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The Immune System and Psoriatic Disease In 1979, researchers coincidentally found that a drug—cyclosporine—that suppresses the immune system in bone marrow transplant patients also cleared psoriasis. Since then, psoriasis has been widely accepted as a disease that involves the immune system. The study of the immune system is called immunology. How does the immune system affect psoriasis? A normal immune system protects the body against "invaders" by destroying bacteria, viruses and other foreign proteins. In the person who has psoriasis, the immune system "misfires" and inappropriately causes inflammation and an accelerated growth of skin cells. The skin cells reproduce too quickly and the skin (and the joints in some people) becomes inflamed. Many steps in this misfired immune response are targeted by specific treatments such as systemic and biologic drugs. One goal of treatment is to block or modify the response by focusing on very specific immune cells, thus avoiding widespread effects on the rest of the body. For example, methotrexate (a prescription systemic medication used to treat psoriasis) binds to an enzyme involved in the rapid growth of cells that is triggered by the immune system response in psoriasis. But methotrexate affects other systems in the body, too. New drugs, called biologics, have been designed to target very specific parts of the immune system response. What is the role of T cells? Psoriasis is frequently referred to as a "T-cell mediated disease." T cells are a type of immune system cell (white blood cell) that are proven to be very important in the internal process of psoriasis. T cells naturally circulate throughout the body looking for foreign substances. These foreign substances, called antigens, are usually an outside invader like a bacterium or virus, that activates the T cell, which then initiates an immune response to neutralize the antigen. In psoriasis, activated T cells end up in the skin. It is not clear why this happens, but it may be directly related to the genetic susceptibility in people who develop psoriasis. T cells become activated by two necessary interactions. - An antigen-presenting cell (APC) processes and displays an antigen on its surface. A T cell recognizes and targets that antigen. The specific antigen or antigens responsible for psoriasis are not known, but some infections (for example, strep throat) create an antigen believed to trigger some cases of guttate psoriasis. - When the APC "shows" the antigen to the T cell, other receptors on the APC and T cell must also interact like a lock and key for the T cell to become activated. This lock and key mechanism is called the co-stimulatory pathway. If T cells are not activated, the immune response and the cycle of psoriasis never get started. If the T cell becomes activated, an immune response is initiated that leads to the development of skin lesions. One part of this response includes the release of cytokines. Cytokines are proteins that the immune system uses to communicate messages. In psoriasis, cytokines tell skin cells to reproduce and mature at an accelerated rate. They also set off other reactions, including inflammation, the activation of additional T cells, the recruiting of T cells into the skin and the release or "cascade" of more cytokines. The end result is a cycle of skin cells growing too fast, moving to the surface of the skin and piling up as dead cells (the white scale). The top, or epidermal, layer of the skin thickens, and redness develops as blood vessels expand and multiply, and blood flow to the skin increases. How is the immune system modulated? Co-stimulatory pathways (think of them like locks and keys that open and close immune reactions), are a good target for new psoriasis drugs to short-circuit psoriasis. Beyond that, other immune system cells involved in psoriasis are also a focus of drug development. For example, some cytokines carry inflammatory messages and help fuel the overall immune response in the skin. Some of these cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha), are targeted to be blocked by several of the biologic treatments now on the market. On the other hand, some cytokines that normally suppress inflammation are lacking or present only in low levels in psoriatic skin. Scientists have experimented with boosting the levels of these proteins to rebalance the biochemical make-up of the skin. What lies ahead? Psoriasis research is benefiting from the fact that psoriasis is driven by the immune system and responds to drugs that suppress the body's immune response. Many other diseases and medical problems, such as diabetes, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, are also driven by the immune system. Genes that are associated with psoriasis are also involved with rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Because psoriasis is easily visible on the skin, the disease provides an excellent model for studying the effectiveness of various medications that might be useful in other diseases that also involve the immune system.

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Are You Using Hyphens Correctly? Many people get confused about when to use hyphens when writing ages. Here's a Quick and Dirty Tip that will help: When the age is an adjective that comes before the noun and modifies the noun, or when the age is a noun, hyphenate. My eight-year-old neighbor wrote a poem about commas for National Grammar Day. That 70-year-old with the purple hoodie loves Justin Bieber. When the age is part of an adjective phrase after the noun, don't hyphenate. Charlie Sheen is 45 years old His twin sons are nearly two years old. Get more tips like this in The Grammar Devotional:

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Sempo Sugihara was born on the 1st.of January of the year 1900 in Yaotsu, Gifu Prefecture, Japan. The original surname of his parents was Iwais, a very common one in those places. The legend says that when Sempo’s father, Mitsugoro Iwais finished his military service in Manchuria and Siberia in 1895, he came down with tuberculosis. At that moment he received special attention and care from an officer named Kosui Sugihara and, to show his gratitude, offered to become his adopted son, an usual custom in those days. But some members of the family didn’t ascribe this change of name to such a noble reason. Around the same time, Yaotsu implemented a new postal service; somebody by the name of Sugihara had more possibilities of receiving sufficient post than dozens of Iwais. In March of the year 1939, the Consul General, Chiune Sugihara was sent to Kaunas to open a consular service. Kaunas was the temporary capital of Lithuania at that moment, a strategic point between the Soviet Union and Germany. After Hitler invaded Poland on the 1st. of September of 1939, Great Britain and France declared war on Germany. Sugihara had barely settled down in his new post when the Nazi army invaded Poland and a wave of Jewish refugees fled towards Lithuania. They carried with them chilling stories about German atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish population. Until the war, Lithuania had been a place of peace and prosperity for the Jewish people, most of whom hadn’t fully realized, or didn’t believe in the dimension of the Nazi plan of extermination which was taking place in Poland. The refugees tried to explain that they were being assassinated in masses, but the Jews in Lithuania continued with their usual lives. Things began to change for worse on the 15th of June 1940, when the soviets invaded Lithuania. It was too late to escape towards the East. Ironically, the soviets would allow the polish Jews to emigrate from Lithuania through the Soviet Union… but only if they managed to obtain some special documents. By 1940, a great part of Occidental Europe was under Nazi control, whilst Great Britain resisted alone. In this terrible context, the Japanese Consul Sugihara became de center of a desperate plan for survival. The fate of thousands of families depended on his sense of humanity. The German army moved quickly towards the East. On July of the year 1940, the Soviet authorities ordered all foreign embassies to abandon Kaunas. Most of them obeyed immediately. Instead, Sugihara managed to extend his stay for other three weeks. With the exception of the Dutch Honorary Consul, Jan Zwartendijk, Chiune Sugihara now was the only foreign consul that remained in the capital of Lithuania. A lot of work was awaiting him. For the refugees time flew. Hitler controlled the East of Europe. It was at that moment when some Polish refugees came up with a plan, possibly their last chance towards freedom. They discovered that two Dutch colonies in the Caribbean, the islands of Curacao and the Dutch Guyana (Surinam), didn’t demand strict visas to enter to the country. Furthermore, the Dutch Consul informed them that he had been granted an authorization to seal their passports with entrance permits. The major obstacle lay still ahead. To reach these islands, refugees had to go across the Soviet Union; their consul agreed to let them pass under one condition: apart from the Dutch entrance permit, they had to get a transit visa from the Japanese consulate, for they had to cross over the Japanese empire in order to reach the islands. One morning of June, Chiune Sugihara and his family were woke up by a huge crowd of Polish refugees gathered together outside the Consulate. They were desperate by the imminent arrival of the Nazis. They perfectly knew that their only way to escape was to reach the East. Sempo was moved by the refugees urgent needs. Notwithstanding, he didn’t have his government’s official permission to issue hundreds of visas. Sugihara had requested three times authorization to issue visas, but every time he was denied this possibility by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He talked this matter over with his wife and children. He had to make a difficult decision. He had been educated under the strict and traditional Japanese discipline. On one hand, he was limited by obedience. On the other, he had to help the needy. He knew that if he defied the orders given to him by his superiors he could be discharged and dishonored and probably could never again work for his government. This would have a repercussion on his economic situation and on his family’s honor. He was afraid for his wife Yukiko and for his children’s lives, but he finally obeyed what his conscience comanded. He would sign the visas without Tokyo’s permission. During twenty nine days, from the 31st. of July to the 28th. of August of 1940, Sempo and Yukiko Sugihara spent endless hours writing out and signing visas by hand. More than 300 visas a day, an amount that normally meant a whole month of work for the whole consulate. Without even stopping to eat, Sugihara decided not to lose a single minute. People waited for their transit permits standing in line, day and night. Hundreds of applicants became thousands. Sugihara worked around the clock; he knew that in no time he would be forced to shut down the consulate and abandon Lithuania. He continued to issue visas till the last minute, just before the train left to take him from Kovno to Berlin, on the 1st. of September 1940. When the train left the station, he gave his official seal to a refugee, who could continue the rescue mission. Once they received their visas, refugees didn’t take long to leave for Moscow by train and from there to Vladivostok in the Trans-Siberian railroad. From there, most of them went on to Kobe, Japan, a city where they were allowed to remain for several months. After that they were sent to Shangai, China. Doctor Isaac Lewin, one of the thousands saved by Sugihara, said to Professor Hillel Levine, author of the book ”In Search of Sugihara”, that ”the Japanese authorities were benign in checking transit visas”. Thousands of Polish Jews with visas issued by Sugihara survived under the protection of the Japanese government in Shangai. During the following months about six thousand refugees fled to Japan, China and other countries. They had escaped from the Holocaust. Sugihara acted on his own account. There is no proof that any economic incentive ever existed nor that he took pleasure in danger. In spite of his disobedience, the Sugihara government seemed to find a good example in his attitude, to remember the war. Nevertheless, he was discharged from the diplomatic service in 1945. His career had come to an end. He would have to start again from scratch. At the beginning he only found a half-day job as translator and interpreter. During the last 20 years of his life, he worked as a manager of an export company with business in Moscow. Chiune, his nickname, means a thousand lives. In Israel, Sugihara’s actions were acknowledged publicly in 1969 but it wasn’t till 1985 that he was bestowed the title of Righteous Among the Nations. He died in 1986 in the outskirts of Tokyo. It is thanks to his wife’s testimonies and that of his eldest son Hiroki, that we know of his exploits.

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1781 van Biesbroeck (A906 UB) is a main-belt asteroid discovered on October 17, 1906 by A. Kopff at Heidelberg. Georges-Achille van Biesbroeck (January 21, 1880 – February 23, 1974) was a Belgian-American astronomer. He worked at observatories in Belgium, Germany and the United States. He specialized in the observation of double stars, asteroids and comets. He is notable for his long career as an observational astronomer. He was born in Ghent, Belgium on January 21, 1880 to a family of artists. At his father's request he pursued, and in 1902, he received, the 1st degree of Civil Engineering Construction and began work as a civil engineer for the Brussels Department of Roads and Bridges. But his true vocation is not there, it was astronomy, and while performing his official duties as a civil engineer he joined volunteers at the Uccle Observatory. In 1904 he left civil engineering behind and joined the staff at the Royal Observatory of Belgium at Uccle. He then enrolled at Ghent University and obtained a degree in theoretical astronomy. He worked at the Heidelberg Observatory, then at the Potsdam Observatory under the direction of Max Wolf, Karl Schwarzschild and others. In 1915, as World War I was raging, he was invited to come to work at Yerkes Observatory. He and his family made the dangerous trip across wartime Europe and settled permanently in the United States. He became a U.S citizen in 1922. He then began his work on double stars, comets, asteroids, and variable stars. In 1945 he was forced into retirement at Yerkes at the age of 65. Relieved of administrative duties, he became an even more active observer at Yerkes and at the McDonald Observatory. He made the frequent automobile trips between the observatories in Wisconsin and Texas without complaint. He participated in numerous physically grueling astronomical expeditions to remote parts of the world throughout the late 1940s and 1950s. In 1952, at age 72, he traveled to Khartoum in Sudan and set up a 20' telescope to confirm Einstein's Theory of Relativity by noting the change in positions of the stars around the Sun during a total eclipse that year. His measurements were in agreement with Einstein's predictions. His travels to Sudan were the subject of a Time Magazine article. He discovered the periodic comet 53P/van Biesbroeck, as well as two non-periodic comets: C/1925 W1 (van Biesbroeck 1) and C/1935 Q1 (van Biesbroeck 2). He also discovered sixteen asteroids. In 1961 he published the van Biesbroeck's star catalog. In this he cataloged a number of very faint stars, known by the VB numbers he assigned to them upon discovery. One notable star he discovered was the very small red dwarf secondary star, VB 10, also known as Gliese (GJ) 752B, of the primary star, Wolf 1055 (Gliese (GJ) 752A). This star was unique in that its absolute magnitude of 19 was the lowest of any star then known and still thought to be the lowest possible for any star. VB 10 was given the designation of van Briesbroeck's Star to honor him for this work and his work with double stars. In 1963 he came to the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson Arizona to work under Gerard Kuiper. There he used his practical skills as a land surveyor to site the new Catalina Station now under the direction of Steward Observatory and that now houses the 1.6m Kuiper Telescope. He continued to observe and make contributions to astronomy up to a few months before his death. New scientific papers continued to be published under his name for several years afterward. He died on February 23, 1974 at the age of 94. Dr. van Biesbroeck was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada on 1962-03-02.

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Invention allows clear photos in dim light Cameras fitted with a new revolutionary sensor will soon be able to take clear and sharp photos in dim conditions, thanks to a new image sensor invented at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). The new sensor made from graphene, is believed to be the first to be able to detect broad spectrum light, from the visible to mid-infrared, with high photoresponse or sensitivity. This means it is suitable for use in all types of cameras, including infrared cameras, traffic speed cameras, satellite imaging and more. Not only is the graphene sensor 1,000 times more sensitive to light than current imaging sensors found in today’s cameras, it also uses 10 times less energy as it operates at lower voltages. When mass produced, graphene sensors are estimated to cost at least five times cheaper. Graphene is a million times smaller than the thickest human hair (only one-atom thick) and is made of pure carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure. It is known to have a high electrical conductivity among other properties such as durability and flexibility. The inventor of the graphene sensor, Assistant Professor Wang Qijie, from NTU’s School of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, said it is believed to be the first time that a broad-spectrum, high-photosensitive sensor has been developed using pure graphene. His breakthrough, made by fabricating a graphene sheet into novel nanostructures, was published in Nature Communications. “We have shown that it is now possible to create cheap, sensitive and flexible photo sensors from graphene alone. We expect our innovation will have great impact not only on the consumer imaging industry, but also in satellite imaging and communication industries, as well as the mid-infrared applications,” says Wang, who also holds a joint appointment in NTU’s School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. “While designing this sensor, we have kept current manufacturing practices in mind. This means the industry can in principle continue producing camera sensors using the CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) process, which is the prevailing technology used by the majority of factories in the electronics industry. Therefore manufacturers can easily replace the current base material of photo sensors with our new nanostructured graphene material.” If adopted by industry, Wang expects that cost of manufacturing imaging sensors to fall—eventually leading to cheaper cameras with longer battery life. How the graphene nanostructure works Wang came up with an innovative idea to create nanostructures on graphene which will “trap” light-generated electron particles for a much longer time, resulting in a much stronger electric signal. Such electric signals can then be processed into an image, such as a photograph captured by a digital camera. The “trapped electrons” is the key to achieving high photoresponse in graphene, which makes it far more effective than the normal CMOS or CCD (charge-coupled device) image sensors, said Wang. Essentially, the stronger the electric signals generated, the clearer and sharper the photos. “The performance of our graphene sensor can be further improved, such as the response speed, through nanostructure engineering of graphene, and preliminary results already verified the feasibility of our concept,” Wang adds. This research, costing about $200,000, is funded by the Nanyang Assistant Professorship startup grant and supported partially by the Ministry of Education Tier 2 and 3 research grants. The next step is to work with industry collaborators to develop the graphene sensor into a commercial product. Source: Nanyang Technological University

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Because these beauties are sensitive to flouride, which is commonly added to tap water in many communities, use bottled water to gain the longest life from them. - Remove any foliage that will be underwater once you place the stems in your container. Leaves decay when underwater and cause stems to clog, which restricts the uptake of water. - Trim 2 to 3 inches off the bottom of each stem using a floral knife. Cut underwater to increase flower life. Trim at an angle to keep the stem's base from resting on the bottom of the vase, which impedes water uptake. - Add floral food according to package directions. Arrange your flowers and place them in a cool spot away from drafts or sunlight. Each day, add warm water as needed and remove dying blooms. Every four to five days, cut off another 2 to 3 inches from flower stems. Then wash the vase; refill with fresh, warm water; add floral food and replace flowers. Published by Floral Lifestyles, A publication of Vance Publishing Corporation

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Earthscope (Image 6) June 11, 2010 Peter Gray welding one of five GPS stations on the flanks of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. The stations will precisely monitor deformation associated with magma movement within the volcano. [One of 14 related images. See Next Image.] More about this Image In a modern-day journey to the center of the Earth, geologists are exploring the structure and evolution of the North American continent at scales from hundreds of kilometers to less than a millimeter--from the structure of a continent, to individual faults, earthquakes and volcanoes. The project is called EarthScope. With approximately $200 million in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF), EarthScope began development in 2004, and will continue over a five year period. It is expected to operate for an additional 15 years. EarthScope is using multiple technologies to explore the structure and tectonics of North America. For example, a four-kilometer deep observatory was drilled directly into the San Andreas fault to measure the physical conditions under which earthquakes occur there. One of 875 permanent Global Positioning System (GPS) stations has been installed, which can measure relative distance changes of less than 0.5 millimeters. EarthScope is one of an eventual network of 400 seismographic stations that will spread across the United States, making observations at more than 2,000 geographic locations to map the structure and composition of North America. EarthScope also provides unique educational opportunities as a national experiment, with its sensors located at more than 3,000 sites across the United States for measuring and observing plate tectonics in real time. For more information, visit the EarthScope Web site. Topics: Mechanics, Geophysics, Geology, Plate Boundary Observatory, Earthscope, Surveying, Navigation

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Lake on the boundary between Macedonia, Albania, and Greece. It is 14 mi (23 km) long, 8 mi (13 km) wide, 2,800 ft (853 m) above sea level, and it drains northwest into Lake Ohrid through a subterranean channel. South of it is Little Prespa Lake, which contains the island of St. Achilius; the island was an early capital of Bulgarian Tsar Samuel in the 10th century. It became a tourist and fishing centre in the 1970s. Learn more about Prespa, Lake with a free trial on Britannica.com. The much wider region of Prespa has been divided by the Republic of Macedonia, Albania and Greece, although it is dominantly populated by ethnic Macedonians.

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There are two kinds of labour variances. Labour Rate Variance is the difference between the standard cost and the actual cost paid for the actual number of hours. Labour efficiency variance is the difference between the standard labour hour that should have been worked for the actual number of units produced and the actual number of hours worked when the labour hours are valued at the standard rate. this is incorrect at the moment. Difference between the amount of labor time that should have been used and the labor that was actually used, multiplied by the standard rate. For example, assume that the standard cost of direct labor per unit of product A is 2.5 hours x $14 = $35. Assume further that during the month of March the company recorded 4500 hours of direct labor time. The actual cost of this labor time was $64,800, or an average of $14.40 per hour. The company produced 2000 units of product A during the month. The labor efficiency variance is (4500 - 5000) x $14 = $7000, where 5000 hours = 2.5 hours x 2000 units of output. This variance is favorable since the actual hours used are less than the standard hours allowed. This may be the result of efficient use of labor time due to automation or the use of improved production methods.

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The "unique habit" of whale sharks that converge to feed from fishing nets in Indonesia has allowed them to be tagged with low-cost technology usually used on pets, conservationists said Tuesday. Experts in June injected tiny pill-sized radio transmitters beneath the skin of 30 whale sharks in Cenderawasih Bay in the eastern province of Papua, conservation group WWF said. And it was only made possible because the giant animals, which measure up to 45 feet (13.7 metres) but are harmless to humans, were gathered to feed on fish caught in fishermen's nets, WWF Indonesia project leader Beny Ahadian Noor told AFP. A YouTube video by Conservation International (CI) showing a whale shark sucking fish from a hole in a net in clear blue waters has now attracted more than one million views (www.youtube.com/watch?v=71FLO_6JJVo). "Radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags have been used on pets such as dogs, but this is the first time on whale sharks," Noor said. Researchers would usually use a more sophisticated satellite method, at $4,000 a tag. But Noor said each radio-frequency tag used in Cenderawasih Bay cost only $4. "It's good enough for a start since we have little information about the behaviour of whale sharks here," he said. Marine biologist Mark Erdmann, who joined the expedition, said it was "fairly impractical to swim after the giants with a receiver wand under water". "What makes this tagging possible in Cenderawasih Bay is the unique habit this population has of aggregating at... fishing platforms to feast upon the small silverside baitfish that the fishers are catching," he said. Whale sharks, the world's largest fish, are classified as "vulnerable" by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN.)© ANP/AFP

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Have fun with wordplay and promote understanding of dyslexia The Vicar of Nibblsewicke was one of Roal Dahl's last stories. He wrote it shortly before his death in 1990 and the story was published in 1991. It is suitable for older students, and tells the tale of the Reverand Robert Lee and the situations he finds himself in due to his unique condition - Back-to-Front Dyslexia. The story was published in aid of The Dyslexia Institute. And stay tuned - we'll have more Vicar of Nibbleswicke lesson plans available very soon... This lesson plan promotes understanding of dyslexia whilst having fun with wordplay.

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#1 For Test 1 Also see your text's site at: http://www.wadsworth.com/cgi-wadsworth/course_products_wp.pl?fid=M20&product_isbn_issn=0534548865&discipline_number=25 DISCLAIMER With QUESTIONS...this site also includes student questions...there will be "bad questions" as well as "good questions." Test 1 will cover: Chapters 1, 2, and 3. It will also cover the concepts covered in class. Key Terms and Questions to ponder for review Key Terms and Questions to ponder for review Heather, My Former Teaching Assistant, Suggests... When studying for a test in Interpersonal Communications, here are some helpful hints to help you do well: ---Make sure to have a good grasp on vocabulary used in the text, especially if mentioned multiple times in class ---Review the main headings in the text, if it was something discussed extensively in class, re-read the section in the text ---Skim through the Powerpoint notes discussed (and online) in class. Odds are, if they were put on those sheets, there is a large possibility of it returning on a test *** On line, there are review questions with answers and page numbers of the answers. After reviewing the information for a while, try to answer the questions on line. If something still seems a little hazy, then you know you need to review it again. Pay close attention to the questions on line, more often than not, you could see them again on the test (hint hint).**** *** Most tests offer the possibility to fill answer another essay question for extra-credit@BY ALL MEANS GO FOR IT!! They can't hurt you, but they sure can make a difference, sometimes even between two different letter grades!!!*** Student Authored Questions -- Take them "as is" Our self esteem is developed? a. during our childhood b. by our peers c. throughout our lives answer d. Our self esteem is a continuous process. What is the fundamental attribution a. when we overestimate the internal causes, and underestimate the external causes. b. when we overestimate the internal and external causes c. when we underestimate someone's abilities. Answer A. the fundamental attribution error distorts our perceptions of ourselves and others. Today when the teacher asked Tommy what the lady in Kwik Trip looked like and was wearing that sold him his food he replied by saying, " I could not tell you, I was in and out so fast I didn't even pay attention". This is an example of what? A. I-Thou relationship B. I-You relationship C. I-It relationship D. Interactive Models Correct Answer = C. The answer is I-It relationships because salespersons, servers, and clerical staff are often treated not as people but as instruments to take orders and be servants. I-It relationships are the most impersonal kind of relationships there are. I-You is the majority of our relationships such as friends. I-thou is the most personal kind of relationship. It is the highest form of human dialogue. I-It is the best answer for this question. What is communication that explicitly tells us who we are by labeling us and our behaviors? A. Direct Definition B. Self-fulfilling Prophecy C. Identity Scripts D. Attachment Styles Correct Answer = A. Direct Definition is the correct answer because it means that parents and other family members define us by how they describe us. Self-fulfilling prophecy is when we act in ways that bring about expectations or judgments about us. Identity scripts are the ways of living and identity. Finally, Attachment styles are parenting patterns that teach us who we are and how to approach relationships. Although all of them are quite similar direct definition is the correct answer for the question above. What type of organization is a predictive generalization about individuals and situations based on the category into which we place them? A. Prototype B. Stereotype C. Personal Construct D. Script Cor rect Answer = B. Stereotype is how we look at and place people because of who they are and how they look. Personal Construct is bipolar, mental yardsticks we use to measure people and situations. Prototype is the most representative example of a category. Script is a guide to action in particular situations. The best answer for the question above is stereotype. What are the two (2) levels of meaning in interpersonal communication? Answer: first level is Content Meaning; the second level is Relationship Meaning. Question: According to Maslow's theory the most abstract human need is? P) A) Safety and protection B) Self esteem C) Self actualization D) Belonging needs E) Physical needs for survival Answer: C, Maslow defined self actualization as the fully using and developing our unique "talents, capacities, potentialities". To achieve this we need to refine potentials that we have already to some degree, while also cultivating new potentials in ourselves. Question: Perception involves three interrelated processes what are they? P A) Self serving, personnel constructs, self serving bias B) Selecting, organizing, interpreting C) Age, culture, social roles D) Cognitive abilities, attribution error, ladder of abstraction. Answer: B, Perception is an active process of creating meaning by selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations and activities, perception is an active process. It is important for a person to feel involved and accepted by the people that they surround themselves by. Which of Maslow's Hierarchy of Basic Needs does this pertain A. Self Actualization Needs. B. Physical Needs for Survival. C. Belonging Needs. D. Safety and Protection Needs. Correct Answer: C, Belonging Needs. According to this need, all of us need to be happy, enjoy life, feel comfortable and enriched. Basically, we need to feel included. Jennifer's father is an alcoholic. When she has breakfast with her father before school, he always tells her how much he loves her and how proud he is of her for all that she has done. However, when Jennifer returns home after school, her father is a completely different person. He tells her that she is worthless and will never go anywhere in life. The attachment style that he is portraying toward his daughter is: A. the Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment Style B. the Secure Attachment Style C. the Fearful Attachment Style D. the Dismissive Attachment Style Correct Answer: A, Anxious/Ambivalent Attachment Style. This attachment style is best described by inconsistent treatment from the caregiver. Sometimes the person who cares for the child is loving and attentive, yet at other times they are the exact opposite, indifferent and rejecting. According to Maslow's Hierarcy of Needs, which of the following must be taken care of first? A.) Self Esteem Needs B.) Belonging Needs C.) Safety and Protection Needs D.) Physical Needs Correct Answer is D. According to Maslow, we need to have our physical needs taken care of in order to then take care of the other, abstract needs. Which of the following best describes that which consists of beliefs, values, understandings, practices and ways of interpreting experience that are shared by a number of people. A.) Physiology B.) Standpoint Theory C.) Cognitive Complexity D.) Culture Correct Answer is D. Physiology is the functional processes of the body. Standpoint Theory claims that a culture includes a number of social groups that offer particular material, symbolic and social conditiodistinctivelycitively shape the perceptions, identities and opportunities of members of those groups. Cognitive Complexity is a function of the number of constructs used, how abstract they are, and how elaborately they interact to create perception. Which level of communication would two people be if they treat each other as a unique person? a. I-You b. I-It c. I-Thou Answer: C, because this is the highest form of communication and it involves people knowing eachother on a personal level. According to "reflected appraisal," what would Jenny think of herself if people said she was not smart? a. She would laugh at them and tell them that they are not smart. b. She would think that she was not smart. c. She would think that she is smart. Answer: B, because according to the text, reflected appraisal is the way in which we reflect the appraisals that others make of us. All of the following are problems with mindreading except... a. We have no way of checking on the accuracy of our perceptions. b. We misinterpret others. c. People tend to blow things out of proportion. Answer: C, because you can mindread and think things are better than they really are. What is the definition of I-You communication? a. Accounts for the least amount of our interactions b. People acknowledge one another as more than objects, but don't fully engage each other as unique individuals c. Each person affirms the other as cherished and unique d. Both a & b Answer: B. found in Chapter 1 -- Explanation: I-You communication is like someone you get along with at work or school, but don't want to take it to an extreme personal level. A _______ attachment style is cultivated when the care-giver in the first bond communicates in negative, rejecting, or even abusive ways to the child. a. Secure attachment style b. Dismissive attachment style c. Fearful attachment style d. Anxious/Ambivalent attachment style Answer: C. found in Chapter 2 --. Explanation: A child with fearful attachment style will think they are unworthy of love ant that others are not loving because their caregiver has either told them that or made them feel that way. What type of organization is it when we use "mental yardsticks" to measure people and situations? a. Personal constructs b. Prototypes c. Stereotypes d. Scripts Answer: A. found in Chapter 3 -- Explanation: Personal constructs are when you think someone is attractive or unattractive or kind or unkind. When we size up a person we measure the person by personal constructs that we use to distinguish between people. It's late at night and you are very tired, which influence of perception would this fall under? a. Age b. Social Roles c. Cognitive abilities d. Physiology The answer is d, physiology, because being tired could affect your thinking and senses. When a girl in math class is told by her teacher over and over that she is stupid and she does begin to believe this is true and eventually does do poorly in the class, what is that called? A.)Put down B.)Stereotype C.) Self-fulfilling prophecy A.) (C) This is the correct answer because a self-fulfilling prophecy is a particularly powerful way communication shapes the self. The teacher telling the girl she is stupid helped her develop her self to being stupid, or in the least to do poorly in the class because she believed she was stupid. Why is self-concept difficult to change? a. it takes continuous effort b. it is expensive to go to a counselor c. the self resists change d. both a and c e. people usually do not want to change their self-concept Answer: d. both a and c Explanation: It is difficult to change self-concept for two reasons. First, doing so takes continuous effort. Because the self is a process, it cannot be changed in a moment of decision. The second reason it is difficult to change is that the self resists change. Most humans tend to want a positive self image, but find it difficult to change. Which of the following are cognitive schemata that organize our thinking about people and situations? a. prototypes b. personal constructs c. stereotypes d. scripts e. all of the above Answer: e. all of the above Explanation: Prototypes are knowledge structures that define the clearest or most representative examples of some category. Personal constructs are â€*mental yardsticksâ€? we use to measure people and situations along bipolar dimensions of judgment. Stereotypes are predictive generalizations about people and situations. Scripts are guides to action based on our experiences and observations of interaction. What is the definition a. When people communicate positively about us and reflect positive appraisals of our self-worth. b. Comparing ourselves with others to form judgments of our own talents, abilities, qualities, and so forth. c. An active process of creating meaning by selecting, organizing, and interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and activities. d. The ability to feel with another person, to feel what she or he feels in a situation. e. Understanding both our own and another personâ€*s perspective, beliefs, thoughts, or feelings. Answer: d. The ability to feel with another person, to feel what she or he feels in a Explanation: Answer a. â€*when people communicate positively about us and reflect positive appraisals of our self-worthâ€? is the definition of uppers. Which of these is the correct order of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? (Most basic needs to higher needs) A. Safety & Protection, Physical, Belonging, Self Esteem and Self Actualization B. Physical needs, Safety and Protection, Belonging, Self Esteem and Self Actualization C. Physical, Safety & Protection, Belonging, Self Actualization, and Self Esteem D. Physical, Belonging, Safety & Protection, Self Esteem, Self Actualization The correct answer is B. A, C and D are in the wrong order. A _________________ is when caregivers are disinterested or rejecting. The individual begins to dismiss others as unworthy and view themselves positively. A. Fearful attachment style B. Secure attachment style C. Dismissive attachment style D. Anxious/ambivalent attachment style C is the correct answer. You and you're friends decide to go out to a popular pizza place. You sit down at a table and the waiter asks you what you would like. After you have all placed your orders, the waiter takes the menus, and walks away. What type of communication did you and you're friends display towards the waiter at the pizza parlor? a) I-you communication b) I-it communication c) I-thou communication Answer: I-it communication because you and you're friends treated the waiter very impersonally, almost as objects. The waiter was just a person you had to communicate with because he was the guy that was taking your order and he was an instrument that took you're order and was to deliver you're food. Stacy and Ken have been dating for almost six months. Stacy has noticed that Ken tends to drink heavily on occasions. One one occasion, they had gotten into an argument and Ken kicks her out of the apartment. The next day, Ken sends her flowers at work and tries to express his deepest apologies. He showers her with gifts and makes her dinner. She tells herself that it was her fault for nagging Ken about his drinking. She forgives him and takes him back. What type of attachment style does Stacy display in this situation? A) secure attachment style B) fearful attachment style C) anxious/ambivalent attachment style D) dismissive attachment syle Answer: anxious/ambivalent attachment style. Stacy thinks that it is her fault that Ken gets mad at her and kicks her out of the house. Since Ken's moods are so unpredictable due to his drinking, Stacy is confused and anxious at the same time and she believes the abuse was justifiable. Ronnie is a senior in high school. He is an exceptionally good student in all his classes except for one, Math. He has a big exam the next day so his tries his hardest and studies. He feels good after taking the test and is pretty confident that he will get the best grade out of all his classmates. When he gets his test back, he is dismayed that he got a "C". He tries to tell himself that maybe he rushed through the test and didn't check his answers over or that since the teacher knew that he was brighter than all the other students, maybe the teacher graded him more harshly. A friend next to him received a "C-". Ronnie looked over him and thought to himself " He probably didn't even study, he's so dumb". What type of interpretation is Ronnie displaying towards himself and his friend? A) prototype error B) standpoint theory C) self-serving bias D) implicit personality theory Answer: self-serving bias. Ronnie is in favor of himself and when he realizes how poorly he did on the test, he justifies it by saying that he was to quick to try to zoom through it or that since his teacher knew he was a lot brighter, maybe he expected different answers from him instead. He then criticized the other boy harshly by saying that maybe he didn't even study or that he was just plain stupid. He is also guilty of the fundamental attribution error.Source. The ability to adapt messages effectively to particular people. Which of the following does this definition refer to? a. self-image. b. person-centeredness. c. self-sabotage. d. self-esteem. Answer: b. is the correct answer because person centeredness is the ability to adapt messages effectively to particular people. P.45. Which style of attachment is the most ideal? a. fearful b. dismissive c. secure d. anxious/ambivalent A. c, because a secure attachment is one where the caregiver is consistent with love and attention to the child and in return the child gains a positive self-image and a positive image of others. Bob is unprepared for his presentation on Monday morning. He blames his wife for making him do projects around the house, and his children for distracting him. This would be an example of: A) An Attachment StylesB) Interpretation C) Perceptual Influence D) a Personal Construct E) Fundamental Attribution Error Answer: E) Fundamental Attribution Error A self-serving bias means: A. A person is prejudice B. Beliefs, values, and understandings C. Assuming we understand what another person thinks or perceives D. To favor our self and our interests Answer - D Central to competent interpersonal communication is the ability to engage in dual perspective. In this quote what does the phrase dual perspective consist of? a. Awareness of tendency to view things from own perspective, and resistance to the inclination. b. Listening to others expression of thoughts and feelings to gain clues of items of meaning and how the individual feels. c. Asking others to explain how they feel, what something means, how they view a situation. d. All of the above. answer is d. All of the above. In the textbook three guidelines are given to improve dual perspective in individuals and also clarify what using dual perspective A. a selective, systemic, unique, and ongoing process of interaction between individuals who reflect and build personal knowledge of one another and create shared meanings. B. the foundation of personal identity and growth. C. involves only intimate contexts. D. all of the above. E. A and B. *the correct answer is E. "A" and "B" are both correct answers. Whereas answer "C" is clearly wrong. Context does not distinguish interpersonal communication. the following is most likely to be an example of an I-It Communication? a)communication between two friends c)communication with a telephone solicitor Answer: c In I-It communication, we do not acknowledge the humanity of other persons. We don't have personal conversations in I-It communication. In case you're wondering, this is Lori's Question: Kevin wants to be accepted by a peer group in his kindergarten, so he tries to talk like the other kids in the group. Kevin's communication is an effort to meet a. self-actualization needs b. safety needs c. self-esteem needs d. belonging needs e. survival needs D Belonging needs because he is trying to be accepted and is acting like the other kids to do so. He wants to belong. Scott and Rosie stopped banking at Norwest Bank because they were tired of being treated like a number. Clerks always asked for their account number...or referred to them by their account number. This is an example of which type of relationship: 1) I - Thou 2) I - It 3) I - You 4) Interpersonal Answer: 2) According to Wood, in an I-It relationship, we treat others very impersonally, almost as objects. True or False: You have just asked me, "Do you want to discuss this?" In response, I only sigh. Both of our messages are examples of verbal codes. False: a sigh is a nonverbal code. a. understanding both our own and another person's perspectives beliefs, thoughts or feelings b. understanding your own perspectives beliefs, thoughts or feelings c. understanding others' perspectives beliefs, thoughts or feelings d. exactly the same as empathy that communication is a process means that a. what happens in dialogue is linked to past and future b. communication changes over time c. communication is irreversible d. A and B e. A, B, and C is not an I-it communication? A. Treat others impersonally B. We don't acknowledge the person as a human being C. Being treated as a number D. Highest form of human dialogue answer > D The reason for this is because the highest form of human dialogue is I-Thou relationships that are very rare and hard to come by because it is to hard to openly reveal ourselves to others. tells his son, "I don't care whether you like it or not, you are going to clean your room!" The content level of meaning in the father's communication a. the father has more power than his son b. the father wants the room cleaned c. the son has not cleaned his room in the past and his father has the authority to make him clean it! d. the father is responsive to his son's interests b is correct since the father only said clean it. The other meanings are inferences. the following is not a characteristic of a symbol a) their meaning is clear-cut and non ambiguous b) they are not concrete or tangible c) they are arbitrary d) they are either verbal or nonverbal of nonverbal communication is: a. telling someone that they look nice b. nodding your head when someone looks at you. c. when something tastes bad you say, yuck! d. using foul language toward others. I think that I am going to spill on a white shirt and I do, I have: a. fulfilled a self-fulfilling prophecy d. spoken to a psychic who told me I would a loss of information during a conversation between two people? a. message b. destination c. noise d. sender The answer is c. noise. Noise is anything that causes a loss of information as it flows from source to destination. Examples are, people walking by, the phone ringing, the listener moving hands around etc. In the magazine Cosmopolitan women are generally depicted as slender and young. What is this an example of? a. Constructed social views b. Differing social views c. Social definitions of Generalized Other. d. Changing social views answer is c. Social definitions. The textbook addresses social perspectives on the self are constructed and variable. Though answers a, b, and d could be possibly correct, answer is the most fulfilling answer because the Cosmopolitan is marketing on the assumption that women should be slender and young. This is a social definition. attachment style is: a. Promoted by caregivers who are disinterested, rejecting, or abusive toward children. b. Cultivated when the caregiver in the first bond communicates in negative, rejecting, or even abusive ways to the child. c. Fostered by inconsistent treatment from the caregiver. d. When the caregiver responds in a loving way to the child. The correct answer is C. A secure attachment style D. A dismissive attachment style is letter A, and fearful attachment style is letter B. Reference: pg. 52 and 53. style is one in which there is abuse, rejection, and neglect, but the child does not feel unloved? Answer: c Those who develop this style do not accept the caregiver's view of them as unlovable. Instead, they dismiss others as unworthy. p. 52 in text is negative towards Todd. She says he can't do anything right, that he'll never change, and she always points out his faults, never his strengths. Amber is 1) Upper 2) Downer 3) Eagle 4) none of the above Answer: 2) Wood says Downers are people who communicate negatively about us and our self worth. are a very smart girl," Tammy tells her daughter. Tammy's statement is an example of a. indirect definition b. direct definition c. identity script d. self-fulfilling prophecy e. downer a. the views of our family of origin b. the views of society as a whole c. the views of our peers in school d. a person with whom we have an I-It relationship e. none of the above a. purchased in an alley. b. a person who adds self worth. believe that basic identity scripts are formed by age: a) 1 b) 3 c) 5 d) 10 The correct answer is C. Most psychologists believe we have a large grasp on who we are and how we are supposed to life by age 5. sure how smart he is until his teacher in first grade tells him she thinks he is very bright. Danny later tells his parents, "I am a bright boy." The process by which Danny developed a view of his intelligence is a. indirect definition b. self-actualization c. script d. reflected appraisal e. social comparison attachment style means? A. When the caregiver responds in positive way like loving and caring. B. When the caregiver responds in a negative way like abusive or rejecting B, is the correct answer because in a fearful attachment the caregiver first bonds communicates in a negative and rejecting manner. a. define our roles b. are rules for living c. are an unconscious process of internalization d. all the above reflected appraisal refers to a) comparing ourselves with others b) judging others by their appearance c) reflecting the appraisals others make of us d) reflecting the appraisals of the media of rules, roles and attitudes endorsed by the whole social community in which a. reflected appraisal b. perspective of the generalized other c. ego boundaries A Secure Attachment "You're my little girl", is an example of: C. According to Wood, direct definition is communication that explicitly tells us who we are by labeling us and our behaviors. was born in Mexico and recently immigrated to America. You have known her for a short period of time and introduce her as your friend to some other acquaintances. The woman is embarrassed at this announcement because in Mexico friends are those who you have known closely for a period of time, not met recently. What influence of perception is this an example of? a. Physiology b. Age c. Culture d.Cognitive abilities The correct answer is c. Culture. The other answers don't have much to do with the woman's response to the situation. Her response was rooted in what she learned in Mexico, her culture. the following is a prototype? a. your expectation of how a friend will behave b. your idea about how you should interact with a friend c. your best friend Maria who exemplifies an ideal friend to you d. how a friend measures up on the dimension of intelligent-unintelligent e. the dictionary definition of friend As I walk in the room, I immediately focus my eyes on the bright yellow walls you have just painted. My immediately focusing upon the walls occurs in the __________ stage of perception: b. Organization c. Co-creation d. Interpretation Answer: A, he or she is looking at the wall, this is selecting it. all lazy, donut eating, power hungry people. This is an example of a: 1) Stereotype 2) Prejudice 3) Interpretation 4) Script Answer: 1) In chapter three , Wood explains that stereotypes are predictive generalizations about people and situations. late to class and doesn't make any contributions during discussion. Based on what you know, which of the following is (are) inferences about Jed? a. He was late getting to class. b. He hadn't read the assignment, so he couldn't contribute. c. Jed didn't contribute to class discussion. d. Class began before Jed arrived. e. Both B and C are inferences the following would be an example of a physiological factor that affects perception? a. Mental distractions such as thinking about your date tonight! b. A promiscuous orientation and lifestyle. c. An economic class of "middle class." d. A man who weighs ninety-seven pounds D-- that is the only one that is body-related (or physiological) a. highly flammable. b. the most respresentativel example of a thing. c. utilized by the armed forces. a. base your feelings about them from your own experiences b. talk to them and find out who they really are. c. approach them with an open mind d. ask others about that person to know more. to evaluate the values, beliefs, and behaviors of your own culture as more positive, logical and natural than other ones is: a. racism b. ethnocentrism c. discrimination d. receiving process has how many steps? a. 1 b. 2 c. 3 d. 0 Samples of Lori's Old Multiple Choice Questions Understand that these questions are just a sample of the type of questions I ask...each semester I stress different items, so I will clarify the content above on the review guide and in class...in other words, if you see a topic we did not cover (and you paid close attention in class, don't worry, it is probably something we didn't cover!) Concerning the Definition of Communication and General Communication Theory 1. I notice you looking at me and I blush, smile and then turn my head. According to the text I: a. Transmitted a message through a verbal code. b. Transmitted a message through a nonverbal code. c. Did not engage in communication since I did not have control over these bodily reactions. d. Was sending verbal and nonverbal messages. a. Try again, if I sent a verbal code, I would be using words. b. RIGHT! Nonverbal codes include all elements of communication that are not words, so this is a form of nonverbal communication; even if you did not intend to send the message, it is still considered communication. c. Try again, communication includes unintentional messages. d. Try again, no verbal messages were described here. 2. What is the definition of the transactional model of communication? a. One person sends a message, waits for a response and then another person receives it. b. Communicators simultaneously send and receive messages as co-participants. c. Communication does not include feedback in the encoding/decoding process. d. There are six people in every 2-person communication setting. a. Try again, this is a description of the action model of communication. b. Transaction is a simultaneous process where communicators are not seen as exclusively senders or receivers. c. Try again, this is not true, we are constantly giving feedback whether or not we intend to. d. Try again, this is Burdlund's "6 Persons Model" 3. You call me "cruel and vindictive." I tell you that you should take that back. You then smugly remind me that communication is a process. The fact that communication is a process means that: a. Communication is reversible so I will decide when and what "I will take back." b. Communication patterns rarely change so why bother. c. What happens in dialogue is linked to past and future, so you can not "take it back." d. Effective communication does not include an encoding process. a. Try again, communication is not reversible. b. Try again, patterns of communication do change! c. You can never take back communication, all communication is linked to the past interactions we have had and will be connected to how we communicate in the future. d. Try again, all communication is encoded and decoded, we are not always intentional in the process though. 4. Katy understands that communication is constant, that it is difficult to determine who is the sender and who is the receiver. She knows that a good communicator realizes that we encode and decode at the same time. Katy's thoughts about communication demonstrate which theory of communication: a. interaction b. transaction c. action d. proaction a. Try again, the interaction model is not a model that sees sender and receiver constantly encoding and decoding. b. Transaction does see the sender and receiver constantly encoding and decoding. c. Try again, the action model is not a model that sees sender and receiver constantly encoding and decoding. d. Try again, this is not a communication model. 5. The pitch of one's voice, the batting of one's eyelashes, one's posture, and eye contact are all examples of ______ codes of communication. (Nonverbal) Feedback: While verbal codes of communication are codes that follow grammatical structure, all other codes are considered nonverbal. 6. Words are ____________ codes. (Verbal) Feedback: Verbal codes are codes that follow grammatical structures. 7. Which of the following is not a form of nonverbal communication? a. You're crossing your arms when talking to me. b. Use of the space in your room. c. Your new engagement ring on your left hand. d. Clearing your throat. e. A trucker saying, "10-4." a. This is nonverbal b. This is nonverbal c. This is nonverbal d. This is nonverbal e. Yes! This is verbal; it follows a grammatical structure. It is a code used by a only a certain segment of the population, but a verbal code nonetheless. 8 . You have just asked me, "Do you want to discuss this?" In response, I only sigh. Both of our messages are examples of verbal codes. a. True b. False Your words are examples of verbal communication; my sigh is nonverbal communication. Verbal codes are those codes of communication consisting only of words and word Questions Concerning the "Self" at himself and evaluates himself as unworthy of such a wonderful girlfriend as Patrice. His evaluation of himself falls under which term: a. Self-awareness b. Self-esteem c. Egocentrism d. Self-actualization a. Self-awareness is being aware of who you are, knowing your talents and shortcomings. b. Yes! Self-esteem is your judgment of yourself. c. Egocentrism is a self-centered bias where you take as your own self as the starting point for your philosophical system. d. Self-actualization is not correct. is based in part upon how others see you. a. True b. False a. We receive many different types of feedback from others which helps to form our self-image and self esteem. b. Try again, we receive many different types of feedback from others which helps form our self-image and self esteem. See page 42 for more information. A self-fulfilling prophecy predetermines how you will "turn out" as an adult. a. True b. False a. Think about the definite sound of "predetermine." Life changes daily! Predetermine is too strong of a word; influence is about as far as you can argue this point. b. Correct! Life changes daily! Predetermine is too strong of a word; influence is about as far as you can argue this point. 1. You and I serve on a jury together. However, we see the actions of the accused very differently. I believe the accused acted in self-defense while you see it as calculated murder. Such differences in perceptions can be influenced by: a. Present feelings and circumstances. b. Past experiences and roles. c. Culture and co-culture. d. Age e. All of the above. a. While this is true, look more closely. b. While this is true, look more closely. c. While this is true, look more closely. d. Present feelings and circumstances, past experiences and roles, culture and CO-culture and age all contribute to perceiving stimuli differently. 2. As I walk in the room, I immediately focus my eyes on the bright yellow walls you have just painted. My immediately focusing upon the walls occurs in the __________ stage of perception: a. Selection b. Organization c. CO-creation d. Interpretation a. Selection is this process of tuning into some stimuli while not attending to others. b. Try again, organization is the second stage of perception. c. Try again, CO-creation is not a step in the process of perception. d. Try again, interpretation is the final stage of the process of perception. 3. I see a child alone by a busy street. I note her tattered clothes, disheveled appearance and dirty face and think to myself, "I have seen children like that before when I worked at the homeless shelter." After a moment, I finally say to my self, "Oh, she is a homeless child." When I draw a conclusion that she is homeless exemplifies the ________ stage of perception. a. Interpretation. b. Organization. c. Selection d. Polarity. a. The text explains that interpretation is this process of making a conclusion based upon what you have observed and organized. b. Organization is merely determining what category she fits in, it is not the final conclusion. c. Selection was just focusing on the child. d. This is not a step in the perception process. 4. I finally signed a lease for my first apartment! My older sister asks me to describe my new neighborhood. I tell her that all I can remember is that there is a mall very close by. When we move my furnishings into the apartment a month later, my sister says, "Why didn't you tell me that you were by a park, a lake and even a coffee shop! This is wonderful!" I say, "This is new to me. Really, I never even noticed the park, lake or coffee shop. I only saw the mall!" My focusing on the mall and not seeing the park, lake or coffee shop demonstrates which of the following: a. Selective retention b. Selective attention c. Selective interpretation d. Selective organization a. Selective retention is only remembering parts of a message. Since I never attended to these characteristics of the neighborhood, the answer could not be a. b. Selective attention is defined as only attending to parts of the whole. Since I attended to the mall and not the lake, park or coffee shop, I "selectively attended to the mall." c. Try again. d. Try again. 5. Stephen runs to the store to purchase a bottle of liquid plumber since there is a plumbing emergency at home! He quickly goes into the store and hastily picks up his Liquid Plumber and hurriedly runs home. Later, Stephen's girlfriend, LaTisha says, "Why didn't you wait for me when I saw you in the store yesterday! I yelled your name three times!" Stephen says, "Sorry, I had only one thing on my mind. I did not even notice you." Stephen's failure to notice his girlfriend when he was focusing on the liquid plumber is an example of: a. Selective retention b. Selective attention c. Selective interpretation d. Selective organization a. Selective retention is only remembering parts of a message. Since Stephen did not attend to his girlfriend, the answer can not be "a." b. Selective attention is when you see only parts of the whole. Since he saw only the liquid plumber, this is an example of selective attention. c. This is not part of selection. d. This is not part of selection. 6. Which of the following would be an example of a physiological factor that affects perception? a. Mental distractions such as thinking about your date tonight! b. A promiscuous orientation and lifestyle. c. An economic class of "middle class." d. A man who weighs ninety-seven pounds a. This is not physiological b. This is not physiological c. This is not physiological d. These are a physiological, or bodily distinctions. 7. When you remember how wonderful your last roommate was as a cook, but forget how she could not clean up after herself, you are exhibiting the perception concept called: a. Selective Retention c. Self-fulfilling prophecy d. Selective attention a. You are remembering only parts of the past; this is selective retention. b. You are not stereotyping, just remembering parts of the whole, try again. c. You are not engaged in a self-fulfilling prophecy. d. This is not a matter of only initially attending to his or her cooking style and not the messy lifestyle; it is a matter of remembering only part of the picture. 9.You see a young woman run into the store, grab a box of baby food and run out of the store without paying. Which of the following statements is/are (an) observations? a. The woman is a mother. b. The woman did not pay for the baby food. c. The woman was desperate. d. The woman's child was hungry. e. All of the above are observations. a. We do not know this by reading this description, this is not an observation, and it is an inference. b. This is an observation, we did "see" this. c. We do not know this by reading this description, this is not an observation, and it is an inference. d. We do not know this by reading this description, this is not an observation, and it is an inference.

