text stringlengths 199 648k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 1 value | url stringlengths 14 419 | file_path stringlengths 139 140 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 50 235k | score float64 2.52 5.34 | int_score int64 3 5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
A 160-metric ton prototype casting is the result of more than a year of R&D.
| This 160-metric ton prototype casting is the result of more than a year of R&D at the group’s development center in Sheffield, England. It produces forged steel cylinders used to produce transition cones for nuclear-power steam generators, as well as waste casks for spent nuclear fuel rods. |
Researchers at Sheffield Forgemasters International Ltd. have succeeded in casting a 160-metric ton, hollow steel ingot — an achievement that may lead to more efficient methods of producing forged cylinders.
SFIL is one of the world’s largest producers of forgings for nuclear power projects. The company once cast hollow ingots at its foundry in Sheffield, England, but that program was discontinued several decades ago.
The prototype castings were the result of more than a year of investment and research at the engineering group’s R&D center in Sheffield. “Establishing the correct parameters for a casting of this kind are highly complex and require processes such as finite-element analysis and casting solidification modeling to achieve tangible results,” explained SFIL’s research chief Jesus Talamantes-Silva. “However, our efforts in preparatory research mean that many of the potential failings when committing to an entirely new production process are reduced and addressed before we start costly processes, such as casting and pouring steel for the actual component.”
Forged cylinders are used to produce transition cones used in nuclear-power steam generators, as well as waste casks for spent nuclear fuel rods. The cylinders can be produced from solid ingots, but the process is more time- and energy-intensive than working from a hollow casting.
Commenting on the new development, Talamantes-Silva said: “This process is an exciting development for Forgemasters and aims to reduce many of the costs and processes involved in manufacturing some of the critical forgings required by the power-generation industry.”
He emphasized that the new casting process is being developed further and is not fully tested. He indicated the finished hollow ingots must be subjected to destructive testing to establish the ingots’ material qualities and structural characteristics.
However, Talamantes-Silva confirmed “the results so far are extremely promising, with the first ingot now cast and stripped from the mold.” | <urn:uuid:5c30e812-6407-4a8d-86e3-0b2edd3e7200> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://forgingmagazine.com/feature/sheffield-forgemasters-produces-massive-hollow-forging-billets | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00029-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940335 | 499 | 2.515625 | 3 |
NASA test fired the upper-stage engine of its new heavy-lift rocket Thursday (Dec. 1), marking another step forward in the development of the vehicle that could launch humans toward an asteroid or Mars someday.
The 80-second test, conducted at NASA's Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, investigated the combustion stability of the J-2X rocket engine. This engine will power the second stage of the agency's new Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, which is designed to send astronauts toward deep-space destinations.
During the test firing, engineers set off a controlled explosion inside the J-2X's combustion chamber, introducing an unexpected pulse of vibration. The test is designed to help engineers learn more about the engine's performance and robustness, officials said.
Thursday's test is part of a sustained campaign to put the J-2X through its paces. On Nov. 9, NASA fired the engine for a full 500 seconds, the length of time it would burn during an actual mission.
NASA revealed the SLS design in September. The huge rocket will have two stages; the first stage will use five legacy RS-25D/E main engines that helped launch the agency's now-retired space shuttle fleet. Some booster rockets will also likely help the SLS get off the ground.
In its early incarnations, the heavy-lift rocket will be capable of lofting about 70 tons of payload. But NASA eventually wants to scale the SLS up to launch about 130 tons to space, officials have said.
NASA is developing a capsule called the Orion Multi-purpose Crew Vehicle to sit atop the SLS. Orion could be ready for its first unmanned test flight by 2014, but the heavy-lift rocket won't launch until 2017 at the earliest.
The space agency wants the Orion-SLS system to be ready to carry astronauts to deep space by around 2021. | <urn:uuid:ad34adcc-68b2-4206-a01f-9d6799133e90> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.space.com/13814-nasa-j2x-rocket-space-launch-system-test.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00196-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939634 | 386 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Social Media Linked to Apps, Whether Parents Like it or Not
Social media is everywhere these days, as are the followers, friends, postings, and tweets that seem to consume everything in their wake. But what's less known is the extent to which those networks are available to young children—without their parents' knowledge—through apps marketed as educational tools.
That was one of the many findings of a report released this week by the Federal Trade Commission, "Mobile Apps for Kids: Disclosures Still Not Making the Grade," which raised broad questions about the extent to which popular apps, games, and others tools pose privacy risks to children and their families by making personal information available to third parties without telling parents about it.
We wrote about the report's overall findings, as did others. But the extent to which apps, available through Apple and Google Play, allow children to connect in one way or another to Facebook, Google+, and Twitter, and to a lesser extent Game CEtner, OpenFeint, YouTube, and others, without their parents' knowledge, was largely overlooked.
About 9 percent of the apps surveyed by the FTC in the report disclosed that they had links to social media. But as was the case with other aspects of the FTC's review, the app designers' disclosures did not tell the full story.
When the agency investigated the apps, they found that a substantially higher portion of them, 22 pecent, in fact linked to social media.
Parents should be worried about these app-to-social media links for several reasons, the FTC argues. Parents may not want their children communicating with other users they've never met. And they also might worry about children posting comments, photos, or videos that could attack someone's reputation.
Social media's integration into apps is "highly relevant to parents selecting apps for their children, and should be disclosed prior to download," the authors of the report say.
Here's a breakdown of the extent to which social media are accessible through the apps reviewed by the FTC: | <urn:uuid:a419a391-49ca-4be2-b0a5-2a8218673b14> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2012/12/social_media_linked_to_apps_wh.html?cmp=ENL-DD-NEWS1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00026-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978796 | 412 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Is there anything Americans care less about than species extinction? It is as if their house were on fire, but they continue to watch TV because a) they didn’t need that stuff in the garage anyway, and b) it will probably go out by itself before it gets to the living room, c) it’s not their job to fight fires, and d) if it was really important it would be on television. Now that the fire has reached the living room — i.e., impending extinctions are a direct threat to the human food supply — Americans are at last responding. By turning up the TV.
I wrote here recently (The Silence of the Bees) about the ongoing devastation of the bee populations of American and Europe, which threatens crops that require pollination and provide about one third of our food supply. Meanwhile, another plague with some eerie similarities is laying waste the bat populations of the northeastern United States.
Like the bees’ Colony Collapse Disorder, the bats’ White-Nose Syndrome has flickered occasionally across the magic flat-screen mirror on the wall, chiefly to give anchors the opportunity to display sophomoric humor. Surely the death of a few of these critters, and the concern of the people who crawl around the floors of filthy caves to count the bodies, have nothing to do with us?
Last week, the cave-crawlers, who are in fact serious scientists, published their latest rigorous estimates of the number of bats to have succumbed to this mysterious disease. Not a few: nearly seven million. Seven times their previous estimate, made in 2009.
Patiently, the scientists explain when asked that there is, indeed, a human connection, a reason to believe that our living room is beginning to smolder. Bats, it turns out, are nature’s way of keeping insect populations — the ones that eat our crops and us — in check. A bat can eat its body weight in bugs every night. Those who don’t really care about the respite that gives growing crops should be reminded of this: the bats’ diet includes mosquitoes, which still kill more humans every year than any other creature. Smell the smoke yet?
White-Nose Syndrome, the name that induces giggles in ignorant TV anchors, derives from the fact that what is killing the bats is a fungus that destroys their skin and membranes, leaving behind a white powdery substance on their muzzles, ears and wings. By the time it appears on their noses, they are usually dead.
Although scientists know what is killing the bats, they don’t know any more about why than they do about the bees’ distress. European bats have the same fungus, but do not succumb to it. Why has it turned into a raging killer in the United States? We have no idea.
Now this epidemic, first observed in a cave near Albany, New York, has spread throughout the Northeast and into the Midwest. Seven million dead. According to Mylea Bayless, speaking for Bat Conservation International in Austin, Texas, “We’re watching a potential extinction event on the order of what we experienced with bison and passenger pigeons.”
And if this array of facts does not persuade that it is time to turn off the flatscreen and try to find a fire extinguisher, consider one more unnerving fact: White-Nose Syndrome first came to our attention at almost exactly the same time — the winter of 2006-07 — as did Colony Collapse Disorder.
Coincidence? I had a friend once, a police detective who spent most of his life figuring out why bad things happened to bad people. What he learned, he told me over and over, is that there is no such thing as a coincidence.
It’s getting hard to see the TV in all this smoke.
[For updates on this and other Daily Impact stories, and for short takes on other subjects, check out The Editor’s Log.] | <urn:uuid:68e963e9-362c-4121-94dc-eafaa11e161e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dailyimpact.net/2012/01/25/the-silence-of-the-bats/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00038-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961198 | 824 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Definition of Software
Software refers to something intangible. Although often of great value, software can't be picked up or weighed. However, software is required to make hardware do anything. Likewise, software needs hardware to be of any value.
Typical examples of software include the web browser you're using to read this page, the web hosting software used to show you this page, and the operating system (e.g. Windows, Mac) that you interact with whenever you use your computer. Software is also part of many other things you use on a daily basis such as your TV, cellphone, car, and possibly even appliances like your refrigerator. In the future, it's like that anything mechanical will also include some software.
Software can be written in many programming languages. For the most part, these languages contain similar elements like loops and logical statements that determine the output given certain input. Software is also deterministic i.e. for any given set of inputs the output will always be the same.
Those who haven't written software are often unaware of the complexities involved in writing bug-free software. For comparison, a car has tens of thousands of moving parts each of which can fail and cause problems. However, software is typically made of up millions of lines of code and even a tiny flaw in just one line can result in unexpected results. Reviewing and maintaining all of that code is a daunting task which is why there are often spectacular programming bugs found years after a program is released to the public.
- Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
- Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
- Radio Frequency ID (RFID)
- Sarbanes Oxley
- Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
- Six Sigma Methodology
- Supply Chain Management (SCM)
- Total Quality Management (TQM)
- Utility Computing
- Virus Definitions
- Wireless Mesh | <urn:uuid:0e5a949e-de20-450c-88bd-75cdb51298e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://infolific.com/technology/definitions/computer-dictionary/software/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936579 | 386 | 3.5 | 4 |
|"Seems [Mother] has intercepted a transmission of unknown origin."
Appearance and BiologyEdit
The Queen Xenomorph was black in coloration, with large avian-like talons used for snatching prey as this monster swoops. Unlike most Xenomorphs, she had membraned wings and a membraned tail like a bat and her crest had a row of blunted spikes running down their length.
The comic the Kenner figure comes with is incomplete, but we can see the Flying Queen attacking ATAX who is wearing an exoskeleton modeled after a Queen.
- Flying Aliens have appeared in various arcades such as Aliens, where there were Drones with membraned wings and Chestburster-like parasites with the same attributes. There was also a flying Alien in the SNES game Alien vs Predator, where a pink flying Alien appears as the fourth boss. However, both of these games are likely non-canon. | <urn:uuid:4df6d5a5-8300-4926-843e-fb50fb359cf4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://avp.wikia.com/wiki/Flying_Queen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00092-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975112 | 192 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Plant Transcription Factor Database
v3.0Center for Bioinformatics, Peking University, China Previous versions:v1.0 v2.0
|Home Blast Search Download Prediction Help About ATRM Links|
The AP2/ERF superfamily is defined by the AP2/ERF domain, which consists of about 60 to 70 amino acids and is involved in DNA binding. These three families have been defined as follows. The AP2 family proteins contain two repeated AP2/ERF domains, the ERF family proteins contain a single AP2/ERF domain, and the RAV family proteins contain a B3 domain, which is a DNA-binding domain conserved in other plant-specific transcription factors, in addition to the single AP2/ERF domain.
It has been demonstrated that the AP2/ERF proteins have important functions in the transcriptional regulation of a variety of biological processes related to growth and development, as well as various responses to environmental stimuli.
After finding the tobacco ERFs, many proteins in the ERF family were identified and implicated in many diverse functions in cellular processes, such as hormonal signal transduction, response to biotic and abiotic stresses, regulation of metabolism, and in developmental processes in various plant species.
Toshitsugu Nakano, Kaoru Suzuki, Tatsuhito Fujimura, and Hideaki Shinshi.
Genome-wide analysis of the ERF gene family in Arabidopsis and rice.
Plant Physiol, 2006. 140(2): p. 411-32.
The first class are proteins which bind to ethylene response elements (ERE) or GCC boxes (tobacco EREBPs, Arabidopsis AtEBP and AtERF1-5, and tomato Pti4-6) found in the promoters of ethylene-inducible pathogenesis related genes. The GCC box is an 11 bp sequence (TAAGAGCCGCC) with a core GCCGCC sequence that is required for binding.
The second class includes proteins that bind to the C-repeat or dehydration response element (DRE) in the promoters of genes that are turned on in response to low temperatures and/or water deficit (CBF1, CBF2, CBF3/DREB1A and DREB2A). The C-repeat/DREs contain the core sequence CCGAC.
Nole-Wilson S, Krizek BA.
DNA binding properties of the Arabidopsis floral development protein AINTEGUMENTA.
Nucleic Acids Res. 2000 Nov 1;28(21):4076-82. Erratum in: Nucleic Acids Res 2001 Mar 1;29(5):1261. | <urn:uuid:14add4b3-1638-4aba-8cc9-d06e21e8e724> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://planttfdb.cbi.pku.edu.cn/family.php?fam=ERF | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395679.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897618 | 576 | 2.78125 | 3 |
In this guest column, the World Economic Forum's managing director explains how the U.S. can benefit from growing its circular economy.
New York's decision last November to ban food waste from dumping grounds may turn out to be one of the city's smartest decisions ever. Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont are already doing the same, as are Seattle, San Francisco and Portland. The United States could finally be waking up to the benefit of the "circular economy," or taking what you throw away and finding as much value in it as possible.
Do you throw away clothes you no longer wear? They can be used to create insulation or upholstery stuffing, or simply recycled into yarn to make fabrics that save raw materials. The United States is already exporting used clothing worth over $12 billion per year. That could grow much higher, as currently only 15% of clothing is being collected.
What have you done with your old iPhone 4? Each smartphone we throw away holds $100 worth of materials we could easily use again. Right now only 20% of this material is being recycled globally, which means $100 billion worth of material is lost to the ground just a year after purchase. The cost of manufacturing mobile phones could be halved if industry made them easier to take apart, so new phones could come from the refurbishment of outdated phones. Given the speed at which we now upgrade our phones, one can easily do the math.
The basic idea behind the circular economy is to derive the maximum value out of any used goods that can be partially reused — from food waste and iPhones to paper and clothing. But that's just recycling — right? In fact, it's several streets ahead. In a circular economy, instead of assuming that products will be thrown away, companies think at the design stage about how parts of new products could eventually be extracted and used again.
Once that happens, the rest of the supply chain will respond to the potential value of reuse and recycling. Renault has a remanufacturing business that is already earning $300 million in revenue, and boasts the highest profit margin in the group.
The near-tripling of commodity prices in the last decade has already sharpened the incentive for businesses to reduce cost and manage risk by rethinking their material inputs. With the global population expected to grow by 2 billion before 2030, that incentive will only increase.
Other regions are much more advanced in developing the circular economy. In Europe, job creation in the recycling sector has been growing at more than twice the industrial average. China's recycling sector is so lucrative that one of its industry leaders reportedly says he wants to buy The New York Times. The overall economic opportunity could be as large as $1 trillion per year globally by 2025.
The United States is lagging far behind Europe and Asia in recovering resources. It recovers about 8% of all plastics (Europe recovers almost twice as much), 15% of textiles (the United Kingdom's rate is four times higher) and 20% of aluminium (Japan recovers 98% of its metals).
But the United States has the potential to catch up. Disassembling parts from products including motor vehicles, IT and medical devices already earns $43 billion in revenue and employs close to 200,000 Americans. Growth in the remanufacturing sector is outstripping growth in gross domestic product.
The United States has also already pioneered the concept of a "sharing economy," illustrated by Zipcar, a membership-based car-sharing company, and Airbnb, which allows people to rent out assets when they're not using them. The sharing economy now encompasses a plethora of start-ups in everything from sharing video games to running errands. It is a great example of circular business, as people realize that paying for usage of something they need for only a limited time can make more sense than outright ownership.
Inevitably, unlocking the potential of the circular economy will require collaboration among government and companies. Governments can shape behavior through initiatives like New York's on food waste, while companies can work together to establish common standards for reusable materials, along the lines of the PET numbers you see on plastics bottles to help recyclers to sort them.
In this endeavor, the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos this week will rally political and corporate leaders to align incentives behind the circular economy revolution — a new industrial revolution that will also be good for the environment.
This revolution will require rethinking the way we live, eat and work. But as shown by Zipcar's sale last year to the Avis Budget Group for $500 million in cash, the rewards for figuring out new circular economy business models are vast.
Richard Samans is managing director and member of the Managing Board of the World Economic Forum. He is formerly director-general of the Global Green Growth Institute, an international organization headquartered in Asia, and special assistant to the president for international economic policy during the Clinton administration. | <urn:uuid:18b0db15-70f4-4e86-87f9-205aeb8fcc99> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.indystar.com/story/money/business/2014/01/22/samans-davos-how-garbage-can-boost-us-economy/4774147/?from=global | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00201-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957139 | 996 | 2.953125 | 3 |
09-Jun-2004 -- This morning we left Keswick in Cumbria and drove via Carlisle along the
Hadrian's Wall towards East.
In 43 A.D. Britannia (roughly today's England) became a part of the Roman
Empire, and since then the Romans had begun to secure the border against the
Celtic tribes in the North (especially the Brigantes). In 122 A.D. Emperor
Hadrian had visited Britannia and on this occasion he gave the order to
built a strong fortification, extending from the North Sea to the Irish Sea,
and consisting of a ditch and a wall equipped with turrets and a chain of
small castles. In 124 A.D. it had already a length of 118 km and in 138 A.D.
the wall was completed. According to an ancient writer the purpose of this
wall was to separate the Romans from the barbaric tribes, and contrary to a
similar construction in Germany ("Limes") no major conflicts on this wall
have been reported for a long period, except when in 180 A.D. the
Caledonians attacked the Romans. But they could be rejected successfully.
After 260 A.D. the Pictes arrived from Scotland and from this moment the
Romans had to permanently defend themselves.
Due to the troubles and civil wars in the continental Roman Empire more and
more Roman troops were withdrawn from Britannia and in all likelihood there
were no longer any left after 400 A.D. Thus, contrary to the Limes in
Germany, the Hadrian's Wall was never subject to destruction due to warlike
activities. Most castles along the Hadrian's Wall, however, have been
destroyed by fire.
Passing through this wonderful scenery we finally arrived at the confluence
area near Halton, where we saw a beautiful poppy field.
We parked the car in a small forest close to a small river.
After a short walk we arrived at the confluence, from where
we saw Aydon Castle.
The views to North, East, South and West look
quite similar, and on the way back to the road to Hexham we passed two
horses - a white and
a brown one.
At 6 p.m. we arrived at the "Royal Hexham Hotel" for overnight. | <urn:uuid:8480646d-815b-4af6-9e4e-752c0547ff55> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.confluence.org/confluence.php?visitid=8662 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397696.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00123-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951338 | 488 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Environment Canada deployed a new weather buoy last week on the Lake of the Woods, one of the busiest lakes in Ontario for recreational boating, in an effort to improve the health and safety of Ontario’s boaters and sailors.
During the boating season between May and October, the buoy will gather data on the weather and water, including air pressure, air and water temperature, wind speed and direction, and wave periods and height.
The data will be transmitted hourly to the marine weather office in Thunder Bay via the Geostationary Environmental Satellite System, where forecasters will use the additional information to improve the boating forecast for Lake of the Woods.
This will help to increase the safety for the thousands of boaters and cottagers who use the lake.
Environment Canada has placed five other such “Watchkeeper” buoys in Ontario lakes--Lake Nipissing southwest of North Bay, Lake Simcoe, Lake St. Clair, the eastern basin of the North Channel between Manitoulin Island and the mainland, and southern Lake Huron west of Bayfield.
The buoys were designed and built in Canada with funding from the Search and Rescue Secretariat of the Department of National Defence.
Each buoy weighs 540 kg, measures 1.75 metres across, and stands 4.5 metres high.
The buoys are lighter and smaller than those anchored in the Great Lakes. Their smaller size and lighter weight means Canadian Coast Guard is able to use smaller vessels to lift them into and out of the water so they can be anchored in lakes other than the Great Lakes.
The new weather buoys are part of Environment Canada’s Great Lakes Buoy Program. At present, the department has two, 12-metre wide buoys in Lake Ontario, and five which are three metres wide (two in Lake Erie, two in Georgian Bay, and one in Lake Superior).
The buoys supply data on the weather and water, which is used with other information to produce accurate and timely marine weather forecast for the recreational boating community. | <urn:uuid:17ccf280-737d-41f3-a08d-fa9422c298b9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.fftimes.com/node/272695 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954481 | 420 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Americans and New Zealanders have much common history.
When the American Queen docked at New Madrid in September I met a couple on tour from New Zealand. They were in the United States to see some of the country that saved New Zealand from the Japanese during WWII, and here they were in New Madrid.
They explained without the help of the U.S. their country was defenseless in 1941 because its soldiers had gone to North Africa to fight with the British.
The U.S. sent its Army and Navy into the South Pacific in early 1942. Many soldiers and seamen from Southeast Missouri served there during the war. Recently, service related items from the late J. W. "Buddy" Stowe were donated to the veteran's exhibit at the Higgerson School Museum. An Army veteran, Stowe saw combat at Cape Gloucester in the Solomon Islands during the war.
When the Americans began to arrive in the South Pacific, in was general knowledge that American flyer Amelia Earhart's plane had disappeared in the region four years earlier.
Amidst the confusion of the war going on in the Southwest Pacific in late 1942 where well over 100,000 U. S. servicemen were stationed, a rescue plane landed at Tulagi in the Solomon Islands with a woman aboard who resembled Earhart. The circumstances gave rise to a rumor that Earhart was found alive.
Australian author Patrick Lindsey wrote about the event in his book The Coast Watchers.
This story of mistaken identity all started on Nov.18, 1942 when five B-17 bombers with American crews took off for a mission against Japanese ships off Tonolei Harbor, Bougainville. They were joined by other bombers and fighters, and when the formation arrived over its target there were 40 Japanese fighters and floatplanes waiting for them.
One of the B-17s was attacked from the front by several fighters. The B-17's pilot, Major Allan Sewart was killed and the co-pilot, 1st Lt Jack Lee, mortally wounded. Fortunately, Colonel "Blondie" Saunders, also a pilot, was a passenger on board, and he took control of the crippled plane and flew it away from the air battle.
Off Baga Island near Vella Lavella Island the plane ditched in the ocean. The eight remaining crewmen along with the injured Lt. Lee and Col. Saunders rafted to shore as the plane sank. Lee died on the beach and was buried there.
Soon, several friendly natives appeared. They left and returned with Jack Keenan, an Australian coastwatcher. With several of the crew injured, Keenan sent for the help of a nurse he knew to still be nearby at Bilua village mission.
(photo courtesy of www.pacificwrecks.org)
When the runner arrived asking for assistance for the wounded U.S. B-17 crew members, she walked seven miles and hitched a ride in a canoe to reach them. She attended to the injured crewmembers, and shortly afterward a rescue plane arrived to evacuate the crew.
Farland's assistance to the crew could cost her life it the Japanese learned of it. The Japanese were just as likely to summarily execute a nurse, priest or nun as anyone else they even suspected of giving aid the enemy.
A Catalina plane escorted by 17 fighters picked up her and a group of Japanese prisoners at Vella Lavella. Traveling first to Tulagi and then to Guadalcanal, the pretty young nurse was mistaken for Amelia Earhart by the servicemen who witnessed the operation
The truth of Farland's identity as a missionary nurse eventually quelled the rumor--and hopes.
After her brush with fame, Farland served through the war as a New Zealand army nurse in the New Caledonia, Guadalcanal and Middle East campaigns. She was eventually recognized and decorated for her heroic actions on Vela Lavella by both Great Britain and the United States.
The visiting New Zealanders to New Madrid had not forgotten the help of the United States to their country some 70 years ago. Over here, we shouldn't forget New Zealanders like Merle Farland either. | <urn:uuid:1982ec28-3b27-4f6d-bb95-2af084a18e4d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.standard-democrat.com/story/1899387.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397864.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981958 | 858 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Like other fairy basslets, the Carberryi or Threadfin anthias lives in small schools composed of a dominant male and his harem of females. This species is found only in the Indian Ocean. It was described for science in 1954, one of 370 new fish species named by the famous South African ichthyologist J.L.B. Smith, who rediscovered the Coelacanth.
Like toucans and macaws, this fish has become a quintessential symbol of the Tropics, appearing as all sorts of kitschy souvenirs and “decorations”. It is often seen on postcards from Florida (where it is not found!). It is also familiar as “Gill”, in the Disney / Pixar movie, “Finding Nemo”. Because its tiny larvae travel well in plankton, it is found all the way from the East Africa, clear across the Indian Ocean and Pacific, to the west coast of Mexico, south to Peru. It is closely related to tangs and surgeonfish, but lacks their “scalpel”.
Many of the 80 or so members of the tang and surgeonfish family have wide ranges across tropical seas, but this uniquely spotted species is restricted to Madagascar, the nearby East African Coast, and the Mascarene Islands. As few fishes are exported from these places, it has seldom been seen in public aquariums.
Scorpionfish, in general, are notorious for the venomous spines which give them their family name. The six members of the genus Rhinopias stand out for their magnificently bizarre appearance. Their story-book dragon faces, ornate fins, and peculiar under-water waddle, make them fascinating. This species, from the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific, was unknown to science until 1977, when it was named to honor the American authority on scorpionfish, who described two other new Rhinopias species in 1973.
This specialized fish, also known as a frogfish, is found only in Southern Australia and is seldom displayed in aquariums. They have the ability to walk under water by using their uniquely modified pelvic and pectoral fins. Anglerfish were named for the modification of their dorsal fin that functions as a fishing rod and lure. Unsuspecting prey attracted by the moving “lure” are seized in the enormous mouth.
The DWA was one of the first facilities in the US to successfully maintain and display these beautifully ornate relatives of the seahorse. Due to their specialized dietary and habitat requirements, this species has not reproduced successfully in an aquarium environment. The DWA is an industry leader in the husbandry of this species and hopes to help find the key to their reproduction in the future. Leafy and Weedy seadragons are strictly protected and export is carefully regulated.
Like its better-known relative, the Leafy seadragon, the Weedy seadragon is considered a highly specialized pipefish, rather than a true seahorse. The males of all pipefishes and seahorses receive the eggs from the female after they are laid and brood them until they hatch. Unlike male seahorses who store eggs in a brood pouch, seadragons attach eggs to a brood patch. The Weedy seadragon is the Marine Emblem of the Australian State of Victoria while the “Leafy” is the Marine Emblem for South Australia.
The ten species of swallowtail angelfish stand out among the marine angelfish family. Instead of staying close to the reef, and feeding on coral polyps and other stationary organisms, swallowtails consume plankton in the water column. While the sexes of other angelfishes are colored alike, male and female swallowtails look very different from each other. Only described to science in 1970, this species occurs off Japan and Australia, and far out into the Central Pacific, but is absent from the Indo-Pacific. Only the male has stripes.
Also known as the Starck’s demoiselle, the Starki damsel, is found in the northern and southern parts of the West Pacific. These brightly colored reef dwellers are commonly kept in aquariums and are extremely hardy fish. Like other members of the family Pomacentridae, they can be very territorial, despite their small size. They can be seen fiercely defending a crevice, or hiding quietly under a coral or clam.
The White-capped clownfish is named for the white color mark on its forehead. The name “leucokranos” is derived from the Greek word meaning “white capped” or “white helmet”. It was discovered in 1972 in Mandang, New Guinea. As is the case in our Solomon Islands exhibit, the White capped clownfish is often associated with the Carpet anemone, Stichodactyla sp., and rarely strays far from the protection of its stinging tentacles. A thick mucous coating on its skin keeps the clownfish from being stung. | <urn:uuid:5e034ad0-2895-4c89-b69b-bc2dfe85ce86> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dwazoo.com/class/actinopterygii/page/2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00182-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962544 | 1,043 | 2.609375 | 3 |
God Alone Is Entitled To Worship
Islam lays much greater emphasis on how belief in God translates into righteous, obedient life and good morals rather than proving His existence through theological intricacies. Hence, the Islamic motto is that the primary message preached by the prophets was surrender to God’s will and His worship and not so much the proof of God’s existence:
“And We never send any Messenger before you (O Muhammad) without having revealed to Him: none has the right to be worshipped but I, therefore you shall worship Me (Alone).” (Quran 21:25)
God has the exclusive right to be worshipped inwardly and outwardly, by one’s heart and limbs. Not only can no one be worshipped apart from Him, absolutely no one else can be worshipped along with Him. He has no partners or associates in worship. Worship, in its comprehensive sense and in all its aspects, is for Him alone.
“There is no true god worthy of worship but He, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate.” (Quran 2:163)
God’s right to be worshipped can not be over emphasized. It is the essential meaning of Islam’s testimony of faith: La ilah illa Allah. A person becomes Muslim by testifying to the divine right to worship. It is the crux of Islamic belief in God, even all of Islam. It was the central message of all prophets and messengers sent by God - the message of Abraham, Isaac, Ishmael, Moses, the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, and Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him. For instance, Moses declared:
“Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)
Jesus repeated the same message 1500 years later when he said:
“The first of all the commandments is, ‘Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord.’” (Mark 12:29)
And reminded Satan:
“Away from me, Satan! For it is written: Worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.” (Matthew 4:10)
Finally, the call of Muhammad some 600 years after Jesus reverberated across the hills of Mecca:
“And your God is One God: there is no god but He…” (Quran 2:163)
They all declared clearly:
“…Worship God! You have no other god but Him…” (Quran 7:59, 7:65, 7:73, 7:85; 11:50, 11:61, 11:84; 23:23)
What Is Worship?
Worship in Islam consists of every act, belief, statement, or sentiment of the heart which God approves and loves; everything that brings a person closer to His Creator. It includes ‘external’ worship like the daily ritual prayers, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage as well as ‘internal’ worship such as faith in the six articles of faith, reverence, adoration, love, gratitude, and reliance. God is entitled to worship by the body, soul, and heart, and this worship remains incomplete unless it is done out of four essential elements: reverential fear of God, divine love and adoration, hope in divine reward, and extreme humility.
One of the greatest acts of worship is prayer, invoking the Divine Being for aid. Islam specifies that prayer should only be directed to God. He is deemed in total control of every man’s destiny and able to grant his needs and remove distress. God, in Islam, reserves the right of prayer for Himself:
“And do not invoke, along with God, anything that can neither benefit you nor harm you, for behold, if you do it, you will surely be among the evildoers!” (Quran 10:106)
Giving anyone else - prophets, angels, Jesus, Mary, idols, or nature- a portion of one's worship, which is essentially due only to God, such as prayer, is called Shirk and is the most enormous of sins in Islam. Shirk is the only unforgivable sin if not repented from, and it denies the very purpose of creation.
(IV) God Is Known By His Most Beautiful Names and Attributes
God is known in Islam by His beautiful Names and Attributes as they appear in revealed Islamic texts without the corruption or denial of their obvious meanings, picturing them, or thinking of them in human terms.
“And the Most Beautiful Names belong to God, so call on Him by them…” (Quran 7:180)
Therefore, it is inappropriate to use First Cause, Author, Substance, Pure Ego, Absolute, Pure Idea, Logical Concept, Unknown, Unconscious, Ego, Idea, or Big Guy as divine Names. They simply lack beauty and that’s not how God has described Himself. Instead, Names of God indicate His majestic beauty and perfection. God does not forget, sleep, or get tired. He is not unjust, and has no son, mother, father, brother, associate, or helper. He was not born, and does not give birth. He stands in need of none as He is perfect. He does not become human to “understand” our suffering. God is The Almighty (al-Qawee), The One Incomparable (al-‘Ahad), The Acceptor of Repentance (al-Tawwaab), The Compassionate (al-Raheem), The Ever-Living (al-Hayy), The All-Sustaining (al-Qayyum), The all-Knowing (al-‘Aleem), The All-Hearing (al-Samee’), The All-Seeing (al-Baseer), The Pardoner (al-‘Afuw), The Helper (al-Naseer), The Healer of the Sick (al-Shaafee).
The two most frequently invoked Names are “The Compassionate” and “The Merciful.” All but one of the chapters of Muslim scripture begins with the phrase, “In the Name of God, the Most-Merciful, the Most Gracious.” The phrase is used, one might say, by Muslims more commonly than the names Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are heard in Christian invocations. Muslims begin in the Name of God and remind themselves of God’s Compassion and Mercy every time they eat, drink, write a letter, or perform anything of importance.
Forgiveness is an important dimension of human relationship with God. Human beings are realized to be weak and prone to sin, but God in His tender mercy is willing to forgive. The Prophet Muhammad said:
“God’s mercy outweighs His wrath.” (Saheeh Al-Bukhari)
Along with the divine names “The Compassionate” and “The Merciful,” the names “The Forgiver” (al-Ghafur), “The Oft-Forgiving” (al-Ghaf-faar), “The Acceptor of Repentance ” (at-Tawwaab) and “The Pardoner” (al-Afuw) are among the most used in Muslim prayers. | <urn:uuid:f5f47eb6-0c34-4349-b988-5220955755a1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.islamicity.com/forum/printer_friendly_posts.asp?TID=22861 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928236 | 1,571 | 2.75 | 3 |
When a book (or any written work) enters the public domain, you can copy and use it without getting permission or paying fees. That’s because public domain books are no longer — or never were — protected by copyright.
What can you do with public domain books? Republish them as they are, or add your own material to create new works. Recast them in new media, remix them with other works, translate them into new languages ... the possibilities are limited only by your imagination.
For example, Jane Austen’s 1816 novel Emma became a Gwyneth Paltrow movie in 1996. 1995’s Clueless was based, albeit loosely, on Emma, too. And countless works have been based on Shakespeare ... let’s see, Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, to name one. And let’s not forget Walt Disney — he reworked the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm (making them less, well, grim) and built an empire.
Here’s another case in point. Broadview Press recently republished an 1887 novel, She, by H. Rider Haggard, in its original serialized version. (It was a novel that both Freud and Jung loved, by the way, and it sounds fascinating.) And since it’s in the public domain, anyone can republish the original text, or write a screenplay based on it, or ... whatever.
You can also quote freely from public domain books and other writings. Author’s heirs and literary estates can be difficult to deal with when you want to quote from works that they control the rights to. The James Joyce estate is known for this (in fact, a Stanford University professor is suing the estate for copyright misuse). And the Joyce estate is hardly the only one to deny permission to quote, or to sue those who do. For example, the Samuel Beckett estate sues theater companies who stage unconventional versions of his plays.
But if a book or other written work is in the public domain you won’t have to pay extortionate permissions fees (which they sometimes are) and you won’t have to rely on fair use, an important but unpredictable defense to infringement. You can stage your play, or write your screenplay, or digitize the work and publish it online ... you can create stuff without needing a lawyer.
The main ways written works enter the public domain are:
To learn how to tell if a work is in the public domain for one of these reasons, and more, take the tutorial on copyright and the public domain.
Even if you think a work is in the public domain because it’s not eligible for copyright, or its copyright has expired, or it was published before 1989 without a valid copyright notice ... you’d be wise to make sure the entire work is free to use. If it’s a derivative work or a compilation, parts of the work may be protected by copyright.
A derivative work is one that is based on, or adapted from, a preexisting work. Common examples are a writing a screenplay based on a novel, recording an audio version of the novel, or a translating the novel another language. If someone creates a derivative work based on a public domain work, he or she can claim copyright in the changes made to the original work, provided the changes are original (that is, independently created — not copied) and aren’t trivial. But the public domain material remains free for others to use.
You can copy the original public domain material the derivative work is based on, but not the new material that has been added. For example, if someone else took Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and wrote a screenplay based on it, you could copy the novel but not the new dialog and scenes. The new material would be copyrighted. For more information, see the derivative works page.
A compilation is a work created when someone collects and assembles preexisting material in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship. Types of compilations include databases (fact compilations) and collective works such as encyclopedias, periodicals, and anthologies (where separate and independent works are assembled into a collective whole).
Anyone who creates a compilation of public domain works can claim copyright in their selection and/or arrangement of the material, as long as its minimally creative. (Basically, the person must exercise some judgement ... simply arranging the works chronologically or alphabetically wouldn’t suffice.)
You can copy the public domain material within the compilation, but not the selection and/or arrangement of the compiled work. For example, if someone made a compilation of Chekhov’s short stories that touch on the theme of unrequited love, you could copy the stories but not that particular selection of them. The selection, as a whole, would be a copyrightable work. For more information on compilations, see the tutorial’s compilation page.
Now that you know to be careful with derivative works and compilations, in case you come across them, be sure to check out the section on where to find public domain books. | <urn:uuid:09c2efd1-5afc-40b9-a35a-a069601622f3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.publicdomainsherpa.com/public-domain-books.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945305 | 1,087 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Ford Madox Brown chooses to show Christ in a moment of humility, washing the feet of Peter and drying them with his own robes. Kneeling before Peter, Christ is in fact the lowest figure in the painting, and sharp angle of his bowed head accentuates the position of lowliness that Jesus occupies. In typical Pre-Raphaelite fashion, the action of the painting takes place directly in the foreground, and Peter's body is even slightly forward-facing, so that his feet project further downstage, causing the principal act of the scene to stand out.
Nevertheless, Brown has also manipulated the composition of the painting in order to accentuate the figure of Christ himself, which partly counters the air of humility achieved by his posture and employment. Christ is the closest figure to the front of the scene and his bare, well-muscled arms draw attention to his form. Furthermore, Christ's upper body is set against the white background of the table cloth, whereas Brown places the other figures in relative darkness. Most ostensibly, a gold halo encircles Christ's head, emphasizing the paramount message of this painting; Christ is glorious, while he is also humble. Hence, it seems as though Brown sets up the painting to reveal such a paradox, especially when we note that although Christ himself bows his head, each and every figure that frames the scene crouches low towards the divine figure.
1. Look at the hands of each figure. What do you notice?
2. What do the expressions and poses of figures in the background do to the mood of the painting?
3. In the original painting, Christ was naked. What effect would this have had on the way we look at Christ?
4. Why did Brown decide to add clothes?
Last modified 28 May 2007 | <urn:uuid:18279c3e-bafc-44e4-a8c5-7a7f4c0ee265> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/fmb/paintings/fanous2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397567.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00068-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970237 | 362 | 3.640625 | 4 |
NASHVILLE — Tennessee is seeing dry conditions that normally don’t develop until late summer and the wildfire danger is increasing.
State Forestry Division officials report an increase in the number of fire calls — both those the state responds to and those that volunteer fire departments report to the agency.
“The low relative humidity and the high temperatures have caused vegetation to really dry out, both grasses in the open areas and leaf litter on the forest floor, creating an elevated wildfire threat,” said Tim Phelps, information forester for the agency.
“It’s easier to start, easier to spread and more difficult to contain,” he said.
The Drought Assessment Monitor maintained by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Agency shows almost all of Tennessee is under some degree of stress from lack of rainfall. Only Polk and Monroe counties in extreme southeastern Tennessee reported adequate moisture.
High temperatures — many Tennessee locations broke heat records last week — have contributed to drying, and rainfall has been below normal.
The National Weather Service office in Nashville noted 96 percent of Tennessee is at least abnormally dry, 76 percent has at least moderate drought, 26 percent if experiencing severe drought and 5 percent has extreme drought.
The most pronounced drought conditions are in the Reelfoot Lake region of northwestern Tennessee, which is classified as extreme drought. Rainfall at Samburg is off 11.93 inches for the year to date.
In Memphis, there is a 12.95-inch rainfall deficit. To date, 14.70 inches have fallen in the city.
The NWS office in Nashville reports rainfall Jan. 1-June 28 was 18.18 inches — 6.88 inches below normal.
Forecasters say the drought conditions have spread rapidly, however, in recent weeks as rainfall remained sparse and temperatures climbed. Only the eastern Tennessee River Valley from Chattanooga up to Knoxville and beyond, as well as the Smoky Mountains, remained merely abnormally dry.
Hornbeak lies in the driest part of the state, and Hornbeak Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bob Reavis is watching the grass dry out, despite a little bit of local rainfall recently.
“We usually get some rain around the Fourth of July, but not this year,” Reavis said.
With Independence Day approaching, fire officials are nervous about fireworks touching off wildfires.
Other usual causes include tossed cigarette butts, sparks from farm equipment, escaped debris from burns and — sometimes — arson.
“Very few are the result of the course of nature,” Reavis said.
The Hornbeak department usually answers about one call per week. Many more create a strain on the two dozen volunteers who are pulled away from their jobs or personal time to fight fires.
Phelps noted the wildfires that have been burning for weeks in Colorado and Utah and said Tennessee residents need to be cautious and avoid open burning.
“This trend looks like it’s going to continue,” Phelps said. “We want people to be careful out there out there with fire.” | <urn:uuid:2833f38b-69f3-4baf-97af-0edc9aeec02e> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://columbiadailyherald.com/sections/news/state/torrid-heat-creates-tinderbox-conditions.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00096-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94509 | 629 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The Introduction to Educational Psychology examination contains 100 questions to be answered in 90 minutes.
The test questions focus on the principles of learning and cognition, teaching methods and classroom management, child growth and development, and evaluation and assessment of learning.
Students should consider taking the exam if they can demonstrate the following abilities:
- knowledge and comprehension of basic facts, concepts, and principles
- association of ideas with given theoretical positions
- awareness of important influences on learning and instruction
- familiarity with research and statistical concepts and procedures
- ability to apply various concepts and theories as they apply to particular teaching
situations and problems.
Computer-based Scoring: CLEP computer-based (CBT) exams are scored without a penalty for incorrect guessing. The raw score--the number of correct responses--is translated into a scaled score. The scaled scores for CLEP CBT are reported in a range from 20 to 80.
At Ferris, candidates taking the Introduction to Educational Psychology exam must score a 50 or higher to earn credit.
Course(s) and Credits
- PSYC 310
Credits meet the social awareness and race/ethnicity and/or gender issues components of the general education requirement. | <urn:uuid:54fd1466-22c6-43a4-8675-d3c25b198060> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://ferris.edu/HTMLS/admision/testing/clep/subjects/EdPsyc.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396945.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00072-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917049 | 244 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Brain and spinal MRI
When performing Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) on a patient, a magnetic field is applied to the body to align particles within the tissues. The magnetic field is interrupted and the coils monitor the particles return to their nature alignment. This modality is ideal for evaluating tissues with various amounts of hydrogen, particularly water content. MRI is commonly used to examine the brain, spinal cord, spinal canal, muscles and soft tissues of the abdomen. | <urn:uuid:cf9ff88b-b362-4dc1-b29a-dcd70f65274b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vcaspecialtyvets.com/shoreline/our-services/neuroradiology/brain-and-spinal-mri | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00053-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914449 | 91 | 3.234375 | 3 |
The U.N.'s International Court of Justice ruled on Monday that Japan needs to stop its controversial and not-really-well-liked whale hunting practices. The court wasn't convinced that Japan's controversial whale kills were really done for scientific research, and the nation has longed claimed.
"Japan shall revoke any extant authorization, permit or license granted in relation to JARPA II, and refrain from granting any further permits in pursuance of that program," the court ruled today. JARPA II, is Japan's whaling "research" program, that involves the hunts and killing of whales in the South Pacific Ocean.
JAPRA II has drawn the ire from conservationists and anyone who may be fan of whales because, as the ICJ pointed out, it never really felt like the whales that were killed were really done in the name of research.
"I always felt the practice of 'scientific whaling' gave science (and scientists) a very bad name in the public eye," Paul Jepson, a wildlife population researcher at the Zoological Society of London told The Guardian. "There are many other alternative scientific methods: aerial/boat surveys; satellite telemetry; micro-dart skin biopsies, etc. that can now be used as to effectively study the health and conservation status of marine mammals populations without the need to kill them."
In pop culture, Japan's whale hunting has been brought to light by the show Whale Wars, which details the trials of the Sea Shepherd organization and their fight (some say vigilantism) against Japanese whalers. Sea Shepherd has accused Japan's research program of being a front for banned commercial whaling. There are films like The Cove, a documentary about the Japanese practice of slaughtering dolphins, which have also shined an uncomfortable light on Japan's relentless hunting of marine mammals.
Even though JARPA II has now been outlawed, Japan is not without options. They can, and probably will, try to develop another scientific whaling program. "But it will have to prove the research cannot be done without killing whales," The Guardian reports. | <urn:uuid:9dea2c12-1d94-4cac-8135-f082aaa282db> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/03/good-news-for-whales-un-court-tells-japan-to-stop-its-whale-hunting/359897/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398216.41/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965242 | 429 | 2.578125 | 3 |
NIKOLA GRUEVSKI, Prime Minister of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, said that South-East Europe had entered a phase of positive development in which the primary objectives of nations and the region at large were either fulfilled or within reach. But although regional cooperation was expanding in a number of new fields, unresolved bilateral issues had a clear negative reflection on the present and the immediate future, a serious obstacle to his country’s agenda for integration into international organizations. The country was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its United Nations membership, but the issue of its name remained unresolved.
He went on to emphasize that the issue was about the identity of his people, but Greece opposed the country’s chosen name, which was its “fundamental, individual and collective right”. The overwhelming majority of Member States had recognized the country’s constitutional name, which clearly showed that most did not believe the dispute had a justified political basis. There was no basis in international law for preventing a country from naming itself as it wished, he said, adding that without international law, the United Nations would become a “debate club” without any fundamental competencies, stressing that his country was “entitled to decide on its own name”, according to international law.
The problem extended to the naming of the country’s language and the national identity of its citizens, he continued. “It is the same as if somebody denied you to speak French, German, Polish, English, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, Hindi or any other language.” Putting off a resolution of the dispute created more challenges in the country and the region, inflaming tensions, he said, emphasizing that his people would nonetheless never accept the renaming of their country. He recalled that he had proposed a higher-level meeting for direct talks to the Prime Minister of Greece two months ago, citing the examples of Serbia and Kosovo as well as Croatia and Slovenia, where political representatives at the highest level had managed to overcome their differences.
Where progress lagged, the United Nations must not stand still and be satisfied with the status quo, he stressed. Rather, it should use the General Assembly and the Security Council to “unlock the perspectives” of his country, otherwise it would again be faced with failure. The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was confident that the international community had the capacity to respond jointly to all challenges by taking decisions, changing habits and strengthening cooperation and prosperity, he said. | <urn:uuid:7e6716fa-f18a-4c2a-ade9-ae51e6d1d132> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://gadebate.un.org/68/former-yugoslav-republic-macedonia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00144-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980558 | 509 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Carnivores kill to live, and the instincts that allow true carnivores to survive include the killer instinct. This is more than lack of empathy for the prey, it is joy in the hunt. The thrashing agony of a dying gazelle in the mouth of a lion touches not the heart of the lion, who is focused on his hunger and what is known as the thrill of the hunt. Without this thrill, carnivores would be less likely to survive, as the fatigue that comes from relentless hunting trips, most often unsuccessful, would overcome hunger. Thus, for carnivores, the killer instinct is inborn, natural, and therefore more easily forgiven. Carnivores that hunt to live are unlikely to kill strictly for sport, as when satiated they lie about sunning themselves. However, the killer instinct adds excitement to the long and frustrating hunts, so once up on their feet and hunting, carnivores are motivated to keep going until they come home with the catch.
The killer instinct has often been ascribed to humans, to explain human behavior that most find shocking. Beyond sadism, some humans kill just to run up the numbers, casually, for trifling reasons, and without a backward glance or twinge of remorse. This is romanticized into something called the killer instinct, akin to the noble lion or savage stalking tiger. How else to explain a human who casually kills others? This is akin to suicide, developing a casual attitude toward life because there is a desire for death. Many who want to die lack the courage to enter into the final fray, not so much due to anticipation of the final agony, but fear of living through the attempt, maimed and out of control, unable to finish the job. Casual killers are simply hoping that someone will return the favor, and eventually, someone does. | <urn:uuid:666cb79a-0a56-4e2c-86aa-7f59b0702aba> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.zetatalk4.com/beinghum/b76.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00028-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956778 | 369 | 2.6875 | 3 |
One of the delights of wandering around an undergraduate chemistry laboratory is discussing the unexpected, if not the outright impossible, with students. The >100% yield in a reaction is an example. This is sometimes encountered (albeit only briefly) when students attempt to recrystallise a product from cyclohexane, and get an abundant crop of crystals when they put their solution into an ice-bath to induce the crystallisation. Of the solvent of course! I should imagine 1000% yields are possible like this.
What the students are not expecting is that cyclohexane has such a high melting point, higher than that of water! n-Octane for example melts at -57°C (and most of us have seen those travelogues in the antarctic where the petrol tanks need to be warned to prevent freezing), so why is that of cyclohexane so much higher? That it might be strange is shown by the melting points of the series:
- benzene, +5.5°C
- cyclohexadiene, -89°C
- cyclohexene, -97°C
- cyclohexane, +6.5°C.
Benzene one might explain because it famously stacks in a herring-bone fashion, with the relatively electropositive hydrogen attracted to the π-cloud on the face.
Clearly, this explanation cannot hold for cyclohexane, which has no π-face. What does the crystal look like?
If one inspects the structure closely, one can find quite a few H…H contacts at about 2.4Å and they are arranged in a particularly rigid three-dimensional manner. The maximum attractive force resulting from van der Waals, or dispersion interactions between two hydrogens is thought to occur at ~2.4Å. Perhaps cyclohexane is a prime (possibly THE prime) example of the influence of this (under-rated) interaction? A molecule covered in Velcro no less. By the way, can you spot the connection with the previous post?
Postscript: Below is a so-called non-covalent-analysis (NCI) of cyclohexane as packed into a crystal lattice. The coordinates are obtained from a neutron diffraction structure. The green regions indicate weakly attractive zones. | <urn:uuid:fc887699-3be9-48a6-b808-8c38ab605143> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ch.imperial.ac.uk/rzepa/blog/?p=3276 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00133-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92536 | 483 | 3.046875 | 3 |
The score was authenticated last year
A previously unknown piece of music by Mozart has been discovered at a library in western France.
Ulrich Leisinger, head of research at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Austria, said the single sheet of music was "really important".
"His handwriting is absolutely clearly identifiable," he added. "There's no doubt that this is an original piece handwritten by Mozart."
The sheet was found among the archives by staff at a library in Nantes.
Mr Leisinger said the municipal Mediatheque library contacted his foundation to ask for help authenticating the work.
The score appears to be for a "Credo in D major".
There is a second piece which looked like a "first draft, in parts illegible," said a library official.
It was part of the collection of Pierre-Antoine Laboucheroe, a 19th-century collector who donated his legacy to the city.
The score was catalogued as part of the library's collection, but was later "entirely forgotten" about.
It was rediscovered by the library as it re-catalogued its archives, and authenticated by a researcher from the Mozarteum Foundation last year.
Mr Leisinger said there had been just 10 Mozart finds of such importance over the past 50 years.
If sold, the single sheet would likely fetch around $100,000.
Mr Leisinger said it was the "draft for a piece that Mozart did not work out, for whatever reason".
"It's a melody sketch so what's missing is the harmony and the instrumentation, but you can make sense out of it," he said.
"The tune is complete. It's only one part, and not the whole score with eight or twelve parts.
"One can really get a feeling of what Mozart meant, although we do not know how he would have orchestrated it."
He added: "The fact that an entirely new sheet shows up is extremely rare." | <urn:uuid:1bd33362-6735-4af6-a18d-2d99aa971a6b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7623663.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403826.29/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00159-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981206 | 418 | 2.75 | 3 |
• Syzygium aromaticum
• (Sih-ZIJ-ee-um ah-ro-MAT-ih-kum)
• Family Myrtaceae
How would pumpkin pie or spice cake taste without cloves, that pungent and most aromatic of spices? Those little brown sticks (“clove” comes from the Latin clavus, “nail”) that stud the Easter ham and holiday pomanders are actually the unopened flower buds of a tropical tree related to allspice and guavas.
The genus Syzygium, to which the clove tree belongs, comprises about 500 species of trees or shrubs native to the Old World Tropics. S. aromaticum itself is native to the Moluccas (Spice Islands), part of modern Indonesia. It is an evergreen tree growing about 40 feet tall with smooth gray bark and 5-inch-long, glossy opposite leaves that resemble bay leaves. The 1/4-inch flowers in clusters at the ends of the branches have four tiny petals surrounded by a long, four-parted calyx (the “stem” of the clove) and numerous stamens. The buds are pink, but the calyx changes from yellow to deep red-pink after the stamens fall. The fruit, called mother-of-cloves, is an edible purple berry about 1 inch long and 1/2 inch across. The entire plant is aromatic.
The generic name, Syzygium, comes from a Greek word meaning “yoked together” and refers to the union, in some species, of the petal tips into a cap that covers the stamens. The meaning of the specific name, aromaticum, is obvious.
Cloves were known at least 2,000 years ago in China. They are believed to have been brought by Javanese envoys to the Chinese court, where the emperor decreed that every visitor hold a clove in his mouth when addressing him. Arab traders introduced cloves into Europe by the fourth century A.D., and the Portuguese were trading for cloves in the Moluccas by 1511. Although clove trees grew on many islands in the Moluccas, the Dutch set out to control the clove trade in the seventeenth century by destroying all trees except those on a single island, which they controlled. In 1625 alone, 65,000 clove trees were cut down. The Dutch held the monopoly on cloves for about 150 years. During this period, any unauthorized person caught growing or carrying cloves or seedlings might be put to death. Finally, the French smuggled seedling clove trees to Mauritius, an island east of Africa in the Indian Ocean, and by 1800, clove trees were being cultivated on a number of islands in the Indian Ocean and in the New World. They are now grown commercially in Madagascar, Tanzania, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Réunion, the Seychelles, and the Comoro Islands. Zanzibar and Pemba, islands off the east coast of Africa that are part of Tanzania, produce about 90 percent of the world’s cloves.
Clove trees require a warm, humid climate with 50 to 70 inches of rainfall annually and a minimum temperature of 59°F; well-drained, fertile loam; and a position in full sun or part shade. Most clove plantations are located within 10° of the equator and close to the ocean. Commercial growers shade the young trees and protect them from wind, sometimes growing them under other trees such as mangos or jacarandas. Trees may be propagated by sowing seeds in spring or rooting semiripe cuttings in summer. Trees flower for the first time when eight or nine years old. The unopened flower buds are harvested by hand when they reach full size and are just turning pink. In Indonesia, women and children pick the clusters closest to the ground, while men either clamber into the branches or climb ladders to gather the higher clusters. Later, the buds are snapped off the flower stalks and placed on leaf mats to dry in the sun. After three days, they will have turned dark brown and weigh only one-third of their weight when first picked.
A tree may yield as much as 75 pounds of dried cloves, but the crop fluctuates from year to year. Under favorable conditions, trees may live 100 years or longer, but in Zanzibar, many have been killed by a devastating fungal disease called sudden death. Fortunately, young trees are apparently resistant to the disease.
General Uses For Clove
At least half the world’s clove supply goes into the manufacture of Indonesian cigarettes, and Indonesia, where cloves originated, is a major importer of the spice. Of the remainder, only those of the highest quality are used as a culinary spice. The rest, along with the dried flower stalks and leaves, are processed to extract the essential oil, which is used not only to flavor foods, but also in cosmetics, dentistry, medicine, and as a clearing agent in microscopy. About 85 percent of the oil is eugenol, which is also a component of the essential oils of cinnamon, bay laurel, basil, nutmeg, and hyssop, among other familiar herbs and spices.
As for the cloves that don’t go into making Indonesian cigarettes or clove oil, they can enhance so many kinds of food: fruits, baked goods, ham, beets, green beans, winter squash, pea soup. They’re also an essential ingredient of Chinese five-spice powder, Indian garam masalas, American mixed pickling spice, and spiced teas. The flavor of most ground spices fades rapidly, but that of ground cloves seems to last for ages. Use a light hand when seasoning with cloves: one or two whole cloves stuck in an onion simmered slowly in a stew, 1/4 teaspoon of ground cloves in a recipe for spice cookies.
Medicinal Uses For Clove
Practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine have used cloves to treat indigestion, diarrhea, hernia, hiccups, kidney disorders, intestinal parasites, fungal infections such as athlete’s foot, even impotence. Europeans have drunk clove tea mainly as a digestive aid, but during the Middle Ages, cloves were considered an aphrodisiac, perhaps due to the perceived similarity in shape of a clove and the human penis.
Clove oil has long been a home remedy for toothache. It relieves pain by desensitizing pain receptors in the tooth and combats inflammation by inhibiting the synthesis of prostaglandins. It is also antiseptic: dentists utilize the disinfectant property of its principal constituent, eugenol, mixed with zinc oxide as a temporary filling in root canal treatment, and a laboratory study showed that its constituents kaempferol and myricetin strongly inhibited the growth of bacteria associated with tooth and gum disease.
Other laboratory studies have confirmed that eugenol inhibits the growth of fungi including Candida albicans, the organism that causes human yeast infections. Animal studies have shown that it is also a strong antioxidant and protects against cardiovascular disease by preventing the aggregation of platelets.
Aside from using clove oil as an emergency toothache treatment, don’t try self-treatment with the oil or its constituents. They can be toxic in small amounts when taken internally or absorbed through the skin.
• Plant It Hawaii, PO Box 388, Kurtistown, HI 96760. Catalog $1. Plants. | <urn:uuid:f26fc5bb-6b31-4a63-b1ec-0bbf311631ac> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.motherearthliving.com/plant-profile/an-herb-to-know-clove.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00085-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950324 | 1,583 | 3.328125 | 3 |
+ add to my flashcards
cite this term
Rote Learning refers to skills that have been practiced to the point of being an automatic behavior that does not involve conscious thought. As we grow and practice daily activities, things like dishwashing, setting the table, doing laundry, traveling to familiar places, etc. exist as rote learning. In school, rote learning is academic tasks that have been practiced to the point of answering questions without the need to think. Examples of this are reciting the alphabet or the multiplication tables.
Interested in a Graduate Psychology Degree?
You can get free information about Adler University's graduate psychology programs just by answering a few short questions.
It only takes a minute. What are you waiting for? Get Free Info | <urn:uuid:3dadf364-e795-427f-adb1-227c67df4a39> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.alleydog.com/glossary/definition.php?term=Rote%20Learning | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938271 | 154 | 3.59375 | 4 |
The Gray's Woods Elementary School's Science Fair
|Julie decided that her 4th grade science project would be
"Puppies." Our new Black and Tan Coonhound, Scout was her inspiration
for the project. Over the next several weeks, Julie spent many hours preparing
the facts for her display, like "Poisons for Puppies" which was a somewhat
misleading title that did not mean how to poison puppies, but in fact what items
could be a poison should a puppy eat them (this did seem to confuse several
people at the fair). She also had interesting factoids that she prepared
using observational research on "puppies and pictures" (if they don't
like their picture taken, don't take it), messes (they act like animals, so
never just let them run around if you aren't paying attention) and sleeping (you will be
so happy when they are finally asleep), etc.
||Julie got special permission from the principle to bring her 14 week old
puppy as part of her project as long as Scout stayed outside in case someone had
allergies or something like that. Per school policy, no animals were allowed inside
the building which inhibited hamster
and gerbil maze projects that were planned.
|After many hours of hard work gluing, cutting and writing, the day of the
Science Fair arrived. Julie placed her "Puppies" project proudly
between the DNA analysis and centrifuge microscope display, and electric
light up Photosynthesis project. "Puppies" was an
instant smash hit and over 100 children and adults came outside to pet
Scout and try to guess what kind of dog she was (most thought she was a Doberman
with uncropped ears, a bloodhound or an overgrown Bassett hound).
Scout enjoyed herself immensely and never turned off the charm, greeting
every child with lots of kisses and wags as if it this were the first
child to see her.
||When the night was over
Scout with stuffed puppy in mouth, climbed into her favorite
chair, which now falls over from her weight, and slept the entire
night without waking once. I wish there was a science fair every | <urn:uuid:135cd8f9-650e-4cee-bd61-441a91095271> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.personal.psu.edu/staff/a/r/ard5/pets/sciencefair.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397213.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979395 | 469 | 2.8125 | 3 |
What does umpteenth even mean? Why do parents always use it? See also Numbers.
A chain of islands. Sounds like a Spanish pelican.
Middle English word meaning "proud"or "haughty".
It's just a fun word to say. Use it to describe your irritated, elderly neighbor and you'll get what I mean. See also Elderly.
Hey! A little help here! Add your own funny word.
Another name for a small boat.
The state of only having a single testicle. Similarly, a monochid, is a man with one testicle. See also Body.
Fancy word for nonsense.
Literally translates to: "Beef labeling supervision task transfer law." See also German. | <urn:uuid:e008ac49-e7e7-4297-9e53-039d98eeacc8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.inherentlyfunny.com/cat-3-funny_words-6.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397795.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00079-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935729 | 156 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Cervical Cancer & HPV
About HPV and Cervical Cancer
Human papillomavirus, or HPV, is a group of over 100 virus types that are transmitted by skin-to-skin contact. Most strains of HPV will clear on their own. But a few "high-risk" strains, if persistent, may develop into cervical cancer, although this is rare. It's important to remember that not all high-risk strains are covered by the HPV vaccine. Routine pap testing, and HPV testing when recommended, is the best way to screen for cervical cancer.
Who gets HPV?
About 80% of sexually active women have contracted at least one strain of genital HPV by age 50.1 At any given time, approximately 20 million people in the U.S. will have HPV, and approximately 6.2 million are estimated to contract a form of HPV each year.1
Since HPV rarely produces noticeable symptoms, many people with HPV don't even know they have it.
Genital warts and cervical cancer
People often think of genital warts when they think of HPV, but many are not aware that genital warts are most often associated with low-risk strains of HPV. High-risk strains most often don't cause warts. So it's important not to confuse genital warts with your cervical cancer risk.
High- and low-risk HPV strains
There are over 100 different strains of HPV. The majority are considered to be "low-risk," meaning they are not associated with cervical cancer. In fact, most HPV infections will go away by themselves within 2 years.
14 HPV strains are considered to be high-risk, and may over time lead to cervical cancer. Just two of these high-risk strains — HPV-16 and HPV-18 — have been shown to account for about 70% of cervical cancer cases.
The HPV vaccine
The HPV vaccine protects against two high-risk HPV strains: HPV-16 and HPV-18. These strains are responsible for about 70% of cervical cancer cases. However, not all high-risk strains are covered by the vaccine. That's why regular pap testing, and HPV testing when recommended, remains important whether or not you've had the HPV vaccine.
Testing for HPV
While high-risk HPV is known to cause the majority of cervical cancers a small amount of HPV infections actually become cervical cancer. In fact, most sexually active women will be exposed to HPV and the vast majority of these infections will clear on their own.
Because of this, HPV testing is recommended for use with pap test when:
- Your pap test result comes back as inconclusive or slightly abnormal (ASC-US)
- You are age 30 or older
At this time, there is no cure for HPV. If your doctor recommends an HPV test with your pap test, both can be taken from your ThinPrep pap test sample. However, for infections that persist, routine pap testing and HPV testing when recommended are the surest method for early detection.
Spreading awareness of HPV
According to a recent survey by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, only 40% of American women have heard of HPV, and only 20% have heard of its link to cervical cancer. If you have friends who don't know about HPV — spread the word. And make sure they know about the importance of getting regular pap tests, too.
1. American Cancer Society. Guideline for Human Papillomavirus (HPV) Vaccine Use to Prevent Cervical Cancer and Its Precursors. Available here: http://caonline.amcancersoc.org/cgi/content/full/57/1/7. Accessed 9/2/08.
2. Hybrid Capture® 2 Package Insert. QIAGEN Group, Netherlands.
3. American Cancer Society. Thinking About Testing for HPV? Available here: http://www.cancer.org/ docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6x_Thinking_About_Testing_for_HPV.asp. Accessed 5/29/08. | <urn:uuid:9799ec14-64a4-4209-a7cc-3081bef25cd1> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thinprep.com/info/cervical_cancer/about_hpv.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397565.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952707 | 838 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Electric System Flexibility and Storage
Options for Increasing Electric System Flexibility to Accommodate Higher Levels of Variable Renewable Electricity
Increased electric system flexibility, needed to enable electricity supply-demand balance with high levels of renewable generation, can come from a portfolio of supply- and demand-side options, including flexible conventional generation, grid storage, curtailment of some renewable generation, new transmission, and more responsive loads. NREL's electric system flexibility studies investigate the role of various electric system flexibility options on large-scale deployment of renewable energy.
NREL's electric system flexibility analyses show that:
- Key factors in improving grid flexibility include (1) increasing the ramp range and rate of all generation sources to follow the variation in net load and (2) the ability to better match the supply of renewable resources with demand via increased spatial diversity, shiftable load, or energy storage.
- Overall system flexibility largely depends on the mix of generation technologies in the system. A system dominated by gas or hydro units will likely have a higher level of flexibility than a system dominated by coal or nuclear generators.
- Even with a completely flexible system, achieving very high levels of variable generation requires enabling technologies to address the fundamental mismatch of supply and demand.
Highlights of Recent Studies
Grid Flexibility and Storage Required to Achieve Very High Penetration of Variable Renewable Electricity.
This study investigated the electric power system changes required to incorporate high penetration of variable wind and solar electricity generation—mixes of wind, solar photovoltaic and concentrating solar power meet up to 80% of the electric demand—in Texas, U.S. (ERCOT). Key findings from this study include:
- A highly flexible system — with must-run baseload generators virtually eliminated — allows for penetrations of up to about 50% variable generation with curtailment rates of less than 10%.
- For penetration levels up to 80% of the system's electricity demand, keeping curtailments to less than 10% requires a combination of load shifting and storage equal to about one day of average demand.
To find out more about this study, please download:
- Grid Flexibility and Storage Required to Achieve Very High Penetration of Variable Renewable Electricity (2011).
Find out more about NREL's Electric System Flexibility Analysis Approach (Tools, Models and Data):
- Regional Energy Deployment System (ReEDS) is a long-term capacity-expansion model for the deployment of electric power generation technologies and transmission infrastructure throughout the contiguous United States.
- The Renewable Energy Flexibility (REFlex) model is a reduced form dispatch model that compares VG supply with demand and calculates the fraction of load potentially met by VG considering flexibility constraints and curtailment. REFlex also can dispatch a variety of system flexibility options to determine the basic feasibility of matching RE supply with demand.
Find out more about other published electric system flexibility analyses:
- Renewable Electricity Futures Study. Volume 2: Renewable Electricity Generation and Storage Technologies. (Volume 2 of 4) (2012).
