition of the dot product.
- So another way of visualizing the dot product is, you could
- replace this term with the magnitude of the projection of
- a onto b-- which is just this-- times the
- magnitude of b.
- That's interesting.
- All the dot product of two vectors is-- let's just take
- one vector.
- Let's figure out how much of that vector-- what component
- of it's magnitude-- goes in the same direction as the
- other vector, and let's just multiply them.
- And where is that useful?
- Well, think about it.
- What about work?
- When we learned work in physics?
- Work is force times distance.
- But it's not just the total force
- times the total distance.
- It's the force going in the same
- direction as the distance.
- You should review the physics playlist if you're watching
- this within the calculus playlist. Let's say I have a
- 10 newton object.
- It's sitting on ice, so there's no friction.
- We don't want to worry about fiction right now.
- And let's say I pull on it.
- Let's say my force vector-- This is my force vector.
- Let's say my force vector is 100 newtons.
- I'm making the numbers up.
- 100 newtons.
- And Let's say I slide it to the right, so my distance
- vector is 10 meters parallel to the ground.
- And the angle between them is equal to 60 degrees, which is
- the same thing is pi over 3.
- We'll stick to degrees.
- It's a little bit more intuitive.
- It's 60 degrees.
- This distance right here is 10 meters.
- So my question is, by pulling on this rope, or whatever, at
- the 60 degree angle, with a force of 100 newtons, and
- pulling this block to the right for 10 meters, how much
- work am I doing?
- Well, work is force times the distance, but not just the
- total force.
- The magnitude of the force in the direction of the distance.
- So what's the magnitude of the force in the
- direction of the distance?
- It would be the horizontal component of this force
- vector, right?
- So it would be 100 newtons times the
- cosine of 60 degrees.
- It will tell you how much of that 100
- newtons goes to the right.
- Or another way you could view it if this
- is the force vector.
- And this down here is the distance vector.
- You could say that the total work you performed is equal to
- the force vector dot the distance vector, using the dot
- product-- taking the dot product, to the force and the
- distance factor.
- And we know that the definition is the magnitude of
- the force vector, which is 100 newtons, times the magnitude
- of the distance vector, which is 10 meters, times the cosine
- of the angle between them.
- Cosine of the angle is 60 degrees.
- So that's equal to 1,000 newton meters
- times cosine of 60.
- Cosine of 60 is what?
- It's square root of 3 over 2.
- Square root of 3 over 2, if I remember correctly.
- So times the square root of 3 over 2.
- So the 2 becomes 500.
- So it becomes 500 square roots of 3 joules, whatever that is.
- I don't know 700 something, I'm guessing.
- Maybe it's 800 something.
- I'm not quite sure.
- But the important thing to realize is that the dot
- product is useful.
- It applies to work.
- It actually calculates what component of what vector goes
- in the other direction.
- Now you could interpret it the other way.
- You could say this is the magnitude of a
- times b cosine of theta.
- And that's completely valid.
- And what's b cosine of theta?
- Well, if you took b cosine of theta, and you could work this
- out as an exercise for yourself, that's the amount of
- the magnitude of the b vector that's
- going in the a direction.
- So it doesn't matter what order you go.
- So when you take the cross product, it matters whether
- you do a cross b, or b cross a.
- But when you're doing the dot product, it doesn't matter
- what order.
- So b cosine theta would be the magnitude of vector b that
- goes in the direction of a.
- So if you were to draw a perpendicular line here, b
- cosine theta would be this vector.
- That would be b cosine theta.
- The magnitude of b cosine theta.
- So you could say how much of vector b goes in the same
- direction as a?
- Then multiply the two magnitudes.
- Or you could say how much of vector a goes in the same
- direction is vector b?
- And then multiply the two magnitudes.
- And now, this is, I think, a good time to just make sure
- you understand the difference between the dot product and
- the cross product.
- The dot product ends up with just a number.
- You multiply two vectors and all you have is a number.
- You end up with just a scalar quantity.
- And why is that interesting?
- Well, it tells you how much do these-- you could almost say--
- these vectors reinforce each other.
- Because you're taking the parts of their magnitudes that
- go in the same direction and multiplying them.
- The cross product is actually almost the opposite.
- You're taking their orthogonal components, right?
- The difference was, this was a a sine of theta.
- I don't want to mess you up this picture too much.
- But you should review the cross product videos.
- And I'll do another video where I actually compare and
- contrast them.
- But the cross product is, you're saying, let's multiply
- the magnitudes of the vectors that are perpendicular to each
- other, that aren't going in the same direction, that are
- actually orthogonal to each other.
- And then, you have to pick a direction since you're not
- saying, well, the same direction that
- they're both going in.
- So you're picking the direction that's orthogonal to
- both vectors.
- And then, that's why the orientation matters and you
- have to take the right hand rule, because there's actually
- two vectors that are perpendicular to any other two
- vectors in three dimensions.
- Anyway, I'm all out of time.
- I'll continue this, hopefully not too confusing, discussion
- in the next video.
- I'll compare and contrast the cross
- product and the dot product.
- See you in the next video.
Be specific, and indicate a time in the video:
At 5:31, how is the moon large enough to block the sun? Isn't the sun way larger?
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about the site
| 4.502702 |
Why Teach Kids Cooking Activities?
I started kids cooking activities and kids cooking lessons with my
children after my oldest son would create "something" in the kitchen
almost everyday. He would fill a pot with water, add sugar, salt,
apples, whatever he could find and ask me to cook it on the stove
top. He didn't want to follow a recipe. He just wanted to create
something using, whatever he could think of.
I came to understand how much kids love to cook and want to help in
the kitchen. When they are young they pretend to cook in the
kitchen, make mud pies in the sandbox, and what kid hasn't made
bubble cakes in the bath tub?
Kids do cooking activities all the time!
Why you should do kids cooking activities!
Here are 10 reasons why you should do cooking
activities with your children.
- Learning to cook helps children to learn about nutrition and
healthy eating. They are growing up with fast food and junk food
at their fingertips, which is part of the reason why child
obesity is on the rise! Teaching kids to cook will help
instill skills to last them a lifetime.
- Boost their self esteem. If your child needs a boost of
self confidence, (and who doesn't!) cooking in the kitchen will
do just that. They are accomplishing a task, learning something
important and contributing to the family.
- Create family time and bonding. Take time to cook with
your children and they will have memories that they, in turn,
can pass on to their families. It may take a longer time to get
the meal or snack done but the moments with your children will
be priceless. (Just remember to have patience. Don't worry about
flour on the floor or spilled milk).
- Kids will be more apt to eat what they make. Perhaps,
it is the enthusiasm of creating something themselves, but they
will be more likely to eat whatever they had a hand in making.
- Kids learn real lessons in science, language, math and
creativity. Cooking will help reinforce all these
subjects! Visit What
Children Learn While Cooking page for more information.
- What a great way to learn life skills. This can be
especially helpful when kids are on their own and won't have to
rely on fast food and junk food to sustain them.
- They can help contribute to the family and they can
feel the importance of helping.
- They are working together as a team, whether it is
with a parent or with a sibling to get the job done.
- Cooking teaches them planning and making choices.
- Practice creativity and imagination. Kids cooking
activities are a great way to express themselves and enjoy their
All of our kids cooking activities and ideas
are kid tested, doable and fun. They just need:
- A dash of time
- A pinch of originality
- A cup full of enthusiasm
So put on an apron and lets get started with Kids Cooking
Join our Newsletters and follow us on social media
We have several ways you can keep in contact with us. At the upper
right corner you'll see our links to follow our facebook, twitter
and pinterest groups.
We have a Get Cooking Newsletter
that goes out weekly with
advice, articles and tips on kids cooking.
As well as a weekly Kids Cooking Activities Club
introduce you to different sections and the highlights you'll find
in that area.
There is a lot of good information, cooking projects and children's
cooking activities on our site. Over 500 pages + hundred's of our
readers submitted recipes and ideas. You will get an email once a
week highlighting different areas on the site.
| 3.282409 |
An illustrated collection of poems celebrating those who have, as the title indicates, "changed the world."
While the individuals profiled here are undeniably inspiring, the biographical poem, brief text and topical poem intended to illuminate each person’s achievements don’t adequately convey personality or relevance, resulting in an uneven collection that, ironically enough, fails to live up to its potential. Thirty poets have contributed their work, from familiar, prolific authors such as Lee Bennett Hopkins, Jane Yolen and Marilyn Singer to those whose writing is less well-known. Subjects range from the contemporary (Temple Grandin, Steven Spielberg) to the historical (Jonas Salk), and from the well-known to the obscure (Father Greg Boyle). Unfortunately, the poems are uneven in quality, with many seeming forced or predictable. In general, the topical poems are the most successful, with particularly engaging verses by Singer (about the joys of flight) and Alice Schertle (pondering the mysteries of a mummy’s tomb). A variety of poetic forms are used; some feature rhyme and are composed of multiple stanzas, others seem more like prose portraits arbitrarily broken into short lines. Jepson’s vibrant collage-style illustrations incorporate a variety of patterns and textures. Complementary colors help to tie facing pages together and also serve as backgrounds to the text, further linking the concepts on each double-page spread.
Potentially useful in classrooms that include character education in the curriculum, this purposive anthology will likely find it hard to find an appreciative audience in less-structured settings. (Picture book/poetry. 8 and up)
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A research coordinated by the UAB has succeeded in testing a vaccine against leishmaniasis. The vaccine was tested with the best animal model existing, the golden hamster, and can be produced at low costs by using insect larvae. The research, published in the latest edition of PLoS ONE, is an important step towards the fight against a disease which causes the death of 70,000 people each year in developing countries and of countless dogs, which also suffer from this disease and are its natural reservoir.
Leishmaniasis is one of the main health problems existing at global scale. It is produced by the protozoan Leishmania infantum, and canines, which can also be infected with the disease, are the main reservoirs of the organism. The disease is transmitted by insects from the Phlebotominae subfamily (sandflies), which are very similar to mosquitos. Clinical manifestations can go anywhere from minor skin sores to organ complications and, in the worst cases, death. The disease causes 70,000 deaths a year, mainly in developing countries, and affects over 12 million people around the world. Some 1.5 to 2 million new cases appear each year and an additional 350 million people are at risk of contracting the disease. Leishmaniasis is considered an endemic disease in parts of Asia, Africa, southern Europe, Mexico, Central America and South America. With the AIDS epidemic, leishmaniasis in humans has reactivated in many countries. Current treatments are unsatisfactory and, even though the most reasonable via to fight the disease would be to obtain an efficient vaccine, conventional vaccines until now have failed.
The research team led by the UAB compared the results of applying different vaccine strategies to the best animal model in which to study the human variant of the disease: the golden hamster. The results show that the most effective strategy is a combination of two vaccines created by the researchers: three doses of DNA with genes from the L. infantum and two doses of proteins coded by these genes.
The protein vaccine can be obtained at a low cost thanks to the use of insect larvae. To create the vaccine scientists isolated protozoan genes, inserted them into a virus which affects insects (baculovirus) and used these to infect larvae of a small worm, the cabbage looper (Trichoplusia ni). The larvae act as bioreactors and produce in large amounts – and at a much lower cost than conventional reactors based on microorganisms – the proteins which code these genes, and which are responsible for a protective response in vaccinated individuals. Using this method, a DNA vaccine can be manufactured with the protozoan protein coding genes, and a second vaccine with proteins associated with these genes (produced at a low cost using insect larvae), with the aim of increasing its effectiveness. This vaccine strategy can be used both in a preventive and a therapeutic manner, in both humans and dogs. Presently, the possibility of a translational phase is being contemplated with the aim of transferring as quickly as possible the results of this basic research to clinical practices, and of increasing the efficacy even more by using drugs to boost the immune response.
Todolí F., Rodríguez-Cortés A., Núñez M. del Carmen, Laurenti M.D., Gómez-Sebastián S., et al. (2012) "Head-to-Head Comparison of Three Vaccination Strategies Based on DNA and Raw Insect-Derived Recombinant Proteins against Leishmania." PLoS ONE 7(12): e51181. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0009617
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona: http://www.uab.es
This press release was posted to serve as a topic for discussion. Please comment below. We try our best to only post press releases that are associated with peer reviewed scientific literature. Critical discussions of the research are appreciated. If you need help finding a link to the original article, please contact us on twitter or via e-mail.
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Study Guide – Anthropology 104
NOTE: This is just a guide! Any material covered in class, class discussion, videos, or in readings and home work could be incorporated in the Midterm or Final. This is not a complete summary of all you will need to know in this course.
Chapter One: What is anthropology? What are the subfields of anthropology? In what way is anthropology holistic, comparative, field work based? What is a frame of reference? What is ethnocentrism? Cultural relativism? Who was one of the most influential founders of American Anthropology? What ethical concerns do anthropologists have? What is theoretical linguistics? How does linguistic anthropology differ from theoretical linguistics? Why are anthropologists interested in language?
Chapter Two: Why do the Inuit have so many words for seals, ice and snow? What is ethnosemantics? Cognitive anthropology? Ethnoscience? What is a semantic domain? What is “the new ethnography?” What is linguistic relativity? What is linguistic determinism? What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis? What is a “mental map”? What are anthropologists interested in areas of linguistic emphasis? What does the Hanunoo color system tell us about the Hanunoo? Does language affect the way we respond to the material world?
Chapter Three: What is phonology? Phonetics? Phonemics? What are the differences between acoustic phonetics, auditory phonetics, articulatory phonetics and descriptive phonetics? What is voicing? Based on the place of articulation, what are the various ways consonants can be articulated? What are the various manners in which consonants can be articulated? What information do we need to know how a consonant is made or sounds? What information do we need to know how a vowel is formed? What is “rounding”. What is tongue height, tongue place? What are phonenes? What are allophones? What is “complementary distribution”? What does IPA stand for? What is the point of the IPA? What is a minimal pair.
Chapter Four: What is morphology? What is syntax? What is a morpheme? What is a word? What is a base? What is a root? Stem? Affix? What is a hierarchy in terms of affixes? How are new words created? What is inflection? What is derivation? What are transformational rules, what is generative grammar? What is prescriptive grammar? What is descriptive grammar? What are substitution frames? What are free morphemes? What are bound morphemes? What as an SOV language? Is English an SVO language? What is deep structure and what is surface structure? Who is Noam Chomsky?
Chapter Five: Why is context important in the study of language? What is the Ethnography of Speaking? Who was Bronislaw Malinowski? Who was Dell Hymes? What is communicative competence? What is linguistic competence? What is a speech community? What is a linguistic community? What is a community of practice? To what do the various letters of Dell Hymes’ mnemonic – S-P-E-A-K-I-N-G refer? What is a dialect? Why is it difficult to define a dialect? What is a register? What is a “rich point?” How can gender or ethnicity affect one’s language use? How does language communicate identity? What does M-A-R stand for?
Chapter Six: What is Proxemics? What is personal space? How does it vary from group to group? What percentage of communication is non-verbal? What is Kinesics? Can silence be a part of language? What are emblems, adapters, illustrators, regulators and affect displays? What are primes? Why shouldn’t American Sign Language be called non-verbal? Can anthropologists study the use of American Sign Language the way they study spoken language use? Can smell and taste be a part of communication?
Chapter Seven: What is writing? How old are complete writing systems? What is Logographic Writing, syllabic writing, logosyllabic writing, and alphabetic writing? How can reading and writing be at the heart of a crisis in education? How does that relate to social equality?
Chapter Eight: (also recall notes from class lectures on language acquisition). What are the design features of Arbitrariness, Displacement, and Productivity? How do children acquire language? What is Broca’s Area of the brain? What is Wernicke’s Area?
Chapter Nine: What are the various causes of language change? What is a dialect? What is a language? What is the origin of most European languages? How are new words developed (lecture)? What is a Pidgin? What is a Creole? Why did the Oakland School District want to teach in Ebonics? Why did that upset people? What is codeswitching? What was the Great Vowel Shift?
Chapter Ten: What is an endangered language? What is language extinction? What are marked forms, and unmarked forms? How can there be bias in grammar? In what ways can language be sexist or racist? Can language be sexist even if there are no negative words concerning women? Do anthropologists have many opportunities to study language and language use in their daily lives?
Don’t forget the readings in the work book, as well!
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A dental veneer is a thin covering that is placed over the front of the teeth. Veneers are made from ceramic, porcelain, resin-based composite, or acrylic. Custom-made shells are created by dental lab technicians and permanently bonded to the teeth.
In most cases, dental veneers are an elective dental procedure. This means they are not medically necessary. You might choose to have veneers if you have teeth that are:
- Chipped or worn
- Slightly crooked or uneven
Problems from the procedure are rare, but all procedures have some risk. Your dentist will review potential problems, like:
- Sensitivity to hot and cold—This usually goes away after a few days.
- Veneer may chip or crack—Veneers are strong, but they are also brittle. You should not put excessive strain on them, such as biting your fingernails or chewing ice.
Talk to your dentist about these risks before the procedure. If you grind or clench your teeth, your dentist may recommend a nighttime bite guard to protect your veneers.
If you are interested in getting dental veneers, you can meet with your dentist to discuss:
- What you do not like about your teeth, such as discoloration or slight crookedness
- What you want your teeth to look like
- Whether you are a candidate for veneers
- Which kind of veneers are right for you
Your dentist will explain the procedure and anything you should do to prepare.
You will have a local anesthetic for some parts of the procedure. This means that the dentist will numb only the part of your mouth that is being worked on.
Depending on the kind of veneer you choose, you may need to make several visits to the dentist before your veneers are complete.
To make room for the veneers, your dentist will remove the top layer of enamel from your teeth. You may be given local anesthetic for this step. It may be given as a gel that is rubbed on your gums or as an injection. The dentist will take a mold of your teeth and send it to a dental lab. The lab will make veneers to fit your teeth. This may take several days.
At your next visit, the dentist will put a mild chemical on your teeth. This will create a rough surface for the veneer to bond to. The dentist will carefully attach the veneers to your teeth using special cement. In some cases, your dentist will use a light-sensitive resin to attach the veneer. A special light will be used to cure and harden the resin.
The procedure will take several hours. You may have to wait a few days between visits for your veneers to be created in a dental lab.
You may have some minor pain. You will be given a local anesthetic for some steps of the procedure. Talk to your dentist if your mouth is sore after the procedure. An over-the-counter (OTC) pain reliever may be advised.
You will be able to leave right after the procedure.
When you return home, take these steps:
Follow your dentist's instructions to care for your veneers. This may include:
- Do not put too much strain on your teeth, such as by biting your fingernails or chewing ice.
- Avoid substances that may stain your veneers, like coffee, tea, or red wine.
- You can return to your regular oral hygiene routine. Brush your teeth twice each day and floss between your teeth at least once a day.
- Your dentist will schedule regular visits to inspect your veneers and polish them if needed.
Floss between your teeth at least once a day.
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Call your dentist if a veneer chips or cracks.
For the dental patient. Improving your smile with dental veneers.
J Am Dent Assoc.
Last reviewed March 2013 by Marcin Chwistek, MD;
Michael Woods, MD
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Copyright © EBSCO Publishing. All rights reserved.
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NASA knew that in order to properly explore the moon, walking wouldn’t be enough.
Astronauts needed to drive.
This month marks 40 years since man has been to the moon. It also marks the last ride of the lunar roving vehicles that gave astronauts an enhanced ability to explore our nearest neighbor in space.
The four-wheel, lightweight rover carried tools, scientific equipment and lunar samples during the Apollo 15, 16, and 17 missions. NASA said it multiplied the amount of information the astronauts gathered by a factor of at least three.
To build the rover, NASA teamed with Boeing Co. and General Motors' Delco electronics division in Santa Barbara. The original contract to Boeing -- with Delco as a subcontractor -- was for $19 million and called for delivery of the first rover by April 1, 1971.
The first of three rovers was delivered to NASA March 10, 1971, but cost overruns led to a final cost of $38 million. To get to the moon, the rover was folded up and stored in the lunar module that landed the astronauts on the surface.
The 10-foot, 2-inch-long rovers were powered by two 36-volt batteries. The wheels, traction drive, suspension, steering and drive control permitted the rover to cross the moon’s forbidding rocky terrain.
“The rover handles quite well,” astronaut Dave Scott said while on the first drive. “We’re moving at an average of about 8 kilometers (5 miles) per hour.… The steering is quite responsive.”
A T-shaped hand controller between the two seats was used to control the rover. Moving the stick forward powered the rover forward, left and right. Flipping a switch on the handle before pulling back put the rover into reverse.
There is no GPS on the moon. Navigation was based on continuously recording direction and distance through use of a directional gyro and odometer, so astronauts knew how to return by the most direct route.
Each wheel was individually powered by an electric motor that provided about one horsepower.
With a smooth surface, the rover could hit a top speed of about 8 miles per hour. The longest trip was more than 12 miles.
During Apollo 17, the last mission to the moon, astronaut Gene Cernan accidentally hit the rover’s fender with a hammer and broke it off. This made for a picture-perfect burnout when moon dust was thrown on the astronauts and cargo during their first outing.
“This is quite a machine, I tell you,” Cernan said.
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Who are internal medicine specialists and what do they do?
Internal medicine specialists focus primarily on treating adult medical disorders, and are especially skilled in multi-system illnesses or situations where several illnesses afflict a patient at once. Despite the name, they are trained to treat the whole body, not just internal organs, and see patients for a variety of conditions and complaints.
Also known as internists, these doctors often work as general practitioners, hospitalists, and primary care physicians. Patients see an internist for an annual checkup and diagnosis, as well as for treatment and management of acute and chronic illnesses. Preventive medicine and patient education are often emphasized, including annual physical examinations to monitor patients’ blood pressure, cholesterol levels and glucose levels and ensure other baseline tests are within normal levels for a patient’s age and gender.
Because internists’ patients often suffer from multi-system disorders, internists often work in hospitals where it is easiest to administer complex treatment and tests. Some internists also work in clinics or private practices, or split their time between a private practice office and a hospital.What subspecialties might an internal medicine specialist have?
Internal medicine specialists, while often practicing general internal medicine, may also undergo additional training to subspecialize in an area of internal medicine. There are more than a dozen different subspecialties recognized by the American Board of Internal Medicine, from adolescent medicine to hematology (blood), to rheumatology (arthritis) to sports medicine. Training in a subspecialty is typically called a fellowship and requires 1-3 years of training in addition to three years of internal medicine residency training.What symptoms and conditions are typically treated by an internal medicine specialist?
An internal medicine specialists’ scope of practice varies, but they typically provide basic diagnoses and non-surgical and surgical treatment of common medical conditions and illnesses. Internal medicine doctors will collect a patient’s history and review it to help inform the decision-making process when making a diagnosis. They review prior medical history, illnesses and other health information. A physical examination and basic medical testing helps them reach diagnoses, such as reading blood and other tests, electrocardiograms and X-rays.
Together with the patient, the internal medicine doctor forms a plan that can include additional testing if needed, a referral to see a specialist, medication prescriptions, therapies, changes to diet or lifestyle, additional patient education, or follow-up treatment. Patients also may receive advice or education on improving health behaviors, self-care and treatment, screening tests and immunizations.
Some common conditions treated by internists include:
Related ArticlesBuild a Better Doctor-Patient Relationship8 Things You Don’t Tell Your Doctor – But Should!Star Treatment – How to Get Top-Notch Medical CareShopping for a New Doc
- Gynecological complaints
- Infectious diseases
- Musculoskeletal complaints
- Respiratory system diseases
- Thyroid disease
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Hacking Quantum Cryptography Just Got Harder
With quantum encryption, in which a message gets encoded in bits represented by particles in different states, a secret message can remain secure even if the system is compromised by a malicious hacker.
CREDIT: margita | Shutterstock
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — No matter how complex they are, most secret codes turn out to be breakable. Producing the ultimate secure code may require encoding a secret message inside the quantum relationship between atoms, scientists say.
Artur Ekert, director of the Center for Quantum Technologies at the National University of Singapore, presented the new findings here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Ekert, speaking Saturday (Feb. 18), described how decoders can adjust for a compromised encryption device, as long as they know the degree of compromise.
The subject of subatomic particles is a large step away from the use of papyrus, the ancient writing material employed in the first known cryptographic device. That device, called a scytale, was used in 400 B.C. by Spartan military commanders to send coded messages to one another. The commanders would wrap strips of papyrus around a wooden baton and write the message across the strips so that it could be read only when the strips were wrapped around a baton of matching size. [The Coolest Quantum Particles Explained]
Later, the technique of substitution was developed, in which the entire alphabet would be shifted, say, three characters to the right, so than an "a" would be replaced by "d," and "b" replaced by "e," and so on. Only someone who knew the substitution rule could read the message. Julius Caesar employed such a cipher scheme in the first century B.C.
Over time, ciphers became more and more complicated, so that they were harder and harder to crack. Harder, but not impossible.
"When you look at the history of cryptography, you come up with a system, and sooner or later someone else comes up with a way of breaking the system," Ekert said. "You may ask yourself: Is it going to be like this forever? Is there such a thing as the perfect cipher?"
The perfect cipher
The closest thing to a perfect cipher involves what's called a one-time pad.
"You just write your message as a sequence of bits and you then add those bits to a key and obtain a cryptogram," Ekert said."If you take the cryptogram and add it to the key, you get plain text. In fact, one can prove that if the keys are random and as long as the messages, then the system offers perfect security."
In theory, it's a great solution, but in practice, it has been hard to achieve. [10 Best Encryption Software Products]
"If the keys are as long as the message, then you need a secure way to distribute the key," Ekert said.
The nature of physics known as quantum mechanics seems to offer the best hope of knowing whether a key is secure.
Quantum mechanics says that certain properties of subatomic particles can't be measured without disturbing the particles and changing the outcome. In essence, a particle exists in a state of indecision until a measurement is made, forcing it to choose one state or another. Thus, if someone made a measurement of the particle, it would irrevocably change the particle.
If an encryption key were encoded in bits represented by particles in different states, it would be immediately obvious when a key was not secure because the measurement made to hack the key would have changed the key.
This, of course, still depends on the ability of the two parties sending and receiving the message to be able to independently choose what to measure, using a truly random number generator — in other words, exercising free will — and using devices they trust.
But what if a hacker were controlling one of the parties, or tampering with the encryption device?
Ekert and his colleagues showed that even in this case, if the messaging parties still have some free will, their code could remain secure as long as they know to what degree they are compromised.
In other words, a random number generator that is not truly random can still be used to send an undecipherable secret message, as long as the sender knows how random it is and adjusts for that fact.
"Even if they are manipulated, as long as they are not stupid and have a little bit of free will, they can still do it," Ekert said.
MORE FROM LiveScience.com
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With the U.S. presidential election on November 6, we are presented with an ever increasing onslaught of political polls and their results. To make a proper interpretation of a poll’s results, three additional variables should be specified in addition to the proportion results: the poll’s margin of error, the desired level of confidence, and the sample size. In this brief essay, I will review the math behind the margin of error in polls to help you with interpretation of polls.
