title: Tachyon

text: A tachyon () or tachyonic particle is a hypothetical particle that always travels faster than light. Physicists believe that faster-than-light particles cannot exist because they are not consistent with the known laws of physics. If such particles did exist they could be used to send signals faster than light. According to the theory of relativity this would violate causality, leading to logical paradoxes such as the grandfather paradox. Tachyons would exhibit the unusual property of increasing in speed as their energy decreases, and would require infinite energy to slow down to the speed of light. No verifiable experimental evidence for the existence of such particles has been found.


title: Tachyon

text: In the 1967 paper that coined the term, Gerald Feinberg proposed that tachyonic particles could be made from excitations of a quantum field with imaginary mass. However, it was soon realized that Feinberg's model did not in fact allow for superluminal (faster-than-light) particles or signals and that tachyonic fields merely give rise to instabilities, not causality violations. Nevertheless, in modern physics the term often refers to imaginary mass fields rather than to faster-than-light particles. Such fields play a significant role in modern physics.


title: Tachyon

text: The term comes from the , "tachy", meaning . The complementary particle types are called luxons (which always move at the speed of light) and bradyons (which always move slower than light); both of these particle types are known to exist.


title: Tachyon

text: The term was coined by Gerald Feinberg in a 1967 paper titled "Possibility of faster-than-light particles". He had been inspired by the science-fiction story "Beep" by James Blish. Feinberg studied the kinematics of such particles according to special relativity. In his paper he also introduced fields with imaginary mass (now also referred to as tachyons) in an attempt to understand the microphysical origin such particles might have.


title: Tachyon

text: The first hypothesis regarding faster-than-light particles is sometimes attributed to German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld in 1904, who named them "meta-particles". More recent discussions happened in 1962 when Bilanuik, Deshpande and Sudarshan published their paper on the topic and in 1969.


title: Tachyon

text: The possibility of existence of faster-than-light particles was also proposed by Lev Yakovlevich Shtrum in 1923.


title: Tachyon

text: In September 2011, it was reported that a tau neutrino had traveled faster than the speed of light in a major release by CERN; however, later updates from CERN on the OPERA project indicate that the faster-than-light readings were due to a faulty element of the experiment's fibre optic timing system.


title: Tachyon

text: In special relativity, a faster-than-light particle would have space-like four-momentum, in contrast to ordinary particles that have time-like four-momentum. Although in some theories the mass of tachyons is regarded as imaginary, in some modern formulations the mass is considered real, the formulas for the momentum and energy being redefined to this end. Moreover, since tachyons are constrained to the spacelike portion of the energy–momentum graph, they could not slow down to subluminal (meaning slower-than-light) speeds.


title: Tachyon

text: In a Lorentz invariant theory, the same formulas that apply to ordinary slower-than-light particles (sometimes called "bradyons" in discussions of tachyons) must also apply to tachyons. In particular, the energy–momentum relation:


title: Tachyon

text: (where p is the relativistic momentum of the bradyon and m is its rest mass) should still apply, along with the formula for the total energy of a particle:


title: Tachyon

text: This equation shows that the total energy of a particle (bradyon or tachyon) contains a contribution from its rest mass (the "rest mass–energy") and a contribution from its motion, the kinetic energy.


title: Tachyon

text: When formula_3 (the particle's velocity) is larger than formula_4 (the speed of light), the denominator in the equation for the energy is imaginary, as the value under the square root is negative. Because the total energy of the particle must be real (and not a complex or imaginary number) in order to have any practical meaning as a measurement, the numerator must "also" be imaginary: i.e. the rest mass m must be imaginary, as a pure imaginary number divided by another pure imaginary number is a real number.


title: Tachyon

text: One curious effect is that, unlike ordinary particles, the speed of a tachyon "increases" as its energy decreases. In particular, formula_5 approaches zero when formula_3 approaches infinity. (For ordinary bradyonic matter, "formula_5" increases with increasing speed, becoming arbitrarily large as "formula_3" approaches formula_4, the speed of light). Therefore, just as bradyons are forbidden to break the light-speed barrier, so too are tachyons forbidden from slowing down to below "c", because infinite energy is required to reach the barrier from either above or below.


title: Tachyon

text: As noted by Albert Einstein, Tolman, and others, special relativity implies that faster-than-light particles, if they existed, could be used to communicate backwards in time.


title: Tachyon

text: In 1985, Chodos proposed that neutrinos can have a tachyonic nature. The possibility of standard model particles moving at faster-than-light speeds can be modeled using Lorentz invariance violating terms, for example in the Standard-Model Extension. In this framework, neutrinos experience Lorentz-violating oscillations and can travel faster than light at high energies. This proposal was strongly criticized.


title: Tachyon

text: A tachyon with an electric charge would lose energy as Cherenkov radiation—just as ordinary charged particles do when they exceed the local speed of light in a medium (other than a hard vacuum). A charged tachyon traveling in a vacuum, therefore, undergoes a constant proper time acceleration and, by necessity, its world line forms a hyperbola in space-time. However reducing a tachyon's energy "increases" its speed, so that the single hyperbola formed is of "two" oppositely charged tachyons with opposite momenta (same magnitude, opposite sign) which annihilate each other when they simultaneously reach infinite speed at the same place in space. (At infinite speed, the two tachyons have no energy each and finite momentum of opposite direction, so no conservation laws are violated in their mutual annihilation. The time of annihilation is frame dependent.)


title: Tachyon

text: Even an electrically neutral tachyon would be expected to lose energy via gravitational Cherenkov radiation (unless gravitons are themselves tachyons), because it has a gravitational mass, and therefore increases in speed as it travels, as described above. If the tachyon interacts with any other particles, it can also radiate Cherenkov energy into those particles. Neutrinos interact with the other particles of the Standard Model, and Andrew Cohen and Sheldon Glashow used this to argue that the 2011 faster-than-light neutrino anomaly cannot be explained by making neutrinos propagate faster than light, and must instead be due to an error in the experiment. Further investigation of the experiment showed that the results were indeed erroneous.


title: Tachyon

text: Causality is a fundamental principle of physics. If tachyons can transmit information faster than light, then according to relativity they violate causality, leading to logical paradoxes of the "kill your own grandfather" type. This is often illustrated with thought experiments such as the "tachyon telephone paradox" or "logically pernicious self-inhibitor."


title: Tachyon

text: The problem can be understood in terms of the relativity of simultaneity in special relativity, which says that different inertial reference frames will disagree on whether two events at different locations happened "at the same time" or not, and they can also disagree on the order of the two events (technically, these disagreements occur when the spacetime interval between the events is 'space-like', meaning that neither event lies in the future light cone of the other).


title: Tachyon

text: If one of the two events represents the sending of a signal from one location and the second event represents the reception of the same signal at another location, then as long as the signal is moving at the speed of light or slower, the mathematics of simultaneity ensures that all reference frames agree that the transmission-event happened before the reception-event. However, in the case of a hypothetical signal moving faster than light, there would always be some frames in which the signal was received before it was sent so that the signal could be said to have moved backward in time. Because one of the two fundamental postulates of special relativity says that the laws of physics should work the same way in every inertial frame, if it is possible for signals to move backward in time in any one frame, it must be possible in all frames. This means that if observer A sends a signal to observer B which moves faster than light in A's frame but backwards in time in B's frame, and then B sends a reply which moves faster than light in B's frame but backwards in time in A's frame, it could work out that A receives the reply before sending the original signal, challenging causality in "every" frame and opening the door to severe logical paradoxes. This is known as the tachyonic antitelephone.


title: Tachyon

text: The reinterpretation principle asserts that a tachyon sent "back" in time can always be "reinterpreted" as a tachyon traveling "forward" in time, because observers cannot distinguish between the emission and absorption of tachyons. The attempt to "detect" a tachyon "from" the future (and violate causality) would actually "create" the same tachyon and send it "forward" in time (which is causal).


title: Tachyon

text: However, this principle is not widely accepted as resolving the paradoxes. Instead, what would be required to avoid paradoxes is that, unlike any known particle, tachyons do not interact in any way and can never be detected or observed, because otherwise a tachyon beam could be modulated and used to create an anti-telephone or a "logically pernicious self-inhibitor". All forms of energy are believed to interact at least gravitationally, and many authors state that superluminal propagation in Lorentz invariant theories always leads to causal paradoxes.


title: Tachyon

text: In modern physics, all fundamental particles are regarded as excitations of quantum fields. There are several distinct ways in which tachyonic particles could be embedded into a field theory.


title: Tachyon

text: In the paper that coined the term "tachyon", Gerald Feinberg studied Lorentz invariant quantum fields with imaginary mass. Because the group velocity for such a field is superluminal, naively it appears that its excitations propagate faster than light. However, it was quickly understood that the superluminal group velocity does not correspond to the speed of propagation of any localized excitation (like a particle). Instead, the negative mass represents an instability to tachyon condensation, and all excitations of the field propagate subluminally and are consistent with causality. Despite having no faster-than-light propagation, such fields are referred to simply as "tachyons" in many sources.


title: Tachyon

text: Tachyonic fields play an important role in modern physics. Perhaps the most famous is the Higgs boson of the Standard Model of particle physics, which has an imaginary mass in its uncondensed phase. In general, the phenomenon of spontaneous symmetry breaking, which is closely related to tachyon condensation, plays an important role in many aspects of theoretical physics, including the Ginzburg–Landau and BCS theories of superconductivity. Another example of a tachyonic field is the tachyon of bosonic string theory.


title: Tachyon

text: Tachyons are predicted by bosonic string theory and also the Neveu-Schwarz (NS) and NS-NS sectors, which are respectively the open bosonic sector and closed bosonic sector, of RNS Superstring theory prior to the GSO projection. However such tachyons are not possible due to the Sen conjecture, also known as tachyon condensation. This resulted in the necessity for the GSO projection.


