title: Tropical rainforest

text: This high rate of decomposition is the result of phosphorus levels in the soils, precipitation, high temperatures and the extensive microorganism communities. In addition to the bacteria and other microorganisms, there are an abundance of other decomposers such as fungi and termites that aid in the process as well. Nutrient recycling is important because below ground resource availability controls the above ground biomass and community structure of tropical rainforests. These soils are typically phosphorus limited, which inhibits net primary productivity or the uptake of carbon. The soil contains microbial organisms such as bacteria, which break down leaf litter and other organic matter into inorganic forms of carbon usable by plants through a process called decomposition. During the decomposition process the microbial community is respiring, taking up oxygen and releasing carbon dioxide. The decomposition rate can be evaluated by measuring the uptake of oxygen. High temperatures and precipitation increase decomposition rate, which allows plant litter to rapidly decay in tropical regions, releasing nutrients that are immediately taken up by plants through surface or ground waters. The seasonal patterns in respiration are controlled by leaf litter fall and precipitation, the driving force moving the decomposable carbon from the litter to the soil. Respiration rates are highest early in the wet season because the recent dry season results in a large percentage of leaf litter and thus a higher percentage of organic matter being leached into the soil.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: A common feature of many tropical rainforests is the distinct buttress roots of trees. Instead of penetrating to deeper soil layers, buttress roots create a widespread root network at the surface for more efficient uptake of nutrients in a very nutrient poor and competitive environment. Most of the nutrients within the soil of a tropical rainforest occur near the surface because of the rapid turnover time and decomposition of organisms and leaves. Because of this, the buttress roots occur at the surface so the trees can maximize uptake and actively compete with the rapid uptake of other trees. These roots also aid in water uptake and storage, increase surface area for gas exchange, and collect leaf litter for added nutrition. Additionally, these roots reduce soil erosion and maximize nutrient acquisition during heavy rains by diverting nutrient rich water flowing down the trunk into several smaller flows while also acting as a barrier to ground flow. Also, the large surface areas these roots create provide support and stability to rainforests trees, which commonly grow to significant heights. This added stability allows these trees to withstand the impacts of severe storms, thus reducing the occurrence of fallen trees.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Succession is an ecological process that changes the biotic community structure over time towards a more stable, diverse community structure after an initial disturbance to the community. The initial disturbance is often a natural phenomenon or human caused event. Natural disturbances include hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, river movements or an event as small as a fallen tree that creates gaps in the forest. In tropical rainforests, these same natural disturbances have been well documented in the fossil record, and are credited with encouraging speciation and endemism. Human land use practices have led to large-scale deforestation. In many tropical countries such as Costa Rica these deforested lands have been abandoned and forests have been allowed to regenerate through ecological succession. These regenerating young successional forests are called secondary forests or second-growth forests.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Tropical rainforests exhibit a vast diversity in plant and animal species. The root for this remarkable speciation has been a query of scientists and ecologists for years. A number of theories have been developed for why and how the tropics can be so diverse.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Interspecific competition results from a high density of species with similar niches in the tropics and limited resources available. Species which "lose" the competition may either become extinct or find a new niche. Direct competition will often lead to one species dominating another by some advantage, ultimately driving it to extinction. Niche partitioning is the other option for a species. This is the separation and rationing of necessary resources by utilizing different habitats, food sources, cover or general behavioral differences. A species with similar food items but different feeding times is an example of niche partitioning.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: The theory of Pleistocene refugia was developed by Jürgen Haffer in 1969 with his article "Speciation of Amazonian Forest Birds". Haffer proposed the explanation for speciation was the product of rainforest patches being separated by stretches of non-forest vegetation during the last glacial period. He called these patches of rainforest areas refuges and within these patches allopatric speciation occurred. With the end of the glacial period and increase in atmospheric humidity, rainforest began to expand and the refuges reconnected. This theory has been the subject of debate. Scientists are still skeptical of whether or not this theory is legitimate. Genetic evidence suggests speciation had occurred in certain taxa 1–2 million years ago, preceding the Pleistocene.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Tropical rainforests have harboured human life for many millennia, with many Indian tribes in South- and Central America, who belong to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the Congo Pygmies in Central Africa, and several tribes in South-East Asia, like the Dayak people and the Penan people in Borneo. Food resources within the forest are extremely dispersed due to the high biological diversity and what food does exist is largely restricted to the canopy and requires considerable energy to obtain. Some groups of hunter-gatherers have exploited rainforest on a seasonal basis but dwelt primarily in adjacent savanna and open forest environments where food is much more abundant. Other people described as rainforest dwellers are hunter-gatherers who subsist in large part by trading high value forest products such as hides, feathers, and honey with agricultural people living outside the forest.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: A variety of indigenous people live within the rainforest as hunter-gatherers, or subsist as part-time small scale farmers supplemented in large part by trading high-value forest products such as hides, feathers, and honey with agricultural people living outside the forest. Peoples have inhabited the rainforests for tens of thousands of years and have remained so elusive that only recently have some tribes been discovered. These indigenous peoples are greatly threatened by loggers in search for old-growth tropical hardwoods like Ipe, Cumaru and Wenge, and by farmers who are looking to expand their land, for cattle(meat), and soybeans, which are used to feed cattle in Europe and China. On 18 January 2007, FUNAI reported also that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, up from 40 in 2005. With this addition, Brazil has now overtaken the island of New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted tribes. The province of Irian Jaya or West Papua in the island of New Guinea is home to an estimated 44 uncontacted tribal groups.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: The pygmy peoples are hunter-gatherer groups living in equatorial rainforests characterized by their short height (below one and a half meters, or 59 inches, on average). Amongst this group are the Efe, Aka, Twa, Baka, and Mbuti people of Central Africa. However, the term pygmy is considered pejorative so many tribes prefer not to be labeled as such.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Some notable indigenous peoples of the Americas, or Amerindians, include the Huaorani, Ya̧nomamö, and Kayapo people of the Amazon. The traditional agricultural system practiced by tribes in the Amazon is based on swidden cultivation (also known as slash-and-burn or shifting cultivation) and is considered a relatively benign disturbance. In fact, when looking at the level of individual swidden plots a number of traditional farming practices are considered beneficial. For example, the use of shade trees and fallowing all help preserve soil organic matter, which is a critical factor in the maintenance of soil fertility in the deeply weathered and leached soils common in the Amazon.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: There is a diversity of forest people in Asia, including the Lumad peoples of the Philippines and the Penan and Dayak people of Borneo. The Dayaks are a particularly interesting group as they are noted for their traditional headhunting culture. Fresh human heads were required to perform certain rituals such as the Iban "kenyalang" and the Kenyah "mamat". Pygmies who live in Southeast Asia are, amongst others, referred to as "Negrito".


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Yam, coffee, chocolate, banana, mango, papaya, macadamia, avocado, and sugarcane all originally came from tropical rainforest and are still mostly grown on plantations in regions that were formerly primary forest. In the mid-1980s and 1990s, 40 million tons of bananas were consumed worldwide each year, along with 13 million tons of mango. Central American coffee exports were worth US$3 billion in 1970. Much of the genetic variation used in evading the damage caused by new pests is still derived from resistant wild stock. Tropical forests have supplied 250 cultivated kinds of fruit, compared to only 20 for temperate forests. Forests in New Guinea alone contain 251 tree species with edible fruits, of which only 43 had been established as cultivated crops by 1985.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: In addition to extractive human uses, rain forests also have non-extractive uses that are frequently summarized as ecosystem services. Rain forests play an important role in maintaining biological diversity, sequestering and storing carbon, global climate regulation, disease control, and pollination. Half of the rainfall in the Amazon area is produced by the forests. The moisture from the forests is important to the rainfall in Brazil, Paraguay, Argentina Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest region was one of the main reason that cause the severe Drought of 2014–2015 in Brazil For the last three decades, the amount of carbon absorbed by the world's intact tropical forests has fallen, according to a study published in 2020 in the journal Nature. In 2019 they took up a third less carbon than they did in the 1990s, due to higher temperatures, droughts and deforestation. The typical tropical forest may become a carbon source by the 2060s.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Despite the negative effects of tourism in the tropical rainforests, there are also several important positive effects.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Deposits of precious metals (gold, silver, coltan) and fossil fuels (oil and natural gas) occur underneath rainforests globally. These resources are important to developing nations and their extraction is often given priority to encourage economic growth. Mining and drilling can require large amounts of land development, directly causing deforestation. In Ghana, a West African nation, deforestation from decades of mining activity left about 12% of the country's original rainforest intact.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: With the invention of agriculture, humans were able to clear sections of rainforest to produce crops, converting it to open farmland. Such people, however, obtain their food primarily from farm plots cleared from the forest and hunt and forage within the forest to supplement this. The issue arising is between the independent farmer providing for his family and the needs and wants of the globe as a whole. This issue has seen little improvement because no plan has been established for all parties to be aided.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Agriculture on formerly forested land is not without difficulties. Rainforest soils are often thin and leached of many minerals, and the heavy rainfall can quickly leach nutrients from area cleared for cultivation. People such as the Yanomamo of the Amazon, utilize slash-and-burn agriculture to overcome these limitations and enable them to push deep into what were previously rainforest environments. However, these are not rainforest dwellers, rather they are dwellers in cleared farmland that make forays into the rainforest. Up to 90% of the typical Yanamomo diet comes from farmed plants.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Some action has been taken by suggesting fallow periods of the land allowing secondary forest to grow and replenish the soil. Beneficial practices like soil restoration and conservation can benefit the small farmer and allow better production on smaller parcels of land.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: The tropics take a major role in reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide. The tropics (most notably the Amazon rainforest) are called carbon sinks. As major carbon reducers and carbon and soil methane storages, their destruction contributes to increasing global energy trapping, atmospheric gases. Climate change has been significantly contributed to by the destruction of the rainforests. A simulation was performed in which all rainforest in Africa were removed. The simulation showed an increase in atmospheric temperature by 2.5 to 5 degrees Celsius.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Some species of fauna show a trend towards declining populations in rainforests, for example, reptiles that feed on amphibians and reptiles. This trend requires close monitoring. The seasonality of rainforests affects the reproductive patterns of amphibians, and this in turn can directly affect the species of reptiles that feed on these groups, particularly species with specialized feeding, since these are less likely to use alternative resources.


