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Not Just for Kids
The Hunt for Falling Leaves...
Nature's Color on the Ground
by Mary Catherine Ball
Being a reporter, I am always looking for an adventure. Last week, I found one.
I left work to go on a simple journey, but it turned out to be much more.
First, I crossed a mud-ridden stream. Then, I came face to face with flying creatures, fighting to get near me. I even endured webmakers spinning my hair into a shiny maze.
Where did I go? Into the woods, of course. Why? I wanted to gather some fallen leaves.
My luck was good that day. I was able to spy lots of different kinds of leaves lying on the ground. Some were leaves I had never seen. Some were still green, while others were changing to their autumn colors.
Have you ever hunted for leaves? I wonder if you know the names of five of the trees that live in your neighborhood? I bet the answer is no.
Well, me neither. So I had five of the leaves analyzed. I had found the leaves from an oak, a beech, a sweet gum tree and more.
Now, I invite you to make this journey.
Narrow body with pointy edges
Narrow body with pointy edges
May grow berries
Good for sap & color
3 distinct leafs
May grow nuts
This is your task...
Travel to the deep, dark woods (in the daylight) to find these 5 leaves. Cut out the page and take it with you. Make sure you can match your discovery with mine. Happy leaf-hunting!
Stone Soup October 9 (11:30am)-Enjoy lunch and a show. After you eat peanut butter & jelly, watch Stone Soup, performed by the Lost Caravan. Lunch is at noon; show starts at 12:30. Chesapeake Music Hall, Off Rt. 50 approaching the Bay Bridge: 410/406-0306.
All Aboard October 9 & 10 (2pm)-Chug a chug to Zany Brainy for train fun. Listen to stories and sing railroad songs. Build your own trains. Ages 3+. Zany Brainy, Annap. Harb. Ctr.: 410/266-1447.
Tiny Tots Fall for Nature Tues. Oct 12 (10:30am-noon) Three- to five-year-olds (and their adult) hike into the woods to hear autumn stories, gather leaves and make a craft. Bring a bag lunch to enjoy w/apple cider @ King's Landing Park, Huntingtown. $3 rsvp: 800/735-2258.
Spooky Stories in the Woods Tues. Oct. 12 (10:30-noon)-Hike with a ranger to a clearing in the woods. Listen to autumn stories and drink warm apple cider. Gather leaves to make a craft. Bring a bag lunch. Kings Landing Park, Huntingtown: 410/535-5327.
Musical Minds Wed. Oct. 13 (4-4:45pm)-Music makes the world go round. So sing, listen to stories and play musical instruments. Ages 2-4. Chesapeake Children's Museum, Festival at Riva. $8.50; rsvp: 410/266-0677.
Nature Designs Deadline Oct. 15-Create your favorite nature scene out of clay or on paper to win prizes. Age categories are 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12 years. Place winners win nature books or statues. All art forms accepted. Take your masterpiece to Wild Bird Center, Annapolis Harbour Center: 410/573-0345.
Tiny Tots get in Touch with Mother Nature Sat. Oct 16 (10-10:30am)
Tiny tots (2-3 w/adult) learn nature by touch, feeling the many different
textures rough and soft in the world around us. @ Battle Creek Cypress Swamp,
Prince Frederick: 800/735-2258.
| Issue 40 |
Volume VII Number 40
October 7-13, 1999
New Bay Times
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Since 1993, RAN’s Protect-an-Acre program (PAA) has distributed more than one million dollars in grants to more than 150 frontline communities, Indigenous-led organizations, and allies, helping their efforts to secure protection for millions of acres of traditional territory in forests around the world.
Rainforest Action Network believes that Indigenous peoples are the best stewards of the world’s rainforests and that frontline communities organizing against the extraction and burning of dirty fossil fuels deserve the strongest support we can offer. RAN established the Protect-an-Acre program to protect the world’s forests and the rights of their inhabitants by providing financial aid to traditionally under-funded organizations and communities in forest regions.
Indigenous and frontline communities suffer disproportionate impacts to their health, livelihood and culture from extractive industry mega-projects and the effects of global climate change. That’s why Protect-an-Acre provides small grants to community-based organizations, Indigenous federations and small NGOs that are fighting to protect millions of acres of forest and keep millions of tons of CO2 in the ground.
Our grants support organizations and communities that are working to regain control of and sustainably manage their traditional territories through land title initiatives, community education, development of sustainable economic alternatives, and grassroots resistance to destructive industrial activities.
PAA is an alternative to “buy-an-acre” programs that seek to provide rainforest protection by buying tracts of land, but which often fail to address the needs or rights of local Indigenous peoples. Uninhabited forest areas often go unprotected, even if purchased through a buy-an-acre program. It is not uncommon for loggers, oil and gas companies, cattle ranchers, and miners to illegally extract resources from so-called “protected” areas.
Traditional forest communities are often the best stewards of the land because their way of life depends upon the health of their environment. A number of recent studies add to the growing body of evidence that Indigenous peoples are better protectors of their forests than governments or industry.
Based on the success of Protect-an-Acre, RAN launched The Climate Action Fund (CAF) in 2009 as a way to direct further resources and support to frontline communities and Indigenous peoples challenging the fossil fuel industry.
Additionally, RAN has been a Global Advisor to Global Greengrants Fund (GGF) since 1995, identifying recipients for small grants to mobilize resources for global environmental sustainability and social justice using the same priority and criteria as we use for PAA and CAF.
Through these three programs each year we support grassroots projects that result in at least:
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An EV’s speed controller is the equivalent of the carburetor or fuel-injection system in an ICE vehicle. To control the vehicle’s speed, the controller takes the energy from the battery pack and feeds it to the motor in a regulated manner. Modern controllers do this by pulse-width modulation, taking the full voltage from the battery pack and feeding it to the motor in thousands of tiny on–off pulses per second. The longer the duration, or “width” of the “on” pulses, the more electricity the motor receives and the faster the vehicle moves. Because the pulses are so tiny, the process feels completely smooth to the driver.
EVs can have AC motors or DC motors, and each needs its own kind of controller. In EVs with AC motors, an AC controller must first convert the DC from the batteries into AC before feeding it to the motor.
How does the controller know how much energy to give the motor? The potbox tells it. This linear potentiometer is a sensor that produces a resistance output proportional to its displacement or position. It responds to the driver’s foot pressure on the throttle pedal and sends a corresponding signal to the controller. The throttle pedal in an EV works just as it does in an ICE vehicle—the more you depress it, the faster you go.
The motor is the brawn of the EV, converting electrical energy from the batteries into mechanical energy to propel the vehicle. Instead of invisible electrons flowing through wires, we now have rotating components.
It’s the relationship between electricity and magnetism that enables the motor to do work. Passing electricity through a wire creates a magnetic field around the wire. By winding wire in a motor and running electricity through it, magnetic poles that repel each other are created, causing the shaft of the motor to spin.
If the EV has regenerative braking, the motor can also act as a generator. When the vehicle is coasting or braking, the momentum of the car drives the motor—rather than the motor driving the car. The magnetic fields induce current in the wires, the flip side of the process described above. The electricity flows backward through the controller (which rectifies it from AC back into DC) and into the battery pack. This process also creates drag on the motor—the “braking” part of regenerative braking, which is very similar to what happens in an ICE car when you lift your foot off the throttle in a low gear. Though it’s an intrinsic part of AC drive systems, regenerative braking is more rare in DC systems, where a special controller and extra wiring are required to allow the motor to serve as a generator.
The energy output from the spinning shaft of the motor now needs to reach the drive wheels. On a very small EV, the motor might drive the wheels directly, but with full-size vehicles, at least one level of gear reduction is necessary to reduce the revolutions per minute (rpm) of the motor to a usable speed at the wheels. A “direct-drive” vehicle will have a single gear reduction, which might be a gearbox or a belt-and-pulley arrangement. No shifting is necessary. This is common with AC motors that have upper limits of 8,000 to 13,000 rpm. DC motors with limits of about 5,000 to 6,000 rpm usually use the same kind of multiple-gear manual transmissions found in ICE cars. In EVs with manual transmissions, the clutch is usually retained and works the same as in an ICE vehicle.
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Products marketed for infants or billed as "microwave safe" release toxic doses of the chemical bisphenol A when heated, an analysis by the Journal Sentinel has found.
The newspaper had the containers of 10 items tested in a lab - products that were heated in a microwave or conventional oven. Bisphenol A, or BPA, was found to be leaching from all of them.
The amounts detected were at levels that scientists have found cause neurological and developmental damage in laboratory animals. The problems include genital defects, behavioral changes and abnormal development of mammary glands. The changes to the mammary glands were identical to those observed in women at higher risk for breast cancer.
The newspaper's test results raise new questions about the chemical and the safety of an entire inventory of plastic products labeled as "microwave safe." BPA is a key ingredient in common household plastics, including baby bottles and storage containers. It has been found in 93% of Americans tested.
The newspaper tests also revealed that BPA, commonly thought to be found only in hard, clear plastic and in the lining of metal food cans, is present in frozen food trays, microwaveable soup containers and plastic baby food packaging.
Food companies advise parents worried about BPA to avoid microwaving food in plastic containers, especially those with the recycling No. 7 stamped on the bottom.
But the Journal Sentinel's testing found BPA leaching from containers with different recycling numbers, including Nos. 1, 2 and 5.
"There is no such thing as safe microwaveable plastic," said Frederick vom Saal, a University of Missouri researcher who oversaw the newspaper's testing.
The American Chemistry Council disputed the findings, saying publishing the results amounts to a "serious disservice by drawing a conclusion about product safety that simply cannot be drawn from either this study or the overall body of scientific research."
Food company officials say the doses detected in the tests are so low that they are insignificant to human health.
"These levels are EXTREMELY low," wrote John Faulkner, director of brand communications for Campbell Soup Co. Tests of the company's Just Heat & Enjoy tomato soup showed its container leached some of the lowest levels of BPA found. "In fact, you might just be able to find similar levels in plain old tap water due to 'background' levels. We are talking 40 to 60 parts per trillion (ppt). What is 40 to 60 ppt? 40 to 60 seconds in 32,000 years!"
But the Journal Sentinel identified several peer-reviewed studies that found harm to animals at levels similar to those detected in the newspaper's tests - in some cases, as low as 25 parts per trillion. Scientists with an expertise in BPA say the findings are cause for concern, especially considering how vulnerable a baby's development is and how even tiny amounts of BPA can trigger cell damage.
Harm done during this critical window of development is irreparable and can be devastating, they say.
"This is stuff that shouldn't be in our babies' and infants' bodies," said Patricia Hunt, a professor at Washington State University who pioneered studies linking BPA to cancer.
Scientists say BPA and other chemicals that disrupt the endocrine system do not act like other toxins that become more potent as their doses increase. BPA behaves like a hormone. It mimics estrogen with effects that are ultra-potent. Even tiny amounts can trigger cell change.
Nira Ben-Jonathan, a professor at the University of Cincinnati whose studies found that BPA interferes with chemotherapy, said the chemical's effects might not be immediately obvious, but can be devastating over time.
"They used to say DDT was safe, too," Ben-Jonathan said.
The Journal Sentinel's tests were done to determine the prevalence of BPA in a typical modern diet for babies and small children.
Based on the test results, the newspaper then estimated the amount of BPA a child might consume and compared it with low-dose amounts of BPA used by researchers in animal studies.
In what is believed to be the first analysis of its kind by a newspaper, the Journal Sentinel found that an average 1-month-old girl is exposed to the same amount of BPA that caused mammary gland changes in mice. Those same changes in humans can lead to breast cancer.
The label "microwave safe" is stamped on thousands of products sold across the country. But that is not an official designation regulated by the government.
Companies are able to place it on their products without any official testing by the Food and Drug Administration.
BPA makes its way into food from plastic packaging when those containers are heated.
In the Journal Sentinel's tests, the highest amounts of leaching were found in two items: a can of Enfamil liquid infant formula and a Rubbermaid plastic food-storage container. The lowest levels, trace amounts, were found to be leaching from disposable frozen-food containers.
Hunt, the Washington State University scientist, called the levels found leaching from the plastic food-storage containers "real doozies."
It is likely that the newspaper's tests underestimated the amounts of BPA that normally would be leaching from reusable products, BPA experts say. All products the newspaper had tested were new. Studies show that as products age and are repeatedly heated and washed, they are more likely to leach higher amounts of BPA.
"You can't see this happening," vom Saal said. "You can't taste it, you can't smell it, but you are getting dosed at a higher and higher amount."
Also, testers did not examine the food in those containers for BPA levels. They replaced food with a mixture of water and alcohol, a standard laboratory practice that makes measuring easier and more accurate. But that also eliminates other variables that are in the food, such as fats and acids that are more likely to encourage BPA to leach.
BPA's effects also can be magnified by other chemicals in the plastic. This has been proved in one experiment after another, said vom Saal, who has become a vocal critic of the chemical industry. While BPA is potentially dangerous to all humans, scientists are especially concerned about how the chemical affects fetuses and newborns, whose systems are not developed. Babies up to age 12 months or so can't metabolize BPA as efficiently as adults.
But no one is more exposed to BPA than a newborn. A newborn's small size means that he or she gets a more concentrated dose of the chemical. Many products that contain BPA - such as baby bottles, infant formula, some pacifiers and toys - are marketed for mothers and newborns.
Exposure for babies can be exaggerated by the fact that many have diets exclusively made up of liquid baby formula from cans lined with BPA.
Babies who drink liquid formula from bottles made with BPA are effectively getting a super-dose of the chemical, said Hunt, the Washington State University scientist.
The U.S. surgeon general has advised that breast milk is the healthiest food for newborns, though BPA has been found in breast milk, too.
Less than one-third of babies are breastfed until they are 3 months old, and just one in 10 is exclusively breastfed to 6 months, a 2004 study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.
Gail McCarver, a physician at the Medical College of Wisconsin who led the National Toxicology Program's investigation of BPA earlier this year, declined to be interviewed for this article.
But McCarver said at an FDA hearing in September that she is particularly concerned about premature babies who are exposed to plastic tubing in hospitals.
The government should be protecting the smallest, most vulnerable baby, not just the average child, she said. Four million babies are born in the United States each year, and roughly 500,000 are born prematurely.
Christina Deppoleto, 36, of Hartland says she does her best to protect her 18-month-old son, Carson. Deppoleto, interviewed recently at the Milwaukee County Zoo, said she was troubled to hear about the newspaper's test results - especially findings that showed BPA to be leaching from "microwave safe" containers.
"I try to be a good consumer and a good parent," she said. "But you have to be able to trust the labels."
Reviewing scientific studies
The newspaper examined all the published literature on BPA spanning two decades. A total of 21 studies have looked at effects on mammals at doses that were similar to the amounts found leaching from the products. All but four concluded that BPA caused damage to animals.
In one 2006 study, pregnant mice were exposed to BPA from the eighth day of pregnancy to the 16th, a period critical for the development of neurons that regulate sexual behavior.
Scientists found the female offspring had fewer such neurons than usual. Their activity levels dropped and mirrored that of their brothers.
In another experiment, newborn mice were fed BPA at doses common in human diets. They were found to have changes in the patterns of their mammary glands at the time of puberty. They had more ducts and duct extensions, more developed fat areas and additional cell changes associated with a more mature gland. The consequences of this early alteration in breast tissue development are likely to increase vulnerability to breast cancer later in life, the scientists found.
Animals tested were fed BPA through pumps under the skin that regularly administered the chemical. Some critics say that method exaggerates the chemical's effects. But others say it is an acceptable method because newborns are constantly feeding.
Scientists also add that the Journal Sentinel analysis of how much BPA a baby might ingest is just a small window into a child's typical day of exposure.
Studies have shown the chemical can be absorbed through the skin. And babies also put items other than food in their mouths, including pacifiers and toys that might contain the chemical.
The findings have disturbed and angered parents and consumer advocates who say the government needs to do a better job of protecting people from potentially harmful chemicals.
"The safety of this compound is in major question, and our government is not taking steps to address this," said Urvashi Rangan, senior analyst for Consumers Union, a watchdog group that regularly tests products. "Consumers shouldn't have to be the guinea pigs here."
Canada has declared BPA a toxin and is moving to ban it from baby bottles, infant formula and other children's products. But U.S. regulators have been conflicted.
The National Toxicology Program has expressed concern about the chemical for fetuses, newborns and young children. But the FDA has declared it to be safe. That assessment, however, was found to be flawed, and the FDA since has reopened its examination.
The conflict has further heightened consumer anxiety about how much BPA, if any, is safe.
Bradley Kirschner, a pediatrician at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and the father of three young girls, said his patients are increasingly concerned about the chemical.
"If an entire country is banning it, that makes it hard to ignore," he said.
Parents are confused, he said. And he is not certain how to advise them.
"If you ask, 'Should a baby sleep on his back?' I can tell you what to do," he said. "But this is muddy."
Kirschner said he would like a more definitive answer from U.S. regulators about whether BPA is safe.
Increasingly, consumer groups are calling for BPA to be banned. Last month, the consumer watchdog Environmental Working Group sent letters to infant formula makers, asking them to stop packaging their products in containers made with BPA.
The attorneys general in New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware sent letters to 11 companies that make baby bottles and baby formula containers, asking that they voluntarily stop using BPA.
Six U.S. senators have called for a federal ban on the chemical, and more than 35 lawsuits have been filed in recent years against companies using BPA, claiming the chemical has caused physical harm.
Companies are beginning to proactively back away from BPA. In April, after Canada's announcement of a ban, several corporations said they would stop producing and selling certain products made with BPA. The companies and retailers include Nalgene, Wal-Mart, Toys "R" Us, Playtex and CVS pharmacies.
But plenty of products designed for heating food still contain BPA.
Many companies that use BPA now include safety information about the chemical on their Web sites. But those sites maintain that BPA is safe at low doses. Their claims are based largely on studies that were paid for by the chemical industry.
Jackie Chesney, a grandmother from Spring Grove, Ill., said she assumes a certain level of safety in products that are allowed to be sold.
"You should think the things you are using would be safe," Chesney said as she strolled through the Milwaukee County Zoo with her daughter and grandchildren.
Chesney said things have changed a lot since her children were small. There is so much more plastic these days, and food is more likely to be individually wrapped, she said.
The proliferation of plastic worries her.
"Yes, it's handy and convenient," she said. "But at what cost?"
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Recommended Grade Levels: 7-12+
Tips for using the site with students
Before using this activity in class (or at home with your kids), go through the activity once to make sure it works correctly on your computer(s). This activity is recommended for broadband internet access - expect load times between 15 seconds and 1.5 minutes depending on your internet connection.
If the activity does not load after clicking the 'start' button, you may be asked to download a Flash Player from Adobe.com. Please click yes as this allows you to view the Edheads Aortic Aneurysm Surgery activity. If you are using school computers, you might need to contact your tech support team to download the Flash Player.
If you are using an iPad or other iDevice, our games will not play without downloading an app or browser. We recommend the Photon browser available at: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/photon-flash-player-for-ipad/id430200224?mt=8.
Your computer(s) will need to have some sort of sound output. Either speakers or headphones will work well. The majority of this activity has voice audio. We highly recommend headphones in a classroom setting. Students with hearing impairments can read the text at the bottom of the screen. If you are having difficulty hearing, check the audio settings on your computer.
We strongly recommend that students use a real mouse, as the touch pads on laptop computers are more difficult to use for this activity and slow students down significantly.