title: Tachyon

text: In theories that do not respect Lorentz invariance, the speed of light is not (necessarily) a barrier, and particles can travel faster than the speed of light without infinite energy or causal paradoxes. A class of field theories of that type is the so-called Standard Model extensions. However, the experimental evidence for Lorentz invariance is extremely good, so such theories are very tightly constrained.


title: Tachyon

text: By modifying the kinetic energy of the field, it is possible to produce Lorentz invariant field theories with excitations that propagate superluminally. However, such theories, in general, do not have a well-defined Cauchy problem (for reasons related to the issues of causality discussed above), and are probably inconsistent quantum mechanically.


title: Tachyon

text: Tachyons have appeared in many works of fiction. They have been used as a standby mechanism upon which many science fiction authors rely to establish faster-than-light communication, with or without reference to causality issues. The word "tachyon" has become widely recognized to such an extent that it can impart a science-fictional connotation even if the subject in question has no particular relation to superluminal travel (a form of technobabble, akin to "positronic brain").


title: Kris Marshall

text: Kristopher Marshall (born 11 April 1973) is an English actor, starring in films, television and on stage for more than 20 years. He has played Nick Harper in "My Family", Colin Frissell in the 2003 film "Love Actually", Gratiano in "The Merchant of Venice", and Dave in the first series of "Citizen Khan" (2012). He played DI Humphrey Goodman in "Death in Paradise" from 2014 to 2017.


title: Kris Marshall

text: Kristopher Marshall was born on 11 April 1973 in Bath, Somerset. His father was a Royal Air Force navigator, whose career included a posting to the Queen's Flight, eventually becoming a squadron leader. Marshall moved with his family to Hong Kong and later to Canada. Upon their return to England, he was educated at Wells Cathedral School as a boarding pupil. After failing his initial A-levels in his first year of sixth form, he enrolled at the Redroofs Theatre School in Maidenhead, Berkshire.


title: Kris Marshall

text: Marshall made an early career appearance on the police series "The Bill" but it was in 2000 that his major breakthrough role came as Nick Harper in the BBC sitcom "My Family". In 2003, he appeared in the film "Love Actually" as Colin Frissell, an Englishman who goes to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in the United States to find love. In 2004, Marshall appeared as DS Luke Stone in the police drama series "Murder City". From 2005 to 2011, Marshall appeared on TV and in print for BT Retail adverts, where he played the character Adam; with Esther Hall portraying his character's eventual wife Jane. He also played The Ginger Dave in the BBC comedy series "Citizen Khan" in 2012 but left after season 1.


title: Kris Marshall

text: Since departing his full-time role in "My Family" in 2003, Marshall made guest appearances three times appearing in 2 episodes of season five in 2004 and his final appearance in a short "Comic Relief" special in 2005. He finished working on the film "Heist" at the end of 2006, which aired in April 2008 on BBC Four. During the summer of 2008, Marshall appeared at Trafalgar Studios in the first UK run of Neil LaBute's play "Fat Pig". He became a regular castmember, playing the character of Ethan on the series "Traffic Light" in 2011.


title: Kris Marshall

text: In April 2013, it was announced that Marshall would be joining the cast of BBC drama "Death In Paradise" as the island's new lead detective, DI Humphrey Goodman. His character was introduced in the first episode of the third series which aired in 2014, with his first case being to solve the murder of his predecessor, DI Richard Poole (played by Ben Miller). In January 2017 it was leaked that Marshall would be leaving the series citing the pressures it placed upon his family and that he would be replaced by Ardal O'Hanlon who plays DI Jack Mooney.


title: Kris Marshall

text: Marshall married Hannah Dodkin in 2012. They have lived in Bath with their son, Thomas and daughter, Elsie since 2014. Previously they had lived in the Long Barton area of Wells.


title: Kris Marshall

text: Marshall was hit by a car in Bristol in 2008. The crash happened in the early hours of 28 April as he enjoyed a night out with friends in Bristol city centre. He was taken to Bristol Royal Infirmary, where a scan revealed head injuries. He made a full recovery and began his performances in the play "Fat Pig" three weeks later as scheduled. Marshall passionately supports Aston Villa F.C. and has said that a card from the club helped him through his recovery.


title: Kris Marshall

text: In October 2011, Marshall was charged with failing to provide a breath test after police stopped his car in the Tesco car park in Wells. Marshall had failed a breath test at the scene, and then refused to provide a second sample at the police station. He pleaded guilty and was disqualified from driving for six months.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Dead or Alive were an English pop band that released seven studio albums from 1984 to 2000. The band formed in 1980 in Liverpool and found success in the mid-1980s, releasing seven singles that made the UK top 40 and three albums on the UK top 30. At the peak of their success, the lineup consisted of Pete Burns (vocals), Steve Coy (drums), Mike Percy (bass) and Tim Lever (keyboards), with the core pair of Burns and Coy writing and producing for the remainder of the band's career.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Two of the band's singles reached the U.S. top 20 on the "Billboard" Hot 100: "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (No. 11 in August 1985) and "Brand New Lover" (No. 15 in March 1987).


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" peaked at number one for two weeks in 1985 in the UK, then charted again in 2006 following Burns' appearance on the television reality show "Celebrity Big Brother" and on season 4 of "Stranger Things". It also became the first of two singles to top the "Billboard" Hot Dance Club Play chart. In December 2016, "Billboard" ranked them as the 96th most successful "dance artist" of all time. The band was discontinued following Pete Burns' death in 2016.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In 1977, Burns formed a band with contemporaries Julian Cope, Pete Wylie, and Phil Hurst, calling themselves The Mystery Girls. They played only one gig (opening for Sham 69 at Eric's in Liverpool in November 1977) before disintegrating. Burns returned in early 1979 with a new band, Nightmares in Wax (original name: 'Rainbows Over Nagasaki'), featuring a gothic post-punk sound, with backing from keyboardist Martin Healy, guitarist Mick Reid (ex-Crash Course and Glass Torpedoes), bassist Rob Jones, who left soon afterwards to be replaced by Walter Ogden, and drummer Paul Hornby, formerly of 051 and Pink Military, who also exited soon after the band's formation to be replaced by Phil Hurst. Nightmares in Wax played their first gig supporting Wire at Eric's in July 1979, and, around the same time, recorded demos which included a cover of the Simon Dupree and the Big Sound song "Kites", a feature of their early shows. Although signed to the Eric's Records label, their only release, a three-track 7" EP entitled "Birth of a Nation", appeared in March 1980 on Inevitable Records. A 12-inch single featuring two of the tracks from the EP, "Black Leather" and "Shangri-La", was released in 1985. The EP featured "Black Leather", which halfway through turned into K.C. & the Sunshine Band's "That's the Way (I Like It)" (a song later revived by Dead or Alive).


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Ogden left the band at the beginning of November 1979 shortly before the recording of demos for the planned Inevitable Records release. Bassist Ambrose Reynolds helped out on both these sessions and those for the EP a month later. Pete Lloyd joined in January 1980 and the band returned to playing live shows early in February. Lloyd and Reid left the band in March 1980, and Hurst followed in April. Burns and Healy were then joined by bassist Sue James, guitarist Adrian Mitchley, and drummer Joe Musker rehearsing for a few months under the name No Self Control, this being dropped in favour of Dead Or Alive shortly before the release of the next single "I'm Falling". The band went through several line-up changes over the next three years while recording a series of independent singles. Burns' eccentric and androgynous appearance began attracting attention, often leading to comparisons with Culture Club and its lead singer Boy George.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Dead or Alive's singles started charting on the UK Indie Chart, beginning with 1982's "The Stranger" reaching No. 7 on that chart. This prompted major label Epic Records to sign the band in 1983. Their first release for Epic was the single "Misty Circles", which appeared at No. 100 on the major UK Singles Chart in 1983. At this point, the band was a five-piece consisting of Burns, Mike Percy (bass), Tim Lever (keyboards/sax), Steve Coy (drums), and Wayne Hussey (guitar). Two more singles, "What I Want" and "I'd Do Anything", attracted club play, but mainstream success continued to elude the band.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Dead or Alive's debut album, "Sophisticated Boom Boom", was released in May 1984 and featured their first Top 40 UK single, "That's the Way (I Like It)", a remake of the 1975 hit by KC and the Sunshine Band. Hussey departed Dead or Alive just before the album's release. The single peaked at No. 22 in the UK and the album at No. 29.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Following the departure of Hussey, the band released its second album "Youthquake" (US No. 31, UK No. 9) in May 1985, produced by the then-fledgling production team of Mike Stock, Matt Aitken, and Pete Waterman known as Stock Aitken Waterman (SAW). Recording of the first single "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" was plagued by arguments between the band and producers, but became the band's first song to reach number 1 on the UK Singles Chart after lingering outside the Top 40 for over two months. The song also proved to be SAW's first chart-topping single. The track also hit No. 11 in the US and No. 1 in Canada. Other album tracks released as singles included "Lover Come Back To Me", "In Too Deep", and "My Heart Goes Bang". They all reached the UK Top 30.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In late 1986, Dead or Alive released their third album, "Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know" (US No. 52, UK No. 27), also produced by SAW. Production of the album was marred by more fights between the band and SAW, with the latter frustrated by the band's refusal to branch into House music, and singer Pete Burns unwilling to hand over songwriting duties to the producers.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Burns expressed frustration with his record company's reluctant attitude towards his single choices, complaining the label only relented on scheduling "Brand New Lover" for release after Bananarama had a hit with their Dead or Alive-inspired cover of "Venus", and alleging they also refused to give "Something In My House" a Halloween release date. A fight over mixes for the album's third single, "Hooked On Love" escalated to such a degree that Burns refused to film a video, accusing the label of "fucking up" the release.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: While Burns claimed vicious studio arguments during production of the album made him ill, SAW's recording engineer Karen Hewitt recalled the singer appeared to thrive on his often explosive and confrontational dynamic with Mike Stock and Matt Aitken during the album sessions. Matt Aitken confessed to struggling with Burns' vocal experimentation on the second SAW-produced album, including what he described as the introduction of a displeasing yodel.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The lead single "Brand New Lover" became a modest UK hit, peaking at No. 31, but was more successful in the US where it reached No. 15 on the US Hot 100, and number one on the US "Billboard" dance chart. Burns blamed the relative underperformance of the single in the UK on the record company's failure to press and distribute enough copies of the single to meet customer demand.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Three more singles from the album were released, although none saw any notable US success on the pop charts. All of these singles caused some sort of controversy in the UK.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The most successful in the UK was "Something in My House" (UK No. 12), tonally Gothic and with a sleeve depicting Burns in front of what appears to be a Satanic altar, featuring an inverted cross. A 12" version of the song, the 'Mortevicar Mix', featured scenes from Nosferatu and sampling of dialogue from the soundtrack of "The Exorcist" and a sampling from the "George A. Romero" American movie trailer from his film "Day of the Dead" (1985) and other '80s horror films. A highly controversial 12" white label mix, known as "Naughty XXX", was also released to club DJs, featuring a series of stronger dialogue clips from "The Exorcist" - with the track described as "unique" in its capacity as the only known example of a "filthy, obscene [and] sexually explicit" Stock Aitken Waterman record.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: A third single, "Hooked on Love", failed to make the UK Top 40 amid Burns' battle with the label over their refusal to prioritise his preferred mix, which featured "Gothic" overtone.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: After the release of the album, Tim Lever and Mike Percy left the band to form careers as mixers and producers aka 'One World Productions'. The pair owned and operated Steelworks Studios in Sheffield, UK. As mixers and producers, Lever and Percy experienced success writing and mixing songs for acts like S Club 7, Blue, and Robbie Williams. Lever and Percy have since left the studio. In 1987, Dead or Alive released their greatest hits album "Rip It Up", and a concert tour of the same name. In mid 1988, Dead or Alive, now pared down to a duo of Burns and Coy, released the self-produced "Nude", which featured the single "Turn Around and Count 2 Ten". It was followed by "Come Home with Me Baby". The single was a US club hit, including number one on the US dance charts.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, at the height of the bubble economy, the disco boom was a huge success in Japan. Burns made numerous appearances on national television, including "Yoru no Hit Studio", and his music was regularly selected by the Maharaja, the largest and most exclusive disco chain at the time. A few cover songs by Japanese singers have been released.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: As a result, Dead or Alive had a great influence on Japanese idol songs and their successors, J-Pop and Visual Kei. Even after the mid-1990s, when the band had passed the peak of their popularity elsewhere, their popularity in Japan was so high that some of their later albums were released only in Japan, and they visited Japan frequently.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: 1990 saw the band produce their next studio album, "Fan the Flame (Part 1)", although their only successful record deal was in Japan. The album remained exclusive in this territory for many years. It had three singles, "Your Sweetness (Is Your Weakness)", "Gone Too Long", and "Unhappy Birthday".


