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Airtrain AI 9

Lightning will always take the most direct conductive path to earth by striking the highest object in the area. Unfortunately, on the water, the highest and most attractive object to a lightning bolt just might be your boat. Be advised that when lightning strikes your boat or even near your boat, your electronics are vulnerable to damage. Here’s how to be prepared. Create a Short Circuit There is no absolute protection against lightning aboard a boat. But there are steps you can take to avoid or minimize damage. The most likely targets are antennas, fishing rods, towers, T-tops or any elevated electrically conductive surface. You can’t prevent a lightning strike, but you can create a safe path for lightning to travel. To conduct a strike safely to “ground” (on a boat this means to the water), create a low-resistance path from the highest point on your boat to a metal grounding plate in contact with the water. Start with a solid half-inch-diameter steel or bronze rod elevated six to 12 inches above every other object on the boat. The tip of that rod should be pointed, not blunt. Run a conductor made of at least a No. 8 gauge wire from the rod in as straight a path as possible to the water-grounding point. The recommended water ground is a metal ground plate mounted outside of the hull. It can be copper, monel, naval bronze or other noncorrosive metal and should be solid, not the porous type used for radio antenna grounds, and be at least one square foot in area. Check with the manufacturer to see if this already exists. Also know that factory-installed lightning rods and grounding conductors are sometimes unwisely removed or disconnected by boat dealers or unknowing buyers. Ground, Ground, Ground Ground all electronics and large metal objects on board, including metal cases or grounding studs on electronics and electrical equipment. Not to be overlooked are the engine(s), stove, sink, tanks, refrigerator, air-conditioner, metal railings, tower, arch and Bimini top. When running grounding conductors, don’t attempt to neatly bundle grounding cables together with the rest of the electrical wiring. Keep them separate from all other conductors, including antenna wires. Also, do not run the ground conductors in close proximity to or parallel to existing wire runs to prevent arcing. Storm Safety Tips -Lower all antennas and downriggers. -Disconnect all power, antenna and interconnection cables to the electronics and electrical gear. -Do not touch two metal surfaces at the same time (engine controls, a railing, helm, etc.) or you may become a convenient conducting path yourself. -Do get out of the area and head for shore, and send the crew belowdecks.

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Lesson 8 Glossary Enzymes - Chemicals naturally occurring in foods that can work to spoil the food. Pasteurization - Mild heat treatment for a short time designed to inactivate pathogens and Certain enzymes. Pathogenic Microorganisms - Microorganisms that cause illness if consumed in a contaminated food. Psychrophilic Microorganisms - Microorganisms that prefer cold temperatures to grow. Freezing Point - The temperature at which water turns into ice. Lactose - Milk sugar. Solutes - Chemicals that are solid that dissolve in liquids. Conduction - A heat transfer phenomenon. When heat travels from a hot solid to a cool solid, it is said that heat traveled through conduction. Electric Component - It has a part that behaves like electricity. Ionizing Radiation - Radiation energy capable of breaking atoms or molecules to electrically charged parts. Loss Factor - A measure of how much microwave energy a certain food absorbs. The higher the loss factor, the higher the amount of microwave energy absorbed. Magnetic Component - It has a part that behaves like a magnet. Non-Ionizing Radiation - Not capable of ionizing atoms or molecules. Penetration Depth - The depth to which microwaves can penetrate food.

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Hydraulic fracturing controversy over water contamination rages on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 at 7:48 am Using carefully culled quotations and selected statistics, Kopel asserts “indisputably false facts” in ProPublica’s reporting. In fact, it is his column that is indisputably misleading. Kopel quoted a press spokesperson for New Mexico as saying the state had never compiled “numbers about groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing” — the actual forcing of water into rock. He cites a similar remark from a Colorado official. These are classic examples of framing a precisely tailored question to elicit a misleading response, much as the tobacco industry used to ask scientists whether smoking could be conclusively identified as a cause of lung cancer. Here are the facts.State and federal officials have identified what several said was an alarming pattern of water contamination in and around drilling sites across the country. Until ProPublica began asking questions last year, few environmental officials had examined what role hydraulic fracturing may have played in this contamination. Colorado records cite some 1,500 cases from 2003 to 2008 in which drilling companies reported a hazardous spill [PDF], with 300 instances leading to what state officials determined was a measurable impact on water supplies. A tally of Colorado data was performed by the advocacy group Oil and Gas Accountability Project. In New Mexico, Mark Fesmire, director of the Oil and Gas Conservation Division, said his state had documented some 800 cases in which water has been contaminated by oil and gas operations, half of them from waste pits that had leaked chemicals into the ground. As ProPublica has reported, it’s difficult for scientists to say which aspect of drilling — the hydraulic fracturing, the waste water that accidentally flows into the ground, the leaky pits of drilling fluids or the spills from truckloads of chemicals transported to and from the site — causes such pollution. Here’s why: The industry has adamantly refused to make public the ingredients of the chemicals it forces into the ground and later stores in the waste pits near drilling sites. Scientists say that information is crucial to tracing the source of pollution. Without those data, environmental officials say they cannot conclude with certainty when or how certain chemicals entered the water. Ask officials in New Mexico and Colorado: Are there any cases in which we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that hydraulic fracturing caused water contamination? Answer: No, we’ve never studied that question. Ask those same officials: Are there hundreds of cases of water contamination in drilling areas, the vast majority of which use hydraulic fracturing? Answer: Yes. The drilling industry, echoed by Kopel, cites three documents when asserting the environmental safety of hydraulic fracturing. They are a 2004 EPA study (PDF), a 2002 survey of state agencies (PDF) by the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission and a similar survey in 1998 by the Ground Water Protection Council (PDF). In its Nov. 13 article , ProPublica detailed flaws in the EPA study and reported that the two surveys were “anecdotal,” meaning that they included none of the basic data required to qualify as a scientific study. The “results” were drawn from questionnaires sent to state officials. ProPublica did misstate the date on one of these surveys, referring to it as more than a decade old when it had been published in 2002. ProPublica is an independent, non-profit newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. Our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories, stories with “moral force.” We do this by producing journalism that shines a light on exploitation of the weak by the strong and on the failures of those with power to vindicate the trust placed in them.

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TASMANIA could still face monster bushfires this summer similar in scale to the devastating 1933-34 bushfires that destroyed a million hectares of bushland, a leading fire scientist has warned. As the Tasmania Fire Service declared a total fire ban for southern Tasmania today, professor of environmental change biology at the University of Tasmania David Bowman told the Mercury with the fire season still in full swing Tasmanians need to be prepared for bushfires not seen for 80 years. Prof Bowman's concerns were echoed by Tasmania Fire Service chief officer Mike Brown who said the fire scientist's comments were "no stretch of the imagination". The calls came as Mr Brown said Tasmania's tree-change and sea-change culture, in which people had moved into more heavily forested areas on the urban fringe of major centres, left more people vulnerable to bushfires. "A lot of people think because they have a city postcode they are not at risk," Mr Brown said. "People do need to prepare themselves and prepare their properties." A combination of heavy fuel load in Tasmanian forests and the growing number of dry lightning strikes was contributing to the danger, Prof Bowman said. Prof Bowman has been closely monitoring fires in the Australian Alps -- covering 1.64 million hectares from Victoria to NSW -- that have destroyed 90 per cent of the area's bio-region. He fears Tasmania could be headed for similar fires. "It's absolutely inevitable that it is going to happen in Tasmania," he said. "It is just a matter of time before we get that combination of circumstances, the ignitions and the dry weather." Prof Bowman said he was not "crying wolf", but was instead urging Tasmanians to get used to summer bushfires "because it is what our life is going to be like now". Mr Brown said this week represented the peak of the fire season in southern Australia.

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|Designer||Vasilii Vasilyevich Nikitin & Vladimir Vasilyevich Schyevchyenko| |First flight||6 November 1940| Nikitin's test pilot, Vladimir Vasiloyevich Schyevchyenko, investigated the practicality of a biplane fighter with a folding lower wing which retracted into the upper wing. The intention being to combine the short field length and climb capabilities of the biplane with the speed of the monoplane fighter. Assisted by Nikitin in his investigation, Schyevchyenko built a scale model at MAT[disambiguation needed] in 1939. Later in 1939 OKB-30 were tasked with the design and manufacture of the full-scale IS, which was completed by 6 November 1940. The fuselage forward of the cockpit, wing spar booms and the combined lower inner wing and undercarriage assemblies were built up from welded 30KhGSA steel tubing, whist the rest of the airframe was constructed from D16 duralumin throughout except for fabric covering on the control surfaces. The pneumatically actuated inwards retracting undercarriage was housed inside the inner lower-wing which folded at approx ½ span to lie in recesses in the sides of the fuselage. The outer halves of the lower wings remained horizontal as the wings retracted and were housed in recesses in the under-surfaces of the upper wings. Retraction of the wings was carried out by a single vertically mounted pneumatic actuator in the fuselage which unlocked the bracing struts either side and pulled the wing upwards as the bracing strut was pulled upwards. Control of the undercarriage retraction and wing folding was accomplished with a single three position lever in the cockpit. With 'Chassis Down' selected the wing and undercarriage were extended, selecting 'Chassis Up/Wing Down' retracted the undercarriage into the inner lower wing, and selecting 'Wing Up' retracted the wing, selection of wing position could be made at any time to enable the pilot to choose the best configuration for the situation the aircraft was in. Flight tests were successful but the performance of the monoplane configuration was inferior to the contemporary monoplane fighters such as the MiG-3 and Yak-1 . A second machine was built fitted with a more powerful engine but flight tests were interrupted by the German invasion in 1941. Even more powerful versions were designed with AM-120 or AM-37 engines, however the invasion forced abandonment of the concept. - IS-1 - Initial prototype with M-63 (Ash-63) factory tests completed, LII flight test carried out by G.M. Shiyanov, armed with 4x ShKAS in the roots of the upper main-plane, synchronised to fire through the propeller.. - IS-2 - The second airframe with improvements and M-88 engine in a long-chord NACA cowling, armed with 2x BS and 2x ShKAS. - IS-3 – Projected version, no information available. - IS-4 – Final design version with AM-120 or AM-37 engine, refined aerodynamics and tricycle undercarriage. Data from Gunston, Bill. "Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995". London:Osprey. 1995. ISBN 1-85532-405-9 - Crew: 1 - Length: 6.79 m (22 ft 2-1/3 in) - Wingspan: 8.6 m (28 ft 2-1/2 in) - Wing area: 20.83 m2 (224 ft2) - Empty weight: 1,400 kg (3,086 lb) - Gross weight: 2,300 kg (5,070 lb) - Powerplant: 1 × M-63, 820.27 kW (1,100 hp) - Maximum speed: 453 km/h (281 mph) - Range: 600 km (372.8 miles) - Service ceiling: 8,800 m (28,870 ft) - Rate of climb: 10.16 m/s (2000.5 ft/min) - 4 x 7.62mm ShKAS machine guns in upper wing roots synchronised to fire through propellor disc. - Aircraft of comparable role, configuration and era - Related lists - "The Annals Of The Polymorth - A short history of V-G", Air International/March 1972, page 139-140 - Gunston, Bill. "Encyclopaedia of Russian Aircraft 1875-1995". London:Osprey. 1995. ISBN 1-85532-405-9

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Soon the central element of the Faust story emerged: his pact with the devil. A Franciscan monk known as Konrad Klinge testified to Faust's own admission that he had sold his soul to the devil, and the theologian Melanchthon insisted Faust had been seen talking to the devil in the form of a dog. A German chapbook ("the Faust book") on the story appeared in 1587 and was translated into English in the same year: the German title page read "Historia of Dr. Johann Faust, the widely acclaimed magician and black artist, how he pledged himself to the devil for a certain time, what strange adventures he saw meanwhile, brought about and pursued, until he finally received his well deserved wages. Compiled and prepared . . . as a horrible example and sincere warning for all conceited, clever, and godless people." This popular chapbook -- in addition to several legitimate and pirated editions, there was a rhyming version and a Danish translation within a year -- was soon followed by Christopher Marlowe's Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (written c. 1588; published posthumously in two versions in 1604 and 1616), the first dramatic adaptation of the legend. Marlowe's Faustus, as in the earlier versions of the story, dies and is bound for damnation. The most famous version of the story, however, is contemporary with Mary Shelley: Goethe's Faust, the work for which he is now best known. At what point he read Marlowe's play is uncertain (his first recorded reading was in 1818), but he could have known the story from its popular representations in German folk drama and puppet shows -- which can themselves be traced back to a company of English actors performing Marlowe's play in Germany in 1593. Goethe began the first part after completing The Sorrows of Werther in the middle 1770s, under the influence of German enthusiasm for the works of Shakespeare. In the 1780s he resumed work on Faust, this time under the spell of classicism. The full text of Faust, Part I, appeared in 1808. Goethe had begun work on Part II as early as 1800, but it was published only between 1827 and 1832 (after his death). Although Goethe's Faust, Part I, was in print in 1808, it had not yet appeared in English translation. Percy Bysshe Shelley was introduced to its text during the summer of 1816, when M. G. ("Monk") Lewis (1775-1818), the gothic novelist and dramatist, arrived from Germany on 14 August to pay a visit to Byron, during which visit he translated large sections of the play. Mary Shelley was not present for this literary discourse, but would have already have been acquainted with Faust through Germaine De Staël's account of it in De l'Allemagne (Of Germany), published in London in 1813. It is thought that more of the work's essence would have filtered to her through her conversations with P. B. Shelley after his meeting with Lewis. During 1822, the last year of his life, Shelley made considerable headway on his own translation of Faust, Part I.

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Low Cost Design Makes Ultrasound Affordable, Portable A team of engineers form the Newcastle University have developed a novel ultra low cost scanner that can be plugged into any computer or laptop in order to get access to important information about the unborn child. This new hand held device that is similar to the size of a computer mouse does function like an existing ultrasound scanner. It uses pulses of high frequency sound to build up a picture of the unborn child on the computer screen.This scanner was created by Jeff Neasham and Research Associate Dave Graham at Newcastle University. It can be manufactured at the cost of $48.6 - $64.8 approximately.This new invention will benefit the medical teams working in the poorest nations as basic antenatal information could save the lives. Like Us on Facebook "Here in the UK we take these routine, but potentially lifesaving, tests for granted," explains Neasham, a sonar expert based in the University's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. "Imaging to obtain even the simplest information such as the child's position in the womb or how it is developing is simply not available to women in many parts of the world. We hope the very low cost of this device and the fact that it can run on any standard computer made in the last 10 years means basic antenatal imaging could finally be made available to all women." Neasham said, "The original aim had been to make something portable and easy to use that would be affordable in developing countries as well as for some applications in the UK where ultrasound is still considered cost prohibitive." "Cost was the key," he explains. "The goal was to produce a device that could be produced for a similar cost to the hand-held doppler devices (fetal heart monitors) used by most community midwives. Not an easy task when you consider a £20,000 scanner is generally classed as low cost." Neasham said, "The beauty of this device was that it would complement -- rather than replace -- the high performance scanners available in hospitals. It was my own experience of becoming a father and going through the whole antenatal process that prompted me to start the project. I was sat with my wife looking at our child on the screen, we realized how privileged we were to have access to this kind of care and it was my wife who suggested that I could apply my knowledge from sonar research to try to make this more affordable." Neasham concludes saying, "There is obviously the potential to use it to go beyond obstetrics by using it to diagnose conditions such as gallstones, or other conditions that readily show up with ultrasound imaging. Even vets and farmers are interested in affordable imaging."

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TED Conversations is a unique space where any member of this community can get feedback on an idea, pose an interesting question, or start a fascinating debate with fellow TEDizens from around the globe. This week, dozens of new conversations were started — from “What are the ethics of spending money?” to “Are we on the brink of creating a human-like digital mind?” Here, a sampling of the highlights from this week. From Nina Tandon’s class at Cooper Union, student George Holevas posed a thought-provoking question: Do you believe the human brain will continue to increase its capabilities? He writes: According to neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran’s TED Talk, “The neurons that shaped civilization”, a sudden emergence and rapid spread of a number of skills that are unique to human beings occurred 75k to 100k years ago. These defining skills include the use of tools, fire, shelter and language, and the ability to interpret a person’s behavior … The question I would like to pose is, might our brains (collectively, as a species) soon experience such a new type of development once again? If so, what new skills could this more sophisticated neuron system facilitate our ability to perform, considering trends in globalization and collaboration (e.g. collaborative tasks across geographies, learning multiple languages more quickly, etc.)? Has the brain’s full potential already been unleashed? Or will it perpetually continue to develop more complex neural permutations? Allan Macdougal responds: The kind of attention we give to the world you describe only exists in the present and the past — what is known — and is thus not creative and speculative. In other words, ‘what is’ exists predominantly in one part of the brain, while the creative, speculative ‘what could be’ exists predominantly in another. It is open to question therefore, whether such discoveries as fire and the use of tools were accidents, or whether an element of creative input was present. Creativity is the key to increasing capability, in my humble opinion. The more we confuse knowledge retention and ‘what is already known’ with intelligence — and go on to prime our children through education on that basis, the less we are likely to increase our capability. And Arkady Grudzinsky adds: After reading Julian Jaynes’ “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind,” where he argues that there have been considerable changes in human brain since the times of Homer’s Iliad (that’s only about 3000 years ago), I believe that our brain changes continuously, perhaps every few generations. Consider that children in today’s high schools easily absorb information that took humanity many centuries or even millennia to acquire. With five days remaining, there’s time to add your thoughts to the exchange » Following this week’s powerful talk on desertification and climate change, Linda Hesthag Ellwein asked: How attached are you to your deeply held beliefs? If solutions to global problems challenge your worldview, how do you react? Allan Savory’s recent TED Talk introduced an unlikely and politically incorrect solution to reversing global desertification and climate change with the use of livestock as a tool, and different decision making. Well-meaning laws, bureaucracies, and activists at the mercy of public opinion have stifled this work from moving forward on a large scale in the US. Belief systems and the fear of being wrong often prohibits change. How do you respond to ideas that challenge your belief system? How do we stop our paradigms and prejudices from unfairly shaping decision making, or allowing us to take real risks for lasting change? What’s your reaction to cows helping save the world? What idea have you believed and been completely wrong? One of the participants is Shannon Horst, co-founder of the Savory Institute. She writes: Some of the best work on this topic remains Thomas Kuhn’s work, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.” I re-read it recently, just hunting for the nuggets (it can be pretty heavy reading) for some work I am currently doing around health care and new ideas — and found his insights into how revolutions take place in science as pertinent as ever. Recommended for all following this discussion on Allan’s talk. Another commenter, Scott Reil, shares his own story on the topic: I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Elaine Ingham not long after she and Allan met, and getting her perspective (that of probably the leading soil biologist on the planet) in relation to his work was amazing. She made it very clear to me that my long-held belief — that old-growth forest was the best natural carbon sink we could develop — was way off base; it was her opinion that from what Allan was showing her, savannah, due to its higher root densities, and greater depth of root zone, coupled with a much higher biodiversity (both above and below the soil surface), made it a much better carbon sink. It was also neat to see that Dr. Ingham was just as geeked out about Allan’s work as I was; scientific aloofness is a myth from my (admittedly limited) contacts with big-name scientists.

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ALPINE CREEK. Alpine Creek rises three-quarters of a mile south of Ranger Peak near Alpine (at 30°17' N, 103°43' W) in northwestern Brewster County and flows northeast for twenty-three miles to its mouth on Musquiz Creek, a half mile below the crossing of the Santa Fe tracks over the latter stream (at 30°31' N, 103°34' W). Alpine Creek runs through Alpine and across a broad, open valley surrounded by rugged mountains and mesas. Its last six miles, beginning about six miles northeast of Alpine, was formerly known as Paisano Creek. The area has attracted human habitation for thousands of years, as artifacts attest. In historical times various trails into Mexico all crossed the area. Explorers in the valley were singularly impressed by the deep grasses, abundant wildlife, and flowing water. As early as 1682, Juan Domínguez de Mendoza described the valley as "for miles . . . covered with grass that looked like a field of waving grain." When Maj. W. H. Emory entered the valley through Paisano Pass in 1852, he found it "watered by a limpid stream from crystalline rocks, clothed with luxuriant grass, sufficient to feed a million of cattle." By the late 1870s stockmen had begun moving into the area, and in 1882 the Southern Pacific was built across Alpine Creek. The town grew around the crossing. Heavy grazing eliminated most of the deep grasses described in earlier accounts, and Alpine Creek became a dry wash. In some areas along the course of the creek, the former grassland has been invaded by desert scrub. For the most part, however, the area still supports grasses typical of semiarid climates, such as various gramas and tobosa grass, though much less abundant than was once the case. Clifford B. Casey, Alpine, Texas, Then and Now (Seagraves, Texas: Pioneer, 1981). The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article."ALPINE CREEK," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/rba32), accessed May 25, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.

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Autonomy uses it's Intelligent Data Operating Layer or IDOL to comprehend the data as it comes into the machine so that, from that moment on, it only has to wait for you to ask a question about that data for it to find that data based on hearing what you say, understanding what you say and going to find the docs or videos or whatever that contain the data that is the answer to your question... Don't forget, it already understands the data - all it is doing is retrieving what matches what you ask - also don't forget, it understands what you are saying. Doesn't it make more sense for a bit of technology to understand what you are asking of it rather than you having to learn how to program it in order that you get the right answers? Until a few years ago data on individuals was held on an ad-hoc basis on paper, microfiche or on mainframe computer by large companies, governments and government organisations – hospitals, etc.. With the advent of the world wide web and cheaper, faster computers data on individuals started to become a standard ‘must’ for most companies, both large and small, to help them sell their products to the largest markets possible. Networking allows governments to consolidate data on individuals – in the main to give better service to those individuals. If you look at an individuals life today you now have two timelines – theirs and the digital data life that runs beside them - until their deaths and beyond. This can be used to aid their lives and this is one of the main aspects that Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) sets out to exploit for their benefit from now onwards. A system that would help millions of people join in with this world without having to have a computer and the internet - a system that kicks the ‘digital divide’ into a cocked hat. A system that will give answers to people when they want them. A system that will help them with their personal lives and their lives regarding interaction with the rest the society around them. A system that will help with lifelong learning. A system that allows their thoughts and memories to have value. A system that gives millions of people the chance to use their brains for personal and social gain. A system that finds them personal help when they need it. A system that will get rid of ‘Big Brother’ once and for all. A system that allows growth unfettered by the chains of local negative thinking. A system that works on their behalf whilst they do other things. A system that has applications designed to stabilise society by stabilising and helping individuals. A system that is designed to give people the ability to help each other without necessarily knowing each other (anonymously). Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) is designed to be useful on multiple levels and, therefore, profitable, on many levels. Autonomy technology is designed for ease of access and expansion - Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) has been designed to outsource most of its components including un-burstable network capacity for times of stress - personal, local, regional, national and international/global. Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) uses industry standard hardware and readily available software. There is nothing new regarding Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) technology other than its new focus. The whole of Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace)'s superstructure will be designed to allow access on behalf of aid agencies, charities and ngo's in times of disaster - much of Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) is aimed at destressing normal human life by providing real and practical help, suggestions and answers. Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) was created giving very strong regard to isolated people and their particular problems - these include mental illness, physical isolation, racial isolation and financial isolation (Actual and relative poverty). Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) is not a single format company with limited types of use with a limited market place. Using the technology created by Autonomy, created for use in major businesses and for government uses, Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) gives the individual the power of that technology for their own use. It also gives SME’s the power of that technology at a price that is affordable. It also gives groups of any size the ability to use this technology for the betterment of the group and each individual in the group. Acting for, and on behalf, of the client without interaction with other people or used as an automated switchboard to connect with like minds – the use of the powerful profiling tools built into Autonomy allows a quality of safe interaction only experienced by members of large groups or organisations already using Autonomy. Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace), powered by Autonomy, also allows for a number of games that can be run on a real time basis and Projectbrainsaver (BrainSpace) can also act autonomously for the client even when they are offline. Designed to help with normal life but especially for social exclusion - mental health - education - independence - social and personal problems, stress, the digital divide, disasters. projectbrainsaver is a new set of tools for Life management, delivering revolutionary solutions that enable 100% real-time help within society now.

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The story of a Great Flood sent by God or the gods to destroy civilization as an act of divine retribution is a widespread theme among many cultural myths. It is best known from the biblical story of Noah, but there are several other famous versions, such as stories of Matsya in the Hindu Puranas, Deucalion in Greek mythology, and Utnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Many of the world's cultures past and present have stories of a Great Flood that devastated earlier civilization. A good deal of similarity exists between several of the flood myths, leading scholars to believe that these have evolved from or influenced each other. Others of these stories seem to be of a more local nature, although nearly all of them involve the survival of only a small number of humans who repopulate mankind. The scientific community is divided about the historicity of such an event as a Great Flood. Most archaeologists and geologists recognize that there were indeed major floods that devastated substantial civilized areas, but most deny that there was ever a single deluge in the last 6,000 years that covered the whole earth or even a major portion of it. Although the story of Noah's flood may not be the most ancient of the flood stories, it is by far the most well known. In the story recorded in the book of Genesis, God is saddened by seeing all the evil which has entered man's heart, and decides to destroy all living things on earth (Genesis 6:5-8). He selects Noah, who alone is "righteous in his generation," and instructs him to build an ark and to preserve two of each creature. Noah builds the ark and God makes it rain for 40 days and 40 nights. After 150 days, the ark comes to rest on the mountain of Ararat. Noah opens a window of the ark and sends forth a raven and a dove. After the earth becomes dry enough, Noah and his family, together with the animals, descend from the ark. Noah offers a sacrifice to God, who accepts his offering and promises: "never again will I destroy all living creatures." (Gen 8:21) God blesses Noah to "be fruitful and multiply" and places a rainbow in the sky as a sign of His covenant with Noah and his descendants. Noah then plants a vineyard and becomes drunk with wine. He falls asleep naked, and ends up cursing his grandson, Canaan, to be a slave to his brothers after Canaan's father, Ham, finds Noah sleeping naked in his tent, Ham ashamed of his father's nakedness, informs his brothers of this. Non-Biblical: The second century B.C.E. 1st Book of Enoch is an apocryphal addition to the Hebrew flood legend, the cause of the evil mentioned in Gen. 6 is linked specifically to the Nephilim, the evil race of giants who are the titanic children of the angelic "sons of God" and human females. Enoch 9:9 explains that, as a result of these unnatural unions, "the women bore giants, and thereby the whole Earth has been filled with blood and iniquity." The Nephilim are also mentioned in Genesis 6, but in much less detail. Ancient Near East The Sumerian myth of Ziusudra tells how the god Enki warns Ziusudra, king of Shuruppak, of the gods' decision to destroy mankind in a flood. The passage describing why the gods have decided this is unfortunately lost. Enki instructs Ziusudra to build a large boat. After a flood of seven days, Ziusudra opens the boat's window and then offers sacrifices and prostrations to An (the sky-god) and Enlil (the chief of the gods). He is rewarded by being given eternal life in Dilmun (the Sumerian Eden). The myth of Ziusudra exists in a single copy, the fragmentary Eridu Genesis, datable by its script to the seventeenth century B.C.E. The Sumerian king list, a genealogy of historical, legendary, and mythological Sumerian kings, also mentions a Great Flood. Babylonian (Epic of Gilgamesh) In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh the story of the Flood is told in some detail, with many striking parallels to the Genesis version. The hero, Gilgamesh, seeking immortality, searches out the human immortal Utnapishtim in Dilmun, a kind of terrestrial paradise. Utnapishtim tells how Ea (the Babylonian equivalent of the Sumerian Enki) warned him of the gods' plan to destroy all life through a Great Flood and instructed him to build a vessel in which he could save his family, his friends and servants, his cattle, and other wealth. The deluge comes and covers the earth. As in the Genesis version, Untapishtim sends out both a dove and raven from his boat before descending on dry land. After the Deluge, he offers a sacrifice to the gods, who repented their action and make Utnapishtim immortal. Akkadian (Atrahasis Epic) The Babylonian Atrahasis Epic (written no later than 1700 B.C.E., the name Atrahasis means "exceedingly wise"), gives human overpopulation as the cause for the great flood. After 1200 years of human fertility, the god Enlil feels disturbed in his sleep due to the noise and commotion caused by the growing population of mankind. He turns for help to the divine assembly who send a plague, then a drought, a famine, and then saline soil, all in an attempt to reduce the numbers of mankind. All these temporary measures prove ineffective as, 1200 years after each solution, the original problem returns. When the gods decide on a final solution, to send a flood, the god Enki, who has a moral objection to this solution, discloses the plan to Atrahasis, who then builds a survival vessel according to divinely given measurements. To prevent the other gods from bringing another such harsh calamity, Enki creates new solutions in the form of social phenomena such as non-marrying women, barrenness, miscarriages and infant mortality, in order to help keep the population from growing out of control. The ancient Chinese civilization was concentrated at the bank of Yellow River near present day Xian. It was believed that the severe flooding along the river bank was caused by dragons (representing gods) living in the river who were being angered by the mistakes of the people. There are many sources of flood myths in ancient Chinese literature. Some appear to refer to a worldwide deluge. The text of Shiji, Chuci, Liezi, Huainanzi, Shuowen Jiezi, Siku Quanshu, Songsi Dashu, and others, as well as many folk myths, all contain references to a personage named Nüwa. Despite the similarity of her name to the biblical Noah, Nüwa is generally represented as a female who repairs the broken heavens after a great flood or other calamity, and repopulates the world with people. There are many versions of this myth. Shujing, or "Book of History," probably written around 700 B.C.E. or earlier, describes a situation in its opening chapters in which Emperor Yao is facing the problem of flood waters that reach to the Heavens. This is the backdrop for the intervention of the hero Da Yu, who succeeds in controlling the floods. He goes on to found the first Chinese dynasty. Shanhaijing, the "Classic of the Mountain & Seas," ends with a similar story of Da Yu spending ten years to control a deluge whose "floodwaters overflowed [to] heaven." In myths of the aboriginal tribes inhabiting the Andaman Islands, the story goes that people became remiss in their duty to obey the commands given to them at the creation. Puluga, the creator god, ceased to visit them and then without further warning sent a devastating flood. Only four people survived this flood: two men, Loralola and Poilola, and two women, Kalola and Rimalola. When they finally landed they found they had lost their fire, and all living things had perished. Puluga then recreated the animals and plants but does not seem to have given any further instructions, nor did he return the fire to the survivors until tricked into doing so by one of the survivors' recently-drowned friends who reappeared in the form of a kingfisher.. The Hindu version of Noah is named Manu. He is warned by an incarnation of Vishnu of the impending Great Flood, enabling him to build a boat and survive to repopulate the earth. According to the texts Matsya Purana and Shatapatha Brahmana (I-8, 1-6), Manu was a minister to the king of pre-ancient Dravida. He was washing his hands in a river when a little fish swam into his hands and begged him to save its life. He put the fish in a jar, which it soon outgrew. He successively moved it to a tank, a river and then the ocean. The fish then warned him that a deluge would occur in a week that would destroy all life. It turned out that fish was none other than Matsya (Fish in Sanskrit) the first Avatara of Vishnu. Manu therefore built a boat which Matsya towed to a mountaintop when the flood came, and thus he survived along with some "seeds of life" to re-establish life on earth. In Batak traditions, the earth rests on a giant snake, Naga-Padoha. One day, the snake tired of its burden and shook the Earth off into the sea. However, the god Batara-Guru saved his daughter by sending a mountain into the sea, and the entire human race descended from her. The Earth was later placed back onto the head of the snake. Several flood stories are recorded among the Polynesians. However, none of them approach the scale of the Biblical flood. The people of Ra'iatea tell of two friends, Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o, who went fishing and accidentally awoke the ocean god Ruahatu with their fish hooks. Angered, he vowed to sink Ra'iatea below the sea. Te-aho-aroa and Ro'o begged for forgiveness, and Ruahatu warned them that they could escape only by bringing their families to the islet of Toamarama. These set sail, and during the night, Ra'iatea slipped under the ocean, only to rise again the next morning. Nothing survived except for these families, who erected sacred marae (temples) dedicated to Ruahatu. A similar legend is found on Tahiti. No reason for the tragedy is given, but the whole island sinks beneath the sea except for Mount Pitohiti. One human couple managed to flee there with their animals and survived. In Hawaii, a human couple, Nu'u and Lili-noe, survived a flood on top of Mauna Kea on the Big Island. Nu'u made sacrifices to the moon, to whom he mistakenly attributed his safety. Kāne, the creator god, descended to earth on a rainbow, explained Nu'u's mistake, and accepted his sacrifice. In the Marquesas, the great war god Tu was angered by critical remarks made by his sister Hii-hia. His tears tore through heaven's floor to the world below and created a torrent of rain carrying away everything in its path. Only six people survived. Australia and New Zealand According to the Australian aborigines, in the Dreamtime a huge frog drank all the water in the world and a drought swept across the land. The only way to finish the drought was to make the frog laugh. Animals from all over Australia gathered together and one by one attempted to make the frog laugh. When finally the eel succeeded, the frog opened his sleepy eyes, his big body quivered, his face relaxed, and, at last, he burst into a laugh that sounded like rolling thunder. The water poured from his mouth in a flood. It filled the deepest rivers and covered the land. Only the highest mountain peaks were visible, like islands in the sea. Many men and animals were drowned. The pelican who was blackfellow at that time painted himself with white clay and was then swimming from island to island in a great canoe, rescuing other blackfellows. Since that time pelicans have been black and white in remembrance of the Great Flood. In a tradition of the Ngāti Porou, a Māori tribe of the east coast of New Zealand's North Island, Ruatapu, the child of the great chief Uenuku, became angry when Uenuku demoted Ruatapu for using the sacred comb of Kahutia-te-rangi, the king's younger son. Ruatapu lured Kahutia-te-rangi and a large number of young men of high birth into his canoe, and took them out to sea and drowned them all but Kahutia-te-rangi. Ruatapu convinced the gods of the tides to destroy the land and its inhabitants. As he struggled for his life, Kahutia-te-rangi recited an incantation invoking the southern humpback whales (paikea in Māori) to carry him ashore. Accordingly, he was renamed Paikea, and was the only survivor of the flood. European Floods stories Greek mythology knows three floods. The flood of Ogyges, the flood of Deucalion and the flood of Dardanus, two of which ended two Ages of Man: the Ogygian deluge ended the Silver Age, and the flood of Deucalion ended the First Bronze Age. - Ogyges. The Ogygian flood is so called because it occurred in the time of Ogyges, a mythical king of Attica. The name Ogyges is synonymous with "primeval" or "earliest dawn." He was the mythical founder and king of Thebes. The Ogygian flood covered the whole world and was so devastating that the country remained without kings until the reign of Cecrops, 1556-1506 B.C.E.Plato in his Laws, Book III, estimates that this flood occurred 10,000 years before his time. Also in Timaeus (22) and in Critias (111-112) Plato describes the "great deluge of all" during the tenth millennium B.C.E. - Deucalion. The Deucalion legend, as told by Apollodorus in The Library has some similarity to Noah's flood, and the name Deucalion is related to wine, of which the biblical Noah was the inventor. When the anger of Zeus was ignited against the hubris of the Pelasgians, Zeus decided to put an end to the First Bronze Age with the Deluge. Prometheus advised his son Deucalion to build a chest or ark to save himself, and other men perished except for a few who escaped to high mountains. The mountains in Thessaly were parted, and all the world beyond the Isthmus and Peloponnese was overwhelmed. Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha, after floating in a chest for nine days and nights, landed on Parnassus. An older version of the story told by Hellanicus has Deucalion's "ark" landing on Mount Othrys in Thessaly. Another account has him landing on a peak, probably Phouka, in Argolis, later called Nemea. When the rains ceased, he sacrificed to Zeus. Then, at the bidding of Zeus, he threw stones behind him, and they became men. His wife Pyrrha, who was the daughter of Epimetheus and Pandora, also threw stones, and these became women. - Dardanus. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Dardanus, a son of Zeus and Electra, left Pheneus in Arcadia to colonize a land in the northeast Aegean Sea. When the deluge occurred, the land was flooded, and the mountain on which he and his family survived formed the island of Samothrace. Dardanus left Samothrace on an inflated skin to the opposite shores of Asia Minor and settled at the foot of Mount Ida. Due to fear of another flood he did not build a city, but lived in the open for 50 years. His grandson Tros eventually built a city, which was named Troy after him. In Norse mythology, the giant Bergelmir was a son of Thrudgelmir and the grandson of Aurgelmir, the founder of the race of frost giants. Bergelmir and his wife were the only frost giants to survive the deluge of Aurgelmir's blood, when Odin and his brothers butchered him. The giant couple survived by crawling into a hollow tree trunk, and then founded a new race of frost giants. According to the mythical history of Ireland, the first inhabitants of Ireland were led there by Noah's granddaughter Cessair. In one version of the story, when her father was denied a place in the ark by Noah, Cessair advised him to build an idol. This idol advised them that they could escape the Deluge in a ship. Cessair, along with three men and 50 women, set off and sailed for more than seven years. They landed in Ireland at Donemark, on Bantry Bay in County Cork, just 40 days before the Flood. The three men shared the women as wives between them. Six days before the Flood, Cessair died of a broken heart at Cuil Ceasrach in Connacht. The rest of Cessair's people were wiped out in the Flood, with the exception of one of the males, Fintan, who turned into a salmon. After a series of animal transformations he eventually became a man again and told his people's story. There are several variants of the Aztec Flood story. One of the more famous is that of Nota, the Aztec version of Noah. However, this story is controversial for several reasons, especially because it was recorded by Spanish scribes well after Christian culture had a chance to interact with Aztec civilization. - When the Sun Age came, there had passed 400 years. Then came 200 years, then 76. Then all mankind was lost and drowned and turned to fishes. The water and the sky drew near each other. In a single day all was lost. But before the Flood began, Titlachahuan had warned the man Nota and his wife Nena, saying, 'Make no more pulque, but hollow a great cypress, into which you shall enter the month Tozoztli. The waters shall near the sky.' They entered, and when Titlachahuan had shut them in he said to the man, 'Thou shalt eat but a single ear of maize, and thy wife but one also'. And when they had each eaten one ear of maize, they prepared to go forth, for the water was tranquil. - — Ancient Aztec document Codex Chimalpopoca, translated by Abbé Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg. In Inca mythology, the god Viracocha, the creator of civilization, destroyed the giants, as well as the other inhabitants around Lake Titicaca with a Great Flood, and two people repopulated the earth. They survived in sealed caves. In Maya mythology, from the Popol Vuh, Part 1, Chapter 3, Huracan ("one-legged") was a wind and storm god. It is from his name that the English word hurricane is derived. Huracan caused the Great Flood (of resin) after the first humans angered the gods because, being made of wood, they were unable to engage in worship. Huracan lived in the windy mists above the floodwaters and spoke "earth" until land came up again from the seas. Humans had become monkeys, but later, real people would emerge, and three men and four women repopulate the world after the flood. In Hopi mythology, most people moved away from the ways of the creator god, Sotuknang, and he destroyed the world first by fire and then by cold, recreating it both times for the people that still followed the laws of creation, who survived by hiding underground. People became corrupt and warlike a third time. As a result, Sotuknang guided the people to Spider Woman, his helper in the creation process, and she cut down giant reeds and sheltered the people in the hollow stems. Sotuknang then caused a Great Flood, and the people floated atop the water in their reeds. The reeds came to rest on a small piece of land, and the people emerged, with as much food as they started with. The people traveled on in their canoes, guided by their inner wisdom (which is said to come from Sotuknang through the door at the top of their head). They traveled to the northeast, passing progressively larger islands, until they came to the Fourth World, a great land mass. The islands then sank into the ocean. In Caddo mythology, four monsters grew in size and power until they touched the sky. At that time, a man heard a voice telling him to plant a hollow reed. He did so, and the reed grew very big very quickly. The man entered the reed with his wife and pairs of all good animals. Waters rose and covered everything but the top of the reed and the heads of the monsters. A turtle then killed the monsters by digging under them and uprooting them. The waters subsided and winds dried the earth. In Menominee mythology, Manabus, the trickster, "fired by his lust for revenge" shot two underground gods when they and the other gods were at play. When they all dived into the water, a huge flood arose. "The water rose up …. It knew very well where Manabus had gone." He runs, but the water, coming from Lake Michigan, chases him faster and faster, even as he runs up a mountain and climbs to the top of the lofty pine at its peak. Four times he begs the tree to grow just a little more, and four times it obliges until it can grow no more. But the water keeps climbing "up, up, right to his chin, and there it stopped." There was nothing but water stretching out to the horizon. And then Manabus, helped by the diving animals and the Muskrat, created the world as we know it today. In Mi'kmaq mythology, evil and wickedness among men causes them to kill each other and this causes great sorrow to the creator sun-god, who weeps tears that become rains sufficient to trigger the Deluge. The people attempt to survive by traveling in bark canoes, but only a single old man and woman survive to populate the earth. Theories of origin Many orthodox Jews, and Christians, believe that the flood happened as recorded in Genesis. It is often argued that the large number of flood myths in other cultures suggests that they originated from a common, historical event, of which Genesis is the accurate and true account. The myths from various cultures, often cast in polytheistic contexts, are thus corrupted memories of an historical global Deluge. In the early days of Biblical archeology, prominent academics believed they had discovered evidence for a historical worldwide flood, but this view has been largely abandoned. Instead, it is generally agreed that devastating local floods, covering large flat areas such as those between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, could easily have given rise to the stories of Ziusudra, Atrahasis, Utnapishtim, and Noah. Excavations in Iraq have shown evidence of a major flood at Shuruppak about 2,900-2,750 B.C.E., which extended nearly as far as the city of Kish, whose king Etana, supposedly founded the first Sumerian dynasty after the flood. "Flood geology" is propounded by biblically-oriented scientists who have tried to support the Great Flood theory scientifically, but this is not accepted by the majority of geologists, both Christian and non-Christian, who consider it a form of pseudoscience. Among other theories concerning the origins of the legends of a Great Flood, there has been speculation that a large tsunami in the Mediterranean Sea caused, by the huge eruption of the volcano Thera, ca. 1630-1500 B.C.E., was the historical basis for folklore that evolved into the Deucalion myth. Some have also suggested that flood myths could have arisen from folk stories related to the huge rise in sea levels that accompanied the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago, passed down the generations as an oral history. In 1998 William Ryan and Walter Pitman, geologists from Columbia University, published evidence that a massive flood of waters from the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosporus occurred about 5600 B.C.E., resulting in widespread destruction of major population centers around the Black Sea. It is suggested that this would have naturally resulted in various Great Flood myths as major cities would have been lost to these waters. - ↑ Or seven pairs if they are "clean") animals, according to Genesis 7:2. - ↑ THE DELUGE. www.sacred-texts.com. Retrieved August 2, 2007. - ↑ Myths and Legends of the Andamanese. andaman.org. Retrieved August 9, 2007. - ↑ Myths and Legends of the Australian Aborigines - A Legend of the Great Flood. www.sacred-texts.com. Retrieved August 9, 2007. - ↑ Entry Ωγύγιος at Liddell & Scott. www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved August 9, 2007. - ↑ Gaster, Theodor H. Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament. (Harper & Row, New York, 1969). home.earthlink.net. Retrieved August 9, 2007. - ↑ Canada's Fist Nations - Native Creation Myths. www.ucalgary.ca. Retrieved August 9, 2007. - ↑ William F. Albright, p.176. - ↑ Kramer, Samuel Noah. - ↑ Plimer, Ian. - Albright, William F. Archeology and the Religion of Israel. Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1953. - Alexander, Eliot, and Joseph Campbell. The Universal Myths: Heroes, Gods, Tricksters, and Others. Plume, 1990. ISBN 978-0452010277 - Bailey Lloyd R. Noah, the Person and the Story. University of South Carolina Press, 1989, ISBN 0872496376 - Best, Robert M. Noah's Ark and the Ziusudra Epic. Enlil Press, 1999. ISBN 0966784014 - Brinton, Daniel. The Myths Of The Creation, The Deluge, The Epochs Of Nature And The Last Day. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, 2005. ISBN 978-1425373351 - Dever, William G. What Did the Biblical Writers Know, and When Did They Know It? What Archaeology Can Tell Us about the Reality of Ancient Israel? Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. ISBN 978-0802821263 - Dundes, Alan (ed.). The Flood Myth. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988. ISBN 0520059735 - Kramer, Samuel Noah. The Sumerians: their history, culture and character. University of Chicago, new ed., 1971. ISBN 978-0226452388 - Lewis, Mark Edward. The Flood Myths of Early China. State University of New York Press, 2006. ISBN 978-0791466643 - Lambert W. G. and Millard A.R. Atrahasis: The Babylonian Story of the Flood. Eisenbrauns, 1999. ISBN 1575060396. - Plimer, Ian. Telling Lies for God: reason versus creationism. Random House, 1994. ISBN 978-0091828523 - Ryan, William and Walter Pitman. Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries About The Event That Changed History. Simon & Schuster; Touchstone edition, 2000. ISBN 978-0684859200 - The Great Flood, including source texts for: Eridu Genesis, Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Noah, and a table with parallels.www.livius.org. Retrieved August 3, 2007. - Davidson, Richard M. "Biblical Evidence for the Universality of the Genesis Flood". www.grisda.org. Retrieved August 3, 2007. - The Flood: Myth and Science. www.mystae.com. Retrieved August 3, 2007. - Flood Legends from Around the World. nwcreation.net. Retrieved August 3, 2007. New World Encyclopedia writers and editors rewrote and completed the Wikipedia article in accordance with New World Encyclopedia standards. This article abides by terms of the Creative Commons CC-by-sa 3.0 License (CC-by-sa), which may be used and disseminated with proper attribution. Credit is due under the terms of this license that can reference both the New World Encyclopedia contributors and the selfless volunteer contributors of the Wikimedia Foundation. To cite this article click here for a list of acceptable citing formats.The history of earlier contributions by wikipedians is accessible to researchers here: Note: Some restrictions may apply to use of individual images which are separately licensed.

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AGRICULTURAL COLONIES IN PALESTINE: Since the dispersion of the Jews from their native land, many efforts have been made to induce them to return to Palestine and engage in agriculture. Probably the first of these to lead to any practical result occurred in the nineteenth century; though in the travels of Benjamin of Tudela, and of Petaḥyah of Ratisbon, there are records of small settlements of Jews in the Holy Land dating as far back as 1170. Three centuries later Meshullam ben Menahem Volterra, of Florence, while traveling through Palestine (1481), found sixty Jewish families in Gaza on farms, where they cultivated the vine and raised cereals (see his , "Letter of Travels," ed. by M. Luncz, Jerusalem, 1882).Early History. When, at the close of the sixteenth century, Joseph Nasi, duke of Naxos, began to rebuild the city of Tiberias, "where only Jews were to dwell," he planted mulberry-trees to encourage the inhabitants in the breeding of silkworms. His contemporary, Moses ben Joseph of Trani, in his responsa (Venice, 1629, i. § 46), relates that the Jews of Palestine devoted themselves at that time to such agricultural pursuits as cultivating cotton, growing cereals, raising vegetables, planting mulberry-trees, breeding silkworms, and apiculture. These records show merely that agriculture was pursued, perhaps intermittently, by Jews in Palestine for several centuries; but they do not point directly to the founding of Agricultural Colonies as such. For the establishment of these one must look to comparatively modern times. That Sir Moses Montefiore long cherished the idea of establishing Agricultural Colonies in the Holy Land is well known. On each of his seven visits there, he devoted much time and thought to the subject, particularly with reference to the problem of securing protection for the lives and property of any future colonists. Besides interviewing Boghuz Bey in 1838 ("Diaries," i. 199), on his second visit to Palestine, he held conferences with Israel Drucker (who had a farm at Djermek) and other landowners. On his fourth visit to the East, in 1854, he was received by the sultan and had an interview with the British Ambassador, SirStratford de Redcliffe, respecting the purchase of land in Palestine. After consulting with a committee, Sir Moses selected thirty-five families from Safed, and provided them with the means necessary to begin farming (ib. ii. 47). Previous to this, however, Colonel Gawler, an officer in the British army, had formed in London a colonization society for the same purpose (1845); but on account of the unsettled state of the country that followed the war between Turkey and Egypt (1839-40), the plans could not be realized. About 1860, several orthodox rabbis, among whom were Hirsch Kalischer and Elijah Gutmacher, developed a plan for the colonization of Palestine with Russian and Rumanian Jews; and this plan was soon after supported by the In 1878 the idea of the Jewish colonization of Palestine was again brought before the public by Laurence Oliphant and the Earl of Shaftesbury. This resulted in the purchase, by several Jews of Jerusalem, of 270 hectares (767 acres) of land from Selim Kassar, an Arab of Jaffa; and the colony of Petaḥ Tiḳwah was started. This colony forms a part of the village of Omlebish (Mulebbis), and is situated on the road to Nablus, near the river 'Aujeh, about six miles from the sea. Jaffa is only six or seven miles distant. The colonists that settled near the river sufered from malaria; and most of them were compelled to leave. In 1883 a part of their land was bought by a few immigrants from Bielostok, Russia. For these colonists the Russian Chovevei Zion Society ("Lovers of Zion") built eighteen houses on more healthful and higher ground; and the settlers, who began by raising cereals, soon turned to viticulture and the cultivation of fruit-trees. In 1887 Baron Edmond de Rothschild became interested in the colonies and bought some of the vacated land. He planted a number of eucalyptus trees around the marshes as a preventive of malaria. Emil Lachmann, of Berlin, another philanthropist, also bought a part of the land and planted a large orange grove and a number of grape-vines. Upon this tract there are now growing more than a million vines, besides a large number of orange-, lemon-, and other fruit-trees. Some of the colonists occupy themselves in growing wheat; others in the culture of silkworms. Another industry to which they give attention is floriculture. Thisbegan with the planting of the geranium, and led to the building, by Baron de Rothschild, of a perfume distillery. The total population of the settlement in 1898 was 802 persons. The persecution of the Jews in Russia in 1881 did more than any other event to bring about the practical colonization of Palestine by Jews; certainly, it gave it the first impulse. At that time emigration began in earnest, and Russian-Jewish refugees migrated in masses. In nearly every Jewish center of Europe emigration committees were formed. The emigrants organized themselves into small communities, such as the 50 families from Kiev and Elizabethgrad and the "'Am 'Olam" (Perpetual People), who migrated to the United States of America, and founded colonies in Louisiana and Dakota; and the Biluits, who selected Palestine as their future dwelling-place. At first the colonization of Palestine met with little encouragement from the Alliance Israélite Universelle; and the communities that expected support from that body were greatly disappointed. But the strong faith and self-reliance evinced by those that did venture to Palestine convinced Baron Edmond de Rothschild of the possibility of successfully colonizing the country, and he took the colonies under his care.First Russian-Jewish Colony in Palestine. The year 1882 witnessed the foundation of the first of the Russian-Jewish Agricultural Colonies in Palestine. This community, which was called Rishon le-Zion (Ajun-Kara), consisted of only six Russian immigrants who established themselves on the road between Jaffa and Gaza, one hour and a half southeast from Jaffa and about one hour from the Mediterranean Sea, the site of the ancient En-hakkore (Judges, xv. 19). Soon after they had located themselves, Baron de Rothschild took them also in charge. The population of this colony, which covers an area of 618 hectares (1,545 acres), numbered 266 in 1890. Five years later it had increased to 450, and in 1898 to 531, exclusive of the members of the administration and of the day-laborers. The number of dwellings increased from 44 in 1890 to 62 in 1898. The chief products of the colony are wine and brandy, which are exported to Egypt, Constantinople, Russia, Germany, and to the United States. Over a million and a half of vines have been planted. An enormous cellar has been built, fitted with modern machinery and presses for the manufacture as well as the preservation of wine. Most of the grape-vines planted have been imported from America, and grafted with French varieties, the vines being thus made unsusceptible to the attacks of the phylloxera. The colony has produced as much as 15,000 hectoliters (396,300 gallons) of wine in a year, besides a quantity of good brandy. Over 20,000 mulberry-trees, used in silkworm culture, as well as a large number of fruit-trees, such as the almond, fig, pomegranate, apple, and citron, thrive in the settlement. Every family in the colony inhabits a stone dwelling, with a flower-and market-garden, and owns a horse and cart, together with at least one cow and some poultry. The indebtedness of each family to Baron Rothschild is being gradually liquidated. The colony supports a synagogue, a school, a public bath, a nursery garden, a library, a town hall, and a hospital. The internal affairs of the community are administered by an elective committee of settlers (Dalman in "Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins," 1893, xvi. 194 et seq.; "Palästina," 1892-98; "Die Welt," 1897, No. 27; Luncz, "Luaḥ," 1896-1900; Leo Mozkin in "Die Welt," 1898, No. 36). A party of ninety Russian-Jewish students, members of the Society Bilu, migrated to Palestine in 1882, and set to work as common laborers, hoping to save enough money to found a separate agricultural colony. They took for their motto the word (Bilu), which is an abbreviation made up of the initial letters of ("House of Jacob, come, let us go!"). These young men, some of whom were graduates of Russian universities, at first suffered many privations; but in 1884, through the efforts of Jehiel Michael Pinnes, together with a number of immigrants from Kharkov who purchased one-fifth of the land, they joined the Ghederah colony, which was started by the Chovevei Zion Society of Paris. Ghederah, named after the village of Katra, is situated about four miles southwest of Ekron, and covers an area of 330 hectares (815 acres). One-fourth of this is under wheat; and on the remainder about 200,000 grape-vines and different kinds of fruit-trees have been planted. The colonists have a synagogue, a school, and a pharmacy. In 1898 twenty families settled in the colony, and the total population amounted to 130 (Mozkin makes the number 69). This colony was supported by the Russian Chovevei Zion Society; but recently it has been taken under the protection of the Jewish Colonization Association of London. Reuben Lehrer, of Kherson, bought, likewise in 1882, 135 hectares (336 acres), in Wâdi-el-Ḥanin, about two miles from Rishon le-Zion, and founded a colony called Naḥalat Reuben, by selling some of the land to Russian immigrants. In 1896 the settlement numbered 18 families, or about 100 individuals, and in 1898 had increased to 121 persons. It has a large orange-grove, 150,000 grape-vines, and many thousands of fruit-trees of various kinds. The founder, Reuben Lehrer, occupies himself with apiculture. In 1895 his 200 hives brought an income of 4,000 francs ($772). The colony received support from the Odessa Aid Society, and recently the Jewish Colonization Association of London granted it a loan of 100,000 francs ($19,300).Zikron Ya'aḳob Colonies. In 1882 some Jewish immigrants from Rumania founded the colony Zikron Ya'aḳob in Samaria. This is the largest and finest of all the colonies in Palestine. It lies about four miles east of the Mediterranean, and about ten miles from Haifa. The population is about 1,000 (200 families), and the tract occupied is about 1,454 hectares (3,635 acres). The colonists engage in various occupations, such as growing wheat, breeding silkworms, keeping bees, and raising vegetables. As evidence of theprosperity of the colony, reference must be made to the possession of a steam-plow, a steam-mill, an aqueduct, a large nursery-garden, paved streets, spacious wine-cellars, a library, a school, a synagogue, and a hospital. Further evidence of this is the establishment of the following branches: Tantura, the ancient Dor, now called Aḥot Zikron Ya'aḳob, situated four miles north, founded by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, with 20 families and some laborers who had worked in a glass factory which had to be given up, owing to the poor quality of the sand used; Shefeya, with 20 families; Em el-Gammal (Umm al-Jimal), with 4 families; and Em el-Tut (Umm al-Tut). According to the latest information, the Zikron Ya'aḳob colony, with its branches, has a population of about 2,000.Rosh Pinah. In the same year (1882) some immigrants from Rumania founded the colony Rosh Pinah (Jaunah). No Jewish settlement in Palestine is more picturesquely situated. It lies about four miles north of Safed, on the slope of a mountain, and commands a magnificent view of Mt. Hermon and Lake Huleh (Merom). It covered 640 hectares (1,581 acres), which, in 1896, supported a population of 400, in 70 families, or, according to W. Bambus, 80 families, or about 500 souls. In 1898 the population had decreased to 315. The settlement possesses 60 houses, a small park, all the necessary communal buildings, a silk-factory (affording employment to some fifty lads from Safed), about half a million grape-vines, and about 20,000 mulberry-trees.Yesod ha-Ma'alah. In 1883 immigrants from Russian Poland founded the colony. Yesod ha-Ma'alah (Izbaid or Ḥurbat Zubad). They encountered difficulties, but many received aid from the Chovevei Zion of Russia and Baron de Rothschild. The settlement, located on the shores of Lake Huleh, occupied a tract of about 228 hectares (563 acres), and had a population of 100. Its irrigation facilities are unusual, receiving, as it does, an inexhaustible supply of water, by steam-power, from Lake Huleh. Large nursery-gardens and the cultivation of roses on an extensive scale constitute the chief industry of the colony. Attar of roses is made at a distillery erected by Baron de Rothschild. Some of the minor occupations, from which an additional income is derived, are fishing in Lake Huleh and cattle-breeding. In 1884 the colony Mazkeret Bitya (Ekron) was started by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, with eleven families of Jewish agriculturists from Rozenoi, Russia, on the site of Ekron of the Bible, the Akir of to-day. This is situated southwest of Er-Ramle, near Jabneh (Jamnia). The colonists, numbering, in 1900, 150, in 30 families, possessed 372 hectares (919 acres). At first the settlers did good work; but in 1888 they were led by agitators to discontinue operations in the year of the Shemiṭṭah, and this inactivity retarded the development of the colony. In a short time, however, they realized their mistake, and by extra industry redeemed their lost time; so much so, that they were the first among the colonists to manage without the aid of Baron de Rothschild. A portion of the land is devoted to the culture of about 16,000 fruit-trees of various kinds; the remainder to the growing of cereals, the conditions being especially suitable for the production of excellent wheat, sesame, and barley.Mishmar ha-Yarden and Beer-Tobiah. In 1884 a private individual purchased a large tract of land near the Bridge of the Daughter of Jacob, which is built over the Jordan near Lake Huleh. On a part of this land (200 hectares = 494 acres) 20 laborers settled, who had to pay off their holdings in instalments. Their site was called Gesher ha-Yarden ("Bridge of the Jordan"). The other half of this tract was sold to a teacher and 25 laborers from Safed. These latter colonists have been supported by the societies Chovevei Zion and Ezra of Berlin, and were, in 1898, under the protection of the Jewish Colonization Association of London. The colony occupying the entire tract is now called Mishmar ha-Yarden ("Watch on the Jordan"). In 1898 it had a population of 93. In 1888 Baron de Rothschild bought 640 hectares (1,580 acres) of land in Kastinje (El-Kastine) from some Bessarabian Jews, and founded the colony known as Beer-Tobiah. It is situated about eight miles from Ghederah, on the main road to Gaza. The federated Chovevei Zion societies bought the land from Baron de Rothschild in 1895, and established upon it 20 families that had been laboring in the other colonies. This colony has developed into a typical Palestinian-Jewish village. Industrially it is devoted solely to the growing of wheat; and it is in a prosperous condition. Its population in 1899 was 118.Rehoboth. A party of wealthy Russian Zionists, with Rabbi Samuel Mohilever of Bielostok at their head, purchased in 1890 an area of 630 hectares (1,556 acres) from a person at Jaffa, for the Warsaw Agricultural Society (Menuḥah we-Naḥalah) and founded the colony Rehoboth (Daran). It is situated four miles from Rishon le-Zion, and the same distance from Ramleh, a railroad station between Jaffa and Jerusalem. At first the Turkish government hindered the development of this colony by placing obstacles in its way; but in 1894, the friction between the authorities and the colonists having somewhat abated, Rehoboth began to thrive. In 1898 its population was 281, and its land holdings 955 hectares (2,387 acres). A fine vineyard, laid out by Jewish day-laborers, contains 250,000 vines (650,000 according to W. Bambus in "Palästina, Land und Leute," p. 67); and there are a great number of almond, mulberry, and other trees. Some of the settlers grow cereals. The fact that each household has a garden, horses, cattle, and poultry indicates a farming spirit among these Jewish settlers. The Jewish Colonization Association granted this colony a loan of 125,000 francs ($25,000). Rehoboth provides a good school for its children. Instruction is given in the Hebrew tongue. Close to this colony the Berlin Ezra Society, in conjunction with the London Chovevei Zion Society, has founded a small colony consisting of six families of laborers. Russian colonization societies, from Riga, Wilna, and Kovno, in 1883 purchased 2,600 hectares (6,500 acres) in El-Chuderah, south of ancient Cæsarea, above the mouth of the Nahr el-Mefdshir, which flows into the Wâdi el-Chuderah, where a colony was founded in 1891 in which there were 153 colonists in 1898.Some Minor Colonies. In 1891 some speculators bought 430 hectares (1,075 acres) of land about two miles north of Safed, in 'Ain Zeitun, and sold it to a party of laborers.Not having sufficient means to work the tract properly, the new owners transferred it to Baron de Rothschild, with whose beneficent aid 750,000 vines and many fruit-trees were planted in the course of six or seven years, and during this time a number of houses were built. The population in 1898 was 51. In the same year (1891) the little colony of Moẓah was founded near Jerusalem. Three families settled on 59 hectares (147 acres) of land; and they are supported by the B'ne B'rith. About the same time 5 families from Wilna settled west of Safed in Shejur near Kefr Anan. In 1892 Baron de Rothschild purchased 11,700 hectares (29,250 acres) of land in Karife, in the vicinity of Shech Sad, in the old Trachonitis. He sold 970 hectares (2,425 acres) to the English Chovevei Zion Society. The railroad from Haifa to Damascus traverses the district. In 1896 Baron de Rothschild founded the colony Metullah, which is situated at the foot of Mt. Hermon, not far from the ancient Dan (Laish), on the northern border of Palestine. The population of this colony in 1898 was 233, most of the male members of which were young men who had labored for several years in other colonies or were the children of colonists elsewhere. They cultivate wheat and tobacco. A Jewish colonization society in Bulgaria, consisting of 50 members, bought 450 hectares (1,125 acres) of land from the English Mission, and founded the colony Artuf, or Hartuf, in 1896. Nine of the members came with their families, and formed a communistic society, working under the management of a superintendent elected by themselves. In 1898 they had not yet acquired title to their land. In 1898 Leo Mozkin inspected the colonies on behalf of the Vienna Conference of Zionists, and his report showed a state of affairs not altogether satisfactory.General Condition of the Colonies. In 1898 there were in all the 25 colonies about 5,000 Jews. (According to the reports of L. Mozkin and others, there are in all Palestine about 4,500 Jewish colonists, occupying about 25,000 hectares—62,500 acres—of land.) Besides 300 families of day-laborers, there were 660 families of actual colonists, numbering 2,838 persons. Of these, 390 families, or 1,000 persons, were under the management of the Rothschild administration. In addition to the aid received from this source, various bodies support the colonists, more especially two organizations, viz., the Odessa Aid Society for Jewish Agriculturists and Artisans, and, in much larger measure, the Jewish Colonization Association.Mahanaim. The following are the chief causes that retard the development of the Palestine colonies: (1) the dependence on charity, notably on that of Baron de Rothschild; (2) the lack of legal security of title; (3) want of publicity (see Leo Mozkin, in "Die Welt," 1898, Nos. 36-38).Change of Title. In 1899 the colony Mahanaim was founded by the Galician Ahabat-Zion Society, with the aid of the Jewish Colonization Association and of the Ezra Society of Berlin. They began with 10 Galician and 6 native families, and have already received from the government permission to build houses and enlarge the colony generally. This now covers about 800 hectares (about 2,000 acres), at the foot of Mt. Hermon. It is reached from Port Haifa, via Acre, in twelve hours. At the end of 1899 those Agricultural Colonies in Palestine whose title lay in the name of Edmond de Rothschild passed over to the management of the Jewish Colonization Association of London. A list of colonies, with dates of foundation, population, and other details, is given on the next page: |Founded in||Population in 1898.| |I. In the Land of Judah.| |Ekron (Mazkeret Bitya)||1884||150||372||930| |NaḦalat Reuben (Wâdi-el-Ḥanin)||1882||121||164||410| |II. In Samaria.| |Kef v-Laba (private estate)||....||....||675||1,687| |Tantura* (owned by Rothschild)||....||95| |III. In Upper Galilee.| |Merom (private estate)||....||....||182||455| |Sejera and vicinity (private estate)||....||....||2,454||6,132| |IV. In Transjordania (Vilayet of Damascus, Hauran).| |Bene-Yehudah, Chovevei Zion of London||....||....||318||795| |Land of Chovevei Zion of New York||....||....||2,782||6,955| |Sahem-Djalam, owned by Rothschild||....||....||1,274||3,185| |*The populations of Ablit and Tantura, not being known separately, are given together as 95 under the latter colony.| - A. Usishkin, in Jüdische Volksbibliothek of S. Rabinowitsch, 1889, ii. 87 et seq.; - A. M. Luncz, Jerusalem, i.-iii., Jerusalem, 1882, 1887, 1889; - Moreh Derek be-Ereẓ Yisrael we-Suria, Jerusalem, 1891; - Paul Demidov, Wo Hinaus? Charlottenburg, 1891; - Seventh Report of the Jewish Refugees' Aid Society, London, 1892; - M. Adelmann, Luaḥ, Hebrew Calendar for 5653 and 5654, Jerusalem, 1893-94; - N. Birnbaum, Die Nationale Wiedergeburt des Jüdischen Volkes in Seinem Lande, Vienna, 1893; - Otchot Obshchestva Vspomoshchestvovaniya Yevreyam Zemledeltzam, etc., 2 vols., Odessa, 1893-96; - Palestina (The Chovevei Zion Quarterly), pp. 1-23, London, 1892-98; - C. R. Conder, Eastern Palestine, London, 1892; - M. Meyerowitz, 'Eẓa we-Tushiah, Winke und Rathschläge für Einwandernde Jüdische Colonisten in Palästina, Warsaw, 1885; - Literary Digest, 1895, No. 28; - W. Bambus, Die Jüdischen Dörfer in Palästina, Berlin, 1896; - idem, Palästina, Berlin, 1898; - idem, Herr Mozkin und die Wahrheit über die Kolonisation Palästina's. Berlin, 1898; - Jüdischer Volkskalender, Cologne, 1897-99; - A. Friedenwald, Lovers of Zion, Baltimore, 1895; - Die Welt, 1897-1900; - Ereẓ Ḥemdah, by M. Sokolov, Warsaw, 1885; - Jewish Agriculture, in Blackwood's Magazine, Oct., 1883; - M. Friedland, Die Kolonisirung Palästina's, Berlin, 1870; - J. Brill, Yesod ha-Ma'alah, Mayence, 1883; - Bachrach, Masa' le-Ereẓ ha-ḳedoshah (Travels in the Holy Land); - Ben Yehudah, Ereẓ Yisrael, 1883; - Sistematicheski Ukazatel, Literatury o Yevreyakh na Russkom Yazykye, Nos. 5687-5846, St. Petersburg, 1892; - Meshullam ben Menahem Volterra of Florence, Miktab Massa, Jerusalem, 1882.

