title: Ramanuja

text: Ramanuja not only developed theories and published philosophical works, he organized a network of temples for Vishnu-Lakshmi worship. Ramanuja set up centers of studies for his philosophy during the 11th and 12th centuries, by traveling through India in that era, and these influenced generations of poet saints devoted to the Bhakti movement. Regional traditions assert that his visits, debates and discourses triggered conversion of Jains and Buddhists to Vaishnavism in Mysore and Deccan region.


title: Ramanuja

text: The birthplace of Ramanuja near Chennai hosts a temple and is an active Vishishtadvaita school. His doctrines inspire a lively intellectual tradition in southern, northern and eastern states of India, his monastery and temple traditions are carried on in the most important and large Vaishnava centres – the Ranganātha temple in Srirangam, Tamil Nadu, and the Venkateswara Temple, Tirumala in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh.


title: Ramanuja

text: The Statue of Equality in Hyderabad, planned by Chinna Jeeyar, is dedicated to Ramanuja. It was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 5 February 2022.


title: Ramanuja

text: Ramanuja is also known as "", Udaiyavar, "Ethirājar" ("Yatirāja", king of monks), Bhashyakara (Bhashyakarulu in Telugu), "Godāgrajar", Thiruppavai Jeeyar, "Emberumānār" and Lakshmana Muni


title: Anchovy

text: An anchovy is a small, common forage fish of the family Engraulidae. Most species are found in marine waters, but several will enter brackish water, and some in South America are restricted to fresh water.


title: Anchovy

text: More than 140 species are placed in 17 genera; they are found in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans, and in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea. Anchovies are usually classified as oily fish.


title: Anchovy

text: Anchovies are small, green fish with blue reflections due to a silver-colored longitudinal stripe that runs from the base of the caudal (tail) fin. They range from in adult length, and their body shapes are variable with more slender fish in northern populations.


title: Anchovy

text: The snout is blunt with tiny, sharp teeth in both jaws. The snout contains a unique rostral organ, believed to be electro-sensory in nature, although its exact function is unknown. The mouth is larger than that of herrings and silversides, two fish which anchovies closely resemble in other respects. The anchovy eats plankton and recently hatched fish.


title: Anchovy

text: Anchovies are found in scattered areas throughout the world's oceans, but are concentrated in temperate waters, and are rare or absent in very cold or very warm seas. They are generally very accepting of a wide range of temperatures and salinity. Large schools can be found in shallow, brackish areas with muddy bottoms, as in estuaries and bays.


title: Anchovy

text: The European anchovy is abundant in the Mediterranean, particularly in the Alboran Sea, Aegean Sea and the Black Sea. This species is regularly caught along the coasts of Crete, Greece, Sicily, Italy, France, Turkey, Northern Iran, Portugal and Spain. They are also found on the coast of northern Africa. The range of the species also extends along the Atlantic coast of Europe to the south of Norway. Spawning occurs between October and March, but not in water colder than . The anchovy appears to spawn at least from the shore, near the surface of the water.


title: Anchovy

text: The anchovy is a significant food source for almost every predatory fish in its environment, including the California halibut, rock fish, yellowtail, shark, chinook, and coho salmon. It is also extremely important to marine mammals and birds; for example, breeding success of California brown pelicans and elegant terns is strongly connected to anchovy abundance.


title: Anchovy

text: Anchovies, like most clupeoids (herrings, sardines and anchovies), are filter-feeders that open their mouths as they swim. As water passes through the mouth and out the gills, food particles are sieved by gill rakers and transferred into the esophagus.


title: Anchovy

text: On average, the Turkish commercial fishing fleet catches around 300,000 tons per year, mainly in winter. The largest catch is in November and December.


title: Anchovy

text: The Peruvian anchovy fishery is one of the largest in the world, far exceeding catches of the other anchovy species.


title: Anchovy

text: In 1973 it collapsed catastrophically due to the combined effects of overfishing and El Niño and did not recover fully for two decades.


title: Anchovy

text: A traditional method of processing and preserving anchovies is to gut and salt them in brine, allow them to cure, and then pack them in oil or salt. This results in a characteristic strong flavor and the flesh turning a deep grey. Pickled in vinegar, as with Spanish "boquerones", anchovies are milder and the flesh retains a white color. In Roman times, anchovies were the base for the fermented fish sauce "garum". "Garum" had a sufficiently long shelf life for long-distance commerce, and was produced in industrial quantities. Anchovies were also eaten raw as an aphrodisiac.


title: Anchovy

text: Today, they are used in small quantities to flavor many dishes. Because of the strong flavor, they are also an ingredient in several sauces and condiments, including Worcestershire sauce, caesar salad dressing, remoulade, Gentleman's Relish, many fish sauces, and in some versions of Café de Paris butter. For domestic use, anchovy fillets are packed in oil or salt in small tins or jars, sometimes rolled around capers. Anchovy paste is also available. Fishermen also use anchovies as bait for larger fish, such as tuna and sea bass.


title: Anchovy

text: The strong taste people associate with anchovies is due to the curing process. Fresh anchovies, known in Italy as "alici", have a much milder flavor. The anchovies from Barcola (in the local dialect: "Sardoni barcolani") are particularly popular. These white fleshy fish, which are only found at Sirocco in the Gulf of Trieste, achieve the highest prices.


title: Anchovy

text: In Sweden and Finland, the name anchovies is related strongly to a traditional seasoning, hence the product "anchovies" is normally made of sprats and herring can be sold as "anchovy-spiced". Fish from the family Engraulidae are instead known as "sardell" in Sweden and "sardelli" in Finland, leading to confusion when translating recipes.


title: Anchovy

text: In Southeast Asian countries like Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines, they are deep-fried and eaten as a snack or a side dish. They are known as Ikan Bilis in Malay, Ikan Teri in Indonesian and Dilis in Filipino.


title: Near-death experience

text: A near-death experience (NDE) is a profound personal experience associated with death or impending death which researchers claim share similar characteristics. When positive, such experiences may encompass a variety of sensations including detachment from the body, feelings of levitation, total serenity, security, warmth, the experience of absolute dissolution, and the presence of a light. When negative, such experiences may include sensations of anguish, distress, a void, devastation, and vast emptiness. People often report seeing hellish places and things like their own rendition of "the devil."


title: Near-death experience

text: Explanations for NDEs vary from scientific to religious. Neuroscience research hypothesizes that an NDE is a subjective phenomenon resulting from "disturbed bodily multisensory integration" that occurs during life-threatening events. Some transcendental and religious beliefs about an afterlife include descriptions similar to NDEs.


title: Near-death experience

text: In the U.S., an estimated 9 million people have reported an NDE, according to a 2011 study in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Most of these near-death experiences result from serious injury that affects the body or brain.


title: Near-death experience

text: The equivalent French term "expérience de mort imminente" ("experience of imminent death") was proposed by French psychologist and epistemologist Victor Egger as a result of discussions in the 1890s among philosophers and psychologists concerning climbers' stories of the panoramic life review during falls. In 1892 a series of subjective observations by workers falling from scaffolds, war soldiers who suffered injuries, climbers who had fallen from heights or other individuals who had come close to death (near drownings, accidents) was reported by Albert Heim. This was also the first time the phenomenon was described as clinical syndrome. In 1968 Celia Green published an analysis of 400 first-hand accounts of out-of-body experiences. This represented the first attempt to provide a taxonomy of such experiences, viewed simply as anomalous perceptual experiences, or hallucinations. In 1969, Swiss-American psychiatrist and pioneer in near-death studies Elisabeth Kübler-Ross published her book "On Death and Dying: What the Dying Have to Teach Doctors, Nurses, Clergy, and Their Own Families." These experiences were also popularized by the work of psychiatrist Raymond Moody, who in 1975 coined the term "near-death experience" as an umbrella term for the different elements (out of body experiences, the "panoramic life review", the Light, the tunnel, or the border). The term "near-death experience" had already been used by John C. Lilly in 1972.


title: Near-death experience

text: Researchers have identified the common elements that define near-death experiences. Bruce Greyson argues that the general features of the experience include impressions of being outside one's physical body, visions of deceased relatives and religious figures, and transcendence of egotic and spatiotemporal boundaries. Many common elements have been reported, although the person's interpretation of these events often corresponds with the cultural, philosophical, or religious beliefs of the person experiencing it. For example, in the US, where 46% of the population believes in guardian angels, they will often be identified as angels or deceased loved ones (or will be unidentified), while Hindus will often identify them as messengers of the god of death.


title: Near-death experience

text: It is also important not to confuse an out-of-body experience (OBE) with a near-death experience. An OBE is a part of an NDE, but most importantly, can happen in other instances than when a person is about to die, such as fainting, deep sleep, and alcohol or drug use, where there are many cases of people claiming to have lived through an OBE, seeing the world outside of their physical body.


title: Near-death experience

text: A 1975 study conducted by psychiatrist Raymond Moody, MD, PhD, on around 150 patients who all claimed to have witnessed an NDE stated that such an experience has nine steps.


title: Near-death experience

text: Moody also explained how not every NDE will have each and every one of these steps, and how it could be different for every single experience. Due to the potential confusion or shock attributed to those who experience near-death experiences, it is important to treat them in a calm and understanding way right after their return from the After-Life.


title: Near-death experience

text: Dr Moody describes the correct approach to an NDE patient is to "Ask, Listen, Validate, Educate, and Refer"


title: Near-death experience

text: Kenneth Ring (1980) subdivided the NDE on a five-stage continuum, using Moody's nine step experiment as inspiration. The subdivisions were:


title: Near-death experience

text: There is also a final stage in NDEs, which is the person in question returning to their life on Earth.