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The band had begun to produce "", however the album was shelved until a project to finish it in 2021. Some tracks were later re-recorded for the band's "Nukleopatra" album. It is often confused with an acoustic, commercially unreleased album named "Love, Pete", which was sold in cassette form on the band's 1992 tour - during which songs from Part 2 were debuted.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: For a few years, Dead or Alive were mostly inactive in the recording studio. Burns resurfaced in 1994 as vocalist on a single for the Italian techno outfit Glam. Burns helped write the single, "Sex Drive", which was a return to the dance floor.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: Burns and Coy left their international deal with CBS, and signed with Pete Waterman's PWL Records. Recording was started on new tracks cowritten and produced by Mike Stock, but the sessions were aborted when Stock abruptly quit PWL over his dissatisfaction with his share of publishing royalties on the new Dead Or Alive material. Work on new material recommenced with PWL staffer Barry Stone taking over co-production duties.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The band flirted with the idea of recording under the name International Chrysis, named after the late transsexual nightclub performer, and released a single as such in 1994, a cover version of David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel". An initial demo of the track, which featured some new lyrics written by Burns, was blocked by Bowie - who denied permission to use Burns' new lyrics, and also requested the track not be covered by the band at all.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The year 1995 saw new work from Dead or Alive with new keyboardists Jason Alburey and Dean Bright, joining Burns and Coy for the album "Nukleopatra". The album featured a smattering of previously released material, including "Rebel Rebel", "Sex Drive", and two tracks that originally appeared on "Fan the Flame (Part 1)", "Gone Too Long" and "Unhappy Birthday". The album also featured a cover of Blondie's "Picture This". Initially released in Japan only, "Nukleopatra" was later released in Australia, Singapore, South Africa, France and the United States, and each release sported different cover art, track listings, and song versions. Many releases of "Nukleopatra" also included one or more remixes of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)".


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In 2000, Dead or Alive released "Fragile", a collection of remakes with several new tracks and covers including U2's "Even Better Than the Real Thing" and Nick Kamen's "I Promised Myself". This would eventually be their Seventh and final studio album. A new remix album, "Unbreakable", was released in 2001. This was followed by a greatest hits album entitled "", released in 2003 which featured yet another remix of "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)"; both of them enjoyed, for the first time since "Nude", a UK release, with "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" re-entering the Top 40. Later on in 2003, Alburey and Bright departed the band, leaving Dead or Alive once again a duo of Burns and Coy.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In 2004, Burns enjoyed solo success with the Pet Shop Boys-produced track "Jack and Jill Party". Although only released through the Pet Shop Boys website, the track reached number 75 in the UK singles chart.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In September 2010, Burns released a new single, "Never Marry an Icon". Even though Burns stated Dead or Alive had ceased to exist in 2011, Coy later declared the moniker was still active and the band was not over.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: On 21 December 2012, Burns and Coy (as Dead or Alive) performed at the Pete Waterman concert, Hit Factory Live at London's O2 Arena. Other artists on the bill included Jason Donovan, Rick Astley, Steps, Sinitta, Pepsi & Shirlie, Hazell Dean, Princess, Sybil, 2 Unlimited, Lonnie Gordon and Brother Beyond.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: On 28 October 2016, a 19-disc box set titled "Sophisticated Boom Box MMXVI" was released by Edsel Records. The box set featured all records, singles and rarities produced by Dead or Alive from 1983 to 2010, including Pete Burns' solo releases. Coy hinted there may be a second box set in the future to come and previously unreleased Dead or Alive albums as well.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The band toured regularly in the UK in the first half of the 1980s. Their first world tour began in 1987, with dates in Europe, the US, and Japan. Film footage was recorded at two shows at Tokyo's Nippon Budokan on 9 October and at Osaka's Osaka-jō Hall on 11 October 1987, and released on video cassette (VHS) and Laserdisc that same year under the title "Rip It Up Live".


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: The concert was eventually issued as bonus material for the first time on DVD as part of the 2003 compilation release.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: A studio version of "Rip It Up" consisting of the original studio and remix versions of Dead or Alive's best known songs was released on vinyl, cassette and compact disc that same year.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In 1994, Dead or Alive started performing in local night-clubs. Dead or Alive were featured at Gay Pride in Los Angeles in 1995.


title: Dead or Alive (band)

text: In 2006, Pete Burns took part in the TV show "Celebrity Big Brother" in the UK. Burns became known for openly insulting actress Traci Bingham and performing modern dance with Respect MP George Galloway. Following the end of the show (Burns finished in fifth place), "You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)" (from 1985's "Youthquake" album) was re-released.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Rachael May Taylor (born 11 July 1984) is an Australian actress and model. Her first lead role was in the Australian series "headLand" (2005–2006). She then made the transition to Hollywood, appearing in films including "Man-Thing" (2005), "See No Evil" (2006), "Transformers" (2007), "Bottle Shock" (2008), "Cedar Boys" (2009), "Splinterheads" (2009), "Shutter" (2008), "Red Dog" (2011), "The Darkest Hour" (2011) and "Any Questions for Ben?" (2012).


title: Rachael Taylor

text: She has also starred as Dr. Lucy Fields on "Grey's Anatomy", as one of the Angels on the short-lived reboot "Charlie's Angels" (both 2011), as the main character on the ABC show "666 Park Avenue" (2012–2013), and in the NBC action/thriller series "Crisis" (2014).


title: Rachael Taylor

text: She starred in the Netflix exclusive Marvel Cinematic Universe streaming superhero television shows "Jessica Jones" (2015–2019), "Luke Cage" (2016), and "The Defenders" (2017) as Trish Walker.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Taylor was born in Launceston, Tasmania, the daughter of Christine and Nigel Taylor. She attended Riverside High School and Trevallyn Primary School. Taylor had wanted to be an actress since she was a child, performing in many school plays. She graduated from Riverside High School in 2000.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Taylor modelled for Skye-Jilly International and competed successfully in the state finals of Miss Teen Tasmania. She has appeared in a number of American productions – such as television movies about Natalie Wood and the making of "Dynasty" (where she played Catherine Oxenberg), and the horror movies "Man-thing" and "See No Evil".


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Taylor played Sasha Forbes on the short-lived Australian drama series "headLand". On 3 April 2006, she was nominated for a Logie Award for Most Popular New Female Talent for her role on "headLand".


