title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber remained at Red Bull for the season and was again joined by Coulthard, driving a more reliable RB4 car equipped with a new reliable gearbox and a heavier front. Webber frequently qualified well and scored points at nine of the season's 18 rounds. He occasionally outperformed drivers with better machinery and he scored points in six of the first eight races, which included a season-high fourth at the . He qualified a season-high second for the but finished tenth in the wet-weather race. Thereafter, Webber's performance for the remainder of the season diminished mainly because Red Bull opted to sacrifice speed so it could focus on constructing a new car to comply with the regulation changes being applied for the championship. He scored points three more times in the final nine races for 21 points and 11th in the Drivers' Championship.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber sustained multiple injuries in a head-on collision with a car at a charity endurance cycling event in Port Arthur, Tasmania in November 2008, including a fractured right leg. He skipped a three-day pre-season test session held at the Jerez circuit, but was able to regain enough fitness to drive in an F1 car at the 2009 pre-season test sessions at Jerez and Barcelona, due to the late launch of the RB5 car. Webber underwent surgery between events to avoid contracting infections.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Vettel, who was promoted from Toro Rosso to replace the retiring Coulthard, became Webber's teammate. Webber consistently scored points in seven of the first eight races, including three podium finishes to briefly become a championship contender. His performances improved when the new RB5 car's double diffuser was introduced. At the , Webber overcame a drive-through penalty he incurred for a first-lap collision with Rubens Barrichello's Brawn GP car to achieve his first career victory from his maiden pole position. Webber was informed by Red Bull that he and Vettel could race each other "for the foreseeable future" even when trying to reduce Button's points lead. He moved to second overall after finishing third in Hungary but fell to fourth due to driver, team and reliability errors in the next four races. At the season's penultimate round, the , Webber took his second career victory and held off Button to finish second at the season's final race in Abu Dhabi for fourth overall and 69.5 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber and Red Bull negotiated a contract extension to the championship to reward his performance in 2009. His RB6 car was designed to channel engine exhaust gases through a bodywork slot to the diffuser's central area for more downforce and cornering speed. A knee training injury forced Webber to delay his preparation because a surgeon conducted a full knee incision. Inactivity during surgery increased Webber's weight to ; a strict diet kept his weight at . Upon his return to racing, he led the Drivers' Championship at various points during the season, achieving four Grand Prix victories and three pole positions. An accident with Rosberg at the and a second-place finish at the following put Webber eight points behind Alonso and seven ahead of Vettel entering the season-ending . Webber need to win the race and for Alonso to place third or lower to secure the championship. He was eighth in the race, which Vettel won and Alonso came seventh. Webber was third overall with 242 points. After the season, Webber was angry with Red Bull's management, thinking they devalued his achievements that year. He collided with Vettel in a duel for the lead at the , which cooled his relationship with Marko who blamed Webber for the accident and favoured Vettel, something Webber felt again after Vettel received a new front wing intended for Webber at the .


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: He signed a Red Bull contract extension for the season before the , having agreed with the team to sign one-year contracts late in his career for ability and quality assessment. Webber's mental state worsened because he was ready to retire after a title win to stop all negativity related to his racing career. His RB7 car equipped with the kinetic energy recovery system (KERS) and drag reduction system devices and an exhaust-blown diffuser produced lots of rear grip. Webber was hindered by intermittent KERS failures that Red Bull rectified and he was frustrated with the quickly degrading Pirelli tyres losing their performance when a driver was in the aerodynamic turbulence of another car. He made slower starts due to the car's ballast distribution compromised by the KERS' additional weight exacerbated by him weighing more than Vettel.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Dietrich Mateschitz, Red Bull's owner, directed the team to allow both Webber and Vettel to race each other. Webber came no lower than fifth in the first four races, finishing third and second in China and Turkey. He finished the fourth from pole position. Webber took consecutive pole positions at the British and German Grands Prix and seven podiums from eleven top-tens in the next 13 events. He won the season-ending to take third overall from Alonso with a career-high 258 points. Webber initially struggled with the new Pirelli tyres, producing a greater amount of lateral load than his teammate Vettel and was more aggressive accelerating. His qualifying and race performances improved once he became better acquainted with the tyres. Webber made fewer pit stops by coping strategies used by other drivers after previously stopping more often from racing competitively.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber signed to remained at Red Bull for the season on the day of the . Webber's decision to re-sign was made more difficult in mid-2011 because of his poor qualifying performance on Pirelli tyres but noted the potential of Newey's car designs. The RB8 car was not as dominant as its two predecessors; Webber finished fourth in the first four races, hampered by minor mechanical problems and faulty KERS. He became frustrated with F1 racing after a poor performance at the but he won the from pole position and the three races later after passing Alonso with eight laps left to go second overall behind Alonso. Webber took two more podium finishes in Korea and India during the season's final 11 races, finishing 2012 sixth overall tallying 179 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber remained at Red Bull for the championship: he wanted to honour an earlier promise he had made to Horner and Mateschitz to stay at the team until his F1 career was over. He rejected an offer from Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali to partner Alonso and replace Felipe Massa for a year with a second optional, feeling switching teams would be inappropriate. He briefly lightened his training over the pre-season period when a titanium rod in his right leg was removed in December 2012. After restarting training that month, Webber decided to retire from F1 after 2013 because he wanted to spend more time with his family, demotivation with F1 since drivers could not criticise Pirelli's tyres for fear of possibly upsetting others and the politics when large sums of money were involved. Webber was assigned Simon Rennie as his race engineer when his previous engineer, Ciaron Pilbeam, became the Lotus team's chief race engineer.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: His RB9 car initially struggled possibly due to its aerodynamic profile on the new softer Pirelli compounds but performed better when the 2012 compounds were re-introduced mid-season. At the , the season's second round, Webber was overtaken by Vettel in the closing laps to win the race after Vettel ignored the team order "Multi-Map 21", which instructed him to finish behind Webber. Tension between both drivers rose as a result and a remark by Webber about Vettel making an independent decision to disobey team orders meant Vettel lost Webber's respect as a person. After that, Webber was aware that the rest of the season would be onerous and tension between him and Vettel would stress Red Bull. He took eight podium finishes, finishing second four more times at the , the , the from pole position and the season-ending . Webber won no races in 2013 and he concluded his final F1 season in third overall with 199 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber joined Porsche's sports car team upon its return to motor racing in mid-2013. He moved to sports car racing to get away from the attention associated with F1 and to enjoy the longer intervals between races. Webber shared the No. 20 closed-cockpit Porsche 919 Hybrid sports prototype car with German Timo Bernhard and New Zealander Brendon Hartley in the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC)'s fully-professional Le Mans Prototype 1-Hybrid (LMP1-H) category.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Although sports car racing was less physically demanding for Webber, he needed consistently high concentration to cope with the difference in speed between each of the WEC's four classes, driving at night, re-adjusting to lapping slower vehicles while losing the least amount of time and coping with changeable conditions during a long race. Webber was advised on modern sports car racing by Bernhard and in turn acquainted Bernhard and Hartley with the circuits he drove in F1. He was mindful on developing the car for his co-drivers and not for himself but directed Porsche to concentrate on research and development projects that optimised performance in the shortest possible time. Webber also helped the team reduce the amount of pit stop time.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: The 2014 season began with Webber qualifying sixth and finishing third at the season-opening 6 Hours of Silverstone. Hybrid technical issues at the following 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps left Webber and his co-drivers 23rd overall. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Webber's team qualified the No. 20 car second and retired with a broken anti-roll bar 22 hours in. The next four races saw him finish no lower than sixth, placing third at both the 6 Hours of Fuji and the 6 Hours of Bahrain. At the season-ending 6 Hours of São Paulo, his team qualified on pole position; late in the race, Matteo Cressoni's No. 90 AF Corse-run 8 Star Motorsports Ferrari 458 Italia hit the right-rear of his car, sending Webber into a concrete barrier. Webber sustained a left lung contusion and severe concussion, recovering from the effects of the crash weeks later. He was ninth in the World Endurance Drivers' Championship (WEDC) with 64.5 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Porsche retained Webber for the 2015 season alongside Bernhard and Hartley in the renumbered No. 17 car. Webber and Hartley qualified the car on pole position for the season-opening 6 Hours of Silverstone but Webber had to retire it with drivetrain failure. He was on pole position at the following 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps and finished third after Hartley incurred a stop-and-go penalty for rejoining the track via an escape road. He qualified and finished second at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. before claiming four consecutive victories to enter the season-ending 6 Hours of Bahrain leading Audi's Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer by 12 points. Webber and his teammates needed to finish third to win the WEDC. They qualified on pole position and overcame mechanical problems to finish fifth and claim the title with 166 points, five ahead of Fässler, Lotterer and Tréluyer.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber again remained at Porsche alongside Bernhard and Hartley in the renumbered No. 1 entry for the 2016 championship. The crew retired from the season-opening 6 Hours of Silverstone following a collision between Hartley and a slower Porsche GT car. At the following 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, two tyre punctures and a front axle gearbox problem left him 27th overall. Webber began from second at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and finished 13th overall due to a water pump failure that needed fixing when Webber was driving. The rest of the season saw the crew win four of the next six races and qualify on pole position once for fourth in the WEDC with 134.5 points.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber decided to retire from motor racing after the season was over. He kept the news secret until going to Japan, citing Porsche's dwindling desire to commit fully to its LMP1 programme and the difficulty of doing "this job half-hearted" with regards of getting motivated to do test sessions and races as reasons.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber was due to compete in the American-based short track oval racing series Superstar Racing Experience in 2021; travel restrictions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meant Webber was ultimately unable to.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In describing Webber's driving style, journalist Mark Hughes stated: "The thing he does arguably better than anyone else, is extract every ounce of potential from the car through fast, aerodynamically-loaded corners" since extra lap time could be located in slower turns because the car remains in them for longer. He was able to feel the braking grip of his tyres and could correctly modulate throttle power as grip levels reduced under braking to slow the vehicle down. Entering a braking zone, Webber achieved more retardation rate in a downforce-reliant car than other drivers and as the downforce decreased he was able to modulate pressure and sensitivity well to remain within the tyre's grip limit. His braking pressure force enabled him to translate lap time where the entry speed is high enough to make this possible without brake locking. His driving style, which was refined in downforce-heavy sports cars in the late 1990s, was not suited to a more gentle approach required for driving V8 F1 Pirelli-shod cars because of how he managed those brand of tyres that wore out faster than the Bridgestone compounds he was accustomed to.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber is a brand ambassador of the luxury fashion house Hugo Boss, the car brand Porsche, the watch manufacturer Rolex, the synthetic engine oil brand Mobil 1, the airline carrier Qantas, and the spinal cord injury research charity Wings for Life. In July 2003, he helped to launch that year's Road Safety Handbook aiming to give road safety guides for residents of Milton Keynes. As a result of his endorsement money and salary, he was included in Australia's Top 50 Sports Earners and the BRW Young Rich lists by BRW magazine. From 2009 to 2013, Webber and Horner co-owned the MW Arden junior team that ran in the European-based GP3 Series. He launched the off-road sports clothing brand Aussie Grit for mountain riding and running in 2018, and fronted Porsche and Boss' clothing collections for 2019 and 2020.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In 2003, Webber began the ten-day adventure challenge trek Mark Webber Challenge featuring cross-country running, cycling and kayaking in Tasmania to raise money for children's cancer charities. He organised it following his grandfather's death from cancer as well as his experiences of friends whose children had cancer. Webber held the challenge again from 2006 to 2008 but not in 2009 and 2010 due to economical problems. He again held the event with corporate and local government sponsorship from 2011 to 2013. Inspire Young People and Webber created the Mark Webber Youth Challenge in 2014 involving college student teams raising money for charity participating in physical activities. He was patron of the Amy Gillett Foundation promoting safer on-road relationships between cyclists and motorists, and of the Aylesbury College Trust. Webber won the F1 pro-am tennis tournament in Barcelona three times. He supported the use of the AI-operated prostate cancer diagnosis device Maxwell Plus in Queanbeyan in November 2021 following a reduction in testing during the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber has written columns for "Autosport", the BBC, and "The Sydney Daily Telegraph". He has provided expert analysis on F1 for the British television broadcaster Channel 4 since the season. Webber has done a similar role for Australia's Channel 10, covering the Australian Grand Prix and co-hosting the 2015 Clipsal 500 of the V8 Supercars Championship for the broadcaster. He was guest reporter for two rounds of the 2017 World Rally Championship on Red Bull TV. Since early 2020, Webber has mentored racing driver Oscar Piastri and represents his commercial interests through the management arm JAM Sports Management he founded with his wife, and corporate and sports CEO Jason Allen. He authored the book, "Up Front – 2010, A Season To Remember", in 2010. Webber's autobiography, "Aussie Grit: My Formula One Journey", ghost written by Stuart Sykes, was published in 2015. Webber owned a public house, The Stag, in Mentmore. He joined documentary makers Noah Media Group as an producer and an investor in November 2021.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber is nicknamed "Aussie Grit" for "his determination in the face of adversity and his patriotism." Bruce Jones described Webber in the book "The Story of Formula One: 65 Years of Life in the Fast Lane" as having earned "considerable admiration for his straight-talking, honest approach that was devoid of pretence or hyperbole. He is an out-and-out racer cast from something of an old-fashioned mould and as such often seemed an adult in an increasingly infantile world." BBC Sport's Andrew Benson wrote that Webber's "combination of race-winning pace and forthright manner has made him a central figure in F1 over the last decade" and that Webber had "remained true to himself. He is unimpressed with the trappings of F1 and its supposed glamour. And his willingness to follow his own mind is intact."