title: Near-death experience

text: Charlotte Martial, a neuropsychologist from the University of Liège and the University Hospital of Liège who led a team that investigated 154 NDE cases, concluded that there is not a fixed sequence of events. Yvonne Kason MD classified near-death experiences into three types: the "Out-of-Body" type, the "Mystical" or "White-Light" type, and the "Distressing" type.


title: Near-death experience

text: Kenneth Ring argues that NDEs experienced following attempted suicides are statistically no more unpleasant than NDEs resulting from other situations.


title: Near-death experience

text: Bruce Greyson declares in his study that overall NDEs have a lack of precision in diagnosis, so Dr. Greyson ventured in the study of common effects, mechanisms, sensations and reactions revealed through NDE's survivors by creating a questionnaire composed of 80 characteristics linked to NDE. He performed many studies averaging 70 responders per study. Nevertheless, he believed that his preliminary form wasn't precise enough, so Dr. Greyson went on to extend his research through tests and analysis collecting essential data that resulted in him coming up with an exemplary scale for many researchers to use for their studies that goes as follows:


title: Near-death experience

text: According to the Rasch rating-scale, this sixteen multiple choice questionnaire can be universally applied to all NDEs. It yields the same results no matter the age and gender of the victim, the intensity of the experience, or how much time elapsed between taking the survey and the NDE itself. With the results ranging from 0 to 32, the average score is 15 and the one standard deviation below the mean is 7. Scores below 7 are a subtle NDE while 8 is considered a "deep" one. A NDE recorded above 8 is stated to be intense.


title: Near-death experience

text: This scale has helped many researchers advance and enrich their discovery, most notably, Dr. Long. Jeffrey Long set out to discover the 'reality' of near death experiences mostly linked to cardiac arrest victims by using this scale and reviewing NDERF studies. His first line of evidence shows that 835 out of 1122 NDE victims seemed to feel an increase in alertness and consciousness while studies proved no sign of electrical brain activity. His second line of evidence studies the increase of accuracy developed by NDE survivors defining their resuscitation process with a 97.6% accuracy rate. Dr. Long goes even further in his research with 7 more lines of evidence that all point to realism in NDE experiences, yet all of them not being verifiable or defined by today's medical advances and technology. Having such an abnormally large amount (95.6% out of 1000 participants) of NDE victims proclaiming NDEs as real experiences, it is reasonable to assume that they might be inexplicably real. In short, a doctors research combined with 35 years worth of research has only promoted NDE as medically inexplicable, yet most probably a real phenomenon.


title: Near-death experience

text: NDEs are associated with changes in personality and outlook on life. Ring has identified a consistent set of value and belief changes associated with people who have had a near-death experience. Among these changes, he found a greater appreciation for life, higher self-esteem, greater compassion for others, less concern for acquiring material wealth, a heightened sense of purpose and self-understanding, desire to learn, elevated spirituality, greater ecological sensitivity and planetary concern, a feeling of being more intuitive, no longer worrying about death, and claiming to have witnessed an afterlife. While people who had experienced NDEs become more spiritual, it doesn't mean they become necessarily more religious. However, not all after-effects are beneficial and Greyson describes circumstances where changes in attitudes and behavior can lead to psychosocial and psychospiritual problems.


title: Near-death experience

text: NDEs have been recorded since ancient times. The oldest known medical report of near-death experiences was written by Pierre-Jean du Monchaux, an 18th-century French military doctor who described such a case in his book ""Anecdotes de Médecine"". Monchaux hypothesized that an influx of blood in the brain stimulated a strong feeling in the individual, and therefore caused a near-death experience. In the 19th century a few studies moved beyond individual cases - one privately done by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and one in Switzerland. Up to 2005, 95% of world cultures are known to have made some mention of NDEs.


title: Near-death experience

text: Bruce Greyson (psychiatrist), Kenneth Ring (psychologist), and Michael Sabom (cardiologist), helped to launch the field of near-death studies and introduced the study of near-death experiences to the academic setting. From 1975 to 2005, some 2,500 self-reported individuals in the US had been reviewed in retrospective studies of the phenomena with an additional 600 outside the US in the West, and 70 in Asia. Additionally, prospective studies had identified 270 individuals. Prospective studies review groups of individuals (e.g., selected emergency room patients) and then find who had an NDE during the study's time; such studies cost more to perform. In all, close to 3,500 individual cases between 1975 and 2005 had been reviewed in one or another study. All these studies were carried out by some 55 researchers or teams of researchers.


title: Near-death experience

text: Melvin L. Morse, head of the Institute for the Scientific Study of Consciousness, and colleagues have investigated near-death experiences in a pediatric population.


title: Near-death experience

text: In 2001, Sam Parnia and colleagues published the results of a year-long study of cardiac arrest survivors that was conducted at Southampton General Hospital. 63 survivors were interviewed. They had been resuscitated after being clinically dead with no pulse, no respiration, and fixed dilated pupils. Parnia and colleagues investigated out-of-body experience claims by placing figures in areas where patients were likely to be resuscitated on suspended boards facing the ceiling, not visible from the floor. Four had experiences that, according to the study criteria, were NDEs but none of them experienced the out-of-body experience. Thus, they were not able to identify the figures.


title: Near-death experience

text: Psychologist Chris French wrote regarding the study "unfortunately, and somewhat atypically, none of the survivors in this sample experienced an out of body experience".


title: Near-death experience

text: In 2001, Pim van Lommel, a cardiologist from the Netherlands, and his team conducted a study on NDEs including 344 cardiac arrest patients who had been successfully resuscitated in 10 Dutch hospitals. Patients not reporting NDEs were used as controls for patients who did, and psychological (e.g., fear before cardiac arrest), demographic (e.g., age, sex), medical (e.g., more than one cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR)), and pharmacological data were compared between the two groups. The work also included a longitudinal study where the two groups (those who had had an NDE and those who had not had one) were compared at two and eight years, for life changes. One patient had a conventional out of body experience. He reported being able to watch and recall events during the time of his cardiac arrest. His claims were confirmed by hospital personnel. "This did not appear consistent with hallucinatory or illusory experiences, as the recollections were compatible with real and verifiable rather than imagined events".


title: Near-death experience

text: While at University of Southampton, Parnia was the principal investigator of the AWARE Study, which was launched in 2008. This study which concluded in 2012 included 33 investigators across 15 medical centers in the UK, Austria and the US and tested consciousness, memories and awareness during cardiac arrest. The accuracy of claims of visual and auditory awareness was examined using specific tests. One such test consisted of installing shelves, bearing a variety of images and facing the ceiling, hence not visible to hospital staff, in rooms where cardiac-arrest patients were more likely to occur. The results of the study were published in October 2014; both the launch and the study results were widely discussed in the media.


title: Near-death experience

text: A review article analyzing the results reports that, out of 2,060 cardiac arrest events, 101 of 140 cardiac arrest survivors could complete the questionnaires. Of these 101 patients 9% could be classified as near-death experiences. Two more patients (2% of those completing the questionnaires) described "seeing and hearing actual events related to the period of cardiac arrest". These two patients' cardiac arrests did not occur in areas equipped with ceiling shelves hence no images could be used to objectively test for visual awareness claims. One of the two patients was too sick and the accuracy of her recount could not be verified. For the second patient, however, it was possible to verify the accuracy of the experience and to show that awareness occurred paradoxically some minutes after the heart stopped, at a time when "the brain ordinarily stops functioning and cortical activity becomes isoelectric (i.e. without any discernible electric activity)." The experience was not compatible with an illusion, imaginary event or hallucination since visual (other than of ceiling shelves' images) and auditory awareness could be corroborated.


title: Near-death experience

text: , a posting at the UK Clinical Trials Gateway website described plans for AWARE II, a two-year multicenter observational study of 900-1500 patients experiencing cardiac arrest, which said that subject recruitment had started on 1 August 2014 and that the scheduled end date was 31 May 2017. The study was extended, continuing until 2020. In 2019, a report of a condensed version of the study with 465 patients was released. Only one patient remembered the auditory stimuli while none remembered the visual.


title: Near-death experience

text: A three-year longitudinal study has revealed that some Buddhist meditation practitioners are able to willfully induce near-death experiences at a pre-planned point in time. Unlike traditional NDEs, participants were consciously aware of experiencing the meditation-induced NDE and retained control over its content and duration. The Dalai Lama has also asserted that experienced meditators can deliberately induce the NDE state during meditation, being able to recognize and sustain it.


title: Near-death experience

text: In a review article, psychologist Chris French has grouped approaches to explain NDEs in three broad groups which "are not distinct and independent, but instead show considerable overlap": spiritual theories (also called transcendental), psychological theories, and physiological theories that provide a physical explanation for NDEs.


title: Near-death experience

text: French summarizes this model by saying: "the most popular interpretation is that the NDE is exactly what it appears to be to the person having the experience". The NDE would then represent evidence of the supposedly immaterial existence of a soul or mind, which would leave the body upon death. An NDE would then provide information about an immaterial world where the soul would journey upon ending its existence on earth.


title: Near-death experience

text: According to Greyson some NDE phenomena cannot be easily explained with our current knowledge of human physiology and psychology. For instance, at a time when they were unconscious, patients could accurately describe events as well as report being able to view their bodies "from an out-of-body spatial perspective". In two different studies of patients who had survived a cardiac arrest, those who had reported leaving their bodies could describe accurately their resuscitation procedures or unexpected events, whereas others "described incorrect equipment and procedures". Sam Parnia also refers to two cardiac arrest studies and one deep hypothermic circulatory arrest study where patients reported visual and/or auditory awareness occurring when their brain function had ceased. These reports "were corroborated with actual and real events".