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Her most prominent role to date was as Maggie, a signals analyst, in the 2007 "Transformers", where she appeared alongside Megan Fox and Shia LaBeouf. Taylor confirmed that she would not be returning for the "Transformers" sequel. In 2008, Taylor scored a starring role in the US horror-thriller "Shutter", a remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name opposite Joshua Jackson. Despite mixed reviews, the film was a box-office success.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: In 2009, she completed the Australian feature "Cedar Boys" and starred in the comedy "Splinterheads". In 2010, she starred alongside Alex Dimitriades in the Australian romantic drama "Summer Coda". She has also signed to the HBO comedy series "Washingtonienne" and "Melt", an Australian production. Taylor began a recurring role on "Grey's Anatomy" as Dr. Lucy Fields, an obstetrician and maternal-fetal fellow.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: In 2011, Taylor joined the cast of the short-lived remake of the television series "Charlie's Angels". Also in 2011, she had a major role in the film "Red Dog" and starred in the Russian science-fiction thriller film "The Darkest Hour", directed by filmmaker Chris Gorak.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: Taylor had a key supporting role in the 2012 Australian comedy "Any Questions for Ben?", created by Working Dog Productions. Although the film performed disappointingly at the box-office and received lukewarm reviews, Taylor was praised for her role. Leigh Paatsch in the "Herald-Sun" wrote "Taylor exudes a warmth and assurance (in her performance). It is a shame she is missing in action for lengthy spells in the picture."


title: Rachael Taylor

text: From 2012 to 2013, Taylor starred in the new drama "666 Park Avenue". She was next cast in the 2014 NBC series "Crisis", which ran for one season. In 2015, Taylor starred in "Jessica Jones" as the titular character's best friend Trish Walker. She would go on to reprise the role in a voiceover cameo in "Luke Cage" in 2016, in "The Defenders" in 2017, a second season of "Jessica Jones" in 2018, and the series's final season in 2019.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: In 2014, Taylor played a supporting role in the thriller "The Loft", a remake of the 2008 original, alongside fellow Australian Isabel Lucas. In 2016, Taylor portrayed the character Rachel Hill in "Gold". In 2018, Taylor appeared in "Ladies in Black", an Australian comedy-drama.


title: Rachael Taylor

text: In 2019, Taylor appeared in "Finding Steve McQueen" as Molly Murphy, where she starred alongside Travis Fimmel, Forest Whitaker, and William Fichtner.


title: Upstate New York

text: Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Island, and most definitions of the region also exclude all or part of Westchester and Rockland counties, which are typically included in Downstate New York. Major cities across Upstate New York from east to west include Albany, Utica, Binghamton, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo.


title: Upstate New York

text: Upstate New York is divided into several subregions: the Hudson Valley (of which the lower part is sometimes debated as to being "upstate"), the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley region, Central New York, the Southern Tier, the Finger Lakes region, Western New York, and the North Country.


title: Upstate New York

text: Before the European colonization of the United States, Upstate New York was populated by several Native American tribes. It was home to the Iroquois Confederacy, an indigenous confederation of six tribes, known as the Six Nations. Henry Hudson made the first recorded European exploration of the region in 1609, and the Dutch erected Fort Orange (present-day Albany) in 1624, which was the first permanent European settlement in New York. The region saw many battles during the American Revolutionary War, with the Iroquois split between supporters of the loyalists and supporters of the revolutionaries. After the war ended, the 1784 Treaty of Fort Stanwix kicked off a series of treaties and purchases that saw the Iroquois cede the vast majority of their land in Upstate New York to the newly formed United States.


title: Upstate New York

text: The 1825 opening of the Erie Canal across Upstate New York transformed the economy of the region and the state. The canal greatly eased the movement of goods from across the upper Midwest and the cities along the Great Lakes through Upstate New York and to the port of New York City. As a result, Upstate New York became a hotbed for manufacturing during the Second Industrial Revolution, giving birth to such firms as General Electric, IBM, Kodak, and Xerox. The rapid industrialization led to a large influx of immigrants seeking jobs at factories across the region. Since the mid-20th century, American de-industrialization has contributed to economic and population decline, and the region is largely considered part of the Rust Belt.


title: Upstate New York

text: There are a wide variety of land uses in the region, including urban, suburban, forested preserve, and rural landscapes. Due to its vast areas of rural land, Upstate also supports a strong agricultural industry, and is notable for its dairy, maple syrup, and fruit production (especially apples), as well as winemaking. Upstate New York includes a number of notable waterways, with the Susquehanna, Delaware, and Hudson Rivers all originating in the region, and is bordered on its northern and western edges by the Saint Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. As a result, the region is a significant source of hydroelectric power (going back to the creation of the world's first hydroelectric dam by Nikola Tesla at Niagara Falls) and drinking water (with multiple reservoirs serving New York City). Upstate New York is home to numerous popular tourist and recreational destinations, including Niagara Falls, the Adirondack and Catskill Mountains, the Thousand Islands, the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and the Finger Lakes.


title: Upstate New York

text: There is no clear official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York. The most expansive definition of the Upstate New York region excludes only New York City and Long Island, which are always considered to be part of Downstate New York; this usage is common among New York City residents and significantly less farther north. This definition is used by the Department of Environmental Conservation. A cheeky joke among Manhattanites is that anything north of 14th Street is "upstate".


title: Upstate New York

text: Another usage locates the Upstate/Downstate boundary farther north, at the point where New York City's suburbs segue into its exurbs, as the exurbs do not generally fall within the Census Bureau-defined New York–Newark Urban Area. This latter boundary places most of the Lower Hudson Valley, or Westchester and Rockland counties and about one-third of Putnam County, Downstate, while putting the northwestern edge of Rockland County as well as the northernmost quarter of Westchester County (including Peekskill) Upstate. Conversely, area residents often use Interstate 84 to delineate a boundary between Upstate and Downstate New York.


title: Upstate New York

text: Yet another usage follows the U.S. Census definition of the New York metropolitan area prior to 2010, which includes all of included Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties. This definition was used by the plaintiffs in the federal redistricting case "Rodriguez v. Pataki".


title: Upstate New York

text: In New York state law, the definition of the Upstate boundary also varies: while Westchester is seemingly always considered Downstate under state law, some definitions include Rockland and Putnam counties in the downstate region, and others also include Orange and Dutchess counties; all of these counties are served by Metro-North Railroad lines. Ulster County, and, in the largest state-defined extent of Downstate, Columbia County, are also sometimes included. The division line between the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York places Sullivan County and Dutchess County in the Southern District, and Ulster and Columbia counties in the Northern District.


title: Upstate New York

text: Residents of Upstate New York typically prefer to identify with subregions, such as the Hudson Valley (Middle and Upper), the Capital District, the Mohawk Valley, the North Country, Western New York or Central New York.


title: Upstate New York

text: Within New York, surveys have had difficulty determining a consensus. In a 2016 poll of New York voters in which respondents were asked to choose among four definitions of where Upstate begins, three were about equally common, selected by between 25% and 30% of respondents each: north of New York City, north of Westchester County, and north of Poughkeepsie in Dutchess County. (The fourth, which also started north of Poughkeepsie but excluded Buffalo as a unique region neither Upstate nor Downstate, drew only 7%.) An informal 2018 poll found the Hudson Valley region is the most heavily disputed area regarding whether it is Upstate or Downstate.


title: Upstate New York

text: A number of businesses and institutions in the area have "upstate" as part of their name. Examples of this include the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, the Upstate New York Chapter of the Arthritis Foundation serving 31 of New York's 62 counties, and the VA Healthcare Network Upstate New York, which includes all of New York State northward and westward from Kingston in Ulster County. Other organizations in New York with "upstate" in their name include the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association (now known as the Liberty League), the Upstate Correctional Facility, the Upstate New York Club Hockey League, the Upstate New York Synod, and the Upstate Citizens for Equality.


title: Upstate New York

text: The other regions of New York are culturally and economically distinct from the New York City area and in many ways from each other. By area, most of New York is characterized by agricultural and forested rural communities, and by small and medium-sized cities and their surrounding suburbs located along major transportation corridors. The state's major metropolitan areas outside of New York City are Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany-Schenectady-Troy, each of whose population exceeds 500,000.


title: Upstate New York

text: The different regions of New York are influenced by and have affinities with other adjacent regions. Western New York has cultural and economic ties to the other Great Lakes states as well as Southern Ontario and is effectively, along with Northwestern Pennsylvania, an eastward extension of Midwestern United States culture. The Capital District, the Hudson Valley, the Mohawk Valley and the Plattsburgh area have ties to New England. The North Country, the extreme northern portion of the state, also has strong cultural, economic, linguistic and familial ties to Quebec and Eastern Ontario. Thus, Plattsburgh has close ties to its neighbors in the Montreal area as well as Vermont. Much of New York receives television and radio broadcasts from Canada, and there are often other cross-border ties, both historical and familial. A similar relationship can be seen in northern New England.


title: Upstate New York

text: Linguistically, Upstate New York from Western New York east to Utica is part of the Inland North region of American English dialectology, a region which includes Midwestern cities as far west as Chicago and Milwaukee. The Hudson and lower Mohawk Valley regions have more in common dialectologically with western New England and New York City. The boundary between the use of the words "pop" and "soda" to refer to soft drinks falls farther west than the edge of the Inland North, running just to around the city of Rochester. Buffalo and areas west of Rochester use "pop", like the rest of the Inland North to the west, whereas areas east of Rochester, like Syracuse and Binghamton, use "soda", like New England and New York City. In Ithaca and Elmira, the border is less clear, with some people having grown up with "pop" and some with "soda"; however, current trends see Ithaca, at least, turning to mostly "soda."


title: Upstate New York

text: Although legends lay claim that the potato chip was invented in Saratoga Springs, it has achieved such universal popularity that it is no longer identified with the region. Winemaking is a growing industry in the Finger Lakes as well as in Chautauqua County, where Welch's operates one of the oldest extant grape juice factories in the United States. In the center of the Finger Lakes region, Ithaca is known for the Bo Burger, a cheeseburger with a fried egg on top.


title: Upstate New York

text: Two of the most important rock festivals of the 20th century were held in Upstate New York. In 1969 the Woodstock Festival was held in Bethel, New York, while in 1973 another multiday festival was held at the Watkins Glen International Raceway.


title: Upstate New York

text: Some literary, documentary and cinematic depictions of Upstate present a sense of small town, simple lifestyles, such as "It's a Wonderful Life", set in a small upstate town (probably based on Seneca Falls) in the 1940s.