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: In October 2003, Webber was unanimously voted fourth director of the trade union Grand Prix Drivers' Association (GPDA). He was voted out of it in September 2005 since it felt there were too many directors in charge. Webber won the BRDC Bruce McLaren Award in 1998, 2000, 2001, 2009, and 2010 as "the Commonwealth driver who has established the most meritorious performances in international motor racing." In October 2000, he received the Australian Sports Medal for placing second in the 1998 FIA GT Championship and participating in the IF3000 Championship; was voted "Rookie of the Year" by both readers of "F1 Racing" and "Autosport" magazines; named "F1 Newcomer of the Year" at the annual Grand Prix Party Awards; was named "Autocar"'s magazine; 2003 F1 Driver of the Year; won the Lorenzo Bandini Trophy in 2006; and the 2009 Innes Ireland Trophy for displaying "courage and sportsmanship" that Innes Ireland epitomised.


title: Mark Webber (racing driver)

text: Webber received the Hawthorn Memorial Trophy in 2010 and 2013 as the most successful British or Commonwealth driver during a season; the 2010 GQ Australia Sportsman of the Year; the 2011 DHL Fastest Lap Award for setting more fastest laps than any driver that year with seven; and the 2013 Johnny Wakefield Trophy for recording the year's best lap on the Silverstone GP Circuit. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in the 2017 Australia Day Honours for "distinguished service to motor sport as a competitor and ambassador, and to the community through fundraising and patronage of a range of medical and youth support organisations." Webber was added to the Australian Motor Sport Hall of Fame and the FIA Hall of Fame in 2018 and 2019, respectively. In 2022, he was inducted into Sport Australia Hall of Fame.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell carcinoma (BCC), also known as basal-cell cancer, is the most common type of skin cancer. It often appears as a painless raised area of skin, which may be shiny with small blood vessels running over it. It may also present as a raised area with ulceration. Basal-cell cancer grows slowly and can damage the tissue around it, but it is unlikely to spread to distant areas or result in death.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Risk factors include exposure to ultraviolet light, having lighter skin, radiation therapy, long-term exposure to arsenic and poor immune-system function. Exposure to UV light during childhood is particularly harmful. Tanning beds have become another common source of ultraviolet radiation. Diagnosis often depends on skin examination, confirmed by tissue biopsy.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: It remains unclear whether sunscreen affects the risk of basal-cell cancer. Treatment is typically by surgical removal. This can be by simple excision if the cancer is small; otherwise, Mohs surgery is generally recommended. Other options include electrodesiccation and curettage, cryosurgery, topical chemotherapy, photodynamic therapy, laser surgery or the use of imiquimod, a topical immune-activating medication. In the rare cases in which distant spread has occurred, chemotherapy or targeted therapy may be used.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell cancer accounts for at least 32% of all cancers globally. Of skin cancers other than melanoma, about 80% are basal-cell cancers. In the United States, about 35% of white males and 25% of white females are affected by BCC at some point in their lives.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Individuals with a basal-cell carcinoma typically present with a shiny, pearly skin nodule. However, superficial basal-cell cancer can present as a red patch similar to eczema. Infiltrative or morpheaform basal-cell cancers can present as a skin thickening or scar tissue – making diagnosis difficult without using tactile sensation and a skin biopsy. It is often difficult to visually distinguish basal-cell cancer from acne scar, actinic elastosis, and recent cryodestruction inflammation.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: "Basal-cell carcinoma" is named after the basal cells that populate the lowest layer of the epidermis due to the histological appearance of the cancer cells under the microscope. Nevertheless, not all basal-cell carcinomas actually originate within the basal layer. Basal-cell carcinomas are thought to develop from the folliculo–sebaceous–apocrine germinative cells known as "trichoblasts". Trichoblastic carcinoma is a term used to describe a rare and potentially aggressive malignancy that is also thought to arise from trichoblasts and may resemble a benign trichoblastoma (differential diagnosis can be challenging). It has been suggested that lesions diagnosed as 'trichoblastic carcinoma' may actually themselves be basal-cell carcinoma.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Overexposure to sun leads to the formation of thymine dimers, a form of DNA damage. While DNA repair removes most UV-induced damage, not all crosslinks are excised. There is, therefore, cumulative DNA damage leading to mutations. Apart from the mutagenesis, overexposure to sunlight depresses the local immune system, possibly decreasing immune surveillance for new tumor cells.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell carcinomas can often come in association with other lesions of the skin, such as actinic keratosis, seborrheic keratosis, squamous cell carcinoma. In a small proportion of cases, basal-cell carcinoma also develops as a result of basal-cell nevus syndrome, or Gorlin Syndrome, which is also characterized by keratocystic odontogenic tumors of the jaw, palmar or plantar (sole of the foot) pits, calcification of the falx cerebri (in the center line of the brain) and rib abnormalities. The cause of this syndrome is a mutation in the PTCH1 tumor suppressor gene located in chromosome 9q22.3, which inhibits the hedgehog signaling pathway. A mutation in the SMO gene, which is also on the hedgehog pathway, also causes basal-cell carcinoma.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: To diagnose basal-cell carcinomas, a skin biopsy is performed for histopathologic analyses. The most common method is a shave biopsy under local anesthesia. Most nodular basal-cell cancers can be diagnosed clinically; however, other variants can be very difficult to distinguish from benign lesions such as intradermal naevus, sebaceomas, fibrous papules, early acne scars, and hypertrophic scarring. Exfoliative cytology methods have high sensitivity and specificity for confirming the diagnosis of basal cell carcinoma when clinical suspicion is high but unclear usefulness otherwise.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell carcinoma cells appear similar to epidermal basal cells, and are usually well differentiated.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: In uncertain cases, immunohistochemistry using BerEP4 can be used, having a high sensitivity and specificity in detecting only BCC cells.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Nodular basal-cell carcinoma (also known as "classic basal-cell carcinoma") accounts for 50% of all BCC. It most commonly occurs on the sun-exposed areas of the head and neck. Histopathology shows aggregates of basaloid cells with well-defined borders, showing a peripheral palisading of cells and one or more typical clefts. Such clefts are caused by shrinkage of mucin during tissue fixation and staining. Central necrosis with eosinophilic, granular features may be also present, as well as mucin. The heavy aggregates of mucin determine a cystic structure. Calcification may be also present, especially in long-standing lesions. Mitotic activity is usually not so evident, but a high mitotic rate may be present in more aggressive lesions. Adenoidal BCC can be classified as a variant of NBCC, characterized by basaloid cells with a reticulated configuration extending into the dermis.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: In suspected but uncertain BCC cells close to the resection margins, immunohistochemistry with BerEp4 can highlight the BCC cells.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell carcinoma is a common skin cancer and occurs mainly in fair-skinned patients with a family history of this cancer. Sunlight is a factor in about two-thirds of these cancers; therefore, doctors recommend sunscreens with at least SPF 30. However, a Cochrane review examining the effect of solar protection (sunscreen only) in preventing the development of basal-cell carcinoma or cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma found that there was insufficient evidence to demonstrate whether sunscreen was effective for the prevention of either of these keratinocyte-derived cancers. The review did ultimately state that the certainty of these results was low, so future evidence could very well alter this conclusion. One-third occur in non-sun-exposed areas; thus, the pathogenesis is more complex than UV exposure as "the" cause.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: The use of a chemotherapeutic agent such as 5-Fluorouracil or imiquimod can prevent the development of skin cancer. It is usually recommended to individuals with extensive sun damage, history of multiple skin cancers, or rudimentary forms of cancer (i.e., solar keratosis). It is often repeated every 2 to 3 years to further decrease the risk of skin cancer.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Surgery to remove the basal-cell carcinoma affected area and the surrounding skin is thought to be the most effective treatment. A disadvantage with standard surgical excision is a reported higher recurrence rate of basal-cell cancers of the face, especially around the eyelids, nose, and facial structures. There is no clear approach, nor a clear research comparing the effectiveness of Mohs micrographic surgery versus surgical excision for BCC of the eye.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: For basal cell carcinoma excisions on the lower lip the wound can be covered with a keystone flap. A keystone flap is achieved by creating a flap below the defect and pulling it superiorly to cover the wound. This can be performed if there is enough skin laxity to cover the defect and adequate blood supply to the flap.