title: Near-death experience

text: Five prospective studies have been carried out, to test the accuracy of out of body perceptions by placing "unusual targets in locations likely to be seen by persons having NDEs, such as in an upper corner of a room in the emergency department, the coronary care unit, or the intensive care unit of a hospital." Twelve patients reported leaving their bodies, but none could describe the hidden visual targets. Although this is a small sample, the failure of purported out-of-body experiencers to describe the hidden targets raises questions about the accuracy of the anecdotal reports described above.


title: Near-death experience

text: Psychologist James Alcock has described the afterlife claims of NDE researchers as pseudoscientific. Alcock has written the spiritual or transcendental interpretation "is based on belief in search of data rather than observation in search of explanation." Chris French has noted that "the survivalist approach does not appear to generate clear and testable hypotheses. Because of the vagueness and imprecision of the survivalist account, it can be made to explain any possible set of findings and is therefore unfalsifiable and unscientific."


title: Near-death experience

text: "when a living entity gives up this material embodiment and enters into the spiritual world, he revives his spiritual body, and in his spiritual body he can see the Supreme Personality of Godhead face to face. He can hear and speak to Him face to face".


title: Near-death experience

text: French summarises the main psychological explanations which include: the depersonalization, the expectancy and the dissociation models.


title: Near-death experience

text: A depersonalization model was proposed in the 1970s by professor of psychiatry Russell Noyes and clinical psychologist Roy Kletti, which suggested that the NDE is a form of depersonalization experienced under emotional conditions such as life-threatening danger, potentially inescapable danger, and that the NDE can best be understood as a hallucination. According to this model, those who face their impending death become detached from the surroundings and their own bodies, no longer feel emotions, and experience time distortions.


title: Near-death experience

text: This model suffers from a number of limitations to explain NDEs for subjects who do not experience a sensation of being out of their bodies; unlike NDEs, experiences are dreamlike, unpleasant and characterized by "anxiety, panic and emptiness". Also, during NDEs subjects remain very lucid of their identities, and their sense of identity is not changed unlike those experiencing depersonalization.


title: Near-death experience

text: Another psychological theory is called the expectancy model. It has been suggested that although these experiences could appear very real, they had actually been constructed in the mind, either consciously or subconsciously, in response to the stress of an encounter with death (or perceived encounter with death), and did not correspond to a real event. In a way, they are similar to wish-fulfillment: because someone thought they were about to die, they experienced certain things in accordance with what they expected or wanted to occur. Imagining a heavenly place was in effect a way for them to soothe themselves through the stress of knowing that they were close to death. Subjects use their own personal and cultural expectations to imagine a scenario that would protect them against an imminent threat to their lives.


title: Near-death experience

text: Subjects' accounts often differed from their own "religious and personal expectations regarding death" which contradicts the hypothesis they may have imagined a scenario based on their cultural and personal background.


title: Near-death experience

text: Although the term NDE was first coined in 1975 and the experience first described then, recent descriptions of NDEs do not differ from those reported earlier than 1975. The only exception is the more frequent description of a tunnel. Hence, the fact that information about these experiences could be more easily obtained after 1975 did not influence people's reports of the experiences.


title: Near-death experience

text: Another flaw of this model can be found in children's accounts of NDEs. These are similar to adults', despite children being less strongly affected by religious and cultural influences about death.


title: Near-death experience

text: The dissociation model proposes that NDE is a form of withdrawal to protect an individual from a stressful event. Under extreme circumstances, some people may detach from certain unwanted feelings in order to avoid experiencing the emotional impact and suffering associated with them. The person also detaches from one's immediate surroundings.


title: Near-death experience

text: The birth model suggests that near-death experiences could be a form of reliving the trauma of birth. Since a baby travels from the darkness of the womb to light and is greeted by the love and warmth of the nursing and medical staff, and so, it was proposed, the dying brain could be recreating the passage through a tunnel to light, warmth and affection.


title: Near-death experience

text: Reports of leaving the body through a tunnel are equally frequent among subjects who were born by cesarean section and natural birth. Also, newborns do not possess "the visual acuity, spatial stability of their visual images, mental alertness, and cortical coding capacity to register memories of the birth experience".


title: Near-death experience

text: A wide range of physiological theories of the NDE have been put forward including those based upon cerebral hypoxia, anoxia, and hypercapnia; endorphins and other neurotransmitters; and abnormal activity in the temporal lobes.


title: Near-death experience

text: Neurobiological factors in the experience have been investigated by researchers in the field of medical science and psychiatry. Among the researchers and commentators who tend to emphasize a naturalistic and neurological base for the experience is the British psychologist Susan Blackmore (1993), with her "dying brain hypothesis".


title: Near-death experience

text: Neuroscientists Olaf Blanke and Sebastian Dieguez (2009), from the "Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne", Switzerland, propose a brain-based model with two types of NDEs:


title: Near-death experience

text: They suggest that damage to the bilateral occipital cortex may lead to visual features of NDEs such as seeing a tunnel or lights, and "damage to unilateral or bilateral temporal lobe structures such as the hippocampus and amygdala" may lead to emotional experiences, memory flashbacks or a life review. They concluded that future neuroscientific studies are likely to reveal the neuroanatomical basis of the NDE which will lead to the demystification of the subject without needing paranormal explanations.


title: Near-death experience

text: French has written that the "temporal lobe is almost certain to be involved in NDEs, given that both damage to and direct cortical stimulation of this area are known to produce a number of experiences corresponding to those of the NDE, including OBEs, hallucinations, and memory flashbacks".


title: Near-death experience

text: Vanhaudenhuyse "et al". 2009 reported that recent studies employing deep brain stimulation and neuroimaging have demonstrated that out-of-body experiences result from a deficient multisensory integration at the temporoparietal junction and that ongoing studies aim to further identify the functional neuroanatomy of near-death experiences by means of standardized EEG recordings.


title: Near-death experience

text: According to Greyson multiple neuroanatomical models have been proposed where NDEs have been hypothesized to originate from different anatomical areas of the brain, namely: the limbic system, the hippocampus, the left temporal lobe, Reissner's fiber in the central canal of the spinal cord, the prefrontal cortex, and the right temporal lobe.


title: Near-death experience

text: Blanke et al. admit that their model remains speculative due to the lack of data. Likewise Greyson writes that although some or any of the neuroanatomical models proposed may serve to explain NDEs and pathways through which they are expressed, they remain speculative at this stage since they have not been tested in empirical studies.


title: Near-death experience

text: Some theories explain reported NDE experiences as resulting from drugs used during resuscitation (in the case of resuscitation-induced NDEs) ─ for example, ketamine ─ or from endogenous chemicals that transmit signals between brain cells, neurotransmitters:


title: Near-death experience

text: According to Parnia, neurochemical models are not backed by data. This is true for "NMDA receptor activation, serotonin, and endorphin release" models. Parnia writes that no data has been collected via thorough and careful experimentation to back "a possible causal relationship or even an association" between neurochemical agents and NDE experiences.


title: Near-death experience

text: The first formal neurobiological model for NDE, included endorphins, neurotransmitters of the limbic system, the temporal lobe and other parts of the brain. Extensions and variations of their model came from other scientists such as Louis Appleby (1989).


title: Near-death experience

text: Other authors suggest that all components of near-death experiences can be explained in their entirety via psychological or neurophysiological mechanisms, although the authors admit that these hypotheses have to be tested by science.


title: Near-death experience

text: Low oxygen levels in the blood (hypoxia or anoxia) have been hypothesized to induce hallucinations and hence possibly explain NDEs. This is because low oxygen levels characterize life-threatening situations and also by the apparent similarities between NDEs and G-force induced loss of consciousness (G-LOC) episodes.


title: Near-death experience

text: These episodes are observed with fighter pilots experiencing very rapid and intense acceleration that result in lack of sufficient blood supply to the brain. Whinnery studied almost 1000 cases and noted how the experiences often involved "tunnel vision and bright lights, floating sensations, automatic movement, autoscopy, OBEs, not wanting to be disturbed, paralysis, vivid dreamlets of beautiful places, pleasurable sensations, psychological alterations of euphoria and dissociation, inclusion of friends and family, inclusion of prior memories and thoughts, the experience being very memorable (when it can be remembered), confabulation, and a strong urge to understand the experience."


title: Near-death experience

text: However, acceleration-induced hypoxia’s primary characteristics are "rhythmic jerking of the limbs, compromised memory of events just prior to the onset of unconsciousness, tingling of extremities ..." that are not observed during NDEs. Also G-LOC episodes do not feature life reviews, mystical experiences and "long-lasting transformational aftereffects", although this may be due to the fact that subjects have no expectation of dying.


title: Near-death experience

text: Also, hypoxic hallucinations are characterized by "distress and agitation" and this is very different from near-death experiences which subjects report as being pleasant.


title: Near-death experience

text: Some investigators have studied whether hypercarbia or higher than normal carbon dioxide levels, could explain the occurrence of NDEs. However, studies are difficult to interpret since NDEs have been observed both with increased levels as well as decreased levels of carbon dioxide, and finally, some other studies have observed NDEs when levels had not changed, and there is little data.


title: Near-death experience

text: According to Engmann (2008) near-death experiences of people who are clinically dead are psychopathological symptoms caused by a severe malfunction of the brain resulting from the cessation of cerebral blood circulation. An important question is whether it is possible to "translate" the bloomy experiences of the reanimated survivors into psychopathologically basic phenomena, e.g., acoasms (nonverbal auditory hallucinations), central narrowing of the visual field, autoscopia, visual hallucinations, activation of limbic and memory structures according to Moody's stages. The symptoms suppose a primary affliction of the occipital and temporal cortices under clinical death. This basis could be congruent with the thesis of pathoclisis—the inclination of special parts of the brain to be the first to be damaged in case of disease, lack of oxygen, or malnutrition—established eighty years ago by Cécile Vogt-Mugnier and Oskar Vogt.