title: Upstate New York

text: As of 2020, the population of New York State was 20,201,249, with 14,045,410 living in the New York City Metropolitan Area, leaving 6,155,839 for the entire rest of the state. Upstate New York with its larger area has a population density much lower than Downstate. By area, Upstate is typified by farmland and forest, many large lakes, and two (major) mountain ranges, with metro areas dotting the map. Residents of English colonial ancestry are common, as well as German, Irish, and Italian, with most metropolitan counties having a similar number of residents from each group.


title: Upstate New York

text: The North Country is heavily French Canadian. Italian Americans are the largest ethnic group in Oneida County and Schenectady County, as well as in some counties in the Hudson Valley that are closest to New York City. Irish Americans represent the largest ethnic group from the Capital District, Syracuse, Binghamton, and the rest of the Hudson Valley, though the regions also have large Italian American populations. Irish population is consistently above 15% in most of Upstate New York (reaching over 20% in the upper Hudson Valley), compared to less than 8% in most of New York City.


title: Upstate New York

text: Buffalo and Utica also contain notably large contingent of residents with Polish and other Slavic ancestries. African Americans, and Americans of African descent, while not as numerous as in New York City, make up at least 25% of the residents in cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, and Albany.


title: Upstate New York

text: There is also a significant presence of the indigenous Haudenosaunee or Six Nations in the region, who retain enclaves of tribal land: the Seneca Nation and Tonawanda Seneca Nation in Western New York, the Onondaga nation south of Syracuse and the Oneida nation of Oneida County in Central New York, and in the North Country, the Mohawk Nation caught between Franklin County, Ontario, and Québec. Members of the Six Nations also live across Upstate New York outside of tribal lands.


title: Upstate New York

text: The headwaters of the Delaware, Susquehanna, Mohawk, Hudson, and Allegheny rivers are located in the region. Several regions Upstate are characterized by major mountain ranges, large lakes, and extensive forests.


title: Upstate New York

text: The Allegheny Plateau extends into west and central New York from the south. The Catskill Mountains lie within Lower New York in the southeastern part of the state, closer to New York City. The Catskills and the Allegheny Plateau are part of the Appalachian chain. By contrast, Northern New York contains the Adirondack Mountains, which are sometimes mistaken as part of the Appalachians but are in fact a southern extension of the Canadian Shield.


title: Upstate New York

text: In the more mountainous eastern parts of Upstate New York, along the valleys of the Hudson River and the Mohawk River, have been historically important travel corridors and remain so today. Western New York in the vicinity of Buffalo is very flat, as it was once the bottom of a glacial lake. The only "hills" in Niagara County are the Niagara Escarpment, which formed the Falls.


title: Upstate New York

text: Upstate New York has a long shared border with the Canadian province of Ontario stretching from Western New York across Northern New York. It is primarily divided by water boundaries along Lake Erie, the Niagara River, Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. At the conflux of New York, Québec and Ontario lies the Mohawk Nation of Iroquois. To the east, across the remainder of the North Country region, New York shares a land border with the province of Québec.


title: Upstate New York

text: Upstate counties and towns are generally larger in area and smaller in population, compared with those Downstate, although there are exceptions. The state's smallest county in population (Hamilton County) and largest county in area (St. Lawrence County on the state's northern border) are both in Upstate New York, within the North Country and Thousand Islands regions of northern New York. The counties with the largest in population (Kings County) and smallest in area (New York County) are both parts of New York City.


title: Upstate New York

text: Upstate New York is well known for its cold and snowy winters, particularly in comparison to the more temperate climate of Downstate New York. The snowy reputation is especially true for the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Oswego and Syracuse, and is largely due to lake-effect snow from Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. The villages of Old Forge and Saranac Lake, both in the Adirondacks, often vie on winter nights with places like International Falls, Minnesota, and Fargo, North Dakota, for the coldest spot in the nation.


title: Upstate New York

text: Many of the features of Upstate New York landscapes, such as the Finger Lakes and the drumlins that dot the region, are the result of glaciers during the Ice Age.


title: Upstate New York

text: Before the arrival of Europeans, the area was long inhabited by Iroquoian-speaking people (mainly west of the Hudson and around the Great Lakes) and Algonquian-speaking people (mainly east of the Hudson). The conflict between the two peoples continued through the period of early European colonization, and the French, Dutch and English tended to ally with their trading partners among the indigenous peoples. The Haudenosaunee or Iroquois confederacy of the Five (later Six) Nations was a powerful force in its home territory.


title: Upstate New York

text: The Five Nations' territory extended from the Mohawk River Valley through the western part of the state and into current Pennsylvania. From this home base they also controlled at various times large swaths of additional territory throughout what is now the northeastern United States. The Guswhenta (Two Row Wampum Treaty), made with the Dutch government in 1613, codified relations between the Haudenosaunee and European colonizers, and formed the basis of subsequent treaties.


title: Upstate New York

text: In the mid-17th century, during the Beaver Wars, the Iroquois were victorious and dominated the tribes of Neutral Indians, Wenrohronon and the Erie Indians in western New York. Survivors were mostly assimilated into the Seneca people of the Iroquois; some are believed to have escaped to South Carolina, where they merged with other Indian tribes.


title: Upstate New York

text: The region was important from the first days of both French and Dutch colonization in the seventeenth century. The New Netherland colony encompassed the Hudson Valley from Manhattan island north to the confluence of the Hudson and Mohawk rivers, where Fort Orange (later Albany) was established in 1624. The fort at Schenectady was built in 1661. The upper Hudson Valley was the center of much of the colony's fur trade, which was highly lucrative, serving a demand for furs in Europe.


title: Upstate New York

text: North and west of New Netherland, the French established trading posts along the St. Lawrence River and as far south as the shores of Onondaga Lake. They found both trading and proselytizing difficult among the Haudenosaunee, as Samuel de Champlain had alienated the Haudenosaunee during military forays from New France. In the 1640s, three French Jesuit missionaries to New France—St. René Goupil, St. Isaac Jogues, and St. Jean de Lalande—were killed near the Mohawk village of Ossernenon, which was located at the confluence of the Schoharie and Mohawk rivers, where the modern hamlet of Auriesville was later developed. They are considered to be the first three U.S. saints.


title: Upstate New York

text: England seized New Netherland by force in 1664, renaming it New York. The Dutch recaptured the colony nine years later, but ceded it to England under the Treaty of Westminster of 1674.


title: Upstate New York

text: In the eighteenth century, the British consolidated their hold on the region. William Johnson, a Scottish trader, established an estate in the Mohawk Valley, living among the Mohawk, learning their language, and forging an alliance with them. He was appointed as the British Indian agent to the Iroquois. The British also encouraged settlement in the Mohawk Valley by other Europeans, including German Palatines beginning in the 1720s.


title: Upstate New York

text: In what became known as the Albany Congress in 1754, delegates from seven of the thirteen British North American colonies met at Albany to pursue a treaty with the powerful Mohawk. Benjamin Franklin, a Pennsylvania delegate, proposed a plan for uniting the seven colonies that greatly exceeded the scope of the congress. The delegates spent most of their time debating this Albany Plan of union, one of the first attempts to form a union of the colonies "under one government as far as might be necessary for defense and other general important purposes". The delegates approved an amended version, but the colonies rejected it.


title: Upstate New York

text: To counter the French militarily, the British established forts along Lake Ontario and at portages between the Mohawk Valley and the adjacent Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario watersheds. The region became the area for many conflicts of the French and Indian War, such as the Battle of Fort Oswego (1756) and the Siege of Fort William Henry (which was later depicted in the work of James Fenimore Cooper), during the Seven Years' War.


title: Upstate New York

text: The British conquered New France by 1760 with the fall of Quebec. France formally ceded New France to the British in the Treaty of Paris of 1763. The same year, King George III issued the Royal Proclamation of 1763, which established the western and northern boundary of the Province of New York at the limits of the Hudson, Mohawk and Delaware River watersheds. The area between that boundary and the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River, including west of the Appalachian Mountains, was to be the "Indian Reserve."


title: Upstate New York

text: Between 1774 and 1783, deeply divided colonists waged civil war on each other directly and by proxy, through attacks such as the Seneca-led Cherry Valley and the Mohawk-led Cobleskill massacre. In 1779, the Sullivan Expedition, a campaign by the Continental Army ordered by General George Washington, drove thousands of the Haudenosaunee from their villages, farms and lands in the region in an effort to both avenge and prevent such attacks.


title: Upstate New York

text: The region was strategically important to the war plans of both the British and the Continental forces. British efforts to divide the New England colonies from the rest led to battles including the Battle of Valcour Island and the Battle of Saratoga, a significant turning point in the war. While New York City remained in the hands of the British during most of the war, the upstate region was eventually dominated by the Colonial forces. At the end of the war, the Continental Army was headquartered in Newburgh. Uncertain that the Continental Congress would pay back wages, some Continental officers threatened an uprising in what became known as the Newburgh Conspiracy.


title: Upstate New York

text: After the American Revolution, the Treaty of Paris established the border between New York and British North America. The 45th Parallel became the border with Quebec or Lower Canada. The St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, the Niagara River and Lake Erie became the border with Upper Canada. Great Britain continued to occupy military installations along the American shores of the Great Lakes until 1794, including Fort Niagara at the mouth of the Niagara River and Fort Ontario at the mouth of the Oswego River.


title: Upstate New York

text: The government of the new State of New York seized the property of New Yorkers who had remained loyal to the British crown. Thousands emigrated to colonies that remained under British rule, such as Nova Scotia and the newly established Upper Canada (now Ontario). Haudenosaunee who had fought with the British also fled. The British Crown granted a large tract of land in Upper Canada to their Haudenosaunee allies, who established the Grand River settlement.


