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noun[treated as singular]
The first milk produced by a cow or goat after giving birth.
- Yellow beestings mixed with milk are poured in an animal's stomach or gut and boiled with meat.
- Very high in protein, beestings is used in Spain for the production of Armada, a strong, semi-firm cheese.
- Add 2 parts beestings to 1 part water and stir over a fire or stove until it thickens.
Old English bȳsting; related to Dutch biest and German Biest(milch).
For editors and proofreaders
Definition of beestings in:
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
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en
| 0.869534 | 164 | 2.53125 | 3 |
Minnesota is a leader in clean water initiatives
Six years ago, Minnesota voters passed a constitutional amendment that increased the state’s sales tax by 3/8 of 1 percent to fund projects related to clean water, natural resources, and arts and culture.
According to a 2008 poll by Minnesota Environmental Partnership, 42 percent of those who voted for it indicated that cleaning up and protecting Minnesota’s lakes, rivers, and streams was the primary reason for their vote.
One-third of the funds generated through the amendment are dedicated to clean water in Minnesota’s lakes, rivers, streams and groundwater.
This stable source of funding, set in the state’s constitution for 25 years, has enabled policymakers to tackle projects that are expected to improve water quality.
So far, more than 300 individual amendment-funded projects have been sponsored by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).
Though many of these efforts are still under way, the amendment is beginning to bear fruit in the form of major initiatives that will position Minnesota as a leader in water resources protection.
For decades, water management professionals have been making steady progress on assessing water quality in the state’s 12,000 lakes and 105,000 miles of streams. This establishes baseline data and sets the stage for targeted improvements in areas found to be unhealthy.
Over the past five years, the MPCA has moved from assessing a smaller number of lakes and streams across the state to evaluating each of the state’s 81 watersheds on a rotating, 10-year cycle.
“It is only fitting that Minnesota, a state with abundant water resources located at the top of our continent’s watersheds, should lead the way in protecting and restoring those resources,” said Commissioner John Stine of MPCA. “This amendment was a bold statement by Minnesota voters about the priorities they have for our state.... We intend to follow through on our commitment to carry out the vision that voters set forth.”
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| 0.952378 | 407 | 2.90625 | 3 |
Detecting the symptoms of illnesses in the elderly can be very challenging. This is because most signs and symptoms of diseases in seniors are often shrugged off as being part of the “normal” aging process. Dehydration manifests itself according to the stage of illness. It can start with a simple complaint of thirst and steadily progress to loss of consciousness.
Dehydration in the elderly should not be taken lightly. It is a serious medical condition that can hurt an elderly person and if left untreated can cause death. Dehydration in the elderly occurs when water intake is not proportionate to the body’s needs.
The body is composed of 70 percent water and low levels of water could have a serious effect on the body’s normal processes. Dehydration is easily avoidable but if left untreated it can pose a serious threat to a person’s health.
Water plays a vital role in regulating the body’s normal temperature. It is responsible for decreasing the body’s temperature by bringing out heat from inside the body. Internal heat is picked up through the body’s circulatory system and released by sweating.
Drinking adequate amounts of water also minimizes the risk of infection. Urinary tract infections are especially high in people who are unable to eliminate toxins through urination. Toxin buildup causes muscle and joint pains causing great stress and discomfort among seniors.
A major portion of the blood in the body is composed of water. When there are low levels of fluids, the heart pumps at a higher rate. This is especially dangerous for the elderly who are already suffering from heart ailments. If fluids are not replaced immediately, this can worsen existing heart conditions and lead to death.
Symptoms of Dehydration in the Elderly
Detecting the early signs and symptoms of dehydration in the elderly can only be done through close monitoring and communication. Dehydration if allowed to progress could lead to serious injury or death in the elderly. One of the first signs that the elderly is not drinking adequate amounts of water can be seen in the color of their urine. Some medications can cause discoloration but urine should be generally clear. This could be a sign that chemicals and waste products are not being diluted properly or a urinary tract infection is present.
Another early sign that the elderly might be suffering from dehydration are a dry mouth and clouded thinking. A dry mouth is not part of the normal aging process. This should not be mistaken for wrinkles. A dry mouth signals that not enough fluids are present in the body. Other symptoms that directly cause dry mouth include lack of production of saliva, again a direct result of inadequate fluid intake.
Most of the danger signs of dehydration could not be directly associated with the disease. Clouded thinking for example could be mistaken as something normal for seniors. Fatigue and sluggishness are also danger signs of severe dehydration that long-term care providers and families should look out for.
Fatigue. Normal amounts of fluids are required for the body’s normal functioning. Even the slightest change in the levels of fluid in the body can adversely affect how our body works. A major component of blood is water and a decrease makes our hearts harder. Oxygen and nutrients are harder to distribute leaving seniors feeling tired and weaker.
As the body compensates for lower levels of blood circulating in the body, blood is directed to the essential organs and away from the skin and muscles. The body is unable to release internal heat which causes muscle cramps and confusion.
Headaches. This is caused by stress which is a direct result of the senior’s inability to cope with high temperatures. Without adequate amounts of fluid circulating inside the body, internal heat is difficult to release.
Cloudy Brain. Seniors suffering from dehydration can have a difficult time making even the simplest decisions. Headaches and high stress levels contribute to a decreased level of mental alertness. Short-term memory loss, confusion and mental fogginess are also reported by seniors suffering from dehydration.
Muscle, joint pains and cramps. Fluids act as natural lubricants that minimize friction between bones. Seniors may feel joint pains and muscle cramps making it difficult for them to perform activities of daily living. Cramps could be felt because muscles are not receiving enough nutrients or oxygen due to poor blood circulation.
Unusual food cravings. Water is essential to the body’s normal functioning and the brain may send different signals in an attempt to get people to start drinking again. A sudden urge to eat or drink means that the body is in survival mode and is trying to get its hands on much needed fluids.
Seniors suffering from dehydration may also notice decreased levels of urine output. This is a result of the body’s attempt to save as much fluids as possible. Elderly dehydration can easily be avoided by close monitoring.
Most of the senior homes and assisted living facilities are located in sunny states such as Florida and California. During hot summers, temperatures in these states could rise into unhealthy levels increasing the risk for heat stroke and dehydration among seniors.
Drinking sufficient amounts of water daily is a simple way of keeping dehydration at bay. Some contend that some drinks and foods could actually increase the rate of fluid loss. Beverages such as tea or coffee for example contain diuretics or substances that encourage urination. But new research has shown that in order for it to be health damaging you have to take abnormally large amounts (5 to7 cups). The amount of liquids contained in such beverages still outweighs its negative effects. Water or beverages are not our only sources for fluids. A great portion of our daily fluid intake comes from food.
How Much Water Should We Take?
Drinking eight or more large glasses of water daily has traditionally been the recommended amount of water intake. However, a study made by the American Journal of Physiology in 2002 said that there was inadequate evidence that healthy adults living in temperate climates and not engaged in rigorous activities need large amounts of water.
In 2004, the Institute of Medicine agreed with the findings and said that healthy adults may use thirst to determine fluid needs. However, athletes, individuals engaged in prolonged physical activities, people living in extremely hot areas and those suffering from medical conditions are still required to take more liquids.
Dehydration can easily be treated by replacing lost fluids. Educating seniors and long-term care providers in assisted living or long-term care facilities helps prevent the development of serious medical complications. Lack of fluids deprives the body of vital nourishment and its ability to cleanse itself. It doesn’t take much to keep ourselves healthy. Keeping sure that we keep ourselves hydrated especially during hot summer days saves us from the dangers of elderly dehydration.
Tags: Elder dehydration
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A very basic question. What does the ** operator in C++ do? For example:
It appears to be a pointer to a pointer. In the above example, it may be the right * indicates a pointer to a string (holding the address of the first character of the string), but what does the left * indicate? A pointer to the pointer?
* isn't an operator, it's a declarator: the * declarator (pointer declarator). No operator gets called here; the * just tells the compiler you want the variable "matrix" to be a pointer to pointer to int.
But here, when * is used to dereference a pointer
int* pelem = *matrix;
or double dereference it
int elem = **matrix;
then it's the pointer operator (or indirection operator/dereference operator)
Same deal with &
int& count = getCount();
Here & is the reference declarator.
int* pint = &some_int_value;
Here it's the address-of operator (the name "reference operator" is also used, though it's not in the C++ standard.)
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| 0.898058 | 247 | 3.421875 | 3 |
“All I am Iowe to my mother.”-George Washington, first president of the United States.
You've seen all the history book info on our 43 presidents (yes, current president Barack Obama is number 44, but Grover Cleveland was elected for two non-consecutive terms, making him both number 22 and number 24) but we've got some quirky tidbits you may not have heard. Here are some interesting little-known tidbits about our country's leading men.
George Washington (1789-1797) had teeth made from elephant and walrus tusks (not wood, as the legends say).
John Adams (1797-1801) was the first president to actually live in the White House.
Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809) spoke six different languages.
James Madison (1809-1817) was the smallest president at 5' 4″ tall and less than 100 lbs.
James Monroe (1817-1825) died on the 4th of July, 1831, following both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died on July 4, 1826.
John Quincy Adams (1825-1829) was the son of second president John Adams.
Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) was the first president to ride in a train.
Martin Van Buren (1837-1841) was the first President born an American citizen. (All before him were born in the British colonies)
William Henry Harrison (1841) was president for only 31 days. He died of pnueumonia on the thirty-first day.
John Tyler (1841-1845) had 15 children.
James K. Polk (1845-1849) was the first President to serve a nation from coast to coast.
Zachary Taylor (1849-1850) never voted for a President.
Millard Fillmore (1850-1853) was the first President to have a stove and running water in the White House.
Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) memorized his entire 3,319 word inaugural speech.
James Buchanan (1857-1861) never married.
Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) was both the tallest president and the first to be assassinated.
Andrew Johnson (1865-1869) was buried wrapped in an American flag with a copy of the Constitution.
Ulysses S. Grant (1869-1877) was fined $20 for speeding with his horse and carriage.
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) was the first president to use a phone. His phone number was 1.
James A. Garfield (1881) could write with both hands at the same time—in different languages.
Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885) owned 80 pairs of pants and changed his pants several times a day.
Grover Cleveland (1885-1889) was the first and only president married in the White House.
Benjamin Harrison (1889-1893) was the first president to have electric lights and a Christmas tree in the White House.
Grover Cleveland (1893-1897) was the first and only president to ever serve two non-consecutive terms.
William McKinley (1897-1901) was the first president to use campaign buttons.
Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) at 42 was the youngest person ever to become president.
William H. Taft (1909-1913) was the heaviest president at 332 pounds.
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921) dreamed of being a stage performer.
Warren G. Harding (1921-1923) gambled away a set of White House china.
Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) was the only president born on the 4th of July.
Herbert Hoover (1929-1933) spoke chinese to his wife to keep their stories private.
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945) is the only President to have served more than two terms.
Harry S. Truman (1945-1953) read every book in his hometown library.
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) was a Commander of Allied Forces during World War II.
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) was the first Catholic president.
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969) was an auto mechanic and teacher before becoming president
Richard M. Nixon (1969-1974) recommended a play to the Miami Dolphins in Super Bowl VI.
Gerald R. Ford (1974-1977) held his daughter's high school prom in the White House.
Jimmy Carter (1977-1981) was the first president born in a hospital.
Ronald Reagan (1981-1989) at 69 was the oldest person elected president.
George Bush (1989-1993) survived four plane crashes during World War II.
William J. Clinton (1993-2001) played the saxophone on national TV.
George W. Bush (2001-2009) has a collection of over 250 signed baseballs.
Barack Obama (2009-present) is the first African-American to become president.
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Stingrays are a flat-bodied cartilaginous fish with one or more barbed stingers located midway on the tail. They normally live in coastal tropical and subtropical marine waters, making it possible for them to come in contact with humans. Although not usually aggressive, the stingray will use its stinger in self-defense when accidentally stepped on, secreting a venom into the victim's wound. Fortunately, you can follow a simple treatment paradigm if you find yourself in this situation.
Identifying the Severity of Symptoms
1Relax. Although alarming and quite painful, stingray wounds are rarely fatal. In fact, most fatalities caused by stingrays are not due to venom intoxication but rather from internal organ injury (if stung in the chest or abdomen), excess blood loss, allergic reaction, or secondary infection. These complications can be managed by trained medical personnel if they occur.
2Identify your symptoms. Take a brief moment to identify what your symptoms are. Common symptoms include:
- Muscle cramps
- Difficulty breathing
3Prioritize the severity of your symptoms. Medically speaking, certain symptoms are more serious than others. Determine if you are developing an allergic reaction, suffering from excess blood loss, or experiencing venom intoxication. The presence of these symptoms should trigger seeking immediate medical attention.
- Allergic reaction: Swelling of tongue, lips, head, neck, or other body parts; difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, or wheezing; red and/or itchy rash; fainting or loss of consciousness.
- Excess blood loss: Dizziness, fainting or loss of consciousness, sweating, elevated heart rate, decreased blood pressure, rapid breathing.
- Venom intoxication: Headache, dizziness, lightheadedness, palpitations, muscle cramps, seizures.
4Obtain appropriate medical care/supplies. Depending on the severity of your symptoms, obtain the medical care/supplies that is most appropriate for you. This may range from obtaining a first-aid kit, visiting the local medic unit, or calling 911 for an ambulance.
- Whenever in doubt, always choose a higher-level of care (i.e. calling 911).
Taking Care of the Wound
1Irrigate the wound with sea water. While still in the water, irrigate the wound with sea water, removing all debris and foreign bodies from the affected area. Use tweezers from a first-aid kit if necessary. Once the area is thoroughly irrigated and all foreign bodies are removed, come out from the water and dry the area off with a clean towel, taking care not to injure yourself further.
- DO NOT remove any penetrating debris from neck, chest, or abdomen.
2Control any bleeding. Bleeding is common after a sting. As always, the best way to stop bleeding is by applying direct pressure at the source or slightly above the source with one finger for a few minutes. The longer the pressure is held, the more likely the bleeding will subside.
- Try using hydrogen peroxide in conjunction with holding pressure to help stop bleeding if you cannot control it with direct pressure alone. Careful, hydrogen peroxide may sting!
3Soak the wound in hot water. You can combine this step with the previous step of applying direct pressure to control bleeding. Soaking the wound in hot water helps alleviate the pain by denaturing the venom protein complex. Optimal temperature is 45°C (113°F), but be certain not to cause any burns. Leave the wound soaking for 30 – 90 minutes, or until the pain has subsided.
4Monitor the wound for signs of infection. Proper wound care includes keeping the area clean by applying soap and rinsing with water as well as keeping the wound dry at all times. Keep the wound uncovered and apply antibiotic ointment daily. Avoid non-antibiotic creams, lotions, and ointments.
- Over the next several days, if the area becomes red, tender, itchy, sore, or begins to swell or develop a cloudy discharge, seek medical attention at the local urgent care center or emergency room. You may need antibiotics and/or drainage of an abscess.
Seeking Medical Treatment
1Obtain a first-aid kit. Depending on where you are, a first-aid kit should be easily accessible. Ask someone to grab it for you while you begin identifying your symptoms and treating your wound. Items found in the first-aid kit that will be most useful to you include:
- Wound cleanser (hydrogen peroxide, alcohol wipe, soap)
- Pain killer
- Antibiotic ointment
2Locate nearest medic station, urgent care center, or emergency room. Having a healthcare provider evaluate and treat your wound(s) is not a bad idea. Not only will you be treated by an experienced professional, you will also reduce your chances of infection and other complications. A treatment plan with instructions and recommendations will be provided to you based on the provider's assessment.
- If the closest facility requires at least a 10 minute drive, you should first obtain a first-aid kit and control any bleeding before transporting.
3Call 911. This is your safety net. Call 911 in any of the following situations:
- Penetrating wound to head, neck, chest, or abdomen.
- No access to a first-aid kit or medic station.
- Symptoms of allergic reaction, excess blood loss, or venom intoxication.
- History of prior medical conditions and/or medication use that may influence the wound treatment.
- When in doubt, confused, inebriated, obtunded, insecure, scared, or anything else you can think of.
- Whenever you swim, especially in tropical waters, always be cautious. Stingrays, sharks, and other dangerous sea life could be around. Also, watch out for people around you that might need help.
- Drag or shuffle your feet when you are walking into the water so that you bump into stingrays instead of stepping on them.
- Try to express as much venom from the wound as you can without injuring yourself. It will help with the pain.
- If the sand is hot, you can use it as a medium in which to soak the wound. Be sure to take extra care cleaning the wound after.
- Benadryl stops the major itching and swelling — take it ASAP. You can also break an Aspirin in half and rub it onto the wound.
- If it becomes itchy, do NOT scratch or rub it. That will just cause the wound to swell even more.
- Urine can help get rid of venom.
- Individuals with compromised immune systems such as diabetics or those with HIV/AIDS should pursue immediate and aggressive medical treatment.
- If in doubt, seek nearby medical attention or call 911.
- Call 911 or report to the nearest emergency room immediately if you feel any of the following:
- Chest tightness
- Facial, lip, or mouth swelling
- Difficulty breathing
- Hives or diffuse skin rash
Sources and Citations
- ↑ http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/stingray/
- ↑ https://bcachemistry.wordpress.com/tag/stingray-venom/
- ↑ http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=63911
- ↑ http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/002853.htm
- ↑ http://www.redcross.org/prepare/location/home-family/get-kit/anatomy
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In other languages:
Español: tratar una picadura de mantarraya, Italiano: Trattare una Puntura di Pastinaca, Português: Tratar uma Ferroada de Arraia, Deutsch: Einen Stich eines Stachelrochens behandeln, Русский: лечить укус ската, Français: traiter une piqûre de raie, Bahasa Indonesia: Mengobati Sengatan Ikan Pari, 한국어: 가오리에 쏘였을 때 대처법, Čeština: Jak ošetřit rejnočí bodnutí, Tiếng Việt: Xử lý khi bị Cá đuối Chích
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 504,373 times.
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| 0.879097 | 1,865 | 3.40625 | 3 |
State standards outline the state's expectations for student achievement in each grade level. School districts design their curriculum around their own state's adopted standards. To learn more about your state's standards, click on the appropriate state below.
District of Columbia
The District of Columbia is not a state, so the application of standards in D.C. differs slightly from the way standards are applied in states.
There are State Education Agencies (SEAs) in each of the 50 states. The SEAs are independent of local school districts, which are known as Local Education Agencies (LEAs). SEAs do not serve students directly. Among many other responsibilities, State Education Agencies are responsible for developing academic standards, which must be followed by all local school districts in the state.
In the District of Columbia, what would normally be an LEA, the District of Columbia Public School system, serves as the State Education Agency – note: it is also an LEA since it has a student population.
At this time, there is not one set of standards that all local education agencies in D.C. follow. (Local education agencies in D.C. include: the District of Columbia Public Schools, the District of Columbia Public Schools – Charter School Division (it is part of DCPS), the District of Columbia Public Charter Schools, and all private schools.)
Click here for standards for the District of Columbia Public Schools and the District of Columbia Public Schools Charter School Division.
Each school in the District of Columbia Public Charter Schools system has its own board of education and its own set of academic standards.
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When an intense solar flare erupted from the sun this week, it exploded from a busy sunspot on the surface of our nearest star.
The sunspot, which scientists call Active Region 1402, appears as a huge blemish moving across the northern region of the sun in photos snapped by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and other spacecraft. In addition to firing off several flares in recent days, the sunspot unleashed a powerful eruption late Sunday night (Jan. 22) to create the strongest solar radiation storm since 2005 to hit Earth.
That radiation storm is bombarding Earth today and may spark dazzling northern lights displays for skywatchers at northern latitudes where it is currently night, NASA scientists have said. It may also create minor interference with satellites in Earth orbit, but poses no threat to the six astronauts currently living on the International Space Station, they added.
Sunspots on the solar surface arise from intense magnetic activity on the sun. This activity can block the flow of heat through the sun's convection process, which in turn causes some areas of the star's surface to cool down. These cooler regions appear dimmer than their surrounding areas, creating the dark blemishes known as sunspots.
Sunspots are temporary features on the sun that can last for several days or up to several weeks. They typically range from 1,500 miles to 30,000 miles (2,500-50,000 kilometers) in size.
One of the largest sunspots in recent years occurred in late 2011, when a sunspot about 50,000 miles (80,000 km) long, and 25,000 miles (40,000 km) wide was spotted by space telescopes.
The sun's sunspot cycle lasts 11 years and serves as a key identifier for the solar weather cycle. Right now, the sun is in an active phase of its current weather cycle — called Solar Cycle 24 — which is expected to peak in 2013.
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the auroras sparked by the solar storm, or other skywatching image, and would like to share it for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at [email protected].
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Reproductive Case Study 6:
A 26-year-old female complained of severe, dull, aching pain, and cramping in the lower abdomen. There were no other physical findings. A laparoscopy revealed the presence of ectopic endometrial tissue on the uterine wall and ovaries. Danazol (a synthetic androgen and inhibitor of gonadotropins), 600 mg/day, was prescribed for up to nine months to inhibit ovulation, suppress the growth of the abnormal endometrial tissue, and achieve appreciable symptomatic relief, with a 30% possibility of conception after withdrawal of the therapy.
1.) Compare the hormonal controls of the male reproductive cycle with the hormonal controls of the female reproductive cycle. How are they the same? How are they different?
2.) What is this condition called?
3.) What causes it?
4.) What is ectopic endometrial tissue?
5.) What is the rationale for using danazol, a gonadotropin inhibitor?
6.) Why do you think oral contraceptives could also be used as a treatment?
7.) Is surgical treatment an option, why? why not?
*adapted from “Case Histories in Human Physiology”, 3/e, by Donna Van Wynsberghe, University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, copyright 1998, McGraw-Hill Publishing.
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If you read any book on the text of the bible, you will sooner or later come across a statement that the chapter divisions in our modern bibles are not ancient, but are the work of Cardinal Stephen Langton, the medieval Archbishop of Canterbury, who died in 1228 AD. I have never seen this claim referenced to primary sources, however, which means that it is hard to check.
One of the better versions of this story is in Metzger’s Early versions of the New Testament. It reads as follows:
The custom of referring to chapters when quoting from the Scriptures was rare before the twelfth century. The development of the lecture and reportatio method, however, must have shown the convenience of such a practice. The chief difficulty to its adoption arose from the lack of one generally agreed-upon system, for several systems of chapter-division from late antiquity and the early medieval period were current. The diversity was felt most acutely at the University of Paris, where the international provenance of the student body showed most clearly the absolute need for a standardized system of capitulation, as well as a standardized canonical order of scriptural books. Uniformity was introduced amid such chaotic conditions by the Paris scholars, notably, as it appears, by Stephen Langton (d. 1228), then a doctor of the University of Paris, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the barons in the struggle which gave birth to the Magna Carta. His system, which is substantially the one in use today, was adopted in the earliest printed editions of the Vulgate. The chapters were at first subdivided into seven portions (not paragraphs), marked in the
margin by the letters a, b, c, d, c, f, g, reference being made by the chapter number and the letter under which the passage occurred. In the shorter Psalms, however, the division did not always extend to seven.
Cf. O. Schmidt, Über verschiedene Eintheilungen der heiligen Schrift (Graz, 1892), and A. Landgraf, ‘Die Schriftzitate in der Scholastik um die Wende des 12. zum 13. Jahrh.’, Bib., xviii (1937), 74-94.
On the diversity of earlier chapter divisions, see the tabulation of differences in P. Martin, ‘Le texte parisien de la Vulgate latine’, Mu, viii (1889),444-66, and ix (1890), 55-70, and especially the important monographs by De Bruyne, Sommaires, divisions et rubriques de la Bible latine (Namur, 1920); for a summary of part of De Bruyne’s research, see Patrick McGurk, Latin Gospel Books from A.D. 400 to A.D. 800 (Les Publications de Scriptorium, vol. v; Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam, 1961), pp. 110-21.
For a list of 284 different sequences of scriptural books in Latin manuscripts, see Berger, Histoire de la Vulgate, pp. 331-9; and for a list of twenty different sequences of the Pauline Epistles in Greek, Latin, and Coptic manuscripts, see H. J. Frede, Vetus Latina, xxiv/2, 4te Lieferung (Freiburg, 1969), pp. 290-303, and id., ‘Die Ordnung der Paulusbricfe’, Studia Evangelica, vi, ed. by E. A. Livingstone (TU cxii; Berlin, 1973), pp. 122-7.
On the ambiguous evidence supporting the attribution to Langton, see Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages, 2nd edn. (New York, 1952), pp. 222-4.
The absence of primary sources in this bibliography may be noted.
Recently I was reading Diana Albino’s article on chapter divisions and chapter titles in ancient texts and found some interesting statements:
The modern division into chapters of the books of the Bible has been carried out in the West by Cardinal Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury (+ 1228), rather than by Lanfranc, also Archbishop of Canterbury (+ 1089), to whom it has been erroneously attributed.
In a manuscript in the Bodleian, no. 487, probably written in 1448, we find this precise testimony: “1228: Magister Stephanus de Langueton, archiepiscopus centuariensis obiit qui biblia apud parisium quotavit.” . (I.e. “1228: Master Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury died, who divided up the bible at Paris.”)
Another witness, equally precise and also older, is that of Nicolas Trivet (1258-1328) , who wrote about Stephen Langton: “Hic super totam Bibliam postillas fecit et eam per capitula, quibus nunc utuntur moderni distinxit; ….”. (“Here he made postillas throughout the whole bible, and split it into chapters, which are now used by modern people; …”)
Otto Schmid has collected the evidence of the manuscripts of the Bible, from which we may deduce with certainty that Stephen Langton divided the Bible into chapters.
We also know that the work was performed in 1204-1205, when he was a professor at the University of Paris . This information was obtained by Martin from manuscript 1417 of the National Library of Paris. The Langtonian division into chapters was introduced in 1226 in the edition of the Vulgate known as the Paris Bible.
According to the lexicon of Du Cange, “quotare” means: to divide into chapters and verses.
N. Trivet, Annales sex regum angliae, ed. A. Hall, Oxford, 1719, p. 182. [Archive.org; p.216 of the 1845 reprint]
O. Schmid, Ueber verschieden Einteilungen der heiligen Schrift, insbesondere über die Capitel-Einteilung Stephan Langtone im XIII Jahrhunderte, Graz, 1892, p. 56-106. [Google books]
Paulin Martin: Introduction à la critique générale de l’Ancien Testament, Paris, 1887-1888, t. II, p. 461-474.
These statements are very interesting, but for more details we need to refer to Schmid’s work, On the divisions of Holy Scripture and the chapter divisions of Stephen Langton in the 13th c.
Schmid states on p.56 that the first statement may be found on fol. 110 of Ms. Bodl. 487. On p.58 he states that it first became known to scholarship via Casimir Oudin, Comment. de scriptoribus eccles., Lips. 1772, vol. 2, col. 1702. This was repeated by later scholars.
According to Schmid, Trivet’s statement was also copied by a considerable number of scholars, whom he lists.
Schmid also has something to say about Paulin Martin’s statement. Notably the ms. is not 1447, as Albino gives it, but Ms. Paris, BNF lat. 14417. This codex is a 13th c. miscellaneous codex of 316 folios, originally from St. Victor. On f. 125v-126v there is a list of chapters of scripture. (This is followed by commentary on scripture by Langton) The list of chapters is headed, Capitula Canthuar. archiepiscopi super bibliotec. (Chapters of the archbishop of Canterbury on the bible.) Schmid then gives an edition of the chapter title list verbatim on p.59-92. He then goes on to say (p.92):
From this list it will be seen that the chapter divisions of Stephan Langton are generally the same as those contained in the Clementine Vulgate, but are not the same in terms of both number of chapters of individual sacred books, as well as with regard to the beginnings of some chapters of the same. The difference is most striking for Judith and Esther. The books Paralip., Esdras and Nehemiah are counted as one book, but otherwise the difference in the number of chapters is usually only 1. We give below a brief overview of the difference in the number of chapters, where there is one, between Langton’s division and the Clementine Vulgate. ….
We cannot decide whether Langton made and published a number of versions of his division of scripture into chapters, nor whether the version above is a later redaction of it, or the only version. However it certainly leaves us with the question of when and where he worked out the division.
Trivet (see p.56) in his report leaves it vague as to where Langton worked on his chapter division. But H. Knyghton specifies Paris explicitly; apud Parisium quotavit. This gives us a guide to determine the date. Langton was made a cardinal on 22nd June 1206 by his patron Innocent III, who had studied in Paris and probably had Langton as a colleague. This meant that Langton in 1207, when there were great disputes about the next appointment to the see of Canterbury, was elected to it in Rome.
From this he concludes that the work was done not long after 1201, probably in 1204-5, while he was teaching in Paris. Robert de Courson, also an Englishman, quotes passages of scripture using the new system in his Summa, written between 1198-1216 (since it refers to Petrus Cantor, d. 1197, and a council held in 1201, but not to the revocation of a decretal in 1216). It is extant in Ms. lat. Bibliotheque Nationale 8268, 8269 and other mss. He adds:
Denifle in his Archiv für Literatur und Kirchengeschichte, l. c., p. 291, expresses the opinion that Langton’s divisions were propagated to France and other countries through the Paris Bible, the Exemplar Parisiense (so-called by Roger Bacon), on which Denifle’s thorough investigations have shed new light. This view can only be accepted, since Paris and France in the 11th century, as in the 12th and 13th century, was the seat and centre of theological learning, where many distinguished men settled and where anyone who sought to study theology would choose to come.
The returning students, who had learned and used the new division in Paris, brought it back to their homes. Langton’s work was also disseminated by the numerous copies of the Paris bible. Sam. Berger has found confirmation of the author of the new division in ms. 340 of the town library of Lyons, in which the proverbs begin with the words, Incipiunt parabole Salomonis distincte per capitula secundum mag. Stephanum archiepis. (Here begin the parables of Solomon split into chapters according [to the system of] master Stephen the archbishop.) The divisions are also found in the Paris, Bibliotheque Mazarine ms. 29, written in 1231 AD. Certainly it will have appeared in bible manuscripts before this date.
It is not clear what inspired Langton’s work. Perhaps it was the wish of the Paris theologians to have a simpler system by which to cite the scriptures, or, as some think, the chaos of different divisions and numbers in the manuscripts caused a need for a unified system. Perhaps it was the industrious Langton’s studies on scripture – we have glosses from him on almost the whole of scripture – which led him to consider a simpler division as desirable.
Denifle, in his work, Die Universitäten des Mittelalters, Berlin 1886, and in other places, and in his Chartularium Univers. Paris., tom. I, Paris. 1889, Introd. p. VIII-X, notes that the university of Paris was born from the union of different teachers between 1200-1208, pretty much around the time when Langton was teaching in Paris and performing his division of the scripture into chapters. Possibly it was this circumstance that caused Langton to perform his work for the newly formed institution.
He continues that in the 13th century older divisions are still seen, but either the new ones are added and the old erased, or else the new ones would be added in the margin. This was so even in old manuscripts like the Codex Amiatinus, where the new divisions appear in the margins. In the new 13th c. mss. the new divisions were placed right in the text. In older mss. notes appeared in the margin: hic non notatur/signatur capitolum (here the chapter is not marked); hic non incipit cap. (here the chapter does not begin); or, secundum libros bene correctos hic debet incipit cap.( according to well-corrected mss, here the chapter should begin.) Mixed witnesses appear in some mss., such as ms. Graz c. 186. Writing a bible took time. In this case it was begun with capitulationem at the start of the book and stichometric numbers at the end, and divided according to older systems. Suddenly the new system appears, and the old Capitula, Tituli, Breves and verse numbering is omitted.
Schmid then discusses the evidence for further tweaking of the system from the manuscripts. Some books that he had treated as one were divided into two (e.g. Esdras). But the difference between the original and the Clementine Vulgate is usually only a verse or two. He says that there is still some variation, even once printing begins.
The new divisions also made their way into Hebrew mss. of the Old Testament, although only marked in the margins by Christian hands. The first printed edition of the Hebrew bible to have them was the 1523 Venice edition by Dom. Bomberg.
Greek manuscripts of the New Testament acquired these divisions only in the 15th century, especially after the fall of Constantinople, as Greeks fled to the west with their manuscripts.
Interestingly Schmid also discusses (p.108) the modern division into verses by Robert Stephanus, the printer. In the preface to his 1551 bilingual edition of the New Testament, Greek and Latin, Stephanus states:
Quod autem per quosdam ut vocant versiculos opus distinximus, id vetustissima Graeca Latinaque exemplaria secuti fecimus, eo autem libentius sumus imitati, quod hac ratione utraque translatio posset omnino e regione graeco contextui respondere.
That is, he split the work into what are called “versiculos”, because in this way anyone could cross-reference the translation and the corresponding passage of Greek.
Schmid then continues with further details of how the division into verses appeared in the early editions, but at this point we must leave him.
- B. Metzger, The early versions of the New Testament: Their origin, transmission and limitations, Oxford University Press (1977), p.347. ↩
- D. ALBINO, La divisione in capitoli nelle opera degli Antichi, in Università di Napoli. Annali della Facoltà di lettere e filosofia 10 (1962-63), pp. 219-234; see p.232. ↩
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Credit: DiBiase et al./Journal of Geophysical Research/2013 and USGS/NASA Landsat
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have discovered evidence for an ancient delta on Mars where a river might once have emptied into a vast ocean.
This ocean, if it existed, could have covered much of Mars's northern hemisphere-stretching over as much as a third of the planet.
"Scientists have long hypothesized that the northern lowlands of Mars are a dried-up ocean bottom, but no one yet has found the smoking gun," says Mike Lamb, an assistant professor of geology at Caltech and a coauthor of the paper describing the results. The paper was published online in the July 12 issue of the Journal of Geophysical Research.
Although the new findings are far from proof of the existence of an ancient ocean, they provide some of the strongest support yet, says Roman DiBiase, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech and lead author of the paper.
Most of the northern hemisphere of Mars is flat and at a lower elevation than the southern hemisphere, and thus appears similar to the ocean basins found on Earth. The border between the lowlands and the highlands would have been the coastline for the hypothetical ocean.
The Caltech team used new high-resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to study a 100-square-kilometer area that sits right on this possible former coastline. Previous satellite images have shown that this area-part of a larger region called Aeolis Dorsa, which is about 1,000 kilometers away from Gale Crater where the Curiosity rover is now roaming-is covered in ridge-like features called inverted channels.
These inverted channels form when coarse materials like large gravel and cobbles are carried along rivers and deposited at their bottoms, building up over time. After the river dries up, the finer material-such as smaller grains of clay, silt, and sand-around the river erodes away, leaving behind the coarser stuff. This remaining sediment appears as today's ridge-like features, tracing the former river system.
When looked at from above, the inverted channels appear to fan out, a configuration that suggests one of three possible origins: the channels could have once been a drainage system in which streams and creeks flowed down a mountain and converged to form a larger river; the water could have flowed in the other direction, creating an alluvial fan, in which a single river channel branches into multiple smaller streams and creeks; or the channels are actually part of a delta, which is similar to an alluvial fan except that the smaller streams and creeks empty into a larger body of water such as an ocean.
Credit: DiBiase et al./Journal of Geophysical Research/2013
To figure out which of these scenarios was most likely, the researchers turned to satellite images taken by the HiRISE camera on MRO. By taking pictures from different points in its orbit, the spacecraft was able to make stereo images that have allowed scientists to determine the topography of the martian surface. The HiRISE camera can pick out features as tiny as 25 centimeters long on the surface and the topographic data can distinguish changes in elevation at a resolution of 1 meter.
Using this data, the Caltech researchers analyzed the stratigraphic layers of the inverted channels, piecing together the history of how sediments were deposited along these ancient rivers and streams. The team was able to determine the slopes of the channels back when water was still coursing through them. Such slope measurements can reveal the direction of water flow-in this case, showing that the water was spreading out instead of converging, meaning the channels were part of an alluvial fan or a delta.
But the researchers also found evidence for an abrupt increase in slope of the sedimentary beds near the downstream end of the channels. That sort of steep slope is most common when a stream empties into a large body of water-suggesting that the channels are part of a delta and not an alluvial fan.
Scientists have discovered martian deltas before, but most are inside a geological boundary, like a crater. Water therefore would have most likely flowed into a lake enclosed by such a boundary and so did not provide evidence for an ocean.
But the newly discovered delta is not inside a crater or other confining boundary, suggesting that the water likely emptied into a large body of water like an ocean. "This is probably one of the most convincing pieces of evidence of a delta in an unconfined region-and a delta points to the existence of a large body of water in the northern hemisphere of Mars," DiBiase says. This large body of water could be the ocean that has been hypothesized to have covered a third of the planet. At the very least, the researchers say, the water would have covered the entire Aerolis Dorsa region, which spans about 100,000 square kilometers.
Of course, there are still other possible explanations. It is plausible, for instance, that at one time there was a confining boundary-such as a large crater-that was later erased, Lamb adds. But that would require a rather substantial geological process and would mean that the martian surface was more geologically active than has been previously thought.
The next step, the researchers say, is to continue exploring the boundary between the southern highlands and northern lowlands-the hypothetical ocean coastline-and analyze other sedimentary deposits to see if they yield more evidence for an ocean.
"In our work and that of others-including the Curiosity rover-scientists are finding a rich sedimentary record on Mars that is revealing its past environments, which include rain, flowing water, rivers, deltas, and potentially oceans," Lamb says. "Both the ancient environments on Mars and the planet's sedimentary archive of these environments are turning out to be surprisingly Earth-like."
The title of the Journal of Geophysical Research paper is "Deltaic deposits at Aeolis Dorsa: Sedimentary evidence for a standing body of water on the northern plains of Mars." In addition to DiBiase and Lamb, the other authors of the paper are graduate students Ajay Limaye and Joel Scheingross, and Woodward Fischer, assistant professor of geobiology. This research was supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, and Caltech.
Written by Marcus Woo
Full story at: http://www.caltech.edu/content/evidence-martian-ocean
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The United States has 50 distinct states, which means there are 50 distinct definitions of "proficient" on standardized tests for students.
For example, an Arkansas fourth-grader could be told he is proficient in reading based on his performance on a state exam. But if he moved across the border to Missouri, he might find that’s no longer true, according to a new report.
"This is a really fundamental, interesting question about accountability reform in education," Jack Buckley, commissioner of the government organization that produced the report, told reporters on a Tuesday conference call.
The report, written by the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics, found that the definition of proficiency on standardized tests varies widely among states, making it difficult to assess and compare student performance. The report looked at states’ standards on exams and found that some states set much higher bars for students proficiency in particular subjects.
The term "proficiency" is key because the federal No Child Left Behind law mandates that 100 percent of students must be "proficient" under state standards by 2014 -- a goal that has been universally described as impossible to reach.
The report, released Wednesday, relies on standards used by the National Assessment of Education Progress, the only national-level standardized test, considered the gold standard for measuring actual student achievement. Researchers scaled state standards to match NAEP's and then analyzed differences among state scores in 2005, 2007 and 2009.
They found many states deemed students "proficient" by their own standards, but those same students would have been ranked as only "basic" -- defined as "partial mastery of knowledge and skills fundamental for proficient work at each grade" -- under NAEP.
"The implication is that students of similar academic skills but residing in different states are being evaluated against different standards for proficiency in reading and mathematics," the report concludes.
"Standards" is a buzzword in contemporary education policy, as test scores are quickly becoming the decider in more and more management decisions, from teacher hiring and firing to compensation. Already, under No Child Left Behind, states determine funding for schools by student performance on these state tests.
The states themselves set the standards, however. They do so by choosing "cut scores," the cut-off point to determine distinct performance levels, such as proficient, basic or advanced.
The report notes that changes in the proportion of students ranked "proficient" at the state level did not hold up once scaled to higher national standards. More states showed positive changes in the number of students meeting state proficiency standards than those that met NAEP's proficiency scores.
Tennessee had the lowest standards in 2009 for fourth grade reading, while Massachusetts had the highest. In eighth grade reading, Missouri had the highest standards, though its proficiency rating was well below NAEP's, while Texas set the lowest bar for proficiency.
Tennessee also had the lowest standards on both 2009's fourth and eighth grade math exams, while Massachusetts led the pack with standards above NAEP's standard for "proficient."
Buckley noted that higher standards did not trend with increased performance.
"There's just no clear relationship between the rigor of the standards and the outcome," he said.
On Monday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced that he was moving forward with a plan to use his executive authority to work around NCLB's provisions by granting waivers to states that agree to sign on to specific reforms, which have yet to be announced. Duncan said NCLB had led to a "dummying down" of standards for states. The report, however, shows that standards in some states may have been lowered between 2005 and 2009, but that was not the case between 2007 and 2009.
The report found that among states that changed their assessments, rigor did not necessarily increase between 2005 and 2009, and in some cases, states decreased the difficulty of their assessments. But states that changed testing practices between 2007 and 2009, the report found, set the bar higher.
“Our role in Washington is to support states as they raise standards," Duncan said in a statement in response to the report Wednesday. "In our plan to offer flexibility from No Child Left Behind's one-size-fits-all mandates, we will encourage states to set a high bar and raise their standards." He also mentioned possible changes under the Race to the Top competition, saying "states are working to create the next generation of assessments that will track students' academic growth and measure higher-order thinking skills."
Duncan has stressed the need to measure students at "career and college-ready standards." Tennessee has raised its standards since the 2009 tests measured in the report, and faced a subsequent decrease in the number of students deemed proficient -- a move Duncan has called "courageous." Other states, such as Colorado, are replicating such moves as they gradually adopt the Common Core, a national curriculum. The report's results may no longer apply as more states seek to change their exams and their standards.
This article has been updated to include a statement from Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
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One of our precious daughters is living with Sickle Cell disease. This disease is more prevalent in African Americans, but anyone of any race/nationality can have sickle cell. Currently, one of the only cure's for Sickle Cell Anemia is to have a Bone Marrow transplant. In Honor of Black history month, I am writing about things that affect the African American community and how we can help. I want to encourage you to help save the lives of people, like our precious daughter. The civil rights leaders fought to improve the lives of others and my main goal is to encourage you to do the same, but in a different way. Why Join the Bone Marrow Registry? Because you can be the one to save lives. February 12, 2011 at the Annapolis Walk Community Center in Annapolis, MD (1701 Belle Dr.) there will be an opportunity for you to sign-up to be on the Bone Marrow Registry. If you are outside of the MD/DC area you can also go to marrow.org to find a location near you. You can also call 1-800-marrow-2, or go to bethematch.org
Why is Bone Marrow donation critically important for African-Americans to participate in?*
"Every year more than ten thousand Americans are diagnosed with leukemia and other life-threatening diseases, and their best or only option for a cure is a marrow transplant from someone outside their family. They turn to Be The Match to find a donor who can give them a second chance at life. Each new member of the registry could be that match"
What is marrow and what does a transplant do?
"Marrow is the spongy tissue found in the cavities of the body's bones, mostly in the hip area. It produces special stem cells that divide and form the different cells that make up the blood and immune system. The goal of a marrow transplant is to replace the defective cells with donor stem cells, allowing the recipient’s marrow to then produce healthy blood cells and platelets. A marrow transplant can be used to treat many different types of cancer and other blood cell production diseases."
How can bone marrow donation save lives?
"A successful transplant relies on a donor’s tissue type matching a patient’s tissue as closely as possible. The cheek swabs collected from a new registry member contain samples of the potential donor’s tissue type. Once the cheek swabs are processed, all the tissue type information for that potential donor is entered into the registry, so a doctor can search the registry for the best possible match for the patient. If a registry member is a match for a patient, they will be called. At this point, they’ll be given much more information about the process. There are two ways to donate blood-forming cells. There is a non-surgical method called PBSC donation, which is the most common way to donate. The other method is by giving marrow. Giving marrow is done under anesthesia so the donor does not feel any pain during marrow collection. In PBSC donation, the donor might feel a few minor side effects before donation, because of a drug that they take. They’ll be back to their normal routine in 1 or 2 days. A marrow donor can expect to feel some soreness for a few days or longer. Most marrow donors are back to their normal routine in 2 to 7 days. With either type of donation, only 1 to 5 percent of the donor’s marrow is taken, so the donor’s immune system stays strong. The marrow naturally replaces itself within 4 to 6 weeks. There’s more information about the donation process in the “Take the First Step” brochure and video. We’ll talk about those in a little bit." *Reference: The information answering the questions above was found on the bethematch.org website at the enclosed link. *Flyer provided by Anika Wilkerson - President and Founder of the Lauren D. Beck Sickle Cell Foundation, Inc.
Getting teens to open up is one of the most important tasks of parenting a teenager. It is also one of the most challenging parts of parenthood. If your teen rolls her eyes, walks away angrily, or retreats to his bedroom when you try to talk to him or her, you are not alone. Many parents…
Most parents find that training their non-disabled children for life's activities is challenging enough. However, parents of physically challenged children have to be especially creative to make sure that their young people learn the daily life skills that they need to be self-sufficient. Occupational…
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On a snowy winter day, Aubreelyn, Tyler, and Suzannah visited the quiet, peaceful woods of Vermont. Their grandparents, Elder and Sister Schuck, are missionaries at the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial. They give tours in the visitors’ center and on the beautiful grounds of the site where the Prophet Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805.
The site used to be a farm belonging to the Prophet Joseph’s grandfather. The family lived in a small clapboard home, which used to stand not far from where the visitors’ center is now. The historical site is a special place because the first prophet of the Restoration was born here.
Elder and Sister Schuck teach their grandchildren about the granite monument that was dedicated on December 23, 1905—the 100th anniversary of the Prophet Joseph’s birth.
The monument stands 38 1/2 feet tall (11.7 m). That’s one foot for every year of the Prophet’s life. It took seven weeks to transport all the pieces of the monument—first by train, and then by a special horse-drawn wagon—from the granite quarry where it was made to the place it stands today. The monument honors the life of the Prophet Joseph and represents the love and reverence members of the Church have for the beloved Prophet.
The children stand on the front step of the Smith home. The home fell down long ago, but it once stood in this clearing. Shivering in the snow, the kids imagine how the Smiths might have welcomed the baby Joseph into their family on a cold winter day.
Aubreelyn enjoyed learning about cooking utensils and tools like the ones Joseph’s family used. The large stone in front of the fireplace was part of the hearth, or fireplace. Joseph’s mother cooked many meals over this stone.
Tyler, 8; Suzannah, 6; and Aubreelyn, 11; stand next to a statue of Joseph Smith. To make the statue realistic, the sculptor studied plaster masks taken of Joseph’s face shortly after he died.
Elder Schuck shows the children a topographical map of the site as it was in 1805, the year Joseph was born.
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Jails/Prisons are commonly referred to as "total institutions" (Goffman 1961) where almost every aspect of life is controlled by the authorities. Jails/Prisons are also places which accelerate the aging process. It has been estimated that in terms of physical toll on the body, an inmate doing any amount of substantial time will be 10 years older than their actual chronological age. The one thing that's certain, for everybody concerned, staff included, is that they are "doing time" (a phrase that refers to all the kinds of human suffering that surround the prison environment). Correctional Officers, for example, suffer abnormally high rates of heart attacks, ulcers, hypertension, depression, alcoholism, and divorce. Statistically, serving twenty years in prison will take 16 years off your life expectancy (Silverman and Vega 1996). In terms of control, the reality is that there are two groups -- the convicts and the staff -- who are totally at odds with one another, each one constantly fighting each other in numerous ways. Each side sees the other only in terms of stereotypes, and there is no such thing as getting to know the real person in prison. Examples of well-run prisons are rare, and although each prison may have its own local customs, the majority of prisons have many issues, or problems, a select few which are discussed below.
Prisons have traditionally been considered "schools of crime" because the prison experience helps build up a reservoir of resentment, not to mention a grab bag of criminal tricks, that released inmates take back into society. Many inmates go in as petty, nonviolent offenders, and come out as serious, violent offenders. Serious, violent crime is committed by a "revolving door" group of people, referred to as 7/70 theory, where 7% of offenders commit 70% of the crime (Wolfgang et. al. 1972). It's customary to state that two-thirds of all released prisoners will be back in prison within three years of their release.
There are at least four sets of codes, or rules, that govern prison life: (1) the official administrative rules and regulations; (2) the convict code; (3) the color line; and (4) gang membership rules. The official rules tend to be basic expressions of do's and don'ts, and the convict code tends to be an idealized description of how the perfect convict should behave. The color line tends to be invisible, but one becomes instantly aware of it when certain racial groups are seen dominating turf areas, such as the weightlifting equipment. Race tends to determine friends, assignments, and cell location in what is sometimes called the process of balkanization (Carroll 1988). Gang codes of conduct tend to be underground outlines for criminal enterprise, and what little we know of them comes from translations of confiscated written material. In criminal justice, the official rules and the convict code (Cloward et. al. 1960) are the most studied.
|OFFICIAL RULES: Obey all orders; carry your ID card; stand for count; stand for searches; keep your cell orderly; report to assignments and your cell promptly; don't fight; don't gamble; don't have weapons or drugs; don't possess contraband.
|CONVICT CODE: Mind your own business; watch what you say; be loyal to convicts as a group; play it cool; be sharp; be honorable; do your own time; be tough; be a man; pay your debts; don't snitch; don't pressure; don't lose your head; don't attract attention; don't exploit others; don't break your word.
Note that the convict code doesn't outlaw beating, raping, or killing another inmate. Those activities might possibly draw unnecessary attention, but they go on all the time, and are, in fact, positively endorsed by the other codes involving the color line and gang membership. Violations of the convict code result in penalties ranging from disrespectful stares to swift death. Violations of official rules result in penalties ranging from 30 days loss of privileges (movie, yard, commissary) to 180 days in the hole (disciplinary segregation, or isolation).
SEGREGATION AND CONTROL
Use of a segregation cell where the inmate doesn't get to go out for 30, 60, or 90 days is the prison's ultimate tool for control. There are four ways an inmate can wind up in segregation: (1) disciplinary; (2) voluntary; (3) administrative; and (4) medical. There are also some prisons, designated supermax, which consist totally of segregated living units. The front of segregation cells are usually covered with a hard, Plexiglas covering designed to cut down on talking and reaching. Living conditions are usually harsh with a dim light on all the time, insects crawling all around, and poorly functioning toilets. Loud inmates are sometimes strapped down and sometimes gagged in segregation cells, although this practice is officially banned as unconstitutional. Symptoms of solitary confinement include hearing voices, seeing ghosts, amnesia, and violent psychosis. There are high rates of self-mutilation, head-banging, and suicide.
Disciplinary Seg (short for segregation) is the most common type, and generally consists of one side of a converted cellblock (four or five stories). Voluntary Seg (also known as Protective Custody) generally consists of the same setup in another cellblock on the other side of the prison. Administrative Seg often involves transfer to a supermax facility based upon the inmate's classification as being a security risk. Medical seg units consist of psychiatric floors, suicide watch wards, and hospital-like wards for the elderly, infirm, or seriously ill inmates. While in disciplinary seg, an inmate is entitled to one hour of outdoor recreation a day, and most prisons have small, special fenced-in areas for this, but "yard" privileges depend upon good behavior, both in segregation and general population.
Privileges are revoked on the basis of behavior, and depend upon custody level (A grade = all privileges; B grade = some privileges; C grade = no privileges). Usually a mini-hearing (often by a correctional counselor) is held for minor violations, and yard, movie, commissary, phone, or job assignment privileges can be revoked for period of time. For major violations, or adjustment issues, a hearing is held (often by a panel of three employees) and good time can be revoked. Good time is the prison's second most powerful tool for control. All but four states have good time policies, and although the amount varies, the following is typical: day-for-day good time (where one year of good behavior results in one less year to serve); compensatory good time (something like five to ten days a month are earned, much like an employee earns sick time or vacation time); and meritorious good time (doing something like saving a guard's life or turning in some lost keys) which ranges from 90-180 days per year at the discretion of the warden. Good time is also sometimes awarded for successful completion of an educational or vocational program, and some states have passed laws requiring at least a GED or high school diploma to be released.
The snitch game, or snitch system, is the prison's third tool for control, existing side-by-side with another tool, the referent power of guards who have the respect of inmates because they are connected with the administration. New penology (DiIulio 1987) dictates that good governance by correctional officers is the key to maintenance of good prisons. Others (Rolland 1997) argue that use (and abuse) of a snitch system is the main cause of violence in prison.
PATTERNS OF INMATE ADAPTATION
One of the oldest areas of research in criminal justice is the study of how (male) inmates adapt, accommodate, or adjust to prison life. Classic books by some well-known authors in this area include Clemmer (1940), Sykes (1958), Cloward (1960), and Cressey (1961). These works were less concerned with the process of institutionalization whereby an inmate becomes so adjusted they prefer prison life over street life (an idea best captured by Goffman's term colonization), and were more concerned with the concept of prisonization (a term generally attributed to Clemmer) whereby inmates learn the values, attitudes, roles, and argot (language) of inmate life. These authors intended to see if sociological principles of organization applied to prisons as mini-societies.
Wheeler (1961), for example, found that inmate commitment to prison society followed a U-shaped curve. That is, when an inmate first enters the prison, they are still highly committed to the rules of conventional society. As time passes, their misbehavior increases, reflecting more of a commitment to inmate codes. As they get close to release from prison, they renew a commitment to the values of the outside world. This is both good and bad. It means most inmates orient themselves for law-abiding behavior shortly before they get out, but on the other hand, there is no sharp increase in prosocial behavior toward the end like there is in the J-shaped curve of conformity in the free population.
Other researchers have debated what might be called the importation-exportation hypothesis. This refers to the question of whether inmate codes are simply a reflection of general criminal values, and imported or brought to prison from the street, or whether general criminal values originate from the deprivations of prison life, and are exported by prisoners raised in these schools of crime. This debate remains largely unsettled, and it still persists in many circles where prisoner argot, or language, is studied to see if the words have the same meaning to criminals out on the street. To me, there appears to be more support for the importation argument because in the 1960s and 1970s at least, prisoners seemed sensitive to protest and demonstrations going on in the outside world (Jacobs 1977). Irwin (1970) describes, for example, the way prisoner subcultures tend to reflect cultural changes on the outside. The exportation (also called the deprivation or indigenous origin) model also has its adherents, such as Sykes' (1958) listing of the pains of imprisonment -- which allegedly form the nexus around which prisoner and criminal subcultures are built:
loss of liberty
loss of goods and services
loss of heterosexual relationships
loss of autonomy
loss of personal security
Certain forms of rhyming, rap, tattoos, and dress have prison origins. For example, the practice known as "sagging" where adolescent boys allow their pants to sag -- exposing their underwear -- originates from jail and prison policies denying inmates the use of belts (because they could be used as a weapon or means to commit suicide). It was exported to the streets on or around 1995 as a statement of African American solidarity as well as a way to offend white society.
INMATE PERSONALITY AND HEALTH
There have been many studies about what types of personalities develop while in prison, and these typologies have been analyzed dozens of ways, from the psychological perspective (Toch 1977) to the more modern tendency to regard them as "desocialized" lifestyles typified by insecurity, stress, and unpredictability (Cordilia 1983). The lifestyle approach refers to inmates finding their niche, or place, in inmate society, and there are three general ones (Schrag 1961). A "doing time" lifestyle involves comfort-seeking and avoiding any trouble that might lengthen one's sentence. A "jailing" lifestyle is embraced by state-raised inmates who are colonized. A "gleaning" lifestyle focuses on self-improvement while in prison. A fourth category, "disorganized" is used to refer to inmates who are unable to develop any of the other three orientations (Irwin 1970). The disorganized types (often those with low IQs or mental impairments) are the most frequent violators of official prison rules.
Many prisons have significant problems with the physical and mental health of their inmates. Most lawsuits by prisoners against the prison have to do with substandard medical treatment. Some prisons now contain geriatric wings to house a growing number of elderly inmates over 75 years of age. Older, ill inmates costs taxpayers twice as much a year as an average inmate, about $65,000 a year. A little over 2% (26,000) of inmates are infected with the AIDS virus and are HIV positive, but only about 19 states test for HIV/AIDS upon admission, whereas the other states test only if the inmate belongs to a high-risk group, or upon request. Tuberculosis (TB) rates run higher than HIV rates because prisons provide optimal conditions for the spread of this disease. The U.S. DOJ did a study in 1996 and found that 14% of inmates had positive tuberculin skin test results, but it was not known how infectious their conditions were. AIDS, however, is the single leading cause of inmate death, with about 1,500 inmates dying every year from it.
It is commonly reported that at least 20% of inmates have some form of serious mental illness. The rates are higher in the nation's jail system. Only about 13% of this population are receiving regular treatments of psychotropic medication. A smaller fraction, about 2%, are so mentally ill that they need to be housed in a special mental health unit. The demographic group with the highest rates of mental illness are white female prisoners. Blacks and Hispanics, for some reason, have much lower rates of mental illness in prison. The most common type of mental illness is full-blown psychosis with symptoms including delusions, hallucinations, and paranoia.