The purpose of a poll is to estimate the opinion or behavior of a population from a sample. We work with a sample since contacting the entire population is too time consuming, often too expensive, and can be physically impossible. Several methods of sampling are used, and simple random sampling, systematic sampling, stratified sampling, and cluster sampling are the most widely used methods.
After the sample is selected from the population, a statistic computed from sample information estimates a population parameter. The statistic computed from the sample that estimates the population parameter is called a point estimate. As an example, the sample mean, , is the point estimate of the population parameter, μ, the population mean. For polls, the sample proportion, ρ, is the point estimate of the population parameter, π, the population proportion.
How Close is the Point Estimate to the Population Parameter?
We now come to the essence of this essay–the confidence interval estimate (CI). A confidence interval estimate is a range of values constructed from sample data so that the population parameter is likely to occur within that range at a specified probability. The specified probability is called the level of confidence, and in most cases of poll results, the level of confidence is set at .95 (i.e., a pollster has a 95% confidence that the true measurement lies within the margin of error). Putting all of this together gives us the following equation: CI = point estimate ± margin of error
Accordingly, the CI is determined from the margin of error. You’ve seen the margin of error in some poll results, e.g., “The poll has a margin of error plus-minus 3.1 percentage points for the sample.” If the poll determined that ρ = .5, then the CI would be 50% ± 3.1% = 46.9-53.1, i.e., a pollster has a 95% confidence that the true poll results are 46.9% to 53.1%
I will now show how the margin of error is used to determine a poll’s CI and sample size.
How Is the CI Determined in a Poll?
To determine the CI in a poll, we will use the following formula to compute the margin of error: z * standard error. Mathematically, this formula is expressed as:
In this formula, z defines the level of confidence. In polls, the 95% level of confidence gives us a z score of 1.96. Also in polls, we determine the standard error as the maximum standard error by setting the proportion at 50% (ρ = .5).
We plug in these numbers to determine the margin of error at the 95% level of confidence:
Polls that we see in the media use the 95% level of confidence in determining the margin of error. However, statisticians also determine the margin of error using the 90% and 99% levels of confidence, although the 95% l.98evel of confidence is the most common. The margin of error for the 90% confidence level is calculated using a z score of 1.65:
For the 99% confidence level, the margin of error is calculated using a z score of 2.58:
How Is the Sample Size of a Poll Determined?
I noted above that the purpose of a poll is to estimate the opinion of a population from a sample. As researchers, we are interested in the generality of the data in terms of the number of subjects in the population to which the results apply. If a poll has a margin of error of 3.1%, we can use the formula for the margin of error to estimate the size of the sample:
A recent poll from NBC News/Wall Street Journal reported the following poll results:
Obama is ahead of Romney by five points, 49 percent to 44 percent. The full poll was conducted Oct. 17-20 among 1,000 registered voters. The poll has a margin of error plus-minus 3.1 percentage points for the sample of registered voters.
According to the formula above, we can see how the margin of error was calculated from the sample size of n = 1,000 registered voters.
Putting it All Together
A new TIME Poll has Obama holding a 49% to 44% lead over Romney in Ohio. The poll’s margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points. How do we interpret the results of this poll?
First, we estimate the sample size: n = (.98/.03)² = 1,067.
Second, we estimate the CI around each point estimate at the 95% level of confidence. Obama: 46-52 Romney: 41-47.
Finally, we decide that according to the results of this particular poll, a sample of 1,067 people in Ohio are equally likely to vote for Obama or Romney 95 times out of 100 (because the CIs overlap).
I wrote this essay to provide some clarity and perspective on election polls by reviewing the statistics behind polls. I emphasized that the result of a poll must be interpreted along with the poll’s margin of error so that the sample size and CI can be determined.
For more information on the science of polls, check out Nate Silver’s book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don’t, and Nate Silver’s blog FiveThiryEight
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Click any word in a definition or example to find the entry for that word
90% of the time, speakers of English use just 7,500 words in speech and writing. These words appear in red, and are graded with stars. One-star words are frequent, two-star words are more frequent, and three-star words are the most frequent.
The thesaurus of synonyms and related words is fully integrated into the dictionary entries. Click on the T button in an entry to review the synonyms and related words for that meaning.more
Mike lost his job last year.
Register now and don't lose your right to vote.
The family lost everything when their home burned down.
An unreasonably high exchange rate lost them export markets.
They feared losing the sale to a rival company.
'How did you do in the quiz?' 'We lost.'
England lost 2–1 to Germany.
They lost by only one point.
Those comments may well have lost them the election.
The plane lost cabin pressure and everyone had to use oxygen masks.
a plan to reduce the amount of working time lost through sickness
He must realize that an outstanding opportunity has been lost.
There's no time to lose (=used for saying that it is necessary to do something as quickly as possible because the situation is urgent).
This is the British English definition of lose. View American English definition of lose.
a part of an atom that moves around the nucleus (=centre) and has a negative electrical charge
A must for anyone with an interest in the changing face of language. The Macmillan Dictionary blog explores English as it is spoken around the world today.global English and language change from our blog
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Google chips in to preserve endangered languages
A newly launched partnership between academic institutions and Google aims to preserve endangered languages.
There's a language known as Aragones, spoken in northern Spain. If you don't recognize it, that's understandable. The language has fewer than 10,000 native speakers.
Aragones is one of thousands of endangered languages worldwide. A newly launched partnership between academic institutions and Google aims to preserve those languages.
"A language is endangered when it's not being passed on to the next generation," says Antony Aristar. He directs the Endangered Language Project and says as the world becomes more connected, languages are getting left behind. "People typically want their children to live modern lives and that means wealth, and wealth means jobs. Jobs often require that you speak the dominant language in the area, and that means that some parents feel the best way to make sure the children actually have good lives is to have them abandon their own language."
Google's participation in the project stems from its nonprofit arm, Google.org. Jason Rissman, a project manager at Google, sees a future where a well-stocked web presence informs future generations. "If you are a language community member or a linguist, perhaps you'll actually be able to contribute recordings or other sorts of documentation of the language, or if you're involved in curriculum development or teaching, you might be able to help develop a teaching tool that could be useful for passing these languages on."
Languages like Munji in Afghanistan, Nez Perce in the United States, Koro in New Guinea. Tracking down the necessary data to preserve a language is not easy, says Aristar.
Aristar: You try to preserve narratives especially. You have field linguists that go out there and try to write the grammar and get a dictionary, things like that. That's one kind of preservation. The other kind is to try to pass all this back to the community so that they can use it to for example to teach children who aren't learning the language under normal circumstances.
Moe: What do you hope the legacy of this project will be?
Aristar: I am hoping we will have many more communities who realize it's perfectly possible to preserve their own language, and still speak the dominant language as well. So often, the cultural wealth that exists in a culture exists through the language itself. If that's gone, the cultural continuity is gone. So, we hope we see as many cultures preserved as well as languages.
You can find out more about the project at endangeredlanguages.com.
Twitter has deleted the account of someone posing as the actor Bill Murray.
Now, no one should ever pretend to be Bill Murray. Here with me to discuss that, is -- I can't believe we got him -- Bill Murray.
Bill Murray (from a promotional video for "Moonrise Kingdom") : Hello, I’m Bill Murray.
Moe: Bill, someone got on Twitter using the name Bill_Murray and proceeded to rack up tens of thousands of followers. THEN he stole tweets from other people, and passed off the jokes as his own. What did this guy do to your reputation?
Murray (from "Ghostbusters"): He slimed me.
Moe: Yeah, I think so. Really got a lot of people upset on Twitter too.
Murray (from "Ghostbusters"): Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria.
Moe: I don't know if it went that far. Fake Bill on Twitter did start asking people for money and people sent it to him or them.
Murray (from "Rushmore"): Just remember, they can buy anything but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget that.
Moe: Anyway, he's been removed and your reputation will be fine.
Murray (from "Caddyshack"): So I got that going for me, which is nice.
Moe: It is nice.
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The links below provide information, guidelines, and other documents describing initiatives to assess and promote the school readiness of Maryland's preschoolers and kindergarten students.
NEW! 2012-2013 School Readiness Report. Each year, MSDE publishes the report "Children Entering School Ready to Learn," which provides information about the school readiness skills of Maryland kindergarteners during the current year. School Readiness Reports from previous years can also be accessed through this link.
Achieving School Readiness: A 5-Year Action Agenda. This October 2002 report to the Subcabinet for Children, Youth, and Families by Maryland’s Leadership in Action Program details the goals, strategies and action steps identified as most critical for ensuring that all Maryland children are fully ready for school.
Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR Online) - Kindergarten Assessment Users Guide - A manual for the administration of the MMSR assessment tool and the interpretation of assessment results. Click here for the Teachers' Version of the Users Guide. Click here for an MMSR School Readiness PowerPoint presentation. (PDF of PowerPoint)
Healthy Beginnings: Supporting Development and Learning from Birth through Three Years of Age is a set of developmental and learning guidelines that was developed to ensure that those who live with or care for infants and young children have the knowledge and resources to support and encourage children during the ongoing process of growth and learning.
Early Childhood Curriculum Project – Guidance for child care and other nonpublic early childhood programs about curricular resources for three, four, and five year-olds. These resources are MSDE-recommended because they are aligned with the State’s prekindergarten and kindergarten curricular frameworks, also known as the Maryland Model for School Readiness (MMSR)/Maryland State Curriculum.
Maryland State Curriculum
Countdown to Kindergarten (CTK) - The statewide campaign to increase public awareness about the importance of a child's early experience as the basis for school readiness.
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The purpose of Maryland's Environmental Education program is to enable students to make decisions and take actions that create and maintain an optimal relationship between themselves and the environment, and to preserve and protect the unique natural resources of Maryland, particularly those of the Chesapeake Bay and its watershed.
What Is Environmental Education?
Environmental Education promotes environmental literacy and the development of the skills needed for life-long learning. Environmental Education refers to education efforts that increase public awareness, concern, and knowledge about environmental issues and provides the critical thinking, problem-solving and decision-making skills needed to make informed and responsible decisions about the environment in all its complexity. Environmental Education promotes interdisciplinary integration of subject matter, problem-and issues-based learning experiences, and both cooperative and independent learning opportunities.
The Belgrade Charter, adopted by the United Nations, provides a widely accepted goal statement for Environmental Education:
The goal of environmental education is to develop a world population that is aware of, and concerned about, the environment and its associated problems, and which has the knowledge, skills, attitudes, motivations, and commitment to work individually and collectively toward solutions of current problems and the prevention of new ones.
The Tbilisi Declaration followed the Belgrade Charter and established these objectives for environmental education:
To foster clear awareness of, and concern about, economic, social, political, and ecological interdependence in urban and rural areas;
To provide every person with opportunities to acquire the knowledge, values, attitudes, commitment and skills needed to protect and improve the environment;
To create new patterns of behavior of individuals, groups and society as a whole towards the environment.
EE In Maryland Schools Video
featuring Kennard Elementary School
Queen Anne's County Public Schools
Check out the new BayBackpack, the source for bay education resources for teachers!
From NOAA's Chesapeake Bay Program
Teachers! Add an Environmental Education endorsement to your teaching certificate!
Contact your School System Certification Department for details.
Nature & the Environment
Primary resources from the Library of Congress
Climate Change Kit from EPA &
Global Change Research Program.
Free, online resources for 11 biomes.
Instructional modules for high school students from NOAA.
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Definition of Single-blind
Single-blind: Term used to described a study in which either the investigator or the participant, but not both of them, is unaware of the nature of the treatment the participant is receiving. Also called single-masked.
Last Editorial Review: 6/14/2012
Back to MedTerms online medical dictionary A-Z List
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Myoclonus refers to quick, lightning-like jerks (contractions) of a muscle or a group of muscles.
Myoclonus may involve only one hand, a group of muscles in the upper arm or leg, or a group of facial muscles. Or it may involve many muscles at the same time. Hiccups are a type of myoclonus that involves only the diaphragm, the muscle that separates the chest from the abdomen.
Myoclonus may occur normally, often when a person is falling asleep. Or it may result from a disorder, such as the following:
Myoclonus can occur after a person takes high doses of certain drugs such as antihistamines, some antidepressants (such as amitriptyline), bismuth, levodopa, or opioids (narcotics).
Myoclonus can be mild or severe. Muscles may jerk quickly or slowly, rhythmically or not. Myoclonus may occur once in a while or frequently. It may occur spontaneously or be triggered by a stimulus, such as a sudden noise, light, or a movement. For example, reaching for an object or taking step may trigger jerks that disrupt the movement. In Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (a rare degenerative brain disorder—see see Prion Diseases: Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD)), myoclonus becomes more obvious when people are suddenly startled. If myoclonus is due to a metabolic disorder, it may persist and affect muscles throughout the body, sometimes leading to seizures.
Diagnosis and Treatment
The diagnosis is based on symptoms. Other tests may be done to identify the cause.
The cause is corrected if possible. For example, drugs that can cause myoclonus are stopped. A high or low blood sugar level is corrected, and kidney failure is treated with hemodialysis. If the cause cannot be corrected, valproate or levetiracetam (anticonvulsants—see Seizure Disorders: Drugs Used to Treat Seizures.) or clonazepam (a mild sedative) sometimes helps. When given with carbidopa, the dietary supplement 5-hydroxytryptophan (which is produced by the brain) may also help.
Last full review/revision August 2007 by David Eidelberg, MD; Michael Pourfar, MD
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Receptive and Expressive Language
All communication has two aspects: receptive language and expressive language. Receptive language is what we hear and understand. Expressive language is what we say to others.
I believe that empathy is also a form of communication; one that is as essential to each of us as is spoken, written, or signed language in understanding the feelings of other sentient beings and in conveying our reaction to them. To oversimplify, one might think of language as the cognitive component of communication, whereas empathy is the emotional component. Of course, in reality, they overlap and complement each other.
Receptive empathy is the ability to perceive the feelings that others are experiencing. Expressive empathy is the ability to convey that understanding to others.
Definition of Empathy
“Empathy” is a complicated word — it means so many different things to different people. And, a discussion of whether autistic people have a capacity for empathy that is different from most other people further complicates the conversation.
A web search on the single word “empathy” produced for me these top 5 results, defining the word in 5 different ways:
- Empathy is the capacity to recognize emotions that are being experienced by another sentient or fictional being. (wikipedia)
- the imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it (Mirriam-Webster)
- the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another (dictionary.com)
- Empathy is the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective. (Psychology Today)
- Identification with and understanding of another’s situation, feelings, and motives. See Synonyms at pity. (thefreedictionary.com)
So, which is it? “recognize emotions” or “imaginative projection” or “intellectual identification” or “vicarious experience of understanding perspective” or “identification and understanding” or “pity”?
It is probably all of those things and more, including sympathy and compassion. Trying to understand what people intend to convey by using the word is a bit like Justice Potter’s infamous definition of pornography. Empathy is something you know when you experience it, even though it is hard to describe in words.
Are there “Types” of Empathy?
Modifying the word “empathy” with “cognitive” and “affective” represents an ill-advised attempt to deconstruct empathy, in my view . Much has been made of the idea that these two aspects of empathy (to the extent that this dichotomy has any validity at all, which I doubt) arise from different parts of the brain, and that one or the other is deficient in certain personality types. This kind of hair-splitting is a distraction, it seems to me, when it comes to understanding the role and functioning of empathy.
I’m sure there is a wide range of empathic capacity, both in terms of experiencing empathy (whatever it is) and in expressing it. Those with alexithymia may have empathic capacity but may not recognize what they are experiencing or be able to express it. And all of my discussion here so far has nothing directly to do with autism. Empathy is a universal human trait. And beyond. Clearly, many other animals have empathic capacity as well.
Empathy arises from, or at least is related to, mirror neurons. In the famous incident of the discovery of mirror neurons, a monkey watched an object being picked up, and his brain region for picking things up fired as if he were doing it himself. So, he experienced what it was like to pick up an apple (or whatever it was), but not from the perspective of the other monkey (he’s not inside that brain) but from the perspective of how he would feel if he were doing what he was observing.
And What Does All of This Have To Do With Autism?
Now comes the tricky part with respect to autism. It’s twofold. The descriptions that follow are experiential (my own experiences and those of other autistic people I’ve spoken with), and represent my own speculations. What I report here may or may not be generalizable to other autistic people. See the link in the previous paragraph for a discussion of some of the controversy surrounding the linkage (if any) between autism and mirror neurons.
Autism and Receptive Empathy
It may be (1) that the mirror neuron system in the autistic brain is impaired because of the usual sensory overload that is always going on. It’s not that the mirror neurons are defective, it’s just that their functioning is clouded by the brain having so much else to deal with at the same time. Distractions, if you will. So the autistic person will not have the receptive clarity that matches the neurotypical — what is being called by some “cognitive empathy.” The emotional state of another being is recorded, but not processed with the same clarity because of the other demands on attention. The TMS experiments I participated in at Beth Israel demonstrated this. The experiment involved suppressing activity in a small area in the right hemisphere of my brain. Neuroscientists know that, through a process called neuroplasticity, when one area of the brain is compromised, another area will attempt to take over the lost functionality. That often involves the equivalent region in the opposite hemisphere of the brain.
Broca’s area is heavily involved in language and (therefore) social cognition,and much more. It is a complex and important region of the brain that is somewhat imprecisely located in the part of the brain known as Brodmann’s areas 44 and 45. I say “it” although, in my understanding (I have no formal training in neuroscience), there are two equivalent areas, one in each hemisphere, and the lion’s share of language processing occurs in the dominant hemisphere (the left one for right-handed people like me). Broca’s area, besides its central role in language comprehension and creation, also seems to serve as a bridge between the prefrontal cortex (cognition), and regions that control motor and somatosensory (tactile and other sensory) systems of the body. It is also thought to be rich in mirror neurons.
For all of these reasons, the scientists in the TMS Lab hypothesized that by temporarily and artificially suppressing the right side of my brain in the area just described, the left hemisphere would be more strongly activated than usual, thereby improving language and social (empathic) cognition. How right (so to speak) they were! I experienced (both subjectively and in their computerized measurements) sharpened ability to interpret emotional content more accurately. The difference in clarity was astounding to me and to others I spoke with who were subjects in the experiment.
Caitlin, for example, was shocked to find that she could see emotional content in written sentences and in video clips which, with the benefit of hindsight, she had not been able to see before. My clarity was more intellectual. I was able to solve (computerized) tasks faster than the computer could feed them to me, whereas before I had struggled and was unsure of the answers. Subjectively, it was like night and day, although I’m sure that the difference in my performance was measured in milliseconds. The difference in what Caitlin and I experienced (and John had a musical revelation, among many other experiences) was probably a function of where we started. I was relatively better (compared with her) at emotional reception. She, for example, had once been floored to find out that her brother knew more (much more) about the personal life of her receptionist than she did, although he lived in a distant city. It was just that when he called to speak with Caitlin, he would chat with the person who answered the phone about vacation plans and the like. It never occurred to Caitlin to make that kind of emotional connection.
The Irrelevancy of “Cognitive” Versus “Affective” Empathy
Which brings me around to the other bit (2) about autism and empathy. Take the Psychology Today definition: “Empathy is the experience of understanding another person’s condition from their perspective.” Please. Think of the monkey. Picking up a banana is probably a pretty universal monkey experience, so it’s easy to imagine that the mirror neurons of monkeys allow them to experience watching another monkey and essentially experience (vicariously) a nearly identical experience. Now, take an autistic brain. Not mine, please. I need it. If I watch a neurotypical pick up a banana, I am likely to be less clear about how that feels to them because they experience the world in a way that is very different from mine. I’m being metaphorical here, in case you didn’t pick up on that (so to speak). A physical action is one thing, but a more complex emotional reaction is quite a different level of experience. How can I empathize what you are going through if your way of experiencing the world is vastly different from mine? This works both ways, of course. How can a neurotypical person empathize with me if they have no clue what my brain is experiencing? So, it’s not a lack of empathy, or a lack of empathic capacity, it’s a knowledge or experiential gap. I can tell when my horse is happy to see me, or when he is in a playful mood, or frightened; these are fairly universal emotions. But my empathy doesn’t go too deep because I don’t really know what it’s like to be a horse. Or, maybe at some fundamental level, I do. I don’t always grok why he’s upset, but I know when he is.
Now, all of that is about receptive empathy; taking in and appreciating the emotional state of another being. This may be what is meant by “cognitive” empathy. But I also think receptive empathy includes components (or maybe all) of what has been termed “affective empathy” or “pity” or “compassion” — not just understanding, but sharing the emotional state of another. I believe this must naturally flow via the mirror neuron system that enables us to take in the feelings of another. If one is truly understanding what another is experiencing, it naturally follows that one is experiencing their emotions, too. From an evolutionary point of view, the value of being able to understand how someone else is feeling is being able to predict their behavior. If someone picks up a banana and smiles, that’s pretty non-threatening, but if someone picks up a rock and scowls, it might be better to take protective action. To truly take in another’s emotions, in the process I’m calling receptive empathy, one must also experience an approximation of those emotions. Although I’m aware these emotions are yours, and not mine, I experience my version of your anger, your pain, and your joy. It can’t be any other way.
And yes, there are people who have difficulty comprehending what they are experiencing emotionally, and conveying it, too. But, as alluded to earlier, that is a condition called alexithymia, not autism. Although studies about this are scant, I’m not aware of any definitive study that shows that alexithymia is more prevalent in the neuroexceptional population than it is in the neurotypical one. In my work with neuroexceptional couples (in a support group setting), I observe a fairly high proportion of alexithymia among the partners who are not neurotypical, but my sample is a highly self-selected subgroup of all neuroexceptional people, and I don’t have a control group to compare with.
For me, when I experience high receptive empathy (which includes sympathy, compassion or pity), such an experience is likely to lead to an emotional state of shock that requires me to tone down my feelings, because the nerves are too raw and exposed. So, I withdraw, I put up barriers to keep the world out, to keep things from getting worse. I can only take so much. Most autistic people with whom I have talked about this agree. We have too much empathic capacity. It is paralyzing. Why is that? I’m not sure. Excess myelination? I’ll get back to you on that.
Autism and Expressive Empathy: The Challenge for Autistic People
The biggest complaint in my couples support groups is that the (typically) Asperger’s partner does not express empathy. I explain the bit that I’ve just gone through, that those of us who are autistic experience a high degree of understanding (what I have called here receptive empathy), and that our flat affect or silence does not mean we lack comprehension or sympathy. It’s just that dealing with these raw emotions is too frightening.Thus, we exhibit a lack of what I have come to call expressive empathy.
To partners who are feeling emotionally isolated, and are in need of validation, it’s not comforting to hear this. To them, there is no empathy if it isn’t expressed. And they have a good point. We autistics often stop one step short of what empathy is all about; connecting with another human being, to validate and comfort them. Without that piece, it does not serve its purpose. The result is, from the outside observers point of view, a “lack” of empathy. No reaction. Or an “inappropriate” (oh, how I hate that word) reaction. If fact, the reaction is an internal volcano that is about to erupt. Sometimes it does, and that is one form of meltdown. Sometimes it is contained, and the world is shut out.
I remember a time in my second marriage when things were not going well, and I was talking with my shrink about it. At one point, he said to me (in frustration), “Can’t you just tell her you love her? That’s what she wants to hear!” And, I realized (for complex reasons) that, no, I was not capable of that at that time. It seemed like lying to me. Yet, it would have been a harmless lie that could have made all the difference to her. I was empathizing with her distress, but I was not able to communicate that to her in a way that would have been helpful.
The terms I have used here, receptive and expressive, are often used to describe forms of language communication, which is where I started this post. And that’s really what empathy is, in its fullest expression; communicating emotional states. Autistics are really good at receptive empathy, but some of us fall short when it comes to using expressive empathy.
This is a failure of execution, not of cognition. Our brains work just fine, thank you. We just need to learn how to let other people know that. The good news is called neuroplasticity, and there is a way to use that, in neurally-inspired therapies and techniques that can change our patterns of behavior. Stay tuned. Much more to come on those subjects.
Meanwhile, I will be practicing my expressive empathy.
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Local Extension Agent discusses “Salmonella in songbirds”
By: Bobby Smith
I have received several calls the last few weeks with clients who are distraught over dead songbirds in or around their bird feeders. Earlier this spring I received an e-mail from a fellow agent in a county north of Morgan County with the same issue. He had observed the same problem in his county. He submitted three birds to Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study (SCWDS) to be tested for Salmonella, and all three birds tested positive.
If you are seeing dead birds in or around your feeders or birdbaths, I just wanted to make you aware of the problem and share some suggestions from the SCWDS.
The researcher at the SCWDS lab offered the following information about the outbreak:
•Salmonella bacteria are naturally found in many wild and domestic bird species
•Stress from severe weather and high concentrations of birds during spring (such as those found around bird feeders and bird baths) contribute to outbreak and disease spread.
•Because of large congregations of birds at feeders this time of year, this is when we usually see Salmonella outbreaks
•Cats that eat dead birds can pick up the Salmonella and possibly spread it to the humans that are caring for them.
To help stop the spread of the disease, there are several steps that you can take if you believe the Salmonella outbreak has affected your area:
1. Remove all bird feeders and bird baths and clean up residual seed. It's important for the birds to disperse to help control the spread of disease.
2. Disinfect all bird feeders and bird baths with 1 part bleach and 9 parts water
3. Do not place the bird seed back out for at least one month after you see the last sick or dying bird on your property
4. Clean out feeders at least every two weeks when you start feeding again to help prevent buildup of bacteria and fungi that can contribute to diseases in birds.
For information on this and other problems, contact your local UGA Cooperative Extension Office or call 1800ASKUGA1 or 18002758421.
Printed in the May 28, 2009 Edition.
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Submitted by: Kelly Miller
Added: September 23, 2008
Duration: 5-10 minutes
Have students turn to a hymn that you have directed them to. Have them tell you which scripture mastery verse(s) match and why. For example:
Lead, Kindly Light [Hymn # 97] could go with Matt. 5:14-16
Choose the Right [Hymn #239] could go with Matt. 6:24
We're Not Ashamed to Own Our Lord [Hymn #57] could go with Romans 1:16
The kids will probably come up with ones you haven't thought of.
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A depressive disorder is a whole-body illness, involving the body, mood, and thoughts, and affects the way a person eats and sleeps, feels about himself or herself, and thinks about things. It is not the same as being unhappy or in a blue mood. Nor is it a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better.
Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people who suffer from depression. During any one year period, nearly 19 million American adults suffer from depressive illness. Yet, treatment can alleviate symptoms in nearly 80 percent of cases.
Women experience depression about twice as often as men. Many hormonal factors may contribute to the increased rate of depression in women--particularly such factors as menstrual cycle changes, premenstrual syndrome (PMS), pregnancy, miscarriage, postpartum period, perimenopause, and menopause. Many women also face additional stresses such as responsibilities both at work and home, single parenthood, and caring for children and aging parents.
