title: Post-Soviet states

text: The Community of Democratic Choice (CDC) was formed in December 2005 at the primary instigation of Ukraine and Georgia, and composed of six post-Soviet states (Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) and three other countries of Eastern and Central Europe (Slovenia, Romania and North Macedonia). The Black Sea Forum (BSF) is a closely related organization. Observer countries include Armenia, Bulgaria, and Poland.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Just like GUAM before it, this forum is largely seen as intending to counteract Russian influence in the area. This is the only international forum centered in the post-Soviet space in which the Baltic countries also participate. In addition, the other three post-Soviet states in it are all members of GUAM.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), is composed of China and five post-Soviet states, namely Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The organization was founded in 2001, though its predecessor, the Shanghai Five grouping, has existed since 1996. Its aims revolve around security-related issues such as border


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Apart from above, the former Soviet republics also hold membership in a number of multinational organizations such as:


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Regarding political freedom in the former Soviet republics, Freedom House's 2021 report listed the following:


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Similarly, the Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders in 2022 recorded the following as regards press freedom:


title: Post-Soviet states

text: It has been remarked that several post-Soviet states did not change leadership for decades since their independence, such as Nursultan Nazarbayev in Kazakhstan until his surprise resignation in 2019, and Islam Karimov in Uzbekistan, until his death in September 2016. All of these had originally more limited terms but through decrees or referendums prolonged their stay in office (a practice also followed by Presidents Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan). Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan had likewise served as President since its independence until he was forced to resign as a result of the Kyrgyz revolution of 2005. Saparmurat Niyazov in Turkmenistan ruled from independence until his death in 2006, creating a personality cult around himself. His successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, has maintained a personality cult of his own that has replaced the worshipping of Niyazov.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The issue of dynastical succession has been another element affecting the politics of some post-Soviet States. Heydar Aliyev, after constructing an extensive and ongoing cult of personality, handed the Presidency of Azerbaijan to his son, Ilham Aliyev. Theories about the children of other leaders in Central Asia being groomed for succession abound. The participation of Akayev's son and daughter in the 2005 Kyrgyz parliamentary elections boosted fears of dynastic succession being used in Kyrgyzstan as well, and may have contributed to the anti-Akayev climate that led to his overthrow.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Economic, political, national, military, and social problems have all been factors in separatism in the post-Soviet space. In many cases, problems due to factors such as ethnic divisions existed before the fall of the Soviet Union, and upon the fall of the union were brought into the open. Such territories and resulting military conflicts have so far been:


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Since 2003, a number of (largely) peaceful "colour revolutions" have happened in some post-Soviet states after disputed elections, with popular protests bringing into power the former opposition.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: There is a significant Russophone population in most of the post-Soviet states, whose political position as an ethnic minority varies from country to country. While Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to Russia, have kept Russian as an official language, the language lost its status in other post-Soviet states after the end of the Soviet Union. It maintains semi-official status in all CIS member states, because it is the organisation's official working language, but in the three Baltic states, the Russian language is not recognized in any official capacity. Georgia, since its departure from the CIS in 2009, has begun operating its government almost exclusively in the Georgian language.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: While the Soviet system placed severe restrictions on religious intellectual life, traditions continued to survive. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Islamic movements have emerged alongside ethnic and secular ones. Vitaly Naumkin gives the following assessment: "Throughout the time of change, Islam has served as a symbol of identity, a force for mobilization, and a pressure for democracy. This is one of the few social disasters that the church has survived, in which it was not the cause. But if successful politically, it faces economic challenges beyond its grasp."


