title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's paternal great-uncle was Herbert Samuel (later Viscount Samuel), who was the Home Secretary in 1916 and the first practising Jew to serve in the British Cabinet. Her aunt, Helen Caroline Franklin, known in the family as Mamie, was married to Norman de Mattos Bentwich, who was the Attorney General in the British Mandate of Palestine. Helen was active in trade union organisation and the women's suffrage movement and was later a member of the London County Council. Franklin's uncle, Hugh Franklin, was another prominent figure in the suffrage movement, although his actions therein embarrassed the Franklin family. Rosalind's middle name, "Elsie", was in memory of Hugh's first wife, who died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Her family was actively involved with the Working Men's College, where her father taught the subjects of electricity, magnetism, and the history of the Great War in the evenings, later becoming the vice principal.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's parents helped settle Jewish refugees from Europe who had escaped the Nazis, particularly those from the "Kindertransport". They took in two Jewish children to their home, and one of them, a nine-year-old Austrian, Evi Eisenstädter, shared Jenifer's room. (Evi's father Hans Mathias Eisenstädter had been imprisoned in Buchenwald, and after liberation, the family adopted the surname "Ellis".)


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: From early childhood, Franklin showed exceptional scholastic abilities. At age six, she joined her brother Roland at Norland Place School, a private day school in West London. At that time, her aunt Mamie (Helen Bentwich), described her to her husband: "Rosalind is alarmingly clever – she spends all her time doing arithmetic for pleasure, and invariably gets her sums right." She also developed an early interest in cricket and hockey. At age nine, she entered a boarding school, Lindores School for Young Ladies in Sussex. The school was near the seaside, and the family wanted a good environment for her delicate health.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She was 11 when she went to St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, west London, one of the few girls' schools in London that taught physics and chemistry. At St Paul's she excelled in science, Latin, and sports. She also learned German, and became fluent in French, a language she would later find useful. She topped her classes, and won annual awards. Her only educational weakness was in music, for which the school music director, the composer Gustav Holst, once called upon her mother to enquire whether she might have suffered from hearing problems or tonsillitis. With six distinctions, she passed her matriculation in 1938, winning a scholarship for university, the School Leaving Exhibition of £30 a year for three years, and £5 from her grandfather. Her father asked her to give the scholarship to a deserving refugee student.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin went to Newnham College, Cambridge, in 1938 and studied chemistry within the Natural Sciences Tripos. There she met the spectroscopist Bill Price, who worked with her as a laboratory demonstrator and who later became one of her senior colleagues at King's College London. In 1941, she was awarded second-class honours from her final exams. The distinction was accepted as a bachelor's degree in qualifications for employment. Cambridge began awarding titular BA and MA degrees to women from 1947, and the previous women graduates retroactively received these. In her last year at Cambridge, she met a French refugee Adrienne Weill, a former student of Marie Curie, who had a huge influence on her life and career and who helped her to improve her conversational French.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin was awarded a research fellowship at Newnham College, with which she joined the physical chemistry laboratory of the University of Cambridge to work under Ronald George Wreyford Norrish, who later won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In her one year of work there, she did not have much success. As described by his biographer, Norrish was "obstinate and almost perverse in argument, overbearing and sensitive to criticism". He could not decide upon the assignment of work for her. At that time he was succumbing to heavy drinking. Franklin wrote that he made her despise him completely. Resigning from Norrish's Lab, she fulfilled the requirements of the National Service Acts by working as an assistant research officer at the British Coal Utilisation Research Association (BCURA) in 1942. The BCURA was located on the Coombe Springs Estate near Kingston upon Thames near the southwestern boundary of London. Norrish acted as advisor to the military at BCURA. John G. Bennett was the director. Marcello Pirani and Victor Goldschmidt, both refugees from the Nazis, were consultants and lectured at BCURA while Franklin worked there. During her BCURA research, she initially stayed at Adrienne Weill's boarding house in Cambridge until her cousin, Irene Franklin, proposed that they share living quarters at a vacated house in Putney that belonged to her uncle. With Irene, she volunteered as an Air Raid Warden and regularly made patrols to see the welfare of people during air raids.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She studied the porosity of coal using helium to determine its density. Through this, she discovered the relationship between the fine constrictions in the pores of coals and the permeability of the porous space. By concluding that substances were expelled in order of molecular size as temperature increased, she helped classify coals and accurately predict their performance for fuel purposes and for production of wartime devices such as gas masks. This work was the basis of her PhD thesis "The physical chemistry of solid organic colloids with special reference to coal" for which the University of Cambridge awarded her a PhD in 1945. It was also the basis of several papers.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: With World War II ending in 1945, Franklin asked Adrienne Weill for help and to let her know of job openings for "a physical chemist who knows very little physical chemistry, but quite a lot about the holes in coal." At a conference in the autumn of 1946, Weill introduced her to Marcel Mathieu, a director of the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), the network of institutes that comprises the major part of the scientific research laboratories supported by the French government. This led to her appointment with Jacques Mering at the Laboratoire Central des Services Chimiques de l'État in Paris. She joined the "labo" (as referred to by the staff) of Mering on 14 February 1947 as one of the fifteen "chercheurs" (researchers).


