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Retention and disclosure of police caution data infringe Article 8 – Charles Bourne
15 November 2012
M.M. v United Kingdom (Application no. 24029/07) – read judgment
The European Court of Human Rights yesterday handed down a Chamber judgment in declaring that the arrangements for the indefinite retention of data relating to a person's caution in a criminal matter and for the disclosure of such data in criminal record checks infringe Article 8 of the ECHR.
Although the Court recognised that there might be a need for a comprehensive record of data relating to criminal matters, the indiscriminate and open-ended collection of criminal record data was unlikely to comply with Article 8 in the absence of clear and detailed statutory regulations clarifying the safeguards applicable and governing the use and disposal of such data, particularly bearing in mind the amount and sensitivity of the data.
The case arose from a family dispute in Northern Ireland in the course of which the applicant, a grandmother, took her grandson away from his parents for two days before returning him unharmed. This resulted in her receiving a caution for child abduction in November 2000. In 2003 the police advised her that her caution would remain on record for only five years, i.e. until 2005. However, following the Soham murders and the Bichard report, there was a change of policy whereby any convictions and cautions where the victim was a child would be kept on record for the offender's lifetime.
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The long awaited and much anticipated Foundation European Vacation tour is about to kick off! Ethan Fowler, Corey Duffel, Daniel Shimizu and Leo Romero are going to a smorgasbord of European countries. Which include (but not limited to) England, Belgium, Holland, Russia, Germany and France. In that order! May 13th - June 10th. Below are the dates and locations that you can expect to see the mighty F in person.
May 17 - Demo at Playstation Park - London.
May 22 - Demo at 911 Park - Brugge, Belgium.
May 27 - Demo at Moscow Skate Hall - Moscow.
May 31 - Demo at the Etnies Cup - Munich, Germany.
June 7 - Demo at Teenage Tour 3 - Paris.
All kinds of goodness is expected to go down on this tour, so you can not miss it! Check out www.FOSKCO.com for anymore info that you may need or if you just wanna browse around the high tech site.
It's happening!!! The time has come!!! We've always had ass kicking skaters in the mid-Atlantic, now we have a bunch of ass kicking pools and bowls to skate! Come out and see the best pool and bowl skaters at the Deathbox Mid-Atlantic Pool and Bowl Championship Series.
Several great skateparks, with awesome pools and bowls, have been popping up throughout the mid-Atlantic. To take advantage of the great parks and the growing hoard of pool and bowl skaters, Curt Kimbel and Jay Westcott, with tons of support from Deathbox, Surfrider, and several others, are organizing a three contest series for skateboarders of all ages and abilities.
Dates/Locations are:
17 May 2003: Charles County Skatepark, White Plains, Maryland.
14 June 2003: Vans, Woodbridge, Virginia.
28 June 2003: St. Marys County Skatepark, Lexington Park, Maryland.
Entry fee is $10, proceeds go to the Surfrider Foundation.
The contests will use a jam session format. Classes are: 10 and under, 11-13, 14-16, 17-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40+, and women.
The series winners for all 8 classes win Allian Snowboards!
Details at www.deathboxseries.com
If you too want to be unscandalish and free of guilt, then enter the contest. Just use the Ally oop menu and click on contests, duh!
Get one of your very own for only $15.00! Very limited to only 600! The ultimate Corey Duffel collectors item. While supplies last.
From one of these fine online skateshops.
Skateboarder May 2003: Billy Marks gets the contents page with a switch Barley grind on the contents page. Austin Stephens divulges a big interview on pages 54-59 Corey Duffel rocking an 88 ad on 60. Billy Marks bag of tricks on pages 84-89.
Strength May 2003: Toy Machine sponsors the letters page, if you think your letter rules you could win a complete. Than & Now with Kris Markovich on page 36. Josh Harmony mini-interview on 56-27. Leo Romero is killed the pooch on 66-75. Adam Crew is so good with a switch 180 to 5-0 on 81. Corey Duffel bs nose grinds through the kink on 92.
Thrasher May 2003: Billy Marks is whooping ass and taking names! Kickflip 50/50 on the contents page. Corey Duffels first ever pro board graphic hits the streets! Toy Machine ad with the dates of the Berzerker tour. The first Dekline ad hits the streets. Billy Marks kickflip 5-0 on 78-79. First Pig wood ad, double page with Adrian Mallory. Again Billy Marks, kickflip crooks on 144-145. Tony Silva switch kickflip on 150. Josh Harmony backside heel on 161. Leo Romero gets a kickflip front board on 166. Win one of Corey Duffels new pro boards on www.thrashermagazine.com
Slap May 2003: Josh Harmony is one sided with a fs blunt on 69. Daniel Shimizu has a rocking interview on 100-105. Ed Templeton nose blunts on 106-107.
TWS Photo Annual: Leo Romero hurricanes is way into the contents page. Richie Belton is back! With a big stalefish off a loading dock on a no numbered page. Corey Duffel is always big switch ollies at Rincon. Austin Stephens with a looong 5-0. Neil Heddings over the deep end latter.
Big Brother May 2003: Billy Marks pop-shove it smith at Tampa AM page 96-97.
TWS June 2003: Be Gilley gets the contents page with a monsterous 23 stair 50-50! Billy Marks pop-shove at the best trick at Tampa page 98. Ethan Fowler on the subscription page132. Full Hollywood in Europe article. Kris Markovich stale fishes on pg. 190-191. Don Nguyen ollies a huge bar on 193. James Atkin f/s flips on 194. Gareth Stehr heelflips page 250-251. Pig wheels are most wanted on page 260. Diego is in the Zumiez ad.
Holy cow! The new Toy Machine tour video is coming with a sickness. It is soooo good. And best of all it's out in your local skateshop now! So go buy a copy and check out the insanity. Featuring Ed Templeton, Diego Bucchieri, Austin Stephens, Caswell Berry, Billy Marks, Josh Harmony and Nathan Broussard. It's amazingly gay! In a happy way, not a gay way.

subset: commoncrawl


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3 Ways to Use Vinn Distillery's Baijiu
At the family-owned, Wilsonville-based Vinn Distillery, traditional Chinese spirits are made using custom-constructed stills with a proprietary yeast blend and meticulously monitored fermentation process.
Historically consumed neat, at room temperature, a new generation is beginning to experiment with the company's signature rice-based spirit baijiu (the unofficial national drink of China) as an ingredient in cocktails and highballs with success.
Here are three ways to shake things up at home.
2 oz dry sake (Hakutsuru is inexpensive and works well, but any dry sake will do)
1 oz baijiu
Squeeze of lemon juice
Stir sake, lemon, and baijiu over ice, then strain into a rocks glass and top with ice cubes.
This simple cocktail is light, refreshing, and fortifying—and goes great with fish.
Pacific Rim
1.5 oz baijiu
1.5 oz fresh squeezed grapefruit juice
.5 oz ginger simple syrup*
.5 oz lime juice
Soda water
Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a highball glass filled with ice, then top with soda water
*Ginger Simple Syrup
Place 1 cup sugar and ½ cup water over medium heat. Heat and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add 1/3 cup grated ginger, then remove from heat, cover, and let steep for 15-20 minutes, until the syrup has a pronounced ginger flavor.
2 oz baijiu or rice vodka
.5 oz Lillet Blanc
Lemon twist
Combine baijiu and Lillet in a mixing glass over ice. Stir, then strain and serve up with a twist.


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Red Sox lose series opener in Baltimore, 4-0
BALTIMORE – Turns out David Ortiz's game-winning homer in Detroit Sunday was not much a spark for the Boston Red Sox.
Bud Norris pitched eight innings of three-hit ball and Adam Jones hit one of the Orioles' three home runs in a 4-0 victory over Boston on Monday night.
The Red Sox have lost six of their past seven games after a season-high, seven-game winning streak. Boston has been shut out five times this season.
"The frustration level is just we want to win," said Boston catcher David Ross, who went 1 for 3 and is batting .176. "These guys are accustomed to winning and we want to win. Offense or pitching, either side, we just want to help each other any way we can. Wins are hard to come by right now. We got a long season. We're going out there, playing hard, but things are not happening for us right now."
Boston right-hander Jake Peavy (1-4) allowed four runs and eight hits with seven strikeouts and one walk over seven innings. Peavy has given up three or more runs in seven consecutive starts and hasn't won since April 25 against Toronto.
"Take a few pitches back and it's a different game," Peavy said. "I don't care about my personal win-loss record. I don't care about any personal numbers at this point. I'm pitching to win. I was pitching to win tonight. But we were grinding. That's a really good lineup."
Nick Markakis and Ryan Flaherty also connected for the Orioles.
Norris (5-5) struck out six and walked three while matching the longest outing of his career. He was forced to exit because of a blister on his pitching hand. Coming in, he had given up four or more runs in four of his past five starts.
"We needed a well-pitched game, but we had bullets down in the pen," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "Bud was really good. I'd have probably given him a chance to finish that game."
Jones had three hits, including his 150th career homer. Markakis extended his hitting streak to 14 games with two hits.
After allowing a leadoff single to Brock Holt in the first, Norris retired 13 consecutive batters. Daniel Nava managed Boston's second hit with a two-out double in the fifth.
On Sunday night, Ortiz hit a go-ahead, three-run homer in the top of the ninth to lift the Red Sox to a 5-3 win over Detroit, snapping their five-game losing streak. The Red Sox could not muster the same production against Baltimore.
"As well as Norris was pitching, he stayed out of the middle of the plate and had very good stuff. One run was going to be the difference the way this one turned out," Boston manager John Farrell said. "We couldn't put too much together in any one inning."
Jones gave the Orioles a lead in the first with his 10th homer.
"I'm trying to use the whole field," Jones said. "I'm trying to not limit myself to just pulling the ball. That's how I get in trouble. Just trying to use the whole field. If it's in, try to pull it. If it's away, try to stay on it. Not rocket science, but some sort of science."
Baltimore then increased the lead to 3-0 that same inning when Markakis hit a two-run shot off Peavy onto the flag court. Flaherty's solo shot in the seventh provided further cushion.