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The Central Asian states (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) plus Azerbaijan in the Southern Caucasus are Muslim, except for their dwindling Russian and other European minorities. The Baltic countries are historically Western Christian (Protestant and Roman Catholic), which adds another layer of pro-Western orientation to those countries, although the majority of what has been the traditionally Protestant population there (in Estonia and northern Latvia) is now relatively irreligious. The dominant religion in the other former Soviet countries (Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine) is Eastern Orthodox Christianity. In most countries, religiosity has increased since the Soviet collapse.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: LGBT people may encounter difficulties not shared by non-LGBT residents. In Transnistria homosexuality is illegal. In some other regions, such as Russia and Ukraine, homosexual actions are legal, but there is still discrimination and bias towards the gay community.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The Soviet Union inherited environmental problems from the pre-Revolutionary era that it blamed on the failings and evils of capitalism. The Soviet Union promoted environmental sentiments; it had a constitutional clause on environmental protection and promoted the idea that, by ending capitalism, environmental problems would cease to arise. Some environmental strides were made, such as the banning of lead-based paint and leaded gasoline in the 20th century. However, the prioritization of industrial production over environmental protection meant that many environmental issues were left to post-Soviet institutions, particularly air and water pollution in the Northern regions where industrialism was heaviest. The Northern countries of Central Europe, including Poland, East Germany, and Czechoslovakia formed what is referred to as the "black triangle" due to their heavy use of brown coal for energy. Environmental degradation in the former Soviet Union is attributed to rapid industrialization and a lack of institutions that were able to curb pollution levels. Many republics of the Soviet Union experienced soil degradation due to collective farming In the 1970s, a Soviet study revealed vast technological inefficiencies in the USSR: compared to the West, the USSR created double the amount of pollutants for each product produced, and quadruple the amount of pollution for each car. The Soviet regime also withheld information regarding the environmental problems facing them, and when these problems became evident to the public, authorities continued to attribute them to capitalism. The Chernobyl disaster was a turning point in which the Soviets had to take responsibility for a huge environmental disaster amid pressures to disclose information regarding its causes and consequences, and this led to a broader discussion about the state of the environment as well as to concerns about nuclear energy. As general unrest grew in the final years of the Soviet Union, the public began to demand environmental reform as part of their resistance to Communism. Many citizens wanted to capitalize on the political turnover to achieve an environmentalist agenda. There was a push away from coal and towards cleaner forms of energy in the 1980s, and 1986–1987 saw the first wave of environmental protests. Village Prose literature by authors such as Valentin Rasputin fostered an environmentalist sentiment. The Soviet "Green Front" was a populist environmental movement that had five subgroups: the Social-Ecological Union which promoted environmental solutions based in ecological practice, the Ecological Union which advocated for greater monitoring of pollution, the Ecological Foundation that sought to create funds through pollution taxes, the Ecological Society of the Soviet Union that called for a return to the Russian way of life that was closely connected to nature, and the All-Union Movement of Greens which was a culminating body of the four preceding groups. Russian oil-drilling and the military were among the things they took issue with. Critics of the Green Front opposed their effects on the chemical industry and claimed that it led to reduced commercial product availability of items such as soap, which was in very short supply in the late 1980s, and restricted access to pharmaceutical goods.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: It was expected that the transition to post-Soviet society would bring about environmental change from both democratic governments and NGOs, but the dissolution of the Soviet Union had both positive and negative effects on the environment. Transition brought about numerous changes that had both positive and negative environmental effects. The abandonment of croplands following dissolution of the Soviet Union led to the creation of carbon sinks. Industrial activity drastically decreased, which reduced air pollution even as the economy took an upturn. However, the introduction of a capitalist market caused new environmental problems: the increase in privately owned cars and the infrastructure changes to accommodate them, the increase in consumerism with no waste management to handle its byproducts, and the poorly planned construction of retail sites. Environmental clean-up efforts by post-Soviet regimes included institutional changes through the creation of or reformation of environmental agencies, and legislative changes through the introduction of new environmental regulations and their enforcement. However, some contend that the efficacy of these reforms was curtailed by economic troubles in the 1990s. New environmental standards were sometimes used by governments to lower preexisting ones, and many of the post-Soviet initiatives have been criticized as "neoliberal" for their basis in free market principles and belief that the market would correct for environmental problems. Technological innovation was generally directed towards "end-of-pipe" technologies, which deal with the clean-up of emissions and their byproducts rather than the reduction of emissions.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Nongovernmental environmental organizations did not exist under the Soviet Union. Rather, some republics had state and local institutions for environmental oversight where citizens could voice concerns, but open criticism of the state was prohibited. Conservation brigades, otherwise known as "druzhiny", engaged in preservationist and recreational outdoor activities. However, environmental damage and openings in political freedom in the 1980s led to greater grassroots activism. The Chernobyl disaster of 1986, its cover-up by national, republic and local government officials, and its environmental and health effects spurred many to action. General dissatisfaction with the socialist regime and a push for democratization took an environmental focus. As Soviet citizens became more comfortable with the Gorbachev-era ideals of glasnost and perestroika in the late 20th century, environmentalists became more outspoken in their demands, and radical splinter groups formed in the late 1980s. The opening of borders led to the spread of ideas and partnership with international environmental NGOs who were able to visit and converse with environmentalists of post-Soviet nations. The conservation state institutions from the Soviet era continued to exist into the post-Soviet era but experienced difficulty getting funding due to their connection with the socialist regime in national memory. New environmental NGOs had challenges receiving funding as well as organizing, and the NGOs that survived were not as influential on national decision-making as the state. Many NGOs expressed disappointment with the lack of substantial environmental change during times of political transformation. It has also been contended that environmental issues are of little importance to Russian citizens today. Many former-Soviet citizens abandoned their earlier interest in the environment after the achievement of independence, while continued demands for environmental reform were suppressed.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Russia has an expansive amount of land which contains a high amount of natural resources and biodiversity. Protected natural areas, or "zapovedniki," were created under the Soviet Union. Soviet leaders attributed former pollution and environmental degradation in Russia to private enterprise and capitalism. However, environmental problems arose in Russia under the Soviets because industrialization was favored over environmentalism, and there was little discussion on how to properly use resources and they were depreciated. The task of environmental governance was distributed among 15 different ministries. There is controversy among academics as to whether environmental destruction under the Soviet Union can be attributed more to Marxist ideology or to the industrialization push.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: In 1988, the Central Committee and the USSR Council of Ministers formed the USSR Union Republic State Committee for Environmental Control, or the "Goskompriroda". The intention of this institution was resource management and environmental testing and oversight. Eventually, however, the "Goskompriroda" was accused of holding "entrepreneurial interests," particularly related to nuclear power. The 1990s saw experiments in taxing pollution of various forms, though this was largely ineffective due to the low charge levels and inflation, as well as more areas of protected land, but there was difficulty overseeing these areas due to small budgets. In 1991, the Federal Act on the Protection of the Natural Environment was passed in the independent Russian Federation, and the "Goskompriroda" became the Ministry of the Environment, or the "Minpriroda", and developed sustainable development goals. In 1996, Yeltsin demoted the Ministry of the Environment to the State Committee on Environmental Protection, and in 2000 Putin ended the State Committee on Environmental Protection and the Federal Forestry Service and tasked the Ministry of Natural Resources with their responsibilities. In 2001, to the ire of many environmental advocates, Russia passed a law that allowed the acceptance, treatment, and storage of nuclear fuel from other nations for profit. The Environmental Doctrine was passed in 2002, the Water Code was passed in 2006, and the Forest Code was passed in 2007, though these policies have been critiqued for the difficulty in enforcing them. Today, Russia has a low population density with most citizens gathered in the cities, so environmental degradation is concentrated in certain areas. Putin is criticized by environmental advocates for prioritizing economic gain over environmental protection, and there are high levels of greenhouse gas emissions and frequent oil spills.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Ukraine is made up of a diverse landscape consisting of plains, temperate forest, and mountains, five densely populated cities, and agricultural land that makes up 70% of the country. Ukraine heavily increased industrial and agricultural production in the Soviet period, which had negative effects on the environment, as did the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. Many of these issues have not been addressed post-independence due to lack of funding. Since independence, Ukraine has experienced a decrease in agricultural and industrial productivity and an increase in diseases, birth abnormalities, and child mortality, claimed to have been caused at least in part from the Chernobyl disaster and from polluted water and air. The number of cars in Ukraine has increased post-independence. Sewage waste has increased, but there has been no increase in wastewater treatment facilities to accommodate it, diverting the waste into natural bodies of water; the Black and Azov seas have been polluted by wastewater, though this occurs less with the reduction of industry; agricultural runoff has led to decreased fish populations, particularly in the Azov Sea. The damming of the Dnipro for hydroelectric power caused flooding in local and residential areas, though the river has been recovering from contamination caused by the Chernobyl disaster. Radioactive waste remains from the Chernobyl accident, the uranium industry, mining, and industrial processing. There are numerous environmental agencies in Ukraine. In 1991, the Ukrainian Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) was formed. It manages the environment and its resources, but it has experienced decreased funding and staff since 1996. There is also the Ministry for Forestry, the State Committee on Geology and Natural Resource Use, the State Committee on Water Management, the State Committee on Land Use, the Health Ministry, the Road Traffic Inspectorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the State Committee on Hydrometeorology. Environmental education was also introduced into the school curriculum in the 1990s by the Ministry of Education. "Zelenyi svit", or "Green World," was a successful Ukrainian environmental organization whose mission was to hold the Ukrainian government accountable for their environmental failings, particularly the Chernobyl disaster, and to protect the Azov Sea through preventing construction of the Danube-Dnieper Canal.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Proper water resource management is a significant environmental concern in the post-Soviet nations of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and the Karakalpakstan region, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Central Asia has an arid climate with hot summers and cold winters. Once within the USSR, the Aral Sea Basin now crosses the geopolitical boundaries of these independent nations. Along with the Aral Sea Basin, Central Asia nations also extract freshwater from the Syr Darya, Amu Darya, and Zeravshan rivers. These rivers receive the snowmelt of surrounding mountains.Following the fall of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states kept their Soviet-era internal administrative structure but were unpracticed in cross-national natural resource management. This has led to conflict regarding proper water allocation to meet the agricultural, industrial, and consumer demands of these nations. Water quality degradation, diversion, and withdrawal has led to increased insecurity and conflict.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Most of the water is used for irrigation of agriculture, with Uzbekistan the largest user of agricultural water. Uzbekistan has double the population of its fellow nations and uses 3/5 of regional water supplies. Together, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan use twice the amount of water for industrial activities used by Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The Interstate Coordinating Commission for Water Resources was formed in 1991 to allocate water from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya but has had difficulty distributing water fairly among nations due to limited funding and physical infrastructure. This has led to conflict between the states.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: To alleviate the stress on water resources in Central Asia, international organizations looking at the situation have advocated for creation of a river basin commission to represent each nation, equitably distribute water, and peacefully resolve conflicts. It has also been suggested that each nation take responsibility by limiting its downstream environmental effects through reducing agricultural runoff, informing fellow nations of proposed actions which may impact water quality and supply, and sharing data regarding these natural water sources.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: The three Baltic countries — Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania — were "de facto" part of the Soviet Union after WWII until they restored independence in 1991. Afterwards, they have had difficulty acquiring fuels and meeting their energy needs. For this reason, they were reliant on Russian oil, and did not have the capacity to acquire fuel from other producers, which had led to frequent fuel shortages. Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania primarily used fossil fuels for energy including imported gas, oil, and petroleum products. The Baltic states used fuels with high amounts of sulfur and pollutants, which has had a negative effect on the environment. Power plants constructed in the Baltic states under the USSR were inefficient, as they were designed to power the entire northwestern region of Soviet territory. During this time, environmental monitoring and regulation were controlled at the local level, but the Baltic states had little influence over the state-managed industrial activities in their area.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Concern for the environment fueled a desire for independence from the USSR. Since declaring independence, the energy consumption of the Baltic states has declined due to a decrease in industrial activity, and each nation has created its own environmental oversight body: the Ministry of Environment in Estonia, the Environmental Protection Committee in Latvia, and the Environmental Protection Department in Latvia, all of which were under the legislative branch but independent from executive government. Air pollution was high in the Baltic states due to the high sulfur and other pollutants emitted from their fuel sources. Water pollution was also considerable due to agricultural and industrial activity, as well as the legacy of Soviet military installations. Emission charges were enacted in the Baltic states to reduce pollution levels.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Northeastern Estonia and the Narva region in particular was the site of an oil-shale industry which provided electricity and heat. Estonia was the only nation to have ever had an oil-shale based energy system. Mining for oil-shale caused Estonia to have the highest amounts of pollution in the Baltic states. Surrounding nations pressured Estonia to reduce its emissions, but a lack of desulfurization equipment has forced Estonia to instead lower its energy production, which has hurt the nation economically. Water pollution has also been considered among the worst of Estonia's environmental problems because it does not have the infrastructure to effectively treat as much sewage as is created.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Latvia produces the least amount of power and pollution and has the highest amount of forest damage of all the Baltic states.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Lithuania is the largest producer of electricity of all three Baltic states. Lithuania's land area is roughly 31% forested and is both state and privately owned. Under the USSR, forest and other natural resources were state-owned and centrally managed. The State determined how resources would be used and excluded the public from influencing forest policy. The transition to a post-Soviet political and economic system led to privatization of forests and a market economy. Today, Lithuania's forests are managed democratically and sustainably so as to preserve biodiversity and forest resources.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union a certain number of people (predominantly people around the age of ~ 55–80, which is most likely due to the USSR's peak performance in the time of Brezhnev) have expressed a longing for the Soviet period and its values. The level of post-Soviet nostalgia varies across the former republics. For example, certain groups of people may blend the Soviet and post-Soviet experience in their daily lives.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: A 2009 Pew Research Center poll showed that 62% of Ukrainians felt that their lives were worse off after 1989, when free markets were made dominant. A follow-up poll by Pew Research Center in 2011 showed that 45% of Lithuanians, 42% of Russians, and 34% of Ukrainians approved of the change to a post-Soviet market economy.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: According to July 2012 polling in Ukraine by RATING, 42% of respondents supported the formation of a unified state of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus; earlier in 2012 this support had been 48%.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: A 2016 poll of Russian citizens conducted by Levada Center showed that the majority viewed the collapse of the USSR negatively and felt that it could have been avoided, and an even greater number would openly welcome a revival of the Soviet system. A 2018 poll showed that 66% of Russians regretted the collapse of the USSR, setting a 15-year record. The majority were people older than 55. A 2019 poll found that 59% of Russians felt that the Soviet government "took care of ordinary people". Joseph Stalin's favorability also hit record highs that same year.