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: For many new (primary) and all recurrent forms of basal cell carcinoma after previous surgery, especially on the head, neck, hands, feet, genitalia and anterior legs (shins), Mohs surgery should be considered.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Mohs surgery (or Mohs micrographic surgery) is an outpatient procedure, developed by Frederic E. Mohs in the 1930s, in which the tumor is surgically excised and then immediately examined under a microscope. It is a form of pathology processing called CCPDMA, which means that the entire surgical margin (both edges and deep) is examined. During the surgery, after each removal of tissue and while the patient waits, the tissue is examined for cancer cells. That examination dictates the decision for additional tissue removal. Mohs surgery is also used for squamous-cell carcinoma, melanoma, atypical fibroxanthoma, dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, Merkel cell carcinoma, microcystic adnexal carcinoma, and multiple other skin cancers; usually with cure rates higher than for other surgical and non-surgical treatments.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: An essential aspect of Mohs surgery is that the Mohs surgeon performs the surgery and personally reviews the Mohs pathology slides. Most standard excisions done in an office setting are sent to an outside laboratory for standard bread loafing method of processing. With this method, it is likely that less than 5% of the surgical margin is examined, as each slice of tissue is only 6 micrometres thick, about 3 to 4 serial slices are obtained per section, and only about 3 to 4 sections are obtained per specimen.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Cryosurgery is an old modality for the treatment of many skin cancers. When accurately utilized with a temperature probe and cryotherapy instruments, it can result in very good cure rate. Disadvantages include lack of margin control, tissue necrosis, over or under treatment of the tumor, and long recovery time. Overall, there are sufficient data to consider cryosurgery as a reasonable treatment for BCC. There are no good studies, however, comparing cryosurgery with other modalities, particularly with Mohs surgery, excision, or electrodesiccation and curettage so that no conclusion can be made whether cryosurgery is as efficacious as other methods. Also, there is no evidence on whether curetting the lesions before cryosurgery affects the efficacy of treatment. Several textbooks are published on the therapy, and a few physicians still apply the treatment to selected patients.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Electrodesiccation and curettage (EDC, also known as curettage and cautery, simply curettage) is accomplished by using a round knife, or curette, to scrape away the soft cancer. The skin is then burned with an electric current. This further softens the skin, allowing for the knife to cut more deeply with the next layer of curettage. The cycle is repeated, with a safety margin of curettage of normal skin around the visible tumor. This cycle is repeated 3 to 5 times, and the free skin margin treated is usually 4 to 6 mm. Cure rate is very much user-dependent and depends also on the size and type of tumor. Infiltrative or morpheaform BCCs can be difficult to eradicate with EDC. Generally, this method is used on cosmetically unimportant areas like the trunk (torso). Some physicians believe that it is acceptable to utilize EDC on the face of elderly patients over the age of 70. However, with increasing life expectancy, such an objective criterion cannot be supported. The cure rate can vary, depending on the aggressiveness of the EDC and the free margin treated. Some advocate curettage alone without electrodesiccation, and with the same cure rate.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Some superficial cancers respond to local therapy with 5-fluorouracil, a chemotherapy agent. One can expect a great deal of inflammation with this treatment. Chemotherapy often follows Mohs surgery to eliminate the residual superficial basal-cell carcinoma after the invasive portion is removed. 5-fluorouracil has received FDA approval.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Removing the residual superficial tumor with surgery alone can result in large and difficult to repair surgical defects. One often waits a month or more after surgery before starting the inmunotherapy or chemotherapy to make sure the surgical wound has adequately healed. Some people advocate the use of curettage (see EDC below) first, followed by chemotherapy. These experimental procedures are not standard care.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Vismodegib and sonidegib are drugs approved for specially treating BCC, but are expensive and cannot be used in pregnant women.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Itraconazole, traditionally an anti-fungal medication, has also garnered recent attention for its potential use in the treatment of BCC, especially those that cannot be removed surgically. Possessing anti-Hedgehog pathway activity, there is clinical evidence that itraconazole has some efficacy either alone or when combined with vismodegib/sonidegib for primary and recurrent BCC. There is one case report of efficacy in metastatic BCC.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: This technique uses the body's immune system to kill cancer cells. Improvement of the immune system works its way out up to the cancerous cells and treat the skin cancer.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Topical treatment with 5% Imiquimod cream (IMQ), with five applications per week for six weeks has a reported 70–90% success rate at reducing, even removing, the BCC [basal-cell carcinoma]. Imiquimod has received FDA approval, and topical IMQ is approved by the European Medicines Agency for treatment of small superficial basal-cell carcinoma. Off label use of imiquimod on invasive basal-cell carcinoma has been reported. Imiquimod may be used prior to surgery in order to reduce the size of the carcinoma.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Some advocate the use of imiquimod prior to Mohs surgery to remove the superficial component of the cancer.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Research suggests that treatment using Euphorbia peplus, a common garden weed, may be effective. Australian biopharmaceutical company Peplin is developing this as topical treatment for BCC.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Radiation therapy can be delivered either as external beam radiotherapy or as brachytherapy (mostly internal radiotherapy). Although radiotherapy is generally used in older patients who are not candidates for surgery, it is also used in cases where surgical excision will be disfiguring or difficult to reconstruct (especially on the tip of the nose, and the nostril rims). Radiation treatment with external radiation often takes as few as 5 visits to as many as 25 visits. Usually, the more visits scheduled for therapy, the less complication or damage is done to the normal tissue supporting the tumor. Radiotherapy can also be useful if surgical excision has been done incompletely or if the pathology report following surgery suggests a high risk of recurrence, for example if nerve involvement has been demonstrated. Cure rate can be as high as 95% for small tumor, or as low as 80% for large tumors. A variation of an external brachytherapy is the epidermal radioisotope therapy (e.g. with Re in form of the Rhenium-SCT). It is used in accordance to the general indications for brachytherapy and especially complex localisations or structures (e.g. earlobe) as well as the genitals.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Usually, recurrent tumors after radiation are treated with surgery, and not with radiation. Further radiation treatment will further damage normal tissue, and the tumor might be resistant to further radiation. Radiation therapy may be contraindicated for treatment of nevoid basal-cell carcinoma syndrome. A 2008 study reported that radiation therapy is appropriate for primary BCCs and recurrent BCCs, but not for BCCs that have recurred following previous radiation treatment.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a new modality for treatment of basal-cell carcinoma, which is administrated by application of photosensitizers to the target area. When these molecules are activated by light, they become toxic, therefore destroy the target cells. Methyl aminolevulinate is approved by EU as a photosensitizer since 2001. This therapy is also used in other skin cancer types. The 2008 study reported that PDT was a good treatment option for primary superficial BCCs and reasonable for primary low-risk nodular BCCs but a "relatively poor" option for high-risk lesions.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Prognosis is excellent if the appropriate method of treatment is used in early primary basal-cell cancers. Recurrent cancers are much harder to cure, with a higher recurrent rate with any methods of treatment. Although basal-cell carcinoma rarely metastasizes, it grows locally with invasion and destruction of local tissues. The cancer can impinge on vital structures like nerves and result in loss of sensation or loss of function or rarely death. The vast majority of cases can be successfully treated before serious complications occur. The recurrence rate for the above treatment options ranges from 50 percent to 1 percent or less.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Basal-cell cancer is a very common skin cancer. It is much more common in fair-skinned individuals with a family history of basal-cell cancer and increases in incidence closer to the equator or at higher altitude. It is very common among elderly people over the age of 80. There are approximately 800,000 new cases yearly in the United States alone. Up to 30% of white people develop basal-cell carcinomas in their lifetime. In Canada, the most common skin cancer is basal-cell carcinoma (as much as one third of all cancer diagnoses), affecting 1 in 7 individuals over a lifetime.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: In the United States approximately 3 out of 10 White people develop a basal-cell carcinoma during their lifetime. This tumor accounts for approximately 70% of non-melanoma skin cancers. In 80 percent of all cases, basal-cell carcinoma affects the skin of head and neck. Furthermore, there appears to be an increase in the incidence of basal-cell cancer of the trunk in recent years.


