title: Saiga antelope

text: For ungulates, mass mortalities are not uncommon. In the 1980s, several saiga die-offs occurred, and between 2010 and 2014, one occurred every year. The deaths could be linked to calving aggregation, which is when they are most vulnerable. More recent research involving a mass die-off in 2015 indicates warmer weather and attendant humidity led bacteria common in saiga antelopes to move into the bloodstream and cause hemorrhagic septicemia.


title: Saiga antelope

text: In May 2015, uncommonly large numbers of saigas began to die from a mysterious epizootic illness suspected to be pasteurellosis. Herd fatality is 100% once infected, with an estimated 40% of the species' total population already dead. More than 120,000 carcasses had been found by late May 2015, while the estimated total population was only 250,000.


title: Saiga antelope

text: Biologist Murat Nurushev suggested that the cause might be acute ruminal tympany, whose symptoms (bloating, mouth foaming, and diarrhea) had been observed in dead saiga antelopes. According to Nurushev, this disease occurred as a result of foraging on a large amount of easily fermenting plants (alfalfa, clover, sainfoins, and mixed wet, green grass). In May 2015, the United Nations agency which is involved in saiga conservation efforts issued a statement that the mass die-off had ended. By June 2015, no definitive cause for the epizootic had been found.


title: Saiga antelope

text: At a scientific meeting in November 2015 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Dr. Richard A. Kock (of the Royal Veterinary College in London) reported that his colleagues and he had narrowed down the possible culprits. Climate change and stormy spring weather, they said, may have transformed harmless bacteria, carried by the saigas, into lethal pathogens.


title: Saiga antelope

text: "Pasteurella multocida", a bacterium, was determined to be the cause of death. The bacterium occurs in the antelopes and is normally harmless; the reason for the change in behavior of the bacterium is unknown.


title: Saiga antelope

text: Now, scientists and researchers believe the unusually warm and wet uncontrolled environmental variables caused the bacterium to enter the bloodstream and become septic. Hemorrhagic septicemia is the likely cause of the most recent deaths The change of the bacteria may be attributed to "the response of opportunistic microbes to changing environmental conditions".


title: Saiga antelope

text: The Betpak-Dala saiga population in central Kazakhstan, which saw the most deaths, increased from 31,000 after the epidemic to 36,000 by April 2016.


title: Saiga antelope

text: In late 2016, a large loss of the population happened in Mongolia. The etiology was confirmed to be goat plague in early 2017.


title: Saiga antelope

text: Under the auspices of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, the Saiga Antelope Memorandum of Understanding was concluded and came into effect 24 September 2006.


title: Saiga antelope

text: Currently, only the Almaty Zoo and Askania-Nova keep saigas. Cologne Zoological Garden and San Diego Zoo had them in the past. Pleistocene Park in northern Siberia plans to introduce the species.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: United States Marine Corps Aviation (USMCA) is the aircraft arm of the United States Marine Corps. Aviation units within the Marine Corps are assigned to support the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, as the aviation combat element, by providing six functions: assault support, antiair warfare, close air support, electronic warfare, control of aircraft and missiles, and aerial reconnaissance. The Corps operates rotary-wing, tiltrotor, and fixed-wing aircraft mainly to provide transport and close air support to its ground forces. Other aircraft types are also used in a variety of support and special-purpose roles. All Marine Corps aviation falls under the influence of the Deputy Commandant for Aviation, whose job is to advise the Commandant of the Marine Corps in all matters relating to aviation, especially acquisition of new assets, conversions of current aircraft, maintenance, operation, and command.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine Corps aviation officially began on 22 May 1912, when First Lieutenant Alfred Austell Cunningham reported to Naval Aviation Camp in Annapolis, Maryland, "for duty in connection with aviation." On 20 August 1912, he became the first Marine aviator when he took off in a Burgess Model H given to him by the Burgess Company in Marblehead Harbor , Massachusetts.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: As the number of Marine Corps pilots grew, so did the desire to separate from Naval Aviation, an objective realized on 6 January 1914, when First Lieutenant Bernard L. Smith was directed to Culebra, Puerto Rico, to establish the Marine Section of the Navy Flying School. In 1915, the Commandant of the Marine Corps authorized the creation of a Marine Corps aviation company consisting of 10 officers and 40 enlisted men. The Marine Aviation Company was commissioned on 17 February 1917 as the first official Marine flying unit, at the Philadelphia Navy Yard.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The first major expansion of the Marine Corps' air component came with America's entrance into World War I in 1917. Wartime expansion saw the Aviation Company split into the "First Aeronautic Company" which deployed to the Azores to hunt U-boats in January 1918 and the "First Marine Air Squadron" which deployed to France as the newly renamed 1st Marine Aviation Force in July 1918 and provided bomber and fighter support to the Navy's Day Wing, Northern Bombing Group. By the end of the war, several Marine Aviators had recorded air-to-air kills, and collectively they had dropped over fourteen tons of bombs. Their numbers included 282 officers and 2,180 enlisted men operating from 8 squadrons, with Second Lieutenant Ralph Talbot being the first Marine Corps aviator to earn the Medal of Honor, for action against the "Luftstreitkräfte" air arm of Imperial Germany on 8 October 1918. In 1919, the 1st Division/Squadron 1 was formed from these units and still exists today as VMA-231.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The end of World War I saw Congress authorize 1,020 men for Marine Corps aviation and the establishment of permanent air stations at Quantico, Parris Island and San Diego. The United States embraced its role of global power, and the Marine Corps became the preferred force for military intervention; where the Marines went, so went Marine Corps aviation. During the Banana Wars, while fighting bandits and insurgents in places like Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, Marine Corps aviators began to experiment with air-ground tactics and making the support of their fellow Marines on the ground their primary mission. It was in Haiti that Marines began to develop the tactic of dive bombing and in Nicaragua where they began to perfect it. While other nations and services had tried variations of this technique, Marine Corps pilots were the first to embrace it and make it part of their tactical doctrine. Marine Corps aviation in Nicaragua developed the skill of air resupply of outposts dropping bundles from Fokker F.VII tri-motors. Even prior to the events in the Caribbean, pioneering Marine Corps aviators such as Alfred Cunningham had noted in 1920 that, ""...the only excuse for aviation in any service is its usefulness in assisting the troops on the ground to successfully carry out their missions. ""


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: It was not until 3 May 1925 that the Marine Corps officially appeared in the Navy's Aeronautical Organization when Rear Admiral William A. Moffett, Chief of the Navy's Bureau of Aeronautics, issued a directive officially authorizing three fighting squadrons. In the 1920s, Marine Corps squadrons began qualifying on board aircraft carriers. However, in terms of mission and training, the assignment of two Marine scouting squadrons as component units of the Pacific Fleet carriers would be one of the greatest advancements for Marine Corps aviation. Prior to this, Marine Corps squadrons were loosely controlled with regard to doctrine and training. This assignment enabled nearly 60% of active duty aviators at the time to be exposed to a disciplined training syllabus under a clearly defined mission.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The turning point for the long-term survival of Marine Air came with the structural change of the establishment of the Fleet Marine Force in 1933. This shifted Marine doctrine to focus less on expeditionary duty and more on supporting amphibious warfare by seizing advance naval bases in the event of war. This also saw the establishment of "Aircraft One" and "Aircraft Two" to replace the old "Aircraft Squadron, East Coast" and "Aircraft Squadron, West Coast" that had supported operations in the Caribbean and China as part of their expeditionary duties. This organization would remain until June 1940 when Congress authorized the Marine Corps 1,167 aircraft as part of its "10,000 plane program" for the Navy. Just prior, in 1939, the Navy's General Board published a new mission for Marine Aviation, which stated: ""Marine Aviation is to be equipped, organized and trained primarily for the support of the Fleet Marine Force in landing operations and in support of troop activities in the field; and secondarily as replacement for carrier based naval aircraft. ""