title: Post-Soviet states

text: Various regional structures have emerged in the post-Soviet geography, which is fragmented in political and geopolitical terms. The first of these was the Independent State Society (CIS), which included former Soviet countries outside the Baltic countries. The failure of the CIS to meet the foreign policy needs of many post-Soviet countries has set the stage for a new regional integration. At the initiative of Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldova, a GUAM organization was established in Strasbourg on 10 October 1997. The purpose and principles of the organization were determined at the first summit of GUAM on 7 June 2001 in Yalta. The countries participating in the GUAM aimed to maintain their national independence and sovereignty and to increase their maneuverability against Russia.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cybernetics, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Comics exploring cyberpunk themes began appearing as early as Judge Dredd, first published in 1977. Released in 1984, William Gibson's influential debut novel "Neuromancer" helped solidify cyberpunk as a genre, drawing influence from punk subculture and early hacker culture. Other influential cyberpunk writers included Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series "Akira", with its 1988 anime film adaptation (also directed by Otomo) later popularizing the subgenre.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Early films in the genre include Ridley Scott's 1982 film "Blade Runner", one of several of Philip K. Dick's works that have been adapted into films (in this case, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"). The "first cyberpunk television series" was the TV series "Max Headroom" from 1987, playing in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks, and where computer hacking played a central role in many story lines. The films "Johnny Mnemonic" (1995) and "New Rose Hotel" (1998), both based upon short stories by William Gibson, flopped commercially and critically, while "The Matrix trilogy" (1999–2003) and "Judge Dredd" (1995) were some of the most successful cyberpunk films.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Newer cyberpunk media includes "Blade Runner 2049" (2017), a sequel to the original 1982 film; "Dredd" (2012), which was not a sequel to the original movie; "Upgrade" (2018); "" (2019), based on the 1990s Japanese manga "Battle Angel Alita"; the 2018 Netflix TV series "Altered Carbon", based on Richard K. Morgan's 2002 novel of the same name; the 2020 remake of 1997 role-playing video game "Final Fantasy VII"; and the video game "Cyberpunk 2077" (2020), based on R. Talsorian Games's 1988 tabletop role-playing game "Cyberpunk".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Lawrence Person has attempted to define the content and ethos of the cyberpunk literary movement stating:


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk plots often center on conflict among artificial intelligences, hackers, and megacorporations, and tend to be set in a near-future Earth, rather than in the far-future settings or galactic vistas found in novels such as Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" or Frank Herbert's "Dune". The settings are usually post-industrial dystopias but tend to feature extraordinary cultural ferment and the use of technology in ways never anticipated by its original inventors ("the street finds its own uses for things"). Much of the genre's atmosphere echoes film noir, and written works in the genre often use techniques from detective fiction. There are sources who view that cyberpunk has shifted from a literary movement to a mode of science fiction due to the limited number of writers and its transition to a more generalized cultural formation.


title: Cyberpunk

text: The origins of cyberpunk are rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, where "New Worlds", under the editorship of Michael Moorcock, began inviting and encouraging stories that examined new writing styles, techniques, and archetypes. Reacting to conventional storytelling, New Wave authors attempted to present a world where society coped with a constant upheaval of new technology and culture, generally with dystopian outcomes. Writers like Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer, Samuel R. Delany, and Harlan Ellison often examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution with an avant-garde style influenced by the Beat Generation (especially William S. Burroughs' science fiction writing), Dadaism, and their own ideas. Ballard attacked the idea that stories should follow the "archetypes" popular since the time of Ancient Greece, and the assumption that these would somehow be the same ones that would call to modern readers, as Joseph Campbell argued in "The Hero with a Thousand Faces". Instead, Ballard wanted to write a new myth for the modern reader, a style with "more psycho-literary ideas, more meta-biological and meta-chemical concepts, private time systems, synthetic psychologies and space-times, more of the sombre half-worlds one glimpses in the paintings of schizophrenics."


title: Cyberpunk

text: This had a profound influence on a new generation of writers, some of whom would come to call their movement "cyberpunk". One, Bruce Sterling, later said:


title: Cyberpunk

text: Ballard, Zelazny, and the rest of New Wave was seen by the subsequent generation as delivering more "realism" to science fiction, and they attempted to build on this.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Samuel R. Delany's 1968 novel "Nova" is also considered one of the major forerunners of the cyberpunk movement. It prefigures, for instance, cyberpunk's staple trope of human interfacing with computers via implants. Writer William Gibson claimed to be greatly influenced by Delany, and his novel "Neuromancer" includes allusions to "Nova".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Similarly influential, and generally cited as proto-cyberpunk, is the Philip K. Dick novel "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", first published in 1968. Presenting precisely the general feeling of dystopian post-economic-apocalyptic future as Gibson and Sterling later deliver, it examines ethical and moral problems with cybernetic, artificial intelligence in a way more "realist" than the Isaac Asimov "Robot" series that laid its philosophical foundation. Dick's protege and friend K. W. Jeter wrote a novel called "Dr. Adder" in 1972 that, Dick lamented, might have been more influential in the field had it been able to find a publisher at that time. It was not published until 1984, after which Jeter made it the first book in a trilogy, followed by "The Glass Hammer" (1985) and "Death Arms" (1987). Jeter wrote other standalone cyberpunk novels before going on to write three authorized sequels to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", named "Blade Runner 2: The Edge of Human" (1995), "Blade Runner 3: Replicant Night" (1996), and "Blade Runner 4: Eye and Talon".


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was made into the seminal movie "Blade Runner", released in 1982. This was one year after William Gibson's story, "Johnny Mnemonic" helped move proto-cyberpunk concepts into the mainstream. That story, which also became a film years later in 1995, involves another dystopian future, where human couriers deliver computer data, stored cybernetically in their own minds.


title: Cyberpunk

text: The term "cyberpunk" first appeared as the title of a short story written by Bruce Bethke, written in 1980 and published in "Amazing Stories" in 1983. It was picked up by Gardner Dozois, editor of "Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine", and popularized in his editorials.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Bethke says he made two lists of words, one for technology, one for troublemakers, and experimented with combining them variously into compound words, consciously attempting to coin a term that encompassed both punk attitudes and high technology. He described the idea thus:


title: Cyberpunk

text: Afterward, Dozois began using this term in his own writing, most notably in a "Washington Post" article where he said "About the closest thing here to a self-willed esthetic 'school' would be the purveyors of bizarre hard-edged, high-tech stuff, who have on occasion been referred to as 'cyberpunks'—Sterling, Gibson, Shiner, Cadigan, Bear."


title: Cyberpunk

text: About that time in 1984, William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer" was published, delivering a glimpse of a future encompassed by what became an archetype of cyberpunk "virtual reality", with the human mind being fed light-based worldscapes through a computer interface. Some, perhaps ironically including Bethke himself, argued at the time that the writers whose style Gibson's books epitomized should be called "Neuromantics", a pun on the name of the novel plus "New Romantics", a term used for a New Wave pop music movement that had just occurred in Britain, but this term did not catch on. Bethke later paraphrased Michael Swanwick's argument for the term: "the movement writers should properly be termed neuromantics, since so much of what they were doing was clearly imitating "Neuromancer"".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Sterling was another writer who played a central role, often consciously, in the cyberpunk genre, variously seen as either keeping it on track, or distorting its natural path into a stagnant formula. In 1986 he edited a volume of cyberpunk stories called "", an attempt to establish what cyberpunk was, from Sterling's perspective.


title: Cyberpunk

text: In the subsequent decade, the motifs of Gibson's "Neuromancer" became formulaic, climaxing in the satirical extremes of Neal Stephenson's "Snow Crash" in 1992.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Bookending the cyberpunk era, Bethke himself published a novel in 1995 called "Headcrash", like "Snow Crash" a satirical attack on the genre's excesses. Fittingly, it won an honor named after cyberpunk's spiritual founder, the Philip K. Dick Award.


title: Cyberpunk

text: The impact of cyberpunk, though, has been long-lasting. Elements of both the setting and storytelling have become normal in science fiction in general, and a slew of sub-genres now have -punk tacked onto their names, most obviously steampunk, but also a host of other cyberpunk derivatives.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Primary figures in the cyberpunk movement include William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, Bruce Sterling, Bruce Bethke, Pat Cadigan, Rudy Rucker, and John Shirley. Philip K. Dick (author of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", from which the film "Blade Runner" was adapted) is also seen by some as prefiguring the movement.


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Blade Runner" can be seen as a quintessential example of the cyberpunk style and theme. Video games, board games, and tabletop role-playing games, such as "Cyberpunk 2020" and "Shadowrun", often feature storylines that are heavily influenced by cyberpunk writing and movies. Beginning in the early 1990s, some trends in fashion and music were also labeled as cyberpunk. Cyberpunk is also featured prominently in anime and manga (Japanese cyberpunk), with "Akira", "Ghost in the Shell" and "Cowboy Bebop" being among the most notable.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from crime fiction—particularly hardboiled detective fiction and film noir—and postmodernist prose to describe an often nihilistic underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of a troubled future is often called the antithesis of the generally utopian visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian science fiction in his 1981 short story "The Gernsback Continuum," which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian science fiction.


title: Cyberpunk

text: In some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place online, in cyberspace, blurring the line between actual and virtual reality. A typical trope in such work is a direct connection between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk settings are dystopias with corruption, computers and internet connectivity. Giant, multinational corporations have for the most part replaced governments as centers of political, economic, and even military power.


title: Cyberpunk

text: The economic and technological state of Japan is a regular theme in the cyberpunk literature of the 1980s. Of Japan's influence on the genre, William Gibson said, "Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk." Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes, and "city lights, receding" was used by Gibson as one of the genre's first metaphors for cyberspace and virtual reality. The cityscapes of Hong Kong has had major influences in the urban backgrounds, ambiance and settings in many cyberpunk works such as "Blade Runner" and "Shadowrun". Ridley Scott envisioned the landscape of cyberpunk Los Angeles in "Blade Runner" to be "Hong Kong on a very bad day". The streetscapes of the "Ghost in the Shell" film were based on Hong Kong. Its director Mamoru Oshii felt that Hong Kong's strange and chaotic streets where "old and new exist in confusing relationships", fit the theme of the film well. Hong Kong's Kowloon Walled City is particularly notable for its disorganized hyper-urbanization and breakdown in traditional urban planning to be an inspiration to cyberpunk landscapes. Portrayals of East Asia and Asians in Western cyberpunk have been criticized as Orientalist and promoting racist tropes playing on American and European fears of East Asian dominance; this has been referred to as "techno-Orientalism".