title: Basal-cell carcinoma

text: Most sporadic BCC arises in small numbers on sun-exposed skin of people over age 50, although younger people may also be affected. The development of multiple basal-cell cancer at an early age could be indicative of nevoid basal-cell carcinoma syndrome, also known as Gorlin Syndrome.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible is a 2021 documentary film directed by Torquil Jones, and produced by Noah Media Group, Little Monster Films and Torquil Jones with Nirmal Purja, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Vasarhelyi as executive producers. The film follows Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja and his team as they attempt to climb all 14 eight thousander peaks within a record time of under 7 months. (The previous record was over 7 years.)


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: A significant portion of the footage was taken by the expedition team, while additional images and interviews were added later by the director, including interviews with Reinhold Messner (who called the feat "a unique statement in the history of mountaineering"), and other major high-altitude mountaineers, and Purja's family (including his wife and brothers). The film premiered at the DOC NYC Film Festival, and was released on Netflix on 29 November 2021.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: The documentary is about "Project Possible", a plan by Nepali high altitude climber Nirmal Purja to climb all of the world's 14 highest peaks with an altitude greater than (called eight-thousanders) inside 7 months (i.e. from late spring to late summer, before the winter season begins). The actual climbing took 6 months and 6 days between April 2019 to October 2019. The first person to climb the 14 eight-thousanders was Italian climber Reinhold Messner who took 16 years between 1970 and 1986 and completed the feat without the use of supplementary oxygen. By 2013, the feat had been achieved in 7 years and 310 days by South Korean climber Kim Chang, who also did not use supplementary oxygen. Purja decided to use oxygen above for "Project Possible" based on prior experiences when not using oxygen on past eight-thousander climbs would have stopped him from saving the lives of stricken climbers (something he ended up doing several times during the project). In 2021, when leading a larger all-Nepali team to complete the first winter ascent of K2, Purja did not use oxygen.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: Messner appears several times in the film talking about eight-thousanders and what Purja was trying to do; Purja met Messner after suffering a bad fall on Nanga Parbat but Messner gave him encouragement to keep going, with Purja recounting: "He looked into my eyes and said, 'You can do it'. He told me to my face, and he hadn't even seen my climb. When he did the 8000-ers, the whole mountaineering community was against him, but he proved the concept. He did it when the world couldn't see his vision".


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: The documentary begins in April 2019, with Purja attempting Annapurna, statistically, the most dangerous eight-thousander. Purja joins with Canadian climber Don Bowie who has failed several times on the Annapurna. However, Purja encourages Bowie to come with his team and they are successful summiting on 23 April, with Bowie saying "This guy believed they were gonna do it, and they pushed thru". The following day, Purja returns up the mountain to rescue a stricken climber (later identified as Malaysian climber Wui Kin Chin) which is successful (although Chin would die days later in Singapore). The rescue meant Purja lost his "weather window" for Dhaulagiri, which his team summits in bad weather on 12 May. Purja then summits Kanchenjunga on 15 May in a single 22-hour push passing all camps. While descending from the summit, at and still in the death zone, Purja and his team encounter two stricken Indian climbers (later identified as Kuntal Karar and Biplab Baidya); despite giving them all their oxygen and waiting for 12 hours for help which never arrives, one dies in Purja's arms, while the other succumbs at camp 4 – Purja suffers HACE helping a third lost climber.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: Behind schedule and questioning himself after the deaths on Annapurna and Kanchenjunga, Purja summits the three neighboring eight-thousanders of Everest on 22 May, Lhotse on 22 May, and Makalu on 24 May, in a record 48-hour push, taking a photograph of a large queue that had formed at the Hillary Step on Everest, which went viral and was re-printed on the front of the "New York Times". The film breaks back to the period before the climbing started, with interviews from Purja's wife and brothers about his early life and career in the Gurkas and the Special Boat Squadron (SBS), and the sacrifices and financial risks that Purja took to create "Project Possible". We also learn that his mother is unwell, and of a near-death experience from a sniper bullet to the face while on duty with the SBS.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: Purja then moves to the Karakoram eight-thousanders summiting Nanga Parbat on 3 July, but taking a fall while descending that was only arrested when he managed to grab hold of a random fixed rope that had been left behind. Purja tells the camera: "I always say to myself, I'm not going to die today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today". He then summits Gasherbrum I on 15 July and Gasherbrum II 18 July. When Purja arrives at K2 (also one of most dangerous eight-thousanders), spirits at Base Camp are very low, and high levels of avalanches meant that most teams are preparing to abandon their climbs. Purja's team breaks out some bottles and has a party to lift spirits. The next day, Purja and his team begin climbing K2 and lay down fixed ropes in the dangerous "Bottleneck" section of the climb at 1 am (when the snow is hardest and at its most stable). Purja summits K2 on 24 July, and over the next two days, 24 other climbers use the fixed ropes laid down by his team to summit the mountain. Two days later, Purja summits Broad Peak on 26 July, thus completing a 23-day push to climb the 5 eight-thousanders in the Karakoram.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: Purja rushes back to Kathmandu to be with his mother who has suffered a heart attack. He then returns to summit Cho Oyu on 23 September, and Manaslu on 27 September. He then spends a few weeks lobbying Nepali politicians to help him secure a permit from the Chinese to climb Shishapangma in Tibet, which he successfully summits on 29 October 2019. Purja calls his now dying mother from the summit "we did it". Later we see Purja reunited with his mother and the world's media to celebrate the conclusion of his "Project Possible".


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: Purja told "Climbing" that "Project Possible" was a way of countering the constant skepticism he encountered before starting, and particularly raising sponsorship for the project, as he struggled to convince investors that his goals were realistic and that he was the climber to achieve them. When he summited the first peak, Annapurna I on 23 April 2019, Purja had only locked down 15 percent of the financing he needed, and most of this money had come from remortgaging his own UK house. However, as the climbing developed, Purja was able to raise funds both through GoFundMe campaigns, and corporate sponsorship (e.g. rebranding the project as "Bremont Project Possible"). Purja told Redbull, "It's been one financial risk after the other", and "I always say this project has been 'horrifically amazing'".


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: During the project, Purja was supported by a rotating team of Nepalese climbers, several of whom are introduced in the film, including Mingma David Sherpa, Geljen Sherpa, Lakpa Dendi Sherpa, and Gesman Tamang, however, only Purja would complete the summit of all 14 eight-thousanders during the film.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible" was compiled from the 100 hours of footage taken by Purja and the Nepalese climbing team from April to October 2019. Director Torquil Jones combined Purja's footage, archive footage, animation, and interviews. British-Indian composer Nainita Desai composed the film's score. "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible" is produced by Torquil Jones, and executively produced by Nirmal Purja, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi under the banner of Noah Media Group, Little Monster Films.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible"'s trailer was released on 2 November 2021. The film was first premiered at the DOC NYC Film Festival. It was released worldwide on 29 November 2021 on Netflix streaming.


title: 14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible

text: On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 90% based on 10 reviews. Lisa Kennedy of "The New York Times" praised the film writing, the film "expands a genre often focused on the feats of individuals to celebrate lessons about vast dreams and communal bonds". The "Los Angeles Times"'s Gary Goldstein noted that "14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible" is a "uniquely stirring journey". Nell Minow writing for "RogerEbert.com" gave the film 3 out of 4 stars and penned that Nirmal Purja and his team "deserve to be as renowned as Sir Edmund Hillary, maybe more". Gary M. Kramer of "Salon" enthused over the film as it "motivates viewers to get off the couch and go climb a mountain". Pasang Dorjee of "The Kathmandu Post" said that he was awestruck "by the wonders that lie within your own country is a uniquely mesmerising feeling" and praised Nirmal Purja for his "courage, perseverance, and tenacity". Abhishek Srivastava of "The Times of India" applauded the film for carrying "a very strong message of teamwork, perseverance, dedication and national pride".


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The Hare Krishna mantra, also referred to reverentially as the ("Great Mantra"), is a 16-word Vaishnava mantra which is mentioned in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad and which from the 15th century rose to importance in the Bhakti movement following the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. This mantra is composed of three Sanskrit names – "Krishna", "Rama", and "Hare".


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: Since the 1960s, the mantra has been made well known outside India by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and his movement, International Society for Krishna Consciousness (commonly known as the "Hare Krishnas" or the Hare Krishna movement).


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The Hare Krishna mantra is composed of Sanskrit names: "Hare", "Krishna," and "Rama" (in Anglicized spelling). It is a poetic stanza in meter (a quatrain of four lines () of eight syllables with certain syllable lengths for some of the syllables).