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Mering was an X-ray crystallographer who applied X-ray diffraction to the study of rayon and other amorphous substances, in contrast to the thousands of regular crystals that had been studied by this method for many years. He taught her the practical aspects of applying X-ray crystallography to amorphous substances. This presented new challenges in the conduct of experiments and the interpretation of results. Franklin applied them to further problems related to coal and to other carbonaceous materials, in particular the changes to the arrangement of atoms when these are converted to graphite. She published several further papers on this work which has become part of the mainstream of the physics and chemistry of coal and carbon. She coined the terms graphitising and non-graphitising carbon. The coal work was covered in a 1993 monograph, and in the regularly-published textbook "Chemistry and Physics of Carbon". Mering continued the study of carbon in various forms, using X-ray diffraction and other methods.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In 1950, Franklin was granted a three-year Turner & Newall Fellowship to work at King's College London. In January 1951, she started working as a research associate in the Medical Research Council's (MRC) Biophysics Unit, directed by John Randall. She was originally appointed to work on X-ray diffraction of proteins and lipids in solution, but Randall redirected her work to DNA fibres because of new developments in the field, and she was to be the only experienced experimental diffraction researcher at King's at the time. Randall made this reassignment, even before Franklin started working at King's, because of the pioneering work by DNA researcher Maurice Wilkins, and he reassigned Raymond Gosling, the graduate student who had been working with Wilkins, to be her assistant.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In 1950, Swiss chemist Rudolf Signer in Berne prepared a highly purified DNA sample from calf thymus. He freely distributed the DNA sample, later referred to as the Signer DNA, in early May 1950 at the meeting of the Faraday Society in London, and Wilkins was one of the recipients. Even using crude equipment, Wilkins and Gosling had obtained a good-quality diffraction picture of the DNA sample which sparked further interest in this molecule. But Randall had not indicated to them that he had asked Franklin to take over both the DNA diffraction work and guidance of Gosling's thesis. It was while Wilkins was away on holiday that Randall, in a letter in December 1950, assured Franklin that "as far as the experimental X-ray effort there would be for the moment only yourself and Gosling." Randall's lack of communication about this reassignment significantly contributed to the well documented friction that developed between Wilkins and Franklin. When Wilkins returned, he handed over the Signer DNA and Gosling to Franklin.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin, now working with Gosling, started to apply her expertise in X-ray diffraction techniques to the structure of DNA. She used a new fine-focus X-ray tube and microcamera ordered by Wilkins, but which she refined, adjusted and focused carefully. Drawing upon her physical chemistry background, a critical innovation she applied was making the camera chamber that could be controlled for its humidity using different saturated salt solutions. When Wilkins enquired about this improved technique, she replied in terms which offended him as she had "an air of cool superiority".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's habit of intensely looking people in the eye while being concise, impatient and direct unnerved many of her colleagues. In stark contrast, Wilkins was very shy, and slowly calculating in speech while he avoided looking anyone directly in the eye. With the ingenious humidity-controlling camera, Franklin was soon able to produce X-ray images of better quality than those of Wilkins. She immediately discovered that the DNA sample could exist in two forms: at a relative humidity higher than 75%, the DNA fibre became long and thin; when it was drier, it became short and fat. She originally referred to the former as "wet" and the latter as "crystalline."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: On the structure of the crystalline DNA, Franklin first recorded the analysis in her notebook, which reads: "Evidence for spiral [meaning helical] structure. Straight chain untwisted is highly improbable. Absence of reflections on meridian in χtalline [crystalline] form suggests spiral structure." An immediate discovery from this was that the phosphate group lies outside of the main DNA chain; she however could not make out whether there could be two or three chains. She presented their data at a lecture in November 1951, in King's College London. In her lecture notes, she wrote the following:The results suggest a helical structure (which must be very closely packed) containing 2, 3 or 4 co-axial nucleic acid chains per helical unit, and having the phosphate groups near the outside.Franklin then named "A" and "B" respectively for the "crystalline" and "wet" forms. (The biological functions of A-DNA were discovered only 60 years later.) Because of the intense personality conflict developing between Franklin and Wilkins, Randall divided the work on DNA. Franklin chose the data rich "A" form while Wilkins selected the "B" form.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: By the end of 1951 it became generally accepted at King's that the B-DNA was a helix, but after she had recorded an asymmetrical image in May 1952, Franklin became unconvinced that the A-DNA was a helix. In July 1952, as a practical joke on Wilkins (who frequently expressed his view that both forms of DNA were helical), Franklin and Gosling produced a funeral notice regretting the 'death' of helical A-DNA, which runs:It is with great regret that we have to announce the death, on Friday 18th July 1952 of DNA helix (crystalline). Death followed a protracted illness which an intensive course of Besselised [referring to Bessel function that was used to analyse the X-ray diffraction patterns] injections had failed to relieve. A memorial service will be held next Monday or Tuesday. It is hoped that Dr M H F Wilkins will speak in memory of the late helix. [Signed Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling.]During 1952, they worked at applying the Patterson function to the X-ray pictures of DNA they had produced. This was a long and labour-intensive approach but would yield significant insight into the structure of the molecule. Franklin was fully committed to experimental data and was sternly against theoretical or model buildings, as she said, "We are not going to speculate, we are going to wait, we are going to let the spots on this photograph tell us what the [DNA] structure is." The X-ray diffraction pictures, including the landmark "Photo 51" taken by Gosling at this time, have been called by John Desmond Bernal as "amongst the most beautiful X-ray photographs of any substance ever taken".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: By January 1953, Franklin had reconciled her conflicting data, concluding that both DNA forms had two helices, and had started to write a series of three draft manuscripts, two of which included a double helical DNA backbone (see below). Her two A-DNA manuscripts reached "Acta Crystallographica" in Copenhagen on 6 March 1953, one day before Crick and Watson had completed their model on B-DNA. She must have mailed them while the Cambridge team was building their model, and certainly had written them before she knew of their work. On 8 July 1953 she modified one of these "in proof" "Acta" articles, "in light of recent work" by the King's and Cambridge research teams.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: The third draft paper was on the B-DNA, dated 17 March 1953, which was discovered years later amongst her papers, by Franklin's Birkbeck colleague, Aaron Klug. He then published in 1974 an evaluation of the draft's close correlation with the third of the original trio of 25 April 1953 "Nature" DNA articles. Klug designed this paper to complement the first article he had written in 1968 defending Franklin's significant contribution to DNA structure. He had written this first article in response to the incomplete picture of Franklin's work depicted in James Watson's 1968 memoir, "The Double Helix".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: As vividly described by Watson, he travelled to King's on 30 January 1953 carrying a preprint of Linus Pauling's incorrect proposal for DNA structure. Since Wilkins was not in his office, Watson went to Franklin's lab with his urgent message that they should all collaborate before Pauling discovered his error. The unimpressed Franklin became angry when Watson suggested she did not know how to interpret her own data. Watson hastily retreated, backing into Wilkins who had been attracted by the commotion. Wilkins commiserated with his harried friend and then showed Watson Franklin's DNA X-ray image. Watson, in turn, showed Wilkins a prepublication manuscript by Pauling and Robert Corey, which contained a DNA structure remarkably like their first incorrect model.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In February 1953, James Watson and Francis Crick of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University had started to build a molecular model of the B-DNA using data similar to that available to both teams at King's. Based on Franklin's lecture in November 1951 that DNA was helical with either two or three stands, they constructed a triple helix model, which was immediately proven to be flawed. Franklin's research was completed by February 1953, ahead of her move to Birkbeck, and her data was critical. Model building had been applied successfully in the elucidation of the structure of the alpha helix by Linus Pauling in 1951, but Franklin was opposed to prematurely building theoretical models, until sufficient data were obtained to properly guide the model building. She took the view that building a model was to be undertaken only after enough of the structure was known. Her conviction was justified by the fact that Pauling and Corey also came up in the late 1952 (published in February 1953) with an erroneous triple helix model.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Ever cautious, she wanted to eliminate misleading possibilities. Photographs of her Birkbeck work table show that she routinely used small molecular models, although certainly not ones on the grand scale successfully used at Cambridge for DNA. In the middle of February 1953, Crick's thesis advisor, Max Perutz, gave Crick a copy of a report written for a Medical Research Council biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952, containing many of Franklin's crystallographic calculations.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Since Franklin had decided to transfer to Birkbeck College and Randall had insisted that all DNA work must stay at King's, Wilkins was given copies of Franklin's diffraction photographs by Gosling. By 28 February 1953, Watson and Crick felt they had solved the problem enough for Crick to proclaim (in the local pub) that they had "found the secret of life". However, they knew they must complete their model before they could be certain.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Watson and Crick finished building their model on 7 March 1953, one day before they received a letter from Wilkins stating that Franklin was finally leaving and they could put "all hands to the pump". This was also one day after Franklin's two A-DNA papers had reached "Acta Crystallographica". Wilkins came to see the model the following week, according to Franklin's biographer Brenda Maddox, on 12 March, and allegedly informed Gosling on his return to King's.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: One of the most critical and overlooked moments in DNA research was how and when Franklin realised and conceded that B-DNA was a double helical molecule. When Klug first examined Franklin's documents after her death, he initially came to an impression that Franklin was not convinced of the double helical nature until the knowledge of the Cambridge model. But he later discovered the original draft of the manuscript (dated 17 March 1953) from which it became clear that Franklin had already resolved the correct structure. The news of Watson–Crick model reached King's the next day, 18 March, suggesting that Franklin would have learned of it much later since she had moved to Birkbeck. Further scrutiny of her notebook revealed that Franklin had already thought of the helical structure for B-DNA in February 1953 but was not sure of the number of strands, as she wrote: "Evidence for 2-chain (or 1-chain helix)." Her conclusion on the helical nature was evident, though she failed to understand the complete organisation of the DNA strands as the possibility two strands running in opposite directions did not occur to her.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Towards the end of February she began to work out the indications of double strands, as she noted: "Structure B does not fit single helical theory, even for low layer-lines." It soon dawned to her that the B-DNA and A-DNA were structurally similar, and perceived A-DNA as an "unwound version" of B-DNA. She and Gosling wrote a five-paged manuscript on 17 March titled "A Note on Molecular Configuration of Sodium Thymonucleate." After the Watson–Crick model was known, there appeared to be only one (hand-written) modification after the typeset at the end of the text which states that their data was consistent with the model, and appeared as such in the trio of 25 April 1953 "Nature" articles; the other modification being a deletion of "A Note on" from the title.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Weeks later, on 10 April, Franklin wrote to Crick for permission to see their model. Franklin retained her scepticism for premature model building even after seeing the Watson–Crick model, and remained unimpressed. She is reported to have commented, "It's very pretty, but how are they going to prove it?" As an experimental scientist, Franklin seems to have been interested in producing far greater evidence before publishing-as-proven a proposed model. Accordingly, her response to the Watson–Crick model was in keeping with her cautious approach to science.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Crick and Watson then published their model in "Nature" on 25 April 1953, in an article describing the double-helical structure of DNA with only a footnote acknowledging "having been stimulated by a general knowledge of Franklin and Wilkins' ‘unpublished’ contribution.” Actually, although it was the bare minimum, they had just enough specific knowledge of Franklin and Gosling's data upon which to base their model. As a result of a deal struck by the two laboratory directors, articles by Wilkins and Franklin, which included their X-ray diffraction data, were modified and then published second and third in the same issue of "Nature", seemingly only in support of the Crick and Watson theoretical paper which proposed a model for the B-DNA. Most of the scientific community hesitated several years before accepting the double helix proposal. At first mainly geneticists embraced the model because of its obvious genetic implications.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin left King's College London in mid-March 1953 for Birkbeck College, in a move that had been planned for some time and that she described (in a letter to Adrienne Weill in Paris) as "moving from a palace to the slums ... but pleasanter all the same". She was recruited by physics department chair John Desmond Bernal, a crystallographer who was a communist, known for promoting female crystallographers. Her new laboratories were housed in 21 Torrington Square, one of a pair of dilapidated and cramped Georgian houses containing several different departments; Franklin frequently took Bernal to task over the careless attitudes of some of the other laboratory staff, notably after workers in the pharmacy department flooded her first-floor laboratory with water on one occasion.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Despite the parting words of Bernal to stop her interest in nucleic acids, she helped Gosling to finish his thesis, although she was no longer his official supervisor. Together they published the first evidence of double helix in the A form of DNA in the 25 July issue of "Nature". At the end of 1954, Bernal secured funding for Franklin from the Agricultural Research Council (ARC), which enabled her to work as a senior scientist supervising her own research group. John Finch, a physics student from King's College London, subsequently joined Franklin's group, followed by Kenneth Holmes, a Cambridge graduate, in July 1955. Despite the ARC funding, Franklin wrote to Bernal that the existing facilities remained highly unsuited for conducting research "...my desk and lab are on the fourth floor, my X-ray tube in the basement, and I am responsible for the work of four people distributed over the basement, first and second floors on two different staircases."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin continued to explore another major nucleic acid, RNA, a molecule equally central to life as DNA. She again used X-ray crystallography to study the structure of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), an RNA virus. Her meeting with Aaron Klug in early 1954 led to a longstanding and successful collaboration. Klug had just then earned his PhD from Trinity College, Cambridge, and joined Birkbeck in late 1953. In 1955 Franklin published her first major works on TMV in "Nature", in which she described that all TMV virus particles were of the same length. This was in direct contradiction to the ideas of the eminent virologist Norman Pirie, though her observation ultimately proved correct.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin assigned the study of the complete structure of TMV to her PhD student Holmes. They soon discovered (published in 1956) that the covering of TMV was protein molecules arranged in helices. Her colleague Klug worked on spherical viruses with his student Finch, with Franklin coordinating and overseeing the work. As a team, from 1956 they started publishing seminal works on TMV, cucumber virus 4 and turnip yellow mosaic virus.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin also had a research assistant, James Watt, subsidised by the National Coal Board and was now the leader of the ARC group at Birkbeck. The Birkbeck team members continued working on RNA viruses affecting several plants, including potato, turnip, tomato and pea. In 1955 the team was joined by an American post-doctoral student Donald Caspar. He worked on the precise location of RNA molecules in TMV. In 1956 he and Franklin published individual but complementary papers in the 10 March issue of "Nature", in which they showed that the RNA in TMV is wound along the inner surface of the hollow virus. Caspar was not an enthusiastic writer, and Franklin had to write the entire manuscript for him.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Her research grant from ARC expired at the end of 1957, and she was never given the full salary proposed by Birkbeck. After Bernal requested ARC chairman Lord Rothschild, she was given a one-year extension ending in March 1958.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Expo 58, the first major international fair after World War II, was to be held in Brussels in 1958. Franklin was invited to make a five-foot high model of TMV, which she started in 1957. Her materials included table tennis balls and plastic bicycle handlebar grips. The Brussels world's fair, with an exhibit of her virus model at the International Science Pavilion, opened on 17 April, one day after she died.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In 1956, Franklin visited the University of California, Berkeley, where colleagues suggested her group research the polio virus. In 1957 she applied for a grant from the United States Public Health Service of the National Institutes of Health, which approved £10,000 (equivalent to £ in ) for three years, the largest fund ever received at Birkbeck. In her grant application, Franklin mentioned her new interest in animal virus research. She obtained Bernal's consent in July 1957, though serious concerns were raised after she disclosed her intentions to research live, instead of killed, polio virus at Birkbeck. Eventually, Bernal arranged for the virus to be safely stored at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine during the group's research. With her group, Franklin then commenced deciphering the structure of the polio virus while it was in a crystalline state. She attempted to mount the virus crystals in capillary tubes for X-ray studies, but was forced to end her work due to her rapidly failing health.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: After Franklin's death, Klug succeeded her as group leader, and he, Finch and Holmes continued researching the structure of the polio virus. They eventually succeeded in obtaining extremely detailed X-ray images of the virus. In June 1959, Klug and Finch published the group's findings, revealing the polio virus to have icosahedral symmetry, and in the same paper suggested the possibility for all spherical viruses to possess the same symmetry, as it permitted the greatest possible number (60) of identical structural units. The team moved to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, in 1962, and the old Torrington Square laboratories were demolished four years later, in May 1966.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin was best described as an agnostic. Her lack of religious faith apparently did not stem from anyone's influence, rather from her own line of thinking. She developed her scepticism as a young child. Her mother recalled that she refused to believe in the existence of God, and remarked, "Well, anyhow, how do you know He isn't She?" She later made her position clear, now based on her scientific experience, and wrote to her father in 1940:


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: However, she did not abandon Jewish traditions. As the only Jewish student at Lindores School, she had Hebrew lessons on her own while her friends went to church. She joined the Jewish Society while in her first term at Cambridge, out of respect of her grandfather's request. Franklin confided to her sister that she was "always consciously a Jew".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin loved travelling abroad, particularly trekking. She first "qualified" at Christmas 1929 for a vacation at Menton, France, where her grandfather went to escape the English winter. Her family frequently spent vacations in Wales or Cornwall. A trip to France in 1938 gave her a lasting love for France and its language. She considered the French lifestyle at that time as "vastly superior to that of English". In contrast, she described English people as having "vacant stupid faces and childlike complacency". Her family was almost stuck in Norway in 1939, as World War II was declared on their way home. In another instance, she trekked the French Alps with Jean Kerslake in 1946, which almost cost her her life. She slipped off a slope, and was barely rescued. But she wrote to her mother, "I am quite sure I could wander happily in France forever. I love the people, the country and the food."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She made several professional trips to the United States, and was particularly jovial among her American friends and constantly displayed her sense of humour. William Ginoza of the University of California, Los Angeles, later recalled that she was the opposite of Watson's description of her, and as Maddox comments, Americans enjoyed her "sunny side".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In his book "The Double Helix", Watson provides his first-person account of the search for and discovery of DNA. He paints a sympathetic but sometimes critical portrait of Franklin. He praises her intellect and scientific acumen, but portrays her as difficult to work with and careless with her appearance. After introducing her in the book as "Rosalind", he writes that he and his male colleagues usually referred to her as "Rosy", the name people at King's College London used behind her back. She did not want to be called by that name because she had a great-aunt Rosy. In the family, she was called "Ros". To others, she was simply "Rosalind". She made it clear to an American visiting friend, Dorothea Raacke, while sitting with her at Crick's table in The Eagle pub in Cambridge: Raacke asked her how she was to be called and she replied "I'm afraid it will have to be Rosalind", adding "Most definitely not "Rosy"."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She often expressed her political views. She initially blamed Winston Churchill for inciting the war, but later admired him for his speeches. She actively supported Professor John Ryle as an independent candidate for parliament in the 1940 Cambridge University by-election, but he was unsuccessful.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She did not seem to have an intimate relationship with anyone, and always kept her deepest personal feelings to herself. After her younger days, she avoided close friendship with the opposite sex. In her later years, Evi Ellis, who had shared her bedroom when a child refugee and who was then married to Ernst Wohlgemuth and had moved to Notting Hill from Chicago, tried matchmaking her with Ralph Miliband but failed. Franklin once told Evi that her flatmate asked her for a drink, but she did not understand the intention. She was quite infatuated by her French mentor Mering, who had a wife and a mistress. Mering also admitted that he was captivated by her "intelligence and beauty". According to Anne Sayre, Franklin did confess her feeling for Mering when she was undergoing a second surgery, but Maddox reported that the family denied this. Mering wept when he visited her later, and destroyed all her letters after her death.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Her closest personal affair was probably with her once post-doctoral student Donald Caspar. In 1956, she visited him at his home in Colorado after her tour to University of California, Berkeley, and she was known to remark later that Caspar was one "she might have loved, might have married". In her letter to Sayre, she described him as "an ideal match".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In mid-1956, while on a work-related trip to the United States, Franklin first began to suspect a health problem. While in New York she found difficulty in zipping her skirt; her stomach had bulged. Back in London she consulted Mair Livingstone, who asked her, "You're not pregnant?" to which she retorted, "I wish I were." Her case was marked "URGENT". An operation on 4 September of the same year revealed two tumours in her abdomen. After this period and other periods of hospitalisation, Franklin spent time convalescing with various friends and family members. These included Anne Sayre, Francis Crick, his wife Odile, with whom Franklin had formed a strong friendship, and finally with the Roland and Nina Franklin family where Rosalind's nieces and nephews bolstered her spirits.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin chose not to stay with her parents because her mother's uncontrollable grief and crying upset her too much. Even while undergoing cancer treatment, Franklin continued to work, and her group continued to produce results – seven papers in 1956 and six more in 1957. At the end of 1957, Franklin again fell ill and she was admitted to the Royal Marsden Hospital. On 2 December, she made her will. She named her three brothers as executors and made her colleague Aaron Klug the principal beneficiary, who would receive £3,000 and her Austin car. Of her other friends, Mair Livingstone would get £2,000, Anne Piper £1,000, and her nurse Miss Griffith £250. The remainder of the estate was to be used for charities.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: She returned to work in January 1958, and was also given a promotion to Research Associate in Biophysics on 25 February. She fell ill again on 30 March, and she died on 16 April 1958, in Chelsea, London, of bronchopneumonia, secondary carcinomatosis, and ovarian cancer. Exposure to X-ray radiation is sometimes considered to be a possible factor in her illness.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Other members of her family have died of cancer, and the incidence of gynaecological cancer is known to be disproportionately high among Ashkenazi Jews. Her death certificate states: "A Research Scientist, Spinster, Daughter of Ellis Arthur Franklin, a Banker." She was interred on 17 April 1958 in the family plot at Willesden United Synagogue Cemetery at Beaconsfield Road in London Borough of Brent. The inscription on her tombstone reads:


title: Rosalind Franklin

text:
IN MEMORY OF
 ROSALIND ELSIE FRANKLIN
 מ' רחל בת ר' יהודה [Rochel/Rachel daughter of Yehuda, her father's Hebrew name]
 DEARLY LOVED ELDER DAUGHTER OF
 ELLIS AND MURIEL FRANKLIN
 25 JULY 1920 – 16 APRIL 1958
 SCIENTIST
 HER RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES ON
 VIRUSES REMAIN OF LASTING BENEFIT
 TO MANKIND
 ת נ צ ב ה [Hebrew initials for "her soul shall be bound in the bundle of life"]


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's will was proven on 30 June, with her estate assessed for probate at £11,278 10s. 9d. (equivalent to £ in ).