TREATMENT AND REHABILITATION
Educational programs seem to be the most effective treatment program. The most common figure quoted on its success is that inmates who complete at least a GED or high school diploma are at least 10% less likely to reoffend after release. Prior to the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1994, it used to be that inmates could obtain college educations by qualifying for federal aid, but now that is up to each state in how it decides to find funding for higher education. Vocational training programs have mixed results, with some work programs (like computer data entry) producing trouble-free employment rates of 30% for ex-offenders with other programs (like food service) only producing 1% success rates. Psychological, counseling, and social work programs have been studied extensively, with some experts in criminal justice agreeing with the Martinson Report (Martinson 1974) that "nothing works" in the hundred or so variations of treatments that have been evaluated, to Palmer's (1991) findings that certain programs can work if adequately funded and properly run. A basic problem is, that in most prisons, rehabilitative programs only reach about 5% of the inmate population.
VIOLENCE IN PRISON
Prisoners suffer injuries caused by staff, other inmates, and from accidents. Most violence is socialized, which means it's a normative part of coping with the status hierarchies and gangs in prison. There is no statistical reporting system for injuries in prison, but best estimates are that 26,000 serious assaults occur each year. Prisons have a more widespread problem with instances of sexual abuse. The Stop Prisoner Rape organization estimates that one-fourth (25%) of inmates experience at least one forced sex episode. In a 2001 article, "The Rape Crisis Behind Bars", the New York Times estimated that more than 290,000 males are sexually assaulted behind bars every year, and many victims report single incidents becoming daily assaults. Another organization put the daily estimate at 60,000 unwanted sexual acts per day. Each year, about 100 prisoners commit suicide, 100 more are murdered by fellow inmates, and an additional 250 die of unknown causes that were apparently not natural, self-inflicted, accidental, or resulting from homicide.
Gangs are implicated in about 85% of all prison violence, and racial or ethnic gangs dominate prison society in many institutions. Prison gangs usually have stricter "blood-in, blood-out" rituals than street gangs, and they control the hidden economy and rackets in many prisons. They are more tightly organized than street gangs, and in some cases, can arrange the killing of someone on the street or in another prison.
Riots have been extensively studied, especially during the extraordinary 1970s prison riot decade (Useem &Kimball 1989). One theory, called the deprivation model, holds that prison riots are caused by the stressful and oppressive conditions of living without freedom and the staples of life outside the institution. The Attica riot of 1971 may have been due to deprivation, as the inmates there felt a pent-up frustration of being treated like animals. Another theory, called the power vacuum model, holds that prison riots occur when there is turnover among staff and particularly when wardens and assistant wardens come and go. During times of personnel turnover (and prisons have notoriously high rates of turnover), power tends to concentrate in the hands of mid-level managers, who rely on snitch systems, enact inconsistent policies, and believe they are accountable to no one. Inmates tend to react to these things by rioting, as they did in the New Mexico Santa Fe riot of 1980.
The privatization movement in corrections has its roots in the history of 19th century prison labor, and there have been five models of prison labor: the lease, the contract, the piece-piece, the state account, and state use (Shichor & Gilbert 2001). The first three models are private systems, and the last two are public systems. Starting with the last two, the state account system allowed whatever prisoners made or built to be sold on the open market, with the money going back into the state treasury, or state accounts. The state account system ended with the 1929 Hawes-Cooper Act in response to demands from labor unions. The state use system, which many states currently use, requires whatever inmates make or build to only be sold or used among other government facilities. For example, the common stereotype of inmates making license plates for a state's department of motor vehicles is a state use system. The private lease and contract systems were common in the 19th century, and have involved the hat making, shoemaking, barrel making, lumber milling, turpentine making, tobacco farming, and sugar cane industries, to name a few. In a lease arrangement (more commonly used in the South with black inmates), inmates were farmed-out to corporations during the day and went back to sleep in their prison cells at night. For example, chain gangs are a type of lease system when inmates do more than just clean roadways. In a contract arrangement (more commonly seen in the North with white inmates), a warden with extra cell space or a corporation that has built a secure dormitory offers to take inmates in from overcrowded facilities (usually at a cost of $30 per day) and requires work out of those inmates enough to turn a profit (usually $40 a day). The piece-piece system is a variation of a lease or contract arrangement where a corporation agrees to buy certain prisoner-made goods at a certain price per item. For example, the federal UNICOR system in the Bureau of Prisons is a piece-piece system in which federal inmates help guarantee continued delivery of low-priced machine or wire parts.
Modern privatization follows the contract model, and almost 200 private prisons exist in 31 states (Texas, California, Florida, and Colorado are heavily privatized). The market is dominated by three big corporations - Prison Realty Trust, Corrections Corporation of America, and Wackenhut Corrections Corporation - which together account for over half of the private prison population. Ten other corporations are involved in the private prison industry. About 6% of the state prisoner population are housed in private prisons, and about 11% of the federal prisoner population are housed in private prisons. Private prisons are typically well-staffed and well-equipped, and have an extraordinary safety record. Critics argue that if they were allowed to engage in "cherry-picking" the most well-behaved inmates, they too could have well-run prisons. Australia and England make extensive use of private prisons.
WOMEN IN PRISON
Only about 6% of the inmate population are women, and this percentage has remained relatively stable for years, although there have been steady increases since 1980. The United States has 53 prisons women and 29 coed facilities. The coed facilities present less problems than one would expect, a phenomenon some experts attribute to the "softening" effect women have on male inmates. The living conditions at a women's prison are somewhat more pleasant, but there is often a shortage of programs. Women's prisons are usually less security-conscious. Neither the inmate code nor the hidden economy is well-developed. Rather than form gangs, women tend to create pseudofamilies, in which they adopt various family roles -- father, mother, daughter, sister -- in a type of half serious, half play-acting set of relationships. Some of these roles, but not all of them, involve homosexual relationships.
About 80% of women in prison are mothers, and about 25% of women in prison get pregnant during their prison experience. States vary on their policies for how long a newborn infant can remain with their mother, and a small number of states have provided in-house nurseries allowing for lengthy stays. In most places, however, the policy is a newborn must be placed with a family member or social service agency within three weeks.
Courts held to a hands-off policy with respect to prisons until Cooper v. Pate (1964) which gave inmates the right to sue for guard brutality, inhumane conditions, inadequate nutrition and medical care, theft of personal property, and denial of basic rights. Constitutional rights have been slow in coming for inmates. The most gains have been with their First Amendment rights (speech, mail, religion), but these are generally constrained by the courts in allowing for normal penological practice. Their Fourth Amendment rights (search, privacy) are severely constricted. Their Fifth Amendment rights are practically non-existent. Their Eighth Amendment rights (cruel & unusual punishment) are activated when prison officials violate a deliberate indifference standard, from Estelle v. Gamble (1976), which essentially means ignoring serious medical problems or conditions that make up wanton and unnecessary infliction of pain. Their Fourteenth Amendment rights include minimal due process in disciplinary hearings (Wolff v. McDonnell 1974), and at least some equal protection from racial segregation, at least during periods when racial violence is not on the verge of happening. On average, there are over 20,000 inmate lawsuits a year, but few are successful, with only one usually reaching the Supreme Court every four years. Many people find the subject of prisoners' rights and correctional law very interesting.
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NetWellness is a global, community service providing quality, unbiased health information from our partner university faculty. NetWellness is commercial-free and does not accept advertising.
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
HIV and AIDS
What Is AIDS?
Can you describe to me what AIDS is?
"AIDS" is the Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. It is caused by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), and is transmitted by contact with infected blood or by having sex with an infected person. This is a very large topic -- do you have a more specific question I could help answer? You could also browse the HIV/AIDS web sites that are linked to this site for information under Health Topics, Diseases and Conditions, AIDS/HIV. A couple of them are listed below.
Kenneth Skahan, MD
Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases
College of Medicine
University of Cincinnati
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Levels of Agent Orange ingredients found in Okinawa City exceed Environmental Quality Standard
August 1, 2013 Ryukyu Shimpo
The Okinawa Defense Bureau detected dioxin and other harmful ingredients inside the barrels found at a soccer ground on land returned by the U.S. military in Okinawa City. The levels found exceeded the Environmental Quality Standard set by the Japanese government.
The Okinawa City Government released the results of their investigation on July 31.
They detected dioxin in fouling material at a level 8.4 times the normal standard for soil, and in the water it was 280 times the standard for groundwater. They found the key ingredient of Agent Orange in the barrels. The city government asked Nansei Environment Laboratory Co. to carry out the investigation.
The company said the barrels possibly contained Agent Orange because they bear the logo of the Dow Chemical Company, the United States based chemical manufacturer that produced Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
The city government explained the results to the central and prefectural governments and city assembly on July 31.
That afternoon, the assembly held a meeting of its special committee investigating U.S. military base issues. The committee unanimously adopted a statement in which they asked the Japanese government to carry out a full-scale investigation and restore land returned by the U.S. military to its proper state. A special session of the assembly adopted the statement on August 5. The bureau found the key ingredient of Agent Orange–2, 4, 5-T, trichlorophenoxyacetic acid, in 18 of the 22 analytes from the barrels. They did not detect the other key ingredient of the defoliant–2, 4-dichlorophenoxyacetic. The bureau detected polychlorinated biphenyls in 11 of the 22 analytes. The highest value was 3.2 milligrams per kilogram at a level 6.4 times the standard.
The Nansei Environment Laboratory Co.’s report indicated that the composition of the dioxins in the barrels is related to Pentachlorophenol found in pesticides and herbicides. Levels of arsenic and fluorine found were slightly higher than the standard. The company suggested that harmful substances, including Agent Orange caused the pollution of the soil and groundwater at the site.
Of the 22 analytes from the barrels, two exceeded the normal standard for soil. The highest value was 8,400 picograms TEQ per gram. The level of dioxin in the water around the soil was 280 picograms TEQ per liter. The bureau found a large quantity of 2, 3, 7, 8-tetrachlorodibenzo, an ingredient unique to the defoliant. It is possible that the barrels contained dioxin related to Agent Orange because the ingredient accounted for 70 percent of the chemical.
Levels of dioxins found in the surface layer of the ground, surplus soil and the soil of land returned by the U.S. military in what was Camp Lester were substantially lower than the standard.
The bureau found 340 picograms of dioxin TEQ per gram, which is lower than the standard in the soil. However, it is higher than the level that requires caution: 250 picograms TEQ per gram.
Previous Article:Film Director Oliver Stone urges Okinawans to wage nonviolent struggle
Next Article:Battle of Okinawa PTSD symposium held at Hitotsubashi University
- Okinawa detects Agent Orange ingredients in barrels found on land returned by U.S. military
- Dioxins detected in all analyses of barrels found in Okinawa City
- Toxic dioxin found inside barrels unearthed at a soccer ground on land returned by the U.S. military in Okinawa City
- [Editorial] US and Japan need to investigate Agent Orange in Okinawa
- U.S. military storage of Agent Orange in Okinawa
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Hey, everyone. I'm reading up on freshwater aquarium-keeping through a book that I've purchased, and I am on the topic of pH and chemicals inside the water. I had trouble following along, due to its usage of chemistry equations and terminology. I've never took chemistry and I do not understand it. I looked up pH on google and on the wikipedia page, it just seemed even more difficult and advanced. Can anyone simplify pH to me in the most basic way?
Neutral pH is 7. Over 7 is basic or alkaline and under 7 is acidic.
pH is "power of Hydrogen" but all the chemistry stuff really doesn't matter as long as you understand that two basic premises relating to keeping fish.
1) different species of fish have different tolerances based on their native environments. Usually the range that we track for fresh water fish is between 6 and 8. Ideally the water pH should be in the middle of their normal tolerance. ie. a fish with a tolerance of 7 to 8 would do best in a pH of 7.5 as it will swing a bit even just over the course of the day as CO2 levels go up and down... a whole other topic.
2) Fish don't do well with wide swings in pH so messing with the pH can affect the fish negatively. Just the fact that the water swings from one level of acidity alkalinity to another is bad. Chemically lowering the pH can result in it spiking back up as the water tends to try to maintain it's original pH based on it's original composition.
Another interesting point is that ammonia has two types in water. Ammonia and ammonium. The first is toxic and the second is not. They are in a state of equilibrium and the higher the pH the higher the ammonia to ammonium ratio. The lower the pH the lower the ammonia to ammonium ratio. This makes overall ammonia levels more dangerous to fish in a higher pH water. I believe that there are far more fish that have lower pH tolerances as I have very hard water with a pH in the high 7's (harder water tends to have higher levels) so my fish list was fairly short.
The best course is to select fish that match your source water parameters to make it easier when it comes time to change water... sometimes this means not keeping the fish that you might want initially. When keeping multiple species their pH tolerances, just like hardness and temperature tolerances, should be very similar so as to have all of them near the middle of their respective ranges.
Hope this helps a bit.
You might also get some help from my article on the topic, here:
In places it might seem fairly techical, but it is impossible to understand without some of this.
You guys just about summed it up for me. That seems pretty basic when put in that way. Hopefully all of the technical stuff becomes more clearer though in time. But if you pick fish based on the local water supply, how limited is the possible fish selection? Aren't there quite a few fish for every water parameter? Thanks for the help.
I have a set of issues to deal with between really hard water, higher pH, warmer temperatures and particular fish issues that reduced my list to about 10 fish. I think Byron has somewhere over 20 species in one of his tanks but his water is really soft with a low pH which lends itself well to more fish.
Basically, go through the fish profiles and compile a list that fit your water parameters and tank size. If you have a favourite fish that you want first, jot down all the parameters for that fish (pH, hardness, temperature, tank size) then go through and list the fist that have very similar needs. Then eliminate ones that are not a good temperament match.
It may take a little time but it will pay off big when you don't have to mess with the water and you don't have issues between fish to deal with. There are enough things to worry about when things are going right with a new tank that you don't want avoidable issues cropping up to really complicate things.
As my article I previously linked points out, the GH (the measure of the mineral hardness) is unlikely to change much in the aquarium from what it is out of the tap. The pH can vary, depending upon the GH and other factors in the aquarium. So knowing the GH and KH and pH of your tap water helps to select fish suited to those parameters.
We're only guessing without knowing the numbers for your water, but generally speaking there are usually quite a number of fish that can manage.
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Pseudopterosins are a family of naturally occurring chemicals with the power to reduce inflammation, skin irritation, and pain. In other words, they make a great additive in skin cream. If you want skin that less red, pseudopterosins can help. Want a lotion that soothes your face after a particularly vigorous round of exfoliation? Call on pseudopterosins.
Pseudopterosins come from a coral called Pseudopterogorgia elisabethae. That's it in the photo above. For years, researchers and pharmaceutical companies thought they were sustainably harvesting P. elisabethae because, instead of simply gathering any of the coral they could find, they merely pruned it — leaving plenty of the creature to grow back.
But, it turns out that this is a really good example of a frustrating problem — what seems sustainable is not always actually sustainable. Doing the right thing, environmentally speaking, isn't as intuitive as we'd like it to be. (Also, pruning an animal isn't like pruning a plant.) At Deep Sea News, Dr. M explains:
After prunings in 2002 and 2005 and before the annual spawning, Christopher Page and Howard Lasker examined 24 pruned corals and 20 unpruned corals. What the researchers found is that although colonies appeared healthy pruned corals produced less eggs. ... Why would pruned corals produce less eggs and sperm? When organisms are injured more energy is diverted away from reproduction and toward repair. Interestingly, this pruning may actually also creating artificial selection. If workers are targeting larger and fuller corals to prune, then smaller less thick corals will be reproducing more and eventually become more dominant.
This is why science is important. Because, frequently, "common sense" isn't really all that sensical.
Read the full story
Dip your dollar into liquid anhydrous ammonia, dry it, and repeat. The surface tension of the boiling and evaporating ammonia shrinks the bill. Caveat: It could prove difficult to use a mini-dollar and mutilating a bill may even be illegal. (Applied Science via Weird Universe)
In many states in America, legislatures have erected punitive, vindictive barriers for women seeking contraception, requiring them to get prescriptions for safe, widely taken medications.
Designer Art Donovan writes, “I’m always looking for new and unique inspiration for my lighting commissions and the latest, cutting edge scientific devices offer a boatload of great design inspiration. From the cool, new ‘James Webb Space Telescope’ to the myriad of complex details in the L.H.P.C. at Cern- it’s a cornucopia of rich imagery.”
If you want a quality vaping experience, it’s usually going to cost you. Vaporizers that deliver a fast, controlled burn will set you back up to $300, which is why the FEZ Vaporizer (now just $99) is an absolute steal.The FEZ dry herb pen does everything that more expensive models handle at a reduced price. It heats up […]
Taking pictures can be challenging. There are a million factors that can influence each shot you take – and unless you’re a trained photographer, you often just focus, click…and cross your fingers.Of course, you can take some of the ambiguity out of your picture-taking with this Hollywood Art Institute Photography Course & Certification package, now […]
Experienced shutterbugs with DSLR cameras have boatloads of lens options for capturing the moment. Unfortunately, smartphone photographers often get stuck with their one crummy lens, which means limited zoom and focus for their final image.Step up your smartphone’s photographic power with the Acesori 5-Piece Smartphone Camera Lens Kit, now just $9.99 in the Boing Boing Store.Magnetic rings easily […]
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Differences Between Sulfides And Oxides
Mining has always been a popular business sector in industry. Because of mining, we get to enjoy different jewelries that are made to be durable even over a long period of time. Research has shown that in 2011 mining earned approximately 805 million dollars for the government, which an increase of 114 million dollars from the year before. To add to this, mining has over 9000 employees and employers. Therefore, it is clear that mining has indeed been a very beneficial business sector to the economy. However it might not be equally beneficial to the condition of our mother nature.
Besides gold, diamonds, silver, copper, and bronze, which most people know are popular and expensive minerals found in mining, you should also be aware of different elements also in demand in the mining industry. The sulfides and the oxides are two examples, which are consistently mistaken for each other.
Here is where they differ:
First, what you have to understand is that sulfides are minerals that contain sulfur. These minerals are inorganic compounds, which means that they are formed through geological rather than biological processes. These minerals are commonly found in soils with a higher temperature. They serve as an accessory to all igneous rocks and metamorphic rocks. They are found on top of igneous rocks whilst they tend to be inside metamorphic rocks. There are different types of sulfide minerals. Selenides, tellurides and antimonides are just a few of the classes that sulfide minerals have.
Second, sulfides differ from oxides through their composition. Oxides are those minerals that contain oxide anions, or oxygen, with ice and quartz being the exceptions. They are crystals rich in metallic compounds, with their appearance formed by the processes of the earth. Rutile, ilmenite, hematite and magnetite are the four types of oxide minerals.
Besides these minerals, there are many other minerals that you can learn about. You will be surprised by how interesting they are and how amazing it is that the processes under the earth are creating such beautiful and precious elements.
It is no wonder why the mining industry is booming nowadays. More and more mining companies are mushrooming even in the most rural areas because they think of the money they might make when they discover what might be underneath. Although this is a sign of progress in the entire economy, let us all just hope that it will not exceed reasonably limits. Nowadays with weather and climate changes, even more disastrous happenings are occurring. Minerals might be a great sign of improvement, but at the end of the day, that is all they will ever be, minerals. The environment cannot be replaced once it is disrupted and broken.
Sulfides are minerals that contain sulfur. These minerals are inorganic compounds, which means that they are formed through geological rather than biological processes. These minerals are commonly found in soils with a higher temperature.
Oxides are those minerals that contain oxide anions, or oxygen, with ice and quartz being the exceptions. They are crystals rich in metallic compounds, with their appearance formed by the processes of the earth.
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Someone recently emailed me after reading this post about Google Sky for Android to ask if there were similar tools available for use on laptops. The answer is yes. Here are three tools that students can use to explore space from their desktops.
The Microsoft WorldWide Telescope makes very detailed, high resolution images (scientific quality) from space available to anyone with access to a computer and an internet connection. The goal of the WorldWide Telescope is to enable users to use their computers as virtual telescopes. The WorldWide Telescope can be downloaded and run on Windows-based computers. Mac users will have to use the web client to access the WorldWide Telescope. The educators page on the WorldWide Telescope site has lesson resources and ideas for middle school and high school use.
Celestia is a
free space exploration simulation program. Celestia is a free download
that works on Mac, PC, and Linux systems. The advantage of Celestia over
other satellite imagery programs is that in addition to seeing the
Earth's surface, students can zoom in on moons, stars, and planets. The
user controls what they see. Operating the program is easy enough to be
used by students as young as six or seven. The user guides for Celestia are very thorough and available in four languages. There is a companion website to Celestia called the Celestia Motherlode that features add-ons to Celestia and educational activities that teachers can use in their classrooms.
Google Sky allows you view images of space in your web browser. Google Sky offers great images of outer space captured by the Hubble Space Telescope and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Google Sky has images that have captured x-ray and infrared wavelengths. The Google Sky web browser also has some more basic images in a collection referred to as "backyard astronomy."
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| 0.936625 | 365 | 3.5 | 4 |
Earthquake monitoring at Newberry volcano
Newberry Volcano, despite being a Very High Threat Volcano, was once thought to be one of the most seismically quiet of the monitored volcanoes in Washington and Oregon before a major seismic network upgrade in 2011. Prior to 2011, only one seismic station (NCO) had operated near Newberry, and from the time of its installation (1987) through 2011 the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network (PNSN) had located only 7 earthquakes within 20 km (12 mi) of the caldera - and none were located inside. In 2011 the Cascades Volcano Observatory installed 8 additional real-time seismic and deformation (GPS) stations around Newberry, significantly bolstering monitoring capabilities.
Since the new stations were installed in 2011, the number of earthquakes located near Newberry and inside the caldera has increased significantly, with an average of 10-15 earthquakes per year located by the PNSN within the caldera. This increase reflects the improved detection and location capabilities of the enhanced Newberry network - before 2011, it turns out that we were in essence unable to detect and locate earthquakes at Newberry much below M 2.0.
The types of seismicity observed at Newberry include a steady background of small (M < 2) so-called "volcano-tectonic" earthquakes that are a common feature of background seismicity at many volcanoes. In addition, we have observed occasional deep (6-8 miles) long-period earthquakes and shallow (2-3 miles deep) hybrid earthquakes that are commonly observed at other calderas with active magmatic and hydrothermal systems. The Newberry seismic network also routinely picks up signals from multiple non–volcanic sources, including rumbles from nearby thunderstorms (also electrical spikes if lightning is close by), pops from the fracturing of lake ice when Paulina and East Lakes begin to freeze in the late fall and early winter, and sonic booms from passing jets. Luckily, given the new monitoring network, these signals are relatively easy to distinguish for seismic signals emanating from beneath the caldera.
An additional factor that influences Newberry seismicity is the likely presence of magma at relatively shallow depths (2-3 miles) beneath the caldera floor. Evidence for this magma comes from studies performed by seismologists at the University of Oregon using data recorded by many temporary seismometers deployed during short-lived experiments in the 1980s and 2000s. This magma chamber and the hydrothermal system above it are likely responsible for most of the seismicity. Newberry's caldera collapsed about 75,000 years ago, and there is evidence for caldera-fill material that mutes the seismic energy from earthquakes that occur within the caldera. We infer that this fill/mush combination acts to absorb seismic energy from earthquakes occurring at Newberry. This absorption makes seismic observations difficult on seismometers outside of the caldera, and is one reason that only a few earthquakes were recorded in the decades before the monitoring boost in 2011.
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| 0.953732 | 626 | 3.34375 | 3 |
New Steps for the Environment on Kilimanjaro
Although this is not climbing related, it does affect Kilimanjaro and much of Tanzania, allowing future generations to use the mountain. The government of Tanzania has taken new radical steps to help preserve Africa’s highest mountain and the countryside.
First: No more illegal or legal logging on Mt. Kilimanjaro. Each year, millions of acres are being logged off the mountain. Recently, I was riding a mountain bike on the northern side of Kilimanjaro and it was being heavily logged. This deforestation – in addition to a myriad of factors – is one of the reasons for the glaciers melting. According to scientists, these glaciers are suppose to be gone in less than 20 years. If the glaciers disappear, there are millions of people that won’t have the water they need to survive.
Second: The Tanzanian government has finally banned synthetic plastics bags. These bags, which do not decompose, are littering streams, villages and many beautiful places. The problem, there is no place for people to recycle them, and there is no garbage dump. Therefore, you will arrive in once beautiful villages and see plastic bags everywhere.
These new laws are wonderful. The question is, can – and will they – they enforce it? Read Tanzanian environment measures tighten up.
For mountain climbers on Kilimanjaro, you can do the following:
-Make sure your group doesn’t use firewood on the mountain for cooking.
-Make sure the porters haul food in baskets instead of synthetic plastic bags.
-Help educate about people about the problems with deforestation.
-Don’t support or buy any of the carvings they sell.
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| 0.94968 | 357 | 2.890625 | 3 |
Montanore Mine is a massive undergound copper and silver mine in the state of Montana. Mines Management, Inc., a mining property speculator based in Spokane, bought the property, including the operating permit from Noranda. The mine would be on public lands in the Kootenai National Forest.
This mine would have significant negative impacts on three threatened or endangered species: grizzly bears, bull trout, and Canada lynx.
It would destroy 27,000 acres of critical grizzly bear habitat. Only 10-15 grizzly bears now inhabit the Cabinet Mountains Wilderness, and a mere 30-35 are in the entire Cabinet-Yaak Ecosystem. The loss of 27,000 acres of habitat is a death sentence for these bears.
Under the Endangered Species Act, the Kootenai National Forest has a fundamental duty to protect all listed species and their habitat from harm. Permitting this disastrous project would violate those requirements.
Problem on this page? Briefly let us know what isn't working for you and we'll try to make it right!
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| 0.924958 | 219 | 2.640625 | 3 |
AI Methods in Robotics
"How old are you?" she wanted to know.
"Thirty-two," I said.
"Then you don't remember a world without robots. To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons. Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven't worked with them, so you don't know them. They're a cleaner better breed than we are."
- from I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
The word Robot, which is derived from a Czech word meaning "menial labor," got its modern meaning from a 1920 play, R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), by Czech playwright Karel Čapek (1890-1938). The robots in R.U.R. develop emotions and overthrow their human masters. A sinister "power struggle" with robots has long been a popular theme in science fiction - for a change of pace, try Isaac Asimov's "I, Robot" stories in which he consciously depicted robots as beneficial to society.
Today, robots are used in many ways, from lawn mowing to auto manufacturing. Scientists see practical uses for robots in performing socially undesirable, hazardous or even "impossible" tasks --- trash collection, toxic waste clean-up, desert and space exploration, and more. AI researchers are also interested in robots as a way to understand human (and not just human) intelligence in its primary function -- interacting with the real world.
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| 0.9597 | 312 | 3.40625 | 3 |
What's in the GDRL?
What’s in the Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL) Project?
Nine information “portals” were created as part of the GDRL project. An on-line version of all of these portals is available at http://gdrl.org. Each portal can guide users to resources organized around a central thematic topic. All portals are designed to meet the information needs of users working to improve the lives of people with disabilities in developing countries. Most content is currently in English, but some of the portals have a section for “non-English” resources for content in other languages. The nine portals are as follows:
- The Global Disability Rights Library – This is the single largest information portal and includes resources on the human rights dimension of disability. Examples of topics include: education, employment, capacity building for disabled peoples’ organizations, policy and legislation, independent living, poverty, toolkits on promoting disability rights, and more.
- Global Disability Rights Library French Resources – Similar to the portal above, but all in French.
- Assistive Technology – Provides resources on making computers, the off-line eGranary Digital Library, and environments more accessible for all people. Includes free software enabling people who cannot see well or move their hands well to use computers.
- Basic Disabilities Information – Information that relates to disabilities but not to human rights. Resources on how employers, educators, and families can meet the needs of people with disabilities.
- Capacity Building for Non-Governmental Organizations – Provides capacity building resources for non-governmental organizations in developing countries. Topics include: designing and implementing social change projects, raising funds and managing them wisely, training new leaders, etc.
- Disability Related Blogs and Narratives – Non-academic content on disability and disability rights. Personal stories of living with disabilities (or with disabled loved ones), opinions and analysis, etc.
- Disabled People’s Organizations (DPOs) and Disability-Oriented Organizations – Websites for disability organizations around the world. Includes a page with information on GDRL deployment sites.
- General Human Rights Information – Content related to human rights but not to disability goes here. Includes the full text of major human rights instruments such as the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc. Also provides resources for people learning about human rights.
- Poverty and International Development – Content on poverty and international development, how to fight poverty and implement development projects, etc.
The Global Disability Rights Library (GDRL) project is a joint initiative of the United States International Council on Disabilities (USICD) and the University of Iowa’s WiderNet Project. The GDRL was made possible with the support of the American people via a three-year seed fund grant from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
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| 0.916347 | 605 | 2.96875 | 3 |
It was an argument that who is superior, either 'Sivam' (Lord Siva) or Shakthi (Parvathi). In order to resolve thus, they performed a dance programe at Chidambaram in front of Vishnu, Bhramma and points. While they were playing dance, Siva was about to be defeated.
But knowing fully well Siva played on "OORTHAVA THANDAVA" i.e. raising is leg above his head. This 'Ooorthava Thandava' is one of the posture in the dance. It could not be played by the woemn folk due to their modesty and shyness. In this parvathi could not equally play this posture and agreed her defeat and she was go to the extreme end of the town.
In order to contain her haughtiness and to teech a lesson that Sivam and Shakthi are also important in our life.
'Thillai Kali' is a deity in anger. This anger was pacified by Bhahma by Chenting Veda and also praising her. Because of the penance of Lord Brahma 'Kali' became Cool. So that Goddess 'Thillai Amman' in this temple seems with four faces.
Stone Inscripts :
The Hindu 'Shoza' periods are represented in the inscriptions in this temple. This temple about construction in the regime of 'Kopperunsingan'
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Several hundred years of Irish history is represented by the items in our printed collections. Individually they give us an insight into the time they were created in, seen as a whole they embody stories of ambition, personal and political oppression, hope and revolution that reveal much about a changing and evolving society. Confronting and accepting the full diversity and complexity of Irish history (however painful) can be enriching and books, pamphlets and even raw artefacts (cacterised as street literature or ephemera), hint at a bigger and often forgotten history of objects and the fact that Irish society has constantly been shaped through our interactions with foreign cultures.
Click here to access the Library online catalogue
Dublin Public Libraries, Dublin Heritage site http://www.dublinheritage.ie/
UCC Multitext Project in History http://multitext.ucc.ie/
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| 0.95334 | 179 | 2.859375 | 3 |
CensusCD 2000 Short Form provides details about the population of the United States. Short Form (SF1) is a 100 % count sample. It has variables including race, Hispanics, age of head of household, age of children, presence of older relatives, composition of the family, family size, rent vs. own, etc. It has 8 levels of geography: State, County, Tract, Block Group, MCD/CCD, Place, Congressional divisions and Zip (ZCTA).
CensusCD 2000 Short Form is essential for two key pieces of information that are not available on the 2000 Long Form (SF3): Group Quarters and Country of Origin for Hispanics and for Asians. If you are interested in populations in specific types of group quarters (correctional facilities, nursing homes, student dorms, military barracks, etc.), then the SF1 is the only source of data. Likewise if you want the specific country of origin for Hispanics and Asians, you must consult the 2000 Short Form.
Case Study: Distribution of Hispanics in NYC
The US Census Bureau created nearly 5000 tables (approximately 10,000 variables) that deal with racial and ethnic breakouts on the 2000 Long Form, thus enabling analysis of how Hispanics are faring compared with Whites, Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and multi-racials. But in 2000, the specific table of Hispanics by Country of Origin was not included in the Long Form as it was in the 1990 Census. Instead, it was left on the Short Form (SF1).
When analyzing NYC, this example looks at the distribution of three different Hispanic groups that are located in distinct neighborhoods throughout the city. For this analysis, any tract that had less than 100 persons was dropped. For Puerto Rican neighborhoods, all tracts that had over 35% Puerto Rican population were chosen. For Dominican neighborhoods, tracts that had over 24% Dominican population were chosen, and for the Central & South American Neighborhoods tracts with at least 20% of its population from these areas were chosen.
Red Tracts represent Puerto Rican tracts, Blue Tracts are predominantly Dominican, and Green Tracts are Central and South American Neighborhoods. The map illustrates that Puerto Ricans predominate throughout the Bronx and in sections of Brooklyn and Queens. Dominicans have neighborhoods concentrated primarily in upper Manhattan. While Central & South Americans congregate in northern Queens.
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| 0.956897 | 485 | 3.171875 | 3 |
What Can Kids Learn By Doing Dangerous Things?
Part 1 of the TED Radio Hour episode Growing Up.
About Gever Tulley's TED Talk
Tinkering School Founder Gever Tulley says that when kids are given sharp tools and matches, their imaginations take off and they become better problem-solvers.
About Gever Tulley
Software engineer Gever Tulley is the co-founder of Tinkering School — a weeklong camp where kids get to play with their very own power tools — and the San Francisco K-12 private school Brightworks.
He's interested in helping kids learn how to build things, solve problems, use new materials and hack old ones for new purposes. He's also the author of Fifty Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do).
GUY RAZ, HOST:
It's the TED Radio Hour from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So one night about 10 years ago, Gever Tulley had this major realization about his childhood.
GEVER TULLEY: I think it all goes back to a pivotal moment, which was a dinner conversation at a corporate Christmas party where I was sitting around a table with some friends from the office, and we had all just been talking about the kinds of adventures we'd had as children.
RAZ: Gever had grown up near the beach in Northern California. His mom was a nurse; his dad was a fisherman who also wrote poetry.
TULLEY: They would let us out the back door, and we would wander around into the forest. And there was a little cove near our house, so my brother and I used to walk up and down this little trail down to the beach. And as long as we were home by lunch or supper, everything was OK.
RAZ: And it really never occurred to Gever how important that stuff was for him, until that night at the office Christmas party talking with his colleagues...
TULLEY: About the kinds of adventures we'd had as children, and then I asked them, you know, so how are you - how are you making sure that your kids have these kinds of experiences? And the immediate and clear response from most of the table was, oh, well, you know, we barely survived childhood. That's hardly appropriate for children today.
RAZ: This, it just seemed totally wrong. The idea that his childhood...
TULLEY: Spent tromping around in the woods by ourselves getting poison oak and bruising our shins was somehow not important to the development of who we were today.
RAZ: So Gever, half joking, just said maybe he should create a summer camp, you know, borrow his friends' kids and give them the childhood they ought to have.
TULLEY: (Laughing) And by the end of the night, I had five or six kids signed up for a summer camp that didn't actually exist other than in my mind.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 1: OK, start.
RAZ: Today, that camp does exist.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 2: Oh, I have an idea.
RAZ: It's just outside San Francisco.
CHILD 2: I have a perfect idea.
RAZ: It's called Tinkering School. And on a recent day there, you could find 6-year-olds...
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 3: Here's another bucket...
RAZ: ...Making go-carts.
CHILD 3: ...And any nails. I got some...
RAZ: ...With a little help.
CHILD 3: Two and a half.
UNIDENTIFIED COUNSELOR: Two and a half - that's thin, right?
RAZ: And so the question is - what becomes of a kid who gets to play with power tools at that age? And how do the things we do as kids make us who we are?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 4: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
COUNSELOR: Oh, look what Zoe found. Here, put that on the - here put this on the table.
RAZ: Our show today - Growing Up - ideas about who we are, what happens in our childhoods, how decisions are made for us by adults and how all of that shapes the rest of our lives. One thing Gever says is really important about Tinkering School is that kids are allowed, even encouraged, to do dangerous things, which is why the first building kids enter there is this huge barn. And on one side...
TULLEY: Is a wall of tools - hand drills, saws of various sorts, you know, rulers, tape measures, levels and...
RAZ: On the other side of the room.
TULLEY: Is a wall of materials which includes lumber, screws of every sort of length, nuts and bolts, pulleys, wheels.
RAZ: And Gever says that for a lot of kids, this is the first time they've even been allowed in the same room with all that stuff. And when they get there, some of them, they just stand there - frozen.
TULLEY: Looking left, drills and saws.
(SOUNDBITE OF DRILLING)
TULLEY: Looking right, nuts and bolts and realizing anything is possible from this moment on.
RAZ: Like, what's your release form like? It's got to be, like, 25 pages.
TULLEY: To this day, we've never needed much more than a Band-Aid. But the truth is in an environment where the children realize, like, this is the opposite of being overprotected, we suddenly see the children take much more responsibility for themselves.
RAZ: And for the kids who can't make it to Tinkering School, he made some suggestions in his TED talk.
(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)
TULLEY: Welcome to "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Children Do." I don't have children, I borrow my friends' children. So...
TULLEY: Take all this advice with a grain of salt. You know, we live in a world that's subjected to ever more stringent child safety regulations. We put suffocation warnings on all the - every piece of plastic film manufactured in the United States or for sale with an item in the United States. We put warnings on coffee cups to tell us that the contents may be hot. And we seem to think that any item sharper than a golf ball is too sharp for children under the age of 10.
So where does this trend stopped? As the boundaries of what we determine as the safety zone grow ever smaller, we cut off our children from valuable opportunities to learn how to interact with the world around them. So despite the provocative title, this presentation is really about safety and about how some simple things that we can do to raise our kids to be creative, confident and in control of the environment around them. So thing number one - play with fire.
RAZ: All right, so you've got fire, right?
TULLEY: Let's call that number one.
RAZ: OK, then what?
TULLEY: Number two, own a pocketknife. Number three, throw a spear. Number four, deconstructing an appliance from your house. Number five, drive a car.
RAZ: All right, cool. That's - I love it.
TULLEY: And when we talk about driving a car, let's make clear that it's sit on your parents lap and steer. But the - the real goal there is they develop an appreciation and a kind of intuition about what's involved and sometimes even kind of an understanding when their parents later say, you know, traffic is complicated; I need you guys to quiet down back there. They refer back to that story.
RAZ: So about some of those other things, like throwing a spear, how could that possibly be a good thing for your kid to do?
TULLEY: (Laughing) Well, the joy we take from hitting, you know, just a tree or something with a rock or making the splash happen in the lake where we mean to - that process builds all those proprioseptive skills that we would love children to have, that sense of where the parts of their body are and trying to get their throw to go further and further. Those are all beautiful developmental stages that are aided by just letting them throw things.
RAZ: Or how about playing with fire? Well, actually, when kids roast marshmallows or burn sticks...
TULLEY: They're doing perfect science. They have a question - what will happen when I put this in the fire? They observe, and then immediately a follow-on question is asked. And suddenly we see them put an orange peel in the fire. But I think that kind of is the foundation of inquiry, and getting a chance to satisfy that question only builds the impulse to ask more and deeper questions over time.
RAZ: But, I mean, what would happen, like, if you didn't let your kids do those things? Like, you produce, like, a boring and dull child?
TULLEY: A boring and dull child who is a consumer rather than a creator in their lives because injuries are going to happen. Let's not let that fear prevent us from having children have real and meaningful self-directed experiences. So the fact that one child at a school has a pocketknife and another child isn't ready, we immediately denigrate that positive benefit which is so hard to measure, which is I've empowered my child, and he feels like I trust him with this sharp tool. That's a bond between parent and child that's hard to build without actually giving them responsibility for something that has a little bit of danger.
RAZ: Gever Tulley - his talk is called "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do." Check it out at ted.npr.org. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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Is your family at their healthiestthis winter?
There are many illnesses and healthissues that are more common during the winter. For example, asthma, eczema andviral illnesses such as the flu tend to cause the most problems during thistime of year. There is even something called seasonal affective disorder – orseasonal depression – that can be more common during the colder, darker andwetter months.So what can you do to help your family prevent health problemsthis winter?
During cold, dry months we tend touse our heaters much more often, effectively drying out the air in our homes.For children who are prone to eczema or dry skin, this time of year can beparticularly challenging. Be sure to use a mild soap for sensitive skin duringbath time and use a good moisturizer several times a day to prevent skin frombecoming itchy and irritated. You can also try bathing your child three times aweek. When finished bathing, pat the child dry rather than rubbing. If younotice your child has frequently dry or cracked lips, try applying a lip balmdaily.
The dropping temperatures anddeclining weather can also be a trigger for coughing, wheezing and asthmasymptoms. If your child has a history of asthma, prepare for the winter seasonby having refills of their asthma medicine readily available. If you do notalready have a plan in place for what to do if your child has an asthma flare,then it might be time to see your primary care provider to put a plan in place.Symptoms of an asthma attack include coughing, wheezing, difficulty breathing,chest pain and chest tightness.
The most significant health issue weface during the winter is the flu virus, and it is hitting us particularly hardthis year. The most important thing you can do to protect yourself and yourfamily from the flu is getting the flu vaccine. It’s never too late to get thevaccine. It saves lives and is available for children as young as six months ofage.
One of the biggest misconceptions about the winter is thatplaying outside in the cold will make you sick. This isn’t exactly the case. Infact, playing out in the cold can actually be beneficial to your health. Somechildren, adolescents and even adults experience something called seasonalaffective disorder, or winter depression. Those living in northern latitudeswith less sunlight during the winter (sound familiar, Northwesterners?) areparticularly at risk. The dark months make some people want to stay indoors, goto bed earlier and be less active. These feelings can worsen and escalate intodepression. Exposing yourself to more sunlight, spending time outdoors daily(even if it is cloudy), and opening up your window blinds in your home can makea positive difference in your attitude. Luckily for us, the days are alreadygetting longer!
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Antioxidants Don't Protect the Heart
Some Antioxidant Vitamin Supplements May Harm Heart
June 12, 2003 -- Antioxidant vitamins not only may not help the heart, they may actually hurt it. In a new study, vitamin E supplements did not help prevent heart disease, and too much vitamin A increased the risk of dying from a heart attack or stroke.
Cleveland Clinic researchers compiled data from seven vitamin E trials and eight trials in which participants took supplemental beta carotene, a source of vitamin A. More than 15,000 people took part in the antioxidant vitamin studies, and follow-up ranged from one to 12 years.
Vitamin E showed no benefit in preventing deaths from heart disease, stroke, or any other cause.
But when it came to beta carotene, the results were even more discouraging. Compared with people who did not take the antioxidant vitamin, people who took beta carotene had a small but significant increase in deaths from heart disease and stroke as well as other causes of death. The findings are published in the June 14 issue of The Lancet.
Dispels Antioxidant Claims
Lead researcher Marc S. Penn, MD, says he conducted the study because the public and even many healthcare providers still believe antioxidant vitamins protect against heart disease.
"For people at risk for [heart attacks and strokes], relying on antioxidant vitamins is not going to help," he says. "What will help is having your cholesterol checked, having your levels of arterial inflammation checked, and treatments that we know benefit patients, such as [cholesterol-lowering] statin therapy and aspirin therapy."
Penn says taking supplemental beta carotene or vitamin A should be discouraged. That is especially true for people who are at increased risk for heart disease. Recent studies also suggest that too much vitamin A in the diet weakens bones and increases the risk of fractures.
But do the findings mean it is a bad idea to take multivitamins that contain vitamin A or beta carotene? Penn says no, because most multivitamins do not exceed the government's recommended daily allowance for any one vitamin. Most study participants took dosages of the antioxidant vitamins that far exceeded these recommendations.
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John Schwartz, As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up, N.Y. Times, Mar. 17, 2009, at A1:
Jurors are not supposed to seek information outside of the courtroom. They are required to reach a verdict based on only the facts the judge has decided are admissible, and they are not supposed to see evidence that has been excluded as prejudicial. But now, using their cellphones, they can look up the name of a defendant on the Web or examine an intersection using Google Maps, violating the legal system’s complex rules of evidence. They can also tell their friends what is happening in the jury room, though they are supposed to keep their opinions and deliberations secret.
A juror on a lunch or bathroom break can find out many details about a case. Wikipedia can help explain the technology underlying a patent claim or medical condition, Google Maps can show how long it might take to drive from Point A to Point B, and news sites can write about a criminal defendant, his lawyers or expert witnesses.
“It’s really impossible to control it,” said Douglas L. Keene, president of the American Society of Trial Consultants.
And this is a bad thing? A juror who looks for other useful sources of information is taking her job seriously. She really is committed to ascertaining the truth of what happened. If lawyers and judges are getting in her way, then they’re the enemies of truth-seeking, not her.
Roll the clock back 800 years, and the jury was the group in the courtroom that knew the most about the case. They came, not to hear, but to speak. Take a case from Wiltshire in 1249. Ralph de Harpetr turns up dead in Haseleg Field. There suspicion that the Fugimar brothers, William and Nicholas, killed him. But the king’s judges have no idea whether William and Nicholas are the murders or not. So the judges summon a jury of twelve men from nearby Malmesbury, and the jury says, yes, we know all about it, they’re guilty. The whole point of a jury was that they were well-informed about the events.
Over the centuries since then, two things happened to make the legal system start treating jurors like mushrooms. First, the scope of social life outgrew the close social bonds of small rural villages in which everyone really did know everyone else’s business. Sometimes the jury would show up and they really wouldn’t the truth of the matter firsthand. That meant there had to be a procedure for telling them what happened. But once the legal system started taking on the role of informing the jury by presenting evidence, the second transformation happened: the lawyers took over.
Our modern rules of evidence, that whole “adversary system” thing—these are just inventions created by lawyers to make sure that they’re firmly in charge of the trial. Think about how much of the edifice of the modern trial is designed around ensuring that jurors remain ignoramuses: incomprehensible jury instructions, the objection system that shuts off relevant lines of questioning and tells juries to forget what they’ve just heard, criminal procedure rules that encourage defendants—the people in the courtroom with the best information about what actually happened—to stay silent, and, of course, jury sequestration. These aren’t glorious guarantees of individual rights; they’re procedural perversions that systematically hide useful evidence from the jury.
Once the trial was about lawyering rather than the truth, the jury was retheorized as an empty vessel, prized for its lack of knowledge. Any attempt at juror self-education threatens the lawyers, so of course they scream bloody murder when jurors actually care about getting it right. Ignorance is truth.
The iPhone juror isn’t—as They would have you believe—a grave threat to justice. She may threaten the usual ways of doing things in the legal system, but she’s advancing the cause of justice. The rise of Internet technology is making it much more possible for jurors to become well informed: about complex medical subjects (Wikipedia), about the bona fides of witnesses (Facebook), about the physical scene of the crime (Google Street View), and about so much else. We should celebrate this trend, which takes us back to the jury’s true roots, as the ultimate well-informed and participatory civic institution.
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Global Warming: Not So Bad?
So it looks like it's not all gloom and doom after all. A few recent studies have managed to find the slim silver lining of climate change. Below, a look at the three small positive outcomes of global warming.
The melting glacier is the poster boy of global warming, but Nordic countries might be able to use all that extra water flow to boost their hydroelectric industry. “It’s not surprising that the warming effects of climate change can be beneficial for a cold country like Iceland,” says Tómas Jóhannesson, a geophysicist at the Icelandic Meteorological Office. In a recent study of the influence of climate change on hydro-resources in Iceland, Jóhannesson and other researchers project a 25 percent increase in water runoff by the end of the century, resulting in a 45 percent increase in potential power production. This benefit isn’t permanent, though. Researchers estimate that, like the glaciers, the extra power from runoffs will disappear in 100 to 200 years. Carpe diem.
A 47-year study of one population of great tits—garden birds about the size of sparrows—is providing hope that some animals can adjust quickly to environmental change. University of Oxford zoologists have found that the birds are laying their eggs earlier in the spring to time the hatching of their chicks to the earlier emergence of caterpillars. This is among the first examples of birds adapting to a new climate, but the scientists suspect that the ability is widespread.
The past few years have been filled with reports that the number of hurricanes will dramatically increase in the next decade. Not so, say researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who reported in May that Atlantic hurricanes may actually decrease, with a projected 45 percent drop in tropical storms and hurricanes by the end of the century. Unfortunately, the scientists say, the warmer temperatures still portend an increase in the percentage of intense hurricanes.
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These pages will probably remain in a state of flux (change) as we continue to gather new data for Boot Records, filling in Assembly code comments and adding important topics related to booting up your box (computer)!
You may also wish to explore our newly revised Feedback page containing suggestions for booting-up your PC when the disk drive has failed to do so: Feedback page.
Personalized Data Recovery help via E-Mail (for a reasonable fee). But you can always write to us here with any questions for help you may need or your comments.
As either a review or an introduction (for those who need definitions and explanations of the terms used), we suggest that everyone read or at least glance over: Disk Drive Terminology. These terminology pages include useful details (even experienced techs should read them!) such as: How do you calculate the exact capacity of a floppy disk or hard drive?, Why do some utilities show less drive capacity than what's printed on the HDD?, What do MiB and GiB mean? and Do you know that partitioning a drive on a computer with a BIOS made earlier than 1999 will most likely waste some drive space on an archaic structure known as a Test or Diagnostic Cylinder?
How many Sectors are on a Hard Drive? -- Contains useful tables for picturing the contents of your hard drive.
An Introduction to Data Recovery.
How To Permanently Erase ALL the DATA On A Hard Disk -- without physically destroying your drive!
How to change your BOOT.INI Menus under Win2000/XP
HDD and OS Disk Limits: 32GB, 64GB, 137GB etc.!!!
6 to 64-bit Hex Numbers (and Basic Partition
Partition Magic writes "28 96 C4 17" to an HDD's 1st Track
is the Wrong Way to describe the Boot Signature on a PC
Explains why many have misunderstood how to refer to the byte sequence 55h followed by AAh on a PC: It's due to the little-endian architecture of PCs and incorrect usage in the documentation.
References. Links. Free Tools, Utilities and Boot Managers:
MBR, Partition Table and Boot Record Tools and Links .
The Windows™ 7 and 8 GPT (GUID Partition Table) 'Protective' MBR and EFI Partition -- The MBR created by a running Windows™ 7 or 8 OS (Disk Management) when choosing to 'Initialize' (partition) a drive as GPT. The Partition Type identifier will always be: "EE" hex.
The Windows™ 7 / 8 / 8.1 MBR -- The MBR created by a running Windows™ 7, 8 or 8.1 OS (Disk Management) or its install DVD when installed to a completely blank hard drive or a disk with existing Windows OSs; includes details about the partition layout and sizes of Windows 7 and 8 OS installs.
The Windows™ Vista MBR -- The MBR created by a running Windows™ Vista OS (Disk Management) or its install DVD when installed on either a completely blank hard drive or a disk with existing Windows OSs; includes some details about the Vista OS.
The Windows™ XP/2000 MBR -- The MBR created by a running Windows 2000 or XP OS (specifically Disk Management) when used to install a completely blank hard drive on your system; includes details about the Win 2k/XP Disk Signature bytes!
The Windows MBR for FAT32
-- The MBR created by FDISK from Windows 95B (or
OSR2), Windows 98/98SE and even Windows ME.
The Standard MBR --- This is the Master Boot Record that's placed on the first sector of any hard disk partitioned by FDISK.EXE (or FDISK.COM) from all versions of MS-DOS back to MS-DOS 3.30 (including DOS 6.22 and MS-Windows 95 "A" also known as MS-DOS 7.0).
This is also the same as the Standard IPL (or MBR) code used by many early Boot Managers and
TestDisk (before version 5.7 when it was changed) and some boot managers when there's a problem that requires the MBR code to be written again.
Notes on DOS 3.30 and an early (1988) OEM version -- The Master Boot Record created by the NEC® (Revision 3) version of MS-DOS 3.30's FDISK was slightly different than that of all the other MS-DOS 3.30 MBRs (in order to allow it to have 8 Partition entries in its Partition Table). Some important points about DOS MBRs in general are also included here.
The IBM® Personal Computer DOS 2.00 MBR and How Similar it is to the Standard MBR (of DOS 3.30) --- The Master Boot Record created by IBM®'s DOS 2.00; showing each byte of code that's different from the Standard MBR.
The Ranish MBR/Compact Boot Manager -- Single sector MBR replacement included with the Ranish Partition Manager. Preliminary Listing only.
All about FDISK.EXE -- Covers all versions of Microsoft®
Linux (and many other OSs) have "fdisk" programs that are safer for your data than Microsoft's FDISK; read the next selection about how MS-FDISK can destroy some of your data!
[ NOTE: Under Windows 2000/XP, FDISK has been replaced by a variety of methods for partitioning (setting up the MBR on) your drives:
1) The install CD when setting up a new system,
2) The Disk Management "MMC Snap-In" program,
3) The Recovery Console's command: diskpart (found on install CDs),
4) The diskpart command under the Command Prompt of Windows XP; even more difficult to use than the Recovery Console version of diskpart! So, Disk Management is the best choice for most users! ] You could, of course, still use an old Win98 Boot Diskette's FDISK program to create a FAT32 partition.
NOTE: Ever since Windows 2000 (and then, of course, the Windows XP, 7, 8 or
any later OS), Boot Records (both MBR and VBR, and associated boot files) have been created by:
1) The install process,
2) The OSs' Disk Management "MMC Snap-In" program (which partitions and formats), or
3) The CMD Prompt commands for partitioning (using DISKPART) and formatting (using format) a drive.
Of the last two, the Disk Management window is the easiest way for most users to accomplish the task of partitioning and/or simply formatting a new drive they attach to an existing system.
All about SYS.COM - Shows details of all versions of Microsoft® SYS.COM which can be used to create both Hard Disk and Floppy Disk OS Boot Records under DOS and earlier Windows versions.
The Windows 8 / 8.1 (NTFS) Boot Sector (VBR) - The Win 8 (NT5.x?) Boot Sector (or VBR); there are some changes compared to the Win 7 VBR, but it's still mostly the same. Exceptions: One of the error messages has been removed, it uses slightly different message offsets and code and there is a different value used in its testing for existence of TPM 1.2. It continues to use a BOOTMGR file, but there are a number of changes in its "Bootstrap" code! Overall, it's structure is still similar to earlier NTFS Boot Records.
The Windows 7 (NTFS) Boot Record Sector - The Win 7 (NT5.x?) Boot Record sector; except for the new code bytes (11 of them), it's rather similar to the Windows Vista VBR. It slightly refines testing for TPM 1.2, and continues to use the Vista BOOTMGR; again, it's structure is similar to the earlier NTFS Boot Records.
A Comparison of Windows™ Vista, 7 and 8 VBR Code - This page first shows the VBR code as color highlighted hex bytes for each of these OS Boot Sectors side by side, showning their differences, and then line by line as Assembly instructions.
The Vista (NTFS) Boot Record Sector - The Windows Vista (NT5.x?) Boot Record sector; except for the new code (which also tests for TPM 1.2) and its tests for BOOTMGR, it's quite similar in structure to earlier NTFS Boot Records.
The NTFS Boot Record: Boot Sector - The Windows 2000 (NT5.0) and XP (NT5.1) Boot Record; including the NTFS BPB (BIOS Parameter Block). Link to "The Disk Editor View page" to view the Record as it would be seen in a disk editor.
The NTFS Boot Record: Bootstrap (NTLDR Loader) Code - The Windows 2000 (NT5.0) and XP (NT5.1) "Bootstrap" Sectors. . . which we refer to as the NTLDR Section of the NTFS Boot Record Area.
The FAT32 Boot Record
under Windows 2000 or XP - The VBR created by Windows
2000/XP/2003 for a FAT32 partition, or what your old Windows 9x/Me VBRs (see MSWIN4.1 VBR) in the first partition of the first
drive will be changed into when installing Win 2000/XP on that system.
Boot Record - For the Windows 95B, 98 and 98SE and ME OS (or FAT32) Boot Records; including the BPB (BIOS Parameter Block).
MSWIN4.1 (Windows 98) Floppy Disk Boot Record -- For Booting the underlying MS-DOS 7.1 of the Windows 98 Operating Systems from a Floppy Diskette. Preliminary Listing.
MS-DOS 5.0 Floppy Disk Boot Record -- For
Booting the MS-DOS 5.0 to 6.22 Operating Systems from a floppy diskette.
The IBM® Personal
Computer DOS 1.10 Boot Record
IBM's Personal Computer DOS 1.10. These pages include facts about IBM's first International DOS version.
The IBM® Personal
Computer DOS 1.00 Boot Record
IBM's Personal Computer DOS 1.00. These pages include many other fascinating facts about the original PC's software.
Windows Vista, 7, 8 / 8.1 and later use what is called BOOTMGR (instead of the NTLDR; under Windows XP/2000) and you can examine and make some changes to its BCD (Boot Configuration Data) "Store" using its command line BCD Editor; or, some of the free GUI BCD Editors that others have created:
The Windows 2000/XP/2003 BOOT.INI
This is related to various system files, such as NTLDR, which may even appear in a Windows 98/ME partition if you install Win XP/2000/2003 onto the same computer!
GRUB - The GRand Unified Boot Manager! -- This one is now the default Boot Manager for some distros
such as Red Hat. You may even consider using this Boot Manager for Microsoft OSs (after installing a small Linux
partition for the GRUB executable and support files); this is how The Starman used to run his own multi-boot systems. (He's since then
decided to use more Virtual machines instead.)
LILO (Linux Loader) Boot Manager's MBR -- This used to be the only Boot Manager for the Linux OS, and it was the best choice for many Linux projects such as a Linux Boot Disk Rescue System.