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Croppies Grave, Graiguecullen The Croppies Grave at ‘98 Street, Graiguecullen is the last resting place for more than 600 United Irishmen who died in action in the early morning of 25th May 1798. The United Irishmen were betrayed by one of their leaders and fell into a well planned ambush. They were mowed down by shot and shell or smoked out of their plans of refuge and butchered like hunted animals. The memory of the United Irishmen is honoured by the ‘98 Street Monument. The wall and railings of the grave were paid for with funds raised by the GAA. The memorial slab is the gift of an Orangeman, Rowan The inscription on the slab reads: “To the memory of 640 United Irishmen who fell in Tullow Street on May 25th 1798.” The fighting in Graigue-Carlow in 1798 was perhaps of less strategic importance than in any other part of Leinster, but the massacre of 25th May was always cited as a characteristic example of the savage an unrelenting manner in which the king’s troops upheld the authority of the As in other parts of Ireland in 1798, the unabated series of Government abuses and the revolting practices of the Orange Order had, months before the outbreak, sowed the seeds of discontent in the minds of the Catholics. The cause of the Catholics was spearheaded by Sir Edward Crosbie, a member of the Established Church and owner of the large estate of Viewmount, about two miles outside Carlow town. However the attack on the United Irishmen was planned on this very estate by the On the 24th of May, the United Irishmen of the neighbourhood gathered at the appointed meeting place at Viewmount. By evening a force of about 1,195 men had assembled, including the following corps; 500 pike men from Ballon, Rathoe and Rathvilly, under Captain Jam Roche; 200 from Kellistown, Chaplestown and Ballinacarrig, and John Murphy and 275 pike men from Bennekerry, Rutland, Johnstown, Killerig and Pollerton, under Captain Nolan. An auxiliary corps of 200 ‘‘gunmen” under Captain William Murphy and Myles Doran, were assembled at Ballickmoyler with the object of joining in operations. The Queen’s County Corps were to march against the town first and having arrived at Graigue, on their own side of the Barrow, they were to fire three successive volleys as a signal for their brethren. Then the body at Viewmount would go into action, starting by the Staplestown route and entering at a thoroughfare called A few days before the outbreak, a turncoat named James Keogh, also called “Yellow Jim”, who had won the confidence of the Rebels by his loud denunciation of the Orangemen, and by various other devices, secretly informed the British Commander of the frill details of the conspiracy. With the greatest secrecy, the King’s troops stationed in Carlow’ were now instructed, not alone to repel the intended attach but also if possible, to annihilate the attacking body. “Dame the Croppies and no quarter” was the order of the day. At the approach of dusk on May 24th, the King’s troops quietly took up positions assigned to them; ‘A’ Squadron of the 9th Dragoons posted themselves on Hanover Bridge, while Graigue Bridge was occupied by a strong Corps of Yeomen. Two Companies of the North Cork Militia extended from Bridewell Lane to Burrin Street and Potato Market and another Squadron of the Dragoons were stationed at Coal Market. A strong detachment of Durham Fencibles were in the old graveyard of St. Mary’s on Castle Hill, the most commanding vantage point. Most of the houses in Barrack Street and Tullow Street, through which the attacking forces were expected to pass, were taken possession of by Yeomen Infantry. The Ballickmoyler auxiliaries started for their destination at the appointed time, but on arriving at Graigue Bridge, learned that the Bridge was occupied by the military. They decided to retreat. The insurgents at Viewmount waited impatiently for the agreed signal and none being heard, the Commander - in - Chief, Captain Roche, finally set his forces in motion, hoping to capture the town without outside aid. Day was dawning when the insurgents reached Tullow Street. Not a sound issued from the grey, closed-up buildings of Tullow Street, not a soul appeared to be stirring within. Then suddenly, the window shutters on all sides flew open and a fearful volley of shot brought down 50 United Irishmen. From every house and every roof-top the shot and shell rained down upon the assailants. The United Irishmen panicked and in their rush for shelter, they plunged headlong into an ambush in Barrack Street. There they were caught by another murderous crossfire, which brought down whole ranks at a time, including every leader of importance. This final blast completed the rout. The rebels, who had so far escaped death, threw away their weapons and dashed into the houses around hoping to find security. appeared in 'Fiacc's Folk' Parish Magazine in the 1997/98 edition. The article is unsigned. At a meeting of the Carlow Gaelic Atheltic Club on Tuesday, June 18,1889, the subject of the "Croppy Hole" and its "neglected and discreditable state, exposed to desecration of every kind" was discussed. It was resolved to co-operate with Carlow-Graigue Gaelic Club in raising funds to enclose the ground and erect a suitable memorial. On Sunday, November 24,1889 a meeting was held in The Hall, Henry Street, Graigue at which Fr. Daniel Byrne, P.P. Carlow-Graigue presided. After the meeting the gathering left the hall and marched to the Fair Green and formed a circle around the ground to be enclosed where Father Byrne turned the first sod to inaugurate the undertaking. Source: Carloviana 1989/90 No.37. Page 8. Croppies' Grave Tradition Newspaper-cutting in the PPP. Letter to Nationalist and Leinster Times. Transcribed by M. Purcell 2013 Regarding the statement that the three trees, which stand at the "Croppies' Grave" were planted by Rowan McCombe, a sympathising Orangeman, there is in Graiguecullen a well-authenticated tradition that these trees were planted by Mrs Peggy Mullery (nee Delaney), who was born in '98 Street, and lived in a small thatched house opposite the "Croppies' Grave". It is said that she planted the trees with a spoon when she was a young girl of fourteen or so. She was well over ninety when she died. Her grave is in Sleaty. She often prayed for and talked of "the poor fellows" who were buried in the grave. She used to tell that , when the bodies of the Croppies' were being brought past what is now Dan Brennan's forge, one of the Croppies' who was only apparently wounded escaped into Caseberry's yard (at present owned by James Lawlor) and eventually made his way home. Mrs Mullery is remembered by several people in Graiguecullen. It was the late Father Dan Byrne P.P. Graiguecullen who organised the movement which transfigured the "Croppies' Hole" containing the remains of over 600 United Irishmen from being a neglected sandpit. It was the late Patrick McDarby, who made the railings. (signed) Liam de Fuitne, Sleaty Street, Graiguecullen. Crossing Graiguecullen Bridge at Easter 1966, to join in the Commemoration Ceremony at the Croppy Grave. It was one of the biggest parades ever in Crossing Graiguecullen Bridge at Old IRA 1966 The information on this web site is for personal use only, and under no circumstances is it to be used/copied for commercial purposes by Professional Researchers. Neither can it be used for the purpose of gain from any person and/or organisation. © 2001 Ireland Genealogy Projects, By Pre-emptive Copyright - All rights reserved

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Forty kilometres west of Yogya, surrounded on three sides by volcanoes and on the fourth by jagged limestone cliffs, is the largest Buddhist monument in the southern hemisphere. This is the temple of Borobudur, the greatest single piece of classical architecture in the entire archipelago. The temple is actually a colossal multi-tiered Buddhist stupa lying at the western end of a four-kilometre-long chain of temples (one of which, the nearby Candi Mendut, is also worth visiting), built in the ninth century by the Saliendra dynasty. At 34.5m tall, however, and covering an area of some 200 square metres, Borobudur is on a different scale altogether, dwarfing all the other candi in the chain. Abandoned and neglected for almost a thousand years, Borobudur was “rediscovered” by the English in 1815, though nothing much was done until 1973, when UNESCO began to take the temple apart, block by block, in order to replace the waterlogged hill with a concrete substitute. Borobudur is pregnant with symbolism, and precisely oriented so that its four sides face the four points of the compass; the ticket office lies to the southeast.Read More Unlike most temples, Borobudur was not built as a dwelling for the gods, but rather as a representation of the Buddhist cosmic mountain, Meru. Accordingly, at the base is the real, earthly world, a world of desires and passions, and at the summit is nirvana. Thus, as you make your way around the temple passages and slowly spiral to the summit, you are symbolically following the path to enlightenment. The first five levels – the square terraces – are covered with three thousand reliefs representing man’s earthly existence. As you might expect, the lowest, subterranean level has carvings depicting the basest desires, best seen at the southeast corner. The reliefs on the first four levels above ground cover the beginning of man’s path to enlightenment. Each of the ten series (one on each level on the outer wall and one on the inner wall) tells a story, beginning by the eastern stairway and continuing clockwise. Follow all the stories, and you will have circled the temple ten times – a distance of almost 5km. Buddha’s own path to enlightenment is told in the upper panels on the inner wall of the first gallery. As you enter the fifth level, the walls fall away to reveal a breathtaking view of the surrounding fields and volcanoes. You are now in the Sphere of Formlessness, the realm of enlightenment: below is the chaos of the world, above is nirvana, represented by a huge empty stupa almost 10m in diameter. Surrounding this stupa are 72 smaller ones, most of which are occupied by statues of Buddha. Originally Borobudur was part of a chain of four temples joined by a sacred path. Two of the other three temples have been restored and at least one, Candi Mendut, 3km east of Borobudur, is worth visiting. Buses between Yogya and Borobudur drive right past Mendut (Rp5000 from Yogya, 1hr 20min; Rp1000 from Borobudur, 10min). Built in 800 AD, Mendut was restored at the end of the nineteenth century. The exterior is unremarkable, but the three giant statues sitting inside – of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and Vajrapani – are exquisitely carved and startling in their intricacy.

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New Mexico fire threatens Los Alamos lab siteWednesday 29 June 2011 09.37 A wildfire in the US state of New Mexico has moved closer to the Los Alamos laboratory and thousands of outdoor drums of plutonium-contaminated waste. Authorities have stepped up efforts to protect the site where the first atomic bomb was built and monitor the air for radiation. Officials at the nuclear weapons lab have given assurances that dangerous materials are safely stored. They also said they are capable of withstanding flames from the 93sq/km fire, which as of yesterday afternoon was as close as 15m from the grounds. A small patch of land on the laboratory grounds caught fire on Monday but firefighters quickly put it out. Teams are on high alert to pounce on any new blazes and spent yesterday removing brush and low-hanging tree limbs from the lab's perimeter. 'We are throwing absolutely everything at this that we got,' Democratic Senator Tom Udall said in Los Alamos. The fire has forced the evacuation of the entire city of Los Alamos, with a population 11,000, and cast giant plumes of smoke over the region. It has raised fears among nuclear watchdogs that it will reach as many as 30,000 208-litre drums of plutonium-contaminated waste. 'The concern is that these drums will get so hot that they'll burst. That would put this toxic material into the plume. It's a concern for everybody,' said Joni Arends, executive director of the Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, an anti-nuclear group. Lab officials said there is very little risk of the fire reaching the drums of low-level nuclear waste, since the flames would have to jump through canyons first. Officials also stand ready to coat the drums with fire-resistant foam if the blaze gets too close. Lab spokeswoman Lisa Rosendorf said the drums contain Cold War-era waste that the lab sends away in weekly shipments for storage. She said the drums were on a paved area with few trees nearby. As of midday local time yesterday, the flames were about 3km away from the material.

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Forrest, Nathan Bedford Born: Jul 13, 1821 AD Died: 1877 AD, at 56 years of age. 1821 - Born on July 13th in Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Confederate cavalry general in the American Civil War. 1845 - Married to Mary Ann Montgomery on April 25th. 1859 - He was in turn a horse and cattle trader in Mississippi, and a slave dealer and horse trader in Memphis, when he took to cotton planting in northwestern Mississippi, where he acquired considerable wealth. 1861-1862 - At the outbreak of the Civil War he volunteered as a private, raised a cavalry battalion, of which he was Lt. Colonel, and in February took part in the defense of Fort Donelson, and refusing, like Generals Floyd and Pillow, to capitulate with the rest of the Confederate forces, made his way out, before the surrender, with all the mounted troops there. 1863 - He was present at the battle of Chickamauga in September, after which (largely on account of his criticism of General Bragg, the army commander) he was transferred to the Mississippi. - Forrest was made a major-general in December. 1864 - On the 12th of April, he assaulted and captured Fort Pillow, in Tennessee on the Mississippi; U.S. negro troops formed a large part of the garrison and according to survivors many were massacred after the fort had surrendered. 1865 - In February, he was made a Lt. General, but the struggle was almost at an end and General James H. Wilson, one of the ablest of the Union cavalry generals, rapidly forced back the few Confederates, now under Forrest's command, and stormed Selma, Alabama, on the 2nd of April. 1867 - After the war he lived in Memphis. He sold his cotton plantation, and for some years was president of the Selma, Marion and Memphis Railroad. - Forrest was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. 1877 - Died on Ocotber 29th in Memphis, Tennessee from diabetes complications. Page last updated: 11:19pm, 29th Mar '07

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Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, better known as ADHD, usually shows up in childhood. But many adults don't know they have it. It's often an explanation of why their own children act out or can't focus. Is your child having a hard time paying attention in school? Can they focus at home? If the answer is no, it may not be their fault. It may be ADHD. Five-year-old Dawson Thomas has a hard time focusing, can't sit still and leaves things half done. They're symptoms that describe ADHD and his dad. "Doesn't focus, doesn't pay attention in class, disrupts and that's sort of an ADHD report card," father David Thomas said. Thomas says that's what he experienced growing up and got labeled as a bad kid. "The big thing when I was a kid, everyone also said he needs to focus and he needs to pay attention in class. Well, I couldn't. It wasn't I didn't want to, I didn't want to be in trouble. I couldn't sit there for an hour," Thomas said. It wasn't until 10 years ago, he realized his problems had a name. When he started noticing his son acting the same he did, he questioned whether he too had ADHD. "Oh, I knew right away," Thomas said. "It's very strongly genetically inherited so we do see siblings having ADHD. We see parents describing having the same difficulties when they were in school," Sanford Children Psychologist Dr. David Ermer said. Thomas is taking medication to treat the disorder; his son is not. "To the degree that they need that, is to the degree that we try to help them. But you know you need to teach kids how to live with it anyway," Thomas said. "I think you really need to look at, is it interfering with their functioning? Are other kids avoiding them socially? Are they getting in trouble constantly at school? If it is a problem, then it's worth looking in to," Ermer said. Thomas says he doesn't look at ADHD as a disorder. He considers it a gift. "I can't stand to sit still very long or to stay on one subject very long and he doesn't like to either, so if we're together, we're running around and we jump in the car. We go do this and we're all happy because we're always moving," Thomas said.

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Print version ISSN 0103-9016 Sci. agric. vol. 54 n. 1-2 Piracicaba Jan./Aug. 1997 FLIGHT RANGE OF AFRICANIZED HONEYBEES, Apis mellifera L. 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) IN AN APPLE GROVE B.A.J. PARANHOS1; J.M.M. WALDER2; J. CHAUD NETO1 1Instituto de Biociências, UNESP, C.P. 199, CEP: 13506-900 - Rio Claro, S.P. 2Centro de Energia Nuclear na Agricultura-USP, C.P. 96, CEP: 13400-970 - Piracicaba, S.P. SUMMARY: Africanized honeybees from five colonies were marked with P-32 and taken to an apple grove for a flight behavior study. The method used to determine the flight range was to put out an array of tagged trees in a cross pattern with the colonies arranged in the center point of a 0.8 ha test area. The tagged trees were located 10 meters apart in the 4 rows of 50 meters each, arranged according to the North, South, East, and West directions. Bees were collected while visiting the tagged tree flowers twice a day, during a ten-day period. The number of honeybees marked decreased in relation to the distance from the hives. Analysis of variance showed that a linear regression was highly significant to describe the process. Geographic directions did not affect the activity of the bees. Key Words: honeybees, flight range, radiophosphorus RAIO DE VÔO DE ABELHAS AFRICANIZADAS Apis mellifera L. 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) EM POMAR DE MAÇÃ RESUMO: O estudo do raio de ação das abelhas na coleta de néctar e pólen é de extrema importância para se saber até que distância a polinização por este inseto é promovida com eficiência. Para tanto, cinco colônias de abelhas africanizadas marcadas com 32P foram levadas a um pomar de maçã, sendo agrupadas no centro de uma área de 0,8 ha, a partir do qual foram colocadas estacas a cada 10m, formando quatro alas correspondentes às direções Norte, Sul, Leste e Oeste. As abelhas foram capturadas duas vezes por dia e por dez dias consecutivos, quando visitavam as flores das macieiras, até 50m do centro. Verificou-se que o número de abelhas marcadas coletadas, diminuiu linearmente à medida em que as mesmas se afastavam das colméias. Não houve interferência das orientações geográficas no comportamento de vôo das abelhas. Descritores: abelhas, raio de vôo, radiofósforo. Bees are among the most important beneficial insects due to honey production and flower pollination. Studies by Brittain (1933) showed that the bee visits decrease, the further the colony is from the plant. But, according to Free (1960) the scope area of a colony depends on factors such as: amount of available pollen and nectar per unit area; different species attractiveness and cultivars present; climate conditions; and physical characteristics of the site. That author recommends that the beehives should be placed as close to blossom as possible in order to obtain a higher number of visits. According to the observations of Krezdorn (1972), for hives located 150 to 200 m apart, the bee flight foragers can be doubled. Benedek et al. (1972) studying the influence of bees on apple pollination, using screened and non screened branches at different distances (20, 60, 150, 300 and 600 m) from hives, observed a higher number of fruits on non screened branches, but decreasing in number according to the higher distances. The covered branches yielded less but heavier fruits. While working with radio-labeled bees in different environments Amaral (1972) and Pacheco (1982) observed a similar decrease in flight activity up to 100m distance. Also, according to Waller (1980) bees may travel several miles for foraging, but the probability of a visit to certain crops decreases as the distance from the apiary increases. By placing beehives at 100 and 900m from an alfalfa crop Kozin & Reznitskii (1980) reported a production twice as high as in the closer site. Farkas (1981) obtained higher cherry yield when honeybees hives were at 50 m than when 105 m from the orchard. The author also estimated losses of 1.2 kg of cherry yield for each 14 m from the hives. Orlowski et al. (1982) studying cabbage pollination by honeybees observed a decrease in production related to the distance of the apiary from the cabbage field. A yield of 1920 kg/ha of cabbages was obtained for crops 20 m away from the hives, and those 1700 m the production was 1270 kg/ha. Jankovic & Kulincevic (1985) observing the effects of bees on crop production and fruit quality in a pear grove, found that the production was higher when the beehives were located 50 to 100 m from the trees but, for higher distances, the production decreased. Mijacika & Konstantinivic (1986) testing the effect of the hive distances (5 to 440 m) from an apple orchard on flower pollination, observed that the fertilization index, fruit establishment, seed numbers per fruit and fruit production were all adversely affected by distance from hives. Similar results were found by Garcia (1987) who observed high pollination efficiency in trees located no more than 125 m from the hives. Ferrari (1990) also observed the preference of bees to forage trees located 90 to 150 m from hives. MATERIAL AND METHODS Five hives, of about 35,000 bees each, were labeled using a Boardman feeder with radioactive phosphorus in a 50% w/v sugar solution. Each hive received 300 mL of the syrup with 2.5 mCi/mL of 32P (Sodium phosphate monoacid). The radioactive syrup was completely consumed by the bees within 48 hours and, thereafter, the hives were taken to the blossomed orchard of apple cv "Anna". Inside the grove, a 100 m diameter circle area (0,8ha) was chosen as the experimental site. The tagged trees were located 10 m apart in 4 rows of 50 m each, arranged according to North / South and East / West directions. Wide opening glass containers with ether soaked filter paper inside were used to collect the bees during a 5 minutes period while visiting the tagged tree flowers two times a day. This pattern was repeated during 10 consecutive days. In the laboratory the labeled insects were separated from the not labeled through the measurement of radioactivity, as counts per minute less background, using the Cerenkov effect in a liquid scintillation spectrometer (Beckman LS 230). The experimental design was a split plot experiment, plots being the directions (4), sub-plots the distances (5) with 20 replications (2 collections per day during 10 days period) and the variables were the labeled and wild bees captured. Bee capture data were transformed (square root of x + 0.5) for the analysis of variance (ANOVA). Once significant, the capture data were analyzed using polynomial regression (SAS, 1990). Correlation between bee capture and distance or directions was examined by Pearson correlation matrix (SYSTAT). RESULTS AN DISCUSSION The analysis of variance indicated a significant statistical difference between the number of marked bees collected at the chosen distances (F = 7.22**; P >0.001). On the other hand, the factor direction was not significant, indicating that the bees had no preferential direction. The distribution of the radio-marked bees within the experimental area fits in a linear model (F = 26.55*). The calculated equation is: Yi = 51.47 - 0.477 Xi (r2 = 0.62), where Y is the mean number of bees captured and X is the distance from the hives. These results are in agreement with those reported by Brittain (1933), Amaral (1972), Benedek et al. (1972), Farkas (1981), Pacheco (1982) and Mijacika & Konstantinovic (1986). For a broader view of the relationship between marked bees (32P) and wild bees, a correlation matrix of Pearson type was constructed (TABLE 1). The analysis presented in TABLE 1 reveals an inverse response for (32P) bees and wild bees, indicating that as the distance increases, the number of marked bees decreases, while that of wild bees increases (Figure 1). No significant correlation occurred between geographic directions and bee capture data, suggesting a random flowers bee visit (Figure 2). This was expected since the wild bees had to come from close apiaries, and the longest distance flown by the marked bees was the shorter for the wild bees in the studied site. Figure 1 - Marked and wild bees captured on flowers as a function of proximity to apiary. Figure 2 - Distribution of honeybees in North, South, East and West direction. Bees prefer to collect nectar and pollen from flowers closer to their hives and their activity decreases following a linear model. There was no preference of the bees concerning the North, South, East or West directions. AMARAL, E. Polinização entomórfica de Coffea arabica L., raio de ação e coleta de polem pela Apis mellifera L. 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae) em cafezal florido. Piracicaba, 1972. 82p. (Tese de Livre Docência - Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz", Universidade de São Paulo). [ Links ] BENEDECK, P. MARTINOVICH, V.; DÉVAI, G. Experiments on pollination by honeybees in apple orchards. Kergayzdasag, Budapest, v.4, n.4, p.51-58, 1972. [ Links ] BRITTAIN, W.H. Field studies in the role insects in apple pollination. Bulletin of Agricultural Canada, Ottawa, n.182, p.91-157, 1933. [ Links ] FARKAS, J. Honneybee pollination in sour plantations. Kertgazdasaq, Budapest, n.3, p.15-29, 1981. FERRARI, T.E. "Enpollination" of honey bees with pre-collected pollen improves pollination of almond flowers. American Bee Journal, v.130, p.12, 801, 1990. [ Links ] FREE, J.B. The pollinators of fruit trees, Bee World, Bucks, v.41, n.6, p.141-151, 1960. [ Links ] GARCIA, J.B.R. La apicultura orientada a la polinizacion frutal. Hojas Divulgadoras, v.11, p.27, 1987. [ Links ] JANKOVIC, D.; KULINCEVIC, J. Studies on the effect of honey-bees on the fertility quality of starking apple and bartlett pears. Nauka u Praksi, v.15, n.1, p.37-42, 1985. [ Links ] KOZIN, R.B.; REZNITSKII, E.I. Use of honeybees in the pollination of lucerne. Doklady Vsesoyuznoi Akademii Selskokhoz yaistvennykh Naukim V. I. Lenina, n.4, p.31-32, 1980. [ Links ] KREZDORN, A.H. Pollination requirements of citrus. Citrus Industry, v.53, n.4, p.5-7, Apr. 1972. [ Links ] MIJACIKA, M.; KONSTANTINOVIC, B. Effect of the distance from lives on the pollination of apple varieties. Iugoslovenko Vocarstvo, v.20, n.12, p.499-504, 1986. [ Links ] ORLOWSKI, M.; PRABUCKI, J.; STRYCHARCZ, I. Economic effects of using honeybees in the production of cabbage seed. In: ZAPYLANIE ROSLILN WARZYLVNYCH SEMINARIUM, 3., Skierniewice, Instytut Warzywnictuwa, 1982, p.135-53. [ Links ] PACHECO, I.A. Polinização de Eucalyptus saligna S. (Myrtaceae) por Apis mellifera L. 1758 (Hymenoptera: Apidae). Piracicaba, 1982. 87p. (Dissertação)- Escola Superior de Agricultura "Luiz de Queiroz", Universidade de São Paulo). [ Links ] SAS Institute. SAS/STAT: User's guide-version 6. 4ed. Cary: SAS, 1990. [ Links ] WALLER, G.D. Managing colonies for crop pollination. In: MARETIN. E.C. Beekeeping in the United States. Washington: USDA, 1980. p.73-77. (Agriculture handbook, 335). [ Links ] Recebido para publicação em 30.01.96 Aceito para publicação em 09.12.96

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Sea otters are known as a keystone species, filling such an important niche in ocean communities that without them, entire ecosystems can collapse. Scientists are finding, however, that sea otters can have even farther-reaching effects that extend to terrestrial communities and alter the behavior of another top predator: the bald eagle. In nearshore marine communities, towering kelp can reach heights of 250 feet and function much like trees in a forest, providing food, homes and protection for fish and invertebrates. The most important enemies of these giant algae are tiny sea urchins, only inches in diameter, which live on the kelp's holdfasts and eat its tissue. When urchin populations become too large, they can defoliate entire kelp forests, leaving only barren remains. Enter the sea otter. Otters can eat the spiky urchins whole, making them the major urchin predator. The otters' presence keeps urchin populations in check and maintains the balance of the ecosystem. Scientists have known about these kelp forest community interactions since the 1970s. But in the October issue of the journal Ecology, Robert Anthony and colleagues report that the presence or absence of otters can also affect the diet of bald eagles, a neighboring terrestrial predator. Anthony is an ecologist with the Oregon Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit of the U.S. Geological Survey and Oregon State University. Bald eagles live in high densities along the Aleutian archipelago off the coast of Alaska and place their nests on islets, coastal cliffs and shoreline sea stacks. Historically, more than 90 percent of the eagles' food comes from the ocean. Sea otters once also occupied a large range of coastal marine environments near these islands, but in recent years, otter populations have declined in response to their own main predator. "All of the available data point to increased numbers of killer whales as the direct cause of the sea otter decline in southwest Alaska," says coauthor Jim Estes of the U.S.G.S. and the University of California at Santa Cruz. "The otter decline has caused a phase shift in the coastal ecosystem from a kelp dominated phase state to a deforested phase state." This shift means many fewer kelp forest fish for the eagles to eat. In response, the eagles have adjusted their foraging tactics. Anthony and his colleagues surveyed remains of bald eagle prey in their nests during 1993 and 1994, when otters were abundant and the kelp forests were healthy, and in 2000, 2001 and 2002, when otters were scarce and the kelp forests had collapsed. They found that when otters were abundant, eagle prey consisted of predominantly kelp-forest fish and sea otter pups. When the otters were rare, however, the proportion of marine birds in the eagles' diet was much higher. Anthony explains that because the eagles defend territories in dense patches along the coastline and there are few terrestrial animals to eat, they must be flexible in what they hunt. "These bald eagles are opportunistic foragers as a consequence of their evolutionary history," he says. "They've developed foraging territories they defend against members of the same species along these coastlines, and the terrestrial environment provides very little for them. So they forage over the open water." Anthony and his colleagues also found that the eagles had more young on average during 2000-2002, a fact that Anthony believes might be a result of a high caloric content in the eagles' increasingly seabird-dominated diet. "Across the range of this species, their diet can be quite varied, but here it appears as though the change in diet had either a neutral or positive effect," he says. The propensity of the eagles to adapt quickly to a changing environment may have allowed them to flourish, but Anthony also cautions that adapting to this scenario might be difficult for more specialized predators. The results are the first to show that the presence or absence of otters influences a terrestrial animal, and that the complex food web linkages can reach as far as five different food chain levels: from sea otters to sea urchins, kelp, marine fish and finally bald eagles. "Top-down linkages can be very distant from their origin," says Anthony. "The effects of top predators can ripple throughout the ecosystem in ways we're just beginning to understand." Cite This Page:

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African forest elephants are being poached out of existence. A study just published in the online journal PLOS ONE and supported in part by San Diego Zoo Global shows that a staggering 62% of all forest elephants have been killed across their range in central Africa, for their ivory over the past decade. The severe decline indicates what researchers fear is the imminent extinction of this species. "Saving the species requires a coordinated global effort in the countries where elephants occur, all along the ivory smuggling routes and at the final destination in the Far East. We don't have much time," say Wildlife Conservation Society conservationists Fiona Maisels, PhD, and Samantha Strindberg, PhD, the lead authors. The study -- the largest ever conducted on the African forest elephant -- includes the work of more than 60 scientists between 2002 and 2011, and an immense effort by national conservation staff who spent a combined 91,600 days surveying elephants in 5 countries (Cameroon, Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon and the Republic of Congo), walking over 13,000 kilometers (more than 8,000 miles) and recording over 11,000 elephant dung piles for the analysis. The paper also shows that almost a third of the land where African forest elephants were able to live 10 years ago has become too dangerous for them. Results show clearly that forest elephants were increasingly uncommon in places with high human density, high infrastructure density such as roads, high hunting intensity, and poor governance as indicated by levels of corruption and absence of law enforcement. Bethan Morgan, PhD, head of San Diego Zoo Global's Central Africa Program, stressed the importance of this study. "This is the largest collaborative study of its kind across the whole of Central Africa and really highlights the plight of this ecologically important species. Forest elephants are integral to a functioning forest in Africa, opening up the forest floor and acting as a vital part of the life cycle of many plant species through their role as seed dispersers. We have increasing evidence of a decline in certain tree species as a result of the local extinction of forest elephants." Distinct from the African savanna elephant, the African forest elephant is slightly smaller than its better-known relative and is considered by many to be a separate species. Research carried out by the CITES-MIKE program has shown that the increase in poaching levels across Africa since 2006 is strongly correlated with trends in consumer demand in the Far East and that poaching levels are also strongly linked with governance at the national level and poverty at the local level. This has resulted in escalating elephant massacres in areas previously thought to be safe. - Fiona Maisels, Samantha Strindberg, Stephen Blake, George Wittemyer, John Hart, Elizabeth A. Williamson, Rostand Aba’a, Gaspard Abitsi, Ruffin D. Ambahe, Fidèl Amsini, Parfait C. Bakabana, Thurston Cleveland Hicks, Rosine E. Bayogo, Martha Bechem, Rene L. Beyers, Anicet N. Bezangoye, Patrick Boundja, Nicolas Bout, Marc Ella Akou, Lambert Bene Bene, Bernard Fosso, Elizabeth Greengrass, Falk Grossmann, Clement Ikamba-Nkulu, Omari Ilambu, Bila-Isia Inogwabini, Fortune Iyenguet, Franck Kiminou, Max Kokangoye, Deo Kujirakwinja, Stephanie Latour, Innocent Liengola, Quevain Mackaya, Jacob Madidi, Bola Madzoke, Calixte Makoumbou, Guy-Aimé Malanda, Richard Malonga, Olivier Mbani, Valentin A. Mbendzo, Edgar Ambassa, Albert Ekinde, Yves Mihindou, Bethan J. Morgan, Prosper Motsaba, Gabin Moukala, Anselme Mounguengui, Brice S. Mowawa, Christian Ndzai, Stuart Nixon, Pele Nkumu, Fabian Nzolani, Lilian Pintea, Andrew Plumptre, Hugo Rainey, Bruno Bokoto de Semboli, Adeline Serckx, Emma Stokes, Andrea Turkalo, Hilde Vanleeuwe, Ashley Vosper, Ymke Warren. Devastating Decline of Forest Elephants in Central Africa. PLoS ONE, 2013; 8 (3): e59469 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059469 Cite This Page:

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Baylor University researchers, in collaboration with an international team of scientists, have discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island, Kenya. The groundbreaking discovery provides additional information that will help scientists understand and interpret the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage. Their research findings -- published this month in Nature Communications -- demonstrate that Proconsul and its primate relative Dendropithecus inhabited "a widespread, dense, multistoried, closed canopy" forest. Daniel Peppe, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in Baylor's College of Arts and Sciences, said that previous work on the fossil sites on Rusinga Island suggested a variety of contradictory environmental preferences for Proconsul and that none of the previous work could definitively tie Proconsul to a specific habitat. "Our research findings provide direct evidence and confirm where the early ape lived about 18 to 20 million years ago," Peppe said. "We now know that Proconsul lived in a closed-canopy, tropical seasonal forest set in a warm and relatively wet local climate." Lauren Michel, lead author of the study and a doctoral student in the geology department at Baylor, was among the team of international researchers who found fossils of a single individual of Proconsul among geological deposits that also contained tree stump casts, calcified roots and fossil leaves. This discovery "underscores the importance of forested environments in the evolution of early apes," Peppe said. "While excavating one of the major fossil sites on Rusinga Island, our team found four teeth from Proconsul amid an expansive fossil forest system," Michel said. "Ultimately, we were able to find 29 tree stump casts and unearth root casts in the same horizon as the fossil teeth." "The varying diameters of the tree stumps coupled with their density within the fossil soil, implies that the forest would have [comprised] trees with interlocking or overlapping branches, thus creating a canopy," Michel said. Also, further evidence from the excavation site has shown that the landscape was "stable for decades to a few hundred years while the forest grew," Michel added. Adding to the novelty of the research teams' findings is how all of forest artifacts were contained in one layer or strata. "What is spectacular about this discovery is that all of these individual elements--tree stumps, leaves, roots, animals--are tied together in a single stratigraphic interval. This gives us tremendous resolution in reconstructing the specific environment inhabited by one of our early ape ancestors," said Kieran P. McNulty, Ph.D., co-director of research on Rusinga Island and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Minnesota. Researchers were also able to determine the climate for the fossil forest. "Evidence from the forest fossil soil suggests that the precipitation was seasonal with a distinct wet and dry period. During the dry season, there was probably relatively little rainfall," Peppe said. "Additionally, by studying fossil leaves at the site, we were able to estimate that there was about 55 to 100 inches of rainfall a year and the average annual temperature was between 73 and 94 degrees Fahrenheit." Research on Rusinga Island has been ongoing for more than 80 years and has resulted in the collection of thousands of mammal fossils, including many well-preserved specimens of Proconsul and other primates. Evidence from these fossils of Proconsul indicate that it probably had a body position somewhat "similar to modern monkeys," but that details of its anatomy suggest some "more ape-like climbing and clambering" abilities. Since 2011, the team's research at the fossil forest site has resulted in the collection of several additional new primate fossils. "This understanding of Proconsul's skeletal anatomy and how it moved demonstrates that the species was well-suited for life in a dense, closed canopy forest, which is consistent with our findings," Michel said. Other contributing authors to the study include: Steven G. Driese of Baylor University; William H. Horner of Baylor University and Colorado State University; James A. Lutz of Utah State University; Holly M. Dunsworth of University of Rhode Island; William E. H. Harcourt-Smith of Lehman College, City University of New York, and the Natural History Museum; Thomas Lehmann of Senckenberg Research Institute ; Sheila Nightingale of City University of New York and Kieran P. McNulty of University of Minnesota. - Lauren A. Michel, Daniel J. Peppe, James A. Lutz, Steven G. Driese, Holly M. Dunsworth, William E.H. Harcourt-Smith, William H. Horner, Thomas Lehmann, Sheila Nightingale, Kieran P. McNulty. Remnants of an ancient forest provide ecological context for Early Miocene fossil apes. Nature Communications, 2014; 5 DOI: 10.1038/ncomms4236 Cite This Page:

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Wax anatomical model of a female showing internal organs, Florence, Italy, 1818 This anatomical wax model shows the internal organs in a female torso and head, including the lungs, liver, stomach, kidneys and intestines. Complete with the veins and arteries, the heart is entirely removable. The figure was made by Francesco Calenzuoli (1796-1821), an Italian model maker renowned for his attention to detail. Wax models were used for teaching anatomy to medical students because they made it possible to pick out and emphasise specific features of the body, making their structure and function easier to understand. This made them especially useful at a time when few bodies were available for dissection. The model was donated by the Department of Human Anatomy at the University of Oxford. Related Themes and Topics There are 330 related objects. View all related objects Techniques and Technologies: Glossary: anatomical model A model that demonstrates the structure of the human body through the separation of its parts. Often used for teaching purposes. A branch of medical science concerned with the structure of living organisms. The cutting apart and separation of body tissues for the purposes of critical examination. Dissection of corpses is often carried out for the study of anatomy.