Many women are also particularly vulnerable after the birth of a baby. The hormonal and physical changes, as well as the added responsibility of a new life, can be factors that lead to postpartum depression in some women. While transient "blues" are common in new mothers, a full-blown depressive episode is not a normal occurrence and requires active intervention. Treatment by a sympathetic health care provider and the family's emotional support for the new mother are prime considerations in aiding her to recover her physical and mental well-being and her ability to care for and enjoy the infant.
Depressive disorders come in different forms, as do other illnesses, such as heart disease. Three of the most prevalent types of depressive disorders include the following:
- Major depression. A combination of symptoms (see symptom list) that interfere with the ability to work, sleep, eat, and enjoy once pleasurable activities. These disabling episodes of depression can occur once, twice, or several times in a lifetime.
- Dysthymia. Long-term, chronic symptoms that do not disable, but keep people from functioning at "full steam" or from feeling good. Sometimes, people with dysthymia also experience major depressive episodes.
- Bipolar disorder (manic-depression). A chronic, recurring condition that includes cycles of depression and elation or mania.
Within these types, there are variations in the number of symptoms, their severity, and persistence.
The following are the most common symptoms of depression. However, each individual may experience symptoms differently. In general, nearly everyone suffering from depression has ongoing feelings of sadness, and may feel helpless, hopeless, and irritable.
The American Psychiatric Association suggests that professional help is advisable for those who have four or more of the following symptoms continually for more than two weeks:
- Noticeable change of appetite, with either significant weight loss not attributable to dieting or weight gain
- Noticeable change in sleeping patterns, such as fitful sleep, inability to sleep, early morning awakening, or sleeping too much
- Loss of interest and pleasure in activities formerly enjoyed
- Persistent sad, anxious, or "empty" mood
- Feelings of hopelessness, pessimism
- Restlessness, irritability
- Decreased energy, fatigue, being "slowed down"
- Feelings of worthlessness
- Persistent feelings of hopelessness
- Feelings of inappropriate guilt
- Inability to concentrate or think, indecisiveness
- Recurring thoughts of death or suicide, wishing to die, or attempting suicide (Note: Individuals with this symptom should receive treatment immediately!)
- Melancholia (defined as overwhelming feelings of sadness and grief), accompanied by the following:
- Waking at least two hours earlier than normal in the morning
- Feeling more depressed in the morning
- Moving significantly more slowly
- Disturbed thinking--for example, severely depressed people sometimes have beliefs not based in reality about physical disease, sinfulness, or poverty
- Physical symptoms, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain
Specific treatment for depression will be determined by your health care provider based on:
- Your age, overall health, and medical history
- Extent of the depression
- Your tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
- Expectations for the course of the disorder
- Your opinion or preference
Generally, based on the outcome of evaluations, depressive disorders are treated with medication or either psychotherapy or cognitive behavioral therapy, or a combination of medication and therapy.
You can also help yourself. Depressive disorders can make a person feel exhausted, worthless, helpless, and hopeless. Such negative thoughts and feelings make some people feel like giving up. It is important to realize that these negative views are part of the depression and typically do not accurately reflect the actual circumstances. Negative thinking fades as treatment begins to take effect. In the meantime, consider the following:
- Set realistic goals in light of the depression and assume a reasonable amount of responsibility.
- Break large tasks into small ones, set some priorities, and do what you can as you can.
- Try to be with other people and to confide in someone; it is usually better than being alone and secretive.
- Participate in activities that may make you feel better.
- Mild exercise, going to a movie, a ball game, or participating in religious, social, or other activities may help.
- Expect your mood to improve gradually, not immediately. Feeling better takes time.
- It is advisable to postpone important decisions until the depression has lifted. Before deciding to make a significant transition--change jobs, get married or divorced--discuss it with others who know you well and have a more objective view of your situation.
- People rarely "snap out of" a depression. But they can feel a little better day-by-day.
- Remember, positive thinking will replace the negative thinking that is part of the depression and will disappear as your depression responds to treatment.
- Let your family and friends help you.
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Women's Health
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Atherosclerosis is a type of arteriosclerosis caused by a build-up of plaque in the inner lining of an artery. (Arteriosclerosis is a general term for thickening or hardening of the arteries.) Plaque is made up of deposits of fatty substances, cholesterol, cellular waste products, calcium, and fibrin, and can develop in medium or large arteries. The artery wall becomes thickened and loses its elasticity.
Atherosclerosis is a slow, progressive disease that may start as early as childhood. However, the disease has the potential to progress rapidly.
It is unknown exactly how atherosclerosis begins or what causes it. Some scientists think that certain risk factors may be associated with atherosclerosis, including:
- elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels
- high blood pressure
- diabetes mellitus (type 1 diabetes)
- physical inactivity
- high saturated fat diet
There is a gradual build-up of plaque or thickening of the inside of the walls of the artery, causing a decrease in the amount of blood flow, and a decrease in the oxygen supply to the vital body organs and extremities.
A heart attack may occur if the oxygenated blood supply is reduced to the heart. A stroke may occur if the oxygenated blood supply is cut off to the brain. Gangrene may occur if the oxygenated blood supply is reduced to the arms and legs.
Signs and symptoms of atherosclerosis may develop gradually, and may be few, as the plaque builds up in the artery. Symptoms may also vary depending on the affected artery. However, when a major artery is blocked, signs and symptoms may be severe, such as those occurring with heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, or blood clot.
The symptoms of atherosclerosis may resemble other cardiac conditions. Consult your physician for a diagnosis.
In addition to a complete medical history and physical examination, diagnostic procedures for atherosclerosis may include any, or a combination of, the following:
- cardiac catheterization- with this procedure, x-rays are taken after a contrast agent is injected into an artery - to locate the narrowing, occlusions, and other abnormalities of specific arteries.
- Doppler sonography - a special transducer is used to direct sound waves into a blood vessel to evaluate blood flow. An audio receiver amplifies the sound of the blood moving though the vessel. Faintness or absent of sound may indicate an obstruction in the blood flow.
- blood pressure comparison - comparing blood pressure measurements in the ankles and in the arms to determine any constriction in blood flow. Significant differences may indicate a narrowing of vessels which could be caused by atherosclerosis.
- MUGA/radionuclide angiography - a nuclear scan to see how the heart wall moves and how much blood is expelled with each heartbeat, while the patient is at rest.
- thallium/myocardial perfusion scan - a nuclear scan given while the patient is at rest or after exercise that may reveal areas of the heart muscle that are not getting enough blood.
Specific treatment will be determined by your physician based on:
- your age, overall health, and medical history
- extent of the disease
- the location of the blockage
- your signs and symptoms
- your tolerance for specific medications, procedures, or therapies
- expectations for the course of the disease
- your opinion or preference
Treatment may include:
- modification of risk factors
Risk factors that may be modified include smoking, elevated cholesterol levels, elevated blood glucose levels, lack of exercise, poor dietary habits, and elevated blood pressure.
Medications that may be used to treat carotid artery disease include:
- antiplatelet medications - medications used to decrease the ability of platelets in the blood to stick together and cause clots. Aspirin, clopidogrel (Plavix`#174;), ticlopidine (Ticlid®), and dipyridamole (Persantine®) are examples of antiplatelet medications.
- anticoagulants - also described as "blood thinners," these medications work differently than antiplatelet medications to decrease the ability of the blood to clot. An example of an anticoagulant is warfarin (Coumadin®).
- antihyperlipidemics - medications used to lower lipids (fats) in the blood, particularly Low Density Lipid (LDL) cholesterol. Statins are a group of antihyperlipidemic medications, and include simvastatin (Zocor®), atorvastatin (Lipitor®), and pravastatin (Pravachol®), among others. Bile acid sequestrants — colesevelam, cholestyramine and colestipol — and nicotinic acid (niacin) are two other types of medications that may be used to reduce cholesterol levels.
- antihypertensives - medications used to lower blood pressure. There are several different groups of medications which act in different ways to lower blood pressure
- coronary angioplasty
With this procedure, a balloon is used to create a bigger opening in the vessel to increase blood flow. Although angioplasty is performed in other blood vessels, Percutaneous Transluminal Coronary Angioplasty (PTCA) refers to angioplasty in the coronary arteries to permit more blood flow into the heart. There are several types of PTCA procedures, including:
- balloon angioplasty - a small balloon is inflated inside the blocked artery to open the blocked area.
- atherectomy - the blocked area inside the artery is "shaved" away by a tiny device on the end of a catheter.
- laser angioplasty - a laser used to "vaporize" the blockage in the artery.
- coronary artery stent - a tiny coil is expanded inside the blocked artery to open the blocked area and is left in place to keep the artery open.
- coronary artery bypass
Most commonly referred to as simply "bypass surgery," this surgery is often performed in people who have angina (chest pain) due to coronary artery disease (where plaque has built up in the arteries). During the surgery, a bypass is created by grafting a piece of a vein above and below the blocked area of a coronary artery, enabling blood to flow around the obstruction. Veins are usually taken from the leg, but arteries from the chest or arm may also be used to create a bypass graft.
Click here to view the
Online Resources of Heart Center
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South Shetland Islands
61° 00' to 63° 37'S, 53° 83' to 62°
- A 540 km chain of four main island
groups, some are volcanic, including eleven major islands (Elephant
and Clarence Islands; King George and Nelson Islands; Robert, Greenwich,
Livingston, Snow, and Deception Islands; Smith and Low Islands)
and several minor ones with many islets and rocks. Located about
120 km north of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Southern Ocean.
- Area: 3687 km².
- Highest elevation: 2105 m (Mount
Foster, Smith Island).
- About 80 % glaciated.
- Sighted and first landing 1819,
sealers arrived 1820.
- Permanent occupation (scientific
station) from 1944 (previously sealers and a scientific expedition
wintered unintentionally, and a garrison was deployed briefly).
Whaling station operated at Deception Island 1912-31.
- British territory, part of British
Antarctic Territory; also claimed by Argentina, part of 'Antartida
Argentina'; and Chile, part of 'Territorio Chileno Antartico' (under
the aegis of the Antarctic Treaty).
| 3.113574 |
Football Behavior Program
January 12, 2011
Years ago, Poquoson Primary School used sports to create a school-wide behavior incentive program for January. We used a die-cut machine to cut footballs. Each teacher was given a stack. We were asked to carry a few with us at all times. When we saw another class (not our own) that was well-behaved in the hallway, cafeteria, at the bathrooms, or the like, we handed a football to a student in the class. They could also earn a football for an individual act of good citizenship. Upon returning to the classroom, the teacher talked about what the class did to earn the football and would post it on a paper football field that was displayed outside of her door in the hall. Each time the class earned a football their “team” would advance ten yards on the field. (This was great for teaching counting by 10’s.) When the team reached the goal post, they would earn a touchdown and start over. Tally marks were used to display and track points earned.
When it was time for the Super Bowl, the totals were given to the principal. We then had a culminating assembly and everyone wore sports-related clothing to school. The principal and assistant principal dressed like football players, complete with helmets and pads! The top scoring classes got to do cheers, and all classes were praised for their behaviors. Examples of especially good deeds and behaviors were announced for all to hear. This activity was extremely popular and allowed us to “catch ‘em being good” rather than give out reprimands.
| 3.173796 |
Most southern women did not publicly express a desire for equal rights with men until well after the Civil War (1861-65), and suffrage, or the right to vote, came later to women in Georgia than to women in most other states.
The American Equal Rights Association (AERA), dedicated to human rights, black suffrage, and woman suffrage, was formed in 1866, the same year Georgia passed legislation giving married women property rights. In 1869, when a woman suffrage amendment was introduced in the U.S. Congress, the AERA split into two factions. The American Woman Suffrage Association (AWSA) was a moderate group led by Lucy Stone and Julia Ward Howe, and the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA) was a more radical faction formed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. While the former campaigned to accomplish a state-by-state right to vote, the latter sought a constitutional amendment for the vote and worked for a variety of reforms. The passage in 1870 of the Fifteenth Amendment, stating that citizens could not be denied the vote because of race, color, or former status as a slave, granted black males the right to vote and to hold office. The belief that women also deserved this right not only increased membership in the pro-suffrage organizations but also led to tension over how best to achieve this in the South.
Organizing for Suffrage
The AWSA and the NWSA reunited in 1890, into a group known as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). In Columbus, Georgia, Helen Augusta Howard formed a branch of the organization she called the Georgia Woman Suffrage Association (GWSA). In 1892 the NAWSA established the Committee on Southern Work, and by 1893 the Georgia chapter had members in five counties. In 1894 the Equal Suffrage League formed in Atlanta as a chapter of the GWSA. Further impetus for the suffrage movement in Georgia came in 1895, when the NAWSA held their annual meeting in Atlanta, the first held outside of Washington, D.C. The organization's headquarters was at the Aragon Hotel, and meetings were held at DeGive's Opera House. Susan B. Anthony and ninety-three delegates from twenty-eight states, together with visitors and reporters, attended.
African American women were excluded from these meetings, but Anthony did speak on the campus of Atlanta University, an all-black school. In the audience was alumna Adela Hunt Logan, a Georgian who taught at Alabama's Tuskegee Institute. Logan published several suffrage articles and became the NAWSA's first lifetime member. For African American women, support of NAWSA efforts was seen as a further step toward reenfranchisement for black men, as well as enfranchisement for themselves. In 1896 several African American women's organizations formed the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) in Washington, D.C. In the next several years, many members, like Lugenia Burns Hope, wife of John Hope, the first president of Atlanta's Morehouse College, became suffrage advocates through their work in the NACW.
The GWSA held its first convention in November 1899 in Atlanta. Speakers from Georgia as well as from other southern states attended. Under president Mary Latimer McLendon, the association passed several resolutions, including a statement that Georgia women should not pay taxes if they did not have the vote and a request that the University of Georgia be opened to women. At the November 1901 GWSA convention, Atlantan Katherine Koch was chosen president. In 1902 Atlanta women petitioned to vote in municipal elections but were rejected.
National and State Events
The 1906 Atlanta race riot further intensified the question of woman suffrage and how to achieve it in the South, where attitudes on gender and race became a defining issue. The year 1908 was a presidential election year, and suffragists asked both parties to include the issue in their platforms, but neither did. The Prohibition Party of Georgia, however, did adopt woman suffrage as part of its platform. The Georgia Federation of Labor had endorsed woman suffrage in 1900. They called for local unions to support it, and events outside the South encouraged them to do so. In 1907 Harriet Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, formed the Equality League of Self-Supporting Women to reach out to working-class women. In 1909 the woman suffrage–connected strike of 20,000 women garment workers and a boycott by the wealthy women who purchased clothing was coordinated by the Women's Trade Union League in New York City. After California gave women the vote in 1911, there were six suffrage states.
In 1913 the Georgia Woman Equal Suffrage League was formed, with many teachers and businesswomen as members. The league's president was an Atlanta teacher and principal of Ivy Street School, Frances Smith Whiteside, and the sister of U.S. senator Hoke Smith. The Georgia Men's League for Woman Suffrage, formed by Atlanta attorney Leonard J. Grossman, was a chapter of a national organization. With few members outside Atlanta, its formation was mostly a symbolic one for the movement. The Equal Franchise League of Muscogee County as well as a Macon suffrage association were formed by the end of 1913.
In 1914 women who wanted the GWSA to work more aggressively for suffrage formed the Equal Suffrage Party of Georgia, which by 1915 had member branches in thirteen Georgia counties. In the first five years of the party's existence its presidents were from Atlanta, Augusta, and Savannah. Several Georgia cities and counties had branches of both suffrage organizations working simultaneously for the same goal but with a different focus.
Anti-suffrage Movement and Pro-suffrage Groups
In the spring of 1914 a Georgia chapter of the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage, founded in 1895, was formed in Macon. Three months later, it claimed to have 10 state branches and 2,000 members, far more than the pro-suffrage organizations. The leadership included Mildred Lewis Rutherford, head of the Lucy Cobb Institute in Athens and president of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. When the Georgia legislature first conducted hearings on the subject in 1914, sisters Mary Latimer McLendon of Atlanta and Rebecca Latimer Felton of Cartersville, Leonard J. Grossman, James L. Anderson, and Mrs. Elliott Cheatham of Atlanta all addressed the house committee for suffrage. Speaking for the opposition were Rutherford and Dolly Blount Lamar of Macon. The vote was five to two against suffrage, and the resolution did not pass. Hearings were conducted again the following year before committees of the senate and house, and both voted against it.
In March 1914 pro-suffrage women held their first rally in Atlanta, with urban reform leader Jane Addams as speaker. In 1915 a May Day celebration was cause for Atlanta suffragists to gather on the steps of the state capitol. The following November, a significant event in the movement occurred when pro-suffrage groups marched after Atlanta's Harvest Festival celebration. Patterned after parades held in New York and Washington, D.C., the march included more than 200 students in caps and gowns, marchers wearing "votes for women" sashes and carrying banners, and decorated automobiles, all led by a brass band. Mary McLendon led the vehicles in Eastern Victory, an automobile sold by Anna Howard Shaw to pay "unjust" taxes. A pony cart filled with yellow chrysanthemums carried a large sign reading "Georgia Catching Up." On horseback, representing the herald leading women "forward into light," was Eleanore Raoul, organizer of the Fulton and DeKalb Equal Suffrage Party. All of Georgia's suffrage groups, including the Georgia Young People's Suffrage Association, were represented. The following year the Atlanta woman suffrage organizations were the first nonlabor group to be included in Atlanta's Labor Day Parade.
In 1917 Alice Paul formed the National Woman's Party. Because of the party's protest of Democratic president Woodrow Wilson's lack of support for a federal suffrage amendment, their attempts to organize in the South as early as 1915 had failed. In 1917, feeling that the "antis" were gaining too much of the South, the National Woman's Party increased efforts to recruit in the South, and a Georgia branch was formed. Considered radical by other southern suffrage groups, the National Woman's Party was a relatively militant organization. Although they did nothing unusual in Georgia, they were the first group ever to picket the White House for a political cause.
Two 1917 events were significant to the suffrage movement: the United States entered World War I (1917-18), and New York women won the right to vote. Although the NAWSA endorsed the war effort, not all suffrage organizations were in agreement. The same year, Georgia suffrage supporters again presented their resolution to the senate committee. Endorsement was finally achieved by a vote of eight to four in favor, but the senate did not act on that support. Elsewhere in Georgia, the city of Waycross allowed women, many of them property owners, to vote in municipal primary elections. In May 1919, women were allowed to vote in Atlanta municipal primary elections, by a vote of twenty-four to one.
Passage of the Amendment
On June 4, 1919, with the support of only one southern senator, Georgia's William J. Harris, the U.S. Congress passed the Woman Suffrage Amendment, and it was submitted to the states for ratification. In response, Alabamians formed the Southern Women's League for the Rejection of the Susan B. Anthony Amendment (Southern Rejection League), and Rutherford became one of its few out-of-state members. On July 24 Georgia became the first state to reject the ratification of the amendment, and both houses adopted resolutions to that effect.
By August 1920 thirty-five states had ratified the Nineteenth Amendment. One more state was needed for full ratification, and the state of Tennessee ratified it on August 18. Although many in Tennessee and the South continued to challenge it, the amendment became effective on August 26. Women finally had won the vote, but Georgia's women still could not vote in that year's November elections. Georgia, along with Mississippi, cited a requirement that one must be registered six months before the election in order to vote. Because the legislature refused to pass an "enabling act" to make voting immediately possible, Georgia women did not vote until 1922.
Assured that women had won the vote, the League of Women Voters organized in February 1920 to carry on the work of the NAWSA. In Georgia all branches of the various suffrage societies and leagues merged into the League of Women Voters of Georgia. Through this organization and others, women sought to address the many issues important to them that had been raised, including employment, education, and health care. The Nineteenth Amendment remains a milestone from which women could begin to do this through political means.
Elna C. Green, Southern Strategies: Southern Women and the Woman Suffrage Question (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997).
Elizabeth Gillespie McRae, "Caretakers of Southern Civilization: Georgia Women and the Anti-Suffrage Campaign, 1914-1920," Georgia Historical Quarterly 82 (winter 1998): 801-28.
Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, New Women of the New South: The Leaders of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the Southern States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993).
Marjorie Spruill Wheeler, Votes for Women! The Woman Suffrage Movement in Tennessee, the South, and the Nation (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1995).
E. Lee Eltzroth, Georgia State University
A project of the Georgia Humanities Council, in partnership with the University of Georgia Press, the University System of Georgia/GALILEO, and the Office of the Governor.
| 4.066722 |
Zoologger is our weekly column highlighting extraordinary animals – and occasionally other organisms – from around the world
Step from a sunlit hillside into the darkness of a cave, and you immediately have a problem: you can't see. It's best to stand still for a few minutes until your eyes adjust to the dimness, otherwise you might blunder into a hibernating bear that doesn't appreciate your presence.
The same thing will happen when you leave again: the brightness of the sun will dazzle you at first. That's because your eyes have two types of receptor: one set works in bright light and the other in dim light. Barring a few minutes around sunset, only one set of receptors is ever working at any given time.
Peters' elephantnose fish has no such limitations. Its peculiar eyes allow it to use the two types of receptor at the same time. That could help it to spot predators as they approach through the murky water it calls home.
Peters' elephantnose fish belongs to a large family called the elephantfish, all of which live in Africa. They get their name from the trunk-like protrusions on the front of their heads. But whereas the trunks of elephants are extensions of their noses, the trunks of elephantfish are extensions of their mouths.
To find a Peters' elephantnose fish, you must lurk in muddy, slow-moving water. Look closely, because the fish is brown and so is the background.
It finds its way through the murk using its trunk, which generates a weak electrical field that helps it sense its surroundings and even discriminate between different objects. The fish's electric sense allows it to hunt insect larvae in pitch darkness.
The fish has paid a price for its electrical sensitivity. Processing the signals takes brainpower, so it has an exceptionally large brain. As a result, 60 per cent of the oxygen taken in by the fish goes to its brain. Even humans, with our whopping brains, only devote 20 per cent of our oxygen to them.
Now for its eyes. Most vertebrates, including humans, have two types of light receptors on their retinas: rods and cones. Rods can sense dim light, but become bleached in bright light and stop working. Cones can't see in dim light, but given enough light they can see fine details and colours.
Most animals' eyes are specialised for one or the other. Animals that are active during the day tend to have more cones than nocturnal animals such as foxes. In the human eye, the cones are clustered in a central region called the fovea, where the light is sharply focused, and the rods are outside it. As a result, we have excellent daytime vision and rather poor night vision.
The retina of the Peters' elephantnose fish looks completely different. It is covered with cup-shaped depressions. Around 30 cones sit inside each cup, and a few hundred rods are buried underneath.
Because of the peculiar design of the fish's retina, it was thought to be blind until about 10 years ago, says Andreas Reichenbach of the Paul Flechsig Institute for Brain Research in Leipzig, Germany. Reichenbach has now worked out what the cups are for.
Each cup has a layer of massive cells that are full of guanine crystals. These form a mirrored surface that amplifies the light intensity within the cups, ensuring that the cones have enough light to work with.
At the same time, because the cups are eating up so much of the light, only a small amount reaches the cones. As a result, both sets of receptors are supplied with the right amount of light.
Yet when Reichenbach tested the fishes' vision, they didn't seem to do very well. For instance, they could only see objects that covered a big swathe of their visual field. If humans had vision that bad, we would miss any object whose width was less than one sixth of a full moon.
However, the Peters' elephantnose fish were very good at spotting large moving objects against a cluttered background – essential for fish that live in dirty water. Presented with a monitor displaying a black stimulus on a white background, they took as long to spot it as goldfish. But when a grey noise pattern – like an untuned TV – was superimposed, the elephantnose fish spotted the stimulus faster than the goldfish.
The fish's ability to see the wood for the trees probably helps it spot incoming predators like catfish. So Reichenbach thinks its oddball visual system isn't a mistake. "It's the right type for this fish," he says.
Journal reference: Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1218072
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Thu Jun 28 22:15:54 BST 2012 by Freederick
If I understand correctly, each cup-shaped depression serves as a single aggregate receptor, combining the output of all the individual light-sensitive cells comprising it.
In effect, the fish is trading resolution for sensitivity. This is the same sort of effect as used to be employed in high-ISO photographic film, where the larger, flattened grains of photosensitive chemicals resulted in high sensitivity, at the cost of a coarse-grained image.
The fish employs an even more effective method, effectively combining many smaller "grains" into one huge hypersensitive receptor.
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| 3.390903 |
- 1 hammer
- something hard and resonant (and inanimate) to bang it on
- 1 clock with a second hand
- 1 measuring tape
- 1 helper
- 1 pair of binoculars
Sound travels at 344 metres per second in air at 20 °C. This is slow enough for noises to be noticeably delayed when heard from even quite a short distance. You can use this effect to measure the speed of sound.
Ask your helper to a hit a wall or a piece of metal repeatedly with the hammer, about twice every second. The exact frequency of the beat doesn't matter; it can be measured later. But the beat should be regular.
Now start walking away, looking back from time to time to watch your helper pounding away as you listen to the sound of their hammering. As the distance increases, the delay after each beat before the sound arrives will become longer and longer.
Eventually the delay ...
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| 3.711607 |
John Keiling (active 1720), Known as 'Blind Jack'; played the flegeolet with his nose
Sitter associated with 1 portrait
After losing his sight John Keiling, known as Blind Jack, ensured his livelihood by learning to play the flageolet. He conceived the notion that by playing on the instrument in a novel way to that generally practised, he should render himself more noticed by the public, and be able to levy larger contributions on their pockets. The manner of Blind Jack's playing the flageolet was by obtruding the mouth-piece of the instrument up one of his nostrils, through practice he could produce as much wind as most others with their lips into the pipe but the continued contortion and gesticulation of his muscles and countenance rendered him an object of derision and disgust, as much as that of charity and commiseration.
| 3.281964 |
A combine harvests rice near Tucker, Ark., as consumer groups pressure the FDA to set federal standards on arsenic in rice.
A combine harvests rice near Tucker, Ark., as consumer groups pressure the FDA to set federal standards on arsenic in rice. Danny Johnston/AP
Scientists have known for a long time that rice — often babies' first food and the staple of much of the world's diet — is good at absorbing inorganic arsenic from soil during the growing process.
Two separate analyses, one by Consumer Reports and one by the Food and Drug Administration, have raised concerns that we might be getting too much of this known human carcinogen in our diets.
Based on its findings, Consumer Reports is calling on the FDA to set federal standards of arsenic in rice. And the agency is weighing its options.
One of the issues is that there are no federal standards for arsenic in food, although the federal government does impose a 10 parts per billion (ppb) limit for arsenic in drinking water.
Consumer Reports found varying levels of arsenic in more than 200 samples of rice products, from cold cereals like Rice Krispies, where researchers found 85 to 90 ppb, to crackers, to rice-based beverages and infant rice cereals, where traces of arsenic were in the 150-250 ppb range.