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|The New York Times, July 6, 2009 The Happy Planet Index We’ve written before about alternative measures to gross domestic product. These are generally attempts to take into account how happy, healthy and environmentally friendly a nation is, not just how much it produces in goods and services. One of these measures is the Happy Planet Index, produced by the New Economics Foundation. The foundation has just released its 2009 rankings. The name “Happy Planet Index” may be a bit misleading, because it does not actually indicate which countries are happiest, or have the highest well-being. Rather, the measure is about environmental sustainability relative to well-being — that is, how efficiently a country consumes ecological resources to support a given level of happiness. It is calculated based on “average years of happy life,” as measured by life satisfaction and life expectancy. That number is then divided by the populace’s “ecological footprint,” as measured by “the amount of land required to provide for all their resource requirements plus the amount of vegetated land required to sequester (absorb) all their CO2 emissions and the CO2 emissions embodied in the products they consume.” Scores range from 0, the worst, to 100. To get a perfect score, a country should have high levels of life satisfaction and life expectancy, as well as a small ecological footprint. But a country could score relatively well if its citizens are, for example, very happy and use a moderate amount of natural resources (e.g., Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic), or if its citizens are just moderately happy but use very few resources (e.g., Vietnam and Egypt). By these measures, the United States does not do very well. With relatively high levels of life satisfaction and life expectancy, but a very large ecological footprint, the United States ranks 114th on a list of 143 countries ordered by the Happy Planet Index. Latin American and Caribbean countries, on the other hand, represent 9 of the top 10 highest-ranking countries in the index: Find the full report here. |Photo © Paul S. Hamilton||HOME / DONATE NOW / SIGN UP FOR E-NETWORK / CONTACT US / PHOTO USE /|

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Services > Tourism Office > QAC Towns, History & Heritage > Towns > Templeville Templeville is a small country village of less than 100 inhabitants. It lies along MD Route 302; its buildings on the north side of the road are in Queen Anne’s County and those on the south side are in Caroline County. At about the center of town, Route 454 branches off to the south into Caroline County; several homes line the western side of that road. Residents look out of their windows upon fields being planted in the spring and harvested in the fall. They can take their families fishing or for a picnic in the town park. The store and post office are just a short stroll away. Just outside the town are several old cemeteries. One that dates back to the 1700s is the resting place of members of the Temple family for whom the town is named

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Next - Turbines There are many steps in putting together a small wind project. What follows is a basic outline of the major steps in planning a small wind project. This is the first question one should ask themselves before undertaking a small wind installation. Many like the idea of energy independence, while others wish to incorporate their energy consumption into their love of machines and technology. Some people chose to put up their own turbines for environmental reasons, because wind energy is a clean, emission free, renewable energy source. Whatever your motivation you should understand what is involved in owning your own wind generator as they are sophisticated pieces of machinery that will need periodic maintenance and can be fairly large investment. Your motivation for planning a small wind project will affect your choice of equipment, the economics of your project, and how you choose to operate and maintain your small wind system. At the beginning of planning your project keep the following questions in mind: Some people have off-grid systems where all of the energy used on the site must be generated there. Others will choose to connect their system to the utility's system and use the grid for backup energy when the wind does not blow. Others wish to sell energy back to the utility to provide supplemental income for their farm or business. Will the system offset some or all of the energy consumed on site? If this is the case, your state may have net metering laws which can help with the economics of your project but may limit the size of your system. If you want to sell most or all of your energy to the utility this will affect the scale and financing of your machine. Larger machines generally can produce energy at a lower cost than small machine and will improve the return on investment. If selling power to the utility and making money is a primary motivation, then you may want to consider investing in a Community wind project over a small wind system. Is cost of energy important to your project? Are your primary motivations environmental or energy independence? Cost of energy will greatly affect the components you choose. A general rule is that as system size increases the cost per installed kW will decrease, improving the economics of the project. If you are on a limited budget or want to size your system so that it matches up to your electricity consumption for an off grid system you will choose system components using a different set of assumptions. Budget is in many cases the limiting factor for small wind systems. Because the return on investment is generally low compared to commercial scale turbine the system must be able to fit within your family or businesses budget to make sure you can afford to make payments on any loans taken to finance the system. For a small wind system determining the payback of a project plays a large factor in determining if owning your own system makes sense for you. In order to do this you will need several pieces of information: Typically, for a small wind system, energy produced is used to offset a portion or all of the electricity at a site. Excess generation is then "stored" on the grid for times when the generator is not producing. At the end of the billing period the net excess generated or consumed is used to determine how much you owe the utility or the utility owes you. The rate and rules for compensation differ from state to state. Once you determine how energy is compensated, the estimated production on a monthly basis and the installed and hidden costs of the turbine, the payback period can be determined by dividing the sum of the costs by the net energy produced times the rate compensated for energy. # Years = (sum of installed costs and ongoing costs)/ [(energy produced) x (rate compensated for energy)] This will yield the number of years it will take to pay off the machine. This calculation is called a simple payback because it does not take into account net present value, inflation, and escalation of energy costs over time. In most cases this method will be more conservative than a more involved analysis. The first step to designing your system is determining if you have enough wind to justify the expense of the system and the time and expense of operating and maintaining your equipment. Remember: a small turbine without enough wind is like a solar panel in the shade: it won't produce energy! Generally, a site with an annual average wind speed of 12 miles per hour or greater does not need a detailed wind resource study to be performed. A site with an average wind resource of 10 miles per hour or less usually does not have enough wind to justify installing a turbine. A site that has an average wind speed between 10 and 12 miles per hour should have a wind resource assessment performed to determine if there is adequate wind to support a small wind turbine. A good place to begin determining your wind resource is National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) wind resource maps. Download the map for your state and find the general area where your property is located. This will give you a fairly good sense of the average wind speed in your area with no expense. For more detailed information about determining if you have a good wind resource view the Department of Energy's Small Wind Electric Systems: a U.S. Consumer's Guide. State-specific consumer guides can also be found at the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy website. Wind speed data is also often available from local weather stations or airports, as well as the US Dept. of Commerce, National Climatic Center in Asheville, N.c. You can also do your own site analysis with an anemometer or totalizer and careful observation. Installation of generators should be close to the battery bank to minimize line loss, and 20 feet higher than obstructions within 500 feet. The tower should be well grounded. A typical wind energy system consists of a turbine mounted on top of a tower and a controller consisting of power electronics which controls the power output of the turbine under various wind and grid conditions. Typically a controller will come as part of a package with the turbine, making turbine and tower the major decisions in choosing your system. There are more than several different turbine manufacturers with many models of turbines to choose from as well as several tower configurations that vary in erection difficulty. Choosing a small wind turbine model Wind turbines come in many different makes and models. Spending a little extra time while choosing a model will improve economics of your project as well as make it much more successful in the long run. Before choosing a turbine you should figure out if the electricity produced will be consumed completely on site, if you want to sell excess energy back to the utility company or if you prefer to be off the grid. The turbine model you choose will be greatly affected by where the electricity will ultimately be used and what compensation you will receive from selling electricity back to the utility. If your facility will be net metered or off the grid a load analysis for your home should be done to determine your monthly electricity usage, for net-metering, or your peaking load and daily usage for off grid applications. Turbine manufacturers have published power curves that estimate the monthly output for their turbines based on average wind speed at the site and the Rayleigh distribution of wind speeds around that average. Buyers should beware of used, refurbished, or remanufactured machines. Even though these machines may initially be less expensive that comparable new machines, the initial savings can be negated very quickly by costly repairs from a machine that is nearing the end of it's life time... Choosing a Tower Small wind system manufactures often give you several different tower options to best match the economic, maintenance and space needs of your project. There are four basic types of tower options for home and farm sized turbines: tilt-up, guyed lattice, lattice and free standing Choosing an installer for your wind turbine and other related equipment is as important if not more so than choosing the equipment for your system. Before deciding on an installer ask the installer if you can contact other people he or she has done work for. Eco Depot USA will work with you as you design your equipment and work closely with the interconnecting utility to ensure that the process goes smoothly. Eco Depot USA use's a licensed and bonded electrician. For complete information about what is required for electrical certification for an installer contact your utility. To have a successful grid connected project you have to work with the utility to make the interconnection go smoothly. Get the utility involved early in the process of planning. Many times your utility will have a dedicated contact for systems of this size range. They will also have technical interconnection standards for your equipment and special meters which may need to be installed at your service. You will also need to have a state electrical inspector sign off on your system before the utility will allow you to connect to the grid. The inspector will require that all electrical work, wiring and otherwise, be completed by a licensed and bonded electrician. Before putting your project in the ground you will have to acquire the appropriate permits from your county zoning office or municipal zoning office. Many areas that have seen much wind energy development in recent years may have zoning ordinances designed specifically for smaller wind projects. If this is not the case you may have to obtain a special use permit from the county zoning board. Having other small wind turbines in the area may make the process easier. However, you may have to be persistent with the process because zoning board members may associate your proposed project with its larger utility scale cousins. The issues that you will have to address while going through the zoning process include: Setbacks from property lines, structures, roads, river beds, etc. Safety standards for tower and electrical equipment, including proper grounding of turbine and tower Aesthetics of tower and turbine design Interference with electro-magnetic telecommunications A small wind machine needs to carry insurance to protect the equipment, just like any other large investment you make. If a once in one hundred year storm destroys the machine, liability insurance is important to protect yourself, others and the interconnecting utility against unforeseen circumstances. Some states, such as Minnesota mandate that the machine have a certain amount of liability insurance, while in other states utilities set their own requirements for insurance. Net metering is a way for you to connect your small wind turbine behind the meter at your home, business or farm. This system is designed to allow energy generated at your home farm or business to offset some or all of the electricity you use. If your generator is producing more electricity than you can consume the excess is sold back to the utility. The price that a project receives for the excess electricity varies from state to state and from utility to utility. Net metering can be very helpful for the economics of a wind project because it allows a qualifying facility to receive retail rate for a portion or all of the electricity generated. Each state has different rules and regulations. To find out if net metering is available in your state, what systems qualify and how to take advantage of the programs visit the Database of State Incentives for Renewable Energy. In a good year at a good wind site, a small turbine might be running 6,000 hours over the course of a year. For comparison, this is about the same as driving your car 200,000 miles! Not surprisingly, your small turbine will last longer and perform better if maintenance is done regularly. For most systems, you should plan to either tilt down the tower or climb the tower once a year to check for signs of unusual wear, tighten bolts, lubricate moving parts and perform other general maintenance. You should check with the manufacturer of your turbine for specific guidelines. For the latest news on renewable energy, click here. Sign up here to receive our newsletter: Click here for a quote on your renewable energy system!

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What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an - A History of Islam & The United States is a fast-paced, objective history. Current events will come into focus in the back drop of 1,400 years of events and conflicts. Thousands of books, documents and articles have been researched over several years in preparation for this book. Most Americans know little about the Qur'an, who wrote it and how Islam spread. Indeed, Islam has affected the Western World for 1,400 years, from 622 AD to today’s headlines. This book will give you a fascinating glimpse into captivating events and amazing stories. Adoremus Books copyright 2013 Over 30,000 Items in Stock! Omaha's Catholic Superstore! The Website for all your Catholic Needs. First Holy Communion, Confirmation, Baptism, Catholic Homeschooling, Catholic Education, RCIA,Bible Study, Catholic Books, Catechisms, Holy Cards, Rosaries, Latin Mass Materials, Chapel Veils, Medals, Saint Statues, Saint Medals, Scapulars, Catholic Jewelry, Catholic Music, Catholic Movies, First Communion Dresses, Catholic Bibles and more!

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Faith and Philosophy 4 (4):365-382 (1987) |Abstract||In a previous paper, Thomas V. Morris and I sketched a view on which abstract objects, in particular, properties, relations, and propositions (PRPs), are created by God no less than contingent, concrete objects. In this paper r suggest a way of extending this account to cover mathematical objects as well. Drawing on some recent work in logic and metaphysics, I also develop a more detailed account of the structure of PRPs in answer to the paradoxes that arise on a naive understanding of the structure ofthe abstract universe| |Keywords||No keywords specified (fix it)| |Through your library||Configure| Similar books and articles Christopher Menzel (1987). Theism, Platonism, and the Metaphysics of Mathematics. Faith and Philosophy 4 (4):365-382. Øystein Linnebo (2009). Platonism in the Philosophy of Mathematics. In Edward N. Zalta (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Bernard Linsky (2005). Remarks on Platonized Naturalism. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):3-15. Thomas Tymoczko (1991). Mathematics, Science and Ontology. Synthese 88 (2):201 - 228. William J. Melanson (2011). Reassessing the Epistemological Challenge to Mathematical Platonism. Croatian Journal of Philosophy 11 (3):295-304. Mark Balaguer, Fictionalism in the Philosophy of Mathematics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Mary Leng (2005). Platonism and Anti-Platonism: Why Worry? International Studies in the Philosophy of Science 19 (1):65 – 84. James Franklin (2011). Aristotelianism in the Philosophy of Mathematics. Studia Neoaristotelica 8 (1):3-15. Charles Parsons (2008). Mathematical Thought and its Objects. Cambridge University Press. Øystein Linnebo (2008). The Nature of Mathematical Objects. In Bonnie Gold & Roger Simons (eds.), Proof and Other Dilemmas: Mathematics and Philosophy. Mathematical Association of America. Mark Balaguer (1998). Platonism and Anti-Platonism in Mathematics. Oxford University Press. Leslie H. Tharp (1991). Myth & Math, Part II (Preliminary Draft). Synthese 88 (2):179 - 199. David Liggins (2008). Quine, Putnam, and the 'Quine-Putnam' Indispensability Argument. Erkenntnis 68 (1):113 - 127. Added to index2011-01-09 Total downloads5 ( #160,204 of 548,984 ) Recent downloads (6 months)1 ( #63,327 of 548,984 ) How can I increase my downloads?

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Researchers working among the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear reactor say they may have found mushrooms that feed off radiation for energy. In other words, Godzilla isn’t real, but athlete’s foot is more dangerous than we’d ever imagined. Scientists discovered the fungi five years ago when they sent a robot into the abandoned core of one of the Chernobyl reactors. Among other samples, the robot retrieved black fungi that had been growing on the walls of the reactor — proving once and for all that the robots and the radioactive mushrooms are in cahoots. Experts say the fungi were feeding off the radiation in place of sunlight or something: “Just as the pigment chlorophyll converts sunlight into chemical energy that allows green plants to live and grow, our research suggests that melanin can use a different portion of the electromagnetic spectrum – ionizing radiation – to benefit the fungi containing it,” said co-researcher Ekaterina Dadachova. Because they’ve never met an existential threat they didn’t laugh off at first, scientists are actually excited about the find. Here’s a good idea: Let’s eat it! And radiation-munching fungi could be on the menu for future space missions. “Since ionizing radiation is prevalent in outer space, astronauts might be able to rely on fungi as an inexhaustible food source on long missions or for colonizing other planets,” noted Dadachova. So apparently humans can grow mushrooms on radiation, but the only way to find truffles is with smell-sensitive pigs in the forests of Italy. Yeah. That makes sense. Chernobyl Fungus Feeds On Radiation [Science A Go-Go]

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Historic time period: 1945–Early 1970s Students Sit for Civil Rights On February 1, 1960, four African American college students challenged racial segregation by sitting down at a "whites only" counter lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. Politely asking for service, their request was refused. When asked to leave, they remained in their seats. Their sit-in inspired others to engage in nonviolent protests, which drew attention to the inequalities in civil rights at the time. Many of the men who worked together to write the Constitution expressed that protesting was an important patriotic duty and an important part of a working democracy. The first amendment of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights specifically protects some rights that are tied to protest, including the rights to petition the government, gather together peacefully, and speak freely. The National Museum of American History added a portion of the Greensboro lunch counter to its collection after it was announced that the store would be shut down. Today it is on display as one of the landmark objects in the Museum and the centerpiece of a museum theater piece called "Join the Student Sit-Ins." More information on the lunch counter. Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins is a historical fiction story about the lunch counter from the point of view of a young girl named Connie. Her perspective weaves emotions together with the historical details of the protests. You can learn more about the civil rights movement by reading Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins and by trying some of the activities below. Read This Book You can learn more about the American Civil Rights Movement in these books. Click on the book titles below for more information, or visit our complete bibliography. More Recommended Books - Freedom School, Yes! by Amy Littlesugar - Through My Eyes: Ruby Bridges by Ruby Bridges - Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Martin Luther King, Jr. by Doreen Rappaport - Betsey Brown: A Novel by Ntozake Shange Freedom on the Menu: The Greensboro Sit-Ins by Carole Boston Weatherford From FREEDOM ON THE MENU: THE GREENSBORO SIT-INS by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Jermone LaGarrigue. Text (c) 2005 by Carole Boston Weatherford. Illustrations (c) 2005 by Jerome LaGarrigue. Used by permission of Dial Books for Young Readers, A Division of Penguin Young Readers Group, A Member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014. All rights reserved. Read Freedom on the Menu Meet Connie and bring the story of the sit-ins alive through her eyes. Use easy strategies to read and explore the book together.Download the PDF » Play and Create Make your own protest sign or chalk art to speak out!Download the PDF » You Can, Too! Take a Trip Make a difference in your community, like the young people of Greensboro, N.C.Download the PDF » Headlines of History Study in School Compare the story of the civil right movement told in newspapers from 1960, a work of historical fiction, and your social studies textbook.Download the PDF » Tune in and listen to songs that brought together members of the civil rights movement and then record your own version.Download the PDF »

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How much water do you use every day? Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have estimated this kind of direct and indirect water use — not for households, but for American industries. Their goal was to create a tool for better assessing the impact on water use of decisions made up and down the industrial supply chain, just as one might assess cost or carbon footprint. Chris Hendrickson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering; Michael Blackhurst, a graduate student; and Jordi Sels i Vidal, a visiting researcher, used water data from the United States Geological Survey (from 2000) and applied an economic model to estimate direct and indirect use in paint manufacturing, fiber and yarn making, grain farming and about 420 other industrial sectors, big and small. Their findings are reported in Environmental Science and Technology. Most of the direct water use, they report, is accounted for by the broad categories of power generation and agriculture. As for individual sectors, almost all use more water indirectly than directly. For example, in cane sugar refining, relatively little water is used at the mills. More than 95 percent is used indirectly, to grow the cane, generate electricity for the mills and in other parts of the supply chain. “If you’re doing a lifecycle assessment, you want to make sure you include upstream activities that are water intensive,” Dr. Hendrickson said. “This tool should allow people to understand the implications of water use.” By HENRY FOUNTAIN /New York Times

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Until recently, no one would have thought seriously about doing word processing in a Web browser. Sure, you could write and do very basic editing in a big featureless text field, but the tools for working with text were primitive at best. As Google Docs capably demonstrates, those days are over. Docs both handles the basics and offers powerful collaboration features that make it easy to work on documents with other people. If you use Microsoft Word, Docs will feel familiar. Docs supports several fonts; multiple text sizes and colors; bulleted and numbered lists; adjustable alignment and indentation; graphics; tables; links; and more. You can edit text by copying and pasting or by dragging and dropping, check spelling (in more than 30 languages), undo and redo multiple edits, and do most of the other things that you’d expect to do in a word processor. Important features that you won’t find include headers and footers, footnotes, text frames, tables of contents, cross-references, and a powerful find-and-replace feature. Importing and Exporting Depending on what you need to do, Docs’ lack of advanced text features might not be a problem. Its ability to work with Word, however, will likely be important. That’s where the program’s importing and exporting features come into play. Docs lets you import Word documents (.doc), Rich Text files (.rtf), HTML files, plain-text files, and OpenDocument text files (.odt); each file can have a maximum size of 500K. To upload a file, go to the Docs & Spreadsheets home page and click on the Upload link. Then click on Browse, locate the file on your hard drive, and click on Open. (If the file is already accessible on a Web server, enter its URL instead.) Click on the Upload File button. (Complex formatting may be lost when you do this.) You can also e-mail a file to your account. To do this, go to the Docs & Spreadsheets home page, click on the Upload link, and copy the special e-mail address shown there. Attach a supported file to a new message, and send the message to that address—the file will become a new Docs document. Alternatively, simply send an e-mail with text in its body to that address; the text will become the new document, and the message’s subject will become the file’s name. (The e-mail import feature tends to be flaky; your success may depend on which e-mail application and ISP you use, among other factors.) Files you edit in Docs are stored online in your Google Apps storage space. The system saves your work periodically, as well as whenever you click on the Save button. You can also save files to your Mac in formats including Word, Rich Text, PDF, and HTML. This makes it easy to create a local backup copy or share a file with someone who needs to edit it in Word. You can also print your documents directly from Docs. However, Docs offers no control over document attributes such as margins, paper size, or page orientation. Tracking Revisions When you’re repeatedly revising a document—especially if you’re working on a file with other people—it can be helpful to see what has changed from one version to the next, and who made the changes. Docs isn’t compatible with Word’s Track Changes feature. (If you import a Word document with tracked changes, all the text in the document—even text that was marked as deleted—shows up in Docs as regular text. Comments entered in Word don’t appear at all.) Instead, Docs takes a different approach. Every time your document is saved, manually or automatically, Docs stores a copy of that version. You can go back to any previous version and even compare two versions to see what the differences are. (This is similar to Word’s Compare Documents feature.) To work with revisions, click on the Revisions tab. Select a previous version of the file by choosing it from the pop-up Revision menu. The selected version will appear in the window. To continue using this version, click on Revert To This One, and click on OK when the confirmation alert appears. (You can go back to any of the other revisions later.) To find out what changed between one version and another, click on the Compare Two Revisions link and select the versions to compare from the two pop-up menus. Text added to or deleted from the newer version appears in a color that indicates who made the change (see “Keep Track of Changes”). Collaborating Docs really shines when several people need to work on the same document. Without Docs, you might end up e-mailing files back and forth numerous times—risking garbled attachments and version conflicts. With Docs, you can all edit the same document together online, thus avoiding those problems. To grant other people permission to view or edit any document, click on the Collaborate tab, select As Collaborators (to give editing access) or As Viewers (to give read-only access), and enter one or more e-mail addresses. Then click on Invite Collaborators, type a message (optional), and click on Send. Each collaborator will receive a message with that document’s URL. Although you can send these messages to any address, collaborators must have a Google account to log in and view or edit the document, and they must sign in using the address you sent the invitation to. The names of people viewing or editing the document appear at the bottom of the screen. You can also publish your document so that even people without Google accounts can see it. Click on the Publish tab, click on Publish Document, and copy the URL. You can link to this URL from a Web site or e-mail it to anyone who needs to see the document. For anyone familiar with Word, Docs will be mostly self-explanatory. Just click on the New Document link (or click on an existing document to open it) and start typing. But to get even more out of Docs, try these tips. Save Frequently Even though Docs saves your work periodically, it doesn’t do so as often as Google Spreadsheets does. If your browser crashes or you inadvertently close the window at the wrong time, you could lose your work without warning. Discover Hidden Options If you’re at a loss for how to perform an action, try right-clicking (or control-clicking) on the document’s text or on an element, such as a table or an image. A contextual menu will provide helpful commands (see “Uncover Hidden Commands”). Publish to Your Blog Want to publish a document directly to your blog? Don’t miss the Post To Blog link on the Publish tab. Once you’ve entered your blog site settings, you can quickly get your thoughts online. Search Your Files Use the Google search box at the top of your Docs & Spreadsheets page to search all your documents or the Web. Because it’s a Google search, you can use many standard Google features—such as quotation marks to enclose a phrase, or the minus sign (-) to exclude a word from results. Use Keyboard Shortcuts Even though you’re working in a Web browser, Google provides some keyboard shortcuts for common tasks within both Docs and Spreadsheets. They use the control key instead of the 1 key. For instance, press control-S to save, control-Z to undo, and control-B to make text boldface. (Check the complete list of shortcuts.) Is it for you? Google Docs is great for collaborating with others on a simple document or accessing documents while you’re away from your usual computer—say, when you’re working in a computer lab. But to use Docs as your only word processor, you must always have a reliable high-speed Internet connection. If you need to work on Docs documents offline, you have to use Word, TextEdit, or another common word processor, which means exporting and then reimporting files.Keep Track of Changes: When using Google Docs’ Revisions feature, you can compare any two versions of a document.Uncover Hidden Commands: Google Docs doesn’t have many menus, but it does have extensive support for contextual menus. Right-click (or control-click) on a text selection, an image, or a table cell, for example, and a selection of relevant commands appears.

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A. Original colour lithograph from "Twelve Portraits" by William Heinemann, London 1899. Presented in 16 x 20 in. acid free, archival museum mat, with framing labels. Ready to frame. Shipped boxed flat via Fedex. Certificate of Authenticity. See our Terms of Sale Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was born in Milan, Ohio. With only three months of formal education he became one of the greatest inventors and industrial leaders in history. Edison obtained 1,093 United States patents, the most issued to any individual. Edison's greatest contribution was the first practical electric lighting. He not only invented the first successful electric light bulb, but also set up the first electrical power distribution company. Edison invented the phonograph, and made improvements to the telegraph, telephone and motion picture technology. He also founded the first modern Edison had great faith in progress and industry, and valued long, hard work. He used to say, “Genius was 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” Edison believed that inventing useful products offered everyone the opportunity for fame and fortune while benefiting society. (www.lucidcafe.com/library/96feb/edison.html) "Nicholson did this image just after his association with James Pryde as The Beggarstaff Brothers had come to an end. But his revolutionary approach to design which marked the Beggarstaff posters, found further expression in the small-scale woodcuts on which he then concentrated. William Nicholson's woodblock prints of the 1890's were amongst the most revolutionary British print images of the era. They used a treatment of form, with a stylized simplification of shape, and a handling of perspective and picture space which had had no precedent in British art. Influences of Japanese art, and a parallel thinking to, if not a direct knowledge of, the ideas of Toulouse Lautrec and of the Nabis painters in Paris at the same period can certainly be felt, although there is no record that Nicholson had actually studied either at this date." (Weston)

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2010 is comming. Because the World is divided into time zones, the new year moves progressively around the globe as the start of the day ushers in the New Year. The first country to celebrate New Year is Line Islands (Kiribati, Caroline Island) (time zone UTC+14), the last one are Baker Island, Howland Island (UTC-12). Here is online tool : What Time is New Year celebrated around the World that shows to you all time zones and answers the question ‘What Time does particular country or region Celebrate New Year’. If you click on the row in the table, to indicate your time zone,, the tool will show you the time (in your local time) when New Year comes to countries around the World. As you can see, first country to celebrate New Year 2010 is Line Islands (UTC+14). The people of Line Islands will celebrate New Year, of course, at 0:00 01.01.2010 of their time but at 10:00 am London (UTC+0) time, 20:00 (8:00pm) Melbourne And Sydney time, 5:00am NYC, Toronto, Washington time, 2:00 am Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Vancouver, Tijuana time, etc.

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[Image: azaleas in bloom] News Release Distributed 02/15/13 By Allen Owings LSU AgCenter horticulturist HAMMOND, La. – Azaleas are Louisiana’s most popular shrub among home gardeners. Fall is the best time to plant azaleas, followed, in turn, by winter, spring and summer. The vast majority of azaleas are, however, planted in spring. This is, of course, when garden centers have the best selection and is the time of the year when gardeners see azaleas in bloom. You can have long-term positive results with azaleas in your landscape by selecting the correct variety, planting properly and providing the most ideal growing conditions. With our mild winter this year, azaleas are blooming in landscapes ahead of schedule across Louisiana. Before purchasing azaleas, make sure you find out the mature size of the plants you intend to buy. Depending on the variety, azaleas may mature at less than 2 feet up to 10 feet tall. Don’t purchase a type of azalea that will grow too large for the spot where it will be planted. Spring-planted azaleas may take a little longer to become established than those planted in fall or winter. Flowering and shoot growth are going to occur at the time the azaleas are planted. This will slow down root growth and establishment. Most gardeners really should avoid summer planting, although you can be successful planting at that time by providing extra care – primarily watering. Many azalea varieties will tolerate full sun if given adequate moisture. Generally, however, azaleas grow best in a partial-sun to partial-shade environment. Four to six hours of morning sun provided by an eastern exposure is considered ideal. Azaleas tend to have sparse foliage, look leggy and bloom poorly when planted in too much shade. If grown in too much sun, azaleas may wilt constantly during hot, dry weather and scorch on their leaf edges. Western sun exposure during summer and into early fall is hard on these plants. Azaleas require good drainage but also need an even supply of moisture. They will not thrive in a location that is constantly wet or constantly dry. Uniformity in soil moisture is important for good growth and establishment in a landscape. Consider texture and structure of your native soil. Amending this soil with pine bark or a similar organic material will likely be needed. Many, many azalea varieties are recommended for Louisiana landscapes. Popular ones include the Southern Indica, Robin Hill, Satsuki and Encore groups. You can see more about work being done in landscape horticulture by viewing the LSU AgCenter Hammond Research Station website. Also, like us on Facebook. You can find an abundance of landscape information for both home gardeners and industry professionals.

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Institute for Futures Studies and Knowledge Management Futurology is a topic that still seems strange to many people: it arouses scepticism and causes associations with taking a look into a crystal ball. Since the end of the Second World War, the field of futures research has continuously developed so that today’s researchers and corporate strategists can rely on numerous concepts, theories, principles and methods. The systematic analyses of the future were quite mathematical at the beginning and only conducted within the scope of military research for a long time. For example, the scenario- and Delphi techniques, two of the best known futures research methods, were developed in the 50’s by RAND Corporation – a think tank for the US armed forces. It was only in the 70’s that companies began to successfully apply such techniques to strategic corporate planning. Although the benefits are apparent and numerous research endeavours have proven the success of proactive forecasting, many firms still shy away from dedicated examination of the future – primarily because they do not recognise its potential or estimate the effort to be too great. However, especially in today’s turbulent corporate environment, systematic methods of future research can decisively support in dealing with uncertainties in the decision making process. In creating scenarios, complex data is comprehensively compiled and communicated in plausible and consistent stories. Learning processes are accelerated and managers are able to train reactions to various “futures”. The higher flexibility and reaction capability achieved via scenarios create competitive advantages. He who wants to be a leader in a market has to simply make decisions quicker, while considering more imponderables than a few years ago. Structured methods in futures research facilitate in making robust and far-sighted decisions, identifying opportunities and risks, and developing contingency strategies. The objective is not to foresee the future, rather to intelligently think ahead. - How can political-legal, economic, socio-cultural, and technical conditions in a market change? - How could the direct market environment and competitors diversify? - Where are opportunities in the future and what potential surprises are already conceivable today? - How can companies best prepare themselves for unexpected occurrences and developments?

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Apr. 10, 2002 The kinetic energy created by asteroid and comet impacts with the Earth may be key to linking some impacts with mass extinction events. Michael Lucas, a geology student at Florida Gulf Coast University, believes that the severity of four extinction events during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic can be correlated with the total kinetic energy released by impacts that occur during the geologic age of the mass extinction. Lucas will present his findings April 4 at the Geological Society of America’s North-Central Section and Southeastern Section Joint Meeting in Lexington, Kentucky. Lucas analyzed the kinetic energy released by 31 of the largest impact structures from the last 248 million years and correlated them with the Norian, Tithonian, Late Eocene, and K-T extinction events. The impact energy released during the geologic ages of each extinction event is at least 10 million megatons of TNT equivalent yield per geologic age. Lucas believes that this could represent a minimum impact energy required to cause a global-scale mass extinction. His research results also reveal that synchronous multiple impact events could also have caused extinctions. “Approximately ten percent of the impact structures on Earth are doublets or twin structures, suggesting a nearly simultaneous impact of binary asteroids or fragmented comets,” he said. An example of a twin impact structure would be the Kara / Ust-Kara twin impact structure in Russia which is about 73 million years old. Other social bookmarking and sharing tools: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Geological Society Of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above. Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

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Kids Drinking Raw Milk Have 40% Less Asthma and Allergies: New Large Study Reuters, Fox and other media outlets reported September 13 about a large European raw milk study published at the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, online August 29, 2011, showing kids who drink raw milk are 41% less likely to suffer from asthma and allergies. The study included 8334 school-aged children, and 7606 of them provided serum samples to assess specific immunoglobulin E (IgE) levels. Over 800 cow’s milk samples were collected at the participants’ homes. Reuter’s article stated: Compared with kids who only drank store-bought milk, those who drank raw milk had a 41-percent reduction in their odds of developing asthma. They were also only about half as likely to develop hay fever — even after accounting for other factors that might be relevant. On the other hand, those who drank boiled farm milk had no less asthma than those who drank store milk. The protective effect was linked to so-called whey proteins in the milk, such as BSA and alpha-lactalbumin. Pasteurization remains an effective tool to inactivate harmful microorganisms but may simultaneously destroy whey proteins. The results of this study brings up two other very serious questions rarely posed: 1) What other diseases and disorders are caused by regular pasteurized, homogenized milk with synthetic chemical additives? and 2) What other health benefits can be realized from including raw milk as part of a well-rounded diet of whole, fresh foods? 1) What other diseases and disorders are caused by regular pasteurized, homogenized milk with synthetic chemical additives? First, twenty percent of Americans get sick immediately upon drinking regular milk and this has been growing every year. An informal survey by The Weston A. Price Foundation found that ninety percent of those lacto-intolerant can drink raw milk. What is it doing to the health of the other 80 percent? This study names just asthma and allergies. But there are a host of other auto-immune disorders caused or made worse by drinking regular milk. These symptoms are either corrected or lessened when regular milk is stopped or when substituting regular milk with raw milk. . It is only logical to assume many people do not know the symptoms they suffer are regular-milk-induced. Face it, regular milk today is not what grandma drank. Our article Skim Milk may be making you fat and sick is already the No. 1 post of the year. It tells how skim milk can help make you fat and raise bad cholesterol In a December 2009 survey by the Journal, 877 raw milk drinkers had this to say: Health Benefits (of 877 raw milk drinkers) 74% have much health benefit What all responders said about pasteurized milk: 62% believe it has long-term health consequences 15% say it makes them very sick 40% say it tastes terrible 30% say it upsets their stomach 16% say it gives them diarrhea 2) What other health benefits can be realized from including raw milk as part of a well-rounded diet of whole, fresh foods? From my experience, I will state that children and adults who drink raw milk are significantly healthier and have fewer diseases and disorders than those who drink regular pasteurized, homogenized milk. One reason may be those essential natural animal fats and healthy cholesterols. A whole set of studies substantiate the health benefits and safety of properly produced raw milk. Humorously, the subject study goes as far as not to recommend raw milk because of its “dangers”. Be assured the FDA and USDA will continue to bust Amish farmers and other dairies producing raw milk intended and fit for human consumption, even though no deaths have been recorded from raw milk consumption in the last ten years. In fact, of 42 raw milk illnesses per year on average reported, using government figures, you are about 35,000 times more likely to become ill from other foods than you are from raw milk, especially if you are careful to select a clean, safe raw dairy. Yet the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have targeted a ban on access to raw milk, included in the top 10 health crises to be addressed in their Healthy People 2020 campaign Do not expect the milk industry or their marketing partners at USDA, FDA or CDC to fund a study in overall health outcomes of raw versus regular milk drinkers. The milk industry is already losing market share as the underground secret message of natural milk is overcoming television milk mustaches on celebrities. But if a study were ever conducted, the healthier outcomes would not be from raw milk or healthier diets alone. Of the hundreds of raw milk drinkers I know also have children who are not overly vaccinated nor do they drink fluoridated water. IMPORTANT: Halloween Fluoride-free Drinking Water Campaign The Journal of Natural Food and Health is sponsoring a fluoride-free campaign to increase awareness and education on life-long health effects from fluoride exposures. We have produced FREE and very powerful fluoride-free handouts that are 4×5” and prints four to a page. The claims are backed up by a link to 500 references to studies and papers. The handouts can be given out during Halloween to trick-or-treaters or given at the door by the trick-or-treaters—or used at any time. Anyone getting a fluoride-free handout can print more with the link given to the campaign home page, http://bit.ly/F-ions

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Gr 10 Up-This collection of speeches, or in some cases, excerpts of speeches, spans from Winston Churchill's 1946 address in which he introduced the term "iron curtain" through the comments of Wolfgang Thierse in 2002 when he presented three pieces of the Berlin Wall to the Secretary General of the United Nations. Most are by political leaders presenting to the U.S. Senate or the United Nations. Each selection is preceded by a biographical sketch and an introduction to the political circumstances being addressed. In the case of Che Guevara, the writer of the introduction falls into the trap of using the revolutionary leader's own language in referring to an "attack by U.S. imperialists." In a few cases, it would have been helpful to point out inflammatory language or misleading assertions in the speeches. An ample, well-written introduction covers the history of conflicts during the Cold War, yet it does make note of the cooperation of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in space. Unfortunately, it errs in stating that the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1989 and in paraphrasing Nikita Khrushchev. The appendix includes biographies that slightly expand on the introductions to each selection and a chronology of events from 1943 through 1991. This useful volume provides easy access to speeches by Harry S. Truman, Joseph McCarthy, Margaret Chase Smith, Mao Tse-tung, Nikita Khrushchev, Albert Einstein, Mikhail Gorbachev, and others.-Elizabeth Talbot, University of Illinois, Champaign Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

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Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Purcell, John Baptist |←Punchard, George||Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography Purcell, John Baptist |Edition of 1900. See also John Baptist Purcell on Wikipedia, and our Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography disclaimer.| PURCELL, John Baptist, R. C. archbishop, b. in Mallow, County Cork, Ireland, 26 Feb., 1800; d. in Brown county, Ohio, 4 July, 1883. He emigrated to the United States in 1818, and entered Ashbury college, Baltimore, where he taught. In 1820 he was admitted to Mount St. Mary's, Emmettsburg, and, after receiving minor orders, finished his theological course in the Sulpitian college, Paris. He was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Notre Dame in 1826, and in 1827 was appointed professor of philosophy in St. Mary's college, becoming president in 1828. The progress that this institution made during his presidency attracted the notice of the American hierarchy, and he was nominated bishop of Cincinnati. He was consecrated on 13 Oct., 1833. At the time of his appointment there was only one small frame Roman Catholic church in the city, and not more than 16 in the diocese, while the church property was valued at about $12,000. He founded academies and schools, organized German congregations, and built a convent for the Ursulines. The number of Roman Catholics had increased from 6,000 to 70,000 in 1846, with 70 churches and 73 priests. In 1847 the diocese of Cleveland was formed out of that of Cincinnati, and placed under the jurisdiction of another prelate at his request. He was made an archbishop in 1850, with four suffragan bishops attached to his see, and being in Rome in 1851, he received the pallium from the pope's own hands. He at once set about founding what was to be one of the chief theological seminaries of the country, Mount St. Mary's of the West. He presided over his first provincial council in 1855, and held a second in 1858. It was impossible to meet the wants of the new congregations with the resources at hand, and this led to the financial embarrassments that shadowed the closing years of the archbishop's life. In 1868 the creation of new sees had limited his diocese to that part of Ohio south of latitude 40° 41', but this still contained nearly 140,000 Roman Catholics. In 1869 he attended the Vatican council, was active in its deliberations, and, although he opposed the declaration of the infallibility of the pope, he at once subscribed to the doctrine on its definition. His golden jubilee was celebrated in 1876 with great splendor. A crisis in his financial affairs came in 1879. Several years before this he had permitted his brother, Edward Purcell, who was vicar-general of the diocese, to receive deposits of money. Neither of them knew anything of the principles on which business should be conducted. When the crash came, Edward Purcell died of a broken heart. It was discovered that the indebtedness reached nearly $4,000,000. The folly of the financial operations that led to it was widely commented on, but no one thought of charging the archbishop with dishonesty or evil intent. The salary of a bishop known as the “cathedraticum” amounts to $4,000 or $5,000 a year, but he was twenty-five years a bishop before he could be prevailed on to accept any part of the sum. He was given $800 one morning, and by evening he had parted with the whole. His priests gave him $3,400 at his golden jubilee; the next day he divided it among charitable institutions. He offered his resignation in 1880, but it was felt that its acceptance would imply some reproach. He was given a co-adjutor instead, and retired to a house in Brown county. At his death the number of Roman Catholics in the diocese that he originally held was more than half a million, the priests numbered 480, and the churches 500. Archbishop Purcell in 1837 held a seven days' discussion with Alexander Campbell, and in 1870 publicly defended Christianity against an infidel orator. Both discussions were printed and widely circulated; the latter as “The Roman Clergy and Free Thought” (1870). His other publications were “Lectures and Pastoral Letters,” “Diocesan Statutes, Acts, and Decrees of Three Provincial Councils held in Cincinnati,” and a series of school-books for use in Roman Catholic schools in his diocese.

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December 24, 2012 Orthopedic Leg Braces Give Kids a Second Chance to an Active Life The world loves seeing children while they go about their senseless making of noise, having fun, running about, and falling from time to time. Their laughter is music to our ears. A home without a kid is silent. So, it is really heartbreaking when children could not do all these because of congenital or accidental injuries. When they are bound on a wheelchair and missing all these fun, our heart goes out to them. Keg braces are devices that do not really hold up a child. Rather, it helps to keep joints straight and immobile. This actually makes the bone support the weight of the upper body. The device also ensures that the legs stay in correct positions to prevent the growth of unwanted tissues that can lead to deformities and further discomfort. Braces that Make a Difference Having bone deformities still a child. Thus, it is important that kids get prompt and proper treatment. Certain injuries can be temporary. There are injuries that require surgeries to correct, deformities (osteotomy), to rebuild joints (arthoplasty), to make a revision joint surgery, to replace kneecaps or joints, or bone fusion (arthrodesis). Orthopedic leg braces are common devices that are used to promote effective healing. These are important for post-surgical healing and for therapeutic purposes. There are congenital deformities and deformities caused by injuries that cannot be corrected anymore. These kids are fitted with leg braces that will help them walk to enjoy an “almost normal” life. Not all braces are made equal. These can be made from several kinds of materials like metals, carbon fibre, elastics, fabric, plastic, or a combination of these materials. These can be bought as a generic fit in multiple sizes and designs. However, those who can afford and especially those who will be in orthoses for a long time must be customized leg braces that can offer greater comfort because of the better fit. For kids in certain poor nations, however, they just have to contend with whatever is available. Plastic is good because it is lightweight. The disadvantage is being more breakable that can leave plastic splinters on one’s leg. In addition, kids grow faster, so they easily outgrow their orthopedic leg braces. In underdeveloped nations, this is taking away food from the table. The Four Leg Brace Types 1) A short, below-the-knee brace best serves a person with a very fragile weak ankle, which has the tendency to “roll” outward or inward. This is also useful when the purpose is preventing a lift on the front of the foot when walking. 2) A full-leg brace can help a person with a weak knee that bends forward or backward when weight is applied. This also helps if the leg cannot support any weight at all. With a brace the leg can be kept straight when walking or doing some other leg movements. It prevents the user from using a cane for support or from seeking support or holding the injured leg in every step. 3) An extended or lengthened brace that connects to a belt above the hip is particularly useful for a person whose legs turn in or out due to weak hip muscles. The presence of a belt forces the legs and the braces to be in proper alignment. 4) A leg brace extended to chest level and connected to a metal-reinforced leather corset can help a person with weak lower back muscles that cannot support or keep the body upright. At the hip, there is a hinge that functions in supporting the torso to remain straight when walking, but which is released when one has to sit down. These orthopedic leg braces cannot replace the perfect legs that kids need to be able to pursue their childish things actively. Yet, these substitutes or replacements are good enough than be locked in wheelchairs or beds for life.

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The commonly heard comment that American schools are not preparing students for life after graduation is unsettling. One increasingly popular strategy designed to improve high school achievement is the concept of alternative or "block" scheduling, which does away with the traditional six or seven-period school day. One form, referred to as the 4-block, breaks the school day into four 90 minute periods. Year long classes become a semester, and semester classes become one quarter classes. As a member of the Rhinelander School Board in Wisconsin, I was the only dissenting vote in our district's 8-1 approval of a modified version of the Copernican Plan of block scheduling. I reviewed substantial research on the subject which was gathered by district parents and remain unconvinced of the benefits of this method of restructuring the school day. Proponents of this concept use a strong sales pitch. They argue that having fewer subjects at one time is easier for students to deal with and allows more time for teacher and student interaction. They also claim teachers will spend less time on management functions like attendance, and there will be more opportunities for electives and less stress in general. A good deal of material is available on block scheduling. However, there are few statistics that substantiate the claim that the changes have had positive academic results. Advocates of block scheduling look to the Copernican Plan Evaluated: Restructuring the American High School as the primary model from which most block schedules are derived. Joseph Carrol, a former superintendent and now senior associate of Copernican Associates, Ltd., test piloted a form of block scheduling first in the District of Columbia in the 1960's during a remedial summer school program, and later in the 1980's at a school in Massachusetts. An evaluation team from Harvard University concluded that favorable outcomes can be expected by implementing this style of schedule. Why then, did the Massachusetts school revert back to the seven-period day after only two years on the Copernican Plan? Additional data on schools which have experienced block scheduling is vague and generally not supportive of its effects. Wadena Deer Creek School in Minnesota has used the 4-block schedule for over 20 years but has no data on its affect on student performance. The Wasson, Colorado School District shows honor rolls going up but standardized test scores declining during the period of block scheduling. Their performance in classes which are rated as "advanced placement" did generally improve, but these classes were given 50% more scheduling time than other classes. In 1992, Parkland High School in North Carolina went from a six-period day to a 4-block. Overall, SAT scores dropped the first year and did not improve (as of 1995) to the level they were at before the change took place. Allegany High School in Cumberland, Maryland tried the 4-block schedule from 1993 to 1995, yet chose to return to their seven-period day. Staff evaluations voiced concern over burn out, less time for labs, and less overall time to cover curriculum. Eleanor Roosevelt High School, Maryland, a generally high achieving school in math, science and music, carefully studied the proposal before deciding to develop their own hybrid plan. As they proceed, they are discovering that the scheduling process itself is ongoing, requiring a full time staff person to administer. To those involved in the arts, one area of concern is the negative effect block scheduling has on music students who would benefit from year round, continuous instruction. This has prompted the Music Educators National Conference in Virginia to circulate educational packets on this topic nationwide. They have found this form of scheduling to be devastating to music programs and can actually cause student participation in music programs to decrease. They have recently published a book on the topic of the effects of block scheduling on music programs. In addition to the case studies previously mentioned, two extensive scientific studies are available that compare academic performance on the block versus traditional scheduling. Contrary to proponents' rhetoric, David Bateson's study, which studies all British Columbia 10th grade science students, showed that full year students outperform semester students. Further research by Bateson seemed to indicate that the shorter the class duration, the worse the student performance, with quarter year students performing the lowest. Another large Canadian study of math and social studies students, which includes 20 years worth of data, shows basically the same results. As proponents of block scheduling continue to sponsor seminars and workshops throughout our state, it is important for school officials to obtain independent information on the success of these types of programs and not just listen to the self-proclaimed experts. Parents and community members must have input and become part of the decision making process. Rhinelander, unfortunately, chose to disregard the parents' findings, despite their substantial concern and involvement, and a Rhinelander high school staff vote showing marginal (less than 50%) support. Return to Topics Overview

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Literature: "Hitler's Daughter" by Jackie French These sites are about the Australian author Jackie French and her book “Hitler’s Daughter.” There are author biography, classroom activity ideas, and discussion guides. Included are eThemes resources on World War II, the Holocaust, and Australian Aborigines. Students can read two different book talks on "Hitler's Daughter." This is the main page for Jackie French's web site. Click on "Info for projects & Jackie faq" to read about the inspiration behind Jackie French's book. NOTE: The site has a link to a guestbook. This page from Jackie French's web site provides information on the Hitler's Daughter as well as the writing and inspiration behind Hitler's Daughter. HarperCollins Publishers Australia This site has a short book description for students. Hitler's Daughter: Story, Self, and Structure This eight-page pdf file has information for the teacher and student activities. Students can read this book review on "Hitler's Daughter." Students can send their own comments by using the link "What do you think about `Hitler's Daughter'?" NOTE: This site contains ads. Scholastic: Discussion Guide for Hitler's Daughter This page has a book summary, a brief author biography, and discussion questions for the book "Hitler's Daughter." NOTE: This site contains ads. eThemes Resource: Holocaust These sites are about the Holocaust and the devastating impact that it had on Jewish people and others. Also includes information about Adolf Hitler, concentration camps, crematoriums, and resistance fighters. There are videos of survivors talking about their experiences, plus many photographs. eThemes Resource: Australian Aborigines These sites are about the art and culture of the Australian Aborigines. There are animations, lesson plans, and pictures, as well as information about bark painting, Dreamtime stories, and the didjeridu instrument. Some sites have audio files so students can listen to the didjeridu. There are also two maps of the Aborigine land. eThemes Resource: World War II for Elementary Students These websites are about World War II. Learn why the war started and what life was like for children during the war. Includes games, quizzes, videos, and audio interviews with World War II veterans. Request State Standards

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Class 1W is a fun ‘Foundation Phase’ class, full of opportunities to learn and develop. Mrs Watkins and Mrs Exton run the class with help from Mrs Millership and Miss Griffin. We start our day playing with our friends in the playground until the bell goes and we line up. We hang our coats up on our peg in the cloakroom and then sit on our spots on the carpet ready for Mrs Watkins to take the attendance and lunch register. The Helpwr Heddiw (Helper of the day) takes the registers to the office. Then we begin our learning journey with Mrs Watkins! After working with Mrs Watkins, WILF (the African Grey Parrot) tells us What he Is Looking For and we go to where WILF sends us to learn. We have assembly at 10 o’clock and afterwards we go out to play. During break time we eat our fruit, visit the bathroom and use the water fountain. It is lots of fun in our class. We can go to the reading area to find out using lots of different types of books; some we’ve even made ourselves! Or we can go to the investigation table to look at objects related to our topic – we like to bring things from home to put on this table! There’s the language area where we can play lots of games to improve our phonics and grammar, or the writing station where we practise all different kinds of writing, including practising our handwriting. There’s a small world area with street maps and ‘beebots’ and a creative area where we make lots of wonderful things. The maths area improves our number, shape and data handling and in the construction area we design and make hundreds of things such as buildings, vehicles, dragons etc etc etc! Our teacher also lets us choose apparatus so we can practise throwing, jumping, catching, etc outside the classroom. We bring our PE kit to school on Wednesday and Thursday. We wear a t-shirt and shorts, with daps for our feet. If we go outside we have trainers in our bag and sometimes tracksuits if the weather is very cold. Nobody wears jewellery and if we have long hair we tie it up. If Mrs Watkins wants us to listen she claps 3 times and we stop, put things down, look and listen. When we do good sitting, listening, thinking and working she gives us stickers and ‘chances’. We put our chance in the special box and we choose a winner every Friday. They get to do a silly dance and win a prize! If we forget how to behave in class we are warned that we might move onto a yellow traffic light and if we continue with poor behaviour we may even move onto a red light and sit on the thinking chair. We have personal targets that we try to hit to improve our work and Mrs Watkins marks our work with a star and a wish to help us see what we have done well and what we can work on in the future. We like to go outside lots to discover different ways of finding out so we always remember to bring our coats and wear sensible shoes. We keep wellies in the cloakroom in case it’s wet outside. Our teachers enjoy working with us and we enjoy working together!