Tommy Hunter, who came off the disabled list Sunday, threw a scoreless ninth. The Orioles improved to 24-9 when scoring four or more runs.
Around the Bases
Red Sox LHP Felix Doubront (left shoulder) is scheduled to have a second rehab start Tuesday for Triple-A Pawtucket. ... SS Stephen Drew (right oblique soreness) was held out of the lineup Monday and is day to day. ... With a first-inning single, Holt has reached base in 17 of 18 starts as the leadoff hitter. ... Baltimore manager Buck Showalter said he expects to hear by Tuesday if Manny Machado will be suspended for throwing his bat Sunday against Oakland, igniting a benches-clearing confrontation. Machado apologized for the incident on the team-owned television network. ... Baltimore recalled RHP Josh Stinson from Triple-A Norfolk and optioned RHP Brad Brach to the minor league club. To make room for Stinson on the 40-man roster, LHP Johan Santana was transferred to the 60-day DL. ... Orioles C Matt Wieters (right elbow strain) will be examined by specialist Dr. James Andrews on June 16 in Florida.


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Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics
Our experienced team of Clinical Nutrition & Dietetics helps patients understand the need for a holistic and essentially therapeutic diet based on their afflictions. Their expert guidance is available at every rung of the health care system. Our doctors use a balanced approach of combining palatability of foods with carefully measured quantities of intake to facilitate maximum nourishment. They have ample experience in treating congenital metabolic disorders, numerous gastroenterological diseases along with supplementing weight management, cardiac diets, diabetic diets and even hypoallergenic diets as well. Their care process involves assessment, nutrition diagnosis, intervention and monitoring of the standardisation.


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SAN FRANCISCO » A San Francisco social media maven and former political consultant who was wanted on suspicion of possessing explosives has been taken into custody after a three-day manhunt.
Federal agents and the San Francisco police said they captured Ryan Kelly Chamberlain II, 42, on Monday afternoon shortly after announcing that they had found his car near Crissy Field, just south of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Though Chamberlain was considered armed and dangerous, FBI spokesman Peter Lee said Monday that he did not seem to pose an immediate threat to public safety.
"Anyone who has the means, methods and access to make a bomb should be considered armed and dangerous," Lee said before the arrest. "That is the reason why we want to bring him in safely soon."
Multiple agencies, including hazardous materials crews, searched Chamberlain's apartment Saturday in San Francisco's Russian Hill neighborhood, blocking off the street to vehicle and pedestrian traffic for much of the day.
Lee gave no further details about the nature of the investigation, and the affidavit and search warrant used to enter Chamberlain's home remained under seal.
Brooke Wentz, his boss at a music rights consultancy group, said Chamberlain last contacted her Friday to remind her to deposit his paycheck in a new bank account. The conversation was uneventful and Wentz said she was "tremendously dumbfounded" by the news that the contractor she had hired to handle her company's social media accounts was wanted by the FBI.
"He's a nice guy," Wentz said.
She said it didn't seem like Chamberlain was staying in his apartment. When she mailed him his paycheck in April, he told her he would have to go to the apartment to pick it up.
She said he seemed to be under financial pressure because he told her that two friends who were leasing his apartment left without telling him and he had to scramble to pay for two rentals.
"I wondered what kind of friends would do something like that," Wentz said. "I tried to ask him about the situation, but he was kind of evading my question."
Randy Bramblett, a personal trainer, said he became friends with Chamberlain through Project Sport, a sports marketing company. The company let Chamberlain go when it was sold in November, and he soon lost touch with friends and stopped returning calls and messages, Bramblett said.
"We all knew that he was a very emotional guy and when he didn't get his own way he would say, 'Screw you, I'm going to go do my own thing,'" Bramblett said. "I've never seen him be violent, ever, but I would definitely say that maybe emotionally and mentally he was a little unstable."
Chamberlain had worked for years as a political consultant on Democratic campaigns, Bramblett said.
Alex Clemens, a partner of the San Francisco-based Barbary Coast Consulting, said Chamberlain is well known in the city's political circles and had been a fixture on the campaign trails for more than a decade. His work in the field ended several years ago.
Clemens, who briefly hired Chamberlain for a project in 2009, said people who know Chamberlain are stunned.
"I believe there's been a failure in his support system. I'm sad for that," Clemens said. "I hope he will reach out to those who will help him."
Chamberlain also worked as an independent contractor for The San Francisco Chronicle during the 2012 NFL season, doing social media to boost coverage for the San Francisco 49ers Insider iPad app, the newspaper said.
Chamberlain also taught a "Grass Roots Mobilization" course to graduate students in the public affairs program in 2011, said Anne-Marie Devine, a spokeswoman for the University of San Francisco. Chamberlain taught for one semester and wasn't invited to teach another course, she said.
She said she didn't know why he was let go because hundreds of adjunct professors come and go at the university.
Associated Press writer Channing Joseph in San Francisco contributed to this report.


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When one thinks of Paris, one envisions all sorts of exotic and wonderous experiences- postcards, people, exotic burlesque shows, and food...
From the perspective of a biologist, the museum in Paris is EQUALLY exotic!
Why? Because the Paris museum (the French equivalent to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History) receives MANY specimens from exotic, deep-sea locales around the world.
Because I don't typically get access to many of these specimens, I thought I would share some choice samples from the collections with all of you..
How exotic are these?
Well, to start-I'm not entirely certain that everything I'm showing you below has actually been described in the scientific literature... MANY new species await discovery in the French vaults..
Here's a big, deep-sea sea urchin the size of a pumpkin called Echinus melo!
Another large animal that we know practically nothing about...
And finally, we end with one of the more exotic sand dollars.. a genus called Rotula from the African coast in the tropical Atlantic..
Well, in other sand dollars they deflect the hydrodynamic flow.. Go here to see this explanation!
More next week...as Echinoblog in Paris continues!


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Search Buddhist Channel
Dying? It isnt nearly as awful as its cracked up to be
The Bristol Post, September 19, 2012
Bristol, UK -- IT is the ultimate human fear – one we generally put to the back of our minds until we are forced to face it, but confronting our own death is probably the most difficult psychological hurdle we will ever face.
For 52-year-old Dave Thomas, who is terminally ill, his own mortality is a fear he has grappled with thanks to his powerful belief in his Buddhist faith and by using the meditation techniques he has developed over two decades as a practising Buddhist.
"This dying lark isn't nearly as awful as it's cracked up to be," the former Fleet Street journalist tells me, flashing a warm smile, as we meet at the Buddhist meditation centre he has attended for the past four years – the Amitabha Buddhist Centre in Gloucester Road.
The centre is run by a community of Buddhist monks, including Dave's own personal meditation tutor Kelsang Chonder, who bristles with kindness as he shuffles out of the room in his full monastic habit to arrange the coffee.
For Dave, the calming aspects of meditation came into their own after being told he had only a short time to live.
"I was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis back in 2010," Dave explains. "I had found myself getting increasingly breathless, and had no idea what was causing it.
"But the consultant at the BRI explained the condition to me – essentially the air sacs within my lungs are increasingly failing to transfer the oxygen from the air to my bloodstream. Sadly it is terminal without a lung transplant.
"That was a couple of years ago now, and as things currently stand the doctors believe I may have just a couple of months to live.
"Being told you are dying is an extraordinary experience. Suddenly you are facing the big one. It's an awful lot to get your head around.
"But the meditation has helped me enormously – both in terms of having already developed an accepting frame of mind, but also practically, in terms of helping my breathing as it increasingly fails."
Dave uses a mobile oxygen canister, which pumps oxygen into his nose to assist his breathing, but when he meditates he doesn't need to wear it.
"It's not a psychological effect," he explains. "I regularly visit Southmead Hospital to have the oxygen levels in my blood tested, and the consultants there have been able to actively see that the oxygen levels in my blood are improved when I am meditating.
"Dying isn't all bad," he says. "From the moment someone tells you you're dying, you see the world very differently. You value everything so much, it's actually quite wonderful.
"I was recently walking in some woods near my home, and it struck me that the last time I was there I was jogging through in a track suit.
"This time I was shuffling through, struggling for breath, but because I was walking so slowly I was able to pay attention to things I wouldn't previously have noticed – individual trees and flowers. The beautiful detail."
Dave says he was "the typical old-school Fleet Street hack" when he first discovered Buddhism, while working on the Sunday People at the height of the Maxwell era in the 1980s.
"I had a wonderful time, doing a job I loved, and with a beautiful family, but I was conscious that for some reason, at the back of my mind, I was not contented. I didn't feel complete happiness.
"I decided to give meditation a try – but I was a cynical journalist, and didn't really expect to get anything from it. After about five sessions, I was all ready to pack it in. But then I had a big story fall down, and I found myself accepting the disappointment in a way that I would never previously have been able to – previously it would have at least ruined my week.
"I realised that slowly, subtly, the meditation was changing my mindset – calming me. So I carried on with my meditation sessions, and over time, together with the Buddhist teachings that have come with it, it has had a profound effect on me and my ability to find peaceful acceptance when bad things happen.
"At first I was ribbed mercilessly by my newsroom colleagues about it," he says. "But slowly they too could see the powerful effect it had on me, and increasingly they became genuinely interested – some even took it up themselves."
Dave moved to Bristol in the 1990s as one of the founders of news agency South West News Service, and later founded another media business, Medavia, but was forced to retire a couple of years ago as his health deteriorated. He has now reached an extraordinary level of acceptance as he faces the end of his life.
"I have been admitted to an intensive care unit twice in the past few months, and on both occasions I thought I was hours from death.
"So I've been very lucky to have had two dry runs – so I know that through using compassionate meditation, that is, meditating on the sorrows of the people around me in the intensive care unit, I was able to focus my mind entirely away from any fear about my own death, and what is left is pure peaceful acceptance.
"What concerns me much more is the suffering I know it will bring to my family and close friends when I die.