- Milligan, M.; Ela, E.; Hein, J.; Schneider, T.; Brinkman, G.; Denholm, P. (2012). Renewable Electricity Futures Study. Volume 4: Bulk Electric Power Systems: Operations and Transmission Planning. (Volume 4 of 4). Golden, CO: National Renewable Energy Laboratory 72 pp.; NREL Report No. TP-6A20-52409-4.
- Market and Policy Barriers to Deployment of Energy Storage (2012).
For questions about this project, contact Paul Denholm via our Webmaster page. | <urn:uuid:fd9a89ef-b6a9-4d4e-ad46-febf868692c6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nrel.gov/analysis/key_activities_integ_flex.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392159.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00035-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.848567 | 740 | 2.734375 | 3 |
With more than 500 animals representing 140 species at the Sacramento Zoo, the veterinarians have their hands full. They use their expertise to examine eyes, cure upset stomachs and make sure the large variety of animals at the Zoo receive the best preventative care and stay in tip-top shape. It is easy to imagine a typical exam on most of the animals, but what about the koi fish? How exactly do you give them an exam?
On March 14th all of the Zoo’s nine koi received an exam. The exam began with transporting them to the Murray E. Fowler Veterinary Hospital at the Zoo in coolers filled with water from their pond.
The fish were examined one at a time. First the fish was placed in water that had a solution to anesthetize the fish. This would reduce the stress to the fish and the amount of wiggling. After the koi was asleep in the water it would momentarily be taken out of the water to be weighed and then promptly placed back in the water where it was measured for body length and girth.
The exam also included photographs for identification, a skin scrape to look for parasites under the microscope, a gill biopsy to look for parasites and a blood sample. The exam ended with the fish being removed from the water one more time for a quick x-ray. At the end of the exam the fish was then placed back in the cooler they arrived in and a veterinarian monitored the koi as the anesthesia wore off. | <urn:uuid:1dce51c2-57ba-4752-adaa-aba224c68058> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://sacramentozoo.blogspot.com/2014/03/koi-visit-vet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400572.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00172-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980179 | 306 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Fulbright-Hays Programs: The World is Our Classroom
Only fifty years ago, the geopolitical landscape shifted with the emergence of independent nations and the bipolar struggle for influence in world regions. U.S. leaders were increasingly confronted with the need to understand the Soviet Union, its allies, and the countries of the world in which the Cold War was being played out. Spurred by the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik, federal funding to establish foreign language and area studies programs at U.S. universities was authorized under the National Defense Education Act of 1958, later incorporated into Title VI of the Higher Education Act. To ensure scholars would also receive the critical overseas educational experiences necessary for developing high levels of language and area expertise, the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange (Fulbright-Hays) Act of 1961 was enacted.
The Fulbright-Hays programs, administered by the U.S. Department of Education (ED), are distinct from the Fulbright programs administered by the U.S. Department of State. While both sets of programs serve international education and national security interests, their specific goals and program emphases differ. State Department programs focus on exchange for mutual understanding by bringing overseas scholars and professionals to the United States and by sending U.S. citizens (often with no prior international experience) abroad.
In contrast, the Fulbright-Hays programs at the U.S. Department of Education serve a domestic agenda. Authorized under Section 102(b)(6) of the Fulbright-Hays Act, they support the internationalization of the nation's educational infrastructure by strengthening area and foreign language expertise among current and prospective U.S. educators. They do this in two ways:
- by providing critical, advanced overseas study and research opportunities for area and language experts and faculty-in-training; and
- by offering experiences and resources enabling educators to strengthen their international teaching.
In nine years on the J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board, I have had the opportunity to see the extraordinary impact of the Fulbright-Hays programs on participants' lives. They develop a rich understanding of people in different countries and cultures and share their knowledge with other Americans after their return to the United States - especially important in the current international environment. For this reason, it is important to maintain the programs' non-political nature, their focus on educational goals.
Professor of Political Science, Wellesley College
Member, J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
Using funds provided by the Fulbright-Hays programs, participants serve as informal cultural ambassadors and engage in an exchange of knowledge and culture while overseas. Fulbright-Hays sends U.S. citizens abroad, but it does not provide reciprocal opportunities for international scholars to visit the United States. Participants are associated with a domestic education agency rather than foreign policy and therefore enjoy a greater degree of flexibility in their overseas work. Further, Fulbright-Hays programs are targeted primarily (though not exclusively) at educators and future educators. These programs contribute to the U.S. international education infrastructure, supporting ongoing teaching and research about the peoples, cultures, and events that shape today's world. The four Fulbright-Hays programs include: Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA), Faculty Research Abroad (FRA), Group Projects Abroad (GPA), and Seminars Abroad (SA).
DDRA and FRA: Building Language and Area Experts
The Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad (DDRA) and Faculty Research Abroad (FRA) programs allow participants who have already acquired a level of expertise in an area or language to deepen and expand this knowledge, thereby creating a pool of highly qualified experts. DDRA allows doctoral students to conduct overseas research in modern foreign languages and area studies for periods of 6-12 months. Proposals that focus on Western Europe are not eligible. Recipients of these awards must possess sufficient language and area knowledge to conduct research in a foreign language of the area on which they will focus. Although applications are evaluated based on the proposed projects' merits, individuals apply to the programs through their home institutions. More information about DDRA and the application process can be found at the following Web site: http://www.ed.gov/programs/iegpsddrap/index.html.
DDRA enables Ph.D. candidates to complete their education and research. FRA, on the other hand, provides the opportunity for faculty to maintain their language and area skills and remain current in their fields. It is most often used by junior faculty conducting significant research to strengthen their tenure cases, but is open to participants at any stage in their faculty careers. Individuals receiving FRA funding must have been engaged in teaching relevant to their language or area specialization for two years immediately preceding the award. More information about FRA and the application process can be found at the following website: http://www.ed.gov/programs/iegpsfra/index.html.
Groups and Seminars: Strengthening Expertise and Teaching at all Educational Levels
The Group Projects Abroad (GPA) and Seminars Abroad (SA) programs provide in-depth, overseas study experiences to current and prospective educators who are becoming specialists in foreign languages and cultures. Both programs help to expand and strengthen international teaching across the American educational spectrum. Seminars Abroad enables approximately 160 educators in the humanities, social sciences and languages to experience non-West European countries and form vital cross-cultural partnerships while engaging in curriculum development projects. Eligible participants include not only elementary and secondary (K-12) teachers, but also postsecondary faculty and administrators from two- and four-year colleges, librarians, museum educators, and media or resource specialists. Airfare, room and board, tuition and fees, and travel in the destination country are provided. Unlike the other Fulbright-Hays programs, eligible Seminars applicants submit applications directly to the U.S. Department of Education. The Web site, http://www.ed.gov/programs/iegpssap/index.html, provides detailed program and application information.
Group Projects Abroad provides an intensive international learning experience to both students and education professionals, thereby enabling U.S. colleges and universities, state departments of education and private non-profit educational organizations to design and implement short-term seminars (5-6 weeks), curriculum development teams, group research projects (3-12 months), or advanced intensive language institutes. Emphasis is placed on humanities, social sciences and languages in non-West European contexts. Curricular projects focus on regional and national priorities. GPA allows participants to obtain valuable overseas experience while developing new, internationally-focused curricula for use in their U.S. classrooms. The Web site, http://www.ed.gov/programs/iegpsgpa/index.html, provides detailed program and application information.
Fulbright-Hays Today and Tomorrow
Initiated during the tensions of the Cold War, the Fulbright-Hays programs and the international educators they support are no less vital to U.S. security today. Events of recent years have underscored the reality that foreign language and area expertise is more important than ever. Shifts in the global power balance give rise to demands for expertise pertaining to an expanding number of countries, languages and cultures. Federal government sources indicate that the demand for international experts continues to exceed the supply, especially for those having language proficiency and knowledge of less commonly taught areas such as the Balkans, the Caspian Basin or the Persian Gulf. U.S. Navy Commander Edward Kane reiterated this fact when he spoke about the complexities of military work in Africa at a National Briefing on Language and National Security held January 16, 2002 at the National Press Club of Washington, D.C.
Our requirement for linguists is not merely a need for interpreters. It goes much deeper, to the need for trained analysts who understand both what is being said and the context of its meaning. The latter requirement is an essential factor in our attempts to analyze information communicated in foreign languages so that it can effectively aid decision-makers.
-- Cmdr. Edward Kane, U.S. Navy, Washington Liaison Office, United States European Command, at a National Briefing on Language and National Security, National Press Club of Washington, D.C., January 16, 2002
Recent Fulbright-Hays funded activities demonstrate the extent to which the programs remain responsive to a changing international environment. The majority of Fulbright-Hays grants are awarded to institutions through a peer review process. The programs provide opportunities for U.S. experts to identify the best strategies for meeting current national needs. The programs support important transnational topics such as climate, the environment, and immigration while continuing to promote the development of expertise in the languages and cultures of Islamic countries as well as those of the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, Africa and Asia.
With a focus on strengthening the international expertise of teachers at all levels of education and stages of their careers, the Fulbright-Hays programs collectively represent a comprehensive strategy for meeting a vital national need. The actual overseas experiences are critical to international educators' professional development, but the benefits extend beyond the level of individual achievement in succeeding years. Educators establish a myriad of relationships that assist their professional work, including affiliations with overseas institutions, contacts with counterparts in other countries and networks with other Fulbright-Hays participants. The partnerships forged through these programs serve as resources on which U.S. educators can draw later on in their careers. Fulbright-Hays' impact multiplies as participants' experiences translate into curricular, outreach and research initiatives that help to create a cadre of globally aware citizens across the country.
SPOTLIGHT ON: Federal Language Needs | <urn:uuid:057ee1d4-5872-4815-9eae-a1cc11571039> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/iegps/fulbright-hays.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396875.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00171-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937741 | 2,000 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Argentinian doctor; joined Castro in Mexico in 1954; a leader of the 1956-59 Cuban Revolution. Che served as president of Cuba's national bank and as Cuba's minister of industry in the period immediately following the Cuban Revolution. Towards the end of his formal affiliation with the Cuban government, Che came to implicitly criticize Soviet bureacracy. His positions put him at odds with the party line of the Cuban CP. In 1965, Che realized that the defence of the Cuban revolution and the creation of revolutions abroad were naturally not always in sync, and this ultimately led to his resignation and his return to revolutionary work abroad. During Che's subsequent revolutionary campaigns, he wrote his Message to the Tricontinental (1967) in which he openly criticized the Soviet Union; claiming that the Northern hemisphere of the world, both the Soviet Union and the US, exploited the Southern hemisphere of the world. He strongly supported the Vietnamese Revolution, and urged his comrades in South America to create 'many vietnams'. In 1965 Che left Cuba to set up guerrilla forces first in the Congo and then later in Bolivia, where he was ultimately captured and killed in October 1967. Accounts of his execution have varied over the years, but many contemprary accounts indicate some degree of collaboration between Bolivia's government troops and the United States CIA. Guevara developed a theory of primacy of military struggle, in particular concept of guerilla foquismo. Many of Che's theories regarding guerilla tactics are articulated in his 1961 work 'Guerilla Warfare.' | <urn:uuid:ec96afb0-9402-495b-a52d-2ec4ef1574f7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.youtubedocumentaries.com/documentary.cfm?name=The_True_Story_of_Che_Guevara | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395166.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974866 | 314 | 2.875 | 3 |
The religion now called Odinism is the indigenous tradition of the Germanic branch of the Indo-European peoples. Pre-Christian in origin, it shows Paleolithic characteristics (the Shamanistic tendencies of Odin and the “trickster” aspects of Loki) as well as Neolithic traits (the ‘honor and shame” nature of its warlike ethical system, which is common among pastoral nomads).
The successful spread of Christianity largely displaced Odinism in Europe in the medieval period. Lithuania, officially converted in 1386, was the last pagan stronghold in Europe, and pagan elements only lingered in underground movements, such as the Odin Brotherhood. Elsewhere, the Indo-European gods continued to be honored, but many in their Vedic form, within Hinduism. (Odin, as Priscilla Kershaw pointed out in The One-Eyed God, was honored as Rudra/Shiva , for example, and Thor was honored as Indra.)
Odinism experienced a revival in nineteenth-century Europe, through the work of individuals such as, Rasmus Andersson andGuido von List. Von List visited the crypt of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in 1862 (the site was a former pagan shrine), and swore an oath to build a temple to Wotan (the Germanic Odin).
Organized Germanic groups such as the Germanische Glaubens-Gemeinschaft emerged in Germany in the early 20th century. Although several early members of the Nazi Party were part of the Thule Society, a study group for German antiquity, after his rise to power, Adolf Hitler discouraged such pursuits, and Neopagan societies were even exposed to some amount of persecution, with at least one member of List's Armanenschaft killed in a concentration camp.
At about the same time, Else Christensen began publishing "The Odinist" newsletter in Canada. In the United States, Stephen McNallen, a former U.S. Army officer, began publishing a newsletter titled "The Runestone". He also formed an organization called the Asatru Free Assembly, later renamed the Asatru Folk Assembly, which holds annual "Althing" meetings. These early societies went through a series of reformations and splits in 1987/88, resulting in the Asatru Alliance, an offshoot of the AFA headed by Valgard Murray, publisher of the "Vor Tru" newsletter and the Ring of Troth. In the United States, the most prevalent form of Odinist organization is in small groups called Kindreds, sometimes also known as a Hearths, Garths or Steads.
The Odinic Rite, organized by John Yeowell, was established in England in 1972, and in the 1990s expanded to include chapters in Germany (1995) , Australia (1995) and North America (1997) . In the 1990's the Odinist Fellowship emerged as a separate group in the United Kingdom, led by Ralph Harrison.
In Canada, the work of E. Max Hyatt, the force behind Wodanesdag, has been significant.
In Italy, the Odinist Community (Comunità Odinista) was established in 1994.
In the 1990s and 2000s, a variety of Scandinavian associations and networks have formed. Swedish Asatrosamfund (since 1994), Norwegian Åsatrufellesskapet Bifrost in Norway (1996) and Foreningen Forn Sed (1999), recognized by the Norwegian government as a religious society, allowing them to perform "legally binding civil ceremonies" (i. e. marriages), Danish Forn Siðr (1999) and Swedish Nätverket Gimle (2001), an informal community for individual Odinists, primarily living in Sweden with no connection to any formal organisation, and Nätverket Forn Sed (2004), a network consisting of local groups (blotlag) from all over the country. It was recently founded by members from other Forn Sed societies.
Since 1973 the governments of Iceland, Denmark, and Norway have officially recognized Odinism/Asatru.
A Brief Chronology Edit
History of Odinism/Asatru
1386 CE: Lithuania, the last pagan stronghold in Europe is officially converted, but pagans linger.
1421 CE: Three children, acting on instructions from their murdered mother, establish the Odin Brotherhood.
1611 CE: Johannes Bureus of Sweden, advisor to King Gustavus Adolphus, begins drawing and interpreting Sweden’s runestones. Many have been lost and are only known to us through his drawings.
1622 CE: Ole Worm of Denmark collects reports on runestones and other antique monuments of Denmark and the Northern countries. Bureus and Worm may be thought of as the founders of modern runic studies.
1642 CE: Bishop Brynjólfur gifts the “Codex Regius” to King Frederick III. Afterwards, the Eddic poems began to be published and more widely known.
1790 CE: The Romantic movement inspired Germans and Scandinavians seeking their national identity in their own origins and resulted in much of the early literature being translated.
1818 CE: The Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm, publish their collection of fairy tales.
1844 CE: Jacob Grimm publishes Teutonic Mythology , a study of medieval Norse literature’s relation to Germanic folklore.
1845 CE: Charles W. Heckethorn describes an Odinist mystery cult, in his Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries
1862 CE:P Guido von List visited the crypt of St. Stephen’s Cathedral (the location of a former pagan shrine) and swore an oath to build a temple to Wotan.
1874 CE: The King of Denmark grants the people of Iceland freedom of religion.
1875 CE: The cathedral of Reykjavik, Iceland is the site of the first public Ásatrú Blót since 1000 CE.
1907 CE: German painter and writer Ludwig Fahrenkrog founds the Germanic Glaubens -Gemeinschaft (GGG), a German pagan group.
1933-1945 CE: In the Nazi era, pagans face persecution by both the Axis and Allies. Their groups are forbidden to meet and some leaders are jailed.
1957 CE: In Australia, A. Rud Mills publishes a series of books on the elder religion.
1969 CE: Else Christensen establishes the Odinist Fellowship.
1973 CE: The Odinic Rite was also moving to gain acceptance in England.
1973 CE: Stephen McNallen founded the Ásatrú Free Assembly of America, establishing Ásatrú solidly as a re-created pagan religion.
1981 CE Ernesto García founded the Comunidad Odinista de España. Spain was the fourth country where Odinism was oficially recognised as a legal religion.
1982CE: Certain members of the Odin Brotherhood decide to reveal some of the secrets of the movement.
1992 CE: The Odin Brotherhood, a non-fiction book by Mark Mirabello, is published.
1994 CE: The Comunità Odinista is established in Italy.
2004 CE: David Lane, a Wotanist, or extreme folkish pagan, writes KD Rebel, a novella describing radical Odinists fighting a guerrilla insurgency against a corrupt modern society.
2009 CE: Asatru and Odinist groups are now found throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Australia/New Zealand
The Eddic poem Völuspá (Prophecy of the Seeress) reveals the mysteries of Odinist cosmology. According to the poem, between Muspelheim (The Land of Fire) and Niflheim (The Land of Ice) was an empty space called Ginnungigap. The fire and ice moved towards each other; when they collided, the universe came into being.
In order of creation, first were the giants, then the gods, and, finally, humankind.
Gods and Goddesses include:
- Odin (The most popular of the Gods, both in present time and the past, he values wisdom over all else, to the point of sacrificing his own eye for knowledge. He takes half those slain in battle to his hall to prepare for Ragnarök. Wednesday, or "Woden's Day", is named after him)
- Thor (Hot-tempered and mighty God of thunder. He is large and red-bearded, carrying a massive hammer named Mjolnir, which he throws at enemies, striking them with lightning. Thursday, or "Thor's Day" is named after him)
- Tyr (Brave God of war who risked and lost his hand so the Gods could bind the fearsome wolf Fenrir. Once was the most pularly worshiped God until he was overtaken by Odin. Tuesday, or "Tyr's Day" is named after him)
- Baldr (Also commonly known as Balder, he was Odins son and heir. He was loved by all and perfect in every way for his beautiful appearance, wisdom, and gracious matter. It was said that none could question his judgements. He was killed as a result of the treachery of Loki, but will return at the end of the world)
- Freyja (Goddess of love, fertility, sex, attraction and war. Daughter of Njord. Because of this list of attributes, she's largely considered the most popular of the goddesses of the Norse pantheon. She is also referred to as the queen of the elves and the leader of the Valkyries, and she takes one-half of those slain in battle to her hall, putting her on equal footing to Odin in this regard.)
- Vidar (Another son of Odin, he is the God of Silence and Revenge. It is his destiny to revenge his father by slaying Fenrir, either by stepping on the beast-wolf's lower jaw and tearing him by the mouth with his raw power, or by using his sword against the heart of the wolf)
- Bragi (Another son of Odin, he is The God of poetry. A large part of his history is largely unavailable in modern times, however, it is known that he was very gifted in speech and storytelling, so much so that an eloquent person would be called a bragr-man or -woman)
- Heimdall (The guardian and god of light. He is the son of nine different mothers. His keen senses allow him to hear the grass grow and to see to the end of the world. He guards bifrost, the rainbow bridge to Asgard, ready to blow in his horn when danger approaches.)
- Frigg (Goddess of marriage, motherhood and household management. According to Odin, "Only Frigg knows the future, but discloses it to no one." She is the wife of Odin, mother of Baldr and sister of Njord. Friday, or "Frigg's Day" is named for her.)
- Sif (The wife of Thor, her golden hair grows in like normal natural hair, but was actually created by Dwarves. As a prank, Loki cut her hair off, which angered Thor; he made Loki promise to replace it, which he managed to do with the help of the Dwarf Dvalin)
- Njord (God of the fertile lands on the seacoast, as well as seamanship and sailing. He is a Vanir, a different kind of god than the Asir, and is the father of Freyr and Freyja.)
- Freyr (God of Fertility, Peace and Pleasure. Son of Njord. He falls in love with a beautiful giantess, and gave his sword, which was so well-constructed that it fought by itself, in order to convince his foot-page, Skírnir, to romance the giantess for him. This decision will have dire consequences at the Battle of Ragnarök, when Freyr will be defeated by Surt)
- Idun (Goddess of Youth and wife of Bragi. She keeps the gods young by giving them magic apples that extend their lives. Without these apples, the Gods, Aesir and Vanir alike, would age, wither and die as normal humans do.)
Other Important Entities include:
- Loki (A mischievous entity who likes to play tricks on the gods, he is frost giant by birth. Loki was a source of constant angst for the gods. His habitual trouble making landed him in some rough spots. Conversely, Loki was also a great deal of help to the gods on numerous occasions. It was Loki after all who brought several important artifacts to Asgard (including Mjollnir and Draupnir). As a result of his treacherous acts that lead to the death of Baldr, he was bound to a rock. He will lead the armies of Jotun (giants) against the gods in Ragnarök, the Final Battle.)
- Fenrir (A monstrous wolf that is the son of Loki and the giantess Angrboda. Fenrir has two sons of his own, Hati and Skoll, who constantly chase the horses that move the sun across the sky, as well as pursuing the Moon. He is bound to a rock by Gleipnir a ribbon made of the sound of a cat's footsteps, a woman's beard, the roots of a mountain, the sinews of a bear, the breath of a fish, and a bird's spittle. The binding of Fenrir cost Tyr his hand. At the battle of Ragnarök, he will break loose and devour Odin, but will be slain by Vidar.)
- Skaði (A mountain giant who married Njord. The marriage wasn't happy, as both were completely different, so they separated.)
Ethics and Afterlife Edit
In terms of ethics, members are taught to be "brave and generous." Modern Odinists model their life according to the Nine Charges."
- Self Reliance
- Strength is better than weakness
- Courage is better than cowardice
- Joy is better than guilt
- Honour is better than dishonour
- Freedom is better than slavery
- Kinship is better than alienation
- Realism is better than dogmatism
- Vigor is better than lifelessness
- Ancestry is better than universalism
The Odin Brotherhood teaches "strength over weakness, pride over humility, and knowledge over faith." Members honor the gods by fostering "thought, courage, honor, light, and beauty."
Osred, an Australian Odinist, has written an article on Odinist beliefs about Life After Death.
Some Rites of Odinism Edit
- Blót is the term for the historical Norse sacrifice in honour of the gods. Odinist blóts are often celebrated outdoors. Food and drink may be offered, and most of this will be consumed by the participants.
- Sumbel (also spelled symbel) is a Norse drinking rite in which an intoxicating drink (usually mead or ale) is passed around an assembled table. At each passing of the drink, participants make a short speech, a toast, and an oath. Oaths made during this rite are considered binding upon the individuals making them.
- Berserkergangr is a form of religious ecstasy, associated with Odin, a god of war, magic, and poetry.
- Reading the Runes. Tacitus, in Germania, describes how the ancient Germans cut branches from a fruit-bearing tree, and marked the branches with symbols, called runes. Calling upon the gods, the practitioner casts the branches randomly on a white cloth. New-Age Asatru use the runes as a method of divination. More traditional practitioners, such as the members of the Odin Brotherhood, claim the runes are connected with magic, but only indirectly with prophecy. Members of the Odin Brotherhood use the runes not to tell the future, but to summon a dead person so that he will reveal the future. That is how Odin himself uses the runes in as in Havamal, verse 156.
Distribution of adherentsEdit
Today, Odinism is practiced primarily in Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, North America and Australia/New Zealand. Small communities are also found in many other countries, including Austria, Switzerland, France, Italy, Portugal, Poland, and Russia. Active groups are also found in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Chile and Venezuela.
Exact numbers are unknown, but there are several thousand followers in the modern world.
Chadwick, H. M. The Cult of Othin. Cambridge, 1899.
Coulter, James Hjuka. Germanic Heathenry. 2003. ISBN 1410765857
Gundarsson, Kvedulf. Our Troth. 2006. ISBN 1419635980
Hollander, Lee M. The Poetic Edda. Austin, 1986. ISBN 0292764995
Mirabello, Mark. The Odin Brotherhood. 5th edition. Oxford, England, 2003. ISBN 1869928717
Mortensen, Karl. A Handbook of Norse Mythology. 2003. ISBN 048643219X
Paxson, Diana L. Essential Asatru. 2006. ISBN 0806527080
Puryear, Mark. The Nature of Asatru. 2006. ISBN 0595389643
Shetler, Greg. Living Asatru. 2003. ISBN 1591099110
Storyteller, Ragnar. Odin's Return. Payson,Arizona, 1995. (pdf. file of a novella based on the Odin Brotherhood story)
Sturluson, Snorri. Ynglinga Saga.
Sturluson, Snorri. Prose Edda. Mineola, New York, 2006. ISBN 0486451518
This Is Odinism. 1974. ISBN 095046130X
Yeowell, John. Book of Blots. 1991. ISBN 0950461350
External Links Edit
Podcasts on Odinism/Asatru Edit
See Also Edit
Articles of Interest Edit
List of Some Odinist/Asatru Organizations in the World Edit
- Eastern Europe
- Iceland / Scandinavia
- North America
- Círculo Odinista Español
- Circulo Odinista Europeo.(since 1981.)
- Gotland Forn Sed (since 1994)
- Fairneis Anafilh - Iberian Forn Sed
- Clan Falkon Galicia Alianza del Aguila Visigoda España
- Foro Clan Falkon Foro sobre Odinismo Visigoth en España
- Alianza del Aguila Visigoda en Barcelona
- Alianza del Aguila Visigoda en Asturias
- South America | <urn:uuid:c28ee873-91b1-42d6-8ee5-eed99f470f43> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pagan.wikia.com/wiki/Odinism | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94024 | 3,924 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Catch & Release Best Practices
We anglers have a powerful positive - or negative - impact upon the waters we fish, and the fisheries in the watersheds in which we live and work. This goes far beyond just practicing catch and release, but as implied by our name, Catch & Release is at the heart of it, because it's one of the most tangible things that an angler can do to benefit fisheries.
Basically, good Catch and Release practices come down to keeping the fish's best interest at heart. After all, if you're going to release the fish, you want to know it has its best chance of survival, right? These tips will help. Learn them, practice them all the time, and share them with others. You'll be doing your part to maintain our healthy fisheries and help restore those that are suffering!
Consider where you are fishing
Can you safely bring a fish to hand and release it again from an embankment ten feet above the water? From a bridge thirty feet above the water? Over all those rocks between the water's edge and your seat? If you are serious about the fish's survival, consider fishing from a spot that allows you to legitimately land and release fish safely and gently. This works in your interest as well – what if you catch the "really big one" this time out? How would you land that one?
What's the water temperature like? Particularly when fishing for coldwater species like trout, when the water becomes warm, fish have a decreased chance of survival after being released. Warm water contains less dissolved oxygen and fish are under more stress in a warmer water environment. When water temps are high, consider other fishing opportunities that will have less impact.
Choose your tackle wisely
The right size hooks and line strength for the fish you are going to target is a good place to start. If you intend to release your fish, remember that fish caught on flies or lures with single hooks have the best chance of survival. If possible to do so, replace treble hooks with single hooks. If you're fishing with bait, get rid of your conventional hooks and start using circle hooks. Circle hooks have been around since the turn of the century, but they're getting a recent revival in the recreational angling community. It's rare to gut-hook a fish using one, they virtually always hook the fish in the corner of the mouth - and they're super effective. If you decide to fish with bait and conventional hooks, set the hook quickly to avoid deeply hooking fish. Deeply hooked fish have a good chance of fatally tearing internal organs while you are landing them.
Pinch down the barbs on all of your hooks
Barbless hooks allow for a much easier and quicker release of your fish, with less damage to the fish's mouth. You can use pliers to pinch down the barbs on your hooks or you can carefully file them off of large hooks. You'll be surprised how few fish you lose using barbless hooks compared to the number you lost while using barbed hooks. Nearly every angler who fishes often for very long hooks him or herself at some point. At that moment, you'll either thank yourself for removing the barb or kick yourself for not!
Don't fight your fish any longer than necessary
Purposely allowing your battle with a fish to continue when it's not necessary places undue strain on the fish. Exhausted fish often swim away, but die days later because of lactic acid that builds up in their system. The longer they fight, the more toxic lactic acid that builds up. This means you should use the proper line test strength for the fish you intend to catch, and land your fish swiftly, but not carelessly – after all, the point is to land the fish!
Keep the fish in the water
Don't lift fish out of the water – don't even touch the fish if you don't have to. Many fish can be released without ever touching them. Just bend over, remove the hook with your hand or with pliers, and let the fish swim away. Research has shown that keeping a fish in the water dramatically increases its chances of survival. Think of it – after the fight of your life, say going 12 rounds in a boxing ring or running a marathon, imagine having your air cut off! That's exactly what we do when we lift fish from the water. Fish kept out of the water for more than one minute have a greatly diminished chance of survival, once a fish has been out of the water for three minutes, it has virtually no chance of survival, even if it swims away.
Keep your hands wet when handling fish
If you do handle a fish, and you do it with dry hands, it can cause some of the protective coating ("slime") on the fish's skin to come off. This coating is designed to protect fish from disease. Wet hands reduce this risk and can actually make it a little easier to handle your catch. Some anglers prefer soft wet gloves.
Large predatory fish (including bass) shouldn't be lifted out of the water vertically by the jaw or gill plate. The weight of the viscera of large fish is sufficient to tear internal connective tissue. The connective tissue does not grow in nature to resist gravity in this direction. Lunkers (including bass, catfish, muskies and northern pike, salmon and trout to name a few) should be landed in a net or with one hand supporting the belly if optimal health after release is a consideration.
Maintain control of the fish
Fish that are allowed to bang around on streamside rocks or the bottom of a boat harm themselves and expend a lot of undue energy. Depending upon the fish, you can control it by cupping your hand (or hands) around it, cradling it, grabbing it by the bottom lip, or grabbing it across the back. Under no circumstance should you ever grab a fish by the eyes or gills (despite what you've heard before or seen in outdoor magazines). Avoid squeezing fish around the belly, as this can damage internal organs.
Keep small fish vertical when holding them by the jaw, use a horizontal hold for larger fish
If you catch a bass or another fish that you will lift from the water by the jaw, be sure to keep the body in a straight up and down position. Do not attempt to hold the fish at a 45 degree angle or in a horizontal position by the jaw alone. You can dislocate the fish's jaw, making it impossible for the fish to eat, effectively starving the fish to death.
If you catch a large fish be SURE you hold the fish horizontally. This includes largemouth bass in particular, but also catfish, northern pike and muskies, walleye, salmon and trout. Large fish should never be lifted vertically by the jaw or gill plate. They have lived their life in suspension, and a vertical hold can tear their internal organs, viscera, and dislocate their spine. For a horizontal photo of the fish, wet your other hand (not holding the mouth or jaw) and support the fish under the belly to take the stress off the jaw and internal organs.
As a matter of repetition, the best thing for large fish is to keep them in the water.
Use needle nose pliers, hemostats, or fishhook removers to remove hooks
Pliers or similar tools allow you to remove hooks with better control and limit your "hands on" contact with the fish. Fish that are barely hooked or hooked in the lip can usually be freed with your hand, but it's a good idea to always have a pair of needle nose pliers for those harder to reach hooks.
Do not try to "dig out" deeply engorged hooks
Particularly when fishing with bait, fish can completely swallow the hook. When that happens, what's best?
Our research shows that - at least on trout - you should not just cut the line and let them swim away. Yes, they swim away, but most die within 24 - 72 hours. The engorged hook impales the stomach wall, and either tears open the stomach, which poisons the fish internally, or the hook point impales the stomach and then jabs at the heart and liver as the fish swims, and the fish bleeds to death (internally).
Many of us have caught fish with engorged hooks, so we know that fish CAN live that way. However, in our research, the survival rate is very, very low. It was 100% mortality on large trout, for example. Other species (like bass and sunfish) are heartier and may do better, but still many will die.
Conventional wisdom suggests that you should just cut the line at the fish's mouth and let the fish go.
If it appears that the hook is embedded in cartilage, this is a good strategy. Trying to horse a deeply swallowed hook out of a fish can end up doing more harm than good. In this hooking situation, most hooks will simply rust out after a short time.
In-Fisherman has poularized a technique to remove a hook through the gill of a fish in this situation. Read about it here.
Some de-hooking tools also help remove deeply engorged hooks.
We have seen mixed results with both of these tactics. Our bottom-line on the matter is that if you're fishing single, barbless hooks and artificial baits, you'll deep-hook fish rarely. Using circle hooks with live bait setups will also help. Prevention is the best medicine here, because once a fish has swallowed a hook, either cutting the line or removing the hook spells trouble for the fish.
Use Catch-and-Release Nets
If you must use a net to land fish, get a ‘catch and release' net. The material is less abrasive to the fish's skin and "slime," and the smaller mesh size does less damage as well. "Cradle" and "U"-type nets are excellent for long fish and safe fish handling. Good C&R nets typically have soft or knotless mesh.
Release fish promptly
The best bet for your fish's survival is to let it go immediately. Livewells utilizing fish health-enhancing products are the best bet if you aren't going to release fish immediately. Keeping fish in baskets or on stringers, particularly if they are in current or are being drug by a boat, virtually eliminates any chance of survival that the fish may have had. When you catch a fish, determine on the spot if you are going to keep the fish or not. It is an atrocity to find a few small dead fish at the boat ramp because an irresponsible angler decided "they didn't have enough to bother with," but we've all seen it.
Revive your fish carefully
In moving water, hold your fish pointing into the current in a slower portion of the river until it is revived and swims away on its own. In still-water fishing situations, there is debate as to whether moving the fish back and forth or just holding it gently in the water is more beneficial to the fish. At RecycledFish.org, we believe that holding the fish in the water with a gentle push forward as it regains its strength is the best technique. Never "throw" fish – even small fish, back into the water. Even if they "swim away," the shock reduces their chance of survival.
Take photos as quickly as possible
The practice of catch-photo-release is a good one, it's our favorite kind of "CPR." But photos should be taken quickly and with minimum impact to the fish. A fish with an engorged hook hanging by the line has little chance of survival after dangling from its guts, for example. Photos with the angler standing in the water, holding a fish, dripping with water, inches above the surface creates a beautiful photograph that makes a statement. Photos of long stringers of dead fish, kitchen doorway or front yard photos, or a bucket of fish lying on a frozen lake are becoming taboo and are distasteful. If you do keep a "mess" of fish, consider lifting the one or two best fish and taking a photo of those while you're still near the water – you'll have a memento that you can be proud of, and that others will be comfortable to look at.
For more on catch-photo-release fishing, visit www.catchphotorelease.com.
Keep fish that aren't going to make it
Finally, if you've caught a fish and it does not revive and swim away on its own, (keep in mind that it can take a couple of minutes to revive large coldwater species) is bleeding, drifts to the bottom or floats to the top after being released, you should keep that fish for your daily limit if it is legal to do so. Use your judgment.
In closing, we believe that all types of fish deserve respect, regardless of species. Whether ESA listed steelhead or common carp, all fish are a part of the ecosystems in which they live, and all entertain us with a battle when caught. Let's show them the respect that they deserve, whether we selectively harvest or release them. | <urn:uuid:2b55af98-3c94-4bba-b0cc-f37b6a93f26b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.recycledfish.org/safe-angling/catch-and-release.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398209.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00011-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956435 | 2,736 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Does it seem to you that we are hearing more about wildfires?
There’s a reason: they are increasing in frequency and intensity and occurring over a longer period of months. According to the National Interagency Fire Center, there have already been more than 31,000 wildfires so far this year, burning over 1.6 million acres. With the majority of the wildfire season still to come, it seems likely that the year 2014 will match or exceed the 10- year average of 45,000 fires and 3.9 million acres burned.
According to the Washington Post, a drought that has dragged on for several years and a warmer-than-average winter have Western states worried that they face extraordinary challenges in what by many estimates will be a record fire season.
Wildfires are more than a nuisance. Here’s how Matthew Desmond described a terrifying wildfire in his 2013 New York Times essay: “wildfires can burn so hot they create their own weather systems, melt trucks, and leave the landscape barren and ashen; firefighters call it moon-faced. They can barrel through the crowns of trees, launch embers that spark fires miles away, or burrow underground through root systems and spring up behind you. A fire in a forest is alive with terror and power.”
Wildfires frequently cause death, destroy homes, and disrupt the lives of thousands of people. When wildfires destroy acres of forests, they often cause imbalances in nature, resulting in more problems.
Sometimes wildfires can even threaten a centuries-old culture.
I recently received a letter from Alvin Warren, the Tribal Treasurer of the Santa Clara Pueblo about the effects of a series of wildfires in New Mexico.
“The people of Khap’o Owingeh have called the Jemez Mountains, Pajarito Plateau and Rio Grande Valley home for millennia. They are among only 6,000 people on Earth who sustain the Tewa language and culture. Their way of life is deeply interwoven with the Santa Clara Canyon: the small stream it feeds has quenched their thirst and irrigated their farmlands; the elk and deer it nurtures have provided them with food; the plants and trees that climb its steep slopes have provided them with healing medicines and the heat for their homes, and its sacred sites and ancient villages connect them with their ancestors. The Khap’o Owingeh cannot be who they are without their land.
Tragically, in 2011, the majority of the Santa Clara’s canyon was consumed by the Las Conchas Fire, which burned over 243 square miles in the Jemez Mountains. This fire was the culmination of four catastrophic fires over 13 years that altogether have charred 80 percent of their forest. These fires have transformed the canyon’s geomorphology and hydrology, vastly increasing the likelihood of catastrophic flooding. Such a flood would inundate the Pueblo’s homes, public buildings, and ancient village and irrigation systems. Already, flooding events have resulted in four Presidential Disaster Declarations in Santa Clara in just three years.
In response, Santa Clara has decided that – with every slope stabilized, every seedling planted, every habitat restored -‐ the regeneration of their beloved canyon will mark the revival and rebirth of their ancient culture. Toward this goal, Santa Clara has engaged a diverse and growing group of partners in an ambitious, multi-‐generational initiative. The Pueblo is working with the U.S. Forest Service, the U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, FEMA, the USACE, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service and the State of New Mexico. More than 200 individual donors have contributed to a fund the Pueblo developed in collaboration with NMCF. They have also received support from non-governmental organizations, [such as] the Christensen Fund, Chamiza Foundation, Nature Conservancy, and the National Wildlife Federation.
On Wednesday, August 13, 2014, an all-day meeting is being held on “Philanthropic, Federal and Tribal Partnerships for Disaster Recovery.” The meeting will focus on how to generate the funds necessary to restore the Santa Clara watershed and develop a long-term recovery structure.”
If you’d like to learn more about this event, you can contact J. Michael Chavarria of the Santa Clara Pueblo New Mexico Community Foundation at RSVP@nmcf.org. or Alvin Warren at email@example.com.
If you want to learn more about wildfires, please also take a look at the issue insight CDP has prepared on wildfires.
If you would like to discuss the Santa Clara Pueblo meeting or have some thoughts on wildfires, you can reach me at firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:b2811303-d3fb-42f0-b5d9-fabc858f3a54> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://disasterphilanthropy.org/disaster-coverage/wildfires/a-historic-culture-threatened-by-wildfires/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00138-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949227 | 993 | 2.984375 | 3 |
The UK’s biofuel industry will have to deliver “substantial improvements” if it is to comply with new EU-wide sustainability standards that are due to come into effect by the end of the year.
Late last week the European Commission released two communication documents clarifying how member states should implement the biofuel components of the Renewable Energy Directive when they come into effect at the end of this year.
The communications call on governments to set up independently verified certification schemes designed to ensure biofuels are produced in an environmentally sustainable manner.
The new certification schemes are being billed as voluntary, but the European Commission signalled that only biofuels that carry sustainability labels will be allowed to count towards national targets requiring 10 per cent of EU road fuels to come from renewable sources by 2020. The condition means that the sustainability certification will, to all intents and purposes, become mandatory for biofuels produced in the EU or imported into the bloc.
The proposed “Recognised by the European Union” label will only be awarded to biofuels that can demonstrate that they deliver greenhouse gas savings of at least 35 per cent compared with petrol and diesel. The target, which covers methane and di-nitrous oxide as well as carbon dioxide, will rise to 50 per cent in 2017.
Biofuel firms carrying the label will have to submit to regular independent audits of their entire supply chain, from farmer through to fuel supplier. They will also have to demonstrate that the fuel has not been produced in environmentally sensitive areas, including protected areas, natural forests, wetlands and peatlands. Significantly, biofuels made from palm oil grown in converted forest plantations will not be able to qualify for the label.
Source: EU sets out sustainable biofuel criteria – businessGreen
Date: 14 June, 2010 | <urn:uuid:06571a55-dcf0-4223-bed9-7c6ef9495fa7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.worldpreservationfoundation.org/blog/news/eu-sets-out-sustainable-biofuel-criteria/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960219 | 369 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Economic Growth Pushes Up Demand for Natural Gas Commodities
You need to be bullish on natural gas commodities during times of economic growth. Demand for natural gas rises from commercial users like schools, hospitals, restaurants, movie theaters, malls, and office buildings during times of increasing economic activity.
About 40 percent of the energy consumed by commercial users comes from natural gas, accounting for about 15 percent of total natural gas consumption.
One place to look for important economic clues that affect demand for natural gas is the Energy Information Administration (EIA), a division of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The EIA provides a wealth of information regarding consumption trends of key energy products, such as natural gas, from various economic sectors.
Natural gas is also quickly becoming a popular alternative for generating electricity, with just less than 25 percent of natural gas usage going toward generating electricity. Actually, natural gas is used to produce approximately 10 percent of electricity generation in the United States. As you can see, that figure will increase dramatically in the coming years.
The long-term trend is that more natural gas will be required to generate electricity. This increased demand from a critical sector will keep upward pressures on natural gas prices over the long term. Keep this in mind as you consider investing in this commodity. | <urn:uuid:98834893-51bc-4043-abf6-50c2d8b7a566> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/economic-growth-pushes-up-demand-for-natural-gas-c.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933835 | 263 | 2.5625 | 3 |
According to technology experts and stakeholders, the social positives of internet use will far outweigh the negatives over the next decade.
They say this is because e-mail, social networks, and other online tools offer ‘low-friction’ opportunities to engender, enhance, and rediscover ties that make a difference in people’s lives; they lower or remove traditional communications constraints of cost, geography, and time; and they inspire the type of open information sharing that brings people together, allowing them to find common ground and leading to more social integration.
In previous "Future of the Internet" surveys, e-mail has most often been mentioned as a key social tool online. In this survey, social networks were mentioned far more often than e-mail. Other social applications noted by respondents included instant messaging, blogging, text messages and voice over IP.
While they acknowledge that use of the internet as a tool for communications can yield both positive and negative effects, a significant majority of technology experts and stakeholders participating in the fourth Future of the Internet survey say it improves social relations and will continue to do so through 2020.
The highly engaged, diverse set of respondents to an online, opt-in survey included 895 technology stakeholders and critics. The study was fielded by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Elon University’s Imagining the Internet Center.
Some 85% agreed with the statement:
“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”
Some 14% agreed with the opposite statement, which posited:
“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a negative force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”
Survey respondents were asked to explain their choice after they selected one of the tension-pair scenarios and to "share your view of the Internet's influence on the future of human relationships in 2020." Most of people who participated in the survey were effusive in their praise of the social connectivity already being leveraged globally online. They said humans’ use of the Internet’s capabilities for communication – for creating, cultivating, and continuing social relationships – is undeniable. Many enthusiastically cited their personal experiences as examples, and several noted that they had met their spouse through Internet-borne interaction.
Some survey respondents noted that with the Internet’s many social positives come negatives. They said that both scenarios presented in the survey are likely to be accurate, and noted that tools such as e-mail and social networks can and are being used in harmful ways. Among the negatives noted by this group and by the group that chose to agree with the statement that the Internet has been and will be a mostly “negative force” are: time spent online robs time from important face-to-face relationships; the Internet fosters mostly shallow relationships; leveraging the Internet to engage in social connection exposes private information; the Internet allows people to silo themselves, limiting their exposure to ideas; and the Internet is being used to engender intolerance.
Many of the people who said the Internet is a positive force noted that it “costs” people less now to communicate – some noted that it costs less money and others noted that it costs less in time spent, allowing them to cultivate many more relationships, including those with both strong and weak ties. They said “geography” is no longer an obstacle to making and maintaining connections; some noted that Internet-based communications removes previously perceived constraints of “space” and not just “place.”
Some respondents observed that as use of the Internet for social networks evolves there is a companion evolution in language and meaning as we redefine social constructs such as “privacy” and “friendship.” Other respondents suggested there will be new “categories of relationships,” a new “art of politics,” the development of some new psychological and medical syndromes that will be “variations of depression caused by the lack of meaningful quality relationships,” and a “new world society.”
A number of people said that as this all plays out we are just beginning to address the ways in which nearly “frictionless,” easy-access, global communications networks change how reputations are made, perceived, and remade.
Some confidently reported that they expect technological advances to continue to change social relations online. Among the technologies mentioned were: holographic displays and the bandwidth necessary to carry them; highly secure and trusted quantum/biometric security; powerful collaborative visualization decision-based tools; permanent, trusted, and unlimited cloud archive storehouses; open networks enabled by semantic web tools in public-domain services; and instant thought transmission in a telepathic format.
Many survey participants pointed out that while our tools are changing quickly, basic human nature seems to adjust at a slower pace.
Technology experts embrace the use of networked communications technologies and are naturally inclined to find them to be useful in social relations, so it is no surprise to see the high level of agreement that the Internet is a tool that gets positive results. Still, quite a few people took advantage of the opportunity to provide written elaborations in which they pointed out many negatives, and they shared other incisive observations.
Survey participants were asked to reflect on their personal experiences. Most participants’ enthusiasm for the type of connectedness they feel online is evident, and many told their own specific and very personal stories in the written elaborations.
In all of the tension pairs offered in the 2010 survey, people’s answers were dependent upon how they defined the key terms in the question set – in this instance, the respondents’ individual definition of the word “social” was primary and it varied, as expected.
The growing popularity of social networks over the past five years has had a significant impact on personal and professional relationships and many survey participants referred to Facebook and social networks in general in their answers. The other most-often-mentioned digital networked communications methods included in the survey-takers answers were e-mail, voice over IP (Skype is one example that was used), instant messages and text-messaging.
Survey participants were encouraged to explain their choice after they selected one of the tension-pair scenarios. They were asked to “share your view of the internet’s influence on the future of human relationships in 2020 – what is likely to stay the same and what will be different in human and community relations?” Following is a small selection of the hundreds of written elaborations, organized according to some of the major themes that emerged in the answers:
The Internet has been embraced globally at an amazing speed because of its capabilities for communication and connection – for creating, cultivating, and continuing social relationships. E-mail, social networking tools and other apps allow people to maintain bigger social networks and learn more about those in their networks. Richer social relations emerge from this greater awareness. Another advantage that it is much easier now to build communities on the fly via personal broadcasts. All these trends will continue to hold strong over the next decade.
• “The net is about people connecting online, for commerce, politics, and personally, and we already see that enhances real-life relationships. Location-based social networking, in particular, will be a big part of our lives.” —Craig Newmark, founder and customer-service representative, Craigslist, former software engineer and programmer at companies such as JustInTime Solutions, Bank of America and IBM
• “The internet is a tool, one which reduces the costs of communications. I will have better awareness of all the people in my life who are important to me.” —Hal Eisen, senior engineering manager at Ask.com
• “Today and tomorrow, my social reach is much wider as a result of the Internet. I am able to communicate and ‘experience’ so much more with so many more than I could even two years ago. I don't like all aspects of the social net, but the reach is so much better. The social nature of the net allows us to be better informed about friends, and family than ever before. We will all be richer from it.” —Michael Burns, co-founder and principal, i5 web works
• “The enemies of social connectivity are silence, disengagement, distance, and abandonment. In the past, how many individuals and families have suffered from these degenerative influences? Now we have the Internet. High school sweethearts are reunited. Strangers meet and form personal unions. Families are brought together. Adoptees find reunion, too. Interest groups thrive. Businesses leap borders. Genealogies are learned, and one person in his lifetime can place himself into history, and comprehend his place in the span of time. On the Internet, social alienation remains a factual force. But never before has a person had more opportunity for social integration. More than ever, being inside or outside now is a matter of personal choice.” —Eric James, president of the James Preservation Trust and publisher of Stray Leaves, author and lecturer
• “I met my wife online, reconnected with my old schoolfriends online, stay in touch with my family overseas online, and have a wide circle of close online friends. For those born in the Internet age, this will be the norm. For those born before it, some will have adapted by 2020 and some will not have.” —Jeremy Malcolm, project coordinator, Consumers International, and co-director of the Internet Governance Caucus
• “The Internet is communications gold mine. We can already find people with whom we've lost contact, communicate with people independent of time zones, hold simple video conversations, instant-message people. It already allows us to communicate in new ways. The trend I see only improves with time!” —David Moskowitz, principal consultant at Productivity Solutions, Inc., and lead editor of OS/2 Warp Unleashed
• “The Internet has actually helped with human interaction by providing a wider range of ways to communicate such as Twitter and Facebook. These allow some interactions that are better not done face-to-face. And the Internet frees up more time for social interaction by making things like shopping faster.” —William Webb, head of research and development, Ofcom
• “This question has been probed since my days on The WELL and ECHO. Most humans are social. The use of the Internet has done a lot to shrink the actual distance between family and friends and allows an expansion to new cultural experiences. The way we interact is always evolving and has impact on the drive for knowledge, understanding, and communication.” —Tery Spataro, CEO and founder of Mindarrays Consulting
• “The cost-reduction mechanisms of sites like Facebook now enable me to maintain an incredibly broad and diverse set of relationships that provide me comfort and encouragement, expand my worldview, filter information, and give me feedback.” —Cliff Lampe, assistant professor, Department of Telecommunications Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University
• “The Internet breaks the shyness barrier in the beginning stage of every relationship.” —Jorge Alberto Castaños, specialist in implementation of platforms at Botón Rojo
• “If – and I believe this will happen eventually – the tendency to make remarks and adopt positions you would never consider in person can be overcome, online society stands a very real chance of taking interpersonal relationships to a level never before possible. Balancing out the anonymity and lack of physical contact is the ability to mask a plethora of medical and psychological conditions that until now have proven serious handicaps to social interaction. No one stutters or stammers on Twitter.” —Robert G. Ferrell, information systems security professional, US government, former systems security specialist, National Business Center, US Department of the Interior
• “It's now easy for me to find people who share characteristics or interests, whereas for much of my pre-Internet life I mainly felt like I didn't fit in anywhere. Also, it's made it easier for me to find and interact with many types of people who are very different from me, giving me a wider range of experience. The classic example of how the net has positively affected my personal life is Meetup.com. I've gone to many real-world get-togethers coordinated through that service, and have made many friends that way. That, to me, blends the best of the net and the real world.” —Amy Gahran, contributing writer at eMeter Corporation, senior editor at Oakland Local, co-creator and community manager at Reynolds Journalism Institute
• “My husband and I got closer together before marriage because of the Internet, we always remain connected because of the Internet and we will be never apart because of the Internet :).” —Maliha Kabani, president, International Sustainable Development Resource Centre
• “Despite the media narrative, cultural relations and social engagement mediated by virtual spaces is a plus. At a minimum, it is an opportunity for complex dialogue with no opportunity for physical violence." —Joshua Fouts, leader of Dancing Ink, digital diplomacy expert, senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and founding editor of Online Journalism Review
• “As my adult children tell me, you never lose touch with anyone anymore.” —Deborah Pederson, chief Learn & Earn Online Officer, North Carolina Virtual Public School
• “Humans are hardwired to connect and relate on a personal level. They need social validation and group membership. Technology and Internet use will support people's interpersonal and social goals because social needs dominate all others.” —Pamela Rutledge, director of the Media Psychology Research Center, instructor of media psychology at the University of California-Los Angeles Extension
• “As I have been finding for years, Internet connectivity maintains, expands, and enhances friendships: both strong and weaker.” —Barry Wellman, professor of sociology and Netlab Director, University of Toronto; author of research reports on online relationships
• “The Internet has allowed for the growth of human connection, an enhanced psychological intimacy of net friends, that has led to strong and interesting relationships that form in months instead of years. It has allowed for the opening of dialog, discussion, and forums unlike anything since Greek times. It has allowed an individual to find others with the same likes, dislikes, and affinities (good and bad), to add organization where there was chaos, allowed individuals to face who they are and develop that person. Has it changed the basic institutions of community relations? Marriage? Hell, yes. For the worse, no? For the better? That waits to be seen. But it has allowed new frontiers to be explored in interpersonal ‘relationships’ (I have watched marriages flourish and grow because of the information the net has given. I have watched marriages crumble because of information the net has given. I expect that which does not kill us will make us stronger and better.) The Internet and World Wide Web have allowed communities to come together on politics and issues in ways that would never have happened before. It has allowed the sharing of group knowledge and consensus in real time. It has been good.” —Cameron Lewis, program manager, Arizona Department of Health Services
• “Facebook is making my Internet less about virtual strangers who are friendly to being more about real relationships with friends. When you are a dog on a social network site people know you are a dog. Facebook has done this with an easy-to-use interface that most persons can use. I have been online every day since 1994; it was only with Facebook in 2007 that I could communicate with old friends online. Facebook made this possible for them, whereas I would have used anything. Without them I had a lonely Internet. In the future more applications will bring more people together.” —Peter Timusk, webmaster and Internet researcher, statistical products manager at Statistics Canada
• “The tension between the net and social engagement will vaporize in much the same way that thoughts about the telephone network vaporized and it came to be taken for granted. People do not ask if the telephone is an alienating social force. The phone is a utility supporting social life. Likewise, the net will come to be assumed as a utility for social life. How else would I know when church starts, when the game begins, where we are meeting for drinks, or what the weather for our trip might be?” —Robert Cannon, senior counsel for Internet law, Office for Strategic Planning and Policy Analysis, Federal Communications Commission, founder and director, Cybertelecom
On the other hand, these respondents are concerned that people’s use of the Internet for social connection does not often foster deep relationships of value, and it can be detrimental. Internet use can be distracting at times, as much as it can be enriching.
• “Social relationships cannot improve when people spend less and less time in face-to-face encounters.” —Luc Faubert, president of dDocs Information, Inc., consultant in IT governance and change management
• “Social networking encourages people to have a greater number of much shallower friendships. Insofar as online interaction replaces real-world interaction, the internet is a negative force in the social world. I know what 15 of my friends had for breakfast, but I don't know whether any of them is struggling with major life issues. If this trend continues, people in 2020 will have hundreds of acquaintances but very few friends. However, acquaintancebook.com doesn't quite have the same ring to it.” —Gervase Markham, a programmer for the Mozilla Foundation since 1999, based in the UK; won a Google/O’Reilly Open Source Award as the “best community activist” in 2006
• “The answer lies in looking at the schoolchildren. I see too many children using the internet, playing video games, etc., while at the dining table in public. These children have not been socialised to interact face-to-face. Unless such behaviour is pointed out and arrested, and they can be pointed out and arrested, the internet and the attendant activities on it will worsen social relations in 10 years time, when the poorly socialised children grow up.” —Peng Hwa Ang, dean of the School of Communication, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and active leader in the global Internet governance processes of WSIS and IGF
• “I got involved in social networks as an adult. I wonder about younger people who haven't yet formed a solid web of real-life relationships or learned how to function in a meat-space social environment. I think there's a real downside there.” —Reva Basch, self-employed consultant for Aubergine Information Systems; active longtime member of The WELL, one of the earliest cyberspace communities; author of Internet books
• “What I already miss the most is personal contacts in the real world. Too much communications through the Internet can damage real quality of life. I fear this will be worse in 2020.” —Bernhard Adriaensens, professor at Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management
• “By 2020, norms will have emerged to assist people in recognizing and resisting over use.” —Robert Runte, associate professor at the University of Lethbridge
Both 2020 scenarios presented in the survey are accurate; new human connectivity through use of the Internet is a blessing and a curse. Some existing research shows that Internet use makes people more of what they already are: If they are extroverted, they can be more so with tech tools. If they are introverted, tech tools can make them more isolated. And the context of Internet use matters a lot: tech lifelines in one set of circumstances can turn into tech choke collars in different circumstances.
• “Just think of it as new ways to meet – and exploit – human needs.” —Seth Finkelstein, anti-censorship activist and programmer, author of the Infothought blog and an Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Award winner
• “Two opposing forces are at play: Cocooning and Connecting. Cocooners talk only to their ‘in’ group and seek little exposure outside. Connectors listen widely and are heard widely. I think the Connecting energy creates positive dynamics and overwhelms the Cocooning.” —Jerry Michalski, founder, Relationship Economy eXpedition (exploring “the emerging order for transformation agents,”) founder and president of Sociate
• “Both answers are true. Spending more time online and being more wired to each other via various devices comes at the expense of real-time, deep, meaningful human interaction. But, when you're really busy and don't have enough time to see, call or visit with friends it's nice to use the social networking tools to be better able to keep tabs on or 'give tabs to' people in your social network." —Joshua Freeman, director of interactive services, Columbia University Information Technology
• “The Internet's effect on relationships is paradoxical. It strengthens our relationships with distant friends and relations through social networks and email, but may damage the relationships of those nearer to us as always-on technologies and applications eat into family and social time.” —Mary Joyce, co-founder, DigiActive.org
• “Will relations improve? Hell yes, for the smart people who figure out what the technology can and can't do for them!” —Mike Gale, director of decision-support systems, Decision Engineering Pty Ltd.
• “I could answer either way. I have an expanded circle of social connections, and stay in touch more. However, I also have less deep connections. It is interesting the number of developing adults that function well in a keyboard setting while failing at human interaction (e.g. can message and chat effectively, can't call on a phone or converse in person).” —Dave McAllister, director, open source and standards (OSS), standards, Adobe Systems, owner of OSB Technologies
• “The post-urban world is a return to the small town online, and the kind of life-long connections that go with it. For better or worse.” —Alex Halavais, professor and social informatics researcher, Quinnipiac University; explores the ways in which social computing influences society, author of Search Engine Society
• “The Internet has certainly changed social relationships, and will continue to do so, but I don't think the change is simply positive or negative. It permits relationships that wouldn't have existed otherwise. It keeps me in constant communication with my sister, my daughter, and a few friends who live far away. It discourages the intricate, intimate neighborhood networks that used to exist and I think we're the worse for that. In general, it's not better or worse, it's different. However, I should say that I wouldn't have missed it for the world.” —Sylvia Allen, Ebisu Staffing
• “The Internet has allowed communities of interest to flourish and prevail over communities of coincidental geographic proximity. While it leads to more otaku [surfing, playing video games, and watching anime alone] and grownups playing World of Warcraft, it also means fewer people getting in drunken fights in the parking lots of bars because they think someone looks odd. Net win.” —Bill Woodcock, research director, Packet Clearing House, vice president with Netsurfer Publishing, co-founder and technical advisor, Nepal Internet Exchange and Uganda Internet Exchange
• “Certainly both good things and bad have happened to relationships because of the Internet. I believe, though, that overall, the increasing ease of connection with people at a distance is improving social relations much more than the occasional gaffe or thoughtless act is harming them. Some discretion about what to do and say online is necessary, but that's simply a social more that needs to be worked out and understood – the tools are advancing quicker than the social etiquette around them. There will always be people who damage their relationships spectacularly, and if the internet were not available to them, they would do it another way. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.” —Rachel S. Smith, vice president, NMC Services, New Media Consortium
• “Once you eliminate outliers and freakish behaviors, the Internet bestows tremendous opportunities for social growth on most people, in most circumstances. The Internet creates a huge range of often-novel choices from which end-users construct their own adaptive behaviors. The important determining factors in personal friendships, marriages, and other relationships remain with the individual. Which isn't to say the internet makes no difference. It does. The Internet facilitates anti-social behaviors like identity theft, and positive behaviors like keeping in close touch with relatives in faraway places, to such a degree that they become almost unimaginable in the pre-Internet age. My sense is that, once you eliminate outliers and freakish behaviors, the Internet will continue to bestow tremendous opportunities for social growth on most people, in most circumstances.” —David Ellis, director of communication studies at York University, Toronto, and author of the first Canadian book on the roots of the Internet
• “A synthesis of early research on this question has shown that, in essence, personal predilections will be enhanced once one goes online. Those who are social will become more so, that is, and those who are loners will deepen their solitude. I expect research on this question to show something different over time. The early question had to do with the question of whether there were changes in the behavior of individuals when they went online. Now that digital natives begin and continue online, this is no longer a meaningful variable.” —Sandra Braman, professor in the Department of Communication, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and expert on the macro-level effects of new information technologies
• “Context matters. It's not just the Internet. It's the pace of change, the pace of life, the pace of work – all of which are accelerating, in part because of the net. But norms take longer to develop than technologies. And where you stand depends on your circumstances. For me, the net is a wonderful learning network and for some it is a lifeline and for others it is a tether to their boss or a source of harmful misinformation, disinformation, and distraction. Since when is the world starkly divided into either-or alternatives? For many, life will be alienated, rushed, and confusing because of their involvement online. Others will choose or will learn or be trained to cope with dangers of an always-on lifestyle.” —Howard Rheingold, visiting lecturer, Stanford University, lecturer, University of California-Berkeley, author of many books about technology including "Tools for Thought" and "Smart Mobs"
• “The technology is simply as good or bad as human nature. One has only to look at the hype around #iranelection to see the capacity for giddy optimism to be supplanted by calculated abuse of power. The Internet can be a positive force for creating reinforcing social connections, and a negative for abuse of civil liberties and increasing polarization of opinion." —Perry Hewitt, director of digital communications and communications services at Harvard University
Geography is no longer an obstacle to making and maintaining human connections. Emigration experiences are different now when it is easier to check back in with homeland folk. Old communities and longstanding ties need not be given up when people move to new communities and create new ties.
• “The Internet provides a wide range of possible ways to build and further relationships with people around the world. There's little question that the internet makes it easier to maintain relationships that might otherwise be severed by distance. I spent half an hour this morning introducing my new son to one of my dearest friends – she lives in Budapest, and while she won't get to hold my child for another year, she's going to get the chance to see him grow up via Skype video. I can't see this making relationships weaker, only making them stronger.” —Ethan Zuckerman, research fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, co-founder, Global Voices, researcher, Global Attention Gap
• “In a globalizing world it is increasingly possible for individuals to keep in touch with loved ones via technology. In many ways I think communities will still be location-based, but the ease of providing information and communicating with each other will be possible on a global scale.” —Janelle Ward, assistant professor, Department of Media and Communication, Erasmus University Rotterdam
• “Fifty years ago emigrants left their family and friends behind. Now people who move from one country to another simply enlarge their social networks, building truly global communities.” —Hal Varian, chief economist of Google and on the faculty at the University of California-Berkeley
• “As an Irishman living in the United States for the past seven years, I have experienced firsthand the changing capacity of Internet technologies to support communication with faraway family and friends. IM, video chat, and Skype have all made my experience of emigration very different from previous generations of the Irish abroad. Looking to the future, I have no doubt that continued refinement of these technologies will continue to enhance our ability to keep in touch with family and friends from whom we may be physically separated.” —Andrew Ó Baoill, assistant professor, Cazenovia College, and director of Scagaire, a public-interest policy group
• “My son away at school continues his relationship with his friends and family at home almost uninterrupted. My son in high school is as close in January to the friends he sees only in the summers as he is in July. Both have met and befriended people far away from our home. Sometimes their friends are in our house talking, watching TV or playing games. Other times they're somewhere else, but they're still talking, watching TV, or playing games together. They navigate the online social universe as easily as I drive my well-worn path to the office.” —Walt Dickie, executive vice president of C&R Research
• “At a very personal level, the Internet has had a profound impact on my world. I have had the opportunity to celebrate joyous occasions, share sad news and grieve, and ask for (and receive) help. As an example, through a ‘friend-of-a-friend’ connection I was able to find urgent help taking care of my elderly mother (who lives four hours away) as she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Given the small town my mother lives in and my distance from her, I had been unable to find any help at all prior to posting a plea for help on Facebook.” —Allison Anderson, manager of learning innovations and technology at Intel Corporation
• “The emphasis on ambient awareness of how people in your circle of friends are doing is fascinating. Some say that too many people are straying away from face-to-face relationships. I would disagree. The ability to connect through text, pictures, social networks, and games allows a level of social interaction that we just haven't had before. It will change the way we use certain tools (such as the phone) and how we connect, but will allow us to stay more connected to friends and family who are no longer in our local area.” —Elaine Young, associate professor, Champlain College
It’s not just geography that has been reconfigured in the equation of human connection; the Internet removes many constraints of space and time. Some of the current social patterns that are evident in suburbia or in workplace offices will not be as much in evidence in 2020 as technology reconfigures people’s sense of presence.