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The past few weeks brought us a wealth of research confirming that berries confer bountiful preventive health benefits, thanks in large part to their vibrant colors. Blueberries are blue, raspberries are red, and eggplant is purple, all thanks to polyphenol pigments called anthocyanins: a family of potent antioxidants also found in red cabbage, eggplants, prunes, plums, grapes, cocoa, and other blue-red-purple fruits and vegetables. You wouldn’t think that colors could be so important, but anthocyanins are responsible for much of the potent preventive health power of these plant foods. Wild Blueberries May Counter Cancer Cells Anthocyanin pigments shone in a new study from the University of Illinois that tested the effects of blueberries on prostate and liver cancer cells. The results showed that various compounds in wild blueberries—including anthocyanins—possess the power to help prevent cancer in all three phases: initiation, promotion and proliferation. Cancer is often initiated when a carcinogen causes cellular DNA damage, which will either get repaired or mutate permanently. The promotion phase also involves cellular damage by carcinogens, causing cells to suffer further, sometimes irreversible, damage. The new study shows that sterol compounds in blueberries inhibit cancer in the first, or initiation stage, while their anthocyanin pigments can halt cancer in the critical promotion and proliferation stages. As lead researcher Mary Ann Lila, Ph.D. said, "The results were very positive, adding evidence to a growing body of work coming out of our lab investigating Wild Blueberry fractions and their cancer-fighting properties at all stages: initiation, promotion and proliferation. Wild Blueberry compounds offer a multi-pronged attack against cancer." Dr. Lila went on to say, “The natural plant compounds in Wild Blueberries may be powerful allies in the fight against oxidative stress and inflammation which can lead to cancer, heart disease as well as several other chronic health problems. While we still need in vivo work to test how much of these compounds get into the body and how they work, we do know that the potential benefit could be great." Cancer prevention: food versus pills Many companies now offer extracts of various berries and other fruits, but it is worth noting that they do not, in general, contain all or most of the compounds that show anti-cancer effects——many of which appear synergistic—in the test tube. Since all of the evidence that fruits prevent cancer comes from population studies that correlate higher fruit consumption with lower rates of cancer, it only makes sense to focus on fruit, not supplements, which are a far more expensive and probably less effective anti-cancer ally. As researchers at Cornell University concluded in a recent review of the scientific literature, “Work performed by our group and others has shown that fruits and vegetable phytochemical extracts exhibit strong antioxidant and antiproliferative activities and that the major part of total antioxidant activity is from the combination of phytochemicals. The evidence suggests that antioxidants or bioactive compounds are best acquired through whole-food consumption, not from expensive dietary supplements.” The message seems clear: it takes the full complement of compounds in whole fruits and vegetables to exert maximum preventive health effects. So, enjoy colorful berries at will, but take a pass on expensive berry pills. Blueberries for urinary tract health Blueberries also made recent news for their ability to help prevent urinary tract infections; an attribute they share with cranberries. Both fruits work by helping prevent bacteria, primarily E. coli, from adhering to urinary tract tissues: the so-called anti-adhesion effect. A study out of Rutgers University’s Blueberry-Cranberry Research Center shows that the same colorful flavon-3-ol antioxidant pigments that give blueberries part of their anti-cancer effects also prevent UTI-causing bacteria from sticking to bladder cells. As the lead researcher said, "In terms of antiadhesion, we found the blueberry proanthocyanidins to be very effective. A half-cup of blueberries every day may be a preventative measure to consider for preventing UTIs … " · Kraft TFB, Schmidt BM, Yousef GG, Knight CTG, Cuendet M, Kang Y-H, Pezzuto JM, Seigler DS, and Lila MA. 2005. Chemopreventive Potential of Wild Lowbush Blueberry Fruits in Multiple Stages of Carcinogenesis. J Food Sci 70(3):S159-66. · Lila MA. Anthocyanins and Human Health: An In Vitro Investigative Approach. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2004;2004(5):306-313. · Manach C, Williamson G, Morand C, Scalbert A, Remesy C. Bioavailability and bioefficacy of polyphenols in humans. I. Review of 97 bioavailability studies. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jan;81(1 Suppl):230S-242S. Review. · Hou DX, Fujii M, Terahara N, Yoshimoto M. Molecular Mechanisms Behind the Chemopreventive Effects of Anthocyanidins. J Biomed Biotechnol. 2004;2004(5):321-325. · Liu RH. Potential synergy of phytochemicals in cancer prevention: mechanism of action. J Nutr. 2004 Dec;134(12 Suppl):3479S-3485S. Review. · Schmidt BM, Howell AB, McEniry B, Knight CT, Seigler D, Erdman JW Jr, Lila MA. Effective separation of potent antiproliferation and antiadhesion components from wild blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium Ait.) fruits. J Agric Food Chem. 2004 Oct 20;52(21):6433-42.

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MEDFORD — Bryan Hamlin did not expect to find much of interest when he and his wife, Anne, embarked one Sunday in April 2003 on a walk through the Middlesex Fells Reservation, the large nature preserve near their new house. “This place isn’t so bad,” he recalls thinking. So when he came across a Boston University study reporting 155 plant species had disappeared from a section of the Fells over the last century, he vowed to give the matter a second look, a “proper follow-up.” Now, after a nine-year quest, Hamlin and collaborators have documented finding 105 of the purportedly lost species. And he says he’s learned that citizen scientists can make important contributions to science, though he fears they’re often not heard. The authors of the original 1996 paper, Richard Primack of Boston University and his graduate student at the time, Brian Drayton, say Hamlin’s work doesn’t undermine their basic conclusion — that the number of native species is declining as nonnative plants increase — but credit the citizen-organized effort with providing a more complete data set. Hamlin’s team surveyed the entire reservation and spent far longer looking — 2,000 hours, versus less than 400 by the BU team — which accounts for part of the difference in their findings. Even in winter, he will halt over a pile of dried leaves, his blue eyes widening behind round wire-rimmed glasses, as he recalls the drama of spotting something quite wonderful there in another season: a very rare buttercup. Back when he began his study of the Fells, Hamlin was winding down his peace work for a non-governmental organization, which involved traveling to conflict-prone areas of the world to help facilitate dialogue between opposing groups. Even during those trips, greenery was never far out of Hamlin’s mind. In Israel, he once pulled over to jump a fence and take a photo of a giant hollyhock while his traveling companion, an imam, looked on in confusion. A microbiologist by training, Hamlin kept a spreadsheet and recorded where he found plants in the Fells and whether they were blooming. He brought his tripod and camera into the woods at times and used the cluttered solarium of his Medford house to do plant pressings, stacking encyclopedias atop samples to dry them out. Amassing the list became like a personal challenge and the botany of the Fells his avocation — one that would outlast two other stints, first selling insurance door-to-door, and then substitute teaching. Early on, at the urging of Betty Wright, one of his collaborators, he approached Primack at a meeting of the New England Botanical Club to present a list of the team’s initial discoveries. Primack, he recalled, was not dismissive but said he was then focused on conducting a far more detailed survey of the flora of Concord. Hamlin recruited other team members, to make up for his own shortcomings. Walter Kittredge, a skilled botanist who works at the Harvard University Herbaria, joined the effort. So did Donald Lubin, knowledgeable about ferns. The team ultimately prepared a painstakingly-researched, 79-page scientific paper that was published last year in the journal Rhodora. Parts of it agreed with the general findings of the BU report — for example, the number of nonnative species had tripled in the Fells, and the majority of native plants that were rare in 1895 were either not found or stayed rare. But there was one major difference: Hamlin and his researchers rediscovered two-thirds of the “lost” species. “We’ve always been quite cordial about this, because that’s the way science happens,” said Drayton, who now works at TERC, a Cambridge nonprofit organization involved in science education. “Our conclusion that there was substantial species loss, though not as substantial as I thought. . . I think that stands.” Science is a conversation, with competing results building off one another, and Primack said he and Drayton plan to write a letter to Rhodora presenting their response. But Hamlin has become philosophical about the relationship between amateur and professional scientists. He learned of a separate community of naturalists in Concord who, despite also having respect for Primack’s work and his conclusions, raised similar concerns about the completeness of his plant inventories. “We and others believe, for example, that a list of ‘lost’ or ‘extinct’ species compiled by Dr. Primack and his co-workers represents more a list of what they happened not to be able to find rather than a list of what is truly gone,” Ray Angelo, a skilled amateur botanist and close observer of Concord’s flora, wrote in an e-mail. “This is not to say there has not been change in Concord’s flora for a variety of reasons.” In a way, the debate over whether a particular species still grows shines a light on how science works. Primack recognizes the importance amateurs have played in his own work, helping guide him to the right spots and productively critiquing his observations with their local knowledge. But he added that professional scientists, looking for the effects of long-term changes, sometimes have different goals than amateurs. Primack said he and his colleagues have waded waist-deep into numerous bogs in Concord, searching for the once-abundant pitcher plant. A naturalist and longtime resident, Cherrie Corey, informed him the plant was still in Concord, in a bog called Gowing’s Swamp. Primack said she’s probably right. But he added that the large swamp has an unstable surface, making it difficult to access. “She will say I’m wrong because there are pitcher plants in Concord, but a species which used to be extremely common is now extremely rare,” Primack said. “It’s a difference in perspective.” Hamlin notes that even single, rare stands of plants can be ecologically meaningful: a lone rare plant could mean the plant is vulnerable and on its way out. But a rare plant could be gaining a foothold — which could also be an indicator of environmental changes. Hamlin has seen both in his data.

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Invasive predators more harmful to biodiversity than native predators March 20, 2007 Analyzing prey response across dozens of field experiments in New Zealand, Australia, and island ecosystems, an international team of researchers led by Pälvi Salo of the University of Turku in Finland found that alien predators have twice the impact as native predators on prey populations. Surprisingly, the research also showed that alien predators in mainland areas had a greater impact than in island environments, though the researchers say this finding may be biased by a large amount of data from Australia. The authors cite a number of possible factors for the difference in effectiveness between indigenous and alien predators. A lemur's potential response to predators. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. While not a subject in the Salo study, lemurs have been significantly impacted by the invasion of alien predators: most notably humans, but also Indian civet, mongoose, cats, and dogs. Dozens of species of lemurs have gone extinct since mankind first set foot on the island. The authors look specifically at Australia, where many of their experimental studies were based. "Recent research shows that Australia has also possessed a rich assemblage of marsupial carnivores from Miocene to recent times... and that the native fauna may not be as predator naive as previously thought," they write. "However, Australia never had placental carnivores until they were introduced by humans, and it may be that these novel predators use tracking and hunting tactics that differ from those of their marsupial counterparts, to which native prey have little or no defence." The researchers say that while "alien predators have long been presumed to have greater impacts in island ecosystems when compared with the mainland ecosystems... [they] found no support for such phenomena." "In these analyses, Australia was considered mainland; but despite its large size, Australia's island-like characteristics, such as geographical isolation and diversity of endemic species, may also have contributed to the profound impacts of alien predators there," they explain. Wallaby in Australia. Photo by Nancy Butler. Overall the results bolster the contention that invasive species can have a detrimental impact on biodiversity. Biologists elsewhere argue that alien invasives are among the greatest threats to global biodiversity. CITATION: Pälvi Salo, Erkki Korpimäki, Peter B. Banks, Mikael Nordström, and Chris R. Dickman (2007). Alien predators are more dangerous than native predators to prey populations. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. March 20, 2007. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2006.0444 Biodiversity extinction crisis looms says renowned biologist. Few people know more about extinction than Dr. Peter Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden. He is the author of hundreds of scientific papers and books, and has an encyclopedic list of achievements and accolades from a lifetime of biological research. These make him one of the world's preeminent biodiversity experts. He is also extremely worried about the present biodiversity crisis, one that has been termed the sixth great extinction, following the earlier events caused variously by catastrophic climate change, extraterrestrial collisions, atmospheric poisoning, and hyperactive volcanism. Unlike these older episodes, the current extinction event is one of our own making, fueled mainly by habitat destruction and exploitation of certain species. Further, as Raven points out, because the planet has more species now than at any time in the past, a mass extinction today could well involve more species than ever before. Feral beasts threaten lemurs in Madagascar. The lemurs of Madagascar are among the world's most threatened primates. Extensive habitat destruction, hunting, and the introduction of alien species have doomed dozens of species to extinction since humans first arrived on the island within the past 2000 years. Most of the casualties were Madagascar's largest lemurs -- today the biggest lemur is but a fraction of the gorilla-sized giants that once ruled the island.

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You can limit your risk of being injured by jellyfish, a Portuguese man-of-war, or coral. - Be familiar with the marine risks in the area where you plan to swim, snorkel, or dive. If you are traveling, obtain information about the local conditions. - Be prepared with first aid supplies that might be needed for a injury. - Watch for warning signs that are posted when there is a jellyfish or Portuguese man-of-war - Do not touch jellyfish, Portuguese man-of-wars, or - Watch out for jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-wars in the water, particularly when there are strong onshore winds. - Stay out of the water when jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-wars are present. Look out for the bluish floats of the Portuguese man-of-war, and avoid the poisonous - Watch for beached jellyfish and Portuguese man-of-wars. Their tentacles may still sting. - Do not rely on clothing or on coating the skin with petroleum jelly (such as Vaseline) to prevent stings. Wear a wet suit to reduce your risk of getting stung. A wet suit is a close-fitting, one- or two-piece suit, usually made of rubber or foam neoprene. Swimmers, snorkelers, divers, kayakers, and other people who spend time in cold water may wear wet suits for warmth and - Wear protective shoes when walking on the beach. Avoid stepping on marine life. - Avoid swimming or snorkeling in swallow water, where touching or bumping into coral might occur. - Wash your swimsuit with detergent and heat-dry after use. This will kill the stinging larvae that cause - Talk to your doctor about carrying an allergy kit if you have had any sort of allergic reaction or severe reaction to a marine sting in the - Consider using a topical jellyfish sting inhibitor lotion, such as Safe Sea.

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In California’s 2000 election, when the school voucher proposition failed miserably at the polls, voucher supporters lost a major battle. Their campaign sought reform on the demand side of the schooling market. Today private schools in California are often quite expensive. If given the purchasing power of $4,000 in the form of a voucher (or tax credit), most parents could send their kid to a private school, if prices remained constant and the preferred seat in the existing set of private schools were available. Yet, parents who want higher-quality education for their children are routinely being turned away or put on waiting lists as private schools fill to capacity and high demand and low supply force prices upward. The battle for better schooling needs to fight a supply-side campaign as well and create more high-quality school capacity. Many stringent regulations prevent entry and impose large costs on those attempting to open new schools. These obstacles “shift back” the supply curve, keeping potential entrepreneurs out of the market, reducing the amount of new school capacity, and raising its price. Ultimately, for schools to be competitive and performance–based, and for parents and students to have real choices in their education, the supply of private schooling must be dynamic and competitive as well. The battle for better schooling must be fought on both fronts. That means that the challengers of the status quo shift some of their resources to combating the regulatory obstacles to private schooling. This paper mostly discusses private schools, but it is important to note that all the regulations imposed on private schools are also imposed on charter schools. Charter schools create choice for parents and students within the public school system. The charter school movement has its roots in a number of other reform ideas, from alternative schools, to site-based management, magnet schools, public school choice, privatization, and community-parental empowerment. When reading this paper it is essential to realize that charter schools depend on nontraditional buildings and new facilities in order to proliferate within the public school system. Opening a private school is onerous at best. In addition to meeting education department requirements, one must satisfy four main types of regulation, each of which imposes many hurdles to the private sector and limits the creation of new school capacity: - The State Environmental Quality Act, which imposes several obstacles to acquiring a piece of land or modifying a structure on that land; - City zoning requirements, which impose restrictions on the location of the private school; - City parking requirements; and - State and Local Building Codes, which deal with the school building itself. The causes behind the excessive restrictions discussed in this paper are many. The education bureaucracy can often get bogged down in issues of control. Administrators might really think that they are enhancing children’s educational experience and that they are making schools safer and more conducive to learning. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In reality, they are doing the exact opposite. Adam Smith described the liberal principle best when he wrote: [E]very individual, it is evident, can, in his local situation, judge much better than any statesman or lawgiver can do for him. The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it. Parents have strong reason to decide for themselves whether a school is appropriate for their child. More than anyone else, parents have both the motivation and the local knowledge to make choices for their children about the school’s bundle of characteristics. Parents and the proprietors themselves will naturally seek assurances against conflagration and building collapse, and nongovernmental forces can attend to this demand in a responsive, intelligent way. Very often, solutions among local parties are self-creating and selfenforcing. They don’t need or want legal authorities to resolve their problems. Government restrictions make it very hard and very expensive for people to open a private school. These costs are largely passed on to the customer. The high price of private schooling in California today can be traced to a lack of competition, which itself can be traced to government restrictions. Basic economic theory says that, with less supply, the price will go up. The opponents of government schooling are right to focus on making private schooling viable, but almost all the attention has been on demand-side reforms like vouchers and tax credits. Even if demand-side reforms were to succeed, the situation on the supply side would prevent those reforms from succeeding. Ultimately, for schools to be competitive and performance-based and for parents and students to have real choices in their education, the supply of private schooling must be dynamic and competitive as well. Fostering a competitive market for education where a private school market can flourish and expand the options for many children who desperately need them requires legislators to act. At the local level, zoning, parking and building codes and environmental reviews must be reassessed for merit and streamlined. performance planning approach focusing on end results rather than prescriptive policies would ensure that the goals for which the regulations were created get addressed without bogging the system down with arcane requirements. It determines appropriate uses, parking needs and environmental impact flexibly, built on the fact that the impact of any given use of land upon another has more to do with the intensity of the use than the type of use. It holds landowners accountable for any negative effects of their actions but lets them use their land as they see fit. This resilient system designs rules and procedures that allow maximum flexibility but cope well with real problems as they arise. It replaces our current system based on anticipation—assuming we know all the potential problems and solutions for present and future land uses and prescribing what we will and will not allow. An approach designed to deal with real and measurable impact would require fewer regulations and less paperwork with a faster and simpler approval process. Some restrictions would still exist, but far fewer than under current approaches and allowing a broader range and mix of uses. Such streamlining would allow parents greater choice in schools and students a greater chance to succeed.

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Philosophy & Religion of 18th c. philosophy and Great Awakening Christianity both shaped 18th century America and the American Revolution, and both frame our thinking today. The Enlightenment (so named by its own practitioners, who didn’t lack self-esteem) is best thought of as a continuation of the Renaissance, with a strong emphasis on the Scientific Revolution, reason and progress. If the Enlightenment had a modern creed, it might be extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, even though its proponents made plenty of their own unsubstantiated claims. The Great Awakening was a religious revival that gave birth to a less exclusive, but equally devout, form of Protestantism than that of New England Calvinism. Together, along with the republican politics we'll discuss in the next chapter, these two contrasting movements laid the foundation for the American Paris was the epicenter of the Enlightenment, but its philosophes lived throughout Europe, the British Isles and small but enthusiastic outposts in colonial America. They rejected monarchs’ claim to divine right of rule, turning the traditional political model upside down and arguing that power was a privilege bestowed by the people on their rulers. In other words, they promoted representative government, an idea mostly dormant in western history since Classical times, but that had been gradually reviving in England and a few small pockets in continental Europe. Along with free trade, representative government was a cornerstone of Classical liberalism. In England, physician/philosopher John Locke (right) wrote about the right to life, health, liberty and possessions and helped draft the constitution for the Carolina colony. He saw it as part of a government's social contract to secure such natural rights among men of means (Locke was a major shareholder in the Royal African slave-trading company). Other English republicans (i.e. Cato’s Letters) wrote of the equality of all men. British Americans carried on this tradition in the 18th century, most famously Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence. Locke and Jefferson were concerned with the political representation of middle-class men and above, but their descendents applied democracy more broadly. Enlightenment political theory was also concerned with balance -- reflected in the U.S. Constitution's emphasis on checks and balances and equality among its three main branches. Enlightenment Religion & Science The signature religion of the Enlightenment was deism, though there were plenty of atheist and Christian philosophers as well. Deists were religious, but they rejected the Scriptural revelation and father-figure model of Abrahamic religions (Judaism-Christianity-Islam) in favor of a more impersonal force having created the universe. Their revelation was nature itself, so science provided the path to the divine. Science and rationality, in their view, also provided mankind its best hope for future progress. That's the stereotypical view of an Enlightenment scientist, at least, even though most didn't believe that God was a mere "clockmaker" who wound up the universe only to vacate the premises. The most famous and emblematic scientist of the era, Englishman Isaac Newton, was a Biblical scholar (if not orthodox Christian) and eschatologist, and had more than a passing interest in the occult. Newton built on Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler's Renaissance theories of the heliocentric (or sun-centered) universe and developed the theory of gravity to explain the planets' orbits. Newton was also inventor of the reflecting telescope and co-inventor of the calculus (along with Gottfried Leibniz). He formulated the general laws of motion and mechanics that dominated physics for the next centuries in Principia Mathematica (1687). His optical research led to the dispersive prism (left), that could disperse white light into the colors of the rainbow. His work was typical of how 17th and 18th-century scientists tried to develop laws to codify nature's order in the same way the Bible provided a code for Christianity. Philosophes had faith that scientific laws were discernible (or perceptable), and provided the foundation for laws that governed other fields like politics and economics. Put another way, there was a rhyme and reason to nature that transcended science. Politicians like Locke and Jefferson based their beliefs in concepts like natural rights on Newton's scientific principles, as did Scottish economist Adam Smith. Enlightenment scientists' passion for categorizing, collecting and cataloging knowledge found its extreme expression in English and French modifications of the encyclopedia. Ephraim Chambers Cylopaedia (or Universal Dictionary of Arts & Sciences, 1728) and Diderot and D'Alembert's 1751 Encyclopédie (1751-) exceeded ancient and medieval compilations in their breadth and sophistication. The Wikipedia entries linked to terms in these chapters are modern-day manifestations of the Enlightenment, as are many of the courses one takes in school, and the way those courses are divided up into various topics and “ologies” (from the Greek logos, for study of). Carl Linnaeus biological taxonomy is a good example of an Enlightenment attempt at all-encompassing types of knowledge. The Swedish botanist took it upon himself to catalog all life forms under categories of family, genus, species, etc. While modern biologists have re-arranged his categories, his conceptualization of life forms as being related on a Tree of Life was the basis for Charles Darwin’s theories about natural selection later in the 19th century. Darwin’s grandfather Erasmus, a contemporary of Linnaeus, was an early evolutionist. Another 19th-century outgrowth of Enlightenment categorizing was the study of elements at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. Among the students there was Russian Dmitri Mendeleev, who is credited with developing the Periodic Table of Elements, familiar to anyone who's been in grade school science classroom. The table not only lists known elements, but rather predicts and explains their qualities based on its particular arrangement. Like Linnaeus' taxonomy, Mendeleev's original was arranged differently than today's Periodic Table. Enlightenment scientists didn't just dig deeper into biology, chemistry and physics, they catologued their findings so that others could challenge and build on their theories as part of a worldwide effort within the scientific community. |Linnaeus' Table of the Animal Kingdom, from Systema Naturae (1735)||French Encyclopédie (1751)||Mendeleev's Periodic Table (1869) The Enlightenment’s American satellite was centered in Philadelphia, port and capital of America’s most religiously tolerant and scientifically oriented colony, Pennsylvania. “Penn’s Woods” was a relative latecomer among the colonies, but made up for lost time by becoming one of the most important. William Penn, who had been arrested for practicing “Quakerism” with the Society of Friends, but whose father was a creditor of King Charles II, founded the colony after the English Civil War. Because of his family connection, Penn went from being imprisoned to being awarded a tract of land in America larger than all of England -- quite a reversal of fortune. There, he turned the New England Puritan model of homogeneity inside out by inviting anyone interested to enjoy a Holy Experiment in religious pluralism and what we would today call cultural diversity. The Middle Colonies were the first to attract large numbers of non-British European settlers, including the Dutch who founded New York, and Germans and Moravians who came to Pennsylvania. Quakers were the first Christian abolitionists and tried to respect Indians within Penn’s borders. Indians reciprocated by not killing Broad Brims in battles with whites, a reference to the Quaker’s distinct hats. Quakers had an influence on American history disproportionate to their relatively small numbers. They spearheaded abolitionism well into the 19th century and emphasized egalitarianism. They called everyone Mr. and Mrs. regardless of wealth, and didn't address anyone of higher rank with thee or thou. In fact, they didn't believe in rank to start with among mortals. Pennsylvania was also home to Benjamin Franklin, a man who exemplified the Enlightenment spirit as well as any American. Franklin fled Puritan Boston as a teenager, finding refuge in Philadelphia. In his investigations into electricity, he rejected the traditional interpretation of lightning being a manifestation of God’s anger as being lazy and superstitious, choosing instead to investigate the real causes of lightning using science. He arrived at the theory of lightning being caused by electricity, and even developed a tool to control its destructive force through his modification of the lightning rod (lightning strikes were a common cause of fires and, without pressurized water hoses, people had no effective means to douse fires). He even hoped humans would someday be able to harness electrical energy for their own purposes, but didn’t live to see that happen. Franklin also invented bifocals, the Franklin stove, the glass harmonica, daylight savings, the post office, and theorized about how the Gulf Stream from the Caribbean warmed Europe. Franklin asked questions, and when confronted with practical problems he tried to bring progress to the world by inventing new solutions. For instance, his brother's catheter was uncomfortable, so he invented a more flexible one. He was constantly researching and coming up with new medical ideas. He helped make Philadelphia the first true city in America, with a hospital, paved and lit streets, fire and police departments, and libraries. Franklin established the colonies' first volunteer fire department there in 1736. Franklin’s deism was typical of the Founders, as was his Enlightenment politics. Since America was born at the height of the Enlightenment, the Revolution presented its founders with an opportunity to ensconce representative government in a country starting from scratch. Through democracy, along with its endorsement of science and technology, the Enlightenment lives on in contemporary America. While Thomas Jefferson was wrong that orthodox faiths would soon give way to deism or Unitarianism, people of all faiths live in a technologically advancing world, and share at least some subconscious adherence to the scientific method, even if they reject evolutionary theory, climate change, etc. Very people would rush to a church instead of a hospital if injured or sick, and no one is advocating replacing EMS with ministers on the other end of 911 calls. We drive cars and trucks and live in homes invented and improved on by application of the scientific method. But gone is the philosophes’ blind faith in progress as a uniformly good thing, since people today realize that science will never solve all our problems, and can even create new ones of its own like pollution, carcinogenics, overpopulation and weapons of mass destruction. Deists never established a formal denomination or church of their own, but some of their emphasis on Enlightenment progress made its way into the Freemasons. The Masons were, and are, an organization that includes people of many faiths, including Christianity, bound together by a commitment to community service. Many Americans were suspicious of the Masons because of their secretive meetings, rituals and codes (right), but their ranks included Founders like George Washington and Franklin, and dozens of future prominent politicians, inventors, entertainers, and theologians. A cursory glance at this list makes one wonder if there aren't more famous American Masons than there are famous American non-Masons. In addition, Masonic imagery worked its way onto American currency and iconic structures like the Washington Monument and Statue of Liberty, a gift of French Masons to America. The Great Awakening While Enlightenment philosophers were disproportionally represented among the Founders, and Enlightenment politics is built into our Constitution, few Americans were attracted to Enlightenment religion. Traditional Christianity and religious indifference were much more common, and Christianity experienced revolutions of its own in the 18th century known collectively as the Great Awakening. The strictness and elitism of the Puritan’s Elect of God pre-destination-type of Calvinism wasn’t destined to survive the 18th century in mainstream form. It was too stuffy and complicated even for New England, least of all the frontier and rest of the country. Many Americans couldn’t even read, let alone dive into John Calvin’s Commentaries. Puritanism was too exclusive. What was the attraction if you couldn’t prove to insiders that you, too, were among the Elect? To put it crassly, American Protestantism was in need of a little re-branding after the first few generations of Puritans had served their purpose. The most popular and dynamic of the new ministers was George Whitefield, who preached throughout the colonies outside of churches, in the streets. While Ben Franklin didn't share Whitefield's religious views, he appreciated the social role of religion in supporting society's moral fabric, and published Whitefield's sermons, helping to trigger the Great Awakening. John Wesley, the English founder of Methodism, argued against pre-destination in favor of Arminianism, the idea that salvation came through good works. The Fire-and-Brimstone nature of Puritan Jeremiads lived on, but Protestantism opened itself up to all comers over the 18th and 19th centuries, becoming more heartfelt and user-friendly. New converts could be saved, and evangelicals carried that message of good news to followers of new Anglo-American denominations like the Baptists, Methodists and “New-Side” Presbyterians. The new faiths had an egalitarian bent, with no respect for hierarchies like the Church of England, which they viewed as Catholic Lite. Their preference, at first anyway, was for informal tent revival gatherings, where swarms of people communed and shared born again experiences similar to the Puritans’ regeneration. One camp meeting at Cane Ridge, Kentucky attracted tens of thousands of people -- a significant number given the sparse population of the frontier. The Methodists didn’t have any churches at first; their Circuit Riders rode around on horses and slept on the ground. Christianity had come a long way from the Vatican since Martin Luther first nailed 95 theses to his cathedral's door in 1520. In the early 19th century, dozens more new denominations spun out of 2nd Great Awakening, including the Church of Christ, Pentecostals, Disciples of Christ, Seventh-day Adventists, Cumberland Presbyterians, Millerites and, most famously, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) – by far the most successful denomination invented in America and the fastest growing in the world today. The 2nd Great Awakening also reinvigorated the mainstream evangelical faiths. While Christians and Enlightenment philosophers each had faith, the nature of their respective faiths differed. Christians emphasized faith in Scripture, while philosophes had faith in science. Nevertheless, they both demanded religious liberty and both shared a disdain for political or religious leaders who claimed superiority over others by virtue of divine right. As such, neither accepted the basic premise of why the king of England, supported by the Church of England, had any right to rule over the American colonies. One historian referred to this period in religious history as the democratization of American Christianity, implying that the increasingly democratic politics of the time paved the way for the growth of denominations. Still, it’s difficult to see which came first, the chicken or the egg, as far as democratic religion and democratic politics. Despite their different takes on reason and faith, Great Awakening Protestantism and Enlightenment politics reinforced each other as twin streams that fed into the American Revolution. Many Americans understood what Jefferson and Franklin meant when they suggested that the motto for the new country's Great Seal read: "Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God."

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Want to see what a major hurricane looks like chewing through a nation of 29 islands, 661 cays, and 2,387 islets? NASA’s TRMM satellite has the goods, displaying Hurricane Irene—white tendrils of tropical fury stretching hundreds of miles north and south of the island chain—as it whips over Crooked Island in the Bahamas. TRMM, which stands for Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission, also has its eye on Irene’s moisture output. According to NASA, the satellite’s been able to track rainfall rates, cloud heights and “hot towering clouds that act as hurricane heat engines.” Irene, now a formidable Category 3 hurricane with wind speeds of 115 mph, pummeled the Bahamas early this morning as it continues to swing to the north on its way toward the U.S. East Coast. It’s expected to intensify to an even more frightening Category 4 (wind speeds of 131 to 155 mph) as it speeds over warm Atlantic water east and south of Florida. NASA says its TRRM satellite passed directly over Irene on Tuesday, snapping several jaw-dropping pics and highlighting a few curious details. For instance, Irene didn’t have a visible “eye”—the circular area in a tropical storm of relatively light winds and clear skies, surrounded by the “eyewall,” an area of towering, often deadly thunderstorms. But TRRM was able to discern one anyway, “deep down under the cloud tops.” It’s able to do so by capturing multiple data types and overlaying each, like precipitation radar, which quantifies rain rates, and microwave imaging, which measures energy emissions to gauge everything from air and sea surface temperatures to how much water vapor there is between the satellite’s measuring instrument and the earth’s surface. How much rain are we talking? TRRM found that in one corner of Irene’s eyewall, the rain was pouring at a rate of 2 inches an hour. And that’s while it was still a Category 1. When TRRM came around for a second pass yesterday at 11:42 a.m. EDT, it noticed that Irene’s eye was now visible, that the storm had intensified causing rainfall to be more evenly distributed around the center and that pressure at the storm’s center was still falling—a clear indication Irene’s continuing to pick up speed (winds were 120 mph at TRRM’s last check) meaning it could well become a Category 4 hurricane as it moves to menace the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. Although Irene’s still over 200 miles south of Florida, it’s making its presence known—according to The Boston Globe, you can already see its (pretty darned ominous looking) cloud bands over Miami’s Biscayne Bay, today.

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Answers From The Whale Expert Special thanks to Anne Smrcina From Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary for providing her time and expertise in responding to your questions. Here are whale expert Anne Smrcina's responses to your questions! Largo High School Q: Why are they called whales? A: According to my dictionary, the word whale probably originates from the Old English "hwal" or the Old High German "hwal," or even the Latin "squalus" meaning sea fish. The word "cetacean" comes from the Latin "cetus" menaing whale, and which is probably derived from the Greek "ketos." The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first person (at least as far as we know) to realize that whales were not fish and that they were mammals that breathed air and had live young. Q: How come they don't have teeth, but bristles? A: Some whales do have teeth. It seems that the earliest ancestral whales evolved from land animals. These animals had different types of teeth -- sharp cone-shaped teeth in front for catching and holding, and blade-like back teeth for cutting up the food (heterodonts). As these whales evolved their tooth-pattern changed too. Today, most toothed whales only have one kind of tooth (a pointed tooth for catching and holding -- the prey is usually swallowed whole). This type of whale is called a homodont ("same tooth"). Scientists are not sure if toothed whales and baleen (bristle) whales evolved from the same ancestral line or if they arose from different sources. This split might have happened some 30 million years ago (that's when ancestral baleen whales first appeared). But the feeding adaptations allow these two different types of whales to concentrate on different types of prey. Usually, toothed whales prey on larger fish and baleen whales prey on copepods, krill, other small crustaceans and/or small schooling fish (although some small whales also prey on small schooling fish too). Q: How do they get to be so big in size? A: Whales get so large because the ocean has provided an environment that can support that great size. You may have noticed that if you go swimming, you can pick up large items in the water that you couldn't possibly move on land (if your Mom or Dad floats in the water it is really easy to push them around). As the whales evolved they mastered an environment that could provide lots of food and could support large sizes and weights without requiring heavy bones. As you know, on land the only comparable sizes were in dinosaurs and they had very large and heavy bones. Elephants are a lot smaller than the great whales and they have great big bones. There were very few predators on these large whales so they could flourish in this watery world. When humans entered the marine world, whale numbers began to drop precipitously (although natural factors may also have affected whale survival such as natural warming and cooling cycles). Q: Do the young need a special habitat or temperatures in order to survive? A: The young of many whale species, including humpbacks and right whales, probably need a somewhat sheltered environment to allow them to be born safely, to nurse and to keep in close contact with their mothers. These whales give birth in warmer waters than that found in their feeding grounds, which probably helps the young too since they have much thinner layers of blubber than the adults. Intensive nursing on rich milk (about 40% fat compared to human milk at 1.5% and cow milk at 4%) allows the baby whale to increase its insulating layer of fat quite quickly. For many adult whales, keeping cool in the summer may be more of a problem than staying warm in the winter. Flipper and tail waving may be a means of releasing heat from those extremities (which have thinner layers of blubber than the rest of the body). Q: Does the hump serve any purpose to the humpback whale? A: The humpback whale has a slight "hump" at the front edge of the dorsal fin but it doesn't seem to serve any major function. The pronounced rounding or arching of the humpback's back as it dives may be more significant in terms of its name than the actual "hump." Humpbacks and right whales arch their backs and raise their flukes as they dive, unlike the sleek finbacks. This arching and tail raising may aid them in getting their fatter bodies moving downward as they dive. Q: Why do only 30% of gray whale calves survive in the lagoons of Baja, California? A: Since we have no gray whales here in the Stellwagen Bank Sanctuary, I had to consult my counterparts on the west coast at the Channel Islands, Monterey Bay and Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuaries. No one there could confirm that statistic of 30%, although they did say that quite a few gray whales do die in that first year of life (the number may be over 50%). During the first year of life, and in fact during the first few months, any genetic abnormality will be expressed and may lead to death. Weaknesses in the baby or the mother (sickness/not enough milk) or separation of mother and child may also lead to mortality of the infant. Young whales are also susceptible to attack by orcas or sharks. If the whale makes it through its first year, it has a good chance of making it to adulthood. Phillis Wheatley Middle School Q: Why do baleen whales have 2 nostrils and toothed whales have one? Is there a scientific reason for the difference? A: Just as with the answer to the earlier "bristle" question, the answer lies in evolution. Some people believe the baleen (Mysticetes) and toothed (Odontocetes) whales may have come from a common ancester and diverged in their evolutionary paths many millions of years ago. This long time frame would have allowed these different characteristics to appear. Other scientists say that the two suborders are so different, they must have arisen from two different sources. Q: How is it possible for whales to dive deep in the ocean and not have a problem with water pressure? A: When humans dive into the oceans depths they ususally use apparatus like scuba gear that continues to provide air into the lungs. As humans get deeper into the water, pressure compresses bubbles of gas in the bloodstream, allowing more oxygen to be absorbed. When the diver returns quickly, the bubbles expand and can block blood vessels causing a condition called "the bends." That's why it's very important that scuba divers follow the recommended dive charts and decompress in stages as they ascend. Whales don't have this problem. The whale is not taking in any additional air as it dives. They have evolved a way of getting to great depths unaided. They can transport more oxygen across lung membranes during each breath, can carry more oxygen in their blood, and can transfer more oxygen to the myoglobin in their muscles than humans. Under deep dives, whales' lungs actually compress. Air moves into the trachea (windpipe), preventing nitrogen absorption into the blood. The reserves of oxygen in the blood and muscle provide the whale with the oxygen it needs. In addition, the heart rate slows, and less blood flows to the extremities, also lessening oxygen demand. From: New Jersey Iselin Middle School Q: How do you track the humpback whales? A: Scientists use both satellite and radio tags to track humpback whales. These tags are used for different purposes (see my Challenge Question answer in the May 13th right whale report). In addition, scientists can tract humpback movements by identifying whales through photographs. Photos of whale flukes (each whale has a different pattern on the back of its fluke) are compared against a catalog or all known humpback whales. If the same whale shows up in two different photos from two different places, the scientist can start to get a picture on this particular whale's migratory pattern. Q: Have scientists been able to interpret the sounds whales send to each other? A: Scientists have been studying whale sounds for many years, but we still have more questions than answers. The beautiful sounds (often called songs) of the humpback whale are believed to be "sung" by males as part of the courtship ritual. But we can't be sure. Whales have been heard singing up in the feeding grounds too. These songs change over the season (unlike bird songs), with whales adding or deleting some parts of the song. They usually stop singing when they start heading to the summer feeding grounds. During the next breeding season, they start singing the song they left off with at the end of the previous year. Scientists have also been studying the sounds of other whales. The deep vocalizations of blue whales may be a way of keeping in touch with other blue whales many miles away (the low tones can carry for many miles in the ocean). The same thing may happen with finbacks. Sperm whales use a form of clicking communication that may help them coordinate their movements. Dolphins may have "signature whistles" that are unique to each animal and help to identify it among the pod. Q: How much food does a whale eat in one day? A: It is often said that blue whales can eat a single meal of two tons or more of krill. Right whales may be eating up to a ton of food a day and humpbacks are probably consuming 1,500 pounds of sand lance and other small schooling fish. Since right whales are eating tiny copepods, 4,000 of which may fit in a teaspoon, that's a lot of animals. The larger the whale, the more food it needs. Q: How long can a humpback whale stay under water before coming up for air? A: Most of the humpbacks in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary stay underwater from 3-7 minutes. That's because the water is relatively shallow and their food is easy to reach. But humpbacks have been known to dive to depths of at least 600 feet and to stay down for as much as 30 minutes. They may be able to reach even greater depths and time underwater. Q: How many babies can a humpback whale have? A: Whales have only been seen with a single baby. Logs from whaling ships indicate that a pregnant female was once caught that was carrying two fetuses (and it may be that other whales can do the same). However, the intensive effort needed to nurse and care for a whale calf may prevent a live birth of twins. The fetuses would probably die even before birth. Twins would also be quite weak, and the ocean is a harsh world. It is quite doubtful that either twin would survive. If two were born and did survive the birth process, it is also possible that the mother would reject one in order to have a better chance of keeping the other alive. Dr. Howard Elementary School Q: What if, hypotheticly, an upwelling came to the Atlantic Ocean, where would the whales go? A: There are presently lots of upwelling areas in the Atlantic, and they are all very important to the food web. Whales tend to be found in such areas, because of this productivity. Upwelling means that nutrients are coming to the surface. The nutrients are taken up by phytoplankton, which are eaten by zooplankton. Some whales eat the zooplankton (like right whales, which eat copepods) and some small fish do to. Other whales eat the small fish. Q: If the U.S got flooded with water again, and the Gray whales swam over to the Atlantic, would they be able to live? Sincerly, Ben Andr'e, Caitlin, Mckenna,Ali A: It is believed that a population of gray whales once lived in the Atlantic. If the continent flooded and grays moved over to the Atlantic,. they would probably find some food (provided the food, primarily amphipods, survived the flooding). Grays are bottom feeders, staining the bottom sediments for small crustaceans and there are quite a few amphipods along the east coast. From: New York Gotham Avenue School Q: Our fourth grade students at Gotham Avenue School in Elmont, NY have been following the story of JJ, the orphan gray whale rescued by Sea World. This prompted Phylicia Stephenson to ask whether other whales would adopt an orphan calf. Thank you for your most informative reports. Mrs. Michaels A: This would be an extremely unusual situation. There has been no known case of large whales adopting another whale, although mother-calf humpback pairs are often seen accompanied by other adult whales. In the case of JJ, the radio tag fell off after two days, so the scientists are not quite sure of what is happening with that whale. Q: April 8, 1998 at Race POint, Provincetown, MA 8:30-10:30 AM We saw two large headed whales feeding at the surface. Constantly at the the top of the water. Slowly plowing thru the water the heads looked like rounded pyramids. No sign of a dorsal fin. No deep diving only shallow dives showing broad tail. The whales changed direction and were making broad circles in the water. As time paased they moved out to deeper water. Do you think these were northern Right Whale? We also saw one definite Finwhale. A: Yes, that probably was a right whale that you saw along the Provincetown coast. Right whales are known to surface skim feed on copepod patches close to the Massachusetts shore and at Stellwagen Bank. You certainly were lucky. Most people don't get the chance to see these very rare whales (only 300 left in the North Atlantic population).

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The problem of fragmentation Prior to major human activity, Britain had a diverse matrix of habitats, which consisted predominantly of forests, interspersed with wetlands, grasslands and heath. It has been said that a squirrel could once have travelled across the island without ever touching the ground! However, as has been well documented, we now have only a fraction of our former native forest cover, and much of this is made up of small, isolated fragments. Habitat fragmentation is a major problem across the Earth. A decrease in the overall area of habitat is serious enough, but when combined with fragmentation, it can undermine the integrity of whole ecosystems. Roads, urbanisation and agriculture are among the main human activities which break up natural areas, often with disastrous implications for wildlife. Imagine that you are a rare lichen, or a bird which prefers the dark interior of the woods, such as a treecreeper. Half of your woodland home is destroyed to make way for a car park, and the remainder is bisected by a road. What happens to your cool, dark patch of the forest? It becomes flooded with light, the humidity and temperature are altered, and it may no longer suit your specific needs. Thus, fragmentation increases what is known as the 'edge effect', whereby the interior area of habitat is affected by the different conditions of the other habitats on its edges. The smaller a particular habitat is, the greater is the proportion of its area which experiences the edge effect, and this can lead to dramatic changes in plant and animal communities. Now think of the red squirrel, which would have great difficulty crossing the main road carved through its home, even if it plucked up the courage to do so. The patch of woodland on the other side could just as well be fifty miles away. The squirrel is only able to breed with those in its own limited patch, which is effectively an island, and the population will be at risk of inbreeding. Furthermore, if disease, or some other natural catastrophe hits the population, the squirrel will become locally extinct, with there being little chance of recolonisation from other populations. Other Caledonian Forest inhabitants which clearly illustrate the importance of connectivity are wood ants. These forest-dwelling insects will not cross distances of more than about 100 metres of open ground. Therefore, if wood ants are absent from an isolated area of pinewood (as they are from many of the smaller Caledonian Forest remnants, because of their fragmented state), they will not be able to recolonise it, and the insect fauna of that woodland will be permanently depleted. A healthy forest will be large enough to support those organisms with the largest range, which are usually the top predators. The reduction in area can have a direct effect on these species, and since they often play a vital role in regulating populations of other creatures, the integrity of the ecosystem can be seriously upset. Thinking on this large scale, it has also been suggested that climate change may force certain species to migrate. If their natural habitat is too fragmented, many might not be able to do so, and they will therefore be at risk of extinction. This again highlights the importance of a connected landscape. In 1967 two ecologists, R.H. MacArthur, and E.O. Wilson, published their influential Theory of Island Biogeography, which was based on studies of biodiversity in relation to the size and remoteness of oceanic islands. They suggested that the more remote an island, the slower its rate of colonisation by species, and that the size of the island was closely related to the number of species it could support: larger islands held more species, and smaller ones had more rapid rates of extinction. This work has been useful in the management of terrestrial ecosystems, as it has been inferred that similar trends will occur in habitat 'islands', in areas which have been fragmented by humans. While the theory has been the subject of considerable debate among ecologists, it is widely accepted that large, connected areas of habitat are what we should be working towards. Conservation managers around the world have been using a range of techniques to help increase connectivity in fragmented landscapes. These include creating corridors, buffers and stepping stones to aid the movement of different organisms. A corridor could be anything from a hedgerow to a restored riparian (river edge) zone, to the huge landscape-scale links being developed in North America and elsewhere, with the basic idea being to create a direct link between separate patches. Stepping stones are patches of habitat which ease movement through the landscape without necessarily creating direct links. Buffer zones around a woodland may help to reduce the edge effect, and protect the interior of the woods from disturbance caused by activities such as agrochemical use on adjacent land. Additional solutions include creating a matrix of other semi-natural habitat such as scrubland, which may still be favourable to some woodland fauna. Species-specific links, such as badger tunnels and aerial runways for squirrels, are also used to help these animals to negotiate roads. The concept of Forest Habitat Networks (FHNs) has recently been developed and incorporated into the forestry strategies of the Forestry Commission in Scotland, Wales and England. The key idea is that large Core Forest Areas are connected by well-wooded belts in the countryside, concentrated mainly along rivers and streams. Throughout the network, a minimum of 30 per cent tree cover is aimed for, as this is the coverage at which the landscape begins to function as if it were a single forest unit. In this way, the coherence of a large area of forest can be achieved with relatively low tree cover, allowing these networks to be developed alongside other land uses. As well as their ecological value, FHNs provide opportunities for the production of quality hardwood timber, long-distance recreation facilities and improvements in water quality. Reconnecting habitats isn't always straightforward, and care needs to be taken not to create further problems. For example, by linking up two woodlands with the intention of spreading red squirrel populations, one might actually allow the introduced grey squirrel into an area it did not formerly inhabit. In some cases the width of the linkage may simply not be enough to benefit the creature in mind - a bear, for instance, may require a substantially wider corridor than a butterfly! Furthermore, issues such as surrounding land use and land ownership need to be addressed. Nonetheless, re-establishing a more connected landscape should be seen as a conservation priority. Trees for Life's work The surviving patches of Scotland's Caledonian Forest are a prime example of a severely fragmented habitat, with relatively small and widely scattered remnants. For example, within the Trees for Life target area, most of the sites we work in, such as Achnashellach, Glen Affric, Grudie and the rest, are all disconnected from each other. To counter this, we have already taken steps to enhance forest connectivity. On a strategic level, we have been using our GIS (Geographical Information System - see the Spring 2001 edition of Caledonia Wild!) to help us target priority areas for creating linkages between remaining woodland fragments. We have also made very useful links (no pun intended!) with the American-based Wildlands Project, who have given us some very valuable advice on landscape scale restoration. They are carrying out visionary work, such as the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, which aims to establish a contiguous system of protected areas from Yellowstone National Park in the USA to the Yukon Territory in northern Canada. On the practical side of things we are already well underway with the Allt na Muic Corridor Project, which aims to re-connect the forest in Glen Affric with that in Glen Moriston. We have also been paying particular attention to riparian woodlands, as rivers are natural conduits of movement within the forest, aiding the dispersal of plants and animals. This work is making particularly good progress on the River Affric, just west of Loch Affric, and in nearby Gleann na Ciche, where we have been erecting small stock fences to protect riverside trees such as alder and willow, to help connect up the woodlands which are regenerating inside larger, deer-fenced exclosures. In the longer term, we envisage such links being made to the native woodlands well beyond our target area. What can you do to help reverse fragmentation? As well as supporting the work of organisations such as Trees for Life, and perhaps coming on a Conservation Holiday, there are ways in which you can increase connectivity in your local area. Even gardens can be a vital refuge for displaced wildlife, and, while it's not a substitute for the 'real thing', getting a book on wildlife gardening (and using it!) can really help to aid the movement of wildlife in areas dominated by human activity. I would like to conclude with the inspiring words of the ecologist, D.H. Chadwick: "Our challenge now is to conserve the very nature of nature, which is the power to connect, to sustain, to heal and to invent; to keep filling the world with an infinite variety of wonders. That is how it is supposed to be. That is how we can move beyond saving bits and pieces of nature, and plan for the preservation of wholeness." Sources and further reading - Bennett, A. F. (1999) Linkages in the Landscape: the role of corridors and connectivity in wildlife conservation. IUCN: Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge. - Bright, P.W. (1993) Habitat fragmentation - problems and predictions for British Mammals. Mammal Review. 23, 101-112. - Buckley, G.P. & Fraser, S. (1998) Locating new lowland woods. English Nature Research Report 283. English Nature: Peterborough. - Chadwick, D.H. (1991) Introduction. In: Hudson, W.E. (ed.). Landscape Linkages and Biodiversity. Island Press: Washington D.C. - Forestry Commission (2000) Forests for Scotland: The Scottish Forestry Strategy. Forestry Commission: Edinburgh. - Fowler, J. and Stiven, R. (2003) Habitat Networks for Wildlife and People. Forestry Commission Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage: Edinburgh. - Gates, J.E. & Mosher, J.A. (1981) A functional approach to estimating habitat edge width for birds. American Midland Naturalist. 105, 189-92. - Gilbert, O.L. & Anderson, P.A. (1998) Habitat Creation and Repair. Oxford University Press: Oxford. - Good, J.E.G., Norris, D.A. & Stevens, P.A. (2000) Woodland Habitat Network for Wales: Ystwyth Valley. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology: Bangor. - Harris, L.D. (1984). The Fragmented Forest: Island Biogeographical Theory and the Preservation of Biotic Diversity. University of Chicago Press: Chicago. - Huxel, G.R. & Hastings, A. (1999) Habitat loss, fragmentation and restoration. Restoration Ecology. 7, 309-15. - Kirby, K. (1995) Rebuilding the English Countryside: habitat fragmentation and wildlife corridors as issues in practical conservation. English Nature Science. No. 10. English Nature: Peterborough. - MacArthur, R.H. & Wilson, E.O. (1967) The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ, USA. - Peterken, G.F., Baldock, D. and Hampson, A. (1995) A Forest Habitat Network for Scotland. Research, Survey and Monitoring Report No.44, Scottish Natural Heritage. - Puplett, D.P. (2000) Assessment and amelioration of woodland fragmentation on the Menai Strait, using GIS. Unpublished MSc thesis. University of Wales: Bangor. - Roberts, S.A., Hall, G.B., & Calamai, P.H. (2000) Analysing forest fragmentation using spatial autocorrelation, graphs and GIS. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 14, 185-204. - Rodwell, J.S. & Patterson, G. (1994) Creating New Native Woodlands. Forestry Commission Bulletin 112. HMSO: London. - Simberloff, D.S. & Cox, J. (1987) Consequences and costs of conservation corridors. Conservation Biology. 1, 63-71. - Spellerberg, I.F. (1995) Biogeography and woodland design. In: Ferris-Kaan, R. (ed.). The Ecology of Woodland Creation. Wiley: Chichester, 49-62. - Stewart, A.J.A. & Hutchings, M.J. (1996) Conservation of populations. In: Spellerberg, I.F. (ed.). Conservation Biology. Longman: Harlow, 122-140. - Taylor, P. (2005) Beyond Conservation - A Wildland Strategy. Earthscan: London. - Taylor, P.D., Fahrig, L., Henein, K. and Merriam, G. (1993) Connectivity as a vital element of landscape structure. Oikos 68, 571-73. - Trzcinski, M.K., Fahrig, L., Merriam, G. (1999) Independent effects of forest cover and fragmentation on the distribution of forest breeding birds. Ecological Applications. 9, 586-593. - Wickham, J.D., Jones, K.B., Riiters, K.H., Wade, T.G. & O'Neill, R.V. (1999) Transitions in forest fragmentation: implications for restoration opportunities at regional scales. Landscape Ecology. 14, 137-145. - The Wildland Network - The Wildlands Project Return to Human impacts on the Caledonian Forest

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An Indian tribe, the first state in the Union, a bay, and a river. (SwStr: t. 357; l. 161'; b. 27.'; dph. 8'3"; dr. 6'; s. 13 k.; cpl. 65; a. 4 32-pdr., 1 12-pdr. r.) The fourth Delaware, a side wheel steamer, was built in 1861 at Wilmington, Del.; purchased by the Navy 14 October 1861, Lieutenant S. P. Quackenbush in command. Assigned to the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron, Delaware sailed from Philadelphia 12 December 1861 and stood up the James River 26 December on patrol. On 12 January 1862 she sailed for Hatteras Inlet, N.C. Remaining on the North Carolina coast until 2 June, she took part in the capture of Roanoke Island on 7 and 8 February and Elizabeth City on 10 February, where she shared in the capture of five Confederate steamers and two schooners. She made a reconnaissance up Chowan River from 19 to 21 February, and on 13 and 14 March bombarded New Bern and captured four vessels. Delaware arrived in Hampton Roads 2 June 1862 for service in Virginia waters until 30 October. She had several encounters with enemy batteries and captured a number of small craft which she sent in as prizes. She returned to operations in the rivers and sounds of North Carolina from October 1862 to February 1863 when she sailed with Valley City in tow, arriving at Hampton Roads on the llth. Until 5 April 1863 Delaware cruised in the James and York Rivers and Chesapeake Bay, then on the North Carolina coast until 27 November when she sailed to Baltimore for repairs. On 27 March 1864 she returned to the waters of Virginia, to patrol and perform picket duty, transport men and ordnance stores, and clear the rivers of torpedoes until the end of the war. Arriving at Washington Navy Yard 27 July 1865, Delaware was decommissioned there 5 August 1865 and sold on112 September to the Treasury Department.