title: Tropical rainforest

text: Efforts to protect and conserve tropical rainforest habitats are diverse and widespread. Tropical rainforest conservation ranges from strict preservation of habitat to finding sustainable management techniques for people living in tropical rainforests. International policy has also introduced a market incentive program called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) for companies and governments to outset their carbon emissions through financial investments into rainforest conservation.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: Malcolm Moses Adams Brogdon (born December 11, 1992) is an American professional basketball player for the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Virginia Cavaliers under Tony Bennett. As a senior in 2015–16, he was a consensus first-team All-American. He was also named the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, becoming the first player in conference history to earn both honors in the same season. He was selected in the second round of the 2016 NBA draft by the Bucks with the 36th overall pick. He went on to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, becoming the first second-round pick in the NBA to win the award since 1965.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: Brogdon, a top 100 recruit, committed to Virginia over offers from Arkansas, Georgia, and Notre Dame.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: He redshirted his sophomore year after suffering a serious foot injury the prior season. He was known as one of the top contributors to the team's successful 2013–14 and 2014–15 seasons. In the 2013–14 season, Brogdon averaged 12.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game. In 2014–15, he was named as a consensus second-team All-American, as well as the first-team All-ACC and ACC Co-Defensive Player of the Year.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: As a senior at Virginia in 2015–16, Brogdon was named to the 35-man midseason watchlist for the Naismith Trophy, and earned numerous prestigious awards, including ACC Player of the Year, ACC Defensive Player of the Year, first-team All-American, and a finalist for the Naismith Award. Brogdon graduated from Virginia with a bachelor's degree in history and a master's degree in public policy. His college jersey number, 15, was retired on February 20, 2017.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: On June 23, 2016, Brogdon was selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the 36th overall pick in the 2016 NBA draft. On July 30, 2016, he signed with the Bucks. He made his NBA debut in the Bucks' season opener on October 26, 2016, recording eight points and five assists in 21 minutes in a 107–96 loss to the Charlotte Hornets. On November 1, 2016, he recorded 14 points and four steals in a 117–113 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. On December 23, 2016, he made all seven of his shots for 17 points to go with seven assists in 29 minutes in a 123–96 win over the Washington Wizards. On December 31, 2016, he recorded his first career triple-double with 15 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds in a 116–96 win over the Chicago Bulls. On January 8, 2017, he scored a career-high 22 points in a 107–101 loss to the Washington Wizards. On January 23, 2017, he had his second game of the season with four steals in a 127–114 win over the Houston Rockets. Two days later, he was named in the U.S. Team for the 2017 Rising Stars Challenge. On March 29, 2017, he recorded 16 points and nine assists in a 103–100 win over the Boston Celtics. He had six key points and two assists in the final 2:46 to help Milwaukee fend off a late Boston rally. To conclude his rookie season, Brogdon was named the 2016–17 NBA Rookie of the Year, along with being a unanimous selection to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. Brogdon joined Lew Alcindor (1969–70) as the only players in Bucks history to win Rookie of the Year, and became the first player drafted in the second round to win Rookie of the Year since 1965. Brogdon averaged both the fewest points per game and fewest minutes per game of any winner in the award's history.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: In the Bucks' season opener on October 18, 2017, Brogdon scored 19 points in a 108–100 win over the Boston Celtics. On November 3, 2017, he had a season-high 10 assists to go with 21 points against the Detroit Pistons. Four days later, he scored a season-high 22 points against the Cleveland Cavaliers. On January 22, 2018, he scored a career-high 32 points in a 109–105 win over the Phoenix Suns. It was the first 30-point game for a Virginia basketball alum since Mike Scott in 2014 with the Atlanta Hawks. On February 2, 2018, he was ruled out for six to eight weeks after suffering a partially torn left quadriceps tendon the previous night against the Minnesota Timberwolves. On April 9, 2018, he returned to action following a 30-game absence. He scored two points and played 13 minutes, all in the first half, in the Bucks' 102–86 win over the Orlando Magic.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: On November 28, 2018, Brogdon scored 24 points in 29 minutes on 6-for-6 three-point field goal shooting in a 116–113 win against the Chicago Bulls. On February 27, 2019, Brogdon scored 25 points, including 9-for-11 from the field, in a 141–140 overtime win over the Sacramento Kings. Brogdon enjoyed the best shooting year of his career, and one of the most efficient in NBA history: he became just the eighth NBA player ever to achieve a 50–40–90 season. However, on March 16, he was ruled out indefinitely with a plantar fascia tear in his right foot. He returned to action late in the second round of the playoffs.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: On June 29, 2019, the Bucks extended a qualifying offer to Brogdon in order to make him a restricted free agent. On July 6, 2019, Brogdon signed with the Indiana Pacers via a sign-and-trade with the Milwaukee Bucks in exchange for future picks. Brogdon signed a contract with the Pacers for $85.0 million over four years (average of $21.25 million per year).


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: New to starting at the point guard position, Brogdon studied tape of former NBA All-Star Isiah Thomas in the off-season. Brogdon had a double-double in each of his first four games in a Pacers uniform. After his first week with the Pacers, he led the NBA in assists and become the first NBA player in history to tally at least 20 points and 10 assists in both of his first two games with a new team. On October 26, 2019, Brogdon had 30 points (on 12-for-18 shooting) and 10 assists in a 110–99 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers. On June 24, 2020, Brogdon announced that he tested positive for the COVID-19 virus.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: On January 2, 2021, Brogdon scored 33 points with 7 assists in a 106–102 loss to the New York Knicks. On January 4, Brogdon put up 21 points, 11 assists, seven rebounds, three steals, and one block, alongside a game-winning layup, in a 118–116 overtime win over the New Orleans Pelicans. On January 6, Brogdon scored a career-high 35 points, along with seven assists in a 114–107 win over the Houston Rockets. On January 25, Brogdon improved his career-high to 36 points in the Pacers' 129–114 win against the Toronto Raptors.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: In his third season with the Pacers, Brogdon was asked to be more of a leader on and off the court. Brogdon missed 41 games from December through April with Achilles pain. Even with the significant time he missed, he led the team in scoring for the second straight year, while being second in assists per game.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: On July 9, 2022, Brogdon was traded to the Boston Celtics in exchange for Aaron Nesmith, Daniel Theis, Nik Stauskas, Malik Fitts, Juwan Morgan, and a 2023 first round draft pick , Brogdon was given the choice to be traded to the Celtics or the Toronto Raptors . On October 18, Brogdon had 16 points off the bench in his debut for his new team in a 126–117 win over the Philadelphia 76ers.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: Brogdon represented the United States national team at the 2015 Pan American Games, where he won a bronze medal.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: Brogdon's father, Mitchell Gino Brogdon, Sr., is a lawyer and mediator best known as the host of the syndicated court show "Personal Injury Court". Dr. Jann Adams, Brogdon's mother, is the former chair of Morehouse College's Psychology Department. She is now the associate dean of science and math. His mother and father divorced when he was 11. Brogdon's oldest brother Gino is a practicing attorney, while his other older brother John is in law school.