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Anne Sayre, Franklin's friend and one of her biographers, says in her 1975 book, "Rosalind Franklin and DNA: " "In 1951 ... King's College London as an institution, was not distinguished for the welcome that it offered to women ... Rosalind ... was unused to "purdah" [a religious and social institution of female seclusion] ... there was one other female on the laboratory staff". The molecular biologist Andrzej Stasiak notes: "Sayre's book became widely cited in feminist circles for exposing rampant sexism in science." Farooq Hussain says: "there were seven women in the biophysics department ... Jean Hanson became an FRS, Dame Honor B. Fell, Director of Strangeways Laboratory, supervised the biologists". Maddox states: "Randall ... did have many women on his staff ... they found him ... sympathetic and helpful."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Sayre asserts that "while the male staff at King's lunched in a large, comfortable, rather clubby dining room" the female staff of all ranks "lunched in the student's hall or away from the premises". However, Elkin claims that most of the MRC group (including Franklin) typically ate lunch together in the mixed dining room discussed below. And Maddox says, of Randall: "He liked to see his flock, men and women, come together for morning coffee, and at lunch in the joint dining room, where he ate with them nearly every day." Francis Crick also commented that "her colleagues treated men and women scientists alike".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Sayre also discusses at length Franklin's struggle in pursuing science, particularly her father's concern about women in academic professions. This account had led to accusations of sexism in regard to Ellis Franklin's attitude to his daughter. A good deal of information explicitly claims that he strongly opposed her entering Newnham College. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) biography of Franklin goes further, stating that he refused to pay her fees, and that an aunt stepped in to do that for her. Her sister, Jenifer Glynn, has stated that those stories are myths, and that her parents fully supported Franklin's entire career.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Sexism is said to pervade the memoir of one peer, James Watson, in his book "The Double Helix", published 10 years after Franklin's death and after Watson had returned from Cambridge to Harvard. His Cambridge colleague, Peter Pauling, wrote in a letter, "Morris ["sic"] Wilkins is supposed to be doing this work; Miss Franklin is evidently a fool." Crick acknowledges later, "I'm afraid we always used to adopt – let's say, a "patronizing" attitude towards her."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Glynn accuses Sayre of erroneously making her sister a feminist heroine, and sees Watson's "The Double Helix" as the root of what she calls the "Rosalind Industry". She conjectures that the stories of alleged sexism would "have embarrassed her [Rosalind Franklin] almost as much as Watson's account would have upset her", and declared that "she [Rosalind] was never a feminist." Klug and Crick have also concurred that Franklin was definitely not a feminist.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's letter to her parents in January 1939 is often taken as reflecting her own prejudiced attitude, and the claim that she was "not immune to the sexism rampant in these circles". In the letter, she remarked that one lecturer was "very good, though female". Maddox maintains that was a circumstantial comment rather than an example of gender bias, and that it was a expression of admiration because, at the time, woman teachers of science were a rarity. In fact, Maddox says, Franklin laughed at men who were embarrassed by the appointment of the first female professor, Dorothy Garrod.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Rosalind Franklin's first important contributions to the model popularised by Crick and Watson was her lecture at the seminar in November 1951, where she presented to those present, among them Watson, the two forms of the molecule, type A and type B, her position being that the phosphate units are located in the external part of the molecule. She also specified the amount of water to be found in the molecule in accordance with other parts of it, data that have considerable importance for the stability of the molecule. Franklin was the first to discover and formulate these facts, which in fact constituted the basis for all later attempts to build a model of the molecule. However, Watson, at the time ignorant of the chemistry, failed to comprehend the crucial information, and this led to the construction of a wrong three-helical model.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: The other contribution included an X-ray photograph of B-DNA (called "Photo 51") taken by Franklin's student Gosling that was briefly shown to Watson by Wilkins in January 1953, and a report written for an MRC biophysics committee visit to King's in December 1952 which was shown by Perutz at the Cavendish Laboratory to both Crick and Watson. This MRC report contained data from the King's group, including some of Franklin's and Gosling's work, and was given to Crick – who was working on his thesis on haemoglobin structure – by his thesis supervisor Perutz, a member of the visiting committee.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Sayre's biography of Franklin contains a story alleging that the photograph 51 in question was shown to Watson by Wilkins without Franklin's permission, and that this constituted a case of bad science ethics. Others dispute this story, asserting that Wilkins had been given photograph 51 by Franklin's PhD student Gosling because she was leaving King's to work at Birkbeck, and there was allegedly nothing untoward in this transfer of data to Wilkins because Director Randall had insisted that all DNA work belonged exclusively to King's and had instructed Franklin in a letter to even stop working on it and submit her data. Also, it was implied by Horace Freeland Judson, that Maurice Wilkins had taken the photograph out of Franklin's drawer, but this is also said to be incorrect.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Likewise, Perutz saw "no harm" in showing an MRC report containing the conclusions of Franklin and Gosling's X-ray data analysis to Crick, since it had not been marked as confidential, although "The report was not expected to reach outside eyes". Indeed, after the publication of Watson's "The Double Helix" exposed Perutz's act, he received so many letters questioning his judgment that he felt the need to both answer them all and to post a general statement in "Science" excusing himself on the basis of being "inexperienced and casual in administrative matters".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Perutz also claimed that the MRC information was already made available to the Cambridge team when Watson had attended Franklin's seminar in November 1951. A preliminary version of much of the important material contained in the 1952 December MRC report had been presented by Franklin in a talk she had given in November 1951, which Watson had attended but not understood.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: The Perutz letter was as said one of three letters, published with letters by Wilkins and Watson, which discussed their various contributions. Watson clarified the importance of the data obtained from the MRC report as he had not recorded these data while attending Franklin's lecture in 1951. The upshot of all this was that when Crick and Watson started to build their model in February 1953 they were working with critical parameters that had been determined by Franklin in 1951, and which she and Gosling had significantly refined in 1952, as well as with published data and other very similar data to those available at King's. It was generally believed that Franklin was never aware that her work had been used during construction of the model, but Gosling asserted in his 2013 interview that, "Yes. Oh, she did know about that."


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Upon the completion of their model, Crick and Watson had invited Wilkins to be a co-author of their paper describing the structure. Wilkins turned down this offer, as he had taken no part in building the model. He later expressed regret that greater discussion of co-authorship had not taken place as this might have helped to clarify the contribution the work at King's had made to the discovery. There is no doubt that Franklin's experimental data were used by Crick and Watson to build their model of DNA in 1953. Some, including Maddox, have explained this citation omission by suggesting that it may be a question of circumstance, because it would have been very difficult to cite the unpublished work from the MRC report they had seen.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Indeed, a clear timely acknowledgment would have been awkward, given the unorthodox manner in which data were transferred from King's to Cambridge. However, methods were available. Watson and Crick could have cited the MRC report as a personal communication or else cited the "Acta "articles in press, or most easily, the third "Nature" paper that they knew was in press. One of the most important accomplishments of Maddox's widely acclaimed biography is that Maddox made a well-received case for inadequate acknowledgement. "Such acknowledgement as they gave her was very muted and always coupled with the name of Wilkins".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Fifteen years after the fact, the first clear recitation of Franklin's contribution appeared as it permeated Watson's account, "The Double Helix", although it was buried under descriptions of Watson's (often quite negative) regard towards Franklin during the period of their work on DNA. This attitude is epitomized in the confrontation between Watson and Franklin over a preprint of Pauling's mistaken DNA manuscript. Watson's words impelled Sayre to write her rebuttal, in which the entire chapter nine, "Winner Take All" has the structure of a legal brief dissecting and analyzing the topic of acknowledgement.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Sayre's early analysis was often ignored because of perceived feminist overtones in her book. Watson and Crick did not cite the X-ray diffraction work of Wilkins and Franklin in their original paper, though they admit having "been stimulated by a knowledge of the general nature of the unpublished experimental results and ideas of Dr. M. H. F. Wilkins, Dr. R. E. Franklin and their co-workers at King's College London". In fact, Watson and Crick cited no experimental data at all in support of their model. Franklin and Gosling's publication of the DNA X-ray image, in the same issue of "Nature", served as the principal evidence:Thus our general ideas are not inconsistent with the model proposed by Watson and Crick in the preceding communication.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin was never nominated for a Nobel Prize. Her work was a crucial part in the discovery of DNA's structure, which along with subsequent related work led to Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins being awarded a Nobel Prize in 1962. She had died in 1958, and during her lifetime the DNA structure was not considered to be fully proven. It took Wilkins and his colleagues about seven years to collect enough data to prove and refine the proposed DNA structure. Moreover, its biological significance, as proposed by Watson and Crick, was not established. General acceptance for the DNA double helix and its function did not start until late in the 1950s, leading to Nobel nominations in 1960, 1961, and 1962 for Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and in 1962 for Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The first breakthrough was from Matthew Meselson and Franklin Stahl in 1958, who experimentally showed the DNA replication of a bacterium "Escherichia coli". In what is now known as the Meselson–Stahl experiment, DNA was found to replicate into two double-stranded helices, with each helix having one of the original DNA strands. This DNA replication was firmly established by 1961 after further demonstration in other species, and of the stepwise chemical reaction. According to the 1961 Crick–Monod letter, this experimental proof, along with Wilkins having initiated the DNA diffraction work, were the reasons why Crick felt that Wilkins should be included in the DNA Nobel Prize.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: In 1962 the Nobel Prize was subsequently awarded to Crick, Watson, and Wilkins. Nobel rules now prohibit posthumous nominations (though this statute was not formally in effect until 1974) or splitting of Prizes more than three ways. The award was for their body of work on nucleic acids and not exclusively for the discovery of the structure of DNA. By the time of the award Wilkins had been working on the structure of DNA for more than 10 years, and had done much to confirm the Watson–Crick model. Crick had been working on the genetic code at Cambridge and Watson had worked on RNA for some years. Watson has suggested that ideally Wilkins and Franklin would have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Pauling, who received the Nobel Peace Prize that year, believed and earlier warned the Nobel Committee in 1960 that "it might well be premature to make an award of a Prize to Watson and Crick, because of existing uncertainty about the detailed structure of nucleic acid. I myself feel that it is likely that the general nature of the Watson-Crick structure is correct, but that there is doubt about details." He was partly right as an alternative of Watson-Crick base pairing, called the Hoogsteen base pairing that can form triple DNA strand, was discovered by Karst Hoogsteen in 1963.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Aaron Klug, Franklin's colleague and principal beneficiary in her will, was the sole winner of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1982, "for his development of crystallographic electron microscopy and his structural elucidation of biologically important nucleic acid-protein complexes". This work was exactly what Franklin had started and which she introduced to Klug, and it is highly plausible that, were she alive, she would have shared the Nobel Prize.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin's part in the discovery of the nature of DNA was shown in the 1987 TV Movie "Life Story", starring Juliet Stevenson as Franklin, and with Tim Pigott-Smith as Crick, Alan Howard as Wilkins and Jeff Goldblum as Watson. This movie portrayed Franklin as somewhat stern, but also alleged that Watson and Crick did use a lot of her work to do theirs.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: A 56-minute documentary of the life and scientific contributions of Franklin, "DNA – Secret of Photo 51", was broadcast in 2003 on PBS "Nova". Narrated by Barbara Flynn, the program features interviews with Wilkins, Gosling, Klug, Maddox, including Franklin's friends Vittorio Luzzati, Caspar, Anne Piper, and Sue Richley. The UK version produced by BBC is titled "Rosalind Franklin: DNA's Dark Lady".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: The first episode of another PBS documentary serial, "DNA", was aired on 4 January 2004. The episode titled "The Secret of Life" centres much around the contributions of Franklin. Narrated by Jeff Goldblum, it features Watson, Wilkins, Gosling and Peter Pauling (son of Linus Pauling).