If the teacher would like students to fill out a worksheet while doing the activity, that can be printed here. The worksheet is NOT necessary to complete the activity, but is a way for students to show they have done the activity or for teachers to track student progress.
Students in the target grade-range will take approximately twelve to fifteen minutes to complete surgery working individually or in groups of two to three. Some students can get queasy using this activity. We recommend closely monitoring students when they experience this activity for the first time.
Answers to Questions Asked in the Activity
Q1. Do you think we should continue with surgery?
Q2. Why don’t we just cut through the abdominal muscles from side to side instead of up and down?
A2. This would cause the patient more pain and take longer to heal.
Q3. Why do you think we clamp the iliac arteries first?
A3. To avoid embolisms, or blood clots, going down into the legs.
Q4. Why do we clamp the aorta below the renal arteries?
A4. To prevent kidney failure during or after surgery.
Q5. Why would we use permanent suture here instead of dissolvable suture?
A5. We can’t take the chance on dissolvable suture dissolving too soon.
Q6. Why would we close the aorta around the graft instead of just cutting away the diseased parts of the artery?
A6. The aorta wall, even though diseased, provides an extra layer of protection to prevent the bowel from rubbing on the graft.
Q7. Why use a permanent suture on the abdominal wall?
A7. Abdominal muscles are very strong and could potentially put a lot of pressure on the sutures that might dissolve too soon.
Q8. Why do we use staples instead of suture for the skin?
A8. Staples are more sturdy and easier to remove if an infection in the skin develops.
The worksheet for this activity is optional. Teachers may choose to have their students do the worksheet as a means of ascertaining that the students have completed the activity. However, the worksheet is NOT required to complete the activity.
Assessment and Discussion
For an assessment tool, teachers may want to have students put their names on the Worksheets and turn them in. These should indicate if students completed the assigned activity.
A quick five question quiz can be found here.
Answers to the quiz questions can be found here.
After students use the site, additional in class discussion questions (which can also act as assessment tools) can be asked or assigned as homework:
- How do you think the surgeon knew to put the clamps at the bottom (near iliac arteries) of the aneurysm first, instead of at the top near the renal arteries? How do you think knowledge like that is gained? Answer: Somewhat through personal experience or through the personal experience of the surgeon that trained the one performing the operation. Primarily through published papers and continuing education seminars and conferences for medical personnel. This clearly illustrates the need for scientists to share their work and data sets.
- Students can research and, if desired, write a report on the history and advancement of the grafts used to repair aortic aneurysms.
- Students can design an experiment or process that would allow them to determine the answer to the question of why so many more men than women have aortic aneurysms (80% of patients are men). This would most likely involve something like the Framingham Study, referenced here: http://www.framinghamheartstudy.org/ or could also involve genetic studies or perhaps even the development of a test to determine which individuals might be more likely to develop aneurysms. Students can discuss their ideas in class or write a report to turn in to the teacher.
Ohio Science Standards
Science & Technology
- Give examples of how technological advances, influenced by scientific knowledge, affect the quality of life.
- Design a solution or product taking into account needs and constraints (e.g., cost, time, trade-offs, properties of materials, safety and aesthetics).
- Explain that there are differing sets of procedures for guiding scientific investigations and procedures are determined by the nature of the investigation, safety considerations and appropriate tools.
Scientific Ways of Knowing
- Explain how ethical considerations shape scientific endeavors.
- Explain how societal issues and considerations affect the progress of science and technology.
National Science StandardsContent Standards
- Understandings about scientific inquiry.
- Understanding of structure and function in living systems, reproduction and heredity.
- Abilities of technological design and understandings about science and technology.
- Personal health risks and benefits, science and technology in society.
- Understandings about scientific inquiry.
- Matter, energy and organization in living systems and behavior of organisms.
- Abilities of technological design, understandings about science and technology.
- Natural and human-induced hazards, science and technology in local, national, and global challenges.
- Understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge and science as a human endeavor.
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||This article needs additional citations for verification. (August 2009)|
In spaceflight, a launch vehicle or carrier rocket is a rocket used to carry a payload from the Earth's surface into outer space. A launch system includes the launch vehicle, the launch pad and other infrastructure. Usually the payload is an artificial satellite placed into orbit, but some spaceflights are sub-orbital while others enable spacecraft to escape Earth orbit entirely. A launch vehicle which carries its payload on a suborbital trajectory is often called a sounding rocket.
Launch vehicles, particularly orbital launch vehicles, have at least two stages, but sometimes up to 4 are employed.
Types of launch vehicles
Expendable launch vehicles are designed for one-time use. They usually separate from their payload, and may break up during atmospheric reentry. Reusable launch vehicles, on the other hand, are designed to be recovered intact and used again for subsequent launches. For orbital spaceflights, the Space Shuttle has been the only launch vehicle with components which have been used for multiple flights. SpaceX is currently developing a reusable rocket launching system slated for use on both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy launch vehicles. A second-generation VTVL design was announced in 2011. The low-altitude flight test program of an experimental technology-demonstrator launch vehicle began in 2012, with more extensive high-altitude over-water flight testing planned to begin in mid-2013, and continue on each subsequent Falcon 9 flight. Non-rocket spacelaunch alternatives are at the planning stage.
Launch vehicles are often characterized by the amount of mass they can lift into orbit. For example, a Proton rocket has a launch capacity of 22,000 kilograms (49,000 lb) into low Earth orbit (LEO). Launch vehicles are also characterized by the number of stages they employ. Rockets with as many as five stages have been successfully launched, and there have been designs for several single-stage-to-orbit vehicles. Additionally, launch vehicles are very often supplied with boosters, which supply high thrust early on in the flight, and normally in parallel with other engines on the vehicle. Boosters allow the remaining engines to be smaller, which reduces the burnout mass of later stages, and thus allows for larger payloads.
Other frequently-reported characteristics of launch vehicles are the nation or space agency responsible for the launch, and the company or consortium that manufactures and launches the vehicle. For example, the European Space Agency is responsible for the Ariane V, and the United Launch Alliance manufactures and launches the Delta IV and Atlas V rockets. Many launch vehicles are considered part of an historical line of vehicles which share the same or similar names such as the Atlas V being the latest member of the Atlas rocket family.
By launch platform
- Land: Spaceport and fixed missile silo (Strela) for converted ICBMs
- Sea: fixed platform (San Marco), mobile platform (Sea Launch), submarine (Shtil', Volna) for converted SLBMs
- Air: aircraft (Pegasus, Virgin Galactic LauncherOne, Stratolaunch Systems), balloon (ARCASPACE), JP Aerospace Orbital Ascender, proposal for permanent Buoyant space port
||This section relies largely or entirely upon a single source. (May 2013)|
||The examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (May 2013)|
- A sounding rocket cannot reach orbit and is only capable of sub-orbital spaceflight
- A small lift launch vehicle is capable of lofting up to 2,000kg (4,400lbs) of payload into low earth orbit (LEO)
- A medium lift launch vehicle is capable of lofting between 2,000 to 20,000kg (4,400 to 44,000lbs) of payload into LEO
- An heavy lift launch vehicle is capable of lofting between 20,000 to 50,000kg (44,000 to 110,200lbs) of payload into LEO
- A super-heavy lift vehicle is capable of lofting more than 50,000kg (110,200lbs+) of payload into LEO
Various methods are used to move an assembled launch vehicle onto its launch pad, each method with its own specialized equipment. These assembly activities take place as part of the overall launch campaign for the vehicle. In some launch systems, like the Delta II, the vehicle is assembled vertically on the pad, using a crane to hoist each stage into place. The Space Shuttle orbiter, including its external tank, and solid rocket boosters, are assembled vertically in NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building, and then a special crawler-transporter moves the entire stack to the launch pad while it is in an upright position. In contrast, the launch vehicles such as the Soyuz rocket and the Falcon 9 are assembled horizontally in a processing hangar, transported horizontally, and then brought upright once at the pad.
As an alternative, Project Vanguard provided a contraction of the phrase "Satellite Launching Vehicle" abbreviated to "SLV". This provided a term in the list of what the rockets were allocated for: flight test, or actually launching a satellite. The contraction would also apply to rockets which send probes to other worlds or the interplanetary medium.
Orbital launch vehicles
Sounding rockets are normally used for brief, inexpensive space and microgravity experiments. Current human-rated suborbital launch vehicles include SpaceShipOne and the upcoming SpaceShipTwo, among others (see space tourism). The delta-v needed for orbital launch using a rocket vehicle launching from the Earth's surface is at least 9300m/s. This delta-v is determined by a combination of air-drag, which is determined by ballistic coefficient as well as gravity losses, altitude gain and the horizontal speed necessary to give a suitable perigee. The delta-v required for altitude gain varies, but is around 2 kilometres per second (1.2 mi/s) for 200 kilometres (120 mi) altitude.
Minimising air-drag entails having a reasonably high ballistic coefficient, which generally means having a launch vehicle that is at least 20 metres (66 ft) long, or a ratio of length to diameter greater than ten. Leaving the atmosphere as early on in the flight as possible provides an air drag of around 300 metres per second (980 ft/s). The horizontal speed necessary to achieve low earth orbit is around 7,800 metres per second (26,000 ft/s).
The calculation of the total delta-v for launch is complicated, and in nearly all cases numerical integration is used; adding multiple delta-v values provides a pessimistic result, since the rocket can thrust while at an angle in order to reach orbit, thereby saving fuel as it can gain altitude and horizontal speed simultaneously.
Under international law, the nationality of the owner of a launch vehicle determines which country is responsible for any damages resulting from that vehicle. Due to this, some[who?] countries require that rocket manufacturers and launchers adhere to specific regulations in order to indemnify and protect the safety of people and property that may be affected by a flight.
In the US, any rocket launch that is not classified as amateur, and also is not "for and by the government," must be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST), located in Washington, DC.
Specific to launch vehicles
||This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. (August 2009)|
- See for example: "NASA Kills 'Wounded' Launch System Upgrade at KSC". Florida Today.
- "SpaceX says 'reusable rocket' could help colonize Mars". Agence France-Presse. Retrieved 4 October 2011.
- "Elon Musk says SpaceX will attempt to develop fully reusable space launch vehicle". Washington Post. 2011-09-29. Retrieved 2011-10-11. "Both of the rocket’s stages would return to the launch site and touch down vertically, under rocket power, on landing gear after delivering a spacecraft to orbit."
- Lindsey, Clark (2013-03-28). "SpaceX moving quickly towards fly-back first stage". NewSpace Watch. Retrieved 2013-03-29.
- there are no Russian roadless terrain or railway car based mobile launchers converted for spacecraft launches.
- NASA Space Technology Roadmaps - Launch Propulsion Systems, p.11: "Small: 0-2t payloads, Medium: 2-20t payloads, Heavy: 20-50t payloads, Super Heavy: >50t payloads"
- HSF Final Report: Seeking a Human Spaceflight Program Worthy of a Great Nation, October 2009, Review of U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, p. 64-66: "5.2.1 The Need for Heavy Lift ... require a “super heavy-lift” launch vehicle ... range of 25 to 40 mt, setting a notional lower limit on the size of the super heavy-lift launch vehicle if refueling is available ... this strongly favors a minimum heavy-lift capacity of roughly 50 mt ..."
- S. A. Kamal, A. Mirza: The Multi-Stage-Q System and the Inverse-Q System for Possible application in SLV, Proc. IBCAST 2005, Volume 3, Control and Simulation, Edited by Hussain SI, Munir A, Kiyani J, Samar R, Khan MA, National Center for Physics, Bhurban, KP, Pakistan, 2006, pp 27–33 Free Full Text
- S. A. Kamal: Incorporating Cross-Range Error in the Lambert Scheme, Proc. 10th National Aeronautical Conf., Edited by Sheikh SR, Khan AM, Pakistan Air Force Academy, Risalpur, KP, Pakistan, 2006, pp 255–263 Free Full Text
- S. A. Kamal: The Multi-Stage-Lambert Scheme for Steering a Satellite-Launch Vehicle, Proc. 12th IEEE INMIC, Edited by Anis MK, Khan MK, Zaidi SJH, Bahria Univ., Karachi, Pakistan, 2008, pp 294–300 (invited paper) Free Full Text
- S. A. Kamal: Incompleteness of Cross-Product Steering and a Mathematical Formulation of Extended-Cross-Product Steering, Proc. IBCAST 2002, Volume 1, Advanced Materials, Computational Fluid Dynamics and Control Engineering, Edited by Hoorani HR, Munir A, Samar R, Zahir S, National Center for Physics, Bhurban, KP, Pakistan, 2003, pp 167–177 Free Full Text
- S. A. Kamal: Dot-Product Steering: A New Control Law for Satellites and Spacecrafts, Proc. IBCAST 2002, Volume 1, Advanced Materials, Computational Fluid Dynamics and Control Engineering, Edited by Hoorani HR, Munir A, Samar R, Zahir S, National Center for Physics, Bhurban, KP, Pakistan, 2003, pp 178–184 Free Full Text
- S. A. Kamal: Ellipse-Orientation Steering: A Control Law for Spacecrafts and Satellite-Launch Vehicles, Space Science and the Challenges of the twenty-First Century, ISPA-SUPARCO Collaborative Seminar, Univ. of Karachi, 2005 (invited paper)
- Christmas turns bad for ISRO, GSLV mission fails.
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As the city of Baghdad grew, it developed a reputation for learning and research. Scholars from all across the Islamic world were attracted to Baghdad, quickly turning it into an intellectual hub. This was no surprise because Islam puts so much emphasis on acquiring knowledge.
In fact, the very first verses revealed to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) enjoined him to read, and informed him that God taught man everything that he never knew before. At another place, God exhorts the believers to ask Him: “O my Lord! Increase me in knowledge.” (20:114) Furthermore, God constantly tells humankind to reason, to reflect, to analyze throughout the Quran.
The Prophet himself is known to extol the benefits of knowledge and wisdom. For example, he once said, “The seeking of knowledge is obligatory upon every Muslim.” (Baihaqi) Additionally, he has stated, “He who goes forth in search of knowledge is in the way of Allah till he returns.” (Tirmidhi) Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) valued literacy so much that he would promise literate prisoners of war freedom if they taught Muslims how to read and write.
Hence, Islam provided the necessary platform and support, leading to wondrous discoveries, inventions, and developments.
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- What is race? Is race a biological fact, or is it a historical construct?
- Does everyone belong to a race? How does one know?
- If there is such a thing as “mixed race,” is there a “pure race”?
- In what ways is the concept of race like, or unlike, the concept of “breed”?
- How is diversity of race related to diversity in terms of culture, religion, language, and nationality?
- How does the idea of race inform our sense of origins, origin of ourselves, our kin, origin of a people, of the human species, etc.?
These questions are indeed complex, often contentious, and difficult to resolve. In this team-taught course, we will explore these questions by focusing on a particularly controversial idea: the Aryan race.
Who first called themselves “Aryans,” and what did they mean by that? When and how did the notion of the Aryan become associated with a particular kind of white-ness? What is the relation identity and/or difference between “Aryan” on the one hand and “Caucasian,” “European,” “Western,” “Christian,” and “Judeo-Christian” on the other? Who today call themselves “Aryans,” and what do they mean by that?
The course material to be covered will include selected historical writings in anthropology, archeology, biblical studies, criminology, philology/linguistics, physiology, zoology, etc., a few 19th- and 20th-century novels, films, as well as some contemporary scholarly book chapters and articles.
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The simplest definition of biotechnology is "applied biology." The application of biological knowledge and techniques to develop products. It may be further defined as the use of living organisms to make a product or run a process. By this definition, the classic techniques used for plant and animal breeding, fermentation and enzyme purification would be considered biotechnology. Some people use the term only to refer to newer tools of genetic science. In this context, biotechnology may be defined as the use of biotechnical methods to modify the genetic materials of living cells so they will produce new substances or perform new functions. Examples include recombinant DNA technology, in which a copy of a piece of DNA containing one or a few genes is transferred between organisms or "recombined" within an organism.
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Treasures of the Deep
Summary:With higher log values, interest is growing in BC in salvaging `sinkers' and standing trees in man-made lakes created years ago by hydro dam construction.
By Reg Barclay
A barge with a grapple-equipped crane floats quietly on the placid waters of the lake, which reflects the greens and blues of the surrounding hills. In the cab of the crane, the operator stares intently at a video screen. A sector-scanning sonar unit dangling below the barge produces an image of the bottom of the lake, showing a criss-cross pattern of long, cigar-like shapes.
The operator lowers the grapple, the barge tilts slightly, and the sought-after treasure _ sinker logs _ soon breaks the surface. Loaded onto the barge, the logs will ultimately end up at a sawmill or pulp mill for conversion into a commercial product.
Recovering sinkers on a commercial scale like this is relatively new in BC; there are now up to a dozen underwater salvage operations, while five years ago there may have been only one or two. What is the commercial potential of recovering wood like this?
According to Roger Stanyer, CEO of Forest Renewal BC, it is significant. He refers to the "lost gold mine" sort of stories, where divers have reported piles of logs underwater 300' high, some of the logs of a size that we haven't seen logged for years.
It has been reported that one out of every 17 logs harvested on the Coast has ended up underwater. No one knows the source of that estimate, but if it's true, it is roughly six per cent of the harvest lost over the last 80 years. In addition to sinkers, nearly one million acres of standing timber has been submerged behind hydro dams in BC over the last 80 years. Whatever the potential, it is clear that there is a substantial opportunity awaiting the hard-working entrepreneur, with the capital, skill and patience to harvest these treasures of the deep. Stanyer points out that underwater logs are, of course, a non-renewable resource. Still, sinkers and drowned trees represent an opportunity, if taken on an incremental basis over 10 years, that could be "significant in volume, partially offsetting the declining timber supply, forecast for the next decade."
How big is the expected supply decline? Russ Taylor, writing in the Widman World Wood Review, said, that as a result of new reserves for parks and the new Forest Practices Code, the annual harvest of logs in BC will decline 12 to 15 million m 3 [or 1.5 billion fbm], by the year 2000. This represents a loss of enough fibre to close 12 large sawmills.
The surprise about salvaged logs is their condition. "They are as bright and sound as the day they sank, as long ago as 50 years," says Stewart Mossman of Marwood Industries, who, with partner Norm Ross, has been operating on Cowichan Lake for four years. About 80 percent of the salvaged logs are sold as pulp wood. They also have an operation in Nimpkish Lake where the yield is about 50 percent saw logs .
That salvaged logs are commercially useable is not a surprise and was confirmed by scientific research in previous years. John Hatton, Principal Scientist at the Canadian Pulp and Paper Research Institute at UBC found that salvage logs from Williston Lake were eminently suitable for kraft pulp manufacture.
This included floating logs, as well as partially and fully submerged trees. A paper by John Dobie of the former Western Forest Products Lab in Vancouver confirmed that logs from Ootsa Lake developed satisfactory quality lumber, although, because of their saturation, special drying schedules may be required to dry the lumber to KD standards and to prevent a higher-than-normal degrade.
Ken McKeen, Director of Technical Services of COFI, says, "logs in deep, fresh water are not subject to rot as bacteria requiring oxygen are not present. The structural integrity of the wood is sound, although there may be some slight discolouration."
Ownership of salvage logs is a consideration but not an insoluble problem. Where ownership is clear, the salvage operator usually arranges a salvage contract with the owner.
Frank Marks of Underwater Logging Ltd., has been operating on the lower Arrow Lake since April, 1994. Initially operating at Nakusp, his operation is now located ab ove t he Hugh Ke e n l eyside Dam at Castlegar, and he sells to Pope and Talbot and Celgar. His logo reads, "retriever of lost treasures."