title: Malcolm Brogdon

text: In 2018, Brogdon founded Hoops2O, a nonprofit aimed at addressing the clean-water crisis, particularly in Africa. As of May 2019, $274,200 had been raised for the cause. Brogdon is a member of the "Starting Five", along with Joe Harris, Justin Anderson, Anthony Tolliver, and Garrett Temple, who initially made a goal to raise $225,000 through Hoops2O to fund five wells in East Africa by the end of the 2018–19 season. Brogdon traveled with Anderson and Harris to Tanzania to witness the opening of the first well they funded in July 2019, and by November Hoops2O had raised nearly $400,000. By February 2020, the charity had funded the construction of ten wells in Tanzania and Kenya, bringing water to over 52,000 citizens.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide is a chemical compound, medication, and dietary supplement. It is a medication used for treating hyperthyroidism, in radiation emergencies, and for protecting the thyroid gland when certain types of radiopharmaceuticals are used. In the third world it is also used for treating skin sporotrichosis and phycomycosis. It is a supplement used by people with low dietary intake of iodine. It is administered orally.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Common side effects include vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain, rash, and swelling of the salivary glands. Other side effects include allergic reactions, headache, goitre, and depression. While use during pregnancy may harm the baby, its use is still recommended in radiation emergencies. Potassium iodide has the chemical formula KI. Commercially it is made by mixing potassium hydroxide with iodine.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide has been used medically since at least 1820. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. Potassium iodide is available as a generic medication and over the counter. Potassium iodide is also used for the iodization of salt.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium-iodide is a nutritional-supplement in animal feeds and also in the human diet. In humans it is the most common additive used for "iodizing" table salt (a public health measure to prevent iodine deficiency in populations that get little seafood). The oxidation of iodide causes slow loss of iodine content from iodised salts that are exposed to excess air. The alkali metal iodide salt, over time and exposure to excess oxygen and carbon dioxide, slowly oxidizes to metal carbonate and elemental iodine, which then evaporates. Potassium iod"ate" (KIO) is used to iodize some salts so that the iodine is not lost by oxidation. Dextrose or sodium thiosulfate are often added to iodized table salt to stabilize potassium iodide thus reducing loss of the volatile chemical.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Thyroid iodine uptake blockade with potassium iodide is used in nuclear medicine scintigraphy and therapy with some radioiodinated compounds that are not targeted to the thyroid, such as iobenguane (MIBG), which is used to image or treat neural tissue tumors, or iodinated fibrinogen, which is used in fibrinogen scans to investigate clotting. These compounds contain iodine, but not in the iodide form. However, since they may be ultimately metabolized or break down to radioactive iodide, it is common to administer non-radioactive potassium iodide to ensure that iodide from these radiopharmaceuticals is not sequestered by the normal affinity of the thyroid for iodide.


title: Potassium iodide

text: U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved dosing of potassium iodide for this purpose with iobenguane, is as follows (per 24 hours): infants less than 1 month old, 16 mg; children 1 month to 3 years, 32 mg; children 3 years to 18 years, 65 mg; adults 130 mg. However, some sources recommend alternative dosing regimens.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Not all sources are in agreement on the necessary "duration" of thyroid blockade, although agreement appears to have been reached about the "necessity" of blockade for both scintigraphic and therapeutic applications of iobenguane. Commercially available iobenguane is labeled with iodine-123, and product labeling recommends administration of potassium iodide 1 hour prior to administration of the radiopharmaceutical for all age groups, while the European Association of Nuclear Medicine recommends (for iobenguane labeled with either isotope), that potassium iodide administration begin one day prior to radiopharmaceutical administration, and continue until the day following the injection, with the exception of new-borns, who do not require potassium iodide doses following radiopharmaceutical injection.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Product labeling for diagnostic iodine-131 iobenguane recommends potassium iodide administration one day before injection and continuing 5 to 7 days following administration, in keeping with the much longer half-life of this isotope and its greater danger to the thyroid. Iodine-131 iobenguane used for therapeutic purposes requires a different pre-medication duration, beginning 24–48 hours prior to iobenguane injection and continuing 10–15 days following injection.


title: Potassium iodide

text: In 1982, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved potassium iodide to protect thyroid glands from radioactive iodine involving accidents or fission emergencies. In an accidental event or attack on a nuclear power plant, or in nuclear bomb fallout, volatile fission product radionuclides may be released. Of these products, (Iodine-131) is one of the most common and is particularly dangerous to the thyroid gland because it may lead to thyroid cancer. By saturating the body with a source of stable iodide prior to exposure, inhaled or ingested tends to be excreted, which prevents radioiodine uptake by the thyroid. According to one 2000 study "KI administered up to 48 h before exposure can almost completely block thyroid uptake and therefore greatly reduce the thyroid absorbed dose. However, KI administration 96 h or more before exposure has no significant protective effect. In contrast, KI administration after exposure to radioiodine induces a smaller and rapidly decreasing blockade effect." For optimal prevention, KI must be dosed daily until a risk of significant exposure to radioiodine by either inhalation or ingestion no longer exists.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Emergency 130 milligrams potassium iodide doses provide 100 mg iodide (the other 30 mg is the potassium in the compound), which is roughly 700 times larger than the normal nutritional need (see recommended dietary allowance) for iodine, which is 150 micrograms (0.15 mg) of iodine (as iodide) per day for an adult. A typical tablet weighs 160 mg, with 130 mg of potassium iodide and 30 mg of excipients, such as binding agents.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide cannot protect against any other mechanisms of radiation poisoning, nor can it provide any degree of protection against dirty bombs that produce radionuclides other than those of iodine.


title: Potassium iodide

text: The potassium iodide in iodized salt is insufficient for this use. A likely lethal dose of salt (more than a kilogram) would be needed to equal the potassium iodide in one tablet.


title: Potassium iodide

text: The World Health Organization does not recommend KI prophylaxis for adults over 40 years, unless the radiation dose from inhaled radioiodine is expected to threaten thyroid function, because the KI side effects increase with age and may exceed the KI protective effects; "...unless doses to the thyroid from inhalation rise to levels threatening thyroid function, that is of the order of about 5 Gy. Such radiation doses will not occur far away from an accident site."


title: Potassium iodide

text: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services restated these two years later as "The downward KI (potassium iodide) dose adjustment by age group, based on body size considerations, adheres to the principle of minimum effective dose. The recommended standard (daily) dose of KI for all school-age children is the same (65 mg). However, adolescents approaching adult size (i.e., >70 kg [154 lbs]) should receive the full adult dose (130 mg) for maximal block of thyroid radioiodine uptake. Neonates ideally should receive the lowest dose (16 mg) of KI."


title: Potassium iodide

text: SSKI (i.e., the "saturated solution of KI" rather than tablets) may be used in radioiodine-contamination emergencies (i.e., nuclear accidents) to "block" the thyroid's uptake of radioiodine, at a dose of two drops of SSKI per day for an adult. This is not the same as blocking the thyroid's release of thyroid hormone, for which the adult dose is different (and is actually higher by a factor of 7 or 8), and for which KI anti-radiation pills (not a common medical treatment form of KI) are not usually available in pharmacies, or normally used in hospitals, or by physicians. Although the two forms of potassium iodide are completely interchangeable, normally in practice the SSKI solution, which is the historical medical form of high dose iodine, is generally used for all medical purposes save for radioiodine prophylaxis. For protection of the thyroid against radioiodine (iodine-131) contamination, the convenient standard 130 mg KI pill is used, if available. As noted, the equivalent two drops of SSKI (equaling the dose of one KI pill) may be used for this purpose, if the pills are not available.


title: Potassium iodide

text: There is reason for caution with prescribing the ingestion of high doses of potassium iodide and iodate, because their unnecessary use can cause conditions such as the Jod-Basedow phenomena, trigger and/or worsen hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism, and then cause temporary or even permanent thyroid conditions. It can also cause sialadenitis (an inflammation of the salivary gland), gastrointestinal disturbances, and rashes. Potassium iodide is also not recommended for people with dermatitis herpetiformis and hypocomplementemic vasculitis – conditions that are linked to a risk of iodine sensitivity.


title: Potassium iodide

text: There have been some reports of potassium iodide treatment causing swelling of the parotid gland (one of the three glands that secrete saliva), due to its stimulatory effects on saliva production.


title: Potassium iodide

text: A saturated solution of KI (SSKI) is typically given orally in adult doses several times a day (5 drops of SSKI assumed to be  mL) for thyroid blockade (to prevent the thyroid from excreting thyroid hormone) and occasionally this dose is also used, when iodide is used as an expectorant (the total dose is about one gram KI per day for an adult). The anti-radioiodine doses used for uptake blockade are lower, and range downward from 100  mg a day for an adult, to less than this for children (see table). All of these doses should be compared with the far lower dose of iodine needed in normal nutrition, which is only 150 μg per day (150 micrograms, not milligrams).


title: Potassium iodide

text: At maximal doses, and sometimes at much lower doses, side effects of iodide used for medical reasons, in doses of 1000 times the normal nutritional need, may include: acne, loss of appetite, or upset stomach (especially during the first several days, as the body adjusts to the medication). More severe side effects that require notification of a physician are: fever, weakness, unusual tiredness, swelling in the neck or throat, mouth sores, skin rash, nausea, vomiting, stomach pains, irregular heartbeat, numbness or tingling of the hands or feet, or a metallic taste in the mouth.


title: Potassium iodide

text: In the event of a radioiodine release the ingestion of prophylaxis potassium iodide, if available, or even iodate, would rightly take precedence over perchlorate administration, and would be the first line of defence in protecting the population from a radioiodine release. However, in the event of a radioiodine release too massive and widespread to be controlled by the limited stock of iodide and iodate prophylaxis drugs, then the addition of perchlorate ions to the water supply, or distribution of perchlorate tablets would serve as a cheap, efficacious, second line of defense against carcinogenic radioiodine bioaccumulation.


title: Potassium iodide

text: The ingestion of goitrogen drugs is, much like potassium iodide also not without its dangers, such as hypothyroidism. In all these cases however, despite the risks, the prophylaxis benefits of intervention with iodide, iodate or perchlorate outweigh the serious cancer risk from radioiodine bioaccumulation in regions where radioiodine has sufficiently contaminated the environment.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide in its raw form is a mild irritant and should be handled with gloves. Chronic overexposure can have adverse effects on the thyroid. Potassium iodide is a possible teratogen.