"After my diagnosis each one of my children separately offered me one of their lungs, which was heartbreaking – it showed so much love, but concerned me that they were unprepared for my leaving them, even though I have been able to come to terms with my own mortality.
"I know I will feel sorrow about leaving behind my family and friends and all that I have worked towards in my life, but I also know that through meditation I will be able to take away the fear of death. Once you take that away, there really is nothing left to fear. Acceptance is tremendously liberating.
"In one way I'm actually sort of excited about the challenge I will soon face. The next time I am in an intensive care unit, it will no doubt be the big one. I am excited to be facing the final challenge of this life – to put into practice all that I've learnt through meditation over these past 20 years."
Dave smiles that warm smile once more. He glances briefly at the enormous figure of the Buddha that dominates the room, and briefly at his meditation mentor, Kelsang Chonder. There is so much peace in his eyes, it is impossible to feel sad. I shake his hand, and he returns to his meditations.
For more information about joining a meditation session at the Amitabha Buddhist Centre – which is open to people of all faiths – visit the website at www.meditationbristol. org.
A free public talk on modern Buddhism is to be given by Kadam Bridget Heyes, at the Colston Hall on Tuesday October 23, from 7pm-8pm. For more details, call 0117 974 5160.
Source: http://www.thisisbristol.co.uk/Dying-isn-8217-t-nearly-awful-8217-s-cracked/story-16929747-detail/story.html


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As much as I like sweet pancakes, savory pancakes are also a great dish to serve on a weekend brunch or breakfast.
The recipe that follows is a variation of my previous recipe, for corn-pesto pancakes. Here I've used peas instead of the corn, replaced the cornmeal with whole wheat flour and desiccated unsweetened coconut, and the citrus in the pesto was replaced with pickled cherry peppers.
Obviously, the result is quite different, yet similar in the wonderful flavors and ease of preparation.
I'm sure you'll think the same once you'll prepare these tasty pancakes.
* I prefer not to add cheese to the pesto, as it keeps better without it. The cheese can be added before using, though here I didn't add any.
* Any other homemade pesto, or good quality store bought, can be used instead of the one suggested here.
* The addition of desiccated coconut may seem odd, but adds wonderful subtle flavor and texture, and for the health conscious, some extra fiber. I urge you not to skip it. I will no doubt use it again in other pancakes I'll be making, sweet versions included.
* I've used frozen peas and pearl onions mix. If you can't find this specific combination, use frozen peas with the addition of a bit of cooked or gently fried onions.
* Leftover pesto can keep, in an airtight container in the fridge, for up to two weeks. (Place plastic wrap directly on top to keep the green color.)
Makes: 2 cups pesto, 12 medium pancakes
Prep time: pesto: 15 minutes, pancakes: 15 minutes
Frying time: 15 minutes
For the almond cherry pepper pesto:
3 cups basil leaves
3 cloves garlic
5 pickled mild cherry peppers
1 Tbs salt
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1/3 cup olive oil
½ cup slivered almonds
For the pancakes:
1 L egg
½ cup milk
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 Tbs oil
1/3 cup almond cherry pepper pesto
1/3 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup desiccated unsweetened coconut
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup frozen peas and pearl onions, thawed
Oil for frying
For serving suggestions: fresh goat cheese, pickled cherry peppers, poached eggs (see THIS RECIPE for instructions if needed), crispy bacon
1. The pesto: place all the ingredients in a food processor bowl, fitted with the metal blade. Blend to a fairly coarse consistency, scraping the sides of bowl a few times. Keep 1/3 cup at room temperature for the recipe. Transfer the rest to an airtight container and keep in the fridge for up to two weeks.
2. The pancakes: in a large bowl, whisk the egg with the milk. Add the salt, pepper, oil and pesto and whisk again. Add the flour, coconut and baking powder and mix well. Add the peas and pearl onions and mix gently.
3. Pour oil for shallow frying into a large pan and heat over medium flame. Pour about ¼ cup portions of the mixture to the pan and fry until the pancakes are golden on both sides, adding oil if needed. Transfer to a work surface lined with paper towels, to absorb extra oil.
4. Serve warm, as is, or with the serving suggestions mentioned above.


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It just occurred to me this morning that I'm a middle-aged, Midwestern, middle-income, middlebrow moderate.
Stands to reason I'd use a mid-level camera with a mid-sized sensor.
Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.
Featured Comment by Bill Mitchell: "Still have the whole plate? (I guess that's halfway between 5x7 and 8x10.)"
Mike replies: Yep, right in the middle.


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The Rikert Ski Touring Area at Breadloaf remained pretty much unchanged over the course of my first quarter century in Addison County. Sure, there were a few minor trail reroutes, and a few less-used trails disappeared as several more remote trails appeared on the trail map over the years, but it was very much a timeless place. Even the interior warming hut and ski rental shop had not undergone any renovations in anyone's memory. Two summers ago, those who hold the purse strings realized that this wonderful resource, really a local institution, was in severe need of some modernization if it was to stand a chance of ever breaking even financially. So, in the words of one of the employees there, the college went "all in", fixing up the interior, and more importantly, adding snowmaking and rerouting the racing trail. The new racing trail was named after the Tormondsen family, who presumably donated some of the funds needed for these renovations (knowing how things work at colleges!). This family has clearly been quite generous, since the Great Hall in Bicentennial Hall was also named after this family – so "Thanks Folks!"
The old racing trail, which was 7.5 km long (10 km if the section on the Battell Loop was added) was very narrow, and had several very tight turns which forced racers to check their speed, or at least know the course well in order to ski it their fastest. The nature of the trail made it such that it was very difficult for skiers to pass each other when skate skiing, and since this technique has been a part of ski racing for about 30 years, it made sense to find a way to widen the trails. Finally, while we all love seasons with great snow, there have been many years where Ripton has been pretty much snow-repellent – like last season! I seem to remember hearing that there was one group of nordic racers in the late 80's who never had a chance to race on their home course over their four years at Middlebury. The addition of snowmaking to a significant section of trail not only keeps the area open for carnival races, but may turn our little local area into a ski touring area with greater regional appeal.
After the recent January thaw, and a week of howling cold weather, this weekend brought a few inches of fresh snow, and Sunday turned beautifully warm (if 20 degree weather is "warm"!) and sunny. Snowcapped Breadloaf Mountain in the background gave the scene "pinch me is this real?" beauty.
The new race trail, listed as 5 km, is a little shorter than the old trail, but this makes sense given the economics of setting up the permanent plumbing required to supply its outer reaches with snowmaking. Some of the new trail uses segments of previously existing trail, much of it is set on new trails created during the summer of 2011. The course has a similar layout, with one shorter loop in the Myrhe's Cabin side, and a longer loop on the Craig's Hill side of ski touring area. While the Tormondsen Family Trail does not have as much altitude gain as the old trail due to its shorter length, it doesn't have any flat sections either, so it will definitely challenge competitors. The trail is well marked from the beginning and, in addition to greater breadth, can also be distinguished by the snowmaking pipes which follow the course.
Also, the unmistakeable pattern of trees covered with ice and snow on their side facing the trail, which can only be accomplished by snow guns, was apparent in many places.
While older racers may bemoan the loss of the technical challenge of the old "S-turns" or the long hard climb up "Craig's Hill", the current and future generations of racers will have a blast on the wide, banked, fast turns which characterize the new course. When I thought I had finished the trail, I looked at my GPS, and realized that I had not yet covered the full 5 km, and realized that the races usually start with a big loop of two in the open fields for the benefit of spectators, so I threw in one loop around the field at the end, and brought the distance up to about where it should be. Conservatively, there is about 400 feet of climbing on this course, which doesn't sound too bad until you realize that the longer races will loop around it as many as 4 times!
We have the opportunity to see the first Winter Carnival race held on this new trail next weekend (Feb 15, 16), and the NCAA championship races in early March. Come on up and check it out!


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SSV Corwith Cramer
In May 2006, I sailed out of Key West aboard the SSV Corwith Cramer, a 134 ft steel brigantine belonging to the Sea Education Association. With 7800 square feet of canvas, the Corwith Cramer looks like it sailed out of a painting by Fitz Hugh Lane. Yet it is a modern craft, fully outfitted for research, complete with bathymetric equipment, hydrographic winches, biological sampling equipment, sediment scoops, and rock dredges. Not that I would know the difference between a scoop and a dredge. In my former career in science, the mysteries of life were something best looked at indoors, preferably under a laminar flow hood where they wouldn't infect you.
The Laminar Flow Hood
Today my research questions are different. They focus on humans rather than marine ecology or rarefied microbes. And it was the human element of the voyage that made the its greatest impression on me, namely my own halting adaptation to life aboard ship. As the Cramer's B squad, we worked in eight hour watches, manning lookout, checking the weather, hoisting sail, and swabbing the sole. My berth was above the table in the galley, so I had to step over people eating (day and night) in order to get anywhere else in the ship. I slept three to four hours at a time, bathed in sweat. It was a breathtaking, bewildering, exhausting experience.
Crow's Nest, Corwith Cramer
It was, nevertheless, an experience which affected my research, because it showed me, in a way I never really understood before (reading books in the archives), the profoundly exhilarating and unsettling nature of life on a ship packed with officers and crew. Suddenly it seem didn't odd that scientific specimens disappeared or disintegrated before making it back to the metropole. It didn't seem odd that Pacific and Polar expeditions so often ended in mutiny or violence. (Not that we had mutiny on our minds. The crew of the Corwith Cramer was friendly and professional. I'm just projecting what it would be like to be on such a vessel for years at a time, with a larger crew, smaller berths, no fresh food or refrigeration, few links to the outside world, mixed together with the occasional bout of scurvy). Nor did it seem odd that explorers sometimes stayed in touch with former shipmates forty or fifty years after the end of the expedition. While the Corwith Cramer bore no resemblance to the the Fram, the Beagle, the Endeavour, or any other famous crafts of discovery, it gave me a way of understanding some of the events that took place on these vessels long ago.