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: A play entitled "Rosalind: A Question of Life" was written by Deborah Gearing to mark the work of Franklin, and was first performed on 1 November 2005 at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, and published by Oberon Books in 2006.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Another play, "Photograph 51" by Anna Ziegler, published in 2011, has been produced at several places in the US and in late 2015 was put on at the Noel Coward Theatre, London, with Nicole Kidman playing Franklin. Ziegler's version of the 1951–53 'race' for the structure of DNA sometimes emphasizes the pivotal role of Franklin's research and her personality. Although sometimes altering history for dramatic effect, the play nevertheless illuminates many of the key issues of how science was and is conducted.


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: "False Assumptions" by Lawrence Aronovitch is a play about the life of Marie Curie in which Franklin is portrayed as frustrated and angry at the lack of recognition for her scientific contributions. Hostility between the two is also depicted in season 3 of "Harvey Girls Forever".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Franklin was noted as "the chemist that actually discovered DNA" in episode three of the 2019 Netflix series "Daybreak".


title: Rosalind Franklin

text: Rosalind Franklin's most notable publications are listed below. The last two were published posthumously.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat (Suricata suricatta) or suricate is a small mongoose found in southern Africa. It is characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail, and a brindled coat pattern. The head-and-body length is around , and the weight is typically between . The coat is light grey to yellowish-brown with alternate, poorly-defined light and dark bands on the back. Meerkats have foreclaws adapted for digging and have the ability to thermoregulate to survive in their harsh, dry habitat. Three subspecies are recognised.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats are highly social, and form packs of two to 30 individuals each that occupy home ranges around in area. There is a social hierarchy—generally dominant individuals in a pack breed and produce offspring, and the nonbreeding, subordinate members provide altruistic care to the pups. Breeding occurs around the year, with peaks during heavy rainfall; after a gestation of 60 to 70 days, a litter of three to seven pups is born.


title: Meerkat

text: They live in rock crevices in stony, often calcareous areas, and in large burrow systems in plains. The burrow systems, typically in diameter with around 15 openings, are large underground networks consisting of two to three levels of tunnels. These tunnels are around high at the top and wider below, and extend up to into the ground. Burrows have moderated internal temperatures and provide a comfortable microclimate that protects meerkats in harsh weather and at extreme temperatures.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats are active during the day, mostly in the early morning and late afternoon; they remain continually alert and retreat to burrows when sensing danger. They use a broad variety of calls to communicate among one another for different purposes, for example to raise an alarm on sighting a predator. Primarily insectivorous, meerkats feed heavily on beetles and lepidopterans, arthropods, amphibians, small birds, reptiles, and plant material in their diet.


title: Meerkat

text: Commonly living in arid, open habitats with little woody vegetation, meerkats occur in southwestern Botswana, western and southern Namibia, northern and western South Africa; the range barely extends into southwestern Angola. With no significant threats to the population, the meerkat is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Meerkats are widely depicted in television, movies and other media.


title: Meerkat

text: The word 'meerkat' derives from the Dutch name for a kind of monkey, which in turn comes from the Old High German "mericazza", possibly as a combination of "meer" ('lake') and "kat" ('cat'). This may be related to the similar ("markat", or "monkey"), deriving from Sanskrit, though the Germanic origin of the word predates any known connections to India. The name was used for small mammals in South Africa from 1801 onward, possibly because the Dutch colonialists used the name in reference to many burrowing animals. The native South African name for the meerkat is 'suricate', possibly deriving from the , which in turn may have a Dutch origin. In Afrikaans the meerkat is called "graatjiemeerkat" or "stokstertmeerkat"; the term "mierkatte" or "meerkatte" can refer to both the meerkat and the yellow mongoose (). In colloquial Afrikaans "mier" means 'ant' and "kat" means 'cat', hence the name probably refers to the meerkat's association with termite mounds.


title: Meerkat

text: In 1776, Johann Christian Daniel von Schreber described a meerkat from the Cape of Good Hope, giving it the scientific name "Viverra suricatta". The generic name "Suricata" was proposed by Anselme Gaëtan Desmarest in 1804, who also described a zoological specimen from the Cape of Good Hope. The present scientific name "Suricata suricatta" was first used by Oldfield Thomas and Harold Schwann in 1905 when they described a specimen collected at Wakkerstroom. They suggested there were four local meerkat races in the Cape and Deelfontein, Grahamstown, Orange River Colony and southern Transvaal, and Klipfontein respectively. Several zoological specimens were described between the late 18th and 20th centuries, of which three are recognised as valid subspecies:


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkat fossils dating back to have been excavated in various locations in South Africa. A 2009 phylogenetic study of the family Herpestidae split into two lineages around the Early Miocene (25.4–18.2 mya)—eusocial and solitary mongooses. The meerkat belongs to the monophyletic eusocial mongoose clade along with several other African mongooses: "Crossarchus" (kusimanse), "Helogale" (dwarf mongoose), "Liberiictis" (Liberian mongoose) and "Mungos" (banded mongoose). The solitary mongoose lineage comprises two clades including species such as Meller's mongoose ("Rhynchogale melleri") and the yellow mongoose ("Cynictis penicillata"). The meerkat genetically diverged from the rest of the clade 22.6–15.6 mya. The phylogenetic relationships of the meerkat are depicted as follows:


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat is a small mongoose of slim build characterised by a broad head, large eyes, a pointed snout, long legs, a thin tapering tail and a brindled coat pattern. It is smaller than most other mongooses except the dwarf mongooses (genus "Helogale") and possibly "Galerella" species. The head-and-body length is around , and the weight has been recorded to be between without much variation between the sexes (though some dominant females can be heavier than the rest). The soft coat is light grey to yellowish brown with alternate, poorly-defined light and dark bands on the back. Individuals from the southern part of the range tend to be darker. The guard hairs, light at the base, have two dark rings and are tipped with black or silvery white; several such hairs aligned together give rise to the coat pattern. These hairs are typically between , but measure on the flanks. Its head is mostly white and the underparts are covered sparsely with dark reddish-brown fur, with the dark skin underneath showing through. The eyes, in sockets covering over 20% of the skull length, are capable of binocular vision. The slim, yellowish tail, unlike the bushy tails of many other mongooses, measures , and is tipped with black. Females have six nipples. The meerkat looks similar to two sympatric species—the banded and the yellow mongooses. The meerkat can be told apart from the banded mongoose by its smaller size, shorter tail and bigger eyes relative to the head; the yellow mongoose differs in having a bushy tail and lighter coat with an inner layer of yellow fur under the normal brown fur.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat has 36 teeth with the dental formula of . It is well adapted for digging, movement through tunnels and standing erect, though it is not as capable of running and climbing. The big, sharp and curved foreclaws (slightly longer than the hindclaws) are highly specialised among the feliforms, and enable the meerkat to dig efficiently. The black, crescent-like ears can be closed to prevent the entry of dirt and debris while digging. The tail is used to balance when standing upright. Digitigrade, the meerkat has four digits on each foot with thick pads underneath.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat has a specialised thermoregulation system that helps it survive in its harsh desert habitat. A study showed that its body temperature follows a diurnal rhythm, averaging during the day and at night. As the body temperature falls below the thermoneutral zone, determined to be , the heart rate and oxygen consumption plummet; perspiration increases sharply at temperatures above this range. Additionally, it has a basal metabolic rate remarkably lower than other carnivores, which helps in conserving water, surviving on lower amounts of food and decreasing heat output from metabolic processes. During winter, it balances heat loss by increasing the metabolic heat generation and other methods such as sunbathing.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat is a social mammal, forming packs of two to 30 individuals each comprising nearly equal numbers of either sex and multiple family units of pairs and their offspring. Members of a pack take turns at jobs such as looking after pups and keeping a lookout for predators. Meerkats are a cooperatively breeding species—typically the dominant 'breeders' in a pack produce offspring, and the nonbreeding, subordinate 'helpers' provide altruistic care for the pups. This division of labour is not as strictly defined as it is in specialised eusocial species, such as the breeder-worker distinction in ants. Moreover, meerkats have a clear dominance hierarchy with older individuals having a higher social status. A study showed that dominant individuals can contribute more to offspring care when fewer helpers were available; subordinate members increased their contributions if they could forage better.


title: Meerkat

text: Packs live in rock crevices in stony areas and in large burrow systems in plains. A pack generally occupies a home range, large on average but sometimes as big as , containing many burrows apart, of which some remain unused. A 2019 study showed that large burrows towards the centre of a range are preferred over smaller ones located near the periphery; this was especially the case with packs that had pups to raise. A pack may shift to another burrow if the dominant female has little success finding prey in an area. The area near the periphery of home ranges is scent marked mostly by the dominant individuals; there are communal latrines, large, close to the burrows. Packs can migrate collectively in search of food, to escape high predator pressure and during floods.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats are highly vigilant, and frequently survey their surroundings by turning their heads side to side; some individuals always stand sentry and look out for danger. Vocal communication is used frequently in different contexts; for instance repetitive, high-pitched barks are used to warn others of predators nearby. They will generally retreat to their burrows for safety, where they will remain until the danger is gone. They stick their heads out of burrows to check the area outside, still barking. Mobs of meerkats fiercely attack snakes that may come near them. Raptors such as bateleurs, martial eagles, tawny eagles, and pale chanting goshawks are major aerial predators; on the ground, meerkats may be threatened by bat-eared foxes, black-backed jackals, and Cape foxes.


