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Chronicle published a simple and very accessible chart today titled Unemployment Characteristics. It “breaks down” unemployment data by race, gender, and education background. Great Depression Comparison is an excellent interactive comparing the Depression to our present Recession. Here’s a very accessible infographic that shows the change in unemployment in major |
US cities over the past year. The Associated Press has an Economic Stress Index which shows, in an interactive graphic form, what is happening to every county in the United States economically. It measures bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and unemployment, and then interprets it into what they call a “stress index.” |
The New York Times has published an interactive graphic titled Broad Unemployment Across the U.S. It shows both the official unemployment rate, and what the rate would be if it included “ipart-time workers who want to work full time, as well some people who want to work but have not |
looked for a job in the last four weeks.” Moody’s has put together an impressive and accessible Global Recession Map showing how all the economies in the world are going. “Food Assistance” is a very simple and visual infographic from GOOD Magazine tracking the rise of food stamps over the |
past year. Times Of Crisis is an extraordinary interactive timeline showing the critical events of the economic recession over the past 365 days. The Geography of Jobs is an excellent animated map demonstrating the loss of jobs in different parts of the United States during the recession. Flowing Data has |
some maps that very visually show where unemployment has increased over the past few years. The Unemployed States of America, a nice infographic (in terms of accessibility, not because it shares good news) How the Great Recession Reshaped the U.S. Job Market, an informative (and a bit “busy” looking) interactive |
from The Wall Street Journal. “America’s 35 Hardest-Hit Cities” is a very accessible infographic showing the communities around the U.S. with the highest unemployment rates. Quite a few of them are located right here in California’s Central Valley. Comparing This Recession to Previous Ones: Job Changes is a New York |
Times graphic that very clearly shows we’re not doing so great right now. “How The Great Recession Has Changed Life In America” is an interactive from The Pew Center. Who’s Hurting? is a Wall Street Journal interactive showing which economic sector is losing/gaining jobs How Do Americans Feel About The |
Recession? is an infographic from MINT.It has some interesting information, and a teacher could ask similar questions of their students. “Decline and fall of the California job market” is a very good interactive from The Sacramento Bee showing the chronological progress of the monthly unemployment rate for each county in |
Are The Jobs? is a very good interactive infographic from The Washington Post showing which economic sectors are increasing jobs and which are not doing so well. GOOD has just published a very good series of infographics explaining the economy. It’s called All About The Benjamins. VIDEOS & SLIDESHOWS: Boomtown |
To Bust is a New York Times slideshow on the recession’s effect in Florida. The Sacramento Bee has a series of photos Chronicling The Economic Downturn. Long Lines Of Job Seekers Continue is a slideshow from The Washington Post. Downturn Leaves More Families Homeless is another slideshow from The Washington |
Post. The Wall Street Journal has excerpts from recent songs that have been written about the recession. Following A Closing, The Struggle To Find Work is another slideshow from The New York Times. A Community Facing Hunger is a video from The New York Times. Out Of Work In China |
is a video showing the effects of the recession in that country. A Painful Return is a slideshow discussing the recession’s effects in China. Tough Times For Summitville Tiles is a Wall Street Journal slideshow about the closing of a factory. Black Thursday In France is a Wall Street Journal |
slideshow about protests in that country demanding that the government do more to stop the recession. Ohio Town Faces Economic Collapse is a slideshow from Pixcetra. The American Economy: Down and Out is a slideshow from TIME Magazine. Tough Times In Cleveland is another TIME slideshow. An audio slideshow from |
The New York Times called In Economic Vise, Pontiac Struggles. There Goes Retirement is an online video from The Wall Street Journal. The progressive magazine The Nation has a useful slideshow called The Great Recession. It’s a bit ideological, but provides a different kind of analysis and response to the |
recession. It also includes links to articles that would not be accessible to ELL’s. However, the images, teacher modifications of the articles, and lesson ideas provided by them could offer some good opportunities for student discussion and higher order thinking. The Faces Of The Unemployed is a slideshow from The |
New York Times. Searching For A Job is a series of photos from the Sacramento Bee. Looking For Work is an audio slideshow from Reuters. Desperately Seeking A Salary is another audio slideshow from Reuters. Job Seekers Flood Local Job Fair is a slideshow from The Sacramento Bee. Recession Hits |
The Saddle is a slideshow from The New York Times. Auto Town Struggles With Unemployment is a slideshow from The New York Times. Dark Stores from TIME Magazine. The New York Times has an audio slideshow about people looking for work in the state of Tennessee. Inside California’s Tent Cities |
is the newest addition to this list. It’s a New York Times slideshow on the growing number of homeless encampments around the United States, particularly here in Sacramento (which was recently featured on Oprah Winfrey’s show) and in Fresno. The Death of the American Mall is a slideshow from The |
Wall Street Journal. Stimulus Watch is a site that doesn’t really fit into any of the categories on this list, but it’s intriguing. It supposedly lists all the projects different governmental projects have proposed to do with stimulus money, and then people can vote which ones they think are best. |
They’re categorized by community, so they’re very accessible. The only drawback to it is since it’s a wiki, even though all the projects are listed, many don’t have detailed information yet on what the project entails. Nevertheless, its interactivity could offer some good possibilities for student engagement. How Do You |
is yet another exceptional interactive from The New York Times. It’s composed of photos contributed by readers, including captions, divided by topic or location. Adapting To Job Loss is a slideshow from The Washington Post. Survival Strategies is a new interactive feature from The New York Times. People offer brief |
ideas on how they’re saving money now in the recession. Readers can vote on which ones they think are best. You have to register in order to vote, offer suggestions, or contribute your own. Forced From Home is a slideshow from The Wall Street Journal. Ghost Factories is a slideshow |
from The New York Times. “The Long-Term Unemployed” is a multimedia interactive from The Wall Street Journal. “America Out Of Work” is ongoing series of video interviews the Los Angeles Times is doing with the unemployed. America at Work is slideshow from The Atlantic. As always, feedback is welcome. |
Even though the CNC machines require little human intervention in the development process of the end desired product, human intervention is still needed when it comes to the computer software programming for the CNC machines. A CNC machine programmer must understand the programming, so that they are capable of accurately telling the machine what to do. CNC machines a programmed |
through a sentence like structure that is written in a code that it understands. Each axes that the machine uses, requires instructions for the development of the final project. If you forget to program one of the axes, the product will not turn out; in the same terms, if you program wrong, the axes will do what the program tells |
them and not what you want them to do. A CNC machine operator helps on the other end. The programmer writes the code for the machine, but the operator is responsible for downloading the program into the machine and getting the machine set up to properly do the job. The operator may have to set up the tools in the |
tool holder for the machine, position the material that is needed for the job in the machine, and then start the machine. If the CNC machine operator is experienced, they will begin to learn the different sounds that the machine makes and will be able to tell just by the sound whether there is a problem with the machine. A |
more experienced CNC machine operator is required to do this type of work. Once the machine completes the program and the work progress is done, operators may be switched. At this point in time, a less experienced operator can take over from here. Usually CNC machine operators will start out at the lower level and gradually work their way up |
as they become more experienced in this type of machining. Experienced CNC machine operators can detect program flaws and can usually make the modifications to the program themselves. If they notice that the end product is not to the specifications needed, they can fix the problem in the program and continue on with the job. They will not have to |
take the time to contact the programmer and wait for the program to be fixed. Limited input from the operator is needed to operate a CNC machine. It is because of this reason that one operator may be able to watch multiple machines. The machines do all of the work and only one person is required to do the set |
up of the machines. This enables companies to employ fewer people and saves them in the payroll department. CNC machine operators must adhere to safety precautions just like they would in any other machine shop. Even though the CNC machines are usually completely enclosed and can limit the noise, debris and so on, there are still dangers and the operator |
A nuzzle of the neck, a stroke of the wrist, a brush of the knee—these caresses often signal a loving touch, but can also feel highly aversive, depending on who |
is delivering the touch, and to whom. Interested in how the brain makes connections between touch and emotion, neuroscientists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered that the |
association begins in the brain’s primary somatosensory cortex, a region that, until now, was thought only to respond to basic touch, not to its emotional quality. “We demonstrated for the |
first time that the primary somatosensory cortex—the brain region encoding basic touch properties such as how rough or smooth an object is—also is sensitive to the social meaning of a |
touch,” explains Michael Spezio, a visiting associate at Caltech who is also an assistant professor of psychology at Scripps College in Claremont, California. “It was generally thought that there are |
separate brain pathways for how we process the physical aspects of touch on the skin and for how we interpret that touch emotionally—that is, whether we feel it as pleasant, |
WE have in this chapter to consider why the females of many birds have not acquired the same ornaments as the male; and why, on the other hand, both sexes of many other birds are equally, or almost equally, ornamented? In the following chapter we shall consider the few cases |
in which the female is more conspicuously coloured than the male. In my Origin of Species* I briefly suggested that the long tail of the peacock would be inconvenient and the conspicuous black colour of the male capercailzie dangerous, to the female during the period of incubation: and consequently that |
the transmission of these characters from the male to the female offspring had been checked through natural selection. I still think that this may have occurred in some few instances: but after mature reflection on all the facts which I have been able to collect, I am now inclined to |
believe that when the sexes differ, the successive variations have generally been from the first limited in their transmission to the same sex in which they first arose. Since my remarks appeared, the subject of sexual colouration has been discussed in some very interesting papers by Mr. Wallace,*(2) who believes |
that in almost all cases the successive variations tended at first to be transmitted equally to both sexes; but that the female was saved, through natural selection, from acquiring the conspicuous colours of the male, owing to the danger which she would thus have incurred during incubation. * Fourth edition, |
1866, p. 241. *(2) Westminster Review, July, 1867. Journal of Travel, vol. i., 1868, p. 73. This view necessitates a tedious discussion on a difficult point, namely, whether the transmission of a character, which is at first inherited by both sexes can be subsequently limited in its transmission to one |
sex alone by means of natural selection. We must bear in mind, as shewn in the preliminary chapter on sexual selection, that characters which are limited in their development to one sex are always latent in the other. An imaginary illustration will best aid us in seeing the difficulty of |
the case; we may suppose that a fancier wished to make a breed of pigeons, in which the males alone should be coloured of a pale blue, whilst the females retained their former slaty tint. As with pigeons characters of all kinds are usually transmitted to both sexes equally, the |
fancier would have to try to convert this latter form of inheritance into sexually-limited transmission. All that he could do would be to persevere in selecting every male pigeon which was in the least degree of a paler blue; and the natural result of this process, if steadily carried on |
for a long time, and if the pale variations were strongly inherited or often recurred, would be to make his whole stock of a lighter blue. But our fancier would be compelled to match, generation after generation, his pale blue males with slaty females, for he wishes to keep the |
latter of this colour. The result would generally be the production either of a mongrel piebald lot, or more probably the speedy and complete loss of the pale-blue tint; for the primordial slaty colour would be transmitted with prepotent force. Supposing, however, that some pale-blue males and slaty females were |
produced during each successive generation, and were always crossed together, then the slaty females would have, if I may use the expression, much blue blood in their veins, for their fathers, grandfathers, &c., will all have been blue birds. Under these circumstances it is conceivable (though I know of no |
distinct facts rendering it probable) that the slaty females might acquire so strong a latent tendency to pale-blueness, that they would not destroy this colour in their male offspring, their female offspring still inheriting the slaty tint. If so, the desired end of making a breed with the two sexes |
permanently different in colour might be gained. The extreme importance, or rather necessity in the above case of the desired character, namely, pale-blueness, being present though in a latent state in the female, so that the male offspring should not be deteriorated, will be best appreciated as follows: the male |
of Soemmerring's pheasant has a tail thirty-seven inches in length, whilst that of the female is only eight inches; the tail of the male common pheasant is about twenty inches, and that of the female twelve inches long. Now if the female Soemmerring pheasant with her short tail were crossed |
with the male common pheasant, there can be no doubt that the male hybrid offspring would have a much longer tail than that of the pure offspring of the common pheasant. On the other hand, if the female common pheasant, with a tail much longer than that of the female |
Soemmerring pheasant, were crossed with the male of the latter, the male hybrid offspring would have a much shorter tail than that of the pure offspring of Soemmerring's pheasant.* * Temminck says that the tail of the female Phasianus Soemmerringii is only six inches long, Planches coloriees, vol. v., 1838, |
pp. 487 and 488: the measurements above given were made for me by Mr. Sclater. For the common pheasant, see Macgillivray, History of British Birds, vol. i., pp. 118-121. Our fancier, in order to make his new breed with the males of a pale-blue tint, and the females unchanged, would |
have to continue selecting the males during many generations; and each stage of paleness would have to be fixed in the males, and rendered latent in the females. The task would be an extremely difficult one, and has never been tried, but might possibly be successfully carried out. The chief |
obstacle would be the early and complete loss of the pale-blue tint, from the necessity of reiterated crosses with the slaty female, the latter not having at first any latent tendency to produce pale-blue offspring. On the other hand, if one or two males were to vary ever so slightly |
in paleness, and the variations were from the first limited in their transmission to the male sex, the task of making a new breed of the desired kind would be easy, for such males would simply have to be selected and matched with ordinary females. An analogous case has actually |
occurred, for there are breeds of the pigeon in Belgium* in which the males alone are marked with black striae. So again Mr. Tegetmeier has recently shewn*(2) that dragons not rarely produce silver-coloured birds, which are almost always hens; and he himself has bred ten such females. It is on |
the other hand a very unusual event when a silver male is produced; so that nothing would be easier, if desired, than to make a breed of dragons with blue males and silver females. This tendency is indeed so strong that when Mr. Tegetmeier at last got a silver male |
and matched him with one of the silver females, he expected to get a breed with both sexes thus coloured; he was however disappointed, for the young male reverted to the blue colour of his grandfather, the young female alone being silver. No doubt with patience this tendency to reversion |
in the males, reared from an occasional silver male matched with a silver hen, might be eliminated, and then both sexes would be coloured alike; and this very process has been followed with success by Mr. Esquilant in the case of silver turbits. * Dr. Chapius, Le Pigeon Voyageur Belge, |
1865, p. 87. *(2) The Field, Sept., 1872. With fowls, variations of colour, limited in their transmission to the male sex, habitually occur. When this form of inheritance prevails, it might well happen that some of the successive variations would be transferred to the female, who would then slightly resemble |
the male, as actually occurs in some breeds. Or again, the greater number, but not all, of the successive steps might be transferred to both sexes, and the female would then closely resemble the male. There can hardly be a doubt that this is the cause of the male pouter |
pigeon having a somewhat larger crop, and of the male carrier pigeon having somewhat larger wattles, than their respective females; for fanciers have not selected one sex more than the other, and have had no wish that these characters should be more strongly displayed in the male than in the |
female, yet this is the case with both breeds. The same process would have to be followed, and the same difficulties encountered, if it were desired to make a breed with the females alone of some new colour. Lastly, our fancier might wish to make a breed with the two |
sexes differing from each other, and both from the parent species. Here the difficulty would be extreme, unless the successive variations were from the first sexually limited on both sides, and then there would be no difficulty. We see this with the fowl; thus the two sexes of the pencilled |
Hamburghs differ greatly from each other, and from the two sexes of the aboriginal Gallus bankiva; and both are now kept constant to their standard of excellence by continued selection, which would be impossible unless the distinctive characters of both were limited in their transmission. The Spanish fowl offers a |
more curious case; the male has an immense comb, but some of the successive variations, by the accumulation of which it was acquired, appear to have been transferred to the female; for she has a comb many times larger than that of the females of the parent species. But the |
comb of the female differs in one respect from that of the male, for it is apt to lop over; and within a recent period it has been ordered by the fancy that this should always be the case, and success has quickly followed the order. Now the lopping of |
the comb must be sexually limited in its transmission, otherwise it would prevent the comb of the male from being perfectly upright, which would be abhorrent to every fancier. On the other hand, the uprightness of the comb in the male must likewise be a sexually-limited character, otherwise it would |
prevent the comb of the female from lopping over. From the foregoing illustrations, we see that even with almost unlimited time at command, it would be an extremely difficult and complex, perhaps an impossible process, to change one form of transmission into the other through selection. Therefore, without distinct evidence |
in each case, I am unwilling to admit that this has been effected in natural species. On the other hand, by means of successive variations, which were from the first sexually limited in their transmission, there would not be the least difficulty in rendering a male bird widely different in |
colour or in any other character from the female; the latter being left unaltered, or slightly altered, or specially modified for the sake of protection. As bright colours are of service to the males in their rivalry with other males, such colours would be selected whether or not they were |
transmitted exclusively to the same sex. Consequently the females might be expected often to partake of the brightness of the males to a greater or less degree; and this occurs with a host of species. If all the successive variations were transmitted equally to both sexes, the females would be |
indistinguishable from the males; and this likewise occurs with many birds. If, however, dull colours were of high importance for the safety of the female during incubation, as with many ground birds, the females which varied in brightness, or which received through inheritance from the males any marked accession of |
brightness, would sooner or later be destroyed. But the tendency in the males to continue for an indefinite period transmitting to their female offspring their own brightness, would have to be eliminated by a change in the form of inheritance; and this, as shewn by our previous illustration, would be |
extremely difficult. The more probable result of the long-continued destruction of the more brightly-coloured females, supposing the equal form of transmission to prevail would be the lessening or annihilation of the bright colours of the males, owing to their continual crossing with the duller females. It would be tedious to |
follow out all the other possible results; but I may remind the reader that if sexually limited variations in brightness occurred in the females, even if they were not in the least injurious to them and consequently were not eliminated, yet they would not be favoured or selected, for the |
male usually accepts any female, and does not select the more attractive individuals; consequently these variations would be liable to be lost, and would have little influence on the character of the race; and this will aid in accounting for the females being commonly duller-coloured than the males. In the |
eighth chapter instances were given, to which many might here be added, of variations occurring at various ages, and inherited at the corresponding age. It was also shewn that variations which occur late in life are commonly transmitted to the same sex in which they first appear; whilst variations occurring |
early in life are apt to be transmitted to both sexes; not that all the cases of sexually-limited transmission can thus be accounted for. It was further shewn that if a male bird varied by becoming brighter whilst young, such variations would be of no service until the age for |
reproduction had arrived, and there was competition between rival males. But in the case of birds living on the ground and commonly in need of the protection of dull colours, bright tints would be far more dangerous to the young and inexperienced than to the adult males. Consequently the males |
which varied in brightness whilst young would suffer much destruction and be eliminated through natural selection; on the other hand, the males which varied in this manner when nearly mature, notwithstanding that they were exposed to some additional danger, might survive, and from being favoured through sexual selection, would procreate |
their kind. As a relation often exists between the period of variation and the form of transmission, if the bright-coloured young males were destroyed and the mature ones were successful in their courtship, the males alone would acquire brilliant colours and would transmit them exclusively to their male offspring. But |
I by no means wish to maintain that the influence of age on the form of transmission, is the sole cause of the great difference in brilliancy between the sexes of many birds. When the sexes of birds differ in colour, it is interesting to determine whether the males alone |
have been modified by sexual selection, the females having been left unchanged, or only partially and indirectly thus changed; or whether the females have been specially modified through natural selection for the sake of protection. I will therefore discuss this question at some length, even more fully than its intrinsic |
importance deserves; for various curious collateral points may thus be conveniently considered. Before we enter on the subject of colour, more especially in reference to Mr. Wallace's conclusions, it may be useful to discuss some other sexual differences under a similar point of view. A breed of fowls formerly existed |
in Germany* in which the hens were furnished with spurs; they were good layers, but they so greatly disturbed their nests with their spurs that they could not be allowed to sit on their own eggs. Hence at one time it appeared to me probable that with the females of |
the wild Gallinaceae the development of spurs had been checked through natural selection, from the injury thus caused to their nests. This seemed all the more probable, as wing-spurs, which would not be injurious during incubation, are often as well developed in the female as in the male; though in |
not a few cases they are rather larger in the male. When the male is furnished with leg-spurs the female almost always exhibits rudiments of them,- the rudiment sometimes consisting of a mere scale, as in Gallus. Hence it might be argued that the females had aboriginally been furnished with |
well-developed spurs, but that these had subsequently been lost through disuse or natural selection. But if this view be admitted, it would have to be extended to innumerable other cases; and it implies that the female progenitors of the existing spur-bearing species were once encumbered with an injurious appendage. * |
Bechstein, Naturgeschichte Deutschlands, 1793, B. iii., 339. In some few genera and species, as in Galloperdix, Acomus, and the Javan peacock (Pavo muticus), the females, as well as the males, possess well-developed leg-spurs. Are we to infer from this fact that they construct a different sort of nest from that |
made by their nearest allies, and not liable to be injured by their spurs; so that the spurs have not been removed? Or are we to suppose that the females of these several species especially require spurs for their defence? It is a more probable conclusion that both the presence |
and absence of spurs in the females result from different laws of inheritance having prevailed, independently of natural selection. With the many females in which spurs appear as rudiments, we may conclude that some few of the successive variations, through which they were developed in the males, occurred very early |
in life, and were consequently transferred to the females. In the other and much rarer cases, in which the females possess fully developed spurs, we may conclude that all the successive variations were transferred to them; and that they gradually acquired and inherited the habit of not disturbing their nests. |
The vocal organs and the feathers variously modified for producing sound, as well as the proper instincts for using them, often differ in the two sexes, but are sometimes the same in both. Can such differences be accounted for by the males having acquired these organs and instincts, whilst the |
females have been saved from inheriting them, on account of the danger to which they would have been exposed by attracting the attention of birds or beasts of prey? This does not seem to me probable, when we think of the multitude of birds which with impunity gladden the country |
with their voices during the spring.* It is a safer conclusion that, as vocal and instrumental organs are of special service only to the males during their courtship, these organs were developed through sexual selection and their constant use in that sex alone- the successive variations and the effects of |
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