title: Cyberpunk

text: One of the cyberpunk genre's prototype characters is Case, from Gibson's "Neuromancer". Case is a "console cowboy," a brilliant drug addicted hacker who has betrayed his organized criminal partners. Robbed of his talent through a crippling injury inflicted by the vengeful partners, Case unexpectedly receives a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be healed by expert medical care but only if he participates in another criminal enterprise with a new crew.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Like Case, many cyberpunk protagonists are manipulated or forced into situations where they have little or no control. They often begin their story with little to no power, starting in roles of subordinates or burnouts. The story usually involves them breaking out of these lowly roles early on. They typically have bittersweet or negative endings, rarely make great gains by the end of the story.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Protagonists often fit into the role of outcasts, criminals, misfits and malcontents, expressing the "punk" component of cyberpunk. Due to the morally ambiguous nature of the worlds they inhabit, cyberpunk protagonists are usually antiheroes. They often engage with their society's drug subcultures or some other vice. Though they may morally or ethically oppose some of the more bleak aspects of their worlds, they are often too pragmatic or defeated to change them.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk can be intended to disquiet readers and call them to action. It often expresses a sense of rebellion, suggesting that one could describe it as a type of cultural revolution in science fiction. In the words of author and critic David Brin:


title: Cyberpunk

text: ...a closer look [at cyberpunk authors] reveals that they nearly always portray future societies in which governments have become wimpy and pathetic ...Popular science fiction tales by Gibson, Williams, Cadigan and others "do" depict Orwellian accumulations of power in the next century, but nearly always clutched in the secretive hands of a wealthy or corporate elite.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk stories have also been seen as fictional forecasts of the evolution of the Internet. The earliest descriptions of a global communications network came long before the World Wide Web entered popular awareness, though not before traditional science-fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and some social commentators such as James Burke began predicting that such networks would eventually form.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Some observers cite that cyberpunk tends to marginalize sectors of society such as women and Africans. It is claimed that, for instance, cyberpunk depicts fantasies that ultimately empower masculinity using fragmentary and decentered aesthetic that culminate in a masculine genre populated by male outlaws. Critics also note the absence of any reference to Africa or an African-American character in the quintessential cyberpunk film "Blade Runner" while other films reinforce stereotypes.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Minnesota writer Bruce Bethke coined the term in 1983 for his short story "Cyberpunk," which was published in an issue of "Amazing Science Fiction Stories". The term was quickly appropriated as a label to be applied to the works of William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Pat Cadigan and others. Of these, Sterling became the movement's chief ideologue, thanks to his fanzine "Cheap Truth." John Shirley wrote articles on Sterling and Rucker's significance. John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider" is considered by many to be the first cyberpunk novel with many of the tropes commonly associated with the genre, some five years before the term was popularized by Dozois.


title: Cyberpunk

text: William Gibson with his novel "Neuromancer" (1984) is arguably the most famous writer connected with the term cyberpunk. He emphasized style, a fascination with surfaces, and atmosphere over traditional science-fiction tropes. Regarded as ground-breaking and sometimes as "the archetypal cyberpunk work," "Neuromancer" was awarded the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick Awards. "Count Zero" (1986) and "Mona Lisa Overdrive" (1988) followed after Gibson's popular debut novel. According to the Jargon File, "Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naïve and tremendously stimulating."


title: Cyberpunk

text: Early on, cyberpunk was hailed as a radical departure from science-fiction standards and a new manifestation of vitality. Shortly thereafter, however, some critics arose to challenge its status as a revolutionary movement. These critics said that the science fiction New Wave of the 1960s was much more innovative as far as narrative techniques and styles were concerned. Furthermore, while "Neuromancer"<nowiki>'</nowiki>s narrator may have had an unusual "voice" for science fiction, much older examples can be found: Gibson's narrative voice, for example, resembles that of an updated Raymond Chandler, as in his novel "The Big Sleep" (1939). Others noted that almost all traits claimed to be uniquely cyberpunk could in fact be found in older writers' works—often citing J. G. Ballard, Philip K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, Stanisław Lem, Samuel R. Delany, and even William S. Burroughs. For example, Philip K. Dick's works contain recurring themes of social decay, artificial intelligence, paranoia, and blurred lines between objective and subjective realities. The influential cyberpunk movie "Blade Runner" (1982) is based on his book, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". Humans linked to machines are found in Pohl and Kornbluth's "Wolfbane" (1959) and Roger Zelazny's "Creatures of Light and Darkness" (1968).


title: Cyberpunk

text: In 1994, scholar Brian Stonehill suggested that Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel "Gravity's Rainbow" "not only curses but precurses what we now glibly dub cyberspace." Other important predecessors include Alfred Bester's two most celebrated novels, "The Demolished Man" and "The Stars My Destination", as well as Vernor Vinge's novella "True Names".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Science-fiction writer David Brin describes cyberpunk as "the finest free promotion campaign ever waged on behalf of science fiction." It may not have attracted the "real punks," but it did ensnare many new readers, and it provided the sort of movement that postmodern literary critics found alluring. Cyberpunk made science fiction more attractive to academics, argues Brin; in addition, it made science fiction more profitable to Hollywood and to the visual arts generally. Although the "self-important rhetoric and whines of persecution" on the part of cyberpunk fans were irritating at worst and humorous at best, Brin declares that the "rebels did shake things up. We owe them a debt."


title: Cyberpunk

text: Fredric Jameson considers cyberpunk the "supreme literary expression if not of postmodernism, then of late capitalism itself".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk further inspired many professional writers who were not among the "original" cyberpunks to incorporate cyberpunk ideas into their own works, such as George Alec Effinger's "When Gravity Fails". "Wired" magazine, created by Louis Rossetto and Jane Metcalfe, mixes new technology, art, literature, and current topics in order to interest today's cyberpunk fans, which Paula Yoo claims "proves that hardcore hackers, multimedia junkies, cyberpunks and cellular freaks are poised to take over the world."


title: Cyberpunk

text: The film "Blade Runner" (1982)—adapted from Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"—is set in 2019 in a dystopian future in which manufactured beings called replicants are slaves used on space colonies and are legal prey on Earth to various bounty hunters who "retire" (kill) them. Although "Blade Runner" was largely unsuccessful in its first theatrical release, it found a viewership in the home video market and became a cult film. Since the movie omits the religious and mythical elements of Dick's original novel (e.g. empathy boxes and Wilbur Mercer), it falls more strictly within the cyberpunk genre than the novel does. William Gibson would later reveal that upon first viewing the film, he was surprised at how the look of this film matched his vision for "Neuromancer", a book he was then working on. The film's tone has since been the staple of many cyberpunk movies, such as "The Matrix trilogy" (1999–2003), which uses a wide variety of cyberpunk elements.


title: Cyberpunk

text: The number of films in the genre or at least using a few genre elements has grown steadily since "Blade Runner". Several of Philip K. Dick's works have been adapted to the silver screen. The films "Johnny Mnemonic" and "New Rose Hotel", both based upon short stories by William Gibson, flopped commercially and critically. These box offices misses significantly slowed the development of cyberpunk as a literary or cultural form although a sequel to the 1982 film "Blade Runner" was released in October 2017 with Harrison Ford reprising his role from the original film. A rigorous implementation of all core cyberpunk hallmarks is the TV series Max Headroom from 1987, playing in a futuristic dystopia ruled by an oligarchy of television networks, and where computer hacking played a central role in many story lines. "Max Headroom" has been called "the first cyberpunk television series", with "deep roots in the Western philosophical tradition".


title: Cyberpunk

text: In addition, "tech-noir" film as a hybrid genre, means a work of combining neo-noir and science fiction or cyberpunk. It includes many cyberpunk films such as "Blade Runner", "Burst City", "Robocop", "12 Monkeys", "The Lawnmower Man", "Hackers", "Hardware", and "Strange Days", "Total Recall".


title: Cyberpunk

text: The Japanese cyberpunk subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series "Akira", with its 1988 anime film adaptation, which Otomo directed, later popularizing the subgenre. "Akira" inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as "Ghost in the Shell", "Battle Angel Alita", "Cowboy Bebop", and "Serial Experiments Lain". Other early Japanese cyberpunk works include the 1982 film "Burst City", the 1985 original video animation "Megazone 23", and the 1989 film "".


title: Cyberpunk

text: In contrast to Western cyberpunk which has roots in New Wave science fiction literature, Japanese cyberpunk has roots in underground music culture, specifically the Japanese punk subculture that arose from the Japanese punk music scene in the 1970s. The filmmaker Sogo Ishii introduced this subculture to Japanese cinema with the punk film "Panic High School" (1978) and the punk biker film "Crazy Thunder Road" (1980), both portraying the rebellion and anarchy associated with punk, and the latter featuring a punk biker gang aesthetic. Ishii's punk films paved the way for Otomo's seminal cyberpunk work "Akira".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk themes are widely visible in anime and manga. In Japan, where cosplay is popular and not only teenagers display such fashion styles, cyberpunk has been accepted and its influence is widespread. William Gibson's "Neuromancer," whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba, one of Japan's largest industrial areas, although at the time of writing the novel Gibson did not know the location of Chiba and had no idea how perfectly it fit his vision in some ways. The exposure to cyberpunk ideas and fiction in the 1980s has allowed it to seep into the Japanese culture.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk anime and manga draw upon a futuristic vision which has elements in common with Western science fiction and therefore have received wide international acceptance outside Japan. "The conceptualization involved in cyberpunk is more of forging ahead, looking at the new global culture. It is a culture that does not exist right now, so the Japanese concept of a cyberpunk future, seems just as valid as a Western one, especially as Western cyberpunk often incorporates many Japanese elements." William Gibson is now a frequent visitor to Japan, and he came to see that many of his visions of Japan have become a reality:


title: Cyberpunk

text: Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see? You see? It is "Blade Runner" town." And it was. It so evidently was.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk themes have appeared in many anime and manga, including the ground-breaking "Appleseed", "Ghost in the Shell", "Ergo Proxy", "Megazone 23", "Goku Midnight Eye", "Cyber City Oedo 808", "", "Bubblegum Crisis", "", "Angel Cop", "Blame!", "Armitage III", "Texhnolyze", "Psycho-Pass" and "No Guns Life".