title: Potassium iodide

text: KI is used with silver nitrate to make silver iodide (AgI), an important chemical in film photography. KI is a component in some disinfectants and hair treatment chemicals. KI is also used as a fluorescence quenching agent in biomedical research, an application that takes advantage of collisional quenching of fluorescent substances by the iodide ion. However, for several fluorophores addition of KI in μM-mM concentrations results in increase of fluorescence intensity, and iodide acts as fluorescence enhancer.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide is a component in the electrolyte of dye sensitised solar cells (DSSC) along with iodine.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide finds its most important applications in organic synthesis mainly in the preparation of aryl iodides in the Sandmeyer reaction, starting from aryl amines. Aryl iodides are in turn used to attach aryl groups to other organics by nucleophilic substitution, with iodide ion as the leaving group.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide is an ionic compound which is made of the following ions: . It crystallises in the sodium chloride structure. It is produced industrially by treating KOH with iodine.


title: Potassium iodide

text: It is a white salt, which is the most commercially significant iodide compound, with approximately 37,000 tons produced in 1985. It absorbs water less readily than sodium iodide, making it easier to work with.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Aged and impure samples are yellow because of the slow oxidation of the salt to potassium carbonate and elemental iodine.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Since the iodide ion is a mild reducing agent, is easily oxidised to iodine () by powerful oxidising agents such as chlorine:


title: Potassium iodide

text: This reaction is employed in the isolation of iodine from natural sources. Air will oxidize iodide, as evidenced by the observation of a purple extract when aged samples of KI are rinsed with dichloromethane. As formed under acidic conditions, hydriodic acid (HI) is a stronger reducing agent.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Unlike , salts can be highly water-soluble. Through this reaction, iodine is used in redox titrations. Aqueous , "Lugol's solution", is used as a disinfectant and as an etchant for gold surfaces.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide and silver nitrate are used to make silver(I) iodide, which is used for high speed photographic film and for cloud seeding:


title: Potassium iodide

text: KI serves as a source of iodide in organic synthesis. A useful application is in the preparation of aryl iodides from arenediazonium salts.


title: Potassium iodide

text: KI, acting as a source of iodide, may also act as a nucleophilic catalyst for the alkylation of alkyl chlorides, bromides, or mesylates.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide has been used medically since at least 1820. Some of the earliest uses included cures for syphilis, lead and mercury poisoning.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide's (KI) value as a radiation protective (thyroid blocking) agent was demonstrated following the Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster in April, 1986. A saturated solution of potassium iodide (SSKI) was administered to 10.5 million children and 7 million adults in Poland as a preventative measure against accumulation of radioactive in the thyroid gland.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Reports differ concerning whether people in the areas immediately surrounding Chernobyl itself were given the supplement. However the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) reported, "thousands of measurements of I-131 (radioactive iodine) activity...suggest that the observed levels were lower than would have been expected had this prophylactic measure not been taken. The use of KI...was credited with permissible iodine content in 97% of the evacuees tested."


title: Potassium iodide

text: With the passage of time, people living in irradiated areas where KI was not available have developed thyroid cancer at epidemic levels, which is why the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported "The data clearly demonstrate the risks of thyroid radiation... KI can be used [to] provide safe and effective protection against thyroid cancer caused by irradiation."


title: Potassium iodide

text: Chernobyl also demonstrated that the need to protect the thyroid from radiation was greater than expected. Within ten years of the accident, it became clear that thyroid damage caused by released radioactive iodine was virtually the only adverse health effect that could be measured. As reported by the NRC, studies after the accident showed that "As of 1996, except for thyroid cancer, there has been no confirmed increase in the rates of other cancers, including leukemia, among the... public, that have been attributed to releases from the accident."


title: Potassium iodide

text: But equally important to the question of KI is the fact that radioactivity releases are not "local" events. Researchers at the World Health Organization accurately located and counted the residents with cancer from Chernobyl and were startled to find that "the increase in incidence [of thyroid cancer] has been documented up to 500 km from the accident site... significant doses from radioactive iodine can occur hundreds of kilometers from the site, beyond emergency planning zones." Consequently, far more people than anticipated were affected by the radiation, which caused the United Nations to report in 2002 that "The number of people with thyroid cancer... has exceeded expectations. Over 11,000 cases have already been reported."


title: Potassium iodide

text: These findings were consistent with studies of the effects of previous radioactivity releases. In 1945, millions of Japanese were exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons, and the effects can still be measured. Today, nearly half (44.8%) the survivors of Nagasaki studied have identifiable thyroid disease, with an editorial in "The Journal of the American Medical Association" reporting "it is remarkable that a biological effect from a single brief environmental exposure nearly 60 years in the past is still present and can be detected."


title: Potassium iodide

text: The development of thyroid cancer among residents in the North Pacific from radioactive fallout following the United States' nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s (on islands nearly 200 miles downwind of the tests) were instrumental in the 1978 decision by the FDA to issue a request for the availability of KI for thyroid protection in the event of a release from a commercial nuclear power plant or weapons-related nuclear incident. Noting that KI's effectiveness was "virtually complete" and finding that iodine in the form of KI was substantially superior to other forms including iodate (KIO) in terms of safety, effectiveness, lack of side effects, and speed of onset, the FDA invited manufacturers to submit applications to produce and market KI.


title: Potassium iodide

text: It was reported on March 16, 2011, that potassium iodide tablets were given preventively to U.S. Naval air crew members flying within 70 nautical miles of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant damaged in the earthquake (8.9/9.0 magnitude) and ensuing tsunami on March 11, 2011. The measures were seen as precautions, and the Pentagon said no U.S. forces have shown signs of radiation poisoning. By March 20, the US Navy instructed personnel coming within 100 miles of the reactor to take the pills.


title: Potassium iodide

text: In the Netherlands, the central storage of iodine-pills is located in Zoetermeer, near The Hague. In 2017, the Dutch government distributed pills to hundreds of thousands of residents who lived within a certain distance of nuclear power plants and met some other criteria.


title: Potassium iodide

text: By 2020, potassium iodide tablets are made available free of charge for all residents in all pharmacies throughout the country.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Three companies (Anbex, Inc., Fleming Co, and Recipharm of Sweden) have met the strict FDA requirements for manufacturing and testing of KI, and they offer products (IOSAT, ThyroShield, and ThyroSafe, respectively) which are available for purchase. In 2012, Fleming Co. sold all its product rights and manufacturing facility to other companies and no longer exists. ThyroShield is currently not in production. The Swedish manufacturing facility for Thyrosafe, a half-strength potassium iodide tablet for thyroid protection from radiation, was mentioned on the secret US 2008 Critical Foreign Dependencies Initiative leaked by Wikileaks in 2010.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Tablets of potassium iodide are supplied for emergency purposes related to blockade of radioiodine uptake, a common form of radiation poisoning due to environmental contamination by the short-lived fission product . Potassium iodide may also be administered pharmaceutically for thyroid storm.


title: Potassium iodide

text: For reasons noted above, therapeutic drops of SSKI, or 130 mg tablets of KI as used for nuclear fission accidents, are not used as nutritional supplements, since an SSKI drop or nuclear-emergency tablet provides 300 to 700 times more iodine than the daily adult nutritional requirement. Dedicated nutritional iodide tablets containing 0.15 mg (150 micrograms (μg)) of iodide, from KI or from various other sources (such as kelp extract) are marketed as supplements, but they are not to be confused with the much higher pharmaceutical dose preparations.


title: Potassium iodide

text: Potassium iodide can be conveniently prepared in a saturated solution, abbreviated SSKI. This method of delivering potassium iodide doesn't require a method to weigh out the potassium iodide, thus allowing it to be used in an emergency situation. KI crystals are simply added to water until no more KI will dissolve and instead sits at the bottom of the container. With pure water, the concentration of KI in the solution depends only on the temperature. Potassium iodide is highly soluble in water thus SSKI is a concentrated source of KI. At 20 degrees Celsius the solubility of KI is 140-148 grams per 100 grams of water. Because the volumes of KI and water are approximately additive, the resulting SSKI solution will contain about 1.00 gram (1000 mg) KI per milliliter (mL) of solution. This is 100% weight/volume (note units of mass concentration) of KI (one gram KI per mL solution), which is possible because SSKI is significantly more dense than pure water—about 1.67 g/mL. Because KI is about 76.4% iodide by weight, SSKI contains about 764 mg iodide per mL. This concentration of iodide allows the calculation of the iodide dose per drop, if one knows the number of drops per milliliter. For SSKI, a solution more viscous than water, there are assumed to be 15 drops per mL; the iodide dose is therefore approximately 51 mg per drop. It is conventionally rounded to 50 mg per drop.