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The mantra as rendered in the oldest extant written source, the Kali-Saṇṭāraṇa Upaniṣad, is as follows:


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: When followers of Sri Krishna Chaitanya Mahaprabhu teach and practice the Mahamantra, it is rendered with the name Krishna first.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: This mantra has multiple interpretations, all of which may be considered as correct. "Hare" can be interpreted as the vocative form of "Hari", another name of Vishnu meaning "he who removes illusion". Another interpretation is as the vocative of , a name of Rādhā, Krishna's eternal consort or his energy (Krishna's ). According to A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, refers to "the energy/shakti of Supreme Personality of Godhead" while "Krishna" and "Rama" refer to Supreme Godhead himself, meaning "He who is All-Attractive" and "He who is the Source of All Pleasure". In the hymn spoken by Bhishma in praise of Krishna after the Kurukshetra War, Krishna is also called "Rama".


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: It is sometimes believed that "Rama" in "Hare Rama" means "Radharamana" or the beloved of Radha (another name for Kṛṣṇa). The more common interpretation is that Rāma refers to Rama of the Ramayana, an earlier avatar of Krishna. "Rama can also be a shortened form of Balarama, Krishna's first expansion." The mantra is repeated, either sung out loud (bhajan), congregationally (kirtan), or to oneself aloud or mentally on prayer beads made of Tulasi (japa). A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami describes the process of chanting the Maha Mantra as follows:


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The mantra is first attested in the (Kali Santarana Upanishads), an Upanishad, which is commented on by Raghunandan Bhattacharya in his work . In this Upanishad, Narada is instructed by Brahma (in the translation of K. N. Aiyar):


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: Emic tradition claims that the mantra was popularized by Chaitanya Mahaprabhu roughly around 1500 A.D. when he began his mission to spread Harinam publicly to "every town and village" in the world, traveling throughout India, and especially within the areas of Bengal and Odisha. Some versions of the Kali Santarana Upanishad give the mantra with "Hare Rama" preceding "Hare Krishna" (as quoted above), and others with "Hare Krishna" preceding "Hare Rama", as in Navadvipa version of the manuscript. The latter format is by far the more common within the Vaishnava traditions. It is a common belief that the mantra is equally potent when spoken in either order.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, a devotee of Krishna in disciplic succession, on the order of his guru, Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati, brought the teachings of Sri Chaitanya from Bharat (India) and single-handedly took the responsibility of spreading them around the Western world. Beginning in New York City 1965, he encircled the globe fourteen times in the final eleven years of his life, thus making 'Hare Krishna' a well-known phrase in many parts of the world.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The Hare Krishna mantra appears in a number of famous songs, notably those of George Harrison. His first solo single "My Sweet Lord" topped charts around the world in 1970–71. Harrison put a Hare Krishna sticker on the back of the headstock of Eric Clapton's 1964 Gibson ES-335; the sticker also appears on Gibson's 2005 reproduction of the guitar.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: Produced by Harrison, Radha Krishna Temple's recording "Hare Krishna Mantra" was issued as a single on the Beatles' Apple record label in 1969. The single was a commercial success, peaking at number 12 in the UK, and led to the Temple devotees appearing on the popular British music chart television programme "Top of the Pops".


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The Broadway musical "Hair" has a song, "Hare Krishna", containing the mantra, along with some additional lyrics.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The mantra also prominently appears in Jesus Loves You's "Bow Down Mister" (1990) and in the Pretenders' "Boots of Chinese Plastic" from their 2008 album, "Break Up the Concrete". Stevie Wonder used the devotees chanting Hare Krishna in his song "Pastime Paradise".


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: Less well-known recordings of the Hare Krishna mantra include versions by the Fugs on their 1968 album Tenderness Junction (featuring poet Allen Ginsberg), by Nina Hagen, in multiple songs by English psychedelic rock band Quintessence (produced by John Barham, a frequent collaborator of George Harrison) and by Hüsker Dü on their 1984 album "Zen Arcade". Kula Shaker, Boy George, and members of the Rubettes have recorded music tracks about Krishna Consciousness.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: In a 2010 experimental study involving both devotees and non-devotees, singing vowels like "ah" and "eh" was found to be more joyful than singing vowels like "oh" and "uh", possibly due to a facial feedback effect.


title: Hare Krishna (mantra)

text: The practice of chanting the Hare Krishna mantra is recommended in the Puranas, the Pancharatra, and throughout Vaishnava literature in general. For example:


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: "Ring a Ring o' Roses", "Ring a Ring o' Rosie", or (in the United States) "Ring Around the Rosie", is a traditional nursery rhyme, folk song and playground singing game. Descriptions first emerge in the mid-19th century, but are reported as dating from decades before, and similar rhymes are known from across Europe. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 7925.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: The lyrics vary, but a modern interpretation based on modern lyrics that related the words to the plague in England became widespread post-WWII, even though it appears to be a false folk etymology.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: It is unknown what the earliest wording of the rhyme was or when it began. Many versions of the game have a group of children form a ring, dance in a circle around a person, and stoop or curtsy with the final line. The slowest child to do so is faced with a penalty or becomes the "rosie" (literally: rose tree, from the French "rosier") and takes their place in the center of the ring.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Some versions replace the third line with "Red Bird Blue Bird", "Green Grass-Yellow Grass" or substitute as ending "Sweet bread, rye bread,/ Squat!" Godey's Lady's Book (1882) explains what happens here, giving the variation as "One, two, three—squat!" Before the last line, the children stop suddenly, then exclaim it together, "suiting the action to the word with unfailing hilarity and complete satisfaction".


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Variations, corruptions, and vulgarized versions were noted to be in use long before the earliest printed publications. One such variation was dated to be in use in Connecticut in the 1840s. A novel of 1855, "The Old Homestead" by Ann S. Stephens, records the variation


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Another early record of the rhyme was in Kate Greenaway's "Mother Goose; or, the Old Nursery Rhymes" (1881):


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: In his "Games and Songs of American Children" (1883), William Wells Newell reports several variants, one of which he provides with a melody and dates to New Bedford, Massachusetts around 1790:


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Newell writes that "[a]t the end of the words the children suddenly stoop, and the last to get down undergoes some penalty, or has to take the place of the child in the centre, who represents the 'rosie' (rose-tree; French, "rosier")." A different penalty was recorded in an 1846 article from the "Brooklyn Eagle" describing the game named "Ring o' Roses". A group of young children form a ring, from which a boy takes out a girl and kisses her.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: On the last line "they stand and imitate sneezing". In their "Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes" the Opies record similar variations over time.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: A German rhyme first printed in 1796 closely resembles "Ring a ring o' roses" in its first stanza and accompanies the same actions (with sitting rather than falling as the concluding action):


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Loosely translated this says: "Round about in rings / We children three/ Sit beneath an elderbush / And 'Shoo, shoo, shoo' go we!" The rhyme (as in the popular collection "Des Knaben Wunderhorn") is well known in Germany and has many local variants.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: – in translation: "A ring, a ring o' roses,/ Lovely apricots,/ Violets blue, forget-me-nots,/ Sit down, children all!"


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Swiss versions have the children dancing round a rosebush. Other European singing games with a strong resemblance include ""Roze, roze, meie"" ("Rose, rose, May") from The Netherlands with a similar tune to "Ring a ring o' roses" and ""Gira, gira rosa"" ("Circle, circle, rose"), recorded in Venice in 1874, in which girls danced around the girl in the middle who skipped and curtsied as demanded by the verses and at the end kissed the one she liked best, so choosing her for the middle.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: The origins and meanings of the game have long been unknown and subject to speculation. Folklore scholars, however, regard the Great Plague explanation, that has been the most common since the mid-20th century, as baseless.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: In 1898, "A Dictionary of British Folklore" contained the belief that an explanation of the game was of pagan origin, based on the "Sheffield Glossary" comparison of Jacob Grimm's "Deutsche Mythologie". The theory states that it is in reference to Pagan myths and cited a passage which states, "Gifted children of fortune have the power to laugh roses, as Freyja wept gold." It claimed the first instance to be indicative of pagan beings of light. Another suggestion is more literal, that it was making a "ring" around the roses and bowing with the "all fall down" as a curtsy. In 1892, the American writer, Eugene Field wrote a poem titled "Teeny-Weeny" that specifically referred to fay folk playing ring-a-rosie.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: According to "Games and Songs of American Children", published in 1883, the "rosie" was a reference to the French word for rose tree and the children would dance and stoop to the person in the center. Variations, especially more literal ones, were identified and noted with the literal falling down that would sever the connections to the game-rhyme. Again in 1898, sneezing was then noted to be indicative of many superstitious and supernatural beliefs across differing cultures.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: Since after the Second World War, the rhyme has often been associated with the Great Plague which happened in England in 1665, or with earlier outbreaks of the bubonic plague in England. Interpreters of the rhyme before World War II make no mention of this; by 1951, however, it seems to have become well established as an explanation for the form of the rhyme that had become standard in the United Kingdom. Peter and Iona Opie, the leading authorities on nursery rhymes, remarked:


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: The line "Ashes, Ashes" in colonial versions of the rhyme is claimed to refer variously to cremation of the bodies, the burning of victims' houses, or blackening of their skin, and the theory has been adapted to be applied to other versions of the rhyme.