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Akira" (1982 manga) and its 1988 anime film adaptation have influenced numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games. "Akira" has been cited as a major influence on Hollywood films such as "The Matrix", "Chronicle", "Looper", "Midnight Special", and "Inception", as well as cyberpunk-influenced video games such as Hideo Kojima's "Snatcher" and "Metal Gear Solid", Valve's "Half-Life" series and Dontnod Entertainment's "Remember Me". "Akira" has also influenced the work of musicians such as Kanye West, who paid homage to "Akira" in the "Stronger" music video, and Lupe Fiasco, whose album "Tetsuo & Youth" is named after Tetsuo Shima. The popular bike from the film, Kaneda's Motorbike, appears in "Steven Spielberg"'s film "Ready Player One", and CD Projekt's video game "Cyberpunk 2077".


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Ghost in the Shell" (1995) influenced a number of prominent filmmakers, most notably the Wachowskis in "The Matrix" (1999) and its sequels. "The Matrix" series took several concepts from the film, including the Matrix digital rain, which was inspired by the opening credits of "Ghost in the Shell" and a sushi magazine the wife of the senior designer of the animation, Simon Witheley, used to have it the kitchen at the time., and the way characters access the Matrix through holes in the back of their necks. Other parallels have been drawn to James Cameron's "Avatar", Steven Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", and Jonathan Mostow's "Surrogates". James Cameron cited "Ghost in the Shell" as a source of inspiration, citing it as an influence on "Avatar".


title: Cyberpunk

text: The original video animation "Megazone 23" (1985) has a number of similarities to "The Matrix". "Battle Angel Alita" (1990) has had a notable influence on filmmaker James Cameron, who was planning to adapt it into a film since 2000. It was an influence on his TV series "Dark Angel", and he is the producer of the 2019 film adaptation "".


title: Cyberpunk

text: In 1975, artist Moebius collaborated with writer Dan O'Bannon on a story called "The Long Tomorrow", published in the French magazine "Métal Hurlant". One of the first works featuring elements now seen as exemplifying cyberpunk, it combined influences from film noir and hardboiled crime fiction with a distant sci-fi environment. Author William Gibson stated that Moebius' artwork for the series, along with other visuals from "Métal Hurlant", strongly influenced his 1984 novel "Neuromancer". The series had a far-reaching impact in the cyberpunk genre, being cited as an influence on Ridley Scott's "Alien" (1979) and "Blade Runner". Moebius later expanded upon "The Long Tomorrow"'s aesthetic with "The Incal", a graphic novel collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky published from 1980 to 1988. The story centers around the exploits of a detective named John Difool in various science fiction settings, and while not confined to the tropes of cyberpunk, it features many elements of the genre.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Concurrently with many other foundational cyberpunk works, DC Comics published Frank Miller's six-issue miniseries "Rōnin" from 1983 to 1984. The series, incorporating aspects of Samurai culture, martial arts films and manga, is set in a dystopian near-future New York. It explores the link between an ancient Japanese warrior and the apocalyptic, crumbling cityscape he finds himself in. The comic also bears several similarities to "Akira", with highly powerful telepaths playing central roles, as well as sharing many key visuals.


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Rōnin" would go on to influence many later works, including "Samurai Jack" and the "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", as well as video games such as "Cyberpunk 2077". Two years later, Miller himself would incorporate several toned-down elements of "Rōnin" into his acclaimed 1986 miniseries "The Dark Knight Returns", in which a retired Bruce Wayne once again takes up the mantle of Batman in a Gotham that is increasingly becoming more dystopian.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Paul Pope's "", published in 2006, also exhibits several traits typical of cyberpunk fiction, such as a rebel protagonist opposing a future authoritarian state, and a distinct retrofuturist aesthetic that makes callbacks to both "The Dark Knight Returns" and Batman's original appearances in the 1940s.


title: Cyberpunk

text: There are cyberpunk video games. Popular series include "Final Fantasy VII" and its spin-offs and remake, the "Megami Tensei" series, Kojima's "Snatcher" and "Metal Gear" series, "Deus Ex" series, "Syndicate" series, and "System Shock" and its sequel. Other games, like "Blade Runner", "Ghost in the Shell", and the "Matrix" series, are based upon genre movies, or role-playing games (for instance the various "Shadowrun" games).


title: Cyberpunk

text: Several RPGs called "Cyberpunk" exist: "Cyberpunk", "Cyberpunk 2020", "Cyberpunk v3.0" and "Cyberpunk Red" written by Mike Pondsmith and published by R. Talsorian Games, and "GURPS Cyberpunk", published by Steve Jackson Games as a module of the GURPS family of RPGs. "Cyberpunk 2020" was designed with the settings of William Gibson's writings in mind, and to some extent with his approval, unlike the approach taken by FASA in producing the transgenre "Shadowrun" game and its various sequels, which mixes cyberpunk with fantasy elements such as magic and fantasy races such as orcs and elves. Both are set in the near future, in a world where cybernetics are prominent. In addition, Iron Crown Enterprises released an RPG named "Cyberspace", which was out of print for several years until recently being re-released in online PDF form. CD Projekt Red released "Cyberpunk 2077," a cyberpunk open world first-person shooter/role-playing video game (RPG) based on the tabletop RPG "Cyberpunk 2020", on December 10, 2020. In 1990, in a convergence of cyberpunk art and reality, the United States Secret Service raided Steve Jackson Games's headquarters and confiscated all their computers. Officials denied that the target had been the "GURPS Cyberpunk" sourcebook, but Jackson would later write that he and his colleagues "were never able to secure the return of the complete manuscript; [...] The Secret Service at first flatly refused to return anything – then agreed to let us copy files, but when we got to their office, restricted us to one set of out-of-date files – then agreed to make copies for us, but said "tomorrow" every day from March 4 to March 26. On March 26 we received a set of disks which purported to be our files, but the material was late, incomplete and well-nigh useless." Steve Jackson Games won a lawsuit against the Secret Service, aided by the new Electronic Frontier Foundation. This event has achieved a sort of notoriety, which has extended to the book itself as well. All published editions of "GURPS Cyberpunk" have a tagline on the front cover, which reads "The book that was seized by the U.S. Secret Service!" Inside, the book provides a summary of the raid and its aftermath.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cyberpunk has also inspired several tabletop, miniature and board games such as "Necromunda" by Games Workshop. "Netrunner" is a collectible card game introduced in 1996, based on the "Cyberpunk 2020" role-playing game. "Tokyo NOVA", debuting in 1993, is a cyberpunk role-playing game that uses playing cards instead of dice.


title: Cyberpunk

text: "Cyberpunk 2077" set a new record for the largest number of simultaneous players in a single player game, with a record 1,003,262 playing just after the December 10th launch, according to Steam Database. That tops the previous Steam record of 472,962 players set by "Fallout 4" back in 2015.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Invariably the origin of cyberpunk music lies in the synthesizer-heavy scores of cyberpunk films such as "Escape from New York" (1981) and "Blade Runner" (1982). Some musicians and acts have been classified as cyberpunk due to their aesthetic style and musical content. Often dealing with dystopian visions of the future or biomechanical themes, some fit more squarely in the category than others. Bands whose music has been classified as cyberpunk include Psydoll, Front Line Assembly, Clock DVA, Angelspit and Sigue Sigue Sputnik.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Some musicians not normally associated with cyberpunk have at times been inspired to create concept albums exploring such themes. Albums such as the British musician and songwriter Gary Numan's "Replicas", "The Pleasure Principle" and "Telekon" were heavily inspired by the works of Philip K. Dick. Kraftwerk's "The Man-Machine" and "Computer World" albums both explored the theme of humanity becoming dependent on technology. Nine Inch Nails' concept album "Year Zero" also fits into this category. Fear Factory concept albums are heavily based upon future dystopia, cybernetics, clash between man and machines, virtual worlds. Billy Idol's "Cyberpunk" drew heavily from cyberpunk literature and the cyberdelic counter culture in its creation. "1. Outside", a cyberpunk narrative fueled concept album by David Bowie, was warmly met by critics upon its release in 1995. Many musicians have also taken inspiration from specific cyberpunk works or authors, including Sonic Youth, whose albums "Sister" and "Daydream Nation" take influence from the works of Philip K. Dick and William Gibson respectively. Madonna's 2001 Drowned World Tour opened with a cyberpunk section, where costumes, asethetics and stage props were used to accentuate the dystopian nature of the theatrical concert. Lady Gaga used a cyberpunk-persona and visual style for her sixth studio album Chromatica (2020).


title: Cyberpunk

text: Vaporwave and synthwave are also influenced by cyberpunk. The former has been inspired by one of the messages of cyberpunk and is interpreted as a dystopian critique of capitalism in the vein of cyberpunk and the latter is more surface-level, inspired only by the aesthetic of cyberpunk as a nostalgic retrofuturistic revival of aspects of cyberpunk's origins.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Writers David Suzuki and Holly Dressel describe the cafes, brand-name stores and video arcades of the Sony Center in the Potsdamer Platz public square of Berlin, Germany, as "a vision of a cyberpunk, corporate urban future".