• “The Internet is best seen as a reconfiguration of space. The internet modifies traditional space so that existing places are extended in ways that allow us to stay aware, share and intersect with people with whom we are not in the same traditional space. The Internet is the opposite of suburbanization: suburbs took us away from other people and locked us into houses; the Internet opens a door from the house into a potentially shared place. That does not mean that physical presence is not important in relationships. Lack of physical presence is not the fault of the Internet; rather, it stems from the way the world is configured (globalization, suburbanization, increased population, etc.) predating the Internet. The Internet replaced lack of physical presence with social presence.” —Zeynep Tufekci, assistant professor, University of Maryland-Baltimore County and author of the @technosociology blog
• “The Internet will be more integrated into all aspects of our social lives in the first-world countries. Communication channels that used to be via printed and telephone mediums will be transported to new online mediums, primarily accessed via mobile devices. Mobile devices with broadband access will become our primary source of connection; yet such mobility allows us to greater integrate our access to the web with our day-to-day ‘corporeal’ life activities.” —Clement Chau, vice president at Ponte and Chau Consulting, Inc., and researcher in the Developmental Technologies Research Group at Tufts University
• “By the year 2020 we will have figured out the best use of social networks: liberating people from offices. We can better use it to facilitate work relationships so that people might spend more time in the physical presence of the people they love, or, at very least, in the company of clients rather than in the company of superiors. Almost all knowledge work can be performed anywhere. There's no reason why social networks can't replace offices, but a Twitter feed will never replace family, a neighbor, a real community. Recognition of that essential fact is the first step in using information technology to better connect families and sow stronger social and community bonds.” —Patrick Tucker, director of communications, The World Future Society and senior editor, The Futurist magazine
• “People live in a blended reality involving online worlds and in-person worlds, and these worlds will continue to bleed over into each other more heavily.” —Mary McFarlane, research behavioral scientist, US Centers for Disease Control
• “The Internet will continue to bring people closer to each other. Instead of one-to-one relations, we can time-shift core information one-to-many and focus real time on deepening existing relationships.” —R. Ray Wang, partner in The Altimeter Group, blogger on enterprise strategy
• "When I think of the big picture of social networking from the last decade, I think the intriguing aspect is how little give-and-take there has to be in terms of social capital. A decade ago, a finite number of connections and interactions offline meant that there was actually a high opportunity cost to relationships. We could have deep relationships, but there was a detriment to other types, even if they were surface or fringe connections. Now, the social grid gives us the luxury to keep low-involvement relationships – past contacts, former classmates, etc. – together, but the serious friendships, spouses, those can continue at their high involvement.” —Dave Levy, senior account executive and media trend researcher in digital public affairs at Edelman (public relations)
• “With the advent of the Web 2.0-enabled social web with applications such as Facebook, YouTube, etc., we allow all aspects of our lives to be shared with our selected friends and family without actually having to reach out and tell them what we're up to. By posting status updates, photos and videos online, friends and family can browse our lives on their own time and place and as often as they chose to. These technologies all me to keep everyone in the loop without me actually having to proactively keep everyone up to date.” —Steve Ridder, enterprise architect, Cisco
• “The Internet enables people to make more numerous personal connections, revive relationships, share common interests, and is a conduit where significant relationships can be supported and sustained. In 2009, UK research showed that users connected to the Internet, are ‘less lonely’ than non-users. People are time-poor. The Internet makes staying in touch easy; the sharing thoughts, feelings, experiences richer; and reaching out for new friendships and interests is a glue that ties us to the global community.” —Sally McIntyre, principal online adviser in Australia’s Department of Premier and Cabinet
• “The key value of the virtual space is its ability to transcend the standard rules of space and time, and connect that which otherwise could not be connected. This began with the telephone many years ago, albeit with a very small 'social bandwidth,’ but with the rise of the internet this social bandwidth has increased many times over, allowing us to add much more than just speech to our one-to-one connections. As the Internet matures even more, and even greater real bandwidth is possible, so the ability to enrich these connections can only grow and grow as our social bandwidth grows with it.” —Rich Osborne, Web manager and Web innovation officer, University of Exeter
Actually, we lose time online – time that could be, should be spent on our relationships.
• “The struggle of being present with the important people in our lives will only intensify by 2020. While I love technology and know that it has expanded the amount of connections I can have and strengthens certain relationships, I also think that by 2020, the idea of turning off technology is going to be the equivalent of trying to stay dry when you are underwater. And I think relationships require uninterrupted time. They require being present. They require attention. And the more immersive our world will be by 2020, the negative result of this constant interruption with people we truly care about will be only harder as we are pulled in even more directions. It will be the ultimate test to see if we can give our relationship what they truly need to grow. Time. Uninterrupted.” —Tiffany Shlain, founder of the Webby Awards and co-founder of the International Academy of Digital Arts & Sciences, filmmaker, director of the Moxie Institute
• “The Internet – and in a larger sense, the harried, multitasking-dependent modern lifestyle – doesn't generally foster the kind of deep social interactions necessary for serious relationships. There are exceptions, of course: Witness the (apparent, anecdotal) success of online dating sites. This isn't to say that social relationships necessarily require face-to-face interaction. Think of the great relationships of old carried on through postal mail correspondence. Instead, it's the Internet's encouragement of an existence marked by distracted, ‘continuous partial attention’ (from Linda Stone) activities, and interactions that is at fault here. For the majority of Internet users, the net is unlikely to help them foster significant social relationships, and as it grows ever more central to our lives, that's unlikely to cease.” —Christopher Saunders, managing editor, InternetNews.com
• “While the Internet has enabled me to keep richer relationships alive over large distances via tools like IM and videoconferencing, I also find myself deluged with gumption traps and triviality, which can reduce the amount of time and energy I spend on deep, face-to-face relationships. I'd say that on the whole, the Internet has made my relationships richer, but it is in no way a replacement for real-life physical interaction.” —Dave Sifry, founder, Offbeat Guides, founder, Technorati, co-founder, Sputnik, co-founder, Linuxcare, Inc.
It is possible that these new ways to interact will perhaps inspire more tolerance and global understanding.
• “More gradients of friendship are enabled through online social networking, meaning it's more likely you will retain some degree of connection or friendship with a broader cross-sector of the population, leading to more harmonious human relations nationally and internationally.” —Solana Larsen, managing editor, Global Voices Online, former editor of openDemocracy.net
• “There are risks, but the fact that it enables us to escape many of the constraints of geographic happenstance seems likely to be a net positive, along with our exposure to greater diversity. The Internet should build tolerance through greater exposure and understanding, and tolerance should improve human and community relations.” —Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher in human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work at Microsoft Research
• “The Internet represents an unprecedented opportunity to improve cross-cultural understanding and tolerance around the world. We just need to make the infrastructure ubiquitous and affordable. Perhaps governments should take control of the world's communications systems (wow) and run them as public services to ensure public access. The only issue here would be censorship. I firmly believe that differences tend to dissolve as people come into contact and interact with each other, dissipating stereotypes.” —Robert Hess, senior fellow at the Center for the Digital Future, Annenberg School, USC, and president and CEO of TSG (a consulting firm)
• “We should hope that the net makes us more connected, more social, more engaged and involved with each other. The human diaspora, from one tribe in Africa to thousands of scattered tribes – and now countries – throughout the world, was driven to a high degree by misunderstandings and disagreements between groups. Hatred and distrust between groups have caused countless wars and suffering beyond measure. Anything that helps us bridge our differences and increase understanding is a good thing. Clearly the Internet already does that.” —Doc Searls, fellow, Berkman Center, Harvard, fellow at Center for Information Technology and Society, University of California-Santa Barbara; co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto
• “Any facility which brings people together in love and friendship, and enables love and friendship over greater distances and over greater boundaries, can only ever be a good thing. By 2020, integrated social networking, cross-national and cross-cultural dialogue, and Internet-enabled friendships will be some of the great arguments for the social good of the Internet.” —Francis J.L. Osborn, philosopher, University of Wales-Lampeter
• “The Internet allows us to develop a worldwide awareness consciousness. We are still at the ‘self’ stage, where we want the world to know who we are, but soon we will move to a we + me stage, where we will make connections that debate, share, and build.” —Brian Prascak, chief innovation officer, InReach Commerce, Inc.
• “The web is enabling ‘connected’ people to have a better understanding of each other and our unique contexts, which helps communication.” —Paul DiPerna, research director at Foundation for Educational Choice, conducting surveys, polling, Internet/social media projects
• “There will be, of necessity, a greater need for humans to better understand what is going on in the world and to be ready to influence decisions made on their behalf. The Internet will be the mechanism for allowing the necessary interactions.” —R.L. Monroe, retired after 35 years in the US Department of Defense
It is possible that these new ways to interact will allow people to silo themselves and incite more intolerance or dangerously limit people’s worldview.
• “The Internet helps me maintain contact with a greater number of people. But it also makes it easier for me to retreat within a form-fitted political, religious, or social landscape. It's when we find ways to work with people with whom we disagree that society progresses. The Internet makes it easier for me to avoid disagreement and compromise and encourages me to become more strident and polarized in my views. That's a problem.” —Tim Marema, vice president of the Center for Rural Strategies
• “I'm with the likes of Cass Sunstein (Republic.com /Republic.com 2.0) on this one: The ability to narrowcast on the Internet and the tendency for netizens to hang out exclusively with their own tribe combined with the literal disappearance of mainstream mass media will, I believe, be a negative force for all sorts of relations – maybe not so much family relations, but certainly other social relations. Mass media once served a role as a kind of community commons where one might be exposed to opinions/thoughts/events that would enlighten, enrage, repulse, thrill, or inspire you. We learned about things we would never think of querying a search engine about. I don't see any site replacing the ‘commons’ role that a community newspaper served. In fact, I think online publishers – desperate to pay the bills – will use software agents, cookies, etc., to make sure that their users see exactly what they want to see, and what they want to see, I suspect, will be information that will tend to reinforce a worldview, not challenge it.” —David Akin, national affairs correspondent, Canwest News Service
As the use of the Internet for social networks expands, the rapid evolution of connection is altering and redefining many things. “Virtual friends” will become more common in the future. New definitions of traditional notions will emerge as people recast such ideas as “friendship” and “privacy.”
• “We will have more interpersonal relationships while sitting alone in the room. They will feel, and be, rich in many ways – other than touching.” —Stewart Baker, general counsel to the US Internet Service Provider Association, former general counsel for the US National Security Agency
• “There's no escaping people anymore, and I believe that will yield better relationships.” —Jeff Jarvis, author of What would Google Do? and associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism
• “New definitions of ‘friendship’ and ‘privacy’ will emerge. Neo-tribalism will start to replace nuclear families, although this will be considered illegitimate and immoral by old-timers.” —Stowe Boyd, social networks specialist, analyst, activist, blogger, futurist and researcher; president of Microsyntax.org, a non-profit and director of 301Works.org
• “The way we define the word ‘social’ will have changed, much as how the meaning of the word ‘friend’ has already changed as we end 2009.” —Neville Hobson, head of social media in Europe for WCG Group and principal of NevilleHobson.com
• “Virtual parties, in which participants ‘hang out’ with friends via video conference, will become popular as a way for people to get together (and avoid risks associated with real-life parties, such as drunk driving and STDs).” —Chris Minnick, independent information technology and services professional
• “SNS and other Internet-based communication tools have created new social circles and new categories of relationships, expanding the possibilities for contact and connection. The depth of these connections generally by platform, location, or group e.g. Facebook friends are at one depth, connections made through dating sites at another, while in-person connections are at yet another level of intimacy and relationship depth.” —Stephan Adelson, president of Adelson Consulting Services and founder of Internet Interventions, a company that promotes health and patient support
• “Ships and airplanes can be argued to be tools engendering either separation or closeness. Why should the Internet be any different? I am continuously amazed at the ability of people to adapt the net to improve their interpersonal links. My larger concern is, again, with education – that we need to emphasize the liberal arts, theatre, literature, and the like so that we can learn how to express ourselves and understand one another. The art of politics, which I believe will become an increasingly important art as we try to solve difficult problems, requires considerable ability to express and understand, and to have empathy with foreign cultures. The net will be a tool, but we need to teach ourselves how to be good users of that tool.” —Karl Auerbach, chief technical officer at InterWorking Labs, Inc.
• “My guess is that people who only make friends in person will be seen as socially handicapped.” —Charlie Martin, correspondent and science and technology editor, Pajamas Media, technical writer, PointSource Communications, correspondent, Edgelings.com
• “It's hard to turn down a ‘friend’ request on a social network, particularly from someone you know, and even harder to ‘unfriend’ someone. We've got to learn that these things are OK to do. And we have to be able to partition our groups of contacts as we do in real life (work, church, etc.). More sophisticated social networks will probably evolve to reflect our real relationships more closely, but people have to take the lead and refuse to let technical options determine how they conduct their relationships.” —Andy Oram, editor and blogger, O’Reilly Media
• “Deep relationships, the kind that stand the test of time and adversity – will become increasingly difficult to form and maintain. We will be more connected to the world than ever before, but in far less meaningful ways. I believe this disintegration of interpersonal relations will spawn counter-cultural movements that might seriously resemble Amish or Mennonite communities. These enclaves will appear to outsiders as confused and befuddled, but will offer their members a rich and rewarding human experience.” —Daniel Weiss, senior analyst for media and sexuality at Focus on the Family Action
• “The quality of personal relationships will continue to be based upon the work people put into their relationships – not the technologies involved in communications. It will be possible for people to have lots of contacts with a very large ‘network’ and have very few quality relationships. This possibility will lead to several new psychological and medical syndromes that will be variations of depression caused by the lack of meaningful quality relationships. And it will also be possible for people to have more quality relationships with a more diverse population – including close relationships with people geographically and temporally distant. Our notions of household and community will have to change to accommodate this phenomenon and our laws regarding families and households will also have to change.” —Benjamin Mordechai Ben-Baruch, senior market intelligence consultant and applied sociologist, consultant for General Motors
• “As people find the balance with online and in-person socialization, the social net will enhance their lives and bring greater understanding to the world. People will maintain an ‘inner circle’ of relationships that will primarily be in person, while staying connected with people around the world through various forms of the social net. This will allow the average person to gain a greater understanding of the world from the eyes of other average people from different countries and cultures. Governments will need to adjust to this new world society.” —Tom Golway, global technology director at Thomson Reuters and former CTO at ReadyForTheNet
There are some ‘digital divides’ when it comes to the new realities for tech-connected people. The most obvious difference in the tech realm is tied to age. Younger users are simply different in their use of tech and their approach to social relations from older users.
• “Generation M, born after 1982 – mobile, multimedia, multitasking – are already showing their distinctive differences. One of these differences is the advent of the supercommunicator. There is growing evidence that the Internet augments physical relationships rather than displaces/replaces them. We do have to worry about the digital divide risk though. It is critical that we focus on inclusiveness as we drive this forward globally.” —JP Rangaswami, chief scientist, British Telecommunications
• “For digital natives there will be fewer negatives and more positives than for their parents and grandparents (digital immigrants). Social life is changing, and most who perceive a downward trajectory are those who see their own culture vanishing. For my kids and their friends, social life depends on digital networking.” —Peter Suber, fellow, Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, visiting fellow, Yale Law School, open access project director, Public Knowledge, research professor of philosophy, Earlham College
• “It has been a positive force only with those in my social circle who have embraced it; I've met new people and developed wonderful friendships. With those who do not embrace it, or refuse to, it creates huge conflict.” —Beth Gallaway, library consultant and trainer, Information Goddess Consulting
• “The Internet has changed the social communications norm, and people who don't use the Internet will become socially and technologically marooned. I have met more people face-to-face as a result of the Internet than I did before the Internet.” —Robert Lunn, principal of FocalPoint Analytics and senior researcher for USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, formerly director of surveys at J.D. Power and Associates
• “Using the Internet for socializing depends on whether or not you like to read and write. Some people don't use it simply because they are hunt-and-peck typists, but that will not be the case in the future. Others just don't like to read or write, and for some of them, the short communications will be their only use of the Internet. For some of us, it is much easier to express ourselves in writing than it is to talk about issues.” —Sandra Kelly, market research manager for 3M Company
• “The Internet enables many new types of communication, and simplifies and accelerates many existing ones. Misunderstanding these new tools can indeed be very harmful, but as the technologies continue to mature and be understood be increasingly wider swaths of the public, most people will learn to use them in ways beneficial to their social life.” —Nick Violi, research assistant, University of Maryland
• “No force can make my kids ‘friend’ me on Facebook. Maybe this is a ‘positive’ in their twentysomething social world, but it's a ‘negative’ in mine. Maybe this will change when my kids hit thirtysomething.” —Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder, SEO-PR, Search Engine Watch Blog, Market Motive, ChannelOne Marketing Group
Criminals, terrorists, governments, and commercial interests may have a negative influence on the evolution of social networks between now and 2020.
• “A number of clear dangers remain, chiefly, the abuse of social media to promote populist and disruptive agendas and ideologies; the increasing corporatisation and astroturfing of social media spaces; the exploitation of personal information made public through social media by criminals and overzealous law enforcement agencies. On balance, social media spaces and communities have, to date, remained remarkably resistant to such interference, but there are no guarantees that this will continue. But social media also enable their users to organise to combat infringements and interference, and this is a cause for optimism.” —Axel Bruns, associate professor of media and communication, Queensland University of Technology, and general editor of Media and Culture journal
• “[The positive possibilities] will only grow more true in the future as long as a significant part of the Internet's core remains in the public domain – not the plaything of purely-commercial interests nor at the mercy of the whims of states.” —David Pecotic, officer, Australian Broadband Guarantee Policy Section, Australian Broadband Guarantee Branch, Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy
We are just beginning to address the ways in which nearly ‘frictionless,’ easy-access, global communications networks change how reputations are made, perceived, and remade. New social norms will be encoded eventually to take account of these changing realities.
• “For better or worse, reconnecting and maintaining relationships has gotten easy to the point of nearly becoming frictionless. I do wonder if the American procedure that says ‘Try hard, fail, move West, try hard, fail, move West, try hard, succeed, stay here’ will change.” —Paul Jones, conference co-chair, WWW2010, clinical associate professor, School of Information and Library Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, director, ibiblio
• “Some people thrive in small towns, others feel oppressed by them. As information technology shrinks our world, it will become easier for one’s misdeeds to return to them or for outbursts of regrettable behavior to be reported and shared. It will also be easier for good deeds to be shared. For better or worse, technology makes the citizenry its own Big Brother. Some will welcome this as transparency; others will feel oppressed.” —Stuart Schechter, researcher, Microsoft Research, formerly on the technical staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratory
• “It will be particularly interesting to see how we reconcile things about the people we know that we had not known in the past, or could not have known. How many of our friends will in some sense ‘come out of the closet’ on some issue or other by joining a group on Facebook, for instance, that might make us upset or angry, and what we will we do with that knowledge?” —Steve Jones, professor of communication and associate dean of liberal arts and sciences and co-founder of the Association of Internet Researchers, University of Illinois-Chicago
• “It is key that we sort out the sort of contextual self-presentation online that we presently take for granted offline. This will involve the hybrid of sociological and psychological insights alongside traditional design. How do we present ourselves to co-workers and high school friends without pandering to a lame lowest common denominator? In doing so, I think we can strengthen our relationships by creating increased spaces for differentiated expressiveness. I worry about absolute searchability, however, as I think it will draw people away from the Internet as a positive force. It will tie us together, but I think it will also make our relationships a little more dull.” —Bernie Hogan, research fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford
• “A lot depends on our success at the societal level in addressing online disinhibition, modeling online/offline citizenship for our children, and getting past the adults' technopanic to teaching tech literacy, media literacy, and social literacy at home and school.” —Anne Collier, co-chair, Online Safety & Technology Working Group, founder of Net Family News, co-author, MySpace Unraveled: A Parent’s Guide to Teen Social Networking
• “As a society we will grapple with how to best use these tools to strengthen human-based social ties – and some will be better at it than others. Issues like privacy will need to be addressed, but individual and structural strategies will emerge.” —Jim Witte, director and professor, Center for Social Science Research, George Mason University
• “Those who do adopt social media will prefer and demand transparency in their dealings – or become more sophisticated and deliberate about what they publish online about themselves and about others. When Facebook is apparently connected to 60% of divorces these days (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/Facebook/6857918/Facebook-fuelling-divorce-research-claims.html), it's clear that both access to ‘temptation’ as well as the transparency that Facebook brings is causing people to confront issues that they previously were able to ignore or squirrel away. I think that's a good thing, and healthy thing. I think there's often too much distortion in people's relationships today. Still, the question remains: are we ready for a transparency society? And, how will we cope with those who share a lot about others, but not about themselves? Perhaps people will self-select and naturally gravitate towards people who have similar sharing tendencies. Others may rebel and head towards one of the two extremes. Still, the basic fabric of human connections is being enhanced through openness and transparency even if it's unclear how this will all play out over the next 10 years.” —Chris Messina, open web advocate, Google, board member, OpenID Foundation
Leveraging the Internet to cultivate social connection exposes private information. Thus, there will be new incentives for people to stratify their social networks so that the appropriate personal disclosures are made to the right people.
• “People will start being less forthcoming with their personal information online due to privacy/marketing fears.” —Michael Zimmer, assistant professor of media, culture and communication, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• “The Internet enables personal ‘customer-relations management’ on multiple simultaneous levels. The more we use social media, the more sophisticated and discerning we'll become in structuring access, privacy, and content access. But the Internet will be a central time and contact management tool into the indefinite future.” —Daniel Flamberg, blogger at iMedia Connections and senior vice president of interactive marketing at Juice Pharma Advertising
• “Social relations will stratify into very distinct circles or 'orbits': Current face-to-face family and friends, distant family and friends well known (previous face-to-face relationship), acquaintances (briefly known), and then cyber relationships. Cyber relationships (friends, fans, followers, followed, connections, etc.) overlay the real-world relationships, for better or worse. But the most important thing they bring is exposure to a wider circle of potentially relevant people. This is in exchange for a potential loss of personal privacy and public image. Generally speaking, I believe the gains of great exposure and discovery of new cyber-relationships that then grow into face-to-face relationship that are productive and rewarding will continue to be a benefit of the Internet.” —William Luciw, managing director at Viewpoint West Partners and director at Sezmi, Inc., formerly a director of products and stand–up philosopher at several other Silicon Valley companies
• “By 2010 privacy as it had been known for the previous 100 years was gone. Everything that could be known about personal life was known through either voluntary sharing by increasingly transparent generations of humans or invasive external forces (government, business, religion, health care, and other humans known and unknown). Personal life will both be enhanced and deterred by the omnipresence of computing capability. All personal decisions will be recorded somewhere. The ‘unseen force’ will always be present as a third party in all relationships. Between 2010 and 2020 revelation of this fact will make its way into the normative structure of human social life.” —Stephen Steele, professor, sociology and futures studies, Institute for the Future, Anne Arundel Community College
• “It will become difficult to hide and be forgotten, which is rather scary. We will learn to value our privacy.” —Charlie Breindahl, webmaster and lecturer, Danish Centre for Design Research
Advances in technology between now and 2020 will continue to extend social possibilities. Most of the change is and will occur in social networks with relationships that are more casual and weaker – not among those with the strongest personal ties.
• “By 2020, individuals and organizations will have available highly secure and trusted quantum/biometric security plus powerful collaborative visualization decision-based tools plus powerful new tools to create user-generated content plus permanent/trusted/unlimited cloud archive storehouses plus incentive and attribution mechanisms. Friends, communities, and like-minded strangers will collaborate to solve the world's pressing problems, explore new frontiers, create entertainment spaces, and become more intimate. Today's social networks are decrepit in that they are intrusive, trust-levels concerning security and privacy are still questioned, they provide paltry few tools to encourage collaborative problem-solving, advocacy or entertainment creation and have no ways to incent or attribute participants in such endeavors. That will all change significantly by 2020. Intimacy will dramatically increase as collaborators solve problems and are incented and respected as contributors.” —Steven G. Kukla, product planner, shared no additional work details
• “The development of holographic displays and the bandwidth necessary to carry them will allow us to spend more time in more contexts with our friends.” —Fred Hapgood, technology author and consultant, moderator of the Nanosystems Interest Group at MIT in the 1990s, writes for Wired, Discover and other tech publications
• “Social networking has had a very positive impact on my social life in that it has allowed me to remain in touch and reconnect with friends and family in a way that otherwise would not happen. Being able to take a peak into their daily lives, maintain accurate contact information, and share snippets of our lives through photos, video, etc. has been very positive. Improved broadband and other technology will allow us to take these social networks to new levels with more multimedia tools that make these connections more personal.” —Jamie Wilson, writer/journalist and web application developer
• “In general we have three circles of friends and family: immediate (siblings and best friends), social (neighbours, bowling league, etc.), and collegial (business associates, co-workers, etc.). While the Internet has had little impact on the first two circles, it has had a huge impact on third circle of collegial acquaintances. The impact has been so great that we desperately need tools like MIT's Sixth Sense to keep track of all these contacts when we meet them in the real world.” —Bill St. Arnaud, chief research officer at CANARIE, Inc., and member of the Internet Society board of trustees
• “By 2020, the concept of building and nurturing relationships outside the physical realm will be fully integrated into human behavior. To our advantage, this web-based social structure will be free of the novelty that drives today's practitioners to obsessively text, twit, and gather. In place of manic distraction, the employment of audio-visual Internet connections will gravitate toward balance and practicality.” —Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles, founder and managing editor of corndancer.com, an independent online journal and cyber community, writer, activist and teacher
• “Over the last 20 or 25 years of participation in online communities, I've found the connectedness to be a great equalizer, removing socioeconomic status bars and permitting instantaneous communication and sharing of media with anyone who shares an interest. I see no reason to think that the flow will be reversed in the next 10 years, or in the decade after that. Today's trend of email replacement by messaging (think Twitter and SMS) will continue, although email will still be useful for file sharing and interpersonal correspondence. I hope that the walled gardens like Facebook will have passed away, and that open networks of friends and colleagues will be enabled by semantic web tools in public-domain services.” —Frank Paynter, Sandhill Technologies, LLC
• “Nothing ever competes with ‘personal’ interaction. Face-to-face, but visual and virtual communications will leap far beyond the klunky and kludgy communications methods now in place.” —Dean Landsman, president of Landsman Communications Group, board member at TeleTruth and participant in project VRM
• “Most of the research shows that social networking tools help expand the range of weak ties while not affecting the strong ties. But mobile communications has already had a huge positive impact on the strong ties – we stay in much closer contact with our family members and close friends than ever before. I envision a world in which these tools will give us more or less all the capabilities that in mythology were attributed to telepaths – we'll be able to transmit thoughts more or less instantly to as small or large a group as we choose. There's not way to predict what we'll say though, so its hard to forecast whether that will be a good or bad thing.” —Anthony Townsend, director of technology development and research director at The Institute for the Future
Our tools are changing quickly, but basic human nature seems to change at a slower pace. Technology amplifies people’s existing tendencies; it doesn’t change human nature.
• “Communications are better, relationships can get better with communications, but we still are evolving, dirty, little mammals and have the ability to do all the wrongs things with the best of technology. The Internet is a huge improvement over previous communications and media technologies – it has not stopped us from hurting each other. Life is a lot more convenient.” —Glenn Edens, technology strategy consultant, formerly senior vice president and director of Sun Microsystems Laboratories, chief scientist at HP, president AT&T Strategic Ventures
• “I don't believe the Internet makes us better or worse people, but I do believe it has an amplification effect on the best and worst parts of our nature. I think that by 2020 people will learn how to fit a relevant, manageable stream of social information into their lives in a way that, on balance, makes them feel more connected. There will continue to be negatives to Internet-based relationships – they will offer a false sense of connectedness to people who are unhealthily isolated, they will enable connections that will ruin marriages, they will lead to new forms of harassment and bullying – but these are human problems, not Internet problems. The benefits of staying connected to old friends, family and colleagues will outweigh these negatives.” —Matt Gallivan, senior research analyst, audience insight and research, National Public Radio (US)
Following is a wide selection of elaborations from respondents who chose to take credit for their remarks:
“The bidirectional and egalitarian (so far) nature of the net and access to it has significantly improved interpersonal contacts and relationships, and seems certain to continue that improvement – unless the content and access monopolists manage to privitize everything and choke access, limiting it to $$-per-kilobyte for most or all communications, both trivial (an eye of the beholder issue) and substantive." —Jim Warren, founder and chair of the first Computers, Freedom, and Privacy Conference and longtime technology and society activist
“Vint Cerf says that the Internet is a mirror – it reflects the world and our social relationships, it does not design them. I live in Venezuela, and have colleagues all over the world, family and friends all over the world. The Internet as a tool enhances my networking abilities. I can be involved in working groups, projects, meetings, conferences and learning programs that would not be available to me without an Internet connection. Like any other tool, we have to learn to use it properly.” —Ginger Paque, co-director of Internet Governance Caucus and leader in Diplo Foundation Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme
“No question: for me, the Internet is a social lifeline. I've met many more people with common interests and attitudes on the Internet. My guess is that people who only make friends in person will be seen as socially handicapped.” —Charlie Martin, correspondent and science and technology editor, Pajamas Media, technical writer, PointSource Communications, correspondent, Edgelings.com
“The post-urban world is a return to the small town online, and the kind of life-long connections that go with it. For better or worse.” —Alex Halavais, professor and social informatics researcher, Quinnipiac University; explores the ways in which social computing influences society, author of Search Engine Society
“How much easier is it now to relocate old friends? How much easier is it now to keep in touch with a wide range of friends? Social networking may be a bit short on intimacy in a lot of cases, but it is strong on making and maintaining contacts.” —Ian Peter, Ian Peter and Associates, Internet Mark 2 Project
“The research is pretty clear that overall, on average, Internet use is positively correlated with all sorts of social relationship and communication variables. That is, slightly on the positive side of the mean, and slightly but significantly correlated.” —Ron Rice, chair of social effects of communication in the Department of Communication and co-director of Center for Film, Television and New Media, University of California-Santa Barbara
“Craig Burton describes the Net as a hollow sphere – a three-dimensional zero – comprised entirely of ends separated by an absence of distance in the middle. With a hollow sphere, every point is visible to every other point. Your screen and my keyboard have no distance between them. This is a vivid way to illustrate the Net’s ‘end-to-end’ architecture and how we perceive it, even as we also respect the complex electronics and natural latencies involved in the movement of bits from point to point anywhere on the planet. It also helps make sense of the Net’s distance-free social space. As the ‘live’ or ‘real-time’ aspects of the net evolve, opportunities to engage personally and socially are highly magnified beyond all the systems that came before. This cannot help but increase our abilities not only to connect with each other, but to understand each other. I don't see how this hurts the world, and I can imagine countless ways it can make the world better. Right now my own family is scattered between Boston, California, Baltimore and other places. Yet through e-mail, voice, IM, SMS, and other means we are in frequent touch, and able to help each other in many ways. The same goes for my connections with friends and co-workers. We should also hope that the Net makes us more connected, more social, more engaged and involved with each other. The human diaspora, from one tribe in Africa to thousands of scattered tribes – and now countries – throughout the world, was driven to a high degree by misunderstandings and disagreements between groups. Hatred and distrust between groups have caused countless wars and suffering beyond measure. Anything that helps us bridge our differences and increase understanding is a good thing. Clearly the Internet already does that.” —Doc Searls, fellow, Berkman Center, Harvard, fellow at Center for Information Technology and Society, University of California-Santa Barbara; co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto
“It is impossible to determine if social networking will lead us to unexpected social communities. While being connected across the world to many other persons, I still do not meet them all and as such the number of people I meet physically is less then 10% of those I'm virtually connected to. So, it has a negative impact on my social life, which is maybe not the same as my social (virtual) world.” —Rudi Vansnick, president and chief executive officer, Internet Society, Belgium, board member, EURALO, the ICANN Europe At-Large Organization
“While it is true that some of the attention I've received from people on line has been most unwelcome, the ability to remain in touch with friends and professional colleagues has been significantly enhanced thanks to the Internet.” —Chris DiBona, open source and public sector engineering manager at Google
“Obviously, this will depend on the person, but for me. I've played a lot of World of Warcraft in my day, and if I had someone to widow, I might have. But those who are unsocial can be unsocial without the Internet, but those who are social have a lot more tools to find old friends. It also allows extended families and close friends distributed around the world to stay in touch." —Rosa Alvarez, a participant who preferred not to share a place of employment or other identity
“It is difficult to confidently contrast one's history with an imagined history, but I owe a lot of my most meaningful relationships in large part to the Internet, which sustained them over periods of geographic separation. There are risks, but the fact that it enables us to escape many of the constraints of geographic happenstance seems likely to be a net positive, along with our exposure to greater diversity. The Internet should build tolerance through greater exposure and understanding, and tolerance should improve human and community relations.” —Jonathan Grudin, principal researcher in human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work at Microsoft Research
“The Internet has huge social implications. It will possibly be negative for some of the more traditional/conservative views of relationships, but very positive for more libertine/free-forming and alternative relationships and friendships. Personally I welcome that, but others may not.” —Dean Bubley, founder, Disruptive Analysis, an independent technology analysis and consulting firm
“The Internet has allowed me to reconnect with those who I wouldn’t have had the opportunity before. It has provided me with a comfort that my networking circle, those important to my life and in my life over time, grow and continue to be and play a part. This trend will continue as barriers to physical relationships and connectivity continue to fall.” —Kevin Novak, co-chair of eGov Working Group at the World Wide Web Consortium and vice president of integrated Web strategy at the American Institute of Architects
“Our identity is socially defined. So far, the Internet has increased my autonomy in creating and sustaining connections, in my ability to tell my story myself. I would however note that the positive capacity an Internet enabled social world now gives me for self-definition is under threat. If we like what its done, we're going to have to struggle harder to hang on to it.” —Garth Graham, board member of Telecommunities Canada, promoting local community network initiatives
“Research indicates positive things along these lines today. I assume 2020 this trend would probably remain unaltered. The Internet will continue to foster personal relationships and social life.” —Homero Gil de Zuniga, Internet researcher and professor at the University of Texas at Austin, US
“There is no question to my mind that the Internet has enhanced and extended my personal friendships and has been a positive force on my social world. In general we have three circles of friends and family: immediate (siblings and best friends), social (neighbours, bowling league, etc.), and collegial (business associates, co-workers, etc.). While the Internet has had little impact on the first two circles, it has had a huge impact on third circle of collegial acquaintances. The impact has been so great that we desperately need tools like MIT's Sixth Sense to keep track of all these contacts when we meet them in the real world.” —Bill St. Arnaud, chief research officer at CANARIE, Inc. and member of the Internet Society board of trustees
“I don't think that technology changes your personality, although it might enhance your basic tendencies. The Internet has certainly extended my personal network but has not deterred me from continuing an active face-to-face social life.” —Adrian Schofield, manager, applied research unit, Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering, president, Computer Society South Africa
“Again the question is too simplistic. The pros and cons for each individual can change even from year to year since the issue is not independent of your social life in general. Nothing will only grow.” —Niels Ole Finnemann, professor and director of the Center for Internet Research, Aarhus University, Denmark
“The Internet keeps me more connected to my distributed family that would otherwise be possible. I also can stay in touch with colleagues around the world much more easily. My social relationships are richer, not worse.” —Gary Marchionini, professor at the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“I don't see a clear differentiator in an answer to this question, no black or white positive or negative divide. Rather, lots of shades of grey. What this means to me is that I believe that, on balance, the Internet will have been mostly a positive influence in my social world. Adding to the difficulty in a clear answer is that I also believe the way we define the word 'social' will have changed, much as how the meaning of the word 'friend' has already changed as we end 2009.” —Neville Hobson, head of social media in Europe for WCG Group and principal of NevilleHobson.com
“I am in my ‘60s, and have used computers since the 1960s. It used to hurt my relationships since I would go to a computer center and work on something for days at a time. Now my grandchildren Facebook with me and keep me in their lives through technology. I can find old friends, and re-establish relationships as well as find new networks of friends through mutual interests.” —Ed Lyell, professor at Adams State College, consultant for using telecommunications to improve school effectiveness through the creation of 21st century learning communities
“For better or worse, reconnecting and maintaining relationships has gotten easy to the point of nearly becoming frictionless. I do wonder if the American procedure that says ‘Try hard, fail, move West, try hard, fail, move West, try hard, succeed, stay here’ will change.” —Paul Jones, conference co-chair, WWW2010, clinical associate professor, School of Information and Library Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, director, ibiblio
“The Internet allows greater socialization and development of better trust relationships between people, however as the social ‘world’ gets smaller, any disruption in one part of your social circle can cause drama elsewhere in that circle, or force a person to withdraw completely from their ‘known’ Internet identity, then reinvent themselves under a new identity and selectively invite (and then manage) a new social circle made of existing and new friends.” —Richard Forno, visiting scientist at Carnegie Mellon University and principal consultant for KRvW Associates; served as the first chief security officer at Network Solutions (the InterNIC)
“Actually, ‘in 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships,’ I won't be able to tell whether the Internet has been a positive or negative force on my social world. That world will be different, not 'better or worse.'” —César Córcoles, professor at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
“Two major forces will push human beings towards using ICTs – and the Internet in particular – to enhance their social relationships and, thus, those will have a positive impact on these. In other words: ICTs won't have an impact on socialization, as if they were an exogenous variable of the equation, but on the contrary the aim for socialization will have an impact on the usage of ICTs, being these the dependent or the endogenous variable of the system. These forces are the following: *Sociability itself: the Aristotelic zoon politikon has found a new, effective, efficient way to get in touch with others and, more important, to increase (their) Dunbar's number [the internet meme tied to the theoretical cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain social relationships is said to be 150, although the concept is more complex], as the Internet allows for increased interactivity across time and space. *The power of the Network Society: the Network Society will increasingly change the shape of social institutions (political parties, governments, schools, firms, associations, etc.), that will lose momentum, favouring personal network-like relationships. Social engagement (of whatever kind: learning, working, being a citizen, etc.) will require an active weaving of one's own web, to find one's kindred souls, to collude with others to achieve common goals. If the Internet is to have a negative force on one's social world it will be due to people being disconnected and, thus, missing plenty of things happening online, things that enlarge and enhance the offline connections and their activities.” —Ismael Peña-López, lecturer, School of Law and Political Science, Open University of Catalonia, researcher, Internet Interdisciplinary Institute
“In the end, electronic networks are bits and bytes while families and good friendships are forever. Social networks that disrupt those close relationships will be drummed from the market, leaving those that help.” —Don McLagan, member of the board of directors for the Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange, consultant, retired chief executive officer of Compete, Inc.
“Since 1995, my personal and professional connections have gone global, thanks to the Internet. I share information with and get advice from colleagues whom I never would have met without our online connections.” —Mindy McAdams, Knight Chair in journalism, University of Florida, author of Flash Journalism: How to Create Multimedia News Packages, journalist
“Let's compare eras. When Winston Churchill got up in the morning (pink, naked, blinking) he spent four hours reading all the newspapers while drinking steadily. Then he arrived (late) for lunch, and regaled guests with solo gusts of stories and gossip. After feeding the swans and taking a nap, dinner was a giant social affair – followed by hours of essay-writing. What would Churchill think of the effect of the Internet on human relationships in 2020? I think he'd love it. He'd have even more to read and gossip about, he could provide constant updates to his fans and keep his political career going, he could get his essays out faster, and he could still have raucous and well-fueled dinners.” —Susan Crawford, founder of OneWebDay, Internet law professor at the University of Michigan, former special assistant to President Obama for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy
“Well, I wanted to check both of these, but came down on the positive side. How can I not see the Internet as a positive force in my life when I earn my living studying its effects, and I am facilitated in national and international collaborations by online connectivity. Further, as I travel the Internet has been invaluable as a connector to home. However, I do believe there is added pressure to work with others and at a distance, to be in contact 7 x 24 regardless of time zone, family, or personal down time, to review yet more information on the web, and to act of the (cyber-)world stage. At home, the Internet has penetrated to take over interpersonal time, and that's a trend I see continuing.” —Caroline Haythornthwaite, professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
“Because of economic and other factors, my family is spread out across North America. My network of friends spans the world. The Internet and associated technologies makes it possible for me to connect with them and maintain longer-lasting relationships even though I have moved a lot and changed jobs a lot (as have they) over the years. How could this be anything but better?” —Stephen Downes, senior research officer, National Research Council of Canada, and specialist in online learning, new media, pedagogy and philosophy
“The Internet will remain a powerful tool for communications and information and thus a way to foster links and ties among people wishing to enhance relationships.” —David Olive, vice president of policy development support for ICANN; formerly general manager, Fujitsu America, Washington, D.C.
“I think this is generally true in many ways, particularly with regard to working out schedules, contacting people in emergencies and keeping track of kids and elderly parents. But on the down side, it encourages more terse and sometimes unthinking exchanges and reduces the ability to keep things private. What has been somewhat amazing is how slowly two-way video is catching on as a communications tool. It is not yet a major part of social networking. It should be because it introduces much more of the personal touch. The downside of online worlds and communications is that kids are encouraged more and more to stay online and inside in doing so. Not participating in outdoor activities is a real problem. Luckily more and more online communications is going mobile so that may improve things.” —Link Hoewing, assistant vice president for Internet and technology issues, Verizon
“While there may be (and probably has been) some negative impact on social relationships from the Internet, this will probably prove to be a largely transitional phase. Positive impacts will likely be generational, led by youth.” —Charles M. Perrottet, founding principal, Futures Strategy Group LLC
“This question makes it hard to separate prediction from wishful thinking. The empirical answer, or an empirical answer, might rest on findings made over the last decade by Pew and other institutions to the effect that the Internet has been wrongly accused of isolating and alienating end-users; most turn out to be socially well-adjusted. A lot of commentators have made hay from the abusive behaviors associated with pornography, cyber-stalking, identity theft, etc. A more theoretical answer would rest on what I take to be a sensible approach to technological determinism. Another way of looking at this question stems from the ability of people with specialized interests to use the Internet to find like-minded people around the globe, overcoming those big space-and-time barriers. My conclusion is that, once you eliminate outliers and freakish behaviors, the Internet bestows tremendous opportunities for social growth on most people, in most circumstances. The Internet creates a huge range of often-novel choices, from which end-users construct their own adaptive behaviors. The important determining factors in personal friendships, marriages and other relationships remain with the individual. Which isn't to say the Internet makes no difference. It does. The Internet facilitates anti-social behaviors like identity theft, and positive behaviors like keeping in close touch with relatives in faraway places, to such a degree that they become almost unimaginable in the pre-Internet age. My sense is that, once you eliminate outliers and freakish behaviors, the Internet will continue to bestow tremendous opportunities for social growth on most people, in most circumstances.” —David Ellis, director of communication studies at York University, Toronto, and author of the first Canadian book on the roots of the Internet
“The Internet is about our ability to communicate.” —Bob Frankston, computing pioneer, co-founder of Software Arts and co-developer and marketer of VisiCalc, created Lotus Express, ACM Fellow
“If you love butterfly collecting, there is no reason to be alone. If you live in a small town and thought you were the only single person for 500 miles, you can easily find out you’re not. Having the Internet has caused us already to invite lots of people into our lives – from grocery delivery to book clubs to potential lovers – all because we found each other online.” —John Baker, regional digital director for Americas at Iris Worldwide, formerly managing partner at OgilvyInteractive
“The Internet makes the social network wider and more easily accessible. This essentially brings in social relationships that didn't exist in the past. Whether they are better or worse is up to individuals.” —Benoît Felten, principal analyst at Yankee Group’s Anywhere Network research group for next-generation access networks, including fiber-to-the-home
“Social networking has enhanced our ability to ‘stay connected.’ In 2020 I see that those connections will have strengthened and deepened. There will be less ‘shallow’ relationships as the pendulum swings back to enhanced privacy.” —Elaine Pruis, vice president, client services, Minds + Machines, liaison, Council of Country Code Administrators
“I have already found that the Internet has enhanced my ability to connect, and interact with others and I expect this social function of new media will become even more pervasive by 2020. The ability to interact easily with others has the potential to increase collaboration, coordination, and relationship development.” —Gary Kreps, professor and chair of the department of communication, George Mason University
“The nature of our relationships is being changed by the Internet, no doubt. There are good aspects and bad aspects. The result is different but once again, whether it's good or bad depends on choices and behaviors of the individuals involved.” —Rebecca MacKinnon, co-founder, Global Voices, visiting fellow, Center for Information Technology Policy, Princeton University
“I've gotten to know people I'd never have met. I've become part of virtual communities that have taught me things I'd never have known. I probably have fewer very close friends, but the friendships and personal relationships that matter most remain as strong as ever, and stronger in some ways.” —Dan Gillmor, director of Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship at Arizona State University and author of We the Media
“Connectedness and sharing lead to understanding and compassion more often than not.” —Tac Anderson, blogger at New Comm Biz, taking a critical look at social media and the future of business
“From not only a personal perspective, whereby I will be living on two continents, but from a professional perspective whereby older adults have discovered missing relatives and war buddies, friends, and interests, the Internet is indisputably a positive force in reducing isolation and enhancing morale.” —Tobey Dichter, chief executive officer at Generations on Line
“Fundamentally the Internet probably doesn't have a major effect on personal relationships, but it does enable people to communicate more easily. I think the Internet is mostly a positive force on interpersonal relations – people can communicate much more easily, cheaply, and frequently.” —Thomas Lenard, president and senior fellow, Technology Policy Institute, author of many books including "Net Neutrality or Net Neutering: Should Broadband Services Be Regulated?"
“Social networks will encourage people to go out and meet their virtual contacts, in person. GPS on mobile devices will facilitate this.” —Brad Adgate, senior vice president and research director at Horizon Media
“I have been an active users of computer-mediated communications since the late 1960's and am used to making most of my long-term friends and collaborators through the early Arpanet and interacting with people I never met till much later. We have to overcome in better ways the problems we face from spam, hacking, and the misuse of social network systems to fragment groups, and to use too-primitive tools to remove information overload as this is one of the great dangers facing the future evolution of the usability of collaborative systems. See: The Network Nation by Hiltz and Turoff, printed in 1978 and reprinted in 1993 and still available for many of these issues addressed in the early days.” —Murray Turoff, professor of computer and information sciences, New Jersey Institute of Technology and co-author of The Network Nation
“It is difficult to say concretely that the Internet is a positive or negative force. I think that in reality the seamlessness of the cloud will mean that we won't think in terms of the dichotomy of offline/online and rather will be aware that we inhabit a communicational ecology of mediation and that that will allow us to use media in exciting new ways, but as always this may have drawbacks in other aspects of our lives.” —David M. Berry, author of Copy, Rip, Burn: Copyleft! and a lecturer on sociological and philosophical research into technology
“Among other things it has brought geographically distant children and grandchildren, and soldiers in Afghanistan, et. .al, closer in touch.” —David R. Hughes, Electronic Frontier Foundation Internet Pioneer Award winner and advocate for connected communities
“As a card-carrying follower of Churchill, ‘For myself, I am an optimist – it does not seem to be much use being anything else,’ I'm taking this glass as half full. I see the network or whatever the Internet becomes as being an ordinary but important component in our social fabrics, as it revolutionizes all of the communication industries, so to it will revolutionize our social patterns. It is already changing the way we work and play, but some of the same questions could have been put out there about the first telephones. That is not to say it supplants regular human interaction, but augments it. At the same time, one cannot have the richness and valuable things we enjoy of the open Internet without knowing that the mechanisms that make it work well also allow people to abuse it for illegal, perhaps immoral, and evil purposes. There is likely going to be some bubble burst in the rapid curve of social networking that is still on an upswing, but at some point after the euphoria it will change to the more practical uses. To me, it is hard not to see how the networks of communication will not be a powerful and mostly positive force on my social world – they already have been for the 20 years I have been online.” —Alan Levine, vice president, community and chief technology officer, New Media Consortium
“Applications of the Internet, especially social network sites, have almost certainly improved relationships in general and mine in particular. It used to be when I moved, I left behind networks of people whom I would have lost touch with no matter our promises to the contrary. The cost-reduction mechanisms of sites like Facebook now enable me to maintain an incredibly broad and diverse set of relationships that provide me comfort and encouragement, expand my worldview, filter information, and give me feedback.” —Cliff Lampe, assistant professor, Department of Telecommunications Information Studies and Media, Michigan State University
“The Internet has already now given me the possibility to keep in touch with friends living in different parts of the world. In addition, it allows daily contact with relatives who live far away. Earlier keeping in contact would have been limited by the cost and the slow speed of communication either over the phone or by mail. Internet has also given the possibility to meet new people online and strengthen the already-created bond between friends.” —Jonne Soininen, head of Internet Affairs and former system engineering manager, Nokia Siemens Networks
“I personally think that the Internet has probably not had a huge impact on the pattern of social relations, but more research is needed. Research on the impact on social behaviour of communication technologies such as the telephone (by social historian Claude S. Fischer) has shown that the impact was modest, so why should we believe something other for the impact of the Internet on social behaviour? One of Fischer's articles mentions the tendency for hyping up the impact of new technologies (which he comments as having the shelf-life roughly equivalent to a Big Mac) – this is done by companies, tech bloggers and academics who are eager to jump on the next bandwagon. I think there is a lot of truth in this, and what is needed is more research. There is no doubt about the power of the Internet as an enabling technology – it enables people to do things (i.e. get in contact with old friends, make new friends, find a partner) more easily than before, but the question is: is this leading to an overall, measurable change in behaviour and outcomes regarding social relations? If my grandfather were alive today he would be using Facebook (he was into e-mail, not bad for someone who was born in 1910) but the point is: pre-Internet he was just as connected to people because he wrote letters. There is a sample selection bias that needs to be accounted for in research that aims to identify the impact of new technologies on social relations: the people who take up these new technologies have an innate and unmeasurable tendency to want to connect with other people, and hence it is hard to measure the impact of the technology. I believe the Internet has had both a positive and negative impact on human relations, and on balance, who knows? If someone could present a study that shows that a divorced mother with three children in 2009 looking for another husband will be more successful than exactly the same woman back in 1979 because of the advent of online dating, then I would take this as social scientific evidence that the Internet has had a positive impact on human relations. However this would be a difficult study to do (would need to also control for changing attitudes regarding divorce between 1979 and 2009).” —Robert Ackland, research fellow in the Research School of Social Sciences at The Australian National University
“We baby boomers are a transitional generation. We remember life before the Internet. I joined The WELL, a pioneering online community, in 1988, and count several of its members among my closest real-life friends. More recently, Facebook, despite its flaws and frustrations, has filled a communications niche between e-mail and the structured conferencing of The WELL. My social life and the quality of my social relationships have been impacted for the better. But I got involved in social networks as an adult. I wonder about younger people who haven't yet formed a solid web of real-life relationships or learned how to function in a meat-space social environment. I think there's a real downside there.” —Reva Basch, self-employed consultant for Aubergine Information Systems; active longtime member of The WELL, one of the earliest cyberspace communities; author of Internet books
“Better than anyone, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook has understood the role that ICTs can play in social relations. Facebook does not create new social relations. Rather it makes transparent and facilitates existing social ties. As a society we will grapple with how to best use these tools to strengthen human-based social ties – and some will be better at it than others. Issues like privacy will need to be addressed, but individual and structural strategies will emerge.” —Jim Witte, director and professor, Center for Social Science Research, George Mason University
“This is a question where a binary answer centered on ‘mostly’ may not make much sense. The Internet may make us closer emotionally to people we already know, but pose barriers to our developing relationships with other people who have very different personalities and beliefs. That hypothetical example has a lot of implications good and bad. I think this question needs to be broken out into several dimensions.” —Chris Dede, Wirth Professor in Learning Technologies, Harvard Graduate School of Education, emerging technologies expert
“The main thing the Net has allowed me to do is stay in closer contact with people than I would without the Net. They are just too far away and I don't like phones.” —Dorothy Denning, distinguished professor at Naval Postgraduate School, former director of the Georgetown Institute for Information, ACM Fellow
“It's all about extension not replacement. Social networking tools allow you to extend and stay in contact with your relationships, not replace them.” —Jeska Dzwigalski, director of community and product development, Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life
“I stay in touch with more friends and family with the Internet than before.” —Irene Wu, director of research, International Bureau, Federal Communications Commission, Yahoo fellow in residence, Gergetown’s School of Foreign Service
“It depends who you (i.e. I) become by that time – including peer pressure.” —Gary Arlen, president, Arlen Communications, founder of The Internet Alliance and member of the board for NTN Buzztime Inc.
“I first encountered my wife on the Internet, and I have a lot of Internet acquaintances who I occasionally see at conferences. For some people, they will overdo it and fail to maintain a balance of real-world contacts and virtual ones, but those instances become newsworthy and everyone learns. By 2020 the Internet will be totally embedded in daily life, and we will probably have gone through one backlash against the machine cycle, and recovered some social equilibrium. The sci-fi story about the guy who was arrested by the police for taking a walk around the block when normal people should be at home browsing the Internet, will never take place.” —Michael Dillon, network consultant at BT and a career professional in IP networking since 1992, member of BT’s IP Number Policy Advisory Forum
“Yes, but it’ll get more and more complicated to balance the personal/work persona as well as the public/private information.” —Jose Manuel Alonso, eGovernment lead, World Wide Web Consortium
“Actually, this depends on how to use the Internet. From the point of view that the Internet widens the communication range, the answer is positive. But from the point that the Internet simplifies the communication with neighbors, the answer is negative. Anyway, communication range will be bigger, but communication quality with neighbors may become lower.” —Toshiyuki Sashihara, engineer and innovator for NEC Corporation
“The Internet has reinforced relationships by allowing me to keep in touch with family, friends, associations and also to find new associations and reestablish past connections. My hope is that this will continue to evolve so that we can develop more long-lasting new forms of association on line that will benefit society as a whole and reinforce political liberty.” —Jerry Berman, founder and chair of the board of the Center for Democracy and Technology, an Internet public policy organization; president of the Internet Education Foundation
“The evolution of our social world is complex, with both positives and negatives. I do not see that it has reduced travel; I think I see friends and colleagues face-to-face as often as I would without the Internet. Perhaps the Internet has sped up the pace of interaction (which may be a cause of stress and thus a bad thing), but it has allowed me to keep in touch with distant friends in ways I could not otherwise have done.” —David D. Clark, senior research scientist, MIT, an Internet pioneer who has been active in building its architecture since 1981, now working on the next-generation Internet
“It lets me stay in touch with friends even though I travel a lot (mostly to see those friends face-to-face). Fewer Christmas cards, but more updates through the year!” —Esther Dyson, founder and CEO of EDventure, investor and serial board member, journalist and commentator on emerging digital technology
“While I believe that our social relations will improve, I am in no doubt that basic social skills, like having an offline conversation uninterrupted or mediated by technology, may well have to be taught in special weekend workshops.” —Stephen Balkam, chief executive officer at the Family Online Safety Institute
“For most people there will be effects of both kinds, difficult to disentangle. But the effects will ‘net out’ differently for different generations. For digital natives there will be fewer negatives and more positives than for their parents and grandparents (digital immigrants). Social life is changing, and most who perceive a downward trajectory are those who see their own culture vanishing. For my kids and their friends, social life depends on digital networking.” —Peter Suber, fellow, Berkman Center at Harvard Law School, visiting fellow, Yale Law School, open access project director, Public Knowledge, research professor of philosophy, Earlham College
“The Internet has had no impact on my marriage and personal friendships. That being said, it has had a strong, positive impact on my professional and intellectual relationships. It has enabled me to meet people and collaborate on writing, research, organizing conferences, getting equipment recommendations and solutions to technical problems, etc.” —Larry Press, professor of computer information systems, California State University Dominguez Hills
“Unlike members of my generation and those before, young people today will stay connected to each other likely for the rest of their lives. There's no escaping people anymore and I believe that will yield better relationships.” —Jeff Jarvis, author of What would Google Do? and associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism
“Hard to do a black-or-white on this. The Internet already gives morons and the semi-literate a platform for their ‘beliefs,’ and artful use certainly. lt helped get Obama elected. Digital tech can facilitate certain types of community and help form new affinity groups, but anybody who thinks machines will solve interpersonal problems or loneliness is nuts. A bunch of people wired to the same server does not make a family or community. I'm a Mac user, and I think Mac sells the illusion of the ‘Mac family’ very cleverly, but while I reap the benefits of having others with the same technology, I am no more a community of them than I am a member of the Honda Civic community.” —Jack Hicks, senior lecturer, department of English, University of California-Davis, a founder of the graduate creative writing program and undergrad creative writing sequence
“Although I wrote some time ago that there was nothing in the Internet for me, I was dead wrong. Now that I have ‘retired’ I live through the network (and maintain my network of friends and associates), and have more time for the other stuff, like gardening, and hiking, etc., that is best done offline.” —Oscar Gandy, author, activist, retired emeritus professor of communication, University of Pennsylvania
“More people will move beyond the novelty factor of online communications and use networked media to make both deeper and broader ties.” —Wendy Seltzer, visiting fellow, Oxford Internet Institute, fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society, Harvard Law School, fellow, Silicon Flatirons, University of Colorado Law School
“The most convincing evidence we have thus far is that the Internet does not cause greater isolation, but greater connectedness. As the Internet continues to grow, it will become an even more seamless component of social relations.” —Alissa Cooper, chief computer scientist, Center for Democracy & Technology
“The Internet can only strengthen relationships as it pushes for frequent interactions.” —Rafik Dammak, CAD engineer, STMicroelectronics, Tunisia; leader of the Youth Dynamic Coalition of the Internet Governance Forum
“By 2020, perhaps there could a saturating point in terms of using the Internet for social relationships, but no one knows the knowledge periphery beyond the human imagination!” —Hakikur Rahman, founder-principal, Institute of Computer Management & Science, founder-chairman, Internet Society Bangladesh
“There are both positive and negative effects of the use of ICT. The balance between the pros and cons depends on particular circumstances. For the growing number of people whose social network is geographically scattered, use of ICT is a necessity. The strength of links is not dependent on the ease and intensity of their use but on personal choices and attributes.” —Michel J. Menou, independent consultant in ICT policy, visiting professor and associate researcher, School of Library, Archives and Information Services, University College London
“This is depends upon people's lifestyles. A person like myself who has friends all around the world would definitely benefit from using the Internet for social relations. But I can also understand concerns about the other scenario for other lifestyles.” —Itir Akdogan, Ph.D. candidate and lecturer, University of Helsinki, expertise in ICT in empowering women and girls
“Depends on whether you are optimist or not.” —Marcel Bullinga, futurist and founder of Futurecheck, writing the book Welcome to the Future Cloud
“Greater access to information and knowledge (cf. Gutenberg, public education and public libraries) will bring about greater 'maturity' and wiser decision-making. It's a slow process, but a sure one (cf. Scandanavian countries, Holland, et. al).” —Frederic Michael Litto, retired professor, School of the Future, University of São Paulo, president of ABED-Brazilian Association for Distance Education
“In general I think that a more connected world is one where relationships are able to be maintained on a broader and more lasting scale. It may allow people who move away from home or travel to also stay connected – as troops fighting in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have done using e-mail, MySpace, Facebook, and video chat. At the same time, today people generally exhibit different levels of sophistication with regards to how much they publish online and what they feel comfortable with. Some people are very liberal with what they publish online. Others are more reserved, and some altogether fearful. Still others have dabbled in online social media and connecting with friends only to find it intrusive and overwhelming and have gone to the degree of deleting their online presences. Clearly this suggests that we are in the midst of a transitional period – as likely we were when the telephone or cellphones first became widely available – some people wanted them and appreciated the convenience – still others avoided them and refused to change their lifestyle to accommodate them. Generally though, those who do adopt social media will prefer and demand transparency in their dealings – or become more sophisticated and deliberate about what they publish online about themselves and about others. When Facebook is apparently connected to 60% of divorces these days (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/Facebook/6857918/Facebook-fuelling-divorce-research-claims.html), it's clear that both access to ‘temptation’ as well as the transparency that Facebook brings is causing people to confront issues that they previously were able to ignore or squirrel away. I think that's a good thing, and healthy thing. I think there's often too much distortion in people's relationships today. Still, the question remains: are we ready for a transparency society? And, how will we cope with those who share a lot about others, but not about themselves? Perhaps people will self-select and naturally gravitate towards people who have similar sharing tendencies. Others may rebel and head towards one of the two extremes. Still, the basic fabric of human connections is being enhanced through openness and transparency even if it's unclear how this will all play out over the next 10 years.” —Chris Messina, open web advocate, Google, board member, OpenID Foundation
“Networks are growing and the power and potential of those networks has not even begun to be tapped.” —Andy Opel, associate professor of communications, Florida State University
“Despite the media narrative, cultural relations and social engagement mediated by virtual spaces is a plus. At a minimum, it is an opportunity for complex dialogue with no opportunity for physical violence. For a good example of an untapped resource, see the 2009 report, "Digital Diplomacy: Understanding Islam through Virtual Worlds" http://dancinginkproductions.com/projects/understanding-islam-through-virtual-worlds/.” —Joshua Fouts, leader of Dancing Ink, digital diplomacy expert, senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, and founding editor of Online Journalism Review
“Overall, I don't think the Internet will be as much of a force as the technology by which it is accessed. Mobile devices (phones) have had a much greater impact and those are being used primarily to text and talk, not to access the Internet (at least by the students with whom I interact).” —Cecelia Rabinowitz, library director and educator at St. Mary’s College of Maryland
“The Internet provides opportunity to either enhance or to negate the closeness of social relationships. It does not determine the outcome; each person determines the outcome. Did the telegraph, telephone, radio or TV create a negative or positive force on personal and societal relationships? We hear about TV creating ADD in children and parents using TV to babysit. We also see those wonderful old paintings of a family around the radio or TV listening or watching together. Personal relationships are determined by social interaction during early years at a family level. How we relate to others, what we choose to share about our ourselves – our real inner selves or our outward selves is a matter of how we're taught to relate by our families. The real problem in relationships is not the Internet or its effect on humans – it is what we learn or don't learn as humans from other humans in our early years. This question is trying to take an entire societal issue and reduce it to one factor – the Internet. This doesn't work. The one factor has little to do with the overall issue.” —J. Dale Debber, CEO and publisher for Providence Publications LLC in California
“The personal journalism of Facebook and Twitter is enormously valuable to my social circles.” —Roarke Lynch, director of NetSmartz Workshop, US National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
“It does seem a little contradictory. The more time we spend on the Internet the more risk there is of isolation from personal contacts. Yet, the broadened contacts available online may actually take us to a wider range of contacts. Because of my own experiences in contact with others around the world, I remain more optimistic than not that our social contacts and social awareness will continue to be broader than in the absence of the Internet.” —Jerry E. Stephens, research coordinator who did not divulge additional ID information
“The Internet is a tool, that can be good or bad, like a hammer. It has been a positive force only with those in my social circle that have embraced it; I've met new people and developed wonderful friendships. With those who do not embrace it, or refuse to, it creates huge conflict. I would say for the most part, the Internet has been positive for me socially, as an introvert, and allowed me to get to know others on a deeper level.” —Beth Gallaway, library consultant and trainer, Information Goddess Consulting
“One word makes it better: ‘connections.’ Social, by definition, means interaction, and the Internet facilitates that in a wide variety of ways. E-mail was the killer app for the network (the spreadsheet did it for the stand-alone PC). Today's tools simply relax the assumptions about one-to-many, knowing an address, and synchronized communication.” —Anthony Power, vice president of interactive and analytic solutions at Studeo and author of What’s Still Missing from Web 2.0
“Facebook has become the easiest way to stay in contact with your friends from all over the globe. While the anonymity of which friends read your latest updates is good, the ability to connect or re-connect with people from all aspects of your life is incredible. Being in my mid-fifties, it has allowed me to contact friends from every aspect of my life. From high school to the military to our hobbies (automotive racing), it makes staying in touch much easier than the occasional e-mail or written letter.” —Mark Walter, chief executive officer of J-Angel Productions
“To date the Internet has enhanced my personal relationships allowing me to reconnect with lost friends, maintain connections with far-flung family and friends, and developing new connections with people I would never have met in my geographical area. I see these connections continuing into the future and being enhanced through upcoming technological means.” —Lois Ann Scheidt, Ph.D. candidate, Indiana University
“The Internet has expanded communication mediums and the ability to develop relationships based on mutual interests. This not only increases new social interactions, but also provides discussion topics for existing relationships.” —Al Amersdorfer, president and CEO of Automotive Internet Technologies, a provider of Internet marketing solutions for the retail automobile industry
“By maintaining networks of personal relationships through Internet-based applications, people are likely to have more extensive and numerous relationships than in 2010, but this may be at the cost of the depth or intensity especially of close personal relationships. (Although the Internet may provide a cheap and universal medium for maintaining such close relationships at a distance e.g. during travel or working away from home). Studies such as the British Library ‘Google Generation’ report highlight intergenerational differences: Gen Y and Millennials are more likely to opt for the second choice, Boomers and their seniors mostly for the first.” —Peter Griffiths, independent information specialist and consultant and former president of the UK Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals
“I choose answer No. 2, with reservations. I'm an elder, 68 years old and retired. The Internet is a godsend for the social life of elders who no longer have the daily camaraderie of the workplace, whose children and grandchildren may live thousands of miles away, whose old friends die and, for some, who don't get out and about as easily as when they were younger. It allows them to make social connections and friends they could not otherwise have. For younger people, I am not so sure that more online social life at the expense of in-person visits is a force for good, but I see it increasing along with telecommuting and work-from-home. We are, I think, in the middle of a grand social transition that is too new to understand yet or predict its outcome. But it will transform social relations.” —Ronni Bennett, founder of http://www.timegoesby.net, a blog about aging
“The Internet has, and will continue to have, a significant, positive impact on ‘connectedness’ to the social world – the ability to find and communicate with someone else out there 'like me' no matter how unique the persons' interests may be. The Internet will have less impact on more proximal relationships, such as marriage and long-term, local friendships where the bond is strong enough that communication will occur through a number of channels.” —Benjamin Hanna, vice president of marketing for R.H. Donnelly Interactive
“By nature we are meant to be in fellowship/relationship with one another and obviously at different levels and with different roles. But regardless of friends, followings, or followers, there are only so many people with whom we can physically have deep and intimate relationships. Likewise, by being connected with higher numbers of people, we can maintain at the very least a minuscule tie to those people, even if it's just a simple ‘hello – thinking of you’ message we send in passing.” —Nick Greene, founder of nickgreene.com
“The key here is not to let the Internet – or any other mass communications/information medium – be all-encompassing.” —Harold Medina, president of Medina Associates, a marketing and consulting firm
“Generational communication within generations is around comfort and what one is shaped by. When across generations, it will require both (multiple) generations to learn communication skills that maintain relational communication. I do believe that the ease of communicating via technology and from introvert types who release themselves in these mediums will actually benefit interpersonal relationships.” —Joe Hernandez, retired from the Southern Baptist Missionary Organization
“There will be, of necessity, a greater need for humans to better understand what is going on in the world and to be ready to influence decisions made on their behalf. The Internet will be the mechanism for allowing the necessary interactions.” —R.L. Monroe, retired after 35 years in the US Department of Defense
“I don't know if the positive effect of the Internet on social relationships ‘will only grow more true in the future.’ But it is true that social media are providing me with more and more opportunities to keep back in touch – or nurturing – social ties. Such ties are usually ‘loose,’ meaning that they need some sort of physical-world complement to work at their best, but they are by no means real and well running.” —Giovanni Arata, PhD, APT Servizi Emilia Romagna
“Addictive use of social networking has already run its course – increasing numbers of my students have already sworn off Facebook, etc. Social networking serves a useful purpose in allowing people to remain connected at a distance. It reduces social isolation and provides the possibility of perspective from trusted but distance acquaintances on local issues. This could be a boon to those who might otherwise be shut-in, isolated from their home communities etc. It can assist in transitions from one community to another. By 2020, norms will have emerged to assist people in recognizing and resisting over use.” —Robert Runte, associate professor at the University of Lethbridge
“Whether I am friends or connected does not empower my social skills. I'm seeing kids today who do not have social skills. They do not know how to communicate without their phones or laptops. Millennials get the heebie geebies when asked to turn off their PCs or phones. Perhaps they will be touching base but they will not be ‘communicating.’” —Bonita E. Lay, president of Achieve! International, a leadership and organizational development firm
“The Internet and social networking sites, such as Facebook, allow me to stay in contact with a much broader network of family and friends across the globe. It has truly been a positive force on my social world. Anything that brings people in diverse places together and increases exposure to the shared joys and tribulations of humanity can only serve to increase our empathy for one another.” —Lori Langone, research specialist, Michigan Economic Development Corporation
”Tough one, humans by nature are social. Our survival has depended on it. However, there may be a time when the virtual society can hinder our real-world relationships Time will tell. Look at how attached kids are to their technology and their need to connect to each other. Maybe we will create a hive of thoughts, and feelings in 2020 with each thought being under 140 characters.” —Louis L. Vigliotti, Great Neck Public Schools
“Life without e-mail? The Internet makes it easier to stay connected to others. That's a good thing.” —Pam Heath, principal with Jensen Heath (communications consulting firm), trustee for HistoryLink.org, the first online history encyclopedia created for the Internet
“Applications like Facebook have helped me to stay in touch with what's happening in the lives of extended family and friends, and re-established relationships from decades ago. But, it can also detract from quality time and conversation with those closest to us – the ones we live with.” —Jon Faucette, manager of in-house design for The Segal Company, New York
“Less expensive ways to cross distances, find and stay connected to people, and communicate with them will, of course, be a positive force! That isn't to say that there isn't a lot of work to be done with understanding and redefining, where necessary, boundaries and etiquette in the this rapidly changing environment.” —Heywood Sloane, managing director, Bank Insurance & Securities Association Diversified Services Group, US
“I am going to come down on the side of better social relations. These may be narrower than before, with each person having friends and colleagues mainly in their most immediate and strongest personal interests. However because these ties can easily occur across time and the space of worldwide networks with instant communication, through mobile devices as well as computer-mediation, people can attain satisfactory relationships from acquaintances to colleagues to friends to committed, intimate partnerships.” —Andrea Baker, associate professor of sociology at Ohio University and author of Double Click: Romance and Commitment Among Online Couples
“I have reconnected with old friends and established new ones thanks solely to the Internet. Social technologies do not erode our relationships – they enhance our ability to create and maintain lasting relationships.” —Bill Sheridan, e-communications manager and editor for the Maryland Association of CPAs
“While the Internet can't replace face-to-face contact, it can help support relationships by offering communication channels to people to use on demand. The Internet helps support long-distance relationships, relationships between busy individuals with demanding schedules, and it helps by offering multimedia tools to help keep social bonds strong.” —Christina Sponselli, social media evangelist and community manager, University of California-Berkeley Alumni Association
“For the most part, I agree that the Internet has been a positive force in relationship building. I am connected to more people and have the ability to communicate remotely in both real time and asynchronously. On the other hand, this media is a huge time sink, and I still love getting together with people personally to interact. Technologies like Skype and online learning have mitigated this need somewhat, but I'd still choose to visit someone in another city or sit down to dinner with them. Nothing can ever replace that.” —Christine Hamilton–Pennell, president of Growing Local Economies, Inc.; http://www.linkedin.com/in/chamiltonpennell
“I can see an expansion of more social networking sites, and more that are specialized. I'm not impressed with Facebook, but find others to be useful. Even e-mail has allowed me to interact with many more people in both my business and professional life.” —Gerald Sweitzer, principal at Non-Profit Success, a consultancy providing support and visioning or non-profit and community organizations
“I don't know too many people who think that e-mail has been a negative force in our social fabric. I get tons of spam and newsletters and advertisements. But I also get personal letters from friends and family. It has allowed me to communicate faster and more often with those I care about. The Internet is continuing to play a vital role in developing these relationships. We're just still figuring out how to use it.” —Andrew Burnette, a participant who preferred not to share a place of employment or other identity
“Here is the classic ‘third-person response.’ The Internet does not affect me negatively, but it does so for most people. Moderation is the key to avoiding the negative effects now experienced by most young people, but avoided by more discerning older people. This may be merely a generational effect, rather than aging effect, such that when the current youth pass through later life stages they do not experience wise use that leads to positive social relationships. My cohort analysis research finds that generational effects dominate aging or maturational effects when it comes to media. This adds weight to the first scenario, but because many baby boomers will still be alive in 2020, the second option will remain stronger until most of them die off, much to the delight of many young people, I may add, for reasons too complicated to discuss here.” —James A. Danowski, professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, founder of the Communication and Technology Division of the International Communication Association
“As I age and lose my mobility, I expect a number of my friendships and relationships to be maintained online. This won't be through the social networking sites that we know now, because they will be too commercial; but the web will make it easier to locate other people, and stay in touch over great distances.” —Jarice Hanson, professor at Temple University and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst
“Despite the concerns of teachers, the Internet is very clearly the most powerful communications device yet. Teachers seem to think if kids are 'chatting' away in some manner on-line, they are socializing. My parents had the same concern when I spent hours camped out on the phone. Socializing is being in touch with others, regardless.” —Frank S. Kelly, principal and director of planning and programming, SHW Group, architects, planners, engineers
“Social networking and media sites have made it easier to keep track and communicate with friends, colleagues, and loved ones – even at a distance, or after lengthy separations. Further, the ability to plan in a more collaborative and real-time environment (that Facebook and others provide relative to e-mail or text messaging) has only been beneficial for expanding social horizons. As these outlets continue to provide more opportunity to connect and communicate, and as these outlets become more involved in our mobile devices (and thus, more readily available), this effect will only expand further.” —Steve Rozillis, senior digital marketing manager for a major US insurance company
”In 2020, the Internet's force on social relationships will remain relatively unchanged (at least from a 2010 perspective). The Internet is very good at keeping you updated on distant relations and former friends. Through the net, you can sense (and sometimes see, as it gets spelled out) the network of the social world. However, you can still be lonely, like an individual in a crowded megapolitan street, with only the traces of former connections visible on the net – but don't blame the net as such.” —Stine Gotved, professor and cybersociologist working with several universities in Denmark and owner of Net:Work
“The use of social media and subsequent increased sharing of personal information will continue to create a more relaxed environment where people are more open about their feelings and opinions thereby establishing a greater number of relationships and drawing more people together.” —Stuart Willoughby, director, USA Service Federal Solutions Division, General Services Administration
“This is another question which is too black-and-white. The shades of grey are likely more true. I am older by 'net social standards and have the value of experiencing the world from a pre, current, and hopefully future prospective. I have been very active and social throughout my life and continue to be today and will likely do so tomorrow. However, today and tomorrow, my social reach is much wider as a result of the Internet. I am able to communicate and ‘experience’ so much more with so many more than I could even two years ago. I don't like all aspects of the social 'net, but the reach is so much better. The social nature of the net allows us to be better informed about friends, and family than ever before. We will all be richer from it.” —Michael Burns, co-founder and principal, i5 web works
“This is a very close call. Every IT innovation has always heralded the death of society, going back to printing presses. Things change, and some feel a loss, while others see a gain.” —Patrick Schmitz, semantic services architect, University of California Berkeley
“Social networking has already been seen to enhance a range of personal relationships and, along with person-to-person communications such as Skype, allow a range of people to communicate freely from anywhere in the world. For some it will have a negative impact on their relationships, but perhaps their relationships (marriages in particular) would not work anyway as they are inclined to infidelity and will use the Internet for the same purpose as the bar or workplace, but this will not mean that more marriages will fail or relationships collapse. Rather, for many relationships will be maintained better by the easy of being able to find out about friends’ lives and interact with them.” —Darren Lilleker, senior lecturer and director of Centre for Public Communication Research, Bournemouth University, UK
“A recent Pew study found that use of social networks on the Internet has decreased feelings of isolation for most people.” —Rob Patton, owner of Enter the Net, an Internet marketing consultancy
“If there is one thing at which the Internet excels, it is connecting people quickly across long distances. While there are things that give the illusion of a thriving social life without really delivering (MySpace, Facebook, etc.), the simple functionality of e-mail, voice over IP, and blogs allows you to stay better connected with the important people in your life than ever before.” —Adam Walton, self-employed
“Social web sites will help us to understand what stands for a real relationship; we will return to the basis of human beings, but with other wisdom.” —Karina Besprosvan, research director for a Latin American media group
“Again, we come back to the important fact that the Internet is only a tool. It is not the utopian magic lamp that will bring light to humanity – whether in access to information or in personal relationships. Because of its reach and power, the Internet can cause positive and negative results to social relationships. It already does. My social world has been improved by reconnections with old friends and colleagues through social networking, but I choose to use the Internet's abilities thoughtfully and with caution.” —Dave Rogers, managing editor, Yahoo Kids at Yahoo, principal, UXCentric, Inc.