title: Near-death experience

text: Professor of neurology Terence Hines (2003) claimed that near-death experiences are hallucinations caused by cerebral anoxia, drugs, or brain damage.


title: Near-death experience

text: Greyson has called into question the adequacy of the materialist mind-brain identity model for explaining NDE's. An NDE often involves vivid and complex mentation, sensation and memory formation under circumstances of complete disabling of brain function during general anesthesia or near-complete cessation of cerebral blood flow and oxygen uptake during cardiac arrest. Materialist models predict that such conscious experiences should be impossible under these conditions. The mind-brain identity model of classic materialist psychology may need to be expanded to adequately explain an NDE.


title: Near-death experience

text: Gregory Shushan published an analysis of the afterlife beliefs of five ancient civilizations and compared them with historical and contemporary reports of near-death experiences, and shamanic afterlife "journeys". Shushan found similarities across time, place, and culture that he found could not be explained by coincidence; he also found elements that were specific to cultures; Shushan concludes that some form of mutual influence between experiences of an afterlife and culture probably influence one another and that this inheritance, in turn, influences individual NDEs.


title: Near-death experience

text: In contrast, it has been argued that near-death experiences and many of their elements such as vision of God, judgment, the tunnel, or the life review are closely related to religious and spiritual traditions of the West. It was mainly Christian visionaries, Spiritualists, Occultists, and Theosophists of the 19th and 20th century that reported them.


title: Near-death experience

text: However, according to Parnia, near-death experiences' interpretations are influenced by religious, social, cultural backgrounds. However, the core elements appear to transcend borders and can be considered universal. In fact, some of these core elements have even been reported by children (this occurred over many months, whilst playing and communicated using children's language). In other words, at an age where they should not have been influenced by culture or tradition. Also, according to Greyson, the central features of NDEs are universal and have not been influenced by time. These have been observed throughout history and in different cultures.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Melissa Louise Caddick (née Grimley; born 21 April 1971–disappeared 12 November 2020) is an Australian woman who vanished in November 2020 amid an investigation by the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC) for carrying on a financial services business without holding an Australian Financial Services (AFS) licence.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Caddick vanished the day after ASIC agents and Australian Federal Police officers raided her home at Dover Heights, Sydney, New South Wales, on the suspicion that she had misappropriated approximately A$30 million from investors, including her friends and family. After months of speculation as to her whereabouts, partial human remains discovered on a beach on the South Coast of New South Wales in February 2021 were confirmed to be Caddick's through DNA testing.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Melissa Caddick was born Melissa Louise Grimley on 21 April 1971, and grew up in Lugarno, a southern suburb of Sydney.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: After graduating from high school, Caddick enrolled in a secretarial and business administration course at Patrick's College Australia in Sydney. Her résumé reportedly included fictitious qualifications including degrees in finance from the University of Technology Sydney, which later said it had “no record of completion of a Graduate Diploma in Finance or Masters of Business in Finance – or indeed any qualification – under the name of Melissa Caddick or Melissa Grimley.”


title: Melissa Caddick

text: After initially working in NRMA's investment division, Caddick joined the Sydney branch of a boutique investment bank as an office administrator. It has been alleged that in 1998, six months after taking the job, she was discovered to have stolen less than $2,000 from the company by forging her boss's signature on several cheques. It is understood that rather than pursue prosecution, the company gave Caddick the option of leaving the office without the police being summoned or the money being returned.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Shortly afterwards, Caddick was hired as a financial advisor for Wise Financial Services, a subsidiary of ING, and eventually purchased a 25% stake in the business after borrowing $750,000. By 2003 she had become so well-regarded in her field that she was featured on a cover of the trade magazine "IFA" (Independent Financial Advisor). However, Caddick fell out with Wise when the company refused to allow her to recommend property and shares to her clients due to compliance rules.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: In later years, Caddick's extravagant spending drew suspicion among her acquaintances. It has been alleged that when questioned about how she could financially support her lavish lifestyle, she concocted differing stories about a windfall payment she had received from Wise, either in the form of an $86 million severance package or a similarly large payout from a sexual harassment claim. In reality, the only money she received in the separation from Wise was a return of her original $750,000 investment consequent to signing a five-year non-compete agreement.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Caddick's first husband, Tony Caddick, was a builder's labourer originally from England. They married in a ceremony at the Garrison Church in Millers Point, Sydney, on 20 April 2000. Their son, born in 2006, was aged 14 at the time of Caddick's disappearance in 2020. At his wife's urging, Tony, who had studied political science back in England, completed his law degree and was admitted as a solicitor. In 2010, the family moved abroad to Essex to live closer to Tony's family while he commuted daily to his job in London.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: It has been reported that Caddick did not work when she lived in England and quickly found herself bored with her surroundings. Claiming she needed to brush up on her financial skills, she persuaded her husband to agree to letting her travel to Switzerland for a conference. Tony later learned from a mutual friend that Caddick had actually travelled to Paris to meet with Anthony Koletti, her hairdresser from Sydney, and discovered that she had paid for his international travel expenses to continue their affair. Upon being confronted by Tony, Caddick cleaned out their home in Essex, emptied their joint bank accounts, and moved back to Sydney with their son in January 2012. Upon returning to Australia, she falsely claimed to family and friends that Tony had been a controlling and abusive spouse. The couple divorced in 2013, and Caddick married Koletti later that year.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: During an eight-year period, from October 2012 until 2019, it is believed Caddick misappropriated A$30 million in client funds which primarily came from family and friends. It is understood she deposited these funds into 37 bank accounts. The Federal Court of Australia discovered that her behaviour intensified each year, with her most profitable year being 2019. Caddick had allegedly spent investors’ finances on two homes in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, as well as luxury cars, designer clothing, artwork and jewellery.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: As clients invested money, Caddick created fabricated CommSec portfolio statements and fake account numbers to show her investors what return they had achieved, making them falsely believe they had invested in shares. Counsel for Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC), Farid Assaf SC, said that "as befitting a successful businesswoman," Caddick exploited the incomes of her crimes to acquire "all the trappings of wealth” and that her "success was all a facade and the financial services business was an elaborate front for Ms Caddick’s Ponzi scheme."


title: Melissa Caddick

text: In April 2021, after Caddick's presumed death, ASIC dropped thirty-eight criminal charges against her. In November 2021, the court found that Caddick through her company Maliver, fraudulently appropriated tens of millions of investor's money, and operated without the required financial service licence between October 2012 and November 2020. Her possessions, including her $6 million home, will be sold in an effort to repay the 72 clients who claim that they are owed more than A$23 million. In February 2022, Koletti objected to the sale of the home and the Federal Court gave Caddick's family six weeks to stake their claims over Caddick's home and a penthouse apartment in Edgecliff where Caddick's parents reside. Caddick's parents would be making a claim on the basis of handing their daughter $1.03 million on the understanding they would own part of the Edgecliff home and have life tenancy. In April 2022, Caddick's parents said in a statement filed in the Federal Court that “Melissa dishonestly and fraudulently” took their money. In April 2022, Koletti made a claim through the Federal Court for a share of Caddick's assets including her Gucci wedding dress, $7 million in shares, $2 million worth of jewellery, two properties he claims are valued at $20 million and the proceeds from the sale of their luxury cars. In May 2022, the Federal Court ordered Koletti to vacate the home so it could be sold by liquidators. Caddick's Dover Heights home was sold for an undisclosed sum in October 2022.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Caddick vanished on 12 November 2020, the morning after ASIC agents and the Australian Federal Police raided her home in Dover Heights. She was last heard by her son, who detected a door shutting at around 5:30 am and presumed it was Caddick going for her daily exercise. Caddick left behind all of her possessions, including her mobile phone. On 26 February 2021, Michael Willing, assistant commissioner of the New South Wales Police Force, held a press conference regarding a break in the Caddick disappearance: the previous Sunday on 21 February, a shoe containing a decomposed human foot was discovered washed up on Bournda Beach on the state's south coast, just south of Tathra, some 500km from where Caddick was last seen. The shoe matched her size and fit the description of the footwear she was seen wearing during the raid of her home on November 11 2020. Subsequent DNA testing of samples gathered from her toothbrush, as well as from family members, confirmed the foot belonged to Caddick.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: The foot's southern location matched the tidal and drift pattern modelling undertaken by the marine police, raising the possibility that if a body had entered the water near Dover Heights around the time of her disappearance it would likely reach the shore somewhere near the south-coast town of Bermagui, which is just 40km north of Tathra.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: According to Willing, Caddick's disappearance was distressing for many people, including her clients, family and friends. Although there was an extensive review of CCTV footage, her exact whereabouts after leaving her house were unknown as the footage did not cover the entire area from where she disappeared. Willing also described the case as one of the most high profile missing person cases he had seen in thirty years.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: How Caddick's foot ended up in the ocean is unknown; nothing has been ruled out by NSW Police, including murder, suicide and the possibility she faked her own death. University of Newcastle Associate Professor of Criminology Dr Xanthé Mallett, who spoke to Seven Network's "Weekend Sunrise", pointed out that losing a foot should not immediately mean Caddick is deceased, saying, “When it was just a foot I would caution against the possibility that somebody is deceased. You can survive without your foot.” In an October 2021 interview, Koletti claimed that Caddick never stole any money and that someone killed his wife. Other theories suggested by criminologists include Caddick going into hiding or even cutting off her own foot as a red herring. Alternatively, it has been theorized that Koletti was assisting her in hiding.


title: Melissa Caddick

text: Caddick's life was dramatised in the Nine Network's television miniseries "" in 2022 with Caddick played by Kate Atkinson.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik (; , , formerly known as Barrow ()) is the borough seat and largest city of the North Slope Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. Located north of the Arctic Circle, it is one of the northernmost cities and towns in the world and the northernmost in the United States, with nearby Point Barrow which is the country's northernmost land.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik's population was 4,927 at the 2020 census, an increase from 4,212 in 2010. It is the 12th-most populated city in Alaska.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The location has been home to the Iñupiat, an indigenous Inuit ethnic group, for more than 1,500 years. The city's Iñupiaq name refers to a place for gathering wild roots. It is derived from the Iñupiat word , also used for "Claytonia tuberosa" ("Eskimo potato"). The name was first recorded, by European explorers, in 1853 as "Ot-ki-a-wing" by Commander Rochfort Maguire, Royal Navy. John Simpson's native map dated 1855 has the name "Otkiawik", which was later misprinted on a British Admiralty chart as "Otkiovik."