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Some of what Achaya has to say about the potato's history in India is reproduced below, including his references. He may well be wrong, or may simply have presented only one side of a controversial issue. I think most accounts of the potato in India assume Fryer (see below) witnessed the potato, not the sweet potato. Though termed papa in South America, they [potatoes] were incorrectly called batata (the name for the sweet potato) when John Gerard first described them in English in 1597, and this name stuck. As a result of this confusion in nomenclature, it is doubtful whether the potato mentioned in the well-documented dinner given in Ajmer by Asaf Khan to Sir Thomas Roe in 1615 and again noted by Fryer in 1675 as constituting a garden crop (along with the brinjal) in Karnataka and Surat, was really the potato at all, and was perhaps the sweet potato, known much earlier in India. [32d, 320]. However, the identity of the 'basket of potatoes', considered worthy enough to be offered as a gift to Warren Hastings around AD 1780, is not in doubt, since he even invited members of his Council to dine with him and partake of the unusual gift [32d]. ...By 1780, potatoes, peas and beans, according to an 1860 report , were in high repute as foods in Calcutta; the report adds that 'the Dutch are said to have been the first to introduce the culture of potatoes, which were received from their settlement in the Cape of Good Hope. From them the British received annually the seeds of every kind of vegetable useful at the table, as well as several plants of which there appears to be much need, especially various kinds of pot herbs.' ..In about AD 1830, potatoes came to be grown on terraced slopes in the Dehra Dun hils though the efforts of a Captain Youns and a Mr Shore who simultaneously developed the hill stations of Mussoorie and Landour. ..at first it grew especially well in elevated terrain. A major breakthrough in the control of viruses spread by aphids enabled very high yields of potatoes even in the plains. Elsewhere, Achaya writes: In AD 1615 Edward Terry mentioned potatoes, and so did John Fryer in AD 1678, but since potatoes had not by then reached India, these were probably sweet potatoes, which were equally strange to the English visitors. [32d] J.B Hutchinson (ed.) Diversity and Change in the Indian Subcontinent, Cambridge University Press, 1974, M.N. Upadhya, p. 139 Mohommad Azhar Ansari, European Travellers under the Mughals (1580-1627), Idarah-i-Adabiyat-i Delhi, Delhi, pp. 76-103 H.A. Jones and L.K. Mann, Onion and its Allies, Leonard Hill Books Ltd., London, 1963, p. 18 and p. 36 Pushkarnath, The Potato in India, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, 1964. Ruskin Bond, 'How Potato Spawned a Hill Station', Sunday Herald, Bangalore, 18 January 1987. James Long (ed.) 'The Adventurers', Calcutta Review, 1860, vol. 35; reproduced in Echoes of Old Calcutta, S. Das Gupta (ed.), Naya Prakash, Calcutta, 1981, pp. 68-138. B.B. Nagaich, 'Major Achievements in Potato Production through Plant-protection Research', Golden Jubilee Symposium, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, Sept. 1979. Elsewhere one finds that the potato was introduced into England in 1590. India recently overtook the US to become the third largest producer of potatoes, behind China and Russia. Pictures of the Day: Afghanistan and Elsewhere 48 minutes ago

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IPV6 Link local addresses are autoconfigured addresses based on the devices MAC address. Link local addresses are used by various auto configuration mechanisms to refer to other devices on the same link (eg autoconfigured routes use the link local address of the router). Generally speaking you would not usually use a link local address except in routing tables. An inherit property of link local addresses is they are only valid on the link they belong to. Thusly if you wish to send a packet (eg ping) a link local address, you must specify which interface you wish to use. $ telnet.netkit fe80::205:1cff:fe10:5edf%wan0 bgpd Trying fe80::205:1cff:fe10:5edf%wan0... Connected to fe80::205:1cff:fe10:5edf%wan0. Escape character is '^]'. ping: $ ping6 -I eth1 fe80::202:2dff:fe51:a1b2 lib/main.php:944: Notice: PageInfo: Cannot find action page

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Alana Herro writes for Eye on Earth (e²), a service of World Watch Magazine in partnership with the blue moon fund. e² provides a unique perspective on current events, newly released studies, and important global trends. In a July 25 memo to the Pentagon, U.S. Marine Corps Major General Richard Zilmer made a Priority 1 request for solarand wind-powered generators to help with the fight in Iraq. Without this solution, personnel loss rates are likely to continue at their current rate, Zilmer writes. Continued casualty accumulation exhibits [the] potential to jeopardize mission success. The thermal signature of diesel-powered generators currently in use can enable enemies to detect U.S. outposts, experts say. And missions to supply the generators with JP-8, the standard battlefield fuel, are vulnerable to ambush. Without a self-sustainable energy solution, Zilmer notes, the U.S. Army will continue to accrue preventable serious and grave casualties. Although Zilmers memo shows a growing focus on incorporating renewable energy sources into combat operations, it is not the first time the U.S. military has embraced the benefits of renewables. A 2004 study conducted for the Army reported that using solar panels to recharge equipment batteries was a better option than having soldiers carry disposable batteries into combat. Pentagon research from June 2005 illustrates the costs and benefits of using solar power to reduce fuel use. And four wind turbines currently supply roughly 25 percent of electricity needs at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. According to a 2004 study by the Rocky Mountain Institute, more than 50 percent of all fuel consumed in the battlefield is used by support units, not frontline troops. Before the recent rise in oil prices, the U.S. Army spent some $200 million annually on fuel and paid personnel an estimated $3.2 billion to transport it. The Defense Energy Support Center reports that in 2005, the U.S. military spent around $8 billion on some 128 million barrels of fuel; in 2004, it spent $7 billion on 145 million barrels. Zilmers memo estimates that a hybrid solar and wind power system, though expensive initially, would cut costs by 75 percent and pay for itself in 35 years. There's something really unnerving about celebrating wind energy use in places like "Gitmo" and Iraq. Yet I can also see the point of the RMI. Anything that accelerates the growth for wind and solar, no matter how distasteful its uses, brings us closer to a safer world. Looking at this from an ecological perspective (and climate change risks killing many more than US terrorism has managed so far), or from a geo-political angle (reducing the strategic value of oil), this is a good thing. Of course, if we used the money spent on Iraq on levelling the playing field for renewables compared to subsidized fossil fuels, we could have done it much faster. Of course, the title of this post could easily be changed to "With or Without Renewable Power, U.S. Army Could Fail in Iraq" The US army has already failed in Iraq, unless its objectives were megadeaths, terrorist training and corporate enrichment.

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A Different Kind of Christmas Tree Carlos was excited for Christmas. This year there was something different in his home. A large tree made of shiny green paper was attached to the door. Mom, why is there a tree on the door? We’re going to do something a little different for Christmas this year. Carlos wondered what would be different. His sister, Araceli, and his little brother, Diego, wondered too. I made these paper ornaments for the tree. Each day we will write something about Jesus Christ on an ornament and then put it on the tree. By Christmas Eve, the whole tree will be covered! Carlos liked that idea. Araceli ran to the ornaments and grabbed a red pencil. Jesus was baptized. That’s a good one. Can I write that Jesus did many miracles? That would be perfect. You both have great ideas! Every night after dinner, Araceli and Carlos made another ornament and put it on the tree. Diego helped by telling them that he loves Jesus. When it was hard to think of more ideas, they looked in the scriptures. Carlos didn’t know there were so many verses about Jesus! On Christmas Eve the whole family sang songs and read the ornaments they had put on the tree. Carlos was happy he knew so much about Jesus. He knew he was ready for Christmas this year. Spot the Differences These children are learning about Jesus Christ’s birth by acting out things that happened when Jesus was born. See if you can spot the nine differences between the two drawings. Left: illustrations by Phyllis Luch The Christmas Story Right: illustrations by Beth M. Whittaker Helps for Parents Read the story of the first Christmas in Luke 2. As you read, help your child listen for events that are shown in the two pictures and take time to let your children color the pictures.

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We’ve seen a lot of stunning images of volcanic lightning in the last few years. I can think of some great shots of eruptions from Chaitén, Puyehue-Cordón Caulle, Kirishima, Sakurajima and Eyjafjallajökull that produced (with a little help from time-lapse photography and a good, dark sky) some incredible images of lightning that is generated during an ash-rich eruption. These lightning storms are powerful, up to twice as energetic as a supercell thunderstorm like we get here in Ohio. People have been capturing the combination of lightning and eruptions for centuries (see below), yet we oddly know little about its exact causes. In this week’s EOS (along a more in-depth article in press at Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research), a study by Sonja Behnke and others looked at the lightning generated during the 2009 eruptions from Redoubt in Alaska in order to understand more about the generation and dynamics of volcanic lightning. All posts tagged ‘Redoubt’ There has been some discussion over the years here on Eruptions about what might happen if you were to bomb an eruption volcano. Now, this might be to divert a lava flow, to stop an eruption to prevent an eruption from occurring, but overall, people seem to love the idea that shear human force could prevent a volcanic disaster. Maybe we have Hollywood to blame for this – there are quite a few examples of people putting bombs in volcanoes to start/stop an eruption and hey, it sounds daring. It is the sort of last ditch, hail Mary attempt at averting disaster that makes good (and by that I mean bad) cinema. So, why am I going to talk about bombing volcanoes? Well, because it is exciting. First off, I have never heard or could find any evidence of any attempt to bomb a volcano to stop it from erupting – you know, the idea that if you were to bomb it, the volcano would go from looking like it was going to erupt to going back to silence. Not one. Ever. Why? Well, mostly because it would never work. First off, most magmatic systems are kilometers below the surface of the Earth, so to cause any real disruption (and thus prevention of eruption) as to stop an impending eruption, you would need some sort of nuclear device – and even that might be insufficient … and nuking a volcano is kind of like chopping one’s finger off to stop a hangnail. If you get it wrong, you’re spreading radiation that could be doubly dispersed in volcano ash. No sane geologist would ever advocate such action. Even the so-called “bunker buster” conventional bombs would like not disrupt a magmatic system and, in fact, most likely cause the volcano to erupt, rather than stop it. Remember, once the signs appear that suggest a volcano might erupt, a rapid release of pressure is what is needed to get an explosive eruption to occur, just the sort of thing that bombing a volcano might induce (like a supposed plan to bomb volcanoes in Japan into erupting during World War II). No, we didn’t nuke Redoubt – but volcanic ash plumes can resemble the classic “mushroom cloud” of a nuclear blast. So, that is off the table. Sorry folks, bombing a volcano isn’t going to stop an eruption. Then why bomb a volcano in the first place? I poked around have found only a very few examples of bombing a volcanic eruption and the United States was involved in every one – at least three times in Hawai`i and once in Italy at Etna. The former was bombing with live ordnance – bombs – while the Etna example was “bombing” with concrete blocks. All of these attempts were to divert flowing lava rather than to stop an eruption. Earthen barriers (on left) attempt to divert lava flows from Etna in 1992. In the case of Mt. Etna, the bombing occurred during the 1992 activity at the volcano. The lava from the eruption was threatening some important structures on Etna including an astronomical observatory, so a plan was developed to try to divert the lava from the town. Barriers were constructed to keep the lava from flowing into the town – mostly by constructing earthen barriers to keep the lava from heading in the directions that it shouldn’t. This had worked before during the 1983 eruptions that Etna and might have saved Italy between $2-22 million dollars – and it was one of the first time that humans were able to actively intervene during a volcanic eruption (along with the successful 1973 diversion at Heimaey in Iceland). In 1992, lava flows threatened Zafferana Etnea, a small town on the flanks of Etna. This time attempts to divert the lava (see above) included dropping concrete blocks on the lava flows so as to block it from flowing towards the town. The plan was to blow a hole in a lava tube at higher elevations and then fill the lava tube with concrete blocks (see below)to stop the flow of lava in the tube. Once lava can move down a lava tube, it is very well insulated – so much so that the lava inside the tube can stay hot and move quickly downslope, to the point where it can actually thermally eroded (melt) the bottom and sides of the lava tube, thus making it bigger. By punching a hole in the tube and filling it with debris, the hope was to stop this from occurring. The “bombing” of the flow was a mixed success – it was unclear how much the diversion actually worked, but the towns were spared – but the question of whether diverting lava flows at Etna is a good idea is still up in the air. Concrete blocks dropped near a skylight in a lava tube at Etna during the 1992 eruption. Image courtesy of Claude Grandpey. The other example was from Mauna Loa in Hawai`i. Many people forget that the Big Island in Hawai`i is home to not just one active volcano (Kilauea), but three – Hualalai and Mauna Loa (and even Mauna Kea, although it likely hasn’t erupted in a few thousand years). In fact, Mauna Loa was very active during the middle of the 20th century and erupted as recently as 1984. Mauna Loa is a much larger threat to the people of the Big Island as well – the northeast Rift Zone of the volcano is close to the city of Hilo (see map below), there have been times when lava flows from Mauna Loa threatened the city, its water supply or ecologically-fragile rain forests on the slopes of the volcano. Map of the historic lava flows and hazard zones for Mauna Loa. Image courtesy of HVO/USGS. Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) is an excellent look at what happens when you try to bomb a volcano with active ordnance to attempt to divert lava flows. In fact, as early as 1881 has the idea of using man-made explosions to stop lava flows been suggested at Mauna Loa. The U.S. has tried to bomb Mauna Loa while it was erupting at least twice in the last 100 years and a series of tests were run in the 1970s to determine the best course of action if lava flows from Mauna Loa threatened Hilo again. Overall, it appears that in limited situations, targeted bombing campaigns on vulnerable parts of the volcano – mainly spatter cones that are the source of lava tubes high on the slopes of Mauna Loa – might cause sufficient diversion as to prevent lava flows from reaching Hilo. Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) mention two attempts to bomb the volcano while it was actively erupting – once in 1935 (here is some video of that campaign) and once in 1942, during World War II. Both attempts yielding no noticeable results, but some of the evidence of the bombing campaign can still be found in the form of small craters in lava flows (usually less than 10 m across) or in bombs coated in basaltic glass (see below). Now, both of these bombing attempts were performed using antiquated (at the time) bombs, and even though the pilots of the bombers reported “sheets of red, molten rock thrown up 200 feet”, the lava flows were unaffected (but both ended relatively soon afterwards by causes unrelated to the bombing). Both of these attempts were centered around the idea that bombing lava tubes could disrupt the flow of lava and force it to exit the tube system far upslope from settlements, thus causing the lava to flow harmless on the volcano’s upper flanks. An unexploded bomb on Mauna Loa. Image from Lockwood and Torgerson, 1980. In the 1970s, some tests were conducted by the U.S. Air Force and HVO scientists to see what might be the most effective means of bombing if the goal is to divert a lava flow. These tests (see image below) were on an older lava field with no active lava flows and were performed using relatively modern (for the 70s) ordnance. What was found was that if you target spatter cones that feed lava tube systems, then lava flow disruption – where the surface was most fragile and not dense, solid rocks like above some lava tubes. Bombing the actual lava tubes or flow levees didn’t seem to be very effective. Interestingly, the bombing did show signs of widespread effects, with cracks found in the lava up to 10 meters from the actual crater and disruption of the hardened lava surface as far as 50 meters away. The study came to some conclusions that I hadn’t really considering when it comes to bombing lava flows, especially in Hawai`i. On the plus side, many times lava flows near the summit area at Mauna Loa occur on government lands, so bombing could occur without disruption of private property. Also, bombing the flow to divert lava is a relatively low cost endeavor, especially relative to the cost of lava flows reaching populated area. However, on the negative side, bombing Hawaiian volcanoes is bound to cause native Hawaiians some consternation as the bombing could be perceived as an affront to Pele. In a more practical sense, not all eruptions will have obvious vulnerable spots to bottom and indiscriminate bombing of lava flows could have unintended effects. Plume from a test bombing of an old lava flow on Mauna Loa, performed in 1975. Image from Lockwood and Torgerson, 1980. There you have it – bombing a volcano to divert lava flows could work – but only if you pick the right place. This isn’t a matter of just dropping the largest bomb you can find and hope for the best. In fact, Lockwood and Torgerson (1980) say that lava tube disruption could be accomplished, if the target it picked correctly, with as little as a single 900-kg conventional bomb. This means close cooperation between the military and volcanologists to find the right spot to bomb. It might not be as exciting as racing to get that thermonuclear weapon down the gullet of a volcano in the nick of time to save Seattle from Rainier, but likely a whole lot more effective (in those cases where lava flows are your biggest threat). Lockwood, J.P. and Torgerson, F.A., 1980, Diversion of lava flows by aerial bombing – Lessions from Mauna Loa volcano, Hawaii. Bulletin of Volcanology, vol. 43-4, pp. 727-741. Top left: Lowering a nuclear bomb into a Pacific volcano in order to start an eruption in 1965′s “Crack in the World“. Eruption Update: The Kamoamoa Fissure on Kilauea, lake heating at Ruapehu, quiet times in Alaska and more! Hard to believe that it is only Wednesday, but the eruptions have been coming nonstop it seems. This week has been very Hawaii-centric – and for good reason. The now-christened Kamoamoa Fissure eruption has been impressive to say the least and marks a dramatic change in the eruptive activity at Kilauea. There is still plenty of opportunity to check out the activity – or just watch what you can live from your home (see webcam capture above from Eruptions reader Lurking). HVO’s latest update says the effusion rates are still high along parts of the fissure and some of the lava flows are approaching 1 km in length, so at least right now, it seems like the place to be for lava on the Big Island. However, there is other items of interest I’ve run into this week! New Zealand: A few of you noted that GeoNet in New Zealand has updated the status of Ruapehu – the Alert Status remains at 1 (above background), however they do have a report on the crater lake at the volcano. A new heating cycle has begun on the volcano, with water in the lake now at a balmy 40C – and combined with seismicity, gas output, deformation and water chemistry, the signs all point towards a new heating cycle for Ruapehu, the eight since the crater lake returned after the 1995-96 eruptive activity. Alaska: There has been some chatter about anything going on at Redoubt – the dome has a steam plume over the last few days (see below) and the webicorders have seemed a touch jumpier than normal. I would venture to guess this is all within normal operating parameters for the volcano, and AVO still has the volcano on Green (lowest) Alert Status. In fact, it is awfully quiet across the whole of the Aleutians, with only Cleveland above Green Status – and even there, it sits at Yellow, the second lowest alert. There is a waxing and waning of activity, it seems, at many arcs and right now – unlike 2008-09 when we have eruptions from Redoubt, Cleveland, Okmok, Kasatochi – the Aleutians are having a lie down, it appears. A webcam capture of Redoubt in Alaska as seen on March 9, 2011. Philippines: PHIVOLCS released a report of increased seismic and fumarolic activity at Mayon. Recall that Mayon has been fairly quiet since its last burst of activity at the end of 2009 and early 2010. The crater area also has a “fair glow” at night according to the report, showing that hot lava is still near the surface at the volcano. Indonesia: Over in Indonesia, it looks like the activity at Bromo is up as well. A brief report from the area mentions that the volcano erupted 58 times (not sure if this just means 58 explosions) on March 7 alone. Gede Suantika from PVMBG says the 2-km exclusion zone is still in place, but local residents are saying that “foreign tourists have started to come” to see the activity. (Thanks to Twitter user ikmar for reminding me to check the Bromo news). Three Miles Below the Surface: If you want some brief entertainment, check out this trailer for “Crack in the World” (link fixed!). I have to admit, we watched the full length film last night and it, well, has some interesting ideas about how the Earth works … to say the least (but at least there are “daring scientists”). So, I finally got this project done! We all do a lot of webcam watching here on Eruptions. A lot of the time when a new eruption occurs, the first question posted is “is there a webcam?”, so I thought I’d try to come up with a definitive list of extant volcano webcam, organized by region of the world. These webcams are a mixed of government/agency-installed webcams using for scientific purposes, private webcams posted for tourism purposes and random webcams with no other purposes than to watch the volcano. The country name is linked to the main monitoring agency (special thanks to the Volcanism Blog for helping me find many of these links). Now, I know I missed some, especially for volcanoes that have multiple eyes trained on it like Etna, so if you notice something missing, post a comment with the link and I will update the list. Hopefully, this can stay up to date and I will try to get this added as a link on the front page of the blog. Until then, feel free to bookmark the page and use it to find the webcam of your choice. Last updated May 24, 2011: Added webcams for various locations in Iceland and near Grímsvötn. Also added additional Sakurajima webcam. Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe (Tongariro) – webcam Kermadec Islands (monitoring administered by GNS New Zealand) AVO has a multitude of webcams – and the ability to watch multiple webcams simultaneously. *Many of the Icelandic webcams hosted by ruv.is require Windows Media. You can also see webcams from all around Iceland as well. Top left: Webcam capture of activity at Costa Rica’s Turrialba on January 21, 2011. Image submitted by Eruptions reader Kirby. We’ve found out the winner of 2010 Pliny for volcanic event of the year yesterday, so now let’s look back at the entire year in volcanic activity. It was a busy year, both for the usual suspects and some volcanoes that erupted seemingly out of the blue. Here we go, the 2010 Volcanic Year in Review 2010 started with the Congo’s Nyamuragira having a new eruption that threatened a population of endangered chimps as lava flows issued from a flank fissure vent. We were all also watching one of 2009′s busiest volcanoes, Redoubt in Alaska, where seismicity at the volcano kicked up over the New Year. However, Redoubt was quickly lowered from Yellow to Green alert status as the earthquakes waned. Down in Costa Rica, Turrialba had its first eruption, albeit a small one, since 1866. The volcano developed a crack in the summit that had some people worried that larger eruptions were in the cards. If you were gambling type, you might have made some money betting on eventual 2010 Pliny winner, but the runner up, Merapi, still would have done you well at 10:1. We also saw an impressive explosion at Colombia’s Galeras that was caught on film. Finally, January saw earthquake swarms at Yellowstone Caldera and Salton Buttes, California. Of course, the Yellowstone swarm had everyone’s attention, but with the many swarms at the North American caldera, no eruption followed even as the swarm marched on into February. Tungurahua in Ecuador erupting in February 2010. Tungurahua in Ecuador was active all year, producing ash falls in the region near the volcano. We can expect Tungurahua will make news into 2011, but the problem with a volcano with such constant activity is convincing people that they need to leave if the activity gets worse. There were a couple of reports of eruptions in places you might not expect, namely Pakistan and Azerbaijan. The latter turned out to be a mud volcano. In a decidedly more volcanic event, a submarine volcano named Fukutokoa-Okanoba erupted near Japan and the plume was captured on film by the Japanese Coast Guard. In a prelude of sorts to the big volcanic news of 2010, the Alaska legislature asked whether airlines needed to start kicking in funding for volcanic ash monitoring and in Iceland, earthquakes on the Reykjanis Ridge turned out to be a major red herring. Soufriere Hills on Montserrat continued to have an active winter, with some major pyroclastic flow activity from the collapsing summit dome. Finally, I took on some questionable media coverage after the major earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, but Alan Boyle of MSNBC.com was kind enough to address your questions about science in mainstream media. March started with a discussion about the potential connection between large Chilean earthquakes and volcanic activity in the Chilean Andes. So far we haven’t seen a strong increase in volcanic activity in Chile but as you’ll see later, Planchon-Peteroa did start erupting again. However, only a few days into the month, a a volcano named Eyjafjallajökull appeared in the news for the first time. Within a few weeks, the volcano erupted, albeit from a flank vent that produced an impressive fissure eruption rather than the expected summit intracaldera eruption. The lava flows from the fissure stood out in stark contrast to the snowy background and the eruption became a tourist boom for the island nation. A second fissure opened later in the month next to the first and Eyjafjallajökull was well on its way to becoming a household name (well, maybe not). April opened with reports of an eruption spotted on Mars (OK, not really). In real news, the on-again/off-again Redoubt headed back to Yellow Alert status for a few days, but nothing came from the uptick in seismicity. In Iceland, Eyjafjallajökull marched onward, bringing a bit of Hawai`i to the north Atlantic, but by mid-April, some of us were wondering if we were seeing the beginning of the end. That idea was quickly dashed when reports of flooding and evacuations came out of Iceland. Sure enough, Eyjafjallajökull had gone from an effusive flank vent eruption to a full-blown summit (and subglacial) explosive eruption … and the rest is history (literally). The ash from the newly-explosive eruption wreaked havoc over Europe, closing most of the continent’s airspace for at least 10 days, leading to travel chaos the world over. Much has been made about the decisions that were made regarding the volcanic crisis, but hopefully much can be learned from the eruption, but in terms of the science of volcanoes and how to mitigate for these events. After the initial explosive eruption, the volcano settled down so that European airspace was slowly able to reopen, but intermittent closures occurred over the next month when volcanic activity or wind patterns changed. Meanwhile, while the whole world was watching this upstart volcano in Iceland, Etna in Italy began to show signs it might be headed back into an active period (see December 2010) and Vanuatu’s Gaua continued to cause problems for local residents. May saw Eyjafjallajökull oscillate from big explosions to a smaller, constant stream of steam and ash still causing some disruptions in Europe. However, by the end of the month, activity at Eyjafjallajökull began to quiet. May also saw a big anniversary – 30 years since the eruption of Mount St. Helens that helped bring the study of volcanoes to the 21st century – and all of you shared your memories of the eruption. In active eruptions, Guatemala’s Pacaya doused the region with black ash and a news reporter lost his life when he got too close to the crater. Another submarine eruption popped up in the western Pacific, with Sarigan in the Marianas erupting unexpectedly for the first time on record. Rinjani in Indonesia also had a number of explosions while Bezymianny in Kamchatka joined the chorus as part of a noisy year on the Russian peninsula. June was a quieter month in the volcanic realm. Eyjafjallajökull continued to sputter, but got settled enough for a crater lake to form at the summit. In the Philippines, Taal began to show signs of unrest – troubling for a caldera in a highly populated area – and officials in the Philippines sprung into action to plan potential evacuations and prevent disaster. One of the volcano world’s most consistent players, Japan’s Sakurajima, beat its own record of consecutive days with an eruption, hitting over 549 days in a row. Meanwhile, almost every month in 2010 found Kamchatka producing significant noise, so later in the year I took a closer look at the region. The summer doldrums of volcanoes hit in full force – with a lot of news coming from volcanoes calming down, not acting up. Taal quieted down after getting people nervous in June, while much was made of the supposed unrest at the Chinese/North Korean border caldera Changbaishan (or Changbai). The only real news Eyjafjallajökull was making was in the realm of stamp collecting, where Iceland issued a stamp made with the ash from the dramatic eruption. In terms of active volcanism, Kilauea didn’t let us down, with lava flows that took out more structures in Kalapana. To pick up the slack of the volcanoes, I posted some closer looks at dacite and tuyas, while Dr. Ed Kohut took us all on a tour through the Marianas Islands – and Eruptions joined Twitter (the summer heat does odd things). The twin plume from Indonesia’s Sinabung on August 29, 2010. August started off slowly, with discussions about the threat of volcanism in the Caucasus Mountains, dome collapse at Indonesia’s Karangetang and more eruptions at Colombia’s Galeras. The highlight of the month (or maybe the year) was Etna Week, when Dr. Boris Behncke disassembled the volcano for us to see its inner working and look at its volcanic history. However, the month ended with a surprise. Sinabung in Indonesia, a volcano with little-to-no monitoring equipment near it or research done on it, erupted, prompting evacuations of over 20,000 people from its slopes and producing one of the most striking eruption images from the year (see above). The volcano’s activity would continue on into September. As September began, Eruptions found itself in a new home but even before I could unpack, Sinabung was keeping us all on our toes. No one quite knew what direction the eruption might take – would it be tiny or the next Pinatubo – and even stirred some rumors about blocking realtime data from volcanoes. Another volcano in Colombia, Huila, started coughing up ash while further south on the continent, Chile’s Planchon-Peteroa had a revival, producing some minor ash plumes and ash fall. Cleveland in Alaska produced a one-off explosion, sending ash up over 7.5 km. A few times throughout 2010, the media picked up stories about how researchers are planning to drill into Italy’s Campei Flegrei, which is very unlikely to cause the dire consequences mentioned in the articles. Meanwhile, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Reunion Island’s Piton de la Fournaise, producing some impressive fissure vent lava flows and fountains that continued into October, while Indonesia’s Merapi began to show the first signs that it might be headed towards an eruption. Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia greeted November with the first signs of unrest since 1991, prompting the INGEOMINAS to raise the alert status at the volcano after it experienced some seismicity and produced a minor steam plume. The NASA Earth Observatory, a constant source of incredible images of volcanoes erupting – all taken from space – provided us with images of the multiple eruptions going on in Kamchatka and over 30 years of recovery at Mount St. Helens. I took a closer look at a Nature paper that tried to tackle the controls of volcanic arc location and later in the month, I examined volcanic seismicity and what it means for predicting eruptions. Back in Indonesia, Sinabung settled down after its surprise activity, but just as that was happening, Merapi sprang to life. The dangerous volcano ended the month producing a surprisingly explosive eruption that prompted massive evacuations – and sadly, at least 350 known fatalities. The first explosive eruption at Merapi occurred the same day as a M7.7 earthquake in Indonesia that produced a tsunamis, making it one of the worst days for natural disasters in 2010. Merapi would continue erupting into November. At the same time, there were concerns that Iceland’s Grímsvötn was also headed towards a new eruption after a large glacial flood (jokulhlaup) came from the volcano. Finally, as one volcano took the headlines, another eruption from earlier in the year was declared over as the Icelandic Met Office declared the Eyjafjallajökull eruption done – but we are still learning quite a bit about why the eruption occurred. Merapi erupting on November 5, 2010. In the immortal words of Morrissey, November spawned a monster, this time in the shape of Merapi. Eruptions readers were up to the task of helping disseminate information about the eruption and the relief efforts on the ground, but the volcano was also busy producing significant ash fall, pyroclastic flows and lahars from the remobilized tephra. Over 300,000 people had to be evacuated from the region near Merapi when the eruptive activity was at its most explosive, with a danger zone of over 20 km around the vent, all part of one of the largest and deadliest eruptions in the last 300 years. Even as Indonesia was tackling events at Merapi, both Anak Krakatau and Bromo were actively erupting as well, just going to show how volcanically active the island nation is. Another island nation with abundant volcanoes had to deal with a new eruption as well when the Philippines’ Bulusan started producing phreatic explosions towards the end of November. The real hazard at Bulusan wasn’t the ash from these explosions but rather the lahars that were produced from remobilized ash, but so far, little to no new magma has been found in the Bulusan tephra. A very busy year in volcanoes closed out with activity at Merapi calming down after over a month of eruption. Merapi’s Indonesian brethren did not take the hint, though, as Bromo in the Tengger Caldera continued to erupt throughout early December. We caught a glimpse at how much activity had occurred at the remote volcano Erta Ale, where lava flows from the volcano filled the summit crater. Evacuations were called near Tungurahua as the activity at the Ecuadoran volcano became more explosive again. We got real far out there to examine ice volcanoes on Saturn’s moon Titan and the answers to the questions you submitted to Dr. Adam Kent about Mt. Hood and the Cascades finally made it. 2010 ended with a volcano near-and-dear to many of us, Italy’s Etna, really beginning to ramp up to what looks like it might be a busy 2011 for the volcano. So, there you have it. The highlights, lowlights and a lot of things in-between for volcanoes in 2010. Best wishes for 2011!

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Mass spectrometry (MS) is the science of displaying the spectra (singular spectrum) of the masses of the molecules comprising a sample of material. It is used for determining the elemental composition of a sample, the masses of particles and of molecules, and for elucidating the chemical structures of molecules, such as peptides and other chemical compounds. Mass spectrometry works by ionizing chemical compounds to generate charged molecules or molecule fragments and measuring their mass-to-charge ratios. In a typical MS procedure a sample, which may be solid, liquid, or gas, is ionized. The ions are separated according to their mass-to-charge ratio. The ions are detected by a mechanism capable of detecting charged particles. The signal is processed into the spectra (singular spectrum) of the relative abundance of ions as a function of the mass-to-charge ratio. The atoms or molecules can be identified by correlating known masses by the identified masses or through a characteristic fragmentation pattern. A mass spectrometer consists of three components: ion source, mass analyzer, and detector. The ionizer converts some portion of the sample into ions. There is a wide variety of ionization techniques, depending on the phase (solid, liquid, gas) of the sample, and the efficiency of various ionization mechanisms for the target species in question. An extraction system which removes ions from the sample and gives them a trajectory which allows the mass analyser to sorts the ions by mass-to-charge. The detector, which measures the value of an indicator quantity and thus provides data for calculating the abundances of each ion present. Some detectors also give spatial information, e.g. a multichannel plate. Mass spectrometry has both qualitative and quantitative uses. These include identifying unknown compounds, determining the isotopic composition of elements in a molecule, and determining the structure of a compound by observing its fragmentation. Other uses include quantifying the amount of a compound in a sample or studying the fundamentals of gas phase ion chemistry (the chemistry of ions and neutrals in a vacuum). MS is now in very common use in analytical laboratories that study physical, chemical, or biological properties of a great variety of compounds. The word spectrograph had become part of the international scientific vocabulary by 1884. The linguistic roots are a combination and removal of bound morphemes and free morphemes which relate to the terms spectr-um and phot-ograph-ic plate. Early spectrometry devices that measured the mass-to-charge ratio of ions were called mass spectrographs which consisted of instruments that recorded a spectrum of mass values on a photographic plate. A mass spectroscope is similar to a mass spectrograph except that the beam of ions is directed onto a phosphor screen. A mass spectroscope configuration was used in early instruments when it was desired that the effects of adjustments be quickly observed. Once the instrument was properly adjusted, a photographic plate was inserted and exposed. The term mass spectroscope continued to be used even though the direct illumination of a phosphor screen was replaced by indirect measurements with an oscilloscope. The use of the term mass spectroscopy is now discouraged due to the possibility of confusion with light spectroscopy. Mass spectrometry is often abbreviated as mass-spec or simply as MS. In 1886, Eugen Goldstein observed rays in gas discharges under low pressure that traveled away from the anode and through channels in a perforated cathode, opposite to the direction of negatively charged cathode rays (which travel from cathode to anode). Goldstein called these positively charged anode rays "Kanalstrahlen"; the standard translation of this term into English is "canal rays". Wilhelm Wien found that strong electric or magnetic fields deflected the canal rays and, in 1899, constructed a device with parallel electric and magnetic fields that separated the positive rays according to their charge-to-mass ratio (Q/m). Wien found that the charge-to-mass ratio depended on the nature of the gas in the discharge tube. English scientist J.J. Thomson later improved on the work of Wien by reducing the pressure to create the mass spectrograph. The first application of mass spectrometry to the analysis of amino acids and peptides was reported in 1958. Carl-Ove Andersson highlighted the main fragment ions observed in the ionization of methyl esters. Some of the modern techniques of mass spectrometry were devised by Arthur Jeffrey Dempster and F.W. Aston in 1918 and 1919 respectively. In 1989, half of the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Hans Dehmelt and Wolfgang Paul for the development of the ion trap technique in the 1950s and 1960s. In 2002, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to John Bennett Fenn for the development of electrospray ionization (ESI) and Koichi Tanaka for the development of soft laser desorption (SLD) and their application to the ionization of biological macromolecules, especially proteins. Simplified example The following example describes the operation of a spectrometer mass analyzer, which is of the sector type. (Other analyzer types are treated below.) Consider a sample of sodium chloride (table salt). In the ion source, the sample is vaporized (turned into gas) and ionized (transformed into electrically charged particles) into sodium (Na+) and chloride (Cl-) ions. Sodium atoms and ions are monoisotopic, with a mass of about 23 amu. Chloride atoms and ions come in two isotopes with masses of approximately 35 amu (at a natural abundance of about 75 percent) and approximately 37 amu (at a natural abundance of about 25 percent). The analyzer part of the spectrometer contains electric and magnetic fields, which exert forces on ions traveling through these fields. The speed of a charged particle may be increased or decreased while passing through the electric field, and its direction may be altered by the magnetic field. The magnitude of the deflection of the moving ion's trajectory depends on its mass-to-charge ratio. Lighter ions get deflected by the magnetic force more than heavier ions (based on Newton's second law of motion, F = ma). The streams of sorted ions pass from the analyzer to the detector, which records the relative abundance of each ion type. This information is used to determine the chemical element composition of the original sample (i.e. that both sodium and chlorine are present in the sample) and the isotopic composition of its constituents (the ratio of 35Cl to 37Cl). Creating ions Techniques for ionization have been key to determining what types of samples can be analyzed by mass spectrometry. Electron ionization and chemical ionization are used for gases and vapors. In chemical ionization sources, the analyte is ionized by chemical ion-molecule reactions during collisions in the source. Two techniques often used with liquid and solid biological samples include electrospray ionization (invented by John Fenn) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI, initially developed as a similar technique "Soft Laser Desorption (SLD)" by K. Tanaka for which a Nobel Prize was awarded and as MALDI by M. Karas and F. Hillenkamp). Inductively coupled plasma Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) sources are used primarily for cation analysis of a wide array of sample types. In this type of Ion Source Technology, a 'flame' of plasma that is electrically neutral overall, but that has had a substantial fraction of its atoms ionized by high temperature, is used to atomize introduced sample molecules and to further strip the outer electrons from those atoms. The plasma is usually generated from argon gas, since the first ionization energy of argon atoms is higher than the first of any other elements except He, O, F and Ne, but lower than the second ionization energy of all except the most electropositive metals. The heating is achieved by a radio-frequency current passed through a coil surrounding the plasma. Other ionization techniques Others include glow discharge, field desorption (FD), fast atom bombardment (FAB), thermospray, desorption/ionization on silicon (DIOS), Direct Analysis in Real Time (DART), atmospheric pressure chemical ionization (APCI), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), spark ionization and thermal ionization (TIMS). Ion attachment ionization is an ionization technique that allows for fragmentation free analysis. Mass selection Mass analyzers separate the ions according to their mass-to-charge ratio. The following two laws govern the dynamics of charged particles in electric and magnetic fields in vacuum: - (Newton's second law of motion in non-relativistic case, i.e. valid only at ion velocity much lower than the speed of light). Here F is the force applied to the ion, m is the mass of the ion, a is the acceleration, Q is the ion charge, E is the electric field, and v × B is the vector cross product of the ion velocity and the magnetic field Equating the above expressions for the force applied to the ion yields: This differential equation is the classic equation of motion for charged particles. Together with the particle's initial conditions, it completely determines the particle's motion in space and time in terms of m/Q. Thus mass spectrometers could be thought of as "mass-to-charge spectrometers". When presenting data, it is common to use the (officially) dimensionless m/z, where z is the number of elementary charges (e) on the ion (z=Q/e). This quantity, although it is informally called the mass-to-charge ratio, more accurately speaking represents the ratio of the mass number and the charge number, z. There are many types of mass analyzers, using either static or dynamic fields, and magnetic or electric fields, but all operate according to the above differential equation. Each analyzer type has its strengths and weaknesses. Many mass spectrometers use two or more mass analyzers for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS). In addition to the more common mass analyzers listed below, there are others designed for special situations. There are several important analyser characteristics. The mass resolving power is the measure of the ability to distinguish two peaks of slightly different m/z. The mass accuracy is the ratio of the m/z measurement error to the true m/z. Mass accuracy is usually measured in ppm or milli mass units. The mass range is the range of m/z amenable to analysis by a given analyzer. The linear dynamic range is the range over which ion signal is linear with analyte concentration. Speed refers to the time frame of the experiment and ultimately is used to determine the number of spectra per unit time that can be generated. Sector instruments A sector field mass analyzer uses an electric and/or magnetic field to affect the path and/or velocity of the charged particles in some way. As shown above, sector instruments bend the trajectories of the ions as they pass through the mass analyzer, according to their mass-to-charge ratios, deflecting the more charged and faster-moving, lighter ions more. The analyzer can be used to select a narrow range of m/z or to scan through a range of m/z to catalog the ions present. The time-of-flight (TOF) analyzer uses an electric field to accelerate the ions through the same potential, and then measures the time they take to reach the detector. If the particles all have the same charge, the kinetic energies will be identical, and their velocities will depend only on their masses. Lighter ions will reach the detector first. Quadrupole mass filter Quadrupole mass analyzers use oscillating electrical fields to selectively stabilize or destabilize the paths of ions passing through a radio frequency (RF) quadrupole field created between 4 parallel rods. Only the ions in a certain range of mass/charge ratio are passed through the system at any time, but changes to the potentials on the rods allow a wide range of m/z values to be swept rapidly, either continuously or in a succession of discrete hops. A quadrupole mass analyzer acts as a mass-selective filter and is closely related to the quadrupole ion trap, particularly the linear quadrupole ion trap except that it is designed to pass the untrapped ions rather than collect the trapped ones, and is for that reason referred to as a transmission quadrupole. A common variation of the transmission quadrupole is the triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. The “triple quad” has three consecutive quadrupole stages, the first acting as a mass filter to transmit a particular incoming ion to the second quadrupole, a collision chamber, wherein that ion can be broken into fragments. The third quadrupole also acts as a mass filter, to transmit a particular fragment ion to the detector. If a quadrupole is made to rapidly and repetitively cycle through a range of mass filter settings, full spectra can be reported. Likewise, a triple quad can be made to perform various scan types characteristic of tandem mass spectrometry. Ion traps Three-dimensional quadrupole ion trap The quadrupole ion trap works on the same physical principles as the quadrupole mass analyzer, but the ions are trapped and sequentially ejected. Ions are trapped in a mainly quadrupole RF field, in a space defined by a ring electrode (usually connected to the main RF potential) between two endcap electrodes (typically connected to DC or auxiliary AC potentials). The sample is ionized either internally (e.g. with an electron or laser beam), or externally, in which case the ions are often introduced through an aperture in an endcap electrode. There are many mass/charge separation and isolation methods but the most commonly used is the mass instability mode in which the RF potential is ramped so that the orbit of ions with a mass a > b are stable while ions with mass b become unstable and are ejected on the z-axis onto a detector. There are also non-destructive analysis methods. Ions may also be ejected by the resonance excitation method, whereby a supplemental oscillatory excitation voltage is applied to the endcap electrodes, and the trapping voltage amplitude and/or excitation voltage frequency is varied to bring ions into a resonance condition in order of their mass/charge ratio. The cylindrical ion trap mass spectrometer is a derivative of the quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer. Linear quadrupole ion trap A linear quadrupole ion trap is similar to a quadrupole ion trap, but it traps ions in a two dimensional quadrupole field, instead of a three-dimensional quadrupole field as in a 3D quadrupole ion trap. Thermo Fisher's LTQ ("linear trap quadrupole") is an example of the linear ion trap. A toroidal ion trap can be visualized as a linear quadrupole curved around and connected at the ends or as a cross section of a 3D ion trap rotated on edge to form the toroid, donut shaped trap. The trap can store large volumes of ions by distributing them throughout the ring-like trap structure. This toroidal shaped trap is a configuration that allows the increased miniaturization of an ion trap mass analyzer. Additionally all ions are stored in the same trapping field and ejected together simplifying detection that can be complicated with array configurations due to variations in detector alignment and machining of the arrays. These are similar to Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometers (see text below). Ions are electrostatically trapped in an orbit around a central, spindle shaped electrode. The electrode confines the ions so that they both orbit around the central electrode and oscillate back and forth along the central electrode's long axis. This oscillation generates an image current in the detector plates which is recorded by the instrument. The frequencies of these image currents depend on the mass to charge ratios of the ions. Mass spectra are obtained by Fourier transformation of the recorded image currents. Orbitraps have a high mass accuracy, high sensitivity and a good dynamic range. Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance Fourier transform mass spectrometry (FTMS), or more precisely Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance MS, measures mass by detecting the image current produced by ions cyclotroning in the presence of a magnetic field. Instead of measuring the deflection of ions with a detector such as an electron multiplier, the ions are injected into a Penning trap (a static electric/magnetic ion trap) where they effectively form part of a circuit. Detectors at fixed positions in space measure the electrical signal of ions which pass near them over time, producing a periodic signal. Since the frequency of an ion's cycling is determined by its mass to charge ratio, this can be deconvoluted by performing a Fourier transform on the signal. FTMS has the advantage of high sensitivity (since each ion is "counted" more than once) and much higher resolution and thus precision. Ion cyclotron resonance (ICR) is an older mass analysis technique similar to FTMS except that ions are detected with a traditional detector. Ions trapped in a Penning trap are excited by an RF electric field until they impact the wall of the trap, where the detector is located. Ions of different mass are resolved according to impact time. The final element of the mass spectrometer is the detector. The detector records either the charge induced or the current produced when an ion passes by or hits a surface. In a scanning instrument, the signal produced in the detector during the course of the scan versus where the instrument is in the scan (at what m/Q) will produce a mass spectrum, a record of ions as a function of m/Q. Typically, some type of electron multiplier is used, though other detectors including Faraday cups and ion-to-photon detectors are also used. Because the number of ions leaving the mass analyzer at a particular instant is typically quite small, considerable amplification is often necessary to get a signal. Microchannel plate detectors are commonly used in modern commercial instruments. In FTMS and Orbitraps, the detector consists of a pair of metal surfaces within the mass analyzer/ion trap region which the ions only pass near as they oscillate. No direct current is produced, only a weak AC image current is produced in a circuit between the electrodes. Other inductive detectors have also been used. Tandem mass spectrometry A tandem mass spectrometer is one capable of multiple rounds of mass spectrometry, usually separated by some form of molecule fragmentation. For example, one mass analyzer can isolate one peptide from many entering a mass spectrometer. A second mass analyzer then stabilizes the peptide ions while they collide with a gas, causing them to fragment by collision-induced dissociation (CID). A third mass analyzer then sorts the fragments produced from the peptides. Tandem MS can also be done in a single mass analyzer over time, as in a quadrupole ion trap. There are various methods for fragmenting molecules for tandem MS, including collision-induced dissociation (CID), electron capture dissociation (ECD), electron transfer dissociation (ETD), infrared multiphoton dissociation (IRMPD), blackbody infrared radiative dissociation (BIRD), electron-detachment dissociation (EDD) and surface-induced dissociation (SID). An important application using tandem mass spectrometry is in protein identification. Tandem mass spectrometry enables a variety of experimental sequences. Many commercial mass spectrometers are designed to expedite the execution of such routine sequences as selected reaction monitoring (SRM) and precursor ion scanning. In SRM, the first analyzer allows only a single mass through and the second analyzer monitors for multiple user-defined fragment ions. SRM is most often used with scanning instruments where the second mass analysis event is duty cycle limited. These experiments are used to increase specificity of detection of known molecules, notably in pharmacokinetic studies. Precursor ion scanning refers to monitoring for a specific loss from the precursor ion. The first and second mass analyzers scan across the spectrum as partitioned by a user-defined m/z value. This experiment is used to detect specific motifs within unknown molecules. Another type of tandem mass spectrometry used for radiocarbon dating is accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which uses very high voltages, usually in the mega-volt range, to accelerate negative ions into a type of tandem mass spectrometer. Common mass spectrometer configurations and techniques When a specific configuration of source, analyzer, and detector becomes conventional in practice, often a compound acronym arises to designate it, and the compound acronym may be better known among nonspectrometrists than the component acronyms. The epitome of this is MALDI-TOF, which simply refers to combining a matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization source with a time-of-flight mass analyzer. The MALDI-TOF moniker is more widely recognized by the non-mass spectrometrists than MALDI or TOF individually. Other examples include inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), thermal ionization-mass spectrometry (TIMS) and spark source mass spectrometry (SSMS). Sometimes the use of the generic "MS" actually connotes a very specific mass analyzer and detection system, as is the case with AMS, which is always sector based. Certain applications of mass spectrometry have developed monikers that although strictly speaking would seem to refer to a broad application, in practice have come instead to connote a specific or a limited number of instrument configurations. An example of this is isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS), which refers in practice to the use of a limited number of sector based mass analyzers; this name is used to refer to both the application and the instrument used for the application. Chromatographic techniques combined with mass spectrometry An important enhancement to the mass resolving and mass determining capabilities of mass spectrometry is using it in tandem with chromatographic separation techniques. Gas chromatography A common combination is gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC/MS or GC-MS). In this technique, a gas chromatograph is used to separate different compounds. This stream of separated compounds is fed online into the ion source, a metallic filament to which voltage is applied. This filament emits electrons which ionize the compounds. The ions can then further fragment, yielding predictable patterns. Intact ions and fragments pass into the mass spectrometer's analyzer and are eventually detected. Liquid chromatography Similar to gas chromatography MS (GC/MS), liquid chromatography mass spectrometry (LC/MS or LC-MS) separates compounds chromatographically before they are introduced to the ion source and mass spectrometer. It differs from GC/MS in that the mobile phase is liquid, usually a mixture of water and organic solvents, instead of gas and the ions fragments cannot yield predictable patterns. Most commonly, an electrospray ionization source is used in LC/MS. There are also some newly developed ionization techniques like laser spray. Ion mobility Ion mobility spectrometry/mass spectrometry (IMS/MS or IMMS) is a technique where ions are first separated by drift time through some neutral gas under an applied electrical potential gradient before being introduced into a mass spectrometer. Drift time is a measure of the radius relative to the charge of the ion. The duty cycle of IMS (the time over which the experiment takes place) is longer than most mass spectrometric techniques, such that the mass spectrometer can sample along the course of the IMS separation. This produces data about the IMS separation and the mass-to-charge ratio of the ions in a manner similar to LC/MS. The duty cycle of IMS is short relative to liquid chromatography or gas chromatography separations and can thus be coupled to such techniques, producing triple modalities such as LC/IMS/MS. Data and analysis Data representations Mass spectrometry produces various types of data. The most common data representation is the mass spectrum. Certain types of mass spectrometry data are best represented as a mass chromatogram. Types of chromatograms include selected ion monitoring (SIM), total ion current (TIC), and selected reaction monitoring (SRM), among many others. Other types of mass spectrometry data are well represented as a three-dimensional contour map. In this form, the mass-to-charge, m/z is on the x-axis, intensity the y-axis, and an additional experimental parameter, such as time, is recorded on the z-axis. Data analysis Mass spectrometry data analysis is a complicated subject that is very specific to the type of experiment producing the data. There are general subdivisions of data that are fundamental to understanding any data. Many mass spectrometers work in either negative ion mode or positive ion mode. It is very important to know whether the observed ions are negatively or positively charged. This is often important in determining the neutral mass but it also indicates something about the nature of the molecules. Different types of ion source result in different arrays of fragments produced from the original molecules. An electron ionization source produces many fragments and mostly single-charged (1-) radicals (odd number of electrons), whereas an electrospray source usually produces non-radical quasimolecular ions that are frequently multiply charged. Tandem mass spectrometry purposely produces fragment ions post-source and can drastically change the sort of data achieved by an experiment. By understanding the origin of a sample, certain expectations can be assumed as to the component molecules of the sample and their fragmentations. A sample from a synthesis/manufacturing process will probably contain impurities chemically related to the target component. A relatively crudely prepared biological sample will probably contain a certain amount of salt, which may form adducts with the analyte molecules in certain analyses. Results can also depend heavily on how the sample was prepared and how it was run/introduced. An important example is the issue of which matrix is used for MALDI spotting, since much of the energetics of the desorption/ionization event is controlled by the matrix rather than the laser power. Sometimes samples are spiked with sodium or another ion-carrying species to produce adducts rather than a protonated species. The greatest source of trouble when non-mass spectrometrists try to conduct mass spectrometry on their own or collaborate with a mass spectrometrist is inadequate definition of the research goal of the experiment. Adequate definition of the experimental goal is a prerequisite for collecting the proper data and successfully interpreting it. Among the determinations that can be achieved with mass spectrometry are molecular mass, molecular structure, and sample purity. Each of these questions requires a different experimental procedure. Simply asking for a "mass spec" will most likely not answer the real question at hand. Interpretation of mass spectra Since the precise structure or peptide sequence of a molecule is deciphered through the set of fragment masses, the interpretation of mass spectra requires combined use of various techniques. Usually the first strategy for identifying an unknown compound is to compare its experimental mass spectrum against a library of mass spectra. If the search comes up empty, then manual interpretation or software assisted interpretation of mass spectra are performed. Computer simulation of ionization and fragmentation processes occurring in mass spectrometer is the primary tool for assigning structure or peptide sequence to a molecule. An a priori structural information is fragmented in silico and the resulting pattern is compared with observed spectrum. Such simulation is often supported by a fragmentation library that contains published patterns of known decomposition reactions. Software taking advantage of this idea has been developed for both small molecules and proteins. Another way of interpreting mass spectra involves spectra with accurate mass. A mass-to-charge ratio value (m/z) with only integer precision can represent an immense number of theoretically possible ion structures. More precise mass figures significantly reduce the number of candidate molecular formulas, albeit each can still represent a large number of structurally diverse compounds. A computer algorithm called formula generator calculates all molecular formulas that theoretically fit a given mass with specified tolerance. A recent technique for structure elucidation in mass spectrometry, called precursor ion fingerprinting identifies individual pieces of structural information by conducting a search of the tandem spectra of the molecule under investigation against a library of the product-ion spectra of structurally characterized precursor ions. Isotope ratio MS: isotope dating and tracking Mass spectrometry is also used to determine the isotopic composition of elements within a sample. Differences in mass among isotopes of an element are very small, and the less abundant isotopes of an element are typically very rare, so a very sensitive instrument is required. These instruments, sometimes referred to as isotope ratio mass spectrometers (IR-MS), usually use a single magnet to bend a beam of ionized particles towards a series of Faraday cups which convert particle impacts to electric current. A fast on-line analysis of deuterium content of water can be done using Flowing afterglow mass spectrometry, FA-MS. Probably the most sensitive and accurate mass spectrometer for this purpose is the accelerator mass spectrometer (AMS). Isotope ratios are important markers of a variety of processes. Some isotope ratios are used to determine the age of materials for example as in carbon dating. Labeling with stable isotopes is also used for protein quantification. (see protein characterization below) Trace gas analysis Several techniques use ions created in a dedicated ion source injected into a flow tube or a drift tube: selected ion flow tube (SIFT-MS), and proton transfer reaction (PTR-MS), are variants of chemical ionization dedicated for trace gas analysis of air, breath or liquid headspace using well defined reaction time allowing calculations of analyte concentrations from the known reaction kinetics without the need for internal standard or calibration. Atom probe Pharmacokinetics is often studied using mass spectrometry because of the complex nature of the matrix (often blood or urine) and the need for high sensitivity to observe low dose and long time point data. The most common instrumentation used in this application is LC-MS with a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer. Tandem mass spectrometry is usually employed for added specificity. Standard curves and internal standards are used for quantitation of usually a single pharmaceutical in the samples. The samples represent different time points as a pharmaceutical is administered and then metabolized or cleared from the body. Blank or t=0 samples taken before administration are important in determining background and ensuring data integrity with such complex sample matrices. Much attention is paid to the linearity of the standard curve; however it is not uncommon to use curve fitting with more complex functions such as quadratics since the response of most mass spectrometers is less than linear across large concentration ranges. Protein characterization Mass spectrometry is an important method for the characterization and sequencing of proteins. The two primary methods for ionization of whole proteins are electrospray ionization (ESI) and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization (MALDI). In keeping with the performance and mass range of available mass spectrometers, two approaches are used for characterizing proteins. In the first, intact proteins are ionized by either of the two techniques described above, and then introduced to a mass analyzer. This approach is referred to as "top-down" strategy of protein analysis. In the second, proteins are enzymatically digested into smaller peptides using proteases such as trypsin or pepsin, either in solution or in gel after electrophoretic separation. Other proteolytic agents are also used. The collection of peptide products are then introduced to the mass analyzer. When the characteristic pattern of peptides is used for the identification of the protein the method is called peptide mass fingerprinting (PMF), if the identification is performed using the sequence data determined in tandem MS analysis it is called de novo sequencing. These procedures of protein analysis are also referred to as the "bottom-up" approach. Glycan analysis Mass spectrometry (MS), with its low sample requirement and high sensitivity, has been predominantly used in glycobiology for characterization and elucidation of glycan structures. Mass spectrometry provides a complementary method to HPLC for the analysis of glycans. Intact glycans may be detected directly as singly charged ions by matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry (MALDI-MS) or, following permethylation or peracetylation, by fast atom bombardment mass spectrometry (FAB-MS). Electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI-MS) also gives good signals for the smaller glycans. Various free and commercial software are now available which interpret MS data and aid in Glycan structure characterization. Space exploration As a standard method for analysis, mass spectrometers have reached other planets and moons. Two were taken to Mars by the Viking program. In early 2005 the Cassini–Huygens mission delivered a specialized GC-MS instrument aboard the Huygens probe through the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of the planet Saturn. This instrument analyzed atmospheric samples along its descent trajectory and was able to vaporize and analyze samples of Titan's frozen, hydrocarbon covered surface once the probe had landed. These measurements compare the abundance of isotope(s) of each particle comparatively to earth's natural abundance. Also on board the Cassini–Huygens spacecraft is an ion and neutral mass spectrometer which has been taking measurements of Titan's atmospheric composition as well as the composition of Enceladus' plumes. A Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer mass spectrometer was carried by the Mars Phoenix Lander launched in 2007. Mass spectrometers are also widely used in space missions to measure the composition of plasmas. For example, the Cassini spacecraft carries the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS), which measures the mass of ions in Saturn's magnetosphere. Respired gas monitor Mass spectrometers were used in hospitals for respiratory gas analysis beginning around 1975 through the end of the century. Some are probably still in use but none are currently being manufactured. Found mostly in the operating room, they were a part of a complex system, in which respired gas samples from patients undergoing anesthesia were drawn into the instrument through a valve mechanism designed to sequentially connect up to 32 rooms to the mass spectrometer. A computer directed all operations of the system. The data collected from the mass spectrometer was delivered to the individual rooms for the anesthesiologist to use. The uniqueness of this magnetic sector mass spectrometer may have been the fact that a plane of detectors, each purposely positioned to collect all of the ion species expected to be in the samples, allowed the instrument to simultaneously report all of the gases respired by the patient. Although the mass range was limited to slightly over 120 u, fragmentation of some of the heavier molecules negated the need for a higher detection limit. See also - Mass spectrometry software - Helium mass spectrometer - Mass spectrometry imaging - Isotope dilution - Dumas method of molecular weight determination - MassBank (database), a Japanese spectral database - Sparkman, O. David (2000). Mass spectrometry desk reference. Pittsburgh: Global View Pub. ISBN 0-9660813-2-3. - Chhabil Dass (11 May 2007). Fundamentals of Contemporary Mass Spectrometry. John Wiley & Sons. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-470-11848-1. Retrieved 28 April 2013. - "Definition of spectrograph." Merriam Webster. Accessed 13 June 2008. - KM Downard (2007). "William Aston – the man behind the mass spectrograph". European Journal of Mass Spectrometry 13 (3): 177–190. doi:10.1255/ejms.878. PMID 17881785. - Harper, Douglas. "Spectrum." Online Etymology Dictionary. Nov. 2001. Accessed 07-12-2007. Note: This part of the article only makes descriptive claims about the information found in the primary source, the accuracy and applicability of which is easily verifiable by any reasonable, educated person without specialist knowledge. (See WP:PSTS) - Squires, Gordon (1998). "Francis Aston and the mass spectrograph". Dalton Transactions (23): 3893–3900. doi:10.1039/a804629h. - KM Downard (2007). "Francis William Aston – the man behind the mass spectrograph". European Journal of Mass Spectrometry 13 (3): 177–190. doi:10.1255/ejms.878. PMID 17881785. - Thomson, J.J. (1913). Rays Of Positive Electricity and Their Application to Chemical Analysis. London: Longman's Green and Company. - Siri, William (1947). "Mass spectroscope for analysis in the low-mass range". Review of Scientific Instruments 18 (8): 540–545. Bibcode:1947RScI...18..540S. doi:10.1063/1.1740998. - Price, Phil (1991). "Standard definitions of terms relating to mass spectrometry. A report from the Committee on Measurements and Standards of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 2 (4): 336–348. doi:10.1016/1044-0305(91)80025-3. - Carl-Ove Andersson, Acta. Chem. Scand. 1958, 12, 1353 - Mass Spec Anniversary, Chemical & Engineering News, 87, 6 (9 Feb. 2009), p. 4 - "The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2002: Information for the Public". The Nobel Foundation. 9 October 2002. Retrieved 2007-08-29. - Fenn, J. B.; Mann, M.; Meng, C. K.; Wong, S. F.; Whitehouse, C. M. (1989). "Electrospray ionization for mass spectrometry of large biomolecules". Science 246 (4926): 64–71. Bibcode:1989Sci...246...64F. doi:10.1126/science.2675315. PMID 2675315. - Tanaka, K.; Waki, H.; Ido, Y.; Akita, S.; Yoshida, Y.; Yoshida, T. (1988). "Protein and Polymer Analyses up to m/z 100 000 by Laser Ionization Time-of flight Mass Spectrometry". Rapid Commun Mass Spectrom 2 (20): 151–3. doi:10.1002/rcm.1290020802. - Karas, M.; Bachman, D.; Bahr, U.; Hillenkamp, F. (1987). "Matrix-Assisted Ultraviolet Laser Desorption of Non-Volatile Compounds". Int J Mass Spectrom Ion Proc 78: 53–68. doi:10.1016/0168-1176(87)87041-6. - A. P. Bruins (1991). "Mass spectrometry with ion sources operating at atmospheric pressure". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 10 (1): 53–77. doi:10.1002/mas.1280100104. - John S Cottrell, Roger J Greathead (1986). "Extending the Mass Range of a Sector Mass Spectrometer". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 5 (3): 215–247. doi:10.1002/mas.1280050302. - In the event that the ions do not start at identical kinetic energies, some ions may lag behind higher kinetic energy ions decreasing resolution. Reflectron geometries are commonly employed to correct this problem. Wollnik, H. (1993). "Time-of-flight mass analyzers". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 12 (2): 89. doi:10.1002/mas.1280120202. - Paul W., Steinwedel H.; Steinwedel (1953). "Ein neues Massenspektrometer ohne Magnetfeld". Zeitschrift für Naturforschung A 8 (7): 448–450. Bibcode:1953ZNatA...8..448P. - R. E. March (2000). "Quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometry: a view at the turn of the century". International Journal of Mass Spectrometry 200 (1–3): 285–312. doi:10.1016/S1387-3806(00)00345-6. - Schwartz, Jae C.; Michael W. Senko and John E. P. Syka (2002). "A two-dimensional quadrupole ion trap mass spectrometer". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 13 (6): 659–669. doi:10.1016/S1044-0305(02)00384-7. PMID 12056566. - Lammert SA, Rockwood AA, Wang M, and ML Lee (2006). "Miniature Toroidal Radio Frequency Ion Trap Mass Analyzer". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 17 (7): 916–922. doi:10.1016/j.jasms.2006.02.009. PMID 16697659. - Q. Hu, R. J. Noll, H. Li, A. Makarov, M. Hardman and R. G. Cooks (2005). "The Orbitrap: a new mass spectrometer". Journal of Mass Spectrometry 40 (4): 430–443. doi:10.1002/jms.856. PMID 15838939. - M. B. Comisarow and A. G. Marshall (1974). "Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance spectroscopy". Chemical Physics Letters 25 (2): 282–283. Bibcode:1974CPL....25..282C. doi:10.1016/0009-2614(74)89137-2. - Marshall, A. G.; Hendrickson, C. L.; Jackson, G. S. (1998). "Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometry: a primer". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 17 (1): 1–34. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1098-2787(1998)17:1<1::AID-MAS1>3.0.CO;2-K. PMID 9768511. - F. Dubois, R. Knochenmuss, R. Zenobi, A. Brunelle, C. Deprun and Y. L. Beyec (1999). "A comparison between ion-to-photon and microchannel plate detectors". Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 13 (9): 786–791. doi:10.1002/(SICI)1097-0231(19990515)13:9<786::AID-RCM566>3.0.CO;2-3. - M. A. Park, J. H. Callahan and A. Vertes (1994). "An inductive detector for time-of-flight mass spectrometry". Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 8 (4): 317–322. doi:10.1002/rcm.1290080407. - Robert K. Boyd (1994). "Linked-scan techniques for MS/MS using tandem-in-space instruments". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 13 (5–6): 359–410. doi:10.1002/mas.1280130502. - Eiceman, G.A. (2000). Gas Chromatography. In R.A. Meyers (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Analytical Chemistry: Applications, Theory, and Instrumentation, pp. 10627. Chichester: Wiley. ISBN 0-471-97670-9 - Verbeck, GF and Ruotolo, BT and Sawyer, HA and Gillig, KJ and Russell, DH, G; Ruotolo, B; Sawyer, H; Gillig, K; Russell, D (2002). "A fundamental introduction to ion mobility mass spectrometry applied to the analysis of biomolecules". J Biomol Tech 13 (2): 56–61. PMC 2279851. PMID 19498967. - L. M. Matz, G. R. Asbury and H. H. Hill (2002). "Two-dimensional separations with electrospray ionization ambient pressure high-resolution ion mobility spectrometry/quadrupole mass spectrometry". Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry 16 (7): 670–675. doi:10.1002/rcm.623. PMID 11921245. - Rena A. Sowell, Stormy L. Koeniger, Stephen J. Valentine, Myeong Hee Moon and David E. Clemmer (2004). "Nanoflow LC/IMS-MS and LC/IMS-CID/MS of Protein Mixtures". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 15 (9): 1341–1353. doi:10.1016/j.jasms.2004.06.014. PMID 15337515. - Tureček, František; McLafferty, Fred W. (1993). Interpretation of mass spectra. Sausalito: University Science Books. ISBN 0-935702-25-3. - Mistrik, R.(2004). A New Concept for the Interpretation of Mass Spectra Based on a Combination of a Fragmentation Mechanism Database and a Computer Expert System. in Ashcroft, A.E., Brenton, G., Monaghan,J.J. (Eds.), Advances in Mass Spectrometry, Elsevier, Amsterdam, vol. 16, pp. 821. - Hsieh, Yunsheng; Korfmacher, WA (2006). "Systems for Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetic Screening, Y. Hsieh and W.A. Korfmacher, Current Drug Metabolism". Current Drug Metabolism 7 (5): 479–489. doi:10.2174/138920006777697963. PMID 16787157. - Covey, T.R.; Lee, E.D.; Henion, J.D. (1986). "Mass Spectrometry for the Determination of Drugs in Biological Samples". Anal. Chem. 58 (12): 2453–2460. doi:10.1021/ac00125a022. PMID 3789400. - Covey, Tom R.; Crowther, Jonathan B.; Dewey, Elizabeth A.; Henion, Jack D. (1985). "Mass Spectrometry Determination of Drugs and Their Metabolites in Biological Fluids". Anal. Chem. 57 (2): 474–81. doi:10.1021/ac50001a036. PMID 3977076. - Apte, A.; Meitei, N.S. (2009). "Bioinformatics in Glycomics: Glycan Characterization with Mass Spectrometric Data Using SimGlycan". Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.). Methods in Molecular Biology 600: 269–281. doi:10.1007/978-1-60761-454-8_19. ISBN 978-1-60761-453-1. PMID 19882135. More than one of - Harvey, D.; Dwek, R.A.; Rudd, P.M. (2000). "Determining the Structure of Glycan Moieties by Mass Spectrometry". Current Protocols in Protein Science. Chapter 12: 12.7–12.7.15. doi:10.1002/0471140864.ps1207s43. ISBN 0-471-14086-4. PMID 18429296. Unknown parameter - Blow, N. (2009). "Glycobiology: A spoonful of sugar". Nature 457 (7229): 617–620. Bibcode:2009Natur.457..617B. doi:10.1038/457617a. PMID 19177129. Unknown parameter - S. Petrie and D. K. Bohme (2007). "Ions in space". Mass Spectrometry Reviews 26 (2): 258–280. doi:10.1002/mas.20114. PMID 17111346. - Hoffman, J; Chaney, R; Hammack, H (2008). "Phoenix Mars Mission—The Thermal Evolved Gas Analyzer". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry 19 (10): 1377–83. doi:10.1016/j.jasms.2008.07.015. PMID 18715800 - "Cassini Plasma Spectrometer". Southwest Research Institute. Retrieved 2008-01-04. - Riker JB, Haberman B (1976). "Expired gas monitoring by mass spectrometry in a respiratory intensive care unit". Crit. Care Med. 4 (5): 223–9. doi:10.1097/00003246-197609000-00002. PMID 975846. - J. W. W. Gothard, C. M. Busst, M. A. Branthwaite, N. J. H. Davies and D. M. Denison (1980). "Applications of respiratory mass spectrometry to intensive care". Anaesthesia 35 (9): 890–895. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2044.1980.tb03950.x. PMID 6778243. - Tureček, František; McLafferty, Fred W. (1993). Interpretation of mass spectra. Sausalito, Calif: University Science Books. ISBN 0-935702-25-3. - Edmond de Hoffman; Vincent Stroobant (2001). Mass Spectrometry: Principles and Applications (2nd ed.). John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 0-471-48566-7. - Downard, Kevin (2004). Mass Spectrometry – A Foundation Course. Cambridge UK: Royal Society of Chemistry. ISBN 0-85404-609-7. - Siuzdak, Gary (1996). Mass spectrometry for biotechnology. Boston: Academic Press. ISBN 0-12-647471-0. - Dass, Chhabil (2001). Principles and practice of biological mass spectrometry. New York: John Wiley. ISBN 0-471-33053-1. - Jnrgen H. Gross (2006). Mass Spectrometry: A Textbook. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. ISBN 3-540-40739-1. - Muzikar, P., et al. (2003). "Accelerator Mass Spectrometry in Geologic Research". Geological Society of America Bulletin 115: 643–654. doi:10.1130/0016-7606(2003)115<0643:AMSIGR>2.0.CO;2. ISSN 0016-7606. - O. David Sparkman (2006). Mass Spectrometry Desk Reference. Pittsburgh: Global View Pub. ISBN 0-9660813-9-0. - J. Throck Watson and O. David Sparkman (2007). Introduction to Mass Spectrometry: Instrumentatio, Applications, and Strategies for Data Interpretation, 4th Ed. Chichester: Jonh Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-470-51634-8. - Tuniz, C. (1998). Accelerator mass spectrometry: ultrasensitive analysis for global science. Boca Raton: CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-4538-3. |Wikibooks has more on the topic of: Mass spectrometry| |Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Mass spectrometry| |Look up mass spectrometry in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.| - ASMS American Society for Mass Spectrometry - Interactive tutorial on mass spectra National High Magnetic Field Laboratory - Mass spectrometer simulation An interactive application simulating the console of a mass spectrometer - Realtime Mass Spectra simulation Tool to simulate mass spectra in the browser