"There's no question that one serving of a lot of the rice products that we looked at would give you 50 percent to 90 percent of what you would get from drinking a liter of water at the 10 ppb drinking water limit," explains Urvashi Rangan, director of consumer safety and sustainability at Consumer Reports.
So what's a concerned consumer to do?
Based on the available data, the FDA says consumers don't need to change their consumption of rice and rice products right now.
"We believe it would be premature for the FDA to recommend modifying diets because of arsenic levels until a more thorough analysis is completed," FDA spokesperson Carla Daniels told us in an email.
The USA Rice Federation, which represents growers, says it supports the federal government's effort to look at this issue. But, according to Stacy Fitzgerald-Redd, senior communications director, there is not enough scientific information to form the basis for a standard.
"At this point, we need to gather more scientific evidence in order to determine what the standard should be," she says.
The Rice Federation points out that there is no documented evidence of health problems from exposure to arsenic in U.S.-grown rice.
But this does not negate concerns about long-term exposure to inorganic arsenic. Studies in other countries, including Chile and Argentina, found links between high levels of arsenic in drinking water and lung and bladder cancer.
Researchers at Dartmouth Children's Environmental Health and Disease Prevention Research Center have begun looking into possible health effects. As my colleague Nancy Shute reported earlier this year, Dartmouth researchers found particularly high amounts of arsenic in brown rice syrup — a sugar substitute used in foods aimed at young children and vegans.
So, as the FDA suggests, don't stop eating rice or rice-based products. It may be wise to mix up your diet, though, and if you're concerned, you can change the way you cook rice.
Consumer Reports says you may be able to cut exposure to inorganic arsenic by using LOTS of water when you cook it. It recommends six parts water to one part rice, and draining the excess water off.
The Environmental Working Group suggests trying different grains and introducing babies to foods like sweet potatoes and squash instead of rice cereals.
Some governments are going even further. In the United Kingdom, the parents of toddlers and preschool children are advised to limit rice milk due to the levels of arsenic.
| 3.116296 |
Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings
Situated in the ruggedly beautiful Nez Perce country, which encompasses 12,000 square miles of northern Idaho, this new and unique park allows today's traveler to see the land almost as Lewis and Clark described it well over a century and a half ago. Scene of many colorful and significant events in the history of the Rocky Mountain frontier, the park interprets the prehistory, history, and culture of the Nez Perce Indians, including their religion; missionary efforts among them; the Lewis and Clark Expedition; the invasion of fur traders, miners, and settlers; and the Nez Perce War (1877).
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, on their westward journey in 1805, were the first white men to contact the hospitable Nez Perces. In 1811 they also aided a small group of Astorians, a section of the overland party, who passed through the area on their way to found a fur post near the mouth of the Columbia River. The next year, personnel from Fort Astoria established trade relations with the Nez Perces, and other American and British traders soon visited them.
In 1836 the Reverend and Mrs. Henry H. (Eliza) Spalding, the first U.S. missionaries to the Nez Perces, arrived. On Lapwai Creek they founded a sister mission to the Whitman (Waiilatpu) Mission. The latter had been established the same year among the Cayuse Indians, about 110 miles farther west, in present Washington, by their fellow American Board missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. Two years later the Spaldings moved their mission about 2 miles down the creek to its juncture with the Clearwater River.
The Spaldings made only limited progress in converting their charges to Christianity and persuading them to abandon nomadic hunting in favor of sedentary farming. Jeopardizing their efforts was Spaldings defensively critical attitude toward the other missionaries, especially the Whitmans. The personalities of the two men clashed, and Spalding's philosophy of missionary work resulted in arguments with his fellow workers.
Spalding nevertheless built the first white home, church, school, flour mill, sawmill, blacksmith shop, and loom in Idaho. In 1839 the mission received the first printing press in the Pacific Northwest, donated by American Board missionaries in Honolulu. This press, today in the museum of the Oregon Historical Society, printed the first books in the Nez Perce language, as well as one in the Spokan tongue. For this purpose, the missionaries devised phonetic renderings of the languages.
At the time of the massacre at the Whitman Mission, in November 1847, Spalding closed his mission and he and his wife moved to the Willamette Valley. In later years they returned to the Nez Perce country, where he taught school and preached until he died in 1874.
Despite the Cayuse animosity, relations between the Americans and the Nez Perces remained good until the 1860's, when miners and settlers poured into their ancestral homeland of north-central Idaho, northeastern Oregon, and southeastern Washington. In 1863 most of them reluctantly agreed to a major reduction in their reservation, to north-central Idaho. But for years several bands, known as the nontreaty Nez Perces, lived outside the reservation and resisted Army and Indian Bureau attempts to confine them with their acquiescent brethren. In 1876 a committee appointed by the Secretary of the Interior met with representatives of the two factions at the Lapwai Agency, Idaho, and later recommended to the Government the use of force if necessary to move the recalcitrants onto the reservation. Finally, under duress, in 1877 they began to migrate there. En route in June a few revengeful warriors murdered some settlers along the Salmon River south of the reservation. Brig. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, in charge of the relocation, sent two companies of cavalry under Capt. David Perry, from Fort Lapwai, Idaho, to restore order.
The warriors who had committed the murders belonged to a group camped on Camas Prairie, who subsequently moved to White Bird Canyon. As the troops rode down the canyon on June 17 toward the camp, about 60 or 70 of the Indians took cover at a point between the camp and the approaching soldiers, and the Battle of White Bird Canyon broke out. Assaulted vigorously on the flanks, Perry's men retreated in disorder up the canyon. Thirty-four of them died, but not a single one of their opponents. The victory here proved to be the Indians' undoing, for it emboldened them to follow a course of defiance that eventually resulted in the destruction of their power. A series of skirmishes ensued between troopers and various Nez Perce bands that culminated in the Battle of the Clearwater, on July 11-12.
That battle was indecisive, but it marked the beginning of an epic fighting retreat by the Indians in an effort to find a haven in Montana or, as they knew Sitting Bull had done, in Canada. The episode is one of the more dramatic in the long struggle of the U.S. Government to force the Indians off lands coveted by white settlers and confine them to ever-diminishing reservations.
The leaders of the march were Chief Joseph, later the statesman-diplomat of his people; Frog (Ollokot), his brother; Chief White Bird; Chief Looking Glass; Chief Sound (Toohoolhoolzote); and Chief Rainbow. They guided 700 people with their possessions, transported by thousands of horses, across the Bitterroot Mountains over the Lolo Trail, the route of their past annual treks to the buffalo range in Montana. In 2-1/2 months they were to travel 1,700 miles, trying to avoid conflict whenever possible, either dodging or fending off the 2,000 troops trying to catch them. Although impeded by many women and children, they evaded General Howard's pursuing party of cavalry and hopelessly outdistanced his slow-moving infantry and artillery. Once across the trail, the Indians headed southward and then slightly eastward. Losing men and resources at the Battle of the Big Hole, Mont., they passed through Yellowstone National Park and turned northward but met disaster at the Battle of Bear Paw Mountains, Mont., in the fall of 1877.
During the campaign about 120 Indians had died and 88 had been wounded. They killed about 180 whites and wounded 150. Confined at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., between November 1877 and July 1878 and enduring much suffering because of the abysmal conditions, the Nez Perces were then exiled to a reservation in Indian Territory and not allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest until 1885.
Nez Perce National Historical Park, authorized by Congress in 1965 and in the initial phase of development when this volume went to press, represents a new concept in a national park. It is a joint venture of the National Park Service, other governmental agencies, the State of Idaho, the Nez Perce Tribal Executive Committee, private organizations, and individuals. Of the 24 sites involved, 20 will remain in the hands of their present owners or under a protective scenic easement. Folders available to visitors at National Park Service units give exact locations of all sites and routing information.
The National Park Service administers four major sites: Spalding, East Kamiah, White Bird Battlefield, and Canoe Camp. At Spalding are a Nez Perce campsite of archeological significance; the remains of the Spalding (Lapwai) Mission (1838-47), consisting of traces of the millrace and ruins of two chimneys; site of the original Lapwai Indian Agency (1855-84) for the Nez Perces; a Nez Perce cemetery, where a large tombstone marks the graves of Henry and Eliza Spalding; and Watson's Store, a typical general store of the 1910-15 period that served the Nez Perces until only a few years ago. Extensive archeological excavation is planned at Spalding.
In 1992 an additional 14 sites were added in the adjoining states of Oregon, Washington, and Montana. The 38 sites of Nez Perce National Historical Park have been designated to commemorate the stories and history of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) and their interaction with explorers, fur traders, missionaries, soldiers, settlers, gold miners, and farmers who moved through or into the area.
A prominent feature at East Kamiah is the "Heart of the Monster," a rocky hump protruding from the level valley to a height of 50 to 60 feet that figures strongly in Nez Perce mythology. Also situated at East Kamiah is the McBeth House, a small framehouse that was the residence of missionaries Susan and Kate McBeth in the 1870's. White Bird Battlefield was the site of the first battle of the Nez Perce War, on June 17, 1877. Canoe Camp, a 3-acre roadside park along the bank of the Clearwater River, was the location of a Lewis and Clark campsite in 1805.
Many of the 20 sites (expanded to 38 sites in 1992) among the non-Park Service group are related to the phases of history treated in this volume. Fort Lapwai, the Army's major post in Nez Perce country, was founded by Volunteers in 1862 about 3 miles south of the Clearwater River in the Lapwai Valley. The post prevented clashes between Indians and whites on the Nez Perce Reservation, and played a prominent role in the Nez Perce War. Made a subpost of Fort Walla Walla. Wash., in 1884, Fort Lapwai was abandoned the following year and became the headquarters of the Nez Perce Indian Agency. In recent years this agency was replaced by the Northern Idaho Indian Agency, which serves all the northern Idaho tribes. The parade ground may still be seen, as well as a frame officers' quarters on its southwestern corner, now used by the Indian agency staff, and the stables.
Two natural formations east of Lewiston, Coyote's Fishnet and Ant and Yellow Jacket, are associated with Nez Perce legend and mythology. Weippe Prairie, a National Historic Landmark because of its relationship with the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was a favorite place for the Nez Perces to gather camas roots, an important part of their food supply. At this place Lewis and Clark, descending the Bitterroots in 1805, first encountered the tribe.
At the site of the city of Pierce, a prospecting party headed by E. D. Pierce made the first significant gold discovery in Idaho in 1860. The ensuing gold rush brought thousands of miners and settlers onto Nez Perce lands and within 3 years resulted in the creation of Idaho Territory. Two engagements of the Nez Perce War are commemorated at other cooperative park units; the site of the Cottonwood Skirmishes and Clearwater Battlefield. On the steep bluffs overlooking the Clearwater River are remains of stone breastworks used by Indians and soldiers during the Battle of the Clearwater. Also associated with the Nez Perce War and Nez Perce culture is Camas Prairie, a plateau-valley in the heart of the Nez Perce country, indicated by a highway marker. Once a sea of blue-flowered camas and grass, it was the place where the warriors who murdered the settlers on the Salmon River were camped with their group before it moved to White Bird Canyon.
The Lolo Trail, Idaho-Montana, a National Historic Landmark described separately in this volume, was the traditional route of the Nez Perces across the Bitterroot Mountains to their buffalo hunting grounds in Montana and the avenue of the non-treaty faction of the tribe in 1877. It was also the westward and eastward route of Lewis and Clark in 1805 and 1806. Some other sites in the park area, much of which is located within the boundaries of the historic Nez Perce Indian Reservation, are associated with missionary activities among the tribe.
Last Updated: 19-Aug-2005
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MAT670 Theory Best Practice Teaching
Lead Faculty: Dr. Linda Ventriglia-Nava
Covers theories and research on Best Practices in education. Best Practice research on effective schools emphasizes: classroom instructional practices, classroom management, school organization and planning, strategies for linguistically and culturally diverse students to access the core curriculum, instructional leadership, teaching environment, teaching strategies, peer assistance, peer review process and parent and community support.
- Explain the difference between expert teachers and experienced teachers.
- Explain How to Teach More Faster and Teach for Transfer.
- Discuss the research on Best Practices and the implications for optimum learning and accelerated achievement.
- Implement Best Practice teaching strategies in their classrooms across subject areas.
- Apply Best Practices to standards-based content instruction.
- Discuss how teaching for transfer helps English language learners.
- Create an interactive lesson using the strategies reinforcing, nonlinguistic representations, cooperative learning, generating and testing hypotheses, higher level questioning, cueing, using advanced organizers, summarizing and taking notes.
- Create a lesson plan using the nine Best Practices outlined in Classroom Instruction that Works.
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|National Weather Service|
Contents: About, Graph, Status Maps, History Button, Credits
To use this website, click on the appropriate REGION. This will update the list of STATIONS and show a "Status Map" for that region. Click on your desired station, either on the map or in the list of STATIONS. This will bring up a graph of the total water level, as well as a text file that contains the numbers used in the graph.
The graph combines several sources of data to produce a total water level prediction. To do so, it graphs the observed water levels in comparison to the predicted tide and predicted surge before the current time. This allows it to compute the "Anomaly". The "Anomaly" is the amount of water that was not predicted by either the tide or the storm surge model. This "Anomaly" is averaged over 5 days, and is then added to the future predictions of the tide and storm surge to predict the Total Water Level.Example:
The first thing one notices is that there are two magenta vertical lines. The earlier one is when the storm surge model was run. It is run at 0Z and 12Z every day and the text form is available at: http://www.nws.noaa.gov/mdl/marine/etsurge.htm. The later magenta line is when the graph was generated. It is currently being generated 15 minutes after the top of every hour. (This is also the date that follows the label.)
The next thing one notices are the horizontal lines labeled MLLW, MSL, MHHW, and MAT. These stand for the Mean Lower Low Water, Mean Sea Level, Mean Higher High Water, and Maximum Astronomical Tide. MAT was computed using our tide model, by computing the maximum of the predicted value for every hour (on the hour) for 19 years. The thought is that there is probably flooding if the total water level crosses MAT. The other datums came from http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/data_res.html.
One might next notice the red observation line. This is based on data attained from Tides Online . Please see their Disclaimer for information as to the quality of these observations. If there is no red line, then either Tides Online does not have data for that station, or there has been a communications break down. In this case, the graph computes an anomaly based on what data it has, or sets it to 0. Then it predicts the total water level for all hours, or after the last of any observations it does have.
The next thing of interest is the blue Tide line. This is the astronomical tide at every hour. The Harmonic Constants used were obtained from http://www.co-ops.nos.noaa.gov/data_res.html.
We then note the gold storm surge curve, which is created by "pasting" one 48 hour prediction to the next 48 hour prediction. That is, using 12 hours from each prediction until the last prediction where we use 48 hours. The result is that we may generate kinks in the curve every 12 hours, where the model adjusted its prediction based on new data from the GFS wind model.
Next we note the green curve, which is the "Anomaly" referred to above. This is simply the observation - (tide + storm surge). Preferably it is constant. The amount of deviation from a constant is an approximation of our error. Since we add the 5 day average of this value to our prediction, the perfect forecast does not have to have a zero Anomaly.
Finally we see the black forecast curve. This is what we are really interested in, which is the total water level created by adding the 5 day average anomaly to the predicted tide, and the predicted storm surge.
The history button allows one to see how the model has done over the last day or so. It displays 3 graphs. The first one is the current graph based on the current model run, and the current observations. The second graph is the last graph generated using the last model run. The third graph is the last graph generated using the next to last model run. This gives a view of the model over the last 24 to 36 hours depending on when the current time is.
To print this page out (Netscape instructions) it is recommended that you right click on the history frame and choose "Open Frame in New Window". Then choose page setup, and set the top and bottom margins to 0. Then choose print, and preferably send it to a color printer, (although a black and white does work). The result should be 3 graphs on the same page.
We would like to thank the following people/organizations:
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Historical events were always very important in Tintin’s stories. During his first adventure, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929), Tintin travels to Russia. After the October Revolution in 1917 and a five-year civil war, Stalin had succeeded Lenin in 1924. He accelerated industrialization and his political police terrified the population. Moreover, the country was ravaged by famine. At that time, Westerners were frightened of “Bolsheviks” and Hergé worked for a right-wing Catholic anticommunist newspaper, Le XXè Siècle. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets only reflected people’s mentality of that time. Hergé denounced fake factories that misled western journalists, arbitrary arrests, false elections,1 torture in prison, abandoned children, and so on.
Five years later, in 1934, Tintin went to China which was the victim of Japanese imperialism. Since 1931, Japanese troops had occupied parts of the Chinese mainland. Hergé based his story upon the events of the time. For example, in The Blue Lotus, he found his inspiration in the blowing-up of the South Manchurian railway, which brought about the Japanese invasion of China and ultimately Japan’s resignation from the League of Nations in 1933. Hergé reproduced all these events in The Blue Lotus. He had been made aware of China’s situation by Chang and he opposed Japan, which was in opposition to the pro-Japanese western position. It was the first time he has taken so much interest in international events. Less partisan, the presentation of Palestine is different in the three versions of Tintin in the Land of Black Gold. Hergé never finished the first which takes place entirely in Palestine, because the Second World War broke out. In the second version, published in 1949, he referred to the struggle of Jewish organizations against the British occupier. But in 1969, British editors put pressure on Hergé and he removed these allusions. This last version thereby lost its historical aspect.
Thanks to his narrative techniques, Hergé referred to events that are normally not treated in comic strips. His method was complex, nevertheless one of his favorite tools was the imaginary country. Tintin travels twice to the first imaginary country created by Hergé, San Theodoros. Here, in The Broken Ear, the political context was inspired by the Gran Chaco War, a bloody conflict - resulting in 100,000 deaths - between Bolivia and Paraguay, which began in 1932,2 then in Tintin and the Picaros, Hergé illustrated the economic and political situation in South America.
Syldavia and Borduria are the most successful of Hergé’s imaginary countries. These “East European metaphors” recall two critical periods of the twentieth century.3 The two countries first appeared in King Ottokar’s Sceptre, in 1938. Since 1933, Germany had threatened Austria, and on March 11, 1938, German troops had invaded the little country. These events were recent when the serialization of King Ottokar’s Sceptre began. In fact, Syldavia is the synthesis of three real countries. First, the conspiracy and the “fifth column” infiltrated into Syldavia represent the conspiracy against Austria. Second, its old conflict with Borduria, its architecture and its language have Polish characteristics. And third, geography and history resemble these of Romania. Likewise, Borduria is similar to Germany. For example, they both invaded their neighbour, Syldavia and Poland on several occasions. Moreover, the name of the pro-Bordurian party’s leader, “Müsstler”, seems to be a synthesis of Mussolini and Hitler.4 Uniforms that look like SS uniforms, and planes that are very similar to Messerschmit 109E fighters,5 are other signs of Hergé’s aim: to describe and denounce an Anschluss. Sixteen years later, Syldavia and Borduria were back in The Calculus Affair (1954-1956) during the Cold War. In Europe, the situation had been very tense since 1946, a situation worsened by the Berlin blockade, the Korean war and the Warsaw Pact. The arms race speeded up and the first H-bomb was exploded in 1953. Spying was intense. In The Calculus Affair, many elements refer to the events of the period. Tensions between the two countries appear to have been inspired by the situation between the two Germanys. Moreover, the personality cult of Plekszy-Gladz, the Bordurian president, resembled Stalin’s personality cult.6 Finally, with its architecture and the methods of its police, Borduria is similar to a country of the eastern bloc. Syldavia and Borduria could easily represent the confrontation between the two blocs, as they represented in the past the conflict between western democracies and Germany.7
Through imaginary countries, like Syldavia and San Theodoros, and direct allusion to real events, Hergé showed a concern for accurate explanations that had consequences in the perception of Tintin stories. Many adults read Tintin a long time after they discover his adventures, maybe because they did not completely understand the historical context during their childhood. But some questions about the perception of Tintin stories still exist. How would a child who does not know anything about history interpret the context of King Ottokar’s Sceptre, for example? How would a young Japanese interpret the political situation in The Blue Lotus? Nevertheless, enormous sales of Tintin’s stories - more than 120 million copies in 40 languages8 - show that allusions to historical events do not affect the success. Events were seen through Belgian eyes, but the hero travels the whole world and he is extremely open-minded. Nationality, language and religion have little significance, because a reader of Tintin’s adventures can always identify with the reporter. Hergé said “There are clearly reasons for this success since it has lasted so long and continues to grow. Well then?… It’s like a flowing stream, but what is its nature?… I receive, for example, a lot of mail from India. Here in the office are two letters from Calcutta. Now, what can there be in common between a boy in Calcutta and myself?… That’s something I am still asking myself without finding an answer.”9 His allusions to historical events may be one of the explanations.
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Lara Bonner Millar, MD
The Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania?
Last Modified: January 13, 2011
Surgery as a medical field has been changing rapidly since the late 1800s, in large part thanks to the development of safe and effective anesthesia. Surgical oncology is a specialty that focuses on the surgical treatment of a variety of tumors. Ephraim McDowell did the first reported resection of an ovarian tumor in 1809, but as early as the 7th century, ancient Egyptians described techniques for removing breast tumors. Today, general surgeons can pursue additional training after their residency in the form of a surgical oncology fellowship. However, a surgeon does not have to do a surgical oncology fellowship in order to be a surgical oncologist. What is more common is that a surgeon who is trained in a particular body site may develop expertise in cancers of that site, and thus have experience in the multidisciplinary approach to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of those cancers. For example, a thoracic surgeon who is a surgical oncologist may devote most of his practice to lung cancer, while a head and neck surgical oncologist would be involved in treatment of cancers specific to her training, such as cancer of the larynx.
Surgery is the oldest form of cancer treatment, and for most patients, part of the curative plan includes surgery. The most important part of the consultation with the surgeon is a complete history and physical exam. Before surgical resection, diagnostic and staging studies should be performed. This helps the surgeon determine if the cancer is resectable (removable with surgery), and allows him or her to plan the surgical approach. Due to improved screening techniques, many patients have disease that is curable with surgery alone at diagnosis. In such cases, after surgery, the patient's follow-up care includes close observation and/or radiology and lab tests.
The goals of the surgical oncologist are to remove the cancer and an area of healthy tissue surrounding it, also known as a clear margin or clear excision, in order to prevent the cancer from recurring in that area (which is called a local recurrence). Sometimes it is not possible to remove the whole tumor, and a surgery known as "debulking" may be done to remove as much of the tumor as possible and to relieve symptoms such as pain, airway obstruction, or bleeding. However, the contribution of the surgical oncologist goes beyond what is done on the day of surgery itself. As part of the multidisciplinary care team, he or she provides expert opinion about biopsy techniques, optimal image guidance, the likelihood of achieving clear margins (especially in borderline resectable cases), and what role there is, if any, for surgical management of more advanced disease.
Although chemotherapy and radiation therapy are commonly used either pre- or post-operatively, a quality surgery is critical because it is not clear that chemotherapy or radiation can correct or compensate for an inadequate surgery. Excision of lymph nodes in the area of the tumor may be done at the time of surgery, depending on the type of cancer. The information regarding lymph node status (i.e. do they contain cancer cells or not?) can help determine prognosis as well as further treatment options. For example, if a patient has a small rectal cancer that is thought to be node-negative pre-operatively, but there is nodal involvement discovered after surgery, this finding portends a less favorable prognosis than if all the nodes had been negative. Additionally, chemotherapy and/or radiation would be recommended for node-positive disease, but with node-negative disease and an absence of other risk factors, observation alone after surgery would be recommended.
The types of surgeries that are done for cancers depend on the stage and location of the tumor and the fitness of the patient for surgery, and will continue to evolve. A classic example of the evolution of surgical technique is in the management of breast cancer. In 1890, Dr. William S. Halsted pioneered the radical mastectomy, a surgery which removed the whole breast, all draining nodes and the pectoral muscles (the muscle in the chest just below the breast). This was an extreme procedure that resulted in poor cosmetic outcomes and other long-term issues. While this was effective against the cancer, other surgeons wondered if they could achieve good oncologic results with a less extensive and disfiguring surgery. Breast conserving surgery was pioneered by Dr. Veronesi in Italy, who performed quadrantectomy (removing one quadrant of breast tissue) starting in the 1970s, although it took decades of follow-up to demonstrate that this less extensive surgery was acceptable. Nowadays, breast surgeons tend to do even smaller and more cosmetically pleasing surgeries called lumpectomies (which should be followed with breast radiation), while still maintaining excellent cancer control. Additionally, all women used to have surgery to remove the lymph nodes in the underarm, called an axillary dissection. The dissection left some women with arm swelling, pain, and/or limited range of motion. Now, for diagnostic staging of the axilla, sentinel lymph node dissection (removing only the first draining node) is done. Axillary dissection is reserved for situations where the sentinel node is positive for tumor, or if a sentinel node cannot be found.
Sometimes, after removal of the tumor, there is a defect left behind that could be physically devastating or impact on function. To remedy this, reconstructive techniques are increasingly being used for certain cancers and are important because of the impact on the patient's quality of life. Reconstruction can take place at the same time that the cancer is removed, ("immediate reconstruction"), or weeks to months later, "delayed reconstruction." When a surgical oncologist operates in conjunction with a plastic surgeon - for example, a breast surgeon performing a mastectomy with immediate reconstruction done by the plastic surgeon - the combined surgical approach is described as "oncoplastic surgery."
Like radiation therapy, the precise details of surgical technique are dictated by patient anatomy, tumor location, and cancer cell biology. Therefore, there is not always one exact way of doing things. Experience and evidence continue to shape the field of surgical oncology.
Pollock, Raphael E. Advanced Therapy in Surgical Oncology. 2008, BC Decker, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.
Bland, Kirby I., Daly, John M, and Karakousis, Constantine P. Surgical Oncology: Contemporary Principles & Practice. 2001, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Feig, Barry W., Berger, David H., and Fuhrman, The M.D. Anderson Surgical Oncology Handbook, Fourth Edition. 2006, Lippincott, Williams, and Wilkins.
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Unix Power Tools
by Jerry Peek
Trapping Exits Caused by Interrupts
If you're running a shell script and you press your interrupt key (like CTRL-c), the shell quits right away. That can be a problem if you use temporary files in your script because the sudden exit might leave the temporary files there. The trap command lets you tell the shell what to do before it exits. A trap can be used for a normal exit, too. See Table 1.
Here's a script named zpg that uses a temporary file named /tmp/zpg$$ in a system temporary-file directory. The shell will replace $$ with its process ID number. Because no other process will have the same ID number, that file should have a unique name. The script uncompresses the file named on its command line, then starts the pg file viewer. The script uses traps -- so it will clean up the temporary files, even if the user presses CTRL-c. The script also sets a default exit status of 1 that's reset to 0 if pg quits on its own (without an interrupt).
There are two traps in the script:
The first trap, ending with the number 0, is executed for all shell exits -- normal or interrupted. It runs the command line between the single quotes. In this example, there are two commands separated with a semicolon (;). The first command removes the temporary file (using the -f option, so rm won't give an error message if the file doesn't exist yet). The second command exits with the value stored in the stat shell variable. Look ahead at the rest of the script - $stat will always be 1 unless the pg command quit on its own, in which case stat will be reset to 0. Therefore, this shell script will always return the right exit status -- if it's interrupted before it finishes, it'll return 1; otherwise, 0.