“As it has already, electronic access to people will afford us the opportunity to interrelate in ways never before possible. Just as the telephone and telegraph before it made the world smaller, electronic access through current, developing, and as yet not thought of technologies will expand this access in ways we cannot even imagine (augmented reality? holograms? who knows!).” —Jeff Branzburg, consultant with Teaching Matters, Inc.
“Facebook alone has enabled me to keep up with the lives of relatives that I never hear from otherwise. Those who say that technology has robbed them of personal interaction have not leveraged the social world of the Internet. I do think that using the Internet for socializing depends on whether or not you like to read and write. Some people don't use it simply because they are hunt-and-peck typists, but that will not be the case in the future. Others just don't like to read or write, and for some of them, the short communications will be their only use of the Internet. For some of us, it is much easier to express ourselves in writing than it is to talk about issues. There is a danger here, of course and that is that one might write things and push ‘send’ that they would never dare to speak to another – that has both an up and down side to it. Sometimes it is things that need to be said; other times it is things that would be better left unsaid. You need to be judicious when socializing on the Internet.” —Sandra Kelly, market research manager for 3M Company
“The Internet has enabled me to make many new friends and acquaintances. Often these are people who are quite different to myself (different geographic location, life experiences, age, etc.) and this has helped broaden my opinions and perspectives.” —Heath Gibson, competitor intelligence specialist at a media communications company
“As a researcher, I sent numerous articles to my close friends and relatives that I feel is of importance to them. Through Facebook, I am able to keep up with events in relative's lives and see my grandson frequently via Skype. LinkedIn has provided a networking system for like minds and interests. My research for leadership and ethics courses and professional associations provide immediate data and resources for higher academic learning. The Internet has been a tremendous positive experience for my family and me. The benefits outweigh the vulnerabilities and dangerous areas on the Internet. Using and reinforcing prudence on the Internet is important.” —Thomas Creely, associate director of the Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University and principal at Creely Consulting, LLC
“The Net, social networking, etc. have not had an impact, pro or con, on me personally. Professionally, yes, the impact has been positive overall, as I can get more work done more easily (I'm a writer). On the other hand, as an older guy (52), I remember the pre-computer days when people actually talked on the phone or met in rooms. I increasingly strive to get conversations off of e-mail and into the real world, and I find doing so is a plus for productivity and politics. E-mail is a huge waste of time, because people use it improperly. So, the net-net is neutral for me.” —Rich Levin, senior vice president and editor-in-chief of Gregory FCA Communications
“In my immediate circles I have experienced an equal amount of positive and negative impacts on my social life as a direct or indirect result of the Internet. I choose the negative outlook because I think that it allows for people to be less social than they should be. It is true that some introverted people can find an outlet to the outside world via the Internet, but overall the Internet causes more introversion than extroversion. People are likely to stay at home and become more and more anti-social, or just simply socially inept (not necessarily in the immediate future, but over the years this will eventually happen).” —Liz Miller, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, no other details provided
“Web-based social networking can and does gravitate toward both poles, increasing negative isolation among those who are prone to isolation, and opening windows of communication and sharing among the socially adept. Social networking also offers unparalleled opportunity for the shy, the withdrawn, and the physically isolated to reach out into the web and cultivate friendships and other personal relationships. By 2020, the concept of building and nurturing relationships outside the physical realm will be fully integrated into human behavior. To our advantage, this web-based social structure will be free of the novelty that drives today's practitioners to obsessively text, twit, and gather. In place of manic distraction, the employment of audio-visual Internet connections will gravitate toward balance and practicality.” —Ebenezer Baldwin Bowles, founder and managing editor of corndancer.com, an independent online journal and cyber community, writer, activist and teacher
“The ability to include more of my friends and family in my ongoing social and political conversations makes for a better, more interesting world to live in than one predetermined for me by megacorporate bottom lines. Much more positive every step of the way.” —Bill Trzeciak, librarian, Glendale (CA) Public Library
“This question has been probed since my days on The WELL and ECHO. Most humans are social. The use of the Internet has done a lot to shrink the actual distance between family and friends and allows an expansion to new cultural experiences. The way we interact is always evolving and has impact on the drive for knowledge, understanding, and communication.” —Tery Spataro, CEO and founder of Mindarrays Consulting
“I think on a mostly superficial level, the Internet ‘improves’ social connections and relations by enabling me to reconnect with old friends, etc. (Facebook mantra). But I truly think that most of the social ‘relations’ online are extremely facile and not enduring. Real social connections are still done between people.” —Aspen Aman, a business development manager in the Middle East
“The Internet has changed the social communications norm, and people who don't use the Internet will become socially and technologically marooned. I have met more people face-to-face as a result of the Internet than I did before the Internet.” —Robert Lunn, principal of FocalPoint Analytics and senior researcher for USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, formerly director of surveys at J.D. Power and Associates
“While my social circle is much larger than before the Internet (or than it would be without it), the depth of interaction is probably less. That is, quantity at the expense of quality. Pre-net, I shared much more information with far fewer people. Now, it's more of a general information broadcast most of the time. Shallow? Probably. The possibilities for greater community interaction are exciting, but the reality has been that people are too quick to polarize when so much daily communication is faceless and anonymous.” —Mark Richmond, technologist for US District Courts, founding board member of the National Online Media Association (1993)
“More interconnection does not mean less social isolation. Furthermore, the Internet has the potential to exacerbate schizophrenic personalities, with one personality in cyberspace and one in the challenging realm of human relations.” —Lorenzo Moreno, senior researcher, Mathematica Policy Research, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University
“The breadth of relationships (number of folks we can connect to) significantly increases with use of social media. The depth is debatable and subjectively difficult to measure.” —Paige Beal, assistant professor, Point Park University School of Business
“We will all have more relationships of a superficial nature, but just because such relationships lack depth does not mean they lack value. Speaking for myself, I now have regular e-mail contact with two high school friends I had lost touch with for over 30 years. The Internet made that possible. I've been approached and have established contact with one of the grand daughters of an uncle on my father's side, that would never have been possible pre-Net, since my father was the only one in his family to have moved from Europe to America, and since the death of my father and his siblings there had been no contact between the two branches of the family. We don't need to be best friends to be friends. And with time we can develop deeper relationships. Tools like texting can help people be closer, if used with some sense of judgment.” —Gregory Zerovnik, marketing and public relations director for the San Bernardino County Library
”I am a 100% disabled vet. Before I became 100% I lived in the Middle East, from 1986 on. If it weren't for the Internet I could not have survived a quarter of a century away from libraries, classical music, collegial relationships in my profession, democracy, and educated friends… Since the Internet, I have found friends I had lost 10, 20, 30, 40 years ago. I get to see students’ kids and wives and husbands and partners, and can be safely ‘out’ on Facebook. I have visitors from every continent I have met through hosting web sites, read books I couldn't buy, heard music not for sale, and on and on.” —Isa Kocher, social Internet user
“I actually think the answer to this one is a mixed bag. In some cases, the use of online social networks have helped to solidify or improve social relationships. It makes it easier for people to stay in touch and share what's going on in their lives. That said, I also see these social networks degrading in-person social relationships and as a result can make some relationships more superficial. I get peeved when I'm at a party and people are sitting there texting the entire time. Interestingly, I think we're getting to a pendulum shift. I think the use of social networks has gotten so extreme, that now the pendulum is starting to swing back towards the side of in-person social relationships. I've observed young people who talk about having a dinner party as if it were a new, cool, and hip thing to do. This gives me hope, because as with everything, the true place for the pendulum to sit is somewhere in the middle. We're learning when it's appropriate to use these social tools to enhance our relationships, and when it is not.” —Joni Podolsky, community engagement specialist
“I have reconnected with old friends, kept up with colleagues, and remain in touch with college-aged children in a manner that exceeds previous technology (phone, visits, mail). I cannot say that the Internet enhances my marriage as much, so it might have the most positive impact on relationships with people who do not live with you.” —Margot Malachowski, outreach librarian at a teaching hospital
“The Internet is enabling re-connections and new connections in ways not envisioned when it was launched. These connections become deeper, broader, and more meaningful as we get to know others from a broader set of insights as their full persona is enabled by the Internet.” —Paul Gibler, principal consultant, ConnectingDots
“For me, the Internet has a positive effect on my social world. But I spend way more time online than the average Internet user, and I'm not necessarily sure that Internet is the big saver of social relationships for people in general. We still need to see more evidence of how social capital is transforming networks online, compared to offline.” —Bente Kalsnes, communication advisor at Origo.no and online journalist
“As a ‘critical’ Facebook user, I must admit that I have renewed friendships that have been lost for decades. However, my most-connected relationships are still those that I have originated face-to-face. Current research seems to bear this out for most people as well who are deeply involved with various social networking sites. I see these sites as alienating us more from real social relationships.” —Anthony Spina, communication, director of the master of arts program in corporate and organizational communication at Farleigh Dickinson University
“The Internet is a reflection of humans’ need to interact and communicate in ways that they prefer, with the twist that it allows doing so globally and at relatively low cost. As such, the Internet does not unhinge the social world as we know it, but rather strengthens it. What is crucial however is that humans still live in their immediate personal/physical societies, whose fabric cannot be supplanted by global virtual societies that the Internet allows: It will be up to individuals to make the choice regarding striking a reasonable balance to support both.” —Wojciech Dec, a network consulting engineer within the Edge Engineering Group of Cisco's Internet Technologies Division
“A recent 40th high school reunion had the best attendance of any reunion thus far. I credit this to Facebook. The reunion committee had made an effort to contact everyone a year prior to the event. The connection and buy-in was huge. As my adult children tell me, you never lose touch with anyone anymore. As much as we all move around due to work and recreation you have stayed in touch with everyone via social media and dropping in when in town is a more natural thing. Yes, I think we will all be more in touch through social media.” —Deborah Pederson, chief Learn & Earn Online Officer, North Carolina Virtual Public School
“I wouldn't have met my wife without the Internet. A full third of the guests at my wedding were people I met on the Internet. That being said, I think the way people are using the Internet is starting to change. In the past, Internet relationships were based on searching out other users based on some shared commonality; a favorite band, a certain author, a particular fetish. Now, Internet relationships, especially as found on Facebook and the like, are more about replicating existing offline social networks; you friend your cousins and the guy who sat behind you in seventh grade, but you don't go out looking for total strangers to be friends with. That's just weird. I think things will come around again, and the current (and the next) generation of Internet users will come back to interest-based online friendship networks, especially as online gaming rises in popularity.” —Cenate Pruitt, graduate student, department of sociology, Georgia State University
“The increase in socialization afforded us by the Internet can only be positive for the human condition. It is how we grow.” —Jack Holt, senior strategist for emerging media, Department of Defense, Defense Media Activity, chief of new media operations, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs
“Over the past 10-15 years, the Internet has grown around social networks and personal connections. When I look at how I have interacted with the Internet, much of it is for communication. From IRC and newsgroups in the ‘old days’ to Facebook and blogs today, the types of interaction have essentially remained the same. The tools, however, have improved, and the number of people using them has grown. I only see this as continuing over the next 10 years as technology is improved and developed.” —Colin Walker, marketing coordinator for the City of Bellevue, Washington
“The Internet is not a replacement for face-to-face-to-face. Face-to-face is not an alternative to Internet. These things are intertwined. I have yet to meet anybody who thinks that their 40,000 close friends on Twitter and Facebook are real. (I hope I never do!) It's easy to be dumb and accept the new Facebook public disclosure scam, caveat emptor. Some of those who have had bad experiences could have prevented them with a little forethought. Will relations improve? Hell yes, for the smart people who figure out what the technology can and can't do for them!” —Mike Gale, director of decision-support systems, Decision Engineering Pty Ltd.
“While I don't think the Internet will solve most relationship problems, I do believe it has the potential to significantly improve the condition of those suffering from loneliness, including, but not limited to the elderly. This will be particularly true as more local communities and networks use Internet tools to help them connect physically.” —Derek Hansen, director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Communities and Information at the University of Maryland
“The connecting interests allowed (and indeed enhanced) by the Internet means we all will have relationships at different levels on different subjects, regardless of physical boundaries. Or put another way, my major interest is not necessarily the neighborhood I live in, or the place where I work. My major interest(s) may be in completely unrelated areas over a wide diversity of fields. The Internet allows me to pursue those interests.” —Michael Castenegra, senior lecturer at the Grady College of Journalism, University of Georgia, and president at Media Strategies and Tactics, Inc.
“The Internet will, in particular, provide a common repository of knowledge shared among my social relations. It will ‘capture’ the strength and depth of our relationship, provide a history.” —Peter Rawsthorne, learning systems architect and council member, WikiEducator, IT team lead and solutions architect, Continuing Legal Education Society of British Columbia
“There will always be Internet users who selectively ‘isolate’ themselves from a wide range of activities independent of the Internet, but the vast majority of Internet users will use computer technologies to enhance a wide range of interpersonal relationships. This will be especially true for sub-populations with special needs, such as patients with rare diseases. The Internet will allow them to access information and to find peer support, and at the same time, will point them in directions for enhanced social support in their communities – whether that is the local, regional or national levels.” —Linda Keegan, social worker
“The Internet will have a more positive than negative impact on social relations, but a minor impact. Weak social ties will be maintained, but people will start being less forthcoming with their personal information online due to privacy/marketing fears.”—Michael Zimmer, assistant professor of media, culture and communication, School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
"The Internet is both a tool and pastime. Like a pastime, when my first life gets busy my second life takes a back seat. This is by choice. As a tool, the Internet helps me reconnect and stay connected to people, but it also carries with it the responsibility of past relationships. Like any tool, it all comes down to the intent and morality of the person using it. Again, it is a choice. For me the Internet has been a positive choice, because how I've chosen to use it has been in ways that I think have made my life better." —Chad Davis, director of production and project development at the Center for Innovative Media at George Washington University
“The Internet has provided us with an entirely new form, or concept, of social relations. In addition to being new, it is optional. This can only be regarded as a positive.” —Andrew Stulac, account manager, ISL Web Marketing & Development
“Personally, the Web has greatly improved maintaining my weak ties (work, past friends and acquaintances, distant relatives), and it has slightly helped to enhance my stronger ties (family, closest friends, current coworkers). Generally, it feels like there is little need for the ‘how have you been?’ types of initial conversations, and we are more honed in on specific contexts, which is good. I believe the web is enabling ‘connected’ people to have a better understanding of each other and our unique contexts, which helps communication.” —Paul DiPerna, research director at Foundation for Educational Choice, conducting surveys, polling, Internet/social media projects
“The Internet doesn't replace face-to-face communication, but it helps friends, spouses, and colleagues stay in touch in between face-to-face conversations. However, no force can make my kids ‘friend’ me on Facebook. Maybe this is a ‘positive’ in their twentysomething social world, but it's a ‘negative’ in mine. Maybe this will change when my kids hit thirtysomething.” —Greg Jarboe, president and co-founder, SEO-PR, Search Engine Watch Blog, Market Motive, ChannelOne Marketing Group
“I have more friends and more sustained social relationships due to being online. They are deeper, more nuanced, more socially interconnected and more satisfying. Seeing someone periodically is nothing to being in constant intimate communication with a circle of friends. Of course, many people don't really want this. They have nothing to say or share, so they don't like the energy or effort required to actually communicate in a meaningful manner, and think that mere physical proximity is sufficient. In 2020, we will be expected to be able to think and communicate with our friends and family, and if we have nothing to say it will be rather obvious.” —Jason Nolan, assistant professor, Ryerson University, and founding co-editor of the journal Learning Inquiry
“The Internet provides a new array of tools that help carry on relationships and they merely supplement other tools already at our disposal. That's a good thing because it allows us to be more nuanced in the ways we interact with others. And, of course, the Internet allows us to meet and interact with people who we would have otherwise been unable to meet.” —Sean O’Leary, president of MarketLab, Inc.
“Social networks have already enabled people to broadly expand their personal networks, to reconnect with past friends, and to stay in touch more easily with family and friends. However the ‘reconnect’ element of social networks will fade over time, as they enable today's younger users to never actually lose touch with people from high school, college, etc. But as people come to realize that it's not the quantity of interactions, but rather the quality of interactions, to the race to the largest number of ‘friends’ will cease. At this point, the Internet and social networks will settle into the next generation of telephone and e-mail for keeping people connected.” —Chris Marriott, vice president and global managing director, Acxiom Corp.
“The Internet is a part of my social world and allows my social network to be a bit broader than just those people I encounter on a daily or weekly basis. In the sense that the social network is slightly expanded while my regular relationships remain the same, I see this as a net increase. In general, I think people live in a blended reality involving online worlds and in-person worlds, and these worlds will continue to bleed over into each other more heavily.” —Mary McFarlane, behavioral research scientist, US Centers for Disease Control
“This is not a simple either-or question. Social relations won't get better or worse, they'll get different. Since we don't have many good measures of the ‘goodness’ of social relations, measuring what's changed in 2020 is going to be very difficult at any rate. Most of the research shows that social networking tools help expand the range of weak ties while not affecting the strong ties. But mobile communications has already had a huge positive impact on the strong ties – we stay in much closer contact with our family members and close friends than ever before. I envision a world in which these tools will give us more or less all the capabilities that in mythology were attributed to telepaths – we'll be able to transmit thoughts more or less instantly to as small or large a group as we choose. There's not way to predict what we'll say though, so its hard to forecast whether that will be a good or bad thing.” —Anthony Townsend, director of technology development and research director at The Institute for the Future
“The question presents a false dichotomy: Technology has no impact whatsoever in the long term on human relationships. What it does is to facilitate some aspects of it for a time (thoughts with letters, speech with telephony, updates with social networks, nearness-awareness with geo-location, etc.) at the expense of outrunning the etiquette and courtesy protocols of the previous generation (disturbance during dinner time with telephony, privacy, and discretion with social networks and geo-location, etc.). Over time, etiquette catches up (or evolves), but efficiency advances elsewhere. But throughout, people remain responsible for their human connections – i.e., the commitments in time and trust they make to others and their expectations of reciprocity.” —Andreas Kluth, California correspondent, The Economist
“I'm too old to answer this question. Since I bought my first computer (a Kaypro) computers have been part of my life, and I felt no huge change when I began using the Internet in the early ’90s. My kids have been online since birth, so their social lives haven't been ‘changed’ by the Internet, either – it's just always been there. My son away at school continues his relationship with his friends and family at home almost uninterrupted. My son in high school is as close in January to the friends he sees only in the summers as he is in July. Both have met and befriended people far away from our home. Sometimes their friends are in our house talking, watching TV or playing games. Other times they're somewhere else, but they're still talking, watching TV, or playing games together. They navigate the online social universe as easily as I drive my well-worn path to the office.” —Walt Dickie, executive vice president of C&R Research
“Facebook is wonderful for documenting your closest friendships – uploading photos of group events, playing games and writing on walls is a great supplemental way to keep in touch. It also allows me to keep up with ‘acquaintances’ better than I would, I'm at least casually aware of where people live and what they do and that may make me more likely to contact them. Beyond that, it's a big detriment to social relations and I only see it getting worse. High school and college reunions will likely wither away in the coming decade. Why show up at a reunion if you already have a complete record of the goings-on of everyone you ever went to school with? If you asked me ten years ago what a friend from high school was up to, I might call him. If you ask me today, I'll search him on Google, browse for thirty seconds and make a snap judgment. I think social networks are going to seriously hurt social relations outside of your closest friends. I can be friends with my grandmother on Facebook, and she can see my photos, but, does that mean we're actually communicating or connecting? I don't think it does.” —Davis Fields, product manager, Nokia
“Social relations skills, like intelligence, jave already begun trending downward. This is evinced by teenagers' inability to ask for a date using the telephone or (heaven forbid) face to face, instead opting to hide behind the mask of an overwrought text message that shows no emotion.” —A. Nelius, an electronic hardware engineer for a large government contractor
“For family and close friends, the Internet has had very little effect; the cell phone has been the biggest technology innovation in terms of bringing people into contact. But for long-lost high school friends and professional colleagues, I have seen a positive influence from social networking sites and e-mail.” —Peter Norvig, engineering director, Google, former division chief of computational sciences at NASA
“When I look at the friendships and networks I have around the planet, they just wouldn't be possible without the Internet. It's the Internet that has made these social relationships possible and that keeps them alive. This will only become more true in the future.” —Mark Surman, executive director, Mozilla Foundation
“Like the question about Google, this one is more about our choices than our technology. I don't worry about people losing touch with friends and family. We'll continue to honor the human needs that have been hard-wired into us over the millions of years of evolution. I do think technologies ranging from e-mail to social networks can help us make new friends and collaborate over long distances. I do worry that social norms aren't keeping up with technology. For instance, it's hard to turn down a ‘friend’ request on a social network, particularly from someone you know, and even harder to ‘unfriend’ someone. We've got to learn that these things are OK to do. And we have to be able to partition our groups of contacts as we do in real life (work, church, etc.). More sophisticated social networks will probably evolve to reflect our real relationships more closely, but people have to take the lead and refuse to let technical options determine how they conduct their relationships.” —Andy Oram, editor and blogger, O’Reilly Media
“The Internet is an excellent venue for personal links to prosper and grow – this was predicted by Licklider and Taylor already in 1968. However, it will become difficult to hide and be forgotten, which is rather scary. We will learn to value our privacy.” —Charlie Breindahl, webmaster and lecturer, Danish Centre for Design Research
“I am increasingly able to reach people I could never have spoken with before the Internet. This lessening of geographic barriers doesn't preclude relationships I could have had before – just changes them. Being able to ‘Facebook’ a person, or read their tweets doesn't mean that I've lost a relationship. It just means a different relationship – one less focused on small talk, and the mundane, more on social faux pas and the current experience.” —Joey Baker, self-employed
“Look at how attached kids are to their technology and their need to connect to each other. Maybe we will create a hive of thoughts and feelings in 2020 with each thought being under 140 characters.” —Louis L. Vigliotti, Great Neck Public Schools
“The Internet will not be without its downside in social relationships. But surely nobody would claim they love their parents less because the move out of the house and go to a city far away to work. The Internet will make those distant loved ones remain part of the fabric of our lives. However, it will definitely make those competing for attention in the physical proximity have to work harder to get noticed.” —Zachary Foley, director of technology for Eclipse Advertising
“The Net is connecting and even unifying people in positive ways that were never before possible. It is fueling revolutions on a scale ranging from the personal to national and international.” —Seth Grimes, founder of the data-systems architecture and design company Alta Plana Corporation and a columnist for Intelligent Enterprise magazine
“Little will change because of the Internet, as human relations depend on other factors mostly. However for those inclined to do good and community activities, the technologies will act as a facilitator.” —Seiiti Arata, staff, Internet Governance Forum secretariat, United Nations
“The Internet multiplies/magnifies our social abilities/activities. Those who keep in touch with others can do so with much less time and effort. Those who don't want to keep in touch or connect with others still have the ability to refrain from participating. It's much easier for me to keep in touch with my daughter (22) than it was for my mother to keep in touch we me at that age. I can send her a text message and it's easy for her to reply. There are no strings attached, emotional or otherwise.” —Kate LeGrand, senior professor, Broward College
“Hundreds of people show up for a high school 40th reunion. The nagging was done that would have been impossible 10 years ago. Blogging is linking strangers and old friends (‘No need to send me a newsy holiday letter this year – I've been reading your blog every morning so I'm fairly up to date on your life’) and allowing for a cross pollination of ideas and suggestions and information that was unthinkable 10 years ago. I am closer to far-flung friends due to email and Facebook (single fastest growing demographic is women over 50!) and I am able to keep track of what interests my nieces and nephews in ways I couldn't have 10 years ago. My 87-year-old mother has a Facebook page. She can see her Middle East-traveling granddaughter's life unfold with online photos. Sick family members have their status updates delivered immediately and typed only once; we all feel closer and more able to know what to do to help. People who live their lives only in the online world will continue to do so, but there have always been those people. Most of us will use it as an adjunct and not a replacement for real life. It's just expanding my sphere in my everyday life.” —Susan Hileman, self-described “domestic goddess,” retired
“The Internet is a network of social groups. If you don't understand that now, it might be too late. The Internet is one of the lubricants that allows globalization to accelerate.” —Bob Calder, multimedia and Internet teacher in the emergent technology magnet school at Dillard High School in Ft. Lauderdale, FL
“The Internet will continue to bring people closer to each other. Instead of one-to-one relations, we can time-shift core information one-to-many and focus real time on deepening existing relationships.” —R. Ray Wang, partner in The Altimeter Group, blogger on enterprise strategy
>> Click here to return to the 2010 Future of the Internet survey homepage
>> Click here to read anonymous respondents' responses to this question
>> Click here to read the news release prepared to announce this report
>> Click here to read brief biographies of some of the survey participants | <urn:uuid:eb17ca9a-ff6b-432c-ae6c-315978ba7330> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.elon.edu/e-web/predictions/expertsurveys/2010survey/future_social_relations.xhtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00127-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952538 | 35,808 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Forget cheese, the moon is really made put of Titanium. In a joint meeting of the European Planetary Science Congress and the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences, the result of the study by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) was published. This is not a huge surprise since Russian Luna missions had already informed us that there are many titanium ore rich areas on the Moon.
The presence of ilmenite (Ferrous Titanium Oxide FeTiO3 ) can be detected by considering the reflection of light from the surface. Ilmenite has a shiny metallic look along with a brown-pinkish tinge. It also exhibits pleochroism, which means that it has a different color when looked at from different angles.
Many wavelengths all to see the Moon better with
The LRO photographed the moon in seven different wavelengths, including ultraviolet (UV). The effects of weathering on craters show up in much more pronounced detail when viewed in UV. By comparing the reflectance of the Moon’s surface to different wavelengths of light, the LRO can pick out the regions rich in ilmenite.
Anything in it for us? You bet!
This huge abundance of titanium amongst metals (about 10%) on the moon is extremely puzzling, since less than 1% of Earth’s metals is titanium or its compound. This finding will go a long way in understanding the evolution of the moon.
Ilmenite is mined on Earth for titanium. If there is a Lunar Base in the near future, titanium would prove invaluable for building it.
We’re indeed just beginning to understand out nearest celestial neighbor.
A British team of researchers will be exploring under the Antarctic in a year’s time (December 2012) trying to look at the history of the region and the possibility of the existence of some other form of life. The region of interest is Lake Ellsworth. This mission is expected to find some unknown forms of life and also give hints about the history of the place and what role it can play in the climate of the world in future.
The Mission Strategy
The strategy is ambitious. The team aims to melt their way through 3km of solid ice that has never thawed in the last 150,000 years at least! They will use hot water at 970C to melt their way through. Given that the ice is way below freezing temperature (00C) and the water is at nearly the boiling point, the burrow should be a clean hole all the way through. The team will then lower 5 m long probes and use several flasks to collect water samples from the buried lake up to the surface. That is not all; they also plan to take up sediment samples from the floor of the lake. All of this will have to be done in a limited amount of time 24 hours estimate experts since the borehole will constantly keep narrowing down.
Lake Ellsworth is a wonder of Nature. It is located about 3 km below the Antarctic ice sheet and covers an area of about 29 km2 (10 km long and 3 kilometers wide), with a depth of 150 m approx. Untouched for 150,000 years (or maybe even a million) it is almost certain that the subglacial lake will contain life-forms (ancient bacterial forms, most likely) that will be absolutely new to humans. The water in the lake is kept in a liquid state due to the high pressure of the ice-layers above it and the heat from geothermal sources located near the place. Lake Ellsworth is just one of 360 subglacial lakes, the largest being Lake Vostok, which will be explored by a Russian Team soon.
Looking into the past to predict the future
The mission will hope to look into the past response of ice layers to climate changes and this will provide valuable clues to the response of the Antarctic region to rising temperatures. Remember the Antarctic region contains enough ice on land to raise sea-levels world-wide by 4-5m.
Australia leads many first-world nations in promoting green energy sources and it shows through once more. On 12th October, 2011 (tomorrow), the Australian House of Representatives will be putting the Clean Energy bill up for voting. Once passed, it will go to the Senate for voting. It is expected to be passed by both the House and the Senate and should come into effect by the middle of next year. One of the primary features of the bill is the levying of a carbon tax on carbon emissions.
The bill has been a long time in the making. The proposal to place a carbon tax came in the 1990’s. Serious thrust was provided this year, especially since July. September saw a Multi-Party meet on climate change and the committee suggested the way forward. The government was also presented the draft proposal to the public and received an overwhelming response.
The bill’s main focus is to maintain sustainable growth, while reducing the carbon footprint of the nation. The bill proposes to reduce the carbon tonnage by 160 million tonnes a year by the end of 2020. The Australian Govt. acknowledges that the climate is changing globally and this change is primarily driven by humans. The main source of the pollution is carbon and this harms the economy as well. Every government should take action towards a green future.
The Important Points
Towards the achievement of a green economy, the Govt. plans to take the following steps:
Big polluters will have to pay. There will be charges levied for every tonne of carbon that one puts into the atmosphere. The charges are expected to come in fixed slabs, so if you pollute more, you should be ready to pay disproportionately higher than someone who pollutes less.
Establishment of green industries’ and development of clean energy sources. This will also create jobs and investments. If the big American companies are anything to go by, green industries are doing better than the big polluters like GM or Ford.
Reduce carbon footprint by 160 million tonnes a year by 2020.
Use the money collected from carbon taxes to cut taxes on families and increase pensions.
If all goes well, carbon will have a price on it from 1st July, 2012. The exact pricing mechanism will be worked out in meeting and negotiations. The Australian Govt. is already eyeing 500 polluters who will pay under this scheme. The price will be $23 per tonne initially.
The best news is the bill is expected to pass in both the House and Senate, since both have a majority of Green’s. The fact that this money can be returned to the public in form of increased payments shows just one of the ways in which the word sustainable’ is appropriate.
May be I should wait till tomorrow, but I’ll just say it right now Bravo Australia!
The Solar cycle might be related to the heating and cooling of our planet, says a new study. The extreme weather in European winters can be tracked to the dip in solar activity in the recent past, like November-December, 2010, claim British researchers.
In their paper published yesterday (9th October, 2011) in Nature Geoscience, the joint research team at Hadley Centre, Oxford University and the Imperial College argue that the correlation between the two is too strong to be just a coincidence.
The authors hasten to add that the effect is not a global warming or cooling of the Earth. Cool Northern Europe temperatures are compensated by hotter ones down south, thus there is no net temperature change of the Earth, averaged out over a year.
The team focuses on the UV absorption of the atmosphere by the ozone layer. (Photo above) The ozone in the stratosphere heats up and this effect percolates to the lower atmosphere. This changes the wind pattern across North America and Europe, weakening it and allowing frigid winds from Greenland to flow to the UK and the rest of Europe. This creates cold winters in Europe.
Not quite open-and-shut case
It is not a clear open and shut case, since other factors like the El Nino or the melting sea ice play major roles in creating extremely cold winters in Europe. The data must be significant enough.
The work is not complete and only further data will confirm the measurements taken.
A Revolution in LED fabrication technology has allowed Samsung to paint its own picture of the future.
Samsung has announced a major breakthrough with LED technology. They promise to make ordinary glass screens act as LED screens. They even predict touch sensitive screens made of ordinary glass. The glass panes in windows can double up as entertainment devices, display or even lighting screens.
The great breakthrough is that the company’s R&D has discovered how to fabricate crystalline Gallium Nitride, the standard wide bandgap semiconductor used for LED screens, on an amorphous glass substrate, rather than crystalline Sapphire substrate.
This breakthrough will also help Samsung develop bigger LED screens at very low prices. Your window screen can function as an LED screen that you can use for advertising, lighting or even watching a movie. Soon you might be able to see entire building lit up, with the windows acting as LED screens. Samsung predicts about a 400 times increase in the size of LEDs available in the market now. A 2 inch LED could swell up to 800 inches!
It’s still some time away
The technology is in its infancy, however. Samsung thinks that it could take upto 10 years to make the product commercially available to everyone. Don’t get excited about the touchscreen promise just yet! There’s a long way to go.
Did Samsung just answer its own question: Next is What?
The fabled abominable Snow Man’ or Yeti’ might be real after all. Local officials in the Russian province of Kemerovo in Western Siberia claim that they have indisputable proof’ of the existence of the Snow Man’.
The Yeti is believed to be a hairy creature, sub-human in characteristics. They are supposedly brutes having great physical strength, but extremely shy to show themselves to the outside world. North America has its own version of the legend Big Foot.
The Yeti was famed to inhabit the Himalayas, but there were also some people who believed that Russia too has its indigenous population of the shy, but feared unknown creatures. The Kemerovo region also seems to be a perfect hide-out for the creatures, if you believe the myth surrounding them. The region is sparsely populated and is under snow for long periods of the year. The region is important for coal and metal mining.
The ‘Indisputable Proof’
As proof’ the artifacts presented were his footprints (photos), the apparent nest made by the Snow Man and other articles believed to be territory markers. They have even submitted hair samples that are supposed to belong to the Yeti.
There is going to be a special research cell to study the Yeti. Their observations will be noted in a special journal dedicated to the Snow Man. Only after a detailed study can the claims be validated or rubbished.
There have been previous claims of the existence of the Snow Man from various parts of the world, especially from the Himalayas. There have even been direct photographs, but nothing has been confirmed as yet. These could have been fakes or been some other creature.
Officially, the Yeti is still a mysterious creature and merely stuff of legends.
Now, you can participate in the unraveling of the greatest mysteries ever on your Android phone. Oxford University has come up with a Large Hadron Collider (LHC) app for Android mobiles. The app is nicely named LHSee’ and gives the user a nice chance to explore the Large Hadron Collider in full 3D glory and detail. You can download the app here.
So, the Higgs Boson particle is still elusive and the LHC is hot in pursuit of the mysterious Boson. Not that you can do much about that sitting at home (or maybe you can donate you’re your computer’s processing power to CERN), but you can certainly get a sense of what is going on at the LHC on a regular basis.
Not as easy as Angry Birds
The bad news is that the details are really involved and you’ll probably take some time to take in everything. The Oxford bundle comes with a host of educational resources, besides the simulation. You’ll be able to learn more about ATLAS, one of the premier detectors at the LHC. It even has a game Hunt the Higgs, which we hope will become as popular as Angry Birds. So, while the LHC is busy colliding protons at monumental energies, you’ll be challenged with picking up the different proton-proton collisions from the jumbled mess. If you spot the Higgs, do give yourself a pat on the back.
CERN’s huge LHC now comes in your phone. That’s another reason for a physicist to buy an Android phone, if you don’t already have one. The biggest search in the history of humanity now occurs on your phone. Feel proud about that! High energy physics has never been this much fun!
The Physics Nobel goes to Cosmology Team for their observation of the accelerating expansion of the Universe. This led to the hypothesis of Dark Energy. Names of winners follow.
Physics Nobel is the most prestigious Nobel, feel many, especially since Alfred Nobel himself mentioned it first in his will. The fascination with Physics Nobel winners of the last century is understandable, given the huge names, which would’ve still been big without the Nobel. For 2011, the forerunners of the Nobel seem to be Alain Aspect (famous for his Aspect Experiment on the EPR effect), John Clauser and Anton Zeilinger.
Quantum Physics has been the dominant buzz word surrounding this year’s prize. The other contenders include Yakir Aharanov (one half of the Aharanov-Bohm effect duo) and Micheal Berry (of Berry Phase fame). The dark horse in the race has been the neutrino team. The Nobel might go to experimental team looking to verify and measure neutrino oscillations. Arnold McDonald at SNOlab along with two Japanese physicists from the Super Kamiokande experiment.
And the Winner Is …
The 2011Physics Nobel Prize goes to Saul Perlmutter (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, UC Berkeley), Prof. Brian Schmidt (High Z Supernova search team, Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australia) and Prof. Adam Reiss (High Z Supernova search team, Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australia). While Permutter got half the Prize, the other half went jointly to Schmidt and Reiss. The citation reads “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae”.
The Universe was supposed to slow down according the General Theory of Relativity. The observation by Schmidt and Reiss confirmed that the Universe is not only expanding, but also accelerating.
A webcast from the Nobel Committee in Sweden is to follow. Here’s the webcast link:
The Chemistry Nobel Prize winner will be announced tomorrow. The prizes will be given out on the 10th of December. Below is a small animation explaining the 2011 Physics Nobel with narration by Sean Carroll, Caltech Physicist. Enjoy
The world’s most complex ground telescope is finally in operation and it just snapped a stunner! The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (or ALMA) finally opened on the 30th of September and the following is the first photo that it showed the world.
The photo is that of the Antenna Galaxies, two galaxies which are colliding with each other. They are known by their catalog names as NGC 4038 and 4039. The photo has been combined with the photo of the same galaxies in the optical range obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope to give the following photo.
The Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA)
The millimeter and submillimeter capabilities of ALMA mean that it can look at cold objects in space that don’t radiate in the visible or infrared range. It can also pick up radiowave radiation filtering out of dust clouds that block the optical radiation.
The ALMA is an array of 12 meter radio telescopes that sit on the fringe of the Atacama desert at an elevation of 5000 meters (16,500 feet) in Chajnantor plateau in Norther Chile. What is it good for? It offers a window to the very early Universe. Precious little is known about that epoch and ALMA hopes to expand that immensely. It can catch radiation from sources which are about a thousand times colder than the Sun.
Right now, the ALMA has 19 telescopes in the array. In another year or two (hopefully by the end of 2013), this number will be increased to 66. ALMA is currently booked for the next nine months at least. There have been huge excitement in the astronomy community and as soon as it opened, there have been as many as 900 applications for using it. In the next nine months, ALMA can fit in only about a hundred.
ALMA is funded by European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Europe, National Institutes of Natural Sciences in Japan and the US National Science Foundation (NSF) in North America. Funding has also come from National Research Council in Canada and National Science Council in Taiwan. The total cost of the array at the moment is over US$ 1 billion. This is the most expensive ground based telescope array ever. It is also the most complex.
The beginning has been great! The image is stunning and it is getting everyone’s attention. The next one year should yield lots of scientific riches.
It is Arabian Nights recreated, but not quite. A team of researchers at Princeton has come up with a plastic, which remains suspended when a current of particular frequency is passed through it. Piezoelectric actuators and sensors respond to the electrical signals and send ripples across the entire surface of the thin sheet, displacing air pockets right beneath it. This allows the sheet to float. Synchronized vibrations can push these air pockets from the front to the back of the sheet, allowing propulsion.
The “Flying” Carpet
The Flying Carpet’ has been designed by a graduate student at Princeton Mr. Noah Jafferis. He says that he was inspired by a mathematical paper he read, which was written by Harvard professor Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan.
The propulsion is also inspired by the way stingrays move in the water. They create ripples through their flattened bodies in a manner so as to displace water in a particular direction. The reaction force propels the rays in the opposite direction.
More Work to be Done!
There are problems though. The plastic sheet bends too much at high frequencies. Nevertheless Jafferis has already assigned himself a new project. To build such a thing powered by solar cells. This current model uses heavy batteries, which are kept on the table and connected to the sheet by wires. Thus, the plastic can hardly move more than a few centimeters. Further, the speed is pretty slow at 1 cm/s. Jafferis wants to go to upto as high as 1 m/s.
In the paper that they published Applied Physics Letters, Jafferis and team consciously put flying’ within double-quotes, indicating that it is not really a flying object, just a hovering one.
As for applications, there may be many. Right now, people are just concentrating on building this fascinating thing. It’s still a long way from the fast flying magical carpets we’re so used to seeing in the cartoons. | <urn:uuid:ad60a74b-3b51-409a-9395-6044b47fd12a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://techie-buzz.com/author/debjyotiarr/page/24 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402746.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00157-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949371 | 4,096 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (cont.)
Roxanne Dryden-Edwards, MD
Dr. Roxanne Dryden-Edwards is an adult, child, and adolescent psychiatrist. She is a former Chair of the Committee on Developmental Disabilities for the American Psychiatric Association, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, and Medical Director of the National Center for Children and Families in Bethesda, Maryland.
Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD
Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.
In this Article
- Alcohol use disorder facts
- What is alcohol abuse?
- What is alcoholism?
- What differentiates alcohol abuse from alcoholism?
- What are risk factors for alcoholism?
- What causes alcoholism? Is alcoholism hereditary?
- What are alcohol use disorder symptoms and signs in teenagers, women, men, and the elderly?
- How do physicians diagnose alcohol use disorder?
- What are the stages of alcohol use disorder?
- What is the treatment for alcohol use disorder?
- What medications treat alcohol use disorder?
- How can you tell if someone has a drinking problem?
- Can an alcoholic just cut back or stop drinking?
- Is there a safe level of drinking?
- Is it safe to drink alcohol while pregnant?
- How can someone find more information or get help or support to treat alcohol use disorder?
- What are the long-term physical and psychological effects of alcohol use disorder?
- What is codependency, and what is the treatment for codependency?
- Is it possible to prevent alcohol use disorder?
- What is the prognosis of alcohol use disorder?
- Find a local Psychiatrist in your town
What is alcohol abuse?
Alcohol abuse, now included in the diagnosis of alcohol use disorder, is a disease. It is characterized by a maladaptive pattern of drinking alcohol that results in negative work, medical, legal, educational, and/or social effects on a person's life. The individual who abuses this substance tends to continue to use it despite such consequences. Effects of alcohol use disorder on families can include increased domestic abuse/domestic violence. The effects that parental alcoholism can have on children can be significantly detrimental in other ways as well. For example, the sons and daughters of alcoholics seem to be at higher risk for experiencing more negative feelings, stress, and alienation as well as aggression. There are a multitude of negative psychological effects of alcohol use disorder, including depression and antisocial behaviors.
Statistics about less severe alcohol use disorder (alcohol abuse) in the Unites States include its afflicting about 10% of women and 20% of men. Other alcohol abuse facts and statistics include the following:
- Most people who develop severe alcohol use disorder (alcohol dependence/addiction) do so between 18 and 25 years of age.
- Symptoms tend to alternate between periods of alcohol abuse and abstinence (relapse and remission) over time.
- The majority of individuals who abuse alcohol never go on to develop severe alcohol use disorder, formerly referred to as alcohol dependence.
- Alcohol-use statistics by country indicate that among European countries, Mediterranean countries have the highest rate of abstinence and that wine-producing countries tend to have the highest rates of alcohol consumption.
- In many European countries, beer tends to be the alcoholic drink of choice by teenagers, followed by liquor over wine.
Next: What is alcoholism?
Find out what women really need. | <urn:uuid:49652da6-b2ac-4b1f-9fae-b289b5c01943> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rxlist.com/alcohol_abuse_and_alcoholism/page2.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00086-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917539 | 802 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Hungary became part of the Soviet bloc in the early 1950s. The ‘Sovietisation’ of Hungary was neither peaceful or supported by a majority of the population. Post-war was governed by a democratic coalition, led by a conservative prime minister, Zoltan Tildy. The local communist party was a small but vocal group, receiving less than one-fifth of the vote in the 1945 elections. But Hungary’s communists were backed by the Soviets, who continued to occupy the country into the late 1940s. As in other places, Soviet agents interfered in Hungary’s domestic politics, manipulating local parties to facilitate communist rule. They achieved this in 1948, when Hungarian communist groups merged with local social democrats to form the Hungarian Working People’s Party. The new national leader was Matyas Rakosi, who modeled himself on Stalin and set out to mimic Soviet policies. In 1950 Rakosi created a political police force, the Allamvedelmi Hatosag (‘State Protection Authority’ or AVH). Over the next six years more than a quarter-million Hungarians were arrested, imprisoned or murdered by the AVH for political crimes, both real and imagined. Rakosi’s regime also prioritised industrialisation and military spending – to the detriment of the people, who suffered shortages of food, fuel and consumer goods.
The people’s uprising
Nikita Khrushchev’s 1956 denunciation of Stalin had implications for Hungary. Rakosi was replaced as leader and shipped out of Hungary, on the orders of Moscow. This led to growing optimism among Hungarian students and workers, who believed that political reform and liberalisation was imminent. At the head of this movement were students, who for years had been suppressed by the pro-Soviet government and AVH. Under Rakosi, Hungarian schools and universities had been forced to teach communist-approved syllabuses; learning Russian was also compulsory in many institutions. Teachers, academics and students who failed to abide by these regulations were sacked or expelled – or in some cases, dealt with by the AVH. In the autumn of 1956, student unions once banned under Rakosi were revived, and students began organising discussion forums to debate the future of Hungary. In the capital Budapest, one group constructed a 16-point set of demands for political reform:
1. We demand the immediate withdrawal of all Soviet troops…
2. We demand the election of new leaders in the Hungarian Workers’ Party … by secret ballot.
3. The government should be reconstituted … all criminal leaders of the Stalinist-Rakosi era should be relieved of their posts at once… …
12. We demand complete freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of the Press and a free Radio, as well as a new daily newspaper of large circulation…
13. We demand that statues of Stalin, the symbol of Stalinist tyranny and political oppression, should be removed as quickly as possible…
The student uprising soon expanded and became a popular uprising. On October 23rd, more than 100,000 people gathered in Budapest, where the students’ 16-point demands were read and received with cheers. The crowd then marched on a ten-metre high bronze statue of Stalin in the centre of the city. They looped steel cables around its neck, pulled it to the ground with trucks and defaced the fallen icon. Such an act would have been unthinkable a few years before, while Stalin was still alive. Elsewhere in Budapest, another group battled police outside a local radio station, while AVH squadrons were besieged and attacked. Revolutionaries took over public buildings, destroyed Soviet symbols and opened the jails, freeing political prisoners who had been locked away for years. The violence continued until after midnight, when the first Soviet tanks entered the capital to assist the AVH with restoring order. But the presence of the Red Army did not daunt the citizens of Budapest. Some unpacked rifles to fire on the tanks, while children darted out from alleys to hurl projectiles . There were a few attacks on Soviet soldiers – but in most cases they were welcomed and invited to join the rebels, with a few taking up the offer.
The first phase of this Hungarian Revolution, as it became known, produced a victory for the rebels. The pro-Soviet prime minister fled to Russia in fear of his life and the national leadership passed to Imre Nagy. On October 27th, Nagy acceded to popular demands by dissolving the AVH, abolishing one-party restrictions, promising free elections and an end to Soviet-style economic collectivisation. Political parties once banned under Rakosi began to reappear. At first the Soviet government took no punitive action against Nagy and the new Hungarian government. Orders were given to withdraw Soviet tanks and troops from Hungary. US president Dwight Eisenhower hailed this Soviet restraint, calling it the “dawning of a new day” in eastern Europe. In reality, the Politburo in Moscow was equivocating about what action to take. Hardliners wanted to send in tanks and crush the uprising, while others thought Hungary could be brought back into the Soviet fold with political pressure.
But Soviet inaction did not last long. On October 30th, mobs in Budapest attacked communist buildings and several AVH agents were killed. The following day, Imre Nagy bowed to public pressure and declared that Hungary would withdraw from the Warsaw Pact. Both events convinced the Politburo to take firm action to suppress the uprising in Hungary. To allow it to proceed would suggest weakness to the West and encourage similar uprisings elsewhere in the Soviet bloc. Sensing an imminent Soviet invasion, Nagy appealed to the United Nations for assistance, in the event of a Soviet attack. But the UN, US and other Western powers – at the time busy with another international crisis in the Suez – did not respond.
The rebellion crushed
On November 3rd, Russian troops closed Hungary’s borders and surrounded Budapest. They entered the capital overnight and occupied the parliamentary building. Soviet troops marched along the streets of the capital, firing indiscriminately into buildings, while industrial areas – which Moscow believed housed most of the rebels – were destroyed by Russian artillery and airstrikes. Nagy remained in power until dawn on November 4th, broadcasting news that Budapest was under attack from the Soviets before taking refuge in the Yugoslav embassy. He was later arrested by the Soviets and given a secret trial, before being hanged. It took a week of fighting before Soviet troops were able to subdue resistance, with more than 2,500 Hungarians dying. Moscow then installed Janos Kadar, another local communist, as the new national leader.
There was a mixed international response to the Hungarian Revolution and its brutal suppression by the Soviets. Both the UN and NATO were criticised for their inaction, for failing to offer assistance to the rebels. The UN convened a special inquiry into the events of October-November 1956, however both the Hungarian and USSR governments refused to participate. The inquiry resulted in a condemnation of the Kadar regime, but no other action or significant findings. TIME magazine named the ‘Hungarian freedom fighter’ its ‘Man of the Year’ for 1956, describing him as having “shaken history’s greatest despotism to its foundations.” In the long term, the Hungarian Revolution strengthened the stalemate between East and West. NATO countries recognised that attempting to destabilise the Soviet bloc by promoting internal uprisings only risked harm to local populations. Other nations behind the Iron Curtain were also given a clear lesson in what might happen if they challenged Soviet control.
1. Post-war Hungary, like other eastern European nations, had a pro-Soviet communist government.
2. In 1956, Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin ignited of liberal reforms and protests in Hungary.
3. Started by students, the Hungarian uprising soon became a popular one, targeting the state police.
4. Moscow equivocated at first, however Warsaw Pact troops eventually entered Hungary to quash the uprising.
5. The Hungarian uprising ended with the installation of Janos Kadar, a loyal Soviet communist, as the nation’s leader. The Soviet response invited criticism and condemnation around the world.
This page was written by Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey and Steve Thompson. To reference this page, use the following citation:
J. Llewellyn et al, “The Hungarian uprising”, Alpha History, accessed [today’s date], http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/hungarian-uprising/. | <urn:uuid:ac9f91b2-904a-4081-a403-62e9b70f44a3> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://alphahistory.com/coldwar/hungarian-uprising/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00034-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970511 | 1,767 | 3.3125 | 3 |
History of King's Highway 24:
King's Highway 24 is a major arterial highway which links Simcoe to Cambridge, via Brantford. Until recently, the highway was much longer, extending from Long Point on Lake Erie to Collingwood on Georgian Bay. Most sections of Highway 24 were transferred to municipalities during the hastily-executed highway downloading of 1997-1998, which saw thousands of kilometres of provincial highways handed over to cities and counties across Ontario. About 70% of the highway was downloaded. The highway is now only 75 km long. Highway 24 was first designated in 1927, extending from Simcoe to Guelph. The highway was extended from Simcoe to Port Dover in 1936 and from Guelph to Collingwood in 1937-1938. The highway was relocated from Brantford to Simcoe in the late 1960s to bypass the meandering original road and a number of small communities which lined it. In 1970, Highway 24 was rerouted between Simcoe and Long Point. The old highway into Port Dover became a part of Highway 6. The Hespeler Bypass was completed and opened to traffic in 1992. In 1997-1998, all portions of Highway 24 lying south of Highway 3 in Simcoe were downloaded, as were all portions lying north of Highway 401 in Cambridge. The southernmost section of Highway 24 from Simcoe southerly to the Highway 59 Junction at Long Point was downloaded on March 31, 1997. The northern section of Highway 24 from Cambridge northerly to Collingwood survived until the following year, when this portion of the highway was also transferred, effective January 1, 1998.
The Ministry of Transportation is currently studying transportation improvement opportunities between Brantford and Cambridge. The existing Highway 24 is becoming congested and these conditions are expected to worsen over the next 20 years, given the population growth expected in this area. Since there is no direct access from Highway 24 to either Highway 401 or Highway 403, all through traffic has to pass through the built-up, urbanized areas of Cambridge and Brantford. Presently, this is the source of most of the traffic congestion on Highway 24, but the rural sections of Highway 24 are also expected to reach capacity within the coming decade. A new Highway 24 corridor between Brantford and Cambridge was being considered during a recent planning study. However, in 2008, a new study was launched to identify a potential corridor in a redefined study area that incorporated areas to the west of Cambridge and Brantford that the previous study had not evaluated. The previous study also included most areas between Cambridge and Brantford, but was more focused on finding a potential corridor to the east of the two cities.
It has been erroneously reported by many media sources and special interest groups that this potential new highway corridor will be a four-lane 400-series highway, known as Highway 424. This is actually incorrect. While the MTO is examining several potential transportation corridor options, all of the highway plans are for a limited access two-lane highway with a possible transitway corridor option. The exact route of this transportation corridor is still to be determined. The final route selection for the proposed corridor will be done through careful environmental assessments and design phases. Consequently, construction of this new transportation corridor is still several years away.
Highway 24 traverses a mostly rural portion of Southern Ontario, although it does pass through several large cities and towns along its route. The principal towns located along the highway are Simcoe, Brantford, Cambridge, Guelph, Erin, Caledon, Orangeville, Shelburne and Collingwood. Most sections of Highway 24 are two lanes, but there are some short undivided four-lane sections from Brantford to Highway 5, from Orangeville northerly for about 10 km to Camilla and from Primrose to Shelburne. The Hespeler Bypass is a four-lane divided expressway. Passing lanes appear periodically along Highway 24 from Brantford to Shelburne. Services along Highway 24 are generally quite plentiful, except in some of the rural areas between Long Point and Simcoe, where services are somewhat scarce outside of communities. Services are very scarce between Shelburne and Singhampton. The speed limit on Highway 24 is 80 km/h (50 mph), unless posted otherwise. Please visit the Highway 24 Mileage Chart page for a list of mileage reference points along Highway 24.
Winter Driving Tip: The northern section of Highway 24 is one of Ontario's most notorious highways when it comes to winter road conditions. The highway is frequently closed during the winter between Shelburne and Collingwood due to blowing and drifting snow. Blowing snow will often result in zero-visibility conditions. Skiers and snowboarders heading to Blue Mountain and other surrounding ski resorts should inquire at the ski resort about road conditions before they leave in the evening, as Highway 24 can be very dangerous at night when blowing and drifting snow conditions exist. The weather conditions on this highway can deteriorate very rapidly when snowsqualls blow in from nearby Georgian Bay. On cold, windy days, it is highly advisable to find an alternate route between Shelburne and Collingwood. Airport Road runs parallel to Highway 24. Since the road lies below the Niagara Escarpment, it is less likely to be closed due to drifting and blowing snow, making this a potential alternate route in poor weather conditions.
Additional Information About King's Highway 24:
Learn More About King's Highway 24 (My Upcoming Publications)
King's Highway 24 - Route Information (At Scott Steeves' website: asphaltplanet.ca)
King's Highway 24 - A Virtual Tour (At Scott Steeves' website: asphaltplanet.ca) | <urn:uuid:4604263b-7653-4dfe-997b-73605ea38fad> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thekingshighway.ca/Highway24.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395160.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967708 | 1,172 | 2.640625 | 3 |
What is Specific Phobia?
Specific phobia refers to a fear of specific objects (such as snakes or spiders) or situations (such as heights, closed spaces or crowds), and the severe distress experienced when encountering the feared object or situation.
What are the symptoms of Specific Phobia?
The primary symptom of phobia is avoidance. Individuals may not realize the lengths to which they go in order to avoid the subject of their fear, or the limitations their actions place on daily living. For example, a fear of blood or needles is quite common, and may keep a person from visiting a doctor, even in an emergency.
Could you be suffering from a Specific Phobia?
It’s best to work with a trained healthcare professional to determine whether or not what you are experiencing is a Specific Phobia. Together, you can discuss whether you are especially afraid of specific things such as flying, seeing blood, heights, closed places, certain kinds of insects or animals, etc.
How are specific phobias treated?
People suffering from specific phobias may be reluctant to seek the treatment needed to “face their fears.” However, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been proven to be a simple, quick, and highly effective treatment. To learn more about CBT, visit Know your treatment options. | <urn:uuid:8287492f-7540-4f22-9f53-420c15bc1554> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.depressiontoolkit.org/anxiety/specific_phobia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395346.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00167-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94094 | 271 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Imagine telling your children on their 19th birthdays that they must leave the family home, will receive no more financial or emotional support, and are on their own to figure out how to make money or go to school.
That is the reality for 700 youths every year in B.C. — foster children raised by the Ministry for Children and Families who, on their 19th birthdays, lose all the supports on which they had come to rely.
For some youths that means being forced out of a foster home or group home, where a family or non-profit agency provided them with shelter, food, clothing and guidance.
For many, it means losing the $1,000 a month provided by the ministry to pay their own rent and support themselves. In both scenarios, the youths also abruptly lose contact with any government social workers or transition workers who give advice and free food vouchers and bus tickets until age 19.
Foster children are often among the most vulnerable kids in our society. They either have no parents or have been taken from their parents by the child welfare system or the courts. They have not been adopted, so are being raised by the state.
Advocates say the majority of kids in care are resilient and determined to survive on their own. But while some find varying degrees of success, others fall down.
B.C. children’s advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond says she has seen “case upon case” of social workers taking a new 19-year-old to a homeless shelter after government support ends.
“The last contact they have with their guardianship social worker is driving in the car to a shelter,” Turpel-Lafond said.
Multiple studies show these vulnerable youth, once cast adrift, face dire outcomes compared to children raised in traditional families.
They are more likely to end up on welfare and live in precarious housing, abuse alcohol and drugs, get arrested and jailed, drop out of high school, and have fragile social support networks.
But there is a solution that appears to give hope to some of society’s most damaged children — a solution, experts argue, that won’t cost taxpayers more money in the long run.
Nineteen U.S. states have extended foster care support to age 21. Ontario recently adopted the same policy, and its youth advocate has penned a cost-benefit study that argues it would be economical for that province to boost the age of support even higher, to 25.
“If (foster care) and other supports are extended for four additional years, fewer youth will likely become involved with the criminal justice system. Fewer youth will likely access social assistance. More youth will likely finish high school and post-secondary education, thereby increasing their earnings and the taxes they will pay,” says the 2012 Ontario study titled “25 Is The New 21.”
“For every $1 the province of Ontario spends supporting its youth by extending (foster care) and supports to age 25, Ontario and Canada will save or earn an estimated $1.36 over the working lifetime of that person.”
American, British and Australian studies suggest similar results.
The cost-benefit analysis of supporting foster children beyond age 19 has not been done in B.C. The Sun plugged B.C. numbers into the formulas used by Ontario and found there would also be a benefit to local taxpayers — a return of $1.11 for every dollar spent on extending care to age 24.
Outside the foster care system, fully half of young people from traditional families now live at home with their parents from age 20 to 29 as they pursue higher education and careers, a 2011 StatsCan report found.
So, shouldn’t the B.C. government offer a longer and more seamless support system to the 7,000 foster kids in its care?
Minister for Children and Families Stephanie Cadieux said she is aware of what is happening in other jurisdictions, but believes the B.C. government provides sufficient services for youth who have aged out of care.
She acknowledges, however, that the poor outcomes for these youth are proof that government must do a better job of connecting them to existing programs, which are run by various ministries and are often difficult to find.
“We don’t need to extend foster care to do that. What we need to do is work collectively across government to ensure that kids aging out of foster care are accessing all of the services in the adult system that they need,” Cadieux said in a recent interview.
“We are always looking at how to improve the outcomes, because I don’t think anyone is satisfied with the high school completion rates or the (other) outcomes for kids who come out of care.”