title: Upstate New York

text: In the federal Treaty of Canandaigua, the new United States recognized the title of the remaining Haudenosaunee to the land north and west of the Proclamation Line of 1763. Nevertheless, New York state officials and private land agents sought through the early 19th century to extinguish Indian title to these lands via non-Federally-sanctioned treaties, such as the Treaty of Big Tree. The Treaties of Buffalo Creek were designed to finally remove the last of the native claims in Western New York as part of the federal Indian Removal program, but the purchaser failed to buy most of the land in time, and some of the tribes objected to their exclusion. Three of the four reservations remain in the region to this day; one of the reservations leased out their land to form the city of Salamanca, and the coexistence of the predominantly white city and the reservation has been a source of contention since the 1990s.


title: Upstate New York

text: Both before and after the Revolution, boundary disputes with other colonies and their successor states also complicated American settlement. In conflict with the New York Colony's claims west of the Hudson Valley, which placed the entire region in the sprawling Albany County, the Pennsylvania Colony claimed much of the Southern Tier until 1774, while the Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed all of the region west of Massachusetts to the Great Lakes.


title: Upstate New York

text: The Province of New York also claimed jurisdiction east to the Connecticut River. To pursue this claim north of Connecticut and Massachusetts, New York granted lands to settlers in what is now Vermont at the same time that New Hampshire made grants of the same lands. When Vermont declared independence in 1777, the new Republic of Vermont recognized the New Hampshire grants over those of New York. New Yorkers who lost land in Vermont came to be known as the "Vermont Sufferers" and were granted new lands in 1788 in the town of Bainbridge, New York.


title: Upstate New York

text: The dispute with Massachusetts over lands to the west of Massachusetts was settled in the 1786 Treaty of Hartford by dividing the rights to the land. The treaty granted sovereignty to the State of New York, but granted to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts the "pre-emptive" right to seek title to the land from the Haudenosaunee. The eastern boundary of the Massachusetts lands was thus known as the Preemption Line. This line runs from the Pennsylvania line due north to Lake Ontario, passing through Seneca Lake. The line was surveyed a second time due to initial errors. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts sold this land in large tracts, including the Phelps and Gorham Purchase and the Holland Purchase.


title: Upstate New York

text: Many of the settlers of what then became Central and Western New York came from the New England states. The Central New York Military Tract, where many of the townships were given the names of classical military and literary figures by Robert Harpur, was established to grant land to Revolutionary War veterans. Some of Northern New York was founded by the hundreds of Canadian exiles who had fought in the First and Second Canadian Regiments of the Continental Army, who were banished from Canada due to their rebellion against the Crown.


title: Upstate New York

text: Battles of the War of 1812 (1812–1815) were fought on the Niagara Frontier; in the Champlain Valley, including the Battle of Plattsburgh; in the St. Lawrence Valley; and on Lake Ontario, including the Battle of Sackets Harbor. The city of Buffalo was razed by the British as well. After the war, the US government began to construct Fort Montgomery just south of the border at Rouses Point on Lake Champlain. Subsequently, it was discovered that at that point, the actual 45th parallel was three-quarters of a mile south of the surveyed line, putting the fort, which became known as "Fort Blunder", in Canada. This was not resolved until 1842 with the Webster–Ashburton Treaty, in which Great Britain and the United States decided to leave the border on the meandering line as surveyed.


title: Upstate New York

text: Slavery existed in New Netherland and the Province of New York. New York was in the 1690s the largest importer of slaves among the American colonies. Slavery did not end with the American Revolution, although John Jay introduced an emancipation bill into the State Assembly as early as 1777. Sojourner Truth was held as a slave in the Hudson Valley from the time she was born in 1797 until she escaped in 1826. Through efforts of the New York Manumission Society and others, New York began to adopt a policy of gradual emancipation in 1799. The law passed in 1817 that would finally emancipate slaves did not take effect for ten years, giving slaveowners an entire decade to sell their slaves away to other states. When the law finally took effect, the last 2,800 slaves in New York State were emancipated on July 4, 1827.


title: Upstate New York

text: Although routes for travel on foot and by canoe had existed across the region for hundreds of years, transportation of agricultural goods to market was expensive and slow. Influenced by the canals being built in Britain, leading citizens of New York began to press for the construction of a canal across the state. Governor DeWitt Clinton prevailed upon the legislature to charter and fund construction of a canal from Albany to Buffalo. Construction of the Erie Canal began in 1817 and was completed in 1825. The canal allowed the area to become an important component of the 19th century industrial expansion in the United States. The canal also promoted trade with British North America and settlement of newer states in western territories. Later in the century the New York Central Railroad followed the "water-level route" from New York City to the Great Lakes, contributing to the industrialization of cities along its route.


title: Upstate New York

text: Several times in the nineteenth century, Upstate New York served as a staging area and refuge for Canadian rebels against Great Britain, as well as Irish-American invaders of Canada, straining British–American relations. In 1837 and 1838, in the aftermath of the Lower Canada Rebellion, some Québécois rebels escaped south to the North Country, while on the Niagara Frontier, events of the Upper Canada Rebellion, also known as the Patriot War, took place. In the late 1860s, some of the Fenian raids were launched across the Niagara Frontier; Fenians also assembled in Malone.


title: Upstate New York

text: Although now largely discredited, the report of the 1905–1907 Mills Commission, charged with investigating the origins of baseball, named Cooperstown as the place where baseball was invented in the 1830s or 1840s by Abner Doubleday. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. (Modern research suggests that the game was actually developed in its modern form in New York City.)


title: Upstate New York

text: In the pre–Civil War era, Upstate New York became a major center of radical abolitionist activity and was an important nexus of the Underground Railroad. Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act was particularly heated in the region, as evidenced by such events as the Jerry Rescue. The American women's rights movement was also born in Upstate New York at this time. The Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, was held at Seneca Falls in 1848. The Rochester Convention, the second such convention, was held two weeks later in Rochester.


title: Upstate New York

text: Through the nineteenth century, Upstate New York was a hotbed of religious revivalism. A number of sects, such as the Shakers and the Oneida Community, established themselves in Upstate New York during that time. This led evangelist Charles Grandison Finney to coin the term the "Burned-Over District" for the region. Because of the comparative isolation of the region, many of the sects were Nonconformist, and because of their non-traditional tenets they had numerous difficulties with government and other local people. The region is considered to be the cradle of Mormonism. The Mormons, Seventh-day Adventists and Spiritualists are the only 21st century survivors of the hundreds of sects created during this time; some more mainstream churches, such as the Wesleyan Church and Free Methodist Church (both offshoots of Methodism that originated in political disputes with the mainline Methodist church), also survive.


title: Upstate New York

text: In the 19th century, extractive industries changed the landscape. Potash was manufactured as the land was cleared for farming. Logging was rampant in the Adirondacks. Iron was mined in the Adirondacks and the North Country. By the 1870s, business leaders, concerned about the effect of deforestation on the water supply necessary to the Erie Canal, advocated for the creation of forest preserves in the Adirondacks and the Catskills. The Adirondack Park and Catskill Park were created and strengthened by a series of legislation between 1885 and 1894, when the "forever wild" provision of the New York State Constitution was added.


title: Upstate New York

text: During the era immediately following World War II, Upstate reached what was probably its peak influence in the national economy. Major local corporations such as IBM, General Electric, Kodak, Xerox and Carrier had national success, producing cutting-edge products for business, government and consumers, and leadership in corporate culture. The opening of the New York State Thruway in the mid-1950s gave the region superior access to other eastern markets. This regional advantage faded as many local firms relocated certain operations to other states, or downsized in the face of foreign competition, similar to events in other areas in the American Rust Belt. There have, however, been recent efforts at economic revitalization. In April 2021, GlobalFoundries, a company specializing in the semiconductor industry, moved its headquarters from Silicon Valley, California to its semiconductor chip manufacturing facility in Malta, New York.


title: Upstate New York

text: Since the late 20th century, with the decline of manufacturing and its jobs, the area has generally suffered a net population loss, most heavily in Western New York. By contrast, many Amish and Mennonite families are recent arrivals to the area and have helped revive agriculture as part of the economy. Beginning in 1974, many Mennonite families moved to the Penn Yan area of Yates County from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, seeking cheaper farmland. Amish communities have also been established in St. Lawrence, Montgomery, Chautauqua and Cattaraugus counties, and are making farming profitable.


title: Upstate New York

text: Artisans are reviving traditional specialty cheeses and developing growing markets for their products, including shipping some items to the New York metropolitan market. A Greek-style yogurt, Chobani, is being produced Upstate by a recent immigrant, who has expanded his operation nationally.


title: Upstate New York

text: Additionally, Upstate New York continues to boast low crime rates, high educational prospects, and readily affordable daily essentials, earning Syracuse, Rochester, Albany, Schenectady, and Buffalo spots in the "Forbes" magazine list of top ten places to raise a family in the United States.


title: Upstate New York

text: Five of the six Iroquois nations have filed land claims against New York State (or have sought settlement of pending claims), based on late 18th-century treaties following the American Revolutionary War with the State of New York (which did not have constitutional authority to treat with American Indian nations) and the United States.


title: Upstate New York

text: Often attributed to the region's semi-rural to rural character, there is more conservatism in culture and politics than found in the more urban downstate area, and the region is the power base of the state's Republican Party. Upstate New York does, however, have several Democratic-dominated counties, including Erie County (Buffalo), Monroe County (Rochester), Onondaga County (Syracuse), Tompkins County (Ithaca), and Albany County (Albany).


title: Upstate New York

text: As a whole, Upstate New York is roughly equally divided in federal elections between Democrats and Republicans. In 2004, John Kerry defeated George W. Bush by fewer than 1,500 votes (1,553,246 votes to 1,551,971) in the Upstate Region.