The second trap has the numbers 1 2 15 at the end. These are signal numbers that correspond to different kinds of interrupts. On newer shells, you can use signal names instead of the numbers. There's a short list in Table 1. For a list of all signals, type kill -l (lowercase "L") or see your online signal(3) reference page.
This trap is done on an abnormal exit (like CTRL-c). It prints a message, but it could run any list of commands.
Table 1: Some UNIX Signal Numbers for trap Commands
|Signal Number||Signal Name||Explanation|
|1||HUP||When session disconnected|
|2||INT||Interrupt -- often CTRL-c|
|3||QUIT||Quit -- often CTRL-\|
|15||TERM||From kill command|
Shell scripts don't always have two traps. Look at the nom script for an example.
I usually don't trap signal 3 (QUIT) in scripts that I use myself. That gives me an easy way to abort the script without springing the trap (removing temporary files, etc.). In scripts for general use, though, I usually do trap it.
Also, notice that the echo commands in the script have 1>&2 at the end. That tells the Bourne shell to put the output of the echo command on the standard error instead of the standard output. This is a good idea because it helps to make sure that errors come to your screen instead of being redirected to a file or down a pipe with the other standard output text. (In this particular script, that doesn't matter much because the script is used interactively. But it's a good habit to get into for all of your scripts.)
If your trap runs a series of commands, it's probably neater to call a shell function than a list of commands:
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Fetuses, infants, and toddlers, as well as older children and teens are particularly susceptible to environmental insults due to their rapid rate of growth, development and reproduction of cells. This vulnerability makes children a specific focus of environmental health research on the effects of lead, chemical dump sites, pesticides, PCBs, benzene, environmental estrogens, and outdoor and indoor air contaminants. Scientists want to know which substances pose significant health risks, how to identify susceptible children, and how to intervene to prevent illness.
The following are some of the studies conducted or financed by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, one of the National Institutes of Health, which focus on children:
Lead (commonly found in old paint, household dust, soil, pipe solder and some ceramics) has long been known to cause severe health problems at high doses, including muscle and abdominal pain, mental impairment, paralysis, and even death. Recent studies supported by the NIEHS suggest that a young person's lead exposure is linked not only to lower IQs and lower high school graduation rates but to increased delinquency. Preliminary data from two other grantees' studies indicate that young girls exposed to lead store the metal in their bones. This lead can be released when they become pregnant years later, exposing their fetuses. Until recently, however, we have not appreciated the devastating effect of low exposures early in life.
Basic research financed by the NIEHS has shown the adverse effects of lead on children's IQ and physical development at levels previously considered safe. Based on these and other findings, public health officials declared lead the number one environmental hazard to American children and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered the acceptable blood lead level.
Research by the NIEHS grantees has helped identify sources of lead in the environment, design public health prevention efforts, and develop treatment to remove lead from exposed children, a process called chelation.
To help improve treatments, the NIEHS supported the study of dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA) as a chelating agent. Known generically as Succimer and the trade-name Chemet, DMSA binds with the lead, hastening its removal from the body and can be administered orally without hospitalization, an improvement over previous intravenous therapies.
Succimer is approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat lead levels that exceed 45 micrograms per deciliter of blood. However, adverse effects of lead are evident at levels between 10 and 25 micrograms per deciliter, making treatment necessary for these lower concentrations.
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For a new and different perception of pivotal Soviet events, read on...
PROPAGANDA IN THE PROPAGANDA STATE
hen the Bolshevik party came to power in the October 1917 revolution it immediately began creating the world's first modern propaganda state. This is not at all surprising. Before 1917 many Bolsheviks lived the life of underground agitators. As underground men they devoted their days and nights to propaganda. They operated by avoiding the tsar's secret police and by stirring up factory workers with leaflets, slogans, songs, and speeches. Bolshevik leaders toiled as journalists, pamphleteers, and lettered instigators long before they seized state power. As revolutionaries, making messages gave their lives meaning. As human beings hackwork gave them the means to buy bread i.e. to live. Many a professional revolutionary who lived outside of Russia, most in European cities (Paris, Geneva, Warsaw, London, Berlin, Krakow) wrote about revolution long before he or she dirtied their hands making one---let alone running the new state born of revolutionary upheaval.
In a series of newspapers, Lenin hammered out party doctrine. Political debates, challenges to his ideas and emerging cannon filled the papers. Swift and savage ideas flew like sharp arrows. Newspapers written abroad, away from the heavy hand of Tsarist censorship substituted for free exchange in a common civic space. Revolutionaries printed illegal newspapers on thin almost tissue paper for easy smuggling across poorly guarded borders into mother Russia. In cities and towns those who reported back on local events and those who distributed papers, Iskra, Pravda, became party organizers. Readers became party members. Factory workers paid attention to party papers. At the front in World War I trench newspapers-highly illegal and highly prized (once read they could be ripped up and rolled into cigarettes) cleverly fomented dissent, disobedience of officers and demoralized discontent with the 'overlong imperialist war.' A repressive regime made an easy target. The acid pens of the properly dressed Bolshevik gentlemen (Lenin preferred a three piece suit, tie-even if it was stained and stale) promoted a popular strategy: overthrow the old lords of the old order. The best party pressmen (and a few women) developed a keen sense of how turn a tactic into an effective slogan. To find the lowest common denominator was a mission, not a mistake. If a rival radical group coined a catchy phrase, the Bolshevik took the highroad of their revolutionary creed-highway robbery. Steal it and spread it, make it the Bolshevik's own operated as the operative unprincipled principle. The end justified the means.
The Bolshevik banners read simply: BREAD, PEACE & LAND. All Power to the Soviets. As they rode waves of radical spirit and popular support, notably in Petrograd, Lenin pushed for bolder action. Impatient, unwilling to wait out the polite democratic discussion he marshaled his words to put nerve and backbone into the Bolsheviks leadership. Lenin wanted determined, violent action to seize power. He avowed himself a scientific socialist. Yet at crunch time he felt the moment. Succinct when it counted he explained, "The government is tottering. We must deal it the deathblow at any cost. To delay action is the same as death." The means of communication-the telegraph office, the telephone exchange, and the radio gear on the cruiser Aurora, the telephones at the Winter Palace-were ordered seized as a priority. The Military-Revolutionary Committee moved swiftly to take over printing plants, too. To hold the means of communication denied them to enemies. Public opinion mattered; making sure rivals could not get their message out mattered more. The only fairness doctrine was the Bolsheviks retaining state power. The Bolsheviks understood the power of the mass media. Their problem would not be the media, but the masses.
Communism, whose by-word was "Workers of the World Unite!", surprised itself by coming to power in a backward, peasant-dominated country. The scientific plan of Karl Marx and its endless elucidation by Marxists envisioned the proletariat taking power in an advanced Capitalist country. Even its workers had the stench of peasant mud on their boots. Ties to village life, the village way to find a wife, and not so sober vices remained strong. Soldiers who went Bolshevik at the front to get away from the frozen hell that was WWI largely were just peasants in uniform. Those who did not vote with their feet against the status quo (fleeing home as soon as discipline broke down) soon wanted to leave their Red leaders for the joys of raiding manor houses near their native village, too. 1917 was, the Bolsheviks soon realized just an incredible year; in the heat of revolution they forged amazing partnership with workers, with peasants-turned soldiers. But in their heart of hearts the Bolsheviks knew it just was not supposed to happen this way in this country. Yes, Russia had pockets of advanced industry concentrated in a few dense cities. Indeed the most technologically sophisticated metalworking plants, perhaps because of their scale and alienating organization produced some of the most revolutionary working class men. The peasants simply outnumbered everyone else. The people in whose name the Bolsheviks took over needed-well to put it bluntly they needed culture; they needed to overcome ignorance, superstition, stupefying traditionalism. The Marxist handbooks may have said otherwise, but the men atop the one country where revolution had triumphed looked out at a land tired, drained by five years of WWI. They could only realize their propaganda challenge in overthrowing the old order was the easy part. Propagandizing the citizen of the would-be socialist society, winning over the people of the people's republic would require a massive effort.
The utopian streak in Marxist thought impelled the founders of the world's first socialist state to create a new kind of society, a new kind of country inhabited by new kinds of people. This first-ever kind of social order would need new kinds of glue, new myths, new gods, and new beliefs to hold it together. Because they wanted to realize a radiant future on earth, the Bolsheviks really were future oriented. They wanted to do new things in new ways. Cutting edge technology in and of itself spoke of progress. So they were eager to show off whatever glimpses of a future world that they could. Cutting edge in 1918 was Edison's invention the gramophone. Newer yet was film. Movie houses had sprung up in Moscow and other cities before WWI. The vast majority in the countryside hadn't even heard about movies. So the Bolsheviks, who knew they had to win a broader base of support, marshaled their few technical resources to take their message to the people.
As practiced propagandists the Bolsheviks had mastered the notion - KISS - keep it simple stupid. They believed most ordinary Russians thought in images. Exposure to European culture forced them to recognize that Russian lives were drab. Communist visionaries were willing to experiment with bold artists. Graphic masters of new kinds of art embraced the liberation revolution brought. Art enlisted in the cause. Brightly colored propaganda trains carried the city based idea that "the times they were achangin'" across the land.
Stark contrasts served the Bolsheviks well. New=good; old=bad. Reds meant progress-most anything else equaled a return to a hellish existence. In the civil war that quickly followed Lenin's rise to power, the Bolsheviks did reach the masses. The idea of the fighters for human justice and equality, the Bolsheviks, were battling against all odds, against all the world's armies that had come to destroy them received widespread attention. The theme of the new kind of socialist life form doing anything it could to survive in a hostile encirclement of enemies was created during the civil war. This theme would be revived periodically as a leitmotif. To survive a civil war the Bolsheviks acted ruthlessly. Again, the end justified the mean. Equally important, their enemies, former tsarist admirals, generals, counts and liberal politicians (backed by British, French, American, and Japanese troops) refused to court public opinion with any kind of effective attempt to persuade mass groupings to side with them. White disdain proved fatal. The Bolsheviks with the propaganda field to themselves got a message out that opposition armies, the Whites, wanted to return the country to the old order. Most who would decide, decided to risk the promise of the unknown over a return to the past. (Some of course exhibited total cynicism: A well-know civil war anecdote relates that in a village one peasant shouts: "hurray for the incoming troops." Then a neighbor asks the question "whose side are you on?" he answers: "The ones riding IN.") The propaganda campaign, plus of course some brilliant military leadership and absolute ruthlessness in dealing with any perceived enemy won the Bolsheviks an against all odds victory.
The civil war created the idea that Bolshevism could do the impossible. It gave rise to a slogan "there is no fortress Bolshevism cannot storm", that embodied a 'can do' mentality like that of the U.S. Marines. Also as a formative experience the civil war (1918-1921) provided the seed bed for new images of heroes and all the metaphors of war campaigns, fronts, volunteers, even vanguards issuing commands, dictating what was needed to stave off destruction by the hostile bad guys. The incredible result of the civil war validated for masses of people, the Bolshevik's political power grab in 1917. Moreover, it created a matrix for how propaganda makers shake and shape attitudes. It reinforced the idea, if it needed any reinforcing, that propaganda was a powerful tool for protecting the newborn proletarian state in an aggressively anti-Soviet Russia world.
Another trait the propagandists called on was a pre-Revolutionary role that the well educated had played with the masses: as teachers, ENLIGHTENMENT-providers. Well before Marxism marched east, Russian radicals had a long established a tradition of "going to the people", the peasants as volunteer teachers. Latter in cities how did believing Marxist intellectuals make friends with real workers? Factory hands, after all, lived in different parts of town, worked long hours, and enjoyed different habits of life from those whose heads swam with a sea of abstract ideas. Before the revolution it was not easy; the Tsar's secret police, street police, and factory police kept keen eyes out for agitators, especially those trying to incite the masses. They met first in adult education classes for workers. After the revolution the empowered Bolshevik wanted to repeat their role as ENLIGHTENMENT-providers on a grand scale.
Equally important, propagandists realized that if they wanted to build a new society, one imbued with new myths, new rituals, new icon Communists had to do away with the old. To make room for the new they had to tear down the old. Sometimes this entailed the most literal meaning of the word: iconoclasm-old icons were torn down. Churches lost their bells. To change the very soundscape of Moscow (think of the 1812 Overture-the piece of music played on 4th of July and other times when fireworks are displayed--Tchaikovsky wrote it to include the sound of Moscow's many church bells) radicals tore down church bells; later some would try to create a new 'proletarian orchestra' sound by setting off factory whistles everywhere.
The church was a prime target for the 'tear down the old' campaign. It offered an alternative faith to Bolshevism. Communists brooked no competition in the struggle for hearts and minds. The new officially atheistic state hated the Orthodox church for its long subservience to the Tsars. Russian radicalism, long before Lenin and company had a strong atheistic streak. From the mid-nineteenth century on radicals embraced science against faith. There was a practical side to be considered, too. Churches had gold in a country racked by WWI, then a revolution, and then a civil war. Plus going after church buildings could be construed as a 'new campaign', a heroic battle like the civil war. This 'religious front' approach gave those too young to have a role in the earlier battles a chance for glory...not to mention an outlet for youthful energies harnessed by propagandists.
At the very same time that the new regime began pulling down longstanding institution, it co-opted fundamental elements of the way Russians believed the world was ordered. A concept of political authority seen in personal terms, a wise Tsar taking care of his little people transmuted easily. Popular sayings held:
"Without the Tsar, the country is a widow" or "the people are the body, the Tsar is the head." After the revolution trust in the wisdom of the party became paramount. Seven decades of Soviet socialism only changed the forms of how fundamental ideas are expressed. In his interview, Boris Efimov said, "we simple people, we didn't do politics. Those who sat at the very top did politics." Those on top drew authority from the sacred symbol of the new faith, Lenin. He became the center of a cult, not only as a replacement for the Tsar but as a selfless Communist, one who exhausted himself to bring the revolution into being. Lenin died in 1924. His passing gave a new kind of regime a chance to create new rituals. Following all those traumatic years, the passing of the man who guided "Ten Days that Shook the World" was a cathartic experience. Mass mourning created as well as vented extreme emotions. Organized ceremonies took place across the land-the first mass mobilization in peacetime of ordinary citizens. By preserving Lenin's body for veneration Soviet science created a sign that it could overcome nature, the decay of death. Lenin's resting-place became the central showplace, ground zero for the Communist movement uniting workers of the world.
Lenin lived as the man who brought the future into backward Russian homes. Before he died the revolutionary decided a great symbol for what communism could deliver would be creation of a nationwide electrical system. Naturally, the propagandist in him made a slogan out of his techno-idea: "Communism=Soviet Power+Electrification of the Whole Country." When the Soviet Union became wired up with light bulbs, called by one his nicknames-"Ilych lamps" enlightened and changed millions of peasants' lives. It was a change and a propaganda coup that won many over as loyalist of a new state, one that drastically changed things. Lenin's idea transformed lives and became a foundation myth of the scientific regime.
Parts of a 1924 poem by the Blue Blouse Workers' Theater gloried:
We, the workers and the peasants
In the hut of the widow Natalka
Electricity and steam
Teachers of new generations built on the cult of Lenin as a tool for shaping the minds to a new Soviet way of thinking. Indoctrination came in the guise of school age "young pioneer" organizations. Pioneers pledged to fulfill his legacy. That legacy proved very malleable. Lenin slogans, praise of the proletariat, love for the red socialist-cause were memorized. Sugary poems about his pure spirit and dedication to Communist revolution go adorned classroom walls, community centers, even the toy stores. Lenin's ruthless critical approach to thinking quickly passed into the dustbin of history. Just as many American school children know just a formula about their founding father George Washington (wooden teeth, could not tell a lie, chopped down a cherry tree, fought the British, maybe owned slaves) Soviet children internalized limited notions of how the 'revolutionary genius" behaved. A Lenin code of conduct became the model to be copied. Potted histories of the Communist party where Lenin always played the lead role served as primers for understanding history. Lenin associated rituals regulated daily behavior.
Children pinned on badges depicting an angelic "baby Lenin." Boys and girls raised their hands above their faces vowing to be "always ready" as Lenin had been (as heroes in the civil war, too had been) to defend and to extend the revolution. Lenin-centric Pioneer activities organized children's lives. The best emulators of the best Lenin earned a summer at the best-equipped, most prestigious summer camps. Of course, as a socialist country summer camp, like many things for kids, including medical care was free. Still prestige counted: so did a sense of belonging, a sense of place among peers, a sense 'you had made it'...you were normal and accepted. The social and development psychology played a very important part in the lives of Soviet school children. Pioneer rituals marked important turning points in the lives of generations of youngsters who did believe that they were building a new kind of society, a socialist society. Receiving the Pioneer's symbol the red tie, mixed joy in growing up and pride in joining the ranks of patriots of the new kind of state-the Communist state. Tatiana Vorontsova explained the pride: "Once you had the tie you had well, pride, it was like a flag. It is like when the flag flies. When you see the Olympics and they start to raise your flag, you feel proud. And that pride is what we felt as children. You felt, "you've got the tie!"
In the massive social experiment that was the Soviet Union raising a new kind of person, Soviet man (Homo Sovieticus), remained of paramount importance. New generations held the key to realizing 'a radiant Communist future.' For those Marxists who insisted on creating the world's first classless society children meant everything. Adults would repeat, "Under communism there is only one privileged class-the children."
Collective responsibility to a party (comparative) elder was learned from more senior classmates, the best teachers of Lenin dogma proud to assert correct-thinking leadership that would keep others in line and bring them privileges. Well-indoctrinated kids brimming full of propaganda could be mustered to help the Bolshevik leaders deal with their fundamental problem-that the masses, the older generations, remained backwards. Pioneers and members of the more select older Young Communists League (Komsomol) became agents of change. Propaganda put images of the glorious fight for revolution and against the enemies of the state in the heroic period, the civil war in many heads. When Stalin, having consolidated power in the 1920's decided to launch a 'revolution from above' to mark a new decade, to collectivize agriculture, he tapped the energies of young 'true believers' as well as those who went along simply with the well-organized pressure of their peers. Agriculture represented the worst hang-overs from the old regime. Inefficient, tradition-bound, manpower intensive, the peasant agrarian world represented the drag of the Russian past on the Soviet present. Stalin and his circle declared a war (as in the civil war) against the counter-revolutionary forces, traditional peasants, and called the young to the front lines. Often Pioneers confronted a familiar enemy: their parents.
As during the civil war, the Communist party decreed, in effect: desperate times require desperate measures---the ends justify the means. The evilness of the means shifted the Soviet propaganda and mythmaking apparatus into overdrive.
The result was a new cult especially created for Pioneers. Propagandists knew they needed a simple story, something bold, stark and memorable. They conjured up the legend of a Soviet secular saint for kids-Pavlik Morozov
The story of little Pavlik Morozov (or affectionate versions of his name Pasha, Pavlushka, Pash) or more precisely the legend of Morozov is emblematic of Stalinist times in the Soviet Union. The Pioneers taught generations of Soviet school children about Pavlik, the boy who informed on his father, a rich peasant. Pavlik denounced his dad to the NKVD, the secret police for hoarding grain (most likely next year's seed for crops). The rich (read: bad, counter-revolutionary) endured a quick show trial, then disappeared into the GULAG. Soon there after, all this is in 1932, his uncles murdered Pavlik in an act of revenge for squealing. Propagandists for party newspapers reported the tale. A cult of the maniac denouncer received the top culture stamp of approval in a speech by Maxim Gorky (1868-1938) at the 1934 Soviet Writers Congress. Gorky, the one-time foe of Bolshevik excesses cited Pavlik as a paragon of Soviet virtue. He became T.H.E. model of correct orthodox behavior. School children adulated him, adults especially those inclined to stray from prescribed party orthodoxy feared his very name.
Part of "A Poem about Hate" that Pioneer's Pravda published in 1933 conveys a flavor of the Morozov cult:
Pavlushka won't be going
Portraits, statues, and badges of Morozov became omnipresent. Under the sly smile of treacherous Pasha a psychosis of denunciation took firm hold in Stalinist USSR. Propagandists built the cult on a base of distortions and lies. Recent research shows that Pavlik, who was not a pioneer by the way, did not report on his father for hoarding grain as the story went. Reality was rooted in the quarreling Morozov family. Pasha had got back on his dad for abandoning his family. Pavlik lived with his mother. He ratted on his dad, who was chairman of the village Soviet for taking a bribe so as NOT to deport a family as rich peasants!! Pavlik may have been put up to the classical denunciation by his uncles who couldn't stand their brother-in-law and wanted to be chairman themselves. Pavlik's father was arrested in late 1931 and disappeared into the Gulag. A few months later in '32 someone found Pavlik and his brother murdered in the forest. Exactly who dispatched the two lovely little devils isn't clear. Those accused included his paternal grandfather and grandmother, a young Morozov cousin and two of his uncles. Nice Soviet family values. Until the fall of the Soviet Union almost no one knew this. Generations venerated the model young Communist who did his duty, turned in an enemy of the state and became a Soviet martyr.
By the way some young pioneers in the 30s were attacked by Orthodox (believing children) for wearing red scarves (devil's whiskers) and (less often) for violating the commandment to honor thy father and mother. The more Stalinism took hold, the fewer such cases of suspect behavior are known. To survive people conformed. They kept silent. And the continuous propaganda worked.
As a schoolgirl in the 1950s Tatiana Vorontsova remembers she learned the Morozov lesson in the fourth grade. "So he died like a hero. We, of course, would also have liked to be heroes and at that time if I had been in the same situation, and my father had done something against the Soviet state, of course, I would simply have gone and reported him, just like that."
In the terror filled days of his most ruthless rule Stalin kept his own cult going. As he signed the death warrants for uncounted large numbers of his comrades and countrymen, the newspaper writers hailed him as the gentle wise leader. Stalin ordered the party purged. Professionals and leaders from all walks of life, army officers, astronomers, engineers, rocket scientists, writers, painters, were exiled to the GULAG if they were not shot. Terror filled whole apartment buildings, whole streets, whole towns as the NKVD suddenly appeared to drag people away to unknown fates.
The very irrationality, unpredictability, and illogic of arrests, beatings, executions and exile made people feel the terror pervasively. State violence defined the Stalinist State. Denunciation or the possibility of denunciation even by one's own children plus the suspicion that devices such as radios could listen as well as transmit through wired speakers were daily reminders of the possibility of terror visiting a family, a neighbor, a friend. Of course, by plucking off so many top leaders and lieutenants in most every field of endeavor Stalin created a huge number of job openings. The new generation of people coming of age and education since the revolution seized (and loved!) the chance for upward mobility. Yet through it all Stalin encouraged worshipful respect of his portrait-it was everywhere-as Lenin's heir and wise interpreter of scientific socialism.
Stalin had himself depicted by artists, writers, and propagandists as the knowing caring lover of Soviet children and virtual equal of the Soviet deity, Lenin. Those who knew about the terror, even prisoners themselves as true believer took comfort in thinking that Stalin couldn't know. The arrests, the GULAG, the shots at KNVD headquarters were deemed an aberration.
Makers of mass media messages faced special problems. Individuals praised one day, were in Lubyanka, the dreaded secret police headquarters the next. One brilliant Bolshevik who Lenin had once praised as the party's fair-haired boy went from being editor of government newspaper Izvestiya, to being branded an "enemy of the people", then put on display in a elaborate show trial and executed. The campaign to hunt out "enemies of the people" signaled a time of Communist party cannibalism. Stalin's Communist party killed off the Communist elite. Old Bolsheviks lauded as righteous fighters in the underground struggle against tsarism suddenly were listed as foreign spies. Communists lauded on the front pages of Pravda and bedecked with prestigious medals for exceptional work in building that key to a workers' state, heavy industrial plants, suddenly landed on page one accused of "treason, wrecking, and preparation of terrorist acts against industry." Everyone everywhere, in Pioneer meetings, in neighborhood organization, in work-place gatherings, began searching out "hidden enemies." "A pillar of socialism one day, an exposed evil agent the next" mania swept the USSR.
To survive propagandists, especially those engaged in providing news to the masses of the mass media, the big newspapers, the newsreels, and the radio learned to tack and to jibe quickly in the Stalinist wind. Pravda's masterful cartoonist, Boris Efimov, who had a long career as the Soviet equivalent of Herb Block, understood the capriciousness of terror. His brother, the newspaper's editor, had been purged-i.e. dragged from Communist party's top press organization, accused, and shot. Boris Efimov survived by not questioning, by following orders, "…my job as a political cartoonist was also to expose or make fun of or brand as a disgrace whichever of our enemies the given occasion demanded."
Historians constantly had to rewrite history books to take out people who were no longer people; people made unpersons-made unmentionable in public after being purged. Because political arguments and political legitimacy rooted itself in history, the past had to be rewritten frequently. The suppression of unpleasant truths-- such as Lenin's 1923 'testament' where he said, "Stalin is too rude" and should be shifted to a less essential position in the leadership-became a major industry. George Orwell based his idea of "the memory hole," in the novel 1984 on this quintessential feature of Stalinism.
Stalinism forced photographers to master retouching skills. Image manipulation became as important to camera totting journalists as picture taking. Falsification by airbrushing (a pre-digital age technique for deleting) is a hallmark of Stalin era photography. Other simple methods, including taking a scissors to a negative helped erase visual memories of Stalin's victims.
A photograph of leaders might appear in a newspaper one day and then when one of people was purged, a photographer's trick would erase him from visual memory-he was quite literally put out of the picture. And it wasn't just a Stalinist art form to change representations of those engaged in current events. In a land where intellectuals bitterly noted, "you cannot predict the past" retrospective retouching was equally, if not more important. As the two photographs below show how comrades could be removed from the pantheon of Lenin's closest collaborators.
Soviet school children grew up with schoolbooks filled with photographs of Lenin. Many of the most famous and familiar depictions were falsified photographs. Stalin's archrival, Lev Trotsky was taken out of the picture. Generations of Soviet Pioneers for whom this photograph is as familiar as Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, never knew that a man they had been taught was an 'enemy of the state' in fact had stood by Lenin in this shot as Lenin's left-hand man.
In painting, of course, it was even easier to make representational art lie. A few deft brush strokes and in the phrase of David King, the great expert on this Stalinist phenomenon, the Commissar vanishes. This Stalinist retouching of reality had a long half-life. The author of this essay saw a huge oil painting of the Soviet leadership in an important art museum when he lived in Moscow during 1977-78. A week after intrigues forced a veteran member of the Politburo to "retire", the same painting showed freshly dried paint where more background covered the old comrade. Note too, that in the first few years after the last general secretary of the Communist party, Mikhail Gorbachev, came to power his official photographs-hung throughout the country-- lacked any trace of his trademark birthmarks that are prominent on his bald head.
