title: Composting toilet

text: A composting toilet is a type of dry toilet that treats human waste by a biological process called composting. This process leads to the decomposition of organic matter and turns human waste into compost-like material. Composting is carried out by microorganisms (mainly bacteria and fungi) under controlled aerobic conditions. Most composting toilets use no water for flushing and are therefore called "dry toilets".


title: Composting toilet

text: In many composting toilet designs, a carbon additive such as sawdust, coconut coir, or peat moss is added after each use. This practice creates air pockets in the human waste to promote aerobic decomposition. This also improves the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio and reduces potential odor. Most composting toilet systems rely on mesophilic composting. Longer retention time in the composting chamber also facilitates pathogen die-off. The end product can also be moved to a secondary system – usually another composting step – to allow more time for mesophilic composting to further reduce pathogens.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets, together with the secondary composting step, produce a humus-like end product that can be used to enrich soil if local regulations allow this. Some composting toilets have urine diversion systems in the toilet bowl to collect the urine separately and control excess moisture. A vermifilter toilet is a composting toilet with flushing water where earthworms are used to promote decomposition to compost.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets do not require a connection to septic tanks or sewer systems unlike flush toilets. Common applications include national parks, remote holiday cottages, ecotourism resorts, off-grid homes and rural areas in developing countries.


title: Composting toilet

text: The term "composting toilet" is used quite loosely, and its meaning varies by country. For example, in Germany and Scandinavian countries, composting always refers to a predominantly aerobic process. This aerobic composting may take place with an increase in temperature due to microbial action, or without a temperature increase in the case of slow composting or cold composting. If earth worms are used (vermicomposting) then there is also no increase in temperature.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets differ from pit latrines and arborloos, which use less controlled decomposition and may not protect groundwater from nutrient or pathogen contamination or provide optimal nutrient recycling. They also differ from urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDTs) where pathogen reduction is achieved through dehydration (also known by the more precise term "desiccation") and where the feces collection vault is kept as dry as possible. Composting toilets aim to have a certain degree of moisture in the composting chamber.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets can be used to implement an ecological sanitation approach for resource recovery, and some people call their composting toilet designs "ecosan toilets" for that reason. However, this is not recommended as the two terms (i.e. composting and ecosan) are not identical.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets have also been called "sawdust toilets", which can be appropriate if the amount of aerobic composting taking place in the toilet's container is very limited. The "Clivus multrum" is a type of composting toilet which has a large composting chamber below the toilet seat and also receives undigested organic material to increase the carbon to nitrogen ratio. Alternatives with smaller composting chambers are called "self-contained composting toilets" since the composting chamber is part of the toilet unit itself.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets can be suitable in areas such as a rural area or a park that lacks a suitable water supply, sewers and sewage treatment. They can also help increase the resilience of existing sanitation systems in the face of possible natural disasters such as climate change, earthquakes or tsunami. Composting toilets can reduce or perhaps eliminate the need for a septic tank system to reduce environmental footprint (particularly when used in conjunction with an on-site greywater treatment system).


title: Composting toilet

text: These types of toilets can be used for resource recovery by reusing sanitized feces and urine as fertilizer and soil conditioner for gardening or ornamental activities.


title: Composting toilet

text: A composting toilet consists of two elements: a place to sit or squat and a collection/composting unit. The composting unit consists of four main parts:


title: Composting toilet

text: Many composting toilets collect urine in the same chamber as feces, thus they do not divert urine. Adding small amounts of water that is used for anal cleansing is no problem for the composting toilet to handle.


title: Composting toilet

text: Some composting toilets divert urine (and water used for anal washing) to prevent the creation of anaerobic conditions that can result from over saturation of the compost, which leads to odors and vector problems. This usually requires all users to use the toilet in a seated position. Offering a waterless urinal in addition to the toilet can help keep excess amounts of urine out of the composting chamber. Alternatively, in rural areas, men and boys may be encouraged just to find a tree.


title: Composting toilet

text: The composting chamber can be constructed above or below ground level. It can be inside a structure or include a separate superstructure.


title: Composting toilet

text: A drainage system removes leachate. Otherwise, excess moisture can cause anaerobic conditions and impede decomposition. Urine diversion can improve compost quality, since urine contains large amounts of ammonia that inhibits microbiological activity.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets greatly reduce human waste volumes through psychrophilic, thermophilic or mesophilic composting. Keeping the composting chamber insulated and warm protects the composting process from slowing due to low temperatures.


title: Composting toilet

text: The following gases may be emitted during the composting process that takes place in composting toilets: hydrogen sulfide (HS), ammonia, nitrous oxide (NO) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These gases can potentially lead to complaints about odours. Some methane may also be present, but it is not odorous.


title: Composting toilet

text: Waste-derived compost recycles fecal nutrients, but it can carry and spread pathogens if the process of reuse of waste is not done properly. Pathogen destruction rates in composting toilets are usually low, particularly helminth eggs, such as Ascaris eggs. This carries the risk of spreading disease if a proper system management is not in place. Compost from human waste processed under only mesophilic conditions or taken directly from the compost chamber is not safe for food production. High temperatures or long composting times are required to kill helminth eggs, the hardiest of all pathogens. Helminth infections are common in many developing countries.


title: Composting toilet

text: In thermophilic composting bacteria that thrive at temperatures of oxidize (break down) waste into its components, some of which are consumed in the process, reducing volume and eliminating potential pathogens. To destroy pathogens, thermophilic composting must heat the compost pile sufficiently, or enough time (1–2 years) must elapse since fresh material was added that biological activity has had the same pathogen removal effect.


title: Composting toilet

text: One guideline claims that pathogen levels are reduced to a safe level by thermophilic composting at temperatures of 55 °C for at least two weeks or at 60 °C for one week. An alternative guideline claims that complete pathogen destruction may be achieved already if the entire compost heap reaches a temperature of for one hour, for one day, for one week or for one month, although others regard this as overly optimistic.


title: Composting toilet

text: Human waste and food waste do not provide optimum conditions for composting. Usually the water and nitrogen content is too high, particularly when urine is mixed with feces. Additives or "bulking material", such as wood chips, bark chips, sawdust, shredded dry leaves, ash and pieces of paper can absorb moisture. The additives improve pile aeration and increase the carbon to nitrogen ratio. Bulking material also covers feces and reduces insect access. Absent sufficient bulking material, the material may become too compact and form impermeable layers, which leads to anaerobic conditions and odour.


title: Composting toilet

text: Leachate removal controls moisture levels, which is necessary to ensure rapid, aerobic composting. Some commercial units include a urine-separator or urine-diverting system and/or a drain at the bottom of the composter for this purpose.


title: Composting toilet

text: Microbial action also requires oxygen, typically from the air. Commercial systems provide ventilation that moves air from the bathroom, through the waste container, and out a vertical pipe, venting above the roof. This air movement (via convection or fan forced) passes carbon dioxide and odors.


title: Composting toilet

text: Some units require manual methods for periodic aeration of the solid mass such as rotating the composting chamber or pulling an "aerator rake" through the mass.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets convert feces into a dry, odorless material which is very different to the wet fecal sludge produced in pit latrines which has to be taken care of through a fecal sludge management system. Composting toilets do not cause groundwater pollution due to their safe containment of feces in above-ground vaults compared to pit latrines, allowing composting toilets to be sited in locations where pit-based systems are not appropriate.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets have higher capital costs than pit latrines, but lower lifecycle costs. They require more involvement by the user than the "drop and forget" approach of pit latrines.


title: Composting toilet

text: Unlike flush toilets, composting toilets do not require a sewerage system and do not mix flushing water with urine and feces. They require more involvement by the user than the "flush and forget" approach of flush toilets connected to sewage treatment plants.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets, although similar to and sharing many advantages and disadvantages with urine-diverting dry toilets (UDDT), are more complex and require more maintenance to keep a consistent and relatively high moisture content. Some composting toilets are designed with urine diversion.


title: Composting toilet

text: Commercial units and construct-it-yourself systems are available. Variations include number of composting vaults, removable vault, urine diversion and active mixing/aeration.


title: Composting toilet

text: Most composting toilets use slow composting which is also called "cold composting". The compost heap is built up step by step over time.


title: Composting toilet

text: The finished end product from "slow" composting toilets ("moldering toilets" or "moldering privies" in the US), is generally not free of pathogens. World Health Organization Guidelines from 2006 offer a framework for safe reuse of waste, using a multiple barrier approach.


title: Composting toilet

text: Slow composting toilets employ a passive approach. Common applications involve modest and often seasonal use, such as remote trail networks. They are typically designed such that the materials deposited can be isolated from the operational part. The toilet can also be closed to allow further mesophilic composting. Slow composting toilets rely on long retention times for pathogen reduction and for decomposition of waste or on the combination of time and/or the addition of red wriggler worms for vermi-composting. Worms can be introduced to accelerate composting. Some jurisdictions of the US consider these worms as invasive species.


title: Composting toilet

text: "Self-contained" composting toilets compost in a container within the toilet unit. They are slightly larger than a flush toilet, but use roughly the same floor space. Some units use fans for aeration, and optionally, heating elements to maintain optimum temperatures to hasten the composting process and to evaporate urine and other moisture. Operators of composting toilets commonly add a small amount of absorbent carbon material (such as untreated sawdust, coconut coir, or peat moss) after each use to create air pockets to encourage aerobic processing, to absorb liquid and to create an odor barrier. This additive is sometimes referred to as "bulking agent". Some owner-operators use microbial "starter" cultures to ensure composting bacteria are in the process, although this is not critical.


title: Composting toilet

text: A vermifilter toilet is a composting toilet with flushing water where earthworms are used to promote decomposition to compost. It can be connected to a low-flush or a micro-flush toilet which uses about per use. Solids accumulate on the surface of the filter bed while liquid drains through the filter medium and is discharged from the reactor. The solids (feces and toilet paper) are aerobically digested by aerobic bacteria and composting earthworms into castings (humus), thereby significantly reducing the volume of organic material.


title: Composting toilet

text: Maintenance is critical to ensure proper operation, including odor prevention. Maintenance tasks include: cleaning, servicing technical components such as fans and removal of compost, leachate and urine. Urine removal is only required for those types of composting toilets using urine diversion.


title: Composting toilet

text: Once composting is complete (or earlier), the compost must be removed from the unit. How often this occurs is a function of container size, usage and composting conditions, such as temperature. Active, hot composting may require months, while passive, cold composting may require years. Properly managed units yield output volumes of about 10% of inputs.


title: Composting toilet

text: The material from composting toilets is a humus-like material, which can be suitable as a soil amendment for agriculture. Compost from residential composting toilets can be used in domestic gardens, and this is the main such use.


title: Composting toilet

text: Enriching soil with compost adds substantial nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, carbon and calcium. In this regard compost is equivalent to many fertilizers and manures purchased in garden stores. Compost from composting toilets has a higher nutrient availability than the dried feces that result from a urine-diverting dry toilet.


title: Composting toilet

text: Urine is typically present, although some is lost via leaching and evaporation. Urine can contain up to 90 percent of the residual nitrogen, up to 50 percent of the phosphorus, and up to 70 percent of the potassium.


title: Composting toilet

text: Compost derived from these toilets has in principle the same uses as compost derived from other organic waste products, such as sewage sludge or municipal organic waste. However, users of waste-derived compost must consider the risk of pathogens.


title: Composting toilet

text: Waste-derived compost may contain prescription pharmaceuticals. Such residues are also present in conventional sewage treatment effluent. This could contaminate groundwater. Among the medications that have been found in groundwater in recent years are antibiotics, antidepressants, blood thinners, ACE inhibitors, calcium-channel blockers, digoxin, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, Ibuprofen, caffeine, carbamazepine, fibrates and cholesterol-reducing medications. Between 30% and 95% of pharmaceuticals medications are excreted by the human body. Medications that are lipophilic (dissolved in fats) are more likely to reach groundwater by leaching from fecal wastes. Sewage treatment plants remove an average of 60% of these medications. The percentage of medications degraded during composting of waste has not yet been reported.


title: Composting toilet

text: In the late 19th century in developed countries, some inventors, scientists and public health officials supported the use of "dry earth closets", a type of dry toilet with similarities to composting toilets, although the collection vessel for the human waste was not designed to compost.


title: Composting toilet

text: In 2016, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published the standard "Activities relating to drinking water and wastewater services — Guidelines for the management of basic on-site domestic wastewater services". The standard is meant to be used in conjunction with ISO 24511. It deals with toilets (including composting toilets) and toilet waste. The guidelines are applicable to basic wastewater systems and include the complete domestic wastewater cycle, such as planning, usability, operation and maintenance, disposal, reuse and health.


title: Composting toilet

text: The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials (IAPMO) is a plumbing and mechanical code structure adopted by many developed countries. It recently proposed an addition to its "Green Plumbing Mechanical Code Supplement" that, "...outlines performance criteria for site built composting toilets with and without urine diversion and manufactured composting toilets." If adopted, this composting and urine diversion toilet code (the first of its kind in the United States) will appear in the 2015 edition of the Green Supplement to the Uniform Plumbing Code.


title: Composting toilet

text: No performance standards for composting toilets are universally accepted in the US. Seven jurisdictions in North America use "American National Standard/NSF International Standard ANSI/NSF 41-1998: Non-Liquid Saturated Treatment Systems". An updated version was published in 2011. Systems might also be listed with the Canadian Standards Association, cETL-US, and other standards programs.


title: Composting toilet

text: Regarding byproduct regulation, several US states permit disposal of solids from composting toilets (usually a distinction between different types of dry toilets is not made) by burial, with varying or no minimum depth mandates (as little as 6 inches). For instance:


title: Composting toilet

text: The Environmental Protection Agency has no jurisdiction over the byproducts of a dry toilet as long as waste are not referred to as "fertilizer" (but instead simply a material that is being disposed of). Federal rule 503, known colloquially as the "EPA Biosolids rule" or the "EPA sludge rule" applies only to fertilizer. Thus, individual states regulate composting toilets.


title: Composting toilet

text: The regulations for composting toilets and other forms of dry toilets in Germany vary from state to state and from one application to another (e.g. use in allotment gardens or use in family homes and settlements). In the different states of Germany, it is the "Landesbauordnung" (translates to "state civil engineering regulations") of the respective state that regulates the use of such alternative toilets. Most of them stipulate the use of flush toilets, however there are many exceptions, for example in the states of Hamburg, Lower Saxony, Bavaria, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rhineland-Palatinate, Saxony-Anhalt and Thuringia. These generally make exceptions for the use of composting toilets in homes provided that there are no concerns for public health.


title: Composting toilet

text: Regulations governing the use of compost and urine from composting toilets is less clear in Germany but it seems generally allowed provided it is used on one's own property and not sold to third parties.


title: Composting toilet

text: Numerous sparsely settled villages in rural areas in Finland are not connected to municipal water supply or sewer networks, requiring homeowners to operate their own systems. Individual private wells, i.e. shallow dug wells or boreholes in the bedrock, are often used for water supply, and many homeowners have opted for composting toilets. In addition, these toilets are common at holiday homes, often located near sensitive water bodies. For these reasons, many manufacturers of composting toilets are based in Finland, including Biolan, Ekolet, Kekkilä, Pikkuvihreä and Raita Environment.


title: Composting toilet

text: Estimates made by leading Finnish composting toilet manufacturers and the Global Dry Toilet Association of Finland provided the following 2014 figures for composting toilet use in Finland:


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets have been successfully installed in houses with up to four floors. An estimate from 2008 put the number of composting toilets in households in Germany at 500. Most of these residences are also connected to a sewer system; the composting toilet was not installed due to a lack of sewer system but for other reasons, mainly because of an "ecological mindset" of the owners.


title: Composting toilet

text: In Germany and Austria, composting toilets and other types of dry toilets have been installed in single and multi-family houses (e.g. Hamburg, Freiburg, Berlin), ecological settlements (e.g. Hamburg-Allermöhe, Hamburg-Braamwisch, Kiel-Hassee, Bielefeld-Waldquelle, Wien-Gänserndorf) and in public buildings (e.g. Ökohaus Rostock, VHS-Ökostation Stuttgart-Wartberg, public toilets in recreational areas, restaurants and huts in the Alps, house boats and forest Kindergartens).


title: Composting toilet

text: The ecological settlement in Hamburg-Allermöhe has had composting toilets since 1982. The settlement of 36 single-family houses with approximately 140 inhabitants uses composting toilets, rainwater harvesting and constructed wetlands. Composting toilets save about 40 litres of water per capita per day compared to a conventional flush toilet (10 liter per flush), which adds up to 2,044 m³ water savings per year for the whole settlement.


title: Composting toilet

text: Slow composting toilets have been installed by the Green Mountain Club in Vermont's woodlands. They employ multiple vaults (called cribs) and a movable building. When one of the vaults fills, the building is moved over an empty vault. The full vault is left untouched for as long as possible (up to three years) before it is emptied. The large surface area and exposure to air currents can cause the pile to dry out. To counteract this, signs instruct users to urinate in the toilet. The club also uses pit latrines and simple bucket toilets with woodchips and external composting and directs users to urinate in the forest to prevent odiferous anaerobic conditions.


title: Composting toilet

text: Composting toilets with a large composting container (of the type Clivus Multrum and derivations of it) are popular in US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Sweden. They can be bought and installed as commercial products, as designs for self builders or as "design derivatives" which are marketed under various names. It has been estimated that approximately 10,000 such toilets might be in use worldwide.


title: The Lake (TV series)

text: The Lake is a Canadian comedy television series created by Julian Doucet for Amazon Prime Video. The series is Amazon's first scripted Canadian Amazon Original series, and premiered on June 17, 2022. In advance of the official series premiere, the first two episodes received a preview screening at the 2022 Inside Out Film and Video Festival. In July 2022, the series was renewed for a second season.


title: The Lake (TV series)

text: After returning from abroad following a break-up with his long-term partner, Justin plans to connect with his teenage daughter he gave up for adoption. His plans to make new memories with his daughter at the family cottage go awry when he discovers his parents left it to his picture-perfect step-sister, Maisy-May.


title: The Lake (TV series)

text: In early August 2021, Amazon ordered its first scripted Canadian Amazon Original series, "The Lake". Julian Doucet serves as writer and executive producer, with Michael Souther and Teza Lawrence also executive producing under their production company Amaze Film + Television. In May 2022, Jordan Canning and Paul Fox were revealed as directors. On July 13, 2022, Amazon renewed the series for a second season.


title: The Lake (TV series)

text: With the series announcement, Jordan Gavaris, Julia Stiles, and Madison Shamoun were cast as the leads. Jon Dore, Carolyn Scott, Natalie Lisinska, Travis Nelson, Declan Whaley, and Terry Chen were also cast. Lauren Holly as Mimsy, Max Amani, and Jhaleil Swaby have joined the second season.


title: The Lake (TV series)

text: Filming began on August 5, 2021 in North Bay, Ontario, Canada. Filming wrapped on September 1, 2021.The second season began production on August 15, 2022 and wrapped on September 29, 2022 in North Bay, Ontario.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Captain Boomerang is the name of two supervillains appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, who respectively serve as enemies to both the Barry Allen and Wally West versions of the Flash. Created by writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino, the first Captain Boomerang, George "Digger" Harkness, first appeared in "The Flash" #117 (December 1960). He has also been a prominent member of the Suicide Squad since its second iteration in the late 1990s. During the 2004 storyline "Identity Crisis", George Harkness is killed and his son, Owen Mercer, created by Brad Meltzer and Michael Turner, takes over his father's role as Captain Boomerang for a period of time. However, during the 2009–2010 "Blackest Night" storyline, Owen is killed and Harkness returns to life, resuming his role as Captain Boomerang, and evolves as a genuine threat after the loss of his son.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: The character has been adapted from the comics into various forms of media, including television series, feature films, and video games. The George "Digger" Harkness version of Captain Boomerang made his live-action debut in the television series "Arrow", portrayed by Nick E. Tarabay. In the DC Extended Universe, George "Digger" Harkness is portrayed by Jai Courtney in the films "Suicide Squad" (2016) and "The Suicide Squad" (2021).


title: Captain Boomerang

text: George "Digger" Harkness appeared in "The Flash" #117 (December 1960) and was created by writer John Broome and artist Carmine Infantino. Throughout the first several years of the character's existence, Captain Boomerang spoke with an American accent. Beginning in the late 1980s, he developed an Australian accent.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Owen Mercer first appeared in "Identity Crisis" #2 (2004) and was created by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Secretly the illegitimate son of an American soldier and an Australian woman, Harkness was raised in an Australian town called Korumburra in poverty, during which time he developed great skill in making boomerangs, and in using them as weapons. As a young adult, he was hired as a performer and boomerang promoter by a toy company which was, unbeknownst to him, owned by his biological father. It was at this time that he developed the Captain Boomerang persona that he would continue to use in his later criminal career. Audiences ridiculed him, and a resentful Harkness turned to using his boomerangs for crime.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: When he began committing crimes, he threw suspicion off himself by briefly pretending another man was impersonating him, showing his 'parents', (really other crooks) to the Flash after the Flash caught him next to a crime scene. He nearly succeeded in killing the Flash after knocking him out with a boomerang, then tying him to a giant boomerang that he fired, which then got sent into space and then fell into the ocean. However, the Flash was able to escape from his friction-proof bonds by quickly vibrating his molecules. He also increased the boomerang's velocity so much he was able to use it to defeat and jail Harkness and the two crooks.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: He became a recurring enemy of the Flash, typically by devising altered boomerangs which could produce astonishing effects (some would explode, others had razor-sharp edges, etc.), and using them ruthlessly. He became a staple member of the Rogues, a group of villains dedicated to opposing Flash, and who were first organized after Gorilla Grodd broke them out of jail. Though captured when Flash made their weapons hit each other, they continued to act together.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Later on, Harkness became a less-than-effective member of the Suicide Squad in exchange for being pardoned for his crimes. However, Captain Boomerang's grating personality and blatant racism (among other things, he constantly referred to black team member Bronze Tiger as an "Abo") caused considerable friction among his teammates, and he was considered to be a dangerous, vicious, cowardly and undependable member of the team—dysfunctional even by the Squad's standards and the equivalent of a class clown.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Amanda Waller, the Squad's commanding officer, characterized Captain Boomerang as "a jerk and a screw-up". This was not an undeserved reputation, as, among other things, Harkness simply watched as his teammate Mindboggler was shot in the back, even while he could have easily saved her (Mindboggler had earlier used her mind-manipulating abilities on Harkness to shut him up when he was verbally abusing another team member). He also manipulated another team member, Slipknot, into running away from the action just to see if the explosive bracelets the Squad members wore really did activate if the wearer attempted to escape (unfortunately for Slipknot, they did). He was scared to learn Ifrit, an artificial intelligence used by the rival team the Onslaught, had been created based upon Mindboggler's thought patterns, and revealed what had happened.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: While in the Squad, Harkness also briefly took up the mantle of Mirror Master to commit robberies. However, this career was cut short when he was caught and brought to Waller, who put an end to it by tricking him into a fake assault scene where he was forced to change constantly between Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang. She rescinded the benefits Harkness had been given such as his apartment in New Orleans and his status as a voluntary member of the Squad.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Many times Digger would have to be tricked into battle, but when faced with enemies he proved more than competent in upholding his end of the fight. Harkness also would play a few undercover roles for the Squad, convincingly managing to be other slimy, criminal types. Later, Digger would try a simple series of pranks for amusement, hitting various members of the Squad with pies. For a time, suspicion had been diverted from him because he had used his skills to pie himself, seemingly being hit by the 'assailant' from behind a wall. When the Squad confronted Digger as the culprit, he lost his temper and shouted that they could not really punish him since he was already in prison and in the Suicide Squad. He asked Waller, "What are you going to do about it, Fat Lady?!" Waller dropped him from a helicopter onto a deserted island.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Due to various events, mainly Waller breaking many rules by having a criminal gang ruthlessly gunned down, the Squad broke up for a year. When Waller was approached again because she was needed, she reformed the team and had Digger picked up. He was, at the time, trying to construct a massive boomerang to take him back to the mainland.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Harkness revealed a deep patriotism for his home country of Australia, though his countrymen do not care at all for him, and a tremendous fear of being laughed at. Teammate Deadshot commented he often wished he had killed Harkness, most notably after his drinking led them to miss a plane and to Deadshot losing his uniform and entering a depressive phase because of it. Ironically, when Boomerang pulled strings to have the suit restored to Deadshot, Lawton's psyche had passed into a phase that led him to loathe it. Harkness remained with the Squad until it was disbanded after a successful mission in Diabloverde.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: However, despite being a somewhat trusted employee, Harkness still was quite amoral and greedy, selling out Adam Cray, the Atom, for half a million dollars.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Digger later showed up in "Superboy" with another Squad. While on a mission to destroy an underwater criminal hideout, he was shot through the hands by Deadshot and apparently fell to his death.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: He later appeared in the pages of "Flash" with cybernetic hands alongside four other Rogues; they were given a chance by fellow Rogue Abra Kadabra to become much more than they ever were. Unfortunately for Captain Boomerang, Captain Cold, Mirror Master, Weather Wizard, and Heat Wave, Kadabra's promise of glory was actually a ruse to free Neron and empower himself. Neron then resurrects the five Rogues, superpowering them and sending them on a bloody rampage that destroys much of Flash's hometown and kills thousands. Eventually, the Flash and Linda Park free the Rogues; the dead are restored to life.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: After being restored to life, Boomerang and the Rogues, along with the Trickster, sought out an artifact that would protect them from Neron should he ever take an interest in them again. The Trickster accompanied them to help an old ex-girlfriend recover her kidnapped son. In the end, the Trickster found the boy, who turned out to not only be the prophesied agent of a god, but also the Trickster's son. He was also able to convince Neron to leave the Rogues alone, with the Rogues either coming away darker from their experiences, or seeking enlightenment, like Heat Wave, who retired with the monks.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Captain Boomerang is also involved with the "" event. After having suffered a mishap with one of his exploding boomerangs, Digger is transferred by ambulance to Keystone City. En route, the ambulance is attacked by a Jokerized Deadshot, who decides to lend his old pal a hand by injecting him with Joker's serum. The serum's healing factor revives Digger, who is cured of his massive full-body burns and ready to attack the Flash at Iron Heights prison. However, once there, he is choked unconscious by a Jokerized Pied Piper.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Captain Boomerang was killed in the "Identity Crisis" miniseries by Jack Drake, father of Tim Drake. Digger had been sent by the real killer to attack Jack Drake, only the killer double-crossed Digger and sent Drake a warning and a pistol to defend himself. The killer later defended the action by saying that Boomerang was hired because he was such an incompetent that Jack would only need to pull the trigger and he would be safe. Digger managed to kill Drake but not before he was shot himself.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Digger was later temporarily revived by Agent James Jesse, the former Trickster, during the "Rogue War" storyline, when Jesse used unspecified technology to temporarily revive Boomerang in an attempt to find out information about the Rogues' current hideout. However, Jesse was called away due to the latest attack by the Rogues before Harkness's revival, meaning that the only person present when Harkness was briefly reanimated was Ashley Zolomon, the estranged wife of Hunter Zolomon (a former Reverse-Flash), who had been brought in based on her expertise in dealing with Rogues. During his brief return to life, Harkness asked Ashley to tell his son that he loved him and warn him never to reveal his mother's real name out of fear that the Rogues would kill him.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In the "Blackest Night" crossover, his remains are reanimated as a member of the Black Lantern Corps, and he joins the reanimated Jack and Janet Drake, John and Mary Grayson, Tony Zucco, and the original Batman's deceased rogues gallery members in an attempt to take the life of the current Batman and Red Robin. They are met with interference from Deadman, who had possessed the body of Etrigan the Demon. Their attack is ultimately called off when Batman and Red Robin cryogenically freeze themselves, leaving no emotions for the Black Lanterns to target. Harkness later joins other reanimated members of the Rogues to target their still-living members. However, the battle results in a draw on both side. Harkness' son, Owen, arrives and takes him away from the battle, believing he can bring his father back. Digger convinces his son that he needs to feed upon the living in order to live, so Owen lures people (such as newcomer villain Sandblast) to a pit at a construction site where Digger is waiting. The Rogues track Owen down, Captain Cold berating him on how foolish he is to believe Digger's lies. When they discover the remains of a family nearby, Captain Cold reminds Owen that "the Rogues don't kill women or children." He shoves Owen into the pit where Digger rips out his son's heart. A black ring then flies down to make Owen a Black Lantern. The Black Lantern Harkness and his son are then encased in ice by Captain Cold. Digger manages to escape and join in the mass battle against the heroes where he is brought back to life and rejuvenated. He appears confused as to what is going on before being knocked out by the Flash.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: During the "Brightest Day" prologue, Digger is seen locked in his Iron Heights cell. Digger is visited by Tim Drake whose father Harkness murdered. Tim tells him if he tries to escape, he will hunt him down personally. He is later given a message from Captain Cold saying that if he wants to be one of the Rogues again, he has to prove it by escaping from prison on his own. After being beaten by guards, Digger is being seen to in the medical bay, when he suddenly finds himself able to create boomerangs out of energy that explode on contact. While not understanding where this new power came from, Digger uses it to escape Iron Heights and attacks the Renegades while they are trying to apprehend the Flash for murdering Mirror Monarch. Shortly after, he finds himself confronting a wounded Flash.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Captain Boomerang is at one point contacted by the Entity, who instructs him to throw a boomerang at Dawn Granger. After seeing the vision, his powers go out of control, causing him to attack everyone, including his fellow Rogues. Afterwards, Captain Boomerang sneaks into Iron Heights, where Professor Zoom is locked up. Boomerang releases him, in hopes that Zoom might help him better understand his version of the Entity's message. However, Professor Zoom refused to answer and escaped as Digger was confronted by the Rogues. Captain Cold beats up Digger for freeing Professor Zoom, then Digger explains to him the importance of the Entity's message. Later, Captain Boomerang is contacted once again by the Entity, who tells him that he must complete his task, prompting Digger to travel to Star City forest, which by now is surrounded by a white barrier. While there, Captain Boomerang discovers that he is the only one who can enter the forest. Within the forest, Captain Boomerang finds Dawn and throws a boomerang at her. Hawk, however, fails to catch the boomerang and instead, the boomerang is caught by Deadman, who ended up dying in the process and Hawk is left to knock Captain Boomerang unconscious. After the Entity proclaims Captain Boomerang has completed his task, and his life is restored to him, the Entity reveals to them that the boomerang was part of a plan to free Hawk from his role as an avatar of war from the Lords of Chaos: his act of saving Dawn would have broken the hold the Lords of Chaos have on Hawk and allow Hank to be true to himself.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In the aftermath of "Brightest Day", Captain Boomerang lost his White Lantern abilities. However, as he seeks out a way to regain this lost power, he is prevented by Red Robin, who is stalking him. During the struggle, Red Robin, who had lost his father due to Captain Boomerang, allows him to live and leaves him in police custody.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: George Harkness returns as Captain Boomerang in "The New 52", a 2011 reboot of the DC Comics universe. Captain Boomerang and a new character called Yo-Yo join the Suicide Squad to replace the deceased members Savant and Voltaic. He tells the team that he is the new field commander for the Suicide Squad upon being placed in that position by Amanda Waller. But this is further revealed to be a set-up orchestrated to give them a bargaining chip to bypass an armed Basilisk militia led by the sister of one of his victims. Realizing the trap, Boomerang attempts to use a detonator he was given that is supposed to be connected to the microbombs in each Squad member's skin. It fails to function, and Deadshot mocks him for thinking that Waller would trust him with that kind of power before shooting his hand. It is later revealed in the series that Captain Boomerang is working for Basilisk as the Suicide Squad is captured. Captain Boomerang is seen escorting the squad to the concentration camps of the Basilisk militia. Captain Boomerang frees Deadshot and the rest of the Squad and reveals that he was Waller's undercover agent. While battling the militia, Captain Boomerang is knocked out by Black Spider, who is revealed as the traitor on the team.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In the "Watchmen" sequel "Doomsday Clock", Captain Boomerang and his fellow Rogues are among the villains that attend the underground meeting held by Riddler that talks about the Superman Theory. When some villains were talking about relocating to Kahndaq, Captain Boomerang mentions that the Suicide Squad went M.I.A. during an assassination assignment there where Captain Boomerang mentions that he barely made it out of Kahndaq alive.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: At the beginning of the 2004 "Identity Crisis" storyline, "Digger" Harkness a.k.a. Captain Boomerang found himself an obsolete villain in the modern world of supervillains. Regularly going up to the supervillain satellite looking for jobs, asking favors from the Calculator, he was at the end of his rope looking for a job to put him on the map again.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: During this time he felt it was finally time to reach out to the son he never raised, Owen Mercer. Before Harkness's death, the two bonded. Taking up his father's legacy, he became the second Captain Boomerang. Captain Cold, brother to Golden Glider (who was believed to be Owen's mother), took Owen in as one of the Rogues.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Though Owen initially had no real attachment to the Rogues (and even voiced various, albeit short, opinions out loud), he grew to enjoy the purpose and sense of family the team offered after finding that his father's body had been stolen for use in a lab (which was later revealed to be part of a plan to get memories from Harkness).


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Around this time the "Rogue War" storyline began, in which the "reformed" Rogues fought the Rogues under Captain Cold. Ashley Zolomon is told by Harkness himself (he is briefly revived by the "reformed" Rogues as part of an experiment) that Golden Glider is not Owen's real mother. Later, it is revealed in "Flash" #225 (January 2006) that Meloni Thawne is the mother of Owen Harkness, formerly Owen Mercer, the new Captain Boomerang, having conceived him by the original Boomerang while he was trapped in the 30th Century. It is unknown whether she gave birth to Bart Allen or Owen first, or how Owen made it back to our own time.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: During the 2005–2006 "Infinite Crisis" storyline, Owen was part of Alexander Luthor Jr.'s group of villains. He, Captain Cold, and Mirror Master were sent to guard a factory against the Outsiders, under the command of Deathstroke (who was actually Arsenal in disguise). When the ensuing battle between Outsiders and Rogues destroyed the machinery in the factory, the Rogues and other villains would not help in the fight at all and then at the explosion, he is saved by the Outsiders, while the Rogues left them at the base to blow up. He is then turned over to the authorities off-panel.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In the 2006 "One Year Later" storyline, Owen finds himself placed in the metahuman prison known as Iron Heights. There he finds himself being the cellmate of Black Lightning, who was arrested for a murder that Deathstroke the Terminator committed. It is soon discovered that the other inmates have learned of Black Lightning's identity and are planning to murder him. The Outsiders become aware of this and attempt to break Pierce out of jail. Unfortunately it goes terribly wrong. As they escape, Black Lightning asks that they take Owen with them, which they grudgingly agree. As they escape, the Outsiders' jet, the "Pequod", is shot down, and while the team escapes, the world believes them dead.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Because of this event and the Freedom of Power Treaty, the team now works covertly. Most of the current Outsiders were believed dead until a botched mission revealed their presence to the world. His history as a Rogue has been exploited several times by team leader Nightwing from torturing dictators to taking down a cloned Jay Garrick. However, it is revealed that his desire to join the Outsiders comes from his desire for a family. Nightwing allowed him to join his team partially because Arsenal felt he would be worthy, and because Owen has been striving to find a family since the death of his father and the outbreak of the Rogue War.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Owen searched out the current Robin because of their connection, where their fathers killed one another. While Robin originally believed Owen was searching for him in order to finish the fight his father started, in "Robin" #152, Owen revealed that he wished to make amends with the younger hero, and has offered his assistance to help Robin destroy a bomb created by the Joker. The two later spend the following night spreading out old hideouts of several villains. Afterward, Robin gained a bit of civil respect for Boomerang despite what their fathers did to one another. Boomerang attempted to shake hands with Robin, but Robin refused the gesture feeling unready to make that step.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: At some point during his tenure with the Outsiders, Captain Cold approached the mercenary Deathstroke with an offer concerning Owen. In exchange for kidnapping Deathstroke's daughter Rose (who had betrayed her father and joined the Teen Titans) and delivering her to her father, Deathstroke would track down the Outsiders and turn Owen over to the Rogues. The villains planned to force Owen to cooperate with the team by administering the same mind-controlling agent that Deathstroke had used on his daughter as well as Batman's partner Cassandra Cain. However, this plan fell apart when Rose escaped and helped the Teen Titans defeat the Rogues, which led to Deathstroke backing out of the deal.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Owen has also developed a close friendship with Supergirl, Kara Zor-El. After Supergirl returned from her time away with Power Girl, Kara began looking to start a normal life on Earth and went out a 'date' with Owen, during which they spoke of their past problems. Kara has nicknamed Owen 'Boomer'. Although the pair often flirts with one another, they have never progressed to a romantic relationship. This comes primarily from the fact that Kara continues to show interest in Nightwing, and jokingly says that what she and Owen has is more of a brother-sister relationship, in which he has an unhealthy fixation on his 'little sis'.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Feeling rejected after Kara's relationship with Power Boy, Owen goes to a bar where he meets Cassandra Cain (Batgirl), who at the time was being mind controlled by Deathstroke the Terminator, and who had been hired to kill Supergirl. Cassandra kidnaps and tortures Owen to lure Supergirl. Unfortunately, this proves unnecessary, as Kara had tracked down Cassandra on her own, without any knowledge of Owen's kidnapping. Batgirl nearly manages to defeat Supergirl, but is defeated when Kara grows Krypton Sunstones which impale her foe. Kara then rushes Owen to the hospital where he is treated. While still in medical care, it is discovered that Power Boy has been stalking Kara.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Following Kara's rather violent break-up with Power Boy, the Earth was overtaken by spirits from the Phantom Zone, which began to emerge from within Superman. Kara managed to defeat the Phantoms and return the Earth to normal. Afterwards, in "Supergirl" #19 Kara begins to make amends with all the people who she has hurt since arriving on earth. Amongst them, Boomer, to whom she apologises for letting him get hurt and leading him on. During this conversation, the matter of Owen's relationship with Kara is finally clarified. When asked by Kara how he feels about her leading him on, Owen replies, "Well, if I may ... for me to have been 'led on' would presume I thought I had a shot with you ... For me to think I had a shot with a sixteen-year-old girl -- crystal-powered hypersleep whatever junk aside ... that would mean I am a dirtbag with a thing for jailbait. Which I am not".


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In "Checkmate" #13-15, crossover with "Outsiders" #47-49, Checkmate abducts all members of the Outsiders except Nightwing, allowing him to infiltrate their headquarters in order to offer them a deal: The Outsiders will not be shut down over their actions in Africa in exchange for infiltrating Oolong Island on behalf of Checkmate. During the operation, Nightwing, Owen, and Checkmate's Black Queen are taken captive by Chang Tzu, and the latter two are tortured and experimented on. After Batman rescues the Outsiders over North Korean territory, and Nightwing hands over the team to him, Owen and Nightwing are paired with each other in "auditions" for the new line up. Pushed too far, feeling he does not need to prove himself anymore, Owen returns to the Suicide Squad although Batman feels he could make a good double agent.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: In "All Flash" #1, Owen as part of the new Suicide Squad captures two of the Rogues that are responsible for Bart Allen's murder, Heat Wave and Weather Wizard, in Louisiana. In "Countdown" #39, he and the rest of the Squad chase after Piper and Trickster in Gotham City after they had escaped capture from Squad member Deadshot. The Squad however, is just as unsuccessful as Deadshot, and the two Rogues escape capture.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Owen visits his father's grave along with Tar Pit, when the swarm of black rings fly into the crypt and reanimate all the deceased villains as Black Lanterns, including his father. The Rogues battle in the Iron Heights, when the battle resulted in a draw on both sides, Owen arrives and abducts Digger from the battle, believing he can bring his father back. Later on, Owen has apparently chained up his father's body and is feeding him victims such as a villain named Sandblast who was relying on Owen to get him into the Rogues. It is revealed that Owen has been deceived by Boomerang into believing the blood of enough victims can bring him back to life. The Rogues track Owen down with Captain Cold berating him for believing Harkness' lies. Realizing that Owen has broken the Rogues' code of honor by killing women and children, Cold shoves him into the pit. Owen has his heart ripped out by his father, with a ring flying in to revive him as a Black Lantern. The Black Lantern Owen and his father are then encased in ice by Cold. His father manages to escape and join in the mass battle against the heroes where he is brought back to life and full health.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: Captain Boomerang carries a number of boomerangs in his satchel. He is an expert at throwing the weapons and as well as ordinary boomerangs he has a number with special properties, including bladed, explosive, incendiary, and electrified boomerangs. Upon his resurrection, Digger finds he has the ability to create boomerangs out of energy that explode on contact. However, this new ability is lost when he completes the task given by the White Lantern Entity.


title: Captain Boomerang

text: The original Captain Boomerang then began to train his son, Owen Mercer, before he died. He has exhibited creativity in his boomerangs by creating "razorangs" and an acid-spewing boomerang. Owen has also exhibited "speed bursts": short bursts of limited super speed over short distances, most notably when throwing boomerangs. These were even possible during the time period that Bart Allen fully contained the Speed Force, usually displayed as his ability to throw boomerangs at high velocities, rather than running. However, during Chang Tzu's experiments, he claimed he believed Mercer could access the Speed Force, and Mercer denied having super speed at all anymore, but Chang Tzu was able to activate Owen's speed involuntarily, causing him great pain. The exact source of this power remains unrevealed. Regardless, as of "Justice Society of America" #8, the Speed Force appears to have returned and is accessible to all former speedsters once more.


title: 7th Special Forces Group (United States)

text: The 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne) (7th SFG) (A) is an operational unit of the United States Army Special Forces activated on 20 May 1960. It was reorganized from the 77th Special Forces Group, which was also stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. 7th Group—as it is sometime called—is designed to deploy and execute nine doctrinal missions: unconventional warfare, foreign internal defense, direct action, counter-insurgency, special reconnaissance, counter-terrorism, information operations, counterproliferation of weapon of mass destruction, and security force assistance. The 7th SFG(A) spends much of its time conducting foreign internal defense, counter-drug, and training missions of friendly governments' armed forces in South, Central, and North America as well as the Caribbean. 7th SFG(A) participated in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada in 1983, and in Operation Just Cause in Panama in 1989. The 7th SFG(A) has, like all the SFGs, been heavily deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan in the War on Terror.


text: The 7th SFG(A) traces its lineage to the 1st Company, 1st Regiment, 1st Special Service Force (FSSF), which was established on 9 July 1942 at Fort William Henry Harrison, Montana. The unit was a combined Canadian-American commando unit, designed to conduct raids against Germany's fledgling nuclear capability in northern Europe. However, it was relocated to the Aleutian Islands to fight the Japanese. Upon the successful completion of the Aleutian campaign, the FSSF was transferred to the Mediterranean theater of operations. The unit earned the nickname "The Devil's Brigade" for fighting with distinction at the Anzio beachhead in Italy. It was the first Allied unit to enter Rome in June 1944. The commander of the 1st Regiment, Colonel Alfred C. Marshall, was killed in action leading that assault. The Force next served as an amphibious spearhead for the Allied landings in southern France in August 1944. The high rate of casualties from these campaigns made it necessary to disband the First Special Service Force at Menton, France on 5 December 1944.


text: The 77th Special Forces Group (Airborne) was activated at Fort Bragg, NC on 10 November 1953 under command of Lieutenant Colonel Jack T. Shannon. Its motto was "Any Thing, Any Time, Any Place, Any How." The group built rapidly from an initial strength of only 200 soldiers. The 77th Group wore their famous Green Beret headgear for the first time in a retirement parade for XVIII Airborne Corps commander MG Joseph P. Cleland in June, 1955. In the fall of 1955 it deployed into OPERATION SAGEBRUSH in Louisiana, the largest military exercise in the US since World War II. The 77th carried out unconventional warfare operations, the first time this had been employed in a US military exercise. In 1955-56, 77th Group conducted two cycles of mountain warfare training at Camp Hale, Colorado known as EXERCISE LODESTAR ABLE and LODESTAR BAKER. In April 1956 the 77th Special Forces Group transferred four detachments to the Pacific theater to serve as the cadre for the 1st Special Forces Group (Airborne), which activated at Okinawa in June 1957. In 1959, teams from the 77th Special Forces Group began to deploy to Laos under Project Hotfoot in an effort to forestall Communist encroachment in that kingdom. The group also deployed teams to South Vietnam in 1960 to train Vietnamese ranger and special forces personnel.


text: In 1960, the 77th was reorganized and redesignated as the 7th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces. In the 1960s, the need for mobile training teams exceeded the capability of the US military, so the 7th Group provided the cadre for the 3rd Special Forces Group and the 6th Special Forces Group.


text: The 7th Group was active early in the Vietnam War, first operating in Laos (Operation White Star), and later in other global Cold War operations in addition to Southeast Asia (Laos, Thailand, and South Vietnam). 7th Group was the first unit in South Vietnam to have a member earn a Medal of Honor, Captain Roger Donlon.


text: At the same time, Special Forces were expanding into Latin America. In May 1962, the advance party from Company D, 7th Special Forces Group departed for Fort Gulick, Panama, in the Canal Zone, to establish the 8th Special Forces Group. 8th Group was deactivated in 1972 and the unit redesignated as the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group. The entire 7th Special Forces Group was scheduled for inactivation on 1 October 1980, and was unfunded after that in the completed and approved US Army Program Objective Memorandum (POM). Army Chief of Staff General Edward C. Meyer reversed the decision after USSOUTHCOM briefings and discussions with LTG Wallace H. Nutting, the CINCSOUTH, and LTC Charles Fry, the 3rd Battalion, 7th Special Forces Group commander, regarding the growing threat to Central America and the need for U.S. Army Special Forces to respond to the threat.


text: Throughout the 1980s, 7th Special Forces Group played a critical advisory role for the Salvadoran armed forces, which grew from a force of 12,000 to a total of 55,000 men. The Salvadoran military became a highly trained counter-insurgency force under the tutelage of 7th Group. Due to the success of special forces in El Salvador, the 3rd Special Forces Group was reactivated in 1990.


text: The 7th Special Forces Group played an important role in preparing the Honduran military to resist and defeat an invasion from Nicaragua. 7th Group also trained the Honduran military in counter-insurgency tactics, which enabled Honduras to defeat the Honduran communist-backed guerrillas.


text: 7th Special Forces Group also became involved in counter narcotics operations in the Andean Ridge countries of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. The goal was not just to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, but to stem the violence that resulted from the drug trade in those countries.


text: During the 3 October 1989 coup against Noriega by some of his troops, members of 7th Group conducted reconnaissance operations near the road that led from the cuartel of Battalion 2000 to Panama City, giving the US Southern Command advanced early warning of the elite Panamanian unit moving to rescue Noriega, who was being held captive in the Panamanian Comandancia. Meanwhile, one 7th Group Company was being readied to take custody of Noriega. When the coup was over and Noriega was released, that company prepared a raid on the Carcelo Modelo where American Kurt Muse was being held for operating an illegal radio station that was broadcasting anti-Noriega programming. That mission was later turned over to 1st SFOD-D and performed on D-Day during Operation Just Cause. From 19 December 1989 to 31 January 1990, elements of the 7th Special Forces Group participated in Operation Just Cause to restore democracy to Panama. The 7th Group conducted combat operations on D-Day against multiple strategic targets. Over the next two weeks, 7th Special Forces Group conducted many reconnaissance and direct action missions in support of the operation.


text: The 7th SGF was stationed in Hangar 450, at Albrook Air Force Station. The Panamanian radio station called Radio Nacional broadcast recordings of pro-Noriega propaganda to encourage the Panamanian population to continue fighting as an insurgency against the Americans. As the 7th SFG high command wanted the propaganda broadcasts to be disabled, a force of 7th SFG operators was sent in to disable the broadcasts. They would be going in with little intelligence. A team of operators flew in on helicopter transports to the radio station and fast-roped onto the roof of the seventeen-floor building, while a ground team attacked from below. The Americans had speed and surprise on their side. They blew the radio antenna off the roof with explosives, then assaulted the radio stations offices. There was no staff present and the broadcast source was an automated recording. The operators destroyed the radio equipment with rifle rounds and explosives, causing the automated radio transmissions, which were on the AM band, to cease. The operators then began to exfiltrate, but at one point, they were confronted by an armed civilian security guard, aiming his weapon at them. Not wishing to kill him, they shot him in the shoulder, then treated the injury and turned him over to Panamanian firefighters responding to the fire. The force then safely returned to hangar 450.


text: After the American Special Forces operatives came back to Hangar 450. They deployed again to destroy the FM broadcasts of pro-Noreiga propaganda. The American commandos placed demolition charges which finally and successfully destroyed the remote FM antenna. After successfully destroying the antenna, the broadcasts were finally off the air.


text: When combat operations ceased, Operational Detachments-A and -B fanned out over the entire country, living in villages with the people. 7th Group soldiers restored public utilities such as water and power while maintaining a watch on the (then) new Panamanian Police Force. Non-commissioned officers served as temporary judges and mayors gaining enormous support from the populace.


text: Since early 2002, the 7th SFG has deployed almost nonstop in support of Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. 7th SFG along with the 3rd Special Forces Group are the two SFGs responsible for conducting operations in Afghanistan. The Group has also deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom numerous times, but not as often as Afghanistan. The 7th SFG has lost more SF soldiers in the Global War on Terrorism than any other SFG.


text: In 2011, 7th SFG(A) relocated from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round.


text: The current Group Commander as of July 2019 is COL John W. Sannes, who had wide experience in the 3rd Special Forces Group (United States).


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Group B of the 2022 FIFA World Cup took place from 21 to 29 November 2022. The group consisted of national association football teams from England, Iran, the United States and Wales. Both England and the United States progressed to the round of 16 undefeated. England won the group, winning two games and drawing the other, while the United States won one and drew the other two. Iran finished the group third, having won a single game, with Wales finishing fourth with a single point.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Initially noted for unusually containing four teams all ranked in the top 20 at the time of the tournament, as well as two teams within the same sovereign state and other geopolitical conflicts, various incidents relating to Qatar's ban on LGBTQ+ symbols affected the games on the first match day.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The teams were decided by the World Cup draw that took place on 1 April 2022. The group was set to receive one team from each pot, which sorted all World Cup teams by position on the FIFA World Rankings. The first team drawn was England, which secured qualification as a pot one team by winning Group I of UEFA qualification. The second pot team, the United States, qualified by finishing third in CONCACAF qualification. The third team was Iran, which won Group A of the AFC Third Round. The final team was not known at the time of the draw, as it was the UEFA Second Round Path A winner. Wales defeated Ukraine 1–0 to qualify for this position.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Group B was widely described as the "group of death" before the tournament. It had the highest average FIFA ranking of any group, and controversy given by the political hostility existing between Iran and the United Kingdom, and between Iran and the United States.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: England captain Harry Kane, Wales captain Gareth Bale, and several other European captains intended to wear OneLove rainbow armbands promoting acceptance and diversity during the World Cup; shortly before England's opening match (the first match to feature one of these nations), however, FIFA announced that players wearing these armbands would face "unlimited" sanctions, with a yellow card given at minimum. The affected football associations said they would not put their players in this position, criticising FIFA for the ruling. A spokesperson for Rishi Sunak, the British Prime Minister, also criticised FIFA for introducing player punishment for the armbands. After the first United States match, and though the US had not been intending to wear the armband, Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, the nation's highest diplomat in Qatar, described the ban as "concerning".


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: At the England–Iran match, BBC pundit and former England women's team captain Alex Scott chose to wear a OneLove armband while being interviewed pitchside ahead of the match, a move that was praised. At the United States–Wales match, though she did not appear on screen, German ZDF broadcaster Claudia Neumann wore a rainbow armband and Pride shirt, later telling the Sport-Informations-Dienst that she wanted to set an example, lamenting that the captains would not be able to wear the armbands. During England's second match, the Wembley Stadium arch, iconic of the team's home stadium, was lit up in rainbow colours.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Many Wales fans in attendance at their first match as part of the nation's official LGBTQ+ supporters group wore the group's rainbow Wales bucket hats. Women who had these hats, including former women's team captain Laura McAllister, were prohibited from entering the stadium with them; McAllister reported that the security officials told her it was "a banned symbol". At the same match, American journalist Grant Wahl was reportedly detained for 25 minutes when attempting to enter the stadium wearing a Pride shirt, being told it was "political" and being asked if he was British; he said that FIFA later apologised to him and security allowed him to enter with the shirt.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: After the match, the Football Association of Wales confronted FIFA about the confiscation of the bucket hats, and FIFA entered talks with the Qatari Supreme Committee to discuss the Qatar commitment to make all fans welcome at the World Cup, also citing an incident of an American fan with a rainbow flag being harassed.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The opening match of Group B was contested between England and Iran. The two sides had never played each other in a competitive match. Many England supporters missed the start of the match due to problems with FIFA's ticketing app. In defiance of their government, the Iranian team refused to sing their national anthem ahead of the match, a sign of support for the Mahsa Amini protests in their own country. Many Iranian women, some of them bearing protest signs, were in attendance at the match, a gesture which by itself was considered an act of protest as women are barred from football matches in Iran.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The match was delayed for seven minutes in the first half after head to head collision between the Iranian goalkeeper Alireza Beiranvand and defender Majid Hosseini. Beiranvand initially seemed to be convinced to continue playing by Iran captain Ehsan Hajsafi despite appearing to be dazed and taking his gloves and shirt off after he received treatment, drawing criticism from the brain injury charity Headway. After collapsing on the field minutes later, Beiranvand was substituted for Hossein Hosseini. England scored three first-half goals: Jude Bellingham opened with his first ever senior England goal in the 35th minute, with Bukayo Saka (in the 43rd minute) and Raheem Sterling (in the first minute of stoppage time) being the other contributors to the scoreline up to this point.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: In the second half, England's Saka scored his second of the game in the 62nd minute, before Iran's Mehdi Taremi scored with their first shot on target. England defender Harry Maguire was then removed from play after also suffering a head injury. Substitute Marcus Rashford, who had been introduced a minute before, scored England's fifth goal with his third touch of the game. Shortly into stoppage time, Jack Grealish scored England's sixth goal. The final goal, a contentious penalty kick for Iran, was scored two-and-a-half minutes after the final whistle, awarded only after a review of a late-occurring foul was suggested by the VAR. Taremi converted from the penalty kick, but the 6–2 defeat was Iran's worst in any FIFA World Cup match, surpassing its 4–1 defeat by Peru in 1978. The Iranian media blamed the "humiliating" loss on the protests in their country affecting their players' mindset, additionally claiming that the United States and its allies, including the United Kingdom, had manufactured the protests to disrupt Iran; though these nations comprise all of Iran's group stage competition, the line of blame is common due to longstanding political tensions.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The second match was between the United States and Wales. The teams met twice previously in friendly matches: the United States won 2–0 in 2003 and the two teams drew 0–0 in 2020. The game was broadcast on ITV in the United Kingdom, with the network announcing during the broadcast that its technical director, Roger Pearce, had died in Qatar.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The United States scored the opening goal in the 32nd minute when Tim Weah scored after a pass over the top by Christian Pulisic. The United States team outplayed Wales in the first half, but in the second half Wales outshone them, being tactically better, particularly after introducing substitute Kieffer Moore. Late into the second half, Bale was fouled in the box by Walker Zimmerman and scored the resulting penalty kick. After over nine minutes of stoppage time, the match finished 1–1 with the United States picking up four yellow cards, the most they had received since the 2002 FIFA World Cup match against Germany.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Wales had faced Iran previously only once, in a friendly game in 1978 that ended in a 1–0 win for Wales. The Iranian team opted to sing their national anthem at this match. The game was driven by Iran in attack and quick counter-attack, with Wales mostly holding in defence; though Wales made attempts in attack, their midfield was described by BBC Sport's Dafydd Pritchard as "worryingly porous". In the first half, Iran had a goal from Ali Gholizadeh disallowed by VAR for offside. Early in the second half, Iran had two attempts hit each post in quick succession.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: In the 86th minute Welsh goalkeeper Wayne Hennessey was originally given a yellow card for a foul he committed outside his penalty area. However, on review by VAR, this was upgraded to a red card. Iran substitute Rouzbeh Cheshmi scored the first goal eight minutes into stoppage time, followed by Ramin Rezaeian scoring three minutes later to give Iran's first-ever win against a European team in the FIFA World Cup. Cheshmi's goal was the latest-minute match-winning goal scored in any World Cup game (excluding extra-time) since the 1966 FIFA World Cup in England when exact goal times were first made available. Officially, nine minutes of stoppage time were added; with further delays in the added time, over twelve minutes were actually played.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The teams had previously met twice in the World Cup. The United States won 1–0 in the 1950 FIFA World Cup in Brazil and the teams drew 1–1 in the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. United States captain Tyler Adams described their opponents as "an athletic team" and said that his own team was "really dominant at times" in their previous match against Wales, while England's Bellingham noted that the teams had been "talking some smack" on social media.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: England's lineup remained unchanged, while the United States chose Haji Wright over Josh Sargent in attack. Harry Kane had a shot blocked in the box in the 9th minute before United States player Weston McKennie missed a shot in the six-yard box and Pulisic hit the crossbar in the 32nd minute. The match featured only a small number of chances, with only four shots on target between the two teams. Despite not losing the game, many England fans booed the team after the match ended.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The teams had met 103 times, most recently in a friendly game in 2020 won 3–0 by England. This was their second meeting in a major tournament, the first being the group stage of UEFA Euro 2016 in France, which ended in a 2–1 win for England. The teams have met in multiple FIFA World Cup qualifiers, including two British Home Championship matches that served as World Cup qualifiers (in the 1949–50 British Home Championship and 1953–54 British Home Championship) as well as in the 1974 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group 5 and the 2006 FIFA World Cup qualification – UEFA Group 6 tournaments.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Marcus Rashford had the best chance of the first half, but his chipped shot was saved by Wales goalkeeper Danny Ward. The first half ended goalless, however, Rashford scored a direct free kick in the 51st minute to give England the lead. Shortly after the restart, Rashford won the ball in the Welsh defence and passed to Kane, who crossed the ball low from the right for Phil Foden to score at the back post. Rashford got his second of the game in the 68th minute with a shot from deep inside the Welsh penalty area that went through the goalkeeper's legs. The victory was enough for England to finish at the top of the group, whilst Wales finished at the bottom with just one point.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: The teams had met twice previously. Iran won 2–1 in the 1998 FIFA World Cup in France and the teams drew 1–1 in 2000 friendly. Prior to the match the United States Soccer Federation displayed Iran’s national flag on social media without the emblem of the Islamic Republic. The removal of the emblem showed support for the women in Iran fighting for basic human rights, according to the Federation. In response, Iran state media reported that the United States should be immediately removed from the tournament and suspended for ten games for a “distorted image” of the country’s flag. Following this, the emblem was returned to the flag.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Both teams were guaranteed qualification to the round of 16 with a win, whilst Iran would qualify with a draw, provided Wales did not defeat England. Pulisic scored the only goal of the game for the United States in the 38th minute, being injured in the process. The United States team qualified to play the Netherlands in the round of 16, whilst England played Senegal.


title: 2022 FIFA World Cup Group B

text: Fair play points would have been used as tiebreakers if the overall and head-to-head records of teams were tied. These were calculated based on yellow and red cards received in all group matches as follows:


title: Time perception

text: The study of time perception or chronoception is a field within psychology, cognitive linguistics and neuroscience that refers to the subjective experience, or sense, of time, which is measured by someone's own perception of the duration of the indefinite and unfolding of events. The perceived time interval between two successive events is referred to as perceived duration. Though directly experiencing or understanding another person's perception of time is not possible, perception can be objectively studied and inferred through a number of scientific experiments. Some temporal illusions help to expose the underlying neural mechanisms of time perception.


title: Time perception

text: Time perception is typically categorized in three distinct ranges, because different ranges of duration are processed in different areas of the brain:


title: Time perception

text: There are many theories and computational models for time perception mechanisms in the brain. William J. Friedman (1993) contrasted two theories of the sense of time:


title: Time perception

text: Another hypothesis involves the brain's subconscious tallying of "pulses" during a specific interval, forming a biological stopwatch. This theory proposes that the brain can run multiple biological stopwatches independently depending on the type of tasks being tracked. The source and nature of the pulses is unclear. They are as yet a metaphor whose correspondence to brain anatomy or physiology is unknown.


title: Time perception

text: The "specious present" is the time duration wherein a state of consciousness is experienced as being in the present. The term was first introduced by the philosopher E. R. Clay in 1882 (E. Robert Kelly), and was further developed by William James. James defined the specious present to be "the prototype of all conceived times... the short duration of which we are immediately and incessantly sensible". In "Scientific Thought" (1930), C. D. Broad further elaborated on the concept of the specious present and considered that the specious present may be considered as the temporal equivalent of a sensory datum. A version of the concept was used by Edmund Husserl in his works and discussed further by Francisco Varela based on the writings of Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty.


title: Time perception

text: Although the perception of time is not associated with a specific sensory system, psychologists and neuroscientists suggest that humans do have a system, or several complementary systems, governing the perception of time. Time perception is handled by a highly distributed system involving the cerebral cortex, cerebellum and basal ganglia. One particular component, the suprachiasmatic nucleus, is responsible for the circadian (or daily) rhythm, while other cell clusters appear to be capable of shorter (ultradian) timekeeping. There is some evidence that very short (millisecond) durations are processed by dedicated neurons in early sensory parts of the brain.


title: Time perception

text: Warren Meck devised a physiological model for measuring the passage of time. He found the representation of time to be generated by the oscillatory activity of cells in the upper cortex. The frequency of these cells' activity is detected by cells in the dorsal striatum at the base of the forebrain. His model separated explicit timing and implicit timing. Explicit timing is used in estimating the duration of a stimulus. Implicit timing is used to gauge the amount of time separating one from an impending event that is expected to occur in the near future. These two estimations of time do not involve the same neuroanatomical areas. For example, implicit timing often occurs to achieve a motor task, involving the cerebellum, left parietal cortex, and left premotor cortex. Explicit timing often involves the supplementary motor area and the right prefrontal cortex.


title: Time perception

text: Two visual stimuli, inside someone's field of view, can be successfully regarded as simultaneous up to five milliseconds.


title: Time perception

text: In the popular essay "Brain Time", David Eagleman explains that different types of sensory information (auditory, tactile, visual, etc.) are processed at different speeds by different neural architectures. The brain must learn how to overcome these speed disparities if it is to create a temporally unified representation of the external world:


title: Time perception

text: Experiments have shown that rats can successfully estimate a time interval of approximately 40 seconds, despite having their cortex entirely removed. This suggests that time estimation may be a low level process.


title: Time perception

text: In recent history, ecologists and psychologists have been interested in whether and how time is perceived by non-human animals, as well as which functional purposes are served by the ability to perceive time. Studies have demonstrated that many species of animals, including both vertebrates and invertebrates, have cognitive abilities that allow them to estimate and compare time intervals and durations in a similar way to humans.


title: Time perception

text: There is empirical evidence that metabolic rate has an impact on animals' ability to perceive time. In general, it is true within and across taxa that animals of smaller size (such as flies), which have a fast metabolic rate, experience time more slowly than animals of larger size, which have a slow metabolic rate. Researchers suppose that this could be the reason why small-bodied animals are generally better at perceiving time on a small scale, and why they are more agile than larger animals.


title: Time perception

text: In a lab experiment, goldfish were conditioned to receive a light stimulus followed shortly by an aversive electric shock, with a constant time interval between the two stimuli. Test subjects showed an increase in general activity around the time of the electric shock. This response persisted in further trials in which the light stimulus was kept but the electric shock was removed. This suggests that goldfish are able to perceive time intervals and to initiate an avoidance response at the time when they expect the distressing stimulus to happen.


title: Time perception

text: In two separate studies, golden shiners and dwarf inangas demonstrated the ability to associate the availability of food sources to specific locations and times of day, called time-place learning. In contrast, when tested for time-place learning based on predation risk, inangas were unable to associate spatiotemporal patterns to the presence or absence of predators.


title: Time perception

text: In June 2022, researchers reported in Physical Review Letters finding that salamanders were demonstrating counter-intuitive responses to the arrow of time in how their eyes perceived different stimuli.


title: Time perception

text: When presented with the choice between obtaining food at regular intervals (with a fixed delay between feedings) or at stochastic intervals (with a variable delay between feedings), starlings can discriminate between the two types of intervals and consistently prefer getting food at variable intervals. This is true whether the total amount of food is the same for both options or if the total amount of food is unpredictable in the variable option. This suggests that starlings have an inclination for risk-prone behavior.


title: Time perception

text: Pigeons are able to discriminate between different times of day and show time-place learning. After training, lab subjects were successfully able to peck specific keys at different times of day (morning or afternoon) in exchange for food, even after their sleep/wake cycle was artificially shifted. This suggests that to discriminate between different times of day, pigeons can use an internal timer (or circadian timer) that is independent of external cues. However, a more recent study on time-place learning in pigeons suggests that for a similar task, test subjects will switch to a non-circadian timing mechanism when possible to save energy resources. Experimental tests revealed that pigeons are also able to discriminate between cues of various durations (on the order of seconds), but that they are less accurate when timing auditory cues than when timing visual cues.


title: Time perception

text: A study on privately owned dogs revealed that dogs are able to perceive durations ranging from minutes to several hours differently. Dogs reacted with increasing intensity to the return of their owners when they were left alone for longer durations, regardless of the owners' behavior.


title: Time perception

text: After being trained with food reinforcement, female wild boars are able to correctly estimate time intervals of days by asking for food at the end of each interval, but they are unable to accurately estimate time intervals of minutes with the same training method.


title: Time perception

text: When trained with positive reinforcement, rats can learn to respond to a signal of a certain duration, but not to signals of shorter or longer durations, which demonstrates that they can discriminate between different durations. Rats have demonstrated time-place learning, and can also learn to infer correct timing for a specific task by following an order of events, suggesting that they might be able to use an ordinal timing mechanism. Like pigeons, rats are thought to have the ability to use a circadian timing mechanism for discriminating time of day.


title: Time perception

text: When returning to the hive with nectar, forager honey bees need to know the current ratio of nectar-collecting to nectar-processing rates in the colony. To do so, they estimate the time it takes them to find a food-storer bee, which will unload the forage and store it. The longer it takes them to find one, the busier the food-storer bees are; and therefore the higher the nectar-collecting rate of the colony. Forager bees also assess the quality of nectar by comparing the length of time it takes to unload the forage: a longer unloading time indicates higher quality nectar. They compare their own unloading time to the unloading time of other foragers present in the hive, and adjust their recruiting behavior accordingly. For instance, honey bees reduce the duration of their waggle dance if they judge their own yield to be inferior. Scientists have demonstrated that anesthesia disrupts the circadian clock and impairs the time perception of honey bees, as observed in humans. Experiments revealed that a 6-hour-long general anesthesia significantly delayed the start of the foraging behaviour of honeybees if induced during daytime, but not if induced during nighttime.


title: Time perception

text: Bumble bees can be successfully trained to respond to a stimulus after a certain time interval has elapsed (usually several seconds after the start signal). Studies have shown that they can also learn to simultaneously time multiple interval durations.


title: Time perception

text: In a single study, colonies from three species of ants from the genus Myrmica were trained to associate feeding sessions with different times. The trainings lasted several days, where each day the feeding time was delayed by 20 minutes compared to the previous day. In all three species, at the end of the training, most individuals were present at the feeding spot at the correct expected times, suggesting that ants are able to estimate the time running, keep in memory the expected feeding time and to act anticipatively.


title: Time perception

text: The "Kappa effect" or "perceptual time dilation" is a form of temporal illusion verifiable by experiment. The temporal duration between a sequence of consecutive stimuli is thought to be relatively longer or shorter than its actual elapsed time, due to the spatial/auditory/tactile separation between each consecutive stimuli. The kappa effect can be displayed when considering a journey made in two parts that each take an equal amount of time. When mentally comparing these two sub-journeys, the part that covers "more" distance may appear to take longer than the part covering "less" distance, even though they take an equal amount of time.


title: Time perception

text: "Chronostasis" is a type of temporal illusion in which the first impression following the introduction of a new event or task demand to the brain appears to be extended in time. For example, chronostasis temporarily occurs when fixating on a target stimulus, immediately following a saccade (e.g., quick eye movement). This elicits an overestimation in the temporal duration for which that target stimulus (i.e., postsaccadic stimulus) was perceived. This effect can extend apparent durations by up to 500 ms and is consistent with the idea that the visual system models events prior to perception. The most well-known version of this illusion is known as the stopped-clock illusion, wherein a subject's first impression of the second-hand movement of an analog clock, subsequent to one's directed attention (i.e., saccade) to the clock, is the perception of a slower-than-normal second-hand movement rate (the seconds hand of the clock may seemingly temporarily freeze in place after initially looking at it).


title: Time perception

text: The occurrence of chronostasis extends beyond the visual domain into the auditory and tactile domains. In the auditory domain, chronostasis and duration overestimation occur when observing auditory stimuli. One common example is a frequent occurrence when making telephone calls. If, while listening to the phone's dial tone, research subjects move the phone from one ear to the other, the length of time between rings appears longer. In the tactile domain, chronostasis has persisted in research subjects as they reach for and grasp objects. After grasping a new object, subjects overestimate the time in which their hand has been in contact with this object.


title: Time perception

text: In an experiment, participants were told to stare at an "x" symbol on a computer screen whereby a moving blue doughnut-like ring repeatedly circled the fixed "x" point. Occasionally, the ring would display a white flash for a split second that physically overlapped the ring's interior. However, when asked what was perceived, participants responded that they saw the white flash lagging behind the center of the moving ring. In other words, despite the reality that the two retinal images were actually spatially aligned, the flashed object was usually observed to trail a continuously moving object in space — a phenomenon referred to as the "flash-lag effect".


title: Time perception

text: The first proposed explanation, called the "motion extrapolation" hypothesis, is that the visual system extrapolates the position of moving objects but not flashing objects when accounting for neural delays (i.e., the lag time between the retinal image and the observer's perception of the flashing object). The second proposed explanation by David Eagleman and Sejnowski, called the "latency difference" hypothesis, is that the visual system processes moving objects at a faster rate than flashed objects. In the attempt to disprove the first hypothesis, David Eagleman conducted an experiment in which the moving ring suddenly reverses direction to spin in the other way as the flashed object briefly appears. If the first hypothesis were correct, we would expect that, immediately following reversal, the moving object would be observed as lagging behind the flashed object. However, the experiment revealed the opposite — immediately following reversal, the flashed object was observed as lagging behind the moving object. This experimental result supports the "latency difference" hypothesis. A recent study tries to reconcile these different approaches by treating perception as an inference mechanism aiming at describing what is happening at the present time.


title: Time perception

text: Humans typically overestimate the perceived duration of the initial and final event in a stream of identical events.


title: Time perception

text: This "oddball effect" may serve an evolutionarily adapted "alerting" function and is consistent with reports of time slowing down in threatening situations. The effect seems to be strongest for images that are expanding in size on the retina, in other words, that are "looming" or approaching the viewer, and the effect can be eradicated for oddballs that are contracting or perceived to be receding from the viewer. The effect is also reduced or reversed with a static oddball presented among a stream of expanding stimuli.


title: Time perception

text: Initial studies suggested that this oddball-induced "subjective time dilation" expanded the perceived duration of oddball stimuli by 30–50% but subsequent research has reported more modest expansion of around 10% or less. The direction of the effect, whether the viewer perceives an increase or a decrease in duration, also seems to be dependent upon the stimulus used.


title: Time perception

text: Numerous experimental findings suggest that temporal order judgments of actions preceding effects can be reversed under special circumstances. Experiments have shown that sensory simultaneity judgments can be manipulated by repeated exposure to non-simultaneous stimuli. In an experiment conducted by David Eagleman, a temporal order judgment reversal was induced in subjects by exposing them to delayed motor consequences. In the experiment, subjects played various forms of video games. Unknown to the subjects, the experimenters introduced a fixed delay between the mouse movements and the subsequent sensory feedback. For example, a subject may not see a movement register on the screen until 150 milliseconds after they had moved the mouse. Participants playing the game quickly adapted to the delay and felt as though there was less delay between their mouse movement and the sensory feedback. Shortly after the experimenters removed the delay, the subjects commonly felt as though the effect on the screen happened just before they commanded it. This work addresses how the perceived timing of effects is modulated by expectations, and the extent to which such predictions are quickly modifiable.


title: Time perception

text: In an experiment conducted by Haggard and colleagues in 2002, participants pressed a button that triggered a flash of light at a distance, after a slight delay of 100 milliseconds. By repeatedly engaging in this act, participants had adapted to the delay (i.e., they experienced a gradual shortening in the perceived time interval between pressing the button and seeing the flash of light). The experimenters then showed the flash of light instantly after the button was pressed. In response, subjects often thought that the flash (the effect) had occurred before the button was pressed (the cause). Additionally, when the experimenters slightly reduced the delay, and shortened the spatial distance between the button and the flash of light, participants had often claimed again to have experienced the effect before the cause.


title: Time perception

text: Several experiments also suggest that temporal order judgment of a pair of tactile stimuli delivered in rapid succession, one to each hand, is noticeably impaired (i.e., misreported) by crossing the hands over the midline. However, congenitally blind subjects showed no trace of temporal order judgment reversal after crossing the arms. These results suggest that tactile signals taken in by the congenitally blind are ordered in time without being referred to a visuospatial representation. Unlike the congenitally blind subjects, the temporal order judgments of the late-onset blind subjects were impaired when crossing the arms to a similar extent as non-blind subjects. These results suggest that the associations between tactile signals and visuospatial representation is maintained once it is accomplished during infancy. Some research studies have also found that the subjects showed reduced deficit in tactile temporal order judgments when the arms were crossed behind their back than when they were crossed in front.


title: Time perception

text: Tachypsychia is a neurological condition that alters the perception of time, usually induced by physical exertion, drug use, or a traumatic event. For someone affected by tachypsychia, time perceived by the individual either lengthens, making events appear to slow down, or contracts, with objects appearing as moving in a speeding blur.


title: Time perception

text: Research has suggested the feeling of awe has the ability to expand one's perceptions of time availability. Awe can be characterized as an experience of immense perceptual vastness that coincides with an increase in focus. Consequently, it is conceivable that one's temporal perception would slow down when experiencing awe. The perception of time can differ as people choose between savoring moments and deferring gratification.


title: Time perception

text: Possibly related to the oddball effect, research suggests that time seems to slow down for a person during dangerous events (such as a car accident, a robbery, or when a person perceives a potential predator or mate), or when a person skydives or bungee jumps, where they're capable of complex thoughts in what would normally be the blink of an eye (See Fight-or-flight response). This reported slowing in temporal perception may have been evolutionarily advantageous because it may have enhanced one's ability to intelligibly make quick decisions in moments that were of critical importance to our survival. However, even though observers commonly report that time seems to have moved in slow motion during these events, it is unclear whether this is a function of increased time resolution during the event, or instead an illusion created by the remembering of an emotionally salient event.