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: On 7 December 1941, the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Marine Corps air units consisted of 13 flying squadrons and 230 aircraft.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: During World War II, the Marine Corps' air arm expanded rapidly and extensively. They reached their peak number of units with 5 air wings, 31 aircraft groups and 145 flying squadrons. During the war, and for the next fifty years, the Guadalcanal campaign would become a defining point for Marine Aviation. The great takeaways were the debilitating effects of not having air superiority, the vulnerability of targets such as transport shipping, and the vital importance of quickly acquiring expeditionary airfields during amphibious operations. Because of the way the Pacific War unfolded, Marine Aviation was not able to achieve its 1939 mission of supporting the Fleet Marine Force at first. For the first two years of the war, the air arm spent most of its time protecting the fleet and land-based installations from attacks by enemy ships and aircraft.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: This began to change after the Battle of Tarawa as the air support for ground troops flown by Navy pilots left much to be desired. After the battle, General Holland Smith recommended, ""Marine aviators, thoroughly schooled in the principles of direct air support,"" should do the job. The New Georgia campaign saw the first real close air support provided to Marine ground forces by Marine Air; the Bougainville campaign and the campaign to retake the Philippines saw the establishment of air liaison parties to coordinate air support with the Marines fighting on the ground, and the Battle of Okinawa brought most of it together with the establishment of aviation command and control in the form of Landing Force Air Support Control Units.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: During the course of the war, Marine Aviators were credited with shooting down 2,355 Japanese aircraft while losing 573 of their own aircraft in combat, they had 120 aces and earned 11 Medals of Honor. Immediately following the war, the strength of the Marine Corps flying arm was drastically cut as part of the post war drawdown of forces. Their active strength fell from 116,628 personnel and 103 squadrons on 31 August 1945 to 14,163 personnel and 21 squadrons on 30 June 1948. They maintained another 30 squadrons in the Marine Air Reserve. Secretary of Defense Louis A. Johnson attempted to eliminate Marine Corps aviation by transferring its air assets to other services and even proposed to progressively eliminate the Marine Corps altogether in a series of budget cutbacks and decommissioning of forces.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: After World War II, most propeller aircraft were gradually phased out as jet aircraft improved and helicopters were developed for use in amphibious operations. The first Marine jet squadron came in November 1947 when VMF-122 fielded the FH Phantom. In December 1950, VMF-311 became the first Marine jet squadron used in combat, providing close air support for the Marines and soldiers on the ground, flying the F9F Panther. In February 1957, VMA-214 became the first Marine squadron to be certified for "special weapons delivery": dropping nuclear weapons. Several others would receive certification, though eventually all nuclear weapons were turned over to Navy and Air Force responsibility.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: HMX-1, the first Marine helicopter squadron, was commissioned on 1 December 1947. Marine helicopters—VMO-6 flying the HO3S1 helicopter—made their combat debut in August 1950 during the Battle of Pusan Perimeter. January 1951 saw the activation of HMR-161, the world's first helicopter transport squadron.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The Korean and Vietnam wars saw the size of Marine Aviation rebound from its post-WWII lows, emerging as the force that exists today, consisting of four air wings, 20 aircraft groups and 78 flying squadrons. By the end of the Vietnam War, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force had grown dependent on its multi-mission inventory of fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft, which could operate from land or sea bases to support Marines on the ground. Marine Aviators deployed to the Middle East for Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, then to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom. 2006 saw Marine Aviation at its highest operational level since the Vietnam War, flying more than 120,000 combat hours in to support operations in and near Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite their aging aircraft and high operating tempo, Marine Aviation maintained a 74.5-percent mission-capable rate.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Since the Corps as a whole began to grow in 2007, Marine Aviation expanded with it and continues to grow. Several new squadrons have been activated, including VMFAT-501, and VMU-4. Some support units will gain personnel and equipment. The Corps intends to procure 420 F-35B/Cs (353 F-35Bs and 67 F-35Cs) to replace all F/A-18 Hornets, AV-8B Harrier IIs and EA-6B Prowlers in the fighter, attack, and electronic warfare roles. The MV-22B Osprey replaced the CH-46 Sea Knight and CH-53D Sea Stallion. The Corps has transitioned all East Coast CH-46 squadrons to the MV-22, which has made its first combat deployments and Marine expeditionary unit deployments. The CH-53E Super Stallion will be replaced by the CH-53K King Stallion. The KC-130J Super Hercules will replace all other C-130 models. As part of the H-1 upgrade program, UH-1N Twin Hueys was replaced by UH-1Y Venoms, while AH-1W SuperCobras were upgraded to AH-1Z Vipers. The VH-3D Sea Kings and the VH-60N Blackhawks of HMX-1 are to be replaced by the Sikorsky VH-92 in the VXX program. Unmanned aerial vehicle programs will be upgraded in tiers, with the RQ-7 Shadow replacing the RQ-2 Pioneer and the RQ-11 Raven. They have also been in the lead in looking at unmanned helicopters to resupply troops at remote forward operating bases in places such as Afghanistan.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The basic tactical and administrative unit of United States Marine Corps aviation is the squadron. Fixed wing and tilt-rotor aircraft squadrons are denoted by the letter "V", which comes from the French verb "Voler" (to fly). Rotary wing (helicopter) squadrons use "H." Squadrons flying lighter than air vehicles (balloons), which were active from World War I to 1943, were indicated by the letter "Z" in naval squadron designation. Marine squadrons are noted by the second letter "M." Squadron numbering is not linear, as some were numbered in ascending order, and others took numbers from the wing or the ship to which they were assigned. From 1920 to 1941, Marine flying squadrons were identified by one digit numbers. This changed on 1 July 1941 when all existing squadrons were redesignated to a three-digit system. The first two numbers were meant to identify the squadron's parent group, but with the rapid expansion during the war and frequent transfer of squadrons, this system fell apart.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The next higher level in Marine Aviation is the Group, the aviation equivalent of a regiment. Groups can be classified as:


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The largest level in Marine aviation is the Marine Aircraft Wing, the equivalent of a division. Wings are usually grouped with a Marine division and a Marine Logistics Group to form a Marine Expeditionary Force. Administratively, Marine aviation is organized into three active duty MAWs and one reserve MAW. MAWs are designed to provide units in support of MAGTF or other operations. Each MAW has a unique organizational structure. The MAW may be reinforced with assets from other MAWs to provide the necessary assets to meet mission requirements. The MAW contains a Marine Aircraft Wing Headquarters (MAW HQ), that directs and coordinates the operations of the MAW, a Marine Wing Headquarters Squadron (MWHS) ("see: MWHS-1, MWHS-2 and MWHS-3"), which provides administrative and supply support for the MAW HQ, three or four Marine Aircraft Groups (MAGs), and a Marine Air Control Group (MACG). The mission of the MAW is to conduct air operations in support of the Marine Forces to include offensive air support, anti-aircraft warfare, assault support, aerial reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and the control of aircraft and missiles. As a collateral function, the MAW may participate as an integral component of naval aviation in the execution of such other Navy functions as the Fleet Commander may direct.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: All Marine Corps aviation falls under the cognizance of the Deputy Commandant for Aviation (DCA) at Headquarters Marine Corps, with the cooperation of the United States Navy. There, plans for all aspects of aviation are created and managed, including acquisition of new aircraft, training, maintenance, manpower, etc. HQMCA creates Transitional Task Forces to assist units in transitioning between aircraft and aircraft versions.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The Deputy Commandant of Aviation also commands Marine Corps Detachments at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake and Naval Air Station Patuxent River. The NAS China Lake Marines are responsible to DCA for the test and evaluation of all weapons and weapon systems and for electronic warfare development. While those at NAS Pax River work with Naval Air Systems Command and are responsible for developing, acquiring and supporting naval aeronautical and related technology systems for the operating forces.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Due to the range and space needed to operate aircraft, each MAW spreads its groups and squadrons amongst several Marine Corps Air Stations (MCAS), as well as offering detachments/liaisons (and occasionally full units) to airports, Air Force Bases and Naval Air Stations. Each MCAS maintains its own base functions as well as air traffic control and facilities (often with a Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron of its own).


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: All Marine pilots and flight officers are trained and qualified as naval aviators or naval flight officers by the Navy. Prospective aviators receive their commissions and attend The Basic School just as all other Marine officers do, then report to Marine Aviation Training Support Group 21 to attend Aviation Preflight Indoctrination at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. There they receive instruction in aerodynamics, aircraft engines and systems, meteorology, navigation, and flight rules and regulations. Following completion, they are assigned to Primary Flight Training at Marine Aviation Training Support Group 22, Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Texas, or remain in Pensacola, Florida. Upon successful completion of Primary Flight Training, they select which type of aircraft they would like to fly, in accordance with the needs of the Corps.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: After selection, student aviators are assigned to Advanced Flight Training in their particular field (jet, propeller, or rotary wing). Upon completion, students are designated as Naval Aviators and are awarded the Naval Aviator Insignia. From that point, they are trained at a Fleet Replacement Squadron for the specific aircraft they will be flying. A few uncommon aircraft are taught by the Navy or Air Force, or in the case of HMX-1, by the company that created the aircraft. After completion, aviators are assigned to their first squadron.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Flight officers, after Aviation Preflight Indoctrination, continue their own training path by staying at Pensacola and training further in navigation and avionics. After Advanced NFO training, they receive their wings and are assigned to their first duty squadron.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Enlisted aircrew also serve on some aircraft (mostly helicopters). They are trained at NAS Pensacola and are eligible to wear the Aircrew insignia.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine aviators are eligible to earn medals such as the Distinguished Flying Cross for heroism in combat and the Air Medal for meritorious achievement in flight as well as the Gray Eagle Award for seniority. Pilots in combat have a chance to become flying aces.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine light attack helicopter squadrons (HMLA) are composite squadrons of AH-1Z Viper attack helicopters and UH-1Y Venom utility helicopters. These provide light-attack and light transport utility capabilities. Marine medium tilt-rotor (VMM) squadrons fly the V-22 Osprey, a tilt-rotor transport aircraft.Marine heavy helicopter (HMH) squadrons fly the CH-53E Super Stallion helicopter for heavy-lift missions. These will eventually be replaced with the upgraded CH-53K, currently under development.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine attack squadrons (VMA) fly the AV-8 Harrier II; while Marine Fighter-Attack (VMFA) and Marine (All Weather) Fighter-Attack (VMFA(AW)) squadrons, respectively fly both the single-seat (F/A-18C) and dual-seat (F/A-18D) versions of the F/A-18 Hornet strike-fighter aircraft. The AV-8B is a VTOL aircraft that can operate from amphibious assault ships, land air bases and short, expeditionary airfields. The F/A-18 can only be flown from land or aircraft carriers. Both are slated to be replaced by the F-35B, the STOVL version of the F-35 Lightning II. The Marine Corps will also purchase 80 of the F-35C carrier variants, enough for five squadrons, to serve with Navy carrier air wings.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: The Corps operates its own aerial refueling assets in the form of the KC-130J Super Hercules. In Marine transport refueling (VMGR) squadrons, the Hercules doubles as a ground refueller and tactical-airlift transport aircraft.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: With the addition of the ISR / Weapon Mission Kit, the KC-130J will be able to serve as an overwatch aircraft and can deliver ground support fire in the form of 30mm cannon fire, Hellfire or Griffin missiles, and precision-guided bombs. This capability, designated as "Harvest HAWK" (Hercules Airborne Weapons Kit), can be used in scenarios where precision is not a requisite, such as area denial. It was first used in Afghanistan in late 2010. Serving in Marine Tactical Electronic Warfare (VMAQ) Squadrons, the Prowler is the main tactical electronic warfare aircraft left in the U.S. inventory, though Navy squadrons have begun replacing it with the EA-18G Growler.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: It has been labeled a "national asset" and is frequently borrowed to assist in any American combat action, not just Marine operations. Since the retirement of the EF-111A Raven in 1998, the Air Force's only EW aircraft, Marine Corps and Navy aircraft have provided electronic warfare support to Air Force units.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine Fighter Training Squadron 401 (VMFT-401) operates F-5 Tiger II aircraft in support of air combat adversary (aggressor) training.


title: United States Marine Corps Aviation

text: Marine Helicopter Squadron One (HMX-1) operates the VH-3D Sea King medium-lift and VH-60N Nighthawk light-lift helicopters in the VIP transport role, previously planned to be replaced by the cancelled VH-71 Kestrel. Marine Transport Squadron One (VMR-1) utilizes several aircraft to transport VIPs and critical logistics, to include the UC-35C/D Citation Ultra/Encore, C-12B/F Huron, and C-20G Gulfstream IV. A single Marine Corps C-130J "Fat Albert," is used to support the U.S. Navy's flight demonstration team, the "Blue Angels".


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: James "Jimmy" McNulty is a fictional character and the protagonist of the HBO drama "The Wire", played by Dominic West.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty is an Irish-American detective in the Baltimore Police Department. While talented in his profession, McNulty's conceited belief that he is more intelligent than his peers and his willingness to ignore the chain of command in pursuit of his own investigative projects mean that he regularly incurs the wrath of his superiors.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: When off the job, he has frequent problems involving alcoholism, alimony, child support, cheating and sexual promiscuity, and unstable relationships. He is central to many of the successful high-end drug investigations that take place within the series.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: British actor Ray Winstone was originally considered for the part. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, Winstone had difficulty returning to Britain for several weeks due to the subsequent grounding of flights, and dropped out of consideration once he was finally able to return home. Series creator David Simon next considered American actor John C. Reilly, but he declined because his wife did not wish to move to Baltimore.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: For his audition tape, West was asked to record a scene between McNulty and his partner, Bunk Moreland. With only a day to record, and no one suitable to record with, he recorded himself reading his own dialogue and left gaps of silence for Moreland's dialogue, reacting appropriately. Simon described watching the tape with casting director Alexa L. Fogel: "We fell around the room laughing, like, 'What the...?


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Despite the unusual tape, and West's dubious American accent, Simon found his ability to react to non-existent dialogue impressive. Fogel described West as "too young" and "too attractive" to play the character, but found that he understood McNulty's psychology. She took West to do a reading for Chris Albrecht, then the president of HBO Original Programming, who had final say on the casting. Albrecht assented, but told Fogel "You better be right."


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Of Irish Catholic descent, McNulty grew up in the Lauraville neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. His father was an employee for Bethlehem Steel before being laid off in 1973. After a year of attending Loyola College in Maryland (now Loyola University Maryland), McNulty joined the Baltimore Police Department [EOD (Entrance on Duty) date April 5, 1994] when his girlfriend Elena (whom he later married on August 3, 1999) became pregnant.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: He has two sons with Elena: Sean (born on June 22, 1992), and Michael (born on November 3, 1993). In his first few years on the job, he proved himself as an effective patrolman in the Western District, under the command of Major Howard "Bunny" Colvin. After assisting Ray Cole in solving a homicide, McNulty was promoted to detective and assigned to the Homicide Unit, where he was partnered with Bunk Moreland.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Before the start of the series, McNulty has noticed that drug kingpin Avon Barksdale is expanding his organization's territory, and that his gang has successfully beaten several murder prosecutions. After Avon's nephew D'Angelo is acquitted thanks to witness tampering, McNulty goes over the head of his superior, Major Bill Rawls, and convinces Judge Phelan to call Deputy Commissioner Ervin Burrell to encourage further investigation of the Barksdales.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Because of McNulty's efforts, the Barksdale detail is officially formed. It initially comprises narcotics lieutenant Cedric Daniels and his three detectives: Kima Greggs, Ellis Carver, and Thomas "Herc" Hauk. When Burrell asks his majors and shift lieutenants to send additional detectives for the investigative detail, McNulty is also assigned to the unit.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Daniels and McNulty argue about how to handle the case at their first meeting: McNulty, after seeing an FBI drug sting, suggests surveillance and wiretaps, but Burrell has ordered Daniels to put together a quick and simple case to appease Phelan. Soon after the investigation begins, McNulty learns from his friend in the FBI, Terence "Fitz" Fitzhugh, that Daniels had been investigated for having a suspiciously large amount of liquid assets. McNulty's relationship with Daniels continues to be complicated by their mutual distrust.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: The detail is assigned as a prosecutor Assistant State's Attorney Rhonda Pearlman ("Ronnie"), with whom McNulty is having a casual sexual relationship. McNulty is officially separated from his wife, who limits his contact with his two sons, Sean and Michael.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: While at the market with his sons one afternoon, McNulty spots Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale's second-in-command, and sends his sons to tail him and get his license plate number. When Elena finds out, she seeks an emergency order to stop McNulty from seeing the boys. She is also angry that McNulty continues to see his affair partner, Ronnie Pearlman, casually.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Working on the Barksdale detail, McNulty becomes friends with Lester Freamon, who had previously been exiled to the pawn shop unit for 13 years and four months, as punishment for his insistence on charging a politically connected fence. Freamon often tries to temper McNulty's animosity towards Daniels. Frustrated that Barksdale's dealers do not use cell phones, they decide to clone the dealers' pagers instead. They also work together to convince Daniels to allow them to do better police work.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: With the help of Kima, McNulty tracks down the elusive outlaw Omar Little, and gains Omar's respect and cooperation. Omar agrees to testify against Marquis "Bird" Hilton, a Barksdale soldier. His assistance also leads to McNulty's inadvertently solving one of Michael Santangelo's old cases; the grateful Santangelo in turn reveals that he is a mole for Rawls, who is looking for an excuse to fire McNulty.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Kima introduces McNulty to her confidential informant, Bubbles. When Kima is shot in a buy-bust sting operation gone wrong, McNulty is guilt-ridden, although even Rawls assures him that the shooting is not his fault.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty has a frank discussion with Daniels in which he admits that the Barksdale case is no more than an exercise in intellectual vanity and an opportunity to demonstrate the BPD's shortcomings. Daniels tells him that everyone has known this all along, but the case has taken on meaning for those involved.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: The detail succeeds in arresting Barksdale soldier Wee-Bey Brice for shooting Kima, Bird for murdering a state's witness, and both D'Angelo and Avon Barksdale. McNulty almost convinces D'Angelo to testify against Avon but at his mother's insistence, D'Angelo takes a 20-year prison sentence instead. When the Barksdale detail closes, Rawls reassigns McNulty to the marine unit, having learned from Sergeant Jay Landsman that this is precisely the BPD unit where McNulty would most hate to go due to seasickness.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: While on harbor patrol, McNulty spots the body of a dead woman in the water. When Rawls argues the case is not in his jurisdiction, McNulty spends three hours poring over wind and tide charts to prove the death occurred within city limits.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: When port authority police officer Beadie Russell finds 13 dead women in a shipping container on the Baltimore docks, McNulty again intervenes and, with the help of the medical examiner, proves that the deaths were not accidental: the air pipe to the container was deliberately closed off, and, with the help of a mining engineer, the investigators are able to prove that the ship was within the city limits when it happened. The case is given to Bunk and Lester, who don't look forward to investigating these difficult cases. This also angers Rawls because 13 unsolved murders (14 including the dead woman in the bay) ruins Homicide's clearance rate.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty unsuccessfully searches for the identity of the floater. He also finds himself under pressure from Bunk to find Omar, since Bird is about to go on trial. McNulty coerces Bubbles into tracking down Omar, who successfully testifies against Bird who is convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Meanwhile, McNulty wants to salvage his marriage, leading him to sign a separation agreement with generous alimony as a gesture of good will towards his estranged wife so she will agree to get back together. He resolves to give up alcohol and detective work, two of the main reasons for the breakup of his marriage. When Elena confirms the marriage is over, he grows despondent and relapses.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: When Daniels's unit is re-formed to investigate stevedore union boss Frank Sobotka, Rawls refuses to allow McNulty to rejoin the team, vowing he will remain working in the harbor for the rest of his career. McNulty seems to accept this with good grace but tries to help the detail unofficially. Daniels persuades Rawls to let McNulty return by agreeing to have his team take on the murders of the 14 women.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty's first assignment is to go undercover as a client visiting a local brothel, where he scandalizes and amuses his colleagues by actually having sex with two prostitutes during the sting operation. He also flirts with Russell, who has been assigned to Daniels' detail, although he seems to shy away from a relationship.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: While on surveillance, McNulty watches Spiros Vondas, an associate of an underworld figure known as The Greek, sending a text message. McNulty reasons that the time and location of the text could be used to retrieve it from the phone company's databases, and it is from this message that the detail learns the Greek had shut down his operations.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: After McNulty learns from Bubbles that Stringer Bell and Barksdale rival Proposition Joe are sharing territory, he begins investigating them on his own time, convinced that he can gather enough evidence to prompt Daniels to focus the Major Crimes Unit's attention on Stringer.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty continues to work with the MCU but is disappointed that their target is not Bell. He begins looking into the Barksdales anyway, finding out about D'Angelo's death and Avon's early release.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Investigating D'Angelo's death, which has been listed as a suicide, McNulty quickly realizes that D'Angelo was murdered. McNulty reconnects with Colvin to set up the Barksdale organization as the MCU's primary target. McNulty circumvents the chain of command again to set up the investigation, as Daniels is not interested in the quality of the unit's assigned case targets, blaming his rank in the department for his lack of case target interests. Angered by McNulty's attitude, Daniels makes it clear that he's forcing McNulty out when Stringer is arrested.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty begins a casual sexual relationship with political consultant Theresa D'Agostino but ends it when he realizes that she is only interested in him physically and is pumping him for politically useful information about Colvin. Largely due to Freamon's work, the MCU implicates Stringer, but Stringer is murdered before McNulty can arrest him.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: After Avon is arrested, Daniels reevaluates his decision to get rid of McNulty, but McNulty, thinking about something Freamon had remarked about to him earlier in the season, realizes he has no life outside his work and graciously declines Daniels' offer to keep him in the unit. He transfers to patrol in the Western District, which he remembers as the happiest time of his life, and begins a relationship with Russell.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty moves in with Russell and her two children, and enjoys his life as a patrolman in the Western District under Ellis Carver. McNulty's beat includes the corner that Bodie Broadus works on behalf of drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield. Both Daniels and Administrative Lieutenant Dennis Mello ask McNulty to do investigative work in the district, but he declines. Mello is disappointed, but Daniels realizes that McNulty has been able to get his life in order while working as a patrolman.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Although other officers make arrests for statistical purposes, McNulty focuses on quality arrests. This is exemplified by the arrest of two burglars who were stealing from churches.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty mentors Brian Baker, a younger patrol officer in the Western District, whom he and Bunk end up referring to as "good police". McNulty also gives up drinking almost entirely, sometimes resolving to stay sober despite pressure from his friends. Bunk and Freamon are amazed and slightly dismayed at how much McNulty has changed, and Elena even expresses regret for having left him.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty soon begins to miss the MCU and quietly begins getting closer to Bodie in the hopes of turning him into an informant against Marlo. After Stanfield lieutenant Monk Metcalf sees Bodie with McNulty, Marlo has Bodie killed as a precaution.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty feels guilty and rejoins the MCU, much to Freamon and Daniels' delight. It is revealed during a scene shortly after Bodie's death that McNulty feels he "owes it to the kid".


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: With the BPD scaled back due to Mayor Tommy Carcetti's budget cuts and the vacant murders unsolved, McNulty is despondent and falls back into old habits. Shortly after being transferred back to Homicide, he visits the morgue, finds two county detectives arguing with the medical examiner, and subsequently learns that pre-mortem and immediate post-mortem strangulations are forensically indistinguishable. He applies what he learns to a probable overdose case he is investigating with Bunk, and tampers with the crime scene to make it seem that a struggle occurred, and over Bunk's protests, McNulty strangles and stages the corpse to make it appear as if a serial killer has come to Baltimore.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty sets out on his ruse in the hopes that such a case will secure more funding for Homicide and the Stanfield investigation. Thus, he doctors case files and plants evidence in order to link cases together to create the impression of a serial killer targeting homeless men.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: When Landsman ignores the case, McNulty approaches reporter Alma Gutierrez of "The Baltimore Sun", but only succeeds in the story's getting printed in the middle of the paper instead of on the front page. Bunk repeatedly warns McNulty against this self-destructive course; Lester, enormously frustrated because he is close to solving the murders in the vacant houses but lacks funds to complete the task, approves of the endeavor and suggests that they sensationalize the killer to get the funds required to succeed in their crime solving.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: When McNulty finds that most dead homeless men are concentrated in the Southern District, Freamon puts him in touch with an old patrol partner there who agrees to tip them off when new bodies are found. Freamon also devises a plan to show maturation in their serial killer's pattern, and acquires dentures to create bite marks on the victims, thus enhancing the media appeal for the story.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: While canvassing an area frequented by the local homeless population, McNulty complains that Landsman barely noticed his work on the case, but Freamon reminds him that if their plan works, the case will attract more interest, and sloppiness could be their downfall. Upon returning home, McNulty is confronted by Russell about his drinking and philandering.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Upon finding a new body, McNulty mutilates the corpse to show bite marks and defensive wounds. When investigating the "homeless killer", McNulty and Greggs travel to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia for assistance. McNulty realizes that he can no longer falsify the murders on real corpses as there is too large a police presence, so he instead takes a mentally ill homeless man off the streets and stages a photograph of a murder to send to "Sun" reporter Scott Templeton, before taking the man to a homeless shelter in Richmond with fake identification.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: McNulty has been voicing the killer in telephone calls to Templeton. After doing the voice analysis, the FBI provides McNulty and Greggs with a psychological profile of the homeless killer, inadvertently giving a near-perfect description of McNulty himself. Having his character flaws spelled out for him gives McNulty second thoughts about what he has done. He confesses his deception to Greggs, who in turn informs Daniels, now the BPD's Deputy Commissioner for Operations. Daniels and Pearlman subsequently meet with Acting Commissioner Rawls, State's Attorney Rupert Bond, and the mayor's office. Daniels and Rawls confront McNulty, informing him that this will be his last CID case.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: The case is "solved" when McNulty encounters a mentally ill homeless man who has started using the modus operandi of the phony serial killer. McNulty brings the man to justice, in his final case. McNulty and Freamon then leave the police department and the entire affair is swept under the rug, as revealing it will result in too many people getting into too much trouble, all the way up to the mayor's office and the chief of police.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: After attending a detective's wake (for their careers) in their honor, McNulty leaves the bar sober and returns home, where he and Russell have reconciled. The next day, McNulty returns to Richmond, finds the homeless man he had put there, and drives him back to Baltimore. On the way back, he stops his car, gets out, and looks at the city, leading to the series-ending montage.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Jim Shelley of "The Guardian" found McNulty "irresistibly charming, a classic anti-hero, a modern-day Rockford." Jon Garelick of the "Boston Phoenix" remarked that McNulty is not precisely the central character despite his actions' starting most of the plotlines, and wrote he preferred other characters to McNulty's “one-dimensional functionality as the Dirty Jimmy of the series”.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: James Norton of "Flak Magazine" commented on how McNulty seems to fit to a standard police character archetype ("He has poor impulse control. He's personally fearless and outspoken, and he bangs babes like a hunchback rings bells...") but ends up subverting the archetype by being self-destructive and “kind of a jerk”.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Dan Kois of "Salon" described McNulty as "The heart, soul and oft-impaired nervous system of 'The Wire'", characterizing him as a central character. Kois also named McNulty's pride as his main character trait, noting this aspect of his personality made McNulty a successful investigator and a failure in most other aspects of his life.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: Gillian Flinn of "Entertainment Weekly" observed McNulty offered one of the show's most wicked ironies: he is one of the characters you would expect to be on the side of law and order as a police detective but they describe him as a "boozing cop who pisses on authority and order."


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: David Simon, the character's creator, has described his goal of presenting McNulty as ambiguous in his motivations. Based on his experiences with real detectives, Simon feels that most crime dramas present their police characters with the falsehood that they care deeply about the victims in the cases they are investigating. Simon states that in his experience, a good detective is usually motivated by the game of solving the crime—he sees the crime as an "insult to his intellectual vanity", and this gives him motivation to solve it.


title: Jimmy McNulty

text: The character was originally named Jimmy McArdle, but because no one liked the name, executive producer Robert F. Colesberry suggested renaming him Jimmy McNulty (after his maternal grandmother). The McArdle surname was reused for the character of "White Mike" McArdle in season 2.


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonology, in which the combination "ti" is pronounced "s", giving .


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati has the greatest land area of any atoll in the world, about ; its lagoon is roughly the same size. The atoll is about in perimeter, while the lagoon shoreline extends for over . Kiritimati comprises over 70% of the total land area of Kiribati, a country encompassing 33 Pacific atolls and islands.


title: Kiritimati

text: It lies north of the equator, south of Honolulu, and from San Francisco. Kiritimati is in the world's farthest forward time zone, UTC+14, and is therefore one of the first inhabited places on Earth to experience New Year's Day. (see also Caroline Atoll, Kiribati). Although it lies east of the 180th meridian, the Republic of Kiribati realigned the International Date Line in 1995, placing Kiritimati to the west of the dateline.


title: Kiritimati

text: Nuclear tests were conducted on and around Kiritimati by the United Kingdom in the late 1950s, and by the United States in 1962. During these tests, the island was not evacuated, exposing the i-Kiribati residents and the British, New Zealand, and Fijian servicemen to nuclear radiation.


title: Kiritimati

text: The entire island is a Wildlife Sanctuary; access to five particularly sensitive areas is restricted.


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati was initially inhabited by Polynesian people. Radiometric dating from sites on the island place the period of human use between 1250 and 1450 CE. Permanent human settlement on Kiritimati likely never occurred. Stratigraphic layers excavated in fire pits show alternating bands of charcoal indicating heavy use and local soil indicating a lack of use. As such, some researchers have suggested that Kiritimati was used intermittently (likely by people from Tabuaeran to the north) as a place to gather resources such as birds and turtles in a similar fashion to the ethnographically documented use of the five central atolls of the Caroline Islands.


title: Kiritimati

text: Archaeological sites on the island are concentrated along the east (windward) side of the island and known sites represent a series of habitation sites, marae, and supporting structures such as canoe storage sheds and navigational aids.


title: Kiritimati

text: The atoll was then discovered by Europeans with the Spanish expedition of in 1537, that charted it as "Acea". This discovery was referred by a contemporary, the Portuguese António Galvão, governor of Ternate, in his book "Tratado dos Descubrimientos" of 1563. During his third voyage, Captain James Cook visited the island on Christmas Eve (24 December) 1777 and the island was put on a map in 1781 as "île des Tortues" (Turtles Island) by in Augsburg. Whaling vessels visited the island from at least 1822. and it was claimed by the United States under the Guano Islands Act of 1856, though little actual mining of guano took place.


title: Kiritimati

text: Permanent settlement started in 1882, mainly by workers in coconut plantations and fishermen. In 1902, the British Government granted a 99 year lease on the island to Levers Pacific Plantations. The company planted 72,863 coconut palms on the island and introduced silver-lipped pearl oysters into the lagoon. The settlement didn't endure: Extreme drought killed 75% of the coconut palms, and the island was abandoned from 1905–1912.


title: Kiritimati

text: Many of the toponyms in the island date to Father , a French priest who leased the island from 1917–1939, and planted some 500,000 coconut trees there. He lived in his "Paris" house (now only small ruins) located at "Benson Point", across the Burgle Channel from "Londres" at "Bridges Point" (today London) where he established the port. He gave the name of "Poland" to a village where Stanisław (Stanislaus) Pełczyński, his Polish plantation manager then lived.


title: Kiritimati

text: Joe English, of Medford, Massachusetts, Rougier's plantation manager from 1915–1919, named "Joe's Hill" (some 12 metres / 40 feet high) after himself. English and two teenagers were marooned on the island for a year and a half (1917–1919) as transport had stopped due to the Spanish flu breaking out in Tahiti and around the world. English was later rescued by British admiral John Jellicoe. English, thinking that the rescue ship was German and the war was still in effect, pulled his revolver on the admiral Jellicoe, causing a short standoff until some explanation defused the situation.


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati was occupied by the Allies in World War II with the U.S. in control of the island garrison. The atoll was important to hold, since Japanese occupation would allow interdiction of the Hawaii-to-Australia supply route. For the first few months there were next to no recreational facilities on the island, and the men amused themselves by shooting sharks in the lagoon. The island's first airstrip was constructed at this time to supply the Air Force weather station and communications center. The airstrip also provided rest and refuelling facilities for planes travelling between Hawaii and the South Pacific. The 1947 census listed only 47 inhabitants on the island. The U.S. Guano Islands Act claim was formally ceded by the Treaty of Tarawa between the U.S. and Kiribati. The treaty was signed in 1979 and ratified in 1983.


title: Kiritimati

text: During the dispute over the Caroline islands between Germany and Spain in 1885 which was arbitrated by Pope Leo XIII, the sovereignty of Spain over the Caroline and Palau islands as part of the Spanish East Indies was analysed by a commission of cardinals and confirmed by an agreement signed on 17 December 1885. Its Article 2 specifies the limits of Spanish sovereignty in South Micronesia, being formed by the Equator and 11°N Latitude and by 133° and 164° Longitude. In 1899, Spain sold the Marianas, Carolines, and Palau to Germany after its defeat in 1898 in the Spanish–American War. However Emilio Pastor Santos, a researcher of the Spanish National Research Council, claimed in 1948 that there was historical basis to argue that Kiritimati ("Acea" on the Spanish maps) and some other islands had never been considered part of the Carolines, supported by the charts and maps of the time. Despite having sought acknowledgement of the issue regarding interpretation of the treaty, no Spanish government has made any attempt to assert sovereignty over Kiritimati, and the case remains a historical curiosity.


title: Kiritimati

text: During the Cold War Kiritimati was used for nuclear weapons testing by the United Kingdom and the USA. The United Kingdom conducted its first hydrogen bomb test series, Grapple 1-3, at Malden Island from 15 May to 19 June 1957 and used Kiritimati as the operation's main base. On 8 November 1957, the first H-bomb was detonated over the southeastern tip of Kiritimati in the Grapple X test. Subsequent tests in 1958 (Grapple Y and Z) also took place above or near Kiritimati.


title: Kiritimati

text: The United Kingdom detonated some of nuclear payload near and directly above Kiritimati in 1957–1958, while the total yield of weapons tested by the United States in the vicinity of the island between 25 April and 11 July 1962 was . During the British Grapple X test, yield was stronger than expected, resulting in the blast demolishing buildings and infrastructure. Islanders were usually not evacuated during the nuclear weapons testing, and data on the environmental and public health impact of these tests remains contested.


title: Kiritimati

text: The United States also conducted 22 successful nuclear detonations over the island as part of Operation Dominic in 1962. Some toponyms (like "Banana" and "Main Camp") come from the nuclear testing period, during which at times over 4,000 servicemen were present. By 1969, military interest in Kiritimati had ended and the facilities were mostly dismantled. However, some communications, transport, and logistics facilities were converted for civilian use, which Kiritimati uses to serve as the administrative centre for the Line Islands.


title: Kiritimati

text: The island's population has strongly increased in recent years, from about 2,000 in 1989 to about 5,000 in the early 2000s. Kiritimati has three representatives in the Maneaba ni Maungatabu. Today there are five villages on the island, four populated and one abandoned:


title: Kiritimati

text: The main villages of Kiritimati are Banana, Tabwakea, and London, which are located along the main road on the northern tip of the island, and Poland, which is across the main lagoon to the South. London is the main village and port facility. Banana is near Cassidy International Airport but may be relocated closer to London to prevent groundwater contamination. The abandoned village of Paris is no longer listed in census reports.


title: Kiritimati

text: The ministry of the Line and Phoenix islands is located in London. There are also two new high schools on the road between Tabwakea and Banana: One Catholic, and one Protestant. The University of Hawaii has a climatological research facility on Kiritimati. A Catholic church dedicated under the auspices of Saint Stanislaus and a primary school is located in Poland. The Kiribati Institute of Technology (KIT), based on Tarawa, opened a campus on Kiritimati in June 2019.


title: Kiritimati

text: Most of the atoll's food supplies have to be imported. Potable water can be in short supply, especially around November in La Niña years. A large and modern jetty, handling some cargo, was built by the Japanese at London. Marine fish provide a large portion of the island's nutrition, although overfishing has caused a drastic decrease in the populations of large, predatory fish over the last several years.


title: Kiritimati

text: Exports of the atoll are mainly copra (dried coconut pulp); the state-owned coconut plantation covers about . In addition aquarium fish and seaweed are exported. A 1970s project to commercially breed "Artemia salina" brine shrimp in the salt ponds was abandoned in 1978. In recent years there have been attempts to explore the viability of live crayfish and chilled fish exports and salt production.


title: Kiritimati

text: Cassidy International Airport is located just north of Banana and North East Point. It has a paved runway with a length of and was for some time the only airport in Kiribati to serve the Americas, via an Air Pacific (now Fiji Airways) flight to Honolulu, Hawaii. American Te Mauri Travel offers weekly charter flights from Honolulu.


title: Kiritimati

text: Air Pacific ran flights to Kiritimati until 2008, when they stopped over concerns about the condition of the runway. Services resumed in 2010. A monthly air freight service is flown using a chartered from Honolulu operated by Asia Pacific Airlines.


title: Kiritimati

text: Aeon Field is an abandoned airport, constructed before the British nuclear tests. It is located on the southeastern peninsula.


title: Kiritimati

text: There is a small amount of tourism, mainly associated with anglers interested in lagoon fishing (for bonefish in particular) or offshore fishing. Week-long ecotourism packages during which some of the normally closed areas can be visited are also available.


title: Kiritimati

text: In recent years, surfers have discovered that there are good waves during the Northern Hemisphere's winter season and there are interests developing to service these recreational tourists. There is some tourism-related infrastructure, such as a small hotel, rental facilities, and food services.


title: Kiritimati

text: In the early 1950s, Wernher von Braun proposed using this island as a launch site for manned spacecraft, based on its proximity to the equator, and the generally empty ocean down-range (east).


title: Kiritimati

text: There is a Japanese JAXA satellite tracking station. The abandoned Aeon Field had at one time been proposed for reuse by the Japanese for their now-canceled HOPE-X space shuttle project.


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati is also located fairly close to the Sea Launch satellite launching spot at 0° N 154° W, about 370 kilometres (200 nmi) to the east in international waters.


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati's roughly lagoon opens to the sea in the northwest; "Burgle Channel" (the entrance to the lagoon) is divided into the northern "Cook Island Passage" and the southern "South Passage". The southeastern part of the lagoon is partially dried out today; essentially, progressing SE from Burgle Channel, the main lagoon gradually turns into a network of subsidiary lagoons, tidal flats, partially hypersaline brine ponds and salt pans, which as a whole has about the same area again as the main lagoon. Thus, the land and lagoon areas can only be given approximately, as no firm boundary exists between the main island body and the salt flats. Vaskess Bay is a large bay which extends along the southwest coast of Kiritimati Island.


title: Kiritimati

text: In addition to the main island, there are several smaller ones. "Cook Island" is part of the atoll proper but unconnected to the Kiritimati mainland. It is a sand/coral island of , divides Burgle Channel into the northern and the southern entrance, and has a large seabird colony. Islets ("motu"s) in the lagoon include "Motu Tabu" () with its "Pisonia" forest and the shrub-covered "Motu Upua" (also called Motu Upou or Motu Upoa, ) at the northern side, and "Ngaontetaake" () at the eastern side.


title: Kiritimati

text: "Joe's Hill" (originally "La colline de Joe") on the north coast of the south-eastern peninsula, southeast of Artemia Corners, is the highest point on the atoll, at about ASL. On the northwestern peninsula for example, the land rises only to some 7 m (20 ft), which is still considerable for an atoll.


title: Kiritimati

text: Despite its proximity to the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), Kiritimati is located in an equatorial dry zone and rainfall is rather low except during El Niño years; on average per year, in some years it can be as little as and much of the flats and ponds can dry up such as in late 1978. On the other hand, in some exceptionally wet years abundant downpours in March–April may result in a total annual precipitation of over . Kiritimati is thus affected by regular, severe droughts. They are exacerbated by its geological structure; climatically "dry" Pacific islands are more typically located in the "desert belt" at about 30°N or S latitude. Kiritimati is a raised atoll, and although it does occasionally receive plenty of precipitation, little is retained given the porous carbonate rock, the thin soil, and the absence of dense vegetation cover on much of the island, while evaporation is constantly high. Consequently, Kiritimati is one of the rather few places close to the Equator which have an effectively arid climate.


title: Kiritimati

text: The temperature is constantly between 24 °C and 30 °C (75 °F and 86 °F) with more diurnal temperature variation than seasonal variation. Easterly trade winds predominate.


title: Kiritimati

text: At the first census done in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands colony in 1931, there were only 38 inhabitants on the island, most of them workers of the Company. After WWII in 1947 there were 52 inhabitants. After the nuclear tests, in 1963, this had increased to 477, reducing to 367 by 1967 but increasing again to 674 in 1973, 1,265 in 1978, 1,737 in the 1985 census, 2,537 in 1990, 3,225 in 1995, 3,431 in 2000, 5,115 in 2005, 5,586 in 2010 and 6,456 in 2015. This was the fastest population growth in Kiribati.


title: Kiritimati

text: The flora and the fauna consist of taxa adapted to drought. Terrestrial fauna is scant; there are no truly native land mammals and only one native land bird – Kiribati's endemic reed-warbler, the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis"). The 1957 attempt to introduce the endangered Rimitara lorikeet ("Vini kuhlii") has largely failed; a few birds seem to linger on, but the lack of abundant coconut palm forest, on which this tiny parrot depends, makes Kiritimati a suboptimal habitat for this species.


title: Kiritimati

text: The natural vegetation on Kiritimati consists mostly of low shrubland and grassland. What little woodland exists is mainly open coconut palm ("Cocos nucifera") plantation. There are three small woods of catchbird trees ("Pisonia grandis"), at Southeast Point, Northwest Point, and on Motu Tabu. The latter was planted there in recent times. About 50 introduced plant species are found on Kiritimati; as most are plentiful around settlements, former military sites and roads, it seems that these only became established in the 20th century.


title: Kiritimati

text: Beach naupaka ("Scaevola taccada") is the most common shrub on Kiritimati; beach naupaka scrub dominates the vegetation on much of the island, either as pure stands or interspersed with tree heliotrope ("Heliotropium foertherianum") and bay cedar ("Suriana maritima"). The latter species is dominant on the drier parts of the lagoon flats where it grows up to tall. Tree heliotrope is most commonly found a short distance from the sea- or lagoon-shore. In some places near the seashore, a low vegetation dominated by Polynesian heliotrope ("Heliotropium anomalum"), yellow purslane ("Portulaca lutea") and common purslane ("P. oleracea") is found. In the south and on the sandier parts, "Sida fallax", also growing up to 2 m tall, is abundant. On the southeastern peninsula, "S. fallax" grows more stunted, and Polynesian heliotrope, yellow and common purslane as well as the spiderling "Boerhavia repens", the parasitic vine "Cassytha filiformis", and Pacific Island thintail ("Lepturus repens") supplement it. The last species dominates in the coastal grasslands. The wetter parts of the lagoon shore are often covered by abundant growth of shoreline purslane ("Sesuvium portulacastrum").


title: Kiritimati

text: Perhaps the most destructive of the recently introduced plants is sweetscent ("Pluchea odorata"), a camphorweed, which is considered an invasive weed as it overgrows and displaces herbs and grasses. The introduced creeper "Tribulus cistoides", despite having also spread conspicuously, is considered to be more beneficial than harmful to the ecosystem, as it provides good nesting sites for some seabirds.


title: Kiritimati

text: More than 35 bird species have been recorded from Kiritimati. As noted above, only the bokikokiko ("Acrocephalus aequinoctialis"), perhaps a few Rimitara lorikeets ("Vini kuhlii") – if any remain at all – and the occasional eastern reef egret ("Egretta sacra") make up the entire landbird fauna. About 1,000 adult bokikokikos are to be found at any date, but mainly in mixed grass/shrubland away from the settlements.


title: Kiritimati

text: On the other hand, seabirds are plentiful on Kiritimati, and make up the bulk of the breeding bird population. There are 18 species of seabirds breeding on the island, and Kiritimati is one of the most important breeding grounds anywhere in the world for several of these:


title: Kiritimati

text: Kiritimati's lagoon and the saltflats are a prime location for migratory birds to stop over or even stay all winter. The most commonly seen migrants are ruddy turnstone ("Arenaria interpres"), Pacific golden plover ("Pluvialis fulva"), bristle-thighed curlew ("Numenius tahitiensis"), and wandering tattler ("Tringa incana"); other seabirds, waders, and even dabbling ducks can be encountered every now and then. Around 7 October (±5 days), some 20 million sooty shearwaters pass through here en route from the North Pacific feeding grounds to breeding sites around New Zealand.


title: Kiritimati

text: The only mammals native to the region are the common Polynesian rat ("Rattus exulans") and the goats. The rat seems to have been introduced by seafarers many centuries before Cook arrived in 1777 (he mentioned them already being present); goats have been extinct since 14 January 2004. Black rats ("Rattus rattus") were present at some time, perhaps introduced by 19th century sailors or during the nuclear tests. They were not able to gain a foothold between predation by cats and competitive exclusion by Polynesian rats, and no black rat population is found on Kiritimati today.


title: Kiritimati

text: Up to 2,000 feral cats can in some years be found on the island; the population became established in the 19th century. Their depredations seriously harm the birdlife. Since the late 19th century, they have driven about 60% of the seabird species from the mainland completely, and during particular dry spells they will cross the mudflats and feast upon the birds on the "motu"s. Spectacled tern chicks seem to be a favourite food of the local cat population. There are some measures being taken to ensure the cat population does not grow. That lowering the cat population by some amount would much benefit Christmas and its inhabitants is generally accepted, but the situation is too complex to simply go and eradicate them outright (which is theoretically possible; see Marion Island) – see below for details. A limited population of feral pigs exists. They were once plentiful and wreaked havoc especially on the "Onychoprion" and noddies. Pig hunting by locals has been encouraged, and was highly successful at limiting the pig population to a sustainable level, while providing a source of cheap protein for the islanders.


title: Kiritimati

text: There are some "supertramp" lizards which have reached the island by their own means. Commonly seen are the mourning gecko ("Lepidodactylus lugubris") and the skink "Cryptoblepharus boutonii"; the four-clawed gecko ("Gehyra mutilata") is seen less often.


title: Kiritimati

text: There are some crustaceans of note to be found on Kiritimati and in the waters immediately adjacent. The amphibious coconut crab ("Birgus latro") is not as common as on Teraina. Ghost crabs (genus "Ocypode"), "Cardisoma carnifex" and "Geograpsus grayi" land crabs, the strawberry land hermit crab ("Coenobita perlatus") are also notable. Introduced brine shrimp "Artemia salina" populate the island's saline ponds.


title: Kiritimati

text: Overfishing and pollution have impacted on the ocean surrounding the island. In the ocean surrounding uninhabited islands of the Northern Line Islands, Sharks comprised 74% of the top predator biomass (329 g/m) at Kingman Reef and 57% at Palmyra Atoll (97 g/m), whereas low shark numbers have been observed at Tabuaeran and Kiritimati.


title: Kiritimati

text: Green turtles ("Chelonia mydas") regularly nest in small numbers on Kiritimati. The lagoon is famous among sea anglers worldwide for its bonefish ("Albula glossodonta"), and has been stocked with "Oreochromis" tilapia to decrease overfishing of marine species. Though the tilapias thrive in brackish water of the flats, they will not last long should they escape into the surrounding ocean.


title: Kiritimati

text: Giant Trevally (Caranx ignobilis) are found in large numbers both inside and outside of the lagoon and along the surrounding reefs. Very large specimens of Giant Trevally can be found around these surrounding reefs and they are sought after by many fishermen in addition to Bonefish.


title: Kiritimati

text: In December 1960, the British colonial authority gazetted Kiritimati as a bird sanctuary under the "Gilbert and Ellice Island Colony Wild Birds Protection Ordinance" of 1938. Access to Cook Island, Motu Tabu, and Motu Upua was restricted. Kiritimati was declared a Wildlife Sanctuary in May 1975, in accordance with the Wildlife Conservation Ordinance of the then self-governing colony. Ngaontetaake and the sooty tern breeding grounds at North West Point also became restricted-access zones. Two years later, active conservation measures got underway.


title: Kiritimati

text: To a limited extent, permits to enter the restricted areas for purposes like research or small-scale ecotourism are given. Kiribati's Wildlife Conservation Unit participates in the Kiritimati Development Committee and the Local Land Planning Board, and there exists an integrated program of wildlife conservation and education. New Zealand is a major sponsor of conservation efforts on Kiritimati.


title: Kiritimati

text: Egg collecting for food on a massive scale was frequent in the past but is now outlawed. It is to be noted that the sooty terns for example could sustain occasional collection of effectively all of a season's eggs (over 10 million), if given sufficient time to recover and if cats are absent. In theory, even egg collecting on a scale that significantly decreases costly food imports could be possible, but not until the cat and rat populations have been brought under control. Poaching remains a concern; with the population rising and spreading out on Kiritimati, formerly remote bird colonies have become more accessible; the red-tailed tropicbirds and the "Sula" especially are strongly affected by hunting and disturbance. Tropicbirds are mainly poached for their feathers, which are used in local arts and handicraft; it would certainly be possible to obtain them from living birds as was routinely done at the height of the Polynesian civilisation.


title: Kiritimati

text: It may seem that the former numbers of seabirds may only ever be approached again by the wholesale eradication of the feral cats. While this has been since shown to be feasible, it is not clear whether even a severe curtailing of the cat population would be desirable: Though it previously was assumed that the small Polynesian rat is of little, if any, harm to seabirds, even house mice have been shown to eat seabird nestlings. Most nesting birds, in particularly Procellariiformes, are now accepted to be jeopardised by "Rattus exulans". Kiritimati's cats meanwhile, are very fond of young seabirds; it even seems that their behaviour shifts accordingly, with cats being generally less territorial, and congregating in numbers at active bird colonies; they generally eschew hunting rats when seabird chicks are in plenty.


title: Kiritimati

text: Possession of an unneutered female cat on Kiritimati is illegal, and owners need to prevent their domestic cats from running wild (such animals are usually quickly killed in traps set for this purpose). Nighttime cat hunting has made little effect on the cat population. As noted above, vigorous protection of active nesting grounds from cats by traps and poison, supplemented by shooting, while otherwise leaving them alone to hunt rats may well be the optimal solution.


title: Kiritimati

text: There is no reliable data on the environmental and public health impact of the nuclear tests conducted on the island in the late 1950s. A 1975 study claimed that there was negligible radiation hazard; certainly, fallout was successfully minimised. More recently however, a Massey University study of New Zealand found chromosomal translocations to be increased about threefold on average in veterans who participated in the tests; most of the relevant data remains classified to date.


title: Kiritimati

text: The 1982–1983 "mega-El Niño" devastated seabird populations on Kiritimati. In some species, mortality rose to 90% and breeding success dropped to zero during that time.


title: Kiritimati

text: In general, El Niño conditions will cause seabird populations to drop, taking several years to recover at the present density of predators. Global warming impact on Kiritimati is thus unpredictable. El Niño events seem to become shorter but more frequent in a warmer climate.


title: Kiritimati

text: Much of the island's infrastructure and habitation, with the notable exception of the airport area, is located to the leeward and thus somewhat protected from storms.


title: Kiritimati

text: A rising sea level does not appear to be particularly problematic; the increasing flooding of the subsidiary lagoons would provide easily observed forewarning, and might even benefit seabird populations by making the "motu"s less accessible to predators. In fact, geological data suggests that Kiritimati has withstood prehistoric sea level changes well.


title: Kiritimati

text: The biggest hazard caused by a changing climate would seem to be more prolonged and/or severe droughts, which could even precipitate the island's abandonment (as happened in 1905). However, it is not clear how weather patterns would change, and it may be that precipitation increases.


title: Kiritimati

text: The type specimen of the Tuamotu sandpiper ("Prosobonia cancellata") was collected on Christmas Island in 1778, probably on 1 or 2 January, during Captain Cook's visit. The expedition's naturalist William Anderson observed the bird, and it was painted by William Ellis (linked below). The single specimen was in Joseph Banks's collection at the end of the 18th century, but later was lost or destroyed. There is some taxonomic dispute regarding the Kiritimati population.


title: Kiritimati

text: As all "Prosobonia" seem(ed) to be resident birds, unwilling to undertake long-distance migrations, an appropriate treatment would be to consider the extinct population the nominate subspecies, as "Prosobonia cancellata cancellata" or Kiritimati sandpiper, distinct from the surviving Tuamotu Islands population more than 2,000 km (1,200 mi) to the southeast.


title: Kiritimati

text: It may have been, but probably was not, limited to Kiritimati; while no remains have been found, little fieldwork has been conducted, and judging from the Tuamotu sandpiper's habits, almost all Line Islands would have offered suitable habitat.


title: Kiritimati

text: The Kiritimati population of "P. cancellata" disappeared in the earlier part of the 19th century or so, almost certainly due to predation by introduced mammals. While "Prosobonia" generally manage to hold their own against Polynesian rats, they are highly vulnerable to the black rat and feral cats. Given the uncertainties surrounding the introduction date and maximum population of the former, the cats seem to be the main culprits in the Kiritimati sandpiper's extinction.


title: Kiritimati

text: Given that the island was apparently settled to some extent in prehistoric times, it may have already lost bird species then. The geological data indicates that Kiritimati is very old and was never completely underwater in the Holocene at least; thus it might have once harboured highly distinct wetland birds.


title: Kiritimati

text: The limited overall habitat diversity on Kiritimati nonetheless limits the range of such hypothetical taxa, as does biogeography due to its remote location. At least one, possibly several "Gallirallus" and / or "Porzana" rails make the most likely candidates, given their former presence in the region, and that conditions on Kiritimati would seem well suited. Perhaps a "Todiramphus" kingfisher was also present; such a bird would probably have belonged to the sacred kingfisher ("T. sanctus") group, as that species today occurs as a vagrant in Micronesia, and related forms are resident in southeastern Polynesia. These birds would have fallen victim to the Polynesian rat. In the case of the rails (which would have almost certainly been flightless) hunting by occasionally resident Polynesians, in addition to predation by the imported rats, likely contributed to their extinction.


title: Kiritimati

text: There is a government high school, Melaengi Tabai Secondary School, which is located on Tabuaeran (though the government of Kiribati wished to re-open its campus on Kiritimati instead) in addition to a Catholic senior high, St. Francis High School.


title: Just Married

text: Just Married is a 2003 American romantic comedy film directed by Shawn Levy, written by Sam Harper, and stars Ashton Kutcher and Brittany Murphy. Produced by Robert Simonds, the film was successful at the box office despite generally negative critical reviews.


title: Just Married

text: The film opens with Tom and Sarah in the airport, then flashes back from the moment they met up to the present.


title: Just Married

text: Working-class Tom Leezak and upper-class Sarah McNerney meet up when Tom accidentally hits Sarah with a football on the beach. A few months later, despite opposition from Sarah's rich family, they get married. Each has kept one secret from the other: Tom doesn't tell her that he accidentally killed her dog and Sarah doesn't tell him that she slept with Peter Prentiss, a childhood family friend, after they started dating.


title: Just Married

text: Flying to Europe for their honeymoon, they attempt to consummate their marriage by joining the mile high club, but fail rather publicly. Arriving at their classy hotel at the foot of the Alps they find that Peter has sent them a bottle of cognac "with love", while Tom's friend Kyle has sent them a "Thunderstick A-200" sex toy.


title: Just Married

text: When Tom tries to force the toy's American plug into the European outlet, he shuts down the entire village's electricity. The newlyweds leave the hotel after Tom has a heated argument with the hotel owner and pays a large bill to repair the power. While trying to find another hotel they crash their mini car into a snowbank, stuck until daylight and once again unable to consummate their marriage.


title: Just Married

text: They make their way to Venice, staying at a "pensione" recommended by Tom's father. It turns out to be a wreck, and they soon check out after a cockroach crawls over Tom when they try to have sex.


title: Just Married

text: The couple secure a luxurious Venetian hotel with the grudging financial help of Sarah's father. They go sightseeing, but Tom quickly gets bored and abandons her to watch sports in a bar. Sarah runs into Peter, who is staying at their hotel on business. This prompts her to initiate a conversation with Tom in which they reveal their secrets about her dog's death and Peter. They each storm out of the hotel and go their separate ways: he going back to the bar, where he meets American tourist Wendy, and she going sightseeing, where Peter follows her.


title: Just Married

text: Wendy flirts and dances with Tom, who escapes through a bathroom window when he realizes she wants to have sex with him. He returns to the hotel, learning that Sarah has gone out with Peter for the evening. Accosted by Wendy, he finds himself tricked into walking her to his hotel room, where she rips off her top before Tom blurts out that he's on his honeymoon, upon which she finally leaves.


title: Just Married

text: Sarah gets drunk so Peter takes her back to the hotel. When he kisses her at the entrance, she slaps him, reminding him that she's on her honeymoon. Tom sees the kiss from the balcony but not the slap. When he confronts her in their room, Sarah finds Wendy's bra. Peter bursts in to ask her to run away with him to Seattle, leading to a fight that lands Tom and Sarah in jail – still without consummating their marriage. Peter bails them out and the couple angrily decide to go home to Los Angeles, returning to the opening moments of the film.


title: Just Married

text: Sarah has moved out and Tom wants to get back with her. Receiving advice from his father, he attempts to see her at her family's estate, but is unsuccessful trying to ram the gate. However, Sarah opens it herself after seeing Tom make a romantic speech to the camera and they rush together to proclaim their love for each other. Sarah's family finally accepts Tom and Sarah's relationship.


title: Just Married

text: "Just Married" was successful at the box office. On a modest budget of $18 million, the film went on to gross $56,127,162 domestically and earned an additional $45,437,773 in foreign box office receipts, giving it a total worldwide gross of $101,564,935.


title: Just Married

text: "Just Married" was released to generally negative critical reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 20% approval rating based on 106 reviews, and the website's consensus states: ""Just Married"s plot is predictable, and the overdone pratfalls get tiresome." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 28 out of 100 based on reviews from 27 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". It got two out of five stars from MSN.


title: Just Married

text: The film earned three nominations at the 24th Golden Raspberry Awards including Worst Actor for Ashton Kutcher (also for "Cheaper by the Dozen" and "My Boss's Daughter"), Worst Supporting Actress for Brittany Murphy and Worst Screen Couple for both Kutcher and Murphy (also for "My Boss's Daughter" with Tara Reid), but failed to win in each of these categories, losing to Ben Affleck ("Daredevil", "Gigli" and "Paycheck"), Demi Moore ("") and both Affleck and Jennifer Lopez ("Gigli") respectively.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, which form a combined array with an angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole's event horizon. The project's observational targets include the two black holes with the largest angular diameter as observed from Earth: the black hole at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87*, pronounced "M87-Star"), and Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*, pronounced "Sagittarius A-Star") at the center of the Milky Way.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The Event Horizon Telescope project is an international collaboration that was launched in 2009 after a long period of theoretical and technical developments. On the theory side, work on the photon orbit and first simulations of what a black hole would look like progressed to predictions of VLBI imaging for the Galactic Center black hole, Sgr A*. Technical advances in radio observing moved from the first detection of Sgr A*, through VLBI at progressively shorter wavelengths, ultimately leading to detection of horizon scale structure in both Sgr A* and M87. The collaboration now comprises over 300 members, 60 institutions, working in over 20 countries and regions.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The first image of a black hole, at the center of galaxy Messier 87, was published by the EHT Collaboration on April 10, 2019, in a series of six scientific publications. The array made this observation at a wavelength of 1.3 mm and with a theoretical diffraction-limited resolution of . In March 2021, the Collaboration presented, for the first time, a polarized-based image of the black hole which may help better reveal the forces giving rise to quasars. Future plans involve improving the array's resolution by adding new telescopes and by taking shorter-wavelength observations. On 12 May 2022, astronomers unveiled the first image of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, Sagittarius A*.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The EHT is composed of many radio observatories or radio-telescope facilities around the world, working together to produce a high-sensitivity, high-angular-resolution telescope. Through the technique of very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI), many independent radio antennas separated by hundreds or thousands of kilometres can act as a phased array, a virtual telescope which can be pointed electronically, with an effective aperture which is the diameter of the entire planet, substantially improving its angular resolution. The effort includes development and deployment of submillimeter dual polarization receivers, highly stable frequency standards to enable very-long-baseline interferometry at 230–450 GHz, higher-bandwidth VLBI backends and recorders, as well as commissioning of new submillimeter VLBI sites.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: Each year since its first data capture in 2006, the EHT array has moved to add more observatories to its global network of radio telescopes. The first image of the Milky Way's supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, was expected to be produced from data taken in April 2017, but because there are no flights in or out of the South Pole during austral winter (April to October), the full data set could not be processed until December 2017, when the shipment of data from the South Pole Telescope arrived.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: Data collected on hard drives are transported by commercial freight airplanes (a so-called sneakernet) from the various telescopes to the MIT Haystack Observatory and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, where the data are cross-correlated and analyzed on a grid computer made from about 800 CPUs all connected through a network.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, weather patterns, and celestial mechanics, the 2020 observational campaign was postponed to March 2021.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration announced its first results in six simultaneous press conferences worldwide on April 10, 2019. The announcement featured the first direct image of a black hole, which showed the supermassive black hole at the center of Messier 87, designated M87*. The scientific results were presented in a series of six papers published in "The Astrophysical Journal Letters". Clockwise rotating black hole was observed in the 6σ region.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The image provided a test for Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity under extreme conditions. Studies have previously tested general relativity by looking at the motions of stars and gas clouds near the edge of a black hole. However, an image of a black hole brings observations even closer to the event horizon. Relativity predicts a dark shadow-like region, caused by gravitational bending and capture of light, which matches the observed image. The published paper states: "Overall, the observed image is consistent with expectations for the shadow of a spinning Kerr black hole as predicted by general relativity." Paul T.P. Ho, EHT Board member, said: "Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter, and strong magnetic fields. Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well."


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: The image also provided new measurements for the mass and diameter of M87*. EHT measured the black hole's mass to be and measured the diameter of its event horizon to be approximately , roughly 2.5 times smaller than the shadow that it casts, seen at the center of the image. Previous observations of M87 showed that the large-scale jet is inclined at an angle of 17° relative to the observer's line of sight and oriented on the plane of the sky at a position angle of −72°. From the enhanced brightness of the southern part of the ring due to relativistic beaming of approaching funnel wall jet emission, EHT concluded the black hole, which anchors the jet, spins clockwise, as seen from Earth. EHT simulations allow for both prograde and retrograde inner disk rotation with respect to the black hole, while excluding zero black hole spin using a conservative minimum jet power of 10 erg/s via the Blandford–Znajek process.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: Producing an image from data from an array of radio telescopes requires much mathematical work. Four independent teams created images to assess the reliability of the results. These methods included both an established algorithm in radio astronomy for image reconstruction known as CLEAN, invented by Jan Högbom, as well as self-calibrating image processing methods for astronomy such as the CHIRP algorithm created by Katherine Bouman and others. The algorithms that were ultimately used were a regularized maximum likelihood (RML) algorithm and the CLEAN algorithm.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: In March 2020, astronomers proposed an improved way of seeing more of the rings in the first black hole image. In March 2021, a new photo was revealed, showing how the M87 black hole looks in polarised light. This is the first time astronomers have been able to measure polarisation so close to the edge of a black hole. The lines on the photo mark the orientation of polarisation, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: In August 2022, a team led by University of Waterloo researcher Avery Broderick released a "remaster[ed]" version of original image generated from the data collected by the EHT. This image "resolve[d] a fundamental signature of gravity around a black hole," with it showing a displaying photon ring around M87*.The claim has been subsequently disputed


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: In April 2020, the EHT released the first 20 microarcsecond resolution images of the archetypal blazar 3C 279 it observed in April 2017. These images, generated from observations over 4 nights in April 2017, reveal bright components of a jet whose projection on the observer plane exhibit apparent superluminal motions with speeds up to 20 c. Such apparent superluminal motion from relativistic emitters such as an approaching jet is explained by emission originating closer to the observer (downstream along the jet) catching up with emission originating further from the observer (at the jet base) as the jet propagates close to the speed of light at small angles to the line of sight.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: In July 2021, high resolution images of the jet produced by black hole sitting at the center of Centaurus A were released. With a mass around , the black hole is not big enough to observe its ring as with Messier M87*, but its jet extends even beyond its host galaxy while staying as a highly collimated beam which is a point of study. Edge-brightening of the jet was also observed which would exclude models of particle acceleration that are unable to reproduce this effect. The image was 16 times sharper than previous observations and utilized a 1.3 mm wavelength.


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: On May 12, 2022, the EHT Collaboration revealed an image of Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The black hole is 27,000 light-years away from Earth; it is thousands of times smaller than M87*. Sera Markoff, Co-Chair of the EHT Science Council, said: "We have two completely different types of galaxies and two very different black hole masses, but close to the edge of these black holes they look amazingly similar. This tells us that General Relativity governs these objects up close, and any differences we see further away must be due to differences in the material that surrounds the black holes."


title: Event Horizon Telescope

text: In August 2022, the EHT together with Global Millimeter VLBI Array and the Very Long Baseline Array imaged the distant blazar J1924-2914. They operated at 230 GHz, 86 GHz and 2.3+8.7 GHz, respectively, the highest angular resolution images of polarized emission from a quasar ever obtained. Observations reveal a helically bent jet and the polarization of its emission suggest a toroidal magnetic field structure. The object is used as calibrator for Sagittarius A* sharing strong optical variability and polarization with it.


title: Quake (series)

text: Quake is a series of first-person shooter video games, developed by id Software and, as of 2010, published by Bethesda Softworks. The series is composed of the eponymous game from 1996 and its nonlinear, standalone sequels which vary in setting and plot.


title: Quake (series)

text: "Quake" was created as a successor franchise to id's highly successful "Doom" series, which had begun in 1993. As a new series, it built upon the fast-paced gameplay, game engine, and 3D graphics capabilities of "Doom." It also expanded upon the multiplayer capabilities of "Doom" by introducing online multiplayer over the internet. This contributed to the popularity of the "Quake" series and characterized it as a figurehead in online gaming.


title: Quake (series)

text: Every game in the "Quake" franchise shares a basis in first-person shooter gameplay. However, the series lacks a singular narrative across all of its entries. Two major storylines exist within the franchise, as well as the "Arena" series, which focuses primarily on multiplayer gameplay.


title: Quake (series)

text: The game's original plot focused on the player character, later known as "Ranger" in "", who travels across alternate dimensions to stop an enemy code-named "Quake". The game takes place in a Lovecraftian setting with a mixture of dark fantasy, pseudo-medieval, and science fiction.


title: Quake (series)

text: Shifting the series to the science fiction genre, "Quake II" and its sequels chronicle the war between humanity and the cybernetic alien race known as the Strogg.


title: Quake (series)

text: "Quake III Arena" and its successors focus on competitive multiplayer rather than a single-player experience. These games de-emphasized the setting of the first two installments while still retaining continuity with them and crossing over with id's "Doom" franchise. "Quake Champions", in particular, is heavily influenced by the mythology of the original game.


title: Quake (series)

text: "Quake", "Quake II", and "Quake III Arena" have all been considered by various video game journalists and magazines to be among the greatest video games of all time.


title: Quake (series)

text: Like "Doom," the "Quake" series initially received controversy due to containing high amounts of graphic violence. Public and media outcry over "Quake" and other violent video games peaked after the Columbine High School massacre occurred on April 20, 1999, and it became known that perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were avid players of both "Doom" and "Quake". This finding prompted claims from media outlets that violent video games caused negative psychological effects on children that made them more aggressive and accepting of violence.


title: Quake (series)

text: id Software co-founder John Romero later stated in a 2013 interview that the company and its developers had never intended to "offend people or shock people" with their games.


title: Night vision

text: Night vision is the ability to see in low-light conditions, either naturally with scotopic vision or through a night-vision device. Night vision requires both sufficient spectral range and sufficient intensity range. Humans have poor night vision compared to many animals such as cats, foxes and rabbits, in part because the human eye lacks a tapetum lucidum, tissue behind the retina that reflects light back through the retina thus increasing the light available to the photoreceptors.


title: Night vision

text: Night-useful spectral range techniques can sense radiation that is invisible to a human observer. Human vision is confined to a small portion of the electromagnetic spectrum called visible light. Enhanced spectral range allows the viewer to take advantage of non-visible sources of electromagnetic radiation (such as near-infrared or ultraviolet radiation). Some animals such as the mantis shrimp and trout can see using much more of the infrared and/or ultraviolet spectrum than humans.


title: Night vision

text: Many animals have better night vision than humans do, the result of one or more differences in the morphology and anatomy of their eyes. These include having a larger eyeball, a larger lens, a larger optical aperture (the pupils may expand to the physical limit of the eyelids), more rods than cones (or rods exclusively) in the retina, and a tapetum lucidum.


title: Night vision

text: Enhanced intensity range is achieved via technological means through the use of an image intensifier, gain multiplication CCD, or other very low-noise and high-sensitivity arrays of photodetectors.


title: Night vision

text: All photoreceptor cells in the vertebrate eye contain molecules of photoreceptor protein which is a combination of the protein photopsin in color vision cells, rhodopsin in night vision cells, and retinal (a small photoreceptor molecule). Retinal undergoes an irreversible change in shape when it absorbs light; this change causes an alteration in the shape of the protein which surrounds the retinal, and that alteration then induces the physiological process which results in vision.