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Copy of forceps made from an Egyptian sculpture, Kom-Ombos, Egypt, 1901-1936 Forceps can be used for a number of applications that involve gripping something large. This example is a bronze replica made from a sculpture found in the birth chamber at Kom-Ombos in Egypt. It is not known what the original forceps were intended for, but they may have assisted women during childbirth. The unusual double temple at Kom-Ombos was created during the Ptolemaic era about 180 BCE. It contains a very early engraving depicting surgical instruments including forceps such as these. The temple had its own large birth chamber; a feature unique to Ptolemaic temples. The birth house was mostly swept away by the Nile in the 1800s, but some ruins can still be seen. Related Themes and Topics There are 639 related objects. View all related objects Measurement is the process of estimating the magnitude of some attribute of an object, such as its length or weight, relative to some standard (unit of measurement), such as a meter or a kilogram. The act of measuring usually involves using a measuring instrument, such as a ruler, weighing scale, thermometer or speedometer which is calibrated to compare the measured attribute to a measurement unit. Metrology is the scientific study of measurement. A branch of medicine dealing with the care of women. This care occurs during pregnancy, childbirth, and the period of recovery from childbirth. Glossary: obstetrical forceps An instrument used to assist the delivery of a foetus, usually during a birth where complications have developed. Numerous variations have been developed over time. The fundamental design has two separate looped blades with handles. These interlock to form a grasping instrument. Use for precise reproductions of valued objects, usually in the same dimensions as the original. For reproductions of an image alone, use "reproductions" or "facsimiles." Use also when more than one similar object is produced by the same artist, craftsman, or studio, with little or no variation between them; if variation is apparent, use "versions." Distinct from "forgeries" and "counterfeits," which are produced with the intent to deceive.

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Excerpted with permission from The Chemistry of Alchemy: From Dragon's Blood to Donkey Dung, How Chemistry was Forged, by Cathy Cobb, Monty Fetterolf and Harold Goldwhite. Available from Prometheus Books. Copyright © 2014. The liquids from this demonstration can be disposed of down the sink, but you’ll want to keep the golden penny taped inside a notebook. In this demonstration we’ll perform a transmutation! Or at least that’s how the alchemists would see it. The Alexandrian artisans saw it as making false gold, but the practical artificer and the alchemist often interpreted the exact same chemistry in quite different ways. So here we go. First, please put on safety glasses. Find a new US penny, one with a shield on the reverse side (tails) instead of the Lincoln memorial; that is, from 2010 or later. It’s best if your penny is shiny and new, but even if it looks clean, clean it by soaking it in a salt-and-vinegar solution. If you can’t find a post-2009 penny, a post-1982 penny will do, but they are a harder to clean and don’t seem to work quite as well. Set out a shallow bowl of water to slide the penny into when you take it off the heat. The coin will be hot enough to make a fine sizzle when it hits the water. Check to see that your exhaust fan is providing adequate ventilation by boiling water and making sure the steam is being pulled away from you. Take a cast-iron skillet, put it on a burner, and set the burner to two notches below the maximum setting. Please note we don’t recommend a stainless-steel skillet (it may warp with continued strong heating), and we don’t recommend a nonstick skillet because the high heat may degrade the coating into unfriendly chemicals you don’t want to breathe. In addition, please realize this is a sacrificial skillet: after you have used it for demonstrations, you can’t use it to cook food. But we think it’s worth the sacrifice. After the skillet has warmed on the burner for around one to two minutes, drop the penny into the center of the pan and wait. After about five minutes, you will see a wave of purplish color creep over the surface of the penny. Keep waiting. After another two to three minutes, the purple color should give way to a spreading golden sheen. Wait until the golden color has spread over the entire surface (about another half minute) and then slide the penny off into the water. The entire time for the penny on the burner should be seven to eight minutes. If the burner is too hot or you wait too long, you may ruin the penny and an upcoming demonstration. Turn off the burner and set the skillet on a heat-resistant surface (a cooled stovetop burner or an inverted pan). If all has gone well, the surface of the penny should have a beautiful golden sheen. Compare it with an untreated penny for full effect. If you saw the purple wave but the penny didn’t turn gold, you need to leave it on the heat longer after the wave. If you didn’t get a purple wave, you need to try a slightly higher heat. What’s going on? It turns out zinc and copper, when heated at a high temperature, fuse to make an alloy, brass, that is golden in color. The Egyptian artisans obviously didn’t have pennies, but they did know about an ore that colored the copper, which we now know contains zinc. Post-1982 pennies, it turns out, contain 97.5 percent zinc and 2.5 percent copper, which is perfect for our purposes. But this isn’t a very authentic demonstration. We can make it a bit more authentic by using zinc and copper samples. Alternatively you can use the zinc-coated fasteners found in hardware stores, as long as they are truly zinc-coated (check the package). If you have bare copper wire (no insulation), your copper sample is ready. If your wire has insulation, remove the insulation with wire strippers or by shaving it off with a small, sharp knife. Use work gloves and shave away from your body. Put a few chunks of zinc or the zinc-coated fasteners into a crucible and nest a small coil of copper wire in with the zinc (it should touch the zinc). Add a few chunks more of zinc on top. If your crucible has a cover, put the cover on or use a watch glass as a cover. Place the entire assembly (covered crucible with the zinc-surrounded copper wire) in the cast-iron skillet and set the burner on whatever heat worked for the penny. Give the material in the crucible about six minutes to form the alloy and then take the cast-iron skillet with the crucible off the burner and place it on a heat-resistant surface. Allow about fifteen minutes to cool. When you carefully uncover the copper in the crucible, you should find it has a golden surface. Does it look exactly like gold? No. But most people the artisans served had never seen real gold up close, so it probably looked fine to them. In addition, a short trip to the jewelry store will demonstrate that not all gold looks alike. White gold is different from 24-karat gold, and there are alloys called rose gold and yellow gold, too. And they all glitter. The name the old alchemists would have used for the above process, besides transmutation, would have been calcination. Calcination usually means to heat something strongly in air, but unfortunately most alchemists didn’t walk around with a dictionary of alchemy, and, as far as we know, there was no international meeting to standardize alchemical terminology, so calcination meant other things, too. For instance, dissolving a substance could be called calcination. And while calcination generally results in a reaction, simple melting or evaporation can also be the outcome. So there you have it: one word; many meanings. Welcome to alchemy. The alchemists loved distillation, and for good reason. Distillation is a method for separation, one of the alchemists’ primary goals: they strove to separate and isolate the “spirit” or the “essence” of a substance so it could be recombined with a body that would result in gold. They had many other methods for separation as well, but distillation was the workhorse of alchemy. Distillation accomplishes separation based on a difference in boiling points or volatilization temperatures for different substances. In distillation, a mixture is heated until some part of it goes into the gas phase. The gas phase is then separated from the rest of the mixture by means of a tube or an arm that leads the gas away. Imagine a still you’ve seen in movies or cartoons for making moonshine, and you’ll know what we mean. Still stands for distill, and in this demonstration you will build a still and test it with the problem of the ancient Alexandrian Egyptians: extracting fresh water from salty. You’ll need a large beaker or a cooking pot to use as the still pot (the bottom of the still), a clay flowerpot, a 5-foot length of copper tubing, modeling clay, and two receptacles (jars or cups will do). The tops of the still pot and the flowerpot should match in size, if possible, but if not, the still pot should be a bit larger than the flowerpot. The copper tubing has to be able to fit through the hole in the bottom of the flowerpot. Fill the still pot about half-full with water, add about two tablespoons salt, stir, and then use swimming-pool salt test strips to measure the salinity of the water. The test strips are marked off in units of ppm, which stands for parts per million, and is a measure of how concentrated, how salty, the water is. The saltwater we made measured between 3,000 and 4,000 ppm salt on the test strip, but you don’t have to match this exactly. As long as the water is fairly salty and you know the beginning concentration, you are fine. After measuring the salinity, place the still pot in the cast-iron skillet on the stove. Next, invert the flowerpot and attach it to the still pot with modeling clay. Form an angle in the top and bottom of the copper tubing so it will fit into the top of the inverted flowerpot and curve down into the receiving vessel, again as shown in the picture at the beginning. Seal the flowerpot to the copper tubing with modeling clay, make sure your setup is stable, turn the heat to a couple of notches above medium, and then wait. As the saltwater heats up in the still pot, the copper tubing will heat up, too, and, in fact, can become quite warm, so be careful. The tubing heats up because the steam entering the tubing gives up its heat to the copper as the steam condenses, which is one reason copper is a good choice for tubing. Eventually the condensed water will begin dripping into the receiving flask. When you have collected a reasonable amount of water, swap the filling receptacle with an empty one and test the salinity of the water you’ve collected with your pool test strips. When we tested our distilled saltwater, there was no change in the test strip; in other words, any remaining salt was below detectable limits. You will probably see the same thing, that is, no salt left in the water, but if any salt is left, it will be well below the amount present at the beginning of the distillation. Fresh water for Alexandria, and onward to the East!

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The sea slug Aplysia californica is not unlike an eggplant. It is big--up to a foot long and six pounds--and bruise-purple from gorging on seaweed. Harass one, and it will emit "a very fine purplish-red fluid," as Charles Darwin found long ago, "which stains the water for the space of a foot around." Hardly a jewel of the sea. Yet neuroscientist Eric R. Kandel looked at the slug 50 years ago and saw a gemlike formal simplicity, which he used to help build the foundations of modern neuroscience. With Aplysia, Kandel revealed that we learn not by altering neurons but by strengthening or building new synapses, or connections, between them--a breakthrough of a lifetime. Then he went on to elucidate the most intricate and basic mechanisms underlying this vital process, including how this synaptic remodeling embodies the concept now known as gene expression; that is, it occurs because genes, along with shaping our bodies and coloring our hair, constantly alter our brains by responding to experience.

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One way to obliterate an atom is to shoot it with the planet's most powerful X-ray gun. Linda Young tried that experiment in October 2009, when she was testing the newly opened X-ray free-electron laser at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California. A single pulse from the US$420-million machine packs the same energy as all the solar radiation hitting Earth at that moment, but focused down to one square centimeter. “It will destroy anything you put in front of it,” says Young. When the laser pulse slammed into the neon atoms in that experiment, it made them explode, stripping away each atom's 10 electrons within 100 femtoseconds (1 femtosecond is 10−15 seconds). But it was the manner of this destruction that most interested Young, who heads the X-ray science division at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. The X-rays first removed the atom's inner electrons, leaving the outer ones in place. For a brief moment, the neon atoms in the path of the laser became hollow. That exotic form of neon is one of a number of strange species created by physicists intent on contorting atoms. Some teams have inflated atoms to the size of dust particles. Several research collaborations are creating anti-atoms out of antimatter. And others have loaded atomic nuclei with protons and neutrons in the quest to forge new superheavy elements. Some of the experiments aim to investigate atomic structure; others use atoms as the first steps in modeling more complicated systems. They are all descendants of the revolution in atomic theory catalyzed by Danish physicist Niels Bohr 100 years ago. But Bohr would have had difficulty imagining how far scientists could go in poking and prodding atoms into such extreme forms. The atom that Bohr proposed in July 1913 looked like a miniature Solar System, with electrons arranged in concentric orbits around a positively charged nucleus. In Bohr's model, electrons were point-like particles that were quantized, meaning that they could jump from one orbit to another but could not exist in between. The advent of quantum mechanics in the 1920s retained the concept of orbits but re-imagined electrons as spreading everywhere around the nucleus. The location of each electron can be described only in probabilities, in the form of a mathematical wavefunction. Electrons furthest from the nucleus can be kicked free with the least amount of added energy, so are usually the first to be stripped away. Yet X-rays, which pack a concentrated punch, can remove more tightly bound electrons from inner orbits. A medical X-ray takes out just one of those inner electrons before another from an outer shell drops down to fill the space. But the SLAC X-ray laser is in a class by itself. The beam is so intense and focused that every 100-femtosecond pulse sends 100,000 X-ray photons flying past each square ångström of space (1 ångström is 10−10 meters). That allowed Young to blast away all the inner electrons of the neon atoms in her 2009 experiment. When electrons from the outer shells dropped into the abandoned inner shells, the beam soon kicked those out as well. “If you tune your X-rays properly, you can pick which shell you want to empty out first,” says Young. “Being able to control the inner-shell dynamics is very cool.” The current record for this kind of atom-hollowing was reported last November by a group at the Center for Free-electron Laser Science in Hamburg, Germany, which used the SLAC laser to strip away, from the inside out, the 36 inner electrons of a 54-electron-strong xenon atom. Young hopes that research on hollow atoms will prove helpful when the laser is ready for one of its intended uses — creating images of biological molecules such as DNA and proteins by scattering X-rays off their atoms. Those pictures come at a price: the beam quickly destroys the molecules it is imaging. Knowing how hollow atoms form during this process may help researchers to interpret how the scattering pattern changes as a molecule explodes, Young says. Two decades ago, several research groups made hollow atoms using a different process: first stripping almost all of the electrons from atoms, then depositing the resulting highly charged, slow-moving ions onto a surface. When the ions were a few tens of ångströms away from the surface, they attracted electrons from it, creating momentarily hollow atoms with electrons in outer but not inner shells. Those outer electrons then fell inwards, and the hollow atoms expelled a burst of energetic electrons and photons. “A hollow atom is nothing but a fireball of an enormous amount of energy,” says Joachim Burgdörfer, a physicist at the Vienna University of Technology, who worked on developing the theory of the process. Several research groups pursued hollow atoms in the late 1980s and 1990s, with some scientists exploring how the burst of photons from their formation might clean surfaces by removing the topmost layers without doing deeper damage. Although that procedure has been patented, it has not captured the attention of industry, says Fritz Aumayr, a physicist at the Vienna University of Technology. The closest it has come to an application so far was in 2008, when researchers invoked the process to explain how heavy ions spewed from the Sun can damage the surfaces of planets such as Mercury. The ions become hollow atoms as they drop onto the planet, and release bursts of energy as they land. This year, Aumayr published a paper showing that the energy expelled from ions dropping onto carbon membranes can create nanoscale pores whose size is controlled by the strength of the ion's charge (that is, how many electrons it was missing). That might be a useful route for making nanosieves for filtering small molecules, he says, or for creating nanopores to pass DNA through for sequencing. From the perspective of an atomic nucleus, all electrons are far-flung voyagers. Whereas a nucleus measures femtometers in diameter, a bound electron typically travels 100,000 nuclear diameters away from the core. But Rydberg atoms, the colossi of the atomic world, have outer electrons so pumped with energy that they can travel 100 billion nuclear diameters — tens or hundreds of micrometers — from their nucleus. The largest Rydberg atoms even approach the size of the full stop at the end of this sentence. Named after nineteenth-century Swedish physicist Johannes Rydberg, these giant atoms have been studied extensively since the 1970s, with the introduction of lasers that could excite electrons out to such vast distances. Like any distant traveler, the outer electron in a Rydberg system can be lonely and vulnerable. The attraction to the distant core is faint and easily disturbed by stray electromagnetic fields or collisions, so the atoms must be created in high vacuum. If carefully isolated from outside forces, such inflated atoms can be maintained for anything from a few hundredths of a second up to multiple seconds. For Barry Dunning, a physicist at Rice University in Houston, Texas, the joy of Rydberg atoms is that they give physicists exquisite control over the motion of an electron. That is not possible with normal atoms because the electrons move much too quickly for even the fastest lasers. But the motion of an inflated electron in a Rydberg atom is much slower: it can be controlled with carefully directed nanosecond electric-field pulses, which allow researchers to herd the electron cloud by knocking it back and forth. In 2008, researchers led by Dunning reported that they had managed to squeeze the normally spread-out electron into a tight packet that briefly orbited the nucleus. Last year, they added radio waves that enabled that motion to be maintained indefinitely. “It only took a century, but we recreated Bohr's atom,” says Dunning proudly. His next idea is to try exciting and controlling two outer electrons at once, creating a system analogous to how Bohr might have pictured helium. This kind of atom-stretching has some potential applications. Two gaseous atoms a few micrometers apart cannot normally affect each other. But inflate one (or both) to a Rydberg state, and the negatively charged electron clouds start to repel each other, distorting the energy levels of the atoms so that they are no longer isolated systems. Mark Saffman, a physicist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has used this property to make a quantum logic gate—a fundamental part of a quantum computer — with lasers switching on a Rydberg interaction between two atomic quantum bits, or qubits. He and other researchers hope next to add more atoms. A cloud of cold gas atoms might, if suitably excited, create a kind of hovering crystalline array of Rydberg interactions, says Matthew Jones, a physicist at Durham University, UK. That approach might prove a useful model for studying the physics of 'strongly correlated' solid-state systems. These are systems, such as high-temperature superconductors, in which unusual properties emerge because particles interact strongly with their neighbors. An array of Rydberg atoms would not be a perfect model for the messy interactions in real solid-state systems, but the simplicity of the approach is a strength, says Burgdörfer. “It's a wonderful testing ground for probing many of these ideas about how strongly correlated physics actually works,” he says. The Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe's particle-physics lab near Geneva, Switzerland, currently lies in pieces, with engineers working on boosting its power. At the same time, in a side hall, an upgrade is taking place to an experiment that may allow physicists to measure the properties of atoms of antimatter. It is a goal that researchers have been chasing since the first antihydrogen atoms were made at CERN in 1995. An antihydrogen atom consists of an antiproton and a positron, which respectively have the same mass as an ordinary proton and electron, but opposite charge. Beyond that, researchers know very little about antihydrogen. “Do matter and antimatter atoms obey the same laws of physics?” asks Jeffrey Hangst, spokesman for ALPHA, one of the collaborative efforts to make and analyze antihydrogen. The experiments at CERN might also help to explain why there is more matter than antimatter in the visible Universe. The Big Bang should have created equal amounts of the two that would have annihilated on contact. But somehow, matter gained an advantage. Differences have been observed between the behavior of some matter and antimatter particles, such as kaons and mesons, but these are far too small to explain the Big Bang conundrum. To create antihydrogen atoms, researchers at CERN first make antiprotons by bombarding atoms with accelerated protons, then slow them down by passing them through metallic foil, cool them with cold electrons and trap them with electromagnetic fields. A similar trap accumulates positrons that are emitted by radioactive materials. When the clouds of charged particles are mixed, they make neutral antimatter atoms. But because these have no overall charge, in early experiments they easily escaped the electromagnetic fields used to trap the charged antimatter particles. By 2002, two collaborations had been able to make as many as 50,000 atoms of antihydrogen, but the atoms quickly annihilated on the walls of their container. It took until 2010 before researchers at ALPHA showed how to trap the atoms using three magnets with a combined field sufficient to restrain antihydrogen, with its tiny magnetic moment. At that time, the antimatter was held for just 170 milliseconds, and only about one atom was trapped for every eight times the group ran the 20–30 minute experiment, says Hangst. But the team has improved its equipment to trap one atom per experiment, and hold it for about 1,000 seconds. ALPHA is now trying to probe the properties of the anti-atoms. This year, the team reported watching the tracks of hundreds of antihydrogen atoms after they were released from their magnetic cage, to test whether antimatter falls up or down under gravity. The researchers do not yet have an answer, but the experiment works in principle, says Hangst. And in the upgrade, the team is moving in some lasers, with the idea of testing next year whether antihydrogen absorbs and emits light at the same frequencies as hydrogen. Other teams at CERN are experimenting with different aspects of antimatter, such as how antihydrogen responds to changing magnetic fields. And researchers elsewhere are looking at even more exotic atoms: Ryugo Hayano, a physicist at the University of Tokyo, leads a team studying mixed matter–antimatter atoms, such as antiprotonic helium, in which a helium nucleus is surrounded by one electron and one negatively charged antiproton, an arrangement that lasts for a few microseconds. In the end, such experiments may not find differences between matter and antimatter that are big enough to explain why the former has prevailed over the latter. But, says Hangst, “one never knows where the new physics might show up. You just have to keep looking.” Anti-atoms are rare, but researchers working with them are swimming in data compared with those chasing superheavy atoms. In an experiment that required prodigious patience, researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany, spent almost five months last year firing titanium-50 ions — each with 22 protons and 28 neutrons — into a berkelium-249 target at the rate of about 5 trillion particles per second. The hope was that, just once or twice, two atoms would fuse to make an element with 119 protons, more than any created before. Smashing beams of heavy atoms together has served physicists well over the past 70 years, allowing them to create increasingly heavy agglomerations of protons and neutrons, and to expand the periodic table far beyond the heaviest naturally occurring elements. The confirmed record-holder is element 116, livermorium, with 116 protons and, depending on the isotope, between 174 and 177 neutrons. There have been claims to elements 117 and 118 too, but these have not been officially confirmed. And so far, “none of the current experiments have reported finding 119 or 120”, says Christoph Düllmann, spokesman for the GSI-led collaboration — although he adds that his own team's analysis of last year's work is not quite complete. There is a strong sense that the quest is coming to a dead end. The chance that nuclei will fuse decreases as they get heavier, because the protons and neutrons resist sticking together. Most researchers agree that beyond 120, the chance of getting two nuclei to fuse directly is vanishingly small. “So this leaves us with the question,” says Düllmann, “what do we do next?” To answer that requires an understanding of what motivates the superheavy search. Curiosity and national pride undoubtedly have a role, with politicians and scientists both looking to stamp their country's name into a new box on the periodic table. But each superheavy element is extremely short-lived, splintering in milliseconds. Theorists have posited that some superheavy combinations of protons and neutrons will turn out to be stable for seconds, minutes or even days. This fabled 'island of stability' is thought to exist at between 114 and 126 protons, and around 184 neutrons. It is now clear that any attempt to make new superheavy elements by smashing a light particle into a heavier one will not reach the island: the isotopes spat out have too few neutrons. So researchers are changing tactics by trying to make heavier isotopes of elements that have already been created. That is what scientists will attempt next year at the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia. They plan to make neutron-rich isotopes of element 118 by firing beams of calcium-48 into radioactive californium-251. The Russian team and others also want go back to the elements already made and create hundreds or thousands of atoms, rather than the handful necessary to claim a discovery. “We should set ourselves the goal of making not one or two atoms, but macroscopic quantities that we can use to study chemistry and nuclear structure in much greater detail,” says Rolf-Dietmar Herzberg, a physicist at the University of Liverpool, UK. That might allow theorists to make more accurate predictions about where the island of stability lies. But the temptation to expand the periodic table is strong. Researchers will probably turn away from head-on collisions and instead try knocking two heavy nuclei together in a glancing blow, which may stand a better chance of successfully fusing them to create new elements. Physicists have a history of surprising themselves in their quest to create ever heavier atoms. In the early 1990s, no one thought that they could get past element 112 and then a tweak to the fusion process made it possible, says GSI team member Michael Block. “The next element is always the hardest.”

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Activities based on the best-selling childrens book The Dangerous Book For Boys This nostalgic kit has been updated for today's generation of budding young experimentors, but parents and grand-parents alike will also enjoy the fun old-school vibe of classic at-home real science kits. No matter who you are, you are sure to enjoy the fun experiments and electronic projects featured in this kit. Over 30 fun, interactive activities lead you through the assembly of series and parallel circuits, an electromagnet, an electric motor, a voltaic pile, a joy buzzer, a vibrating bug, and so much more. While building, you will learn about electric current and electrons, static electricity, conductors and insulators, voltage, current, and power, resistors, capacitors, diodes, and LEDs. Is Electricity really dangerous? Despite the name of this kit, this product itself is not dangerous. However, this set contains parts that may be harmful is misused. When true electricians experiment with electrical current, they are controlled, precise, and deliberate. Before you begin with experiments, please read the safety advice carefully... The full-color 32-page manual guides you through each experiment and offers a brief history of the research and discoveries associated with electricity and electronics. Recommended for ages 8 and up with adult supervison. WARNING! CHOKING HAZARD — Children under 8 yrs. can choke or suffocate on uninflated or broken balloons. Adult supervision required. Keep uninflated balloons from children. Discard broken balloons at once. WARNING: Science Education Set. This set contains chemicals [and/or parts] that may be harmful if misused. Read cautions on individual containers [and in manual] carefully. Not to be used by children except under adult supervision.

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Description by EdSurge " HACKTIVITY KITS is a collection of nine hands-on and web 2.0 activities intended to explain and reinforce the concept of web hacking -- that is, the idea of remixing, reusing, and re-purposing existing content to create new material or glean interesting insights. Created by NYC HIVE, a MacArthur Foundation-supported group of civic-minded organizations (there's a Chicago one, too), the Hacktivity Kits are largely built upon Mozilla WebMaker tools: Popcorn Maker, Thimble, and X-Ray Goggles. Each Hacktivity includes a detailed list of learning goals and objectives, expected results, and supporting resources. There's also an extensive list of icebreakers to get the creative juices flowing and skills tutorials for the WebMaker tools. For example, look to the Online Storytelling kit which explains the SVT (Story, Vision, Tech) model for making "web native" stories. In addition to introductory tutorials on how to use the kit and associated technology, there's also the Spectrogram icebreaker, Popcorn Maker deep-dive, and an out-of-the-box design challenge for teachers just getting their feet wet."

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The European Commission moved this week to restrict the usage of a chemical which has been linked to the demise of bees. The move follows a report last week from the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) into the use of neonicotinoid pesticides and their effects of the bee population. EU health and consumer policy commissioner Tonio Borg announced that the commission proposed a partial ban on the use of the pesticides, which are mainly used in the treatment of seed prior to sowing to prevent fungal attacks. The partial ban will be legally binding and will also be based on the “precautionary principle” and by the principle of proportionality. Welcoming the move, Scottish MEP Alyn Smith said: “Last week’s report by the EFSA was hugely critical of the lack of precautionary action by the commission and it seems that the strong language has finally hit home. We have action at last. “The importance of bees to our food producers has been overlooked for too long, and the alarming numbers of colony collapses are extremely worrying. What is becoming clear, however, is that the link between pesticides and these collapses is in desperate need of further examination. “This research is already taking place in Scotland, in centres such as the Bumblebee Conservation Trust at Stirling University, and I hope it will be front and centre of any future studies. “With the annual value of pollination by bees being put in the region of €15 billion, we simply cannot afford to just wait and see. I am glad that the commission has finally woken up to the reality of what the decline of bees really means. It is better late than never.”

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Cover for the kids' book "Why Should I Bother About the Planet?" Today is Earth Day, and there are all sorts of ways to celebrate the occasion, from planting trees to recycling electronics. In addition, public libraries around southern California are holding events to raise awareness about the environment. While you're at the library you might be looking for a little bit of Earth Day reading for your kids, something besides "The Lorax," perhaps? Our favorite children's librarian Mara Alpert is here to share some great green selections. Emeraldalicious by Victoria Kann (K-Grade 2) The girliest girl of them all, Pinkalicious, discovers all is not beautiful in her local park and uses her special magic wand to make a change. The World is Waiting for You by Barbara Kerley (All ages) Brand new and utterly beautiful celebration of our planet, illustrated with amazing photographs showing children and grown-ups exploring the wonders of our world. The Earth Book by Todd Parr (PreK-Grade 1) Super simple, super colorful, super Parr-fect book to share with young children about simple ways we can show how we love our planet. All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon Illustrated by Marla Frazee (K-Grade 3) Another terrific book to use with young children, celebrating all the things that make our world a special place. Why Should I Bother About the Planet? by Susan Meredith, Illustrated by Sara Rojo (Grades 2-5) Asks the big questions, and provides good answers. 101 Ways You can Help Save the Planet Before You’re 12! by Joanne O’Sullivan (Grades 3-6) Offers kids and grownups easy and practical ideas for things everyone can do to help save the planet. #9: Make It Last – learn how to make things like crayons, shampoo, and even sneakers last longer. The Smash! Smash! Truck by Professor (Aiden) Potts (Grades 2-6) Professor Potts starts off the story of recycling with the Big Bang and the birth of our universe, and brings it all the way to a glass bottle being collected, smashed, remade, and reused.

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Today’s Digital Video Recorder or DVR security camera systems are an amazing bundle of new high quality technology. The security camera industry can also thank the personal computer industry as a contributor, because a lot of today’s DVR security camera systems use recently invented technology borrowed from the computer industry. In this article we are going to describe how a typical DVR security camera system works. Modern digital video security and surveillance systems are basically component systems. This means that essentially, the parts of the system are like plug n play items used in computers. All of the components do not have to be made by one manufacturer, they can differ in function and still work on the system, and they can usually be removed and replaced with something else and the system will continue to work. This provides tremendous versatility in application because the DVR security camera systems are no longer required to use all of the same components. For example, an 8 channel system may have 6 bullet cameras and 2 Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera made by a totally different manufacturer. Let’s take a closer look at how a DVR security camera system (and its individual components) works. The first component of the system is the camera. There are so many different type of cameras available today that we do not have the space for this article to cover them all. Instead, let look at how they work DVR security cameras possess one primary function; transfer the reflecting light that is in its field of vision into electrical impulses that can be measured, manipulated, and compiled to create a digital video file. This information is then sent to the DVR and/or monitor for processing and viewing. The camera does this by using one of two different electronic sensor chips called a Charged Coupled Device or CCD or a Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor or CMOS. Although both sensors work a little differently, the both yield the same end product–the electrical data that can be used to create a digital video file. This is accomplished by the camera’s lens focusing the field of view onto one of these chips, which generally range from only 1/4″ to 1/2″ square. When the light strikes the sensor chip, small electrical impulses are created by the pixels in the chip. Each one can be measured and used to create the data that will be used to display the cameras field of view as a digital video. At this point the signal is still an analog type signal. The camera sends this analog data through an analog-to-digital processor chip to convert the data into digital or binary format. The camera also contains a Digital Signal Processor or DSP chip that is used to make fine adjustments to the data. Once the digital information is ready it is sent via a video transmission cable or other means to the DVR, hence the name DVR security camera systems. Once the signal reaches the DVR, it applies its own DSP technology along with a CODEC utility. Codec is an acronym for COmpression/DECompression. This utility program uses a special algorithm program that reduces the incredibly large file into just a fraction of its original size without sacrificing significant quality. Once this is accomplished the digital video file is compiled and is saved on the DVR’s hard disk drive and/or displayed on a system monitor. It should be easy to see now why DVR security camera systems benefit from technological improvement in the computer world. Many PC based devices are used in security camera systems. For example, the DVR saves the digital video file to its hard disk drive for storage. USB Thumb drives can be used to update firmware and copy and transfer video footage. DSP and memory chips are directly related to the computer industry. Even the monitors used today are basically the same as computer monitors but they may include a few extra input options. Monitors have gone from the bulky Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) type to the LCD type just like most computer monitors. Security Camera King offers a wide selection of DVR security camera systems with everything you need to install it but the tools. Try one of our systems, the Elite Mini Economy, the Elite Mini HD, the Elite Series, or the Ultimate Series and see for yourself. The majority of our cameras come with a 1 year full warranty (some models have 2 years) and our DVRS have a 3 year warranty.

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Sense about Science ? equipping people to make sense of science and evidence What would your ideal ‘super wheat’ be? Live online Q&A On Wednesday 22nd May wheat researchers, Dr Phil Howell, Dr Robert Koebner and Professor Mike Bevan discussed people's suggested traits; whether it could be bred into wheat and how it could be done. Meet our panel here. An event held by Sense About Science for Fascination of Plants Day. 23. How about wheat fields where you could simultaneously grow another (winter) root crop underground? (@SAPS_News) PH: "For this to work you’d need to plant the root crop first, before drilling the wheat, and harvest it last, after the combine has taken all the grain. It would need to be a crop that puts on most of its growth before the wheat crop outcompetes it. It would cause problems at wheat harvest time if the root crop still had green leaves above the ground, as these will jam up the combine which is designed to operate on dry physiologically mature crops. At NIAB, our agronomists are looking at undersowing the wheat crop with a N-fixing cover crop like clover, which can fix some nitrogen before the wheat outcompetes it." 22. Wheat to suit grazing by animals pre-flowering? (@RoseGWhite) PH: "In parts of the US, wheat is grown as a pasture crop. Wheat can be grazed pre-flowering and I always give my seedlings a gentle trim when they come out of the cold room before potting up, this helps the light reach the base of the plant (preventing against lodging later on), promotes tillering (the growth of side shoots) and puts a brake on “soft” lush growth that just sits there, gets mildew, and stops water reaching the roots. Getting the balance right is the difficult part – grazing animals don’t always know when to stop (rabbits!) and if the crop is grazed too hard or too late it can hold development back and really impact on yield. Plus grazing animals can cause compaction problems to the soil structure." 21. Can we create wheat that will thrive in wetter weather without much sun? (Mike Fife) MB: "Good question. Wheat grows optimally in temperate climates- not too hot, not too cold, not too wet, not too dry. Any big variation from these optimal conditions lowers yield. We would have to approach the two problems you raise separately because each is a different physiological response. About sunlight, there is only a little that can be done because growth and grain production require energy from the sun. Bigger leaves angled to collect available light could increase yields. About water-logging more could be done to increase root health in wet soils, but I don't know how. To help in flooded conditions there is a gene used in rice to promote stem growth when the plant is submerged in the paddy field. One of the biggest threats to crops growing in these conditions is diseases, particularly fungal pests. A lot is known about how plants mount defences against pathogens and this knowledge can be used to create in-built protection. This requires GM solutions but some consumers are not in favour of this approach. I think it will be essential to use this approach to stop crop wastage and increase the sustainability of food production." PH: "If we get more years like the last 12 months, we will inevitably shift towards varieties that do better in dull wet conditions. We have to split this into two areas though. Firstly, the wet: this can cause problems with waterlogging (starving the roots of oxygen) leaching (washing the nutrients out of the soil) and most damagingly, change the soil structure making it a physically demanding environment for anything to grow in. It will take farmers a long time to repair the damage to their soils from the year we’ve just come through. Then there are diseases like septoria tritici blotch which thrive in wet conditions and fusarium head blight which was rampant last year because of damp weather at flowering time. If it’s raining, farmers can’t spray. If the ground is saturated, farmers can’t even travel across it even if the sun is shining. Then poor weather at harvest can cause problems with crop losses because of lodging and pre-harvest sprouting, and increased costs as the grain must be dried down before it can be safely stored without spoiling. Then the lack of sunshine – obviously you need light for photosynthesis and one reason yields were so depressing last year was the lack of sunshine. Dull conditions at flowering can also cause sterility problems so the wheat ears contain “blind sites” where there are empty spaces instead of grains. Best yields come from cool, bright conditions from flowering onwards." 20. How bespoke can you make a "super wheat"? Could you design one with the capacity – built in – for it to change and adapt to a farmers' conditions over a number of years/decades? (Dominic Berry) RK: "One can certainly adapt wheat to particular environmental conditions, after all, the crop is grown on every continent (even at the Equator, though admittedly at high altitudes). But the idea of building in the flexibility to adapt to changing conditions is problematic, since the genes present in a particular variety are fixed for that variety. Breeders tend to develop varieties which do well in a variety of environments (maybe not the very best in any of these environments) which gives some sort of assurance that they will be able to cope with the expected year to year variation in the climate. Bear in mind though that it takes about 10 years to go from a cross to a finished variety; that's a big investment in time, so it's not possible to fit every possible combination of climate/soil/ etc." 19. What about wheat that provides extra vitamins, in a similar way to golden rice? (@RebeccaNesbit) RK: "Just as golden rice has been engineered to make more Vitamin A, so wheat could be too. The reason for doing that work in rice was the large numbers of people for whom rice was a major component of their diet, and lacked a good source of vitamin A. Does that apply for consumers of wheat? Are there significant numbers of people who rely very heavily on wheat for sustenance? Before launching a project to engineer wheat (or any crop for that matter) to produce more of vitamin XXX, you would need to be sure that it would serve a useful purpose." PH: "There is variation in carotenoid content in the wheat grain and a leading breadmaking variety often drew criticism from millers because it produced a loaf with a more golden crumb – consumers wanted white bread not yellow bread! The bran and germ components of wholegrains are where most of the vitamins are found, so a switch to more wholegrain products is a good start. In other grains like barley there are some mutants which have large embryos, so the whole grain products have a different nutritional profile to conventional barley whole grains. So, there is variation (in nutritional content) there, it’s a case of finding it, understanding it, making sure it works (the 3 x copies of gene problem again), and then making sure it’s something people still want to eat." 18. "Ideally, would superwheat be able to fix N via symbiotic relationships with soil dwelling organisms? (@mattaudley) "What about a "super-wheat" with increased nitrogen uptake?" (@olenyi) PH: "We had some promising results from trials at Rothamsted and University of Nottingham which might point towards this material being better at nitrogen uptake. But we need to repeat the work over seasons and locations to check how robust this is. Nitrogen fixation would be great. JIC have just started a big programme of work to investigate this. However, turning atmospheric nitrogen into nitrate uses a lot of energy, whether done by bacteria or the Haber process, so we might end up with nitrogen-fixing wheat that only yields as much as peas!" 17. "Can you get fire resistant wheat? Increased temperatures, increased fire events with predicted climate change? (@Chr1s_Peters) MB: "This is not possible as all living material can be easily burnt. What you can do is to reduce the chances of fire in the growing environment, as is done for forests world-wide with fire breaks and early detection. Climate change is predicted to have a big effect on crops by changing the environment that crops are adapted to grow in - this is the biggest risk. Scientists are working to understand how crops respond to seasons and temperature fluctuations and then identify lines that might be better adapted. For example, the time of year plants flower is very dependent on the cold they sense in the winter and the warming days of spring." 16. "Robust deep rooting system to cope with water logging. Robust stalks redesign seed architecture downwards. In other words cross with Scottish oats which cope better with Scottish weather?" (@RuralLeader) PH: "Crossing Scottish oats with any wheat won’t work I’m afraid! The crops are too distantly related to cross together. Wheat roots remain a big target for improvement, partly because they are so difficult to get to and measure. There are several projects which are ongoing at the moment looking at wheat root development, aiming to increase rooting at depth in order to improve water uptake and nutrient uptake. Plus wheat has structural roots too which help to anchor the crop in the ground and prevent lodging (where the crop falls over) – stiff strawed varieties can lodge from the very base if they don’t have this strong foundation of structural roots." 15. "Could we breed "super wheat" with root exudates that inhibit black grass germination?" (@EwenMcEwen) MB: "This is a very long shot, as black grass is very closely related to wheat. So anything made by wheat affecting black grass seeds/seedlings will probably affect the wheat crop as well. My solution, which is very feasible and has other benefits, would be to make the wheat crop tolerant to herbicides that kill black grass. When black grass emerges in the field along with other weeds, it can be killed directly and the wheat will grow happily. The other advantages of this approach include reduced tillage of the field between crop plantings so more organic matter can build up and less energy is used for growing the crop. Such herbicide tolerant crops are widely used and do not harm human health or the environment. The herbicides are widely used except in organic production." 14. "Wheat with radically different leaves in early and late growth stages, maximising interception early and radiation use efficiency late (how well you can turn light into yield)?" (@standardbrit) PH: "Modern UK varieties already have a different canopy to older varieties, with quite erect leaves that allow light to penetrate deeper into the canopy rather than floppy upper leaves which shade the lower leaves. I like the idea of leafy early growth, which can smother competing weeds and build nice strong plants with vigorous root systems, but then switching across to the more erect-leaf model we currently have as the plant wakes up during the spring and stem extension commences. A new ideotype for crop physiologists to work on perhaps." 13. How does the new "super wheat" respond to biotic and abiotic stresses? (@egilro) PH: "Firstly there’s not just one “super wheat” (BBC’s term, not ours), we’re still testing hundreds of possible ones to try and identify the best. Biotic stresses? We’re testing against diseases in inoculated nurseries this year. Abiotic? Well the ones that did well are pretty tolerant of waterlogging!! The original work by CIMMYT (the international maize and wheat improvement centre) on their synthetic hexaploid wheats – which these were bred from – suggests they can be pretty robust, especially against heat and drought stress." 12. "Could straw quality and composition be changed to improve its end use, either as a feed for animals eg by improving its texture and nutritional quality, or its industial use as a material or fuel?" (Jeremy Sweet) PH: Yes it can, provided that there are sources of variation out there. Traditionally wheat straw is used for animal bedding but barley straw can be fed, which suggests there is plenty of variation out there. If we find the right straw characters in old varieties, or land races (locally-adapted “farmer varieties”), or even closely related cereals, we can transfer this into wheat just by traditional crossing and selection. Casting further afield we would need to use tissue culture techniques like protoplast fusion. Further afield still and we might need a GM approach. Ultimately though straw is still seen as something of a by-product – we need a high-value use for it to justify investment in more research and breeding. RK: "In principle one could target straw quality (and certainly its quantity) by either conventional breeding or genetic engineering. Most wheats have hollow straw, but a few have pith-filled straw (I have no idea whether animals would prefer this). The economics of using straw as animal feed is another matter. The same economic issue applies to industrial uses of straw. (Farmers in the past used to burn it in situ as it was considered to be a waste product with no market.) Upping the quantity of straw would have implications on the grain yield (see earlier question re short-stemmed wheats)." 11. "I'd like to see whole-wheat that didn't set off my IBS. Whole-wheat currently has too much fructan type fiber, but oats have a different fiber and are fine for IBS." (Olive) PH: "Some grains are better than others for people with specific dietary requirements. Modifications to nutrional aspects are tricky in wheat because it’s a hexaploid – it has 3 complete sets of chromosomes - so typically you need to change 3 genes to make a difference rather than just one. There are groups looking at these problems around the world but progress is quite slow. Often you need to use mutations where one of the key genes has been altered, and then cross the different mutations together for each of the three sets of chromosomes, and then make sure everything is in the right genetic background. Slow and steady work, but hastened by modern marker-assisted breeding techniques." 10. "Wheat with quick maturation?" (@halften) RK: "Fast maturing wheats are really important where the climate limits the length of the growing period. In India, it quickly gets too hot for wheat to able to grow, so Indian wheats are bred to mature very much faster than UK ones do. In general, the longer the growing period, the higher the yield, which is why most of UK wheat is sown in the autumn and harvested at the end of the next summer. If our climate becomes hotter and/or drier, our wheats will have to be quicker maturers. There's plenty of natural variation for this trait for breeders to work on." MB: "Good question. Current wheat varieties grown in the UK are very finely tuned to respond as rapidly as possible to their growing environment such that grain development can use the full length of the summer to harvest the energy of the sun. Wheat varieties are autumn or spring sown. Spring sown wheats respond very quickly to the lengthening days and increasing temperatures of the spring to trigger flowering in the first week of June (maybe a little later this year). The grain can then develop over the summer and is harvested towards the end of August. Autumn grown wheat starts to grow then sits out the cold and dark winter. Flowering in these varieties is triggered by this exposure to a period of cold termed vernalization. When the spring arrives the plants are primed to flower in response to the lengthening days. Autumn-sown wheat typically matures earlier in the summer due to this head start. This means the crop does not have to be harvested all at the same time. Only in the tropics is there enough energy from the sun to permit several growing seasons per year. In Vietnam for example they can get 2-3 rice harvests each year. Wheat cannot grow in these high temperatures, and its flowering is adapted to the long days we have in the summer of Northern Europe. Perennial wheat, or a crop that is sown and can be harvested over several growing seasons is of great interest because it only has to be sown once over several growing seasons. But there may be several drawbacks such as the build-up of disease-causing organisms. That's the reason farmers rotate crops so that the same plant is not grown on the same ground each season." 9. How about a carnivorous wheat plant to cut down on use of pesticides? It would have sticky traps around the stem. (@SAPS_News) PH: "There are some wheat varieties already (bred conventionally) which have natural pest resistance to Orange Wheat Blossom Midge. Other varieties overseas are resistant to greenbug or hessian fly which is a massive problem in the US. In the UK, I was talking to a breeder yesterday who is desperate for wheat bulb fly resistance – barley has it, but wheat doesn’t. Not sure about sticky traps on the stem working in the short term – they would probably just attract lots of fungal spores instead!" 8. Should we breed wheat with much higher nutritional value so requiring less weight yield per hectare to feed 'x' mouths? (@EwenMcEwen) RK: "I'm not sure what is meant by "nutritional value" here. The wheat grain comprises typically 10-13% protein, 10-15% water, with the rest being mainly starch. The "nutritional value" of wheat is therefore overwhelmingly associated with its starch - you should think of wheat as an energy food. Its protein is important more for determining how the dough behaves than for supplying dietary protein; most of our dietary protein is provided by meat/fish, dairy products, eggs and pulses. Nevertheless it is possible to breed for higher protein wheat, although the nutritional quality of this protein is not too good (lacks lysine) and gains in protein generally come at the expense of overall yield." 7. "My super wheat would be gluten free." (Jon Poole) "As the daughter of a coeliac, gluten free wheat would be amazing but only if the flour had the same properties as standard flour." (@ClaireDraper1) "I would want a wheat strain that was gluten free." (Victoria Broadway) MB: "Gluten is the protein in wheat grains that gives dough its elasticity for bread making. It also provides valuable protein nutrients. If wheat was gluten free it would not have these attributes and would not make good bread. It may be possible to alter the specific proteins in gluten to reduce their potential to cause coeliac disease. This could be done by GM or by genome editing if we new the exact changes to make but we don't know this. However, these changes could influence bread making quality. In the interim, food labelling for gluten containing products (it gets into the most surprising foods) helps sufferers to avoid gluten." RK: "It is possible of course to process the flour of a normal wheat and so produce a gluten free flour. But as MB points out, you won't be able to make a loaf of bread with it (ok for crackers and biscuits). The question is whether biscuits made with gluten free wheat flour would taste any better than something made from rice flour (rice makes no gluten)." 6. Attempts have been made to breed C4 rice [this would boost yield by enabling the plants to devote most of their energy to carbon-fixing, and thus to growth]. Should future superwheat have C4 photosynthesis? (@mattaudley) RK: "The C4 pathway evolved as an adaptation to the high light intensity and high temperatures typical of warmer parts of the world. The C4 process is somewhat more efficient in terms of fixing solar energy than the C3 one, but only where the temperature and light intensity is high. So while it makes sense to think about converting rice into a C4 type, given that rice is a tropical crop, the fact that wheat is a temperate crop (it is grown in warmer places such as India and Australia, but only during their winters) implies that it is not likely to be a very sensible idea." PH: "We’d love to turn wheat into a C4 crop. Even in temperate UK summers, a high proportion of fixed carbon can be lost again because of photorespiration and C4 metabolism would help enormously. However this would require not only a change in metabolism but also a change in leaf structure. It remains a long term goal. Researchers like Julian Hibberd at Cambridge and Martin Parry at Rothamsted are looking into making crops more efficient in these ways." 5. "Wheat that has big, low GI grains?" (@halften) PH: "Breeders routinely measure grain size as it is a key yield component. However, active selection for large grain is often at the expense of grain number and overall yield can actually decrease. All things being equal, larger grains will have a higher proportion of endosperm relative to bran, which makes them preferable for milling (higher flour extraction rates) and bioethanol/distilling (more starch available to turn to alcohol). Low glycaemic index (GI) is trickier: wheat products made from white flour are usually classified as high GI. In order to make them low GI you need to change the nature of the starch itself – the goal here is “resistant starch” – by altering part of the starch biosynthesis pathway. Wheat can be difficult to work with as it is a hexaploid – it has three entire sets of chromosomes, the A B and D genomes – so even if you are able to change one important gene then there are usually two other versions that still work. Research groups all over the world are looking at developing cereals with modified starch characteristics, including UK researchers at NIAB and JIC." RK: "GI (glycaemic Index) is a ranking of carbohydrate containing foods based on their effect on blood glucose levels. Most of the wheat grain is starch, and the moment it is ground into flour, this will inevitably up the GI of the product (eating a whole grain, as opposed to a milled one, will drop the GI). So I'd suggest that for those people who need to be concerned about GI (primarily diabietics), the way to approach this is to control their diet and the preparation of their food, rather than to be concerned with the GI of the raw product. It's hard to imagine what a wheat grain could be if most of it was not composed of starch. It may be that altering the composition of the starch could affect the GI of the flour, but is the effort to do this worthwhile?" 4. "Short-stemmed wheat?" (@halften) RK: "The "Green Revolution" wheats, which were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, were based on exactly this idea. The first of these were produced by crossing with short-stemmed plants (called "semi-dwarf") discovered in Japan, although other sources of semi-dwarfism have in the meantime been exploited as well. Almost 100% of modern varieties, both in the UK and around the world, are semi-dwarf. Short stems have two advantages: (1) the stems are stronger and therefore less likely to fall over, and (2) because less energy goes into making a shorter stem, more is left over to make grain. Fully dwarf wheats are known, but there seems to be a threshold for the plant's height below which yield and fertility dips. So it's unlikely that breeding for shorter varieties will be advantageous; in fact the consensus for a long time has been to breed for "tall dwarf" types, since these seem to be the more vigorous." 3. "Take-all' resistant wheat?" (@TinaBarsby_NIAB) PH: "Take-all' is a soil-borne fungal disease which can severely affect the root systems of many cereal crops and have a big impact on yield. It builds up quickly in the soil if wheat is grown in the same field for successive seasons, and is one of the main reasons why “second wheat” (wheat grown after wheat) doesn’t yield as well as “first wheat” (wheat grown following a non-cereal crop). Scientists at Rothamsted have shown that varieties differ in the rate at which they build up take-all levels in the soil. However, it seems that once take-all is there in the soil, wheat (and its close relatives within the Triticeae, including barley and rye) has little natural resistance. Oats, on the other hand, do show resistance. Scientists at JIC and NIAB are working together to see whether the take-all resistance from oats can be transferred to wheat: this cannot be done through crossing (the species are too distantly related) so a GM approach is being used instead." 2. "Will the newly developed "super wheat" be more effective in out-competing weeds?" (Adrian Belton). PH: "Many of these breeding lines show vigorous growth habit and high biomass. These are the type of traits which should help the crop to compete against weeds, although we have not grown any experiments specifically to look at this character." 1. "How about very salt tolerant wheat that could be grown on rafts at sea? This could help solve problems of water and land requirements for food production." (@Toby_Bruce). MB: "It is possible to grow plants that float on rafts in water that contain the correct balance of nutrients for growth. This is called hydroponic growth and is widely used for horticultural crops such as tomatoes grown in greenhouses. It's not used for wheat as it is a crop that is grown in huge areas to produce the 600 million tonnes we need each year. So it has to be grown on land to achieve this yield cheaply and sustainably. But there is a lot of work going on to make wheat more salt tolerant so it can grow in soils that are currently not suitable for wheat - e.g. in the Gulf and Australia. This work is done by hybridising wheat with a related wild grass called Agropyron. This plant grows on the seashore of the Eastern Mediterranean." PH: "Adding to Mike’s point, there are vast areas of Australia that used to be suitable for growing crops but the soils are now too salinated because of irrigation. This is going to become a bigger problem so the need for salt-tolerant crops is growing. If we were to grow wheat on rafts at sea we’d need hovercraft seed drills and combine harvesters too!" RK: ""Apart from the idea of exploiting salinity tolerant relatives of wheat mentioned by MB, there is also a good deal of interest in trying to improve tolerance by transgenesis, since this approach does seem to work in a number of model plant species. Getting to this point in wheat is still a long way off though. Incidentally, among the major crops, wheat is one of the most salinity tolerant that there is (rye and barley are a bit better)."

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From Faith To Faith Sermon shared by Duke Jeffries A. IMPACT OF THIS EPISTLE 1. "When anyone gains a knowledge of this Epistle he has an entrance opened to him to all the most hidden treasures of Scripture." - John Calvin 2. "Time and again in the course of human history it has liberated the minds of men, brought them back to an understanding of the essential gospel of Christ, and started spiritual revolutions." - F.F. Bruce 3. "Augustine, a young man living in the 4th century, was distinguished for his brilliant mind, but he lived a life of unbridled immorality and licentiousness and had given himself to the exposition of pagan philosophy. But one day he heard some children playing. As part of their game, they repeated the refrain -- tolle lege, tolle lege -- literally, "take up and read, take up and read." These words seemed to grab Augustine, and he walked to where he could find a manuscript. The first that his eyes fell upon was a manuscript of the New Testament. As he let the page fall open randomly, it opened to a portion of Romans: ...not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery...Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think abouthow to gratify the desires of the sinful nature. (Romans 13:13-14) Augustine was seized with a sense of conviction for his sin as the Holy Spirit used those words to cut into the quick of the young man's heart. This was the conversion experience of the man many regard as the greatest saint of the first thousand years of the church." - R.C. Sproul: "Interact." Tabletalk, February 1989 4. "During his early years, whenever Luther came to the famous 'Reformation text' - Romans 1:17 -his eyes were drawn not to the word faith, but to the word righteous. Who, after all, could 'live by faith'? Only those who were already righteous. The text was clear on the matter: 'the righteous shall live by faith.' Luther remarked, 'I hated that word, "the righteousness of God," by which I had been taught according to the custom and use of all teachers....[that] God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.' The young Luther could not live by faith because he was not righteous, and he knew it." 'I was seized with the conviction that I must understand [Paul's] letter to the Romans...but to that moment one phrase in chapter 1 stood in my way. I hated the idea, "in it the righteousness of God is revealed"...I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners.... At last, meditating day and night and by the mercy of God, I...began to understand that the righteousness of God is that through which the righteous live by a gift of God, namely by faith...Here I felt as if I were entirely born again and had entered paradise itself through gates that had been flung open.' - James M. Kittelson: "The Accidental Revolutionary." Christian History, Issue 34 (Vol. XI, No.2) 5. "On May 24, 1738, a discouraged missionary went 'very unwillingly' to a religious meeting in London. There a miracle took place. 'About a quarter before nine,' he wrote in his journal, 'I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.' That missionary was John Wesley. The message he heard that evening was the preface to Martin Luther's commentary on Romans. Just a few months before, Comments and Shared Ideas Join the discussion

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|« Back to Article| Swine flu outbreak skips Bay Area for now Rachel Gordon and Julian Guthrie, Chronicle Staff Writers Published 4:00 am, Sunday, April 26, 2009 California health officials said Saturday that there was one more confirmed case of human swine flu in the state, but none have been reported in the Bay Area as local hospitals stepped up surveillance for a possible outbreak. In all, seven cases of the potentially deadly flu strain have been reported in California, the latest case involving a 35-year-old woman in Imperial County, who was hospitalized but recovered. None of the California cases resulted in death. All were reported in the two California counties - San Diego and Imperial - that share a border with Mexico. The virus has killed dozens of people in Mexico and sickened more than 1,000 others. Swine flu is a respiratory disease of pigs caused by type A influenza virus and does not normally infect humans, according to federal health authorities. Typically, when people have gotten it, it's because they came in direct contact with pigs. But this particular strain has been spreading from human to human. Sorensen said she anticipates the spread of the virus to become "quite widespread in this country." By Saturday evening, a total of 11 cases have been reported in the United States. At this point, federal, state and local health officials are keeping a close watch for new cases and making preparations for a large outbreak. On Friday, public health authorities asked hospitals to enhance surveillance for influenza. Anyone who shows up in a hospital with flu-like symptoms, which include a fever of 100 degrees or higher, a cough and/or a sore throat, should be swabbed so the specimens can be tested to determine which type of flu, if any, they have, said Susan Fernyak, director of communicable disease control and prevention at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. "This is a new strain of flu that's never been seen anywhere before. We don't have a vaccine for it," Fernyak said. Hospitals also have been asked to alert the public health agency in their county if someone falls seriously ill or dies from what may be the flu. The symptoms of human swine influenza are typical of other flu types: fever, lethargy, lack of appetite and coughing. Some people also have runny noses, sore throat, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "Seasonal influenza has been waning, so most of our providers are not thinking flu," Sorensen said, adding that's why it's so important that people who show signs get tested. As for the public, Bay Area health officials are not recommending any special precautions be taken other than the standard protocol of covering your nose and mouth with a tissue when you sneeze or cough and discarding the tissue; wash your hands often; try to avoid contact with sick people; and if you think you have the flu, stay home from work or school. If the swine flu takes hold in a particular region, then people may be told to start wearing masks when they leave home and to avoid large crowds. Some school districts may cancel classes, Fernyak said. "We're not there yet, but it doesn't mean we couldn't be in the near future," she said. She was on the phone with other county and state health officials late Saturday afternoon to get the latest updates on the outbreak. She said the status could be changing hourly. Signs of possible swine flu -- Flulike symptoms, including fever, sore throat, cough, and possibly vomiting and diarrhea. -- Recent travel to Mexico or contact with someone who has been to Mexico recently. -- Recent travel to San Diego or Imperial counties in Southern California, or contact with someone from there. What to do if you're sick -- If you have a fever, stay home. Do not go to work, and do not send sick children to school. -- If symptoms worsen, contact a doctor. Be sure to report other risk factors such as recent travel to Mexico. For more information -- The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: links.sfgate.com/ZGWY -- California Department of Public Health: links.sfgate.com/ZGWZ -- Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy: www.cidrap.umn.edu

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Breast Cancer Charity Overstates Value of Mammograms: Researchers THURSDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News) -- The breast cancer charity that brought the world the pink ribbon exaggerates the benefits of mammography while minimizing its harms, researchers claim. The organization in question is the Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which stated in a 2011 advertisement that the five-year survival rate for breast cancer when caught early is 98 percent, while it is only 23 percent if not caught early. "The survival statistics they present are eye-catching and compelling. They imply that a woman would be crazy and irresponsible if they didn't go for screening," said Dr. Steve Woloshin, co-author of the article challenging the charity. "But the statistics are deceptive." According to Woloshin's commentary, which appears online Aug. 2 in the BMJ, a woman in her 50s who goes for regular mammograms for 10 years will only cut her chance of dying by a fraction of a percentage point -- for every 10,000 women who are screened 7 deaths will be prevented. The reason for the discrepancy? Survival statistics calculate how long a woman lives only after diagnosis, the researchers explained. If 100 women were diagnosed with breast cancer after feeling a lump at age 67 and all died three years later at the age of 70, the five-year survival rate would be 0 percent. But, if the cancers were detected by mammography when the women were 64 and they still died at the age of 70, the five-year survival would be 100 percent. Komen also minimizes the harms that can come from over-screening, according to the article. For every woman whose life is saved by mammography, between two and 10 women are overdiagnosed, meaning they are told they have cancer when they do not and end up going through unnecessary treatment. And up to half of women who are screened every year for a decade receive at least one false positive, meaning they have to undergo a biopsy and experience the fear of thinking they have breast cancer, if only temporarily. The article comes at a time when there has been increasing furor over the value of breast cancer screening. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now recommends that women in their 40s do not get regular mammograms. In contrast, the American Cancer Society recommends that all women aged 40 and over get annual mammograms. In the end, women need to get reliable information from their physicians or other sources about the risks and benefits of mammography. One problem is that not all primary care physicians know the right numbers to convey to their patients, according to a recent survey. Overall, few doctors would argue that there isn't some benefit to mammography. Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, supports the charity's push for cancer screening. "As physicians, we feel that breast cancer screening is extremely beneficial," she said. "Screening does save lives, but it's probably not as dramatic as it's sometimes made out to be." Adds Woloshin, who is professor of medicine and community and family medicine at Dartmouth School of Medicine and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice: "There is some benefit but the magnitude is of a different order from what is implied by the ad. Women should make good decisions for themselves." A representative of the Komen Foundation defended the organization's position. "Everyone agrees that mammography isn't perfect, but it's the best widely available detection tool that we have today," said Chandini Portteus, Komen's vice president of research, evaluation and scientific programs. "We've said for years that science has to do better, which is why Komen is putting millions of dollars into research to detect breast cancer before symptoms start, through biomarkers, for example," she explained. "Komen also is funding research to help accurately predict which tumors will spread and which won't," Portteus continued. "While we invest in getting those answers, we think it's simply irresponsible to effectively discourage women from taking steps to know what's going on with their health," she noted. "The numbers are not in question," Portteus said. "Early detection allows for early treatment, which gives women the best chance of surviving breast cancer." The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more on breast cancer. SOURCES: Stephanie Bernik, M.D., chief, surgical oncology, Lenox Hill Hospital, New York City; Steven Woloshin, M.D., professor, medicine and community and family medicine, Dartmouth School of Medicine, and The Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, Lebanon, N.H.; Chandini Portteus, vice president, research, evaluation and scientific programs, Susan G. Komen for the Cure; Aug. 2, 2012, BMJ, onlineRelated Articles - Lymphoma Treatment May Harm, Halt Men's Sperm Production July 25, 2014 - Anal, Throat Cancers on the Rise Among Young Adults, Study Finds July 25, 2014 Learn More About Sharp Sharp HealthCare is San Diego's health care leader with seven hospitals, two medical groups and a health plan. Learn more about our San Diego hospitals, choose a Sharp-affiliated San Diego doctor or browse our comprehensive medical services. Copyright ©2012 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

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Scientists are now saying that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now the largest by far in American history, with up to 40 million gallons having gushed out of the destroyed Deepwater Horizon offshore rig as you read this. U.S. Geological Survey Director Marcia McNutt said two separate teams of scientists were reporting that the well was spewing between 500,000 and 1 million gallons a day, meaning that somewhere between 17 and 39 million gallons have been belched into the Gulf since the rig blew up April 20. The disaster already surpasses the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska, which was estimated at 11 million gallons, and, to this point, there are few signs that it will be stopped soon. BP’s latest attempt to stanch the flow from the well-head a mile down in Gulf waters is using a method called the “top kill,” a process which began Wednesday. It involves injecting millions of tons of mud into the well to block it. If it works, cement will be pumped in on top for a permanent seal. So far, as of this writing, the experts are saying it’s too early to tell if it’s working. The method has worked with leaking wells on land, but never on one this deep beneath the ocean. Environmentalists say that this technique is risky because if it fails, all that added mud and debris will blow out into the water and the coastline along with a half million gallons or more of oil a day. Everyone is hoping that the “top kill” method will work where all BP’s earlier attempts have failed. BP’s only other idea beyond this is to drill a second well beside the blown well and extract oil from the leaking well, but that will take months to accomplish. If it gets to that point, the ramifications may be catastrophic on a number of levels. For one thing, the Gulf Coast fishing and tourist industries could be decimated for years. That’s not something the region or the country can easily withstand. And, as happened after Hurricane Katrina, millions of people and jobs could be displaced. If this spill and its toxic effluent is not contained, it would become by far the greater catastrophe. There is another parallel with Katrina. Just as people of the Gulf region and Americans all over the country blasted the Bush administration for its seemingly laissez-faire approach in the early, “Heckuva job, Brownie” days of the disaster, people are blasting the Obama administration for its stunningly reserved approach. Neither president could fairly be blamed for the disasters that happened on their watch, of course, but that’s hardly the point. After 38 days, it’s about leadership in the form of showing genuine concern and demonstrating that the president is using all the powers to minimize the damage. This president did not get off to a good start in this regard, waiting nine days before commenting publicly on the spill. Even then, he seemed to be willing to stand aside and let BP, the prime villain of the piece as far as many are concerned, lead the response. Then, even after the federal government did get more involved, its response was clumsy and often contradictory. Even since then, Mr. Obama has gone about normal presidential and political business. He didn’t think it was necessary to show his face in the region until today. The hyper-partisan James Carville, a Louisiana native, was beside himself this week in castigating the president of his own party for keeping his distance. Such perceptions matter to people who are frightened and understandably angry about what has happened to their way of life. The hard truth is that the United States government is far less well equipped to deal with such a disaster than BP and other oil-related businesses in the Gulf, which, after all, have experience in these incidents. So there’s nothing even that Washington, the problem-solver of first and last resort, with all its resources, could do to make this go away, as some would wish. That impotence probably explains a lot of the administration’s bumbling. But the other hard truth is that BP, and other oil-drilling companies, were never forced by Washington to prove their competence to deal with accidents before being allowed to drive wells miles under water. And the blame for that falls squarely on Washington’s lax regulation. For that perceived failure, Elizabeth Birnbaum, the head of the U.S. Minerals Management Service was made to walk the plank yesterday. The president also announced that a moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects would be extended indefinitely. Those steps may help placate the policy- and personality-oriented critics in Washington. But the hard-hit people of the Gulf need someone to inspire and encourage them at this darkest hour, even if he doesn’t come bearing a quick fix. Mr. Obama certainly has shown those powers in the past as a candidate, but until now, his celebrated, cerebral aloofness as president has not served him well in this crisis.

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Today in cooking school we’ll be looking at herbs and how to cut them. Fresh herbs can add bursts of flavor that no dried herb can emulate. At our house we grow them all summer long, picking off what we need for each dish, making pesto and preserving them for use during the winter. I’ve noticed, though, that when working with fresh herbs, some people get stuck on how exactly to go about using them. It’s like you’ve handed them this plant that has no real instructions. Instead of working with the fruit or roots of the plant, they’re now focused on leaves, and they’ve probably never used them before. So, let’s break it down. Let’s go over a few techniques for chopping herbs to add to your dishes, as well as how we can save any extra herbs for use later on. All photos by Shaina Herbs are a plant, and like most plants, they’re exposed to nature with all its bugs and dirt. While I’m not afraid of bugs and dirt, I don’t need to be eating them or their byproducts. For this reason, I choose to submerge my herbs in cold water rather than just rinsing them off. By dunking my herbs fully and giving them a good shake while in the water, I’m ensuring that I’m rinsing off all the nooks and crannies of the plant. If the herbs are tightly bound anywhere, be sure to pull leaves apart so that you’re exposing all of the surface areas. For many herbs, you’ll be removing stems. When working with herbs such as parsley, dill and sage, removing the main stem or stalk is the most important part. The smaller stems that the leaves are attached too are okay to leave a bit on here and there. For herbs with woody stalks like rosemary and thyme you’ll want to strip the leaves at their base to avoid any bitter stems. However, don’t throw those stems away. Toss them into your vegetable broths or chicken and beef stock. A chiffonade makes thin ribbon strips of leafy herbs like basil or sage. Simple stack the herbs together into a pile, roll tightly and make thin slices with a sharp knife. For herbs that don’t have large, broad leaves, remove any large stem pieces and place in a tight pile. Hold the pile down with one hand and chop using a hinge method, leading your knife through the pile. Pull the pile into another tight pile and chop again until the desired fineness is achieved. Extra chopped herbs can easily be preserved by adding a teaspoon to ice cube trays, covering with a teaspoon of water and frozen. These frozen herb-sicles can be added to soups or dishes as they are heating for a fresh burst of flavor in winter months. After rinsing and drying fresh herbs, stack them as evenly as possible into a pile. Roll tightly and place in the bottom of a freezer zip-top bag or reusable bag. Remove all air from the bag and seal tightly. Freeze. You can slice strips in the desired amount of the end of this roll to add to dishes once it is frozen. I hope I’ve inspired you to not be afraid to reach for the fresh herbs instead of the dried when cooking if you didn’t already and to perhaps consider growing your own to preserve for use in the winter. What recipes do you use fresh herbs in?

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Henry VIII Parents Henry VIII Parents The Tudors encompass one of the most exciting periods in English History. The dynasty of the Tudors include Kings and Queens such as King Henry VIII and his daughters. But who were the Henry VIII Parents? The father of King Henry VIII was Henry VII (1457 - 1509) who cemented his succession and settled the friction between the Yorkists and Lancastrians and ending the War of the Roses by marrying the Yorkist heir, Elizabeth of York (1466 - 1503) who became the mother of Henry VIII. Henry VIII Parents - The father of King Henry VIII The father of Henry VIII was King Henry VII. Henry VII was the only son of Edmund Tudor and Margaret Beaufort. Margaret Beaufort was a descendant of the Plantagenet King Edward III through his son, John of Gaunt, and his third wife Katherine Swynford. The father of Henry VII, Edmund Tudor, died before he was born and the future King Henry VII was raised by his uncle Jasper Tudor. The Tudors were members of the House of Lancaster. England entered a period of Civil war called the War of the Roses between noble factions of England called the House of York and the House of Lancaster. A Lancastrian rebellion rose against the Yorkist King Richard III following the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower ( who the two young brothers of Elizabeth of York). On August 22nd 1485 Henry Tudor defeated King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field and Henry Tudor claimed the throne of England. The marriage chosen by King Henry VII was extremely important as it joined the York and Lancaster factions. The parents of King Henry VIII started the Tudor dynasty and effectively ended the War of the Roses. Henry VIII Parents - The Mother of King Henry VIII The Lancastrian King Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, the daughter of Edward IV and Elizabeth Woodville on 18 January 1486. The marriage between Elizabeth of York and King Henry VII was a happy one. Elizabeth of York became the mother of King Henry VIII. Henry and Elizabeth were the proud parents of four children. They had two daughters Margaret Tudor (1489 – 1541) and Mary Tudor (1496 – 1533). They also had two sons - Arthur, Prince of Wales (1486 – 1502) and Prince Henry (1491 – 1547). Arthur was the first born son and therefore the Prince of Wales and heir to the English throne. Prince Henry as the second son was destined to take the secular life. Arthur, Prince of Wales married the Spanish princess Catherine of Aragon on November 14, 1501 but Prince Arthur died six months later on April 2, 1502. His parents were devastated but as a result of his older brothers death Prince Henry became the heir to the English throne and became King Henry VIII. Elizabeth of York died on 11 February 1503. The relationship between Henry VIII and his Parents The relationship between Henry VIII and his mother was a good one. Henry adored his mother Elizabeth of York who was a kind, loyal and obedient woman. Henry was spoilt and pampered during his childhood by both his mother and his grandmother. His father was a prudent king and during his reign he brought wealth and prosperity to England leaving a stable legacy to Henry. The relationship between his father King Henry VII was somewhat perplexing. King Henry VII clearly favoured Prince Arthur, the heir to the throne of England. Prince Arthur was the Heir and Prince Henry was the 'spare'. Arthur was therefore given royal responsibilities whereas Prince Henry was destined to a secular life, his possible future role might have been the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both of the royal brothers had a strict upbringing and anyone who came into contact with them were carefully vetted. Henry VIII had limited freedom and closely watched by his father. King Henry VII had lived through the 30 year civil war in England referred to as the 'War of the Roses' between the Yorkists and Lancastrians. Henry VII had seen at first hand the in-fighting in families. As the parent of the two princes King Henry VII might have been concerned about possible rivalry between the two siblings. After the death of Prince Arthur King Henry VII was reputed to have been "beset by the fear that his son might during his lifetime obtain too much power." The cousin of Prince Henry, Reginald Pole, later claimed that King Henry VII disliked his second son "having no affection or fancy unto him". It was also reported that the King quarrelled so violently with young Henry in 1508 that it appeared "as if he sought to kill him." Henry VIII Parents Each section of this Tudors website addresses all topics and provides interesting facts and information about King Henry VIII parents. The Sitemap provides full details of all of the information and facts provided about the fascinating subject of the Tudors!

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The Moon passing in front of a planet is a truly spellbinding event. The hiding and uncovering are gradual, and you can even see rugged lunar mountains silhouetted on the planet's disk. The best of these occultations for the coming year are described here, so mark your calendar. It is especially satisfying to time them accurately, which is simpler than many skywatchers assume. You can make good timings by calling out an event to a tape recorder that is also recording time signals. Very accurate timings can often be made by just pointing a camcorder into the eyepiece of your telescope. Some stars are so bright that you can zoom in on the Moon with the camcorder directly — you don’t even need a telescope for these. For a quarter century now, the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) has issued detailed predictions of the events visible throughout the world in each successive year. Our main focus is on those that can be seen from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, which are populated with many active observers. Only the brightest events can be mentioned, and many details (star's magnitude, lunar illumination, etc.) are not included in this Web article. The complete article appears in the January 2004 issue, page 102, and is available from Sky & Telescope's PDF archive. More detailed information for these and other areas is available via the Internet (see page 7). If the Moon is waxing, on its way to full, stars almost always disappear on the dark limb and are easy to watch. Reappearance happens on the bright limb, which overwhelms most stars with glare and makes them too hard to watch or time. When the Moon is waning, the events on the bright and dark limbs are reversed. In either case, a reappearance needs more care, since you have to be looking at the part of the Moon’s limb where the star will pop out. For observers stationed within a mile or so (2 to 3 kilometers) of an occultation’s predicted northern or southern limit, a grazing occultation occurs. There you might see the star wink off and on several times as it passes behind hills and valleys near the Moon’s north or south pole. Observers spaced across this path will time different sequences of events, which can be analyzed to map the lunar-limb profile. Visual timings are fine for grazes, since their scientific value depends more on knowing each observer’s geographical location than on obtaining timings to better than, say, ½ second. Grazes are important for mapping the Moon’s apparently ice-rich polar regions, because the laser aboard the US Naval Research Laboratory’s Clementine spacecraft, which mapped the Moon from lunar orbit in 1994, did not reach those areas. The year’s best grazes are shown on the maps in this article. Many total occultations require a small telescope. But a camcorder alone, or firmly mounted binoculars, might suffice for those involving bright stars. Grazes are the most dynamic, interesting, and valuable kind of lunar occultation. Occultations of Bright Stars for North America in 2004 Occultations of Bright Stars for Europe in 2004 Occultations of Bright Stars for Australia and New Zealand in 2004 Special Events for 2004 Planets. The three brightest major planets will be occulted in 2004. There is probably little new that can be learned from these events in this age of space exploration, but they are still interesting to watch. In the case of Venus, the controversial “ashen light” that some observers have reported on the planet’s dark side might be observed briefly during a lunar occultation. But a night sky would be required, and both of this year’s Venus occultations take place in daytime or bright twilight except in narrow regions of central Asia, where few observers live. (The planet is mostly sunlit on November 10th, further hampering such an attempt.) The year’s best occultation for most of North America will be the one of Jupiter by a crescent Moon, early on the morning of December 7th. Binoculars will probably be needed to see Jupiter slip behind the bright limb, but the reappearance at the Moon’s dark limb, lasting a half minute or more, will be a spectacular naked-eye sight. Jupiter’s faint ring might even be glimpsed with large telescopes just before the planet’s globe starts to emerge. An interesting dark-limb graze will be visible from the roughly 30-mile-wide southern partial-occultation zone, which passes near Big Bend and San Antonio, Texas, and near Key West, Florida. To anticipate the Moon’s brightness and whether a planet will enter or leave at the dark limb, the lunar phase in the table below is listed as the percentage of the Moon’s disk that is sunlit, followed by “+” for waxing phases and “–” for waning phases. |Occultations of Solar-System Objects, 2004| |Date||UT (h)||Planet||Mag.||Diameter||Moon (%)||Area of Visibility| |Mar. 25||22||Mars||1.5||5.0"||23+||N N. America, Iceland| |May 21||12||Venus||–3.9||49.8"||5+||Europe, NW Africa, W Asia| |June 9||22||Vesta||7.5||0.36"||49–||NW Asia| |Nov. 9||17||Jupiter||–1.3||31.8"||11–||N & E N. America| |Nov. 10||2||Venus||–4.0||12.9"||8–||S Asia, Australia, N.Z.| |Nov. 11||4||Mars||1.7||3.7"||3–||E Africa, S Australia, N.Z.| |Dec. 7||11||Jupiter||–1.4||33.6"||26–||N. America, W Africa| Lunar eclipses. During a total eclipse of the Moon, occultations of 8th-magnitude stars are easy to time. Even stars of 9th and 10th magnitude can be seen against the lunar limb except while it is crossing the brightest outer parts of the umbra (Earth’s shadow core). The May 4th eclipse will be visible from most of the Eastern Hemisphere, while the one on October 28th can be seen from the Americas and Europe. The most interesting occultation during an eclipse will be that of 2.8-magnitude Alpha2(a2) Librae. It can be seen from parts of Namibia, South Africa, and Antarctica and will be a naked-eye event for some. The northern limit of this event in Africa is plotted on the world map. Alpha2 Librae is the brightest star occulted during any total lunar eclipse since May 4, 1985, when the same star was also occulted in Africa. The author and three other Americans traveled to Sudan and successfully recorded that event at the northern limit. European and African observers are organizing to observe the star’s graze this year. Also during the May 4th eclipse, observers in northwestern and eastern Europe can see occultations of 7th-magnitude ZC 2111 and ZC 2119, while those in northern Australia will have similar occultations of ZC 2091 and SAO 158720.On October 28th, an occultation of 7.7-magnitude ZC 319 will occur in the Caribbean Sea and over western and southern Europe. Most of North America will have an occultation of SAO 92843, while just the Pacific Northwest will see one of SAO 92827; both of these are 9th-magnitude stars. Tips on timings, plus more information about occultations of open star clusters and double stars, and additional details about occultations of bright stars for North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, can be found in the January 2004 issue of Sky & Telescope beginning on page 102. Predictions of lunar occultations for 17 North American stations are given in the 2004 Observer’s Handbook of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. About 30 occultations of stars as faint as 5th magnitude are listed for each location. The handbook also has maps of northern and southern limits for 228 occultations of stars to magnitude 7.5 for the US, Canada, and northern Mexico. IOTA's Walt Robinson (email@example.com; 515 W. Kump, Bonner Springs, KS 66012-1439) will compute occultation data if you send him accurate geographical coordinates and an e-mail address or a long, self-addressed, stamped envelope. European residents should instead contact Hans Bode, Bartold-Knaust Strasse 8, D-30459 Hannover, Germany; firstname.lastname@example.org. Also visit Sky & Telescope's occultation page where you can learm more about occultations in general. Details about specific major events are usually posted on the page about one month before the occultation occurs.

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In migrating to Sindh, Qalandar joined other mystics fleeing Central Asia as the Mongols advanced. Many of them settled temporarily in Multan, a city in central Punjab that came to be known as the "city of saints." Arab armies had conquered Sindh in 711, a hundred years after the founding of Islam, but they had paid more attention to empire-building than to religious conversions. Qalandar teamed with three other itinerant preachers to promote Islam amid a population of Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus. The "four friends," as they became known, taught Sufism. They eschewed fire-and-brimstone sermons, and rather than forcibly convert those belonging to other religions, they often incorporated local traditions into their own practices. "The Sufis did not preach Islam like the mullah preaches it today," says Hamid Akhund, a former secretary of tourism and culture in the Sindh government. Qalandar "played the role of integrator," says Ghulam Rabbani Agro, a Sindhi historian who has written a book about Qalandar. "He wanted to take the sting out of religion." Gradually, as the "friends" and other saints died, their enshrined tombs attracted legions of followers. Sufis believed that their descendants, referred to as pirs, or "spiritual guides," inherited some of the saints' charisma and special access to Allah. Orthodox clerics, or mullahs, considered such beliefs heretical, a denial of Islam's basic creed: "There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet." While pirs encouraged their followers to engage Allah in a mystical sense and relish the beauty of the Koran's poetic aspects, the mullahs typically instructed their followers to memorize the Koran and study accounts of the Prophet's life, known collectively as the Hadith. While the tension between Sufis and other Muslims continued through history, in Pakistan the dynamic between the two groups has lately entered an especially intense phase with the proliferation of militant groups. In one example three years ago, terrorists attacked an urs in Islamabad, killing more than two dozen people. After October 2007, when former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto—a native of Sindh province with roots in Sufism—returned from exile, terrorists twice targeted her for assassination, succeeding that December. Meanwhile, the Taliban persisted in their terror campaign against the Pakistani military and launched attacks in major cities. I had seen the extremists up close; in the fall of 2007 I traveled throughout northwestern Pakistan for three months, reporting a story on the emergence of a new, considerably more dangerous generation of Taliban. In January 2008, two days after that story was published in the New York Times Magazine, I was expelled from Pakistan for traveling without government authorization to areas where the Taliban held sway. The next month, Bhutto's political party swept to victory in national elections, heralding the twilight of President Pervez Musharraf's military rule. It was an odd parallel: the return of democracy and the rise of the Taliban. In August, I secured another visa from the Pakistani government and went back to see how the Sufis were faring. Over dinner in a Karachi hotel, Rohail Hyatt told me that the "modern-day mullah" was an "urban myth" and that such authoritarian clerics have "always been at war with Sufis." Hyatt, a Sufi, is also one of Pakistan's pop icons. Vital Signs, which he founded in 1986, became the country's biggest rock band in the late '80s. In 2002, the BBC named the band's 1987 hit, "Dil, Dil Pakistan" ("Heart, Heart Pakistan"), the third most popular international song of all time. But Vital Signs became inactive in 1997, and lead singer Junaid Jamshed, Hyatt's longtime friend, became a fundamentalist and decided that such music was un-Islamic. Hyatt watched with despair as his friend adopted the rituals, doctrine and uncompromising approach espoused by the urban mullahs, who, in Hyatt's view, "believe that our identity is set by the Prophet" and less by Allah, and thus mistakenly gauge a man's commitment to Islam by such outward signs as the length of his beard, the cut of his trousers (the Prophet wore his above the ankle, for comfort in the desert) and the size of the bruise on his forehead (from regular, intense prayer). "These mullahs play to people's fears," Hyatt said. " ‘Here is heaven, here is hell. I can get you into heaven. Just do as I say.' " I hadn't been able to find a clear, succinct definition of Sufism anywhere, so I asked Hyatt for one. "I can explain to you what love is until I turn blue in the face. I can take two weeks to explain everything to you," he said. "But there is no way I can make you feel it until you feel it. Sufism initiates that emotion in you. And through that process, religious experience becomes totally different: pure and absolutely nonviolent." Hyatt is now the music director for Coca-Cola in Pakistan, and he hopes he can leverage some of his cultural influence—and access to corporate cash—to convey Sufism's message of moderation and inclusiveness to urban audiences. (He used to work for Pepsi, he said, but Coke is "way more Sufic.") He recently produced a series of live studio performances that paired rock acts with traditional singers of qawwali, devotional Sufi music from South Asia. One of the best-known qawwali songs is titled "Dama Dum Mast Qalandar," or "Every Breath for the Ecstasy of Qalandar." Several politicians have also tried to popularize Sufism, with varying degrees of success. In 2006, as Musharraf faced political and military challenges from the resurgent Taliban, he established a National Sufi Council to promote Sufi poetry and music. "The Sufis always worked for the promotion of love and oneness of humanity, not for disunity or hatred," he said at the time. But Musharraf's venture was perceived as less than sincere.

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This map shows where NASA's Mars rover Curiosity landed in August 2012 at "Bradbury Landing"; the area where the rover worked from November 2012 through May 2013 at and near the "John Klein" target rock in the "Glenelg" area; and the mission's next major destination, the entry point to the base of Mount Sharp. Image released June 5, 2013. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona NASA's Mars rover Curiosity is gearing up for its first big road trip, a journey that will carry it through miles of dramatic Red Planet scenery over the course of a year or so. The 1-ton Curiosity rover has remained close to its landing site since touching down on the Red Planet last August. But it will wrap up work in this area in the next few weeks, and then start trekking toward the base of Mount Sharp, a mysterious mountain that rises 3.4 miles (5.5 kilometers) into the Martian sky, mission team members said. "We're going to hit the road and embark on a really new phase of the mission," Curiosity deputy project scientist Joy Crisp, of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., told reporters today (June 5). [Curiosity's Latest Amazing Mars Photos] Mysterious Mount Sharp The base of Mount Sharp has been Curiosity's ultimate destination since before the rover launched in November 2011. Mission scientists want Curiosity to read the Red Planet's environmental history like a book as it climbs up Mount Sharp's lower reaches. "It's like looking at — kind of — the layers in [the] Grand Canyon," Crisp said. "It's preserving a record of how things were in the past and how they changed, as you go from the older rocks at the bottom to younger rocks at the top." But Curiosity has yet to depart for Mount Sharp's foothills, finding plenty to keep it occupied near its landing site. In February, for example, the rover drilled deep into an outcrop dubbed "John Klein," pulling out samples that allowed the mission team to determine that Mars could have supported microbial life long ago. Researchers wanted to confirm and extend this finding, so last month, they ordered Curiosity to drill another hole in a nearby rock called Cumberland. Analysis of those samples is ongoing, team members said. Curiosity needs to complete three additional tasks before it can head out for Mount Sharp, Crisp said. The rover will search for differences in hydrogen abundance across two different types of bedrock, and it will take closer looks at intriguing nearby outcrops called Point Lake and Shaler. "Shaler might be a river deposit. Point Lake might be volcanic or sedimentary," Crisp said in a statement. "A closer look at them could give us better understanding of how the rocks we sampled with the drill fit into the history of how the environment changed." The rover should finish this work in the next few weeks, at which point it will start heading to the base of Mount Sharp. A long drive Mission planners are targeting a section of Mount Sharp's base that lies about 5 miles (8 km) from Curiosity's current location — quite a trek, considering that the rover has put just 2,405 feet (733 meters) on its odometer thus far. The rover team isn't sure how long the drive will take, saying it will depend on what Curiosity — whose top speed across hard, flat ground is about 0.09 mph (0.14 km/h) — encounters along the way. "We are on a mission of exploration," said Curiosity project manager Jim Erickson, also of JPL. "If we come across scientifically interesting areas, we are going to stop and examine them before continuing the journey." Still, he gave a rough estimate for the journey's duration. "I would hazard a guess that somewhere between 10 months and a year might be something like a fast pace," Erickson said.

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One night in January 1636, the wagon stands near a farmhouse outside the Protestant town of Halle. Out of the woods come a Catholic Lieutenant and three soldiers in full armor. They have come from a guide to the town and the Lieutenant orders to kill anyone who makes a sound. They knock and seize the Old Peasant Woman who answers. The soldiers bring out an Old Peasant and his son. Kattrin appears on the wagon and her mother has gone to town to buy supplies because the shopkeepers are fleeing and selling cheap. The soldiers demand a guide; the son refuses, even upon the threat of death. The soldiers then threaten to destroy their cattle. The son complies and exits with the soldiers. The Old Peasant climbs on the roof and spies a Catholic regiment, which has killed the watchman and readies for a surprise attack on the town. Convinced there is nothing they can do, the Peasant Woman begins to pray, asking God to protect their family members in the town. When she learns of the Peasant Woman's grandchildren in town, Kattrin quietly climbs on the roof. She withdraws a drum from under her apron and begins to beat it. The peasants command her to stop, threatening to stone her. The soldiers return, threatening to kill them all. Craftily, the First Soldier promises Kattrin that they will spare her mother if she stops and accompanies them to town. She ignores them, as the young man notes, and she does not beat for her mother alone. The Old Peasant begins maniacally chopping wood to conceal her drumming with an innocent peacetime noise. The soldiers consider setting the farm on fire. Kattrin listens and laughs. Enraged, the Lieutenant orders his men to bring a musket. The Peasant Woman suggests that they smash the wagon. The Young Peasant deal it a few blows; Kattrin pauses in distress but continues. Suddenly he cheers her on and the soldier beats him with his pike. The second soldier returns and shoots the weeping Kattrin. Her final drum-beats mingle with the thunder of a cannon. She has saved the town. Toward morning, Mother Courage sits by Kattrin's body in front of the wagon. The drums and pipes of the marching troops are heard. The peasants order the parasite away and Courage must follow her regiment. Courage responds that Kattrin has perhaps fallen asleep and sings her a lullaby. The peasants bring her to her senses. Courage fetches a sheet from the wagon to cover the body. She plans to go to Eilif. The peasants offer to bury her. Courage pays them and harnesses herself to the wagon. She is confident she can manage: "I must get back into business" she resolves. As she calls to the passing regiment, the soldiers sing her signature song. As the poster introducing the scene indicates, here the "stone begins to speak." Contrary to the consolations Courage offers throughout the play, Kattrin's muteness does not save her from involving herself in the war. She intervenes in spite of her silence, acting where those around her will not. The scene underscores her resolve. Unlike the hostile peasants, she will sacrifice her material possessions and life to rescue the town. Notably, Kattrin again appears as a "good mother" in this respect, saving the children while her mother is off once more haggling for supplies. In the Courage Model Book, Brecht emphasizes the importance of alienation in this one of the more conventionally "dramatic" scenes of the play, insisting that the director stage it without allowing the audience to be so easily taken up in its pathos. For example, the peasants carefully justify their failure to intervene, supporting each other in the belief that there is nothing they can do. Ultimately, the only action they can divine is prayer. The Peasant Woman's appeal to God and analogous groveling before the Captain can only recall the "Song of the Great Capitulation." Not only do the peasant capitulate but conspire in Kattrin's murder, readily informing on her and participating in the attempts to bring her from the roof. For Brecht, the actors playing the peasants must underscore the ritual character of despair. In other words, the ways in which the years of wartime suffering have frozen them into fixed forms of begging, informing, and lamentation. This ritualization is the deeper horror underlying this episode. The final scene is similarly unrecognizable without Brecht's techniques of alienation. Contrary to immediate appearances, Courage's lullaby resists sentimentality. Instead, she sings it murderously. By promising her child the extraordinary, she argues that this mother's child must fare better than all others. For Brecht, the lullaby to the corpse would reveal her persistent, treacherous hope of bringing her child and her child alone through the war. Similarly does the staging demand rigorously realist details. In Brecht's production, for example, Courage mechanically subtracts a coin from the sum she gives the peasants for Kattrin's burial. This "realist discovery" would reveal how Courage retains her capacity to reckon in all her grief. Along with this revelation about the contradictions and conditions of human nature, the undo emphasis on such detail would decompose the theatrical illusion for the spectator, critically breaking it into pieces according to the dominant narrative principle of the epic theater: "one thing after another." Such techniques of alienation are paramount to the play's conclusion, a denouement that would illustrate how Courage has effectively learned nothing. Having lost another child while haggling and then initially denying her daughter's death, she quickly disposes of her corpse to return to the march: "I must get back into business." Thus, she takes up the wagon, hauling it across an empty stage recalling Scene 1. Courage comes full circle, remaining a "damned soul" who works endlessly at the business of war.

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The book was in old English and asked so many questions about god and toward god, which could not be answered. It's meaningless to write Book 1 because he only praised the god rather than the ordinary people who gave him knowledge to write and learn. Without human beings, how could he get over all this obstacles on his way communicating toward god. He is nothing special, and he cannot be too complacent saying that he knows too much about the god. 1 out of 65 people found this helpful Well, being that his view is theocentric, perhaps Augustine sees the human beings as God's helpers. Meaning that if it weren't for God the human being wouldn't have been present at all. So them being present in his life was more of an effort on God's part than it actually was for those who helped. Yes, it wouldnt hurt to give the helpers some acknowledgement for the roles they played, but to Augustine they were probably smaller parts to a greater plan the God orchestrated. Therefore, God actually would deserve the ultimate praise. 12 out of 13 people found this helpful This SparkNote is wrong. Plato didn't really believe that "learning is a kind of remembering, in which the soul rediscovers a truth it knew before birth." This is a dialectical approach that Socrates uses on Meno to disprove the famous "Meno's Paradox," in which Meno asks Socrates "How will you look for virtue if you do not know what it is? If you should meet with it, how will you know that this is the thing you did not know?" I can't believe that SparkNotes would let inaccurate information like this be part of the foundation for another text. 1 out of 5 people found this helpful

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Decompressive Lumbar Laminectomy A Surgical Option for Spinal Stenosis Decompressive lumbar laminectomy is a surgical procedure used to treat a condition referred to as lateral recess stenosis, which occurs when spinal nerves are pinched by narrowing of the sides of the spinal canal. Symptoms include intense pain as well as numbness and/or weakness in one leg. This surgical procedure can also be used to treat lumbar canal stenosis, which occurs when the spinal canal becomes narrowed and the cauda equina becomes compressed. This condition has similar symptoms as lateral recess stenosis. Quick Anatomy Lesson: Helpful in Understanding Spine Surgery The human spine extends from the skull to the pelvis and is made up of individual bones called vertebrae. The vertebrae, which are stacked on top of each other, are grouped into 4 regions: - the cervical spine or neck (which is made up of 7 vertebrae) - the thoracic spine or chest area (which is made up of 12 vertebrae) - the lumbar spine or low back (which is made up of 5 vertebrae) - the sacrum or pelvis area (which has 5 vertebrae) The base of the spine (called the coccyx) includes naturally fused vertebrae and is often called the tailbone. The vertebrae are separated from one another by soft pads, called intervertebral discs, which allow the spine to bend and flex and act as shock absorbers during regular activity. These discs also prevent the vertebrae from rubbing up against each other. Each disc is made up of 2 parts, a soft center called the nucleus and a tough outer band called the annulus. Throughout the length of the spine is an arch of bone called the spinal canal. Inside the spinal canal are the spinal cord and spinal nerves. The spinal cord begins at the base of the brain and ends in the upper lumbar spine area in a bundle of nerves known as the cauda equina. A pair of spinal nerves branch out (one to the left and one to the right) at each vertebral level. Each nerve exits the spinal canal through an opening between the vertebrae called a foramen. Breakdown of Normal Spinal Anatomy Healthy discs help to cushion the vertebrae and keep the opening of the foramina wide enough for the spinal nerve roots to pass through without being pinched. However, as the body ages, the intervertebral discs begin to break down and the vertebrae become much closer to one another. This can result in the formation of bone spurs and cause the spinal canal and the foramina to become narrowed. It also increases the chances that spinal nerves may eventually become pinched. This leads to the need for a decompressive lumbar laminectomy. The patient is placed under anesthesia and positioned on his or her stomach or side. A small incision is made in the lower back in order for the surgeon to see the pinched spinal nerves and/or the compressed cauda equina. The surgeon then uses a retractor to expose the vertebrae by spreading apart the muscles and fatty tissue of the spine. A small drill or bone biting instruments are used to remove a section of the vertebra. An opening is cut in the ligamentum flavum in order to reach the spinal canal. The surgeon removes bone spurs (osteophytes) and any rough edges on the intervertebral disc. This enlarges the foramen and the spinal canal and helps relieve pressure on the spinal nerves. If necessary, the surgeon will perform a spinal fusion with instrumentation to help stabilize the spine. A spinal fusion involves grafting a small piece of bone (usually taken from the patient's own hip) onto the spine and using spinal hardware, such as screws, rods, or other metal implants, to support the spine and provide stability. Then the procedure is finished! The surgeon will close the incision either using absorbable sutures (stitches), which absorb on their own and do not need to be removed, or skin sutures, which will have to be removed by the surgeon after the incision has healed.

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Before we explore the Art of Spiritual Dignity, let us first establish a foundation worthy to be mentioned: every member of the human race is a spiritual being. Yes! Every member of the human race is a spiritual being. In the Hebrew Scriptures, known by many as the Old Testament, in Genesis 1:26-27 NRSV, it is written: "Then God said, 'Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness;' So god created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." In other words, all of the power, qualities, and very nature that are true of God are likewise true of all humankind. In the New Testament, John 4:24, it is written: "God is Spirit." In I John 4:8 and I John 4:16 it is written that "God is Love." Because God is Spirit, and we are offspring of Spirit, then it stands to reason that we are Spiritual Beings. Because God is also Love, and we are offspring of Love, then we could also be identified as Beings of Love. What is this idea or quality named Love? The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "love" as "unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another." What do we mean by Dignity? The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "dignity" as "the quality or state of being worthy, honored, or esteemed." As Beings of Love, we are empowered with the ability to express Spiritual Dignity, to behave in a manner worthy of honor, or esteem. Spiritual Beings, our thoughts and emotions have creative power. Treating our every thought and emotion with unconditional Love will guarantee that our every act and reaction will reflect Spiritual Dignity. Do consider joining with us, in mastering The Art of Spiritual Dignity.

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|Geographical Range||Madagascar (off the eastern coast of Africa)| |Habitat||Forested areas near rivers, streams, ponds, swamps| |Scientific Name||Sanzinia madagascariensis| When the female of this species is pregnant, its skin color darkens. This adaptation provides increased heat absorption for the developing young. After giving birth, the female's color returns to the normal green at its next shed cycle. The bright red color of newborns may warn predators to "stay away" while providing camouflage among brightly colored treetop flowers.

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My Flatirons Climbing/Hiking images (2007).The Flatirons are rock formations near Boulder, Colorado. There are five large, numbered Flatirons ranging from north to south (First through Fifth, respectively) along the east slope of Green Mountain, and the term "The Flatirons" sometimes refers to these five alone. Numerous smaller named Flatirons are on the southern part of Green Mountain and among the surrounding foothills. Origin of the Name - The Flatirons were named by pioneer women who said they looked like the flat, metal irons used to iron their clothes. A symbol of Boulder - Images of the numbered Flatirons on Green Mountain are a ubiquitous symbol of the city of Boulder. The area abounds with Flatirons photographs, drawings, paintings, and sculptures. The city government, the University of Colorado, and many businesses make use of this symbol. Many businesses also use the word Flatirons or Flatiron in their names. (Wikipedia) [ View Gallery - 9 More Images ]

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Stereotactic Radiotherapy Slows Cancer Progression For Inoperable Patients For pancreatic cancer patients unable to undergo surgery – the only known cure for this form of cancer – a highly targeted cancer radiation therapy may help slow cancer progression and lessen disease symptoms, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Called stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT), the study found it was able to delay pancreatic cancer progression locally, on average, by almost six months. While, on average, the patients in the study lived about 10 months, one-third lived more than a year. Without any treatment – surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy – most pancreatic cancer patients only live about four to six months. "Our research establishes stereotactic body radiotherapy as a reasonable treatment option for patients who can't have surgery or aren't candidates for chemotherapy," says study lead author Michael Haley, D.O., a resident in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford Hospital. "While it's not a curative therapy, it does seem to allow some progression-free survival benefit with minimal side-effects for patients. Ultimately, we're able to provide a treatment to patients who don't have any other options other than a traditionally prolonged course of radiation, which may not be as effective, and possibly has more side effects." Says study co-author Munther Ajlouni, M.D., senior staff physician in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Henry Ford: "SBRT allows us to effectively treat patients who are unable to tolerate prolonged, aggressive therapy within a short period of time and with minimal toxicity." The study will be presented Nov. 2 during the poster session at the 52nd annual American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) meeting in San Diego. Results also are online in the November issue of the International Journal of Radiation Oncology. According to the National Cancer Institute, in 2010 there will be an estimated 43,140 new cases of pancreatic cancer, and approximately 36,800 will die from the disease. Risk factors for pancreatic cancer include smoking, diabetes, obesity, family history of the disease and pancreatitis. Most people diagnosed with the disease are older than 65. Surgery is the only known cure for resectable pancreatic cancer, where the cancer is localized to the pancreas and hasn't spread. It is estimated that only 20 percent of pancreatic cancer patients have their tumors present with localized disease amendable to surgical removal. A select number of those patients, however, are not candidates for surgery due to having other co-morbidities such as heart disease. This leaves only chemotherapy and radiation, or a combination of the two, available for treatment. SBRT is a method of giving radiation that can be highly targeted to the tumor, sparing the normal tissue around it. It also provides a higher dose of radiation, meaning patients have fewer treatments. It is most commonly used for lung cancer patients, but has been used for liver and brain tumors as well. The Henry Ford study looked to determine if SBRT was a viable option to slow cancer progression in medically inoperable patients with potentially resectable pancreatic cancer. The study included 12 medically inoperable patients with stage I or II pancreatic cancer. The median patient age was 83. Patients received between three and seven SBRT treatments. Among those patients whose cancer spread, SBRT was able to slow cancer progression for five to six months. Once the patients' cancer started to progress, they lived about 2.5 months. "This may indicate that this slowing of the progression of disease accomplished by SBRT may modestly increase overall life span," notes Dr. Haley. A few patients reported some minor side effects from treatment, including fatigue, loss of appetite and weakness. Two patients developed gastric ulcers, but both recovered.

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has been identified as a major cause of peptic ulcers, the usefulness of making certain lifestyle changes has been called into question. Still, some lifestyle changes may decrease your production of stomach acid, decrease your susceptibility to peptic ulcers, and help you control your symptoms. Smoking cessation is considered essential in reducing the development and symptoms of peptic ulcers. General Guidelines Stop smokingDon’t abuse alcohol Managing Peptic Ulcers Some studies show that cigarette smokers have a higher risk of peptic ulcers. These studies have also shown that ulcers in cigarette smokers heal more slowly and have a greater chance of recurring. If you smoke, talk to your doctor about ways to help yourself stop. Don’t Abuse Alcohol Heavy alcohol use has been linked to an increased risk of peptic ulcers. Drinking alcohol while you are taking nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can greatly increase your risk of stomach irritation and peptic ulcer development. Alcohol may also worsen your symptoms if you already have a peptic ulcer. When to Contact Your Doctor Always call your doctor if: Symptoms don’t improve or recur with treatmentSymptoms get worse despite treatmentYou notice new symptoms. and peptic ulcers. National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse website. Available at: http://digestive.niddk.nih.gov/ddiseases/pubs/hpylori/index.aspx. Updated April 30, 2012. Accessed April 29, 2013. Meurer LN, Bower DJ. Management of Am Fam Physician. 2002;65(7):1327-36. Peptic ulcer disease. EBSCO DynaMed website. Available at: http://www.ebscohost.com/dynamed. Updated April 22, 2013. Accessed April 29, 2013. Understanding peptic ulcer disease. American Gastroenterological Association website. Available at: http://www.gastro.org/patient-center/digestive-conditions/peptic-ulcer-disease. Published April 23, 2010. Accessed April 29, 2013. Last reviewed March 2014 by Daus Mahnke, 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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Mitral Valve Repair There are four valves in the heart to ensure that blood flows in the right direction. Valves can be either too tight (stenosis) or leak (regurgitation or insufficiency). The mitral valve is located on the left side of the heart between the collecting chamber (left atrium) and the pumping chamber (left ventricle). It prevents blood from being pumped back into the lungs. The mitral valve can leak for a number of different reasons. If the leak is severe enough, surgery should be undertaken to avoid further complications. Most of the time, the mitral valve can be repaired, and often using robotic or other minimally invasive techniques. The goal of the procedure is to restore the mitral valve to its normal shape using the patient’s own valve tissue and to stop blood from leaking backward into the left atrium. Swedish has long been a center of excellence and training center for minimally invasive cardiac valve surgery. We are one of the few centers in the Western United States to offer robotic mitral valve repair. Robotic mitral valve repair is done in an operating room, with a team that is specially trained for this robotic surgery During the procedure: - The surgeon makes a series of small port incisions on a patient's right side. - The patient is connected to the heart-lung machine, generally using the large artery and vein for the leg, to provide blood flow to the body when the heart is stopped to complete the valve repair. Access to these blood vessels requires a small incision at the top of the leg. - A tiny viewing camera and specially designed surgical instruments attached to robotic arms are inserted through the ports in the chest. - The cardiac surgeon sits at a nearby console, controlling the robot. - On the console, the surgeon is able to see inside the chest and the heart in 3- D and high-definition, along with up to 10x magnification. - The surgeon carefully repairs the valve using the same techniques used in a traditional open operation, according to the type of damage causing the mitral valve to leak. The instruments are "wristed," allowing 7 dimensions of movement, giving surgeons better mobility and dexterity than they would have holding the instruments themselves. All surgeries involve some degree of risk, and not all patients are candidates for this robotic procedure. If you need mitral valve repair, talk to your doctor about whether you would be a good candidate. Robotic mitral valve repair is a minimally invasive procedure. After surgery, patients typically return to full activities in about 3 or 4 weeks. In comparison, patients who have an open surgery (where the breastbone is split and opened widely to allow access to the heart) takes up to 3 months to recover. Studies to date show that the long-term outcomes for patients who have robotic mitral valve repair match those for traditional open procedures. More importantly, the long-term outcomes are better for patients who have their mitral valve repaired compared to patients who have their mitral valves replaced. Depending on the reason for the mitral valve to leak, Swedish cardiac surgeons have over a 95% success rate in repairing the mitral valve. When necessary, the surgeons at Swedish are also skilled and experienced in robotic mitral valve replacement. Robotic surgical systems are now widely available, but few cardiac surgeons have the skill, training and experience to perform robotic mitral valve repair. In choosing a surgeon who performs robotic mitral valve repair, be sure to ask: - How much experience do you and your team members (anesthesiologist, assistants, nurses, perfusionists and others) have with this procedure? - How long has robotic surgery been available at your hospital? - How many robotic surgeries are performed there? - What is your mitral valve repair rate? Swedish is a regional center for performing – and teaching – robotic surgery. More than 4,000 robotic procedures have been performed here and everyone on our robotic surgery teams is specially trained and highly experienced. Our surgeons publish and lecture widely, and train other physicians from around the country.

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September is PCOS (Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome) Awareness Month. To help us all become more aware of this disorder, Caroline Jung, Dipl. Ac., MSOM, one of our acupuncturists and a women’s health specialist at Tiffani Kim Institute, has this message about what PCOS is and how Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can effectively treat PCOS. To begin, I’m going to explain PCOS, which can be a mysterious disorder to us because it doesn’t have a definitive cause. PCOS is polycystic ovarian syndrome, which is a hormonal disorder that can cause a variety of symptoms for women. The symptoms include hirsutism (excessive hair growth on the face, chest, abdomen), hair loss (male pattern baldness), acne, polycystic ovaries, obesity and infertility. Most often, symptoms first appear during adolescence, around the start of menstruation. However, some women do not develop symptoms until they are into their 20s. PCOS is the most common hormonal problem for women of childbearing age, affecting 5-10 percent of women during this time in life. Although PCOS presents early in life, it persists through and beyond a woman’s reproductive years. Along with the symptoms mentioned above, PCOS can lead to other health issues later in life such as insulin resistance, diabetes, sleep apnea, heart disease and endometrial cancer. A PCOS presentation can vary from woman to woman so it can be difficult to universally define it – however, it’s clear that all women affected with PCOS do have irregular and unpredictable ovulation patterns. It’s also clear they produce excess amounts of androgens (testosterone). The hormone imbalance seen with PCOS includes several hormones, FSH (Follicle-stimulating hormone), LH (Luteinizing hormone), thyroid, and androgens (testosterone). It’s not yet completely understood why or how the changes in the hormone levels occur. PCOS develops when the ovaries overproduce the androgens. An overproduction of androgens can result from an overproduction of LH, which is produced by the pituitary gland. Although it’s not completely understood what exactly causes PCOS, there are a few key factors that can play a role: - Excess insulin - Low-grade inflammation - Abnormal fetal development Testing used to determine PCOS includes a physical exam, pelvic ultrasound, and bloodwork. Treatment for PCOS includes medications to help regulate the menstrual cycle and ovulation and the reduction of excessive hair growth, and surgery, which is sometimes an option. When we look at PCOS from a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) perspective, we look at where the energetic ‘qi’ imbalance is stemming from. This is how we form a diagnosis and treatment plan. In TCM, disorder arises from excess and deficiency of the qi in our bodies. Our qi runs through the energy channels along our bodies. PCOS can result from imbalances in various channels: - Our kidney channel, which can have a ‘yang’ deficiency. - Our spleen channel, which will have more of a excess of damp pathogen. - Our liver channel, which can have a blood stasis pattern. These energy imbalances can be seen as cystic ovaries, irregular menses, infertility, hirsutism and abdominal discomfort. Once we have determined where the imbalances of qi are, we can create a treatment plan. PCOS is effectively treated by using a variety of therapies. These include: - Chinese herbs - Regular exercise - Specific food plans - Adequate quality rest Acupuncture and Chinese herbs work in similar fashion to treat PCOS and all of its symptoms. By using acupuncture and herbs to balance the qi that is affected by PCOS, these treatments will help to regulate the hormones that are out of balance with a PCOS presentation. A study published in 2008 demonstrates the effectiveness of electro-acupuncture and exercise on PCOS. The study results showed a difference in adipose levels and insulin resistance after using electro-acupuncture and exercise together. A typical TCM treatment plan for PCOS may include weekly acupuncture treatments for several months or even longer. It depends on each individual patient, her specific symptoms, how long she has been affected by PCOS, and other factors as well. We have seen wonderful results with using acupuncture and herbs to treat PCOS by helping to regulate the hormones—a healthy and happy mind, body and spirit! A note from Tiffani Kim: In honor of PCOS Awareness month, we’re offering a special PCOS workshop with Dr. Eve Feinberg, a reproductive endocrinologist at Fertility Centers of Illinois on Monday, September 9, from 6-7:30PM. Seats are limited and RSVP is required. Please visit tiffanikiminstitute.com for more information.

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In an emotional open letter to the British prime minister, Cristina Kirchner, Argentina’s president, has called on him to honour a United Nations resolution dating from 1965 and start negotiations about handing over the islands. The letter, which was due to be published in the British national newspaper The Guardian on Thursday, is timed to mark the anniversary of when on January 3 1833, Britain took control of the islands from the Argentinians. The 212-word letter, copied to Ban Ki-moon, the secretary-general of the United Nations, repeatedly refers to the Falklands as the Malvinas, the Argentine Government’s Spanish name for the islands. It says: “One hundred and eighty years ago on this same date, January 3rd, in a blatant exercises of 19th century colonialism, Argentina was forcibly stripped of the Malvinas Islands, which are situated 14,000 km (8,700 miles) away from London. “The Argentines on the Islands were expelled by the Royal Navy and the United Kingdom subsequently began a population implantation process similar to that applied to other territories under colonial rule. “Since then, Britain, the colonial power, has refused to return the territories to the Argentine Republic, thus preventing it from restoring its territorial integrity. “The question of the Malvinas is also a cause embraced by Latin America and by vast majority of peoples and governments around the world that reject colonialism. “In 1960, the United Nations proclaimed the necessity of ‘bringing to an end colonialism in all its forms and manifestations’. “In 1965, the General Assembly adopted, with no votes against (not even by the United Kingdom), a resolution considered the Malvinas Islands a colonial case and inviting the two countries to negotiate a solution to the sovereignty dispute between them. “This was followed by many other resolutions to that effect. In the name of the Argentine people, I reiterate our invitation for us to abide by the resolutions of the United Nations.” The 3000-strong population of the Falklands are overwhelmingly pro-British. The islanders are due to be asked if they want to continue to be an overseas territory of the United Kingdom at a referendum in March this year. Mr Cameron has said the UK would “respect and defend” the result of the plebiscite. Dr Barry Elsby, Member of the Legislative Assembly of the Falkland Islands, told The Daily Telegraph on Wednesday night: "We are not a colony – our relationship with the United Kingdom is by choice. "Unlike the Government of Argentina, the United Kingdom respects the right of our people to determine our own affairs, a right that is enshrined in the UN Charter and which is ignored by Argentina." Last night the Foreign Office said that it “strenuously denied” that Britain expelled Argentine citizens from the Falklands in 1833. A spokesman said: “The people of the Falklands are British and have chosen to be so. They remain free to choose their own futures, both politically and economically, and have a right to self-determination as enshrined in the UN Charter. “This is a fundamental human right for all peoples. There are three parties to this debate, not just two as Argentina likes to pretend. The Islanders can’t just be written out of history. “As such, there can be no negotiations on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands unless and until such time as the Islanders so wish.” The diplomatic broadside follows the British government's decision last month to name a large frozen chunk of Antarctica after the Queen – a gesture viewed in Buenos Aires as provocative.

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The rate of domestic violence and sexual assault for Native American women has reached epidemic proportions due in large part to a stunning legal loophole that severely limits tribal ability to prosecute these crimes. Until recently, non-Indians accused of misdemeanor domestic violence crimes against tribal members could only be prosecuted by the federal government and some states – not by the local tribal courts. Given that 75 percent of reported instances of abuse of Native women are committed by non-Indians, this archaic law left tribal law enforcement essentially powerless to prosecute the vast majority of these crimes committed in their own backyard. Absent the legal authority for tribal authorities to prosecute non-Indian offenders on reservation land, the cases passed to U.S. Attorneys and District Attorneys who are often miles away from the scene of the crime and have limited time and resources to manage extensive caseloads. Not surprisingly, abuse cases involving Native women have fallen through the cracks, contributing to domestic violence rates of 39 percent among American Indian and Alaska Native women. Fortunately, the unacceptable system will change now that both the House and Senate have reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act. While previous versions of the legislation failed to adequately address tribal issues, the final bill passed by the House on February 28 recognizes the jurisdiction of tribal courts over non-Indian offenders arrested for committing domestic violence or assault against women. Contrary to some concerns, the change does not jeopardize any constitutional protections. Current law guarantees that all constitutional rights apply equally in both tribal and non-tribal courts. Provisions in the bill further allow a defendant to opt for trial in federal court and call for jury selection from the surrounding community, including non-tribal members. The more members of Congress learned about the bill, the more they came to understand that action was necessary to correct an outrageous system under which tribal communities did not have the ability to police their land and protect their citizens from predators.

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A Brief History of The First 100 Years of the Automobile Industry in the United States Chapter 16 - Japan's sun rising as new world becomes one by Richard A. Wright "Buy American," bumper stickers began to exhort us in the '80s. Some took a more strident approach, inviting us to buy a Japanese car and put various numbers of Americans out of work. But in fact, these were calls to the past. The internationalization of the auto industry was not something to be resisted. It had already happened. While statesmen and diplomats claim they want to unite the world in brotherhood (or something) then work to keep the world divided, the auto makers have already moved a long way toward a one-world auto industry. The linew between what was an American car and what wasn't was getting blurred. Many cars assembled in the United States contain major components, such as engines or transmissions, made in other countries. Some cars made in other countries are sold with American nameplates. And some cars with foreign nameplates are assembled in the United States. Is a car built in England by an American company American or English? Is a car built by a Japanese company in the United States Japanese or American? National boundaries began to lose meaning. Corporations were becoming citizens of the world, not nations. GM was an American auto maker, but it was also British, German, Iranian, Korean, Mexican, etc. Through stock acquisitions, joint ventures and other mechanisms, auto makers had domiciles and interests in many nations. The sixth Ford built in 1903 was sold to a Canadian buyer. And in 1904, Ford of Canada was founded in Windsor. Ford began building cars in England in 1911, Brazil in 1919 and in Germany and Australia in 1925. Ford now assembles cars in Argentina, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, South Africa, Taiwan, Uruguay and Venezuela. It recently acquired the venerable Jaguar in Great Britain. General Motors was a little slower moving into the international market, but it acquired a Canadian subsidiary in 1918, then took over the Vauxhall company in Great Britain in 1925. (Vauxhall was started in 1903, using as its symbol the Griffin, half-lion, half-eagle. It was named after the suburb of London in which it was located, which was in turn derived from a 12th century mercenary known as Fulk le Breant. Through marriage, he acquired a house on the River Thames, which became Fulk's Hall, later corrupted into Vauxhall. The griffin was Fulk's symbol.) In 1929, GM acquired the Adam Opel company, one of Germany's oldest auto makers, then bought Holden's in Australia in 1931. Recently, GM startled the British by toying with the idea of buying Rolls-Royce, then opted for Saab of Sweden instead. GM also assembles cars in Europe, Asia and Africa and, in a joint venture with Toyota, it assembles Japanese cars in the United States and markets them under the Geo name. Chrysler Corp. was forced to sell off its overseas holdings (Rootes Group in Great Britain and Simca in France) during its crisis of survival in 1979-82. Chrysler no longer owns Simca, which is now part of the Peugeot-Citroen group and builds the Talbot car, but its once-ubiquitous Omni/Horizon was in large part a product of Chrysler designers in France. Chrysler has numerous ties with Mitsubishi. Before it was acquired by Chrysler Corp., American Motors was almost half owned by Renault, in turn owned by the French government, seized during World War II after Louis Renault died in 1944 after he was jailed as a Nazi collaborator. AMC also built the uniquely American Jeep in 19 countries around the world. After Chrysler acquired AMC, France was out and the Jeep became one of Chrysler's best-selling vehicles. Europe was where the automobile was born a century ago and many of its very earliest nameplates are still around, including those of Benz and Daimler (1886), which merged in 1926 to form Daimler-Benz, maker of the Mercedes. There was also an English Daimler car, started in 1896. It was formed to produce Daimler cars under license and Gottlieb Daimler was a director for several years, but the British and German firms went their own ways over the years. In France, Peugeot dates back to 1890 and Renault to 1898. In Italy, Fiat was started in 1899 and other early British nameplates were Rolls-Royce and Rover (1904) and Austin (1906). Czechoslovakia's best known car, the Tatra, was launched in 1897, long before Czechoslovakia existed (it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire). It was called the Nusselsdorf, after the town where it was built. The name was changed to Tatra (a mountain range on the Czech-Polish border) after Czechoslovakia was created with Nusselsdorf within its territory. But while the game began in Europe, the United States picked up the ball in 1896 and ran with it. Developments such as mass production, the moving assembly line and interchangeability of parts were pioneered here in Detroit by Ransom E. Olds, Henry Ford and Henry Leland. Mass production did not really come to Europe until the '20s, when Opel began adapting American techniques and Andre Citroen started building a "car for the masses." Leland's work in parts interchangeability and Kettering's self-starter ignition system put the United States in the technological lead in car design, a position it held through development of the automatic transmission, various power accessories and low-cost powerful engines until the early '70s, when Japan challenged. "Made in Japan" used to mean "cheap imitation" and second-rate quality to most Americans until the '50s -- the Korean war, to be specific, where photographers first noticed that Japanese lenses were as good or better than German and about half the price. Now "made in Japan" means high tech and high quality. About one in four cars sold in the United States are made in Japan or assembled in the United States plants owned by Japanese firms. The Japanese Mazda is the only car in the world to be successfully marketed with a Wankel rotary-piston engine. The Germans, famed for their engineering, tried it and failed. In fact, Felix Wankel himself tried to perfect the engine for NSU, but troublesome problems remained. General Motors, no slouch at engineering, spent $50 million on development of the rotary engine, but gave up on it before ever getting close to the marketplace. Another Japanese car maker, Honda, was the first in the world to market a car with a stratified-charge engine. Isuzu has been working on a ceramic engine. It has succeeded in the industrial use of a ceramic engine, lighter that the conventional metal one and more fuel efficient. The new engine will have piston rings and valves and other combustion parts made entirely of ceramics, the company said. In sheer numbers, the Japanese industry challenged and surpassed the U.S. in production in the 1980s. This was impressive progress for an industry that did not take shape until after World War II. Japanese firms were building cars early in the century, but its industry could not be compared with the European or American. The first car built in Japan was put together in 1902, but most of the Japanese makers began producing cars in the '50s and '60s. The exceptions are the two biggest, Toyota and Nissan. In 1912, Kwaishinsha Motor Car Works began work on an experimental car, which was put into production in 1914. It was called the DAT, derived from the initials of the partners, Den, Aoyama and Takeuchi. In 1926, Kwaishinsha merged with another company to form Dat Automobile Manufacturing Co. With a name like Dat, oddly enough, it quit building the Dat and began making a car called the Lila. Then it got out of the car business entirely and built only trucks until 1930. Dat returned to car assembly in 1931 with the Son-of-Dat, or Datson. This was changed in a burst of nationalism in 1932 to Datsun, to tie in with the Rising Sun. The company became Nissan Motor Co. in 1933. The Datsuns of the '30s were built in a full range of body styles and were based closely on the British Austin Seven. Most Japanese cars of this era were copies of American or European models. After World War II, the '48 Datsun looked like an American Crosley and a British-looking sports car was added in 1952. Toyota Automatic Loom Works began experimenting with cars in 1935. Its first cars looked remarkably like the Chrysler Airflow. During World War II, Toyota built a car that was a dead ringer for the last pre-war Plymouth. The Toyota company was owned by the Toyoda family. The slight change in name was made because the family thought Toyoda was more difficult to pronounce. Americans, of course, pronounce both the same. Toyota and Nissan began exporting cars to the United States in 1958, when sales of Datsun totaled 1,003 and Toyota's Toyopet 919. Both nameplates drifted without making much of a dent in the U.S. market. In fact, the cars were not right for the U.S. market and the Japanese pulled back to study the situation and retrench. They studied American marketing techniques, built up sales and service networks, designed cars to appeal to U.S. buyers and began to move up in the sales charts in the late '60s. Isuzu made its appearance in the U.S. market in 1966, but faded within a couple of years. Isuzu returned in 1976 in the guise of GM's Opel. GM had halted import of its German-built Opel and in 1976 began marketing a smaller Isuzu under the Opel name through its Buick dealers. Isuzu now markets its own cars in the United States. In 1969, the Subaru made its U.S. debut. Built by Fuji Heavy Industries, it was introduced by Malcolm Bricklin, who would later import Fiat models under the names Bertone and Pininfarina, then the Yugo by Zastava of Yugoslavia. In late 1970, two more Japanese nameplates appeared in the United States, Honda and Mazda. The Mazda is manufactured by Toyo Kogyo, an unlikely firm to beat the automotive giants in development of the rotary piston Wankel engine, but it did. It was originally involved in manufacture of cork products and did not produce cars until 1960. One of the first commercially manufactured cars in Japan was the Mitsubishi Model A, built from 1917 to 1921 and modeled after a Fiat of that period. It did not build cars again until 1959. Mitsubishi entered the U.S. market in 1971 -- not as Mitsubishi but as the Dodge Colt. Chrysler Corp. has been withdrawing from sale of Mitsubishi cars in the United States as it developed its own small cars, but Mitsubishi offers a variety of cars now through its own dealer organization. Honda became the first Japanese maker to assemble cars in the United States in 1982. Its facility in Marysville, Ohio, has been so successful that it now builds almost all the cars Honda sells in America and even exports some to other countries, including Japan. In 1984, Toyota joined with General Motors in New United Motor Manufacturing Co. in Fremont, Calif., producing Toyota Corolla and Geo Prizm cars and Toyota Tacoma pickup trucks. Since then, Toyota (Georgetown, Ky.), Mazda (Flat Rock, Mich.), Nissan (Smyrna, Tenn.), Mitsubishi (Normal, Ill.) and Subaru-Isuzu (Lafayette, Ind.), have become American car builders. In addition, German makers Mercedes-Benz (Tuscaloosa, Ala.) and BMW (Spartanburg, S.C.) are preparing to launch production in the United States. In 1995, foreign car makers sold more U.S.-made automobiles in the United States and they imported. Car imports into the United States in 1995 fell to 1.7 million, compared with assembly of 1.9 million cars in foreign-car plants in the United States. It is expected that sale of U.S.-built foreign cars in the United States will total 2.4 million and that 200,000 of these U.S.-made cars will be exported. The percentage of U.S. sales accounted for by Japanese imports has dropped from over 25 percent a few years ago to about 13 percent, the smallest market share in 20 years. In 1996, these foreign-owned plants employed about 40,000 Americans and will build more cars than Ford Motor Co. or Chrysler Corp. Why did Japan overtake and in many ways beat the United States at its own automotive game? Many explanations have been offered. Management blames high labor costs in the United States, unions blame poor and greedy management. The unions gained credibility when Japanese makers began assembling cars in the United States and managed to obtain high levels of quality with American workers. The first overseas maker in modern times to assemble cars in the United States was Volkswagen, German maker with a high reputation for quality, and it reported the same results -- that quality achieved by American workers was on a par with that of its German plants. Many observers blame American management's focus on short-term financial performance with the U.S. decline in the face of long-range Japanese investment in zero-defect quality and technological excellence. American managers, they say, are more interested in their salaries and perquisites than in growth and investors are looking for the quick buck. Craftsmen who put their names on their products and took personal interest in them built the American auto industry. They wanted to make money, of course, but this was secondary to their dreams of automotive glory. Now craftsmen are out of style, working with the hands is held in contempt, company loyalty is discouraged, wisdom in the form of older workers is junked and next quarter's results are perhaps too important. The evidence is that the MBAs had a lot more to do with America's decline than the UAW. Copyright 1996, Richard A. Wright Published by Wayne State University's Department of Communications

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Height: 42 - 54 inches Length: 132 - 168 inches Weight: 330 - 550 lbs Gestation: 100 - 120 days Offspring: 1 - 6 Life Span: 13 - 25 years Top Speed (Ground): 36 mph Panthera leo krugeri Also Called: Transvaal lion Male Roaring (448 KB) The African lion is a very large cat, with males weighing between 330 and 550 pounds and females weighing between 260 and 400 pounds. It is 8 to 10 feet long, not including the tail. Its most famous feature is its mane, which only male lions have. The mane is a yellow color when the lion is young and darkens with age. Eventually, the mane will be dark brown. The body of the African lion is well suited for hunting. It is very muscular, with back legs designed for pouncing and front legs made for grabbing and knocking down prey. It also has very strong jaws that enable it to eat the large prey that it hunts. The African lion is a carnivore. It hunts mostly large to medium-sized animals like the giraffe, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, wild hogs, and antelope. The hunt starts with the lion stalking its prey. When it is within about 100 feet, the lion charges at the prey, which in turn begins to try to outrun the lion. If the lion gets close enough, it will slap or grab the animal. This will usually knock the prey down. The lion then bites the muzzle or throat to suffocate its prey. Food is usually shared with the entire pride. About a quarter of the hunts are successful. Male lions need about 15 pounds of meat each day, and females eat about 11 pounds. The lion prefers grassy plains, savannas, and semi-deserts. It is located throughout much of Africa, especially in the southeastern part of the continent. The African lion is very high on the food chain. As such, it has almost no predators. Most of danger for the lion is during the first few years of its life. Because the young cub is so physically inferior to the adults, it can easily starve if there is not enough food that is left over after the adults eat. In addition, it is more likely to fall prey to predators or to male lions that move into the pride. Once a cub reaches maturity, it will live approximately 13 to 25 years. The African lion's society is centered around the pride, which can consist of 3 to 30 lions, lionesses, and cubs. It is interesting to note that the lion is the only large cat that is social. Females in the pride are usually related and stay with the pride. Males, however, join a pride of females and stay for an indefinite period of time. They have been known to join several prides at the same time. Females do most of the hunting. Males will band together to defend the pride against outside males. Males within the same pride do not compete for mating rights. Instead, they seem to have an agreement that the first male to encounter a female in heat is given a dominant status over the other males. About 100 to 120 days after conception, the lioness gives birth to a litter of 1 to 6 cubs, with the average being 2 or 3. Since the gestation period is so short, the cubs weigh less than 5 pounds. The cub's eyes open in about three weeks. After three months, cubs accompany their mother on hunting trips. They will stay near their mother for the first 2 years. African lions have excellent eyesight, good hearing and sense of smell. They also have very quick reflexes, which allows them to keep up with the agile antelope.

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Effect of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibition compared with conventional therapy on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in hypertension: the Captopril Prevention Project (CAPPP) randomised trial Angiotensin-converting-enzyme (ACE) inhibitors have been used for more than a decade to treat high blood pressure, despite the lack of data from randomised intervention trials to show that such treatment affects cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The Captopril Prevention Project (CAPPP) is a randomised intervention trial to compare the effects of ACE inhibition and conventional therapy on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in patients with hypertension. CAPPP was a prospective, randomised, open trial with blinded endpoint evaluation. 10 985 patients were enrolled at 536 health centres in Sweden and Finland. Patients aged 25—66 years with a measured diastolic blood pressure of 100 mm Hg or more on two occasions were randomly assigned captopril or conventional antihypertensive treatment (diuretics, β-blockers). Analysis was by intention-to-treat. The primary endpoint was a composite of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarction, stroke, and other cardiovascular deaths. Of 5492 patients assigned captopril and 5493 assigned conventional therapy, 14 and 13, respectively, were lost to follow-up. Primary endpoint events occurred in 363 patients in the captopril group (11·1 per 1000 patient-years) and 335 in the conventional-treatment group (10·2 per 1000 patient-years; relative risk 1·05 [95% Cl 0·90—1·22], p=0·52). Cardiovascular mortality was lower with captopril than with conventional treatment (76 vs 95 events; relative risk 0·77 [0·57—1·04], p=0·092), the rate of fatal and non-fatal myocardial infarction was similar (162 vs 161), but fatal and non-fatal stroke was more common with captopril (189 vs 148; 1·25 [1·01—1·55]. p=0·044). Captopril and conventional treatment did not differ in efficacy in preventing cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The difference in stroke risk is probably due to the lower levels of blood pressure obtained initially in previously treated patients randomised to conventional therapy. To read this article in full you will need to login or make a payment

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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/data_encryption/ Unlock the secrets of data encryption Be safe rather than sorry Encrypting your backup data always sounds like a good idea. It protects data and appears to be cost-free. So what's not to like? In practice, it isn't always a good idea, it doesn't always protect your data and it is not free. There is a time and a place to deploy encryption, but it needs planning and thought. The walls have ears Protecting data on the move is usually advisable because you can have no clear idea of who might be listening in. It does have a cost, however, as it needs computing power to process. If you are encrypting data at the server before sending it, you may need to specify, for example, an eight-core rather than a four-core box if you want to minimise the encryption overhead and the effect it can have on the backup window. This is not a cheap option. If you are certain that the data travels only over your corporate network, you might get away with encrypting only when the data arrives at its destination. This can be cheaper as most tape drives and other backup data repositories will include encryption hardware, and it can help shorten the backup window by allowing data to flow at full wire speed. Protecting data at rest is a different matter. As old as war itself, encryption scrambles data so it can't be read unless you possess the keys. And that is at the heart of the problem. Encrypting at the end-point – whether on tape or disk – offers a number of benefits, including security, a shorter backup window and no more hardware to buy. It also means that the data can be deduplicated or compressed before it arrives (encryption's scrambling process renders deduping and compression pointless), although many prefer to rehydrate the data before storing it as an archive because this removes dependencies on proprietary technologies that might not be around in five years time. However, encrypting early in the data path offers better protection and is more device-agnostic. It gives you control over both the type and strength of the encryption, and means you can back up encrypted data to disk drives now and archive to tape drives across the WAN later, for example. You need to ensure that the keys will still be available You also gain control over which data is encrypted, which reduces compute overheads. You might for example want to encrypt only sensitive data. But the hidden gotcha is key management. If you are encrypting long-term data, then you need to ensure that the encryption keys will still be available to the correctly privileged individuals in five or ten years time, or maybe even more. Key management means describing who has access to which keys; those that grant access to databases will be held by database administrators, for example. Duties need to be allocated too, so access rights should be set up for storing, backing up, referencing and rotating keys. To add to the complexity, keys need to be rotated regularly, and different encryption technologies are mandated in different geographies. It doesn't help that there are few standards to simplify matters, although KMIP, a standard ratified in October 2010 by the open standards body Oasis, is a step in the right direction. So is tape or archive encryption good thing? Yes, if it is properly managed and organised, but the costs can be higher than anticipated. It is not just about the amount of CPU you can throw at the problem. ®

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Unexpected nanotube heat transfer suggests new way to cool processors Spooky action at a (small) distance A strange phenomenon observed at the University of Maryland could pave the way to new techniques for cooling electronics: when researchers passed a current through carbon nanotubes, they didn’t heat up – but other nearby objects did. While still studying exactly what mechanism produces the phenomenon, the researchers report that when they passed a current through the carbon nanotubes, the tubes remained relatively cool, apparently transferring the heat directly to the silicon nitride substrate that hosted the tubes. In what they’ve dubbed “remote Joule heating”, the scientists, led by then-student Kamal Baloch, found that the heating of the substrate was enough to melt metal particles on its surface. The normal heating of metals carrying a current, Joule heating, happens when energy is transferred from the travelling electrons to the atoms in the wire, causing them to vibrate. In the University of Maryland experiment, the researchers believe the transfer of heat from the carbon nanotubes to the substrate is being caused not by the direct contact of electrons colliding with atoms, but rather by electrical fields. “We believe that the nanotube's electrons are creating electrical fields due to the current, and the substrate's atoms are directly responding to those fields,” says assistant professor John Cumings. “The transfer of energy is taking place through these intermediaries, and not because the nanotube's electrons are bouncing off of the substrate's atoms. While there is some analogy to a microwave oven, the physics behind the two phenomena is actually very different.” The observations were made using a technique called electron thermal microscopy, developed in Cumings’ laboratory, which maps where heat is generated in nanoscale devices. Baloch says the phenomenon would be useful in semiconductor design, because it provides a way to design thermal properties independently of the electrical properties of a device. “This new mechanism of thermal transport would allow you to engineer your thermal conductor and electrical conductor separately, choosing the best properties for each without requiring the two to be the same material occupying the same region of space,” he said. The next step in the research is to see what other materials might exhibit similar behavior. The research is published in Nature Nanotechnology, abstract here. ®

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The Crucifixion of EL SALVADOR For many years, repression, torture and murder were carried on in El Salvador by dictators installed and supported by our government, a matter of no interest here. The story was virtually never covered. By the late 1970s, however, the US government began to be concerned about a couple of things. One was that Somoza, the dictator of Nicaragua, was losing control . The US was losing a major base for its exercise of force in the region. A second danger was even more threatening. In El Salvador in the 1970s, there was a growth of what were called "popular organizations"-peasant associations, cooperatives, unions, Church-based Bible study groups that evolved into self-help groups, etc. That raised the threat of democracy. In February 1980, the Archbishop of EI Salvador, Oscar Romero, sent a letter to President Carter in which he begged him not to send military aid to the junta that ran the country. He said such aid would be used to "sharpen injustice and repression against the people's organizations" which were struggling "for respect for their most basic human rights" (hardly news to Washington, needless to say). A few weeks later, Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying a mass. The neo-Nazi Roberto d'Aubuisson is generally assumed to be responsible for this assassination (among countless other atrocities). D'Aubuisson was "leader for-life" of the ARENA party, which now governs El Salvador; members of the party, like current Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani, had to take a blood oath of loyalty Thousands of peasants and urban poor took part in a commemorative mass a decade later, along with many foreign bishops, but the US was notable by its absence. The Salvadoran Church formally proposed Romero for sainthood. All of this passed with scarcely a mention in the country that funded and trained Romero's assassins. The New York Times, the "newspaper of record," published no editorial on the assassination when it occurred or in the years that followed, and no editorial or news report on the commemoration. On March 7, 1980, two weeks before the assassination, a state of siege had been instituted in El Salvador, and the war against the population began in force (with continued US support and involvement). The first major attack was a big massacre at the Rio Sumpul, a coordinated military operation of the Honduran and Salvadoran armies in which at least 600 people were butchered. Infants were cut to pieces with machetes, and women were tortured and drowned. Pieces of bodies were found in the river for days afterwards. There were church observers, so the information came out immediately, but the mainstream US media didn't think it was worth reporting. Peasants were the main victims of this war, along with labor organizers, students, priests or anyone suspected of working for the interests of the people. In Carter's last year, 1980, the death toll reached about 10,000, rising to about 13,000 for 1981 as the Reaganites In October 1980, the new archbishop condemned the "war of extermination and genocide against a defenseless civilian population" waged by the security forces. Two months later they were hailed for their "valiant service alongside the people against subversion" by the favorite US "moderate," Jose Napoleon Duarte, as he was appointed civilian president of the junta. The role of the "moderate" Duarte was to provide a fig leaf for the military rulers and ensure them a continuing flow of US funding after the armed forces had raped and murdered four churchwomen from the US. That had aroused some protest here; slaughtering Salvadorans is one thing, but raping and killing American nuns is a definite PR mistake. The media evaded and downplayed the story, following the lead of the Carter Administration and its The incoming Reaganites went much further, seeking to justify the atrocity, notably Secretary of State Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. But it was still deemed worthwhile to have a show trial a few years later, while exculpating the murderous junta-and, of course, the paymaster. The independent newspapers in El Salvador, which might have reported these atrocities, had been destroyed. Although they were mainstream and pro-business, they were still too undisciplined for the military's taste. The problem was taken care of in 1980-81, when the editor of one was murdered by the security forces; the other fled into exile. As usual, these events were considered too insignificant to merit more than a few words in US newspapers. In November 1989, six Jesuit priests, their cook and her daughter, were murdered by the army. That same week, at least 28 other Salvadoran civilians were murdered, including the head of a major union, the leader of the organization of university women, nine members of an Indian farming cooperative and ten university students. The news wires carried a story by AP correspondent Douglas Grant Mine, reporting how soldiers had entered a working-class neighborhood in the capital city of San Salvador, captured six men, added a 14-year-old boy for good measure, then lined them all up against a wall and shot them. They "were not priests or human rights campaigners," Mine wrote, "so their deaths have gone largely unnoticed"-as did his story. The Jesuits were murdered by the Atlacatl Battalion, an elite unit created, trained and equipped by the United States. It was formed in March 1981, when fifteen specialists in counterinsurgency were sent to El Salvador from the US Army School of Special Forces. From the start, the Battalion was engaged in mass murder. A US trainer described its soldiers as "particularly ferocious....We've always had a hard time getting them to take prisoners instead In December 1981, the Battalion took part in an operation in which over a thousand civilians were killed in an orgy of murder, rape and burning. Later it was involved in the bombing of villages and murder of hundreds of civilians by shooting, drowning and other methods. The vast majority of victims were women, children and the elderly. The Atlacatl Battalion was being trained by US Special Forces shortly before murdering the Jesuits. This has been a pattern throughout the Battalion's existence-some of its worst massacres have occurred when it was fresh from US training. In the "fledgling democracy" that was El Salvador, teenagers as young as 13 were scooped up in sweeps of slums and refugee camps and forced to become soldiers. They were indoctrinated with rituals adopted from the Nazi SS, including brutalization and rape, to prepare them for killings that often have sexual and The nature of Salvadoran army training was described by a deserter who received political asylum in Texas in 1990, despite the State Department's request that he be sent back to El Salvador. (His name was withheld by the court to protect him from Salvadoran According to this deserter, draftees were made to kill dogs and vultures by biting their throats and twisting off their heads, and had to watch as soldiers tortured and killed suspected dissidents-tearing out their fingernails, cutting off their heads, chopping their bodies to pieces and playing with the dismembered arms for fun. In another case, an admitted member of a Salvadoran death squad associated with the Atlacatl Battalion, Cesar Vielman Joya Martinez, detailed the involvement of US advisers and the Salvadoran government in death-squad activity. The Bush administration has made every effort to silence him and ship him back to probable death in El Salvador, despite the pleas of human rights organizations and requests from Congress that his testimony be heard. (The treatment of the main witness to the assassination of the Jesuits was similar.) The results of Salvadoran military training are graphically described in the Jesuit journal America by Daniel Santiago, a Catholic priest working in El Salvador. He tells of a peasant woman who returned home one day to find her three children, her mother and her sister sitting around a table, each with its own decapitated head placed carefully on the table in front of the body, the hands arranged on top "as if each body was stroking its own head." The assassins, from the Salvadoran National Guard, had found it hard to keep the head of an 18-month-old baby in place, so they nailed the hands onto it. A large plastic bowl filled with blood was tastefully displayed in the center of the table. According to Rev. Santiago, macabre scenes of this kind aren't uncommon. People are not just killed by death squads in El Salvador-they are decapitated and then their heads are placed on pikes and used to dot the landscape. Men are not just disemboweled by the Salvadoran Treasury Police; their severed genitalia are stuffed into their mouths. Salvadoran women are not just raped by the National Guard; their wombs are cut from their bodies and used to cover their faces. It is not enough to kill children; they are dragged over barbed wire until the flesh falls from their bones, while parents are forced to watch. Rev. Santiago goes on to point out that violence of this sort greatly increased when the Church began forming peasant associations and self help groups in an attempt to organize the poor. By and large, our approach in El Salvador has been successful. The popular organizations have been decimated, just as Archbishop Romero predicted. Tens of thousands have been slaughtered and more than a million have become refugees. This is one of the most sordid episodes in US history-and it's got a lot of competition. from the book What Uncle Sam Really Wants, published in 1993 Tucson, AZ 85751 tel 602-296-4056 or 800-REALSTORY other Noam Chomsky books published by Odonian Press Secrets, Lies, and Democracy The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many Uncle Sam Really Wants

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Garbage-Burning Oven Helps Clean Up and Power Kenyan Slum The Christian Science Monitor has a piece out of Nairobi on a garbage-burning oven in the notorious slum of Kibera that aims to preserve the country's forests, which are swiftly being cleared to provide wood and charcoal for cooking, while finding a way to utilize trash for energy. If successful, Monitor says, the pilot project could be a model for megacities and the waste they create. The oven has a superheated steel plate inside an incinerator box to vaporize drops of water. The oxygen released then helps burn discarded "sump" oil from vehicles – a pollutant in the slums – pushing up the temperature. The target is for the cooker to consume half a ton of waste every day once it has finished trials in about a month. The project is the first of its kind, according to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which provided $10,000 for the launch. "We have already seen a difference in the area we are targeting," says Pauline Nyota, of the Umande Trust, a group that works in slums to improve sanitation and leads the project. "The drainage ditches are much cleaner – just wastewater when before they were clogged with rubbish." Photo credit: Christian Science Monitor ::Via The Christian Science Monitor

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Wind Power Could Supply All of China's Electricity by 2030, Harvard Study Says photo: Diego Silvestre via flickr A new study coming out of Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Science shows that with the proper investment China could easily ditch its coal burning, carbon emitting ways and be entirely wind powered -- and all by 2030. What's more, the financial incentives to do so are already largely in place:The report, published in Science magazine, found that wind power could profitably supply all of China's projected electricity demand over the next 20 years if wind power producers received $0.076 per kilowatt-hour for the first ten years. China already pays wind power producers $0.056-$0.08/kWh for the electricity they produce. Even wind-produced electricity received the very bottom of that range 23% of China's coal use could be replaced, the study found. So what's this all going to cost? The study estimates that to install some 640 gigawatts of wind power over the next 20 years it would cost $900 billion -- which sounds like a lot, but is really a fraction of GDP. Cost of Expanding Distribution Not Include The catch here really is distribution. As Liming Qiao of the Global Wind Energy Council said over at Discovery News it's simplistic to ignore the fact that the costs of incorporating that much wind power into the grid will add expense -- a fact which the report authors concede, though they say that expense could well be incurred in any case, considering the amount of grid improvement already needed in China to accommodate expanding demand, regardless of power source. More: Harvard University Wind Power, China 500 MW Chinese Wind Farm Begins Construction - To be Completed 2010 2.4 Gigawatts More Wind Power Being Developed in Inner Mongolia China Will Be the Biggest Wind Power Equipment Manufacturer by End of 2009

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Implications - Instead of full radiation gear, brands are creating fashionable clothes that does more than just look good. As strange as this anti-bacterial dress may be, there might be something to it. Perhaps the future of preventing sickness involves a healthy diet and wearing proper clothes that actually do more than just keep you warm. 3,201 clicks in 377 w More Stats +/- 32 Examples of Pre-Mixed Alcohol Windblown Azure Editorials Pattern-Clashing Menswear Editorials Flushable Dog Stool Stations Opulent British Outerwear Editorials The Anti-Bacterial Dress Prevents Cold and Flu By: Nisara - Published: May 5, 2007 Updated: Apr 14 2011 • References: news.cornell.edu The anti-bacterial dress is a collaboration between a student designer and fiber scientists. The two-toned gold dress and metallic denim jacket were a big hit on the runway at Cornell's Design League Fashion Show. The dresses are made of cotton fabrics coated with nanoparticles which give them qualities to prevent colds and flu. Moreover, you don't need to wash them.

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Severe Weather Awareness Week: NOAA Weather Radio All Hazards Posted Feb. 22, 2013 This week is Severe Weather Awareness Week in Alabama and today's focus is on NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards and the Emergency Alert System. Severe Weather Awareness Week concludes today with a closer look at NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards and the Emergency Alert System. NOAA weather radio is also known as the voice of the National Weather Service. NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards provides continuously updated weather information, 24 hours a day, every day of the year. National Weather Service personnel prepare weather information that is normally broadcast in three to five minute cycles. This information includes forecasts, warnings, current conditions, climate data, and other important information. To receive broadcasts from the National Weather Service, a special radio capable of receiving signals in the very high frequency, also known as VHF, public service band is required. Nationally, frequencies from 162.400 to 162.550 megahertz are used for NOAA Weather Radio All-Hazards broadcasts. Alabama is served by 29 transmitters which cover approximately 95 percent of the citizens in Alabama. Read more >> New UAB Faculty & Staff Learning System All UAB employee training is now accessible through a UAB-wide web portal: UAB Faculty & Staff Learning System. Employees will be able to visit this central website to browse training opportunities, register for classes, track their training histories, and more.

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Dial 999: 75 years of emergency phone calls Published: 30th Jun 2012 00:13:39 When the 999 service was launched in London 75 years ago it was the world's first emergency phone number. What happened when it rang for the first time? On 30 June 1937, the capital's new emergency telephone line was unveiled. A notice in the Evening News advised the public how to use it. "Only dial 999... if the matter is urgent; if, for instance, the man in the flat next to yours is murdering his wife or you have seen a heavily masked cat burglar peering round the stack pipe of the local bank building. "If the matter is less urgent, if you have merely lost little Towser or a lorry has come to rest in your front garden, just call up the local police." Sources: BT, Cable & Wireless A week later, on 7 July 1937, the press reported the first arrest after a 999 call. John Stanley Beard was woken in the early hours of the morning by a noise underneath his bedroom window in the affluent neighbourhood of Hampstead, north London. The architect told Marylebone Police Court that he looked out and saw a man's foot. He shouted at the man who, on hearing Mr Beard's voice, ran off down the garden path, jumped over some railings and headed towards Primrose Hill. Meanwhile, Mr Beard's wife - referred to in reports only as Mrs Beard - dialled 999. In less than five minutes, 24-year-old labourer Thomas Duffy had been arrested. He was later charged with an attempted break-in with intent to steal. In a public relations coup for the new service, the Times reported that Mr Beard told the court that he was pleased to see that his tax money was being put to good use. "My wife made use of the new signal which we were instructed to use yesterday on the telephone, and as a result of using that signal almost instantaneous connection was made with the police station, and in less than five minutes this man was arrested," he said. "It struck me, as a householder and fairly large taxpayer, that we are getting something for our money, and I was very much impressed by it." Not all the calls made to 999 in its first week were as serious as Mrs Beard's. In fact, of the 1,336 calls made, 91 were prank calls. Quicker access to the fire brigade was the reason the idea of an emergency number had been debated initially. The public's willingness to call on the police couldn't be more different from their attitude when the force was formed. When the raucous buzzer sounded in the quiet disciplined switchrooms a few of the girls found the situation too much and had to be carried out” "There was a lot of opposition to policing in London when it was formed in 1829. Some people objected to it on cost. Some people saw it as a military force being imposed on London and a great effort was made to try and make them blend in with the public," says Neil Paterson, the manager of the Metropolitan Police Heritage Centre. "Ironically, at the turn of the century, the police resisted having telephones put in the station. They thought it would be embarrassing for members of the public calling in. "As soon as 999 was introduced, the success of it showed immediately and it spread out to the whole country and it resulted in arrests and people getting assistance quickly." The service was introduced in Glasgow a year later, in 1938. But it wasn't until after World War II that it spread to other parts of the UK, including Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. It became available to the entire country only when all the telephone exchanges were automated in 1976. Dr Chris Williams of the Open University says the introduction of police radios had been the key to the service working, because it allowed real-time communication that then enabled quick responses to emergency calls. Despite a positive start, there were still some teething problems. Like today, operators would answer the calls and then transfer them to the appropriate emergency service. Now it is BT and Cable & Wireless who answer the calls. Back in 1937 when the Post Office ran the telephone network, operators were alerted to an incoming 999 call by a flashing red light and a klaxon. A 1951 article in the Post Office Telecommunications Journal described fairly chaotic scenes in its call centres during 999's early days. "When the raucous buzzer sounded in the quiet disciplined switchrooms a few of the girls found the situation too much for them and had to be carried out. It was even suggested in the press that the buzzers were disturbing other people living in the vicinity of the exchanges!" Thankfully for the call handlers, technology has led to efficiencies in dealing with a huge growth in calls over the years. Mobile phone technology in particular led to a dramatic spike in the number of calls made. When the 999 service was first made available to mobile phones users in 1986, fewer than 19 million emergency calls came into BT annually. Last year, BT handled 31 million calls, while a further six million were handled by Cable & Wireless. Half of those, though, weren't put through to the emergency services because 999 had been unintentionally dialled from people's mobile phones or they were prank calls. Of the calls that were put through, more than half asked for police assistance. The next most requested was the ambulance service, followed by the fire brigade and, finally, the coast guard. It's a pattern that has been consistent since the number was introduced. Met Police historian Mr Paterson says the sheer volume of 999 calls represents the biggest change since he started out as a police officer in the 1970s. "When I joined the police, most people didn't have phones - they were relying on phone boxes," he says. "Now most people have mobile phones, so one incident today would generate dozens of calls, whereas before it was just one or two calls. "Of course all of those calls have to be answered quickly. And the pace of life has got much faster - people expect an instant response." At 13:04:45 in EnglandPark wardens and government workers are being given powers to police dog-fouling in Jersey. At 12:58:08 in ScotlandAn independent Scotland would consider introducing a minimum wage that would rise in line with the cost of living, the SNP has said. At 12:56:41 in Northern IrelandThe Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is reviewing its operations after staff shortages led to delays in its 999 response times at the weekend. At 12:56:20 in ScotlandScottish Water has completed a £1.9m project to minimise the risk of flooding in the north west of Glasgow. At 12:54:23 in SportTeam Wales captain Aled Sion Davies admits he was disappointed to have won only a Commonwealth Games silver in the F42/F44 discus final. At 12:49:31 in EnglandTwo of the largest healthcare providers in Cornwall could merge under cost saving plans. At 12:47:22 in EnglandThe death of a biker who crashed through glass on Ipswich waterfront has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. At 12:46:04 in ScotlandA weightlifter competing at the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games is due to appear in court charged with sexually assaulting a man. At 12:45:45 in SportOldham have had to cancel a planned photocall - because they have no strip. At 12:44:43 in EnglandA man has admitted stealing £300,000 from the armed forces veterans' charity Help for Heroes. Harvard CitationBBC News, 2012. Dial 999: 75 years of emergency phone calls [Online] (Updated 30th Jun 2012) Available at: http://www.ukwirednews.com/news/1437837/Dial-999-75-years-of-emergency-phone-calls [Accessed 28th Jul 2014] News In Other Categories Team Wales captain Aled Sion Davies admits he was disappointed to have won only a Commonwealth Games silver in the F42/F44 discus final. An independent Scotland would consider introducing a minimum wage that would rise in line with the cost of living, the SNP has said. Most border crossings in Liberia have been closed and communities hit by an Ebola outbreak face quarantine to try to halt the spread of the virus. The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service (NIAS) is reviewing its operations after staff shortages led to delays in its 999 response times at the weekend. Emirates Airline will stop flying over Iraq to protect its passengers from the threat of Islamic militants on the ground, according to reports. Arcade machines kept in the UK Computer Museum are being restored after enthusiasts answered a plea for help.

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Want to stay on top of all the space news? Follow @universetoday on Twitter Ever since the first relay for the 1936 summer Olympic games in Berlin, Olympic torches have traditionally been used to carry a burning flame — symbolically and physically — from Greece to the host country’s stadium. These journeys, undertaken by privileged individuals and athletes from around the world, span months and many thousands of miles… but this year, the fire illuminating the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia will be ignited with a torch that has truly traveled around the globe — many times, in fact. On Nov. 6, 2013 (Nov. 7 UT) a Soyuz TMA-11M rocket launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan ferrying the Expedition 38/39 crew to the ISS. Along with their mission supplies and personal items, the crew members brought along something special: a torch for the 2014 Olympics. The torch was brought into space two days later by Expedition 38 crew members Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazanskiy during an EVA on Nov. 9, and handed off from one cosmonaut to the other in a symbolic relay in orbit, the first to be carried out 265 miles above the planet traveling 17,500 mph. (Watch a video of the EVA below.) I say “symbolic” because the torch was not lit during its time aboard the ISS or, obviously, while in space. (Open flames are highly frowned upon aboard Station!) Still, it was the first time in history an Olympic torch, a symbol of peace, human achievement, and international cooperation, has been brought aboard the Space Station — which itself represents the same noble values. Considering the ISS travels around the Earth 16 times each day, and the torch spent nearly four days in space, that’s one well-traveled fire bearer! The spacefaring torch was carried back to Earth with Expedition 37 crew members Karen Nyberg of NASA, Fyodor Yurchikhin of the Russian Federal Space Agency, and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency on Sunday, Nov. 10. And while the actual Olympic flame had continued to be carried by torchbearers across more than 40,000 miles through 2,900 towns and villages in Russia, it will be that particular spacefaring torch that will be used to light the 2014 Olympic cauldron during the Opening Ceremony in Sochi on Feb. 7. “As the torch is used to light the Olympic flame in Sochi, and symbolizes harmony and goodwill throughout the games, the space station will remain one of the brightest objects in the night sky, a beacon of international cooperation and research providing tangible benefits for all humanity.” (NASA)

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1. paint - verb · make a painting; "he painted all day in the garden"; "He painted a painting of the garden" 2. paint - verb · apply paint to; coat with paint; "We painted the rooms yellow" 3. paint - verb · make a painting of; "He painted his mistress many times" 4. paint - verb · apply a liquid to; e.g., paint the gutters with linseed oil 5. painted - adjective · coated with paint; "freshly painted lawn furniture" 6. painted - adjective · lacking substance or vitality as if produced by painting; "in public he wore a painted smile" 7. painted - adjective · having makeup applied; "brazen painted faces" 8. painted - adjective · having sections or patches colored differently and usually brightly; "a jester dressed in motley"; "the painted desert"; "a particolored dress"; "a piebald horse"; "pied daisies" Synonym(s): motley, calico, multicolor, multi-color, multicolour, multi-colour, multicolored, multi-colored, multicoloured, multi-coloured, particolored, particoloured, piebald, pied, varicolored, varicoloured The only site you need for word puzzles, home work, anagrams and scrabble games. The best site for two word anagram solutions. Enter the letters to get anagrams for the word Definitions, synonyms, antonyms and related words Enter the word below with '?' to indicate missing letters Enter the word to find the rhymes Enter the letters of the beginning, middle or end of the word.

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Location: Graduate Student Center 305 Summary: Students’ fruitful engagement with texts is often key to their success in class. In this workshop we will find strategies for helping students develop better reading skills. Questions we will pursue include the following. What difficulties do students encounter in following and in working through a text? What is critical reading as opposed to what we might call ordinary reading? What questions should students bring to a text in reading critically? What are virtues of a critical reader? We will address these questions both at a general and at a discipline specific level and we will develop a template for worksheets that can help students with critical reading. Counts toward the CTL Teaching Certificate.

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I just signed up into this useful site. It took me long, you know. I'm typing something quick. You can find class-planning tips, games that do not take beforehand preparation, experiences of a teacher of English plus teacher trainer, etc., on my blog. Hope any useful to you and other teachers! Sorry, I could not put my link, basically because I'm new here on this site. Some games that come up to mind: 1. Hangman, but with words instead of just letters: it helps practice grammar and making up full sentences. 2. Dictionary game: you write a word on the board, and the winner is the student who found the word first. 3. Mental directions: you, slowly, tell your students some instructions to reach such or such place in the school. They follow your instructions in their minds. They say the right place who all have reached. 4. Help them write their resume (Curriculum Vitae) to prepare a job interview one of them has to face up with, to be employed to a company or job you all have agreed. 5. The job interview with a student, before the class. I wrote some games, quicly.Like i told you I have many more. Hopethese ones can help you out. - I wrote some games different levels of English. Fernando Diez Gallego I have to learn how to attach a picture of mine to my profile. Well, later on! - For Teachers

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Exposed by erosion at the edge of a crumbling bluff, the pit discovered beneath 2 feet of sandy dirt at first appeared to be a grave just long and deep enough to bury a human body. Excavation by archaeologists on Ossabaw Island revealed something more puzzling – just a few small bones, apparently from fingers or toes, mixed with charcoal, bits of burned logs and pottery shards predating the arrival of the first European explorers by at least a century. The find has led researchers to suspect American Indians used the ancient pit to burn bodies of the dead, making it a rare example of cremation among the early native inhabitants of the southeastern U.S. "It's a special sort of burial," said Tom Gresham, an Athens archaeologist who worked on the excavation and serves on Georgia's Council on American Indian Concerns. "The way Indian tribes over time buried their dead varied tremendously. But cremations are fairly rare." Located six miles off the Savannah coast, Ossabaw Island remains one of Georgia's wildest barrier islands. Hogs, deer, armadillos and Sicilian donkeys roam the state-owned island's 11,800 acres of wishbone-shaped uplands. Live oaks tower above the remains of slave plantations and ancient Indian burial mounds. Researchers have found evidence that humans came to Ossabaw more than 4,000 years ago. It's believed Indians at first may have used the island as a winter camp to feed on shellfish before moving inland to hunt deer in the spring. Burial mounds on Ossabaw typically hold intact human remains, said Dave Crass, Georgia's state archaeologist. Archaeologists said Friday that carbon dating on charcoal from the pit place it between 1290 and 1420 A.D. Archaeologists initially thought the pit could be 1,000 to 3,000 years old based on pottery shards they found. Though carbon dating revealed it to be more recent, the find is still considered prehistoric because it predates the arrival of the first European explorers in Georgia in 1520. Crass said other prehistoric graves on Ossabaw tend to be bodies buried intact, in a near fetal position, in shallow bowl-shaped pits. "What makes this particular site unusual is that the individual was apparently cremated and then the remains were presumably taken from this pit and interred somewhere else," Crass said. David Hurst Thomas, a curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the cremation pit sounds significant. Thomas was not involved in the Ossabaw excavation but has been studying Indian burials on neighboring St. Catherines Island for 30 years. Out of about 900 graves he's studied there that predate the arrival of Europeans, only nine held cremated remains, he said. "Based on our St. Catherines experience, this is about a one-in-100 shot," Thomas said. "As a mortuary feature of that antiquity, I would say that's a big deal." The Ossabaw cremation pit, roughly 6 feet long and 3 feet deep, had other unique characteristics. Crass and fellow archaeologists, at first, suspected it might be a more modern grave because of its flat bottom and straight sides.

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California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations • Known as CalCOFI • Started in 1949 to investigate the crumbling sardine fishery • Participants are Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the California Department of Fish and Game • Collects data to about 1,600 feet deep at dozens of sites along Central and Southern California • Routinely samples for temperature, salinity, oxygen, phosphate, silicate, nitrate and nitrite, chlorophyll, phytoplankton biodiversity, zooplankton biomass, zooplankton biodiversity and other factors. On the surface, all seems well with the waters off California’s coast. But beneath the waves, their basic elements are morphing in ways that don’t bode well. The changes could undermine biological productivity in one of the world’s richest marine ecosystems — the California Current — which provides the state’s bounty of seafood, generates jobs and attracts tourist dollars. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography and other groups have been methodically measuring the current’s southern waters for 62 years, and their data series is touted as the most extensive of its kind in the world. One research group from the La Jolla campus launched another cruise Saturday to continue investigating the ecosystem and the offshore impacts of global warming. “It may not be obvious to your eyes, but it’s going on,” said Mark Ohman, lead principal investigator for the California Current Ecosystem Long Term Ecological Research program at Scripps. “Some of the changes are slow and subtle, but they are taking place nonetheless.” He said the overarching issue is how global warming affects the California Current Ecosystem. “You can have slow, progressive changes in the physical environment and very abrupt biological changes,” Ohman said. No one knows where that tipping point is, exactly what role man-made pollution plays or how the complex interactions between ocean chemistry, physics and biology will play out. But there’s wide agreement among scientists that the massive “river” of ocean water running down California’s coast is shifting with the climate in ways that will force people to adapt. Already, decreases in certain zooplankton, mid-water fishes and seabirds along the state’s coast have been linked to global warming. “If these things start to really decline ... it’s going to affect the marine food web,” said Tony Koslow, director of the California Cooperative Oceanic Fisheries Investigations, or CalCOFI, at Scripps. Research also shows that: • The average surface water temperature has increased by about almost 3 degrees since 1950 at the Scripps Pier. • Coastal waters have become more stratified by temperature, limiting the movement of species. • Dissolved oxygen concentrations have decreased in parts of the southern California Current over the past 25 years and low-oxygen zones have spread along the Oregon coast. • Nearshore waters are becoming more acidic because of dissolved carbon dioxide and threatening sensitive shellfish. The California Current is one of the richest marine areas in the world and the reason that California is home to dozens of commercial fisheries that hauled in some 373 million pounds worth more than $150 million in 2009, along with numerous noncommercial species ranging from plankton to marine mammals.

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The Virginia Historical Society had been in existence for nearly three decades when civil war enveloped the commonwealth in 1861. Over those early years of its history, officers and members of the society, along with many interested citizens of the Old Dominion, had contributed to a small but growing collection of books, historical manuscripts, and artifacts, gathered by the society's leaders with the motto of the organization, "To Preserve and Hand Down," ringing in their ears. With the advent of war, and without a permanent home in which to house this nascent collection, the society's leadership distributed its holdings among its various members during the war, while at the same time they patriotically invested the organization's tiny endowment in Confederate States bonds. Through this quirk of fate, most of the society's collection was saved; its endowment was not. Within several decades of the end of the war, with the surviving remnants of the collection rejoined and forming a solid base on which to build, the society's leadership again cast out the net widely for new historical materials to preserve and to interpret for new generations of Virginians. Among the many items that began to flow into the society's rooms were materials created or used by Confederate officers, soldiers, statesmen, and officials, as well as by members of many families, black and white, pro-Union and secessionist, who had populated the cities and counties of the commonwealth during the conflict. The success of those leaders and of their successors in acquiring the raw materials of historical study has now resulted in a collection of the highest quality and significance, nationally recognized and heavily used by researchers from across the country and throughout the world. Along with its extensive manuscript holdings, which this guide more readily identifies, the VHS also holds a major collection of Confederate imprints, published reminiscences, memoirs, letters, and diaries, and countless nineteenth- and twentieth-century studies of battlefield and home front. Its museum collection contains hundreds of images of Civil War–era individuals, both men and women, in a variety of formats (daguerreotypes, tintypes, cartes-de-visite, and portraits), as well as images of places and events from the period. Among the museum's artifacts are a superlative Confederate weapons collection, a window from Libby Prison fashioned by slaves, U.S. Army memorabilia, and many other items relating to the war in the Old Dominion. Other holdings include the well-known Jeremy Gilmer Confederate Corps of Engineers maps and a strong collection of Civil War-era newspapers on microfilm and in hard copy. This guide, however, focuses strictly on the society's manuscript holdings, the very heart of its research collections. The original letters and diaries of soldiers and members of their families, the scattered records of Union and Confederate military units and of enslaved and free persons who inhabited the Old Dominion, the official papers emanating from the pens of Confederate officials and war clerks (the latter both male and female), the postwar reminiscences and scrapbooks of combatants, widows, and the children of veterans, all help to tell the story of Virginia's extraordinary role in the American Civil War. We hope this guide will attract attention to the society's widely diverse manuscript holdings, provide ready access to specific items or record groups, and encourage future scholarship in the history of a time and event that continues to capture the imagination and to stir controversy in this country. This online guide, which was compiled and edited by Graham T. Dozier, was originally bound in published form and supported through a grant from the Roller-Bottimore Foundation. How to use this guide In compiling this guide, project staff reviewed and analyzed collections and individually cataloged items for Civil War content. We were initially led to materials through the Virginia Historical Society's existing card catalog of manuscripts and through information in our automated collections management database. Analysis of items and collections included the review of materials not previously highlighted for Civil War content but that fell into the appropriate time period or to which the staff's attention was drawn by some other means. Consequently, this guide provides detail about far more materials than could be found by an initial review of Civil War-related subject entries in the card catalog or database. At the same time, we should make clear that our search of the manuscripts collection for Civil War materials has been comprehensive but not exhaustive, given the constraints of time, staffing, and the sheer size of the collection itself. Certainly, other materials than those listed in this guide may be located in our holdings through imaginative research strategies. Another important point to which the attention of users should be drawn involves the types of materials that make up the society's manuscripts collection. Although some military service records, muster rolls, orders, and the like may be found in our holdings the society's collection consists primarily of letters, diaries, scrapbooks, and related materials and is not the place to launch a search for official documentation. Queries about such records should be directed to the Archives Division of the Library of Virginia in Richmond or to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. Each entry in this guide contains a main heading and a full description of its Civil War-related collection content. The headings (in bold) include the title of the collection, the date range of the collection, the item count for the whole collection (not just for the Civil War items), and the manuscript call number for the entire collection. Guide entries include a brief contextual description of items or collections as a whole, followed by information about specific Civil War materials or references. In the case of collections, indications of the physical location of items are often also included, such as an item number or series (for example, a401 [item number] or Section 3 [series level]). A number of the society's manuscript collections have been microfilmed to provide greater access and to aid in the preservation of the original items. If an entire collection, or a significant portion of one, has been microfilmed, the microfilm reel number appears in the heading. If a microfilm reel number is listed, the library patron will be served film and not the original manuscript. Some microfilm of VHS collections may be leased through interlibrary loan. Please contact the society's reference department for additional information. In a number of instances, materials within collections have been published in their entirety or as excerpts. In those cases, a full citation for the published version is included in the collection description. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the quarterly journal of the VHS, is cited as VMHB, and The War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C., 1880–1901) is cited as Official Records.

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Contents: Preface. I. Literary and cultural contributions of Brahmananda Swami Sivayogi: 1. His life. 2. Contemporary social reformers of Brahmananda Swami Sivayogi. 3. Sivayogi’s position in the Indian philosophy. 4. Sidhasramam. 5. Ananda Maha Sabha, Ananda Samajas, Ananda Yoga Salas and Ananda Pracharana Samiti. 6. Cultural contributions of Brahmananda Swami Sivayogi. 7. Other contributions of Brahmananda Swami Sivayogi. 8. Cultural contributions of Ananda Yoga Salas and Ananda Samajas. 9. Rajayoga preached by Sivayogi. 10. Ananda Matha—the universal religion. 11. Selections from Sivayogi. 12. Literary contributions of Brahmananda Swamy Sivayogi. 13. Notes of credit. II. Selected works of Sivayogi: 14. Ananda Sutra (The string bliss). 15. Anandadarsamsam (the little mirror to see the eternal bliss in us). 16. Ananda Matha Parasyam (The proclamation of the religion of bliss). Index. "The book deals with a meaningful dialogue on ethics, literacy and culture. Based on philosophical human values, it depicts clearly about the purity of life and thought and its deep impact on character and morality. Swami Sivayogi has weaved the whole theme into the basic tenets of humanity and religious purification. The work would be useful for teachers, scholars and students interested in human values and morality." (jacket)

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Wild turkey nesting success and survival of poults are primary factors that determine turkey abundance each year. Weather conditions, which may vary from year to year, can have a big impact on turkey reproductive success. The data you provide via this survey will help biologists measure and better understand the impacts reproductive success may have on the turkey population. This Public Turkey Brood Survey has been designed to quickly and easily gather important data from a large number of people who do not need to be trained biologists. In fact, many people have participated in the last few years and have provided large numbers of observations and data. These data are now providing the department with valuable measures of the turkey population and its reproductive success. Each year that the survey runs, trends in the data become more obvious and more useful for management of Vermont’s wild turkey population, so please continue to report your turkey observations with this online survey each August. Get outside and count some turkeys. It is fun! Who monitors Vermont's Spring Wild Turkey Production? Since 1994, The Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department has conducted a wild turkey brood survey to analyze spring turkey production. In 2014, the department is partnering with the National Wild Turkey Federation (NWTF) to promote and enhance the statewide brood survey effort. Now it's your turn to assist us. We are asking volunteers to record wild turkey sightings for the month of August, using our web-base survey. Your participation increases our sample size and gives you the chance to be involved in active turkey management. Why are brood surveys an essential part in wild turkey management? Brood surveys are designed to monitor annual nesting success and survival of hens and their young, which has the greatest influence on wild turkey population dynamics. The information lets us calculate many factors that are essential for sound turkey management, including average brood sizes, percentage of adult hens with young, and overall numbers of turkeys seen. This information, combined with harvest data, allows us to scientifically manage the wild turkey population--helping insure we have a thriving population now and in the future. What to look for: The most important information is the total number of turkeys seen and where (the town). It would be helpful if you are able to determine sex and age of the birds and whether your sighting is a brood. A brood consists of one or more hens with young. At this time of year, young of the year turkeys are normally about two-thirds the size of an adult hen. It is also important to record any sightings of adult hens seen without young. In this photo there are two hens (center and right) and two turkeys of unknown sex (left).

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Guest post by Stephanie Ganaway-Pasley Posted on February 13, 2014 Editor’s note: Stephanie Ganaway-Pasley has a long list of accomplishments. She is a Walden University Ph.D. in Psychology student; a summary court judge in Charleston County, S.C.; a qualified civil mediator; and former NAACP Woman of the Year. Ganaway-Pasley recently gave a speech in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Charleston Southern University, where she received her bachelor’s degree in psychology. As a result of that occasion, Spotlight on Walden asked her to share her thoughts with our community in commemoration of Black History Month. African-American history is a rich embroidery of stories about individuals from multiple countries who have unique talents. Their many contributions to the United States are what, in part, make our country great. African-American people were, unfortunately, transported to this country for one distinct reason: slavery. Slavery was a trade and industry decision, undertaken purely for economic considerations. Slaves were regarded as property to be worked, used, and sold. No consideration was given to their health and well-being, their security, the division of their families, or their basic liberty. None of these basic human rights were a primary concern for many Americans during these centuries in our history. Black History Month constantly reminds me that I have more opportunities than my ancestors did. This month provides new wakefulness for some and inspires others to speak of the struggles of a race of people who did not have the freedom to make their own choices. During Black History Month, we celebrate the many stories, some well known and some never before heard, of how a race of people tolerated injustices and overcame unforgiving realities to play a positive role in the development of the United States. I believe recognizing black history is extremely important so that we as a society ensure we do not make the same mistakes again. When I grew up, my parents made sure I learned about our history. I was taught about Emmett Till, who was murdered because he was accused of whistling at a white woman when he was 14 years old. I learned about Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who was murdered in the driveway of his home in the presence of his family. And there were also Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., a remarkable civil rights leader; Phillis Wheatley, who was known for her poetry; and Harriet Tubman, an abolitionist known for her bravery. During this special month, however, I recognize it is my mother and father who have made the biggest impression on my life, walking in the footsteps of our ancestors who helped to pave the way before us. My parents worked two or three jobs and taught me a philosophy of hard work: If you start something, you must continue and see it through. They also instilled in me the importance of knowing who I am and the power of words. “Let your words represent who you are and where you stand,” they told me. Beyond encouraging me, they taught me about the importance of making good decisions and the significance of a quality education. I consider myself blessed to have experienced the love and care of parents who created powerful memories that inspire me on a daily basis. The stories my parents told me in respect to black history have made me stronger and more determined to treat people the way I want to be treated. I am always mindful about how I treat people, even in my professional life. My parents taught me to support those who are different and appreciate them. Black History Month should remind us all that we should continue to work together every day of the year as a people with a common interest, regardless of our race, color, cultural background, or ethnicity. Members of the Walden community have also shared their stories and insights about African Americans who have influenced or inspired their education, research, careers, or social change initiatives. To view webinars, articles, and a list of books recommended for reading during Black History Month, visit www.WaldenU.edu/blackhistory.

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This article explores how the power generation industry is employing Zero Liquid Discharge solutions for flue gas desulfurization, using the US as an example, as well as installations in Egypt and Italy. by J. Michael Marlett. Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD)systems are being employed to meet increasingly stringent regulations for difficult-to-treat wastewaters, or for situations where water scarcity demands water recovery (recycle/reuse). Applications for ZLD include cooling tower blowdown, produced water, Flue Gas Desulfurization (FGD) purge wastewater, Integrated Gas Combined Cycle (IGCC) wastewater, reverse osmosis reject, demineralization regeneration wastewater, and other complex industrial wastewaters. Last year, for example, the Egyptian Ethylene and Derivatives Company (ETHYDCO) awarded Aquatech a contract to provide a water treatment facility at its petroleum derivatives manufacturing site in Alexandria that includes the first integrated ZLD plant in Egypt. |FGD evaporation system at ENEL showing the forced circulation evaporator on the left, and the two 100% brine concentrators on the middle| Meanwhile in the US, the Clean Water Act prohibits any entity from discharging "pollutants" through a "point source" into a "water of the United States" unless they have a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. The permit translates general requirements of the Clean Water Act into specific provisions tailored to the discharge of pollutants. NPDES permits are issued by states that have obtained EPA approval to issue permits or by EPA Regions in states without such approval. Of the states, only five have no authority to issue NPDES permits. Meanwhile, only five have full authority to issue permits. Every five years, the permit must be renewed. The time required to renew the permits range from just a few weeks to more than a year based on the industry, discharge and objections filed. As a result, each power plant undergoes a period of uncertainty every five years – or sooner if a new pollutant discharge point source is identified. For power plants, this can be catastrophic when new processes such as FGD systems are installed. This is especially true for regulated utilities requesting rate adjustments from Public Utility Commissions. Rates are adjusted at specific times. If the permit is not approved in time, a year may be lost before it is possible to begin recovering the costs of these improvements. FGD systems reduce the sulfur discharges to the air from power plants by reacting the sulfur dioxide created by the burning of coal. FGD systems remove a source of air pollution by converting it into a form of water pollution. For the first time since 1982, the limits of the pollutants arsenic, mercury, selenium and nitrates are being modified by the USEPA. It is estimated that 66 to 200 facilities will incur compliance costs or close due to the new regulations. The new regulations that have been published indicate a preference to physical chemical treatment followed by biological treatment. The physical chemical treatment is designed to remove trace metals through pH adjustment, precipitation, clarification and filtration. Mercury and arsenic are removed using an ion exchanger resin, while selenium and nitrates are removed using an anoxic biological process. Nitrates are converted to nitrogen and oxygen and the selenium is converted. EPA documentation concludes that physical/chemical/biological treatment will not reduce total dissolved solids which can be over 60,000 PPM. The physical treatment/biological process still results in a waste stream that must be discharged and requires an NPDES permit with all its uncertainties and risks. The ZLD process operates under a simple principal that a NPDES permit is not required if there is no discharge. Water discharged from the FGD scrubber first may or may not be treated with a physical chemical treatment process. The selection of treatment and extent of pre-treatment is determined based on the method of final concentration of the discharge stream. The FGD discharge is saturated in calcium sulfate and is high in chlorides. The water is first evaporated in a Brine Concentrator. This Vertical Tube Falling Film Evaporator is specially designed to concentrate brines containing compounds that would quickly scale the heat transfer surface of other types of thin film evaporators. Equipment is optimized to minimize energy consumption through the use of a Mechanical Vapor Compressor. The compressor increases the pressure and the saturation temperature of the vapor produced in the evaporation process, and allows the large amount of residual energy in the vapor to be recovered. This has the added advantage of eliminating the need for cooling water and a steam condenser since the Brine Concentrator acts as its own condenser. The concentrate can then be handled in one of three ways. The concentrate can be mixed with a solid to be discharged, typically sprayed onto fly ash for dust suppression before being discharged to a landfill, or undergo removal of the remaining water using a Spray Dryer. Both these processes eliminate the need for pre-treatment of the incoming brine. Another option is to remove the water remaining in the concentrate using a Forced Circulation Evaporator. This equipment is designed to remove water from a circulating slurry. The Forced Circulation Evaporator can be powered either by steam, straight or with a Thermocompressor or a mechanical vapor compressor. The solids are then removed using either a centrifuge, belt filter press or other solids removal device. Solids are disposed of in an approved landfill. Water recovered from the FGD wastewater is of high quality, typically less than 10 ppm, non volatile TDS for distillate from the Brine Concentrator and less than 30 ppm for mixed distillate from the combination of Brine Concentrator and Forced Circulation Evaporator. This high quality distillate can be recycled back to the scrubber or used as boiler feedwater or cooling tower makeup. The issue of water conservation and pollution control in power plants is not limited to the US. For example, ZLD systems for FGD systems were installed in five power plants in Italy owned by Italian power company, ENEL. In Italy, the FGD feed water is first treated with lime and then soda ash to reduce hardness. The treated FGD brine is then concentrated in a Brine Concentrator using a Mechanical Vapor Compressor to optimize energy consumption. The concentration is completed in a Forced Circulation Evaporator using a thermocompressor to minimize steam consumption and cooling water usage. Solids are then removed with a belt filter press and moved to an approved landfill. J. Michael Marlett is the process applications manager for industrial concentration for Aquatech International Corporation. Email: MarlettM@aquatech.com

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Germanium: biological information Biological role of germanium: germanium has no biological role but is said to stimulate the metabolism. Levels in humans How much germanium is in your body? Find out here. You can use this form to calculate how much germanium your body contains. Enter your weight in either kilograms or pounds and click the "Calculate" button. You must enter a number, not text! Elements for which there are no data will always give a value of zero for the weight, no matter what you put in the weight box. Hazards and Risks Hazards and risks associated with germanium: germanium compounds appear not to be particularly toxic. Fumes from compounds such as germanium tetrachloride (GeCl4) irritate eyes and lungs.

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Is your baby’s cooing and babbling the beginning of baby conversation? You betcha. And guess who he’ll be talking to? Here’s looking (and cooing!) at you, Mom. Baby’s First Sounds Sometime between the first few weeks and the second month, a baby begins making vowel sounds, experimenting with the sound of his voice and what his mouth, tongue, and throat can do. He may start with breathy and seemingly random sounds, but you’ll soon notice these sounds are directed at an audience — you, a favorite stuffed animal, the mobile in his crib, or even his own reflection. Within a few weeks to months he’ll add laughs, squeals, and a few consonants to his repertoire. Here’s a closer look at baby’s vocal timeline (remember that this is just an average of when most babies begin vocalizing): - By six weeks to three months old: vowel sounds, cooing, and gurgling - By three and a half months old: laughing out loud - By four and a half months old: squealing and some consonants (a-ga, a-ba, a-da) - By six months old: singsong strings of consonants (da-da-da-da-da) - By eight months old: double consonants (da-da, ma-ma, ha-ha) without association - Between ten and 14 months: first real word (or words!) If your baby doesn’t hit this general guideline — say he doesn’t start saying consonants until after eight months, for example — don’t be alarmed. But if he’s consistently way behind these language milestones despite your best efforts, or is having trouble responding when you say his name or talk to him, speak to the pediatrician. He may need a hearing evaluation or other tests. Talking to Your Baby For babies, learning to talk is a two-way street: You talk, he mimics you (or at least mimics the sounds he hears), and you continue the “conversation.” But is there a right way to talk to your baby? “Parentese” — that high-pitched, singsong way of speaking — comes easily to some parents, while others may feel a little self-conscious. The good news? As long as you’re talking, your baby is listening. So no matter how you engage your little one (whether it’s “Whose cute itty-bitty toes are these?” or “Look at these cute toes!”), your baby will benefit. Of course, his verbal ability will develop more quickly if you make a conscious effort to talk to him even when he’s a newborn (even though it’ll seem as if you’re talking to yourself!). So, for example, if you’re taking your baby to your parents’ house, you could say, “Do you know where we’re going? To Grandma’s house! Let’s bring your teddy to Grandma’s!” This will help you get into the habit of talking to your little one, even if he can’t understand everything (at first!). In fact, any conversation — between you and your partner, even your end of a cell-phone chat — can serve as an impromptu language lesson for baby. He’ll pick up almost as much from secondhand dialogue as he will when he’s getting all your attention. But when you are talking to your baby, don’t be afraid to give him a chance to answer — even if it’s a coo, giggle, gurgle, or sigh rather than words. Studies show that babies whose parents talk with them rather than at them learn to talk earlier. Need more ideas for kicking off baby conversation? Let your imagination run free. Tell your little one stories from your childhood, give him some guided tours as you go on your strolls (even if it’s just to the kitchen to get a snack), give him a blow-by-blow of your favorite movies. Just keep chatting, commenting on things around you, and asking questions, and one day your baby will surprise you by answering!

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Learn something new every day More Info... by email Cognitive theory is built around the premise that a person's thoughts control his actions, personality, and to some degree his circumstances. It is an area of psychology that is in sharp contrast with behavioral theory, which states that there is an interrelationship between an individual's behaviors and his physical environment. Some psychologists merge the two theories to form what is called cognitive-behavioral theory. One of the more controversial aspects of cognitive theory is the idea that severe mood disorders can be altered by patterns of thinking. The main idea behind cognitive theory is that an individual becomes what he thinks. Behaviors are the direct result of internal thoughts, which are able to be controlled. The theory purports that thought processes and patterns can be changed if a person learns how to recognize and correct destructive tendencies. For example, a person's personality and identity can be reshaped through thought manifestation. In fact, some would go so far as to say that entire life circumstances and outcomes can be directly controlled through the thought process. According to cognitive theory, one way to encourage and unlock new thought patterns is through meditation. Mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety have been shown to be responsive to cognitive forms of therapy. Some experts agree that cognitive therapy is a more effective treatment method than antidepressants alone. In some ways, cognitive theory is similar to Eastern religious concepts, particularly those found in Buddhist teachings. Sayings such as, "I think, therefore I am," and "we become our thoughts," are reflective of the theory. It is the idea that a person's outward expression is a result of his inner one. Cognitive theory began to gain a stronghold in the 1980s and 1990s. Many self-help resources are built around the idea of changing a person's life and mood through a change in thought patterns. For example, happiness will continue to elude those who think they are unhappy or who do not see the positive aspects in their situations. Criticisms of this theory revolve around the idea that the thought process is too complex and abstract to understand completely. Some might argue that an individual's thought process is not only influenced by his own perceptions, but by the perceptions of others in his environment. Feedback, especially criticism, might stimulate thoughts that are beyond the control of the person who is on the receiving end. While that person can certainly attempt to change those thought patterns and reframe the way the criticism is processed, those negative thought patterns might unintentionally reemerge. An additional criticism of cognitive theory is that it is relatively undefined and difficult to apply to the population as a whole. One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK!

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Barberry is a bush that grows wild in Europe and North America. It is closely related to Berberis aquifolium). The root, stem, bark, and fruit of barberry are all used medicinally. Barberry was traditionally used as a treatment for digestive problems, including constipation, diarrhea, dyspepsia (stomach upset), heartburn, and loss of appetite. It was said to work by increasing the flow of bile, and on this basis it has also been used for liver and gallbladder problems. Topical preparations of barberry have been recommended for the treatment of eczema, psoriasis, and minor wounds. There are no medically established uses of barberry. Only double-blind placebo-controlled studies, can establish a treatment effective, and none have been performed on barberry. (For information on why this type of study is essential, see Why Does This Database Rely on Double-Blind Studies?) Very weak evidence (too weak to be relied upon at all) hints that barberry root extracts may have anti-inflammatory, fever-reducing, and analgesic (pain-reducing) effects.1,2 Similarly weak evidence hints that barberry fruit may have antihypertensive and antihistaminic effects.3,4 Oregon grape, contains the chemical berberine. There has been some studies of purified berberine that might apply to barberry, as well. Berberine inhibits the growth of many microorganisms, including fungi, protozoa, and bacteria.5-11,22 In one placebo-controlled study, berberine effectively reduced lung injury among lung cancer patients receiving radiation therapy.23 On this basis, berberine has been proposed as a topical antiseptic for use in vaginal infections. Berberine has also shown potential as a treatment for various heart-related conditions, including reducing high cholesterol high blood pressure However, it is not clear that barberry provides enough berberine to produce any of these potential benefits. Topical formulations of the related plant have shown some promise for and barberry has been marketed for this condition as well. However, there is no direct evidence that it works. Barberry is traditionally used at a dose of 2 grams three times daily, or an equivalent amount in extract form. For treatment of and other skin conditions, barberry is used in the form of a 10% cream, applied to the skin three times daily. One study suggests that topical use of berberine could cause photosensitivity (an increased tendency to react to sun exposure.18 Berberine-containing herbs should not be used by pregnant women because berberine may increase levels of bilirubin,19 potentially damaging the fetus, and might also cause genetic damage.20 Individuals who already have elevated levels of bilirubin (jaundice), or any other form of liver disease, should also avoid berberine-containing herbs. Safety in young children and nursing women has not been established. One study hints that berberine may decrease the efficacy of the drug tetracycline.21 If you are using antibiotics in the family, barberry might decrease their effectiveness. Kupeli E, Kosar M, Yesilada E, et al. A comparative study on the anti-inflammatory, antinociceptive and antipyretic effects of isoquinoline alkaloids from the roots of Turkish Life Sci. 2002;72:645–57. Yesilada E, Kupeli E. DC root exhibits potent anti-inflammatory, analgesic and febrifuge effects in mice and rats. J Ethnopharmacol. 2002;79:237–48. Shamsa F, Ahmadiani A, Khosrokhavar R. Antihistaminic and anticholinergic activity of barberry fruit ( Berberisvulgaris) in the guinea-pig ileum. J Ethnopharmacol. 1999;64:161–6. Fatehi-Hassanabad Z, Jafarzadeh M, Tarhini A, et al. The antihypertensive and vasodilator effects of aqueous extract from fruit on hypertensive rats. Phytother Res. 2005;19:222–225. Hahn FE, Ciak J. Berberine. Bae EA, Han MJ, Kim NJ, Kim DH. Anti- activity of herbal medicines. Biol Pharm Bull. 1998;21:990–992. Kaneda Y. In vitro effects of berberine sulphate on the growth and structure of Ann Trop Med Parasitol. 1991;85:417–425. Scazzocchio F, Cometa MF, Tomassini L, et al. Antibacterial activity of extract and its major isolated alkaloids. Planta Med. 2001;67:561–564. Soffar SA, Metwali DM, Abdel-Aziz SS, et al. Evaluation of the effect of a plant alkaloid (berberine derived from Berberis aristata) on J Egypt Soc Parasitol. 2001;31:893–904. Stermitz FR, Lorenz P, Tawara JN, et al. Synergy in a medicinal plant: antimicrobial action of berberine potentiated by 5'-methoxyhydnocarpin, a multidrug pump inhibitor. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000; 97:1433–1437. Lesnau A, Hils J, Pohl G, et al. Antiviral activity of berberine salts. Doggrell SA. Berberine–a novel approach to cholesterol lowering. Expert Opin Investig Drugs. 2005;14:683–5. Lau CW, Yao XQ, Chen ZY, et al. Cardiovascular actions of berberine. Cardiovasc Drug Rev. 2001;19:234–44. Kong W, Wei J, Abidi P, et al. Berberine is a novel cholesterol-lowering drug working through a unique mechanism distinct from statins. Nat Med. 2004;10:1344–51. Wiesenauer M, Ldtke R. in patients with psoriasis vulgaris—an intraindividual study. Gieler U, von der Weth A, Heger M. —a new type of topical treatment for psoriasis. J Dermatol Treat. 1995;6:31–34. Augustin M, Andrees U, Grimme H, et al. Effects of ointment on the expression of adhesion, proliferation, and activation markers in the skin of patients with psoriasis. Forsch Komplementrmed. 1999;6(suppl 2):19–21. Inbaraj JJ, Kukielczak BM, Bilski P, et al. Photochemistry and photocytotoxicity of alkaloids from goldenseal ( L.) 1. Berberine. Chem Res Toxicol. 2001;14:1529–1534. Chan E. Displacement of bilirubin from albumin by berberine. Biol Neonate. 1993;63:201–208. Pasqual MS, Lauer CP, Moyna P, Henriques JA. Genotoxicity of the isoquinoline alkaloid berberine in prokaryotic and eukaryotic organisms. Mutat Res. 1993;286:243–21. Khin-Maung-U, Myo-Khin, Nyunt-Nyunt-Wai, et al. Clinical trial of berberine in acute watery diarrhoea. BrMed J. 1985;291:1601–5. Amin AH, Subbaiah TV, Abbasi KM. Berberine sulfate: antimicrobial activity, bioassay, and mode of action. Can J Microbiol. 1969;15:1067–1076. Liu Y, Yu H, Zhang C, et al. Protective effects of berberine on radiation-induced lung injury via intercellular adhesion molecular-1 and transforming growth factor-beta-1 in patients with lung cancer. Eur J Cancer. 2008 Sep 11. Last reviewed August 2013 by EBSCO CAM Review Board 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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First dog cloning reported July 2, 2005 Courtesy Queen's University and World Science staff Dogs have finally been added to the pantheon of animals that have been cloned by somatic-cell nuclear transfer, the method that produced Dolly the sheep. Previous attempts to produce a cloned dog have failed owing to the difficulty of producing mature, unfertilized canine eggs in a test tube. In a Brief Communication in this week's Nature, scientists led by Woo Suk Hwang report the successful creation of two cloned Afghan hounds, although one died of pneumonia after just 22 days. Dog eggs are difficult to work with because they are released from the ovary earlier than in other mammal species, the researchers explained. To produce the clones, the authors collected mature eggs from a dog's oviduct. They removed the genetic material and replaced it with a cell nucleus from the ear skin of the donor Afghan hound. The researchers said they hope that cloning could be used to explore the genetic differences between various breeds of dog, and the effects of breeding between different types. However, the technique is still very inefficient - the two puppies were the result of 123 embryo transfers, leading to just three pregnancies, one of which miscarried.* Send us a comment on this story, or send it to a friend

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|类型/形式：||Science fiction, American Kim Stanley Robinson |描述：||ix, 561 pages ; 25 cm| |责任：||Kim Stanley Robinson.| "The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future. The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them"-- - Space colonies -- Fiction. - FICTION -- Science Fiction -- General. - FICTION -- Science Fiction -- High Tech. - FICTION -- Science Fiction -- Space Opera.

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The End of Ancient Sunlight In a very real sense, we're all made out of sunlight. Sunlight is the source of almost all life on Earth. Many people I meet believe that plants are made up of the soil in which they grow. That's a common mistake. A tree, for example, is mostly made up of one of the gases in our air (carbon dioxide) and water (hydrogen and oxygen). Trees are solidified air and sunlight. Animals, including humans, cannot create tissues directly from sunlight, water, and air, as plants can. Thus the human population of the planet has always been limited by the amount of readily available plant food (and the supply of animals that eat plants). Something important happened about 40,000 years ago: humans discovered they could domesticate ruminant (grazing) animals like goats, sheep, and cows that convert daily sunlight captured by scrub and wild plants on “useless” land into animal flesh, which humans could eat. About this time, we also figured out that we could replace forests with farmland. Because we had discovered and begun to use herding and agriculture to convert the sun's energy into human food more efficiently, our food supply grew and the human population started growing faster. Within a few thousand years we also discovered how to extract mineral ores from the Earth, to smelt pure metals from them, and to build tools, such as plows and scythes, that made us much more productive farmers. So the period from 8,000 B.C. until around the time of Christ saw the human population of the world increase from 5 million people to 250 million people. But we were still only using about one year's worth of sunlight-energy per year, and our impact on the planet remained minimal. We weren't “dipping into our savings” to supply our needs, yet. . . . . .The article in YES! was adapted by permission of the publisher from The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight by Thom Hartmann, copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2004 by Mythical Research, Inc. Used by permission of Harmony Books, a division of Random House, Inc. However, we do not have the rights to put the full article on the web. To read the complete article, you will need to obtain a print version of the fall 2004 issue YES! Or, we strongly recommend reading the book. That means, we rely on support from our readers. Independent. Nonprofit. Subscriber-supported.

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- The definition of a reduction is a decrease or a lessening in amount, or the amount by which something decreases or goes down. - When the income tax rate is cut, this is an example of a time when you get a reduction in taxes. - When a price goes down by 10 percent, this is an example of a 10 percent reduction. - a reducing or being reduced - anything made or brought about by reducing, as a smaller copy, lowered price, sauce of concentrated liquid, etc. - the amount by which anything is reduced Origin of reductionLate Middle English reduccion ; from Middle French reduction ; from Classical Latin reductio ; from reductus, past participle of reducere - The act or process of reducing. - The result of reducing: a reduction in absenteeism. - The amount by which something is lessened or diminished: a reduction of 12 percent in violent crime. - A sauce that has been thickened or concentrated by boiling. - Biology The first meiotic division, in which the chromosome number is reduced. Also called reduction division. - Chemistry a. A decrease in positive valence or an increase in negative valence by the gaining of electrons.b. A reaction in which hydrogen is combined with a compound.c. A reaction in which oxygen is removed from a compound. - Mathematics a. The canceling of common factors in the numerator and denominator of a fraction.b. The converting of a fraction to its decimal equivalent.c. The converting of an expression or equation to its simplest form. Origin of reductionMiddle English reduccion, restoration, from Old French reduction, from Latin reductiō, reductiōn-, from reductus, past participle of redūcere, to bring back; see reduce. - The act, process, or result of reducing. - The amount or rate by which something is reduced, e.g. in price. - A 5% reduction in robberies - (chemistry) A reaction in which electrons are gained and valence is reduced; often by the removal of oxygen or the addition of hydrogen. - (cooking) The process of rapidly boiling a sauce to concentrate it. - (mathematics) The rewriting of an expression into a simpler form. - (computability theory) a transformation of one problem into another problem, such as mapping reduction or polynomial reduction. - (music) An arrangement for a far smaller number of parties, e.g. a keyboard solo based on a full opera. - (philosophy, phenomenology) A philosophical procedure intended to reveal the objects of consciousness as pure phenomena. (See phenomenological reduction.) - (medicine) A medical procedure to restore a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment.

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These games teach valuable skills and have a high fun and educational rating. Your child will practice investigation skills by scanning Dora's room for certain objects. Walking around her house, your child will play a variety of games such as dressing up Dora, helping her mother cook, and fetching her dog. Your child develops listening and measurement skills as they help Kai-lan collect objects as she describes them by attributes like short, tall, thick, thin, small, and big. Your child learns an array of math concepts while helping Kailan and her ants build bridges to reach the party. Your child develops familiarity with early math concepts like counting and measurement while helping Team Umizoomi solve problems that involve everyday math! Your child learns about position, arrangement and order by playing this puzzle game.

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Director of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) from 1924 until his death in 1972. J. Edgar Hoover "What are the dangers to a democracy of a national police organization, like the FBI, which operates secretly and is unresponsive to public criticism?" - The essay question that pissed off Hoover. It was optional question number 7 on UC's 1959 English aptitude test for high school applicants. See: Reagan, Hoover and the UC Red Scare - a SF Chronicle Special John Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day in 1895 in Washington, D.C. He was the youngest of the three surviving children born to Dickerson Naylor Hoover and Annie Marie Scheitlin Hoover. J. Edgar's only brother was Dickerson, Jr., fifteen years his senior and his sister Lillian who was thirteen years older. Another sister, Sadie Marguerite was born in 1890 and died of diphtheria in 1893.The Young Man ... Is this the truth? Apparently just about everything that is known about Hoover's early life comes from a 500 word 1937 profile in the New Yorker magazine written by one Jack Alexander. See: The Mysterious Origins of J. Edgar Hoover by Edward Spannaus. In 1919 Woodrow Wilson appointed A. Mitchell Palmer as his attorney general. Palmer recruited John Edgar Hoover as his special assistant and together they used the Espionage Act (1917) and the Sedition Act (1918) to launch a campaign against radicals and left-wing organizations. J. Edgar Hoover turned the deportation of Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman into a personal crusade. In this letter he brands them as "beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country." As special assistant to Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer, Hoover amassed evidence against Goldman and Berkman and presented the case against them at their deportation hearing. Hoover was also present at 5:00 a.m. on the morning of December 21, 1919, when the Buford set sail for Russia carrying Goldman, Berkman, and the other deportees. Hoover and the FBI monitored Goldman's activities closely for the remainder of her life in exile from the United Goldman Papers @ sunsite.berkeley.edu May 10, 1924 Hoover selected to head the Bureau of Investigation. || When Hoover took over, the Bureau of Investigation had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents. He immediately fired those Agents he considered unqualified and proceeded to professionalize the organization. For example, Hoover abolished the seniority rule of promotion and introduced uniform performance appraisals. Regular inspections of Headquarters and field office operations were scheduled. New Agents had to be between 25 and 35 years old. Then, in January 1928, Hoover established a formal training course for new Agents. He also returned to the earlier preference for Special Agents with law or accounting experience. The new Director was also keenly aware that the Bureau of Investigation could not fight crime without public support. In remarks prepared for the Attorney General in 1925, he wrote, "The Agents of the Bureau of Investigation have been impressed with the fact that the real problem of law enforcement is in trying to obtain the cooperation and sympathy of the public and that they cannot hope to get such cooperation until they themselves merit the respect of the public." --THE "LAWLESS" YEARS at fbi.gov In 1935 sensation surrounded the opening of Warner Bros.' newest film, G-Men. In the film, James Cagney did not play the "tough guy gangster" for which he was known, but rather a federal lawman. - pbs.org One-time number three man in the FBI, William C. Sullivan, sated in his book, The Bureau: My Thirty Years in Hoover’s FBI (published just after his accidental death): “. . . the Mafia is powerful, so powerful that entire police forces or even a mayor’s office can be under Mafia control. That’s why Hoover was afraid to let us tackle it. he was afraid that we’d show up poorly. Why take the risk, he reasoned, until we were forced to by public exposure of our shortcomings.” ||"I would have no fears if more Americans possessed the zeal, the fervor, the persistence and the industry to learn about this menace of Red fascism. I do fear for the liberal and progressive who has been hoodwinked and duped into joining hands with the communists..." Testimony of J. Edgar Hoover before HUAC - March 26, 1947 Martin Luther King, Jr. J. Edgar Hoover's obsession with King is also well-documented in FBI files. These files show examples such as the FBI calling Marquette University in 1964 to tell them not to award an honorary degree to King. At Springfield College (Mass.) a month later, the FBI told the college that King's SCLC was "Communist affiliated". J. Edgar & Martin Hoover's FBI mailed tapes of King's sexual affairs to his wife and tried to blackmail him politically; in an anonymous letter, encouraged him to commit suicide; and, among other disinformation successes, convinced Marquette University officials in 1964 to back out of giving King an honorary degree. [source] Nixon and the Plumbers ||As the late FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told the journalist Andrew Tully in the days before June, 1972, "By God, he's [Nixon's] got some former CIA men working for him that I'd kick out of my office. Someday, that bunch will serve him up a fine mess." [fn 20] Chapter -XII- Chairman George in Watergate, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin motorcycles 1960 ... ||The popularity of the motorcycle -- both in connection with its use as a sport and as a means of rapid transportation -- makes it imperative that the individual owner exercise every precaution against the possibility of theft. Motorcycle And You by John Edgar Hoover, AMERICAN MOTORCYCLING - November, 1960 May 2, 1972 James Crawford came to work a little early that Tuesday morning. The Boss had ordered some rosebushes and Crawford promised him that he would be there at 8:30 to help him plant them. ... " J. Edgar Hoover, by Marilyn Bardsley, May 2, 1972 A university professor of forensic science [James Starrs], suspecting foul play in J. Edgar Hoover's death, has been granted access to the District of Columbia medical examiner's records to reinvestigate how the former FBI director died. Edgar Hoover death records getting another look by Kalpana Srinivasan The Associated Press, Seattle Times January - Hoover's FBI : The Inside Story by Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant, by Cartha 'Deke' Deloach (1997) @amazon.com - Official and Confidential: The Secret LIfe of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers (1993) @amazon.com - The Real J.Edgar Hoover for the Record, by Ray Wannall (2000) @amazon.com - The Union Station Massacre : The Original Sin of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI by Robert Unger @amazon.com - The F.B.I. Story, by Don Whitehead - Honk If You Love J. Edgar Hoover - by By Allyn Baskerville and Bill Gillespie - Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It, by J. Edgar Hoover, 1958 [excerpt Book Titles at amazon.com Japanese internment ... My book contains data regarding Hoover's advocacy of civil rights, laced with a strong compassion for the plight of others. The "Japanese internment" issue is cited as an example of this. More than 100,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up and herded into concentration camps. This was demanded by numerous well-known individuals, including Treasury Secretary Henry Morganthau, renowned columnist Walter Lippman, California Governor Earl Warren who later became Chief Justice of the United States, even President Franklin Roosevelt. ... Hoover described the demands as "a capitulation to public hysteria," and told Morganthau that arrests should not be made "unless there were sufficient facts (probable cause) upon which to justify the arrests." He contended the rights of American citizens should be protected, and protested the dragnet procedures. He was overridden. --From book about J. Edgar Hoover by W. Ray Wannall published by Turner Publishing Co. of Paducah, Kentucky. "The most serious discrimination during World War II was the decision to evacuate Japanese nationals and American citizens of Japanese descent from the West Coast and send them to internment camps." Apparently FBI Director Hoover took the position that because it "had arrested the individuals whom it considered security threats, confining others was unnecessary." President [Franklin D. Roosevelt] overruled him. - FBI Hoover as a Mason ... "Hoover was just as devoted to his Masonic Brothers. He was raised a Master Mason on November 9, 1920, in Federal Lodge No. 1, Washington, DC, just two months before his 26th birthday. During his 52 years with the Craft, he received innumerable medals, awards and decorations. In 1955, for instance, he was coroneted a Thirty-third Degree Inspector General Honorary and awarded the Scottish Rite’s highest recognition, the Grand Cross of Honour in 1965." Hoover, 33, Grand Cross-Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, Chairman, Hoover Foundation “The virtue of tolerance and the ability to respect different opinions, beliefs, and ideas have enriched the life of America. Tolerance is the eternal virtue through which good conquers evil and truth vanquishes untruth.” Illustrious J. Edgar Hoover, 33, Grand Cross Addressed to the Grand Lodge of New York, May 2, 1950 Other sources of information about J. Edgar Hoover ... to this page The FBI: Past, Present & Future

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If you think about it, although school is very important, it does not really take up very much of a child's time. In the United States, the school year averages 180 days; in other nations, the school year can last up to 240 days and students are often in school more hours per day than American students. Clearly, the hours and days that a child is not in school are important for learning, too. Here are some things that you can do to help your child to make the most of that time: Encourage Your Child to Read Helping your child become a reader is the single most important thing that you can do to help the child to succeed in schooland in life. The importance of reading simply can't be overstated. Reading helps children in all school subjects. More important, it is the key to lifelong learning. Here are some tips on how to help your child become a reader. Start early. When your child is still a baby, reading aloud to him [ *** ] should become part of your daily routine. At first, read for no more than a few minutes at a time, several times a day. As your child grows older, you should be able to tell if he wants you to read for longer periods. As you read, talk with your child. Encourage him to ask questions and to talk about the story. Ask him to predict what will come next. When your child begins to read, ask him to read to you from books or magazines that he enjoys. Make sure that your home has lots of reading materials that are appropriate for your child. Keep books, magazines and newspapers in the house. Reading materials don't have to be new or expensive. You often can find good books and magazines for your child at yard or library sales. Ask family members and friends to consider giving your child books and magazine subscriptions as gifts for birthdays or other special occasions. Set aside quiet time for family reading. Some families even enjoy reading aloud to each other, with each family member choosing a book, story, poem or article to read to the others. Show that you value reading. Let your child see you reading for pleasure as well as for performing your routine activities as an adultreading letters and recipes, directions and instructions, newspapers, computer screens and so forth. Go with her to the library and check out books for yourself. When your child sees that reading is important to you, she is likely to decide that it's important to her, too. For more information about reading, see the U.S. Department of Education booklet, Helping Your Child Become a Reader, listed in the Resources section. If you feel uncomfortable with your own reading ability or if you would like reading help for yourself or other family members, check with your local librarian or with your child's school about literacy programs in your community. Get help for your child if he has a reading problem. When a child is having reading difficulties, the reason might be simple to understand and deal with. For example, your child might have trouble seeing and need glasses or he may just need more help with reading skills. If you think that your child needs extra help, ask his teachers about special services, such as afterschool or summer reading programs. Also ask teachers or your local librarian for names of community organizations and local literacy volunteer groups that offer tutoring services. The good news is that no matter how long it takes, most children can learn to read. Parents, teachers and other professionals can work together to determine if a child has a learning disability or other problem and then provide the right help as soon as possible. When a child gets such help, chances are very good that she will develop the skills she needs to succeed in school and in life. Nothing is more important than your support for your child as she goes through school. Make sure she gets any extra help she needs as soon as possible and always encourage her and praise her efforts. Talk with Your Child Talking and listening play major roles in children's school success. It's through hearing parents and family members talk and through responding to that talk that young children begin to pick up the language skills they will need if they are to do well. For example, children who don't hear a lot of talk and who aren't encouraged to talk themselves often have problems learning to read, which can lead to other school problems. In addition, children who haven't learned to listen carefully often have trouble following directions and paying attention in class. Think of talking with your child as being like a tennis game with wordsinstead of a ballbouncing back and forth. Find time to talk any place, for example: As you walk with your child or ride with her in a car or on a bus, talk with her about what she's doing at school Ask her to tell you about a school assembly or a field trip. Point out and talk about things that you see as you walkfunny signs, new cars, interesting people. As you shop in a store, talk with your child about prices, differences in brands and how to pick out good vegetables and fruit. Give your child directions about where to find certain items, then have him go get them. As you fix dinner, ask your child to help you follow the steps in a recipe. Talk with him about what can happen if you miss a step or leave out an ingredient. As you fix a sink or repair a broken table, ask your child to hand you the tools that you name. Talk with her about each step you take to complete the repair. Tell her what you're doing and why you're doing it. Ask her for suggestions about how you should do something. As you watch TV together, talk with your child about the programs. If you're watching one of her favorite programs, encourage her to tell you about the background of the characters, which ones she likes and dislikes and who the actors are. Compare the program to a program that you liked when you were her age. As you read a book with your child, pause occasionally to talk to him about what's happening in the book. Help him to relate the events in the book to events in his life: "Look at that tall building! Didn't we see that when we were in Chicago?" Ask him to tell in his own words what the book was about. Ask him about new words in a book and help him to figure out what they mean. It's also important for you to show your child that you're interested in what he has to say. Demonstrate for him how to be a good listener: When your child talks to you, stop what you're doing and pay attention. Look at him and ask questions to let him know that you've heard what he said: "So when are you going to help your granddad work on his car?" When your child tells you about something, occasionally repeat what he says to let him know that you're listening closely: "The school bus broke down twice!" Let your child know that you think education is important and so homework has to be done. Here are some ways to help your child with homework: Have a special place for your child to study. The homework area doesn't have to be fancy. A desk in the bedroom is nice, but for many children, the kitchen table or a corner of the living room works just fine. The area should have good lighting and it should be fairly quiet. Provide supplies and identify resources. For starters, have available pencils, pens, erasers, writing paper and a dictionary. Other supplies that might be helpful include a stapler, paper clips, maps, a calculator, a pencil sharpener, tape, glue, paste, scissors, a ruler, a calculator, index cards, a thesaurus and an almanac. If possible, keep these items together in one place. If you can't provide your child with needed supplies, check with her teacher, school counselor or principal about possible sources of assistance. Set a regular time for homework. Having a regular time to do homework helps children to finish assignments. Of course, a good schedule depends in part on your child's age, as well as her specific needs. You'll need to work with a young child to develop a schedule. You should give your older child the responsibility for making up a schedule independentlyalthough you'll want to make sure that it's a workable one. You may find it helpful to have her write out her schedule and put it in a place where you'll see it often, such as on the refrigerator. Remove distractions. Turn off the TV and discourage your child from making and receiving social telephone calls during homework time. (A call to a classmate about an assignment, however, may be helpful.) If you live in a small or noisy household, try having all family members take part in a quiet activity during homework time. You may need to take a noisy toddler outside or into another room to play. If distractions can't be avoided, your child may want to complete assignments in the local library. Don't expect or demand perfection. When your child asks you to look at what she's donefrom skating a figure 8 to finishing a math assignmentshow interest and praise her when she's done something well. If you have criticisms or suggestions, make them in a helpful way. One final note: You may be reluctant to help your child with homework because you feel that you don't know the subject well enough or because you don't speak or read English as well as your child. But helping with homework doesn't mean doing the homework. It isn't about solving the problems for your child, it's about supporting him to do his best. You may not know enough about a subject such as calculus to help your child with a specific assignment, but you can help nonetheless by showing that you are interested, helping him get organized, providing a place the materials he needs to work, monitoring his work to see that he completes it and praising his efforts. Monitor TV Viewing and Video Game Playing American children on average spend far more time watching TV or playing video games than they do completing homework or other school-related activities. Here are some suggestions for helping your child to use TV and video games wisely: Limit the time that you let your child watch TV. Too much television cuts into important activities in a child's life, such as reading, playing with friends and talking with family members. Model good TV viewing habits. Remember that children often imitate their parents' behavior. Children who live in homes in which parents and other family members watch a lot of TV are likely to spend their time in the same way. Children who live in homes in which parents and other family members have "quiet" time away from the TV when they read (either alone to each other), talk to each other, play games or engage in other activities tend to do the same. Watch TV with your child when you can. Talk with him about what you see. Answer his questions. Try to point out the things in TV programs that are like your child's everyday life. When you can't watch TV with your child, spot check to see what she's watching. Ask questions after the program ends. See what excites her and what troubles her. Find out what she has learned and remembered. Go to the library and find books that explore the themes of the TV shows that your child watches. Limit the amount of time your child spends playing video games. As with TV programs, be aware of the games he likes to play and discuss his choices with him. Encourage Your Child to Use the Library Libraries are places of learning and discovery for everyone. Helping your child find out about libraries will set him on the road to being an independent learner. Here are some suggestions for how to help: Introduce your child to the library as early as possible. Even when your child is a toddler, take him along on weekly trips to the library. If you work during the day or have other obligations, remember that many libraries are open in the evening. If your child can print his name, it is likely that your library will issue him a library card if you will also sign for him. See that your child gets his own library card as soon as possible so that he can check out his own books. When you take your child to the library, introduce yourself and your child to the librarian. Ask the librarian to show you around the library and tell you about the services it has to offer. For example, in addition to all kinds of books, your library most likely will have magazines of interest to both your child and to you. It will likely have newspapers from many different places. Most libraries also have tapes and CDs of books, music CDs and tapes, movies on video and on DVD and many more resources. Your library also might have books in languages other than English or programs to help adults improve their English reading skills. Ask the librarian to tell your child about special programs that he might participate in, such as summer reading programs and book clubs and about services such as homework help. Let your child know that she must follow the library's rules of behavior. Libraries want children to use their materials and services. However, they generally have rules such as the following that your child needs to know and obey: - Library materials must be handled carefully. - Materials that are borrowed must be returned on time. Your child needs to learn how long she can keep materials and what the fine will be for materials that are returned late. - All library users need to be considerate of each other. Shouting, running and being disruptive are not appropriate library behaviors. Help Your Child Learn to Use the Internet Properly and Effectively The Internet/World Wide WEBa network of computers that connects people and information all around the worldhas become an important part of how we learn and of how we interact with others. For children to succeed today, they must be able to use the Internet. Here are some suggestions for helping your child learn to do so properly and effectively: Spend time online with your child. If you don't have a computer at home, ask your librarian if the library has computers that you and your child may use. Learn along with your child. If you're not familiar with computers or with the Internet, ask the librarian if and when someone is available at the library to help you and your child learn together to use them. If your child knows about computers, let her teach you. Ask her to explain what she is doing and why. Ask her to show you her favorite Web sites and to tell you what she likes about them. This will help her build self-confidence and pride in her abilities. Help your child to locate appropriate Internet Web sites. At the same time, make sure that she understands what you think are appropriate Web sites for her to visit. Point her in the direction of sites that can help her with homework or that relate to her interests. Pay attention to any games she might download or copy from the Internet. Some games are violent or contain sexual or other content that is inappropriate for children. Resources such as GetNetWise (http://www.getnetwise.org/), a public service provided by Internet corporations and public interest groups and FamiliesConnect (http://www.ala.org/ICONN/familiesconnect.html), a service of the American Library Association, can help you to make good Web site choices and give you more information about Internet use. You might consider using "filters" to block your child from accessing sites that may be inappropriate. These filters include software programs that you can install on your computer. In addition, many Internet service providers offer filters (often for free) that restrict the sites that children can visit. Of course, these filters are not always completely effectiveand children can find ways around them. The best safeguard is your supervision and involvement. Monitor the amount of time that your child spends online. Internet surfing can be just as time consuming as watching TV. Don't let it take over your child's life. Have her place a clock near the computer and keep track of how much time she is spending online. Remember, many commercial online services charge for the amount of time the service is used. These charges can mount up quickly! Teach your child rules for using the Internet safely. Let him know that he should never do the following: - tell anyoneincluding his friendshis computer password; - use bad language or send cruel, threatening or untrue e-mail messages; - give out any personal information, including his name or the names of family members, home address, phone number, age, school name; or - arrange to meet a stranger that he has "talked" with in an online "chat room." For more information about helping your child use the Internet, see the following publications, listed in the Resources section: The Librarian's Guide to Cyberspace for Parents and Kids, American Library Association; The Parents' Guide to the Information Superhighway, Children's Partnership. Encourage Your Child to Be Responsible and to Work Independently Taking responsibility and working independently are important qualities for school success. Here are some suggestions for helping your child to develop these qualities: Establish rules. Every home needs reasonable rules that children know and can depend on. Have your child help you to set rules, then make sure that you enforce the rules consistently. Make it clear to your child that he has to take responsibility for what he does, both at home and at school. For example, don't automatically defend your child if his teacher tells you that he is often late to class or is disruptive when he is in class. Ask for his side of the story. If a charge is true, let him take the consequences. Work with your child to develop a reasonable, consistent schedule of jobs to do around the house. List them on a calendar. Younger children can help set the table or put away their toys and clothes. Older children can help prepare meals and clean up afterwards. Show your child how to break a job down into small steps, then to do the job one step at a time. This works for everythinggetting dressed, cleaning a room or doing a big homework assignment. Make your child responsible for getting ready to go to school each morninggetting up on time, making sure that he has everything he needs for the school day and so forth. If necessary, make a checklist to help him remember what he has to do. Monitor what your child does after school, in the evenings and on weekends. If you can't be there when your child gets home, give her the responsibility of checking in with you by phone to discuss her plans. Encourage Active Learning Children need active learning as well as quiet learning such as reading and doing homework. Active learning involves asking and answering questions, solving problems and exploring interests. Active learning also can take place when your child plays sports, spends time with friends, acts in a school play, plays a musical instrument or visits museums and bookstores. To promote active learning, listen to your child's ideas and respond to them. Let him jump in with questions and opinions when you read books together. When you encourage this type of give-and-take at home, your child's participation and interest in school is likely to increase. ***Please note: In this booklet, we refer to a child as "him" in some places and "her" in others. We do this to make the booklet easier to read. Please understand, however, that every point that we make is the same for girls and boys. [ Return to text ]

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Organization of the Classical kitchen and the Modern Kitchen "The purpose of kitchen organization is to assign or allocate tasks so that they will be done efficiently and properly and so that all workers will know their responsibilities." Organization based upon: - Type of establishment (hotel, institutional, caterer, fast food, carry-out, full service) - Size of operation (volume of food served & # of guests) - Physical facilities (equipment) - The Chef is the person responsible for all kitchen operations. Those responsibilities include all aspects of food production, ordering, supervision, menu planning, costing, scheduling, etc. - The Sous Chef is second in command within the brigade. The Sous Chef answers to the chef and is responsible for scheduling, fills in for the chef, assists station chefs and in charge of all phases Chef or Chef de Partie - The Station Chef is assigned and charged with specific areas of production within the kitchen. Sauté or Sauce Chef or Saucier (so-see-ay) - The Sauté or Saucier is responsible for all sautéed items and sauces. The Saucier position is one of the most demanding Fish Chef or Poissonier (pwah-so-nyay) - The Fish Chef or Poissonier is responsible for all fish item. Those responsibilities include butchery and related sauces. There are times within a classic brigade that this position is combined with that of the Saucier. Roast Chef or Rotisseur (ro-tee-sur) - The Roast Chef or Rotisseur is responsible for all roasted foods and related jus or sauces. Grill Chef or Grillardin (gree-ar-dan) - The Grill Chef or Grillardin is responsible for all grilled and broiled foods. This position may be combined with the duties of the Chef of Friturier - The Fry Chef or Friturier is responsible for all fried foods. This position may be combined with the duties of the Rotisseur. Chef or Entremetier (awn-truh-met-yay) - The Vegetable Chef or Entremetier is responsible for hot appetizers, soups, vegetables, pastas, and other starches and egg dishes. or Tournant (toor-nawn) - The Roundsman or Tournant is considered a swing cook in the brigade and works as needed throughout the kitchen. Chef or Garde Manger (gard-mawn-zhay) - The Cold-Food Chef or Garde Manger is also known as the Pantry Chef. The Garde manger is responsible for preparation of all cold foods, salads, dressings, appetizers, pates, etc. - The Butcher or Boucher is responsible for butchering meats, poultry, and fish. The Butcher may also be responsible for breading fish and meats as well. Chef or Patissier (pa-tee-syay) - The Pastry Chef is responsible for baked items, pastries and desserts. The Pastry Chef is also responsible for overall supervision of the baking and pastry department. - The Confisseur prepares candies, petit fours, etc. - The Boulanger prepares breads, rolls, and unsweetened breads. - The Glasier prepares frozen and cold desserts. - The Decorateur prepares showpieces and wedding cakes. or Announcer or Aboyeur - The Expeditor or Announcer or Abouyeur accepts the orders from dining room and relays them to the various station chefs. The Expeditor is the last person to see plate before leaving the kitchen. In many operations the Expeditor is actually the Chef. - The Communard prepares the daily meal which is served to the staff. - The Commis or Apprentice works under a station chef in order to learn the respective responsibilities of the brigade.