Under normal operating conditions, Frank Marks says he salvages 50 to 60 m 3 of logs per day, the equivalent of two truckloads. Assuming 12 operators in the province work a full year, this represents a salvage volume of approximately 100,000 m 3 per year, or about one-tenth of one percent of the annual harvest in BC. However, a strong wind is the nemesis of the salvage logger. In the Interior, cold weather forces closure during the winter, so a full operating season is not always possible.
A capital investment of up to $500,000 is required to set up a sal-vage operation. Equipment required is a barge, grapple-equipped crane, multiple anchoring system, log storage tray, sector-scan imaging sonar with video screen, and a small tug.
With this equipment, Bill Maitland, operations manager of Goat Lake Wood Products working on Lois Lake near Powell River, says he can recover logs in depths up to 300', but prefers shallower depths for better production. Oddly enough, operators are currently facing a weak market for pulpwood and some curtailment has taken place, despite the loom-ing harvest reduction. This is the result of panic buying of logs from outside the province, combined with an unexpected weakness in overseas pulp markets.
Consultant John Mees says the market is now temporarily awash in logs, and pulp log prices have collapsed, after doubling in the third quarter of 1995 from the average of 1992 and 1993. The Ministry of Forests has not been too interested in underwater salvage logging up to now. Proper timber sales have not been possible, as volume, quality and species of logs on lake bottoms is unknown. The MOF has been content for independent operators to make their own arrangements and the MOF charges 25 cents per m 3 for recovered logs.
However, Ian Haman, MOF Castlegar says, "this may change and timber sales are under consideration. Stumpage may be increased, but the operator, because it's a crown sale, would be free to sell to anyone, which is attractive to operators generally."
While there appears to be room for more sinker recovery, the real volume potential lays in salvaging the drowned timber in hydro dam reservoirs. In his report, Dobell estimated a volume of 28 million m 3 . If harvested over a 10-year period, this could theoretically add 2.8 million m 3 or four per cent to the BC annual harvest.
In line with this thinking, the MOF has advertised its first reservoir salvage timber sale. Involving three forest districts, the sale volume is 7 million m 3 to be harvested over 10 years on Ootsa Lake, part of the Nechako River watershed, which is dammed to provide power for the Alcan mill at Kitimat. Bill Brennan, MOF Prince George, is responsible for the sale and says "while providing additional fibre is a priority, there are other benefits. There is an environmental problem to resolve, as submerged trees are a hazard to boating and broken tops litter the shore and are unsightly. In addition, employment will be increased in the region by extending the work season into the sum-mer months."
He noted also that the sale requires bidders to consider Native Indian claims and consequently he said, "bidders intend to include Indian bands in joint ven-ture relationships." The sale stipulates salvage of three types of fibre-floating logs, trees partly or completely submerged, and shoreline debris. The lake is relatively shallow, averaging 150' in depth.
Operators must take everything to 35'' below the surface. This means that clearing will be much deeper, when standing trees, whose tops are in the 35' zone, are recovered. As an incentive, stumpage will be 25 cents per m 3 , as this is in the nature of a test sale, and the sale volume is strictly a guess.
The sale has generated considerable interest by major companies, such as Canfor and Slocan. Small, independent salvage companies are also bidding, such as Fred Host, who has been salvage logging on Harrison Lake for several years, but has now decided to concentrate on Ootsa Lake. Canfor's Sandy Long, Manager of Special Projects, Prince George office, is enthusiastic. "The plan," he said, "is to pull up the submerged trees by their tops, and because the roots are dead, the tree should come up with little difficulty. Roots will be re-entered in the Lake, where they provide an environmentally friendly habitat for marine life."
Unrelated to the Ootsa sale, but recognizing the same benefits, is a $350,000 project to map and inventory Kinbasket Lake, north of Golden. BC Hydro estimates that 1.8 million m 3 of standing timber was drowned, when this lake was created. Because of its extreme depth, salvage will be difficult, and so the project will also test equipment for commercially recovering the wood.
The successful bidder, Bluewater Marine Services, has employed Sylvametrics, a forestry consultant specializing in forest inventory methods, to assist. "We feel this project will benefit the for-est industry by supplementing fibre supply and providing more fo re s t ry jobs,'' says Stanyer." Undoubtedly, technology will be a key element in the Kinbasket project, as it has been for the lake salvagers to date.
A Vancouver company, Imagenex Technology Corporation, is a world leader in producing and distributing specialized imaging equipment such as the sector-scanning unit used by salvagers to recover `sinkers'. They also produce an underwater side-scan module for mapping lake bottoms and locating concentrations of drowned timber. Through adaptations, even the size and volume of the timber can be measured. This equipment is towed behind a slowly moving boat or mounted on a remotely operated underwater vehicle. A global positioning receiver and antenna are connected to the sonar processor to measure position. Sonar images, GPS latitude and longitude, plus the time and date are stored on a computer disc for printing later at a more suitable place. All this can be powered with a portable generator supplying a few hundred watts.
Alan Mulvenna, Vice President said, " Imagenex has made sales and deliveries to customers all over the world through agents in the US, Europe, Scandinavia and Australia." Salvage logging illustrates that ways can be found to supplement a fading harvest of standing timber. Despite the usual short-term peaks and valleys, the trend towards a higher value for fibre will undoubtedly support other new ways to increase the fibre supply.
This page and all contents
©1996-2007 Logging and Sawmilling
Journal (L&S J) and TimberWest Journal.
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Volunteering For A Clinical Trial
Every year, millions of people volunteer to take part in clinical trials. For some, it is an opportunity to help advance medical research. For others, it is a chance to gain access to latest potential treatment. For everyone, however, it is a very personal decision and one that requires careful thought.
Below is a list of online resources that will help you decide whether participation in a clinical trial is the right decision for you.
Understanding Clinical Trials
An introduction to clinical trials provided by the National Institutes of Health.
Your Rights and Informed Consent
Information regarding patients' rights for deciding to participate in a clinical trial.
Children and Clinical Studies
US Government website explaining the need for pediatric clinical research and information on child participation.
The following areas are the primary focus of ITN research and trials. Click on the links below for more information.
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Yakko: a manservant to a samurai.
Yakusha-e (Actor pictures): painting or print of an actor.
Yoko-e (Horizontal picture; also called yoko-ban): prints with a horizontal format.
Yokohama: a port near Edo, opened to foreigners in 1859.
Yokohama-e (Yokohama pictures): late style of ukiyo-e which was popular between 1860 and 1880 and which illustrated scenes of Yokohama in the late Edo and the early Meiji.
Yoshiwara: name of the licensed quarter in Edo.
Yukata: an informal cotton kimono or bathrobe. back to top
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By Mahdi Al-Kaisi, Department of Agronomy; Mark Hanna, Department of Agricultural and Biosystem Engineering; Mark Licht, Extension Field Agronomist
Normally early spring soil moisture is a challenge when the soil profile is fully charged. Depending on the amount of snow we receive and duration of winter, there is a tendency for producers to enter fields at less-than-ideal soil conditions, especially when there is a short window for conducting field operations.
Soil compaction caused by field traffic and machinery increases with high soil moisture. Over the past decade the size of Iowa farms has increased, leading to larger and heavier equipment. However, equipment size is only one factor among many causes of the soil compaction problem. Rushing to the field when the soil is wet, combined with the weight of equipment and traffic pattern in the field, can increase chances for severe soil compaction. Conducting field operations during wet field conditions compounds the amount of compaction occurring.
Maximum soil compaction occurs when soil moisture is at or near field capacity (Figure 1) because soil moisture works as a lubricant between soil particles under heavy pressure from field equipment.
Figure 1. Relationship between soil moisture and potential soil compaction.
Indications of soil compaction during and immediately following a normal rainfall include slow water infiltration, water ponding, high surface runoff, and soil erosion. Additionally, soil compaction can be diagnosed by stunted plant growth, poor root system development (Photo 1), and potential nutrient deficiencies (i.e., reduced potassium uptake). These soil compaction symptoms are a result of increased bulk densities that affect the ideal proportion of air and water in the soil.
Photo 1. Effect of soil compaction on root growth at three different soil bulk densities: Low, 0.7 g/cm3; Medium, 1.1 g/cm3; High, 1.6 g/cm3.
The most efficient way to verify soil compaction is to use a tile probe, spade, or penetrometer to determine a relative soil density. Soil moisture conditions can have a significant effect on penetration resistance.
For example, in dry soil conditions soil penetration resistance is much higher than wet conditions because soil water acts as a lubricant for soil particles. Therefore, it is wise to determine soil compaction early in the season or compare observations and measurements from suspected areas with adjacent areas that have little chance of soil compaction due to traffic patterns.
Management decisions to minimize soil compaction
The most effective way to minimize soil compaction is to avoid field operations when soil moisture is at or near field capacity. Soil compaction will be less severe when soil tillage, fertilizer application and planting operations occur when the field is dry. Soil moisture can be determined using a hand ball test or observing a soil ribbon test.
Properly adjusted tire size and correct air pressure for the axle load being carried is a second management tool. Larger tires with lower air pressure allow for better flotation and reduce pressure on the soil surface. Additionally, using larger tires that are properly inflated increases the "footprint" on the soil.
A third management decision is to use the same wheel tracks to minimize the amount of land traveled across. Most damage occurs with the first pass of the implement. Using control traffic patterns can be done effectively by using implements that have matched wheel-tread configuration for soil preparation, planting, row cultivation, spraying and harvesting.
Soil compaction can be a serious problem for Iowa farmers, but with proper farm management, compaction can be minimized. Remember to hold off soil tillage operations until soil conditions are drier than field capacity and look into the benefits of conservation tillage systems.
Top 10 Reasons to Avoid Soil Compaction
1. Causes nutrient deficiencies
2. Reduces crop productivity
3. Restricts root development
4. Reduces soil aeration
5. Decreases soil available water
6. Reduces infiltration rate
7. Increases bulk density
8. Increases sediment and nutrient losses
9. Increases surface runoff
10. Damages soil structure
Source: Iowa State University Extension publication PM 1901b - Understanding and Managing Soil Compaction -- Resource Conservation Practices
Mahdi Al-Kaisi is an associate professor in agronomy with research and extension responsibilities in soil management and environmental soil science. Mark Hanna is an extension agricultural engineer in agricultural and biosystems engineering with responsibilities in field machinery. Mark Licht is an Iowa State University Extension field agronomist serving Calhoun, Carroll, Crawford, Greene, Ida, Monona, and Sac counties.
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Osteopathy uses ‘hands-on’ techniques to influence the way the body works. By manipulating the muscles, tendons, joints, connective tissue and ligaments, treatment can provide relief to the musculoskeletal system, the nervous system, and also the circulatory, respiratory and immune systems of the body. In this way, it is seen as a form of manual medicine which can influence all systems of the body towards a more efficient and holistic state of health. The osteopath will use highly developed skills of palpation (feeling) to find areas of stress, strain or weakness in the body and after making a diagnosis, treat specific areas relating to your complaint. The techniques employed are safe, gentle and effective.
Most people come to see osteopaths because they are in physical pain. Headaches, backaches, neck pain and sporting injuries are the most common complaints that osteopaths treat. Osteopathic treatment is for everyone from young to old, to all family members and can help with a wide and varied range of conditions including:
Osteopathic Practice is statutorily regulated by The General Osteopathic Council (GOsC) (Osteopath’s Act 1993).
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DNA of extinct frog revived
Washington, March 18, 2013
First Published: 20:06 IST(18/3/2013)
Last Updated: 20:10 IST(18/3/2013)
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A team of scientists has revived and reactivated the genome of an extinct Australian frog.
They used sophisticated cloning technology to implant a dead cell nucleus into a fresh egg from another frog species.
The bizarre gastric-brooding frog, Rheobatrachus silus – which
uniquely swallowed its eggs, brooded its young in its stomach and gave birth through its mouth - became extinct in 1983.
But the Lazarus Project team has been able to recover cell nuclei from tissues collected in the 1970s and kept for 40 years in a conventional deep freezer. The de-extinction project aims to bring the frog back to life.
In repeated experiments over five years, the researchers used a laboratory technique known as somatic cell nuclear transfer.
They took fresh donor eggs from the distantly related Great Barred Frog, Mixophyes fasciolatus, inactivated the egg nuclei and replaced them with dead nuclei from the extinct frog.
Some of the eggs spontaneously began to divide and grow to early embryo stage – a tiny ball of many living cells.
Although none of the embryos survived beyond a few days, genetic tests confirmed that the dividing cells contain the genetic material from the extinct frog.
“We are watching Lazarus arise from the dead, step by exciting step,” the leader of the Lazarus Project team, Professor Mike Archer, of the University of New South Wales, in Sydney said.
“We’ve reactivated dead cells into living ones and revived the extinct frog’s genome in the process. Now we have fresh cryo-preserved cells of the extinct frog to use in future cloning experiments,” he said.
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Keep friends, family and yourself safe during grilling season by following these food safe tips.
Use an instant-read thermometer to check if meat is finished rather than cutting into it as the natural juices will escape.
Cook food thoroughly — cooking times and temperatures vary for different meat and poultry.
Whole poultry should be fully cooked at 82°C (180°F), burgers at a minimum of 71°C (160°F) and beef, veal and lamb roasts and steaks can vary from 63°C (145°F) for medium-rare to 77°C (170°F) for well done.
When cooking in advance, divide large portions of food into small, shallow containers for refrigeration to ensure safe, rapid cooling.
Keep cold food cold and hot food hot until it's served. You can keep cooked meats hot by setting them to the side or upper tray of the barbecue grill.
The refrigerator should be set at 4°C (40°F) or colder and the freezer at -18°C (0°F) or colder.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
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There's a new reason to worry about the security of your Social Security number. Turns out, they can be guessed with relative ease.
A group of researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University say they've discovered patterns in the issuance of numbers that make it relatively easy to deduce the personal information using publicly available information and some basic statistical analysis.
The research could have far-ranging implications for financial institutions and other firms that rely on Social Security numbers to ward off identity theft. It could also unleash a wave of criminal imitators who will try to duplicate the research.
Details of the research were published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal and will be explained at the annual Black Hat computer hacker convention in Las Vegas later this month.
The report means companies and other agencies should once and for all stop using Social Security numbers as passwords or unique identifiers, said Professor Alessandro Acquisti, who authored the report.
"We keep living as if they are secure, a secret," he said. "They're not a secret."
The Social Security Administration says SSNs are issued using a complex process that is effectively random, making them impossible to guess in practical terms. But Acquisti and fellow researcher Ralph Gross used public lists of Social Security numbers to look for patterns. They found several. The two say they can guess the first 5 digits of the Social Security number of anyone born after 1988 within two guesses, knowing only birth date and location. The last four digits, while harder to guess, can be had within a few hundred guesses in many situations -- a trivial hurdle for criminals using automated tools.
"Someone filling out credit card applications using a Web site and a botnet could easily succeed (in getting someone's number)," he said.
'Public should not be alarmed'
Acquisti shared the report with the Social Security Administration's office before publication. He said he could not disclose what steps the agency is taking in response to the research.
The Social Security administration played down the discovery. In a statement to msnbc.com, Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter called any suggestion that Acquisti had cracked the code for predicting Social Security numbers "a dramatic exaggeration."
"The public should not be alarmed by this report because there is no foolproof method for predicting a person's Social Security Number," the statement read.
But privacy expert Daniel Solove, a law professor at George Washington University who reviewed the report, called the discovery a "really big deal."
"If you have a password and you can readily figure it out, that's absurd," he said. "This paper points out just how ridiculous it is that we think there's a way to really keep Social Security numbers confidential. There effectively is no way you can keep them totally confidential. It's just not possible."
How it works
Acquisti said he's discovered simple patterns in the Social Security numbering system. It involves the elusive concept of randomness. To most people, a number is either random or it's not. But to mathematicians, randomness is a sliding scale. Developing perfectly random numbers -- the science of cryptography -- is nearly impossible. Often, software programs designed to create random numbers erroneously spit them out with a faintly distinguishable pattern. With a large enough sample, the numbers begin to form clusters. Even a small discovery of such a cluster can make an enormous difference to someone trying to crack a crypto code, making predictions of supposedly random numbers an order of magnitude easier.
That's what the Carnegie Mellon researchers found.
A completely random guess at a 9-digit SSN should be a one in one billion chance. But instead, their newly educated guesses have narrowed the odds down to roughly 1 in 1,000. Making matters worse, because of changes in the way the numbers have been issued since 1988, the numbers are getting easier and easier to guess as time passes. In one example, the researchers said, they can uncover a Delaware resident's 9-digit SSN within 10 guesses about 5 percent of the time.
The SSN is actually broken up into three parts - the first three digits are the "area number," the second two are "group number" and the last four are the "serial number." The Social Security Administration already offers considerable information about the first part of the number. The area number is based on the zip code used in the application for an SSN. High population states have many area numbers -- New York has 85, for instance – but many others, like Delaware, have only one.
The other two parts the number, however, are assigned in a way that the Social Security Administration believes it nearly impossible for someone to guess. But the Carnegie Mellon work shows they are not.
He took the largest publicly available list of SSNs -- the agency's master death file, which publishes numbers of the deceased to make them hard to use by imposters -- and sorted the list by state and date of birth. Immediately, it became clear that the second portion -- the group number -- was sequentially issued and also trivial to guess. For example, every SSN issued in Pennsylvania during 1996 contains the middle two numbers 76.
That made guessing the first 5 digits of someone's SSN easy in some cases. During a test, the group was able to predict the first five digits of Vermont residents born in 1995 with 90 percent accuracy.
That's important, because there are many ways to determine the last four digits of someone's Social Security number. Some data brokers sell truncated SSNs, with either the first five or the last four numbers visible to the purchaser. And many financial firms use those numbers as a PIN code for verification.
Also, endless customer service operators ask for the last four digits when consumers call for help. Any agent who knows where and when a caller was born could quickly amass a large set of complete Social Security numbers.
The report contains even more bad news.
The serial numbers -- the last four digits -- can often be guessed using formulas and patterns, he said. It turns out that the Social Security Administration doesn't utilize true randomization to create serial numbers. For example, a graph plotting the numbers issued to Oregon residents in 1996, shown below, shows bands that cluster around certain numbers. In fact, there are five discernable lines. A truly random issue would show dots scattered throughout the chart.
The pattern inside SSNs
With additional analysis, Acquisti said, the researchers were able to discern that the serial numbers are issued sequentially, in a way that ties them to the holder's birth date.
"The SSA believes that scheme is so complex that it's sufficiently random," he said. "We show it is way less random than apparently they believe." As a result, instead of a the four digits yielding a 1 in 10,000 chance in guessing SSNs, he said he can improve the odds to at least 1 in 1,000, and in some cases, far less than that.
The Social Security Administration seems to agree with Acquisti on this issue. In its statement to msnbc.com, the agency said that "for reasons unrelated to this report, the agency has been developing a system to randomly assign SSNs. This system will be in place next year."
Birth dates easy to obtain
For now, an attacker who wanted to guess someone's SSN would still need a birthday and hometown, but these data points are readily available from a number of sources. Many people volunteer such information on social networking sites like Facebook. Voter registration lists and other public databases also include such information, and it is often available for a small charge (or free) from data brokers that operate on the Internet.
