title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The much smaller and rocky McDonald Islands are located to the west of Heard Island. They consist of McDonald Island ( high), Flat Island ( high) and Meyer Rock ( high). They total approximately in area, where McDonald Island is . There is a small group of islets and rocks about north of Heard Island, consisting of Shag Islet, Sail Rock, Morgan Island and Black Rock. They total about in area.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Mawson Peak and McDonald Island are the only two active volcanoes in Australian territory. Mawson Peak is also one of the highest Australian mountains (higher than Mount Kosciuszko); surpassed only by Mount McClintock range in the Antarctic territory. Mawson Peak has erupted several times in the last decade; the most recent eruption was filmed on 2 February 2016. The volcano on McDonald Island, after being dormant for 75,000 years, became active in 1992 and has erupted several times since, the most recent in 2005.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island and the McDonald Islands have no ports or harbours; ships must anchor offshore. The coastline is , and a territorial sea and exclusive fishing zone are claimed.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island has a number of small wetland sites scattered around its coastal perimeter, including areas of wetland vegetation, lagoons or lagoon complexes, rocky shores and sandy shores, including the Elephant Spit. Many of these wetland areas are separated by active glaciers. There are also several short glacier-fed streams and glacial pools. Some wetland areas have been recorded on McDonald Island but, due to substantial volcanic activity since the last landing was made in 1980, their present extent is unknown.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The HIMI wetland is listed on the Directory of Important Wetlands in Australia and, in a recent analysis of Commonwealth-managed wetlands, was ranked highest for nomination under the Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat (Ramsar Convention) as an internationally important wetland.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Six wetland types have been identified from HIMI covering approximately 1860 ha: coastal 'pool complex' (237 ha); inland 'pool complex' (105 ha); vegetated seeps mostly on recent glaciated areas (18 ha); glacial lagoons (1103 ha); non-glacial lagoons (97ha); Elephant Spit (300 ha) plus some coastal areas. On Heard Island, the majority of these types suites are found below 150 m asl. The wetland vegetation occurs in the 'wet mixed herbfield' and 'coastal biotic vegetation' communities described above.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The wetlands provide important breeding and feeding habitat for a number of Antarctic and subantarctic wetland animals. These include the southern elephant seal and macaroni, gentoo, king and eastern rockhopper penguins, considered to be wetland species under the Ramsar Convention. Non-wetland vegetated parts of the islands also support penguin and other seabird colonies.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The islands have an Antarctic climate, tempered by their maritime setting. The weather is marked by low seasonal and daily temperature ranges, persistent and generally low cloud cover, frequent precipitation and strong winds. Snowfall occurs throughout the year. Monthly average temperatures at Atlas Cove (at the northwestern end of Heard Island) range from , with an average daily range of in summer and in winter. The winds are predominantly westerly and persistently strong. At Atlas Cove, monthly average wind speeds range between around . Gusts in excess of have been recorded. Annual precipitation at sea level on Heard Island is on the order of ; rain or snow falls on about 3 out of 4 days.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The islands are part of the Southern Indian Ocean Islands tundra ecoregion that includes several subantarctic islands. In this cold climate plant life is mainly limited to grasses, lichens, and mosses. Low plant diversity reflects the islands' isolation, small size, severe climate, the short, cool growing season and, for Heard Island, substantial permanent ice cover. The main environmental determinants of vegetation on subantarctic islands are wind exposure, water availability, parent soil composition, salt spray exposure, nutrient availability, disturbance by trampling (from seabirds and seals) and, possibly, altitude. At Heard Island, exposure to salt spray and the presence of breeding and moulting seabirds and seals are particularly strong influences on vegetation composition and structure in coastal areas.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Evidence from microfossil records indicates that ferns and woody plants were present on Heard Island during the Tertiary (a period with a cool and moist climate). Neither group of plants is present today, although potential Tertiary survivors include the vascular plant "Pringlea antiscorbutica" and six moss species. Volcanic activity has altered the distribution and abundance of the vegetation. The vascular flora covers a range of environments and, although only six species are currently widespread, glacial retreat and the consequent connection of previously separate ice-free areas is providing opportunities for further distribution of vegetation into adjacent areas.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Low-growing herbaceous flowering plants and bryophytes are the major vegetation components. The vascular flora comprises the smallest number of species of any major subantarctic island group, reflecting its isolation, small ice-free area and severe climate. Twelve vascular species are known from Heard Island, of which five have also been recorded on McDonald Island. None of the vascular species are endemic, although "Pringlea antiscorbutica", "Colobanthus kerguelensis", and "Poa kerguelensis" occur only on subantarctic islands in the southern Indian Ocean.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The plants are typically subantarctic, but with a higher abundance of the cushion-forming "Azorella selago" than other subantarctic islands. Heard Island is the largest subantarctic island with no confirmed human-introduced plants. Areas available for plant colonisation on Heard Island are generally the result of retreating glaciers or new ice-free land created by lava flows. Today, substantial vegetation covers over 20 km of Heard Island, and is best developed on coastal areas at elevations below 250 m.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) contribute substantially to the overall biodiversity of Heard Island, with 43 mosses and 19 liverworts being recorded, often occupying habitats unsuitable for vascular plants, such as cliff faces. Bryophytes are present in most of the major vegetation communities including several soil and moss-inhabiting species. A 1980 survey of McDonald Island found lower diversity than that on Heard Island; four mosses and a number of algal species are recorded from there.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: At least 100 species of terrestrial algae are known from Heard Island, commonly in permanently moist and ephemeral habitats. Forests of the giant Antarctic kelp "Durvillaea antarctica" occur at a number of sites around Heard Island and at least 17 other species of seaweed are known, with more to be added following the identification of recent collections. Low seaweed diversity is due to the island's isolation from other land masses, unsuitable beach habitat, constant abrasion by waves, tides and small stones, and the extension of glaciers into the sea in many areas.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island has a range of terrestrial environments in which vegetation occurs. Seven general vegetation communities are currently recognised, although vegetation composition is considered more of a continuum than discrete units:


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: One of the most rapidly changing physical settings in the subantarctic has been produced on Heard Island by a combination of rapid glacial recession and climate warming. The consequent increase in habitat available for plant colonisation, plus the coalescing of previously discrete ice-free areas, has led to marked changes in the vegetation of Heard Island in the last 20 years or so. Other species and vegetation communities found on subantarctic islands north of the Antarctic Convergence now absent from the Heard Island flora may colonise the island if climate change produces more favourable conditions.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Some plant species are spreading and modifying the structure and composition of communities, some of which are also increasing in distribution. It is likely that further changes will occur, and possibly at an accelerated rate. Changes in population numbers of seal and seabird species are also expected to affect the vegetation by changing nutrient availability and disturbance through trampling.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: One plant species on Heard Island, "Poa annua", a cosmopolitan grass native to Europe, was possibly introduced by humans, though is more likely to have arrived naturally, probably by skuas from the Kerguelen Islands where it is widespread. It was initially recorded in 1987 in two deglaciated areas of Heard Island not previously exposed to human visitors, while being absent from known sites of past human habitation. Since 1987 "Poa annua" populations have increased in density and abundance within the original areas and have expanded beyond them. Expeditioner boot traffic during the Australian Antarctic program expedition in 1987 may be at least partly responsible for the spread, but it is probably mainly due to dispersal by wind and the movement of seabirds and seals around the island.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The potential for introducing plant species (including invasive species not previously found on subantarctic islands) by both natural and human-induced means is high. This is due to the combination of low species diversity and climatic amelioration. During the 2003/04 summer a new plant species, "Cotula plumosa", was recorded. Only one small specimen was found growing on a coastal river terrace that had experienced substantial development and expansion of vegetation over the past decade. The species has a circumantarctic distribution and occurs on many subantarctic islands.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: 71 species of lichens have been recorded from Heard Island and they are common on exposed rock, dominating the vegetation in some areas. As with plants, a 1980 survey of McDonald Island found lower diversity there, with just eight lichen species and a number of non-lichenized fungi recorded.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The main indigenous animals are insects along with large populations of ocean-going seabirds, seals and penguins.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Sealing at Heard Island lasted from 1855 to 1910, during which time 67 sealing vessels are recorded visiting, nine of which were wrecked off the coast. Relics that survive from that time include trypots, casks, hut ruins, graves and inscriptions. This caused the seal populations there to either become locally extinct or reduced to levels too low to exploit economically. Modern sealers visited from Cape Town in the 1920s. Since then the populations have generally increased and are protected. Seals breeding on Heard include the southern elephant seal, the Antarctic fur seal and the subantarctic fur seal. Leopard seals visit regularly in winter to haul-out though they do not breed on the islands. Crabeater, Ross and Weddell seals are occasional visitors.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island and the McDonald Islands are free from introduced predators and provide crucial breeding habitat in the middle of the vast Southern Ocean for a range of birds. The surrounding waters are important feeding areas for birds and some scavenging species also derive sustenance from their cohabitants on the islands. The islands have been identified by BirdLife International as an Important Bird Area because they support very large numbers of nesting seabirds.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Nineteen species of birds have been recorded as breeding on Heard Island and the McDonald Islands, although recent volcanic activity at the McDonald Islands in the last decade is likely to have reduced vegetated and un-vegetated nesting areas.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Penguins are by far the most abundant birds on the islands, with four breeding species present, comprising king, gentoo, macaroni and eastern rockhopper penguins. The penguins mostly colonise the coastal tussock and grasslands of Heard Island, and have previously been recorded as occupying the flats and gullies on McDonald Island.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Other seabirds recorded as breeding at Heard Island include three species of albatross (wandering, black-browed and light-mantled albatrosses), southern giant petrels, Cape petrels, four species of burrowing petrels (Antarctic and Fulmar prions, common and South Georgia diving petrels), Wilson's storm petrels, kelp gulls, subantarctic skuas, Antarctic terns and the Heard shag. Although not a true seabird, the Heard Island subspecies of the black-faced sheathbill also breeds on the island. Both the shag and the sheathbill are endemic to Heard Island.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: A further 28 seabird species are recorded as either non-breeding visitors or have been noted during 'at-sea surveys' of the islands. All recorded breeding species, other than the Heard Island sheathbill, are listed marine species under the Australian Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Act (1999, four are listed as threatened species and five are listed migratory species. Under the EPBC Act a recovery plan has been made for albatrosses and giant petrels, which calls for ongoing population monitoring of the species found at HIMI, and at the time of preparing this plan a draft recovery plan has also been made for the Heard Island cormorant (or shag) and Antarctic tern.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The recorded populations of some seabird species found in the Reserve have shown marked change. The king penguin population is the best studied seabird species on Heard Island and has shown a dramatic increase since first recorded in 1947/48, with the population doubling every five years or so for more than 50 years.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: A paper reviewing population data for the black-browed albatross between 1947 and 2000/01 suggested that the breeding population had increased to about three times that present in the late 1940s, although a Convention for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources CCAMLR) Working Group was cautious about the interpretation of the increasing trend given the disparate nature of the data, as discussed in the paper. The discovery of a large, previously unknown, colony of Heard shags in 2000/01 at Cape Pillar raised the known breeding population from 200 pairs to over 1000 pairs. The breeding population of southern giant petrels decreased by more than 50% between the early 1950s and the late 1980s.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island supports a relatively low number of terrestrial invertebrate species compared to other Southern Ocean islands, in parallel with the low species richness in the flora–that is, the island's isolation and limited ice-free area. Endemism is also generally low and the invertebrate fauna is exceptionally pristine with few, if any, (successful) human-induced introductions of alien species.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Two species, including the thrips "Apterothrips apteris" and the mite "Tyrophagus putrescentiae" are thought to be recent, possibly natural, introductions. An exotic species of earthworm "Dendrodrilus rubidus" was also collected in 1929 from a dump near Atlas Cove, and has recently been collected from a variety of habitats including wallows, streams and lakes on Heard Island.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The arthropods of Heard Island are comparatively well known with 54 species of mite and tick, one spider and eight springtails recorded. A study over summer at Atlas Cove in 1987/88 showed overall densities of up to 60 000 individual springtails per square metre in soil under stands of "Pringlea antiscorbutica". Despite a few recent surveys, the non-arthropod invertebrate fauna of Heard Island remain poorly known.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Beetles and flies dominate Heard Island's known insect fauna, which comprises up to 21 species of ectoparasite (associated with birds and seals) and up to 13 free-living species. Approximately half of the free-living insects are habitat-specific, while the remainder are generalists found in a variety of habitats, being associated with either supralittoral or intertidal zones, "Poa cookii" and "Pringlea antiscorbutica" stands, bryophytes, lichen-covered rocks, exposed rock faces or the underside of rocks. There is a pronounced seasonality to the insect fauna, with densities in winter months dropping to a small percentage (between 0.75%) of the summer maximum. Distinct differences in relative abundances of species between habitats has also been shown, including a negative relationship between altitude and body size for Heard Island weevils.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The fauna of the freshwater pools, lakes, streams and mires found in the coastal areas of Heard Island are broadly similar to those on other subantarctic islands of the southern Indian Ocean. Many species reported from Heard Island are found elsewhere. Some sampling of freshwater fauna has been undertaken during recent expeditions and records to date indicate that the freshwater fauna includes a species of Protista, a gastrotrich, two species of tardigrade, at least four species of nematode, 26 species of rotifer, six species of annelid and 14 species of arthropod.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: As with the other shore biota, the marine macro-invertebrate fauna of Heard Island is similar in composition and local distribution to other subantarctic islands, although relatively little is known about the Heard Island communities compared with the well-studied fauna of some other islands in the subantarctic region, such as Macquarie and Kerguelen.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Despite Heard Island's isolation, species richness is considered to be moderate, rather than depauperate, although the number of endemic species reported is low. The large macro-alga "Durvillaea antarctica" supports a diverse array of invertebrate taxa and may play an important role in transporting some of this fauna to Heard Island.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The rocky shores of Heard Island exhibit a clear demarcation between fauna of the lower kelp holdfast zone and the upper shore zone community, probably due to effects of desiccation, predation and freezing in the higher areas. The limpet "Nacella kerguelensis" is abundant in the lower part of the shore, being found on rock surfaces and on kelp holdfasts. Other common but less abundant species in this habitat include the chiton "Hemiarthrum setulosum" and the starfish "Anasterias mawsoni". The amphipod "Hyale" sp. and the isopod "Cassidinopsis" sp. are closely associated with the kelp. Above the kelp holdfast zone, the littornid "Laevilitorina (Corneolitorina) heardensis" and the bivalve mollusc "Kidderia bicolor" are found in well-sheltered situations, and another bivalve "Gaimardia trapesina trapesina" has been recorded from immediately above the holdfast zone. Oligochaetes are also abundant in areas supporting porous and spongy layers of algal mat.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Heard Island is a heavily glaciated, subantarctic volcanic island located in the Southern Ocean, roughly southwest of Australia. 80% of the island is covered in ice, with glaciers descending from to sea level. Due to the steep topography of Heard Island, most of its glaciers are relatively thin (averaging only about in depth). The presence of glaciers on Heard Island provides an excellent opportunity to measure the rate of glacial retreat as an indicator of climate change.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Available records show no apparent change in glacier mass balance between 1874 and 1929. Between 1949 and 1954, marked changes were observed to have occurred in the ice formations above 5000 feet on the southwestern slopes of Big Ben, possibly as a result of volcanic activity. By 1963, major recession was obvious below 2000 feet on almost all glaciers, and minor recession was evident as high as 5000 feet.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The coastal ice cliffs of Brown and Stephenson Glaciers, which in 1954 were over 50 feet high, had disappeared by 1963 when the glaciers terminated as much as 100 yards inland. Baudissin Glacier on the north coast, and Vahsel Glacier on the west coast have lost at least 100 and 200 vertical feet of ice, respectively. Winston Glacier, which retreated approximately one mile between 1947 and 1963, appears to be a very sensitive indicator of glacier change on the island. The young moraines flanking Winston Lagoon show that Winston Glacier has lost at least 300 vertical feet of ice within a recent time period. Jacka Glacier on the east coast of Laurens Peninsula has also demonstrated marked recession since 1955.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: Retreat of glacier fronts across Heard Island is evident when comparing aerial photographs taken in December 1947 with those taken on a return visit in early 1980. Retreat of Heard Island glaciers is most dramatic on the eastern section of the island, where the termini of former tidewater glaciers are now located inland. Glaciers on the northern and western coasts have narrowed significantly, while the area of glaciers and ice caps on Laurens Peninsula have shrunk by 30–65%.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: During the time period between 1947 and 1988, the total area of Heard Island's glaciers decreased by 11%, from (roughly 79% of the total area of Heard Island) to only . A visit to the island in the spring of 2000 found that the Stephenson, Brown and Baudissin glaciers, among others, had retreated even further. The terminus of Brown Glacier has retreated approximately since 1950. The total ice-covered area of Brown Glacier is estimated to have decreased by roughly 29% between 1947 and 2004. This degree of loss of glacier mass is consistent with the measured increase in temperature of over that time span.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The Australian Antarctic Division conducted an expedition to Heard Island during the austral summer of 2003–04. A small team of scientists spent two months on the island, conducting studies on avian and terrestrial biology and glaciology. Glaciologists conducted further research on the Brown Glacier, in an effort to determine whether glacial retreat is rapid or punctuated. Using a portable echo sounder, the team took measurements of the volume of the glacier. Monitoring of climatic conditions continued, with an emphasis on the impact of Foehn winds on glacier mass balance. Based on the findings of that expedition, the rate of loss of glacier ice on Heard Island appears to be accelerating. Between 2000 and 2003, repeat GPS surface surveys revealed that the rate of loss of ice in both the ablation zone and the accumulation zone of Brown Glacier was more than double average rate measured from 1947 to 2003. The increase in the rate of ice loss suggests that the glaciers of Heard Island are reacting to ongoing climate change, rather than approaching dynamic equilibrium. The retreat of Heard Island's glaciers is expected to continue for the foreseeable future.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The United Kingdom formally established its claim to Heard Island in 1910, marked by the raising of the Union Flag and the erection of a beacon by Captain Evensen, master of the "Mangoro". Effective government, administration and control of Heard Island and the McDonald Islands was transferred to the Australian government on 26 December 1947 at the commencement of the first Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE) to Heard Island, with a formal declaration that took place at Atlas Cove. The transfer was confirmed by an exchange of letters between the two governments on 19 December 1950.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The islands are a territory (Territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands) of Australia administered from Hobart by the Australian Antarctic Division of the Australian Department of the Environment and Energy. The administration of the territory is established in the "Heard Island and McDonald Islands Act 1953", which places it under the laws of the Australian Capital Territory and the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory. The islands are contained within a marine reserve and are primarily visited for research, meaning that there is no permanent human habitation.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: From 1947 until 1955 there were camps of visiting scientists on Heard Island (at Atlas Cove in the northwest, which was in 1969 again occupied by American scientists and expanded in 1971 by French scientists) and in 1971 on McDonald Island (at Williams Bay). Later expeditions used a temporary base at Spit Bay in the east, such as in 1988, 1992–93 and 2004–05.