title: Cyberpunk

text: Several subcultures have been inspired by cyberpunk fiction. These include the cyberdelic counter culture of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Cyberdelic, whose adherents referred to themselves as "cyberpunks", attempted to blend the psychedelic art and drug movement with the technology of cyberculture. Early adherents included Timothy Leary, Mark Frauenfelder and R. U. Sirius. The movement largely faded following the dot-com bubble implosion of 2000.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Cybergoth is a fashion and dance subculture which draws its inspiration from cyberpunk fiction, as well as rave and Gothic subcultures. In addition, a distinct cyberpunk fashion of its own has emerged in recent years which rejects the raver and goth influences of cybergoth, and draws inspiration from urban street fashion, "post apocalypse", functional clothing, high tech sports wear, tactical uniform and multifunction. This fashion goes by names like "tech wear", "goth ninja" or "tech ninja".


title: Cyberpunk

text: The Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong (demolished in 1994) is often referenced as the model cyberpunk/dystopian slum as, given its poor living conditions at the time coupled with the city's political, physical, and economic isolation has caused many in academia to be fascinated by the ingenuity of its spawning.


title: Cyberpunk

text: As a wider variety of writers began to work with cyberpunk concepts, new subgenres of science fiction emerged, some of which could be considered as playing off the cyberpunk label, others which could be considered as legitimate explorations into newer territory. These focused on technology and its social effects in different ways. One prominent subgenre is "steampunk," which is set in an alternate history Victorian era that combines anachronistic technology with cyberpunk's bleak film noir world view. The term was originally coined around 1987 as a joke to describe some of the novels of Tim Powers, James P. Blaylock, and K.W. Jeter, but by the time Gibson and Sterling entered the subgenre with their collaborative novel "The Difference Engine" the term was being used earnestly as well.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Another subgenre is "biopunk" (cyberpunk themes dominated by biotechnology) from the early 1990s, a derivative style building on biotechnology rather than informational technology. In these stories, people are changed in some way not by mechanical means, but by genetic manipulation.


title: Cyberpunk

text: In the United States, the term "Cyberpunk" is a registered trademark by R. Talsorian Games Inc. for its tabletop role-playing game.


title: Cyberpunk

text: Within the European Union, the "Cyberpunk" trademark is owned by two parties: CD Projekt SA for "games and online gaming services" (particularly for the video game adaptation of the former) and by Sony Music for use outside games.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B, also known as cobalamin, is a water-soluble vitamin involved in metabolism. It is one of eight B vitamins. It is required by animals, which use it as a cofactor in DNA synthesis, in both fatty acid and amino acid metabolism. It is important in the normal functioning of the nervous system via its role in the synthesis of myelin, and in the circulatory system in the maturation of red blood cells in the bone marrow. Plants do not need cobalamin and carry out the reactions with enzymes that are not dependent on it.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B is the most chemically complex of all vitamins, and for humans, the only vitamin that must be sourced from animal-derived foods or from supplements. Only some archaea and bacteria can synthesize vitamin B. Most people in developed countries get enough B from the consumption of meat or foods with animal sources. Foods containing vitamin B include meat, clams, liver, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products. Many breakfast cereals are fortified with the vitamin. Supplements and medications are available to treat and prevent vitamin B deficiency. They are taken by mouth, but for the treatment of deficiency may also be given as an intramuscular injection.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The most common cause of vitamin B deficiency in developed countries is impaired absorption due to a loss of gastric intrinsic factor (IF) which must be bound to a food-source of B in order for absorption to occur. A second major cause is age-related decline in stomach acid production (achlorhydria), because acid exposure frees protein-bound vitamin. For the same reason, people on long-term antacid therapy, using proton-pump inhibitors, H2 blockers or other antacids are at increased risk. The diets of vegetarians and vegans may not provide sufficient B unless a dietary supplement is consumed. A deficiency in vitamin B may be characterized by limb neuropathy or a blood disorder called pernicious anemia, a type of megaloblastic anemia, causing a feeling of tiredness and weakness, lightheadedness, headache, breathlessness, loss of appetite, abnormal sensations, changes in mobility, severe joint pain, muscle weakness, memory problems, decreased level of consciousness, brain fog, and many others. If left untreated in infants, deficiency may lead to neurological damage and anemia. Folate levels in the individual may affect the course of pathological changes and symptomatology of vitamin B deficiency.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B was discovered as a result of pernicious anemia, an autoimmune disorder in which the blood has a lower than normal number of red blood cells, due to a deficiency in vitamin B. The ability to absorb the vitamin declines with age, especially in people over 60 years old.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B is a coordination complex of cobalt, which occupies the center of a corrin ligand and is further bound to a benzimidazole ligand and adenosyl group. It is a deep red solid that dissolves in water to give red solutions.


title: Vitamin B12

text: A number of related species are known and these behave similarly, in particular all function as vitamins. This collection of compounds, of which vitamin B is one member, are often referred to as "cobalamins". These chemical compounds have a similar molecular structure, each of which shows vitamin activity in a vitamin-deficient biological system, they are referred to as vitamers. The vitamin activity is as a coenzyme, meaning that its presence is required for some enzyme-catalyzed reactions.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Cyanocobalamin is a manufactured form of B. Bacterial fermentation creates AdoB and MeB, which are converted to cyanocobalamin by addition of potassium cyanide in the presence of sodium nitrite and heat. Once consumed, cyanocobalamin is converted to the biologically active AdoB and MeB. The two bioactive forms of vitamin are methylcobalamin in cytosol and adenosylcobalamin in mitochondria.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Cyanocobalamin is the most common form used in dietary supplements and food fortification because cyanide stabilizes the molecule against degradation. Methylcobalamin is also offered as a dietary supplement. There is no advantage to the use of adenosylcobalamin or methylcobalamin for treatment of vitamin B deficiency.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Hydroxocobalamin can be injected intramuscularly to treat vitamin B deficiency. It can also be injected intravenously for the purpose of treating cyanide poisoning, as the hydroxyl group is displaced by cyanide, creating a non-toxic cyanocobalamin that is excreted in urine.


title: Vitamin B12

text: "Pseudovitamin B" refers to compounds that are corrinoids with a structure similar to the vitamin but without vitamin activity. Pseudovitamin B is the majority corrinoid in spirulina, an algal health food sometimes erroneously claimed as having this vitamin activity.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B deficiency can potentially cause severe and irreversible damage, especially to the brain and nervous system. At levels only slightly lower than normal, a range of symptoms such as feeling tired, weak, feeling like one may faint, dizziness, breathlessness, headaches, mouth ulcers, upset stomach, decreased appetite, difficulty walking (staggering balance problems), muscle weakness, depression, poor memory, poor reflexes, confusion, and pale skin, feeling abnormal sensations, among others, may be experienced, especially in people over age 60. Vitamin B deficiency can also cause symptoms of mania and psychosis. Among other problems, weakened immunity, reduced fertility and interruption of blood circulation in women may occur.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The main type of vitamin B12 deficiency anemia is pernicious anemia. It is characterized by a triad of symptoms:


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B deficiency is most commonly caused by malabsorption, but can also result from low intake, immune gastritis, low presence of binding proteins, or use of certain medications. Vegans—people who choose to not consume any animal-sourced foods—are at risk because plant-sourced foods do not contain the vitamin in sufficient amounts to prevent vitamin deficiency. Vegetarians—people who consume animal byproducts such as dairy products and eggs, but not the flesh of any animal—are also at risk. Vitamin B deficiency has been observed in between 40% and 80% of the vegetarian population who do not also take a vitamin B supplement or consume vitamin-fortified food. In Hong Kong and India, vitamin B deficiency has been found in roughly 80% of the vegan population. As with vegetarians, vegans can avoid this by consuming a dietary supplement or eating B fortified food such as cereal, plant-based milks, and nutritional yeast as a regular part of their diet. The elderly are at increased risk because they tend to produce less stomach acid as they age, a condition known as achlorhydria, thereby increasing their probability of B deficiency due to reduced absorption.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The U.S. Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for pregnancy is 2.6 µg/day, for lactation 2.8 µg/day. Determination of these values was based on the RDA of 2.4 µg/day for non-pregnant women plus what will be transferred to the fetus during pregnancy and what will be delivered in breast milk. However, looking at the same scientific evidence, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) sets adequate intake (AI) at 4.5μg/day for pregnancy and 5.0 μg/day for lactation. Low maternal vitamin B, defined as serum concentration less than 148 pmol/L, increases the risk of miscarriage, preterm birth and newborn low birth weight. During pregnancy the placenta concentrates B, so that newborn infants have a higher serum concentration than their mothers. As it is recently absorbed vitamin content that more effectively reaches the placenta, the vitamin consumed by the mother-to-be is more important than that contained in her liver tissue. Women who consume little animal-sourced food, or who are vegetarian or vegan, are at higher risk of becoming vitamin depleted during pregnancy than those who consume more animal products. This depletion can lead to anemia, and also an increased risk that their breastfed infants become vitamin deficient.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Low vitamin concentrations in human milk occur in families with low socioeconomic status or low consumption of animal products. Only a few countries, primarily in Africa, have mandatory food fortification programs for either wheat flour or maize flour; India has a voluntary fortification program. What the nursing mother consumes is more important than her liver tissue content, as it is recently absorbed vitamin that more effectively reaches breast milk. Breast milk B decreases over months of nursing in both well-nourished and vitamin-deficient mothers. Exclusive or near-exclusive breastfeeding beyond six months is a strong indicator of low serum vitamin status in nursing infants. This is especially true when the vitamin status was poor during the pregnancy and if the early-introduced foods fed to the still breastfeeding infant are vegan. Risk of deficiency persists if the post-weaning diet is low in animal products. Signs of low vitamin levels in infants and young children can include anemia, poor physical growth and neurodevelopmental delays. Children diagnosed with low serum B can be treated with intramuscular injections, then transitioned to an oral dietary supplement.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Various methods of gastric bypass or gastric restriction surgery are used to treat morbid obesity. Roux-en-Y gastric bypass surgery (RYGB) but not sleeve gastric bypass surgery or gastric banding, increases the risk of vitamin B deficiency and requires preventive post-operative treatment with either injected or high-dose oral supplementation. For post-operative oral supplementation, 1000 μg/day may be needed to prevent vitamin deficiency.