For me the reenacted voyage offered inspiration, a way of seeing, in a new light, historical events. But this is not alway the objective of such voyages. Maritime adventurists often find a different inspiration in the reenactment, principally to recreate earlier events. For example, Philip Beale, leader of the Phoenician Ship Expedition, plans to sail a 21 meter square rigged ship around Africa in hopes of showing that the Phoenicians accomplished this route in 600 BC.
The Good Ship Phoenicia
As Beale put it in a Reuters interview:
""The Europeans think it was Portuguese explorer Bartholomew Dias who did it first. But I think the Phoenicians did it 2,000 years earlier and I want to prove it.
And on his website:
"The Phoenicians obviously conquered the Mediterranean, but did they really go all the difficult and long way around Africa? That is the question."
That is indeed the question, but one that Beale will be no closer to answering after the Phoenician Ship Expedition sets sail. Phoenicians may or may not have sailed around Africa, but Beale could never recreate the voyage with any accuracy because he knows where he's going and how he's going to get there, something that the first Phoenician navigators would not have known. Indeed, 14th century Venetians had a much better sense of the African coastline and Atlantic currents, but still feared passing beyond Cape Bojador (on the West Coast of Africa) because they'd be sailing against the current on the way back.
Another example: in 2005, British trekker Tom Avery sledged with to the North Pole in 36 days, a feat that he claimed "rewrote the history books" because it proved Robert Peary could have made it to the North Pole in 37 days as he claimed in 1909. While there may still be doubters, Avery hopes "that we have finally brought an end to the debate and that Peary's name will be restored to where it belongs in the pantheon of the great polar explorers."
Avery, channeling Peary, at the North Pole
But Avery's expedition differed from Peary's in significant ways. Avery was a robust 29 when he reached the North Pole. By contrast, Peary was 52, hobbled by the loss of eight toes, and suffering from a variety of ailments. Avery could afford to pack light on his trip since he didn't have to make a return trip back to land (his party was airlifted from the North Pole shortly after he arrived). Peary, by contrast, had to slog his way back under dog power.
Beale and Avery, I'm afraid, have succumbed to Kon-Tiki Syndrome, a state of mind in which reasonable explorers start believing that they are the philosopher's stone, agents with the power to transform reenactments into the gold of historical proof. I am a great believer in such voyages as experiential education, but they have no value in telling us what really happened in the past. Unfortunately there are no shortage of adventurers and sponsors willing to organize such expeditions. What to do. Blame Thor Heyerdahl.


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The Mystery of the Voorwerp Deepens!
A couple weeks ago, I talked about the Voorwerp ("object"), the strange blue object that Hanny posted to the Galaxy Zoo forum. She asked if anyone knew what it was, and we sure didn't. Part of the problem was that we didn't have a spectrum for it, so it could have been literally anywhere from right next door in our galaxy to the edge of the universe. Our colleague Bill Keel took a spectrum, which he posted about here in the blog, and found that the Voorwerp is associated with the galaxy above it. We've since been looking around for other colleagues that can help us figure out what the Voorwerp is.
Thanks to Matt Jarvis, who was observing at the 4.2m William Herschel Telescope in La Palma, we've been able to get some better images. The William Herschel Telescope is bigger than the telescope that gathers images for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS is 2.4 m; WHT is 4.2 m), and the images that Matt took are longer exposures, so we can see fainter features in them. The conditions were also quite good (good "seeing" in astronomer's lingo) and so the image has very good resolution (it's "sharper") as the atmosphere didn't blur things too badly.
So what kind of data did we get? We got three images in filters very similar to the SDSS ones. We got a g, r and i-band image. Those correspond roughly to green, red and infra-red for human eyes. Just to make things confusing though, we colour g in blue, r in green and i in red to stay consistent with the SDSS/GZ images. Without further ado, here are the original SDSS and new WHT images:
Original SDSS image
New WHT image
The WHT image is rotated with respect to the SDSS image; look at the orientation of the galaxy and the Voorwerp to see how they compare. Once you mentally rotate the images so they match, you can see clearly that the Voorwerp is quite a lot bigger than we initially thought, because so much of it was too faint to be visible in the SDSS image. This immediately makes us want to get an even deeper g-band (blue colour) image to see just how much bigger it is! For that, we will probably go to the world's largest telescopes such as ESO's Very Large Telescopes, Gemini or Keck.
To give you an idea just how big the Voorwerp is by now, look at the spiral galaxy next to it. This galaxy is a very massive spiral galaxy, likely as big or bigger than our own Milky Way! That's really, really big!
If you look at the new WHT image of the Voorwerp, you can also see a huge, gaping hole. From the SDSS images, it wasn't really clear whether the fuzzy structure there was anything real, but the WHT image makes it clear that this is a genuine hole. Again, just to put it into proportion, that hole has a diameter of something like 10 000 light-years. We have no good idea of what could punch such a large hole. One possibility is that a massive burst of star formation occurred there, causing a string of powerful supernova explosions, causing an expanding bubble. Such holes presumably caused by supernovae have been seen in other galaxies, but as far as we know, nothing anywhere near this size.
In his last post, Bill mentioned that the spectrum of the Voorwerp showed some very odd emission lines, in particular Helium II (HeII) and Neon V. HeII only really appears in spectra when there is something really hot around to excite the gas – something hotter than the hottest star. This could be an active galactic nucleus(i.e. gas falling into a supermassive black hole, and heating up as it falls), or perhaps some high velocity shocks. We're busy analysing the spectrum to understand better what's going on here.
By a luck coincidence, the Voorwerp turned out to be at a redshift where the HeII line "redshifted" into a common narrow-band filter. Such a filter blocks all light except in a very narrow wavelength range, and so lets us take an image focusing only on those areas which are emitting light in that wavelength range. Below is the image of the Voorwerp in the wavelength range of the HeII line:
The Voorwerp in HeII
The HeII emission clearly comes from a good chunk of the whole Voorwerp (again,a deeper image might show even more), so whatever is exciting the gas in the Voorwerp seems to do it over quite a large volume.
What's next? We really still have no idea of what the Voorwerp really is. The more data we take on it, the stranger it gets. Many of us are busy trying to convince friends of ours on observing runs to take observations of the Voorwerp so we can figure out what it is.
That's how an observational science like astrophysics works: you find something new, you don't know what it is, so you take more data to try and understand it better and form some hypothesis about what's actually going on and then you confirm it with more data. But we're still at the very start of this process. The mystery deepens… *cue scary music.
190 responses to "The Mystery of the Voorwerp Deepens!"
cameron says :
Okay I think this is very exciting.
Maybe in Galazyzoo2 you should add an easy way to tag a photo as interesting due to artifacts like the above?
xou says :
ALL the links in this entry points to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift
Odd ! : ]
sean says :
maybe its whats left of a collapsed black whole? a galaxy that has been completely eaten?. of course thats only my first guess! je je
Big Al says :
It looks to me like the remnants of an exploding supernova (or other object), where streams of matter were ejected perpendicular to the matter in the ring. Because of the viewing angle, it is difficult to see the ejected matter on the far side of the ring, but it is clearly visible on the side of the ring closest to the viewer.
hipparcos says :
Several very interesting ideas, but God and Doctor Who? Who let them in? This is what interests me about astronomy and astrophysics; something different or unusual crops up; Nobody can supply an immediate answer. The science is in the discovery and understanding of the wider Universe, although I doubt that we will ever understand it all in one lifetime.
Keep up the good work. Today – discovery, tomorrow – some of the answers.
01Charlie says :
Apologies Guys. A fool, i.e. "Me" was allowed on-board. Anyway…
The top image reminds me of a "Buckled Wheel/Disc".
I wonder, are we looking at the early stages of formation of a "Black Hole"?
The Blue matter being an "exhaust" emmission; a sort of back-fire effect as the "hole" kicks into life?
When a Black Hole forms, does it start from a singular-point or from something like a J-Curve? (mimicing perhaps the 'Big-Bang") hence the galaxy "Buckle". If a J-curve, maybe the initial "pull" on "its" galaxy would be irregular accounting for the "Buckling" which perhaps later smooths out as the Black Hole gains strength and then as its power creates the Galaxy's Spiral arms – bit like water going down the plug-hole.
And, If a "Black Hole" is being formed, has the collapse of the star which effectively gives the "hole" life, intitally blown parts of the "Buckled" galaxy apart, only to be able to recapture them to within the galaxy at a later date?
You're glad I joined now. I can tell…
Starkicker says :
How DO you tag a photo that appears to have somthing odd in it separate from the galaxy you are focussed on??
Kate says :
Is it possible that the 'hole' in the voorwerp is not actually a hole at all, but just the way that it has formed? There seem to be lighter areas away from the main 'body' almost wisp like. Could the 'hole' simply be an area not yet filled by the voorwerp? Similar to what happens if you put ink in water and it flows around something, or is influenced by some other factor, maybe something emitting from the closeness of the galaxy? As we don't yet know how it was formed could this be a possibility?
Souen says :
I seems to me that 'something' could be emitted by the galactic core along the galactic axis of rotation (possibly on both sides), and that this 'something' is hitting a body of gas, causing it to emit light (fluorescing or diffusing?).
If this is the case, maybe the central part of the emitted beam of 'something' conveys enough momentum to the gas to blast it out of its path …
Garry says :
What if the circular area is actually a hole, something like a caldera we'd have on earth. If the hole is indeed something like a black hole but is in fact a blue hole (something I've just made up). It could be a conduit to another universe created when an eruption of matter, gas, energy punched it's way through and the blue effect you see is light reflecting off planets, suns, dust coming through from the other side – this could be a new type of galaxy we're seeing – there has to be a first of everything, the fact that it seems to have no magnetic effect on the spiral galaxy it's almost touching could mean the birth of something completely new.
Larry says :
Could this be the dead remnants of the adjacent galaxy,ejected years ago,being reclaimed,with the hole being a result of gravity pulling it apart as it returns home?
tony reid says :
looks like exhaust emissions from the galaxy
ava says :
that is SO creepy!it looks like some kind of monster and its like trying to find earth and attack us so that they will be the only ones in the galaxy![sorry,i talk to much dont i?]