Her ministry provides some transition help for youths over 19, such as Agreements with Young Adults, which pay about $1,000 a month for living expenses for up to 24 months while youths are in school. But the Agreements with Young Adults and other education-assistance programs have limited time frames, restrictive rules and are only helpful to the highest-functioning youth.
For the majority who, at age 19, are still struggling, they must turn to the bare-bones adult welfare system and a variety of other disconnected programs, such as social housing, mental health support, and skills training.
That patchwork-quilt system simply isn’t working, say advocates, who argue services for these youth should be under the same roof — Cadieux’s ministry — to better help them transition to adult life, at least until the age of 21.
The list of proponents includes Turpel-Lafond, several academics, the Vancouver Foundation, and many non-profit groups that work with these youths. And, of course, former foster children who remember how the stress built as they neared the end of their time in care.
Jasmine Eddy dreaded the month she would turn 19, knowing she would have to leave the stable, caring foster home she had enjoyed from age nine.
She was forced to quickly learn how to care for herself. It was difficult, even for a tenacious survivor like Eddy, who is now studying to become a youth counsellor.
“You wonder if you will have enough money, if you can find a place, if it will be long term, if you will have a job, if it will all work out,” Eddy, now 20, recalled.
“You’re on your own for the first time.”
The government stops paying foster parents once a child turns 19. Even in cases where foster parents are willing to keep a foster child beyond that age, the rules often prohibit the young person from staying.
Turpel-Lafond said foster children, despite their best efforts, are floundering under the current system.
“The government says we have this service and that service, we have this pot (of money) and that pot, but they are not working. So I would like to see this change fundamentally. You can’t abandon people at 19,” Turpel-Lafond said.
“We need to up the game and we really need to change that. And we can’t have the laissez-faire attitude we’ve had over the last couple of years.”
Rather than a simple extension of the existing foster care system, she would like to see a children’s ministry-led transition program that offers continued support to youth up to age 24 — much like a parent guiding a young adult through the early years of employment, education or training.
“I think B.C. is behind. Not just in the development of effective youth services, but I think we’re a bit behind in failing to calculate the cost of not doing it,” she said.
“The cost of sending the person to a homeless shelter and watching them fall apart and paying for all of the harm that happens is a pretty expensive trajectory.”
In 2008, the U.S. government made it easier for states to support foster youth until they are 21 years old, as long as they are in school, working, in a program to remove barriers to employment, or incapable of doing these activities due to a medical condition.
So far, 19 states have raised the age of foster care, and three more have passed legislation to do so.
“For every young person who ages out of foster care (at age 18), taxpayers and communities pay an average of $300,000 in social costs like public assistance, incarceration, and lost wages to a community over that person’s lifetime,” says the U.S.-based Jim Casey Foundation, which does research to support smoother transitions from foster care to adulthood south of the border.
Local not-for-profit organizations that work with youth aging out of government care, such as Aunt Leah’s Place and Covenant House, would like B.C. to follow the lead of Washington and Ontario.
Jocelyn Helland, manager of Broadway Youth Resource Centre, said most foster children are strong “warriors” who survive very difficult childhoods, and should be offered the option of continued support up to the age of 24.
“For so many people at 19, it feels like the bottom has been pulled out from under them,” she said. “Because of all the crap in their childhood, they are not graduating from high school. So how are they expected to find a job in Vancouver to allow them to survive?
“They rely on food banks, centres like ours, odd jobs. Some of our young people (experience) the sadness, the loneliness, wanting to have a family of their own. It’s a real struggle.”
The Vancouver Foundation, one of the city’s largest granting agencies, is also lobbying for an elongation of public support to at least age 21.
A recent survey done by the foundation found 70 per cent of British Columbians agree. The survey also found just 28 per cent of British Columbians realize foster kids are on their own as soon as they turn 19.
Vancouver Foundation CEO Kevin McCort said improving the transition for “aging out” of government care requires not just more provincial funding, but also a public discussion about how other sectors can step up to assist these youth.
“If everybody does their little bit, we can gradually whittle away at the problem,” McCort said.
If government care was extended to the age of 21, Eddy said, it would have helped her, both in terms of her home life and her education.
“It makes it more stable. You have more support. When you’re on your own, you have to figure out things on your own,” Eddy said.
Today, Eddy lives with a friend and takes a psychology course at Kwantlen University in Surrey, which she paid for with money she made working in a sports store. She wants to become a child and youth care counsellor.
The Sun spoke to a dozen former foster children for this series, ranging from Eddy, who is likely one day to achieve her goals, to others who are struggling with precarious housing, poverty and loneliness. They all have hopes and dreams, but it will take incredible determination and resilience to overcome the hurdles ahead now that they have lost the support of their “parent.” | <urn:uuid:3e438be4-1f1d-4588-a453-68df0d07eb3c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Part+From+care+where+Aging+foster+system/9532911/story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969707 | 2,395 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Marc Aube has a new post to his site that introduces you to the specification design pattern, a technique that's useful for ensuing the current state of an object is valid.
The specification pattern is a software design pattern used to codify business rules that state something about an object. These simple predicates determine if an object's state satisfies a certain business criteria. They can then be combined to form composite specifications using logical operators. Use a specification to encapsulate a business rule which does not belong inside entities or value objects, but is applied to them.
He suggests a few things the pattern could be useful for like validating the current state or define how an object should be created. He gives a few more "real world" examples and then gets into the code to create a custom specification. In his "CustomerIsPremium" spec he defines a single method on an interface to determine if the Customer given is correct. He then creates a class instance and encapsulates the logic inside its "isSatisfiedBy" method. He also includes a bit more complex example, showing how to create a composite specification for handling grouping like "and", "or" and "not" assertions. Finally he looks at how to build specifications that can be passed in and used as selection criteria. He does point out that this can leak database handling into the specification layer, however, and should really be avoided without a inversion of control method in place. | <urn:uuid:ecbe26da-fe17-4a7e-919d-306f0e718cb6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.phpdeveloper.org/tag/pattern | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393332.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91946 | 290 | 2.921875 | 3 |
ERIC Identifier: ED363569
Publication Date: 1993-10-00
Author: Graseck, Susan
Source: ERIC Clearinghouse for
Social Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN.
Teaching Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era. ERIC Digest.
Today the United States finds itself in a world that has changed
fundamentally. For more than 40 years the United States and the Soviet Union
were the foremost powers and rivals in international affairs. U.S. foreign
policy, U.S. domestic politics, and international relations revolved largely
around this intense rivalry. Now the Soviet Union no longer exists, and the
fifteen new states of the former Soviet Union are caught up in the turmoil of
economic and political change. Since the end of the Cold War, there have been
fewer external constraints on the projection of U.S. power abroad than at any
time since the years immediately following World War II. And yet, there are no
longer common understandings among Americans about what the U.S. role should be
in this changing international environment. This ERIC Digest treats the (1) need
and rationale for teaching and learning about current foreign policy issues; (2)
main themes in foreign policy education in the post-Cold War era; (3) balance,
inquiry, and decision making in the classroom; and (4) current classroom
THE NEED AND RATIONALE
In all of the decades of the Cold
War, few Americans stopped to consider what would happen if the Cold War ended.
When it did, the consensus that guided U.S. foreign policy for over four decades
had dissolved. In the new conditions of the post-Cold War world, what
constitutes security? Does our understanding of security need to be broadened to
encompass economic and environmental concerns? Is a world that operates on
democratic principles and respect for human rights a safer world? Are there
dangers inherent in exporting democracy? Can security be realized today without
a global partnership? If we are to enter into a partnership, what must we
sacrifice? Are Americans prepared to share sovereignty with others on issues
that affect our future? What role should the United States play in this changing
world? What role can we afford to play? And can we afford not to play? These
kinds of questions must be examined in our classrooms if American students are
to be prepared for citizenship in the twenty-first century.
The American public needs to come to terms with the changing international
environment in order to provide a framework or standard to guide policymakers.
It is a part of the job of educators at this juncture in history to help
students understand these new issues and be able to take part in the current
national dialogue on the future of U.S. foreign policy in our rapidly changing
world. Students need to understand the past and develop a sense of ownership for
the future. They also need the skills to participate in the development of
public policy in the future.
THEMES IN FOREIGN POLICY
In order to effectively
participate as citizens in shaping U.S. foreign policy into the next century,
students must develop an understanding of the range of forces and issues shaping
international relations in today's rapidly changing world. These include the
following major themes.
* Understanding the International System. Students should understand the
concepts of nation, state, sovereignty, alliances and balances of power,
diplomacy, international law, the use of force, and deterrence.
* Responses to International Conflict. The end of the East-West confrontation
has opened new possibilities for peace. It has also lifted the restraints on
many of the world's old ethnic, religious, and nationalist struggles. In this
environment, conflict is inevitable. How far should the United States go in
spending resources abroad or risking American lives--and to what end:
International stability? The protection of human rights? Economic self-interest?
Safeguarding the environment? What are the alternatives to direct intervention?
Should the United States take the lead or act in concert with other countries?
How do the principles of self-determination, human rights, and national
sovereignty conflict and interact with one another?
* Non-State and Transnational Actors. Non-state and transnational actors such
as international business, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and commodities
cartels are playing an increasing role in international relations. Furthermore,
not all threats to security are initiated within the nation-state system.
Increasingly transnational threats are emerging: drug trafficking, terrorism,
* Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective. Traditionally
international relations has involved alliances and balance of power politics.
Initially, the United States tried to remain disengaged from Old World
struggles. Following World War II, however, the United States came to embrace
balance of power politics and played a central role in the formation of NATO.
Students need to understand why the United States has responded in these
conflicting ways in the past. The end of the Cold War is initiating a paradigm
change. What are the forces at work in this change? Students should understand
the tensions among a realpolitik approach to foreign policy, tendencies toward
greater global cooperation, the desire to export democracy, and the pull toward
a new isolationism.
* Linking Foreign and Domestic Politics. The end of the Cold War has given
Americans an opportunity to reevaluate our commitment to the international
community. There is a tendency within the American public to weigh the cost of
foreign involvement against pressing national priorities. In the post-Cold War
era, the balance in our foreign policy is moving from primarily military
considerations to issues involving economic relations and immigration policy.
These issues link foreign policy and domestic politics as two sides of the same
* Successes in the International System. While we tend to focus on the
failures of the international system, some international systems are working
comparatively well (e.g., globalization of information flow, cooperation in
outer space, the Law of the Sea, and the Antarctic Treaty). Why does
international cooperation work? Can we build on this experience?
* Military Technology and Proliferation. During four decades of the Cold War,
the specter of nuclear holocaust loomed over the considerations of U.S.
policymakers. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the control of nuclear
weapons has faded from the public agenda in the United States. Experts in the
field, however, warn that the end of the Cold War has not eliminated the dangers
we face from nuclear weapons. In many respects, the disintegration of the Soviet
Union has added new concerns. Where the Soviet Union once existed, there are now
four states with nuclear arsenals on their territories. Security specialists
fear that scientists who once worked in the Soviet defense establishment may
offer their services to foreign governments. The issue of weapons proliferation
also extends beyond nuclear arms. Chemical weapons hold the power of mass
destruction, and conventional weapons continue to become more deadly and more
expensive. Finally, the development of biological weapons and space-based
weapons could add other chilling dimensions to warfare in the future.
* North-South Relations in the Post-Cold War Era. During the Cold War, the
so-called "Third World" was often the ideological and military battleground
between East and West. Although the Cold War is now over, the developing world
still faces significant dilemmas. Lack of monetary and military security, the
possibility of nuclear proliferation, ethnic and religious conflicts, as well as
myriad food and health problems, make nations of the developing world potential
hot spots for international crises. Has development of the industrialized
nations occurred at the expense of the underdeveloped nations of the worlds? Do
the newly industrialized countries exemplify possible pathways for generating
equitable and mutually beneficial relations between the North and the South?
BALANCE, INQUIRY, AND DECISIONMAKING IN THE CLASSROOM
the changing environment of the post-Cold War era, current foreign policy issues
are usually contested public policy issues. In this environment, the classroom
teacher is ill-advised to teach foreign policy as a settled issue. Rather this
period of reevaluation offers an opportunity for teachers to help their students
to appreciate ambiguity, to analyze divergent perspectives, to weigh the merits
of alternative policies, and to develop an ability to articulate and justify
their own considered opinions on the issues at hand.
If students feel that there are rigid and unchanging "right answers" to the
issues under discussion, the benefits of open discussion will be forfeited.
While there may be a place for materials (or speakers) that advocate one point
of view, these should be presented in the context of equally well articulated
Teachers should use methods and materials that prompt students to reflect,
inquire, and decide about foreign policy issues. Provocative questions should be
raised about current issues, which require students to pose alternative
responses. The likely consequences of the alternatives, positive and
negative--better or worse in terms of clearly stated criteria--should be
examined and evaluated. Students, then, should be challenged to make and defend
decisions about their choices of alternative response to current issues. This
kind of pedagogy involves intellectually active learning and high-level
cognition, which are keys to the acquisition and retention of knowledge and
development of practical and transferable cognitive processes and skills.
KEEPING CLASSROOM MATERIAL CURRENT
In the post-Cold War
era, the constant in international relations is change. Under these
circumstances, classroom materials that are current today may be out-of-date (or
even irrelevant) tomorrow. There are a number of organizations involved in the
ongoing development of high-quality curricular materials and educational
resources, which can keep classroom materials current.
* ACCESS publishes a balanced series of "Security Spectrum" (4-6 pages) and
"Resource Briefs" (2 pages) on a range of current international issues. Although
not curricular materials, these materials can be valuable resources for
classroom teachers. For more information, contact ACCESS, 1511 K St., NW, Suite
643, Washington, DC 20005, (800) 888-6033.
* American Forum on Global Education publishes THE NEW GLOBAL RESOURCE BOOK.
This is a good source of information on current curricular resources. For more
information contact, American Forum, 45 John St., Suite 908, NY, NY 10038, (212)
* CHOICES for the 21st Century Education Project publishes an ongoing series
of reproducible curricular materials on a range of current foreign policy
issues. Units include a "choices" framework of divergent policy alternatives,
historical background readings, original documents, student activities handouts,
and suggested lesson plans. At least three new topics are published annually,
and all units are updated regularly. For more information, contact CHOICES,
Center for Foreign Policy Development, Box 1948, Brown University, Providence,
RI 02912, (401) 863-3155.
* Close Up Foundation publishes CURRENT ISSUES. This presents a synopsis of
ten domestic and ten foreign policy issues. It is updated annually. A teachers
guide is available. For more information contact, Close Up Publishing, Dept.
K94, 44 Canal Center Plaza, Alexandria, VA 22314-1592, (800) 765-3131.
* Foreign Policy Association publishes two ongoing series on foreign policy
issues. HEADLINE is a series of small booklets on individual topics on
geographic areas or global issues. GREAT DECISIONS includes eight topics in a
single booklet and is published once a year. GREAT DECISIONS materials are
designed for public discussion and include background readings and policy
options. A GREAT DECISIONS ACTIVITY BOOK is available for classroom teachers.
For more information, contact Foreign Policy Association, 729 7th Ave., 8th
Floor, New York, NY 10019, (212) 764-4050.
* Scholastic publishes a biweekly current events/issues subscription
publication, SCHOLASTIC UPDATE, for students in grades 8-12. Each of the
fourteen issues is devoted to a single topic, divided equally between domestic
and international issues. For more information contact, Scholastic, 2931 McCarty
St., POB 3710, Jefferson City, MO 65102-3710.
* Stanford Program on International and Cross-cultural Education (SPICE)
offers interdisciplinary, cross-cultural curriculum units for elementary and
secondary students. SPICE materials present multiple perspectives and seek to
enhance critical thinking skills in a range of disciplines. For more information
contact, SPICE, Littlefield Center, Rm. 14, 300 Lasuen Street, Stanford
University, Stanford, CA 94305-5013, (415) 723-1114.
REFERENCES AND ERIC RESOURCES
The following list of
resources includes references used to prepare this Digest. The items followed by
an ED number are available in microfiche and/or paper copies from the ERIC
Document Reproduction Service (EDRS). For information about prices, contact
EDRS, 7420 Fullerton Road, Suite 110, Springfield, Virginia 22153-2842;
telephone numbers are (703) 440-1440 and (800) 443-3742. Entries followed by an
EJ number, annotated monthly in CURRENT INDEX TO JOURNALS IN EDUCATION (CIJE),
are not available through EDRS. However, they can be located in the journal
section of most libraries by using the bibliographic information provided,
requested through Interlibrary Loan, or ordered from the UMI reprint service.
Bahmueller, Charles F., editor. "America and the International System," in
CIVITAS: A FRAMEWORK FOR CIVIC EDUCATION. Calabasas, CA: Center for Civic
Education, 1991, pp. 278-330. ED 340 654.
Brandhorst, Allan R. "A High School Application of the Engle and Ochoa
Reflective Teaching Model." SOCIAL STUDIES 83 (May-June 1992), 104-107. EJ 458
Chan, Adrian. FREE TO CHOOSE: A TEACHER'S RESOURCE AND ACTIVITY GUIDE TO REVOLUTION AND REFORM IN EASTERN EUROPE. Stanford, CA: Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), 1991. ED 351 248.
Choices for the 21st Century Education Project. AFTER THE COLD WAR: THE U.S.
ROLE IN EUROPE'S TRANSITION. Choices for the 21st Century series, Providence,
RI: Center for Foreign Policy Development at Brown University, 1993. ED number
will be assigned. (Other topics include: former Soviet Union, Middle East,
immigration, trade, environment, Vietnam.)
Cleveland, Harland. THE BIRTH OF A NEW WORLD: AN OPEN MOMENT IN INTERNATIONAL
LEADERSHIP. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993.
Council for the Advancement of Citizenship. "Making United States Foreign
Policy," Citizenship Education and Peace Project, Resource Packet, May 1990. ED
East, Maurice A. "Preparing for International Affairs: What Should the High
School Grad Know?" NASSP BULLETIN 74 (January 1990): 12-14. EJ 402 361.
Gagnon, Paul. "Why Study History?" THE ATLANTIC 262 (November 1988): 43-66.
EJ 379 293.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas F. ENVIRONMENTAL SCARCITY AND GLOBAL SECURITY. HEADLINE
SERIES NO. 300. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1993. ED number will be
assigned. (Other topics in this series include: trade, fundamentalism, China,
and former Soviet Union.)
Lindeman, Mark, and William Rose. THE ROLE OF THE UNITED STATES IN A CHANGING
WORLD: CHOICES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY. Choices for the 21st Century Education
Project. Guilford, CT: Dushkin Publishing Group, 1993.
Lynch, Allen. THE SOVIET BREAKUP AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY. New York: Foreign
Policy Association, 1991. ED 349 257.
National Council for the Social Studies Position Statement. "A Vision of
Powerful Teaching and Learning in the Social Studies: Building Social
Understanding and Civic Efficacy." SOCIAL EDUCATION 57 (September 1993):
213-223. EJ number will be assigned.
Nelson, Jack L., and Roberta Ahlquist. "A Critical Approach to Foreign Policy
Education." SOCIAL SCIENCE RECORD 25 (Spring 1988): 58-62. EJ 376 884.
Norton, Augustus Richard, and Thomas George Weiss. UN PEACEKEEPERS: SOLDIERS WITH A DIFFERENCE. HEADLINE SERIES NO. 292. New York: Foreign Policy Association, 1990. ED 325 406.
Schukar, Ron. "Teaching Foreign Policy and Intervention: An Integrated
Problem Approach." SOCIAL SCIENCE RECORD 25 (Spring 1988): 63-66. EJ 376 885.
SPICE. ALONG THE SILK ROAD. Stanford, CA: Stanford Program on International
and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), 1993. ED number will be assigned. (Other
SPICE topics are available.) | <urn:uuid:d2bb5003-5dd7-4296-9084-51f4f2c36789> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ericdigests.org/1994/war.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00162-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877915 | 3,775 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Brief History: Reconnection
Table of Contents
Clicking on any marked section on the list below brings up a
file containing it and all unmarked sections immediately
following it on the list. This list is repeated at the beginning of each file.
- Discovery of the Radiation Belts
- Artificial Belts and Early Studies
- The Large Scale Structure
- The Open Magnetosphere
- Observational Tests
- The Polar Aurora
- Field Aligned Voltage Drops
- Birkeland Currents
- Substorms: Early Observations
- Substorms: The Satellite Era
- Substorms: Theory
- Convection in the Geotail
- Planetary Magnetospheres
- Other Areas
Back to "Exploration"
As early as 1942 cosmic ray detectors observed the arrival of high-energy ions associated with solar activity, reaching at times up to approximately 10 GeV [Forbush, 1946; Pomerantz, 1984; Van Allen, 1993]. For many years such events were credited to solar flares, although recent evidence points to a much better correlation with coronal mass ejections [Gosling, 1993]; their most plausible energy source, then as now, seems to be the intense magnetic field of sunspots. It was speculated that somehow part of that field was "annihilated" by a rapid process and its energy used to accelerate ions and electrons, the latter revealed indirectly by intense bursts of radio noise, and more recently, by X-rays.
The process most favored for such energy release was magnetic merging or magnetic reconnection (synonymous terms). It may be loosely defined as a flow of plasma in which some of the field lines threading the plasma pass through a neutral point or neutral line at which the magnetic field vanishes. The idea originated with Giovanelli [1947; Hones, 1984b] and was then developed by Sweet and especially by Dungey [1953, 1963, 1994, 1995; Stern, 1986].
Additional effects must be invoked, for by (1), if E is finite and B tends to 0, the velocity v which particles need to keep up their field-line sharing property becomes infinite. Sweet showed that in conducting fluids with finite resistivity the plasma's motion lags behind that of field lines, and therefore reconnection theories have often assumed a finite (but small) resistivity in the region near B=0. Other processes which preclude an infinite v may also play a role, e.g. ion or electron inertia [Vasyliunas, 1975, table 2].
| The starting point is the observation that the field-line sharing property associated with equation (1) can be violated if plasma flows through a neutral point (Figure 6) where B=0 and where the field's direction is undetermined. In the X-type neutral point drawn here (actually a neutral line if this configuration extends unchanged into the third dimension) field lines cross in the pattern of the letter X and plasma arriving on field lines of the regions "1" and "2" depart on differently connected lines in "3" and "4". Dungey, Sweet and others proposed that this process might somehow modify the large-scale magnetic configuration and thereby release magnetic energy. Particles would be accelerated by the electric field associated with the motion, producing fast jets of plasma flowing away from the neutral line as the plasma exits on lines "3" and "4", and shocks which heat the plasma [Levy et al., 1964]. |
A somewhat different type of process ("group 2 merging" of Vasyliunas, , p. 307) is illustrated by the collision of two bodies of plasma permeated by magnetic fields of equal intensity but opposing directions, separated by a "neutral sheet" of zero field intensity. The plasma may emerges as a narrow stream along the sheet, perpendicular to field lines, its magnetic field "annihilated" and its particles accelerated by the attendant E, though its electric neutrality may pose problems [Stern, 1990].
Magnetic reconnection is relevant to magnetospheric physics in two distinct ways: it makes possible a realignment of field line connections, e.g. the establishment of a linkage between the Earth's field and the IMF, and it may also release magnetic energy and accelerate particles. The first aspect is important to the concept of the open magnetosphere, the second to substorms, two items discussed separately further below.
As noted earlier, many researchers arrived at magnetospheric physics from the study of solar energetic particles, and they brought with them an interest in reconnection [Parker, 1963]. That led to a 1963 symposium at Goddard Space Flight Center [Hess, 1964] where, among other things, the theory of Petschek [1964, 1995] was presented, giving a more detailed scenario of the reconnection process. Important references to later work may be found in a comprehensive review by Vasyliunas , in the proceedings of a 1984 conference at Los Alamos [Hones, 1984a] and in reviews by Sonnerup and by Forbes and Priest . Avenues explored nowadays include the relation to tearing instabilities in plasmas [Schindler and Birn, 1978], reconnection at multiple points [Lee and Fu, 1985] and relations to chaotic field line topology [Hesse and Schindler, 1988]. A growing number of studies simulate reconnection by means of fast computers.
There exists some evidence for reconnection from direct observations at the dayside magnetopause [e.g., Paschmann et al., 1979; Sonnerup et al., 1981] but it is difficult to verify details of the mechanism. In regions where reconnection seems likely to occur, magnetic fields are quite variable and with isolated spacecraft it is almost impossible to extract their structure. The existence of a rarefied "depletion layer" outside the magnetopause, seen only when the directions of B inside and outside are similar, is taken as evidence for reconnection. Claims have also been made that characteristic oscillations of the magnetic field observed near the dayside magnetopause, associated with southward IMF and termed "flux transfer events" [Russell and Elphic, 1978, 1979; Elphic, 1994], are local signatures of "patchy reconnection", but in spite of extensive studies, such events remain poorly understood.
7. The Open Magnetosphere
Figure 7 (from Hill ) gives Dungey's original scenario, which assumed a purely southward directed interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). Lines 1 and 1' merge at a sunward X-type point (mp marks part of the magnetopause) to produce open lines 2 and 2', carried tailward by the solar wind in which they are embedded, to positions such as 3 and 3'. Ultimately these field lines reconnect at a distant neutral point in the tail, to produce an interplanetary field line 4 which is carried away by the solar wind, and a "closed" line 4' attached to Earth at both ends, which then flows sunward in the third dimension until it becomes the closed field line 1' which reconnects with 1. It is often held that these points are broadened to neutral lines of finite length in the direction perpendicular to the drawing, to accomodate the finite rate of flux reconnection.
Reconnection was first applied to magnetospheric physics by Dungey , as the key ingredient of his alternative theory of convection. Dungey proposed that an X-type neutral point (or line) at the front of the magnetosphere enabled terrestrial field lines to link up with interplanetary ones and produce "open" field lines, with one end on earth and the other in distant space.|
The polar convection pattern and the polar electric field resulting from this motion qualitatively resemble those expected from the viscous-like drag proposed by Axford and Hines, The magnetopause now is no longer a surface containing field lines, but instead is often identified with an observed sharp discontinuity in the magnetic field, interpreted theoretically as a shock transition related to magnetic reconnection. It will have a normal magnetic component Bn which, by all predictions, is quite small (about 0.5-1 nT), making it difficult to confirm or refute this scenario by in-situ magnetic observations.
Note that the currents in this circuit (in both polar caps) flow earthward on the morning side of the pole (AB) and away from Earth on the evening side (CD), which is also the pattern of region 1 Birkeland currents (below). If the tail current follows the "theta pattern" of Axford et al. [1965; Dessler and Juday, 1965], the circuit EFGH may also be viewed as a dynamo, supplying energy that heats the plasma sheet.
|Reconnection at N1 probably imparts little energy to the plasma. Its real significance is the creation of "open" field lines such as 2 and 2', linked to both the solar wind and the ionosphere. Because electric currents in a plasma flow easily along field lines, such lines can form a dynamo circuit, a closed circuit part of which traverses a medium moving relative to the rest. A circuit of this kind (ABCD in Figure 8) can drive an electric current and produce an electric field in the polar ionosphere: its energy is obtained by slowing down the moving solar wind or mantle plasma threaded by it, and much of that energy is then deposited as ohmic heat in the ionospheric part of the circuit. |
8. Observational Tests
A major boost for Dungey's ideas was the discovery [Fairfield, 1966, 1967] that the level of magnetospheric "storminess" and of energy transfer from the solar wind to the magnetosphere depended strongly on IMF Bz. During southward IMF substorms are more frequent, the polar caps (assumed to contain open field lines) are fairly large and display a well-defined 2-cell convection pattern, and auroral ("Birkeland") currents (further below) are steady and strong. At times of northward IMF the magnetosphere is much quieter, the polar caps shrink and their E weakens. The effect is asymmetrical: when Bz is southward, increases in its magnitudes are correlated with increased activity, but the magnitude of a northward Bz seems to matter little [Burton et al., 1975]. A strong dependence of magnetospheric behavior on IMF Bz was later demonstrated by numerical simulations of the magnetosphere, conducted on fast computers and based on the MHD equations [e.g., Walker et al., 1993].
Dungey's process is expected to operate best if the IMF is purely southward, for then the IMF direction matches that of the Earth's polar field lines which link up with it (Figure 9a). If the Bz component of the IMF is southward (negative) but additional components also exist, the situation is known as "southward IMF": the linkage is still relatively easy, but interplanetary field lines must bend somewhat to make the connection (Figure 9b). The bending becomes severe if Bz > 0 ("northward IMF"), because interplanetary field lines then start out headed for the "wrong" pole (Figure 9c).
The Svalgaard effect [Svalgaard, 1968, 1972, 1973; Mansurov, 1969; Wilcox, 1972] is another interesting piece of evidence for a linkage between the IMF and terrestrial field lines. That is an asymmetry in the daily variation in polar regions, correlated with the interplanetary By component.
Owing to the interplay between solar wind outflow and the Sun's rotation, IMF field lines near Earth tend to lie close to the (x,y) plane, with B in the (x,-y) and (-x,y) quadrants and making an angle of about 450 with the x-axis, as predicted by Parker. Such lines can have one of two polarities--away from the Sun or towards it, corresponding to positive or negative By. Wilcox and Ness [1965; Wilcox, 1972] studied the prevalence of such polarities and showed that they tended to persist over times of a week or two, suggesting that the IMF in the plane of the ecliptic formed large-scale "sectors" of outward-pointing or inward-pointing field lines, co-rotating with the Sun. Often only two sectors exist, but at times they are more numerous, depending on the distribution of magnetic field sources on the Sun.
In 1926 K. Lassen established a magnetic observatory on Greenland which among other things observed the local daily magnetic variation. Around 1968 Svalgaard noted that the variation on quiet days could be classified as belonging to one of two patterns, and Wilcox suspected these correlated with interplanetary sectors. A large "blind" test was conducted [Friis-Christensen et al., 1971] and it confirmed the effect. The phenomenon might be connected with the By-related asymmetry in the pattern of polar E, later found by Heppner [1972b] ; it would be hard to explain, if terrestrial field lines had no link to the IMF.
Another observation suggesting the existence of "open" field lines is the asymmetric access to the polar caps of the high-energy tail ("strahl") of solar wind electrons (» 0.5 keV), producing the "polar rain" precipitation. Depending on the IMF sector in which the Earth is immersed, that "rain" is much more intense in the polar cap whose magnetic polarity allows direct connection to the Sun [Yaeger and Frank, 1976].
Problems in observing merging near N1 were already described. The distant nightside neutral line N2 has never been clearly identified: its signature should be a reversal of Bz from northward (Bz>0) to southward (Bz<0). Around 1983, when ISEE-3 probed the distant tail, it observed that periods of Bz<0 became more frequent at distances greater than approximately130 RE [Slavin et al., 1985], but that was only a statistical average of a rather variable quantity.
ISEE-3 has also shown [Slavin et al., 1985] and Geotail has confirmed, that in the distant tail past about 100 RE , plasma flowed tailwards at velocities that tended to increase with distance, up to where they about matched the velocity of the solar wind. This might be due to viscous transfer of plasma and momentum, but could also be the result of reconnection. | <urn:uuid:a280294f-dd14-48ec-85c5-5b46c9e73c05> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/bh2_5.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402699.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938751 | 3,010 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Flax flowers, which are a member of the genus Linum, are grown for a variety of reasons. To start, these small, delicate flowers are prized for their stunning blue, golden and white hues. However, two of the most valued reasons for cultivation is their use as a nutritive substance, and as strong, easily manipulated clothing fibers. Originating in India, these flowers are now mostly cultivated in the United States for the commercial sale of Linseed oil. Despite its variety of uses, many people like to grow flax flowers in their garden simply for their attractive appearance. These lovely flowers are tiny, and feathery. They can grow between 12 to 18 inches and come in vivid, appealing colors that go beautifully alongside most other types of flowers.
Common flax flowers are thought to be one of the first domesticated crops. In the Republic of Georgia, dyed fibers made of flax were found in a prehistoric cave; these fibers were dated as far back as 34,000 BC. Flax cloth was also used in ancient Egypt to wrap mummies before they were entombed. The early colonists of the United States began creating flax cloth for home use, and in 1753 these resilient pieces became commercially available to households all over the country. These flowers can also produce seeds that have long been used medicinally. They are best known for their high volume of Omega 3 acids; however, they also contain a whole host of healthy vitamins and minerals including B vitamins 1, 2, 3 and 6, as well as iron and calcium – just to name a few. These seeds are thought to promote a healthy heart and lower cholesterol, fight against cancer and strokes, and help ease digestive problems. For medicinal use, they can be placed in teas and infusions, placed into capsules or used as an oil. However, you can still reap the healthy benefits by using the seeds in food. For ages people have used this as a source of filling, nutritionally rich fiber. This is still done today, but in a larger of variety of ways. For instance, they may be placed in a salad, used to make bread, or eaten with cereal.
Flax flowers would make a great housewarming gift, as these small, beautiful blossoms are considered a symbol of domestic bliss. They are also easy to transplant, and would make a great gift for an avid gardener.
Flax Flower Pictures
Leave a Reply | <urn:uuid:98d98f03-7007-4a31-8b62-f9d9f10eb1f6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://flowerinfo.org/Flax-Flowers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398873.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00055-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.981215 | 493 | 3.21875 | 3 |
“This result comes as a complete surprise,” said OPERA spokesperson, Antonio Ereditato of the University of Bern. “After many months of studies and cross checks we have not found any instrumental effect that could explain the result of the measurement. While OPERA researchers will continue their studies, we are also looking forward to independent measurements to fully assess the nature of this observation.”
“When an experiment finds an apparently unbelievable result and can find no artefact of the measurement to account for it, it’s normal procedure to invite broader scrutiny, and this is exactly what the OPERA collaboration is doing, it’s good scientific practice,” said CERN Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. “If this measurement is confirmed, it might change our view of physics, but we need to be sure that there are no other, more mundane, explanations. That will require independent measurements.”See:OPERA experiment reports anomaly in flight time of neutrinos from CERN to Gran Sasso
Have we considered their mediums of expression to know that we have witnessed Cerenkov radiation as a process in the faster than light, to know the circumstances of such expressions to have been understood as backdrop measures of processes we are familiar with. Explain the history of particulate expressions from vast distances across our universe?
This is something very different though and it will be very interesting the dialogue and thoughts shared so as to look at the evidence in a way that helps us to consider what is sound in it's understanding, as speed of light. | <urn:uuid:5a0f53da-7d43-4b3e-8cb3-b7e24d1a0b33> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eskesthai.com/2011/09/measurement-of-neutrino-velocity-with.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397428.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00113-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948817 | 320 | 3.015625 | 3 |
by Joshua Carrillo
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States. He was the president of this great nation from March 4,1861 to April 16,1865.
His nicknames were "Honest Abe"and "Illinois Rail- Splitter". He liked his nicknames. They called him "Honest Abe" because he was always honest with people.
Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12,1809, in Hardin Country,Kentucky. Abraham got shot and killed on April 15,1865, at Peterson's Boarding House in Washington,D.C.. All the people that loved Abraham Lincoln were shocked when they found out he had gotten shot.
President Lincoln's father's name was Thomas Lincoln, and his mother's name was Sara Bush Johnston. Abraham Lincoln married Mary Todd on November 4,1842. His children's names were Robert Todd Lincoln,Edward Baker Lincoln,William Wallace Lincoln,and Thomas Tad Lincoln.
Eventhough Abraham Lincoln did not have a formal education, he became a lawyer. Abe was a Republican and was elected to Illinois State Legislature in 1834. He was also a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1847 to 1849.
In 1860, Abraham Lincoln was elected over John C. Breckinridge, John Bell,and Stephen A. Douglas. He got 1,865,593 popular votes and 180 electoral votes. The closest to Abraham was John C. Breckinridge.
There is an memorial in his name, and it is called Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial. It is located in Lincoln City, Indiana which is the place where he spent fourteen years of his life growing up. There is also a Museum called Lincoln's museum, and it is also located in Fort Wayne,Indiana.
His face is part of this great rock monument in Mount Rushmore which is located in Black Hills in South Dakota. The faces of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt are carved on the mountain, standing about 60 feet tall.
Back to the index | <urn:uuid:9f74b570-47a2-4a78-a1ba-9199c794affa> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.lausd.k12.ca.us/King_MS/Students%20Projects/uspresidents_html/lincoln.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.987652 | 422 | 3.09375 | 3 |
In 2000, Dr. Pieter de Jong relocated his vast collection of human and
animal DNA clones to CHORI from Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo,
New York. This collection is the major source of clone material for the
Human Genome Project. Additionally, researchers worldwide use the collection
to characterize genomes of many medically and economically important species
of animals, protists, and bacteria.
Using molecular biology techniques, Dr. de Jong breaks genomic DNA into
very large segments and inserts the individual segments into a bacterial
vector for propagation in E. coli. These bacterial artificial chromosomes
(BAC) are amplified and stored in microtiter plates to create recombinant
DNA libraries. To date, Dr. de Jong and his group have accumulated approximately
three million clones, which are stored in forty freezers located at CHORI.
The major resource for decoding of the human genome is de Jongs
current human library, which comes from one anonymous donor. Because this
persons specific genetic background is completely unknown, research
can proceed without distractions related to the ethnicity or personal
characteristics of the donor.
The human library is his largest, but he also has libraries for the mouse,
Drosophila, dog, cat, cow, pig, silkworm, and several strains of rat.
Libraries of single-cell organisms include Plasmodium several trypanosomes,
and other non-disease protists and bacteria. Future projects include creating
libraries for additional medically relevant species and agricultural animals,
including the horse, turkey, tilapia, and catfish.
For additional information on Dr. de Jong's research and BACPAC resources
at CHORI, please visit the BACPAC
Resource Center website: http://www.chori.org/bacpac/ | <urn:uuid:e41643cb-b599-4b1c-869e-2feb20449910> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.chori.org/Principal_Investigators/deJong_Pieter/dejong_overview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397842.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886422 | 380 | 3.09375 | 3 |
A wealth of information on antebellum railroads in South Carolina and Georgia, including their financing, profits, and traffic
A History of Transportation in the Eastern Cotton Belt to 1860 (1908) was Southern historian Ulrich Bonnell Phillips's first major monograph and has stood for over a century as one of the principal studies of transportation in the antebellum South. In this work Phillips (1877–1934) used a detailed exploration of the development of the railroad systems in Georgia and South Carolina to probe the structure, accomplishments, and limitations of the antebellum Southern economy.
For Phillips the region's economic identity as a producer of staple crops determined its transportation priorities. He carefully outlined the restrictions and opportunities created by Southern geography, economy, and labor structure as a precursor to his examination of every railroad corporation established in South Carolina and Georgia before the Civil War.
If railroads represented an outstanding accomplishment of the South, Phillips argued, the railroads also demonstrated the limits of the antebellum economy. Although railroads were essential to the South's livelihood, the technological revolution did not transform the region or liberate it from the the cotton- and slave-based economy that Phillips believed stunted its growth. Phillips saw Southern railroads chiefly as an improvement in carrying staple goods to the coast—as part of a traditional economic system—rather than dynamically contributing to the region's evolution and diversification.
This Southern Classics edition includes a new introduction by Aaron W. Marrs that chronicles the circumstances surrounding Phillips's writing of this book and illustrates how contemporary historians continue to debate the social and economic issues Phillips raised.
Aaron W. Marrs is a historian at the U.S. Department of State. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of South Carolina and is the author of Railroads in the Old South: Pursuing Progress in a Slave Society. Marrs also served as associate managing editor of The South Carolina Encyclopedia.
"Phillips has written a scholarly book rich in detail. He has placed students of social as well as economic history under lasting obligations."—Journal of Political Economy | <urn:uuid:efca8170-f793-42ad-a7c2-e3b871711076> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.sc.edu/uscpress/books/2011/3965.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397749.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00186-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95642 | 427 | 3.5 | 4 |
In August 2005, there were 9,623 schools in Australia, of which 6,929 (72.0%) were government schools and 2,694 (28.0%) were non-government schools.
In 2005 71.5% of all non-special schools were primary only, 15.9% were secondary only and 12.6% were combined primary/secondary schools. In 1995 these proportions were 73.7%, 16.6% and 9.7% respectively. Over the decade this equates to a decrease of 305 in the number of primary or secondary schools, and an increase of 266 in the number of combined primary/secondary schools.
In 2005 there were 3,348,139 full-time school students. The proportion of these students attending government schools was 67.1%, down from 71.0% in 1995.
From 1995 to 2005, the number of full-time students attending government schools grew by 1.7% (from 2,207,853 to 2,246,087), while the number attending non-government schools increased by 22.2% (from 901,484 to 1,102,052).
There were 25,073 part-time school students in 2005, a decrease of 4.1% since 2004. The Northern Territory (NT) had the highest proportion of part-time students (3.0%), followed by South Australia (SA) with 2.7% and Tasmania (Tas.) with 2.3%.
In 2005 there were 135,097 Indigenous full-time school students, a 3.5% increase since 2004. Almost 58% of these students attended schools in New South Wales (NSW) or Queensland (Qld) in 2005. There were 3,427 Indigenous full-time students in Year 12, across all States and Territories, in 2005, compared to 2,620 five years earlier.
AGE PARTICIPATION RATES
At the Australian level, the age participation rates for full-time school students in 2005 were 94.7% for 15-year-olds, 82.6% for 16-year-olds and 63.5% for 17-year-olds, the latter rising from 58.6% in 1995.
APPARENT RETENTION RATES
In 2005 the apparent retention rate of full-time school students from Year 7/8 to Year 12 was 75.3% compared to 75.7% in 2004 and 72.2% in 1995. As in previous years, the apparent retention rate for females (81.0%) was significantly higher than the rate for males (69.9%).
Apparent retention from Year 10 to Year 12 is down 0.7 percentage points between 2004 and 2005, while over the last decade it has increased from 73.4% in 1995 to 76.5% in 2005. The Year 10 to Year 12 rate for females in 2005 was again considerably higher than that for males (81.6% and 71.5% respectively).
Apparent retention rates for Indigenous full-time school students, from Year 7/8 to both Year 10 and Year 12, have continued to rise over the last five years — the rate to Year 10 increased from 83.0% in 2000 to 88.3% in 2005, and the rate to Year 12 increased from 36.4% to 39.5%. These Indigenous retention rates are lower than the comparable rates for non-Indigenous students. In 2005, the rate to Year 10 for non-Indigenous school students was 98.6%, while the rate to Year 12 was 76.6%.
There were 235,794 full-time equivalent (FTE) teaching staff in 2005, 156,564 at government schools and 79,231 at non-government schools. This was an overall increase of 1.2% from the previous year, and 16.5% (33,394) higher than in 1995.
The number of FTE teaching staff in government schools has increased by 8.9% since 1995 compared to 35.2% in the non-government sector. In the year to August 2005, government FTE school teacher numbers increased by 0.3% and non-government FTE school teacher numbers grew by 3.0%.
The proportion of FTE teaching staff who are female continues to rise — in 2005, 68.0% of all FTE teachers were female. The figure was 79.7% in primary schools and 56.0% in secondary schools. The comparable figures in 1995 were 64.2%, 76.1% and 52.3% respectively.
Overall, the average number of FTE primary school students per FTE teacher was 16.2. In government schools the average was 16.1 and in non-government schools it was 16.6. The equivalent figure for secondary schools was 12.2, with an average of 12.4 in government schools and 11.9 in non-government schools. | <urn:uuid:d65a64a1-dc0a-4273-9a71-164f693d05d9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/allprimarymainfeatures/E89FF6F9D793BC6DCA25728B000CEF8D?opendocument | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783400031.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155000-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982478 | 1,010 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Has the heat gone out of the genetically modified food debate?
That's the sentiment of a science author who says people are now willing to eat GM food.
"I think the debate has been around enough that the extremes have gone out of it," the CSIRO's Dr Craig Cormick said.
"The hysteria has probably diminished a lot and people are no longer willing to make a gut reaction and say 'it's dangerous, it's wrong, it's against nature'.
"It's been around for over a decade and people always go through the hot reaction at first, and then it calms down a bit and people start (thinking) 'let's have a discussion around this'."
GM crops are plants that have genes removed or added to change their attributes.
In Hawaii, scientists created a GM papaya crop to overcome a deadly virus.
Cotton and canola are among the most common genetically modified Australian crops.
Dr Cormick says people are willing to eat GM foods if they understand why the crop has been modified.
He says changes in climate impact on people's willingness to eat GM food.
"The agricultural community is talking about it seriously," Dr Cormick said.
"We look back a couple of years during the big drought, we did find clearly in public attitudes that people were much more receptive to the idea of GM drought-resistant wheat or GM drought-resistant crops. | <urn:uuid:a0dbf1d2-d856-440e-a174-1fedf4e2ccab> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-27/gm-crops/4984782?pfm=sm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783391766.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154951-00064-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97712 | 287 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Most Recent Links
Follow us on Facebook and Twitter, or subscribe to our mailing list, to receive news updates. Learn more.
Few genes have made the headlines as much as FOXP2. The first gene associated with language disorders , it was later implicated in the evolution of human speech. Girls make more of the FOXP2 protein, which may help explain their precociousness in learning to talk. Now, neuroscientists have figured out how one of its molecular partners helps Foxp2 exert its effects.
The findings may eventually lead to new therapies for inherited speech disorders, says Richard Huganir, the neurobiologist at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland, who led the work. Foxp2 controls the activity of a gene called Srpx2, he notes, which helps some of the brain's nerve cells beef up their connections to other nerve cells. By establishing what SRPX2 does, researchers can look for defective copies of it in people suffering from problems talking or learning to talk.
Until 2001, scientists were not sure how genes influenced language. Then Simon Fisher, a neurogeneticist now at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and his colleagues fingered FOXP2 as the culprit in a family with several members who had trouble with pronunciation, putting words together, and understanding speech. These people cannot move their tongue and lips precisely enough to talk clearly, so even family members often can?t figure out what they are saying. It “opened a molecular window on the neural basis of speech and language,” Fisher says.
Photo credit: Yoichi Araki, Ph.D.
By MAIA SZALAVITZ I SHOT heroin and cocaine while attending Columbia in the 1980s, sometimes injecting many times a day and leaving scars that are still visible. I kept using, even after I was suspended from school, after I overdosed and even after I was arrested for dealing, despite knowing that this could reduce my chances of staying out of prison. My parents were devastated: They couldn’t understand what had happened to their “gifted” child who had always excelled academically. They kept hoping I would just somehow stop, even though every time I tried to quit, I relapsed within months. There are, speaking broadly, two schools of thought on addiction: The first was that my brain had been chemically “hijacked” by drugs, leaving me no control over a chronic, progressive disease. The second was simply that I was a selfish criminal, with little regard for others, as much of the public still seems to believe. (When it’s our own loved ones who become addicted, we tend to favor the first explanation; when it’s someone else’s, we favor the second.) We are long overdue for a new perspective — both because our understanding of the neuroscience underlying addiction has changed and because so many existing treatments simply don’t work. Addiction is indeed a brain problem, but it’s not a degenerative pathology like Alzheimer’s disease or cancer, nor is it evidence of a criminal mind. Instead, it’s a learning disorder, a difference in the wiring of the brain that affects the way we process information about motivation, reward and punishment. And, as with many learning disorders, addictive behavior is shaped by genetic and environmental influences over the course of development. Scientists have documented the connection between learning processes and addiction for decades. Now, through both animal research and imaging studies, neuroscientists are starting to recognize which brain regions are involved in addiction and how. © 2016 The New York Times Company
Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 22365 - Posted: 06.27.2016
By Sara Chodosh Although scientists have learned a lot about the brain in the last few decades, approaches to treating mental illnesses have not kept up. As neuroscientists learn more about brain circuits, Stanford psychiatrist Amit Etkin foresees a time when diagnoses will be based on brain scans rather than symptoms. Etkin, who will be speaking at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting of the New Champions in Tianjin, China, from June 26 to 28, spoke with Scientific American about his research on the neurological basis of emotional disorders and the future of mental health treatment. The high cost of treating mental illness doesn’t get talked about very much. Why is that? It’s a really interesting issue. The costs associated with mental illness are not just the care of people who have an illness, which often starts early in life and continues as a lifelong process, but also the cost to employers in decreased productivity and the cost to society in general. A report that came out recently in Health Affairs showed that spending within our health system in the U.S. is greater for mental illness than for any other area of medicine, and yet our understanding of these illnesses is incredibly backwards. Treatments are no different than they were 40 years ago, so that feels like a problem that is only getting bigger without an obvious solution. Why hasn’t there been much progress? It was really not until about 10 years ago that [mental health professionals] started realizing how little difference we have made. There are a few fundamental issues and mistakes we’ve made. One is that in the absence of knowing what the causes of the illnesses that we treat are, we focus on the symptoms, and that has already led us down the wrong path. If you go to another country and you ask somebody to tell you their symptoms, as a clinician you might have the sense that they have anxiety or depression. In Asian countries they express that in a somatic way: “I can’t sleep” or “I feel weak.” The biology cannot be that different, but the symptoms are different because they’re culturally bound. If you look at different parts of the U.S. you’ll see people expressing symptoms in different ways depending on their local culture. If that’s the case, then a symptom-based definition is problematic. The long and short of it is that people have named syndromes or disorders that they don’t actually know represent a valid entity that is distinct from another entity. © 2016 Scientific American
By VANESSA FRIEDMAN IT’S been another big month for talking about women’s bodies. Just as the White House hosted the first United States of Women summit meeting, which culminated in Oprah Winfrey’s noting, in conversation with Michelle Obama, “We live in a world where you are constantly being bombarded by images,” across the ocean the new mayor of London was announcing a policy that would ban ads on public transport that might cause women to feel pressured “into unrealistic expectations surrounding their bodies.” Mayor Sadiq Khan’s policy sounds, on the surface, like a big step forward. Down with fat-shaming! But it is, rather, an old idea, and one that reinforces stereotypes instead of grappling with the real issue: How do we change the paradigm altogether? The immediate impetus for the ban, which will be carried out by the London transit authority via a steering committee that will rule on ads case by case, was a 2015 diet pill ad depicting a very tan, very curvy woman (the kind who is a staple of lad mags) in a bright yellow bikini alongside the words, “Are you beach body ready?” The implication was that if you had not achieved the unrealistic proportions of a Barbie, you were not. The public protested (a petition on change.org received more than 70,000 signatures), and Mr. Khan made it part of his election campaign. The regulation follows decisions by the Advertising Standards Authority of Britain to ban certain ads, such as a Gucci shot that depicted what was deemed an “unhealthily thin” young woman. Though often conflated with the movement to protect models, which resulted in legislation in France in 2015 requiring models to produce a doctor’s note attesting to their health, and digital alteration of photographs to be disclosed, banning is a separate issue. It doesn’t involve working conditions (which can and should be legislated), but subjective, and ultimately regressive, assumptions about what constitutes a positive female image. While I have no doubt that Mr. Khan had the best intentions (he made a reference to his desire to protect his daughters), and there is no question that studies have shown that depictions of thin women in idealized or overly airbrushed photographs can be an important factor in eating disorders and other types of body dysmorphia, I do not believe banning is the answer. And I say that as someone with two daughters (and a son) who is acutely aware of the distortions of the fashion world and their dangers. © 2016 The New York Times Company
Keyword: Anorexia & Bulimia
Link ID: 22363 - Posted: 06.27.2016
By Perri Klass, M.D. In the 1990s, in my first month in practice as a pediatrician, I asked the mother of a 4-year-old about discipline and she told me that her son was often out of line and wild, and spanking was the only thing that worked, though she was sure I was going to tell her not to, just as her previous pediatrician had done. Around the same time, my colleague in the same clinic walked into an exam room to find a cranky toddler who was acting out, and a frustrated father who was taking off his belt and threatening punishment. In each case, and in many others, we had to decide how to talk to the parents, and whether to bring up the issue of child abuse — which is definitely an issue when a child is being struck, or threatened, with a belt. Corporal punishment, also known as “physical discipline,” has become illegal in recent decades in many countries, starting with Sweden in 1979. The United States is not one of those countries, and pediatricians regularly find ourselves talking with parents about why hitting children is a bad idea. The American Academy of Pediatrics officially recommends against physical discipline, saying that evidence shows it is ineffective and puts children at risk for abuse; pediatricians are mandated reporters, responsible for notifying the authorities if we think there is a possibility of abuse, though the boundaries are not clearly defined by law. But many parents continue to spank, even when they don’t think it does much good. In a recent report by the nonprofit organization Zero to Three of a national sample of 2,200 parents of children birth to age 5, parents were asked which discipline strategies they used a few times a week or more. Twenty-six percent said they “pop or swat” their child, 21 percent spank, and 17 percent reported hitting with an object like a belt or a wooden spoon. (Parents could respond that they used more than one strategy.) Zero to Three reported that even those who used these strategies frequently did not rate them as effective, and 30 percent agreed with the statement, “I spank even though I don’t feel O.K. about it.” © 2016 The New York Times Company
By Elizabeth Pennisi Cave fish have long fascinated biologists because of their missing eyes and pale skin. Now, one researcher is studying them for another reason: Their behavior may provide clues to the genetic basis of some human psychiatric disorders. Last week at the 23rd International Conference on Subterranean Biology in Fayetteville, Arkansas, he demonstrated how drugs that help people with schizophrenia and autism similarly affect the fish. “I think there is a lot of potential” for these fish to teach us about mental disorders, says David Culver, an evolutionary biologist at American University in Washington, D.C., who was not involved in the study. Culver adds that—like other work on the cause of cave fish blindness—the new research may also have implications for human disease. A decade ago, the lead author on the new study, Masato Yoshizawa, wanted to understand brain evolution by investigating the effects of natural selection on behavior. The Mexican tetra (Astyanax mexicanus), a cave fish with very close surface relatives, seemed an excellent prospect for that work. Because the two populations can interbreed, it’s easier to pin down genes that might be related to the neural defects underlying behavioral differences. Such breeding studies are not possible in humans. The blind cave fish differ from their surface relatives in several notable ways. They don’t have a social structure and they don’t school. Instead, they lead solitary lives—a behavior that makes sense given their lack of natural predators. They also almost never sleep. They are hyperactive, and—unlike other fish—they are attracted to certain vibrations in the water. Finally, they tend to do the same behavior over and over again and seem to have higher anxiety than their surface relatives. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
By MOSHE BAR A FRIEND of mine has a bad habit of narrating his experiences as they are taking place. I tease him for being a bystander in his own life. To be fair, we all fail to experience life to the fullest. Typically, our minds are too occupied with thoughts to allow complete immersion even in what is right in front of us. Sometimes, this is O.K. I am happy not to remember passing a long stretch of my daily commute because my mind has wandered and my morning drive can be done on autopilot. But I do not want to disappear from too much of life. Too often we eat meals without tasting them, look at something beautiful without seeing it. An entire exchange with my daughter (please forgive me) can take place without my being there at all. Recently, I discovered how much we overlook, not just about the world, but also about the full potential of our inner life, when our mind is cluttered. In a study published in this month’s Psychological Science, the graduate student Shira Baror and I demonstrate that the capacity for original and creative thinking is markedly stymied by stray thoughts, obsessive ruminations and other forms of “mental load.” Many psychologists assume that the mind, left to its own devices, is inclined to follow a well-worn path of familiar associations. But our findings suggest that innovative thinking, not routine ideation, is our default cognitive mode when our minds are clear. In a series of experiments, we gave participants a free-association task while simultaneously taxing their mental capacity to different degrees. In one experiment, for example, we asked half the participants to keep in mind a string of seven digits, and the other half to remember just two digits. While the participants maintained these strings in working memory, they were given a word (e.g., shoe) and asked to respond as quickly as possible with the first word that came to mind (e.g., sock). © 2016 The New York Times Company
Link ID: 22360 - Posted: 06.25.2016
Annie Murphy Paul Twelve years ago, I tried to drive a stake into the heart of the personality-testing industry. Personality tests are neither valid nor reliable, I argued, and we should stop using them — especially for making decisions that affect the course of people's lives, like workplace hiring and promotion. But if I thought that my book, The Cult of Personality Testing, would lead to change in the world, I was keenly mistaken. Personality tests appear to be more popular than ever. I say "appear" because — today as when I wrote the book — verifiable numbers on the use of such tests are hard to come by. Personality testing is an industry the way astrology or dream analysis is an industry: slippery, often underground, hard to monitor or measure. There are the personality tests administered to job applicants "to determine if you're a good fit for the company;" there are the personality tests imposed on people who are already employed, "in order to facilitate teamwork;" there are the personality tests we take voluntarily, in career counseling offices and on self-improvement retreats and in the back pages of magazines (or, increasingly, online.) I know these tests are popular because after the book was published, most of the people I heard from were personality-test enthusiasts, eager to rebut my critique of the tests that had, they said, changed their lives. © 2016 npr
Link ID: 22359 - Posted: 06.25.2016
By Patrick Monahan The soft, blinking lights of fireflies aren’t just beautiful—they may also play a role in creating new species. A new study shows that using light-up powers for courtship makes species split off from each other at a faster pace, providing some of the clearest evidence yet that the struggle to find mates shapes the diversity of life. The firefly’s glow, like the enormous claws of fiddler crabs and the elaborate dances of manakins, was sculpted by the struggle for sex. Scientists have long thought that this kind of mating-driven natural selection—called “sexual selection”—could make species split into two. Say females in two populations prefer different color patterns in males: Even if the populations have the same needs in every other way, that simple preference could make them split into species with males of separate colors. “A lot of closely related species differ in sexual traits,” says Emily Ellis, an evolutionary biologist at the University of California (UC), Santa Barbara. But actually linking this kind of evolution to species proliferation is a hard idea to test. “So many people have looked at this and found differing results,” she says—possibly because they looked at smaller groups, like birds, rather than across the whole tree of life. That’s where bioluminescence comes in. Many groups of living organisms, from insects to fish to octopuses, emit light, whether to ward off predators, dazzle prey, or attract mates. It’s a trait that has evolved more than 40 times across the animal kingdom, Ellis says. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
By Eric Hand That many animals sense and respond to Earth’s magnetic field is no longer in doubt, and people, too, may have a magnetic sense. But how this sixth sense might work remains a mystery. Some researchers say it relies on an iron mineral, magnetite; others invoke a protein in the retina called cryptochrome. Magnetite has turned up in bird beaks and fish noses and even in the human brain, as Joe Kirschvink of the California Institute for Technology in Pasadena reported in 1992, and it is extremely sensitive to magnetic fields. As a result, Kirschvink and other fans say, it can tell an animal not only which way it is heading (compass sense) but also where it is. “A compass cannot explain how a sea turtle can migrate all the way around the ocean and return to the same specific stretch of beach where it started out,” says neurobiologist Kenneth Lohmann of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. A compass sense is enough for an animal to figure out latitude, based on changes in the inclination of magnetic field lines (flat at the equator, plunging into the earth at the poles). But longitude requires detecting subtle variations in field strength from place to place—an extra map or signpost sense that magnetite could supply, Lohmann says. Except in bacteria, however, no one has seen magnetite crystals serving as a magnetic sensor. The crystals could be something else—say, waste products of iron metabolism, or a way for the body to sequester carcinogenic heavy metals. In the early 2000s, scientists found magnetite-bearing cells in the beaks of pigeons. But a follow-up study found that the supposed magnetoreceptors were in fact scavenger immune cells that had nothing to do with the neural system. And because there is no unique stain or marker for magnetite, false sightings are easy to make. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science
Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 22357 - Posted: 06.24.2016
By Eric Hand Birds do it. Bees do it. But the human subject, standing here in a hoodie—can he do it? Joe Kirschvink is determined to find out. For decades, he has shown how critters across the animal kingdom navigate using magnetoreception, or a sense of Earth’s magnetic field. Now, the geophysicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena is testing humans to see if they too have this subconscious sixth sense. Kirschvink is pretty sure they do. But he has to prove it. He takes out his iPhone and waves it over Keisuke Matsuda, a neuroengineering graduate student from the University of Tokyo. On this day in October, he is Kirschvink’s guinea pig. A magnetometer app on the phone would detect magnetic dust on Matsuda—or any hidden magnets that might foil the experiment. “I want to make sure we don’t have a cheater,” Kirschvink jokes. They are two floors underground at Caltech, in a clean room with magnetically shielded walls. In a corner, a liquid helium pump throbs and hisses, cooling a superconducting instrument that Kirschvink has used to measure tiny magnetic fields in everything from bird beaks to martian meteorites. On a lab bench lie knives—made of ceramic and soaked in acid to eliminate magnetic contamination—with which he has sliced up human brains in search of magnetic particles. Matsuda looks a little nervous, but he will not be going under the knife. With a syringe, a technician injects electrolyte gel onto Matsuda’s scalp through a skullcap studded with electrodes. He is about to be exposed to custom magnetic fields generated by an array of electrical coils, while an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine records his brain waves. © 2016 American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 22356 - Posted: 06.24.2016
By Elahe Izadi It's referred to as the "brain-eating amoeba." Naegleria fowleri resides in warm freshwater, hot springs and poorly maintained swimming pools. When the single-celled organism enters a person's body through the nose, it can cause a deadly infection that leads to destruction of brain tissue. These infections are extremely rare; 138 people have been infected since 1962, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But over the weekend, the amoeba claimed another victim when an 18-year-old died from a meningitis infection caused by N. fowleri, said health officials in North Carolina. Lauren Seitz of Westerville, Ohio, died from a suspected case of primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), and officials are investigating whether she contracted the infection while whitewater rafting in Charlotte during a church trip, the Charlotte Observer reported. The N. fowleri infection "resulted in her developing a case of meningitis ... and inflaming of the brain and surrounding tissues, and unfortunately she died of this condition," Mecklenburg County Health Department director Marcus Plescia told reporters Wednesday. Plescia said that, while they were still gathering information from health officials in Ohio, they do know one of the stops Seitz's group made was to the U.S. National Whitewater Center.
Link ID: 22355 - Posted: 06.24.2016
By REUTERS SINGAPORE — Phones or watches may be smart enough to detect sound, light, motion, touch, direction, acceleration and even the weather, but they can't smell. That's created a technology bottleneck that companies have spent more than a decade trying to fill. Most have failed. A powerful portable electronic nose, says Redg Snodgrass, a venture capitalist funding hardware start-ups, would open up new horizons for health, food, personal hygiene and even security. Imagine, he says, being able to analyze what someone has eaten or drunk based on the chemicals they emit; detect disease early via an app; or smell the fear in a potential terrorist. "Smell," he says, "is an important piece" of the puzzle. It's not through lack of trying. Aborted projects and failed companies litter the aroma-sensing landscape. But that's not stopping newcomers from trying. Like Tristan Rousselle's Grenoble-based Aryballe Technologies, which recently showed off a prototype of NeOse, a hand-held device he says will initially detect up to 50 common odors. "It's a risky project. There are simpler things to do in life," he says candidly. The problem, says David Edwards, a chemical engineer at Harvard University, is that unlike light and sound, scent is not energy, but mass. "It's a very different kind of signal," he says. That means each smell requires a different kind of sensor, making devices bulky and limited in what they can do. The aroma of coffee, for example, consists of more than 600 components. France's Alpha MOS was first to build electronic noses for limited industrial use, but its foray into developing a smaller model that would do more has run aground. Within a year of unveiling a prototype for a device that would allow smartphones to detect and analyze smells, the website of its U.S.-based arm Boyd Sense has gone dark. Neither company responded to emails requesting comment. © 2016 The New York Times Company
Keyword: Chemical Senses (Smell & Taste)
Link ID: 22354 - Posted: 06.24.2016
Jon Hamilton Researchers have identified a substance in muscles that helps explain the connection between a fit body and a sharp mind. When muscles work, they release a protein that appears to generate new cells and connections in a part of the brain that is critical to memory, a team reports Thursday in the journal Cell Metabolism. The finding "provides another piece to the puzzle," says Henriette van Praag, an author of the study and an investigator in brain science at the National Institute on Aging. Previous research, she says, had revealed factors in the brain itself that responded to exercise. The discovery came after van Praag and a team of researchers decided to "cast a wide net" in searching for factors that could explain the well-known link between fitness and memory. They began by looking for substances produced by muscle cells in response to exercise. That search turned up cathepsin B, a protein best known for its association with cell death and some diseases. Experiments showed that blood levels of cathepsin B rose in mice that spent a lot of time on their exercise wheels. What's more, as levels of the protein rose, the mice did better on a memory test in which they had to swim to a platform hidden just beneath the surface of a small pool. The team also found evidence that, in mice, cathepsin B was causing the growth of new cells and connections in the hippocampus, an area of the brain that is central to memory. But the researchers needed to know whether the substance worked the same way in other species. So they tested monkeys, and found that exercise did, indeed, raise circulating levels of cathepsin in the blood. © 2016 npr
By BARRY MEIER and ABBY GOODNOUGH A few months ago, Douglas Scott, a property manager in Jacksonville, Fla., was taking large doses of narcotic drugs, or opioids, to deal with the pain of back and spine injuries from two recent car accidents. The pills helped ease his pain, but they also caused him to withdraw from his wife, his two children and social life. “Finally, my wife said, ‘You do something about this or we’re going to have to make some changes around here,’” said Mr. Scott, 43. Today, Mr. Scott is no longer taking narcotics and feels better. Shortly after his wife’s ultimatum, he entered a local clinic where patients are weaned off opioids and spend up to five weeks going through six hours of training each day in alternative pain management techniques such as physical therapy, relaxation exercises and behavior modification. Mr. Scott’s story highlights one patient’s success. Yet it also underscores the difficulties that the Obama administration and public health officials face in reducing the widespread use of painkillers like OxyContin and Percocet. The use and abuse of the drugs has led to a national epidemic of overdose deaths, addiction and poor patient outcomes. In recent months, federal agencies and state health officials have urged doctors to first treat pain without using opioids, and some have announced plans to restrict how many pain pills a doctor can prescribe. But getting the millions of people with chronic pain to turn to alternative treatments is a daunting task, one that must overcome inconsistent insurance coverage as well as some resistance from patients and their doctors, who know the ease and effectiveness of pain medications. “We are all culpable,” said Dr. David Deitz, a former insurance industry executive and a consultant on pain treatment issues. “I don’t care whether you are a doctor, an insurer or a patient.” © 2016 The New York Times Compan
Keyword: Pain & Touch
Link ID: 22352 - Posted: 06.23.2016
by Helen Thompson Young zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) learn to sing from a teacher, usually dad. Remembering dad’s tunes may even be hardwired into the birds’ brains. Researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan measured activity in the brains of male juvenile birds listening to recordings of singing adult males, including their fathers. The team focused its efforts on neurons in a part of the brain called the caudomedial nidopallium that’s thought to influence song learning and memory. A subset of neurons in the caudomedial nidopallium lit up in response to songs performed by dad but not those of strangers, the team reports June 21 in Nature Communications. The more baby birds heard songs, the more their neurons responded and the clearer their own songs became. Sleep and a neurotransmitter called GABA influenced this selectivity. The researchers suggest that this particular region of the brain stores song memories as finches learn to sing, and GABA may drive the storage of dad’s songs over others. Researchers played a variety of sounds for young zebra finches: their own song, dad’s song and songs and calls from other adult finches. Over time, their songs became more and more similar to that of their father. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2016
By Nancy Stearns Bercaw In her memoir “Aliceheimer’s: Alzheimer’s Through the Looking Glass,” Dana Walrath uses drawings and stories to chronicle three years of caregiving for her mother, Alice, who was in the middle stages of Alzheimer’s disease. The experience turned out to be a magical trip down the rabbit hole of memory loss, an outcome that inspired Dr. Walrath, a medical anthropologist who taught at the University of Vermont College of Medicine and who also studied art and writing, to share their tale. Refusing to accept the dominant narrative of Alzheimer’s disease as a horror story, Dr. Walrath used the techniques of graphic medicine to create “Aliceheimer’s,” an 80-page, 35-picture tribute to her mother’s animated mind. Graphic medicine uses text and graphics to, as she writes in the book’s introduction, “let us better understand those who are hurting, feel their stories, and redraw and renegotiate those social boundaries.” We spoke with Dr. Walrath to learn more about graphic medicine, how the book came into being, and what it can teach others about caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease. Here’s an edited excerpt of our conversation. Q. You say that “Aliceheimer’s” found you, not the other way around. What’s the backstory of your story? A. After a lifetime of mutually abrasive interaction, my mother moved into my home when a lock-down memory-care unit was her only other option. The years of living together not only brought us closure, but it also integrated my disparate career threads. Medical anthropology, creative writing, visual art — who knew they were connected? I sure didn’t. But Alice must have. During dementia, she said to me, “You should quit your job and make art full time.” © 2016 The New York Times Company
Link ID: 22350 - Posted: 06.23.2016
Alison Abbott It isn’t a scam, as neuroscientist Elena Cattaneo had first assumed. A total stranger really has left the prominent Italian, who is also a senator and a relentless campaigner against the misuse of science, his entire fortune to distribute for research. The sum is likely to be upwards of €1.5 million (US$1.7 million). The short, handwritten will of Franco Fiorini, an accountant from the small town of Molinella near Bologna, was officially made public on 21 June. “I’ll never know for sure why he decided to do this,” says Cattaneo, who adds that she has wept with regret that she cannot thank Fiorini. “But it gives a hopeful message that there are some people like Franco who are able to work out on their own the importance of science and research for Italy’s future.” She intends to make the money available for fellowships for young scientists in Italy, where funds for research are notoriously scarce. Cattaneo, who is based at the University of Milan, is no ordinary researcher. In 2013, then-president Giorgio Napolitano appointed her a senator-for-life in recognition of her activities in promoting science. One of her most famous achievements, made with a handful of colleagues, was a successful two-year battle to stop the Stamina Foundation in Brescia from administering unproven stem-cell therapies. Fiorini died on 21 May at the age of 64. A wheelchair user since a bout of childhood polio left him partially paralysed, he had been director of a construction company in Molinella before taking early retirement 15 years ago. © 2016 Macmillan Publishers Limited,
Keyword: Stem Cells
Link ID: 22349 - Posted: 06.23.2016
Laura Sanders Busy nerve cells in the brain are hungry and beckon oxygen-rich blood to replenish themselves. But active nerve cells in newborn mouse brains can’t yet make this request, and their silence leaves them hungry, scientists report June 22 in the Journal of Neuroscience. Instead of being a dismal starvation diet, this lean time may actually spur the brain to develop properly. The new results, though, muddy the interpretation of the brain imaging technique called functional MRI when it is used on infants. Most people assume that all busy nerve cells, or neurons, signal nearby blood vessels to replenish themselves. But there were hints from fMRI studies of young children that their brains don’t always follow this rule. “The newborn brain is doing something weird,” says study coauthor Elizabeth Hillman of Columbia University. That weirdness, she suspected, might be explained by an immature communication system in young brains. To find out, she and her colleagues looked for neuron-blood connections in mice as they grew. “What we’re trying to do is create a road map for what we think you actually should see,” Hillman says. When 7-day-old mice were touched on their hind paws, a small group of neurons in the brain responded instantly, firing off messages in a flurry of activity. Despite this action, no fresh blood arrived, the team found. By 13 days, the nerve cell reaction got bigger, spreading across a wider stretch of the brain. Still the blood didn’t come. But by the time the mice reached adulthood, neural activity prompted an influx of blood. The results show that young mouse brains lack the ability to send blood to busy neurons, a skill that influences how the brain operates (SN: 11/14/15, p. 22). © Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2016.