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The A to Z of Jainism Kristi L. WileyVision Books : The A to Z of Jainism : Kristi L. Wiley : Book (ISBN: 8170946816) Pages: 336 Price: Rs. 550 Format: HC ISBN13/10: / 8170946816 Availability: Yes Published in 2007 The A-to-Z of Jainism is a unique quick-reference book about a religion with an unbroken history of more than 2,500 years, and one which has influenced India's culture throughout this period. At the core of Jainism's teachings is non-violence (ahimsa), which Mahatma Gandhi brought to world consciousness by adopting it as the guiding principle in the campaign he led for India's freedom. In Jainism, non-violence extends equally to man's relationship with all natural life, a sensitivity being articulated anew in contemporary times by a concern for the environment and animal rights, etc. This book covers all important touchstones of Jainism in more than 450 crisp, alphabetical entries spanning: The basic teachings of Jainism; The life of Mahavira, the founder of the The main sectarian traditions of Jainism, and mendicant and lay practices; Important Jain scriptures; Influential Jain leaders and scholars; Sacred and historic Jain sites; Jain prayers and pilgrimages, beliefs, rituals A detailed Introduction provides a holistic overview of Jainism; and a chronology highlights important Jain milestones. An extensive, subject-wise bibliography guides interested readers to in-depth resources on various topics. "Concise and informative encyclopedia of Jain concepts, texts, places, and people" Journal of Asian Studies, USA "Valuable reference work on Jainism . . . concise but extremely informative" Reference Reviews, USA Kristi L. Wiley KRISTI L. WILEY (B.S., Santa Clara University; M.A. and Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley) is a visiting lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley. She teaches courses on Indian religions and religion and ecology. Her area of specialization in Jainism is karma theory. She has published articles in Approaches to Jaina Studies (ed. N. K. Wagle and Olle Qvarnstrom), Doctrines and Dialogues (ed. Peter Flugel), Essays in Jaina Philosophy and Religion (ed. Piotr Balcerowicz), Jainism and Early Buddhism (ed. Olle Qvarnstrom), Jainism and Ecology (ed. Christopher Key Chapple), and Philosophy East and West. She is a member of the American Academy of Religion and the American Oriental Society.

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Have you ever realized how much one moment of locking eyes can mean? Try looking a stranger in the eye or even someone you know pretty well. Eyes are one of the best attributes of human expression because they can be direct and elusive, as well as show a million different emotions in just one look. Even one glance can tell you a lot about a person’s character, especially if a smile or smirk is thrown in. One thing that shy people have as a disadvantage is that they have trouble holding eye contact. It’s well known that in Western countries like the United States, giving those in power eye contact is revered. However, in Eastern countries, eye contact to those in power is viewed as rude and a sign of disrespect. It’s important to recognize these differences, since eye contact can mean many different things depending on the setting and the people locking eyes. Why is it good to practice strong eye contact in your every day life? 1. Respect – As I said above, in Western countries like the United States, eye contact in order to show and earn respect. From talking to your boss at work to thanking your grandmother for a birthday gift, eye contact shows that you see the person as equal or someone you view as important. Of course there are other ways to show respect, such as staying eye-level with the person and positioning yourself as leaning into them when you’re talking, but eye contact shows that you’re on the same page in the most straight-forward way. As they say, “eyes are the window to the soul.” Sincerity can be felt through eye contact, therefore, genuine respect will be received if you pay strong attention through your eyes. 2. Interest – If you like someone in any way, shape, or form, why not look them in the eye when you’re talking to them? Looking down or away from them can come off as aloof, especially if the person is telling you about something important or trying to get your attention. In order to put the most effort into showing interest, look the person in the eye and smile. This can be taken different ways depending on what you and the other person are intending - interest could mean familial, friendship, a respectful authoritarian interest, love interest, or even just a strong bond that you and the other person have. Eye contact can say so much, yet leave so much to assumptions and analyzing body language. For more on body language and the interplay of interest, check this other article I wrote: Is It Really In The Eyes? Body Language Decoded. 3. Appreciation - You can convey appreciation quite easily with the eyes - just give a meaningful look into their eyes while you’re thanking them and the other person is able to recognize how you feel. Showing emotions like appreciation is quite important in terms of friends and family members if they do something nice or helpful for you, so eye contact is vital in these situations. It’s a socially constructed way to keep up a positive image with people in your life, yet also an extremely good way to show your thanks with sincerity. 4. Understanding – A locking of eyes can be all you need to have some understand something you mean. If you’re trying to get a point across or just want some reassurance, eye contact can be an important asset in communicating your thoughts. Eye contact is one of the most intimate forms of communication because sight has the ability to pick up so much that people convey. It’s possible to guess what someone’s thinking based on their eyes and how they look at you. Eye contact, or lack thereof, is invaluable for learning to trust someone and having that same respect given in return. 5. Eye contact can be the difference between seeming aloof and a new friendship. If you’re giving someone eye contact, this could be the start of friendly, warm communication with a new person. By keeping yourself open to locking eyes with a stranger, you’re inviting them to look at you and perhaps start a conversation. You’re leaving yourself open to people if you’re willing to make eye contact and keep up a friendly face. While there’s a clear difference between good eye contact and glaring, it’s important that you know when it’s appropriate to use either. Warm, friendly eyes could be the deciding factor in whether you make a possible friend or scare someone away! While there are exceptions to leaving yourself open with your eyes (ie. when you’re somewhere new and you feel rather sketched out), it’s important to not let opportunities where eye contact could help you to pass you by. Surprising things could happen if you just open your eyes! In general, eye contact is something people don’t think enough about. It’s important to teach children from a young age to look people in the eye when they’re talking to them or they could develop a habit of seeming aloof or disinterested in communicating with other people. Locking eyes and knowing when to look away is a good people skill to possess. Use your eyes to project a positive image and one look could be the catalyst for change in your life. Open your eyes, sister – you never know who might be watching! For more insight on this topic, click here.

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Gen. Cesar Mendoza, the police commander who played a key role in the 1973 coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet, died on Friday. He was 78. He had been hospitalized for three months with pancreatic cancer. General Mendoza was one of four commanders who toppled President Salvador Allende, an elected Marxist, on Sept. 11, 1973, and installed the military junta that ruled Chile for 16 years under General Pinochet. General Mendoza led the highly militarized police force, the Carabineros, which helped secure control of Chile's major cities, especially the slums controlled by pro-Allende leftists, on the day of the coup. General Pinochet later acknowledged that General Mendoza's participation was the key to the coup's success. Under the junta, General Mendoza was the target of widespread criticism for human rights violations by his forces. He was forced to resign in 1985 when several of the men he commanded were implicated in the assassination of three members of the Communist Party, which was outlawed at the time.

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This simple low cost camera was built in the spring of 1997 in part to be used for a series of Jupiter mutual events, but also to serve as a prototype for future more-advanced Wyoming cameras. It is now being used for regular Io/Jupiter occultation and eclipse measurements as well as thermal (5 micron) observations of near-earth asteroids. The camera was designed to serve as an efficient instrument for the Io mutual event and speckle work, and also to serve as a prototype for more advanced cameras to be developed later. We obtained state-of-the-art electronics which should be useful for those later cameras, but economized on the detector system and dewar by adapting used or surplus parts. The electronics were ordered in September 1996, assembly of the camera began in January 1997, and it was on the telescope taking data in March. The total cost excluding that of the cannibalized parts, and also excluding my time (the work was done when I was on sabbatical) was less than $30,000. The Io occultation observations do not require a large format detector. This satellite has a maximum apparent diameter of 1.2 arcseconds, so a field that accommodates the seeing disk plus enough sky to determine the Jupiter background is sufficient. We obtained a loan of an older 58x62 InSb chip and installed it in a modified dewar previously used to hold a small discrete element bolometer array. The Io work is carried out primarily in the 3 to 5 micron region, where the high sky background dominates the noise. In this region cooling the detector with pumped nitrogen reduces the dark current sufficiently. Using pumped nitrogen eliminates the expense of using liquid He and also eliminates the need to provide an active temperature control system. At this relatively warm temperature the dark current does begin to dominate the noise in the 2 micron region, but for the current project this is acceptable. The system was designed to allow for later modification to He cooling, if that proves desirable. In addition to the Io work, the camera is being used to provide Jupiter images to aid the Galileo project. A 5 micron Jupiter mosaic obtained with the camera is shown above. The camera may also be used for observations of fast variable stars and for stellar occultations by planets. to Recent Science Results Robert Howell's home page

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Now wash your hands - and your mobile It is the sort of news story that will have left many feeling queasy over their breakfast cereal - a study which suggests one in six mobile phones is contaminated with faecal matter. They found 16% of phones and 16% of hands harboured E. coli (Escherichia coli), bacteria which inhabit the human intestines. The largest proportion of contaminated phones was in Birmingham (41%) while Londoners were caught with the highest proportion of E. coli present on hands (28%). End Quote Fergus Walsh Why do so many people clearly not wash their hands with soap after a visit to the toilet? Perhaps they do, but are simply doing it wrong.” But the sample size in each city was small, so the variations between them could be a statistical anomaly. However Dr Val Curtis, from the London School of Hygiene says the study showed clear differences between north and south. "We found the further north we went the more hands and phones were likely to be contaminated. It could be the bugs survive better in colder and wetter conditions or it might be that people wash their hands less." I explained to Dr Curtis that such comments were unlikely to win her friends in Glasgow and Liverpool - two of the cities where samples were taken. But she brushed this aside explaining that after a similar survey three years ago she was advised not to hang around Newcastle. Most strains of E. coli found on the hands and phones are not likely to cause major ill-health, although listeners of "The Archers" will know that Clarrie Grundy became an unwitting carrier of the bacteria, leading to a number of children being hospitalised in the fictional county of Borsetshire. Dr Curtis explained that they were using E. coli as a marker for the presence of faecal matter. She said: "Campylobacter and Salmonella bacteria are much more likely to cause a gastric infection and could easily be passed on through faecal contamination." So we are talking about poo, excrement - on mobile phones and fingers. Hand washing technique Why do so many people clearly not wash their hands with soap after a visit to the toilet? Perhaps they do, but are simply doing it wrong. I remember having correct hand-washing technique described to me by the virologist Professor John Oxford. He thought people didn't wash thoroughly enough, or long enough - two verses of Happy Birthday to you were suggested. Perhaps there is also a confusion in some people's minds about dirt and germs. After all, there is plenty of research suggesting dirt can be good for you. Since the late 1980s the "hygiene hypothesis" has argued that the lack of early childhood exposure to some germs may be linked to the rise in allergic diseases, by suppressing the development of the immune system. It's a much-debated theory. But while letting your children - or your husband - play in the dirt may well be ok, they still need to wash their hands after the toilet. Or after handling raw meat and poultry. You simply have to look to the developing world to see the devastating effects of poor hygiene. Diarrhoeal disease remains one of the world's biggest killers. While hand-washing may help prevent a nasty stomach bug here, in poorer countries it can save lives. The survey from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine is timed to publicise Global Handwashing Day on 15 October. It is an annual event which promotes hand-hygiene, the cheapest and most effective way of preventing infection by bacteria and viruses.

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Sweating or perspiring is a skin response aimed at cooling down the body. It is one of several mechanisms to regulate the body temperature. Heat is generated internally by the body’s metabolic activity and dissipated from the skin surface. The evaporation of sweat from the skin surface assists with the cooling effect. Normally heat dissipation will occur without the need for significant sweating if the environment is cold and activity is minimal. However, large amounts of sweat is necessary mainly in hot environments or when the metabolic activity is raised, like during exercise. Sweat regulation is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and apart from a hot environment and exercise, it may also be triggered with certain emotions and illnesses. Some people sweat more than others despite the environmental conditions and this may be due to increased sympathetic activity. At times this sweating can be excessive. Another phenomenon known as night sweats is nighttime perspiration that could be related to underlying disease. What are night sweats? Night sweats is the term for excessive nighttime perspiration often while asleep. It is also known as sleep hyperhidrosis. Despite the term ‘night sweats’, it can also occur during the day when asleep. It is important to note that any cause of excessive sweating may be worse at night and should be differentiated from night sweats specifically. With night sweats, a person may experience sweating during the day but it is not as profuse as the nighttime episodes. Night sweats need to be carefully assessed as it may be a sign of serious underlying diseases, particularly infections. Often night sweats are reported yet may just be perspiration due to overheating like using too much of clothing or being covered with too many blankets especially in a hot environment. Although night sweats may present with just mild perspiration, it is typically seen as profuse or excessive perspiration. Night clothes and even bedding is soaked. Patients may wake up when the dripping sweat disturbs the sleep or moisture of clothing and linen becomes uncomfortable. Night sweats that occur as a once off episode and does not warrant significant cause for concern in these cases. However, daily episodes or recurrent bouts, even with a short period of no night sweating, needs to be assessed by a medical professional. Severe night sweats may not only warrant a change in clothing but a person may even need to bathe to relieve the discomfort. Causes of Night Sweating Two points need to be considered before conclusively identifying nighttime perspiration as night sweats specifically : - Is the person dressed too warmly during sleep, using heavy or excessive covering or sleeping in a hot room with inadequate cooling facilities? - If YES then sleep with lighter clothing and thinner bedding and try to utilize available cooling methods. - Are there other signs or symptoms of disease, particularly changes in body temperature, malaise, pain, weight loss and/or changes in appetite? - If YES then the night sweats may be a clinical feature of underlying disease. Any infection can present with night sweats but it is more common with deeper infections than those affecting the superficial areas. Infectious diseases that are more likely to present with night sweats includes : - Abscess – localized accumulated of pus due to a walled-off site of infection. - Endocarditis – infection of the heart lining and valves. - Hepatitis – infection of the liver. - HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome). - Influenza (flu) and the common cold. - Osteomyelitis – infection of the bone. - Tuberculosis – infection with the Mycobacterium tuberculosis bacteria that primarily affects the lungs. Night sweats are an early symptom of cancer (malignant tumors) and can often be the only symptom at the outset. Although it can arise with cancer at any site in the body, it is more frequently seen with : - Leukemia – cancer of the blood or bone marrow. - Lymphoma – cancer of the lymph node (Hodgkin’s and non-Hodgkin’s). - Carcinoid syndrome – due to chemicals secreted from carcinoid tumors. Night sweats may also be seen with benign tumors also this is uncommon. It may be seen with : - Pheochromocytoma – rare adrenal gland tumor. Damage or disease of the brain or nerves may lead to night sweats. This is mainly as a result of disruptions in temperature regulation and controlling the activity of sweat glands. - Autonomic neuropathy – disorder of the nerves that control the involuntary functions of the body. - Hypothalamic lesions – damage or disease of the hypothalamus. - Stroke – disruption in brain activity as a result of death of a portion of brain tissue. - Spinal stroke – death or spinal cord tissue due to interrupted blood supply. - Syringomelia – fluid-filled cyst within the spinal cord. The abnormal action of certain hormones may affect thermoregulation or stimulate sweat gland activity. - Carcinoid syndrome – discussed above. - Diabetes insipidus – excessive fluid loss associated with ADH and the kidney’s response to it. - Hyperthyroidism – overactivity of the thyroid gland. - Menopause – cessation of menstruation associated with low levels of estrogen and progesterone. - Pheochromocytoma – discussed above. - Antidepressants – used in the treatment of depression and certain mood disorders. - Antidiabetic drugs – for managing elevated blood sugar levels in diabetes mellitus. - Antipyretics – fever-reducing medication. - Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) Other medication discussed under drug fever may also be responsible for night sweats. - Endometriosis – presence of endometrial tissue out of the uterus. - Head injury - Hypoglycemia – low blood sugar levels. - Idiopathic hyperhidrosis – excessive sweating for unknown reasons. - Night terrors - Sleep apnea - Spinal cord injury Article reviewed by Dr. Greg. Last updated on November 7, 2012

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Economic importance of Algae Since from olden days Algae species are intimately connected with human beings as a source food, medicine and other uses. Algae are taking an active role in human beings. 1. Primary Producers: Algae are the main Oxygen producers in aquatic areas. They are also useful in decreasing water pollution by realizing Oxygen. 10% of photosynthesis is occurred by the algae in total photosynthesis quantity. With these activity algae forms 1.6-15.5 x 10 to the power of 11 tones of carbonic material like food. 2. Algae as food: Algae species are used as food in several countries in several forms. Algae species have proteins, vitamins (A, B, C and E), lipids, and minerals. Laminaria species is the important edible seaweed in Japan and the food item ‘Kombu’ is prepared from it. ‘Aonori’ from Monostroma; ‘Asakusa Nori’ from Porphyra are prepared in different countries. Porphyra has 35% protein, 45% carbohydrates, Vitamins B and C and Niacin. Nostoc is used as food material in South America. 3. Algae as fodder for cattle: Rhodymenia palmate is used as food for sheeps in Narvey. Laminaria saccharina, Pelvitia, Ascophyllum, etc. species are used as food for cattles. 4. Algae as fertilizers: Blue-green algae are treated as bio-fertilizers from olden days. Nostoc, Oscillatoria, Scytonema, Spirulina, etc. are used as fertilizers to rice fields. All these algae are fixed the atmosphere Nitrogen in to ground. Cultivation of Spirulina is gaining importance as feed for fish, poultry and cattle. 5. Algae in Pisi culture: Sea algae are used as food for fishes. So they play an important role in Pisi culture. Some green-algae, Diatoms, some blue-green algae are used as food material to fishes. These are also making the water clean, by realizing Oxygen. 6. Algae in reclamation of alkaline or Usar soils: Our country has more number of alkaline soils or sterile soils. Blue-green algae like Nostoc, Oscillatoria, Scytonema, Spirulina are modified the soils in to fertile soils. Because they fixed Nitrogen in to soil. Nearly they fixed 400 K.g. of Nitrogen per year. Soil erosion is also reduced by these algae. 7. Algea in industry: Iodine industry is mainly depended upon algae. Algae belonging to Phaeophyceae, like Laminaria, Ecklonia, Eisenia, etc. are used in the industry to prepare Iodine in industries. Phyllophora is used to prepare Iodine in Russia. Alginates are the salts of alginic acid found in the cell wall of phaeophyceae. Alginates are extracted from Fucus, Laminaria, Macrocystis and Ecklonia. Alginates are used in the preparation of flame-proof fibrics, plastics, paints, gauze material in surgical dressing, soups, ice creams etc. Agar-agar is a jelly like substance of great economic value. It is obtained from certain red algae like Gelidium, Graciliaria, and Gigartina. Agar is used as a culture medium for growing callus in tissue culture. 10. Carragheen or Carragheenin: It is extracted from cell walls of red algae like Chondrus and Gigartina. It is a polysaccharide esterfied with sulphate. It is used as emulsifier in pharmaceutical industry and also in textile, leather, cosmetics and brewing industries. Diatoms deposits at marine and fresh water areas. They are rich with silica. It is called as diatomite. It is used in the preparation of Dynamite in olden days. But now it is used in different industries like glass, metal polishing, paints, tooth pasts, soups, etc. It is a type of glue obtained from a red alga Gloipeltis furcata. It is used as an adhesive as well as sizing agent for paper and cloth. Chemically it is similar to agar-agar except that there is no sulphate ester group. The brown sea weeds popularly called as kelps yield potash, soda, and iodine. Some sea weeds are rich source of iron, zinc, copper, manganese and boron. Bromine is extracted from red algae such as Polysiphonia and Rhodymenia. 14. Antibiotics and Medicines: Antibiotic Chlorellin, obtained from Chlorella is effective against a number of pathogenic bacteria. Extracts from Cladophora, Lyngbya can kill pathogenic Pseudomonas and Mycobacterium. Laminaria is used as one of the modern tools for abortion. Seaweeds have beneficial effect on gall bladders, pancreas, kidneys, uterus and thyroid glands. 15. Role of Algae in Sewage Disposal: Some species like Chlamydomonas, Scenedesmus, Chlorella, Pondorhina, Euridina, etc are living in sewage water. They are mainly useful to clean the water by realizing Oxygen. They also modified the carbonate material in the water into N, P, K fertilizers. 16. Algae as research material: In biological research algae are useful because of their rapid growth, brief life span and easy mode of cultivation. Chlorella, Scenedesmus and Anacystis are used in investigations in photosynthesis. Blue-green algae are used in studies on nitrogen fixation. Researches in Genetics and Cytology are carried out on Acetabularia. 17. Algae in Space: Chlorella and Synechococcus are finding application in space ships and nuclear submarines as oxygen regenerating and food and water recycling organisms. Harmful aspects of Algae Some algae species like Microcystis, Lyngbya are develop water blooms in water areas. They secrete toxic materials into water. That they polluted the water. The algae, Cephaleuros virescence causes for red rust tea in tea plant. Some algae species are caused for some skin diseases. Dianophlagellate is caused for the death of fishes in water. By Leshan Wannigama

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4.3 Alluvial fans and aprons (Burnt Creek, Seven Creek, Broken River, Katamatite, Raywood & aprons around Korong, Dookie Hills) 4. Northern Riverine Plain (RP) |Pediments, and alluvial fans and aprons derived from the uplands, occur around the edge of the Eastern Uplands, for example along Broken Creek, Seven Creeks, and around Katamatite. On the northern edge of the Western Uplands they occur along the Campaspe River, (Macumber pers. comm), the Loddon River (Macumber, 1978b), Bullock Creek (check) around Raywood, the Avoca River, and possibly the Richardson River and nearby drainage lines). They are also found on the south side of the Wimmera River, for example south of Glenorchy and west and south-west of Mt Zero and along Burnt Creek. | The sediments comprising these alluvial fans and aprons may be quite shallow adjoining the Western Uplands with Neogene ferruginous sediments close to the surface in the Brimpaen area and Palaeozoic sediments north of Lake Lonsdale. The sediments adjoining the Eastern Uplands are much deeper and separation between the alluvial fans and aprons and the older alluvial plains (4.2) is largely an arbitrary decision. Higher level alluvial fans and aprons occur predominantly on the south side of the Wimmera River, adjoining the consolidated material of the Western uplands (2.1, 2.2, 2.3) from which they were derived. The alluvial fans and aprons extend from south of Horsham to the Douglas Depression in the west and Dadswells Bridge in the east. The alluvial systems extend south into the Glenelg Hopkins CMA region but finish less than 10 km over the catchment divide. Depth of apron material over the underlying older material (consolidated or not) may vary and may be quite shallow with Neogene ferruginised sediments close to the surface in the Brimpaen area and Grampians sandstone north-west of the western Black Range. Apron and alluvial plain sediments belong to the Shepparton Formation where once extensive fluvial systems extended across much of the Murray Basin. These unconsolidated sediments conformably overlie the Neogene Parilla Sand. The lithology of this formation is largely a mix of gravels, sands and silts that through groundwater fluctuations combined with pedogenesis have altered the nature of these sediments. The major streams which flow north across the plains between the Grampians and Horsham are Norton Creek, the Mackenzie River, its tributary Bungalally Creek, and Burnt Creek. All are tributaries of the Wimmera River. Burnt Creek flows across the Drung floodplain before entering the Wimmera River near Horsham. All these streams are relatively inactive. This feature together with the even shallow slope, a drop of over 30 metres down from south to north over a distance of at least 20 km, suggests a stagnant alluvial plain landform pattern superimposed on an apron of material derived in part at least from the Grampians. Several different map units surround the near isolated plain. These include the Grampians Ranges to the south and south-east, the St Helens gentle plains and Drung alluvial plains soil-landform units to the north and the relatively elevated Darragan rolling rises unit to the north-west. An area of isolated and clustered lake and lunettes, now mapped as the Kingcourt and Pine Lake soil-landform units respectively, occupy areas to the south west. The variety of soils which occur on the plain include grey Vertosols, brown Sodosols and Yellow and brown Kandosols. Sand sheets (Barrabool map unit) are also present. Within the plain there may be a possible subdivision based on the proportions of Vertosols relative to Sodosols and Kandosols (i.e. the Yallambee with the greater area of Vertosols than the Glencoe map units). Some soil properties may well be limiting factors to primary production. For cereal production these include the coarse blocky structure and the very strong ie very hard, consistence of both surface soils and subsoils of some Vertosols and the strong consistence of the surface soils of some Kandosols. Remnant vegetation communities on the flat plains and sandy clay plains are dominated by woodlands including Plains Woodland, Shallow Sands Woodland, Damp Sands Herb-rich Woodland, Heathy Woodland, Creekline Sedgy Woodland, Dry Creekline Woodland, Sand Ridge Woodland, Shrubby Woodland, Riparian Woodland, Red Gum Wetland and Plains Grassy Woodland. Related information on VRO

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Electric Field 2.01 You can see invisible electric field - if you use "Electric Field". It is an excellent tool forvisualizing electric field and equipotential lines. Visibility of field line and potential surface depends on their magnitude. You can put unlimited number of charges in the field. Also, it can simulate electric field of charged condenser, charged wire and charged dielectric objects. See also: [email protected], Nasanbat Namsrai, physics academic software, physics educational software, electric field line, electric field, drawing electric field line, charge, equipotential surface

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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Wider dissemination of portable defibrillators in Japan's schools, workplaces and other public venues has increased the number of people who survive cardiac arrest, researchers reported Wednesday. Experts say the findings, reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, support efforts to make the devices, known as automated external defibrillators (AEDs), more widely available for laypeople to use. Cardiac arrest is a medical emergency that is quickly fatal without prompt treatment. Most cases occur when the heart goes into ventricular fibrillation (VF), a heart-rhythm disturbance in which the heart begins to quiver chaotically and can no longer pump blood to the body. An electrical shock from a defibrillator can restore the heart's normal rhythm and reverse cardiac arrest. AEDs are a portable, layperson-friendly version of the devices that automatically analyze the heart's rhythm and, if needed, instruct the user to deliver a shock. In recent years, AEDs have been placed in a growing number of public areas -- including schools, transportation hubs, offices, malls and sports venues -- with the goal of getting potentially life-saving treatment to more cardiac-arrest victims. Exactly how effective those measures have been on a large scale has been unclear. For the new study, researchers led by Dr. Tetsuhisa Kitamura, of the Kyoto University Health Service, analyzed a national database with information on more than 300,000 Japanese adults who suffered cardiac arrest outside of a hospital between 2005 and 2007. In 2004, Japan made it legal for any citizen to use an AED, and public AEDs became increasingly available over the study period. Overall, the study found, 12,631 people in the database suffered a cardiac arrest in front of witnesses. Just 14 percent survived and had minimal brain damage one month later. But among the 4 percent of victims who received an AED shock from a layperson bystander, 32 percent survived with little to no brain damage. Over the study period, the proportion of cardiac arrests treated with a public AED rose from 1.2 percent to 6.2 percent as the availability of the devices grew. And cardiac arrest survival was greater in geographic areas with more AEDs. The study "provides support for the concept of public-access defibrillation," Kitamura's team writes, "and should encourage other countries or communities to promote public-access-defibrillation programs." "Because the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest is greater in the US and European countries than in Japan, public-access AEDs would be more effective than that shown in this study," Dr. Taku Iwami, a co-author on the study, added in an email to Reuters Health. Dr. Michael Sayre, spokesman for the American Heart Association (AHA), told Reuters Health that this study "shows the kind of public health impact that placing AEDs in public areas could have." Sayre, of Ohio State University in Columbus, added that the AHA supports wider placement of AEDs in public areas, like sports venues, malls and office complexes. An obstacle is cost, Sayre noted, since the odds of needing to use an AED at any single venue are fairly low, and some sites might not want to invest in the devices. AEDs typically cost between $1,500 and $2,000. And wider AED placement is not enough on its own. It's still up to bystanders who witness a person collapse to quickly get help -- calling 911 and alerting personnel who will know where the site's AED is. Sayre pointed out that in many places with AEDs, at least in the U.S., "there's no good way" for bystanders to know that the devices are present. And many people may not know what AEDs are, for that matter. Ideally, according to Sayre, public sites that invest in AEDs should have designated people who know where the devices are located and how to use them -- even though they are designed for untrained people to be able to use when necessary. Performing CPR until the AED is applied also remains vital. It's estimated that a cardiac-arrest victim's chances of survival drop 10 percent for each minute defibrillation is delayed; using CPR to keep the person's blood circulating improves those odds. SOURCE: The New England Journal of Medicine, March 18, 2010. The #1 daily resource for health and lifestyle news! Your daily resource for losing weight and staying fit. We could all use some encouragement now and then - we're human! Explore your destiny as you discover what's written in your stars. The latest news, tips and recipes for people with diabetes. Healthy food that tastes delicious too? No kidding. Latin Recipesfor Diabetes 5 Arthritis Workouts A Fool's Errand Lowered OvarianCancer Risk What's YourSodium IQ?

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- VBR encoded MP3 files, advantages (and disadvantages?) VBR encoded MP3 files, advantages (and disadvantages?) Last update: 16 Jan 2005 | 27403 views What are VBR MP3 files? VBR stands for Variable Bit Rate. The bit rate of a coded audio file is the number of bits (binary digits - 0s or 1s - bits of digital information) that are required to store 1 second of audio. An mp3 at 128kbps requires 128,000 (ish!) bits to store 1 second of audio. The point of psychoacoustic coding is that you only store the audible part, but just how much information is needed to represent the audible part varies from 1 moment to the next. Silence doesn't contain very much information at all - rather than storing thousands of zeros, you could just store a code meaning "so many seconds of silence". A Variable BitRate Coder will vary the bit rate, depending on how much information is needed to store the audible part of a signal from moment to moment. If a decoder expects the same number of bits every second, this can really confuse it! MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 files (.mp3 files) are encoded with a specified bit rate, usually 128 kbps (thousand bits per second) or, sometimes 160 or 192 kbps. Greater bit rates generally mean better sound quality and a closer representation of the original sound. With variable bit rate MP3s, the encoder automatically detects which bit rate is most apropriate for the sound being encoded, live. This means that when there is little sound to be heard, the encoder encodes the MP3 with a low bit rate (as low as 16 kbps or less), but when there is very complex sound to be heard, the encoder uses a much higher bit rate (up to 320 kbps) to attain better sound reproduction. What are the major advantages of VBR encoded MP3 files? - VBR encoded MP3s are generally smaller than standard MP3s of the same sound quality and generrally sound better, especially in the high frequencies. Also, it's great for spoken word audio as there are often pauses and silence between sentences. What are the major disadvantages of VBR encoded MP3 files? - Some older MP3 players cannot play them. - Must be re-encoded in order to be streamed. Although variable speed compressed files are difficult to stream continuously over most Internet connections, those that download the entire file before viewing are unaffected. • LAME MP3 Encoder: is a variable bitrate MP3 encoder, generally considered the best of the MP3 encoders.

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A rare "green tide" phytoplankton bloom has developed along the San Diego County coastline, leaving long, thin lime-colored patches in an area extending at least from La Jolla to Solana Beach. Melissa Carter, a researcher at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says in an online message to the Scripps community that scientists "have determined that the bright green color is caused by a bloom of phytoplankton, Tetraselmis spp. This green flagellate is roughly 10 micrometers in size, and has been found in concentrations as dense as 15 million cells per liter of seawater. "The foam has become more prevalent this week, though it has been observed off and on since the first week of July. It's patchy distribution makes it visible only at some beaches and the foam becomes more apparent in the afternoon when the wind and waves mix the surface waters. Tetraselmis has bloomed each summer since 2009 with blooms lasting from one week to several months. There are no documented health hazards with swimming or fishing in areas of Tetraselmis blooms." It's not unusual for a red tide to appear along the coast. Some types of red tides can cause gastrointestinal problems in people. A red tide also can produce bioluminescence, the phenomenon in which breaking waves briefly turn into a light neon blue. Green tides are benign, and much more rare.

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Educating T-Cells With Stem Cell Therapy Reverses Diabetes Type 1 diabetes is caused by the body’s own immune system attacking its pancreatic islet beta cells and requires daily injections of insulin to regulate the patient’s blood glucose levels. A new method described in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Medicine uses stem cells from cord blood to re-educate a diabetic’s own T cells and consequently restart pancreatic function reducing the need for insulin. Stem Cell Educator therapy slowly passes lymphocytes separated from a patient’s blood over immobilized cord blood stem cells (CBSC) from healthy donors. After two to three hours in the device the re-educated lymphocytes are returned to the patient. The progress of the patients was checked at 4, 12, 24 and 40 weeks after therapy. C-peptide is a protein fragment made as a by-product of insulin manufacture and can be used to determine how well beta cells are working. By 12 weeks after treatment all the patients who received the therapy had improved levels of C –peptide. This continued to improve at 24 weeks and was maintained to the end of the study. This meant that the daily dose of insulin required to maintain their blood glucose levels could be reduced. In accordance with these results the glycated hemoglobin (HbA1C) indicator of long term glucose control also dropped for people receiving the treatment, but not the control group. Dr Yong Zhao, from University of Illinois at Chicago, who led the multi-center research, explained, “We also saw an improved autoimmune control in these patients. Stem Cell Educator therapy increased the percentage of regulatory T lymphocytes in the blood of people in the treatment group. Other markers of immune function, such as TGF-beta1 also improved. Our results suggest that it is this improvement in autoimmune control, mediated by the autoimmune regulator AIRE in the CBSC, which allows the pancreatic islet beta cells to recover.” On the Net:

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Drawings & Prints Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts Printed Books & Bindings Literary & Historical Manuscripts Music Manuscripts & Printed Music Ancient Near Eastern Seals & Tablets Paintings & Art Objects Collections | Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts Resurrection, in an initial A Cutting from an Antiphonary, in Latin. Bologna, last quarter of the fifteenth century Illuminated by Domenico Pagliarolo. 234 x 245 mm Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1909; MS M.444. See CORSAIR catalog record for this item » The letter A (of Angelus) is appropriately illustrated with the Resurrection, for it begins an Easter antiphon that was sung at the hour of Lauds (daybreak), the time of Christ's Resurrection. The illustration is based on Matthew 28:2–3: "An angel of the Lord came down from heaven . . . rolled back the stone and sat on it. His countenance was like lightning (thus the flame-colored face of the angel) and his raiment like snow." The artist, who signed himself as Domenico of Bologna (Dominicus Boñ) in white letters above the head of Christ, was the father of Girolamo, also an illuminator. Domenico also painted a Psalter in 1471 and worked with Taddeo Crivelli on the choir books of San Petronio in Bologna. He was active until at least 1497. The leaf was already removed in the nineteenth century, as Pierpont Morgan purchased it in 1910 as part of the Charles Fairfax Murray collection of old master drawings. See enlargement/print this image List of works Text only list

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Mackenzie-Lewis polygraph, London, England, 1919-1926 Measurements: doctors today, doctors in the past Visit a doctor today and chances are that he or she will measure your blood pressure, your temperature, your height and weight, your cholesterol levels and many other things. But people didn’t always think that such ‘quantification’ could tell us anything interesting. Until the early modern period, people generally thought that numbers were useful for constructing machines and buildings, but didn’t feel that they could answer questions about the ‘how?’ and ‘why?’ of natural processes. When Isaac Newton published his work on gravity, many of his contemporaries pointed out that knowing how fast a body falls doesn't actually explain why it falls. The invention of measuring instruments Important measuring instruments such as the thermometer and the barometer were developed in the 1500s and 1600s, but they were very inaccurate. Despite this, some early modern doctors began to advocate the use of measurement for ‘medical mathematics’. Sanctorius Sanctorius (1561-1636), a physician at the University of Padua, was the first person to put a scale on a thermometer so it could register absolute numbers. He also invented a giant weighing machine. Sanctorius spent much of his adult life in this machine in a long-term self-experiment to determine, among other things, how much weight a human body loses through perspiration. William Harvey also used measurements in his experiments to prove the circulation of blood. Enlightenment: the numbers debate During the Enlightenment, scientists argued that numbers were more objective than qualitative descriptions. This argument had a great impact on medical research. Numbers became important both for observing individual patients and for observations on larger groups. Supporters of vaccination, for example, used statistics to show that it diminished the likelihood of catching smallpox. Developments in measuring in the 1700s Since the 1700s, physicians have developed ways to measure many features of the human body. We owe the second hand on watches, for instance, to the British physician Sir John Floyer (1649-1734), who used it to time his patients' pulse. In the late 1800s, researchers became worried that the active involvement of the scientist could introduce inaccuracy and bias. With this in mind, technicians and scientists such as the French physiologist Etienne-Jules Marey developed ‘self-registering’ devices. These were instruments designed to produce measurements by themselves, such as Marey's sphygmograph for measuring blood pressure. More measuring, less individuality The quantification of the body changed the relationship between doctors and patients. For a long time, physicians had regarded each patient's case as unique. With quantification, scientists in the 1800s began to determine ‘normal’ ranges for physical features such as temperature and blood pressure. These numbers were supposed to be the same for every healthy person, allowing scientists such as Frenchman Adolphe Quetelet to develop statistical approaches to public health. Related Themes and Topics There are 13 related objects. View all related objects Techniques and Technologies: T Frängsmyr, J Heilbron, and R E Rider, (eds), The quantifying spirit in the 18th century (Berkeley/Oxford: University of California Press, 1990) G Jorland, A Opinel, and G Weisz, Body Counts: Medical Quantification in Historical and Sociological Perspective = La Quantification Médicale, Perspectives Historiques et Sociologiques (Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005) J R Matthews, Quantification and the Quest for Medical Certainty (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) T Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) A Rusnock, Quantifying Health and Population in Eighteenth Century England and France (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003) S de Chadarevian, 'Graphical method and discipline : self-recording instruments in nineteenth-century physiology', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 24/2 (1993), pp 267-291

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Inner ear cells could be replaced Stem cells that could be used to restore hearing have been successfully created, scientists have said. A Sheffield University team took stem cells from foetuses and converted them into cells that behave like sensory hair cells in the human inner ear. Their discovery could ultimately help those who have lost hair cells through noise damage and some people born with inherited hearing problems. But any cure is still some years away, experts told the journal Stem Cell. The Sheffield team is now working on the next stage of the research to check if the cells can restore hearing. Currently, hair cell damage is irreversible and causes hearing problems in some 10% of people worldwide. Embryonic stem cells could change this because they have the unique ability to become any kind of human cell. Not only could they be used to replace the lost hair cells, but also any damaged nerve cells along which the signals generated by the hair cells are transmitted to the brain. But the use of stem cells is controversial - opponents object on the grounds that it is unethical to destroy embryos in the name of science. Lead researcher Dr Marcelo Rivolta, said: "The potential of stem cells is very exciting. We have now an experimental system to study genes and drugs in a human context. "Moreover, these cells would help us to develop the technologies needed to deliver them into damaged tissues, such as the cochlea, in order to restore the different cell types. "This should facilitate the development of a stem cell treatment for deafness." Dr Ralph Holme, director of biomedical research at RNID, said: "Stem cell therapy for hearing loss is still some years away but this research is incredibly promising and opens up exciting possibilities by bringing us closer to restoring hearing in the future." Vivienne Michael of Deafness Research UK said: "This study highlights the importance of stem cell research. "In addition to the future potential for restoring hearing with stem cell therapy, the recent research success means that we may now have better ways to test the efficacy and toxicity of new drugs on auditory cells." Professor David McAlpine, director of the Ear Institute, University College London, said: "Is this the ultimate upgrade for the iPod generation? "The possibility of regenerating the sensory cells of the inner ear, so easily damaged by exposure to loud sound, has just moved a step closer. "If scientists can find out ways to deliver new cells to the inner ear, and wire them up correctly, then "plug and play" hearing could be the future."

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Department Chair—Jonathan Bassett History & Social Science Department Placement Guidelines (43.1 kB) The History and Social Sciences program seeks to encourage informed democratic citizenship through the study of World and American History and the social sciences. We want students to: •Appreciate the historical and cultural influences that shape their individual identities, our national identity, and the cultures and countries that share our planet. •Understand and reason about successes, failures, triumphs and tragedies in human history, particularly as they are reflected in the ideas and actions of the people we study. •Prepare for adult lives of informed and active citizenship and civic engagement. •Learn to assess and interpret evidence, to understand change over time, to think logically and express themselves clearly. Students are required to take a two-year World History sequence in grades nine and ten, and a year of American History in grade eleven. Seniors may choose from a variety of offerings in history or the social sciences.

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- Content Type Top 5 Career Videos! How to Ace a Job Interview? Job Interview: Dos & Don'ts Job Interview preparation Tips Good & Bad Job Interview Techniques Questions to Ask During a Job Interview Writi... More often than we know it, we come across a number of poems. Whether it is in a commercial, movie, or recited by a significant other, poems are forms and conventions to expand the literal meaning of the words, or to evoke emotional or sensual responses. The history behind poetry has quite an interesting story. Poetry as an art, may out date literacy itself. Specific poetic forms have been developed by many cultures, and can be found on monoliths, rune stones, and stelae. In prehistoric and ancient societies, poetry was used as a way to record cultural events or to tell stories. More recently, a Polish historian of aesthetics by the name of Tatakiewicz wrote in The Concept of Poetry, "Poetry expresses a certain state of mind." So how does one go about defining poetry? Well for starters, poetry is more than just rhyming. In fact, poetry doesn't even have to rhyme. The main ingredients are movement and sound. In addition to feeling, these three factors comprise what poetry is. Poetry is about expression. Poetry expresses the way we feel about a certain subject through imagery and other senses. It helps us deal with our daily life, be it good or bad. Various cultures have developed many forms of poetry. Interestingly, there are 51 types of poetry! Aside from the numerous types, it is important to keep in mind the many techniques as well. Some techniques used in poetry include onomatopoeia, alliteration, assonance, rhyming, simile and metaphor. Below, we will discuss the 12 most common poetic forms used across a number of languages. The jintishi is a Chinese poetic form based on a series of set tonal patterns using the four tones of the classical Chinese language in each couplet: the level, rising, falling and entering tones. The basic form of the jintishi has eight lines in four couplets, with parallelism between the lines in the second and third couplets. The couplets with parallel lines contain contrasting content but an identical grammatical relationship between words. Jintishi often has a rich poetic diction, full of allusion, and can have a wide range of subject, including history and politics. One of the masters of the form was Du Fu, who wrote during the eighth century, Tang Dynasty. The sestina has six stanzas, each comprising six unrhymed lines, in which the words at the end of the first stanza’s lines reappear in a rolling pattern in the other stanzas. The poem then ends with a 3-line stanza in which the words again appear two on each line. The villanelle is a nineteen-line poem made up of five triplets with a closing quatrain. The poem is characterized by having two refrains, initially used in the first and third lines of the first stanza, and then alternately used at the close of each subsequent stanza until the final quatrain, which is concluded by the two refrains. The remaining lines of the poem have an A-B alternating rhyme. The villanelle has been used regularly in the English language since the late nineteenth century by such poets as Dylan Thomas, W. H. Auden, and Elizabeth Bishop. The pantoum is a rare form of poetry similar to a villanelle. It is composed of a series of quatrains; the second and fourth lines of each stanza are repeated as the first and third lines of the next. The rondeau was originally a French form, written on two rhymes with fifteen lines, using the first part of the first line as a refrain. Tanka is a form of unrhymed Japanese poetry, with five sections totalling thirty-one onji , structured in a 5-7-5 7-7 pattern. There is generally a shift in tone and subject matter between the upper 5-7-5 phrase and the lower 7-7 phrase. Tanka was written as early as the Nara period by such poets as Kakinomoto no Hitomaro, at a time when Japan was emerging from a period where much of its poetry followed Chinese form. Tanka was originally the shorter form of Japanese formal poetry, and was used more heavily to explore personal rather than public themes. It had a more informal poetic diction. By the thirteenth century, Tanka had become the dominant form of Japanese poetry, and it is still widely written today. The 31-mora rule is generally ignored by poets writing literary tanka in languages other than Japanese. Haiku is a popular form of unrhymed Japanese poetry, which evolved in the seventeenth century from the hokku, or opening verse of a renku. Generally written in a single vertical line, the haiku contains three sections totalling seventeen onji, structured in a 5-7-5 pattern. Traditionally, haiku contain a kireji, or cutting word, usually placed at the end of one of the poem's three sections; and a kigo, or season-word. The most famous exponent of the haiku was Matsuo BashÅ. The seventeen-mora rule is generally ignored by poets writing literary haiku in languages other than Japanese. Ruba'i is a four-line verse practiced by Arabian and Persian poets. Famous for his rubaiyat (collection of quatrains) is the Persian poet Omar Khayyam. The most celebrated English renderings of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam were produced by Edward Fitzgerald. Sijo is a short musical lyric practiced by Korean poets. It is usually written as three lines, each averaging 14-16 syllables, for a total of 44-46 syllables. There is a pause in the middle of each line and so, in English, a sijo is sometimes printed in six lines rather than three. The ghazal is a form of poetry common in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Bengali poetry. In classic form, the ghazal has from five to fifteen rhyming couplets that share a refrain at the end of the second line. Each line has an identical meter, and there is a set pattern of rhymes in the first couplet and among the refrains. Each couplet forms a complete thought and stands alone, and the overall ghazal often reflects on a theme of unattainable love or divinity. The last couplet generally includes the signature of the author. 3. Michele Cat 4. Miami Cyn

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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clay, Cassius Marcellus |←Clavijo y Fajardo, José||1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, Volume 6 Clay, Cassius Marcellus |See also Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903) on Wikipedia, and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.| CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810-1903), American politician, was born in Madison county, Kentucky, on the 19th of October 1810. He was the son of Green Clay (1757-1826), a Kentucky soldier of the war of 1812 and a relative of Henry Clay. He was educated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and at Yale, where he graduated in 1832. Influenced to some extent by William Lloyd Garrison, he became an advocate of the abolition of slavery, and on his return to his native state, at the risk of social and political ostracism, he gave utterance to his belief. He studied law, but instead of practising devoted himself to a political career. In 1835, 1837 and 1840 he was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky legislature, where he advocated a system of gradual emancipation, and secured the establishment of a public school system, and a much-needed reform in the jury system. In 1841 he was defeated on account of his abolition views. In 1844 he delivered campaign speeches for Henry Clay throughout the North. In 1845 he established, at Lexington, Kentucky, an anti-slavery publication known as The True American, but in the same year his office and press were wrecked by a mob, and he removed the publication office to Cincinnati, Ohio. During this and the earlier period of his career his zeal and hot temper involved him in numerous personal encounters and several duels, in all of which he bore himself with a reckless bravery. In the Mexican War he served as a captain of a Kentucky company of militia, and was taken prisoner, while reconnoitring, during General Scott's advance on the City of Mexico. He left the Whig party in 1850, and as an anti-slavery candidate for governor of Kentucky polled 5000 votes. In 1856 he joined the Republican party, and wielded considerable influence as a Southern representative in its councils. In 1860 he was a leading candidate for the vice-presidential nomination. In 1861 he was sent by President Lincoln as minister to Russia; in 1862 he returned to America to accept a commission as major-general of volunteers, but in March 1863 was reappointed to his former post at St Petersburg, where he remained until 1869. Disapproving of the Republican policy of reconstruction, he left the party, and in 1872 was one of the organizers of the Liberal-Republican revolt, and was largely instrumental in securing the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. In the political campaigns of 1876 and 1880 he supported the Democratic candidate, but rejoined the Republican party in the campaign of 1884. He died at Whitehall, Kentucky, on the 22nd of July 1903. See his autobiography, The Life, Memoirs, Writings, and Speeches of Cassius Marcellus Clay (Cincinnati, 1896); and The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay (edited with a “Memoir” by Horace Greeley. New York, 1848).