There are additional challenges in guessing SSNs for residents born before 1988, because many older Americans did not receive a Social Security number at birth -- so their hometown and their Social Security number application zip code might differ. But beginning that year -- in a move ironically intended to combat fraud -- the Social Security Administration began forcing many families to order SSNs at birth, thereby eliminating one more element of chance for a would be SSN-guesser. It's far easier to guess SSNs for anyone born in 1988 or later, Acquisti said.
The formula for issuing the numbers is, in fact, not designed to withstand attacks from cryptography experts or mathematicians. It was invented in 1936 as a simple numbering system for paper file cabinets.
"This was before there were computers," Acquisti said. "SSNs were never designed for the purpose we use them."
The group is not disclosing the precise formula, because doing so would be akin to publishing the list of all Social Security numbers. But Acquisti said one "provocative" strategy that government officials might take: Setting a date in the future -- perhaps in three to five years -- where all SSNs are made public, so companies and government agencies stop using SSNs for security purposes.
He called current efforts to protect Social Security numbers from public view "well intentioned, but misguided."
The researchers recommend that the Social Security Administration immediately implement a much more random formula for generation SSNs. But that won't help the millions of Americans whose SSNs are now easily guessable. For that, there is only one answer, the report says:
"Industry and policy-makers may need, instead, to finally reassess our perilous reliance on SSNs for authentication and on consumers' impossible duty to protect them," it said.
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This information is addition information and a shorter version of my previous article called The Moors Of Early Jamaica. Some of our history is hidden in names, titles, tags such as Blackamoors, the word Moor spelled in many variations, Free Negros/Blacks/Colored, Black Indians, the 1828 Webster definition of American, West Indian, Muslim, Mohammadians, Moslem.
Also thanks to the sister from Canada that runs Ebony Intuition, check her blog out.
Source: Crescent Magazine formally known as muslimedia.com
Unearthing the buried legacy of African Muslims in America
AFRICAN MUSLIMS IN ANTEBELLUM AMERICA: TRANSATLANTIC STORIES AND SPIRITUAL STRUGGLES. By Allan D. Austin. 1997. New York and London: Routledge. Pp: 194
By Yusuf Progler
The Muslim legacy in African American history is receiving a lot of scholarly and popular attention lately. Even Hollywood has had to include Muslim characters in its historical reconstructions. But this was not always the case. Though Muslim historians have written for decades about the Islamic identity of Africans kidnapped into American slavery, mainstream historians ignored or downplayed this research in their work.
Then, in the early 1970s, when prominent American historians rejected out of hand novelist Alex Haley's assertion that the lead character in his acclaimed work Roots was a Muslim, a young professor of English and Afro-American Studies became intrigued and embarked on his own research into African American Muslim history. That was over 20 years ago, and since then Allan D. Austin has become a respected scholar in the field, recently serving in the Dubois Institute at Harvard for his work.
Austin's original research led to the ambitious and oft-cited reference work, African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Sourcebook (1984). But that volume soon went out of print and became a hard to find item. It also suffered from poor translation of Arabic documents, and some confusion with respect to Islamic doctrines. However, the original work did attract a number of Muslim historians and enthusiasts to Austin's cause.
Since the publication of the sourcebook, many people have helped unearth additional sources for African American Muslim history, and have improved the translation of Arabic documents and aided Austin's overall understanding of Islam. The author thanks in particular Muhammad al-Ahari of Chicago, as 'an indefatigable tracer of lost Muslims.' The present volume, newly extracted and bridged from the original sourcebook, is a long awaited and carefully updated return to print of Austin's valuable research.
Austin begins by discussing obstructions to knowledge of African Muslims in the Americas. From literature and history, to missionary polemics, there seems to have been a collective denial about the presence of African Muslims. Part of this is due to the way in which African Muslim histories and lives were intertwined with other aspects of American history.
The presence of Muslims in the slave population challenged and confused white slave owners, who had constructed a paternal and self-serving image of Africans as without religion, culture, or language. This is not to suggest that Africans had none of these attributes - quite the contrary - but that Muslim expressions of what was considered to be 'civilization' were uncomfortably similar to white norms.
Muslims had a literary tradition and believed in Holy Books, and they knew Biblical stories of Jesus and Moses (upon them both be peace), which were recognized by Christian captors. Yet, Muslims also had the Qur'an, which was in a non-European language, and which superseded the Bible, so many whites could not see Islam as anything but a Christian heresy.
Despite these prejudices and obstructions, knowledge of African Muslims has survived. A growing collection of Arabic documents provides the most solid evidence for the presence of African Muslims in the Americas. Buried in archives and libraries for decades, many of these valuable documents are now seeing the light of research.
Ranging from letters and autobiographical statements, to personal reflections and quotations from the Qur'an, African Muslims made ample use of their literary tradition while in American captivity. Sometimes, their ability to write Arabic was seen as a novelty by whites, who on occasion asked slaves and freedmen to reproduce the exotic looking twists and turns of Arabic script.
In other instances, Africans in captivity wrote eloquent letters in Arabic to Muslim rulers overseas, asking to be manumitted from their Christian owners. While many of these Arabic documents were no doubt intercepted, lost or destroyed, many others have survived, and Austin reproduces several of them in photographs and in translation. And, as similar work continues, more will likely be found.
Being recognized as a Muslim in American slavery had its difficulties, and this must have provoked many Muslim slaves into hiding their faith to protect their skin. Still, many persisted and there are some ironic cases on record. In one notable instance, the cruel son of a white slave owner constantly tormented a Muslim slave as he bowed in prayer. When the Muslim got an eye infection from dirt kicked in his face, a doctor who treated him took an interest in his story, which eventually led to his repatriation to Africa. Other Christian slave owners and missionaries incessantly tried to convert Muslims to their Christian faith, sometimes even providing Bibles in Arabic in the hope that Muslims would make the switch to a new faith in the same language.
But many Christians did not know anything about Arabic. In one case, missionary zeal in converting an African Muslim, coupled with ignorance of Arabic, led to an interesting example of the subversive use of language. After working with his Muslim charge on Christian doctrine, a white man asked that the Christian Lord's Prayer be written in his native African tongue. The Muslim, Abdul Rahman, wrote several lines in Arabic. The Christian then wrote that he witnessed the 'foregoing copy of the Lord's Prayer' on December 1828, and then filed the letter away. But many decades later, when someone who knew the Arabic read it, the letter was revealed to contain the 'Fatihah.' Abdul Rahman had duped his Christian interlocutor.
In addition to their language, Muslims were often known by their names: Abdul Rahman, Ayyub Sulayman, Abu Bakr Siddiq, Muhammad Ali, and Salih Bilali, to name only a few. While many Muslims were given Christian names by their owners, as was general practice in slave America, and while others must have dropped their Muslim names in dissimulation, Christians also seem to have used the Biblical spelling of Muslim names. So, for example, we find Ayyub Sulayman referred to as Job Solomon.
Austin notes that this name-switching may be a factor in further identifying African Muslims in the historical record. He suggests, for instance, that a slave name like Bailey could have been a corruption of Bilali, which in this case is significant, since famed African American abolitionist Frederick Douglas's full name included Bailey. Reading through the chapters with this in mind, one wonders if a name like Ben Sullivan was from Ibn Sulayman.
Other Muslims are recognizable by their actions, with slave owners and descendants of slaves noting and recalling many practices and habits of Black men and women which suggest that they were Muslims. For example, a plantation owner in Georgia noticed that each morning at dawn, one of his slaves would bow down facing East. On other occasions, practices resembling ablution and fasting suggest a Muslim presence.
During the 1930s, descendants of slaves on the Georgia Sea Islands recalled their ancestors as praying on mats and using beads in prayer. While the jihad tradition of West Africa played an important role in slave rebellions in Brazil, few researchers seem to have noticed that this might have been a factor in North America. Even so, some sources suggest that the Amistad slave ship revolt included Muslim participants.
In the 1970s, a group of musicologists traced Black musical traditions to Qur'anic recitation and to the music of West African Muslims. In short, there remains much material to be mined, and Austin's work ought to be seen as a beginning, as an invitation into the study of what will continue to be a rich legacy.
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Respect Your Children and Yourself
It's a Good Idea!
The fact that children are little, seemingly-irrational, and inexperienced shouldn't be held against them. Children should be held against you—gently.
It's a Good Idea!
Respect your child's challenges! Children test you to see how far they can go. It's not that they want total freedom, rather they want to know what the limits are. Setting reasonable (and respectful) limits for them will enable them to set their own limits as they grow older.
Element number two of the Twelve Disciplinary Elements is to respect your children and yourself. Positive discipline is based on mutual respect. Assume that children are basically reasonable human beings who want to do well, and treat them with the respect they deserve. Kids learn by imitation, and just demonstrating respectful behavior will take you a long way. The basic rule is: You get what you give. Sound familiar? Some call it the Golden Rule, and some call it karma, but the idea is the same: Treat your child as you would like to be treated and your child (eventually and usually) will treat you that way back.
How do you show respect for your child? By discussing her feelings and beliefs and acknowledging that they are valid—for her. By helping her improve her critical thinking skills and empathy by discussing other people's perspectives on the same issues. By respecting who she is, and the integrity of her body. By starting with the child, and moving forward from there. You don't show respect when you agree with everything she says or by letting her make all her own choices or decisions. Look, kids don't always know what's right for them. They're kids, after all.
You show respect for your child when you:
- respect her feelings;
- respect her opinions;
- respect her privacy;
- respect her temperament; and
- respect her body and personal space.
More on: Values and Responsibilities
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to a Well-Behaved Child © 1999 by Ericka Lutz. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit Amazon's web site or call 1-800-253-6476.
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LONDON (Reuters) - People should be cautious about taking vitamin E supplements regularly because doing so can increase the risk of a certain type of stroke, an international team of scientists said on Friday.
Researchers from the United States, France and Germany reviewed existing studies of vitamin E and its effect on stroke and found that taking the vitamin increased the risk of haemorrhagic stroke, where bleeding occurs in the brain, by 22 percent, but cut the risk of ischaemic stroke by 10 percent.
Ischaemic stroke accounts for around 70 percent of all cases and happens when a blood clot prevents blood reaching the brain.
"These findings suggest that the use of vitamin E may not be as safe as we have believed and is actually associated with some harm in the form of increased risk for hemorrhagic stroke," said Markus Schurks, of the Brigham and Women's Hospital in the United States, who led the study.
The researchers stressed the effects on absolute risk are small, with 0.8 more haemorrhagic strokes and 2.1 fewer ischaemic strokes per 1,000 people taking vitamin E.
This is equivalent to one ischaemic stroke being prevented for 476 people taking the vitamin, they said, and one extra haemorrhagic stroke for every 1,250 people taking it.
"While the risk is small ... we caution against widespread uncontrolled use of vitamin E," Schurks said in a statement.
Previous research has suggested that taking vitamin E has a protective effect against heart disease and around 13 percent of the U.S. population takes vitamin E as a supplement, the scientists said in their study published in the British Medical Journal.
Stroke is the most common cardiovascular problem after heart disease and kills around 5.7 million people worldwide each year.
For their analysis, the scientists studied nine trials that had investigated the effect of vitamin E on stroke in more than 118,000 people, half of whom were taking at least 50 mg daily of vitamin E and half of whom were taking a placebo or dummy pill.
None of the trials suggested taking vitamin E increased the risk for total stroke, but the researchers found there were stark differences when looking at individual types of stroke.
The analysis found there were 223 haemorrhagic strokes among people taking vitamin E and 183 such strokes among those taking a placebo, meaning the group taking the vitamin were 22 percent more likely to have this kind of stroke.
A total of 884 people taking vitamin E had an ischaemic stroke compared with 983 people taking a placebo, meaning people taking the vitamin were 10 percent less likely to have this form of stroke.
"Although the effects of vitamin E that are shown ... are both relatively small, haemorrhagic strokes generally have more severe outcomes," said Tobias Kurth, of France's Hopital de la Pitie-Salpetriere, who also worked on the study.
"Based on these findings, we suggest considering other preventive strategies to reduce the risk of stroke such as a well balanced diet, not smoking, being physically active and maintaining a normal weight."
SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xus93q British Medical Journal, online November 5, 2010.
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Make Clay Letters
What you need:
What you do:
1. Write a few letters of the alphabet on a piece of paper, at least three inches tall.
2. Roll lumps of clay into long, thin pieces.
3. Help your child form the strips of clay into letters, using the written letters as a guide.
Why it works:
Your child becomes familiar with creating the shapes of letters.
More on: Reading and Language Arts
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Kids Crafts Easter Bonnets
Kids crafts Easter bonnets are so much fun to make. Once they are done you can attend the Easter parade, bonnet and all.
- White glue (PVA)
- Pair of scissors
- Crepe or tissue paper in different colors (including green)
- Thin garden wire
- Cotton wool balls
- Sticky tape
- Cut a circle out of card, about 14 inches (35cm) across.
- Paint it so that it looks like a straw bonnet.
- Draw a smaller circle in the middle and draw four lines that cross each other in the center, inside of that circle.
- Cut along these lines and bend up.
- Make lots of paper flowers, keeping the stems short.(see below)
- Glue the paper flowers all around the brim of the hat, overlapping them to hide the stems.
- To Make The Paper Flowers:
- Cut a piece of thin garden wire about 4inches - 6inches (10-15cm) long.
- Tape a cotton wool ball to the one end of the wire.
- Cut a small square of black crepe or tissue paper and tie it over the cotton wool.
- Cut a long strip of colorful crepe or tissue paper, about 2.4inches (6cm) wide.
- Fold it over about eight times to make a concertina.
- Download these petal shapes and print it out.
- Cut out to make eight petals.
- Using the PVA sparingly, glue each petal just below the cotton wool ball, overlapping them slightly.
- You might need to let the glue dry between each petal.
- Cut a long, thin strip of green crepe or tissue paper.
- Glue one end to the top of the stem, then wind it tightly down like a bandage.
- Glue or sticky tape the other end at the bottom.
- Once the glue has dried properly, gently pull back the edges of the petals.
- You are now ready to attend the Easter parade, bonnet and all.
Return from Kids Crafts Easter Bonnets to Easter Crafts
Return from Kids Crafts Easter Bonnets to New Kids Crafts Homepage
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Reports on 'gay' animal research criticised
Talking sex The media's coverage of scientific research into same-sex animal behaviour promotes negative stereotypes of gay and lesbians, say researchers.
"People who identify with these minority groups in a human population see themselves presented for titillation, humour and not to be taken seriously," says Barron.
He and Brown identified 11 recent scientific papers on key areas of same-sex animal behaviour research. They then searched for media coverage of these papers and chose 48 representative press reports to analyse in detail.
"Consistently any scientific report of same-sex sexual contact in any animals is reported as gay or lesbian behaviour," says Barron. "It's presented for titillation, often for humour, regardless of what the science actually is."
"Gay and lesbianism is more than same-sex copulation in humans. Let's not turn this animal behaviour into something that it isn't," he says. "Scientists would never call it gay."
And Barron says in many cases the animals in the scientific study didn't even copulate but simply showed some form of atypical male or female behaviour.
"It's not just a simplification but a gross misrepresentation of the science and it's having a negative effect," he says.
Barron says sometimes the media portray homosexuality as something that is a result of a genetic fault and then coverage "goes from being derogatory to downright dangerous".
He quotes a study in which female mice that had a certain gene knocked out exhibited some male typical sexual behaviour.
"The Telegraph presented this as 'Female mice can be turned lesbian by deleting gene'," says Barron.
"If we're saying we can induce lesbian behaviour by a mutation then we are, by extension, saying lesbian behaviour is a pathology," he says. "That's neither an accurate or positive message about lesbians. It perpetuates profoundly homophobic attitudes."
Another study of neurobiological features associated with male-male sexual behaviour in domestic rams was reported in the media under the headlines "Brokeback Mutton" and "Gay sheep may help explain biology of homosexuals".
Barron says media reports portrayed the research as being part of an effort to "cure" homosexuality in sheep, which "could pave the way for breeding out homosexuality in humans".
Appeal to scientists
Barron says scientists can make a difference by being careful about what they say to journalists.
"When scientists themselves ... used the term 'gay', 'lesbian', 'she-male', 'transvestite' or 'drag' it was lept on by the popular media," says Barron.
He contrasts this with reports on the work of researcher Lindsay Young, who studied pairs of female albatross involved in caring for their young.
While one press report referred to "Lesbian albatrosses", most used the term "same-sex couples" and reported Young's active denial that the findings were relevant to humans.
She was regularly quoted as saying "Lesbianism is a human term. The study is about albatross. The study is not about humans."
Barron says Young managed to get a lot of media coverage despite not sensationalising her research.
"Research on sexual behaviour in animals does not need to be sensationalised to catch public attention," conclude Barron and Brown.
Science in the media expert, Dr Joan Leach of the University of Queensland, welcomes the study and agrees some of the examples of media coverage given by Barron and Brown are "outrageous", but thinks their analysis of the problem is simplistic.
She says reports on scientific research have to prove newsworthiness in a very competitive media environment, which likely encourages sensationalism.
But beyond this, it is not just the media that is to blame for such coverage, says Leach.
She says press officers and press releases play a major role in shaping the messages about research.
And scientists themselves are pressured to think about the impacts and implications of their research when talking to journalists, says Leach.
"Scientists are in a double bind," she says. "They have all been to media training and been told to make their work relevant ... and interesting to the general public. Talking about sex is definitely a way to do that," says Leach.
And Leach says in some fields of research - for example evolutionary psychology - scientists are actively linking human behaviour to animal behaviour.
"You read this stuff not just about gay behaviour but about female versus male behaviour and it's irritating," she says.
"I get really tired of evolutionary psychology explanations that my behaviour has to do with hunters and gatherers."
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Looking at this contribution margin example, we'll develop a contribution margin income statement to demonstrate the effect of the contribution margin and break-even point on the income statement:
Here is the example:
Break-even point in units = Fixed Expenses/Price - Variable Expenses
Break-even point = $60,000/$2.00 - .80 = 50,000 units
In order to develop the contribution margin income statement, we have to convert breakeven in units to breakeven in dollars. We use the contribution margin ratio to do this. Using the same example, variable expenses of $0.80 are 40% of sales of $2.00 per unit ($0.80/$2.00). To calculate breakeven in dollars, divide its fixed expenses by the contribution margin ratio of 60% ($60,000/.6 = $100,000). This means that the company has to make $100,000 in sales to breakeven.
If you want to check your work, calculate the company's variable costs using this method. Variable expenses are 40% of sales ($100,000 X .4 = $40,000). Sales of $100,000 minus variable expenses of $40,000 equal fixed costs of $60,000. You now know your calculations are correct because $60,000 are the stated fixed expenses of the company.
The table below shows you the firm's income statement in contribution margin format. It shows you that if one more unit of the product is sold, to total 50,001 units, then the Net Operating Profit will rise above zero and the firm will make a profit. However, if one unit less than 50,000 is sold, the firm will incur a loss.
Contribution Margin Income Statement for the Month of May, 2011
|Less: Variable Expenses||40,000||0.80|
|Less: Fixed Expenses||$60,000|
|Net Operating Profit||$0|
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Rabbits are really popular pets in the UK, second only to cats and dogs, and they can make great companions. However, despite peoples best efforts their needs are often misunderstood and rather than being treated as the intelligent, social animal they are, many are condemned to a life of loneliness and boredom in a cage at the bottom of the garden. It is not difficult to look after rabbits in a way that will keep them both healthy and happy, so what do they really need?
The most important thing you can do to keep a rabbit healthy is feed them a balanced diet. The most common problems that vets see in rabbits are over-grown teeth, tummy upsets and obesity related disease, all of which are directly related to them being fed incorrectly. The vast majority of a rabbit’s diet, at least 80%, should be good quality hay. As a rough guide, every day a rabbit should eat a pile of hay as big as it is. Rabbit’s teeth grow continually and without hay to grind them down, they can develop painful spikes, which rip into the tissues of the mouth, and nasty abscesses in the roots. Hay is also required for good digestion (rabbits can easily die from upset tummies) and helps prevent them getting fat. In addition to hay rabbits should have a small amount of fresh vegetables every day, half a handful is enough and a small amount of pelleted rabbit food, no more than a tablespoon twice a day. This is often where people go wrong, leaving the rabbit with an over-flowing bowl of rabbit food, which, because it is high in calories and very tasty, it is all they eat, giving them a very unbalanced diet.
Rabbits are extremely social creatures, in the wild they live in large family groups, and they should never be kept on their own. The best thing to do is to buy sibling rabbits when they are young. You can introduce rabbits when they are adults but it has to be done with care as many will fight at first. However, it is important to persevere and get the right advice as rabbits are miserable when alone. They are also very intelligent, so make sure they have a variety of toys in their cages and runs to keep them entertained. These don’t have to be expensive, there are plenty of commercially available rabbit toys or just a couple of logs they can play on and nibble are fine.
All rabbits should be neutered, even if they are kept with others of the same sex, and this can be done from the age of 4 months for boys and 6 months for girls. Neutered rabbits make much calmer pets and are far easier to handle. They are also much less likely to fight with each other; 2 entire males kept together, even if they are siblings, can become very aggressive once their hormones kick in. Neutering also has huge health benefits, particularly for the females, of whom 80% will get uterine cancer if they are not spayed.
For most people the whole point of owning a rabbit is because they are cute and cuddly creatures but anyone who has tried to pick up a startled or poorly handled rabbit will know that they can do a lot of damage with their strong nails and back legs! So, it is important that they are played with and handled everyday so they are used to human interaction. Rabbits are prey animals in the wild and their only defence mechanism when frightened is to struggle and try to run away. This is why they don’t always make great pets for children, who can be, unintentionally, quite rough or unpredictable in their handling and it is a big reason why rabbits bought as pets for children end up forgotten and neglected at the bottom of the garden; because no child will play with a pet which has hurt it. However, with regular, careful handling from an early age rabbits can become great companions and members of the family.
Rabbits can make great pets but they need just as much care and attention as other animals and shouldn’t be seen as an ‘easy’ option. Although they are often bought for children they are not always the most suitable pet for young people and they should always be kept with at least one other rabbit. However, they can be real characters once you get to know them and really give back what you put in, provided, of course, you give them what they really need!
For details on examining a rabbit, neutering and vaccinations, take a look at our Pet Care Advice pages. If you are worried about any symptoms your rabbit may be showing, talk to your vet or use our Rabbit Symptom Checker to help decide what to do.
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Re: "Dinosaurs Died Within Hours After Asteroid Hit Earth..."
> And - they had FEATHERS, which turned out to be
> remarkably good insulation against cold - think of
> birds huddling together in a burrow, and you get an
> idea why they survived while the dinosaurs did not.
- most birds did die out;
- likewise, lots of mammals died out;
- while lizards were heavily culled and turtles didn't exactly sail through
unscathed, many of them survived, and crocodiles fared even better, so that
alone can't be it;
- most if not all small theropods of the time, not just birds, had feathers.
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Michigan has had great success reintroducing two large mammals to the state. The eastern elk, once common in Michigan, had disappeared from the state by 1875. In 1918, state officials relocated seven Rocky Mountain elk to Cheboygan County in the northeastern Lower Peninsula. Today, nearly 900 Rocky Mountain elk roam the woods and meadows of a four-county area. The largest concentration lies within the Pigeon River Country State Forest near Vanderbilt.
In the 1980s, moose were reintroduced to a remote area south of the U.P.’s Huron Mountains, where officials released a total of 59 moose from Ontario in two separate operations. Most interesting was the method of reintroduction: Wildlife biologists airlifted the moose one by one in a sling dangling beneath a helicopter to a base camp where they were trucked 600 miles to the Huron Mountains. Van Riper State Park near Michigamme has an interesting display with photos of the infamous “moose lifts.” It worked—today, about 500 roam the central U.P.
by Laura Martone from Moon Michigan, 3rd Edition, © Avalon Travel
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Center for Remote Sensing
Earth & Marine Science Bldg.
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
Maps & Directions
Other UCSC Links:
©2005 UC Santa Cruz. Last reviewed
by the CRS webmaster.
FOCUS ON RESEARCH
Remote sensing of the Earth and other Planetary surfaces is a rapidly growing science that cuts across a wide range of disciplines, including volcanic, tectonic, biologic, oceanographic and environmental studies of the Earth’s surface, as well as the search for past and present life on other planetary surfaces. It involves multispectral, hyperspectral and thermal imaging, RADAR and LiDAR imaging, and the engineering development of new remote sensing tools. The close interaction between scientists and engineers at UCSC distinguishes this program from many others and leads to exciting interdisciplinary ventures not possible without such interactions.
Above Image: 3D visualization and temperature
measurement within the crater of Mt. St. Helens, Washington. Topography
from LiDAR and temperature values from MASTER thermal observations.
Flown by the Airborne Sensor Facility on October 14, 2004. Image
processed by JPL.
UCSC takes over operation of NASA Ames Airborne Sensor Facility
The University of California, Santa Cruz, has taken over the operation of NASA's Airborne Sensor Facility, a major program for observation and monitoring of Earth's environment based at NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field. [More]
UC Santa Cruz engineering students develop a coral reef monitoring system
Five senior engineering students at the University of California, Santa Cruz, are trying to push the limits of low-power wireless transmission to facilitate the monitoring of remote natural environments. [More]
UCSC to lead ambitious multidisciplinary research project on wireless communication networks
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, are leading a major collaborative effort to develop the technology for complex wireless communication networks that can be set up in rapidly changing environments such as battlefields and emergency situations. [More]
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No. 1. Used for choice roasts, the porterhouse and sirloin steaks.
No. 2. Rump, used for steaks, stews and corned beef.
No. 3. Aitch-bone, used for boiling-pieces, stews and pot roasts.
No. 4. Buttock or round, used for steaks, pot roasts, beef a la mode; also a prime boiling-piece.
No. 5. Mouse-round, used for boiling and stewing.
No. 6. Shin or leg, used for soups, hashes, etc.
No. 7. Thick flank, cut with under fat, is a prime boiling-piece, good for stews and corned beef, pressed beef.
No. 8. Veiny piece, used for corned beef, dried beef.
No. 9. Thin flank, used for corned beef and boiling-pieces.
No. 10. Five ribs called the fore-rib. This is considered the primest piece for roasting; also makes the finest steaks.No. 11. Four ribs, called the middle ribs, used for roasting.
No. 12. Chuck ribs, used for second quality of roasts and steaks.
No. 13. Brisket, used for corned beef, stews, soups and spiced beef.
No. 14. Shoulder-piece, used for stews, soups, pot-roasts, mince-meat and hashes.
Nos. 15, 16. Neck, clod or sticking-piece used for stocks, gravies, soups, mince-pie meat, hashes, bologna sausages, etc.
No. 17. Shin or shank, used mostly for soups and stewing.
No. 18. Cheek.The following is a classification of the qualities of cuts of meat, according to the several joints of beef, when cut up.
First Class — Cuts of meat include the sirloin with the kidney suet (1), the rump steak piece (2), the fore-rib (11).
Second Class — Cuts of meat include the buttock or round (4), the thick flank (7), the middle ribs (11).
Third Class — Cuts of meat include the aitch-bone (3), the mouse-round (5), the thin flank (8, 9), the chuck (12), the shoulder-piece (14), the brisket (13).
Fourth Class — Cuts of meat include the clod, neck and sticking-piece (15, 16).
Fifth Class — Cuts of meat include the shin or shank (17).
No. 2. Cuts of meat include the fillet, used for roasts and cutlets.
No. 3. Cuts of meat include the loin, chump-end used for roasts and chops.
No. 4. Cuts of meat include the hind-knuckle or hock, used for stews, pot-pies, meat-pies.
No. 6. Cuts of meat include the breast, best end used for roasting, stews and chops.
No. 7. Cuts of meat include the blade-bone, used for pot-roasts and baked dishes.
No. 8. Cuts of meat include the fore-knuckle, used for soups and stews.
No. 9. Cuts of meat include the breast, brisket-end used for baking, stews and pot-pies.
No. 10. Cuts of meat include the neck, scrag-end used for stews, broth, meat-pies, etc.
In cutting up veal, generally, the hind-quarter is divided into loin and leg, and the fore-quarter into breast, neck and shoulder.
The Several Parts of a Moderately-sized, Well-fed Calf, about eight weeks old, are nearly of the following weights:—Loin and chump, 18 lbs.; fillet, 12 lbs.; hind-knuckle, 5 lbs.; shoulder, 11 lbs.; neck, 11 lbs.; breast, 9 lbs., and fore-knuckle, 5 lbs.; making a total of 144 lbs. weight.
No. 1. Cuts of meat include the leg, used for roasts and for boiling.
No. 2. Cuts of meat include the shoulder, used for baked dishes and roasts.
No. 3. Cuts of meat include the loin, best end used for roasts, chops.
No. 4. Cuts of meat include the loin, chump-end used for roasts and chops.
No. 5. Cuts of meat include the rack, or rib chops, used for French chops, rib chops, either for frying or broiling; also used for choice stews.
No. 6. Cuts of meat include the breast, used for roast, baked dishes, stews, chops.
No. 7. Cuts of meat include neck or scrag-end, used for cutlets, stews and meat-pies.
NOTE.—A saddle of mutton or double loin is two loins cut off before the carcass is split open down the back. French chops are a small rib chop, the end of the bone trimmed off and the meat and fat cut away from the thin end, leaving the round piece of meat attached to the larger end, which leaves the small rib-bone bare. Very tender and sweet.
Mutton is prime when cut from a carcass which has been fed out of doors, and allowed to run upon the hillside; they are best when about three years old. The fat will then be abundant, white and hard, the flesh juicy and firm, and of a clear red color.
For mutton roasts, choose the shoulder, the saddle, or the loin or haunch. The leg should be boiled. Almost any part will do for broth.
Lamb born in the middle of the winter, reared under shelter, and fed in a great measure upon milk, then killed in the spring, is considered a great delicacy, though lamb is good at a year old. Like all young animals, lamb ought to be thoroughly cooked, or it is most unwholesome.
No. 1. Leg, used for smoked hams, roasts and corned pork.
No. 2. Hind-loin, used for roasts, chops and baked dishes.
No. 3. Fore-loin or ribs, used for roasts, baked dishes or chops.
No. 4. Spare-rib, used for roasts, chops, stews.
No. 5. Shoulder, used for smoked shoulder, roasts and corned pork.
No. 6. Brisket and flank, used for pickling in salt and smoked bacon.
The cheek is used for pickling in salt, also the shank or shin. The feet are usually used for souse and jelly.
For family-use the leg is the most economical, that is when fresh, and the loin the richest. The best pork is from carcasses weighing from fifty to about one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Pork is a white and close meat, and it is almost impossible to over-roast or cook it too much; when underdone it is exceedingly dangerous and you could end up with tape worm.
No. 1. Cuts of meat include the shoulder, used for roasting; it may be boned and stuffed, then afterwards baked or roasted.
No. 2. Cuts of meat include the fore-loin, used for roasts and steaks.
No. 3. Cuts of meat include the haunch or loin, used for roasts, steaks, stews. The ribs cut close may be used for soups. Good for pickling and making into smoked venison.
No. 4. Cuts of meat include the breast, used for baking dishes, stewing.
No. 5. Cuts of meat include the scrag or neck, used for soups.The choice of venison should be judged by the fat, which, when the venison is young, should be thick, clear and close, and the meat a very dark red. The flesh of a female deer about four years old, is the sweetest and best of venison.
Buck venison, which is in season from June to the end of September, is finer than doe venison, which is in season from October to December. Neither should be dressed at any other time of year, and no meat requires so much care as venison in killing, preserving and dressing.
A fillet of veal is one of the prime roasts of veal; it is taken from the leg above the knuckle; a piece weighing from ten to twelve pounds is a good size and requires about four hours for roasting. Before roasting, it is dressed with a force meat or stuffing placed in the cavity from where the bone was taken out and the flap tightly secured together with skewers; many bind it together with tape.
To carve it, cut in even thin slices off from the whole of the upper part or top, in the same manner as from a rolled roast of beef, as in the direction of the figs. 1 and 2; this gives the person served some of the dressing with each slice of meat.
Veal is very unwholesome unless it is cooked thoroughly, and when roasted should be of a rich brown color. Bacon, fried pork, sausage-balls, with greens, are among the accompaniments of roasted veal, also a cut lemon.
To attempt to carve each chop and serve it, you would not only place too large a piece upon the plate of the person you intend to serve, but you would waste much time, and should the vertebrate have not been removed by the butcher, you would be compelled to exercise such a degree of strength that would make one's appearance very ungraceful, and possibly, too, throwing gravy over your neighbor sitting next to you.
The correct way to carve this roast is to cut diagonally from fig. 1 to 2, and help in slices of moderate thickness; then it may be cut from 3 to 4, in order to separate the small bones; divide and serve them, having first inquired if they are desired.
This joint is usually sent to the table accompanied by bacon, ham, tongue, or pickled pork, on a separate dish and with a cut lemon on a plate. There are also a number of sauces that are suitable with this roast.
In carving a roasted leg, the best slices are found by cutting quite down to the bone, in the direction from 1 to 2, and slices may be taken from either side.
Some very good cuts are taken from the broad end from 5 to 6, and the fat on this ridge is very much liked by many. The cramp-bone is a delicacy, and is obtained by cutting down to the bone at 4, and running the knife under it in a semicircular direction to 3. The nearer the knuckle the drier the meat, but the under side contains the most finely grained meat, from which slices may be cut lengthwise. When sent to the table a frill of paper around the knuckle will improve its appearance.
The next process is to divide the ribs from the brisket by cutting through the meat in the line from 1 to 2; then the ribs may be carved in the direction of the line 6 to 7, and the brisket from 8 to 9. The carver should always ascertain whether the guest prefers ribs, brisket, or a piece of the shoulder.
To reach the choicer portion of the ham, the knife, which must be very sharp and thin, should be carried quite down to the bone through the thick fat in the direction of the line from 1 to 2.
The slices should be even and thin, cutting both lean and fat together, always cutting down to the bone. Some cut a circular hole in the middle of a ham gradually enlarging it outwardly. Then again many carve a ham by first cutting from 1 to 2, then across the other way from 3 to 4.
Remove the skin after the ham is cooked and send to the table with dots of dry pepper or dry mustard on the top, a tuft of fringed paper twisted about the knuckle, and plenty of fresh parsley around the dish. This will always insure an inviting appearance.
Roast Pig.—The modern way of serving a pig is not to send it to the table whole, but have it carved partially by the cook; first, by dividing the shoulder from the body; then the leg in the same manner; also separating the ribs into convenient portions. The head may be divided and placed on the same platter. To be served as hot as possible.
A Spare Rib of Pork is carved by cutting slices from the fleshy part, after which the bones should be disjointed and separated.
A leg of pork may be carved in the same manner as a ham.
The fat of this meat is like mutton, apt to cool soon, and become hard and disagreeable to the palate; it should, therefore, be served always on warm plates, and the platter kept over a hot-water dish, or spirit lamp. Many cooks dish it up with a white paper frill pinned around the knuckle bone.
A haunch of mutton is carved the same as a haunch of venison.
Next, cut downward from the breast from 2 to 3, as many even slices of the white meat as may be desired, placing the pieces neatly on one side of the platter. Now unjoint the legs and wings at the middle joint, which can be done very skillfully by a little practice. Make an opening into the cavity of the turkey for dipping out the inside dressing, by cutting a piece from the rear part 1, 1, called the apron.
Consult the tastes of the guests as to which part is preferred; if no choice is expressed, serve a portion of both light and dark meat. One of the most delicate parts of the turkey are two little muscles, lying in small dish-like cavities on each side of the back, a little behind the leg attachments; the next most delicate meat fills the cavities in the neck bone, and next to this, that on the second joints. The lower part of the leg (or drumstick, as it is called) being hard, tough and stringy, is rarely ever helped to any one, but allowed to remain on the dish.
To separate the breast from the body of the fowl, cut through the tender ribs close to the breast, quite down to the tail. Now turn the fowl over, back upwards; put the knife into the bone midway between the neck and the rump, and on raising the lower end it will separate readily.
Now turn the rump from you, and take off very neatly the two side bones, and the fowl is carved. In separating the thigh from the drumstick, the knife must be inserted exactly at the joint, for if not accurately hit, some difficulty will be experienced to get them apart; this is easily acquired by practice.
There is no difference in carving roast and boiled fowls if full grown; but in very young fowls the breast is usually served whole; the wings and breast are considered the best parts, but in young ones the legs are the most juicy.
In the case of a capon or large fowl, slices may be cut off at the breast, the same as carving a pheasant.
Some are fond of the feet, and when dressing the duck, these should be neatly skinned and never removed. Wild duck is highly esteemed by epicures; it is trussed like a tame duck, and carved in the same manner, the breast being the choicest part.
Another method of carving a roast partridge is to cut it into three pieces, by severing a wing and leg on either side from the body, by following the lines 1 to 2, thus making two servings of those parts, leaving the breast for a third plate.
The third method of carving a roast partridge is to thrust back the body from the legs, and cut through the middle of the breast, thus making four portions that may be served. Grouse and prairie-chicken are carved from the breast when they are large, and quartered or halved when of medium size.
Place your fork firmly in the center of the breast of this large game bird and cut deep slices to the bone at figs. 1 and 2; then take off the leg in the line from 3 and 4, and the wing 3 and 5, severing both sides the same. In taking off the wings, be careful not to cut too near the neck; if you do you will hit upon the neck-bone, from which the wing must be separated.
Pass the knife through the line 6, towards the neck, which will detach it. Cut the other parts as in a fowl.
The breast, wings and merry-thought of a pheasant are the most highly prized, although the legs are considered very finely flavored. Pheasants are frequently roasted with the head left on; in that case, when dressing them, bring the head round under the wing, and fix it on the point of a skewer.
A very good way of carving these birds is to insert the knife at fig. 1, and cut both ways to 2 and 3, when each portion may be divided into two pieces, then served. Pigeons, if not too large, may be cut in halves, either across or down the middle, cutting them into two equal parts; if young and small they may be served entirely whole.
Tame pigeons should be cooked as soon as possible after they are killed, as they very quickly lose their flavor. Wild pigeons, on the contrary, should hang a day or two in a cool place before they are dressed. Oranges cut into halves are used as a garnish for dishes of small birds, such as pigeons, quail, woodcock, squabs, snipe, etc. These small birds are either served whole or split down the back, making two servings.
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The GED test is designed to measure critical thinking skills in five areas.Typically, the test is given over three nights or, if offered during the day, two days. The test covers:
Language Arts Writing: Part I is multiple choice questions regarding grammar and writing. (50 questions 75 minutes) Part II is writing an essay on an assigned topic. (45 minutes)
Social Studies: U.S. History, World History, Civics and Government, Economics, and Geography (50 questions 70 minutes)
Science: Life Science, Earth and Space Science, and Physical Science (50 questions 80 minutes)
Language Arts Reading: Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry, and Drama (40 questions 65 minutes)
Mathematics: Part I with calculator--Casio fx-260 only. (25 questions 45 minutes) Part II without calculator (25 questions 45 minutes) Topics include: Numbers and Operations, Measurement and Data Analysis, Geometry, and Algebra
To pass the GED, you must score a total of 2,250 points with a minimum of 410 points in each of the five test categories or an average of 450 points out of the five tests. That means students must score at least 410 on each test and in addition, score an extra 200 points. These 200 points may be spread over all the tests ( average of 450 a test) or can be achieved collectively on one or more tests. The highest score possible on a single test is 800. Essays are graded on a 1-4 scale with 2 being a passing score. If you do not score a "2" on the essay, Part I of the Writing test will not be scored. If a score of 2250 is achieved, yet any ONE test is below 410 points, then you must test again until a score of 410 is achieved. You may test up to three times in one year. If you do not pass one subject, your other subject scores will be retained, and you need only make up that one subject test.
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Places to Avoid Planting Trees and Shrubs
Planting the right trees and shrubs in the right place is not just an aesthetic strategy. It promotes safety and prevents damage to the plants, nearby buildings and utilities, and relations with the people who live next door.
Anticipate the consequences of poorly placed plants — dangerous limbs hanging over your roof or growing into electrical wires, roots clogging your sewer pipe or leach field, inaccessible utility service boxes, unhappy neighbors, and unsafe driving conditions.
Pruning efforts to correct the problems after the trees and shrubs mature can damage the plants and leave them looking unnatural and more prone to pests and diseases. Consider the following situations before you plant:
Overhead power lines and utilities: The best way to keep your overhead wires clear of tree limbs is to consider the mature height and spread of trees before you plant. The International Society of Arboriculture recommends planting trees that grow no taller than 20 feet directly beneath utility wires. Taller trees should be planted so that their mature canopy grows no closer than 15 feet from the wires.
Buried wires and gas lines: Frequently, utility companies bury electric, telephone, and cable television wires underground, especially in new developments. Don’t assume that the wires are buried deeper than your planned planting hole — sometimes, they’re buried just below the surface. Although pipes should be buried at least 3 feet below ground, gas companies prefer a tree-free corridor of 15 to 20 feet on either side of pipes to allow for safety and maintenance. Gas leaks within a plant’s root zone can also damage or kill it
To avoid disrupting underground utilities, many states have laws that require you to contact utility companies that may have wires or pipes on or close to your property before you dig.
Service boxes and wellheads: You may want to disguise your wellhead and the unattractive metal box that the utility company planted in your front yard, but someone will need access to them someday. Plan your shrub plantings so that the mature shrubs won’t touch the box or wellhead. Better yet, allow enough space for someone to actually work on the utilities located in the box without having to prune back your shrubs.
Buildings: A strong wind can send branches crashing through your roof. Overhanging limbs also drop leaves that clog your gutters and sticky sap that can stain siding. Keep shrubs at least several feet from your house and plant trees that grow to 60 feet or more at least 35 feet away.
Streets, sidewalks, and septic lines: Some trees, such as poplar and willow, grow large roots close to or on the ground’s surface where they heave paving and everything else out of their path. Shallow-rooted trees also compete with lawn grasses and other plants, and make for bumpy mowing. Plant roots usually grow two to three times farther from the tree trunk than the aboveground branches do, so leave plenty of room between the planting hole and your driveway, sidewalk, or septic field for outward expansion.
Property boundaries and public rights of way: Your state and municipal governments own the land on either side of all public roads. Many communities and highway departments prohibit planting in the public right-of-way. Contact your local government office for guidelines, or call the State Highway Department if your property borders a state or federal highway.
Homeowners commonly plant privacy hedges along their property boundary. If you plan to plant a hedge or row of shrubs or trees between you and the neighbors, avoid future disputes by hiring a professional surveyor to find the actual property lines. When you plant the shrubs, allow enough space so that mature shrubs won’t encroach on the neighboring property. You’ll also have room to maintain them from your own yard.
Merging traffic: Shrubs and hedges near intersections, including the end of your driveway, must be lower than that height or planted far enough from the road to allow drivers to see oncoming motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.
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Violence pervades the lives of many people around the world, and touches all of us in some way. To many people, staying out of harm’s way is a matter of locking doors and windows and avoiding dangerous places. To others, escape is not possible. The threat of violence is behind those doors – well hidden from public view. And for those living in the midst of war and conflict, violence permeates every aspect of life.
This report, the first comprehensive summary of the problem on a global scale, shows not only the human toll of violence – over 1.6 million lives lost each year and countless more damaged in ways that are not always apparent – but exposes the many faces of interpersonal, collective and self-directed violence, as well as the settings in which violence occurs. It shows that where violence persists, health is seriously compromised.
The report also challenges us in many respects. It forces us to reach beyond our notions of what is acceptable and comfortable – to challenge notions that acts of violence are simply matters of family privacy, individual choice, or inevitable facets of life. Violence is a complex problem related to patterns of thought and behaviour that are shaped by a multitude of forces within our families and communities, forces that can also transcend national borders. The report urges us to work with a range of partners and to adopt an approach that is proactive, scientific and comprehensive.
We have some of the tools and knowledge to make a difference – the same tools that have successfully been used to tackle other health problems. This is evident throughout the report. And we have a sense of where to apply our knowledge. Violence is often predictable and preventable. Like other health problems, it is not distributed evenly across population groups or settings. Many of the factors that increase the risk of violence are shared across the different types of violence and are modifiable.
One theme that is echoed throughout this report is the importance of primary prevention. Even small investments here can have large and long-lasting benefits, but not without the resolve of leaders and support for prevention efforts from a broad array of partners in both the public and private spheres, and from both industrialized and developing countries.
Public health has made some remarkable achievements in recent decades, particularly with regard to reducing rates of many childhood diseases. However, saving our children from these diseases only to let them fall victim to violence or lose them later to acts of violence between intimate partners, to the savagery of war and conflict, or to self-inflicted injuries or suicide, would be a failure of public health.
While public health does not offer all of the answers to this complex problem, we are determined to play our role in the prevention of violence worldwide. This report will contribute to shaping the global response to violence and to making the world a safer and healthier place for all. I invite you to read the report carefully, and to join me and the many violence prevention experts from around the world who have contributed to it in implementing its vital call for action.
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Village Tribes of the Desert Land
By Edward S. Curtis
Illustrations from Photographs by the Author
In former articles in Scribner's s Magazine I have pictured the Apache and their linguistic kin, the Navajo; the Indians of the Northern Plains; the community-dwelling Indians in stone houses, the descendants of the cliff-dwellers. In this I will describe the tribes of Southwestern Arizona. They are in appearance, mythology and religion, as well as in life and manners, quite different. In the region spoken of we find the Yuma, Mohave, Havasupai, Walapai and Maricopa of the Yuman linguistic stock; the Pima, Papago and Kwahatika of the Piman stock. The combined population of these groups is approximated at twenty thousand, the Pima and Papago being the two largest tribes. With the exception of the Walapai and one branch of the Papago they are sedentary tribes, living in fixed villages. Their home structure is of poles and brush with an outer earth covering, naturally lacking the stability of the stone homes to the North, and for this reason a study of their prehistoric life is more difficult.
Compared to the Northern Plains Indians, who reverence a brave heart nest to their worship of the Great Mystery, these tribes lack bravery and the war spirit. The Pima and Papago did, however, prove rather brave in defensive warfare with marauding Apaches, who crept down on them from their mountain homes. The Yuma and Mohave were too indolent to have a brave heart, but rather preferred a life of idleness. These dwellers in the valley of the Colorado are physically a magnificent group of people. Previous to the introduction of the white man's diseases, there was probably nothing comparable to them as physical types in the United States. Their lazy life, low altitude, with its excessively hot climate, seemed to develop their physique, but the same conditions which made giants in stature seemed to require no mental activity or development. Their mythology is apparently an incipient one, and, compared to that of the Pueblos, is so crude that it would seem to be of a people uncountable ages closer to the beginning of man. This probably is not the case, however, but merely indicates a lack of mental activity. The ease with which they gained food undoubtedly tended to retard their mental growth. The valley had its great annual overflow. Following this, the vegetation, wild and planted, sprang up and grew as those unacquainted with such localities cannot realize. The river had countless quantities of fish to be caught in rude traps with little effort. Rats, rabbits and small game were abundant and close at hand. The swift-footed deer of the hills they did not molest, as that would require effort.
The greatest display of natural intelligence seen among them is their tribal custom of cremation. This, according to their legends, was taught them by their creator, Matevilye, and they follow his instructions with true Indian tenacity. One of my Yuma interpreters of the past season came to me with considerable anxiety: "Missioner wants me to come to church. I go to church, when I die they put me in the ground to rot. I no like that. Burned up the way Matevilye say, just ashes. That all right. What you think?" I must confess, as one rather favoring his way, to not being able to see why the old chap should be punished for going to church by being buried against his will. It is likely that an ethnologist would make a poor missionary. However, the missionary has something of an argument for his desire to change their way of disposing of the body, as it is certain that we see in the Indian cremation much that is not a part of the modern method, as it is here that he pays the greatest attention to the teachings of the Yuman creeds as taught them by the Creator. At their approach of death, relatives, friends and neighbors gather about waiting for the soul to take its flight to the sand-hills of the after-world: a land of plenty, where when one melon is picked another comes; "no one sees it come; you just pick it, another one there." The body is prepared at once after death and carried out in blankets to the place of cremation which has in the meanwhile been prepared. A shallow hole has been dug in the earth and the fuel piled high on this. The body is placed on the top of the fuel, after which fire is applied at the four cardinal points. During the time of the burning the multitude stand about and wail in the most melancholy fashion, continuing until fuel and body are but a mass of embers and ashes. These are raked into a pit and covered with earth. And so are the last rites to the departed among the tribes of the Yuman stock.
The Havasupai, who have their home in Cataract Canon, a branch of the Grand Canon of the Colorado, have the most unique home-land of any tribe of our Indians. It is but a tiny garden spot in this vast chaotic wilderness. To reach the home of the Havasupai one must first make the trip across the plateau to the rim of the canon, no small part, and then he who would enter must take his choice of two trails; either one will try the courage of all but the experienced traveller of canon trails. Once there, you feel well repaid for your effort. If the season is midsummer, while every rock wall and crag is reflecting the sun's heat, the upper regions are a veritable Hades, and this garden spot, with its cool shadows and bubbling streams, an oasis in it. On my first journey here the upper world at the canon's rim was wrapped in a blinding snow-storm which chilled one's very life. As our pack animals picked their way down the trail and entered this canon home the peach trees were in bloom, birds were singing, all in the joy of life and spring. I could but think, "This is paradise." Theirs is a world of but a few hundred acres walled in first by sheer red stone walls 400 feet high, and beyond those perpendicular walls are broken, crumbling piles of rock of many colors, reaching on and on, but ever up, until one comes out on the pinon-clad plateau.
These canon dwellers have always been a small group. Disease and change in manner of life have dwindled their ranks until there is now but a few more than a hundred, and it is a safe prophecy that ten years from now there will be no more than half of that. They are an agricultural people, and have been from prehistoric times. They insist God gave them the seeds of the corn and vegetables, and the peach-tree, but admit that man brought the fig. Their water-supply is from a beautiful spring which has its source in the upper end of their home spot. Here it springs from the canon's floor, a beautiful, transparent stream, flowing along with willow-bordered banks, then, as a cataract, leaps high over a sheer cliff and forms in dark pools below. The water of the stream is used for irrigation; they throw out ditches and guide them close along the outer margin of the field. They call this "making water run uphill," and claim it was taught them by Lee, who, after the Mountain Meadow massacre, took refuge with these people for a time.
In the spring they gather and cook great quantities of the mescal, cooking it in large pits like other tribes of the region. These pits can be seen all through Grand Canon and its many branches. Many of them undoubtedly have been used from pre-Columbian times.
In the winter season the Havasupai went out on the plains above in their annual hunt for deer, at once changing from vegetarians to meat-eating people, fairly gorging themselves on the flesh of the deer. All this is changed. The deer are scarce, and permission to hunt now rarely and grudgingly given by their Father in Washington.
The Maricopa long ago seceded from the parent Yuman group in the valley of the Colorado, and slowly worked their way up the Gila valley until they reached the land of the Pima. Here they became neighbors of the Pima and affiliated with them, particularly in war of defence against the wandering tribes. When or why the secession from the original group is buried in the confusion of Indian traditions. However, that the wandering began but a few generations ago is quite certain, as the type still retains traces of the Yuman. In life and manners they have become as Pima, but in language, religion and mythology they show but little change by reason of the tribal separation and contact with an alien culture; this seems to be a good argument that it is here we should anticipate the least change in studying any primitive people.
Looking on the map, the smallness, as indicated, of the Pima Reservation would lead one to presume that they were a small tribe. Far from it! They are a large and strong tribe, mentally one of the keenest in our land. The Pima claim to have lived always in the Gila valley, their lands stretching along some sixty miles of its length. They farm by irrigation and likely had canals larger and longer than other tribes. The very large prehistoric canals which formed a part of the development, with the building and occupancy of the Casa Grande and other like large prehistoric ruins, are in the country of the Pima. In their legends they account for these ruins and ditches and claim them as the work of Pima. There is, however, little to encourage this claim. The ruins of the region show structures of massive walls, many rooms and several stories in height, while the Pima home structure, when first observed, was, as it is now, a single-room affair, round in shape, built of poles, covered with earth. Their traditions of the former occupancy of these many-roomed communal structures is probably but an attempt to fit their tradition to the fact of the old ruins.
One of the most picturesque features of the Pima home country is the giant cactus, Sahuaro. This strikingly grotesque plant is of much importance in their life. Great quantities of its fruit are gathered; they use it fresh, dried, make it into a thick, heavy jelly; and, lastly, but by no means least, is the making of it into wine. They, like the Maricopa and Papago, are expert basket-makers and potters. Their large ollas are the universal water container, while ollas of small size and more graceful lines are used as head-jars in carrying water from the supply to the home. The principal kitchen-utensils are pottery-ware of their own making. One can, without too far stretching of fact, say that the Pima are well advanced in the ways of civilization, much of which is due to one man--the sort of man that is born, not made. It is Dr. Cook, the Pima missionary. No doubt the advance has seemed to him heart-breakingly slow, and there have been many days when he could but wonder, "What is the worth of it all?" Still, his thirty years of patient, faithful work have brought a real uplifting of the tribe, a showing that few men can make for their life effort.
The Papago, close kin to the Pima, can well be divided into two groups, the sedentary and the wandering. The community-living, home-loving group can scarcely be driven from their homes, while those of the gypsy-like bands cannot be kept in any one place. Good authorities, like Dr. Cook, insist they wander from mere necessity of gaining a livelihood. These wandering Papago, numbering several thousand, are scattered about the whole of South-western Arizona from the juncture of the Gila and Salt Rivers to and into Old Mexico. Some villages of a few families will be dwelling far down in the mountains to the border of Old Mexico, and probably have small herds of scrubby cattle, and, as well as the cattle, patches of wheat which are grown from freshet water, flowing down out of the hills. Their wheat harvest is very early in the spring, and when it is closed they trek off to the north to take part in the Pima harvest. The harvest season is always hot, so the wily Pima prefers to hire the wandering Papago to do the work while he dozes in the shade. The Papago's pay is a portion of the wheat, which he loads onto his ponies and takes back to his winter's home in the mountains of the south. To add to this store the Papago takes advantage of the proverbial Indian hospitality and desire to make gifts, and gives a Papago dance for the entertainment of the Pima. The Pima, to show their appreciation, give them much grain.
The sedentary Papago's home is in the valley of the Santa Cruz, about the mission of San Xavier, one of the finest ever built in North America, and without doubt the finest still standing in the United States. The wonderful old church is on a slightly raised plain, overlooking the valley of the Santa Cruz, and about it are grouped the homes of the Papago. Their home structure has, in a great part, changed from the old-time round houses, and has become the rectangular one, half Papago, half Mexican. Below their village lie the well-kept farms, small in size, yet ample, as the Indian's wants are few.
A few days' journey to the south of these people are the Kwahatika villages, so little known that the name scarcely appears in print. Broadly, they are like their linguistic kindred of the Piman group, from which they probably separated within the last few hundred years. In religion and mythology they are still the same. They are, in fact, like a degenerate outcast from the family; in appearance the same, but not of the good blood. They can truly be termed "desert Indians." Their five villages are scattered about in the desert, and he who did not know the way of the land could well wonder how even the hardiest of human beings could contrive to live here. The secret of their existence is that they were past masters in dry farming before Colorado was named. Each village is located where it receives the natural drain of a vast area. The Kwahatika will prepare his small farm, and if there is not a natural rise of ground about it, will enclose it in an earth embankment. When the severe winter rains come on the freshet water flows down the valley and they catch this and guide it out on the prepared land, using the collected water of tens of thousands of acres to thoroughly soak their five or ten. With a rain or two of this sort they are certain of a fair crop. The low foot-hills of the region abound in the giant cactus, furnishing fruit in endless quantities, the only limit of the supply being their ability to gather it in the few weeks of the harvest. Six months after the harvest season one can see huts still containing wagonloads of the earthen jars filled with the thick jelly, each jar carefully sealed with clay. The mesquite pod, which forms such a large part of the natural food of this region, does not abound in the land of the Kwahatika, but the mesquite forests are not so far away but what they can journey to them in harvest time.
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Syrian Woodpecker (Dendrocopos syriacus) - Wiki
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[Photo] Syrian Woodpecker (Dendrocopos syriacus). Picture taken by Ofer Faigon, 18-December-2005, French Hill, Jerusalem, Israel.
The Syrian Woodpecker (Dendrocopos syriacus) is a member of the woodpecker family, the Picidae.
The Syrian Woodpecker is a resident breeding bird from southeastern Europe east to Iran. Its range has expanded further northwest into Europe in recent years.
It is an inhabitant of open woodlands, cultivation with trees and scrubs, and parks, depending for food and nesting sites upon old trees. It is often an inconspicuous bird, in spite of the plumage. The large white shoulder patch is a feature that catches the eye.
Syrian Woodpecker is 23-25 cm long, and is very similar to the Great Spotted Woodpecker, Dendrocopos major. The upper parts of the male are glossy black, with a crimson spot on the nape and white on the sides of the face and neck. On the shoulder is a large white patch and the flight feathers are barred with black and white. The three outer tail feathers show only a few white spots; these show when the short stiff tail is outspread, acting as a support in climbing. The under parts are buffish white, the abdomen and under tail coverts reddish. The long bill is slate black and the legs greenish grey,
The female has no crimson on the nape, and in the young this nape spot is absent, but the crown is crimson.it differs from the smaller Lesser Spotted Woodpecker by the crimson on the abdomen.
It is much harder to distinguish Syrian Woodpecker from Great Spotted Woodpecker. Syrian has a longer bill, and lacks the white tail barring of Great Spotted. Another important distinction is that Syrian does not have the black line connecting the moustachial stripe to the nape shown by the more widespread species.
When hidden by the foliage, the Syrian Woodpecker’s presence is often advertised by the mechanical drumming, a vibrating rattle, produced by the rapidly repeated blows of its strong bill upon a trunk or branch. This is not merely a mating call or challenge, but a signal of either sex. It is audible from a great distance, depending on the wind and the condition of the wood, and a hollow bough naturally produces a louder note than living wood. The drumming is longer than Great Spotted Woodpecker’s, and decreases in volume. It is faster tand shorter than the drumming of White-backed Woodpecker.
The call is a sharp quit, quit, softer than Great Spotted Woodpecker, and something like Redshank.
The Syrian Woodpecker’s food mainly consists of those insects which bore into the timber of forest trees, such as the larvae of wood boring moths and beetles.
The woodpecker usually alights on the trunk, working upwards. During the ascent it taps the bark, breaking off fragments, but often extracts its prey from crevices with the tip of its sticky tongue. Seeds, nuts and berries are eaten when insect food is scarce.
Its actions are jerky, and it hops rather than climbs, leaping forward with one foot just in advance of the other. When a space is crossed the flight is easy and undulating.
The neat, round 5cm diameter nesting hole, is bored in soft or decaying wood horizontally for a few inches, then perpendicularly down. At the bottom of the shaft, a small chamber is excavated, where up to 11 creamy white eggs are laid on wood chips.
The hole is rarely used again, but not infrequently other holes are bored in the same tree. Almost any tree sufficiently rotten is used. The young, when the parents are feeding them, cluster at the mouth of the hole and keep a continuous chatter, but when alarmed slip back into the hole.
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What's The Difference
Even after reaching dry land, Yonah does not verbally acknowledge that he
had received a Divine command; neither does he set off on his mission.
Hashem speaks to Yonah again… but why was that necessary? Now that Yonah
humbled himself in the belly of the fish, should he not simply fulfill the original command? Was it because the first command lapsed? Or was it
because it had changed?
An examination and comparison of the first and second command reveal
significant differences between them.
Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city and cry against it for their evil
has come unto me.
Arise and go to Nineveh, the great city and cry to it the call that I
speak to you.
In the later version, there is no mention of the wickedness of the people
of Nineveh; neither is the prophet told to go against the city but rather
to speak unto it something that he already knows.
Granted, "evil" may not refer to the sins of the city but to the evil that
G-d has planned to bring upon it (see Ibn Ezra), as some have argued on
the basis of similar usages in Exodus 32,14 ('and G-d repented from the
evil that He spoke against His people') or even in the book of Yonah
itself (1,7 -'let us throw lots and we will know on whose account this
evil has come upon us' and 3,10 'and G-d repented of evil that He spoke to
do to them'). I tend to side with the interpreters, such as Malbim and
Metsudos, who understood it as referring to the wickedness of the
inhabitants of Nineveh. It seems to me that this interpretation is
strongly supported by the implied parallel to the other great ancient
city, one that is alluded to several times in the course of our story -
the city of Sodom (see Genesis 20, 21-22). Both of them were great
metropolises that deserved destruction; when we discuss what the actual
sins of Nineveh may have been, we will return to this point.
What has changed? Where did their wickedness go? G-d no longer seems as
antagonistic to this city as in the beginning; instead He asks the prophet
to call it to repentance.
This question led some commentators, for example Abarbanel, to conclude
that during delay caused by Yonah's escape, G-d changed His mind. For some
reason He became more favorably disposed to Nineveh, offering it another
chance and no longer actively seeking its destruction. If so, this would
be a fine example of Divine irony, for Yona's escape availed only to bring
closer that which he sought to prevent. In this view the second version of
the command is necessary because the first one is no longer operative.
One might suggest a different explanation. Perhaps, the original command
included within it two different imperatives. It allowed for the
possibility of repentance but its focus was on the stern message of coming
annihilation. The same is true of the second prophecy. This is pointed out
by Rashi to 3,4.
And Yonah began to come into the city one day's walk and he called out and
he said: "Forty days more and Nineveh is overturned".
Rashi: Overturned means destroyed. He did not say "destroyed"
because "overturned" has two meanings, one good and one evil. If they do
not repent - destroyed. If they do repent it will be overturned for the
men of Nineveh will turn over from evil ways to ways of goodness.
As we have previously discussed (see Malbim, Abarbanel to 1,2 and Responsa
Radvaz 2, 842), Yonah did not fully perceive or completely understand the
full depth and content of the original prophecy. Its full meaning escaped
from him for he was committed to Justice over Compassion. His spiritual
point of view and assumptions were such that only the message of
destruction came through loud and clear. The pain, suffering, and his own
near death led to a process of growth that awakened in the soul of the
recalcitrant prophet a measure of empathy for hapless inhabitant of
Nineveh. Only now was he able to hear fully, though not yet fully accept,
the other side of Hashem's message.
The rest of the book of Yonah is about the growth of this realization and
Yonah's struggle to reconcile it with his previous world-view, in short,
his engagement with Divine Mercy as the underlying element of Divine
Text Copyright © 2004 by Rabbi Dr. Meir Levin and Torah.org.
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The site of a Medieval fortress in Svätý Jur, outside Bratislava, Slovakia, was researched by archaeologists who uncovered artefacts of one of the most important Slavic castles in the region.
The site with the remains of the earthworks is situated on the mountain ridge of the Little Carpathians above Svätý Jur, at a height of 342 meters above sea level. Archaeologists believe that the fortress served a military-strategic function in 8th century. Artefacts from the 9th to 10th century indicate that the fort was an important military refuge, but we also know that it was a manufacturing centre and a very populated place. Archaeologists suppose that the castle and two other forts on the other side of the Little Carpathians – sat on the borders between the joined principalities Nitra and Moravia of the Great Moravian Empire.
The ruins of the former fortress are in the woody outcrop above the cottage area. They are identified by mighty, still preserved mounds of the elliptical acropolis and two younger horseshoe-like lower fortifications connected to the acropolis from the northwest. On the two sides of the valleys under the fort are two tributaries of Starý Potok river. The length of the fort, including both wards, is about 680 meters. The area of the fort is about 8.5 ha. Experts state that the castle of Svätý Jur supplied castles in Bratislava and Devín with products and military support. It could have also been a possible refugium at the rear. The fort in Svätý Jur was probably one of the most important castle in the region, just after Preslava and Dovina, although each castle had its own function.
The defence system was formed gradually.Archaeologists believed that the predecessor of the massive wall of the acropolis had been built by the second half of the 8th century. The bulwark of the acropolis was later reinforced with a wooden slatted construction, which was protected from the front by a stone parapet. The thickness of the biggest walls was at least 4.5 meters. The height of the wall might have been the same as its thickness. The walls of the acropolis and the first ward were lined from the inside and outside by moats, and both parts of the fort were protected in the more accessible northwest part by additional walls and moats.
Among the finds made over the years at the hillfort is a deposit which included jewellery (earrings, a knob pendant and a ring), a knife, a spear and a vessel. Another significant discovery was of a quadratic building on stone foundations from the Great Moravian period, which has few comparisons. An Arabic coin from the Abbasid caliphate, or Arab Empire was also found. It dates to 867 and was emitted by Caliph Al-Mu´tazz. It is the first Arabic silver coin found in Great Moravia. Other coins found at the fortress include Roman, one Celtic coin and specimen from the 17th century. Archaeologists also managed to document a place where jewellery may have been produced. Interesting find, attesting to trade links of the site is a glass whorl, similar to one found in the territory of the Frankish Empire, dating from the 6th and 7th century and the times of the Merovingian dynasty. Moreover numerous finds of iron products, coloured metal, and ceramics were also made at the site.
(after The Slovak Spectator, Archive of Malokarpatské Múzeum in Pezinok & Malokarpatské Múzeum in Pezinok)
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Homonyms are words that have the same spelling but different meanings. “I’m sorry” is what I dub a homonym phrase because there are, based on my observations of the world, four major ways this phrase is used.
- The repentant sorry in which the speaker realizes she has done something to hurt someone, intentionally or not, and truly wishes to change her actions in the future. These are rare. These are also the kind of sorry that God wants to hear from us.
- The empathetic/sympathetic sorry in which the speaker knows that the listener has experienced a heartache. Whether the speaker can relate to the situation or not, she wants to show empathy. These are not to be belittled, but if not used carefully, they can become trite.
- The empty sorry. This sorry could be intended for either of the other categories but lands in this third category due to a lack of sincerity. This is best represented by the child whose mother or father has commanded the child to say “I’m sorry” to another child or adult whom this child has offended or hurt. Adults do this as well to placate one another or make themselves feel better. This is the most common “I’m sorry” and most often is expressed by “sorry” (probably to avoid personally feeling the words).
- The insecure “I’m sorry” in which the speaker has a vague feeling that they’ve upset someone and wants to smooth things over. This may come from a selfish desire to be liked or it could be an insecurity within the speaker. While the intention is closer to the repentant sorry, the words are often used so often it becomes an empty sorry in the ear of the listener. The speaker could improve the sorry by following with a specific reason for apologizing.
I do not write this to cause you to start questioning the motives of others when they apologize to you because it’s generally a good practice to assume the best intentions of others. Instead, pay attention to the way you use these potentially powerful words. Aim for the first or second category. Be genuine.
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By Maria Depenweiller, P.H.Ec.
Here is something to ponder the next time you are sorting out your laundry, one of probably the most unappreciated household chores.
Ancient Roman Laundry
As we know, almost everything new is well forgotten old. This is particularly true in the case of ancient Roman laundry. With their well developed urban systems Romans were the first to offer public laundry services. Fullones, the clothes washers, were in charge of washing and cleaning the garments of the Roman citizens.
As the Romans generally wore clothes made out of wool (there was no cotton in ancient Rome) they needed frequent washing in the hot climate of Italy. The way in which this was done has been described by Pliny and other writers, but is most clearly explained by some paintings which have been found on the walls of a fullonica (laundry service) at Pompeii.
In ancient Rome laundry was a man’s job. The clothes were first washed, which was done in tubs or vats, where they were trodden upon and stamped by the feet of the fullones. After the clothes had been washed, they were hung out to dry, and were allowed to be placed in the street before the doors of the fullonica. When dry, the wool was brushed and carded to raise the nap, sometimes with the skin of a hedgehog, and sometimes with some plants of the thistle kind. The clothes were then hung on a special basket - viminea cavea, under which sulphur was placed in order to whiten the cloth (just imagine the odour!). A fine white earth, called cimolian by Pliny, was often rubbed into the cloth to increase its whiteness.
Ancient Europe Laundry
Unlike the ancient Rome, medieval Europeans tended to rely on their own forces rather than public services when it came to laundry. Most often this was done on river banks, even if the rivers were frozen. Special tools were used for this purpose – washing bats and scrubbing boards. They were used to agitate the clothing in running water to force the dirt out and to smooth the fabric during drying. No ironing was done at that time. After thorough wash the garments were laid out flat on the ground to allow the sun do the bleaching and drying. Clearly such an exercise was not a weekly routine and was only done once in a while, whenever a large enough amount of dirty clothes accumulated. Finer parts such as lace collars, trimmings and fine under shirts were laundered separately and more often with less aggressive methods.
Soap, mainly soft soap made from ash lye and animal fat, was used by washerwoman who were paid for their work. Soap was rarely used by the poorest people in medieval times but by the 18th century soap was fairly widespread: sometimes kept for finer clothing and for tackling stains, not used for the whole wash. Starch and bluing were also available for better quality linen and clothing.
The First Washing Machines
Hand (or feet) laundry washing reigned for centuries until the first washing machine was designed by H. Sidgier of Great Britain in 1782. It consisted of a cage with wooden rods and a handle for turning
From this design in the late 1800's different companies started producing hand operated machines that used paddles or dollies. Then came the revolving drum from James King in 1851. This was shortly followed by a revolving drum with reversing action, from Hamilton Smith in 1858.
The earliest manual washing machines imitated the motion of the human hand on the washboard, by using a lever to move one curved surface over another and rubbing clothes between two ribbed surfaces. This type of washer was first patented in the United States in 1846 and survived as late as 1927 in the Montgomery Ward catalogue. The first electric clothes washers, in which a motor rotated the tub, were introduced into America about 1900. The motor was not protected beneath the machine and water often dripped into it causing short-circuits and jolting shocks. By 1911, it was possible to buy oscillating, cylinder, domestic washing machines with sheet metal tubs mounted on angle-iron frames with perforated metal or wooden slat cylinders inside.
Beatty Brothers of Fergus, Ontario was the first company to produce an agitator washing machine. The early Beatty machines had ribbed copper tubs which were nickel or nickel-chromium plated. In the US, the first firm to adopt agitator technology was Maytag. The vertical orientation of these machines became the industry standard replacing the horizontal rotating axis of earlier machines.
Starting in the 1920s, white enamelled sheet metal replaced the copper tub and angle-iron legs. By the early 1940s, enamelled steel was used and sold as being more sanitary, easier to clean and longer lasting than the other finishes. The sheet-metal skirt was also designed to extend below the level of the motor mount.
In the early 1920s, a number of Canadian machines were offered with built-in gas or electric water heaters. By the 1930s, domestic water heaters were in many homes and the washing machine heater was of little use. The addition of a motor-driven drain pump at this time moved the machine one step closer to complete automaticity.
The next development of the washing machine was the fitting of a clock timing device which allowed the machine to be set to operate for a pre-determined length of wash cycle. Now, the operator no longer needed to constantly monitor its action.
By the early 1950s, many American manufacturers were supplying machines with a spin-dry feature to replace the wringer which removed buttons, and caused accidents involving hair and hands. In 1957, GE introduced a washing machine equipped with 5 push buttons to control wash temperature, rinse temperature, agitation speed and spin speed.
Not bad progress for a household chore, don’t you think?
Maria Depenweiller is the owner of The Wooden Spoon, a consulting service, that provides services such as cooking classes, educational seminars and workshops, recipe development and testing as well as food writing. Maria is the author of several books in Russian language on food history and low protein cooking. For further details please www.thewoodenspoon.ca
Maria is a Toronto-based Professional Home Economist and an active member of the Ontario Home Economics Association (OHEA), Ontario Home Economists in Business (OHEIB), and a newsletter editor for the Toronto Home Economist Association (THEA).
Ontario Home Economics Association © 2013
The Ontario Home Economics Association, a self-regulating body of professional Home Economists, promotes high professional standards among its members so that they may assist families and individuals to achieve and maintain a desirable quality of life.
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How it works
Recirculation cooker hoods draw in cooking vapours, filtering the air through a charcoal filter and then re-circulating the cleaned air back into the kitchen, leaving it free from cooking odours.
Keep your kitchen fresh
The carbon filtration process ensures air purification and a pleasant cooking environment. This active carbon filter absorbs grease and moisture while cooking, preventing unpleasant odours in the kitchen.
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Digital cameras remote controls are used to release the shutter on a camera rather than the photographer pressing the shutter button. There are two types of digital camera remote controls: cable or wireless systems.
To eliminate camera shake, remotes are used along with a tripod or other camera support.
Basic remote controls have a single button which lets you trigger the shutter at your command. More sophisticated and expensive remotes not only release the shutter but control zoom settings, time-interval shooting, playback and turn the LCD on and off.
Some remotes even include a small, built-in LCD that displays information such as camera mode and the number of frames to be captured.
Digital camera remote controls are especially useful when taking long telephoto and close-up shots, time exposed pictures and when using a bulb setting. Not all compact cameras can be used with remote controls, though most digital single lens reflex cameras can be used with remotes.
Tip: check the battery compartment cover as soon as you receive the remote, even if the remote works. Some covers can be very difficult to slide open. Make sure yours is okay while you have time to return it if necessary.
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Every year over 300,000 cataract operations are performed in the UK, making the surgery the most common surgical procedure in Britain today. Although cataracts can affect people of any age, it is in later life that many of us will develop the condition. This guide will explore the essential facts about cataracts, helping you to get to grips with the optical condition.
What are cataracts?
Cataracts are a condition that cause vision to become cloudy. The condition affects the lens of the eye, which is located behind your pupil. When an individual develops cataracts, their lens, which is transparent in a healthy eye, becomes more opaque, limiting the amount of light which can reach the retina from the cornea and pupil. This results in increasingly poor, misty or cloudy vision.
Who can develop cataracts?
Anybody can develop cataracts at any point in their lives. Yet this is typically an age-related condition most common in those over 65. There are, however, many cases of younger people developing cataracts. Childhood cataracts are another, less common form of the condition.
What are the symptoms of cataracts?
Cataracts are very difficult to detect at the early stages of their development. This is because the condition worsens steadily over time, making it hard to notice initially. As the condition develops, you may find that you are increasingly suffering from cloudy, misty, or unclear patches in your vision.
Other symptoms may include vision problems in dim and low light, desaturated or unclear colours, difficulty looking at bright lights, a dazzling or halo effect around bright lights, double vision and a yellow or brown tinge to your vision.
What causes cataracts?
In many cases, cataracts are simply a symptom of ageing. However, there are some conditions and factors which may increase your risk of developing this vision problem. The link between diabetes and cataracts, for example, is strong and diabetes sufferers are more likely to develop cataracts earlier in life.
Trauma to the eye can also trigger the condition, as can eye surgery and certain medications such as steroids. If you are already suffering from an ocular problem such as myopia (short-sightedness), retinitis, uveitis, glaucoma or pigmentosa, your likelihood of developing cataracts may also be heightened.
What are the treatments for cataracts?
Unfortunately there is no helpful prescription you can take to deal with cataracts – the only option is surgery. However, as the UK’s most common surgical procedure, cataract surgery is now very advanced and successful. During the surgery, the clouded lens is removed from the eye and replaced with an artificial version known as an IOL (Intra Ocular Lens).
The whole procedure takes no more than 30-40 minutes and can be performed under local anaesthetic to reduce health risks and minimise downtime. Typically performed on a “day patient” basis, you can receive your surgery and go home on the same day. For those with cataracts in both eyes (which is common) the surgeries are usually completed on two separate occasions, 3-5 weeks apart to give you time to heal.
Recovery from cataract surgery
Once a friend or family member has helped you get home from the hospital (you will not be allowed to drive), you’ll be able to go about your everyday life as usual. You may, however, want to rest for 1-2 days. Take extra care to protect your recovering eye from bacteria, dust, soap and water for 2-3 weeks.
It’s common to find that your vision is somewhat blurry for a few days following surgery, however, this will steadily improve and you should begin to find focussing and looking at bright lights much easier. Your vision should be clearer and colours will appear brighter and more distinct. You may require a change in prescription or need to begin wearing glasses.
For even more in depth information, Focus Clinic’s comprehensive guide offers extra insight and detail.
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A Clip from The China Study, by T.Colin Campbell
“…These studies document the fact that vegetarians consume the same amount or even significantly more calories than their meat-eating counterparts, and yet are still slimmer. The China Study demonstrated that rural Chinese consuming a plant-based diet actually consume significantly more calories per pound of body weight than Americans. Most people would automatically assume that these rural Chinese would therefore be heavier than their meat-eating counterparts. But here’s the kicker: the rural Chinese are still slimmer while consuming a greater volume of food and more calories. Much of this effect is undoubtedly due to greater physical activity…. but this comparison is between average Americans and the least active Chinese, those who do office work. Furthermore, studies done in Israel and the United Kingdom, neither of which represent primarily agrarian cultures, also show that vegetarians may consume the same or significantly more calories and still weigh less.
What’s the secret? One factor that I’ve mentioned previously is the process of thermogenesis, which refers to our production of body heat during metabolism. Vegetarians have been observed to have a slightly higher rate of metabolism during rest, meaning they burn up slightly more of their ingested calories as body heat rather than depositing them as body fat. A relatively small increase in metabolic rate translates to a large number of calories burned over the course of 24 hours..”
To Be Continued
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Putting Down Roots
Gardening Insights from Wisconsin's Early Settlers
Walk into a garden and you can find more than tomatoes heavy on the vine, trellises filled with green beans, and rows of flowers meant to please the eye and occasionally the palate. History and culture are planted there. This is the premise of Putting Down Roots by Marcia C. Carmichael, the historical gardener at Old World Wisconsin, the largest of Wisconsin’s living history museums.
In this fascinating cultural history amply complemented with 188 contemporary and historic photographs and illustrations, Carmichael examines the gardening practices and related traditional foodways that Wisconsin’s Yankee settlers and major European immigrant groups—the Germans, Norwegians, Irish, Danish, Finnish, and Polish—brought with them to their new state in the nineteenth century. The author bases the book on her research and gardening at the 576-acre Old World Wisconsin, which contains traditional immigrant homes moved from their original homesites throughout the state, as well as nineteenth-century heirloom gardens specific to each immigrant group. The color photographs of these gardens are not only educational but inspiring.
The helpful introduction presents a brief history of the first European immigration to Wisconsin and what that meant—particularly in a state known for its harsh climate—in terms of gardening. The rest of the book, set up in chapters by nationality, looks at planting trends, particular garden tools, popular plant varieties, and favorite foods and meals, including easy-to-follow recipes. Within the chapters, Carmichael uses as examples the family histories of those who owned the homes in Old World Wisconsin to give readers a true feel for the people who worked the gardens and relied on them for sustenance.
Additionally, each chapter contains interesting sidebars; advertisements for tools, seeds, and available land; and documents illustrating garden plans and gardening techniques. The appendix contains tables of the plants commonly grown by each of the groups. For further reading, Carmichael includes extensive notes by chapter and a selected bibliography.
In a time when people are increasingly concerned about organic gardening practices and the need for more variety in our plants for the health of the planet, Carmichael shows readers the value in drawing from the past for the good of the present. For avid gardeners and simple admirers of other people’s gardens alike, Putting Down Roots is an absorbing book of Wisconsin’s history and culture.
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The author of this book provided free copies of the book and paid a small fee to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Foreword Reviews and Clarion Reviews make no guarantee that the author will receive a positive review. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
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New condition but for diagonal corner crease on rear cover.
An Eighth Day View:
The three books considered in this volume constitute the principal biblical witness to Israel's early history. According to A. Graeme Auld, "they tell the story of how under Joshua the land was first taken by Israel and then apportioned to her various tribes. They tell how after Joshua there was a long period of ups and downs; of religious apostasy within the community and repeated harassment from abroad answered by a series of divinely impelled 'Judges' or 'Deliverers.' They offer some samples of life in Israel, 'in the days when the Judges ruled' or 'when there was not yet a king in Israel.'"
Carrying forward brilliantly the pattern established by Barclay's New Testament series, the Daily Study Bible has been extended to cover the entire Old Testament as well. Invaluable for individual devotional study, for group discussion, and for classroom use, the Daily Study Bible provides a useful, reliable, and eminently readable way to discover what the Scriptures were saying then and what God is saying today.
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Nayaks of Kandy
|Kandy Nayak Dynasty|
|Founder||Sri Vijaya Raja Singha|
|Final ruler||Sri Vikrama Rajasinha|
|Dissolution||1815 under the terms of the Kandyan Convention|
Part of a series on the
|History of Kandy|
|Kingdom of Kandy (1469–1815)|
|Colonial Kandy (1815–1948)|
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They were related to the Madurai Nayak dynasty and to the Tanjore Nayak dynasty. There were four kings of this lineage and the last king, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, was captured by the British and exiled to Vellore Fort in India Much earlier to the establishment of the Kandy Nayak dynasty, it was not unknown for the Sinhalese to take wives from ruling clans across Southern India. The first to do so was King Vijaya who procured his royal consort from the city of Madurai. Later kings followed suit.
Because the Kandy kings received military support from the Nayaks of Madurai and the Tanjore Nayak dynasty to fight off the Portuguese, alliances between Kandy, Madurai and Tanjore were already established. In the 17th and 18th centuries, marital alliances between Kandyan kings and Nayak princesses were a matter of policy. When a Sinhalese Kandyan king, Narendra Sinha, died without an offspring, the brother of his Madurai Nayak queen succeeded the throne in 1739 under the crown name of Sri Vijaya Raja Sinha. Thus in 1739 the Nayaks came to rule the Kandy kingdom.
These Nayak kings continued to marry with their Tanjore and Madurai counterparts. The Nayak kings were Hindus. They later converted to Buddhism and were responsible for renaissance of Buddhist culture in the Island.
- 1 Origins
- 2 The preceding dynasty
- 3 Monarchs
- 3.1 Sri Vijaya Rajasinha 1739–1747
- 3.2 Kirti Sri Rajasinha 1747–1782
- 3.3 Sri Rajadhi Raja Singha 1782–1798
- 3.4 Sri Vikrama Rajasinha 1798–1815
- 4 Public works
- 5 See also
- 6 References
- 7 Sources
- 8 External links
The Nayaks of South India started as governors of Vijayanagara Empire ruling parts of Tamil Nadu during the 14th and 15th centuries. After the Vijayanagara Empire collapsed in the mid-16th century some of these governors declared independence and established their own kingdoms in Gingee, Tanjore, Madurai and Chandragiri.
They were Tamil speaking community of Telugu ancestry. According to a Telugu work called Sinhaladvipa Katha, the Nayak king Kumara Krishnappa, who reigned at Madurai (1562–1572), is said to have conquered Kandy. Kumara Krishnappa killed the then reigning Kandy king, sent the late king's wife and children to Anuradhapura and placed his own brother-in-law Vijaya Gopala Naidu as his viceroy in Kandy.
There was a continuous interaction between the Madurai, Tanjore and Ceylonese kingdoms. As with Kandy, military assistance and interaction also existed with the Jaffna Kingdom. When the Jaffna ruler Sankili II wanted to suppress a revolt by the growing Christian minority in Jaffna led by two Christian Mudaliyars, Dom Pedro and Dom Luis in 1618, he requested the support of the Tanjore king, Raghunatha Nayaka. Raghunatha Nayaka thence sent 5000 troops under the leadership of Varuna Kullatan. However, later attempts by Raghunatha Nayak to recover the Jaffna kingdom from the Portuguese for his proteage, the prince of Rameshwaram, met with failure. Raghunatha Nayak had made a number of attempts to recover the Jaffna Kingdom for the Prince of Rameshwaram with the help of Moors, Vadugas/Badagas and Maravas and the renegade King of Kandy, Dom Joas Wimaladharma. The former princesses of Jaffna had been married to the Kandy King Senarat's stepsons, Kumarasingha and Vijayapala. However, all their attempts to recover the Jaffna Kingdom from the Portuguese met with failure.
Earlier, during the reign of Achyutappa Nayaka of Tanjore, a Prince of Jaffna, Cankili II (Sankili Kumara) had murdered the regent Arasakesari and had been dispossessed of his kingdom by the Portuguese. The Jaffna King went to Tanjore to aid assistance of the Tanjore King in regaining his kingdom. With troops under Kheen Naick of Tanjore, Sankili II went back to Jaffna and defeated the Portuguese. Soon later however the Portuguese dethroned him and repossessed Jaffna. Thus it is seen that the Nayaks were linked with Ceylonese history, and with the Kandy and Jaffna kingdoms, prior to the formation of the Kandy Nayak line.
The last king of the Kandy Mahanuwara dynasty, Narendra Sinha, died in 1739 without an offspring from his queen. His queen was a Madurai Nayak princess. Narendra Sinha's had nominated a brother of his Madura queen to succeed him; and he was crowned under the assumed title of Sri Vijaya Raja Sinha. Thus, Sri Vijaya Rajasinha succeeded the throne and established the Kandy Nayak line.
The preceding dynasty
The last king of the Kandy Mahanuwara dynasty was Vira Narendra Sinha who ruled from 1707 to 1739. This king ascended the throne in 1707 when he was seventeen and was considered to be a very pious and scholarly. In 1708 the king married a bride from Madurai Royal family, the daughter of Pitti Nayakkar. Again, in 1710, he married another bride from Madurai. He had no children by either of the queens. He also had a secondary Kandyan wife from noble family of Matale. She bore him a son. However, the children of the secondary wife were not considered heirs to the throne. The king also had a concubine from a high caste, who bore him a son named Unambuwe, and did survive. The bar to his succession was the lack of royal status in the mother.
Thus, the king nominated, as his successor, the brother of his first queen who had remained at the court ever since his sister married him. According to the law of succession that prevailed in Ceylon, the throne passed almost always from father to son, born of a mahesi or from brother to brother. However, when Narendra Sinha's brother-in-law succeeded the throne, the Sinhalese Kandyan aristocracy had no problem with this new form of succession. The practice of marrying princesses from Madurai is said to have come into occurrence as the Kandy kings insisted on consorts from the Suryavamsa lineage to grace their coronation and to produce heirs acceptable to the people.
Sri Vijaya Rajasinha 1739–1747
The new king, considered to be a man of considerable culture, devoted his entire attention to the furtherance of the national religion Buddhism despite being a Hindu. He is said to have commissioned life sized images of Buddha in recumbent, standing and sitting postures to be cut in the rock caves in various parts of the country. His reign also marked several conflicts with the Dutch who were ruling the coastal provinces, based on trading issues. Sri Vijaya Rajasinha destroyed the churches and initiated a persecution against the Portuguese and Dutch, which was continued under Kirti Sri Rajasinha. It ceased only because the king considered that certain calamities which fell upon the country were due to his action.
He married a bride from the Royal family of Madurai. But by 1736 the 200-year-old Nayaka dynasty of Madurai came to an end with Muslims taking control of the whole country.
Marriage alliance with Madurai royal family
When the king ascended the throne he sought a wife from South India. For this purpose he sent messengers to Madurai in 1739. Since the Madurai Nayaks had now lost the power and prestige they enjoyed in the days of Vijayaranga Chokkanatha, the family members thought it advisable and even desirable to accept the offer from the king of Kandy. Hence the family of Bangaru Thirumala, who was now residing in Vellaikuruchi Fort near Thirupachetiram in Sivaganga Zamin responded. Two brothers Rama Krishnappa Nayaka and Narenappa Nayaka, kinsmen of Bangaru Tirumala Nayaka meet the Kandyan envoys at Ramnad. Narenappa Nayaka had a daughter of marriageable age and agreed to the Kandyan request. The brothers with their families and some kins accompanied the envoys to Ceylon for the daughter's nuptial; settled in Kandy with their kith and kin. Narenappa Nayaka was destined to be not only the father-in-law of one king, but the father of the next two kings of Kandy; for his two sons, the one five or six years old in 1740, and the other still an infant were successively to succeed Sri Vijaya Rajasinha.
The king, however, died childless soon after, having nominated as his successor, his eldest brother in-law who had been living in the court ever since his sister had married the king. Thus by this peculiar mode of succession the son of Narenappa Nayaka who claimed kingship with the ruling Madurai Nayak family now ascended the throne of Kandy as Kirti Sri Rajasinha.
Kirti Sri Rajasinha 1747–1782
Kirti Sri Rajasinha was a prince from the Nayaks of Madurai royal family and brother-in-law to Sri Vijaya Raja Singha. He succeeded his brother-in-law to the throne in 1751.
He devoted the first few years of his reign to the advancement of literature and religion. The king, later with the Dutch assistance got down to learning Bhikkus from Siam (Thailand) for the purpose of advancing Buddhism in Sri Lanka, also building the Raja Maha Vihara (Gangarama) was built at Kandy. Kirti built the existing inner temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, and caused the Mahavansa chronicle to be continued from the time of Parâkkamabâhu IV down to his own reign.
Attack on Dutch forts
In 1761 King Kirti Sri Rajasinha attacked the Dutch garrisons and forts at Matara, Katuwana, Tangalle, Marakade and Urubokke, completely destroying them, and killing Dutch while some surrendered and ended as prisoners.
In order to revenge the humiliation, the new Dutch governor Van Eck had immediate plans to attack Kandy, but the weakness in fortification and garrison forbade the Dutch. Later they did attach in 1764 and in 1765. Hence, in the early part of 1763 the Dutch were only consolidating their positions and gradually expelling Kandyans from the territories taken over from Dutch. Throughout 1763 the King continually sought peace and sent his envoys to discuss terms. The Governor wished the King to cede the three four and seven Korales and Puttlam and hand over the entire coastline of island to the Dutch. The king was not agreeable to any demand that diminished his sovereignty and was deliberately delaying a settlement hoping for help from the English in Madras after his discussion and negotiations with John Pybus 1762.
Meeting with the British
The King in mid-1762 sought help from George Pigot, Governor of Fort St George Madras for assistance. The British eager to obtain the monopoly of trading in cinnamon, pepper, betel nut (puwak) from the Kandyan Kings also wanted to expel the Dutch from the coasts. A reason to call on the British for assistance by the Kandyan King in 1762 was that after the treaty of Paris, the Dutch poured troops into Sri Lanka. They were bent on capturing Kandy from six directions (1764). Anticipating such a scenario the King sent an envoy to the English Governor of Madras to assist him in expelling the Dutch. This envoy, a junior Kandyan Official in the military made a clandestine trip to Madras Fort, and the English responded by sending their councillor Mr Pybus.
John Pybus, a writer of the British East India Company, sailed to Kandy with a backup of five ships and about 200 armed men. A British vessel brought Pybus to Trincomalee on 5 May 1762. The Dutch knew of the arrival of Pybus through their spies and they were kept informed of his movements. Pybus took an exhausting covert trip to meet the King on 24 May 1762. After several talks without any conclusive decisions Pybus left after a month. The King gave him a ring, sword, a gold chain with breast jewels and left the country crossing the river at Puttalam pass while the Dissawa who accompanied Pybus presented the ships commander Samuel Cornish a gold chain and a ring in the name of King "Kirti Sri Rajasinha".
John Pybus in his notes described the King as a man of tolerable stature, reddish in complexion and very brisk in his movements. Pybus was amazed as to how the kandyans had managed to fight a war with Dutch and had captured Matara Dutch Fort. He wrote that "They had put every European to the sword except two officers who are now prisoners of the country."
The Kandy King, Kirti Sri Rajasinha (Kirti Sri Maha Raja), married two daughters of Vijaya Manan Naicker, the grandson of Vijaya Raghava Nayaka of Tanjore and also brought some dispossessed Nayaks of Tanjore to live in Kandy. He also married the daughter of one Nadukattu Sami Nayakkar in 1749. He further married three more Nayakkar queens from Madurai, but had no children from them. He had six daughters and two sons by his favourite Sinhala lady (Yakada Doli), daughter of the late Dissave (Headman) of Bintenna and granddaughter of the blind and aged Mampitiya Dissave. Both his sons survived the king and his daughters' married Nayakkar relatives of the king. Mampitiya's sons claim for the throne was overlooked and the choice fell on the king's brother who was living in court.
The king died on 2 January 1782, of the injuries caused two months before by a fall from his horse after a reign of 35 years which the people saw as a great religious revival, and had a sentimental attachment to the King.
Sri Rajadhi Raja Singha 1782–1798
Brother of Kirti Sri Rajasinha, the new king who ascended the throne as Sri Rajadhi Rajasinha. He came from Madurai as a child along with his brother. Hence he was raised as a Kandyan and a Sinhala; emerging as a brilliant pupil of the Malwatte Temple's chief Prelate at that time. He was quite a sophisticated person and learned many languages amongst which were Pali and Sanskrit. A lavish patron of Buddhism, he was a great aficionado of poetry and he himself was a poet.
He died childless in 1798 without nominating a successor. The burden fell on Pilimatalava, the first Adigar (Prime Minister) Pilimatalawe, an able, ambitious and intriguing chief, to select a successor to the vacant throne. The controversial Adigar was also seen as one of the main reason for the demise of the dynasty.
Sri Vikrama Rajasinha 1798–1815
The next king who ascended the throne was Prince Kannasamy, the former kings' nephew, barely 18 years old. He was crowned under the title of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. He would also be the last king of the Kandy Nayakar dynasty and the last of Sri Lanka. During his time the British colony was fully established on other parts of Sri Lanka.
There was a rival claimant to succeed King Sri Rajadhi Rajasinha, the brother of Queen Upendramma, who had a stronger claim. However, Pilimatalawe, the first Adigar (prime Minister) choose the South Indian Prince to the Kandyan Throne, with reportedly deep seated plans to usurp the throne to set a new dynasty of his own. The young king, upon ascending the throne, faced many conspiracies and reigned through one of the most turbulent periods in Sri Lanka's history.
During his time, the British who had succeeded the Dutch in the Maritime Provinces had not interfered in the politics of the Kandy. But Pilimatalava, the first Adigar of the king, started covert operations with the British to provoke the King into acts of aggression, which would give the British an excuse to seize the Kingdom. The Adigar manipulated the king into beginning a military conflict with the British, who had gained a strong position in the coastal provinces. War was declared and on 22 March 1803 the British entered Kandy with no resistance, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha having fled. The adigar massacred the British garrison in Kandy in June and restored the king to the throne. Pilimitalava plotted to overthrow the king and seize the crown for himself, but his plot was discovered, and, having been pardoned on two previous occasions, he was executed.
The disgraced adigar was replaced by his nephew, Ehelepola, who soon came under suspicion of following his uncle in plotting the overthrow of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha. A rebellion instigated by Ehalepola was suppressed, after which he then fled to Colombo and joined the British. After failing to surrender (after 3 weeks of notice), the exasperated king dismissed Ehelepola, confiscated his lands, and ordered the imprisonment and execution of his wife and children. A propagandised account of the execution was widely circulated by sympathisers.
Ehelepola fled to British-controlled territory, where he persuaded the British that Sri Vikrama Rajasinha's tyranny deserved a military intervention. The pretext was provided by the seizure of a number of British merchants, who were detained on suspicion of spying and were tortured, killing several of them. An invasion was duly mounted and advanced to Kandy without resistance, reaching the city on 10 February 1815. On 2 March, the kingdom was ceded to the British under a treaty called the Kandyan Convention.
Exile and death
Sri Wikrama Rajasinha is said to have governed the Kandy Kingdom as per the laws of Manusmṛti. On 2 March, the kingdom was ceded to the British under a treaty called the Kandyan Convention. Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was captured and sent along with his family and attendants as a royal prisoner by the British to Vellore Fort in southern India. A son was born to him while he was in exile but he died without an issue. The king then adopted the son of his daughter as his own son who was titled Alagia Manawala Sinhala Raja. During Sri Vikrama Rajasinha's time as a royal prisoner in Vellore Fort the erstwhile king received a privy purse, which his descendants continued to receive from the Government of Sri Lanka until it was abolished in 1965. Sri Wikrama Rajasinha died of dropsy on 30 January 1832 aged 52 years.
For centuries Kandy, originally known as Senkadagala, has been the bastion of Sri Lanka's culture and its spiritual centre. The palace complex at Kandy includes Sri Lanka's most venerated shrine, the Dalada Maligawa or Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic.
Raja Maha Vihara (Gangarama) was built at Kandy by the second Nayak king Kirti Sri Rajasinha while his successor Sri Rajadhi Rajasinha was a lavish patron of Buddhism. The first Nayak king Sri Vijaya Rajasinha is noted for various erection of Buddhist statues throughout the Kingdom. The Kandy Lake overlooking Kandy was commissioned by Sri Vikrama Rajasinha.
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- Kandy Rulers
- Last King of Kandy, Sri Wickrama Raja Singha
- Capture and last days of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha
- Transition to British Administration
- Conflicts with the Dutch
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