Updated: February 25, 2009; August 16, 2009; March 11, 2011; March 30, 2012; June 2012; January 2013.
You can write to us here: Feedback Page
(opens in a new window).
The Starman's FREE TOOLS Page
The Starman's Realm Index Page
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Maps are a collection of plans, both architectural and detailing outside locations, that help the player and protagonists navigate their way around Silent Hill and the other myriad locations that appear throughout the series. They are fundamental to the players' gaming experience and missing a map can mean wandering around hopelessly for hours.
They come in a variety of forms, usually divided into segments, and spread throughout the various areas visited. As the player collects more maps, they are added permanently into their inventory. The maps are usually official ones created for the relevant location, but on occasion, the protagonist must rely on crude maps drawn by other people (for example, the church map in Silent Hill 3 was drawn by a child and Travis from Silent Hill: Origins also encounters an error-ridden map drawn by a child while in Nowhere), or even drawn by themselves (Henry Townshend from Silent Hill 4: The Room must draw all of his maps). In one instance, protagonist James Sunderland is forced to explore the Labyrinth without a map in Silent Hill 2 and must draw his own as he goes along.
In the Silent Hill film, Rose Da Silva studies a hospital map drawn very similar to those seen in the games. Initially, a scene in which Rose and Cybil find a map of the town was planned to be in the movie.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories features an innovative GPS-like system, in which Harry Mason can bring up a map on his phone. The player can then walk around while holding the phone in front of them, tracking their progress and direction on the map in real-time. Certain locations can be logged as Waypoints on the map. The player can also draw and make notes on the map as well using the Wii Remote.
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Building a Digital Lifeform Through an Open Source Project
Stephen Larson, panelist for our October 22nd ScienceOnline event, describes the OpenWorm project, a fascinating initiative that demonstrates the power of researchers working together online.
With well funded efforts like DARPA’s synapse project and the Blue Brain project it seems like it would be difficult. But that’s what the passionate group behind the OpenWorm project believe and have been making it a reality for the past year. Some basic facts about the project:
- The complexity of understanding the human brain makes it crucial to start with very simple organisms and to understand those simple organisms using computer models.
- OpenWorm is building a computational platform that reverse engineers a microorganism with one thousand cells — the most well studied microorganism in biology.
- The platform is being built transparently online in open source code repositories, such as GitHub
- The group doesn’t work under the same roof — the project is the distributed volunteer effort of individuals in Russia, U.K, Ireland, and the United States.
The project has already produced a “Worm Browser” that allows anyone to see the anatomy of the organism that is being simulated. The project has also made great progress in marshalling the facts that are known about this organism into a “connectome” that can be simulated. Finally, the project recently published a paper that outlines its previous work and points directions to the future.
We need help! If you are interested in helping out, whether or not you have any special expertise, please send an email to [email protected] or check out the contact page on the website for more ways to connect!
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The so-called "double-value" cells are produced by random errors in cell division that occur with unknown frequency. The generation of these genetically unstable cells appears to be a "pathway for generating a tumor," says David Pellman, MD, a pediatric oncologist at Dana-Farber and at Children's Hospital Boston. He is the senior author on a report in the Oct. 13 issue of Nature. Takeshi Fujiwara, PhD, and Madhavi Bandi of Dana-Farber, are the paper's co-first authors.
The research was performed in experimental animals, but such "double-value" cells are seen in a variety of early human cancers and in a precancerous condition called Barrett's esophagus. In addition to the extra chromosomes, the "double value" or "tetraploid" cells also duplicate a cell structure called the centrosome that plays a role in maintaining a stable genome. The extra centrosomes may be at the root of the cancer-triggering process. Once the genetic instability sets in, tumors "evolve " by losing, gaining and rearranging chromosomes.
Late-stage tumors commonly have too many centrosomes and a near triploid chromosome number (one and a half times the normal chromosome content). Because the cells with extra chromosomes and centrosomes are biologically different from normal cells, cancer drugs designed to kill them while sparing normal cells are "an interesting possibility," says Pellman, who is also an associate professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
The researchers treated normal breast cells with a compound that interfered with the final step of cell division, causing many of them to have the extra chromosome set. To make the cells more likely to become mali
Contact: Janet Haley Dubow or Richard Saltus
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute
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U.N. Report Says Buildings Play Key Role in Climate Change Fight
> Green Building News
The building sector — which accounts for 30% - 40% of global energy use — can substantially reduce carbon dioxide emissions world-wide through appropriate government regulations, greater use of energy-saving technologies and behavioral changes, concludes a new report by the United Nations Environment Program Sustainable Building and Construction Initiative (SBCI).
The report cites numerous existing opportunities for governments, industry and consumers to take actions during the life span of buildings that will help mitigate the effects of global warming.
"Energy efficiency, along with cleaner and renewable forms of energy generation, is one of the pillars upon which a de-carbonized world will stand or fall," said Achim Steiner, U.N. under-secretary general and executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
"The savings that can be made right now are potentially huge and the costs to implement them relatively low if sufficient numbers of governments, industries, businesses and consumers act," he added.
By some conservative estimates, the building sector world-wide could deliver emission reductions of 1.8 billion tons of CO2, Steiner added. "A more aggressive energy efficiency policy might deliver over two billion tons, or close to three times the amount scheduled to be reduced under the Kyoto Protocol," Steiner explained.
Other key points of the report include:
- Typically more than 80% of total energy consumption takes place during the use of buildings — for heating, cooling, ventilation, lighting, etc. — and less than 20% during their construction. Therefore, the report pushes for a greater use of existing technologies such as thermal insulation, solar shading and more efficient lighting and electrical appliances, as well as the importance of educational and awareness campaigns.
- Advanced, expensive high-tech solutions are not required to achieve greater energy-efficiency. Simple solutions such as flexible energy solutions, sun shading, natural ventilation, improved insulation of the building envelope, use of recycled materials, and building design considerations all can be effective.
- Even better results can be achieved if more sustainable construction system solutions are used, such as intelligent lighting and ventilation systems, low temperature heating and cooling systems and energy saving household appliances.
In addition to a greater use of relevant energy saving technologies, the report stresses the importance of appropriate government policies on building codes, energy pricing and financial incentives that encourage reductions in energy consumption.
Approaches to finding building solutions will vary around the world. In developed countries the main challenge is to achieve emission reduction among mostly existing buildings, and this can largely be done by reducing the use of energy. In other parts of the world, especially places like China where almost two billion square meters of new building space is added every year, the challenge is to leapfrog directly to more energy-efficient building solutions.
Click to download the entire report, "Buildings and Climate Change: Status, Challenges and Opportunities"
in PDF format.
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As expected, the name "Sandy" has been retired from the official list of names for hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean basin, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today (April 11).
The list of hurricane names for the Atlantic basin (which includes the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico) is maintained by the World Meteorological Organization; there are lists going out six years in the future, with each list reused every six years. But when a hurricane or tropical storm causes considerable damage or loss of life, and the re-use of the name of the storm would be considered insensitive to its victims, the WMO can strike the name from the list.
Sandy is the 77th Atlantic storm name to be retired since 1954, NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a statement. Sandy will be replaced by the name "Sara" when the list is used again in 2018.
When Hurricane Sandy approached the U.S. Northeast, it was a huge storm with a large footprint that caused significant storm surge along the coast. That surge, along with Sandy's winds, caused nearly $50 billion in damage in the region, making it the second costliest storm in U.S. history after Hurricane Katrina.
Sandy also caused significant destruction in the Caribbean, where it first formed.
Some 147 deaths could be directly attributed to Sandy across the Atlantic basin, the NHC said. Seventy-two of these deaths occurred in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions of the United States, the greatest number of fatalities from a tropical cyclone outside of the Southern states since Hurricane Agnes in 1972, according to the NHC statement.
Other recently retired hurricane names include: Irene (2012), Charley (2004), Dennis (2005), Dean (2007), Fabian (2003), Frances (2004), Felix (2007), Gustav (2008), Iris (2001), Isidore (2002), Isabel (2003), Ivan (2004), Ike (2008), Igor (2010), Juan (2003), Jeanne (2004), Katrina (2005), Lili (2002), Michelle (2001), Noel (2007), Paloma (2008), Rita (2005), Stan (2005), Tomas (2010) and Wilma (2005).
- In Photos: Notorious Retired Hurricane Names
- Jersey Shore: Before and After Hurricane Sandy
- A History of Destruction: 8 Great Hurricanes
© 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
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Monkeypox was first discovered in 1958 when two outbreaks of a pox-like disease occurred in colonies of monkeys kept for research, hence the name ‘monkeypox.’ The first human case of monkeypox was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo during a period of intensified effort to eliminate smallpox. Since then monkeypox has been reported in humans in other central and western African countries.
- Page last reviewed: May 11, 2015
- Page last updated: May 11, 2015
- Content source:
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J. Krishnamurti Krishnamurti On Education Foreword
This book is the outcome of talks and discussions held in India by J. Krishnamurti with the students and teachers of schools at Rishi Valley School in Andhra Pradesh and Rajghat School at Varanasi. These centres are run by the Krishnamurti Foundation India, which was set up to create a milieu where the teachings of Krishnamurti could be communicated to the child. Krishnamurti regards education as of prime significance in the communication of that which is central to the transformation of the human mind and the creation of a new culture. Such a fundamental transformation takes place when the child, while being trained in various skills and disciplines, is also given the capacity to be awake to the processes of his own thinking, feeling and action. This alertness makes him self-critical and observant and thus establishes an integrity of perception, discrimination and action, crucial to the maturing within him of a right relationship to man, to nature and to the tools man creates.
There is a questioning today of the basic postulates of the educational structure and its various systems in India and in the rest of the world. At all levels there is a growing realization that the existing models have failed and that there is a total lack of relevance between the human being and the complex, contemporary society. The ecological crisis and increasing poverty, hunger and violence, are forcing man inevitably to face the realities of the human situation. At a time like this, a completely new approach to the postulates of education is necessary. Krishnamurti questions the roots of our culture. His challenge is addressed not only to the structure of education but to the nature and quality of man's mind and life. Unlike all other attempts to salvage or suggest alternatives to the educational system, Krishnamurti's approach breaks through frontiers of particular cultures and establishes an entirely new set of values, which in turn can create a new civilization and a new society.
To Krishnamurti a new mind is only possible when the religious spirit and the scientific attitude form part of the same movement of consciousness - a state where the scientific attitude and the religious spirit are not two parallel processes or capacities of the mind. They do not exist in watertight compartments as two separate movements that have to be fused but are a new movement inherent in intelligence and in the creative mind.
Krishnamurti talks of two instruments available to the human being - the instrument of knowledge which enables him to gain mastery over technical skills, and intelligence which is born of observation and self-knowing.
While Krishnamurti gives emphasis to the cultivation of the intellect, the necessity to have a sharp, clear, analytical and precise mind, he lays far greater stress on a heightened critical awareness of the inner and outer world, a refusal to accept authority at any level and a harmonious balance of intellect and sensitivity. To discover the areas where knowledge and technical skills are necessary and where they are irrelevant and even harmful, is to Krishnamurti one of the fundamental tasks of education, because it is only when the mind learns the significance of the existence of areas where knowledge is irrelevant that a totally new dimension is realized, new energies generated and the unused potentialities of the human mind activated.
One of the unsolved problems and challenges to educationists all over the world is the problem of freedom and order. How is a child, a student, to grow in freedom and at the same time develop a deep sense of inner order. Order is the very root of freedom. Freedom, to Krishnamurti, has no terminal point but is renewed from moment to moment in the very act of living. In these pages, one can get a glimpse, a feel, of this quality of freedom of which order is an inherent part.
The years which a student spends in a school must leave behind in him a fragrance and delight. This can only happen when there is no competition, no authority, when teaching and learning is a simultaneous process in the present, where the educator and the educated are both participating in the act of learning.
Unlike the communication of the religious spirit by various sects and religious groups, Krishnamurti's approach is in a sense truly secular and yet has a deeply religious dimension. There is a departure in Krishnamurti's teachings from the traditional approach of the relationship between the teacher and the taught, the guru and the shishya. The traditional approach is basically hierarchical; there is the teacher who knows and the student who does not know and has to be taught. To Krishnamurti, the teacher and the student function at the same level - communicating through questioning and counter-questioning till the depths of the problem are exposed and understanding is revealed, illuminating the mind of both.
The Krishnamurti Foundation India feels deeply privileged for being able to offer this book to the student and the educator.
Part One `On Education'
You know, you live in one of the most beautiful valleys I have seen. It has a special atmosphere. Have you noticed, especially in the evenings and early mornings, a quality of silence which permeates, which penetrates the valley? There are around here, I believe, the most ancient hills in the world and man has not spoilt them yet; and wherever you go, in cities or in other places, man is destroying nature, cutting down trees to build more houses, polluting the air with cars and industry. Man is destroying animals; there are very few tigers left. Man is destroying everything because more and more people are born and they must have more space. Gradually, man is spreading destruction all over the world. And when one comes to a valley like this - where there are very few people, where nature is still not spoilt, where there is still silence, quietness, beauty - one is really astonished. Every time one comes here one feels the strangeness of this land, but probably you have become used to it. You do not look at the hills any more, you do not listen to the birds any more and to the wind among the leaves. So you have gradually become indifferent.
Education is not only learning from books, memorizing some facts, but also learning how to look, how to listen to what the books are saying, whether they are saying something true or false. All that is part of education. Education is not just to pass examinations, take a degree and a job, get married and settle down, but also to be able to listen to the birds, to see the sky, to see the extraordinary beauty of a tree, and the shape of the hills, and to feel with them, to be really, directly in touch with them. As you grow older, that sense of listening, seeing, unfortunately disappears because you have worries, you want more money, a better car, more children or less children. You become jealous, ambitious, greedy, envious; so you lose the sense of the beauty of the earth. You know what is happening in the world. You must be studying current events. There are wars, revolts, nation divided against nation. In this country too there is division, separation, more and more people being born, poverty, squalor and complete callousness. Man does not care what happens to another so long as he is perfectly safe. And you are being educated to fit into all this. Do you know the world is mad, that all this is madness - this fighting, quarrelling, bullying, tearing at each other? And you will grow up to fit into this. Is this right, is this what education is meant for, that you should willingly or unwillingly fit into this mad structure called society? And do you know what is happening to religions throughout the world? Here also man is disintegrating, nobody believes in anything any more. Man has no faith and religions are merely the result of a vast propaganda.
Since you are young, fresh, innocent, can you look at all the beauty of the earth, have the quality of affection? And can you retain that? For if you do not, as you grow up, you will conform, because that is the easiest way to live. As you grow up, a few of you will revolt, but that revolt too will not answer the problem. Some of you will try to run away from society, but that running away will have no meaning. You have to change society, but not by killing people. Society is you and I. You and I create the society in which we live. So you have to change. You cannot fit into this monstrous society. So what are you going to do?
And you, living in this extraordinary valley, are you going to be thrown into this world of strife, confusion, war, hatred? Are you going to conform, fit in, accept all the old values? You know what these values are - money, position, prestige, power. That is all man wants and society wants you to fit into that pattern of values. But if you now begin to think, to observe, to learn, not from books, but learn for yourself by watching, listening to everything that is happening around you, you will grow up to be a different human being - one who cares, who has affection, who loves people. Perhaps if you live that way, you might find a truly religious life.
So look at nature, at the tamarind tree, the mango trees in bloom, and listen to the birds early in the morning and late in the evening. See the clear sky, the stars, how marvellously the sun sets behind those hills. See all, the colours, the light on the leaves, the beauty of the land, the rich earth. Then having seen that and seen also what the world is, with all its brutality, violence, ugliness, what are you going to do?
Do you know what it means to attend, to pay attention? When you pay attention, you see things much more clearly. You hear the bird singing much more distinctly. You differentiate between various sounds. When you look at a tree with a great deal of attention, you see the whole beauty of the tree. You see the leaves, the branch, you see the wind playing with it. When you pay attention, you see extraordinarily clearly. Have you ever done it? Attention is something different from concentration. When you concentrate, you don't see everything. But when you are paying attention, you see a great deal. Now, pay attention. Look at that tree and see the shadows, the slight breeze among the leaves. See the shape of the tree. See the proportion of the tree in relation to other trees. See the quality of light that penetrates through the leaves, the light on the branches and the trunk. See the totality of the tree. Look at it that way, because I am going to talk about something to which you have to pay attention. Attention is very important, in the class, as well as when you are outside, when you are eating, when you are walking. Attention is an extraordinary thing.
I am going to ask you something. Why are you being educated? Do you understand my question? Your parents send you to school. You attend classes, you learn mathematics, you learn geography, you learn history. Why? Have you ever asked why you want to be educated, what is the point of being educated? What is the point of your passing examinations and getting degrees? Is it to get married, get a job and settle down in life as millions and millions of people do? Is that what you are going to do, is that the meaning of education? Do you understand what I am talking about? This is really a very serious question. The whole world is questioning the basis of education. We see what education has been used for. Human beings throughout the world - whether in Russia or in China or in America or in Europe or in this country - are being educated to conform, to fit into society and into their culture, to fit into the stream of social and economic activity, to be sucked into that vast stream that has been flowing for thousands of years. Is that education, or is education something entirely different? Can education see to it that the human mind is not drawn into that vast stream and so destroyed; see that the mind is never sucked into that stream; so that, with such a mind, you can be an entirely different human being with a different quality to life? Are you going to be educated that way? Or are you going to allow your parents, society, to dictate to you so that you become pad of the stream of society? Real education means that a human mind, your mind, not only is capable of being excellent in mathematics, geography and history, but also can never, under any circumstances, be drawn into the stream of society. Because that stream which we call living, is very corrupt, is immoral, is violent, is greedy. That stream is our culture. So, the question is how to bring about the right kind of education so that the mind can withstand all temptations, all influences, the bestiality of this civilization and this culture. We have come to a point in history where we have to create a new culture, a totally different kind of existence, not based on consumerism and industrialization, but a culture based upon a real quality of religion. Now how does one bring about, through education, a mind that is entirely different, a mind that is not greedy, not envious? How does one create a mind that is not ambitious, that is extraordinarily active, efficient; that has a real perception of what is true in daily life which is after all religion.
Now, let us find out what is the real meaning and intention of education. Can your mind, which has been conditioned by society, the culture in which you have lived, be transformed through education so that you will never under any circumstances enter the stream of society? Is it possible to educate you differently? `Educate' in the real sense of that word; not to transmit from the teachers to the students some information about mathematics or history or geography, but in the very instruction of these subjects to bring about a change in your mind. Which means that you have to be extraordinarily critical. You have to learn never to accept anything which you yourself do not see clearly, never to repeat what another has said.
I think you should put these questions to yourself, not occasionally, but every day. Find out. Listen to everything, to the birds, to that cow calling. Learn about everything in yourself, because if you learn from yourself about yourself, then you will not be a second-hand human being. So you should, if I may suggest, from now on, find out how to live entirely differently and that is going to be difficult, for I am afraid most of us like to find an easy way of living. We like to repeat and what other people say, what other people do, because it is the easiest way to live - to conform to the old pattern or to a new pattern. We have to find out what it means never to conform and what it means to live without fear. This is your life, and nobody is going to teach you, no book, no guru. You have to earn from yourself, not from books. There is a great deal to learn about yourself. It is an endless thing, it is a fascinating thing, and when you learn about yourself from yourself, out of that learning wisdom comes. Then you can live a most extraordinary, happy, beautiful life. Right? Now, will you ask me questions?
Student: The world is full of callous people, indifferent people, cruel people, and how can you change those people?
Krishnamurti: The world is full of callous people, indifferent people, cruel people, and how can you change those people? Is that it? Why do you bother about changing others? Change yourself. Otherwise as you grow up you will also become callous. You will also become indifferent. You will also become cruel. The past generation is vanishing, it is going, and you are coming, and if you also prove callous, indifferent, cruel, you will also build the same society. What matters is that you change, that you are not callous, that you are not indifferent. When you say all this is the business of the older generation, have you seen them, have you watched them, have you felt for them? If you have, you will do something. Change yourself and test it by action. Such action is one of the most extraordinary things. But we want to change everybody except ourselves, which means, really, we do not want to change, we want others to change, and so we remain callous, indifferent, cruel, hoping the environment will change so that we can continue in our own way. You understand what I am talking about?
Student: You ask us to change, what do we change into?
Krishnamurti: You ask us to change, what is it we change into? You cannot change into a monkey, probably you would like to, but you cannot. Now when you say, ``I want to change into something'' - listen to this carefully - if you say to yourself, ``I must change, I must change myself into something'', the ``into something'' is a pattern which you have created, haven't you? Do you see that? Look, you are violent or greedy and you want to change yourself into a person who is not greedy. Not wanting to be greedy is another form of greed, isn't it? Do you see that? But if you say, ``I am greedy, I will find out what it means, why I am greedy, what is involved in it'', then, when you understand greed, you will be free of greed. Do you understand what I am talking about?
Let me explain. I am greedy and I struggle, fight, make tremendous efforts not to be greedy. I have already an idea, a picture, an image of what it means not to be greedy. So I am conforming to an idea which I think is non-greed. You understand? Whereas if I look at my greed, if I understand why I am greedy, the nature of my greed, the structure of greed, then, when I begin to understand all that, I am free of greed. Therefore, freedom from greed is something entirely different from trying to become non-greedy. Do you see the difference? Freedom from greed is something which is entirely different from saying, ``I must be a great man so I must be non-greedy?'' Have you understood?
I was thinking last night, that I have been to this valley, off and on, for about forty years. People have come and gone. Trees have died and new trees have grown. Different children have come, passed through his school, have become engineers, housewives and disappeared altogether into the masses. I meet them occasionally, at an airport or at a meeting, very ordinary people. And if you are not very careful, you are also going to end up that way.
Student: What do you mean by ordinary?
Krishnamurti: To be like the rest of men; with their worries, with their corruption, violence, brutality, indifference, callousness. To want a job, to want to hold on to a job, whether you are efficient or not, to die in the job. That is what is called ordinary - to have nothing new, nothing fresh, no joy in life, never to be curious, intense, passionate, never to find out, but merely to conform. That is what I mean by ordinary. It is called being bourgeois. It is a mechanical way of living, a routine, a boredom.
Student: How can we get rid of being ordinary?
Krishnamurti: How can you get rid of being ordinary? Do not be ordinary. You cannot get rid of it. Just do not be it.
Student: How, Sir?
Krishnamurti: There is no ``how''. You see that is one of the most destructive questions: ``Tell me how''? Man has always been saying, throughout the world, ``Tell me how''. If you see a snake, a poisonous cobra, you do not say, ``Please tell me how to run away from it''. You run away from it. So in the same way, if you see that you are ordinary, run, leave it, not tomorrow, but instantly.
Since you will not ask any more questions. I am going to propose something. You know people talk a great deal about meditation, don't they?
Student: They do.
Krishnamurti: You know nothing about it. I am glad. Because you know nothing about it, you can learn about it. It is like not knowing French or Latin or Italian. Because you do not know, you can learn, you can learn as though for the first time. Those people who already know what meditation is, they have to unlearn and then learn. You see the difference? Since you do not know what meditation is, let us learn about it. To learn about meditation, you have to see how your mind is working. You have to watch, as you watch a lizard going by, walking across the wall. You see all its four feet, how it sticks to the wall, and as you watch, you see all the movements. In the same way, watch your thinking. Do not correct it. Do not suppress it. Do not say, ``All this is too difficult''. Just watch; now, this morning.
First of all sit absolutely still. Sit comfortably, cross your legs, sit absolutely still, close your eyes, and see if you can keep your eyes from moving. You understand? Your eye balls are apt to move, keep them completely quiet, for fun. Then, as you sit very quietly, find out what your thought is doing. Watch it as you watched the lizard. Watch thought, the way it runs, one thought after another. So you begin to learn, to observe.
Are you watching your thoughts - how one thought pursues another thought, thought saying, ``This is a good thought, this is a bad thought''? When you go to bed at night, and when you walk, watch your thought. Just watch thought, do not correct it, and then you will learn the beginning of meditation. Now sit very quietly. Shut your eyes and see that the eyeballs do not move at all. Then watch your thoughts so that you learn. Once you begin to learn there is no end to learning. `On the Religious Mind and the Scientific Mind'
Early this morning I saw a beautiful bird, a black bird with a red neck. I do not know what the bird is called. It was flying from tree to tree and there was a song in its heart, and it was a lovely thing to behold. I would like this morning to talk to you of a rather serious matter. You should listen carefully and if you want to, perhaps later on, you may be able to discuss it with your teachers. I want to talk about something which concerns the whole world, about which the whole world is disturbed. It is the question of the religious spirit and the scientific mind. There are these two attitudes in the world. These are the only two states of mind that are of value, the true religious spirit and the true scientific mind. Every other activity is destructive, leading to a great deal of misery, confusion and sorrow.
The scientific mind is very factual. Discovery is its mission, its perception. It sees things through a microscope, through a telescope; everything is to be seen actually as it is; from that perception, science draws conclusions, builds up theories. Such a mind moves from fact to fact. The spirit of science has nothing to do with individual conditions, with nationalism, with race, with prejudice. Scientists are there to explore matter, to investigate the structure of the earth and of the stars and the planets, to find out how to cure man's diseases, how to prolong man's life, to explain time, both the past and the future. But the scientific mind and its discoveries are used and exploited by the nationalistic mind, by the mind that is India, by the mind that is Russia, by the mind that is America. Scientific discovery is utilized and exploited by sovereign states and continents.
Then there is the religious mind, the true religious mind that does not belong to any cult, to any group, to any religion, to any organized church. The religious mind is not the Hindu mind, the Christian mind, the Buddhist mind, or the Muslim mind. The religious mind does not belong to any group which calls itself religious. The religious mind is not the mind that goes to churches, temples, mosques. Nor is it a religious mind that holds to certain forms of beliefs, dogmas. The religious mind is completely alone. It is a mind that has seen through the falsity of churches, dogmas, beliefs, traditions. Not being nationalistic, not being conditioned by its environment, such a mind has no horizons, no limits. It is explosive, new, young, fresh, innocent. The innocent mind, the young mind, the mind that is extraordinarily pliable, subtle, has no anchor. It is only such a mind that can experience that which you call God, that which is not measurable.
A human being is a true human being when the scientific spirit and the true religious spirit go together. Then human beings will create a good world - not the world of the communist or the capitalist, of Brahmins, or of Roman Catholics. In fact the true Brahmin is the person who does not belong to any religious creed, has no class, no authority; no position in society. He is the true Brahmin, the new human being, who combines both the scientific and the religious mind, and therefore is harmonious without any contradiction within himself. And I think the purpose of education is to create this new mind, which is explosive, and does not conform to a pattern which society has set.
A religious mind is a creative mind. It has not only to finish with the past but also to explode in the present. And this mind - not the interpreting mind of books, of the Gita, the Upanishads, the Bible - which is capable of investigating, is also capable of creating an explosive reality. There is no interpretation here nor dogma.
It is extraordinarily difficult to be religious and to have a clear and precise, scientific mind, to have a mind that is not afraid, that is unconcerned with its own security, its own fears. You cannot have a religious mind without knowing yourself, without knowing all about yourself - your body, your mind, your emotions, how the mind works, how thought functions. And to go beyond all that, to uncover all that, you must approach it with a scientific mind which is precise, clear, un-prejudiced, which does not condemn, which observes, which sees. When you have such a mind you are really a cultured human being, a human being who knows compassion. Such a human being knows what it is to be alive.
How does one bring this about? For it is imperative to help the student to be scientific, to think very clearly, precisely, to be sharp, as well as to help him uncover the depths of his mind, to go beyond words, his various labels as the Hindu, Muslim, Christian. Is it possible to educate the student to go beyond all labels and find out, experience that something which is not measured by the mind, which no books contain, to which no guru can lead you? If such an education is possible in a school like this, it will be remarkable. You must all see that it is worthwhile to create such a school. That is what the teachers and I have been discussing for some days. We have talked of a great many things - about authority, about discipline, how to teach, what to teach, what listening is, what education is, what culture is, how to sit still. Merely to pay attention to dance, to song, to arithmetic, to lessons, is not the whole of life. It is also part of life to sit still and look at yourself, to have insight, to see. It is also necessary to observe how to think, what to think and why you are thinking. It is also part of life to look at birds, to watch the village people, their squalor - which each one of us has brought about, which society maintains. All this is part of education. `On Knowledge and Intelligence'
You are here to gather knowledge - historical, biological, linguistic, mathematical, scientific, geographical, and so on. Apart from the knowledge that you acquire here, there is collective knowledge, the knowledge of the race, of your grandfathers, of your past generations. They all had a great many experiences, a great many things happened to them, and their collective experience has become knowledge. Then there is the knowledge of your own personal experiences, your own reactions, impressions, your own tendencies and inclinations, which have assumed their own peculiar forms. So there is scientific, biological, mathematical, physical, geographical, historical knowledge; there is also the collective knowledge of the past which is the tradition of the community, the race; then there is the personal knowledge which you yourself have experienced. There are these three kinds of knowledge - scientific, collective, personal. Do they collectively make for intelligence?
Now what is knowledge? is knowledge related to intelligence? Intelligence uses knowledge, intelligence being the capacity to think clearly, objectively, sanely, healthily. Intelligence is a state in which there is no personal emotion involved, no personal opinion, prejudice or inclination. Intelligence is the capacity for direct understanding. I am afraid this is rather difficult, but it is important, it is good for you to exercise your brain. So there is knowledge, which is the past continually being added to, and there is intelligence. Intelligence is the quality of the mind that is very sensitive, very alert, very aware. Intelligence does not hold on to any particular judgement or evaluation, but is capable of thinking very clearly, objectively. Intelligence has no involvement. Are you following? Now, how is this intelligence to be cultivated? What is the capacity of this intelligence? You are living here, being educated in all the various disciplines, in various branches of knowledge. Are you also being educated so that intelligence comes into being at the same time? Do you see the point? You may have a very good knowledge of mathematics or engineering. You may take a degree, enter a college and be a first class engineer. But at the same time, are you becoming sensitive, alert? Are you thinking objectively, clearly, with intelligence, understanding? Is there a harmony between knowledge and intelligence, a balance between the two? You cannot think clearly if you are prejudiced, if you have opinions. You cannot think clearly if you are not sensitive; sensitive to nature, sensitive to all the things that are happening around you, sensitive not only to what is happening outside you but also inside you. If you are not sensitive, if you are not aware, you cannot think clearly. Intelligence implies that you see the beauty of the earth, the beauty of the trees, the beauty of the skies, the lovely sunset, the stars, the beauty of subtlety.
Now, is this intelligence being gathered by you here in this school? Are you gathering it or only gathering knowledge through books? If you have no intelligence, no sensitivity, then knowledge can become very dangerous. It can be used for destructive purposes. This is what the whole world is doing. Have you the intelligence that questions, tries to find out? What are the teachers and you doing to bring about this quality of intelligence, which sees the beauty of the land, the dirt, the squalor, and is also aware of the inner happenings, how one thinks, how one observes the subtlety of thought? Are you doing all this? If not, what is the point of your being educated?
Now what is the function of an educator? Is it merely to give you information, knowledge, or is it to bring about this intelligence in you? If I were a teacher here, do you know what I would do? First of all, I would want you to question me about everything - not about knowledge, that is very simple, but to question me about how to look, how to look at these hills, to look at that tamarind tree, how to listen to a bird, how to follow a stream. I would help you to look at the marvellous earth and nature, the beauty of the land, the redness of the soil. Then I would say, look at the peasants, the villagers. Look at them, do not criticize, just look at their squalor, their poverty, not the way you look at them at pre- sent, with utter indifference. There are those huts there, have you been there? Have the teachers been down there and looked at those huts, and if they all have, what have they done? So I will make you look, which is to make you sensitive, and you cannot be sensitive if you are careless, indifferent to everything that is happening around you. Then I would say, ``To be intelligent, you must know what you are doing, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you eat.'' You understand? I would talk to you about your food. I would say, ``Look, discuss, do not be afraid to ask any questions, find out, learn'', and in your classes I would discuss a subject with you, how to read, how to learn, what it means to pay attention. If you say you want to look out of the window, I would say look out of the window, see everything that you want to see out of the window, and after you have seen it, look at your book with equal interest and pleasure. Then I would say, ``Through books, through discussions I have helped you to be intelligent; let me help you to find out how to live in this world sanely, healthily, not half asleep.'' That is the function of a teacher, of an educator, not just to give you a lot of data, knowledge, but to show you the whole expanse of life, the beauty of it, the ugliness of it, the delight, the joy, the fear, the agony. So that when you leave this place, you are a tremendous human being who can use your intelligence in life, not just a thoughtless, destructive, callous human being.
Now you have listened, the teachers, the principal and students, you have all listened. What are you going to do about it? You know, it is as much your responsibility, as students, as it is the responsibility of the teachers. It is the responsibility of the students to demand, to ask, not just to say ``I will sit down, teach me''. It means that you must be tremendously intelligent, sensitive, alive, unprejudiced. It is also essential for the teacher to see that you are intelligent so that when you leave Rishi Valley you leave with a smile, with glory in your heart, so that you are sensitive, ready to cry, to laugh.
Student: If you are very sensitive, do you not think you are apt to become emotional?
Krishnamurti: What is wrong with being emotional? When I see those poor people living in poverty, I feel very strongly. Is that wrong? There is nothing wrong in feeling emotion when you see the squalor, the dirt, the poverty around you. But you also feel strongly if another says something ugly about you. When this happens what will you do? Because of your emotion will you hit back at him? Or because you are sensitive, emotional, will you be aware of what you are going to do? If there is an interval before your response and you observe, are sensitive to it, then in that interval intelligence comes in. Allow that interval; in it begin to watch. If you are tremendously aware of the problem there is instant action and that instant action is the right action of intelligence.
Student: Why are we conditioned?
Krishnamurti: Why do you think we are conditioned? It is very simple. You have asked the question. Now, exercise your brain. Find out why you are conditioned. You are born in this country, you live in an environment, in a culture, you grow into a young child, and then what takes place? Watch the babies around you. Watch the mothers, the fathers, if they are Hindus or Muslims or communists or capitalists; they say to the child, ``Do this, do that''. The child sees the grandmother going to a temple, performing rituals, and the child gradually accepts all that. Or the parents may say ``I don't believe in rituals'' and the child also accepts that. The simple fact is that the mind, the brain of the child is like putty or clay and on that putty, impressions are made, like the grooves in a record. Everything is registered. So in a child everything is registered consciously or unconsciously, until gradually he becomes a Hindu, Muslim, Catholic or a non-believer. He then makes divisions - as my belief, your belief, my god, your god, my country, your country. You have been conditioned to make tremendous effort; you have to make an effort to study, to pass an examination, you have to make an effort to be good.
So, the question is how is the mind, which is conditioned, to unravel itself, to get out of conditioning? How do you propose to get out of it? Now exercise your intelligence to find out. Do not follow somebody who says, ``Do this and you will get unconditioned; find out how you will uncondition yourself. Come on, answer me, tell me, discuss with me.
Student: Can you tell us how to uncondition ourselves?
Krishnamurti: To fall into the trap of another conditioning, is that it? First of all, do you know that you are conditioned? How do you know? Is it only because somebody has told you that you are conditioned that you know? Do you see the difference? That is, somebody tells you that you are hungry, that is one thing, and to know for yourself that you are hungry is altogether different. These two statements are different, aren't they? In the same way, do you know for yourself without somebody telling you that you are conditioned, as a
Hindu, a Muslim? Do you know it for yourself?
Now I will ask you a question and see whether there is a gap before you answer it. Right? Now observe, think very clearly, unemotionally, without any prejudice. My question is, are you aware that you are conditioned without being told? Are you aware? It is not so very difficult.
Do you know what it means to be aware? When there is a pain in the thumb, you are aware there is pain, nobody tells you there is pain. You know it. Now, in the same way do you know that you are conditioned, conditioned into thinking that you are a Hindu, that you believe in this, that you do not believe in that, that you must go to a temple, that you must not go to a temple? Are you aware of it?
Krishnamurti: You are? Now that you are aware that you are conditioned, what next?
Student: I will then see whether I want to be unconditioned.
Krishnamurti: You are conditioned and you become aware, then what takes place? Then I ask, what is wrong with being conditioned? Now I am conditioned as a Muslim and you are conditioned as a Hindu, right? What takes place? We may live in the same street, but because of my conditioning, my belief, my dogma, and you with your belief, with your dogma, though we may meet in the same street, we are separate, aren't we? So where there is separation there must be conflict. Where there are political, economic, social, nationalistic divisions, there must be conflict. So conditioning is the factor of division. Therefore, in order to live peacefully in this world, let us be free of conditioning, cease to be Muslim or Hindu. This is the factor of intelligence; becoming aware that one is conditioned, then seeing the effect of that conditioning in the world, the divisions, nationalistic, linguistic and so on, and seeing that where there is division there is conflict. When you see this, when you are aware that you are conditioned, that is the operation of intelligence.
That is enough for the day. Do you want to ask more questions?
Student: How can one be free from prejudice?
Krishnamurti: When you say, ``how'', what do you mean by that word? How am I to get up from this place? All that I have to do is to get up. I never ask how I am to get up? Use your intelligence. Do not be prejudiced. First be aware that you are prejudiced. Do not be told by others that you are prejudiced. They are prejudiced, so do not bother what other people say about your prejudices. First be aware that you are prejudiced. You see what prejudice does - it divides people. Therefore you see that there must be intelligent action, which is that the mind must be capable of being free from prejudice, not ask ``how'' which means a system, a method. Find out whether your mind can be free from prejudice. See what is involved in it. Why are you prejudiced? Because part of your conditioning is to be prejudiced, and in prejudice there is a great deal of comfort, a great deal of pleasure. So first become aware, become aware of the beauty of the land, become aware of the trees, the colour, the shades, the depth of light, and the beauty of the moving trees, and watch the birds, be aware of all that is around you; then gradually move in, find out, be aware of yourself, be aware how you react in your relationships with your friends - all that brings intelligence. Is that enough for this morning? Then we will do something else.
First of all sit completely quiet, comfortably, sit very quietly, relax, I will show you. Now, look at the trees, at the hills, the shape of the hills, look at them, look at the quality of their colour, watch them. Do not listen to me. Watch and see those trees, the yellowing trees, the tamarind, and then look at the bougainvillaea. Look not with your mind but with your eyes. After having looked at all the colours, the shape of the land, of the hills, the rocks, the shadow, then go from the outside to the inside and close your eyes, close your eyes completely. You have finished looking at the things outside, and now with your eyes closed you can look at what is happening inside. Watch what is happening inside you, do not think, but just watch, do not move your eyeballs, just keep them very, very quiet, because there is nothing to see now, you have seen all the things around you, now you are seeing what is happening inside your mind, and to see what is happening inside your mind, you have to be very quiet inside. And when you do this, do you know what happens to you? You become very sensitive, you become very alert to things outside and inside. Then you find out that the outside is the inside, then you find out that the observer is the observed.
It is a lovely morning, isn't it? Cool, fresh, and there is dew on the grass and the birds are singing. I hope you enjoyed this morning, as much as I did, looking out of the window, at the cloudless blue sky, the clear shadows, and the sparkling air and all the birds, the trees, and the earth shouting with joy. I hope you listened.
I would like, this morning, to talk about something that we all must understand. To understand something, one has to listen, as you would listen to those birds. If you would hear that clear call, the song of the bird, you must listen very closely, very attentively, you must follow each note, follow each movement of the sound, see how deeply it goes and how far it reaches. And if you know how to listen, you learn a great deal; to listen is more important than anything else in life. To know how to listen, you have to be very attentive. If your mind, if your thoughts, if your heart is thinking about other things, feeling other things, you cannot listen to the birds. To listen, you have to give your whole attention. When you are watching a bird and are looking at the feathers, the colours, the beak, the size and the lovely shape of the bird, then you are giving your heart, your mind and body, everything that you have, to watch it. And then you are really part of that bird. You really enjoy it. So, in the same way, this morning, please listen, not that you must agree or disagree with what we are talking about, but just listen.
Have you ever sat on the banks of a river and watched the water go by? You cannot do anything about the water. There is the clear water, the dead leaves, the branches. You see a dead animal go by, and you are watching all that. You see the movement of the water, the clarity of the water, the swift current of the water and the fullness of the water. But you cannot do anything. You watch and you let the water flow by. So in the same way listen to what I want to talk about this morning.
Freedom does not exist without order. The two go together. If you cannot have order, you cannot have freedom. The two are inseparable. If you say: ``I will do what I like. I will turn up for my meals when I like; I will come to the class when I like'' - you create disorder. You have to take into consideration what other people want. To run things smoothly, you have to come on time. If I had come ten minutes late this morning I would have kept you waiting. So I have to have consideration. I have to think of others. I have to be polite, considerate, be concerned about other people. Out of that consideration, out of that thoughtfulness, out of that watchfulness, both outward and inward, comes order and with that order there comes freedom.
You know, soldiers all over the world are drilled every day, they are told what to do, to walk in line. They obey orders implicitly without thinking. Do you know what that does to man? When you are told what to do, what to think, to obey, to follow, do you know what it does to you? Your mind becomes dull, it loses its initiative, its quickness. This external, outward imposition of discipline makes the mind stupid, it makes you conform, it makes you imitate. But if you discipline yourself by watching, listening, being considerate, being very thoughtful - out of that watchfulness, that listening, that consideration for others, comes order. Where there is order, there is always freedom. If you are shouting, talking, you cannot hear what others have to say. You can only hear clearly when you sit quietly, when you give your attention.
Nor can you have order, if you are not free to watch, if you are not free to listen, if you are not free to be considerate. This problem of freedom and order is one of the most difficult and urgent problems in life. It is a very complex problem. It needs to be thought over much more than mathematics, geography or history. If you are not really free, you can never blossom, you can never be good, there can be no beauty. If the bird is not free, it cannot fly. If the seed is not free to blossom, to push out of the earth, it cannot live. Everything must have freedom, including man. Human beings are frightened of freedom. They do not want freedom. Birds, rivers, trees, all demand freedom and man must demand it too, not in half measures, but completely. Freedom liberty, the independence to express what one thinks, to do what one wants to do, is one of the most important things in life. To be really free from anger, jealousy, brutality, cruelty; to be really free within oneself, is one of the most difficult and dangerous things.
You cannot have freedom merely for the asking. You cannot say, ``I will be free to do what I like.'' Because there are other people also wanting to be free, also wanting to express what they feel, also wanting to do what they wish. Everybody wants to be free, and yet they want to express themselves - their anger, their brutality, their ambition their competitiveness and so on. So there is always conflict. I want to do something and you want to do something and so we fight. Freedom is not doing what one wants, because man cannot live by himself. Even the monk, even the sannyasi is not free to do what he wants, because he has to struggle for what he wants, to fight with himself, to argue within himself. And it requires enormous intelligence, sensitivity, understanding to be free. And yet it is absolutely necessary that every human being, whatever his culture, be free. So you see, freedom cannot exist without order.
Student: Do you mean that to be free there should be no discipline?
Krishnamurti: I carefully explained that you cannot have freedom without order and order is discipline. I do not like to use that word ``discipline'' because it is laden with all kinds of meaning. Discipline means conformity, imitation, obedience; it means to do what you are told; doesn't it? But, if you want to be free - and human beings must be completely free, otherwise they cannot flower, otherwise they cannot be real human beings - you have to find out for yourself what it is to be orderly, what it is to be punctual, kind, generous, unafraid. The discovery of all that is discipline. This brings about order. To find out you have to examine and to examine you must be free. If you are considerate, if you are watching, if you are listening, then, because you are free, you will be punctual, you will come to the class regularly, you will study, you will be so alive that you will want to do things rightly.
Student: You say that freedom is very dangerous to man. Why is it so?
Krishnamurti: Why is freedom dangerous? You know what society is?
Student: It is a big group of people which tells you what to do and what not to do.
Krishnamurti: It is a big group of people which tells you what to do and what not to do. It is also the culture, the customs, the habits of a certain community; the social, moral, ethical, religious structure in which man lives, that is generally called society. Now, if each individual in that society did what he liked, he would be a danger to that society. If you did what you liked here in the school, what would happen? You would be a danger to the rest of the school. Wouldn't you? So people do not genteelly want others to be free. A man who is really free, not in ideas, but inwardly free from greed, ambition, envy, cruelty, is considered a danger to people, because he is entirely different from the ordinary man. So, society either worships him or kills him or is indifferent to him.
Student: You said that we must have freedom and order but how are we to get it?
Krishnamurti: First of all, you cannot depend on others; you cannot expect somebody to give you freedom and order whether it is your father, your mother, your husband, your teacher. You have to bring it about in yourself. This is the first thing to realize, that you cannot ask anything from another, except food, clothes and shelter. You cannot possibly ask, or look to anyone, your gurus or your gods. Nobody can give you freedom and order. So, you have to find out how to bring about order in yourself. That is, you have to watch and find out for yourself what it means to bring about virtue in yourself. Do you know what virtue is - to be moral, to be good? Virtue is order. So, you have to find out in yourself how to be good, how to be kind, how to be considerate. And out of that consideration, out of that watching, you bring about order and therefore freedom. You depend on others to tell you what you should do, that you should not look out of the window, that you should be punctual, that you should be kind. But if you were to say: ``I will look out of the window when I want to look but when I study I am going to look at the book,'' you bring order within yourself without being told by others.
Student: What does one gain by being free?
Krishnamurti: Nothing. When you talk about what one gains, you are really thinking in terms of merchandise. Are you not? I will do this and in return for it, please give me something. I am kind to you because it is profitable for me. But that is not kindliness. So as long as we are thinking in terms of gaining something, there is no freedom. If you say, ``If I get freedom, I will be able to do this and that,'' then it is not freedom. So do not think in terms of utility. As long as we are thinking in terms of using, there is no question of freedom at all. Freedom can only exist when there is no motive. You do not love somebody because he gives you food, or clothes or shelter. Then it is not love.
Do you ever walk by yourself Or do you always go with others? If you go out by yourself sometimes, not too far away because you are very young, then you will get to know yourself, what you think, what you feel, what is virtue, what you want to be. Find out. And you cannot find out about yourself if you are always talking, going about with your friends, with half a dozen people. Sit under a tree quietly by yourself, not with a book. Just look at the stars, the clear sky, the birds, the shape of the leaves. Watch the shadow. Watch the bird across the sky. By being with yourself, sitting quietly under a tree, you begin to understand the workings of your own mind and that is as important as going to class. `On Sensitivity'
Some of the teachers of this school were discussing with me, the other day, how important it is to be sensitive, how necessary it is to have a sensitive body and a sensitive mind. A human being who is aware of his environment, as well as aware of every movement of thought and feeling, who is a harmonious whole, is sensitive. How does that sensitivity come about? How can there be a complete development of the body, of the emotions, of the capacity to think deeply and widely, so that the whole being becomes astonishingly alive to everything about it, to every challenge, to every influence? And is that possible, in a world like this, a world where technological knowledge is all important, where making money, being an engineer or an electronic expert is assuming such importance? Is it possible to be sensitive? The politician, the electronics expert become marvellous human machines, but lead very narrow lives. They are sorrowful people having no depth in them. All they know is their little world, the world determined by their own field.
A life that is held in technological knowledge is a very narrow, limited life. It is bound to breed a great deal of sorrow and misery. But can one have technological knowledge, be able to do things, make a little money and still live in the world with intensity, with intensity, with clarity, with vision? That is the real question. Life is not merely going to the office day after day. Life is extraordinarily vital, important, and for that you must be sensitive, you must have the sensitivity that appreciates beauty. You know, there is something extraordinary about beauty. Beauty is never personal, though we make it personal. We put flowers in our hair, have nice saris, wear fine shirts and trousers, look very smart and try to be as beautiful as we can; that is a very limited beauty. I do not say that you should not wear nice clothes, but merely that - that is not appreciation of beauty. The appreciation of beauty is to see a tree, to see a painting, to see a statue, to see the clouds, the skies, the birds on the wing, to see the morning star, and the sunset behind these hills. To see such immense beauty we must cut through our little personal lives.
You may have good taste. Do you know what good taste means? To know how to combine colours, how not to wear colours that jar, not to say something that is cruel about anybody, to feel kindly, to see the beauty of a house, to have good pictures in your room, to have a room with right proportions. All that is good taste, which can be cultivated. But good taste is not the appreciation of beauty. Beauty is never personal.
When beauty is made personal it becomes self-centred. Self concern is the source of sorrow. You know, most people are not happy in the world. They have money, they have position and power. But remove the money, the position, the power and you see underneath an extreme shallowness of head. The source of their shallowness, misery, conflict and extreme anguish is a feeling of guilt and fear.
To really appreciate beauty is to see a mountain, to see the lovely trees without the ``you'' being there; to enjoy them, to look at them although they may belong to another; to see the flow of a river and move with it from beginning to end; to be lost in the beauty, in the vitality, in the rapidity of the river. But you cannot do all that if you are merely concerned with power, with money, with a career. That is only a part of life and to be concerned only with a part of life is to be insensitive and, therefore, to lead a life of shallowness and misery. A petty life always produces misery and confusion not only for itself but for others. I am not moralizing, I am just stating the facts of existence.
The function of your teachers is to educate not only the partial mind but the totality of the mind; to educate you so that you do not get caught in the little whirlpool of existence but live in the whole river of life. This is the whole function of education. The right kind of education cultivates your whole being, the totality of your mind. It gives your mind and heart a depth, an understanding of beauty.
Probably, the girls among you will grow up and get married and the boys will have careers and that will be the end. You know, the moment you get married - I am not saying you should not get married - you have your husband, children, and responsibilities begin to crowd in like crows upon a tree. The husband, the house, your children, become a habit and you become caught in that habit. All through your life, till you die, you will be working, working in the house or going to the office, every day.
I wondered - the other morning when I saw you all having a good time - what is going to happen to you all? Will you live a life with a fire burning in you or will you become for the rest of your life a businessman or a housewife? What are you going to do? Should you not be educated to cut through respectability, to burst through all conformity? Probably I am saying something dangerous, but it does not matter. Perhaps you will give an ear and perhaps this will sink somewhere into your consciousness and perhaps in a moment when you are about to make a decision, this may alter the course of your life.
Student: How is one to be sensitive?
Krishnamurti: I do not know if you noticed the other evening, it was drizzling. There was a sharp shower. There were dark, heavy, rain-laden clouds. There were also clouds that were full of light, white, with a rose-coloured light inside them. And there were clouds that were almost like feathers going by. It was a marvellous sight and there was great beauty. If you do not see and feel all these things when you are young, when you are still curious, when you are still indecisive, when you are still looking, searching, asking; if you do not feel now, then you never will. As you grow older life encloses you, life becomes hard. You hardly look at the hills, a beautiful face or a smile. Without feeling affection, kindness, tenderness, life becomes very dreary ugly, brutal. And as you grow older, you fill your lives with politics, with concern over your jobs, over your families. You become afraid and gradually lose that extraordinary quality of looking at the sunset, at clouds, at the stars of an evening. As you grow older, the intellect begins to create havoc with your lives. I do not mean that you must not have a clear, reasoning intellect, but the predominance of it makes you dull, makes you lose the finer things of life.
You must feel very strongly about everything, not just one or two things, but about everything. If you feel very strongly, then little things will not fill your life. Politics, jobs, careers are all little things. If you feel strongly, if you feel vitally, vigorously, you will live in a state of deep silence. Your mind will be very clear, simple, strong. As men grow older they lose this quality of feeling, this sympathy, this tenderness for others. Having lost it they begin to invent religions. They go to temples, take drinks, drugs, to awaken this spontaneity. They become religious. But religion in the world is put together by man. All temples, churches, dogmas, beliefs are invented by man. Man is afraid because he is lost without a deep sense of beauty, a deep sense of affection. And, having lost this, superficial ceremonies, going to temples, repeating mantras, rituals become very important. In reality, they have no importance at all. Religion born of fear becomes ugly superstition.
So, one has to understand fear. You know, one is afraid: afraid of one's parents, afraid of not passing examinations, afraid of one's teachers, afraid of the dog, afraid of the snake. You have to understand fear and be free of fear. When you are free of fear there is the strong feeling of being good, of thinking very clearly, of looking at stars, of looking at clouds, of looking at faces with a smile. And when there is no fear, you can go much further. Then you can find out for yourself that for which man has searched generation upon generation.
In caves in the south of France and in northern Africa there are 25,000 year old paintings of animals fighting men, of deer, of cattle. They are extraordinary paintings. They show man's endless search, his battle with life and his search for the extraordinary thing called God. But he never finds that extraordinary thing. You can only come upon it darkly, unknowingly, when there is no fear of any kind. The moment there is no fear you have very strong feelings. The stronger you feel, the less you are concerned about small things. It is fear that drives away all feeling of beauty, of the quality of great silence. As you study mathematics, so you have to study fear. You must know fear and not escape from it so that you can look at fear. It is like going for a walk and suddenly coming upon a snake, jumping away and watching the snake. If you are very quiet, very still, unafraid, then you can look very closely, keeping a safe distance. You can look at the black tongue and the eyes that have no eyelids. You can look at the scales, the patterns of the skin. If you watch the snake very closely you see and appreciate it and perhaps have great affection for that snake. But you cannot look if you are afraid, if you run away. So, in the same way as you look at a snake, you have to look at this battle called life, with its sorrow, misery, confusion, conflict, war, hatred, greed, ambition, anxiety and guilt. You can only look at life and love if there is no fear.
Student: Why do we all want to live?
Krishnamurti: Don't laugh because a little boy asks, when life is so transient, why do we crave to live? Isn't it very sad for a little boy to ask that question? That means he has seen for himself that everything passes away. Birds die, leaves fall, people grow old, man has disease, pain, sorrow, suffering; a little joy, a little pleasure and unending work. And the boy asks why do we cling to all this? He sees how young people grow old before their age, before their time. He sees death. And man clings to life because there is nothing else to cling to. His gods, his temples, don't contain truth; his sacred books are just words. So he asks why people cling to life when there is so much misery. You understand? What do you answer? What do the older people answer? What do the teachers of this school answer? There is silence. The older people have lived on ideas, on words and the boy says, ``l am hungry, feed me with food, not with words.'' He does not trust you and so he asks, ``Why do we cling to all this?'' Do you know why you cling? Because you know nothing else. You cling to your house, you cling to your books, you cling to your idols, gods, conclusions, your attachments, your sorrows, because you have nothing else and all that you do brings unhappiness. To find out if there is anything else, you must let go what you cling to. If you want to cross the river, you must move away from this bank. You cannot sit on one bank. You want to be free from misery and yet you will not cross the river. So, you cling to something that you know however miserable it is and you are afraid to let go because you don't know what is on the other side of the river. `On Fear'
I am sure you have often heard from politicians, from educators, from your parents and from the public that you are the coming generation. But when they talk about you as a new generation, they really do not mean it because they make sure that you conform to the older pattern of society. They really do not want you to be a new, different kind of human being. They want you to be mechanical, to fit in with tradition, to conform, to believe, to accept authority. In spite of this, if you can actually free yourself from fear, not theoretically, not ideally, not merely outwardly but actually, inwardly, deeply, then you can be a different human being. Then you can become the coming generation. The older people are ridden with fear - fear of death, fear of losing jobs, fear of public opinion. They are completely held in the grip of fear. So their gods, their scriptures, their puja, are all within the field of fear and therefore the mind is curiously warped, perverted. Such a mind cannot think straight, cannot reason logically, sanely, healthily, because it is rooted in fear. Watch the older generation and you will see how fearful it is of everything - of death, of disease, of going against the current of tradition, of being different, of being new.
Fear is what prevents the flowering of the mind, the flowering of goodness. Most of us learn through fear. Fear is the essence of authority and obedience; parents and governments demand obedience. There is the authority of the book; the authority according to Sankara, Buddha; the authority according to Einstein. Most people are followers; they make the originator into an authority and through propaganda, through influence, through literature, they imprint on the delicate brain the necessity of obedience. What happens to you when you obey? You cease to think. Because you feel that the authorities know so much, are such powerful people, have so much money, can turn you out of the house, because they use the words ``duty, love,'' you succumb, you yield, you begin obey, and become a slave to an idea, to an impression, to influence. When the brain is conforming to a pattern of obedience, it is no longer capable of freshness, no longer capable of thinking simply and directly.
Now, is it possible to learn without authority? Do you know what learning is? Acquiring knowledge is one thing but learning is an altogether different thing. A machine can acquire information like a robot or like an electronic computer. A machine acquires knowledge because it is being fed certain information. it gathers more and more information which then becomes knowledge. It has the capacity to acquire information, store it and respond when it is asked a question. On the other hand when the human mind can learn, then it is capable of more than just acquiring and storing up. But there can be learning only when the mind is fresh, when it does not say ``I know.'' So, one must differentiate, separate learning from acquiring knowledge. Acquiring knowledge makes you mechanical but learning makes the mind very fresh, young, subtle. And you cannot learn if you are merely following the authority of knowledge. Most educators, right through the world, are merely acquiring and imparting knowledge and so are making the mind mechanical and incapable of learning. You can only learn when you do not know. Learning only comes into being when there is no fear and when there is no authority.
The question is, how do you teach mathematics, or any other subject without authority, and therefore, without fear? Fear is essentially involved in competition. Whether it is competition in a class or competition in life. To be afraid of being nobody, of not arriving, of not succeeding, is at the root of competition. But when there is fear, you cease to learn. And so it seems to me that it is the function of education to eliminate fear, to see that you do not become mechanical and at the same time to give you knowledge. To learn without becoming mechanical, which means to learn without fear, is a complex issue. It involves the elimination of all competition. In this process of competition, you conform, and gradually you destroy the subtlety, the freshness, the youth of the brain. But you cannot deny knowledge. So, is it possible to have know- ledge and yet learn to be free from fear? Do you see this?
When do you learn most? Have you ever watched yourself learning? Try to watch yourself sometimes and observe yourself learning. You learn most when you have no fear, when you are not threatened by authority, when you are not competing with your neighbour. Then your mind becomes extraordinarily alive. So the issue for the teacher and the issue for you, as a student, is to learn without authority, to acquire knowledge without perverting or dulling the brain and to eliminate fear. Do you see the problem? To learn there must be no conformity, no authority and yet you must acquire knowledge. To combine all this without distorting the brain, is the problem. So that when you grow older, when you pass your examinations and marry, you meet life with a freshness, without fear. Then you are learning about life all the time; not merely interpreting life according to your pattern.
Do you know what life is? You are too young to know. I will tell you. Have you seen those villagers in tattered clothes, dirty, perpetually starved, working every day of their lives? That is part of life. Then you see a man riding in a car, his wife covered with jewels, with perfume, having many servants. That is also part of life. Then there is the man who voluntarily gives up riches, lives a very simple life, who is anonymous, does not want to be known, does not proclaim that he is a saint. That is also part of life. Then there is the man who wants to become a hermit, sannyasi, and there is also the man who becomes a devotee, who does not want to think, who just blindly follows. That is also part of life. Then there is the man who carefully, logically, sanely thinks, and finding that such thoughts are limited goes beyond thought. That is also part of life. And death is also a part of life, the loss of everything. Belief in the gods and goddesses, in saviours, in paradise, in hell, is a part of life. It is a part of life to love, to hate, to feel jealous, to feel greedy, and it is also part of life to go beyond all these trivial things. it is no good growing up and accepting one part of life, the mechanical part concerned with acquiring knowledge, which is to accept the pattern of values created by the past generation. Your parents happen to have money, they send you to school and then to college, they see that you have a job. Then you get married and that is the end of it. All this is only a small segment of life. But there is this vast field of life, an incredibly vast field, to understand which there must be no fear, and that is very difficult.
One of the more vital issues in life is the fact that one withers away, disintegrates. Fear and deterioration are related. As you grow older, unless you solve the problem of fear as it arises, immediately, without carrying it over to tomorrow, the deteriorating factor sets in. It is like a disease, like a wound which festers, destroys. Fear of not getting a better job, of not fulfilling yourself, eat into your capacity, your sensitivity, your intellectual, moral fibre. So the solving of the problem of fear and the factor of deterioration are related. Try and find out what you are afraid of and see if you cannot go beyond that fear, not verbally, not theoretically, but actually. Do not accept authority. Acceptance of authority is obedience which only breeds further fear.
To understand this extraordinarily complex thing called life, which is both in time and beyond time, you must have a very young, fresh, innocent mind. A mind that carries fear within itself, day after day, month after month, is a mechanical mind. And you see machines cannot solve human problems. You cannot have an innocent fresh young mind if you are ridden with fear, if from childhood until you die, you are trained in fear. That is why a good education, a true education eliminates fear.
Student: How can one be completely free from fear?
Krishnamurti: First of all, you must know what fear is. If you know your wife, husband, parent, society, you are no longer afraid of them. To know about something completely makes the mind free from fear.
How will you find out about fear? Are you afraid of public opinion, public opinion being what your friends think of you? Most of us, especially while we are young, want to look alike, dress alike, talk alike. We do not want to be even slightly different, because to be different implies not to conform, not to accept the pattern. When you begin to question the pattern there is fear. Now examine that fear, go into it. Do not say, ``I am afraid'', and run away from it. Look at it, face it, find out why you are afraid.
Suppose I am afraid of my neighbour, my wife, my god, my country - now what is that fear? Is it actual or is it merely in thought, in time? I will take a simpler example. We are all going to die some time or other. Death is inevitable for all of us and thinking about death creates fear, thinking about something which I do not know creates fear. But if it were actual, if death were there immediately and I were going to die now, there is no fear. You understand? Thought in time creates fear. But if something has to be done immediately there is no fear, because thinking is not possible. If I am going to die the next instant, then I face it, but give me an hour, and I begin say, ``My property, my children, my country, I have not finished my book.'' I get nervous, frightened.
So fear is always in time, because time is thought. To eliminate fear you have to consider thought as time and then enquire into this whole process of thinking. It is a little bit difficult.
I am afraid of my parents, my society, of what they will say tomorrow or ten days later. My thinking about what might happen projects fear. So can I say, ``I am going to look at that fear now, not ten days later''? Can I invite what they are going to say in the present and look at it and if they happen to be right, can I accept it? Why should I be frightened? And if they are wrong, I also accept that. Why should they not be wrong? Why should I be frightened? And I will listen to the teacher to learn, but I am not going to be frightened. So, when I face fear it goes away. But to face fear, I have to enquire, which is quite a complex process because it involves the problem of time.
You know, there are two kinds of time: time by the watch, the next minute, tonight, the day after tomorrow; and there is another kind of time which is created by the psyche inside one, by thought - ``I shall be a great man'', ``I shall have a job'', ``I shall go to Europe'' - that is the psychological future, in time and space. Now to understand chronological time by the watch and to understand time as thought and to go beyond both, is really to be free of fear.
Student: You said if you know something, you stop feeling afraid of it. But how do you know what death is?
Krishnamurti: That is a good question. You are asking, ``How do you know what death is and how can you cease to be frightened of it?'' I am going to show you. You know there are two kinds of death - bodily death and death of thought. The body is going to die inevitably - like a pencil writing, it eventually wears out. Doctors may invent new kinds of medicine; you may last one hundred and twenty years instead of eighty years. But still there will be death. The physical organism comes to an end. We are not afraid of that. What we are afraid of is the coming to an end of thought, of the ``me'' that has lived so many years, the ``me'' that has acquired so much money, that has a family, children, that wants to become important, that wants to have more property, money. That ``me', dying is what I am afraid of. Do you see the difference between the two? The physical dying and the ``me'' dying?
The ``me'' dying is psychologically much more important than the body's dying and that is what we are frightened of. Now take one pleasure, and die to it. I will explain this to you. You see I do not want to go into the whole problem; I am merely indicating something. You see the ``me'' is the collection of many pleasures and many pains. Can that ``me'', die to one thing? Then it will know what death means. That is, can I die to a wish? Can I say ``I do not want that wish, I do not want that pleasure''? Can I end it, die to it? Do you know anything about meditation?
Student: No, Sir.
Krishnamurti: But the older people do not know either
They sit in a corner, close their eyes and concentrate, like school boys trying to concentrate on a book. That is not meditation. Meditation is something extraordinary, if you know how to do it. I am going to talk a little about it.
First of all, sit very quietly; do not force yourself to sit quietly, but sit or lie down quietly without force of any kind. Do you understand? Then watch your thinking. Watch what you are thinking about. You find you are thinking about your shoes, your saris, what you are going to say, the bird outside to which you listen; follow such thoughts and enquire why each thought arises. Do not try to change your thinking. See why certain thoughts arise in your mind so that you begin to understand the meaning of every thought and every feeling without any enforcement. And when a thought arises, do not condemn it, do not say it is right, it is wrong, it is good, it is bad. Just watch it, so that you begin to have a perception, a consciousness which is active in seeing every kind of thought, every kind of feeling. You will know every hidden secret thought, every hidden motive, every feeling, without distortion, without saying it is right, wrong, good or bad. When you look, when you go into thought very, very deeply, your mind becomes extraordinarily subtle, alive. No part of the mind is asleep. The mind is completely awake.
That is merely the foundation. Then your mind is very quiet. Your whole being becomes very still. Then go through that stillness, deeper, further - that whole process is meditation. Meditation is not to sit in a corner repeating a lot of words; or to think of a picture and go into some wild, ecstatic imaginings.
To understand the whole process of your thinking and feeling is to be free from all thought, to be free from all feeling so that your mind, your whole being becomes very quiet. And that is also part of life and with that quietness, you can look at the tree, you can look at people, you can look at the sky and the stars. That is the beauty of life. `On Violence'
There is a great deal of violence in the world. There is physical violence and also inward violence. Physical violence is to kill another, to hurt other people consciously, deliberately, or without thought, to say cruel things, full of antagonism and hate; and inwardly, inside the skin, to dislike people, to hate people, to criticize people. Inwardly, we are always quarrelling, battling, not only with others, but with ourselves. We want people to change, we want to force them to our way of thinking.
In the world, as we grow up, we see a great deal of violence, at all levels of human existence. The ultimate violence is war - the killing for ideas, for so called religious principles, for nationalities, the killing to preserve a little piece of land. To do that, man will kill, destroy, maim and also be killed himself. There is enormous violence in the world; the rich wanting to keep people poor and the poor wanting to get rich and in the process hating the rich. And you, being caught in society, are also going to contribute to this.
There is violence between husband, wife and children. There is violence, antagonism, hate, cruelty, ugly criticism, anger - all this is inherent in man, inherent in each human being. It is inherent in you. And education is supposed to help you to go beyond all that, not merely to pass an examination and get a job. You have to be educated so that you become a really beautiful, healthy, sane, rational human being, not a brutal man with a very clever brain who can argue and defend his brutality. You are going to face all this violence as you grow up. You will forget all that you have heard here, and will be caught in the stream of society. You will become like the rest of the cruel, hard, bitter, angry, violent world and you will not help to bring about a new society, a new world.
But a new world is necessary. A new culture is necessary. The old culture is dead, buried, burnt, exploded, vaporized. You have to create a new culture. A new culture cannot be based on violence. The new culture depends on you because the older generation has built a society based on violence, based on aggressiveness and it is this that has caused all the confusion, all the misery. The older generations have produced this world and you have to change it. You cannot just sit back and say, ``I will follow the rest of the people and seek success and position.'' If you do, your children are going to suffer. You may have a good time, but your children are going to pay for it. So, you have to take all that into account, the outward cruelty of man to man in the name of god, in the name of religion, in the name of self-importance, in the name of the security of the family. You will have to consider the outward cruelty and violence, and the inward violence which you do not yet know.
You are still young but as you grow older you will realize how inwardly man goes through hell, goes through great misery, because he is in constant battle with himself, with his wife, with his children, with his neighbours, with his gods. He is in sorrow and confusion and there is no love, no kindliness, no generosity, no charity. And a person may have a PhD after his name or he may become a businessman with houses and cars but if he has no love, no affection, kindliness, no consideration, he is really worse than an animal because he contributes to a world that is destructive. So, while you are young, you have to know all these things. You have to be shown all these things. You have to be exposed to all these things so that your mind begins to think. Otherwise you will become like the rest of the world. And without love, without affection, without charity and generosity life becomes a terrible business. That is why one has to look into all these problems of violence. Not to understand violence is to be really ignorant, is to be without intelligence and without culture. Life is something enormous, and merely to carve out a little hole for oneself and remain in that little hole, fighting or everybody, is not to live. It is up to you. From now on you have to know about all these things. You have to choose deliberately to go the way of violence or to stand up against society.
Be free, live happily, joyously, without any antagonism, without any hate. Then life becomes something quite different.
Then life has a meaning, is full of joy and clarity.
When you woke up this morning, did you look out of the window? If you did, you would have seen those hills become saffron as the sun rose against that lovely blue sky. And as the birds began to sing and the early morning cuckoo cooed, there was a deep silence all around, a sense of great beauty and loneliness, and if one is not aware of all that, one might just as well be dead. But only a very few people are aware. You can be aware of it only when your mind and heart are open, when you are not frightened, when you are no longer violent. Then there is joy, there is an extraordinary bliss of which very few people know, and it is part of education to bring about that state in the human mind.
Student: Will complete destruction of society bring about a new culture, Sir?
Krishnamurti: Will complete destruction bring about a new culture? You know there have been revolutions - the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution They destroyed everything to start anew. Have they produce anything new? Every society has three stages or hierarchies the high, the middle, the low; the high being the aristocracy the rich people, the clever people; then the middle class, who are always working, then the labourer. Now each is in battle with the other. The middle wants to get to the top and the bring about a revolution and then when they get to the top they hold on to their positions, their prestige, their welfare, their fortunes, and again the new middle class tries to come to the top. The low trying to reach the middle, and the middle trying to reach the top; this is the battle going on all the time, throughout society and in all cultures. And the middle says: ``I am going to get to the top and revolutionize things'', and when it gets to the top, you see what it does. It knows how to control people through thought, through torture, through killing, through destruction, through fear.
So, through destruction you can never produce anything. But if you understand the whole process of disorder and destruction, if you study it, not only outwardly but in yourself, then out of that understanding, care, affection, love, out of that comes a totally different order. But if you do not understand, if you merely revolt, it is the same pattern repeated again and again, because we human beings are always the same. You know, it is not like a house that can be pulled down and a new house built. Human beings are not made that way, because human beings are outwardly educated, cultured, clever, but inwardly, they are violent. Unless that animal instinct is fundamentally changed, whatever the outward circumstances are, the inward always overcomes the outer. Education is the change of the inner man.
Student: Sir, you said you must change the world. How can you change it, sir?
Krishnamurti: What is the world? The world is where you live - your family, your friends, your neighbours. And your family, your friends, your neighbours can be extended and that is the world. Now, you are the centre of that world. That is the world you live in. Now how will you change the world? By changing yourself.
Student: Sir, how can you change yourself.
Krishnamurti: How can you do it? First see it. First see that you are the centre of this world. You with your family, are the centre. That is the world and you have to change and you ask, ``How am I to change?'' How do you change? That is one of the most difficult things - to change - because most of us do not want to change. When you are young, you want to change. You are full of vitality, full of energy, you want to climb trees, you want to look, you are full of curiosity and as you get a little older, go to college, you already begin to settle down. You do not want to change. You say, ``For god's sake, leave me alone.'' Very few people want to change the world and still fewer want to change themselves, because they are the centre of the world in which they live. And to bring about a change requires tremendous understanding. One can change from this to that. But that is not change at all. When people say, ``I am changing from this to that'', they think they are moving They think they are changing. But in actual fact they have not moved at all. What they have done is projected an idea of what they should be. The idea of what they ``should be'' is different from ``what is''. And the change towards ``what should be'' is they think, a movement. But it is not a movement. They think it is change, but what is change is first to be aware of what actually ``is'' and to live with it, and then one observes that the ``seeing'' itself brings about change.
Student: Is there any need for one to be serious?
Krishnamurti: Is there any need for one to be serious? very good question, sir. First of all, what do you mean by serious? Have you ever thought what it means to be serious? Is it the stopping of laughter? To have a smile on your face, would that indicate that you are not serious? To want to look at a tree and see the beauty of a tree, would that be lack of seriousness? To want to know why people look that way, what they wear, why they talk that way, would that be, lack of seriousness? Or would seriousness be always having a long face, always saying: ``Am I doing the right thing, am I conforming to a pattern?'' I should say that would not be seriousness at all. Trying to meditate is not seriousness, trying to follow the pattern of society is not seriousness - whether it is the pattern of Buddha or Sankara. Merely to conform is never to be serious. That is mere imitation. So you can be serious with a smile on your face, you can be serious when you look at a tree, you can be serious when you paint a picture, when you are listening to music. The quality of seriousness is to pursue to the very end a thought, an idea, a feeling; to go to the very end of it, not to be dissuaded by any other factor; to enquire into every thought to the very end of it whatever may happen to you, even if you have to starve in that process, lose all your property, everything; to go to the very end of thought is to be serious. Have I answered your question, sir?
Student: Yes sir.
Krishnamurti: I am afraid I have not. You have agreed very easily because you have not really understood what I said. Why do you not stop me and say: ``Look, I do not understand what you are talking about.'' That would be straight, that would be serious. If you do not understand something, it does not matter who says it, even god himself, say, ``I do not understand what you are talking about, tell me more clearly; that would be serious. But to meekly agree because a man says so, that shows lack of seriousness. Seriousness consists in seeing things clearly, in finding out, in not accepting. But later on when you get married and have children and responsibilities there is a different kind of seriousness. Then you do not want to break the pattern, you want shelter, you want to live in safe enclosure, free of all revolutions.
Student: Why is one seeking to have pleasure and discard pain?
Krishnamurti: You are rather serious this morning, aren't you? Why? Because you think pleasure is more convenient, is it not? Sorrow is painful. The one you want to avoid, and the other you want to cling to. Why? It is a natural instinct to avoid pain, is it not? If I have a toothache, I want to avoid it. I want to go for a walk which is pleasurable. The problem is not pleasure and pain, but the avoidance of one or the other. Life is both pleasure and pain, is it not? Life is both darkness and light. On a day like this, there are clouds and there is the sun shining; then there is winter and spring; they are part of life, part of existence. But why should we avoid one and cling to the other? Why should we cling to pleasure and avoid pain? Why not merely live with both? The moment you want to avoid pain, sorrow, you are going to invent escapes, quote the Buddha, the Gita, go to the cinema or invent beliefs. The problem is not resolved by either sorrow or pleasure. So don't cling to pleasure or escape from pain. If you cling to pleasure what happens? You get attached, do you not? And if anything happens to the person to whom you are attached or to your property or to your opinion, you are lost. So you say there must be detachment. Do not be either attached or detached; just look at the facts, and when you understand the facts, then there is neither pleasure nor pain; there is merely the fact.
When we are very young it is a delight to be alive, to hear the birds of the morning, to see the hills after rain, to see those rocks shining in the sun, the leaves sparkling, to see the clouds go by and to rejoice on a clear morning with a full heart and a clear mind. We lose this feeling when we grow up, with worries, anxieties, quarrels, hatreds, fears and the everlasting struggle to earn a livelihood. We spend our days in battle with each other, disliking and liking, with a little pleasure now and then. We never hear the birds, see the trees as we once saw them, see the dew on the grass and the bird on the wing and the shiny rock on a mountainside glistening in the morning light. We never see all that when we are grown up. Why? I do not know if you have ever asked that question. I think it necessary to ask it. If you do not ask it now, you will soon be caught. You will go to college, get married, have children, husbands, wives, responsibilities, earn a livelihood, and then you will grow old and die. That is what happens to people. We have to ask now, why we have lost this extraordinary feeling for beauty, when we see flowers, when we hear birds? Why do we lose the sense of the beautiful? I think we lose it primarily because we are so concerned with ourselves. We have an image of ourselves.
Do you know what an image is? It is something carved by the hand, out of stone, out of marble, and this stone carved by the hand is put in a temple and worshipped. But it is still handmade, an image made by man. You also have an image about yourself, not made by the hand but made by the mind, by thought, by experience, by knowledge, by your struggle, by all the conflicts and miseries of your life. As you grow older, that image becomes stronger, larger, all-demanding and insistent. The more you listen, act, have your existence in that image, the less you see beauty, feel joy at something beyond the little promptings of that image.
The reason why you lose this quality of fullness is because you are so self-concerned. Do you know what that phrase ``to be self-concerned'' means? It is to be occupied with oneself, to be occupied with one's capacities whether they are good or bad, with what your neighbours think of you, whether you have a good job, whether you are going to become an important man, or be thrown aside by society. You are always struggling in the office, at home, in the fields; wherever you are, whatever you do, you are always in conflict, and you do not seem to be able to get out of conflict; not being able to get out of it, you create the image of a perfect state, of heaven, of God - again another image made by the mind. You have images not only inwardly but also deeper down, and they are always in conflict with each other. So the more you are in conflict - and conflict will always exist so long as you have images, opinions, concepts, ideas about yourself - the greater will be the struggle.
So the question is: Is it possible to live in this world without an image about yourself? You function as a doctor, a scientist, a teacher, a physicist. You use that function to create the image about yourself, and so, using function, you create conflict in functioning, in doing. I wonder if you understand this? You know, if you dance well, if you play an instrument, a violin, a veena, you use the instrument or the dance to create the image about yourself to feel how marvellous you are, how wonderfully well you play or dance. You use the dancing, the playing of the instrument, in order to enrich your own image of yourself. And that is how you live, creating, strengthening that image of yourself. So there is more conflict; the mind gets dull and occupied with itself; and it loses the sense of beauty, of joy, of clear thinking.
I think it is part of education to function without creating images. You then function without the battle, the inward struggle that goes on within yourself.
There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born till the moment you die is a process of learning. Learning has no end and that is the timeless quality of learning. And you cannot learn if you are in battle, if you are in conflict with yourself, with your neighbour, with society. You are always in conflict with society, with your neighbour as long as there is an image. But if you are learning about the mechanics of putting together that image, then you will see that you can look at the sky, then you can look at the river and the raindrops on the leaf, feel the cool air of a morning and the fresh breeze among the leaves. Then life has an extraordinary meaning. Life in itself, not the significance given by the image to life - life itself has an extraordinary meaning.
Student: When you are looking at a flower, what is your relationship with the flower?
Krishnamurti: You look at a flower, and what is your relationship to the flower? Do you look at the flower or do you think you are looking at the flower? You see the difference? Are you actually looking at the flower or you think you ought to look at the flower or are you looking at the flower with an image you have about the flower - the image being that it is a rose? The word is the image, the word is knowledge and therefore you are looking at that flower with the word, the symbol, with knowledge and therefore you are not looking at the flower. Or, are you looking at it with a mind that is thinking about something else?
When you look at a flower without the word, without the image, and with a mind that is completely attentive, then what is the relationship between you and the flower? Have you ever done it? Have you ever looked at a flower without saying that is a rose? Have you ever looked at a flower completely, with total attention in which there is no word, no symbol, no naming of the flower and, therefore, complete attention? Till you do that, you have no relationship with the flower. To have any relationship with another or with the rock or with the leaf, one has to watch and to observe with complete attention. Then your relationship to that which you see is entirely different. Then there is no observer at all. There is only that. If you so observe, then there is no opinion, no judgement. It is what it is. Have you understood? Will you do it? Look at a flower that way. Do it, Sir, don't talk about it, but do it.
Student: If you have lots of time, how would you spend it, Sir?
Krishnamurti: I would do what I am doing. You see, if you love what you are doing, then you have all the leisure that you need in your life. Do you understand what I have said? You asked me what I would do if I had leisure. I said, I would do what I am doing; which is to go around different parts of the world, to talk, to see people and so on. I do it because I love to do it; not because I talk to a great many people and feel that I am very important. When you feel very important, you do not love what you are doing; you love yourself and not what you are doing. So, your concern should be not with what I am doing, but with what you are going to do. Right? I have told you what I am doing. Now you tell me what you will do, when you have plenty of leisure.
Student: I would get bored, sir.
Krishnamurti: You would get bored. Quite right. That is what most people are.
Student: How do I get rid of this boredom, sir?
Krishnamurti: Wait, listen. Most people are bored. Why? You asked how to get rid of boredom. Now find out. When you are by yourself for half an hour, you are bored. So you pick up a book, chatter, look at a magazine, go to a cinema, talk, do something. You occupy your mind with something This is an escape from yourself. You have asked a question, Now, pay attention to what is being said. You get bored because you find yourself with yourself; and you have never found yourself with yourself. Therefore, you get bored. You say: Is that all I am? I am so small, I am so worried; I want to escape from all that. What you are is very boring, so you run away. But if you say, I am not going to be bored; I am going to find out why I am like this; I want to see what I am like actually then it is like looking at yourself in a mirror. There, you see very clearly what you are, what your face looks like. Then you say that you do not like your face; that you must be beautiful, you must look like a cinema actress. But if you were to look at yourself and say, ``Yes, that is what I am; my nose is not very straight, my eyes are rather small, my hair is straight.'' You accept it. When you see what you are, there is no boredom. Boredom comes in only when you reject what you see and want to be something else. In the same way, when you can look at yourself inside and see exactly what you are, the seeing of it is not boring. it is extraordinarily interesting, because the more you see of it, the more there is to see. You can go deeper and deeper and wider and there is no end to it. In that, there is no boredom. If you can do that, then what you do is what you love to do, and when you love to do a thing, time does not exist. When you love to plant trees, you water them, look after them, protect them; when you know what you really love to do, you will see the days are too short So you have to find out for yourself from now on, what you love to do; what you really want to do, not just be concerned with a career.
Student: How do you find out what you love to do, sir?
Krishnamurti: How do you find out what you love to do? You have to understand that it may be different from what you want to do. You may want to become a lawyer, because your father is a lawyer or because you see that by becoming a lawyer you can earn more money. Then you do not love what you do because you have a motive for doing something which will give you profit, which will make you famous. But if you love something, there is no motive. You do not use what you are doing for your own self-importance.
To find out what you love to do is one of the most difficult things. That is part of education. To find that out, you have to go into yourself very, very deeply. It is not very easy. You may say: ``I want to be a lawyer'' and you struggle to be a lawyer, and then suddenly you find you do not want to be a lawyer. You would like to paint. But it is too late. You are already married. You already have a wife and children. You cannot give up your career, your responsibilities. So you feel frustrated, unhappy. Or you may say, ``I really would like to paint, and you devote all your life to it, and suddenly find you are not a good painter and that what you really want to do is to be a pilot.
Right education is not to help you to find careers; for god's sake, throw that out of the window. Education is not merely gathering information from a teacher or learning mathematics from a book or learning historical dates of kings and customs, but education is to help you to understand the problems as they arise, and that requires a good mind - a mind that reasons, a mind that is sharp, a mind that has no belief. For belief is not fact. A man who believes in god is as superstitious as a man who does not believe in God. To find out you have to reason and you cannot reason if you already have an opinion, if you are prejudiced, if your mind has already come to a conclusion. So you need a good mind, a sharp, clear, definite, precise, healthy mind - not a believing mind, not a mind that follows authority. Right education is to help you to find out for yourself what you really, with all your heart, love to do. It does not matter what it is, whether it is to cook or to be a gardener, but it is something in which you have put your mind, your heart. Then you are really efficient, without becoming brutal. And this school should be a place where you are helped to find out for yourself through discussion, through listening, through silence, to find out, right through your life, what you really love to do.
Student: Sir, how can we know ourselves?
Krishnamurti: That is a very good question. Listen to me carefully. How do you know what you are? You understand my question? You look into the mirror for the first time and after a few days or few weeks, you look again and say, ``That is me again.'' Right? So, by looking at the mirror every day, you begin to know your own face, and you say: ``That is me.'' Now can you in the same way know what you are by watching yourself Can you watch your gestures, the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you behave, whether you are hard, cruel, rough, patient? Then you begin to know yourself. You know yourself by watching yourself in the mirror of what you doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling. That is the mirror - the feeling, the doing, the thinking. And in that mirror you begin to watch yourself. The mirror says, this is the fact; but you do not like the fact. So, you want to alter it. You start distorting it. You do not see it as it is.
Now, as I said the other day, you learn when there is attention and silence. Learning is when you have silence and give complete attention. In that state, you begin to learn. Now, sit very quietly; not because I am asking you to sit quietly, but because that is the way to learn. Sit very quietly and be still not only physically, not only in your body, but also in your mind. Be very still and then in that stillness, attend. Attend to the sounds outside this building, the cock crowing, the birds, somebody coughing, somebody leaving; listen first to the things outside you, then listen to what is going on in your mind. And you will then see, if you listen very, very attentively, in that silence, that the outside sound and the inside sound are the same.
One of the most difficult things in life is to find a way of behaviour that is not dictated by circumstances. Circumstances and people dictate, or force you to behave in a certain way. The way you conduct yourself, the way you eat, the way you talk, your moral, your ethical behaviour depend on where you find yourself and so your behaviour is constantly varying, constantly changing. This is so when you speak to your father, your mother or to your servant - your voice, your words, are quite different. The ways of behaviour are controlled by environmental influences, and by analysing behaviour you can almost predict what people will do or will not do.
Now can one ask oneself if one can behave the same inwardly, whatever the circumstances? Can one's behaviour spring from within and not depend on what people think of you or how they look at you? But that is difficult because one does not know what one is within. Within, a constant change is going on also. You are not what you were yesterday. Now can one find for oneself a way of behaviour which is not dictated by others or by society or by circumstances or by religious sanctions, a way of behaviour that does not depend on environment? I think one can find that out, if one knows what love is.
Do you know what love is? Do you know what it is to love people? To look after a tree, to brush a dog, comb it, feed it, means that you care for the tree, you feel great affection for the dog. I do not know whether you have noticed a tree in a street for which nobody cares; occasionally people look at it and pass it by. That tree is entirely different from a tree that is cared for in a garden, a tree you sit under, look at, on which you see the leaves, climb the branches. Such a tree grows with strength. When you look after a tree, when you give it water, manure; when you trim it, prune it, care for it, it has a different feeling altogether from the tree that grows by the roadside.
The feeling of care is the beginning of affection. You know, the more you look after things, the more sensitive you become. So there has to be affection, a sense of tenderness, kindliness, generosity. If there is such affection, then behaviour is dictated by that affection and is not dependent on environment, circumstance, or people. And to find that affection is one of the most difficult things - to be really affectionate whether people are kind to you or not kind to you, whether they talk to you roughly, or whether they are irritated with you. I think children have it. You all have it when you are young. You feel very friendly with one another, with people.
You love to pat a dog. You look occasionally at things and you also smile easily. But as you grow older, all this disappears. And so to have affection right through life is one of the most difficult things and without it life becomes very empty. You may have children, you may have a nice house, a car and all the rest of it, but without affection life is like a flower that has no scent. And it is part of education, is it not, to come to this affection, from which there is great joy, from which alone love can come?
With most of us love is possessiveness. Where there is jealousy, envy, it breeds cruelty, it breeds hatred, Love can only exist and flower when there is no hate, no envy, no ambition. Without love, life is like the barren earth, arid, hard, brutal. But the moment there is affection it is like the earth which blossoms with water, with rain, with beauty. One has to learn all this when one is very young, not when one is old for then it is too late. Then you become prisoners of society of environment, of husband, wife, office. Find out for yourself if you can behave with affection. Can you go to your class punctually because you feel you do not want to keep people waiting? Can you stop shouting while you are together because there are other people watching you, being with you?
When behaviour, politeness, consideration are superficial and without affection they have no meaning. But if there is affection, kindliness, consideration, then, out of that, comes politeness, good manners, consideration for others, which means really that one is thinking less and less about oneself, and that is one of the most difficult things in life. When one is not concerned with oneself, then one is really a free human being. Then one can look at the skies, the mountains, the hills, the waters, the birds, the flowers, with a fresh mind, with a great sense of affection. Right? Now, ask questions.
Student: If there is jealousy in love, is there not also sacrifice in love?
Krishnamurti: Is there not also sacrifice in love? Love can never sacrifice. What do you mean by using that word ``sacrifice?'' Giving up? Doing things you do not want to do? Is that what you mean? I sacrifice myself for my country, because I love my country. I sacrifice myself because I love my parents. Is that what you mean? Now, is that love? Can love exist when you have to force yourself to do something for others? I wonder if you understand the word ``sacrifice.'' Why do you use that word? You know, the words, ``responsibility,'' ``duty,'' ``sacrifice,'' are dreadful words. When you love somebody there is no responsibility, there is no duty, there is no sacrifice. You do things because you love. And you cannot love if you are thinking about yourself. When you are thinking about yourself, then you come first and the other is second; then, to love him, you sacrifice yourself. Then it is not love. It is a bargain. Do you understand?
Student: To learn and to love; are they separate or are they connected, sir?
Krishnamurti: Do you know what it means to love and do you know what it means to learn?
Student: I know what it is to learn.
Krishnamurti: I wonder. I do not say you do not know. I am just asking you. Do you know what it means to learn? You know what it means to acquire knowledge. You hear the teacher tell you certain facts and you store what you hear in your mind, in your brain. This storing up process is what we call learning. Is that not so?
Student: In a way.
Krishnamurti: In a way. But what is the other way? You have an experience, you walk up the hills and slip and hurt yourself and you have learnt something from that. You meet a friend and he hurts you and you have learnt from that. You read a newspaper and you have learnt from that. So, your learning generally consists of adding more and more information. Now is that learning? There is another form of learning - that is, learning as you go along, never accumulating. And then from that to act, to think. Do you understand what it is to learn in doing? This does not mean having learnt and then doing. They are two different states, are they not? There is a state where I have learnt and from that knowledge I act, and there is learning as I am doing. The two are completely different. When I have learnt and then do, it is mechanical, whereas learning from doing is non-mechanical. It is always fresh. Therefore, learning as I am doing is never boring; it is never tiring, whereas to do, having learnt, becomes mechanical. That is why you all get bored with your learning. Do you understand? So now you know what learning means. Learning is doing, so that in the very act of doing you are learning. Now, what is love?
Love is a feeling in which there is gentleness, quietness, tenderness, consideration, in which there is beauty. In love there is no ambition, there is no jealousy. Now you had asked whether learning and love are not similar. You had asked that question, had you not?
Student: Are they connected?
Krishnamurti: What do you say? You have understood what we mean by love, what we mean by learning. Are they connected?
Student: In a way.
Krishnamurti: Tell me in which way. May I help you? They are connected because both require an activity which is non-mechanical. Do you understand? Learning as I am doing is non-mechanical. But in love which becomes mechanical there is no learning. Love in which there is ambition, conflict, greed, envy, jealousy, anger, ambition, is not love. When there is no ambition, no jealousy, then there is a very active principle. It is renewing itself all the time, it is fresh. There is, in both learning and love, a movement of freshness, a movement which is spontaneous, which is not held by circumstances. it is a free movement. So there is a tenuous, delicate connection between the two. But to learn and to love there must be a great deal of affection. There is a great similarity in both when there is attention, which is not merely a conclusion. So if you are attending, attending to what you are thinking, out of that, there is affection, out of that there is learning.
Student: How can we live our life, sir?
Krishnamurti: First of all, do you know what your life is, to live it? I am not being funny. I am just asking. To live your life, you must know what your life is and to find out what your life is, you have to again examine. Your life is not what your father or mother, your society, your teacher, your neighbour, your religion, your politician tell you it is. Do not say: ``No''. It is so. Your life is made up of influences - political, religious, social, economic, climatic - all these influences converge in you and you say: ``That is life. I must live it.'' You can only live your life when you understand all these influences, and I through understanding them begin to discover your own way of thinking and living. Then you do not have to ask: ``How can I live my life?'' Then you live it. But, first, you must understand all the influences. The influence of society, the political speeches, the politicians, the climate, the food, the books you read are influencing you all the time. You have to ask whether it is at all possible to be free of these influences. And that is one of the most demanding enquiries. And after enquiring, examining, you have to understand, to find a way of life that is neither yours nor anybody's. It is then life. Then you are living.
Now, in all this, what is important? The first thing is not to lead a mechanical life. You understand what I mean by a mechanical life? It is doing something because somebody tells you to do it, or because you feel that it is the right thing to do, so you repeat, repeat, and gradually, your brain, your mind, your body becomes dull, heavy, stupid. So, do not lead a life of routine. You may have to go to the office. You may have to pass an examination, to study. But do it all with a freshness, with eagerness; and you can only do it with freshness and with vigour, when you are learning. And you cannot learn if you are not attentive.
The second thing is, to be very gentle, to be very kind, not to hurt people. You have to look at people, help people, be generous, be considerate.
There must be love, otherwise, your life is empty. You understand? You may have everything you want: husband, cars, children, wife; but life will be like an empty desert. You may be very clever, you might have a very good position, be a good lawyer, a good engineer, a marvellous administrator, but, without love, you are a dead human being. So do not do anything mechanical. Find out what it is to love people, to love dogs, the sky, the blue hills and the river. Love and feel.
Then you must also know what meditation is, what it is to have a very still, a very quiet mind, not a chattering mind. And it is only such a mind that can know the real religious mind. And without the religious mind, without that feeling, life is like a flower that has no fragrance, a river bed that has never known the rippling waters over it, it is like the earth that has never grown a tree, a bush, a flower.
Krishnamurti: It is our intention in places like Rishi Valley in the South and Rajghat in the North to create an environment, a climate, where one can bring about, if it is at all possible, a new human being. Do you know the history of these two schools? They have been running for thirty years or more. The purpose, the aim and drive of these schools is to equip the child with the most excellent technological proficiency so that he may function with clarity and efficiency in the modern world, and far more important to create the right climate so that the child may develop fully as a complete human being. This means giving him the opportunity to flower in goodness so that he is rightly related to people, things and ideas, to the whole of life. To live is to be related. There is no right relationship to anything if there is not the right feeling for beauty, a response to nature, to music and art, a highly developed aesthetic sense.
I think it is fairly clear that competitive education and the development of the student in that process is very destructive. I do not know how deeply one has grasped the significance of this. If one has, then what is right education? I think it is clear that the pattern which we now cultivate and call education, which is conformity to society, is very, very destructive. In its ambitious activities, it is frustrating in the extreme. And what we have so far considered, both in the West and East, as a development within this process, is culture. it is the inevitable invitation to sorrow. The perception of the truth of that is essential. If it is very clear, and if one has abandoned that voluntarily, not as a reaction, but just as a leaf falls away from the tree, a dropping away, then what is flowering, what is right education? Do you educate the student to conform, to adjust, to fit into the system or do you educate him to comprehend, to see very clearly the whole significance of all that and, at the same time, help him to read and write? If you teach him to read and write within the present system of frustration, then the flowering of the mind is impeded. The question then is, if one drops this competitive education, can the mind be educated at all in the ordinary accepted sense of the word? Or does education consist really in taking ourselves and the student away from the social structure of frustration and desire and, at the same time giving him information about mathematics, physics, and so on? After all, if the teacher and the student are stripped of all this monstrous confusion, what is there to be educated about? All that you can teach the student is how to read and write, how to calculate, design, remember and communicate facts and opinions about facts.
So, what is the function of education and is there a particular method of education? Do you teach the student a technique so that he becomes proficient and in that very proficiency develops a sense of ambition? By teaching him a technique in order to find a job, you also burden him with its implications of success and frustration. He wants to be successful in life and he also wants to be a peaceful man. His whole life is a contradiction. The greater the contradiction, the greater the tension. This is a fact. When there is suppression in contradiction, there is greater outward activity. You give the student a technique and at the same time develop in him this extraordinary imbalance, this extreme contradiction which leads to frustration and despair. The more he develops his capacity in technique, the greater his ambition and the greater the frustration. You are educating him to have a technique which is going to lead to his despair. So the question is, can you help him not to drift into contradiction? He will drift into it if you do not help him to love the thing which he is doing.
You see, if the student loves geometry, loves it as an end in itself, he is so completely absorbed in it that he has no ambition. He really loves geometry and that is an enormous delight. Therefore he flowers in it. How will you help the student to love, in this way, a thing which the student has not yet discovered for himself?
If you are asked, as a teacher, what the intention of this school is would you be able to reply? I want to know what you are all trying to do, what you intend the student to be? Are you trying to shape him, condition him, force him in certain directions? Are you trying to teach the student mathematics, physics, giving him some information so that he is proficient technologically and can do well in a future career? Thousands of schools are doing this, all over the world - trying to make the student excellent technologically so that he becomes a good scientist, engineer, physicist and so on. Or are you trying to do something much more here? If it is much more, what is it?
We must be very clear in ourselves what we want, clear what a human being must be - the total human being, not just the technological human being. If we concentrate very much on examinations, on technological information, on making the child clever, proficient in acquiring knowledge, while we neglect the other side, then the child will grow up into a one-sided human being. When we talk about a total human being, we mean not only a human being with inward understanding, with a capacity to explore, to examine his inward being, his inward state and the capacity of going beyond it, but also someone who is good in what he does outwardly. The two must go together. That is the real issue in education - to see that when the child leaves the school, he is well established in goodness, both outwardly and inwardly.
There must be a starting point from which we function so that we will cultivate not only the technological side but also uncover the deeper layers, the deeper fields of the human mind. I will put it another way. If you concentrate on making the student excellent in technology and neglect the other side, as we generally do, what happens to such a human being? If you concentrate on making the student a perfect dancer or a perfect mathematician, what happens? He is not just that, he is something more. He is jealous, angry, frustrated, in despair, ambitious. So you will create a society in which there is always disorder, because you are emphasizing technology and proficiency in one field and neglecting the other field. However perfect a man may be technologically, he is always in contradiction in his social relationships. He is always in battle with his neighbour.
So technology cannot produce a perfect or a good society. It may produce a great society, where there is no poverty, where there is material equality and so on. A great society is not necessarily a good society. A good society implies order. Order does not mean trains running on time, mail delivered regularly. It means something else. For a human being, order means order within himself. And such order will inevitably bring about a good society. Now from which centre are we to start?
Do you understand my question? If I neglect the inner and accentuate technology, whatever I do will be one-sided. So I must find a way, I must bring about a movement which will cover both. So far, we have separated the two and having separated them, we have emphasized the one and neglected the other. What we are now trying to do is to join both of them together. If there is proper education, the student will not treat them as two separate fields. He will be able to move in both as one movement. Right? In making himself technologically perfect, he will also make himself a worthwhile human being. Does this convey something or not?
A river is not always the same, the banks vary, and the water can be used industrially or for various other purposes, but it is still water. Why have we separated the technological world and the other world? We have said: ``If we could make the technological world perfect, we would have food, clothes, shelter for everybody, so let us concern ourselves with the technological.'' And there are also those who are concerned only with the inner world. They emphasize the so-called inner world, and become more and more isolated, more and more self-centred, more and more vague, pursuing their own beliefs, dogmas and visions. There is this tremendous division and we say we must somehow bring these two together. So having divided life into the outer and inner, we now try to integrate them. I think that way also leads to more conflict. Whereas if we could find a centre, a movement, an approach which does not divide, we would function in both equally.
What is the movement that is supremely intelligent? I am using the word ``intelligent,'' not clever, not intuitive, not derived from knowledge, information, experience. What is the movement that understands all these divisions, all these conflicts; and that very understanding creates the movement of intelligence?
We see in the world two movements going on, the deep religious movement which man has always sought and which has become Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, and this wordily movement of technology, a world of computers and automation that give man more leisure. The religious movement is very feeble and very few are pursuing it. The technological has become stronger and stronger and man is getting lost in it, becoming more mechanical and therefore man tries to escape from this mechanism, tries to discover something new - in painting, in music, in art, in the theatre. And the religious, if there are any, say ``That is the wrong way'' and move away to a world of their own. They do not see the insufficiency, the immaturity, the mechanical way of both. Now, can we see that both of these are insufficient? If we can see that, then we are beginning to perceive a non-mechanistic movement which will cover both.
If I had a child to be educated I would help him to see the mechanical and the insufficient processes of both ways and in the very examination of the insufficiency of both as they operate in him, there would be born the intelligence which has come into being through examination.
Sirs, look at those flowers, the brilliancy, the beauty of them. Now, how am I, as a teacher, to help the student to see the flowers and also be very good at mathematics? If I am only concerned with the flowers and I am not good at mathematics, something is wrong with me. If I am only concerned with mathematics, then also something is wrong with me.
You cannot cultivate technological information, become perfect in it first and then say you must also study the other. By giving your heart to years of acquiring knowledge you have already destroyed something in you - the feeling and the capacity to look. By emphasizing one or the other you become insensitive and the essence of intelligence is sensitivity.
So, the quality which we want the child to have is the highest form of sensitivity. Sensitivity is intelligence; it does not come from books. If you spend forty years in learning mathematics but cannot look at those flowers and also study mathematics. If there is a movement of that intelligence it will cover both fields. Now how are you and I, as a community of teachers, going to create that movement of sensitivity in the ` child?
The student must be free. Otherwise he cannot be sensitive. If he is not free in the study of mathematics, enjoying mathematics, giving his heart to it, which is freedom, he cannot study it adequately. And to look at those flowers, to look at that beauty, he must also be free. So there must be freedom first. That means I must help that boy to be free. Freedom implies order, freedom does not mean allowing the boy to do what he likes, to come to lunch and to class when he likes.
In examining, working, in learning, one understands that the highest form of sensitivity is intelligence. That sensitivity, that intelligence can come about only in freedom, but to convey that to a child requires a great deal of intelligence on our part. I would like to help him to be free and yet at the same time have order and discipline, without conformity. To examine anything one must have not only freedom but discipline. This discipline is not something from outside which has been imposed upon the child and according to which he tries to conform. In the very examination of these two processes - the technological and the religious, there is attention and therefore discipline. Therefore one asks, ``How can we help that boy or girl to be free completely and yet highly disciplined, not through fear, not through conformity, not partially free but completely free and yet highly disciplined at the same time?'' Not one first and then the other. They both go together.
Now, how are we to do this? Do we clearly see that freedom is absolutely essential, and that freedom does not mean doing what one likes? You cannot do what you like, because you are always in relationship in life with others. See the necessity and importance of being completely free and yet highly disciplined without conformity. See that your beliefs, your ideas, your ideologies are second-hand. You have to see all that and see that you must be absolutely free. Otherwise you cannot function as a human being.
Now I wonder if you see this as an idea or as a fact, as factual as this ink pot. How will you, as a community of teachers, when you see the importance of the child being completely free and also realize that there must be discipline and order - how will you help him so that he flowers in freedom and order? Your shouting at the child is not going to do it; your beating the child is not going to do it, your comparing him to another is not going to do it. Any form of compulsion, bullying, or system of giving him marks or no marks is not going to do it.
If you see the importance of the boy being free and at the same time highly orderly, and if you see that punishment or cajoling him is not going to produce anything, will you completely drop all that in yourself.
The old method has not produced freedom. It has made man comply and adjust, but if you see that freedom is absolutely necessary and therefore order is essential, these methods which we have used for centuries must drop away.
The difficulty is that you are used to old methods and suddenly you are deprived of them. So you are confronted with a problem about which you have to think in a totally different way. It is your problem. It is your responsibility. You are confronted with this issue. You cannot possibly employ the old methods, because you have seen that the boy must be totally free and yet there must be order. So what has happened to you who have, so far, accepted and functioned with an old formula? You have thrown out the formula and are looking at the problem anew, are you not? You are looking at the problem with a fresh mind which is free.
Teacher: To see, does one always have to be in that state?
Krishnamurti: If you do not see it now but demand to see it always, that is nonsense. The seeing once is the seed put in the earth, that will flower. But if you say that you must see it always, then you are back to the old formula.
Look what has happened: the old patterns of thinking with regard to teaching and freedom and order have been taken away from you. Therefore you are looking at problems differently. The difference is that your mind is now free to look, free to examine the issue of freedom and order. Now how will you convey to the child that you are not going to punish him, not going to reward him and yet he must be totally free and orderly?
Teacher: I think the teacher has the same problem as the child. He needs to operate from a field where he feels freedom and discipline go together. In his present thinking, he separates order and freedom. He says freedom is against order and order is against freedom.
Krishnamurti: I think we are missing something. When you see that the old methods of punishment and reward are dead, your mind becomes much more active. Because you have to solve this problem, your mind is alive. If it is alive, it will be in contact with the issue.
Because you are free and understand freedom, you will be punctual in your class and from freedom you will talk to the student and not from an idea. To talk from an idea, a formula, a concept is one thing, but to talk from an actual fact which you have seen - that the student must be free and therefore orderly - is totally different. When you as a teacher are free and orderly you are already communicating it, not only verbally but non-verbally and the student knows it immediately.
Once you see the fact that punishment and reward in any form are destructive, you never go back to them. By throwing them out, you yourself are disciplined and that discipline has come out of the freedom of examination. You communicate to the child the fact of that and not any idea. Then you have communicated to him not only verbally, but at a totally different level.
I think most of us know what is happening in the world - the threat of war, the nuclear bomb, the many tensions and conflicts that have brought about new crises. It seems to me that a totally different kind of mind is necessary to meet these challenges. A mind that is not specialized, not trained only in technology, that is not merely seeking prosperity, but that can meet challenges adequately, completely. And it seems to me that that is the function of education, that is the function of a school.
Everywhere - in Europe, Russia, America, Japan and here - they are turning out technicians, scientists, educators. These specialists are incapable of meeting the enormously complex challenge of life. They are utterly incapable and yet they are the people who rule the world as the politician, as the scientist. They are specialists in their fields and their guidance, their leadership has obviously failed and is failing. They are merely responding to the immediate. You see, we are thinking in terms of the immediate, the immediacy of events. We are concerned with the immediate responses of a country that is very poor, like India, or the immediate responses of the enormous prosperity of the West. Everyone is thinking in terms of doing something immediately. I think one has to take a long view of the whole problem and I do not think a specialist can do this because specialists always think in terms of action which is immediate. Though immediate action is necessary, I think the function of education is to bring about a mind that will not only act in the immediate but go beyond.
Throughout the world the authoritarian governments, the priests, the professors, the analysts, the psychologists, everybody is concerned with controlling or shaping or directing the mind and, therefore, there is very little freedom. The real issue is to find out how to live in a world that is so compulsively authoritarian, so brutal and tyrannical, not only in the immediate relationships but in social relationships, how to live in such a world with the extraordinary capacity to meet its demands and also to be free. I feel education of the right kind should cultivate the mind not to fall into grooves of habit, however worthy or noble, however technologically necessary, but to have a mind that is extraordinarily alive, not with knowledge, not with experience, but alive. Because often the more knowledge one has, the less alert the brain is.
I am not against knowledge. There is a difference between learning and acquiring knowledge. Learning ceases when there is only accumulation of knowledge. There is learning only when there is no acquisition at all. When knowledge becomes all important learning ceases. The more I add to knowledge the more secure, the more assured the mind becomes, and, therefore it ceases to learn. Learning is never an additive process. When one is learning, it is an active process. Whereas acquiring knowledge is merely gathering information and storing it up. So I think there is a difference between acquiring knowledge and learning. Education throughout the world is merely the acquisition of knowledge and therefore the mind becomes dull and ceases to learn. The mind is merely acquiring. The acquisition dictates the conduct I of life and, therefore, limits experience. Whereas learning is limitless.
Can one, in a school, not only acquire knowledge, which is necessary for living in this world, but also have a mind that is constantly learning? The two are not in contradiction. In a school, when knowledge becomes all important, learning becomes a contradiction. Education should be concerned with the totality of life and not with the immediate responses to the immediate challenges.
Let us see what is involved in the two. If one is living in terms of the immediate, responding to the immediate challenge, the immediate is constantly repeated in different ways. In one year it will be war, the next year it may be revolution, in the third year industrial unrest; if one is living in terms of the immediate, life becomes very superficial. But you may say that that is enough because that is all we need to care about. That is one way of taking life. If you live that way it is an empty life. You can fill it with cars, books, sex, drink, more clothes, but it is shallow and empty. A man living an empty life, a shallow life, is always trying to escape; and escape means delusion, more gods, more beliefs, more dogmas, more authoritarian attitudes, or more football, more sex, more television. The immediate responses of those who live in the immediate are extraordinarily empty, futile, miserable. This is not my feeling or prejudice; you can watch it. You may say that is enough, or you may say that that is not good enough. So there must be the long vision, though I must of course act in the immediate, do something about it when the house is burning, but that is not the end of action. There must be something else, and how can one pursue that something else without bringing in authority, books, priests? Can one wipe them all out and pursue the other? If one pursues the other, this immediacy will be answered in a greater and more vital way. So, what do you, as a human being and also as an educator, a teacher, what do you feel about it?
I do not want you to agree with me. But if you have exercised your brain, if you have observed world events, if you have watched your own inclinations, your own demands, persuasions, if you have seen the whole state of man and his quivering despair, how do you respond? What is your action, your way of looking at it all? Forget that you are in a school. We talking as human beings.
Teacher: In meeting an immediate challenge, especially as one grows older, one seems to bring in a sense of anxiety. Is there as one grows older, another approach?
Krishnamurti: What do you mean by ``getting older?'' Older in terms of doing a job? Older in terms of routine, boredom?
What do you mean by age? What makes you old? The organism wears out - why? Is it due to disease, or is it because there is repetition like a machine going on over and over again? The psyche is never alive; it is merely functioning in habit. So it reduces the body quickly to old age. Why does the psyche become old, or need it ever get old? I do not think it need ever get old. And is old age only a habit? Have you noticed old people, how they eat, how they talk? And is it possible to keep the psyche extraordinarily young, alive, innocent? Is it possible for the psyche to be alive and never for a second lose its vitality through habit, through security, through family, through responsibility? Of course it is possible, which means that you must destroy everything you build. That is what I mean by the long vision. You have an experience, pleasant or unpleasant, that leaves a mark, and the mind lives in that: ``I have had such a marvellous experience'' or ``I have had such a sad life,'' and there is a decaying in itself. So, experience, and the living in experience, is decay.
Let us come back to my question. As a human being, living in this society, in a world which is demanding immediate action, what is your response to the immediate challenge? The immediate challenge is always asking you to respond immediately, and you are caught in that. How do you, as a parent, as a teacher, as a citizen, respond to it? For, according to your response, you are caught in it. Whether you respond consciously or unconsciously, the effect of that will be on the psyche.
Teacher: Is there a way by which this long vision becomes an actuality, as actual as the immediate?
Krishnamurti: Of course. Because the immediate is the actual. There is the nuclear bomb - the Russian, the American, the French scientists are inventing ways of producing cheap atom bombs - they may blow themselves to bits. Why should you respond to it? The nuclear bomb is the result of a long series of events - nationalism, industrialism, class differences, greed, envy, hate, ambition - all these have produced the nuclear bomb. You reply without understanding it - that America or Russia should be stopped from producing nuclear bombs, and you call that an actual response. Without answering the total, what is the good of replying to the fragments of the problem? So, if this is the actual and you see that the actual produces such immature responses, then you must pursue the other. Knowing that you must respond to the immediate and also that you must have long vision, how do you bring this about as an educator? Nobody is concerned with the other; no educator is concerned with the long vision, the long view. Education today is concerned only with the immediate. But if you are dissatisfied with the immediate, then how would you pursue that and not neglect this? Do you see the urgency of it?
Shall I put the problem differently? How can one keep the mind young, never let it grow old and never say, ``I have had enough,'' and seek a corner to stay in and stagnate? That is the tendency and that is the actual fact. To get a position is difficult, but once you have got it, you stagnate. Everything about the world is destroying the long vision. Books, newspapers, politicians, priests, everything influences you, and how does one walk out of it all? You are being contaminated and yet you have to function and you cannot walk out of it.
Life is destruction, life is love, life is creation. We know none of it. It is a tremendous thing. Now how would you translate all this into education?
Teacher: Is it possible to pursue one vision at the cost of another? Is it possible to do away with the short vision?
Krishnamurti: The problem is not to run away from all this misery or to see how to combine the two. You cannot combine the little with the big; the big has to take in the little.
Teacher: But is it not better to follow the little in the beginning and come to the big later?
Krishnamurti: Never. If you say the little is the first step, then you are lost, you are caught in the little. Think it out for yourself. If you accept the little, then where are you? You will be caught, won't you - little family, little house, little husband, little money, little clothes? You have made the little important, the little first and so you have little responsibility in society. You are all so terribly respectable. Why do you put the little first? Because that is the easiest way.
Teacher: How does one grasp the little and understand it?
Krishnamurti: You can only grasp the big, the little is not at all important, but you have made it important. it is a very delicate thing, a subtle thing, to have capacity and not to be a slave to it, to respond immediately to things you have to respond to, and to have this extraordinary depth and height and width.
Deny the little. Do you know what it is to deny? Deny not because you have got the long vision but because what is denied is false. `On Action'
Krishnamurti: Shall we consider the question of immediacy of action? Action is pressing on each one of us, and there must be the long vision which includes the immediacy; but the immediacy does not include the larger, the wider, the deeper. Most people throughout the world who are intellectual and learned seem to be caught in the immediate responses to immediate challenges. More scientists, more engineers, more technicians are needed and education is geared to produce them. The immediate demand is accepted and answered and so one loses, I think, a larger perspective and therefore one's mind and body and emotions become very shallow and empty. If one actually realizes all this, not verbally, but with a direct perception, how is a teacher to educate a student to have not only technical knowledge, the know-how, but also a wider, deeper understanding of life?
How will you translate this into action in education? Is that not what you have come here to do? How do you set about it, if you have not already done it? I believe, here in Rishi Valley, the origin of the school was to bring about a different kind of education. It was not only to provide the child with knowledge but to make him understand that knowledge is not the end of life; that it is necessary to be sensitive to trees, to beauty, to know what it is to love, to be kind, to be generous. Now how would you set about it?
It seems at first absolutely necessary that there should be a few who have this feeling, and by their enthusiasm, understanding, capacity, not only to impart knowledge but also to see beyond the hills. If I were here and I felt this urgency that a student must academically be most proficient, and also that he must know how to dance, sing, look at the trees, see the mountains, know how to look at a woman without the usual sexual attitude and consider the extraordinary beauty of life, know sorrow and go beyond sorrow - if I were here, how would I set about it?
If I were here and my sole job was that, I would not leave any one of you alone. I would discuss with you the way you talk, dress, look, behave, eat; I would be at it all the time - and probably you would call me a tyrant and talk of democracy and freedom. I do not think it is a question of democracy, tyranny and freedom. You see, this brings up the question of authority. We have talked about it a great deal in this place, on and off, whenever I have come; but let us discuss authority again.
To me, authority is terrible, destructive. The quality of authority is tyrannical - the authority of the priest, the police - authority of law. Those are all outward authorities. There is also the inward authority of knowledge, of one's own dignity of one's own experience which dictates certain attitudes to life. All this breeds authority and without exercising this authority, you have to look after the child, to see that he has good taste, that he puts on the right clothes, eats properly, has a certain dignity in speech, in the way he walks; you have also to teach him to play games, not competitively and ruthlessly, but for the fun of it. To awaken in him all this without authority is extremely difficult and because of its difficulty, you resort to authority. One must have discipline in the school. Now, can you bring about discipline without exercising authority? Children must come to meals regularly, not talk incessantly at meal time, everything must be in proportion, in freedom and affection; and there must be a certain non-authoritarian awakening of self-respect.
To give knowledge which does not become an end in itself and to educate the mind to have a long vision, a wide comprehension of life, is not possible if education is based on author.
Teacher: It is extremely difficult to bring about an inner orderliness in the child without discipline, without restraint and authority. Adults are in a different position from children.
Krishnamurti: I wonder if that is so. We are conditioned and children are being conditioned. Can education bring about a revolutionary mind? The difficulty is that this has to begin at a very tender age, not when children are fourteen or older.
By then they are already formed and destroyed but if they came to you very young what would you do to encourage a feeling that there are other things than mere sex, money and position?
Besides giving the child information as knowledge, how would you show him that the world is not only the immediate but that there are other things far greater? First, you and I must feel this, not merely because I talk about it or you talk about it. I must be burning with it, and if I am burning with it, how do I communicate it without influencing the child? Because when I influence, I destroy the child; I make him conform to the image I have. So I must realize, though I feel very strongly about all this, that in my relationship with the student, however young, I must not encourage an imitative attitude and action. This is all extremely difficult. If I love somebody, I want him to be different, to do things differently, to look at life, to feel the beauty of the earth. Can I show him all this without influence, without breeding the imitative instinct?
Teacher: Before we come to help the child without influencing him, is there an approach which we can establish in ourselves, because in our lives there seem to be so many contradictions?
Krishnamurti: In order to establish it - one must change, remove the contradictions, wipe out destructive feelings. That may take many days or perhaps no time at all. We say that can be done through analysis, through awareness, through questioning, enquiring, probing. All that involves time. But time is a danger. Because the moment we look to time to change, it is really a continuation of what has been. If I have to enquire into my mind and be aware of my activities and my conditioning and my demands and each day probe, all that entails time. Time as a means to mutation is illusion. And when I introduce time into the problem of mutation, then mutation is postponed, because then time is merely a further continuation of my desire to go on as I am. Time is necessary to learn French. The time taken to learn French is not an illusion, but to bring about a psychological mutation, a psychical change in myself through time is an illusion, because it encourages laziness, postponement, a sense of achievement, vanity. All that is implied in the employment of time when I use time as a means to mutation. So, if I do not look to time at all for mutation, then what happens?
It is a marvellous thing. All religious people have seen time as a means of change and actually we find mutation can only be out of time, not through time.
Teacher: Does that not apply to all creative action?
Krishnamurti: Of course it does. So can my mind refuse to use time and deny time as a means to mutation? Do you see the beauty of it? Then what takes place?
The thing which I want changed has been put together through time, it is the result of time, and I deny time. Therefore I deny the whole thing and therefore mutation has taken place. I do not know if you see this. It is not a verbal trick.
Have you understood it? If I deny my conditioning as a Hindu, which is the result of time, and I deny time, I deny the whole thing. I am out of it. If I deny ritual - the Christian, Hindu or Buddhist - deny it because it is the product of time,
I am out. I do not have to ask how to bring about mutation. The thing itself is the result of time and I deny time - it is finished.
So the mind in which mutation has taken place, that mind can then instruct, can look, can bring about a definite series of environmental actions. One cannot deny the use of time for acquiring knowledge but does time exist anywhere else?
Teacher: Even in activities we need time, we seem to do things in a sloppy way and therefore time hangs heavily. If the understanding of time in all these things is as simple as this, why are we not able to get out of it?
Krishnamurti: But if you give your whole attention, not to mutation through time but to denying time, you would then be in a position to teach in a totally different way. The boys and girls are here to acquire knowledge and if you can impart this knowledge with attention which is not using time to convey information, then you are quickening their minds.
That is what I am interested in, which is, to awaken the mind, to keep the mind tremendously alive. We say the mind can be kept alive through knowledge and therefore we pour in knowledge which only dulls the mind. A mind that functions in time is still a limited mind. But a mind which does not function in time is extraordinarily alert, is tremendously alive and can impart its aliveness to a mind which is still seeking, enquiring, innocent. So we have discovered something new. You and I have discovered something. I have imparted something to you. Together we have found that the mind functions in time and the mind is the result of time. In that state, the mind can only give information. Such a mind is limited. But a mind that is not functioning, thinking in terms of time, though it uses time, will quicken the mind of another and therefore knowledge will not destroy. You see, such a mind is in a state of learning, not acquiring. Therefore it is everlastingly alive; such a mind is young.
Some of the boys in this school are already old, because they are merely concerned with acquiring knowledge, not with learning. And learning is out of time. Now, how will you set about quickening the mind, keeping it astonishingly alive all the time?
You have to understand the quality of a mind in which mutation has taken place. It has taken place the moment you deny time. You have thrown the whole past out. You are no longer a Hindu, a Christian. Now how will such a mind in which mutation has taken place instruct, translate its action? How will it act in giving knowledge which involves time, and yet keep the mind of the child in a state of intense aliveness? Find out. `On the True Denial'
Teacher: In one of your talks to the children you said that when a problem arises one should solve it immediately. How is one to do this?
Krishnamurti: To solve a problem immediately, you have to understand the problem. Is the understanding of a problem a matter of time or is it a matter of intensity of perception, an intensity of seeing? Let us say that I have a problem: I am vain. It is a problem with me in the sense that it creates a conflict, a contradiction within me. It is a fact that I am vain and there is also another fact that I do not want to be vain. Firstly, I have to understand the fact that I am vain. I have to live with that fact. I must not only be intensely aware of the fact but comprehend it fully. Now, is comprehension a matter of time? I can see the fact immediately, can't I? And the immediacy of perception, of seeing, dissolves the fact. When I see a cobra there is immediate action. But I do not see vanity in the same way - when I see vanity either I like it and therefore I continue with it, or I do not want it because it creates conflict. If it does not create conflict there is no problem.
Perception and understanding are not of time. Perception is a matter of intensity of seeing, a seeing that is total. What is the nature of seeing something totally? What gives one the capacity, the energy, the vitality, the drive, to deal with something immediately, with all one's undivided energy? The moment you have divided energy you have conflict and therefore there is no seeing, there is no perception of something total. Now, what gives you the energy to make you jump when you see a cobra? What are the processes that make the organic as well as the psychological, the whole being, jump, so that there is no hesitation, so that the reaction is immediate? What has gone into that immediacy? Several things have gone into that action which is immediate: fear, natural protection, which must be there, the knowledge that the cobra is a deadly thing.
Now, why have we not the same energetic action with regard to the dissolution of vanity? I am taking vanity as an example. There are several reasons that have gone into my lack of energy. I like vanity; the world is based on it; it is the basis of the social pattern; it gives me a certain sense of vitality, a certain quality of dignity and aloofness, a sense that I am a little better than another. All this prevents that energy which is necessary to dissolve vanity. Now, either I analyse all the reasons which have prevented my action, prevented my having energy to deal with vanity, or I see immediately. Analysis is a process of time and a process of postponement. While I am analysing, vanity continues and time is not going to end it. So I have to see vanity totally and I lack the energy to see. Now, to gather the dissipated energy requires a gathering not only when I am confronted with a problem such as vanity, but a gathering all the time, even when there is no problem. We do not have problems all the time. There are moments when we have no problems. If at those moments we are gathering energy, gathering in the sense of being aware, then, when the problem arises, we can meet it and not go through the process of analysis.
Teacher: There is another difficulty: when there is no problem, and no gathering of this energy, some form of mentation is going on.
Krishnamurti: There is a waste of energy in mere repetition, reaction to memory, reaction to experience. If you observe your own mind you will see that a pleasurable incident keeps on repeating itself. You want to go back to it, you want to think about it, so it gathers momentum. When the mind is aware there is no wastage, is it possible to let that momentum, to let that thought flower? Which means never to say, ``This is right or wrong'', but to live the thought over, to have a feeling in which the thought can flourish so that by itself it will come to an end.
Should we approach the problem differently? We have been talking about creating a generation with a new quality of mind. How do we do this? If I were a teacher here, it would be my concern - and a good educator obviously has this concern at heart - to bring about a new mind, a new sensitivity, a new feeling for the trees, the skies, the heavens, the streams, to bring into being a new consciousness, not the old consciousness remoulded into a new shape. I mean a totally new mind, uncontaminated by the past. If that is my concern, how do I set about it?
First of all, is it possible to bring about such a new mind? Not a mind which is a continuity of the past in a new mould but a mind that is uncontaminated. Is it feasible, or must the past continue through the present to be modified and be put into a new mould? In which case there is no new generation, it is the older generation repeated in a new form.
I think it is possible to create a new generation. And I ask: How am I, not only to experience this within myself, but to express it to the student?
If I see something experimentally in myself I cannot miss expressing it to the student. Surely it is not a question of I and the other, but a mutual thing, isn't it?
Now how do I bring about a mind that is uncontaminated? You and I are not newborn, we have been contaminated by society, by Hinduism, by education, by the family, by society, by newspapers. How do we break through the contamination? Do I say it is part of my existence and accept it? What do I do, sir? Here is a problem - that our minds are contaminated. For the older ones it is more difficult to break through. You are comparatively young and the problem is to uncontaminate the mind; how is it to be done?
Either it is possible, or it is not possible. Now how is one to discover whether it is or not? I would like you to jump into it.
Do you know what is meant by the word ``denial''? What does it mean to deny the past, to deny being a Hindu? What do you mean by that word ``deny''? Have you ever denied anything? There is a true denial and a false denial. The denial with a motive is a false denial. The denial with a purpose, the denial with an intention, with an eye on the future, is not a denial. If I deny something in order to get something more, it is not denial. But there is a denial which has no motive. When I deny and do not know what is in store for me in the future, that is true denial. I deny being a Hindu, I deny belonging to any organization, I deny any particular creed and in that very denial I make myself completely insecure. Do you know such a denial, and have you ever denied anything? Can you deny the past that way - deny, not knowing what is in the future? Can you deny the known?
Teacher: When I deny something - say Hinduism, there is a simultaneous understanding of what Hinduism is.
Krishnamurti: What we were discussing is the bringing about of a new mind and if it is possible. A mind that is contaminated cannot be a new mind. So we are talking of decontamination, and whether that is possible. And in relation to that I began by asking what you mean by denial, because I think denial has a great deal to do with it. Denial has to do with a new mind. If I deny cleanly, without roots, without motive, it is real denial. Now is that possible? You see, if I do not completely deny society in which is involved politics, economics, social relationships, ambition, greed - if I do not deny all that completely, it is impossible to find out what it is to have a new mind. Therefore, the first breaking of the foundation is the denial of the things I have known. Is that possible?
Obviously, drugs will not bring about a new mind; nothing will bring it about except a total denial of the past. Is it possible? What do you say? And if I have felt the perfume, the sight, the taste of such denial, how do I help to convey it to a student? He must have in abundance the known - mathematics, geography, history - and yet be abundantly free of the known, remorselessly free of it.
Teacher: Sir, all sensations leave a residue, a disturbance which lead to various kinds of conflict and other forms of mental activity. The traditional approach of all religions is to deny this sensation by discipline and denial. But in what you say there seems to be a heightened receptivity to these sensations so that you see the sensations without distortion or residue.
Krishnamurti: That is the issue. Sensitivity and sensation are two different things. A mind that is a slave to thought, sensation, feeling, is a residual mind. It enjoys the residue, it enjoys thinking about the pleasurable world and each thought leaves a mark, which is the residue. Each thought of a certain pleasure you have had, leaves a mark which makes for insensitivity. It obviously dulls the mind and discipline, control and suppression further dull the mind. I am saying that sensitivity is not sensation, that sensitivity implies no mark, no residue. So what is the question?
Teacher: Is the denial of which you are speaking different from a denial which is the restriction of sensation?
Krishnamurti: How do you see those flowers, see the beauty of them, be completely sensitive to them so that there is no residue, no memory of them, so that when you see them again an hour later you see a new flower? That is not possible if you see as a sensation and that sensation is associated with flowers, with pleasure. The traditional way is to shut out what is pleasurable because such associations awaken other forms of pleasure and so you discipline yourself not to look. To cut association with a surgical knife is immature. So how is the mind, how are the eyes, to see the tremendous colour and yet have it leave no mark?
I am not asking for a method. How does that state come into being? Otherwise we cannot be sensitive. It is like a photographic plate which receives impressions and is self-renewing. It is exposed, and yet becomes negative for the next impression. So all the time, it is self-cleansing of every pleasure. Is that possible or are we playing with words and not with facts?
The fact which I see clearly is that any residual sensitivity, sensation, dulls the mind. I deny that fact, but I do not know what it is to be so extraordinarily sensitive that experience leaves no mark and yet to see the flower with fullness, with tremendous intensity. I see as an undeniable fact that every sensation, every feeling, every thought, leaves a mark, shapes the mind, and that such marks cannot possibly bring about a new mind. I see that to have a mind with marks is death, so I deny death. But I do not know the other. I also see that a good mind is sensitive without the residue of experience. It experiences, but the experience leaves no mark from which it draws further experiences, further conclusions, further death.
The one I deny and the other I do not know. How is this transition from the denial of the known to the unknown to come into being?
How does one deny? Does one deny the known, not in great dramatic incidents but in little incidents? Do I deny when I am shaving and I remember the lovely time I had in Switzerland? Does one deny the remembrance of a pleasant time? Does one grow aware of it, and deny it? That is not dramatic, it is not spectacular, nobody knows about it. Still this constant denial of little things, the little wipings, the little rubbings off, not just one great big wiping away, is essential. It is essential to deny thought as remembrance, pleasant or unpleasant, every minute of the day as it arises. One is doing it not for any motive, not in order to enter into the extraordinary state of the unknown. You live in Rishi Valley and think of Bombay or Rome. This creates a conflict, makes the mind dull, a divided thing. Can you see this and wipe it away? Can you keep on wiping away not because you want to enter into the unknown? You can never know what the unknown is because the moment you recognise it as the unknown you are back in the known.
The process of recognition is a process of the continued known. As I do not know what the unknown is I can only do this one thing, keep on wiping thought away as it arises.
You see that flower, feel it, see the beauty, the intensity, the extraordinary brilliance of it. Then you go to the room in which you live, which is not well proportioned, which is ugly. You live in the room but you have a certain sense of beauty and you begin to think of the flower and you pick up the thought as it arises and you wipe it away. Now from what depth do you wipe, from what depth do you deny the flower, your wife, your gods, your economic life? You have to live with your wife, your children, with this ugly monstrous society. You cannot withdraw from life. But when you deny totally thought, sorrow, pleasure, your relationship is different and so there must be a total denial, not a partial denial, not a keeping of the things which you like and a denying of the things which you do not like.
Now, how do you translate what you have understood to the student?
Teacher: You have said that in teaching and learning, the situation is one of intensity where you do not say ``I am teaching you something''. Now this constant wiping away of the marks of thought, has it something to do with the intensity of the teaching-learning situation?
Krishnamurti: Obviously. You see, I feel that teaching and learning are both the same. What is taking place here? I am not teaching you - I am not your teacher or authority, I am merely exploring and conveying my exploration to you. You can take it or leave it. The position is the same with regard to students.
Teacher: What is the teacher then to do?
Krishnamurti: You can only find out when you are constantly denying. Have you ever tried it? It is as if you cannot sleep for a single minute during the day time.
Teacher: It not only needs energy, sir, but also releases a lot of energy.
Krishnamurti: But first you must have the energy to deny. `On Competition'
We have been talking of establishing a right communication between ourselves and the student, and in the state of communion to bring about a different atmosphere or climate, in which the student begins to learn. I do not know if you have noticed that as frivolity is contagious so is seriousness. It is a seriousness that does not arise because of a heavy face or a heavy heart but a seriousness which comes into being when we are in a state of relationship, communion.
I think learning can exist only in that state of communion between the teacher and the student, as between you and me - not that I am your teacher. You know what the word ``communion'' means: to communicate, to be in touch, to transmit a certain feeling, to share it, not only at the verbal level but also at an intellectual level and also to feel much more deeply, subtly. I think the word ``communion'' means all that, and in that state, at all levels, in that atmosphere, in that sense of togetherness, is it not possible for both the teacher and the student to learn? I think that is the only state in which to learn, not when you sit on a pedestal and pour information down the throat of the student. Could we establish that communion, not only with the speaker but with trees, with nature, with the world, with the early morning when we get up, a sense of communion in which we learn?
This morning could we discuss something which I feel not only the professional teacher but the human being should consider, because what we are to discuss has a great deal of significance in life? The whole of civilization, not only in India but in the rest of the world, is geared to competition, to success, to achievement. The ambitious man seems to be the respected entity - the ambitious man, the aggressive man who wants to succeed, to intrigue, to pull strings and so get to the top of the heap. There is everlasting competition not only in the class room of a school but also in daily life, in the attitude of the clerk who feels he must become the manager and the manager the director and the director the board president and so on. This is the established pattern of existence in modern civilization. You see everywhere that man is after success and it is he who is respected, politically at least, and the same attitude exists in the school. You tell the student he is not as good, not as intelligent as another student. You coax the child, goad him, encourage him to compete, to succeed, to arrive at a certain intellectual level. You are worshippers of labels.
So you have an inborn attitude, which is essentially competitive and aggressive. This is so not only in economic and social life but also in religious life. There is this everlasting struggle to climb, to compete, to compare at all the levels of our being. Do you question this background of the superior and the inferior or do you accept it as inevitable and carry on? And will this bring about real learning? Is this natural to life? Natural not in the primitive sense of that word but is this a cultured life? Would you bring up your child this way? Do you think it is the right way of existence? I know it is the accepted pattern, but is it the true way? First of all, what does this competition, this comparison, do to the mind? Do you think you learn through competition? Let us examine this. You know that it is the established pattern at all levels of our being, at all stages of our existence, to compare, to have goals, to achieve. This is the whole structure of human existence.
When you see two pictures on the wall, your attitude is that if the name of the painter is well known, whatever he paints is excellent. But the man whose name is not known, his picture is inferior. This happens all the time. Is that right? Will that attitude bring comprehension, will that help us to learn? Not that I must not have the capacity to discriminate, but will comparison help the mind to understand, to learn? Is comparison a state of mind in which one learns?
How will you proceed to help the student if both you and the student have this attitude of competition, of comparison? Let us make this very simple. What does this competition do to the mind? What happens to the mind that is always comparing, achieving success, worshipping success?
Teacher: It is tiring itself.
Krishnamurti: You are still watching the effects, the results, but you are not watching the mind itself. You are not watching the nature of the mind itself which is doing this, the mind which is in movement, which is in a state of competition. Please look at the mind itself which is doing these things.
Teacher: If the mind is going to measure success by achievement, when it does not achieve, there is frustration.
Krishnamurti: You are still dealing with results. I want to tackle the mind. Perhaps analogies are tiring. The seed of an oak can never become the pine tree. You say: ``I do not know what seed I am but I want to become a pine, or an ash, or the oak''. We do not know the seed or the state of the mind itself, but concern ourselves with what it should be.
Let us experience the thing rather than verbalize it. We compete, worship success, because we feel that if we did not compete, we would stagnate. That is merely a speculative response, it is not an actual fact. You do not know what would happen. When you see what you are, whatever it is, then you begin to learn. Water is water in all circumstances whether it is in the river or in a single drink. At present we have no foundation from which to learn. What we are doing is merely adding. The additive process is what we call learning. It is no learning.
It is only the mind that is in a state in which it is not comparing, when it has understood the absurdity of comparing, that it can establish a foundation from which it can start to learn in the true sense of the word.
If there is such a foundation in which there is no wandering, no longing, it is a solid foundation and on that you can build. The building is the structure of learning and from that learning there is action and never conformity, and therefore never a sense of fear, never a sense of frustration.
Can you help the student to learn in that manner? For the student to learn, you must differentiate totally between the process of addition and learning. Then, you are creating a real human being, not a machine. If you do not see that, how are you going to help the student? Can you wipe away all competition with one sweep, which means can you wipe away the so-called structure of a society?
You are teachers; a new generation is coming into your hands. Do you want them to continue in the same way? If you feel that this society in which we have grown up is a rotten thing, how will you help the student to create a new quality of mind in which the monster of competition has no part? What are the steps you will take, day after day, to see that the child is not drowned, swallowed up by society? What will you do, step by step, to help him?
Teacher: The child should not be brought up with luxuries.
Krishnamurti: What is wrong with luxuries? He may wear clean clothes, he may sit in a chair, have good food. To me it is luxury, to you it is not. What has luxury to do with this? You are laying down the law, the ideal of ``luxury''.
Talk to the child not once a week, talk to him about it all the time, because he is being conditioned to compete. How will you help him not to be caught in the vicious circle of competition?
Teacher: By making him see that he should not be afraid and that as an individual he is unique and has a contribution to make.
Krishnamurti: If an individual realizes he is unique, so unique that there is no other like him, is he unique factually? He comes with all the prejudices of his parents. Where is the uniqueness in that poor child? You have to strip him of all his conditioning and can you strip him of it? Is it not your function as a teacher to do that? It is your responsibility. You have to see it, to see that it is true; and you have to feel it so that you will transmit it. But the boy may not feel it is so urgent. How will you commune with the child so that he learns? How will you teach him or help him to learn without the spirit of competition?
Teacher: I am not able to feel for the child unless the feeling is inside me, and when it is not there I feel I have already destroyed the child.
Krishnamurti: I will tell you. Every case has its own lesson. You do not feel it because you yourself are competing. Are you not competing for money, position prestige? As long as you do not feel strongly about this, what will you do? You cannot wait till you completely understand. So what will you do? Do not give the student marks but keep a record for yourself to see how he is behaving, how he is learning and the stage of his knowledge and so on, but do not goad him and help him to compete.
Let us go over what we have discussed. Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased. The competitive spirit is merely an additive process which is not learning at all. We want the child to learn and not merely add knowledge to himself like a machine. To help the child to learn basically and fundamentally he must cease to compete, with all its implications. Now, one of the ways to do this is to I see the truth of not comparing. Now, how will you help the child not to be competitive?
Teacher: As I teach mathematics I think of the ways I can present the subject matter so that it will be interesting. So many things operate in relationship when a thing like this is presented, and how do we communicate them? It is a very vast thing, so we can only say it in parts.
Krishnamurti: You are not meeting the point. When I say: ``What will you do?'' I mean not only in terms of action but also in terms of feeling. They are not two different things, the feeling and the action. I see very clearly that competitiveness is destructive not only in the classroom but right through life. Here is a young child; I want to help him to understand. How am I to proceed? I can talk to him and say, ``Look at what is happening in life. There is misery, conflict''. Talk to him so that you do not create condemnation, you do not create reaction. Look at the picture. See it very clearly as you would see London or Bombay on the map. Help the student to see very clearly, that is the first job. Convey to him the urgency of the feeling. Do not try to convince him, influence him, do not talk to him in terms of condemnation, in terms of agreement, persuasion. Show him the fact. Establish the fact. Then you are dealing with him entirely factually, scientifically, not romantically, sentimentally or emotionally. You have established between him and you right relationship. You are dealing with facts and you have established a relationship between you of mutual understanding of the fact, the corruptive fact of competition. Then he and you sit down and say ``What are we going to do actually, in action?''
Translation of the feeling of communion depends entirely on the intensity of this feeling. Now, you have established the feeling, the truth, the fact, that competition is deadly, but you have not communicated this fact to the child. That is the first thing to do.
Krishnamurti: How would you, as an educator, tackle the problem of the eradication of fear in the student? Can you set about it as you would set about teaching mathematics? First, you must understand fear for yourself before you can help another. You have to understand the implication of fear, how fear comes about. Just as you know Hindi or some other subject, you have to know something of fear. Society is doing everything to inculcate fear by laying down standards, religious ideals, class distinctions, ideas of success, the sense of the inferior and the superior, the rich man and the poor man. Society is doing everything possible to breed distorted values.
The question is not only for the teacher to go deeply into fear but also to see that fear is not transmitted and for the student to be able to recognize the causes that breed fear. As teachers, would this not be a problem to you? We have very little love in our lives, not only to receive but to give; love not in any mystical sense but the actual feeling of love, pity, compassion, generosity, an action which does not emanate from a centre. And as you have very little love, what would you do with the student, how would you help him to have this flame?
Does religion mean anything to you? Not ceremonies, but the religious feeling, the religious benediction, the sacredness of something? Religion, fear, love - are they not very interrelated? You cannot understand the one without the other. There is fear, there is this appalling dearth of love - I mean the passion of it, the intensity of it - and then there is this feeling of benediction which is not mere recompense, which is not a reward for righteous action, which has nothing to do with religious organizations.
Do you walk in the evening and have you noticed those villagers crossing the fields? How beautiful it all is? And the villager is totally unconscious of the beauty of the land, of the hills, of the water. For the villager returning to his unhealthy home there is nothing. There is fear, there is the immense problem of love and the feeling of sympathy when you see the poor villager go by. Don't you feel a tremendous surging in yourself, a despair at the colossal misery of it all? What can one do? There is the ability to receive and to give, to feel, and to have generosity, kindness, humility. What does it mean to you? How do you awaken this thing in yourself or awaken it in another? Can there be an approach that is not an isolated critical comprehension but an understanding that is total - of fear, love, the religious feeling?
Now how am I to approach the problem? Am I to take each problem one by one, to take fear, look at it, and then study love? How am I to capture the whole thing? If you have the feeling of a sound, you have the feeling of a song and if you have a feeling for the silence between sounds you have the delight of the movement of a song. Song is not just the word, just the sound, it is the peculiar combination of the sound, the silence and the continuation of the sound. To understand music surely there must be comprehension of the whole thing. And in the same way, is fear an isolated problem which has to be comprehended by itself and love by itself and the religious feeling by itself, or is there an approach to the whole, a total thing?
Have you ever watched a rain drop? The rain drop contains the whole of the rain, the whole of the river, the whole of the ocean. That drop makes the river, makes the ravines, excavates the Grand Canyon, becomes a vibrant thundering waterfall. In the same way can my mind look at fear, love, religion, god, as a movement, rather than as an isolated introspection, an analytical examination, a dissection?
Teacher: What is the relationship between fear and love?
Krishnamurti: If I am afraid, how can I have sympathy for anybody? An ambitious man does not know about the earth and the brotherhood of man. An ambitious man knows no love. Can a man who is afraid of death, of what his neighbours might say, of his wife, security, job, have sympathy? The one excludes the other.
Teacher: We operate only in parts, we try through parts to apprehend the whole.
Krishnamurti: What will transform fear?
Krishnamurti: What brings the transformation and who is to transform? I have observed my mind which says, ``I am afraid'' and I want to get at what my mind is trying to do. What is effort and who is the maker of effort? Unless one goes into it very deeply, the mere saying ``I must get rid of fear'' has very little meaning.
There is fear, there is love, and this feeling of immensity. I can analyse fear step by step. I can go into the causes of fear, the effects of fear, I can go into why I am afraid, and who is the maker of effort and whether the maker of effort is different from the thing which is making effort. And I can enquire into whether there is a mind which can observe effort, the maker of effort and the thing upon which he is making an effort, not only objectively but inwardly. At the end of it all, there is still lurking fear. I can go very analytically into this question of religion, dogma, belief, superstition but at the end of this analyzing still where I am. I have learned the techniques of analysis and at the end of it, my mind is so sharp that it can follow every movement of fear. But fear still lurks.
Now what is the nature of the mind that takes in the whole, digests it at one sweep and throws out what is not worthwhile?
There must be an approach which will give one a total comprehension, a total feeling with which one can approach each problem. Can I capture the whole meaning of something, of love, fear, religion, that extraordinary feeling of immensity, of beauty and then approach each problem individually? You have seen trees. Do you take in the whole tree or do you merely look at the branch and the leaves and the flower? Do you see the whole tree inside you? After all, a tree is the root, the branch the flower, the fruit, the sap, the whole of the tree. Can you grasp the feeling, the significance, the beauty of the whole tree and then look at the branch? Such an observation will have tremendous significance.
When you look at a tree next time, see the shape of it, the symmetry of it, the depth, the feeling, the beauty, the quality of the whole thing. I am talking of the feeling of the whole. In the same way you have a body: you have feelings, emotions; there is the mind, there are memories - the conscious and unconscious traditions, the centuries of accumulated impressions, the family name - can you feel the whole of that? If you do not feel the whole of that but merely dissect your emotions, it is immature. Can you feel within yourself this whole thing and with that feeling of the whole being, attack fear?
Fear is an immense problem. Can you approach it with an immensity to meet an immensity?
Teacher: It is not always possible, sir, we often get lost in our immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: But once you have the feeling of this immensity, life has a different colouration, it has a different quality.
Teacher: You are only conscious of this immensity at times.
Krishnamurti: I do not think you have ever thought of it, have you?
Teacher: Yes, I have, once in a way, by detaching myself from the immediate problem and looking at it.
Krishnamurti: I do not mean that. I mean to have the feeling of all time, not today, tomorrow, the day after day, but the feeling of all time. To think in terms of man, the world, the universe is an extraordinary feeling. And with that feeling can one approach the particular problem? Otherwise we are going to land in an intellectual or emotional chaos.
What is the difficulty in this? Is it the incapacity, the narrowness of the mind, the immediate occupation, the immediate concern for the child, the husband, the wife which so takes up your time that you have no time to think of it? Take the word, ``immediate''. There is no immediate, it is an endless thing. You make it into an immediate problem; that problem is the result of a thousand yesterdays and a thousand tomorrow's. There is no immediacy. There is fear, love and man's urge for the immense. Can you capture some of the quality of the feeling and say, ``Let me look at fear''?
What significance has fear, and how will you proceed to help the student? You should prepare the student for the whole of life, and life is an extraordinarily vast thing. And when you use the word ``life'' it is all the oceans and the mountains and the trees and all of human aspirations, human miseries, despairs, struggles, the immensity of it all. Can you help the student to apprehend that immensity of life? Must you not help the student to have this feeling?
Do any of you meditate? Not only to sit still, not only to examine the ways of the mind but also to invite the conscious and the unconscious and to push further into silence and see what happens further and further. If you do not do this, are you not missing a lot in life?
Meditation is a form of self-recollected awareness, a form of discovery, a form of cutting loose from tradition, from ideas, conclusions, a sense of being completely alone, which is death. With that sense of the total, can you meet the immediate?
Let us become a little more practical. How do we set about to help the student actually to be free from fear?
Teacher: I would see that my relationship with the student is friendly. It would be stupid to discuss fear if I were not friendly with him. I would create situations, both practical and intellectual, where he would understand what fear actually means, intellectually explain the causes and effects of fear because the mind needs to be sharpened, and I would see if I could make him experience this wholeness of outlook and feeling.
Krishnamurti: Be factual. In the class, how will you teach? How will you help the student to understand? There is a gap between the child and the total feeling, how would you lead up to that?
Teacher: It should be possible to awaken in him a curiosity which is of a subtle type. The next thing I would like to do with him is to get him to appreciate quality in work, in playing a game, in mathematics or other subjects. I would find out what his interests were, how he reacted, and if I were able to progress further, I would see whether something more happened between me and the student.
Krishnamurti: You have done the obvious things which are necessary. You would talk to him, you would show him how fear comes into being and all that. What next? Factually how will you help the student to be free from fear? I think that is the real issue. When there is an opportunity, would you be in a meditative, reflective self-recollected state which might help the student to see clearly what fear is? You see that is the necessary thing, but you leave that thing hanging.
What would you actually do? What would you do factually?
Teacher: Meditation would help the mind to deal with the situation.
Krishnamurti: I may have a feeling for all this. Now how am I to translate it into action? What am I to do with those dozen children?
Teacher: The feeling will translate itself. It is a link of love with the children which will help.
Krishnamurti: First have affection, then use every occasion to help the student to be free from fear, explain to him the causes of fear and use every incident to show how he is afraid, In the class, in the very teaching of history, mathematics, talk to him about it. But what next? Proceed.
Teacher: In doing all this I am also watchful to see that what I am doing to him is not also being undone.
Krishnamurti: What is the total effect on the child of what you have said, the fact of your affection, your explanations? Is it not making him turn inward, and what does that do?
Teacher: It helps him face some immediate problems.
Krishnamurti: You have helped the student to look at himself, you have helped him to be aware of this fear and to turn inward in the sense that he feels more conscious of the fear. You have to balance it by something else.
Teacher: Do you mean, sir, that this process of internal introspection is likely to lead to some complications in the child?
Krishnamurti: It is bound to lead to a kind of self-conscious feeling. ``Am I doing the right thing or the wrong thing?'' There would be nervousness or self importance, or the showing off in ``How fearless I am!'' How will you balance that? Think it out, use your mind very carefully. At this stage I think the problem again requires a different kind of approach. Otherwise you will be helping the child by concentrated attention to become self-conscious, self-assertive, arrogant, and with an authoritarian outlook.
Teacher: There should be an opportunity for the child to be sensitive to other things which are not within.
Krishnamurti: It appears to me, you will unconsciously strengthen egotism, a sense of self-importance, a sense of being offensive, aggressive, rude.
You have so far dealt with the movement of the mind. The tide is moving in, the tide also moves out. If it remains inward it is like the backwaters of a bay, but if the tide has a movement inward, then it has to have an outward movement. You have dealt so far only with an inward movement. How will you help the student to move out?
Teacher: When you spoke of the outward movement, I felt I was not looking from the point of the whole but from the development of the partial movement.
Krishnamurti: If I had not kept on pushing and therefore made you realize it was only a partial answer, you would not have moved. You only talk of the inner movement but it is a movement of the tide both inward and outward. It is a movement you have created in one direction and you do not know how to treat the inner and the outer as one movement.
Teacher: Is it not possible right from the beginning to move both inward and outward?
Krishnamurti: What is the outward movement that is going to give the balance?
Teacher: Not only the balance, but a sense of humility that comes now and then.
Krishnamurti: There are hills, trees, the river, the sands. That is the outward movement. The perception, the seeing, that is the outward movement. Nature has provided you with the beauty of all this, the rivers, trees, the arid land. So there has to be movement both outward and inward, the everlasting movement.
Teacher: We realize that we cannot see a fact unless the mind is empty of thought. But even if it is empty for a while, thought seems to arise again. How do we end thought? Can we discuss this?
Krishnamurti: I wonder if all of us understand the importance of the role of thinking? Is thought important, and at what level is it important? What is thinking? What makes us think? Where is thought important and where is it not important, and how do you answer that question? And what is the machinery that is set going when a question is asked?
Is thinking merely the habitual response to a habitual pattern? You live here in this school in a certain groove, with certain patterns of thoughts, habits, feelings. You live, you function in those habits, patterns and systems, and the functioning of the brain, thought is very limited. And when you go out of the valley you live in a little wider field. You have certain grooves of action and you follow them. It is all a mechanical process really, but in that pattern of mechanical activity there are certain variations. You modify, change, but always in that pattern, wherever you are, whatever position you may have - minister, governor or doctor, or professor - it is always a groove with varying changes and modifications. You function in patterns. I am not saying it is right or wrong, I am just examining it. You have beliefs but they are in the background and you go on with your daily activities, with your envy, greed, jealousy. Whenever your beliefs are questioned you get irritated but you go on. Children are being educated to think, to form grooves of habits and to function in those habits for the rest of their lives. They are going to get jobs, they are going to be engineers, doctors, and for the rest of their lives, the pattern will be set. Any deviation from that is what is disturbing. That disturbance is lessened through marriage, responsibility, children; and so gradually the mould is set. And all thinking is between what is convenient, what is not convenient, what is beneficial, what is worthwhile - it is always within that field.
Teacher: That is not thinking, sir, it is a repetition.
Krishnamurti: But that is how we live, that is our life. That is all we want. Everything is repetition and the mind gets duller and more stupid. Is that not a fact, sir? We do not want to be disturbed, we do not want to shatter the pattern.
What makes us shatter the pattern or break through the pattern? And is it possible not to fall into a groove? But why should I end the making of patterns? I begin to think about ending them when the pattern does not satisfy me, when the pattern is no longer useful to me or when there are in the pattern certain incidents like death, the husband leaving the wife, or losing a job. In the breaking of that particular pattern there is a disturbance called sorrow and I move away from that into another pattern. I move from pattern to pattern, from one framework into which circumstances, environment, family, education have put me, to another. The disturbance makes me question a little, but I immediately fall into another groove and there I settle. That is what most people want, what their parents want, what society wants. Where does this idea of ending thought come in?
Teacher: Sir, there are times when one is discontented with the whole pattern and everything in it.
Krishnamurti: What makes us see the futility of this pattern? When do I see it and what makes me see it? A pattern is set if there is a motive. If I break from this pattern with a motive, the motive will mould the new pattern.
Now, what makes me change, what makes me do something without a motive?
Teacher: It is very difficult to be free from motive.
Krishnamurti: Who tells you to be free? If it is difficult, why bother about breaking the pattern? Be satisfied with a motive and continue with it, why bother if it is difficult?
Teacher: It leads me nowhere, sir.
Krishnamurti: But if it led anywhere, would you pursue it?
Teacher: Which means there is a motive again.
Krishnamurti: What makes you break through and give up the motive? What do you mean by motive? You teach here because you get some money, that is a motive. You like somebody because he can give you a position or you love god because you hate life. Your life is miserable, and love of god is the escape from that. These are all motives.
Now, what makes a mind, a human being, live without a motive? If you can pursue that and go into it, I am sure you will find the answer to your question.
Teacher: The question, ``Do I know my motives?'' seems to come before the question ``Do I do something without a motive?''
Krishnamurti: Do we know our motives? Why do I teach, why do I hold on to a husband, wife? Do I know my motives, and how do I find out? And if I do find out, what is wrong with having motives. I love somebody because I like to be with that somebody physically, sexually, as a companion, what is wrong with that?
Teacher: When I teach because I must have money, motive is not a hindrance. I must have money, so I must take to some profession, and I take to teaching.
Krishnamurti: First of all, do we know our motives, not only the conscious but the unconscious motives, the hidden motives? Do we do anything in our lives without a motive? To do something without a motive is love of what one is doing, and in that process thinking is not mechanical; then the brain is in a state of constant learning, not opinionated, not moving from knowledge to knowledge. It is a mind that moves from fact to fact. Therefore, such a mind is capable of ending and coming to something it does not know, which is freedom from the known.
You asked at the beginning: ``How do we end thought?''
I said: ``What for?'' We do not even know what thinking is, we do not know how to think. We think in terms of patterns. So, unless we have investigated or understood all that, we cannot possibly ask that question: ``How do we end thought?''
Teacher: How can we enquire into thinking and how to think?
Krishnamurti: Not only enquire into how to think but also into what is thinking. Can I, as a human being, as an individual, find out what is the way of my thinking? Is it mechanical, is it free? Do I know it as it is operating in me?
To end thought I have first to go into the mechanism of thinking. I have to understand thought completely, deep down in me. I have to examine every thought, without letting one thought escape without being fully understood, so that the brain, the mind, the whole being becomes very attentive. The moment I pursue every thought to the root, to the end completely, I will see that thought ends by itself. I do not have to do anything about it because thought is memory. Memory is the mark of experience and as long as experience is not fully, completely, totally understood, it leaves a mark. The moment I have experienced completely, the experience leaves no mark. So, if we go into every thought and see where the mark is and remain with that mark, as a fact - then that fact will open and that fact will end that particular process of thinking, so that every thought, every feeling is understood. So the brain and the mind are being freed from a mass of memories. That requires tremendous attention, not attention only to the trees and birds but inward attention to see that every thought is understood.
Teacher: That seems to be a vicious circle. The mind is involved in getting rid of a pattern of thinking and in order to understand the process of thinking it needs a certain sensitivity which the mind does not have.
Krishnamurti: Take a thought, any kind of thought. Go into it. See why you have such a thought, what is involved in it, understand it, do not leave it till you have completely unearthed all the roots of it.
Teacher: That can only be done if the instrument which is doing it, is sensitive.
Krishnamurti: As you go into one particular thought you are beginning to understand the instrument which is examining that thought. Then what is important is not the thought but the observer who is examining the thought. And the observer is the thought which says: ``I do not like that thought, I like this thought.'' So you attack the core of thought and not just the symptoms. And as you are a teacher, how will you create this or bring about this attentive observation, this examination without any judgement, in a student?
If I may ask: How do you teach? What is the environment, the condition, the atmosphere, in which teaching and learning are possible? You teach, say, history, and the student learns. What is the atmosphere, the environment, the quality in the room in which teaching and learning are taking place?
Teacher: There is a special atmosphere when the teacher and the student are both attending.
Krishnamurti: I do not want to use the word ``attention''. If you learn anything from the teacher, what is the nature of that communication, of receiving and learning? For a flower to grow it must have rain, do you understand?
Teacher: Could we approach it negatively.
Krishnamurti: In any way you like. I am asking you to teach science. What is the atmosphere in the room where you teach science? Where the teacher and the student are learning, teaching? What is the quality necessary, what is the atmosphere, the smell, the perfume?
Teacher: A quiet and calm environment.
Krishnamurti: You are idealistic and I am not. I have not one ideal inside me, I just want to know the fact. You are moving away from the fact, that is what I object to. When you teach and they learn, in the class room, what is the atmosphere? The atmosphere is the fact.
Teacher: Friendliness between the teacher and the student.
Krishnamurti: You are not facing the fact. You teach and you also know and when the student is to learn, there must be a certain quality, and I am asking what is that quality? Have you actually experienced the quality where this communication is mutual, where the learning is the teaching?
Teacher: In the beginning I thought that when I teach, I am handing over some facts to the students, but now I understand that when I am teaching there is also a learning. This happens at rare moments when there is exploration, when both the teacher and the student are exploring together.
Krishnamurti: What is the state when that exploration together takes place? What is the atmosphere, the relationship? What is the word you would use to express that state in which communication is possible?
Krishnamurti: What do you teach?
Krishnamurti: The children are anxious to know and you are anxious to teach. Now, what atmosphere does it create? What takes place?
Teacher: The children listen to me.
Krishnamurti: You say children listen to you. You want to tell them something. What has happened, I wish you would examine this.
Teacher: There is a state of alertness.
Krishnamurti: I want to go a little bit more into the matter. The moment you say it is alertness you have already put it in a framework. I am trying to prevent you and myself from defining it.
Teacher: When the object is there, the object of learning and teaching, both operate; from this there is a fluidity, a movement; and temporarily, this state is slightly different from the other states I know.
Krishnamurti: There is attention when the teacher and the taught, both have a drive to learn and to teach. You have to create a feeling, an atmosphere, in the room. Just now we have created an atmosphere - because I want to find out and you want to find out. Is it possible to maintain this atmosphere, in which alone teaching and learning are possible?
We started by asking how to communicate this sense of enquiry into thinking, into motive, to the student. I asked you, how do you teach, that is, how do you convey anything? And I asked what takes place when you actually teach. What is the atmosphere when you are teaching? Is it a slack atmosphere or a tense atmosphere? Now, if you have not examined your thinking, the mechanism of thinking, to convey the sense of enquiry to the student is impossible. But if you have done it in yourself, you are bound to create the atmosphere. And I feel that atmosphere, that attention, is the essential quality of teaching and learning.
Teacher: You have said that definition of a fact is something quite different from the experiencing of that fact. Now in all this there seems to be a gap between the definition and the actual doing of something. You also asked: Have you ever done something for its own sake because you love it? How does one, without examining one's motives, without all these ramifications, get to the heart of something?
Krishnamurti: That is just what I was trying to get at. To see something totally is the ending of time or the comprehending of it. Can one see if there is a motive in teaching and learning at any level? Life is a constant process of teaching and learning: To teach and to learn is not possible if there is a motive, and when we have a motive the state of teaching and learning is not possible. Now, watch this carefully: In the very nature of teaching and learning there is humility. You are the teacher and you are the taught. So there is no pupil and no teacher, no guru and no sishya, there is only teaching and learning, which is going on in me. I am learning and I am also teaching myself; the whole process is one. That is important. That gives vitality, a sense of depth, and that is prevented if I have a motive. As teaching-learning is important, everything else becomes secondary and therefore, motive disappears. What is important drives away the unimportant. Therefore it is finished: I do not have to examine my motives day after day.
Teacher: It is not very clear to me, sir.
Krishnamurti: First of all, life is a process of learning. It is not saying ``I have learned'' and a settling back. Life is a process of learning and I cannot learn if there is a motive. If that is very clear, that life is a process of learning, then motive has no place. Motive has a place when you are using learning to get something. So the essential fact drives away all the unessential trivialities, in which motive is included.
Teacher: Should there be a concern for the essential, as a fact?
Krishnamurti: But the fact is the essential. Life is the essential. Life is ``what is''. Otherwise it is not life. If motive is not, ``what is'' is. If you understand the fact of sorrow, the ``other'' comes into being. You cannot come to the ``other'' without understanding motive, the unessential.
Teacher: So there cannot be concern for the essential.
Krishnamurti: Understand the fact, which is important, and go into it. If you are ambitious, be completely ambitious. Let there be no double thinking. Be either ambitious or see the fact of ambition. Both are facts, and when you examine one fact, go into it completely. If you go into the fact completely, the fact will begin to show what is involved in ambition. The fact of ambition will begin to unravel itself and then there is no ambition.
Most religious people have invented theories about facts. But they do not understand ``the fact''. Having established a theory they hope it will ward off the actual fact; it cannot. So do not try to establish any essential fact. See how you slip into wrong action. There is no essential fact, there is only fact - you see the point? And one fact does not conform to another fact. The moment it is conforming, it is not a fact. If you look at the fact with a referent, with what you can get out of that fact, then you will never see the fact. To look at the fact is the only thing that matters. There is no fact that is superior or inferior, there is only fact. That is the ruthless thing. If I am a lawyer, I am a lawyer. I do not find excuses for it. Seeing that fact, going into it, seeing the motives, the fact and its complexities are revealed, and then you are out of it. But if you say, ``I must always the truth'', that is an ideal. That is a false assumption. So do not move from what you consider the unimportant fact to what you consider the more important fact. There is only fact, not the less or the more. It really does something to you to look at life that way. You banish all illusion, all dissipation of energy of the mind, the brain, at one stroke. The mind then operates in precision without any deception, without hatred, without hypocrisy. The mind then becomes very clear, sharp. That is the way to live.
Krishnamurti: I think that most of us have a fairly comprehensive view of what is happening in the world. Looking at the historical process, the appalling travesty of peace, one must have ask oneself what life is all about. There is the enslaving of whole masses of people; there is corruption and talk of democracy; religions have failed, only superstitions remain. There is the dead weight of tradition, the innumerable gurus, soothsayers, monks, astrologers. There is poverty, degradation, the squalor of existence. And there is also a sense of deep despair. So, seeing this immense suffering, what is our answer to it all? There are people who say that what is needed is not a new system or a new philosophy, but rather a new type of leadership, a new type of man who has immense authority not only in the state but in his own idealistic strength. But do we want new leaders? What we need is freedom from leaders.
When we see this vast confusion, economic strangulation and imbalance, and come to Rishi Valley, what is it that a school of this kind can do, and should do? Can we discuss this? Not as an ideal, for ideals of any kind are very detrimental. Ideals prevent us from looking at facts, and it is only a concern with facts and the understanding of facts which releases an energy that is the movement in the right direction. Ideals merely engender various forms of escape. Let us consider all this and see what we can do here in this school.
This is not going from the vast to the ridiculous, for this school is a miniature of what is taking place in the world and, seeing the destructive chaos, misery, suffering, I feel there is only one answer and that is the creation of a new mind. What is essential is a different mind that will look at all problems and find a solution and not create new problems. I think the right kind of education does bring about the good mind, the total development of man, and it seems to me that is the major issue not only in this valley but also in the rest of the world.
How can one bring about a good mind, a mind that sees all these co-relations, not only at the superficial level but a mind that can penetrate inwardly? It seems to me that the problem of education is to see whether it is possible to cultivate an intelligence which is not the result of influence, an intelligence which is not the learning of certain techniques and the earning of a livelihood. They are part of education but surely they are not the only function of education? Now how do you educate a child so that he is able to face life and not merely conform to the established patterns of society, to certain modes of conduct? So that he can go much further, deeper into the whole problem of existence?
I do not know if you have ever considered what a good mind is. Is it a good mind that has the capacity to retain what it reads, and functions from memory? The electronic brain is doing this marvellously. It calculates at astonishing speed some of the most complicated mathematical problems. It functions, I have been told, in the same way as the human brain, doing the desired calculations.
Is a good mind one that repeats, like a gramophone, what it has been told? That is our education, isn't it? The learning of facts, dates, to repeat them once a year when a boy takes his examination. Can this be called cultivating a good mind? And yet is this not what most of us are doing when we are teaching? So the mere addition to knowledge, which is really the cultivation of memory, is just an additive process. it does not engender a clear, good mind, does it? Negatively, one can see that the mere cultivation of memory does not bring about a good mind although most of our existence is based on this. And yet, one must have memory, one must have a very good memory to remember certain things, to be a good technician. So, at what point does memory interfere with a good mind capable of explanation, investigation and discovery? At what point does memory interfere with real freedom?
I do not know if you have ever considered the man who invented the jet aeroplane. He had first to understand the whole problem of the piston-propeller engine. He had to know it, but after knowing it, he had to put it away in order to discover something new. The specialists, until they really discover something new, merely continue a better and more complicated technique, but if a man is to invent something new he has to let go of the old.
Teacher: Sir, you have said that perception of a fact leads to knowledge in the right direction, whereas ideals lead to escapes. Can you make the statement clearer?
Krishnamurti: How do ideals come into being, and what is the need for ideals? The ideal of what should be, which is away from the fact, limits the mind and makes it static. If a child merely conforms to certain ideals, to the words of certain teachers, to the words of his father, grandfather, uncle and so on, that restrains energy and limits knowledge, does it not? All conformity limits knowledge. If I am an art teacher and I teach children to copy, which is imitation, it does not really help creative perception or expression, does it? Now let us see what happens when there is perception of the fact. I perceive that I am stupid. There is perception, realization, awareness of the fact that I am stupid. That is, I do not give explanations or offer an opinion about my stupidity and thereby escape through explanation. The observation of a fact without justification or condemnation releases tremendous energy. Now is there a release of energy through conformity, through motive, through mere acceptance? And can one function in the framework of that acceptance?
Teacher: Physically, there is.
Krishnamurti: Is physical energy released by conforming? What is the motive behind this extraordinary urge in most of us to conform to a pattern? What is the compulsive urge behind this? Obviously it is the desire to be secure, is it not? Security in your relationship with your wife, with your husband, in the good opinion of the public or a friend. All this indicates the desire not only for economic security but inward mental security or certainty, does it not?
Teacher: The demand for security is the desire to have peace of mind.
Krishnamurti: I need a certain amount of security. I must have a job. If I am uncertain of my next meal I would not be sitting here talking. Does the desire for peace mean that we should have a mind that will never be disturbed? And why should we not be disturbed? What is wrong if we are disturbed? Much of the world is disturbed. Why should we not be disturbed? And, is not the mind which says, ``I must not be disturbed'', really a dead mind? There can be no state of mind which says, ``l am perfectly safe,'' there can be no mind which is so certain that it will never be disturbed. I think that is the kind of mind most of us want and that is why we conform endlessly. If you had a son, you would want him to conform to the pattern of society because you do not want him to be a revolutionary. So, I am asking what is behind this demand for security, certainty, this hope in which despair is included?
We will come back to it in different way. I am just asking myself, why this urge? Is it fear? I am afraid of not being able to take care of my family and therefore I hold on to my job. I am afraid my wife may not care for me, or my husband may not care for me. I possess property. I am afraid that property may be taken away from me. Behind that threat there is a sense of fear, a desire to be secure.
Teacher: We can only be secure when there is no fear.
Krishnamurti: Wait a minute. Is that possible? You know what fear is. If most of us were free from all fear, you know what would happen? We would do exactly what we want to do. Fear restrains us, is that not so? But we are asking if a mind that is afraid, anxious, is it ever secure? I may have a good job, I may love my wife or husband, but am I secure when this fear is going on in me? To have no fear, which is an extraordinary state, is to be free of the problem of security. Is it possible for this mind to understand fear and be free from fear? Whatever such a mind does, being free, is right action.
How will you educate a group of children to be fearless? Which does not mean that they can do what they like - but to be free from the sense of all apprehension, anxiety? Will this not release an enormous amount of energy?
How do you set about educating the child? You are afraid and you see that fear is most disturbing. It is the worst form of destruction. How do I educate a boy to be without fear? What is it a teacher can do to translate this into action? Is it to allow the child to think freely? You see the importance of being without fear, because it is death to live in a state of fear. Whether it is conscious or unconscious fear, it troubles your mind. How will you help a child not to be afraid and yet to live with others? He cannot do whatever he likes, he cannot say, ``I need not go to the class because I am fearless.'' Then what makes a child, a student, free? What gives him the deep impression that he is free, not to do what he likes, but free. If a child feels that you are really looking after him, that you care for him, that he is completely at home with you, completely secure with you, that he is not afraid of you, then he respects you and he listens to you because you are looking after him and he has complete confidence in you. He is then at peace with what you tell him. So open the door to him to be without fear. How else will you proceed? First of all you have to establish a relationship with the student, let him know that you really care for him, that he can really feel at home with you and therefore he can be completely at ease and feel secure. It is not a theory, it is not an idea. What will you do if your student fails in an examination? One boy may not be as quick as the other boy and yet he must learn. How will you encourage learning without fear? If you say one boy is better than another, it engenders fear. How will you avoid all this and yet help the child to learn? The child comes from a home where he has been brought up differently. His whole life is geared to achievement, success, and he comes here with all his background of fear and competition. How are you to help him?
Teacher: You can help him learn according to his individual capacity.
Krishnamurti: Let us go slowly. How is it to be done? This? school is in your hands. You have to create something out of it. Teaching is a creative thing, it is not merely something you can learn and repeat. How are you going to teach the children in your class for whom you have a feeling of love. Remember they are not interested in learning. They want to have a good time. They want to play cricket, watch birds, and occasionally look at a book. The fact is they want to do the easiest thing. If you leave it to them the more they are secure with you, the more they will exploit you. How will you help them to learn?
You have to find ways to teach them and that is going to release your energy to devise mean of making subjects interesting for the child.
Before you proceed with a child, what is the state of your mind which wants to help the child to learn subjects in which he is not interested?
Teacher: It is the urge to share your learning with the child.
Krishnamurti: I want these children to learn because learning is part of existence and the child can only learn if there is no fear. I must teach the child so that he learns without fear, which means I have to explode with this feeling of wanting to share with that boy. Do you know the state of mind that wants to share with another? That itself seems to be the right feeling. Do you know what that implies? The fact is I know more, the child knows less, and I have a feeling that he must learn, that he must be capable of sharing. We both are learning, which means we are going through an experience together. The child and I are then already in a state of communication. Once I have established the right relationship or communication between myself and the child, he is going to learn because he has confidence in me.
Teacher: The teacher may be very fond of the child, but still the child is not willing to learn, the child is not interested.
Krishnamurti: I question it. When the child has confidence in you, do you think he will not learn any subject you want him to? What we are trying to do is to establish relationship. If that is possible, then will I not convey to the child the importance of learning a subject?
This morning when we began to talk there was no communication between the speaker and the audience. Now we have established some kind of communication and we are trying to work the thing out together. Can we not do the same thing with children? `On the Negative Approach'
Krishnamurti: What do you think is right education, not for any particular group of children, the children of the rich or the poor, the children of the village or of the town, but children? How would you bring up a child knowing that walls of destructive nationalism divide people?
Machines are taking over man's labour and man is going to have more leisure. There will be electronic brains, machines which will run by themselves. Man is going to have a great deal of leisure, perhaps not immediately, but in fifty or a hundred years time. Taking into account the advance of technology, growing systematization, the acceptance of authority and tyranny in the world, what do you consider is the direction of education? What would you consider is the direction of the whole development of man? What is it you want the student to discover for himself?
Are these vain questions? If you consider them seriously what would be your reaction? Machines are going to take over. The perfect teacher, who is really excellent in his subject, can teach a class and his instructions can be recorded through tapes and distributed throughout the world and the ordinary teacher can utilize them and instruct the student. So, the responsibility for good teaching may be taken out of individual hands, though you may need a teacher. You may say that what happens in fifty years is not your immediate problem. But a really good educator must be concerned not only with the immediate but be prepared for the future - future not in the sense of the day after, or a thousand days after tomorrow, but the tendency of this extraordinary development of the mind. I suppose you exist from day to day. The immediate is brutal, tiring and you say: ``Why should I bother with what is going to happen?'' But if you have a child if you are a teacher with students, unless you have a total comprehension of all this, you cannot see and understand the meaning of education. What will happen after you educate all these girls and boys? The girls are going to get married and disappear into the vast world. They will be sucked into society. What is the point of educating them? And the boys will get jobs. Why should you educate them to fit into this rotten society? To teach them how to behave, how to be gentle and kind, is that the end of education? Take the total picture of what is happening in the world, not only in India. Seeing this whole picture, comprehending it, what is it you are trying to do?
Unless you have a total response to this whole issue the mere tinkering with it to improve teaching methods has very little meaning. The world is on fire, and being an educated man you must have the right answer to this; being a human being you must have an answer to this, and if you have an answer, a feeling of this totality of evil, then, when you teach mathematics, dancing, singing, it has a significance.
Teacher: Sir, if I do not have this whole feeling towards something, do you think it is likely to come into being when I do something and do it well?
Krishnamurti: I want you to be factual.
Teacher: By being punctual, learning the technique, studying before I teach and doing the thing perfectly, would that help to bring about the quality of total feeling?
Krishnamurti: Would it? It is essential that I be punctual, that I study my subject before I teach - that is understood. And you are asking if that will lead to the total feeling of all this?
Teacher: I feel there is a likelihood - it is not a certainty - when I study something with attention.
Krishnamurti: You have moved away from doing something, from being punctual and all the rest of it, to ``attention''. What do you mean by attention? I may give a certain meaning to attention and you may not. I will work on mathematics and I will be punctual. I will be very quiet and very tender and affectionate, encourage the student, discourage him from being competitive. Would you call that an attentive mind?
Teacher: I think so, sir. By helping the student not to compete, there is a quality of attention.
Krishnamurti: What does that mean? Not only are you attentive to your subject and to your relationship with the student but also attentive to nature, to world events and world tendencies, not only to the individual corruptions and individual aspirations but to the collective. But if you say you are attentive because you go to the class punctually, it has no meaning.
Can you put the question differently? Is it possible to have this total comprehension without fear? In discussing the possibility of such a comprehension, and discovering it, can we then turn to the everyday activities and not the other way round? Now how would you discuss it?
From what do we derive our energy? If we eat a certain amount of food we have a certain vitality but the vitality is not the thing that makes us live, function and be conscious. How do we derive energy, psychological energy, the driving energy? Most people get that energy by having an end in view, an ego, by maintaining a vision, an ideal, a thing that must be done, a result. That gives one an astonishing energy. Look at all the saints and politicians; the wish for success gives them enormous energy. The man who has an ideal in view and thinks that it must be established on earth, will walk the earth. He gets his psychological energy in spite of hi body because that is the thing he must do, because he thinks it is good for the people and from that he derives an abundant energy. And when he does not succeed he feels disappointed, depressed, unhappy, but he covers it up and goes on. Most people derive energy from wanting a result through the desire to achieve a position, to fulfil an ambition or an ideal. They get energy with its accompanying disappointments, frustrations, despair. In this is the destruction of energy.
If you are interested in god, you want to create the most beautiful god in the world and you drive yourself, you exhaust yourself, and when the drive becomes a futility, a despair, you become depressed. So you meet a living energy with a negative energy which is depression, sorrow; so there is a contradiction going on.
Teacher: Sir, is energy not destroyed when there is no interest in what one is doing? For example, when a gardener is interested in gardening, there is energy. Is this not real energy and the other one no energy at all?
Krishnamurti: The poor gardener is also depressed if he cannot get what he wants. You are connecting interest with energy and the lack of interest with lack of energy. There are very few of us who are really interested in what we are doing.
Most of us derive our energy from the desire for security, from ideals, from seeking a result, fulfilment of ambition and so on. For most of us that is energy. For the man who goes about doing good, his activity gives him enormous energy and when he does not succeed he is in despair, the two always go together. That energy always brings with it depression, frustration.
In realizing that this form of energy is very destructive, would you not enquire to discover an energy which is not accompanied by depression, by despair, by frustration? Is there such energy? One knows the ordinary energy with its entanglements and one sees that energy which is brought about by seeking a result; and if, seeing it, one pushes it aside, then would that in itself not bring about an enquiry as to whether there is any other form of energy which is not accompanied by despair? That is the problem. Look at that for a little while, consider it, and let us go back to the first question. Seeing this world in flames, the world in utter confusion, an every politician trying to patch it up and every patch having a hole in it - seeing this total state, we must have a total answer. And how do you, as an educator, respond to this? Do you respond with the energy which is destructive or with the energy which is not destructive?
Teacher: What is that energy which has no shadow of destruction in it?
Krishnamurti: Do not ask that question. Never put a positive question. Always put a negative question in order to find a positive answer which is not the response of the opposite.
Now, what is negative thinking? What is this energy which is not destructive? That is a positive question.
What is this total energy? Would it be right for us to describe this total energy which is not destructive, and can I describe it? If I were to describe it, would it not be merely verbal, theoretical to others?
Energy becomes a destructive thing the moment you want to achieve it. The desire to achieve it becomes the end for which you strive and if you do not achieve it, you are in despair. So your question was a wrong question and if one is not very careful, a wrong answer will ensue. So, what should the next question be: ``How will you help me to experience this total energy?'' If I were able to help you, you would be depending on the helper and the helper may be wrong. So how would you put the question?
Teacher: Is it possible in communication to experience this total energy in the present?
Krishnamurti: You can ask the same question in a different way. You are asking a positive question all the time about something you do not know. Your question is unrelated to the problem. Now how would you put the question?
Teacher: Do you mean to say that the right question should be ``When I see the destructive nature of this energy....''
Krishnamurti: See the falseness of this energy which is destructive, that in itself is the answer. You cannot go beyond the destructive nature of this energy and say what the other is.
Can you cease to revolve in creating destructive energy? You will not then ask what the other is. All you can ask is, ``Is it possible to stop this self-created destructive energy?'' You cannot enquire positively into energy, it must be a negative approach - the comprehending of the fact negatively, not positively, in order to get to the other - because you do not know the other. So your approach must be negative in the sense that you see the factual nature of this energy which is self-destructive.
Can I comprehend negatively? Can I learn a technique, and can the mind liberate itself from the technique without recompense? Then the mind is open to a different pattern of energy.
The entire world is in a vast mess, in confusion. To have a total response to that, you must have energy of a different quality from the usual energy which you apply to a problem. The usual approach to a problem is in terms of hope, fear, success, fulfilment and so on, with its accompanying despair. This is obvious. These are all psychological facts. Here we have a world issue and you have to approach it not with the energy of despair but with an energy which is not contaminated by despair. To come upon that energy which is not destructive, the mind must be free from the energy of despair. This is a world problem, how do you answer it? Do you answer it idealistically with the intention, the desire and the feeling, ``This is the right thing to do''? If you do, you answer it with the energy of despair. Or do you look at it with a different energy altogether? If you look at the total problem with that new kind of energy, you will have the right answer.
Teacher: I would like to talk a little more about the communication of this feeling you are hinting at: that we are perpetuating through our education the energy of despair and hence the hopelessness of such education. Can we educate in I the accepted sense of the word, and yet have the other? Can a person who is engaged in teaching a certain subject teach that perfectly and yet get the whole, total feeling? Can he do it without a motive, with a total attention to the thing that he is doing and with a feeling of love? Will that help to keep the I mind open to the new source of energy?
Krishnamurti: You are introducing suppositions, they are not facts. You see, you have no love. Occasionally there is an opening in the cloud and you see the bright light, but only occasionally. You are not dealing with facts, you are dealing with suppositions. If you were dealing with facts, then you could have answered.
The main statement is not good enough, ``I do pay attention sometimes, I do love without wanting something in return.'' You may do this occasionally, but you have to do it on all the three hundred and sixty five days, not just one day.
Teacher: As I see it, whatever I do, I want to fit the ``plus'' into this.
Krishnamurti: You cannot put the plus into the minus, you cannot put the creative thing into the destructive. The destructive energy has to cease for the creative thing to come in.
You have time, you have leisure to meditate, and without becoming sentimental you have to discover the destructive energy in yourself. It is a continuous process of awareness, keeping the window open for the other. This is a total process all the time.
There is a psychological climate that is necessary, which means relationship in teaching and that requires subtlety. You cannot have subtlety and pliability if you have an end in mind. If you are thinking from a conclusion, from an experience of knowing a great many techniques, you cannot have pliability, subtlety.
Have you ever talked to anybody who is entrenched deep in some ideal, in some dogma? He has no pliability, no subtlety. To bring about subtlety, pliability, the mind must have no anchorage.
Teacher: Is it possible to arrange circumstances so that this pliability and subtlety come into being? It is not always possible to create this within organizations.
Krishnamurti: How can one create neither antagonism nor resistance in relationship? How is a sense of equality to be brought about? If you can establish that feeling then what is the next step? Is there a next step?
First of all, is it possible to establish mutual confidence within an organization? To establish that requires a great deal of intelligence on my part and on the part of others.
Teacher: As you said, the problem is how to establish relationship without the sense of high and low and with the awareness of this total feeling.
Krishnamurti: We do not know anything about this total feeling. But we know the destructive nature of certain forms of energy and the mind tries to disentangle itself from that.
We know there must be equality and that equality is denied when there are divisions, cliques, when we are functioning merely on an economic level and when there is no comprehension of the nature of destructive energy. It is not an economic equality that has to be established but an equality at every level. If we do not establish that right from the beginning and establish it also in ourselves, we have no contact. Can we spend time in considering how to establish an equality in that sense, not the equality of technique? Can we come together to establish between ourselves this feeling of equality in which all differences are gone? Then we are free. We must be quite sure that at least a few of us are walking along the road. Some of us then may walk slowly, some may walk fast but it is in the same direction and the direction is the quality. It is really a turning of one's back to the world. If you see the crippling effects of the energy of despair, you have to renounce it. If you are alive to this, it means that your relationship with the world is entirely different and that opens a great many doors. `On Meditation and Education'
Are we human beings or professionals? Our professions take the whole of our lives and we give very little time to the cultivation or the understanding of the mind, which is living. The profession comes first, then living. We approach life from the point of view of the profession, the job, and spend our lives in it and at the end of our lives we turn to meditation, to a contemplative attitude of mind.
Are we only educators or are we human beings who see education as a significant and true way of helping human beings to cultivate the total mind? Living comes before teaching. The man who is a specialist - a nose and throat specialist - spends all his days in the examination of noses and throats and obviously his mind is filled with throats and noses and only occasionally can he think about meditation or look at truth.
Can we go into the question of meditation, as a comprehensive total approach to life which implies the understanding of what meditation is? I do not know if any of you meditate and I do not know what meditation means to you. What part has meditation in education and what do we mean by meditation? We give so much importance to the getting of a degree, the getting of a job, to financial security; that is the entire I design of our thinking. And meditation, the real enquiry into whether there is god, the observing, experiencing of that immeasurable state, is not part of our education at all. We will have to find out what we mean by meditation, not how to meditate. That is an immature way of looking at meditation. If one can unravel what is meditation, then the very process of unravelling is meditation.
What is meditation and what is thinking? If we enquire into what meditation is, we have to enquire into what thinking is. Otherwise, merely to meditate when I do not know the process of thinking is to create a fancy, a delusion, which has no reality whatsoever. So to really understand or to discover what meditation is, it is not enough to have mere explanations which are only verbal and therefore have little significance; one has to go into the whole process of thinking.
Thinking is a response of memory. Thoughts become the slave of words, the slave of symbols, of ideas, and the mind is the word and the mind becomes slave to words like god, communist, the principal, the vice-principal, the prime minister, the police inspector, the villager, the cook. See the nuances of these words and the feelings that accompany these words. You say sannyasi and immediately there is a certain quality of respect. So the word for most of us has immense significance. For most of us the mind is the word. Within the conditioned, verbal, technical symbolic framework, we live and think; that framework is the past, which is time. If you observe this process taking place in yourself, then it has significance.
Now is there thought without word? Is there thinking without word and therefore out of time? The word is time. And if the mind can separate the word, the symbol, from itself, then is there an enquiry which does not seek an end and is therefore timeless?
First, let us look at the whole picture. A mind that has no space in which to observe has no quality of perception. From thinking, there is no observation. Most of us see through words, and is that seeing? When I see a flower and say it is a rose, do I see the rose or do I see the feeling, the idea that the word invokes? So, can the mind which is of time and space, explore into a non-spatial, timeless state because it is only in that state that there is creation? A technical mind which has acquired specialized knowledge can invent, add to, but it can never create. A mind that has no space, no emptiness from which to see, is obviously a mind that is incapable of living in a spaceless, timeless state. That is what is demanded. So a mind that is merely caught in time and space, in words, in itself, in conclusions, in techniques, in specialization, such a mind is a very distressed mind. When the world is confronted with something totally new, all our old answers, codes, traditions are inadequate.
Now what is thinking? Most of our lives are spent in the effort to be something, to become something, to achieve something. Most of our lives are a series of connected and disconnected constant effort and in these efforts the whole problem of ambition and contradiction brings about a certain exclusive process which we call concentration. And why should we make an effort? What is the point of effort? Would we stagnate if we failed to make an effort and what does it matter if we stagnate? Are we not stagnating with our immense efforts - now? What significance has effort any more? If the mind understands effort will it not release a different kind of energy which does not think in terms of achievement, ambition, and so contradiction? Is not that very energy action , itself.
In effort there is involved idea and action and the problem of how to bridge idea and action. All effort implies idea and action and the coming together of these two. And why should there be such division, and is not such a division destructive? All divisions are contradictory and in the self-contradictory state there is inattention. The greater the contradiction the greater the inattention and the greater the resultant action. So life is an endless battle from the moment we are born to the moment we die.
Is it possible to educate both ourselves and students to live? I do not mean to live merely as an intellectual being but as a complete human being, having a good body and a good mind, enjoying nature, seeing the totality, the misery, the love, the sorrow, the beauty of the world.
When we consider what meditation is, I think one of the first things is the quietness of the body. A quietness that is not enforced, sought after. I do not know if you have noticed a tree blowing in the wind and the same tree in the evening when the sun has set? It is quiet. In the same way, can the body be quiet, naturally, normally, healthily? All this implies an enquiring mind which is not seeking a conclusion or starting from a motive. How is a mind to enquire into the unknown, the immeasurable? How is one to enquire into god? That is also part of meditation. How do we help the student to probe into all this? Machines and the electronic brains are taking over, automation is going to come in about fifty years to this country and you will have leisure and you can turn to books for knowledge. Our intelligence, not merely the capacity to reason but rather the capacity to perceive, understand what is true and what is false, is being destroyed by the emphasis on authority, acceptance, imitation, in which is security. All this is going on but in all this what part has meditation? I feel the quality of meditation as I am talking to you. It is meditation. I am talking but the mind that is communing is in a state of meditation.
All this implies an extraordinarily pliable mind, not a mind that accepts, rejects, acquiesces or conforms. So meditation is the unfolding of the mind and through it perception, the seeing without restraint, without a background and so an endless emptiness in which to see. The seeing without the limitation of thought which is time requires a mind that is astonishingly quiet, still.
All this implies an intelligence which is not the result of education, book learning, acquisition of techniques. Obviously, to observe a bird you must be very quiet; otherwise at the least movement on your part the bird flies away; the whole of your body must be quiet, relaxed, sensitive to see. How you create that feeling? Take that one thing which is part of meditation. How will you bring this about in a school like this? First of all, is it necessary at all to observe, to think, to have a mind that is subtle, a mind that is still, a body that is responsive, sensitive, eager?
We are only concerned with helping the student to get a degree and to get a job and then we allow him to sink into this monstrous society. To help him to be alive it is imperative for a student to have this extraordinary feeling for life, not his life or somebody's else's life, but for life, for the villager, for the tree. That is part of meditation - to be passionate about it, to love - which demands a great sense of humility. This humility is not to be cultivated. Now how will you create the climate for this, because children are not born perfect? You may say that all we have to do is to create the environment and they will grow into marvellous beings; they will not. They are what they are, the result of our past with all our anxieties and fears and we have created the society in which they live and children have to adjust themselves and are conditioned by us How will you create the climate in which they see all these influences, in which they look at the beauty of this earth, look at the beauty of this valley? Just as you devote time to mathematics, science, music, dance, why do you not give some time to all this?
Teacher: I was thinking about practical difficulties and how it is not always possible.
Krishnamurti: Why do you give time to dance, to music Why not give time to this as you give to mathematics? You are not interested in it. If you saw that it was also necessary you would devote time to it. If you saw that it was as essential as mathematics, you would do something.
Meditation implies the whole of life, not just the technical, monastic, or scholastic life, but total life and to apprehend and communicate this totality, there must be a certain seeing of it without space and time. A mind must have in itself a sense of the spaceless and the timeless state. It must see the whole of this picture. How will you approach it and help the student to see the whole of life, not in little segments, but life in its totality? I want him to comprehend the enormity of this. `On Flowering'
Teacher: I wonder whether we could go into the problem of how to ask the right question? We generally ask a question to find an answer, to arrive at a method, to discover the reason for things. We question to find out why one is jealous, why one is angry. Now, can the quality of questioning be engendered in oneself and in the child so that there is only enquiry without a method or without merely finding reasons? Is not the problem of right questioning of prime importance in our approach to the child?
Krishnamurti: How do we question anything? When do we question ourselves or question authority or question the educational system? What does the word ``question'' mean? I wonder if a self-critical awareness is lacking in us. Are we aware of what we are doing, thinking, feeling? How do we awaken or question, so as to bring about this critical aware- ness? If we go into this it might help to arouse in the child a self-critical capacity, a critical awareness. How do we set about it? What makes me question? Do I ever question myself. Do I see how mediocre I am? Or do I question, find an explanation and move on? It is very depressing to discover one's mediocrity and therefore one does not question, and one never goes beyond.
Let us put it differently. Very little of us is alive. A small part of us is throbbing, the rest is asleep. The little part that is throbbing, gradually grows dim, falls into a rut and is finished.
Does one know what it means to be a full human being? The fact is, one is not alive. The question is to be totally alive, to be physically alive, to be in very good health, not to overeat, to be sensitive emotionally, to feel, to have a quality of sympathy, and to have a very good mind. Otherwise, one is dead.
How would you awaken the mind as a whole? It is your problem. How would you see that you are completely alive inside, and outside; in your feelings, in your taste in everything? And how would you awaken in the student this feeling of non-fragmented living?
There are only two ways of doing it: either there is something within you which is so urgent that it burns away all contradiction; or you have to find an approach which will watch all the time, which will deliberately set about investigating everything you are doing, an awareness which will ceaselessly ask the question to find out in yourself so that a new quality comes into being which keeps all the dirt out. Now, which is it that you are doing as a human being as well as a teacher?
Teacher: Is one to question constantly, or is there a questioning which has its own momentum?
Krishnamurti: If there is no momentum, then you have to start with little things, haven't you? Start with the little things, not the big things. Start observing how you dress, what you say, how you watch the road, without the operation of criticism. And, watching, listening, how are you going to get to the other, which will be the momentum, which carries all by itself?
There is a momentum to which you do not have to pay attention, but you cannot come to it except by watching little things; and yet you have to see that you are not caught in this everlasting watching. To watch one's dress, the sky, and yet be out of it, so that your mind is not only watching little things but absorbing the wider issues, such as the good of the country, and the much wider issues also, such as authority, such as this perpetual desire to fulfil, this constant concern whether one is right or wrong, and fear. So, can the mind observe the little things and without being caught in the little things, can it move out so that it can record much greater issues?
Teacher: What is the state of mind, the approach in which there is this everlasting watching, the understanding of little things, without being caught in the little things?
Krishnamurti: Why are you caught in the little things? What is the thing that makes you a prisoner of the little?
Teacher: My opinions. And yet I do not want to be caught in little things.
Krishnamurti: But I have to pay attention to little things. Most people are caught in them the moment they pay attention. To pay attention and yet not to be prisoner to little things, is the issue. Now, what makes the mind or the brain a prisoner?
Teacher: Concern with the immediate.
Krishnamurti: What do you mean, sir? Do you mean not having a long vision? You are not looking at the problem.
Teacher: My attachment to little things.
Krishnamurti: Are you not a prisoner of little things?
Teacher: I am. With me it is probably a deep unconscious sense, that I am preparing myself for something great, an illusion like that.
Krishnamurti: Are you aware that you are a prisoner of little things? Examine why you are a prisoner. Take the fact that you are a prisoner of little things, and possibly of many little things, ask why, go into it, question it, find out. Do not give an explanation and run on with the explanation which you did just now. You must actually take one thing and look at it. In tackling inwardly the frustration, the conflict, the resistance, you correct the outer. The psychological conflict within expresses itself outwardly in your becoming a prisoner of little things and then you try to correct them. Without understanding the inward conflict, the misery, life has no meaning. If you discover that you are frustrated, then go into it; and if you have gone deeply into it, it will correct the anger, the overeating, the over-dressing.
The way you question frustration is important. How do you question? So that frustration unfolds, so that frustration flowers? It is only when thought flowers that it can naturally die. Like the flower in a garden, thought must blossom, it must come to fruition and then it dies. Thought must be given freedom to die. In the same way there must be freedom for frustration to flower and die. And the right question is whether can there be freedom for frustration to flower and to die?
Teacher: What do you mean by flowering, sir?
Krishnamurti: Look at the garden, the flowers in front over there! They come to bloom and after a few days they wither away because it is their nature. Now, frustration must be given freedom so that it blossoms. You have to understand the reason of frustration, but not in order to suppress it, not to say, ``I must fulfil''. Why should I fulfil? If I am a liar I can try to stop lying, which is what people generally do. But can I allow that lie to flower and die? Can I refuse to say it is right or wrong, good or bad? Can I see what is behind the lie? I can only find out spontaneously why I lie if there is freedom to find out. In the same way, in order not to be a prisoner of little things, can I find out why I am a prisoner? I want that fact to flower. I want it to grow and to expand, so that it withers and dies without my touching it. Then I am no longer a prisoner though I watch the little things.
Your question was: ``Is there a momentum which keeps moving, keeping itself clean, healthy?'' That momentum, that flame which burns, can only be when there is freedom for everything to flower - the ugly, the beautiful, the evil, the good and the stupid - so that there is not a thing suppressed, so that there is not a thing which has not been brought up and examined and burnt out. And I cannot do that if through the little things I do not discover frustration, misery, sorrow, conflict, stupidity, dullness. If I only discover frustration through reasoning I do not know what frustration means. So, from little things I go to something, wider and in understanding the wider, the other things flower without intervention.
Teacher: I seem to catch a glimpse of what you say, I am going to examine it.
Krishnamurti: You are examining it while I am examining it. You are examining your own little things in which you are caught.
Teacher: In the flowering of conflict, there should be freedom to flower and die. The little mind does not give itself that freedom. You are saying that the inward conflict should flower and die and again you said that this flowering and dying is happening as we are examining it now. There is one difficulty, which is, that I seem to project something into this floration and that itself is a hindrance.
Krishnamurti: That is the real crux. You see, to you flowering is an idea. You do not see the fact, the symptom, the cause, and allow that cause to blossom right now. The little mind always deals with symptoms and never with the fact. It does not have the freedom to find out. It is doing the very thing which indicates the little mind, because it says, ``It is a good idea, I will think about it,'' and so it is lost for it is then dealing with ideation, not with fact. It does not say, ``Let it flower, and let us see what happens.'' Then it would discover. But, it says, ``It is a good idea; I must investigate the idea''.
Now, we have discovered a great many things. First of all, we are unaware of the little things. Then, becoming aware of them, we are caught in them and we say, ``I must do that, I must do this''.
Can I see the symptom, go into the cause, and let the cause flower? But I want it to flower in a certain direction, which I means I have an opinion on how it should flower. Now can I go after that? That becomes my major issue. And I see that I prevent the cause flowering because I am afraid I do not know what will happen if I allow frustration to flower. So I go after why I am afraid? What am I afraid of? I see, that so long as fear exists there can be no flowering. So I have to tackle fear, not through the idea, but tackle it, as a fact which means I will allow fear to blossom. I will let fear blossom, and see I what happens. All this requires a great deal of inward perception.
Allow fear to blossom - do you know what that means? It may mean I may lose my job, be destroyed by my wife, my husband.
Can I allow everything to blossom? It does not mean I am going to murder, rob somebody, but can I just allow ``what is'' to blossom.
Teacher: Could we go into this, then allowing a thing to blossom?
Krishnamurti: Do you really see the fact? What does it mean, to allow a thing to blossom, to allow jealousy to blossom? First of all, how unrespectable, how unspiritual. How do you allow jealousy to blossom, to achieve a full life? Can you do it so that you are not caught in it? Can you let that feeling have its full vitality, without obstruction? Which means you do not identify yourself with it, which means you do not say it is right or wrong, you do not have an opinion about it; these are all methods of destroying jealousy. But you do not want to destroy jealousy. You want it to blossom, to show all its colours, whatever they may be.
Teacher: it is not very clear to me, sir.
Krishnamurti: Have you grown a plant? How do you do it?
Teacher: Prepare the ground, put in manure....
Krishnamurti: Put in the right manure, use the right seed, put it in at the right time, look after it, prevent things from happening to it. You give it freedom. Why do you not do the same with jealousy?
Teacher: The flowering here is not expressed outside like the plant.
Krishnamurti: It is much more real than the plant you are planting outside in the field. Do you not know what jealousy is? At the moment of jealousy, do you say it is imagination? You are burning with it, are you not? You are angry, furious. Why do you not pursue it, not as an idea but actually, take it out and see that it flowers, so that each flowering is a destruction of itself and therefore, there is no ``you'' at the end of it who is observing the destruction. In that is real creation.
Teacher: When the flower blossoms, it reveals itself. What exactly do you mean, sir, when you say that when jealousy blossoms it will destroy itself?
Krishnamurti: Take a bud, an actual bud from a bush. If you nip it, it will never flower, it will die quickly. If you let it blossom, then it shows you the colour, the delicacy, the pollen, everything. It shows what it actually is without your being told it is red, it is blue, it has pollen. It is there for you to look at. In the same way, if you allow jealousy to flower, then it shows you everything it actually is - which is envy, attachment. So in allowing jealousy to blossom, it has shown you all its colours and it has revealed to you what is behind jealousy, which you will never discover if you do not allow it to blossom.
To say that jealousy is the cause of attachment is mere verbalization. But in actually allowing jealousy to flower, the fact that you are attached to something becomes a fact, an emotional fact, not an intellectual, verbal idea and so each flowering reveals that which you have not been able to discover; and as each fact unveils itself, it flowers and you deal with it. You let the fact flower and it opens other doors, till there is no flowering at all of any kind and, therefore, no cause or motive of any kind.
Teacher: Psychological analysis will help me to find out the causes of jealousy. Between analysis and the flowering in which a flower reveals itself, is there a vital difference?
Krishnamurti: One is an intellectual process, the observer operating on the thing observed, which is analysis, which is correction, the altering and the adding. The other is the fact without the observer, it is what the fact is itself.
Teacher: What you say is totally non-verbal. There is no relationship between the observer and the observed.
Krishnamurti: Once you get the feeling that everything in you must blossom, which is a very dangerous state, if you understand this thing, that everything must flower in you, which is a marvellous thing, in that there is real freedom. And, as each thing flowers, there is neither observer nor the observed; therefore there is no contradiction. So all the things blossom in you and die.
Teacher: Why should I allow it to blossom if I can nip it in the bud?
Krishnamurti: What is going to happen to the flower if you kill the bud? If you kill the bud, it will not flower any more. In the same way, you say, ``I must kill jealousy or fear'' but it is not possible to kill jealousy and fear. You can suppress them, alter them, offer them to some god, but they will always be there. But if you really understand the central fact, to allow everything to flower without interference, it will be a revolution.
Teacher: Jealousy is a complex thing.
Krishnamurti: Let it flower. Jealousy, in flowering, reveals its complexity. And in understanding the complexity, in watching the complexity, it reveals some other factor, and let that blossom, so that everything is blossoming in you, nothing is denied, nothing is suppressed, nothing is controlled. It is a tremendous education, is it not?
Teacher: There is great significance in what you are saying. But is it possible?
Krishnamurti: It is possible, otherwise there is no point in saying it. If you see that, how will you help the student to flower? How will you help him to understand?
Teacher: I would start with myself. By a certain psychological approach I can see the cause. What you are saying is that in flowering, the problem unfolds itself. There is a great deal of difference between the two. But even if I have a glimpse of it, to convey it to the student is difficult.
Krishnamurti: It is a non-verbal communication which I have communicated to you verbally. How have I come to a flowering of thought which takes place in communication?
Teacher: Before one can investigate into this floration or even into the space in which floration can take place, there is a quality of equilibrium which has to be established to allow anything to flower in me.
Krishnamurti: I do not accept it. I do not believe you can do it that way. Take the idea of jealousy. I say make it flower. But you will not let it flower.
Teacher: When I am dealing with a child, is not the first factor this awakening of the quality of perception, which is equilibrium?
Krishnamurti: I will tell you what it is. If you listened, really listened, the flowering would actually take place. If you listened, observed, understood, immediately after the listening, it has taken place if that has taken place, then the other things are very simple to the child. You will find different ways to watch the child, to help the child, to communicate with the child at the verbal level. The very act of listening is the following.
Teacher: Is that listening a quality, sir?
Krishnamurti: You are listening. Why do you call it a quality? You have listened to what I have to say this morning: ``Let everything flower.''
If you listen, it will take place. It is not a quality. A quality is a thing already established. This is a living thing, a burning thing, a furious thing. You cannot make it a quality, a practice. Can you practice seeing colour? You cannot. You can see the beauty and the glory of the flower only when there is a flowering.
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The Folding@home project (FAH) is dedicated to understanding protein folding, the diseases that result from protein misfolding and aggregation, and novel computational ways to develop new drugs in general. Here, we briefly describe our goals, what we are doing, and some highlights so far.
A distributed computing project must not only run calculations on millions of PCs, but such projects must produce results, especially in the form of peer-reviewed publications, public lectures, and other ways that disseminate the results from FAH to the greater scientific community. Below, we detail our progress in these areas.
Note that most updates are announced in the main Folding@home blog, but we will periodically update this page. For the latest news, please see the blog.
Table of Contents
Proteins are necklaces of amino acids, long chain molecules.
What happens if proteins don’t fold correctly?
Which diseases or biomedical problems are you currently studying?
Alzheimer’s Disease (AD)
Huntington’s Disease (HD)
Cancer and P53
Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI)
Parkinson’s Disease (PD)
How are these advances possible?
Proteins are the basis of how biology gets things done. As enzymes, they are the driving force behind all of the biochemical reactions that make biology work. As structural elements, they are the main constituent of our bones, muscles, hair, skin and blood vessels. As antibodies, they recognize invading elements and allow the immune system to get rid of the unwanted invaders. For these reasons, scientists have sequenced the human genome — the blueprint for all of the proteins in biology — but how can we understand what these proteins do and how they work?
However, only knowing this sequence tells us little about what the protein does and how it does it. In order to carry out their function (e.g. as enzymes or antibodies), they must take on a particular shape, also known as a “fold.” Thus, proteins are truly amazing machines: before they do their work, they assemble themselves! This self-assembly is called “folding.”
Diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis, BSE (Mad Cow disease), an inherited form of emphysema, and even many cancers are believed to result from protein misfolding. When proteins misfold, they can clump together (“aggregate”). These clumps can often gather in the brain, where they are believed to cause the symptoms of Mad Cow or Alzheimer’s disease.
AD is caused by the aggregation of relatively small (42 amino acid) proteins, called Abeta peptides. These proteins form aggregates which even in small clumps appear to be toxic to neurons and cause neuronal cell death involved in Alzheimer’s Disease and the horrible neurodegenerative consequences. It’s a challenge to study these aggregates, even with simulations.
We have many calculations being performed on AD. Our primary goals are the prediction of AD aggregate structure for rational drug design approaches as well as further insight into how AD aggregates form kinetically (hopefully paving the way for a method to stop the AD aggregate formation). We have made great progress towards this end.
- We submitted our first paper on FAH results.
- FAH researchers Vishal Vaidyanathan and Nick Kelley presented the recent FAH results on AD at BCATS 2005. Their work won the best talk award in 2005.
- Prof. Vijay Pande presented recent FAH work on AD at the National Parkinson’s Foundation conference (in the session on AD and its connections to PD).
2006 We have submitted our first paper for peer review and we’re working on the next 2 paper right now. We’re very excited about the results!
2007 We have made some significant progress experimentally testing our computational predictions using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).
- The first of the papers has come out (see paper #58 on our Results page: “Simulating oligomerization at experimental concentrations and long timescales: A Markov state model approach”). In many ways, this paper is the “tip of the iceberg” for the Folding@home activities in AD, with a lot more interesting results to come, especially in terms of experimental tests of our predictions and interesting new possibilities for new drugs and AD therapeutics. So, while we’re excited that this result is now past peer review, we’re even more excited for what’s coming down the pipeline, waiting peer review.
- We presented our results regarding new possible drugs (small molecule leads) to fight Alzheimer’s Disease at a recent meeting at Stanford, supported by the NIH Roadmap Nanomedicine center and NIH grants. We may have multiple small molecules which appear to inhibit toxicity of Abeta, the protein which is the toxic element in Alzheimer’s Disease. Considering all the technology development that had to be done in the first five years, these results have come very quickly (in the last 3 years), which is exciting. We are now looking to apply these methods to other protein misfolding diseases (we have pilot projects for Huntington’s Disease underway).
2009 We have had some exciting results regarding new possible drug leads for Alzheimer’s. We hope to be submitting these soon for publication.
2010 We have been working closely with the Nanomedicine Center for Protein Folding on pushing our lead compounds forward. They have gone from the test tube to the first round of testing beyond that (onto tissue) and we’re continuing to refine the compounds based on the results obtained so far. Also, FAH researcher Dr. Yu-Shan Lin has been awarded a BioX Postdoctoral Fellowship for her proposed work on Alzheimer’s Disease simulation.
2012 We’re very excited to report on our progress towards our goal to develop new small molecule drug candidates for AD. In a paper just published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, we report on tests of predictions from earlier Folding@home simulations, and how these predictions have led to a new strategy to fight Alzheimer’s Disease. These results have been a long time in coming and in many ways represents a major achievement for Folding@home (FAH) in general. While this is not a cure, it is a major step towards our final goal, some light at the end of the tunnel. The next steps, now underway in our lab, are to take this lead compound and help push it towards a viable drug. We’re very excited that the directions set out in this paper do appear to be bearing fruit in terms of a viable drug (not just a drug candidate). We hope to have more results in the coming months!
2013 We are continuing our work with AD in terms of repurposing an existing drug against the leads we have found from Folding@home. The benefit of this approach is that this drug could hit the market considerably quicker and also (if the repurposed drug is a generic) at a considerably lower cost.
HD is caused by the aggregation of a different type of proteins. Some proteins have a repeat of a single amino acid (glutamine, often abbreviated as “Q”). These poly-Q repeats, if long enough, form aggregates which cause HD. We are studying the structure of poly-Q aggregates as well as predicting the pathway by which they form. Similar to AD, these HD studies, if successful, would be useful for rational drug design approaches as well as further insight into how HD aggregates form kinetically (hopefully paving the way for a method to stop the HD aggregate formation).
2006 We are currently in the process of submitting our first paper on FAH results.
2007 Nick Kelley has been working on a new collaboration with Judith Frydman’s group to computationally test a new hypothesis for HD aggregation found in the Frydman lab.
- Prof. Pande has presented the results on HD at a variety of Stanford internal conferences and meetings. People have been excited and interested in the results.
- We have also started to apply the drug design methods used in Alzheimer’s to HD.
2009 Our new paper #62: “The predicted structure of the headpiece of the Huntington protein and its implications for Huntington’s Disease.” just came out in the Journal of Molecular Biology.
2010 FAH researcher Dr. Veena Thomas has proposed a novel therapeutic strategy for HD and this proposal looks to be funded by NIH (as of September 22, 2010 still pending). This strategy is particularly exciting since it could be a quick way to bring the results from computation directly to a therapeutic.
2013 FAH researcher Dr. Diwakar Shukla has continued work on HD. He has new results on the behavior of the HTT protein and will be presenting his results at the Annual AiChE meeting in San Francisco.
Half of all known cancers involve some mutation in p53, the so-called guardian of the cell. P53 is a tumor suppressor which signals for cell death if their DNA gets damaged. If these cells didn’t die, their damaged DNA would lead to the strange and unusual growths found in cancer tumors and this growth would continue unchecked, until death. When p53 breaks down and does not fold correctly (or even perhaps if it doesn’t fold quickly enough), then DNA damage goes unchecked and one can get cancer. We have been studying specific domains of p53 in order to predict mutations relevant in cancer and to study known cancer related mutants.
- Our first work on cancer has recently been published.
- We are expanding FAH’s p53 work to other related p53 systems
- We are getting some interesting results from recent new FAH p53 projects.
- Two new sets of projects have completed and two new papers are being readied for peer-reviewed publication.
2006 FAH researcher Dr. Lillian Chong presented her work on p53 at a lecture at several US Universities.
2007 Plans have started to take a new approach for using FAH to fight cancer: to develop novel chaperonin inhibitors. FAH researcher Del Lucent is taking the lead. See this blog post for more information on Del’s research.
2008 Del has presented his plans to the NIH Nanomedicine center with a very positive response. Planning for the lab side of this work has begun.
- Del has been involved in the development of new software methods (Ocker) for the chaperonin inhibitor project.
- We’ve been using our new Protomol (Core B4) core to study the activation of src Kinase, an enzyme that is involved in the onset of some kinds of cancer.
2010 In collaboration with the Nanomedicine Center for Protein Folding, we have been using our methods to further push a chaperonin inhibitor. This next round will use new scoring functions from Andrej Sali’s lab at UCSF to push further what we could do in this area.
- Please see this blog post for Dr. John Chodera’s anti-cancer strategy involving kinases.
- Dr. Peter Kasson has been applying his work on viruses to cancer, as many cancers are virus-associated.
- At FAHcon 2012, Dr. Xuhui Huang presented our recent results of the molecular mechanisms of gene transcription. Transcription is the first step in reading genomic DNA, and regulation of this process plays a key role in cell differentiation and other fundamental processes. Misregulation of transcription is a major factor in cancer and other human diseases. Our simulation results are able to provide dynamic information for the transcription, and this dynamic information is largely inaccessible to present experimental techniques.
- We’re studying the folding of ubiquitin, a small regulatory protein found in almost all cells in human body. It is part of a large regulatory system that labels other unneeded proteins for destruction. The ubiquitin system has an important role in regulating cellular growth and proliferation. As expected, alterations in the ubiquitin system could lead to uncontrolled accumulation of malignant proteins in cells and lead to cancer.
- We are simulating many forms of Pin1 WW domain, a protein implicated in some cancers and Alzheimer’s disease. Understanding the role of mutations on misfolding can have important biomedical consequences.
- We assisted Chris Garcia’s lab with their work with Interleukin 2 (IL-2), a protein which assists the immune system in fighting pathogens and cancer tumors. While injecting a patient with more IL-2 has been an effective cancer treatment, naturally occuring IL-2 has very serious side effects. We helped the Garcia lab to discover a form of IR-2 that was more “floppy”, which greatly increased its cancer-fighting potency. This means that it’s possible to admister theurapedic doses of it without causing the side effects. Stanford has applied for a patent, and several major pharmaceutical companies approached the Garcia lab about this discovery. Please see this paper and this article for more information.
2013 FAH researchers Dr. Diwakar Shukla and Dr. Morgan Lawrenz have been using Folding@home to understand the fundamental behavior of kinases, key molecular targets in cancer. A paper on these results and their impact on drug design for cancer has been submitted for peer review.
2014 The paper on the results of a kinase study conducted by Dr. Diwakar Shukla and his fellow researchers has been published. This kinase under investigation is c-src, which has been a major research interest of FAH since 2009. C-src is involved in the onset of numerous most feared human cancers, and is a key molecular target for therapeutic interventions. We discovered a unique drug-binding site on c-src, and binding drugs to it deters c-src’s full activation. We also captured c-src’s dynamic behaviors in unprecedented fine details via FAH simulations. This study has profound implications for increasing specificity of future anti-cancer drugs, thus could potentially reduce side effects associated with chemotherapy drastically. Please see this paper and these blog posts from March 23rd and 24th for more information.
In 2010, we have started a pilot project on Chagas Disease, a major disease in Latin America.
2010 FAH/Pande Group researcher Paul Novick has applied ligand-based methods to Chagas disease and in collaboration with the SPARK project (UCSF) and the McKerrow Lab (UCSF) has started to test the results. The early results are looking promising, but it is very early to tell.
In 2010, we have started a pilot project on Malaria.
2010 FAH/Pande Group researcher Dr. Veena Thomas has been building off methods used by PG member Paul Novick for Chagas to Malaria. This is very early stages, but with promising results from our Chagas disease work, this is a reasonable extension of that approach and of course could have a major impact on millions of people in the developing world.
In collaboration with other groups at Stanford (especially Dr. Teri Klein’s group at Stanford University Medical Center), we are looking at Collagen folding and misfolding. Collagen is the most common protein in the body and mutations in collagen leads to a very nasty disease called Osteogenesis Imperfecta (or OI for short). In many cases, OI is lethal and leads to miscarriage. However, 1 in 10,000 people have some sort of mutational in collagen. For many, where the mutation is not very serious, it lies unknown and misdiagnosed and leads to brittle bones and other more subtle problems. In others, however, mutations lead to more serious morphological disorders (as shown on the right).
We are starting to model collagen folding and misfolding in the 1000 series projects. Follow the link for more information.
2005 FAH’s first work on collagen has been accepted for publication
2006 FAH researcher Dr. Sangyhun Park presents his work on collagen at a lecture at Duke University
2007 Our paper on collagen folding has been accepted for publication.
2008 Our paper on collagen folding has come out.
For now, our Osteogenesis imperfecta stands still as a pilot project, with the bulk of our efforts going into AD and HD.
Prof. Xuhui Huang’s lab at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology is studying the folding free energy landscape of the human islet amyloid polypeptide (hIAPP). hIAPP (also called amylin) is a peptide 37 amino acids in length, and its aggregation reduces working ß-cells in patients with Type 2 diabetes. Around 95% of patients with Type II diabetes exhibit large deposits of misfolded hIAPP (beta-sheet structure). Experiments show that hIAPP aggregation can induce cell death in insulin-producing beta cells, an effect that may be relevant to the development of type 2 diabetes. We aim to understand the process of hIAPP aggregation in order to design drugs to prevent it. We would like to thank all the Folding@home donors for your help to make our research possible.
2011 Xuhui Huang starts projects 2974 and 2975.
A key aspect of Folding@home research has been using computational methods to design new drugs, especially for Alzheimer’s Disease. At the University of Virginia, the Shirts lab is developing methods to leverage the power of Folding@home to develop new drugs to fight disease. Generally, small molecules work as drugs by binding very specifically to certain locations on important proteins. For example, an antibiotic works by binding to a protein on a bacteria, thus interfering with the pathogen’s internal workings seriously enough to disable or kill it. By targeting only protein sites that are unique to the pathogen, drugs can act extremely specifically, rather than harming the human body or desired microbes. The exact same principles can toggle very specific parts of our own body’s protein machinery on or off, allowing development of drugs that fight diseases of caused by breakdown, mutation, or malfunction our own cellular machinery, like Alzheimer’s Disease, heart disease, diabetes, and many other conditions.
However, it is very hard to calculate exactly how tightly a given small molecule will bind to a target protein, or even exactly where and by what mechanism it will bind. A number of computational methods are used in industry today to estimate the binding affinity of small molecules in the process of drug design, but they mostly rely on approximations that are computationally cheap and very approximate, rather than more expensive methods that have the potential to be much more accurate. With Folding@home, we now have the capability to perform rigorous evaluations of these more complete methods, understand their limits, and make them more efficient and reliable.
We’ve also been studying the ribosome, an amazing molecular machine that plays a critical role in biology, as it is the machine that synthesizes proteins. Because of this critical role, and some small but fundamental differences in the ribosomes of mammals and bacteria, the ribosome is the target for about half of all known antibiotics. These antibiotics typically work by preventing bacterial ribosomes from making new proteins, thus killing them. We have several projects on going to study the ribosome. Since the ribosome is so huge, these WUs are big WUs and have required us to push the state of the art of FAH calculations. However, with these new bigWUs, FAH is set up to study more and more complex problems, and if successful, with greater and greater biomedical impact.
- We are working on our first paper resulting from FAH’s ribosome simulations.
- Prof. Pande presents ribosome results at a protein folding conference at U Penn.
- Prof. Pande presents ribosome results at a lecture at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) Medical School, and later at Rice University.
- Prof. Pande presents ribosome result at the NIH Roadmap center on Nanomedicine.
- We have submitted our first paper on the ribosome.
- Our first work units for antibiotic drug design calculations are now running on Folding@home.
- We have received a grant from Stanford University to design and study novel antibiotics. This is a joint grant with the labs of Chaitan Khosla at Stanford’s Chemistry Department (who does small molecule synthesis, design, and some characterization) and Jody Puglisi at the Stanford Medical School (who studies the ribosome and antibiotics experimentally)
- Relly Brandman is studying the ribosome tunnel as a target for novel antibiotics. There are already several antibiotics which target the ribosome tunnel (you may have already taken some, such as Erythromycin). She is studying how bacteria become resistant to these drugs, and her work centers around predicting novel antibiotics. If successful, we should be able to find novel types of antibiotics, which should hopefully be very useful in dealing with the major problem of drug resistance.
2008 Our first ribosome paper has come out in PNAS. See paper #59. Side-chain recognition and gating in the ribosome exit tunnel.
2009 Our second paper on the ribosome has been submitted for publication.
2011 We launched three A4 projects simulating the glycopeptide antibiotic vancomycin as well as the peptide chain it binds. Vancomycin is an important antibiotic of last resort, used to treat infections resistant to methicillin. Recently, cases of bacteria immune to vancomycin have been identified. The goal of these simulations is to study this resistance mechanism.
- We have been testing our methods with well-understood systems, and will soon be moving on try to design small molecules to treat AIDS (the HIV reverse transcriptase enzyme, required for DNA to replicate) and influenza (various proteins involved in virus cell entry). Such molecules will still require significant effort to make into drugs, since drugs also have to dissolve easily, penetrate cells, and not be broken down to quickly, but being able to predict more easily which molecules interact tightly with the intended targets will be a huge step in the right direction.
- Dr. Gregory Bowman published an paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrating a method that can disable proteins while they fold, rather than blocking them afterwards. This significantly increased our abilities to manipulate proteins for therapeutic purposes. He applied his techniques to proteins involved in immune dificiencies, HIV, and antibiotic resistance. Further research will require a lot more of your WUs, but we hope this type of approach can eventually lead to new pharmaceuticals. See this blog post for more information.
We have also performed preliminary studies on a key protein implicated in Parkinson’s disease. Alpha-synuclein is a natively unfolded protein and its folding/misfolding (see figure on the right for misfolded aggregates) appears to be critically linked to PD. We are evaluating the application of various FAH methods to this problem.
- We have only done a pilot study on PD and are looking for funding to continue our work in this area.
- Prof. Vijay Pande presented recent FAH work on AD at the National Parkinson’s Foundation conference (in the session on AD and its connections to PD).
For now, PD stands still as a pilot project, with the bulk of our efforts going into AD and HD.
Viruses such as influenza and HIV pose major threats to human health and can be exceptionally difficult to treat. Most treatments concentrate on preventing viral replication, but another strategy is to keep the virus out in the first place.
In order to infect human cells, viruses must pass through the cell membrane. They have established special machinery to accomplish this process, which usually requires an activation signal, a protein conformational change, and then protein-membrane interactions to achieve cell entry. Prof. Kasson’s group studies this process to better understand and prevent viral diseases. We have focused on influenza both because it has a repeated history of causing widespread global disease (such as in 1918) and its victims are typically children under 2 and adults over 60. A similar virus today might easily kill in the range of 60 million people, and we’d like to be prepared. Influenza is an important model system for understanding other viruses such as HIV and cancer-causing viruses such as HPV, Heptatitis C virus, and Epstein-Barr virus. It may come as a surprise, but many cancers are virus-associated, and these form an important area for prevention. Based on advances Dr. Kasson made while at Stanford in collaboration with Dr. Pande, we have made good initial progress in understanding the basic reactions influenza employs to enter cells. We are now well positioned to start studying the details of how the virus works. More information is available here.
2007 Dr. Peter Kasson’s lab is studying lipid vesicle fusion, a process relevant for many biological processes as well as relevant for disease and infection. Lipid vesicles are large assemblies of detergent-like molecules that are used to house and/or contain many different types of molecules in biology. Many viruses (“envelope viruses”) are housed in lipid vesicles, but so are the neurotransmitters in our brains. In order for these containers to be shuttled around (eg as neurotransmitters transmit thoughts in the brain or when viruses try to enter cells) lipid vesicles fuse with other vesicles or with cells (which are like giant lipid vesicles since cell walls are made of lipids). This process involves folding and other conformational changes.
2008 We published our work on some of the molecular interactions that occur during the initial stages of viral infection, and how they can impact current antivirus drugs.
- In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, we introduced a new method that can be used to test the pandemic risk of a virus. Swine influenza (pig flu) was more infectious among humans than bird flu due to the similarities of the cellular receptors between the human and swine upper respiratory tract.
- We released paper #61.
- Gregory Bowman is studying RNase H, a key component of HIV. By understanding the role of dynamics in its mechanism, we hope to be better able to design drugs to deactivate this enzyme.
- Dr. Kasson is looking at hemagglutinin, a viral protein that controls cell entry. Please see this blog post for more information.
- We have done a lot of work on how influenza gets into cells to replicate in the first place. This is an important therapeutic target, and it’s also critical for understanding why viruses like H5N1 “bird flu” have not become efficiently transmissible between people. Some of our new work looks at the protein folding in the membrane required for viral entry. We have some exciting new results that we’ll blog about as soon as they’re published.
- The Kasson group has recently published an article in Biochemistry on how influenza binds to cell-surface receptors and how computational techniques can be used for further analysis of this process.
2013 Pande group researchers have been recently looking into using our computational approaches for Dengue Fever as well, and have discovered a potential lead compound.
In order to make breakthroughs using distributed computing, new methods are critical. Distributed computing is an unusual way to perform large-scale calculations. While it gives computer resources much greater than a typical supercomputer (e.g. the almost 200,000 actively processing CPUs in FAH vs. 5,000 in a typical supercomputer), these processors are connected by the Internet, not the high speed, low latency interconnects found in supercomputers. Thus, we must develop new methods to use FAH’s unusual computational paradigm and capabilities. Moreover, these methods must be tested.
Much of our work in the first years of FAH has been to develop and test these methods on model systems: small proteins that can be easily studied experimentally. With these experimental comparisons, we can test and validate our methods, as well as find out their limitations (which is critical for improving our methods). We are now focusing on theuraputic approaches to diseases.
To date, FAH has been very successful, with over 100 published works (as of September 2012) directly stemming from FAH calculations. We will continue to work on all fronts: new scientific cores, new server side algorithms, new models for proteins, and new questions related to testing our methods and applications to disease and other biomedical questions. Thanks to your help and algorithmic improvements on our end, our capabilities have drastically improved over the last twelve years.
For More Information, Please See:
- Published Papers by the Folding@home Project
- FAH FAQ
- Folding@home article on Wikipedia
- Folding Support Forum
Last Updated on August 31, 2013, at 03:02 PM
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Life beyond Earth
Mars was once warmer and wetter than it is today. Pictures sent back by ESA's Mars Express and other spacecraft show huge channels that look like dry river beds. Where did the water go?
Reull Vallis - HRSC image 15 January 2004
A small amount is locked up in the polar ice caps. Some escaped into space. But much of it is frozen into the soil and rock.
It is possible that life began on Mars billions of years ago when it was warm and wet. Today, the surface is too cold and dry to support life. However, some scientists think that simple life, such as bacteria, may still exist deep underground.
In a few years' time, ESA is planning to send a rover to search for Martian life. This will be followed by a mission to return rock and soil for scientific study.
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Configuration of the ExoMars rover
Apart from Mars, life may exist in ice-covered oceans on some of the moons of Jupiter. Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, is also a very interesting place.
Scientists think Titan is like the young Earth – only much colder. In January 2005, ESA's Huygens probe landed on this icy, smog-covered satellite. It found dry river channels and lakes that are sometimes filled with liquid methane.
Last update: 11 November 2010
Are we alone?
| ||Life around other stars (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMNOIWJD1E_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
| ||Life on Earth (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMRPIWJD1E_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
| ||Telltale signs (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMGQIWJD1E_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
| ||Life on extrasolar planets (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMXWOSTGOF_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
| ||COROT- Europe’s planet-seeker (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEMAWPSVYVE_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
| ||Exoplanets (http://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/SEM3NFXPXPF_LifeinSpace_0.html) |
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Welcome to HackThisSite, a non-profit organization intended to teach you about computer security/hacking. Look around the site and you will find Missions to be completed and a well-maintained forum. Take time to read the articles available here and increase your repertoire of knowledge. Feel free to ask, and asking as a script kiddie is a skill in itself which I will cover later.
What is taught here
The main focus of HackThisSite is web hacking and exploitation. For this knowledge of HTML is necessary as it is the bread and butter of things to come. Take time to learn it here: http://www.w3schools.com
Have fun doing the challenges, have a determination to learn and you will become a great hacker in no time.
What about hacking in the movies
Movies such as Die Hard 4.0 show hacking as what most teenagers and villains do. This is entirely false as preteens as young as 12 learn and the majority of hackers are “White Hat”. This is a stereotype which many civilians believe hackers are.
Next is the “hacking part” in the movies. You hear them mention about Nmap and there is a certain program opened with black background and white text only with strange code on it. Now this is “Server Rooting,” a very advanced type of hacking. This is hacking into the server and exploitation of the operating system, which takes years of hacking to even get to the “newbie” part of it.
How about the hacking programs online? Do they make me a hacker?
Most certainly not. There programs are made by hackers, obviously black hat, to infiltrate into the script kiddie community and wreck havoc. What you don’t know is that there may be a line of code in there which makes you contribute to a huge DOS attack.
A hacker hacks by exploiting code and hacks manually, not using the program of others. If he needs a program he shall program it himself.
What programming language should I learn? Many people say that I shouldn’t start on BASIC but it’s so simple!
I am a victim of the bad syntax of BASIC. Once you learn BASIC it is very hard to break the bad habit of its syntax. Especially a wide gap as switching from BASIC to C++. However this does not mean it’s a bad language. It still is a programming language but once you master BASIC you should stick to BASIC.
A better start would be Python, Perl or Ruby. These are also high-level programming languages such as BASIC but their syntax is much better. For seconds you should try C/C++. These are quite hard to learn for a beginner so you should master a simpler programming language first.
Why do I always get flamed on the forums when I ask them to hack a website for me? You told me that I should ask!
You were obviously asking wrongly. First here’s an introduction to the most-used forum rule:
HackThisSite shall not support illegal activities.
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WASHINGTON – Of all the hazards facing a human mission to Mars — something NASA and countless other space buffs would love to see at some point — one of the hardest to solve is the radiation that saturates interplanetary space.
New data, gathered by NASA’s Curiosity rover as it traveled to Mars, have confirmed that interplanetary space is a hostile medium, and suggest that engineers need to find a way to speed up space travel significantly if they hope to reduce radiation exposure.
The new research, which was published online Thursday by the journal Science, is not a game-changer for human spaceflight. But it brings more hard data to a known risk factor, and will help NASA and other space agencies to come up with strategies for making spaceflight safer.
Space is not empty, but rather is saturated with charged particles. Some are flung from the sun in solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
An astronaut protected only by a spacesuit during a spacewalk could become extremely sick if struck by a burst of solar particles.
Those particles pose less of a threat inside a shielded spacecraft. But there are other kinds of particles, called galactic cosmic rays, that are spawned in supernovas around the galaxy and arrive at much higher energies, capable of penetrating thick metal barriers. They are virtually unstoppable.
The effects of interplanetary radiation on the human body are not well understood. Until now, scientists had limited information about how much radiation penetrates a spacecraft during an interplanetary journey. But the Curiosity rover carried along a Radiation Assessment Detector, and it measured the incoming radiation during its 253-day trip to Mars, which began in November 2011.
Curiosity flew to Mars in a spacecraft that had shielding similar to what astronauts would have on the new crew vehicle being developed by NASA. The detector picked up an average of 1.8 millisieverts of radiation per day. A human being on the surface of Earth receives only about 3 millisieverts of radiation in an entire year.
“The radiation environment in deep space is several hundred times more intense than it is on Earth, and that’s even inside a shielded spacecraft,” said Cary Zeitlin, a physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and the lead author of the new study.
In a fast-trajectory journey to Mars using existing propulsion, astronauts would travel for about 180 days to the red planet and 180 days home. According to the report, such a trip would expose them to a total of 662 millisieverts during the round-trip journey.
Some space agencies limit astronauts to 1,000 millisieverts during their entire career. NASA’s standard varies from person to person, influenced by age and gender, and it is designed to permit no more than a 3 percent excess risk of death from cancer over the person’s lifetime.
Astronauts would also be exposed to radiation during their stay on Mars (or in orbit around the planet if the mission did not include a landing). So the total radiation exposure during a mission, particularly one lasting about two years, might exceed the official limits set by space agencies.
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May 5, 2011
Climate Researchers Urged To Use ‘Plain Language’
Climate scientists gathering at a conference on Arctic warming were asked Wednesday to explain the dramatic melting in the region in layman's terms, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
An authoritative report released at the meeting in Copenhagen showed melting ice in the Arctic could result in global sea levels rising 5 feet within this century, much higher than previous forecasts.James White of the University of Colorado at Boulder told fellow researchers to use plain language when describing their research to a general audience. Focusing on the reports technical details could obscure the basic science. To put it bluntly, "if you put more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, it will get warmer," he said.
US climate scientist Robert Corell said it was pertinent to try to reach out to all members of society to spread awareness of Arctic melt and the impact it has on the whole world.
"Stop speaking in code. Rather than 'anthropogenic,' you could say 'human caused," Corell said at the conference of nearly 400 scientists.
The Arctic has been warming at twice the global average in recent decades, and the latest five-year period is the warmest since measurements began more than 100 years ago, according to the report by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program.
The report highlighted "the need for greater urgency" in reversing global warming. But standstills between nations on how to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases have lingered for the past two decades.
Andrew Steer, envoy on climate change for the World Bank, said the new findings "are a case for great concern." Rising sea levels will affect millions of people in both wealthy and poor countries, but would especially affect the poor, because "they tend to live in the lowest lying land and have the fewest resources to adapt," he said.
Studies on the topic showed that the costs of major flooding events on infrastructure and the economy could easily soar into billions of dollars, Steer said.
"It is clear that we are not on track in the battle against climate change," he said.
Ocean currents expert, Bogi Hansen, said one problem is that scientists can come off as unsure about conclusions because they hesitate to report on anything with 100 percent certainty.
White agreed. At a news conference later Wednesday, he told AP's Karl Ritter that those opposed to reducing the use of fossil fuels "sow the seeds of doubt that give the people the impression that ... unless every single one of us lines up behind an idea, that decisions can't be taken."
The AMAP report will be delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the foreign ministers of Canada, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Russia, at an Arctic Council meeting in Greenland next week.
On the Net:
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| 0.953414 | 578 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Come December each year, people of different faiths and cultures celebrate the winter holidays in many different ways. Let's take a look at three holidays to see how they're different…and what they have in common.
According to tradition, the Maccabees only had enough holy oil to light the eternal flame for one night when they entered the temple. Miraculously, that small bit of oil burned for eight days — the exact amount of time it took to press and consecrate more oil.
Kwanzaa means "first fruits" in Swahili, and the holiday focuses on seven principles: unity, self-determination, responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. There are seven Kwanzaa symbols: a straw mat (called a “mkeka"), a candleholder, seven candles, a unity cup, crops, corn, and gifts.
The kinara, a candleholder that sits on top of the mkeka, holds seven candles: three red candles on the right (representing the struggles of the past and present), three green candles on the left (representing a hopeful future), and one black candle in the middle (representing the skin color of people of African descent). The seven candles also represent the seven principles of Kwanzaa.
The black candle is lit on the first night. Each subsequent night of Kwanzaa, one of the other candles is lit, alternating from left to right. On the final night, all seven candles are lit, and children receive gifts.
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| 0.933747 | 315 | 3.484375 | 3 |
Fight Back Against Fat
During the past 20 years, obesity has continued to be a growing health problem in the United States.
Currently, according to the American Obesity Association (AOA), 64.5 percent of American adults are overweight (defined as having a body mass index of greater than 25), compared with 46 percent in 1980. That's despite the fact that Americans have been bombarded with information on how to lose weight and keep it off. If we know so much, why do we continue to battle the bulge?
"The short answer is we're not doing enough physical activity because more of us work at sedentary jobs, and we're eating too much because food is available, inexpensive and super-sized," says Melinda M. Manore, Ph.D., R.D., professor of nutrition and exercise science at Oregon State University in Corvallis.
She also believes lack of time is at fault. The stress of multitasking and overscheduling leads many people to eat for comfort and eat at their desks and in their cars. They don't have the time to prepare healthy low-fat meals or exercise regularly.
"We've gotten away from the things that make us healthy, such as enjoying balanced meals at home," she says.
Our health is the price we're paying. According to the AOA, obesity increases the risk for illness from 30 serious medical conditions, including diabetes, heart disease and several types of cancer.
To avoid becoming an obesity statistic, work against the tide. Here's how.
Exercise your options
Make a commitment to get more physical activity each day. That means making time to walk to and from lunch, avoiding the moving sidewalks in airports, parking your car in a distant office lot, pacing when you're talking on the phone, going for a brisk walk before or after dinner, and taking the stairs at every opportunity.
"To maintain weight, do 60 minutes of activity each day," Dr. Manore adds. "But don't think you have to do it in one chunk. It can be a combination of things, which may include working out at the gym."
To give yourself credit for every step you take and boost your motivation, use a pedometer. For weight maintenance, 10,000 steps a day is a good goal for most people.
"But start where you are. If you're at 3,000 steps, aim for 4,000 at first," says Dr. Manore.
She also encourages couples and families to spend their leisure and vacation time together doing something physically active, such as hiking, skiing or swimming, rather than watching TV or lounging on the beach.
Eat in more often
Eating out and consuming large portions also contribute to weight gain.
Indeed, Americans now consume an average of four commercially prepared meals a week. While that doesn't sound like much, restaurant meals can increase your waistline because they tend to be higher in fat and calories than those we make ourselves, says Dr. Manore.
Likewise, consider bringing your lunch to work. When you make it yourself, you can control the fat and calories, and you won't fall prey to skipping lunch, then succumbing to the vending machine.
Make low-fat dairy products and complex carbohydrates -- such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains (including rice, oats, whole-grain bread and corn) -- the mainstay of your diet, with small portions of meat, says Dr. Manore.
Keep tabs on calories
Whether you eat out or at home, be aware of portion sizes and keep your calorie intake reasonable.
"Be sure to monitor liquid calories, too," says Dr. Manore. "Calories from regular soft drinks and alcoholic beverages, especially mixed drinks, can really add up."
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| 0.967426 | 774 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Annuals or perennials; culms not robust. Blades linear. Inflorescence a panicle. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate, small, 1-flowered, often long-awned; rachilla articulate at base of lemma, not produced; glumes equal or unequal, acute or acuminate, 1-nerved, keeled, thin, persistent; lemmas as long as or longer than glumes, convex-keeled, bearded at base, thin; palea as long as lemma or longer, oblong with 2 nerves, apex attenuate; lodicules 2, small; stamens 3, the anthers short or long; ovary glabrous, the styles 2, free, short, the stigmas plumose, protruding sideways. Caryopsis terete, free.
About 100 species distributed from Himalaya to China and Japan, North America and extending to the Andes.
Some are useful fodder-grasses.
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| 0.822427 | 207 | 2.71875 | 3 |
On function of physical education in 21st centuryPor: Feng Yan, Ji Yuan, Lei Yuan, Qing Yu e Xia Liu.
The new century is a knowledge society. In the new economic century, the key factor for a country to stand in the world is to command more knowledge, own many talented people, especially the ability of bring forth the new ideas and technology. It is put forward that deepen the education reform and carry out the quality education, and idea of health first in 1999, at the 3rd educational conference in China. So college PE must deepen the reform, give full play to its function and living better and develop better.
Documental data method, practical method, logic analysis method are used in this paper.
1 Function of college PE
Function of college PE means the duty and the function of college PE education. It refers to what college PE does and what should it do.
2 Intension of college PE
College PE is one of the most important parts of higher education in China. It is one of the ways to accomplish the purpose of higher education in China. It includes the concept, idea, purpose and task of college PE.
3 What is the function of 21 the century?
(1)Through PE educate students, and teaching while learning, and foster the all-around way socialist builders.
(2)Through PE, strengthen the students’ physique, improve their health and finish their study in college.
(3)Through PE let the students know lifelong sports
(4)Through PE there will have more social PE inspectors
(5)Through PE there will be more excellent athletes
Making sure the function of college PE and the duty and function of college PE, the above five parts show the function of college PE in 21st century. Under the certain circamastanses, we should keep the time and develop our college PE.
. Mao Zhenming，Beijing PE Normal Magazine 1999（1）
. Lu Yuanzhen，School PE in China，1999（2）
. Zou Jihao, Facing 21st College PE in China Dalian Science and Engineering Press，2000（8）
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| 0.899925 | 461 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Since the travelling twin has to shift his frame of reference, it is technically difficult (but not impossible) to show how the travelling twin checks the sedentary twin's clock against his own and find, in accordance with special relativity, that the sedentary twin proves younger at the end of the trip. This technical difficulty allowed Einsteinians to introduce the following victorious principle:
We, Honest Einsteinians, show that, as judged from the frame of the sedentary twin, the travelling twin's clock runs slow, Divine Einstein, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity. We don't care about any means by which the travelling twin can check the sedentary twin's clock against his own. And since we do not care, the problem simply does not exist, Divine Einstein, yes we all believe in relativity, relativity, relativity.
The problem did not exist for Divine Albert in 1911 so his only concern was to minimize the effects of the acceleration suffered by the travelling twin:
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a909857880 Peter Hayes, in "The Ideology of Relativity: The Case of the Clock Paradox" : Social Epistemology, Volume 23, Issue 1 January 2009, pages 57-78, quotes Einstein writing in 1911: "The [travelling] clock runs slower if it is in uniform motion, but if it undergoes a change of direction as a result of a jolt, then the theory of relativity does not tell us what happens. The sudden change of direction might produce a sudden change in the position of the hands of the clock. However, the longer the clock is moving rectilinearly and uniformly with a given speed in a forward motion, i.e., the larger the dimensions of the polygon, the smaller must be the effect of such a hypothetical sudden change."
The acceleration-is-unimportant thesis is taught even today:
http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/research/gr/members/gibbons/gwgPartI_SpecialRelativity2010.pdf Gary W. Gibbons FRS: "In other words, by simply staying at home Jack has aged relative to Jill. There is no paradox because the lives of the twins are not strictly symmetrical. This might lead one to suspect that the accelerations suffered by Jill might be responsible for the effect. However this is simply not plausible because using identical accelerating phases of her trip, she could have travelled twice as far. This would give twice the amount of time gained."
Yet Divine Albert's enemies constantly referred to the fact that special relativity predicts RECIPROCAL time dilation so in 1918 he had to abandon the acceleration-is-unimportant thesis: Yes, the travelling twin does see the sedentary twin's clock running slow when the velocity is uniform but the acceleration suffered by the travelling twin at the turn-around counteracts the effect so that in the end Divine Albert's 1905 prediction (the travelling twin returns younger), even though made without any reference to acceleration, remains gloriously valid:
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dialog_about_objections_against_the_theory_of_relativity Dialog about Objections against the Theory of Relativity (1918), by Albert Einstein: "...according to the special theory of relativity the coordinate systems K and K' are by no means equivalent systems. Indeed this theory asserts only the equivalence of all Galilean (unaccelerated) coordinate systems, that is, coordinate systems relative to which sufficiently isolated, material points move in straight lines and uniformly. K is such a coordinate system, but not the system K', that is accelerated from time to time. Therefore, from the result that after the motion to and fro the clock U2 is running behind U1, no contradiction can be constructed against the principles of the theory. (...) During the partial processes 2 and 4 the clock U1, going at a velocity v, runs indeed at a slower pace than the resting clock U2. However, this is more than compensated by a faster pace of U1 during partial process 3. According to the general theory of relativity, a clock will go faster the higher the gravitational potential of the location where it is located, and during partial process 3 U2 happens to be located at a higher gravitational potential than U1. The calculation shows that this speeding ahead constitutes exactly twice as much as the lagging behind during the partial processes 2 and 4. This consideration completely clears up the paradox that you brought up."
http://www.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/teaching/HPS_0410/chapters/spacetime_tachyon/index.html John Norton: "Then, at the end of the outward leg, the traveler abruptly changes motion, accelerating sharply to adopt a new inertial motion directed back to earth. What comes now is the key part of the analysis. The effect of the change of motion is to alter completely the traveler's judgment of simultaneity. The traveler's hypersurfaces of simultaneity now flip up dramatically. Moments after the turn-around, when the travelers clock reads just after 2 days, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to read just after 7 days. That is, the traveler will judge the stay-at-home twin's clock to have jumped suddenly from reading 1 day to reading 7 days. This huge jump puts the stay-at-home twin's clock so far ahead of the traveler's that it is now possible for the stay-at-home twin's clock to be ahead of the travelers when they reunite."
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| 0.938685 | 1,164 | 2.796875 | 3 |
There is now extensive evidence on the optimal management of diabetes, offering the opportunity of improving the immediate and long-term quality of life of those with the condition. Unfortunately such optimal management is not reaching many, perhaps the majority, of the people who could benefit.
There is now extensive evidence on the optimal management of diabetes, offering the opportunity of improving the immediate and long-term quality of life of those with the condition. Unfortunately such optimal management is not reaching many, perhaps the majority, of the people who could benefit. Reasons include the size and complexity of the evidence-base, and the complexity of diabetes care itself. One result is a lack of proven cost-effective resources for diabetes care. Another result is diversity of standards of clinical practice.
Guidelines are one part of a process that seeks to address those problems. Many guidelines have appeared internationally, nationally, and more locally in recent years, but most of these have not used the rigorous new guideline methodologies for identification and analysis of the evidence.
Accordingly the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) has developed a global guideline, Global Guideline for Type 2 Diabetes (Brussels: International Diabetes Federation, 2005).
A global guideline presents a unique challenge. Many national guidelines address one group of people with diabetes in the context of one health-care system, with one level of national and health-care resources. This is not true in the global context where, although every health-care system seems to be short of resources, and the funding and expertise available for health-care vary widely between countries and even between localities.
Published national guidelines come from relatively resource-rich countries, and may be of limited practical use in less well resourced countries. Accordingly we have also tried to develop a guideline that is sensitive to resource and cost-effectiveness issues.
Levels of care approach
The approach adopted has been to advise on three levels of care: Standard care, Minimal care, and Comprehensive care. Levels of care is a new and innovative concept in diabetes research.
Evidence-based care, cost-effective in most nations with a well developed service base and with health-care funding systems consuming a significant part of their national wealth.
Care that seeks to achieve the major objectives of diabetes management, but is provided in health-care settings with very limited resources – drugs, personnel, technologies and procedures.
Care with some evidence-base that is provided in health-care settings with considerable resources.
- Global Guideline for Type 2 Diabetes – Download full document (560 KB)
- Preface, Levels of care, Methodology, Members of the Guidelines Group
- Order a hard copy of the publication
- The Guideline is also available in Indonesian (530KB), Russian (480KB) and Turkish (520KB)
- A digest of the Global Guideline for Type 2 Diabetes - published as a supplement to Volume 51 Issue 3 of Diabetes Voice.
Global Guideline for Type 2 Diabetes takes into account 19 specific health-care domains and includes topics of importance and controversy. Each section can be downloaded as an separate PDF document (average file size 100KB). The 19 sections are:
Funding is essential to an activity of this kind. IDF is grateful to a diversity of commercial partners for provision of unrestricted educational grants.
- Eli Lilly
- Merck Inc (MSD)
- Merck Santé
- Novo Nordisk
- Pfizer Inc
- Roche Diagnostics
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| 0.928364 | 710 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Bishop, Robert C.
Determinism and Indeterminism.
Determinism is a rich and varied concept. At an abstract level of analysis, Jordan Howard Sobel (1998) identifies at least ninety varieties of what determinism could be like. When it comes to thinking about what deterministic laws and theories in physical sciences might be like, the situation is much clearer. There is a criterion by which to judge whether a law–expressed as some form of equation–is deterministic. A theory would then be deterministic just in case all its laws taken as a whole were deterministic. In contrast, if a law fails this criterion, then it is indeterministic and any theory whose laws taken as a whole fail this criterion must also be indeterministic. Although it is widely believed that classical physics is deterministic and quantum mechanics is indeterministic, application of this criterion yields some surprises for these standard judgments.
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| 0.929924 | 214 | 2.546875 | 3 |
- 1 of 1 Photos | View More Photos
KIDRON -- The last straw for the Mennonites of Sonnenberg, Switzerland, came in 1816 when the volcanic eruption of Mount Timor in the East Indies rocketed a heavy blanket of dust into the atmosphere and wreaked havoc on weather patterns worldwide. This resulted in a summerless year around the globe, including the United States.
In Switzerland these climatic conditions caused the worst famine in the history of the country. In a year when it snowed and froze in every month, crops failed, potatoes did not yield and food became very scarce.
The Anabaptists of the Jura barely survived on soups made from herbs and roots, and on bread made from the hulls of grain called "kleien-kuchen." The period 1815-1818 was a time of great starvation in Switzerland, and many faced the choice of moving elsewhere or facing starvation where they were.
On April 15, 1819, a party of 28 Swiss Anabaptists led by Peter Lehman, Ulrich Lehman, David Kirchhofer and Isaac Sommer set sail for America from the port of Le Havre, France, aboard a three-masted ship named the "Midi."
The Lehman party had been encouraged by a man named Benedict Schrag (today Schrock), the father of Jacob Schrag who was the first Bernese Anabaptist to immigrate to America, settling near what is now Smithville. Schrag wrote about the good land and abundance of the region, arousing interest among potential settlers.
After a 50-day crossing, the Lehman party landed in New York City on July 14, then traveled successively to Philadelphia, Lancaster, Pittsburgh, Canton and then to Wooster, which at that time was considered to be the farthest western outpost of the American frontier.
The group's members attained Wooster in early August and began scouting the area for good land. They selected 320 acres of rolling terrain about two miles northeast of present-day Kidron, paying $1.25 per acre and naming it for their native town.
In 1821 about three dozen more Swiss Anabaptists made the journey to America and Wayne County. Other migrations to the Sonnenberg community occurred in 1822, 1824 and 1825. A second Swiss Mennonite community known as the Chippewa Settlement was established south of present-day Rittman.
While the initial days of settlement in the Sonnenberg community were difficult, the residents strove to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible. The first settlers simply lived outdoors under the huge trees of the virgin forests. The trees that were felled to clear the land for farming were used to build their log houses, which were crudely furnished. One imaginative settler even built his cabin around a huge tree stump which served as the family's table. As new immigrants arrived, they were housed in these cabins until they could build their own.
Source: "Decorative Arts of Ohio's Sonnenberg Mennonites" by Locher, Irvin and Kaufman
Monday: Sonnenberg settlement prospers
Reporter Paul Locher can be reached at 330-682-2055 or [email protected].
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| 0.969144 | 686 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Check out the intertidal zone and its biodiversity!
phylum includes the brown algae, and is almost exclusively
marine. All phaeophyte species in this group are multi-cellular.
The giant kelps also belong to this group. These amazing
can grow a metre in length in a couple of weeks, and dozens
of metres in a single year! This group contains the pigments
chlorophyll a and c and fucoxanthins. Most brown algae are
found in the intertidal or shallow subtidal, and they are
more abundant in the Northern Hemisphere. Kelp are becoming
very important commercially: for food, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals
and in the sciences.
A kelp can easily be identified by four
basic structural components (three shown on left): blade/frond
(photosynthetic portion), bulb (used as a float to keep blades
near light at the surface; only present in some species),
stipe (analogous to a stem in vascular plants), and holdfast
(root-like or disk-shaped; attaches the kelp firmly to the
substrate) (for more on brown algae, click here).
branches and floats off either side of thick stipe.
Columbia to California.
rocky shores. Low intertidal to upper subtidal.
Cool Fact: Used as
fertilizer by coastal farmers!
to brown. Dichotomous branching. Swollen receptacles at end. Midrib present.
to rocks. Mid to low intertidal. Often the most common intertidal algae
on B.C. shores. It is difficult to miss!
Cool Fact: The
receptacles contain the gametes, which are released after a period of desiccation.
A hardy algae - capable of tolerating extreme physical conditions!
to black. Smooth blade with a split down the centre.
exposed rocky shores. Low intertidal to upper subtidal.
Cool Fact: This
algae can survive the high velocity and heavy turbulence found in surge channels!
Hollow, convoluted and spongy.
Sea to Mexico.
shores. Sometimes epiphytic. All intertidal zones.
Cool Fact: Originally
thought to be a jelly fungus!
branch along length of stipe. Small float at the base of each blade.
shores. Low intertidal to 10m deep.
Cool Fact: This
kelp grows incredibly fast - 20cm in only a few days! Also important because
herring lay their row on this kelp.
stipe with bulb and long fronds at one end.
shores. Upper subtidal and lower.
Cool Fact: One
of the largest kelps! An annual alga that can grow 25m or more in a single
year! The float is filled with carbon monoxide to keep the blades at the
see more about Phaeophyta!
Field Guide directory
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| 0.771848 | 627 | 3.890625 | 4 |
Scientists can implant false memories into mice
- 25 July 2013
- From the section Science & Environment
False memories have been implanted into mice, scientists say.
A team was able to make the mice wrongly associate a benign environment with a previous unpleasant experience from different surroundings.
The researchers conditioned a network of neurons to respond to light, making the mice recall the unpleasant environment.
Reporting in Science, they say it could one day shed light into how false memories occur in humans.
The brains of genetically engineered mice were implanted with optic fibres in order to deliver pulses of light to their brain. Known as optogenetics, this technique is able to make individual neurons respond to light.
Just like in mice, our memories are stored in collections of cells, and when events are recalled we reconstruct parts of these cells - almost like re-assembling small pieces of a puzzle.
It has been well documented that human memory is highly unreliable, first highlighted by a study on eyewitness testimonies in the 70s. Simple changes in how a question was asked could influence the memory a witness had of an event such as a car crash.
When this was brought to public attention, eyewitness testimonies alone were no longer used as evidence in court. Many people wrongly convicted on memory statements were later exonerated by DNA evidence.
Xu Liu of the RIKEN-MIT Center for Neural Circuit Genetics and one the lead authors of the study, said that when mice recalled a false memory, it was indistinguishable from the real memory in the way it drove a fear response in the memory forming cells of a mouse's brain.
The mouse is the closest animal scientists can easily use to analyse the brain, as though simpler, its structure and basic circuitry is very similar to the human brain.
Studying neurons in a mouse's brain could therefore help scientists further understand how similar structures in the human brain work.
"In the English language there are only 26 letters, but the combinations of letters make unlimited words and sentences, this is also true for memories," Dr Liu told BBC News.
"There are so many brain cells and for each individual memory, different combinations of small populations of cells are activated."
These differing combinations of cells could partly explain why memories are not static like a photograph, but constantly evolving, he added.
"If you want to grab a specific memory you have to get down into the cell level. Every time we think we remember something, we could also be making changes to that memory - sometimes we realise sometimes we don't," Dr Liu explained.
"Our memory changes every single time it's being 'recorded'. That's why we can incorporate new information into old memories and this is how a false memory can form without us realising it."
Susumu Tonegawa, also from RIKEN-MIT, said his teams' work provided the first animal model in which false and genuine memories could be investigated in the cells which store memories, called engram-bearing cells.
"Humans are highly imaginative animals. Just like our mice, an aversive or appetitive event could be associated with a past experience one may happen to have in mind at that moment, hence a false memory is formed."
Neil Burgess from University College London, who was not involved with the work, told BBC News the study was an "impressive example" of creating a fearful response in an environment where nothing fearful happened.
"One day this type of knowledge may help scientists to understand how to remove or reduce the fearful associations experienced by people with conditions like post traumatic stress disorder."
But he added that it's only an advance in "basic neuroscience" and that these methods could not be directly applied to humans for many years.
"But basic science always helps in the end, and it may be possible, one day, to use similar techniques to silence neurons causing the association to fear."
'Diseases of thought'
Mark Mayford of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego, US, said: "The question is, how does the brain change with experience? That's the heart of everything the brain does.
He explained that work like this could one day further help us to understand the structure of our thoughts and the cells involved.
"Then one can begin to look at those brain circuits, see how they change, and hopefully find the areas or mechanisms that change with learning."
"The implications are potentially interventions for diseases of thought such as schizophrenia. You cannot approach schizophrenia unless you know how a perception is put together."
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| 0.960066 | 921 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The concept of agent provocateur is probably as old as conflict and politics. Agents provocateur entice others to commit illegal or rash acts to provoke reaction and escalate confrontation.
Often, the reaction gives rise to further provocative acts, in turn, bringing more responses. The process can escalate out of control, sometimes, intentionally.
In the strictest sense, agents provocateur are infiltrators from the other side. In 2009, a British Member of Parliament said he saw two undercover police officers in London acting as agents provocateur at the G20 demonstrations, attempting to get the crowd to riot.
However, provocateurs can work on behalf of any social, political or criminal cause, or they can even be soloists, standing to benefit from escalating violent conflicts. They take advantage of human weaknesses and inclinations to bring about what most of us view as negative, destructive and counter-productive results.
The inherent evil of the agent provocateur is a perverse application of the Golden Rule’s “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” The motive of the provocateur is to inflict pain so as to force infliction of pain in return. For example, in civil contexts, the goal can be to escalate a confrontation until authorities use excessive force to quell the unrest, which can spread like a contagious disease, drawing in onlookers as well as interested parties.
The process also can be more abstractly political. Rather than seek compromise, two sides in a political dispute may find their differences aggravated until they are driven poles apart. To a casual onlooker, the result may appear unplanned. Most parties to the conflict on both sides might think so, too. It doesn’t take many provocateurs to drive the wedge.
Not all agent provocateurs may at first understand what is happening. They may effectively be provocateurs before they decide to be purposeful agents. Take the case of rioters in Ferguson, Mo., in the wake of the police shooting of Michael Brown.
The New York Times reported that protesters said, “police acted without provocation. But at a news conference about an hour into an overnight curfew, Ronald S. Johnson, the Missouri State Highway Patrol captain brought in by the governor to take over security, blamed ‘premeditated criminal acts’ that were intended to provoke the police.”
Even if the first person in the street to throw a rock or break a window didn’t intend to provoke police to violence, once police responded, no matter how restrained, it was virtually inevitable the confrontation would spiral out of control. Like kindling for a bonfire, the scene was primed for agent provocateurs to seize the moment and purposely escalate confrontations.
Motives can be multiple, and may never be fully known. Resulting riots can give rise to looting, which is crass economic profiteering as provocation results, literally, in wealth transfer. Riots also allow agent provocateurs acting with a strategic intention to drum up public support for social causes, such as perceived exploitation by nonminority shopkeepers in minority communities, like in the 1965 Watts riots. A political agenda may aim to stir outrage against what may or may not be genuine discrimination by police in a community.
The point: Rioting, spurred on by provocateurs, can serve multiple ends that may not have anything to do with the original incident that set everything in motion, or even have little to do with the personal motives of most rioters and police in the street.
The agent-provocateur playbook resembles the notorious Saul Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals,” the 1971 book that advised how to bring about social change, by, among other things, increasing insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
Alinsky’s 10th rule says, “If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.” Commentators on this strategy find in Alinsky’s advice an acknowledgment that provoking violence can win public sympathy for perceived underdogs as victims.
In the provocateur’s mission, like all spy stories, it is next to impossible to know who’s who and on which side an actor’s loyalty may lie. Agent provocateurs’ effectiveness is lessened if their true colors are obvious.
What is easier to discern, however, is whether orchestrated acts are moral. The first rock thrown, the first unnecessary swat with a police officer’s baton can be seen for what they are: the ignition of a bonfire that will rage out of control.
Good people on both sides of a police line are capable of understanding this. Their appropriate reaction should be to withdraw from the conflict, rather than be drawn into it like pawns in a chess game they neither desire nor control. They should live by the Golden Rule. Failing that, the provocateurs will have their way.
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Sunflowers are not only beautiful. They are fascinating. The spirals of seeds in sunflower heads often follow a special pattern of numbers called the Fibonacci sequence. Mathematical patterns can be found in other plants and animals too – everything from pine cones to a tiger’s stripes can be linked to mathematics.
This brilliant video gives a fantastic insight into where you can find fibonacci numbers in nature.
Alan Turing, perhaps best known for helping crack the Enigma Code during WW2, was fascinated by how maths works in nature. Turing noticed that the Fibonacci sequence often occurred in sunflower seed heads. He hoped that by studying the plant it might help us understand how plants grow, but died before he could finish his work. Our tribute to Turing is a mass experiment to grow 3,000 sunflowers. If enough people grow, we can collect sufficient data to put Turing’s and other scientists’ theories to the test. What better way to mark the mathematician’s centenary than to complete his final research project?
Taking part is easy. All participants need to do is grow a sunflower, keep the seed head and take part in the head count in September and October. For that, participants will be able to take their seed head to one of our special counting locations, or post their ‘spiral counts’ online. Researchers at The University of Manchester will then collate the data, and the results will be announced during Manchester Science Festival.
Everyone who submits data from their sunflower will be included as part of the Turing's Sunflowers group and referred to on academic publications that result from the experiment.
Professor Jonathan Swinton who conceived of the experiment tells us a bit more about the experiment in this video. On one level its just about growing a sunflower for yourself and looking to see if you get Fibonacci spirals, on another level its everyone coming together that is growing a sunflower and sharing that data so that we can look at how often Fibonacci numbers appear in sunflowers and on the final level its about providing additional data like the number of petals, the diameter of the head to contribute to and perhaps update mathematical models of how sunflowers grow.
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of years ago in England, many children dressed up as adults on
Valentine's Day. They went singing from home to home.
One verse they sang was:
Good morning to you, valentine;
Curl your locks as I do mine---
Two before and three behind.
Good morning to you, valentine.
In Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on February
14th. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favorite decorations on the spoons.
The decoration meant, "You unlock my heart!"
In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see
who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their
sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that
it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
In some countries, a young woman may receive a gift of clothing from a
young man. If she keeps the gift, it means she will marry him.
Some people used to believe that if a woman saw a robin flying overhead
on Valentine's Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a
sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a
goldfinch, she would marry a millionaire.
A love seat is a wide chair. It was first made to seat one woman and
her wide dress. Later, the love seat or courting seat had two sections,
often in an S-shape. In this way, a couple could sit together -- but not
Think of five or six names of boys or girls you might marry, As you
twist the stem of an apple, recite the names until the stem comes off.
You will marry the person whose name you were saying when the stem fell
Pick a dandelion that has gone to seed. Take a deep breath and blow the
seeds into the wind. Count the seeds that remain on the stem. That is
the number of children you will have.
If you cut an apple in half and count how many seeds are inside, you
will also know how many children you will have.
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These look like fairly large rocks, but they're actually very small grains of sand. The ball bearings that you can see -- one at the top and another near the bottom -- in the photograph were placed there to provide a sense of scale; they each measure two millimeters across (0.08 inches in diameter); the entire picture is just one inch square. In the reflection of those bearings you can see the four white LEDs from the special camera that took this picture.
Shot on a sand dune near Christmas Lake, Oregon, this photograph was a test shot for NASA's Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera on Curiosity. "This image has a resolution of 15.4 microns per pixel, which is about twice as high as the camera resolution on Mars Rovers Spirit and Opportunity," NASA explained. "Geologists can examine an image like this for information about the composition of the sand. In this case, the largest white grains are pumice fragments and the dark black and gray grains are fragments of basalt. Nearly transparent, slightly yellow crystals are feldspars. The crystals and pumice were erupted by Mount Mazama in its terminal explosion about 7,700 years ago; the volcano is known today as Crater Lake."
View more Pictures of the Day.
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There are several genomes present in Aegilops: B, C, D, M, N, U, X, and Z. More information can be found at http://herbarium.usu.edu/Triticeae/genomesaegilops.htm
Plants annual. Inflorescences cylindrical, moniliform, or ovoid, with 2-10(12) spikelets, at least the distal spikelets with either or both the glumes and lemmas awned. Disarticulating in the rachis, sometimes the whole inflorescence falling, at each node, the spikelets usually falling with the internode above the node attached, sometimes with the internode below. Glumes rounded on the back, their tips toothed or awned.
Plants annual. Culms 14-80 cm tall, erect or geniculate at the base.
Leaf blades 1.5-10 mm wide, flat.
Inflorescence spikelike, cylindrical, moniliform, or ovoid, with 2-10(12) spikelets, usually with 2-3 rudimentary spikelets at the base, sometimes the distal spikelets sterile; disarticulation at the base of the inflorescence or in the rachis, at the internode below or above the spikelet.
Spikelets solitary at the nodes, sessile, tangential to the rachis, closely appressed to the concave surface of the internodes, half as long as to almost as long as the adjacent internode.
Glumes ovate to rectangular, coriaceous, rounded on the back, with several prominent veins. apices truncate, subentire, toothed, or awned. Lemmas thin, mostly hyaline but the distal portion coriaceous, rounded on the back, apices with 1-3 teeth or awns. Lodicules trullate to angular-ovate, the margins ciliate. Anthers 1.5-4 mm.
Caryopsis sometimes adhering to the palea
Geographic: Central and Mediterranean Europe, northern Africa, southern Ukraine, Crimea, the Caucasus, and western Asia. Some species have become established as weeds beyond this range.
Elevation: From -400 m to 2700 m.
Ecology: In somewhat disturbed habitats, both ruderal and segetal. Rarely dominant.
In all the polyploid species of Triticum, all but one of the genomes comes from Aegilops.
Aegilops is sometimes, and justifiably, included with Amblyopyrum in Triticum. Several of its species hybridize with species of Triticum. Polyploid derivatives of such hybrids are included in Triticum. This is one of the arguments for merging the two genera into one which, in accordance with the Inernational Rules of Botanical Nomenclature, would be called Triticum. The strongest argument for keeping the two genera separate is tradition. Another argument is that they fill have different ecological niches. Species of Aegilops are weedy; species of Triticum are not.
Slageren, M.W. van 1994. Wild Wheats: A Monograph of Aegilops L. and Amblyopyrum (Jaub. & Spach) Eig. Wageningen Agricultural University Papers 94—7. Wageningen Acricultural University and International Center for Agfricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA), Wageningen, The Netherlands and Aleppo, Syria. 512 pp.
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“By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain” (Heb. 11:4).- Hebrews 11:4
At the end of chapter 10, the author of Hebrews makes it clear that it is by faith that we preserve our souls and are saved (10:39). It is our endurance in faith that allows us to persevere unto the end.
In Hebrews 11, we find many examples of persevering faith. Such faith finds its expression first of all in the fact that by faith we see that God created the world (11:3). In today’s passage, we begin looking at some of the heroes of the old covenant in order that we might better understand the nature of persevering faith.
Before we discuss verse 4, let us recall that persevering faith is not something that we create in ourselves. We only possess true faith if God has sovereignly given it to us (Eph. 2:8). Nevertheless, we recognize that once given to us, we still need the Lord to increase this faith from time to time (Luke 17:5). One of the ways the Lord can do this is through the examples of faith found in Hebrews 11.
In verse 4, we read, “by faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain.” Why was Abel’s sacrifice more acceptable than Cain’s? Over the years, several different explanations have been offered. One popular interpretation is that Abel’s sacrifice was more acceptable because he offered a blood sacrifice while Cain offered only a sacrifice of vegetation (Gen. 4:2–4). However, this is probably not the best understanding of this passage because God also commanded His people to offer up grain (for example, Lev. 6:14–15).
What then shall we say? The answer is found in today’s verse. Hebrews 11:4 says that Abel’s offering was done in faith, implying that Cain’s was not. God had regard for Abel because he had faith; but Cain, though outwardly obedient, lacked such faith.
The story from Genesis, on which Hebrews 11:4 is based, reinforces this. In Genesis 4:2–4, we read that whereas Abel brought the first fruits of his labor, Cain did not. Abel trusted that God would continue to provide even after he gave up the first evidences of God’s provision. But Cain did not and withheld his first fruits from God.
Abel’s faith — the faith that trusts in God’s provision — is the kind of faith that will endure even in the midst of adversity. If we do not trust God to provide for us even before He has done so, we will certainly not trust Him under duress.
Do you trust that God will provide for you? Do you believe that God will really give you all that you need? Take some time to look at the things you can offer to God — for example, time, money, or relationships. If you have been holding back in any of these areas, seek to give of them in ways that truly reflect trust in His provision.
Passages for Further Study
2 Cor. 9:6–15
For permissions, please see our Copyright Policy.
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As we discuss in "Form and Meter," the majority of this poem is written in blank verse, which immediately recalls Shakespeare, the undeniable great master of the form. As literary critic Rachel Blau du Plessis suggests in her essay "Propounding a Modernist Maleness: How Pound Managed a Muse," Pound may be referencing Shakespeare so he can place his poem within a long tradition of poems inspired by female muses. Shakespeare's "Dark Lady," who inspired many of his best-known sonnets, is the female muse of all female muses. For many English-language poets, Shakespeare's model is the one to match or beat. Du Plessis points out that allusions to Renaissance poetry occur in a number of ways throughout this poem.
- Lines 17-18: Mandrakes appear notably in a number of Shakespeare's plays, including Othello, Anthony and Cleopatra, and Romeo and Juliet. But they were fascinating to other Renaissance writers as well, including John Webster and John Donne. Sometimes shaped like human bodies, mandrakes were thought to have magical qualities and were often used in spells and potions. Legend also claimed that mandrakes, when dug up, screamed so horribly that they could kill everyone around them with the sound. So when the speaker of "Portrait d'une Femme" describes a tale "pregnant with mandrakes," he is calling up a whole tradition of this plant's association with human qualities. The mandrake is personified, symbolizing mystery and magic.
- Line 23: Ambergris is another one of those things, like mandrakes, that people were obsessed with around the 17th century. We discuss earlier how ambergris can represent both the sea and civilization, but here it is also an allusion to an earlier historical period.
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Australian scientists have found an Alzheimer’s treatment that can restore memory using ultrasound technology.
The Alzheimer’s treatment — which has been successfully tested on mice — does not involve drugs, but high frequency sound waves.
Professor Jürgen Götz, the director of the Clem Jones Centre for Ageing Dementia Research in Australia, and one of the study’s authors, said:
“We’re extremely excited by this innovation of treating Alzheimer’s without using drug therapeutics.
The ultrasound waves oscillate tremendously quickly, activating microglial cells that digest and remove the amyloid plaques that destroy brain synapses.
The word ‘breakthrough’ is often mis-used, but in this case I think this really does fundamentally change our understanding of how to treat this disease, and I foresee a great future for this approach.”
Potential Alzheimer’s treatment
The study trialled the ultrasound technique on mice whose brains contained amyloid beta, a toxic plaque seen in Alzheimer’s sufferers.
It uses high-energy ultrasound to clear the build-up of toxic plaques.
After using the Alzheimer’s treatment for several weeks, the researchers restored memory and cleared the plaques in 75% of the mice.
Professor Götz said:
“This treatment restored memory function to the same level of normal healthy mice.
We’re also working on seeing whether this method clears toxic protein aggregates in neurodegenerative diseases other than Alzheimer’s and whether this also restores executive functions, including decision-making and motor control.”
The research is still at a very early stage and it will likely be years before it can be tested on people.
The researchers need to see whether it will work in other animals — sheep are next — and whether any side-effects exist.
Nevertheless, the scientists think it could be much more effective than any Alzheimer’s treatment currently used.
These do not remove amyloid plaques and only work for a short time.
Professor Götz said:
“With an ageing population placing an increasing burden on the health system, an important factor is cost, and other potential drug treatments using antibodies will be expensive.
In contrast, this method uses relatively inexpensive ultrasound and microbubble technology which is non-invasive and appears highly effective.”
The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine (Leinenga & Götz, 2015).
Brain aging image from Shutterstock
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Quotations About / On:
True love mellows and untrue love yellows.
Glowing flame within lightbulb... yellow feathers of imprisoned bird
A chaste woman ought not to die her hair yellow.
(Menander (c. 342-291 B.C.), Greek playwright. Fragments, no. 610.)
The road to the City of Emeralds is paved with yellow brick.
(L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), U.S. author. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, ch. 2 (1900).
The words do not appear thus in the film (1939), which features the song, Follow the Yellow Brick Road.)
There is no blue without yellow and without orange.
(Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890), Dutch painter. Letter, June 1888. The Complete Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, vol. 3, no. B6 (1958).)
There Was a Country in which the Half of a Yellow Sun shone on The Famished Road...
Fear has nothing to do with cowardice. A fellow is only yellow when he lets his fear make him quit.
(Jerome Cady, U.S. screenwriter, and Lewis Milestone. Captain Ross (Dana Andrews), The Purple Heart (1944).)
... a legitimate revolution must be led by, made by those who have been most oppressed: black, brown, yellow, red, and white womenwith men relating to that the best they can.
(Robin Morgan (b. 1941), U.S. author, feminist, and child actor. Goodbye to All That (January 1970).)
Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbowred, yellow, brown, black and whiteand we're all precious in God's sight.
(Jesse Jackson (b. 1941), U.S. clergyman, civil rights leader. Speech, July 16, 1984, Democratic National Convention, San Francisco. Quoted in The Harper Book of American Quotations, ed. Gorton Carruth and Eugene Ehrlich (1988).
Jackson added, "My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected and the despised.")
The canoe and yellow birch, beech, maple, and elm are Saxon and Norman, but the spruce and fir, and pines generally, are Indian.
(Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. "Chesuncook" (1858) in The Maine Woods (1864), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 3, p. 120, Houghton Mifflin (1906).)
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NASA rover Curiosity is beavering away up on Mars, examining rocks, drilling holes, checking out the weather -- but it's not just up there to look at the planet's hospitability for humans. It's also looking for conditions favourable for life; not now, but in the past, when Mars may have been home to extraterrestrial microbes.
But maybe the answer is right here on Earth, after all -- in the form of a meteorite.
Tissint landed in the desert of Guelmim-Es Semara, Morocco, on July 18, 2011. It was thrown from the surface of Mars by an asteroid collision some 700,000 years ago -- and there is no other meteorite quite like it. The 7-11 kilogram grey rock -- seared glassy black on the outside by the heat of entry, called a fusion crust -- showed evidence of water. It was riddled with tiny fissures, into which water had deposited material.
This material, on analysis, turned out to be an organic carbon compound -- one that was biological in origin. It is not the only meteorite in which organic carbon has been found, but the debate has always centered on whether the carbon was deposited before or after the meteorite in question landed on Earth -- to wit, whether it is terrestrial or extraterrestrial in origin.
A team of researchers studied the organic carbon found in the fissures of Tissint and determined that it is not of this world.
There are several points of evidence put forward by the team. First, there was a relatively short timeframe between when the meteorite was observed falling to Earth and when it was collected.
The second is that the microscopic fissures in the rock would have had to have been produced by a sudden high heat -- such as, for example, the heat of atmospheric entry. This shock, and the temperatures required to open the fissures, could not have come from the Moroccan desert.
Thirdly, some of the carbon grains inside Tissint had hardened into diamond. There are no known conditions under which this could have occurred on the surface of the Moroccan desert -- and certainly not in the time it took between the meteorite's fall and discovery.
Fourthly, the carbon contains a high amount of deuterium, heavy hydrogen with one proton and one neutron in its nucleus -- consistent with the composition of Mars geology. "Such an enormous concentration of deuterium is the typical 'finger print' of Martian rocks as we know already from previous measurements," study co-author Professor Ahmed El Goresy of the University of Bayreuth, Germany, said.
These points are supported by the nanoscale secondary ion mass spectroscopy data. This reveals that the material was significantly depleted of carbon isotope 13C, compared to the level of 13C in the carbon dioxide of Mars' atmosphere as measured by Phoenix and Curiosity. This difference was consistent with the levels found on Earth between the atmosphere and a piece of coal -- which is biological in origin.
While the case looks strong, though, it would be a mistake to consider the evidence conclusive just yet, cautioned Yangting Lin, the study's senior author and professor at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.
"We cannot and do not want to entirely exclude the possibility that organic carbon within Tissint may be of abiotic origin," Lin wrote, meaning the carbon maybe physical in origin rather than organic -- devoid of life.
"It could be possible that the organic carbon originated from impacts of carbonaceous chondrite meteorites. However, it is not easy to conceive by which processes chondritic carbon could have been selectively extracted from the impacting carbonaceous chondrites, selectively removed from the soil and later impregnated in the extremely fine rock veins."
The full study, "NanoSIMS analysis of organic carbon from the Tissint Martian meteorite: Evidence for the past existence of subsurface organic-bearing fluids on Mars", can be found online in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science.
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Current members :
The United Kingdom
The United States of America
The European Commission
Short-lived climate pollutants (SLCPs) are agents that have relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere - a few days to a few decades - and a warming influence on climate. The main short lived climate pollutants are black carbon, methane and tropospheric ozone, which are the most important contributors to the human enhancement of the global greenhouse effect after CO2. These short-lived climate pollutants are also dangerous air pollutants, with various detrimental impacts on human health, agriculture and ecosystems. Other short-lived climate pollutants include some hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). While HFCs are currently present in small quantity in the atmosphere their contribution to climate forcing is projected to climb to as much as 19% of global CO2 emissions by 2050.
Avoiding millions of premature deaths
Each year, 3.1 million people die prematurely from indoor and outdoor air pollution. Short-lived climate pollutants are largely to blame. Fast actions on short lived climate pollutants, such as the widespread adoption of advanced cookstoves and clean fuels, have the potential to prevent over 2 million of premature deaths each year.
Increasing crop yields
Feeding a growing world population has become one of the major issues of our century and we cannot afford to lose millions of tons of crops each year because of air pollution. Present day global relative yield losses due to tropospheric ozone exposure range between 7-12 percent for wheat, 6-16 percent for soybean, 3-4 percent for rice, and 3-5 percent for maize
At the first meeting of the CCAC High Level Assembly, on 24 April 2012 in Stockholm, an initial tranche of five initiatives was agreed upon for rapid implementation, as follows.
* Reducing Black Carbon Emissions from Heavy Duty Diesel Vehicles and Engines
The Coalition will work to reduce the climate and health impacts of black carbon and particulate matter (PM) emissions in the transport sector. An estimated 19% of global black carbon emissions come from the transportation sector, with an important share coming from diesel vehicles.
The Coalition will work to reduce these emissions through commitments by governments, regional institutions, cities, across the private sector, and other major stakeholders to achieve catalytic, large-scale and replicable reductions of black carbon emissions from heavy duty diesel vehicles and engines within: the freight transportation supply chain by engaging private sector interests; urban areas through the implementation of city action plans; and countries through the adoption of a range of measures for reducing sulphur in fuels and vehicle emissions.
* Mitigating Black Carbon and Other Pollutants From Brick Production
The Coalition will work to address emissions of black carbon and other pollutants from brick production and reduce the harmful climate, air pollution, economic, and social impacts from this sector. Brick kiln production is responsible for important air pollution in many cities of the world.
Under this focal area, the CCAC will catalyse adoption of integrated approaches for cleaner brick production technologies through technical assistance, overviews of high energy efficient technologies, cost-benefit analyses, awareness raising activities, capacity building and implementation of pilot projects.
* Mitigating SLCPs from the Municipal Solid Waste Sector
The Coalition will work to address methane, black carbon, and other air pollutants emissions across the municipal solid waste sector by working with cities and national governments. This initiative will be a catalyzing force to reduce methane and air pollution across the municipal solid waste sector by securing city and country commitments to undertake a variety of best practice policies and strategies for waste management.
Through technical assistance, training, capacity building, and awareness-raising, cities will mitigate emissions of methane, black carbon and other pollutants as they transition to more sustainable waste management options. Municipal solid waste landfills are the third largest source of global methane emissions, while the practice of open garbage burning emits black carbon and other toxic compounds as well as greenhouse gases.
* Promoting HFC Alternative Technology and Standards
The Coalition will work with governments and the private sector to address rapidly growing hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) emissions, which could account for as much as 19% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 2050 if left unchecked. The Coalition will bring together a high-level global roundtable to establish private sector and government pledges to promote climate-friendly alternatives and technologies; minimize HFC leaks; and encourage recovery, recycling, reclamation, and destruction of HFCs.
Through this initiative, the Coalition can bring high-level visibility to HFC reduction efforts, and facilitate dialogue with industry leaders who are committed to responsible approaches or who can contribute in areas of technology development, commercialization and deployment.
* Accelerating Methane Reductions from Oil and Natural Gas Production
The Coalition will seek to work with a group of key stakeholders and countries in the oil and natural gas sector to encourage cooperation and support the implementation of new and existing measures to substantially reduce methane emissions from natural gas venting, leakage, and flaring.
The initiative will build on existing programs and work with participating governments, companies, financial institutions, and other stakeholders to more fully capture and utilize vented, leaked, and flared natural gas through cost effective strategies. The oil and gas sector accounts for more than 20% of all anthropogenic emissions of methane globally.
The Coalition has also identified cross-cutting efforts to be undertaken in order to accelerate emissions reductions across all short-lived climate pollutants.
* Financing of SLCP mitigation
While multiple means of financing SLCP mitigation already exist they are not currently translating into high-enough levels of financial flows. In order to take advantage of all mitigation opportunities, the Coalition will seek to act as a catalyst of scaled-up SLCP mitigation financing and will work with governments, the private sector, donors, financial institutions, expert groups and investors’ networks to bolster these financial flows.
* Promoting SLCP National Action Plans
Measures to mitigate SLCPs have been assessed at a global and regional level and now need to be incorporated into national policies and actions. The Coalition will develop a program to support National Action Plans for SLCPs, including national inventory development, building on existing air quality, climate change and development agreements, and assessment, prioritization, and demonstration of promising SLCP mitigation measures.
Related initiatives list
* The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private initiative to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and combat climate change by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions.
* The Atmospheric Brown Cloud (ABC) project assesses the impacts of atmospheric brown clouds on human health, hydrology and agriculture under an integrated framework.
* The Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles supports the reduction of the level of sulphur in fuels to 50 parts per million and below worldwide and helps countries adopt vehicle emission standards to fully utilize better fuel quality for lower emissions.
* Project Surya aims to mitigate the regional and global impacts of anthropogenic climate change by immediately and demonstrably reducing atmospheric concentrations of black carbon (BC), methane and ozone.
* Air Pollution Networks - The aim of the forum is to bring together regional networks, international organisations and other stakeholders to develop effective policies and programmes to protect public health and the environment from the harmful effects of atmospheric pollution.
* The Global Methane Initiative (GMI) is a voluntary, multilateral partnership that aims to reduce global methane emissions and to advance the abatement, recovery and use of methane as a valuable clean energy source. GMI achieves this by creating an international network of partner governments, private sector members, development banks, universities, and NGOs in order to build capacity, develop strategies and markets, and remove barriers to project development for methane reductions.
* The Ozone2Climate Technology Roadshow aims at becoming the key reference and resource for non-HCFC based, energy efficient low carbon, sustainable environmentally friendly affordable technologies available or soon to be available in the market.
If you liked this article, please give it a quick review on ycombinator or StumbleUpon. Thanks
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Whooping Cough tests
back to top
A nasopharyngeal culture is a test used to diagnose upper respiratory infections. Find out what it's used for and what to expect.
A complete blood count, or CBC, measures several components of your blood and can help diagnose a broad range of conditions, from anemia and to cancer.
A throat swab culture is a test that doctors use to diagnose bacterial infections in your throat, such as strep throat.
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| 0.926378 | 97 | 3.25 | 3 |
Some weeks ago, I wrote a post mostly about mayapples, forest-floor heralds of spring.
Since then, I’ve been watching the development of the mayapple colonies in the woods where I run. I’ve noticed some things not entirely consistent with what I thought I knew (and blogged) about mayapples, which led me to do a bit of research. (Don’t roll your eyes; I told you upfront I used to be a science major and a latent naturalist endures inside me.)
This post, then, is part corrective and part expansion on mayapple lore.
What I have observed: (1) The single-stem mayapples are much more prevalent than I had remembered. In some colonies (or orchards, as I called them in the earlier post), virtually all are single-stem. In other colonies, they run as low as 2-1 and as high as 8-1 in favor of the single-stems. (2) The single-stem mayapples do not develop flowers; ergo, no fruit.
What I learned from research: (1) A mayapple colony (orchard) is actually a single, perennial plant, the stems rising from nodes on a single rhizome, which may be expansive underground and may become separated but still is technically the same organism. (2) Single-stem mayapples are always vegetative, or asexual.
What I theorize: The purpose of the vegetative single stems is solely to replenish the rhizome over the course of a growing season. Sexual reproduction is expensive, in terms of expenditure of resources, for a green plant growing in the shade of the deep woods. The rhizome is like a mother ship, directing its resources to accomplish its two purposes: (1) To preserve its own well-being so as to (2) sexually reproduce.
My guess would be that the differences I observed in the ratio of vegetative to sexual shoots has to do with environmental factors like sunlight, moisture and nutritive attributes of the soil.
Conclusion: Who knew mayapples were so smart? I’m still not going to pull one out of the ground — ever! — on account of its possible link to the soul of a departed person.
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Sites and categories about philosophers of education.
Related categories 1
Enrique G. Murillo Jr.
Home Page of Dr. Enrique G. Murillo, Jr. (Foundations Scholar in Education)
Famous Philosophers Quotes on Educational Philosophy, Truth and Reality
Views on Philosophy and Metaphysics of Education: Albert Einstein, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Michel de Montaigne, Aristotle, Plato
Kieran Egan, a Faculty Member in Education at Simon Fraser University explores ideas about Education, Thinking, Imagination, Intellectual development, Storytelling, Cognition, and Curriculum
Megan M. Boler
Megan M. Boler presents a theory of the emotions in her seminal book, Feeling Power. Boler's work draws upon feminism, philosophy of education, and cultural studies.
Nicholas C. Burbules
Professor at the University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Features research interests, list of published articles, awards, and editorial responsibilities.
Robert H. Ennis's Academic Web Site
Critical thinking (including its assessment), philosophy of science, and analysis of educational concepts are principal concerns of Robert Ennis, emeritus professor of education at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign.
Ronald D. Glass
Philosopher of education offers links to course syllabi, research, and publications.
Rousseau and Informal Education
An essay on Rousseau's philosophy of education, with specific reference to his Émile.
Sample Philosophies of Education for Teachers
Personal, teacher philosophies of education - some famous, such as Dewey, some less famous but just as fascinating.
Social and Philosophical Foundations of Education
Online learning community with Gayle Turner. Includes syllabi, study guides, selected readings and discussion forums. Designed to enhance the critical, normative, and interpretive abilities of teachers, administrators, and other school personnel.
Last update:May 29, 2015 at 9:15:06 UTC
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Fifty years ago, the pioneers of the War on Poverty saw no need to call for a strengthening of the American family as a critical component to combating poverty. At the time, marriage—centered around motherhood and the man of the family—was still the prevailing norm for raising children and staving off poverty.
The goal of the War on Poverty was to assist families in poverty with greater access to basic food, education, housing, and job training to increase their economic prospects,1 and to enable nuclear families to thrive. Families were the first line of defense against poverty.2
But one year after President Lyndon B. Johnson officially launched the War on Poverty, a young government official at the U.S. Department of Labor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, began to look at trends in the African American community. He worried that the rise in the number of children born to unmarried mothers and the increasing number of households headed by single mothers would lead to persistent, generational poverty.3 The report was rightly met with severe criticism for the tone and the blame it placed on the African American community.
Yet 50 years later, we must confront the reality that the trend that Moynihan first noticed in the African American community—the decline in the proportion of nuclear families—has since extended across all racial and ethnic groups.4
Of course, there have been many positive trends in the past 50 years that have allowed our society to move beyond the constraints of the so-called traditional family, and for families to diversify, flourish, and form in ways that strengthen the fabric of America. No-fault divorce has allowed women to exit abusive and unhealthy marriages. The opening of the labor market, the evolving economy, and the civil rights movement made marriage more egalitarian, with men and women more likely to share fluid roles as both breadwinners and caregivers. Marriage is now open to same-sex couples in a growing number of states. Single parents are no longer shunned by society. And women are no longer pressed into marriage by necessity, or to gain access to economic resources and benefits.