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: In its various forms, the interpretation has entered into popular culture and has been used elsewhere to make oblique reference to the plague. In 1949, a parodist composed a version alluding to radiation sickness:


title: Ring a Ring o' Roses

text: In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, the traditional rhyme was jokingly proposed as the "ideal choice" of song to accompany hand-washing in order to ward off infection.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: The second season of "Fargo", an American anthology black comedy–crime drama television series created by Noah Hawley, premiered on October 12, 2015, on the basic cable network FX. Its principal cast is Kirsten Dunst, Patrick Wilson, Jesse Plemons, Jean Smart, and Ted Danson. The ten-episode season's finale aired on December 14, 2015. As an anthology, each "Fargo" season possesses its own self-contained narrative, following a disparate set of characters in various settings.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: A prequel to the events in its first season, season two of "Fargo" takes place in the Upper Midwest in March 1979. It follows the lives of a young couple—Peggy (Dunst) and Ed Blumquist (Plemons)—as they attempt to cover up the hit and run and homicide of Rye Gerhardt (Kieran Culkin), the son of Floyd Gerhardt (Smart), matriarch of the Gerhardt crime family. During this time, Minnesota state trooper Lou Solverson (Wilson), and Rock County sheriff Hank Larsson (Danson), investigate three homicides linked to Rye.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Cristin Milioti, Brad Garrett, Elizabeth Marvel, Jeffrey Donovan, Rachel Keller, Zahn McClarnon, Angus Sampson, Bokeem Woodbine, and Nick Offerman all make recurring appearances. Kieran Culkin guest stars.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Hawley and his writing team used the second season to expand the scope of the show's storytelling. Season two's episodes were shot in Calgary, Alberta over an 85-day period. The series received widespread critical acclaim and was cited as one of the strongest programs of the 2015 television season. It was a candidate for a multitude of awards, including the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Series and Golden Globe Award for Best Miniseries or Television Film, and won several other honors recognizing outstanding achievement in acting, directing, writing, cinematography, editing, special effects, and creative direction.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Details of a new season first emerged in the media following a Television Critics Association (TCA) press event, and by July 21, 2014, FX commissioned ten episodes for "Fargo" second season.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: As an anthology, each season of "Fargo" is engineered to have a self-contained narrative, following a disparate set of characters in various settings. Noah Hawley and his team of writers used the second season to expand the scope of the show's storytelling—from its narrative to its characters. They increased the show's cast of core characters to five, each with interconnecting arcs and different viewpoints of the central story. Hawley wanted viewers to sympathize with characters they might not feel empathy for in real life. The producers at one point discussed revisiting a modern period for their story. Ultimately, their vision—inspired by "Miller's Crossing" (1990) and "The Man Who Wasn't There" (2001), in addition to the show's namesake film (1996)—was realized as a prequel that takes place 27 years before the events of the first season of "Fargo" (set in 2006) in 1979, rotating between Luverne, Minnesota, Fargo, North Dakota and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. According to Hawley, the change in the time period helped to develop a sense of turbulence and violence in a world that "could not be more fractured and complicated and desperate".


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: A principal cast of five actors received star billing in the show's second season. Hawley did not tailor his characters with any specific actors in mind, though Nick Offerman, Brad Garrett, Patrick Wilson and Kirsten Dunst were among the few he considered for starring roles in the season's early stages. The search for talent was sometimes an exhaustive process that required advertising via custom built websites and social media. Once actors were hired, their agents were made aware of the frigid shooting conditions and any issues with the location and potential scheduling conflicts during production were discussed. Hawley discussed the script with actors who had little experience in the television industry. "They're used to reading the whole story but you've given them one or two hours of it," he remarked. Once hired, the actors trained with a dialect coach to master a Minnesota accent.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Dunst and Jesse Plemons were the season's first lead castings (as Peggy and Ed Blumquist) in December 2014. Dunst found out about the project through her agency, and read scripts for two episodes, viewed "Fargo" first season, and its namesake film, before securing her role. The actress recalled, "I was so impressed by the way it looked, the writing; it was such high-quality television." Plemons came to Hawley's attention for his work in "Friday Night Lights" (2006–11) and "Breaking Bad" (2008–13). Hawley thought that the actor's bulky physique, weight he had gained previously for "Black Mass" (2015), captured the cow-like deportment of his character. Plemons said that he had trouble interpreting his role initially because he "was worried that [being cow-like] meant dumb and just went along with whatever his wife said".


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Wilson, Ted Danson, and Jean Smart completed the principal cast by January 2015. Wilson appeared as officer Lou Solverson, Danson as sheriff Hank Larsson, and Smart as Floyd Gerhardt, the matriarch of the Gerhardt crime family. Wilson's casting was unique because he was the only performer to portray an already established character; Keith Carradine played Lou for the show's first season, set 27 years after the events of season two. As such, Hawley did not want to take cues from Carradine because Lou was "at a different point" in his life, although Wilson analyzed Carradine's performance to a point. Wilson was persuaded by "Fargo" critical accolades and commercial success; the actor said: "There have been several times that you've given your heart and soul to an independent film and more often than not it doesn't match up to any commercial success or people seeing your film. So [my wife and agent] were like, 'You need to do something that people see'." Danson found learning the Minnesota accent difficult; to improve, he began practicing as soon as he was signed, often on set before filming began. Smart's role required an older look, which producers achieved by cutting and dyeing her hair, and Hawley gave the actress a book of paintings by Andrew Wyeth to explain her character.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: An ensemble of 20 actors make up the bulk of the series' cast. Hawley found ensembles enticing because they presented "a lot of really good moving pieces". At Paleyfest 2015, the "Fargo" creator commented: "It's sort of like a horse race in a way, especially when you know that everyone is on this collision course. It's like, 'Who's going to make it?' And you can put people together in unexpected pairings." Offerman played Karl Weathers, an alcoholic and the only lawyer in Luverne, and Cristin Milioti was assigned the part of Betsy Solverson, Lou's terminally ill wife. Hawley felt that Milioti was the right choice because her personality was similar to her character's. Garrett portrays Joe Bulo, and Bokeem Woodbine appears as Mike Milligan, a role he was offered two days after auditioning. For the role of Hanzee Dent, Hawley hired Zahn McClarnon two weeks after his audition. Six others play members of the Gerhardts: Kieran Culkin as Rye, Rachel Keller as Simone, Michael Hogan as Otto, Allan Dobrescu as Charlie, Angus Sampson as Bear, and Jeffrey Donovan as Dodd. When asked about his decision to cast Donovan, Hawley told the actor, "I don't know. You just come off with a sense of power. I think Dodd comes off with a sense of power, and I thought that you have the chops to find the humor in it." Donovan gained 30 pounds in preparation for his role. Other major supporting roles in "Fargo" second season include: Bruce Campbell as Ronald Reagan, Keir O'Donnell as Ben Schmidt, and Elizabeth Marvel as Constance Heck.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Preliminary scouting was well underway by the time "Fargo" was renewed. Principal photography began in Calgary, Alberta on January 19, 2015, and took 85 days. The city's central business district and Kensington neighborhood doubled for Kansas City, Sioux Falls, and Luverne. Production crew constructed the Waffle Hut set on the CL Ranch in neighboring Springbank. Elsewhere in the area, shooting took place in Didsbury, High River, Fort Macleod, and St. Mary's University. Initially, the weather posed a challenge for the production because it was too warm for snow. To solve this problem, the production crew brought snow to the set from nearby mountains.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Continuing his services from the prior season, Dana Gonzales oversaw production of the show's second season. The cinematographer took cues from William Eggleston to develop a retro visual palette. To achieve this quality, Gonzales relied on vintage practical lighting technology, and captured scenes with an Arri ALEXA camera, retrofitted with vintage Cooke lenses. In one section of Calgary where they were filming, production staff replaced each sodium-lamp street light with tungsten light bulbs, creating an ambience that "pulls the audience into the world when the story takes place". Also, once Hawley analyzed the 1968 thriller film "The Boston Strangler", split screen effects were employed to help streamline the narrative during transitions. Gonzales said: "We felt that split-screen would be an incredible way to track all these characters and locations within the episode: Where's the Gerhardt family? Where are the guys from Kansas City? Where's Peggy? Where's Ed?"


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Costume designer Carol Case and Hawley worked closely together to develop "Fargo" costumes. Case saw the show as a big undertaking because of her desire to capture the "specific feeling" of 1970s fashion. Starting "from scratch", the design team sought to create a "really small-town America[n]" style for most of the show's wardrobe. They also felt that it was important to distinguish the style of the rural characters, who at that time were largely unaware of fashion trends, from that of the urban characters. For the urban characters, Case used clothes she bought from New York to create a more polished, sleek look. Though "Fargo" producers bought a few pieces months in advance of production, sourcing vintage wear proved to be daunting, especially for cold weather, since much of the available supply was inadequately insulated. As a consequence, many costumes, such as Dunst's, were either modified by adding insulation, or created anew by the design team. Some modern pieces were used for footwear and accessories.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Leading music production of the second season of "Fargo" were composer Jeff Russo and newly appointed music supervisor Marguerite Phillips. Phillips was hired immediately after her first meeting with Hawley, in a text which she received as she left the building. Together, they brainstormed ideas on the season's musical direction; progressive rock, krautrock, Jethro Tull, and The Runaways were among several early suggestions. Phillips spent months conducting research, "dicking around and 'going down rabbit holes'" for the obscure music choices, until ultimately narrowing down the selection of music from a master playlist. Russo employed various compositional and recording techniques to build a distinctive retro sound. The soundtrack features songs by: Lisa Hannigan, Billy Thorpe "Children of the Sun", Burl Ives, Cris Williamson, Devo, Jeff Wayne, Yamasuki, Blitzen Trapper, Shakey Graves, White Denim, and Bobby Womack, as well as one cover version—Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Gillian Welch's "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby" performed by Hawley. The use of "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath in the opening scenes of the season finale received acclaim. Russo also recorded music with the University of Southern California (USC) marching band at Hawley's request.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: "Fargo" premiered to 1.59 million U.S. viewers; 609,000 were in the 18–49 demographic. Viewership was down by 40% after the series premiere, and 19% from the season one finale. From then on, ratings for the second season fell in the 1.13 to the 1.32 million range until the final episode, which peaked with 1.82 million viewers.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: "Fargo" was considered among the best television shows of 2015 by the American press. The season also holds the rare distinction of having each episode maintain a perfect 100% rating as well. Metacritic gives the season a score of 96, based on 33 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". It was the highest rated TV show of the year on the same site, as well as the 20th highest of all time.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: Christopher Orr of "The Atlantic" called "Fargo" "smart, thrilling, imaginative television, in addition to being wicked funny", in which Hawley assumes greater narrative dimension and assurance in his vision. Matthew Gilbert from "The Boston Globe" identified the dialog, acting, cinematography, music, set design and directing as its most satisfying attributes. So too did "The Hollywood Reporter" Tim Goodman, who believed that said qualities "make a very riveting and entertaining dark comedy spectacle". Neil Genzlinger, writing for "The New York Times", said that "Fargo" marries deadpan humor, violence, and "observational oddity" in a way unmatched by similar dramas. In his review for "Variety", Brian Lowry believed that despite the show's brisk pace, Hawley nonetheless adds depth to his story. Dan Jardine of "Slant Magazine" agreed and thought that the narrative complexity is what distinguishes season two from "Fargo" freshman season. "Rolling Stone" Rob Sheffield felt that "Fargo" painted "a fascinating portrait of America at the crossroads". Alan Sepinwall said in his review for "HitFix" that the series captures its namesake film's most redeeming qualities while assuming a distinct identity, and "The A.V. Club" website felt that the series was "the rare cable drama that forgoes attenuated storytelling and moral ambiguity, and instead delivers episode after episode where a lot happens, and all of it matters".