title: Potassium iodide

text: The term SSKI is also used, especially by pharmacists, to refer to a U.S.P. pre-prepared solution formula, made by adding KI to water to prepare a solution containing 1000 mg KI per mL solution (100% wt/volume KI solution), to closely approximate the concentration of SSKI made by saturation. This is essentially interchangeable with SSKI made by saturation, and also contains about 50 mg iodide per drop.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile delinquency, also known as juvenile offending, is the act of participating in unlawful behavior as a minor or individual younger than the statutory age of majority. In the United States of America, a juvenile delinquent is a person who commits a crime and is under a specific age. Most states specify a juvenile delinquent as an individual under 18 years of age while a few states have set the maximum age slightly different. In 2021, Michigan, New York, and Vermont raised the maximum age to under 19, and Vermont law was updated again in 2022 to include individuals under the age of 20. Only three states, Georgia, Texas, and Wisconsin still appropriate the age of a juvenile delinquent as someone under the age of 17. While the maximum age in some US states has increased, Japan has lowered the juvenile delinquent age from under 20 to under 18. This change occurred on April 1, 2022 when the Japanese Diet activated a law lowering the age of minor status in the country. Just as there are differences in the maximum age of a juvenile delinquent, the minimum age for a child to be considered capable of delinquency or the age of criminal responsibility varies considerably between the states. Some states that impose a minimum age have made recent amendments to raise the minimum age, but most states remain ambiguous on the minimum age for a child to be determined a juvenile delinquent. In 2021, North Carolina changed the minimum age from 6 years old to 10 years old while Connecticut moved from 7 to 10 and New York made an adjustment from 7 to 12. In some states the minimum age depends on the seriousness of the crime committed. Juvenile delinquents or juvenile offenders commit crimes ranging from status offenses such as, truancy, violating a curfew or underage drinking and smoking to more serious offenses categorized as property crimes, violent crimes, sexual offenses, and cybercrimes.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Some scholars have found an increase in arrests for youth and have concluded that this may reflect more aggressive criminal justice and zero-tolerance policies rather than changes in youth behavior. Youth violence rates in the United States have dropped to approximately 12% of peak rates in 1993 according to official US government statistics, suggesting that most juvenile offending is non-violent. Many delinquent acts can be attributed to the environmental factors such as family behavior or peer influence. One contributing factor that has gained attention in recent years is the school to prison pipeline. According to Diverse Education, nearly 75% of states have built more jails and prisons than colleges. CNN also provides a diagram that shows that cost per inmate is significantly higher in most states than cost per student. This shows that tax payers' dollars are going toward providing for prisoners rather than providing for the educational system and promoting the advancement of education. For every school that is built, The focus on punitive punishment has been seen to correlate with juvenile delinquency rates. Some have suggested shifting from zero tolerance policies to restorative justice approaches.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile detention centers, Juvenile courts and electronic monitoring are common structures of the juvenile legal system. Juvenile courts are in place to address offenses for minors as civil rather than criminal cases in most instances. The frequency of use and structure of these courts in the United States varies by state. Depending on the type and severity of the offense committed, it is possible for people under 18 to be charged and treated as adults.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Currently, there is not an agency whose jurisdiction is tracking worldwide juvenile delinquency but UNICEF estimates that over one million children are in some type of detention globally. Many countries do not keep records of the amount of delinquent or detained minors but of the ones that do, the United States has the highest number of juvenile delinquency cases. In the United States, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention compiles data concerning trends in juvenile delinquency. According to their most recent publication, 7 in 1000 juveniles in the US committed a serious crime in 2016. A serious crime is defined by the US Department of Justice as one of the following eight offenses: murder and non-negligent homicide, rape (legacy & revised), robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, motor vehicle theft, larceny-theft, and arson. According to research compiled by James Howell in 2009, the arrest rate for juveniles has been dropping consistently since its peak in 1994. Of the cases for juvenile delinquency that make it through the court system, probation is the most common consequence and males account for over 70% of the caseloads.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: According to developmental research by Moffitt (2006), there are two different types of offenders that emerge in adolescence. The first is an age specific offender, referred to as the adolescence-limited offender, for whom juvenile offending or delinquency begins and ends during their period of adolescence. Moffitt argues that most teenagers tend to show some form of antisocial or delinquent behavior during adolescence, it is therefore important to account for these behaviors in childhood in order to determine whether they will be adolescence-limited offenders or something more long term. The other type of offender is the repeat offender, referred to as the life-course-persistent offender, who begins offending or showing antisocial/aggressive behavior in adolescence (or even in childhood) and continues into adulthood.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: socioeconomic status, poor school readiness/performance and/or failure and peer rejection. Delinquent activity, especially the involvement in youth gangs, may also be caused by a desire for protection against violence or financial hardship. Juvenile offenders can view delinquent activity as a means of gaining access to resources to protect against such threats. Research by Carrie Dabb indicates that even changes in the weather can increase the likelihood of children exhibiting deviant behavior.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: According to research done by Laura E. Berk, the style of parenting that would be most beneficial for a child, based on studies conducted by Diana Baumrind(1971) is the authoritative child-rearing style because it combines acceptance with discipline to render healthy development for the child.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: As concluded in Steinberg's "Adolescence", children brought up by single parents are more likely to live in poverty and engage in delinquent behavior than those who live with both parents. However, according to research done by Graham and Bowling, once the attachment a child feels towards their parent(s) and the level of parental supervision are taken into account, children in single parent families are no more likely to offend than others. It was seen that when a child has low parental supervision they are much more likely to offend. Negative peer group association is more likely when adolescents are left unsupervised. A lack of supervision is also connected to poor relationships between children and parents. Children who are often in conflict with their parents may be less willing to discuss their activities with them. Conflict between a child's parents is also much more closely linked to offending than being raised by a lone parent.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Adolescents with siblings who have committed crimes are more likely to be influenced by their siblings and become delinquent if the sibling is older, of the same sex/gender, and maintains a good relationship with the child. Cases where a younger criminal sibling influences an older one are rare. An aggressive more hostile sibling is less likely to influence a younger sibling in the direction of delinquency, if anything, the more strained the relationship between the siblings, the less they will want to be influence each other.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Children resulting from unintended pregnancies are more likely to exhibit delinquent behavior. They also have lower mother-child relationship quality.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Peer rejection in childhood is also a large predictor of juvenile delinquency. This rejection can affect the child's ability to be socialized properly and often leads them to gravitate towards anti-social peer groups. Association with anti-social groups often leads to the promotion of violent, aggressive and deviant behavior. Robert Vargas's "Being in 'Bad' Company," explains that adolescents who can choose between groups of friends are less susceptible to peer influence that could lead them to commit illegal acts. Aggressive adolescents who have been rejected by peers are also more likely to have a "hostile attribution bias", which leads people to interpret the actions of others (whether they be hostile or not) as purposefully hostile and aggressive towards them. This often leads to an impulsive and aggressive reaction.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Conformity plays a significant role in the vast impact that peer group influence has on an individual. Aronson, Wilson, & Akert (2013) point to the research experiment conducted by Solomon Asch (1956), to ascertain whether a group could influence an individual's behavior. The experiment was executed by asking a participant determine which line in the set of 3 lines matched the length of an original line. Confederates knew the purpose of the experiment and were directed to answer the questions incorrectly during certain phases of the experiment. These confederates answered the question before the participant. The confederates answered the first few questions correctly, as did the participant. Eventually, all of the confederates started to answer incorrectly. The purpose of the experiment was to see if the group would influence the participant to answer incorrectly. Asch found that seventy-six percent of the participants conformed and answered incorrectly when influenced by the group. According to these findings, it was concluded that a peer group that is involved in deviant behavior can influence an adolescent to engage in similar activities. Once the adolescent becomes part of the group, they will be susceptible to groupthink.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: A common contributor to juvenile delinquency rates is a phenomenon referred to as the school to prison pipeline. In recent years, school disciplinary measures have become increasingly policed. In fact, 67% of high school students attend schools with police officers. This rise in police presence is often attributed to the implementation of zero tolerance policies. Based on the "broken windows" theory of criminology and the Gun-Free Schools Act, zero tolerance policies stress the use of specific, consistent, and harsh punishment to deal with in school infractions. Often measures such as suspension or expulsion are assigned to students who deviant regardless of the reason or past disciplinary history. This use of punishment often has been linked with increasing high school drop out rates and future arrests. It was found in a 2018 study that students who received a suspension were less likely to graduate and more likely to be arrested or on probation. As stated in research by Matthew Theriot, the increased police presence in school and use of tougher punishment methods leads student actions to be criminalized and in turn referred to juvenile justice systems.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: The Center on Youth Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice found that “for similar students attending similar schools, a single suspension or expulsion doubles the risk that a student will repeat a grade. Being retained a grade, especially while in middle or high school, is one of the strongest predictors of dropping out. In a national longitudinal study, it was reported that youth with a prior suspension were 68% more likely to dropout of school.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: The school to prison pipeline disproportionately affects minority students. According to data compiled by the United States Government Accountability Office, 39% of students who received a suspension in the 2013-14 school year were Black, even though Black students accounted for only about 15% of public school students. This over-representation applied to both boys and girls of African descent. Compared to White students, Black students were expelled or suspended 3 times as frequently.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile delinquency is the unlawful activities by minors in their teen or pre-teen years. It is influenced by four main risk factors, namely: personality, background, state of mind and drugs.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Gender is another risk factor in regards to influencing delinquent behavior. The predictors of different types of delinquency vary across females and males for various reasons, but a common underlying reason for this is socialization. Different predictors of delinquency emerge when analyzing distinct offending types across gender, but overall it is evident that males commit more crimes than females. Across all offenses, females are less likely to be involved in delinquent acts than males. Females not only commit fewer offenses, but they also commit less serious offenses.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Socialization plays a key role in the gender gap in delinquency because male and female juveniles are often socialized differently. Girls' and boys' experiences are heavily mediated by gender, which alters their interactions in society. Males and females are differently controlled and bonded, suggesting that they will not make the same choices and may follow different paths of delinquency. Social bonds are important for both males and females, but different aspects of the bond are relevant for each gender. The degree of involvement in social settings is a significant predictor of male's violent delinquency, but is not significant for females. Males tend to be more connected with their peer relationships which in effect has a stronger influence on their behavior. Association with delinquent peers is one of the strongest correlates of juvenile delinquency, and much of the gender gap can be accounted for by the fact that males are more likely to have friends that support delinquent behavior. Delinquent peers are positively and significantly related to delinquency in males but delinquent peers are negatively and insignificantly related to delinquency for females. As for females, familial functioning relationships have shown to be more important. Female juveniles tend to be more strongly connected with their families, the disconnect or the lack of socialization between their family members can significantly predict their likelihood of committing crimes as juveniles and even as adults. When the family is disrupted, females are more likely to engage in delinquent behavior than males. Boys, however, tend to be less connected to their family and are not as affected by these relationships. When it comes to minor offenses such as fighting, vandalism, shoplifting, and the carrying of weapons, differences in gender are limited because they are most common among both males as well as females. Elements of the social bond, social disorganization, routine activities, opportunity, and attitudes towards violence are also related to delinquent behavior among both males and females.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Individual psychological or behavioral risk factors that may make offending more likely include low intelligence, impulsiveness or the inability to delay gratification, aggression, lack of empathy, and restlessness. Other risk factors that may be evident during childhood and adolescence include, aggressive or troublesome behavior, language delays or impairments, lack of emotional control (learning to control one's anger), and cruelty to animals.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Children with low intelligence are more likely to do badly in school. This may increase the chances of offending because low educational attainment, a low attachment to school, and low educational aspirations are all risk factors for offending in themselves. Children who perform poorly at school are also more likely to be truant, and the status offense of truancy is linked to further offending.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Impulsiveness is seen by some as the key aspect of a child's personality that predicts offending. However, it is not clear whether these aspects of personality are a result of "deficits in the executive functions of the brain" or a result of parental influences or other social factors. In any event, studies of adolescent development show that teenagers are more prone to risk-taking, which may explain the high disproportionate rate of offending among adolescents.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile delinquents are often diagnosed with different disorders. Around six to sixteen percent of male teens and two to nine percent of female teens have a conduct disorder. These can vary from oppositional-defiant disorder, which is not necessarily aggressive, to antisocial personality disorder, often diagnosed among psychopaths. A conduct disorder can develop during childhood and then manifest itself during adolescence.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile delinquents who have recurring encounters with the criminal justice system, or in other words those who are life-course-persistent offenders, are sometimes diagnosed with conduct disorders because they show a continuous disregard for their own and others safety and/or property. Once the juvenile continues to exhibit the same behavioral patterns and turns eighteen he is then at risk of being diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder and much more prone to become a serious criminal offender. One of the main components used in diagnosing an adult with antisocial personality disorder consists of presenting documented history of conduct disorder before the age of 15. These two personality disorders are analogous in their erratic and aggressive behavior. This is why habitual juvenile offenders diagnosed with conduct disorder are likely to exhibit signs of antisocial personality disorder early in life and then as they mature. Some times these juveniles reach maturation and they develop into career criminals, or life-course-persistent offenders. "Career criminals begin committing antisocial behavior before entering grade school and are versatile in that they engage in an array of destructive behaviors, offend at exceedingly high rates, and are less likely to quit committing crime as they age."