title: Heard Island and McDonald Islands

text: The islands' only natural resource is fish; the Australian government allows limited fishing in the surrounding waters. Despite the lack of population, the islands have been assigned the country code HM in ISO 3166-1 () and therefore the Internet top-level domain .hm. The time zone of the islands is UTC+5.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Phenylketonuria (PKU) is an inborn error of metabolism that results in decreased metabolism of the amino acid phenylalanine. Untreated PKU can lead to intellectual disability, seizures, behavioral problems, and mental disorders. It may also result in a musty smell and lighter skin. A baby born to a mother who has poorly treated PKU may have heart problems, a small head, and low birth weight.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Phenylketonuria is an inherited genetic disorder. It is due to mutations in the "PAH" gene, which results in low levels of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase. This results in the buildup of dietary phenylalanine to potentially toxic levels. It is autosomal recessive, meaning that both copies of the gene must be mutated for the condition to develop. There are two main types, classic PKU and variant PKU, depending on whether any enzyme function remains. Those with one copy of a mutated gene typically do not have symptoms. Many countries have newborn screening programs for the disease.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Treatment is with a diet that (1) is low in foods that contain phenylalanine, and which (2) includes special supplements. Babies should use a special formula with a small amount of breast milk. The diet should begin as soon as possible after birth and be continued for life. People who are diagnosed early and maintain a strict diet can have normal health and a normal life span. Effectiveness is monitored through periodic blood tests. The medication sapropterin dihydrochloride may be useful in some.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Phenylketonuria affects about 1 in 12,000 babies. Males and females are affected equally. The disease was discovered in 1934 by Ivar Asbjørn Følling, with the importance of diet determined in 1935. Gene therapy, while promising, requires a great deal more study as of 2014.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Untreated PKU can lead to intellectual disability, seizures, behavioral problems, and mental disorders. It may also result in a musty smell and lighter skin. A baby born to a mother who has poorly treated PKU may have heart problems, a small head, and low birth weight.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Because the mother's body is able to break down phenylalanine during pregnancy, infants with PKU are normal at birth. The disease is not detectable by physical examination at that time, because no damage has yet been done. Newborn screening is performed to detect the disease and initiate treatment before any damage is done. The blood sample is usually taken by a heel prick, typically performed 2–7 days after birth. This test can reveal elevated phenylalanine levels after one or two days of normal infant feeding.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: If a child is not diagnosed during the routine newborn screening test and a phenylalanine-restricted diet is not introduced, then phenylalanine levels in the blood will increase over time. Toxic levels of phenylalanine (and insufficient levels of tyrosine) can interfere with infant development in ways that have permanent effects. The disease may present clinically with seizures, hypopigmentation (excessively fair hair and skin), and a "musty odor" to the baby's sweat and urine (due to phenylacetate, a carboxylic acid produced by the oxidation of phenylacetone). In most cases, a repeat test should be done at approximately two weeks of age to verify the initial test and uncover any phenylketonuria that was initially missed.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Untreated children often fail to attain early developmental milestones, develop microcephaly, and demonstrate progressive impairment of cerebral function. Hyperactivity, EEG abnormalities, and seizures, and severe learning disabilities are major clinical problems later in life. A characteristic "musty or mousy" odor on the skin, as well as a predisposition for eczema, persist throughout life in the absence of treatment.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: The damage done to the brain if PKU is untreated during the first months of life is not reversible. It is critical to control the diet of infants with PKU very carefully so that the brain has an opportunity to develop normally. Affected children who are detected at birth and treated are much less likely to develop neurological problems or have seizures and intellectual disability (though such clinical disorders are still possible including asthma, eczema, anemia, weight gain, renal insufficiency, osteoporosis, gastritis, esophagus, and kidney deficiencies, kidney stones, and hypertension). Additionally, major depressive disorders occur 230% higher than controls; dizziness and giddiness occur 180% higher; chronic ischemic heart disease, asthma, diabetes, and gastroenteritis occur 170% higher; and stress and adjustment disorders occur 160% higher. In general, however, outcomes for people treated for PKU are good. Treated people may have no detectable physical, neurological, or developmental problems at all.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PKU is an autosomal recessive metabolic genetic disorder. As an autosomal recessive disorder, two PKU alleles are required for an individual to experience symptoms of the disease. For a child to inherit PKU, both the mother and father must have and pass on the defective gene. If both parents are carriers for PKU, there is a 25% chance any child they have will be born with the disorder, a 50% chance the child will be a carrier and a 25% chance the child will neither develop nor be a carrier for the disease.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PKU is characterized by homozygous or compound heterozygous mutations in the gene for the hepatic enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH), rendering it nonfunctional. This enzyme is necessary to metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine (Phe) to the amino acid tyrosine (Tyr). When PAH activity is reduced, phenylalanine accumulates and is converted into phenylpyruvate (also known as phenylketone), which can be detected in the urine.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Carriers of a single PKU allele do not exhibit symptoms of the disease but appear to be protected to some extent against the fungal toxin ochratoxin A. This accounts for the persistence of the allele in certain populations in that it confers a selective advantage—in other words, being a heterozygote is advantageous.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: The PAH gene is located on chromosome 12 in the bands 12q22-q24.2. As of 2000, around 400 disease-causing mutations had been found in the PAH gene. This is an example of allelic genetic heterogeneity.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: When phenylalanine (Phe) cannot be metabolized by the body, a typical diet that would be healthy for people without PKU causes abnormally high levels of Phe to accumulate in the blood, which is toxic to the brain. If left untreated (and often even in treatment), complications of PKU include severe intellectual disability, brain function abnormalities, microcephaly, mood disorders, irregular motor functioning, and behavioral problems such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, as well as physical symptoms such as a "musty" odor, eczema, and unusually light skin and hair coloration.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Classical PKU, and its less severe forms "mild PKU" and "mild hyperphenylalaninemia" are caused by a mutated gene for the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH), which converts the amino acid phenylalanine ("Phe") to other essential compounds in the body, in particular tyrosine. Tyrosine is a conditionally essential amino acid for PKU patients because without PAH it cannot be produced in the body through the breakdown of phenylalanine. Tyrosine is necessary for the production of neurotransmitters like epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PAH deficiency causes a spectrum of disorders, including classic phenylketonuria (PKU) and mild hyperphenylalaninemia (also known as "hyperphe" or "mild HPA"), a less severe accumulation of phenylalanine. Compared to classic PKU patients, patients with "hyperphe" have greater PAH enzyme activity and are able to tolerate larger amounts of phenylalanine in their diets. Without dietary intervention, mild HPA patients have blood Phe levels higher than those with normal PAH activity. There is currently no international consensus on the definition of mild HPA, however, it is most frequently diagnosed at blood Phe levels between 2–6 mg/dL.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Phenylalanine is a large, neutral amino acid (LNAA). LNAAs compete for transport across the blood–brain barrier (BBB) via the large neutral amino acid transporter (LNAAT). If phenylalanine is in excess in the blood, it will saturate the transporter. Excessive levels of phenylalanine tend to decrease the levels of other LNAAs in the brain. As these amino acids are necessary for protein and neurotransmitter synthesis, Phe buildup hinders the development of the brain, causing intellectual disability.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Recent research suggests that neurocognitive, psychosocial, quality of life, growth, nutrition, bone pathology are slightly suboptimal even for patients who are treated and maintain their Phe levels in the target range, if their diet is not supplemented with other amino acids.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Classic PKU affects myelination and white matter tracts in untreated infants; this may be one major cause of neurological problems associated with phenylketonuria. Differences in white matter development are observable with magnetic resonance imaging. Abnormalities in gray matter can also be detected, particularly in the motor and pre-motor cortex, thalamus and the hippocampus.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: It was recently suggested that PKU may resemble amyloid diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, due to the formation of toxic amyloid-like assemblies of phenylalanine.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: A rarer form of hyperphenylalaninemia is tetrahydrobiopterin deficiency, which occurs when the PAH enzyme is normal, and a defect is found in the biosynthesis or recycling of the cofactor tetrahydrobiopterin (BH). BH is necessary for proper activity of the enzyme PAH, and this coenzyme can be supplemented as treatment. Those with this form of hyperphenylalaninemia may have a deficiency of tyrosine (which is created from phenylalanine by PAH), in which case treatment is supplementation of tyrosine to account for this deficiency.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Levels of dopamine can be used to distinguish between these two types. Tetrahydrobiopterin is required to convert Phe to Tyr and is required to convert Tyr to L-DOPA via the enzyme tyrosine hydroxylase. L-DOPA, in turn, is converted to dopamine. Low levels of dopamine lead to high levels of prolactin. By contrast, in classical PKU (without dihydrobiopterin involvement), prolactin levels would be relatively normal.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: The enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase normally converts the amino acid phenylalanine into the amino acid tyrosine. If this reaction does not take place, phenylalanine accumulates and tyrosine is deficient. Excessive phenylalanine can be metabolized into phenylketones through the minor route, a transaminase pathway with glutamate. Metabolites include phenylacetate, phenylpyruvate and phenethylamine. Elevated levels of phenylalanine in the blood and detection of phenylketones in the urine is diagnostic, however most patients are diagnosed via newborn screening.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PKU is commonly included in the newborn screening panel of many countries, with varied detection techniques. Most babies in developed countries are screened for PKU soon after birth. Screening for PKU is done with bacterial inhibition assay (Guthrie test), immunoassays using fluorometric or photometric detection, or amino acid measurement using tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). Measurements done using MS/MS determine the concentration of Phe and the ratio of Phe to tyrosine, the ratio will be elevated in PKU.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PKU is not curable. However, if PKU is diagnosed early enough, an affected newborn can grow up with normal brain development by managing and controlling phenylalanine ("Phe") levels through diet, or a combination of diet and medication.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: People who follow the prescribed dietary treatment from birth may (but not always) have no symptoms. Their PKU would be detectable only by a blood test. People must adhere to a special diet low in Phe for optimal brain development. Since Phe is necessary for the synthesis of many proteins, it is required for appropriate growth, but levels must be strictly controlled.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Optimal health ranges (or "target ranges") are between 120 and 360 μmol/L or equivalently 2 to 6 mg/dL. This is optimally to be achieved during at least the first 10 years, to allow the brain to develop normally.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: The diet requires restricting or eliminating foods high in Phe, such as soybeans, egg whites, shrimp, chicken breast, spirulina, watercress, fish, nuts, crayfish, lobster, tuna, turkey, legumes, and lowfat cottage cheese. Starchy foods, such as potatoes and corn are generally acceptable in controlled amounts, but the quantity of Phe consumed from these foods must be monitored. A corn-free diet may be prescribed in some cases. A food diary is usually kept to record the amount of Phe consumed with each meal, snack, or drink. An "exchange" system can be used to calculate the amount of Phe in a portion of food from the protein content identified on a nutritional information label. Lower-protein "medical food" substitutes are often used in place of normal bread, pasta, and other grain-based foods, which contain a significant amount of Phe. Many fruits and vegetables are lower in Phe and can be eaten in larger quantities. Infants may still be breastfed to provide all of the benefits of breastmilk, but the quantity must also be monitored and supplementation for missing nutrients will be required. The sweetener aspartame, present in many diet foods and soft drinks, must also be avoided, as aspartame contains phenylalanine.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Different people can tolerate different amounts of Phe in their diet. Regular blood tests are used to determine the effects of dietary Phe intake on blood Phe level.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Supplementary "protein substitute" formulas are typically prescribed for people PKU (starting in infancy) to provide the amino acids and other necessary nutrients that would otherwise be lacking in a low-phenylalanine diet. Tyrosine, which is normally derived from phenylalanine and which is necessary for normal brain function, is usually supplemented. Consumption of the protein substitute formulas can actually reduce phenylalanine levels, probably because it stops the process of protein catabolism from releasing Phe stored in the muscles and other tissues into the blood. Many PKU patients have their highest Phe levels after a period of fasting (such as overnight) because fasting triggers catabolism. A diet that is low in phenylalanine but does not include protein substitutes may also fail to lower blood Phe levels, since a nutritionally insufficient diet may also trigger catabolism. For all these reasons, the prescription formula is an important part of the treatment for patients with classic PKU.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Evidence supports dietary supplementation with large neutral amino acids (LNAAs). The LNAAs (e.g. leu, tyr, trp, met, his, ile, val, thr) may compete with phe for specific carrier proteins that transport LNAAs across the intestinal mucosa into the blood and across the blood–brain barrier into the brain. Its use is limited in the US due to the cost but is available in most countries as part of a low protein / PHE diet to replace missing nutrients.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Another interesting treatment strategy is casein glycomacropeptide (CGMP), which is a milk peptide naturally free of Phe in its pure form CGMP can substitute for the main part of the free amino acids in the PKU diet and provides several beneficial nutritional effects compared to free amino acids. The fact that CGMP is a peptide ensures that the absorption rate of its amino acids is prolonged compared to free amino acids and thereby results in improved protein retention and increased satiety compared to free amino acids. Another important benefit of CGMP is that the taste is significantly improved when CGMP substitutes part of the free amino acids and this may help ensure improved compliance to the PKU diet.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Furthermore, CGMP contains a high amount of the Phe-lowering LNAAs, which constitutes about 41 g per 100 g protein and will therefore help maintain plasma phe levels in the target range.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: In 2018, the FDA approved an enzyme substitute called pegvaliase which metabolizes phenylalanine. It is for adults who are poorly managed on other treatments.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Tetrahydrobiopterin (BH4) (a cofactor for the oxidation of phenylalanine) when taken by mouth can reduce blood levels of this amino acid in some people.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: For women with PKU, it is important for the health of their children to maintain low Phe levels before and during pregnancy. Though the developing fetus may only be a carrier of the PKU gene, the intrauterine environment can have very high levels of phenylalanine, which can cross the placenta. The child may develop congenital heart disease, growth retardation, microcephaly and intellectual disability as a result. PKU-affected women themselves are not at risk of additional complications during pregnancy.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: In most countries, women with PKU who wish to have children are advised to lower their blood Phe levels (typically to between 2 and 6 mg/dL) before they become pregnant, and carefully control their levels throughout the pregnancy. This is achieved by performing regular blood tests and adhering very strictly to a diet, in general monitored on a day-to-day basis by a specialist metabolic dietitian. In many cases, as the fetus' liver begins to develop and produce PAH normally, the mother's blood Phe levels will drop, requiring an increased intake to remain within the safe range of 2–6 mg/dL. The mother's daily Phe intake may double or even triple by the end of the pregnancy, as a result. When maternal blood Phe levels fall below 2 mg/dL, anecdotal reports indicate that the mothers may experience adverse effects, including headaches, nausea, hair loss, and general malaise. When low phenylalanine levels are maintained for the duration of pregnancy, there are no elevated levels of risk of birth defects compared with a baby born to a non-PKU mother.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: The average number of new cases of PKU varies in different human populations. United States Caucasians are affected at a rate of 1 in 10,000. Turkey has the highest documented rate in the world, with 1 in 2,600 births, while countries such as Finland and Japan have extremely low rates with fewer than one case of PKU in 100,000 births. A 1987 study from Slovakia reports a Roma population with an extremely high incidence of PKU (one case in 40 births) due to extensive inbreeding. It is the most common amino acid metabolic problem in the United Kingdom.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Before the causes of PKU were understood, PKU caused severe disability in most people who inherited the relevant mutations. Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck had a daughter named Carol who lived with PKU before treatment was available, and wrote an account of its effects in a book called "The Child Who Never Grew." Many untreated PKU patients born before widespread newborn screening are still alive, largely in dependent living homes/institutions.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Phenylketonuria was discovered by the Norwegian physician Ivar Asbjørn Følling in 1934 when he noticed hyperphenylalaninemia (HPA) was associated with intellectual disability. In Norway, this disorder is known as Følling's disease, named after its discoverer. Følling was one of the first physicians to apply detailed chemical analysis to the study of disease.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: In 1934 at Rikshospitalet, Følling saw a young woman named Borgny Egeland. She had two children, Liv and Dag, who had been normal at birth but subsequently developed intellectual disability. When Dag was about a year old, the mother noticed a strong smell to his urine. Følling obtained urine samples from the children and, after many tests, he found that the substance causing the odor in the urine was phenylpyruvic acid. The children, he concluded, had excess phenylpyruvic acid in the urine, the condition which came to be called phenylketonuria (PKU).


title: Phenylketonuria

text: His careful analysis of the urine of the two affected siblings led him to request many physicians near Oslo to test the urine of other affected patients. This led to the discovery of the same substance he had found in eight other patients. He conducted tests and found reactions that gave rise to benzaldehyde and benzoic acid, which led him to conclude that the compound contained a benzene ring. Further testing showed the melting point to be the same as phenylpyruvic acid, which indicated that the substance was in the urine.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: In 1954, Horst Bickel, Evelyn Hickmans and John Gerrard published a paper that described how they created a diet that was low in phenylalanine and the patient recovered. Bickel, Gerrard and Hickmans were awarded the John Scott Medal in 1962 for their discovery.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: PKU was the first disorder to be routinely diagnosed through widespread newborn screening. Robert Guthrie introduced the newborn screening test for PKU in the early 1960s. With the knowledge that PKU could be detected before symptoms were evident, and treatment initiated, screening was quickly adopted around the world. Ireland was the first country to introduce a national screening programme in February 1966, Austria also started screening in 1966 and England in 1968.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: In 2017 the European Guidelines were published. They were called for by the patient organizations such as the European Society for Phenylketonuria and Allied Disorders Treated as Phenylketonuria. They have received some critical reception.


title: Phenylketonuria

text: Biomarin is currently conducting clinical trials to investigate PEG-PAL (PEGylated recombinant phenylalanine ammonia lyase or 'PAL') is an enzyme substitution therapy in which the missing PAH enzyme is replaced with an analogous enzyme that also breaks down Phe. PEG-PAL is now in Phase 2 clinical development.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Lauri Elias Markkanen (born 22 May 1997) is a Finnish professional basketball player for the Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In the 2017 NBA draft, he was taken by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the seventh overall pick before being included in a trade to the Chicago Bulls for Jimmy Butler. Nicknamed "The Finnisher", he is the son of Finnish basketball players Pekka and Riikka Markkanen, and the younger brother of footballer Eero Markkanen.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen grew up in Jyväskylä, and played his junior years in the local team, HoNsU. Markkanen played for HBA-Märsky in the Finnish second-tier league from 2014 to 2016.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: On 17 October 2015, Markkanen verbally committed to NCAA Division I squad Arizona Wildcats prior to the 2016–17 season. Lauri signed a letter of intent to Arizona on 11 November. ESPN.com reported that the seven-foot Finn was considered "a possible one-and-done candidate for the NBA draft." He became the first player since Mike Bibby to wear the jersey number 10. In January 2017, "SB Nation" regarded him as "the best shooting 7-footer college basketball has ever seen". Within the same month Markkanen was selected as Pac-12 Player of the Week as well as the Oscar Robertson National Player of the Week. He has also been named to the pre-season Karl Malone Award Watchlist, Naismith Award Watchlist, Wooden Award Watchlist, Wooden Award Midseason Top 25, Wayman Tisdale Award Midseason watch list, Oscar Robertson Award Midseason watch list, Karl Malone Award Finalist, Naismith Top 30 Finalist. Markkanen was among the 15 finalists for the John R. Wooden Award.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: He recorded a career-high 30 points on 12 Jan against rival Arizona State. Also recording a career-high 13 rebounds three times against Northern Colorado, Washington State, and Washington. His career-high three blocks came against Arizona State in the regular season finale 4 March 2017.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen was selected to the third team All-American team by the Associated Press, NBC Sports, "USA Today", and the "Sporting News" on 6 March 2017. He was a first team All-Pac-12 selection, as well as first team All-Pac-12 Freshman team and first team All-Pac-12 team in Associated Press.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: At the conclusion of his freshman season, Markkanen announced his intention to forgo his final three years of collegiate eligibility and enter the 2017 NBA draft.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen was drafted by the Minnesota Timberwolves with the seventh pick of the first round of the 2017 NBA draft. On draft night, his rights were traded to the Chicago Bulls along with Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn for Jimmy Butler and the rights to Justin Patton. On 5 July 2017, Markkanen signed with the Bulls.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: On 19 October 2017, Markkanen made his NBA debut with the Bulls and scored 17 points. Markkanen then set an NBA record on 24 October, for most 3-pointers in the first three games of an NBA career with ten 3-pointers. Markkanen also asked former NBA player Brian Scalabrine to use his number 24, which Brian allowed. On 30 December, Markkanen scored a career-high 32 points and seven rebounds in a 119–107 win against the Indiana Pacers. On 10 January 2018, Markkanen played a career high 46 minutes, scored a career-high 33 points along with a career-high eight 3-pointers in a double overtime 122–119 win against the New York Knicks. This made him the second seven-foot player to make eight three-pointers in a game (the first being Dirk Nowitzki). On 22 January, he grabbed a career-high 17 rebounds against the New Orleans Pelicans. Four days later, Markkanen blocked a career-high three shots against the Los Angeles Lakers.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: After scoring seventeen points against the Milwaukee Bucks on 28 January 2018, Markkanen surpassed Hanno Möttölä (715) as the career leading scorer among NBA players from Finland. On 22 May 2018, he was named to the NBA All-Rookie First Team. He ended his rookie season leading the Bulls in rebounds with 7.5 and fourth in scoring with 15.2; his 14 double-doubles was third among rookies behind Kyle Kuzma and Ben Simmons.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen missed the first 23 games of the season. He had a career-high 19 rebounds in a loss to the Brooklyn Nets on 28 January. He also had 31 points and 18 rebounds in a win over Brooklyn on 8 February; a career-high 35 points along with 15 rebounds in a win over the Boston Celtics on 23 February; and 31 points and 17 rebounds in win over the Atlanta Hawks on 1 March. On 28 March, Markkanen was ruled out for the rest of the season after undergoing tests for his health problems, which he experienced in a 26 March game against the Toronto Raptors. In the 52 games he did play, he was second on the team with 18.7 points and first with 9.0 rebounds and 20 double-doubles (fourth in the NBA).


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen began the season tying a career-high with 35 points along with 17 rebounds in a one-point loss to the Charlotte Hornets, the most opening-day points by a Chicago Bull since Michael Jordan in 1995.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: On 30 January 2021, Markkanen scored a season-high 31 points on 12-of-18 shooting from the field and 6-of-11 from three in a 123–122 loss to the Portland Trail Blazers. After the Bulls added veteran big men Daniel Theis and Nikola Vučević to their roster to fortify their frontcourt, Markkanen lost his starting spot. On 29 March, Markkanen came off the bench for the first time during the season and the second in his 194 career games, he finished with 13 points, six rebounds and an assist across 22 minutes in a 116–102 loss to the Golden State Warriors. Since Markkanen moved to the second unit, he has been given a limited time and has been playing the small forward position. In a game against the Memphis Grizzlies on 12 April, Markkanen went scoreless for the first time in his career.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: On 28 August 2021, Markkanen was acquired by the Cleveland Cavaliers in a three-team sign-and-trade also involving the Portland Trail Blazers.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: On 1 September 2022, Markkanen was traded to the Utah Jazz along with Ochai Agbaji, Collin Sexton, three first round picks, and two pick swaps in exchange for Donovan Mitchell. On November 18, Markkanen scored a career-high 38 points on 15-of-18 shooting from the field, in a 134–133 win over the Phoenix Suns.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen made his international debut with the Finnish U-18 national team at the 2015 FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship. Markkanen averaged 18.2 points per game to lead the FIBA Europe Under-18 Championship in the summer of 2015. He was the top scorer in 2016 FIBA Europe Under-20 Championship tournament with an average of 24.9 points per game and was named to the All-Tournament Team.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: Markkanen played with the Finland senior team at EuroBasket 2017, which was partly held in his home country. He led his team to the round of 16 by averaging 19.5 points and 5.7 rebounds over 6 games.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: He played his second EuroBasket tournament in 2022. In the Round of 16, Markkanen scored 43 points to lead Finland to a 94–86 win over Croatia, setting a new all-time record for a Finnish player at the EuroBasket. The win also lead to Finland's first quarterfinal appearance in 55 years, the last being in 1967. Finland lost in the following quarterfinals to Spain. Markkanen averaged 27.9 points on 54.2 percent shooting, and eight rebounds over seven games.


title: Lauri Markkanen

text: He is the son of Pekka and Riikka Markkanen (née Ellonen), who both were professional basketball players, and has two brothers, former professional basketball player Miikka and professional footballer Eero. In February 2018, Markkanen and his wife Verna Aho had a son together. In October 2020, their second child was born.


title: Chutney

text: A chutney is a spread in the cuisines of the Indian subcontinent. Chutneys are made in a wide variety of forms, such as a tomato relish, a ground peanut garnish, yogurt or curd, cucumber, spicy coconut, spicy onion or mint dipping sauce.


title: Chutney

text: A common variant in Anglo-Indian cuisine uses a tart fruit such as sharp apples, rhubarb or damson pickle made milder by an equal weight of sugar (usually demerara, turbinado or brown sugar to replace jaggery in some Indian sweet chutneys). Vinegar was added to the recipe for English-style chutney that traditionally aims to give a long shelf life so that autumn fruit can be preserved for use throughout the year (as are jams, jellies and pickles) or to be sold as a commercial product. Indian pickles use mustard oil as a pickling agent, but Anglo-Indian style chutney uses malt or cider vinegar which produces a milder product. In western cuisine, chutney is often eaten with hard cheese or with cold meats and fowl, typically in cold pub lunches.


title: Chutney

text: The word "chutney" derives from Hindi चटनी "chaṭnī", deriving from चाटना "chāṭnā" 'to lick' or 'to eat with appetite'. In India, "chutney" refers to fresh and pickled preparations indiscriminately; however, several Indian languages use the word for fresh preparations only.


title: Chutney

text: In India, chutneys can be either made alongside pickles that are matured in the sun for up to two weeks and kept up to a year or, more commonly, are freshly made from fresh ingredients that can be kept a couple of days or a week in the refrigerator.


title: Chutney

text: In Tamil Nadu, "thogayal" or "thuvayal" (Tamil) are preparations similar to chutney but with a pasty consistency. In Andhra Pradesh it is also called "pacchadi". In Kerala it is also called "chammanthi" and in Telangana it is called "tokku" or also "pacchadi". "Thengai chutney," a coconut-based chutney is the one being referred when only 'chutney' is said.


title: Chutney

text: Medicinal plants that are believed to have a beneficial effect are sometimes made into chutneys, for example "pirandai thuvayal" or ridged gourd chutney ("peerkangai thuvayal" or "beerakaaya tokku").


title: Chutney

text: Bitter gourd can also serve as a base for a chutney which is like a relish or, alternatively as a dried powder.


title: Chutney

text: Occasionally, chutneys that contrast in taste and colour can be served together—a favourite combination being a green mint and chili chutney with a contrasting sweet brown tamarind and date chutney.


title: Chutney

text: Chutneys may be ground with a mortar and pestle or an "ammikkal" (Tamil). Spices are added and ground, usually in a particular order; the wet paste thus made is sautéed in vegetable oil, usually gingelly (sesame) or peanut oil. Electric blenders or food processors can be used as labour-saving alternatives to the stone grinding technique.


title: Chutney

text: Western-style chutneys are usually fruit, vinegar, and sugar cooked down to a reduction, with added flavourings. These may include sugar, salt, garlic, tamarind, onion or ginger. Western-style chutneys originated from Anglo-Indians at the time of the British Raj recreated Indian chutneys using English orchard fruits—sour cooking apples and rhubarb, for example. They would often contain dried fruit: raisins, currants, and sultanas.


title: Chutney

text: They were a way to use a glut of ripened fruit and preserving techniques were similar to sweet fruit preserves using approximately an equal weight of fruit and sugar, the vinegar and sugar acting as preservatives.


title: Chutney

text: South Indian chutney powders are made from roasted dried lentils to be sprinkled on "idlis" and "dosas". Peanut chutneys can be made wet or as a dry powder.


title: Chutney

text: Spices commonly used in chutneys include fenugreek, coriander, cumin, and asafoetida ("hing"). Other prominent ingredients and combinations include coriander, capsicum, mint (coriander and mint chutneys are often called हरा "hara" chutney, Hindi for "green"), Tamarind or "imli" (often called "meethi" chutney, as मिठाई "meethi" in Hindi means "sweet"), sooth (or "saunth", made with dates and ginger), coconut, onion, prune, tomato, red chili, green chili, mango, lime (made from whole, unripe limes), garlic, coconut, peanut, "dahi" (yogurt), green tomato, "dhaniya" "pudina" (cilantro and mint), peanut ("shengdana" chutney in Marathi), ginger, red chili powder, tomato onion chutney, cilantro, mint coconut chutney, and apricot.


title: Chutney

text: Major Grey's Chutney is a type of sweet and spicy chutney popular in the United States. The recipe was reportedly created by a 19th-century British Army officer of the same name (likely apocryphal) who presumably had resided for a period of time in the Raj. Its characteristic ingredients are mango, raisins, vinegar, lime juice, onion, tamarind extract, sweetening and spices. Several companies produce a Major Grey's Chutney, in India, the UK and the US.


title: Chutney

text: Similar in preparation and usage to a pickle, simple spiced chutneys can be dated to 500 BC. Originating in South Asia, this method of preserving food was subsequently adopted by the Romans and British thanks to their encounters and contacts with the Indian subcontinent. As greater imports of foreign and varied foods increased into northern Europe, chutney fell out of favour in Britain. This combined with a greater ability to refrigerate fresh foods and an increasing number of glasshouses meant the British consumption of chutney and pickle were relegated to army usage and individuals residing in South Asia. Chutney became resurgently popular in England around the 1780s as an appetizer.


title: Chutney

text: Diego Álvarez Chanca brought back chili peppers from the Americas to Spain in 1493. He had sailed with Columbus. After discovering their medicinal properties, Chanca developed a chutney to administer them. In the early 17th century, officials of the East India Company on the Indian subcontinent subsisted on preserved foodstuffs such as lime pickles, chutneys and marmalades. (Marmalades proved unpopular due to their sweetness. They were also rare due to a lack of available sugar.) Beginning in the 17th century, fruit chutneys were shipped to various European countries as luxury goods. These imitations were called "mangoed" fruits or vegetables, the word 'chutney' being associated with the working class in these countries.


title: Chutney

text: Major Grey's Chutney is thought to have been developed by a British officer who had travelled to the Indian subcontinent. The formula was eventually sold to Crosse and Blackwell, a major British food manufacturer, probably in the early 1800s. In the 19th century, types of chutney like Major Grey's or Bengal Club that catered to western tastes were shipped to Europe from South Asia. Generally, these chutneys are fruit, vinegar, and sugar cooked down to a reduction.


title: Euler's totient function

text: In number theory, Euler's totient function counts the positive integers up to a given integer that are relatively prime to . It is written using the Greek letter phi as formula_1 or formula_2, and may also be called Euler's phi function. In other words, it is the number of integers in the range for which the greatest common divisor is equal to 1. The integers of this form are sometimes referred to as totatives of .


title: Euler's totient function

text: For example, the totatives of are the six numbers 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 and 8. They are all relatively prime to 9, but the other three numbers in this range, 3, 6, and 9 are not, since and . Therefore, . As another example, since for the only integer in the range from 1 to is 1 itself, and .


title: Euler's totient function

text: Euler's totient function is a multiplicative function, meaning that if two numbers and are relatively prime, then .


title: Euler's totient function

text: This function gives the order of the multiplicative group of integers modulo (the group of units of the ring formula_3). It is also used for defining the RSA encryption system.


title: Euler's totient function

text: Leonhard Euler introduced the function in 1763. However, he did not at that time choose any specific symbol to denote it. In a 1784 publication, Euler studied the function further, choosing the Greek letter to denote it: he wrote for "the multitude of numbers less than , and which have no common divisor with it". This definition varies from the current definition for the totient function at but is otherwise the same. The now-standard notation comes from Gauss's 1801 treatise "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae", although Gauss didn't use parentheses around the argument and wrote . Thus, it is often called Euler's phi function or simply the phi function.


title: Euler's totient function

text: In 1879, J. J. Sylvester coined the term totient for this function, so it is also referred to as Euler's totient function, the Euler totient, or Euler's totient. Jordan's totient is a generalization of Euler's.


title: Euler's totient function

text: The cototient of is defined as . It counts the number of positive integers less than or equal to that have at least one prime factor in common with .


title: Euler's totient function

text: where the product is over the distinct prime numbers dividing . (For notation, see Arithmetical function.)


title: Euler's totient function

text: An equivalent formulation for formula_5, where formula_6 are the distinct primes dividing "n", is:formula_7The proof of these formulae depends on two important facts.


title: Euler's totient function

text: This means that if , then . "Proof outline:" Let , , be the sets of positive integers which are coprime to and less than , , , respectively, so that , etc. Then there is a bijection between and by the Chinese remainder theorem.


title: Euler's totient function

text: "Proof": Since is a prime number, the only possible values of are , and the only way to have is if is a multiple of , that is, , and there are such multiples not greater than . Therefore, the other numbers are all relatively prime to .


title: Euler's totient function

text: The fundamental theorem of arithmetic states that if there is a unique expression formula_9 where are prime numbers and each . (The case corresponds to the empty product.) Repeatedly using the multiplicative property of and the formula for gives


title: Euler's totient function

text: An alternative proof that does not require the multiplicative property instead uses the inclusion-exclusion principle applied to the set formula_11, excluding the sets of integers divisible by the prime divisors.


title: Euler's totient function

text: In words: the distinct prime factors of 20 are 2 and 5; half of the twenty integers from 1 to 20 are divisible by 2, leaving ten; a fifth of those are divisible by 5, leaving eight numbers coprime to 20; these are: 1, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 17, 19.


title: Euler's totient function

text: For example, using formula_17 and formula_18:formula_19Unlike the Euler product and the divisor sum formula, this one does not require knowing the factors of . However, it does involve the calculation of the greatest common divisor of and every positive integer less than , which suffices to provide the factorization anyway.


title: Euler's totient function

text: where the sum is over all positive divisors of , can be proven in several ways. (See Arithmetical function for notational conventions.)


title: Euler's totient function

text: One proof is to note that is also equal to the number of possible generators of the cyclic group ; specifically, if with , then is a generator for every coprime to . Since every element of generates a cyclic subgroup, and all subgroups are generated by precisely elements of , the formula follows. Equivalently, the formula can be derived by the same argument applied to the multiplicative group of the th roots of unity and the primitive th roots of unity.


title: Euler's totient function

text: The formula can also be derived from elementary arithmetic. For example, let and consider the positive fractions up to 1 with denominator 20:


title: Euler's totient function

text: These twenty fractions are all the positive ≤ 1 whose denominators are the divisors . The fractions with 20 as denominator are those with numerators relatively prime to 20, namely , , , , , , , ; by definition this is fractions. Similarly, there are fractions with denominator 10, and fractions with denominator 5, etc. Thus the set of twenty fractions is split into subsets of size for each dividing 20. A similar argument applies for any "n."


title: Euler's totient function

text: where is the Möbius function, the multiplicative function defined by formula_24 and formula_25 for each prime and . This formula may also be derived from the product formula by multiplying out formula_26 to get formula_27


title: Euler's totient function

text: In the graph at right the top line is an upper bound valid for all other than one, and attained if and only if is a prime number. A simple lower bound is formula_29, which is rather loose: in fact, the lower limit of the graph is proportional to .


title: Euler's totient function

text: This follows from Lagrange's theorem and the fact that is the order of the multiplicative group of integers modulo.


title: Euler's totient function

text: The RSA cryptosystem is based on this theorem: it implies that the inverse of the function , where is the (public) encryption exponent, is the function , where , the (private) decryption exponent, is the multiplicative inverse of modulo . The difficulty of computing without knowing the factorization of is thus the difficulty of computing : this is known as the RSA problem which can be solved by factoring . The owner of the private key knows the factorization, since an RSA private key is constructed by choosing as the product of two (randomly chosen) large primes and . Only is publicly disclosed, and given the difficulty to factor large numbers we have the guarantee that no one else knows the factorization.


title: Euler's totient function

text: These two formulae can be proved by using little more than the formulae for and the divisor sum function .


title: Euler's totient function

text: Proving this does not quite require the prime number theorem. Since goes to infinity, this formula shows that


title: Euler's totient function

text: The second inequality was shown by Jean-Louis Nicolas. Ribenboim says "The method of proof is interesting, in that the inequality is shown first under the assumption that the Riemann hypothesis is true, secondly under the contrary assumption."


title: Euler's totient function

text: due to Arnold Walfisz, its proof exploiting estimates on exponential sums due to I. M. Vinogradov and N. M. Korobov.


title: Euler's totient function

text: By a combination of van der Corput's and Vinogradov's methods, H.-Q. Liu (On Euler's function.Proc. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh Sect. A 146 (2016), no. 4, 769–775)


title: Euler's totient function

text: (this is currently the best known estimate of this type). The "Big " stands for a quantity that is bounded by a constant times the function of inside the parentheses (which is small compared to ).


title: Euler's totient function

text: This result can be used to prove that the probability of two randomly chosen numbers being relatively prime is .


title: Euler's totient function

text: A totient number is a value of Euler's totient function: that is, an for which there is at least one for which . The "valency" or "multiplicity" of a totient number is the number of solutions to this equation. A "nontotient" is a natural number which is not a totient number. Every odd integer exceeding 1 is trivially a nontotient. There are also infinitely many even nontotients, and indeed every positive integer has a multiple which is an even nontotient.


title: Euler's totient function

text: proved that for every integer there is a totient number of multiplicity : that is, for which the equation has exactly solutions; this result had previously been conjectured by Wacław Sierpiński, and it had been obtained as a consequence of Schinzel's hypothesis H. Indeed, each multiplicity that occurs, does so infinitely often.


title: Euler's totient function

text: However, no number is known with multiplicity . Carmichael's totient function conjecture is the statement that there is no such .


title: Euler's totient function

text: A perfect totient number is an integer that is equal to the sum of its iterated totients. That is, we apply the totient function to a number "n", apply it again to the resulting totient, and so on, until the number 1 is reached, and add together the resulting sequence of numbers; if the sum equals "n", then "n" is a perfect totient number.


title: Euler's totient function

text: In the last section of the "Disquisitiones" Gauss proves that a regular -gon can be constructed with straightedge and compass if is a power of 2. If is a power of an odd prime number the formula for the totient says its totient can be a power of two only if is a first power and is a power of 2. The primes that are one more than a power of 2 are called Fermat primes, and only five are known: 3, 5, 17, 257, and 65537. Fermat and Gauss knew of these. Nobody has been able to prove whether there are any more.


title: Euler's totient function

text: Thus, a regular -gon has a straightedge-and-compass construction if "n" is a product of distinct Fermat primes and any power of 2. The first few such are


title: Euler's totient function

text: Setting up an RSA system involves choosing large prime numbers and , computing and , and finding two numbers and such that . The numbers and (the "encryption key") are released to the public, and (the "decryption key") is kept private.


title: Euler's totient function

text: The security of an RSA system would be compromised if the number could be efficiently factored or if could be efficiently computed without factoring .


title: Euler's totient function

text: If is prime, then . In 1932 D. H. Lehmer asked if there are any composite numbers such that divides . None are known.


title: Euler's totient function

text: In 1933 he proved that if any such exists, it must be odd, square-free, and divisible by at least seven primes (i.e. ). In 1980 Cohen and Hagis proved that and that . Further, Hagis showed that if 3 divides then and .


title: Euler's totient function

text: This states that there is no number with the property that for all other numbers , , . See Ford's theorem above.


title: Euler's totient function

text: As stated in the main article, if there is a single counterexample to this conjecture, there must be infinitely many counterexamples, and the smallest one has at least ten billion digits in base 10.


title: Euler's totient function

text: The "Disquisitiones Arithmeticae" has been translated from Latin into English and German. The German edition includes all of Gauss' papers on number theory: all the proofs of quadratic reciprocity, the determination of the sign of the Gauss sum, the investigations into biquadratic reciprocity, and unpublished notes.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Battle of Crete (, ), codenamed Operation Mercury (), was a major Axis airborne and amphibious operation during World War II to capture the island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, with a multiple German airborne landings on Crete. Greek and other Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, defended the island. After only one day of fighting, the Germans had suffered heavy casualties and the Allied troops were confident that they would defeat the invasion. The next day, through communication failures, Allied tactical hesitation, and German offensive operations, Maleme Airfield in western Crete fell, enabling the Germans to land reinforcements and overwhelm the defensive positions on the north of the island. Allied forces withdrew to the south coast. More than half were evacuated by the British Royal Navy and the remainder surrendered or joined the Cretan resistance. The defence of Crete evolved into a costly naval engagement; by the end of the campaign the Royal Navy's eastern Mediterranean strength had been reduced to only two battleships and three cruisers.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Battle of Crete was the first occasion where "Fallschirmjäger" (German paratroops) were used "en masse", the first mainly airborne invasion in military history, the first time the Allies made significant use of intelligence from decrypted German messages from the Enigma machine, and the first time German troops encountered mass resistance from a civilian population. Due to the number of casualties and the belief that airborne forces no longer had the advantage of surprise, Adolf Hitler became reluctant to authorise further large airborne operations, preferring instead to employ paratroopers as ground troops. In contrast, the Allies were impressed by the potential of paratroopers and started to form airborne-assault and airfield-defence regiments.


title: Battle of Crete

text: British forces had initially garrisoned Crete when the Italians attacked Greece on 28 October 1940, enabling the Greek government to employ the Fifth Cretan Division in the mainland campaign. This arrangement suited the British: Crete could provide the Royal Navy with excellent harbours in the eastern Mediterranean, from which it could threaten the Axis south-eastern flank, and the Ploiești oil fields in Romania would be within range of British bombers based on the island.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Italians were repulsed, but the subsequent German invasion of April 1941 (Operation Marita), succeeded in overrunning mainland Greece. At the end of the month, 57,000 Allied troops were evacuated by the Royal Navy. Some were sent to Crete to bolster its garrison until fresh forces could be organised, although most had lost their heavy equipment. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, sent a telegram to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir John Dill: "To lose Crete because we had not sufficient bulk of forces there would be a crime."


title: Battle of Crete

text: The German Army High Command ("Oberkommando des Heeres", OKH) was preoccupied with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, and was largely opposed to a German attack on Crete. However, Hitler remained concerned about attacks in other theatres, in particular on his Romanian fuel supply, and "Luftwaffe" commanders were enthusiastic about the idea of seizing Crete by a daring airborne attack. The desire to regain prestige after their defeat by the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the Battle of Britain the year before, may also have played a role in their thinking, especially before the advent of the much more important invasion of the Soviet Union. Hitler was won over by the audacious proposal and in Directive 31 he asserted that "Crete... will be the operational base from which to carry on the air war in the Eastern Mediterranean, in co-ordination with the situation in North Africa." The directive also stated that the operation was to be in May and must not be allowed to interfere with the planned campaign against the Soviet Union. Before the invasion, the Germans conducted a bombing campaign to establish air superiority and forced the RAF to move its remaining aeroplanes to Alexandria in Egypt.


title: Battle of Crete

text: No RAF units were based permanently at Crete until April 1941, but airfield construction had begun, radar sites had been built and stores delivered. Equipment was scarce in the Mediterranean and in the backwater of Crete. The British forces had seven commanders in seven months. In early April, airfields at Maleme and Heraklion and the landing strip at Rethymno on the north coast were ready and another strip at Pediada-Kastelli was nearly finished. After the German invasion of Greece, the role of the Crete garrison changed from the defence of a naval anchorage to preparing to repel an invasion. On 17 April, Group Captain George Beamish was appointed Senior Air Officer, Crete, taking over from a flight-lieutenant whose duties and instructions had been only vaguely defined. Beamish was ordered to prepare the reception of the Bristol Blenheim bombers of 30 and 203 Squadrons from Egypt and the remaining fighter aircraft from Greece, to cover the evacuation of W Force, which enabled the transfer of and Dominion troops to the island, preparatory to their relief by fresh troops from Egypt.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The navy tried to deliver of supplies from 1941, but "Luftwaffe" attacks forced most ships to turn back, and only were delivered. Only about British and Greek soldiers were on the island, and the defence devolved to the shaken and poorly equipped troops from Greece, assisted by the last fighters of 33, 80 and 112 Squadrons and a squadron of the Fleet Air Arm, once the Blenheims were ordered back to Egypt. In mid-May, the four squadrons had about two dozen aircraft, of which only about twelve were serviceable due to a lack of tools and spares. The unfinished ground at Pediada-Kastelli was blocked with trenches and heaps of soil and all but narrow flight paths were blocked at Heraklion and Rethymno by barrels full of earth. At Maleme, blast pens were built for the aircraft, and barrels full of petrol were kept ready to be ignited by machine-gun fire. Around each ground, a few field guns, anti-aircraft guns, two infantry tanks and two or three light tanks were sited. The three areas were made into independent sectors, but there were only eight QF 3-inch and twenty Bofors 40 mm anti-aircraft guns.


title: Battle of Crete

text: On 30 April 1941, Major-General Bernard Freyberg VC a New Zealand Army officer, was appointed commander of the Allied forces on Crete (Creforce). By May, the Greek forces consisted of approximately three battalions of the 5th Greek Division, which had been left behind when the rest of the unit had been transferred to the mainland against the German invasion; the Cretan Gendarmerie (2.500 men); the Heraklion Garrison Battalion, a defence unit made up mostly of transport and supply personnel; and remnants of the 12th and 20th Greek Divisions, which had also escaped from the mainland to Crete and were organised under British command. Cadets from the Gendarmerie academy and recruits from Greek training centres in the Peloponnese had been transferred to Crete to replace the trained soldiers sent to fight on the mainland. These troops were already organised into numbered recruit training regiments, and it was decided to use this structure to organise the Greek troops, supplementing them with experienced men arriving from the mainland.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The British Commonwealth contingent consisted of the original British garrison and another and Commonwealth troops evacuated from the mainland. The evacuees were typically intact units; composite units improvised locally; stragglers from every type of army unit; and deserters; most of them lacked heavy equipment. The main formed units were the 2nd New Zealand Division, less the 6th Brigade and division headquarters; the 19th Australian Brigade Group; and the 14th Infantry Brigade of the British 6th Division. There were about 15,000 front-line Commonwealth infantry, augmented by about 5,000 non-infantry personnel equipped as infantry and a composite Australian artillery battery. On 4 May, Freyberg sent a message to the British commander in the Middle East, General Archibald Wavell, requesting the evacuation of about 10,000 unwanted personnel who did not have weapons and had "little or no employment other than getting into trouble with the civil population". As the weeks passed, some 3,200 British, 2,500 Australian and 1,300 New Zealander troops were evacuated to Egypt, but it became evident that it would not be possible to remove all the unwanted troops. Between the night of 15 May and morning of 16 May, the allied forces were reinforced by the 2nd Battalion of the Leicester Regiment, which had been transported from Alexandria to Heraklion by and .


title: Battle of Crete

text: On 17 May, the garrison on Crete included about 15,000 Britons, 7,750 New Zealanders, 6,500 Australians and 10,200 Greeks. On the morning of 19 May, these were augmented by a further 700 men of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, who had been transported from Alexandria to Tymbaki overnight by .


title: Battle of Crete

text: On 25 April, Hitler signed Directive 28, ordering the invasion of Crete. The Royal Navy retained control of the waters around Crete, so an amphibious assault would have been a risky proposition. With German air superiority assured, an airborne invasion was chosen. This was to be the first big airborne invasion, although the Germans had made smaller parachute and glider-borne assaults in the invasions of Denmark and Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and mainland Greece. In Greece, had been dispatched to capture the bridge over the Corinth Canal, which was being readied for demolition by the Royal Engineers. German engineers landed near the bridge in gliders, while parachute infantry attacked the perimeter defence. The bridge was damaged in the fighting, which slowed the German advance and gave the Allies time to evacuate 18,000 troops to Crete and 23,000 to Egypt, albeit with the loss of most of their heavy equipment.