title: Vitamin B12

text: According to one review: "At present, no 'gold standard' test exists for the diagnosis of vitamin B12 deficiency and as a consequence the diagnosis requires consideration of both the clinical state of the patient and the results of investigations." The vitamin deficiency is typically suspected when a routine complete blood count shows anemia with an elevated mean corpuscular volume (MCV). In addition, on the peripheral blood smear, macrocytes and hypersegmented polymorphonuclear leukocytes may be seen. Diagnosis is supported based on vitamin B blood levels below 150–180 pmol/L (200–250 pg/mL) in adults. However, serum values can be maintained while tissue B stores are becoming depleted. Therefore, serum B values above the cut-off point of deficiency do not necessarily confirm adequate B status. For this reason, elevated serum homocysteine over 15 micromol/L and methylmalonic acid (MMA) over 0.271 micromol/L are considered better indicators of B deficiency, rather than relying only on the concentration of B in blood. However, elevated MMA is not conclusive, as it is seen in people with B deficiency, but also in elderly people who have renal insufficiency, and elevated homocysteine is not conclusive, as it is also seen in people with folate deficiency. In addition, elevated methylmalonic acid levels may also be related to metabolic disorders such as methylmalonic acidemia. If nervous system damage is present and blood testing is inconclusive, a lumbar puncture may be carried out to measure cerebrospinal fluid B levels.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Severe vitamin B deficiency is corrected with frequent intramuscular injections of large doses of the vitamin, followed by maintenance doses of injections or oral dosing at longer intervals. In the UK, standard initial therapy consists of intramuscular injections of 1000 μg of hydroxocobalamin three times a week for two weeks or until neurological symptoms improve, followed by 1000 μg every two or three months. Injection side effects include skin rash, itching, chills, fever, hot flushes, nausea and dizziness.


title: Vitamin B12

text: For cyanide poisoning, a large amount of hydroxocobalamin may be given intravenously and sometimes in combination with sodium thiosulfate. The mechanism of action is straightforward: the hydroxycobalamin hydroxide ligand is displaced by the toxic cyanide ion, and the resulting non-toxic cyanocobalamin is excreted in urine.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Most people in the United States and the United Kingdom consume sufficient vitamin B. However, proportions of people with low or marginal levels of vitamin B reach up to 40% in the Western world. Grain-based foods can be fortified by having the vitamin added to them. Vitamin B supplements are available as single or multivitamin tablets. Pharmaceutical preparations of vitamin B may be given by intramuscular injection. Since there are few non-animal sources of the vitamin, vegans are advised to consume a dietary supplement or fortified foods for B intake, or risk serious health consequences. Children in some regions of developing countries are at particular risk due to increased requirements during growth coupled with diets low in animal-sourced foods.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The US National Academy of Medicine updated estimated average requirements (EARs) and recommended dietary allowances (RDAs) for vitamin B in 1998. The EAR for vitamin B for women and men ages 14 and up is 2.0μg/day; the RDA is 2.4μg/day. RDA is higher than EAR so as to identify amounts that will cover people with higher than average requirements. RDA for pregnancy equals 2.6μg/day. RDA for lactation equals 2.8 μg/day. For infants up to 12 months the adequate intake (AI) is 0.4–0.5μg/day. (AIs are established when there is insufficient information to determine EARs and RDAs.) For children ages 1–13 years the RDA increases with age from 0.9 to 1.8μg/day. Because 10 to 30 percent of older people may be unable to effectively absorb vitamin B naturally occurring in foods, it is advisable for those older than 50 years to meet their RDA mainly by consuming foods fortified with vitamin B or a supplement containing vitamin B. As for safety, tolerable upper intake levels (known as ULs) are set for vitamins and minerals when evidence is sufficient. In the case of vitamin B there is no UL, as there is no human data for adverse effects from high doses. Collectively the EARs, RDAs, AIs and ULs are referred to as dietary reference intakes (DRIs).


title: Vitamin B12

text: The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) refers to the collective set of information as "dietary reference values", with population reference intake (PRI) instead of RDA, and average requirement instead of EAR. AI and UL are defined by EFSA the same as in the United States. For women and men over age 18 the adequate intake (AI) is set at 4.0μg/day. AI for pregnancy is 4.5 μg/day, for lactation 5.0μg/day. For children aged 1–17 years the AIs increase with age from 1.5 to 3.5μg/day. These AIs are higher than the U.S. RDAs. The EFSA also reviewed the safety question and reached the same conclusion as in the United States—that there was not sufficient evidence to set a UL for vitamin B.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The Japan National Institute of Health and Nutrition set the RDA for people ages 12 and older at 2.4μg/day. The World Health Organization also uses 2.4μg/day as the adult recommended nutrient intake for this vitamin.


title: Vitamin B12

text: For U.S. food and dietary supplement labeling purposes the amount in a serving is expressed as a "percent of daily value" (%DV). For vitamin B labeling purposes 100% of the daily value was 6.0μg, but on May 27, 2016, it was revised downward to 2.4μg. Compliance with the updated labeling regulations was required by 1 January 2020 for manufacturers with US$10 million or more in annual food sales, and by 1 January 2021 for manufacturers with lower volume food sales. A table of the old and new adult daily values is provided at Reference Daily Intake.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B is produced in nature by certain bacteria, and archaea. It is synthesized by some bacteria in the gut microbiota in humans and other animals, but it has long been thought that humans cannot absorb this as it is made in the colon, downstream from the small intestine, where the absorption of most nutrients occurs. Ruminants, such as cows and sheep, are foregut fermenters, meaning that plant food undergoes microbial fermentation in the rumen before entering the true stomach (abomasum), and thus they are absorbing vitamin B produced by bacteria. Other mammalian species (examples: rabbits, pikas, beaver, guinea pigs) consume high-fibre plants which pass through the intestinal system and undergo bacterial fermentation in the cecum and large intestine. The first-passage of feces produced by this hindgut fermentation, called "cecotropes", are re-ingested, a practice referred to as cecotrophy or coprophagy. Re-ingestion allows for absorption of nutrients made available by bacterial digestion, and also of vitamins and other nutrients synthesized by the gut bacteria, including vitamin B. Non-ruminant, non-hindgut herbivores may have an enlarged forestomach and/or small intestine to provide a place for bacterial fermentation and B-vitamin production, including B. For gut bacteria to produce vitamin B the animal must consume sufficient amounts of cobalt. Soil that is deficient in cobalt may result in B deficiency, and B injections or cobalt supplementation may be required for livestock.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Animals store vitamin B from their diets in their livers and muscles and some pass the vitamin into their eggs and milk. Meat, liver, eggs and milk are therefore sources of the vitamin for other animals, including humans. For humans, the bioavailability from eggs is less than 9%, compared to 40% to 60% from fish, fowl and meat. Insects are a source of B for animals (including other insects and humans). Animal-derived food sources with a high concentration of vitamin B include liver and other organ meats from lamb, veal, beef, and turkey; also shellfish and crab meat.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Natural plant and algae sources of vitamin B include fermented plant foods such as tempeh and seaweed-derived foods such as nori and laver. Other types of algae are rich in B, with some species, such as "Porphyra yezoensis", containing as much cobalamin as liver. Methylcobalamin has been identified in "Chlorella vulgaris". Since only bacteria and some archea possess the genes and enzymes necessary to synthesize vitamin B, plant and algae sources all obtain the vitamin secondarily from symbiosis with various species of bacteria, or in the case of fermented plant foods, from bacterial fermentation.


title: Vitamin B12

text: The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics considers plant and algae sources "unreliable", stating that vegans should turn to fortified foods and supplements instead.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Foods for which vitamin B-fortified versions are available include breakfast cereals, plant-derived milk substitutes such as soy milk and oat milk, energy bars, and nutritional yeast. The fortification ingredient is cyanocobalamin. Microbial fermentation yields adenosylcobalamin, which is then converted to cyanocobalamin by addition of potassium cyanide or thiocyanate in the presence of sodium nitrite and heat.


title: Vitamin B12

text: As of 2019, nineteen countries require food fortification of wheat flour, maize flour or rice with vitamin B. Most of these are in southeast Africa or Central America.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vegan advocacy organizations, among others, recommend that every vegan consume B from either fortified foods or supplements.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B is included in multivitamin pills; in some countries grain-based foods such as bread and pasta are fortified with B. In the US, non-prescription products can be purchased providing up to 5,000µg each, and it is a common ingredient in energy drinks and energy shots, usually at many times the recommended dietary allowance of B. The vitamin can also be a prescription product via injection or other means.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Sublingual methylcobalamin, which contains no cyanide, is available in 5mg tablets. The metabolic fate and biological distribution of methylcobalamin are expected to be similar to that of other sources of vitamin B in the diet. The amount of cyanide in cyanocobalamin is generally not a concern, even in the 1,000µg dose, since the amount of cyanide there (20µg in a 1,000µg cyanocobalamin tablet) is less than the daily consumption of cyanide from food, and therefore cyanocobalamin is not considered a health risk. People who have kidney problems should not take large doses of cyanocobalamin due to their inability to efficiently metabolize cyanide.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Injection of hydroxycobalamin is often used if digestive absorption is impaired, but this course of action may not be necessary with high-dose oral supplements (such as 0.5–1.0mg or more), because with large quantities of the vitamin taken orally, even the 1% to 5% of free crystalline B that is absorbed along the entire intestine by passive diffusion may be sufficient to provide a necessary amount.