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Quantitative research was completed on 9,945 juvenile male offenders between the ages of 10 and 18 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the 1970s. The longitudinal birth cohort was used to examine a trend among a small percentage of career criminals who accounted for the largest percentage of crime activity. The trend exhibited a new phenomenon among habitual offenders. The phenomenon indicated that only 6% of the youth qualified under their definition of a habitual offender (known today as life-course persistent offenders, or career criminals) and yet were responsible for 52% of the delinquency within the entire study. The same 6% of chronic offenders accounted for 71% of the murders and 69% of the aggravated assaults. This phenomenon was later researched among an adult population in 1977 and resulted in similar findings. S. A. Mednick did a birth cohort of 30,000 males and found that 1% of the males were responsible for more than half of the criminal activity. The habitual crime behavior found among juveniles is similar to that of adults. As stated before most life-course persistent offenders begin exhibiting antisocial, violent, and/or delinquent behavior, prior to adolescence. Therefore, while there is a high rate of juvenile delinquency, it is the small percentage of life-course persistent, career criminals that are responsible for most of the violent crimes.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime (criminology) most, if not all, of which are applicable to the causes of juvenile delinquency.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Classical criminology stresses that the causes of crime lie within individual offenders, rather than in their external environment. For classicists, offenders are motivated by rational self-interest, and the importance of free will and personal responsibility is emphasized. Rational choice theory is the clearest example of that idea. Delinquency is one of the major factors motivated by rational choice.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Current positivist approaches generally focus on the culture. A type of criminological theory attributing variation in crime and delinquency over time and among territories to the absence or breakdown of communal institutions (such as family, school, church, and social groups) and communal relationships that traditionally encouraged cooperative relationships among people.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Strain theory is associated mainly with the work of Robert K. Merton, who felt that there are institutionalized paths to success in society. Strain theory holds that crime is caused by the difficulty for those in poverty have to achieve socially-valued goals by legitimate means. Since those with, for instance, poor educational attainment have difficulty achieving wealth and status by securing well-paid employment, they are more likely to use criminal means to obtain those goals.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: A difficulty with strain theory is that it does not explore why children of low-income families have poor educational attainment in the first place. More importantly, much youth crime does not have an economic motivation. Strain theory fails to explain violent crime, the type of youth crime that causes most anxiety to the public.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Differential association is another theory that deals with young people in a group context and looks at how peer pressure and the existence of gangs could lead them into crime. It suggests young people are motivated to commit crimes by delinquent peers and learn criminal skills from them. The diminished influence of peers after men marry has also been cited as a factor in desisting from offending. There is strong evidence that young people with criminal friends are more likely to commit crimes themselves. However, offenders may prefer to associate with one another, rather than delinquent peers causing someone to start offending. Furthermore, there is the question of how the delinquent peer group initially became delinquent.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Labeling theory is a concept in criminology that aims to explain deviant behavior from the social context, rather the individual themselves. It is part of interactionism criminology, which states that once young people have been labeled as criminal, they are more likely to offend. The idea is that once labelled as deviant, a young person may accept that role and be more likely to associate with others who have been similarly labeled. Labelling theorists say that male children from poor families are more likely to be labelled deviant, which may partially explain the existence of more working-class young male offenders.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Social control theory proposes that exploiting the process of socialization and social learning builds self-control and can reduce the inclination to indulge in behavior that is recognized as antisocial. These four types of control can help prevent juvenile delinquency:


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Direct by which punishment is threatened or applied for wrongful behavior, and compliance is rewarded by parents, family, and authority figures.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Indirect by identification with those who influence behavior, such as because the delinquent act might cause pain and disappointment to parents and others close relationships.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Control through needs satisfaction: if all an individual's needs are met, there is no point in criminal activity.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: In 2020 a ruling abolished the death penalty for juveniles in Saudi Arabia. Despite this Mustafa Hashem al-Darwish was executed in June 2021. He was alleged to have of taken part in anti-government demonstrations at the age of 17. al-Darwish had been detained in May 2015 being placed in solitary confinement for years. al-Darwish claimed that he faced brutal torture and beatings and was forced to sign confessions.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: One criminal justice approach to juvenile delinquency is through the juvenile court systems. These courts are specifically for minors to be tried in. Sometimes, juvenile offenders are sent to adult prisons. In the United States, children as young as 8 can be tried and convicted as adults. Additionally, the United States was the only recorded country to sentence children as young as 13 to life sentences without parole also known as death in prison sentences. As of 2012, the Supreme Court has declared death in prison sentences unconstitutional for the vast majority of cases involving children. According to the US Department of Justice, about 3,600 children are housed in adult jails.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: According to a report released by the Prison Policy Initiative, over 48,000 children are held in juvenile detention centers or prisons in America. The worldwide number is unknown but UNICEF estimates that over 1 million children experience confinement in various countries. Juveniles in youth detention centers are sometimes subject to many of the same punishments as adults, such as solitary confinement, despite a younger age or the presence of disabilities. Due to the influx of minors in detention facilities due to the school to prison pipeline, education is increasingly becoming a concern. Children in juvenile detention have a compromised or nonexistent schooling which to a higher number of drop outs and failure to complete secondary education.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Delinquency prevention is the broad term for all efforts aimed at preventing youth from becoming involved in criminal, or other antisocial, activity. Prevention services may include activities such as substance abuse education and treatment, family counseling, youth mentoring, parenting education, educational support, and youth sheltering. Increasing availability and use of family planning services, including education and contraceptives helps to reduce unintended pregnancy and unwanted births, which are risk factors for delinquency. It has been noted that often interventions such as peer groups may leave at-risk children worse off than if there had never been an intervention.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Education promotes economic growth, national productivity and innovation, and values of democracy and social cohesion. Prevention through education has been seen to discourage delinquency for minors and help them strengthen the connection and understanding between peers


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: A well-known intervention treatment is the Scared Straight Treatment. According to research done by Scott Lilienfeld, this type of intervention is often harmful because of juvenile offenders’ vicarious exposure to criminal role models and the possibility of increased resentment in reaction to the confrontational interactions. It has been reasoned that the most efficient interventions are those that not only separate at-risk teens from anti-social peers, and place them instead with pro-social ones, but also simultaneously improve their home environment by training parents with appropriate parenting styles.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: In response to the data correlated with the school to prison pipeline, some institutions have implemented restorative justice policies. The restorative justice approach emphasizes conflict resolution and non-punitive intervention. Interventions such as hiring more counselors as opposed to security professionals or focusing on talking through problems would be included in a restorative justice approach.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: It is also important to note certain works of legislation that have already been published in the United States in response to general prisoner re-entry, extending to juveniles, such as the Second Chance Act (2007) and most recently, the Second Chance Reauthorization Act (2018).