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The former name Barrow was derived from Point Barrow, and was originally a general designation, because non-native Alaskan residents found it easier to pronounce than the Inupiat name. Point Barrow was named after Sir John Barrow of the British Admiralty by explorer Frederick William Beechey in 1825. A post office was established in 1901 helping the name "Barrow" to become dominant.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In an October 4, 2016, referendum, city voters narrowly approved changing its name to Utqiaġvik which became official on December 1. City Council member Qaiyaan Harcharek said the name change supports the use of the Iñupiaq language and is part of a decolonization process.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Another recorded Iñupiaq name is (), which comes from "snowy owl" and is translated as "the place where snowy owls are hunted". A spelling which is a variant of this name was adopted by the Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation when it was established in 1973.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Archaeological sites in the area indicate the Iñupiat lived around Utqiagvik as far back as 500 AD. Remains of 16 sod dwelling mounds, from the Birnirk culture of about 800, can be seen on the shore of the Arctic Ocean. Located on a slight rise above the high-water mark, they are at risk of being lost to erosion.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Bill Streever who chairs the North Slope Science Initiative's Science Technical Advisory Panel, wrote in his 2009 book "Cold: Adventures in the World’s Frozen Places":


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: British Royal Navy officers came to the area to explore and map the Arctic coastline of North America. The US acquired Alaska in 1867. The United States Army established a meteorological and magnetic research station at Utqiagvik in 1881.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1888, a Presbyterian church was built by United States missionaries at Utqiagvik. The church is still in use today. In 1889 a whaling supply and rescue station was built. It is the oldest wood-frame building in Utqiagvik and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The rescue station was converted for use in 1896 as the retail Cape Smythe Whaling and Trading Station. In the late 20th century, the building was used as Brower's Cafe.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1935, famous humorist Will Rogers and pilot Wiley Post made an unplanned stop at Walakpa Bay, south of Utqiagvik, en route to the city. As they took off again, their plane stalled and plunged into a river killing them both. Two memorials have been erected at the location which is now called the Rogers-Post Site. Another memorial is located in Utqiagvik, where the airport was renamed as the Wiley Post–Will Rogers Memorial Airport in their honor.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1940, the indigenous Iñupiat organized as the Native Village of Barrow Iñupiat Traditional Government (previously, Native Village of Barrow), which is a federally recognized Alaska Native Iñupiat "tribal entity", as listed by the US Bureau of Indian Affairs around 2003. They wrote a constitution and by-laws, under the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA) of 1934. An IRA corporation was also created.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik was incorporated as a first-class city under the name Barrow in 1958. Natural gas lines were brought to the town in 1965, eliminating traditional heating sources such as whale blubber.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The residents of the North Slope were the only Native people to vote on acceptance of the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act; they rejected it. The act was passed in December 1971, and despite their opposition, became law. The Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation is the for-profit village corporation established under the act.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1972, the North Slope Borough was established. The borough has built sanitation facilities, water and electrical utilities, roads, and fire departments, and established health and educational services in Utqiagvik and the villages of the North Slope with millions of dollars in new revenues from the settlement and later oil revenues.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1986, the North Slope Borough created the North Slope Higher Education Center. Renamed Iḷisaġvik College, it is an accredited two-year college providing education which is based on the Iñupiat culture and the needs of the North Slope Borough.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The Tuzzy Consortium Library, in the Iñupiat Heritage Center, serves the communities of the North Slope Borough and functions as the academic library for Iḷisaġvik College. The library was named after Evelyn Tuzroyluk Higbee, an important leader in the community.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik, like many communities in Alaska has enacted a "damp" law, prohibiting the sale of alcoholic beverages. It allows for import, possession, and consumption of such beverages.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 1988, Utqiagvik became the center of worldwide media attention when three California gray whales became trapped in the ice offshore. After a two-week rescue effort (Operation Breakthrough), a Soviet icebreaker freed two of the whales. Journalist Tom Rose details the rescue and the media frenzy that accompanied it, in his 1989 book "Freeing The Whales". The movie "Big Miracle" is based on the rescue and was released on February 3, 2012.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik is roughly south of the North Pole. Only 2.6% of the Earth's surface lies as far or farther from the equator as Utqiagvik.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which are covered by water (14% of the total area). The predominant land type in Utqiagvik is tundra, which is formed over a permafrost layer that is as much as deep.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The city of Utqiagvik has three sections, which can be classified as south, central, and north; they are known to residents as Utqiagvik, Browerville, and NARL respectively.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Owing to its location north of the Arctic Circle, Utqiagvik's climate is cold and dry, classified as a tundra climate (Köppen "ET"). Winter weather can be extremely dangerous because of the combination of cold and wind, while summers are cool even at their warmest. Weather observations are available for Utqiagvik dating back to the late 19th century. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Monitoring Lab operates in Utqiagvik. The United States Department of Energy has a climate observation site in Utqiagvik as part of its Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Climate Research Facility.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Despite the extreme northern location, temperatures at Utqiagvik are moderated by the surrounding topography. The Arctic Ocean is on three sides, and flat tundra stretches some to the south. No wind barriers or protected valleys exist where dense cold air can settle or form temperature inversions in the lower atmosphere, as commonly happens in the interior between the Brooks and the Alaska ranges.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik has the lowest average temperatures of cities in Alaska. Although Utqiagvik rarely records the lowest temperatures statewide during cold waves, extremely low wind chill and "white out" conditions from blowing snow are very common. Temperatures remain below freezing from early October through late May and below from December through March.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The high temperature reaches or tops the freezing point on an average of only 136 days per year, and 92 days have a maximum at or below . Freezing temperatures and snowfall can occur during any month of the year.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Regarding precipitation Utqiagvik has a desert climate, and averages less than "rainfall equivalent" per year. One inch of rain has an estimated equal water content to of snow. According to 1981−2010 normals, this includes of snow, compared to for Kuujjuaq in Nunavik, Quebec or and for much warmer Juneau and Kodiak, Alaska, respectively. Even Sable Island, at around 44 degrees latitude and under the influence of the Gulf Stream, received , or 20 percent more snowfall than Utqiagvik. Snowfall in Utqiagvik has increased in recent years, with an average annual snowfall of according to the more recent 1991-2020 normals.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The first snow (defined as snow that will not melt until next spring) generally falls during the first week of October, when temperatures cease to rise above freezing during the day. October is usually the month with the heaviest snowfall, with measurable amounts occurring on over half the days and a 1991−2020 normal total accumulation of . By the end of October, the amount of sunlight is around 6 hours.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: When the sun sets on November 18 it will stay below the horizon until January 23, resulting in a polar night that lasts for about 66 days. When the polar night starts, about 6 hours of civil twilight occur, with the amount decreasing each day during the first half of the polar night. On the winter solstice (around December 21 or December 22), civil twilight in Utqiagvik lasts for a mere 3 hours. After this, the amount of civil twilight increases each day to around 6 hours at the end of the polar night.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Seriously cold weather usually begins in January, and February is generally the coldest month, averaging . By March 1, the sun is up for 9 hours, and temperatures begin to warm, though winds are usually higher. Starting on March 23, no more night (the phase of day) happens, with only daylight and twilight until the start of the midnight sun in May. This is also true from the end of the midnight sun at the beginning of August to September 22. April brings less extreme temperatures, with an average of , and on April 1, the sun is up for more than 14 hours. By May 1, the sun is up for 19 hours, and by May 10 or 11 (depending on the year's relationship to the nearest leap year) the sun will stay above the horizon for the entire day. This phenomenon is known as the midnight sun. The sun does not set for 83 days, until either August 1 or 2 (again depending on the year's relationship to the nearest leap year). In May, the temperatures are much warmer, averaging . On June 6, the daily mean temperature rises above freezing, and the normal daily mean temperature remains above freezing until September 21.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: July is the warmest month of the year, with a normal mean temperature of . Beginning in mid-July, the Arctic Ocean is relatively ice-free, and remains so until late October. The highest temperature recorded in Utqiagvik was on July 13, 1993, while the lowest is on February 3, 1924; the highest minimum is on August 25, 1979, and August 13, 2005, while the lowest maximum is on January 3, 1975. On average during the 1991 to 2020 reference period, the coldest winter maximum was and the warmest summer minimum was . Utqiagvik records an average 26 days per year where the high reaches at least . Temperatures above are rare, but have been recorded in most years. Even in July and August, the low falls to or below the freezing mark on an average of 18 days.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In addition to its low temperatures and polar night, Utqiagvik is one of the cloudiest places on Earth. Owing to the prevailing easterly winds off the Arctic Ocean, it is completely overcast slightly more than 50% of the year. It is at least 70% overcast some 62% of the time. Cloud types are mainly low stratus and fog; cumuli forms are rare. Peak cloudiness occurs in August and September when the ocean is ice-free. Dense fog occurs an average of 65 days per year, mostly in the summer months. Ice fog is very common during the winter months, especially when the temperature drops below .