title: Meerkat

text: Encounters between members of different packs are highly aggressive, leading to severe injuries and often deaths; 19% of meerkats die by conspecific violence, which is the highest recorded percentage among mammals. Females, often the heaviest ones, try to achieve dominance over the rest in many ways such as fierce competition or taking over from the leader of the pack. A study showed that females who grew faster were more likely to assert dominance, though males did not show such a trend. Males seeking dominance over groups tend to scent mark extensively and are not submissive; they often drive out older males in a group and take over the pack themselves. Subordinate individuals face difficulties in breeding successfully; for instance, dominant females often kill the litters of subordinate ones. As such, subordinate individuals might disperse to other packs to find mates during the breeding season. Some subordinate meerkats will even kill the pups of dominant members in order to improve their own offspring's position. It can take days for emigrants to secure entry into other packs, and they often face aversion from the members. Males typically succeed in joining existing groups; they often inspect other packs and their burrow systems in search of breeding opportunities. Many often team up in 'coalitions' for as long as two months and travel nearly a day on twisted paths. Dispersal appears to be less common in females, possibly because continuing to stay within a pack can eventually win them dominance over other members. Dispersed females travel longer than coalitions, and tend to start groups of their own or join other similar females; they aim for groups of emigrant males or those without a breeding female. Subordinate females, unlike subordinate males, might be ousted from their packs, especially in the latter part of the dominant female's pregnancy, though they may be allowed to return after the birth of the pups.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkat burrows are typically in diameter with around 15 openings, though one of dimensions with as many as 90 holes has been reported. These large underground networks comprise two to three levels of tunnels up to into the ground; the tunnels, around high at the top, become broader after descending around a metre. The entrances, in diameter, are created by digging at an angle of 40 degrees to the surface; the soil accumulated as a result can slightly increase the height of burrow sites. 'Boltholes' are used for a quick escape if dangers are detected. While constructing or renovating burrows meerkats will line up to form a continuous head-to-tail chain, break the soil into crumbs with their foreclaws, scoop it out with their forepaws joined and throw it behind them between their hindlegs.


title: Meerkat

text: Outside temperatures are not reflected at once within burrows; instead there is usually an eight-hour lag which creates a temperature gradient in warrens, so that burrows are coolest in daytime and warmest at night. Temperatures inside burrows typically vary between in summer and in winter; temperatures at greater depths vary to a much lesser extent, with summer temperatures around and winter temperatures around . This reduces the need for meerkats to thermoregulate individually by providing a comfortable microclimate within burrows; moreover, burrowing protects meerkats in harsh weather and at extreme temperatures. Consequently, meerkats spend considerable time in burrows; they are active mainly during the day and return to burrows after dark and often to escape the heat of the afternoon. Activity peaks during the early morning and late afternoon. Meerkats huddle together to sleep in compact groups, sunbathe and recline on warm rocks or damp soil to adjust their body temperatures.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats tend to occupy the burrows of other small mammals more than constructing them on their own; they generally share burrows with Cape ground squirrels and yellow mongooses. Cape ground squirrels and meerkats usually do not fight for space or food. Though yellow mongooses are also insectivores like meerkats, competition for prey is minimal as yellow mongooses are less selective in their diet. This association is beneficial to all the species as it saves time and efforts spent in making separate warrens. Many other species have also been recorded in the meerkat burrows, including African pygmy mice, Cape grey mongooses, four-striped grass mice, Highveld gerbils, rock hyraxes, slender mongooses, South African springhares and white-tailed rats.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats have a broad vocal repertoire that they use to communicate among one another in several contexts; many of these calls may be combined by repetition of the same call or mixing different sounds. A study recorded 12 different types of call combinations used in different situations such as guarding against predators, caring for young, digging, sunbathing, huddling together and aggression.


title: Meerkat

text: Short-range 'close calls' are produced while foraging and after scanning the vicinity for predators. 'Recruitment calls' can be produced to collect meerkats on sighting a snake or to investigate excrement or hair samples of predators or unfamiliar meerkats. 'Alarm calls' are given out on detecting predators. All these calls differ in their acoustic characteristics, and can evoke different responses in the 'receivers' (meerkats who hear the call); generally the greater the urgency of the scenario in which the call is given, the stronger is the response in the receivers.


title: Meerkat

text: This indicates that meerkats are able to perceive the nature of the risk and the degree of urgency from the acoustics of a call, transmit it and respond accordingly. For instance, upon hearing a terrestrial predator alarm call, meerkats are most likely to scan the area and move towards the source of the call, while an aerial predator alarm call would most likely cause them to crouch down. A recruitment call would cause receivers to raise their tails (and often their hair) and move slowly towards the source.


title: Meerkat

text: The complexity of calls produced by different mongooses varies by their social structure and ecology. For instance eusocial mongooses such as meerkats and banded mongooses use calls in a greater variety of contexts than do the solitary slender mongooses. Moreover, meerkats have more call types than do banded mongooses. Meerkat calls carry information to identify the signaling individual or pack, but meerkats do not appear to differentiate between calls from different sources. The calls of banded mongooses also carry a 'vocal signature' to identify the caller.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat is primarily an insectivore, feeding heavily on beetles and lepidopterans; it can additionally feed on eggs, amphibians, arthropods (such as scorpions, to whose venom they are immune), reptiles, small birds (such as the southern anteater-chat), plants and seeds. Captive meerkats include plenty of fruits and vegetables in their diet, and also kill small mammals by biting the backs of their skulls. They have also been observed feeding on the desert truffle "Kalaharituber pfeilii". Meerkats often eat citron melons and dig out roots and tubers for their water content.


title: Meerkat

text: Mongooses spend nearly five to eight hours foraging every day. Like other social mongooses, meerkats in a pack will disperse within of one another and browse systematically in areas within their home range without losing visual or vocal contact. Some individuals stand sentry while the rest are busy foraging. Meerkats return to an area only after a week of the last visit so that the food supply is replenished sufficiently. They hunt by scent, and often dig out soil or turn over stones to uncover hidden prey. Meerkats typically do not give chase to their prey, though they may pursue geckos and lizards over several metres. Food intake is typically low during winter.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats breed throughout the year with seasonal peaks, typically during months of heavy rainfall; for instance, maximum births occur from January to March in the southern Kalahari. Generally only dominant individuals breed, though subordinate members can also mate in highly productive years. Females become sexually mature at two to three years of age. Dominant females can have up to four litters annually (lesser for subordinate females), and the number depends on the amount of precipitation. Mating behaviour has been studied in captive individuals. Courtship behaviour is limited; the male fights with his partner, getting hold of her by her snout. He will grip the nape of her neck if she resists mounting, and hold her down by grasping her flanks during copulation.


title: Meerkat

text: After a gestation of 60 to 70 days, a litter of three to seven pups is born. Pups weigh around in the first few days of birth; the average growth rate for the first three months is per day, typically the fastest in the first month. A 2019 study showed that growth and survival rates of pups might decrease with increase in temperature.


title: Meerkat

text: Infants make continuous sounds that resemble bird-like tweets, that change to a shrill contact call as they grow older. Young pups are kept securely in a den, from where they emerge after around 16 days, and start foraging with adults by 26 days. The nonbreeding members of the pack help substantially with juvenile care, for instance they feed the pups and huddle with them for warmth. A study showed that nearly half of the litters of dominant females, especially those born later in the breeding season were nursed by subordinate females, mostly those that were or recently had been pregnant.


title: Meerkat

text: Sex biases have been observed in feeding; for instance, female helpers feed female pups more than male pups unlike male helpers who feed both equally. This is possibly because the survival of female pups is more beneficial to female helpers as females are more likely to remain in their natal pack. Some helpers contribute to all activities more than others, though none of them might be specialised in any of them. Sometimes helpers favour their own needs over those of pups and decide not to feed them; this behaviour, known as "false-feeding", is more common when the prey is more valued by the meerkat.


title: Meerkat

text: The father remains on guard and protects his offspring, while the mother spends a lot of time foraging to produce enough milk for her young. Mothers give out shrill, repetitive calls to ensure their pups follow them and remain close together. Unable to forage themselves, young pups vocalise often seeking food from their carers. Like many species, meerkat pups learn by observing and mimicking adult behaviour, though adults also engage in active instruction. For example, meerkat adults teach their pups how to eat a venomous scorpion by removing the stinger and showing the pups how to handle the creature. The mother runs around with prey in her mouth, prompting her pups to catch it. Pups become independent enough to forage at around 12 weeks of age. Meerkats are estimated to survive for five to 15 years in the wild; the maximum lifespan recorded in captivity is 20.6 years.


title: Meerkat

text: Females appear to be able to discriminate the odour of their kin from that of others. Kin recognition is a useful ability that facilitates cooperation among relatives and the avoidance of inbreeding. When mating occurs between meerkat relatives it often results in negative fitness consequences (inbreeding depression), that affect a variety of traits such as pup mass at emergence from the natal burrow, hindleg length, growth until independence and juvenile survival. These negative effects are likely due to the increased homozygosity or higher genetic similarity among individuals that arise from inbreeding and the consequent expression of deleterious recessive mutations.