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Upside-down Tortoise Posture, Kachhua or Kachua Asan, Uttan Kurm Asan, Uttana Karma Asana, Intense or extended Tortoise posture 'Kurma' means tortoise. In the first stage the arms outstretch on either side of the body, the legs are over the arms, the chest and shoulders on the floor. This is the tortoise with his legs folded. In the next stage the hands are brought behind the body, palms facing up. This final stage of the pose resembles a tortoise withdrawn into its shell, where the feet curl together in front of the head, and the hands close over the buttocks. How to reach the stretch - Start from the position of Vajrasana . - Now take a forward bend and rest your head on the ground. - Let your nose closer to your knees and streatch your arms back to your feet. - Your hands and feet should rest parallel to each other and palms should be facing upwards. How to release the stretch To release: slowly come back to the first position and relax. - Tortoise opens the hips and stretches the thighs, back, and shoulders. - This posture draws the focus of the mind inward and promotes surrender, inner security and tranquility. Not for the persons who have recent or chronic injury to the hips, arms or shoulders.

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Amenophis II The Sapphire King Amenophis II was the second born son of Amenophis ruler of Lybaras. His brother Neskhenet, the first born son was given to the temple of Tahoth. To become a Priest and earn his father favor from Tahoth. And so he did, Amenophis was blessed with dreams of knowledge that would lead Lybaras into a golden age. When the old king died he left a vast kingdom and fortune so grand that a mortal could impossibly spend it during two ten lives of luxury. Amenophis II spent most of his time studying and enjoying art of different forms. He spent immense amout of coin collecting art as he hade little intrest in politics, war or other matters. He later developed a intrest in statues and so he hiered a Necrotect named Sothek to craft him a grand monument to honour his father. The statue was entierly crafted from a rare unknown blue stone brought from the north. The statue was more beautiful then anyting the king hade seen, he spent days gazeing at the statue and then days became weeks, weeks bacame months. Amenophis II was obsessed with the blue stone and ordered the necrotect to craft more statues form the same stone. But to his despair it was impossible to buy more stone since no merchant nor king possesed any of the wonderful material. Then the king flew into a rage as he thought that the northern people denied him the beautiful stone and keept it for themselves no matter how generous amounts of gold he offered them. And so he ordered Lybaras to go to war for the first time in 130 years. Even in a age of peace Amenophis II upheld a massive army so vast that few in the holy land of Nehehara dared to go to war agains't Lybaras. All for the sake of art, as he enjoyed viewing his army fight battles with wooden spear and wooden sword agains't each other. He thought of it more like a theathre of war more then an actuall army and thus the soldiers where trained to fight very graceful and watching them fight was like looking on a deadly dance of shields and spears. As they marched for war he killed king after king and plundered kingdom after kingdom Amenophis II diden't find a single piece of the blue stone. So he marched north until the boundaries of reality became fickle, and there he found it in a madening landscape of unreal creations. A huge mountain of the blue stone, he ordered his slaves from the conquered kingdomes to mine every single piece off the mountain. When he returned home his Necrotect, Sothek crafted a collection of 1331 statues all made from the chuncks of the blue stone the king hade brought with him. The king was so attached to his collection he spent more time watching the statues, then he would spend time among the living. His obsession became so deep that in the end it became his undoing. As he refused to eat, drink or do anything other then watch his precious collection. When he was on his death bed he ordered every single piece to be burried within his tomb so he could enjoy it when he was resurected into the golden age that was promised by the liche priests. After the great awakening caused by Nagash, Amenophis II was furious that his collection was badly damaged and some statues where even missing armes and legs. His tomb hade been desecrated and plundered. The old king swore to hunt down every single grave robber and put them to death, and reclaim what was rightfully his and then restore his once magnificent statues to their true form. The king took what was left of his once beautiful collection of statues and his once so glorious army and marched them to war agains't all who hade commited the crime of theft against him. As his crusade to reclaim his lost statues continued, his army of constructs and undead warriors became known as the sapphire legion. |QUOTE (Poseidon_II_ @ Jan 25 2012, 06:45 PM)| | When he returned home his Necrotect, Sothek crafted a collection of 1331 statues all made from the chuncks of the blue stone the king hade brought with him. | please edit to 1337 just for the sake of internet ;) . otherwise a really good story, untill I read the end I first thought of it as some kind of "rocky" rock and not a gem. but when I read it, it was quite obvious. I really hope you make some more. I'm interested in what you will do next. |QUOTE (athoha @ Jan 25 2012, 10:17 PM)| | otherwise a really good story, untill I read the end I first thought of it as some kind of "rocky" rock and not a gem. but when I read it, it was quite obvious. | Well the thing with the blue stone is that it is created by Slaanesh. It is suppose to be a stone that is evershifting and isen't bound by form and it will look different to everyone watching it, but it will always be considered beutiful. Sometimes it also shifts form from a more crystaline shape to a more soild marble stone look. I havent really come up with a idea to weave in this into the story yet..... What I posted was more like a draft, then a complete story. I guess I could edit the story so Amenophis II starved to death by only watching his collection and refusing to eat. Yeah I will do that. Thanx for helping me I guess ^^

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So, what else is there to do but roll with the Wheel? As we waited, and waited, and waited everything else in our lives had to wait or be neglected, put on hold and put off. I had readings to do and a class essay to write, none of which were done. Another child of mine wasn't able to carve a pumpkin as he'd hoped to, his Dad wasn't there to help him. A guitar lesson and a dance class went unattended. Dinner came from a drive through and vending machines. I hoped someone remembered to let the dogs out. But though it sometimes seems that life stops, it doesn't, not really. It keeps rolling on, taking you with it, even if you feel helpless to direct its course. It especially feels this way when you're taking a nosedive on the Wheel's downturn. Finally, the attending physician poked his head inside the curtain where we were holed up and smiled. The spinal fluid was clean. There was no meningitis. Suddenly it felt as if the Wheel had turned again and now all was upright again, only it was now 3:00 in the morning and we were exhausted. The Wheel is fate, destiny, chance. Fortuna, the Goddess who determines the chance events of our lives rules The Wheel. In medieval art, the Wheel of Fortune characteristically has four shelves, or stages of life, with four human, semi-human, or animal figures, usually labeled in Latin on the left regnabo ("I shall reign"), on the top regno ("I reign") and is usually crowned, descending on the right regnavi ("I have reigned") and the lowly figure on the bottom is marked sum sine regno ("I have no kingdom"). Medieval representations of Fortune emphasize her duality and instability, such as with the two faces side by side like Janus; one face smiling the other frowning; half the face white the other black; she may be blindfolded but without scales, blind to justice. She was associated with the cornucopia, ship's rudder, the ball and the wheel. The image of the Wheel of Fortune found throughout the Middle Ages and beyond was a direct legacy of Boethius's Consolation in which he expounds on the possible solutions to evil by way of distinguishing between Providence and Fate. Boethius presented his argument through a model of spheres in orbit. He says that the closer spheres to the center tend not to move around and have simple orbits and are indicative of Providence. The spheres that are farther away from the center tend to have complex orbits and whirl around, which are of the realm of Fate. However if all the orbits are connected to the center they are confined by the simplicity of the center and no longer tend to stray away. Therefore Fate is confined within the simplicity of Providence, just as a circle is confined within its center. “Providence is the divine reason itself which belongs to the most high ruler of all things and which governs all things; Fate, however belongs to all mutable things and is the disposition by which Providence joins all things in their own order. For Providence embraces all things equally, however diverse they are, however infinite. Fate, on the other hand, sets particular things in motion once they have been given their own forms, places, and times” (Boethius Book IV, Prose 6 p.91). And that is the key to peace on the Wheel. The ups and downs of life are unavoidable, times when events seem to go well and times when events have you holding or gasping your breath, times when time seems to stand still or times when you feel too rushed, all because of events and circumstances happening to you that are outside your control. Truth is, life goes on so if you can find a place in the center of the Wheel where the turning is the least noticeable, where you become more an observer of the events happening in your life without being thrown all around by them, you can feel a sense of peace and stability even in the most trying of circumstances. If you can manage to achieve that place in the center, that's where Fate is ruled by Providence and becomes a divine gift. During the seemingly endless time spent in waiting rooms and hospital treatment cubicles, I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts. I watched people and mused on their actions, situations, and circumstances. I taught my daughter about the "magic button" she can press between her eyebrows that brings about a sense of calm and spent a lot of time massaging that area on her forehead. I held her and stroked her hair and just spent time being her mother. Though the evening was tiring, I never once felt stressed or tense or too worried. We were exactly where we needed to be given the circumstances and while physically uncomfortable, I was emotionally and mentally quite at peace. True to the spirit of The Wheel, as promised, I chose the winner of the Halloween Reading Contest today at random by drawing an entry from a Jack O' Lantern treat bucket. Fortuna has smiled on Katherine. Congratulations! She treated me to this deliciously funny site: Cats That Look Like Hitler. Happy Halloween! The Tarot of the Master is produced by Lo Scarabeo in Italy, but is distributed in the US by Llewellyn. Copyright 2002.

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The Russian space agency announced a plan to send a man to the moon by 2025, to establish a permanent base there a few years later, and possibly even send a man to Mars by 2035, in an aggressive plan reminiscent of the 1960s space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. But Russia's plan to shoot for the stars is expensive, which is why it is looking for international assistance while relying on funding from its lucrative space tourism program. One former American astronaut said while the Russians plan may be in motion, it is beginning from a difficult starting point. "The Russians have some big ideas, but their space program is coming up slowly from being in a position bankruptcy," said Walter Cunningham, a former Apollo 7 astronaut. As Russia plans out its space program, the U.S. space agency, NASA, struggles to chart its own way forward amid mounting costs and safety concerns. Russia's announcement has caused some to wonder if history will repeat itself. Initially in the race for space dominance, the United States was forced to play catch up after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, which was the first unmanned spacecraft in 1957. Then, four years later, the Soviets sent the first man into space. But America also made large strides in space exploration. By 1969, the country blasted ahead in the space race by placing the first man on the moon. "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," astronaut Neil Armstrong said as he took his first steps on the moon. Even today, the Russians have yet to reach the moon. Yet, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues charting a more ambitious course for his country, including a new exploration era. The second man to step on the moon, Buzz Aldrin, said on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" Sunday he believes the Russian program can be successful, but said he wouldn't call it a race with America. Aldrin, who is a proponent of space exploration, said it is important for Americans to continue their interest in the stars for future generations, despite recent high profile negative press for NASA. "Unfortunately, our transition from Apollo took much longer than we thought," Aldrin said about Americans' declining interest in space. But for Russia, a moon landing may not only excite citizens, but also help project military might for Russia. With the moon and Mars in Russia's sights, some believe the two powerhouse nations once again may be in a race toward the heavens. And other nations also have expressed interest in space exploration. Japan claimed its project is the biggest since Apollo and China said it is readying probes to study the lunar surface to plan a landing, according to The Associated Press.

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It's debatable whether King would have had a "Dream" vision of the United States if he had grown up in a different time and risen to prominence in today's world. Arguably, the fiercest critics are not pessimists but are at heart optimists -- and have a belief and hope for what their world can be. That may be part of what fuels their criticism. Still, some warn that the lack of great modern-day leaders is not just an African American problem. It also may illustrate the change in the heart of the nation following the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, King and Robert F. Kennedy, and the failure of the Vietnam War. A nation of optimism wilted into a nation of frustration and broken promises -- and has yet to fully recover. "Remember, this lack of great leaders is not just a problem in the African American community. It is a problem across the board," Naison said. "In many ways, Dr. King, John F. Kennedy, and even Malcolm X were products of a nation of optimism. Look at Hurricane Katrina. What happened to the can-do spirit? We used to be a nation of miracles, not one that could be paralyzed by a natural disaster. And we're still paralyzed. People are still stranded." "Look at JFK. When he talked about optimism, it was believable," Naison continued. "But when President Bush says the same thing, it's almost comical. … We are hated around the world. They [other nations] hate us. They laugh at us." The 1960s saw a loss of innocence and dynamic leadership that has left people looking for the next JFK, King and Malcolm X ever since. But we should remember one thing: One or two charismatic people can symbolize a movement. But rarely does one person single-handedly start a movement. "People are always expecting one person to start a movement," Chapman said. "But Martin Luther King didn't start the civil rights movement. It was set in motion before he came into the picture. He was not bigger than the movement." Undoubtedly, Malcolm X and King were revolutionaries who changed the world. But if they emerged today, they might be just revolutionaries in a changed world.

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Australia's fourteenth national Census of Population and Housing was held on 7 August 2001. Census counts provide a population base from which subsequent estimated resident populations (ERPs) are derived, using the cohort component method, which brings forward the population by ageing the base, then adjusting for subsequent births, deaths and overseas and interstate migration. Between 1996 and 2001, Australia's resident population increased by nearly 1.1 million people, from 18.3 million to 19.4 million, surpassing 19 million in 2000. The majority (57%) of this growth was from natural increase (the difference between births and deaths), the remaining was due to net overseas migration (43%). Over the period 1996 to 2001, the growth rate experienced by the states and territories varied substantially, ranging from an average annual decline in Tasmania's population (-0.1%) to an average annual increase in the Northern Territory's population (1.9%). As at 30 June 2001, 84.7% of Australia's population lived within 50 kilometres of the coastline. Tasmania, being an island state, had the highest proportion of its population (99.5%) living within 50 kilometres of the coast. In Australia an urban area is defined as a population cluster of 1,000 or more people. In the 2001 Census, 16.5 million people, or 87.2% of those counted were living in 713 urban areas. At 30 June 2001, 20.5% of the ERP was aged 0-14 years, 66.9% was aged 15-64 years and the remaining 12.6% was aged 65 years and over. During 1996-2001, 6.8 million people, or 42% of the population, changed their place of residence in Australia. Queensland (92,200), Victoria (6,400) and Western Australia (2,900) were the only states or territories to experience a net gain through interstate migration in this period. New South Wales recorded the largest net interstate migration loss (-66,500 people) in 1996-2001. During 1996-2001, people aged 25-29 years were the most mobile age group, with little difference recorded between the mobility rates of males and females. The mobility rates of immigrants is very high on arrival and for the first decade of their residence in Australia, a reflection that immigrants tend to move until they find a suitable place to work and settle into their new environment. In the long term, the mobility rates of immigrants are lower than the Australian-born population. 50.8% of Australia's Indigenous population changed their usual place of residence during 1996-2001 compared to 42.3% for non-Indigenous persons. Indigenous persons have a much higher propensity to move within the state, particularly within the same SLA and to other SDs in the same state, than non-Indigenous people. This page last updated 6 June 2008

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Q&A for EPA Endangerment Determination1. What is EPA actually doing? Why is it called an "endangerment determination"? EPA is declaring that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are air pollutants that "may be reasonably anticipated to endanger public health and welfare," as defined under the Clean Air Act. Such a determination is necessary before EPA can begin regulating a pollutant. The definition of a threat to "welfare" in the Clean Air Act is very broad and specifically includes both impacts on climate and weather. It could not be clearer that the Clean Air Act requires EPA to act based on the many serious threats posed by global warming. Clean Air Act, Section 302(h): All language referring to effects on welfare includes, but is not limited to, effects on soils, water, crops, vegetation, manmade materials, animals, wildlife, weather, visibility, and climate, damage to and deterioration of property, and hazards to transportation, as well as effects on economic values and on personal comfort and well-being, whether caused by transformation, conversion, or combination with other pollutants. 2. What is the next step? What kind of regulations will happen and when? Under the Clean Air Act, EPA is now obliged to begin the process of regulating global warming pollution from all sources-vehicles, power plants, factories, etc. The law specifically states that EPA "shall" (i.e. must, not may) regulate dangerous pollutants once they are found to endanger public health or welfare. EPA, however, has wide discretion as to the timing, sequence, and scope of the regulatory process. EPA is likely to begin by addressing global warming emissions from motor vehicles, which make up almost a third of America's total global warming emissions. A decision on the California clean cars waiver is due in June and it is widely expected that EPA will either allow California and more than a dozen states to move forward with their own regulations or propose a similar national standard. The California standard calls for a 30 percent reduction in global warming emissions from new vehicles by 2016. Regulations for power plants, factories, and other emitters are likely to come later, and certainly no sooner than at least 12-18 months. Many factors, including pending action by Congress, will determine how and how quickly EPA moves forward with regulations for these sectors. 3. Opponents say this decision will cause schools, apartment buildings, and fast food restaurants like Dunkin' Donuts to be regulated, causing chaos. Is this true? This is simply a dishonest scare tactic used by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others. While the "endangerment determination" triggers regulatory action by EPA, nobody, including environmentalists, is calling for regulating anything but large emitters (approximately 25,000 tons or more of CO2 per year). When asked about this scare tactic, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said: "It's a myth that we're at a horrible fork in the road, where the EPA is going to regulate cows, Dunkin' Donuts, Pizza Huts, and baby bottles." (http://tinyurl.com/dbc89x) 4. Opponents say this decision will severely harm the economy. Why is this a myth? This action is part of President Obama's comprehensive clean energy jobs plan. It will help shift U.S. energy production toward cleaner, cheaper sources like the wind and the sun and spur the creation of millions of new clean energy jobs. Building the clean energy economy is the key to getting our economy back on track and reducing our dependence on oil and coal. EPA will only issue the same kind of common sense regulations for carbon dioxide as it has for dozens of other pollutants for decades-regulations that protect both the environment and help grow the economy. In fact, the law only allows EPA to impose regulations that can be implemented on a cost-effective basis. Suggestions that these regulations will bankrupt companies and devastate the economy are merely scare tactics used by people who will say anything to protect Big Oil, Big Coal, and other polluters. 5. Shouldn't we wait for Congress to pass its own clean energy jobs and climate plan? We believe that a combination of regulations from EPA and other agencies and a comprehensive new law passed by Congress are necessary to build the clean energy economy and tackle global warming. We and the Obama administration are working very closely with Congress to pass a strong clean energy jobs plan as soon as possible, but it's important that we don't delay action in the meantime. We lost almost a decade under the Bush administration and waiting to act on global warming is a luxury we simply can no longer afford. It is important that the Obama administration get started right away and this decision will allow the EPA to do so. This decision also shows that President Obama understands the very serious threats posed by global warming, takes them seriously, and is ready to act. It also shows the international community, businesses, and other that there is no longer a question of if or even when the U.S. will begin to act on global warming. 6. Why is this decision happening now? The Supreme Court, in its landmark April 2007 Massachusetts v. EPA decision, ruled that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, ordered EPA to determine whether they endangered public health and/or welfare, and, if so, to begin promulgating regulations for motor vehicles and other sources. After initially promising in May 2007 to issue a new national standard for emissions from motor vehicles, the Bush administration instead chose to drag its feet, completely ignore the Supreme Court's ruling and block California and the other states from moving with their own standards. President Obama and EPA Administrator Jackson are making good on their promises to let science and the rule of law lead. This announcement fulfills EPA's obligations under the Supreme Court's ruling. It also represents years of careful and considered analysis by the career scientists at EPA and takes tens of thousands of public comments into account. Some background on the Mass. v. EPA Supreme Court case: (http://tinyurl.com/clf6xv)

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By enacting the Comprehensive Environmental Response Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) in 1980, Congress undertook to provide a federal solution for the problem of abandoned and inactive hazardous waste disposal sites. Approximately 2,000 sites will require action, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. CERCLA created a $1.6 billion revolving “Superfund” for direct federal action to clean up these sites and respond to hazardous waste emergencies. The act supplements this public works authority with provisions for negotiating cleanups by “potentially responsible parties”—site owners and operators and users of sites such as transporters and waste generators. It also empowers the federal government to sue such parties for the cost of cleanups paid for out of the Superfund and, if waste disposal may present an “imminent and substantial endangerment,” to sue for orders directing responsible parties to clean up sites themselves. The act is administered by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). By early 1984, although EPA had responded to hazardous waste emergencies at many sites, only a handful of sites listed on a statutory national priority list by the agency had been completely cleaned up by the federal government. A few more sites had been cleaned up by private parties. The causes of delay were varied: uncertainty about the extent of the problem and the efficacy of technical remedies; start-up problems inherent in a new program; and a two-year long effort to negotiate cleanups so that no Superfund revenues would have to be spent. By mid-1983, the strategy of conserving the Superfund had fallen apart amidst a major leadership crisis within the EPA. In a policy reversal, Superfund expenditures for cleaning up sites then took priority over other means available under the statute for effecting cleanups. The current agency approach to CERCLA emphasizes cleanups paid for out of the Superfund coupled with actions to recover the expenditures, but also relies to a limited extent on negotiated cleanups and on lawsuits to compel responsible parties to act under CERCLA’s imminent endangerment provision. This strategy has resulted in a CE RCLA implementation effort that is slow and expensive. Congress, the EPA, responsible parties, and other critics have suggested several means of speeding up and economizing on site cleanups. These include enlarging the Superfund, setting program deadlines, expanding the EPA program offices, empowering citizens to sue, and encouraging voluntary cleanup by industry. Although enlarging the Fund, providing more staff, and setting program deadlines would tend to accelerate the CERCLA effort, the Administrative Conference believes that a properly designed site cleanup negotiation process, through which responsible parties or third parties would agree to act directly to clean up sites, would also hasten cleanup while reducing its expense by tapping the technical and financial resources of the private sector. Involvement of the federal government and affected citizens in this process would ensure adequate protection of public health and the environment. Although current EPA policy permits the negotiation of cleanups, the agency puts too little stress on negotiations and has adopted procedural and substantive requirements that unnecessarily constrict the number of negotiated cleanup agreements that the agency might beneficially conclude. The Conference recognizes, of course, that successful negotiations can only occur when private parties as well as the federal government are willing to respond to the problem of hazardous waste cleanup in good faith. The Conference intends no criticism of aggressive EPA enforcement efforts where responsible parties refuse to cooperate. In this recommendation the Administrative Conference suggests a series of steps that the EPA might take to encourage and facilitate greater reliance on negotiated private party cleanups, in those situations where negotiations have a realistic chance of success. 1. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should emphasize the negotiation of voluntary cleanups at hazardous waste dump sites. The negotiation process for any site should include, at an appropriate time and in an appropriate manner, the key interests, such as federal, state and local governments, parties potentially responsible for cleanup (including site users, site owners and operators, and waste transporters), and local citizens. Whenever possible, efforts to negotiate a cleanup agreement should begin well before the commencement of litigation concerning a site. To increase the likelihood that negotiations will succeed, the Administrator and other leading EPA officials, both at headquarters and in the regional offices, should support the negotiation process, follow its implementation, and be available to explain specific negotiated agreements before congressional oversight committees if necessary. 2. Citizens living in the vicinity of or otherwise directly affected by a site have a substantial interest in some issues related to the cleanup process—for example, medical diagnostic testing, relocation of public service facilities, measures to isolate the site, and the overall adequacy of the cleanup effort. Their interest in other aspects of the process, such as the allocation of costs among potentially responsible parties (or between potentially responsible parties and the government), is more problematic. EPA should consider means beyond complete reliance on local political institutions for involving these citizens, including the negotiation of collateral arrangements, participation of citizens groups in negotiations over the type and scope of the remedy, and the like. Even if not participants, local citizens ordinarily should be permitted to observe those aspects of the negotiations that concern them. 3. Many negotiations can be conducted by EPA without outside assistance. In other cases, where outside assistance is desirable, EPA should encourage efforts by independent mediating organizations or individuals to convene negotiations. This can be accomplished by asking such a convenor at an early stage—no later than the commencement of “remedial investigations and feasibility studies” (a statutory cleanup stage)—to determine whether conditions are favorable for negotiations at a site. Favorable conditions include: issues that are ripe for decision; absence of fundamental conflict about values among those with a stake in the outcome; adequate representation and organization of key interests; opportunity for mutual gain for those with a stake; a balance of power among participants; willingness to bargain in good faith and share information; and willingness of units of government to participate as equal parties. Where negotiation appears feasible, the convenor should attempt to organize a site negotiation group from among the parties with a stake in the site cleanup. If an initial meeting of the parties is successful, the participants should consider retaining the convenor or another person to serve as mediator for the duration of negotiations. EPA should consider using Superfund resources to support an entity, such as a non-profit corporation or another agency, that would undertake this initial convening effort and provide mediation services if the parties desired them. Alternatively, EPA should consider providing these services through personal service contracts with skilled mediators. 4. In order to take advantage of private funds and expertise while they remain available, EPA should encourage and participate in negotiations for cleanup of sites where there is a high likelihood of successful negotiations, even if they have not yet been allocated federal funding for remedial investigations or been added to the National Priority List, unless such negotiations will distort the agency’s priorities by diverting substantial agency resources or causing undue delay. 5. EPA should avoid wasting agency resources on unproductive negotiations by establishing, with the concurrence of other negotiating parties, reasonable deadlines for the conclusion of negotiations. 6. Successful negotiation requires that participation by all interests be through persons who, if not principals, have the confidence of, and easy access to, principals with the authority to make binding commitments. For EPA, the negotiators or persons readily accessible to the negotiators should have explicit, broad delegated authority to commit the agency to a negotiated outcome. To the extent that peer review and approval of agreements within the agency are nonetheless required, EPA should provide expedited means for obtaining them. One method of achieving this end would be for EPA headquarters to consolidate review of negotiated cleanups in a single panel of key officials. 7. The final agreement should take the form of an administrative consent order under section 106 of CERCLA or a judicial consent decree. Like other parties to the agreement, EPA should bind itself to undertake appropriate actions and follow agreed-upon schedules. 8. Negotiations undertaken in the context of litigation require procedures and standards different from the procedures and standards applicable to negotiations occurring before a matter reaches litigation. EPA should acknowledge that existing agency guidance memoranda on “case settlement policy” are appropriate for use only in litigation situations; to implement the proposed negotiation process, the agency should prepare new guidance memoranda that Actions of the Assembly Recommendation 84-4 53 bring more appropriate factors to bear on prelitigation negotiations. 9. The Conference recognizes EPA’s need to maintain a strong litigation posture in CERCLA cases in order to strengthen its ability to negotiate agreements in the public interest. However, the Conference also urges the agency to consider the possible advantages of greater flexibility in situations where cleanup arrangements are being negotiated rather than litigated. For example, in some cases it might be desirable for EPA to begin to negotiate even if 80% of cleanup costs has not been offered or to agree with the parties about the amounts of their individual responsibilities to pay cleanup costs even if the total responsibility adds up to less than 100 percent of cleanup costs (allocating Superfund resources to pay for the rest), as an incentive for cooperating parties to join promptly in an agreement. The intransigence of a few responsible parties should not be permitted to block agreement with others prepared to accept reasonable shares of responsibility; moreover, such partial agreements may free agency resources to pursue the intransigent parties. 10. Although the Conference believes that its recommendation can be implemented without additional legislation, it acknowledges that the effectiveness of expanded reliance on negotiated cleanups would depend upon the degree of support or opposition from relevant congressional committees. If EPA undertakes efforts to clean up dump sites through a negotiation process like that described in this recommendation, congressional committees should support and encourage these efforts, recognizing that negotiated solutions inevitably involve compromises. 11. To promote achievement of its site cleanup management objectives, EPA should publish statements of its CERCLA policies, such as conditions for undertaking voluntary cleanup negotiations, procedures for public involvement in site cleanup decisions, and site study criteria, in the Federal Registerand allow for public comment. 49 FR 29942 (July 25, 1984) 1984 ACUS 21 This recommendation was substantially implemented by EPA memorandum and by the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986.

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Jerry Brust, IPM Vegetable Specialist, University of Maryland; email@example.com I recently visited a grower that grows both tomatoes and bedding plants. The plants are grown in a high tunnel-like setting, i.e., with heat. The grower was having problems in his tomato plants, but not in his bedding plants. The tomato plants looked like they had tomato spotted wilt virus (TSWV). The symptoms were found on most of his tomato plants, which would be unusual, as most of the time only an occassional plant here and there would be infected with the virus. The grower thought that is what he had as did an alert County Educator—and they were right. The grower unfortunaetly had a perfect storm in his operations that produced high percentages of TSWV infection in his tomato crop, but not his bedding plants. Tomato spotted wilt virus is an obligate parasite; it must have a living host and must be moved from one plant to another by thrips or through cuttings or possibly seed. TSWV is transmitted most efficiently by Western flower thrips (WFT) (Frankliniella occidentalis), and less so by Onion thrips (Thrips tabaci), Tobacco thrips (Frankliniella fusca) and a few other thrips species. It is not transmitted by Eastern flower thrips (Frankliniella tritici). WFT completes its life cycle in about 10-18 days. Eggs are laid in the leaf or tomato fruit. When WFT oviposit into tomato fruit they often cause a deeper dimple (black arrows Fig. 1) than other thrips species and very often the dimple is surrounded by a halo of white tomato tissue (white arrow Fig 1). This is how I could tell the grower had WFT present at one time (when I visited I could find no live thrips) at fairly high levels by the ovipositioning marks on his tomatoes. Larvae hatch in about three days and immediately begin to feed and in so doing pick up the virus. After four days, they pupate in the soil, and in a little over three days, the pupae become adults. Only immature thrips can acquire the virus, which they can acquire within 15 minutes of feeding, but adults are just about the only stage able to transmit the virus. Adults can transmit the virus for weeks. TSWV infected leaves may show small, dark-brown spots (Fig. 2) or streaks on stems and leaf petioles (we found one prickly lettuce weed with such a symptom). Growing tips are usually affected with systemic necrosis and potentially stunted growth. Tomato fruit will have mottled, light green or yellow rings usually with raised centers (Fig 3). Weed hosts function as important virus reservoirs for TSWV and can survive in and around greenhouses or even high tunnels through the winter. Some of these weeds include prickly lettuce, chickweed, (Fig. 4) spiny amaranth, lambquarters, black nightshade, shepherd’s purse, galinsoga and burdock. This grower unfortunately had a good crop of prickly lettuce at one end of his high tunnel. The grower had been able to control his thrips populations with spinosad, but western flower thrips are notorious for developing resistance and sure enough have developed resistance to this insecticide in many greenhouses. So populations of WFT increased and with the weeds that were around and in the high tunnel some of which tested positive for TSWV, but negative for INSV, it was a perfect scenario for an outbreak of TSWV. I should note here that we tested for both INSV and TSWV on the tomatoes, weeds and impatiens. Only TSWV was found in the tomato and the weeds. No INSV was found in any sample. Although both viruses are transmitted by the same thrips species these viruses tend to infect either bedding plants (INSV) or tomato/pepper plants (TSWV). The grower threw out all his infected tomato plants and is in the process of killing his weeds in and around his high tunnel. He was able to get control of his thrips in his bedding plants using combinations of pylon and pyrethroids. One variety of tomato the grower was growing that did not show any symptoms of TSWV, even though it was right next to the other infected varieties was Mountain Glory. Fig 1 Tomato fruit with WFT ovipostion marks Fig. 2 Tomato leaves with TSWV symptoms and positive immunostrip (two black arrows; Agdia, Inc) Fig. 3 Tomato fruit with TSWV symptoms Fig. 4 Two common weed hosts of TSWV; prickly lettuce and chickweed

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Relationships improve your odds of survival by 50 percent A new Brigham Young University study adds our social relationships to the “short list” of factors that predict a person’s odds of living or dying. In the journal PLoS Medicine, BYU professors Julianne Holt-Lunstad and Timothy Smith report that social connections – friends, family, neighbors or colleagues – improve our odds of survival by 50 percent. Here is how low social interaction compares to more well-known risk factors: - Equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day - Equivalent to being an alcoholic - More harmful than not exercising - Twice as harmful as obesity “The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognized by health organizations and the public,” write the PLoS Medicine editors in a summary of the BYU study and why it was done. The researchers analyzed data from 148 previously published longitudinal studies that measured frequency of human interaction and tracked health outcomes for a period of seven and a half years on average. Because information on relationship quality was unavailable, the 50 percent increased odds of survival may underestimate the benefit of healthy relationships. “The data simply show whether they were integrated in a social network,” Holt-Lunstad said. “That means the effects of negative relationships are lumped in there with the positive ones. They are all averaged together.” “When someone is connected to a group and feels responsibility for other people, that sense of purpose and meaning translates to taking better care of themselves and taking fewer risks,” Holt-Lunstad said. In examining the data, Smith took a careful look at whether the results were driven primarily by people helping each other prolong their golden years. “This effect is not isolated to older adults,” Smith said. “Relationships provide a level of protection across all ages.” Smith said that modern conveniences and technology can lead some people to think that social networks aren’t necessary. “We take relationships for granted as humans – we’re like fish that don’t notice the water,” Smith said. “That constant interaction is not only beneficial psychologically but directly to our physical health.” Brad Layton worked on the study as an undergrad at BYU and appears as a co-author on the new study. Layton’s involvement in this project helped him secure a spot as a Ph.D. candidate in the highly ranked epidemiology program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Link to article: http://news.byu.edu/archive10-jul-relationships.aspx

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Following the Reformation in Scotland in 1560 its leader, John Knox, declared his wish to see a school in every parish in the land. His vision was not, however, fulfilled in the Highlands till after the Education Act of 1696. A shortage of teachers was a problem and monitoring their quality across scattered rural populations even more so. Provision before 1872 After the Battle of Culloden (1746) the Highlands and Islands came under direct Government control. Formal education, from then on, was to be conducted in English, even in the Gaelic-speaking areas. There were few school books and none were in Gaelic. There were additional schools in rural areas that were established by charitable societies and by the Free Church after 1843. Elementary (Primary) Education after the 1872 Act The 1872 Education (Scotland) Act brought in compulsory education for all children between 5 and 13 although fees still had to be paid until 1890. Teacher shortages continued and problems arose in areas where teachers who spoke no Gaelic attempted to teach children who had no English. Pupil-teachers could later qualify after attending Teacher Training College. Local School Boards made sure sufficient schools were built and that children attended them. After 1918 this became a County responsibility. State control increased the number of school inspectors after 1872. Medical and dental inspections were introduced after 1908, though reaching remote schools proved difficult. The leaving age was raised to 14 in 1883. Only larger towns offered Secondary education at first and fees had to be paid. After 1918 traveling expenses or a lodging allowance became available for able pupils from remote areas requiring Secondary education. Pupils could also win a bursary. Hostels were attached to the schools at Portree, Dingwall, Inverness, Golspie, Dornoch and Fort William. By 1945 the Education Act raised the school leaving age to 15. Secondary education became freely available for all children. The leaving age rose to 16 in 1972. Special Needs Education A school for children with learning difficulties was established in Inverness in 1926, with another in Ross-shire in 1955. Only in the late 1980s did Gaelic-medium Primary education become available in certain schools. Gaelic-medium in secondary education followed later. Modern communications are now helping to widen the provision of Gaelic particularly through the work of the University of the Highlands and Islands (now called the UHI Millennium Institute.) In its Skye campus, Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the language used is Gaelic. If a book listed in the bibliography below is available from the Highland Libraries it will be indicated by a book icon - Copyright © 2003 - 2014 Am Baile/The Gaelic Village

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Croissant...This delicious pastry originated in Budapest in 1686, when the Turks were besieging the city. To reach the centre of the town, they dug underground passages. Bakers, working during the night, heard the noise made by the Turks and gave the alarm. The assailants were repulsed and the bakers who had saved the city were granted the privilege of making a special pastry which had to take the form of a crescent in memory of the emblem on the Ottoman flag. According to Larousse Gastronomique Alan Davidson, the author of Oxford Companion to Food, expresses his doubts. Culinary mythology--origin of the croissant According to one of a group of similar legends, which vary only in detail, a baker of the 17th century, working through the night at a time when his city (either Vienna in 1683 or Budapest in 1686) was under siege by the Turks, heard faint underground rumbling sounds which, on investigation, proved to be caused by a Turkish attempt to invade the city by tunnelling under the walls. The tunnel was blown up. The baker asked no reward other than the exclusive right to bake crescent-shaped pastries commemorating the incident, the crescent being the symbol of Islam. He was duly rewarded in this way, and the croissant was born. The story seems to owe its origin, or at least its wide diffusion, to Alfred Gottschalk, who wrote about the croissant for the first edition of the Larousse Gastronomique and there gave the legend in the Turkish attack on Budapest in 1686 version; but on the history of food, opted for the 'siege of Vienna in 1683' version." - In a mixer with a dough hook, place the yeast, flour, sugar, salt and the milk and mix for 2 minutes until a soft moist dough forms on the hook. If the dough is not moist, add more milk, half tablespoon at a time until it is moist and smooth, using not more than 2 tablespoons. Increase speed and mix until the dough is very smooth and elastic, about 2-3 minutes. Cover the dough and rest for 30 minutes in fridge. Roll the dough on a lightly floured board to a 9 by 16 inch rectangle. Soften the butter by beating with a rolling pin. Place the butter over two-thirds of the length of the rectangle. Starting from the the unbuttered third, fold the dough, like a business letter, into thirds. Turn the dough a quarter degree, so that the open sides are at 12 and 6 o'clock. Roll again the laminated dough to a rectangle and fold into thirds. Wrap the dough with plastic film tightly and chill over night to ease the gluten. Remove from the fridge and perform the 3-fold three more times. Or two more times of 3-fold and a 4-fold turn for the final, which is to fold both ends into the center and then fold to close, like a book. Chill for 30 minutes to relax the dough between each turn. After the completion of the final turn, relax the dough in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight to fit your schedule. At this point the dough can be frozen until needed. Thaw the dough overnight in the fridge before shaping. - On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a rectangle with about 4mm in thickness. Trim irregularities and divide the dough with a pizza cutter or knife (using croissant cutter if available) into triangles, about 4-inch wide, or wider if you prefer croissants more curved. Gently stretch the base of the triangle to widen it slightly, while one hand holds the base, pull the dough with the other to lengthen the dough, so that a quality croissant with multi layers. Roll up starting at the wide bottom to make a curved cresent shape and place them on a baking paper lined pan. - To proof the croissants, place them in an oven that is warm but not turned on, with a pan of hot water in the bottom to create a moist environment, which is beneficial to the proofing. Let rise until croissants puffed up and spongy to the touch, 2-3 hours. Remove from the oven. Preheat the oven to 200F/400F. Mix egg and milk together in a bowl. Brush with the egg wash and bake the croissants for 22 to 25 minutes until golden brown. Allow them to cool on a rack before serving.

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This is an excerpt from EERE Network News, a weekly electronic newsletter. DOE Offers $59 Million in Loan Guarantees for Wind Power, Energy Storage The two-bladed design of Nordic's wind turbine allows it to be assembled on the ground and lifted in one piece. Most large wind turbines require the turbine housing, or nacelle, to be installed on the tower separately. Enlarge this photo. DOE offered $59 million in conditional loan guarantees on July 2 to Nordic Windpower USA, Inc. and Beacon Power Corporation. Nordic Windpower has been offered $16 million to support the expansion of its assembly plant in Pocatello, Idaho, to produce its 1-megawatt N1000 wind turbine. Beacon Power, an energy storage company, has been offered $43 million to support the construction of a 20-megawatt, flywheel-based energy storage plant in Stephentown, New York, that will help ensure the reliable delivery of renewable energy to the electricity grid. Nordic Windpower's N1000 wind turbine employs two blades and a patented teeter-hub technology that dampens loads, resulting in a lightweight turbine that is at least 10% less costly to manufacture, install, operate, and maintain than competing systems. The wind turbine blades can flex at the hub, partially dissipating the loads from turbulent winds before they reach the drivetrain. This makes Nordic's turbines more reliable than more rigid designs, while enabling the turbines to achieve structural integrity at a lower cost. The teeter-hub design also makes it possible to deploy two blades, rather than three. This reduces installation cost, because the blades can be attached to the hub and nacelle on the ground and lifted into place with a single crane operation. See the DOE press release and the Nordic Windpower Web site.

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