title: Vitamin B12

text: A person with cobalamin C disease (which results in combined methylmalonic aciduria and homocystinuria) may require treatment with intravenous or intramuscular hydroxocobalamin or transdermal B, because oral cyanocobalamin is inadequate in the treatment of cobalamin C disease.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Conventional administration does not ensure specific distribution and controlled release of vitamin B. Moreover, therapeutic protocols involving injection require health care people and commuting of patients to the hospital thus increasing the cost of the treatment and impairing the lifestyle of patients. Targeted delivery of vitamin B is a major focus of modern prescriptions. For example, conveying the vitamin to the bone marrow and nerve cells would help myelin recovery. Currently, several nanocarriers strategies are being developed for improving vitamin B delivery with the aim to simplify administration, reduce costs, improve pharmacokinetics, and ameliorate the quality of patients' lives.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Pseudovitamin-B refers to B-like analogues that are biologically inactive in humans. Most cyanobacteria, including "Spirulina", and some algae, such as "Porphyra tenera" (used to make a dried seaweed food called nori in Japan), have been found to contain mostly pseudovitamin-B instead of biologically active B. These pseudo-vitamin compounds can be found in some types of shellfish, in edible insects, and at times as metabolic breakdown products of cyanocobalamin added to dietary supplements and fortified foods.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Pseudovitamin-B can show up as biologically active vitamin B when a microbiological assay with "Lactobacillus delbrueckii" subsp. lactis is used, as the bacteria can utilize the pseudovitamin despite it being unavailable to humans. To get a reliable reading of B content, more advanced techniques are available. One such technique involves pre-separation by silica gel and then assessment with B-dependent "E. coli" bacteria.


title: Vitamin B12

text: A related concept is antivitamin B, compounds (often synthetic B analogues) that not only have no vitamin action, but also actively interfere with the activity of true vitamin B. The design of these compounds mainly involved replacement of the metal ion. These compounds have the potential to be used for analyzing B utilization pathways or even attacking B-dependent pathogens.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Gastric acid is needed to release vitamin B from protein for absorption. Reduced secretion of gastric acid and pepsin, from the use of H blocker or proton-pump inhibitor (PPI) drugs, can reduce absorption of protein-bound (dietary) vitamin B, although not of supplemental vitamin B. H-receptor antagonist examples include cimetidine, famotidine, nizatidine, and ranitidine. PPIs examples include omeprazole, lansoprazole, rabeprazole, pantoprazole, and esomeprazole. Clinically significant vitamin B deficiency and megaloblastic anemia are unlikely, unless these drug therapies are prolonged for two or more years, or if in addition the person's dietary intake is below recommended levels. Symptomatic vitamin deficiency is more likely if the person is rendered achlorhydric (a complete absence of gastric acid secretion), which occurs more frequently with proton pump inhibitors than H blockers.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Reduced serum levels of vitamin B occur in up to 30% of people taking long-term anti-diabetic metformin. Deficiency does not develop if dietary intake of vitamin B is adequate or prophylactic B supplementation is given. If the deficiency is detected, metformin can be continued while the deficiency is corrected with B supplements.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Certain medications can decrease the absorption of orally consumed vitamin B, including: colchicine, extended-release potassium products, and antibiotics such as gentamicin, neomycin and tobramycin. Anti-seizure medications phenobarbital, pregabalin, primidone and topiramate are associated with lower than normal serum vitamin concentration. However, serum levels were higher in people prescribed valproate. In addition, certain drugs may interfere with laboratory tests for the vitamin, such as amoxicillin, erythromycin, methotrexate and pyrimethamine.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B is the most chemically complex of all the vitamins. The structure of B is based on a corrin ring, which is similar to the porphyrin ring found in heme. The central metal ion is cobalt. As isolated as an air-stable solid and available commercially, cobalt in vitamin B (cyanocobalamin and other vitamers) is present in its +3 oxidation state. Biochemically, the cobalt center can take part in both two-electron and one-electron reductive processes to access the "reduced" (B, +2 oxidation state) and "super-reduced" (B, +1 oxidation state) forms. The ability to shuttle between the +1, +2, and +3 oxidation states is responsible for the versatile chemistry of vitamin B, allowing it to serve as a donor of deoxyadenosyl radical (radical alkyl source) and as a methyl cation equivalent (electrophilic alkyl source). Four of the six coordination sites are provided by the corrin ring, and a fifth by a dimethylbenzimidazole group. The sixth coordination site, the reactive center, is variable, being a cyano group (–CN), a hydroxyl group (–OH), a methyl group (–CH) or a 5′-deoxyadenosyl group. Historically, the covalent carbon–cobalt bond is one of the first examples of carbon–metal bonds to be discovered in biology. The hydrogenases and, by necessity, enzymes associated with cobalt utilization, involve metal–carbon bonds. Animals have the ability to convert cyanocobalamin and hydroxocobalamin to the bioactive forms adenosylcobalamin and methylcobalamin by means of enzymatically replacing the cyano or hydroxyl groups.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Several methods have been used to determine the vitamin B content in foods including microbiological assays, chemiluminescence assays, polarographic, spectrophotometric and high-performance liquid chromatography processes. The microbiological assay has been the most commonly used assay technique for foods, utilizing certain vitamin B-requiring microorganisms, such as "Lactobacillus delbrueckii" subsp. "lactis" ATCC7830. However, it is no longer the reference method due to the high measurement uncertainty of vitamin B. Furthermore, this assay requires overnight incubation and may give false results if any inactive vitamin B analogues are present in the foods. Currently, radioisotope dilution assay (RIDA) with labelled vitamin B and hog IF (pigs) have been used to determine vitamin B content in food. Previous reports have suggested that the RIDA method is able to detect higher concentrations of vitamin B in foods compared to the microbiological assay method.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Vitamin B functions as a coenzyme, meaning that its presence is required in some enzyme-catalyzed reactions. Listed here are the three classes of enzymes that sometimes require B to function (in animals):


title: Vitamin B12

text: In humans, two major coenzyme B-dependent enzyme families corresponding to the first two reaction types, are known. These are typified by the following two enzymes:


title: Vitamin B12

text: Methylmalonyl coenzyme A mutase (MUT) is an isomerase enzyme which uses the AdoB form and reaction type 1 to convert L-methylmalonyl-CoA to succinyl-CoA, an important step in the catabolic breakdown of some amino acids into succinyl-CoA, which then enters energy production via the citric acid cycle. This functionality is lost in vitamin B deficiency, and can be measured clinically as an increased serum methylmalonic acid (MMA) concentration. The MUT function is necessary for proper myelin synthesis. Based on animal research, it is thought that the increased methylmalonyl-CoA hydrolyzes to form methylmalonate (methylmalonic acid), a neurotoxic dicarboxylic acid, causing neurological deterioration.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Methionine synthase, coded by "MTR" gene, is a methyltransferase enzyme which uses the MeB and reaction type 2 to transfer a methyl group from 5-methyltetrahydrofolate to homocysteine, thereby generating tetrahydrofolate (THF) and methionine. This functionality is lost in vitamin B deficiency, resulting in an increased homocysteine level and the trapping of folate as 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolate, from which THF (the active form of folate) cannot be recovered. THF plays an important role in DNA synthesis so reduced availability of THF results in ineffective production of cells with rapid turnover, in particular red blood cells, and also intestinal wall cells which are responsible for absorption. THF may be regenerated via MTR or may be obtained from fresh folate in the diet. Thus all of the DNA synthetic effects of B deficiency, including the megaloblastic anemia of pernicious anemia, resolve if sufficient dietary folate is present. Thus the best-known "function" of B (that which is involved with DNA synthesis, cell-division, and anemia) is actually a facultative function which is mediated by B-conservation of an active form of folate which is needed for efficient DNA production. Other cobalamin-requiring methyltransferase enzymes are also known in bacteria, such as Me-H-MPT, coenzyme M methyltransferase.


title: Vitamin B12

text: Food B is absorbed by two processes. The first is a vitamin B-specific intestinal mechanism using intrinsic factor through which 1–2 micrograms can be absorbed every few hours, by which most food consumption of the vitamin is absorbed. The second is a passive diffusion process. The human physiology of active vitamin B absorption from food is complex. Protein-bound vitamin B must be released from the proteins by the action of digestive proteases in both the stomach and small intestine. Gastric acid releases the vitamin from food particles; therefore antacid and acid-blocking medications (especially proton-pump inhibitors) may inhibit absorption of B. After B has been freed from proteins in food by pepsin in the stomach, R-protein (also known as haptocorrin and transcobalamin-1), a B binding protein that is produced in the salivary glands, binds to B. This protects the vitamin from degradation in the acidic environment of the stomach. This pattern of B transfer to a special binding protein secreted in a previous digestive step, is repeated once more before absorption. The next binding protein for B is intrinsic factor (IF), a protein synthesized by gastric parietal cells that is secreted in response to histamine, gastrin and pentagastrin, as well as the presence of food. In the duodenum, proteases digest R-proteins and release their bound B, which then binds to IF, to form a complex (IF/B). B must be attached to IF for it to be efficiently absorbed, as receptors on the enterocytes in the terminal ileum of the small bowel only recognize the B-IF complex; in addition, intrinsic factor protects the vitamin from catabolism by intestinal bacteria.