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat occurs in southwestern Botswana, western and southern Namibia, northern and western South Africa; the range barely extends into southwestern Angola. It lives in areas with stony, often calcareous ground in a variety of arid, open habitats with little woody vegetation. It is common in savannahs, open plains and rocky areas beside dry rivers in biomes such as the Fynbos and the Karoo, where the mean yearly rainfall is below . The average precipitation reduces to towards the northwestern areas of the range. It prefers areas with short grasses and shrubs common in velds, such as camelthorn in Namibia and "Acacia" in the Kalahari. It is absent from true deserts, montane regions and forests. Population densities vary greatly between places, and are significantly influenced by predators and rainfall. For instance, a study in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, where predation pressure is high, recorded a lower mean meerkat density relative to a ranch with lower occurrence of predators; in response to a 10% decrease in rainfall over a year, the density fell from .


title: Meerkat

text: The meerkat is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List; the population trend appears to be stable. There are no significant threats except low rainfall, which can lead to deaths of entire packs. Research has shown that temperature extremes have negative impacts on Kalahari Desert meerkats. Increased maximum air temperature is correlated with decreased survival and body mass in pups, perhaps as a result of dehydration from water loss during evaporative cooling or decreased water content in food, or from the heavier metabolic costs of thermoregulation on hot days. Higher temperatures are also associated with increased rates of endemic tuberculosis infection; this may be due to decreased immune function resulting from physiological stress, as well as increased male emigration rates observed during heat waves.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats occur in several protected areas such as the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and the Makgadikgadi Pan. The Kalahari Meerkat Project, founded by Tim Clutton-Brock, is a long-term research project run by four different research groups that focuses on understanding cooperative behaviour in meerkats. It began in the Gemsbok National Park but was shifted to the Kuruman River Reserve in 1993.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats are generally tame animals. However, they are unsuitable as a pet as they can be aggressive and have a strong, ferret-like odour. In South Africa meerkats are used to kill rodents in rural households and lepidopterans in farmlands. Meerkats can transmit rabies to humans, but yellow mongooses appear to be more common vectors. It has been suggested that meerkats may even limit the spread of rabies by driving out yellow mongooses from their burrows; meerkats are generally not persecuted given their economic significance in crop protection, though they may be killed due to rabies control measures to eliminate yellow mongooses. Meerkats can also spread tick-borne diseases.


title: Meerkat

text: Meerkats have been widely portrayed in movies, television and other media. A popular example is Timon from the "Lion King" franchise, who is an anthropomorphic meerkat. "Meerkat Manor" (2005–2008), a television programme produced by Oxford Scientific Films that was aired on Animal Planet, focused on groups of meerkats in the Kalahari that were being studied in the Kalahari Meerkat Project.


title: SIG Sauer

text: Several brother companies that design and manufacture firearms use the brand name SIG Sauer . The original company, "Schweizerische Waggon-Fabrik" (SWF), later "Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft" (SIG), went through several selloffs, leaving the SIG Sauer brand spread over several companies. The original SIG is now known as SIG Combibloc Group and no longer has any firearms business.


title: SIG Sauer

text: L&O Holding is the parent company of the German SIG Sauer GmbH & Co. KG, the Swiss SIG Sauer AG, and the American SIG Sauer, Inc.


title: SIG Sauer

text: The origins of the SIG Sauer company lie in the company named Schweizerische Waggon-Fabrik ("Swiss Wagon Factory"), which was founded in 1853 by Friedrich Peyer im Hof (1817–1900), Heinrich Moser (1805–1874) and Johann Conrad Neher (1818–1877).


title: SIG Sauer

text: The group pooled their engineering talents and created the Prelaz-Burnand rifle, known as the "Prélaz-Burnand 1859" or "Prelaz-Burnand 1860" rifle. The invention of this rifle is credited to gunsmith Jean-Louis Joseph Prélaz and army officer Edouard Burnand. The rifle was submitted to an 1860 competition by Switzerland's Federal Ministry of Defence. It won and in 1864 the company was awarded a contract to produce 30,000 Prelaz-Burnand rifles, adopted as the M1863.


title: SIG Sauer

text: Upon receiving the 1864 government contract to produce rifles, the company name was changed to Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft (SIG, German for "Swiss Industrial Company"), known as Société Industrielle Suisse in French-speaking regions of Switzerland, reflecting the new emphasis on their production.


title: SIG Sauer

text: The SIG P210 pistol was developed in 1947 based on the French Modèle 1935 pistol (the Petter-Browning design was licensed). It was adopted by the Swiss military in 1949 as the "Pistole 49". This single-action semi-automatic P210 brought SIG much acclaim, due to the precision manufacturing processes employed in its manufacture and its resultant accuracy and reliability. The P210 frame design incorporates external rails that fit closely with the slide, thus eliminating play in the mechanism during firing. The P210 was noted for its extreme accuracy. The Petter-Browning patent was a refinement of the Browning Hi-Power (P35), which was John Moses Browning's last design which was created for the French 1935 pistol, but not adopted.


title: SIG Sauer

text: Swiss law limits the ability of Swiss companies to export firearms. Swiss companies which wish to do this have to do so by using a foreign partner. So in the 1970s SIG purchased both Hämmerli and J. P. Sauer and Sohn, which resulted in the formation of SIG Sauer.


title: SIG Sauer

text: SIG Sauer's line of handguns began in 1975 with the SIG Sauer SIG P220. It was initially developed by SIG and produced and distributed by J.P. Sauer & Sohn, but in 1976 SIG bought J.P. Sauer & Sohn and the resultant company was called SIG Sauer GmbH, based in Germany.


title: SIG Sauer

text: Prior to World War II, Sauer had been primarily a maker of shotguns and hunting rifles. During the war, they produced a handgun, the Sauer 38H, but afterward had withdrawn from this market. With SIG as their partner/owner, Sauer returned to the business of manufacturing handguns. Their Sauer 38H had been produced in competition with other German makers such as Mauser and Walther at a time when new designs began to feature a double/single-action trigger. This double-action trigger mechanism, combined with advanced safety features including the hammer-lowering decocking lever, was incorporated by Sauer into the new P220 design. This new P220 design was derived from the Petter-Browning design and was created in response to a Swiss military and police requirement for a handgun to replace the P210. This new P220 design should properly be called the SIG Sauer System, which was, in fact, the labeling on one of the first SIG Sauer handguns, a modified SIG Sauer P220 design produced for the Browning Arms company in 1977. On the right side of the slide are the words "SIG Sauer System". This was the first SIG Sauer P220 type sold in the US.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In January 1985, SIG established a subsidiary, SIGARMS, Inc, in Tyson's Corner, Virginia, to import the P220 and P230 models into the United States. Two years later the firm moved to a larger facility in Herndon, Virginia, and introduced models P225, P226 and P228. SIGARMS moved to Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1990 where production facilities had been established and production began on the P229 in 1992.


title: SIG Sauer

text: SIG's firearms subsidiaries in Germany and the United States and its firearms subdivision in Switzerland were all sold to Michael Lüke and Thomas Ortmeier's L&O Holding in October 2000. Its firearms subdivision in Switzerland became a subsidiary in its own right, SAN Swiss Arms AG, more commonly known as Swiss Arms, although its products still used the SIG Sauer brand.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In 2004, according to CEO Ron Cohen, the company was near failure with just 130 employees. Cohen decided to add AR-15 style rifles to the company's product catalog, which he credits with saving the company.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In 2007, SIGARMS changed its name to SIG Sauer, Inc., sometimes called SIG Sauer USA. All new SIG Sauer Inc offerings were designed in the United States. By 2016, it had over 1,000 employees and was selling more than 43,000 firearms a year.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In 2015, SIG Sauer expanded to include suppressors, optics, ammo and airguns, aiming to provide a greater range of firearm and firearm safety equipment and accessories. On January 12, 2016, SIG Sauer introduced its ASP (Advanced Sport Pellet) line of airguns, which included CO Powerlet-powered pistols and rifles featuring the proprietary RPM™ (Rapid Pellet Magazine) pellet drive system consisting of a belt inside a box magazine-shaped housing, reportedly capable of feeding 30 rounds in 3.5 seconds. These ASP airguns are engineered to have the same appearance, dimension and weight, as well as similar trigger pull, as the company's centerfire firearm models, for the purpose of sporting and training with the added benefit of reduced cost, minimal noise, the ability to practice outside dedicated shooting ranges and less restrictive laws. In addition to airguns, SIG SAUER also offered a wide variety of ASP targets and pellet ammunition.


title: SIG Sauer

text: The US military has produced a requirement for a new handgun to replace the current M9 model (Beretta 92FS). In February 2016, bids were submitted by 12 companies to compete for this contract which was expected to result in purchases of more than 500,000 pieces. On 1 July 2016, SIG Sauer was reported to be one of three remaining competitors who were in consideration for this contract.


title: SIG Sauer

text: At this point, according to SIG Sauer one-third of law enforcement in the United States used SIG firearms. SIG Sauer operated a firearms training school – SIG Sauer Academy in Epping, New Hampshire – with courses taught by experienced instructors, many with military and/or police backgrounds. SIG Sauer produces a wide range of accessories for the firearms and sporting goods industry. On 12 July 2018 SIG SAUER announced that the Texas Department of Public Safety (TXDPS) has integrated the SIG Sauer P320 as its official service firearm throughout its divisions.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In a press event on 25 July 2018, SIG Sauer announced that its airgun division was renamed to SIG Air, and introduced its Precision Line air rifles, starting with the ASP20 break-barrel gas piston air rifle. On 24 April 2019, SIG Air expanded the Precision Line by introducing the MCX Virtus PCP, a semi-automatic pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) air rifle based on the MCX Virtus Patrol centerfire rifle and the first PCP to feature SIG's proprietary Rapid Pellet Magazine (RPM™), which uses a 30-round pellet belt contained inside a STANAG magazine-shaped enclosure. The Rapid Pellet Magazine was later also adapted for SIG Air's CO-powered training pistols.


title: SIG Sauer

text: On 5 November 2018, the United States Coast Guard, which has long used the .40 caliber SIG P229 as its duty sidearm, announced that it will acquire the SIG Air ProForce P229 airsoft pistol (which was then produced under brand licensing by French airsoft manufacturer CyberGun) as its new training pistol to give cadets and guardsmen the ability to practice gun handling, conduct target practice in various environments, and train in realistic force-on-force scenarios. In response, SIG Air announced on 17 January 2019 the introduction of its own in-house ProForce high-end airsoft line for professional training, with the initial offerings include the M17 and P229 airsoft pistol. SIG Air also announced that "we are rapidly expanding the SIG AIR business, and it is important to us to assume full control to ensure all SIG Air products are of the highest quality", and they will no longer be licensing the "SIG" brand or trademarks for sale by commercial airsoft manufacturers.