title: Upstate New York

text: New York City is dependent on Upstate New York for a variety of services: the latter is the source of the city's water supply via the Delaware Aqueduct and the Catskill Aqueduct; much of the city's electric power supply comes from state-owned hydroelectric plants at Niagara Falls and the St. Lawrence River; and most of the state's prisons are upstate; hence the popular term "being sent up the river" (however, the term originally referred to Sing Sing, which is "up the Hudson River" from New York City, but being in Ossining in Westchester County is still in the "downstate" region). Conversely, the operation of state facilities providing these services is an important part of the upstate economy.


title: Mean squared error

text: In statistics, the mean squared error (MSE) or mean squared deviation (MSD) of an estimator (of a procedure for estimating an unobserved quantity) measures the average of the squares of the errors—that is, the average squared difference between the estimated values and the actual value. MSE is a risk function, corresponding to the expected value of the squared error loss. The fact that MSE is almost always strictly positive (and not zero) is because of randomness or because the estimator does not account for information that could produce a more accurate estimate. In machine learning, specifically empirical risk minimization, MSE may refer to the "empirical" risk (the average loss on an observed data set), as an estimate of the true MSE (the true risk: the average loss on the actual population distribution).


title: Mean squared error

text: The MSE is a measure of the quality of an estimator. As it is derived from the square of Euclidean distance, it is always a positive value that decreases as the error approaches zero.


title: Mean squared error

text: The MSE is the second moment (about the origin) of the error, and thus incorporates both the variance of the estimator (how widely spread the estimates are from one data sample to another) and its bias (how far off the average estimated value is from the true value). For an unbiased estimator, the MSE is the variance of the estimator. Like the variance, MSE has the same units of measurement as the square of the quantity being estimated. In an analogy to standard deviation, taking the square root of MSE yields the "root-mean-square error" or "root-mean-square deviation" (RMSE or RMSD), which has the same units as the quantity being estimated; for an unbiased estimator, the RMSE is the square root of the variance, known as the standard error.


title: Mean squared error

text: The MSE either assesses the quality of a "predictor" (i.e., a function mapping arbitrary inputs to a sample of values of some random variable), or of an "estimator" (i.e., a mathematical function mapping a sample of data to an estimate of a parameter of the population from which the data is sampled). The definition of an MSE differs according to whether one is describing a predictor or an estimator.


title: Mean squared error

text: If a vector of formula_1 predictions is generated from a sample of formula_1 data points on all variables, and formula_3 is the vector of observed values of the variable being predicted, with formula_4 being the predicted values (e.g. as from a least-squares fit), then the within-sample MSE of the predictor is computed as


title: Mean squared error

text: In other words, the MSE is the "mean" formula_6 of the "squares of the errors" formula_7. This is an easily computable quantity for a particular sample (and hence is sample-dependent).


title: Mean squared error

text: The MSE can also be computed on "q "data points that were not used in estimating the model, either because they were held back for this purpose, or because these data have been newly obtained. Within this process, known as statistical learning, the MSE is often called the test MSE, and is computed as


title: Mean squared error

text: This definition depends on the unknown parameter, but the MSE is "a priori" a property of an estimator. The MSE could be a function of unknown parameters, in which case any "estimator" of the MSE based on estimates of these parameters would be a function of the data (and thus a random variable). If the estimator formula_14 is derived as a sample statistic and is used to estimate some population parameter, then the expectation is with respect to the sampling distribution of the sample statistic.


title: Mean squared error

text: The MSE can be written as the sum of the variance of the estimator and the squared bias of the estimator, providing a useful way to calculate the MSE and implying that in the case of unbiased estimators, the MSE and variance are equivalent.


title: Mean squared error

text: An even shorter proof can be achieved using the well-known formula that for a random variable formula_20, formula_21. By substituting formula_20 with, formula_23, we haveformula_24But in real modeling case, MSE could be described as the addition of model variance, model bias, and irreducible uncertainty (see Bias–variance tradeoff). According to the relationship, the MSE of the estimators could be simply used for the efficiency comparison, which includes the information of estimator variance and bias. This is called MSE criterion.


title: Mean squared error

text: In regression analysis, plotting is a more natural way to view the overall trend of the whole data. The mean of the distance from each point to the predicted regression model can be calculated, and shown as the mean squared error. The squaring is critical to reduce the complexity with negative signs. To minimize MSE, the model could be more accurate, which would mean the model is closer to actual data. One example of a linear regression using this method is the least squares method—which evaluates appropriateness of linear regression model to model bivariate dataset, but whose limitation is related to known distribution of the data.


title: Mean squared error

text: The term "mean squared error" is sometimes used to refer to the unbiased estimate of error variance: the residual sum of squares divided by the number of degrees of freedom. This definition for a known, computed quantity differs from the above definition for the computed MSE of a predictor, in that a different denominator is used. The denominator is the sample size reduced by the number of model parameters estimated from the same data, ("n"−"p") for "p" regressors or ("n"−"p"−1) if an intercept is used (see errors and residuals in statistics for more details). Although the MSE (as defined in this article) is not an unbiased estimator of the error variance, it is consistent, given the consistency of the predictor.


title: Mean squared error

text: In regression analysis, "mean squared error", often referred to as mean squared prediction error or "out-of-sample mean squared error", can also refer to the mean value of the squared deviations of the predictions from the true values, over an out-of-sample test space, generated by a model estimated over a particular sample space. This also is a known, computed quantity, and it varies by sample and by out-of-sample test space.


title: Mean squared error

text: Suppose we have a random sample of size formula_1 from a population, formula_26. Suppose the sample units were chosen with replacement. That is, the formula_1 units are selected one at a time, and previously selected units are still eligible for selection for all formula_1 draws. The usual estimator for the formula_29 is the sample average


title: Mean squared error

text: which has an expected value equal to the true mean formula_29 (so it is unbiased) and a mean squared error of


title: Mean squared error

text: For a Gaussian distribution, this is the best unbiased estimator (i.e., one with the lowest MSE among all unbiased estimators), but not, say, for a uniform distribution.


title: Mean squared error

text: This is unbiased (its expected value is formula_33), hence also called the "unbiased sample variance," and its MSE is


title: Mean squared error

text: where formula_37 is the fourth central moment of the distribution or population, and formula_38 is the excess kurtosis.


title: Mean squared error

text: However, one can use other estimators for formula_33 which are proportional to formula_40, and an appropriate choice can always give a lower mean squared error. If we define


title: Mean squared error

text: For a Gaussian distribution, where formula_44, this means that the MSE is minimized when dividing the sum by formula_45. The minimum excess kurtosis is formula_46, which is achieved by a Bernoulli distribution with "p" = 1/2 (a coin flip), and the MSE is minimized for formula_47 Hence regardless of the kurtosis, we get a "better" estimate (in the sense of having a lower MSE) by scaling down the unbiased estimator a little bit; this is a simple example of a shrinkage estimator: one "shrinks" the estimator towards zero (scales down the unbiased estimator).


title: Mean squared error

text: Further, while the corrected sample variance is the best unbiased estimator (minimum mean squared error among unbiased estimators) of variance for Gaussian distributions, if the distribution is not Gaussian, then even among unbiased estimators, the best unbiased estimator of the variance may not be formula_48


title: Mean squared error

text: The following table gives several estimators of the true parameters of the population, μ and σ, for the Gaussian case.


title: Mean squared error

text: An MSE of zero, meaning that the estimator formula_14 predicts observations of the parameter formula_15 with perfect accuracy, is ideal (but typically not possible).


title: Mean squared error

text: Values of MSE may be used for comparative purposes. Two or more statistical models may be compared using their MSEs—as a measure of how well they explain a given set of observations: An unbiased estimator (estimated from a statistical model) with the smallest variance among all unbiased estimators is the "best unbiased estimator" or MVUE (Minimum-Variance Unbiased Estimator).


title: Mean squared error

text: Both analysis of variance and linear regression techniques estimate the MSE as part of the analysis and use the estimated MSE to determine the statistical significance of the factors or predictors under study. The goal of experimental design is to construct experiments in such a way that when the observations are analyzed, the MSE is close to zero relative to the magnitude of at least one of the estimated treatment effects.


title: Mean squared error

text: In one-way analysis of variance, MSE can be calculated by the division of the sum of squared errors and the degree of freedom. Also, the f-value is the ratio of the mean squared treatment and the MSE.


title: Mean squared error

text: MSE is also used in several stepwise regression techniques as part of the determination as to how many predictors from a candidate set to include in a model for a given set of observations.


title: Mean squared error

text: Squared error loss is one of the most widely used loss functions in statistics, though its widespread use stems more from mathematical convenience than considerations of actual loss in applications. Carl Friedrich Gauss, who introduced the use of mean squared error, was aware of its arbitrariness and was in agreement with objections to it on these grounds. The mathematical benefits of mean squared error are particularly evident in its use at analyzing the performance of linear regression, as it allows one to partition the variation in a dataset into variation explained by the model and variation explained by randomness.


title: Mean squared error

text: The use of mean squared error without question has been criticized by the decision theorist James Berger. Mean squared error is the negative of the expected value of one specific utility function, the quadratic utility function, which may not be the appropriate utility function to use under a given set of circumstances. There are, however, some scenarios where mean squared error can serve as a good approximation to a loss function occurring naturally in an application.


title: Mean squared error

text: Like variance, mean squared error has the disadvantage of heavily weighting outliers. This is a result of the squaring of each term, which effectively weights large errors more heavily than small ones. This property, undesirable in many applications, has led researchers to use alternatives such as the mean absolute error, or those based on the median.


title: Birch

text: A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus Betula (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus "Betula" contains 30 to 60 known taxa of which 11 are on the IUCN 2011 Red List of Threatened Species. They are a typically rather short-lived pioneer species widespread in the Northern Hemisphere, particularly in northern areas of temperate climates and in boreal climates.