David Pastern says :
I believe that this object is the result of 2 galaxies merging, early stages. Since the primary galaxy is a very large spiral (sb?), it would be only natural for it to have enough gravitational influence to gobble up close by galaxies. Look at what the Milky Way has done to the LMC and SMC as an example.
I'd say the smaller galaxy has a super massive black hole, probably in the order of several tens of billion solar masses. What we're seeing here is the result of the black hole having assimilated the closer matter up to a certain distance.
By all accounts, black holes are turning into very interesting things – recent studies show that they can reach a certain point, and run out of fuel. This means that the schwarzchild radius (event horizon) has little feeding it. This results in little X ray and gamma ray output. Since this galaxy looks like it's quite a distance, it'll probably be very difficult to analyse the outside regions to see what the rotational speeds of the stars are (and thus deduce the mass of the object that they are rotating).
Just my thoughts.
PS for those that don't know, it's now quite common knowledge that nearly every galaxy has a super massive black hole at the center. It's turning out that it seems that they're quite critical in early galaxy formation, and had very high energy outputs in the early stages after the big bang, hence quasars.
Steven says :
Many questions, no real answers…Is "Blackhole" the automatic answer these days in astronomy? We see something we can't explain (Blackhole?) I actually like the "wormhole" idea (Starryeyed Bob). Maybe three black holes slamming together and that is the vortex of all three? Or possibly the aftermath of such a wrenching meeting of forces? Possibly a sun/planet formation got "run over" by the 3 black holes converging? They would "fight" over the carcus (and at tremendus pressures) so who knows what would be formed out of such an undertaking? Since it is Sooo massive (it is large as seen) what does it weigh? Any Guess? What is the time/distance to us? Do we have mass Spectronomy of it? If so, what are the most prevelant elements? Can we detect energy emmisions? What about radio waves? Anybody point a dish antenna at it and listen? Again, wondered what the time/distance is?
tony reid says :
Hi all
could we not be seeing the first evidence of a "white hole" that the galaxy has burst through and with better exposures we will see that the voorwerp gets bigger like a shattered window. just a thought
charzino7 says :
third pic down i think it might be some part of a meteor shower!!! strange though!
charzino7 says :
if you look closely you can see somethink quite amazing. get back to me if you think you know what it is!
fmischler says :
I have a question that I didn't see answered in the article. If the blue region is associated with the galaxy, and assuming it is gas/dust/stellar stuff, what might have caused it to be there in the first place? Was it material ejected from the galaxy, residue of another cannibalized galaxy, etc? I guess I thought it's important to notice the hole, for example, but before you have the hole, you have the original bunch of stuff. That seems to be a more fundamental question. But maybe the hole issue seems easier to resolve at first glance, perhaps. Just curious. Great stuff either way.
Also, a few other basic details: how far away is this galaxy? What's its basic make up? Old or young (I assume its pretty old)? Could the blue region be connected to these questions in some way?
chris says :
Souen February 17th, 2009 12:35 pm said it what imho could be an explanation.
hello folks,
i just want to throw in my thoughts on that picture. i cannot find the link to it but i remember that there was taken a picture of a galaxy 2-3 years ago wich had a super fast and super deadly plasma stream in the middle, source: the black hole of the galaxy. the problem was that the plasma stream hit another galaxy in the neighbourhood turning everything into dust. maybe this is just another "galaxy war" picture like the one i saw.
beautiful indeed, but cruel on the other hand.
maybe this is
Pythagora says :
The spiral galaxy's bulge has a reddish hole or smudge in it. Related? From this angle anyway, the hole or smudge seems to reiterate the cut out part of the Blue Thing.
How can the Blue Thing's cut-out part be a black hole if starlight is coming through it?
I'm new at this project, but I've been doing a lot of classifying in Zoo-2. I, too, have seem some strange Thingees, and I wonder how to ID them as special. I haven't been able to get into my favorites. What I'm doing after 'losing' a strange galaxy early on, is just saving EVERYTHING to my favorites, but I haven't been able to get into my file–it won't open–to review what I've done, and to see if these galaxies have an assigned number or something. Do they?
And can we change our classifications as we grow in wisdom?
Great project! And that Blue Thingee reminds of the super-duper Stargate that was built to bring the Ori ships in from another galaxy.
Pythagora says :
Two more questions about the project: What if we see two galaxies merging AND a lens/arc, for instance? Or, a ring AND a disturbance? It seems we have to choose just one, when there are sometimes more than one important feature.
Second question: I don't have much familiarity with lens/arcs. I find myself often interpreting what I see around a galaxy as a lens/arc and also often using "Other" for globs of matter, or ball-like objects (often red, but not always) near or on top of or within a galaxy. I feel like I need more guidance on these things. A better sampling of lens/arcs (than the tutorial–where are just two of them) would help. The tutorial does not identify which of the items in the two lens/arc pictures are lens/arcs. And I need more help in being able to recognize which objects have nothing to do with the central galaxy.
Tim Francis says :
To me the purity of the color signature says something – like possibly a narrow electromagnetic frequency emission associated with some sort of "laser" phenomenon.
Is it possible that a jet, or other energy pulse, originating from the nearby galaxy super massive black hole complex could excite molecules in relatively pure gas clouds having a geometry such that a coherent light emission be produced?
For instance, rarified pure nitrogen will laze in coherent ultraviolet light under certain conditions.
Ulrika says :
maybe it is a huge nebulosa (or what ever you call those places were strs are born in english…), created by almost alla the strs of a dwarf-galaxy, or something, that got too close tho the core of the bigger galaxy, and that core fired one of those "energy-jets" that you talk about here, that would make som sence, since most of it, you said, were just hot gas.
but then it is propably at least one and a half million years since it happened (by which i mean since the light sent out by it reached Earth), otherwise humanity would have recorded it somehow. probaly A LOT older
for example, there were some people in china, about 1100 years ago, that wrote down that for three days, the night sky was light as day, and in the 20th sentury, the scientist reallised that THAT had been a supernova in our own galaxy
Peter says :
Please let me emphasize what a few people here already asked/stated: We need an extra button that can be pressed at any stage of the classification, which tags a specific image as to be re-evaluated as there seems to be something unusual that does not necessarily have something to do with the galaxy (but it also could have). An additional entry field for a few lines of comment should then also appear.
Images tagged in that way should be re-evaluated by a specialist team.
Bishop Usher says :
Wonderful! This was what I signed on for in Zoo 1. Good Catch Hanny! (I was away for a while, but am back now for the Spring, and looking forward to coming across something ubercool like Hanny's.)
Question(s): I am sure I just missed it, (I didn't see that question from anyone else, so I think that must have just missed it or not understood where to find the info) but what is its distance, speed, and rate of acceleration?
Ben Tordoff says :
Can you view it at other wavelengths and get a relative red shift at different points in the Voorwerp to see if it is expanding around a common point as well as away from us? You could then construct a 3D model of it to see if it obeys gravitational laws and find out what it looks like from different lines of sight. That would be interesting.
Alex O'Donoghue says :
I think its a dark galaxy, a bit like an evil twin perhaps.
The hole in the Voorwerp looks about the same size as the middle of the spiral galaxy, maybe the blueness is just blueshifted light reflecting off dust particles.
Looking at the new WHT image, you can almost see an outline to the blue stuff that mimicks the disc shape of the galaxy next to it. Also, the distribution of the blue stuff seems to mirror the star locations in the adjacent galaxy.
Failing that, do stars sneeze?
aboling says :
Amazing, I think all of this is facinating! Having been a recent convert to the Zooite way of life, the Voorwerp has really inspired me, although I seem to have many more questions than answers. I wanted to see what I could find out from the pictures so I took the two best images from the website of the Voorwerp and laid the 4.5 WHT over the HeII image. I also had a look at the split channels from the 4.5 WHT image. A few interesting things showed up, (at least for me,) perhaps they're not as remarkable as they appear. (I do understand that we may not be looking at the original images, so the following may be fatally flawed.) 😉
1. This Voorwerp really covers a huge area if everything that shows up on the green (blue) filter is part of it. A very faint blue extends upwards of the main element to a point higher than the main galaxy. Thus it would seem to cover a greater area than the entire super massive galaxy to its right. Wow!!!
2. On the 4.5 WHT image, whilst the green (blue) and red (green) channels line up perfectly, there is a slight shift in alignment of the i-band (red) channel to down and right, for most of the objects. Yet this shift in the filters doesn't seem to occur for the Voorwerp. (I thought red-shift referred to a colour's hue adjusting toward the red part of the spectrum, so I don't understand why this is happening.)
3. Unrelated to the Voorwerp, there appear to be 'hotspots' that show up on the HeII, but not on the 4.5 WHT, and vice versa. For instance the three most prominent red spots on the 4.5 WHT. Why is that?
4. On 4.5 WHT, there appears so be a very faded miniture version of the Voorwerp, but on the red filter (green in image), adjacent (down and right,) to the smaller galaxy just down from the main super massive galaxy. Is this correct, or is it just a smudge?
I would be very interested to find out. I guess I'm hooked for good. It's projects like this that give me faith in Humanity's altruism. 🙂
Holly says :
I'm still at primary school but I think the stars are full of wonders. I think the vorweep is extremely intresting and one of these things in the galaxy that is full of wonders. I deeply congratulate the person who discovered it…
Martin says :
The 'distance' question is answered on the second link in at the top of this article (http://www.galaxyzooblog.org/2008/01/18/more-on-the-voorwerp/)
The 'redshift', as revealed in the 'spectrum' is a bit like a visual version of the 'doppler' effect whereby the apparent pitch of a fire engine siren, for instance, changes as the vehicle moves past you, caused by perceived 'wavelength stretching'… I think…
Exmech says :
Dollars to donuts that's a free floating hypermass that's attracted some intergalactic gas. We've seen a lot of different mergers. Bt what about a galaxy collision, where one of the hypermasses loses its "galaxy", and retains only a portion of the mass that would have been seen as the bulge.
zephin says :
Someone was asking about redshift. I am almost done reading a nice book called "Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe" by Simon Singh. He traces the history of studying time, cosmos, scientists and theorists and most relevant theories & discoveries & flops but does so in simple English so people like me can understand it without all of the technical jargon for the pros. Check this book out!