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Exploring History on the Web When the Web was Young s historians, we begin with a little history. The first web pages emerged in that faraway era of the early 1990s. Email and the Internet were already becoming well known, but the web, which like email uses the Internet’s global computer network to share information in commonly agreed-upon ways, had its start among physicists only in 1991. It moved into the mainstream in 1993 when the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois released Mosaic, an easy-to-use graphical web browser that ran on most standard computers. Between mid-1993 and mid-1995, the number of web servers—the computers that house websites—jumped from 130 to 22,000. Even with the user-friendly Mosaic encouraging a major expansion of this new medium, only a few historians ventured out on the web frontier. Many of the pioneers already had some technical interests or background. In November 1994, Morris Pierce, an engineer who had recently earned a history Ph.D., created one of the first departmental websites for the University of Rochester. It “seemed like a natural thing to do,” he recalls. George Welling already worked in a department of humanities computing, which the University of Groningen (Netherlands) had created in 1986. In the fall of 1994, Welling developed a course in computer skills for American history students and asked them to construct an American Revolution website. Welling’s site, From Revolution to Reconstruction, quickly became one of first popular history websites, although he observes, “it took quite some time before my colleagues accepted this as an academic venture.”1 Other History Web pioneers came to the medium out of experience with earlier Internet applications, particularly email. In the late 1980s, Joni Makivirta, a student at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, started an online history discussion list because he noticed lists on other topics and thought a history list would allow him “to get ideas from professional historians around the world” for his master’s thesis. The participants included George Welling; Thomas Zielke, who later took over the list; Richard Jensen, who went on to found H-Net in 1993; Donald Mabry, a Latin American historian at Mississippi State University; and Lynn Nelson, a medievalist at the University of Kansas. In 1991, Mabry—responding to the difficulty of circulating large documents via email—began to make available primary sources and other materials of interest to historians via “anonymous FTP”—a “file transfer protocol” that allows anyone with an Internet connection to download the files to his or her own computer. Nelson created his own site and then had the idea of linking the emerging set of history FTP sites into HNSource using Gopher, a hierarchical, menu-driven system for navigating the Internet that was much more popular than the web in the early 1990s. In September 1993, just after Mosaic was released, Nelson made HNSource available through the new web protocols, and it became one of the first historical sites on the web—perhaps the very first.2 In the 1980s and early 1990s, the most intense energy in digital history centered not on the possibilities of online networks but rather on fixed-media products like laserdiscs and CD-ROMs. In 1982, the Library of Congress began its Optical Disk Pilot Project, which placed text and images from its massive collections on laserdiscs and later CD-ROMs. With a large amount of material already in digital form, the library could quickly take advantage of the newly emerging web. In 1992, it started to offer its exhibits through FTP sites. Two years later, the library posted its first web-based collection, Selected Civil War Photographs.3

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American History to 1877 Religion and Reform, 1820-1860 |Table of Contents||Previous Chapter||Next Chapter| These resources have been selected by librarians to supplement HSTY201 (American History to 1877) classes at Tompkins Cortland Community College. - Gale Virtual Reference Collection - Books and eBooks in TC3 Collection - Subject Headings - Locating Journal Articles in Databases - Web Resources TC3 students and staff have access to the Gale Virtual Reference Library which has over 250 academic reference encyclopedias, almanacs, and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. This is a good place to start your research because it provides useful background information. - American Social Reform Movements Reference Library - Online via Gale Virtual Reference Library. - The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race by John Stauffer. Online via ACLS Humanities E-Book. - Bound for Canaan: the Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America [E450 .B735 2005] - You can search inside this title at Google Books. - Burned-over District: The Social and Intellectual History of Enthusiastic Religion in Western New York, 1800-1850 [BR555.N7 C7 1965] - Century of Struggle; the Woman’s Rights Movement in the United States by Eleanor Flexner [HQ1410 .F6] - Harriet Tubman: the Road to Freedom by Catherine Clinton [E444.T82 C57 2004] - Jim Crow New York: a documentary history of race and citizenship, 1777-1877 - Available online in ACLS Humanities E-Book - Margaret Fuller: An American Romantic Life [PS2506 .C36 1992] - 2 volumes. Also available online in ACLS Humanities E-Book. - Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century [HX654 .F67] - North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom by Milton C. Sernett. [E445.N56 S47 2002] - Road to Seneca Falls: Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the First Woman’s Rights Convention [HQ1413.S67 W45 2004] - Understanding Emerson: "The American scholar" and His Struggle for Self-reliance [PS1615.A84 S23 2003] - A Very Dangerous Woman: Martha Wright and Women's Rights [HQ1413.W753 P46 2004] - Women in Public: Between Banners and Ballots, 1825-1880 by Mary P. Ryan. Available online in ACLS Humanities E-Book. To find books in the TC3 Library, search the Online Catalag; to find books in other libraries use the WorldCat or the SUNY Union Catalog. Books and other materials not in the TC3 collection may be requested through the TC3 Library's Get It! – Information Delivery service. Try these suggested subject headings to find books on this topic in the TC3 Library Catalog as well as in the SUNY Union Catalog and WorldCat. - Antislavery Movements - Mormon Church, History - Oneida Community - Underground Railroad - Women’s Rights - Flight to Freedom: The Underground Railroad (1995) 109 minutes, Films on Demand. - Roots of resistance [videorecording]: a story of the underground railroad [Media E450 .R66 1989] - Not for Ourselves Alone - 2005 Film Series by Ken Burns and Paul Barnes. Consists of: The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Revolution - 94 minutes (Part 1) and The Story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: Failure Is Impossible - 90 minutes (Part 2) - American Transcendentalism Web - Texts by and about major figures in American Transcendentalism - Freedom Bound: the Underground Railroad in Lycoming County - Oneida Community Collection in Syracuse University Library - Samuel J. May Anti-Slavery Collection - Over 10,000 pamphlets and leaflets documenting the anti-slavery struggle at the local, regional, and national levels. - Shaker Manifesto (1871-1899) - Official journal of the Shakers. "Collection of 349 issues (8,136 pages) of Shaker periodical literature held by the Rare Book and Special Collections of the Hamilton College Library." - Votes for Women Selections from the National American Woman Suffrage Association Collection, 1848-1921

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According to the Texas Tribune, how much people pay for water in the U.S. can vary significantly by where they live. Further, there is not necessarily a correlation between water costs and where “water rich” and “water poor” cities are located. For instance, based on use of 7,500 gal. of water per month, a family in Seattle has the highest water rates in the country at $56.18. However, the city has experienced relatively adequate, normal rainfall over the past five years. Conversely, residents of San Antonio pay less than half that amount, $22.80, for the same allocation of water. Yet over the past five years, San Antonio has experienced drought conditions 80% of the time. Based on the use of 7,500 gal. of water per month, the study targets the 10 major U.S. cities with the costliest water: Seattle, $56.18 2. Boston, $41.18 3. Philadelphia, $39.30 4. Phoenix, $38.55 5. Los Angeles, $37.50 6. Minneapolis, $34.58 7. New York City, $31.80 8. Houston, $31.40 9. Denver, $24.08 10. “There are other factors influencing how much we pay for water,” says Klaus Reichardt, CEO and founder of Waterless Co. Inc., and a frequent writer on water efficiency issues. “Costs can be higher (in some cities) because some are addressing water infrastructure issues. In other cases, water rates have simply been kept artificially low for decades,” he says. Over the past 10 years, Reichardt adds, the cost of water has been increasing about 5.5% per year. “We likely can expect these rate increases to go up considerably, even double, in the next few years,” he says.

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Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole. Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages. Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines. OCR for page 91 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society 3 The Global Environment and Its Evolution ESSAY A familiar image shows the Earth hanging against the black marbled coldness of deep space. The blues sparkle, barely dulled by patches of brown. Swirling white whorls veil the bright sphere only slightly. Twenty-five years ago that image had not yet been seen. Furthermore, the idea of the Earth as an integral unit was not a prevalent one. Study of the planet proceeded at local or regional scales. Then plate tectonics began to weave regional studies into one planetwide dynamic model. The past two decades have also seen the emergence of a new perspective in the earth sciences—or to use a more recent term, earth system science—emphasizing changes in the global environment that occur over spans of geological time. The changing environments leave geological evidence that permits investigation of a wide range of geographic, oceanographic, climatic, and biotic transitions. Such evidence includes information about environmental changes that cannot be directly observed today. The record of the rocks reveals that certain factors force changes in the global environment and that some ecosystems are more sensitive than others to those changes. The surface has been changing for over 4.5-billion-years. Many of these changes are fluctuations within definable extremes. A familiar example is that of water. Sediments record changes in the hydrologic cycle during which rising seas engulfed extensive continental tracts and then drained away. Some of these changes resulted from ice ages that left wide swaths of continental shelf exposed to the air during glacial accumulation and sent torrents to the oceans during intervals of melting. Other cyclic fluctuations recorded in the geological record include geochemical exchanges through reservoirs: atmosphere, ocean, biomass, sediment, crust, and mantle. Ocean basins rise and sink and expand and contract in cycles, and mountain ranges thrust upward and then waste away. While cyclic changes leave recognizable patterns in the geological record, they continually alter the components that are recycled. Inevita- OCR for page 92 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society bly, new conditions are created by these natural movements. The original state can never be exactly regained. The new conditions are the result of what is referred to as secular change—change with time. The most obvious secular change that has taken place during earth history is the early transformation of its surface from a landscape of naked rock, barren seas, and toxic atmosphere to a landscape seething with life, with organisms that exist on a variety of scales and in a medley of forms. As the cycles have churned away and new secular changes have occurred, sporadic catastrophic events have thrown the whole dynamic system into chaos. Geoscientists use an assortment of techniques and instruments to investigate the complex interactive systems that have created the surface environment. A 200-year-old tradition of field mapping and detailed description offers a solid foundation—called ground truth—for new technologies like remote sensing and for new conceptual models such as ones that explain how biological evolution has altered the chemistry of the atmosphere. Remote-sensing technology is not limited to satellite imagery and geodesic laser measurements; remotely sensed magnetic and gravitational anomalies help trace the vertical and horizontal movements of the crust. Fine-tuned seismic reflection research has also provided a new way to "see" inside the Earth. Seismic reflection can now produce subsurface images that rival, in an areal extent, drilled cores for locating geological boundaries; the cores, however, are often needed to provide ground truth. Tomography combines sets of seismic reflectance data to create cross sections through various planes. Mapping also reveals patterns of past environments, ranging from tropical seas to jungles and deserts. These environments are identified by a great variety of evidence, including fossil occurrences, key sedimentary rocks, and the isotopic composition of shells. Maps of fossil occurrences show how organisms were distributed in space and where they lived bears directly on how they evolved. Once geologists have determined what the patterns are, they can study how those patterns changed; on a planetary scale, this dual effort is at the heart of studies of global change. Geochronology provides the framework for arranging temporal sequences in the geological record. It also provides estimates for rates of chemical, physical, and biological change. Paleontology and stratigraphy led to the first arrangement of geological time scales. Intervals of the Earth's past gained names like Precambrian, Devonian, Cretaceous, and Pleistocene. Today, new quantitative methods for analyzing fossil occurrences are improving our ability to compare ages of strata throughout the world. Techniques that use naturally occurring radioactive isotopes can now provide dates within a 2-million-year range of accuracy for events that affected particular materials 2.5-billion-years ago. At the other extreme of recency and resolution, close documentation of tree-ring patterns yields chronologies accurate to less than 1 year. Reconstruction of ancient seas, climates, and continental geography for key intervals of the past provides data for constructing and testing OCR for page 93 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society numerical and conceptual models that portray global circulation patterns for ancient oceans and atmospheres. Such models are shedding light on the agents that triggered ice ages and other shifts to new environmental states on a global scale. Ancient life has tracked changes in habitats—sometimes migrating, sometimes evolving, and sometimes disappearing from the Earth. In fact, fossils provide the only direct record of large-scale evolution and extinction, and this record can be understood only in the context of past global change. Evolutionary theorists depend on the paleontological record to test their hypotheses, and the application of innovative quantitative techniques is providing new insights into rates, patterns, and modes of evolution. The unifying theory of a dynamic Earth and the vast scale of coverage provided by satellite imagery complement recent advances in international cooperation at all levels. Geoscientists have organized the International Geological Correlation Program (IGCP) and the Global Sedimentary Geology Program (GSGP) and have helped set up the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program (IGBP). Over the past 25 years, internationally based ocean drilling programs have concentrated on obtaining cores from the ocean floor—nearly three-quarters of the surface—that have improved patchy data and supported stratigraphic correlations with an unexpected degree of success. The drill ship has been to geologists what the telescope is to astronomers, allowing geologists to study the most remote parts of their domain. Such systematic examinations of the Earth are filling in gaps in knowledge as though they were pieces of a giant spherical jigsaw puzzle. Investigators who correlate the geological information from remote regions like the deep ocean find signs of environmental change that affected the whole planet. Some of these sweeping changes periodically caused widespread extinction of species. The study of such extensive occurrences is called global event stratigraphy. The most familiar example of global event stratigraphy is the evaluation of the iridium anomaly found in widely distributed strata that date to 66-million-years ago. The iridium anomaly may signify a meteorite impact that resulted in the extinction of as much as 66 percent of the species, including all the dinosaurs. The most pervasive extinction occurred 225-million-years ago when perhaps as much as 95 percent of all species died off. More recently, 75 percent of the giant mammal species that roamed the spacious North American plains south of the Laurentide ice sheet disappeared 11,000 years ago as the ice sheet melted away. This extinction may have had other causes besides the climatic fluctuations that occurred in the wake of the retreating ice front. Additional threats were posed by the hunting skills of human beings. Anthropogenic factors—those caused by the activities of humans—affect the surface environment on a vast scale. As modern technology offers striking images of a bright blue globe against a black abyss, it also provides evidence of environmental crises, some caused by humankind. While efforts continue to monitor global change and to attribute the causes to humans or to nature, no consequences can be predicted without OCR for page 94 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society an understanding of the records of past global change. Through the record in the rocks, the past has become the key to the future. THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTS: A GEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE The Changing Land Surface The processes of weathering, erosion, and soil formation that together degrade upland areas have operated throughout earth history. Variations in the way the processes operate have generally been dominated by climate. Glaciers form in polar or subpolar regions or at high altitudes; deserts develop around 20° from the equator; and rain forests, with their great rivers, grow in equatorial and temperate latitudes. Against this image it has been surprising to learn from new methods of dating and from quantitative studies of material fluxes that the times in which we live are unusual—not for one but for two reasons. The first is that since Northern Hemisphere glaciation developed about 2.5-million-years ago, fluctuations in ice volume have been large enough to repeatedly change world sea level by as much as 100 m over time scales of tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Despite recent fluctuations, Antarctic ice caps have remained stable for as long as 40-million-years. For this reason the dominant major cause of sea level change during the past 2.5-million-years has been the accumulation and ablation of Northern Hemisphere ice sheets. As an example of fast change, consider that 18,000 years ago, when sea level was about 100 m lower, rivers reached the sea at the edge of the continents. Since then they have retreated so much in response to rising sea level that some river mouths (e.g., the Susquehanna) now lie far back from the continental shelves in estuaries like Chesapeake Bay. Such short-term changes prevent the establishment of an equilibrium in weathering, erosion, and deposition, and during the past 2.5-million-years they have rendered the surface an unusually dynamic place. We ourselves provide the other reason for unusual conditions. The condition of the soil and processes of erosion have been substantially changed since agriculture began. These changes have increased in recent decades because of such processes as dam building, forest destruction, widespread irrigation, and flood control. For instance, sediments that formerly were carried to the Mississippi delta are now being impounded behind dams; this is contributing to the encroachment of the Gulf of Mexico upon the delta. The problems of marine transgression along the Gulf Coast are discussed throughout this report; here, attention is drawn to progress in understanding the major processes that dominate the change in land surface above sea level, with emphasis on the peculiar problems and opportunities that result from the apparently exceptional time in which we live. Landforms Landforms are continually changing, but most changes are subtle and generally escape notice. Although great attention is rightly given to catastrophic events such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides, the time scales of importance in geomorphology—the study of landforms and the processes that shape them—range from seconds to millions of years, and the space scales range from single hillsides to global dimensions. The challenge is to characterize the ways in which landforms respond to both common and uncommon events. The geomorphic record contains information about the ways in which present and past environmental changes have modified the processes operating at the surface, both in intensity and duration. A long-term view is essential because the time spans of contemporary monitoring are too short to represent the range of possible conditions. Long-range perspectives from the geomorphic record permit testing of models of environmental change, whether they apply at global, regional, or local scales. A landscape can provide information about the magnitudes and return frequencies of natural processes. This information can lead to identification of geomorphological thresholds that precede disastrous events. Some responses are immediate—floods, landslides, and debris flows—but others can be spread over years or decades—upland soil erosion, glacial to interglacial cycles, river-channel change, and sea level change. The rates of some of these processes have been greatly accelerated by human activities. Geomorphic events of the past, which are recorded in landforms and stratigraphy, can provide usable analogs of anticipated environmental change. OCR for page 95 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society For example, the rate of sea level rise in the next century could become 1 cm per year, a rate not unlike that at which sea level rose at the end of the last ice age. Study of the coasts drowned at that time will provide information relevant both to biotic response to a future sea level rise and to the anticipated acceleration of sedimentation in the lower reaches of river systems. Geomorphologists and geochemists have been using particular isotopes, produced in the atmosphere and in rocks by cosmic radiation, to determine ages of landforms and to date events such as floods, landslides, fault movements, lava and debris flows, and the onset of glaciation. The application of accelerator mass spectrometry to carbon-14 (14C) dating provides a means of dating samples both older and smaller—by a thousand times—than the type of sample conventionally used. Various new methods are being developed to determine the age of a landform, measuring the time elapsed either since the rocks forming it were deposited or since they were exposed by erosion. These methods represent a breakthrough in quantifying landform dynamics, permitting more precise dating of key events in the evolutionary development of landforms and yielding erosional rates for the various features of a landscape. The Himalaya, for example, have long been considered not only the highest but also the fastest rising mountain range in the world (Figure 3.1). Just how fast they are rising is something we are only beginning to understand. Uplift rates may be as great as 5 mm per year—5 km per million years—in places along the front of the mountain belt during the past 20-million-years. Crystals of microcline were eroded from the surface and deposited in the sediments of the Bengal deep-sea fan south of Sri Lanka only a few million years after they became cool enough to stop losing radiogenic argon by diffusion, which occurred at a depth of 5 km inside the mountain belt. Weathering and Soil Formation The interaction of the atmosphere and hydrosphere—in the form of groundwater—with the rocks at the surface is very complex, partly because organisms ranging in size from bacteria to trees are involved but largely because the relevant time scales vary so widely. Water has a residence time as short as a single storm and typically cycles on an annual scale; trees have lives of decades to centuries; and the minerals formed in the weathering processes can have residence times in the soil of as high as thousands to millions of years. Varieties of soil are strongly controlled by local climate, and with the growing interest in global change soils are being looked at anew to learn what they record about past climatic changes on time scales from decades to millions of years. Soils lie at the interface between the geosphere, biosphere, and atmosphere. They have unique properties that derive from the intimate mixing of partly weathered geological substrata, dead organic matter, live roots, microorganisms, and an atmosphere high in carbon dioxide, nitrogenous gases, and moisture. Ions of potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, sulfur, and phosphorus are released from minerals by hydrolytic weathering. Many of these ions, as well as carbon and nitrogen, are also released from dead organic matter by microbial digestion. The geological composition of the soil passively influences soil biota through ionic deficiencies or release of toxic elements. The soil biota actively influence weathering rates through respiration and production of organic acids. Soils are open systems that gain and lose energy and matter as they evolve through time (Figure 3.2). Gains, losses, translocations, and transformations occur continuously in the soil column; the relative magnitudes of these processes determine the types of horizons formed along the column. If the vectors of these processes remain relatively constant, the intensity of their expression in horizons is time dependent. Time-dependent soils are useful for correlating geographically separated geomorphic surfaces. This property of soils has been widely used in studies concerned with the rates and timing of tectonically and climatically driven geomorphological processes. In the past, most research on rates and pathways of soil development centered on careful chemical, physical, and microscopic dissection of soil horizons developed during known time intervals. Future research will emphasize collection of in situ measurements to document fluxes of gases and solutes, rates of mineral weathering, and biological interactions. Already, these studies reveal the physiology of soil to be modulated by complex feedback mechanisms that are nonetheless subject to catastrophic breakdown under external influences such as fire, erosion, or dramatic climatic change. If we are to understand the contribution of soils to ecological stability, we must also study the effect of anthropogenic disruptions, such as toxic chemical discharges, on soil processes. Soils are great purifiers, but we do not know what level of disruption constitutes a lethal dose. OCR for page 96 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society FIGURE 3.1 View of the Himalaya. Rivers and Material in Transit from Mountains to Sedimentary Basins The surface is shaped locally by weather. The temperature and moisture regimes, with the weather intensities and rates of change, represent climate. The effects of climate change are becoming more clearly understood through the use of general circulation models. Climatologists, who develop general circulation models to predict the consequences of global change, test their models by comparing results obtained with variables that define past conditions against the evidence found in the geological record. That evidence includes the landforms themselves, sedimentary sequences, and fossil biotas. Closer study of the response generated on the surface by climatic changes that last for short intervals, up to hundreds of years, or long intervals, OCR for page 97 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society FIGURE 3.2 Flow of the major processes in soil development. hundreds of thousands of years, allows prediction of how future climatic fluctuations can alter the landscape. For example, the sizes of river channels formed in the past 10,000 years and the character of their contained sediments have been used to reconstruct a history of long-term change in the magnitudes of high-frequency floods in the Upper Mississippi valley (Figure 3.3). That record helps to test general circulation models of climatic fluctuations over the past ten centuries. Stratigraphic evidence also extends the existing record of river behavior beyond the limits of data collected through observation over the past 100 years. Advances have recently been made in estimating the size and frequency of ancient floods, effectively extending hydrologic records for up to thousands of years, by combining interpretations of river and sediment behavior with results from geological dating methods. The intensity and sequence of climatic events are crucial factors in molding the landscape into a distinctive form and producing a recognizable geological pattern. The lone occurrence of a moderate flood might accomplish little erosion and deposition, but the clustered occurrence of two or three moderate floods can destabilize entire channel systems and cause them to become sensitive to the erosional effects of even small floods. Studies of the erosion, transportation, and deposition of sediments in contemporary drainage sys- FIGURE 3.3 Variations in the size of annual and biennial floods in the upper Mississippi Valley over the past 9,000 years; the size is expressed as a percentage of the present flood size. OCR for page 98 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society tems are showing departures from the steady state. Modern watersheds are accumulating more sediment than they pass on. In many rivers a large proportion of the sediment is transported by flood events that prevail only a few days of the year. How the climatic conditions that favor these events relate to the magnitudes and frequencies of erosional and transportation episodes is emerging as an area of great scientific interest. Erosion by other agents, such as glaciation and wind, plays some part in the degradation of topography, but most eroded material is carried to the sea by rivers either in solution or as detrital sediment. River transport varies enormously with both climate and source area; the Huang He (Yellow River) alone, for example, accounts for 6 percent of the world's total suspended matter river load, because this river drains the readily eroded windblown material of the loess plateau in the Chinese interior. In addition, the beginnings of agriculture more than 4,000 years ago appears to have greatly increased the rate at which sediment is moving into the river. Winds and Glaciers: More Material in Transit Although most of the material carried into sedimentary basins is transported by rivers, appreciable amounts are carried by wind and glaciers. Deserts, where wind erosion and deposition in the form of sand dunes are most important, have become the subject of increased research activity. This activity has been sparked by such diverse influences as the rapid extension of the Sahara into the Sahel within the past 30 years, the discovery of wind-made landforms on Mars, and the availability of satellite and radar images of the Earth's remote deserts (Figure 3.4). Again, new techniques of age determination have yielded exciting results. Recent measurements of the thermoluminesence of rocks from surfaces buried beneath dunes in the high plains of the American West have shown that the dunes were moving in response to desert winds much more recently than had previously been realized. Windblown dust mixed into the deep-sea sediments of the North Pacific helps to show how continental climatic fluctuations in China relate to the orbitally induced climatic changes that are well known from the deep-sea record. On a longer time scale, windblown dust in sediments from the deep Atlantic indicates that the Sahara first became a huge desert about 10-million-years ago, possibly as a result of changes in atmospheric circulation related to the uplift of the Tibetan plateau. Glaciers and glacial deposits reflect the tremendous fluctuations in the climate of the current ice age. Only 20,000 years ago glaciers extended as far south as New York City, and there may have been as many as a dozen comparable advances and retreats of Northern Hemisphere ice during the past 2.5-million-years. A new research effort to integrate continental and oceanic data from the past 2.5-million-years should produce a picture of how the surface environment adapts to rapid climate change. Glacier ice provides a unique record of short-term change, which is discussed in the part of this chapter dealing with cyclical change. Lakes: Interruptions in Transit Lakes represent a peculiar part of the earth system. If the solar-driven heat engine entails erosion of mountains, transit of eroded material from the mountains to the sea, and deposition of sediments at the edges of the continents and on the ocean floor, then lakes represent an interruption to the smooth flow of the system. As such, lakes are usually quite short lived because they fill with sediments. The familiar outlines of North America's Great Lakes are less than 20,000 years old and are unlikely to last more than another 20,000 years. Only a few of the world's existing lakes are more than a million years old, and the oldest, Lake Baikal in Siberia and the Great Rift Valley lakes of East Africa, are found in places where the continents are being ripped apart by tectonic forces. Lakes and lake sediments provide crucial information about climatic change during the past 2.5-million-years. In recently glaciated areas, some lakes have produced annual cycles in sedimentary layers called varves. Some of these varve-layer exposures indicate thousands of years of continuous deposition. The most productive method of retrieving environmental information from lake deposits is the analysis of fossil pollen, which provides a record of changes in nearby vegetation. In tropical areas, lakes expand during intense monsoonal episodes, while in temperate latitudes high lake levels may indicate more rain or less evaporation. Fluctuations in shoreline elevations are used with the pollen record to reconstruct recent environmental changes. The long-term rock record contains scattered evidence of ancient lakes; the oldest of these is more than 2-billion-years old, half as old as Earth itself. The study of old lake deposits has become a major research activity. Interest has been stimulated not only by studies of the geologically recent lakes but also by the discovery that lake beds are commonly OCR for page 99 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society FIGURE 3.4 SIR-A radar scan (diagonal band) reveals aggraded valley segments that were barely perceptible on Landsat images of eastern Sahara in northwest Sudan (19.7°N, 25.2°E). a source of petroleum—an idea promoted by Chinese geologists and now broadly accepted. Some of the finest remains of early humans have been found around the shores of old lake beds, and often the richest sites for dinosaur fossils are associated with the rocks along ancient shores. OCR for page 100 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society FIGURE 3.5 Atlantic-type (passive) continental margin along the eastern United States. Continental deposits accumulated in fault-bounded basins as the early stages of rifting separated North America from Africa. When the continents separated enough so that seawater could enter to form the Atlantic Ocean, marine deposition commenced. Deltas and Estuaries Rivers reach the sea in deltas and estuaries. Deltas form at river mouths when the prevailing current becomes too slow to carry detritus, so that enormous amounts of sediment are dumped close to the continental margin. Where deltaic deposition has continued for tens of millions of years, deltas have extended onto the deep ocean floor. Huge petroleum resources in the Mississippi, Niger, Orinoco, and other deltas are currently being developed, and related understanding has contributed to the way in which deltas are perceived from the complementary resource, environment, and hazard viewpoints. Estuaries, in contrast to deltas, are broad embayed river mouths that have been flooded since the end of the most recent glaciation when sea level rose and the river's sediment load diminished. Water circulation in estuaries is much more restricted than in the open sea, and, as a result, sensitivity to environmental modification is very high. For this reason estuaries are important targets for interdisciplinary research in biogeochemical dynamics. Beneath the Sea The large-scale structure of the ocean basins has been established by the operation of the Earth's internal heat engine, which causes rupture and drift of continents and island arcs, formation of new ocean floor at spreading centers, and establishment of new arc systems where plates converge. The operation of these processes leads inexorably to the opening and closing of oceans, to island-arc and continental collisions, to the assembly of continents, to the addition of new arc material to existing continents, and to recycling of both ocean-floor rocks and continental material into the mantle. Solar heat modifies the ocean floor mainly by deposition of detrital sediment eroded from the land and by precipitation of calcium carbonate and silica from oceanic waters—partly by marine organisms—to form limestone and chert. Together, these processes degrade the thermally generated submarine relief, not so much by erosion, the process dominant above sea level, as by deposition that smooths the topography. Deposition at Atlantic-Type Margins Sedimentary deposition below sea level is controlled primarily by the tectonic framework of the ocean basins. The largest volumes of sediments accumulate at the rifted continental margins, called Atlantic-type margins because they are best developed around the Atlantic Ocean (Figure 3.5). The most rapid additions to these types of margins at present come from rivers draining the world's largest areas of high elevation—from the Mississippi and Mackenzie rivers that drain western North OCR for page 101 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society America and from the Ganges and Indus rivers that drain the Himalaya and Tibet. Accumulations of rock as much as 15 km thick can develop along Atlantic-type margins. These, the greatest thicknesses of sediments in the world, are accommodated by subsidence as the lithosphere—thin and hot at continental rupture—cools and thickens. The load of accumulating sediments depresses the lithosphere farther and amplifies this subsidence. Broad continental shelves extending for many tens of kilometers from the edge of the ocean at depths of only a few tens of meters below sea level are characteristic of Atlantic-type oceanic margins, because of deposition by powerful river systems and perhaps because of extensive lithospheric thinning at the time of continental rupture. Those off the coast of New England and the Alaskan coast of the Bering Sea are typical. The recent sea level changes that mark responses to glaciation and deglaciation have led to repeated erosive episodes of the unconsolidated sediments of continental shelves. Large masses of such sediments have been off-loaded through submarine canyons onto deep-sea fans and abyssal plains. Limestone shelves develop where there is little sediment eroded from the land and in areas of abundant biological activity. Sediments originate mainly from the calcareous skeletons of shallow-water, bottom-dwelling marine organisms. These limestone shelves respond to sea level change in a way very different from sand and mud shelves. When sea level falls, exposure to fresh water as rain or runoff produces cementation that binds the loose skeletal sediment. As a result, carbonate-dominated banks and shelves reflect conditions of deposition during high stands of the sea and of subsequent cementation during low stands. Much of Florida and all of the Bahama banks were produced by this process. Submarine canyons carry sediments from the continental shelves to the deep oceans and the submarine fans, where that sediment settles. When they were first recognized about 50 years ago, the prime question asked was how such enormous features could form. Computation of the huge volume of sediments in the fans showed that turbid sediment-laden flows pouring from the continental shelves in times of glacially controlled low stands of the sea could have readily carved even the greatest of submarine canyons, many of which are much larger than the Grand Canyon. Modern research on both submarine fans and canyons is accelerating because of the availability of new instrumental capabilities. Deep-sea drilling, multibeam echo sounders, side-look scanning sonars, and manned and remotely controlled submersibles are providing a much more detailed picture than was formerly obtainable. Research on the sedimentary development of the Atlantic-type margins has expanded enormously during the past decade, largely in response to two stimuli: an appreciation, following the plate tectonic revolution, of how continental rupture happens and an understanding of how the sediment wedge at the continental margin evolves through time. The latter owes much to oil exploration, which led to the development of the technique of sequence stratigraphy, where coherent packages of distinctive strata in reflection seismic data—calibrated against the record of local oil wells—can be used to establish a detailed history of the transgression and regression of the sea. Lively controversy persists as to exactly how and whether the seismic stratigraphic records can be linked to global sea level fluctuations. Deposition at Convergent Plate Boundaries The greatest variations in topographic relief are produced at convergent plate boundaries. The giant peaks of the Himalaya, 8 km high, result from the collision of India with Asia, and the 11-km extreme of oceanic depth is found in the Marianas Trench, where subduction is carrying the Pacific plate into the mantle. Two dominant sedimentary depositional environments are associated with these immense topographic contrasts: trenches and foreland basins. Subduction-zone trenches contain substantial sediment accumulations only where the supply of sediments is large enough to exceed the rate of removal by subduction (Figure 3.6). This type of accumulation is occurring, for example, at the eastern end of the Aleutian Trench close to sediment sources in the North American continent and at the southern end of the Lesser Antilles Trench close to the South American continent at the mouth of the Orinoco River. Sediments accumulate at the front of the related arc system to form a thick wedge, or accretionary prism, that extends along the trench. An exciting challenge—currently being addressed by deep-sea drilling, multibeam echo sounding, and other new techniques—is to establish exactly how unconsolidated sediment entering a deep-sea trench becomes solid rock in the accretionary prism, a process that involves both intense deformation and the expulsion of vast quantities of water. The other sites of substantial sediment accumulation in convergent plate boundary zones are the OCR for page 126 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society mark the geological record beginning 34-million-years ago exemplify these points. This crisis is especially amenable to study because it happened relatively recently. The stratigraphic record is of high-quality, and the well-established pattern of magnetic reversals provides an excellent temporal framework. Fossil records of planktonic foraminifera, calcareous nannoplankton, and terrestrial mammals show that the crisis was protracted, suggesting multiple pulses of extinction. As we have seen, changes in terrestrial paleofloras indicate that climates cooled in many areas; shifts in oxygen isotopes of foraminiferan shells reveal that water masses underwent major changes; and plate reconstructions suggest that the Antarctic cooling system for the deep-sea originated at this time. Nonetheless, the ultimate cause of this crisis remains controversial. Pulses of extinction, when they have removed large numbers of species by imposing unusual and lethal conditions, can reset biological systems in ways that may have had nothing to do with the victim's ability to adapt successfully to ordinary conditions. This circumstance is epitomized by the extinction of the dinosaurs, which emptied ecospace to the benefit of the mammals. In recent years, dinosaurs have been recast as active, ecologically adept creatures—not backward lumbering forms that were inherently inferior to mammals. A continuing question about global biotic crises in general is whether, through geological time, they form the tip of one tail in a unimodal distribution of extinction rates or whether they represent a statistical outlier; a sparse data base currently frustrates valid statistical testing. The second condition would imply unique causation rather than simply an accentuation of normal agents of extinction. On the other hand, periodic spacing of mass extinctions may suggest a highly abnormal cause. The possible regularity of these crises stimulates current debates. At the other end of the distribution of extinction rates lies another question: When the record shows extinctions occurring at minimal rates, do species still disappear in groups or do they die off independently in piecemeal fashion? The former condition would require an expansion of catastrophic ideology to embrace even relatively calm intervals of biotic history. Finer resolution of the stratigraphic record may solve this basic problem of normal, or background, extinction levels. Macroevolutionary Trends Macroevolution transcends species boundaries, involving changes in the more generalized taxonomic levels, such as genus or family. Macroevolutionary changes include those trends in the marine realm that have been driven by the expansion of sophisticated predators on the seafloor over the past 100-million-years. Phyletic evolution can produce macroevolutionary trends, as can differences in rates of extinction and speciation among groups of species. An important question here relates to the relative importance of phyletic evolution in producing trends in the history of life. If it has been of secondary importance, as asserted in the punctuational model, differential rates of extinction and speciation gain importance. A further question concerning phyletic evolution addresses the degree to which it has been gradual and the degree to which it has followed a stepwise course, in which established species have undergone most of their changes during very brief intervals of geological time. Trends can be documented only on the basis of careful taxonomic and biostratigraphic studies, and they can be interpreted only by considering the functional morphology and ecology of component species. Origins of Major Biological Categories Fossil data provide estimates of the times when higher biological groups evolved. For groups with excellent fossil records, early estimates remain unchanged even though large volumes of new data have accumulated. For those with poor fossil records, the estimates are vulnerable to new discoveries. Thus, although Archaeopteryx is remarkable for its intermediate morphological position between dinosaurs and birds, the early fossil record of birds is so poor that a recent claim for a much earlier bird cannot be rejected out of hand. The fossil record offers a unique opportunity to assess the origins of taxonomic groups at general levels—the origins of kingdoms in Precambrian time and then of phyla. Times of origin for the more general groups, which are estimated from molecular data, do not always agree with those from fossil data. Molecular data clearly have great potential for the assessment of relative times of origin, but only well-dated fossils will estimate actual rates of divergence between forms. The environmental sites of major evolutionary breakthroughs are difficult to predict. These events may be concentrated in relatively unstable habitats, such as those of high latitudes or nearshore marine habitats, or in more stable habitats, such as those of the tropics or offshore marine habitats at middle or low latitudes. Hostile habitats generally offer more vacant ecospace, but more OCR for page 127 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society hospitable habitats sustain more varieties of life and harbor more biological groups, which means that they can support greater total rates of speciation. Origins of higher groups frequently reflect the evolution of adaptive innovations. Studies of ancestors and descendants in the fossil record can reveal the morphogenetic mechanisms that gave rise to innovations. Among these mechanisms are changes in the relative timing for development of different morphological features. This area of research offers great potential for fruitful interaction between paleobiologists, developmental biologists, and geneticists. Phylogenetic Reconstruction During the past two decades, cladistic analysis—the study of similarities resulting from common origins—has emerged as a powerful quantitative method for reconstructing the genealogical relationships called phylogenies. It is based on assessment of how traits that have evolved only once are distributed among taxonomic groups. Some proponents of cladistic analysis disregard the stratigraphic distribution of groups, grounding reconstruction of phylogenies on judgment as to which characteristics are primitive and which are derived. An alternative approach reconstructs phylogenies by evaluating stratigraphic and morphological distances between groups. Comparisons have shown that the two approaches sometimes yield identical results. Such comparisons are of great value, and methods that combine the two approaches warrant further examination. Molecular data also can reconstruct phylogenies; however, some of the techniques, including DNA hybridization, remain controversial, and their results must be compared to those achieved with the other approaches. Catastrophes in Earth History Geologists call sudden violent changes catastrophes, and they contrast catastrophes with the changes in the rock record attributed to constant gradual processes. There is obviously a continuum between frequent events, moderate events, and the occasional violent happening, and this simple relationship is readily expressed in empirical laws. Such relationships can, for example, link earthquake frequency with earthquake magnitude. Nearly two centuries ago polarized positions were assigned to geologists—they were either catastrophists or uniformitarians. Since then geological interpretation has accommodated the occurrence of occasional violent events, of the kinds experienced within our own lifetimes—hurricanes, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions. A uniformitarian approach has dominated because it is very effective in analyzing the rock record and in making correlations. The possibility that the four or five great biological extinctions of the past few hundred-million-years marked catastrophic events never received serious attention because no evidence of a promising catastrophic mechanism had been recognized. That changed a decade ago when researchers, studying a few sites scattered over the globe, reported that strata that marked the mass extinction of about 66-million-years ago contained anomalously high concentrations of iridium and related platinum-group metals. Similarily, high concentrations have now been reported from dozens of localities worldwide of the same age. They are considered strong evidence of a catastrophic event close to the time of extinction of many groups of animals, of which dinosaurs are the most notable. This latter extinction event is one of the five largest extinction events to have occurred since fossils became abundant—the largest, 250-million-years ago, is represented by a less detailed record. But many things were happening 66-million-years ago; evidence indicates that the atmosphere and ocean were cooling and that the sea level was rising again after having fallen. Because the last vestiges of some life forms ceased to appear in strata that date to before the time of the iridium anomaly, it is argued that a catastrophic event may have been the final blow at a time of general environmental deterioration. Two kinds of nonbiological catastrophic perturbations that have been suggested are a global volcanic episode and the impact of a meteorite. A high platinum-metal concentration could indicate origins from within the mantle, though such a volcanic episode would have to be extremely intense, and one of the largest lava eruption events of the past few hundred-million-years formed the Deccan basalts in India at just the right time. Catastrophic perturbation by extraterrestrial impact seems more probable, not only because meteorites exhibit high concentrations of platinum-group metals in the right proportion but also because of an association of the iridium-rich horizon with quartz grains showing the effects of intense shock. Shock features are commonly found with meteorite impacts but are unknown in volcanos. And perhaps even more significant is the existence of small beads of glassy material of the type produced by the heat released by meteorite impacts—microtectites. Several mechanisms have been proposed that show how meteorite impact could OCR for page 128 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society result in sufficient environmental modification to cause catastrophic mortality. One computer simulation portrays the ejection of a dust layer into the high atmosphere that would cut out sunlight for months at a time, ending photosynthesis and sinking all latitudes into a deep cold. After the dust settled, high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide would warm the Earth by producing a greenhouse effect. Another model suggests that the fast-traveling ejecta from the impact site could have been at temperatures high enough to cause atmospheric oxygen and nitrogen to combine, forming clouds that would precipitate into nitric acid rain. A third hypothesis, which is gaining increased acceptance, is that an impact of the proper age, formed the 180-km-diameter Chicxulub crater in the Yucatan of Mexico. Chicxulub strata is composed of thick sulfate-rich evaporite and carbonate deposits; an impact into such deposits could eject huge amounts of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, resulting in large-scale global cooling and several years of acid-rich rains as the aerosols settled out of the atmosphere—both the cooling and acid rains could have devastated the food chain. Several issues complicate the impact scenario—one strong argument cites evidence of animal groups that suffered heavy extinction before the primary iridium anomaly settled into place. Regardless of what the eventual consensus on its cause may be, the iridium anomaly has stimulated intense geological research. Not only have the contemporary rocks been studied closely—the anomaly has been documented at about 100 sites throughout the world—but the deep ocean record has been scrutinized, revealing a perturbation of the earth system that lasted half a million years. The most significant result of this intense geological research may be that serious consideration of sudden global catastrophes is now acceptable. All meteorite impacts are now receiving great attention. The roughly 100 known impact craters on Earth are being looked at anew, their ages are being reassessed, and attempts are being made to see whether their incidence could be periodic. An impact site in Sweden, 50 km in diameter, has been drilled to a depth of more than 6 km, allowing observations about the effects of large-body impact at depth. The discovery of iridium anomalies in some of the oldest rocks strongly suggests a flurry of meteorite impacts as late as 3.6-million-years ago. And the most drastic of catastrophes, collision between the Earth and a Mars-sized body before 4-billion-years ago, is now considered a possible explanation for the Moon's formation. Observations of asteroids show that the current meteorite flux is likely to be higher than had been considered, and in 1989 one carefully observed asteroid passed closer to us than any other in the past 50 years. There is a calculable, if remote, chance that the Earth will be struck by an object more than a few kilometers in diameter in the foreseeable future. Such an event would cause massive destruction, and a case can be made for assessing the possibility of diverting an incoming object to avert such a potential collision. No other global iridium anomalies have been recognized, although a locally defined anomaly dated at 34-million-years ago corresponds to a substantial extinction. No iridium or shocked quartz horizons have been found for the greatest extinction ever, which was 240-million-years ago; however, the absence of evidence, especially in older rocks, should not lead to a positive conclusion. There is certainly evidence that other ancient mass extinctions were complex events, extending over intervals of several million years. The mainstream of the earth sciences has shifted away from the extreme uniformitarian position, which attempts to explain all phenomena in terms of directly observed processes. Now researchers, confident in the soundness of their inductive methodology, can consider the possibility of exceptional events. There is, of course, an appropriate reluctance to invoke exceptional events as causal mechanisms, and intense skepticism deservedly awaits all such suggestions. The study of catastrophic effects on earth systems requires further work. Promising directions for general research include their continuing consequences, such as how perturbations propagate through the earth system and how secular change is altered permanently by catastrophe. MODELING THE EARTH SYSTEM An Incomplete Record Solid-earth scientists, like all other scientists, have long used conceptual models as an aid in understanding. For example, it was recognized in ancient times that the occurrence of seashells in rocks on the continents required a model in which the disposition of sea and land changed with time. By the nineteenth century this idea had developed further with the recognition that there had been widespread episodes of continental flooding that were correlatable over great distances. In the mid-twentieth century the repeated flooding and emergence of North America over the past 550-million-years were found to provide a strong framework for under- OCR for page 129 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society standing historical geology, and, during the past 20 years, flooding and emergence have been found to be approximately simultaneous for at least three continents. This coincidence has led to the suggestion that the main driver of sea level change is within the world ocean. The amount of seafloor spreading going on at a particular time seems a strong candidate for the dominant control. Young seafloor is hot and shallow, and aged seafloor is cold and lies deep. The average rate of spreading and the total length of spreading center at any one time can be quantitatively associated with the extent of flooding of the continents. Conceptual models that are progressively refined may be considered successful for parts of the earth system but are not really comprehensive. The question of continental flooding helps to show why this is so. The amount of water that is locked up in ice has decreased since about 20,000 years ago with the melting of North American and Eurasian ice sheets. This decrease has accounted for about 100 m of sea level rise over the same interval. This is a very large change in sea level compared with the range of continental elevation. About 80 percent of the continental area lies within 1 km of the present sea level. Although we can estimate the change in the average age of the ocean floor for the past 100-million-years we cannot do so well for the amount of water locked up in ice sheets. Evidence that there were no major ice sheets 100-million-years ago is strong, but it is not clear how long ago the great Antarctic ice sheet formed, nor can we tell whether it has fluctuated much or even disappeared and been renewed. This example illustrates a general situation. Comprehensive modeling of earth systems is very difficult, because although some parts of the system are understood, fluctuations in critical variables for other parts of the system are too poorly known to justify the construction of elaborate models. The challenge represented by the fact that some parts of the earth system can be readily modeled whereas others cannot has been met by concentrating on modeling those subsystems that can be handled well and by seeking innovative ways of quantifying information about subsystems that cannot. A further problem is linking the models of system parts that operate at different rates, such as the atmosphere, which changes on a very short time scale, and the ocean, which changes more slowly. The most successful and productive models reconstruct cyclic changes involving limited components of the earth system. Only a few components, or variables, can be tested at one time, but every successful simulation provides further understanding. Some aspects of paleoceanography and paleoclimatology lend themselves to quantitative modeling in isolation from the whole. However, most are not, and, because of the interdependencies, the models should be global in scale, link adjacent water masses, and couple the atmosphere with the oceans, so great is the interdependence of these two great fluid envelopes. Atmosphere and ocean are linked especially by exchanges of heat, momentum, carbon dioxide, and, of course, water. The surface temperatures of the ocean influence these fluxes. The salinity of waters that reach the ocean bottom, a variable related to climate, also affects oceanic circulation. And changes in global sea level affect the levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which in turn influence global climate through the greenhouse effect. Outstanding successes include modeling of the glacial cycles of the past 0.8-million-years, as controlled by variations in orbital parameters, and modeling of sedimentary basin fill, as controlled by loads applied to the lithosphere. Modeling of atmospheric systems, which mainly use energy balance models and general circulation models (GCMs), has grown to be extremely sophisticated in recent years, and solid-earth scientists have found some community of interest with atmospheric modelers. For example, at the time of the most recent glacial maximum, the solar energy input at the surface was less than it is today. A GCM of that time also indicates wind and temperature distributions that are very different from those of today. These indications have been compared with the geological record of the most recent glacial maximum with some success. Simplified energy balance models for the atmosphere for 100 million and 375-million-years ago, when continental distributions were very different and much of the surficial climate was warmer than it is now, have also met with some qualified success. There are some problems, too—for example, existing GCMs for the glacial maximum will not predict conditions that would grow the large ice sheets that existed then. Intellectual Frontiers Understanding the processes that are active today in establishing the surface environment and understanding how those processes have operated throughout geological time are the basic challenges addressed in this chapter. Intellectual frontiers relate to questions about the surface environment that have not been asked in the past, either because it was not possible to ask them or because it was not OCR for page 130 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society recognized that they had meaningful answers. A distinctive new development is the perspective that views the environment as a complex of interactive systems. Now specific problems are posed, and solved, as part of a broader framework of global understanding. Remotely sensed imagery from space and organized international cooperation have done much to stimulate the global approach. In the next decade the operation of higher-resolution instruments on advanced space platforms, such as those envisaged for the Earth Observing System, will enhance the global perspective. But perhaps the most important efforts toward global understanding are made through programs that depend on international cooperation among scientists. The Ocean Drilling Program exemplifies this trend, as does the innovative International Geological Correlation Program and the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. Dating Past Events Because geochronology scales physical, chemical, and biological events against time, it plays a fundamental role in the earth sciences. To appreciate what has happened, we need to know the sequence of events and the rates of change. Quantitative biostratigraphic techniques yield correlations with accuracies approaching a few hundred thousand years for bodies of rock that are hundreds of millions of years old and lie thousands of kilometers apart. These methods of correlation are integrated with others, including paleomagnetic methods and radiometric dating of marker beds such as volcanic ashes. Together they encourage the search for high-frequency events and for regular patterns in such events. Correlation techniques and isotopic dating serve as checks on each other. Isotopic dating methods can focus on scales from billions to mere thousands of years, but when possible they should be integrated with other dating methods. Global event stratigraphy correlates the worldwide expression of certain events. It provides a framework of additional instantaneous markers against which intervening events can be calibrated. The stratigraphic evidence of rapid global sea level change falls within this category, as does the identification of global chemical signals. The chemical signals include both narrow stratigraphic markers that formed during brief moments of geological time and long-term secular trends that trace continuing developments. The iridium anomaly, which marks the mass extinction of 66-million-years ago and may signal the impact of a huge meteorite, is the most famous geochemical marker in the stratigraphic record. But others have been, and will continue to be, discovered. All of the challenging areas of research described in the following paragraphs—historical studies of oceans and atmospheres, terrestrial environments, and life on Earth—depend on advances in geochronology. Atmospheric and Oceanic Chemistry On the longest time scale, the geological record indicates a gross change from a reducing to an oxidizing state of the linked atmosphere-ocean system. The details of timing and the reason for this secular change still provide topics for lively debate. On shorter time scales, the record of the rocks preserves evidence of cyclical changes. Geologists can trace variable concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and ocean on time scales ranging up to hundreds of millions of years. They have also distinguished episodes during which much of the deeper ocean was anoxic. Intervals when widespread anoxia in deep waters expanded to flood broad areas of the continents are especially interesting, because they resulted in the massive accumulation of valuable hydrocarbons from sources in black anoxic sediments. Some researchers think that the storage of so much organic carbon implies the possibility of an increased oxygen content in the atmosphere at such times in the past. Others consider that an inflammatory concept. Past oceanic composition, recorded within ancient sediments, reflects many aspects of the global environment. These include the mantle contributions through volcanism and continental input through erosion, the global climate, the presence or absence of ice caps, and the level and kinds of biological activity. The history of ocean chemistry can be established from the rock record-an endeavor that is rewarding because it has been so successful. For the past 150 million years, the interval when the sediment now carpeting the deep-seafloor has been accumulating, ocean chemists can study changes among the individual water masses that together make up the world ocean. The most fundamental variable controlling atmospheric and oceanic chemistry has been the temperature of the deep sea. But patterns of upwelling and shallower currents and high biological productivity have undergone dramatic shifts at frequent intervals. Changes in oceanic conditions, especially sea level, have exerted a strong control over evolution OCR for page 131 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society and extinction and also over the formation of valuable resources. Dynamics of the Global Environment The evolution of the environment is an important area of research in modern earth sciences. The study of ancient conditions, when climates were warmer than today, offers insight into potentials of modern greenhouse warming. In addition, studies of different global ecosystems of the past may reveal peculiarities of the present world that render it especially vulnerable to certain forcing factors. The most recent segment of the geological record provides the temporal resolution and geographic control needed to identify very sudden environmental changes. During the first 4-billion-years of earth history, life arose and evolved through many intermediate stages to a point at which a variety of multicellular plants and animals existed. Evolution and extinction during this interval were tightly interwoven with profound changes in the physical nature of our planet, especially its atmospheric chemistry. This intimate relationship between life and environment serves to underscore an important point about future directions of research. Different intervals of earth history require distinct scientific strategies, because the intervals were characterized by different kinds and degrees of environmental change and are represented by different kinds of geological records. The prospects are exciting. But they require a prodigious amount of research to chronicle global environmental change for a variety of past intervals with the resolution required. Once models can accurately simulate environmental conditions of key intervals during earth history, they can be used for predicting future conditions. Collaborative modeling projects that unite workers in the geological sciences with meteorologists and oceanographers are beginning to yield results. Life Through Time Numerous advances have breathed new life into paleontology. The contributions of the fossil record to the study of evolution and extinction uniquely document myriad forms unknown in the modern world. A cumulative chronology indicates the rates of evolution and extinction, and the timing of major events in the context of environmental change. Such a chronology establishes fluctuations and patterns that can point to new questions about the history of life. The development and application of quantitative techniques will continue to play a prominent role in future studies of life through time. Key methods will assess morphological change; patterns of evolution and extinction; and theoretical modeling of taxonomic, stratigraphic, and environmental data obtained from the fossil record. The fossil record also provides evidence of the timing of evolutionary branching. The molecular clocks used to estimate the times when certain extant groups branched from others must be calibrated against fossil data, and conclusions must be tested against macroscopic evidence. Of special importance are fossil data that reveal the occurrence of adaptive breakthrough—evolutionary innovations that ushered in new modes of life that transformed the ecosystem. These can be recognized in the fossil record only by inferring function from morphology, an activity that merits increased support. Many adaptive breakthroughs have triggered adaptive radiations—diversification from a single life form that results in the invasion of a variety of ecological niches. Such radiations have special significance because they account for most of the major evolutionary changes in the history of life. Understanding the general diversification of life on Earth requires an understanding of adaptive radiations. Sudden extinctions—the negative equivalent of adaptive radiations—have repeatedly reordered the global ecosystem and opened the way for new evolutionary directions. Mass extinctions can be understood only in the context of global environmental change. The taxonomic, temporal, and geographic patterns that have characterized these events are especially significant; compilation of new data demands the continued generation of high-quality biostratigraphic and taxonomic information. Whether global biotic catastrophes have occurred in combination with background extinction or instead have been quantitatively or qualitatively distinct is a question that can be answered only by understanding the patterns and causes of noncrisis extinctions. The Most Recent Past Geologists know that the record of the most recent past is exceptional because its complex history can be better established than that of any earlier period. Powerful new techniques are determining the ages, isotopic compositions, and temperatures of materials deposited during the past 2.5-million-years. But the most significant recent development is the worldwide awareness of changes in the global environment caused by humanity. This new awareness has stimulated a need to better understand the OCR for page 132 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society TABLE 3.1 Research Opportunity Framework Research Opportunities Research Areas A. Understand Processes B C D I. Paleoenvironment and Biological Evolution ■: Soil development, history, and contamination ■: Glacier ice and its inclusions ■: Quaternary record ■: Recent global changes ■: Paleogeography and paleoclimatology ■: Paleoceanography ■: Forcing factors in environmental change ■: History of life ■: Discovery and curation of fossils ■: Abrupt and catastrophic changes ■: Organic geochemistry II. Global Geochemical and Biogeochemical Cycles ■: Geochemical cycles: atmospheres and oceans III. Fluids in and on the Earth ■: Analysis of drainage basins ■: Mineral-water interface geochemistry IV. Crustal Dynamics: Ocean and Continent ■: Landform response to change ■: Quantification of thresholds, response rates and feedback mechanisms for landforms ■: Mathematical and computer modeling of landform changes ■: Sedimentary basins ■: Sequence stratigraphy V. Facilities, Equipment, Data Bases ■: Exploit new tools and techniques (e.g., isotopes, trace compounds, DNA sequencing and hybridization, digitizing techniques) ■: Exploit new dating techniques (e.g., radiometric methods, trends in isotope ratios, biostratigraphic correlation, chemical markers in stratigraphy) ■: Acquire high-quality data bases and establish information systems immediate past that is forging closer links between geologists and other earth scientists. The history of human evolution is beginning to unfold in sufficient detail to reveal the kind of environmental influences that affected human ancestors. All the challenges that have been identified here as intellectual frontiers have special possibilities for resolution when addressed in light of our understanding of the ongoing global changes during this most recent geological period. RESEARCH OPPORTUNITIES The Research Framework (Table 3.1) summarizes the research opportunities identified in this chapter, with reference also to other disciplinary reports and recommendations. These topics, representing significant selection and thus prioritization from a large array of research projects, are described briefly in the following section. The relevant processes operate near the surface for the most part, although there is no sharp boundary between surficial geology and the deep-seated processes covered in Chapter 2. There are excellent prospects for generating better models of the earth system, both present and past, including global tectonic models, coupled ocean-atmosphere biogeochemical models of the fluid envelope, and paleoecological models of the biosphere. The fossil record of the biosphere provides information about evolution as well as evidence of environmental changes and migration of continents. The relevant Research Areas for this chapter are interrelated, and many of the research topics relate to more than one area. The carbon cycle (Area II), OCR for page 133 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society for example, links to life and biological evolution (Area I) and has influenced paleoatmospheres and paleoceans theme (Area I), as well as playing a major role in continental weathering theme (Area III). It also has connections to the mantle through the igneous and metamorphic processes in the lithosphere and crust (Area IV), as discussed in Chapter 2. Some of the many applications of these Research Areas are outlined in Chapters 4 and 5. Research Area I. Paleoenvironment and Biological Evolution Soil Development, History, and Contamination If extended to soils, the new age-determination capabilities that are being applied to landforms and drainage basins could quantify temporal aspects of soil development that have been the subject of much speculation. More complete understanding of soil processes as aspects of environmental, especially climatic, evolution will improve both paleosoil and soil-contamination studies. Glacier Ice and Its Inclusions Given the important role of glaciers in controlling sea level and climate, and considering the evident instability of glacial volume, it is essential that we gain a clearer picture of the history of glaciation since the onset of the recent ice age about 2.5-million-years ago. Especially important too is further study of the annual layers in ice cores, including analysis of oxygen isotopes, carbon dioxide, and dust to obtain a record of the past few thousand years. We need a much better understanding of glacial expansion and contraction and the role of environmental thresholds in governing these processes. Quaternary Record The record of change in the Quaternary (the past 1.6-million-years) is important because it is the most complete available record for any part of the past and thus provides the best picture of environmental change. Synthetic and snyoptic studies of Quaternary history (e.g., CLIMAP and COHMAP) have led the way. Extending studies of this kind with better spatially distributed data and higher temporal resolution will help to show how phenomena occurring simultaneously in different areas were related to each other, and will indicate sequences of events. This kind of information is needed to test atmospheric and oceanic models that are being used to assess what might happen in future global environments. Recent Global Changes The evolution of the ocean, atmosphere, and life during the first 4-billion-years of the planet's history is of great intellectual appeal and deserves continued emphasis. Nonetheless, of greatest practical value are studies of global change during the most recent interval of geological time. The geological record of the past 10,000 years has great potential for shedding light on the ways in which climatic changes affect life. In light of the global warming anticipated for the coming decade, warm intervals of the past should be scrutinized for possible lessons for the future. In addition, intervals exhibiting large-scale environmental change or mass extinction of life warrant detailed scrutiny for patterns and causes. Paleogeography and Paleoclimatology The past few years have seen major advances in paleoclimatology and terrestrial paleogeography. Sedimentary indicators and fossil biotas, especially floras, continue to shed light on climates of the past, but there is also a need to refine the existing kaleidoscopic picture of changing continental configurations, especially for the long pre-Mesozoic (older than 66-million-years) interval of earth history. Global paleogeographic reconstructions must continue to be developed and refined in all possible ways, including paleogeographic interpretations, global paleobathymetric reconstructions, identification of accreted terranes and microcontinents both through anomalous fossil distributions and paleomagnetic determinations. Determination of the rates of geochemical cycling requires knowledge of the sizes, elevations, and positions of continents in the past. Paleoceanography Changing climatic regimes, plate positions, and levels of land and sea have had powerful effects on the thermal structure and current patterns of the world ocean. At the forefront of paleoceanography today are studies of the three-dimensional oceanic structure, including thermohaline circulation, conditions in the deep-sea, upwelling, and vertical zonation of plankton. The Ocean Drilling Program should continue to play a key role in this kind of research for the most recent 150-million-years of OCR for page 134 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society earth history, as should the use of isotopic data. The global influence of events in polar regions is in special need of further study. Forcing Factors in Environmental Change We are only beginning to understand the interrelationships between continental configurations, the dynamics of the ocean and atmosphere, and the distributions of life on Earth. In modeling global environmental change, sensitivity experiments that suggest what forcing factors have pushed environmental conditions across thresholds to new states are often more successful than detailed global simulations. At present, models are outstripping the data needed to constrain and test them, and research that will provide additional data is badly needed. History of Life Inasmuch as the fossil record represents a unique store of information on rates, trends, and patterns of evolution and extinction, we must continue to exploit it to understand these aspects of the history of life. There is still no consensus on such issues as the incidence or cause of evolutionary stasis, the degree to which extinction occurs in pulses, or what environmental changes trigger rapid evolution, including bursts of speciation. New quantitative techniques, including morphometric methodologies, must play an important role in research here. There is also a need to develop methods of phylogenetic analysis that integrate morphological and molecular approaches with stratigraphic data. Interactions between life and the environment—for example, how much the changes in atmospheric composition have been responses to evolutionary change and how atmospheric change has influenced evolution—must be established. Discovery and Curation of Fossils Our understanding of the processes of biological evolution continues to be refined by the discovery and description of fossils that fill gaps in the record. Examples of great steps forward made within the past decade are the discovery of new localities and material indicative of the diversity of marine life 550-million-years ago, identification of the conodont animal and appreciation that it was a vertebrate, critical new specimens of the first terrestrial vertebrates, and (stepping back into the ocean?) a whale with vestigial limbs. The kind of relatively unglamorous fieldwork that leads to these successes requires ongoing commitment. Abrupt and Catastrophic Changes Sudden events have a lot to teach earth scientists, particularly where their record extends over the whole world or at least very large areas. What are the causes of these events? Are they of impact, volcanic, or other origins? Does the rock record indicate precursory phenomena? Was there subsequent environmental change? If there is evidence of change, how long did it last? The behavior of the environment under stressed or extreme conditions is likely to be informative and rapid climatic changes are of special interest in the field of global change research. It is worth noting that had this report been written a dozen years ago little emphasis would have been given to catastrophes. Organic Geochemistry There are diverse ways in which organic geochemistry is yielding new information. New techniques for isotopic analysis of specific organic compounds, ''chemical fossils," provide opportunities for reconstructing the temperatures, compositions, and oxidation states of the ancient ocean. Working out the role of ancient microbial communities in sediments and illuminating the thermal histories of sedimentary basins are some of the challenges. Research Area II. Global Geochemical and Biogeochemical Cycles Geochemical Cycles: Atmospheres and Oceans It is crucial that we improve our understanding of geochemical cycles to learn how the atmosphere and oceans have changed in the past and how they may change in the future. Controls of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the resulting greenhouse effect, are of especially great significance. Geochemical cycles are complex dynamic systems that entail geological, biological, and extraterrestrial processes. Changes in fluxes and in sizes of chemical reservoirs must be more accurately quantified for the geological past. Among the controls needing further study are the compositions and abundances of sedimentary rocks, magmatic and metamorphic degassing, biological uptakes and emissions, sea level change, rates of weathering, and isotopic shifts for key elements. Even fluxes to and from the modern ocean are poorly known, as are the contributions of relevant OCR for page 135 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society organic biogeochemical processes. Mathematical techniques for modeling biogeochemical cycles can be greatly improved. Research Area III Fluids in and on the Earth Analysis of Drainage Basins To understand past changes in our terrestrial habitat and to anticipate future changes and their consequences, it is imperative that geomorphologists undertake quantitative analysis of drainage basins. This analysis should quantify linkages and pathways of weathering sediment erosion, storage, transportation, and contamination. Links to sequence stratigraphy (see Chapter 4) will come from identifying the impact of base-level changes on fluvial systems. One important question is how the history of river flooding for the past few thousand years has related to climatic change. On long time scales there is a need to relate the rates of surficial processes to tectonic activity. Mineral-Water Interface Geochemistry The rapid growth in this field will lead to a more fundamental understanding of weathering, the chemistry and physics of mineral-water interfacial phenomena, how chemical species partition between minerals and aqueous fluids in crust, and how the hydrosphere interacts with crustal rocks. Research Area IV Crustal Dynamics: Ocean and Continent Landform Response to Change Landforms represent the products of tectonic, climatic, and hydrologic processes. The ability to date surfaces and shallow sediments using cosmogenically generated nuclides and other direct and indirect methods provides the opportunity for improving understanding of how these processes generate landforms. The current strong interest in how tectonic, climatic, and hydrologic processes change with time makes this opportunity particularly timely. Quantification of Thresholds, Response Rates, and Feedback Mechanisms for Landforms Further definition is needed for stability/instability thresholds, response and recovery times for landforms following destabilizing events, and the significance of return frequencies of key climatic events for landform stability. Mathematical and Computer Modeling of Landform Changes Modeling will elucidate landform changes over longer periods of time than it is possible to observe them. Process-based models are essential for understanding mechanisms and for predicting future changes. Exciting progress has been made with, for example, hillslopes and river channel patterns. Sedimentary Basins Depositional basins are likely to reward detailed study because they record so many diverse kinds of information. The integrated approach to basin studies—which embraces structural, erosional, and depositional evolution as well as thermal, chemical, and fluid-flow history and uses field, seismic, well-log, geochemical, and isotopic data—is proving extremely powerful. Foreland basins and rifted continental margin basins, including great deltas, harbor the world's largest volumes of hydrocarbons. We are learning about how the sediment accumulation in these environments relates to tectonic and sea level changes and apparently to orbital parameters. Sequence Stratigraphy The identification of sediment packages that are separated by what appear to be abrupt temporal boundaries is an exciting new tool because it permits characterization of environmental changes that can be linked to episodes outside the area of deposition. Some researchers correlate boundaries in sequence stratigraphy globally, but this practice is questioned by others. Improved access to well-calibrated sequence data may help to resolve this issue. Facilities, Equipment, and Data Bases Data Bases in Well-Managed Computer-Based Information Systems The major problem facing paleogeographers, paleoclimatologists, and paleoceanographers is that the ability to predict and understand the earth system at high-resolution is outstripping the availability of the data required to test the methods and models. Vigorous collection of and rigorous quality control on data from the ancient record is urgently OCR for page 136 Solid-Earth Sciences and Society needed. Data and samples taken on continental margins and from wells drilled by industry represent an invaluable resource, as do many kinds of fossil data. The data base available to scientists could be expanded by several orders of magnitude. New Tools and Techniques New equipment offers much potential that has yet to be exploited in paleontology in the areas of isotopic analysis; identification of trace organic and inorganic compounds, DNA sequencing and hybridization, new multivariate techniques, digitizing techniques for three-dimensional quantification of morphology, application of geographic information systems (GIS) to quantitative historical biogeography, and computer-interfaced digitizers (some three-dimensional and some linked to light microscopes or scanning electron microscope systems) for morphometric studies. New Dating Techniques During the past few years, new dating techniques have greatly improved resolution in the temporal correlation of geological and biological events and in the measurement of rates for a wide variety of processes. These techniques include identification of key chemical markers in stratigraphic sequences, quantitative biostratigraphic correlation, application of new radiometric methods, and utilization of secular trends in stable isotope ratios. Not only the development of new dating techniques, but also the refinement and ingenious application of existing methodologies, will benefit numerous areas of research in the decades to come. BIBLIOGRAPHY National Research Council Reports NRC (1982). Studies in Geophysics: Climate in Earth History, Geophysics Study Committee, Geophysics Research Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 198 pp. NRC (1983). Opportunities for Research in the Geological Sciences, Committee on Opportunities for Research in the Geological Sciences, Board on Earth Sciences, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 95 PP. NRC (1986). Global Change in the Geosphere-Biosphere: Initial Priorities for an IGBP, U.S. Committee for an International Geosphere-Biosphere Program, Commission on Physical Sciences, Mathematics, and Resources, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 91 pp. NRC (1989). Technology and Environment, Advisory Committee on Technology and Society, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 221 pp. NRC (1989). Margins: A Research Initiative for Interdisciplinary Studies of Processes Attending Lithospheric Extension and Convergence , Ocean Studies Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 285 pp. NRC (1990). Research Strategies for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, Committee on Global Change, U.S. National Committee for the IGBP, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 291 PP. NRC (1990). Studies in Geophysics: Sea Level Change, Geophysics Study Committee, Board on Earth Sciences and Resources, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 234 pp. NRC (1991). Toward Sustainability: Soil and Water Research Priorities for Developing Countries, Committee on International Soil and Water Research and Development, Water Science and Technology Board, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, D.C., 65 pp. Other Reports The International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme: A Study of Global Change (IGBP) of the International Council of Scientific Unions (1992). The Pages Project: Proposed Implementation Plans for Research Activities, Pages Scientific Steering Committee, 110 pp. NASA (1988). Earth System Science: A Closer View, Earth System Sciences Committee, NASA Advisory Council, Washington, D.C., 208 pp. Office of Science and Technology Policy (1992). Our Changing Planet: The FY 1992 U.S. Global Change Research Program, Committee on Earth and Environmental Sciences, 90 pp. Representative terms from entire chapter:

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Terminology and definitions This chapter describes the terms and definitions used throughout the maemo Training Material. Application Binary Interface provides object code level compatibility. Advanced Linux Sound Architecture. Linux kernel component intended to replace the original Open Sound System (OSS) for providing device drivers for sound cards. Application Programming Interface provides source code level compatibility. A small application that integrates to Hildon Desktop. A name that e.g. Debian uses for the little endian ARM EABI (ABI for the ARM architecture). An open specification for seamless wireless short-range communications of data and voice between both mobile and stationary devices. cURL is a command line tool for transferring files with URL syntax. Part of the maemo SDK that contains software development tools. The SDK contains multiple devkits e.g. doctools devkit. Enlightened Sound Daemon. This program is designed to mix together several digitized audio streams for playback by a single device. GNU General Public License. A software license that provides a high degree of freedom in a collaborative software development effort. A cross-platform multimedia framework that serves a host of multimedia applications, such as video editors, streaming media broadcasters, and media players. - GTK+ (GUI ToolKit+) A library of object-oriented graphical interface elements (widgets) for developing X Window applications. Graphical User Interface. A graphical presentation of interface which allows user to interact with computers. Application framework used in the maemo platform. Developed by Nokia and based on GNOME/GTK+ technologies, currently in the process of becoming an upstream project in gnome.org. - Hildon Desktop The main user interface component of the maemo release Chinook, rewrite of maemo desktop. - Internet Tablet Product category for Internet optimized mobile devices with touchscreen. The term was coined by Nokia but is being used more widely to include other devices. Initial file system used as the root file system during Linux kernel boot e.g. for hardware initialization (contains kernel modules and utilities for initializing them). Mounted after boot to /mnt/initfs. GNU Lesser General Public License. A compromise between the strong-copyleft GNU General Public License and permissive licenses such as the BSD licenses and the MIT License. Strictly speaking, Linux is the kernel of a Unix-like operating system, though the word is more commonly used to describe the the whole Linux operating system, consisting of a kernel, application programs and utilities. Software platform for mobile devices developed by Nokia, based on GNU/Linux and GNOME/GTK+ technologies. It includes proprietary components to make it work on the Nokia Internet Tablets. Developer community web site maintained by Nokia, main point of reference for open source and third party developers in general. - maemo desktop version of main user interface component of the maemo release Bora Same as maemo desktop. - maemo SDK Software Development Kit to create and port applications to the maemo platform using a PC. - Nokia Internet Tablet OS maemo platform + proprietary applications packaged to an official device image provided by Nokia. OpenSSL is an open source implementation of the SSL and TLS protocols. Open Source Software Operations, Nokia organization developing and integrating software for Internet Tablets. Root file system on the device. Part of the SDK that contains selected software components from rootfs. Rootstrap is the root file system of a target inside Scratchbox. An experimental distribution based on Hildon for maemo, primarily of interest for developers who wish to test "bleeding edge" features that are being developed for future releases of maemo. The Secure Sockets Layer. Commonly-used protocol for managing the security of a message transmission on the Internet. Part of the SDK that contains ARM cross compilation tools like compiler and linker. Transport Layer Security. Internet Standard similar to SSL. Element of a graphical user interface (GUI) that displays information or provides a way for a user to interact with the application. Examples of widgets: buttons, menus, scrollbars, forms, etc. Copyright © 2007-2008 Nokia Corporation. All rights

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Ethanol, also known as grain alcohol and ethyl alchohol, is a flammable chemical compound with a strong odor, and is the primary alcohol found in alcoholic beverages. In common usage, it is often referred to simply as alcohol. The chemical formula is variously represented as EtOH, CH3CH2OH, C2H5OH. Ethanol is also a biofuel made from alcohol and is an oxygenate that is added to gasoline to increase the octane rating. The product is produced through the fermentation of corn, or other cellulosic material. Ethanol for use in alcoholic beverages, and the vast majority of ethanol for use as fuel, is produced by fermentation: when certain species of yeast (most importantly, Saccharomyces cerevisiae) metabolize sugar in the absence of oxygen, they produce ethanol and carbon dioxide. The overall chemical reaction conducted by the yeast may be represented by the chemical equation The process of culturing yeast under conditions to produce alcohol is referred to as brewing. Brewing can only produce relatively dilute concentrations of ethanol in water; concentrated ethanol solutions are toxic to yeast. The most ethanol-tolerant strains of yeast can survive in up to about 15% ethanol by volume. During the fermentation process, it is important to prevent oxygen from getting to the ethanol, since otherwise the ethanol would be oxidised to acetic acid (vinegar). Also, in the presence of oxygen, the yeast would undergo aerobic respiration to produce just carbon dioxide and water, without producing ethanol. In order to produce ethanol from starchy materials such as cereal grains, the starch must first be broken down into sugars. In brewing beer, this has traditionally been accomplished allowing the grain to germinate, or malt. In the process of germination, the seed produces enzymes that can break its starches into sugars. Ethanol is also produced by the catalytic hydration of ethylene. Crude oil is catalytically 'cracked' to ethylene and the ethylene is chemically combined with water at high temperatures with an acid catalyst. This process is actually cheaper than fermentation, but has become less common as ethanol produced from corn is heavily subsidized by the federal government. A co-product of the fermentation process is distillers grains which can be used as cattle feed. Distillers grains is termed either wet distillers grains or dried distillers grains or simply DDGs. Wet distillers grains have a very short shelf life as they are susceptible to microorganisms that can pollute the material and render it unfit for cattle consumption. In the United States ethanol is most commonly made through the fermentation of corn. Other countries, such as Brazil, use sugarcane as a feedstock for the production of ethanol. Currently, the US has the highest production numbers for ethanol in the world, but some analysts forecast China as being a potential world player in the ethanol market. China currently uses casava and wheat among other material for producing ethanol. Some in the Food vs. Fuel debate consider the use of a high-energy food crop, such as corn, detrimental to our food supply. In particular, Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute is known for advocating this position. The latest automotive grade of ethanol in Canada has 1% water. This is specified by the CSB, the Canadian Standards Board. Water is terrible for any fuel injection system and will probably lead to corrosion of the fuel injectors and fuel pumps. The auto fuel ethanol government standards in Brazil, do not allow any water. One major gasoline wholesaler and retailer in Canada has used 8% ethanol in all its grades of gasoline for over 10 years because it was one of the cheapest ways to boost the octane rating of gasoline. The R+M rating of ethanol is 104. Ethanol has about 36% oxygen by weight whereas normal gasoline has no oxygen. This is why a car runs much smoother at very low temperatures during the first 2 or 3 minutes as the oxygen content in ethanol enhanced gasoline allows a hotter, cleaner burn.

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October 2008--The quirky medical drama House may be embellished for public consumption, but beneath the surface lies a TV show that well defines the challenges facing modern medicine. To solve mysterious and complex illnesses, the physician House and his team apply the Socratic method, interdisciplinary collaboration, and their strong knowledge of physiology, genetics and other basic sciences. They also dig into their patients’ lives for clues to their sicknesses. With its new Genes to Society (G2S) curriculum for medical students, the school of medicine is emphasizing the importance of such skills for real-world physicians. Rather than seeing disease as something that “happens to” people, G2S will encourage students to see how individuals’ characteristics—their genetic and physiological makeup, personal habits and cultural environment, for instance—may combine to produce illnesses. “In traditional courses, patients are generally considered as being all average,” notes David Valle, director of the Institute of Genetic Medicine and one of the curriculum’s architects, “when in truth each patient brings a unique set of genes and experiences to the table.” But along with this paradigm shift will come increased demands for teaching by some basic science faculty, not to mention changes in their teaching style, as they help students make stronger connections between science and clinical encounters. These new responsibilities stem from the structure of the new curriculum, which will launch in August 2009. Students, who currently get little formal clinical experience until their third year, will get that exposure throughout the four-year program. Meanwhile, coursework in physiology, genetics and the like will also be spread out across all four years instead of being concentrated in the first two, as is the case in the current curriculum. The greater number of science course options will add to the teaching responsibilities for basic science faculty. The new course structure reflects the reality that “our knowledge is far exceeding what can be taught in a yearlong lecture course,” observes Gerald Hart, director of biological chemistry, who also helped plan the curriculum. “The students are facing an information overload.” G2S therefore aims to shift the medical school paradigm from “teaching” to “learning,” a subtle yet revolutionary switch that will encourage students to think rigorously, independently and about individuality. As Hart explains, “we’re going to teach them the basic principles needed to understand a scientific journal article and let them learn the rest on their own.” Making the transition to the new curriculum will raise logistical challenges. G2S will need much more oversight than the current teaching model. “Our curriculum as of now is much like the feudal system where each block within a course is a kingdom unto itself,” says Jon Lorsch, associate professor of biophysics and biophysical chemistry. “Each block instructor is basically free to present their lecture as they see fit, which can lead to gaps or redundancy. With the G2S courses all being shorter, we can’t let that happen. Efficiency is critical.” The dynamic, interactive nature of many G2S sessions will likely require more preparation than cut-and-dried lecture courses. Lorsch will head up a course titled Basic Science Research Experience, which he plans to conduct in a very hands-on manner, letting the students run their own experiments. It will be difficult to know in advance exactly what’s going to happen each week, he says. Other courses, jointly taught by a clinician and basic scientist, will look at medical problems and the molecular and cellular defects causing them, a teaching model that will require greater coordination and planning. Lorsch will head the Scientific Foundations of Medicine course as well as Basic Science Research Experience. In such cases as his, where faculty members teach significantly more in the G2S curriculum, the School of Medicine will support a larger portion of their salaries to make up for time that’s no longer devoted to research. He doesn’t believe a slight uptick in teaching responsibilities— going from, say, giving one lecture to three—for other faculty members will interfere with their research or efforts to find grant funding. While it may seem a bit unfair to put more of the burden of teaching medical students on the shoulders of basic scientists, bringing research and medicine closer together has a strong upside, points out Valle. “I believe that G2S could help stimulate research interests among many medical students, whether they decide to get a Ph.D. as well or just incorporate some research into their medical career.” For more information on the new curriculum visit: Genes to Society curriculum

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The article "Low productivity growth a statistical illusion" by Michael Knox (AFR 18 May 2007) is based on a flawed approach to measuring productivity and consequently the results of the analysis are misleading. It is possible to construct real measures of income by deflating GDP using a general price index such as the CPI, but such real measures of income are not appropriate for the analysis of productivity. Labour productivity is the amount of physical output for each unit of labour input. The ABS measures the volume of goods and services produced (GDP) in Australia by deflating all relevant production using appropriate price indexes. Export prices are included in the deflator because exports are a component of Australia's production, and not "because a bunch of people sat around in the early 1980's and decided to do it this way." The methods used by the ABS align with international best practice as implemented by almost all countries in the world. Deputy Australian Statistician Economic Statistics Group This page first published 21 May 2007, last updated 24 July 2008

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STUDENTS PLEASE NOTE: - Respect one another and help your fellow students. We respect other's race, religion, sex or difference. Think before you say or do something to someone else that might be hurtful or disrespectful. You must keep your hands to yourselves at all times. You should not fight, call each other names, use curses or scream at each other. Bring only appropriate materials to school (no electronic games, cell phones, etc.). We should always be willing to help one another. If a classmate is confused by a lesson, offer your help. If s/he feels bad about something, be there as a friend to listen or say a kind word. - Respect school property. Help to keep the school clean. If you see paper on the floor anywhere in our school, you should pick it up - even if you did not throw it there. When you use the bathroom, you should flush. The bathrooms are not a play or meeting area. You should not play with the toilet paper or throw we paper on the ceiling. Children who deface the bathroom will be required to clean it up. While walking down the halls, you should not scream or talk in a loud voice, since other children are in their room learning. Use proper line-up procedures at all times, especially arrival and dismissal line up. There is absolutely No Running at any time in the hallways or stairwells. - Safety in the Yard In the school yard, school aides and a supervisor are in charge to make sure that you are safe. Please listen to and follow their instructions. If you are asked to stop running or playing in a rough manner, please STOP! When the yard is crowded it is very easy to trip or push into someone. Look in front of you and around you. Remember, keep your hands to yourself. When you use the jungle gym, do not walk up the slide or push anyone on the slide. Swing across the hanging bars in one direction and no one should run under this area. When you hear a whistle, you are to STOP playing immediately, line up in a orderly way and wait for your teacher. - Dress Code Children should dress appropriately for school and weather. Hats and caps are not worn in the school building. On days when you have gym, you must wear sneakers or you will not be allowed to participate in activities - School Regulations Breakfast is served from 7:50 - 8:20 AM. Don't wait until the last minute to get to school and eat your breakfast. Make sure to clean up your table and throw away you breakfast tray. Milk must be spilled into the sink and cartons are thrown away in a separate garbage can for recycling. Be on time to school. School begins at 8:20 AM. A student is considered lat at 8:35 AM and must go to the main office for a late pass. This is very important parental responsibility and does appear on our child's records. During a fire drill, please do not talk. Follow all instructions given by your teacher and walk quickly, quietly and in an orderly manner to designated areas. At the end of the school day, follow your teacher out of the building in an orderly fashion. Once you are out of the building. YOU WILL NOT BE ALLOWED BACK IN UNLESS YOU PARTICIPATE IN AN AFTER SCHOOL PROGRAM. - Arrival Procedures: ||Line Up Area Students who arrive at school between 7:50 - 8:20 AM should wait in the lunchroom until the school aides are ready to take them to their assigned area. Students should be in their line-up areas by 8:25 AM each morning. Kindergarten students who eat breakfast will be escorted to their classrooms at 8:25 AM. ONLY kindergarten parents may walk their children to the classroom beginning at 8:15 AM and must leave the room by 8:35 AM. All other students (Gr. 1-5) will walk themselves to the cafeteria. ||Exit 2 to Division St. (Ramp Area)| ||Exit 2 to Division St. (Stair Case)| ||Exit 1 to Division St.| ||Exit 6 to Backyard (Bowery)| ||Exit 6 to Backyard (Bowery)| ||Exit 6 to Backyard (Bowery)| Parents/Guardians picking up students must wait outside the school building at the designated exits. K-2nd grade students will be brought to the main office after 3:00. k-1st grade students in after school programs will be picked up from their classrooms. All other students will be instructed by their after school programs where to meet. Parents should be aware that OFFICIAL supervision ends at 3:20 PM. Children left alone and ask parents to come in for conferences. Homework is the responsibility of the student. Parents should provide a quiet place and consistent time to get it done. Teachers will explain their homework policy at "Parent Orientation" in September. Concerns should be addressed to teachers before bringing them to the attention of the Administration. THE FOLLOWING STEPS WILL BE TAKEN: - leave the building without permission, - are late for school consistently, - have incomplete homework on a regular basis, - are caught cheating, - use bad language, - lie or give false information to school personnel, - call other people names, - physically hurt another child, - cause disruptive behavior, - intentionally damage property belonging to the school staff or their children, - threaten any child, for any reason. PARENTS PLEASE NOTE: ||Your parent will be notified by letter or phone| ||A guidance counselor and/or administrator will be notified| ||If this is a repeated, serious offense, Principal's Suspension will follow| ||District Superintendent's Suspension in cases of extreme violence or weapon possession| These regulations are enforced to create a safe, educational environment for your child. Parents are welcome to P.S. 124. Please call the school or write a request for an appointment with the teacher or other school staff member. - All parents must show ID and sign in at the Security Desk when entering the building and then receive a Visitor's Pass in the Main Office. - No parent may visit classrooms without a prior appointment. This includes early pickup or message delivery. No phone calls will be transferred to the classroom during school hours. - Parents cannot escort children after 8:35 AM beyond the lobby. - To provide continuity and consistency of instruction, it is important that students NOT be taken out from school during school time. Please make all doctor's appointments after school and vacation plans according to the Department of Education's School Calendar. - Medications may not be administered by classroom teachers. An appointment should be made to see the school nurse. - Please keep your emergency contact phone numbers up to date. It is extremely important that we have members that are in service in order to reach you for emergency reasons.

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Cass Sunstein — co-author of the hugely influential Nudge and an adviser to President Obama — unveils his new theory of ‘group polarisation’, and explains why, when like-minded people spend time with each other, their views become not only more confident but more extreme What explains the rise of fascism in the 1930s? The emergence of student radicalism in the 1960s? The growth of Islamic terrorism in the 1990s? The Rwandan genocide of 1994? Ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia and in Iraq? Acts of torture and humiliation by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison? The American financial crisis of 2008? The widespread belief, in some parts of the world, that Israel or the United States was responsible for the attacks of September 11, 2001? And what, if anything, do these questions have to do with one another? Here is a clue. Some years ago, a number of citizens of France were assembled into small groups to exchange views about their president and about the intentions of the United States with respect to foreign aid. Before they started to talk, the participants tended to like their president and to distrust the intentions of the United States. After they talked, some strange things happened. Those who began by liking their president ended up liking their president significantly more. And those who expressed mild distrust toward the United States moved in the direction of far greater distrust. The small groups of French citizens became more extreme. As a result of their discussions, they were more enthusiastic about their leader, and far more sceptical of the United States, than similar people in France who had not been brought together to speak with one another. This tale reveals a general fact of social life: much of the time groups of people end up thinking and doing things that group members would never think or do on their own. This is true for groups of teenagers, who are willing to run risks that individuals would avoid. It is certainly true for those prone to violence, including terrorists and those who commit genocide. It is true for investors and corporate executives. It is true for government officials, neighbourhood groups, social reformers, political protestors, police officers, student organisations, labour unions and juries. Some of the best and worst developments in social life are a product of group dynamics, in which members of organisations, both small and large, move one another in new directions. Of course, the best explanations of fascism are not adequate to explain student rebellions, and even if we understand both of these, we will not be able to explain ethnic conflict in Iraq, the Rwandan genocide, abuse and brutality at Abu Ghraib, conspiracy theories involving Israel, or the subprime crisis. For particular events, general explanations can uncover only parts of the picture. But there are striking similarities among a wide range of social phenomena. The unifying theme is simple: when people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are especially likely to move to extremes. And when such groups include authorities who tell group members what to do, or who put them into certain social roles, very bad things can happen. In exploring why this is so, I hope to see what might be done about unjustified extremism, which is a threat to security, to peace, to economic development and to sensible decisions in all sorts of domains. My emphasis throughout is on the phenomenon of group polarisation. This phenomenon offers important lessons about the behaviour of the market, religious organisations, political parties, liberation movements, executive agencies, legislatures, racists, judicial panels, those who make peace, those who make war, and even nations as a whole. Political extremism is often a product of group polarisation and social segregation is a useful tool for producing polarisation. In fact, a good way to create an extremist group, or a cult of any kind, is to separate members from the rest of society. The separation can occur physically or psychologically, by creating a sense of suspicion about non-members. With such separation, the information and views of those outside the group can be discredited, and hence nothing will disturb the process of polarisation as group members continue to talk. Deliberating enclaves of like-minded people are often a breeding ground for extreme movements. Terrorists are made, not born, and terrorist networks often operate in just this way. As a result, they can move otherwise ordinary people to violent acts. But the point goes well beyond such domains. Group polarisation occurs in our daily lives; it involves our economic decisions, our evaluations of our neighbours, even our decisions about what to eat, what to drink and where to live. So why do like-minded people go to extremes? The most important reason for group polarisation, which is key to extremism in all its forms, involves the exchange of new information. Group polarisation often occurs because people are telling one another what they know, and what they know is skewed in a predictable direction. When they listen to each other, they move. Suppose that you are in a group of people whose members tend to think that Israel is the real aggressor in the Middle East conflict, that eating beef is unhealthy, or that same-sex unions are a good idea. In such a group, you will hear many arguments to that effect. Because of the initial distribution of views, you will hear relatively fewer opposing views. It is highly likely that you will have heard some, but not all, of the arguments that emerge from the discussion. After you have heard all of what is said, you will probably shift further in the direction of thinking that Israel is the real aggressor, opposing eating beef, and favouring civil unions. And even if you do not shift — even if you are impervious to what others think — most group members will probably be affected. When groups move, they do so in large part because of the impact of information. People tend to respond to the arguments made by other people — and the pool of arguments, in a group with a predisposition in a particular direction, will inevitably be skewed in the direction of the original predisposition. Certainly this can happen in a group whose members tend to support aggressive government regulation to combat climate change. Group members will hear a number of arguments in favour of aggressive government regulation and fewer arguments the other way. If people are listening, they will have a stronger conviction, in the same direction from which they began, as a result of deliberation. If people are worried about climate change, the arguments they offer will incline them toward greater worry. If people start with the belief that climate change is a hoax and a myth, their discussions will amplify and intensify that belief. And indeed, a form of ‘environmental tribalism’ is an important part of modern political life. Some groups are indifferent to environmental problems that greatly concern and even terrify others. The key reason is the information to which group members are exposed. If you hear that genetically modified food poses serious risks, and if that view is widespread in your community, you might end up frightened. If you hear nothing about the risks associated with genetically modified food, except perhaps that some zealots are frightened, you will probably ridicule their fear. And when groups move in dangerous directions — toward killing and destruction — it is usually because the flow of information supports that movement. Those who lack confidence and who are unsure what they should think tend to moderate their views. Suppose that you are asked what you think about some question on which you lack information. You are likely to avoid extremes. It is for this reason that cautious people, not knowing what to do, tend to choose some midpoint between the extremes. But if other people seem to share their views, people become more confident that they are c As a result, they will probably move in a more extreme direction. What is especially noteworthy is that this process of increased confidence and increased extremism is often occurring simultaneously for all participants. Suppose that a group of four people is inclined to distrust the intentions of the United States with respect to foreign aid. Seeing their tentative view confirmed by three others, each member is likely to feel vindicated, to hold their view more confidently, and to move in a more extreme direction. At the same time, the very same internal movements are also occurring in other people (from corroboration to more confidence, and from more confidence to more extremism). But those movements will not be highly visible to each participant. It will simply appear as if others ‘really’ hold their views without hesitation. As a result, our little group might conclude, after a day’s discussion, that the intentions of the United States, with respect to foreign aid, cannot be trusted at all. We have a clue here about the great importance of social networks, on the internet and in ordinary life, in creating movements of various sorts. Social networks can operate as polarisation machines because they help to confirm and thus amplify people’s antecedent views. Those who are inclined to support a cause or a candidate may become quite excited if support is widespread on their social network. In 2008 Barack Obama greatly benefited from this process, in a way that created extreme enthusiasm for his candidacy. Some of this was planned; his campaign self-consciously promoted social networks that spread favourable information. But some of this was spontaneous. Obama supporters, especially young people, worked hard on their own to take advantage of existing networks and create new ones that would turn curiosity and tentative support into intense enthusiasm and active involvement. A very different example is provided by Islamic terrorism, which is also fuelled by spontaneous social networks, in which like-minded people discuss grievances with potentially violent results. The terrorism specialist Marc Sageman explains that at certain stages, ‘the interactivity among a “bunch of guys” acted as an echo chamber, which progressively radicalised them collectively to the point where they were ready to collectively join a terrorist organisation. Now the same process is taking place online.’ The major force here is not websites, which people read passively; it consists of Listservs (which enable group emails), blogs and discussion forums, which are crucial in the process of radicalisation. Islamic terrorism is a product, in significant part, of group polarisation. In the private sector, economic disasters, for individuals and large groups, are often a product of conversations among like-minded people, in which some investment or project seems to be a sure winner. The economic crisis that began in 2008 was a product, in significant part, of a form of group polarisation, in which sceptics about the real estate bubble, armed with statistical evidence, did not receive a fair hearing or were in a sense silenced. The best companies, and the best investors, benefit from internal checks and balances. Of course, not all extreme movements are bad. Some extreme movements may be desirable even when they result from mechanisms of the sort traced here. And even when they are not desirable, extreme positions can do a great deal of good. Nothing said here is meant to deny these claims. But if extreme movements are to occur, it should be because they are sensible and right and not because of the predictable effects of interactions among the like-minded. This is an edited extract from Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide by Cass R. Sunstein, published by Oxford University Press on 9 July. This article first appeared in the print edition of The Spectator magazine, dated July 4, 2009

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ASTM D5504: Standard Test Method for Determination of Sulfur Compounds in Natural Gas and Gaseous Fuels by Gas Chromatography and Chemiluminescence SDO: ASTM: ASTM International DOD Adopted ANSI Approved Approved This test method is primarily for the determination of speciated volatile sulfur-containing compounds in high methane content gaseous fuels such as natural gas. It has been successfully applied to other types of gaseous samples including air, digester, landfill, and refinery fuel gas. The detection range for sulfur compounds, reported as picograms sulfur, is ten (10) to one million (1 000 000). This is equivalent to 0.01 to 1 000 mg/m3, based upon the analysis of a 1 cc sample. The range of this test method may be extended to higher concentration by dilution or by selection of a smaller sample loop. NOTE 1- Dilution will reduce method precision. This test method does not purport to identify all sulfur species in a sample. Only compounds that are eluted through the selected column under the chromatographic conditions chosen are determined. The detector response to sulfur is equimolar for all sulfur compounds within the scope (1.1) of this test method. Thus, unidentified compounds are determined with equal precision to that of identified substances. Total sulfur content is determined from the total of individually quantified components. The values stated in SI units are standard. The values stated in inch-pound units are for information only. This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use. - chemiluminescence detection - gas chromatography - sulfur compounds Buy this Standard Now Or if you answer yes to any of these questions: - Do you purchase more than $3000 in standards per year? - Do you purchase many different kinds of standards? - Do you have multiple employees accessing the same standards? You may save money by purchasing more comprehensive online access. * Required field

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CC-MAIN-2013-20

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en

English 6923: Working Class Literature Chloe Anthony Wofford was born on February 18th, 1931 in the steel mill town of Lorain, Ohio. Her parents struggled during the Depression to provide for Toni and her three siblings. Her father, George, had three jobs and her mother, Ramah, took care of the home and children. The rest of her family had endured their share of hardships as well. Her great-grandmother had been kept as a slave and her grandfather had been born into slavery. He, however, was able to receive his freedom at the age of five. Toni excelled in high school and moved on to Howard University. It was during this time that she changed her name to Toni, a shortened version of her middle name Anthony. After attaining her bachelor’s degree in English in 1953, she continued on to Cornell and graduated from there two years later having obtained her master’s degree. She has found a way, as so many other authors, of sharing her working-class experiences with the world through her writing. Her first novel, The Bluest Eye, was published in 1969, followed by her second novel, Sula, in 1974, for which she was nominated for a National Book Award. A string of other novels followed including the National Book Critics Circle Award winning Song of Solomon (1977), Tar Baby (1981), the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winning Beloved (1987), Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination and Jazz (1992), and Paradise (1997). She was also the first African American to win the Nobel Prize for Literature (1993). Morrison has also won a variety of other awards for her writing. Toni Morrison uses a combination of powerful language and relatable characters to create highly memorable stories. She can easily fall into any number of literary genres such as feminist, African American, as well as working-class literature. The theme of class runs deeps throughout her novels, often has an undercurrent, although it is brought into the foreground in at least two of her novels, Sula and Beloved. In Beloved, the story revolves around the current events taking place in the lives of former slaves. They live in a community where the effects of their pasts are still being felt in the present, and they continue to be haunted by it. In this novel, some of the characters use their sexuality as a means of social control over one another. Perhaps Morrison’s characters, who had few other means available for coercing and using power against each other, used their sexuality to influence and control one another. In the novel Beloved, the title character uses her sexuality to control Paul D. When he becomes uncomfortable with her sudden unexplained presence in the house he begins to sleep in the storeroom. Beloved follows him there and he says, “What you want in here? What you want?” Beloved answers, “I want you to touch me on the inside part and call me my name.” After a few recurrences of this scene, Paul D. becomes extremely uncomfortable around Beloved, and he leaves his home. Beloved was able to use her sexuality to manipulate Paul D. into behaving as she wanted. Morrison also uses sexuality in her novels as her characters main form of expression and entertainment. While their entertainment opportunities may be limited by their economic position, sex and sexuality are free of cost. Morrison’s extensive use of the themes of gender and sexuality are brought into relief by her ability to combine them with class. Although there are many authors who have previously used these themes in their writing, her ability to use her character’s working-class lifestyles to intensify their gender roles and sexuality are one of the reasons her writing is so powerful. In Sula, for example, the title character is a dominant female. She refuses to take a husband, something that deeply troubles her mother. In a scene from the text, Sula and her mother have a disagreement regarding her lifestyle choices and attitude when she returns home to The Bottom after having been gone for many years. Her mother asks, “When you gone to get married? You need to have some babies. It’ll settle you.” Sula replies, “I don’t want to make somebody else. I want to make myself.” Sula’s manner and tone of voice make her a much more forceful female than what we may have expected to see in society during the 1930’s, the time during which the novel is set. It could be argued that her economic position within the working class served to free her from the stereotypical gender constraints and allowed her to be the type of person she really wanted to be – a dominant, independent, single woman. Class is by no means the only social issue discussed in Morrison’s work. One of the difficulties associated with defining Morrison’s works is making the judgment of whether or not the characters’ race leads to the bulk of the oppression that they experience. What I think makes her writing working-class, as opposed to strictly African-American, is the fact that the economic and social problems her characters face are not race specific. They are difficulties and experiences that anyone in the working class could experience, regardless of the color of their skin. Toni Morrison’s novels continue to be enjoyed by readers, and taught in classrooms, because she is able to create such interesting and multidimensional characters through her ability to combine themes. Although her writing has the ability to speak directly to the female heart, men and women can both enjoy and learn from her stories and characters. It is possible to read her novels again and again and enjoy them more with each subsequent reading, while taking away new and thought provoking concepts each time. Butler-Evans, Elliot. “Racial Discourse, Aesthetics, and Desire in Morrison’s The Bluest Eye & Sula.” Race, Gender,and Desire: Narrative Strategies in the Fiction of Toni Cade Bambara, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker. Philidelphia: This article discusses various ways in which race, as well as myth and folklore, are used in Toni Morrison’s writing, specifically in her novel Sula, though the article refers to The Bluest Eye as well. The relationships between the blacks and whites in the novel are not only based on differences of race but differences in economic class as well. This article also highlights the way race and class affect the characters’ gender roles and sexuality. Kastor, Elizabeth. “Toni Morrison’s Beloved Country: The Writer and Her Haunting Tale of Slavery.” Critical Essays on Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Ed. Barbara H. Solomon. New York: G. K. Hall & Co., 1998. 53-58. This article discusses Morrison’s feelings about writing Beloved as well as the factual core of the novel. It tells how the novel is loosely based on the life of a woman named Margaret Garner, and how her story had haunted Morrison for a decade prior to the writing of Beloved. The article discusses the struggles Morrison faced in the recreation of Garner’s story while also giving us a brief overview of Morrison’s life and career. It discusses the difficulties Morrison encountered in accurately representing the lives of slaves during that time. Mbalia, Doreatha Drummond. Toni Morrison’s Developing Class Consciousness. New Jersey: Associated University Presses, Inc., 1991. This book discusses the way in which Toni Morrison uses the theme of class consciousness within her novels. In the chapter dedicated to her novel Sula, it discusses how the issues of class surfaced as a result of the issue of race. The racial differences were also connected to economic differences, even if Morrison did not explicitly make this connection in the novel. The book goes on to discuss how issues of class became more prominent in her later works. Morrison, Toni. Beloved. New York: Penguin Group, 1987. Beloved tells the story of former slave Sethe and the important people in her life. Sethe struggles to escape the memories of her horrific past and is eventually forced to confront them. Morrison combines the issues of racial and class oppression with the themes of gender and sexuality in a very interesting way in this haunting tale. Morrison, Sula. New York: Penguin Group, 1982. Sula is the story of the title characters’ struggle to maintain her individuality in a small Ohio community. This novel explores issues of class, race, gender, sexuality and friendship. Morrison intertwines these themes with each other to create an extremely vivid and powerful story.

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Special housing needs are those associated with specific demographic or occupational groups which call for specific program responses, such as preservation of single-room occupancy hotels or the development of units with three or more bedroom. A thorough analysis of special needs helps a locality identify groups with the most serious housing needs in order to develop and prioritize responsive programs. The statute specifically requires analysis of the special housing needs of the elderly, the disabled, female-headed households, large families, farmworkers and homeless persons and families. Many individuals with a disability live on a small fixed income, limiting their ability to pay for housing. Individuals with mental, physical, and developmental disabilities need affordable, conveniently-located housing which, where necessary, has been or can be specially adapted to address accessibility issues and with on- or off-site support services including outpatient/inpatient day treatment programs. Learn more. It is critical that individuals have access to housing which suits their varying needs during each stage of their lives. As people age, they often find themselves facing new or additional housing problems. Senior households often have special housing needs related to physical disabilities/limitations, fixed incomes and health care costs. Learn more. Due to the limited supply of adequately sized units to accommodate larger households, large families often face significant difficulty in locating adequately-sized, affordable housing. Female-headed households generally have lower-incomes and higher living expenses and may lack the resources needed for adequate child care or job training services, often making the search for affordable, decent and safe housing more difficult. Learn more. Farmworkers are traditionally defined as persons whose primary incomes are earned through permanent or seasonal agricultural labor. Farmworkers are generally considered to have special housing needs due to their limited income and the often unstable nature of their employment. In addition, farmworker households tend to have high rates of poverty; live disproportionately in housing which is in the poorest condition; have very high rates of overcrowding; have low homeownership rates; and are predominately members of minority groups. Learn more. Homelessness in California is a continuing and growing crisis affecting almost one in every 100 California residents. According to recent census figures, 26 percent of the nationís homeless individuals and families live in California even though the State is home to only 12 percent of the nationís total population. Homeless individuals and families are without permanent housing largely due to a lack of affordable housing and often compounded by a lack of job training and supportive services related to mental illness, substance abuse or domestic violence. Learn more.

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Well, your power is out. Or at least, it was out at some point on Friday because of the violent storms. What do you do with food in the refrigerator and freezer when your power goes out? The United States Department of Agriculture says to keep meat, poultry, fish and eggs refrigerated at or below 40 degrees. Frozen food should be stored at or below zero degrees. But, that could be understandably difficult when your power is out. So, here's what the USDA said to "keep the refrigerator and freezer doors closed as much as possible to maintain the cold temperature." "The refrigerator will keep food safely cold for about four hours if it is unopened. A full freezer will hold the temperature for approximately 48 hours (24 hours if it is half full) if the door remains closed. Obtain dry or block ice to keep your refrigerator as cold as possible if the power is going to be out for a prolonged period of time," said the USDA's guide for keeping food safe during an emergency. "Fifty pounds of dry ice should hold an 18-cubic foot full freezer for 2 days." The USDA recommends using frozen gel packs and coolers to keep food cold if the power will be out for more than four hours. "When your freezer is not full, keep items close together—this helps the food stay cold longer," said the USDA. Never try to taste food to determine if it is safe or not. "If an appliance thermometer was kept in the freezer, read the temperature when the power comes back on. If the appliance thermometer stored in the freezer reads 40 °F or below, the food is safe and may be refrozen," said the USDA. "If a thermometer has not been kept in the freezer, check each package of food to determine the safety. Remember you can’t rely on appearance or odor. If the food still contains ice crystals or is 40 °F or below, it is safe to refreeze. Refrigerated food should be safe as long as power is out no more than 4 hours. Keep the door closed as much as possible. Discard any perishable food (such as meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and leftovers) that have been above 40 °F for 2 hours." "Be sure to discard any items in either the freezer or the refrigerator that have come into contact with raw meat juices," said the USDA. "Partial thawing and refreezing may reduce the quality of some food, but the food will remain safe to eat." Here's USDA's chart for when refrigerated or frozen foods should be thrown out:Refrigerator Foods When to Save and When to Throw It Out FOODHeld above 40 °F for over 2 hours MEAT, POULTRY, SEAFOOD Raw or leftover cooked meat, poultry, fish, or seafood; soy meat substitutes Discard Thawing meat or poultry Discard Meat, tuna, shrimp,chicken, or egg salad Discard Gravy, stuffing, broth Discard Lunchmeats, hot dogs, bacon, sausage, dried beef Discard Pizza – with any topping Discard Canned hams labeled "Keep Refrigerated" Discard Canned meats and fish, opened Discard CHEESE Soft Cheeses: blue/bleu, Roquefort, Brie, Camembert, cottage, cream, Edam, Monterey Jack, ricotta, mozzarella, Muenster, Neufchatel, queso blanco, queso fresco Discard Hard Cheeses: Cheddar, Colby, Swiss, Parmesan, provolone, Romano Safe Processed Cheeses Safe Shredded Cheeses Discard Low-fat Cheeses Discard Grated Parmesan, Romano, or combination (in can or jar) Safe DAIRY Milk, cream, sour cream, buttermilk, evaporated milk, yogurt, eggnog, soy milk Discard Butter, margarine Safe Baby formula, opened Discard EGGS Fresh eggs, hard-cooked in shell, egg dishes, egg products Discard Custards and puddings Discard CASSEROLES, SOUPS, STEWS Discard FRUITS Fresh fruits, cut Discard Fruit juices, opened Safe Canned fruits, opened Safe Fresh fruits, coconut, raisins, dried fruits, candied fruits, dates Safe SAUCES, SPREADS, JAMS Opened mayonnaise, tartar sauce, horseradish Discard if above 50 °F for over 8 hrs. Peanut butter Safe Jelly, relish, taco sauce, mustard, catsup, olives, pickles Safe Worcestershire, soy, barbecue, Hoisin sauces Safe Fish sauces (oyster sauce) Discard Opened vinegar-based dressings Safe Opened creamy-based dressings Discard Spaghetti sauce, opened jar Discard BREAD, CAKES, COOKIES,PASTA, GRAINS Bread, rolls, cakes, muffins, quick breads, tortillas Safe Refrigerator biscuits,rolls, cookie dough Discard Cooked pasta, rice, potatoes Discard Pasta salads with mayonnaise or vinaigrette Discard Fresh pasta Discard Cheesecake Discard Breakfast foods –waffles, pancakes, bagels Safe PIES, PASTRY Pastries, cream filled Discard Pies – custard,cheese filled, or chiffon; quiche Discard Pies, fruit Safe VEGETABLES Fresh mushrooms, herbs, spices Safe Greens, pre-cut, pre-washed, packaged Discard Vegetables, raw Safe Vegetables, cooked; tofu Discard Vegetable juice, opened Discard Baked potatoes Discard Commercial garlic in oil Discard Potato Salad Discard Frozen Food When to Save and When To Throw It Out FOODStill contains ice crystals and feels as cold as if refrigeratedThawed. Held above 40 °F for over 2 hours MEAT, POULTRY, SEAFOOD Beef, veal, lamb, pork, and ground meats Discard Poultry and ground poultry Refreeze Discard Variety meats (liver, kidney, heart, chitterlings) Refreeze Discard Casseroles, stews, soups Refreeze Discard Fish, shellfish, breaded seafood products Refreeze. However, there will be some texture and flavor loss. Discard DAIRY Refreeze. May lose some texture. Discard Eggs (out of shell) and egg products Refreeze Discard Ice cream, frozen yogurt Discard Discard Cheese (soft and semi-soft) Refreeze. May lose some texture. Discard Hard cheeses Refreeze Refreeze Shredded cheeses Refreeze Discard Casseroles containing milk, cream, eggs, soft cheeses Refreeze Discard Cheesecake Refreeze Discard FRUITS Refreeze. Discard if mold, yeasty smell, or sliminess develops. Home or commercially packaged Refreeze. Will change texture and flavor. Refreeze. Discard if mold, yeasty smell, or sliminess develops. VEGETABLES Discard after held above 40 °F for 6 hours. Home or commercially packaged or blanched Refreeze. May suffer texture and flavor loss. Discard after held above 40 °F for 6 hours. BREADS, PASTRIES Breads, rolls, muffins, cakes (without custard fillings) Refreeze Cakes, pies, pastries with custard or cheese filling Refreeze Discard Pie crusts, commercial and homemade bread dough Refreeze. Some quality loss may occur. Refreeze. Quality loss is considerable. OTHER Casseroles – pasta, rice based Refreeze Discard Flour, cornmeal, nuts Refreeze Refreeze Breakfast items –waffles, pancakes, bagels Refreeze Refreeze Frozen meal, entree, specialty items (pizza, sausage and biscuit, meat pie,convenience foods) Refreeze Discard

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http://woodbridge-va.patch.com/groups/summer/p/usda-keep-food-safe-during-power-outage

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SmartDraw includes thousands of professional-looking examples like this Leopold Maneuver that you can easily download, edit and customize to make your own in just minutes. Text in this example: Leopold Maneuver Anterolateral view of a health care worker performing the Leopold maneuvers on a pregnant woman and fetus. The purpose is to systematically observe and palpate the abdomen to determine fetal presentation and position. First maneuver: The superior surface of the fundus is palpated to determine consistency, shape, and mobility. Second maneuver: Both sides of the uterus are palpated to determine the direction the fetal back is facing. Fourth maneuver: This step determines the fetal attitude and degree of fetal extension into the pelvis. Third maneuver: This step determines the part of the fetus at the inlet and its mobility. LifeART Collection Images Copyright © 1989-2001 by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, MD

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Frequent winter storms during the 2008-10 winter seasons may have been the reason for the increase in all-wheel drive (AWD) vehicle sales in the U.S. Toward the end of 2010, AWD vehicles accounted for over one-third of new passenger car sales. Some automakers with AWD models suggest that tires on their vehicle cannot be rotated. You may need to do a little extra research - and make sure to compensate for directional tires - but it can be done. Intuitively, one would think that an AWD vehicle would not require regular tire rotations because power is constantly directed to all tires; therefore, all of the tires would wear at the same rate. That is the thought lingering in the minds of some AWD vehicle owners. But when it comes down to it, tire rotation is the second most important maintenance item (tire pressure being first) that can be done to maximize tire life, and this pertains to AWD vehicles, as well. In last month’s Tire Tech column, we talked briefly about tire noise and a tire tread block element. The amount of forces acting on the tread is astounding due to a vehicle’s weight, speed and traction requirements. As far as tire wear goes, the mechanism that induces tire wear is slip. Think back to high school physics class and the subject of friction. The force required to move an object along a surface equals the coefficient of friction multiplied by the load on the object. Reaching this level of force, or wheel torque in this case, while driving usually results in wheel spin during acceleration or lock-up of a wheel under braking. Every time slip occurs, rubber molecules are sheared away from the tire tread and left on the roadway surface. Slip also occurs as a vehicle turns a corner or changes direction. Tire engineers refer to the slip angle of a tire, which is the difference between the direction the tire is pointing and the actual path the tire takes. As a side note, when the slip angle of the front tires is greater than the rear tires, then an understeer or push condition occurs. The opposite occurs when the slip angle of the rear tires is greater than the front tires, also known as oversteer. Most production road vehicles are designed to understeer because oversteer requires a bit more driver skill to correct and a majority of drivers do not have that specific skill set. We will come back to slip angle in just a moment. Focusing on treadwear, tire engineers manipulate the angles of the groove walls, or sides of the tread blocks, to control the amount of movement that the tread block experiences as it enters, rolls through and exits the footprint. The basic FWD and RWD rotation patterns, courtesy of NHTSA. Think of a tread block as a flexible column. The tread block squirms a given amount due to the tremendous compression load it sees as it goes through the footprint. Designing the sides of the tread block to be perpendicular to the road surface provides maximum groove volume for hydroplaning performance, but it compromises the column strength of the tread block, which eventually leads to more movement in the footprint, and subsequently, a higher treadwear rate. Perfect Balance and Rotation We all understand that a tire engineer’s job is a balancing act. Rather than designing the sides of the grooves to be perpendicular to the road surface, tire engineers adjust the angle from three degrees and greater to achieve the proper strength needed to prevent or minimize squirm or slip in the footprint, yet provide adequate groove volume for hydroplaning performance. The key for long tread life is minimizing movement of the tread blocks during straight-ahead rolling. Next, we add in vehicle alignment to the treadwear recipe. Most automakers design vehicle suspensions with adjustable caster, camber and toe to achieve a desired level of handling and treadwear balance. The vehicle’s alignment specifications add complexity to the stresses on the tire tread, which can result in irregular wear as the vehicle rolls down the highway. Considering that a vehicle’s weight distribution is generally 60% on the front axle and 40% on the rear axle, the reduced load on the rear tires can sometimes result in higher irregular wear because there is not enough weight to prevent straight-ahead rolling slip. An improper rear alignment will certainly guarantee irregular wear. Regularly scheduled tire rotation is critical for long and even wear. Allowing each tire to run on every wheel position during the life of the tire will mix up the duty cycle for the tread pattern and prevent irregular wear patterns from setting in and reducing overall tread life. Irregular wear patterns also produce unnecessary and elevated tread noise. Now getting back to slip angle, since most vehicles have some level of understeer designed into them, the front tires will experience more slip than the rear tires. This reason alone is why regular tire rotation is necessary. For front-wheel drive vehicles, the Forward-X rotation is recommended. For rear-wheel drive vehicles, the Rearward-X or X-rotation is best. This assumes that the front and rear tire sizes are the same. For different sizes with non-directional tread patterns, rotation from side-to-side is the only option. Asymmetric tread patterns can be considered as non-directional. Front-to-rear rotation is applicable for directional tread patterns with the same size front and rear. Simple tire rotation does not apply to directional tread patterns with different front and rear sizes. The only option is to have the tires dismounted and remounted on the opposite side of the vehicle. A majority of AWD vehicles generally operate in two-wheel drive mode and activate AWD based on demand. Wheel speed sensors detect a loss of traction and torque is directed to the wheel positions with better grip. The few exceptions in the market split power between the front and rear axle constantly and also redirect power to the axle with the most traction; some makers of these AWD systems may wrongly insist that one cannot use simple tire rotation patterns. Regardless, each wheel position on an AWD platform sees varying degrees of driving traction and steering. Regular intervals of tire rotation between every 5,000 to 7,500 miles will maximize tire life and provide the best available traction and handling balance for the vehicle. If the drivetrain is primarily 2WD, then follow the rotation pattern correct for front- or rear-drive and the tread pattern.