title: SIG Sauer

text: On 4 June 2020, SIG Sauer GmbH announced it intended to close its factory at Eckernförde by year's end, resulting in losses of about 125 jobs as well as plans to fulfill purchase orders. It blamed "locational handicaps" hindering its sales, claiming "a few other local producers" were preferred in government purchases for the German police forces and the Bundeswehr. According to SIG Sauer GmbH CEO Tim Castagne, "due to its international orientation, SIG Sauer is systematically excluded from tenders [in Germany]." This was compounded by reports in April that Kiel prosecutors were investigating claims of SIG Sauer USA, SIG Sauer's North American branch, being implicated in exporting weapons to Colombia and Mexico without a legal export permit from the German government, drawing attacks from critics such as Sevim Dağdelen from the Left Party after Germany published its 2019 arms export data in May.


title: SIG Sauer

text: On 19 April 2022, the US Army, following a 27-month evaluation process, announced it had awarded SIG Sauer a contract for two Next Generation Squad Weapon (NGSW) variations, the XM5 and XM250 automatic rifle, as well as for the 6.8 common cartridge ammunition used by both rifles. The initial value of the award was $20.4 million for the delivery of the weapons, ammunition, and accessories. The XM5 and XM250 are planned to replace the M4 carbine and M249 light machine gun, respectively.


title: SIG Sauer

text: In July 2022, the company opened the SIG Experience Center in Epping, co-located with the SIG Sauer Academy. The Experience Center includes a retail store, indoor shooting range, company museum, conference center, and corporate offices.


title: Flag of Japan

text: The national flag of Japan is a rectangular white banner bearing a crimson-red circle at its center. This flag is officially called the , but is more commonly known in Japan as the . It embodies the country's sobriquet: the Land of the Rising Sun.


title: Flag of Japan

text: The "Nisshoki" flag is designated as the national flag in the Act on National Flag and Anthem, which was promulgated and became effective on 13 August 1999. Although no earlier legislation had specified a national flag, the sun-disc flag had already become the "de facto" national flag of Japan. Two proclamations issued in 1870 by the Daijō-kan, the governmental body of the early Meiji period, each had a provision for a design of the national flag. A sun-disc flag was adopted as the national flag for merchant ships under Proclamation No. 57 of Meiji 3 (issued on 27 February 1870), and as the national flag used by the Navy under Proclamation No. 651 of Meiji 3 (issued on 27 October 1870). Use of the "Hinomaru" was severely restricted during the early years of the Allied occupation of Japan after World War II; these restrictions were later relaxed.


title: Flag of Japan

text: The sun plays an important role in Japanese mythology and religion, as the Emperor is said to be the direct descendant of the Shinto sun goddess Amaterasu, and the legitimacy of the ruling house rested on this divine appointment. The name of the country as well as the design of the flag reflect this central importance of the sun. The ancient history Shoku Nihongi says that Emperor Monmu used a flag representing the sun in his court in 701, the first recorded use of a sun-motif flag in Japan. The oldest existing flag is preserved in Unpō-ji temple, Kōshū, Yamanashi, which is older than the 16th century, and an ancient legend says that the flag was given to the temple by Emperor Go-Reizei in the 11th century. During the Meiji Restoration, the sun disc and the Rising Sun Ensign of the Imperial Japanese Navy and Army became major symbols in the emerging Japanese Empire. Propaganda posters, textbooks, and films depicted the flag as a source of pride and patriotism. In Japanese homes, citizens were required to display the flag during national holidays, celebrations and other occasions as decreed by the government. Different tokens of devotion to Japan and its Emperor featuring the "Hinomaru" motif became popular among the public during the Second Sino-Japanese War and other conflicts. These tokens ranged from slogans written on the flag to clothing items and dishes that resembled the flag.


title: Flag of Japan

text: Public perception of the national flag varies. Historically, both Western and Japanese sources claimed the flag was a powerful and enduring symbol to the Japanese. Since the end of World War II (the Pacific War), the use of the flag and the national anthem "Kimigayo" has been a contentious issue for Japan's public schools, and disputes about their use have led to protests and lawsuits. In China and Korea, the flag is a symbol of aggression and imperialism. Several military banners of Japan are based on the "Hinomaru", including the sunrayed naval ensign. The "Hinomaru" also serves as a template for other Japanese flags in public and private use.


title: Flag of Japan

text: The exact origin of the "Hinomaru" is unknown, but the rising sun has carried symbolic meaning since the early 7th century (the Japanese archipelago is east of the Asian mainland, and is thus where the sun "rises"). In 607, an official correspondence that began with "from the Emperor of the rising sun" was sent to Chinese Emperor Yang of Sui. Japan is often referred to as "the land of the rising sun".


title: Flag of Japan

text: The sun is closely related to the Imperial family, as legend states the imperial throne was descended from the sun goddess Amaterasu. The religion, which is categorized as the ancient Ko-Shintō religion of the Japanese people, includes nature worship and animism, and the faith has been worshiping the sun, especially in agriculture and fishing. The Imperial God, Amaterasu-ōmikami, is the sun goddess. From the Yayoi period (300 BCE) to the Kofun period (250 CE) (Yamato period), the Naiko Kamonkyo (, a large bronze mirror with patterns like a flower-petal manufactured in Japan) was used as a celebration of the shape of the shining sun and there is a theory that one of the Three Sacred Treasures, Yata no Kagami, is used like this mirror.


title: Flag of Japan

text: During the eastern expedition (Jinmu tosei), Emperor Jimmu's brother Itsuse no Mikoto was killed in a battle against the local chieftain Nagasunehiko ("the long-legged man") in Naniwa (modern-day Osaka). Emperor Jimmu realized, as descendants of the sun, that he did not want to fight towards the sun (to the east), but to fight from the sun (to the west). So his clan went to the east side of Kii Peninsula to battle westward. They reached Kumano (or Ise) and went towards Yamato. They were victorious at the second battle with Nagasunehiko and conquered the Kinki region.


title: Flag of Japan

text: The use of the sun-shaped flag was thought to have taken place since the emperor's direct imperial rule (親政) was established after the Isshi Incident in 645 (first year of the Taika (era)).


title: Flag of Japan

text: The Japanese history text "Shoku Nihongi", completed in 797, has the first recorded use of the sun-motif flag by Emperor Monmu's in 701 (the first year of the Taihō era). For the decoration of the ceremony hall on New Year's Day the was raised.


title: Flag of Japan

text: Since ancient times, the sun has been a symbol of national unity because of the close relationship between national rule and the sun. In Japan, "red and white" has been regarded as a joyous color scheme. One theory is folklore that there is a sense of sacred–profane dichotomy (sacred = red, profane = white), and that this is also derived from the Genpei War.


title: Flag of Japan

text: One prominent theory is influenced by the results of the Genpei War (1180–1185). Until the Heian period, the Nishiki flag (Nishiki no mihata 錦の御旗), a symbol of the Imperial Court, had a golden sun circle and a silver moon circle on a red background. At the end of the Heian era, the Taira clan called themselves a government army and used the red flag with a gold circle (赤地金丸) as per the Imperial Court. The Genji (Minamoto clan) were in opposition so they used a white flag with a red circle (白地赤丸) when they fought the Genpei War (1180–1185). When the Taira clan was defeated, the samurai government (bakufu, 幕府) was formed by the Genji. The warlords who came after such as Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu realized they were successors of Genji so they raised the "Hinomaru" flag in battle.


title: Flag of Japan

text: In the 12th-century work, "The Tale of the Heike", it was written that different samurai carried drawings of the sun on their fans. One legend related to the national flag is attributed to the Buddhist priest Nichiren. Supposedly, during a 13th-century Mongolian invasion of Japan, Nichiren gave a sun banner to the "shōgun" to carry into battle.


title: Flag of Japan

text: During the Battle of Nagashino (28 June 1575), Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu's allied forces fought Takeda Katsuyori. Both Nobunaga and Ieyasu had their own flags with family crests, but they also held the "Hinomaru". On the other hand, the Takeda clan side also raised the "Hinomaru". So the "Hinomaru" was used as a national symbol.


title: Flag of Japan

text: One of Japan's oldest flags is housed at the Unpo-ji temple in Kōshū city, Yamanashi Prefecture. Legend states it was given by Emperor Go-Reizei to Minamoto no Yoshimitsu and has been treated as a family treasure by the Takeda clan for the past 1,000 years, and at least it is older than 16th century.


title: Flag of Japan

text: In the 16th century unification period, each "daimyō" had flags that were used primarily in battle. Most of the flags were long banners usually charged with the mon (family crest) of the "daimyō" lord. Members of the same family, such as a son, father, and brother, had different flags to carry into battle. The flags served as identification and were displayed by soldiers on their backs and horses. Generals also had their own flags, most of which differed from soldiers' flags due to their square shape.


title: Flag of Japan

text: In 1854, during the Tokugawa shogunate, Japanese ships were ordered to hoist the "Hinomaru" to distinguish themselves from foreign ships. Before then, different types of "Hinomaru" flags were used on vessels that were trading with the U.S. and Russia. The "Hinomaru" was decreed the merchant flag of Japan in 1870 and was the legal national flag from 1870 to 1885, making it the first national flag Japan adopted.


title: Flag of Japan

text: While the idea of national symbols was strange to the Japanese, the Meiji Government needed them to communicate with the outside world. This became especially important after the landing of U.S. Commodore Matthew Perry in Yokohama Bay. Further Meiji Government implementations gave more identifications to Japan, including the anthem "Kimigayo" and the imperial seal. In 1885, all previous laws not published in the Official Gazette of Japan were abolished. Because of this ruling by the new cabinet of Japan, the "Hinomaru" was the "de facto" national flag since no law was in place after the Meiji Restoration.