title: Battle of Crete

text: In May, "Fliegerkorps" XI moved from Germany to the Athens area, but the destruction wrought during the invasion of Greece forced a postponement of the attack to 20 May. New airfields were built, and 280 long-range bombers, and 40 reconnaissance aircraft of "Fliegerkorps" VIII were assembled, along with transport aircraft and 100 gliders. The and "Stuka" dive-bombers were based on forward airfields at Molaoi, Melos and Karpathos (then Scarpanto), with Corinth and Argos as base airfields. The were based at airfields near Athens, Argos and Corinth, all within of Crete, and the bomber or reconnaissance machines were accommodated at Athens, Salonica and a detachment on Rhodes, along with bases in Bulgaria at Sofia and Plovdiv, ten of the airfields being all-weather and from Crete. The transport aircraft flew from bases near Athens and southern Greece, including Eleusis, Tatoi, Megara and Corinth. British night bombers attacked the areas in the last few nights before the invasion, and "Luftwaffe" aircraft eliminated the British aircraft on Crete.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Germans planned to use to capture important points on the island, including airfields that could then be used to fly in supplies and reinforcements. "Fliegerkorps" XI was to co-ordinate the attack by the 7th "Flieger" Division, which would land by parachute and glider, followed by the 22nd Air Landing Division once the airfields were secure. The operation was scheduled for 16 May 1941, but was postponed to 20 May, with the 5th Mountain Division replacing the 22nd Air Landing Division. To support the German attack on Crete, eleven Italian submarines took post off Crete or the British bases of Sollum and Alexandria in Egypt.


title: Battle of Crete

text: It had only been in March 1941, that Major-General Kurt Student added an attack on Crete to Operation Marita; supply difficulties delayed the assembly of "Fliegerkorps" XI and its then more delays forced a postponement until 20 May 1941. The War Cabinet in Britain had expected the Germans to use paratroops in the Balkans, and on 25 March, British decrypts of "Luftwaffe" Enigma wireless traffic revealed that "Fliegerkorps" XI was assembling Ju 52s for glider-towing, and British Military Intelligence reported that were already in the Balkans. On 30 March, "Detachment Süssmann", part of the 7th "Fliegerdivision", was identified at Plovdiv. Notice of the target of these units did not arrive, but on 18 April it was found that had been withdrawn from routine operations, and on 24 April it became known that Göring had reserved them for a special operation. The operation turned out to be a descent on the Corinth Canal on 26 April, but then a second operation was discovered and that supplies (particularly of fuel), had to be delivered to "Fliegerkorps" XI by 5 May; a "Luftwaffe" message referring to Crete for the first time was decrypted on 26 April.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The British Chiefs of Staff were apprehensive that the target could be changed to Cyprus or Syria as a route into Iraq during the Anglo-Iraqi War 1941) and suspected that references to Crete were a deception, despite having no grounds for this, and on 3 May Churchill thought that the attack might be a decoy. The command in Crete had been informed on 18 April, despite the doubts, and Crete was added to a link from the GC & CS to Cairo, while on 16 and 21 April, intelligence that airborne operations were being prepared in Bulgaria was passed on. On 22 April, the HQ in Crete was ordered to burn all material received through the Ultra link, but Churchill ruled that the information must still be provided. When Freyberg took over on 30 April, the information was disguised as information from a spy in Athens. Remaining doubts about an attack on Crete were removed on 1 May, when the "Luftwaffe" was ordered to stop bombing airfields on the island and mining Souda Bay and to photograph all of the island. By 5 May it was clear that the attack was not imminent and, next day, 17 May was revealed as the expected day for the completion of preparations, along with the operation orders for the plan from the D-day landings in the vicinity of Maleme and Chania, Heraklion, and Rethymno.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, chief of the "Abwehr", originally reported 5,000 British troops on Crete and no Greek forces. It is not clear whether Canaris, who had an extensive intelligence network at his disposal, was misinformed or was attempting to sabotage Hitler's plans (Canaris was killed much later in the war for supposedly participating in the 20 July Plot). "Abwehr" also predicted the Cretan population would welcome the Germans as liberators, due to their strong republican and anti-monarchist feelings and would want to receive the "... favourable terms which had been arranged on the mainland ..." While Eleftherios Venizelos, the late republican prime minister of Greece, had been a Cretan and support for his ideas was strong on the island, the Germans seriously underestimated Cretan loyalty. King George and his entourage escaped from Greece via Crete with the help of Greek and Commonwealth soldiers, Cretan civilians, and even a band of prisoners who had been released from captivity by the Germans. 12th Army Intelligence painted a less optimistic picture, but also underestimated the number of British Commonwealth forces and the number of Greek troops who had been evacuated from the mainland. General Alexander Löhr, the theatre commander, was convinced the island could be taken with two divisions, but decided to keep 6th Mountain Division in Athens as a reserve.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Germans used the new 7.5 cm "Leichtgeschütz" 40 light gun (a recoilless rifle). At , it weighed as much as a standard German 75 mm field gun, yet had of its range. It fired a shell more than . A quarter of the German paratroops jumped with an MP 40 submachine gun, often carried with a bolt-action "Karabiner" 98k rifle and most German squads had an MG 34 machine gun. The Germans used colour-coded parachutes to distinguish the canisters carrying rifles, ammunition, crew-served weapons and other supplies. Heavy equipment like the "Leichtgeschütz 40" were dropped with a special triple-parachute harness to bear the extra weight.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The troops also carried special strips of cloth to unfurl in patterns to signal to low-flying fighters, to co-ordinate air support and for supply drops. The German procedure was for individual weapons to be dropped in canisters, due to their practice of exiting the aircraft at low altitude. This was a flaw that left the paratroopers armed only with knives, pistols and grenades in the first few minutes after landing. Poor design of German parachutes compounded the problem; the standard German harness had only one riser to the canopy and could not be steered. Even the 25 percent of paratroops armed with sub-machine guns were at a disadvantage, given the weapon's limited range. Many "Fallschirmjäger" were shot before they reached weapons canisters.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Greek troops were armed with "Mannlicher–Schönauer" 6.5 mm mountain carbines or ex-Austrian 8x56R "Steyr-Mannlicher M1895" rifles, the latter a part of post-World War I reparations; about 1,000 Greeks carried antique "Fusil Gras mle 1874" rifles. The garrison had been stripped of its best crew-served weapons, which were sent to the mainland; there were twelve obsolescent "St. Étienne Mle 1907" light machine-guns and forty miscellaneous LMGs. Many Greek soldiers had fewer than thirty rounds of ammunition but could not be supplied by the British, who had no stocks in the correct calibres. Those with insufficient ammunition were posted to the eastern sector of Crete, where the Germans were not expected in force. The 8th Greek Regiment was under strength and many soldiers were poorly trained and poorly equipped. The unit was attached to 10th New Zealand Infantry Brigade (Brigadier Howard Kippenberger), who placed it in a defensive position around the village of Alikianos where, with local civilian volunteers, they held out against the German 7th Engineer Battalion.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Though Kippenberger had referred to them as "...nothing more than malaria-ridden little chaps...with only four weeks of service," the Greek troops repulsed German attacks until they ran out of ammunition, whereupon they began charging with fixed bayonets, overrunning German positions and capturing rifles and ammunition. The engineers had to be reinforced by two battalions of German paratroops, yet the 8th Regiment held on until 27 May, when the Germans made a combined arms assault by "Luftwaffe" aircraft and mountain troops. The Greek stand helped to protect the retreat of the Commonwealth forces, who were evacuated at Sfakia. Beevor and McDougal Stewart write that the defence of Alikianos gained at least 24 more hours for the completion of the final leg of the evacuation behind Layforce. The troops who were protected as they withdrew had begun the battle with more and better equipment than the 8th Greek Regiment.


title: Battle of Crete

text: British and Commonwealth troops used the standard Lee–Enfield rifle, Bren light machine gun and Vickers medium machine gun. The British had about 85 artillery pieces of various calibres, many of them captured Italian weapons without sights. Anti-aircraft defences consisted of one light anti-aircraft battery equipped with 20 mm automatic cannon, split between the two airfields. The guns were camouflaged, often in nearby olive groves, and some were ordered to hold their fire during the initial assault to mask their positions from German fighters and dive-bombers. The British had nine Matilda IIA infantry tanks of "B" Squadron, 7th Royal Tank Regiment (7th RTR) and sixteen Light Tanks Mark VIB from "C" Squadron, 3rd King's Own Hussars.


title: Battle of Crete

text: The Matildas had 40 mm Ordnance QF 2 pounder guns, which only fired armour-piercing rounds – not effective anti-personnel weapons. (High explosive rounds in small calibres were considered impractical). The tanks were in poor mechanical condition, as the engines were worn and could not be overhauled on Crete. Most tanks were used as mobile pillboxes to be brought up and dug in at strategic points. One Matilda had a damaged turret crank that allowed it to turn clockwise only. Many British tanks broke down in the rough terrain, not in combat. The British and their allies did not possess sufficient Universal Carriers or trucks, which would have provided the mobility and firepower needed for rapid counter-attacks before the invaders could consolidate.


title: Battle of Crete

text: Hitler authorised "Unternehmen Merkur" (named after the swift Roman god Mercury) with Directive 28; the forces used were to come from airborne and air units already in the area and units intended for "Unternehmen Barbarossa" were to conclude operations before the end of May, "Barbarossa" was not to be delayed by the attack on Crete, which had to begin soon or would be cancelled. Planning was rushed and much of "Unternehmen Merkur" was improvised, including the use of troops who were not trained for airborne assaults. The Germans planned to capture Maleme, but there was debate over the concentration of forces there and the number to be deployed against other objectives, such as the smaller airfields at Heraklion and Rethymno. The "Luftwaffe" commander, Colonel General Alexander Löhr, and the "Kriegsmarine" commander, Admiral Karlgeorg Schuster, wanted more emphasis on Maleme, to achieve overwhelming superiority of force. Student wanted to disperse the paratroops more, to maximise the effect of surprise. As the primary objective, Maleme offered several advantages: it was the largest airfield and big enough for heavy transport aircraft, it was close enough to the mainland for air cover from land-based Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and it was near the north coast, so seaborne reinforcements could be brought up quickly. A compromise plan by Hermann Göring was agreed, and in the final draft, Maleme was to be captured first, while not ignoring the other objectives.