Bentley Yoder was born with his brain outside his skull. Doctors said he didn’t have a chance, but he not only survived—he thrived. Now, some seven months later, Bentley has undergone reconstructive surgery to move his brain back into his skull. Bentley’s parents, Sierra and Dustin, both 25, found out something was wrong when they went in for a routine ultrasound at 22 weeks. Still in the womb, he was diagnosed with a rare condition called encephalocele, or cranium bifidum, in which parts of the brain protrude outside of gaps that have formed in the developing skull. The parents were told that their baby likely wouldn’t survive very long after birth, or that if he did he wouldn’t have any brain function; he was simply “incompatible with life.” As Sierra told the Washington Post, “We had no hope whatsoever.” The parents were unwilling to terminate the pregnancy, saying they wanted at least one chance to meet him before saying goodbye. To virtually everyone’s surprise, Bentley came out on his due date, October 31, 2015, kicking and screaming. After the first 36 hours, Sierra and Dustin had to take him home wearing the only onesie they bothered to purchase. Over the course of the next few weeks and months, Bentley continued to march on, save for a staph infection in his lungs. Aside from the large sac containing critical parts of his brain atop his head, Bentley developed normally. He continued to grow, and cried when he was hungry. The doctors were incredulous, and insisted that the growth above his head was just “damaged tissue,” and that “there’s no way it could be functioning,” but Bentley’s behaviors and normal developmental trajectory suggested otherwise.
Keyword: Development of the Brain
Link ID: 22347 - Posted: 06.22.2016
Agata Blaszczak-Boxe, People with higher levels of education may be more likely to develop certain types of brain tumors, a new study from Sweden suggests. Researchers found that women who completed at least three years of university courses were 23 percent more likely to develop a type of cancerous brain tumor called glioma, compared with women who only completed up to nine years of mandatory education and did not go to a university. And men who completed at least three years of university courses were 19 percent more likely to develop the same type of tumor, compared with men who did not go to a university. Though the reasons behind the link are not clear, "one possible explanation is that highly educated people may be more aware of symptoms and seek medical care earlier," and therefore are more likely to be diagnosed, said Amal Khanolkar, a research associate at the Institute of Child Health at the University College Londonand a co-author of the study. [Top 10 Cancer-Fighting Foods] In the study, the researchers looked at data on more than 4.3 million people in Sweden who were a part of the Swedish Total Population Register. The researchers tracked the people for 17 years, beginning in 1993, to see if they developed brain tumors during that time. They also collected information about the people's education levels, income, marital status and occupation. During the 17-year study, 5,735 men and 7,101 women developed brain tumors, according to the findings, published today (June 20) in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Copyright 2016 LiveScience, | <urn:uuid:d7215234-498f-419f-89e6-5ac79d6fe556> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.biopsychology.com/news/index.php?book=BP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00116-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965203 | 8,313 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The Used and Rental copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
This text involves students in understanding and using the tools of critical social and literary theory from the first day of class. It is an ideal first introduction before students encounter more difficult readings from critical and postmodern perspectives. Nealon and Giroux describe key concepts and illuminate each with an engaging inquiry that asks students to consider deeper and deeper questions. Written in students' own idiom, and drawing its examples from the social world, literature, popular culture, and advertising, The Theory Toolbox offers students the language and opportunity to theorize. Updated throughout, the second edition of The Theory Toolbox includes a discussion of new media, as well as two new chapters on life and nature. | <urn:uuid:d76594bd-a8b9-4844-8a81-b9853d597ae6> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.ecampus.com/theory-toolbox-critical-concepts/bk/9780742570504 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938324 | 187 | 3.078125 | 3 |
Tired of traffic congestion in and around your school? Looking for a way to put more physical exercise into your students' day? Perhaps your school should be the next stop for the "walking school bus," -- groups of children who are led to and from school by adult volunteers. Included: See how a few simple steps can put a walking bus in motion!
Safety is a key concern for parents in Indiana, Pennsylvania. That's why parents, schools, and a neighborhood organization there banded together to organize a Walking Bus, a program in which groups of students walk to school under the supervision of adult volunteers. An adult "driver" on each "bus" leads the walkers, watching for problems along the route, and a "conductor" stays at the back of the group to monitor student behavior.
Indiana students en route as part of a "walking school bus."
|(Photo courtesy of Amy O'Neal, Indiana Area School District)|
"We officially started in May 2001, with a pilot program at Horace Mann Elementary School," recalled Mike Travis, transportation director/safety supervisor for the Indiana (Pennsylvania) Area School District. "That year, two routes with a total of 20 students participated during the last full month of school. We kicked off the 2002 school year with 50 students on four routes, two each at Eisenhower Elementary and Horace Mann schools."
CATCHING THE BUS
"The kids use the time walking to socialize with their peers and enjoy their surroundings," observed Travis. "This winter, I had the opportunity to walk with a group that spent the entire time skating along slippery sidewalks and romping in snowdrifts. In short, the kids get to be kids."
Student walkers are expected to follow the same rules of behavior that apply in the classroom and on school buses, and they must obey all pedestrian traffic laws. Any cases of misconduct by students are reported to the school principal.
"We have received positive feedback from parents whose children participate in the walking school bus program," Travis reported. "Many appreciate the fact that the children are participating in a daily physical activity. Some utilize the program because they are working parents whose schedules do not allow them to take their children to school. A few are single parents with young children who, without the program, would have to take their infants to school along with their older children."
Although student participation has decreased to 30 during the current school year, the number of volunteers willing to walk the routes with the students has increased. Many of the new volunteers have been "recruited" by others or have heard about the program from members of the community.
"Our pool of volunteers is very diverse," said Travis. "It includes parents, grandparents, community leaders, teachers and other school staff members, high school students from the community service club, honor students from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, and student teachers working at the elementary schools."
THESE SHOES WERE MADE FOR WALKING
Adult commuters in the area should appreciate the program too. The adults who chaperone the walkers add a measure of security for those commuters. The children also learn responsibility for their own safety and achieve a sense of independence. As an unforeseen benefit of the program, the walking school bus has brought the community together through its many volunteers and has given the neighborhood a powerful and valued role in the lives of its children.
Students at Eisenhower Elementary (shown here) take the walking "bus" even through the cold Pennsylvania winter.
|(Photo courtesy of Cara Bafile)|
The only costs to the district for the program are the time and effort involved in promotion and participation. Civic groups, community service organizations, and senior citizen groups have been called upon to help recruit volunteers. Because the program offers varied benefits, volunteers have different reasons for joining, but Travis says the most important benefit is that the community is participating.
"The idea of walking to and from school is a change of lifestyle and mindset," he explained. "In today's society, we are programmed to believe that it is quicker and easier to get in the car, travel six blocks, and sit in traffic congestion around the school than it is to walk that same short distance. The idea has to be embraced by those who are looking for alternatives for their community and their children's lives. It seems a little nostalgic, but it is, in a way, getting back to the way things used to be before there were so many vehicles. Sounds so simple, doesn't it?"
THE WALKING BUS DELIVERS
Indiana's walking school bus program was introduced by a group called LINC (Livable Indiana Neighborhood Connections), a community partnership dedicated to promoting healthy lifestyles and neighborhoods through increased walking and bicycling. The group's first initiative was to address the needs of students walking to and from schools. LINC applied for and received enhancement grant money to make improvements to sidewalks, street crossings, and other pedestrian related sites.
The Walking Bus initiative began in the UK as an effort to improve student health and reduce traffic congestion. The idea has spread both nationally and internationally, and is now cropping up in towns such as Indiana.
"As a car company, Kia Motors UK has addressed an important issue and is doing something about it," Emma Craddock told Education World. "By promoting sensible car use and helping children across the UK walk to school, the company hopes to reduce congestion and make our roads better places to be."
Craddock works as coordinator for the Walking Bus program on behalf of Kia in Weybridge, Surrey (UK). She handles requests for information packets and gives advice to parents about how to contact their local councils to set up new routes.
"It is a bit difficult to track the history of the walking bus in Britain, as it is a very regionally-based activity," Craddock explained. "Kia began supporting the walking bus in June of 2000 and since then has help launch more than 250 walking bus routes in the UK. We have worked with the pedestrian's association on Walk to School Week programs to try and encourage more people to walk to school -- as a regular occurrence."
According to Craddock, schools interested in establishing walking buses should follow a few simple steps.
"In the UK, one in five cars on the road at 8:50 a.m. is on the school run," said Craddock. "If we can cut that, our congestion problems would be solved, and our children would be fitter and healthier."
This Kia Motors site offers a thorough introduction to the walking bus, including why they are effective and how to set one up in your hometown.
The Walking School Bus: Combining Safety, Fun, and the Walk to School
A guide from the National Center of Safe Routes to School.
Walking Buses - Providing Safe Routes to School
They originate in the UK and, according to walkingbus.com, they are the nearest activity to perfect exercise. Essentially, each walking bus has an adult...
The Walking School Bus Information Web Site
Find an index of links to many Internet resources about the walking bus program.
Walking School Bus
The Walking Bus was invented by David Engwicht in 1991 to overcome the problems of traffic safety and perceptions of stranger danger. A 'Walking Bus Driver' walks a set route each morning and afternoon and picks up children at Walking Bus Stops. | <urn:uuid:9351d03c-d7ef-42ad-9e11-674f42c1a656> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin/admin350.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00189-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971371 | 1,513 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Graphene earning nickname of 'miracle material'
The race is on to perfect a miracle.
Governments, companies and universities around the world are dumping billions of dollars into research on graphene, carbon sheets one atom thick, discovered a few years ago.
The first group to figure out how to cheaply and reliably produce large quantities of the “miracle material” could take a leading role in a range of industries it might soon transform — among them consumer electronics, cars, medical devices and energy production and storage.
Graphene's properties until recently were the stuff of science fiction. The strongest material tested, it is the thinnest ever made. It conducts heat and electricity far better than copper and silicon, and it's so impermeable that helium, whose atoms are small enough to leak through the walls of steel tanks, can't penetrate it.
It's as flexible as rubber and as clear as lightly tinted glass.
“It is a perfect material,” said Alexander Star, a chemistry professor who leads a nanoparticle research group at the University of Pittsburgh.
Flexible electronic displays likely will be among the first commercially available products the material transforms. If tough, bendable graphene replaces brittle, costly indium tin oxide — a precious metal key to making touch screens work — electronics makers could produce flexible cellphones and tablets that wouldn't shatter if dropped.
Yet, graphene's properties allow for far more than a slimmer phone.
Thin layers, long reach
Star's group made a sensor about the size of Lincoln's jaw on a penny, with four squares infused with microscopic rolls of graphene — known as single-layer nanotubes — attached to electrodes. The carbon is so thin, it's sensitive enough to pick up the acetone made by a diabetic's body, for example.
Imagine a similar sensor with 100 squares on it, each calibrated to pick up something different, Star said. The problem isn't fitting it on the chip, he said — it's figuring out “what 100 things do we want to detect in a person's breath.”
One exhale from a patient, he said, would let doctors run tests instantly and cheaply without drawing a drop of blood.
A poster near his office shows a rendering of one of his chips plugged into an iPhone port, hinting at a possible future of routine, remote medical diagnoses.
“It has such a wide range of applications,” said James Tour, a chemistry professor at Rice University, a leading institution for nanotechnology research.
Tour led a research group that made compressed natural gas storage tanks using graphene and plastic, lighter and less permeable than metal tanks, which could make natural gas-fueled vehicles more practical.
The same technology could extend the shelf life of beer and soda.
Researchers in California used the material to make a super capacitor — like a battery but lighter, smaller and without acid — so a person could charge a cellphone in five seconds. If it powered an electric car, charging could take as little as 15 minutes, the researchers estimate, making electric car charging about as time consuming as topping off a gas tank.
Cars could drop up to two-thirds of their weight, thanks to graphene. Carnegie Mellon University researcher Mohammad Islam led a group that made tiny graphene scaffolding around which they poured melted polymer. It might eventually be possible, Islam said, to make a material as light as plastic, as strong as aluminum and made into pieces big enough to build a car.
Star began working with nanoparticles in 2000, four years before graphene's discovery. On his first day as a researcher, he wrote to a Rice University scientist who was one of the only people in the world making carbon nanotubes.
Star asked for a milligram of the material — an amount too small for the naked eye to see — for research.
He chuckles at the memory as he points out a blue plastic tub about the size of his head containing a kilogram of nanotubes — 1 million times as much as that first miniscule request. Bayer Corp. dropped it off one day, unsolicited.
“They just gave it to us as a present,” he said, smiling.
Such is the speed of “miracle” materials.
Russian scientists Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov made the first sheet of graphene in 2004 while working at the University of Manchester in Great Britain. Shrugging off high-tech solutions, the pair used Scotch tape to peel layer after layer off graphite — the stuff that makes pencil lead — until an atom-thick sheet was left.
Six years later, their discovery won the Nobel Prize for Physics, an award usually given for discoveries that take decades to achieve prominence. The award this year, for example, honors two scientists for a discovery in the early 1960s.
Cost of progress
The field's rapid progress has a cost. Since 2001, the government has spent about $18 billion on the National Nanotechnology Initiative, which doled out most of the money in academic research grants. The money pays for a broad range of research; graphene is just one promising part.
Rather than a coordinated, national graphene research program like the European Union's, domestic agencies including the National Science Foundation and departments of Defense and Energy fund individual research projects. The science foundation spent about $622 million since 2006 on projects connected to graphene, according to a federal database.
The EU is concentrating squarely on graphene. In January, it awarded a 1 billion euro grant — equal to about $1.4 billion — to a project involving 136 principal investigators, including four Nobel laureates, spread across 100 research groups.
“They're focusing very heavily on graphene. I wish we had the money to do that type of thing here in the U.S.,” Tour said. “I'm not sure we even have that kind of money anymore.”
Mike Wereschagin is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7900 or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:bac7f3f3-3692-4eaa-b0a3-561cb9d53b13> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://triblive.com/news/allegheny/4846546-74/graphene-research-material | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397797.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00012-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9547 | 1,257 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Four months after Typhoon Yolanda hit the Philippines, the wounds are deep – but the healing has begun
TACLOBAN, Philippines, 6 March 2014 – Loss cuts deep here, four months after one of the most powerful and destructive typhoons on record killed more than 6,000 people.
Today, as the Philippines continues to recover and rebuild, 13-year-old Jerome Nabong wades through the ankle-deep water where his house used to stand. The house was perched on sticks, over the water, until Typhoon Yolanda swept it away.
This stretch of the coast was covered with hundreds of these homes, before 8 November. Now, the houses are gone, and remnants of a few dozen sticks stand in the water.
Jerome spends a part of each day here, wading in the water, or at water's edge. He looks for coins, for anything of value that might help his family – his parents, himself, his five siblings – obtain food. They shelter in a rickety shack built, like before, on sticks, over the water. The roof is a plastic tarpaulin. You can see the sea through the cracks between the floorboards.
"My children get scared when the weather turns bad," says Jerome's mother, Vilma.
"They cry and cry, and want to evacuate to an emergency shelter, even if it's a small gust of wind, because they have flashbacks of the typhoon."
To help children like Jerome and his brothers and sisters recover from the trauma of the storm, UNICEF has been working with its partners to train teachers, day care workers and education authorities to provide psychosocial support.
Some 17,000 children in affected areas now have access to 89 child-friendly spaces, which give them a safe place to play and learn key life skills. One such space is set up just down the road from Jerome's shack, at the Tacloban City Convention Centre, which many people call the 'Astrodome'.
Returning to learning
Part of a child's recovery is getting back into school as quickly as possible.
To date, UNICEF and its partners have provided 430,000 children with learning materials, in affected areas.
Accessing clean water
For Jerome and his family, clean drinking water is a top concern. They are among the 930,000 people for whom UNICEF has restored access to safe water.
Jerome and his family received a kit with a portable plastic jug and water purification tablets. They also received a UNICEF hygiene kit with toothbrushes, toothpaste, sanitary napkins and bath and laundry soap.
Keeping up with jabs
The storm destroyed health care centres, which meant that many services were stopped suddenly – including routine immunizations.
In places like the island of Panay, UNICEF-supported health teams are traveling to remote areas and going door to door to register children for vaccination. Since November, more than 80,000 children have been vaccinated against measles and polio. Some 55,000 children received vitamin A supplementation as part of a campaign that also screened for malnutrition.
Ruth Catalan has brought her 17-month-old daughter Jessica to a health centre to be vaccinated. The typhoon took the family's material possessions, including her husband's fishing boat, and nearly took Jessica's life.
"We were trapped inside our house, but we got a chance to run outside," says Ms. Catalan. "We made our way to the nearby tree where piles of haystacks were, and we climbed it. The first wave instantly washed our house away. We went up and tied ourselves to the tree and empty water containers so we can float. We prayed really hard that the water will subside. We already accepted that we will not live. My baby got injured in the foot. We were very thankful when the water was finally gone, but we're also crying because nothing was left."
Accounting for unaccompanied children
For those children separated from their families or guardians, UNICEF is using an innovative mobile phone application to document and share information in order to return them to their families, when possible. So far, 130 children have been identified as unaccompanied or separated. Trained female police officers are following up on them.
The road to recovery in the Philippines will likely take years. Much progress has been made, especially in getting children back into the classroom, restoring safe drinking water to people like Jerome Nabong and his family and ensuring that children like Jessica not miss their jabs. But much work remains, to fulfill the promise of child rights here, and to build back better. | <urn:uuid:cc85186d-944c-47f2-b18d-4b3cfaf60c4b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.unicef.org/philippines/reallives_22251.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979162 | 954 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Published: August 2, 1988
Q. How fast do fingernails grow?
Do they grow faster in summer? A. Fingernail growth averages out to about a tenth of a millimeter a day, according to Lawrence A. Norton, M.D., clinical professor of dermatology at the Boston University School of Medicine. Toenails are about a half to a third slower, he said, and drugs or disease can change the growth rate.
''There are differences from finger to finger,'' Dr. Norton went on. ''The middle and fourth finger tend to grow a little faster than than the fifth and the thumb. That's a Trivial Pursuit question, believe it or not.''
''Nails grow faster in summer, some research indicates, while winter and a cold environment tend to slow nail growth,'' he added.
''Other studies seem to find that the right-hand fingers grew faster than the left, which might be tied to handedness, and that stimulation, such as massage, helps them grow faster. People with the neurotic habit tic of rubbing a digit would find that the nail they rubbed grew faster.''
Contrary to childhood myth, nails do not continue to grow after death, he said. ''That is an optical illusion,'' he explained. ''Tissues around the nail tend to shrink away from the hard nail after death, giving the impression of something still growing.''
Readers are invited to submit questions about science to Questions, Science Times, The New York Times, 229 West 43d Street, New York, N.Y. 10036. Questions of general interest will be answered in this column, but requests for medical advice cannot be honored and unpublished letters cannot be answered individually. | <urn:uuid:5a3e5394-c37a-4882-a8f6-d0f8bef35a7b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.nytimes.com/1988/08/02/science/q-a-504688.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398628.62/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00107-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940231 | 353 | 3.25 | 3 |
The best way to test do you have diabetes is to take a fasting plasma glucose test. This test is the preferred test for diagnosing both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The results are most reliable when the test is done in the morning.
The following are other test that can be taken to diagnose diabetes. It also should be noted that, a diagnosis of diabetes can be made after a positive results on any one of the following 3 tests.
- A random plasma glucose test (taken any time of the day). If a plasma glucose value of 200mg/dL or more is tested along with the presence of diabetes symptoms then this suggests diabetes.
- A plasma glucose value of 126mg/dL or more after a person has fasted for 8 hours.
- The last test is known as oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). A blood sample is taken after a person has consuming a drink containing 75gms of glucose dissolved in water. If plasma glucose value of 200mg/dL or more in a blood sample taken is present this suggest diabetes is presence. This test is often taken in a laboratory or the doctor’s office. Plasma glucose measured at timed intervals over a 3-hours period.
For all other diabetes information:
Diabetes | Diabetes Symptoms | What Causes Diabetes?
Diabetes Treatment | Diabetes Preventions
Return To Abate Diabetes Main Page | <urn:uuid:2a897cb7-9ccb-4eb3-826b-680b6c6d440f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.abatediabetes.com/diabetes_diagnoses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393518.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906055 | 280 | 2.875 | 3 |
by Staff Writers
Pittsburgh PA (SPX) Nov 22, 2012
An international team of researchers, including Carnegie Museum of Natural History scientist John Wible, has resolved the evolutionary relationships of Necrolestes patagonensis, whose name translates into "grave robber," referring to its burrowing and underground lifestyle.
This much-debated fossil mammal from South America has been a paleontological riddle for more than 100 years. Scientific perseverance, a recent fossil discovery, and comparative anatomical analysis helped researchers to correctly place the strange 16-million-year-old Necrolestes, with its upturned snout and large limbs for digging, in the mammal evolutionary tree.
This finding unexpectedly moves forward the endpoint for the fossil's evolutionary lineage by 45 million years, showing that this family of mammals survived the extinction event that marked the end of the Age of Dinosaurs.
This is an example of the Lazarus effect, in which a group of organisms is found to have survived far longer than originally thought. Situating Necrolestes among its relatives in the fossil record answers one long-held question, but creates others; it reminds us that there is a lot we don't yet know about the global impacts of the massive extinction event 65 million years ago and it challenges assumptions that the well-documented effects that occurred in western North America were experienced globally.
A paleontological riddle
Wible is known for his work on the origins and evolutionary relationships among the three modern mammal groups: placentals (live-bearing mammals such as humans), marsupials (pouched mammals such as opossums), and egg-laying mammals (such as platypuses).
Despite being excellently preserved, the mysterious fossils moved from institution to institution and researcher to researcher, the classification of Necrolestes changing with each new move. As recently as a few years ago, Necrolestes still could not be definitively classified in a mammal group.
A CAT scan of the ear region in 2008 led to another research team's hypothesis that Necrolestes was a marsupial. This classification intrigued Wible's co-author on the paper, Guillermo Rougier from the University of Louisville, Kentucky.
As a specialist in South American mammals, Rougier was not convinced that the marsupial identification was accurate, and he embarked on his own attempt to make a classification.
"This project was a little daunting, because we had to contradict 100 years of interpretation," admits Rougier.
During the process of preparing the fossil for further study, Rougier uncovered characteristics of the skull anatomy that had previously gone unnoted. Based on these newly revealed features, the research team came to the groundbreaking realization that Necrolestes belonged to neither the marsupial nor placental lineages to which it had historically been linked.
Rather, Necrolestes actually belonged in a completely unexpected branch of the evolutionary tree which was thought to have died out 45 million years earlier than the time of Necrolestes.
Burrowing mammals have a wide humerus (upper arm bone) that is specialized for digging and tunneling. The humerus of Necrolestes is wider than any other fossorial mammal's, indicating that Necrolestes was particularly specialized for digging-perhaps more so than any other known burrowing mammal-but this trait didn't make classification any easier.
The simple triangular teeth of Necrolestes served it well in feeding on subterranean invertebrates. However, until recently, its teeth have proved of little help in classifying Necrolestes, because they are so simplified and show no unambiguous similarities to those of other mammals. Enter Cronopio.
The mystery solved
This conclusively showed that Necrolestes was neither a marsupial nor a placental mammal, and was in fact the last remaining member of the Meridiolestida lineage, thought to have gone extinct 45 million years earlier.
"If we didn't know those fossils," says Wible of Cronopio, "we might have come to the same conclusion that everybody else had-that the relationships of Necrolestes were unknowable."
Before the conclusive identification of Necrolestes, only one member of the Meridiolestida was known to have survived the extinction event, and that species died out soon after, early in the Tertiary Period (65-1.8 million years ago).
Necrolestes is therefore the only remaining member of a supposedly extinct group. "It's the supreme Lazarus effect," comments Wible. "How in the world did this animal survive so long without anyone knowing about it?"
In the Lazarus effect, a species previously thought to be extinct is rediscovered-sometimes living, sometimes elsewhere in the fossil record. The Lazarus effect is well represented by the ginkgo tree, thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered growing in China in the 17th century.
The researchers believe that Necrolestes's supreme burrowing adaptations are exactly what enabled it to survive for 45 million years longer than its relatives. "There's no other mammal in the Tertiary of South America that even approaches its ability to dig, tunnel, and live in the ground," explains Wible. "It must have been on the edges, in an ecological niche that allowed it to survive."
The researchers point out that other extinct digging species are known by many specimens, while Necrolestes is only known from a few fossils from a narrow geographic area. This means it was not abundant in its time, which fits with the model of a life form existing in a marginal environment.
Rougier comments, "In a way, while not related, it's somewhat similar to how the platypus lives today. There aren't many of them, they are found only in Australia, and they live in a specific niche among modern mammals-just as Necrolestes is an isolated lineage only found in South America, with very few individuals living among large numbers of marsupials."
For example, because the paleontological landscape is much better understood in North America and Eurasia, extinction models on those continents were assumed to apply to all continents. Rougier points out, "We can't do that anymore. This story is more complex, a very distinct picture. We're just getting there with South America."
Carnegie Museum paleontologist Matt Lamanna, who has conducted expeditions to Patagonia since 1998, agrees that South America is a hotbed for new paleontological discoveries.
"A lot of what we think we know about the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction comes specifically from western North America," he confirms. "As the fossil record in other regions of the world continues to grow, our understanding of that extinction will undoubtedly continue to change."
The research team is looking forward to filling in the 45-million-year gap between Necrolestes and its nearest known relatives, applying that knowledge to other related species that crossed the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction boundary-a seemingly South American phenomenon.
The scientific paper resolving the mystery of Necrolestes appears today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.
Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Explore The Early Earth at TerraDaily.com
|The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement| | <urn:uuid:d9bbf54e-ba4e-4711-a948-997fa8f9bd88> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/After_121_years_identification_of_grave_robber_fossil_solves_a_paleontological_enigma_999.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403502.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00044-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952608 | 1,621 | 3.328125 | 3 |
The finding comes from the Johns Hopkins University lab of Catherine C. Thompson, PhD. Thompson and colleagues wondered exactly why mice lacking the Hairless gene are, well, hairless.
Their results point researchers toward a way to regenerate the hair follicles of men and women with alopecia.
A Tiny Organ
Hair follicles aren't normal skin cells. They're really tiny organs. And these tiny organs do one of the most amazing things any organ can do: they regenerate.
Hair cells grow hair, of course. But that's only one phase of their life cycle. Each follicle eventually withers down to a shadow of its former self. Then, somehow, stem cells inside the follicle come to life. The follicle regenerates and grows a new hair.
When something goes wrong with this process, hair thinning or baldness results. Researchers have a model for this: mice lacking the Hairless gene. At first, these mice grow normal-looking hair. But as their hair follicles cycle, the hairs fall out -- and don't grow back.
Thompson's team genetically engineered hairless mice to produce Hairless protein in specific cells within the hair follicle. The result: Mice that grew -- and kept growing -- thick fur.
The researchers showed that the Hairless gene only works when it gets the proper chemical signals at exactly the right time during the follicle cycle. Now researchers are one step closer to knowing what these signals are and when to give them.
Thompson and colleagues report their findings in the early online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. | <urn:uuid:4b5d7727-408f-4f37-927e-6278b9089814> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/hair-loss/news/20050926/experimental-gene-therapy-grows-hair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398869.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00040-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.924587 | 329 | 3.765625 | 4 |
Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users.
Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web servicesare all seen as components of Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 was previously used as a synonym for Semantic Web, but while the two are similar, they do not share precisely the same meaning.
Stay up to date on the latest developments in Internet terminology with a free weekly newsletter from Webopedia. Join to subscribe now.
Webopedia's student apps roundup will help you to better organize your class schedule and stay on top of assignments and homework. Read More »List of Free Shorten URL Services
A URL shortener is a way to make a long Web address shorter. Try this list of free services. Read More »Top 10 Tech Terms of 2015
The most popular Webopedia definitions of 2015. Read More »
Java is a high-level programming language. This guide describes the basics of Java, providing an overview of syntax, variables, data types and... Read More »Java Basics, Part 2
This second Study Guide describes the basics of Java, providing an overview of operators, modifiers and control Structures. Read More »The 7 Layers of the OSI Model
The Open System Interconnection (OSI) model defines a networking framework to implement protocols in seven layers. Use this handy guide to compare... Read More » | <urn:uuid:1f46cd21-f0a8-40d4-958f-f7939b8fe335> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/W/Web_2_point_0.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397865.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00081-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.872626 | 386 | 3.75 | 4 |
November 8, 2011
Within electric brakes, bending force is distributed differently. Also optoelectronic safeguards integrate closely with the control, so much so that a light curtain or similar device has no effect on the bending cycle time. In fact, in the electric press brake arena, safety does not necessarily require a sacrifice in cycle time.
For years press brakes have undergone a gradual transition from mechanical to hydraulic and, finally, electric. Several types of all-electric press brakes have entered the market, including ball screw-driven machines as well as press brakes driven by a system of pulleys. This discussion will focus on the latter. Certain pulley-based systems have a multiplying effect on tonnages; some models offer 330 tons of bending force.
Much has been said about the speed, precision, and convenience of electric machines. Having no hydraulic oil or associated seals simplifies maintenance. Servomotors position the ram to air-bend components accurately. They offer high-speed operation, with the ram descending quickly, stopping at a predetermined bending-speed position, creeping downward to bend the workpiece, and then moving quickly upward to top dead center (TDC).
What hasn’t been touted quite as much, however, has been the way these electric brakes distribute force, as well as their safety features (see Figure 1). Within electric brakes, optoelectronic safeguards intertwine closely with the control, so much so that a light curtain or similar device has no effect on the bending cycle time. In fact, in the electric press brake arena, safety does not necessarily require a sacrifice in cycle time.
In hydraulic systems, the tonnage (downward force) comes from hydraulic actuators on either side of the machine. This means as the ram descends, contacts the metal workpiece, and encounters resistance, the press brake bed bows. This creates that well-known deflection usually dealt with by some type of crowning system.
In the pulley-driven electric press brake, however, AC servomotors drive a double-pulley system that extends across the length of the press brake ram (see Figure 2). The number of pulley-block pairs varies depending on the machine’s size and power requirements. The belts are made from 0.12-in.-thick, wire-strengthened material coated with polyurethane, the same used extensively in elevator systems.
AC servomotors on four axles drive this double-pulley system that balances fixed and flexible rolls, which adjust to distribute tonnage evenly. So instead of force coming from two hydraulic actuators on either side of the brake, the pulley-and-belt-drive system distributes force evenly across the ram length. The technology allows for on-the-fly adjustment to ensure even force distribution throughout the bending cycle.
Of course, this doesn’t stop the lower beam from deflecting completely. Theoretically, the lower beam could have an identical system of pulleys to distribute force, but this would make for a very unconventional, not to mention costly, press brake.
For this reason, certain electric brakes have within their lower beams an interior subframe. The exterior beam material itself must be stiff to minimize deflection, but its interior subframe must be sufficiently tough to absorb deflection. The subframe isn’t designed for maximum toughness but instead a happy medium, with maximum possible stiffness and enough toughness. This ensures the subframe structure is flexible enough to deflect sufficiently for the machine’s tonnage rating.
The overall goal of any bending operation is threefold: to produce parts accurately, quickly, and safely. Traditionally, machine designers have performed a balancing act between the three, sometimes sacrificing one factor to promote others. In the electric press brake arena, these three factors are a bit easier to juggle.
Consider safety requirements, long specified in the U.S. by the ANSI B11 standard. Many systems have safety enhancements for the front, on the side of, and behind the press brakes. Some have even considered a “high” and “low” speed adjustment as a control type of safety enhancement. Historically, mechanical barriers could be used in the front of the machine, particularly in production environments where safety managers could pinpoint precise safety hazard points, because operators handled the same parts time and time again. Some used restraints and pullback devices that physically prevented the operator’s arms from entering any unsafe area.
Light curtains introduced many advantages, including flexibility, and laser guarding as well as camera-based systems have continued the trend. Laser- and camera-based systems travel with the ram and work at the bottom of the tooling.
Optoelectronic safety devices—often combined with traditional mechanical safeguards to the side and behind the work envelope—have proved to be incredibly effective. Still, throughout the years these devices have required a slight productivity sacrifice. Drive systems on most press brakes are either hydraulic or hydro mechanical. Optoelectronic safety systems tell the machine to stop when a beam or vision path is broken, and the ram will return to top dead center. In these instances, an electronic system must be interfaced with a hydraulic or hydromechanical system.
Certain all-electric press brakes operate differently. The safeguards have no need to interface with mechanical or hydraulically driven components. Optical safety system controls can be integrated directly into a press brake’s touchscreen control. In this instance, a safety device such as a light curtain essentially can double as a kind of “productivity manager,” because the safeguard can “see” obstructions inside the work envelope and constantly relay this information back to the CNC (see Figure 3).
Consider an electric press brake setup with a light curtain, controlled via the press brake’s touchscreen interface. The operator calls up a program and starts the bending cycle. He makes the first series of bends, and then removes the workpiece. From here, the light curtain senses that the workspace is free of obstructions and so signals the CNC to instruct the ram and backgauge to position themselves for the next step in the bend sequence, per the bend program.
This ram and backgauge movement between bend cycles occurs without an operator stepping on the foot pedal. The machine automatically moves to the position for the next step while the operator concentrates on handling the sheet. Such constant communication between the light curtain and controller is what allows a completely guarded press brake to bend faster. (Note that such systems must be designed with appropriate control redundancies to ensure safe operation under the worst of circumstances, including power outages and similar unforeseen events.)
With a properly designed system, an operator can press the foot pedal to cycle the machine, use the light curtain to position the ram automatically, and then step on the foot pedal again to complete the bend cycle. Or, the operator actually can cycle the machine between bends using the light curtain. In this case, he steps once on the foot pedal to signify a cycle-start. Then the operator engages the light barrier when he positions the part, thus preventing the machine from cycling. Once his hands are away from the bending area, the machine will automatically cycle. This process may be repeated for all subsequent bends.
These aren’t the only ways the machines may be operated, of course, and a foot pedal certainly may be used during various points in the operation. The machine may be programmed for different operational modes, part bending requirements, and operator preferences.
Press brakes remain a common bottleneck in metal fabrication. It takes far longer to form a part than it does to cut it, and qualified, experienced press brake operators are becoming a rare find. The “art” of operating a traditional press brake—from shimming tools, programming bend sequences, and then performing the test bends—can take hours, even for experienced personnel. These days, offline programming and real-time adjustments on the brake allow for minutes-long, not hours-long, setups.
Electric press brakes represent the latest evolution of the bending machine tool. Indeed, many machines simply cannot operate unless proper safeguards are in place and fully functional. The technology has made the bending process not only faster and more accurate, but safer as well.
The FABRICATOR® is North America's leading magazine for the metal forming and fabricating industry. The magazine delivers the news, technical articles, and case histories that enable fabricators to do their jobs more efficiently. The FABRICATOR has served the industry since 1971. Print subscriptions are free to qualified persons in North America involved in metal forming and fabricating. | <urn:uuid:b53e5b46-ee39-4a76-8b97-e97f85eb712a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.thefabricator.com/article/bending/electric-press-brakes-bend-fast--and-safely | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392099.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00108-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918211 | 1,772 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Barn Swallow dawn song, consisting of mostly three part phrases, 50 minutes before sunrise, by a bird flying to and fro over a meadow. The song finished well before sunrise. (June, PA).
Tree Swallow dawn song perched, compared to the day song it is less variable and has a staccato rhythm (5.48am, May, NJ)
Tree Swallow dawn song in flight (4.50 am, June, CO).
Violet-green Swallow dawn song for comparison (in flight, 4.45am, June, CO)
The Tree Swallow day song is often more varied than the more stereotyped dawn song, bird in flight (May, RI).
tinkling calls are reminiscent of Sprague's Pipit
Perched bird (8.00am, Mar, PA)
The Northern Rough-winged Swallow song is a monotonous repetition of the flight calls, here by a bird flying low in a circuit one hour before dawn (May, PA).
The Purple Martin dawn song is a persistent series of notes given in flight before sunrise: in this example buzzy calls (July, NJ). | <urn:uuid:c6d4083a-a121-4c1d-b27b-a27faa3cf716> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://pjdeye.blogspot.com/2011/07/swallow-songs.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00160-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913569 | 240 | 2.734375 | 3 |
This page was designed by teachers to be used by fourth grade students when studying the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. It has been created in response to the Massachusetts State Frameworks which suggests the study of ancient civilizations in grade four. You will also find a list of resources and classroom activities for teacher use.
Mesopotamia was approximately 300 miles long and 150 miles wide. It was located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. These rivers flow into the Persian Gulf. The word Mesopotamia means "The land between the rivers".
Activity: Find a map and see if you can locate Mesopotamia.
2) WHAT WAS MESOPOTAMIA LIKE?
The climate for the region ranged from seasons of cool to hot seasons with temperatures often over 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Mesopotamia experienced moderate rainfall.
Most of Mesopotamia was located in the present day country of Iraq. The land of Mesopotamia was once dominated by floods, but today is mostly desert. The seasonal flooding was a challenge to the farmers of Mesopotamia. These farmers learned to control the flooding to some degree. The fertile land along the rivers produced such crops as wheat, barley, sesame, flax, and various fruits and vegetables.
The land that was once marshes and channels that provided food, protection, and life to the people there, no longer exists.
Back to top
In Mesopotamia, each town and city was believed to be protected by its own, unique deity or god. The temple, as the center of worship, was also the center of every city.
Around the year 2000 B.C., temple towers began to be built to link heaven and earth. The towers, called ziggurats, were very large, pyramid-shaped structures on top of which the temple was built. The ziggurats were built of mud bricks with 3 to 7 terraced levels.
The Mesopotamians believed that
these pyramid temples connected heaven and earth. In fact, the
ziggurat at Babylon was known as Etemenankia or "House of the
Platform between Heaven & Earth". The ziggurats were often
decorated with pillars and other ornamentation.
At first, religious events were held at the temple. Later, as a priesthood developed, the temple became the center of both religion and learning for the entire community.
GODS AND GODDESSES
The people of Mesopotamia had very many gods, called dingir in Sumerian. Their gods and goddesses looked and acted just like people. They had feasts, marriages, children, and wars. They could be jealous, angry, joyful, or kind. The gods and goddesses had supernatural powers.
Every single city had its own patron god or goddess who owned everything and everyone in the city. Everyone was expected to sing hymns, say prayers, make sacrifices and bring offerings to the local temple (ziggurat) for the gods. The people trusted the priests and the priestesses in the temples to tell them what the gods or goddesses wanted, and they dutifully carried out their wishes. They believed that the gods could be annoyed at what you did and punish you, or they could be pleased and reward you.This made the leaders in the temples almost as powerful as the kings.
In Mesopotamia the people
looked to religion to answer their questions about life and death,
good and evil, and the forces of nature. The dingir followed themes,
or divine laws, that governed the universe. The Sumerians believed in
divine order, that is, everything that occurs is preplanned by the
There were four all-powerful gods that created and controlled the universe. An was the god of heaven, Enlil was the air-god, Enki was the water-god, and Ninhursag was the mother earth-goddess. Each of these gods created lesser gods who were also important in Mesopotamia. Utu, the sun-god, lit the world with rays shooting from his shoulders. He moved across the sky in a chariot. Nanna was the moon-god who used a boat to travel by night.
Back to top
What did the Sumerians wear?
The Sumerians made their clothing by using the natural resources that were available to them. Clothing was made from wool or flax which Sumerians could raise and harvest. (Flax is a plant with blue flowers. The stems of these plants are used to make the clothing.) How thick or how coarse the clothing was meant the season in which the clothes would be worn. Like us, heavier clothing would be worn in the winter and lighter clothing would be worn in the summer.
Men were barechested and wore skirt-like garments that tied at the waist. Women usually wore gowns that covered them from their shoulders to their ankles. The right arm and shoulder were left uncovered. Men were either clean shaven or had long hair and beards. Women wore their hair long, but they usually braided it and wrapped it around their heads. When entertaining guests, women would place headdresses in their hair.
Although both rich and poor Sumerians wore the same style of clothing, the wealthier Sumerians wore clothing that was made out of expensive and luxurious materials. Wealthy women and princesses also wore clothing that was colorful and bright.
Both men and women wore earrings and necklaces. During celebrations, even more jewelry was worn. The wealthier Sumerians often wore beautiful gold and silver bracelets and earrings. Necklaces were also worn and were set with bright, precious stones. Some of these stones were the lapis lazuli and the carnelian.
Back to top
How did farmers
learn the secrets of trading?
Trade and commerce developed in Mesopotamia because the farmers learned how to irrigate their land. They could now grow more food than they could eat. They used the surplus to trade for goods and services. Ur, a city-state in Sumer, was a major center for commerce and trade. Temples were the chief employer and location for commercial activity.
What if you
needed some important things. How could you get
The system of trade developed from people's need. People in the mountains needed wheat and barley. Mountain people could give timber, limestone, gold, silver, and copper. Flax was grown in the river valley and then woven into cloth. Linen garments were worn by priests and holy men. Wool and wool cloth was also important for trade. Wood was used for ships and furniture.
to take your boat apart after traveling down a river. Read on to find
out why these people had to do this.
The Tigris and Euphrates rivers made transport of goods easy and economical. Riverboats were used to transport goods for trade. Strong currents moved the boats downstream, but because of the current they could travel in one direction only. The boats had to be dismantled after the trip downstream.
Mesopotamians were clever people and used interesting types of
The Mesopotamians used three types of boats: wooden boats with a triangular sail, the turnip or Guffa boat which was shaped like a tub, made of reeds and covered with skin, and the kalakku which was a raft of timbers supported by inflated animal skins. The invention of the wheel by the Sumerians revolutionized the transportation. Wagons could be used to carry heavy loads.
If you lived
back then, you would not need money to get things you
Money wasn't used to trade goods and services. The Mesopotamians used the barter system instead. They developed a writing system to keep track of buying and selling. Scribes kept accurate records of business transactions by writing on clay tablets. Business contracts were sealed with a cylinder wheel.
Back to top
The Beginnings of Writing
to keep records.
The Sumerians were very good farmers. They raised animals such as goats and cows (called livestock). Because they needed to keep records of their livestock, food, and other things, officials began using tokens.
used for trade.
Clay tokens came in different shapes and sizes. These represented different objects. For example, a cone shape could have represented a bag of wheat. These tokens were placed inside clay balls that were sealed. If you were sending five goats to someone, then you would put five tokens in the clay ball. When the goat arrived, the person would open the clay ball and count the tokens to make sure the correct number of goats had arrived.
The number of tokens began to
be pressed on the outside of the clay balls. Many experts believe
that this is how writing on clay tablets began.
A system of writing develops.
The earliest form of writing dates back to 3300 B.C. People back then would draw "word-pictures" on clay tablets using a pointed instrument called a stylus. These "word-pictures" then developed into wedge-shaped signs. This type of script was called cuneiform (from the Latin word cuneus which means wedge).
Not everyone learned to read and write. The ones that were picked by the gods were called scribes. Boys that were chosen to become scribes (professional writers) began to study at the age of 8. They finished when they were 20 years old. The scribes wrote on clay tablets and used a triangular shaped reed called a stylus to make marks in the clay. The marks represented the tens of thousands of words in their language.
Back to top
ACTIVITIES FOR GEOGRAPHY
Back to top
Burrell, Roy. Oxford First Ancient
History. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Chisholm, Jane and Anne Millard. Early Civilization. London: Usborne, 1991.
Landau, Elaine. The Assyrians. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1997.
Landau, Elaine. The Babylonians. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1997.
Landau, Elaine. The Sumerians. Brookfield, CT: The Millbrook Press, 1997.
Martell, Hazel Mary. The Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World: From the Ice Age to the Fall of Rome. New York: Kingfisher, 1995.
Mesopotamia: The Mighty Kings. Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1995.
Millard, Anne. The First Civilisations: From 10,000 B.C. to 1500. London: Usborne, 1990.
Roaf, Michael. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. New York: Facts on File, 1990.
The Visual Dictionary of Ancient Civilizations. New York: Dorling Kindersley, 1994.
Cradles of Civilization, CD-ROM
Society for Visual Education, 1996.
Time Machine Trivia, CD-ROM Instructional Fair, 1997.
Back to top | <urn:uuid:2ee47a73-4a2f-4463-9940-8688680bc46f> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www2.lhric.org/eastchester/schools/ms/teachers/stabile/AncientMesopotamia.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395613.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00093-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975847 | 2,275 | 4.15625 | 4 |
The Human Eye
What is an Eye?
An eye is a round-shaped organ that works with the brain to provide us with vision. The shape of the eye is maintained by the pressure of the aqueous humor. The aqueous humor is the fluid that fills the front chamber of the eye.
Function of the Eye
The main function of the eye is to work with the brain to provide us with vision. The eye and brain translate light waves into a sensation we call vision.
The eye has many parts. Some of the main parts are listed and described below.
An eye doctor is called an opthamologist. Periodic eye examinations by an opthamologist is the best defense against eye disease. You can also receive eye care from an optometrist or optician.
An optometrist is a college graduate who has received 4 years of training and is licensed to diagnose and treat vision problems and prescribe glasses and contact lenses.
An optician is a person trained to prepare and fit glasses after an opthamologist or optometrist has examined your eyes and prescribed vision correction.
Diseases/Conditions of the Eye
Some common conditions that afflict the eye are listed below.
Warning Signs of Eye Problems
RSS| Sitemap| Careers
©2000 - 2013 MamasHealth, Inc.. All rights reserved | <urn:uuid:5fcdd9c5-791e-4d2e-93b9-5567b2f07116> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mamashealth.com/organs/eye.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393533.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00041-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941413 | 281 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Equity and Quality in Education
The highest performing education systems are those that combine quality with equity. Equity in education means that personal or social circumstances such as gender, ethnic origin, or family background are not obstacles to achieving educational potential (the definition of fairness) and that all individuals reach at least a basic minimum level of skills (the definition of inclusion). In these education systems, the vast majority of students have the opportunity to attain high-level skills, regardless of their own personal and socio-economic circumstances. Within the Asia-Pacific region, for example, Korea, Shanghai, and Japan are examples of education systems that have climbed the ladder to the top in both quality and equity indicators. Canada is a good example in North America. The United States is above the OECD mean in reading performance but below the mean with regard to equity.
One of the most efficient educational strategies for governments is to invest early and continue investing all the way through upper secondary. Governments can prevent school failure and reduce dropouts using two parallel approaches: eliminating education policies and practices that hinder equity; and targeting low-performing disadvantaged schools. But education policies need to be aligned with other government policies, such as housing or welfare, to ensure student success.
Eliminate Policies and Practices that Contribute to Failure
The way education systems are designed can exacerbate initial inequities and have a negative impact on student motivation and engagement, eventually leading to dropout. Making education systems more equitable benefits disadvantaged students without hindering other students' progress. Five recommendations can contribute to preventing failure and promoting completion of upper secondary education:
- Eliminate grade repetition.
- Avoid early tracking and defer student selection to upper secondary.
- Manage school choice to avoid segregation and increased inequities.
- Make funding strategies responsive to students' and schools' needs.
- Design equivalent upper secondary education pathways to ensure completion.
Help Disadvantaged Students and Schools Improve
Schools with higher proportions of disadvantaged students are at greater risk of low performance, affecting education systems as a whole. Low-performing disadvantaged schools often lack the internal capacity or support to improve, as school leaders and teachers and the environments of schools, classrooms, and neighborhoods frequently fail to offer a high-quality learning experience for the most disadvantaged. Five policy recommendations have shown to be effective in supporting the improvement of low performing disadvantaged schools:
- Strengthen and support school leadership.
- Stimulate a supportive school climate and environment for learning.
- Attract, support, and retain high-quality teachers.
- Ensure effective classroom learning strategies.
- Prioritize linking schools with parents and communities.
For more, please see the report, Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Students and Schools, from which this piece was excerpted. The report is by the OECD Education Directorate and was written as background for the first Asia Society Global Cities Education Network Symposium, Hong Kong, May 2012. | <urn:uuid:a404725e-d0b9-44ec-a267-33482c9fd42a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/global_learning/2013/03/equity_and_quality_in_education.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404382.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00005-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947388 | 592 | 4.0625 | 4 |
By David O. Tebeest, Plant Pathology Department, University of Arkansas
Photographs and / or images are said to be worth a thousand words. Indeed, from time to time, we all need and use images to help us make a point or explain a detail more clearly. This is especially so in plant pathology where diseases and plants are as diverse as all the world around us is and can be.
The Office of International Programs of the American Phytopathological Society has brought an outstanding resource of diseases and plants related to tropical agriculture by an eminent specialist in the area to our attention.
Dr. H. David Thurston, professor emeritus at Cornell University, has compiled a CD-ROM containing images of plant diseases and pests, tropical agriculture, tropical crops, traditional agriculture and sustainable agricultural development.
The CD is described and previewed at a Cornell University website: www.tropag-fieldtrip.cornell.edu/docthurston/smokinhome.html. The CD is described as an impressive collection of more than 2500 images useful for those who teach or would otherwise need very high quality images in these areas. Images of plants include those of banana, cassava, coffee, corn, flowers, fruits, hibiscus, plantain, potato, sorghum and spices. The CD also contains images of the geography of several countries in South America. The images are indexed and available for educational use at the website.
Views: Watermelon Fruit Blotch.A dark olive green stain or blotch on the upper surface is the characteristic symptom of fruit blotch of watermelon, a bacterial disease. The first symptoms of the disease appear as water-soaked areas on the fruit surface that rapidly expand to cover a larger area of the melon. Click image for an larger view, more information | <urn:uuid:81385368-bef8-4c47-9133-2e360b7a623b> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/K-12/NewsViews/Pages/2001_07.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394987.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00099-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92649 | 374 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Evaluation of live food versus artificial food on the growth of juvenile Pocillopora damicornis cultured from planulae
Last year, I wrote a two-part essay for this magazine (and spoke at several conferences) introducing the idea of growing corals from larvae. At the conclusion of my discussions I identified several experiments that needed to be performed in order to increase the success of culturing corals using this technique. During this past year, I stepped down from my soap box and retreated into my lab in an effort to put my words into action. After many unshaven, pretzels-for-lunch-and-dinner-days, I successfully completed two important experiments; one that will improve the techniques for growing corals from larvae, the other, a technique for increasing the growth rates of two different species cultured together in the same tank. The following is a report on the first experiment where I examined the effects of different foods on the growth of juvenile corals.
Corals in the Order Scleractinia are popular marine ornamental invertebrates within the aquarium trade (Delbeek 2001). In 2006, the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (CITES) reported that over 1 million pieces of live coral were traded globally. Although there are over 100 commercial facilities worldwide that grow and sell coral fragments, 99% of the coral fragments introduced into the aquarium trade still originate directly from tropical reefs (Wabnitz et al. 2003). Currently, all of the corals offered within the aquarium trade originate directly from the harvest of coral fragments from parent colonies on the reef. These fragments are obtained by cutting pieces of coral away from the main colony and attaching them to substrate. This practice may ultimately affect the parent colony as the exposed skeleton may promote the settlement of algae capable of overgrowing and smothering the colony (Nugues and Bak 2006). Further, the reduction in size could reduce the fecundity of the coral (Tanner 1997), and decrease its ability to contend in a highly competitive environment (Connolly and Muko 2003).
To reduce the number of corals harvested from reefs, I have developed techniques for growing corals from larvae. Other marine invertebrates whose populations have been threatened by the harvesting of wild stock, such as Giant clams (Tridacna sp.), have benefited substantially from the research and practice of culturing through sexual reproduction (Ellis 2000). In addition to the potential profits associated with the culture of Tridanca clams, there has been an increase in wild populations that has resulted from the reduction in wild stock harvesting (Minogoa-Lucuanan and Gomez 2002).
One of the challenges involved with the culture of coral larvae into adult colonies is the high rates of mortality during the first month post metamorphosis (Gateno et al. 2000, Szmant & Miller in press, L. Goldman, pers. obs.). Survivorship increases, however, as the age and size of the juvenile increases (Gateno et al. 2000, Raymundo & Maypa 2004). Therefore, to ensure high rates of survival, growth during the first month must be maximized. The addition of food can make significant contributions to the growth of marine invertebrates including corals (Ellis 2000, Borneman 2001, Rhyne & Lin 2004). Different food sources, however, can have varied performances and production costs which may affect colony growth and the overall financial investment. With the increase in demand for corals in the aquarium trade and the continual degradation of natural reefs around the world, new techniques in coral culture must be investigated.
Three treatments, live food (Artemia franciscana, GSL© Premium, 400μm), artificial food (Golden Pearls©, 400 μm), and no food (control) were replicated 3 times for each group of planulae donated from a single colony (Figure 1 and 2). The experiment was repeated 6 times using planulae donated from 6 different individual colonies. This experimental design is known as a ‘clonal design’. Using planulae in all of the treatments donated from a single colony gives me better control over any genetically-based variation that may exist between different genotypes. Ultimately, I can conclude with more accuracy that any differences in growth between colonies may be due to the different treatments (food types). Replication comes from the 6 times I repeat this experiment, using a different parent colony each time.
Each 500ml cup contained one juvenile Pocillopora damicornis colony and was supplied with aeration via an outdoor, 50W air pump. Temperature was maintained by placing the cups in a water bath (25º C) and a 70% shade cloth was used to minimize over exposure to direct sunlight. Nutritional values for A. franciscana and Golden pearls© were reported to be similar (Artemia Int’l 2007). I found that using 0.55 g of GSL© 90% Premium hatch (400 μm) and 0.50 g of 400 μm Golden Pearls© in one liter of water produced equal amounts of food. Each night, I used a 5 ml pipette to extract 3.5 ml of enriched seawater which was distributed into each treatment cup. Food remained in the cups overnight. The following morning 100% of the water was changed and no additional food was added. Data was analyzed using a two-factor ANOVA (factors: treatments and clones). Count data was square-root transformed prior to analysis.
After one month, juvenile P. damicornis who were fed live food showed a significant increase in the number of polyps (Figure 3, ANOVA; df = 2, F = 67.83, p = 0.008, Tukey-Kramer test, p = 0.05) and colony size (Figure 4, ANOVA; df = 2, F = 145.34, p = 0.0002; Tukey-Kramer test, p = 0.05) compared to juveniles who were fed artificial food or who did not receive either food item. Corals fed live food had an overall higher survival rate compared to corals fed artificial food and corals with no food (Figure 5). There was no significant difference among the responses between clones (ANOVA: number of polyps: df = 5, F = 0.66, p = 0.6647; ANOVA: diameter; df = 5, F = 0.55, p = 0.7236).
Although A. franciscana and Golden Pearls© have similar nutritional values, colonies fed live food showed a significantly higher growth rate. Because corals are sessile, the exposure to food is dependant upon water flow (Sebens et al. 1998) or the locomotion of the prey, as in the case of Artemia spp. Corals consume a variety of reef organisms (Goreau et al. 1971) and will continue to consume prey as long as it is available, never becoming satiated (Ferrier-Pages et al. 2004). Observations on the availability of each of the food item revealed that Golden Pearls© remained buoyant for only one hour after being distributed into the treatment cup compared to A. franciscana which remained continuously active in the water column. Therefore, because the artificial food did not circulate and sank to the bottom, it is probable that corals in the artificial food treatment were not exposed to as much of the Golden Pearls© as corals who were fed A. franciscana. This conclusion may seem fairly obvious and pretty straight forward. The manufacturers of Golden Pearls© promote their product as being ‘neutrally buoyant’; however, this was not the case (at least for an extended period of time). In their defense, they developed the food as a replacement for Artemia spp. used to feed young shrimp; highly mobile creatures that have no qualms about seeking out their food. Most corals do not have that ability and, thus, any type of food that cannot consistently remain in the water column may not be the best choice for corals. Although I believe this to be the major (and obvious) factor that produced these results, there may have been other factors at work here.
An equally important observation was how water quality and the colonies were affected by the different food items. Most aquarists who care for a variety of corals understand that food additions can be a necessary evil. One the one hand, feeding corals promotes their health and growth; on the other, food contributes substantially to the quality of water in which the corals live. Nutrients associated with food are usually released into the water and may negatively affect water quality. Since many corals are vulnerable to even minor changes in water quality, the quality of food must be considered. In this experiment, I did not test water quality. The growth responses that I observed in each treatment and previous studies on the results of elevated nutrients on corals and seawater systems, however, permitted me to speculate on how the food item affected water quality.
In 1991, Stambler et al. performed a nutrient enrichment experiment on Pocillopora damicornis. Motivation for this experiment came from the need to understand what kind of effects elevated nutrients have on coral reefs. In the experiment, they examined two the effects of dissolved inorganic nitrogen and phosphorous on the growth of P. damicornis. They found that the addition of ammonium (nitrogen) did not lead to an increase in growth of the coral; rather, it led to an increase in algal growth. In this case, the algae were symbiotic zooxanthellae contained within the polyps of the coral. Phosphorous, in combination with nitrogen produced similar results, but phosphorous alone did not result in any changes to either the algae or coral. Stambler and his colleagues suggested that the lack of growth observed in the coral may be due to the higher energy demands from the increasing algal populations, thus no carbon was translocated to the coral from the algae. Their findings (and discussions) were consistent with previous work by Muscatine et al. (1989) who used Stylophora pistillata as their test subject.
In my experiment, I observed similar results. I did not count the number of zooxanthellae inhabiting each colony so I cannot say definitively whether one colony had more zooxanthellae than another, however, descriptively three things were apparent. First, colonies in the artificial food treatment did not grow significantly more than colonies that were not fed any food. Second, substrate tiles in the artificial food treatment had more algae growth than the other treatments. Dozens of studies have shown that the availability of nutrients affects the growth of algae (Larned 1998; Schaffelke and Klumpp 1998). Third, colonies in the artificial food treatment were much darker than either of the colonies in the other treatments. Lisa Chou, a graduate student who studies zooxanthellae at the University of Guam Marine Lab, suggested, rather cautiously as any good scientist would, that the darkening of the zooxanthellae may be due to an increase in the density of zooxanthellae. These observations indicate that there may have been higher amounts of nutrients in the artificial food treatment. Analyzed as such, the picture may be more complete: since the artificial food remained un-consumed on the bottom of the cup, it decayed and released these nutrients into the water. Therefore, in conjunction with the lack of available food, there was an increase in nutrients both of which may have contributed to the lack of significant growth observed for colonies in the artificial food treatment. Colonies in the control were not fed, and showed similar a similar lack of significant growth response. However, their water quality was not affected by the presence of supplemented nutrients, and thus algal growth was limited. Complete as this picture now seems, it will take further experiments to confirm these discussion points.
Live food may incur higher production costs in the form of labor and equipment than artificial food; however, this study showed that the increase in colony growth and survival may be an acceptable trade-off. Although no conclusions can be made about the artificial food and its effects on coral health and water quality, it is apparent that artificial food did not promote coral growth, rather only algal growth. In my experience, substantial algal growth may be detrimental to the health and survival of juvenile corals. My observations are consistent with other studies on the growth and survivorship of juveniles on the reef (Sato 1984; Babcock and Mundy 1996).
This work, in combination with previous studies, has made substantial contributions to the refinement of this method and, although this experiment focused on coral recruits, the results can be applied to current techniques used for maintaining adult colonies as well. Future studies will investigate other live foods such as rotifers and algae and investigate other artificial foods and their effects on water quality. By growing corals from sexually produced larvae, farms can supply the aquarium trade demand as well as provide corals for conservation programs without having to harvest or sacrifice coral colonies from existing reefs.
Lee Goldman earned his Masters degree in Marine Biology at the University of Guam, where he also works as a research associate at the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, Guam Aquaculture and Development Training Facility.
- Artemia international. 2007. http://www.artemia-international.com/default.asp?contentID=582#gp
- Babcock, R and Mundy, C. 1996. Coral recruitment: Consequences of settlement choice for early growth and survivorship in two scleractinians. Jour. Exp. Mar. Biol. Ecol. 206, 179 – 201
- Borneman, E. 2001. Aquarium corals: Selection, husbandry, and natural history. T.F.C. Publications. NJ, USA. 464 pp.
- Connolly, S.R. and Muko, S., 2003. Space pre-emption, size-dependent competition, and the coexistence of clonal growth forms. Ecology 84, in press.
- Delbeek, J.C., 2001. Coral farming: Past, present and future trends. Aquarium Sciences and Conservation 3, 171-181
- Ellis, S. 2000. Nursery and grow-out techniques for Giant Clam (Bivalvia: Tridacnidae). Center for Tropical and Subtropical Aquaculture. Publ. 143. 103 pp
- Ferrier-Pagès, C., Witting, J., Tambutté, E.,Sebens, K.P.2003. Effect of natural zooplankton feeding on the tissue and skeletal growth of the scleractinian coral Stylophora pistillata. Coral Reefs 22, 229 - 240
- Gateno, D., Barki, Y., Rinkevich, B. 2000. Aquarium maintenance of reef octocorals raised from field collected larvae. Aquarium Sciences and Conservation 2, 227-236
- Goreau, T.F., Goreau, N.I., Yonge, C. M., 1971. Reef corals: Autotrophs or heterotrophs. Biol. Bull.141, 247-260
- Larned, S.T. 1998. Nitrogen-versus phosphorous-limited growth and sources of nutrients for coral reef macroalgae. Marine Biology 132, 409 - 421
- Mingoa-Lucuanan, S.S. and E.D. Gomez. 2002. Giant clam conservation in Southeast Asia. Tropical Coasts. 24-31
- Muscatine, L., Falkowski, P.G., Dubinsky, Z., Cook, P.A., McCloskey, L. 1989. The effect of external nutrient resources on the population dynamics of zooxanthellae in a reef coral. Proc. R. Soc. London Ser. B. 236, 311 - 324
- Nugues, N.M. and R.P.M. Bak. 2006. Differential competitive abilities between Caribbean coral species and a brown alga: A year of experiments and a long-term perspective. Mar. Ecol. Prog. Ser. 315: 75-86
- Raymundo, L.J., Maypa, A.P. 2004. Getting bigger faster: Mediation of size-specific mortality via fusion in juvenile coral transplants. Ecological Applications 14, 281-295
- Rhyne, A.L. and Lin, J. 2004. Effects of different diets on larval development in a peppermint shrimp (Lysmata sp. (Risso)). Aquaculture Research 35, 1179—1185
- Sato, M. 1985. Mortality and growth of juvenile coral Pocillopora damicornis. Coral Reefs 4, 27-33
- Schaffelke, B. and Klumpp, D.W. 1998. Short-term nutrient pulses enhance growth and photosynthesis of the coral reef macroalgae Sargassum baccularia. Mar. Ecol. Progr. Ser. 170, 95 - 105.