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: The ensemble performances were frequently mentioned in the critiques. Lowry cited the cast as one of the show's strongest assets, and Robert Biano in "USA Today" wrote that "Fargo" cast was "with nary a false note". "The Daily Telegraph" critic Michael Hogan singled out Dunst, Danson and Wilson for their work on the show, as did the "San Francisco Chronicle" David Wiegand, whose opinion was that many of the performers' signature roles enhanced Hawley's script. Matt Zoller Seitz of "New York" magazine found Wilson to be the stand out among a pool of actors that "deserve their own stand-alone appreciations". He said of the actor's performance: "He's a young man, and he's in good shape, but he carries himself like an older, heavier one, as if weighed down by burdens he hasn't fully acknowledged because he's not ready yet. You get a sense of a personality, perhaps a soul, in the process of evolving." Reviews from "Entertainment Weekly" and "The Washington Post" singled out Donovan, Smart, Milioti, Garrett, and Offerman for their acting. Grantland, "The New York Observer", and the "Los Angeles Times" also praised the ensemble performances.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: "Fargo" was a candidate for a variety of awards, most of them recognizing outstanding achievement in writing, cinematography, directing, acting, and special effects. The series received eighteen Emmy nominations for the 68th Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony. It was named Television Program of the Year by the American Film Institute, and received three Golden Globe nominations—including for Best Actor and Best Actress in a Miniseries or Television Film (Wilson and Dunst respectively). Other accolades included two Satellite Awards nominations in two categories, two TCA Award nominations in two categories, and one Empire Award nomination. At the 6th Critics' Choice Television Awards, "Fargo" won four awards from eight nominations, the majority of which acknowledged the performance work of the show's cast.


title: Fargo (season 2)

text: On February 23, 2016, 20th Century Fox released the second season of "Fargo" on DVD and Blu-ray formats in region 1. In addition to all ten episodes, both DVD and Blu-ray disc formats include five featurettes; "Lou on Lou: A Conversation with Patrick Wilson, Keith Carradine and Noah Hawley", "Waffles and Bullet Holes: A Return to Sioux Falls", "The Films of Ronald Reagan: Extended "Fargo" cut", "The True History of Crime in the Midwest", and "Skip Sprang TV Commercial".


title: Frequency illusion

text: Frequency illusion, also known as the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency bias, is a cognitive bias in which, after noticing something for the first time, there is a tendency to notice it more often, leading someone to believe that it has an increased frequency of occurrence. It occurs when increased awareness of something creates the illusion that it is appearing more often. Put plainly, the frequency illusion occurs when "a concept or thing you just found out about suddenly seems to pop up everywhere."


title: Frequency illusion

text: The name "Baader–Meinhof phenomenon" was derived from a particular instance of frequency illusion in which the Baader–Meinhof Group was mentioned. In this instance, it was noticed by a man named Terry Mullen, who in 1994 wrote a letter to a newspaper column in which he mentioned that he had first heard of the Baader–Meinhof Group, and shortly thereafter coincidentally came across the term from another source. After the story was published, various readers submitted letters detailing their own experiences of similar events, and the name "Baader–Meinhof phenomenon" was coined as a result.


title: Frequency illusion

text: The term "frequency illusion" was coined in 2005 by Arnold Zwicky, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University and Ohio State University. Arnold Zwicky considered this illusion a process involving two cognitive biases: selective attention bias (noticing things that are important to us and disregarding the rest) followed by confirmation bias (looking for things that support our hypotheses while disregarding potential counter-evidence). It is considered mostly harmless, but can cause worsening symptoms in patients with schizophrenia. The frequency illusion may also have legal implications, as eyewitness accounts and memory can be influenced by this illusion.


title: Frequency illusion

text: Oliver Sacks noted that he started noticing numerous people with Tourette syndrome only after he first came across the term.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is an international mutual aid fellowship of alcoholics dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism through its spiritually-inclined Twelve Step program. Following its Twelve Traditions, AA is non-professional, non-denominational, as well as apolitical and unaffiliated. In 2020 AA estimated its worldwide membership to be over two million with 75% of those in the U.S. and Canada.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: Despite treating the disease model of alcoholism as an outside issue on which it has no opinion, AA is commonly associated with its popularity since many of its members took a large role in spreading it. Regarding its effectiveness, a 2020 scientific review saw clinical interventions encouraging increased AA participation resulting in higher abstinence rates over other clinical interventions while probably reducing health costs.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA dates its start to 1935 when Bill Wilson (Bill W) first commiserated alcoholic to alcoholic with Bob Smith (Dr. Bob) who, along with Wilson, was active in AA's precursor the Christian revivalist Oxford Group. Within the Oxford Group Wilson and Smith, joined by other alcoholics, supported each other in meetings and individually until forming a fellowship of alcoholics only. In 1939 they published "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered From Alcoholism." Known as the Big Book and the source of AA’s name, it contains AA's Twelve Step recovery program with later editions including the Twelve Traditions, first adopted in 1950, to formalize and unify the fellowship as a benign anarchy.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: The Twelve Steps are presented as a suggested self-improvement program resulting in a spiritual awakening after an alcoholic has conceded powerlessness over alcohol and acknowledged its damage, as well as having listed and strived to correct personal failings and by making amends for misdeeds. The Steps suggest helping other alcoholics through the Steps, which, though not explicitly prescribed, is often done by sponsoring other alcoholics. Submitting to the will of God—"as we understood Him"— is urged by the Steps, but differing spiritual spiritual practices and persuasions, as well as non-theist members, are accepted and accommodated.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: The Twelve Traditions are AA's guidelines for members, groups and its non-governing upper echelons. Besides making a desire to stop drinking the only membership requirement, the Traditions advise against dogma, hierarchies and involvement in public controversies so recovery from alcoholism remains AA’s primary purpose. Without threat of retribution or means of enforcement the Traditions urge members to remain anonymous in public media. They also wish that members or groups to not use AA to gain wealth, property or prestige. The Traditions establish AA groups as autonomous, self-supporting through members’ voluntary contributions while rejecting outside contributions, and, as with all of AA, barred from representing AA as affiliated with or supporting of other organizations or causes.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: With AA's permission, subsequent fellowships such as Narcotics Anonymous and Gamblers Anonymous have adopted and adapted the Twelve Steps and the Twelve Traditions to their addiction recovery programs.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA was founded on 10 June 1935; Carl Jung inspired Ronald H. by sending him to the Oxford Group—a non-denominational, altruistic movement modeled after first-century Christianity; the basis for the twelve-step program was developed directly from Bill W.'s reading of William James's "The Varieties of Religious Experience". Some members founded the group to help in maintaining sobriety. "Grouper" Ebby Thacher and former drinking buddy approached Wilson saying that he had "got religion", was sober, and that Wilson could do the same if he set aside objections and instead formed a personal idea of God, "another power" or "higher power".Feeling a "kinship of common suffering" and, though drunk, Wilson attended his first group gathering. Within days, Wilson admitted himself to the Charles B. Towns Hospital after drinking four beers on the way—the last alcohol he ever drank. Under the care of William Duncan Silkworth (an early benefactor of AA), Wilson's detox included the deliriant belladonna. At the hospital, a despairing Wilson experienced a bright flash of light, which he felt to be God revealing himself. Following his hospital discharge, Wilson joined the Oxford Group and recruited other alcoholics to the group. Wilson's early efforts to help others become sober were ineffective, prompting Silkworth to suggest that Wilson place less stress on religion and more on the science of treating alcoholism. Wilson's first success came during a business trip to Akron, Ohio, where he was introduced to Robert Smith, a surgeon and Oxford Group member who was unable to stay sober. After thirty days of working with Wilson, Smith drank his last drink on 10 June 1935, the date marked by AA for its anniversaries.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: The first female member, Florence Rankin, joined AA in March 1937, and the first non-Protestant member, a Roman Catholic, joined in 1939. The first Black AA group was established in 1945 in Washington, D.C. by Jim S., an African-American physician from Virginia.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: To share their method, Wilson and other members wrote the initially-titled book, "Alcoholics Anonymous: The Story of How More Than One Hundred Men Have Recovered from Alcoholism", from which AA drew its name. Informally known as "The Big Book" (with its first 164 pages virtually unchanged since the 1939 edition), it suggests a twelve-step program in which members admit that they are powerless over alcohol and need help from a "higher power". They seek guidance and strength through prayer and meditation from God or a Higher Power of their own understanding; take a moral inventory with care to include resentments; list and become ready to remove character defects; list and make amends to those harmed; continue to take a moral inventory, pray, meditate, and try to help other alcoholics recover. The second half of the book, "Personal Stories" (subject to additions, removal, and retitling in subsequent editions), is made of AA members' redemptive autobiographical sketches.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: In 1941, interviews on American radio and favorable articles in US magazines, including a piece by Jack Alexander in "The Saturday Evening Post", led to increased book sales and membership. By 1946, as the growing fellowship quarreled over structure, purpose, and authority, as well as finances and publicity, Wilson began to form and promote what became known as AA's "Twelve Traditions," which are guidelines for an altruistic, unaffiliated, non-coercive, and non-hierarchical structure that limited AA's purpose to only helping alcoholics on a non-professional level while shunning publicity. Eventually, he gained formal adoption and inclusion of the Twelve Traditions in all future editions of the Big Book. At the 1955 conference in St. Louis, Missouri, Wilson relinquished stewardship of AA to the General Service Conference, as AA grew to millions of members internationally.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA says it is "not organized in the formal or political sense", and Bill Wilson, borrowing the phrase from anarchist theorist Peter Kropotkin, called it a "benign anarchy". In Ireland, Shane Butler said that AA "looks like it couldn't survive as there's no leadership or top-level telling local cumanns what to do, but it has worked and proved itself extremely robust". Butler explained that "AA's 'inverted pyramid' style of governance has helped it to avoid many of the pitfalls that political and religious institutions have encountered since it was established here in 1946."


