title: Kiteboarding

text: Bill Roeseler, a Boeing aerodynamicist, and his son Cory Roeseler patented the "KiteSki" system, which consisted of water skis powered by a two-line, delta style kite, controlled via a bar-mounted combined winch/brake. The KiteSki was commercially available in 1994. The kite had a rudimentary water launch capability and could go upwind. In 1995, Cory Roeseler visited Peter Lynn at New Zealand's Lake Clearwater in the Ashburton Alpine Lakes area, demonstrating the speed, balance, and upwind angle on his 'ski'. In the late 1990s, Cory's ski evolved into a single board similar to a surfboard.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The development of modern-day kitesurfing by the Roeselers in the United States and the Legaignoux in France was carried on in parallel with that of buggying.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 1996, Laird Hamilton and Manu Bertin were instrumental in demonstrating and popularising kitesurfing off the coast of Maui, while, in Florida, Raphaël Baruch changed the name of the sport from flysurfing to kitesurfing by starting and promoting the first commercial brand of the industry: "Kitesurf".


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 1997, the Legaignoux brothers developed and sold the breakthrough "Wipika" kite design which had a structure of preformed inflatable tubes and a simple bridle system to the wingtips, both of which greatly assisted water re-launch. Bruno Legaignoux continued to improve kite designs, including developing the bow kite design, which has been licensed to many kite manufacturers.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 1997, specialized kiteboards were developed by Raphaël Salles and Laurent Ness. By the end of 1998 kitesurfing had become an extreme sport, distributed and taught through shops and schools worldwide. The first competition was held on Maui in September 1998 and won by Flash Austin.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Starting in 1999, kitesurfing became a mainstream sport with the entry of key windsurfing manufacturers, namely Robby Naish and Neil Pryde. Single direction boards derived from windsurfing and surfing designs became the dominant form of kiteboard.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2000, a new freestyle competition, sponsored by Red Bull was launched in Maui. The competition, named Red Bull King of the Air, judged riders on height, versatility, and style. The competition is still held annually in Cape Town, South Africa.


title: Kiteboarding

text: From 2001 onwards, twin-tip bi-directional boards became more popular for most flat water riders, with directional boards still in use for surf conditions.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In May 2012, the course racing style of kitesurfing was announced as a sport for the 2016 Rio Olympics, replacing windsurfing. However, after a vote by the General Assembly of the ISAF in November 2012, the RSX windsurfer was reinstated for both Men and Women, resulting in kitesurfing being left out. The ISAF mid-year meeting of May 2013 proposed seeking an eleventh medal to include kitesurfing in 2020 without making any changes to existing events.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2014, course-racing kiteboarding was included in the ISAF World Sailing World Cup program. In November 2014, 20 athletes attended the final competition in Abu Dhabi. The first place among women was taken by Elena Kalinina, while the men's winner was Great Britain's Oliver Bridge.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2015, Elena Kalinina won again and received the title of the world champion, ahead of Great Britain's Stefania Bridge and Russian Anastasia Akopova. The world champion among men was Maxime Nocher from Monaco, making him the youngest world champion, ahead of Oliver Bridge and Polish native Blazek Ozog.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Nick Jacobsen achieved the world record for the highest kite jump, measured by WOO Sports on February 19, 2017 in Cape Town, South Africa, during a session with 40-knot winds. Jacobsen's jump reached 28.6 meters high, with an airtime of 8.5 seconds. The record has been broken several times since then, and WOO Sports maintains jump-related leaderboards in different categories (airtime, height, etc.) based on the data recorded and uploaded by its users. The current record holder for the height of a single jump is Maarten Haeger at 34.8m.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Jesse Richman holds the record for hangtime at 22 seconds, set at Crissy Field in San Francisco, California. Airton Cozzolino holds the record for strapless hangtime at 19 seconds.


title: Kiteboarding

text: French kitesurfer became the first sailor to break the 50 knots barrier by reaching 50.26 knots on 3 October 2008 at the Lüderitz Speed Challenge in Namibia. On 4 October, (also of France) broke this record with a 50.57 knots run. Similar speeds have been reached in the same location by windsurfers Anders Bringdal and Antoine Albeau, respectively 50.46 and 50.59 knots. These speeds are verified, but are still subject to ratification by the World Sailing Speed Record Council. Earlier in the event, on 19 September, American Rob Douglas reached 49.84 knots (92.30 km/h), becoming the first kitesurfer to establish an outright world record in speed sailing. Previously the record was held only by sailboats or windsurfers. Douglas also became the world's third over-50 knots sailor, when on 8 October he made a 50.54 knots (93.60 km/h) run.


title: Kiteboarding

text: October 2010, Rob Douglas became the outright record holder for the short distance 500 meters with 55.65 knots. Sébastien Cattelan became the record holder of France and Europe with 55.49 and was the first rider to reach 55 knots.


title: Kiteboarding

text: On 13 November 2017, French rider became the new world speed record holder in France (Salin-de-Giraud) reaching 57.97 knots or 107.36 km/h.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Louis Tapper completed the longest recorded kite journey, completing 2000 km between Salvador and Sao Luis, Brazil. The journey was completed between July/August 2010 and took over 24 days of kitesurfing. This trip is also the longest solo journey, completed without a support crew, using one kite and a 35-liter backpack .


title: Kiteboarding

text: The previous longest recorded kite journey was by Eric Gramond who completed a 13-day trip of 1450 km along the coast of Brazil.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Constantin Bisanz, a 41-year-old Austrian, crossed a stretch of the Bering Strait, embarking from Wales, Alaska, US on 12 August 2011 at 04:00, and arriving in easternmost Russia two hours later, after which he returned by boat to Alaska. It occurred after 2 previously failed attempts, the first of which was on 28 July 2011, in which an incident occurred where he found himself floating in 36 °F water with no board, kite, or GPS unit for 1 hour before being rescued. On his second attempt on 2 August he and two friends sailed half the distance before turning around due to poor wind conditions.


title: Kiteboarding

text: A team of six kitesurfers, Filippo van Hellenberg Hubar, Eric Pequeno, Max Blom, Camilla Ringvold, Ike Frans, and Dennis Gijsbers crossed the Atlantic Ocean, from the Canary Islands to the Turks and Caicos Islands a distance of about , from 20 November 2013, to 17 December 2013. Each of the six spent four hours each day surfing, broken into two sessions of two hours each, one during the day, and the other during the night.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kitesurfing on water includes freestyle and big air using a kiteboard similar to a wakeboard, kiting in waves using small surfboards with or without footstraps or bindings, foiling, and speed kiting.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Land kiting needs a short and light mountain board, feet steered buggies, rollerskates, or sand boards for sand kiteboarding, which is also referred to as "sand kiting". It is a great cross-training for kitesurfing as many of the mechanisms for kite control transfer to water use.


title: Kiteboarding

text: , the number of kitesurfers was estimated by the ISAF and IKA at 1.5 million persons worldwide (pending review). The global market for kite gear sales was then worth US$250 million.


title: Kiteboarding

text: After substantial growth, activity was levelling by 2017 at around 85,000 kites sold yearly by GKA members, twintip boards sales decreased from 37,000 in 2013 to 28,000 in 2016 and directional boards from 8,000 to 7,000.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The largest manufacturers are Boards and More (previously under the North brand, now Duotone), then Cabrinha (Neil Pryde) with 25–35,000 kites a year each.


title: Kiteboarding

text: They are followed by Naish, F-One, Core kiteboarding, Slingshot sports, Liquid Force, Airush, Ozone Kites, Flysurfer and others.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The GKA recorded 100,000 kites sales in 2017 for its members, giving an estimated 140–150,000 total kites sales for 2017.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Technavio predicted a global kiteboarding equipment market reaching US$2,120 million by 2021, growing at a CAGR of almost 9% from 2017.


title: Kiteboarding

text: International kiteboarding has several promoting organizations and has undergone many changes in the governance of the sport, including long-lasting disputes between several of those entities, trying to negate each other the right to promote sporting events. The significance of the associated economic activity could explain part of such turbulence, but the intense rate of innovation and of adoption made it difficult to conceive, regulate and formalize the new competitions, and offer opportunities for new players specializing in new variants of the sport.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Several world cup events are sanctioned by the WS on behalf of the International Olympic Committee, a private association.


title: Kiteboarding

text: KPWT exchanged endorsements with IKA in 2009. Both become opposing parties as the IKA also got an agreement with PKRA. IKA threatened and banned riders which take part in competitions without its endorsement.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2015, the PKRA was sold to a group of investors, becoming the Virgin Kitesurfing World Championship (VKWC).


title: Kiteboarding

text: The WS itself has split the governance of its own events between the GKA for the expression disciplines and the IKA for the racing disciplines. The GKA has then split the expression disciplines, choosing to run the Wave and Strapless Tour themselves, while ceding to the World Kiteboarding League to run the freestyle events and the Kite Park League to run the park events. The freestyle events were then handed to the Kiteboarding Riders United (KRU).


title: Kiteboarding

text: Styles of kiteboarding, include freestyle, freeride, speed, course racing, wakestyle, big air, park, and surfing.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kiteboarding can pose hazards to surfers, beachgoers, bystanders and others on the water. Many problems and dangers that may be encountered while learning kiting can be avoided or minimized by taking professional instruction through lesson centers. Kitesurfing schools provide courses and lessons to teach entry-level skills and more advanced ones, including:


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kitesurfers change kite size and/or line length depending on wind strength — stronger winds call for a smaller kite to prevent overpower situations. Kitesurfers will determine the wind strength using either an anemometer or, more typically, visual clues as shown in the Beaufort scale. Modern kites dedicated to kitesurfing provide a "depower" option to reduce the power in the kite. By using depower, the kite's angle of attack to the wind is reduced, thereby catching less wind in the kite and reducing the pull.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Bow kites have a wider wind range than C-kites, so two kite sizes (such as 7 m and 12 m) could form an effective quiver for winds ranging from 10 to 30+ knots for a 75 kg (165 lb) rider.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Cross-shore and cross-onshore winds are the best for unassisted kiteboarding. Direct onshore winds carry the risk of being thrown onto land or stuck in shallows. Direct offshore winds pose the danger of being blown away from the shore in the event of equipment failure or loss of control. However offshore winds can be quite suitable in confined waters, like in a lake or estuary, or when a safety boat is assisting.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The kiter must maintain a clear perception of the wind direction but also of the wind speed. The Beaufort scale is of great assistance in helping users assess the situation. A range of wind up to 33 knots covers the conditions for a safe practice for an experienced rider. A less experienced one should avoid riding with more than 15 knots. Most twintip boards and inflatable kites would be barely rideable below 11 knots, therefore for most cases a user should focus on the winds classified as moderate up to strong.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Even if there is no wind blowing, a kiter can act on the kite lines and force it to move, and then, like with a row, it generates some force resulting from the incidence of the air into the kite's surface. In a gentle breeze, if the user action increases the air speed around the kite 10 times, the generated force increases 100 times, since the wind force acting on a kite is proportional to the square of the wind speed acting on it. Thus the relevant notion of "apparent" wind, which is the actual wind acting on the moving kite, sail or wing.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The apparent wind is measured taking the moving kite as the reference frame, therefore its other name as "relative wind". By opposition, the wind measured relatively to the ground is called "true wind".


title: Kiteboarding

text: While the other wind sports can generate considerable apparent wind, their wind forces are limited by the movement of the user platform, since it is attached more or less rigidly to the wing or sail. In this aspect, kiteboarding seems unique among other wind sports, since it allows the user to generate apparent wind independently of the movement of the user platform, the board. For instance, in the initiating kiteboard technic called "waterstart", while the user prepares to start in the water, the kite is sent aggressively, generating a propulsive impulse. Then the resulting movement of the board increases tension on the kite lines, which the user controls to manage the riding speed and to navigate at will. The composition of the movements of both the kite and the board, offer the user a great deal of navigation flexibility and creativity, including the possibility to jump significantly, making this a true 3-dimensional sport.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In some way all wind sports harvest the energy of the wind. The greater the volume of the atmosphere available to be harvested by the sails, the bigger the available energy to propel the users. As a taller sailing ship harvests more energy from the wind, so does a kiteboarder with longer lines. Compared to a kiteboarder, a windsurfer can extract a higher ratio of wind energy from the available atmosphere volume, but since such volume is much smaller, the resulting energy could be much less than in kiteboarding.


title: Kiteboarding

text: To increase the power, the kiteboarder typically navigates the kite along an S-shape path, increasing the harvesting of energy since it is traversing most of the atmosphere volume around him. This S-shaped movement is most common when the kiters need a moderate improvement of power. If the user needs an intense improvement of power, it loops the kite. Such loops are stronger when the loop radius is large, and traverses a larger atmosphere volume. The kite loop is an advanced practice, and its power can be quite dangerous. With most modern kites and control bars, to end a kite loop the user just pushes away or releases the bar.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Regarding the length of the lines connecting the kite to the user, longer lines allow the user to harvest wind energy in a larger volume. Due to the boundary layer effect longer lines also allow to harvest stronger winds higher up in the atmosphere. But longer lines make the kite slower to respond to the user actions on the control bar, since the lines form a more pronounced spring-like catenary. Therefore, kitesurfers, who need to react fast to incoming waves, tend to use shorter lines than the other kiters. For safety reasons the newcomers to the sport are usually trained with short lines, limiting the power build up.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The "wind window" is the 180 degree arc of the sky downwind of the rider in which the kite can be flown - roughly one fourth of a sphere's surface, which radius is the length of the lines. It is the atmosphere volume in which the kiter can navigate the kite to harvest wind energy.


title: Kiteboarding

text: If the rider is facing downwind on a surface, like the ocean, the wind window covers roughly all the area the rider can see, from the rider's peripheral vision on one side, along the horizon to the other side, and then directly overhead back to the first side. If the rider somehow puts the kite out of the window — for example, by riding downwind too quickly and sending the kite directly overhead and behind, the kite will stall and often fall out of the sky.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The eventual inefficiency of the kite can obviate for it to reach the edge of the wind window. In such cases the magnitude of the wind window can be reduced to as little as a 120 degree arc, instead of the expected 180 degree.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The wind window is centered in the user location. Since the user is carried by the board, the wind window is affected by the movement of the board. Therefore, the wind window rotates as the board moves and generates apparent wind into itself. For instance, when the kiter navigates perpendicular to the true wind at a speed equal to the true wind's, the apparent wind felt on the board increases 42% compared to the true wind, but rotates 45º against the movement. With such rotation, even if the user keeps the kite at the very edge of the wind window for trying to keep it pulling in the travelling direction, the kite lines would be at an angle of 45º downwind of the board path, forcing the kiter to edge the board to oppose its tendency to slip downwind. Such board edging is an indispensable technique for navigating upwind, and can be made at a much more extreme angle to the kite lines, almost up to 90º.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The wind window rotation degrades the performance when riding fast in a path upwind. To minimize the wind window rotation and sail upwind as much as possible, the kiter should keep the slowest board speed without sinking the board by lack of hydrodynamic lift. High flotation boards like surfboards are preferable in such cases. Also, keeping the kite high in window, pulling up the user and the board, is quite efficient in coping both with the reduced hydrodynamic lift of the board and with the intended reduction of the board speed.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The kite is a peculiar sail because it can be swept arbitrarily through the atmosphere, usually in specific patterns, so the user can harvest a significant amount of wind energy, much larger than with an equivalent sail fixed to a mast.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The kite and the lines are light, in the range between 2 and 4 kg, but the aerodynamic drag can be significant since the kite can travel much faster than a windsurf sail. Therefore, part of the energy harvested is spent in the movement of the kite itself, but the remainder propels the user and the board.


title: Kiteboarding

text: For instance, a user riding towards the beach rises the kite to slow it down and convert traction into lift. Then, instead of speed he feels an increase of the force upwards, necessary to keep himself above the breaking waves.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Another specific advantage of the kite being able to be swept at will, is that the user can take advantage of the atmosphere boundary layer, either rising the kite to harvest the stronger winds blowing in the higher zone of the wind window, or during overpowering gusts he can drive the kite low, skimming the water near the edge of the wind window.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Seasoned kiteboarders frequently attribute to moist and hotter air a notable reduction in kite performance. In fact the lift force of a kite is proportional to the air density. Since both the temperature and the relative humidity are important detrimental factors in the air density, the kiters subjective valuation is correct.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In the range between 10 °C and 40 °C a kite loses approximately 0.4% of lift per degree Celsius. It means that a kiter practicing one given day in the Baltic, and then travelling to the Mediterranean, could experience 10% less pull using the very same kite at the very same wind speed.


title: Kiteboarding

text: With the development of Internet markets for used goods, used but reliable kiteboarding equipment has become much less expensive, significantly reducing the barrier to the adoption of the sport. Moreover, the sport is convenient regarding transportation and storage, since the kites are foldable and the boards are smaller than most surf and paddling boards.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Equipment depreciation can cost between £270 per year for second hand gear, to £1360 per year for brand new, not discounted kites and accessories.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Leading edge inflatable kites, known also as inflatables, LEI kites, are typically made from ripstop polyester with an inflatable plastic bladder that spans the front edge of the kite with separate smaller bladders that are perpendicular to the main bladder to form the chord or foil of the kite. The inflated bladders give the kite its shape and also keep the kite floating once dropped in the water. LEIs are the most popular choice among kitesurfers thanks to their quicker and more direct response to the rider's inputs, easy relaunchability if crashed into the water and resilient nature. If an LEI kite hits the water or ground too hard or is subjected to substantial wave activity, bladders can burst or it can be torn apart.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2005, Bow kites (also known as flat LEI kites) were developed with features including a concave trailing edge, a shallower arc in planform, and a distinctive bridle with multiple attachment points along the leading edge. These features allow the kite's angle of attack to be altered more and thus adjust the amount of power being generated to a much greater degree than previous LEIs. These kites can be fully depowered, which is a significant safety feature. They can also cover a wider wind range than a comparable C-shaped kite. The ability to adjust the angle of attack also makes them easier to re-launch when lying front first on the water. Bow kites are popular with riders from beginner to advanced levels. Most LEI kite manufacturers developed a variation of the bow kite by 2006. Bow kites with a straight trailing edge are named ´delta´ kites, given their triangular outline.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2006, second generation flat LEI kites were developed which combine near total depower and easy, safe relaunch with higher performance, no performance penalties and reduced bar pressure. Called Hybrid or SLE kites (Supported Leading Edge), these kites are suitable for both beginners and experts.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2008, Naish introduced another kite design, with their "Sigma Series" of kites. These kites are a SLE design and feature a unique "bird in flight" shape with the center of the kite swept back to put much of the sail area behind the tow point, which Naish claims has multiple benefits.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In 2009, the performance revolution shows no sign of slowing. Bridled designs feel more like C kites, and five-line hybrids have better depower capability than ever before. There are more than thirty companies manufacturing Leading edge inflatable kites. The delta-kites are growing in popularity since 2008 with around 12 companies offering delta-kites since 2008/2009.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Between 2009 and 2013 kite technology has continued to grow. Kites have become lighter, more durable, much easier to launch and safer. Manufacturers have continued to add new safety features. This has resulted in a growing number of new riders, both younger and older. In 2013, there are at least 20 "major" kite manufacturers, each with multiple models available. Many of the manufacturers are on their third or fourth generation of kites.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Foil kites are also mostly fabric (ripstop nylon) with air pockets (air cells) to provide it with lift and a fixed bridle to maintain the kite's arc-shape, similar to a paraglider. Foil kites have the advantage of not needing to have bladders manually inflated, a process which, with an LEI, can take up to ten minutes.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kites come in sizes ranging from 0.7 square meters to 21 square meters, or even larger. In general, the larger the surface area, the more power the kite has. Kite power is also directly linked to speed, and smaller kites can be flown faster in stronger winds. The kite size—wind speed curve tapers off, so going to a larger kite to reach lower wind ranges becomes futile at a wind speed of around eight knots. Kites come in a variety of designs. Some kites are more rectangular in shape; others have more tapered ends; each design determines the kite's flying characteristics. 'Aspect ratio' is the ratio of span to length. High aspect ratios (ribbon-like kites) develop more power in lower wind speeds.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Seasoned kiteboarders will likely have three or more kite sizes which are needed to accommodate various wind levels, although bow kites may change this, as they present an enormous wind range; some advanced kiters use only one bow kite. Smaller kites are used by light riders, or in strong wind conditions; larger kites are used by heavier riders or in light wind conditions. Larger and smaller kiteboards have the same effect: with more available power a given rider can ride a smaller board. In general, however, most kiteboarders only need one board and one to three kites (7-12 sq m in size).


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kiteboarding is seen as a mid to high intensity exercise, but freeriding can be a low intensity practice like walking, and is usually done in long sessions of up to 2–3 hours. It is amenable to almost all ages, at least from teenagers up to 70 years old or more. It can be seen as a supplement or a substitute for other fitness practices.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Power kites are powerful enough to pull the rider like a boat in wakeboarding and to lift their users to diving heights. An uncontrolled kite can be dangerous, especially in environments with solid obstacles. A rider can lose control from falling or from sudden wind gusts, which can occur in the presence of strong winds from squalls or storms ("collard").


title: Kiteboarding

text: It is possible to be seriously injured after being lofted, dragged, carried off, blown downwind or dashed, resulting in a collision with hard objects including sand, buildings, terrain or power lines or even by hitting the water surface with sufficient speed or height ("kitemare", a portmanteau of kite and nightmare). Adequate quality professional kiteboarding training, careful development of experience and consistent use of good judgement and safety gear should result in fewer problems in kiteboarding.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Weather forecasting and awareness is the principal factor to safe kiteboarding. Lack of weather awareness and understanding the figures is frequent, but avoiding weather problems is possible. Choice of inappropriate locations for kiteboarding where the wind passes over land creating wind shadow, rotor with pronounced gusts and lulls has also factored in many accidents. Paying attention to the weather and staying within the limits of the riders ability will provide the safest experience. Kitesurfing close to storm fronts can be particularly dangerous due to rapid changes in wind strength and direction.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Lack of a sufficient downwind buffer distance between the kiter and hard objects has contributed to accidents reducing the available distance and time for reaction. Jumping and being airborne at inappropriate places such as shallow water or near fixed or floating objects can be hazardous. Collisions with wind surfers, other kite boarders or water craft are hazards, particularly at busy locations.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Solo kiteboarding has been a frequent contributing cause to accidents; kiteboarders should try to kite with friends and keep an eye on one another. A kitesurfer can get farther from shore than an easy swim, which is the primary reason kitesurfing in directly offshore winds is discouraged. Marine hazards include sharks, jellyfish, sea otters, dolphins, and even crocodiles, depending on the location. Drowning has been a factor in severe accidents as well and may have been avoided in some cases through the use of an appropriate flotation aid or impact vest and development of acceptable swimming skills.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Some kite designs from late 2005 and onwards have included immediate and almost full depower integrated with the control bar and improved quick release mechanisms, both of which are making the sport much safer. However, lack of sufficient practice of emergency depowering the kite and going out in excessively strong or unstable weather can reduce the benefit of high depower kites.Another important part of the safety equipment is the impact vest, which doubles as an improved floatation device. It reduces the severity of eventual impacts, but also improves the user endurance in the long procedures of self-rescue in deep waters, which almost every freeriding kiter experiences sooner or later. It is also important and overlooked as a complement to the harness, precluding it to climb along the chest during powerful kite loops, which otherwise would hurt the ribs.The other important pieces of a reasonable safety kit are the safety hook knife to cut tangled lines, the helmet in a high visibility colour, a wet suit of reasonable thickness, depending on the water temperature, and possibly neoprene boots if the beach has much shellfish or hard rocks.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Accidents can generate serious injuries or even be deadly. 105 accidents were reported in the Kiteboarding Safety Information Database between 2000 and September 2003, with 14 fatalities. In South Africa between October 2003 and April 2004, 83% of search & rescue missions involving kitesurf were in offshore winds with the kite still attached to the harness, uncontrolled in strong winds or impossible to relaunch in weak winds. On 30 missions, there was no fatalities but five injuries : two had bone fractures after being hit by their boards, two others were suffering from critical hypothermia and exhaustion and the fifth was exhausted and lacerated.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Advances in hybrid and bow kite designs leads to a better ability to control the power that they provide and effective safety release systems.


title: Kiteboarding

text: However these figures have to be correctly interpreted, since they do not account for the rate of accidents per hour of practice, which would be the telling index. Kiteboarding lends itself to a rather frequent practice, much like a gym program, arguably more frequent than other risky sports like scuba diving. Therefore, further data is required to properly evaluate the risk associated with kiteboarding.


title: Kiteboarding

text: While some countries have specific regulations on flying kites that may also apply to kitesurfing, most don't. However a kitesurfer should comply to the sailing rules regulating water crafts in many countries, like the U.S. Coast Guard regulations. Developed from such generic rules a set of kitesurf specific rules or recommendations has been taking form since the beginning of the sport.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The first such rule is the prudential rule: with so many people just discovering water sports, a kiter shouldn't assume others adequate knowledge, training or even proper attitude, and be prepared to observe self-preserving distances and always let the others perceive clearly its intentions and its intended path.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Waterstarters have priority: the rider going out from the beach has always priority over the riders coming in.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Kite High Rule - A kiter who is upwind (closest to the wind) must keep their kite high to avoid their lines crossing those of downwind kiters. Similarly, the downwind kiter must keep their kite low to avoid their lines crossing upwind kites. This applies regardless of whether kiters are on the same, or opposing courses.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Clearance Rule - A kiter while jumping must have a clear safety zone of at least 50m downwind because they will move downwind during the jump. A rider must also have a clear safety zone of 30m upwind to jump as his lines could touch the kite or the lines of another rider kiteboarding close by (see Kite High rule). It's important to also consider potential hazards downwind and crosswind of the rider such as people, buildings, trees and other fixed obstacles. Because of the clearance rule a jumper never has the right of way.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Starboard Rule When kiters approach from opposite directions the kiter who has the wind on the starboard (right side, right leg/arm leads in direction of travel) has right of way. The kiter who has the wind on the port side (left side, left leg/arm are leads in direction of travel) shall keep out of the way of the other. In simple terms, this means "keep right" with the kiter coming in the opposite direction passing on the left.


title: Kiteboarding

text: In sailing terms, a sailor or kiter with right of way is entitled to "insist" on exercising that right (warning opposing kiters) by shouting "starboard" clearly and in good time.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Many of the sailing rules of right of way are different expressions that the most maneuverable craft should give way to the less maneuverable one. Therefore, kiters should give way to fishing vessels, but not to a jet ski. Other boating rules such as no-go zones, distance from shore and swimmers also apply. Also surfing rules do apply, so for instance, the rider to catch a wave closer to the crest has the right of way even if not on a starboard tack, freeriders included.


title: Kiteboarding

text: , the number of kitesurfers was estimated by the ISAF and IKA at 1.5 million persons worldwide (pending review). The global market for kite gear sales is worth US$250 million. The markets related to kiteboarding keep developing at a very interesting pace, as seen in these statistics from 2012:


title: Kiteboarding

text: Keep in mind that a kiteboarding quiver for a single user could typically include 2-4 kites and 2-3 boards. With the innovation associated with foil boards and foil kites these numbers will increase. With the exception of foil kites, these equipment pieces are quite rugged and would last from 3 up to 10 years of active use, and be repaired and resold several times. This aftermarket further improves the market development, removing cost barriers for newbies which improves the popularity of the sport, and eventually could bring up new products and services based on a much larger market scale. In locations like Portugal in 2018, a newcomer to kiteboarding typically buys a proper hands-on tutorial and then buys a basic set of used equipment for an overall total below €1000.


title: Kiteboarding

text: The sport is utterly convenient regarding transportation and storage, since the kites are foldable and the boards are smaller than surf and paddling boards. Compared to other sailing sports, kiteboarding is among the less expensive and more convenient. Moreover, nearby most metropolitan areas, it can be practised almost all year long, since it just requires some wind and a reasonably flat surface, like an estuary, a lake, a sandy strip, or a snow flat.


title: Kiteboarding

text: Despite the image of a youth radical sport, many newcomers are middle age, older than the typical wakeboard or snowboard practitioners. Such trends are quite conspicuous, not so much in the trendy summer holiday locations, but in the low season in metropolitan areas around the globe, where kiteboarding is becoming a regular practice for people of middle income, living in apartments not so close to the waterfront, for a short evasion and substituting for the gym.


title: Ikemen

text: The term is a portmanteau neologism derived from the Japanese words (いける) or and (メンズ). and mean "cool", "good" and "exciting", while is the Japanization of "men". This term has been


title: Ikemen

text: Ikemen are typically characterized as being sharply dressed individuals with slanted, intelligent eyes, husky voices, slender wrists and fingers, a manly build, an unruffled appearance, pale skin, and clean smelling with an air of mystery around them. Ikemen are


title: Ikemen

text: typically reserved with the ability to become passionate in their interests with the impression that they are literary geniuses.


title: Ikemen

text: It is believed that the concept of ikemen and older, masculine men may have stemmed from a stylized transformation of the aesthetic of a beautiful boy-like nobleman during the Edo period in kabuki plays.


title: Ikemen

text: The concept of ikemen has been developed for various Japanese dramas such as "Ikemen desu ne ("美男ですね")" and Korean dramas such as "Winter Sonata" (겨울연가), and "Stairway to Heaven ("천국의 계단")". Unlike popular men in American culture who are popular due to their outstanding physical and personal attributes, ikemen often focus on “feminine” qualities that balance out masculine qualities of a good looking man. Ikemen in Korean and Japanese dramas are showcased as having patience, gentleness, and the ability to self-sacrifice for the woman they love while being able to express a wide range of human emotion. These traits are seen as desirable, as Japanese culture finds clever, self-centered, and larger than life figures to be both intimidating and appealing.


title: Ikemen

text: Ikemen characters are seen in various genres of anime and manga, especially in dating simulations and visual novels for women (also known as otome games). Men in visual novels such as "Hakouki: Demon of the Fleeting Blossom" (薄桜鬼 〜新選組奇譚〜) and manga such as "Ikemen Paradise" (花ざかりの君たちへ イケメン♂パラダイス) often are portrayed as mysterious, strong, damaged, and passionate men who often have a throng of female admirers.


title: Ikemen

text: Professional wrestler Jiro Kuroshio portrays an Ikemen character, reflected in his ring attire, hair, wrestling style and mannerisms. He has also adopted "Ikemen" as part of his ring name.


title: Everything Everything

text: Everything Everything are an English art rock band from Manchester that formed in late 2007. Noted for their eclectic sound and complex, sociopolitical lyrics, the band have released six albums to date – 2010's "Man Alive", 2013's "Arc", 2015's "Get to Heaven", 2017's "A Fever Dream", 2020's "Re-Animator" and 2022's "Raw Data Feel" – and have been widely critically acclaimed. Their work has twice been shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize and has received five nominations for Ivor Novello Awards.


title: Everything Everything

text: Three of the original band members are from Northumberland, England - Jonathan Higgs (lead vocals, keyboards, laptop and guitar) grew up in the border village of Gilsland while Michael Spearman (drums, vocals) and Alex Niven (guitars, vocals) are from Newbrough. The three met at Queen Elizabeth High School in Hexham where they played music together.


title: Everything Everything

text: While Spearman attended Berklee College of Music and Leeds College of Music to study jazz drumming, Higgs went on to study for a degree in Popular Music and Recording at Salford University, where he met Hampshire-born bass player Jeremy Pritchard. Pritchard moved to Tunbridge Wells at a very young age and regularly played at the Tunbridge Wells Forum in his teenage years. Higgs and Pritchard decided to form a band once their degree had finished. Initially they collaborated in the Salford-based math rock trio Modern Bison (with Higgs on drums, Pritchard on guitar and Sam Carswell on guitar and vocals), which released one album, "I Could Have Had a Rustic Pagoda" on unlabel in 2006.


title: Everything Everything

text: Towards the end of 2006, Higgs and Niven devised plans to start a band "with a sort of Paul Morley-inspired, poptimist aesthetic". Niven has described the band's naming process as follows: "The idea as I saw it was to try to take contemporary R&B pop music and fashion a vaguely Futurist project out of it, and between the two of us we chose the name Everything Everything, a détournement of sorts of an over-saturated media culture into something idealistic and expansive". Ultimately the band took the name Everything Everything from the first two words of the Radiohead song "Everything In Its Right Place", the opening track to their album "Kid A". With the addition of Pritchard and Spearman, the band began performing in the autumn of 2007. Pritchard recalls "we were initially more punky, with more guitars and no synths at all. It was easiest to play gigs like this and to get to grips with playing together. But the plan was always to expand the sound when we had the scope/could afford the gear!"


title: Everything Everything

text: Quickly gaining attention from the music industry, the band began working with producer David Kosten (Bat for Lashes, Faultline). Everything Everything released their first single "Suffragette Suffragette" on 1 December 2008 through XL Recordings offshoot Salvia as a limited 7" vinyl release only. This was later followed by the release of single "Photoshop Handsome", which saw the group incorporate synths in their sound for the first time, on 20 July 2009, available only as a limited 7" single. In autumn 2009, the band then released "My Kz, Ur Bf" as another vinyl-only release, this time with the record label Young & Lost Club. All three singles were released with accompanying music videos, with those for "Suffragette Suffragette" and "Photoshop Handsome" made entirely by the band themselves.


title: Everything Everything

text: At this point, Niven left the band to pursue a career in academia and was replaced by Guernsey-born guitarist Alex Robertshaw, whose former band Operahouse had split up a few months previously.


title: Everything Everything

text: Everything Everything made the longlist of the BBC Sound of 2010 on 7 December 2009, a list created by Britain's tastemakers who vote for their favourite new artists.


title: Everything Everything

text: Not long after the nomination for BBC Sound of 2010, Everything Everything signed to the UK arm of Geffen Records before releasing the single "Schoolin'" on 10 June 2010 as a CD single, digital download and also as a 7" vinyl. The single became the first to make an impact on the charts, debuting at number 152.


title: Everything Everything

text: The band's debut album "Man Alive" (produced by David Kosten) was released on 27 August 2010 and was preceded by a reissue of the single "My Kz, Ur Bf" on 23 August 2010, debuting on the UK Singles Chart at number 121. The album was then released a week later, debuting on the UK Albums Chart at number 17.


title: Everything Everything

text: "Man Alive" received high critical praise from some reviewers, though others were critical. "NME" dubbed the band as "pop's new Picassos" and commented "there are three dirty words in indie right now: ambition, intellect and effort. Everything Everything don't just fit those terms, they pole-vault over them." "BBC Music" hailed the band's "brilliance" and noted "this Manchester quartet flee from any identikit indie clique, throwing ever-changing, protean sonic shapes... EE are wilfully eccentric, and endlessly entertaining, but they know more than most how to craft a song, how to make an album. They know how to give it depth, light and dark, and they – crucially – know when to stop." "Drowned in Sound" praised the band's "sheer, rampant confidence" and described the album as containing "some pretty spiffy stuff...this is a band going places – they know it, and we know it." Writing in "Pitchfork", Ian Cohen commented that the album was "proof that enthusiastic experimentation can't save your end product when the underlying elements are so incompatible and unappetizing" and criticized Higgs's "irritating voice". On 19 July 2011 "Man Alive" was shortlisted for the 2011 Mercury Prize, although it lost out to PJ Harvey's "Let England Shake".


title: Everything Everything

text: In May 2011, Everything Everything performed at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Carlisle. This was a gig close to home for Jonathan Higgs, who grew up in Gilsland only a few miles away. On 28 November 2011 (along with local Manchester musicians Badly Drawn Boy and I Am Kloot) Everything Everything performed as part of the Billie Butterfly charity concert, raising funds for American medical treatment for Billie Bainbridge, a local young girl diagnosed with a rare brain tumour.


title: Everything Everything

text: In 2012, Everything Everything resumed work with David Kosten on sessions for their second album. The first single from the sessions was "Cough Cough", released on 28 August 2012: following which the band announced that their second album "Arc" would be released in early 2013. New material from this album was performed in a UK tour spanning 13 September to 26 October 2012.


title: Everything Everything

text: "Arc" was released on 14 January 2013, and debuted at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. Higgs noted that in comparison to the complexity of the songs on "Man Alive", the songwriting on "Arc" was intended to be a simpler distillation of his ideas and a more direct expression of his emotion. In an interview with the "New Statesman", he explained that the new album was "far more open. It's far less cluttered and far less difficult to work out what's going on or what I'm saying. I think we tried to straighten it out and make it less distracting and more solid and strong. There are fewer places to hide I think, so that's the main thing. It's clear now who's doing what. It took us a long time to be confident enough to do that."


title: Everything Everything

text: The album was hailed as "another tour de force" by "The Observer", although "The Guardian" was more sparing with praise - "Jerky opener Cough Cough may showcase them at their most self-consciously wacky, but The Peaks is at the opposite end of the spectrum, attempting the kind of stadium melancholia beloved of Elbow or Coldplay. Inevitably, "Arc" lacks coherence; it's the sound of a band working out who they want to be. Hopefully that'll be the band that combines both modes seamlessly, as they do on Kemosabe and Armourland, a sleek piece of robo-pop that links social breakdown with the emotional barriers we all put up.".


title: Everything Everything

text: "NME" regarded the album as "a leaner, more relatable beast than its predecessor... The self-conscious straining to be regarded as innovators and iconoclasts that occasionally muddled their debut is absent here: this is a record less bothered about surface than it is about feeling... Slowly but surely, they are progressing towards something extraordinary." The review also called attention to the album's themes of technology and human response: "Pop's young futurists have written an album about how terrifying the future is. The intertwined themes of technology and disconnection are prevalent through "Arc"."


title: Everything Everything

text: "Kemosabe" went on to be nominated as Best Contemporary Song at the 2014 Ivor Novello Awards, and to win UK Single of the Year at the Music Producers Guild Awards.


title: Everything Everything

text: On 17 February 2015, the band released the single "Distant Past" with Zane Lowe on BBC Radio 1 naming it the 'Hottest Record in the World'. The band's third studio album, "Get to Heaven", was released on 22 June 2015. BBC Entertainment reporter Mark Savage said: "Ebola, missing airplanes, beheadings, the rise of UKIP. They're not the usual topics for a top 40 chart act, but that's exactly what alt-pop band Everything Everything have been writing about over the past year [...] The lyrics were inspired when the Manchester band took a year off from touring, and Higgs started watching rolling news on a loop". Higgs told Savage, "After we'd finished the record, I read the lyrics back and I realised I'd written a horror bible".


title: Everything Everything

text: The video for the band's single 'Spring / Sun / Winter / Dread' was shared on 31 July 2015. The video sees the band's frontman Jonathan Higgs take over production. He said via a press release, "The song talks about seasons passing and getting older, so we wanted to concentrate on the Sun and make it into a kind of oppressive force – positive and life-giving but also burning and destructive. We used Ultra-Violet and Infra-Red cameras to get a look at the sun damage on our skin, and give everything an alien look. We shot in a quarry so we could have a clear horizon and a dry, hot, desert scene. Most of the sun effects were completed afterwards because we picked a rainy day to shoot, though we did spray everything silver in order to get some good light reflections and add to the heatproof/astronaut feel."


title: Everything Everything

text: On 2 September 2016, Everything Everything released the single "I Believe It Now" for BT Sport to use for Premier League shows. They also announced they were working on a fourth album, with Higgs commenting that its lyrics would "inevitably" be affected by Brexit.


title: Everything Everything

text: On 13 June 2017, Everything Everything announced their fourth album "A Fever Dream" by releasing the single "Can't Do". The album was later released on 18 August 2017 to strong reviews, with "The Guardian" declaring "if pop culture continues on its dorky course, it will be only a matter of time before these nerds rule." Marcy Donelson of AllMusic wrote: "A Fever Dream is confrontational, warped, emotionally and aurally high-contrast, and full of turmoil, but reliable in its infectiousness." The album also received commercial success, peaking at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. Following the success of the album, the band went on tour in spring 2018. Speaking to "The Independent", Higgs says "The lyrics are definitely more personal here, [...] You can't always be talking about the bigger things, you sometimes need to talk about what's close to you."


title: Everything Everything

text: This album saw the band's second Mercury Prize nomination, this time in 2018. They later won Album of the Year (2019) at the Music Producers Guild Awards.


title: Everything Everything

text: Then, on 27 February 2018, Everything Everything released the EP "A Deeper Sea" in advance of their upcoming tour. The EP received positive reviews, with "The Edge" saying "[their] latest four-track EP shows them to be, as ever, finely attuned to the untidy rhythms of modern society." and rating it 4/5 stars. The EP was prompted by Higgs reading "some shocking statistics on male suicide" and going on to write the first track, "The Mariana". The remainder of the EP consists of an unreleased track from "A Fever Dream": "Breadwinner", a remix of "Ivory Tower" (from "A Fever Dream") by Tom Vek, and a cover of "Don't Let It Bring You Down" by Neil Young that had been recorded in 2017 for Annie Mac's Radio 1 show.


title: Everything Everything

text: "A Deeper Sea" was Everything Everything's last release for RCA. Subsequent releases would appear on their own Infinity Industries label via distributors AWAL (Artists Without a Label).


title: Everything Everything

text: On 23 April 2020, the band released the single "In Birdsong" with a music video directed by Higgs. Their fifth album "Re-Animator" was announced on 13 May 2020 alongside the single "Arch Enemy", with a music video directed by Higgs later released on 27 May 2020. On 18 June 2020, the band released a third single "Planets", with a music video directed again by Higgs. On 28 July 2020, the band released the fourth single "Violent Sun", again with a music video by Higgs. The music video saw use of the band's damaged instruments from a recent fire that occurred in their studio lockup, with the description reading "We decided to use our destroyed instruments one last time before we threw them out, filming ourselves and each other. Violent Sun is about desperately holding on to the moment before it passes forever." "Re-Animator" was released on 11 September 2020, alongside the music video for "Big Climb". The album received commercial success by peaking at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart. On 15 December 2020, a music video directed by Kit Monteith and Jonathan Higgs for the track "Black Hyena" was released.


title: Everything Everything

text: On 10 March 2021, the band released the single "Supernormal". The music video, released on the same day, was directed by Jonathan Higgs, with the song's lyrics being inspired by supernormal stimuli. On 12 June 2021, Everything Everything released the "Supernormal" EP exclusively on 10" vinyl for Record Store Day 2021. The EP consisted of the previously released single "Supernormal", an unreleased track from "Re-Animator," "Mercury & Me", and remixes of "Re-Animator" tracks "Big Climb" and "Black Hyena" by Jack Bevan of Foals and IOE AIE respectively. A digital release and music video directed by Higgs for the track "Mercury & Me" were later released on 17 June 2021.


title: Everything Everything

text: On 7 February 2022, Everything Everything announced their sixth album, "Raw Data Feel", later released on 20 May 2022. Alongside the announcement they released the single "Bad Friday" with a music video directed by Kit Monteith and Jonathan Higgs. The band incorporated text and imagery generated by artificial intelligence for the album's song titles, lyrics and artwork. The band also announced the book "Caps Lock On", containing the lyrics to every Everything Everything song to date, due for release the same day. On 9 March 2022, the band released a second single, "Teletype", the album's opener. It was released alongside a music video created by Higgs, consisting of human faces generated by AI singing along to the song. On 28 March 2022, the band released the third single "I Want a Love Like This" alongside a music video directed by Kit Monteith. A fourth single, "Pizza Boy", was released on 4 May 2022 with a video filmed during the band's UK Spring 2022 tour. A music video directed by Krishna Muthurangu for the track "Jennifer" was released on the same day as the album.


title: Everything Everything

text: The album reached a peak of number 4 in the UK Album Charts, making it their highest-charting release to date. It was also released to critical praise, with "The Line of Best Fit" writing "Through a dizzying blend of experimentation, innovation and stylistic idiosyncrasy Everything Everything have created another peerless record with "Raw Data Feel", one which proves once more that the horizons the band chases are theirs and theirs alone" and giving the album a 9/10.


title: Everything Everything

text: Everything Everything are noted for an extremely eclectic and dynamic style, with complex song construction and dense, detailed lyrics sung in a rapid-fire, falsetto delivery by Jonathan Higgs. While nominally an alternative rock band with outright pop stylings, the band uses production and rhythmic approaches closer to those of contemporary R&B, glitch pop and electronica (including heavy use of laptop programming and processing) and songwriting approaches similar to those of progressive or psychedelic rock. Critic Paul Lester has compared Everything Everything's sound to "a riot in a melody factory" and compared them to "Timbaland if he cocked an oblique ear to Yes". In the Guardian, Mark Beaumont described the band as "the most intricate, streamlined merging yet of math rock's arch complexities, electronica's 80s obsession and hooks made from mobile phone interference." Whilst Higgs' lyrics often address sociopolitical themes and the impact of late capitalism and technology on modern society, he has stated that he does not want to be defined as a "political" songwriter. Tim Smith of the band Cardiacs was an early champion of the band.


title: Everything Everything

text: When asked about their sound in an interview with UK music blog "There Goes the Fear" in Leeds in October 2010, singer Jonathan Higgs replied, "We think of it as rock primarily. We try not to make it sound like a lot of things you’ve heard before, not on purpose, but it tends to come out a bit like that. We’re not really interested in copying certain genres or anything, so I guess you’d say it’s unpredictable and sort of surprising." Higgs has counted Nirvana, Radiohead, the Beatles, Destiny's Child, and R. Kelly as some of the band's very eclectic stock of influences.


title: Everything Everything

text: Bassist Jeremy Pritchard has said the band's intention is "to avoid cliche, or the cliches expected of white men with guitars from Manchester" and sums up their sound as "highly stylised and deracinated – we're influenced by everything except 12-bar blues." He's also commented "There are no genres I can think of that we haven’t learnt something from. We all share a huge number of basic passions like Radiohead, but we all come from different areas of popular music: jazz and funk; modern US R'n'B, prog and krautrock, post-rock/punk/hardcore. And we all love good honest pop. We’re a rock band as far as we're concerned." He's noted that the band's lyrics are "almost always layered with several meanings, and play with puns, quotes or alliteration a fair amount, but never just for the sake of it."


title: Everything Everything

text: In an interview with the "Irish Times", drummer Michael Spearman said "It sounds quite cheesy, but stuff like Destiny’s Child has proven just as important as The Beatles and Radiohead. I suppose that love of R'n'B comes through in a way. We don't normally say 'we want this song to sound like this or that', we try to be as organic as possible. It's like with The Beatles – they were trying to play the black music of the day, and by doing so, they sort of changed it, it became a different thing. We thought about... trying to get Timbaland in, or something. But we decided against it, because it's a fine line between filtering that music, or just trying to ape it by going to the source of it... We all love Michael Jackson and stuff like that; dance music in general, or just that sort of syncopated music. That's something that connects all of us."


title: NCIS (season 16)

text: The sixteenth season of the American police procedural drama "NCIS" originally aired from September 25, 2018, through May 21, 2019, at the same time slot as in the previous seasons, Tuesdays at 8:00 p.m. and contained 24 episodes.


title: NCIS (season 16)

text: "NCIS" revolves around a fictional team of special agents from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, which conducts criminal investigations involving the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps.


title: NCIS (season 16)

text: Season 16 revolves around two major storylines after the premiere concludes the plot from the previous season's finale: a season-long arc involving a vigilante justice ring, and the reveal that Ziva David is actually alive halfway through the season. The latter fact is confirmed by her physical appearance in the final moments of the finale, "Daughters". This season takes on a darker undertone for Gibbs as he reveals to his team that he killed the man responsible for his wife Shannon and daughter Kelly's deaths.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Earth's outer core is a fluid layer about thick, composed of mostly iron and nickel that lies above Earth's solid inner core and below its mantle. The outer core begins approximately beneath Earth's surface at the core-mantle boundary and ends beneath Earth's surface at the inner core boundary.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Unlike Earth's solid, inner core, its outer core is liquid. Evidence for a fluid outer core includes seismology which shows that seismic shear-waves are not transmitted through the outer core. Although having a composition similar to Earth's solid inner core, the outer core remains liquid as there is not enough pressure to keep it in a solid state.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Seismic inversions of body waves and normal modes constrain the radius of the outer core to be 3483 km with an uncertainty of 5 km, while that of the inner core is 1220±10 km.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Estimates for the temperature of the outer core are about in its outer region and near the inner core. Modeling has shown that the outer core, because of its high temperature, is a low-viscosity fluid that convects turbulently. The dynamo theory sees eddy currents in the nickel-iron fluid of the outer core as the principal source of Earth's magnetic field. The average magnetic field strength in Earth's outer core is estimated to be 2.5 millitesla, 50 times stronger than the magnetic field at the surface.


title: Earth's outer core

text: As Earth's core cools, the liquid at the inner core boundary freezes, causing the solid inner core to grow at the expense of the outer core, at an estimated rate of 1 mm per year. This is approximately 80,000 tonnes of iron per second.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Earth's outer core cannot be entirely constituted of iron or iron-nickel alloy because their densities are higher than geophysical measurements of the density of Earth's outer core. In fact, Earth's outer core is approximately 5 to 10 percent lower density than iron at Earth's core temperatures and pressures. Hence it has been proposed that light elements with low atomic numbers comprise part of Earth's outer core, as the only feasible way to lower its density. Although Earth's outer core is inaccessible to direct sampling, the composition of light elements can be meaningfully constrained by high-pressure experiments, calculations based on seismic measurements, models of Earth's accretion, and carbonaceous chondrite meteorite comparisons with bulk silicate Earth (BSE). Recent estimates are that Earth's outer core is composed of iron along with 0 to 0.26 percent hydrogen, 0.2 percent carbon, 0.8 to 5.3 percent oxygen, 0 to 4.0 percent silicon, 1.7 percent sulfur, and 5 percent nickel by weight, and the temperature of the core-mantle boundary and the inner core boundary ranges from 4,137 to 4,300 K and from 5,400 to 6,300 K respectively.


title: Earth's outer core

text: The variety of light elements present in Earth's outer core is constrained in part by Earth's accretion. Namely, the light elements contained must have been abundant during Earth's formation, must be able to partition into liquid iron at low pressures, and must not volatilize and escape during Earth's accretionary process.


title: Earth's outer core

text: CI chondritic meteorites are believed to contain the same planet-forming elements in the same proportions as in the early Solar System, so differences between CI meteorites and BSE can provide insights into the light element composition of Earth's outer core. For instance, the depletion of silicon in BSE compared to CI meteorites may indicate that silicon was absorbed into Earth's core; however, a wide range of silicon concentrations in Earth's outer and inner core is still possible.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Tighter constraints on the concentrations of light elements in Earth's outer core would provide a better understanding of Earth's accretion and core formation history.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Models of Earth's accretion could be better tested if we had better constraints on light element concentrations in Earth's outer core. For example, accretionary models based on core-mantle element partitioning tend to support proto-Earths constructed from reduced, condensed, and volatile-free material, despite the possibility that oxidized material from the outer Solar System was accreted towards the conclusion of Earth's accretion. If we could better constrain the concentrations of hydrogen, oxygen, and silicon in Earth's outer core, models of Earth's accretion that match these concentrations would presumably better constrain Earth’s formation.


title: Earth's outer core

text: The depletion of siderophile elements in Earth's mantle compared to chondritic meteorites is attributed to metal-silicate reactions during formation of Earth's core. These reactions are dependent on oxygen, silicon, and sulfur, so better constraints on concentrations of these elements in Earth's outer core will help elucidate the conditions of formation of Earth's core.


title: Earth's outer core

text: In another example, the possible presence of hydrogen in Earth's outer core suggests that the accretion of Earth’s water was not limited to the final stages of Earth's accretion and that water may have been absorbed into core-forming metals through a hydrous magma ocean.


title: Earth's outer core

text: Earth's magnetic field is driven by thermal convection and also by chemical convection, the exclusion of light elements from the inner core, which float upward within the fluid outer core while denser elements sink. This chemical convection releases gravitational energy that is then available to power the geodynamo that produces Earth's magnetic field. Carnot efficiencies with large uncertainties suggest that compositional and thermal convection contribute about 80 percent and 20 percent respectively to the power of Earth's geodynamo. Traditionally it was thought that prior to the formation of Earth's inner core Earth's geodynamo was mainly driven by thermal convection. However, recent claims that the thermal conductivity of iron at core temperatures and pressures is much higher than previously thought imply that core cooling was largely by conduction not convection, limiting the ability of thermal convection to drive the geodynamo. This conundrum is known as the new "core paradox." An alternative process that could have sustained Earth's geodynamo requires Earth's core to have initially been hot enough to dissolve oxygen, magnesium, silicon, and other light elements. As the Earth's core began to cool, it would become supersaturated in these light elements that would then precipitate into the lower mantle forming oxides leading to a different variant of chemical convection.


title: Elmina Castle

text: Elmina Castle was erected by the Portuguese in 1482 as Castelo de São Jorge da Mina ("St. George of the Mine Castle"), also known as "Castelo da Mina" or simply "Mina" (or "Feitoria da Mina"), in present-day Elmina, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast). It was the first trading post built on the Gulf of Guinea, and the oldest European building in existence south of the Sahara. First established as a trade settlement, the castle later became one of the most important stops on the route of the Atlantic slave trade. The Dutch seized the fort from the Portuguese in 1637, after an unsuccessful attempt in 1596, and took over all of the Portuguese Gold Coast in 1642. The slave trade continued under the Dutch until 1814. In 1872, the Dutch Gold Coast, including the fort, became a possession of Great Britain.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The Gold Coast, which is now Ghana, gained its independence in 1957 from Britain, and had control of the castle. Elmina Castle is a historical site, and was a major filming location for Werner Herzog's 1987 drama film "Cobra Verde". The castle is recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site, along with other castles and forts in Ghana, because of its testimony to the Atlantic slave trade. It is also a major tourist attraction in the central region of Ghana.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The people living along the West African coast at Elmina around the fifteenth century were presumably Fante. The Fante ethnicity bears an uncertain relationship to "Akan," itself a word connoting originality from the root word, "kan", to be first or original. Among their ancestors were merchants and miners trading gold into the Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds from medieval times. The ancestors of the Akan-speakers of the forests, however, undoubtedly came from north of the forest.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The people on the West African coast were organized into numerous populations that were drawn according to kinship lines. Family was extremely important in society, and family heads were united in communities under a recognized local authority. Along the Gold Coast alone, more than twenty independent kingdom-states existed. Elmina lay between two different Fante kingdoms, Fetu and Eguafo.


title: Elmina Castle

text: West Africans nurtured ancient connections to other parts of the world. Common metals trade, iconic artistic forms, and agricultural borrowing show that trans-Saharan and regional coastal connections thrived. The Portuguese in 1471 were the first Europeans to visit the Gold Coast as such, but not necessarily the first sailors to reach the port.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The Portuguese first reached what became known as the Gold Coast in 1471. Prince Henry the Navigator first sent ships to explore the African coast in 1418. The Portuguese had several motives for voyaging south. They were attracted by rumors of fertile African lands that were rich in gold and ivory. They also sought a southern route to India so as to circumvent Arab traders and establish direct trade with Asia. In line with the strong religious sentiments of the time, another focus of the Portuguese was Christian proselytism. They also sought to form an alliance with the legendary Prester John, who was believed to be the leader of a great Christian nation somewhere far from Europe.


title: Elmina Castle

text: These motives prompted the Portuguese to develop the Guinea trade. They made gradual progress down the African coast, each voyage reaching a point further along than the last. After fifty years of coastal exploration, the Portuguese finally reached Elmina in 1471, during the reign of King Afonso V. However, because Portuguese royalty had lost interest in African exploration as a result of meager returns, the Guinea trade was put under the oversight of the Portuguese trader, Fernão Gomes. Upon reaching present day Elmina, Gomes discovered a thriving gold trade already established among the natives and visiting Arab and Berber traders. He established his own trading post, and it became known to the Portuguese as "A Mina" (the Mine) because of the gold that could be found there.


title: Elmina Castle

text: Trade between Elmina and Portugal grew throughout the decade following the establishment of the trading post under Gomes. In 1481, the recently crowned João II decided to build a fort on the coast in order to ensure the protection of this trade, which was once again held as a royal monopoly. King João sent all of the materials needed to build the fort on ten caravels and two transport ships. The supplies, which included everything from heavy foundation stones to roof tiles, were sent, in pre-fitted form, along with provisions for six hundred men. Under the command of Diogo de Azambuja, the fleet set sail on 12 December 1481 and arrived at Elmina, in a village called Of Two Parts a little over a month later, on 19 January 1482. Some historians note that Christopher Columbus was among those to make the voyage to the Gold Coast with this fleet.


title: Elmina Castle

text: Upon arrival, Azambuja contracted a Portuguese trader, who had lived at Elmina for some time, to arrange and interpret an official meeting with the local chief, Kwamin Ansah (interpreted from the Portuguese, ""Caramansa""). Azambuja told the chief of the great advantages in building a fort, including protection from the very powerful king of Portugal.


title: Elmina Castle

text: During the meeting, Azambuja and Chief Kwamin Ansah both participated in a massive peace ritual that included a feast, musicians, and many participants, both Portuguese and native.


title: Elmina Castle

text: Chief Kwamin Ansah, while accepting Azambuja, as he had any other Portuguese trader who arrived on his coast, was wary of a permanent settlement. However, with firm plans already in place, the Portuguese would not be deterred. After offering gifts, making promises, and hinting at the consequences of noncompliance, the Portuguese finally received Kwamin Ansah's reluctant agreement.


title: Elmina Castle

text: When construction began the next morning, the chief's reluctance was proved to be well-founded. In order to build the fort in the most defensible position on the peninsula, the Portuguese had to demolish the homes of some of the villagers, who consented only after they had been compensated. The Portuguese also tried to quarry a nearby rock that the people of Elmina, who were animists, believed to be the home of the god of the nearby River Benya. Prior to the demolition of the quarry and homes, Azambuja sent a Portuguese crew member, João Bernaldes with gifts to deliver to Chief Kwamin Ansah and the villagers. Azambuja sent brass basins, shawls, and other gifts in hopes of winning the goodwill of the villagers, so they would not be upset during the demolition of their homes and sacred rocks. However, João Bernaldes did not deliver the gifts until after construction began, by which time the villagers became upset upon witnessing the demolition without forewarning or compensation. In response to this, the local people forged an attack that resulted in several Portuguese deaths. Finally, an understanding was reached, but continued opposition led the Portuguese to burn the local village in retaliation. Even in this tense atmosphere, the first story of the tower was completed after only twenty days; this was the result of having brought so much prefabricated building materials. The remainder of the fort and an accompanying church were completed soon afterwards, despite resistance.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The fort was the first prefabricated building of European origin to have been planned and executed in Sub-Saharan Africa. Upon its completion, Elmina was established as a proper city. Azambuja was named governor, and King João added the title "Lord of Guinea" to his noble titles. São Jorge da Mina took on the military and economic importance that had previously been held by the Portuguese factory at Arguim Island on the southern edge of Mauritania. At the height of the gold trade in the early sixteenth century, 24,000 ounces of gold were exported annually from the Gold Coast, accounting for one-tenth of the world's supply.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The new fort, signifying the permanent involvement of Europeans in West Africa, had a considerable effect on Africans living on the coast. At the urging of the Portuguese, Elmina declared itself an independent state whose Governor then took control of the town's affairs. The people of Elmina were offered Portuguese protection against attacks from neighbouring coastal tribes, with whom the Portuguese had much less genial relations (even though they were friendly with the powerful trading nations in the African interior). If any locals attempted to trade with a nation other than Portugal, the Portuguese reacted with aggressive force, often by forming alliances with the betraying nation's enemies. Hostility between groups increased, and the traditional organization of native societies suffered, especially after the Portuguese introduced them to fire-arms, which made the dominance of the stronger nations easier.


title: Elmina Castle

text: Trade with the Europeans helped make certain goods, such as cloth and beads, more available to the coastal people, but European involvement also disrupted traditional trade routes between coastal people and northern people by cutting out the African middlemen. The population of Elmina swelled with traders from other towns hoping to trade with the Portuguese, who gradually established a West African monopoly.


title: Elmina Castle

text: From the outset, the Portuguese authorities determined that São Jorge da Mina would not engage directly in the slave trade, as they did not wish to disrupt the gold mining and trade routes of its hinterland with the wars necessary to capture free people and enslave them. Instead, the Portuguese had captives shipped to São Jorge da Mina from elsewhere, notably the Slave Coast (Benin) and São Tomé. São Jorge da Mina served as a transshipment entrepôt.


title: Elmina Castle

text: By the seventeenth century, most trade in West Africa concentrated on the sale of slaves. São Jorge da Mina played a significant part in the West African slave trade. The castle acted as a depot where enslaved Africans were brought in from different Kingdoms in West Africa. The Africans, often captured in the African interior by the slave-catchers of coastal peoples, were sold to Portuguese and later to Dutch traders in exchange for goods such as textiles and horses.


title: Elmina Castle

text: In 1596, the Dutch made a first unsuccessful attempt at capturing the castle, succeeded by a successful one in 1637, after which it was made the capital of the Dutch Gold Coast. During the period of Dutch control a new, smaller fortress was built on a nearby hill to protect St. George's Castle from inland attacks; this fort was called Fort Coenraadsburg. The Dutch continued the triangular Atlantic slave route until 1814, when they abolished the slave trade, pursuant to the Anglo-Dutch Slave Trade Treaty.


title: Elmina Castle

text: In 1872, the British took over the Dutch territory and the fort pursuant to the Anglo-Dutch Sumatra treaties of 1871.


title: Elmina Castle

text: The castle was extensively restored by the Ghanaian government in the 1990s. Renovation of the castle continues. Today, Elmina's economy is sustained by tourism and fishing. Elmina Castle is preserved as a Ghanaian national museum and the monument was designated as a World Heritage Monument under UNESCO in 1979. It is a place of pilgrimage for many African Americans seeking to connect with their long-lost heritage. Renovating the bridge leading into the castle was one of the highest priority tasks in the project. As of August 2006, the bridge renovation has been completed and construction on the upper terraces continues.


title: Elmina Castle

text: In 2006, the Zamani Project documented Elmina Castle with terrestrial 3D laser scanning. The 3D model, a panorama tour, elevations, sections and plans of Elmina Castle are available on the project's website. The non-profit research group specialises in 3D digital documentation of tangible cultural heritage. The data generated by the Zamani Project creates a permanent record that can be used for research, education, restoration, and conservation.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide, sold under the brand name Diamicron among others, is a sulfonylurea type of anti-diabetic medication, used to treat type 2 diabetes. It is used when dietary changes, exercise, and weight loss are not enough. It is taken by mouth.


title: Gliclazide

text: Side effect may include low blood sugar, vomiting, abdominal pain, rash, and liver problems. Use by those with significant kidney problems or liver problems or who are pregnant is not recommended. Gliclazide is in the sulfonylurea family of medications. It works mostly by increasing the release of insulin.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide was patented in 1966 and approved for medical use in 1972. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is not available for sale in the United States.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide is used for control of hyperglycemia in gliclazide-responsive diabetes mellitus of stable, mild, non-ketosis prone, type 2 diabetes. It is used when diabetes cannot be controlled by proper dietary management and exercise or when insulin therapy is not appropriate.


title: Gliclazide

text: National Kidney Foundation (2012 Update) claims that Gliclazide does not require dosage uptitration even in end stage kidney disease.


title: Gliclazide

text: Hyperglycemic action may be caused by danazol, chlorpromazine, glucocorticoids, progestogens, or β-2 agonists. Its hypoglycemic action may be potentiated by phenylbutazone, alcohol, fluconazole, β-blockers, and possibly ACE inhibitors. It has been found that rifampin increases gliclazide metabolism in humans in vivo.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide overdose may cause severe hypoglycemia, requiring urgent administration of glucose by IV and monitoring.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide selectively binds to sulfonylurea receptors (SUR-1) on the surface of the pancreatic beta-cells. It was shown to provide cardiovascular protection as it does not bind to sulfonylurea receptors (SUR-2A) in the heart. This binding effectively closes these K ion channels. This decreases the efflux of potassium from the cell which leads to the depolarization of the cell. This causes voltage dependent Ca ion channels to open increasing the Ca influx. The calcium can then bind to and activate calmodulin which in turn leads to exocytosis of insulin vesicles leading to insulin release.


title: Gliclazide

text: The mouse model of Maturity-onset diabetes of the young (MODY) diabetes suggested that the reduced gliclazide clearance stands behind their therapeutic success in human MODY patients, but Urbanova et al. found that human MODY patients respond differently and that there was no consistent decrease in gliclazide clearance in randomly selected HNF1A-MODY and HNF4A-MODY patients.


title: Gliclazide

text: Its classification has been ambiguous, as literature uses it as both a first-generation and second-generation sulfonylurea.


title: Gliclazide

text: According to the Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS), gliclazide falls under the BCS Class II drug, which is poorly soluble and highly permeable.


title: Gliclazide

text: Gliclazide undergoes extensive metabolism to several inactive metabolites in human beings, mainly methylhydroxygliclazide and carboxygliclazide. CYP2C9 is involved in the formation of hydroxygliclazide in human liver microsomes and in a panel of recombinant human P450s in vitro. But the pharmacokinetics of gliclazide MR are affected mainly by CYP2C19 genetic polymorphism instead of CYP2C9 genetic polymorphism.


title: Testicles as food

text: The testicles of calves, lambs, roosters, turkeys, and other animals are eaten in many parts of the world, often under euphemistic culinary names. Testicles are a by-product of the castration of young animals raised for meat, so they were probably a late-spring seasonal specialty, though nowadays they are generally frozen and available year-round.


title: Testicles as food

text: Testicles are cooked in a variety of ways: sautéed and sauced, fricasseed, deep-fried with breading or batter, in pies, poached, roasted, and so on. Before cooking, they are generally scalded, skinned, and soaked in cold water.


title: Testicles as food

text: In English, testicles are known by a wide variety of euphemisms, including "stones", "Rocky Mountain oysters",and "prairie oysters". Lamb testicles are often called 'lamb fries' or simply fries (though that may also refer to other organ meats).


title: Testicles as food

text: Euphemisms are used in many other languages. In Arabic countries such as Lebanon and Syria or Iraq they are known as ""baid ghanam"" and in Turkey they are known as "koç yumurtası" which in both languages means "sheep eggs".


title: Testicles as food

text: In some Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America, they are known as "criadillas", "huevos de toro", "bull eggs"; in Chinese, as Simplified Chinese: 牛宝; Traditional Chinese: 牛寶; Pinyin: "niú bǎo", "ox treasures"; in Greek, as "αμελέτητα", "unmentionables"; in Hindi, as "Kapura".


title: Testicles as food

text: The French "animelles" ("lit." 'innards'), the Italian "granelli" ("lit." 'granules'), and the Spanish and Latin American "criadillas" ("lit." 'little maids') began as euphemisms, but have become standard culinary names.


title: Testicles as food

text: Known as 'prairie oysters' in Canada, they are normally served deep-fried and breaded, with a demi-glace.


title: Testicles as food

text: The dish is especially popular in parts of Canada where cattle ranching is prevalent, and castration of young male animals is common.


title: Testicles as food

text: In Jordan, and Syria, baid ghanam or sheep testicles are grilled in lemon juice and garnished in parsley.


title: Testicles as food

text: In Pakistan, there is a common misconception of eating goat testicles but this originated in Somalia cooked in Tava.


title: Testicles as food

text: In the United States, bull testicles are usually served breaded and deep-fried as an appetizer, under the name "Rocky Mountain oysters".


title: Testicles as food

text: Buffalo, boar or bulls' testicles known as "criadillas" are breaded and fried; In tortilla Sacromonte, a speciality from Granada, lambs' brains and testicles are cooked in an omelette.


title: Testicles as food

text: Bulls testicles is commonly called "Ngầu pín". It is a very common food as it is believed to increase men's sexual ability.


title: Testicles as food

text: After gelding a colt, the testicles are used for ritual purposes. One of the amputated testicles is punctured with a knife so as to permit the insertion of a rope; the rope is then fastened to the new gelding's tail with the assumption that once the testicle has dried, the wound will have finished healing. The remaining testicle is cooked in the hearth ashes and eaten by the head of the household to acquire the strength of the stallion.


title: Testicles as food

text: Lamb testicles were historically eaten in England where they were referred to as 'fries' or 'stones'. As the name suggests, they were usually fried in butter after being coated in breadcrumbs. However, they are no longer widely eaten and are not available in supermarkets, although they are sold in some Asian butchers and other shops catering to British Muslims.


title: Testicles as food

text: Lamb testicles in Iran are called Donbalan, originally the name of a white, fleshy mushroom, which is a euphemism to avoid using the word testicles. Lamb testicles are consumed mostly as home-cooked meals rather than in restaurants as they are considered Haram (forbidden) according to Islamic laws, but there are restaurants where lamb testicles are available. In Iran, lamb testicles are mainly skewered and grilled, however in some areas they are shallow fried and served with bread.


title: Snow goose

text: The snow goose (Anser caerulescens) is a species of goose native to North America. Both white and dark morphs exist, the latter often known as blue goose. Its name derives from the typically white plumage. The species was previously placed in the genus "Chen", but is now typically included in the "gray goose" genus "Anser".


title: Snow goose

text: Snow geese breed north of the timberline in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and the northeastern tip of Siberia, and spend winters in warm parts of North America from southwestern British Columbia through parts of the United States to Mexico. Snow goose populations increased dramatically in the 20th century.


title: Snow goose

text: In 1750 the English naturalist George Edwards included an illustration and a description of the snow goose in the third volume of his "A Natural History of Uncommon Birds". He used the English name "The blue-winged goose". Edwards based his hand-coloured etching on a preserved specimen that had been brought to London from the Hudson Bay area of Canada by James Isham. When in 1758 the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus updated his "Systema Naturae" for the tenth edition, he placed the snow goose with the ducks and geese in the genus "Anas". Linnaeus included a brief description, coined the binomial name "Anas caerulescens" and cited Edwards' work. The snow goose is now placed in the genus "Anser" that was introduced by the French zoologist Mathurin Jacques Brisson in 1760. The scientific name is from the Latin "anser", "goose", and "caerulescens", "bluish", derived from "caeruleus", "dark blue". The snow goose is the sister species to Ross's goose ("Anser rossii").


title: Snow goose

text: The greater snow goose is distinguished from the nominate form by being slightly larger. It nests farther north and east. The lesser snow goose can be found in two colour phases, the normal white-coloured animals and a dark grey-coloured "blue" phase. The greater snow goose is rarely seen in a blue phase.


title: Snow goose

text: The snow goose has two color plumage morphs, white (snow) or gray/blue (blue), thus the common description as "snows" and "blues". White-morph birds are white except for black wing tips, but blue-morph geese have bluish-grey plumage replacing the white except on the head, neck and tail tip. The immature blue phase is drab or slate-gray with little to no white on the head, neck, or belly. Both snow and blue phases have rose-red feet and legs, and pink bills with black tomia ("cutting edges"), giving them a black "grin patch". The colors are not as bright on the feet, legs, and bill of immature birds. The head can be stained rusty-brown from minerals in the soil where they feed. They are very vocal and can often be heard from more than a mile away.


title: Snow goose

text: White- and blue-morph birds interbreed and the offspring may be of either morph. These two colors of geese were once thought to be separate species; since they interbreed and are found together throughout their ranges, they are now considered two color phases of the same species. The color phases are genetically controlled. The dark phase results from a single dominant gene and the white phase is homozygous recessive. When choosing a mate, young birds will most often select a mate that resembles their parents' coloring. If the birds were hatched into a mixed pair, they will mate with either color phase.


title: Snow goose

text: The species is divided into two subspecies on the basis of size and geography. Size overlap has caused some to question the division. The smaller subspecies, the lesser snow goose ("C. c. caerulescens"), lives from central northern Canada to the Bering Straits area. The lesser snow goose stands tall and weighs . The larger subspecies, the greater snow goose ("C. c. atlanticus"), nests in northeastern Canada. It averages about and , but can weigh up to . The wingspan for both subspecies ranges from .


title: Snow goose

text: Long-term pair bonds are usually formed in the second year, although breeding does not usually start until the third year. Females are strongly philopatric, meaning they will return to the place they hatched to breed.


title: Snow goose

text: Snow geese often nest in colonies. Nesting usually begins at the end of May or during the first few days of June, depending on snow conditions. The female selects a nest site and builds the nest on an area of high ground. The nest is a shallow depression lined with plant material and may be reused from year to year. After the female lays the first of three to five eggs, she lines the nest with down. The female incubates for 22 to 25 days, and the young leave the nest within a few hours of hatching.


title: Snow goose

text: The young feed themselves, but are protected by both parents. After 42 to 50 days they can fly, but they remain with their family until they are two to three years old.


title: Snow goose

text: Where snow geese and Ross's geese breed together, as at La Pérouse, they hybridize at times, and hybrids are fertile. Rare hybrids with the greater white-fronted goose, Canada goose, and cackling goose have been observed.


title: Snow goose

text: Snow geese breed from late May to mid-August, but they leave their nesting areas and spend more than half the year on their migration to-and-from warmer wintering areas. During spring migration (the reverse migration), large flocks of snow geese fly very high and migrate in large numbers along narrow corridors, more than from traditional wintering areas to the tundra.


title: Snow goose

text: The lesser snow goose travels through the Central Flyway, Mississippi Flyway, and Pacific Flyway across prairie and rich farmland to their wintering grounds on grassland and agricultural fields across the United States and Mexico, especially the Gulf coastal plain. The larger and less numerous greater snow goose travels through the Atlantic Flyway and winters on a relatively more restricted range on the Atlantic coastal plain. Traditionally, lesser snow geese wintered in coastal marsh areas where they used their short but strong bills to dig up the roots of marsh grasses for food. However, they have also since shifted inland towards agricultural areas, likely the cause behind the unsustainable population increase in the 20th century. This shift may help to contribute to increased goose survival rates, leading to overgrazing on tundra breeding grounds.


title: Snow goose

text: In March 2015, 2,000 snow geese were killed in northern Idaho from an avian cholera epidemic while flying their spring migration to northern Canada.


title: Snow goose

text: The snow goose is a rare vagrant to Europe, but escapes from collections have occurred, and it is an occasional feral breeder. Snow geese are visitors to the British Isles where they are seen regularly among flocks of brant, barnacle goose, and greater white-fronted goose. There is also a feral population in Scotland from which many vagrant birds in Britain seem to derive.


title: Snow goose

text: Outside of the nesting season, they usually feed in flocks. In winter, snow geese feed on left-over grain in fields. They migrate in large flocks, often visiting traditional stopover habitats in spectacular numbers. Snow geese frequently travel and feed alongside greater white-fronted geese; in contrast, the two tend to avoid travelling and feeding alongside Canada geese, which are often heavier birds.


title: Snow goose

text: The population of greater snow geese was in decline at the beginning of the 20th century, but has now recovered to sustainable levels. Snow geese in North America have increased to the point where the tundra breeding areas in the Arctic and the saltmarsh wintering grounds are both becoming severely degraded, and this affects other species using the same habitat.


title: Snow goose

text: Major nest predators include Arctic foxes and skuas. The biggest threat occurs during the first couple of weeks after the eggs are laid and then after hatching. The eggs and young chicks are vulnerable to these predators, but adults are generally safe. They have been seen nesting near snowy owl nests, which is likely a solution to predation. Their nesting success was much lower when snowy owls were absent, leading scientists to believe that the owls, since they are predatory, were capable of keeping competing predators away from the nests. A similar association as with the owls has been noted between geese and rough-legged hawks. Additional predators at the nest have reportedly included wolves, coyotes and all three North American bear species. Few predators regularly prey on snow geese outside of the nesting season, but bald eagles (as well as possibly golden eagles) will readily attack wintering geese.


title: Snow goose

text: The breeding population of the lesser snow goose exceeds 5 million birds, an increase of more than 300% since the mid-1970s. The population is increasing at a rate of more than five percent per year. Non-breeding geese (juveniles or adults that fail to nest successfully) are not included in this estimate, so the total number of geese is likely higher. Lesser snow goose population indices are the highest they have been since population records have been kept, and evidence suggests that large breeding populations are spreading to previously untouched sections of the Hudson Bay coastline. The cause of this overpopulation may be the heavy conversion of land from forest and prairie to agricultural usage in the 20th century.


title: Snow goose

text: Since the late 1990s, efforts have been underway in the U.S. and Canada to reduce the North American population of lesser snow and Ross's geese to sustainable levels due to the documented destruction of tundra habitat in Hudson Bay and other nesting areas. The Light Goose Conservation Order was established in 1997 and federally mandated in 1999. Increasing hunter bag limits, extending the length of hunting seasons, and adding new hunting methods have all been successfully implemented, but have not reduced the overall population of snow geese in North America.


title: Snow goose

text: The late 1990s was when the mid-continent population of snow geese was recognized as causing significant damage to the arctic and sub-arctic breeding grounds which was also causing critical damage to other varieties of waterfowl species and other wildlife that uses the arctic and sub-arctic grounds for home habitat. The increase in population in substantial amounts raised concern to then DU chief biologist Dr. Bruce Batt who was part of a committee that put together various data and submitted it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Canadian Wildlife Service with the recommendation on ways to combat the growing population and the damage that the snow geese were creating in the arctic breeding grounds.


title: Snow goose

text: The committee recommended relaxing hunting restrictions and giving hunters a better opportunity to harvest more snow geese on their way back to the breeding grounds in the spring. The suggested restrictions were to allow the use of electronic callers, unplugged shotguns, extended shooting hours, and no bag limits. Two years after the Light Goose Conservation Order was introduced it was federally mandated in 1999.


title: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

text: Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, PC (25 May 180318 January 1873) was an English writer and politician. He served as a Whig member of Parliament from 1831 to 1841 and a Conservative from 1851 to 1866. He was Secretary of State for the Colonies from June 1858 to June 1859, choosing Richard Clement Moody as founder of British Columbia. He was created Baron Lytton of Knebworth in 1866.