- Sebens, K.P, Grace, S.P., Helmuth, B., Maney Jr., E.J., Miles, J.S. 1998. Water flow rates and prey capture by three scleractinian corals, Madracis mirabilis, Montastrea cavernosa and Porites porites, in a field enclosure. Mar. Bio. 131, 347 - 360
- Stambler, N., Popper, N., Dubinsky, Z., Stimosn, J. 1991. Effects of nutrient enrichment and water motion on the coral Pocillopora damicornis. Pacific Science 45, 299 - 307
- Szmant, A.M. and Miller, M.W. Settlement preferences and post-settlement mortality of laboratory cultured and settled larvae of the Caribbean hermatypic corals Montastrea faveolata and Acropora palmata in the Florida Keys. In press
- Tanner, J.E. 1997. Interspecific competition reduces fitness in scleractinian corals. J. Exp. Mar. Bio. Ecol. 214: 19-34
- Wabnitz, C., Taylor, M., Green, E., Razak, T., 2003. From ocean to aquarium. The global trade in marine ornamental species. Bio series No 17. UNEP – WCMC. Cambridge, UK. | <urn:uuid:cdb71ee5-2890-4389-83ca-604b640b2240> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2007/6/aafeature1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783399428.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154959-00004-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928228 | 3,842 | 3.1875 | 3 |
Keynesian economics - Investment & Finance Definition
An economic theory, created by John Maynard Keynes, that advocates governments becoming involved in the markets and economy in order to produce price stability and economic growth. Keynes said that insufficient demand results in unemployment, and too much demand results in inflation. To influence demand levels, the government should adjust its spending and taxation policies. He outlined his theory in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, which was published in 1935. His ideas clash with those of classical economists, such as Adam Smith, who believe the government should not get involved in the markets or econ-omy. The severe level of unemployment in the U.S. and Europe following the Great Depression of 1929 gave Keynesian economists more prominence. | <urn:uuid:1e5d0135-226e-41ac-be72-839af1fd6ed9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://invest.yourdictionary.com/keynesian-economics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00193-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960927 | 152 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Study suggests heart risk from calcium supplements
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Older women who take calcium supplements to maintain bone strength may have an increased risk of heart attack, researchers in New Zealand said on Tuesday.
The researchers cautioned that they do not consider their findings the definitive word on the subject, but said the higher heart attack risk they saw merits further study.
"This effect could outweigh any benefits on bone from calcium supplements," researchers led by Ian Reid of the University of Auckland wrote in the British Medical Journal.
Many women take calcium supplements to try to prevent osteoporosis, a condition in which bones become weak and brittle, leading to fractures.
The study involved 1,471 healthy post-menopausal women, average age 74, who already had participated in a study on the effects of calcium on bone density and fracture rates. Of them, 732 were given a daily calcium supplement and 739 were given a placebo. They were followed for five years.
Heart attacks were more common in the women taking the calcium supplements, with 31 women who took supplements experiencing a heart attack compared to 21 women who got a placebo, the researchers said.
The researchers noted that previous research had suggested that taking calcium supplements might protect against vascular disease by lowering levels of bad cholesterol in the blood.
They said that because calcium supplements raise blood calcium levels, this possibly accelerates the formation of deposits in the arteries that could lead to heart attack.
The new results "are not conclusive but suggest that high calcium intakes might have an adverse effect on vascular health," the researchers wrote.
"In the meantime this potentially detrimental effect should be balanced against the likely benefits of calcium on bone, particularly in elderly women," they wrote.
(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman) | <urn:uuid:f303408c-b611-41a3-9824-f3e9a44c9d03> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enn.com/top_stories/article/29371/print | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783392527.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154952-00190-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966849 | 362 | 2.53125 | 3 |
SYDNEY--Australia's wine and grain production, two of its most important farm industries, will be hit hardest by extreme weather and rising temperatures caused by climate change, the head of the government's forecasting agency said Monday.
Farmers could be displaced from traditional lands by droughts, or be forced to plant crops that are more resistant to heat and periods without rainfall in order to remain, according to Paul Morris, executive director of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics and Sciences, or Abares.
Australia exports about 70% of its farm production each year, making it one of the world's largest suppliers of wheat, beef and sugar. With its vast landmass, diverse climate and proximity to Asia, many forecasters are expecting it to become the breadbasket of the region's rapidly growing middle class.
But it is also the world's driest inhabited continent with a highly variable climate that many scientists argue is already becoming more extreme.
Mr. Morris's comments come around a fortnight after Australia's Climate Commission predicted rising world temperatures will cause a "significant increase" in droughts and fires across southern Australia in coming decades, hurting the country's most productive farm regions at a time when Asia's demand is booming.
The south of Western Australia, the country's main grain-producing state and home of famous wine regions such as Margaret River, is expected to be particularly badly affected. The Climate Commission predicts rainfall may fall 10% by 2030, while droughts of a month or more could rise by 80% in the next 60 years.
"If we're getting even less rainfall in some key agriculture areas it will have a significant impact," Mr. Morris told The Wall Street Journal. "Farmers are going to have to look at producing varieties of crops that are more resistant to lower rain conditions or shifting production to areas where there will be more rainfall available."
Luke Matthews, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, estimates Australia has already lost 13% of its agricultural land--an area the size of Germany and the U.K. combined--over the past two decades as cities have expanded, water supplies have become more constrained and land has become less productive.
Meanwhile up to 73% of the nation's potential vineyard country will be lost by 2050 as the climate changes, according to a study published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
Mr. Morris said Australia needs to invest more in developing drought-resistant varieties of crops and more effective irrigation techniques to safeguard its farm sector from climate change. Much of that will come from major international companies, such as German chemical company BASF SE (BAS.XE) U.S.-based Monsanto Co. MON, +1.53% and China's Sinochem, which have been vying for a for a greater share of Australia's farm sector, he added.
"If there is going to be less rainfall in some parts, we have to find ways to use what we have better," he said.
Write to Caroline Henshaw at firstname.lastname@example.org
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires | <urn:uuid:19a96644-31ef-43b4-b3fa-ecefd56db477> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australia-wheat-wine-vulnerable-to-climate-change-2013-04-15 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396887.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00052-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950757 | 652 | 3.03125 | 3 |
How to Calculate Return on Your Investments
When you make investments, you have the potential to make money (called a return). Money in a bank account pays interest, which is your return. You earn that small amount of interest for allowing the bank to keep your money. The bank then turns around and lends your money to some other person or organization at a much higher rate of interest.
The rate of interest on an investment is also known as the yield. So if a bank tells you that its savings account pays 2 percent interest, the bank may also say that it is yielding 2 percent. Banks usually quote interest rates or yields on an annual basis.
If a bank pays monthly interest, for example, the bank also likely quotes a compounded effective annual yield. After the first month's interest is credited to your account, that interest starts earning interest as well. So the bank may say that the account pays 2 percent, which compounds to an effective annual yield of 2.04 percent.
When you lend your money directly to a company — which is what you do when you invest in a bond that a corporation issues — you also receive interest. Bonds, as well as stocks (which are shares of ownership in a company), fluctuate in value after they are issued.
When you invest in a company's stock, you hope that the stock increases (appreciates) in value. Of course, a stock can also decline, or depreciate, in value. This change in market value is part of your return from a stock or bond investment:
For example, if one year ago you invested $10,000 in a stock (you bought 1,000 shares at $10 per share) and the investment is now worth $11,000 (each share is worth $11), your investment's appreciation is
But stocks can also pay dividends, which are a bit like the interest you earn from a bank account. Dividends are the company's way sharing of some of its profits with you as a stockholder. Some companies, particularly those that are small or growing rapidly, choose to reinvest all their profits back into the company. (Of course, some companies don't turn a profit, so there's not much to pay out!) You need to factor these dividends into your return as well.
Suppose that in the previous example, in addition to your stock appreciating $1,000 to $11,000, it also paid you a dividend of $100 ($1 per share). Here's how you calculate your total return:
Or, to apply it to the example
Factoring in appreciation, dividends, interest, and so on helps you calculate what your total return is. The total return figure tells you the grand total of what you made (or lost) on your investment.
Unless you held your investment in a tax-sheltered retirement account, you owe taxes on your return. Specifically, the dividends and investment appreciation that you realize upon selling are taxed.
If you're in a moderate tax bracket, taxes on your investment probably run in the neighborhood of 30 percent (federal and state). So if your investment returned 7 percent before taxes, you're left with a return of 4.9 percent after taxes.
Often, people make investing decisions without considering the tax consequences of their moves. What good is making money if the federal and state government take a substantial portion of it away? | <urn:uuid:2dc5e626-1224-4bf4-89c9-a61efd7ce900> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-calculate-return-on-your-investments.navId-323656.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396106.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00125-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964104 | 692 | 3.25 | 3 |
"I'm scared to death of teaching high-school math." "I just don't feel ready to teach algebra." "I wasn't any good at math in school myself, so how can I teach it to my kids?"
In this article and those that will follow, I hope to ease your anxiety and increase your confidence. Like thousands of math-phobic homeschool moms and dads before you, you will be able to do a much better job than you think.
What Makes You Think Math Teachers Know Anything You Don't Know?
If you knew the pitiful qualifications of many high-school math teachers, you'd be less intimidated. Depending on where you live, between 10 and 80 percent of these folks can't even pass the equivalent of an eighth-grade-level math test. For example, in 2004 two-thirds of Philadelphia middle-school teachers failed a math content test, according to a September 17 article in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
School teachers get lots of courses in how to teach math in college, but not necessarily much in the way of actual math courses. There's a big difference between studying theories of how kids learn math and actually knowing algebra, geometry, trig, and calculus. As Richard Ingersoll pointed out in his ground-breaking 1998 article, "The Problem of Out-of-Field Teaching,"
Almost one-third of all high school math teachers have neither a major nor a minor in math or in related disciplines such as physics, engineering, or math education. Similarly, the same proportion of math teachers do not have a teaching certificate or license in math.
Since then the problem has worsened. In January 2003, the Committee for Economic Development reported the alarming fact that 93 percent of science students and 70 percent of math students were taught by "out of field" teachers (who neither majored or minored in the subject they teach, and may not even possess a teaching credential for that subject). In California, for example, "950 middle school teachers, or about 40 percent of the workforce assigned to teach Algebra I in middle school, do not have a subject matter credential in mathematics and may lack the background and preparation necessary to effectively teach the subject," according to an April, 2005, Center View article. And even qualified teachers have their efforts diluted when they have to handle 15-30 bored, restless kids, some of whom may be on drugs or in gangs.
So if you're expecting Euclid or Albert Einstein to be holding court in your local high school math classroom, think again. High-school math at home can be as successful as you want it to be; who you get to teach your kids math at school is a crapshoot.
One other thought: Being good at math in an American public school doesn't exactly make you popular. Scrawny kids who are good at math are at extreme risk of getting bullied, either physically or verbally. This problem you won't have at home.
Get Your Student Ready For High-School Math
OK. Time to dig in. You're willing to believe there's a chance you can do this.
Here's how to start.
First, make sure your student knows all his arithmetic facts cold. Learning high school math is no joke and while you are trying to learn how to solve equations, you can't be struggling with arithmetic. On standardized tests and college exams, you have to be able to do the arithmetic part of problems quickly and without hesitation.
Homeschool students sometimes don't get the practice they need in doing math under a deadline and as a result their math fluency could be improved.
As our fluency expert Michael Maloney pointed out in PHS #59, "Children who are fluent at using arithmetic operations can add, subtract, multiply, or divide simple math facts at 60-80 facts per minute with no more than two errors." If your child falls short of these goals, fill in the gaps with Barnum Software's Quarter Mile Math, Providence Project's Calculadder, or another drill product of your choice.
If your kids need help with arithmetic "how tos" and not just with speed, consider the Bonnie Terry Reference Pack, Math Essentials, or Developmental Math. All three are handy for quickly plugging in any math "holes."
Math facts are not the only area you need to check. If you discover your children are weak in the areas of fractions and decimals, don't move on to algebra until this problem is fixed. If you're looking for help, the "Key to" series from Key Curriculum Press is an outstanding worksheet approach, and the Math-U-See manipulatives-based program is great for hands-on learners.
Note: While being able to answer questions verbally is great, for arithmetic fluency in real-world environments, your children need to be able to legibly write that many answers in that time. If they can't do that, it is time for some handwriting practice, as Michael points out in his article in this issue.
Learning the Lingo
One thing that makes a big difference when making the transition from arithmetic to algebra is learning and becoming comfortable with the terminology and conventions of algebra.
By "terminology" I refer to the names for things. For example, algebraic operators are +, -, x (sometimes written as *) and ÷. A "convention" is the usual way something is written out. For example, in algebra, variables (unknown quantities) are usually labeled with letters near the end of the alphabet, such as x, y, and (when graphing in three dimensions) z, while constants (unchanging quantities)are commonly named with letters near the beginning of the alphabet - a, b, c, and so on.
It might be a good idea to go through the book's glossary before starting, to see how many words your student can actually define. Another option is to use a review tool, such as the QuickStudy Guide for the course you plan to teach. Each QuickStudy subject guide covers all the typical terminology, facts, and conventions your student needs to know for that course. Reading through the material ahead of time will make it seem familiar when your student covers it later on.
Your Many Curriculum Options
As is usual for every homeschooling subject these days there is no lack of materials or methods for teaching mathematics. You can:
- Buy a textbook or workbook curriculum and use the answer key and/or solutions manual. With this method, you or one of your older children grades the problems, and the solutions manual helps your student figure out where he or she went wrong if a mistake was made. With this option, it's important that the person correcting the work be able to recognize equivalents answers - answers that are algebraically the same, but written differently. For example, 1/4 is the same as 2/8 or .25 or .250, and x2-x is the same as x(x-1).
- Sign your student up for an online course. The online tutor and/or interactive software grades the work.
- Use interactive educational software courses. Again, the program grades the exercises and provides some level of feedback, ranging from whether the answer was right or wrong to detailed solutions.
- Use a video/DVD course, such as Math-U-See, Videotext, Chalk Dust, or D.I.V.E. Into Math. The advantage is that your student receives high-quality lectures - probably better than if he or she was sitting in an actual classroom. These courses all have accompanying workbooks or worksheets (D.I.V.E. uses Saxon math books), and some offer free online tutor-on-call or tutoring options.
- Don't forget math contests! Though not instructional in themselves, math contests can be highly motivating for kids who otherwise would waste their competitive impulses on video games.
With all these resources at your disposal, how can you fail? You're ready to take on the first challenge - teaching algebra - and we'll tell you how next issue.
Was this article helpful to you?
Subscribe to Practical Homeschooling today, and you'll get this quality of information and encouragement five times per year, delivered to your door. To start, click on the link below that describes you:
USA Librarian (purchasing for a library)
Outside USA Individual
Outside USA Library | <urn:uuid:0e58693b-1c63-4706-88b1-54c6d74782f4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.home-school.com/Articles/getting-ready-for-gasp-algebra-beyond.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00111-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955099 | 1,734 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Courtesy of EarthSky
A Clear Voice for Science
Cepheus resembles the stick house we all drew as children – and that children today still draw – with a square for the base and a triangle for the roof. In the case of Cepheus, the tip of the roof (a star known as Gamma Cephei, or Er Rai) points generally northward.
In the sky, “northward” always means “toward the sky’s north pole,” or toward Polaris. Thus, the roof of the house in Cepheus is pointing mostly north, even though – in tonight’s sky – that means it’s pointing sideways and downward.
In Greek mythology, Cepheus represents a King of Ethiopia. To find Cepheus, you might want to locate a more prominent constellation, Cassiopeia the Queen. For more about Cassiopeia, see our chart for August 4, 2010.
Written by Deborah ByrdPrint This Post | <urn:uuid:01411cec-022a-4f23-b5eb-bca603bb7bb8> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/earthsky-tonight%E2%80%94august-5-constellation-cepheus-looks-like-a-house/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00199-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897948 | 211 | 3.84375 | 4 |
Sugar-water hemolysis testSucrose hemolysis test
The sugar-water hemolysis test is a blood test to detect fragile red blood cells by testing their ability to withstand swelling in a low-salt solution.
How the Test is Performed
A blood sample is needed.
How to Prepare for the Test
There is no special preparation needed for this test.
How the Test will Feel
When the needle is inserted to draw blood, some people feel moderate pain. Others feel only a prick or stinging. Afterward, there may be some throbbing or a slight bruise. This soon goes away.
Why the Test is Performed
Your doctor may order this test if you have signs or symptoms of paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH) or hemolytic anemia of unknown cause. PNH red blood cells are very likely to be harmed by the body's complement system. The complement system is a group of proteins that move freely through the bloodstream. The proteins work with the immune system.
- Negative: less than 5% red blood cell breakdown (hemolysis)
- Positive: more than 10% hemolysis
A negative test does not rule out PNH. False-negative results may occur if the fluid part of blood (serum) lacks complement.
Normal value ranges may vary slightly among different laboratories. Some labs use different measurements or test different samples. Talk to your doctor about the meaning of your specific test results.
What Abnormal Results Mean
- Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (PNH)
- Autoimmune hemolytic anemias and leukemia may give false positive result
There is very little risk involved with having your blood taken. Veins and arteries vary in size from one patient to another and from one side of the body to the other. Taking blood from some people may be more difficult than from others.
Other risks associated with having blood drawn are slight, but may include:
- Excessive bleeding
- Fainting or feeling light-headed
- Hematoma (blood accumulating under the skin)
- Infection (a slight risk any time the skin is broken)
Brodsky RA. Paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria. In: Hoffman R, Benz EJ Jr, Silberstein LE, et al., eds. Hematology: Basic Principles and Practice. 6th ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2012:chap 29.
Elghetany M, Banki K. Erythrocytic disorders. In: McPherson RA, Pincus MR, eds. Henry's Clinical Diagnosis and Management by Laboratory Methods. 22nd ed. Philadelphia, Pa: Elsevier Saunders; 2011:chap 32.
Review Date: 2/24/2014
Reviewed By: Todd Gersten, MD, Hematology/Oncology, Florida Cancer Specialists & Research Institute, Wellington, FL. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network. Also reviewed by David Zieve, MD, MHA, Isla Ogilvie, PhD, and the A.D.A.M. Editorial team. | <urn:uuid:aa2ee1e6-4541-4a2c-b131-881401179aa4> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.leememorial.org/HealthInformation/HIE%20Multimedia/1/003673.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395039.24/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00091-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.839054 | 665 | 3.046875 | 3 |
NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Sunday, June 26, 2016
Dental and Oral Health Center
A milky white substance forms on the left and right edges of my tongue. It can easily be scraped away. If left, it will increase and start to hang from the tongue edge.
I am 54 years old and have lived with this for 5 years. It is more pronounced on the right hand side. There is no discomfort whatsoever.
What you describe sounds like the tongue may be producing extra, callus-like material. In the areas you describe, this is usually associated with irritation from the teeth and in some patients, there is a recognized habit of tongue chewing or nibbling.
In addition, patients who are sensitive to cinnamon flavoring can have features similar to those you describe. Cinnamon contact is easily recognized in the form of chewing gum or mints, and in this case is often more prominent on one side of the tongue. But many patients and dentists are not aware that toothpastes and mouthwash solutions often contain high levels of cinnamon. Complete, total, or multiple-care gel forms of the toothpaste are the most suspect in this regard. Switching to a simple paste or baking soda only may help identify this complicating factor.
John R Kalmar, DMD, PhD
Clinical Professor of Pathology
College of Dentistry
The Ohio State University | <urn:uuid:8b4d1dc7-8252-4b49-8fb8-63c0d5b890fe> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.netwellness.org/question.cfm/50793.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395546.12/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00135-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932427 | 312 | 2.609375 | 3 |
The United States may be finished dropping bombs on Iraq, but Iraqi bodies will be dealing with the consequences for generations to come in the form of birth defects, mysterious illnesses and skyrocketing cancer rates.
Al Jazeera’s Dahr Jamail reports that contamination from U.S. weapons, particularly Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions, has led to an Iraqi health crisis of epic proportions. “[C]hildren being born with two heads, children born with only one eye, multiple tumours, disfiguring facial and body deformities, and complex nervous system problems,” are just some of the congenital birth defects being linked to military-related pollution.
In certain Iraqi cities, the health consequences are significantly worse than those seen in the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Japan at the end of WWII.
The highest rates are in the city of Fallujah, which underwent two massive US bombing campaigns in 2004. Though the U.S. initially denied it, officials later admitted using white phosphorous. In addition, U.S. and British forces unleashed an estimated 2,000 tons of depleted uranium ammunitions in populated Iraqi cities in 2003.
DU, a chemically toxic heavy metal produced in nuclear waste, is used in weapons due to its ability to pierce through armor. That’s why the US and UK were among a handful of nations (France and Israel) who in December refused to sign an international agreement to limit its use, insisting DU is not harmful, science be damned. Meanwhile, the Pentagon’s refusal to release details about where DU munitions were fired has made it difficult to clean up.
Today, 14.7 percent of Fallujah’s babies are born with a birth defect, 14 times the documented rate in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Fallujah’s babies have also experienced heart defects 13 times the European rate and nervous system defects 33 times that of Europe. That comes on top of a 12-fold rise in childhood cancer rates since 2004. Furthermore, the male-to-female birth ratio is now 86 boys for every 100 girls, indicating genetic damage that affects males more than females.
(On a side note, these pictures are rather sanitized compared to other even more difficult to look at images. See here if you can bear it.)
If Fallujah is the Iraqi Hiroshima, then Basra is its Nagasaki.
According to a study published in the Bulletin of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology, a professional journal based in the southwestern German city of Heidelberg, there was a sevenfold increase in the number of birth defects in Basra between 1994 and 2003.
According to the Heidelberg study, the concentration of lead in the milk teeth of sick children from Basra was almost three times as high as comparable values in areas where there was no fighting.
In addition, never before has such a high rate of neural tube defects (“open back”) been recorded in babies as in Basra, and the rate continues to rise. According to the study, the number of hydrocephalus (“water on the brain”) cases among new-borns is six times as high in Basra as it is in the United States.
This isn’t isolated to Fallujah and Basra. The overall Iraqi cancer rate has also skyrocketed:
Official Iraqi government statistics show that, prior to the outbreak of the First Gulf War in 1991, the rate of cancer cases in Iraq was 40 out of 100,000 people. By 1995, it had increased to 800 out of 100,000 people, and, by 2005, it had doubled to at least 1,600 out of 100,000 people. Current estimates show the increasing trend continuing.
Dr. Mozghan Savabieasfahani, an environmental toxicologist based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, told Jamail that “These observations collectively suggest an extraordinary public health emergency in Iraq. Such a crisis requires urgent multifaceted international action to prevent further damage to public health.”
Instead, the international community, including the nation most responsible for the health crisis (hint: it starts with a “U” and ends with an “S”), is mostly ignoring the problem. | <urn:uuid:a6d6c256-e2c6-4f54-91da-1322a157878d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://refreshingnews99.blogspot.in/2013/04/iraqi-birth-defects-worse-than-hiroshima.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00075-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962199 | 875 | 3.140625 | 3 |
The vibrant colors and endless diversity of aquatic life provide one of the richest photography experiences imaginable. The technology in Olympus Digital Underwater Housings allows divers, from beginner to divemaster, capture worry-free images of unique underwater scenes. Each Olympus housing features a large, responsive shutter button, precision zoom lever, and a tight O-ring main seal with a safety lock. Find the housing that fits your camera, and dive in!
Lesson 2: How to stabilize the camera and use autofocus
Get the underwater shots you want
To take crisp, clear underwater photos, you have to learn these two tricks: pressing the shutter button halfway to lock the focus and holding the camera properly. If you don't master these tricks, your images might turn out blurry, or you'll miss shots because you or your camera won't be ready.
The Olympus protector is equipped with a large lever type shutter and zoom lever so that the photographer can shoot underwater just by touching them lightly.
Why press the shutter button halfway?
When using an auto focus camera, you need to operate the shutter button in two steps. The first move is to depress the shutter button halfway to allow the camera to detect and fix the focal point and make other automatic adjustments. When those functions are complete a green light appears. When the green light is blinking, it means the camera is not properly focused. When shooting, compose your scene and press your housing's shutter lever halfway to focus on your subject. When you're ready, press the shutter lever all the way to take the shot.
Out of focus
Wrong way to hold camera: Holding the camera in our right hand and holding on to a rock with your left hand.
Don't shoot with one hand
It's hard to take a steady underwater picture when holding the camera with only one hand. When shooting with one hand you'll probably need to grip the camera very tightly in order not to drop it. When gripping the camera like this, it is very difficult to depress the shutter button in a smooth, relaxed manner to get the best shot possible. Single hand shooting does not provide a stable base and could cause unintentional camera shake - which will often result in blurry images.
The correct way.
Hold the camera firmly with both hands.
Try to stay at the bottom of the seabed and keep upper arms close to the body.
The correct way to hold your camera
Place the camera in the palm of your left hand. Stabilize the camera with your right hand. Keep your upper arms close to your body - imagine your left hand as a tripod. Use your right hand to carefully operate the shutter lever. When you shoot, try to exhale. If you breathe in while shooting, you might disrupt your neutral buoyancy and float up slightly. This upward motion could disturb the focus and lead to a blurry shot.
To use the product safely and correctly, please read the manual before using.
Enhance your underwater photography experience with these helpful tutorials. Learn proper technique for caring for your housing, explore macrophotography tips, and more. | <urn:uuid:a80dd711-e5ec-4e51-aab9-0847e9ff740d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/oima_underwaterTips.asp?lesson=2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00060-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91477 | 629 | 2.59375 | 3 |
What is in this article?:
- On Aug. 23-25, 2010, clusters were damaged by weather conditions that at first seemed to be a typical summer heat spike, but turned out to be quite different.
- High temperatures coupled with low relative humidity provided conditions that caused more fruit damage then in “normal” heat spikes. Not every vineyard had heat damaged fruit, and in those vineyards that did, sunburn and/or desiccation varied considerably.
- There was usually – but not consistently – a clear association of cluster exposure with severity of damage.
Vapor pressure deficit
High temperature was not the only issue in August; the vapor pressure deficit reached abnormally high values on one or more dates in August. Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is defined as the difference between how much water vapor is in the air and the amount of water vapor the air can hold at saturation at a given temperature. VPD is a function of relative humidity and temperature and is measured in kilopascals (kPa). A high VPD occurs when high temperature and low relative humidity occur at the same time. Figures 1-6 show hourly temperature and relative humidity data recorded at two WWG stations and VPD calculated from those data.
Daily maximum VPD values calculated from the most recent 20 years of data recorded by the CIMIS weather station in Windsor indicate a VPD greater than 6 kPa occurred on just 16 dates. That calculation assumed the maximum temperature occurred at the same time as the lowest relative humidity on each date. Since that was not likely to occur on all 16 dates, it is safe to say that a VPD over 6 kPa is very rare in Windsor. In the Central San Joaquin Valley, daily maximum VPD values can reach 7 kPa but that is also rare.
Weekly VPD measurements we took in 2009 between 1 and 3 pm from late July through October in an Alexander Valley vineyard ranged from 1.94 to 4.36 kPa. We didn’t make those measurements in 2010; however, the new WWG station in Alexander Valley, just a few miles from our 2009 vineyard site, records data every 15 minutes and calculates hourly VPD. VPD on the same dates and hours in 2010 as we measured the previous year ranged from 0.92 and 6.47 kPa. On August 24, 2010, the maximum VPD soared to 7.69 kPa (Figure 2). That day in Graton, maximum VPD was 6.34 kPa (Figure 5). As a point of reference, that day in Parlier (about 20 miles SE of Fresno) maximum VPD was 6.59 kPa (calculated from CIMIS weather station data in the manner previously described). | <urn:uuid:5bde8f1c-7c71-40f1-be86-0c534b49e9e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://westernfarmpress.com/grapes/beyond-sunburn-high-heat-damage-vineyards?page=3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396949.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00062-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952159 | 563 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Lung cancer death rates in women have fallen for the first time in four decades, according to an annual report on the status of cancer published online March 31 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. The drop comes about 10 years after lung cancer deaths in men began to fall, a delay that reflects the later uptake of smoking by women in the middle of the last century.
Overall, the cancer death rate has continued a decline that began in the early 1990s according to the report, which is published each year by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries (NAACCR), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the American Cancer Society.
Lead author Betsy A. Kohler of NAACCR and colleagues collected information on cancer incidence (new cases) from the NCI, CDC, and NAACCR and on cancer deaths from the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics.
Incidence rates (new cases) also fell overall, according to the report. For certain cancers, however, incidence and/or deaths increased.
Highlights from this year's report, which covers periods from 1992 through 2007, include the following:
- Overall cancer incidence rates declined about 1 percent a year and overall death rates fell an average 1.6 percent a year between 2003 and 2007.
- Among men, incidence of liver, kidney, and pancreatic cancer and melanoma increased from 2003-2007. Death rates increased for three of these cancers--liver and pancreatic cancer and melanoma.
- Among women, incidence of kidney, thyroid, and pancreatic cancer as well as leukemia and melanoma increased from 2003-2007. Death rates increased for pancreatic and liver cancer. Death rates for uterine cancer, after falling from 1975 through 1997, increased in the following decade.
- Trends in death rates during the most recent 10- and 5-year periods (1998� and 2003�) decreased for seven of the top 15 cancer types in both men and women (colon and rectum, brain [malignant], stomach, and kidney cancers, and non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, and myeloma); for cancers of the lung, prostate, and oral cavity in men; and for breast and bladder cancers in women. The decreases for ovary, lung, and cervical cancers were limited to the most recent 5-year period.
- Among children, cancer death rates continued a decline that began in the 1970s; however, the incidence of childhood cancer increased by about 0.6 percent a year from 1992-2007.
- Black men and women had the highest death rates overall but also the largest declines in death rates from 1998 through 2007. For new cancers, black men had the highest overall incidence rates. White women had the highest incidence rates among women.
This year's report has a special section on brain tumors and includes, for the first time, data on non-malignant brain tumors diagnosed from 2004 through 2007. The authors found that the incidence of neuroepithelial brain tumors, a common, usually malignant type, fell an average 0.4 percent a year from 1987 through 2007. This decrease balanced an increase of about 2 percent a year from 1980 through 1987, leaving long-term incidence unchanged.
Other highlights from the brain tumor section of the report:
- Nonmalignant tumors were about twice as common as malignant tumors among adults aged 20 and older.
- Brain tumors in children were much rarer than in adults but much more likely to be malignant; 65.2 percent were malignant in children vs. 33.7 percent in adults.
- Tumors of the neuroepithelial tissue were the most common kind of malignant brain tumor and glioblastoma was the most common subtype of neuroepithelial tumors.
- The most common nonmalignant tumor was meningioma, and it was 2.3 times more common in women than in men.
In conclusion the authors write that the "decreases in overall cancer incidence and death rates in nearly all racial and ethnic groups are highly encouraging."
However, they note that the number of people in the U.S. age 65 years and older, people that are at increased risk of many common types of cancer, is expected to double in size by 2030 compared to 2000.
"Even with declining cancer incidence rates," they write, "the absolute number of individuals diagnosed with cancer will continue to increase because of these population changes...." They conclude that "effective management of the cancer burden will require the application of sound cancer control strategies in prevention, detection, treatment, and survivorship, as well as resources to provide good quality of care."
Contact: NCI Press Office, firstname.lastname@example.org; 301-496-6641 | <urn:uuid:57e4ac5b-ab4c-4dd8-a14e-1b1050ae82bc> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-03/jotn-art032911.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395621.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00152-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9594 | 992 | 2.984375 | 3 |
Do you think early New England settlers braided onions as a means to store them after harvest? I wondered this when faced with the trays of onion and garlic bulbs harvested a couple of days previously and set on a covered porch to dry.
Braiding onions should be a no-brainer for anyone who knows how to braid hair. However, my previous braids often unwound from the bottom unless secured with twine. A handy onion braiding guide recently published in Organic Gardening magazine’s email newsletter explained how to start the braid so it will hold without twine at the lower end.
Before braiding, though, bulbs must be brushed free of clinging soil … a rather slow, tedious task that allowed my mind to wander back to the era of American settlers. I imagined what a colonial woman had to go through to prepare her garden plots. Gardening tasks fell to the women so my imagined colonist, Prudence, had to loosen her beds by hand, add manure from the family’s animals, weed, watch, hope for ample rain and finally harvest the onions (from what I’ve read, early colonists did not grow garlic) that would help feed her family for the next year.
After harvesting she probably let them rest on the soil in the sun to dry and cure for a day or two. Prudence surely would have sought the cooling shade of a large tree to rest under while brushing her work-worn hands over each precious bulb to remove clumps of clingy soil. As she braided, Prudence probably monitored the nearby gardening or animal tending chores of some of her children. She may have had a daughter by her side to teach the youngster to braid.
I suspect Prudence enjoyed the brief set-a-spell rest she was able to enjoy, and that her braids looked much neater than mine. While braiding, her mind likely wandered to all of the other tasks she needed to complete that day – beans to pick and a stew to stir.
My braids, no doubt, are not nearly as attractive or proficiently done as Prudence’s, but as I see them hanging in my modern kitchen with all its conveniences I have an overwhelming appreciation for the fortitude Prudence’s people … my people … brought to this land. | <urn:uuid:a38da854-8bb4-47f1-bceb-e1a114488521> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.joenesgarden.com/onion-garlic-braids/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969402 | 473 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Zeno of Elea
Zeno of Elea
490 BCE – 430 BCE
Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher famous for formulating a number of paradoxes meant to support Monism, the philosphy of the Eleatic School that was founded by Parmenides. The best known of these are the Paradox of the Tortoise and Achilles, the Paradox of the Arrow, and the Paradox of the Moving Rows.
Most of what is known about Zeno of Elea comes from the writings of Plato and Aristotle, because none of his own writings are known to still exist. He lived in southern Italy, but traveled to Greece with Parmenides and Socrates.
Zeno sought to establish the truth of Parmenidean Monism, the philosophy that all apparent change and movement are illusory, on the basis that there is only one reality that is both changeless and eternal. In doing so he formulated paradoxes of great subtlety, in particular involving the infinite divisibility of the continuum, that were not satisfactorily resolved until the late 19th century.
- [MLA] “Zeno of Elea.” Platonic Realms Interactive Mathematics Encyclopedia. Platonic Realms, 10 Apr 2014. Web. 27 Jun 2016. <http://platonicrealms.com/>
- [APA] Zeno of Elea (10 Apr 2014). Retrieved 27 Jun 2016 from the Platonic Realms Interactive Mathematics Encyclopedia: http://platonicrealms.com/encyclopedia/Zeno-of-Elea/ | <urn:uuid:275e717b-8e7e-4eb2-8e4d-8d457e02daf9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://platonicrealms.com/encyclopedia/zeno-of-elea | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396147.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929355 | 322 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Circles that suddenly appeared on this pond have tongues wagging in upstate New York.
By Marc Lallanilla
In the small town of Eden, N.Y., the recent appearance of mysterious circles in a frozen pond has residents baffled.
Last Friday, during an early spring snowstorm, Eden resident Peggy Gervase was looking at the pond near her home when she noticed an unusual pattern in the snow covering the water's surface: large circles that resembled giant polka dots.
"I've never seen this before in our pond," Gervase told local TV station WGRZ. "It's eerie in a way, but cool in a way."
After Gervase posted a photograph of the pond circles to the station's Facebook page, respondents offered a number of explanations for the strange circles, including elephant footprints, fish flatulence and aliens.
There are more rational explanations: Natural springs often feed ponds with slightly warmer water than the water freezing at the pond's surface during cold weather. As the warmer spring water rises, it would melt the snow and ice on the pond's surface.
Additionally, decaying vegetation on the bottom of the pond could release gases that slowly rise to the surface, creating the polka-dot effect.
Intriguing circular formations are known to occur throughout the natural world during seasonal freeze and thaw cycles.
In areas of permafrost (like the northern Canadian tundra), the expansion of ice beneath the soil surface — a process called frost heaving — creates raised landforms called lithalsas. Lithalsas often form circular or ring-shaped patterns on the surface.
Frost heaving also creates a related landform called a pingo. Over many years, pingos can grow into small, circular hills: The tallest known pingo is the Kadleroshilik Pingo in Alaska, which reaches 178 feet (54 meters) in height.
- In Photos: Mysterious Crop Circles
- Aerial Photos Reveal Mysterious Stone Structures
- 7 Things That Create Great Space Hoaxes
Copyright 2013 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:c897fc85-fbeb-4a85-aa83-b3b15cc30b22> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://science.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/27/17488325-circles-mysteriously-form-on-ny-pond-but-alien-theorys-on-thin-ice?lite | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783393997.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154953-00178-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916283 | 452 | 3.34375 | 3 |
December 18, 2012
Researchers Get First Direct Evidence Of Turbulence In Outer Space
[ Watch the Video: Measuring Space Tubulence ]
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe OnlineWe all know that turbulence exists on Earth, but does it really exist in outer space? And if it does, how would you prove it?
“Turbulence is not restricted to environments here on Earth, but also arises pervasively throughout the solar system and beyond, driving chaotic motions in the ionized gas, or plasma, that fills the universe,” said Gregory Howes, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the UI. “It is thought to play a key role in heating the atmosphere of the sun, the solar corona, to temperatures of a million degrees Celsius, nearly a thousand times hotter than the surface of the sun."
“Turbulence also regulates the formation of the stars throughout the galaxy, determines the radiation emitted from the super massive black hole at the center of our galaxy and mediates the effects that space weather has on the Earth," Howes noted in a recent statement.
Coronal mass ejections — violent emissions of charged particles from the sun — are one well known source of gusty space winds. Solar-powered winds such as these can adversely affect satellite communications, air travel and the electric power grid. They aren't completely negative, however, they also cause the auroras at the North and South poles.
Turbulence in space, unlike wind gusts on Earth, is governed by Alfven waves, which are traveling disturbances of the plasma and magnetic field. Modern theories of astrophysical turbulence are based on the underlying concept of nonlinear interactions between Alfven waves traveling up and down the magnetic field. Nonlinear interactions – such as two magnetic waves colliding to create a third wave – are a fundamental building block of plasma turbulence.
“We have presented the first experimental measurement in a laboratory plasma of the nonlinear interaction between counter-propagating Alfven waves, the fundamental building block of astrophysical turbulence,” Howes says. | <urn:uuid:83a53544-0608-41d2-ba4c-7dba6fac05af> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112750174/outer-space-turbulence-solar-corona-alfven-waves-121812/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783398516.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154958-00002-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92838 | 429 | 3.734375 | 4 |
What's New Here?Subscribe to RSS feed
Although played widely the origin of baseball is still subject to speculation and various ideas. Uncover the many theories and suppositions about the origin of baseball and its possible sources.
Christianity remains one of the most prevalent religions in the world today. Explore the times when Christianity began and how it became the world’s most prevalent religious belief system.
Disney World is a very attractive and popular recreational resort in Orlando, Florida. Learning the historical events that led to the construction and opening of this establishment is important to know when was Disney World built.
The World Trade Organization (also known as WTO) is an international association that aims to promote international economic cooperation. To learn when was WTO formed, it is best to look at the events that are important to the history of the establishment of this organization.
Abraham Lincoln played a very significant role in U.S. history when he served as the 16th president of the country. During his stint, he achieved a lot of great things including the elimination of slavery as well as ending the American Civil War. Check out when did Abraham Lincoln become president and learn more about his tremendous leadership skills.
The landing of the Mars Spirit Rover was one of the major milestones in space exploration. Trace the history of the Mars Spirit Rover and how its discoveries helped increase understanding of the Red Planet.
One of the most significant war memorials in the U.S. is the Vietnam Memorial. It is comprised of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial and the statue of the Three Soldiers. Check out the rich and colorful history of this place and learn when was the Vietnam Memorial built.
Cancer is one of the deadliest diseases in present times. Cancer patients are encouraged to undergo treatments like chemotherapy as well as surgery to eliminate the cancer cells in their bodies. To know when are you considered a cancer survivor, it is important that you be free from the malignancy for at least one year.
The U.S. made history when it held its first ever presidential election in 1789. This momentous event was a start of a systematic, organized and efficient voting system. Learn when was the first presidential election and find out some of the significant events in U.S. history.
Black Friday has become one of the most widely anticipated days in America leading up to the holidays. Unearth the history of Black Friday and how it has become a well loved tradition. | <urn:uuid:8ea49373-3394-49f9-a5ba-23c1661799e9> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.whenguide.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00058-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971818 | 502 | 2.75 | 3 |
Making report cards personal can be challenging. You want the parents to know you are concerned without being critical. Here are some suggestions ...
is often absent from class and must come more frequently if his/her
grades are to improve. He/She shows promise in the subject area of
___________ but needs to be in school for lessons in ____________.
Please alert your child of the importance to attend class on a regular
has an aggressive nature. He/She is forceful towards other classmates.
Although it is good that he/she can not be bullied, he/she needs to
cool down his/her too-assertive behavior.|
is failing the subject of __________. Let's do what we can to get
him/her on the right track again. |
trouble understanding assignments, especially in ___________.
He/She doesn't grasp the basic concepts such as ___________. Let's
work on this together so that he/she can fully comprehend this by
|Arithmetic:||_______ is good in math and easily understands its concepts and application. OR ________ does not have a grasp of math. He/She struggles with the most basic of concepts. Please come in and talk about what we can do to improve his ability to apply math.| | <urn:uuid:c7c8e70d-9ebd-4bb4-a389-c1c148cdd51a> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/pages/1666.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783402516.86/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155002-00098-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933816 | 269 | 3.234375 | 3 |
It's not the amount of rawhide that's dangerous. In fact, according to North Central Animal Hospital, it's rawhide itself that can be a problem, even if you only give your dog a very small piece.
The first problem with rawhide is that there are no FDA regulations regarding its production. That's because rawhide is not considered pet food -- it's a byproduct -- so there's no control over what ingredients are used in its production. North Central Animal Hospital points out that mercury, pesticides and other dangerous chemicals have been found on rawhide.
Aside from the chemical dangers associated with rawhide, there's one more potential risk. According to WebMD Pets, if your dog swallows a large piece of rawhide, this can result in a blockage as the piece becomes logged in the throat or intestines. This could lead to choking or it could require surgery. Small pieces can get stuck in the guts as well. | <urn:uuid:5723c4fd-f53c-4119-9e56-6a551f36d852> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://dogcare.dailypuppy.com/can-dog-sick-much-rawhide-5831.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397111.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00083-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96002 | 192 | 2.515625 | 3 |
PHYSICAL EDUCATION CLASSES ARE NOT AN AVENUE FOR IMPROVING AEROBIC FITNESS IN FEMALE STUDENTS
Crowhurst, M. E., Morrow, J. R. Jr., Pivarnik, J. M., & Brieker, J. T. (1993). Determination of the aerobic benefit of selected physical education activities. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport, 64, 223-226.
Exercise and energy expenditure in physical education classes featuring floor hockey and basketball were objectively measured in high school females (N = 9). It was found that the duration of the activity was sufficient (35 minutes) but the intensity of exercise was generally insufficient to promote an aerobic benefit.
Implication. Physical education classes that program game-like activities and allow the exercise intensity to be controlled by participants, are unlikely to produce aerobic fitness in females.
Return to Table of Contents for this issue. | <urn:uuid:f47791c4-19f9-4e8e-a6b0-90f8a4a58b9c> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/csa/vol55/crowhurs.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403825.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00100-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929699 | 191 | 2.8125 | 3 |
- Download PDF
2 Answers | Add Yours
Militarily, the early stages of World War II witnessed staggering German successes. The Wehrmacht rumbled through Poland, Holland, Belgium, and France with frightening speed and efficiency, quickly destroying opposing forces. Only a miraculous seaborne evacuation from Dunkirk in June of 1940 kept a massive British and French force from being completely annihilated. While German efforts to bludgeon Britain into submission with the Luftwaffe in advance of an invasion ultimately failed, when Hitler turned his attention to the East, German armies tore through the Soviet Union, driving deep into Russia itself before the end of the summer. The staggering reverses that would take place later on the Eastern Front seemed very unlikely, and it is well known that the German High Command deemed success so likely that they declined to provide the armies driving toward Moscow with winter gear. So early in the war, German armies swept all before them.
German victories had an enormous human cost. Obviously, the Jews, Communists, and other people deemed enemies of the German state were quickly identified and incarcerated in the West. Hundreds of thousands of Jews, in particular, would be shipped East to the death camps that began to appear in 1942, the year in which most Jews were murdered. On the Eastern Front, the loss of life was staggering, and it was the result of deliberate Nazi policy. Hitler had long hoped to convert the Ukraine, Belarus, and parts of Russia into a massive space for German settlement, and his SS and killing squads, often with the assistance of local collaborators, rounded up Jews, Roma, and Communists for immediate murder, usually by mass shootings, as at the infamous massacre of Jews at Babi Yar, outside Kiev. The Wehrmacht was responsible for the deaths of millions in the first year of the invasion of the USSR, even before the so-called "final solution" was agreed upon. As one historian of Nazi Germany has recently observed, the first year of the German invasion of the Soviet Union resulted in over three million deaths, accounting for a little less than one percent of the population of the planet. Most of these losses were civilians. So the main result of the German invasion on the Eastern front was a staggering loss of innocent human life. All of this was before the Final Solution, Stalingrad, the Soviet counteroffensive, and other massive bloodlettings.
In the early stages of World War II, Germany invaded a number of countries in Western and Northern Europe. Germany used its new tactic of lightning war (blitzkrieg) in these invasions. The invasions were universally successful. The streak of success in land warfare enjoyed by Germany only ended when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June of 1941. This invasion was the first setback Germany had in land warfare.
The war began with Germany invading Poland. This led to a very swift victory. Nothing really happened in the war from then until April of 1940. At that point, Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. It took Denmark without a fight and Norway very easily as well. Then, in May of 1940, Germany invaded Western Europe. It took Belgium and the Netherlands, and then drove into France. It defeated the combined French and English forces without too much trouble. France surrendered in late June.
The result of these invasions was that there was no opposition to Germany on the continent of Europe. Germany and the Soviets were at peace. Italy was a German ally. Spain was officially neutral but was very sympathetic to Germany. Germany, at that point, dominated all of Europe east of the Soviet Union completely.
We’ve answered 327,671 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:37672569-186b-4faf-87bb-d6307e75e77d> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-were-results-german-invasions-during-early-429508 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395620.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00013-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98081 | 748 | 3.796875 | 4 |
By: Amada Froelich,
Prophesied by researchers last year, the inevitable has happened in Canadian waters: Sardine fleets returned with no fish this month. The loss for the western Canadian’s fisheries, normally worth CAN$32 million (US$30.7 million), still took many by surprise.
Sardines still exist off the US pacific coast, but the vanishing of the Canadian fish is part of a process which means they could all disappear for decades, says Juan Zwolinski of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Pacific sardine populations normally fluctuate with water temperature, but colder water means fewer fish. History records that temperatures last fell in the 1940’s, but as heavy fishing continued, the stocks were devastated and fishing was ended until sardines returned when waters warmed in the 1980’s.
Zwolinski, the researcher who has tracked the population over the last century, believes history is repeating itself. “We think this is set to happen again.” He has found that sardines have reproduced less since waters cooled in the 1990’s. It seems now almost all eggs come from a fish born a decade ago, which are nearly gone.
What’s even more chilling, acoustic results show that the fish have become smaller over the past decade, partly because of the colder water. This is a big problem: the fattest sardines migrate farthest north, so the shrinking fish may help explain Canada’s shortage. It’s shown smaller fish also reproduce less.
Despite all of this, Canada continues to up their quotas. Deemed unsustainable for a variety of reasons, Alec MacCall of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) speaks about why attention needs to be given to this industry shock: “These natural boom and bust cycles make all sardine fisheries fundamentally unsustainable. There can be periods of decades when no fishing should be allowed since reproduction cannot even replace the parental stock.”
Because fishermen need to earn a living, too, it’s almost impossible to ‘turn off’ a fishery. However, the US limits catches to just 15 percent of the stock, and tries to maintain the boom and bust by cutting quotas when waters cool.
Although better than Canada’s approach, Zwolinksi fears the US has not cut quotas enough, as managers do not take account of other factors like the breeding condition of adult fish. In effect, even the US’s small catches may be too large.
An unfortunate crisis for the fishing industry, the occurrence serves as a wake-up call for all industries, as without proper respect and care given to the environment, it’s likely other populations of wildlife will also decrease. | <urn:uuid:623973fb-f1e8-456f-b9a5-18926d8af463> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.trueactivist.com/sardine-disappearance-was-foreseen-but-ignored/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783394414.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154954-00016-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951939 | 576 | 3.5 | 4 |
Boys Height Growth Chart – average height of boys age 2 – 18 years
for children of "White" race/ethnicity*, ages 2 through 18.
Created by Steven B. Halls, MD, FRCPC and John Hanson, MSc.
The red lines show "percentiles". The thick red line in the middle is the 50th percentile, which indicates that 50% of the population of Boys has Height (or stature) taller than the line, and 50% are shorter. Similarly, the lowest red line, the 5th percentile line, indicates the Height where only 5% of the population of Boys is shorter.
Charts for adults male average height for men and average weight for men are available here. These are also interesting, because they not only show the average height, they also show that adults have a considerably higher prevalence of obesity than children.
The data source for this chart is the NHANES III survey, conducted in America during 1988 to 1994. The CDC used this dataset, as well as datasets from several older surveys, to construct the CDC standard pediatric growth charts.
I made these charts myself, back in around 1999 or year 2000. This was before the CDC did a major update to their charts. So the situation was that doctors were using much older charts from the 1970s, and I became aware that the NHANES study had excellent newer data. I wanted to make better charts with new data, so I asked my statistician friend, John Hansen, to help me. Together, we made these charts ourselves and put them on the internet.
Then, within a year, the CDC published new growth charts in year 2000, to great fanfare. So my charts had become somewhat obsolete almost immediately, or so I thought at first. But I gradually realized something about the CDC growth charts. I believe the CDC massaged the data mix so that they reflect someones idealized dream that the population should be like the 1970s, from before the age of television and video games.
The height charts don’t have much to massage. They are very straightforward data. Although it is true that the North American population is gradually becoming taller, that is a very slow process, and it is hard to detect that change on children’s growth charts. But weight charts are a problem. Our population of children is growing fatter.
I left these charts online, because they document what the NHANES III study showed, and, because its simply faster to find what you want here, than on the CDC website.
I just thought of another reason to keep my charts on the internet. I just compared these results, to what other websites are showing, and the other websites are showing lower values. For instance, for the 11 year old boy, the CDC chart says 56.6 inches and my chart shows 58 inches.
It is common knowledge that our population is slowly growing taller, and our children seem to be starting puberty earlier, and having their growth spurts earlier. I believe my charts from data around 1990, captured some of this. If totally recent data were available on charts, I think the values would be even taller. | <urn:uuid:e16b071a-d420-4869-8801-6c203fb4ceff> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://halls.md/chart-boys-height-w/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408828.55/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00134-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963708 | 645 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The peaceful relations which subsisted between the Dutch colonists and the Iroquois were perpetuated by the English on their accession to the Dutch possessions in 1664; and, with the immaterial exceptions, the Iroquois remained the firm allies or friends of the English till the domination of the latter was broken by the triumph of the colonists in the war of the Revolution. But from the time the English supplanted the Dutch, the jealousy and strife which characterized the English and French intercourse in Europe were extended to this portion of the Western Continent. A sharp rivalry was maintained in the acquisition of territory, and in the effort to gain an acknowledged supremacy over the Iroquois, of whose country Mr. Lauson, then Governor of New France, took formal possession in 1656. The French displayed the most enterprise in the extension of her dominions; while the English were most successful in gaining the allegiance of the Iroquois, though, their dilatory movements in wars with the French often provoked sharp criticisms from their savage and impetuous allies.1 The French sent out parties in various directions, to the west, north-west and south-west, to explore new sections of country and take possession, which they did by erecting the King's arms and drawing up proces-verbaux to serve as titles.2 They thus gained a useful knowledge of the country and its savage occupants, and enlarged the scope of their fur trade, which, together with the zeal of propagandism, were the vital forces operating in the colonization of New France.
But the prosperity of the French colony was not commensurate with the zeal of the Jesuits or the enterprise of the fur traders, as compared with that of the English colonies.3 The reason is quite obvious. Those who composed the English colonies came with the intention of making this their home, and though immigration had virtually ceased, the natural increase had been great. The strong desire to escape persecution had given an impulse to Puritan colonization; while, on the other hand, none but good Catholics, the favored class of France, were tolerated in Canada. These had no motive for exchanging the comforts of home and the smiles of fortune for a starving wilderness and the scalping-knives of the Iroquois. The Huguenots would have emigrated in swarms; but they are rigidly forbidden. Of the feeble population of the French colony, the best part were bound to perpetual chastity; while the fur-traders, and those in their service, rarely brought their wives to the wilderness. The fur-traders, moreover, is always the worst of colonists; since the increase of population, by diminishing the number of the fur-bearing animals, is adverse to his interest. But behind all this there was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an influence which alone would have gone far to produce the contrast in material growth.4 The Puritan looked for a substantial reward in this life; while the Jesuits, lightly esteeming life themselves, and looking wholly for reward in a future life, endeavored to inculcate the same idea in those with whom they came in contact. The interests of the French King were of far less moment to them than those of their Heavenly King.5
While the Iroquois were engaged in exterminating their kindred nations they kept up a desultory warfare with the French, broken by brief intervals of peace, when their interests or necessities demanded a cessation hostilities.
In 1650, they had brought the French colonists to such extremity that the latter endeavored to gain the powerful support of New England. Massachusetts had expressed a desire for the establishment of a reciprocal trade between her own and the French colonists, and it was thought this concession might be made the condition of securing her military aid in subduing the Mohawks. It was urged that as the Abenaquis, an Algonquin people, living on the Kenebec in the present state of Maine, were under the jurisdiction of the Plymouth colony, and had suffered from Mohawk inroads, it became the duty of that colony to protect them. Gabriel Druilletes, a Jesuit Missionary, was deputed to make these representations to the Massachusetts Government, and proceeded to Boston for that purpose. Druilletes met with a cordial reception, but received no encouragement with regard to the object of his mission, as it was scarcely to be expected that the Puritans would see it for their interest to provoke a dangerous enemy in a people who had never molested them.6
The French Government now resolved to put an end to the ruinous incursions of the Iroquois. In June, 1665, M. de Tracy was appointed Viceroy of the French possessions in America, and brought with him to Quebec four regiments of infantry. March 23, 1665, Daniel de Runy, Knight, Lord de Courcelles, was appointed Governor of Canada, and in September of that year arrived with a regiment, several families, and everything necessary for the establishment of a colony. January 9, 1666, M. de Courcelles, with 500 men, set out on a most hazardous expedition to the country of the Mohawks. The journey was undertaken in snow shoes. After a perilous march of the thirty-five days, during which many of his men were frozen, he arrived within twenty leagues of their villages, when he learned from prisoners taken that the greater part of the Mohawks and Oneidas had gone to a distance to make war with the "Wampum Makers." Deeming it "useless to push further forward an expedition which had all the effect intended by the terror it spread all the tribes," he retraced his steps, having "killed several savages who from time to time made their appearance along the skirts of the forest for the purpose of skirmishing," and lost a few of his own men, who were killed by the enemy. 7
This expedition, so bootless in material results, had the effect to induce the Iroquois to sue for peace. May 22, 1666, the Senecas sent ten ambassadors to Quebec, who represented "that they had always been under the King's protection since the French had "discovered their country," and demanded for themselves and the Onontať nation, "that they be continued to be received in the number of his Majesty's faithful subjects" requesting that some Frenchmen be sent to settle with them, and "Blackgowns" to preach the gospel among them and make them understand the God of the French, promising not only to prepare cabins, but to work at the construction of forts for them. This having been granted, the treaty was concluded May 25, 1666. July 7, 1666, the Oneidas sent ten ambassadors to Quebec on a like mission for themselves and the Mohawks, and ratified the preceding treaty July 12, 1666.8
Pending these negotiations the Mohawks committed an outrage on a portion of the garrison of Fort St. Anne, and M. de Tracy concluded that to ensure the success of the treaty it was necessary to render the Mohawks more tractable by force of arms. Accordingly in September, 1666, at the head of 600 troops and 700 Indians, he made an incursion into the country of the Mohawks, who, with their usual sagacity, being unable to cope with so powerful an enemy, fled to the forests on their approach, and left them to exhaust themselves in a contest with privation and hardships in the wilderness. After destroying their villages, corn and other products, M. de Tracy returned.
Following this expedition, Oct. 13, 1666, the Iroquois ambassadors of the Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Oneida nations repaired to Quebec to request a confirmation of the continuance of his Majesty's protection, which was granted by diverse articles on several conditions, among others: that the Hurons and Algonquins inhabiting the north side of the River St. Lawrence, up from the Esquimaux and Bertiamites into the great lake of the Hurons, and north of Lake Ontario, should not be disquieted by the four Iroquois nations on any pretext whatsoever, his Majesty having taken them under his protection; and that on the contrary, the said Iroquois should assist them in all their necessities, whether in peace or war; that, agreeably to their urgent prayers, there should be granted to them two "blackgowns," one smith and a surgeon; that the King, at their request, allow some French families to settle in their country; that two of the principal Iroquois families should be sent from each of these four nations to Montreal, Three Rivers and Quebec; that all hostilities should cease till the return of the ambassadors with the ratification of the present treaty; that the Mohawks (Guagenigronons,) having been informed of the establishment of the French on the River Richelieu, without sending ambassadors to demand peace, should be excluded from the preceding treaty, his Majesty reserving unto himself the right to include them therein, should he deem it fitting so to do, whenever they sent to sue for peace and his protection. The Mohawks acquiesced in the conditions of the treaty, but under circumstances which induced a belief in their lack of fidelity. 9
The following year (July 31, 1667,) was concluded the Peace of Breda, between Holland, England and France. By it Acadia (Nova Scotia,) was left to the French, and its boundary fixed, and the New Netherlands to the English. In 1668, a treaty of peace was signed between France and Spain, whereby Louis XIV. Surrendered his claims to the Spanish Netherland, but was left in possession of much he had already conquered. A general peace now ensued; but it was of short duration, for in 1669 the French and Iroquois were again at war. The harvests of New France could not be gathered in safety, and much suffering and the greatest consternation prevailed among the French colonists. Many prepared to return to France. Louis de Grande, Count de Frontenac, was appointed Governor and Lieutenant-General of Canada April 6, 1672, and under his efficient management confidence was restored and a treaty of peace again ratified in 1673. 10
In 1784, another rupture occurred between the French and Iroquois, the latter of whom, (the Senecas,) in that year pillaged seven hundred canoes belonging to Frenchmen, arrested the latter to the number of fourteen and detained them nine days, and attacked Fort St. Louis, which was successfully defended.11 M. de la Barre, who was then Governor of New France, that year led an expedition against the Senecas to punish them for this outrage. But before he reached the Senecas' country a rumor reached him that, in case of an attack, Col. Dongan, Governor of New York, had promised the Senecas "a reinforcement of four hundred horse and four hundred foot." This so alarmed him that he decamped the next day. Sickness had made such inroads in his army "that it was with difficulty" he found a sufficient number "of persons in health to remove the sick to the canoes." 12 The only fruit of the expedition was a treaty made in the most indecent haste, with the Onondagas, Oneidas and Cayugas at La Famine. An expedition of such magnificent proportions, yet so barren of good results, brought censure upon M. de la Barre, and led to his supersedure the following year by the Marquis de Nonville, who was instructed to observe a strict neutrality.
DeNonville thoroughly examined the situation, and, having reached a conclusion, he wrote his royal master that the reputation of the French among the Indians, whether friends or enemies, was absolutely destroyed, by the ill-starred expedition of la Barre, and that nothing but a successful war could avert a general rebellion, the ruin of the fur trade, and the extirpation of the French. Louis responded with additional reŽnforcements, and not only approved the war, but advised that Iroquois prisoners be sent to him for service as galley-slaves. DeNonville therefore determined to divert the Iroquois from their inroads among the river Indians by giving them employment at home; and especially to overawe and punish the Senecas. Accordingly, in the summer of 1687, he invaded them with two thousand French and Indians. Having arrived at Irondequoit Bay, he constructed a palisade for the protection of his batteaux and canoes, which was finished on the morning of July 12th. That day he set out for the Senecas' villages, and on the 13th met the enemy in ambush as he passed a dangerous defile. The Senecas gave way before the superior number of the enemy, and on the following day, when de Nonville moved his army towards their first village, he found it in ashes and the fort "quite nigh" abandoned. "We have five or six men killed," he says, "on the spot, French and Indians, and about twenty wounded, among the first of whom was the Rev. Father Angleran." The loss of the Senecas, as reported to him by a deserter, was forty-five killed, and over sixty "very severely wounded." The succeeding ten days were spent "at the four Seneca villages," which, he says, "must exceed 14 to 15 thousand souls," in destroying corn, "which was in such great abundance that the loss, including old corn which was in cache, which we burnt, and that which was standing, was computed according to the estimate afterwards made, at 400 thousand minots.13 There was a vast quantity of hogs which were killed." 14 He did not pursue the enemy any further, but, regretting that sickness, the extreme fatigue, and the uneasiness of the savages, who began to disband, prevented his visiting other villages, he repaired to Niagara, and constructed a fort, in the angle of the lake, on the Seneca side of the river. He left a hundred men under the command of Sieur de Troyes to garrison it, provisioned it for eight months, and returned with his army. This fort was so closely besieged by the Iroquois that nearly all the garrison perished by hunger.
The Iroquois were alarmed at this bold incursion into the country of the strongest nation of their league, and applied to Governor Dongan of New York for protection, which was promised them. He advised them not to make peace with the French, and promised them supplies of arms and ammunition. But de Nonville called a meeting of the chiefs of the Five Nations, at Montreal, for the purpose of arranging terms of peace, and they decided to send representatives for that purpose.
In this year, 1687, the English colonists of New York resolved to avail themselves of the peace which then existed between the English and French, to attempt a participation in the fur trade of the upper lakes. They induced the Iroquois to liberate a number of Wyandot or Huron captives to guide them through the lakes and open a trade with their people, who were then living at Michilimackinac. The party, which was led by Major McGregory, was intercepted by a large body of French, their whole party captured, and their goods distributed gratuitously among the Indians. The lake Indians, who had favored the project, by reason of the high price and scarcity of goods, now became anxious to disabuse the French of the suspicions their actions had engendered, and to prove their fidelity to them. To this end Adario, a celebrated chief of the Wyandots, shrewd and wily in his plans, and firm and courageous in their execution, led a party of one hundred men against the Iroquois. Stopping at Fort Cadaraqui for intelligence which might guide him, the commandant informed him of the impending peace negotiations, that the Iroquois ambassadors were expected at Montreal in a few days, and advised him to return. But perceiving that if this peace was consummated, it would leave the Iroquois free to push their war against his nation, Adario resolved to prevent it, and waylaid, surprised and killed or captured the Iroquois embassy, with the forty young warriors who guarded them. By dissembling he fully impressed his captives with the belief that the treachery, of which he was made the unwitting instrument, was instigated by de Nonville. With well-simulated indignation he looked steadfastly on the prisoners, among whom was Dekanefora, the head chief of the Onondagas, and said: "Go, my brothers, I untie your bonds, and send you home again, although our nations be at war. The French Governor has made me commit so black an action, that I shall never be easy after it, until the Five Nations have taken full revenge." He then dismissed them, with presents of arms, powder and balls, keeping but a single man, an adopted Shawnee, to supply the place of the only man he had lost in the engagement. 15
The Iroquois were deeply incensed and burned to revenge the base treachery. They refused to listen to a message sent by de Nonville disclaiming any participation in the act of perfidy. On the 26th of July, 1688, twelve hundred Iroquois warriors landed, with stealth and deadly purpose of enraged tigers, on the upper end of the island of Montreal, and pursued their murderous work without anything to impede them. They burned houses, sacked plantations and massacred men, women and children of the French inhabitants, and retired with twenty-six prisoners, most of whom were burnt alive. In October following they visited the lower part of the island with as deadly a scourge as they had previously done the upper.
These incursions were incalculably disastrous to the French interests in Canada, and reduced the colonists to the most abject despondency. Their minds were filled with fear of foreboding ills. They burned the two barks they had on Cadaraqui (Ontario,) Lake and abandoned the fort at Cadaraqui. They designed to blow up the fort, and lighted a match for that purpose; but in their fright and haste they did not wait to see that it took effect. The Iroquois, hearing of the destruction of the fort, took possession of it. The match the French had lighted went out without igniting the train. They found twenty-eight barrels of powder, besides various other stores.
These disasters to the French soon spread among their Indian allies, already disgusted with la Barre's miserable failure, and whose confidence the questionable success of de Nonville had not restored. The French influence over them was greatly lessened, while their dread of the Iroquois was immeasurably increased. Many sought an alliance with the English, with whom this misfortune to the French enabled them to open a trade; and they would have murdered the whole French colony to placate the Iroquois, "and would have certainly have done it," says Colden, "had not the Sieur Perot, with wonderful sagacity and eminent hazard to his own person, diverted them."
"The French colony was in a most pitiable condition, for while the larger proportion of the men had been engaged in the expedition against the Senecas, in trading with the western Indians, and in making new discoveries and settlements, tillage had been neglected. Several thousand of inhabitants had been killed. The continual incursions of small parties of the Iroquois made it hazardous to go outside the forts; they were liable at any moment to sacrifice their scalps to a lurking savage, to have the torch applied to their cabins, and the tomahawk fall upon the defenseless heads of their wives and children. Their crops were sown in constant fear, and were often destroyed before they could be gathered. To add to the horrors of their situation, famine was rapidly decimating those who had escaped the hatchet of the revengeful Iroquois, and threatened to put a miserable end to their existence.
But this deplorable condition was destined to a favorable and most unexpected change, toward which the bitter animosities and divided counsels of the English colonies, growing out of the revolution in England at this time, which resulted in the accession of the Prince of Orange to the throne, contributed in no small measure. The Count de Frontenac, whose previous management of the colony had been eminently wise and satisfactory, was again appointed Governor, May 21, 1689, and though he had arrived at an age when most men prefer a retired life to the onerous burdens of State, he entered upon his duties with such energy and manifest wisdom as to revive the flagging spirits of the colonists, notwithstanding the impending danger of a war with the English colonies, which soon ensued. He arrived on the second of October, 1689, and at once commenced an effort to negotiate a peace with the Iroquois, having learned by sad experience that they could not hope to gain by the continuance of war with them. He was the more anxious to effect a peace with them, as they then had a war on their hands with the English, which was declared that year. Failing in this he hoped to terrify them into neutrality, and for this purpose, and to lessen the influence of the English with them, he fitted out three expeditions that winter, one against New York, another against Connecticut, and a third against New England. It was a hazardous undertaking at that season of the year, but the desperate condition of the French colonists demanded heroic treatment.