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juvenile reform deals with the vocational programs and educational approach to reducing recidivism rates of juvenile offenders. Most countries in the world legislate processes for juvenile reform and re-entry, some more elaborate and formal than others. In theory, juvenile re-entry is sensitive to the fact that juveniles are young and assumes they are capable of change; it approaches a juvenile offender's situation and history holistically, evaluating the earlier factors that could lead a juvenile to commit crimes. In practice, this is complicated since juvenile delinquents return home to varying and unpredictable circumstances, including poverty, substance abuse, domestic violence, etc..


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: An understanding of the factors involved in each of these steps is crucial to creating an effective juvenile reform program. One non-profit identifies the following approaches to juvenile reform:


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: While juvenile reform has proved to be an effective and humanizing approach response to juvenile delinquency, it is a very complex area that still has many ongoing debates. For example, many countries around the world are debating the appropriate age of a juvenile, as well as trying to understand whether there are some crimes that are so heinous, they should be exempt from any understanding. Based on these discussions, legislation needs to be consistently updated and considered as social, cultural, and political landscapes change.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Juveniles who commit sexual crimes refer to individuals adjudicated in a criminal court for a sexual crime. Sex crimes are defined as sexually abusive behavior committed by a person under the age of 18 that is perpetrated "against the victim's will, without consent, and in an aggressive, exploitative, manipulative, and/or threatening manner". It is important to utilize appropriate terminology for juvenile sex offenders. Harsh and inappropriate expressions include terms such as "pedophile, child molester, predator, perpetrator, and mini-perp". These terms have often been associated with this group, regardless of the youth's age, diagnosis, cognitive abilities, or developmental stage. Using appropriate expressions can facilitate a more accurate depiction of juvenile sex offenders and may decrease the subsequent aversive psychological affects from using such labels. In the Arab Gulf states [sic], homosexual acts are classified as an offense, and constitute one of the primary crimes for which juvenile males are charged.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Examining prevalence data and the characteristics of juvenile sex offenders is a fundamental component to obtain a precise understanding of this heterogeneous group. With mandatory reporting laws in place, it became a necessity for providers to report any incidents of disclosed sexual abuse. Longo and Prescott indicate that juveniles commit approximately 30-60% of all child sexual abuse. The Federal Bureau of Investigation Uniform Crime Reports indicate that in 2008 youth under the age of 18 accounted for 16.7% of forcible rapes and 20.61% of other sexual offenses. Center for Sex Offender Management indicates that approximately one-fifth of all rapes and one-half of all sexual child molestation can be accounted for by juveniles.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention indicates that 15% of juvenile arrests occurred for rape in 2006, and 12% were clearance (resolved by an arrest). The total number of juvenile arrests in 2006 for forcible rape was 3,610 with 2% being female and 36% being under the age of 15 years. This trend has declined throughout the years with forcible rape from 1997–2006 being −30% and from 2005 to 2006 being −10%. The OJJDP reports that the juvenile arrest rate for forcible rape increased from the early 1980s through the 1990s and at that time it fell again. Violent crime rates in the U.S. have been on a steady decline since the 1990s. The OJJDP also reported that the total number of juvenile arrests in 2006 for sex offenses (other than forcible rape) was 15,900 with 10% being female and 47% being under the age of 15. There was again a decrease with the trend throughout the years with sex offenses from 1997 to 2006 being −16% and from 2005 to 2006 being −9%.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Barbaree and Marshall indicate that juvenile males contribute to the majority of sex crimes, with 2–4% of adolescent males having reported committing sexually assaultive behavior, and 20% of all rapes and 30–50% of all child molestation are perpetrated by adolescent males. It is clear that males are over-represented in this population. This is consistent with Ryan and Lane's research indicating that males account for 91-93% of the reported juvenile sex offenses. Righthand and Welch reported that females account for an estimated 2–11% of incidents of sexual offending. In addition, it reported by The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention that in the juvenile arrests during 2006, African American male youth were disproportionately arrested (34%) for forcible rape. In one case in a foster home a 13-year-old boy raped a 9-year-old boy by having forced anal sex with him, in a court hearing the 9-year-old boy said he has done this multiple times, that the 13-year-old boy was charged for sexual assault.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: Sexual crimes committed by juveniles are not just an issue in the United States. Studies from the Netherlands show that out of 3,200 sex offenders recorded by police in 2009, 672 of those were juveniles, approximately 21 percent of sexual offenders. The study also points out the male to female ratio of sexual predators.


title: Juvenile delinquency

text: In 2009, a U.S. congressman proposed legislation that would create an International Sex Offender Registry. The bill was introduced due to the fact that because laws differ in different countries someone who is on the sex offender registry in the U.S. who may be barred from living certain places and doing certain activities has free range in other less developed countries. This can lead to child sex tourism, when a sexual predator will go to less developed countries and prey on young boys and girls. Karne Newburn in his article, The Prospect of an International Sex Offender Registry, pointed out some serious flaws in the proposed bill, such as creating safety issues within the communities for the sex offenders placed on the registry. Newburn suggested instead of creating an International Sex Offender Registry from the U.S. model the U.S. join other countries in a dialogue on creating an effective model. As of now no registry exists. Despite this there is still interest in creating some sort of international registry.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Adam Wade Gontier (born May 25, 1978) is a Canadian singer and guitarist. He is the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and main songwriter for Saint Asonia, but is best known as the former lead singer, rhythm guitarist, and founding member of the Canadian rock band Three Days Grace. Gontier left Three Days Grace on January 9, 2013. In addition to his work with Three Days Grace and Saint Asonia, he has been involved in collaborations with other bands including Art of Dying, Apocalyptica and Breaking Benjamin.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier was born in Peterborough, Ontario, Canada on May 25, 1978. He was raised in Markham, Ontario. Shortly after his parents divorced, he moved back to the Peterborough area, where he initially attended Adam Scott Collegiate and Vocational Institute. In 1992, he moved to the Norwood area, and attended Norwood District High School, where he met and befriended Three Days Grace members Neil Sanderson and Brad Walst.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Outside of Three Days Grace, Gontier has also written and collaborated with numerous writers, musicians and bands. Some of his collaborations include Daughtry, Ian Thornley, Max Martin, Shaun Morgan, Ben Burnley, Art of Dying, Before the Curtain, and fellow musician and long time friends Kevin Brown, Grainne Ryan, and Kim Brown.


title: Adam Gontier

text: He has also contributed to a number of other albums. He contributed vocals and musical arrangement on "I Don't Care" on Apocalyptica's album, "Worlds Collide" in 2007.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier was also featured on the track "Raining" by fellow Canadian band Art of Dying on their album "Vices and Virtues". His cousin, Cale Gontier, is the bass player for Art of Dying.


title: Adam Gontier

text: In 2006, Gontier was a member of the rock supergroup Big Dirty Band along with Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, Jeff Burrows, Ian Thornley and Care Failure, covering "I Fought the Law", as part of the "Trailer Park Boys" movie soundtrack.


title: Adam Gontier

text: In 2009, Adam Gontier worked with Daughtry on their second studio album "Leave This Town". The song "Back Again" was featured on the physical copy of Daughtry's "" EP.


title: Adam Gontier

text: In 2011, Gontier created the record label, Sludge Factory Records, and has signed three acts, one of which is fellow Peterborough band, Before the Curtain.


title: Adam Gontier

text: On January 9, 2013, Gontier resigned from Three Days Grace. He left as the band was about to embark on a co-headlining tour. Matt Walst from My Darkest Days, the brother of bassist Brad Walst, became the new lead singer.


title: Adam Gontier

text: During 2015, Gontier worked with Staind guitarist Mike Mushok on a supergroup called Saint Asonia. The band released their self-titled, debut album on July 31, 2015.


title: Adam Gontier

text: On January 24, 2020, Breaking Benjamin released their compilation album, "Aurora", that included Gontier on the track "Dance with the Devil". In 2021, Gontier released a song for PUBG Mobile titled, "Tidal Wave".


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier joined singer and songwriter Martin Sexton on the road during his 2012 "Fall Like Rain" tour, providing opening support as a solo artist. He also joined Citizen Cope for a few shows as a solo act. Gontier continued to do shows and concerts as a solo artist. Several songs have been released, but not as singles. In early March 2013, Gontier publicly announced and launched his Adam Gontier Solo Live Tour.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier has won two BMI pop awards as well as "Billboard"s "Rock Single of the Year". Michael Bell handed him the "Big Time Award", at the 2012 "Wire Awards". Gontier was inducted into the Norwood District High School Hall of Honor in July 2022 along with Brad and Matt Walst.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier married Naomi Faith Brewer in 2004. The couple divorced in 2013. He married Jeanie Marie Larsen in March 2015.


title: Adam Gontier

text: In 2005, he went into rehabilitation at the CAMH (Centre for Addiction and Mental Health) in Toronto, where he wrote many of the songs for "One-X", including "Never Too Late", which was co-written by Adam's ex-wife, Naomi Faith Brewer. Both Gontier and Brewer wrote the video for the song, and she also appears in the video. While in CAMH in Toronto, Gontier wrote "Pain", "Animal I Have Become", "Get Out Alive", "Over and Over", and "Gone Forever". A docu-drama about his addiction, "Behind the Pain", was released in 2007.


title: Adam Gontier

text: Gontier has been open about his struggles with mental health. He stated that he relapsed in 2017 and went into a treatment center. Since then, Gontier has been sober and stated that he has "no plans on going back to a dark place anytime soon."