During the forty odd years before Mikhail Gorbachev together with President Ronald Reagan ended the Cold War, the view from Red Square promoted by the Kremlin's propagandists emphasized the evil image of America as a aggressive Capitalist enemy of mankind and the Soviet Union. Psychological warfare may have compelled Communists always fighting off a bad rival, but the "bade" was not always the United States. True, the infant Bolshevik government resented the actively hostile policies the US government took against the new revolutionary regime. American soldiers landed in Russian Ports, as one of the foreign armies that tried and failed to overthrow the Bolsheviks. More irritating, Washington played 'Ostrich' for 16 years (1917-1932) refusing to recognize the new Soviet government. During the formative years of the Soviet Union there was no American embassy, no ambassador, no American consulate in Moscow. Most other industrialized nations already had busy official relations with the Kremlin. Nevertheless there were Americans in the country. During the horrific famine of 1921 and for the next two years American Relief Administration under Herbert Hoover brought in enough food to feed some 11 million starving socialist citizens.
Absent an official US presence until 1933, Americans still made a showing in the Soviet Union. Even as Soviet filmmakers grew into world famous cinema pioneers, inventing techniques such as montage (Sergei Eisenstein) American movies and movie stars dominated Soviet screens. Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Buster Keaton were incredibly popular. Lenin called film, "the most important art," but until 1928 the most popular movies in his country were made in the U.S.A. Many captains of industry, finance, and business (Henry Ford, W.Averell Harriman, Armand Hammer) came looking for resources and in doing so helped the new land that opposed their capitalism by building factories there. Capitalists endured ridicule in the press. Yet, Americans often represented efficient ways of working, modernity, and technological progress. Russians, especially those in the cities greatly admired American inventiveness-Thomas Edison, George Eastman, Alexander Graham Bell were held up as paragons of applied creative virtue. American made cars and trucks were copied and cherished.
Energetic factory workers sometimes got written up in local papers as our Russian-Americans. These propaganda terms of praise encouraged others to copy the "Americanisms": speedy, efficient work skills and willingness to adapt to new ways of doing things. Pravda, long the written propaganda bellwether noted in 1935, "Comrade Stalin teaches us to combine the broad scope of the Russian Revolution with American efficiency…For us America ought to be that standard according to which we can constantly test our technical attainments." By Communist conviction Soviet citizens believed that their nation's approach which stressed equality and social justice always overshadowed morally America's selfish, exploitative Capitalist system. After the Wall Street collapse of 1929 and the great depression of the 1930's, those in the rapidly growing land of the Soviet Union's economic miracle believed they were well on their way to catching up and overtaking oppressive America. To many disillusioned Americans--including unemployed automobile workers, black sharecroppers, leftwing activists who moved to the Soviet to find jobs-the Soviet Union represented a better way of organizing an economy and a society. However mixed the message about American achievements and inherent evils (especially racism and capitalism) before World War II, on the propaganda front, the news front, and in the mass media the far off US was merely a sideshow. Propaganda focused on problems at home and essential foreign issues in the Soviet backyards, Europe and to a lesser extent China.
The atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima also shook the Kremlin. Propagandists who had lauded the Soviet Union's great ally in the battle against Hitler--its helping hand with Lend Lease, its talented General Dwight D. Eisenhower, its manufacturing prowess---changed course quickly with the Cold War changing party line. Soviet propagandists emphasized the Soviet Union's encirclement in and by a hostile world. Rapacious America that had tried overthrowing the Bolsheviks after the 1917 revolution, the propagandists reminded their people as well as foreign audiences. America, they stressed was at it again. Under the "petty shopkeeper" President Harry Truman the US was trying to roll back the post WWII spread of socialism. The former ally America quickly became the warmonger of the world.
Dollar signs came to represent death signals. Stalin banned that very American music form jazz. Censors curtailed showing of American films (even though Stalin loved cowboy movies); contact with foreigners was outlawed. In the last years of Stalin's life a Soviet citizen could be arrested for talking to the few American citizens left in that land. More than ever under the autarky, the economic isolation of the 1930s, late Stalinist Soviet society was cut off by the Iron Curtain and by its iron fisted "Man of Steel" leader (that is the translation of Stalin's name) from the rest of the world. Instead of admiring American inventiveness the propaganda apparatus cranked up immense lies. Moscow reporters claimed that baseball, the electric light, telephones, television and submarines had all been invented in the Soviet Union.
As a typical teenager in the 1950s Tatiana Vorontsova remembered going to the movies as a school girl where she watched a newsreel before the main feature, "You would see this big globe, on the globe appeared the words, Soviet Union...the narrator said, "...there was a lot of milk [here]…Always the best was told, the best always....everything was good...And then suddenly [the narrator] would say, 'In the United States, for example, people are starving' and there was a strike somewhere, and something else somewhere else-but it was all bad. So there everything was bad, but we had it all good. So we went to the movies and I watched it ...and was proud that in my country, my homeland everything was good and everything was great."
In the 1950s and on into the 1960s the propaganda worked pretty effectively. The facts of real achievement helped. Propagandists made sure everyone knew what millions could see for themselves: the state rebuilt housing destroyed by the Nazis. The mass media bragged of a Soviet Atomic bomb, an H-bomb, Sputnik, the fact that the first man in space was a Soviet man, and that the first man to do the amazing-walk or float in space as Alexei Leonov did in March 1965-was another cosmonaut. These accomplishments buttressed political pride in the spread of socialism to China, Vietnam, Cuba and not to mention Eastern Europe. In the 1950s and 1960's Soviet citizens felt, "the future is ours comrades!"
However, sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970's the "new Soviet man", more urban than his father or grandfather, more likely to catch some western propaganda more eager for things instead of promises, turned pessimistic. The Soviet State started by Lenin was running out of gas. New generations, the grandchildren and great grandchildren of those who made the revolution did not want to wait for "the dictatorship of the proletariat" to deliver the radiant future of communism. What they wanted Brezhnev's Soviet Union could not deliver. No amount of bombast, lies, or distortions could mask failings. Those trying to reform the Propaganda State brought about its destruction.
© 1999 Abamedia, unless otherwise indicated.
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Overview - BASIC ENGLISH TEACHER'S EDITION
Emphasize skills students need every day.
Basic English builds and reinforces basic language skills. The high-interest,
easy-to-read lessons keep students involved as they learn parts of speech and
sentence construction. Frequent examples and activities throughout offer abundant
Basic English is ideal for students who need extra help with language
concepts, or those who are learning English as a second language. The program
provides clear instruction with the building-blocks of English usage. Clearly
written explanations and relevant examples make learning easy. Plenty of skills
practice reinforce lessons on parts of speech, writing skills, and advanced
skills such as developing themes and ideas.
Colorful pages, high-interest graphics, and life-relevant examples and exercises
keep students engaged. Short lessons, along with Goals for Learning and Chapter
Reviews, reinforce and link new concepts.
Easy-to-read text and engaging content holds students attention
Aligns with state and national standards
Goals for Learning helps students focus on major chapter objectives
Writing practice activities reinforce skills and focus on practical applications
Chapter Reviews and Test-Taking Tips reinforce lessons and offer advice
on applying knowledge in testing formats
Key vocabulary terms defined in page margins offer immediate reinforcement
and build language skills
Over 300 additional activities on the Teachers Resource Library CD-ROM
Writing Sentences, Using Nouns in Sentences, Using Pronouns in Sentences, Using
Adjectives in Sentences, Using Action Verbs in Sentences, Using State-of-Being
Verbs in Sentences, Using Adverbs in Sentences, Using Prepositional Phrases,
Using Conjunctions and Interjections, Recognizing Sentence Patterns, Identifying
Verbs and Verbal Phrases, Writing Compound and Complex Sentences, Repairing
Sentence Problems, Understanding Paragraph Basics, Writing Better Paragraphs,
Preparing to Write a Report, Includes a special section on the Writing Process.
Wraparound Teacher's Edition includes the full student text plus teaching
strategies, lesson overviews, application activities, ideas for classroom projects,
and tips on learning styles
Teacher's Resource Library on CD-ROM contains the Student Workbook offering
dozens of reinforcement activities (also available in print), Self-Study Guide
for students who want to work at their own pace, two forms of chapter tests,
plus midterm and final tests. Just select and print out the materials as needed.
Everything is reproducible. For Windows and Macintosh.
Teaching Strategies in English Transparencies stimulate learning and
discussion in the classroom. Graphic organizers present concepts in a meaningful,
visual way and help you teach students how to manage information. Comes with
instruction book and blackline masters.
Curriculum Class Set includes 10 Student Texts, 1 Teacher's Edition,
and 1 Teacher's Resource Library CD.
Inclusion Class Set includes 3 Student Texts, 1 Teacher's Edition, 1
Teacher's Resource Library CD, and 1 Student Workbook.
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Children’s safety plan
Children can participate and learn some strategies to stay safe during violent episodes in their homes. The goal is for them to seek safety and to know where and how to get help. It is not their role to stop the violence. Before engaging in a conversation with your child, remember to consider what are the best age-appropriate actions they can take. Children are more likely to follow through with a plan when they have been part of creating it themselves.
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This year, more than 12,000 U.S. women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer. And more than 4,210 will die.
Now, Take the Pearl Pledge and help protect yourself and other women from this preventable disease!
Cervical cancer is cancer of the cervix, which is the opening from the vagina to the uterus. Cervical cancer is the second most common cancer in women worldwide. In the United States, 12,200 women will be diagnosed with cervical cancer in 2010, and 4,210 women will die of the disease, according to the American Cancer Society.
Cervical cancer is caused by "high-risk" types of the human papillomavirus (HPV). HPV is a very common sexually transmitted infection. In fact, about 3 of every 4 adults will have had HPV at some time in their lives.
Most HPV infections go away without treatment. Infections that do not go away can cause cells on the cervix to change and become abnormal. Over time, abnormal cells can slowly develop into cervical cancer.
The good news is with proper screening and vaccination, almost every case of cervical cancer can be prevented.
Cervical cancer does not cause any symptoms until it has advanced to a very late stage. That’s why it’s important to get screened regularly even if you feel healthy.
There are 2 tests used for cervical cancer screening:
The Pap test looks for abnormal cells that can develop into cervical cancer.
If the Pap test finds abnormal cells, your healthcare provider will probably recommend a colposcopy, an exam in which your cervix is viewed more closely. If necessary, the abnormal cells can be treated. Keep in mind: abnormal cells are not yet cancer. If abnormal cells are effectively treated at an early stage, they will not develop into cervical cancer.
When to have the Pap test: Current U.S. screening guidelines recommend women have their first Pap test at age 21.
The HPV test looks for the high-risk types of HPV that can cause abnormal cervical cells and cervical cancer. If your HPV test is positive, it does not mean you have abnormal cells or cervical cancer. It just means that you have HPV and that your healthcare provider will want to follow-up more closely.
When to have the HPV test: Current U.S. screening guidelines recommend that women who are 30 or older get an HPV test along with their Pap test. (HPV testing is not recommended for women under the age of 30 because HPV infections in younger women are very common and usually disappear on their own.) If both the HPV test and Pap test are normal, women can wait 3 years before their next screening.
HPV vaccination protects against the two most common types of high-risk HPV – 16 and 18 – that cause about 70% percent of all cervical cancers.
When to have the HPV vaccine: HPV vaccines are most effective when given to girls and young women who are not yet sexually active. The HPV vaccines are recommended for girls 11 and 12 years old, and are approved for girls and young women up to age 26.
Because HPV vaccines do not protect against all high-risk HPV types, they do not eliminate the risk of cervical cancer. Even women who have been vaccinated must still be screened to prevent cancer developing from HPV types not covered by vaccination.
Speak with your healthcare provider about what cervical cancer prevention methods are right for you and how often to get screened.
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The associative array -- an indispensable data type used to describe a collection of unique keys and associated values -- is a mainstay of all programming languages, PHP included. In fact, associative arrays are so central to the task of Web development that PHP supports dozens of functions and other features capable of manipulating array data in every conceivable manner. Such extensive support can be a bit overwhelming to developers seeking the most effective way to manipulate arrays within their applications. In this article, I'll offer 10 tips that can help you shred, slice and dice your data in countless ways.
1. Adding Array Elements
PHP is a weakly typed language, meaning you're not required to explicitly declare an array nor its size. Instead you can both declare and populate the array simultaneously:
Additional array elements can be appended like this:
$capitals['Arkansas'] = 'Little Rock';
If you're dealing with numerically indexed arrays and would rather prepend and append elements using an explicitly-named function, check out the array_push() and array_unshift() functions (these functions don't work with associative arrays).
2. Removing Array Elements
To remove an element from an array, use the unset() function:
When using numerically indexed arrays you have a bit more flexibility in terms of removing array elements in that you can use the array_shift() and array_pop() functions to remove an element from the beginning and end of the array, respectively.
3. Swapping Keys and Values
Suppose you wanted to create a new array called $states, which would use state capitals as the index and state names as the associated value. This task is easily accomplished using the array_flip() function:
Suppose the previous arrays were used in conjunction with a Web-based "flash card" service, and you wanted to provide students with a way to test their knowledge of worldwide capitals, U.S. states included. You can merge arrays containing both state and country capitals using the array_merge() function:
Suppose the data found in an array potentially contains capitalization errors, and you want to correct these errors before inserting the data into the database. You can use the array_map() function to apply a callback to every array element:
The Standard PHP Library (SPL) offers developers with quite a few data structures, iterators, interfaces, exceptions and other features not previously available within the PHP language. Among these features is the ability to iterate over an array using a convenient object-oriented syntax:
$capitals = array(
'Arizona' => 'Phoenix',
'Alaska' => 'Juneau',
'Alabama' => 'Montgomery'
$arrayObject = new ArrayObject($capitals);
foreach ($arrayObject as $state => $capital)
printf("The capital of %s is %s<br />", $state, $capital);
// The capital of Arizona is Phoenix
// The capital of Alaska is Juneau
// The capital of Alabama is Montgomery
This is just one of countless great features bundled into the SPL, be sure to consult the PHP documentation for more information.
About the Author
Jason Gilmore is the founder of the publishing and consulting firm WJGilmore.com. He also is the author of several popular books, including "Easy PHP Websites with the Zend Framework", "Easy PayPal with PHP", and "Beginning PHP and MySQL, Fourth Edition". Follow him on Twitter at @wjgilmore.
| 3.033567 |
The shape-memory alloy actuators might power minimally invasive surgical devices or tiny laptop cameras
Shape-memory alloys that change shape when heated could become tiny mechanical muscles for electronic devices. New mechanical devices based on the alloys produce three to six times more torque than electric motors, and weigh just one-20th as much.
Such devices, known as actuators, can be cut from a flat sheet of metal just a fraction of a millimeter thick. They emerged from a roject that aims to build printable robots, where the robots would consist of both the metal actuators and plastic components that could be built layer-by-layer through a process similar to inkjet printing.
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Researchers at UCLA have built a cheap, optics-free holographic microscope capable of detecting bacteria like E. coli in things like water, food, and blood. And by cheap, we mean really cheap. The researchers say it costs less than $100 to build.
The microscope has two ways of analyzing samples: a transmission mode and a reflection mode. The transmission mode is good for transparent media, like thin slices of a sample or clear liquids. In this case, the microscope’s laser can easily penetrate and analyze microscopic objects. For denser, more solid samples the microscope uses holography to generate a 3-D image of the sample that can be beamed to remote computers for further analysis if necessary.In reflection mode, the microscope basically splits the laser beam using a mirror. It then uses one half of the beam to illuminate the sample. On the other side the sample beam and the control beam are recombined. Some “clever mathematics” can then use resulting the changes in the beam to generate a 3-D image of the object sampled.
But while that may sound fairly high-tech, there are no expensive optics or other pricey components required. The photo sensors are of the variety often found in smartphones, and small lasers like the one used in the device are really inexpensive these days as well. That all means that these holographic microscopes could be widely deployed at little cost.
And that’s the idea. Places that don’t have access to high-tech diagnostic equipment could use these devices to sample food and water--or even human blood--for harmful bugs and beam the images to more powerful computing devices elsewhere for analysis or diagnosis. That could help contain contaminations and outbreaks faster, saving lives while keeping costs down.
Five amazing, clean technologies that will set us free, in this month's energy-focused issue. Also: how to build a better bomb detector, the robotic toys that are raising your children, a human catapult, the world's smallest arcade, and much more.
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CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Barrie Hunt, says 'Despite 2010 being a very warm year globally, the severity of the 2009-2010 northern winter and a wetter and cooler Australia in 2010 relative to the past few years have been misinterpreted by some to imply that climate change is not occurring.'
'Recent wet conditions in eastern Australia mainly reflect short-term climate variability and weather events, not longer-term climate change trends. Conclusions that climate is not changing are based on a misunderstanding of the roles of climatic change caused by increasing greenhouse gases and climatic variability due to natural processes in the climatic system.
'These two components of the climate system interact continuously, sometimes enhancing and sometimes counteracting one another to either exacerbate or moderate climate extremes.'
Mr Hunt says his climatic model simulations support what is clear from recent observations – that in addition to the role of climate change linked to human activity, natural variability produces periods where the global climate can be either cooler or warmer than usual. Mr Hunt’s results were published in the latest edition of the international journal Climate Dynamics.
He says some such natural temperature variations can last for 10 to 15 years, with persistent variations of about 0.2°C.
'Such natural variability could explain the above average temperatures observed globally in the 1940s, and the warm but relatively constant global temperatures of the last decade.'
Mr Hunt also found that seasonal cold spells will still be expected under enhanced greenhouse conditions. For example, monthly mean temperatures up to 10°C below present values were found to occur over North America as late as 2060 in model simulations, with similar cold spells over Asia. Variations of up to 15°C below current temperatures were found to occur on individual days, even in 2060, despite a long-term trend of warming on average.
'These results suggest that a few severe winters in the Northern hemisphere are not sufficient to indicate that climatic change has ceased. The long-term trends that characterise climate change can be interpreted only by analysing many years of observations.'
'Future changes in global temperature as the concentration of greenhouse gases increases will not show a simple year-on-year increase but will vary around a background of long-term warming. Winters as cold as that recently experienced in the Northern Hemisphere, however, will become progressively less frequent as the greenhouse effect eventually dominates,' Mr Hunt said.
This underlying warming trend, reflected in the projections of future climate and the observation that the past decade has been the warmest in the instrumental record, underline the need to both adapt to what is now inevitable change and mitigate even greater changes.
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The first example (Fig. 1) was a great way to look at finger
independence, which is our first left-hand technique. Having your fingers do independent
things is one of the most challenging aspects of playing the guitar. If you had trouble
changing chords fast enough when you started playing guitar, you were dealing with finger
independence issues. It turns out that out hands aren’t built equally. There’s an
individual tendon for each of your individual fingers, except the ring finger and pinky.
Those unfortunate digits have to share one, and now you know why most guitar players only
use three fingers on their left hand: The pinky is a bit weak, short, and it’s sharing a
tendon with the ring finger.
For a great example of this, place your fingertips on a table and make them all touch
at the same time. Now, try to lift up just your third finger, making sure your pinky stays
down. Hard, isn’t it? Have no fear—while the pinky may be weak and muscularly challenged,
it can be beefed up! Fig. 2 is the first of our “spider” exercises. I
learned these in college and when you do it fast enough, you look like a tarantula walking
across the fretboard. It’s creepy and awesome at the same time.
Fig. 2 is all about pairs of fingers: first and third, and second and fourth. By moving
them together, first in parallel, and then in opposing motion, you’re making sure that
each finger can work independently from each other. While the exercise sounds pedantic,
the motion is just what you need to get from chord to chord with ease. In the audio
example, I’m keeping my fingers down as long as I can, forcing the other fingers to work
If we break up the fingers and play them one by one, we get Fig. 3,
which proves that you can apply finger independence drills to enhance your lead playing as
well. I’ve added a string skip to each finger pair to make it a little more
I’ll do one last exercise based on the spider drill with Fig. 4. This
time, I’m adding a string skip each time I use all four fingers. This one is tricky, but
it really shows how wimpy most people’s fingers are.
Now let’s take the finger independence idea and make all four fingers play at the same
time—you know, like you do with chords. These shapes are called mirrors because they are
mirror images of each other. Much like Fig. 1, I’m intentionally making the fingers do
something pretty unnatural here in Fig. 5.
Fig. 5 clearly sounds like gibberish, and that’s the point—it’s a pure exercise that you
can do unplugged while watching the game. You can take it and really go to town with it by
adding string skips between any of the fingers, or moving it to different strings. Fig. 6
ups the ante by only changing the two middle fingers every other chord. This one is really
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Shots - Health News
Wed February 27, 2013
How Guinea Pigs Could Help Autistic Children
Originally published on Thu February 28, 2013 12:18 pm
Feeling a little awkward? Consider skipping the alcohol and grabbing a pet instead.
As any dog walker knows, it's easy — unavoidable, even — to strike up conversations with strangers when accompanied by a canine friend. Smaller animals like rabbits and turtles can also lubricate social interactions.
Given this effect, Maggie O'Haire, a doctoral candidate in psychology at the University of Queensland, wondered if animals could also help children with autism spectrum disorders connect with other people.
As it turns out, they can.
In a study described in the latest PLOS ONE, O'Haire and her colleagues introduced two guinea pigs into 15 different classrooms and looked at how the presence of these furry creatures affected the interactions of autistic children with adults and non-autistic kids.
The researchers found that autistic children were significantly more talkative and cheerful in the presence of guinea pigs than in the presence of toys. The children were also more likely to look at faces, make physical contact, and interact with other children and adults.
O'Haire has several theories as to why animals might have this effect.
First of all, animals facilitate social interaction by giving people a common focus of attention. "There's something about having an animal present that gets people talking," says O'Haire.
Additionally, animals have a calming effect. For children with autism, the classroom can be a stressful environment, and O'Haire says an animal may relax them enough to make them feel comfortable interacting with peers.
Animals also make people look better. "If you have an animal with you, people actually perceive you as friendlier, happier, and less threatening," O'Haire says. "Having an animal there may have changed the children's perceptions of their peers in a more positive light."
O'Haire thinks animals could aid autistic children with social interactions in a many places, including classrooms and therapists' offices. "I certainly think that in any situation where there's rapport that needs to be built, this data seems to show that having an animal would really help," she says.
But is it practical? More research needs to be done to figure out how to implement so-called animal-assisted interventions, but O'Haire doesn't think that it's far-fetched to hope that animals could be useful.
She points out that fish tanks are already commonplace in doctor's offices and that some other workplaces allow pets because of their demonstrated benefits for both social interaction and stress reduction.
Take two guinea pigs and call us in the morning.
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Southern Polar Cap
Mars has a seasonal southern polar cap composed of carbon dioxide (CO2, commonly known as dry ice), that overlies a permanent polar cap which is a mixture of CO2 ice, water ice and dust. As the CO2 evaporates in the spring the escaping gas carves channels in the permanent cap below. Often these channels radiate outward (or converge inward), giving them a spider-like appearance.
In this false color image the seasonal frost is whitish-lavendar. The tan areas starting to show through are where the frost has already evaporated (sublimated is actually the correct term, when ice changes directly to a gas). Tan-colored dust blows around and accummulates in the bottom of some of the channels.
This is truly other-worldly terrain, with exotic landforms with no earthly analogs.
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The British Agricultural Revolution describes a period of development in Britain between the 18th century and the end of the 19th century, which saw a massive increase in agricultural productivity and net output. This in turn supported unprecedented population growth, freeing up a significant percentage of the workforce, and thereby helped drive the Industrial Revolution. How this came about is not entirely clear. In recent decades, enclosure, mechanization, four-field crop rotation, and selective breeding have been highlighted as primary causes, with credit given to relatively few individuals.
Prior to the 18th century, agriculture had been much the same across Europe since the Middle Ages. The open field system was essentially post-feudal, with each farmer subsistence-cropping strips of land in one of three or four large fields held in common and splitting up the products likewise.
Beginning as early as the 12th century, some of the common fields in Britain were enclosed into individually owned fields, and the process rapidly accelerated in the 15th and 16th centuries. This led to farmers losing their land and their grazing rights, and left many unemployed. In the 16th and 17th centuries, the practice of enclosure was denounced by the Church, and legislation was drawn up against it; but the developments in agricultural mechanization during the 18th century required large, enclosed fields in order to be workable. This led to a series of government acts, culminating finally in the General Inclosure Act of 1801.
While farmers received compensation for their strips, it was minimal, and the loss of rights for the rural population led to an increased dependency on the Poor law. Surveying and legal costs weighed heavily on poor farmers, who sometimes even had to sell their share of the land to pay for its being split up. Only a few found work in the (increasingly mechanised) enclosed farms. Most were forced to relocate to the cities to try to find work in the emerging factories of the Industrial Revolution.
By the end of the 18th century the process of enclosure was complete.
Joseph Foljambe's Rotherham plough of 1730, while not the first iron plough, was the first iron plough to have any commercial success, combining an earlier Dutch design with a number of technological innovations. Its fittings and coulter were made of iron and the mouldboard and share were covered with an iron plate making it lighter to pull and more controllable than previous ploughs. It remained in use in Britain until the development of the tractor. It was followed by John Small of Doncaster and Berwickshire in 1763, whose 'Scots Plough' used an improved cast iron shape to turn the soil more effectively with less draft, wear, or strain on the ploughing team.
Andrew Meikle's threshing machine of 1786 was the final straw for many farm labourers, and led to the 1830 agricultural rebellion of Captain Swing (a probably mythical character comparable to the Luddite's Ned Ludd).
In the 1850s and '60s John Fowler, an agricultural engineer and inventor, produced a steam-driven engine that could plough farmland more quickly and more economically than horse-drawn ploughs. His ploughing engine could also be used to dig drainage channels, thereby bringing into cultivation previously unused swampy land. Although faster than horse-drawn ploughing, the capital costs of a pair of engines would often be too much for a single farmer to purchase for his own exclusive use, which lead to the development of an independent contracting industry for ploughing.
During the Middle Ages, the open field system had employed a three year crop rotation, with a different crop in each of the three fields, eg. wheat and barley in two, with the third fallow. 'Fallow' is a term which means that the field is empty, there is nothing growing there. Over the following two centuries, the regular planting of nitrogen-rich legumes in the fields which were previously fallow slowly increased the fertility of croplands. The planting of legumes (leguminosae, plants of the pea/bean family) helped to increase plant growth in the empty field because they used a different set of nutrients to grow than the grains. The legumes put back nutrients the grains used, nitrates produced from nitrogen in the atmosphere, and the grains put back the minerals the legumes used. In a way, they fed each other. Other crops that were occasionally grown were flax, and members of the mustard family. Medieval record keepers did not distinguish between rape seed or other mustards grown for animal feed and mustard grown for mustard seed for condiments. When the pastures were brought back into crop production after their long fallow, their fertility was much greater than they had been in medieval times. The farmers in Flanders (current day Belgium), however, discovered a still more effective four-field rotation system, introducing turnips and clover to replace the fallow year. Clover was both an ideal fodder crop, and it actually improved grain yields in the following year (clover is part of the pea family, leguminosae). The improved grain production simultaneously increased livestock production. Farmers could grow more livestock because there was more food, and manure was an excellent fertilizer, so they could have even more productive crops. Charles Townshend learned the four field system from Flanders and introduced it to Great Britain in 1730.