Ed Smith says :
I am not a big drinker I usually have one glass of white wine for supperand that's my limit,but there arealwaysacceptions
to any rule. Last eavening my wife was at her quillting group and I found my self consuming a third glass of wine. I am an accountant but everone else in my family is a PHD,this results in very deep discusions in the family.I have read allmost every scientific Ammerican in the last 50 years.I inderstand about .01% of it but it keeps my mind active. My theory is about antimater (can it explain the blue spot?)After consuming my third glass of wine I commpleted my antimater theory (It also effects the big bang) We know that antimater exists;so if there are black holes there must be anitmater black holes. This indicates that there are three kinds of "mater". Mater 1 & 2 which are anti maters to each other and the #3 which is the mater we see.What we see is interaction between 2 mirror maters and it has been going on for about 14 billion years.
toosan1967 says :
With regard to Hanny's Voorwerp, it looks amazingly similar to something I found while playing with the Worldwide Telescope. At first I thought it might have been a photographic anomaly as these are common, particularly when a passing aircraft's flashing lights illuminate the mirror of the telescope taking the long exposure photograph. But in many of these you can see the instrument package at the 'scope's focus silhouetted in the image if you enlarge the image enough. In this case, I couldn't tell for sure that it was a photo anomaly. It was the blue color that caught my eye in Hanny's object – same as the critter I found. In any case, if anyone wants to look at my critter, SIMBAD has a Quasar (among other objects) in the same location. It's ID is 2MASSJO7332861+2708513. In the Worldwide Telescope I have it's location as RA 7:33:42 and Dec +27:05:19. Go deep to find it. Have Fun!
Pi says :
Or… that big bright thing to the south of the main galaxy is what remains of the core of the other galaxy, the debris of which, is the blue object. A galaxy collision that was so close, the denser portion of the smaller galaxy was pulled back into about larger one, and the 'arm'(s) were left drifting off.
If the first galaxy was a single arm galaxy, and it hit 'just right', that could be the outcome.
Tony Griffin says :
My head hurts!
Could it be a space carribean?
Ron says :
Could it be a stream of antimatter ejected from the galactic center heating up the He? The Milky Way has a cloud of antimatter particles in its center – a lopsided one at that. This old story from the NY Times also seems relevant. Has this been imaged in the gamma ray band?
Kevin says :
Now that is exciting! Happy birthday Hanny!
Ryan says :
It clearly isn't a galaxy merger else there would be stars in the mysterious cloud.
My first instinct is that it is a polar jet ramming into an intergalactic cloud of diffuse gas. But, why don't we see the jet itself and where is the jet for the opposite direction? Maybe something ran directly into the black hole at the center of the parent galaxy and blasted out material only to one side like a meteor throws up a plume when it impacts.
My next idea is it looks like an out of control object that is spewing material. I have had this image emblazoned in my mind since I was a child and the loop in the material is eerily similar.
I'm curious about the concentrations of HeII is it standard background concentrations or is it higher indicating the material comes from previous fusion activity?
Alex O'Donoghue says :
Is it only me who's realised that the Voorwerp matches the galaxy next to it? I mean, they seem to be exactly the same size and mirror each others features, bright spot in the galaxy, bright spot in the 'werp etc. Surely its just a light echo of some kind.
Maybe the galaxy next to the Voorwerp is so large that it's actually twisting spacetime around a smidge.
Ralph says :
I have a few observations.
1) The contrast in color spectra imply the Voorwerp is not close to the spiral galaxy that appears nearby so it is unlikely the two are related. In all probability, the Voorwerp is much closer, located in our galaxy.
2) The twisted shape implies an uneven distribution of energy and mass. There is some cohesion but no clear center of gravity.
3) It appears to be unraveling not collapsing. The shape is not consistent with indications of a collapse.
4) The consistency of color saturation is remarkable as is even the distribution of the HeII signature.
Wouldn't HeII be more common as the by-product of a Sol-like star than an exploding giant? To me, it is as if a smaller star unravelled. Could a dwarf star reach a point at the end of its life where it explodes rather than burn out?
Bryan says :
If anyone noticed there is a brighter speck on the tip of the voorwerp. I suspect that this could be a region of stars (which will probably by quite old) that once belong to a galaxy (call it galaxy X) but got ripped up by tidal interations of other nearby galaxys, and this could be the remant of the galaxy X that got torn apart.
The hole at could be the supermassive blackhole that would have once situated itself at the heart of galaxy X, just like virtually all other galaxys, but is now exposed as the stars, planets, gases and dust cloud are absent.
My theory for why voorwerp has a blue hue to it is that it might be consisted of inoised nitrogen which gives of a blue-purple glow when excited with electromagnetisism. Supporting my theory stated above, this can be the remant of galaxy X and that a AGN (Active Galatic Nuclei) can shoot streams of particles towards the cloud and excite it sufficiently to give of radiation in the visible spectrum but this is unlikely because the photographed galaxy does seem to have jets of any sort coming out of its core, otherwise is would have outshone the galaxy and a nearby radius of about 100,000 light years or maybe even more.
But to determine any of this we will need to get the age and composition of voorwerp or anything thinking done will only be hypothesising about the very basics of the nature of this thing which will not lead us very far. Secondly, we will need a full Spectroscopic analysis of the object or else, again, it won't take us far when we're just guessing about everything with no evidence to support it. We can also use measure the redshift of voorwerp and create a 3D model for it and we can look at it from different viewpoints so we can study more about it.
Bryan says :
Just got the idea that this might be the first clues of the exsistance of a 'White Hole'. As their name suggests, its the opposite of a black hole and it emits rather than consumes matter.
Einstein and other physists have shown that if white holes do exsist, they are unstable and that negative matter is need to support it (much like wormholes, again, if they exsist). if negative matter is not present, then the white hole will collapse into a black hole and consume the matter that it generated
This might be true because as we can see from the image taken by WHT there is a clearly defined hole in the voorwerp and that this may be the black hole that resulted from the collapse of the white hole.
If white holes exsist, they will shake the foundations of astrophysics and it might help towards the creation of the Theory of Everthing 🙂
Duncan says :
It Is amazing This Sort Of Thing exsits
dino says :
Have just found this web site today, think I,m hooked already.
It remind's me of fleas living on the nose of a big dog, wondering what the strainge glowing gas is coming out of the other end of the dog.
Sorry folks, as you can see I have lots to catch up on, am interested in the book, Big Bang, the origin of the universe by Simmon Singh. Will check this book out
My thanks to Zephin
glenn porche says :
Looks to me like, the brighter galaxies center emissions, blew the hole through the other galaxy remnant. What do you think?
Tim says :
I think it may be an answer to more about objects in our galaxy unknown to mankind so far…
Paul says :
It's possible that two galaxies could collide at a high enough speed that one of their black holes could follow a hyperbolic orbit and be flung free from the galaxy. It would then be a very large, bare black hole that would create a source of x-rays. This could illuminate nearby gas and make itself visible. One way to confirm its existence would be evidence of spiral rotation, rings or cones in the pattern of the excited gas. If we had a closer look we might be able to see this.
Mack says :
There is a theory that claims classical physics applies at all levels and seeks to displace Quantum Mechanics as the most successful theory we have to date.
It has two predictions that might (I said might!) apply to the Voorwerp:
The first prediction is that black holes can reach a size where they spontaneously convert to energy. You can imagine what that would do to an existing galaxy – leaving a good galaxy sized hole with a hot gas cloud around the perimeter would be a likely result.
The second prediction is that gas clouds can provide an energetic energy source by the conversion of hydrogen to sub-ground radiii which the claimant calls a hydrino. What is interesting is that the claim involves, in one case, a resonant energy transfer between atomic hydrgoen and HeI, which results in HeII, a hydrino and the release of energy in the UV.
A potential third claim is that this hydrino is claimed to possess the properties attributed to dark matter – doesn't emit visible light but has a gravitational effect.
Of course if he is right, everything we known about science is turned on its head. but the Voorwerp kind of did that already…
Frank Patterson says :
[QUOTE]To give you an idea just how big the Voorwerp is by now, look at the spiral galaxy next to it. This galaxy is a very massive spiral galaxy, likely as big or bigger than our own Milky Way! That's really, really big!
If you look at the new WHT image of the Voorwerp, you can also see a huge, gaping hole. Again, just to put it into proportion, that hole has a diameter of something like 10000 light-years.[ENDQUOTE]
If that hole is around 10000 ly across and the adjacent galaxy is as big or bigger than ours, then the Voorwerp is considerably closer to us than the galaxy. As our Galaxy is 100000 ly, if you measure ten times the hole's width, you will reach almost to the brighter of the two ellipticals on the the left of the image.
Crepin says :
Did anyone ever think that perhaps the blue colour is cherenkov radiation?
Say, for example, that the blue light is cherenkov radiation, then that would suggest that the voorwerp is matter leftover from some explosion? the radiation itself would be caused by neutrinos or other quantum particle, released in the explosion, travelling faster than the average velocity of light (due to the slowing effect of the dense gravity and mass). The only problem with this I guess is the redshift… would that still occur in the presence of cherenkov?
Ricky Kendall says :
The mass that appears to be pulled toward that huge galaxy, from the center of the Voorwerp, looks like it would fill the hole perfectly. Could it be that the larger mass in the center of the Voorwerp is possibly heavier than the outer part and more vulnerable to the gravitational pull of the galaxy next door? Or, is there such thing as blowing a smoke ring on a galactic scale?
Matthemus says :
I saw that Mack has suggested this same thing, but for some reason when I first saw this, I thought, well maybe some kind of black hole. Then my mind strayed to Dark Matter for some reason.
Is it possible that some sort of radiation is "redshifting" the dark matter into the visible spectrum of light?
Pertaining to the Dark Matter theory though I would have no idea what would cause such a massive hole.
I saw a few posts that suggest a black hole, but like the article says, why is there no radiation? And then why did it just stop eating?
And I was wondering, what is the purple "face" in the first picture? It appears as a less dense, or simply not as bright dot in the second picture. Is it simply another galaxy we can see behind it?
Faye says :
A strange Click went into my head for a moment
For the Voorwerp, The size and consistant color of it could possibly mean a recent Black Hole, Consuming one a tenth, hundreth, even millionth of it own size,Causing it to implode and emit off Gasses that we maybe have never come across with because of how dangerouse and unstable it is to be so near planets or w.e
And for the GIGANTIC hole,
A star could be any size, from 5,000 lightyears across, to 100ly's across, At the rate of its death it could have, expanded to 3, 4 or 5 times its size, and sizzled ANYTHING in its way, and causing many other strange plantets, or space junk in its path
Erik Latranyi says :
Since it 'may' fit the concept of a black hole that lost its gravitational pull, could the irregularity surrounding it be accounted by a non-symetrical explosion of the hole?
Here is the 'out there' theory.
The nearby galaxy is inhabited. The black hole was consuming a neighboring galaxy and would threaten the visible galaxy in short time.
The inhabitants of the intact galaxy found a way to destroy a black hole, creating an irregular discharge.
triki95 says :
i maybe just 14 but i have a theory could this be a fragment of an explosion soo far back in the past that it is a remnant of the "BIG BANG" and has been in the same spot for millions of years and as time passed a galaxy has formed near it?? ohh and btw i have send a e mail to the zoo keepers about some other strange objects i have seen in some images hope i get a reply > thanks
Jacob Wise says :
I'm only 11 but I think it could be a remenent of a massive hypernova explosion!
Jacob Wise says :
Could it an irregular galaxy?
Jacob Wise says :
Could it be one of those mystery dark galaxys with a gobular cluster passing though it?
Andrew says :
Random thoughts, could there be some gravitational lensing effect going on around or affected by a heavy object – a bit like lense flare when you photograph towards the sun (our sun that is) and can light get a slingshot effect from a heavy object in the way that satellites can use planets to get a kick onwards? Could that provide a 'blue shift'?
Emmanuel Mahuni says :
I think it is a dead galaxy. It's a galaxy that collapsed some long time ago. Though the thingy about its effects on the matter around it is still baffling. But what it may be is something we have never encountered before in any photographs, I mean something like this may have been photographed in other images, but never noticed before. Notice, we have never seen dead galaxies before, unless black-holes are what they are. If in a spiral galaxy, all matter is being pulled to the center, then at some point the whole thing will blow up, or collapse to a black-hole. This may be the one that blew-up. Notice that on the far right there are traces of the same stuff it is made of, sort of drifting into deeper space.
Like someone else said, it may be something completely new (to us though).
Lightloop says :
"*cue scary music" out..
jeremy dumont says :
there are obvious tells of gravitational lensing. maybe two super massive black holes came close to colliding but failed to merge. this would cause rips in time and space. maybe the blue shift is from this. and the hole an anti singularity.
fLeShIsLaW says :
It looks a lot like space tornado's to me, just from a different angle. I do however think the galaxy pictured is at the final stage of merging with another, any merging black holes would emit huge energy waves at the poles, which could possible explain gasses in the nearby universe being excited and whipped up in to a tornado.
Whatever the source, it just goes to show what exciting things can be found as a result of sharing information publicly.
smietje says :
High, i am an amateur astronomist. I have studied 2 yrs @ Leiden University. Could this be an effect of the superfluidity and superconductivity of helium in combination with high rotation velocities and BEC state ? Maybe a very high rotating velocity has reached one of the vortex values of the BEC state causing some sort of transfer in mass due to zero entropy energy emission which are influenced by the elecotromagnetic fields of the galaxy nearby? Frankly i do ot really undertand what i am saying here, but it sounds cool !
smietje says :
No really serious now: the dark spot could also be a quark star or strange star. I read this on wiki: It is theorized that when the neutron-degenerate matter which makes up a neutron star is put under sufficient pressure due to the star's gravity, the individual neutrons break down into their constituent quarks, up quarks and down quarks. Some of these quarks may then become strange quarks and form strange matter. The star then becomes known as a "quark star" or "strange star", similar to a single gigantic hadron (but bound by gravity rather than the strong force). Quark matter/strange matter is one candidate for the theoretical dark matter that is a feature of several cosmological theories.
james w hudgens says :
KentuckyFC writes
"In 2007, a Dutch school teacher named Hanny van Arkel discovered a huge blob of green-glowing gas while combing though images to classify galaxies. Hanny's Voorwerp (meaning Hanny's object in Dutch) is astounding because astronomers have never seen anything like it. Although galactic in scale, it is clearly not a galaxy because it does not contain any stars. That raises an obvious question: what is causing the gas to glow? Now a new survey of the region of sky seems to have solved the problem. The Voorwerp lies close to a spiral galaxy which astronomers now say hides a massive black hole at its center. The infall of matter into the black hole generates a cone of radiation emitted in a specific direction. The great cloud of gas that is Hanny's Voorwerp just happens to be in the firing line, ionizing the gas and causing it to glow green. That lays to rest an earlier theory that the cloud was reflecting an echo of light from a short galactic flare up that occurred 10,000 years ago. It also explains why Voorwerps are so rare: these radiation cones are highly directional so only occasionally do unlucky gas clouds get caught in the crossfire."
Glen says :
It is matter from another dimension. It came from the hole created when gravity from both dimensions was strong and close enough to stretch a hole in space/time.
When holes like these open, matter that can be exchanged through dimensions, is exchanged.
It happens with most black holes, (we just don't know it yet) and sometimes when very massive stars line up in space/time with massive bodies in other dimensions. (The pull must come from both dimensions) It is the warping of time from the massive gravity that creates the environment for this to occur.
Just my thoughts.
suryakant says :
frontcortex says :
I say Voorwerp is the remains of another galaxy that smashed into the bigger galaxy. It's the matter that didn't get captured by the bigger galaxy, and it is spinning very fast. A massive galactic smoke ring. But what the heck do I know??
Al Pierspm says :
I don't think this is being caused by "cone of radiation ". The reason is if you look above the large blue circle there is a smaller blue arm blob, swinging up and going counter- clockwise. This seems to show that something other than a cone of directed energy is at work
Anon says :
I don't know alot about different dimensions but when I first read this artice I wondered what that blue stuff was too. I thought that it might be a whole new type of matter that hasn't been discovered yet and (from reading a different comment) that mabye came from another dimesion. I have know idea how different dimensions work at all so what I'm saying might be a load of rubbish, although you never know with these type of things!
Mark says :
I can imagine it will eventually be recognized as the birth of a galaxy from a black hole. I think the exchange of matter that appears to some as going on, is illusory; but rather the clumping of normal visible matter being compressed by gravity wells of various strengths in the region. This may be how all galaxies got their start . What direction is this spinning? Is it spinning in the same direction as nearby galaxies and so on?
howbigistheuniverse says :
These are some incredible images.
Stephen Waddell says :
Has anyone determined the orientation of the voorwerp to the plane of the adjacent galaxy? Also, orientation with regards to the center of the galaxy?
The obvious explanation is that it is a blob of gases being illuminated and excited by a Gamma ray 'jet' from the galactic black hole. Probably too simple!
Robert says :
Just my two cents: perhaps it is a super-massive dark or reflective nebula and the spectrum we're seeing is the reflection or emanation from the neighbor galaxy.
Notice how the 'brighter' section is closer to the galactic core and gets dimmer as it moves away. Maybe the 'hole' is similar to dark nebulae in our own galaxy.
What do I know? I just started learning about galaxies stellar objects a couple days ago.
jussi says :
With the little I know. Could it be a concentration of Dark matter/energy that is in the process of creating Hell? I know the theory that all matter was created with the big bang. But I believe there are places where new matter is created. Matter has been found to "pop" out of what we think is nothingness. Why not here?
rodneyfett says :
No one has mentioned anything about the green glow next too/ below the elliptical galaxy close to the spiral with the blue glow below it. You said something about green pees, but this has arms/branches associated with it. This thought came to me while writing the first part. We have discovered different colored sprites above thunder storms,could this process be along the lines of energy output of the close galaxy exciting diffuse gas nearby?
Rasmus Ehlers says :
The new WHT image:
I find what i see a bit hard to describe, as danish, and not english is my primary language. looks like 'reflections of eachother'. Look at the same-shaped core, left, and hole, right. There is more matches in shape, -In fact i will try to match them, as i think they are each others template. This Voorwerp is like an imprint [not mirroring]made by the galaxy.
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What are ILO Conventions on maternity protection?
ILO started to address the issue of maternity protection from the very start and the first convention on maternity protection was adopted in the founding year of ILO, i.e., 1919. The Maternity Protection Convention (No.3) provided basic protection entitling a pregnant worker to 12 weeks paid maternity leave (level of cash benefits during leave to be determined by national authorities), at least 2 daily nursing breaks and protection against dismissal during the period of pregnancy. This convention was, however, limited only to the women employed in public/private industrial and commercial sectors.
The second convention adopted 33 years later in 1952 (No.103) extended the scope of convention by including women from non-industrial and agriculture occupation as well as domestic workers. It also expanded the leave provision (at least 12 weeks) and extending this leave provision to cover illness resulting from pregnancy or confinement.
Convention 183, adopted in year 2000, is the most recent and updated convention on the subject. It expands the scope of maternity protection to virtually all workers and provides for at least 14 weeks of paid maternity leave.
Why is maternity protection important?
Maternity protection allows women to successfully combine their productive and reproductive roles without compromising one at the cost of another. Similarly, it protects women from marginalization/discrimination in the labor market due to their reproductive roles.
Maternity protection, by contributing to the maternal and child health, contributes to the attainment of millennium development goals (MDGs) 4 and 5. Similarly, maternity protection measures safeguard and increase women employment and labor market presence, and ensure income security by providing cash and medical benefits during the period thereby helping in achievement of MDG 1 and 3.