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: In 2018, AA counted 2,087,840 members and 120,300 AA groups worldwide. The Twelve Traditions informally guide how individual AA groups function, and the Twelve Concepts for World Service guide how the organization is structured globally.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: A member who accepts a service position or an organizing role is a "trusted servant" with terms rotating and limited, typically lasting three months to two years and determined by group vote and the nature of the position. Each group is a self-governing entity with AA World Services acting only in an advisory capacity. AA is served entirely by alcoholics, except for seven "nonalcoholic friends of the fellowship" of the 21-member AA Board of Trustees.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA groups are self-supporting, relying on voluntary donations from members to cover expenses. The AA General Service Office (GSO) limits contributions to US$3,000 a year. Above the group level, AA may hire outside professionals for services that require specialized expertise or full-time responsibilities.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: Like individual groups, the GSO is self-supporting. AA receives proceeds from books and literature that constitute more than 50% of the income for its General Service Office. In keeping with AA's Seventh Tradition, the Central Office is fully self-supporting through the sale of literature and related products, and the voluntary donations of AA members and groups. It does not accept donations from people or organizations outside of AA.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: In keeping with AA's Eighth Tradition, the Central Office employs special workers who are compensated financially for their services, but their services do not include traditional "12th Step" work of working with alcoholics in need. All 12th Step calls that come to the Central Office are handed to sober AA members who have volunteered to handle these calls. It also maintains service centers, which coordinate activities such as printing literature, responding to public inquiries, and organizing conferences. Other International General Service Offices (Australia, Costa Rica, Russia, etc.) are independent of AA World Services in New York.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA's program extends beyond abstaining from alcohol. Its goal is to effect enough change in the alcoholic's thinking "to bring about recovery from alcoholism" through "an entire psychic change," or spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening is meant to be achieved by taking the Twelve Steps, and sobriety is furthered by volunteering for AA and regular AA meeting attendance or contact with AA members. Members are encouraged to find an experienced fellow alcoholic, called a sponsor, to help them understand and follow the AA program. The sponsor should preferably have experience of all twelve of the steps, be the same sex as the sponsored person, and refrain from imposing personal views on the sponsored person. Following the helper therapy principle, sponsors in AA may benefit from their relationship with their charges, as "helping behaviors" correlate with increased abstinence and lower probabilities of binge drinking.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA's program is an inheritor of Counter-Enlightenment philosophy. AA shares the view that acceptance of one's inherent limitations is critical to finding one's proper place among other humans and God. Such ideas are described as "Counter-Enlightenment" because they are contrary to the Enlightenment's ideal that humans have the capacity to make their lives and societies a heaven on Earth using their own power and reason.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: After evaluating AA's literature and observing AA meetings for sixteen months, sociologists David R. Rudy and Arthur L. Greil found that for an AA member to remain sober a high level of commitment is necessary. This commitment is facilitated by a change in the member's worldview. To help members stay sober AA must, they argue, provide an all-encompassing worldview while creating and sustaining an atmosphere of transcendence in the organization. To be all-encompassing AA's ideology emphasizes tolerance rather than a narrow religious worldview that could make the organization unpalatable to potential members and thereby limit its effectiveness. AA's emphasis on the spiritual nature of its program, however, is necessary to institutionalize a feeling of transcendence. A tension results from the risk that the necessity of transcendence if taken too literally, would compromise AA's efforts to maintain a broad appeal. As this tension is an integral part of AA, Rudy and Greil argue that AA is best described as a "quasi-religious organization".


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA meetings are gatherings where recovery from alcoholism is discussed. One perspective sees them as "quasi-ritualized therapeutic sessions run by and for, alcoholics". There are a variety of meeting types some of which are listed below. At some point during the meeting a basket is passed around for voluntary donations. AA's 7th tradition requires that groups be self-supporting, "declining outside contributions". Weekly meetings are listed in local AA directories in print, online and in apps.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: "Open" meetings welcome anyone— nonalcoholics can attend as observers. Meetings listed as "closed" welcome those with a self-professed "desire to stop drinking," which cannot be challenged by another member on any grounds.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: "On Line" meetings are Digital Meetings held on platforms such as Zoom. Offline meetings, also called "face to face" or "brick and mortar" meetings, are held in a shared physical real-world location. Some meetings are hybrid meetings, where people can meet in a specified physical location, but people can also join the meeting virtually.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA meetings do not exclude other alcoholics, though some meetings cater to specific demographics such as gender, profession, age, sexual orientation, or culture. Meetings in the United States are held in a variety of languages including Armenian, English, Farsi, Finnish, French, Japanese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: While AA has pamphlets that suggest meeting formats, groups have the autonomy to hold and conduct meetings as they wish "except in matters affecting other groups or AA as a whole". Different cultures affect ritual aspects of meetings, but around the world "many particularities of the AA meeting format can be observed at almost any AA gathering".


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: In the Fifth Step, AA members typically reveal their own past misconduct to their sponsors. US courts have not extended the status of privileged communication, such as physician-patient privilege or clergy–penitent privilege, to communications between an AA member and their sponsor.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: A study found an association between an increase in attendance at AA meetings with increased spirituality and a decrease in the frequency and intensity of alcohol use. The research also found that AA was effective at helping agnostics and atheists become sober. The authors concluded that though spirituality was an important mechanism of behavioral change for some alcoholics, it was not the only effective mechanism. Since the mid-1970s, several 'agnostic' or 'no-prayer' AA groups have begun across the U.S., Canada, and other parts of the world, which hold meetings that adhere to a tradition allowing alcoholics to freely express their doubts or disbelief that spirituality will help their recovery, and these meetings forgo the use of opening or closing prayers. There are online resources listing AA meetings for atheists and agnostics.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: More informally than not, AA's membership has helped popularize the disease concept of alcoholism which had appeared in the eighteenth century. Though AA usually avoids the term "disease", 1973 conference-approved literature said "we had the disease of alcoholism." Regardless of official positions, since AA's inception, most members have believed alcoholism to be a disease.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA's Big Book calls alcoholism "an illness which only a spiritual experience will conquer." Ernest Kurtz says this is "The closest the book Alcoholics Anonymous comes to a definition of alcoholism." Somewhat divergently in his introduction to The Big Book, non-member and early benefactor William Silkworth said those unable to moderate their drinking suffer from an allergy. In presenting the doctor's postulate, AA said "The doctor's theory that we have an allergy to alcohol interests us. As laymen, our opinion as to its soundness may, of course, mean little. But as ex-problem drinkers, we can say that his explanation makes good sense. It explains many things for which we cannot otherwise account." AA later acknowledged that "alcoholism is not a true allergy, the experts now inform us." Wilson explained in 1960 why AA had refrained from using the term "disease":


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: Since then medical and scientific communities have defined alcoholism as an "addictive disease" (aka Alcohol Use Disorder, Severe, Moderate, or Mild). The ten criteria are: alcoholism is a Primary Illness not caused by other illnesses nor by personality or character defects; second, an addiction gene is part of its etiology; third, alcoholism has predictable symptoms; fourth, it is progressive, becoming more severe even after long periods of abstinence; fifth, it is chronic and incurable; sixth, alcoholic drinking or other drug use persists in spite of negative consequences and efforts to quit; seventh, brain chemistry and neural functions change so alcohol is perceived as necessary for survival; eighth, it produces physical dependence and life-threatening withdrawal; ninth, it is a terminal illness; tenth, alcoholism can be treated and can be kept in remission.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: AA's New York General Service Office regularly surveys AA members in North America. Its 2014 survey of over 6,000 members in Canada and the United States concluded that, in North America, AA members who responded to the survey were 62% male and 38% female. The survey found that 89% of AA members were white.


title: Alcoholics Anonymous

text: Average member sobriety is slightly under 10 years with 36% sober more than ten years, 13% sober from five to ten years, 24% sober from one to five years, and 27% sober less than one year. Before coming to AA, 63% of members received some type of treatment or counseling, such as medical, psychological, or spiritual. After coming to AA, 59% received outside treatment or counseling. Of those members, 84% said that outside help played an important part in their recovery.