The increase in population led to more demand from the people for goods such as clothing. A new class of landless labourers, products of enclosure, provided the basis for cottage industry, a stepping stone to the Industrial Revolution. To supply continually growing demand, shrewd businessmen began to pioneer new technology to meet demand from the people. This led to the first industrial factories. People who once were farmers moved to large cities to get jobs in the factories. It should be noted that the British Agricultural Revolution not only made the population increase possible, but also increased the yield per agricultural worker, meaning that a larger percentage of the population could work in these new, post-Agricultural Revolution jobs.
The British Agricultural Revolution was the cause of drastic changes in the lives of British women. Before the Agricultural Revolution, women worked alongside their husbands in the fields and were an active part of farming. The increased efficiency of the new machinery, along with the fact that this new machinery was often heavier and difficult for a woman to wield, made this unnecessary and impractical, and women were relegated to other roles in society. To supplement the family's income, many went into cottage industries. Others became domestic servants or were forced into professions such as prostitution. The new, limited roles of women, dubbed by one historian as "this defamation of women workers", (Valenze) fueled prejudices of women only being fit to work in the home, and also effectively separated them from the new, mechanized areas of work, leading to a divide in the pay between men and women.
Towards the end of the 19th century, the substantial gains in British agricultural productivity were rapidly offset by competition from cheaper imports, made possible by advances in transportation, refrigeration, and many other technologies. From that point, farming in Britain entered a period of economic struggle which continues to the present day.
Prior to the Agricultural Revolution, perhaps half of land was kept in an open-field system, which included the village commons, where such activities as wheat threshing and animal grazing might take place. Parliamentary enclosures saw much of this being taken into private plots of land. With the elimination of the manor court, private property laws prevailed over what had once been land for common usage.
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A number of recent articles including Dr. Boreinstein's study from UC Berkeley and a feature in the Economist questioning the cost effectiveness of solar, have sparked some serious debate amongst solar enthusiasts and have served to propagate false impressions about solar in the public arena.
Due to the complexity of the product and misconceptions surrounding solar energy, the solar industry could greatly benefit from a collective advertising and branding campaign in order to achieve consistent messaging and dispel widespread myths about solar.
There is a common misconception that solar is not cost effective because most people compare the cost of distributed solar to wholesale electricity prices. This is an inaccurate comparison since homeowners are actually paying retail electricity prices and not wholesale electricity prices. One can argue that solar is cost effective now if we compare apples to apples.
The cost of RETAIL electricity in California can run upwards of $.30 to $0.41 cents per kWh for a household with high electricity consumption (a home with an air conditioner, swimming pool, refrigerator, TV, and a few electronic toys). A typical 3kW residential system costs $25,000 without incentives, and will produce 4,500 kWh per year virtually maintenance-free for 25 years. That works out to be 25 cents per kWh for solar — on a residential or commercial customer's rooftop. With the state rebate and federal tax credit the cost for solar is 18 cents per kWh.
Despite solar being an obvious smart financial and environmental decision for many home and business owners, daily articles from misinformed journalists claim that solar does not make financial sense. In order to create the drastic shift in the public's mind a pervasive and cooperative advertising effort on the behalf of all solar players is perhaps necessary.
In fact, the solar industry could learn a thing or two from the beef, milk, and cell phone industries, who all managed to successfully brand their products into mainstream acceptance via collective advertising and branding campaigns.
A commodity is a good with very little differentiation. Beef, milk, cell phones and PV are all examples of commodities. When it comes to marketing a commodity, an individual company's marketing expenditures tend to have a poor return. However, by financing a branding campaign by spreading the cost across the entire industry, every actor in the marketplace pays for and benefits from the increased effectiveness. This strategy minimizes some players' free-riding on other players' marketing efforts.
The 1985 Beef Act, passed by Congress, was designed to promote the beef industry. The Texas Beef Council spearheaded a branding campaign that included the now-famous slogan, "Beef: It's What's For Dinner" and financed it with a $1 fee per head of beef cattle. This campaign's goal was to address the slump during the 1980's within the beef industry.
The branding campaign utilized by the beef industry had more than the catchy "Beef: It's What's For Dinner," tagline. It also effectively utilized music within the branding campaign. Aaron Copland, an American composer, had originally written "Hoe Down" for the ballet Rodeo in 1942. Now, many people associate the distinctive melody with "Beef: It's What's For Dinner." The ads for beef displayed everyday Americans enjoying beef and focused on ease of preparation and the nutritional benefits. The ads typically displayed a family preparing or sitting down to a meal and featured recipes with estimated prep and cooking times that were typically quite short. Through these ads, the beef industry was able to greatly increase its sales and profits by dispelling the unhealthy and difficult-to-prepare reputation that beef had acquired in the early 80s.
The milk industry has also undergone several branding and re-branding campaigns as it sought to carve its own brand identity. In the past, milk ads used the tag line, "It Does a Body Good," to emphasize the health benefits of milk.
The next generation of milk ads started with the "got milk?" campaign. The first "got milk?" ad was a television spot in which a fellow with a shrine to the Alexander Hamilton - Aaron Burr duel hears a radio promotion asking, "Who killed Alexander Hamilton?" He phones into the contest, gets through, and tries to answer "Aaron Burr," but his mouth is full of sticky peanut butter. Because he is out of milk and cannot wash down the peanut butter, his answer is completely intelligible. As he screams in frustration from losing out on the large monetary prize, the words: "got milk?" flash on the screen.
Milk print ads briefly went to the "where's your mustache?" tagline, but that was dropped in favor of the more memorable "got milk?" tagline. These ads combined the memorable phrase with milk mustached celebrities, athletes, and other notables.
The branding of milk emphasizes the health benefits that result from milk consumption. Among the many benefits milk provides are the multiple essential nutrients to promote strong bones and shiny, healthy hair. Awareness of the "got milk?" branding campaign rates over 90% nationally, making it a highly successful brand.
It is not just the milk and beef industries that have been transformed through branding campaigns. The high tech industry has also successfully used this approach with cell phones. It wasn't until 1984 that cellular phones were first mass marketed to the general public. It was a technical marvel by which people could reach into their pockets and simply make a call to someone — anywhere in the world. This new wireless gadget was bulky, expensive to operate (compared to nowadays) and back then seemed like just another toy on the wish list of those who had money. The aggressive branding campaigns from the cellular companies successfully branded the expensive cell phones into must-haves for mass consumers.
All three industries have effectively used branding to increase awareness of their product as well as the industry as a whole. Instead of putting so much emphasis into nickel and diming the cost effectiveness of solar, perhaps the solar industry would be best served by utilizing a collective branding effort in order to bring solar to the mainstream.
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Snoring is the hoarse or harsh sound that occurs when your breathing is obstructed in some way while you're sleeping. Sometimes snoring may indicate a serious health condition. In addition, snoring can be a nuisance to your partner.
As many as half of adults snore at least occasionally. Snoring occurs when air flows past relaxed tissues in your throat, causing the tissues to vibrate as you breathe, which creates those irritating sounds.
Lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, avoiding alcohol close to bedtime or sleeping on your side, can help stop snoring.
In addition, medical devices and surgery are available that may reduce disruptive snoring. However, these aren't suitable or necessary for everyone who snores.
Depending on the cause of your snoring, in addition to the noise caused by snoring, you may also experience:
See your doctor if:
These may indicate your snoring is caused by a more serious condition, such as obstructive sleep apnea.
If your child snores, ask your pediatrician about it. Children can have obstructive sleep apnea too. But, nose and throat problems — such as enlarged tonsils — and obesity often underlie habitual snoring in children. Treating these conditions could help your child sleep better.
There are a variety of factors that can lead to snoring, such as the anatomy of your mouth and sinuses, alcohol consumption, allergies, a cold, and your weight.
When you doze off and progress from a light sleep to a deep sleep, the muscles in the roof of your mouth (soft palate), tongue and throat relax. The tissues in your throat can relax enough that they vibrate and may partially obstruct your airway. And, the more narrowed your airway, the more forceful the airflow becomes. This causes tissue vibration to increase, which makes your snoring grows louder.
The following conditions can affect the airway and cause snoring:
Snoring occurs when air flows past relaxed tissues, such as your tongue, soft palate and airway, as you breathe. The sagging tissues narrow your airway, causing these tissues to vibrate. ...
Risk factors that may contribute to snoring include:
Habitual snoring may be more than just a nuisance. Depending on the cause of your snoring, it may result in:
Preparing for your appointment
You're likely to first see your family doctor or a general practitioner. However, you may then be referred to a doctor who specializes in treating sleep disorders or an ear, nose and throat specialist (otolaryngologist).
Because appointments can be brief, and there's often a lot of ground to cover, it's a good idea to arrive well prepared. Here's some information to help you get ready for your appointment, and what to expect from your doctor.
What you can do
Your time with your doctor may be limited, so preparing a list of questions can help you make the most of your time together. For snoring, some basic questions to ask your doctor include:
In addition to the questions that you've prepared to ask your doctor, don't hesitate to ask questions during your appointment at any time that you don't understand something.
What to expect from your doctor
What you can do in the meantime
Tests and diagnosis
Using sensors placed on your head and various parts of your body, polysomnography records your brain waves, blood oxygen level, heart rate and breathing rate, as well as eye and leg movements during sleep.
Sometimes, these tests can be done at home, but the in-center sleep tests tend to be more accurate than those done at home.
Treatments and drugs
Your doctor will likely first recommend lifestyle changes, such as losing weight, avoiding alcohol close to bedtime and changing sleeping positions. If lifestyle changes don't eliminate snoring, your doctor may suggest:
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP)
For moderate to severe sleep apnea, your doctor may recommend a common therapy device called a nasal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine. A CPAP machine delivers just enough air ...
Lifestyle and home remedies
To prevent or quiet snoring, try these tips:
Because snoring is such a common problem, there are numerous products available, such as nasal sprays or homeopathic therapies. However, most of the products haven't been proven effective in clinical trials. For example, MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) is marketed in a nose drop formula to treat snoring, but there's no evidence it has any effect on snoring.
Therapies that might help ease your snoring include:
Coping and support
If your partner is the one who's snoring, you may sometimes feel frustrated as well as fatigued. Suggest some of the home remedies mentioned, and if those don't help quiet your partner's nocturnal noisemaking, have your partner make a doctor's appointment. In the meantime, earplugs or earphones hooked up to soothing music might help block some of the noise. Or, you could try going to sleep at different times. Maybe if you're already asleep when your partner starts snoring, it might not bother you.
Last Updated: 2010-05-25
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| 3.605512 |
Hands-On Is Minds-On
Want to Engage Every Student? Break out the Old-Fashioned Scissors and Glue
Second-grade teacher Becky Hicks has learned that there is no substitute for activities that require kids to use their hands as well as their minds. During literacy hour in Hicks's class at Blanchard Elementary School in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, students pair up and head to one of 16 "corners," or centers, to tackle hands-on vocabulary, reading, and math activities. In the ABC corner, students thumb through clues to find mystery words. In the math corner, students stack buttons, plastic fruit, and toy bugs to create graphs. And in the spelling corner, they manipulate alphabet puzzle shapes to piece together vocabulary words.
In corners, Hicks's students practice what they know by playing teacher. "Look closely at the clock's hands," one student says to her partner in her best teacher voice. "Which one shows the hour, and which one shows the minutes?" Some explain their work to other students by showing them how to move, group, or assemble objects. Concepts are explained through tactile procedures, and skills are bolstered as children practice new ideas and test out theories.
Over the years, Hicks has noticed that her students are more engaged and focused when they're working on hands-on projects—even those who fidget during large-group lessons. In her classroom, Hicks has figured out what research has revealed: The best way to engage kids' brains is by having them move their hands.
Busy Hands, Busy Brains
As students put projects together, create crafts, or use familiar materials in new ways, they're constructing meaning. "Kids learn through all their senses," says Ben Mardell, PhD, a researcher with Project Zero at Harvard University, "and they like to touch and manipulate things." But more than simply moving materials around, hands-on activities activate kids' brains. According to Cindy Middendorf, educational consultant and author of The Scholastic Differentiated Instruction Plan Book (Scholastic, 2009), between the ages of four and seven, the right side of the brain is developing and learning comes easily through visual and spatial activities. The left hemisphere of the brain—the side that's involved in more analytical and language skills—develops later, around ages 10 and 11.
When you combine activities that require movement, talking, and listening, it activates multiple areas of the brain. "The more parts of your brain you use, the more likely you are to retain information," says Judy Dodge, author of 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom (Scholastic, 2009). "If you're only listening, you're only activating one part of the brain," she says, "but if you're drawing and explaining to a peer, then you're making connections in the brain."
Multitasking in the classroom is not a negative when it comes to hands-on activities such as coloring, scribbling, or cutting with scissors. Indeed, even adults benefit from the "busy hands, busy brain" phenomenon: Recent research has shown that people who doodle during business meetings have better memory recall. A report in the journal Applied Cognitive Psychology demonstrated that volunteers who doodled during a dull verbal message were 29 percent better at recalling details from the message. Researchers suggest that engaging in a simple hands-on task, such as cutting out a shape with scissors, can help prevent daydreaming and restlessness during a learning experience. If adults in business settings can benefit from mnemonic tricks such as doodling, then students should certainly be encouraged to try these strategies.
The Hands-On Classroom
Terri LaChance, a kindergarten teacher at Darcey School in Cheshire, Connecticut, uses hands-on activities all day, every day, to let all her students shine. Currently, LaChance is teaching a student who is a gifted artist but has poor language skills. He fidgets during large-group activities but can spend hours drawing or building. LaChance nurtures his interest and talent by allowing him to make projects; she recalls one day when he carefully constructed bird beaks out of recycled materials, then gave them to other kids to wear in class. Through art projects and play, LaChance has seen the student's language skills improve as he answers questions about his creations and illustrations.
We know our students learn in many different ways: visual, auditory, tactile, kinesthetic, and social. Still, says Dodge, most of us teach the way we're most comfortable, and that's not necessarily the way our students learn. "It's a missed opportunity if we don't use the way that a child learns best to hook them and get them excited about learning," says Dodge.
Hands-on projects obviously engage kids who are tactile or kinesthetic learners, who need movement to learn best. They also engage students who are auditory learners, who talk about what they're doing, and visual learners, who have the opportunity to see what everyone else is creating. For social learners, the time spent in small group conversation will strengthen their knowledge. Just as Hicks has found in her classroom, hands-on activities let students become teachers. "When students explain and demonstrate skills to each other," says Sheldon Horowitz, EdD, director of professional services for the National Center for Learning Disabilities, "they are validating their understanding of the material being learned and, often in ways that adults are less successful, helping their peers to build and master new skills.”
Hands-on activities also lend themselves to authentic assessment and observation, says Lanise Jacoby, a 2nd grade teacher at Pierce School in Arlington, Massachusetts, who observes how well her students follow directions and use fine motor skills during center time. Next time your students are working on a craft project or in centers, ask each student to quickly explain what they're doing and why, as well as what they're learning along the way.
Using tools such as markers, scissors, and glue in hands-on projects also builds the fine motor skills that children will need to use for functional activities throughout their lives. Simple tasks such as buttoning, tying shoes, and using a key to open a lock all require manual precision. The best way to build that precision is, of course, through practice.
Yet practice need not be dull and repetitive. Activities such as constructing a miniature city out of recycled materials, or crafting a butterfly's life cycle using fabric scraps, not only help kids strengthen their hands and minds -- they are also fun and engaging. The more arts and crafts that teachers can bring into the classroom, the more opportunity they have to reach every child in the room, from kids with sensory difficulties to those who need an extra challenge in order to stay focused. Hands-on, creative, and artistic activities help students to focus and retain knowledge, and at the same time emphasize the importance of beauty and design in our world.
TIPS FOR USING TACTILE LEARNING
Here are more ways to increase the amount of time your students spend with their hands and minds in motion:
- Provide self-check materials: Hands-on activities naturally lend themselves to differentiation, but Cindy Middendorf suggests adding in tools, such as number charts, for kids to use at each center to help them work independently.
- Include assessment: In addition to observing and asking students to talk about what they've learned, teacher Becky Hicks has students record their center work and what they learned on individual accountability sheets. Judy Dodge suggests creating flip books with a page for each center so children can record what they learn at each station.
- Keep kids moving: Dodge suggests using rotation stations that change every few minutes. Some examples: an observation station where students peer at objects under a microscope; an exploration station where students explore materials that you've just introduced; a visualization station where students draw what they've learned; a collaboration station where students talk about what they've learned; and a "ketchup and mustard" (catch-up and must-do) station where students can make up work they didn't get to.
- Move the materials: If you can't handle all the movement of center rotations, Dodge suggests putting each activity and the necessary supplies in a basket. Then pass the baskets from table to table instead of moving the students.
- Group students by interest: Grouping students according to what they're interested in can increase their engagement. "When you're in a small group, you have more air time," says Ben Mardell, PhD, with Project Zero at Harvard University. "Kids can talk more and if you put a group together based on interest, then you have kids who share a passion and they're more involved in being there." Small groups also build accountability, as each child has to attend to the activity for the product to come together.
- Incorporate language: As students move into third grade and beyond, the amount of language used in class will increase. Prepare them by incorporating speaking skills into your assessment of tactile activities: Ask students to explain what they're doing and end some units with oral presentations.
- Adjust expectations: Kindergarten teacher Terri LaChance admits that during hands-on activities, her classroom is louder. To manage the volume level, LaChance limits the number of students in each activity to two.
Get inspired for more hands-on learning with these sites from teachers and professionals:
You'll find activities and tips from retired kindergarten teacher Linda Critchell here: www.kinderteacher.com.
Former kindergarten teacher Mrs. Perdue has a variety of literacy centers and photos of how to set them up.
First-grade teacher Ms. Ross's class Web site has ideas for literacy centers.
Second-grade teacher Becky Hicks's class Web site has more ideas for hands-on activities.
You'll find more information about tactile learning here.
Take an online inventory to figure out your personal learning style. Then, find out more about learning styles so you can incorporate activities that will grab all your students. You can also find an inventory on Judy Dodge's Web site.
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This resource helps you teach students how to use the Internet effectively. The activities teach how to identify, acquire, interpret, evaluate, organize, and share information found on the Internet. There are also tips for incorporating the use of primary sources in the classroom. And situational analysis for citing sources found on the internet.
This enhanced eBook gives you the freedom to copy and paste the content of each page into the format that fits your needs. You can post lessons on your class website, make student copies, and more.
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29 November 2010 | EN
Average growing period for crops may reduce (grey and black areas) by 20 per cent (black) in Africa over the next 80 years
Thornton et al. (2010)/The Royal Society 2010
A widespread farming catastrophe could hit Africa if global temperatures rose by four degrees Celsius or more, according to a study that calls for urgent planning for a much warmer future and investment in technology to avert disaster.
In most of southern Africa the growing season could shrink by as much as a fifth, according to scientists at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Kenya, who carried out simulation studies based on existing climate change models.
The 'four degrees plus' scenario is increasingly being contemplated as negotiations, which began again in Cancún, Mexico, today (29 November–10 December), have stalled on measures aimed at limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees.
Drastic changes to farming will be needed under such a scenario, said Carlos Seré, director-general of ILRI.
"The general feeling is that the world is not going to move quickly enough on [confining global warming to] two degrees," he told SciDev.Net: "We are not getting traction.
"The common thinking has been that there will be enough variability in farming today to allow us to cope, but the reality is that in a four degree world the range of options is very narrow."
According to the models, the growing season may increase modestly in eastern Africa. But cropping seasons are likely to decline more quickly everywhere in the region except central Africa.
Much of southern Africa's rain-fed agriculture could fail every other season by the 2090s, says the study.
"It is not difficult to envisage a situation where the adaptive capacity and resilience of hundreds of millions of people in Sub-Saharan Africa could simply be overwhelmed by events."
Simply making crops more drought-tolerant or flood-resistant is just tinkering about the edges, said Seré.
"The changes which will be required in the farming system are quite drastic, pushing farmers beyond the limits of their knowledge and experience. They will be overwhelmed by extreme climate events," he told SciDev.Net.
"We are talking about farmers abandoning cropping and migrating out of those regions. But where are farmers who cannot cope with this level of stress in the system to go?
"Where is the alternative livelihood for 60 per cent of the continent where farming is still a very key part of coping with food security? You cannot escape the fact that for decades many people are going to be in the rural sector. It is a moral imperative to give those people a livelihood.
"We need to understand and find much smarter ways to get knowledge out there. Extension services in Africa have largely collapsed in many countries".
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report in 2007 assumed that regional shortfalls in food production in Sub-Saharan Africa could be plugged with imports from global markets, says the paper, but it adds that the experience of the 2008 food crisis highlighted the difficulties of such an 'adaptation' strategy.
Instead ILRI scientists are calling for better monitoring, in particular 'back to basics', land-based observation and data collection in Africa, which have been in decline for decades. Information on weather, land use, markets and crop and livestock distribution is critical for an effective response to climate change, they said.
"Africa's data-collection systems could be improved with relatively modest additional effort," the study says.
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Series A doi: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0246
All SciDev.Net material is free to reproduce providing that the source and author are appropriately credited. For further details see Creative Commons.
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Jan. 21, 2005 Wheat grown under elevated levels of carbon dioxide over the next half-century will need slightly more nitrogen to grow, but not as much as previously predicted, according to a two-year study by Agricultural Research Service scientists and cooperators.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels are projected to increase 43 percent by 2050. The increased CO2 makes plants like wheat grow larger. But a bigger plant needs more nutrients such as nitrogen, at least in theory, according to ARS soil scientist Floyd J. Adamsen, who works at the agency's U.S. Water Conservation Laboratory in Phoenix, Ariz.
So the ARS scientists have been trying to determine whether higher CO2 levels will increase the amount of nitrogen that wheat and other crops need to grow. They reported their findings on the interaction between carbon dioxide and nitrogen in the January-February 2005 issue of Agronomy Journal.
At the Maricopa Agricultural Center near Phoenix, the team compared wheat grown under current levels of CO2 to wheat grown with the CO2 levels expected by 2050. A series of tubes injected CO2 into circular, open-air field plots to increase the CO2 concentration in the air during the two-year experiment. The plants grown with higher CO2 levels only used about 3 to 4 percent more nitrogen than the plants grown at current CO2 levels.
The researchers applied fertilizer four times, which spread out the uptake of the nutrients. Based on the study's findings, farmers in the future may need to apply fertilizer four times on wheat, instead of the traditional one or two applications.
The scientists believe growers need to understand how rising levels of CO2 may affect their crops. Accordingly, farmers may have to adapt their farming practices--such as altering the timing and amounts of nitrogen fertilizer--to produce crops in the changing environmental conditions of the future.
ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency.
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June 14, 2007 At one time Cyclone Gonu was a powerful Category 5 storm packing sustained winds of 160 mph (139 knots), according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, making it the most powerful cyclone ever to threaten the Arabian Peninsula since record keeping began back in 1945. Fortunately the storm weakened significantly by the time it brushed the far eastern tip of Oman, but it still threatened petroleum shipping lanes in the northern part of the Arabian Sea that are unprepared for such an intense cyclone.
While tropical cyclones occasionally form in the Arabian Sea, they rarely exceed tropical storm intensity. In 2006, Tropical Storm Mukda was the only tropical system to form in the region and it remained well out to sea before dissipating.
Gonu became a tropical storm on the morning (local time) of Sat., Jun. 2, in the east-central Arabian Sea. After some initial fluctuations in direction, it settled on a northwesterly track and began to intensify. Gonu strengthened from tropical storm intensity on the morning of June 3 to Category 2 that night. By daybreak on June 4, Gonu had intensified to Category 4 with winds estimated at 132 mph (115 knots).
NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured an image of Gonu as it was moving northwest through the central Arabian Sea. Taken on Mon., Jun. 4 at 0323 UTC (11:23 p.m. EDT on Sun., Jun. 3), it shows the horizontal distribution of rain intensity looking down on the storm. TRMM reveals the tell-tale signs of a potent storm. Not only does Gonu have a complete, well-formed symmetrical eye surrounded by an intense eyewall (innermost red ring), this inner eyewall is surrounded by a concentric outer eyewall (outermost red and green ring). This double eyewall structure only occurs in very intense storms. Eventually the outer eyewall will contract and replace the inner eyewall.
Another image provides a unique 3-D perspective of Gonu using data collected from the TRMM Precipitation Radar from the same overpass as the previous image. Higher radar echo tops are indicated in red. The areas of intense rain in the previous image are associated with deep convective towers both in the innermost eyewall and in parts of outer eyewall. The inner ring has the higher tops at this time. Deep convective towers near the storm's center can be a precursor to future strengthening as they indicate that large amounts of heat are being released into the storm's core. At the time of these images, Gonu was a Category 4 cyclone. Several hours later, Gonu reached Category 5 intensity.
The system finally began to weaken during the night of June 4 and was downgraded to a Category 3 storm at 1200 UTC (8:00 a.m. EDT) on June 5.
NASA's Quikscat spacecraft also observed Gonu. Its SeaWinds scatterometer, a specialized microwave radar, measured near-surface wind speed and direction within the storm.
Gonu continued to weaken as it neared the coast of Oman. The center remained just offshore Oman's northeast coast as a Category 1 storm before turning northward towards Iran, where it is expected to make landfall as a tropical storm.
TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japanese space agency JAXA. QuikScat is managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Images produced by Hal Pierce (SSAI / NASA GSFC). Caption by Steve Lang (SSAI / NASA GSFC), Mike Bettwy (RSIS / NASA GSFC), and NASA/JPL/QuikScat Science Team.
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Sep. 13, 2012 It's not a magic trick and it's not sleight of hand -- scientists really are using levitation to improve the drug development process, eventually yielding more effective pharmaceuticals with fewer side effects.
Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have discovered a way to use sound waves to levitate individual droplets of solutions containing different pharmaceuticals. While the connection between levitation and drug development may not be immediately apparent, a special relationship emerges at the molecular level.
At the molecular level, pharmaceutical structures fall into one of two categories: amorphous or crystalline. Amorphous drugs typically are more efficiently taken up by the body than their crystalline cousins; this is because amorphous drugs are both more highly soluble and have a higher bioavailability, suggesting that a lower dose can produce the desired effect.
"One of the biggest challenges when it comes to drug development is in reducing the amount of the drug needed to attain the therapeutic benefit, whatever it is," said Argonne X-ray physicist Chris Benmore, who led the study.