title: Birch

text: Birch species are generally small to medium-sized trees or shrubs, mostly of northern temperate and boreal climates. The simple leaves are alternate, singly or doubly serrate, feather-veined, petiolate and stipulate. They often appear in pairs, but these pairs are really borne on spur-like, two-leaved, lateral branchlets. The fruit is a small samara, although the wings may be obscure in some species. They differ from the alders ("Alnus", another genus in the family) in that the female catkins are not woody and disintegrate at maturity, falling apart to release the seeds, unlike the woody, cone-like female alder catkins.


title: Birch

text: The bark of all birches is characteristically marked with long, horizontal lenticels, and often separates into thin, papery plates, especially upon the paper birch. Distinctive colors give the common names gray, white, black, silver and yellow birch to different species.


title: Birch

text: The buds, forming early and full-grown by midsummer, are all lateral, without a terminal bud forming; the branch is prolonged by the upper lateral bud. The wood of all the species is close-grained with a satiny texture and capable of taking a fine polish; its fuel value is fair.


title: Birch

text: The flowers are monoecious, opening with or before the leaves. Once fully grown, these leaves are usually long on three-flowered clusters in the axils of the scales of drooping or erect catkins or aments. Staminate catkins are pendulous, clustered, or solitary in the axils of the last leaves of the branch of the year or near the ends of the short lateral branchlets of the year. They form in early autumn and remain rigid during the winter. The scales of the mature staminate catkins are broadly ovate, rounded, yellow or orange colour below the middle and dark chestnut brown at apex. Each scale bears two bractlets and three sterile flowers, each flower consisting of a sessile, membranous, usually two-lobed, calyx. Each calyx bears four short filaments with one-celled anthers or strictly, two filaments divided into two branches, each bearing a half-anther. Anther cells open longitudinally. The pistillate segments are erect or pendulous, and solitary, terminal on the two-leaved lateral spur-like branchlets of the year. The pistillate scales are oblong-ovate, three-lobed, pale yellow-green often tinged with red, becoming brown at maturity. These scales bear two or three fertile flowers, each flower consisting of a naked ovary. The ovary is compressed, two-celled, and crowned with two slender styles; the ovule is solitary. Each scale bears a single small, winged nut that is oval, with two persistent stigmas at the apex.


title: Birch

text: Note: many American texts have "B. pendula" and "B. pubescens" confused, though they are distinct species with different chromosome numbers.


title: Birch

text: The common name "birch" comes from Old English "birce", "bierce", from Proto-Germanic *"berk-jōn" (cf. German "Birke", West Frisian "bjirk"), an adjectival formation from *"berkōn" (cf. Dutch "berk", Low German "Bark", Danish "birk", Norwegian "bjørk"), itself from the Proto-Indo-European root *"bʰerHǵ-" ~ "bʰrHǵ"-, which also gave Lithuanian "béržas", Latvian "Bērzs", Russian "berëza", Ukrainian "beréza", Albanian "bredh" 'fir', Ossetian "bærz(æ)", Sanskrit "bhurja", Polish "brzoza", Latin "fraxinus" 'ash (tree)'. This root is presumably derived from *"bʰreh₁ǵ-" 'to shine, whiten', in reference to the birch's white bark. The Proto-Germanic rune "berkanan" is named after the birch.


title: Birch

text: The generic name "Betula" is from Latin, which is a diminutive borrowed from Gaulish "betua" (cf. Old Irish "bethe", Welsh "bedw").


title: Birch

text: Within Betulaceae, birches are most closely related to alder. The oldest known birch fossils are those of "Betula leopoldae" from the Klondike Mountain Formation in Washington State, USA, which date to the early Eocene (Ypresian) around 49 million years ago.


title: Birch

text: Birches often form even-aged stands on light, well-drained, particularly acidic soils. They are regarded as pioneer species, rapidly colonizing open ground especially in secondary successional sequences following a disturbance or fire. Birches are early tree species to become established in primary successions, and can become a threat to heathland if the seedlings and saplings are not suppressed by grazing or periodic burning. Birches are generally lowland species, but some species, such as "Betula nana", have a montane distribution. In the British Isles, there is some difference between the environments of "Betula pendula" and "Betula pubescens", and some hybridization, though both are "opportunists in steady-state woodland systems". Mycorrhizal fungi, including sheathing (ecto)mycorrhizas, are found in some cases to be beneficial to tree growth.


title: Birch

text: Because of the hardness of birch, it is easier to shape it with power tools; it is quite difficult to work it with hand tools.


title: Birch

text: The inner bark is considered edible as an emergency food, even when raw. It can be dried and ground into flour, as was done by Native Americans and early settlers. It can also be cut into strips and cooked like noodles.


title: Birch

text: The sap can be drunk or used to make syrup. Tea can be made from the red inner bark of black birches.


title: Birch

text: White-barked birches in particular are cultivated as ornamental trees, largely for their appearance in winter. The Himalayan birch, "Betula utilis", especially the variety or subspecies "jacquemontii", is among the most widely planted for this purpose. It has been cultivated since the 1870s, and many cultivars are available, including 'Doorenbos', 'Grayswood Ghost' and 'Silver Shadow'; 'Knightshayes' has a slightly weeping habit. Other species with ornamental white bark include "Betula ermanii", "Betula papyrifera", "Betula pendula" and "Betula raddeana".


title: Birch

text: In the European Union, a prescription gel containing birch bark extract (commercial name "Episalvan", betulae cortex dry extract (5-10 : 1); extraction solvent: n-heptane 95% (w/w)) was approved in 2016 for the topical treatment of minor skin wounds in adults. Although its mechanism of action in helping to heal injured skin is not fully understood, birch bark extract appears to stimulate the growth of keratinocytes which then fill the wound.


title: Birch

text: Preliminary research indicates that the phytochemicals, betulin and possibly other triterpenes, are active in "Episalvan" gel and wound healing properties of birch bark.


title: Birch

text: Over centuries, birch bark was used in traditional medicine practices by North American indigenous people for treating superficial wounds by applying bark directly to the skin. Splints made with birch bark were used as casts for broken limbs in the 16th century.


title: Birch

text: Wood pulp made from birch gives relatively long and slender fibres for a hardwood. The thin walls cause the fibre to collapse upon drying, giving a paper with low bulk and low opacity. The birch fibres are, however, easily fibrillated and give about 75% of the tensile strength of softwood. The low opacity makes it suitable for making glassine.


title: Birch

text: In India, the birch (Sanskrit: भुर्ज, "bhurja") holds great historical significance in the culture of North India, where the thin bark coming off in winter was extensively used as writing paper. Birch paper (Sanskrit: भुर्ज पत्र, "bhurja patra") is exceptionally durable and was the material used for many ancient Indian texts. The Roman period Vindolanda tablets also use birch as a material on which to write and birch bark was used widely in ancient Russia as notepaper ("beresta") and for decorative purposes and even making footwear ("lapti") and baskets.


title: Birch

text: Baltic birch is among the most sought-after wood in the manufacture of speaker cabinets. Birch has a natural resonance that peaks in the high and low frequencies, which are also the hardest for speakers to reproduce. This resonance compensates for the roll-off of low and high frequencies in the speakers, and evens the tone. Birch is known for having "natural EQ".


title: Birch

text: Drums are often made from birch. Prior to the 1970s, it was one of the most popular drum woods. Because of the need for greater volume and midrange clarity, drums were made almost entirely from maple until recently, when advances in live sound reinforcement and drum microphones have allowed the use of birch in high-volume situations. Birch drums have a natural boost in the high and low frequencies, which allows the drums to sound fuller.


title: Birch

text: Birch wood is sometimes used as a tonewood for semiacoustic and acoustic guitar bodies, and occasionally for solid-body guitar bodies. It is also a common material used in mallets for keyboard percussion.


title: Birch

text: Birches have spiritual importance in several religions, both modern and historical. In Celtic cultures, the birch symbolises growth, renewal, stability, initiation, and adaptability because it is highly adaptive and able to sustain harsh conditions with casual indifference. Proof of this adaptability is seen in its easy and eager ability to repopulate areas damaged by forest fires or clearings. Birches are also associated with "Tír na nÓg", the land of the dead and the "Sidhe", in Gaelic folklore, and as such frequently appear in Scottish, Irish, and English folksongs and ballads in association with death, or fairies, or returning from the grave. The leaves of the silver birch tree are used in the festival of St George, held in Novosej and other villages in Albania.


title: Birch

text: The birch is New Hampshire's state tree and the national tree of Finland and Russia. The yellow birch is the official tree of the province of Quebec (Canada). The birch is a very important element in Russian culture and represents the grace, strength, tenderness and natural beauty of Russian women as well as the closeness to nature of the Russians. It's associated with marriage and love. There are numerous folkloric Russian songs in which the birch tree occurs. The Ornäs birch is the national tree of Sweden. The Czech word for the month of March, Březen, is derived from the Czech word bříza meaning birch, as birch trees flower in March under local conditions. The silver birch tree is of special importance to the Swedish city of Umeå. In 1888, the Umeå city fire spread all over the city and nearly burnt it down to the ground, but some birches, supposedly, halted the spread of the fire. To protect the city against future fires, wide avenues were created, and these were lined with silver birch trees all over the city. Umeå later adopted the unofficial name of "City of the Birches ("Björkarnas stad")". Also, the ice hockey team of Umeå is called "Björklöven", translated to English "The Birch Leaves".


title: Birch

text: "Swinging" birch trees was a common game for American children in the nineteenth century. American poet Lucy Larcom's "Swinging on a Birch Tree" celebrates the game. The poem inspired Robert Frost, who pays homage to the act of climbing birch trees in his more famous poem, "Birches". Frost once told "it was almost sacrilegious climbing a birch tree till it bent, till it gave and swooped to the ground, but that's what boys did in those days".


title: Montesquieu

text: Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.


title: Montesquieu

text: He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word "despotism" in the political lexicon. His anonymously published "The Spirit of Law" (1748), which was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution.