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The New River was a major public engineering work of early modern England. It opened in 1613 , bringing fresh water from springs in Hertfordshire to the north, down to London , whose inhabitants had contaminated all the available natural sources of drinking water Because they had no efficient way of long-distance pumping back then, it was carefully designed to follow the 100-foot contour and descend very, very slowly over its 60-km length. The drop along its entire length is about 5.5 m. Some of the windings this necessitated could be smoothed out in the 1800s. It also had numerous bridges and troughs. The project having been authorized by Act of Parliament in 1570, the actual route was proposed in about 1600 by Captain Edward Colthurst. He got the contract to dig it in 1604 but then as now bureaucracy, corruption, and inefficiency made a pig's ear of it, and after spending £200 on digging the first three miles, it descended into wrangling. Another contract was awarded to Hugh Myddleton MP, who had better access to funds. He is the one remembered as the creator of the New River, and has a statue in the centre of Islington, and streets and a school named after him. Colthurst worked as his overseer. The mathematician Edward Wright was surveyor, ensuring it followed the contour course. It ended in Islington, a suburb then on the northern edge of London, though as from 1946 it ends higher up at Stoke Newington and a section at Islington is preserved as a historical relic. It was opened here at the Round Pond, from which the pipes led off to London, by the Lord Mayor, Sir John Swinnerton, on 29 September 1613. By 1660 the Hertfordshire springs were insufficient to demand and it became necessary to tap the River Lee nearby. In 1738 a gauge was installed in the Lee to ensure that not too much water was removed. To keep it pure it was guarded to protect it from bathers and others who might pollute it in typical Jacobean ways. Filtration plants were built from 1852. Thames Water, the modern heirs of the old water boards, have an educational site giving the history and course of the New River in some detail:

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NASA is so giddy about Mars it's already planning a trip for 20168/21/2012 NASA's Curiosity rover hasn't even been on Mars for a month, and already the Jet Propulsion Laboratory team is preparing to send another probe to the Red Planet. The team is planning to launch the awesomely acronymed InSight (Interior exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) in 2016 to explore whether Mars has a liquid or solid core and why its surface isn't made up of plates the way Earth's is. And it's going to be done on a budget — that is, if you consider a price tag of $425 million a deal. We can only wonder what Bobak Ferdowsi's next viral hairstyle will be. [Source] What planet do you think NASA should explore next?

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Language & Literacy Language & Literacy Jeanne Chall Reading Lab The Jeanne Chall Reading Lab (JCRL) was founded in 1966 for the purposes of training teachers and reading specialists, conducting research in reading, and serving the local community. Over the years it has become the nexus of the Language and Literacy (L&L) Program at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Located in the basement of Larsen Hall, the JCRL houses an impressive collection of children's books and magazines, instructional programs, literacy assessments, reading and writing manipulatives, and reference resources on the research and practice of reading instruction. Also available in the lab are technology tools including video capturing and editing equipment and video footage of reading and writing instruction that can be used as resources to enhance students' professional development. The JCRL is more than a library, though. The JCRL provides a place for master's students and doctoral students to collaborate in planning for their practicum courses, prepare for group projects and presentations, and conduct research of their own or for their professors' research projects. In fact, in previous years, students have organized a Language and Literacy Club in order to network and socialize with students across Harvard who share an interest in teaching reading and writing. Just as the Language and Literacy club's reach extends from the JCRL into the community, so have most of the activities that are concentrated in the lab. Students' practicum courses and research projects bring them into the local community to share resources, to serve the children, adolescents, and adults in the local community, and to learn from those in the area who are working with children in schools and other educational settings. As the JCRL grows, it is now transforming to include the JCRL website, which will eventually become a virtual reading lab for students and community members to access information and resources on reading research and view examples of literacy instruction online. So welcome to the JCRL website! We are excited to have you become part of our community of reading educators. It is the knowledge and experience of JCRL affiliates that make it the dynamic center it is. Visit the JCRL website. Jeanne S. Chall (1921-1999) Jeanne Sternlicht Chall was a psychologist, a leading expert in reading research and instruction for over 50 years, a teacher, a writer, and professor emerita at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE). Jeanne S. Chall steadfastly held her position on the importance of direct, systematic instruction in reading in spite of other reading trends throughout her career. She was deeply committed to teaching, to the importance of children's successful reading acquisition and the need to address failing readers, to the power of research to answer practical questions, and to the merit of understanding the historical background of research questions. Born in Poland, Chall emigrated at seven years old with her family to New York City. She attended New York City public schools, quickly learning English at a time when no bilingual programs existed. Chall was the first person in her family to go to college, graduating cum laude from New York’s City College with a B.S. in 1941. She became an assistant to Irving Lorge, who directed educational research at Teachers College, Columbia University. She then served as research assistant to Edgar Dale at the Bureau of Educational Research at Ohio State University where she received an M.A in 1947 and a Ph.D. in 1952. Her review of the existing research on readability for Dale led to her publication, Readability: An appraisal of research and application (1958) and a keen appreciation for the value of historical synthesis. Dale's and Chall's collaboration culminated in their publication, Dale-Chall Formula for Predicting Readability (1948), which combined vocabulary complexity with sentence length to evaluate text readability. Chall later updated this piece in 1995. Between 1950 and 1965, Chall rose from lecturer to professor at City College of New York. These years brought a lifelong collaboration with Florence Roswell on the diagnosis and treatment of reading difficulties and led Chall to question whether some methods were superior to others in preventing reading failure. In 1965, Chall moved to Harvard University to create and direct master’s and doctoral graduate reading programs. An excellent clinician herself, she founded the Harvard Reading Laboratory in 1966, directing it until her retirement in 1991. The lab is now named after her. Chall trained legions of researchers, reading teachers, and policy experts. She was a member of numerous scholarly organizations, editorial boards, policymaking committees, and state and national commissions. Chall was called upon by a succession of U.S. presidents and secretaries of education to bring her wisdom to national literacy efforts. She served on the board of directors of the International Reading Association (1961-1964) and on the National Academy of Education's Commission on Reading that resulted in the report, Becoming a Nation of Readers (1985). She received many professional awards, the last given by the International Dyslexia Association in 1996. One of Chall's most important professional contributions was a byproduct of the professional furor over Rudolf Flesch's Why Johnny Can't Read–and What You Can Do About It (1955). Flesch attacked the prevailing sight word methodology of teaching reading, claiming that reading professionals had ignored their own research. With beginning reading instruction now on the national agenda, the Carnegie Corporation funded a study that Chall conducted from 1962 to 1965. She reviewed the existing research, described methods of instruction, interviewed leading proponents of various methods, and analyzed two leading reading series of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The results appeared in her publication, Learning to read: The great debate (1967). Chall identified what she called "the conventional wisdom" of reading instruction: that children should read for meaning from the start, use context and picture clues to identify words after learning about fifty words as sight words, and induce letter–sound correspondences from these words. Like Flesch, she concluded that this conventional wisdom was not supported by the research, which found phonics superior to whole word instruction and "systematic" phonics superior to "intrinsic" phonics instruction. She also found that beginning reading was different from mature reading–a conclusion that she reaffirmed in Stages of Reading Development (1983), which found that children first learn to read and then read to learn. She recommended in 1967 that publishers switch to a code-emphasis approach in children's readers, which would lead to better results without compromising children's comprehension. Chall was engaged in both practice and research, often at the same time. For more than fifty years she taught students of all ages, including remedial ones, and advised schools. She was a consultant for children's encyclopedias, an educational comic book, educational software, and educational television, including the children's literacy programs Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and Between the Lions. A prolific writer, Chall often said that her books were her children. Although she formally retired in 1991, she continued to conduct and publish research and mentor reading professionals well into her retirement. Retrieved and adapted from the following sites:

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Population and Health Activity no. 1 - Basic needs for good health Activity no. 2 - Preparing oral rehydration treatment solution Activity no. 3 - A visit or visits from a social worker from the ministry of health Health is a valuable personal, family and community asset for which we are each responsible as individuals. In areas where the population is growing rapidly, health and sanitation facilities are often inadequate, and diseases and sickness are more common. To protect their health, young women should delay pregnancy until they are at least 20 years old, and then space their children. Misuse of alcohol and drugs is very dangerous to health for everyone, and especially for pregnant women. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are a serious health problem and young men and women need to know how to avoid them.

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|Aerobic heart rate facts Aerobic exercise is great for your body, but it's easy to over exert yourself. It's also possible that your workout may not be as intense as it needs to be. There's plenty of evidence that exercise is good for both body and mind. Physical exercise not only helps reduce excess weight, but also tones muscles, speeds up metabolism, and strengthens bones. |Sports and chiropractic If you're training for a specific sport, your chiropractor can be a valued partner in your fitness. He or she can help you evaluate your body and the stresses that your sport places on it. Certain sports can be hard on the joints, muscles, and spine, especially in contact sports such as football and hockey. Your chiropractor can treat sports injuries without surgery and drugs, and encourage your body to heal itself. Stretching is an important but often overlooked aspect of fitness. In fact, you may work out regularly but never stretch. You should stretch both before and after a workout to keep muscles flexible and reduce your chance for injury. Warming up before exercising prepares the entire body for your workout. It helps your heart and lungs adjust to the activity, and the increased blood flow warms the muscles and makes them less vulnerable to injury. Regular exercise can help you stay in shape and boost your energy, but a rigorous workout schedule can also put stress on your joints. Repetitive stress injuries can occur, especially if you perform the same exercises during each workout.

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12-4-12 Thursday is Yuri’s Night, an international celebration of human achievement and ingenuity, in recognition of mankind’s achievements in space exploration—with hopes of inspiring a new generation to continue looking upward and reaching outward. Fifty-one years ago, Yuri Gagarin was the first human to launch into space: “Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty – not destroy it!” Do something on Yuri's night. Look up some local or online event. Or just step outside with someone impressionable, and infect them with a sense of wonder. And How do we recapture our enthusiasm for space? Neil deGrasse Tyson examines America’s ailing aerospace industry and NASA’s shrinking vision -- and asks what it would take for America to remain the leading power in space: “In fact we may be entering a new age of geopolitics, in which economic strength wields greater power than military strength. If that’s the case, we shouldn’t need reminders that innovations in science and technology drive tomorrow’s economies. That’s been true since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. And so healthy investment in space exploration—something we saw 50 years ago, and something many other countries have just figured out—is like a new force of nature operating on a nation’s economic prosperity. As nothing else does, the frontier of space exploration, which draws upon a dozen fields of science and engineering, attracts the ambitions of those who are still in the educational pipeline. It is they who become the scientists and technologists. It is they who invent tomorrow.” Hear hear. Every decade since the forties, some scientific breakthrough (or several) enabled the U.S. to stay rich and vibrant enough to then spend it all in the Great Buying Spree that propelled world prosperity and created a world-majority Middle Class. That is, every decade except the first decade of the 21st Century, amid the calamitous War on Science. possibilities are there! See my video: Grand Scale Reasons to Explore Space. I am on the board of advisers for the NASA Innovative and Advanced Concepts program. Last week in Pasadena we saw some outtasight and amazing proposals, some of them both groundbreaking and apparently eminently practical. All we have to do is rediscover within ourselves the kind of people who step outside and look up, now and then. == Great Sci-Television == Is There an Edge to the Universe? This episode of Morgan Freeman's Through the Wormhole will blow your mind! family liked the whole series. Well. Except the episode about "The Sixth Sense." And the fact that they could have used a physicist sci fi- author pundit, now and then. ==Exoplanets and Runaway Planets== Turns out there could be billions of habitable planets around faint red dwarf stars in our galaxy. Well... maybe. An international team, including astronomers from the European Southern Observatory (ESO), has applied the technique of gravitational microlensing to measure how common planets are in the Milky Way, surveying millions of stars over six years. The team concludes that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. How was it done? Beyond gravitational wobble and Kepler's occultation method, there's an added method by which exoplanets are detected - via the way that the gravitational field of their host stars acts like a lens, magnifying the light of a background star. If the star that acts as a lens has a planet in orbit around it, the planet can make a detectable contribution, warping the brightening effect on the background star. is a very powerful tool, with the potential to detect exoplanets that could never be found any other way. But a very rare chance alignment of a background and foreground star is required for a microlensing event to be seen at all. And, to spot a planet during the rare event, an additional chance alignment of the planet’s orbit is also needed. Significantly, any one episode is likely never to be repeated, so you can't learn much about the planet. This mostly helps by offering statistics. In six year's worth of microlensing data used in the analysis, three exoplanets were firmly detected... enough to suggest that planets are very abundant. (In fact, we astonomers always expected it to be so, because of angular momentum considerations; but it is good to see proof.) In other news: Astronomers believe that runaway planets may zoom at a fraction of speed of light. When a solar system passed close to a black hole, all sorts of wild stuff can happen, including planets being expelled from the galaxy at relativistic speeds! ==Solar Tornadoes, Micro Black Holes & Civilization's End== Astronomers present images of a solar tornado as much as five times the width of Earth, an event they believe triggers solar storms. Cool images! Reminding me of the days when I was a solar observer at the Big Bear Observatory and caught on film the Great Flare of ‘72. Yep! By crickey! Should we fear collisions with micro-black holes? Scientists seem convinced that such a tiny singularity (black hole) would pass right through our planet without gobbling enough mass to slow down. Fair enough. But what if the singularity were local? So in much lower-velocity orbit in the Solar system? Or even (as I portrayed in EARTH) man-made? One of ten thousand possible explanations for why we seem to be alone in the universe? author and futurist Vernor Vinge is surprisingly optimistic when it comes to the prospect of civilization collapsing. “I think that [civilization] coming back would actually be a very big surprise,” he says in this week’s episode of the Geek’s Guide to the Galaxy podcast. And see a fairly wise article on SETI by my esteemed colleague Nick Sagan. of magnetically-confined inertial fusion, suggest we may be a lot closer to workable fusion reactors than previously thought. Sandia Labs will test the simulation experimentally in 2013. To which frequent blog commentor Sociotard cogently replied: “A scientist performing a detailed simulation of fusion is as close to making a meatspace model as a middleschooler making out with her pillow is to actually reaching Boston Dynamics does it again! See the "sand flea rover" prototype of a wheeled robot that can also (sproing!) leap actual tall buildings in a single bound. Amazing... and highly relevant to our mission at the NASA Innovative and Advanced Concepts group. Watch the Patent Bolt has discovered that Microsoft has been secretly working on a video headset since September 2010. A New Microsoft patent reveals that they’ve been working two styles of headset: an aviation styled helmet aimed at Xbox gamers, and one that resembles a pair of sunglasses for use with smartphones, MP3 players and other future devices. MIT Media Lab researchers have developed a camera that peers around corners. It can “see” objects hidden behind walls... via a non-imaging method akin to radar, bouncing off other walls. that are in-view. The system can produced recognizable 3-D images of a wooden figurine and of foam cutouts outside their camera’s line of sight. Printing three dimensional objects with incredibly fine details is now possible using "two-photon lithography". With this technology, tiny structures on a nanometer scale can be fabricated. (I was involved in the earliest version of this technique, back in the 1980s!) Visualizing light in motion at a trillion frames per second.. note... I have written my novels on Apple computers since 1982 - around the time that I (Brin brags) bought some stock. But I am disturbed by rumors that Apple is setting up the iPad as an eReader with some unpleasant aspects. I would appreciate it if some folks out there would drop by the comments section below this blog and offer up their views.

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5 common myths about exercise Lifestyle: 5 common myths about exercise - Exercise is a waste of time unless you work out hard and often. This kind of thinking keeps a lot of people from sticking to an exercise program. Thirty minutes of moderate-intensity exercise, five times a week is all you need to maintain your weight and reduce your risk of heart disease, diabetes, and some cancers. To lose weight, cut calories from your diet or exercise more. Walking, bicycling, and swimming are all good ways to exercise at a modest pace. - Yoga is a completely gentle and safe workout. Some forms of yoga are physically and mentally difficult. While injuries are rare, staying in certain positions can cause nerve damage or back pain. Avoiding certain postures and changing others can make yoga safer for most healthy people - even pregnant women. As with any exercise, proper instruction is needed for a safe workout. If you have a health condition or are pregnant, talk with your doctor before trying yoga. - You can lose all the weight you want just by exercising. Increasing physical activity is just one part of a successful weight-loss plan. You need to cut calories, too. How many pounds you lose may also depend on your genes. What works for one person may not work for another. Still, exercise is an important part of any weight-loss program, and it offers many other health benefits. - You can "spot reduce" certain areas of your body. Truth be told, you can do a ton of crunches and sit-ups and never get chiseled abs. It's not possible to burn off fat from one area of your body. Regular aerobic exercise, strength training, and a healthy diet is the best way to get rid of extra body fat. - If you want to lose weight, don't strength-train. It will make you "bulk up." Experts advise both aerobic and strength-training exercises to maintain a healthy weight. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn - even when you're not working out. This makes it easier to keep off the pounds. Also, try adding crunches, push-ups, lunges, and other exercises to your regular routine to build muscle. A fitness professional can help you create a strength-training routine that works for you. Only very intense strength training exercises combined with certain genetic factors leads to large muscles. Remember, always talk to your doctor before you start any exercise program. - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How much physical activity do adults need? Accessed: 07/14/2010 - National Institutes of Health. Weight-loss and nutrition myths. How much do you really know? Accessed: 07/14/2010 - American Council on Exercise. ACE lists most common fitness myths. Accessed: 07/14/2010

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The Scott Medal The process of selecting William S. Burroughs as the recipient of the 1897 Scott Medal involved a full examination by the Committee on Science and the Arts, according to their rules.The archive of this process exists here as a legacy to the careful consideration of the scientist and his work. A Scottish chemist named John Scott bequeathed the sum of $4,000.00 in funded 3% interest stock of the United States to the corporation of the city of Philadelphia. His will, written in the year 1816, stipulated that interest and dividends yielded by this stock were to be distributed in the form of premiums to men and women judged to have come up with ingenious inventions. Each premium was not to exceed the amount of $20.00, and was to be rewarded along with a copper medal bearing the inscription, “To the most deserving.” The Select and Common Councils of the city of Philadelphia passed an ordinance in February of 1834 that vested the award of the premium and medals in the Franklin Institute. In 1869, administration of the John Scott Legacy Premium and Medal was conferred on the “Board of Directors of City Trusts,” which in turn referred control of the aforementioned award to its own Committee on Wills’ Hospital and Minor Trusts. April of 1882 saw a resolution made by this Committee to “favorably receive the names of any persons whom The Franklin Institute may, from time to time, report to the Committee on Minor Trusts as worthy of receiving the John Scott Legacy Medal and Premium.” Having accepted the above resolution, The Franklin Institute put its Committee on Science and the Arts in charge of making the necessary evaluations and recommendations. The Committee on Science and the Arts (CSA) took care to compile a report on each invention or improvement its committee members judged worthy of the premium and accompanying medal. That report was then published three times in the Journal of The Franklin Institute, with the first publication occurring three months before the CSA would make an official recommendation to the Council on Minority Trusts. These publications allowed the public to review the inventions, and to raise objections as to their originality. If no such objections were made, the Secretary of the Institute certified the recommendation of the award to the Committee on Minor Trusts of the Board of City Trusts. Access the full set of rules outlined by the CSA in its founding year by clicking on the links to the rules in the table at left. Digitalized documents pulled from the Burroughs case file illustrate the process that resulted in his receipt of the John Scott Medal.

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SplitArticle Free Pass Split, ( Italian: Spalato) seaport, resort, and chief city of Dalmatia, Croatia. It is situated on a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea with a deep, sheltered harbour on the south side. A major commercial and transportation centre, the city is best known for the ruins of the Palace of Diocletian (built 295–305 ce). Collectively with the historic royal residences, fortifications, and churches in the city, the palace was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1979. Built within the palace is the nucleus of the “old town.” The immense complex has walls 7 feet (2 metres) thick and 72 feet (22 metres) high on its seaward side and 60 feet (18 metres) high on the northern side. Originally it had 16 towers (of which 3 remain) and 4 gates. A tree-lined promenade now keeps the Adriatic from lapping against the south walls as it once did. The palace was damaged by the Avars, who sacked nearby Solin (Salona) about 614; its inhabitants first fled to the islands but then returned to seek refuge in the palace (c. 620), calling the settlement Spalatum. They built their homes within the seven-acre (three-hectare) palace compound, incorporating its walls and pillars. The area within the walls of the palace has been continuously inhabited since it was built. It contains buildings and embellishments of medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, as well as fine examples of Roman architecture. Efforts have been made not only to excavate further the Roman remains and identify and elucidate remains of the early medieval period but also to preserve the eclectic architecture of the complex. The palace is still thought of by the inhabitants of Split as the city centre and not a museum: The cathedral and baptistery are in use, the peristyle court is a popular meeting place, shops occupy the Roman arcades, and the main market is just outside the east gate of the palace. Tourists can see architectural remains of all periods from Roman times onward while walking under the laundry lines of the modern citizens. Split has a university (1974) and an oceanographic institute. Museums include the Meštrović Gallery (opened 1952), devoted to the works of the Croatian sculptor Ivan Meštrović; the Archaeological Museum (founded 1820), housing artifacts from the ruins of Solin and other nearby sites; the Museum of Croatian Archaeological Monuments (1893, in Knin), which has notable exhibits on the Early Middle Ages; the City Museum (1946); the Art Gallery (1931); and the Ethnographic Museum (1910), which is housed in the Venetian Gothic town hall. The Croatian National Theatre, built from 1891 to 1893, was gutted by fire in 1971 but reconstructed by 1979. The belfry (c. 1100) of Our Lady of the Belfry church is the oldest in Dalmatia. The city’s harbour and port, combined with its central position on the Adriatic coast and its good rail and road connections to the northern parts of the country, have made it very important commercially. There is a large shipyard, and plastics, chemicals, aluminum, and cement are produced. Several island ferries depart from Split, and an international airport has been expanded since 1962. The growth of the port facilities dates from the temporary loss of Rijeka (Fiume) to Italy in 1924 (recovered 1945). From 812 Split developed as a major Byzantine city. In 1105, after brief incursions by Venice (998) and Croatia (1069), the city acknowledged the nominal suzerainty of Hungary-Croatia and fought sporadically with its rival Trogir; from 1420 to 1797 it was held by Venice. The Austrians ruled from 1797 to 1918 with a brief French interregnum in 1808–13. Split became part of Yugoslavia in 1918 and of independent Croatia in 1992. During World War II the port facilities were wrecked by the Germans and by Allied bombing, but the old town was little damaged, and repairs were subsequently made. In 1995 the city celebrated the 1,700th anniversary of the initiation of construction of the Roman palace. Pop. (2001) 188,694; (2008 est.) 175,140. What made you want to look up "Split"? Please share what surprised you most...

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Incentives are rewards for good behaviors. Incentives are especially helpful for overcoming resistance when children are locked in a power struggle or control battle with their parents. Rewards give a child a reason to end the power struggle. There are four rules that make incentives powerful: The fourth rule is essential. The child's access to the toy, costume, or other incentive needs to be time-limited. That way your child is really earning a privilege and not another possession. That's the only way to maintain the incentive's value. You can add some variety to incentives by making a grab bag of surprises or slips of paper with different incentives written on them. You can also reward breakthroughs or significant goals with a triple reward (such as, going to a fast food place, picking out a video and staying up late to watch it). Physical affection (hugs and kisses) and parent-child activities (field trips, playing games, or reading) should not be withheld from a child or used as incentives. They are essential for your child's emotional growth and mental health. Nurturing your child also makes the child more receptive to parental rules and requests. Likewise, physical activities (playing catch, going on walks or to the park) should not be withheld from your child. Fitness and endurance are important for your child's physical health. However, you can offer "extra" parent-child activities as an incentive.

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Can a boy find a place for his new best friend, a misfit mammoth? One night, there's a knock at the door, and the little narrator, very small in striped pajamas, opens it to find… Mammoth! Mammoth is baby blue with pink inner ears and "as big as the biggest truck and hairier than a yak." Also, he looks hungry; the boy feeds him fish sticks and peas right from the freezer (Mammoth is too big to fit through the door). Things go downhill from there. While taking a nap in the garden, the mammoth flattens Dad's shed; at the park he crushes the swing; and he empties the swimming pool with a single dive. He even has an "accident" all over a car; the driver declares, "This town is no place for a mammoth!" What to do? Just when things seem hopeless, the boy sees a broken-down bus in the distance, full of stranded children and a distraught driver. Mammoth has a great idea; he carries everyone home. Now everyone wants to be his friend. And Dad says Mammoth can live with them after all. Hall's prose captures the wide-eyed simplicity of the very young, and his illustrations, using watercolor paints, pencil, and graphite stick, seem both warmed and washed with whimsy. A simple, engaging tale, with a subtle lesson. (Picture book. 2-5)

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Every year millions of Shias gather for at least ten days during Muharram to listen and commemorate the tragedy that occurred in Karbala. Historically, Muslims acknowledge the beheading of Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussain ibn Ali (peace be upon him). Shias in particular remember the tragedy and recite eulogies and repeat the heart wrenching epic poem year after year. A person looking from the outside would want to understand the significance of this event and the messages one can derive from the martyrdom of Imam Hussain (peace be upon him). By reading the sacrifice as a history lesson, the student will find out that Imam Hussain (peace be upon him) left Arabia along with his family due to the ongoing threat of Yazid's demand for allegiance. Another contributing factor of leaving was the mass letters he received by the Kufans of Iraq asking him to come and lead them against the tyrant ruler Yazid. However, the history lesson won't contain priceless quotes of the Imam during his journey. Imam Hussain (peace be upon him) left a will to his brother Mohamed ibn al-Hanafiyah describing his intentions. "I never revolted in vain, as a rebel or as a tyrant; rather, I rose seeking reformation for the nation of my grandfather Muhammad. I intend to enjoin good and forbid evil, to act according to the traditions of my grandfather, and my father Ali ibn Abi Talib,” wrote the Imam. Imam Hussain (peace be upon him) knew his obligation as the living Imam of the time to take a solid and firm ground against oppression, injustice, and tyrannical rule. He was the ultimate example of "no matter what it takes, never bow to humiliation". The Imam lived his whole life in freedom, and he wasn't about to let go of this God-given right for a life of silence and submission to the most corrupt Yazid. “If you don't believe in any religion and don’t fear the Resurrection Day, at least be free in this world,” the Imam said. His message is universal. His lessons are everlasting and relevant until the end of civilization. Martyr Murtadha Mutahhari explains in an essay entitled "The Truth about Hussain's Revolt: Hussain - The Universalist" that everyone can benefit from the hero of Karbala. "His message is certainly not an exclusive preserve of any particular group. It embraces the entire human race," writes Mutahhari. History continues to repeat itself, since injustice and oppression still prevail. This is inevitable until the return of Imam Mahdi (peace be upon him), who will repeat the course of his grandfather by enjoining the good and forbidding the evil and stand up against the tyrants who cause oppression today. But this doesn't mean that one stays passive and gives up hope to do what is right and speak out against evil. Imam Hussain's (peace be upon him) message was not only for his time. It needs to be applied on all occasions. Protect and fight for what is rightfully yours. Revolutions start within the self first and then can be expanded when oppression is happening at home, the community, the local and national scale. We ask Allah to guide us and help us against the oppression we commit against ourselves. Let us pray to the return of our living Imam Mahdi (peace be upon him) and may we have the honor to serve him.

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Bed-Wetting: Help Your Child Stay Dry at Night Bed-wetting is a common event in young children. It is normal for a child up to age 6 to wet the bed once in a while. As children get older, they can control night urination better. That's because their bladders are larger and more developed. Do not become angry if your child can't stay dry during the night. Never punish or tease your child for bed-wetting. It will only make things worse. Support and patience are the keys in helping your child. Here's what you can do to help your child stay dry all night: Encourage your child to use the bathroom during the night. For example, leave the bathroom light on. Set an alarm clock for yourself and wake your child once during the night. Do not give your child too much to drink before bedtime. But don't keep drinks from a thirsty child, either. Each time your child stays dry during the night, give a small prize. Keep a calendar with a star (or favorite sticker) pasted on by the child every morning when he or she is dry. Talk with your child's doctor if your child has daytime "accidents" or is still having wet nights after age 6.

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Attention Deficit–Hyperactivity Disorder About This Condition Attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADD or ADHD) is defined as age-inappropriate impulsiveness, lack of concentration, and sometimes excessive physical activity. ADHD has been associated with learning difficulties and lack of social skills. Obviously what constitutes “normal” in these areas covers a wide spectrum; thus it is unclear which child suffers true ADHD and which child is just more rambunctious or rebellious than another. No objective criteria exist to accurately confirm the presence of ADHD. ADHD often goes undiagnosed if not caught at an early age, and it affects many adults who may not be aware of their condition. ADHD is generally recognized by a pattern of inattention, distractibility, impulsivity, and hyperactivity estimated to affect 3 to 5% of school-aged children. Learning disabilities or emotional problems often accompany ADHD. Children with ADHD experience an inability to sit still and pay attention in class, and they often engage in disruptive behavior. Healthy Lifestyle Tips Smoking during pregnancy should be avoided, as it appears to increase the risk of giving birth to a child who develops ADHD.1 Lead and other heavy-metal exposures have been linked to ADHD.2, 3 If other therapies do not seem to be helping a child with ADHD, the possibility of heavy-metal exposure can be explored with a health practitioner. Copyright © 2013 Aisle7. All rights reserved. Aisle7.com The information presented in Aisle7 is for informational purposes only. It is based on scientific studies (human, animal, or in vitro), clinical experience, or traditional usage as cited in each article. The results reported may not necessarily occur in all individuals. Self-treatment is not recommended for life-threatening conditions that require medical treatment under a doctor's care. For many of the conditions discussed, treatment with prescription or over the counter medication is also available. Consult your doctor, practitioner, and/or pharmacist for any health problem and before using any supplements or before making any changes in prescribed medications. Information expires June 2014.

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New York Times February 14, 2007 Paints’ Mysteries Challenge Protectors of Modern Art (Abridged) By RANDY KENNEDY LOS ANGELES — In a sprawling, white-on-white lab here that looks like a set from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey,” a British scientist named Thomas Learner recently lifted the top from a small box of slides, the kind that usually contain microscopic samples of bacteria or chemicals. But this was a different kind of lab, and the slides were coated with dozens of shades of dried acrylic paint, at once as ordinary as house paint and as precious as rare isotopes. This is because the acrylics had been taken from the Santa Monica studio of Sam Francis, the abstract painter, who died in 1994 and who, like many artists of his generation, had largely abandoned the oils that had been the medium of painting for at least five centuries. Instead, he turned to their modern successors: acrylics, enamels, alkyds and many other substances that are more synthetic than organic. The new paints, which began to emerge in the 1930s and made their way into many studios by the 1950s, allowed artists to do things they couldn’t do with oil. Morris Louis used thinned acrylic to stain, rather than coat, canvases, creating an ethereal effect. Jackson Pollock used gloss enamel because it poured and dripped the way he wanted. Bridget Riley and Frank Stella both used ordinary house paints, Mr. Stella because they “had the nice dead kind of color” that he wanted, right out of the can. But while conservators have inherited generations’ worth of knowledge about oil paints, they know comparatively little about synthetics and how to protect the masterpieces created by using them, many of which are rapidly approaching the half-century mark. Acrylics, for example, can leave surfaces softer than oil paints do, and so dust and dirt stick to them more easily. The surfaces can also be breeding grounds for mold. How should they be cleaned? Or transported? What should the temperature and humidity be in the museums where they are displayed? And what can institutions do — besides panic or weep — if real problems arise, if a deep red on a Mark Rothko painting slowly becomes a pale blue, for example, or if cracks appear in a Pollock easily worth tens of millions of dollars? (These two crises have arisen in recent years.) In 2002 the Getty Conservation Institute here, working with the Tate in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, began an ambitious project called Modern Paints to answer such questions. It is only one part of a much larger undertaking for conservators of modern art, who now must deal with painting, sculpture and installation materials as strange and fragile as latex, old cathode ray tubes, whale-bone dust, fluorescent tubes, preserved sheep and at least one shaggy, taxidermied angora goat. Over the last few years, in its labs perched high in the hills of Brentwood, the Getty has brought complex technology costing millions of dollars to bear on modern paints, building up a database of thousands of kinds of pigments, solvents, chemical binders and other substances. In the process it has helped cast light not only on better ways to clean, care for and transport modern paintings, but also on the ways that artists — some, like Morris Louis, highly reclusive — worked. As just one reminder of the kind of lab this was, a cardboard storage box sitting on one table was emblazoned with the hand-lettered warning: “Beware!! Works of Art Below.” Click here to read the full article Posted by laura sweet at 9:12 PM Press And Advertising Please go here to learn about this blog's demographics and advertising opportunities. The images, text and information by laura sweet on this site are licensed and protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. If you reproduce or re-purpose, be sure to credit this blog and link back to the post. Thanks.

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By Emily Alpert 9:47 PM EST, December 11, 2012 Impoverished and isolated North Korea has long invested heavily in its defense programs, even as its people suffer hunger and deprivation. North Korea's rocket launch Wednesday cost about $480 million, South Korean officials estimated before the launch. Although North Korea said it was sending up a satellite for peaceful purposes, the United States and South Korea suspect that it was actually testing its ballistic missile technology. In either case, the money is a staggering sum in light of some of the nation's other needs. “That sort of money could go a very long way to feed children, to upgrade health facilities,” said Patrick McCormick, spokesman for UNICEF. "Our position is that this money should be spent elsewhere." If North Korea used the money to buy rice, it could cover its shortfalls in grain more than four times over, according to the most recent World Food Program estimates and price calculations by economist Marcus Noland. That would cover basic food needs in the undernourished country, if the relatively optimistic estimates by the World Food Program are correct. If North Korea chose to devote the money to existing hunger-relief programs, $480 million would quadruple spending by the World Food Program on emergency food aid and nutritional support for women and children, according to figures recently released by the U.N. agency. It would more than cover shortfalls in funding for its hunger programs in North Korea, which were about $260 million short as of several weeks ago. "Certainly North Korea could do away with a good deal of its acute hunger and malnutrition if it turned those resources to feeding its own people," said David Straub, associate director of Korean Studies at Stanford University.ALSO:

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Free Online Dictionary |NCI Dictionary of Cancer Terms||Download this dictionary| A substance that is being studied as a treatment for cancer. It belongs to the family of drugs called topoisomerase II beta inhibitors. The following video provides you with the correct English pronunciation of the word "XK469", to help you become a better English speaker. A Service of the National Cancer Institute. You think you have ethics... Take the survey NOW!

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http://www.babylon.com/definition/XK469/English

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What are connectivity measures? Connectivity relates to the density of intersections and how direct paths are between places. Increased connectivity reduces the amount of circuitous travel required and often encourages shorter vehicle trips and the use of alternative modes such as biking and walking. A simplistic measure of connectivity is the connectivity ratio which is calculated by: A local circulation map is a method to visually examine connectivity. Streets providing local circulation were identified and mapped. The map highlights roads that provide key connections within neighborhoods and commercial centers. This information can then be used to identify areas with lower levels of connectivity. Field visits are conducted to confirm or refine the local circulation map. Travel model post-processors that work in conjunction with spreadsheet equations and GIS software are used by many planning agencies and consultants to study local connections among employment, shopping, education and other daily travel needs. Some of the more sophisticated tools such as PLACE3S can compare access, connectivity, and multimodal travel benefits of alternative development configurations for a subarea or individual parcel, and then display results with a variety of mapping and graphic tools. Spreadsheet tools have been developed to provide the same analytic rigor without the visualization capabilities. Who implements connectivity measures? Connectivity requirements can help a locality or region implement its goals for growth management and transportation system performance. They can be included in the MPO long-range planning process and in small urban area plans or access management plans developed by city and/or county governments. Growing suburban areas can use measures of connectivity to help ensure new development includes sufficient infrastructure. What are the keys to success and potential pitfalls? Community-based Standards: Communities may differ in their desired levels of connectivity. It would be counter-productive to insist on a rigid connectivity principle applicable to every block. The key is to create strategically located links that benefit broad cross-sections of the community. As respected transportation planner Walter Kulash notes, "The real purpose of connectivity is to provide a variety of routes for daily travel, such as to schools, grocery stores, and after school activities. Kulash further observes: "Proposed street connections that face strong opposition are often a scapegoat for the things people don't like about their community. If you're connecting a quiet old neighborhood to an ugly strip shopping center, people aren't going to like it. Focus on the overall question of what you want for your community." Involving the community in establishing connectivity standards will be important in obtaining acceptance. Where has this strategy been applied? Examples in Montana Examples outside of Montana How can I get started? A first step toward measuring connectivity is to develop an inventory of the local street network. Using GIS, a community can map the links and nodes (intersections) in order to calculate the existing connectivity ratio. To establish a connectivity ordinance, it is helpful to start by researching the small but growing number of successful ordinances around the country. Where can I get more information?

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Space Telescope Operations Control Center - Flight Day 8 The fifth and final partnership between a space shuttle crew and the Hubble Space Telescope is in its final hours. With completion of today’s spacewalk, Hubble is now ready to continue its exploration of the cosmos with a full complement of science instruments. Over the course of the mission’s five spacewalks, the crew added two new science instruments, repaired two others and replaced hardware that will extend the telescope's life at least through 2014. The five spacewalks lasted 36 hours and 56 minutes all together. There have been 23 spacewalks devoted to Hubble, totaling 166 hours and six minutes. While activities here in the STOCC in support of the telescope and the space shuttle are nearing a conclusion, the science mission orbital verification work involving detailed checkouts, alignments and focusing of the new instruments is expected to take several months to complete. Hubble scientists expect the first “new” images to be released in September. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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NEI Information Office This month's paper also lays the groundwork for researchers to embark on the first detailed molecular studies of Stargardt's disease, one of the most poorly understood of the inherited degenerations of the retina. By identifying the defects that trigger this disorder, the authors say scientists eventually may gain the knowledge to devise the first molecular treatments to slow or alter the course of this blinding disease. "Stargardt's disease has been a black box that has been locked up tightly since it first appeared in the medical literature in 1909," said Michael Dean, Ph.D., a scientist at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and an author of the paper. "With the gene isolated, scientists now hold the key to look inside the box and hopefully emerge with novel strategies to protect the vision of people with the disease." Stargardt's disease, also known as fundus flavimaculatus, affects about 25,000 Americans. It typically starts to damage reading vision in both eyes between the ages 6 and 20, often in more than one child in a family and often without any early signs of disease in Eventually, people with Stargardt's disease develop telltale signs of the degeneration, including yellowish flecks near the center of the retina and pigmentary changes at the back of the tissue. However, the most prominent feature of the disease is the appearance of a progressive and often blinding degeneration of the macula, the central part of the retina that provides reading vision. Dean and colleagues report this month that, unlike traditional, needle-in-a-haystack searches for disease genes, they happened upon the Stargardt's gene following a different path of inquiry, showing the importance of serendipity in scientific discovery. Dean said his laboratory began two years ago to search the human genome for new members of a family of genes called ABC, which encode proteins that transport a variety of molecules through cell membranes and are involved in chemotherapy resistance in some tumors. "Studies show that mutations in ABC genes are linked to several inherited diseases in people, including cystic fibrosis," said Rando Allikmets, Ph.D., lead author of the paper and a scientist at NCI's Frederick Cancer Research and Development Center. "We thought that by identifying new ABC genes, it might be possible to link them to other inherited disorders." Dean's group noted that one of the 21 new ABC genes mapped in their laboratory came from a panel of expressed DNA clones from the retina. This led to another key discovery, in collaboration with scientists at Johns Hopkins University. The gene, called ABCR, turned out to be expressed only in the retina, suggesting that it might have a specialized job in the tissue and, when mutated, might cause an inherited disease. With further mapping to pinpoint the exact location of the gene on chromosome 1, Dean said he and his coworkers began to think they might have stumbled upon the gene for Stargardt's disease, which had been localized to that region of the chromosome in 1992 but had never been Their hunch proved correct. In collaboration with scientists at Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Utah, Dean's laboratory partially sequenced the ABC genes from members of 48 different families with clearly defined, recessively inherited Stargardt's disease. Recessive Stargardt's disease--meaning children must have mutations in both copies of the ABCR gene to get the disease--accounts for about 90 percent of all cases of the disorder. Dean and colleagues report in Nature Genetics that they found 19 different mutations in the ABC genes from these families, resulting in a variety of predicted alterations in the ABCR protein product. By contrast, Dean and colleagues have found no mutations in the ABC genes of 40 unrelated people without the disease. But when the scientists tried to find where in the multi-layered retina the ABCR protein is expressed, they noted something that at first seemed puzzling. The Stargardt's gene is copied exclusively in the rod-shaped retinal cells that generate the eye's peripheral and night vision. This is surprising because Stargardt's disease causes a loss of central vision, which is generated by the cone-shaped cells that proliferate in the macula at the center of the retina. Dean said this finding seems to fit a current theory that Stargardt's disease originates in the rod cells just outside the macula. He speculated that the breakdown of the rod cells may eventually damage a part of the retina that is crucial in keeping the tissue healthy, called the RPE. As the RPE becomes more diseased, it may in turn cause the degeneration to spread to the nearby cone cells in the macula, leading to the characteristic loss of central vision. One of the questions to emerge from this month's paper is whether the cloning of the Stargardt's gene has implications for age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness in older Americans? Carl Kupfer, M.D., director of the National Eye Institute, said the isolation of the Stargardt's gene and other genes linked to inherited macular degenerations, such as Sorsby's fundus dystrophy, could have implications for AMD. He added that at the very least, the Stargardt's gene will help to explain more about how the macula works, information that could be important in understanding AMD. "Identifying the Stargardt's gene is a significant medical discovery," noted Kupfer, whose institute is actively studying the causes of macular dengeration. "It may bring researchers closer to finding the cause of AMD, which results in serious visual disability and blindness affecting about 1.7 million older Americans." * The study is titled, "A Photoreceptor Cell-Specific ATP-Binding Transporter Gene (ABCR) is Mutated in Recessive Stargardt Macular Dystrophy." The authors are Rando Allikmets, Nanda Singh, Hui Sun, Noah F. Shroyer, Amy Hutchinson, Abirami Chidambaram, Bernard Gerrard, Lisa Baird, Dora Stauffer, Andy Peiffer, Amir Rattner, Philip Smallwood, Yixin Li, Kent L. Anderson, Richard Alan Lewis, Jeremy Nathans, Mark Leppert, Michael Dean, and James R. Lupski. Cancer Information Service The Cancer Information Service (CIS) is NCI's nationwide telephone service and outreach program. The CIS meets the information needs of patients, the public, and health professionals. Specially trained staff provide the latest scientific information in understandable language. CIS staff answer questions in English and Spanish and distribute NCI materials. Toll-free phone number: 1-800-4-CANCER (1-800-422-6237) For NCI information by fax, dial 301-402-5874 from the telephone on a fax machine and listen to For NCI information by computer: CancerNet Mail Service (via E-mail): To obtain a contents list, send E-mail to email@example.com with the word "help" in the body of the message. CancerNet is also accessible via the Internet through the World Wide Web (http://cancernet.nci.nih.gov) and Gopher

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At least 10million people in the UK are affected by cognitive disabilities. Ashley Nolan and Nicholas Oliver of Precedent suggest easy ways you can make your sites more accessible to them For users with a cognitive disability, accessing your website may be as frustrating as trying to read a Latin version of War and Peace. Yet for many web professionals, this type of issue is relatively unknown. While visual and hearing problems have been on the accessibility radar for a long time, cognitive ones are often ignored. More well-known conditions include autism, Down’s syndrome, dyscalculia and dyslexia. However, considering it from a purely functional standpoint, a person with a cognitive disability will have difficulties with one or more of the following: reading, attention, numbers and calculations, memory and problem solving. That list relates to many aspects of a website, from the amount of content on a page to shopping baskets and forms. While it’s crucial to be aware of situations that affect your users, it’s equally important to ensure that your solutions don’t pigeonhole your website as being optimised for one condition or even a group of conditions, such as cognitive disabilities. Even if you ask yourself, “What accessibility requirements do my users have?” you’re still unlikely to have a conclusive list that covers everyone. While precise figures are hard to obtain, the National Autistic Society (NAS) estimates that more than 500,000 people in the UK have an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and BUPA states that 10 per cent of people are dyslexic. To put that into context, if you combined every student at a university in Britain, you would still be two million short of the approximate 6.5million people who have these two conditions alone. These statistics aren’t referenced to try and radically change how you think about creating websites. Doing that with cognitive disability in mind is largely about reaffirming the common sense accessibility standards that many of you will already be adhering to. So, where to start? Layout and structure Page structure is to content as auto-tune is to Miley Cyrus; take it away and you’ve got a major headache. First up, white space is your friend; use it to help focus a user’s attention on areas of importance on the page. Vertical white space is handy for defining clear separation of content, helping people with reading difficulties to keep track of their progress. Try to keep your page structured so that it reads logically. Important bits of content should take centre stage, while similar pieces should be grouped together. While high-contrast colour is often used to differentiate content, it can be hugely distracting to those with a cognitive disability; consider using a softer palette instead. Keep navigation consistent throughout the site. Its position and functionality shouldn’t change, and its purpose – providing access to all of your beautifully crafted content – should be clear. The majority of users coming to your site will be task-driven, so nothing should distract them from what they’re trying to achieve. Steps needed to complete targets should follow a logical path. Consider somebody using their postcode to auto-complete an address form. Logically, the postcode box providing the lookup should be positioned before any fields that will be filled in, yet some sites still place it below. Hitting a dead end during tasks is hugely frustrating, especially for users with cognitive disabilities. If there’s a problem, give people a route back to correct mistakes, and display confirmation messages throughout the process when major steps have been completed. When displaying errors, make sure they’re clear and positioned relevantly. Grouping errors together will force the user to reference each one to a field on the form. Repositioning them next to corresponding entries removes any ambiguity. Images, icons and content If you can’t see how a picture relates to content, it’s probably not right. Images can be powerful tools for many people with cognitive disabilities, but only when they’re relevant. Animations are also incredibly effective, but it’s important to get the balance right and ensure that you don’t create a distraction from the main content. Movement should only occur when an element is interacted with – navigation states or videos, for example. Some people may find making non-literal interpretations of written text difficult. One user who has Asperger’s explained to us: “Expressive icons, such as smileys, are a great tool for me within a web community. They enable me to clearly understand the tone implied, especially when talking through online communities and forums.” Content is often the deal breaker when it comes to accessibility. As cognitive disabilities can vary widely in their scope and severity, providing multiple mediums can only be beneficial. Alternative media such as audio or video can also be a win-win, as they’ll likely enhance the experience for all users, disabled or otherwise. Something you may not automatically associate with accessibility is the API provided by many sites. This enables large-scale sites to have spin-off versions developed specifically with usability in mind – Accessible Twitter and Easy YouTube, say. They’re not affiliated with the original site but developed externally, making full use of the API. On smaller sites where an API is unrealistic, feeds can be used to repurpose important data. You can then use these feeds to provide an accessible version of the information for certain users. In reality, we’ve barely scratched the surface of creating websites to help those with cognitive disability. If you wish to explore the topic in greater detail, WebAIM provides some good insights. The benefits of developing sites around cognitive disabilities go beyond making you feel gooey inside; you’ll ultimately improve access to your site for everyone. There’s no such thing as a bulletproof domain, but by respecting the logical approach and thinking carefully about the impact of your design decisions, you can make sure your pages provide a great experience for everyone.

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Dogs become aggressive to other dogs for a variety of reasons. There are dogs that could become afraid or edgy when other dogs are nearby. In other instances a dog is trying to become the dominant dog. There are times when a dog feels he’s defending his territory and becomes aggressive. If the dog is not taught proper socialization techniques as a puppy, the owner has essentially groomed the dog to be aggressive towards other dogs. Other dogs could be demonstrating their desire to defend their owner and turn hostile as a result, and they could become sexually aggressive too. A Few Tips One of the easiest ways to stop dog aggression is by making sure, when the dog is still a puppy, it’s socialized with other animals. Introducing your puppy to stable and obedient dogs for playtime is crucial to preventing aggressive behavior. This technique allows your puppy to observe appropriate behavior from a dog that is well trained. Socialization teaches the dog that other animals are not a threat to him and there is no need to defend his master, his territory, or himself. An alternative method employed to stop dog aggression after a dog begins to display aggressive tendencies is to deal with the incident every time it occurs. A dog should not be permitted to exhibit an aggressive tone without correction from the owner. Although it is not a long term fix for the challenge, a muzzle or head collar may be used during the dog’s training period. Stringent training is another effective way to stop dog aggression. The dog will be unable to concentrate on the distractions of the other animal because his focus will be solely on listening to and pleasing the owner. The dog must be taught to concentrate on the master in order to keep his focus on him, and so that the master can issue additional commands to the dog, like “sit” or “down,” when another dog is present. The dog’s owner needs to make sure he keeps his own anxious behavior or feelings under control because, as minor as they might be, a dog can pick up nervous cues from its owner. Dogs are guided by the actions of their owner, which means that if you want to stop dog aggressions, you will have to control any undesirable actions on your part. Once your dog has been trained to stay focused on you, you can work on training him to look to you for a treat, which serves as a distraction when there are other dogs around. A treat can be tossed on the ground and the dog is told to look for it, which will distract the dog from other dogs around him, and stop any dog aggression before it gets started.

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Hurricane Sandy: Start of the Super Storms The hurricane that mimicked Alaska's 2011 'super storm' promises many more like it Once again, we were all New Yorkers. Watching the heartbreak that continues in Staten Island, parts of Queens and along the pummeled Jersey Shore, our sympathies turned eastward toward the victims of this unusual “Super Storm.” But just how unusual was it? Sandy’s devastation gives us the opportunity to remember another giant storm that barreled into the Bering coast of western Alaska last year. The two storms are strikingly similar, and both point to a climate destabilized by fossil fuel emissions. The parallels between Sandy and Alaska’s storm begin with the language used to describe them. On Nov. 8, 2011, in a headline similar to those that would precede Sandy, the Alaska Dispatch newspaper warned, “North Pacific ‘Super Storm’ Bears Down on Western Alaska.” The National Weather Service in Alaska ominously spoke of “a life-threatening storm of a magnitude rarely experienced.” A year later, as Sandy approached the Northeast, the same agency warned of a “historic storm” capable of widespread damage and possible loss of life. The size of the storms, each stretching over 1,000 miles, awed meteorologists. Their intensity was similarly unique, with the barometric pressure plunging to 943 millibars for Alaska’s storm and 940 for Sandy. The readings, more indicative of a Category Three hurricane, were rare in the Northern latitudes where they occurred. The storms’ huge size and fierce winds kicked up deadly seas and drove surges that devastated low-lying coastal areas. Along the Bering Coast, waves towered between 30 and 40 feet, similar to the record setting 32-footer that charged across New York Harbor during Sandy’s peak. In another similarity, both storms were quickly followed by “normally” powerful storms that brought added suffering to an already stricken area. But you’ve probably never even heard of Alaska’s Super Storm. There’s an obvious reason for that: population. The Bering Coast supports one of the nation’s sparsest populations, with its largest community, Nome, inhabited by just 3,600 people. Point Hope, Kivalina and Savoonga are among a few dozen other settlements, mostly Alaska Native villages with populations in the hundreds. In Alaska, there were no headline-making evacuations. After all, people can only evacuate so far when there’s no road out of the village and aircraft flights are halted during bad weather (let alone during Super Storms). So, as gusts approaching 100 mph drove blizzard conditions, ripped away roofs and knocked out power, residents hunkered down in schools and community centers, where the wind’s roar nearly drowned out their voices. After a punishing two days, they emerged to find roads and property ruined by wind and coastal flooding. Damages were in the mere millions, compared to Sandy’s billions, only because there was much less infrastructure to damage. But the cost to individual people was equally painful. And, just as important, the storm’s connection to climate change was just as plain. For instance, the absence of sea ice, which used to limit big waves and storm surges this time of year, fueled the destructiveness of Alaska’s Super Storm. In recent years, the Bering Sea’s rough weather, combined with the rapidly dwindling ice, has caused massive coastal erosion, forcing villages such as Kivalina to plan for the permanent abandonment of their long-held homes. Here, climate change is a daily reality. Similarly, Sandy was strengthened by warmer-than-usual ocean water, something that is quickly becoming the norm in the Atlantic. And Sandy’s destruction was worsened by sea-level rise. Research shows that sea-level rise is not uniform around the globe, and that ocean currents and other factors are making it more profound in the Northeast. That’s why we saw water pouring into the Ground Zero construction site and flooding New York’s tunnels and subways. Now, city planners in the Northeast are having the same discussions that occurred in Kivalina a few years ago, before they decided that moving the village was inevitable. Of course, it’s still true that no single weather event can be directly blamed on human-caused climate change. But disappearing sea ice, warming oceans and rising sea levels are observable phenomena driven by the atmospheric buildup of greenhouse gases. We can be assured that these are not the last Super Storms. More likely, they’re among the first, and the records they set will be dwarfed by the storms to come. Like the recent fires in the West—2012 was another record-breaking year for Western wildfires—they will be back. That’s what climatologists predict. Meanwhile, our political leaders sidestep even the mention of climate change and mostly dismiss energy conservation. It’s a strange legacy—along with weird weather—we’re leaving today’s young people. This story first appeared in High Country News.

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Real life heroes Zumbi dos Palmares Zumbi was the last leader of the Quilombo dos Palmares, a fugitive community of escaped slaves and others in colonial Brazil that developed from 1605 until its suppression in 1694. Fluent in Portuguese and Latin, Zumbi was born free in Palmares in 1655, and is believed to have been a descendant of the Imbangala warriors of Angola. In 1693, the Portuguese launched a military assault against Zumbi and the Quilombo. Overmatched by the Portuguese artillery, the republic’s central settlement fell. Zumbi evaded capture for two years before being betrayed by a captured mulatto who was offered freedom in exchange for information about Zumbi’s whereabouts. Zumbi was ultimately apprehended and beheaded on 20 November, 1695. Today, 20 November is celebrated as "Dia da Consciência Negra" (The Day of Black Awareness) in honour of the contributions of the nation’s African ancestry and to dissolve the perception of Africans' inferiority in society. Zumbi remains a formative symbolic figure of the twentieth-century Afro-Brazilian movement. Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most prominent face of the Underground Railroad, the famed network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th century slaves in the United States to escape to free states. Born a slave in Maryland in 1820, Harriet Tubman escaped to Philadelphia in 1849, but returned to Maryland shortly after to rescue her family. In defiance of The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which decreed that all runaway slaves be brought back to their masters, Harriet conducted over a dozen missions to rescue over 70 slaves. In 1859, Harriet helped to recruit men for John Brown’s infamous raid on Harpers Ferry Armory aimed to incite a slave revolt. While the raid was unsuccessful, it encouraged the onset of the Civil War. During the Civil War, Harriet served as a cook, nurse and later as a scout and spy for the Union Army. In her later years, Harriet was a prominent force behind the women’s suffrage movement in New York State. She died in 1913 at age 93, having left behind an enduring legacy of courage, grace and resiliency.

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Enemies: A History of the FBI Random House. 537 pp. $30 By Susan Rosenfeld In the Author’s Note prefacing his book on the FBI, Tim Weiner describes Enemies as the “history of the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a secret intelligence service,” its major mission, according to Weiner, for most of the past hundred years. The book chronicles the “tug-of-war between national security and civil liberties”—except that as Weiner portrays the FBI, with rare exceptions, there is no tug-of-war. “Security” far outweighs civil liberties and the Constitution. This book is not an objective study of FBI history. Instead it selects examples that bolster the contention that the FBI put its wars against anarchists, Communists, the New Left, and foreign and domestic terrorists ahead of any consideration for the Bill of Rights. Weiner concedes that proponents from all these groups actually committed acts of espionage or violence. But for the most part, he features perpetrators who were never punished. Weiner also oversells the role that surveillance played in J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI and beyond. As former foreign counterintelligence (FCI) agent Robert Lamphere noted in The FBI-KGB War, “only a small fraction of the New York field office [in the 1940s]—fifty or sixty men out of a thousand—was concerned with Soviet espionage and few agents outside the squad really knew or cared much about Soviet spies.” Add to that, foreign counterintelligence work was secret and could go on for years without resulting in any arrests or glory for its agents. That discouraged them from pursuing careers in FCI. By the post-Hoover era, foreign counterintelligence had become a backwater where one could place agents with the least ability such as Richard Miller, the first FBI agent to be accused and convicted of espionage. At the same time, Weiner either minimizes Bureau successes or turns them into reasons for criticism. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, for example, the FBI had identified potential Japanese, German, and Italian spies and saboteurs and secured their arrest. Hoover opposed the 1942 internment of West Coast Japanese because in Hoover’s mind, everyone who posed a danger had already been detained. Instead, Weiner chose to emphasize whatever illegal techniques the FBI used to identify some of these enemies. Weiner faults the Cold War FBI for not arresting more Russian spies. However, sources opened in the 1990s reveal that the Soviets had to change tactics and even recalled some spy handlers back home when FBI surveillance compromised their ability to contact their assets. As current FBI historian John Fox has noted, “Espionage is a difficult crime to prove, and prosecution for espionage, therefore, is not the standard by which to judge the success of a counterintelligence program.” During Hoover’s tenure as FBI director (1924-1972), the Bureau’s domestic surveillance programs as well as FCI often fell into a gray area not specifically addressed by the courts, and the attorney general’s formal guidelines regarding surveillance did not exist until 1976. The FBI also liberally interpreted decisions that might have compromised its surveillance programs. Section 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, for example, did not permit the wiretapping and divulging of communications without the sender’s permission. Hoover decided that wiretap surveillance remained legal as long as its contents were not “divulged.” Even after the Keith case in 1972 specifically outlawed wiretaps on Americans, the courts refused to include foreign surveillance: “The instant case requires no judgment on the scope of the president's surveillance power with respect to the activities of foreign powers, within or without this country.” After 1978, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) had to approve electronic surveillance. Weiner, like many Bureau critics, pointed out that the FISC rarely turned down a Bureau request. Actually, the briefs requesting surveillance usually went through many drafts until the FBI developed a case that the court would accept. If one looks only at Hoover and the FBI, naturally, it will seem as if they are responsible for everything. Weiner usually avoids this by emphasizing that presidents urged the Bureau to conduct surveillance by any means necessary. Nevertheless, Weiner alleges that “Hoover was creating the political culture of the Cold War in the United States.” But a number of other individuals and organizations feared American Communists and Soviet spies as much as Hoover. According to Richard Gid Powers, “American anticommunism [after World War II] moved from the margins to the center of American politics, as Joseph Stalin . . . extended his power across half of Europe.” The Soviet Union’s aspiration of spreading Communism throughout the world was a fact. Even the liberals of Americans for Democratic Action (ADA), as well as many other religious and veterans groups, perceived Communism as a potential threat to American democracy. They did not need J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI to determine that Communism and Russian totalitarianism should be contained. Powers, incidentally, is himself a historian of the FBI, and author of what I consider to be the best biography of J. Edgar Hoover, Secrecy and Power (1986). If Weiner was aware of Powers’s books, he did not cite any of them. The anti-war, feminist, and black power movements of the 1960s and 1970s, dubbed the “New Left” in the FBI, became the focus of both FBI intelligence and counterintelligence programs. In these investigations, the FBI infiltrated suspect organizations using informants and undercover agents, collected documents, and observed demonstrations. The military, Secret Service, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and local law enforcement agencies also used these methods, although the FBI was almost always the agency blamed for such intrusions. Interspersing the “spying” and counterintelligence programs against the New Left with unrelated investigations, as Weiner does, makes them lose their impact. Yet their revelation in the post-Watergate years, along with that of Hoover’s vendetta against Martin Luther King, Jr., forever damaged the reputation of Hoover and the Bureau, leading to the kind of distortion of FBI history exemplified by Enemies. Weiner, like many commentators on surveillance of the New Left, neglects the bombings, property destruction, and threats of violent revolution coming from members of some of these organizations. Regarding King, Weiner correctly identifies the assistant director in charge of the Domestic Intelligence Division, William Sullivan, father of the infamous Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), as the author of the note to King that may have suggested that the civil rights leader commit suicide—or possibly just turn down the Nobel Prize. King did neither, of course, and Hoover is often erroneously credited with authoring the note. Weiner, however, distorts the Hoover-King situation elsewhere by implying that the FBI director meant King’s sex life when he declared the civil rights leader “the most notorious liar in the country.” Rather, according to one of Hoover's major advisors, Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, this remark referred to King’s failure to withdraw his inaccurate accusation that most FBI agents assigned to the South were themselves southerners and therefore prejudiced against Negroes. The FBI also conducted one of its largest investigations ever to find King’s assassin. To identify and then track down James Earl Ray took painstaking work and detective skills. Yet Weiner makes it appear that Scotland Yard solved the crime after an inept Bureau let Ray escape. The investigative files are available on the FBI’s website. If Weiner read the files his characterization of the investigation represents a deliberate distortion. If he did not, it represents a serious research failure. This section is only one example in which Weiner does not cite what sources he used. Hoover died on May 2, 1972. Approximately six weeks later, burglars linked to Nixon’s re-election committee broke into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. Not only did Watergate lead to the resignation of a president, it precipitated Congressional and media investigations into America’s intelligence community. The resulting changes in the nation’s security apparatus made intelligence collection more difficult. Furthermore, the revelations about break-ins and wiretaps invoked fear that the FBI’s principal activity was spying for the sake of spying and for very little reason, a critique Weiner echoes. Practices like following aging Communists or placing informants in women’s consciousness-raising sessions opened the FBI to ridicule. Neither helped the United States battle foreign or domestic terrorism, nor to identify spies within US organizations. In addition, after the fall of the Soviet Union, then-FBI Director William S. Sessions downgraded counterespionage. According to Weiner, Hoover-era-type tactics would not be revived until after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. “For years to come,” he writes, “the FBI agents who hunted terrorists in America wandered in a legal wilderness, looking for signs to guide them through an uncharted land.” For the next hundred pages or so, Weiner compiles Bureau attempts to vanquish terrorists while maintaining strict adherence to the law. Fifty-three agents, according to Weiner, were investigated by the Department of Justice for illegal breaches of privacy (no source given). The Bureau did not protect its agents, making counterterrorism an assignment to avoid. Of course, some agents diligently continued their investigations, such as the ultimately successful resolution of the 1976 assassination in Washington of Chilean exile Orlando Letelier. Weiner buries such successes among failures, for example, by featuring spies within the FBI like Robert Hanssen. Little of these discussions concerned civil liberties questions. In fact, few of the post-Hoover sections of the book deal with civil liberties and security. Weiner apparently had other stories to tell, especially if they put the FBI and its directors in a negative light. Enemies is not a page-turner. Rather, as Weiner states in the Author’s Note, it is a compendium of “illegal arrests and detentions, break-ins, burglaries, wiretapping, and bugging,” usually justified by a presidential request endorsed tacitly or actually by the attorney general. Most of Weiner’s examples run a few sentences or paragraphs. He rarely tells a story in full, with the exception of the 1919 Red Raids, Watergate, and strangely, the FBI’s role in suppressing a revolt in the Dominican Republic in 1965, which rates an entire chapter. For as experienced a journalist as Weiner, who has worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer and New York Times, to enliven his text with melodramatic descriptions of Hoover’s (and others) supposed feelings is surprising. One example: Hoover’s “rage at the president’s reluctance to fight a full-bore war on communism grew ferocious.” Hoover’s suggesting that he wanted a “showdown” with the president (Truman), and asking members of Congress to “give him the power to protect America against ‘the threat of infiltrating foreign agents, ideologies, and military conquest,’” does not sound to me like a “ferocious” rage. Rather Hoover was convinced that his FBI could do a better job than any other government agency in protecting the nation against foreign and domestic enemies. Weiner uses an impressive array of sources in the 60 pages of notes, almost all of them primary documents, including some declassified as recently as August and November 2011. He also incorporates oral histories and interviews from the Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI’s Oral History Heritage Program, many of which are available to the public on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Museum website. (I am a consultant to the project and at least one of my interviews is cited.) In addition, Weiner graciously points to several secondary works that pulled together new information, notably those by Raymond J. Batvinis on the Special Intelligence Service, and the work of Katherine A. S. Sibley, John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassilev on Soviet espionage. The scope of his sources and the many pages of citations, nevertheless, leave a number of problems that seriously diminish the credibility of this book. In most cases, Weiner cites only direct quotations. As a former official historian of the FBI, I want to know the origin of controversial vignettes or of information that is new to me. Often Weiner does not give an adequate source. Sometimes whole paragraphs go by without any attribution. Still another frustration for me was in identifying exactly which sources Weiner used when he does cite them. Some notes are quite specific and therefore quite helpful. In his discussion of the FBI’s early years (the records of which are on microfilm), he gives both the reel number and the case number. Weiner also includes links to some specific online documents. But in citing the many FBI Freedom of Information Act releases, he uses only the abbreviation “FBI/FOIA.” The file names are not cited, making it virtually impossible to locate the document to check the context of a quote. Moreover, he does not indicate whether the source is from records he recently acquired or among those available on the FBI’s website. Weiner also appears to accept at face value oral history interviews that he cites. In the section on Watergate, he includes former Special Agent Daniel F. Bledsoe’s verbatim recollection of a conversation that allegedly took place the day of the break-in. Bledsoe was the FBI headquarters supervisor on duty that weekend. In the first place, Weiner only partially reconstructs and sometimes paraphrases Bledsoe’s rendition. Second, Bledsoe was recalling an event that took place almost 37 years earlier. Any good researcher should know that recollections are often fallible, and will attempt to confirm any major allegations. Bledsoe describes emphatically and in detail that presidential aide John Ehrlichman ordered him to stop the FBI from investigating the Watergate break-in and threatened to have Bledsoe fired when he refused. That certainly constitutes a major allegation! Why a high-level White House official would give such an order to an FBI supervisor and not to its highest executives should have raised a question. Apparently it did not. Had Weiner wanted to probe further, he could have found Bledsoe’s handwritten notes from 17 June 1972 in the FBI’s Watergate files available online. The closest the notes come to any instruction from the White House is in a notation relaying a message from the FBI’s Washington Field Office. Chief of staff H. R. Haldeman’s aide, Alexander Butterfield, had informed Ehrlichman of the break-in, and in turn, an order had been issued that “No abnormal pressure [be] put on CIA per . . . White House.” Did Bledsoe’s memory turn this third-hand mention of Ehrlichman into an anecdote that put Bledsoe in the middle of one of the crimes of the century? Did such a call from Ehrlichman or another official occur at another time to Bledsoe or another FBI person? If it did, it has not found its way into any primary or secondary source that I am aware of, although the former agent who interviewed Bledsoe noted, “I’ve heard that a couple of times.” Regardless, the episode presented significant new information. It should have elicited a thorough inquiry by Weiner. Enemies does not present a 100 percent negative picture of the FBI even under Hoover. For example, Weiner summarizes Hoover’s accomplishments from the 1920s and 1930s in one paragraph: “He fired crooks and incompetents . . . instituted uniform crime reports, built a training academy, and assembled a national fingerprint file.” Despite Hoover’s centrality to this book, Weiner does not make the mistake of equating the entire FBI with its director. Those who do, cannot understand, as Weiner does, that some FBI agents aggressively pursued criminal and terrorist investigations against the Klan and “White Hate” groups at the same time other agents were investigating various black civil rights groups for communist infiltration. As Hoover neared the end of his reign, Weiner credits him with refusing to sign the Nixon administration’s plan to remove many of the legal restrictions on the various intelligence services. Hoover’s refusal convinced the heads of the other intelligence agencies to decline as well. As a result, the White House developed its own agents, aka the “plumbers,” which in turn, led to Watergate. Weiner also notes Judge William H. Webster’s efforts as director to “do the work the American people expected in the way that the Constitution demanded.” Current FBI Director Robert S. Mueller is a hero to Weiner because of his refusal to agree to President George W. Bush’s request for unlimited domestic surveillance. At the book’s end, Weiner trusts Mueller to achieve a proper balance between freedom and security in the future. Weiner does not make a specific effort in his narrative to relate the past to the present. However, readers interested in his topic cannot help but make the connection. To many readers, this book will remind Americans they must remain vigilant if they are to maintain the civil liberties. I do not dispute that important goal. But by demonizing the FBI, authors such as Weiner, in my opinion, go too far. Even J. Edgar Hoover made an effort to justify the “illegalities” his agents performed in the name of national security. Today Congress and the media criticize the Bureau for not “connecting the dots,” and at the same time civil libertarians bring up the FBI’s history of over-reaching surveillance. Weiner purported to portray the difficulties in balancing this conflict. Instead, he wrote a catalog of the Bureau’s alleged intelligence misdeeds, and a critique of the post-Watergate FBI that had little to do with perceived constitutional breaches. Susan Rosenfeld served as the FBI’s first official historian from 1984 to 1992. Since 2002, she has been the principal consultant to the Society of Former Special Agents Oral History Heritage Program. Earlier in her career she was an archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration, specializing in Department of Justice documents, including the records of the FBI and the Watergate Special Prosecution Force. She received her PhD in history from Georgetown University, and has also taught US constitutional history. Currently she is a historian with the US Air Force, Air National Guard. This review represents the personal opinion of its author, and not those of her former employers, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, or her present employer, the US Air Force. Tim Weiner, Enemies: A History of the FBI (New York: Random House, 2012), xv. Robert J. Lamphere and Tom Shachtman, The FBI-KGB War: A Special Agent’s Story (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1995), 20; Weiner, Enemies, 356-357. John Fox, “What the Spiders Did: US and Soviet Counterintelligence Before the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies, Vol. 11, No. 3 ( Summer 2009), 220; note, 222. United States v. United States District Court, 407 U.S. 297. The quote is from Section II. Royce Lamberth, “FISA Court Judge Royce Lamberth Discusses Work of Court.” National Security Law Report Vol. 19, No. 2 (May 1997), 1-2, 4-5. Weiner, Enemies, 146; Richard Gid Powers, Not Without Honor: The History of American Anticommunism, (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), 191. Powers’s books on the FBI include G-Men: Hoover’s FBI in American Popular Culture (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983); Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover (Free Press, 1987); and Broken: The Troubled Past and Uncertain Future of the FBI (New York: Free Press, 2004). Weiner, Enemies, e.g., 270-273; 279-280. Ibid., 250; Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach, Hoover’s FBI: The Inside Story by Hoover’s Trusted Lieutenant (Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, 1995), 204. Weiner, Enemies, 274. Ibid., 328. Ibid., xvi. Ibid., 146. Raymond J. Batvinis, The Origins of FBI Counterintelligence (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007); Katherine A. S. Sibley, Red Spies in America: Stolen Secrets and the Dawn of the Cold War (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2007); John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev, Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006). Weiner, Enemies, 309-310; Society of Former Special Agents of the FBI, Inc., Interview of former Special Agent of the FBI Daniel F. Bledsoe (1955-1980), interviewed by Brian R. Hollstein, 19 August 2009. Weiner, Enemies, 63, 248. Ibid., 291, 296, 344, 448. © 2012 by Susan Rosenfeld

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When he pitched a hitless inning in relief for the New York Highlanders (already beginning to be called the Yankees) on April 16, 1907, Roy Castleton became the first native of Utah to play major league baseball. Castleton, however, was much more than the answer to a trivia question. He was a promising left-handed pitcher with a minor league perfect game to his credit. The story of the Castleton family is the story of Utah's settlement. Between 1860 and 1870, over 9,000 persons emigrated from England to Utah. One of those families was the Castletons. The family had lived in Lowestoft, Suffolk, England, since at least the mid-eighteenth century. James Joseph Castleton was born there in 1829, the eldest of ten children, and worked as a fisherman as well as a rope and twine maker. On January 2, 1854, he married Frances Sarah Brown, from the nearby village of Pulham. On October 4 of that year, their first son, Charles, was born. During the 1850s, the Mormon Church wanted to expand and develop their Utah colony. Much of their effort was concentrated on gaining converts in Europe, with a particular emphasis on the British Isles. At least one member of the Castleton family, Frances, was among those converts. The church established the Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company, which helped more than a third of church members emigrating from Europe to the American West. In early 1863, James Castleton, his wife and four sons were among the immigrants. They left London on the Amazon around the beginning of June. They reached the Port of New York on July 20. The family traveled by train to Omaha, Nebraska, then secured teams of oxen and set out across the plains, reaching the Salt Lake Valley on October 4. Frances was pregnant at the time and rode while those able, including Charles, walked much of the way across the West. James Castleton was hired by Brigham Young as a gardener, and was still at that job in 1870. He saved enough money to buy land at L Street and Seventh Avenue and open a store. Charles Castleton worked at the store, and became a carpenter. In 1879 he married Mary Ann Luff, also an immigrant from England. Charles and Mary Ann would have seven children. On July 26, 1885, a son, Royal Eugene, was born. Roy grew up in a middle class neighborhood of Salt Lake City's Fourth Ward. The city itself had a population of around 45,000 during his childhood. It was also becoming a more diversified place to live. About half the population did not belong to the Latter-day Saints Church, though Roy and his family were members. When Roy was ten, Utah became the 45th state. Castleton was well educated by turn-of-the-century standards: He was a high school graduate who especially enjoyed mathematics. His other passion was baseball. By the summer of 1904 he was using both talents. He joined his older brother Charles as a member of the state's best amateur team, the Cleveland Commission company team of Salt Lake City. According to the Ogden Standard Examiner the team included several former professional players and was the undisputed amateur champion of the state. Not yet 18, Roy more than held his own in a series of games with an independent professional team from Ogden. On July 3, he lost a 6-5 fourteen-inning game. The Standard Examiner said Castleton "handled the horsehide in good style, and finished with a strong wing at the end of the fourteenth inning." Before a thousand fans, the largest crowd of the season in Ogden, he won the next day by the same 6-5 score, with his endurance noted. He went 3-4 at the plate that day. At some point late in the 1904 season, Roy signed with his hometown Salt Lake City team in the Class B Pacific National League. He probably played at least briefly with the team in the closing weeks of the season, and was included on the team's reserve list that fall. During the winter of 1904-05 Frank Gimlin, manager of the Cleveland Commission team, was hired by Ogden as the team entered the Pacific National League. Gimlin recruited some of his former players, including acquiring Castleton from Salt Lake City. Only nineteen, Castleton seemed overmatched by the more experienced competition, but he made the team and pitched well at times. His best outing was a sixteen-inning loss at Salt Lake City. After the league collapsed in June, the Ogden team stayed together as an independent team, and Roy also earned extra money pitching for a semipro team in Blackfoot, Idaho. In Blackfoot, he pitched under an assumed name, taking the name of Sweeney, the pitcher he'd replaced. The Los Angeles Times later told the story of Castleton's last appearance as "Sweeney." "Blackfoot fans ran a special excursion [train] down to Idaho Falls. Unfortunately, a traveling man from Salt Lake happened to be among the excursionists. He recognized Castleton. Just before the game started, a prominent citizen of Idaho Falls, with a Gatling gun in his pocket, stepped to the plate and announced that Blackfoot had a ringer in the box and declared all bets off. Neither side scored for three innings, and a lot of new bets were made in the meantime. Blackfoot won in a driving finish, and Castleton at once became the center of interest. Roy started for the depot on [sic] a gallop. He hastened in every respect of the word. Almost anyone would be prone to hasten with a large portion of the population of Idaho Falls and surrounding country in his wake and considerably peeved. After great difficulty, Castleton was hoisted on board a train for Blackfoot." When not pitching or being chased by angry fans, Castleton worked as a clerk and bookkeeper for one of the railroad offices in Salt Lake City. In the spring of 1906, he took one of those trains east. Youngstown, Ohio, had been a hotbed of professional baseball for several years. After a few seasons of independent ball, the city along with many others entered organized ball in July of 1905 as part of the Class C Ohio Pennsylvania League (O-P). Despite the jumble of teams and inconsistent scheduling, Youngstown had a strong team and was ruled league champion. By 1906, the league had shrunk to a more manageable eight teams, six of them in Ohio. Although the league was new, O-P teams had established rosters largely consisting of veteran players. Most of the Youngstown players that spring were at least four or five years older than Castleton, the youngest player on the team. At a listed height of 5-11 1/2 and 150 pounds, he was one of the team's tallest players but looked like a man who'd missed a meal or two. Youngstown manager Marty Hogan, a former outfielder, was an outstanding judge of pitching talent. Later he'd be responsible for signing Stan Coveleski and Sam Jones to their first minor league contracts, but in 1906 Castleton was his find. It took just one exhibition game to impress the Youngstown Telegram: "Roy Castleton has a jump ball that has it on anything else seen in this neck of the woods. When he has the ball working right a batter has trouble in sending it to the outfield." Castleton made his first regular season appearance in Youngstown's third game. He beat Newark 6-3 but had to be relieved after six innings. The Telegram said he was "plainly rattled and only the clever work in the outer garden held Youngstown safe." He gave up five hits, struck out two, and walked one. It was still a better debut than that made by another young southpaw a few days later. Richard Marquard, already nicknamed Rube, lasted just one third of an inning in a relief appearance for Lancaster, allowing five runs on seven hits. Castleton won four of his first five decisions, two of those wins in relief, and the Telegram said, "with a little coaching by the veteran catcher, Lee Fohl, [Castleton] should develop into a real wonder. Roy has not been backing up the bases well in the games he has played, probably due to a little nervousness, but he will soon overcome this. He has an abundance of smoke, good curves and excellent control." The Telegram noted those curves were "breaking much better in practice than in the games in which he has participated but each game shows an improvement." The article predicted that he would be the best southpaw in the league by the end of May. That prediction wasn't far off. Even when he was struggling on the mound, Castleton was one of the league's better gate attractions. He told a Utah newspaper that he was called "the tall Mormon pitcher, or Brigham Young. While on the coaching lines the fans were continually asking how many wives he had at home, all of which he took good naturedly. Whenever Castleton was slated to pitch, it was used as an advertisement by the home teams and generally resulted in bringing out a large delegation of girl fans who wanted to see the man with many wives." July, Castleton's strongest month, marked the first mention of major league interest in the young southpaw. The sports editor of the Youngstown Telegram received inquiries from three unnamed major league managers, and Hogan was also contacted about the 20-year-old pitcher. On the field, Castleton was developing the consistency the Telegram had predicted. He won six of seven starts and also won a game in relief. His record stood at 15-8 the morning of August 17. That game would make Roy Castleton famous. It was the second game of a key series between first place Youngstown and second place Akron. Hogan felt Akron was weak against lefthanders and decided to pitch Roy outside his normal spot in the rotation. The next day's Telegram reported, "In the most remarkable game ever seen in Youngstown, remarkable for the great pitching of Roy Castleton, Youngstown shut out Akron 4-0. Akron never had a lookin [sic], not at a run, nor a hit, nor even first base. Castleton was in anything but a generous mood and although the visitors were of the opinion that he might 'open up' and permit one or more of them to get to first base, the Mormon youth thought otherwise and not a single Tip Top made the acquaintance of Mert Whitney at the initial sack." The Telegram also compared Castleton's perfect game to the one thrown by Cy Young the year before. "In that memorable contest Young did not allow a run nor a hit. He did not give a base on balls nor hit a batsman. Castleton not only did this Friday but he went old Cy a few better. Only four balls were batted out of the infield. The Mormon also compelled ten men to fan the atmosphere." A dropped third strike was the closest Akron came to a baserunner, but catcher Fohl threw the runner out easily. Major league managers took notice of the perfect game. When Youngstown went to Mansfield for their next series, one of those in attendance was Clark Griffith, manager of the New York Highlanders. He offered $2,000 for Castleton with the young pitcher reporting to New York immediately. The team's owners turned down the offer, as Youngstown was in a tight pennant race. Roy was considered one of the most gentlemanly players in what wasn't a gentlemen's league. Still on one occasion late in the season his temper got the best of him. The Telegram noted, "Roy Castleton, the Mormon youth, is not immune when it comes to saying cuss words. Of course Roy uses them in a modified form but just the same he uses them. Umpire Sam Wise's eyesight was very bad, and he sent three men down to first in succession in the first inning, a run being forced across the plate. Both Castleton and Fohl claim that over one half of the balls cut the plate almost in two, and were of regulation height. Sam couldn't see them that way, however, and Roy expressed his opinion of Wise in anything but a complimentary manner." That bases loaded walk was decisive as Castleton lost the game to Akron 4-3. With a month left in the O-P season, Griffith got his man. New York drafted Castleton for the standard Class C price of $500. Because of his being drafted Youngstown retained Roy for the rest of the season. He finished by winning his last five decisions, finishing with a 22-12 record and striking out 156 batters in 278 innings. Castleton reported to New York's spring training site of Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday, March 9. Alexander MacKenzie, sports editor of the New York Mail, said of Roy's early workouts: "The most promising [of the rookie pitchers], to my notion, is the young lefthander, Castleton. He has better control than any lefthander seen in the East for many years, and had so much speed that Griff had to stop him a couple of times during the practice." Sid Mercer of the Globe also wrote about the young southpaw: "Jack Kleinow was doing the receiving. Presently the ball began to produce loud and resounding thumps in his big mitt. He was faster than it really looked possible for him to be. Then he began hooking them over, and Griff's eyes opened wider, for Castleton was throwing one of the best curves which Griff had ever seen so cleverly controlled by a young southpaw." Kleinow said of that curve, "A right handed batter will fall for that ball every time, it breaks so quickly, though, that he can't dodge, and even if he doesn't intend to hit, he will throw up his stick to protect himself. The usual result is either a pop fly or an easy grounder, with the runner getting a bad start to first." After splitting their first two regular season games, New York opened at home against the Philadelphia Athletics. Despite bad weather, the New York Times estimated the crowd at 10,000. Five pitchers were used between the two teams that day. Roy Castleton was the third of three pitchers to appear for New York. Entering the game in the top of the ninth, he worked a hitless inning. After nearly a week of inactivity, Castleton was the starting pitcher in an exhibition contest with Newark of the Eastern League. On a cold afternoon marked by occasional snow, he allowed thirteen hits in a 12-3 loss. Two days later he was optioned to Atlanta for more seasoning. Though he'd barely pitched in a month, Castleton's debut in the Southern Association was impressive. On April 29 he beat defending champion Birmingham 5-1. Roy allowed just four hits and struck out seven. His third Atlanta appearance illustrated both his potential and his flaws as a pitcher. He was dominating early, striking out four batters in the first two innings. He finished with ten strikeouts in a thirteen-inning tie at Memphis, but struggled badly in the eighth inning. An error and a pair of walks that inning let Memphis score both their runs. He walked six in that game. He later appeared in two twelve-inning games, winning one and tying the other. Those were Atlanta's three longest games of the season. Three losses and a brief period of inactivity with a sore arm slowed his progress through the last half of May. The Atlanta Constitution was still impressed with the young southpaw: "He was bumped on the road, but that was a natural occurrence; no one holds it against him, nor does anyone lessen the value placed on him when he was winning so regularly, and receiving the plaudits of the multitude. He promises to get more plaudits as well as bumps." Not all the bumps he received were on the field. Shortly after joining Atlanta, an imaginative newspaper reporter claimed he was a Mormon with sixteen wives. A report a few years later in the Los Angeles Times said Castleton had been visited by "representatives from the various civic bodies, the W.C.T.U., and The Women's Foreign Missionary Society. If Roy actually had sixteen wives, it was deemed advisable to ride him out of town on a rail. Roy established his singleness to the satisfaction of all concerned and continued to remain in the circuit until called higher." Though certainly exaggerated, this incident showed some of the off-field distractions that Castleton had to face pitching in the South. June and July of 1907 were successful months for Castleton. He won 10 of 13 decisions for Atlanta, developing into the league's best lefthander. One of his best midseason outings was on July 4. The Constitution said: "the southpaw had them on the on the blink throughout the nine rounds, pitching almost faultless ball the while. The small covey of hits [three] were scattered here and there, and in that condition were worthless." He was more effective on the road than at Atlanta's Ponce De Leon Park. He said the mica soil of the pitching mound had a negative effect on his control. As well as Castleton pitched the first four months of the season, he saved his best work for the heat of the pennant race. On August 30, he shut out Little Rock on four hits. No runner reached third. Three days later he struck out nine Shreveport batters throwing a five-hit shutout, winning 5-0 in the second game of the Labor Day doubleheader. He threw his third straight shutout on September 6, blanking New Orleans by an identical 5-0 score. His final 1907 start for Atlanta was his fourth straight shutout. It was a classic pitching duel against Memphis' George Suggs. Suggs allowed five hits, striking out eight and walking two. Castleton was even better. He allowed just four hits with eight strikeouts and one walk. Appropriately the contest ended in a scoreless tie. His final record with Atlanta was 17-8, and he was generally considered the best pitcher on a staff that included Russ Ford and Bob Spade. When an all-time Atlanta team covering the years 1902-07 was picked the following spring, Castleton was among those chosen. Griffith exercised his option on the young southpaw, and Castleton rejoined New York at the end of the Southern Association season. He made two starts during the last week of the American League season. His first start was in the opener of a doubleheader against the St. Louis Browns on September 28. The game was a classic deadball era game. Castleton retired the first twelve Browns he faced before Bobby Wallace opened the fifth with an infield single. St. Louis scored two in the sixth and added another in the seventh for a 3-1 win. Despite the loss, Castleton was very effective, allowing five hits, striking out two and walking one. The New York Times said of his first start, "The Southern League graduate soon installed himself as a favorite of the fans." Castleton's second and, as it turned out, final American League start was on October 2 against Doc White and the Chicago White Sox. New York scored four runs in as many innings off White, and Castleton could be described as effectively wild that afternoon. Charles Dryden's account of the game in the Chicago Tribune commented on Castleton's control in humorous fashion. "After [Jiggs] Donahue doubled in the second Castleton filled the bags by hitting two athletes [Patsy Dougherty and Hub Hart] in vulnerable spots below the belt. By the time he had done all these heroic stunts two men were out, Dr. White mortified his colleagues by fanning the air which was cool enough." Through the first five innings, Castleton allowed the defending World's Champs just three hits. Dryden's account described a Chicago three-run rally: "The Sox bubbled in the sixth. Donahue soaked a safety. [George] Davis fanned. [Charlie] Hickman [replacing the injured Dougherty] got hit on the excess baggage. [George] Rohe's smash to left bounded over the low bleacher fence for a home run." Dryden claimed the home run "got Castleton's goat," and after getting out of the inning with a one-run lead, "Castleton was so glad he was alive he at once turned over his portfolio to slow Joe Doyle." Doyle held Chicago scoreless, saving Roy's first major league win. Despite the three- run inning, Castleton still pitched well, allowing six hits, striking out three, walking one and of course hitting the three batters below the belt. After the season ended, Castleton returned to Salt Lake City and his work in the railroad office. He later said, "I have to work. If my mind is not occupied, I get to thinking too much about things and consequently get blue. And I have to work at something that will keep me going hard. I never felt better than when I had whole sheets of figures to add in making trial balances. The more the merrier. And if I got hold of something with about fourteen columns a mile long each, and about five sheets of them, I was in my glory." He said he usually got off work early enough to keep in shape with an afternoon workout. Despite Castleton's solid pitching, Griffith decided he needed a little more seasoning. In late February, Griffith optioned Castleton to Atlanta for the 1908 season. The option to Atlanta was meant as park rental for New York's spring training stay. Castleton's 1907 salary was a controversial topic in the spring of 1908. The Memphis Commercial-Appeal claimed the Atlanta groundskeeper "was paid an enormous salary. This, of course, did not appear on the players' payroll, but it is charged was cut up with a star pitcher, who received his salary partly in check form, with the remainder in cash handed as a 'present' from the keeper of the grounds." Action was threatened against offending clubs by the league president, but nothing was proven. An on-field spring highlight was a March 28 start against the Cubs. When Castleton left after five innings, the Crackers led the defending World Champions 3-2. After allowing a pair of runs in the first, Castleton was very effective. The Constitution reported, "He worked four more rounds and there were but two more hits, far apart as hits should be when the home team is not getting them." Abnormally cool weather contributed to a slow 1908 start for the Atlanta southpaw. Exaggerating somewhat, the Constitution said of his first start against Nashville, "By the fourth round icicles began to form on his hurling wing." He pitched well in a loss that day but lasted just two innings in his second start. He didn't pitch for three weeks after that, probably due to injury. When Roy returned to the mound at Little Rock on May 13, he had a new pitch that was helped by adverse weather conditions. The Constitution reported, "Heavy rains of the night preceding soaked through the crust at West End Park, and made the going bad, even for web footed and water-wagon stars of the diamond. The ball was slippery and spitters served by Castleton were not necessarily wetted by the Mormon's saliva." He allowed two hits and struck out ten that afternoon and had "local batters up Salt Lake all the way through." He lost his next two starts to drop to 1-4. The second of those was an eleven-inning 2-1 duel at Mobile. That game was a turning point as he won his next eight decisions between May 30 and July 4. It seemed as if another outstanding season and a return to New York was in store, but disaster struck during a road trip to New Orleans. Typhoid fever was a dreaded disease a century ago. George Grossart, Cozy Dolan and minor-league player-manager Julius "Hub" Knoll had all died of typhoid in the early years of the twentieth century. However, there was no mention of typhoid or indeed any serious concern when Castleton returned to Atlanta on July 10. Within a week, the Constitution reported that he was "a very sick man...and is out of the game for the remainder of the season." He spent his twenty-third birthday in the hospital, receiving flowers from members of the Atlanta and Mobile teams. He lost 35 pounds by the time he left the hospital after forty days. He also lost a chance to return to New York. As part of the agreement when Castleton was loaned to Atlanta as park rental, New York got the pick of the Atlanta roster. When the option was exercised in August, pitcher Russ Ford was chosen instead. At the time, Ford was 13-11, while Castleton had been 10-5 at the time of his illness. Despite missing about half of the season, Roy was chosen on at least one Southern Association All-Star team for 1908. The team, chosen by Constitution sports editor Dick Jemison, also included past and future major leaguers Ted Breitenstein, Bill Bernhard and Tris Speaker. Off-season reports indicated Castleton was regaining his health, and expectations were high for the 1909 season. A development in the major leagues would also affect his career. Griffith left New York to become manager of the Reds, and decided to move Cincinnati's spring training base to Atlanta. During spring training, it seemed Roy would return to form after his serious illness. After two impressive spring starts against South Atlantic League teams, Griffith purchased an option for Castleton's services. The option required Cincinnati to acquire his contract from Atlanta on or before August 20. But Roy struggled after the impressive start, walking five in a 4-3 loss to Birmingham on opening day. Castleton's next start was even worse. He lost 11-7 at Nashville and also argued with catcher Sid Smith before leaving the game. Roy dropped to 0-3 before finally winning the first game of a doubleheader against Birmingham on May 1. He won that afternoon 3-0 in ten innings, allowing five hits while striking out ten and walking two. Despite the strong outing, Castleton appeared in just one more game for Atlanta. Just days later, Roy was sent home with an illness first described as malaria and later as food poisoning. Rumors of an impending release were also circulating. Those rumors became reality, at least in part, on May 16. Cincinnati exercised their option early and purchased the southpaw. Roy offered an insight as to why he wanted out of Atlanta: "I do not feel I can stay in shape in this climate. Atlanta is all right, and so is Nashville, but when I get to the other towns, I get sick and don't feel like working. I feel with a little rest up and a cooler climate I will be myself and able to do good work, and I hope to give Cincinnati the best there is in me." Atlanta manager Billy Smith said the purchase price was $1,500 and agreed the move was made at Castleton's request. Upon reporting to the Reds, Castleton didn't pitch for nearly a month. He finally got into a game for the Reds on June 9. The Reds and Boston had a doubleheader scheduled, but due to rain and darkness just one game was played. An estimated 2,500 fans witnessed a 13-2 Reds win that afternoon. The Boston Globe described him as "a rather slight southpaw." The Globe was impressed with his National League debut. "True, he allowed 11 hits, but these were so nicely distributed that had not [first baseman Dick] Hoblitzel made a mess of a rap in the seventh inning, not a run would have trickled over the plate for the Doves. Castleton began the work of destructor in the first inning by fanning [Johnny] Bates and [Fred] Stem and causing [Bill] Sweeney to roll out. In the second he got [Ginger] Beaumont and [Claude] Ritchey on flies and downed [Bill] Dahlen by the three-whiff route." Castleton finished with four strikeouts and just one walk. Unfortunately, Castleton's physical problems continued. Ring Lardner reported Castleton was in Waukesha, Wisconsin, trying to regain his health while the Reds were playing in Chicago. He soon returned to the Reds but was used infrequently. He pitched in a mop-up role in games at Pittsburgh and Boston, before entering a July 25 game versus St. Louis in the eleventh inning. The appearance was a disaster. He allowed three hits and walked three in two innings, giving up three runs in two innings of work. The loss evened his record at 1-1. As it turned out, this was his last appearance of 1909. Brooklyn pitcher Nap Rucker had a brief vacation from his team in early August and discussed Castleton's health with a reporter from the Atlanta Constitution. "Roy does not look well, and it is doubtful if the boy ever pitches again. He told me himself that he was leaving for his home in Salt Lake City for the remainder of the season." Castleton reported early to the Reds 1910 spring training site, Hot Springs, Arkansas. He started the season with Cincinnati, but pitched just once in the season's first month. Ring Lardner described his inauspicious debut versus the Cubs: "Castleton went in to pitch for the Reds in the fifth. He lasted about a minute. [Ginger] Beaumont and [Frank "Wildfire"] Schulte singled and [Frank] Chance sacrificed. Steiny [Harry Steinfeldt] walked. With the bases full, Castleton uncorked a wild pitch and Beaumont loafed home. Griffith asked O'Day to call time while he switched pitchers, and Hank sent him off the field for too much talk." The two runners left on base scored, and Castleton was the losing pitcher that afternoon. It was almost exactly a month before Griffith gave him another chance. On May 15, he made the most of a rare start, beating Nap Rucker 2-1 in a pitcher's duel. Castleton allowed five hits, walked five and struck out three. Given another start against the Giants four days later, he was knocked out in the third after surrendering four consecutive singles. Castleton would make just one more major league appearance. He entered a May 29 game against St. Louis in relief of Jack Rowan in the fifth and was the losing pitcher, working just 1 2/3 innings. When Cincinnati started on an eastern road trip after that series, Castleton didn't go with them. Instead he went west. The Reds sold him to Los Angeles of the Pacific Coast League. Whether it was after effects of his 1908 illness or inactivity, Castleton's contribution to the 1910 Reds was minimal. Having expressed an interest in pitching closer to home, Castleton now had the chance. In his debut at San Francisco on June 18, he struck out ten and allowed just four hits in eight innings. The Los Angeles Times said of his debut: "It is some time since a new pitcher has shown greater promise than Castleton. He has the speed of any twirler in the league, and his ball breaks in a most bewildering jumping fashion. Nearly every Seal succumbed to his curves during the afternoon, and his cool confident manner made him many friends among the crowd." Nevertheless, he lost the game 4-2. On July 16, Castleton was even better, throwing a one-hitter against crosstown rival Vernon. He gave up a single to the second batter he faced and walked just one batter that afternoon. According to the Times, "Castleton's heaving has not been exceeded on the Coast this year. The Hooligans [Times nickname for Vernon team] knocked the ball right into the fielders' hands and everything was handled in major league fashion. Several pretty catches and stops and throws gave the fans plenty of opportunity to howl." The game was a typical deadball era pitcher's duel. Castleton won 1-0. Roy seemed to have regained his pre-illness form, but the rest of the season was a struggle. Some of it was wildness. In a couple of late July losses, he allowed multiple walks at inopportune times leading directly to the loss. Through late August his record was just 4-7 with 65 hits and 33 walks surrendered in 66 innings. Still, it was lack of fielding support that attracted the most comment by Castleton and by the Times. The Times account of a 3-0 September 12 loss to San Francisco summed it up: "Castleton said some time ago that every time he pitched, a lot of the boys hauled their gum boots out of the clubhouse and put them on so they could kick the ball around. Whether or not this is true is another story, but the fact remains that the Angels threw the pill around in a weird way at times yesterday and the Seals got two runs off the weirdness." The Times commented on poor defensive support for Roy several other times that season, even offering the opinion that the poor defense discouraged him and diminished his effectiveness. Whatever the cause, he finished 1910 with a less than impressive 8-15 record with 95 strikeouts and 68 walks. Though originally expected to remain with the Angels for the 1911 season, the Los Angeles manager asked for waivers on Castleton. Hap Hogan, manager of crosstown rival Vernon, claimed him in early February. Castleton opened the 1911 season with Vernon as one of seven pitchers on the staff. After an undistinguished relief appearance, he started his first game of the season at San Francisco on April 1. He shut the Seals out 4-0 that afternoon and received positive comment in the Los Angeles Times: "San Francisco players were bowled over with the rapidity of a crack rolling a big ball down the alley. A couple of their men did reach second, but Castleton scattered his five hits over as many innings, and there was no question but that the Seals were hopelessly distanced. Castleton, for a southpaw, was remarkably steady, allowing but one walk." He won his next start 4-2 at home against Portland on April 6, shaky control working to his advantage. The Times described him as "fearfully and wonderfully wild at times, and, in addition to three bases on balls, he made two wild pitches. The fact that he didn't bounce the ball off any solid-ivory heads shows that the Beavers were pretty much there in the ducking line." After a couple of losses, Castleton finished April 1911 with a flourish. He beat Oakland twice in the same series, one by a shutout, but he saved his best effort for his last start of the month. On April 28, Vernon faced the crosstown rival Angels, and Roy pitched his third shutout of the month. The Times said of the game, "what he did to them [the Angels] was what John D. Rockefeller does to all of us. He simply hung out the sign that it was his busy day and consequently there were no transactions in the run line. Castleton just made monkeys out of them. [He] curved them around their necks, fanned seven of them and those who could hit the pill out of the infield thought they were lucky." He allowed just five hits while improving his record to 5-2. Roy struggled during May and June. He lasted two and one innings, respectively, in a pair of starts at Sacramento. He also was knocked out after two innings in a mid June start against Portland. The Times offered colorful comment on the game: "Castleton thought early yesterday morning that he understands something about heaving, but early yesterday afternoon he didn't think so. In fact, he did not think much of himself. If he did think it couldn't have been much, for the champions slammed him for eight runs and six hits in the first two innings. This was naturally all he wanted, and he was glad to get under the bench where they could not even see him." His control was abysmal that day. He walked five batters in the first inning. The team's performance was as inconsistent as Castleton's. The fortunes of the team and the pitcher began to change during a July road trip. He shut out San Francisco and Portland in consecutive starts and won another game in the series at Portland with his arm and his bat. He allowed just four hits in ten innings and singled in the winning run. He won seven consecutive starts in July and August, allowing five or fewer hits in four of the games. During the streak, Vernon took the lead in a tight pennant race. By mid-September the Tigers were in Portland facing their top competition for the PCL pennant. His manager hoped to use him twice in the key series, but it rained on Tuesday, September 14. Castleton slipped on wet pavement that afternoon and sprained an ankle. He pitched in the first game of a doubleheader three days later, but seemed to be affected by the injury. Poor defense and six walks helped the Beavers to a 5-4 win, and a win in the second game gave them a decided advantage with a month left in the season. Castleton recovered quickly from the injury, shutting out Sacramento and allowing just one run on five hits against Los Angeles. The latter win tied Vernon for the league lead, but fatigue was evident. He didn't win another game, and was hit hard in two October starts. He finished the season with a 22-13 record, striking out 146 and walking 76 in 327 innings. The heavy workload would take its toll. Though there was a brief misunderstanding about his contract, Castleton soon signed with Vernon for the 1912 season. According to Roy, "There was some mistake in my address and Hap's letter containing the contract lay in the post office unclaimed since January 5. As I did not hear from Hogan by February 1 I thought I was free, according to the new rules. Since February 5 I have heard from Hogan and believe everything is all right between us." He spent the off-season working in the auditor's department of the Oregon Short Line Railroad and kept in shape by shoveling snow and playing hockey. After reporting for spring training, Roy began the season well. He pitched impressively in exhibition games, including one against the University of Southern California, and was counted on to play a major role in Vernon's hopes for the pennant. Castleton struggled in April, but seemed to return to form in May. After a victory over Oakland on May 12, the Times said, "A double hop that Castleton put on what he had yesterday sewed the Oaks up into knots and easily won him a ball game with apparently little effort on his part." Castleton won six out of seven starts, completing them all, between April 28 and May 26. It seemed he was on the verge of another outstanding season, but the innings were taking their toll. Castleton missed a month with what was described as a wrenched back and injured pitching arm. Returning in late June, Castleton won three straight decisions but was evidently still pitching in pain. Of one of those wins, the Times said, "Portland secured enough hits [ten] off Castleton to win an ordinary game, but this much must be said for the southpaw, he breezed along under half speed until forced to show his colors then tightened up short." By the beginning of August even this didn't work. Roy was seldom able to finish what he started. Since Vernon was in another pennant race, he continued to take the mound, and resented being removed. After he was taken out in the tenth inning of an eleven-inning loss to Los Angeles, the Times described Castleton as "about as sore as a half-boiled owl when he was yanked, for he had pitched a fine game up to that time." Pitching in pain, Roy soon took his frustration out on Los Angeles Times reporter Grey Oliver. After being removed in the fifth inning against Oakland On August 16, he said, "What do you think. Me going out there with a sore shoulder and then them stickin' Stinson in right field with a broken leg and not able to catch fly balls that any man would have caught if he was right. Guess if some of those fly balls had been caught there would not have been so many hits. And then you fellows say we are knocked out of the box." Castleton completed just one game after August 1, 1912, but it was a masterpiece. On September 4, he won a key game against Vernon's top competitor, Oakland. He shut the Oaks out on four hits. The Times said: "Castleton pitched ball like a champion. He had all those Oaks going south and they knew it. He never was in danger. Up to the eighth round, only two drives had been registered against the left hander. Two more were bunched in the eighth, but this did not do any good, for as soon as they were made, Castleton tightened up and the men behind him made short work of the struggling Oaklanders. They were simply outclassed." Henry Heitmuller, the PCL's leading hitter, died of typhoid fever on October 8. The death must have affected Roy as much as it did Heitmuller's teammates. It almost certainly brought back memories of his own struggle with the illness and probably had a major impact on a decision he'd have to make a few months later. The day of the funeral in San Francisco, the Los Angeles- Vernon game was stopped for ten minutes in the third inning. Castleton pitched and won that day though he was removed in the eighth inning. That game was his final win of the season--and his career. He had one final appearance after that, saving a win in the first game of the Tigers season ending doubleheader win over Portland. He finished 1912 with a 13-8 record in 222 innings striking out 92 and walking 83. He hit .152 in 79 at-bats. After the season he reportedly toured Australia with a PCL all-star team organized by J. Cal Ewing of Oakland. Shortly after the season it became clear that Castleton wouldn't return to Vernon. A rumored trade to Portland fell through, and in late January of 1913, he was sold to Nashville of the Southern Association. An early report said he'd signed with the team, but later news indicated he was holding out. An April 7 article in the Atlanta Constitution said, "while in the shadow of Brigham Young's temple, out in Utah, Roy Castleton is wailing to be shipped to some climate where the typhus germ is an alien." Perhaps if the Nashville ballpark hadn't been flooded and Vols manager Bill Schwartz hadn't been stranded in Ohio, also due to flood, a deal might have been worked out. It wasn't and Roy Castleton retired from baseball. Despite bad memories of Southern baseball, Roy was still mentioned among the best to play in Atlanta and the Southern association into the 1920s on the strength of his success in 1907 and the first half of 1908. On July 9, 1918, Roy married 25-year-old Esther Kelson in Salt Lake City. At the time he was working as an accountant for Scott & Hadley, a stock brokerage firm in Salt Lake City. Roy, Esther and several of his siblings continued to live with his parents at least until Charles Castleton Sr. died in 1922. Roy and Esther had no children and later moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as a water heater inspector. Suffering from diabetes, Roy died there of a cerebral hemorrhage on June 24, 1967, and was returned to Salt Lake City for burial in the Salt Lake City Cemetery. Ogden (Utah) Standard Examiner, 1904-08. Youngstown (Ohio) Telegram, 1905-06. Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, 1905,06,09. Lancaster (Ohio) Gazette, 1906 Lancaster (Ohio) Eagle, 1906. Newark (Ohio) American Tribune, 1906. Dayton (Ohio) Journal, 1906,09,10. Toledo (Ohio) Blade, 1902. New York Times, 1907, 1910. New York Mail, 1907. New York Globe, 1907. Atlanta Journal, 1907. Atlanta Constitution, 1907-09, 1912-13, 1921. Chicago Tribune, 1907, 1909-10. Boston Globe, 1909-10. Washington Post, 1910. Los Angeles Times, 1910-12. Salt Lake City Tribune, 1967, 1987. Other Baseball Sources SABR Online Encyclopedia. Wright, Marshall, Southern Association in Baseball, 1885-1961 (McFarland). Lee, Bill, Baseball Necrology (McFarland). Jones, Kevin, e-mails December 2005. Nelson, Rod, e-mail July 2005. Wendt, Paul (forwarded by Kevin Jones) e-mail December 2005. Utah, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910, 1920. Other Genealogical Sources Passenger Lists Port of New York. World War I Draft Registration Card Royal Eugene Castleton. Utah Pioneers and Prominent Men. Ancestor Histories Salt Lake City Chapter Sons Of Utah Pioneers. Other Online Sources Jensen, Richard L., "Immigration to Utah," (Utah Historical Encyclopedia). Kimball, Stanley, "Mormon Trail in Utah," (Utah Historical Encyclopedia). McCormick, John S.," Salt Lake City" (Utah Historical Encyclopedia).

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The message from the shell begins with -sh. This gives two important clues: - The leading - indicates that this is a login shell. By convention, the login program (the program where you type your user name and password, which can be login, gdm, sshd, …) starts a shell with the program name set to begin with an extra -. This way, the shell knows that it's a login shell and reads ~/.profile or other session startup file. - The shell's name is sh. So the user's login shell is set to /bin/sh, and not to bash. Either /bin/sh is a symbolic link to bash, or it's some other shell such as dash. When bash is invoked under the name sh, it doesn't read its configuration files, only the standard files ( /etc/profile in login shells, nothing in non-login shells), for compatibility. So either way ~/.bashrc is not read. If you explicitly invoke bash, it will read .bashrc. You'll need to pass the -t flag to ssh to tell it to open a terminal even though you've specified a command. ssh -t testuser@nameofhost bash You may want to switch the user's login shell to be bash instead of testuser, run the command chsh -s /bin/bash Change the path to /usr/local/bin/bash or wherever bash is located. If you invoke chsh without arguments, you'll get a menu showing what shells you're allowed to select.

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Quolls get genetic passport to survival Genetics is being enlisted to test the success of rescue programs for quolls, carnivorous marsupials that live in the native forests of Australia and New Guinea. Biologist Dr Karen Firestone of Sydney's University of New South Wales and team have just received A$870,000 (US$620,000) from government conservation agencies and the Australian Research Council to study the threatened species. "These are top level marsupial predators and play a very important role in ecology," said Firestone, also the conservation biologist at Sydney's Taronga Zoo, which helped fund the project. "They've also got attitude. They're very charismatic." There are four quoll species in Australia: the spotted tailed quoll (also known as the tiger quoll), the northern quoll, the western quoll and the eastern quoll. Each is threatened by factors such as habitat loss, predators such as foxes and cats, disease and the spread of the toxic cane toad. So, researchers have set up rescue programs, including breeding the marsupials in captivity before releasing them back into the wild. But scientists are not sure how well these programs have been working. The role of genetic diversity The most established rescue program, which began in the 1990s, involved breeding the western quoll in captivity and moving it to six sites, mainly in the jarrah forests of south-west Western Australia. "They seem to be doing OK but we're going to be looking at them genetically," Firestone told ABC Science Online. "The higher the genetic diversity, the better the survival of the species, the more evolutionary potential." Firestone has more than 300 DNA samples from western quolls that were the founders of the captive breeding program and those that were first reintroduced into the wild. She will also take samples from today's quoll communities and compare these with the two earlier groups to assess the change in genetic diversity over time. This will tell her how well the translocation program has worked from the point of view of genetic diversity. If all animals are healthy and breeding then genetic diversity should be more or less constant. But if only a few animals are breeding genetic diversity will be lost. "This would raise warning bells for the manager," she said. "They may need to import new animals or alter their management strategies in another way such as putting in corridors between the different populations. "We might need to make recommendations that they need to add new blood," she said. A more recent translocation program has involved the northern quoll, which once occupied the northern third of Australia from Western Australia to Queensland. But it is now limited to six major hotspots and is under threat in Kakadu National Park due to the advance of the introduced cane toad. In recent years around 60 to 70 individuals were translocated to a couple of Northern Territory islands, populations that Firestone's team will also assess for genetic diversity. Such techniques could also be useful for conserving eastern quolls. These used to live on mainland Australia but are now restricted to the island state of Tasmania where they could be affected by a facial tumour killing the related Tasmanian devil. "In the future we may need to bring them [the quolls] onto the mainland," said Firestone, who said her team could help work out which populations would be a good source population for the translocation.

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In the western spiral arm of our galaxy lies a star system and a planet occupied ages ago. On one mountain of that planet there is a great structure, thousands of cubits tall. It is constructed of sapphire and diamond, is self-repairing, and derives energy from both solar power and an internal power supply which we still do not understand. Each solar rotation, this vast mechanism emits a tick. Each hundred rotations, it emits a gong. Those who study the mechanism believe that every ten thousand rotations, a small mechanism will appear from a certain door and make a sound. The last effect has not been observed in living memory, and the next occurrence is projected to be nearly eighty generations removed from those now living. Xenoarchaeologists say that the gong’s period was longer than the lifespan of an individual of that species, and that the unseen mechanism has a period longer than that species’ entire recorded history. The entire edifice was constructed only a few years before that race vanished forever to wherever ancient races Philosophers across the galaxy have argued over the purpose of the Eternal Clock. As with other artifacts such as the Diamond Book, the Circle of Time, the Oracle, and the Wandering Flame, consensus holds that the motive was not religious or superstitious in nature, but What principle the Eternal Clock was intended to embody is still a matter of great controversy. But while arguments rage in the halls of philosophy, while children are born and great-grandparents die, while intelligent races evolve and vanish, the Eternal Clock continues to tick. And perhaps that is the message it is intended to convey. This document is ©2001,2003 by Eliezer Yudkowsky and free under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 License for copying and distribution, so long as the work is attributed and the text is unaltered. Inspired by the “Clock of the Long Now” project. Yes, Stewart Brand has already seen it. The above apparently got forwarded around a bit, and Kevin Kelly wrote me and said: “I’d love to know what the other artifacts are: Diamond Book, the Circle of Time, the Oracle, and the Wandering Flame.” The Wandering Flame was created by a species that, in a rare coincidence, began acquiring industrial technology just as their home planet was entering a new Ice Age. The species successfully staved off global cooling – first through deliberate emission of greenhouse gases, then through orbital solar mirrors, and finally, as they reached the heights of technology, through direct reversal of the underlying climatic effect. In celebration, they constructed the Wandering Flame, an artificial sunlet that shines for one seventeenth of an orbital period over any planet on which a sentient species successfully manages an environmental crisis. Although the Wandering Flame often delivers more solar energy than the planet’s original star, no climatic or ecological side effects occur. When not fulfilling its primary function, the Wandering Flame can usually be found in the asteroid belt of some otherwise uninteresting star system. The Oracle is a spherically-shaped region of space, roughly 32 light-hours in diameter, located around 2 light-years to the galactic north of Elnath. The Oracle will answer one question for each petitioner; unfortunately, there is no way to know in advance which question it is. Only seventeen questions have ever been answered, four of them asked by accident and apparently trivial, but in each case the petitioner expressed a profound sense of satisfaction and enlightenment. The Circle of Time appears as a circular path of beaten silver, eighty-three meters in diameter. When you set foot on the Circle at any point, the path begins to move, conveying you along the Circle. It appears to take exactly fifteen minutes and twenty-eight seconds for you to reach your starting point, although on exiting, no external time appears to have passed. Many past and future selves of the fifteen minutes are visible in their corresponding positions along the Circle of Time, and you can converse with yourself as desired. The Diamond Book has the density and appearance of purest diamond. No matter how many pages are turned, there are still as many left. The weight and volume of the Book never increase. No page has ever been found containing words, pictures, or other visible content, though each page sparkles beautifully and individually. Those who read the Book by gazing on several pages in succession feel an overwhelming sense of sadness and grief. The emotion is not debilitating but cathartic, and has inspired great artistic works and a lasting end to several wars. Despite the thousands of intrigues that have broken out in competition for possession of the Diamond Book, no violent conflict has ever occurred. This article describes humanity’s creation of yet another inscrutable artifact. - The key passage: - “It’s probably the roundest item ever made by hand. ‘If the earth were this round, Mount Everest would be four meters tall,’ Dr. Nicolaus said. An intriguing characteristic of this smooth ball is that there is no way to tell whether it is spinning or at rest. Only if a grain of dust lands on the surface is there something for the eye to track.” Whatever would an alien species make of the Silicon Sphere, I wonder? Would they ever guess its purely philosophical purpose? A cheering sign that humanity is still progressing toward becoming an Incomprehensible Elder Species. This was posted to SL4: THE BANACH-TARSKI GYROSCOPE The Banach-Tarski Gyroscope is an intricate mechanism believed to have been constructed using the Axiom of Choice. On each complete rotation counterclockwise, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope doubles in volume while maintaining its shape and density; on rotating clockwise, the volume is halved. When first discovered, fortunately in the midst of interstellar space, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope was tragically mistaken for an ordinary desk ornament. Subsequently it required a significant portion of the available energy of the contemporary galactic civilization to reverse the rotation before nearby star systems were endangered; fortunately, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope still obeys lightspeed limitations on rotation rates, and cannot grow rapidly once expanding past planetary size. After the subsequent investigation, the Banach-Tarski Gyroscope was spun clockwise and left spinning.Back to Top

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Legislators from Ohio and five other Great Lakes states should quickly pass an interstate agreement which could forge the first line of defense against water diversions to arid areas outside the region, the National Wildlife Federation urged Tuesday. The Great Lakes are facing the one-two punch of global warming and water diversion, said Noah Hall, an environmental law professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich. Existing laws are inadequate to protect the Great Lakes from diversions and overuse . . . climate change is certain to put additional stress and pressure on the Great Lakes. Hall spoke to media in a teleconference from Ann Arbor Mich. and co-wrote a report for the wildlife federation on climate change and water resources released by the group Tuesday. Go to www.nwf.org/news/ to read the full report. The 44-page report echoes the dire warnings of increased temperatures and water shortages made in previous government documents such as the International Panel on Climate Change. The IPCC http://www.ipcc.ch/ is a scientific intergovernmental body set up by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations. Hall urged swift passage of the proposed Great Lakes Compact because of its emphasis on conservation. Taking steps to use water more efficiently and wisely is really a no-brainer, Hall said in the teleconference. Its a sure-fire way to make sure water demands dont outstrip water supplies. Possible diversions of Great Lakes water to thirsty areas such as Arizona and more recently Atlanta, Ga., meanwhile, have become hot political topics this year as drought spread throughout much of the West and South. The compact would prohibit those diversions without approval by all eight states. Governors in the eight states of the basin approved the proposal in 2005, but legislators in each state must still OK the bill before it becomes law. Minnesota and Illinois legislatures have adopted the compact, while it awaits only the governors signature in New York. Lawmakers have introduced the proposal in three other states - Indiana, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Neither Ohio nor Wisconsin currently has proposals pending. Ohio Rep. Matt Dolan, a Russell Township Republican, sponsored the compact in 2006. It passed the Ohio House 82-5 in December, but stalled in the Senate - mostly due to strident opposition from State Sen. Tim Grendell, a Chester Township Republican. Dolan said Tuesday that the proposed compact remains a high priority, though he is unlikely to re-introduce it before January. It remains and essential piece of legislation for the health and well being of industry in our area as well as the economic development of the entire Great Lakes, Dolan said in a telephone interview. I respect Sen. Grendells opinion, but we should move forward on this. Grendell, who could not be reached Tuesday, has said he and other opponents are concerned that the compact includes language that could convert privately owned water such as lakes, ponds and wells into public trust property. But National Wildlife Federation President Larry Schweiger likened the importance of passing the Great Lakes water compact to the 1970s approval of the federal Clean Water Act, which is now credited for saving the long-polluted waterways of the region. Without decisive action to address global warming and to protect the water and wildlife of the Great Lakes, all the hard-fought progress made by so many to restore the Great Lakes could be lost, he said in written statement accompanying the report. The National Wildlife Federation is the countrys largest conservation organization with more than 5 million members and an annual budget of more than $125 million.

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The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is a lengthy penitential canon composed in 7th century, which is performed during the Great Lent. It is divided into four portions, which are read during the Great Compiline on Monday, Tuesday, Wendesday and Thursday of Pure Week. The whole canon is read all over again on Wendesday evening of the fifth week of the Great Lent. The refrain "Have mercy upon me O Lord, have mercy upon me" accompanies each verse of the Great Canon. Several troparia in honor of St. Andrew, composer of the canon, and to St. Mary of Egypt are also included. The Church of Jerusalem implemented this practice during St. Andrew’s lifetime. When in the year 680 AD, St. Andrew traveled to Constantinople for the 6th Ecumenical Council, he brought with him and made public both his great composition and the life of St. Mary of Egypt, written by his compatriot and teacher, Sophronios, Patriarch of Jerusalem. The Life of St. Mary of Egypt is read together with the Great Canon at Matins on Wednesday of the fifth week of Great Lent. A basic distinguishing feature of the Great Canon is its extremely broad use of images and subjects taken from Sacred Scripture, both from the Old and New Testaments. As the Canon progresses, the congregation encounters many biblical examples of sin and repentance. The Bible (and therefore, the Canon) speaks of some individuals in a positive light, and about others in a negative one - the penitents are expected to emulate the positive examples of sanctity and repentance, and to learn from and avoid the negative examples of sin, fallen nature and pride. However, one of the most notable aspects of the Canon is that it attempts to potray the Biblical images in a very personal way to every penitant: the Canon is written in such form that the faithful identify themselves with many people and events found in the Old and New Testaments.

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Adiabatic Gas Law Apparatus The Adiabatic Gas Law Apparatus is used to investigate the compression and expansion of gases, either rapidly under near adiabatic conditions or slowly under isothermal conditions with direct measurement of pressure, volume, and temperature. How It Works Sensitive transducers in the setup measure the pressure, volume, and temperature of the gas as the gas is compressed or expanded rapidly under near adiabatic conditions, or slowly under isothermal conditions. Analog signals from the sensors are monitored by a three channel analog-to-digital data acquisition system that is capable of collecting at least 500 data points per second in each channel simultaneously. The interface connects to a computer workstation with the data acquisition program, Data Monitor, that can plot graphs of pressure, volume, and temperature. - Compare the final pressure and temperature with values predicted by the Adiabatic Gas Law - Measure the work done on the gas and compare it to the change in internal energy and the theoretical work performed - Measure gamma: the ratio of specific heats for the gas (Cp/Cv) - Use monatomic, diatomic and polyatomic gases to determine the effects of molecular structure on gamma - Investigate isothermal compression and expansion by performing the experiment slowly, in incremental steps Pressure Sensor: A solid-state, piezoresistive device that forms part of a bridge circuit is mounted at the base of the cylinder. Volume Sensor: A linear potential divider is mounted on the side of the piston. A 5-Volt source from the computer is applied across the potentiometer element. The voltage from the commutator brush on the cylinder is used to indicate the position of the piston and the volume of the confined gas. Temperature Sensor: Mounted in the cylinder on the top of the base. The active element is fine nickel wire with a high surface-to-mass ratio. The wire's temperature and resistance change rapidly as the gas compresses or expands. - Adiabatic Gas Law Apparatus - Signal Cables 3.5mm plug into 5-pin DIN - Power Adapter 9V DC @ 1A - A computer with an interface that will accept three analog signals simultaneously via 5 or 8-pin DIN connectors (e.g. PASCO's ScienceWorkshop, LabPro from Vernier Software & Technology, or LabView from National Instruments) - Gases: argon (monatomic), air or nitrogen (diatomic), carbon dioxide (triatomic) In case of further questions, please, contact us.

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|Contents||Plain text (including entities)| The TITLE element gives the document's title. Each document must have exactly one TITLE within the HEAD. TITLE contains plain text and entities; it may not contain other markup. A good TITLE should be short and specific to the document's content so that it can be used as a title for a user's bookmark, a title for the display window, and a link from a search engine. A suggested limit for the number of characters in a TITLE is 60.

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Why Irukandji syndrome? The Irukandji syndrome is a rare medical condition that occours after being stung by a box jellyfish (Carukia barnesi or Irukandji jellyfish). Even though C. barnesi is the only species which has been proven to cause Irukandji syndrome, it’s widely suspected that several other species might cause it as well. It’s difficult to prove this, as most of these jellyfish are very small, and most appear to be living in the depths. Currents, storms and similar influences bring them up to shallow waters, where they encounter humans. While a single sting usually is not fatal, the Irukandji syndrome is believed to be one of the most painful experiences known to men. The sting itself often isn’t noticed at all, and even if, it’s been described as being “like mosquito bite or a wasp sting”. Symptoms start after about 30 mins and include “headache, backache, muscle pains, chest and abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting, sweating, anxiety, hypertension, and pulmonary edema” (Yeah, I quoted wikipedia on that). Symptoms last between 4 and 30 hours. There’re several records from victims to this condition (Wikipedia says: check out Discovery Channel – they have at least two programs featuring the syndrome) and what they describe doesn’t sound like fun to me. Which is exactly what some people say about me being in their office all day long… Ok, half kidding. But while “painful and inconvenient” may be euphemistic when it comes to Irukandji syndrome, it may prove just fitting for my blog. (And otherwise, it’s still a pretty cool name.)

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Animal Species:Black Stingray, Dasyatis thetidis Ogilby, 1899 The Black Stingray is is one of the largest species of stingrays in Australia and gets it's name from an even grey-brown to black colour. The Black Stingray is one of the largest species of stingrays in Australia. It is an even grey-brown to black colour. It has a rhomboidal-shaped disc, usually one stinging spine, a granular upper surface and sharp thorns along the dorsal midline. It is often confused with the Smooth Stingray, Dasyatis brevicaudata, which has a shorter tail, small white spots on the flaps beside the head, and no thorns on the back. It grows to 1.8 m in disc width and 4 m total length. The Black Stingray is recorded from coastal and offshore waters of south-eastern Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia it is known from northern New South Wales around the south of the country and north to the central coast of Western Australia. Distribution by collection data - Hutchins, B. & R. Swainston. 1986. Sea Fishes of Southern Australia. Complete Field Guide for Anglers and Divers. Swainston Publishing. Pp. 180. - Kuiter, R.H. 2000. Coastal Fishes of South-eastern Australia. Gary Allen. Pp. 437. - Last, P.R. & J.D. Stevens. 1994 Sharks and Rays of Australia. CSIRO. Pp. 513. Mark McGrouther , Collection Manager, Ichthyology Tags fish, ichthyology, Black Stingray, Dasyatis thetidis, Dasyatidae, ray, black, marine, adult, one of largest, grey-black, rhomboidal-shaped disc, sharp thorns, stinging spine, > 1m, dots/spots, coastal, offshore,

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By ROBERT LANGRETH and JOHN LAUERMAN April Hauge, a nurse practitioner in Weimar, Calif., spent $500 on a genetic test for her autistic son in 2009 that led to purchasing thousands of dollars in vitamins and supplements. Impressed with the results, she’s now selling advice on the approach to others. There’s just one problem: the DNA tests and related treatments have scant backing from science and U.S. government officials. They’re untested, unproven, and may constitute “health fraud,” doctors, regulators and concerned parents said. For alternative-medicine providers in general, the genetic tests are nothing but a “marketing tool” to sell unproven treatments, said James Laidler, a retired physician and adjunct professor at Portland State University whose 19-year-old autistic son has tried alternative therapies. “You always hear the testimonials from the people who got better, not the people who stayed the same or got worse,” Laidler said. “They don’t want to hear somebody saying this is snake oil.” Doctors and clinics across the United States are using the exploding science of DNA testing to feed anxieties and sell hope to people with autism and other hard-to-treat disorders. Emboldened by meager state and federal regulation, purveyors of alternative medicine offer genetic tests costing hundreds of dollars to worried parents and patients, and then sell advice on supplements and diet based on results purporting to spot disease-causing deficiencies. They claim to be the panacea for everything from autism to chronic fatigue syndrome to the effects of aging. “A lot of this skims on the edge of health fraud,” said Janet Woodcock, director of the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research at the Food and Drug Administration, referring to the use of DNA testing to recommend alternative therapies. Mapping the genome is becoming a standard tool of medical care, with new and cheaper DNA sequencing machines helping doctors unravel inherited diseases that once took years to diagnose. By searching for mutated genes in tumors, doctors can sometimes target them with special drugs that counteract the effect of rogue genes. After saying for about a decade that it has the power to regulate genetic testing, the FDA has yet to exercise its authority for most DNA diagnostics. While the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services regulates testing labs, it doesn’t ensure that the tests are medically significant, or that doctors use them appropriately. Alberto Gutierrez, director of the office of in vitro diagnostics and radiological health at the FDA, said the agency is “very concerned” about complex genetic tests being sold by laboratories, often over the Internet, whose claims are difficult to evaluate. Often, it may be difficult to even know who did the testing, he said. “Nobody has looked at the evidence to support these tests,” said Gutierrez. “I am concerned that patients are being given unproven information that may result in less than optimal management of their disease.” Following public hearings in July 2010, the agency developed guidance for regulating complex genetic and other tests sold by laboratories. The rules have been under review by the Obama administration since late 2011, he said. Until they are finalized, the agency is “somewhat hamstrung” in cracking down on companies that sell the tests, Gutierrez said. In the meantime, patients and doctors “should proceed with caution” as some of the tests have not been well validated, Gutierrez said. The vast majority of laboratory genetic tests provide valid medical information and are processed accurately and responsibly by licensed professionals, said Alan Mertz, president of the American Clinical Laboratory Association, a Washington-based industry group. Some doctors use valid tests to support “fringe” medicine, he said. “The lab is just performing the genetic tests and reporting what the genetic makeup is of that DNA,” he said. “They don’t know whether it’s being used to prescribe supplements. They may have no idea what the doctor does with the information.”

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1. I’ve heard of something called an “outcomes approach.” What is that approach, and is it different from other ways of thinking about challenges and solutions? An “outcomes approach” is basically a particular way of looking at what we need to do and how we intend to do it. The outcomes approach, to quote Stephen Covey, “begins with the end in mind.” More to the point, it keeps that end in mind through all the steps of program design and implementation. It differs from other approaches in that it focuses much less on the enormity of the problem at hand (or assigning blame for that problem), or upon activity (how busy we are), process (are we crossing all the “t’s” and dotting all the “i’s”?), or upon grand visions, and focuses on specific goals to be reached within a specific time. (pp. 7-15 of The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox) 2. What the heck is an “outcome” anyway? An outcome is essentially a target, something an organization commits to achieving through its efforts and/or interventions. An outcome is not about activity, as in How many we served, but rather is about the changes in an existing situation that were brought about because of the activity of an organization. (pp. 18-20 of the NPOT) 3. Aren’t outcomes just something to report to a funder? No. Outcomes are really what an organization should be about. Many organizations, when describing themselves, begin with the notion of a verb…”we serve,” or “we provide….” Actually, they should be describing themselves in terms of the changes they bring about. It is often helpful to begin by abandoning the idea of a “funder” (or donor) in the first place, and to start thinking of the sources of an organization’s resources as investors, those to whom a return on that investment is due. Outcomes are another name for those returns. (pp. 28-33 of the NPOT) Beyond this, a good outcomes tracking system can be a powerful tool for program improvement, especially if used with a Lessons Learned system, because it helps an organization see where performance might not have matched projections. Rather than simply having a disappointing result, the utilization of these ideas helps an organization identify where and how an effort might need to be strengthened next time. (Chapter 8 of the NPOT) 4. What kind of changes are we talking about here? Generally speaking, the changes an organization should be looking for are in the Behavior, Attitudes, Condition, Knowledge, or Status of those or those interests they exist to serve. Together these are known as the BACKS Measures. (pp. 21-26 of the NPOT) 5. What does a good outcome look like? Good outcomes have several characteristics in common. Among these are that they are meaningful, sustainable, bound in time and narrowly focused. They are not, as Peter Drucker has written, a “hero sandwich of good intentions.” (Chapter 3 of the NPOT) 6. When is the best time to apply the idea of outcomes to something we are planning in our organization? The best time to begin to think about outcomes is when you are first planning a program, initiative, or intervention. While outcome-based tools can be applied later in the life of a program, it is always best to start thinking about your outcomes –and how you will achieve them- when you are first considering and designing an effort. (Chapter 5 of the NPOT) 7. I have heard about the need to assess our program’s capacity. Isn’t that just another way of talking about money? No. “Capacity” is a 3-level consideration that can profoundly impact an organization’s ability to achieve its goals. It has to do with the strength and quality-of-management of an organization, the basics of program delivery, and the actual implementation considerations –the thousand small things that crop up and need to be addressed- as any effort is rolled out and gotten under way. Overlooks any of these three levels can hamper, if not cripple, an initiative. (Chapter 6 of the NPOT) 8. What is “outcome-based communications”? Just as an outcomes approach to program development and implementation calls for us to think about where we want to end up before we start our efforts, outcome-based communications is a thorough, thoughtful approach to outreach and communications that asks What do we want out of this effort? and then specifically designs the effort to achieve those aims. (Chapter 9 of the NPOT) 9. Aren’t outcomes something that are best applied to our programs? No. The underlying idea of outcomes can be applied to any variety of organizational needs, from hiring and decision-making, to budgeting and process analysis. It all rests upon the notion of “beginning with the end in mind” and using the right tools for your specific organizational need. 10. I have read a lot about how some large companies have used things like Six Sigma to improve performance. Is this something that my organization should consider? Six Sigma is unquestionably one of the most impressive management tools yet devised. But it can often be a lot for a small-to-mid-sized organization to take on, especially given the manpower that a strict Six Sigma system often entails. However, there are powerful tools and insights of Six Sigma from which any organization can benefit, and which virtually any organization can implement. Neither size nor resources stand in the way of most organizations using these ideas once they known and understand them…and most are amazingly simple. (Chapter 11 of the NPOT)

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The Hydrogen Economy is an oft-discussed topic with supporters and detractors on both sides. The push to use hydrogen as an energy source has even been part of a $1.2 billion presidential initiative, announced in the 2003 State of the Union Address. As it is rapidly becoming apparent that energy is one of the most important issues facing our world today, it is important that we consider hydrogen in tandem with other technologies as an alternative to the once-abundant hydrocarbon resources on which our society depends. To date, geologists have been the key to finding abundant and affordable energy. Discoveries of oil and natural gas have kept up with demand, but the fossil-fuel economy is starting to show some wear. As worldwide consumption continues to grow and major finds become more elusive, and as concern mounts over anthropogenic carbon dioxide and major unknowns about its impact on global climate change, human-kind finds itself faced with the following challenge: how to continue to power this society, particularly in the face of the rapidly growing economies of emerging nations like India and China, and yet answer questions of sustainability, energy security, geopolitics and the global environment. The major issue facing United States and most other countries in the world is how to supply transportation fuel. Hydrogen, as part of a sustainable energy supply, can meet the challenge of a domestically produced energy carrier that can replace gasoline, and can additionally address carbon dioxide and other emissions. To fully understand the viability of hydrogen as our primary chemical energy carrier, we need to see how it fits into a future energy system. With current fossil-fuel-based energy systems expected to last a scant 200 years or so, we should consider the possibility of energy systems that would be viable for millennia. We must consider four major criteria in any discussion of a millennia-long energy system: how long the proposed energy system will last; whether or not the technology to exploit it exists; whether it can meet the energy needs of the nation today and into the future; and whether the system will ultimately yield more energy than it took to build it. Solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydropower and wave energy are systemic to our planet. These energy systems have been around for billions of years and will likely remain viable for billions of years to come certainly sustainable on a millennial time scale. Studies have also shown that both wind and solar energy systems produce more energy in their lifetimes than it takes to manufacture them; the energy payback time for wind is four to six months and for solar, its three to four years. But none of these systems alone will solve our transportation fuel demand. Thats where the Hydrogen Economy comes into play. Using electricity and water as feedstocks, hydrogen can be produced via a commercial process called electrolysis that separates out the hydrogen from H2O. The hydrogen represents stored energy that can be released via a chemical reaction, just like gasoline. The vision then is to replace our oil imports with electricity production followed by electrolysis of water to produce hydrogen, and use that hydrogen to power our transportation infrastructure. Producing the hydrogen itself will require electricity from other renewable sources as well. Photovoltaic and wind systems can conceivably provide all U.S. electricity needs (with major modification to our grid), eliminating our use of coal, oil and natural gas for electricity generation. It is illustrative to point out that to supply all the electrical needs of the United States using current solar-cell technology would require about 15,500 square kilometers (6,000 square miles) of panels taking up about 31,000 square kilometers of land area (assuming 50 percent coverage). To generate the electricity necessary to produce enough hydrogen to fuel 300 million future hydrogen-powered vehicles would require an additional array of similar size. This represents about 0.7 percent of U.S. land area, and while much of this required coverage could be met with existing structures, such as homes, buildings and parking lots, it is by no means necessary for photovoltaics do it all. While hydrogen can be burned in a modified internal-combustion engine, its maximum benefits are realized with a fuel cell. A fuel cell is a device similar to a battery in that it converts chemical energy to electrical energy directly. In a battery, all the chemical components are stored inside the battery; in a fuel cell, the chemicals (hydrogen and air) are fed from external resources. When that hydrogen is used, the outputs are electricity, heat and water. Unlike the fossil-fuel economy, with a hydrogen economy, you get your feedstock (water) back in real time. Every major automotive manufacturer is developing and testing fuel-cell vehicles; more than 50 fuel-cell-powered buses are currently in service around the world. Significant challenges remain as to the cost, range and refueling of these vehicles, but the conclusion is clear; these are zero-emission vehicles operating on a fuel that can be sustainably produced using indigenous energy resources. According to a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to stabilize the carbon-dioxide level in our atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm) we are currently at 380 ppm we would need to be generating about 10 terawatts of carbon-dioxide-emission-free energy by 2030. If the new paradigm is carbon-dioxide-emission-free energy generation, then nuclear is in the lead, followed by hydropower and then wind and solar. But with growth rates of 30 percent or better, only wind and solar have the potential to have a global impact simultaneously on emissions and energy supply. Combine those technologies with a simultaneous development of a hydrogen economy, and we have an energy system based on two of the most abundant resources on the planet: sunshine and water.

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Practice Saying No Drug Prevention Activities That Work By Marya Washington Tyler, classroom teacher, Ketchikan, Alaska This article is the second of a four-part series in which Marya Tyler discusses original drug prevention activities that connect with students, are research based, and can be adapted for use at any grade level. Practice Saying No ACTIVITY: Role Playing Drug Refusal One principle of effective drug prevention education agreed upon by most drug prevention experts, and put forward by The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), is the importance of practicing drug refusal. Not every kid finds it easy to say no, in other words, and the ability to refuse a drink, a pill, a toke, has been found to improve with practice. Research also shows that we can achieve some credible success in the classroom through role playing. 1. Set the Stage. Before class, type up a list of at least 30 drug-related scenarios for your students to role play. They should be situations that your students could actually find themselves facing. You only need to type the opening statements, like: Hey, Tyler, look what I've got. A whole pack of cigarettes and my mom's lighter. I love the smell of gasoline. Don't you? Hey, girl, I want you to try these pills. They'll help you relax. You seem nervous. Get some fellow teachers to help you create these. The more minds, from more diverse backgrounds, the better. Run the list by some young people to make sure the wording will jibe with your students. Cut your typewritten sheet into individual slips and place them in a can. 2. You’re the Bad Guy. Select a student to pick a slip of paper and hand it to you. You start off the conversation by reading this sentence on the paper, in a "bad guy" tone of voice. Be sure that you're not teaching the kids how to be bad. I always make the "bad guy" sound a little bit stupid, not the kind of person they would want to emulate. The student then -- in his or her own words -- refuses the offer. If students find it relatively easy to say no, try pressuring them. Make it difficult for them to find a way out. Counter their arguments with counter-arguments to make it just as tough as any situation they might encounter in real life. Before they feel overwhelmed, however, it is important for you as bad guy to back off. Even acknowledge that their refusals worked. 3. "Just Say No" and Mean It. There are several keys to teach students about effective refusal. Most important is to say no and mean it. The next most important step is to say no and mean it again and again and again. Teach the children that they can, but they don't have to, give a reason. That stuff burns out your brain cells. Cigarettes make your breath smell. Alcohol is full of empty calories and has been shown to make you fat. The important thing is for them to realize that they can say no, and still be absolutely cool. 4. Then What? If the student is with a friend, he or she should suggest something fun to do. Hey, I'm going to ride my bike to the mall. Want to come? Some drug refusal professionals encourage students to lie, if they need to. I would not advise my students to lie. They might find themselves in an even more difficult spot when the truth comes out. 5. When No Is Not Enough. Teach students what to do if the person continues to heckle them. Have them look the person in the eye, say the name of the person, and say "no" one more time loud and clear. Then leave. Teach them, whenever possible, in every case, to get out of there and alert a trusted adult right away. Most drugs are illegal, and being caught with someone who possesses them can carry severe consequences. 6. Let Students Take Over. After practicing several of these scenes, students may ask to take over the role of bad guy. No problem. Let students play both sides in the temptation/refusal struggle. If a student is having trouble, let him or her call on another student to help. With each practice, you'll see students' refusal skills develop and their confidence build. 7. Finale. Students will want to play the drug refusal role-playing game again and again, and if you have time, let them. Sometimes, when the class feels very confident in their ability to refuse drugs, I like to let the whole class join in at once. I pretend to be a drug user, and start off with a statement like, Why shouldn't I take drugs? My life sucks anyway. (At this point, explain that "sucks" is not considered good English, but it is the way that this person talks.) Then let the class talk you out of taking drugs. Give them your hardest arguments. Let them struggle. Gradually, let them see that their arguments are beginning to reach you, and at some point, make the decision to give up drugs. Students will feel the exhilaration of having won an important battle. You can extend the activity to include other ethical decision-making scenarios, such as those involving cheating, lying, or stealing. I like to tell students that if they get in the habit of making the right choice in small matters, they will also make the right choice when faced with big issues like drugs. Marya Washington Tyler is a gifted child consultant in Ketchikan, Alaska. She has taught in a one-room school (one year), elementary gifted students K-6 (10 years), and sixth grade (2 years). She is the author of Real Life Math Mysteries, It's Alive!, It's Alive and Kicking, Alien Math, and Extreme Math, all published by Prufrock Press. The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NEA or its affiliates. Other Articles in This Series » Dealing with Boredom As an Excuse -- Opening the discussion about drugs and helping students focus on activities other than taking drugs. » Call In the Reinforcements -- Using older students who do not use drugs as role models. » Turn Them Loose - Let Them Teach -- Setting up a debate about the hazards of taking drugs.

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Greg Neville, The Barcelona Pavillion, 2011 One of my other sites is modernismus.wordpress.com where I’ve created an archive of my photographs of modernist architecture. The images have been taken during my travels and research trips both in Australia and overseas. The images on this post, more of which can be seen on the Europe page at modernismus.wordpress.com/europe, show the durability of the modernist ideal in architecture. The Barcelona Pavillion above was designed by Mies van der Rohe in the 1920s, but the actual structure you see is a 1980s copy of the destroyed original. It is accurate in every detail. The Bosnian Historical Museum in Sarajevo dates from the 1970s, four decades after it’s prototypes by Mies, Le Corbusier and others. The Serbs tried to blow it up in the Balkan war of the 1990s, but it survives, sort of. Greg Neville, Bosnian Historical Museum 2011 This final image below, of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, shows the continuing development and relevance of high modernism. It is the work of U.S. architect Richard Meiers, who also built L.A.s Getty museum, amongst many others. It was built in the 1990s, and shows the influence of Le Corbusier. Greg Neville, Museu D’Art Contemporani de Barcelona 2011 Filed under: Greg Neville's work | Leave a Comment Tags: Bosnian Historical Museum, Bosnian museum, Modernismus, Museu D'Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Sarajevo museum, The Barcelona Pavillion, white modern

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Performs an atomic addition of two 32-bit values. To operate on 64-bit values, use the InterlockedExchangeAdd64 function. - Addend [in, out] A pointer to a variable. The value of this variable will be replaced with the result of the operation. - Value [in] The value to be added to the variable pointed to by the Addend parameter. The function returns the initial value of the Addend parameter. The function performs an atomic addition of Value to the value pointed to by Addend. The result is stored in the address specified by Addend. The function returns the initial value of the variable pointed to by Addend. The variables for this function must be aligned on a 32-bit boundary; otherwise, this function will behave unpredictably on multiprocessor x86 systems and any non-x86 systems. See _aligned_malloc. The interlocked functions provide a simple mechanism for synchronizing access to a variable that is shared by multiple threads. This function is atomic with respect to calls to other interlocked functions. This function is implemented using a compiler intrinsic where possible. For more information, see the WinBase.h header file and _InterlockedExchangeAdd This function generates a full memory barrier (or fence) to ensure that memory operations are completed in order. Itanium-based systems: For performance-critical applications, use InterlockedExchangeAddAcquire instead. Note This function is supported on Windows RT-based systems. Minimum supported client |Windows XP [desktop apps | Windows Store apps]| Minimum supported server |Windows Server 2003 [desktop apps | Windows Store apps]| - Interlocked Variable Access - Synchronization Functions Build date: 12/18/2012

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Roget's Int'l Thesaurus Fowler's King's English The King James Bible Brewer's Phrase & Fable Frazer's Golden Bough Shelf of Fiction Later National Literature, Part II > New England; Emily Dickinson Poets of East and West Thomas Bailey Aldrich INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes VOLUME XVII. Later National Literature, Part II. § 2. New England; Emily Dickinson. None of these has gained more with time than has Emily Dickinson. Despite her defective sense of form, which makes her a better New Englander than Easterner, she has acquired a permanent following of discriminating readers through her extraordinary insight into the life of the mind and the soul. This insight is that of a latter-day Puritan, completely divorced from the outward stir of life, retiring, by preference, deeper and deeper within. Born in 1830 at Amherst, Massachusetts, she lived there all her life, and in 1886 died there. The inwardness and moral ruggedness of Puritanism she inherited mainly through her father, Edward Dickinson, lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, a Puritan of the old type, whose heart, according to his daughter, was pure and terrible. Her affection for him was so largely compounded with awe that in a sense they were strangers. I have a brother and sister, she wrote to her poetical preceptor, Thomas Wentworth Higginson ; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they jiggle the mind. They are religious, except me. Of course, she too was religious, and intensely so, breathing as she did the intoxicating air of Transcendentalism. In person she described herself as small, like the wren; and my hair is bold like the chestnut burr; and my eyes, like the sherry in the glass that the guest leaves. You ask of my companions. Hills, sir, and the sundown, and a dog large as myself. These, and not her family, were actually her companions, together with a few books and her own soul. She had an alert introspection that brought her more than the wealth of the Indies. There is no better example of the New England tendency to moral revery than this last pale Indian-summer flower of Puritanism. She is said literally to have spent years without passing the doorstep, and many more years without leaving her fathers grounds. After the death of her parents, not to mention her dog Carlo, she retired still further within herself, till the sounds of the everyday world must have come to her as from a previous state of existence. I find ecstacy in living, she said to Higginson, and spoke truly, as her poems show. In an unexpected light on orchards, in a wistful mood of meadow or wood-border held secure for a moment before it vanished; in the few books that she readher Keats, her Shakespeare, her in the echoes, obscure in origin, that stirred within her own mind and soul, now a tenuous melody, now a deep harmony, a haunting question, or a memorable affirmation;everywhere she displayed something of the mystics insight and joy. And she expressed her experience in her poems, forgetting the world altogether, intent only on the satisfaction of giving her fluid life lasting form, her verse being her journal. Yet the impulse to expression was probably not strong, because she wrote no poems, save one or two, as she herself asserts, until the winter 1861-62, when she was over thirty years old. In the spring of 1862 she wrote a letter to Higginson beginning, Are you too deeply occupied to say if my verse is alive? The mind is so near itself it cannot see distinctly, and I have none to ask. Discerning the divine spark in her shapeless verse, he welcomed her advances, and became her preceptor, loyally listened to but, as was inevitable, mainly unheeded. Soon perceiving this, Higginson continued to encourage her, for many years, without trying to divert her lightning-flashes. In H. H.Helen Hunt Jackson, herself a poetess of some distinction, and her early schoolmate at Amherstshe had another sympathetic friend, who, suspecting the extent of her production, asked for the post of literary executor. At length, in 1890, a volume edited by Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd was published, Poems by Emily Dickinson, arranged under various heads according to subject. The book succeeded at once, six editions being sold in the first six months; so that a second series, and later a third, seemed to be justified. From the first selection to the third, however, there is a perceptible declension. The subject division adopted by her editors serves well enough: Life, Love, Nature, Time and Eternity. A mystical poetess sequestered in a Berkshire village, she naturally concerned herself with neither past nor present, but with the things that are timeless. Apparently deriving no inspiration from the war to which Massachusetts, including her preceptorial colonel, gave itself so freely, she spent her days in brooding over the mystery of pain, the true nature of success, the refuge of the tomb, the witchcraft of the bees murmur, the election of love, the relation of deed to thought and will. On such subjects she jotted down hundreds of little poems. Though she had an Emersonian faith that fame, if it belonged to her, could not escape her, she cared nothing at all about having it; like not a few Transcendentalists, she might have written on the lintels of her door-post, That was her guiding divinity, Whim in a high sense: not unruliness, for all her impishness, but complete subjection to the inner dictate. She obeyed it in her mode of life, in her friendships, in her letters, in her poems. It makes her poetry eminently spontaneousas fresh and artless as experience itselfin spite of the fact that she was not a spontaneous singer. The ringing bursts of melody that are characteristic of the born lyrical poet, such as Burns, she was incapable of; but she had insight, and intense, or rather tense, emotion, and expressed herself with an eye single to the truth. Something she derived from her reading, no doubt, from Emerson, the Brownings, Sir Thomas Browne; but rarely was poet less indebted. From her silent thought she derived what is essential in her work, and her whole effort was to state her thoughts; when I try to organize, she said, my little force explodes and leaves me bare and charred. If she revised her work, as she did industriously, it was to render it not more attractive but truer. Her poems are remarkable for their condensation, their vividness of image, their delicate or pungent satire and irony, their childlike responsiveness to experience, their subtle feeling for nature, their startling abruptness in dealing with themes commonly regarded as trite, their excellence in imaginative insight and still greater excellence in fancy. Typical is such a poem as that in which she celebrates the happiness of a little stone on the road, or that in which she remarks with gleeful irony upon the dignity that burial has in store for each of uscoach and footmen, bells in the village, as we ride grand along. Emily Dickinson takes us to strange places; one never knows what is in store. But always she is penetrating and dainty, both intimate and aloof, challenging lively thought on our part while remaining, herself, a charmingly elfish mystery. Her place in American letters will be inconspicuous but secure. . See Book III, Chap. XIII. . See also Book III, Chaps, VI and XI. INDEX OF ALL CHAPTERS Poets of East and West Thomas Bailey Aldrich to shop the

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A&C Black publishes a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books aimed to aid teachers and parents in the education of their children, as well as printmaking and practical art books for In Colour Etching, join Nigel Oxley as he describes the techniques of etching and aquatint employed by the artists who worked with him at Kelpra Studio, where he established a reputation for using intaglio processes to create The author includes step-by-step descriptions of techniques he introduced, including the use of carborundum and polymer plates. Having editioned for many years, the Oxley relates his experience in complex color and plate combinations, clearly enabling the reader to have comprehensive insight into the work of the many artists included in the book. This is a valuable and practical guide for the beginner, for those wishing to develop their printing and etching skills, or those interested in learning the demands of a professional print. Author — Nigel Oxley. Paperback. 128 pages.

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Buddhism and Christianity by John B. Cobb, Jr. John B. Cobb, Jr., Ph.D. is Professor of Theology Emeritus at the Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California, and Co-Director of the Center for Process Studies there. His many books currently in print include: Reclaiming the Church (1997); with Herman Daly, For the Common Good; Becoming a Thinking Christian (1993); Sustainability (1992); Can Christ Become Good News Again? (1991); ed. with Christopher Ives, The Emptying God: a Buddhist-Jewish-Christian Conversation (1990); with Charles Birch, The Liberation of Life; and with David Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition (1977). He is a retired minister in the United Methodist Church. His email address is email@example.com.. This essay was one of two lectures given at Bangor Theological Seminary, January 26-27,2004. The second essay is entitled "Beyond Pluralism." This material was prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock. In my previous lecture I talked about the need to consider separately every other religious tradition and how as Christians we should understand and relate to each. We must consider the history of our past relation to it, its strengths and weaknesses, and the practical effects of taking particular actions. We may end up with some generalizations, but we should move from the particular to the general, not from ideas about religion in general to the understanding of and response to particular traditions. In that lecture I talked first about what we could contribute to others, and then about what we might learn from them. But I also noted that, at least in today's world, after centuries in which we talked far more than we listened, it is time to put listening first. After we have learned from the wisdom of the other tradition and been transformed by what we learn, we are in much better position to be heard when we speak. Although I illustrated my point of the need to accept diversity in many ways with reference to Judaism, Hinduism, and Shinto, and spoke of what we might offer them and learn from them, all my comments were very brief. The reality, on the other hand, is that we need to wrestle with these questions profoundly and extensively, much as the Church Fathers wrestled with the wisdom of the Greek tradition. This is a major task for theology in this twenty-first century. It was begun in the twentieth, but only begun. It will require the joint work of many people. My own small contribution to initiating this work has been in relation to Buddhism. There are several reasons that I have focused on the relation of Christianity and Buddhism. First, because I lived in Japan as a boy, I have had more contacts there than in countries where other religious traditions prevail. Religiously thoughtful Japanese are typically interested in Buddhism, and many of them are devoted Buddhists. I have had opportunities to talk with a number of them. From there our Buddhist-Christian dialogues spread to include Buddhists from other regions, especially Tibet and Thailand. Second, among my mentors, teachers, and friends several were especially interested in Buddhism. This was true of both Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne, and also of Thomas Altizer. This interest reflected not only the specifics of their religious concerns, but also a wider cultural phenomenon. Buddhism has fascinated Christians for centuries. Third, one reason that Whitehead and Hartshorne were interested in Buddhism also affects me directly. In a remarkable way, such Buddhist thinkers as Nagarjuna anticipated the insights of the contemporary process philosophical movement. Western process thought did not derive from Buddhism, but it cannot but recognize that it adopted its views for some of the same reasons two millennia later. Fourth, whereas Westerners have come to these philosophical conclusions rather recently, Buddhists have lived with them for many centuries. Whereas Westerners have done so in a context in which philosophy and religion are considered quite distinct, Buddhists have lived with them in a context where no such walls of separation existed. For them, the questions are: What are the existential or spiritual implications of these insights? How can they support the quest for enlightenment? Apart from the influence of Buddhism, Western process thinkers have hardly asked these questions, much less answered them. They have obvious importance for a theologian. It is evident that my judgments as to what Christians can learn from Buddhists are greatly affected by the congeniality of its basic insight with my own beliefs. That means that the judgments I will offer in this lecture are more directly dependent on my philosophic views than was the case in my previous lecture. Yet I would not like for those of you who do not want to be dependent on a particular philosophy to shut me off. Accordingly, I will discuss the problem in Christian theology to which process theology gives an answer first, before describing the answer given in the Whiteheadian process tradition. Many theologians not committed to the specificities of the answer of process theology agree that Christianity has had a problem with substance thought. In my previous lecture I expressed my admiration for the work of the Church Fathers in the Hellenization of Christianity. Without this indigenization of Christianity in the Greco-Roman world, the movement would have failed. But, even so, Christianity has paid a high price. The Fathers did not abandon the biblical story in order to make the faith understandable to Greeks, but they did impose a conceptuality in deep tension with it. The Bible is chiefly written in story form. That is, it is about events. It tells what people did. One can tease out of the way the story is told some ideas about the structure of human beings: body, emotions, will, soul, spirit, and so forth. But no biblical author attempts to describe this anthropology. We can say more, on the basis of the Bible, about relationships among people than about the nature of the people who are related. Similarly the Bible speaks a great deal about what God does, and it provides many images and descriptive adjectives. But it tells us almost nothing about the nature of the divine existence in itself. Since the stories are told over a period of a thousand years or more, their depictions of the divine character vary. It is very difficult to reconcile some of the stories with some of what is said about God's character. Sophisticated Greek audiences felt these gaps keenly. They could not believe that God acted in the barbaric way portrayed in some stories. Other stories presented God as all too human. In general the questions the Greeks asked required answers at what we might call the ontological level. What is the nature of God? How does God affect what happens in the world? Their answers required them also to judge that many of the stories should not be taken at face value. They decided that they were in the text as a source of moral and theological lessons rather than in order to satisfy curiosity about ancient events. Broadly speaking cosmology replaced historical narrative as primary. The anthropomorphic God of the Bible was replaced by a new doctrine that wove together elements from the Bible and from Greek philosophy in a new synthesis. The new synthesis replaced temporality and history with a nontemporal eternality. For the Greeks, to be divine was to be eternal in the specific sense of being above or beyond time. One of the major attributes of God became immutability. In the Bible we are told that God is faithful to God's promises and that God's character never changes. But this new synthesis went far beyond that. Strictly speaking what happens in the world cannot make any difference to a God who cannot change in any way. The only alternative to this denial that God know what happens in the world was to say that time is unreal for God, so that the whole course of events affects God eternally. Even when time is sacrificed in order to acknowledge God's knowledge of the world, God was not really allowed to care. That would introduce negative feelings into God, and that was thought to be incompatible with God's perfection. This whole pattern of thinking was antithetical to scripture. For the Bible, we are called to serve and please God. But the new doctrine of God renders that idea meaningless. Another problem came from the new doctrine of divine omnipotence. Many suppose that this is biblical. It is not. Certainly the Bible speaks a great deal about God's amazing power, but it does not deny some lesser degree of power to other spiritual entities and to human beings and other animals. God is the most powerful being, but there is no reason to say that God has all the power. One problem was that, in the Septuagint, "Cosmocrator", ruler of the cosmos, replaced Shaddai, the proper name for God in part of the Pentateuch and in Job. In translation into Western languages, beginning with Latin, this was again mistranslated as almighty. Cosmocrator means ruler over all, but it does not deny power to those who are ruled. The Cosmocrator has to be very powerful to control the powerful forces within the cosmos. To say the ruler of the cosmos rules over powerless beings actually reduces, even dissolves, the affirmation of God's power. Also, Christianity has suffered immensely from having to explain how there can be evil in a world in which a good God has all the power. Formulated in that quite non-biblical way, the question has no possible answer, as the long history of theodicy makes quite clear. The Bible tells a dramatic story of many actors in which God plays the primary and ultimate role. If God is the only actor, there is no real drama. Of the many other problems introduced into Christian thought by the relation of the new synthesis to scripture, I will mention only one more. In the Bible, boundaries are somewhat fluid. This is important for understanding the way God acts in the world and the human experience of God's presence. Paul is particularly interesting here. He speaks of our participation in Jesus' faithfulness, suffering, death, and burial. He speaks of Christ in us and our being in Christ. He speaks of the indwelling of the Spirit. He speaks of how we in the church are members one of another. Substance thought cannot make sense of any of this. Instead of the Spirit working righteousness in the hearts of the faithful, the interpreters could speak only of God's acquitting believers of sin after the manner of a judge. Instead of the faithful participating in the life and death of Jesus, they can at best imitate. Instead of the faithful being 'en Christo" at best, God treats Jesus as a substitute offering. Equally important for the development of Christian theology was the idea of the incarnation derived from the prologue of the Gospel of John. Here the Word of God is said to become flesh. That this had occurred became the hallmark of orthodox Christology. Just what it means became the topic of generations of debate and mutual recriminations. I am an enthusiast for the idea of God's incarnation in the world and especially in Jesus, but you will not be surprised to hear me say that the idea became an acute problem because of the Hellenistic categories in which it was discussed. If the discussion had continued in biblical terms, ontological precision would not have been sought. The Bible talks often enough about the Word coming to someone, and sometimes of its operation within them. Similarly God's presence in the world can be spoken of in terms of God's Spirit, God's Wisdom, and God's glory. That these are present from time to time in people is part of biblical understanding. That such presence is affirmed of Jesus is to be expected. That it is affirmed in stronger language of Jesus than of others does not surprise or occasion intellectual puzzlement. The language of Antioch, where biblical images played a larger role than in Alexandria, was of the Word indwelling Jesus. But for those who could think only in Greek philosophical categories, this was not clear or sufficient. For them the world was made up of entities that were identified as ousia. This was translated into Latin as substantia which, of course, becomes substance in English. There were philosophical debates among Greek philosophers as to exactly what this word means, but common to their usage was the idea expressed in the adage, "two substances cannot occupy the same space at the same time." If one takes this for granted as a fundamental principle, one entity, even a divine one, cannot indwell another. The incarnation becomes incomprehensible. The doctrine requires that Jesus be both fully human and fully God, but God and humanity cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Those who were strongly shaped by this conceptuality proposed that some feature of Jesus' humanity was replaced by the presence of the Word. Those who were more concerned with the biblical story, and those whose theology required Jesus' full humanity, insisted that Jesus was not lacking in any human feature. The creeds ended up in paradox and stalemate. But later, after the time of the creeds was passed, it came to be considered orthodox to think that Jesus selfhood or person or "I" was only divine. This is surely a wholly unbiblical idea developed because of substance thinking. These were by no means the only places where Greek philosophy, based on the ontology of ousia, blocked the more natural expression of biblical ideas, but they should suffice to indicate the problem. Even though the Reformers tried to liberate the Bible from philosophical thinking, they hardly began to deal with the deep hold of substance thought on theology. Sadly, if one is unwilling to think philosophically, one will be the servant of its existing form. Modern theology was founded with an even sharper focus on substances than had characterized medieval thought. Perhaps just because it was so explicit and so emphasized, it came under serious question for the first time in Western history. It gradually became clear that when substances were clearly distinguished from their changing attributes they could not be thought at all. Finally, Hume was brave enough to reject them out of hand. Kant tried to restore substance as a necessary category for human thought, but for the most part Western philosophy has simply bypassed the discussion. It learned from Kant that we should abandon metaphysics and think instead about human thinking. This opens the door for the reappropriation of more biblical modes of thought. For example, there has been much talk of narrative theology. Others have reduced theology to language. If language is no longer thought to refer to something beside itself, we are free to use biblical language quite uncritically. However, we should recognize that when we do so, we are speaking quite differently than the biblical authors who naively thought they were talking about actual events. I have summarized the story quite independently of the process conclusion that I myself draw from it. I hope that it makes clear why the encounter of Christianity with Buddhism is important. It is a movement of thought and spiritual life that for thousands of years has rejected the idea of substance. For the West, thus far, the recognition that there are no substances has led primarily to the idea that talking about what is or what is not is a mistake. If there are no substances, it is assumed, then there is no reality beyond our experience or our language. There is no meaning in asking about the existence or nature of God. We can only talk about our symbols, our language, or our experience of God. This abandonment of realism by the educated elite has driven a deep wedge between a great deal of theology, on the one side, and the actual piety of the church on the other. This is not a healthy situation. There have been many philosophical and theological responses. One family of these responses undertakes to continue the discussion of reality by replacing substances with events. There are no substances, but this does not mean that nothing happens. It simply means that the events are the reality. There is not another type of entity underlying the events and acting through them. I subscribe to this view. After trying so long to think of events as simply the product of matter in motion, it is time to think of matter as a pattern of events. In a very general sense this is the triumph of biblical historical thinking over Greek ontological thinking. But it is not really that, because it asks and answers many of the same questions that constituted Greek philosophy. Instead of abandoning ontology or metaphysics, it proposes a different one. Sadly, from my point of view, this option is viewed with great suspicion in intellectual circles. Hume and Kant continue to shape the discussion. They emphasize what cannot be done, and what cannot be done is to develop a new metaphysics. They do not find it necessary to criticize the new philosophy in detail, since it is the enterprise itself they reject. It is, from the dominant point of view naively realistic and unrealistically ambitious. The time for such grand schemes has, in their perspective, long past. They can even appeal to Buddhism in support of this rejection of the constructive enterprise. Nevertheless, we do encounter in Buddhism an alternative to substance thinking that does not simply bypass the issue of what is. And this introduces Buddhism, or more precisely multiple Buddhist voices, into the present discussion as fruitful contributors. I will make no effort to describe the diversity within Buddhism, which is vast. I focus only one doctrine that is widely held. In place of substances, Buddhists speak of pratitya samutpada. This is translated as dependent origination. This means that what there is is always a coming into be out of what is other. Therefore, nothing exists in itself, as a substance is thought to do. Each thing is what it is in any moment in derivation from what it is not. Buddhists illustrate this in many ways. I will illustrate it in the way that I find most convincing. I can say, at least, that when I have used this illustration, Buddhists have not objected. Substance thinking has typically asked us to think about a stone, or a tree, or a star. When we begin with these sorts of entities and generalize about them we are likely to end up with a metaphysics of substance, or, if we dissolve the substance as Hume did so brilliantly, we end up with nothing but our own sense data. Ultimately we must be able to show that these sorts of entities are also instances of dependent origination, but when Buddhists begin with them, it seems to me, they are often not so convincing. My example, then, is a moment of human experience. What is that? It is quite apparently something than happens. In itself one is not tempted to think of it as a substance. If one insists on substance thinking, one will posit a subject who enjoys such experience. Ordinary language encourages this. One says, I see the dog; so there is a subject separate from the experience who might be seeing a cat instead. My point is that one can begin with the event and then be led by ordinary English language to posit a substantial subject and a substantial object outside the experiential event. However, once we have recognized that analysis of the given in terms of postulated substances does not work, we may be willing to simply examine the experience itself. Of what does it consist? I will identify only a few elements. There are feelings of bodily events, perhaps an aching back. There are memories of past events, perhaps a delicious meal recently enjoyed. There are feelings about other people, perhaps a beloved child who is in danger. There are relations to the environment that express themselves in colors and sounds. Now comes a further question. Is there first of all an experience that then relates to the body, the past, other people and, the physical environment in these ways? That would introduce a new substance, the experience as such. But that analysis fails. We find in experience no experience as such. The only experience there is is the experience of other things. The experience in its concrete actuality is the togetherness of these other things. The aching back, the tasty meal, and so forth originate the experience. It is an instance of dependent origination. This momentary experience ceases to be and shares in giving rise to a successor experience. Attending to human experience is important for Buddhists, because central to their teaching is the idea of no-self. This means, what we have already noted, that there is no substance underlying the flow of experiential events. The events themselves are all that there is. This does not mean that there are not other events, in the brain, for example, that contribute to the dependent origination of human experience. But there is no self to be distinguished from the events. Many Christians find this disturbing and offensive. They feel that human beings are reduced or demeaned by this idea. Buddhists do not think so. They find the idea in principle liberating, and they hope to realize, existentially, its truth. If they doe so, they are convinced, they can attain a serenity that it otherwise eludes human beings. The Buddhist doctrine of no-self is no doubt in tension with Christian thought, but it was not developed to counter it. It must be understood in its Indian context. We noted in the previous lecture that a major strand of Hindu thought celebrates the identity of Atman with Brahman. Here Atman is the human self and Brahman is ultimate reality. In the Hindu context, these are typically, although not always, thought of as substances. This standard Hindu analysis moves in the opposite direction from the Buddhist. When the Hindu reflects about experience, it dissolves into the world of appearances. This is much the same as happened to Hume. But Vedantists are convinced that the reality of the Atman is not affected by the play of appearances. The real self is not the empirical self that appears in that play. The reality underlying human experience is timeless and without differentiating qualities. Similarly the reality that underlies the play of appearances objectively, which means the underlying reality of all things, is also without any differentiating qualities. It is Brahman, the ultimate. It could also be called Being Itself. This Being Itself is the Being Itself of all that is including the self. Hence Atman and Brahman are one. Agreeing to this analysis may have some intrinsic value, but for the Vedantist the task is to realize its truth existentially or mystically. Particular yogic disciplines are designed to do so. There is no doubt that they can lead to extraordinary states of consciousness. Nevertheless, it is this analysis against which Buddhists have argued. They do so, as we have seen, in a purely theoretical way, denying that Atman or Brahman underlies the flux of events. They also see this theory as leading people to depreciate that actual events of the world viewing them as appearance and the appearance as illusory. The Buddhist seeks to realize the existential meaning of the fact that there is no Atman rather than of the unity of Atman and Brahman. Many Hindus think that Buddhist exaggerate their difference from this form of Hinduism. It is possible to think of Atman and Brahman as dynamic such that they name an always coming into being rather than a static underlying Being. Then the realization of the identity of Atman and Brahman is not so different from the recognition that every event including the event of human experience is an instance of dependent origination. In some such way it may be possible to get past the sheer contradiction that seems, from the Buddhist side, to be entailed. Nevertheless, there are important differences between typical Buddhist and Vedantic practices. I like to tell about an experiment I read of many years ago. Sadly I do not now have the report, so that my description is based on failing memory. Nevertheless, I believe the basic point is safe. At a Catholic university in Tokyo, experimenters hooked up their subjects to instrument measuring brain activity. There were three groups involved. The first were people who prayed or meditated with no specially developed discipline. The second was a group of yogic practitioners. The third group was composed of practitioners of Zen disciplines. All were asked to meditate or pray. After a few minutes the experimenter sounded a raucous buzzer. Then after a pause repeated this several times. Afterwards the brain waves of the different participants were studied. The first group responded in the expected way. The unpleasant sound interrupting their prayers led to significantly heightened activity the first time. Its effect was less the second time and continued to diminish as it was repeated. The yogi practitioners, on the other hand did not respond at all. Presumably they had shut out the external world and moved deeply into their interior. What happened externally did not matter to them. The Buddhists, however, responded moderately to the first buzzer and similarly to each succeeding one. I want to use this response as a way of clarifying the implications of the no-self doctrine. Buddhists judge that as long we understand our experience as being grounded in enduring selves, we will live in our past and future. We have regrets or feel pride in past acts and anxieties about what the future will bring. When we break with this erroneous view, we can live moment by moment in the present. Living in this way, we can be fully present to just what is, not interpreting it in terms of its harmfulness or benefit to ourselves, but letting it be. We experience it and then let it go. If it happens again, we will again experience it, and then let it go. Buddhist meditational discipline, therefore, does not separate practitioners from ordinary life. It enables them to live that life in full immediacy moment by moment being fully present to whatever or whoever is there. There is no denial or pain or suffering, presumably the buzzer was unpleasant. But the response to the unpleasant sound was simply the recognition of the fact that it occurred. It was not viewed as an interruption of something else that was more important or a negative portent of what would happen in the future, There is surely much in this that is interesting and attractive to Christians. If letting go of self leads to this kind of serenity, one need not dread it. It is not clear what positive role this self would play in Christianity. I am not trying to say here just how Christians should respond to the few features of Buddhism I have highlighted. I hope I have said enough to show that one cannot quickly say that we have nothing to learn or that appropriating anything from Buddhism would be contrary to our faithfulness to Jesus Christ. We may on reflection decide that we cannot agree with the ideas or consider the goal the right one for Christians. But even if this is the decision, Christians who have come to it in response to Buddhism will be changed in the process. We cannot deal seriously with new issues, whatever the outcome, without being broadened. If we reaffirm our inherited answers, we now understand differently the questions to which they respond. My own judgment, as I have said, is that Buddhists are basically correct in their understanding of reality, and that we can learn from them the positive consequences of realizing this. This is a major contribution that Buddhists can make to us. It will take us a long time truly to learn it and be reshaped by it. Until we have learned this, it will be difficult for them to listen to us. To explain this let me talk about what I think we have to teach. Most Buddhists have no place for God in their thought. Originally, they denied the reality of Brahman, as of Atman. They did not deny that their were superhuman beings who were worshipped by some people, but they taught that that was a mistake. What was truly important was enlightenment and these gods were distractions. At that time they knew nothing of the God of the Abrahamic traditions; so their denial was not directed at this kind of monotheism. However, when they encountered the belief in this deity, either in its Muslim or its Christian form, they rejected it too. Let us consider why. My previous discussion should provide at least part of the answer. An all powerful deity is completely incompatible with an understanding of dependent origination. This doctrine requires that everything be partly determined by everything else. That attributes power to all things. Further the idea of substance played a large role in the doctrine of God. Indeed, God was generally viewed as the ideal embodiment of substance, totally self-contained and self-sufficient, incapable of being affected by anything. Such a way of thinking closely associated the God of Abraham with Brahman. The only kind of deity a Buddhist could seriously consider would be one who is an instance of pratitya samutpada. Such a deity would be arising dependently from all other entities and would be part of that from which all other entities arise dependently. Although many Buddhists have no interest in speculating about such a deity, their basic vision of reality is not undercut by it. Now we must ask whether such a deity could be understood as the one whom Jesus called Abba. My view is that it would fit much better than the traditional divine substance. In Jesus' understanding there is interaction between God and the world. God cares what happens in the world. Indeed there are indications that he thought that God knew every event in the world. Since the biblical understanding of knowing goes far beyond the merely cognitive we might say that every event in the world affects God, even participates in constituting the divine experience. He certainly thought that God acted in the world, and it would not be upsetting of his thought for God to be said to be participating in or informing every event whatsoever. A Buddhized formulation would be close to the one Jesus called Abba. On the other side, despite the desire of many Buddhists to avoid any entanglement with the idea of God, there are developments in Buddhism that suggest an openness to the kind of deity of which I have spoken. Many Buddhists long for compassion and help. They turn to Buddhas for this. These Buddhas are not just enlightened human beings. They may be understood to continue to exist and to act mercifully in the world. To them can be attributed a cosmic role. Of course the very fact that there are many Buddhas of this sort limits the similarity. But in Pure Land Buddhism, one Buddha, Amitabha is depicted aas encompassing the work of all the others. Amitabha acts cosmically for all. True, according to the myth this is a story of one who became a Buddha after many lifetimes. It is not about an everlasting being essential to the operation of the cosmos. It is not yet God in the sense an Abrahamic monotheistic could recognize or allow. Still, another step is possible for some Buddhists. There is a widely held Buddhist Trinity. It consists of the three bodies of Buddha. One body, the Nirmanakaya, is the manifest body, that is, if one wishes, the incarnation. It is Gotama, and, in principle anyone else who attains enlightenment. What is incarnated is the universal principle of pratitya samutpada, here called the Dharmakaya. It is beyond the distinction of good and evil. Hence it is more like Being Itself or Brahman, than like the Abrahamic God. But then there is also the Sambhogakaya, the Dharmakaya experienced by human beings as compassionate – we might say pure grace. This body of Buddha does not need to be understood as having come into being at some point. It can be seen as cosmic and everlasting. It provides a point of contact within Buddhist thought for speaking of the Christian God. One can begin my noting the similarity. Buddhists rightly identify compassion as central to the divine. Christians know this compassion in and through Jesus Christ, but Buddhists have found it through the Buddhas. In that case, what is there left for Christians to teach. I believe that we know God in a fuller way. Just as Buddhists can teach us a great deal about the existential meaning of realizing that there are no substances, that all things are dependently arising, so Christians can teach about the existential meaning of the fact that at the heart of the universe is compassionate understanding. Buddhists draw from this comfort and assurance. This is surely important, and Christians share in it. But we are surprised that there is so little talk of reciprocity. The question is entirely what the deity is doing and will do for us. There is virtually nothing about how we should respond beyond faithful acceptance. For Christians God's gracious work within us is also directive. God not only comforts us, God also calls us. Buddhists clearly are often in fact responding to God's call. But there is an advantage in identifying what we are doing. Buddhists can learn intentionally to listen to the call of God. Further, we believe that the God who comforts and calls also deserves our supreme loyalty, a loyalty that transcends that to any creaturely reality. This note of loyalty or commitment is lacking in Buddhism. In my previous lecture I spoke of how state Shinto promotes the worship of the emperor and how the Japanese Christians oppose this. They have little support from Buddhists. Buddhists as Buddhists do not promote ethnic nationalism, but they do not understand their religious thought and practice to deal with issues of this sort. In response to divine compassion they may recognize that they should place the love of the divine lover and the extension of that love to all others above national loyalty. The can come to see the worship of the divine lover as contrary to the worship of one people through that of their leader. Buddhists are often averse to talk about justice. To them it sounds like repaying evil with evil. Alternately it may involve social engineering to make all people equal. Their interest is far more in social harmony. Nevertheless, we Christians believe that what we mean by justice has an important place in the response to God's love. There has been much that has been damaging in our quest for justice, and on this point our Buddhist partners can be very helpful. But it is quite possible that this conversation cam be a two-way street. Already, partly in response to dialogue with Christians, Sulak Sivaraksa had organized a successful movement of socially-engaged Buddhists. They are teaching Christians a great deal about how to be engaged in compassionate work without treating those with whom we disagree as enemies. In the Jewish scriptures, the response is primarily in terms of obedience to the law given by God. Buddhists for the most part live in societies that are bound my many rules of contact. In their religious practice they seek something quite different. Christianity offers what is much more acceptable. As recipients of God's love we are called to love God and our neighbors, especially the least of these. This is not alien to Buddhism. I have probably gone too far in suggesting just how God can come to play a part and then an enlarged part in Buddhist thought and life. The fact is that we cannot control how our message is perceived and what in it will stimulate rethinking on the part of the other. But much of what I have said comes close to my experience thus far. The steps I have described are not impossible. The need for more careful thought about social responsibility has not expressed itself only the establishment of the movement of engaged Buddhists. I have had the ;privilege of supervising two dissertations by Buddhists on Buddhist approaches to social ethics. One was written by a Zen Buddhist. The other by a Pure Land Buddhist. They differ markedly from each other as each rooted the proposed social ethics inm the specifics of his tradition. I should say that neither followed the simple pattern I have suggested here. One of my Pure Land Buddhists friends has become an avowed theist, much along the lines I have outlined. He sees no conflict between Buddhist teaching as understood in this tradition and the further development of its theistic tendencies. He agrees with me that Buddhism in principle is open to viewing Jesus Christ as a Buddha who revealed and taught the compassion of God. If Christianity can give up its lingering commitment to substance thought and learn the existential meaning of the Buddhist doctrine of no-self, it will be creatively transformed. If Buddhists can recognize that the compassion they crave and experience is from God, and that the compassionate God is also one who calls us to compassionate action and to whom ultimate loyalty is due, Buddhism will be transformed. I believe that such transformation is already taking place at the periphery of each tradition. During this century it could go much further ant change the nature of the two traditions and of their relations. Taking part in this is an exciting opportunity and challenge.

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Volume 12, Number 10—October 2006 Antimicrobial Drugs in the Home, United Kingdom A total of 6% of 6,983 households in the United Kingdom had leftover antimicrobial drugs, and 4% had standby antimicrobial drugs. Respondents with leftover drugs were more educated, more knowledgeable about antimicrobial drugs, younger, and female. Of respondents with leftover drugs, 44% kept them in case of future need, and 18% had taken these drugs without medical advice. Antimicrobial drug resistance is increasing worldwide and is related to use of these drugs (1,2). Use of leftover drugs may increase antimicrobial drug resistance in the community by exerting selective pressure in the commensal flora (3,4). Retention and use of leftover antimicrobial drugs are widespread in countries that sell antimicrobial drugs without a prescription (i.e., over-the-counter) (5,6). In countries in which over-the-counter antimicrobial drug sales are restricted, studies on use of leftover drugs have been few and mostly questionnaire-based, relying on respondent recall (7,8). A large survey of British household drug practices showed that 2% of medicines were leftover or standby drugs (9), but no information was obtained about the households containing them. To inform antimicrobial drug education campaigns (10,11) and research examining the relationship between antimicrobial drug prescribing and resistance (12), we conducted a household survey to identify antimicrobial drugs present and the characteristics of respondents who kept them. The survey formed part of the Office for National Statistics' Omnibus Survey in the United Kingdom in February, March, June, and July 2003. A representative sample of households was selected by using previously published methods (9). Households were invited by letter to participate in a study about their views and experiences on a variety of subjects. For households with >1 adult member, 1 person >16 years of age was selected by a random number tables. At the household visit, respondents were informed that the survey was sponsored by the department of health and was about drugs for treating infections. Respondents were asked to show the interviewer all drugs in the household that had been prescribed for infections, even if the person for whom they were prescribed was not present (temporarily or permanently), and asked whether the drugs were currently being used for an infection for which they were prescribed, had been prescribed for a previous infection (leftover drugs), or were being kept for use in the future (standby drugs). The amount of unused drug was noted and prescription details were recorded and coded by their listing in the British National Formulary. Antimicrobial drugs included all antifungal and antibacterial drugs. Respondents were asked a series of questions about their use of antimicrobial drugs and whether they agreed or disagreed with a series of statements from education campaigns (10,11) about the usefulness of these drugs for coughs and colds, viruses, bacteria, and normal flora; the importance of completing courses of drug therapy, and antimicrobial drug resistance. Ethical approval was not required for this ongoing national survey, but respondents were able to refuse participation in any part of the survey at any time and were told that all information was anonymous and strictly confidential. To enable comparison with nationally prescribed antimicrobial drugs, the number of community-prescribed drugs in England was obtained from prescribing analysis and cost data (PACT) (13). Sampling weights based on the 2001 census data for Great Britain were applied to household and respondent data to allow for any oversampling or undersampling by region, Carstair's deprivation quintile, age group, and sex. Multivariable logistic regression (ignoring sampling weights) was used to investigate independent associations between respondent characteristics and the presence of leftover antimicrobial drugs prescribed for the respondent. Of 10,981 selected households, 25% refused to participate and 10% could not be contacted. Respondents in 7,120 (65%) households completed the questionnaire and 6,983 (64%) agreed to the drug survey. A total of 19% of the 6,983 households had an antimicrobial drug leftover (6%), kept for standby use (4%), or currently in use (11%) (Table 1). Six percent of leftover drugs had been prescribed for <3 days, 16% for 4–5 days, 61% for >6 days, and 17% were to be taken as required. No specific class of oral antimicrobial drugs was kept more often as leftover drugs relative to PACT prescription rates (Figure 1). Four percent of respondents had leftover antimicrobial drugs that had been prescribed. The most educated respondents were twice as likely as those least educated to have leftover antimicrobial drugs (5.4% with a university degree vs. 2.4% with no formal degree) (Table 2). Respondents most knowledgeable about antimicrobial drugs (6.1% if all 11 questions were answered correctly) were twice as likely as those least knowledgeable (3.1% if >5 were answered incorrectly) to keep them (Table 2, Figure 2). Level of education and knowledge of antimicrobial drugs were independently associated with being more likely to have leftover drugs (Table 2). Younger respondents and women were more likely to have leftover drugs (Table 2, Figure 2). Thirty-eight percent of respondents' leftover drugs had been dispensed >1 year earlier, and 48% of these drugs had more than half of the original amount remaining (Table 1). Of those who had kept a leftover antimicrobial drug prescribed in the past year, 44% did so for future need (Table 1). Of those with a leftover drug, 18% had taken antimicrobial drugs without advice compared with 4% of respondents who did not have a leftover drug (p<0.0005). When directly questioned, 38% of respondents (95% confidence interval 36.4–38.8%) recalled that they had been prescribed a drug in the past year. Younger age in women (50% if 16–24 years of age, 43% if 25–44 years of age, and 44% if 45–54 years of age) and lower level of education (33% with a degree and 40% with no formal qualifications on leaving school at the minimum age [16 years]) were independently associated with being prescribed an antimicrobial drug. This large survey of household antimicrobial drugs, which was conducted in a country with restricted over-the-counter sales, showed an association between keeping leftover antimicrobial drugs and higher education and knowledge about these drugs, younger age, and being female. The strength of this study is that we asked a large representative sample to show us their antimicrobial drugs rather than relying on respondent memory. However, we may not have been shown all antimicrobial drugs, and some of the leftover drugs may have been misclassified as standby drugs. The characteristics of respondents in households with standby drugs were similar to those of respondents with leftover drugs. The number of antimicrobial drugs found was twice that found by a recent survey in Sweden that relied on respondent recall; in that study, the respondents also reported a lower number of antimicrobial drug prescriptions (8). Persons may keep leftover antimicrobial drugs because too much was prescribed for their initial infection. Most community-acquired infections are respiratory or urinary, for which many prescribed courses of antimicrobial drugs are longer than necessary (14). If the standard duration of treatment could be shortened and package size reduced to contain enough drug for 3 to 5 days, the temptation to keep antimicrobial drugs might be diminished. Our finding supports this suggestion because prescriptions for >6 days constituted 61% of leftover drugs, whereas prescriptions for <3 days constituted 6% of leftover drugs. Evidence shows that repeated treatment with antimicrobial drugs exerts greater selective pressure on normal bacterial flora than a single course of treatment (14,15). Consequently, persons who use leftover antimicrobial drugs repeatedly are at greater risk for colonization and infection with drug-resistant organisms (1,3,4,15). Our results show that any public education campaign to reduce retention and use of leftover antimicrobial drugs must be directed at well-educated groups rather than the less educated, who are prescribed more antimicrobial drugs. One explanation may be that well-educated people are confident that they can make their own decisions about antimicrobial drug use, and this may be particularly relevant when their infection is less severe or becomes asymptomatic. Furthermore, they do not discard these drugs because 44% of those with leftover antimicrobial drugs admitted keeping them in case of future need. Antimicrobial drug education campaigns should reinforce the message that leftover drugs should be returned to the pharmacist or that these drugs should only be taken after the advice of a health professional. Our finding of high levels of leftover antimicrobial drugs suggests that prescription does not equate to use. This will be an important source of bias in epidemiologic studies examining risk factors for antimicrobial drug resistance (12) that include dose and duration of antimicrobial drug treatment in their analysis of exposure (1,4). Dr McNulty is a consultant medical microbiologist and head of the Health Protection Agency Primary Care Unit in Gloucester, UK. Her research interests include management of infectious disease in primary care, guidance development, and facilitation of education. We thank the staff at the Office for National Statistics who were involved in the household survey, in particular, Amanda Wilmot, Alessio Fiacco, and Laura Rainford, and staff at the Department of Health, who provided the PACT data, in particular, Candida Ballantyne, Anne Custance, and Anne Emery. This study was supported by a grant from the Department of Health, England, whose staff had no involvement in the design, collection, analysis, or interpretation of data in this study or in writing this paper or submitting it for publication. - Donnan PT, Wei L, Steinke DT, Phillips G, Clarke R, Noone A, Presence of bacteriuria caused by trimethoprim-resistant bacteria in patients prescribed antibiotics: multilevel model with practice and individual patient data. BMJ. 2004;328:1297. - Goossens H, Ferech M. Vander-Stichele-R, Elseviers M. Outpatient antibiotic use in Europe and association with resistance: a cross-national database study. Lancet. 2005;365:579–87. - Gustafsson I, Sjölund M, Torell E, Johannesson M, Engstrand L, Cars O, Bacteria with increased mutation frequency and antibiotic resistance are enriched in the commensal flora of patients with high antibiotic usage. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2003;52:645–50. - Jonsson M, Qvarnstrom Y, Engstrand L, Swedberg G. Clarithromycin treatment selects for persistent macrolide-resistant bacteria in throat commensal flora. Int J Antimicrob Agents. 2005;25:68–74. - Stratchounski LS, Andreeva IV, Ratchina SA, Galkin DV, Petrotchenkova NA, Demin AA, The inventory of antibiotics in Russian home medicine cabinets. Clin Infect Dis. 2003;37:498–505. - Okumura J, Wakai S, Umenai T. Drug utilisation and self-medication in rural communities in Vietnam. Soc Sci Med. 2002;54:1875–86. - Ceaser S, Wurtz R. "Leftover" antibiotics in the medicine cabinet. Ann Intern Med. 2000;133:74. - Svensson E, Haaijer-Ruskamp FM, Lundborg CS. Self-medication with antibiotics in a Swedish general population. Scand J Infect Dis. 2004;36:450–2. - Woolf M. Left-over medicines, a report on OPCS omnibus survey data. OPCS Omnibus Survey Publications Report 4. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office; 1995. - Finch RG, Joshua MP, Davey PG, Baker LJ. Educational interventions to improve antibiotic use in the community: report from the International Forum on Antibiotic Resistance (IFAR) colloquium, 2002. Lancet Infect Dis. 2004;4:44–53. - Department of Health Standing Medical Advisory Committee on Antimicrobial Resistance. The path of least resistance. Occasional report. London: The Stationery Office; 1998. - Steinke D, Davey P. Association between antibiotic resistance and community prescribing: a critical review of bias and confounding in published studies. Clin Infect Dis. 2001;33(Suppl 3):S193–205. - Lovejoy AE, Savage I. Prescribing analysis and cost tabulation (PACT) data: an introduction. Br J Community Nurs. 2001;6:62–7. - Lambert HP. Don't keep taking the tablets? Lancet. 1999;354:943–5. - Magee JT. The resistance ratchet: theoretical implications of cyclic selection pressure. J Antimicrob Chemother. 2005;56:427–30. Suggested citation for this article: McNulty CAM, Boyle P, Nichols T, Clappison DP, Davey P. Antimicrobial drugs in the home, United Kingdom. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2006 Oct [date cited]. http://dx.doi.org/10.3201/eid1210.051471 Comments to the Authors Lessons from the History of Quarantine, from Plague to Influenza A

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Combination Chemotherapy With or Without Radiation Therapy in Treating Young Patients With Newly Diagnosed Stage III or Stage IV Wilms Tumor RATIONALE: Drugs used in chemotherapy work in different ways to stop the growth of tumor cells, either by killing the cells or by stopping them from dividing. Radiation therapy uses high-energy x-rays to kill tumor cells. Giving more than one drug (combination chemotherapy) with or without radiation therapy may kill more tumor cells. PURPOSE: This phase III trial is studying how well combination chemotherapy with or without radiation therapy works in treating young patients with newly diagnosed stage III or stage IV Wilms tumor. Drug: doxorubicin hydrochloride Drug: vincristine sulfate Procedure: therapeutic conventional surgery Radiation: radiation therapy |Study Design:||Masking: Open Label Primary Purpose: Treatment |Official Title:||Treatment of Newly Diagnosed Higher Risk Favorable Histology Wilms Tumors| - Event-free survival as measured by Woolson and an O'Brien-Fleming Boundary at 4 years [ Designated as safety issue: No ] |Study Start Date:||February 2007| |Estimated Primary Completion Date:||July 2016 (Final data collection date for primary outcome measure)|

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Figure 1. Soybean field with symptoms of infection by soybean cyst nematode, Heterodera glycines. Note poor stand and stunting of soybean plants. (Printed with permission of Dr. Lorin R. Krusberg, Department of Botany, University of Maryland, College Park, MD). Figure 2. Segment of soybean root infected with soybean cyst nematode. Signs of infection are brown-white females or cysts with egg masses that are attached to root surfaces. Figure 3. Histological section of soybean root showing intracortical penetration by an infective juvenile of soybean cyst nematode at 1 day after inoculation. Figure 4. Longitudinal section of soybean root showing a third-stage juvenile of soybean cyst nematode at its feeding site and a syncytium. The syncytium, which functions as a food reservoir, has dense cytoplasm and multiple nuclei that result from dissolution of cell walls. Figure 5. Extensive syncytium induced by a third-stage juvenile of soybean cyst nematode at 10 days after inoculation. Note cell wall fragments dispersed Figure 6. Cross section of soybean root resistant to soybean cyst nematode, showing restricted development of nematodes and associated syncytia at 5 days after Figure 7. Cross section of root from a susceptible soybean cultivar, showing extensive sectors of xylem and phloem tissues replaced by syncytia with dense cytoplasm. At 21 days after inoculation, a nematode at this site (not shown) would be an adult female producing eggs that are either embedded in a gelatinous matrix secreted by the nematode or held within the cyst body for long-term survival and subsequent dispersal (see fig 2.) Figure 8. Cross section of susceptible soybean cultivar at 40 days after inoculation, showing sectors of root occupied by syncytia. Some syncytia have been replaced by parenchymatous tissue. Figure 9. Cross section of resistant soybean cultivar at 31 days after inoculation, showing minimal damage to vascular system. Necrotic area indicates former site of syncytium induced by nematode. Go to Chapter 1 Go to Chapter 2Figure Captions Back to Contents

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ICT Assistive technology is a term used to describe a technology developed to help people with a disability access ICT. The problem with assistive technologies is that they are often expensive to develop and have a limited audience so they can be expensive for the end user and this further limits the number of users. The best way to bring down the cost is to extend their use to a wider community, preferably by making it relevant to most ICT users. I was reminded of this when I was watching a new version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar on television recently. I enjoy watching Shakespeare but I, like many other people, can often only follow 80-90% of the dialogue and this limits my full appreciation of the stories. The version I was watching was set in a modern African country and all the actors were coloured. The actors were superb and annunciated beautifully but I suspect the unusual setting did not help my understanding. After ten minutes of struggling to follow the story I suddenly remembered that nearly all digital television channels include subtitles for the benefit of people with hearing impairments. After a little playing with my remote I managed to switch the subtitles on. My enjoyment of the rest of the play increased dramatically as I was able to follow all the subtleties of the plot. I would encourage anyone to switch on subtitles when watching a program they are having difficulty understanding either because it in an archaic language, such as Julius Caesar, or includes dialects (I confess to finding some of the minor characters in Vera hard to follow), or because English is not their first language. Now that the television companies subtitle most programmes they should promote the benefits to the widest possible audience, not just the hearing impaired, but people where English is not their first language and people like myself who can better understand some dialogue through subtitles. Promoting subtitles in this way would change the view of subtitles from a significant cost to a significant benefit. Up to now I have been discussing television but the same argument applies to video delivered through any channel. In particular video clips are now commonplace on corporate web sites and should be subtitled to provide the benefits I have discussed. There have been no reader comments.

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Rocky Mountain Research Station Publications RMRS Online Publication INT-GTR-218: Fire ecology of the forest habitat types of central Idaho Crane, M. F.; Fischer, William C. 1986. Fire ecology of the forest habitat types of central Idaho. General Technical Report INT-218. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station. 86 p. Discusses fire as an ecological factor for forest habitat types occurring in central Idaho. Identifies "Fire Groups" of habitat types based on fire's role in forest succession. Considerations for fire management are suggested. Keywords: fire ecology, forest ecology, forest fire, fire management, habitat types About PDFs: For best results, do not open the PDF in your Web browser. Right-click on the PDF link to download the PDF file directly to your computer. Click here for more PDF help or order a printed copy of this publication. The PDF below was scanned and converted to text. Some errors may occur. PDF File Size: 2.9 MB Fire ecology of the forest habitat types of central Idaho Publish Date: May 21, 2009 Last Update: May 21, 2009 RMRS Publications | Order a publication | Contact Us

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The Silvan people who inhabited the woods between the Mountains of Moria and the Great River. This was the land that would become far better known as Lórien after the coming of Galadriel and Celeborn, but before the middle of the Third Age its name was Lórinand, and its people were therefore known as the Elves of Lórinand. These people played their part in the historic events of the Second and Third Ages. In the War of the Elves and Sauron, their prince Amroth led them against Sauron's forces and rescued Elrond from near-certain defeat. Later, many of them fought in the War of the Last Alliance, and it was there that their lord, Amroth's father, was slain. For acknowledgements and references, see the Disclaimer & Bibliography page. Website services kindly sponsored by Axiom Software Ltd. Original content © copyright Mark Fisher 2008. All rights reserved. For conditions of reuse, see the Site FAQ.

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30 No. 4 Mitigating Arsenic Pollution: Bridging the Gap Between Knowledge and Practice* by Hemda Garelick and Huw Jones Access to uncontaminated water in sufficient quantities may be the most important requirement for healthy human societies. However, the relationship between the water supply in developing countries and the health of citizens is complex since the relationship is dependent on the provision of both appropriate quantities and quality of water. Attempts to understand this relationship began in the 1970s with the “Bradley Classification” of water-related infection. This was followed by efforts to predict the effect of variations in water quality and supply on morbidity and mortality, particularly of children under five (Cairncross and Valdmanis, 2006). Among the indicators of water quality, the feco-oral (specifically infectious diarrhea) group has historically been important and remains one of the largest water-related contributors to disease on a global scale. According to some current estimates, approximately 1.8 million people, 90 percent of whom are children under 5, still die every year from diarrheal diseases—mostly in developing countries (WHO, 2008). It is estimated that in industrialized countries, 60 percent of diarrheal disease is attributed to unsafe water, sanitation, and hygiene, whereas in developing countries as much as 85-90 percent of diarrheal illness can be attributed to these causes (Keusch et al., 2006). While the microbiological quality of water is directly related to human health impacts, access to appropriate quantities of water is an additional health benefit that should not be underestimated. Adequate quantities of water enable people to have improved hygiene, leading to a reduced infectious burden (Cairncross and Valdmanis, 2006). In addition, water availability beyond that required for sustenance and hygiene can confer further health benefits by allowing increased food production in the dry season. The years 1980–1990 were declared as the U.N. Water Decade. This influenced the work of governments and international agencies in the drive to provide clean and affordable water supplies to all. As part of this drive, international collaborative efforts led by UNICEF resulted in the sinking of millions of tubewells to extract groundwater, which is typically of superior microbiological quality when compared to surface water. In Bangladesh alone some 10 million tubewells were drilled. UNICEF figures published in 1998 show a 47 percent reduction in infant and under 5 mortality rates in Bangladesh in the years 1980–1996 (UNICEF, 1998). However, many of the tubewells were unknowingly sunk into arsenic-contaminated aquifers. As a consequence, although microbiologically superior water supplies were obtained, some 40 million people subsequently were exposed to toxic levels of arsenic, sometimes exceeding the World Health Organization (WHO) Guideline value by a factor of 20 or more. Of 64 districts within Bangladesh, 59 were reported to contain unsafe levels of arsenic (Caussy and Priest, 2008). The situation in Bangladesh has been described as the biggest case of mass poisoning in recent history. High levels of arsenic in drinking water have also been found elsewhere in Asia (e.g., Cambodia, China) as well as in the USA and South America. The WHO and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recommended limit for arsenic in drinking water is currently 10 µg/L (WHO, 2006). There is clearly a pressing need to mitigate the problem. However, it is not so much the difficulty of removing arsenic from water, as it is the extremely low levels to which it must be reduced to ensure safety that presents the challenge to water treatment initiatives, especially in developing countries where the issues of cost and expertise often make “high-tech” solutions impractical. The challenge is not only to provide cheap and efficient treatment but also to develop technologies that are suitable for the large number of small and isolated point sources that are typical of affected rural populations. The IUPAC Project By the end of the millennium, the problem of arsenic contamination, particularly in Bangladesh was well documented. The implications to human health from arsenic exposure have been widely investigated by the scientific community. However, from the perspective of those living in affected areas, these problems are not fully understood and solutions for mitigation have not been adequately evaluated or communicated. It is against this background that an IUPAC project (#2003-017-2-600), established under the auspices of the Chemistry and the Environment Division, aims to accomplish the following: - provide a global overview of natural and anthropogenic sources of arsenic in the water environment and to assess its behavior - critically review field testing kits intended to provide cheap, quick, on-site measurements so that contamination can be accurately mapped and remediation efforts effectively monitored - assess the health risk of arsenic contamination, with special reference to technical challenges for optimizing arsenic remediation measures that are acceptable to affected communities - conduct critical analysis of appropriate methodologies, evaluate their suitability for different situations, and address the transferability of specific technologies that are currently associated with local conditions For mitigation/remediation action to be taken, the interrelationships and complexities inherent to the processes need to be recognized and understood. To help achieve this, a conceptual model describing these relationships is presented (figure 1). It serves as a framework for the integration of these factors and as a basis for discussion in this article. |Figure 1: A conceptual model describing the factors and relationship informing the decision-making process for mitigation/remediation of human arsenic exposure. (Garelick et al., 2006) The environmental presence of arsenic derives from both natural and anthropogenic sources. Globally, most arsenic contamination of water occurs naturally when aquifers pass through bedrock containing arsenic. Significant amounts of arsenic are also introduced into the environment from anthropogenic sources, metal mining and smelting being the most important (Garelick et al., 2008). The main regions of the world affected by arsenic contamination are depicted in figure 2, which also indicates the scale of chronic human exposure. Four principal sources of arsenic are also shown. As can be discerned from the map, areas having natural (geological) contamination of aquifers and regions with mining sources dominate. For coal burning sources, only the Guizhou region of China is shown since this region has the most serious documented problems of this type. Arsenic has also been introduced into the environment through extensive use of arsenical compounds in pesticides. It is also a constituent of wood preservatives (e.g., as copper chromate arsenate). Many sites used by the timber industry to treat lumber have been contaminated with arsenic. Agricultural and/or wood preserving sites of contamination have been reported in South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Australia, but are not included on the map as they are small localized areas. Analysis and Environmental Sampling Arsenic’s highly variable distribution in the environment makes it difficult to establish reliable environmental sampling regimes that accurately portray the true status of arsenic contamination. In addition, accomplishing rapid on-site sample analyses at acceptable costs remains a challenge even when reliable sampling has been achieved. A review of these methods is provided by Feldmann (2008). Monitoring for arsenic has historically been centered on drinking water, but more recently monitoring of soil and staple foods has become important because of their potential contribution to human arsenic exposure. On-site analyses of water, soil, sludge, and foodstuffs are essential to ensure that environmental risk assessments properly reflect arsenic residue burdens. Further, those undertaking environmental risk analyses have to consider additional criteria as discussed below. Exposure, Risk, and Health Aspects A range of arsenic species is present in the environment, which exhibit complex environmental behavior and large variations in toxicity. The pronounced differences in relative toxicities of six arsenic species are demonstrated in figure 3. The figure, although based on acute studies, further highlights significant differences in toxicity between organic and inorganic species of arsenic. These differences are also supported by a number of field studies, although it is less clear whether these differences are similarly pronounced under conditions of chronic exposure. |Figure 3: Relative toxicity of arsenic species (MMA = monomethylarsonic acid, DMA = dimethylarsinic acid). Adapted from Vaughan (2006). [Arsine toxicity is based on rat LD50 of 3 mg/kg body weight normalized to 1]. Humans may be exposed to inorganic arsenic via air (significant intakes by inhalation occur in residents living near industrial sources where exposures to arsenic trioxide are possible), drinking water, food, and soil. However, there are strong indications that consumption of arsenic polluted water is the most important contributor to arsenic-related morbidity. The areas exhibiting the highest levels of human exposure, such as Bangladesh and West Bengal (figure 2), are known to also have the highest occurrence of arsenic contamination of ground water (Caussy and Priest, 2008). Most food products usually contain less than 250 µg/kg of arsenic. However, seafood, including demersal fish, crustaceans, and marine algae, may contain up to ~100mg/kg of arsenic. The low levels of arsenic in plants contrast with the much higher levels in soil, ~40mg/kg, and may reflect the insolubility of many arsenic-containing minerals such as pyrite under normal soil conditions. The average U.S. daily dietary intake of arsenic is estimated to be 10 to 20µg. In Japan, however, where the seafood content of the diet is high, intakes are much larger (70 to 370µg per day) (Caussy and Priest 2008). The likely predominance of the less toxic organic species of arsenic in foodstuffs may render this source less important in morbidity. However, this is an area that has been less well researched. Standards and Guidelines In most countries, the maximum contaminant level (MCL), which is used as an important field monitoring criterion for total arsenic in ground- or potable-water, is set at 50 µg/L. The MCL is either a guideline or an enforceable standard, depending on the country, and is the highest level of a contaminant allowed in drinking water. However, the more stringent WHO guideline value of 10 µg/L has been set as the MCL in recent years. This has now been approved by an increasing number of countries across the world, and has been enforced in the USA since the beginning of 2006. The MCL does not distinguish arsenic species, although as shown in figure 3, speciation is clearly an important factor in arsenic toxicity. Arsenic levels in soil, sludge, and foodstuffs are less well regulated. Some countries, such as the UK and Canada, have environmental quality criteria for soil (10–50 mg/kg) that are use-dependent. Guidelines for arsenic in foodstuff have not yet been so widely agreed upon. At present, only Australia has established a guideline (1 mg/kg) for total arsenic (no discrimination among species) in foodstuff. China has so far introduced maximum levels for different foodstuffs and was the first country to incorporate arsenic speciation into its guidelines (e.g., 0.15 mg/kg inorganic arsenic for rice). However, the importance of distinguishing among arsenic species in guidelines is an area that requires further progress (Feldmann, 2008). The health outcomes from exposure to arsenic depend not only on the source and chemical species of arsenic, but on dose, modality, and duration of exposure. Both acute and chronic intakes result in toxicity, although drinking contaminated water is only likely to produce effects under conditions of chronic intake. These effects include skin lesions, disturbances of the peripheral nervous system, anemia, and leucopenia, liver damage, circulatory disease, and cancer. Many of these effects have been observed in populations in Taiwan, Argentina, and Bangladesh that consumed contaminated water. The bioavailability of arsenic is a key determinant of the health outcomes of exposure because it is related to the ability of arsenic to be liberated from ingested matrices (e.g., soil, water and food) and thus enter into the blood stream where it exerts its toxic effects. Studies from human volunteer and animal experiments show about 90 percent of ingested, dissolved, inorganic arsenic salts are absorbed from the gut and enter the blood stream. This percentage is much higher than for most other ostensibly non-essential elements and, in part, is a feature of the similar chemical properties of the arsenate (AsO43-) and phosphate (PO43-) ions, the latter being an essential body component that is avidly absorbed from the gut (Caussy and Priest, 2008). Substantial efforts have been invested in developing techniques for removing arsenic from water in both field and laboratory conditions. For any technology to be effective and appropriate for use in affected areas of developing countries, it should use local resources and be low-cost, versatile, transferable, and simple to operate and manage. It is essential that such technologies are accessible to local communities and especially to women. Throughout the developing world, women collect and carry water for their families, use water for cooking and cleaning and for growing food, and therefore should be at the forefront as users of arsenic treatment technologies. Even treatment systems that are highly successful from a technological viewpoint may not succeed in rural areas, such as villages of India and Bangladesh, unless they mesh with local circumstances and are well accepted by the local population. |Figure 4. Color labelling of safe (green) and unsafe (red) tubewells in Bangladesh. [Photographs courtesy of Feroze Ahmed, Department of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh.] Although water treatment is central to arsenic pollution mitigation, it is important to recognize that a change in the source of water, rather than treatment of the water locally, may be the most appropriate solution in some cases. Where municipal piped water supplies exist, connecting to these may provide the appropriate solution for those using contaminated private sources. Even in areas where no municipal piped supplies are provided, switching to a different source well or to harvesting rain water may still be the best solution (Jones et al., 2008). An example of how this may be managed is illustrated by the practice in rural Bangladesh of color-labelling tubewells that provide water deemed unsafe for consumption (figure 4). Conventional treatment plants may employ several methods for removing arsenic from water. Commonly used processes include oxidation and sedimentation, coagulation and filtration, lime treatment, adsorption onto sorptive media, ion exchange, and membrane filtration. However, in the most affected regions large conventional treatment plants may not be appropriate and factors such as cost and acceptability as well as performance must be considered. A summary of mitigation options, arsenic removal performance, and relative costs are presented in table 1. |Table 1. Evaluation of Performance and Costs of Arsenic Pollution Mitigation Options. Adapted from Visoottiviseth and Ahmed (2008) and Ellis and Garelick (2008). Multi Criteria Analysis The identification and selection of best practices for arsenic mitigation options requires careful evaluation of economic, technological, and environmental factors. Regional social values and inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional contexts are also important considerations. Procedures designed to resolve arsenic remediation must also address complex problems in a manner that is comprehensible to and auditable by stakeholders. Where divergent-minded stakeholders are involved, multi-criteria analysis (MCA) is an approach that can facilitate optimal decision-making. MCA is a decision-making tool originally developed to help evaluate options that rely on values that are not easily assignable. Cost-benefit analysis is an example where a range of defining criteria (or influencing factors) important to stakeholders are considered. The facilitation of discussions and increased transparency of decision-making processes are possible through MCA since it enables stakeholders to process large amounts of complex information, thereby helping them see the “bigger picture.” MCA procedures utilize a performance matrix (consequence table) in which options for arsenic remediation are presented (and described) in columns, and performance values for options are presented in rows against predefined criteria. Data may be entered in the matrix as utility scores in various forms, such as numerical, semi-quantitative, and/or descriptive. The performance of each option can then be aggregated against all the criteria from which an eventual overall comparison and decision on the best mitigation option can be made. Source-exposure vector, health risk, cost, social acceptance, and technical competency are the primary MCA criteria on which a judgement or decision is reached in relation to arsenic treatment options. An example of such a matrix is shown in table 2. The table tracks relevant and appropriate properties for each of the listed criteria that may influence outcomes. Data in the performance matrix is converted into numerical values through application of a specific utility scale scoring and weighting technique for each criterion. A detailed account of these procedures is provided by Ellis and Garelick (2008). Utility scores and/or weights will clearly influence performance matrix outcomes. Sensitivity analysis can also be performed by reiterating the analysis using different scores or weightings. This is a useful and important approach that enables the MCA methodology to be used as a negotiating tool in the decision-making process, allowing areas of stakeholder agreement and disagreement to be highlighted. A substantial knowledge pool exists about human exposure to arsenic contamination; the scale of contamination in many regions is well documented, human health effects are known and understood and potential technological solutions have been elucidated. However, the implementation of successful mitigation requires this knowledge to be applied more effectively. This can only be achieved by enhancing the understanding of the interactions between socio-economic and scientific issues, thus enabling practitioners to develop effective and appropriate mitigation programs. Cairncross, S. and Valdmanis, V. (2006) “Water Supply, Sanitation, and Hygiene Promotion.” In Jamison et al. (eds): Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (2nd Edition),ed. , 371-388. New York: Oxford University Press. <www.dcp2.org/pubs/DCP/41/>. Caussy, H. and Priest, N. (2008) “Introduction to Arsenic Contamination and Health Risk Assessment with Special Reference to Bangladesh.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. Ellis, J.B. and Garelick, H. (2008) “A Multi-Criteria Approach for Assessing Options to Remediate Arsenic in Drinking Water.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. Feldmann, J. (2008). “On Site Testing for Arsenic: Field Test Kits.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. Garelick, H. et al. (2006). “Remediation Technologies for the Removal of Arsenic from Water and Wastewater.” An IUPAC project presented at the IUPAC 43rd General Assembly, Beijing, China. Garelick, H. et al. (2008). “Arsenic Pollution Sources.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. Jones, H. et al. (2008). “Case Report: Arsenic Pollution in Thailand, Bangladesh and Hungary.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. Keusch, G.T. et al. (2006). “Diarrheal Diseases.” In Jamison et al (eds): Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries (2nd Edition), ed. , 371–388. New York: Oxford University Press. <www.dcp2.org/pubs/DCP>; Chapter 19. UNICEF (1998) The State of the World’s Children 1998. Vaughan, D.J. (2006) “Arsenic” Elements 2: 71–75. Visoottiviseth, P. and Ahmed, F. (2008) “Technology for Remediation and Disposal of Arsenic.” Reviews of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology. 197. [In Press]. WHO (2006) Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality. Volume 1—Recommendations. First addendum to third addition. <www.who.int/water_sanitation_health/dwq/gdwq0506.pdf> WHO (2008) “Water Quality Interventions to Prevent Diarrhoea: Cost and Cost-Effectiveness” (T.F. Clasen, L. Haller) Geneva 2008 WHO/HSE/WSH/08.02 *This article arose from work carried out by an IUPAC project (2003-017-2-600) sponsored by the Chemistry and the Environment Division (VI). The participants were F. Ahmed, G. Borbély, M.K. Bux, D.H. Caussy, A. Dybowska, J.B. Ellis, J. Feldmann, R. Földényi, Z. Galbács, H. Garelick, H. Jones, N. Kováts, N. Priest, Y. Shevah, E. Valsami-Jones, and P. Visoottiviseth. Hemda Garelick <H.Garelick@mdx.ac.uk> is a professor in the School of Health and Social Sciences at Middlesex University, The Burroughs, London, United Kingdom. Huw Jones <H.Jones@mdx.ac.uk> is a professor in the Department of Natural Sciences at Middlesex University. 2. Worldwide distribution of arsenic contaminated regions, showing source of arsenic and numbers of people at risk of chronic exposure. Note: estimates of people at risk of poisoning are very difficult to quantify, particularly in areas where geochemical surveys are limited. These estimates are broad and are based on four criteria: 1) prevalence of current recorded cases of arsenicosis, 2) likelihood of ingested concentrations exceeding 50 µg/L) number of people living in exposed areas, 4) likely ability of region to mitigate/remediate against contamination. 1. Bech J, Poschenrieder C, Llugany M , Barceló J , Tume P, Tobias FJ, Barranzuela JL & Vásquez ER (1997). Arsenic and heavy metal contamination of soil and vegetation around a copper mine in Northern Peru. Sci. Total Environ. 203(1): 83-91. 2. Archer J, Hudson-Edwards KA, Preston DA, Howarth RJ & Linge K (2005). Aqueous exposure and uptake of arsenic by riverside communities affected by mining contamination in the Río Pilcomayo basin, Bolivia. Mineral. Mag. 69(5):719-736. 3. Hopenhayn-Rich C, Browning SR, Hertz-Picciotto I, Ferreccio C, Peralta C & Gibb H. (2000). Chronic arsenic exposure and risk of infant mortality in two areas of Chile. Environ Health Perspect. 108(7):667-673. 4. Bundschuh J, Farias B, Martin R, Storniolo A, Bhattacharya P, Cortes J, Bonorino G & Albouy R. (2004). Groundwater arsenic in the Chaco-Pampean Plain, Argentina - case study from Robles county, Santiago del Estero Province. Appl. Geochem. 19:231-243 5. Matschullat J, Birmann K, Borba RP, Ciminelli V, Deschamps EM, Figueiredo BR, Gabrio T, Haßler S, Hilscher A, Junghänel I, de Oliveira N, Raßbach K, Schmidt H, Schwenk M, de Oliveira Vilhena MJ & Weidne U. (2007). Long-term environmental impact of arsenic-dispersion in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Trace Metals and other Contaminants in the Environment. 9:365-382. 6. Cebrian ME, Albores A, Aguilar M & Blakely E. (1983). Arsenic Poisoning in the North of Mexico. Human Toxicology 2 121-133. 7. Webster JG, Nordstrom DK & Smith KS. (1994). Transport and natural attenuation of Cu Zn As and Fe in the acid mine drainage of Leviathan and Bryant Creeks. In: Alpers CN, Blowes DW (Eds) Environmental Geochemistry of Sulphide Oxidation. Am Chem Soc Symp Ser 550 ACS Washington DC 244-260. 8. Webster JG & Nordstrom DK (2003). Geothermal arsenic. In: Welch AH, Stollenwerk KG, (Eds) Arsenic in Ground Water: Geochemistry and Occurrence, Kluwer Academic Publishers Boston, pp101-126. 9. Moore JN & Woessner WW (2003). Arsenic contamination in the water supply of Milltown Montana. In: Welch AH, Stollenwerk KG (Eds) Arsenic in Ground Water: Geochemistry and Occurrence, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, Massachusetts pp 329-350. 10. Wilson FH & Hawkins DB (1978). Arsenic in streams stream sediments and ground water, Fairbanks area, Alaska. Environ Geol 2:195-202. 11. Patinha C, Da Silva EF & Fonseca EC, (2004). Mobilisation of arsenic at the Talhadas old mining area - Central Portugal. J Geochem Explor 84(3):167-180. 12. Criaud A & Fouillac C (1989). The distribution of arsenic(III) and arsenic(V) in geothermal waters - Examples from the Massif Central of France the Island of Dominica in the Leeward Islands of the Caribbean the Valles Caldera of New-Mexico United-States and Southwest Bulgaria. Chem Geol 76(3-4):259-269. 13. Thornton I & Farago ME (1997). The geochemistry of arsenic. In: Abernathy CO, Calderon RL, Chappell WR (Eds) Arsenic Exposure and Health Effects. Chapman & Hall London pp 1-16. 14. Kurttio P, Pukkala E, Kahelin H, Auvinen A & Pekkanen J. (1999). Arsenic concentrations in well water and risk of bladder and kidney cancer in Finland. Environ Health Perspect 107(9):705-710. 15. Filippi M, Golias V & Pertold Z (2004). Arsenic in contaminated soils and anthropogenic deposits at the Mokrsko Roudny´ and Kas¡perske´ Hory gold deposits Bohemian Massif (CZ). Environ Geol 45:716-730. 16. Földényi, R , Kováts, N, Borbély, G & Galbács, Z (2008). Arsenic in drinking water supply in Hungary. Rev. Environ. Contam. Toxicol. 197 (in print) 17. Gurzau ES & Gurzay AE. (2001). Arsenic in drinking water from groundwater in Transylvania, Romania 181-184. In Chappell WR Abernathy CO, Calderon RL, (Eds) Arsenic Exposure and Health Effects IV. Elsevier, Amsterdam. 18. Komnitsas K, Xenidis A & Adam K (1995). Oxidation of pyrite and arsenopyrite in sulphidic spoils in Lavrion. Miner. Eng. 12:1443-1454. 19. Modabberi S & Moore F (2004). Environmental geochemistry of Zarshuran Au-As deposit NW Iran. Envirol Geol 46:796-807. 20. Shrestha B. (2002). Drinking water quality: future directions for UNICEF in Pakistan. Consultancy report 2 of 3, Water Quality, SWEET Project, UNICEF Pakistan, Islamabad. 21. Wang GQ, Huang YZ, Gang JM, Wang SZ, Xiao BY, Yao H, Hu Y, Gu YL, Zhang C & Liu KT (2000). Endemic arsenism fluorosis and arsenic-fluoride poisoning caused by drinking water in Kuitun, Xinjiang. Chin Med J 113:524. 22. Shrestha RR, Shrestha MP, Upadhyay NP, Pradhan R, Khadka R, Maskey A, Maharjan M, Tuladhar S, Dahal BM & Shrestha K. (2003). Groundwater Arsenic Contamination, Its Health Impact and Mitigation Program in Nepal. J Environ Sci Health, Part A. 38(1):185- 200. 23. Chatterjee A, Das D, Mandal BK, Chowdhury TR, Samanta G & Chakraborti D (1995). Arsenic in groundwater in six districts of West Bengal, India: the biggest arsenic calamity in the world. Part I: Arsenic species in drinking water and urine of the affected people. Analyst 120:643-650. 24. Ahmad K (2001). Report highlights widespread arsenic contamination in Bangladesh. The Lancet 358:133 25. Tun TN (2003). Arsenic contaminated water sources in rural Myanmar. Proceedings of the 29th WEDC International Conference "Towards the Millenium Development Goals". pp219 -221. Abuja, Nigeria. 26. Williams M, Fordyce F, Paijitprapapon A, Charoenchaisri P (1996). Arsenic contamination in surface drainage and groundwater in part of the southeast Asian tin belt, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province, southern Thailand. Environ Geol 27:16-33. 27. Xia Y, Liu J. (2004). An overview on chronic arsenism via drinking water in PR China. Toxicology 198 (1-3) 25-29. 28. Berg M, Stengel C, Trang PTK, Viet PH, Sampson ML, Leng M, Samreth S & Frederick, D. (2007). Magnitude of arsenic pollution in the Mekong and Red River Deltas - Cambodia and Vietnam. Sci. Tot. Env. 372: 413-425. 29. Berg M, Tran HC, Nguyen TC, Pham HV, Schertenleib R & Geiger W (2001). Arsenic contamination of groundwater and drinking water in Vietnam: A human health threat. Environ Sci Technol 35(13):2621-2626. 30. Hsu KH, Froines JR, Chen CH (1997). Studies of arsenic ingestion from drinking water in Northestern Taiwan: chemical speciation and urinary metabolites. In: Abernathy CO, Calderon RL, Chappell WR (Eds) Arsenic Exposure and Health Effects Chapman & Hall, London. pp190-209. 31. Dai S, Ren D, Tang Y, Yue M & Hao L (2005). Concentration and distribution of elements in Late Permian coals from western Guizhou Province China International. J Coal Geol 61(1-2):119-137. 32. Masuda H, Ibuki Y & Tonokai K. (1999). Mechanism of natural arsenic pollution of shallow groundwater in the northern part of Osaka prefecture, Japan, J. Groundwater Hydrol 41(3):133-146. 33. Webster JG & Nordstrom DK (2003). Geothermal arsenic. In: Welch AH, Stollenwerk KG, (Eds) Arsenic in Ground Water: Geochemistry and Occurrence, Kluwer Academic Publishers Boston, pp101-126. 34. Smith E, Smith J, Smith L, Biswas T, Correll R & Naidu R. (2003). Arsenic in Australian environment: an overview. J Environl Sci Health, Part A: Toxic/Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering, A38 (1): 223-240. 35. Amonoo-Neizer EH & Amekoe EMK. (1993). Determination of total arsenic in environmental samples from Kumasi and Obuasi, Ghana. Environ Health Perspect 101(1): 44-49. |Table 2 provides an example of the MCA procedure in which a performance matrix is constructed from utility scores for each key performance indicator. [View full-page pdf.] Page last modified 5 August 2008. Copyright © 2003-2008 International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Questions regarding the website, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org

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Image: R. Hanus Beware the exploding termite. Scientists studying the Neocapritermes taracua discovered that some actually carry explosives and will blow themselves up to help save their colony: When trekking through a forest in French Guiana to study termites, a group of biologists noticed unique spots of blue on the backs of the insects in one nest. Curious, one scientist reached down to pick up one of these termites with a pair of forceps. It exploded. The blue spots, the team discovered, contain explosive crystals, and they're found only on the backs of the oldest termites in the colony. The aged termites carry out suicide missions on behalf of their nest mates. [...] Back in their labs, scientists led by biochemist Robert Hanus of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague went on to show that the blue termites always had shorter, worn-down mandibles than others from the same species, indicating that they were older.

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City Commissioners, Office of the[Record group 1] Agency home page. - Alternative/Former Names - County Commissioners; County Tax Collectors - The City Commissioners are elected every four years by the citizens of the City and County of Philadelphia and are responsible for voter registration and conducting elections. - Agency History - An Act of 27 November 1700 first established the office of Tax Assessor in Philadelphia County, directing that six persons be elected annually to estimate the County's fiscal needs, to make an assessment and levy a tax to meet them, and to appoint its collectors and the County Treasurer. An Act of 28 March 1710-1711 created Assembly-appointed County Commissioners (made popularly elective) in 1725 who were empowered to demand accountings of the Assessors and Collectors and to appoint new collectors if necessary. Acts of 1715, 1718, and 1722 granted the Commissioners authority to share with the assessors in the assessment process and in the allocation of tax receipts among the various county projects, to take part in the appointment of the County Treasurer, and to issue warrants and levy fines against delinquent taxpayers and collectors. Other Acts passed during the eighteeenth century gave the Commissioners regulatory powers and maintainence functions in regard to county lands, roads, bridges, wharves and landings, courts, and the county prison. An Act of 1780 abolished the Board of County Assessors and left their functions in the hands of the Commissioners alone, who continued to appoint the assessors and collectors of each of the county's townships. Acts of 1799 and 1805 formally established the Commissioners' functions of furnishing lists of voters to election officers and aiding the Sheriff in the selection of jurors, as both were based upon lists of taxpayers. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the Commissioners' duties were increased to include the leasing of polling places, the provision of ballot boxes, and related duties. At the consolidation of the City and County in 1854, the County Commissioners were abolished, and most of their functions transferred to the popularly-elected City Commissioners who, although retaining their original title and duties, were thenceforth considered County officers. The offices of City Tax Collector and County Tax Collector were reduced to that of clerk in the new office of Receiver of Taxes in the same year. Both Commissioners' (City and County) powers in regard to streets and City property were transferred to the City's Departments of Highways and City Property. From that date until 1867, the Commissioners also served as members of the Board of Revision of Taxes. In 1867 the City Assessors were made appointees of that Board. Thereafter, the powers left the Commissioners were chiefly accounting ones over County institutions, regulatory duties regarding weights and measures (given them by an Act of 1895) and administrative functions in connection with elections, which culminated in complete control of their conduct with the formation of the County Board of Elections under their direction in 1937. By an Ordinance of 12 March 1965, the Commissioners were granted the powers of the then-abolished Registration Commission and their duties concerning weights and measures were transferred to the Department of Licenses and Inspections. Under the Act of 2 February 1854, the voters of Philadelphia elected one commissioner annually for a term of three years. The Pennsylvania Constitution of 1874, Article 14, Section 7, dictated that all county commissioners throughout the state (the Philadelphia City Commissioners being considered county commissioners) should be elected every third year. Later, the term was extended to four years. Although not mentioned in the Philadelphia Home Rule Charter, the City Commissioners' Office became part of the City government by way of the 1951 City-County Amendment to the State Constitution. In addition, the 1963 amendment to the First Class Cities Home Rule Act gave City Council the power to pass legislation with regard to operations of the City Commissioners' Office. These enactments were further enabled by the 1965 City-County Consolidation Ordinance of City Council. - Archival Records - 1.1 County Commissioners. Minutes (1718-1766, 1771-1776, 1797-1801, 1837-1841) 1.2 City Commissioners. Minutes (1906, 1912-1931) 1.3 City Commissioners. Papers (1919, 1922-1923, 1929-1930, 1936) 1.4 Tax Receipts (1757) 1.5 Value of Property in County (1779) 1.6 County Carriage Tax Assessment Ledger (1783-1794) 1.7 State Personal Tax Assessment Ledger (1832) 1.8 State Tax Assessment Ledgers (1779-1783, 1785-1789, 1834-1835, 1841-1846, ca. 1847, 1848-1854) 1.8a State Tax Duplicates (1841, 1846-1848, 1850, 1852, 1853) 1.9 County Tax Assessment Ledger (1791-1826, 1841-1846, ca. 1847, 1848-1854) 1.10 County Tax Duplicate (1773, 1775, 1793-1795, 1798, 1800, 1810-1819, 1822, 1836-1837, 1839, 1841, 1843, 1847-1848, 1850-1851, 1853) 1.11 County Funding Tax Duplicate (1788) 1.12 County Tax Abatements (1785-1796) 1.13 County Tax Abatements, Memorandum Book (1780-1813 missing: 1794, 1804-1806) 1.14 Tax Collectors' Reports to Common Pleas Court of Real Estate to be Sold for Non-payment of Taxes. (1803-1818) 1.15 Enumeration of School Children (1811-1816) 1.16 Enumeration of Taxables, Slaves, Deaf and Dumb Persons (1793, 1800, 1821, 1828, 1835) 1.17 Duplicate Enumeration of Taxables, Slaves, Deaf and Dumb Persons (1821, 1828, 1835) 1.18 Election Returns (1785, 1798-1799, 1820-1858, 1939-1969) 1.18a Election Divisions of Philadelphia, Wards 1-51 (1933) 1.19 Election Payroll (1851-1854) 1.20 Register, Distribution of Assessment and Election Books (1842-1843, 1851) 1.21 Voting Division Maps (1933) 1.22 Loan Certificate Stubs (1838-1854) 1.23 Journal, Transfers of Loan Certificates (1845-1854) 1.24 Road Damages Payments (1831-1838) 1.25 Voucher Stubs (1854) 1.26 Bureau of Weights and Measures. Annual Reports (1914) 1.27 Digest of County Laws (1839) 1.28 Provincial Tax Assessment Ledgers and Duplicates (1769, 1774-1775) 1.29 Effective Supply Tax, Duplicate (1780) - Current Records Click on a folder or file to return to that level... Current Agency Information Sheet. (Text-only version of this page) Send your comments to email@example.com Last updated on November 8, 2000

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A report published in the February, 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition described the finding of researchers in Sweden that men and women who have a higher intake of vitamin A from food and supplements have half the risk of developing stomach cancer than that experienced by those whose intake is low. Susanna C. Larsson of the Karolinska Institute and colleagues evaluated data from 82,002 adults aged 45 to 83 enrolled in the Swedish Mammography Cohort and the Cohort of Swedish Men. Participants in both studies completed identical dietary questionnaires in 1997 and were followed through June, 2005. Questionnaires were analyzed for preformed vitamin A (retinol from animal sources and fortified foods), provitamin A carotenoids alpha and beta-carotene, and other carotenoid levels. Over the 7.2 year average follow-up period, there were 139 cases of stomach cancer. Subjects whose total vitamin A intake (including provitamin A carotenoids) from food and supplements was in the top one-fourth of participants had a 47 percent lower adjusted risk of developing stomach cancer than those whose intake was in the lowest fourth. When retinol from diet and supplements was examined separately, the risk was 44 percent lower for those in the highest intake group. For subjects whose alpha-carotene levels were in the top quarter, gastric cancer risk was 50 percent lower, and for participants whose beta-carotene levels were highest, the risk was 45 percent less than participants whose intake was lowest. No significant associations were determined for the carotenoids with no provitamin A activity. Further analysis of the data found that the reduction in gastric cancer risk associated with vitamin A was limited to nonsmokers or former smokers. In their introduction, the authors remark that retinol plays a role in regulating cell proliferation and differentiation, and in modulating immune responses. The vitamin also has a healing effect on stomach ulcers, which have been associated with an increased risk of gastric cancer. The antioxidant activity of the vitamin neutralizes free radicals generated by H. pylori, a bacteria implicated in ulcers and stomach cancer. The authors conclude that their results support the hypothesis of a possible protective role of vitamin A in gastric carcinogenesis.

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Grammar : Frequently Asked Questions From Grammar to HOME PAGE Here is a List of Frequently Asked Questions about Grammar and our answers for them. English is spoken as a First Language by more than 300 million people throughout the world and used as a Second Language by many millions more. One in five of the world's population speaks English with a good level of competence and within the next few years the number of people speaking English as a Second Language will exceed the number of Native Speakers. This could have a dramatic effect on the evolution of the language. In the process of being absorbed by new cultures, English develops to take account of local language needs, giving rise not just to new vocabulary but also to new forms of grammar and pronunciation. At the same time, however, standardized Global English is spread by the media and the Internet. The main regional standards of English are British, US and Canadian, Australian and New Zealand, South African, Indian and Within each of these regional varieties a number of highly differentiated local dialects may be found. This site try to include many regionalisms encountered in different English-speaking areas of the world. This Page contains Frequently Asked Questions about Grammar. To choose the question of your choice, simply browse the list of questions therein. • How do I know when to put An Apostrophe in it's? • Is it an hour or a hour? • It is raining. Can this sentence stand alone as grammatically correct? • Is the word Data singular or plural? • Is the word Agenda singular or plural? • Is it acceptable to use THEY instead of HE or SHE? • Should I use A Singular or A Plural Verb with Collective Nouns? • Should I write : A Number of People is or A Number of People are? • What are the Plurals of octopus, hippopotamus and syllabus? • What is a Split Infinitive and why should I avoid using one? • The Word for The Whole that is Greater than the sum of the parts is ... • When should I use LESS and when should I use FEWER? • Which is correct : a European not an European? • Which is correct in this sentence : Lay or Lie? • Which is correct: My Friend and Me or my friend and I? • Which is the correct spelling : Oriented or Orientated?

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Researcher Doris Jones has unearthed startling new evidence demonstrating that fluoride interferes with enzyme systems, damaging many organ systems of the body. The fluoride issue, a perennial hot potato, is heating up once again. In Britain, the government has recently announced its intention to fluoridate the water of deprived inner city areas, supposedly to improve the dental health of children living there. Later, water fluoridation may be introduced nationwide. A White Paper outlining the government's plans is scheduled for this spring. The government and the dental profession have convinced the public that fluoridated water offers nothing but benefits that there is overwhelming evidence that it prevents tooth decay and contributes to the strength of bones. There is tacit admission in the pro fluoride camp that fluoride can also cause harm, but only at high levels: more than 2 ppm in water may cause mottled teeth and over 8 ppm may lead to bone disorders and degenerative changes in the vital organs. A few lone voices have countered the prevailing view, with published evidence that fluoride can have devastating effects, causing mottled teeth and osteoporosis at very low levels. While much has been written about the effects of too much fluoride on teeth and bones, little is known about the effects of fluoride on the rest of the body. But new evidence has emerged demonstrating that it can have devastating effects on just about every organ in the body, and may even be partly responsible for behavioural problems like hyperactivity and many puzzling illnesses like ME. Like mercury, fluoride isn't exactly an obvious choice for dental health as it is a poison more poisonous than lead and only slightly less poisonous than arsenic (Clin Toxicol Commerc Prod, 1984; 11: 4, 112, 129, 138). It's been used as a pesticide, and it's a component in fungicides, rodenticides, anaesthetics and many drugs. The fluoride used in toothpaste, mouth rinses and dental gels is usually sodium fluoride, a waste product from the aluminium industry. Fluoride added to our water supply is hydrofluorosilic acid or sometimes silicofluoride waste products of fertiliser and glass industries. The late US fluoride critic George L Waldbott discovered that, besides teeth and bones, fluoride can damage soft tissue. According to his research, the small fluorine ion with a high charge density can penetrate every cell of the body and combine with other ions (GL Waldbott et al, Fluoride: The Great Dilemma, Lawrence, Kansas: Corenado Press, 1978: 148-74). It interferes with the metabolism of calcium and phosphorus and the function of the parathyroid glands. It has a strong affinity to calcium, but will also readily combine with magnesium and manganese ions and so can interfere with many enzyme systems that require these minerals. The interruption of these enzyme systems, in turn, may disturb carbohydrate metabolism, bone formation and muscle function. Indeed, every vital function in the body depends on enzymes; because fluoride easily reaches every organ, many diverse toxic symptoms can result. Fluoride and enzymes Enzyme systems react to fluoride in different ways; some are activated, others are inhibited. Lipase (essential for the digestion of fat) and phosphatases (needed to breakdown phosphates) are very sensitive to fluoride. In patients with skeletal fluorosis, succinate dehydrogenase activity is inhibited. In chronic fluoride poisoning, this diminished enzyme activity accounts for muscular weakness and even muscle wasting. Human salivary acid phosphatase is diminished by half when exposed to 3.8 ppm of fluoride. The blood enzyme cholinesterase is inhibited by 61 per cent on exposure to 0.95 ppm fluoride an amount within recommended levels adversely affecting functions of the nervous system (PA Smith, ed, Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, Berlin: Springer Verlag, 1970: 48-97).

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More than half of all premature deaths among men are preventable. We’ll let that sink in for a moment. Pretty shocking, right? The topic of men’s health finds itself front and center during Men’s Health Month every June, but the conversation quickly fades in the months thereafter. A new infographic from Nursing@Georgetown shines a spotlight on the current state of men’s health in the U.S., aimed at increasing awareness of preventable health problems and encouraging early detection and treatment of disease among men and boys. A few more statistics: - 60% of men aged 50 or older were not screened for colon cancer in the past year. - 7 million American men haven’t seen a doctor in more than 10 years. - 67% of men wouldn’t go to the doctor when experiencing chest pain or shortness of breath — two early warning signs of a heart attack. But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. By raising awareness, advancing health education and recognizing culturally influenced behaviors, each of us can help improve men’s health. Check out the infographic below for tips on when and how often men should be tested for certain health issues. Via Nurse Practitioner Programs and Nursing License Map This post is written by Erica Moss, who is the community manager for the online masters in nursing program at Georgetown University.

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ScienceDaily (Sep. 10, 2012) West Nile virus (WNV) has become endemic in North America, with cases in 2012 exceeding that of any other year. As of August 28, the United States has seen 1,590 cases, 65 deaths, and 303 viremic blood donors. According to the authors of a commentary being published early on-line in Annals of Internal Medicine, the dramatic increase in WNV cases could be due to “the interplay of heat, drought, human habitats, increased mosquito populations and enhanced viral development that all act in concert to increase the force of transmission.” The authors warn that health care professionals and the public need to be on alert for WNV. They write, “A mosquito-prevention message must be unrelenting, directed at personal protective behaviors (avoidance, repellents, and clothing) and reduction of breeding sites. The public must be constantly prodded, with a balance of sensible precautions and serious awareness of the possibility for severe disease.” Share this story on Facebook, Twitter, and Google: Other social bookmarking and sharing tools: The above story is reprinted from materials provided by American College of Physicians, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above. Catherine M. Brown and Alfred DeMaria. The Resurgence of West Nile Virus. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2012 [link] Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead. Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff. - Virus Behavior Insight Offers Hope For New Drugs - Vaccine Safety - ‘Cruise Ship Virus’ Vaccine Shows Promise (CME/CE) - Complacency and apathy may have played a role in recent spike of West Nile cases - Beyond Statistics: 2 Faces of West Nile Virus - West Nile Virus: Who’s at Risk? - 71 New Cases of H3N2v Swine Flu - Virus epidemic within our genome revealed - Promising vaccine targets on hepatitis C virus - Possible New Route To Fight Dengue Virus Submited at Tuesday, September 11th, 2012 at 8:15 am on Uncategorized by hilman Comment RSS 2.0 - leave a comment - trackback

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At the start of the 21st century trade does not seem to be helping some of the world's poorest countries to escape from poverty. International trade has encouraged specialisation of labour and production which has kept many countries as producers of primary products and prevented them from diversifying their economies. Although trade has helped to reduce malnutrition and poverty in South-East Asia, it has done little to help most of sub-Saharan Africa. While the advocates of free trade see it as the engine of growth, there is a considerable body of opinion which considers that trade liberalisation and the rules of international trade are having a detrimental impact on many of the world's poor. Interest has grown in ethical or fair trade whereby producers in developing countries are guaranteed a price for their produce that gives them a decent return. Aid, too, can in principle enhance countries' competitiveness and provide growth, by using development assistance to improve infrastructure and develop human capital through public health or educational spending. 1. Explain what is meant by the liberalisation of trade. You may find the issues raised in the trade tour helpful for this. 2. Explain what is meant by the terms of trade, how are they affected by elasticities? You may find the theories section in the trade tour helpful for this. 3. Explain what is meant by Official Development Assistance. You may find the theories section in the aid tour helpful for this. 4. Explain what is meant by Fairtrade. You may find the Fairtrade section in Current Topics helpful for this. 1. Using the data in the resources section produce bar graphs showing the Current Account on the Balance of Payments for Zambia since 1990 with and without current transfers of Official Development Assistance (ODA). 2. What conclusions can you draw from this? Work through the COMESA section on the Trade tour and then explain how Zambia's economy has been affected by: 1. Changes in its terms of trade. 2. Agricultural support schemes in developed countries. 3. Reduction in its own external tariff barriers. Work through the COMESA section on the Trade tour. 1. Identify three arguments in favour of protectionism for developing countries like Zambia. Work through the theories section on the Aid Tour. 1. Identify three reasons why overseas development assistance has not been effective in promoting economic development in Zambia. Both trade and aid might in principle contribute to economic growth and development, but they need not do so in the same way or to the same extent. While it is argued that trade can never help a developing country as much as the same amount of aid, as aid to Africa has grown, the continent has actually become poorer rather than better off. Consider the following question and prepare a list of bullet points for arguments for each side. 'Should the developed world focus on enabling trade or donating aid as a way to help the developing world?' What would be a balanced conclusion to this debate?

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What a difference a year—and online math practice—can make. Cherry Hill, N.J. students who struggled with math in first grade mastered their second-grade work after piloting IXL Learning that year. “Students love it,” says Waleska Batista-Arias, the former district technology coach who returned to the classroom. “We’ve even had parents write us thank-you notes.” Teachers credit IXL Learning with helping the second grade class complete its course work—two first-grade units went unfinished the prior year—as well as boosting special education students, all of whom had previously scored below the district standard for math in first grade. “It was amazing to have all but one second grader finish the entire math curriculum and meet the district standard! The one student who did not meet the standard missed it by only one point,’’ Batista-Arias says. Today, IXL is in all K-5 classrooms in the 19,000-student Cherry Hill district, where Batista-Arias says teachers have seen improved concentration, cooperation, confidence, and proficiency. A comparison of school year 2007-08 with 2008-09, the year IXL was piloted for the second grade class, showed: - Special education student scores increased 27 percent—from an average score of 62 percent in Grade 1 to 79 percent in Grade 2. - The ELL students’ scores increased 46 percent—from 50 percent to 73 percent. - The at-risk students’ scores increased 19 percent—from 62 percent to 74 percent. - The 29-point achievement gap between special education and general education students was reduced to 9 points—a 20-point gain. - “We continue to see success,” Batista-Arias says. “Teachers are helping each other, and students are using IXL at home, even when it is not assigned.” IXL is accessible from any computer, anywhere. Students log in and select a topic such as addition, fractions or geometry. Teachers can assign topics or amount of time to work, depending on the situation. “If a student is struggling with reading charts and graphs, he would focus on that, while another student who has mastered charts and graphs would work on something else,’’ Batista-Arias explains. “It really helps in differentiating instruction for students. “The questions are adaptive,” she adds. “If you keep getting answers correct, the questions will get harder. If you start getting them wrong, questions will drop down a level to reinforce skills you need to solve harder problems.” Answers are explained so students can learn immediately where they went wrong. And teachers can access daily or weekly reports to see student progress and identify trouble spots. “We can see which questions students are getting wrong and why, so we know what we need to reteach or focus on; we are engaging in data-driven instruction,” Batista-Arias says. One issue identified by Cherry Hill was the inability of some students to read questions. IXL identified the need for an audio component, and as a result, added a feature that reads questions aloud for younger students. Another issue was lack of computers; however, the grant used to pilot the program was also able to finance five classroom computers arranged in a center, where students could take turns using IXL in school. As IXL moved to more classrooms, teachers embraced the technology. “Once everyone got comfortable and saw how easy it was, it was great,” she says. IXL will be in Cherry Hill middle schools starting the 2012 school year, and the company also offers a high school component. To learn more about IXL Learning, please visit www.ixl.com.

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- Site Feedback - IDEA Sites - Digital Freedoms - 2012 Presidential Debates Guide - Asia Youth Forum - Big Apple Cogers - Debate Changing Europe - Debate in the Neighborhood - Debating and Producing Media - Debating the Future of Youth in Africa and Europe - Digital Debating Blog - Free Speech Debate - Global Youth Forum - Global Debate and Public Policy Challenge - International Public Policy Forum - Online Mentoring - The Freedom Series - Youth and Sports Mega-Events This House would ban teachers from interacting with students via social networking websites. This House would ban teachers from interacting with students via social networking websites. Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter are breaking down barriers between teachers and students, redefining the way they communicate and interact with each other. Both current and former students ‘friend’ their teachers on such websites, which often contain a lot of information on the private lives of both parties. Some educators have found such sites to be an excellent tool to reach out to students who might otherwise have difficulty speaking out in class or asking for help. However, parent groups, school administrators, and legislators have become concerned that unsupervised online contacts might lead to inappropriate relationships between students and their teachers, and even sexual abuse. A slew of sexual relationships between students and teachers led the state of Missouri to pass a so-called ‘facebook law’ against student-teacher interactions through social media and text messaging. Citing free speech, the law was successfully challenged by teachers unions as unconstitutional. |Points For||Points Against| |A teacher-student relationship is not one between friends or equals.||Social media can be powerful educational resources.| |Electronic communication facilitates sexual misconduct.||The law would violate freedom of speech and association.| |Acting as a warning signal for children at risk.||Teachers can be essential in supervising cyberspace.| |Teacher’s personal life might undermine educational message.||The law would be hard to enforce.| Remember to choose a winning argument! A teacher-student relationship is not one between friends or equals. According to Carol Shakeshaft an expert in sexual misconduct by teachers: “[e]ducators who use social media for personal and intimate conversations and contact are not much different from those who spend their time hanging out with students at the beach. You have to ask why a teacher would do this. The honest answer is that it rarely has anything to do with student learning.” Interacting with one’s teachers the same way as with one’s friends, sharing personal information, can only erode the respect and distance that a teacher needs in order to be an authority figure and a mentor for her young charges. Even if such ‘friendships’ were entirely innocent, they would still cast enough suspicion on the teacher-student relationship to put considerable strain on the teacher’s role as educator and their ability to do the job. Shakeshaft, Carol. “Using Social Media to Teach: Keep it Transparent, Open and Safe.” The New York Times. 19 December 2011. http://nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/19/using-social-media-to-teach-keep-it-transparent-open-and-safe/ This law assumes the worst of teachers and frames all teacher-student interaction in a negative way. Yet so many educators have found contact through social media to be a powerful tool in facilitating learning and expanding knowledge. It may be more appropriate to establish some guidelines for how to use such media safely and professionally, rather than banning their use altogether.Improve this Electronic communication facilitates sexual misconduct. Social networking websites have proven to be particularly effective for child grooming by pedophiles. Teachers are already in a position of power and trust in the relationship with their students. Being allowed to communicate with students via facebook would greatly facilitate misconduct by a teacher who wants to start an inappropriate relationship with a student, by giving him virtually unlimited access to the students after school. In fact, many such relationships do involve some form of electronic contact1. By banning this form of communication, the law would make it harder for teachers with bad intentions to carry them through. Choo, Kim. “Online child grooming: a literature review on the misuse of social networking sites for grooming children for sexual offences” Australian Institute of Criminology. 2009. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=250455 Child grooming, and having a sexual relationship with a minor are already criminal offences. If that doesn’t stop a potential predator, breaking the ‘facebook law’ in the process is unlikely to. A teacher who intends to abuse a child will still find ample opportunity to do so. This law takes a powerful educational tool from the hands of good teachers while doing very little to stop bad ones from acting inappropriately.Improve this Acting as a warning signal for children at risk. It is very difficult for a child to realize that he is being groomed; they are unlikely to know the risk1. After all, a teacher is regarded as a trusted adult. But, if the child is aware that private electronic contact between teachers and students is prohibited by law, the child will immediately know the teacher is doing something he is not supposed to if he initiates private electronic contact. This will therefore act as an effective warning sign to the child and might prompt the child to tell a parent or another adult about what is going on.Improve this Even assuming the child already knows about the law and therefore that online contact with their teachers is not allowed, which will often not be the case, a child will trust the authority figure closest to him. The teacher can easily convince the child that the rule is not that important or that their relationship is an exception.Improve this Teacher’s personal life might undermine educational message. Access to a teacher’s private information and photos may lead to weakening her position as an educator. How can a teacher convincingly speak against smoking or substance abuse if students have access to pictures portraying the teacher themselves drinking or smoking? For example, a principal from the Bronx, who had been trying to impose a strict dress code at her school, was branded a ‘hypocrite’ by her students when a risqué photo of her was found on her facebook page. And even if the teacher will be careful not to post anything inappropriate on her page, a friend or acquaintance might thereby undermining the teacher. A strict separation of personal and professional life would prevent such incidents from happening. Preston, Jennifer. ”Rules to Stop Pupil and Teacher from Getting too Social Online”. The New York Times. 17 December 2011. nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/.../rules-to-limit-how-teachers-and-students-interact-online.html. Keneally, Megan. ”Pupils at scandal hit school post sexy Facebook shot of principal over hallways.” The Daily Mail. 5 December 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069559/Sharron-Smalls-chocolate... Teachers should always be careful about what they post and how they portray themselves on the internet, whether they are friends with their students or not. Such pictures might surface even if students don’t have direct access to them. An educator should lead by example and someone who is of dubious moral character may not be the best-suited person to teach at a school in the first place.Improve this Social media can be powerful educational resources. Many teachers have been using social media as an extension of the classroom, some of them setting up discussion pages, or allowing students to contact them about homework or things that they did not understand in the classroom, it allows the teachers to provide extra help whenever the student needs it. This keeps students interested and makes learning fun by using a tool that they are already fond of. The enormous success of tools like ‘The Khan Academy’, which uses youtube videos to deliver lectures to kids, is proof of that. It also allows even those students who are too shy to speak out in class or ask for help, to participate3. Tools like facebook and twitter have the advantage of being ready-made platforms that lend themselves well to extending classroom discussions through groups, pages, pictures, and videos. Not all schools have access to the funding to set up such pages separately and not all teachers have the skills to create them. It would be a mistake for schools to dismiss their use and their value. Khan, Salman. ”Turning the Classroom Upside Down.” The Wall Street Journal. 9 April 2011. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704101604576248713420747884.html Even if this were a great educational tool, some kids may not have access to it. Poverty or a parent’s life style choice might leave kids without access to a computer or the internet, preventing them from joining into such online discussions. This might make them feel more isolated from their peers and leave them behind in their work. The classroom is a space where everyone can be equal and have equal access to learning. The internet may not provide equal access and may hinder some students as a result. The use of such resources may also be to the detriment of other more traditional methods. For example the teacher may feel there is less need to explain homework if anyone who has difficulties while doing the homework can simply ask over the internet.Improve this The law would violate freedom of speech and association. Under this law a random person who the student has never met, even a potential predator, would be allowed to send a message via facebook or twitter. And yet a teacher doing the same thing, regardless of the content of that message, would be instantly committing an offence. Every person is allowed to speak to and associate with whomever they choose. That is a fundamental right that the government is not allowed to take away. A person’s status as a teacher should not be an excuse to violate their rights. Solove, Daniel. “Missouri Bans Teachers from Friending Students on Social Networking Webistes.” The Huffington Post. 02 August 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-j-solove/missouri-ban-teachers-friending_b_915656.html Speech can be restricted in order to protect the vulnerable groups, like children, from harm. Such a law does not attempt to keep educators from communicating or associating with their students. It merely insures such interactions happen in an appropriate manner and forum.Improve this Teachers can be essential in supervising cyberspace. Social media has become the primary way in which children interact with their peers. These interactions are largely unsupervised by any adult, and yet they have a fundamental impact on the development of the children involved. Adolescents use social networking websites to gage peer opinion about themselves which may subsequently influence identity formation. With so much cyber bullying happening on such websites, and postings of inappropriate behaviour that may later surface to affect a student’s chances of getting into college or getting a job, it would be useful to have a teacher supervise these interactions to make sure no harm comes to the children involved. Pempek, Yermolayeva, and Calvert. ”College students social networking experiences on facebook.” Journal of Applied Developmental Pshychology. Vol. 30. 2009. http://cdmc.georgetown.edu/papers/facebook2009.pdf This shift in the role of the teacher from educator to supervisor may actually negatively affect teachers. What if a teacher sees her students post pictures of themselves in inappropriate circumstances, drinking or smoking or scantily clad? What if she discovers cyber bullying? Does she have an obligation to intervene or contact the parents of the children involved? Might that do more harm than good? What if the teacher fails to act and a child gets hurt? Should the teacher be held professionally or legally responsible for that failure? Until clear guidelines are established on what exactly the responsibility of teachers would be in such a situation, the supervision of social media use by children should probably be left to parents rather than educators.Improve this The law would be hard to enforce. It would be difficult to find out whether a student and teacher have had contact over the internet. If a teacher were having a relationship with a student, and this law was in effect, both parties would try to conceal it from others and from the authorities. There is then a question about how the state would find out about such behaviour. Would the state be allowed to access private facebook accounts, personal computers, or internet service provider records to make sure teachers and students are not communicating with each other? That would constitute a serious intrusion and privacy violation.Improve this The state wouldn’t need blanket access to teachers’ personal accounts. If suspicions arose that a teacher were breaking the law, as with all cyber-laws, the state could subpoena the information needed as proof. This law would work mainly as a deterrent for teachers to contact their students via social media. Knowing that they’d be committing an offence that could result in sanctions or losing their job, would be a strong disincentive against it.Improve this Choo, Kim. “Online child grooming: a literature review on the misuse of social networking sites for grooming children for sexual offences” Australian Institute of Criminology. 2009. https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/publications/Abstract.aspx?id=250455 Keneally, Megan. ”Pupils at scandal hit school post sexy Facebook shot of principal over hallways.” The Daily Mail. 5 December 2011. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069559/Sharron-Smalls-chocolate... Khan, Salman. ”Turning the Classroom Upside Down.” The Wall Street Journal. 9 April 2011. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870410160457624871342074788... Pempek, Yermolayeva, and Calvert. ”College students social networking experiences on facebook.” Journal of Applied Developmental Pshychology. Vol. 30. 2009. http://cdmc.georgetown.edu/papers/facebook2009.pdf Preston, Jennifer. ”Rules to Stop Pupil and Teacher from Getting too Social Online”. The New York Times. 17 December 2011. nytimes.com/2011/12/18/business/.../rules-to-limit-how-teachers-and-students-interact-online.html. Shakeshaft, Carol. “Using Social Media to Teach: Keep it Transparent, Open and Safe.” The New York Times. 19 December 2011. http://nytimes.com/schoolbook/2011/12/19/using-social-media-to-teach-kee... Solove, Daniel. “Missouri Bans Teachers from Friending Students on Social Networking Webistes.” The Huffington Post. 02 August 2011. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-j-solove/missouri-ban-teachers-frie... Simon, Mallory. “Online student-teacher friendships can be tricky.” CNN. 13 August 2008. http://edition.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/12/studentsteachers.online/index.htm... Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds. “I’ll See You on Facebook: the Effects of Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate.” Communication Education. Vol 56., No 1. January 2007. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03634520601009710 Facebook For Educators. Facebook’s own guidelines and best practices for teacher-student interactions: http://facebookforeducators.org/ Wolfrod, Josh. “Should Teachers and Students be Friends on Facebook?” WebProNews. 1 August 2011. http://www.webpronews.com/should-teachers-and-students-be-friends-on-fac... Chirstina Thomas v. Ladule School District. United States District Court, Eastern District of Missouri. 2011. http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/08/22/MoTeachCA.pdf Curate this debate If you are an academic or highly knowledgeable about a particular debate could you give an hour or two a month to curate a debate? Be a debatabase editor Idebate needs editors from around the world to check, moderate and create content for debatabase and the site more generally. Editors are vital in making the site run smoothly and ensuring that debates are as informative as possible.

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Japan hit by 8.9 earthquake and tsunami MAR 11 2011 The quake is one of the most powerful ever to hit Japan. The United States Geological Survey said the earthquake had a magnitude of 8.9, and occurred at about 230 miles northeast of Tokyo and at a revised depth of about 17 miles. The Japanese Meteorological Agency said the quake had a magnitude of 8.8, which would make it among the biggest in a century. The quake occurred at 2:46 p.m. Tokyo time and hit off Honshu, Japan's most populous island. The quake was so powerful that buildings in central Tokyo, designed to withstand major earthquakes, swayed.

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June 21st, 2012 When will it be possible for the US to be powered mainly by clean, renewable energy? This simple question, which could tell us so much about our national economic and health prospects, has been treated by many vested interests as nearly unanswerable. The fossil fuel and power industries, our federal and state governments have stressed, at various times and places, that it is ever-so hard to predict when the US could achieve a fully realized clean energy future. Their characterization of the clean energy landscape as amorphous and unknowable has a basis in reality. The energy revolution faces many obstacles. There’s the fact that the US has three electricity grids (East, West and Texas grids) that will need updating to accept renewables. Accomplish that and you still have to deal with multiple government bodies that must move slinky-like in the same direction. That would be the federal government, the 50 state governments, the dizzying array of local, county and utility boards and entities. Permitting new energy already can be a nightmare even when all parties are trying to facilitate it. May 21st, 2012 A new report by the American Council for an Energy Efficiency Economy shows that energy efficiency is the least costly way to lower consumer electricity bills. May 11th, 2012 Gamesa, a major producer of wind farms globally, has shelved its plan for an offshore wind farm in Virginia because a difficult financing climate and weaker “regulatory” support in the US. The company will instead focus on building an offshore prototype off the coast of Spain. Gamesa had built an offshore turbine at a Research and Development Center in Cape Charles, Virginia, but reported that “prospects for the U.S. offshore market and its regulatory conditions in this segment so far do not justify the next step, the installation of a prototype in May 3rd, 2012 A solar panel topped car port in Charles Town has become largest solar array in West Virginia The 407-kilowatt system made by Oregon-based Solar World will provide about half the power for the 100,000 square-foot financial center of American Public University System (APUS), an online education provider that serves the military and public service communities April 20th, 2012 Wind energy will grow fastest in Asia and other parts of the developing world over the next few years, but appears headed for a drop in activity in North America starting in 2013, according to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). The council released a five-year outlook report this week that predicts it is too late for the US to avoid a decline in wind energy production caused by Congress’ reluctance to renew the production tax credit that has fueled growth in the sector in recent years. April 16th, 2012 A planned shale gas drilling project in New York state would utilize a waterless form of hydraulic fracturing, a new technique designed to reduce the potential pollution associated with the controversial natural gas drilling process. Rather than using … April 12th, 2012 The wind is whipping down the plains, challenging the view that renewable energy can play only a small role on the electricity grid, according to figures released today by the American Wind Energy Association. AWEA’s annual report shows that five states received more than 10 percent of their electricity from wind in 2011: April 11th, 2012 NASA has developed a system capable of growing large amounts of algae for biofuel production within a network of floating plastic bags, an innovation its developers say could ultimately produce a new fuel source. By pumping wastewater and carbon dioxid… March 29th, 2012 U.S. scientists have developed a fuel cell capable of converting 13 percent of the energy found in sewage into electricity, a process that its developers say could also more efficiently treat municipal wastewater. In a report released at the annual mee… March 28th, 2012 $1 Trillion – Profits earned by the top five largest oil companies Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and foreign-owned BP and Royal Dutch Shell came to nearly $1 trillion for the 10 years from 2001-2011. $4 Billion – Total Annual US Subsidies to oil companies. March 27th, 2012 The fracturing of shale rock formations associated with the drilling process known as fracking might undermine future attempts to store carbon dioxide underground, according to a new study. March 5th, 2012 Dozens of groups appealed to President Obama today to temper his enthusiasm for natural gas drilling until EPA studies on the risks posed by gas drilling are completed. The appeal, contained in a March 5 letter penned by Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group (EWG), and signed by dozens of environmental and community groups from around the country, also asked the president to realize that industry claims that the US harbors a 100-year supply of natural gas deposits may be overstated.

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“Girl” consists of a single sentence of advice a mother imparts to her daughter, only twice interrupted by the girl to ask a question or defend herself. She intends the advice to both help her daughter and scold her at the same time. Kincaid uses semicolons to separate the admonishments and words of wisdom but often repeats herself, especially to warn her daughter against becoming a “slut.” Besides these repetitions, “Girl” doesn’t move forward chronologically: there is no beginning, middle, or end to the stream. The mother dispenses much practical and helpful advice that will help her daughter keep a house of her own some day. She tells her daughter how to do such household chores as laundry, sewing, ironing, cooking, setting the table, sweeping, and washing. The mother also tells the girl how to do other things she’ll need to know about, including how to make herbal medicines and catch a fish. These words of wisdom suggest that the women live in a poor, rural setting, where passing on such advice is essential for daily living. Alongside practical advice, the mother also instructs her daughter on how to live a fulfilling life. She offers sympathy, such as when she talks about the relationships her daughter will one day have with men, warning that men and women sometimes “bully” each other. She also says that there are many kinds of relationships and some never work out. The mother also tells the girl how to behave in different situations, including how to talk with people she doesn’t like. Often, however, the mother’s advice seems caustic and castigating, out of fear that her daughter is already well on her way to becoming a “slut.” She tells the girl, for example, not to squat while playing marbles, not to sing any Antiguan folk songs in Sunday school, and to always walk like a lady. The girl periodically interjects to protest her innocence.

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en

SAN ANTONIO -- Many days you can find Jacinto Guevara sitting on a sidwalk staring across the street-using brush strokes to get a picture old houses. It takes attention to detail and he's passing that knowledge on to students at Bowden Elementary School. Guevara gives art lessons to 4th and 5th graders in an after-school program. He brings the supplies and he hopes they bring an open mind--ready to create the world around them. The artist literally sits them on a sidewalk by the school and they paint houses across the street, in detail. He says sometimes they get angry but still appreciate his help. Guevara believes it's important to focus on detail because critical thinking can help the students with math, science or life. There are lots of negative distractions in the east side community. But the artist hopes positive activity, after school, will help the students stay on the right path. For 20 years, Guevara has lived in the area--working as a professional artist. His paintings focus on the history of this section of town with lots of trees. Originally from California, Guevara likes San Antonio because he says the environment is refreshing and inspiring. He considers himself a starving artist who would love to achieve more financially. Right now, he's enriching the lives of the students. He says it's a rewarding experience that will hopefully help them become successful, if not in art, definitely in life.

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en

Garbl's Writing Center cache, cachet Sometimes misused or confused nouns. A cache (pronounced "cash") is "a hidden supply of weapons, valuables and other things"; "a secret place for hiding things"; and "memory for computer data." A cachet (pronounced "ca-shay") is "a quality that people admire," "an official seal," and "a commemorative mark." CAD An acronym for computer-aided design. Spell out on first reference. calendar Commonly misspelled. call letters Use all caps when referring to TV and radio stations and networks. Use hyphens to separate the type of station or network from the basic call letters: KMTT-FM, KIRO-AM, KING-TV, CBS-TV. Don't italize call letters or put them in quotation marks. Use these formats for other types of stations that mix numbers and letters: WXY12, N3OPQ. See channel, citizens band, station. callous, callus Sometimes confused. Callous is an adjective meaning "hardened and uncaring of others' suffering." Callus is a noun for "an area of hard, thick skin." calvary, cavalry Often confused. Capitalized, Calvary is "the place where Jesus was crucified." Lowercased, calvary is "an outdoor depiction of the crucifixion" and "an experience involving intense suffering." Cavalry is a noun for "military troops on horseback or in armored vehicles." camaraderie Commonly misspelled. Don't confuse with spelling of comrade. cancel, canceled, canceling, cancellation Commonly misspelled. can, could Use can to express certainty or willingness in being able to do something. Use could when there's less certainty or when doing something depends on something else. See can, may below; may, might; will, would. can, may Commonly confused. Use can when writing about capability, physical or mental ability, or the power to do something. Use may when writing about authorization or permission and sometimes possibility: They can finish the report by November. May we have an extra month to finish the report? You may lead the horse to water, but you can't make it drink. May is almost always the correct word to use in a question. See can, could above; may, might. cannon, canon Often confused. A cannon is a "a large, mounted piece of artillery; a big gun." A canon is "a law of a church," "an accepted rule or principle of behavior," and "a set of literary works." cannot One word. canvas, canvass Sometimes confused or misspelled. A canvas is "a heavy, closely woven, coarse cloth used for tents, sails, bags, oil paintings and other things." To canvass is "to examine or discuss something (like votes) in detail," "to go through an area asking people for votes or opinions," and "to sell something house to house." capacity See ability, capability, capacity. capital, capitol Often confused or misspelled. Capital is a city, the seat of government. Do not capitalize: Salem is the capital of Oregon. Capital city is redundant. Capital also refers to money. Capitol is the building in which the U.S. Congress or the state Legislature meets. Capitalize U.S. Capitol and the Capitol when writing about the building in Washington, D.C., and do the same when writing about state capitols: The California Capitol is in Sacramento. Capitol building is redundant. See Capitol Hill. capitalization Rule No. 1: Use capital letters to begin proper nouns, sentences, headings, some abbreviations and acronyms, and the important words in composition titles. Proper nouns are the particular names of people, places and things. Rule No. 2: Do not capitalize the first letter of a word (or words in a phrase) simply to highlight it or because you or someone else think it's an important word. Excessive, arbitrary capitalization distracts the reader and hinders reading. Check this or another style manual for capitalization of a particular word or type of word. If not listed there, check your dictionary. And if still in doubt, lowercase. Except for acronyms and some abbreviations, avoid capitalizing all the letters in a word, sentence, heading, headline or phrase--including brand names, logos and trademarks. For emphasis, try other typographical uses instead, such as boldfacing, italics, color, type size and different but complementary typefaces. Also see headlines, headings; underlining. Capitalization of abbreviations and acronyms varies. For guidance, see abbreviations and acronyms, entries in this style guide for specific words and terms, and your dictionary. Although the abbreviation or acronym is capitalized for some common or generic nouns and terms, lowercase the spelled-out form; for example, see environmental impact statement. Capitalize the first word of every sentence, heading and headline, including quoted statements and direct questions. Even if a person, business or organization begins its name with a lowercase letter, capitalize the first letter of the name at the beginning of sentences, headings and headlines: Gary de Shazo won the design award. De Shazo expressed appreciation for the support of his colleagues. Also see composition titles. Capitalize proper nouns that specifically name a person, place or thing, unless a person, business or organization requests a lowercase first letter. If a name begins with a lowercase letter, capitalize the first letter of the name at the beginning of sentences and headlines. Capitalize common nouns such as party, river and street when they are an integral part of the full name for a person, place or thing: Ballinger Street, Rheinard River, Queens County, Democratic Party, Puget Sound. Lowercase those common nouns when they stand alone in later references: the party, the river, the county, the street, the sound. Lowercase common noun elements of names in all plural uses: Democratic and Republican parties, Ackley and Messer streets, 154th and 156th avenues southeast. But don't lowercase the common nouns when the form is not plural: Your sister can catch a bus on First or Third Avenue. Capitalize the proper names of nationalities, peoples, races, tribes and so on: African American, American Indians, Arab, Asian, Jewish, Latino, Muckleshoot, Tulalip, Puyallup. Lowercase black, white, red and so on. See race. Organizations should adopt specific capitalization guidelines for their governing boards, facilities, job titles and descriptions, organizational structure, and programs, projects and plans. It's efficient to develop styles consistent with a standard, readily available, published reference source. For recommended capitalization guidelines, check individual items in this style manual or see the items below: committees, facilities, job titles and descriptions, organizational structure, and programs, projects and plans. carat, caret, carrot, karat Often confused or misspelled. A carat is "a unit for measuring the weight of jewels," while a karat is "the unit for measuring the purity of gold." A caret is "a mark [like this > symbol but pointing up] used in editing and proofreading to show where something is to be inserted." A carrot is "a long, thick, orange vegetable." cardiopulmonary resuscitation See CPR. careen, career Sometimes confused verbs. To careen is "to lean or tilt sideways, especially a ship in high winds or on a beach for cleaning and repairs" and "to sway or lurch from side to side." To career is "to move at full speed ahead, to rush wildly." carpool One word. It may be used as a noun, verb or adjective: Her neighbors formed a carpool to save gas and money. They carpooled to work to save gas and money. She requested some carpool information. See high-occupancy, vanpool. cast The past tense of this verb is also cast, not casted. catalog, catalogue Both are correct, but catalog is commonly preferred. catch-22 Sometimes misused. A catch-22 is not any simple catch, or any tricky situation with a hidden complication. From the excellent antiwar novel of the same name by Joseph Heller, a catch-22 is an absurd or paradoxical situation in which the desired outcome is impossible because of built-in illogical rules: The experienced editor couldn't get promoted to supervisor because he didn't have any experience as a supervisor. catchup, catsup See ketchup. category Overstated. Simplify. Try replacing with group. cavalry See calvary, cavalry. CB See citizens band. CBD See central business district. CD-ROM Acronym for compact disc read-only memory. The acronym is acceptable on first use. CD-ROM disc is redundant. cease, seize Sometimes misused. To cease is "to bring something to an end." To seize is to "take hold of something or someone suddenly and forcibly," "capture a place or assume control using force," "confiscate," or "take initiative eagerly." The saying is seize the day, not cease the day. Also, cease is overstated and formal. Simplify. Try stop, end or finish instead. ceiling Sometimes misused. Before using this word, look up. You're looking at the ceiling. As the upper limit on something, ceiling is also a useful metaphor for maximum or limit: a ceiling on taxi rates. You can raise a ceiling, lower it or even remove it. But you could mangle a ceiling if you try increasing it, decreasing it or waiving it. See target. cellphone, cellular phone, cellular telephone Cellphone (one word) is acceptable on first reference. Also, smartphone is one word. Celsius Use this term instead of centigrade for the temperature scale that is part of the metric system. Spell out and capitalize on first reference. The abbreviation C (capitalized, no period) may be used on second reference with a numeral: The temperature dropped to 5 C Monday night. See Fahrenheit, temperatures. cement, concrete Often confused. Cement is dry, powdery ingredient of concrete. Concrete--a mixture of cement, water and sand or gravel--is used to form pavement, blocks, walls, driveways, sidewalks and so on. cemetery Commonly misspelled. Memory aid: Almost every other letter is an e. center around Illogical and redundant. Substitute on, in or at for around, or use revolve around. Avoid center upon. center stage Cliche. Omit, or try prominent, center of attention or focus of interest instead. cents Spell out and lowercase cents using figures for amounts less than a dollar. Use the $ sign and decimal system for larger amounts: 33 cents, $2.04, $3.47. Do not use zeros if there are no cents: $8, not $8.00. Avoid using the cent symbol: ¢. But if you must use it, be careful not to use the redundant .33¢ or $.33¢. See dollars. CEO Abbreviation for chief executive officer. Acceptable on first use before a name or standing alone, if spelled out somewhere in a document. Spell out less familiar chief operating officer and chief financial officer. chair, chairman, chairperson, chairwoman Use chair as the title for the heads of councils and committees, unless the person in the position prefers chairman, chairwoman or chairperson. Capitalize as a formal title before a name. Do not capitalize as a casual, temporary position. chaise longue Sometimes misspelled (and mispronounced). It's French for "long chair," with a back support and seat long enough to support outstretched legs. Don't spell it chaise lounge (And don't pronounce it "chase lounge." Say "shayz long.") changeable Commonly misspelled changeover One word, no hyphen. chapter Capitalize when used with a number to name a section of a book or legal code: Chapter 11. Lowercase when standing alone. character Commonly misspelled. charts, tables Charts and tables are useful in reports to present information concisely. Abbreviations not typically used in text are acceptable in charts and graphs because of limited space. But abbreviations must still be clear to the reader and consistently used. Also, charts and graphs should have titles. Capitalize the first letter of proper nouns and key words in the titles and headings of charts and tables. Type styles and formats used in charts should be consistent throughout a publication. When using several charts or tables, assign numbers. When mentioning a chart or table in the text, capitalize the word chart or table and use the numeral: As Table 6 shows, traffic congestion has gotten worse since they built the football stadium. chat room Two words. chauvinism Sometimes misused or confused. It used to mean only "excessive, unreasoning, or blind devotion to one's country, a fanatical patriotism." But it's now commonly applied to excessive pride in a person's group, race or sex, especially males. If you must use this derogatory word, be clear about whom or what you're describing. check in (v.), check-in (n. and adj.) check out (v.), checkout (n. and adj.) check up (v.), checkup (n.) Chicano See Hispanic, Latino. chief Capitalize as an official job title before a name: Facility Maintenance Chief Suzanne Zentin. Lowercase when used alone or after a name between commas: She called Leif Elliott, customer services chief, about the complaint. See titles. chief executive officer See CEO. child care, child-care Hyphenate as an adjective: He uses a child-care agency in downtown Olympia. Don't hyphenate as a noun: He searched everywhere for the best child care. childish, childlike Sometimes confused or misused adjectives for describing behavior typical of children. Use childish to describe unfavorable qualities like immature and silly. Use childlike to describe favorable qualities like sweet, innocent and trusting. children Usually, use first names on second reference for children 15 or younger. For older children, the last name is usually suitable. Although it may not assure mature behavior, treat people 18 and older as adults; use their last names on second reference. children's The apostrophe always goes before the s when showing the possessive: the Children's Home Society. Don't use childrens' (with the apostrophe after the s); children is already plural. choice between, choose between When between follows choice or choose, use and, not or, between the choices: The students had a choice between taking a midterm exam and finishing another homework assignment. We had to choose between a helicopter ride and a catamaran ride. chord, cord Often misused nouns. A chord is "a combination of three or more musical notes played at the same time." A cord is "a piece of wire covered with plastic for carrying electricity," "a measure of wood cut for fuel," "a ribbed cloth," "a piece of thick string or thin rope," and "a part of the anatomy resembling a cord": vocal cords. Christmas See holidays. cities and towns Capitalize the names of cities and towns in all uses. Capitalize city as part of a proper name: New York City, Kansas City. Lowercase city when used as an adjective or noun: the city budget, mayor of the city. Capitalize city when mentioning the proper name of a governmental unit: He worked for the City of Kennewick. But lowercase city--or omit the redundant city of--when naming cities in other uses: They visited the city of Edmonds. They visited Edmonds. Lowercase general descriptions such as north Seattle. Capitalize widely recognized names for the sections of a city: Laurelhurst, Magnolia, West Seattle, Rainier Beach and the University District. citizen A citizen is a person who has the full civil rights of a nation through birth or naturalization. Cities and states in the United States do not grant citizenship. Use resident to include noncitizens as inhabitants of states, cities and communities. See public. city council Capitalize when part of a proper name: The Langley City Council scheduled a meeting. Also capitalize if the name of the city is clear: The City Council passed a motion. Lowercase in other uses: the council, the Langley and Coupeville city councils. citywide One word. class See collective nouns. clean bill of health Cliche. Try good report, good condition, doing well, fine, healthy or strong instead. clean up (v.), cleanup (n. and adj.) The cleanup lasted three months. It took three months to clean up the river. Also, think about dropping up from clean up. cliche William Safire, Fumblerules, 1990: "Last but not least, avoid cliches like the plague." And if you must use a cliche, don't put quotation marks around it. climatic, climactic Occasionally confused adjectives. Use climatic when describing the climate or changes in the weather. Use climactic when describing a climax, key dramatic moment or highest point. climb down, climb up Climb up is usually redundant, and climb down seems illogical. So use climb alone to mean "going up" and climb down as an acceptable idiom for "going down." Both terms are preferable to the formal ascend and descend. close proximity Redundant and wordy. Simplify. Use near or close to instead. Also, closeness and nearness are both preferred to the formal proximity. clothes Sometimes misspelled as the soundalike close. Memory aid: Clothes are made of cloth, which wears a th. co- Hyphenate when forming nouns, adjectives or verbs that show occupation or status: co-host, co-pilot, co-signer, co-worker. Omit the hyphen in other combinations, including coordinate, coordination, cooperate, cooperation, cooperative. See prefixes. coast Lowercase when writing about the physical shoreline: Atlantic coast, Pacific coast. High winds battered the Atlantic coast. Capitalize when writing about regions of the United States lying along such shorelines: The Atlantic Coast states all supported the Democratic candidate. The Pacific Coast states all had sunny weather. Do not capitalize when writing about smaller regions: She loves the Oregon coast in November. coed Don't use the outdated, sexist coed (or co-ed) as a noun to refer to a female student. Coed and coeducational are fine as adjectives to note that both sexes are involved. coliform bacteria Bacteria common to the intestinal tract of people, other mammals and soil. Always lowercase. collaborate, corroborate Occasionally confused verbs. To collaborate means "to work together for a special purpose" and "to cooperate with an enemy." To corroborate means "to confirm one statement by referring to another statement." collectible This spelling more often preferred than collectable. Both spellings carry the same meaning. collective nouns Collective nouns name a group or collection of people, places, things, ideas, actions or qualities, including board, class, committee, crowd, family, group, herd, jury, panel, public, orchestra, staff, team. Nouns that show a unit take singular verbs and pronouns: The board is electing its committee chairs. The crowd is eager to march. To stress individuals in a group, use members of: Staff members answered questions. Some members of the panel left before lunch. See it. Some nouns are both singular and plural in meaning, including corps, chassis, deer, fat, fish, grease, moose, oil, public, sediment, sheep, soil, water and waste. The use of a singular or plural verb in a particular sentence conveys the meaning. Because these words are already plural, avoid adding s or es to make them plural: Scientists studied sediment from Charger Bay. The geologist took samples of soil from the site. When mentioning various types or species, however, plural spellings may be used: Scientists studied Fox Lake and Lake Roosevelt sediments. The site contained both glacial and sandy soils. Follow the rules of subject-verb agreement when using the proper names of athletic teams and musical bands or groups: The Seattle Mariners are on the road. The Seattle Storm is an event sponsor. The Beatles were wonderful at the old Seattle Center Coliseum and so were the Rolling Stones. The Who is still terrific. college names See university names. collide, collision Two objects must be moving before they can collide. An accident involving a moving car and a stationary telephone pole is not a collision, for example; it's a crash. See near miss, near-miss. colon (:) The colon has three main uses, all of which involve pointing the reader toward the words that follow the colon. The colon always follows a whole sentence in these uses. Don't combine a dash and a colon. The most frequent use is to introduce a list, often after expressions such as the following or as follows: Loretta Schwieterman appointed three people to the committee: David Allen, Greg Edwards and Jean Rheinhard. The Parks Department has scheduled open houses in the following communities: Valley View, April 5; Gantry, May 6; and Sierra Hills, Aug. 7. Don't use a colon immediately after a verb. Incorrect: Loretta Schwieterman appointed: David Allen, Greg Edwards and Jean Rheinhard to the committee. Correct: Loretta Schwieterman appointed David Allen, Greg Edwards and Jean Rheinhard to the committee. For more information on creating lists, see lists, semicolon. Second, the colon can be used to stress the word, words or sentence that follows it: He had only one thing on his mind: flowers. The news was good: No one would be laid off. When used this way, the colon replaces such words as that is, namely and for example. Capitalize the first word after a colon if it is a proper noun or the start of a whole sentence. Third, use a colon to introduce a quotation longer than one sentence within a paragraph and to end a paragraph that introduces a quotation in the next paragraph. Use a comma, however, to introduce a quotation of one sentence that stays within a paragraph. See attribution, comma below, quotations, quotation marks. color Usually redundant and wordy when naming a color. Simplify. Try dropping in color, colored and the color from phrases like blue in color, red colored, the color green. combine together Redundant and wordy. Simplify. Drop together. coming Often misspelled. It has one letter m, not two. comma (,) The following guidelines treat frequent questions about eight essential uses of the comma. First, in a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use a comma after each term: She opened the closet, grabbed a coat, and picked up an umbrella. In a complex series of phrases, the serial comma before the final conjunction aids readability. In a simple series, the comma is optional before the conjunction: The van is economical, roomy and dependable. Also, put a comma before the final conjunction in a series if an integral element of the series needs a conjunction: He likes folk, rock, and rhythm and blues. Don't put a comma before the first item in a series or after the and in a series. See lists, semicolon. Second, use a comma to join two independent clauses with a conjunction. An independent clause is a group of words that could stand on its own as a complete sentence; it begins with its own subject. The most common conjunctions are but, and, for, nor, or, so and yet: The council's Water Resources Committee will go over the resolution Jan. 12, and the full council is scheduled to act Feb. 11. Don't create run-on sentences by combining two or more independent clauses with only commas. Either insert conjunctions after the commas or break the clauses into separate sentences. See sentence length. Third, use a comma to separate an introductory phrase or clause from the rest of the sentence: After graduating from college, he joined AmeriCorps. It may be omitted after short introductory phrases (less than three words) if no ambiguity would result: On Thursday the Kennewick City Council will decide the issue. When in doubt, use the comma, especially when it separates two capitalized words. Fourth, enclose parenthetic expressions between commas. Parenthetic expressions are word groups that are not essential to the meaning of a sentence. If a parenthetic expression is removed, the sentence would still make sense: The social services manager, who toured the Snoqualmie Valley last week, will make her recommendations today. They took one of their sons, Leif, to the concert. His wife, Donna, is a middle school teacher. As shown in the examples, commas always go both before and after a parenthetic expression within a sentence. If you'd prefer to stress a parenthetic phrase, put it between dashes; you can play down such a phrase by placing it between parentheses. Also see this, that, who whom. Also use commas to set off a person's hometown when it follows the name: Rachel Solomon, Danbury, opened a new restaurant. If using a person's age, set it off by commas: Tom O'Rourke, 69, opened a new restaurant. Do not use commas to set off an essential word or phrase from the rest of a sentence. Essential words and phrases are important to the meaning of a sentence: They took their daughter Jennifer to school. Their son Nils works at Ticketmaster. (They have more than one daughter and more than one son.) Fifth, use commas to set off words and phrases such as however, meanwhile, in fact, in addition, moreover, nevertheless, as a result, thus, therefore, for example, finally and in other words. Usually, place a comma after such expressions when they begin a sentence, and place commas before and after the expressions when they are within a sentence. See however, in fact, in addition to, moreover, nevertheless. Sixth, use commas to separate a series of adjectives equal in rank. If the adjectives could be rearranged without changing the meaning of a sentence or if the word and could replace the commas without changing the sense, the adjectives are equal: A sleek, new car. A thick, black cloud. See hyphen. Use no comma when the last adjective before a noun outranks its predecessors because it is an integral element of a noun phrase: a silver articulated bus. Seventh, use a comma to set off a direct one-sentence quotation within a paragraph: Theodore Roosevelt said, "It's not the critic who counts." Use a comma before the second quotation mark in a quotation followed by attribution: "No comment," said Jerry Carson. See attribution, punctuation, quotations, quotation marks. And eighth, use a comma to separate the parts of numbers, dates and addresses. Use a comma for figures higher than 999: More than 5,000 people attended the event. Use commas to set off the year in complete dates: The department released its report Nov. 16, 2002, for public review. But don't separate the month from the year when not using a date. They held their first retreat in January 1994.See dates. Use commas to set off cities from names of states or nations: She went to Vancouver, Wash., to tour the bridge retrofit program. He traveled to Paris, France, on vacation. commence See begin, commence, start. commitment Commonly misspelled. Remember the root word, commit, with two m's and one t. committee Commonly misspelled. Capitalize if part of the proper name: the Langley City Council's Human Services Committee. Lowercase when used alone: The committee passed the motion. See capitalization, collective nouns, subcommittee. common, mutual They have a subtle difference in meaning. Use common to describe something shared by two or more people or things: a common goal, common interests. Use mutual to describe a feeling or action that's exchanged or reciprocal between two or more people or things: mutual respect, mutual efforts. See mutual. community action grant Lowercase. Avoid abbreviating CAG. compact disc CD is acceptable on later references. company names When using a company (or product) name, you have no obligation to help a company market itself (or its products). For most proper names, capitalize the first letter of each word, or capitalize a different letter if preferred by a company: eBay. But capitalize the first letter if it begins a sentence. Do not use all capital letters unless the letters are individually pronounced: IBM and BMW but Subway and Ikea (not SUBWAY and IKEA). Don't use exclamation points, asterisks and plus signs that some companies use in logos and marketing materials for their company (and product) names: Yahoo, not Yahoo!; Toys R Us, not Toys "R" Us. Unless it's part of a company's formal name, replace the ampersand (&) with and. Abbreviate company, corporation, incorporated and limited when using them after the name of a corporate entity: the Boeing Co., American Broadcasting Cos., Chevron Corp. Don't use a comma before Inc. or Ltd. even if it's included in the formal name. Do not abbreviate those words in business correspondence. In business correspondence, spell out those words when part of the proper name: the Boeing Company. See firm, incorporated. If company, companies or corporation appears alone in second reference, spell out and lowercase the word: The company showed a loss in the third quarter. The forms for possessives: the Boeing Co.'s profits, American Broadcasting Cos.' profits, Chevron Corps.' profits. comparable Commonly misspelled. compare and contrast Probably one of your first school lessons in writing redundantly involved essays to compare and contrast things. To compare things is to discover and describe their similarities and differences. You don't also have to contrast them. compared with, compared to Often confused. The more common phrase, compared with means "to examine the similarities or differences of two or more things": He averaged 23 points a game in 2001 compared with 17 points a game last year. The speaker compared Congress with the British Parliament. The less common compared to means "to liken two or more things, say they are similar or show a resemblance": The backhoe operator compared her work to climbing Mount Everest. He compared life to a battle. Memory tip: Compared to is metaphorical while compared with is statistical. compass directions See directions and regions. compatible Commonly misspelled. Remember the relationship is not able, it's ible. compensate Unless you're paid by the syllable or letter, simplify and use pay, if that's what you mean. complacent, complaisant Sometimes confused adjectives. Use complacent to describe someone who's satisfied and content with his or her accomplishments. Use complaisant to describe someone who's willing and eager to please. complement, compliment Often misused or confused. Complement is a noun or verb for "something that fills up or completes": The company has a complement of 250 drivers, 75 mechanics and 10 office workers. The two ideas complement each other well. A hat may complement a suit, but you would compliment the wearer on her or his hat. A related term: full complement. Compliment is a noun or verb for "praise or a flattering remark" and "something free": The supervisor complimented the staff for a job well done. The supervisor's compliment boosted morale. complete (v.) Overstated and formal. Simplify. Try replacing with end or finish unless you're writing about filling in missing or defective parts. Or try replacing with fill in or fill out. completely This adverb is often completely redundant. Simplify. Don't use completely before full and words like dedicated, destroy, devoted, eliminate, perfect, silent, superfluous, unanimous and unique--and redundant. comply with Try replacing with simpler follow, keep to, meet or obey. component Overstated. Simplify. Change to part or ingredient. compose, comprise, include Compose is not synonymous with comprise. Compose means to create or put together: The division is composed of six sections. Compose takes of, but comprise never does. Comprise means to contain, consist of or embrace. The whole comprises the parts. Use it in the active voice and name all the parts that make up the whole after the verb: The division comprises six sections. The zoo comprises mammals, reptiles and birds. Don't use comprised of. Think about using simpler consist(s) of or contain(s). Use include when what follows is only part of the whole: city government includes the Parks and Human Services departments. See constitute. composition titles Capitalize the first letter of main words in titles of books, long poems, long musical compositions, magazines, movies, newsletters, newspapers, plays and works of art such as paintings and sculpture. Italicize the names of such works, or underline them if italic type is not available. Use a colon between a book's title and its subtitle: Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain English. Capitalize the first letter of main words and enclose in quotation marks the titles of dissertations, essays, lectures, short musical compositions, short poems, short stories, songs, speeches, radio and television programs, articles in periodicals and chapters of books. If the title is part of a sentence, commas and periods go inside the closing quotation mark. Other punctuation, such as the question mark and the exclamation point, goes inside the quotation mark if it's part of the title; if it applies to the entire sentence, it goes outside the quotation mark. Capitalize--but don't italicize, underline or enclose in quotation marks--the names of brochures, bulletins, forms, reports, software, websites, and catalogs of reference material, such as almanacs, directories, dictionaries, encyclopedias, gazetteers and handbooks. When capitalizing hyphenated words in a title, choose a style and follow it consistently. Simplest is to capitalize only the first word unless later words are proper nouns or adjectives: Unique benefits for part-time violinists, All-American flag-waving techniques. Second is to capitalize all words except articles, short prepositions and short conjunctions: Over-the-Counter Acid Reducers for Sale Here, A Matter-of-Fact Approach to Guitar Tuning, A New Park-and-Ride Lot for Commuters. Optional exceptions to the second style are to lowercase the word after a prefix unless it is a proper noun or adjective and to lowercase the second word in a spelled out number: Anti-intellectual Conduct, Twenty-first Century Values. compound words Compound words are formed differently for different parts of speech. When forming a compound, such as start up or start-up, first determine the part of speech you want, such as a noun, adjective or verb. Then check your dictionary and style manual for the correct spelling. If not listed in either source, follow these guidelines (also see hyphen, initial-based terms): conceal Overstated and formal. Simplify. Try replacing with hide. concept Overstated. Simplify. Change to idea or design. concerning Overstated and formal. Try replacing with about. concise (adj.), concisely (adv.), conciseness (n.) Means "brief and to the point, short and clear." To be concise, write only what you must to make your point, removing all unnecessary words and details. Succinct writing is clear and precise using the fewest words possible. Pithy writing is compact but also meaningful and witty. Terse writing is concise and polished but potentially curt in its brevity. Laconic writing is brief but also rude or ambiguous, mysterious and uncommunicative. Writing that is not concise may be wordy (more words than necessary) and verbose (obscure and tedious), rambling (aimless) and diffuse (loose and weak), long-winded (tiresome) and prolix (trivial and boring), redundant (repetitious), or all of the above. See defuse, diffuse; plain English, plain language; redundancy; verbiage. Also see Garbl's Concise Writing Guide; Garbl's Plain English Writing Guide; Garbl's Fat-Free Writing Links; Garbl's Plain Language Resources. concluded See attribution. confidant, confident Sometimes confused. You tell secrets or intimate details to a trusted friend or confidant. If you're self-assured or certain about something, you're confident. confute See refute. congress Capitalize U.S. Congress and Congress when writing about the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Lowercase when used as a synonym for convention or in second reference to a group that uses the word as part of its formal name. Lowercase congressional unless it's part of a proper name. congressional districts See districts. congressman, congresswoman Use only when writing about members of the U.S. House of Representatives. connote, denote Sometimes confused. Connote, like connotation, suggests or implies a feeling or secondary meaning besides the actual meaning of a word. Denote refers to the explicit or literal meaning of a word. See denote. connoisseur Commonly misspelled. Double the consonants inside the word; two n's and two s's. conscience, conscious Commonly misspelled or confused. Conscience is a noun for "a person's feelings about doing something that is morally right or wrong." Conscious is an adjective meaning "awake and aware or intended and planned." consensus Commonly misspelled. Its first letter is the only c. Means "general agreement or opinion of all or most of the people concerned." It does not necessarily mean unanimous agreement. Avoid using the redundant consensus of opinion and general consensus. Simply use consensus or agreement. Broad consensus is acceptable. conservation, conservative Subtle difference in emphasis, unfortunately. Conservation is an action that protects, preserves and restores works of arts, natural things like forests and wild animals, and other resources like water, gas and electricity. Conservative describes a preference for preserving established traditions or institutions and resisting or opposing any change in them--to keep doing things the traditional way despite changes in modern society. See liberal, progressive. consolidate Try replacing with simpler combine, merge or join. constitution Capitalize references to the U.S. Constitution, with or without the U.S. modifier: Congress is considering an amendment to the Constitution. If you're writing about the constitution of other countries or states, capitalize constitution only if the name of the country or state comes before it: the Norwegian Constitution, the country's constitution, the Oklahoma Constitution, the state constitution. Lowercase constitution in other uses: the chapter constitution. Also lowercase constitutional unless it's part of a proper name. construct Try replacing with simpler build or erect. consul, council, counsel Sometimes confused nouns. A consul is "an appointed government representative for aiding citizens and businesses in a foreign country." A council is "a group of people elected to represent residents of a town, city or county" and "a group of people who make decisions for an organization." Usually used as a verb meaning "to advise," a counsel is "a lawyer or group of lawyers who give legal advice and represent clients in court. Also, council is a singular noun that should take singular verbs; the articles a or the should usually come before council. Counsel can be either singular or plural, followed by the appropriate verb form. The articles a and the are not usually needed before counsel. Correct uses: We received the legal opinion from counsel. Counsel has suggested we go to trial on Tuesday. The company brought this matter before the council. The council advised the representatives of its position. Incorrect uses: The company brought this matter before council. Council advised the representative of their position. We go before council at noon. contact Preferred verb meaning get in touch with or communicate with--through email, fax, telephone and postal mail. But if you mean call, write, see or similar actions, use the specific verb. contemptible, contemptuous Sometimes confused adjectives. Use contemptible to describe something or someone that deserves contempt, scorn or lack of respect; that's despicable, worthless or disgraceful. Use contemptuous to describe a person's feelings or expressions of contempt, scorn and disdain. content, contents These words have a subtle difference in meaning. Use content to write about the topic or subject of a book, letter, article, advertisement, speech, commercial or other written or spoken material--or to mention a single item that something contains, if necessary: Beans have a high protein content (or better: Beans have a lot of protein). Use contents to list the ingredients or items in a recipe, room, book and so on. contiguous to Commonly misused and pompous. Does not mean "close to" or "near" but "touching and sharing a boundary." Think about using next to or bordering instead. continual, continuous Often misused or confused. Continual means "repeatedly, often recurring or intermittent, with breaks in between": She has to repair the car continually. Periodically or intermittently are useful, clear synonyms for continually to describe something that starts and stops. Continuous means "uninterrupted, in an unbroken stream": Sales have been growing continuously for the past five years. continue to remain Redundant and wordy. Simplify. Use remain or continue, not both, or try be still or stay. continued Don't abbreviate. Continued, Continued on Page X, Continued from Page X, and even To be Continued are clear, concise statements. But if you must abbreviate continued for some questionable reason, use contd., without an apostrophe. Other abbreviations for continued also are abbreviations for other words. contractions Used occasionally, contractions can speed reading and assure accuracy. They can soften the tone of your writing by making it more personal and conversational. In most writing, consider using common contractions like aren't, can't, don't, doesn't, he'll, I'll, it's, she'll, shouldn't, that's, they'll, they're, they've, you'll, you're, wasn't and won't. Avoid excessive use of contractions with dual meanings, like I'd and he'd, because they can mean both I had and I would, he had and he would. Other awkward or uncommon contractions to avoid in writing: it'd, I've got, should've, who're, would've and you'd. See could of, may of, might of, must of, should of, would of; Myths and Superstitions of Writing. contradict See refute below. contribute, contribute to Overstated. Simplify. Try give for contribute and add to for contribute to. control, controlled, controlling controversial See noncontroversial. conversate Not a word. Replace with converse. Better still, simplify. Replace with speak, talk or even chat. convince, persuade Often confused. Convince involves thought, trying to affect a person's point of view. Persuade involves action, trying to get a person to do something. Convince usually goes with of or that: He convinced his boss of his value to the company. She convinced her colleague that she was right. Persuade usually goes with to: The students persuaded their teacher to extend the deadline. cooperate Think about replacing with simpler help. copy edit, copy editing, copy editor Two words each. copyright Sometimes misspelled as copywrite. Use the verb and noun to describe a legal right to produce, publish and sell a book, play, song, photograph, print and so on. It's not only about writing. The adjective is copyrighted. cord See chord, cord. corp., corporation See company names. Corps of Engineers On first reference, use U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Corps of Engineers is acceptable on later references. corroborate See collaborate, corroborate. cost-effective Jargon, cliche. Think about substituting with economical or efficient. could See can, could. could (not) care less If you care somewhat about something, drop the not. But if you don't care at all, keep it. could of, may of, might of, must of, should of, would of Frequent misspellings of could have or could've, may have, might have or might've, must have, should have or should've, and would have or would've. Also, avoid using those awkward contractions in writing. See contractions. council, counsel See consul, council, counsel. council districts See districts. councilmember Use the non-gender word councilmember instead of councilman or councilwoman. Capitalize only when used as a formal title before a person's name: Ellensburg City Councilmember Steven Fujita attended the meeting. Lowercase when it stands alone: The councilmember spoke at the meeting. See capitalization. county Capitalize when part of a proper name: Clark County. Capitalize the full name of county governmental units: Clark County Personnel Department. Always lowercase county when standing alone as a noun or used as an adjective: Population is increasing in the county. The county budget is scheduled for adoption. Lowercase plural combinations: Benton and Franklin counties. See capitalization, districts, governmental bodies. Capitalize as part of a formal title before a name: County Executive Mary Gustafson. Lowercase when it is not part of the formal title: county Utilities Director Arnold Beck. county council Capitalize the full name on all references: Benton County Council. Also capitalize County Council if the reference to a particular county is clear. Lowercase council when used alone: The council will meet next Thursday. Capitalize chair when used as a formal title before the name of a person in a council or committee position: Benton County Council Chair Isaac Washington. Capitalize councilmember when used as a formal title before a person's name: Benton County Councilmember Joyce Klein. Lowercase chair and councilmember when they stand alone or after a name: Kathleen Williams, a councilmember, said .... See chairman, chairperson, chairwoman; county above. countywide One word. couple of Follow the noun couple with the preposition of in most writing: He left a couple of style manuals in the lounge. Dropping the of and using couple as an adjective is still considered casual and slang. course of See in the course of. course names and numbers Capitalize the subject when used with a numeral: Geometry 2, U.S. History 101. Lowercase subjects that aren't proper names when used without a numeral: algebra, geography, Spanish. court decisions Use numerals and a hyphen: The Supreme Court ruled 3-6, a 3-6 decision. But use the word to in direct quotations: "The court ruled 3 to 6." court names Capitalize the full proper names of courts. Also capitalize the name if the county name, city name, state name or U.S. is dropped: Clark County Superior Court, Superior Court; Cannon Beach Municipal Court, Municipal Court; state Supreme Court, Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, Court of Appeals. Lowercase court when standing alone. See judge. CPR Acceptable (capitalized) in all references to cardiopulmonary resuscitation. create, creative, creativity, creation The verb, adjective and nouns for a powerful human behavior, trait, process and act. To create is "to cause something or someone to exist" and "to produce or invent something using imagination and artistic skill." Creative describes someone who "produces or uses new and effective ideas" and "is good at using the imagination." Creativity is "the ability to use the imagination to develop, produce or use new and original ideas and things." Creation is "the act or process of inventing, producing or making something" and "something that has been invented or produced using the imagination, such as a work of art or piece of clothing." See Garbl's Creativity Resources Online. credible, credulous Sometimes confused adjectives. Credible means "believable because evidence and logic support it." Credulous means "tending to believe too readily, gullible." crisis, crises Sometimes misspelled, misused and overused. Crisis is singular and takes singular verbs. Crises (not crisises) is plural and takes plural verbs. A crisis is "a significant coming together of events -- a turning point -- in which the impending outcome will make a decisive or abrupt change." Avoid referring to -- and responding to -- every difficult situation as a crisis, be it an identity crisis, midlife crisis, environmental crisis, financial crisis, economic crisis or the suppposed "bankrupty" of the successful 70-year-old U.S. Social Security system nearly 40 years from now. criteria, criterion Often confused. As the plural form of criterion, criteria is a plural noun that takes plural verbs and pronouns: The criteria are listed on the board; we will use them to test the product. Don't use the criteria is. Criterion is a singular noun that takes singular verbs and pronouns: One criterion is ease of maintenance; it is first priority for mechanics. criticize Commonly misspelled. criticize, critique Criticize and its various forms are becoming more negative in meaning, suggesting disapproval. Consider using critique as a neutral verb for judging both the good and bad qualities of something or someone. Its other tenses are critiqued and critiqueing, not critiqed and critiqing. crosstown One word. crowd See collective nouns. cul-de-sac Always hyphenate and lowercase. Cul-de-sacs is preferred plural form. currant, current Sometimes confused nouns. A currant is "a small round red or black berry." A current is "a flow of water or air in one direction" and "a flow of electricity through a wire." customary Think about replacing with simpler usual if no meaning is lost. cut and cover Hyphenate when used as an adjectival phrase: Using the cut-and-cover method was less expensive than tunneling. cut back (v.), cutback (n. and adj.) He cut back spending. The cutback will require increased efficiency. Also, think about simplifying the verb form by dropping back. cut off (v.), cutoff (n. and adj.) The other car cut off the truck. The cutoff date for permits is the last Friday of the month. cutting edge, on the Cliche. Think about replacing with advanced, innovative, new, original or unconventional. cynic, skeptic A cynic is a disbeliever. A skeptic is a doubter. Skeptics may be good journalists; cynics never are. Maintained by Gary B. Larson of Seattle, Washington, firstname.lastname@example.org. Updated April 14, 2013.

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The Double Slit Wave-Particle Duality Model demonstrates how matter and light display both wave- and particle-like properties in single and double slit experiments. The simulation shows a detector screen placed behind an aperture with one or two open slits. Particles (electrons or photons) pass through the experiment one at a time and their impact is recorded on the screen. Although it is at first difficult to discern a pattern, a diffraction (interference) pattern eventually emerges suggesting that each particle is interfering with itself. The particle seems be going through both slits as if it were a wave but is detected (observed) at only one location as if were a particle. The particle is interfering with itself as if it were simultaneously passing through both slits. The Double Slit Wave-Particle Duality Model was created using the Easy Java Simulations (EJS) modeling tool. It is distributed as a ready-to-run (compiled) Java archive. Double click the ejs_qm_DoubleSlitWaveParticleDuality.jar file to run the program if Java is installed. Please note that this resource requires at least version 1.5 of Double Slit Wave-Particle Duality Source Code The source code zip archive contains an EJS-XML representation of the Double Slit Wave-Particle Duality Model. Unzip this archive in your EJS workspace to… more... download 13kb .zip Last Modified: December 22, 2011 %0 Computer Program %A Christian, Wolfgang %D November 15, 2011 %T Double Slit Wave-Particle Duality Model %8 November 15, 2011 %U http://www.compadre.org/Repository/document/ServeFile.cfm?ID=11546&DocID=2469 Disclaimer: ComPADRE offers citation styles as a guide only. We cannot offer interpretations about citations as this is an automated procedure. Please refer to the style manuals in the Citation Source Information area for clarifications.

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Learn something new every day More Info... by email A lockstitch sewing machine binds cloth together with two spools of thread and a needle with the eye at its base. Distinct from a chain stitch machine, a lockstitch sewing machine makes strong, straight seams. It was the first kind of commercial sewing machine to secure a patent, enter manufacturing, and place automatic sewing in the hands of millions of households. Most homes have a lockstitch sewing machine because their basic stitch can be used for a wide variety of applications. The machine works by interlocking two threads from two bobbins that cannot unravel easily, unlike a chain stitch. The length of the stitch, as well as tautness, can be controlled by dial. The first spool sits on top of the machine. Its thread runs through a tension arm to feed it smoothly. Then it threads into a needle's eye, located at its base. The needle attaches to a foot that can press the fabric against a feed. The second thread, on another bobbin, is hidden in a compartment beneath the foot. This thread gets pulled on a shuttle to loop around the thread from above. The needle stitches up and down either by a manual foot treadle or a motor controlled by pedal. Several different engineers, working in stages, took decades to perfect an automated lockstitch sewing machine that was easy to build, use, and repair. In 1846, Elias Howe thought of the basic idea of looping one thread through another, while the hand-cranked needle stitches back and forth. Even though he received a patent, he never engineered or marketed it successfully. In the 1850s, Isaac Singer improved upon Howe and built a machine where the needle moved up and down and the crank was controlled by foot, so hands could be free to feed the cloth. He also perfected the second shuttle that sits underneath to control the bobbin. A modern lockstitch sewing machine has added convenience, strength, and flexibility, but it works by the same principles. Now they are electrified so the foot pedal powers the stitching with a motor. They are also outfitted with attachments or settings that allow you to hem, quilt, form buttonholes, embroider, and stitch other decorative seams, in addition to sewing straight seams. Their versatility supports different sized spools, fabric of various thickness, and many customized projects.

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Festuca of North America Grasses N. Am. 2: 589. 1896. Festuca texana Vasey, Bull. Torrey Bot. Club 13: 119. 1886, non Steud. Syn. Fl. Glum. 1: 310. 1854. Festuca obtusa var. versuta (Beal) St.- Yves, Candollea 2: 280. 1925. Type: U.S.A. Texas: "shades, upper Llano", 1884, J. Reverchon 1618. Isotype: US! F. nutans var. johnsonii Vasey, Contrib. U.S. Natl. Herb. 2: 548. 1894. F. johnsonii (Vasey) Piper, Contrib. U.S. Natl. Herb. 10: 35. 1910. Type: U.S.A. Texas: Hamilton Co., 1886, Johnson, s.n. Holotype: US! Habit. Plants bluish gray green or deep green (at least sometimes, with slender, glabrous culms, leaves mainly on the culms), 50–100 cm high, not densely tufted, tiller bases stiffly erect, bases purplish or not purplish, horizontal rooting stems absent. Vegetative shoots arising outside, or breaking through the base of existing sheaths. Vegetative morphology. Sheaths glabrous or glabrescent (lower sheaths with retrorse hairs), not conspicuous at the base of the plant, splitting between the veins, open more than half their length. Collars glabrous. Auricles represented by distinct, erect, swellings or absent. Auricular cilia absent. Ligules 0.5–1 mm long, without cilia (sometimes erose, but without defined trichomes). Leaf blades 20–25 cm long, more or less lax. Adaxial blade surfaces glabrous or with trichomes (or scabrous), abaxial blade surfaces glabrous. Leaf blades flat (or loosely involute), 2–9 mm wide. Veins 15–35 (internerve distance about 2 times the width of the veins). Adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands present. Abaxial sclerenchyma poorly developed, in discrete, relatively narrow strands opposite the veins. Uppermost culm leaf sheaths not inflated. Flag leaf blades (5–)10–25 cm long. Culm nodes becoming exposed, 3; internodes glabrous. Floral morphology. Inflorescence (8–)10–30(–40) cm long. Inflorescence branches at the lowest node 2 (pulvinate at the base and flexuous), spreading, 5–12 cm long. Rachis angular in cross section, trichomes mainly on the ridges or trichomes over the entire surface. Spikelets loosely scattered in an open panicle with slender branches (spikelets borne towards the ends of the branches); 5–15 on the longest branches; 6–9(–11) mm long, 2–3.5 mm wide. Proliferating spikelets absent (usually, two specimens, US 1258476 and MO 852950, have proliferating spikelets). Florets 2–5. Glumes subequal or unequal, with trichomes, vestiture over most of the outer surface (at least on the midvein), margins not ciliate. First glume 4–6(–7) mm long, veins 1. Second glume as long as the first lemma, or almost as long, 5–7 mm long, veins 3. Rachilla internodes glabrous, or nearly so or antrorsely scabrous. Lemma callus not elongated (rounded on the back). Lemma (5–)5.5–7(–8) mm long, nerveless in dorsal view or sometimes with only the centre vein distinct, glabrous (apex sometimes slightly scaberulous on the midvein); apex entire. Lemma awn absent (or apex mucronate). Palea 5–7(–8) mm long, distinctly pubescent between the keels. Lodicules with marginal teeth, glabrous, 0.8–1 mm long. Anthers 2–3 mm long. Ovary apex pubescent. Caryopsis 2.5–3(–3.5) mm long. Cytology. 2n = unknown. Habitat and Distribution. Native; forest and woodland (moist, shaded sites, rocky hill sides, and mountains). North Central USA: Okla.; South Central USA: Tex. Classification. Subg. Subulatae (Tzvelev) E. B. Alexeev, sect. Obtusae E. B. Alexeev (Placed in subg. Drymanthele, sect. Texanae E. B. Alexeev (Alexeev 1980)). Aiken and Lefkovitch (1993) stated that in the course of their study it had become apparent that F. versuta may have affinities with subg. Obtusae rather than monotypic status in subg. Drymanthele sect. Texanae as Alexeev (1980) had suggested. Although the spikelet lengths of many specimens of F. versuta are conspicuously larger than those of the other two species in subg. Obtusae, small specimens overlap in size with large specimens of F. paradoxa Desv. and F. subvertillicata (Pers.) E. B. Alexeev. The spikelet shape in F. versuta approaches that of large specimens of F. subverticillata, while spikelet widths and their arrangement on the inflorescence branches are often similar to those of F. paradoxa. In the analyses of this database, the two nearest neighbours of F. versuta are F. paradoxa and F. subverticillata, and the three taxa group together in phenograms (Aiken et al. 1997). • Line drawing. Illustration from Piper (1906) as F. johnsoni Vasey. • Holotype specimen of name in synonymy, US. Holotype specimen of F. nutans var. johnsonii Vasey. Collected: Texas: Hamilton Co., 1886, Mr. Johnson, s.n. Photocopy of specimen. Annotated by E.B. Alexeev. • Distribution map The interactive key provides access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting specified attributes, and summaries of attributes within groups of taxa. Cite this publication as: ‘Aiken, S.G., Dallwitz, M.J., McJannet, C.L. and Consaul, L.L. 1996 onwards. Festuca of North America: descriptions, illustrations, identification, and information retrieval. Version: 19th October 2005. http://delta-intkey.com’. Aiken, Dallwitz, McJannet, and Consaul (1997) should also be cited (see References).

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Our Canadian Pacific coast is a beautiful and diverse eco-system teeming with life. From our iconic schools of spawning sockeye salmon to the majestic killer whales, the coastline of BC is a treasure that belongs to all of us. This special place could be forever scarred with just one mistake that could lead to an oil spill. Kinder Morgan's New Trans Mountain Pipeline Proposal For decades the Trans Mountain pipeline from Alberta has provided most of the oil we use in BC. But in 2005, Kinder Morgan bought the pipeline with the goal of transforming our inlet into a major tar sands shipping port. Very quietly in 2007, around the same time the pipeline was accidentally ruptured and leaked into the inlet, a risk assessment panel made up of industry insiders began the process of allowing bigger tankers in our waters. In 2008, the TMX-1 project increased the pipeline's capacity by 50,000 barrels a day to increase exports. Despite the fact that our Pacific coast is now increasingly threatened by a major oil spill, there was no public process or debate in the House of Commons or anywhere else. As we were all still reeling from the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, little did we know that every week one or two tankers were passing through the Burrard Inlet carrying more than three times more crude oil than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez. As if that weren't bad enough, now Kinder Morgan wants to increase the capacity of the pipeline up to 890,000 barrels a day—which means more than 400 giant oil tankers a year moving through our inlet. For more information on the proposal and on Kinder Morgan's safety track record, see our FAQ page. The Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline The proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline poses a massive new threat to pristine areas across central and northern BC, including the Great Bear Rainforest. The pipeline would bring over 500,000 barrels of crude oil from the tar sands in Alberta to super tankers in Kitimat, BC. The pipeline would cross more than 800 streams and rivers, endangering salmon spawning habitat in the upper Fraser, Skeena, and Kitimat watersheds. The proposal would also bring over 225 giant oil tankers to the north coast of BC, where an oil spill could cause irreversible damage to the pristine Great Bear Rainforest. Like Kinder Morgan, Enbridge has a history of oil spills and incidents, including the 2010 Kalamazoo River spill that introduced the world to the terrible challenges of cleaning up tar sands bitumen. The company’s poor response prompted a scathing review from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who ordered the company to come back and finish the clean-up job after they’d left the mess to local residents. Overall, the potential economic benefit to British Columbians is not worth the risk to our resources, especially given that the majority of jobs provided by the project are temporary. If an oil spill were to occur, it would jeopardize thousands of jobs in other, more sustainable industries such as fishing and tourism. Over 130 First Nations groups have signed the "Save the Fraser Declaration" against the transport of tar sands oil across their lands and waters, and a number of BC municipalities have passed formal resolutions opposing the Northern Gateway project. Polling consistently shows that between 60 and 80 per cent of British Columbians oppose the project. Canada’s good name is being spoiled by expanding the export of dirty tar sands oil, while we all struggle to face the challenges of global warming. The world needs us to transition away from fossil fuels, yet these oil exports are part of a broader strategy to ramp up oil extraction from the tar sands. Instead of playing a leadership role by doing something to halt runaway climate change, the Canadian government is giving big oil companies the green light to put their foot on the accelerator. Now is the time for Canada to live up to its responsibility and to be a good global citizen. We know that our country must do better. Together we can turn this ship around and get on course. Protecting the coast means not only keeping our shorelines safe from an oil spill, but maintaining a global climate that's safe for everyone. To learn about the risks associated with transporting diluted bitumen from the tar sands (dilbit), visit our info page about the 2010 Kalamazoo River oil spill. Photo: Cleanup crews respond to an oil spill in the Vancouver harbour, 1973. Photo by John Denniston.

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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and his most famous, the celebrated classic, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age. Novels such as The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night were made into films, and in 1958 his life from 1937–1940 was dramatized in Beloved Infidel. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper middle class Irish Catholic family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three times removed, Francis Scott Key, but was referred to as "Scott". He was also named after his deceased sister, Jean Scott, one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. He spent 1898–1901 in...

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Question: "Who were the spirits in prison?" Answer: Speaking of the time between Jesus’ death and resurrection, 1 Peter 3:19 declares, “. . . He went and preached to the spirits in prison…” Who were these “spirits in prison,” why was Jesus preaching to them, and what was He preaching to them? As background, please read our article on “Where was Jesus for the three days between His death and resurrection?” First, let’s look at the word spirits. It is from the Greek word pneumasin, a form of the word pneuma, which means “air, breath, wind.” It is used in the New Testament to refer to angels (Hebrews 1:14), demons (Mark 1:23), the spirit of Jesus (Matthew 27:50), and the Holy Spirit (John 14:17). While the Bible makes it clear that human beings have spirits (Hebrews 4:12), the Bible never refers to human beings as “spirits.” We have spirits, but are not spirits. God the Holy Spirit, angels, and demons do not have spirits; they are spirits. So the standard meaning of the word spirits in the phrase “spirits in prison” seems to argue for the spirits being something other than human beings. If the spirits in prison are not the spirits of deceased human beings, and we know that the Holy Spirit is not imprisoned, and that God’s holy angels are not imprisoned, that leaves us with one option—the spirits in prison are demons. Now, it is clear that not all the demons are imprisoned. The New Testament gives countless examples of demonic activity. So the spirits in prison must be a select group of demons who, unlike the rest of their demonic allies, were at one point imprisoned. What might be a possible reason for some, but not all, of the demons to be imprisoned? Jude verse 6 gives us an important clue, “And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.” Again, the New Testament makes it abundantly clear that not all of the demons are “bound with everlasting chains.” Jude verse 6, which is similar to 1 Peter 3:19, must be speaking of a select group of demons who sinned even more grievously against God. What might this sin have been? Genesis 6:1-4 records the “sons of God” mating with the “daughters of men” and producing a race of giants, the Nephilim. The sons of God were fallen angels (demons) who mated with human females, and this is the most likely identity of the spirits in prison in 1 Peter 3:19. The demons who committed this sin were imprisoned by God to prevent them from recommitting this sin, and to discourage the other demons from participating in the sin. This interpretation is also supported by the fact that 1 Peter 3:20 mentions “the days of Noah,” and the sons of God incident occurred just prior to God sending the flood in Noah’s time (Genesis 6). The spirits in prison mentioned in 1 Peter 3:19 were demons who sinned grievously against God by “abandoning their proper abode” (Jude 6) in the incident involving the sons of God and daughters of men (Genesis 6:1-4). © Copyright 2002-2013 Got Questions Ministries.

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Insecticide Poisoning in Dogs Depending on how long it has been since your pet ingested the toxin (if exposure was via ingestion), you veterinarian may induce vomiting for your pet. Your doctor may also wash out your pet’s stomach with a tube (lavage), and then give it activated charcoal to detoxify and neutralize any remaining insecticide. Antidotal treatments specific to the toxin will also be given to your pet. Further treatment may include an oxygen cage if your pet is having trouble breathing, and fluid therapy if your pet has been unable to drink or is anorexic. Dogs suffering from seizures will be given anti-seizure medication to stop the seizures. If exposure to the toxin came through the skin, your veterinarian will use specialized wash for removing the residue from the hair and skin of your pet. Living and Management The sooner your dog is treated after being exposed to organophosphate or carbamate insecticides, the better the prognosis is. Avoid using insecticides -- flea or tick treatments -- on sick or debilitated animals, as it will affect the body more easily because of the weakened immune system. If your dog needs to be treated for pests while it is recovering, or if it is sick for any other reason, ask your veterinarian to recommend some alternatives to chemical treatments. Organophosphates and carbamates both inhibit cholinesterases enzymes; giving both at the same time is likely a toxic dose of insecticide. And as always, read the instructions on the insecticide labels before using them. The prediction of a disease’s outcome in advance An involuntary action in which the muscles contract; caused by a problem with the brain. Any sub stance that allows impulses to be transmitted from one neuron to the next A chemical that kills insects by poison or fumigant To slow something down or cause it to stop Losing of strength; becoming weaker. Irritating tissue with a great deal of some type of fluid Head Pressing in Dogs Head pressing is a condition characterized by the compulsive act of pressing the... Tick Medicine Poisoning in Dogs Amitraz toxicosis (or poisoning) occurs when a dog is overexposed to the pharmaceutical... Latest In Dog Nutrition How Antioxidants Improve Our Pet's Health, ... The science behind pet nutrition continues to make major advances. One such example... Five Life-Lengthening Health Tips for Your ... Anyone who has ever had a dog or cat wishes just one thing — that he or she has a...

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Let's look up at the stars. Astronomy is a natural science that deals with celestial objects and phenomena that surrounds our atmosphere. Experts say there are more stars in the sky than grains of sand on Earth's beaches. The largest one discovered is VY Canis Majoris, which is about 2,000 times the size of the sun. If it replaced the sun in our solar system it would extend up to Saturn. Today, we celebrate astronomy. When it gets dark out, take a look at what wonderful objects are in the sky. If you have a telescope, blow the dust off of it and put it to good use.

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Linux and Windows AD User Environment Home Directory $HOME and U: Drive If you save or remove files from your U: drive, both in Windows and in Linux, are the files saved or removed at the same time to both systems. This is possible because both the Linux and Windows AD user environments have a shared home directory on a Linux server. All computers have a centralized virus protection installed which automatically will delete infected files. It is recommended that you leave the power on to the computer after logging off. This is to ensure that necessary updates can be distributed to over the network (only Log Off – don't Shut Down). For the students of the school a so called roaming-profile has been activated. This means that - files stored onto the Desktop and into the Documents-folder - browser favourites - and some Windows settings (such as the desktop background) will remain the same even if switching computers. The storage folders can also be found on the X-drive. There are some programs (e.g. WinSCP) that do not understand the redirection to the x-drive and have to be pointed to the x-drive manually. Note! The files stored within the roaming-profile will not be backed up! Therefore the safest storage place for important files is still your personal homedirectory on the U-drive. Homepages (public_html Directory) Under the home directory there is a directory (folder) called public_html, which is automatically published to the web using Apache HTTP Server. If you save into your public_html folder a file called index.html containing HTML code, it will be visible to the whole world at http://www.cc.puv.fi/~e0501234/ (or http://www.cc.puv.fi/~e0501234/index.html). This way you can create your own homepages - don’t forget about copyright and regulations. Each username has a disc quota of 1024 megabytes for saving files on the home directory. You can see how much of your U: drive is in use in Windows by right-clicking on the U: drive in My Computer and then selecting Properties. Of educational reasons it is possible to increase the quota. In such a case, contact your teacher. CGI, PHP and MySQL Support CGI programs can be run on the Apache HTTP Server at http://www.cc.puv.fi/ by placing them in the $HOME/public_html/cgi-bin/ directory. PHP pages work in the $HOME/public_html/ directory and in its subdirectories (except cgi-bin). If your applications need MySQL database support, create a MySQL account at http://mysql.cc.puv.fi/ (works in intranet only). MySQL usage instructions will be printed to the screen after you've created the account. If you need support for some other database engine ask your teacher for more information. There are servers for special work and projects. Your teacher gives you more information regarding them. Servlets and JSP Server Linux server with Tomcat application server at http://app.cc.puv.fi/. A backup is taken each night of the home directory. A backup is stored for at least a month, so if you accidentally loose a file it is possible to retrieve. Make the request through the Helpdesk or contact someone of the data systems team. Mutual Network Drive Y:\ There is a mutual network drive Y:\ for temporary information exchange between students and staff. Students and staff have the right to read and write onto the drive by default. The drive is only meant for temporary information and file transfers and no backups are taken of the drive. The ICT team has the right to remove files, starting with the oldest files, in order to free up space on the drive. Persons sharing information on the drive are responsible for keeping the posted materials copyrights. No illegal or offensive material is allowed onto the drive. Additional Services for the Staff Personal Home Directory S:\ An additional home directory S:\ is added during logon for the staff, which is only available on the staff network. The staff network is only available in the staff offices. The S:\ home directory is therefore NOT visible in classrooms or CITRIX. Files that are needed in classrooms should not be saved onto the S:\ drive but rather onto the U:\ drive. A backup of the S:-drive is taken every night. Mutual Network Drive V:\ During staff logon a mutual network drive V:\ is also connected. Different folders can be found on the network drive and the user rights are defined according to specified needs. Contact the Helpdesk if you need a mutual workspace for your team and restricted access to your space. The mutual network drive is in the public network and can therefore be accessed from the staff network, classrooms, via CITRIX and OpenVPN

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The key to successful weight loss could be a matter of simply going for a walk, according to new research which has extolled the benefits of an after-dinner stroll. According to experts at the Joslin Diabetes Center, a type of fat in the body known as brown fat – which is known to burn calories – is activated when it is cold. This process is accelerated when the temperature is very low and people begin to shiver in order to generate heat – something that would occur if we were to venture into the open air after dinner and take a stroll. Dr Aaron Cypess, who led the research, suggested that this could help people to lose weight by burning calories, without any side-effects. He explained: “Mild cold exposure stimulates (brown fat) energy expenditure with fewer other systemic effects, suggesting that cold activates specific sympathetic pathways. “Agents that mimic cold activation of brown fat could provide a promising approach to treating obesity while minimising systemic effects.” Another option could be the creation of new cooling vests which would help people to lose weight without even having to venture outside, it was suggested. Do you ever have a walk after dinner?

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Studying the Bible, obviously Beginning to Study the Old Testament - Peter Williams is Warden of Tyndale House, Cambridge; he was previously senior lecturer in New Testament at Aberdeen University. View all resources by Peter Williams This article is taken from Encountering God's Word: Beginning Biblical Studies, edited by Philip Duce and Daniel Strange, and is reproduced here with kind permission of IVP/Apollos. Preparing to Study The Old Testament (OT) is a sizeable body of writings and, according to people of quite diverse persuasions, it was written over a very long time. The extended period of writing is itself complex, which makes study difficult. The matter is complicated further by the fact that the OT is written in a couple of obscure languages (Ancient Hebrew and a bit of Imperial Aramaic). To cap it all, the account of the origins of the OT given by many contemporary scholars is quite different from the account the OT seems to give of its own origins. So it is hardly surprising that some students beginning OT study feel a bit lost. Yet, if the challenges of OT study can be overcome, it is also an area that yields rewards far greater than the effort put in. A good grounding in OT not only has the reward of studying the OT itself, but also pays dividends in New Testament (NT) study and in many areas of Christian theology. Moreover, the OT not only helps these disciplines but is itself a foundation for them. All of Jesus’ teaching assumes a familiarity with the OT. No one can really develop a serious understanding of the New Testament without the backdrop of the Old, nor can any Biblical or Systematic Theology afford to ignore the material of the OT. So while students choosing modules for a Religious Studies course might well be advised to delay OT study until they are ready, the delay should not be indefinite. The study of the OT is imperative. The question then is not whether to study the OT but when and how. Answering the when question first, it is important to remember that a confused mind presented with a complicated issue is unlikely to end up clearer than it was at the start. Someone therefore approaching in-depth study of the OT will greatly benefit from prior familiarity with the OT subject matter. To put it briefly: it is helpful to have read the OT before beginning an OT course. This may seem like a high demand, but given that to read the whole OT out loud in English takes less than fifty hours, the demand is not really so high. Suggestions for reading the Bible through first time are given in an appendix. Yet it might seem that to become familiar with the OT before studying it formally defeats the object of study. After all, the main motivation a student has in taking an OT course is usually precisely to become familiar with the OT. But at a practical level this often does not work. Most lecturers would love their students to immerse themselves in the primary text of the OT, but also need to test that students are working. They therefore set essays, and essays require arguments which in turn require the reading of secondary literature. In order to make sure that those who have read the primary text before the course do not get off too lightly lecturers will normally set for reading a quantity of secondary literature that will fill all the available time, which is generally not hard in a busy student’s life! There is similar pressure from the student’s side to read secondary rather than primary literature. There is no doubt that fifteen well-spent minutes cribbing from secondary literature will in general help a student ask smarter sounding questions than fifteen minutes spent on the primary sources. The problem is that those who pursue such a short-sighted approach over a long period are liable gradually to lose touch with the text they are supposed to be studying. Most contemporary scholarly writing will only be of minor historical interest within a generation, whereas the primary text will live on. So it is vital to read the text first. Anyone who has already started an OT course without having read the OT through should endeavour to read the whole at the first available opportunity (such as a holiday week). This necessity of familiarity with the biblical text prior to engaging in academic study of it is in line with how we learn best. Essay topics will inevitably invite students to assess critically their own assumptions and views, as well as those of others. Students with good reasons for believing what they believe should not be anxious about such probing; it is rather an opportunity to develop mentally. However, in order to judge properly the views of authors on the bibliography it is necessary not only to evaluate the strength of the arguments they use, but also to know whether there are additional relevant contrary arguments which they do not consider. How can you critically assess any writer if you have a blank mind to start with? So the question of when to study the OT is answered simply: study the OT when you have a firm outline in your mind of its contents and a basic familiarity with its text. The next question is how to study, including what order to study things in. I would like here to advise strongly that someone beginning OT study should consider prioritising study of Hebrew. Not everyone finds languages equally easy or attractive, and not everyone is given the opportunity to learn Hebrew. However, this is one of the first questions you need to ask: are you going to learn Hebrew and study the OT in its original language, or are you going to study it all in translation? Here there is something analogous to the contrast above between studying primary and secondary literature. Progress with any language will seem incredibly slow at first, and much quicker comprehension of what is going on will be achieved if the same time is spent reading the English translation of the Bible. You need to weigh the effort of learning Hebrew against the length of a course in OT. If the course is three years or more then you should learn Hebrew. The advantages of tackling original languages in Bible study are several, but only for those who persevere for the reward: - In the long run you can save time reading secondary literature. It is still necessary and profitable, for instance, to read commentaries on books of the Bible, but you no longer need to rely on these as the major way of finding out the meaning of words. - You can critically evaluate commentaries. A surprising number of commentaries are written by people who do not have a good grasp of Hebrew. Familiarity with the original languages will help you recognise which commentators are more worth reading and which less. - Many parts of the Bible use specific items of vocabulary as linking words, in word play, or in other similar devices. You will be able to recognise these easily if you know the language. - All academic disciplines are subject to fashions to one degree or another. It is possible to become immersed in the theories that prevail while one is a student only to find that they have become outdated within a generation. Language skills are less affected by fashion. If you do decide to take up the challenge of Hebrew, you should take it up sooner rather than later. You should begin learning, and then, by seeking to use the Hebrew text at every opportunity, all subsequent study can revise your Hebrew. If you do not, then you need to get used to consulting a variety of translations of the Bible, and to learn to suspect suggestions made in commentaries about the original language that cannot be verified in at least one other source. New textbooks for teaching Hebrew are being produced all the time and there are also less traditional helps. Each has advantages, though there is no way to avoid the fact that much time has to be invested in order to learn a language. Many recent grammars do not contain exercises of translating English into Hebrew. This is fine for a low level grasp of a language, but ultimately if you want to have a firm grasp of the language it will be necessary to undertake the rather artificial exercise of writing Biblical Hebrew. A Christian Approach to the Old Testament It is impossible to study without presuppositions, and to admit to having presuppositions is not to admit to having an incurable disease of brain-bias. Since no one is without presuppositions, the question is not whether one has presuppositions or not, but whether one has good presuppositions or not, and whether they are held in the right way. Presuppositions are belief systems that can direct observation and affect the way data are understood. Belief systems, whether ‘religious’ or not, can function at more than one level. An overarching system could be that there is a God who acts in the world. A lower-level system could be a particular literary or linguistic view. Individuals can sometimes share higher-level beliefs without sharing lower-level ones, or share lower-level beliefs without sharing higher-level ones. This is an explicitly Christian introduction to OT study, and its approach is moulded by the overarching beliefs that God is truthful and that the Bible is speech from God. These statements need both elaboration and defence and space here permits neither. Nevertheless, I hope that the rest of this chapter at least provides a little of both. To treat the OT as God’s own speech makes a difference right from the moment you open a Bible. It is not only that we probe it, but also that its contents probe and challenge us deeply. When we read that ‘The fear of the Lord [YHWH] is the beginning of knowledge’ we are faced with a choice. Either it is true, in which case the way to be knowing, even about the statement itself, is to adopt a reverent attitude before YHWH, the God revealed in the OT, or we can reject the statement without having entered into the state exhorted by the verse. There is no possible position of abstract consideration of the truth of this statement: you either adopt the attitude it encourages and fear YHWH, or you reject its claims in both thought and experience. While the YHWH-fearing cannot claim objectivity, neither can the person who has rejected the statement without ever following the exhortation. It can be argued that religious writings outside the Christian faith also exhort followers to engage with them by a similar trick of insisting that personal experience is the only test. But the point here is simple: according to claims within the OT it is not possible to consider the Lord in a dispassionate way. Involvement with the God found in the OT means more than mental assent, but life, desires, and everything. So a Christian student of the OT needs to be involved beyond the mental level. Prayer and obedience need to integrate with study. A Christian needs to adopt the habit of praying in relation to the Bible, both before reading it and in response to reading it. And what is prayed through needs to be worked out in life too. After all, according to Paul one of the primary purposes of the OT is to teach people to live righteous lives. But there is surely a problem here. If the student is involved in this way in study will this not lead inevitably to being uncritical, and to religious bias clouding judgement? Not necessarily. Arguably those who are explicitly aware of their biases will be more able to prevent them from clouding their judgement than those who deny that they have such biases. Moreover, as one studies the OT one is also often studying the supposed basis for beliefs. Students may find with time and study that certain starting assumptions they have are not supported in the way they thought, and this can lead to modifications of belief. The key thing here is that change is made after due reflection and after one has sought at appropriate length for explanations within the framework within which one is working. A leaking roof in an individual’s world-view does not necessitate abandoning the building. Christian students encountering faith problems should be familiar enough with what has been written by those sympathetic to their view to know whether there are ways of plugging the leaks. Most university and college courses aim to teach students to think critically by setting a number of written assignments in which a student has to evaluate contrary arguments. In order to maximise the intellectual exercise assignments are generally set in areas of controversy. Over the course of a year’s study a student may look at literally dozens of such controversial issues, often with considerable time constraints. Courses are not, however, designed so that students reach closure on an issue. That is, it is not expected that students will have reached the definitive answer by the time they complete their essays. The exercise is to start people thinking about issues. This is important in terms of how students regard conclusions they come to at the end of their essays. Essay conclusions should not be viewed as definitive results, and students need to be ready to revise their views with subsequent study. It also means that a student needs to be ready for more questions to be opened than are closed. It generally takes much less time to ask a question than to give a coherent answer. This may mean that at the end of a year there are a lot of open questions, and in OT studies some of these will inevitably touch on matters of faith. It needs to be recognised up front that the number of such questions that a student has failed to resolve bears little relationship to whether the questions are soluble or not but much relationship to the general way that people are taught to think in the academic system. Thus it is entirely plausible that someone could end up with much greater mental confusion after a course than the subject really needed to involve. This is not anyone’s fault, but simply a product of a learning system, which nevertheless has its advantages. Returning to our house analogy: everyone wants to live in a habitable house; if there are too many unresolved issues in someone’s mind then it may be like a house with a large number of leaks. There is no reason to believe that any of the leaks cannot be plugged, and there is absolutely no reason to doubt the soundness of the basic structure of the building, but the leaks may well make someone want to move out. To speak plainly, unanswered questions in large quantities may make people want to change their beliefs. However, unanswered questions in large quantities can result from two quite different sources: (1) from the inadequacy of the student’s belief system; (2) from a problem-centred method of learning. It is important to distinguish these two. The only way that this can be done is by going out of your way to look for answers to the problems that arise, and to do so persistently. It is only after trying this that one should consider any large shift in belief. Related to this, it is important to judge correctly how certain the knowledge acquired during a course actually is. What to an undergraduate writing an essay on the basis of three days’ research seems certain is often not at all certain in real terms. It is frequently a conclusion drawn from a limited understanding based on a selective reading of the items that the student has selected to read from what a lecturer has selected from his or her already selective knowledge of writings on the topic. The writings that exist on any topic are a small subset of what could have been written on that topic, and their makeup is affected by human circumstance and market forces, and, above all, by the limits of what has yet been discovered. Humans need therefore to admit the provisional nature of their knowledge. This is difficult in an academic environment where essays are generally a means of showing off knowledge to a tutor, and where admitting ignorance is hard. If undertaking a broadly secular course the Christian student should read a wide variety of literature from diverse standpoints. At a university or college, students of the OT will inevitably be challenged to read books by those who do not share their view of the OT. To interact with this literature is an important part of the intellectual training the course provides. However, if a course is set from a secular viewpoint it is likely that Christian students will find that the course leaves little time for them to get to know their own heritage. Of course on some topics it may be that the approach which the student finds most helpful is not written from a Christian perspective. It may be more helpful because it provokes that student, or simply because it is a fairer treatment of a subject. However, students need to beware of reading and hearing much that has been said from non-Christian points of view and yet imbibing little of what has been written from a Christian point of view. To overcome this practical hurdle requires a student to be organised and to arrange time to read Christian approaches on the same issue. Because of limitations of time during a course it may even be beneficial if a student reads such approaches before beginning the course, but since advance warning of essay topics is often not given this is difficult. So what is read is important. Yet it is also important to know how to read. Frequently the best book on a subject is not a Christian book. Most often there simply is no ideal book on a subject from any standpoint, but several from which the relevant information needs to be gleaned. For this reason it is necessary to develop the ability to evaluate secondary literature critically, to separate information and data that an author gives from their assumptions, and to develop a sense of what needs to be double checked. Sometimes scholars are kind enough to state their world-view. Consider the following quotation from the well-published OT scholar Philip R. Davies in an essay entitled ‘Whose History? Whose Israel? Whose Bible? Biblical Histories, Ancient and Modern’. The belief in a single transcendental being who can comprehend, indeed controls, all history is precisely a biblical belief: it is one of the major tenets of biblical historiography... When I claim, then, that there is no ‘objective’ history I am implying a world-view incompatible with that of the biblical writings (except perhaps Qoheleth) for whom history was defined by divine deeds…’ In the ensuing context Davies criticises other scholars who have indicated that they are atheist or agnostic for adopting the Bible’s framework that there is a definitive view of the past, and thus for having a ‘theistic’ approach to history. The conclusion of the essay that a good historian needs ‘to remain sceptical, minimalist and negative’ gives us insight into his approach and will not entice many students with a faith commitment. Unfortunately Davies’ candour is rare. This means that a student needs to be aware of both the wider agendas that can influence the work of scholars and of how a Christian approach may lead to different conclusions. One of the main areas where the historic Christian approach differs from other approaches within contemporary academia is in seeing overarching harmony within biblical writings. If biblical writings are genuinely expressions of a coherent divine mind then they must cohere at the level of what they communicate even if ultimately the nature of the coherence is beyond mortal comprehension. Thus while there is no problem in the admission that contrary statements appear in the Bible these are seen as linguistic codes for a message which at a deeper level is coherent. Contradiction is a perfectly legitimate method of communication, one frequently used by humans, but which when found in the Bible is used to deny coherence. However, the issue of coherence in the Bible is one which must be explored beyond the level of mere contrary statements, which can easily be seen to have slightly different referents. One of the attractions, however, of secular academic methods is that, according to them, the interpreter is not bound to see a coherence between two different texts. This ‘liberates’ the interpreter from the constraint of fitting together texts which are incoherent and is held to be fairer to the text. The appeal thus of secular critical methods is that by them the interpreter is being more faithful to the Bible than within a framework ‘constrained’ by seeking to find a deep harmony between passages in Scripture. This view is a strong element motivating people to abandon a classical view of Scripture’s coherence derived from the Bible’s statements about God’s word. Nevertheless, this appeal needs to be examined to see whether it is all that it seems. In fact, much modern research on how language works indicates the importance of unexpressed elements in the context of a text for its correct understanding. The proper interpretation of texts therefore can require a wide context. Historical-critical scholars can, however, by their focus on the true meaning of small units of text be in danger of treating small isolated texts as self-interpreting. It is important to see clearly that fairness to a text does not necessitate viewing it in isolation. What is the natural reading of a text in isolation may in fact be a distortion of its meaning, while what is a less natural reading of a text in isolation, but one motivated by reading it in a wider context, may be the correct one. An example of this are passages in the prophets that seem to express prophetic disapproval of the OT sacrificial system and festivals (e.g. Isaiah 1:11–14). It would be possible to treat these statements as an isolated unit by some hypothetical author who believed that animal sacrifices should not be offered to God. However, viewing the verses within a wider context allows another interpretation. But there is a danger here. It is possible so to qualify the interpretation of a text by a wider context that one in fact drowns out the message of the individual text. An interpreter can bring a text into false harmony with another text. This must be avoided while also being wary of historical-critical approaches that use the identification of incompatibly divergent voices within Scripture as a foundation upon which to build a history of OT religion. Proponents of this method can seek to discover divergent voices within the OT since such divergences are the building blocks to write a ‘critical’ history, that is one not dependent on an uncritical acceptance of scriptural statements. The way to avoid misinterpretation seems to be to read texts as a whole and simultaneously with regard to the detail they contain. Detail can modify one’s interpretation of the whole, as can the whole modify one’s interpretation of the detail. The interpreter of Scripture also needs to be aware of the ramifications of positions taken on issues of interpretation. While coming to a view that two biblical texts cannot express truth about a coherent reality may appear like the best solution to an interpretative problem, it makes it hard to view both texts as coming from a single divine author. A student should expect a corpus as rich and diverse as the OT to present a balance of statements on a number of subjects and should not quickly conclude that variety of statements indicates a variety of theologies in the OT, if by ‘a variety of theologies’ is meant incompatible rather than merely complementary theologies. It might be urged that to encourage students to be patient in recognising unity within Scripture will lead to an uncritical approach. There are, however, many parallels for this within other academic disciplines. For example, while a popular perception of science is that it proceeds from evidence to understanding to belief, this is very often not the case. Invariably a student of quantum mechanics believes it before understanding it, often even believing it although never expecting to understand it. The order is as in Anselm’s saying credo ut intellegam ‘I believe in order that I may understand’. For Anselm, as for Augustine before him, belief preceded understanding. This is a frequent human order, because without the belief that something makes sense it is often difficult to summon the patience to see how it makes sense. If students believed quantum mechanics to be incoherent and to have no correspondence to the universe they would certainly not have the patience to study it as intensely as if they believed that it was one of physics’ great unifying theories with wide explanatory powers. There is, of course, a danger with credo ut intellegam, since it can be used to justify continuing to believe in something unworthy of belief. However, the principle of patient positive study of Scripture to find unity is not something that should be undervalued. One of the first issues that any student of the OT is faced with is the issue of historicity, or the question ‘Did it happen?’ Here one needs to be up-front about the importance of a historical basis for the Christian faith, and about the fact that the Church’s consensus up until the time of the Enlightenment was that the OT was true history. There were, of course, many for whom literal historicity was not the major concern. A prominent church father, Origen (ca. 185–254), was one of a number who stressed the primacy of the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. But this should not be taken to mean that he denied the general historicity of Scripture. Nor were considerations of the OT’s historicity without qualification. Martin Luther, for instance, accepted the book of Job as history but held that Job’s speeches in the book were not records of his actual words, but a creative expression by the author of Job’s thoughts. Luther thus maintained the historical nature of biblical books, but also that truth can be presented in a variety of literary genres. It Is Literature Too ‘Genre’ has, in fact, been a much-used word recently as a number of scholars have stressed the literary qualities of the OT. Various contemporary approaches maintain that many parts of the Bible contain literary structures showing careful composition. The relevance of this to the issue of history in the OT has been to shift the focus of investigation of certain texts from their historicity to their literary nature. Authors with literary approaches range from those who use the literary nature of a work to deny its historical nature through to those who accept the historical nature of the work but choose to focus on literary structures. Some such approaches to a text are called ‘synchronic’ because they seek to view the text without regard to temporal distinction in origin, and thus interpret the whole without considering historical development. The synchronic approaches are contrasted with the diachronic ones which look at the development of texts through time. Whatever approach ultimately is taken it must be justified on a basis other than widespread use. It is important that texts are allowed to speak for themselves and that a serious attempt is made to understand the focus and themes of a text as a whole. This said, no student can afford simply to ignore historical questions. Recognising a literary focus may even alter one’s view of the history to which a narrative refers. Thus King Jeroboam II of Israel receives relatively little treatment in the biblical narrative, much less than King Ahab, though there can be little doubt that in terms of his political achievements Jeroboam was by far the more significant. The emphasis of the biblical text thus differs from what would be given by a modern historian. The same mismatch between thematic biblical emphasis and generally applied quantitative criteria for importance is present with regard to the Babylonian exile. According to Jeremiah 52:29 the number of captives taken by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon at the time of the destruction of Jerusalem in 587/586 BC was 832. Thus one of the most significant events in the whole OT, round which Jeremiah and Ezekiel focus their narratives, which is the precondition for a book like Lamentations, and which is the culmination of the books of Kings (or arguably Genesis to Kings) is the deportation of a relatively small number of people. By contrast a much more significant military event just over a century earlier is passed over in these words: 'In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.' If Sennacherib’s own account of this expedition is to believed, he took 200,150 captives at this time. The average student with a general familiarity with the OT, but who had not studied it formally, would be quite surprised to know that there is no document outside the Bible that records Nebuchadnezzar’s capture of Jerusalem and taking of the people captive in 587/586 BC. This might even cause the student to conclude that the Bible’s narrative could not be relied on historically at this point. However, this would be because the student had confused narrative or theological importance with the sort of importance that would cause a foreign historian to record the events about the fall of Jerusalem. Besides, it would be to ignore the fact that the records of the other interested party, Nebuchadnezzar, no longer survive for the relevant period, the last surviving chronicle of his reign referring to 594/593 BC. All this means that it is very important to read the biblical narrative with the utmost care to ensure that one is not attributing significance to an event recorded, which it does not actually have. This could be to attribute a wrong international importance to a narrative or wrong archaeological significance to an event. A biblical account must be carefully examined as a narrative before one can properly assess its historical implications. Fact or Fiction? When the narrative of the OT is considered as a whole it is obvious that there is generally more agreement about the historical nature of records recounting events towards the end of the OT period than about those that report earlier events. Though some would assign the whole OT to the category of story with no historical basis, most scholars believe that narrative books such as Ezra and Nehemiah are substantially historical, and that books relating to earlier periods have successively less historical substance until one reaches zero some time before the opening of the Bible in Genesis. Among scholars the cut-off point varies greatly: some deny a basis for the Bible’s picture of Solomon’s splendour, more deny any historical basis for the Exodus, and only a minority accept that if there were patriarchs, they did anything like what is attributed to them in the Bible. Thus, broadly speaking, the more remote an event is from the present the more likely it is that its historicity will be doubted, disputed, or denied by scholars. This difference between nearer and more remote events is, of course, what would be expected if the biblical authors wrote basically towards the end of the period that the Bible is about, and possessed no super-human insight into the more remote periods. In that model, writers of Bible books were of course able to describe with moderate accuracy the time in which they lived and even preserve a certain amount of information about the time shortly before them. However, for more distant events they only had tradition, which was liable to corruption, and a certain level of imagination. Sometimes it is even said that in Bible times writers did not have a sense of history as we do now. However, differences in emphasis and historiography should not be taken to indicate a fundamental discontinuity between the approach to history then and now. Denial of a sense of continuity between attitudes to history then and now has particularly arisen with a postmodern view, which as part of a wider philosophical scheme refuses to acknowledge continuity between thought of the present and of the past. However, the question of the historicity of earlier parts of the Bible needs also to be seen from another perspective. What was more remote from biblical writers is also more remote from us, and when considering the biblical period greater uncertainties attach to modern scholarly reconstructions of earlier as opposed to later stages in that period. While the chronology of events in the fifth century BC is generally fixed to within a year, the chronology of a millennium before is open to wider dispute, with three quite different chronologies, for example, of the first dynasty of Babylon, varying by about 120 years, and related uncertainties sometimes of around 64 years in Egyptian dating. It is true that one particular chronology of Egypt, the ‘Low Chronology’, is more widely accepted, but it is important for a student to appreciate the various levels of uncertainty in the study of different periods. The gaps in our information about the history of the period around 1,000 BC when, according to the Bible, David was king are very much greater than those around the time when Nehemiah was governor of Judah in the fifth century BC. A further complication is the issue of antisupernaturalism (or naturalism) in historical investigation. It is possible, even common, for historians studying ancient texts to discount the possibility of narrated miracles, and to assume that only natural processes have been involved in the past. If processes other than natural ones have been at work then this naturalistic method will lead to historical distortion. For instance, in Deuteronomy 29:5 Moses points out to the Israelites how during forty years of wandering in the desert their sandals had not worn out. The narrative plainly appeals to something outside of ordinary processes, and there is the implication that if one sought for the usual evidence for sandal-wear it would not be there. There is the claim, then, of event without natural trace. If a scholar, therefore, were to argue that the wanderings did not happen on the ground of lack of evidence of wear on sandals, it would be an illegitimate argument. On the other hand, if a scholar were to argue that the wanderings did not happen on the ground of lack of evidence for bodies that perished in the desert, it would be a legitimate type of argument, because there is a legitimate expectation of evidence in this case. Of course, scholars often do not come to the view that they should not make allowance for miraculous or non-natural events on the basis of mere prejudice. Often they first come to an opinion that the genre or date of literature in the Bible is not such as we can expect to give us reliable information about non-natural processes in the past. Nevertheless, the issue of naturalistic presuppositions in scholarly discussion is one that a Christian needs to address. A student must assess independently the likelihood that any statement about ancient history, particularly in regard to the history within the Bible has been established on a basis which he or she may want to question. This is not to encourage a dismissive attitude to the work of others, but merely to encourage an awareness of the theory-laden nature of people’s observations. Nowhere do the conditions of remoteness and of naturalistic presupposition come more to the fore than in consideration of the highly disputed first eleven chapters of Genesis. The issue is too complicated to address here, but any solution reached with these chapters must be able to be consistently applied in method to other parts of the OT, and within a coherent Christian theology. But the pillars of scholarly consensus on the subject of OT history have not only been recently examined for assigning too great a level of certainty to scholarly reconstruction and naturalistic assumptions; in recent years scholarly consensus on the OT has been questioned from a new approach that is hyper-conservative in terms of sources admitted to discussion of history. Proponents of this approach have often been labelled ‘minimalists’. Niels Peter Lemche is a leading proponent of such a view and denies that the OT can be viewed in any way as historical in the classic sense of the word. Lemche clearly sees his approach as having advantages for a Christian viewpoint: This new trend [i.e. the trend of which Lemche is a part] seems to be liberating the Bible from the tyranny of having to be historically accurate in the most minute detail in order to remain a Bible for Christians and Jews. Lemche goes on to make a trenchant critique of the assumptions behind much OT study. Drawing on a variety of social-anthropological discussions Lemche claims that OT scholars have too often tried to view historical Israel with presupposed concepts of ethnicity and nationality that can be shown to be invalid. Nevertheless, the ‘minimalist’ critique of consensus historiography is not merely sociological. Lemche seeks to support his view with an examination of ancient documents seeking to establish that there is virtually no evidence for regarding the biblical narrative as a reliable source of historical information. When Enemies Are Friends Perhaps the easiest thing for a Christian student to do when faced with Lemche’s approach is to look for an instant refutation. Plenty of responses will be found both within mainstream scholarship and from explicitly Christian scholarship, which are firmly aligned in their opposition to minimalism. The lesson here is to see that the interplay between data and paradigm is extremely complex. Those with a common general outlook may disagree over data at the same time as those without a common outlook agree over it. In order to consider the dynamics here we will look at a specific issue in OT history, namely the relationship between the biblical figure Shishak and an Egyptian Pharaoh called Shoshenk. The Bible tells us that in the fifth year of Rehoboam’s reign King Shishak of Egypt came up against Jerusalem and took away a large amount of treasure from both the Temple and the royal palace (1 Kings 14:25–26). Shishak’s name in the Bible, especially in a consonantal form in which it occurs, šwšq, is naturally compared with the Pharaoh Shoshenk (low Egyptian chronology 945–924 BC), who invaded Palestine and recorded his invasion on a temple gate at Karnak in Egypt. The establishment of a time link, a synchronism, between the Bible and the Egyptian record has had important consequences in scholarship. First of all, it provides the earliest agreed record of an event recorded in the Bible which is also recorded in another document. Secondly, by the addition of the reigns of the kings of Judah within the Bible, the event can be given a date. This in turn is used to fix dates in Egyptian history, which otherwise would not be able to be calculated to the precision of a year. Shishak’s/Shoshenk’s invasion is calculated to ca. 926 or 925 BC. This striking agreement between the Bible and an Egyptian record has been called into question by some of those with more minimalist leanings. Garbini criticises the standard reconstruction for arbitrary manipulation of Egyptian chronology in order to achieve an agreement with the Bible. He argues that if Egypt were given its most natural chronology without biblical interference it would be seen that the campaign of Shoshenk did not take place during Rehoboam’s reign, but during the reign of his predecessor Solomon. The Bible has moved it in order not to take away from the glory of Solomon’s reign. A different critique of the synchronism is made by Lemche. He argues that there is a strong distinction between the Egyptian and biblical texts. Whereas the biblical text records that Shishak came up against Jerusalem (1 Kings 14:25), the Egyptian record lists a large number of towns captured during Shoshenk’s campaign, but gives no indication that he visited Jerusalem, or even came near it. Lemche concludes that the biblical account of Shishak’s campaign to Jerusalem has been made up by a later writer on the basis of a memory of a campaign by Shoshenk in Palestine generally. The detail that Rehoboam handed over gold to get rid of Shoshenk was made up on the basis of the way Hezekiah in 701 BC handed over gold to buy off the Assyrian Sennacherib. So far there appears to be a spectrum of opinion with minimalists at one end. A critical consensus stands between them and maximalists, among whom are a number of explicitly Christian scholars. A Christian student with a natural proclivity towards maximalism may be tempted to proceed at once to a critique of minimalism, perhaps even using arguments supplied from within an academic consensus to which they do not ordinarily belong. The problem is that this simple spectrum view does not reflect the whole truth, for this match between Egyptian history and the Bible has also been challenged from a quite different angle. As noted previously (footnote 25) there has been a small even more ‘maximalist’ trend in recent writing, which has been prepared to question more radically the foundations of Egyptian chronology. It has not succeeded in making a very significant dent in the consensus, but it has been most interesting to note some striking parallels between the writings of minimalists and these strong maximalists. Thus Bimson has challenged the equation between Shoshenk and the biblical Shishak. A key point in his argument is the geographical mismatch between the description of the campaign in the Bible and that in Karnak. Thus a scholar who has a very positive view of the historicity of biblical material is found to be using arguments with considerable affinity to those of one with a very negative view of biblical historicity. This illustrates how important it is to reject a spectrum view of modern scholarly literature. Almost all scholars have a large familiarity with material related to the OT, but their analysis can also be influenced by their wider beliefs. It is important therefore to understand a scholar’s work as a whole and to attempt to separate as far as possible information given from the interpretation put on it. Those who are positive towards the historicity of a narrative should not rule out the possibility that a minimalist’s critique of a scholar arguing for a more positive view of historicity is correct. Sometimes a scholar occupying a middle ground can be more guilty of mixing methodologies than a scholar at the extreme. This said, there is a lot of strength in the central ground. Despite critiques of Egyptian chronology the present consensus can be seen to provide considerable historical confirmation of the biblical account. The Egyptologist K.A. Kitchen, for instance, observes the vast amount of gold available in the Pharaoh’s coffers at a time directly after Shoshenk’s raid. It is not far-fetched to suppose that some of this is the gold which, according to the Bible, Rehoboam inherited from his fabulously rich father and surrendered to Shishak. But the records are mute, and coincidences like this may not provide incontrovertible proof of the correctness of a scholarly construction. So where does that leave us? A range of competent scholars come to quite different views of biblical historicity. Why do they do so? It is hard to deny that the results have at least as much to do with presuppositions as with data. Presuppositions can work at the highest level of one’s view of life as a whole, but can also provide smaller paradigms within which data are observed and ordered. A student needs to be aware of the interplay of data and interpretation, to avoid an approach which too readily claims historical confirmation of the Bible, and to see the paradigm-myopia of so many claims of disproof of the historicity of the Bible. A proper critique of minimalism needs first to understand what is right within minimalism. There are of course many problems with minimalism. To bolster its case minimalism has resorted to charges of archaeological forgery; it is constantly having to push the interpretation of data to the limits (and beyond). Moreover, its negative presuppositions are never given full justification. The most natural reading of quite a few sources is that they provide confirmation of the historicity of some of the events and persons within the biblical narrative. The seal impressions of a number of figures in the Bible have been found: King Ahaz, King Hezekiah, Jerahmeel the king’s son (Jeremiah 36:26), Baruch son of Neriah (Jeremiah’s scribe, in whose handwriting the book of Jeremiah would have been written), and Gemariah son of Shaphan (Jeremiah 36:12). The Mesha stele and Sennacherib’s annals provide, respectively, contrasting accounts of Mesha’s engagement with Israel, the subject of 2 Kings 3, and of Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem in 2 Kings 18–20. When adequate account is made of the difference of perspective of these enemy kings the outline of the biblical narratives receives broad confirmation. These documents, of course, are a long way from providing confirmation of the historicity of the Bible as a whole. In the writer’s opinion both attempts to prove the historicity of the Bible by external ‘confirmation’ and attempts to disprove its historicity have failed largely due to faulty paradigms. For this reason students in seeking to adopt positions consistent with the nature of Scripture as God’s Word need to distance discussion of detail somewhat from paradigms. That's as much as we can give you! To read the rest of this chapter, buy Encountering God's Word! Here's the section headings for what you're missing... Can Prophets Predict? How Many Authors? Is Genocide Ever Fair? Psalms of Hate? Use of Background Towards the New Testament Appendix: Reading the Bible Systematically It is a great privilege to read the Bible and thereby to have access to the mind of God. Here advice is given about how to read through the Bible systematically for the first time. The key thing is to read different books differently. With 929 chapters, it would be possible to read the whole OT at three chapters per day in 310 days. However, when this is attempted for daily devotions it often leads to dry patches which, unfortunately, make many a reader give up before finishing Leviticus. This is because not all parts of the Bible are equally accessible, even though all parts have a profound message for us. Thus while the narratives of Genesis may be gripping, in our culture few find the book of Jeremiah as easy to read. However, some of the hardest parts of the Bible are those which, in the long term, will be most rewarding. All that is advised here is that at first these difficult sections are not read as the prime ingredient of devotions. Broadly speaking for a first read of the Bible it is best to begin with the historical books, that is the narrative from Genesis to Esther in the order these books are found in the English Bible. These provide the historical backbone against which the prophets from Isaiah to Malachi can be understood. Since particular sections of the OT are often found to be hard work on first reading, the best way to read them is not as part of regular devotions, but by specially setting aside a more extended time, perhaps during a vacation, to work through them. Ideally these special reading times would occur roughly in line with the place of the books in the canon. The parts of the Bible that I would specifically advise are read in such intense sessions are: 1 Chronicles 1–9, 23–27 These chapters are no less important than those that surround them. But sometimes the major lesson from them is one made over the course of many chapters, not one summarised in a few sentences. The remaining books: Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs have a timeless quality about them which means that they can be read at any stage, though the last three are probably best read after one has read of the life of Solomon in 1 Kings. Psalms, however, is just the opposite of the books listed above. Because the psalms are largely prayers they speak directly to our own experience, and most of them are readily accessible to us. This means that if we read too much of them at any time we may end up taking less in than we would at a more leisurely pace. The best thing then with Psalms is to read the 150 psalms approximately one at a time over a more extended period. Coming to the New Testament for a moment. All of the NT books can easily be read in single sittings or spread out over a period. It is often useful to read NT alongside OT. Chapters in the Gospels and Acts are generally longer than those of other books. Reading half a chapter of the Gospels or Acts each day or a whole chapter of the other books of the NT, one can read through the NT in 377 days, or approximately a year. In conclusion, it is relatively simple to draw up a scheme of systematic Bible reading. But it is most advisable to allow flexibility in it for the type of material being read. This will make best use of the fact that, while much of the Bible speaks directly to our experience, other parts speak to us more on the grand scale of showing how God works. [This appendix appeared in the original RTSF booklet] Buy Encountering God's Word and two companion volumes for only £9.99! Deuteronomy 19:15. These presuppositions are discussed in Paul Helm and Carl Trueman, eds., The Trustworthiness of God: Perspectives on the Nature of Scripture (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). Proverbs 1:7. 2 Timothy 3:16–17. In Lester L. Grabbe, ed., Can a ‘History of Israel’ Be Written? (JSOTSS 245; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 104–122. Quotation from pp. 116–17. Davies, ‘Whose History?’, 117 n. 19. Davies even criticises Karl Marx’s view of history as ‘theistic’. Compare, for example, ‘I repent that I have made Saul king’ (1 Samuel 15:11) with ‘The Glory of Israel does not lie or repent’ (1 Samuel 15:29); or ‘They feared the Lord’ (2 Kings 17:33; cf. 17:41) with ‘they do not fear the Lord’ (2 Kings 17:34). If these statements were treated in isolation they could easily be ascribed to different levels in the compositional process. However, why should they not come from a single author? Witness the opening of Charles Dickens’ classic 1859 Tale of Two Cities, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...’ This is at the heart of the linguistic discipline of Pragmatics. A useful introduction to Pragmatics is Stephen C. Levinson, Pragmatics (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics; Cambridge: CUP, 1983). John F.A. Sawyer, Prophecy and the Biblical Prophets (rev. edn; Oxford: OUP, 1993) 21–24. See for instance the argument of Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:1–19. N.P. Lemche, The Israelites in History and Tradition (London: SPCK, 1998) 2, holds rather bizarrely that ‘the historical reading of the Bible is a comparative newcomer in comparison to such venerable procedures as allegorical understanding or typological interpretation…’. He manages to maintain this by stressing that exclusively historical interpretations only developed more recently. Theodore G. Tappert, ed., Luther’s Works, Vol. 54: Table Talk (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1967) 79–80. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (London: Allen & Unwin, 1981); Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, eds., The Literary Guide to the Bible (London: Collins, 1987); Adele Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (BLS 9; Sheffield: Almond, 1983); Shimon Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible (BLS 17; JSOTSS 70; Sheffield: Almond, 1989). This latter category includes many of the authors in Leland Ryken and Tremper Longman III, eds., A Complete Literary Guide to the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1993). Quite closely related to synchronic approaches is the ‘canonical’ approach, developed especially by Brevard S. Childs. See his Introduction to the Old Testament as Scripture (London: SCM, 1979). See also the evaluation of this with qualifications by Paul R. Noble, The Canonical Approach: A Critical Reconstruction of the Hermeneutics of Brevard S. Childs (BIS 15; Leiden: Brill, 1995). Jeroboam II is treated in the short passage 2 Kings 14:23–29 whereas Ahab is treated from 1 Kings 16:29–22:40, though some of this is taken up with the figure Elijah. 2 Kings 18:13. I am of course exaggerating the case slightly. Jeremiah 52:28–30 and 2 Kings 24–25 attest more than one deportation at the time of the Babylonian exile, involving more than 832 people. A worthwhile though tough aid to such reading would be Meir Sternberg’s The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985). This is generally the approach of Lemche in The Israelites. Speaking of Ezra and Nehemiah, David J.A. Clines says ‘From these books we learn virtually all we know about the history of the post-exilic community.’ See his Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1984) 14. Cyrus H. Gordon and Gary A. Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East (4th edn; New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997) represent a more maximalist trend towards viewing the Bible as historical while working within a secular framework. Thus Lemche, The Israelites, 2, quoted above. Paul Åström, ed., High, Middle or Low? Acts of an International Colloquium on Absolute Chronology Held at the University of Gothenburg 20th–22nd August 1987, Parts 1–3 (Gothenburg: Paul Åströms Förlag, 1987–1989). Very much on the fringe of scholarship, a small group has proposed ultra-low chronologies that reduce parts of the Egyptian low chronology by several centuries during the Third Intermediate Period (normally around 1069–664 bc). Proponents claim that such schemes are alternative paradigms into which conventional data can be arranged so as to provide striking confirmation of biblical narratives. See Peter James, et al., Centuries of Darkness: A Challenge to the Conventional Chronology of Old World Archaeology (London: Pimlico, 1992) and the journalistic David Rohl, A Test of Time: The Bible—From Myth to History (London: Century, 1995). Several scholars reply to the former book in the review feature in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal 1:2 (1991) 227–53, to which the authors respond on http://www.centuries.co.uk. One scholar who proposed a host of practical objections to the Exodus narrative was the nineteenth century figure John William Colenso, whose objections were particularly shocking at that time because he was Bishop of Natal. See his The Pentateuch and Book of Joshua Critically Examined, Volume 1 (London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1862). Not all his arguments are equally compelling, and several are predicated on an overly pedantic reading of the text. An example of a rather obtuse objection is that he rejects the historicity of the numbers of Levites given in the Pentateuch since they are counted in the first census in the book of Numbers as 22,000 males, and in the second 38 years later as 23,000 males (p. 110). His objection, based on population growth statistics in England from 1851 to 1861, is that they should have grown more (as he estimates starting from 22,000 to 48,471 thirty-eight years later). However, many of his objections are more substantial. After a long absence the possibility of constructing theories of origins outside of naturalistic assumptions is now firmly back on the agenda; see William A. Dembski, The Design Inference (Cambridge: CUP, 1998) and Dembski, Intelligent Design (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 1999). For an outline of the interaction between science and faith see Philip Duce, Reading the Mind of God (Leicester: Apollos, 1998). An approach which seeks to address some of the scientific issues but without the usual positivistic trappings of a Christian apologist is Leonard Brand, Faith, Reason & Earth History: A Paradigm of Earth and Biological Origins by Intelligent Design (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University, 1997). Scholars associated with this group include Niels Peter Lemche and Thomas L. Thompson, both of Copenhagen, and Philip R. Davies of Sheffield. Lemche and Thompson prefer the term ‘maximalist’ for themselves, but this is in part due to a rhetorical technique used by the Copenhagen scholars whereby they subvert accepted meanings of terms. See BAR 23 no. 4 (July/August 1997) 28. Lemche, The Israelites, 1. Lemche, The Israelites, 1. T.L. Thompson’s critique of much of the academic consensus in historiography is likewise framed in rather religious terms. See his The Historicity of the Patriarchal Narratives: The Quest for the Historical Abraham (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 133; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1974) 326–30. Lemche, The Israelites, 35–64. In the Bible the spelling of Shishak is normally q#y# (šyšq) but in 1 Kings 14:25 it is q#w# (šwšq), which is very close to the Egyptian consonantal spelling of Shoshenk, ššnq. Of course, it is necessary to count the reigns of the kings of Judah back from a fixed date. For a number of dates in OT history after 853 bc Assyrian documents are compared with biblical ones to provide chronological anchors. Giovanni Garbini, History and Ideology in Ancient Israel (tr. John Bowden; London: SCM, 1988) 29–30. There are important differences between Garbini and some other minimalists. See James Barr, History and Ideology in the Old Testament: Biblical Studies at the End of a Millennium (Oxford: OUP) 91–92. Lemche, The Israelites, 55–57. And we might add that according to 2 Chronicles 12:4 he captured all the fortified cities in Judah. For these see 2 Chronicles 11:5–12. Lemche, The Israelites, 57, 187. John J. Bimson, ‘Shoshenk and Shishak: A Case of Mistaken Identity?’, Journal of the Ancient Chronology Forum 6 (1992/93) 19–32. However, in the New Bible Commentary: 21st Century Edition, ed. D.A. Carson, R.T. France, J.A. Motyer, G.J. Wenham (Leicester: IVP, 1994) 355, Bimson identifies Shoshenk with Shishak. This may not be a revision of his earlier opinion, but rather a curtailment of discussion for a popular audience. Bimson became known for his book Redating the Exodus and Conquest (JSOTSS 5; Sheffield: JSOT, 1978), which argued that the Exodus was essentially historical. This sort of cross-over is not uncommon. The minimalist T.L. Thompson finds himself approving of Bimson’s critique of W.F. Albright’s widely accepted chronology. See Thompson, Early History of the Israelite People: From the Written and Archaeological Sources (Leiden: Brill, 1992) 24–25. Kitchen, ‘Where Did Solomon’s Gold Go?’ BAR 15 no. 3 (May/June 1989) 30. Lemche’s readiness even to raise the possibility that a properly excavated inscription mentioning the ‘House of David’, or another inscription mentioning kings of the Philistine city Ekron, are fakes shows a lack of judgement. He retracted the latter opinion in a footnote. However, before examination to have raised the possibility of forgery, with its implied slur on the behaviour of others, is one of the more disingenuous traits of Lemche’s behaviour. See BAR 23 no. 4 (July/August 1997) 36–38 and Lemche, The Israelites, 182 n. 38. This was certainly done by John Rogerson and Philip R. Davies in denying that the inscription commemorating the completion of the Siloam tunnel was from before the Babylonian exile. See Rogerson and Davies, ‘Was the Siloam Tunnel Built by Hezekiah?’, Biblical Archaeologist 59 (1996) 138–49, with a strong rebuttal in the multi-authored review feature ‘Defusing Pseudo-Scholarship: The Siloam Inscription Ain’t Hasmonean’ BAR 23 no. 2 (March/April 1997) 41–50, 68. Take Lemche’s statement of the biblical writers that ‘Everything narrated by them may in principle be historical, but the biblical text cannot in advance be accepted as a historical source or documentation; it has in every single case to prove its status as a historical source.’ The Israelites, 29. See for instance, Hershel Shanks, ‘Fingerprint of Jeremiah’s Scribe’, BAR 22 no. 2 (March/April 1996) 36–38. The Mesha stele, also known as the ‘Moabite Stone’, may provide some of the earliest references outside the Bible to the dynasty of David. See André Lemaire, ‘“House of David” Restored in Moabite Inscription’ BAR 20 no. 3 (May/June 1994) 30–37.

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For example, in my recent K12a admixture experiment, the six components. I named Mediterranean, North_European, Caucasus, Gedrosia, Southwest_Asian, and Northwest_African have a maximum Fst between any two of them of 0.073 (between Gedrosia and Northwest_African), and a mimimum Fst between any of them and any of the others of 0.075 (between Gedrosia and South_Asian). Henceforth, I will call these six components simply "the Six." It is remarkable that "Gedrosia", the component peaking in present-day Balochistan is about equidistant to the component peaking in Mozabite Berbers ("Northwest_African") and that peaking in South Indian Dravidian speakers ("South_Asian"). Going by geography alone, and even if we calculated distances "as the crow flies" and ignored all natural obstacles between Balochistan and the Sahara, we would have expected "Gedrosia" to be about 3 times more distant to "Northwest_African" than to "South_Asian". Divergence between populations across the entire genome builds up mainly by two processes: - Genetic drift Moreover, if these populations migrate from their original homeland and absorb the indigenous inhabitants wherever they go, then they will diverge even more, depending on how much admixture they undergo, and how distantly related the aboriginal inhabitants are. It is clear that admixture has played a role in the overall divergence of the Six. For example, the Northwest_African component is shifted (relative to the remaining five) towards the other African components; the Southwest_Asian is also thus shifted, but less noticeably. The Gedrosia component is shifted towards the South_Asian one; and the easternmost components, the North_European, and Gedrosia ones, are shifted towards the Asian components. All these shifts are quite salient in the MDS plot, and there is ample evidence for the aboriginal populations being shifted in the expected direction in each region. We can calculate the median Fst within the Six: it is 0.053, as well as the median Fst between members of the Six and all the rest: it is 0.13. The ratio of the two is ~40%. Of course, the various components have diverged from each other at different times: West and East Eurasians, for example, began diverging shortly after both diverged from Africans. Nonetheless, we can (conservatively) place the divergence time of the ancestors of the Six from East Asians, Ancestral South Indians, and Sub-Saharan Africans, at around 40,000 years ago, the time when the Upper Paleolithic (and modern man) makes its appearance all over the Old World. Actual divergence times may be lower, and this is why 40k is a conservative estimate. The point of this back-of-a-napkin calculation is to give a rough estimate, rather than a precise date. Assuming that Fst builds up roughly linearly with time due to drift (again a simplification), we can estimate that divergence within the Six dates to less than 16 thousand years ago. This may be an overestimate for two reasons: - Divergence between Proto-West Eurasians and the rest of mankind may be less than 40k years - Each of the Six have partially absorbed aboriginal inhabitants (e.g., Palaeo-Europeans, Ancestral South Indians, Pre-Berber North Africans, etc.) that spent most of the Paleolithic diverging from the common ancestors of the Six. The womb of nations The Neolithic of West Eurasia started, by most accounts, c. 12 thousand years ago. Its origin was in the area framed by the Armenian Plateau in the north, the Anatolian Plateau in the west, the Zagros Range in the east, and the lowlands of southern Mesopotamia and the Levant in the south. Intriguingly, the prehistoric site of Göbekli Tepe sits right at the center of this important area, in eastern Anatolia/northern Mesopotamia. If there is a candidate for where the ur-population that became the modern Six lived, the early Neolithic of the Near East is surely it. This hypothesis makes the most sense chronologically, archaeologically, genetically, and geographically. Migrants out of the core area would have spread their genes in all directions, becoming differentiated by a combination of drift, admixture, and the selection pressures they faced in different natural and cultural environments; some of them would acquire lighter pigmentation, others lactase persistence, malaria resistence, the ability to process the dry desert air or to survive the long winter nights of the arctic. These spreads were sometimes gradual, sometimes dramatic: they took place over thousands of years and from a multitude of secondary and tertiary staging points. In Arabia, the migrants would have met aboriginal Arabians, similar to their next door-neighbors in East Africa, undergoing a subtle African shift (Southwest_Asians). In North Africa, they would have encountered denser populations during the favorable conditions of MIS 1, and by absorbing them they would became the Berbers (Northwest_Africans). Their migrations to the southeast brought them into the realm of Indian-leaning people, in the rich agricultural fields of the Mehrgarh and the now deserted oases of Bactria and Margiana. Across the Mediterranean and along the Atlantic facade of Europe, they would have encountered the Mesolithic populations of Europe, and through their blending became the early Neolithic inhabitants of the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of Europe (Mediterraneans). And, to the north, from either the Balkans, the Caucasus, or the trans-Caspian region, they would have met the last remaining Proto-Europeoid hunters of the continental zone, becoming the Northern Europeoids who once stretched all the way to the interior of Asia. It is, perhaps, in the ancient land of the Colchi, protected by the Black and Caspian seas, and by tall mountains on the remaining sides, that something resembling the ur-population survived. The great linguistic diversity of the Caucasian peoples, the central position of the Caucasus component among the Six (see MDS plot), and the fact that theirs was a remote region, ignored by the empires of the Near East to the south, and the frequent travellers of the Eurasiatic steppe to the north, may all indicate the plausibility of this assertion. Through a peculiar coincidence, old Blumenbach may have been onto something, although for reasons he could scarcely have imagined. We don't have to suppose that a single process drove the dispersal of genes from the core area of the Near East. Agriculture was definitely an early facilitator of dispersal, but a variety of technological developments may have been instrumental in further spurts of dispersal: the invention of pottery, metalworking, pastoralism, sea navigation, the engines of war, all the way to the recent past, when ocean-going vessels from Western Europe sailed to the New World, Arab merchants and warriors spread their new religion to the continent of Africa, and Russian hunters and farmers began the conquest of Siberia.

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Thu November 3, 2011 Along With Humans, Who Else Is In The 7 Billion Club? The revelation this week that the Earth now holds 7 billion people, according to the U.N.'s population division, prompted a question: Who else is in the 7 Billion Club? To find out which other animals had reached that plateau, we asked wildlife experts — and they patiently explained why our innocent question was nearly impossible to answer. But then the experts gave us some best guesses. And the consensus was that humans are the largest animals on the planet to have a population numbering at least 7 billion — but they're certainly not the only ones to reach that mark. More on that in a minute — but first, let's start with the basic premise. It's very difficult to say with certainty, "Right now, there are 7 billion humans living on Earth." Because, as our colleague Adam Cole explained in his video and audio report, for every new drop in the bucket, there's always a drop or two leaking out of it. In fact, the U.N.'s choice of Oct. 31 as The Day We Hit 7 Billion comes with some caveats — as Mark reported, the margin of error on the estimate totaled around 56 million. And the date announced by the U.N. doesn't match up with what the U.S. Census Bureau predicts. On its own version of a World Population tracker, the U.S. agency estimates that humans won't hit the 7 billion mark until March 2012. So, there's some unavoidable uncertainty here — questions of scale and logistics make it impossible to count 7 billion people who are all alive at the same instant. And if you can't count humans, then how could you expect to count rodents or birds? The most challenging of all may be the fish. Because if a fish holds still long enough for you to count it, that might be because it has just died — and can no longer be counted. You see where this is going. So, the experts do what they do better than anyone: They estimate — and they calculate biomass. For those of you who are rusty on your ecology, biomass is determined by multiplying an estimated population by its members' average weight. So, for humans, our experts settled on approximately 350 million tons — or 7 billion x 50 kg (110 pounds). And if that number seems lighter than you'd think, consider that the estimate must take children's lighter weights into account. After contacting several experts from the World Wildlife Fund and David Kidd at London's Global Population Dynamics Database, here's the rough consensus that we came up with: Among land-based vertebrates, humanity's closest rivals in terms of sheer numbers are probably the brown rat (which, everyone agrees, outnumber us — but no one seems eager to count) and the domestic chicken (which numbered 18.6 billion in 2009, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization). And in terms of animals whose bodies are around the size of a human's, WWF International consultant Jonathan Loh, an honorary research associate at the Zoological Society of London, wrote us to say: "No other large mammal comes close to us in terms of numbers. According to the FAO, there are around 1.4 billion cattle in the world and about 1.1 billion sheep (in 2009). The total cattle biomass would be greater than ours (more than 500 million tons), but sheep biomass would be considerably less (below 100 million tons)." Loh was kind enough to provide data for a chart. While it doesn't pretend to be an exhaustive survey of species with large populations, it does give a sense of the range of life on Earth — and how different populations compare to one another. Update at 12:40 p.m. ET: We've adjusted the chart for clarity, because the totals we found for plants and animals were measured by dry carbon weight. Unlike the above measurements, they did not include water and other elements. Here are those totals, in units of million tons: - Terrestrial plants: 560,000 - Marine plants: 5-10,000 - Terrestrial animals: 5,000 Thank you to the alert readers who pointed out this potential cause for confusion. Our original post continues: Among all animals, ants outweigh us in biomass — putting billions and billions of tons up against humans' fewer than 500 million. And while they're both tiny and lacking a backbone, krill are the champs among animals worldwide, in terms of numbers, with a population estimated at 500 trillion. We asked researchers at the World Wildlife Fund in Washington, D.C., for their opinion — and for details about animals with large populations. The WWF scientists said that among birds, the most populous species is believed to be the red-billed Quelea; among fish, the Peruvian Anchoveta gets at least one expert's vote. "Elephants don't come close to us: There are about half a million of them, so they would weigh in at a couple of million tons" of biomass, Loh says. So, we've got the elephants beat. But lest we humans start getting full of ourselves for numbering 7 billion, one WWF expert reminds us, "The passenger pigeon used to number an estimated 3-5 billion, and look what happened ... that should send us all a warning!" And to be sure we got the point, another added, "Of course, within each human there are animals. So, our own parasites must outnumber us."

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NOVA: Who Killed Lindbergh’s Baby? Airs Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 9 p.m. on KPBS TV Monday, January 28, 2013 In the aftermath of his 1927 solo transatlantic flight, Charles Lindbergh became the most famous human being on earth. When he and his wife, Anne, had a son, Charlie, the press dubbed him Little Lindy. On March 1, 1932, kidnappers snatched Little Lindy from the family home near Hopewell, New Jersey. Negotiations stretched out for weeks, but Charlie never returned. His body was discovered not five miles from Hopewell. Now, in "Who Killed Lindbergh's Baby?," NOVA is reopening one of the most confounding crime mysteries of all time as a team of expert investigators employs state-of-the-art forensic and behavioral science techniques in an effort to determine what really happened to Lindbergh’s baby — and why. THREE ADVANCES IN FORENSICS Imagine placing the entire population of Wyoming’s capital city behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Studies estimate that roughly that number of people, or between one and five percent of the two million people in U.S. prisons, have been mistakenly convicted. One reason for these wrongful convictions is the fallibility of many of the methods currently used in forensic science. Read the entire article by Kate Nussenbaum for NOVA. STRANDS OF EVIDENCE You are what you eat, and what you eat ends up in your hair. Scientists in the U.S. and Europe have used this basic idea—and some sophisticated isotopic analysis—to devise a sort of hair-based GPS tracking system. A single strand contains information on your whereabouts over the past few months, a fact that law enforcement agencies are now using to solve crimes. Listen to the story by Ari Daniel Shapiro for NOVA.

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These were the voyageurs, the fur traders of the 17th, 18th, and early 19th Centuries in Michigan. They paddled canoes up and down rivers and streams and across the Great Lakes, canoes laden with up to 7,000 pounds of supply and trade goods and fur pelts. Most days meant fourteen and even sixteen or more hours of paddling, usually averaging 40 to 60 strokes a minute. When portaging, a frequent necessity, they ran, “dog-trotting” sometimes as long as two or three miles one way, carrying bundles of furs, before running those same two or three miles back for more. And they lifted weights, in the form of goods and packaged furs. Legend has some voyageurs running while carrying four or five 90-pound bundles, one in each hand and the others by using tumplines (“portage collars”) or slings. Surely such physical exertion, with only 10 or 15 minute breaks to smoke their ceramic pipes, was exhausting. Massive amounts of food were required for energy, strength, and stamina. Yet, as it is today, time was money. Stopping to hunt, fish, or gather for meals usually wasn’t an option. How, then, did these voyageurs manage? One of their dietary staples was pemmican, a centuries-old ancestor of energy bars. “Pemmican” comes from an Algonquin word, “pimihkan,” which means “grease” or “fat” or “one who makes grease.” And that’s just what it was, mostly fat or lard from bear, deer, moose, goose, or some other animals. The voyageurs learned how to make (and eat!) pemmican from the Indians. Narrow strips of venison, elk, moose, and, later, buffalo meat were cut and dried, either slowly over a fire or in the sun. The dried meat was then pounded with stones or rocks, pulverized to a near-powder consistency. Meanwhile, fat, lard, or grease was liquefied and poured into a leather pouch or mocuck (basket made of birch bark). The powdered meat was added, sometimes with fruit such as cherries, apples, or berries that had been similarly prepared. The grease then congealed, providing a light (but not on the stomach, I’d imagine), easy-to-carry food that would last a long time, several years even. If time was available, the pemmican would be mixed with water and flour to cook as a sort of porridge or stew. This was called rubbaboo. One historian who studied the eating habits of the voyageurs noted, “Pemmican is supposed…to consist only of pounded meat and grease; [that is] an egregious error…. Hair, sticks, spruce leaves, stones, sand, etc. enter into its composition, often quite largely.” It all sounds pretty yummy. If not, well, pemmican and rubbaboo served the energy and strength needs of the voyageurs quite nicely. To compare “energy bars,” past and present, I consulted Liz Bailey, RD, CDE, a clinical dietician and diabetes educator at Huron Valley Sinai Hospital in Commerce Township. She’s also an accomplished marathoner and triathlete, of the modern variety, though. “Pemmican is used today,” she said, “by long-distance hikers, like those doing the Appalachian Trail, because it is packed full of so many calories. A pound of pemmican can provide up to 3600 calories.” But, she added, “The downfall of pemmican is that it is very high in saturated fat and cholesterol and provides no fiber.” It “is strictly fat and protein. In the past it has been mixed with some berries, which added small amounts of carbohydrate, but in general it is mostly fat and protein.” So, the “fat” provided energy and the “protein” strength, both needed by the voyageurs. Runners also require both energy and strength, but our tastes are a bit more discriminating. And, as Bailey explained, science helps us out, too. “Carbohydrates and protein have four calories per gram versus fat which has nine calories per gram. So fat provides one and a half times more energy per gram than protein and carbohydrates. Fat, however, cannot be used for quick energy like carbohydrates can. The carbohydrate in energy bars is available for quick energy where the fat in pemmican is slow to digest and be converted into a usable form of energy.” Energy bars, then, are our answer to the voyageurs’ dietary requirements. Bailey summarized, “Carbohydrate is arguably the most important source of energy for athletes. No matter what sport, carbohydrates provide the energy that fuels muscle contractions. They are the main fuel sources for the muscles and brain.” “Proteins,” she added, “are the building blocks of the body. They consist of combinations of structures called amino acids that combine in various ways to make muscles, bone, tendons, skin, hair, and other tissues.” But proteins aren’t stored well by the body, so must be taken in regularly to help rebuild and restore muscle tissue after strenuous exercise. Fat, on the other hand, should be restricted, but not eliminated, kept to “20% to 35% of total energy intake.” It does “provide fuel for long distances and low- to moderate- intensity exercise, such as marathons and ultra-marathons. Even during high-intensity exercise, fat is needed to help access stored carbohydrate (glycogen).” For more specific information on percentages, recommended daily allowances, and more for individual needs, consult a registered dietician. Bailey, in her athletic endeavors, uses energy bars, but issues cautionary notes. “They do not typically work well for pre-run consumption due to the fat and fiber in them. Fat and fiber cause food to stay in the stomach longer and can cause GI [gastro-intestinal] issues.” Although they can be advertised as such, she said, “I don’t like people to use them for meal replacements because they can get much better overall nutrition from complex carbohydrate foods, fruit, etc.” She noted, “Many people select energy bars by taste, but other aspects of their nutrition and purpose affect the decisions of what bars people choose to use.” “I never use energy bars before a run, but I will use them when I am doing a long bike ride, kayaking, or backpacking. They are small, lightweight, and easy-to-pack [like pemmican?]. In the kayak, they are waterproof and I can put them on the deck for easy access.” She urged users to check the labels, noting the amounts of carbohydrate, protein, fat, and fiber. She recommended, “Watch calories and fat. Up to 300 calories and 10 grams of fat are reasonable for a meal replacement, but cut that in half for a snack. Choose a bar with at least 30 grams for carbohydrates if you plan to engage in long periods of exercise. The same for protein if you’re working those muscles. Look for vitamins and minerals like calcium and iron that you wouldn’t get from foods. Limit saturated fat to three grams or less per bar. Go for bars with three grams of fiber, for weight control.” She admitted, “As far as I am concerned, they don’t offer anything great,” “I use them only for convenience.” In the history of Michigan, the voyageurs played an important, if rarely recognized, role. Imagine what they could have done with energy bars instead of pemmican! Leave a Comment

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12. apr 2007 00:00 There are dangers lurking in the highlands of western Norway. Towering over beautiful fjords is a 600-metre long crack in a steep mountainside. The crack worries researchers, not least in the tourist village of Geiranger. Åknesremna is a crack in the mountain located 800 metres above sea level in Møre & Romsdal County. It is widening by three to 10 centimetres each year. Researchers know that this can only mean one thing: a landslide is imminent. PHOTO: ÅKNES/TAFJORD-PROSJEKTET Named Åknesremna (the Åknes Rift), the crack is located at an elevation of about 800 metres above sea level in Møre & Romsdal County. It is widening by three to 10 centimetres each year. Researchers know that this can only mean one thing: a landslide is imminent - and this won't be the first time. Tidal waves in Norway Norway has experienced several huge tidal waves along the coastline and in the fjords. The best known disaster is the Tafjord slide that occurred in 1934. Parts of the mountainside simply dropped off, causing a 64-metre high tidal wave to wash about 200 metres inland. It completely wiped out the villages of Tafjord and Fjøra in Møre & Romsdal County. Can happen again Researchers are painfully aware that disasters like that can happen again. Consequently, they want to do everything they can to ensure the earliest possible warnings as there will be no time to spare. They have calculated that if Parts of the mountainside simply dropped off, causing a 64-metre high tidal wave to wash about 200 metres inland. The tidal wave made kindling wood out of houses in Tafjord. PHOTO: SCANPIX the Åknesremna were to break off, the tidal wave would reach Geiranger just ten minutes later! In other words, every second will count. A state-of-the-art surveillance system records the tiniest little movement in the mountain. Using lasers, radar and GPS, the mountain is studied carefully. There is even a weather station that provides continuous weather reports from the area. It is important to keep an eye on the wind, precipitation and temperature. Unfortunately, these steep mountainsides are not very easily accessible. For that reason, eight helicopter pads have been built in the mountain highlands. Helicopters convey people and equipment to where they are needed. There are also two bunkers where the researchers have provisions, electricity and sleeping accommodations. Automatic early warning It is particularly important to keep an eye on the systems of cracks, or fractures as they are called. From experience, researchers know that the level of activity increases as a landslide becomes imminent. In a manner of speaking, when the mountain gets very active, it sends out its own early warning. By constant monitoring, researchers therefore believe that they can predict a slide least one day in advance. The daily newspaper Aftenposten covered about the tidal wave that struck Tafjord in 1934. PHOTO: SCANPIX Calculating waves Surveying and monitoring are not limited to the mountainsides. To be prepared as well as possible in the event of a landslide, it is also important know a great deal about the seabed in the fjords. Such knowledge makes it possible to calculate how high the waves can be, and how quickly they will travel up the fjord. By mapping the shore zone, scientists can figure out how far waves will wash up on shore. Breaking the waves Scientists have vast amounts of data from readings and from disasters as a result of past slides and floods. Computers allow them to use the data to simulate what would happen if there were to be a landslide. They can predict where the tidal wave will peak, and where it will be most dangerous. This information is especially important for municipalities, so that they can prevent building and construction, etc., in dangerous locations. This enables them to avoid the type of disasters that have struck this and other areas so many times before. Translated by Linda Sivesind *Published in 'Nysgjerrigper' no. 2/07* Last modified: 12.04.2007

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Sotos syndrome is a rare genetic disorder characterised by abnormal growth before age three. Children with Sotos syndrome are significantly larger than other children their age. Children with Sotos syndrome may also have impaired intellectual development and behavioural problems. Sotos syndrome is also sometimes called cerebral gigantism. What Causes Sotos syndrome? Sotos syndrome is genetic, but is not necessarily an inherited condition. Is Sotos syndrome serious? Sotos syndrome is not life-threatening, but it can result in developmental delays and behavioral problems. Children with Sotos syndrome have a normal life expectancy. Can I Prevent Sotos Syndrome? Sotos syndrome is genetic, but necessarily inherited. There are some instances of families with more than one individual with Sotos syndrome, but most cases appear sporadically. How do I know if my child has Sotos syndrome? Kids with Sotos syndrome are born with abnormally large heads (macrocrania) and are often taller and heaver throughout the toddler years. They may have a protruding forehead, large hands and feet, and downward-slanting eyes. Growth generally slows to normal around preschool, but intellectual disabilities may remain. Children may also experience decreased muscle tone, clumsiness, awkward gait, speech impairments, and aggressiveness. How do I treat Sotos syndrome? Sotos syndrome itself requires no treatment. However, early academic intervention and physical therapy may help your child reach his full potential. Should I call the doctor? Sotos syndrome is most often diagnosed at birth or during a routine baby clinic visit. Your doctor will monitor your child's growth and development and help you devise a treatment plan that best suits your child's intellectual needs. Other sources of help include your child's teachers, school psychologist, and other parents with children who have Sotos syndrome. What you need to know about Sotos syndrome - Sotos syndrome is a rare genetic disorder, affecting 1 in 14 000 babies. - Kids with Sotos syndrome may be born with large heads, protruding foreheads, large hands and feet, and weigh more than other newborns. - Sotos syndrome is not life-threatening and children can lead healthy, productive lives. Find more relevant articles and information: - Read more about baby development from newborn to 3 months - Read more about baby development from 3 months to 6 months - Learn more about mental retardation Written by Rebecca Stigall for Kidspot, Australia's parenting resource for family health. Sources include Better Health Channel, NSW Health and Health Insite. Last revised: Wednesday, 20 January 2010 This article contains general information only and is not intended to replace advice from a qualified health professional.

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Organic vs Conventional: Do N-fixing bacteria care? Healthy crops come from healthy soil. Soil fertility depends on an incredible diversity and abundance of soil critters, from the microscopic to the flying and creepy crawly. Together these critters cycle nitrogen (N) and many other essential minerals and nutrients, making them available to plants. The complexity of what goes on in healthy soil is truly awe-inspiring. A key group of organisms that provide the soil with one nutrient that's often in short supply are the N-fixing soil bacteria. And according to a recent study by UK scientists, it turns out these organisms do a better job when they're working on organic farms. The study authors concluded that nitrogen-fixing bacteria are particularly sensitive to the toxic effects of chemical pesticides. They found that nitrogen fixation dropped off when pesticides were used, compared to when farmers employed organic pest management tools. N-fixing bacteria help farmers' bottom line The National Academy of Sciences estimated in 2007 that in Brazil, nitrogen fixation reduced the need for nitrogen fertilizers to the tune of $1.3 billion in farmer savings. How do these specialized bacteria pull this off? They transform abundant but unusable nitrogen in the air (constituting 79% of the air we breathe) into plant-available nitrogen. In a finding that supports the UK study, the authors of the 2007 NAS report also described how pesticides reduce the capacity of legumes (such as beans, peas, soybeans and alfalfa) to fix nitrogen by disrupting the chemical signaling between the legume host plants and the bacteria. The scientists estimated that pesticides and other contaminants can reduce legume plant yields by as much as one third. In an apparently contradictory finding, the UK study also reported that use of conventional fertilizers, compared to organic manures, led to greater nitrogen-fixing activity immediately following fertilizer applications. This is somewhat confusing, as you would think N-fixing bacteria would thrive best with organic soil amendments like manures and composts, rather than petroleum-derived, greenhouse gas-generating fertilizers. But, organic amendments are still the way to go — for many reasons. Helping the soil help itself Organic practices, unlike conventional chemical-dependent practices, focus on helping the soil help itself: building soil health and fertility by protecting and increasing levels of organic matter. Soil organic matter, organic amendments and soil critters support each other, and together supply the myriad nutrients necessary for healthy and vigorous plant growth. Chemical fertilizers, on the other hand, are environmentally "expensive" shortcuts requiring fossil fuels for production, transportation to far-away farms and eventually driving water contamination both in the form of nitrate-laced drinking water and in the form of our huge and growing oceanic deadzones. As the authors of the UK article rightly point out, it is likely phosphorus (P), rather than nitrogen, that explains the jump in N-fixation after conventional fertilizers are applied (which makes good sense, as legumes tend to be rather P-demanding). But this topic of soil P and the important role of another group of specialized soil microorganisms — fungi — will have to wait for another post.

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With an aging population susceptible to stroke, Parkinson’s disease and other neurological conditions, and military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with serious limb injuries, the need for strategies that treat complex neurological impairments has never been greater. One tack being pursued by neuroscientists and engineers is the development of “smart” neural prostheses. These devices are intended to restore function, through electrical stimulation, to damaged motor neural circuits – the long, slender fibers that conduct neurochemical messages between nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. It is the rapid-fire transmission of messages between nerve cells that prompts the body’s movements, leading the hand to whisk away a fly, the leg to stretch, the head to turn. And it is disruption of these messages that leads to impairment, including paralysis, staggered gaits and other forms of motor dysfunction. Simple forms of neural prostheses -- some external, some implantable -- have been developed over the last four decades to treat loss of hearing, bladder control and respiration. And recent advances have led to the development of some “smart” neural prostheses, which engage higher levels of brain function. However, significant challenges remain in developing ever-more precise implanted neural interfaces that operate at the cellular level and that will provide even greater precision and fidelity in restoring function. Harnessing the brain’s “plasticity” To truly harness the capacity of neural prostheses to treat complex damage of the nervous system, the devices must be designed to exploit the brain’s “plasticity,” or capacity for change, says Michael Merzenich, PhD, UCSF Francis A. Sooy Professor of Otolaryngology and a member of the Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience at UCSF. Merzenich’s pioneering studies over three decades have revealed the capacity of the brain to rewire itself in response to new conditions, even during adulthood and aging. And in developing the first neural prosthesis – the cochlear implant, in the early 1980s -- and software programs for language and learning disabilities in the mid 1990s – he has demonstrated that the brain has the capacity to actively engage in a remediation, or retraining, process. “The brain is amazingly adaptive,” says Merzenich. “Our early studies developing the cochlear implant showed that the brain can take crude electrical inputs and interpret them and create new constructs,” he says. “But our studies showed that the brain wants to receive this information in certain forms. Information delivered from the interface of a device has to be adequate for the brain to extract enough information to reestablish control.” As neural prosthetics involve extracting neurological information from the higher levels of the brain, and transmitting it back to a critical nerve center in an unfamiliar form, he says, they should engage the brain in this process. ”The success with any complicated prosthetic device relates as much to how the brain adjusts to it, accepts it and controls its use as it does to the device itself. If we can figure out how to engage the brain to do its part it can make a merely adequate neural prosthetic device work marvelously.” Merzenich will present a talk, “The role of plasticity in the nervous system in neural prosthetics,” at the AAAS symposium “Smart prosthetics: Interfaces to the nervous system help restore independence” (8:30-11:30 a.m., Friday, Feb. 16, 2007). Neural prostheses can be “smart” in various ways, says Merzenich. They can: be smart in and of themselves, by operating “intelligently” adapt to the brain tissue environment in which they are introduced be designed to grow in their utility as the brain is trained to take advantage of them In all cases, he says, devices should be organized to engage the brain in ways that “enable plasticity and promote plasticity,” such as by: delivering plasticity-enabling chemicals providing a body/brain/device interface that maximizes the potential for plastic adaptation applying stimuli in forms that effectively induce plastic change enabling the implementation of an intensive training program that makes the most out of the device Alternative forms of plasticity-based training Notably, Merzenich’s own current research focuses not on developing neural prosthetics, but rather on developing intensive plasticity-based mental and physical training programs. His targets are schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, functional losses in normal aging, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease, acquired movement disorders, autism, and learning, language and reading impairments in children. “We are trying to see how far we can drive the brain in corrective directions by intensive training without a device,” he says. In these cases, the neural circuits at play are those that receive sensory inputs – smell, touch, taste, sound and sight – support memory and cognition, and orchestrate behaviors. Merzenich’s ongoing studies involving the use of software to accelerate the speed at which children with language and learning disabilities process sound suggest he’s on track. (His patented findings led to his founding in 1996, with Paula Tallal of Rutgers University, Scientific Learning, a therapeutic software company in Oakland, California.) And numerous clinical trials targeting the other neurological conditions are producing encouraging results. A clinical trial for schizophrenia, underway at UCSF and Yale, aims to drive misdirected neural circuitry in a normal direction, though cognitive therapy, perceptual training, movement control, response control. The results of this trial (supported by a second therapeutic software company that he has co-founded, Posit Science, in San Francisco) are “outstanding,” he says, far better than those produced by the standard medication for the disease, but at this early stage in the development of the strategy the regimen requires a burdensome 100 hours of work. Other clinical trials under way at UCSF involve normal and infirm aging populations, including mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s patients. The studies on autism are the least developed, he says. “We’ve trained thousands of autistics with our child training programs, but our training tools and their effective applications are still very limited. We know that we can provide much better help for these individuals.” Merzenich is not currently collaborating with neural stem cell scientists, but he talks with them, and thinks about their work. With the establishment of new neurons in the brain, he says, “brain plasticity will have to be a substantial and necessary part of recovery.” “These are interesting stories,” he reflects. “They do not involve trying to substitute, compensate or work around a problem. In each case, the work involves trying to correct the processing in the machinery with the machinery being substantially intact.” Written from a news release by University of California - San Francisco.

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The Author of the Epistle - The apostle Paul (1:1). The style, delicacy, and intimacy of the epistle are Pauline in character. The mention of Timothy along with ch.4:15-16 are further indications of Pauls authorship. The Place Where it was Written - Rome where Paul was a prisoner (see 4:22 and 1:13 with Acts 28:16), awaiting the verdict which he expected to be favourable (1:25; 2:23-24). This is one of the four epistles written during his first imprisonment at Rome, the others being Ephesians, Colossians, and Philemon. The Date of the Epistle - It seems from 2:23 that the epistle was written toward the end of Pauls imprisonment. This corresponds with the period of time necessary for the preaching mentioned in 1:12-18 and the gift received from Philippi (1:5; 4:14-19). A suggested date would be 61-62 AD. The Background to the Epistle - In Acts 16 we are told that Philippi was a Roman colony. Colonists from Rome had settled there in the midst of an alien population. They were citizens of Rome, and their customs, language, laws, and dress were Roman. They owned their allegiance to the Roman Empire and their safety was guaranteed by a garrison of Roman soldiers. In his epistle Paul applies all this to the assembly (local church) in Philippi, viewing it as a heavenly colony. The saints were therefore to conduct themselves as citizens of heaven, owning allegiance to Christ. The Purpose of the Epistle - We suggest five reasons for the writing of this epistle:_ 1. To express Pauls gratitude for the gift sent to him (Chap 1:5; 4:10,14-19). 2. To emphasize the need for harmony (Chap 1:27; 2:1_4; 3:16; 4:2-3). 3. To expose their enemies (Chap 1:28; 3:2,18_19). 4. To exhort them in spiritual things (1:27-30; 2:12-16; 3:17-21; 4:4-9). 5. To enrich their appreciation of Christ (2:5-11). The Division of the Epistle - The epistle divides readily into the four chapters:_ Chapter 1 Christ the Passion of a Devoted Life (V 21). Chapter 2 Christ the Pattern of a Delivered Life (V 5). Chapter 3 Christ the Pursuit of a Dedicated Life (Vs 10_14). Chapter 4 Christ the Power of a Dependent Life (V 13). Chapter 1 Confidence in the Purpose of God. Chapter 2 Conformity to the Pattern of Christ. Chapter 3 Constant Progress in the Pursuit of Christ. Chapter 4 Concern for the People of God. In chapter 1 the apostle shows his confidence in the purpose of God despite the conditions in which he is found. Here the mind of Christ will give us a love for the gospel and cause us to rejoice when it is preached, whatever the circumstances. In chapter 2 Paul unfolds the perfect pattern of humility in seeking the interests of others, and exhorts the saints to be conformed to Christ. Here the mind of Christ will give us a love for the assembly (local church) and cause us to seek humbly the welfare of our fellow believers. In chapter 3 the apostle shows the need for constant progress in the Christian pathway, with Christ-likeness as the goal. Here the mind of Christ will give us a love for the heavenly manner of life. In chapter 4 Paul shows his concern for the spiritual welfare of Euodias and Syntyche and thus for all the saints. Here the mind of Christ will give us a love that will seek to heal every breach. The Key Verse - 1:21. Note:- The Purpose of the Christian Life (1:21), The Principles of the Christian Life (2:3-4), The Pursuit of the Christian Life (3:13-14) and The Power for the Christian Life (4:13). The Key Word - Joy. The epistle seems to be permeated with the spirit of joy despite the apostles imprisonment. The words "joy" and "rejoice" occur eighteen times in the epistle. It has been stated, "The sum of the epistle is: I rejoice; you must rejoice." Another keyword is "gospel" which occurs 9 times - Note in Chapter 1:- fellowship in the gospel (1:5), confirmation of the gospel (1:7), furtherance of the gospel (1:12), defense of the gospel (1:17), becometh the gospel (1:27), and faith of the gospel (1:27). "Jesus Christ" or "Christ Jesus" occurs 17 times and "Christ" 18 times The preposition "in" occurs frequently. Eight times we have the expression "in the Lord" and each one deals with practical daily experience.

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Many neuro-imaging studies claim to have investigated what happens in the brain when people interact socially. To overcome the awkward fact that participants have to lie entombed in the bore of a large magnet, these studies have used various means to simulate a social interaction. This includes: having participants watch videos of social interactions; interact with an animated character; or play a game with a human opponent (usually computer controlled) supposedly located in another room. Such methods score marks for improvisation but arguably none of them fully capture the dynamic cut and thrust of a real face-to-face social interaction between two people. That's why Elizabeth Redcay and her colleagues have devised the first ever experimental set up that allows for live face-to-face (via video link) interaction whilst participants are prostrate inside a brain-imaging magnet. Participants in this study watched a live video feed of the experimenter. The experimenter in turn had a display showing them a live feed of where the participant was looking. Experimenter and participant then engaged in a series of 'games' that required social interaction. For example, in one, the experimenter picked up various toys and the participant had to look in the direction of the appropriately coloured bucket to which the toy belonged. Compared with watching a recording of this same interaction, the live interaction itself triggered increased activation in a swathe of social-cognitive, attention-related and reward processing brain regions. The second experiment involved the participant identifying which screen quadrant a mouse was hidden in. In the live 'joint attention' condition, the experimenter's gaze direction cued the mouse's location and only when both experimenter and participant looked at the correct quadrant did the mouse appear. Compared with a solo condition in which a house symbol cued the mouse location, the interactive joint attention condition triggered increased activation in the right superior temporal sulcus and right temporal parietal junction. The former brain region has previously been associated with processing socially relevant stimuli such as eye gaze and reaching, whereas the latter temporal-parietal region is associated with thinking about other people's thoughts. Past research using simulations of social interaction has identified the dorso-medial prefrontal cortex as a key area involved in social engagement. The quietness of this region in the current study suggests it may have been the competitive or social judgement elements of previous paradigms, rather than social interaction per se, that led to its activation. 'Social interaction in the presence of a live person (compared to a visually identical recording) resulted in activation of multiple neural systems which may be critical to real-world social interactions but are missed in more constrained, offline experiments,' the researchers said. Redcay's group said their new set-up would be ideal for studying the social difficulties associated with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). Attempts to identify the neural bases of these difficulties have previously met with mixed success. 'A neuroimaging task that includes the complexity of dynamic, multi-modal social interactions may provide a more sensitive measure of the neural basis of social and communicative impairments in ASD,' the researchers said. Redcay E, Dodell-Feder D, Pearrow MJ, Mavros PL, Kleiner M, Gabrieli JD, & Saxe R (2010). Live face-to-face interaction during fMRI: a new tool for social cognitive neuroscience. NeuroImage, 50 (4), 1639-47 PMID: 20096792 Image courtesy of Elizabeth Redcay.

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Doretta Royer 315 464-4833 Breakthrough research on cilia may provide clues to new therapies to fight disease SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A team of investigators, led by Peter D. Calvert, Ph.D., of Upstate Medical University, has made a major breakthrough in research regarding degenerative and neoplastic diseases, such as cancer, using an experimental strategy and mathematical analyses they had developed in the laboratory. The result of their work has allowed one of the most prevalent hypotheses in cell biology and medicine—that the bases of cilia restrict proteins from entering or exiting the ciliary compartments—to be rejected for soluble proteins. The transport of proteins to and from cilia is crucial for normal cell function and survival. This discovery allows researchers to focus their efforts on finding other mechanisms for the confinement of soluble proteins to the cilia. The study appears in the March issue of the Journal of General Physiology. Cilia are thin, hair-like projections emanating from most mammalian cells. Their function is well understood in only a few cell types, which include the photoreceptor cells in the retina, but it is clear that they are vital to normal cell function and to human health. “Over the last decade hundreds of genetic mutations that lead to devastating, multiple organ diseases, including those causing blindness and deafness, cancer, kidney disease, obesity, mental retardation and many others, have been attributed to genes that encode proteins that are involved in the construction, maintenance, signaling or transport of molecules within cilia,” said Calvert, assistant professor of ophthalmology and adjunct assistant professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Upstate. “Understanding how cilia manage these tasks is of paramount importance for finding therapies and cures for these debilitating and life-threatening diseases.” Calvert adds that one of the major questions faced by scientists studying cilia is how proteins are transported to this tiny structure and how, once they arrive there, they are retained. “One of the favorite mechanisms proposed is that specialized transport molecules deliver proteins into the cilium where they are then trapped by some sort of barrier that prevents them from diffusing back into the cell body,” said Calvert. “The same barrier was thought to prevent non-cilium proteins from entering this exclusive organelle. This idea was difficult to test because cilia are smaller than can be resolved by even the most powerful optical microscopes. Calvert and his colleagues developed an experimental strategy and mathematical analyses that allowed them to break the resolution limit and address the question of whether or not there is a barrier to diffusion of soluble proteins within the cilia of rod photoreceptors. They measured the diffusive movement of a genetically engineered photoactivatable green fluorescent protein into the cilia of rod photoreceptors in the eyes of African clawed frogs. They found that the rod cilium did not slow the diffusion of this soluble protein more than other parts of the rod cell and it did not stop it from moving between areas of the cell bridged by the cilium, leading to the rejection of the hypothesis that the cilium acts as a barrier to the movement of soluble proteins. Search Upstate News Upstate in the News - Paige's Butterfly Run fund raising on pace with last year; Check out how your co-workers, friends ran Syracuse Post Standard - Bowlers make "Strikes Against Strokes" at Flamingo Lanes News 10 Now - Type 2 Diabetes in Youth Progresses Faster, More Aggressively Than in Adults, Even Under Optimal Treatment Conditions American Diabetes Association - May is Stroke Awareness Month News 10 Now - SUNY Upstate Medical University graduation Sunday Syracuse Post Standard - SEFCU donates $250,000 to Upstate Medical University Central New York Business Journal

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On this day in1754, novelist Henry Fielding leaves London for Lisbon seeking a healthier climate. Fielding had suffered from ill health for some time, but his trip to Lisbon fails to ease his condition. He dies there two months later. Fielding dropped out of Eton at age 17 and started supporting himself as a successful playwright. He wrote more than two dozen plays, but his drama career ended when his satire Historical Register of the Year 1736 enraged the prime minister. In search of a new livelihood, Jones studied law and edited a newspaper for several years. Meanwhile, in 1740, Samuel Richardson's epistolary novel Pamela was published and became enormously popular. A spoof on the book, called Shamela(1741), was generally credited to Fielding, though he never admitted authorship. He did admit to writing Joseph Andrews, another satire, in 1742. In 1748, Fielding was appointed justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex. He played an important role in breaking up criminal gangs. He published one more novel, Amelia (1751), before his death in Lisbon, Portugal, in 1754. Fielding's most famous novel, Tom Jones, was printed in 1749. The novel told the humorous story of the attempts of the illegitimate but charming Tom Jones to win his neighbor's daughter. The novel boasted a vast cast of characters and provided a sweeping comic portrait of 18th-century England.

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Photo: John Evans (flickr) Cancer can be a long and painful disease. Many times, the drugs that are used to fight cancer can be just as excruciating as the disease itself. Antibiotics, as the name implies, work against life, or more specifically, against living cells. Most antibiotics, such as penicillin or erythromycin, attack bacterial cells in specific ways that don’t affect animal cells. That way the bacteria causing the infection are destroyed without harming the patient. But cancer is different from other diseases in that the cells in a cancer tumor are human cells. The main difference between cancer cells and healthy cells is that the cancer cells are multiplying uncontrollably. Therefore, the antibiotics that attack cancer cells might also attack healthy cells. One way chemotherapy drugs work is by interrupting the production of DNA. All cells have DNA, which must be reproduced when new cells are made. Since DNA is involved in reproduction, the cells that are reproducing the fastest, such as cancer cells, are also the ones that are producing the most DNA. For this reason, the rapidly growing cancer cells are most affected by drugs that interrupt the production of DNA. The cells in the hair follicles and in the stomach lining also reproduce faster than most other cells. Consequently, when chemotherapy interrupts DNA production in cancer cells, it also interrupts DNA production in hair follicles and in the stomach lining, causing chemotherapy patients to lose hair and experience severe stomach problems. The side effects of chemotherapy are worse than the side effects of most other drugs because chemotherapy attacks human cells, while other antibiotics attack specifically bacteria cells.

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Talking Touchscreens and Patients Computer technology targets underserved populations in health careJuly 9, 2010 | by Erin White CHICAGO --- Multimedia talking touchscreens, housed in computer kiosks at clinics and hospitals, are helping researchers at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and clinicians at local health care centers enhance patient-centered care for patients with diverse language, literacy and computer skills. The easy-to-use touchscreens read questionnaires, provide patient education material and collect patient data. Each piece of text on the screen has sound attached to it, and users record answers by pressing buttons. The talking touchscreens are currently being used in a Cancer Care Communication study funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Three Chicago-area cancer clinics for underserved populations are participating in the study to administer education material to newly diagnosed breast and colorectal cancer patients. Elizabeth Hahn, an associate professor in the department of medical social sciences at Feinberg, developed the touchscreens as a tool to help end health disparities in underserved populations. Right now, the computer is capable of talking in English and Spanish. More languages may be added in the future, Hahn said. This tool provides more privacy and allows people to complete questionnaires in their native language, at their own pace. Hahn's current study includes up to 200 study participants. Half of the participants get standard booklets printed with educational information, the other half get that same information on the multimedia talking touchscreen. "Our goal is to demonstrate that information from a multimedia touchscreen can improve satisfaction with communication, knowledge, self-efficacy and adherence to treatment compared to information provided in standard booklets," she said. People with good reading skills may benefit from the technology as well, Hahn said, because the addition of audio may enhance concentration. The kiosk also houses informational videos and other tools such as a patient-generated list of topics to discuss with their health care providers. In the future, Hahn hopes that every clinic waiting room will have talking touchscreen technology. After registering at the front desk, a patient could sit at the kiosk, complete questionnaires, access health information and even feed their data into an electronic medical record. "Imagine being able to have that information available, so that by the time patients get in to see their doctors, there would be a print-out with a quality of life score, a health literacy score and self-identified needs for today's visit," Hahn said. "We have the technology to do it. That link of getting it to the electronic medical record is an area we are working on now."

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International polling poses special challenges to surveyors. The sampling procedures are specific to each country and may affect what mode is selected for data collection. For example, in many countries face-to-face interviewing may be the only available method that covers the entire population. In addition, data collection needs to be coordinated across multiple countries and field organizations. One of the biggest challenges in international surveying is how questions are translated and interpreted across multiple cultures and languages. Most of the international surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center are through the Pew Global Attitudes Project. The Pew Global Attitudes surveys were launched on a regular basis in 2002. The Project has conducted a series of worldwide public opinion surveys that encompasses a broad array of subjects, ranging from people’s assessments of their own lives to their views about the current state of the world and important issues of the day. The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life also conducts international surveys about the role of religion around the world. Depending on the data collection mode best suited to a country, the surveys are conducted by telephone or face-to-face. Most of the national surveys are representative of the entire population of a given country. Although sometimes it is necessary to limit the coverage and conduct interviews only in certain areas, resulting in a survey that is not fully representative nationally.

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Horses, like all animals, have a number of different gaits. But how can they perform these complicated leg movements without having to stop and think? And why do they switch to a new gait when they want to go faster? Mathematics can shed some light on these questions. A simple question to ask about kayak races is whether having lots of paddlers helps or slows the boat down? The kayak with two paddlers has twice as many "engines" to power it but it also has twice as much weight to drag through the water. Which is the dominant factor? It does pay to be nice if you repeatedly deal with the same person. Martin Nowak explains why cooperation also wins in matters of reputation, neighbourliness and family. But can evolutionary game theory save the world? Does it pay to be nice? Yes, it does. And we're not just talking about that warm fuzzy feeling inside, it pays in evolutionary terms of genetic success too. We talk to Martin Nowak about how the mathematics of evolution prove that being nice is unavoidable. The holy grail for 21st century physics is to produce a unified theory of everything that can describe the world at every level, from the tiniest particles to the largest galaxies. Currently the strongest contender for such a theory is something called M-theory. So what is this supposed mother of all theories all about? A recent study from Harvard reported that eating red meat is associated with a 13% increased risk of death. But what does this mean? Surely our risk of death is already 100%, and a risk of 113% does not seem very sensible? To really interpret this number we need to use some maths.

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No Child Left Behind From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia No Child Left Behind is a wildlife protection plan initiated by the WWF to protect the endangered species known as todlerus annoyunus, or "Small Child". In the NCFB, small children around the country are rounded up and placed in Wildlife Protection Facilities to be studied further and to gauge the damage they can cause, and to see if they can be used as a biological weapon. Interestingly enough, the No Child Left Behind act actually leaves a lot of children behind, which partially contributes to their endangerment in the first place. edit Small Children Small Children are one of the most dangerous, destructive, and evil species on the face fo the earth. Look at them! That hideously smooth skin, those gaps in their teeth! It's evil grin! The child is pure evil. edit The Origin of Todlerus Annoyunus The evolution of the destructive toddler begins as far back as the Stone Age, when regular children underwent a mutation that made them suppresively violent, cruel, and removed their Potty Training from their minds completely. The survival tactic of being able to pee and throw up on everything is apparently critical to the survival of the todlerus species. After a while, they became stronger, more cunning, and extremely prone to destruction. They cannot be held in a single place for too long, unless the place happens to be well-insured against toddler-based home damage. They become extremely irritable, because they want their candy NOW! The final evolutionary adaptation was a resourcefulness to use regular toys from Fisher-Price as weapons of torture and destruction. edit Physical Description and Behaviors They vary in hair and skin color, but this variety is only used to attract mates for procreation of the small child species. Because of this, many small children have been lost to cooties. They tend to be extremely destructive, screaming very loudly and causing mass destruction in public places when they don't get the Candy that they want, embarassing the parents that they own in order to teach them a lesson. When all else fails, they self-destruct, damaging themselves by banging their head against the wall, clawing at their faces, and maybe hit themselves on the head with a baseball bat seven or eight times. edit The History of No Child Left Behind One of the presidents of the United States, (we aren't sure which one), made it one of their decrees to handle the increasing rate of growth in the population of small children and the increasing danger of child-infested areas. In order to find the areas with the highest levels of child infestation, the White House conducted a survey among America's child molesters--the only people not afraid to go near small children. The result: schools! Several more actions were taken: Areas were marked off as being Child-Infested (pictured). Several users of Uncyclopedia were banned for being small children (characterized by their tendency to add "FUCK FUCK FUCKING" to the beginning of every sentence). Child Hubs, also known as Playgrounds, began to erupt all over the country, mainly in parks where there was nothing to see anyway. Eventually, the World Wildlife Fund passed the No Child Left Behind act to save them from extinction, mainly because they wanted to do something with all the money they made from their polar bear ads. The act would block off sections for wildlife, financially protect people from small children, and protect the children themselves from people of lesser moral values. edit Present Day Today, even more children have been left behind than ever before in history, which just goes to show you how well-organized and effecient the WWF is. However, the organization has succeeded in saving the small child from extinction from ads encouraging people not to use condoms, resulting in many angry teenage parents and even brattier kids than there were before. Everybody was angered with the WWF, but they soon released another polar bear ad and everyone forgave them. edit Future Plans The WWF plans to change it's name at some point during the year of 2009, then drop funding for the NCFB program in 2010. Tons of people will cheer at this and throw all the small children out in the street, causing the rate of homeless to skyrocket. A parade is thrown in the WWF's honor, and yes, they can see the future. The end result will be that all children will be left behind.

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Seiwert Family History Seiwert Surname History This Seiwert research page contains the accumulated history of the Seiwert family name made up of user-submitted content from other users interested in the Seiwert family. Seiwert family history has a rich and complex origin of which the particulars can be pieced together by Seiwert family researchers. The Seiwert family name is an old heredity that has migrated all across the world for many generations, and as the name Seiwert has migrated, it has changed making its history a challenge to unearth. No content has been submitted here about Seiwert. The following is speculative information about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. The evolution of Seiwert begins at it's earliest origins. Even in the earliest days of a name there are changes in that name simply because last names were infrequently written down back when few people could write. It was not unusual for a surname to change as it enters a new country or language. As families, tribes, and clans moved between countries and languages, the Seiwert name may have changed with them. Seiwert ancestors have travelled around different countries all throughout history. Seiwert country of origin No content has been submitted about the Seiwert country of origin. The following is speculative information about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. The nationality of Seiwert can be difficult to determine because regional boundaries change over time, making the nation of origin indeterminate. The original ethnicity of Seiwert may be in dispute based on whether the name originated naturally and independently in various locales; for example, in the case of family names that come from professions, which can come into being in multiple regions independently (such as the last name "Clark" which evolved from the profession of "clerk"). Meaning of the last name Seiwert No content has been submitted about the meaning of Seiwert. The following is speculative information about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. The meaning of Seiwert come may come from a trade, such as the name "Carpenter" which was given to woodworkers. Many of these trade-based last names may be a profession in a different language. This is why it is good to understand the country of origin of a name, and the languages spoken by its family members. Many names like Seiwert originate from religious texts like the Bhagavadgītā, the Quran, the Bible, and so on. Commonly these family names relate to a religious sentiment such as "Favored of God". - John Seiwert 1880 - 1967 - Jean M Seiwert 1921 - 2006 - Patricia Seiwert 1935 - 1977 - Paul J Seiwert 1914 - 1995 - Ray Seiwert 1915 - 1974 - Donald T Seiwert 1933 - 2010 - Anna Seiwert 1889 - 1985 - Cheryl A Seiwert 1960 - 2005 - Jennie Seiwert 1891 - 1975 - Robert H Seiwert 1912 - 1996 - Edith Seiwert 1919 - 2001 - Raymond T Seiwert 1923 - 2006 - Lawrence J Seiwert 1924 - 1991 - Mary A Seiwert 1931 - 1997 - Vincent J Seiwert Md 1917 - 2008 - Richard Seiwert 1956 - 1978 - John Seiwert 1901 - 1992 - Dennis James Seiwert 1950 - 2010 - Alfred C Seiwert 1910 - 2005 - Jean P Seiwert 1919 - 1998 Seiwert Family Tree Famous people named Seiwert No famous people named Seiwert have been submitted. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. Nationality and Ethnicity of Seiwert No content has been submitted about the ethnicity of Seiwert. The following is speculative information about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. We do not have a record of the primary ethnicity of the name Seiwert. Many surnames travel around the world throughout the ages, making their original nationality and ethnicity difficult to trace. More about the name Seiwert Fun facts about the Seiwert family We have no fun facts about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. Seiwert spelling variations No content has been submitted about alternate spellings of Seiwert. The following is speculative information about Seiwert. You can submit your information by clicking Edit. In times when literacy was uncommon, names such as Seiwert were transcribed based on their pronunciation when people's names were written in public records. This could have resulted in misspellings of Seiwert. Researching misspellings and alternate spellings of the Seiwert surname are important to understanding the history of the name. Last names like Seiwert change in their spelling as they travel across villages, family lines, and eras over the years.

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Choose to become a lighting engineer Do you have what it takes to become a lighting designer? Here are some key attributes you’ll need. By Gersil N. Kay, IESNA, AIA/HRC, Conservation Lighting International Ltd. Light is as essential as food, clothing, and shelter for living things. Creating the best illumination is both an art and a science. It is not a do-it-yourself activity because there are too many variables and the technology changes almost daily. This is a lifelong, in-demand job—rewarding both personally and financially. It offers the opportunity to use imagination. Light is like music—fast and slow, loud and soft, with unforgettable rhythm and melody. A lighting engineer is a detective, needed for construction, architectural history, business, culture, archeology, science, and research. Now there is the added requirement for an energy-efficient, sustainable environment; lighting is the easiest of electrical building’s engineered systems with which to conserve energy, enhance design, increase productivity, boost safety, and improve quality of life. Caveat No. 1: Excessive energy conservation without increased productivity will fail. People will always find ways to circumvent unwanted or impractical restrictions. The lighting engineer should be able to present ideas clearly to the decision-maker, without using words like “photons” or other unfamiliar technical terms. A lighting designer is a fixer who can eliminate bad lighting. Poor illumination could be hot, too dim, too bright, glaring, misfocused, wrong style/color/period, obtrusive, energy-guzzling, or just plain ugly. It wastes money, plus causes distress for sufferers of health problems. Emergency lighting must also be included in the lighting engineer’s scope. Thus, the lighting engineer is also a protector. Of course, an engineer must be technically competent, knowing the basic physical rules of light along with national codes and standards for safety. The U.S. Dept. of Energy findings have to be followed and state and local regulations considered. In addition to being aware of all the most energy-efficient lighting tools for a particular application, the lighting designer also has to know the appropriate controls and interfaces to connect different technologies properly. Caveat No. 2: One size or type lighting does not fit all. Unless a number of like projects are done at the same time, the design engineer has to be an innovator to prepare plans and specifications to address unique features. To design, specify, and watch over a project, accepted procedures for both architectural and theatrical lighting are used. Combining the two may achieve the best results. There are automated or manual methods for special effects of color, motion, and dimming. Lighting also can be combined with other systems, like HVAC, for central control. At all times, the three Cs of construction—communication, coordination, and cooperation—with the entire team show the best way to proceed, and to avoid disruptive interaction with adjacent systems, like air conditioning, life safety systems, etc. This makes the engineer a good team member. The engineer also has to be a checker. Every completed project should be reviewed to see if it was finished on time and on budget, and met the client’s expectations. Seeing what was done right, what could have been done better, and what should not be repeated is the final step. This makes the next activity easier. Ability to think on your feet quickly is a must when unexpected problems arise. Other trades could be delayed until alternate solutions are produced. Finally, whether working as an independent entrepreneur or as part of a firm, the engineer has to add value to the business for it to prosper. Thus, as well as technical expertise, the engineer has to bring something more to the job so it is profitable. Gersil Kay is president and founder of Conservation Lighting International and Building Conservation International. She is a member of the IESNA Board of Directors and is a past member of professional affiliations and societies including IAEI, AIA's Historic Resources Committee, ICOMOS, and International Council on Art Deco Societies. She is a member of the Consulting-Specifying Engineer editorial advisory board. Case Study Database Get more exposure for your case study by uploading it to the Consulting-Specifying Engineer case study database, where end-users can identify relevant solutions and explore what the experts are doing to effectively implement a variety of technology and productivity related projects. These case studies provide examples of how knowledgeable solution providers have used technology, processes and people to create effective and successful implementations in real-world situations. Case studies can be completed by filling out a simple online form where you can outline the project title, abstract, and full story in 1500 words or less; upload photos, videos and a logo. Click here to visit the Case Study Database and upload your case study.

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Hindsight is Better Trip Start Mar 07, 1997 95Trip End Dec 25, 1998 Show trip route Lookout Mountain District Ranger Charlie Spearman is our leader as we hike the Breakthrough Area between Bragg and Delong Reservations, otherwise known as Crest Drive. The beautiful homes with the valley-wide views look peaceful now. But many yards are dotted with cannons and historic markers, evidence of bitter times. What happened on November 25, 1863? According to Ranger Spearman, two factors led to the fall of the Confederate line. First of all, they dug their trenches at the military crest of the Ridge, rather than the geographic crest. The steepest part of the Ridge would have offered more protection. And they had a small gap in their line, which was where the breakthrough began. You don't have to be a Civil War buff to appreciate the amazing story of failed strategies and heartwrenching confusion as our guide points out each step of the action. And the Crest Drive tour is but one of many "Battles for Chattanooga" commemorative events taking place during the weekend. Meet at the Bragg Reservation at 2 pm Sunday for it. You can put more pieces into the Missionary Ridge puzzle by following General Sherman's actions in a tour that begins at 2 pm Saturday in the Tennessee Riverpark. Plus there will be events on Lookout Mountain both days, most beginning at Cravens House, and a tour of Civil Was sites in the Moccasin Bend area. This is a great opportunity to understand more of the reality of the people who lived the war. See you there. Battles for Chattanooga Anniversary, Lookout Mountain, Moccasin Bend, and Missionary Ridge, Chattanooga

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[An MP3 audio file of this article, narrated by Steven Ng, is available for download.] In my recent "How to Win an Election," I made the point that "your vote doesn't matter." Given some of the responses to this statement, I would like to provide further explanation. Consider what it means to say "your vote doesn't matter." Your vote does matter if it affects the outcome of the election in question. How this could happen depends on the number of votes tallied. If there is an even number of voters in an election, your vote matters only if it creates a tie and your candidate goes on to win the election. If you didn't vote, your candidate would have lost by one vote. In such a case, because of your vote, your candidate's odds of winning increased from 0 percent to roughly 50 percent. On the other hand, if there are an odd number of voters, your vote matters if it breaks the tie that would have occurred in the absence of your vote. In such a case your candidate's odds of winning increase from about 50 percent to 100 percent. The chance of either one of these occurrences depends on the number of voters in the election, among other issues. Adding this all up, the odds of your vote making a difference are approximately 1/N, where N is the number of voters in the election. According to this estimate, in an election with 100 million voters, the chance of a single vote affecting the outcome of the election would be about one millionth of one percent. In US presidential elections, matters are complicated by our Electoral College. However, a study of the 2008 election, an election with about 130 million voters, shows that this 1/N estimate seems to hold roughly within an order of magnitude. Immediately prior to the 2008 presidential election, Andrew Gelman, Nate Silver, and Aaron Edlin (GSE), projected the odds of a single vote affecting that election. Basing their forecasts on opinion polls immediately before the 2008 election, GSE estimated a one in 60 million chance of a randomly selected voter affecting the election. In their state-by-state forecasts, a single vote in New Mexico, New Hampshire, Colorado, or Virginia was most likely to matter, with an approximate one in 10 million chance of one vote in those states making a difference in the election. In Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia "the probability of a single vote being decisive is nearly zero." Analysts who consider this issue often compare the chances of a vote making a difference in a national election to the odds of dying while driving on Election Day: it is more likely that you will die in a fatal accident than that your vote will be decisive. A 2008 study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, confirms this conclusion. Donald Redelmeier and Robert Tibshirani examined the traffic-related deaths during polling hours on Election Days compared to the number of deaths on the two Tuesdays before and after the election for the last 30 years. They found the Election Day average of 158 deaths to be 18 percent higher than the average death rate on the other days. It appears that a driver is more likely to die during polling hours than at other times. Whether that is the case or not, thousands of people have died while driving during polling times for presidential elections, but no single vote has ever determined one of those elections. A 2007 survey of Ferris State University (I teach at Ferris State) students shows that 79 percent of the students "felt that their vote makes a difference." It seems to me that the students are being influenced by the "you should vote" drumbeat on campus. I assume that students are providing politically correct answers to the survey, even though they know that their votes do not make a difference. Informal surveys in my classes indicate that a low percentage of my students believe that their vote is likely to affect an election or the government's policies. If it's true that 79 percent of my university's students believe that their vote could affect a presidential election, maybe Ferris State should consider restructuring its general education program. Not only does a single vote not make a difference, in presidential elections, it seems that all of the votes in the state of Michigan do not matter. If a single individual could control all of the voters in Michigan and if all of the Michigan voters voted for John McCain, Barack Obama would still have won the 2008 election. If all Michigan voters had voted for John Kerry in 2004 and for Al Gore in 2000, George Bush would still have won both of those elections. In fact, if all Michigan voters had voted for the losing presidential candidate in every election since 1900, this would not have changed anything. The same candidates would have won every election. It apparently doesn't matter whether Michigan voters support the Democrat, the Republican, or Shaq. Of course, Michigan's voters as a group could affect a presidential election, it just hasn't happened in the last century. Looking at the 28 presidential elections from 1900 to 2008 reveals that only rarely does a single state's vote affect the election. In 23 of those 28 elections (82 percent of the time) no single state's total vote count mattered. In those 23 elections, if a person could control every single vote in any one state, even one of the large states, that person could not change the election's outcome. There have been only five elections during that time in which one state's votes affected the election. In 1916, ten states made a difference (by "made a difference," I mean that if a majority of the state's voters supported the losing candidate, the election outcome would have been different). New York's vote made a difference in the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon election and the 1976 Carter-Ford race; the 30 states that went for Bush in the famous 2000 Bush-Gore election all made a difference; and Ohio, Florida, and Texas all made a difference in the 2004 Bush-Kerry election. Of the total of 1,362 times that states have participated in the 28 elections since 1900, a single state's votes have affected the election outcome 45 times, or only 3.3 percent of the time. For voters in 18 states, since 1900, their state as a whole has not mattered in any presidential election. Oftentimes, when I point out the fact that your vote doesn't matter, people respond by arguing that one should still vote, even if their vote will not affect the election. Let me briefly consider three commonly heard replies to the "your vote doesn't matter" conclusion. Some people make a claim that I will paraphrase as follows: "A lot of votes could affect an election. Therefore it's important that you vote, because the votes add up. Because a lot of votes matter, each individual vote matters." Now it's true that a lot of votes could affect an election, but that's irrelevant to the point that a single vote does not matter. This argument is an example of the fallacy of division. This fallacy is committed when one asserts that what is true of a whole must also be true of a part of that whole. For instance, the statement "the amount of oil production in the world has a significant effect on gasoline prices, therefore a single small oil company's level of production has a significant effect on gasoline prices." Clearly, this statement is false. Claiming that many votes matter, therefore each individual vote matters is equally fallacious. Another common claim in favor of voting goes something like this: one should vote because "if you don't vote you can't complain." This is wrong on a couple of levels. If this statement is taken literally, it's false. You can complain, even if you don't vote. Nobody ever asks me "did you vote?" when I gripe about the government. We have free rein to complain. There is no ethical or legal proscription against complaining simply because one failed to vote. Maybe when one says that "if you don't vote you can't complain" they mean to say "only those who vote are justified in complaining. You are allowed to complain, but you shouldn't, if you didn't vote." It seems to me that the opposite may be the case. Voting reduces your right to complain. If you voted, then you support a corrupt system. You're partially to blame for the debacle that is our federal government. Our elected officials are corrupt because voters vote for immoral political leaders (as I explained here). If anything, nonvoters have a greater right to complain than do the voters. Let's get to the main issue. One case in favor of voting is the argument that voting is a moral imperative, that it's your civic duty. Those who take this position believe that individuals are morally compelled to vote. According to this argument, even if your vote doesn't matter, you should vote. There are various versions of this argument, but oftentimes the argument does not go beyond the mere assertion that voting is a duty. I hear this claim at my university. Around election time, in faculty meetings, I have repeatedly heard "remember to tell your students to vote." No reason is ever provided as to why I should tell them to vote or why students should vote; it's simply taken as accepted wisdom. A slightly more rigorous version of the argument sounds like this: "Having the opportunity to vote is analogous to being on a committee of 100 million people. Because you are on the committee, you should show up and participate. Just as faculty members should show up for department meetings, voters should show up for presidential elections. It's your duty to do so." This "moral imperative" argument is not convincing. The argument that voting is a moral imperative depends on, among other issues, whether or not democracy is a morally acceptable method of collective decision making. One problem here is that the aim of the collective decision is generally immoral. Most voters vote in favor of government predations on our property. Voters are willing to vote themselves other people's wealth. This is morally unacceptable. The fact that some group somewhere has voted does not justify the theft of property. Suppose someone, let's say Butch Cassidy, argued that bank robbery is ethically acceptable, as long as we hold elections to determine which gang gets to rob the bank. We wouldn't accept Butch's argument, and we shouldn't accept the argument that predations by agents of the state are unobjectionable if elections are held to determine who gets to join the gang of predators. If anything, the moral argument against voting is stronger than the moral case for voting. That leaves us with this conclusion: Your vote does not matter. In that case, should you vote because a lot of votes may matter or because not voting means that you can't complain about the government? No. Should you vote because you are morally compelled to do so? Definitely not. I'm assuming here that the elections are fair, that the votes are accurately counted, and that there are no recounts. Your vote may not matter at all in cases of voting fraud. See Cecil E. Bohannon and T. Normal Van Cott's "Now More than Ever, Your Vote Doesn't Matter" for a discussion of the literature on this estimate. See Gelman, Silver, and Edlin, "What is the probability your vote will make a difference?" See Redelmeier Tibshirani "Driving Fatalities on U.S. Presidential Election Days." The ten states that made a difference in the 1916 election were Alabama, California, Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Caroline, Ohio, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia. I must, at this point, recall Murray Rothbard's conclusion that "that the State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large."

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Mercury is used to this very day to make dental amalgams, tooth fillings made with a mixture of mercury and zinc. It's claimed that the mercury stays permanently locked in the filling and poses no risk, but do you really believe that? Last time I had fillings I asked them to use the alternative polymer-ceramic material. I have another sample of dental mercury which came with the necessary zinc pellets and mixing apparatus, but this bottle is much more attractive than the plastic eye dropper that came with that other one. Reader Andrzej Kasperowicz pointed out the following fascinating videos, which show mercury vapor wafting up from a disturbed amalgam filling: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnQ-T7oiAKind of scary to see it so vividly. He also pointed out this absolutely fascinating study, which seems to demonstrate that cell phone or MRI radiation shortly after dental work with amalgam can accelerate the release of mercury. This is not as crazy as it might sound since the amalgam is conductive and could very well respond to radio and microwave radiation. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18819554What I want to know is where did they find "fourteen female healthy University students who had not used mobile phones before the study"? Are there really that many university students in the country who have never used a cell phone? Seems unlikely. And why did they all need to be female? Source: Darrell Hamilton, MD Contributor: Theodore Gray Acquired: 16 March, 2007 Text Updated: 18 January, 2009 Sample Group: Medical

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Basically what i have deduced from your info was you suspended a 300 cm string from a spring scale showing a weight of 26.69g then you stretched the string until the scal showed 400g. convert 400g to kg which =.4kg draw a free body diagram show the relationship of tension to weight which mathematically looks like: T-W=0, sum of all forces in the y direction equal to zero because string is in static equilibrium therefor; T=w W= .4kg*9.8m/s^2=3.92N; because a N=(Kg*m)/s^2

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