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Not Just Black and White Not Just Black and White is a science project that teaches kids about color and light. Different colors will appear when you and your kids view spinning black-and-white circles. What You'll Need: - White paper - Black paper - Black marker - Knitting needle - Paper plate Learn About Not Just Black and White:Step 1: Draw and cut out 3 circles of white paper that are each 5-1/2 inches in diameter. Put a small hole in the center of each circle. Step 2: Draw and cut out a circle of black paper that is 5-1/2 inches in diameter. Cut the black circle in half. Cut 1 of the halves in half. Step 3: Use these materials to make several different disks. Glue a black half-circle onto a white circle so that the disk is 1/2 black and 1/2 white. Glue a black quarter-circle onto a white circle so that the disk is 1/4 black and 3/4 white. Step 4: Using a black marker, divide 1 white disk into 8 pie-wedge shapes. Color some of the pie wedges black, leaving others white. Step 5: Wrap some tape around the middle of a knitting needle. Put the knitting needle through the middle of a 6-inch paper plate, and push the plate down to rest on the tape. Step 6: Spin the plate. Be sure it spins smoothly and doesn't wobble. Use this as your spinner. Poke the knitting needle through the hole in the center of 1 disk, and let the disk rest on the paper plate. Step 7: Spin the plate, and look at the disk as it spins. What colors do you see? Do you see different colors when the disk is spinning quickly or slowly? Spin the other disks to see what colors they produce. Colors at a Distance is a science project that teaches kids about visual perception. Learn about Colors at a Distance on the next page of science projects for kids: spectrum of colors.

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Making bio-plastics from potatoes! The word ‘potatoes’ lead us to think of some crispy or spicy snacks, or some delicacies from it’s baked, mashed and fried forms. Though, in a bid to search for an alternative electricity source, potatoes have also been in the list — as we mentioned earlier — however, now the search seems to have gone a step further to produce another amazing product – plastic! So, for the potato chips producers, it would be wise to invest on a parallel production from their same potato farms. Maine’s potato industry can now benefit by producing bioplastics from the root. These new bioplastics are thus, made from plant starch and not crude oil and petroleum products. These bioplastics in turn, can be used to produce carpeting, upholstery fabric and recyclable plastic bottles, according to a report by the University of Maine’s Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center. United Kingdom and Japan have already turned to potato-based plastics technology to manufacture items like ‘spudware’ or plastic silverware from potatoes. Pleased and taking pride in the innovation, Don Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board said, I think this is a first step for agriculture to look at new avenues and develop new markets. And, if the fears of letting go a major part of the nation’s potato production is worrying some, Flannery is here to assure plenty of additional available acreage that could be planted for bioplastics without reducing the current food crop.

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Gets the normal number of horizontal dots per inch (DPI) of the system's screen. HRESULT value = object.get_logicalXDPI(* p); There are no standards that apply here. On most systems, there is no difference between horizontal and vertical DPI. The normal DPI on most Windows systems is 96. When Windows Internet Explorer is adjusting the scale of the screen, the value of this property does not equal the value of the IHTMLScreen2::deviceXDPI property. IHTMLScreen2::logicalXDPI was introduced in Microsoft Internet Explorer 6. For information about how Internet Explorer 6 and later can adjust the scale of the display on screens with higher-than-normal DPI, see Adjusting Scale for Higher DPI Screens. Build date: 11/12/2012

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In Wonderland, Radiative Forcing and the Rate of Inflation we looked at the definition of radiative forcing and a few concepts around it: - why the instantaneous forcing is different from the adjusted forcing - what adjusted forcing is and why it’s a more useful concept - why the definition of the tropopause affects the value - GCM results usually don’t use radiative forcing as an input In this article we will look at some results using the Wonderland model. Remember the Wonderland model is not the earth. But the same is also true of “real” GCMs with geographical boundaries that match the earth as we know it. They are not the earth either. All models have limitations. This is easy to understand in principle. It is challenging to understand in the specifics of where the limitations are, even for specialists – and especially for non-specialists. What the Wonderland model provides is a coarse geography with earth-like layout of land and ocean, plus of course, physics that follows the basic equations. And using this model we can get a sense of how radiative forcing is related to temperature changes when the same value of radiative forcing is applied via different mechanisms. In the 1997 paper I think that Hansen, Sato & Ruedy did a decent job of explaining the limitations of radiative forcing, at least as far as the Wonderland climate model is able to assist us with that understanding. Remember as well that, in general, results we see from GCMs do not use radiative forcing. Instead they calculate from first principles – or parameterized first principles. Now there’s a lot in this first figure, it can be a bit overwhelming. We’ll take it one step at a time. We double CO2 overnight – in Wonderland – and we see various results. The left half of the figure is all about flux while the right half is all about temperature: Figure 1 – Green text added – Click to Expand On the top line, the first two graphs are the net flux change, as a function of height and latitude. First left – instantaneous; second left – adjusted. These two cases were explained in the last article. The second left is effectively the “radiative forcing”, and we can see that the above the tropopause (at about 200 mbar) the net flux change with height is constant. This is because the stratosphere has come into radiative balance. Refer to the last article for more explanation. On the right hand side, with all feedbacks from this one change in Wonderland, we can see the famous predicted “tropospheric hot spot” and the cooling of the stratosphere. We see in the bottom two rows on the right the expected temperature change : - second row – change in temperature as a function of latitude and season (where temperature is averaged across all longitudes) - third row – change in temperature as a function of latitude and longitude (averaged annually) It’s interesting to see the larger temperature increases predicted near the poles. I’m not sure I really understand the mechanisms driving that. Note that the radiative forcing is generally higher in the tropics and lower at the poles, yet the temperature change is the other way round. Increasing Solar Radiation by 2% Now let’s take a look at a comparison exercise, increasing solar radiation by 2%. The responses to these comparable global forcings, 2xCO2 & +2% S0, are similar in a gross sense, as found by previous investigators. However, as we show in the sections below, the similarity of the responses is partly accidental, a cancellation of two contrary effects. We show in section 5 that the climate model (and presumably the real world) is much more sensitive to a forcing at high latitudes than to a forcing at low latitudes; this tends to cause a greater response for 2xCO2 (compare figures 4c & 4g); but the forcing is also more sensitive to a forcing that acts at the surface and lower troposphere than to a forcing which acts higher in the troposphere; this favors the solar forcing (compare figures 4a & 4e), partially offsetting the latitudinal sensitivity. We saw figure 4 in the previous article, repeated again here for reference: In case the above comment is not clear, absorbed solar radiation is more concentrated in the tropics and a minimum at the poles, whereas CO2 is evenly distributed (a “well-mixed greenhouse gas”). So a similar average radiative change will cause a more tropical effect for solar but a more even effect for CO2. We can see that clearly in the comparable graphic for a solar increase of 2%: Figure 3 - Green text added - Click to Expand We see that the change in net flux is higher at the surface than the 2xCO2 case, and is much more concentrated in the tropics. We also see the predicted tropospheric hot spot looking pretty similar to the 2xCO2 tropospheric hot spot (see note 1). But unlike the cooler stratosphere of the 2xCO2 case, we see an unchanging stratosphere for this increase in solar irradiation. These same points can also be seen in figure 2 above (figure 4 from Hansen et al). Here is the table which compares radiative forcing (instantaneous and adjusted), no feedback temperature change, and full-GCM calculated temperature change for doubling CO2, increasing solar by 2% and reducing solar by 2%: Figure 4 – Green text added – Click to Expand The value R (far right of table) is the ratio of the predicted temperature change from a given forcing divided by the predicted temperature change from the 2% increase in solar radiation. Now the paper also includes some ozone changes which are pretty interesting, but won’t be discussed here (unless we have questions from people who have read the paper of course). The authors then go on to consider what they call ghost forcings: How does the climate response depend on the time and place at which a forcing is applied? The forcings considered above all have complex spatial and temporal variations. For example, the change of solar irradiance varies with time of day, season, latitude, and even longitude because of zonal variations in ground albedo and cloud cover. We would like a simpler test forcing. We define a “ghost” forcing as an arbitrary heating added to the radiative source term in the energy equation.. The forcing, in effect, appears magically from outer space at an atmospheric level, latitude range, season and time of day. Usually we choose a ghost forcing with a global and annual mean of 4 W/m², making it comparable to the 2xCO2 and +2% S0 experiments. In the following table we see the results of various experiments: Figure 5 – Click to Expand We note that the feedback factor for the ghost forcing varies with the altitude of the forcing by about a factor of two. We also note that a substantial surface temperature response is obtained even when the forcing is located entirely within the stratosphere. Analysis of these results requires that we first quantify the effect of cloud changes. However, the results can be understood qualitatively as follows. Consider ΔTs in the case of fixed clouds. As the forcing is added to successively higher layers, there are two principal competing effects. First, as the heating moves higher, a larger fraction of the energy is radiated directly to space without warming the surface, causing ΔTs to decline as the altitude of the forcing increases. However, second, warming of a given level allows more water vapor to exist there, and at the higher levels water vapor is a particularly effective greenhouse gas. The net result is that ΔTs tends to decline with the altitude of the forcing, but it has a relative maximum near the tropopause. When clouds are free to change the surface temperature change depends even more on the altitude of the forcing (figure 8). The principal mechanism is that heating of a given layer tends to decrease large-scale cloud cover within that layer. The dominant effect of decreased low-level clouds is a reduced planetary albedo, thus a warming, while the dominant effect of decreased high clouds is a reduced greenhouse effect, thus a cooling. However, the cloud cover, the cloud cover changes and the surface temperature sensitivity to changes may depend on characteristics of the forcing other than altitude, e.g. latitude, so quantitive evaluation requires detailed examination of the cloud changes (section 6). Radiative forcing is a useful concept which gives a headline idea about the imbalance in climate equilibrium caused by something like a change in “greenhouse” gas concentration. GCM calculations of temperature change over a few centuries do vary significantly with the exact nature of the forcing – primarily its vertical and geographical distribution. This means that a calculated radiative forcing of, say, 1 W/m² from two different mechanisms (e.g. ozone and CFCs) would (according to GCMs) not necessarily produce the same surface temperature change. Radiative forcing and climate response, Hansen, Sato & Ruedy, Journal of Geophysical Research (1997) – free paper Note 1: The reason for the predicted hot spot is more water vapor causes a lower lapse rate – which increases the temperature higher up in the troposphere relative to the surface. This change is concentrated in the tropics because the tropics are hotter and, therefore, have much more water vapor. The dry polar regions cannot get a lapse rate change from more water vapor because the effect is so small. Any increase in surface temperature is predicted to cause this same change. With limited research on my part, the idealized picture of the hotspot as shown above is not actually the real model results. The top graph is the “just CO2″ graph, and the bottom graph is the “CO2 + aerosols” – the second graph is obviously closer to the real case: Many people have asked for my comment on the hot spot, but apart from putting forward an opinion I haven’t spent enough time researching this topic to understand it. From time to time I do dig in, but it seems that there are about 20 papers that need to be read to say something useful on the topic. Unfortunately many of them are heavy in stats and my interest wanes.

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World AIDS Day, let’s talk about sex. 80% of new HIV infections are sexually transmitted; let’s stop that sex isn’t happening and start making it safer. This World AIDS Day—and every day after—we need to talk openly and honestly about how to stop the spread of HIV. We need to ensure that all women have the ability to make choices about their own sexual and reproductive health. Both men and women need to have access to the contraceptive supplies they need to protect themselves. Men, women and couples of all ages must be educated about how HIV is transmitted and how to best protect themselves: reducing the number of sexual partners, using a condom every time they have sex, and being aware of their HIV status. We need to encourage men to be involved in their own sexual health and that of their partners. And, HIV positive women need to have access to the tools they need to be sexually healthy and make choices about if and when to have children. When a deadly disease such as HIV/AIDS is transmitted largely through sex, we can’t afford to be shy. We have let ideology and fear curb a global conversation about the reality of how this epidemic continues to spread, and history will judge us harshly for it. Let’s stop this deadly trend and make sex safer for men and women around the world. It’s World AIDS Day; let’s talk about

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Researchers reported that during the latest round of hikes in the cost of gas, the number of fatal car accidents declined dramatically. Each 10 percent rise in the price of gasoline correlated with a 2.3 percent decrease in fatalities. As a result, the number of fatalities last year (41,059) was the lowest number in more than a decade. Although part of the decline might be attributed to safer car designs and increased restrictions on young drivers, a significant portion can be attributed to higher gas prices. When gasoline became more expensive, fewer drivers took to the road, and those who did drove slower than they did previously. Similarly, New York health officials discovered that the most effective tool to reduce smoking is increasing the cost of cigarettes. Initially, legislators increased taxes on cigarettes to fill their empty coffers; however, an unexpected side benefit occurred—smoking declined. In both cases, what might have been considered a negative condition produced a positive result. But how will the recession affect the epidemic of people who are overweight or obese? A mixed bag of outcomes is the answer. On the downside, the recession has reduced the number of food choices for lower-income families. Calorie-laden foods, such as potatoes, have slightly declined in price (2 percent), while the price of low-calorie and nutritious foods, such as fresh raspberries, has gone up nearly 20 percent. With a limited food budget, some families are forced to purchase cheaper foods. These cheaper foods fill empty stomachs, but they also pack on pounds. Purchasing more expensive, nutritious and lower-calorie food simply isn’t an option for lower-income families. The upside, however, is not insignificant. Four out of ten individuals surveyed said they were eating at home more. About a third are packing their lunch for work and eating more leftovers. These statistics are positive trends since individuals tend to consume more food when eating out than when eating at home. Portions are larger in restaurants, and people tend to eat more when served more. In addition, restaurant food is generally higher in fat and calories than food prepared at home. Consider, for example, the calories in a huge slice of cheese-stuffed, double-layer pizza. Plus, individuals tend to indulge when dining out. About a third of those surveyed also said they were ordering less food when they do go out to eat, and one in five replaced soda and noncarbonated drinks with plain tap water. These additional trends—ordering less food and replacing caloric drinks with water—could significantly reduce an individual’s daily caloric intake. Even during these hard times, food is still a relative bargain in the United States when compared to food expenditures in other countries. The average American spends less than 10 percent of the family budget on food. This number looks good when compared to 11 percent in the United Kingdom, 17 percent in Japan, 27 percent in South Africa and 53 percent in India. Thanks to warehouse clubs and technological advances in food distribution in the United States, the cost of delivery to and stocking of stores has kept food prices reasonable. Of course, we have to be smart shoppers to keep our food budget in check—clipping coupons is back in style. We need to keep nutrition and health at the top of our shopping list because we don’t want simply to survive the recession. We want to come out on the other side of this economically challenging time with trim, fit, healthy and well-nourished bodies. "The simple solution for disappointment depression: Get up and get moving. Physically move. Do. Act. Get going." Peter McWilliams, Life 101

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Here’s an idea for improving the health of our children: let them play more videogames. Obesity has numerous health risks and it is most frightening in children as early learned behaviours will last throughout their life. The regulatory, infrastructure and educational changes suggested in The Conversation’s recent Obese Nation series will help in the fight against obesity. But these ideas take time to implement and the problem is rapidly increasing. We need solutions now if we are to help the youngest generation—the ones most at risk. But it is essential that any solution uses already ingrained activities, and most importantly, that it reinforces positive behaviours while being simple and enjoyable. Hence the idea we should let kids play more videogames. The future of gaming Before you all pick up your pitch forks and torches, hear me out. Too much time playing videogames is seen as a problem as it leads to a sedentary lifestyle that sacrifices health. That’s why limiting screen time is often suggested as a solution. But once again, we look for the simple solution and blame videogames rather than trying to understand the more complex social and economical underpinnings of the problem. But setting aside these issues for a moment, I’d like discuss how videogames can actually help those with an already sedentary lifestyle. Since the inception of videogame systems and their introduction into homes in the early 80s, the way individuals play videogames has changed dramatically. Now arm and body movements can be substituted for button presses on a controller. Nintendo laid the foundation with Wii and Sony followed suit with Move for Playstation 3, but these systems require you to wave a controller in the air. As a result, these ideas were more of a gimmick than a revolution. Microsoft took the next step and transformed this idea with Kinect. For those of you unfamiliar with Kinect for the Xbox 360, it’s a motion capture camera that allows real-time tracking of head, body and limbs for use to control on-screen movements. For example, in the game The Gunstringer, the movement of the character in third-person is controlled with one hand while aiming and firing a gun is controlled by the other. Although many games require simple movements, some of the most fun games require rapid, accurate whole-body movements that (wait for it) mimic exercise. If you haven’t played these games, try them. By the end of a couple of rounds, you are breathing heavily, and are hot and red-faced. Kinect might be exactly what families need to help children fight back against obesity. I wouldn’t have believed this before seeing my four-and-a-half-year-old son play Kinect Fruit Ninja. He and his uncle had just arrived back from a three-hour hike (albeit an hour was spent skipping rocks at a stream) after which my son wanted to play some videogames. We set up Fruit Ninja and thought he’d have some fun. He absolutely loved it. Not only that – after about 20 minutes of him trying to beat his own score, it looked as if he had run back from his hiking trip! Now imagine your kids substituting 20-30 minutes of stationary video gaming with exercise type games. Think it will make a difference? I do, and there is evidence to back me up. But research suggests that the type of game played affects heart rates and energy expenditure differently, just as with different types of exercise. The interesting aspect is that some early results suggest Kinect games provide a greater energetic expenditure than equivalent Wii games, suggesting that whole body movements required by Kinect may result in greater overall activity. Now imagine if kids substitute half their weekly game-playing time (about eight hours for girls and 14 hours for boys) with exergames. That would lead to approximately the daily recommended 60 minutes of activity. Then, by having different games that target specific types of exercise, it would provide a “routine” of sorts. Play more games! Exergaming, of course, will never substitute for real physical activity, but often the individuals that need to exercise most either dislike physical activity or don’t have the self-confidence to exercise. They may prefer to play videogames. The best part of using exergames to curb obesity is that it requires no changes in regulations or new technology. It uses a system already in place and takes advantage of a behaviour that children already love and can do in the privacy of their own home. Now imagine we encourage this positive behaviour further. Schools could offer local leaderboards and competitions. Not only will this improve pupil’s health – it may lead to greater interest in physical exercise as a whole! As parents, we need to email developers and tell them we feel this type of promotion can change the obesity crisis and help society. Write petitions and contact organisations that deal with childhood obesity and suggest that they embrace technology the way children already have. Those of you that have children know winning a battle often requires reinforcing positive behaviours, not trying to force kids to do things they hate (such as exercise). Combating obesity and the problems associated with it starts at home. And one way you start fighting back is by letting your kids do something they already love – gaming.

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“It is a possibility, but we’re not there yet,” Bolden said after giving a speech at an aviation conference Thursday. Making the region a hub where government, academia and industry develop ways to make aircraft more fuel efficient and less noisy, and improve air traffic control is a priority of U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va. The industry could bring billions of dollars of investment to the region, Warner has said. Key to the partnership is NASA, which has led the nation’s aeronautical research since the Cold War. A predecessor organization, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, previously had the job. Bolden said while he discussed the idea with Warner, more work needs to be done before — and if — Hampton Roads becomes a green aviation hub. The field is poised to grow because airlines are struggling to control costs and ensure that customers arrive on time to their destination. NASA is working the Federal Aviation Administration and other groups to create a more efficient air traffic control system, Bolden said. Perhaps more important to the region — and the roughly 3,600 civil and contractor employees at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton — is the development of fuel-efficient airplanes. NASA funding for aviation has declined more than twofold since the 1990s — it is currently $500 million, less than 3 percent of NASA’s $18.5 billion budget. As a result, Langley shed more than a thousand civil service jobs and shuttered wind tunnels during the past two decades. Mark Moore, a researcher at Langley, noted the decline when asking Bolden what can be done to boost the industry. “I think we actually have to demand more risks,” said Bolden, a former Marine Corps fighter pilot. “You have to be willing to take chances and get it wrong sometimes.” The industry could receive a boost from President Barack Obama’s order that requires federal agencies to curb energy use and cut greenhouse gas emissions. The Defense Department, which uses more fuel than all federal agencies combined, has been particularly aggressive in this area. And preliminary research suggests that blended wing aircraft, which eschew the traditional tube shaped airplane in favor of a sleeker bat-like design, could reduce jet fuel consumption by 70 percent. But the commercial airline industry is dominated by a handful of large corporations, such as Boeing, that have been slow to embrace green aviation. Some industry analysts say such a partnership is not feasible without Boeing’s participation. The Hampton-based NASA Aeronautic Support Team, which is working with Warner, previously said a plan to make Hampton Roads as green aviation hub could be submitted to Congress as part of Obama’s 2013 fiscal budget.

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It’s not its carbon trail that stands in the way of the Alberta tar sands’ picking up the supply ball dropped by deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. After all, tar sands fuel is no dirtier than coal, and Americans haven’t let that fossil fuel’s carbon trail stand in the way of its generating almost half of their electrical power. If America is going to ban tar sands fuel, why doesn’t it ban coal as well? Double standards aside, though, Congressman Waxman and Governor Schwarzenegger needn’t worry about growing American dependence on dirty tar sands fuel. TransCanada Corp.’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline, connecting as much as 900,000 barrels a day of oil from the tar sands to Texas refineries, isn’t going to have much flowing in it if oil prices stay where they are today. Even without a cost for carbon emissions or water pollution, the economics of the requisite production increases just won’t fly. Not when the cost curve lying between today’s production of a little over one and a quarter million barrels a day and tomorrow’s target of three million barrels a day is steeply ascending, driven by the need to pursue ever-deeper bitumen deposits even further away from available water sources like the already heavily tapped Athabasca River. As energy guru Matthew Simmons once wryly observed, “In oil exploration, you don’t leave the easiest for the last.” It’s not a coincidence that two of the largest and oldest producers, Syncrude and Suncor, are located almost kitty-corner from each other across the banks of the Athabasca. The Alberta tar sands are not a new discovery. As early as 1920, there was a pilot plant that first extracted oil from the bitumen. The only thing new about the tar sands is that they are now considered a commercially viable source of oil supply. Until the oil prices of the last several years, they most definitely weren’t. And they still won’t be if prices retreat to where American motorists would like them. If you doubt that, just look at what happened in Alberta’s tar patch during the last recession, when oil prices plunged to $40 per barrel. Some $50 billion of capital spending was cancelled overnight. The stampede to the exit doors was as frantic as the earlier rush in, when oil rose to almost $150 per barrel. America isn’t the only customer for the fuel, either. Sinopec and the China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) have made substantial investments in the tar sands recently. And Enbridge wants to circumvent American carbon opposition and build a pipeline to get things flowing to the Pacific coast at Kitimat, B.C., for transoceanic shipment to China. Many have questioned whether the expansion plans for Alberta’s tar sands are environmentally sustainable. But what potential American or Chinese customers must realize is this: without their paying ever-rising prices for that fuel, the tar sands may not even be economically sustainable.

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I don’t listen to a lot of live radio anymore. Instead, I tend to listen to a lot of podcasts. I can find content specific to my area and take it with me on the go. Here is a great list of podcasts for Educators (all for free and in no particular order): Edutopia Webinars - Edutopia presents engaging webinars hosted exclusively for our audience of educators, parents, and administrators throughout the year. These interactive events are free and universally accessible thanks to support from foundations, advertisers, and donors. Each webinar is designed to connect our valued audience with thought leaders in the movement for educational reform, providing opportunities to learn about the latest research, tools, and ideas from experts in the field. Note: Most Edutopia Webinars are large files, approximately an hour long. Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University - The Stanford Center for Teaching and Learning supports the effective communication of knowledge and the love of learning by faculty inside and outside the classroom, by graduate students in their roles as apprentice scholar/teachers, and by undergraduates as they take their place in the community of scholars. Google Tools - Google is much more than a search engine. It is a suite of free software and services that can enhance learning, engage students, and make the work of teachers easier. This series of podcasts demonstrates the usefulness and applications for some of Google’s most innovative products including custom search engines, Google earth, iGoogle, Google Calendar and Google Docs. Each podcast will consist of a screencast demonstrating the product in action and suggesting applications for use in the classroom. Department of Education Public Seminars at Oxford University - Public seminars from the Department of Education. Oxford has been making a major contribution to the field of education for over 100 years and today this Department has a world class reputation for research, for teacher education and for its Masters and doctoral programmes. Our aim is to provide an intellectually rich but supportive environment in which to study, to research and to teach and, through our work, to contribute to the improvement of all phases of public education, both in the UK and internationally. Technology Integration by Edutopia - Integrating technology into classroom instruction means more than teaching basic computer skills and software programs in a separate computer class. Effective tech integration must happen across the curriculum in ways that research shows deepen and enhance the learning process. In particular, it must support four key components of learning: active engagement, participation in groups, frequent interaction and feedback, and connection to real-world experts. Effective technology integration is achieved when the use of technology is routine and transparent and when technology supports curricular goals. Harvard EdCast - The Harvard EdCast is a weekly series that features a 15-20 minute conversation with thought leaders in the field of education from across the country and around the world. Hosted by Matt Weber, the Harvard EdCast will serve as a space for educational discourse and openness, focusing on the myriad issues and current events related to the field. NPR Education - From NPR: perspectives on great teachers, the science of learning, classroom dynamics and more. The best of Morning Edition, All Things Considered and other award-winning NPR programs.

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|Home > Advocacy Libraries > Newsletter Archives > 2001 > October 17| Highlights: Learn about persuasion and letter-writing; paper trails; new "Letters to the Stranger;" FETA Owner's Manual; help with FetaWeb; Houston conference. Subscribers on Oct 16 2001: 31,542 1. Using Story-Telling to Persuade When you advocate for a child with a disability, you write letters to: * Request information You also use letters to build relationships, identify and solve problems, clarify decisions that are made or not made, and motivate people to take action. Make your requests in writing. Write polite follow-up letters to document events, discussions, and meetings. Train yourself to write things down! When you read this new article about story-telling and persuasion, you will see how a father used the storytelling approach to ask the school district to help his son and reimburse him for the costs of his son's special education. Pay attention to your emotional reaction as you read this letter. Do you see Joe through his father's eyes? What happened to this happy child? Do you understand why the parents removed Joe from the public school program? What do you believe should be done to help Joe and his family? This letter is an exhibit in Joseph James v. Upper Arlington School District. In September, 2000, the U. S. Court of Appeals issued a decision in Joe's case. When you write a Letter to the Stranger, use facts to tell your story and offer support for your solution. Do not blame, criticize or find fault. Your goal is to create a desire to help from the decision-making Stranger. 2. Read "Letters to the Stranger" Read the original "Letter to the Stranger" by Pete Wright and Janie Bowman. In this article, you will read the letter from the school, the parents' first angry letter, and the parents' revised letter that elicited a desire to help. Read the letter that James Brody's parents wrote to request a due process hearing. Do you see how the parents told the story of James' education? Pay attention to the use of test scores in the letter. After you read the letter, read the decision in James Brody's case. 3. Paper Trails & Advocacy Skills Good records are important to effective advocacy. In an earlier issue of The Special Ed Advocate, you learned to use logs, calendars and journals to create paper trails and how to document phone calls and meetings. If you have a dispute with the school, your log and letters are independent evidence that support your memory. Documents that support your position will help you resolve disputes early. Visit our new topics page about Letter Writing & Paper Trails. 4. Get FETA Owner's Manual Our new book, From Emotions to Advocacy, has a companion website. Yesterday, we received an email from Susan who wrote: "Just received your book and am impressed with the organization and simplicity of presentation. You make references about going to Fetaweb.com for more information. I can't find this information. Am I doing something wrong?" No, you aren't doing anything wrong! Yesterday, we posted the FETA Owner's Manual that has links to references in the book. Learn more about FETA Book. Order FETA today. 5. Your Help With Fetaweb.com We need your help. Please explore the new FetaWeb site. Send feedback and links to your favorite sites to If we work together, we can make FetaWeb.com a great resource for parents, educators, and child advocates! Here are the main links on FetaWeb We are working on these pages: Send feedback and links to your favorite sites to 6. P2 Coming to Houston on October 20, 2001 - Act Now Are you interested in learning about special education law and advocacy? Do you want an autographed copy of FETA? Join Pete and Pam on Saturday, October 20 for a full day of advocacy training. The conference is approved for 6 hours of CLE credit. Conference organizers advise that attendance is limited and they are running out of space. Download the conference For details, call (713) 957-1600 November 2: Colorado Springs To get our speaking schedule please visit the Wrightslaw site. The Special Ed Advocate is a free online newsletter about special education legal and advocacy issues, cases, tactics and strategy, and Internet resources. Subscribers receive announcements and "alerts" about new cases, events, and special offers on Wrightslaw books. Read Back issues of the Special Ed Advocate LINK TO US. Nearly 1,000 sites link to Wrightslaw. If you want to spread the word about special education advocacy, download a banner or image:

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A toilet is a plumbing fixture used for defecation and urination. Modern toilets consist of a bowl fitted with a hinged seat and are connected to a waste pipe where waste is flushed. Tiolets are also called: privy, latrine, water closet, or lavatory. Contrary to urban legend Sir Thomas Crapper did not invent the toilet. Timeline of Toilets - King Minos of Crete had the first flushing water closet recorded in history and that was over 2800 years ago. - A toilet was discovered in the tomb of a Chinese king of the Western Han Dynasty that dates back to 206 BC to 24 AD. - The ancient Romans had a system of sewers. They built simple outhouses or latrines directly over the running waters of the sewers that poured into the Tiber River - Chamber pots were used during the middle ages. A chamber pot is a special metal or ceramic bowl that you used and then tossed the contents out (often out the window). - In 1596, a flush toilet was invented and built for Queen Elizabeth I by her Godson, Sir John Harrington. - The first patent for the flushing toilet was issued to Alexander Cummings in 1775. - During the 1800s, people realized that poor sanitary conditions caused diseases. Having toilets and sewer systems that could control human waste became a priority to lawmakers, medical experts, inventors, and the general public. - In 1829, the Tremont Hotel of Boston became the first hotel to have indoor plumbing, and had eight water closets built by Isaiah Rogers. Until 1840, indoor plumbing could be found only in the homes of the rich and the better hotels. - Beginning in 1910, toilet designs started changing away from the elevated water tank into the modern toilet with a close tank and bowl.

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REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT THE 2010 ASSESSMENT OF IMPLEMENTING THE EU BIODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN /* COM/2010/0548 final */ |Bilingual display: BG CS DA DE EL EN ES ET FI FR HU IT LT LV MT NL PL PT RO SK SL SV| [pic] | EUROPEAN COMMISSION | COM(2010) 548 final REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT THE 2010 ASSESSMENT OF IMPLEMENTING THE EU BIODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN SEC(2010) 1163 SEC(2010) 1164 SEC(2010) 1165 REPORT FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT THE 2010 ASSESSMENT OF IMPLEMENTING THE EU BIODIVERSITY ACTION PLAN THE 2006 COMMUNICATION HALTING BIODIVERSITY LOSS BY 2010 – AND BEYOND: SUSTAINING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES FOR HUMAN WELL-BEING underlined the importance of biodiversity protection as a pre-requisite for sustainable development, and set out a detailed Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) to achieve this. It also included a commitment from the Commission to periodically report to the Council and the Parliament on the progress achieved in implementation. The 2008 mid-term assessment of the BAP outlined the most important activities undertaken by the Commission and the Member States since 2006. It revealed that the EU was highly unlikely to meet its 2010 target of halting biodiversity decline. Since 2008, biodiversity has remained high on the political agenda, at EU and global level. 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity. Biodiversity will be debated for the first time ever at Head of State and Government level in the United Nations General Assembly in September, prior to the 10th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (UN CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, in October. In January 2010, the European Commission adopted a Communication on Options for an EU vision and target for biodiversity beyond 2010. This provided an assessment of achievements and shortcomings of the current policy. In its March 2010 conclusions, the Environment Council agreed a new long-term vision and mid-term headline target for biodiversity in the EU for the period beyond 2010. The new target commits the EU to "Halting the loss of biodiversity and the degradation of ecosystem services in the EU by 2020, and restoring them in so far as feasible, while stepping up the EU contribution to averting global biodiversity loss". EU heads of state and government subsequently committed to the EU post-2010 vision and target for biodiversity at the 2010 Spring European Council. Finally, the EU2020 Strategy endorsed by the European Council in June 2010 underscored the importance of achieving the biodiversity targets, in particular through the development of a resource efficiency initiative. This 2010 BAP assessment highlights key actions taken since the mid-term assessment. The assessment summarises the current state of progress for each of the four main policy areas, the 10 objectives and the four supporting measures set out in the 2006 BAP. While the focus of the present report is mainly on progress at EU level, accompanying documents and the 27 country profiles provide a detailed account of developments including national level. Building on the progress reflected in this report, the Commission is currently developing a post-2010 Biodiversity Strategy, aimed at reaching the 2020 EU biodiversity target. STATUS AND TRENDS IN BIODIVERSITY The EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline published by the European Environment Agency (EEA) in June 2010 highlights that EU biodiversity is under serious pressure and faces grave risks. The focus of the Baseline is on the status of biodiversity as compared to measures undertaken, as inventoried in this Report. It is clear from the Baseline that the target of halting the biodiversity loss in Europe by 2010 has been missed. In addition, Europe's ecosystem services are judged to be of mixed status or degraded — i.e. no longer able to deliver the optimal quality and quantity of basic services such as crop pollination, clean air and water. The global situation is even more alarming as pressures on biodiversity continue to intensify, as shown by the 3rd Global Biodiversity Outlook published in May 2010. The international community has failed to achieve the target under the UN CBD of significantly reducing biodiversity loss worldwide by 2010. Europe holds a share of responsibility for this failure. Over the last 40 years, Europe's Ecological Footprint, which compares human demand with the planet's ecological capacity, increased by 33%. SUMMARY OF PROGRESS SINCE THE MID-TERM ASSESSMENT A. POLICY AREA 1: BIODIVERSITY IN THE EU 1. To safeguard the EU's most important habitats and species. The Birds and Habitats Directives provide the legal basis for the Natura 2000 network of protected areas. There has been a significant improvement towards the completion of the Natura 2000 network, in particular in the marine environment. However, the establishment of marine sites is still insufficient, although in the Baltic Sea it has more than doubled. The Natura 2000 network is now comprised of about 26 000 sites and covers nearly 18% of the EU terrestrial environment. However, most of the sites of community importance have still to be formally designated as special areas of conservation by the Member States. The focus is increasingly shifting towards the effective management and restoration of the Natura 2000 network to achieve a measurable improvement in the conservation status of species and habitats of EU conservation concern. - Environmental Assessment . Adoption of two Commission reports in 2009 on the application and effectiveness of the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive and the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive. - Biodiversity in Outermost Regions and Overseas Countries and Territories (OCTs) . Development by the Commission and certain Member States of a voluntary nature protection scheme (BEST) for Outermost Regions and OCTs, among the richest biodiversity hot-spots on the planet, where EU nature legislation does not apply. 2. To conserve and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services in the wider EU countryside. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the policy tool having the most significant impacts on biodiversity in rural areas. It went through a policy "Health Check" in 2009. As part of this exercise, the Good Agricultural and Environmental Conditions (GAEC) of Cross-Compliance were amended. One of the setbacks as regards biodiversity was the abolition of compulsory set-aside. Introduced in the CAP in 1988 and made compulsory in 1992, set-aside had provided significant benefits for the protection and enhancement of biodiversity. However, other important, positive changes for biodiversity were introduced in the "Health Check", such as: - The identification of biodiversity as one of the five new challenges of the CAP - The introduction of a new optional GAEC standard on the establishment and/or retention of habitats - The introduction of a new compulsory standard on the establishment of buffer strips along watercourses - An increased transfer of money from the first to the second Pillar of the CAP (via "modulation"), thus making additional funding available for biodiversity New directives on vegetable landraces and varieties which are threatened by genetic erosion and that are naturally adapted to the local and regional conditions were adopted. - Energy . Progress towards the adoption of sustainability criteria for liquid biofuels and for the implementation of the Renewable Energy Directive, with a view to preventing negative impacts on EU and global biodiversity. - Water . Between December 2009 and March 2010, adoption and submission to the Commission by Member States of the River Basin Management plans pursuant to Article 13 of the Water Framework Directive. The Commission is in the process of carrying out the full assessment of the Plans. These should aim at complying with the obligation to achieve good ecological status of waters by 2015. - Forest . Adoption of a Commission Forest Green Paper in 2010, launching a debate on options for an EU approach to forest protection and information under a changing climate. - Soils . The EU has not yet been able to agree and adopt a Framework Directive on the protection of soil, which would address the main threats to soil and would have a crucial impact on protecting soil biodiversity, thus contributing to halting biodiversity loss. 3. To conserve and restore biodiversity and ecosystem services in the wider EU marine environment. The Commission is to adopt a Decision on criteria and methodological standards on good environmental status of marine waters, which constitutes a key step in the process of implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, of which one of its ultimate aims is to maintain marine biodiversity. To ensure delivery, the implementation of this directive is being ensured through a common strategy of Member States and the Commission, addressing inter alia data handling and monitoring activities. On fisheries, the Commission adopted in 2009 a Green Paper on the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) reform recognising the failures of implementation that have led to 88% of Community stocks being fished beyond Maximum Sustainable Yield (MSY) and 46% outside safe biological limits, meaning that stocks may not recover. This conclusion was drawn despite the previous reform of the CFP in 2002 which had introduced a number of positive innovations – in particular the ecosystem-based, long-term approach to the management of stocks. The Green Paper was the first step towards the full reform of the CFP to be finalised by 2012. The achievement of the EU commitment at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 to achieving MSY for depleted stocks by 2015 will be an important consideration in this respect. - Integrated Maritime Policy (IMP) . The Commission Progress Report on the EU's IMP consolidated the Marine Strategy Framework Directive as its environmental pillar. The Directive designs a platform for the successful development of all maritime activities, paying due attention to their cumulative impacts. 4. To reinforce the compatibility of regional and territorial development with biodiversity in the EU. The 2007-2013 programming period of the Cohesion Policy addresses both directly and indirectly the preservation of biodiversity. Member States have allocated a total of about EUR 2.7 billion to the “Promotion of biodiversity and nature protection (including Natura 2000)”. In the framework of tourism a further EUR 1.1 billion has been allocated to the "promotion of natural assets" and EUR 1.4 billion for the "protection and development of natural heritage", both including projects for nature and biodiversity. Altogether, this indicates that approximately 1.5% of the total 2007-2013 Cohesion Policy funding is directly contributing to biodiversity policy. In addition other significant investments into the environment have the potential to contribute to nature and biodiversity, for instance waste water treatment and natural risk prevention, as well as within the framework of cross-border and interregional cooperation including in Outermost Regions. All but two Member States have allocated some funding for nature and biodiversity, although as a proportion of the overall allocations this varies between countries. Seven Member States intend to use more than 2% of their allocated funds for biodiversity-related categories. Additionally, the 2010 Strategic Report revealed that several Member State face difficulties in using the funds allocated to nature and biodiversity protection. - Green Infrastructure . The development of and investment in ‘Green Infrastructure’ has been highlighted by the Commission and the Council. The Commission is supporting exchanges of best practice as a basis for an EU strategy on green infrastructure to be developed after 2010. 5. To substantially reduce the impact on EU biodiversity of invasive alien species and alien genotypes. The 2008 Communication Towards an EU Strategy on Invasive Species has triggered a debate among stakeholders and European institutions. In June 2009, the Environment Council called for an effective Strategy which should fill the existing gaps at EU level, considering all policy options. The European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions called specifically for legislation. The Commission is working on an EU Strategy on Invasive Species. B. POLICY AREA 2: The EU and global biodiversity 6. To substantially strengthen the effectiveness of international governance for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Since the Ninth Conference of the Parties (CoP) of the UN CBD (COP9) in 2008, the Commission has focused efforts on ensuring delivery on commitments made – from forest biodiversity and protected areas to marine protected areas - as well as on preparing for the Tenth CoP (CoP10) in October 2010 to ensure a successful outcome. The three key issues on the agenda of CoP10 – reaching agreement on an updated and revised Strategic Plan of the Convention for 2011-2020, on a Protocol on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of their utilization (ABS), and a financing target for global biodiversity – will have a crucial bearing on the international community's ability to address the biodiversity challenge. In spite of continued intensive efforts from the EU to strengthen international commitments to biodiversity, the global target to significantly reduce rate of biodiversity loss globally by 2010 has not been reached, as evidenced by the new Millennium Development Goals Report and Third Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO3), released in 2010, and published with the contribution of the global Biodiversity Indicators Partnership (BIP) supported by the EC. - G8 . In April 2009, under the Italian Presidency of the G8 and strong leadership from EU Members of the G8 and the Commission, the ambitious “ Siracusa Carta ” on Biodiversity, which sets out priority actions at global level, was adopted. The G8 l'Aquila Summit statement also commits G8 members to, inter alia, "strengthen and broaden international, regional, national and local activities to conserve biodiversity". - EU Council conclusions on global biodiversity . In December 2009, Council Conclusions on international biodiversity beyond 2010 were adopted, highlighting – inter alia – the climate change-biodiversity link and "recommending the development and use of ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation and mitigation". - Environment and Natural Resources Thematic Programme (ENRTP) . The 2010 EC Annual Action Programme foresees EUR 1 million to support the Secretariat of the UN CBD in implementing CBD COP 10 decisions and a further EUR 1 million to support the implementation of the CBD Work Programme on Protected Areas with a focus on marine protected areas. - The Intra ACP 10th EDF : The 2010 EC Annual Action Programme foresees EUR 20 million to improve the long-term conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific regions and reduce the poverty of populations surrounding Protected Areas (PAs). 7. To substantially strengthen support for biodiversity and ecosystem services in EU external assistance. The 2008 BAP assessment indicated that average annual external assistance of EU Member States for biodiversity amounted to about EUR 740 million in the period 2003-2006, representing 48% of all biodiversity-related development assistance. This figure is being updated for the 2007-2009 period. The Commission will update its own contribution ahead of CoP10. In the portfolio of external actions managed by the European Commission, for 2007-2009 the total commitments for biodiversity related activities were approximately EUR 325 million. - Global Environment Facility (GEF) . There has been a 34% increase of the overall envelope for the 4th replenishment of the GEF in spring 2010. This has translated into a 28% increase of the biodiversity envelope. This owes much to additional efforts from a number of EU Member States. - Environmental Impact Assessment . A recent review of environmental assessment regimes of bilateral and multilateral development agencies, showed that while all the development agencies of the EU Member States that were analysed considered environmental assessment in their procedures to a certain extent, their application methods and stringency differed from country to country. - ENRTP . The mid-term review of ENRTP concluded that the programme was highly relevant to its objectives, which include the protection of biodiversity. The review also called for better integration of the work achieved under the ENRTP in the main geographic programmes. The second phase of the ENRTP will run from 2011 to 2013 and an increase in funding for biodiversity is proposed. - Biodiversity training of EU staff . Training for EU delegation staff and headquarters country desks has been initiated to contribute to intensifying outreach activities on biodiversity with third countries. 8. To substantially reduce the impact of international trade on global biodiversity and ecosystem services. Illegal trade of endangered species is a major pressure on biodiversity. The EU plays a leading role within the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and supported the adoption of important decisions at the 15th Conference of the Parties of the Convention in Doha in March 2010. However, the Parties failed in relation to the conservation of marine species – including on the emblematic case of blue fin tuna. The EU has remained fully engaged in the process of the negotiations on the international regime on Access and Benefit Sharing of genetic resources (ABS) with a view to its adoption by CBD CoP10 in October 2010. - Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) . The first Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) was ratified with Ghana in November 2009. Negotiations on FLEGT VPAs are ongoing with Malaysia, Indonesia, Liberia and the Central African Republic. Agreements are being finalised with Cameroon and Congo-Brazzaville. - Illegal logging . The Regulation laying down the obligations of operators who place timber and timber product on the Market, aiming at eliminating illegal timber in the EU market, was endorsed by the European Parliament in July 2010 and is expected to be adopted by the end of 2010. - Sustainability Impact Assessments (SIAs) . Ensuring that recommendations made in SIAs of trade agreements are acted upon has remained a priority. C. POLICY AREA 3: Biodiversity and climate change 9. To support biodiversity adaptation to climate change. The EU has continued to highlight the important inter-linkages between biodiversity and climate change, and this is increasingly being reflected in policy development. Council Conclusions from December 2009 and March 2010 explicitly recognised the fact that, when it comes to helping countries adapt to climate change, biodiversity provides many of the same services as man-made technological solutions, often at significantly lower cost. Protecting and restoring biodiversity therefore provide some cost-effective opportunities for climate change mitigation or adaptation. The December 2009 Conclusions include a recommendation that ecosystem-based approaches for the mitigation of and adaptation to climate change be developed and used. - White Paper on Adaptation to Climate Change . Adopted in 2009, the White Paper emphasises the importance of maintaining and restoring ecosystem integrity and the development of a "green infrastructure". - Copenhagen Accord . Further to the Copenhagen Accord under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in December 2009, and in particular provisions on financial assistance from industrialised countries, the Commission is exploring options to enhance biodiversity co-benefits. - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) . Based on the Communication on deforestation from 2008, the EU calls for halting global forest cover loss by 2030 at the latest and reducing gross tropical deforestation by at least 50% by 2020 from current levels. The key tool to deliver on this objective, which would entail major climate/biodiversity co-benefits, is REDD. Achieving an agreement on REDD by the UNFCCC CoP in December 2010 in Cancún is a core EU objective. - The European Commission's Global Climate Change Alliance (GCCA) is providing support inter alia for adaptation measures in Least Developed Countries and Small Island Developing States. Several projects are focused on ecosystem-based approaches such as wetland and coastal ecosystem restoration. D. POLICY AREA 4: THE KNOWLEDGE BASE 10. To substantially strengthen the knowledge base for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, in the EU and globally. Considerable progress has been achieved over the past two years in enhancing the knowledge base on biodiversity and ecosystem services, both in the EU and, more recently, at global level. - EU Biodiversity Baseline . In June 2010, the EEA presented the EU 2010 Biodiversity Baseline and related indicators (SEBI) on the state of biodiversity and ecosystem services within the EU and at global level. - Biodiversity Information System for Europe (BISE) . In June 2010, the Commission and the EEA launched BISE. This constitutes the first web portal as a single entry point for all data and information on biodiversity in the EU. - Framework Programmes and the European Research Area : new knowledge, understanding and capacity to inform policy and management have been developed in innovative research work on soil, marine, terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity. - IPBES . At global level, the international community came to an agreement in June 2010 to establish an Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) to replicate the success of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The EU had been the initiator and main proponent of the establishment of IPBES. - TEEB . As part of the Potsdam initiative agreed by the G8 in 2007, the study on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) was launched with a view to making the economic case for biodiversity protection. The Commission has been a core TEEB funder from the outset. Many further TEEB deliverables have been published since 2008 – including in particular TEEB for Decision Makers and TEEB for Businesses respectively in 2009 and 2010. The finalisation of all TEEB reports is planned for October 2010. E. THE FOUR KEY SUPPORTING MEASURES 1. Ensuring adequate financing. The European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development (especially under Axis 2) remains the most important Community funding source for Natura 2000 and biodiversity in the EU. Additionally, the European Regional Development Fund and the European Fisheries Fund are significant source of Community funding. Establishing an agreed methodology to determine how much Community funding has been used by the Member States for nature and biodiversity remains a problem, making it difficult to obtain fully reliable figures, and needs to be addressed. Only 20% of the total financing needs for managing protected areas including the Natura 2000 network in Europe are being met. In 2004, it was estimated that the management of Natura 2000 would require an investment of € 6.1 billion annually for the EU-25. An updated assessment based on information provided by Member States broadly supports this earlier estimate. The EC has therefore engaged in an exercise with Member States to assess the economic and social benefits, as well as the current spending and the actual need to finance Natura 2000. For that purpose, an Information Technology Tool has been developed. Estimates for broader biodiversity needs – beyond Natura 2000 – are being developed as part of the 2020 EU Biodiversity Strategy. - Natura 2000 – Site Management Plans . The insufficient development of such tools continues to be a limitation to ensuring adequate financing of the Natura 2000 network. - LIFE+ . The dedicated funding to nature and biodiversity from LIFE+ is of a smaller scale than other EU funding streams, but the approximately € 836 million that is to be spent between 2007-2013 are directly aimed at benefiting nature and biodiversity. 2. Strengthening EU decision–making and implementation. Implementation gaps were previously identified by the Commission as one of the likely causes of the failure of the EU to reach its 2010 biodiversity target. The Commission has been actively addressing key implementation gaps. - Environmental law . In 2008, a Communication on implementing European Community Environmental Law was adopted with the aim of showing how EU environmental law could be better implemented through a diverse combination of innovative tools. - European Network of Environmental Authorities (ENEA) . In 2009, ENEA (set up by the Commission and consisting of Members States’ experts dealing with Structural Funds programmes) established a dedicated working group for biodiversity. - BAP reporting . Despite the non-binding nature of the BAP and the voluntary character of the reporting requirements therein, Member States have made a considerable effort to provide the Commission with comprehensive and updated information. 3. Building partnerships. Establishing partnerships with Member States, other institutions and stakeholders has been highlighted recurrently at national and EU level as one of the requirements for successful biodiversity policy. - EU Business & Biodiversity Platform . The Commission launched the Platform in June 2010 to help businesses identify business risks and opportunities linked to biodiversity. The aim is now to build synergies with similar initiatives at national level. - European Investment Bank (EIB) Group . In 2010, the Commission has engaged in establishing a partnership with the EIB Group towards the development of innovative financial instruments for biodiversity. 4. Building public education, awareness and participation. The EU has continued its efforts to raise public awareness of the importance of biodiversity and make the case for biodiversity conservation. - Eurobarometer . The Commission carried out a Eurobarometer opinion poll on biodiversity in 2010. Two thirds of EU citizens were familiar with the term biodiversity. However, only 38% said they knew the meaning of the term and 8 out of 10 respondents had never heard about Natura 2000. - EU Biodiversity Campaign . A major campaign was launched in January 2010 to harness public support for action to halt biodiversity loss. - Green Week . Green Week 2010 was entirely devoted to biodiversity with a view to further sensitising and involving stakeholders. In addition to the major developments highlighted above (EU Biodiversity Baseline, BISE), research and monitoring efforts have been intensified in order to fill key knowledge gaps and unknown parameters on the state of biodiversity. - Knowledge gap analysis . The EEA is about to publish such an analysis, in particular as regards indicators for ecosystems and ecosystem services. - Biosoil . In 2009, the EU completed this demonstration project to monitor forest soil biodiversity, co-funded under the Forest Focus Regulation. - Natura 2000 viewer. In 2010, the EC launched an interactive tool enabling people to locate Natura 2000 sites and access related information: the Natura 2000 viewer. - Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES). The initiative with its Initial Operation starting in 2011 will provide earth observation data and derived information products to support the monitoring of both marine and terrestrial environment. Despite important progress in delivery of the BAP, the overall goal of halting biodiversity loss in the EU by the end 2010 has not been achieved, nor has the global target. While still insufficient, significant progress has been made over the last two years on: - the further selection and more effective protection of Natura 2000 sites; - improving the knowledge base; - establishing further linkages between biodiversity and climate change and emphasising co-benefits as a result of integrated approaches. The findings of this report also confirm the failures identified in the Commission Communication on Options for a post 2010 policy. More progress needs to be made on: - the integration of biodiversity considerations into other sectoral policies; - making available the necessary funding; - filling existing policy gaps. The Commission is working on the future EU biodiversity policy framework. The findings of this 2010 BAP assessment will provide valuable input to this work. Action and implementation continue to be needed at multiple levels: international, EU, national and sub-national. The approach taken in the EU BAP to share responsibility for implementation between all sectors and establish partnerships with Member States remains fully relevant. What is also clear is that the shortcomings of BAP implementation to date and its failure to achieve the 2010 biodiversity target will need to be reflected upon, to ensure successful delivery of the 2020 target at EU and global levels. COM(2006) 216 COM(2008) 864 final COM(2010) 4 final EUCO 7/10 http://www.consilium.europa.eu/ueDocs/cms_Data/docs/pressData/en/ec/113591.pdf COM(2010) 2020 Web: http://biodiversity.europa.eu/countries_and_networks Global Footprint Network 2010 Directives 2008/62/EC and 2009/145/EC Directive 2009/28/EC Directive 2000/60/EC COM(2010) 66 final SEC(2009) 1343 COM(2010) 110 and SEC(2010) 360 final ‘Green infrastructure’ is an interconnected network of natural areas, including agricultural land, greenways, wetlands, parks, forest reserves, native plant communities and marine areas that naturally regulate storm flows, temperatures, flood risk and water, air and ecosystem quality. COM(2010) 4 final COM(2008) 789 final Environmental Assessment Summary Sheets: Bilateral and Multilateral Development Agencies, Canadian International Development Agency on behalf of the DAC Working Party on Environmental and Development Assistance http://www.acdi-cida.gc.ca/acdi-cida/acdi-cida.nsf/en/REN-218131217-PEH COM(2009) 147 final TEEB. www.teebweb.org TEEB 2009. COM(2004) 431 COM(2008) 2876 Flash Eurobarometer Series No. 290 http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/flash/fl_290_en.pdf ./BCDbcde?“ð I M e f © 01Utœ?ÐýI +óâóÙóÐó¿ó¿ó¿ó³óªóž•ó‰óvó•óvójó•ó\óvóh#-?hªHxH*[pic]mHnHu[pic]h#-?hØpqmHnHu[pic]$jh#-?hªHx0J%U[pic]mHnHu[pic]h@8gh@8gmHnHu[pic]h@8gmHRegulation (EC) No 2152/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 November 2003 concerning monitoring of forests and environmental interactions in the Community (Forest Focus). COM(2010) 4

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May 18, 2013 Mississippi Finally Ratifies 13th Amendment, Thanks to ‘Lincoln’ Posted on Feb 18, 2013 Who would have thought that, nearly 150 years after his death, Abraham Lincoln would still be helping to ratify the 13th Amendment? But that’s pretty much what happened in Mississippi. A doctor who was inspired by the movie “Lincoln” has spurred the Magnolia State to become the final one to officially ratify the amendment that abolished slavery in the U.S., 148 years after the fact. Here’s what happened: Dr. Ranjan Batra, an associate professor of neurobiology and anatomical sciences at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, set the wheels in motion after viewing the Oscar-nominated film in November. Through some Internet research, he discovered the state had never formally ratified the 13th Amendment. Oh sure, it had voted to ratify it in 1995, but it wasn’t official since the state had never notified the U.S. Archivist. Batra shared the discovery with his colleague, Ken Sullivan, who continued Batra’s work to right the wrong. Sullivan eventually managed to track down a copy of the 1995 resolution, which was passed by the state’s House and the Senate, and brought the embarrassing and glaring error to the attention of Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. At the end of January, Hosemann sent the Senate resolution to the Office of the Federal Register. And the rest, as they say, is history. Previous item: German Spies’ Sex for Secrets Replaced by Free Love New and Improved Comments

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Families for Literacy is a very special part of Project Read. It provides extra support for Project Read learners who care for children 5 years of age and younger. One night a month we host a special workshop where we invite FFL families to join us as we eat tasty food, share great children's books, discuss family literacy and parenting issues, and enjoy the resources of the Project Read office. We provide books, puzzles, games, custom made activity sheets, and special computer software to be used at these events. Every Project Read learner works one-to-one with a tutor to improve his/her literacy skills and achieve important life goals. Project Read staff are available to meet directly with learners as well as tutoring pairs to discuss their FFL goals and provide books, materials, guidance, and support. Project Read FFL Goals - Help parents improve their own reading and writing skills. - Create a rich and diverse home library by providing FREE children's books to participating families. - Encourage reading in the home as an activity to be shared and enjoyed by the whole family. - Welcome families to the public library and assist them in using its many resources. - Empower parents as their child's first and foremost teacher. - Help parents develop skills and strategies that prepare their children to be successful in school.

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Bioluminescence - A Light in the Darkness Bioluminescence is light produced by an organism using a chemical reaction. While only a few land dwellers, like fireflies and some fungi, can make their own light, bioluminescence is very common in the deep sea. Bacteria, jellyfish, starfish, clams, worms, crustaceans, squid, fish, and sharks are just some of the groups of marine animals that have bioluminescent members. All bioluminescent organisms use a reaction between an enzyme and a substrate to make light, but different species use different chemicals in the process. This suggests that the ability to make light evolved many times throughout the ages. Clearly, bioluminescence provides a survival advantage in the darkness of the deep-sea. The videos below show two spectacular examples of bioluminescence in action. As you watch these creatures, try to imagine the purpose of their bold displays. Although scientists are beginning to understand the mechanics of bioluminescent activity, much of the purpose of these living lights is still unclear. Study the images and light chart below, then answer the questions that follow each. They will help you understand how bioluminescence is used by deep-sea animals. - Describe the pattern of bioluminescence shown by Atolla wyvilla. The lights were very bright, and traveled around the animal flashing on and off. - Jellyfish don't have eyes - why do you think they make light? (hint: scientists call this type of showy display a "burglar alarm") The jellyfish's light show is a real attention-getter. If it lights up like that when grabbed or threatened by a predator, the visual commotion could either scare the predator away, or attract a bigger animal that might eat the predator before it ate the jellyfish. - The blackdragon fish also has a burglar alarm bioluminescence display. But it makes light for other reasons, too. Describe the bioluminescence around its eyes. What do you think those lights are for? The lights near the eyes are brighter, and cast a glow in front of the fish. These could act as little flashlights and help the fish find food. - How does the bioluminescence of the fish change over the video? What does that change suggest about the mechanics of light production? When the fish starts to bioluminesce, its lights are very bright and turn on and off rapidly. As time goes by, the flashing seems to slow down, and the lights get dimmer and dimmer and even start to go out altogether. Since the light is produced by a chemical reaction, the chemicals probably start to run out. Eventually the light "burns out" and the fish can't bioluminesce until its supply of chemicals is replenished. - Bioluminescent light comes in many colors. But blue dominates in marine organisms. (Notice that the lights produced by the jellyfish and blackdragon fish were both blue.) Why? According to the light penetration chart, blue light travels farther in water than all the other colors. If the purpose of bioluminescence is to set off an alarm or look for food, the light that will be visible at the greatest distance would be most desirable, and that is blue light. - Because of the dominance of blue light, many of the creatures living in the deep ocean have eyes so adapted to pick up even faint or distant blue light that they can't see any other colors. So why do you suppose that a few fish species can both produce and see red light? Fish that give off and see red light won't be able to see very far at all since red light is quickly absorbed in water. But in that small area, those fish can shine a light that no other animals can detect. As long as its prey is nearby, the red-lighting fish can find it, and its victims won't be able to see it coming.

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