"Most drugs on the market are crystalline -- they don't get fully absorbed by the body and thus we aren't getting the most efficient use out of them," added Yash Vaishnav, Argonne Senior Manager for Intellectual Property Development and Commercialization.
Getting pharmaceuticals from solution into an amorphous state, however, is no easy task. If the solution evaporates while it is in contact with part of a vessel, it is far more likely to solidify in its crystalline form. "It's almost as if these substances want to find a way to become crystalline," Benmore said.
In order to avoid this problem, Benmore needed to find a way to evaporate a solution without it touching anything. Because liquids conform to the shape of their containers, this was a nearly impossible requirement -- so difficult, in fact, that Benmore had to turn to an acoustic levitator, a piece of equipment originally developed for NASA to simulate microgravity conditions.
Levitation or "containerless processing" can form pristine samples that can be probed in situ with the high-energy X-ray beam at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source. "This allows amorphization of the drug to be studied while it is being processed," said Rick Weber, who works on the project team at the synchrotron.
The acoustic levitator uses two small speakers to generate sound waves at frequencies slightly above the audible range -- roughly 22 kilohertz. When the top and bottom speakers are precisely aligned, they create two sets of sound waves that perfectly interfere with each other, setting up a phenomenon known as a standing wave.
At certain points along a standing wave, known as nodes, there is no net transfer of energy at all. Because the acoustic pressure from the sound waves is sufficient to cancel the effect of gravity, light objects are able to levitate when placed at the nodes.
Although only small quantities of a drug can currently be "amorphized" using this technique, it remains a powerful analytical tool for understanding the conditions that make for the best amorphous preparation, Vaishnav explained.
Argonne researchers have already investigated more than a dozen different pharmaceuticals, and the laboratory's Technology Development & Commercialization Division is currently pursuing a patent for the method. Technology Development & Commercialization is also interested in partnering with the pharmaceutical industry to develop the technology further as well as to license it for commercial development.
After adapting the technology for drug research, the Argonne scientists teamed up with Professors Stephen Byrn and Lynne Taylor at the Department of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy at Purdue University and Jeffery Yarger of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Arizona State University. The group is now working on identifying which drugs the levitation instrumentation will impact most strongly.
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The chemical traces of water have been found in this moon rock, called the Genesis Rock. The moon rock was collected by astronauts during the Apollo 15 mission in 1971 and is thought to be a piece of the moon's primordial crust. Image: NASA/Johnson Space Center
The discovery of "significant amounts" of water in moon rock samples collected by NASA's Apollo astronauts is challenging a longstanding theory about how the moon formed, scientists say.
Since the Apollo era, scientists have thought the moon came to be after a Mars-size object smashed into Earth early in the planet's history, generating a ring of debris that slowly coalesced over millions of years.
That process, scientists have said, should have flung away the water-forming element hydrogen into space.
But a new study suggests the accepted scenario is not possible given the amount of water found in moon rocks collected from the lunar surface in the early 1970s during the Apollo 15, 16 and 17 missions. By "water," the researchers don't mean liquid water, but hydroxyl, a chemical that includes the hydrogen and oxygen ingredients of water.
Those water-forming elements would have been on the moon all along, the scientist said. [Water on the Moon: The Search in Photos]
"I still think the impact scenario is the best formation scenario for the moon, but we need to reconcile the theory of hydrogen," study leader Hejiu Hui, an engineering researcher at the University of Notre Dame, told SPACE.com.
The results were published in Nature Geoscienceon Sunday (Feb. 17).
Water in moon's 'Genesis Rock'
Past studies have suggested water-forming elements came to the moon from outside sources long after the moon's crust cooled. The solar wind — a stream of particles emanating from the sun — as well as meteorites and comets were pegged as possible sources ofwater depositson the moon in recent studies.
But that explanation does not account for the amount of water found in the Apollo samples, the researchers stated in the new study.
Because they found hydroxyl deep inside each sampled rock, the scientists say they have eliminated the solar wind moon water explanation, because those particles can penetrate the surface only slightly. An impact from an asteroid or comet could push the hydrogen in further, but it would not be as pristine as the samples the researchers observed, because it would have melted from the heat of the asteroid collision.
Researchers probed samples from the late Apollo missions, including the famous "Genesis Rock" that was named for its advanced age of 4.5 billion years, about the same time the moon is thought to have formed.
Using an infrared spectrometer, the researchers found water embedded in the Genesis Rock, as well as all the Apollo samples they studied. This implies that the various landing sites of Apollo 15, 16 and 17 each had water present.
Hui's research flies in the face of past analyses of Apollo rocks that found they were very dry, except for a small bit of water attributed to the rock containers leaking when they were returned to Earth.
Past instruments that analyzed these samples, however, were not very sensitive. Hui said those older spectrometers had a sensitivity of around 50 parts per million (ppm), while his instruments were able to detect water at concentrations of about 6 ppm in anorthosites and 2.7 ppm in troctolites, which are both igneous rocks found in the moon's crust.
Troctolites form in the highlands as part of the moon's highland upper crust, and anorthosites are believed to be a part of the moon's "primary" crust, which solidified around the same time as other bodies in the solar system.
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CURBING WASTE: Simple actions like cutting back on food waste or properly inflating tires on your car could collectively cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as one billion metric tons. Image: © iStockphoto.com
Energy efficiency seems to make rational economic sense—the less energy used, the more money saved. Yet, in the real world it's actually competition with neighbors rather than cost savings that can drive people to turn down their thermostats, install insulation or simply switch off the lights when they leave a room. Such is the lesson of a host of efforts, ranging from a group called OPOWER's comparative use utility billing to switching from miles per gallon to rate vehicle efficiency to gallons per mile.
Now a new collaborative study from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Garrison Institute's Climate, Mind and Behavior Project reveals that such simple actions—from taking one fewer flight per year to wasting less food—can add up. The environmental group estimates that if all Americans adopted 14 such steps over the next decade the country would avoid one billion metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020—or the equivalent of the entire annual greenhouse gas emissions of Germany.
"Much of this is eliminating waste—and most waste costs you money," says NRDC's executive director Peter Lehner. "If all Americans did take a fairly modest range of actions, most of which actually save you money, we can make a big difference."
The recommendations, in addition to flying less and wasting 25 percent less food, include: carpooling or telecommuting once a week (75 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent (CO2e) saved by 2020, if adopted by all Americans); maintaining your car or truck, such as keeping tires properly inflated (45 million metric tons of CO2e); cutting the time spent idling in a vehicle in half (40 million metric tons of CO2e); better insulation at home (85 million metric tons of CO2e); programmable thermostats set higher (80 million metric tons of CO2e); reducing electricity demand from appliances that are "off," so-called phantom demand (70 million metric tons CO2e); using hot water more efficiently, such as washing clothes in colder water (65 million metric tons of CO2e); buying EnergyStar appliances when old ones wear out (55 million metric tons CO2e); replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescents (30 million metric tons CO2e); eating chicken instead of beef two days a week (105 million metric tons of CO2e); increased recycling of paper, plastics and metals (105 million metric tons of CO2e); "responsible" consumption, such as buying less bottled water (60 million metric tons CO2e).
"We make bad decisions all the time," says Sabine Marx, associate director at the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions at Columbia University, thanks to incomplete information or other barriers to action, like high up-front costs for things like insulation. Overcoming those "doesn't mean we have to manipulate people's minds," Marx says, but rather make good decisions easier.
For example, rates of organ donation vary widely within Europe, from 100 percent in France and Poland to 17 percent in the U.K. and just 4 percent in Denmark. The difference cannot be ascribed to different cultural views about organ donation but rather whether the country in question has a policy that is opt-in (check this box if you want to donate your organs) or opt-out (check this box if you do not want to donate your organs). "We think we're rational," says economist John Gowdy of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y. "But really it's the person who designs the question on the back of a driver's license who made the choice for us."
NRDC, the Garrison Institute and others hope to bring this kind of choice editing to the world of personal behavior. Part of this is a result of ongoing frustration with broader policy measures, particularly at the national level, when it comes to confronting climate change. "If Congress does enact something, it will be completely inadequate to the task," says Gus Speth, former dean of Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. It would be a "first step," however, Lehner notes. The primary benefit of personal action is that it can start immediately, he adds.
But Lehner admits that his organization has no idea how to convince people to undertake these 14 steps in the next decade on their own. And there is significant danger that any energy efficiency undertaking ends up ultimately increasing energy use. "The rebound effect is quite clear," Speth notes. "You buy an EnergyStar refrigerator, but you buy two of them. We have to bring overconsumption into this. How do we get out of this consumerist trap we've been in?"
Economists Hunt Allcott of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Sendhil Mullainathan of Harvard University offer one answer in the March 4 Science: more funding for research into the "behavioral factors that influence energy consumption."
For example, programs like OPOWER's that compare electricity use among neighbors have been shown to reduce electricity use by 2 percent at a cost of 2.5 cents per kilowatt-hour. "If scaled nationwide," the economists wrote, "a program like this could reduce U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from electric power by 0.5 percent while actually saving $165 per metric ton of reductions." And all from a simple bar chart—paired with a smiley face for energy-efficient behavior—on an electric bill.
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A hands-on discovery of robotics technology
While the history of robots has its roots in ancient myths and legends, the technology needed to actually build them has been evolving for decades. Use the science of robotics to make a rudimentary bipedal walking robot that runs by alternately moving its legs.
This fun-to-build kit includes paper body parts and assorted supplies needed to put your 120 mm x 150 mm x 85 mm robot. Tools needed include tape, scissors, exacto knife, and a philips head screwdriver. Requires one AA battery (not included).
WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD – Small parts. Not for children under 3 years.
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Gather Power From Thin Air
Renewable energy is the wave of the future. Discover the applications of wind power with this hands-on activity kit.
Build a working wind turbine and use it to conduct more than 20 experiments, including using it to generate electricity to power an LED or charge a battery.
Vary the number of rotor blades, different blade angles and profiles, different wind speeds, different gear ratios, and more to learn the physics of force, motion, and vectors.
Includes a full-color, 32-page experiment manual with illustrated instructions and scientific information.
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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
The event known as the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising began on April 19, 1943 and ended on May 16, 1943. A
total of 56,065 Jews were captured by the Germans during the
uprising, and around 6,000 were killed during the destruction
of the buildings in the ghetto.
All the photos on this page are from
the photo album of Jürgen Stroop, the Commander of the SS
troops who put down the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. There
are 50 photos included in The Stroop Report, which documents
the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto during this action.
In spite of the fact that the photo above
is included in the Stroop Report, which was compiled during April
and May, 1943, it was identified by Holocaust survivor Tsvi C.
Nussbaum as a photo taken after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on
July 13, 1943 in front of the Hotel Polski on the Aryan side
of the Warsaw ghetto, where some Jews had been living as Gentiles.
Nussbaum claims that he is the seven-year-old boy in the photo
and that the woman on his left is his aunt. Since Nussbaum and
his aunt had foreign passports, they were sent to the Bergen-Belsen
detention camp as "exchange Jews."
The soldier, who is holding a gun on
the little boy in the photo, was Josef Blösche; he was put
on trial in East Germany after the war and was executed after
being convicted of participating in the action to put down the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Beginning in June 1942, the Jews in the
Warsaw Ghetto were transported to the Treblinka death camp on the Bug river, near
the eastern border of German-occupied Poland, where they were
immediately killed in gas chambers. Eventually, reports of the
mass murder got back to the Warsaw Ghetto and a resistance organization
called the Z.O.B. (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa) was formed to
prevent any more deportations from the ghetto. The leader of
the Z.O.B. was Mordecai Anielewicz.
In January 1943, the Jews in the Warsaw
Ghetto resisted the next round-up for deportation to Treblinka;
the young Z.O.B fighters fired on German troops as they tried
to get the Jews into railroad cars to be transported to the death
camp. The Germans retreated after four days of fighting and the
Jews began to prepare to hold out against future attempts to
liquidate the ghetto.
The following quote is from the opening
statement by Robert Jackson at the Nuremberg International Military
Tribunal in which he reads from the Summary of the Stroop Report:
It is the original report of the SS
Brigadier General Stroop in charge of the destruction of the
Warsaw Ghetto, and its title page carries the inscription "The
Jewish ghetto in Warsaw no longer exists." It is characteristic
that one of the captions explains that the photograph (the photo shown at the top of this page) concerned
shows the driving out of Jewish "bandits"; those whom
the photograph shows being driven out are almost entirely women
and little children. It contains a day-by-day account of the
killings mainly carried out by the SS organization, too long
to relate, but let me quote General Stroop's summary:
"The resistance put up by the
Jews and bandits could only be suppressed by energetic actions
of our troops day and night. The Reichsfuehrer SS ordered, therefore,
on 4/23/1943, the cleaning out of the ghetto with utter ruthlessness
and merciless tenacity. I, therefore, decided to destroy and
burn down the entire ghetto without regard to the armament factories.
These factories were systematically dismantled and then burned.
Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in
the burning buildings and jumped out of the windows only when
the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken
bones across the street into buildings which were not afire.
Sometimes they changed their hideouts during the night into the
ruins of burned buildings. Life in the sewers was not pleasant
after the first week. Many times we could hear loud voices in
the sewers. SS men or policemen climbed bravely through the manholes
to capture these Jews. Sometimes they stumbled over Jewish corpses:
sometimes they were shot at. Tear gas bombs were thrown into
the manholes and the Jews driven out of the sewers and captured.
Countless numbers of Jews were liquidated in sewers and bunkers
through blasting. The longer the resistance continued the tougher
became the members of the Waffen SS, Police and Wehrmacht who
always discharged their duties in an exemplary manner. Frequently
Jews who tied to replenish their food supplies during the night
or to communicate with neighboring groups were exterminated.
"This action eliminated,"
says the SS commander, "a proved total of 56,065. To that,
we have to add the number killed through blasting, fire, etc.,
which cannot be counted." (1061- PS)
This page was last updated on March 10,
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PASADENA - It's a typical Friday afternoon in Whyville. The beaches are packed with preteens anxiously planning their weekends and snickering about the opposite sex.
Gaggles of middle schoolers are filling up the local mall, where they part with hard-earned cash to purchase sparkly earrings and tank tops.
For those who feel like getting away from the hustle and bustle, there is always the option of teleporting into outer space, or taking a motorboat to the wetlands and conducting algae research with professional oceanographers.
The ordinary and extraordinary coexist almost without distinction inside the Pasadena-based Whyville.net, a virtual community for youths - usually ages 10-13 - founded by a former Caltech professor and graduates.
Once the domain of only hard-core gamers and early adopters, the concept of "living" and interacting online is fast reaching the mainstream.
Millions of users are now registered with a variety of virtual communities worldwide. Online, residents form their own digital characters, called avatars, and go about integrating into their chosen online societies.
"There are so many places out there," said Jacquelyn Ford Morie, senior scientist and associate director for Creative Development at USC's Institute for Creative Technologies. "All have their different customs, constraints and social morays based on what we have in everyday life."
But while there's been an explosion in the number
First online in 1999, the seeds for the project were planted in 1986 by Caltech biology professor Jim Bower.
Bower, an innovator in the field of education technology, had created a primitive community inside the Los Angeles County Library's computer system that allowed children to explore its offerings. By the late 1990s, he had advanced his work with an array of educational projects, and turned his attention toward a way to teach science to children via an informal, social and interactive setting.
"We knew that if you wanted to engage kids you have to have a social component. We're all fundamentally social, we are a social animal," he said, adding that, in this setting, learning can be designed to appeal to young people's desire to stand out.
But while Bower saw the virtual community model as the logical direction the Internet would take, he had a hard time convincing anyone that it was a worthwhile idea.
"We were trying to convince people for a number of years that this makes sense and nobody in corporate America knew what we were talking about. So we did it ourselves," he said.
Bower, two Caltech graduates and a graphic designer from the Art Center College of Design resigned to going at it alone and, using much of Bower's own money, created Whyville and its parent company, Numedeon.
"We really just bootstrapped ourselves. It was really exciting," said Jennifer Sun, founding member and president of Numedeon. "We were convinced that the Internet was going to be for two-way interaction. We thought that was the most interesting thing that the Internet could offer this to education."
Today, Whvyille reports
2.2 million registered users from around the world and a list of sponsor companies that keeps growing.
The concept behind Whyville is simple. It's a world where kids do much of what adults do - with the idea that they are learning practical skills in the grown-up world at play. While a large amount of time is taken up chatting with friends, they also save money for land and build houses on their plots.
Here, it's common for 10-year-olds take out bank loans to purchase Toyota Scions (they all have WHYCO scores instead of FICO scores) and everyone works to support the economy, which is based on clam shells.
In order earn a "salary," and make use of most of what's available, users must participate in a variety of educational games and activities often sponsored by science organizations (Toyota is currently the only for-profit sponsor on the site).
One of the latest offerings is found at the most popular Whyville hangout, the beach.
Users arrive to find the ocean has turned red, and are instructed to take a water sample and head to the Whyville branch of the very real Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the largest independent oceanographic research institution in the United States.
There they examine the sample and identify the culprit as red bloom algae. Then they must investigate what's causing the algae outbreak and head out to the wetlands to figure out how to quell it.
It's a complex process.
"I don't know of any other sites of this kind that tries to attempt this type of science learning," said Yasmin Kafai,associate professor of psychological studies in education at UCLA who has studied Whyville extensively and written a range or research papers on the topic. "I think they are very successful in this respect - constantly innovating."
While Whyville was practically flying solo for a while, the times are certainly catching up with them.
In 2003, an adult-themed community called Second Life came online and began growing fast.
In late 2006, Second Life began attracting tons of media coverage, which sent attention back to Whyville in the process.
With all the buzz surrounding them, Numedeon's president, Sun, said she can't help but feel gratified, "to have been so ahead of the curve."
And even with all the new entrants to the game, Bower remains convinced his creation is still in a league of its own.
"The land has gotten richer and richer," he said, "but Whyville is a lot more deep and a lot more interesting than a lot of virtual worlds out there."
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BLACK HISTORY MONTH
11 Ideas for Learning and Teaching During Black History Month
Black History Month is an excellent opportunity to not only learn about how Islam figures in the life and history of Africa and Muslim Africans, but also to share this knowledge with others for the purpose of Dawa. Here are some tips and ideas of what you, your school, Masjid or Muslim Students' Association can do during Black History Month
1. Attend events held in your community, on campus, at your local library etc.
Not only will this show a Muslim presence. It will also show Muslim interest in the topic. Too often, Muslims are seen as being interested only in "their own" issues. Your desire to listen and learn will Insha Allah, provide you with more knowledge of the topic.
You can also provide an Islamic perspective there if there is none being presented.
2. Read a book about the history of Islam among African people in the United States and in Africa
Check out some good ones in our recommend bibliography.
3. Arrange to have a speaker knowledgeable of Islamic history amongAfrican-Americans to address your Masjid
This can actually become two events. One will be a lecture to educate Muslims. The second will be a mosque open house, where not only will non-Muslims learn about African-American Muslim history, but about Islam as well, Insha Allah. It will facilitate direct contact between Muslims and non-Muslims, which is one of the key ingredients of good Dawa.
Make sure there is plenty of publicity inside and outside the mosque of the event. And refreshments, of course.
4. Sponsor events with non-Muslim African-American organizations
This is a great way for the MSA, for instance, to organize an activity with another organization which may have more resources (i.e. money and contacts).
More importantly though, this is a way to show Muslim interest in African history through action (i.e. trying to arrange an event to educate others about the topic). Give the Islamic perspective as much as you can as you work with the non-Muslims.
5. Arrange for a small group discussion/video showing at your home or MSA concerning African-American history and its significance to the development of the Ummah in this part of the world
Deeper Roots: Muslims in the Americas before Columbus would be a great video to see here.
Also be sure there are refreshments for everyone at the end. Print out a couple of one-page articles or Dawa pamphlets on the African-American or African Muslims that people can take home, with Muslim contact names and numbers on the back.
6. Make bedtime story night for your kids a story about African or African-American Muslims
Do you read to your kids at night before they go to bed? If so, talk to them a bit about Black History Month (if they go to public school, they may already be doing something on the topic in class) and read a chapter of a book about notable Muslim Africans or African-Americans.
7. Have one of the kids do a presentation on one of the Sahabah from Africa or a more recent Muslim African-American personality during a family meeting
They'll teach everyone, learn something themselves, and know that Muslims have their own Africans and African-Americans to be proud of.
8. Have your school or local library include notable Muslim African-Americans in its display during Black History Month
Talk to the librarian. S/he has probably already decided to have a special Black History Month exhibit during February. But who has s/he decided to include. Give some suggestions of Muslim Africans and African-Americans who contributed to the development of the Ummah, America and the world.
9. Do the above for a museum
Contact the organizer of the exhibition and suggest a few names of personalities to include. If they're clueless even better: give them the information about these Muslims. And add a couple of articles or books about Islam while you're at it.
10. Write an article in your school and/or local paper about what Black History Month means to you as a Muslim
This can be done on an individual basis, or better yet, designate someone from the MSA or the Islamic center to do this. You can talk about the rich history of Muslim Africa, and how Muslim African-Americans have impacted the U.S.A. today.
11. Do a class presentation on a notable Muslim African or African-American
If this is a general class assignment, you've just found your topic. If not, suggest it to your teacher. If you're afraid your classmates will get angry you gave them extra homework, suggest doing this as a special assignment for yourself.
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Source: Between the Lions: "Spicy Hot Colors & Yesterday I Had the Blues"
In this video segment from Between the Lions, Tammy Lionette (Cleo) sings about the two sounds made by the letter "c." Words that appear on screen include: cry, certainly, card, crate, celebrate, call, cell, city, cycle, December, clear, nicely, crack, circus, camp, center, cramp, circles, crying, can, concede, cope, can’t, and conceive. The letter "c" is in a different color and is colored regardless of where it appears in the word. This video segment provides a resource for Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Letter Knowledge Awareness, and Phonological Awareness.
Academic standards correlations on Teachers' Domain use the Achievement Standards Network (ASN) database of state and national standards, provided to NSDL projects courtesy of JES & Co.
We assign reference terms to each statement within a standards document and to each media resource, and correlations are based upon matches of these terms for a given grade band. If a particular standards document of interest to you is not displayed yet, it most likely has not yet been processed by ASN or by Teachers' Domain. We will be adding social studies and arts correlations over the coming year, and also will be increasing the specificity of alignment.
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Living snow fence utilization is one of the most sustainable engineering actions DOTs can do along highway corridors. Living snow fences are designed plantings of trees and/or shrubs and native grasses along highways, roads and ditches that create a vegetative buffer that traps and controls blowing and drifting snow. These strategically placed fences have been shown to be cost effective in reducing highway maintenance associated with blowing and drifting snow conditions.
This is not a new concept. As early as 1905 railroad companies planted trees as barriers to control blowing snow along rights of way. By 1915, the Great Northern Railway Company had planted over a million trees. In North Dakota over 96,000 trees and shrubs were established. This action reduced snow drifting, line closure and helped maintain an expected level of service along the rail line.
Many Highway road system designs do not take into account the potential of using living snow fences. It is possible that DOT and/or consulting designers do not understand the long term cost benefits of these snow fences and are not taking a big picture look at the long term highway maintenance operations and costs, when planning for wintertime conditions.
Many DOTs use wooden slat fencing in areas with large open areas and fetches that are expensive to purchase, install and maintain. The maintenance of snow fences was estimated to be $3 per mile per year, compared to $185 per mile per year for a 4 foot slat fence (USDA, 1994). In Minnesota, benefit/cost ratios range from 9:1 to 46:1 in favor of living snow fences (University of Minnesota, 2002).
Why is the implementation of living snow fences such a great sustainable transportation action for highway DOTs? The living snow fence concept really incorporates all the components associated with sustainable actions such as environmental condition improvements, consideration of financial resources and cooperation with the local landowners/community. The following summarizes the main advantages of living snow fencing and why DOTs should consider increasing their use along highway corridors:
- The service life of living snow fences is 50-75 years in comparison to the 20-25 year life of a slat fence.
- Living mature trees can capture up to 12 times more snow than slat fences.
- Living snow fences can be installed to address tree mitigation from highway construction projects
- Trees and shrubs sequester carbon that can reduce a DOTs overall carbon footprint
- Wildlife habitat is enhanced
- Maintenance plowing activities and the potential of road closures are reduced
- Reduced soil erosion along the right of way
- Reduced amount of snow plowing thus minimizing fuel consumption and costs, and green house gas emissions
- Increased vegetation provides enhanced aesthetic features along the highway corridor
- Maintenance free when trees are established
The challenges to living snow fences are that they require more space than the wooden slat fencing, plantings need to be protected from livestock and wildlife and it takes 5-7 years to provide effective snow control and up to 20 years for trees to reach full maturity. There may be site conditions such as shallow soils, arid climate and soil pH issues that may challenge plant establishment.
The design and implementation of living snow fences requires acceptance and cooperation of stakeholders. Generally for large open areas living snow fences need to be 150-200 feet away from the road surface which many times requires planting off the DOT right of way. Coordination with the following stakeholders may make the planning process more complex: 1) the local landowner, 2) county commissioners, 3) resource conservation districts, 4) state and federal forest services, 5) land management agencies and 6) local environmental organizations. Cooperation among stakeholder is critical to the success of the living snow fencing in regards to the following:
- site access
- tree plantings
- irrigation water
- fencing from livestock or wildlife
- weed maintenance
- erosion control
The Minnesota Department of Transportation initiated a Living Snow Fence Partnership Program with the US Department of Agriculture, Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts and the Natural Resource Conservation Service. The intent of the Program is to efficiently manage blowing and drifting snow on Minnesota roadways to reduce accidents and save lives. The Living Snow Fence Partnership Program is very proactive in establishing work groups, raising public awareness, cost sharing among stakeholders and defining specific program roles and responsibilities for all stakeholders.
Living snow fences can be a win/win for both the DOT and landowner by increasing the number of planted trees to sequester carbon, improving soil stability, improve aesthetics, and wildlife habitat improvements.
There needs to be more emphasis on using living snow fences along highway systems. It makes economic and environmental management sense for many DOTs to implement living snow fence programs. DOT’s environmental, maintenance and engineering professionals need to work together and review potential construction sites for implementing living snow fencing especially during the design-NEPA phase of the project. It is possible to directly specify the use of living snow fences in the NEPA document that must be incorporated into the final design. A landscaping plan that incorporates the NEPA requirements should be developed and provided to the selected construction contractor. DOTs should consider increased education, training and awareness about snow fencing design opportunities. Finally, DOTs could perform a state-wide, landscape GIS study to identify existing road corridors where cost effective living snow fences could be implemented along and near the existing highway right of ways.
The reader is directed to the following websites for living fence design criteria:
www.ext.colostate.edu/sam/windbreaks.html (Colorado State University Extension)
www.unl.edu/nac/aug94/snowfences/snowfence.html (USDA National Agroforestry Center)
www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/DD7277.html (University of Minnesota Extension)
http://climate.umn.edu/snow_fence/intro/html (Minnesota DOT)
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