The first expedition was directed against Schenectady, which was sacked and burned, on the night of February 9, 1690, only two houses being spared, that of Major Sander, (Coudre,) from whom the French had received good treatment on a former occasion, and that of a widow, with six children, to which M. de Montigny, one of the leaders of the expedition, was carried when wounded. They spared the lives of some fifty to sixty old men, women and children, who escaped the first fury of the attack, and some twenty Mohawks, "in order to show them that it was English and not they against whom the grudge was entertained." The loss on this occasion in houses, cattle and grain, exceeded 400,000 livres.16 "There were upwards of eighty well built and well furnished houses in the town." They returned with thirty prisoners, loaded with plunder, and with fifty good horses, only sixteen of which reached Montreal, the rest having been killed on the road for food. They lost one Indian and one Frenchman in the attack on the town, and nineteen on the return march. 17
This disaster at Schenectady so disheartened the people of Albany, that they resolved to abandon the place and retire to New York. Many were packing up for that purpose, when a delegation of Mohawks, who had come to condole with them on the loss, on hearing of their design, reproached them and urged them to a courageous defense of their homes. This passage in our colonial history is filled with humiliating reflections, when we contrast the supineness of the English colonists, arising from the bitter dissentions incident to the governmental changes which the recent revolution wrought, with the magnificent energies exerted by the French colonists under the energizing influence of the sagacious Frontenac. Our admiration is not less challenged by the heroic conduct of the Iroquois, who, notwithstanding French intrigues and Jesuitical influence, combined with an exasperating English apathy, which appeared willing to sacrifice these savage, but noble allies, kept firmly to their early allegiance.
Count de Frontenac, encouraged by the answer made to his former message, renewed his efforts to bring about peace with the Iroquois; but they compelled his ambassadors to run the gauntlet and then delivered them over as prisoners to the English. Foiled in this he endeavored to prevent the peace with the Iroquois were on the point of making with the Utawawas and Quatoghies. The Iroquois continued to harass the French in small bodies and kept them in constant alarm.
In the summer of 1691, New York and New England concerted an attack by a combined land and naval force. The former, under command of Major Peter Schuyler, was directed against Montreal; and the latter, consisting of thirty sail, under command of Sir William Phips, against Quebec. Both failed of the ultimate object for which they set out; though Schuyler inflicted a heavy loss upon the enemy, killing three hundred, which exceeded his entire command,18 having seventeen killed and eleven wounded of his own forces. But finding the enemy vastly more numerous than he expected he was obliged to retire. The naval attack was illy directed and proved an ignoble failure. It was likewise attended with considerable loss, both in men and material, without inflicting much damage on the enemy, who, with ordinary promptness and prudence, might have been routed. The Iroquois, however, continued their stealthy raids, which were more dreaded and really more destructive to the French interests than the more imposing efforts of the English allies. The French were prevented from tilling the ground, or of reaping the fruit of what they had sown or planted, and a famine ensued, "the poor inhabitants," says Colden, being "forced to feed the soldiers gratis, while their own children wanted bread." The French fur trade was also stopped by the Iroquois, who took possession of the passes between them and their allies, the western Indians, and intercepted the traders and others passing over those routes.
Count de Frontenac was pierced to the heart by his inability to revenge these terrible incursions of the Five Nations. His desperation drove him to the commission of an act which must have been as revolting to him in his normal condition as it was barbarous. He condemned two Iroquois prisoners to be burnt publicly, and would not be dissuaded from executing the sentence. One of them, however, killed himself with a knife which was thrown into his prison by "some charitable person." The Hon. Cadwallader Colden thus describes the execution of the other, who was taken to the place designated, by the Christian Indians of Loretto, "to which he walked, seemingly with as much indifference as ever martyr did to the stake:"---
"While they were torturing him, he continued singing that he was a warrior brave and without fear; that the most cruel death could not shake his courage; that the most cruel torment should not draw an indecent expression from him; that his comrade was a coward, a scandal to the Five Nations, who had killed himself for fear of pain; that he had the comfort to reflect that he had made many Frenchmen suffer as he did now. He fully verified his words, for the most violent torment could not force the least complaint from him, though his executioners tried their utmost skill to do so. They first broiled his feet between two red hot stones, then they put his fingers into red hot pipes, and though he had his arms at liberty, he would not pull his fingers out; they cut his joints, and taking hold of the sinews, twisted them round small bars of iron. All this while he kept singing and recounting his own brave actions against the French. At last they flayed his scalp from his skull, and poured scalding hot sand upon it, at which time the Intendant's Lady obtained leave of the Governor to have the coup de grace given."
June 6, 1692, the Iroquois entered into a formal treaty of alliance and friendship with Major Richard Ingoldesby, who assumed the Gubernatorial office of New York on the death of Colonel Henry Sloughter, July 23, 1691. The speech of Cheda, an Oneida Sachem, on that occasion is a rare piece of pathetic eloquence.
The French colonists, having been obliged to remain so long upon the defensive, were becoming despondent, so that Count de Frontenac felt it imperative to undertake some bold enterprise to restore confidence. He therefore planned an expedition against the Mohawks, and as it was necessary to surprise them, it was undertaken in the winter, when it was least expected. January 15, 1693, a force of six hundred to seven hundred French and Indians under command of three captains of the regulars, started with snow-shoes from la Prairie de Magdaleine, and after a long and perilous march through the forests, surprised and captured three of the Mohawk's castles, in only the latter and largest of which did they meet with any resistance. They returned with about three hundred prisoners, and though pursued by a party of Albany militia and Mohawks to the number of about five hundred, hastily gathered and commanded by Major Peter Schuyler, and reduced to such extremity for want of food that they eat their shoes, they escaped with the loss of eighty men killed and thirty-three wounded. This successful raid greatly alarmed the English settlers and dispirited the Iroquois, who saw that surprises could be made by their enemies as well as themselves. The latter were now more inclined to listen to the French proposals of peace, and having been the greater sufferers from the war, were quite anxious that it should cease.
The years 1693-4 were spent in efforts to negotiate a peace between the French and the Iroquois, which the English endeavored to prevent. The three intermediate nations, influenced by the Jesuits priests, were more inclined thereto than the Senecas and Mohawks. The Senecas held the French in abhorrence, and were not so influenced by the Jesuits; while the Mohawks were the near neighbors of the English and much influenced by them in favor of continuing the war, although they had been the greatest sufferers from it. The reason for listening to the French proposals of peace is thus indicated in the speech of Sadakanahtie, an Onondaga sachem, made in the council convened at Albany May 4, 1694, by Colonel Fletcher:---
"The only reason to be plain with you," continued he, "of our sending to make peace with the French, is the low condition to which we are reduced, while none of our neighbors send us the least assistance, so that the whole burden of the war lies on us alone. Our brethren of New England, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia, of their own account, thrust their arms into our chain; but since the war began we have received no assistance from them. We alone cannot continue the war against the French, by reason of the recruits they daily receive from the other side of the great lake.
"Brother Cayenguirago,19 speak from your heart, are you resolved to prosecute the war vigorously against the French, and are your neighbors of Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and New England resolved to assist us? If it be so, we assure you, notwithstanding any treaty hitherto entered into, we will prosecute the war as hotly as ever. But if our neighbors will not assist, we must make peace, and we submit it to your consideration by giving this great belt fifteen deep." 20
The same speaker, in reviewing the speech just alluded to, in the council held at Albany in August of that year, and composed of representatives, in addition to New York, from New Jersey, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut, added:---
"Our brother Cayenguirago's arms and ours are stiff and tired of holding fast the chain, [which bound them in mutual interests,] whilst our neighbors sit and smoke at their ease. The fat is melted from our flesh, and fallen on our neighbor's who grow fat, while we grow lean; they flourish while we decay.
"This chain made us the envy of the French. And if all had held it as fast as Cayenguirago, it would have been a terror also. If we would all heartily join and take the hatchet in our hand, our common enemy would soon be destroyed, and we should forever after live in peace and ease. Do you but your parts, and thunder itself cannot break our chain."
Colonel Fletcher, being unable to give any assurance of a vigorous assistance, consented to their making a peace for themselves, provided they kept faithful in their chain with the English. They, however, would not accept of any peace which did not include their English allies; and, moreover, the French terms were inadmissible. They required that the English cease to trade with the Canadian Indians, or the other Indian allies of the French; that the French be permitted to rebuild and garrison the fort at Cadaraqui; and that their Indian allies should be included in the peace. To these terms the Iroquois would not accede, and the negotiations ceased.
Governor de Frontenac now resolved to coerce them to submission, and to that end made arrangements to attack the Mohawks with the whole force of Canada. But learning that the Mohawks had been advised of his intention by an escaped prisoner, and the preparations that had been made to repel him, he changed his plan, and instead sent three hundred men to the neck of the land between lakes Erie and Cadaraqui, the usual hunting place of the Iroquois, hoping to surprise them while carelessly hunting, and at the same time to observe the condition of Fort Cadaraqui, which was found in better condition than was expected. In the summer of 1695, he sent a strong force to repair and garrison the fort, which then took his name. This fort was of great advantage to the French from its proximity to the beaver hunting grounds of the Iroquois, thus enabling the garrison to make incursions on them when so engaged. It was also important to the French trade with the western Indians, as a place of deposit for supplies; and not less so as a place of refuge in time of war with the Iroquois. The French also succeeded in put a stop to the peace negotiations then progressing between the Iroquois and Dionondadies; but in order to accomplish that end perpetrated an act of cruelty which, for fiendishness, parallels anything in the annals of Indian horrors. But notwithstanding the French opposition a treaty was concluded soon after covertly.
The French Governor now began preparations on a large scale to make the Iroquois feel his resentment of their refusing his terms of peace. He assembled all the regular troops and militia of the colony, together with the Indians adjacent to the French settlements and all the western Indians he could muster, to strike the Onondagas a deadly blow and exterminate them, ordering his troops to show no quarter. He embarked from the south end of the Island of Montreal, July 4, 1696, equipped with cannon, mortars, and every destructive military device known to the times. The Onondagas, informed by an escaped Seneca prisoner of the host of the enemy and the destructive engines they used, burned their castle and bark cabins, and fled with their families to the forests, leaving nothing but their corn for this formidable army to expend its fury on. When Frontenac's army reached the Onondaga village it was deserted by all save one, an Indian sachem, about a hundred years old, who would not retire with the rest, but chose this time to end his days. Him they tortured to death; but he bore it with remarkable fortitude. Having destroyed the Onondaga's corn, the Chevalier de Vaudreuil was sent with a detachment of six or seven hundred men to destroy that of the Oneidas, which was done without resistance. The Jesuit Milet had lived for the most part with the Oneidas and had infused into them the most favorable sentiments towards the French, to whose terms of peace they had been most inclined to listen. Thirty-five of them staid in their castle to make the French welcome; but the only favor they obtained was to be made prisoners and carried to Montreal.
On the return of the French the Onondagas followed close upon their heels and found opportunities to revenge themselves in some measure by cutting off every canoe which happened to become detached from the main body.
The only loss in men sustained by the Onondagas, in this by far the most formidable invasion of the Iroquois country, was the old sachem, who became a voluntary sacrifice to his country's honor. It was, however, a great drain upon the feeble resources of the French colony. In it had embarked the great body of agriculturists, and at a season of the year when their labors were required to cultivate and secure the crops. A famine ensued, producing great suffering, aggravated by repeated inroads of small bodies of the Iroquois, who carried away many captives and much property, and kept the settlements in constant alarm till the treaty of Ryswick, concluded September 12, 1697. A party of French undertook an expedition against the settlements near Albany in the winter of 1696, but were met and routed by a party of Mohawk and Scahkock Indians. The commander and two others saved themselves by running to Albany; the rest were either killed or perished in the woods, so that not one got back to Canada.
The treaty of Ryswick, while it established peace between the English and French, left unsettled a question with regard to the Iroquois. The French, while they insisted on including their own Indian allies in the terms, were unwilling to include the Iroquois, and made preparations to attack the latter with the whole force of Canada; but the English as strenuously insisted on extending the terms of the treaty to their allies, and Earl Belmont notified Count de Frontenac that he would resist an attack on the Iroquois with the whole force of his Government if necessary. This put an end to French threats, and the question of sovereignty over that nation was relegated to commissioners to be appointed pursuant to the treaty. But the question arose in another form, with regard to the exchange of prisoners. The French insisted on negotiating with the Iroquois; but the English refused to yield, even by implication, the right of sovereignty which they claimed, and demanded that the exchange be made through them. The Iroquois refused to negotiate independently of the English, and thus the French were obliged to yield the point.21
Still the old rivalries between the French and English continued. The former, through the great influence of the Jesuit priests residing with the Iroquois, had an advantage which the English did not possess. Large numbers of the Iroquois were induced to locate in Canada, where they were clothed and maintained by the French, instructed in the Roman Catholic faith, and taught to regard the English as their enemies and the French as their best friends. So great had been this exodus, that, in 1700, Robert Livingston, the English Secretary of Indian Affairs, reported that "more than two-thirds of them had removed." The success of this Jesuitic influence during the three years succeeding the treaty of Ryswick , must have been immense; for under date of August 13, 1698, the Earl of Belmont thus wrote to Count de Frontenac:---
"To show you how little our Five Nations of Indians regard your Jesuits and other missionaries, they have entreated me repeatedly to expel these gentlemen from among them, representing to me at the same time that they were overwhelmed and tormented by them against their will, and that they would wish to have some of our Protestant ministers among them, instead of your missionaries, in order to instruct them in the Christian religion * * * . And you will do well to forbid your missionaries interfering any more with them, unless they desire to undergo the punishment provided by the laws of England, which, assuredly, I will cause to be executed every time they fall into our hands, the Indians having promised me to bring them as prisoners before me."
The English became thoroughly alarmed at this alienation and adopted the most active measures to counteract it. For this purpose repeated councils were held with the Iroquois, their wants and grievances ascertained, and steps taken so supply the former and redress the latter. The fullest assurances were given that the English, who had always been their friends, would protect them; they were admonished that the French had always sought to destroy them, and that the Jesuit priests had filled their ears with false stories only to cheat them. They promised to build forts for their protection, supply them with arms, ammunition, clothing and necessary utensils, and send Protestant ministers to instruct them.
At one of these councils held August 11, 1700, at which each of the Five Nations was represented, they promised that "they would discredit the idle tales of the French, continue firm to the Crown of England, if it will protect them from its enemies, and were thankful for the promise of Protestant ministers," and that, though the French had promised them Jesuit priests, they were determined to "stick to the religion of the King." At a succeeding conference held August 26, 1700, the Earl of Belmont advised them to seize all Jesuits and send them to Albany, promising to pay "100 pieces of Eight for every Jesuit." He added, "We have a law in the Province for the seizing and securing of all Popish Priests and Jesuits and I would very gladly put that law into execution against those disturbers of mankind." The Indians promised compliance with this advice, and to not allow them in their country.
The proposition to send them Protestant ministers provoked the following note-worthy response from Sadakanahtie, whom we have previously quoted:-
"God hath been pleased to create us, and the sun hath shined long upon us. We have lived many years in peace and union together, and we hope, by your instructions, to be taught to be good Christians and to die in the Christian faith. Let us, therefore, go hand in hand and support each other. We were here before you, and were a strong and numerous people, when you were but young and striplings, yet, we were kind and cherished you, and, therefore, when we propose any thing to you, if you cannot agree to do it, let us take counsel together that matters may be carried on smoothly, and that what we say may not be taken amiss. When we are to be instructed in the Protestant religion, pray let not such severity be used as the Jesuits do in Canada, who whip their proselytes with an iron chain, cut off the warrior's hair, put them in prison, and when they commit any heinous sin the priest takes his opportunity when they are asleep and beats them severely. Now as a token of our willingness to be instructed in the Protestant religion, we give nine beaver skins."
Having thus happily establish peace and good will, it was sought to give it permanency and prevent future alienation; and to that end the Colonial Assembly of New York, in 1700, enacted a stringent law imposing the penalty of hanging upon every Jesuit who voluntarily came into the Province. The English were most assiduous in their efforts to keep bright the chain of friendship with their Indian allies, for on that depended the success of their trade with them and the security of their frontier settlements. Liberal presents were distributed to the chiefs, five of whom were taken to England to give them an idea of the splendor and power of the government that protected them. But these attentions did not prevent the conclusion of a peace with the French in September, 1700, and its ratification August 4, 1701;22 notwithstanding they had previously, July 19, 1701, conveyed to Great Britain, through Lieut. Governor Naufair, their hunting grounds in which they had subdued the old inhabitants, lying "a thousand miles west of Niagara, all around the lakes," in the following words:---"We do give up and tender all land where the Bevor Hunting is which we won in war eighty years agoe, to Coraghkoe, our Great King, and pray that he may be our Protector and Defender there."
The fulfillment of the promise to build forts in the country of the Iroquois was long deferred; thought Col. Romer was sent to explore the Onondaga country, which he did without finding a suitable location for a fort. October 11, 1711, Governor Robert Hunter contracted for the construction of two forts, one in the Mohawks' and one in the Onondaga country; each to be one hundred and fifty feet square, the curtains to be made of logs a foot square, laid one upon another and pinned together, to the height of twelve feet, with a block-house at each corner twenty-four feet square, two stories high, with double loop holes; and a chapel twenty-four feet square in the center. They were to be finished by July 1, 1713.23
Peace, such as had not fallen upon the wilderness of the New World since the Europeans added their conflicting interests to the field of savage contests, prevailed at the opening of the eighteenth century; for not only had the Europeans and their allies ceased to war, but the Indians themselves had buried the hatchet. It was of short duration, however; for with the succession of Anne to the English throne, on the death of King William in March, 1702, the war of the Spanish succession, or Queen Anne's war, was inaugurated, and continued till the treaty of Utrecht, April 11, 1713. Although New England was ravaged with ruthless hand, New York scarcely knew its existence; notwithstanding the Province was put in a condition for defense.
The success of the French in establishing themselves among the northern and western Indians, annoyed the English of New York, who saw in embroiling the peaceful tribes in war the only method of arresting more formidable alliances. By special efforts the Iroquois and other Indian tribes in the eastern part of the State were induced to join an expedition against Canada under General Nicholson, who sailed from Boston with seven veteran regiments in 1710, expecting to be joined under the walls of Quebec by the colonial forces of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, with their Indian allies. But the plan was frustrated by disasters to the fleet, which became enveloped in a fog, lost eight of the vessels of which it was composed, and eight hundred and eighty-four men drowned. 24
Not until after the treaty of Utrecht did the settlements in New York make much progress, owing to the massacres that in King William's war were committed by the French and their Indian allies on the outskirts of the settlements. At its conclusion, or soon after, settlements in the Mohawk country were begun. By that treaty the French engaged not to attack the Five Nations, who were acknowledged to be subjects of Great Britain, and a free trade with them was guaranteed to both England and France.
The Iroquois, being thus debarred from continuing their predatory raids on the northern and western Indians, extended their conquests in the south, and chastised their old enemies, the Flatheads, living in Carolina. While on this expedition they adopted into their confederacy the Tuscaroras, of North Carolina, one of the most powerful Indian nations of the south, who, in resisting the encroachments of the proprietaries of Carolina, who assigned their lands to the German Palatines, were almost destroyed in their fort on the River Taw, March 26, 1713, having lost eight hundred in prisoners, who were sold as slaves to the allies of the English. They became the sixth nation of the Iroquois confederacy, which was afterwards denominated by the English the Six Nations. They were assigned territory west of and in close proximity to the Oneidas. 25
From 1744 to 1748 the French and English wee again at war, which was concluded by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, April 30, 1748, which virtually renewed the treaty of Utrecht. The contest had been for the possession of the Mississippi Valley, which the English claimed as an extension of their coast discoveries and settlements, and the French by right of occupancy, as their forts extended from Canada to Louisiana, and formed "a bow of which the English colonies were the string." At this time the English colonists numbered over a million, while the French had only about sixty thousand. This war, while it was without positive results to the principal contestants, was the turning point in the supremacy of the Iroquois, as well as in the ardor of their attachment to the English.26 The Iroquois could not be induced to engage in the strife until 1746, when the French and their allies became the aggressors; and they were chagrined at its sudden termination, as their losses were unavenged and they had compromitted themselves with their old enemies, the allies of the French, who, owing to French assiduity, had become numerous and dangerous. The war reopened the old controversy of Iroquois supremacy in a more aggravated form. Five nations of the confederacy made peace with the French and subscribed their tokens to the declaration "that they had not ceded to any one their lands" and "were not subjects of England." 27
The treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle was very imperfect, as it left unsettled many important questions which must sooner or later demand adjustment. The contest was renewed in 1755. The French, immediately after the cessation of hostilities, had entered upon the vigorous prosecution of a policy inaugurated by them as early as 1731, of connecting St. Laurence with the Gulf of Mexico by a chain of forts, and by the end of 1753, had a connected line of forts from Montreal to French Creek in Pennsylvania. The completion of the fort on French Creek provoked the resentment of Virginia, and a force was sent out by that colony under Major George Washington, with instructions "to make prisoners, kill or destroy all who interrupted the English settlements" in the invaded territory. The success was only temporary, for Washington was soon compelled to capitulate within the feeble breastworks of Fort Necessity.
The early and sweeping successes of the French, allied to their interests the western Indians generally, and caused the Iroquois, now about equally divided in their numerical representation in New York and Canada, to falter in their fealty to the English Crown. The divisions in the ranks of the Iroquois increased as the war progressed, with results altogether favoring French interests. In April, 1757, the Senecas, Onondagas and Cayugas threw off the disguise of active friendship and made peace with Canada, saying, "our promise to remain firm to the English was given with the understanding that the war should be prosecuted vigorously." Failing to secure their aid Johnson determined to make the best possible use of the neutrality. "As you have declared yourselves neutrals," he said, "I shall expect you to act as neutrals and not permit either the French or their Indians to pass through your settlements to make war upon the English, and that you do not directly or indirectly give our enemies or their Indians information to our prejudice. Should you violate these rules of behavior, we shall look upon the covenant chain as absolutely broken between us." This they promised to observe and they remained neutral till the summer of 1762, when the Senecas, to the number of one thousand, lent their aid to the Pontiac conspiracy, continuing their hostility till April, 1764, when, to avoid imminent destruction, they sued for peace.
The English colonies were wholly unprepared for the vigorous onslaught with which the French followed the overt act of Virginia; and being divided in their councils---lacking centralization---it required some time to collect themselves and interpose an effectual resistance.28 Among the earliest measures concerted were four expeditions planned by General Edward Bullock, the first to effect the complete reduction of Nova Scotia, the second to recover the Ohio Valley, the third to expel the French from Fort Niagara and form a junction with the expedition to the Ohio, and the fourth to capture Crown Point. The latter was intrusted to Colonel Johnson, who was to have the militia of New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut and the warriors of the Six Nations. He convened the latter in council at Mount Johnson on the 21st of June, 1754, hoping to induce them to join the expedition; but with all the art he was master of he could obtain little else than excuses. Hendrik and his Mohawks, were here and there a warrior from the other nations, to the number of fifty, left Albany with him on the 8th of August. At the "carrying place" some two hundred warriors joined him, giving him, with the militia, a force of about thirty-five hundred men. The French, marching in about equal force to Oswego, were called back and sent, under Baron Dieskau, to the defense of Crown Point. Leaving the large portion of his forces at that fort, Dieskau pushed on to attack Fort Edward, cut off Johnson's retreat, and annihilate his army. Misled by his guides, he found himself on the road to Lake George and only four miles distant from Johnson's encampment at Ticonderoga. Leaving his position, Johnson detached one thousand men and two hundred Indians to bring on an engagement. The opposing forces met on the 8th of September. Finding the French too powerful the English fell back to Ticonderoga; the French pursued and resumed the battle under the walls of Johnson's position. After a severe engagement of four hours the French retreated. The losses on both sides were heavy, that of the English being one hundred and fifty-eight killed, including King Hendrik and thirty-eight of his warriors, ninety-two wounded and sixty-two missing; while that of the French was between three and four hundred. Johnson was wounded slightly, and Dieskau, mortally. The French retreat was unmolested; Crown Point was not reduced. 29
For the most part the remainder of the war was a prolonged and sanguinary contest with the savage allies of the French, which brought the war to the door of the colonists and gave them ample work to defend their homes. The border settlements of Pennsylvania were especially afflicted by this desolating scourge. In 1756, forts were built at Onawaroghhare,30 (Oneida castle, in the town of Vernon,) and Onondaga, and a block house at Canaseraga. The forts were similar in their construction. That at Oneida was one hundred and twenty feet square and built of sixteen feet logs, set four feet in the ground. It had two block houses at opposite corners, each twenty-four feet square below, and the upper part projected so as to enable its occupants to fire down upon an enemy who might attempt to fire it. It was built by Capt. Marcus Perry. The block-house at Canaseraga was similar to those in the angles of the fort at Oneida. The Tuscaroras had previously built a fort at Canaseraga, and Colonel Johnson instructed Jacob Vroman, who was sent to build the block-house, to make such alterations in it as the sachems might desire. At a council held at Onondaga June 19, 1750, permission was given Colonel Johnson to build a fort or magazine at Oswego Falls, for the storage of provisions, but he was required to destroy it or give it up as soon as the difference between the French and English was settled. At that council an Onondaga sachem promised him the assistance of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras in building a road from the German Flats to Canaghsaragy, and of the Onondagas in building one from thence to Oswego. 31
The war, which for many years threatened disaster to the English, finally resulted in their favor, and was concluded between the English and French, by the treaty of Paris in 1763, leaving England in possession of Canada and the territory west of the Mississippi. It was continued, however, with unabated fury two years longer by the Indians under Pontiac, king of the Ottawas, who in the summer of 1762, formed a league to drive the English from the country.
Following the cessation of hostilities, territorial disputes arose between the various Indian tribes and the colonies, to adjust which Colonel Johnson in 1765, proposed the established of a line, which should be recognized alike by the Indians and the English as a boundary beyond which neither should pass. To this the Indians assented; but its execution was delayed till the irritation of the Indians under the aggressions of European immigration, became threatening and alarming. The Senecas, smarting under these aggressions and the humiliating treaty they had been forced to make, said by a large belt to the Lenapes and Shawanoes, in 1763: "Brethren, these lands are yours as well as ours; God gave them to us to live upon, and before the white people shall have them for nothing, we will sprinkle the leaves with blood, or die, every man in the attempt." Finding that the matter could not longer be safely delayed, a conference was called at Fort Stanwix, and the treaty by which the boundary line was established was concluded November 5, 1768. This line, which was long known as the "Property Line," is indicated on a map accompanying the treaty.32 This treaty was ratified by Sir William Johnson in July, 1770.
But this action did not long suffice to preserve inviolate the Indian territory. The influx of new settlers and the avarice of traders led to encroachments which soon provoked complaints. At a congress of the Six Nations at Johnson Hall, in June and July, 1774, a Seneca orator complained that the whites and traders encroached upon their territory, followed their people to their hunting grounds with goods and liquor, "when." He says, "they not only impose on us at pleasure, but by the means of carrying these articles to our scattered people, obstruct our endeavors to collect them." "We are sorry," he added, "to observe to you that your people are as ungovernable, or rather more so, than ours."
At this congress the Six Nations acceded to a proposition made at the request of the Montauk Indians to locate the latter on their lands, and agreed to settle them at Conawaroghere, which Lieutenant Johnson speaks of, Nov. 30, 1762, as being "a new village of the Oneidas." The Montauk Indians were in a distressed condition, being surrounded by the white people of Long Island, by whom "they were in a fair way of being dispossessed of all their lands."
The continued and alarming encroachments on the Indian domain prepared the way for hostility which characterized the action not only of the Iroquois, but also the western Indians, against the colonists during the war of the Revolution, which soon followed. The Indians had adopted and settled and well-understood policy, involving resistance to further encroachments; and the Iroquois, who had hitherto preserved a uniform friendship towards the colonists, now, with the exception of the Oneidas, Tuscaroras and possibly a few others, opposed them. Eighteen hundred 33 of their warriors allied themselves with the British, and only two hundred and twenty, with the colonists. The atrocities of the former, under the leadership of the redoubtable Brant, who succeeded King Hendrik as chief of the Mohawks, will long be remembered by both New York and Pennsylvania.
The Six Nations at first resolved in council at Onondaga to remain neutral, and were disposed to adhere to that determination; but while the efforts of the colonists had been to induce that conclusion, those of the mother country had been directed to securing them as their active allies. Joseph Brant, (Thayendanegea,) then a prominent and rising man in the Confederacy, from his close affiliation with the Johnson family, was warmly attached to the interests of the mother country. He was sent to England, where he was feasted and toasted as his predecessors had been, and returning in the winter of 1776, he at once entered upon the work of organizing a force of Iroquois. In the spring of 1777 he appeared at Oquaga (Windsor, Broome County,) with a retinue of warriors; and in June he ascended the Susquehanna to Unadilla where he demanded food for his warriors, who drove off a large number of cattle, sheep and swine, and so impressed the inhabitants of the exposed settlements of that locality with their danger, that they retired to Cherry Valley. Some families in the vicinity fled to German Flats, and others to Kingston and Newburgh on the Hudson.
For the purpose of obtaining positive information of the intention of the Indians, General Herkimer was instructed to effect an interview with Brant at Unadilla, which he did, and learned from the latter "that the Indians were in concert with the King, as their fathers had been; that the King's belts were yet lodged with them, and they could not violate their pledge;" and finally, that they had "made war on the white people when they were all united, and as they were now divided the Indians wee not frightened." A few days after this Brant withdrew his warriors from the Susquehanna and joined Sir John Johnson and Colonel John Butler, who had collected a body of Tories and refugees at Oswego, preparatory to a descent upon the Mohawk and Schoharie settlements. In August, 1777, this motley force, united to that of St. Leger, co-operating with Burgoyne, who recaptured Crown Point and Ticonderoga, which had been reduced by the colonists soon after hostilities commenced, attacked Fort Schuyler, to which they laid siege. During this siege the memorable and sanguinary battle of Oriskany was fought, between a portion of these forces and a force of colonists, under General Herkimer, who were marching to the relief of the fort, and in which the heroic Herkimer fell. While this battle was in progress a sally was made from the fort, which was then commanded by Col. Gansevoort, resulting in the seizure of the camp of Sir John Johnson, who, with his Tory allies, were put to disgraceful flight, and the capture of twenty-one wagon loads of spoils, five British standards, the baggage and papers of Sir John, and the clothing of his Indian allies.
After the battle, Brant took occasion to chastise the Oneidas for their neutrality, by destroying their upper and lower castles, wigwams and crops, and driving off their cattle; but the latter retaliated and visited destruction on the castles and plantations of the Mohawks, blotting out forever the seats of power which had once swayed the destinies of a mighty people.
This siege was raised precipitately on the 22nd, owing to a panic created by the appearance in the camp in breathless haste, of Hon Yost Schuyler, a nephew to Gen. Schuyler, who reported that the Americans were approaching in numbers like the forest leaves, and that he himself had barely escaped with his life, in confirmation of which he directed attention to his coat, which bore the marks of several bullets.34 The Indians, who had lost about seventy of their number in the battle of Oriskany, were thoroughly alarmed and fled in great haste to their boats on Oneida Lake, killing on the way thither many of their tory allies, and became, in their terror, wrote St. Leger, "more formidable than the enemy they had to expect."
Following these events was a long list of Indian and tory atrocities on the border settlements of New York and Pennsylvania, including the terrible massacres of Wyoming, Cherry Valley and Minnisink, which determined the action of congress which resulted in the successful expedition of General Sullivan, which was organized in the summer of 1779, to invade the country of the Senecas, which the tories and their allies made their rendezvous, and to put an end to this desolating border warfare. To this end General Sullivan was instructed "to cut off their settlements, destroy their crops, and inflict upon them every other injury which time and circumstances would permit."
Anticipating a blow from this formidable enemy upon the exposed western frontier, the Colonial Government had contemplated an invasion of the Iroquois country in the early part of 1778, previous to the Wyoming massacre. Had this measure been acted upon that calamity would have been avoided, but unfortunately other counsels prevailed and the project was deferred. In October of that year, the public mind having been aroused by that horrible intervening event, strenuous efforts were again made in this direction; but the season of active operations being far advanced, and circumstances rendering delay unavoidable, it was put of till 1779.
General Sullivan's army consisted of three divisions: one from New Jersey, under command of General Maxwell; another from New England, under command of General James Clinton. The New Jersey and New England divisions marched from Elizabeth, N. J., via Easton, thence to Wyoming and up the Susquehanna to Athens. These two divisions, under General Sullivan, left Wyoming July 31, 1779, and moved up the east side of the river. They numbered thirty-five hundred men. In transporting the baggage and stores, one hundred and twenty boats and two thousand horses were employed. The boats were propelled up the stream by soldiers with setting-poles, and were guarded by troops. The provisions for the daily subsistence of the troops were carried by horses, which threaded the narrow path in single file, and formed a line about six miles in length. The Indians in considerable numbers had collected at Athens on the arrival of the army there, but awed and dismayed by its formidable appearance, they yielded their stronghold with only a few inconsiderable skirmishes. On the 22nd of August, a few days after the arrival of Sullivan's forces at Athens, they were augmented by those under Clinton, to the number of fifteen hundred, making a combined force of five thousand, fully armed and equipped and supplied with cannon.
Clinton collected his forces at Canajoharie. He endeavored to induce the Oneidas and Tuscaroras to join the expedition; and his efforts would doubtless have proved successful, as he at first supposed they were, but for an address, written in the Iroquois language, and sent them by General Haldimand, then Governor of Canada, which discouraged all but a few of the Oneidas from sharing in it. Bateaux to the number of two hundred and twenty, which had been constructed the previous winter and spring at Schenectady, were taken up the Mohawk to the place of rendezvous, and from thence transported by land to Otsego Lake, a distance of twenty miles. Each bateau was of such size that in its transit from the river to the lake, four strong horses were required to draw it, and, when placed in the water, was capable of holding ten to twelve soldiers.
About the first of July, Clinton proceeded with his troops to the southern extremity of the lake, and there awaited orders from General Sullivan. He had previously scourged the Mohawk country and destroyed every village, with a single exception,35 which was spared at the solicitation of homeless frontier settlers, who begged that they might occupy it until they could procure other shelter. The villages of the Oneidas and Tuscaroras wee also spared.
In the meantime he constructed a dam across the outlet, in order to make the passage of the river feasible and rapid. He waited through the whole of July for orders from General Sullivan, who, immediately on his arrival at Athens, dispatched a force of eight hundred men under General Poor, to form a junction with Clinton and with him rejoin the main army in that place; but not until the 9th of August was the dam torn away and the flotilla committed to the bosom of the rives thus suddenly swelled, which afforded a current not only sufficiently deep to float the bateaux, but Oquaga and other places overflowed the river flats, and destroyed many fields of corn belonging to the Indians. The detachment of Sullivan's forces met the troops under Clinton near the mouth of the Choconut, about thirty-five miles from Athens, and returned with them to that place.
What emotions must have swelled the swarthy bosoms of the Iroquois at the sight of this formidable hostile array, which portended to them the destruction of their loved homes and the breaking of the sceptre by which they had so long held the supremacy of this vast territory; and coming too in a dry season, on the bosom of a river, swelled much beyond its ordinary dimensions, can be better imagined than described. So much was it invested in mystery that little resistance was offered to the advancing foe. The Indians fled from their homes and cultivated fields, in many of which, it was remembered by those who participated in the expedition, corn was growing in abundance and great perfection, and cautiously watched their progress from the neighboring hills.
After the junction between Sullivan's and Clinton's forces was effected the whole army proceeded up the Chemung River. 36 In the vicinity of Newtown,37 (Elmira,) where the Indians under their trusty leader, Brant, were concentrated, a battle was fought and its issue hotly contested. The Indians and tories combined, the latter under command of Col. John Butler, a British officer, numbered fifteen hundred. The field of battle was well and maturely selected by the Mohawk warrior, and evinced the sagacity and military tact, with which he is credited. Upon the result of this contest the Indians staked their all. Their success or defeat was to determine whether the invaders should encroach further upon the Iroquois territory, or be hurled back with such disaster as they considered their temerity justly merited. Hence they fought with desperation. Driven from the heights they first occupied, the Indians made another stand one and one-half miles further up the river; but the choice of position could not compensate them for the fearful odds against which they so heroically contended. Their valor only delayed the completion of the bloody contest. At the narrows they made a final and determined stand. Thither the victorious army pursued them, and though they fought with a desperation born of despair they were forced to a precipitate retreat.
Thoroughly defeated and dispirited they did not again invite a general engagement, and Sullivan, with little further hindrance, penetrated to the Genesee country, and marked his pathway with the desolation of fire and sword, destroying in his course, villages, orchards and crops. "The Indians shall see," said Sullivan, "that we have malice enough in our hearts to destroy everything that contributes to their support," and most effectually was that purpose executed.
The intrepid Brant, however, did not lose sight of his powerful enemy from the time his warriors sustained the disastrous defeat to the time when the colonial army retraced its steps, leaving behind it a scene of desolation and woe. He hovered around it and harassed it by making sudden descents upon its advanced guards and small detached parties, but kept a safe distance from the main army. Among those who thus felt the weight of his avenging hand was a party of fifteen or twenty men under command of Lieutenant Boyd of the rifle corps, who were detached on the 13th of September at Hanneyaye "to reconnoiter the next town, seven miles distant." On his return, he was "surrounded by five or six hundred savages," and his retreat cut off; but he defended himself till all save himself and one other were cut off, when he surrendered. His body was afterwards found mutilated in a most cruel manner. The horrid death of this young and gallant officer is thus related by Colonel Stone in his Life of Brant:---
"From the battle-field, Brant conducted Lieutenant Boyd and his fellow captive to Little Beard's Town, where they found Colonel Butler with a detachment of (British) rangers. While under the supervision of Brant, the Lieutenant was well treated, and safe from danger; but the chief being called away in the discharge of his multifarious duties, Boyd was left with Butler, who soon after began to examine him by questions as to the situation, numbers and intention of General Sullivan and his troops. He, of course, declined answering all the improper questions; whereat Butler threatened that if he did not give him full and explicit information he would deliver him up to the tender mercies of the Indians. Relying confidently upon the assurances of the generous Mohawk chieftain, Boyd still refused, and Butler, fulfilling his bloody threat, delivered him over to Little Beard and his clan, the most ferocious of the Seneca tribe. The gallant fellow was immediately put to death by torture, and in the execution there was a refinement of cruelty of which it is not known that a parallel instance occurred during the whole war. Having been denuded, Boyd was tied to a sapling, where the Indians first practiced upon the steadiness of his nerves by hurling their tomahawks apparently at his head, but so as to strike the trunk of the sapling as near to his head as possible without hitting it, groups of Indians in the meantime brandishing their knives and dancing around him with the most frantic demonstrations of joy. His nails were pulled out, his nose cut off and one of his eyes plucked out. His tongue was also cut out and he was stabbed in various places. After amusing themselves sufficiently in this way, a small incision was made in his abdomen and the end of one of his intestines was taken out and fastened to a tree. The victim was then unbound and driven around the tree by brute force until his intestines had been literally drawn from his body and would around the tree. His sufferings were then terminated by striking his head from his body."
Each of the four hostile nations was visited with this terrible retributive justice. Catherinestown, the home of Catherine Montour, whose inhumanity was conspicuously displayed in the finale of the Wyoming massacre,38 Kendaia, Kanadaseagea, the capital of the Senecas, near the head of the lake which bears their name, with its sixty well-built houses and fine orchards; Kanandaigua, with its "twenty-three very elegant houses, mostly framed, and, in general, large," and its fields of corn and orchards of fruit; and Genesee Castle, the capital of the Onondagas, with its "one hundred and twenty-eight houses, mostly large and elegant," were alike destroyed. "Forty Indian towns were burned; one hundred and sixty thousand bushels of corn in the fields and in granaries, were destroyed; a vast number of the finest fruit trees were cut down; gardens covered with vegetables were desolated; the proud Indians, who had scarce felt the touch of the colonists except in kindness, were driven into the forests to starve and be hunted like wild beasts; their altars were overturned, their graves trampled upon by strangers, and their beautiful country laid waste." 39 The terror-stricken Iroquois fled to Niagara, where they perished in large numbers from diseases caused by the absence of accustomed food, and insufficient protection from the severity of the succeeding winter, which was one of unexampled rigor, and was distinguished as the hard winter. 40
"The punishment administered by Sullivan was indeed terrible, but was it just? That the projectors of the expedition, including Washington, so regarded it, is well known; that four of the tribes had broken their pledge of neutrality and carried forward their revenges and prejudices to the account of the innocent, is also known. That they were the victims of the wiles of designing men---had learned their lessons of hatred in the earlier controversies between the contending civilizations---was as strongly urged in their behalf then as it can be now. Had they been without warning, the destruction of their towns would have been without justification: but they had been both warned and entreated. In December, 1777, Congress had addressed to them an earnest and eloquent appeal to preserve their neutrality, and refrain from further hostilities, to sit under the shade of their own trees and by the side of their own streams and smoke their pipes in safety and content; but they would not listen, and grew bold in the supposed impossibility of being reached by the government. Th visitation which they had provoked was a necessity."
But the measure of their atrocities was not yet filled. Their hatred was intensified by their misfortunes. They sullenly turned a deaf ear to the pleadings of Red Jacket to stay the avenging hand. Though crippled, they were yet powerful for predatory warfare. During the winter they re-organized, and, under the leadership of Corn-Planter, fell upon the Oneidas and Tuscaroras; burned their castle, church and village, and drove them upon the white settlements near Schenectady, where they remained till the close of the war, in active alliance with the colonists. The following May they visited the white settlements on a similar mission and penetrated to Saugerties on the Hudson. In the meantime Sir John Johnson, at the head of five hundred Indians and refugees, stole through the woods from Crown Point to Johnson Hall, for the purpose of removing a quantity of treasure which he had buried on the occasion of his first flight to Canada, and to punish some of his old neighbors; in both of which he was successful. The torch was applied to the dwellings of all, except tories, for several miles along the Mohawk, and the defenseless inhabitants murdered. The village of Caughnawaga, which occupied the site of Fonda, was laid in ashes. They killed the cattle, and took away all the horses that could be found, together with many prisoners and much booty.
During the summer, Sir John Johnson, with three companies of refugees, one company of German Yagers, two hundred of Butler's Rangers, and on company of British regulars, accompanied by Brant and Corn-Planter, with five hundred of their warriors, entered the Schoharie valley and spread destruction in their path. Not a house, barn or grain-stack known to belong to a whig was left standing; one hundred thousand bushels of grain was burned in a single day. The houses of the tories were spared, but no sooner had the enemy retired than the exasperated whigs set them on fire, and all shared the common fate. The valley of the Mohawk was next visited. At Caughnawaga the buildings which had been left standing at the previous visitation, as well as those which had been rebuilt, were destroyed, and every dwelling on both sides of the river, as far up as Fort Plain, was burned. Murder and rapine attested alike the hatred of Johnson for his former neighbors and the vengeance of his dusky allies.
But Governor George Clinton, advised of their movements, promptly marched to the relief of the district, and was joined on the way by a strong body of Oneidas, led by their chief, Louis Atyataronghta, who had been commissioned a Colonel by Congress. The opposing forces met near Fort Plain. After a sharp encounter, in which the Oneidas did signal service, the forces under Brant and Johnson broke and fled. Brant, wounded in the heel, sought refuge behind the reserve forces of his friends; and Johnson immediately made hasty retreat to his boats on Onondaga Lake, and escaped to Canada by way of Oswego.
Similar incursions were made in the lower counties of the Hudson in 1781; and in October the Mohawk valley was again visited by Major Ross and Walter N. Butler, at the head of about one thousand troops, consisting of regulars, tories and Indians. The settlement knows as Warren Bush, was attacked so suddenly that the people had no chance to escape. Many were killed and their houses plundered and destroyed. Colonel Willett, with about four hundred men, including Oneidas, and Colonel Rowley, with the Tryon county militia, marched to the defense of the valley. By a preconcerted arrangement, Colonel Willett attacked the enemy in front, while Colonel Rowley gained their rear, and delivered his blow just as Willett's forces were giving way, forcing the enemy to retreat. They were pursued the next morning, but were not encountered till evening. A running fight ensued, in which the notorious Butler was killed. He was observed by Oneida to be watching the fight from behind a tree, and the moment his head was exposed, he fell from a quick shot from the Oneida, who bounded across the stream which separated the contestants, and while Butler cried for quarter finished his work, and tore from his head the reeking trophy which he sought, and bore it as a banner in the onward charge of his comrades, before whom the enemy fled in confusion. Thus ended the incursions on the border settlements of New York. 41
Of the Iroquois, who, says Clark, "hung like the scythe of death in the rear of our settlements," and whose "deeds are inscribed with the scalping knife and tomahawk, in characters of blood," but few ever returned to their native lands; and in the treaty of peace which put an end to this interneciary struggle, no stipulation whatever was made respecting them. Keenly sensible of the deadly scourge which had devastated her border settlements, the New York Legislature evinced a disposition to expel them all from her territory, but, through the influence of Washington and Schuyler, better and more humane counsels prevailed and, though, according to common usage, they, as conquered allies of the British, had forfeited all territorial rights, they still pressed claims, which both the State and Federal Governments generously recognized and respected by subsequent treaties. Ungenerously left without provision by the allies who so strenuously courted their assistance, many of them migrated to the West. Their descendants are now largely located at Forestville, Wisconsin, where they are said to number six thousand, of whom the Cayugas form the larger part. Two thousand of their number can read and write; and they have twenty-nine day and two manual labor schools. They support themselves by agriculture, and display their superiority over the other tribes in the arts of civilization in as marked a degree as they did in the prowess of their savage warfare. They are not dying out. Their numbers rather increase than diminish. 42
Not so unmindful of the Iroquois, however, was the Federal Government. At the conclusion of the Revolutionary war, Oliver Wolcott, Richard Butler and Arthur Lee were appointed commissioners to amicably adjust their rights and claims, and at a council meeting at Fort Stanwix in 1784, reservations were assigned to each of the Six Nations, except the Mohawks. Special legislation had been previously had with regard to the Oneidas and Tuscaroras. October 15th, 1783, Congress passed a series of resolutions relating to the Iroquois, of which the sixth reads as follows:---
"Whereas the Oneida and Tuscarora tribes have adhered to the cause of America, and joined her armies in the course of the late war, and Congress has frequently assured them of peculiar marks of favor and friendship, the said Commissioners are therefore instructed to reassure the said tribes of the friendship of the United States, and that they may rely that the land which they claim as their inheritance will be reserved for their sole use and benefit, until they may think if for their advantage to dispose of the same."
|Strength in 1689.||In 1698.||Losses.|
|1685. 43||1689. 44||1698. 44||1763. 45| | <urn:uuid:cce8933e-bb00-4ad0-b749-3e41ae0ad107> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nychenan/1880-4.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783403508.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155003-00158-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.98408 | 17,383 | 3.609375 | 4 |
Passing someone a sexually transmitted infection is viewed as worse than giving them the flu — even if the flu turns out to be fatal, a new study finds.
The research points to an "irrational" stigma of sexually transmitted diseases, according to study researcher Amy Moors, a graduate student in psychology at the University of Michigan. Infections such as the flu, no matter how deadly, simply don't garner the same disgust.
"It turns out that people really fear chlamydia," the STI focused on in the study, Moor told LiveScience. "They rate a person who transmits chlamydia as very risky, very selfish, immoral, dirty, bad, any adjective you can think of that is terrible."
The stigma surrounding STIs can keep people from getting tested, discussing testing with partners or disclosing to partners that they do have an infection, Moor said. She and her colleagues wanted to understand how much stigma really influences people's perceptions of these diseases.
To do so, the researchers gathered 1,158 volunteers via the Internet and had each read a short paragraph about someone transmitting either the H1N1 flu, also called swine flu, or chlamydia to another person. Though H1N1 usually causes nothing more than a few days of misery, people with compromised immune systems, the elderly and the very young can die of it.
Chlamydia, on the other hand, is a bacterial infection and one of the most frequently reported STIs. There are often few symptoms, but the infection can cause infertility in women if left untreated. [Top 10 Stigmatized Health Disorders]
In every scenario in the study, "Christina" or "James" feels a little ill, but shrugs off the symptoms, goes to a party and has sex with a fellow partygoer. In some cases, this sexual encounter transmits chlamydia to their partner. In other cases, it transmits H1N1.
In the chlamydia scenarios, the newly infected person had to go to the doctor and take a week's worth of medications to clear up the infection. The same was true for some flu victims, but since H1N1 can be deadly, Moor and her colleagues added two other unhappy endings to some of the stories: In one, the person had to go to the hospital and "nearly died" of the flu. In another, the flu actually killed the person.
After reading one of these scenarios, each participant answered a series of questions about how selfish, risky and all-around irresponsible they would rate either Christina or James.
Who's afraid of the big, bad Chlamydia?
Keeping a sexual mode of transmission constant was meant to control for any automatic "sex is taboo" reactions from participants, Moor said. But despite the fact that the characters James and Christina acted sexually identically in all scenarios, chlamydia seemed to strike extra fear into participants' hearts.
When Christina or James were said to have transmitted chlamydia, people judged them harshly, ranking them as almost as selfish and risky as was possible in the survey. When H1N1 was the disease in question, however, people rated the transmitter much more generously. Even when the sexual partner actually died of H1N1, transmitting chlamydia was seen as much more risky and irresponsible than transmitting the flu.
"It's quite confusing," Moor said. "If sex is taboo and that's why people are thinking STIs are so stigmatized, we just nipped that in the bud. We're showing that you can get H1N1 through sex, but it's still not stigmatized."
Moor presented the research in January at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego. Her doctoral advisor at the University of Michigan is Terri Conley.
It's possible that even when told H1N1 has been transmitted through sex, people still link chlamydia more closely with sexual behavior, Moor said. Next, she and her colleagues plan to take sex out of the equation entirely. They'll place a Petri dish labeled either "H1N1" or "chlamydia" in a room and ask study participants to wait in that room for a researcher to come start a psychology experiment. Unbeknownst to the participants, the waiting will be the experiment, Moor said.
"We're going to see how far away they walk from it or how long they stare at it or if disgust comes on their face," Moor said. "So we're going to video record the whole time they're next to a Petri dish to take sex completely out of the equation."
The goal, Moor said, is to figure out exactly what it is about STIs, if not disease outcome or moral judgments about sex, that cause irrational stigma. It's considered perfectly acceptable to admit you have the flu and to get medical help right away, Moor said, but denial and fear surround STI testing and treatment.
"If the stigma were reduced, then maybe there would be more preventative care," she said.
Related on LiveScience:
Copyright 2012 LiveScience, a TechMediaNetwork company. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:dd96fb03-1ffa-46a2-902d-fac7e6c794c2> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.mnn.com/health/fitness-well-being/stories/which-is-worse-passing-along-a-treatable-std-or-fatal-flu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783396029.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154956-00001-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967856 | 1,063 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Dennis Bray - What Cells Can Do That Robots Can't "For all the walking, talking, housekeeping, car-building, child-entertaining, elderly-caring marvels of present-day robots; for all their amazing, superhuman ability to crunch numbers, play chess, store data, analyze sequences and display graphics they are still not like us. Superb specialists able to do one thing supremely well, robots and their computer brains lack the adaptability and the self-regenerating generalist abilities of living organisms. Above all, they lack the capacity of independent survival in the real world-something possessed by even the simplest organism. " (Wetware. Y.U.P. 2009)
So what is missing? The answer, I argue, can be found in the discoveries of contemporary biology. Living cells are crammed full of molecules-especially proteins but also RNA molecules- that act as biochemical switches. Most are allosteric and modifiable- formally equivalent to transistors- and linked into extensive networks through diffusion limited binding events and biochemical reactions. Computational molecules perform tasks such as amplification, feedback inhibition, oscillation, coincidence detection, and memory storage. But although biological components act in ways that are comparable to those in electronic circuits, they are set apart by the huge number of different states they can adopt. Multiple biochemical processes create chemical modifications of protein molecules, further diversified by association with distinct structures at defined locations of a cell. The resulting combinatorial explosion of states endows living systems with an almost infinite capacity to store information regarding past and present conditions and a unique capacity to prepare for future events.
Dennis Bray provided a very detailed review of various cellular and protein processes. However, I get the impression that he has not seriously considered what can be done with artificial systems. So I am leaving partway through his talk and not staying for his debate.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on Reddit, or StumbleUpon. Thanks
How to Make Money | <urn:uuid:cc466124-03fa-46df-803b-1a1d837c5c57> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://nextbigfuture.com/2010/08/dennis-bray-what-cells-can-do-that.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783395560.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154955-00021-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93867 | 410 | 2.578125 | 3 |
It is well known that meaningful knowledge of statistics involves more than simple factual
or procedural knowledge of statistics. For an intelligent use of statistics, conceptual
understanding of the underlying theory is essential. As conceptual understanding is usually
defined as the ability to perceive links and connections between important concepts that may
be hierarchically organized, researchers often speak of this type of knowledge as structural
knowledge. In order to gain insight into the actual structure of a studentŐs knowledge network,
specific methods of assessment are sometimes used. In this article we discuss a newly developed,
specific method for assessing structural knowledge and compare its merits with more traditional
methods like concept mapping and the use of simple open questions.
Key Words: Conceptual understanding; Concept mapping; MPM.
Both researchers and teachers of statistics have made considerable efforts during the last
decades to re-conceptualize statistics courses in accordance with the general reform
movement in mathematics education. However, students still hold misconceptions about
statistical inference even after following a reformed course. The study presented in
this paper addresses the need to further investigate misconceptions about hypothesis
tests by (1) documenting which misconceptions are the most common among university students
of introductory courses of statistics, and (2) concentrating on an aspect of research about
misconceptions that has not yet received much attention thus far, namely the confidence that
students have in their misconceptions. Data from 144 college students were collected by means
of a questionnaire addressing the most common misconceptions found in the literature about
the definitions of hypothesis test, p-value, and significance level. In this questionnaire,
students were asked to select a level of confidence in their responses (from 0 to 10) for
each item. A considerable number of participants seemed to hold misconceptions and lower
levels of concept-specific self-perceived efficacy were found to be related to misconceptions
more than to the correct answers. On average, students selected significantly lower levels of
confidence for the question addressing the definition of the significance level than for the
other two items. Suggestions for further research and practice that emerge from this study are
Key Words: Confidence; University Students; Misconceptions p-value;
Misconceptions Significance Level.
Previous research has demonstrated that studentsŐ cognitions about statistics are related to
their performance in statistics assessments. The purpose of this research is to examine the
nature of the relationships between undergraduate psychology studentsŐ previous experiences
of maths, statistics and computing; their attitudes toward statistics; and assessment on a
statistics course. Of the variables examined, the strongest predictor of assessment outcome
was studentsŐ attitude about their intellectual knowledge and skills in relation to
statistics at the end of the statistics curriculum. This attitude was related to studentsŐ
perceptions of their maths ability at the beginning of the statistics curriculum. Interventions
could be designed to change such attitudes with the aim of improving studentsŐ learning of
Key Words: Cognitive competence; Value of statistics; Difficulty of statistics;
Affect about statistics.
This paper describes a unique graduate-level course that prepares teachers of introductory
statistics at the college and high school levels. The course was developed as part of a
graduate degree program in statistics education. Although originally taught in a face-to-face
setting, the class has been converted to an online course to be accessible to more students.
The course serves students who are pursuing graduate degrees in a variety of disciplines but
who want to teach statistics as part of their careers. It also serves current teachers in high
school who are teaching the Advanced Placement Statistics course as well as teachers at two-year
and four-year colleges. The curriculum for the course is based on the theory that good teachers
of statistics need to be developed, as opposed to being trained. Building on recent teacher
preparation theory, we describe a course that models and builds specific knowledge about
teaching and learning statistics. In addition, this course is organized around the six
recommendations of the ASA-endorsed Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics
Key Words: Teacher development; Statistics education; GAISE.
Group activities are an excellent way to enhance learning. When students are actively involved
in a relevant project, understanding and retention are improved. The proposed activity introduces
a timely and interesting project typical of the type encountered in statistical practice.
Using the computer to successfully developing an appropriate model is a valuable educational
experience that builds confidence
Key Words: Linear regression; Undergraduate learning.
In a statistics course for bachelor students in econometrics a new format was adopted in which
students were encouraged to study more actively and in which cooperative learning and peer
teaching was implemented. Students had to work in groups of two or three students where each
group had to perform certain tasks. One of these tasks was: explaining theory and/or solutions
of problems to the other groups. In order to prepare them for this task the groups had separate
regular meetings with the teacher. Students report higher involvement and greater satisfaction
in this format than in the traditional format. For the teacher the format may be more time
consuming, but also more rewarding.
Key Words: Cooperative learning; Peer teaching; Higher education; Bachelor
study; Econometrics; Small groups.
Hypothesis testing is one of the more difficult concepts for students to master in a basic,
undergraduate statistics course. Students often are puzzled as to why statisticians simply
donŐt calculate the probability that a hypothesis is true. This article presents an exercise
that forces students to lay out on their own a procedure for testing a hypothesis. The result
is that the students develop a better understanding for the rationale and process of hypothesis
testing. As a consequence, they improve their ability to grasp the meaning of a p-value and to
interpret the results of a significance test
Key Words: Problem-based learning; Chi-square; P-value.
Following the Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE)
recommendation to use real data, an example is presented in which simple linear regression
is used to evaluate the effect of the Montreal Protocol on atmospheric concentration of
chlorofluorocarbons. This simple set of data, obtained from a public archive, can be used
to tell a compelling story of success in international diplomacy solving a global environmental
problem. A description of the use of these data and analyses are presented for a number of
courses in applied statistics including introductory statistics.
Key Words: Regression analysis; Introductory statistics; Ozone; GAISE
In response to the worldwide shortage of biostatisticians, Australia has established a national
consortium of eight universities to develop and deliver a Masters program in biostatistics.
This article describes our successful innovative multi-institutional training model, which may
be of value to other countries. We first present the issues confronting the future of biostatistics
in Australia, then relate our experience in establishing a new national consortium-based Masters
program, and finally explore the extent to which our initiatives have addressed the current
challenges of biostatistics workforce shortages.
Key Words: TBiostatistics; Teaching program; Collaboration; Statistics education.
Students increasingly need to learn to communicate statistical results clearly and effectively,
as well as to become competent consumers of statistical information. These two learning goals
are particularly important for business students. In line with reform movements in Statistics
Education and the GAISE guidelines, we are working to implement teaching strategies and
assessment methods that align instruction and assessment with our learning goals. One of the
main instructional tools we use is group projects with elements of data collection and analysis,
written and oral presentation, and self, peer and professor assessment. This paper addresses
specific challenges encountered while teaching and directing group work in a highly multicultural
context of 10 to 20 different nationalities in the same classroom. It also focuses on the learning
benefits of having students work collaboratively to discuss, write, present, and assess statistics
projects in English.
Key Words: Business statistics; Cooperative learning; Assessment.
This paper describes an interactive activity that revolves around the dice-based golf game GOLO.
The GOLO game can be purchased at various retail locations or online at igolo.com. In addition,
the game may be played online free of charge at igolo.com. The activity is completed in four
parts. The four parts can be used in a sequence or they can be used individually. Part 1
illustrates the binomial distribution. Part 2 illustrates the sampling distribution of the
sample proportion. Part 3 illustrates confidence intervals for a population proportion.
Part 4 illustrates hypothesis tests for a population proportion.
Extensions of the activity can be used to illustrate discrete probability distributions
(including the geometric, hypergeometric, and negative binomial) and the distribution of the
first order statistic. The activity can be used in an AP statistics course or an introductory
undergraduate statistics course. The extensions of the activity can be used in an intermediate
undergraduate statistics course or a mathematical statistics course. Each extension is
self-contained and can be carried out without having worked through other extensions or any
of the four parts of the main activity.
Key Words: Active learning; Statistics in sports; Binomial distribution;
Sampling distribution of a sample proportion; Confidence interval for a proportion;
Hypothesis test on a proportion; Geometric distribution; Hypergeometric distribution;
Negative binomial distribution; Distribution of the first order statistic; Theoretical
and empirical probabilities.
This study used a mixed-methods approach to evaluate a hybrid teaching format that incorporated
an online tutoring system, ALEKS, to address studentsŐ learning needs in a graduate-level
introductory statistics course. Student performance in the hybrid course with ALEKS was found
to be no different from that in a course taught in a traditional face-to-face format. Survey
and focus group interviews revealed that studentsŐ experience with ALEKS and learning of
statistics varied systematically across performance levels. Both quantitative and qualitative
data suggest that 1) class format may not be as important as studentsŐ mathematical ability and
skills for their success in introductory statistical courses, and 2) a teaching approach that
addresses the underlying determinants of learning behaviors would be more effective than simply
delivering the material in a different format.
Key Words: Hybrid course; Statistics education; Teaching software packages.
From Research to Practice
Humor has been promoted as a teaching tool that enhances student engagement and learning.
The present report traces the pathway from research to practice by reflecting upon various
ways to incorporate humor into the face-to-face teaching of statistics. The use of humor in
an introductory university statistics course was evaluated via interviews conducted with a
random sample of 38 students. Responses indicated that humor aided teaching by providing
amusement, breaking up content, bringing back attention, lightening the mood, increasing
motivation, reducing monotony, and providing a mental break. Students that were already
motivated and interested in statistics derived less benefit from humor, finding it at times
irrelevant and distracting. The selective use of humor is recommended in teaching statistics,
particularly for students that hold negative attitudes towards the subject.
Key Words: Mathematics teaching; Curriculum design; Higher education;
We located 27 articles that have been published in the first half of 2009 that pertained to
statistics education. In this column, we highlight a few of these articles that represent a
variety of different journals that include statistics education in their focus. We also provide
information about the journal and a link to their website so that abstracts of additional articles
may be accessed and viewed.
Most of us are finished with the academic year; we can sit back and relax a bit during this
short summer and reflect on our past year of teaching before madly preparing for the next one.
One question I always ask myself at the end of each year is, ŇWhat did I learn from my students
this year?Ó Here are some of the thoughts that came to mind.
Datasets and Stories
Calibration is a technique that is commonly used in science and engineering research that requires
calibrating measurement tools for obtaining more accurate measurements. It is an important
technique in various industries. In many situations, calibration is an application of linear
regression, and is a good topic to be included when explaining and learning the concepts of
linear regression. However, calibration is not often mentioned in the introductory statistics
textbooks or in the introductory statistics classrooms. The goal of this paper is to share with
instructors an example with real data for simple linear regression and its application in
calibration. It can be used as a lecture example, a class project, or a lab activity.
Key Words: Calibration; Linear regression; Inverse regression. | <urn:uuid:db291840-8e41-4eb1-a744-fa9b74415102> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse/v17n2/abstracts.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783404826.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155004-00105-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932095 | 2,695 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Holes In Embedded Devices - Desynchronized Service Accting As Backdoor
Embedded devices usually offer different types of services or interfaces so they can be configured by administrators remotely either from the Internet or over the LAN. Some of the most common examples include Telnet, FTP, SSH, HTTP (web console), HTTPS and SNMP.
Provided that such services are allowed to be accessible from the Internet, the embedded device could be configured by an administrator who could be located anywhere on the planet.
These administrative services usually require administrators to authenticate via a username/password pair. However, what if the credentials for one of these services were not synchronized with the credentials on rest of the daemons/services?
In order to illustrate the idea of a desynchronized service acting as a backdoor, let's consider a hypothetical scenario. Let's say for instance that a vulnerable embedded device runs Telnet and HTTP by default. In order to lock down the device, the admin user decides to change the default admin password to a hard-to-guess value via the web console (HTTP). The admin user simply chooses to do so via HTTP rather than Telnet because he finds it easier to configure the device with a web browser rather than a Telnet terminal.
Once the default admin password has been changed, most people would assume that administrative access is not possible using the default password anymore. However, in this case, the vulnerable device uses two different internal administrative accounts for the HTTP and Telnet interfaces. The consequences are fatal: the admin user believes that it's not possible to gain admin privileges to the device using the default password. Nothing could be further from the truth in our hypothetical scenario as the Telnet daemon still allows users/attackers to login using the default admin password!Comments Powered ByDisqus | <urn:uuid:b0bfd282-e703-4839-ab07-d964af51c458> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://www.gnucitizen.org/blog/holes-in-embedded-devices-desynchronized-service-acting-as-backdoor/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783408840.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624155008-00047-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904489 | 368 | 3 | 3 |
The Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo (also known as the Yellow-crested Cockatoo) can be found in Timor-Leste and Indonesia's islands of Bali, Timor, Sulawesi and Lesser Sunda Islands.
They are critically endangered, especially due to illegal trapping for the pet trade. There are less than 10,000 left in the wild.
The Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo contains six subspecies: Sulphurea (Lesser Sulpher Crested Cockatoo) Citrinocristata (Citron Crested Cockatoo) Parvula (Timor Cockatoo) Abbotti Djampeana Occidentalis
The Lesser Sulphur is often confused with the larger Greater Sulphur Crested Cockatoo. The Lesser is smaller at 35cm (14in) long.
They are all white with a yellow coloured crest (or orange in the Citron's case). There is also yellow on their cheeks and underneath their wings and tail. Mature females have a reddish or brown iris while males have a dark brown to black iris.
There is a lutino mutation of the Citron Crested Cockatoo.
As Companion Pets Lesser Sulphurs are adorable, entertaining companion pets that require a lot of care. They thrive on attention and love to entertain and dance.
These parrots are highly trainable and respond very well to trick training. In typical cockatoo fashion, they are affectionate and cuddly birds.
The Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo requires a lot of mental stimulation through plenty of toys and items to chew on. They are prone to boredom which may lead to feather plucking.
Diet and Health A good Lesser Sulphur Crested Cockatoo diet consists of seed, vegetables, fruits, and commercial parrot pellets.
Cockatoos are quite prone to psittacine beak and feather syndrome. This condition is often mistaken to be a nutritional deficiency because the first signs are often in the form of overgrown beak and nails and a loss of powder down. Feather abnormalties in cockatoos should be seen by an avian vet before assuming it is a nutritional problem.
Clara Hollins is the founder of Wiki Pet Bird, a new interactive resource for birdkeepers all over the world. Members can share their knowledge in all aspects of bird care, submit toy and product reviews, and join in at the forum. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Clara_Hollins | <urn:uuid:24956ef6-1e08-460f-995c-ba8349cd91e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-26 | http://tvgratisindonesia.blogspot.com/2008/11/timor-leste-tv-pets-lesser-sulphur.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-26/segments/1466783397695.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20160624154957-00056-ip-10-164-35-72.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926693 | 546 | 2.6875 | 3 |
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.