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Variation of wind speed during the year is limited, with the fall days being windiest. Extreme winds from have been recorded in every month. Winds average and are typically from the east.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The Arctic region is warming three times the global average, forcing major adjustments to life on the North Slope with regard to a prior millennium of hunting and whaling practices, as well as habitation. Thinner sea ice endangers the landing of bowhead whale strikes on offshore ice by springtime whalers. Caribou habitat is also affected, while thawing soil threatens homes and municipal and commercial structures. The city's infrastructure, particularly water, sanitation, power, and road stability, is endangered. The shoreline is rapidly eroding and has been encroaching on buildings for decades. According to Dr. Harold Wanless of the University of Miami, an anticipated rise in sea level and consequent global warming is inevitable, meaning the existence of Utqiagvik at its current location is doomed in the geological relatively short term. Smoothed data from NOAA show that Utqiagvik has warmed by more than since 1976. On December 5, 2022, Utqiagvik broke its previous record for the warmest winter temperature, hitting .


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The town first appeared in census records on the 1880 U.S. Census as the unincorporated Inuit village of "Ootiwakh". All 225 of its residents were Inuit. In 1890, the community and area was returned as the "Cape Smythe Settlements", which was including the refuge and whaling stations, Pengnok, Utkeavie, Kugaru (Inaru) River villages, four other camps and Whaling Steamer "Balaena". Of the 246 residents, 189 were Natives, 46 were White, one was Asian, and 10 were other races. This did not include nearby Point Barrow, which was a separate community. In 1900, it reported again as "Cape Smythe Settlements". In 1910, it first reported as Barrow, and in every successive census to 2010. It formally incorporated in 1959. The native name of Utqiagvik was adopted in 2016 and appeared on the 2020 census.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: As of the 2010 United States Census, 4,212 people were living in the city. The racial makeup of the city was 60.5% Alaskan Native, 16.2% White, 0.9% African, 8.9% Asian, 2.3% Pacific Islander, and 8.1% from two or more races; 3.1% were Hispanic or Latino of any race.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: As of the census of 2000, there were 4,683 people, 1,399 households, and 976 families living in the city. The population density was . There were 1,620 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city is 57.2% Alaska Native, 21.8% White, 9.4% Asian, 1.0% African American, 1.4% Pacific Islander, 0.7% from other races, and 8.5% from two or more races. Hispanics or Latinos of any race were 3.3% of the population.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Of the 1,399 households, 56.5% had children under 18 living with them, 45.2% were married couples living together, 14.8% had a female householder with no husband present, and 28.0% were not families; 23.0% of all households were made up of individuals, and 1.8% had someone living alone who was 65 or older. The average household size was 3.35, and the average family size was 4.80.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In Utqiagvik, the age distribution was 27.7% under 18, 13.3% from 18 to 24, 31.6% from 25 to 44, 19.4% from 45 to 64, and 3.4% who were 65 or older. The median age was 29 years. For every 100 females, there were 107.1 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 109.5 males.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The median income for a household in the city was $63,094.09, and the median income for a family was $68,223. Males had a median income of $51,959 versus $46,382 for females. The per capita income for the city was $22,902. About 7.7% of families and 8.6% of the population were below the poverty line, including 7.2% of those under 18 and 13.1% of those 65 and older.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: As of December 2022 the town's website says: "The largest city in the North Slope Borough, Utqiagvik has 4,429 residents, of which approximately 61% are Iñupiat Eskimo."


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik is the economic center of the North Slope Borough, the city's primary employer. Many businesses provide support services to oil field operations. State and federal agencies are employers. The midnight sun has attracted tourism, and arts and crafts provide some cash income. Because transporting food to the city is very expensive, many residents continue to rely upon subsistence food sources. Whale, seal, polar bear, walrus, waterfowl, caribou, and fish are harvested from the coast or nearby rivers and lakes. Utqiagvik is the headquarters of the Arctic Slope Regional Corporation, one of the Alaska Native corporations set up following the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act in 1971 to manage revenues and invest in development for their people in the region.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Singer-songwriter John Denver visited the town for his 1979 television special "Alaska, The American Child".


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The ABC TV special “The Night They Saved Christmas” was filmed here, and first aired December 13, 1984.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Fran Tate, a local restaurant owner, was a frequent guest by telephone on a Chicago radio program, the "Steve and Johnnie Show" on WGN, during the 1990s. She also appeared on the "Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The town is the setting for a series of horror comic books titled "30 Days of Night". A commercially successful film, named after and based upon the comic, was released on October 19, 2007, followed by a straight-to-video on July 23, 2010.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: "On the Ice", a film released in 2011 about teenagers dealing with a tragic accidental death, was filmed entirely in the town, with locals acting in most roles.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: "Big Miracle", a 2012 film starring Drew Barrymore, is based on the true story of whales trapped under ice near Point Barrow, and features scenes in and characters from the town.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Stephen Fry visited the town and its people during the last segment of his documentary "Stephen Fry in America".


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 2015, the NFL Network began an eight-part documentary series focusing on the Barrow High School Whalers football team.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: On August 19, 2006, the Whalers of Barrow High School played the first official football game in the Arctic against Delta Junction High School. Barrow High School recorded its first win two weeks later; the coaches and players celebrated the historic win by jumping into the Arctic Ocean, just from the makeshift dirt field.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: On August 17, 2007, the Whalers football team played their first game of the season on their new artificial-turf field. The historic game which was attended by former Miami Dolphins player Larry Csonka, was the first live Internet broadcast of a sporting event in the United States from north of the Arctic Circle.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Since the team's formation, it has gathered a record of 33–24, and most recently, the team reached the semifinal round of the Alaskan State Small School Football Championship.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 2017, The Barrow High School football team won their first ever state championship with a win against the Homer Mariners 20–14.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: In 2015, the Barrow High School boys' basketball team won the Alaska Class 3A State Championship with a 50–40 victory over two-time defending state champion, Monroe Catholic. The Whalers' team was led by 5-star recruit Kamaka Hepa. As a 6'7" freshman he was regarded as one of the top basketball recruits in the country. He was ranked as the #21 ranked basketball recruit in the country by ESPN for the class of 2018. Hepa transferred to Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon, for his junior year. By October 2017, at 6'8" tall, he had committed to go to the University of Texas.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The Whalers' boys' basketball team finished the 2014–2015 season with a 24–3 record, the highest win percentage in school history. Guard Travis Adams was a standout as well. Coach Jeremy Arnhart's teams won 186 games in 10 seasons. In 2015, the Barrow High School girls' team also easily won the ACS tournament.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik is served by the North Slope Borough School District. The schools serving the city are Ipalook Elementary School, Hopson Middle School, Barrow High School, and alternative learning center known as the Kiita Learning Community.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Iḷisaġvik College which is a two-year college and the only tribal college in Alaska, is located in Utqiagvik. The school offers associate's degrees in accounting, allied health, business and management, construction technology, dental health therapy, Indigenous education, information technology, Iñupiaq studies, liberal arts, and office management. It also offers a bachelor's degree in business administration. The school additionally offers adult education courses for GED preparation and certificates in various programs. Local students may attend University of Alaska Fairbanks, and other colleges in Alaska and in other states in the country.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: KBRW (AM)/KBRW-FM radio station broadcasts in Utqiagvik on 680 kHz AM and 91.9 MHz FM. KBRW is also broadcast via FM repeaters in all of the North Slope Borough villages, from Kaktovik to Point Hope.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: "The Arctic Sounder" is a newspaper published weekly by Alaska Media, LLC, which covers news of interest to the North Slope Borough, which includes Utqiagvik, and the Northwest Arctic Borough, which includes Kotzebue in northwestern Alaska.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: The roads in Utqiagvik are unpaved due to the permafrost, and no roads connect the city to the rest of Alaska. Utqiagvik is served by Alaska Airlines with passenger jet service at the Wiley Post–Will Rogers Memorial Airport from Anchorage and Fairbanks. New service between Fairbanks and Anchorage began from Era Aviation on June 1, 2009. Freight arrives by air cargo year round and by ocean-going marine barges during the annual summer sealift.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Utqiagvik is the transportation hub for the North Slope Borough's Arctic coastal villages. Multiple jet aircraft, with service from Deadhorse (Prudhoe Bay), Fairbanks, and Anchorage provide daily mail, cargo, and passenger services, which connect with smaller single- and twin-engined general aviation aircraft that provide regular service to other villages, from Kaktovik in the east to Point Hope in the west. The town is also served by several radio taxi services, most using small four-wheel drive vehicles.


title: Utqiagvik, Alaska

text: Samuel Simmonds Memorial Hospital which is located in the City of Utqiagvik, is the primary healthcare facility for the North Slope region of Alaska. Individuals in need of medical care in the city are able to access the hospital by road. Because no roads lead in or out of Utqiagvik, though, individuals in surrounding communities and towns (including Point Hope, Prudhoe Bay, and Wainwright) must be airlifted in by plane, helicopter, or air ambulance. The hospital was built and ovedato a location cross the city in 2013. INow it is oarly four times largerr The facility operates continuously, and is the northernmost hospital or medical facility in the United States.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto began his career while at university in the 1970s as a session musician, producer, and arranger. His first major success came in 1978 as co-founder of YMO. He concurrently pursued a solo career, releasing the experimental electronic fusion album "Thousand Knives" in 1978. Two years later, he released the album "B-2 Unit". It included the track "Riot in Lagos", which was significant in the development of electro and hip hop music. He went on to produce more solo records, and collaborate with many international artists, David Sylvian, Carsten Nicolai, Youssou N'Dour, and Fennesz among them. Sakamoto composed music for the opening ceremony of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, and his composition "Energy Flow" (1999) was the first instrumental number-one single in Japan's Oricon charts history.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: As a film-score composer, Sakamoto has won an Oscar, a BAFTA, a Grammy, and 2 Golden Globe Awards. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983) marked his debut as both an actor and a film-score composer; its main theme was adapted into the single "Forbidden Colours" which became an international hit. His most successful work as a film composer was "The Last Emperor" (1987), after which he continued earning accolades composing for films such as "The Sheltering Sky" (1990), "Little Buddha" (1993), and "The Revenant" (2015). On occasion, Sakamoto has also worked as a composer and a scenario writer on anime and video games. In 2009, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from the Ministry of Culture of France for his contributions to music.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto entered the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music in 1970, earning a B.A. in music composition and an M.A. with special emphasis on both electronic and ethnic music. He studied ethnomusicology there with the intention of becoming a researcher in the field, due to his interest in various world music traditions, particularly the Japanese (especially Okinawan), Indian and African musical traditions. He was also trained in classical music and began experimenting with the electronic music equipment available at the university, including synthesizers such as the Buchla, Moog, and ARP. One of Sakamoto's classical influences was Claude Debussy, who he described as his "hero" and stated that "Asian music heavily influenced Debussy, and Debussy heavily influenced me. So, the music goes around the world and comes full circle."