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals are very large, oceangoing earless seals in the genus Mirounga. Both species, the northern elephant seal ("M. angustirostris") and the southern elephant seal ("M. leonina"), were hunted to the brink of extinction for oil by the end of the 19th century, but their numbers have since recovered. They are the largest extant carnivorans, weighing up to .


title: Elephant seal

text: The northern elephant seal, somewhat smaller than its southern relative, ranges over the Pacific coast of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. The most northerly breeding location on the Pacific Coast is at Race Rocks, at the southern tip of Vancouver Island in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. The southern elephant seal is found in the Southern Hemisphere on islands such as South Georgia and Macquarie Island, and on the coasts of New Zealand, South Africa, and Argentina in the Peninsula Valdés. In southern Chile, there is a small colony of 120 animals at Jackson Bay ("Bahía Jackson") in Admiralty Sound ("Seno Almirantazgo") at the southern coast of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego.


title: Elephant seal

text: The oldest known unambiguous elephant seal fossils are fragmentary fossils of an unnamed member of the tribe Miroungini described from the late Pliocene Petane Formation of New Zealand. Teeth originally identified as representing an unnamed species of "Mirounga" have been found in South Africa, and dated to the Miocene epoch; however, Boessenecker and Churchill (2016) considered these teeth to be almost certainly misidentified odontocete teeth. The elephant seals evolved in the Pacific Ocean during the Pliocene period.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals breed annually and are seemingly faithful to colonies that have established breeding areas.


title: Elephant seal

text: John Edward Gray established the genus "Mirounga" in 1827. The generic name "Mirounga" is a Latinization of "miouroung", which is said to have been a term for the seal in an Australian Aboriginal language. However, it is not known which language this represents.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals are marine mammals classified under the order Pinnipedia, which, in Latin, means feather- or fin-footed. Elephant seals are considered true seals, and fall under the family Phocidae. Phocids (true seals) are characterized by having no external ear and reduced limbs. The reduction of their limbs helps them be more streamlined and move easily in the water. However, it makes navigating on land more difficult because they cannot turn their hind flippers forward to walk like the Otariids. In addition, the hind flippers of elephant seals have a lot of surface area, which helps propel them in the water. Elephant seals spend the majority of their life (90%) underwater in search of food, and can cover a day when they head out to sea. When elephant seals are born, they can weigh up to and reach lengths up to . Sexual dimorphism is extreme, with male elephant seals weighing up to 10 times more than females, and having a prominent proboscis.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals take their name from the large proboscis of the adult male (bull), reminiscent of an elephant's trunk, and considered a secondary sexual characteristic. The bull's proboscis is used in producing extraordinarily loud roaring noises, especially during the mating season. More importantly, however, the nose acts as a sort of rebreather, filled with cavities designed to reabsorb moisture from their exhalations. This is important during the mating season when the seals do not leave the beach to feed, and must conserve body moisture as there is no incoming source of water. They are very much larger than other pinnipeds, with southern elephant seal bulls typically reaching a length of and a weight of , and are much larger than the adult females (cows), with some exceptionally large males reaching up to in length and weighing ; cows typically measure about and . Northern elephant seal bulls reach a length of and the heaviest weigh about .


title: Elephant seal

text: The northern and southern elephant seal can be distinguished by various external features. On average, the southern elephant seal tends to be larger than the northern species. Adult male elephant seals belonging to the northern species tend to have a larger proboscis, and thick chest area with a red coloration compared to the southern species. Females do not have the large proboscis and can be distinguished between species by looking at their nose characteristics. Southern females tend to have a smaller, blunt nose compared to northern females.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals spend up to 80% of their lives in the ocean. They can hold their breath for more than 100 minutes – longer than any other noncetacean mammal. Elephant seals dive to beneath the ocean's surface (the deepest recorded dive of an elephant seal is by a southern elephant seal, while the record for the northern elephant seal is ). The average depth of their dives is about , typically for around 20 minutes for females and 60 minutes for males, as they search for their favorite foods, which are skates, rays, squid, octopuses, eels, small sharks and large fish. Their stomachs also often contain gastroliths. They spend only brief amounts of time at the surface to rest between dives (2–3 minutes). Females tend to dive a bit deeper due to their prey source.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals are shielded from extreme cold more by their blubber than by fur. Their hair and outer layers of skin molt in large patches. The skin has to be regrown by blood vessels reaching through the blubber. When molting occurs, the seal is susceptible to the cold, and must rest on land, in a safe place called a "haul out". Northern males and young adults haul out during June to July to molt; northern females and immature seals during April to May.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals have a very large volume of blood, allowing them to hold a large amount of oxygen for use when diving. They have large sinuses in their abdomens to hold blood and can also store oxygen in their muscles with increased myoglobin concentrations in muscle. In addition, they have a larger proportion of oxygen-carrying red blood cells. These adaptations allow elephant seals to dive to such depths and remain underwater for up to two hours.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals are able to slow down their heartbeat (bradycardia) and divert blood flow from the external areas of the body to important core organs. They can also slow down their metabolism while performing deep dives.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals have a helpful feature in their bodies known as the countercurrent heat exchanger to help conserve energy and prevent heat loss. In this system, arteries and veins are organized in a way to maintain a constant body temperature by having the cool blood flowing to the heart warmed by blood going to external areas of the animal.


title: Elephant seal

text: Milk produced by elephant seals is remarkably high in milkfat compared to other mammals. After an initially lower state, it rises to over 50% milkfat (human breast milk is about 4% milkfat, and cow milk is about 3.5% milkfat).


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals have large circular eyes that have more rods than cones to help them see in low light conditions when they are diving. These seals also possess a structure called the tapetum lucidum, which helps their vision by having light reflected back to the retina to allow more chances for photoreceptors to detect light.


title: Elephant seal

text: Their body is covered in blubber, which helps them keep warm and reduce drag while they are swimming. The shape of their body also helps them maneuver well in the water, but limits their movement on land. Also, elephant seals have the ability to fast for long periods of time while breeding or molting. The turbinate process, another unique adaptation, is very beneficial when these seals are fasting, breeding, molting, or hauling out. This unique nasal structure recycles moisture when they breathe and helps prevent water loss.


title: Elephant seal

text: Elephant seals have external whiskers called "vibrissae" to help them locate prey and navigate their environment. The vibrissae are connected to blood vessels, nerves, and muscles making them an important sensing tool.


title: Elephant seal

text: Due to evolutionary changes, their ear has been modified to work extremely well underwater. The structure of the inner ear helps amplify incoming sounds, and allows these seals to have good directional hearing due to the isolation of the inner ear. In addition to these adaptations, tissues in the ear canal allow the pressure in the ear to be adjusted while these seals perform their deep dives.


title: Elephant seal

text: Males arrive at potential breeding sites in spring, and fast to ensure that they can mate with as many females as possible. Male elephant seals use fighting, vocalisations, and different positions to determine the dominant males. By the time males reach eight to nine years of age, they have developed a pronounced long nose, in addition to a chest shield, which is thickened skin in their chest area. They display their dominance by showing their noses, making loud vocalisations, and altering their postures. They fight each other by raising themselves and ramming each other with their chests and teeth.


title: Elephant seal

text: By the time females arrive, each dominating male has already established his territory on the beach. Females cluster in groups called harems, which consist of up to 50 females surrounding one alpha male. Outside of these groups, a beta bull is normally roaming around on the beach. The beta bull helps the alpha by preventing other males accessing the females. In return, the beta bull might have an opportunity to mate with one of the females while the alpha is occupied.


title: Elephant seal

text: Birth on average only takes a few minutes, and the mother and pup have a connection due to each other's unique smell and sound. The mothers will fast and nurse up to 28 days, providing their pups with rich milk. The last two to three days, however, females will be ready to mate, and the dominant males will pounce on the opportunity. Males and females lose up to a third of their body weight during the breeding season. The gestation period for females is 11 months, and the pupping seasons lasts from mid to late summer. The new pups will spend up to 10 additional weeks on land learning how to swim and dive.


title: Elephant seal

text: The average lifespan of a northern elephant seal is 9 years, while the average lifespan of a southern elephant seal is 21 years. Males reach maturity at five to six years, but generally do not achieve alpha status until the age of eight, with the prime breeding years being between ages 9 and 12. The longest life expectancy of a male northern elephant seal is approximately 14 years.


title: Elephant seal

text: Females begin breeding at age 3–6, and have one pup per breeding attempt. Most adult females breed each year. Breeding success is much lower for first-time mothers relative to experienced breeders. Annual survival probability of adult females is 0.83 for experienced breeding females, but only 0.66 for first-time breeders indicating a significant cost of reproduction. More male pups are produced than female pups in years with warmer sea surface temperature in the northeastern Pacific Ocean.