The table below provides information on the relevant MDGs and targets.
Millennium Development Goals
Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
Target 1.B: Achieve full and productive employment and decent work for all, including women and young people
1.4 Growth rate of GDP per person employed
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Target 3.A: Eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of education no later than 2015
3.1 Ratios of girls to boys in primary, secondary and tertiary education
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Target 4.A: Reduce by two-thirds, between 1990 and 2015, the under-five mortality rate
4.1 Under-five mortality rate
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Target 5.A: Reduce by three quarters, between 1990 and 2015, the maternal mortality ratio
5.1 Maternal mortality ratio
Target 5.B: Achieve, by 2015, universal access to reproductive health
5.3 Contraceptive prevalence rate
What are different elements/aspects of maternity protection?
There are different aspects of maternity protection of which maternity leave is only one such aspect. These aspects include health protection measures for pregnant and breast-feeding mothers, maternity leave, leave in case of pregnancy related illness, provision of cash and medical benefits, employment protection and non-discrimination, allowing nursing breaks to breast-feeding mothers. The above MDGs can be achieved only when a country legislates on all aspects of maternity protection and ensures that these laws are complied with by organizations.
What are ILO provision on health and safety during pregnancy?
ILO Convention 183 recognizes pregnant and nursing women's right to health protection. National authorities are required to determine types of work, which could be detrimental/prejudicial to the health of mother or that of child.
One important measure to protect pregnant workers' health is arrangement of working time. Pregnant workers are usually exempted (and thus protected) from night work and overtime work. Earlier ILO conventions usually banned women night work. However, as a measure of equality, women can't be prohibited to do night work. Therefore, even pregnant workers may not be prohibited to do night work rather workers should be allowed to decide for themselves. A decision not to allow night work or overtime by pregnant workers should be based on a medical certificate declaring that night work is incompatible with pregnancy or nursing.
If work is prejudicial to the health of a pregnant worker or her child, worker should be provided an alternative to such work (like transferring to some safer position). This could also include changing her working conditions and working hours. However, such alternative work should not lead to a decrease in pay or benefits. This option is usually given once an assessment has been carried out to establish if the work involves significant risk to the health of a worker or that of her child.
What are ILO provisions on breast-feeding breaks?
According to ILO Convention 183, a women worker has the right to one or more daily breaks or a daily reduction of working hours in order to breast feed her child. National authorities determine the duration and number of these breaks. The first ILO Convention on maternity protection (No.3), however, required two 30-minute breaks in every working day.
As indicated by WHO studies, exclusive breast-feeding until the age of 6 months and partial breast-feeding up to the age of 2 years or even beyond is salubrious both for the mother and child. Breast feeding breaks are in addition to meal and rest breaks.
There are also provisions on nursing/day care facilities where women workers can breast-feed their children. It is usually an employer's responsibility to provide day care facility. However, these facilities are provided only once a minimum number of women are employed by an organization, like 50 or 100 women.
What does the ILO say about maternity leave?
As indicated above, the earlier conventions provided for (at least) 12 weeks of maternity leave. However, ILO Convention 183 requires maternity leave of at least 14 weeks of which six weeks leave must be taken following confinement/child birth. According to ILO statistics, 51% of countries provide maternity leave of at least 14 weeks. 35% of countries provide 12 to 13 weeks of leave, which is less than what is required under Convention 183 but still consistent with the provisions of Conventions 3 and 103. Only 14% of countries provide maternity that is even less than 12 weeks. 82% of Middle Eastern countries provide less than 12 weeks of maternity leave. On the other hand, 93% of the Central and South Eastern Europe (non-EU) and CIS countries provide at least 18 weeks of maternity leave.
A pregnant worker is free to take her leave with the condition that she takes compulsory leave of 6 weeks following the childbirth. The intention is to protect women workers from pressure to return to work, which could have unwholesome effect on her or her child's health.
ILO Convention also provides for extension in the maternity leave if some unusual event takes place during pregnancy or confinement. This includes delay in expected birth date, premature birth, multiple births, mother or child's illness, etc.
What are ILO provisions on cash benefits during maternity leave?
ILO Convention 183 requires that cash benefits be provided to workers during their maternity leave. Of the developed countries, United States is the only outlier which does not provide cash benefits during maternity leave. The convention also requires that level of benefits should be as such that a woman can afford herself and for her child a suitable standard of living. If cash benefit is to be based on past earnings (usually of last 12 months), then amount of benefits should be at least two-third of such earnings. And these benefits should last the whole duration of maternity leave.
ILO Convention also requires that qualifying conditions (to get these benefits) must be set in such a way that a majority of women workers are able to satisfy these. Eligibility requirements may include the minimum period of employment that a woman worker has been employed in an organization (6 months or 1 year), number of times that a worker can take these benefits, payment of a minimum number of contributions to the social security system, etc.
Who pays these cash benefits? Employer or Government?
Both the earlier conventions provided that employers were not individually liable for maternity benefits and these benefits were to be paid through some social insurance scheme or other public funds. This is because requiring employers to pay for these benefits can turn out negatively for women workers as employers see higher costs associated with employing women workers. And thus women workers are discriminated against in hiring. ILO Conventions require that an employer may not be individually made liable for paying this benefit.
The three systems, in vogue, to provide cash benefits during maternity leave use either social security, employer resources, or a mixture of public funds/social security and employer resources. According to ILO statistics, out of the 167 countries surveyed, around half of them provide cash benefits through social security systems while 26% obligate employers to provide these benefits. Cost sharing among social security institution(s) and employer(s) is done merely in 17% of economies.
Are workers protected against dismissals during maternity leave?
ILO conventions 3 and 103 (on maternity protection) require that a woman on maternity leave may not be dismissed from service (limited protection only!). ILO Convention 183, however, extends this protection to period of pregnancy, period following a worker's return to work (breast-feeding period) apart from maternity leave. The earlier conventions provided protection only to the already employed women workers (protection from dismissal) however the current convention protects also those who seek employment (pregnant women and women of child bearing age).
After availing maternity leave, workers also have the guaranteed right to return to same or equivalent position.


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Posts Tagged suspense
Suspense: storytelling's big tease – guest post at Writers Helping Writers
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in How to write a book, Plots, Rewriting on July 15, 2017
I'm at Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi's blog today with a post about how to use suspense. I think I first mentioned it on this blog a few weeks ago, but actually I got the date wrong, so you might have been waiting a while for this.
Which is exactly how suspense works, of course. Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Bargain! Don't forget there's a special offer on Nail Your Novel – Amazon have chosen it for a Book Of The Month deal, so the Kindle edition is just USD$1.99.
Bargain! again! – Read my novels FREE and choose from hundreds more titles on subscription service Bookmate – exclusive code at this link.
Now, hie yourself over to the suspense department to read the post. I see you shiver with antici…
Self-editing masterclass snapshots – do you have a plot or a premise?
Posted by Roz Morris @Roz_Morris in How to write a book, Writer basics 101 on October 4, 2015
This is part of an ongoing series of the smartest questions from my Guardian self-editing masterclass for novelists. Previous posts have discussed how much extra material we might write that never ends up in the book, or handling the disappearance of a key character. The full list is here.
Today I'm looking at another interesting problem, one that might be especially useful if you're gearing up for NaNoWriMo this year.
Is it a premise or a plot?
A writer in my class told us she'd had a literary agent, who had said: 'Your problem is that you have a premise but not a plot.'
So what might that mean?
A premise is a situation that seems full of promise. (Like these little clay fellas in the picture here.) But many writers think a premise is enough. It's not. A premise is static. It's a still life. (Like these little clay fellas in the picture here.)
Here's an example, using Ann Patchett's Bel Canto. A bunch of gentle people are taken hostage in an embassy in a south American country, and the siege lasts many months. That's the premise. The story or plot (I'm using the terms interchangeably, though they have slightly different meanings) is the sequence of events that spring from that idea.
So you need to convert your premise into events. And what's more, those events need a sense of change, of development. These events must matter to the characters, be irrevocable, present them with dilemmas and push them out of their comfort zone.
Now what might those changes be? Perhaps they might be events on a grand scale – a character dies, another character falls in love, the food supply is cut off, which makes everyone argue. Or the changes might be more subtle – the characters form allegiances and rivalries according to their personalities or political persuasion. They re-evaluate their life choices. You'll want a mix of both, adjusted for the flavour of book you're writing. If it's a thriller or a crime novel, the events might be more extraordinary than the events in the character study novel.
Whichever it is, you need change to hold the reader's curiosity. You need to treat the premise as an environment, a terrain that creates interesting challenges. The terrain isn't usually enough in itself. You need an exciting route too.
Still life
I've seen many writers get stuck in this still-life phase. They create the characters and the world, and describe it all in imaginative and vivid detail. But they are lacking this sense of increasing pressure. Their scenes have a stuck quality. They write a lot of stuff that seems to examine a whacky idea, or maybe a theme, but there's no sense of urgency and complication. Instead of advancing the situation, they simply study it.
And even if your purpose is to create a zoo to study humanity, the reader still looks for a sense of change – usually in their understanding. Your plot will come from this sense of increment, the sequence in which you present these observations of the human soul.
So you can deliver change in endless subtle ways – but it must be designed in.
The static character
A variation of this problem is writers who create vivid and thoughtful character dossiers and then present the characters in an unchanging state throughout the book. If a story is worth telling, it should contain events that challenge the characters in uncomfortable ways – and make them reveal their natures. Instead of presenting the character as an already complete image on a fixed canvas, we should think of allowing the plot to unpeel their layers.
So we could say a plot is a premise…. which you have quarried and shaped to show a sequence of change. Or how would you describe it? Have you had to confront this question? Are you still grappling with it? Some examples would be great – the floor is yours.
More to chew on…
Here's a post about storytelling in literary fiction, and finding drama in events.
In my plot book I describe four Cs necessary for a good plot – curiosity, crescendo, coherence and change. Elsewhere in the book I talk a lot about conflict, another important C.
And if you're doing Nanowrimo, here are other posts to help you prep.