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1975, Sakamoto collaborated with percussionist Tsuchitori Toshiyuki to release "Disappointment-Hateruma". After working as a session musician with Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi in 1977, the trio formed the internationally successful electronic music band Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO) in 1978. Known for their seminal influence on electronic music, the group helped pioneer electronic genres such as electropop/technopop, synthpop, cyberpunk music, ambient house, and electronica. The group's work has had a lasting influence across genres, ranging from hip hop and techno to acid house and general melodic music. Sakamoto was the songwriter and composer for a number of the band's hit songs—including "Yellow Magic (Tong Poo)" (1978), "Technopolis" (1979), "Nice Age" (1980), "Ongaku" (1983) and "You've Got to Help Yourself" (1983)—while playing keyboards for many of their other songs, including international hits such as "Computer Game/Firecracker" (1978) and "Rydeen" (1979). He also sang on several songs, such as "Kimi ni Mune Kyun" (1983). Sakamoto's composition "Technopolis" (1979) was credited as a contribution to the development of techno music, while the internationally successful "Behind the Mask" (1978)—a synthpop song in which he sang vocals through a vocoder—was later covered by a number of international artists, including Michael Jackson and Eric Clapton.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto released his first solo album "Thousand Knives of Ryūichi Sakamoto" in mid-1978 with the help of Hideki Matsutake—Hosono also contributed to the song "Thousand Knives". The album experimented with different styles, such as "Thousand Knives" and "The End of Asia"—in which electronic music was fused with traditional Japanese music—while "Grasshoppers" is a more minimalistic piano song. The album was recorded from April to July 1978 with a variety of electronic musical instruments, including various synthesizers, such as the KORG PS-3100, a polyphonic synthesizer; the Oberheim Eight-Voice; the Moog III-C; the Polymoog, the Minimoog; the Micromoog; the Korg VC-10, which is a vocoder; the KORG SQ-10, which is an analog sequencer; the Syn-Drums, an electronic drum kit; and the microprocessor-based Roland MC-8 Microcomposer, which is a music sequencer that was programmed by Matsutake and played by Sakamoto. A version of the song "Thousand Knives" was released on the Yellow Magic Orchestra's 1981 album "BGM". This version was one of the earliest uses of the Roland TR-808 drum machine, for YMO's live performance of "1000 Knives" in 1980 and their "BGM" album release in 1981.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1980, Sakamoto released the solo album "B-2 Unit", which has been referred to as his "edgiest" record and is known for the electronic song "Riot in Lagos", which is considered an early example of electro music (electro-funk), as Sakamoto anticipated the beats and sounds of electro. Early electro and hip hop artists, such as Afrika Bambaata and Kurtis Mantronik, were influenced by the album—especially "Riot in Lagos"—with Mantronik citing the work as a major influence on his electro hip hop group Mantronix. "Riot in Lagos" was later included in Playgroup's compilation album "Kings of Electro" (2007), alongside other significant electro compositions, such as Hashim's "Al-Naafyish" (1983).


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: According to "Dusted Magazine", Sakamoto's use of squelching bounce sounds and mechanical beats was later incorporated in early electro and hip hop music productions, such as “Message II (Survival)” (1982), by Melle Mel and Duke Bootee; “Magic's Wand” (1982), by Whodini and Thomas Dolby; Twilight 22's “Electric Kingdom” (1983); and Kurt Mantronik's "" (1985). The 1980 release of "Riot in Lagos" was listed by "The Guardian" in 2011 as one of the 50 key events in the history of dance music.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Among other tracks on "B-2 Unit", "Differencia" has, according to "Fact", "relentless tumbling beats and a stabbing bass synth that foreshadows jungle by nearly a decade". Some tracks on the album also foreshadow genres such as IDM, broken beat, and industrial techno, and the work of producers such as Actress and Oneohtrix Point Never. For several tracks on the album, Sakamoto worked with UK reggae producer Dennis Bovell, incorporating elements of afrobeat and dub music.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Also in 1980, Sakamoto released the single "War Head/Lexington Queen", an experimental synthpop and electro record, and began a long-standing collaboration with David Sylvian, when he co-wrote and performed on the Japan track "Taking Islands In Africa". In the following year, Sakamoto collaborated with Talking Heads and King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew and Robin Scott for an album titled "Left-Handed Dream". Following Japan's dissolution, Sakamoto worked on another collaboration with Sylvian, a single entitled "Bamboo Houses/Bamboo Music" in 1982. Sakamoto's 1980 collaboration with Kiyoshiro Imawano, "Ikenai Rouge Magic", topped the Oricon singles chart.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1983, Sakamoto starred alongside David Bowie in director Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence". In addition to acting in the film, Sakamoto also composed the film's musical score and again collaborated with Sylvian on the film's main theme ("Forbidden Colours") – which became a minor hit. In a 2016 interview, Sakamoto reflected on his time acting in the film, claiming that he "hung out" with Bowie every evening for a month while filming on location. He remembered Bowie as "straightforward" and "nice", while also lamenting the fact that he never mustered the courage to ask for Bowie's help while scoring the film's soundtrack as he believed Bowie was too "concentrated on acting".


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto released a number of solo albums during the 1980s. While primarily focused on the piano and synthesizer, this series of albums included collaborations with artists such as Sylvian, David Byrne, Thomas Dolby, Nam June Paik, and Iggy Pop. Sakamoto would alternated between exploring a variety of musical styles and focusing on a specific subject or theme, such as the Italian Futurism movement.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: As his solo career began to extend outside Japan in the late 1980s, Sakamoto's explorations, influences and collaborators also developed further. "Beauty" (1989) features a track list that combines pop with traditional Japanese and Okinawan songs, as well as guest appearances by Jill Jones, Robert Wyatt, Brian Wilson and Robbie Robertson. "Heartbeat" (1991) and "Sweet Revenge" (1994) features Sakamoto's collaborations with a global range of artists such as Roddy Frame, Dee Dee Brave, Marco Prince, Arto Lindsay, Youssou N'Dour, David Sylvian and Ingrid Chavez.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1995 Sakamoto released "Smoochy", described by the "Sound On Sound" website as Sakamoto's "excursion into the land of easy-listening and Latin", followed by the "1996" album, which featured a number of previously released pieces arranged for solo piano, violin and cello. During December 1996 Sakamoto, composed the entirety of an hour-long orchestral work entitled "Untitled 01" and released as the album "Discord" (1998). The Sony Classical release of "Discord" was sold in a jewel case that was covered by a blue-colored slipcase made of foil, while the CD also contained a data video track. In 1998 the Ninja Tune record label released the "Prayer/Salvation Remixes", for which prominent electronica artists such as Ashley Beedle and Andrea Parker remixed sections from the "Prayer" and "Salvation" parts of "Discord". Sakamoto collaborated primarily with guitarist David Torn and DJ Spooky—artist Laurie Anderson provides spoken word on the composition—and the recording was condensed from nine live performances of the work, recorded during a Japanese tour. "Discord" was divided into four parts: "Grief", "Anger", "Prayer" and "Salvation"; Sakamoto explained in 1998 that he was "not religious, but maybe spiritual" and "The Prayer is to anybody or anything you want to name." Sakamoto further explained:


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1998, Italian ethnomusicologist Massimo Milano published "Ryuichi Sakamoto. Conversazioni" through the Padova, Arcana imprint. All three editions of the book were published in the Italian language. Sakamoto's next album, "BTTB" (1998)—an acronym for "Back to the Basics"—was a fairly opaque reaction to the prior year's multilayered, lushly orchestrated "Discord". The album comprised a series of original pieces on solo piano, including "Energy Flow" (a major hit in Japan) and a frenetic, four-hand arrangement of the Yellow Magic Orchestra classic "Tong Poo". On the "BTTB" U.S. tour, he opened the show performing a brief avant-garde DJ set under the stage name DJ Lovegroove.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto's long-awaited "opera" "LIFE" was released in 1999, with visual direction by Shiro Takatani, artistic director of Dumb Type. It premiered with seven sold-out performances in Tokyo and Osaka. This ambitious multi-genre multi-media project featured contributions by over 100 performers, including Pina Bausch, Bernardo Bertolucci, Josep Carreras, the Dalai Lama and Salman Rushdie.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto teamed with cellist Jaques Morelenbaum (a member of his "1996" trio), and Morelenbaum's wife, Paula, on a pair of albums celebrating the work of bossa nova pioneer Antonio Carlos Jobim. They recorded their first album, "Casa" (2001), mostly in Jobim's home studio in Rio de Janeiro, with Sakamoto performing on the late Jobim's grand piano. The album was well received, having been included in the list of "The New York Times"s top albums of 2002. A live album, "Live in Tokyo", and a second album, "A Day in New York", soon followed. Sakamoto and the Morelenbaums would also collaborate on N.M.L. No More Landmine, an international effort to raise awareness for the removal of landmines. The trio would release the single "Zero Landmine", which also featured David Sylvian, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Cyndi Lauper, and Haruomi Hosono & Yukihiro Takahashi, the other two founding members of Yellow Magic Orchestra, amongst nearly one hundred other performers.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto collaborated with Alva Noto (an alias of Carsten Nicolai) to release "Vrioon", an album of Sakamoto's piano clusters treated by Nicolai's unique style of digital manipulation, involving the creation of "micro-loops" and minimal percussion. The two produced this work by passing the pieces back and forth until both were satisfied with the result. This debut, released on German label Raster-Noton, was voted record of the year 2004 in the electronica category by British magazine "The Wire". They then released "Insen" (2005)—while produced in a similar manner to Vrioon, this album is somewhat more restrained and minimalist. They keep on collaborating and have released two more albums: "utp_" (2008) and "Summvs" (2011).


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 2005, Finnish mobile phone manufacturer Nokia hired Sakamoto to compose ring and alert tones for their high-end phone, the Nokia 8800. In 2006, Nokia offered the ringtones for free on their website. Around this time, a reunion with YMO cofounders Hosono and Takahashi caused a stir in the Japanese press. They released a single "Rescue" in 2007 and a DVD "HAS/YMO" in 2008. In July 2009, Sakamoto was honored as Officier of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres at the French embassy in Tokyo.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Throughout the latter part of the 2000s, Sakamoto collaborated on several projects with visual artist Shiro Takatani, including the installations "LIFE - fluid, invisible, inaudible..." (2007–2013), commissioned by YCAM, Yamaguchi, "collapsed" and "silence spins" at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in 2012 and 2013 Sharjah Biennial (U.A.E.), "LIFE-WELL" in 2013 and a special version for Park Hyatt Tokyo's 20th anniversary in 2014, and he did music for the joint performance "LIFE-WELL" featuring the actor Noh/Kyogen Mansai Nomura, and for Shiro Takatani's performance "ST/LL" in 2015.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 2013, Sakamoto was a jury member at the 70th Venice International Film Festival. The jury viewed 20 films and was chaired by filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 2014, Sakamoto became the first Guest Artistic Director of The Sapporo International Art Festival 2014 (SIAF2014).


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: On July 10, Sakamoto released a statement indicating that he had been diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer in late June of the same year. He announced a break from his work while he sought treatment and recovery. On August 3, 2015, Sakamoto posted on his website that he was "in great shape ... I am thinking about returning to work" and announced that he would be providing music for Yoji Yamada's "Haha to Kuraseba" ("Living with My Mother"). In 2015, Sakamoto also composed the score for the Alejandro González Iñárritu's film, "The Revenant," for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In January 2017 it was announced that Sakamoto would release a solo album in April 2017 through Milan Records; the new album, titled "async", was released on March 29, 2017 to critical acclaim. In February 2018, he was selected to be on the jury for the main competition section of the 68th Berlin International Film Festival.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: On June 14, 2018, a documentary about the life and work of Sakamoto, entitled "Coda", was released. The film follows Sakamoto as he recovers from cancer and resumes creating music, protests nuclear power plants following the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster, and creates field recordings in a variety of locales. Directed by Stephen Nomura Schible, the documentary was met with critical praise.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto's production credits represent a prolific career in this role. In 1983, he produced Mari Iijima's debut album "Rosé", the same year that the Yellow Magic Orchestra was disbanded. Sakamoto subsequently worked with artists such as Thomas Dolby; Aztec Camera, on the "Dreamland" (1993) album; and Imai Miki, co-producing her 1994 album "A Place In The Sun". In 1996, Sakamoto produced "Mind Circus", the first single from actress Miki Nakatani, leading to a collaboration period spanning 9 singles and 7 albums though 2001.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Roddy Frame, who worked with Sakamoto as a member of Aztec Camera, explained in a 1993 interview preceding the release of "Dreamland" that he had had to wait a lengthy period of time before he was able to work with Sakamoto, who wrote two soundtracks, a solo album and the music for the opening ceremony at the Barcelona Olympics, prior to working with Frame over four weeks in a New York studio. Frame said that he was impressed by the work of YMO and the "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence" soundtrack, explaining: "That's where you realise that the atmosphere around his compositions is actually in the writing - it's got nothing to do with synthesisers." Frame's decision to ask Sakamoto was finalized after he saw his performance at the Japan Festival that was held in London, United Kingdom. Of his experience recording with Sakamoto, Frame said:


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto began working in films, as a composer and actor, in Nagisa Oshima's "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" (1983), for which he composed the score, title theme, and the duet "Forbidden Colours" with David Sylvian. Sakamoto later composed Bernardo Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" (1987), which earned him the Academy Award with fellow composers David Byrne and Cong Su. In that same year, he composed the score to the cult-classic anime film "". Sakamoto also went on to compose the score of the opening ceremony for the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain, telecast live to an audience of over a billion viewers.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Other films scored by Sakamoto include Pedro Almodóvar's "Tacones lejanos (High Heels)" (1991); Bertolucci's "The Little Buddha" (1993); Oliver Stone's "Wild Palms" (1993); John Maybury's "" (1998); Brian De Palma's "Snake Eyes" (1998) and "Femme Fatale" (2002); Oshima's "Gohatto" (1999); and Jun Ichikawa's (director of the Mitsui ReHouse commercial from 1997 to 1999 starring Chizuru Ikewaki and Mao Inoue) "Tony Takitani" (2005).


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Several tracks from Sakamoto's earlier solo albums have also appeared in film soundtracks. In particular, variations of "Chinsagu No Hana" (from "Beauty") and "Bibo No Aozora" (from "1996") provide the poignant closing pieces for Sue Brooks's "Japanese Story" (2003) and Alejandro González Iñárritu's "Babel" (2006), respectively. In 2015, Sakamoto teamed up with Iñárritu to score his film, "The Revenant" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto has also acted in several films: perhaps his most notable performance was as the conflicted Captain Yonoi in "Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence", alongside Takeshi Kitano and British rock singer David Bowie. He also played roles in "The Last Emperor" (as Masahiko Amakasu) and Madonna's "Rain" music video.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 1994, Japan Football Association asked Ryuichi Sakamoto to compose the instrumental song - "Japanese Soccer Anthem".


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: This instrumental song played at the beginning of Japan Football Association-sponsored events, such as Emperor's Cup matches.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto's first of three marriages occurred in 1972, but ended in divorce two years later—Sakamoto has a daughter from this relationship. Sakamoto then married popular Japanese pianist and singer Akiko Yano in 1982, following several musical collaborations with her, including touring work with the Yellow Magic Orchestra. Sakamoto's second marriage ended in August 2006, 14 years after a mutual decision to live separately—Yano and Sakamoto raised one daughter, J-pop singer Miu Sakamoto. He has lived with his manager and wife Norika Sora since around 1990 and has two children with her.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Beginning in June 2014, Sakamoto took a year-long hiatus after he was diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer. In 2015, he returned, stating: "Right now I'm good. I feel better. Much, much better. I feel energy inside, but you never know. The cancer might come back in three years, five years, maybe 10 years. Also the radiation makes your immune system really low. It means I'm very susceptible to another cancer in my body."


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: On January 21, 2021, Sakamoto shared a link on his official pages, which contained a letter announcing that though his throat cancer went into remission, he was now diagnosed with rectal cancer, and that he's currently undergoing treatment after a successful surgery. He wrote: "From now on, I will be living alongside cancer. But, I am hoping to make music for a little while longer."


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto is a member of the anti-nuclear organization Stop Rokkasho and has demanded the closing of the Hamaoka Nuclear Power Plant. In 2012, he organized the No Nukes 2012 concert, which featured performances by 18 groups, including Yellow Magic Orchestra and Kraftwerk. Sakamoto is also known as a critic of copyright law, arguing in 2009 that it is antiquated in the information age. He argued that in "the last 100 years, only a few organizations have dominated the music world and ripped off both fans and creators" and that "with the internet we are going back to having tribal attitudes towards music."


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 2015 Sakamoto also supported opposition to the relocation of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the Oura bay in Henoko, with a new and Okinawan version of his 2004 single "Undercooled" whose sales partially contributed to the "Henoko Fund", aimed to stop the relocation of the base on Okinawa.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: In 2006 Sakamoto, in collaboration with Japanese music company Avex Group, founded , a record label seeking to change the manner in which music is produced. Sakamoto has explained that Commmons is not his label, but is a platform for all aspiring artists to join as equal collaborators to share the benefits of the music industry. On the initiative's "About" page, the label is described as a project that "aims to find new possibilities for music, while making meaningful contribution to culture and society". The name "Commmons" is spelt with three "m"s because the third "m" stands for music.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: Sakamoto has won a number of awards for his work as a film composer, beginning winning the BAFTA Award for Best Film Music with his score for "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" (1983). His greatest award success was for scoring "The Last Emperor" (1987), which won him the Academy Award for Best Original Score, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, and Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, as well as a BAFTA nomination.


title: Ryuichi Sakamoto

text: His score for "The Sheltering Sky" (1990) won him his second Golden Globe Award, and his score for "Little Buddha" (1993) received another Grammy Award nomination. In 1997, his collaboration with Toshio Iwai, "Music Plays Images X Images Play Music", was awarded the Golden Nica, the grand prize of the Prix Ars Electronica competition. He also contributed to the Academy Award winning soundtrack for "Babel" (2006) with several pieces of music, including the closing theme "Bibo no Aozora". In 2009, he was awarded the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres from France's Ministry of Culture for his musical contributions. His score for "The Revenant" (2015) was nominated for the Golden Globe and BAFTA, and won Best Musical Score from the Dallas–Fort Worth Film Critics Association.