But in spite of these positive shifts, the trend Moynihan identified has only gotten worse—unplanned births to unmarried mothers who are living in poverty or on the brink continue to rise. And while not accepted as a national crisis then, it should be today. In too many cases, parents who had not intended to get pregnant are unprepared for the responsibilities associated with raising a child alone, and society thus far has been unwilling or unable either to curb the rise in unplanned pregnancies or to accommodate fully this change in family makeup.
What has happened? Why have so many women begun the journey of motherhood without marriage? And where are the men in this equation? The fact is that many women are not “deciding” to have babies before marriage—in fact, women living on the brink of poverty are the most likely to have babies as a result of unplanned and unintended pregnancies. And when they do so outside of marriage, they discover the support they need is missing: Men are largely absent from providing economic support to raise the child, and society offers little support to help these women gain the education they need or to help them balance their work with their family obligations.
Rather than indulging in the moral handwringing and judgment that often accompany investigations into changes in the marriage rate, this chapter argues that our country will be better served by doing the following:
• Concretely tackling the rise in unplanned pregnancies to unmarried mothers. We can do so by encouraging women to plan their pregnancies through the responsible use of more fail-safe contraceptive methods, and to choose to parent at the time that is the most stable and sensible for them. The public, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors can play a critical role in increasing the awareness about and access to the most effective contraceptive methods, including long-acting reversible contraception, or LARC.
• Rather than promoting marriage as a silver bullet for women’s economic troubles, the government should instead promote policies that allow women to complete their educations, to find stable and well-paying jobs, and to have the work sup- ports necessary to meet their family needs, including child care and family- friendly workplace policies.
If we do not take these steps, the United States will soon have a generation of children who were raised without the full support of our society, and who are not fully prepared to have jobs that will allow them to compete in the 21st-century global economy.
* * *
THE REALITY OF MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MEN IN AMERICA
The roles of marriage, motherhood, and men in America have changed dramatically in the past several decades. The short narrative is that a rising number of women (and men) are increasingly having children before they get married. Everyone—across race, education, and class—is marrying later than they did 50 years ago. Women are more likely to be working in the paid labor force while caring for their children, often juggling both on their own without the support of a husband or a stable partner. And more men are living apart from their children than ever before. At the same time, those men who are living with their children are more active and involved in their children’s lives than ever before. However, there are serious class divisions in family structures, with women in poverty or on the brink of it much more likely to give birth before they marry and to be raising children outside of marriage.
THE ‘WHY’ AND ‘SO WHAT’ OF TRENDS IN MARRIAGE, MOTHERHOOD, AND MEN
There is widespread agreement that some combination of shifts in culture have led to the surge of women having babies outside of marriage and raising children on their own.36 These societal changes include an evolution in attitude (regarding sex outside of marriage); advances in technology (the birth control pill contributing further to the acceptance of sex outside of marriage); and the transformation of the economy (with a decrease in the ability of men to be the sole breadwinner in a family and an increase of women in the workforce).
The overwhelming evidence regarding women having children outside of marriage, however, points us back to two trends. First, these births are overwhelmingly the result of unplanned and unintended pregnancies. And second, the United States stands out distinctly in its failure to provide information about and access to failsafe contraception that can stop unintended pregnancies. Women in the United States have much lower rates of contraceptive use in their teens and 20s and are half as likely as their European counterparts to use more effective contraceptive methods, such as IUDs. 37
In addition to the failure of our society to address unplanned and unintended pregnancies through greater access to contraception, there remains widespread disagreement over the extent to which cultural shifts impact our society. Can or should the government intervene to try to reverse this trend? And, if so, at what axis point could the government most impact this problem either to reverse the trend or ameliorate its effects?
Indeed, in the polling conducted for The Shriver Report, a solid majority—64 percent—of the public believes that the government should set a goal of helping society adapt to the reality of single-parent families and use its resources to help children and mothers succeed regardless of their family status. Also, a majority—51 percent—believe that the government should set a goal of reducing the number of children born to single parents and use its resources to encourage marriage and two-parent families.
* * *
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
We must confront the fact that our public policies to curb unintended and unplanned pregnancies and those aimed at ameliorating the economic precariousness of single-parent households have largely failed to affect demographic trends in the timing of marriage and motherhood. While access to and use of contraception have increased, use and access for young American women are still much lower than in other developed nations. Welfare reform has not alleviated the burdens on low-income women and children, and the Healthy Marriage Initiative did nothing to reverse the trend.
We must also re-enter the marriage debate with a shared understanding that legally recognized relationships are granted social and economic benefits that tend to make them, as a whole, more stable and financially secure. This stability and financial security, which is often correlated with marriage, can have a deep impact on parents’ ability to raise healthy children with bright futures, as well as promoting women’s economic security and prosperity.
In addition to economic incentives to promote marriage among low-income communities, the government should focus its efforts on reducing unplanned births to unmarried women and increasing the educational and economic prospects of single moms. Specifically:
• Stable relationships matter. Those on the left and right should acknowledge their shared agreement that a stable relationship is the preferable family form for raising children, and that married relationships tend to be more stable than other relationships as a whole. Our public policies should encourage marriage or stable cohabiting relationships.
• Curbing unintended and unplanned pregnancies must be a public priority. In addition to economic incentives to increase marriage rates, the government should tackle the problem at its root by aiming to reduce unintended and unplanned pregnancies among unmarried mothers in the same way that Congress and the nonprofit sector have tried to tackle teen pregnancy through increased public education and awareness and better information about and access to contraception. The teen pregnancy rate has been reduced by 42 percent since the 1990s, and the National Campaign to Reduce Teen Pregnancy has recently turned its efforts to addressing unplanned pregnancy among unmarried young adults. This effort should be supported and expanded.
• Increasing access to highly effective contraception is critical to the effort to curb unintended pregnancies. Efforts to reduce unintended and unplanned pregnancies should be tied to increasing awareness about and access to new technologies for long-acting reversible contraception, or LARC, which have much higher rates of effectiveness (99 percent) than other methods. Through the expansion of access to health care offered by the Affordable Care Act, many women will have greater access to contraception. This access, however, will need to be tied to increased education and awareness about the effectiveness of LARC, particularly for young women most at risk of unintended pregnancies.
• Single parents need education and good jobs to help their children thrive. Both sides should acknowledge that marriage, as an institution for raising children, is not always possible. Accepting that even a reversal in the trend of unmarried births will not end the need to support single-parent families, the government should provide greater educational opportunities and work supports to help single parents gain access to better jobs with more stable incomes and supports such as child care, paid family leave, and equal pay, as outlined in great detail in the Public Solutions chapter. Single mothers in our survey were more likely to regret leaving school (70 percent) than regret the timing or number of their children(47 percent).
By working to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies to unmarried parents, policymakers must also acknowledge the lack of economic and educational opportunities afforded to low-income young adults. While we should encourage young women to get an education before having a baby and encourage both parents to be economically secure before entering into parenthood, this suggestion must come with real policies to support these efforts, as outlined in the Education chapter.
This is an excerpt from The Shriver Report: A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, in partnership with the Center for American Progress. Download the full report here for FREE from January 12th – January 15th.
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Warra, a small rural town on the Warrego Highway, western Darling Downs, is 50 km north-west of Dalby. It was named after the Warra Warra pastoral run.
In 1868 the Western railway line reached Dalby and seven years later the government approved its extension north-westwards. This announcement probably prompted Richard Best to settle at Warra in 1875, and he later opened the first hotel, post office and store. The railway to Warra was opened two years later. The families of railway workers and selectors had enough children for a school to be opened in 1881.
In 1903-06 the district had a large influx of farm settlers, many from Victoria, when Joshua Thomas Bell (son of Joshua Peter Bell, former owner of the grand Jimbour homestead) promoted farm settlement in the Warra district. Less than ten years later a mine was opened west of Warra, supplying coal for the Western line locomotives. The township had two hotels, three butchers, three other stores and a saw mill (1914), and the district was farmed by nearly 110 selectors and graziers. The mine was worked until 1919 when water seepage caused its closure.
Following the mine closure, farm lands were infested with prickly pear west of Warra. Population was nearly halved during the 1920s, not recovering until after eradication of the plant pest and lifting of the 1930s financial Depression. Soldier settlement after World War II brought Warra another population influx. In the 1960s, however, there was a decline in the town's commercial activity because of its proximity to Dalby.
Warra has a hotel, a racecourse, a primary school and a rural supplies store. Its census populations have been:
Centenary 1881-1981: Warra State School, Warra, Warra Centenary Committee, 1981
A. L. Williams, Wambo Shire Centenary 1879-1979, Dalby, Wambo Shire Council, 1979
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| 0.975584 | 413 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Anyone interested in understanding the Hopewell culture has to come to grips with the extent of its so-called Interaction Sphere. We call it an Interaction Sphere, because we don’t know for sure what’s behind all the interaction and we don’t want to presume the answer to our question by calling it, for example, a trade network – although trade most certainly was at least one part of what was going on. Interaction Sphere is a convenient and descriptive yet neutral term to apply to the widespread movement of ideas and materials that is so characteristic of the Middle Woodland period in Ohio and other regions in eastern North America.
When Joseph Caldwell first elaborated the concept of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere in 1964, however, he had a definite idea of what was behind it. From his study of Hopewell archaeology, he had identified two “salient features” of the archaeological record: “striking regional differences in the secular, domestic and non-mortuary aspects of the widespread Hopewellian remains; and an interesting, if short, list of exact similarities in funerary usages and mortuary artifacts over great distances.”
Since the interactions between the various societies appeared to be primarily “in mortuary-religious matters,” Caldwell felt it was “an interaction sphere of a special kind” – a mortuary-ceremonial, or religious interaction sphere. He went on to argue that it could have served as a mechanism for keeping developing regional societies in touch with one another over “significant periods of time” and might be one way, and even perhaps the principal way, to explain the rise of socio-cultural complexity, or Civilization: “Perhaps the relation we shall find between the World’s great religions and the World’s great civilizations is that to a large degree we have been talking about the same thing.”
I largely agree with Caldwell, but I think the mortuary-ceremonial-religious aspect of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere was expressed and maintained as a network of pilgrimage centers with devotees bringing exotic raw materials, or finished craft items made from exotic materials, to places like the Hopewell Mound Group or the Newark Earthworks as offerings. Once initiated into the mysteries, pilgrims would then return home to spread the gospel, perhaps by establishing local franchises in their distant homelands. And they may have taken home with them bladelets made from Ohio’s highly distinctive Flint Ridge flint as pilgrim’s tokens to signify that they had, indeed, been to the North American Mecca.
In my February column for the Columbus Dispatch, I discuss the research of archaeologists Alice Wright and Erika Loveland at the Garden Creek site in North Carolina. One interpretation of Garden Creek’s rectangular enclosure and craft workshop is that the site represents a local franchise of the Ohio Hopewell located at the source of the mica and crystal quartz that were such important components of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere. Although Wright and Loveland did not report any Flint Ridge flint from their limited excavations at Garden Creek, they note that the artifacts found in the Biltmore Mound, in Asheville, North Carolina, did include Flint Ridge flint bladelets.
In e-mail correspondence about their research, Wright told me that she sometimes felt like she was “coming at Hopewell sideways — as a Southeasternist by training.” She admitted to feeling overwhelmed at times by “the amount of information out there on Ohio archaeology” [Don’t we all!], but “at the same time, these sorts of inter-regional discussions are fun, and I’d argue necessary to try and come to grips with the Middle Woodland period.”
Given the extent of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, whatever it represented, I couldn’t agree with her more! Read the paper by Wright and Loveland and see what you think.
For further reading:
Caldwell, Joseph R.
1964 Interaction spheres in prehistory. In Hopewell Studies, edited by J. R. Caldwell and Robert Hall, pp. 135-143. Scientific Papers No. 12, Illinois State Museum, Springfield.
Lepper, Bradley T.
2006 The Great Hopewell Road and the role of the pilgrimage in the Hopewell Interaction sphere. In Recreating Hopewell, edited by D. K. Charles and J. E. Buikstra, pp. 122-133. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
2010 The ceremonial landscape of the Newark Earthworks and the Raccoon Creek Valley. In Hopewell Settlement Patterns, Subsistence, and Symbolic Landscapes, edited by Martin Byers and DeeAnne Wymer, pp. 97-127. University Press of Florida, Gainesville.
Wright, Alice P. and Erika Loveland
2015 Ritualised craft production at the Hopewell periphery: new evidence from the Appalachian Summit. Antiquity 343:137-153.
Garden Creek Archaeological Project Blog — “Exploring the Past in WNC”
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Gender differences in reading ability and attitudes: examining where these differences lie
Version of Record online: 13 MAR 2009
© United Kingdom Literacy Association 2009
Journal of Research in Reading
Volume 32, Issue 2, pages 199–214, May 2009
How to Cite
Logan, S. and Johnston, R. (2009), Gender differences in reading ability and attitudes: examining where these differences lie. Journal of Research in Reading, 32: 199–214. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2008.01389.x
- Issue online: 14 APR 2009
- Version of Record online: 13 MAR 2009
- Received 25 February 2008; revised version received 21 May 2008.
The aim of this study was to investigate gender differences in the relationship between reading ability, frequency of reading and attitudes and beliefs relating to reading and school. Two hundred and thirty-two 10-year-old children (117 male) completed a reading comprehension test and a questionnaire exploring the following areas: frequency of reading, attitude to reading, attitude to school, competency beliefs and perceived academic support (from peers and teacher). Overall, girls had better reading comprehension, read more frequently and had a more positive attitude to reading and school. However, smaller gender differences were found in reading ability than in attitudes and frequency of reading. Indeed, effect sizes for gender differences in reading were found to be small in this and other studies. Reading ability correlated with both boys' and girls' reading frequency and competency beliefs; however, only boys' reading ability was associated with their attitude to reading and school. Notably, gender differences were found predominantly in the relationship between factors, rather than solely in the factors themselves. Previous research has neglected to study these relationships, and has focused instead on the gender differences found in individual factors. Conclusions are made regarding the applicability of these findings to the school situation.
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<urn:uuid:a1ab252f-bae2-45eb-8f15-cd61d230ff49>
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http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-9817.2008.01389.x/abstract
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SHIRLEY, OLIVER SILAS (1844 ~ 1928). Confederate veteran Oliver Shirley was born January 24, 1844, in Tyler County, Texas.
On February 9, 1864, Shirley enlisted in the 2nd Frontier District, Eastland County under Major George Bernard Erath and 1st Lt. Singleton Gilbert. Shirley served in the Frontier Organization, which was the final modification of frontier defense in Texas during the Civil War. The Frontier Organization assumed total responsibility for Texas frontier defense in March 1864 and lasted until months following the War.
One of the unit's major engagements was the Ellison Springs Indian Fight, which took place in August 1864. Typically, engagements on the frontier usually consisted of small unit fighting and this battle was no different. The small band of Texans was unsuccessful in their assault and this turned out to be the only setback under Major Erath's command.
Following the Civil War, Shirley worked as a stockman and married Lavina Della Dunlap.
Due to failing health, he was admitted to the Confederate Men's Home in Austin, Texas on September 21, 1928. O. S. Shirley died on October 4, 1928 and was buried at the Texas State Cemetery.
Information taken from Confederate Home Roster; Confederate Pension Application, 28958 - Bandera County; and the Handbook of Texas.
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From an email client, you’ll typically compose a message, attach any necessary files, and send it to the recipient. But, have you wondered what happens behind the scenes? How the email is sent from your outbox to the recipients inbox?
In this article, we will explain the basis of email. For those who already know this stuff, this might be a quick refresher.
What is an Email?
Till 1971, people were able to send messages to other people working on same system only. In 1971, the first e-mail message was sent by Ray Tomlinson. Though that was a very simple message based communication but it formed the basis of how advanced e-mails have become today.
The main components of an e-mail system that facilitate sending and receiving of e-mails on Internet are :
- An e-mail client
- An e-mail server (SMTP server)
- POP and IMAP servers.
Lets study these and then finally try to connect the dots to understand the complete system.
An Email Client
If you use e-mails for online communication the you would definitely be using an e-mail client. An e-mail client provides you with the following capabilities :
- Provides a list of messages that people have sent to you. Each entry in the list contains the name of sender, a subject, a few words from the message body and the time/date on which it was received.
- Provides the ability to read a complete message, reply to it or forward it to other people.
- Provides the ability to compose a new message and send it to the desired recipients.
- Delete a message.
The e-mail clients could be standalone (like Microsoft Outlook, Pegasus etc) or could be web based (like gmail, yahoo etc). There could be many advanced abilities that e-mail clients may provide but whatever the type of e-mail client be, the core abilities described above are provided by all type of clients.
An Email Server
Whenever you send a message from your e-mail client, it goes to an e-mail server. The e-mail server manages the messages received by it. It forwards the message to a POP or IMAP service if the message is to be sent to a recipient on the same subnet else it follows the standard procedure to send the message over Internet to the destined person.
An e-mail server comes into the picture twice if e-mail is sent over Internet to a remote destination. First it’s the sender’s e-mail server that sends the e-mail over the Internet and second is the receiver’s e-mail server that receives the e-mail and makes sure that it is delivered to the recipient’s system. On the other hand, an E-mail server comes into picture only once when the recipient is on the same subnet.
SMTP servers are widely used as e-mail servers all over the internet. An SMTP server is also known as Mail Transfer Agent (MTA).
You also may want to read Journey of a Data Packet in Internet, which explains how packets traverse on Internet.
POP and IMAP Servers
As already explained, these servers come into the picture when a message is received by SMTP server and it needs to be forwarded to the actual recipient. Let’s discuss both these servers one by one :
POP stands for Post Office Protocol. A POP (or POP3) server in it’s simplest form stores the messages for a particular user in a text file. The file for a particular user is appended with information each time an e-mail is received by a POP server. If your e-mail client is configured to use a POP3 protocol then whenever you try to fetch e-mails through your e-mail client then a request is sent to your POP server for the same.
A POP server requires the log-in credentials of a user that are sent through e-mail client. Once a user is authenticated, the POP server provides access to user’s e-mails. As with any client server architecture, the e-mail client interacts with the POP server through a predefined set of commands.
Here is a list of common commands used to interact with POP server :
- USER – For User-ID
- PASS – For Password
- LIST – Provide message list
- DELE – To delete a message
- QUIT – To end the interaction
Please note that the e-mail client connects to port 110 on the server where POP service is running. After connecting the e-mail client issues the commands (as described above) to the POP server to authenticate, fetch e-mail, list e-mails etc.
One small problem with POP servers is that once an e-mail client fetches the e-mails from this server on client machine, it gets difficult to access the same e-mails from any other device or system as they get downloaded on client machine and are removed from the server. Though there exists and option ‘Keep a copy on server’ through which e-mail clients can tell the server not to delete the e-mails. But, this leads to multiple copies of your mailbox on clients as well as on server and so it makes the management of e-mails difficult.
IMAP stands for Internet message access protocol. This protocol is also used to access e-mails but it is far more capable than POP. One of the most prominent feature an IMAP server provides is the central access to e-mails. Unlike POP server, an IMAP server keeps the e-mails on the server itself and so you can access e-mails from any machine or device.
This server also provides easy management of e-mails like searching, categorizing the e-mails and placing them into various sub-folders etc. The only problem that one could imagine with IMAP server is that you always need an Internet connection so that the e-mail client is able to fetch e-mails from the IMAP server. But today, almost all of the e-mail clients have the capability to cache the e-mails so that you can even view them when you are offline.
To interact with IMAP server, the e-mail client connects to server machine on port 143. As with POP, IMAP server also understands a set of commands which the e-mail client uses to connect with the server.
Connecting the Dots
With the understanding of all the major components used in e-mail system, lets connect the dots and understand how the whole e-mail system works:
- An e-mail client like Gmail, yahoo, outlook etc is used to create or reply to an e-mail.
- Once the e-mail is drafted successfully, it is sent using the e-mail client.
- This e-mail first goes to the SMTP server (also known as MTA (Mail transfer agent) ) to which the e-mail client is connected.
- The e-mail server looks out for the recipients address. The address is of the form <name>@domain.com
- The e-mail server first uses the DNS technique to resolve the domain name into a valid IP address.
- Next it sends the e-mail to to this IP address over the Internet.
- Now the e-mail traverses over the Internet in a series of IP packets and reaches the destination SMTP server or the MTA.
- This server collects all the e-mails and places them to appropriate location so that these are accessible to your e-mail clients through POP or IMAP services.
There you have it. That is how e-mail system works.
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Your project is a good exploration of discrete vs. continuous. By reconstructing circles with square sprites, your code shows how digital works are composed of binary, discrete components. With larger circles, the sprites even start to show gaps. The work, practically, also shows the constraints of working with a program like Director, where all graphics are represented by small bitmaps, rather than abstractions of line, circle, etc. Director's language, Lingo, has a run-on sort of syntax -- no semicolons or other identifyer at the end of lines -- like poetry it's the space itself that denotes code parts.
The form of the work shows a geometric convergence onto an arbitrary point -- it reminds me of numerology -- how any set of arbitrary numbers can be made "mysteriously" to fit together -- by mathematical definition these numbers and points must be related by some equation.
I haven't really seen much Lingo, but from what I can tell, it takes a lot from BASIC in its syntax. Interesting to note, it seems that Lingo is entirely event-driven, there is no "sub main" here, every function is a handler to an external event. What I find compelling about Kevin's piece is that he basically forced Director to function as a pixel renderer, using an array of sprites to accomplish what normally would be done by turning "on" or "off" individual screen pixels.
Kevin's program is a clear reminder about how mathematics is an essential foundation for computational design. It's an astonishing fact that drafting something as simple as a circle -- a favorite pastime, let us say, of any crayon-wielding three-year-old -- requires a reasonably solid foundation in high school trigonometry. Novice programmers would do well to study Kevin's code: his equations
x = cos(t)
y = sin(t)
reveal a fundamental and ubiquitous pattern.
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Macaw Clay LickThe Macaw Project Tambopata Research Center
Rainforests Expeditions and the Tambopata Macaw Project were born on the same year, one's fate intertwined with the other. At first, the founders of RFE were the directors of the Tambopata Macaw Project, but as both expanded and evolved, the Tambopata Macaw Project found an adoptive father: Dr. Donald Brightsmith. Since Dr. Brighsmith's incorporation to the project in 1998, the project has become one of the world’s foremost studies on wild macaws.
The Tambopata Macaw Project is a long-term multidisciplinary study of natural history, conservation and management of large macaws and parrots. The main topics of study included monitoring and observation of macaw nests, increasing survival rates of younger Scarlet Macaw chicks, documenting patterns of clay lick use by large macaws and other parrots, and documenting and understanding the impact of tourism on macaw clay licks.
Rainforest Expeditions has supported the macaw project since its foundation with complimentary food and lodging for researchers, with logistical support and with funds for researcher salaries. We also are careful to react appropriately to recommendations on tourism management at the clay lick.
Finally, we have also hosted a variety of researchers over the years, on an ad-hoc basis.
CLAY LICKS AND MACAW CONSERVATION
The Tambopata Macaw project has been working hard to understand the links between the clay lick, nesting, tree phenology (flowering and fruiting) and the movements of parrots in and out of the area. Over a thousand mornings of clay lick observation and literally hundreds of thousands of registrations may be the largest set of parrot data ever assembled. We have come a long way in understanding these interactions and now have a much better idea of what drives the annual life cycles of the macaws and parrots in Tambopata. A summary of our new findings is presented in this paper.
The following relationships have been discovered:
- The daily weather has a strong influence on the number of parrots that use the lick: least on rainy days and the most on clear sunny days.
- The seasonal climate changes drive the fluctuations in the annual food supply for parrots and macaws (flowers, unripe fruits and ripe fruits). Food availability is apparently lowest at the end of the wet season and early dry season (March – July) and highest in the early to mid wet season December and January.
- The annual fluctuations in food supply drive two things: the annual movements of parrots to and from the area around Tambopata Research Center and the time they breed.
- During the seasons of lowest food availability the birds apparently leave the area around TRC as the number of birds in the forest drops dramatically from April – July.
- The timing of breeding is apparently driven by the food supply: the number of parrot species breeding is closely correlated with the number of trees in fruit or flower. However, not all species breed simultaneously. Smaller species apparently breed earlier than larger ones.
- The movements of parrots out of the area during periods of low food abundance reduce the number of birds using the clay lick. In addition when food supplies are high, the birds apparently congregate in the vicinity of the lick.
- The timing of breeding also influences the number of birds at the clay lick, because for most parrot species, clay lick use peaks during the breeding season, specifically when the birds have young chicks in the nest. We have found that Scarlet Macaws feed their chicks large amounts of clay, especially when the chicks are young. As the chicks age, the amount of clay they receive drops and the total use of the lick by the species drops as well.
- As a result the number of birds at the clay lick is the result of the daily weather, seasonal climate, seasonal fluctuations of food supply (driven by seasonal climate), nomadic wanderings of the parrots (driven by changes in food supply, and the timing of the breeding season (also driven by changes in food supply).
We are also continually finding evidence that clay lick use is driven by the bird's need for sodium.
- Using soil samples analyzed by researchers at Texas A&M University we have found that birds apparently prefer soils with higher sodium content over soils that are best at neutralizing toxins.
- We have seen parrots engaging in behavior similar to that seen at clay licks while visiting the sodium rich mineral springs in Contamana (central Peru)
- We have documented parrots behaving as though they were at clay licks, but eating palm trees in other sections of the Tambopata National Reserve. We suspect that the palms are rich in sodium and for this reason the birds are eating them.
These new results give us a much more complete understanding of the forces that drive annual changes in clay lick use and give us insight in to the forces driving the annual cycle of the macaws and parrots. The conservation implications of this research are many:
- It suggests that conserving the areas near clay licks is very important because these areas: o harbor very large concentrations of parrots o should have high densities of breeding birds that may serve as a source for individuals that then disperse throughout the wider landscape
- It also shows that many, if not all, species of parrots in Tambopata move throughout the landscape, so just protecting small areas around clay licks is not enough to support healthy populations of parrots over the long term.
- As a result, large scale destruction of the forests adjacent to the Tambopata National Reserve and an increase in pet trade resulting from the Trans Oceanic Highway could significantly impact the populations of parrots that use the clay licks around Tambopata Research Center and other licks located deep within the reserve.
MACAW NESTS AND REPRODUCTIVE RATES
Data from monitoring hundreds of nests from Blue and Gold, Red and Green, and Scarlet Macaw nests show that:
- Natural, PVC, and wooden nest boxes all have vastly different hatching success rates. Natural nests have a hatching success rate of 65% while the PVC nest boxes commonly used around TRC have hatching rates of only 41%. The hatching rates in wooden boxes may be higher (80%) but the sample sizes are too small to draw any conclusions.
- Twenty four percent of all Scarlet Macaw chicks monitored (9 of 37) died of starvation or would have if the researchers had not intervened. Our findings suggest that sibling competition and not the overall food supply may be the determining factor in chick survival, but larger sample sizes are needed to confirm these preliminary findings.
- Dipteryx micrantha and Mauritia flexuosa are keystone tree species for parrot nesting in southeastern Peru. Clearing for agriculture, targeted destruction of parrot nests by collectors and selective felling of key species will reduce the density of suitable nest cavities.
- Across three studies (two in Costa Rica and the one in Peru) a total of 71 Scarlet Macaws have been released. The combined first-year survival post release was 74% and the post first-year survival was 96%. Breeding attempts have been recorded at all three sites and hand-raised birds with wild mates have successfully fledged young in Peru. Supplemental feeding post release played an important role in establishing a core flock at all three release sites.
TOURISM IMPACTS ON THE MACAW CLAY LICK
The number of birds at the lick is not correlated with the number of people observing the lick. This means that approximately the same number of birds go to the clay lick regardless of the number of people watching the birds. The tourists are kept together and relatively quiet at a distance of 150 m or more from the lick. These results suggest that the protocol in use by Rainforest Expeditions is not causing major reductions in the number of birds using the lick, but additional analyses are needed to determine if there are more subtle impacts on the birds.
To visit Colpa Colorado - Macaw Clay Lick.
Tambopata Research Center is located in a half hectare clearing in the middle of the uninhabited portion of the Tambopata National Reserve, adjacent to the Bahuaja National Park and 500 meters from the world's largest macaw clay lick.
To get to Tambopata Research Center you must fly to Puerto Maldonado from Lima or Cuzco on daily commercial flights lasting 30 or 90 minutes respectively. From the airport you are transported by truck to the Infierno River Port where you board our boats for the two and half hour trip to Refugio Amazonas. From Refugio Amazonas, the Tambopata Research Center is four hours upriver, and a few minutes walking from the river.
Source: Rainforest Expeditions
Suggested tours program to visit Colpa Colorado
- Tambopata Research Center (6 days / 5 nights) - US $936 (Visa Offer)
- Tambopata Research Center (5 days / 4 nights) - US $ 791 (Visa Offer)
Photo Gallery Macaw Clay Lick
MACAW PROJECT PUBLICATIONS
- Bravo, Adriana, and Donald Brightsmith. 2003. Disponibilidad y seleccion de palmeras muertas de aguaje como nido de guacamayo azul y amarillo al sureste peruano.
- Brightsmith, Donald 2003. The Clay Licks of Tambopata and Beyond: the whos, whats and whys of geophagy.
- Brightsmith, Donald, Jennifer Hilburn, Alvaro del Campo, Janice Boyd, Margot Frisius, Richard Frisius, Dennis Janik, Federico Guillén. 2004. The use of hand- raised psittascines for reintroduction: a case study of scarlet macaws (Ara macao) in Peru and Costa Rica.
- Brightsmith, Donald, 2004. Effects of Diet, Migration and Breeding on Clay Lick Use by Parrots in SE Peru.
- Brightsmith, Donald, 2004. Avian Geophagy and Soil Characteristics in SE Peru.
- Brightsmith, Donald. 2005. Effect of Weather on Parrot Geophagy in Tambopata, Peru.
- Brightsmith, Donald. 2002. Macaw Reproduction and Management in SE Peru I: Blue and Gold Macaws.
- Brightsmith, Donald. 2002. Macaw Reproduction and Management in SE Peru II: Nest Box Design and Use.
- Brighsmith, Donald. 2002. Macaw Reproduction and Management in SE Peru III: Developing techniques to increase macaw reproductive rates.
- Brightsmith, Donald. 2002. Macaw Reproduction and Management in SE Peru IV: Work with the Native Community of Infierno.
- Brightsmith, Donald. 2002. Scarlet Macaw Nest Box and Design.
- Brightsmith, Donald 2006. The Psittascinie Year: What drives Annual Parrot Cycles
- Aibar, Paola. 2003. Variacion horizontal, vertical y temporal en la diversidad y composicion de la comunidad de mariposas del Tambopata Research Center.
- Ascorra, Cesar. 1998. Mammal survey at the Tambopata Research Center.
- Csakany, Jolene. 2002. Study on the chemical communication between the microhylid frog, Chiasmocles Ventriculata, and theraphosid spider involved in a commensal relationship.
- Dauphine, David. 2001. The Giant River Otter: Ecotourism, biodiversity and wildlife ecology in the Amazon rain forest.
- Dauphine, David. 2002. The Tres Chimbadas Otter Project.
- Dehnert, Karen. 2003. Human Impact on Giant Otters in Lake Tres Chimbadas. Doan, Tiffany and Wilfredo Aristizabal. 2003. Microgeographic variation in species composition of the herpetofaunal communities in the Tambopata Region, Peru.
- Frankfurt Zoological Society. 2003. Manejo voluntario de la actividad turistica en las cochas de Tres Chimbadas y Cocococha en la Reserva Nacional Tambopata y su area de influencia, utilizando al lobo de rio como especie indicadora.
- Napravnik, Mario. 1999. Ecologia de los cuerpos de agua en los alrededores del Centro de Investigaciones Tambopata.
- Phillips, Kimberly, Meghan Haas, Brian Grafton, and Mirtha Irrivaren. 2005. Survey of the gastrointestinal parasites of the primate community at the Tambopata National Reserve, Peru.
- Piana, Renzo. 1999. El aguila arpia en el Parque Nacional Bahuaja, la Reserva Nacional Tambopata y la Comunidad Nativa de Infierno.
- Piana, Renzo. 1999. The Harpy Eagle in the Infierno Native Community. Valdez, Armando. 1997. Terra Firme Forest – a Brief Avian Analysis.
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THE PALERMO STONE
By R. Cedric Leonard
The Palermo Stone is a largest piece of what was originally a black diorite stele 2.2 meters long and 0.61 meters wide: the fragments we possess represent a rather small percentage of the entire stele. The Palermo Stone, which has been known since 1866, is in the Palermo Museum in Sicily, hence its name. Other smaller fragments are in the Cairo Museum and the Petrie Museum at University College of London (Wilkinson, 2000). It was composed during the 5th Dynasty (2565-2420 B.C.), and is the oldest extant written chronicle of Egyptian history.
The Palermo Stone covers the period from the Old Kingdom back thousands of years into the predynastic period. It is inscribed on both sides starting with the pre-dynastic god-kings, proceeding on through the demi-gods, and finally a long list of Egyptian kings down to the middle of the 5th Dynasty. It includes the regnal years of each king, plus important events which occurred during each king's reign. It is likely that Manetho used this document in putting together his famous Aegyptiaca. (Gardiner, 1961; Wilkinson, 2000; St. John, 2003, et al.)
It was used at some point as a door stop, and consequently is badly worn on the bottom of its front and almost all of its backside. Although most of the glyphs are legible, a few readings must of necessity be conjectural (St. John, 2003). For the most part, as far as can be ascertained, the king's names agree with other supporting archeological evidence. Let me say at the outset that I am deliberately "prejudicing" what I see based on what has already been found in the Royal Canon of the Turin Papyrus.
Since ancient kings often had more than one name, phonetic agreement between the Palermo Stone and other king-lists is not really necessary. Most Egyptologists seem to be reasonably sure of the top line containing the names of the god-kings, even though it is obvious that most of the glyphs are badly worn. Regardless, I am offering alternate readings in certain instances to point out the possibility of actual phonetic agreement.
Although portions of nine of the original ten god-king's names are in evidence, only seven of the names are complete. The first two kings names are almost entirely missing, as well as the last one of the ten (reading from right to left). The remainder of the top line containing demi-god kings (the left portion) is broken away.
Each name is contained within a "box" (not really a cartouche) made of horizontal and vertical lines. The names are very simpleusually indicated by two glyphs each (three in some cases). Directly below each king's name and attached to the "cartouche" (box) is the hieroglyphic determinative for "god-king".
I believe a few of the glyphs merit an alternate reading from that which has been provided by the experts. Immediately below is a photo of the top line of hieroglyphs, which may be compared with my reconstruction (farther below) of the names.
Top line of Palermo Stone showing names of the "god-kings" (read right to left)
The first name is completely broken away, and only a piece of the second name shows on the Palermo Stone (far right). The first complete name (the third king) seems to read "Ska". Egyptian spellings being as fluid as they are with the passage of time, this could later have become the Shu or Su of the Turin Canon.
Next (reading to the left), I believe the strangely-slanted oval-shaped glyph (thought to be an H) is in reality a very worn side of the goose "Seb," (its legs and head no longer visible). The glyph below it seems to be a reclining animal of some sort, but it's very faint and nearly impossible to be read with any assurance. The goose by itself can be read "Seb".
The third complete name starts with a very small glyph which is nearly unreadable. Egyptologists have taken it to be the common glyph (a loaf) for T, but it could possibly be a not so common glyph (a small loop) for S. The next glyph, a reed (Y), is not very clear either. The bird glyph looks like a chick (U); but should it be a swallow (WR) it would read SYWR: I think it possible that this name is "Ausar," the Egyptian name for the god Osiris.
The fourth "cartouche" from the right has two very wide "rectangular" shaped glyphs. The experts see the top one as a rope glyph and the bottom one as a rectangle, but they are damaged and I believe the reverse to be just as possible (I don't have the stone itself to look at). The rope represents a T or TH, and the rectangle an S or SH. They have, therefore read it TSH; reverse this sequence, and it reads SHT, or the god-king Set.
At the top of the next cartouche is a rather long, thin line, which Egyptologists assume to be a wavy line, the letter N. From what I can see, this is impossible: it looks straight, not wavy. It appears to be one of the uncommon versions of the letter H (a club). Below this is a very obscure glyph, which could well be the swallow glyph, UR or WR. Therefore, I read this as Hwr (Egyptian for Horus).
Now we come to a real problem! According to the Turin Canon., the next name should be that of Thoth (Tehuti, or Djehuti in Egyptian). It looks like the Egyptologists' choice is good; although their translation, Wadjha, makes no sense in Egyptian. I am the first to admit this name does not look much like Tehuti (Thoth) either.
My reconstructed reading of the glyphs (compare with above)
Finally, the last complete name seems to be Mch, Mh, or Maa. The owl (M) is pretty clear, and the next glyph (definitely a club) meaning CH or H is fairly clear. However, there is another club-like glyph which is usually transcribed as AA, and this is not impossible. Whichever "club" is represented, the god-king intended is surely Ma.
There is just a "peek" showing of the bottom glyph of the next name (not shown in my reconstruction), which is most likely the swallow glyph (WR). This could represent the last syllable of the second HWR (Horus) as listed in the Turin Royal Canon. I would be much more certain of this had the name "Djehuti" (Thoth) turned out better.
Below is a chart with Egyptologists' conjectural reading on the left, my suggested reconstruction in the middle, and what I believe to be the corresponding more familiar Anglicized equivalent on the right.
LIST OF THE GOD-KINGS
This completes my effort to make some sense out of the top line of the Palermo Stone. I think the tenuous agreement between it and our other sources (the Turin Canon and Manetho) should arouse interest (maybe some eyebrows). The later king-names are much clearer, and Egyptologists generally are satisfied that the information presented by the stone agrees with many other sources, including solid archeological data. I realize my humble attempt at harmonization is considerably "stretched"; but I hope it hasn't offended professional Egyptologists.
Bibliography and Suggested Reading
Budge, E. A. Wallace, The Book of the Dead, University Books, New Hyde Park, 1960.
Gardiner, Alan H., Egyptian Grammar (3rd Edition), Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1957.
Gardiner, Alan H., Egypt of the Pharaohs, Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1961.
St. John, Michael, The Palermo Stone - An Arithmetical View, the Museum Bookshop Ltd.,
Wilkinson, Tony A. H., Royal Annals of Ancient Egypt, Columbia University Press,
New York, 2000.
Winston, Alan, "The Palermo Stone," ONLINE, InterCity Oz, Inc., 1999-2003.
Atlantek Software Inc.,Version 1.4
Copyright © 2003 by R. Cedric Leonard
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Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind.
As a result, the group has moved the minute hand on its famous "Doomsday Clock" two minutes closer to midnight.
The concept timepiece, devised by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, now stands at five minutes to the hour.
The clock was first featured by the magazine 60 years ago, shortly after the US dropped its A-bombs on Japan.
Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand so close to midnight.
The decision to move it came after BAS directors and affiliated scientists held discussions to reassess the idea of doomsday and what posed the most grievous threats to civilisation.
Growing global nuclear instability has led humanity to the brink of a "Second Nuclear Age," the group concluded, and the threat posed by climate change is second only to that posed by nuclear weapons.
"When we think about what technologies besides nuclear weapons could produce such devastation to the planet, we quickly came to carbon-emitting technologies," said Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Chicago-based BAS.
CHICAGO CLOCK OF DOOM
Symbolic Doomsday Clock first established in 1947
Chicago BAS offices keep a representation of the timepiece
First positioned at 7 mins to the hour; 18 changes since then
Originally reflected concern about nuclear annihilation
Bulletin now considers other threats to global security also
The announcement was made at simultaneous events held by the magazine in London and in Washington DC that included remarks from the English Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Rees, and physicist Stephen Hawking.
"Humankind's collective impacts on the biosphere, climate and oceans are unprecedented," said Sir Martin.
"These environmentally driven threats - 'threats without enemies' - should loom as large in the political perspective as did the East/West political divide during the Cold War era."
A number of alarming nuclear trends led to a statement by the Bulletin that "the world has not faced such perilous choices" since the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The worries include Iran's nuclear ambitions, North Korea's detonation of an atomic bomb, the presence of 26,000 launch-ready weapons by America and Russia, and the inability to secure and halt the international trafficking of nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by former Manhattan Project physicists, has campaigned for nuclear disarmament since 1947.
Its board periodically reviews issues of global security and challenges to humanity, not solely those posed by nuclear technology, although most have had a technological component.
This is the first time it has included climate change as an explicit threat to the future of civilisation.
A less immediate threat, but included in the assessment, is the one posed by emerging life science technologies, such as synthetic biology and genetic modification.
While the harm done to the planet by carbon-emitting manufacturing technologies and automobiles was more gradual than a nuclear explosion, nonetheless, it could also be catastrophic to life as we know it and "irremediable", the board said.
It cited in support the conclusions of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Its broad assessment is that the warming over the last few decades is attributable to human activities, and that its consequences are observable in such events as the melting of Arctic ice.
In the years ahead, rising sea levels, heat waves, desertification, along with new disease outbreaks and wars over arable land and water, would mean climate change could bring widespread destruction, the board said.
It also warned against the use of nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels.
While the technology had the potential to alleviate the climate warming effects of burning coal, its development raised the spectre that nuclear materials would be available for nefarious ends as well, the board argued.
Some scientists - even climate scientists - may not support the comparison of global warming to the catastrophe that would follow a nuclear engagement.
"Whether it's a threat of the same magnitude or slightly less or greater is beside the point," said Michael Oppenheimer, a geoscientist from Princeton University, US.
"The important point is that this organisation, which for 60 years has been monitoring and warning us about the nuclear threat, now recognises climate change as a threat that deserves the same level of attention," he said.
Both the nuclear menace and a runaway greenhouse effect were the result of technology whose control had slipped from humans' grasp, the BAS directors said. But it was also within our power to pull them back under control, they added.
"We haven't figured out how to do that yet, but the potential is within our institutions and our imaginations," said Dr Benedict.
Dr Oppenheimer agrees that people should not despair. After all, he said, for a long time the world took the nuclear threat seriously and reduced the numbers of weapons.
"I'm optimistic that we can address climate change," he said. "We've dealt with such problems before, and we can do it again."
Over the past 60 years, the Doomsday clock has now moved backwards and forwards 18 times. It advanced to two minutes before midnight - its closest proximity to doom - in 1953 after the United States and the Soviet Union detonated hydrogen bombs.
Its keepers last moved the clock's hand in 2002 after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and amid alarm about the acquisition of nuclear weapons and materials by terrorists.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6270871.stm
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| 0.960366 | 1,145 | 3.078125 | 3 |
High Water Closes Minneapolis Locks
Date Posted: June 19, 2014
This article is reprinted from the USDA's June 19 Grain Transportation Report.
Rain during the first half of June caused high water levels on the Mississippi River.
Extreme rain events have caused river level fluctuations throughout the central United States.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, St. Paul District, closed three Minneapolis locks to commercial navigation on June 16.
This is the fourth time this season that the three Minneapolis locks — Upper and Lower St. Anthony Falls locks and dams and Lock and Dam 1 — have been closed to commercial navigation because of water conditions.
River levels came within 4 feet of flood stage on June 12 in St. Louis, MO; however, water levels there have since receded.
Delays are slowing barge traffic at Melvin Price Locks and Dam, near St. Louis, MO, until repairs can be completed in mid-August.
Nevertheless, grain barge tonnages are up from last year, when quantities of grain were reduced by the 2012 drought.
For more information, call Surajudeen (Deen) Olowolayemo, USDA, at 202-694-3050.
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| 0.961354 | 249 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The Computer Revolution/Artificial Intelligence/Genetic Algorithms
Genetic Algorithms- an AI system that mimics the evolutionary, survival-of-the fittest process to generate increasingly better solutions to a problem.
Genetic Algorithms use 3 concepts of evolution:
- Selection or the survival of the fittest. The key to selection is to give preference to better outcomes.
- Crossover or combining portions of good outcomes in the hope of creating an even better outcome
- Mutation or randomly trying combinations and evaluating the success (or failure) of the outcome.
Genetic Algorithms are best suited to decision-making environments in which thousands, or perhaps millions, of solutions are possible. Genetic algorithms can find and evaluate solutions intelligently and can get through many more possibilities more thoroughly and faster than a human can.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Computer_Revolution/Artificial_Intelligence/Genetic_Algorithms
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| 0.916708 | 172 | 4.03125 | 4 |
An inconvenient truth: US proposed emission cuts too little too late
CO2 warning sign via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission.
The maths accompanying obligations to “avoid dangerous climate change” demand fundamental change rather than rousing rhetoric and incremental action.
The announcement from the Obama administration that the United State’s power sector would deliver a 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 was hailed by many as a breakthrough in meaningful action. John Kerry suggests the “US is setting an example to the world on climate change” whilst Reuters lead on how the “U.S. unveils sweeping plan to slash power plant pollution” and the president of the World Resources Institute declares the proposals to be a “momentous development”. Dig a little deeper and there is recognition that more still needs to be done. Bryony Worthington tweets “US creeps towards comprehensive climate action plan. Level of cuts too low over too long a time period. Will need tightening. Just like EU” whilst Connie Hedegaard (European Commissioner for Climate Action) notes how “for Paris to deliver what is needed to stay below a 2°C increase in global temperature, all countries, including the United States, must do even more than what this reduction trajectory indicates.”
But how much more is needed from the US and international community to meet their repeated commitment “to hold the increase in global temperature below 2 degrees Celsius”? And is the US proposal part of the solution or part of the problem?
The United States’ plan to reduce power sector emissions by 30% by 2030 (c.f. 2005) is the jewel in the crown of US mitigation policies. Under current proposals economy-wide reductions in total emissions will be much less than 30%; Climate Action Tracker (CAT) estimates emissions will be just 10% below their 2005 level. Yet even if total emissions were to follow the example of the power sector, they would still fall far short of the country’s 2°C commitments enshrined in agreements from the Copenhagen Accord to the Camp David Declaration.
The EU, with emissions per person just 50% of those for a typical US citizen, needs an across the board reduction of over 80% by 2030 (c.f. 2005)1 if it is to make its fair contribution to avoiding the 2°C characterisation of dangerous climate change. Given the higher per capita emissions of the US, reductions there would need to be greater still.
Consequently, whilst Obama’s proposition is certainly brave within the rarified political environment of Congress, it signals yet another wealthy nation whose weak domestic targets are fatally undermining international obligations around 2°C. The low level of ambition of the US, EU, Russia, China et al is why global emissions are set on a pathway much more aligned with a 4°C to 6°C future (~RCP8.5) than the 2°C of our rhetorical targets. Moreover, given that temperatures relate to the cumulative build up of CO2 in the atmosphere, failure to radically reduce emissions in the short-term locks in higher temperatures and “dangerous” impacts, particularly for “poorer populations“. Ramping up the mitigation effort post 2030 will simply be too late. This is a challenging message with implications for policy makers (and all of us) that we have thus far refused to countenance.
So whilst the science and maths around 2°C provides an unequivocal basis for radical reductions in emissions from wealthier nations, the politics continues to deliver grand but ultimately ineffectual gestures. Politically Obama’s proposal is certainly courageous and one for which he deserves credit. But scientifically, the 30% target and the collective acquiescence it has triggered, is a death sentence for many of tomorrow’s more vulnerable communities.1. This assumes, in the aggregate, that non-Annex 1 nations a) significantly reduce their current rate of emissions growth b) peak their emissions by 2025 c) reduce their emissions thereafter at around 7% p.a. For more detail see: EU 2030 decarbonisation… : why so little science?, Numerical basis for 80% decarbonisation and Beyond dangerous climate change.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
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This is a community site and the discussion is moderated. The rules in brief: no personal abuse and no climate denial. Complete Guidelines.
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-06-06/an-inconvenient-truth-us-proposed-emission-cuts-too-little-too-late
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en
| 0.912665 | 925 | 2.5625 | 3 |
(also black-tailed deer)
A type of mule deer with black markings on the upper side of its tail, found west of the crest of the Cascade Mountains.
- Odocoileus hemionus subsp. columbianus, family Cervidae.
- The man from Eugene, Oregon and has successfully hunted blacktail deer for over 30 years.
- These are the smaller blacktail deer that inhabit the coastal range from Mid-California to Alaska.
- Hair loss syndrome is a debilitating condition that causes blacktail deer to constantly chew at their fur.
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: black·tail deer
What do you find interesting about this word or phrase?
Comments that don't adhere to our Community Guidelines may be moderated or removed.
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<urn:uuid:5baa2a84-2942-4635-aedc-263148b697d3>
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http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/blacktail-deer
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| 0.909922 | 165 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Historic chart exhibit in MaineJan 1, 2003
An exhibit that traces the development of the nautical chart from classical mythology to satellite imagery will open soon at the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine. Entitled Charting Neptune's Realm, the exhibit examines special iconography developed over the centuries to depict the ocean's attributes, with its ever-changing winds, currents, depths, sea surface temperature, and other transitory features.
Charts on display date to the 16th century, including a 1540 edition of Ptolemy's Geographia, a world map showing the full 12 winds designated by Aristotle. The 12-wind system remained in use throughout the Middle Ages. In keeping with the mythological origin of winds for direction finding, they are of necessity placed beyond the confines of the known world -- beyond earth itself, in an outer, celestial sphere. Also included is one of Ben Franklin's Gulf Stream charts from 1786.
"The collective experience of seafarers, when linked with advances made in chemistry and physics, produced new interpretations of the world. This knowledge of the sea grew from several simultaneous lines of investigation, sometimes overlapping, sometimes containing large gaps, and even on occasion contradicting one another," said guest curator Donald S. Johnson. "But through the centuries one goal remained constant and undiminished in strength: to bring order out of chaos. Given expression in the form of cartography, these graphic images reveal more succinctly than the written word the knowledge about the watery sector of our globe the ancients called Neptune's Realm."
Contact the Osher Map Library at 207-780-4850 or visit their web site: www.usm.maine.edu/maps.
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<urn:uuid:2670123b-ee4c-43a2-b379-e9bced7aa386>
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http://www.oceannavigator.com/January-February-2003/Historic-chart-exhibit-in-Maine/
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en
| 0.918508 | 349 | 3.171875 | 3 |
"Village" game activity -- Product Description
Educators and children will be interested in a fun, easy to play simulation that models basic economic concepts, such as supply/demmand.
Baseline Functional Requirements
- The village game simulates the settling of an undeveloped territory.
- Players acquire land and develop it resources.
- Players buy/sell/trade these resources.
- The game will have multiple levels difficulty and complexity so that it can be easily learned and played by younger players and retain the interest of older and more experienced players.
- Initial model is for a four player game, with the players being a mix of children and computer generated.
- Scoring must be retained and displayed.
- There needs to be an initial area where players can congregate to form a game.
- there needs to be a display representing the entire area.
- there needs to be a display and sub-displays for the village and buying and selling activities.
- there needs to be a display for the auctioning activity.
- Land Office
- There needs to be a way of setting initial conditions.
- game length
- game complexity
Baseline Technical Requirements
Primary stakeholders are persons or groups which greatly influence, or may be greatly influenced by, this project. This community is expected to actively participate in each project phase, at least in an IV&V capacity. The primary stakeholders for the project include:
- Project team members:
- Bob Myers (design, development)
- Andrew Bouchard (development)
- Nikki Lee (artwork)
The secondary stakeholders for the project include:
These are persons or groups which will derive some benefit from this project but not necessarily be active participants.
- ILXO staff
This game was originally pitched at the ILXO game jam.
- The OLPC/Sugar community in general
More successful activities = better user experience and greater acceptance.
- Other Sugar game activity developers
Resource for development ideas both to and from the project.
A playable game that interests children and which has a reasonable educational benefits is delivered.
The game proves to be sufficiently interesting that people load and play it.
- This game will need a "robot" player to allow single user play or to fill out a playing group.
- This game will need collaboration to allow multi-user play.
- suitable graphics need to be produced.
- possible pygame performance issues
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://wiki.laptop.org/go/User:Rmyers/Village/Product_Description
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en
| 0.926585 | 506 | 2.796875 | 3 |
By Ryan Hackland
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is, in no uncertain terms, a sea monster. It is huge, deadly, and most of it is hidden beneath the waves. A result of trash getting swept away from beaches and out of harbors due to tides and offshore currents, the garbage patch covers an area the size of Texas and growing. In a world filled with more skeptics than environmentalists is it even possible to clean up a mess that large? Dutch Engineering student, Boyan Slat, seems to think so.
His invention, The Clean Up Array, was revealed to the public in 2012 at a Tedx conference. Its function is simple in that it allows the oceans to clean themselves. The Pacific Garbage Patch slowly rotates; trapped in an oceanographic location know as the North Pacific Gyre. Gyres are slow moving marine vortexes that normally churn up essential nutrients from the seabed.
Since the invention of plastic and Tupperware containers, these nutrients have become intermixed with plastics and micro plastics that absorb harmful chemicals like PCBs and DDTs.
These are chemicals known to cause serious health risks including: damage to the immune system and reproductive organs, birth defects, tremors, convulsions, neurological and cognitive problems, hormone disruption, and cancer. Fish that mistake them for nutrients are ingesting these chemicals. Since we are at the top of the food chain and PCBs and DDTs become more concentrated as they move up the food chain, we have every reason to be concerned. That’s where Slat’s plan comes in.
Manta Ray shaped platforms with booms similar to the ones used to isolate marine oil slicks will be positioned around the gyre. The gyres swirling motion sends plastics toward the platforms. The platforms would then collect and process them while, at the same time, separating micro plastics from zooplankton. As a result Slat hopes to remove harmful inorganic plastic waste and the toxic chemical byproducts it absorbs. In addition, marine mammals that migrate through the North Pacific Gyre would be able to swim under the booms to avoid becoming caught.
To reduce labor costs and a prevent increasing the size of our carbon footprint; Slat intends to have the platforms remain in a fixed position with anchor lines descending to a depth of 4,000 meters. The platforms will run on solar wind and wave power to be fully self sufficient in the most extreme conditions.
Charles Moore, a researcher who discovered the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, predicted that it would take a whopping 79,000 years to undo this environmental catastrophe. If successful, Slat’s invention would clear the ocean plastics in as little as five years. In the two years following Slats presentation, he now owns a non-profit organization called Ocean Cleanup with 100 employees serving under him. Since his Tedx speech, Ocean Cleanup has received over $100,000 in funds towards implementing his plan. Unfortunately, this amounts to only 6% of his potential goal of $2,000,000. So if you want to soak up the sun or go diving this summer and are sick of the buildup of trash, go onto the Ocean Cleanup website and help Slat reach his goal.
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<urn:uuid:a26a7e93-3d2b-45fe-944a-275f4f513e89>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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http://outloud.com/2014/06/boyan-slat-boy-genius-believes-he-can-save-the-oceans/
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en
| 0.948179 | 661 | 3.484375 | 3 |
A collaborated effort by researchers at three european universities has resulted in the development of a new storage technology which can fit 500GB of data onto a single HD DVD.
Dubbed the "Microholas project", this recording technique uses nanostructures inside the disk as opposed to conventional methods where they are just on the surface.
With further development, it is believed that microholographic recording could eventually allow discs to be capable of holding 1TB, though whether or not we'll ever see this enter mass-production is anyone's guess at this stage.
Reg Hardware have the scoop.
The University of Berlin, with partners Budapest University of Technology and Economics and Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Italy, has managed to work out how to store 500GB of data on a regular HD DVD or Blu-ray disc.
The Microholas project developed a microholographic recording technique, using nanostructures inside the disk rather than on the surface as in conventional optical storage systems.
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<urn:uuid:c5c5cffd-b613-45b0-9c9f-aa8c4c42ab8d>
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http://www.tweaktown.com/news/7788/500gb_onto_a_single_hd_dvd/index.html
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en
| 0.931274 | 208 | 3 | 3 |
DROSOPHYLLUM—RORIDULA—BYBLIS—GLANDULAR HAIRS OF OTHER PLANTS— CONCLUDING REMARKS ON THE DROSERACEAE.
Drosophyllum—Structure of leaves—Nature of the secretion—Manner of catching insects— Power of absorption—Digestion of animal substances—Summary on Drosophyllum—Roridula- -Byblis—Glandular hairs of other plants, their power of absorption—Saxifraga—Primula— Pelargonium—Erica—Mirabilis—Nicotiana—Summary on glandular hairs—Concluding remarks on the Droseraceae.
Drosophyllum lusitanicum.—This rare plant has been found only in Portugal, and, as I hear from Dr. Hooker, in Morocco. I obtained living specimens through the great kindness of Mr. W.C. Tait, and afterwards from Mr. G. Maw and Dr. Moore. Mr. Tait informs me that it grows plentifully on the sides of dry hills near Oporto, and that vast numbers of flies adhere to the leaves. This latter fact is well-known to the villagers, who call the plant the “fly-catcher, " and hang it up in their cottages for this purpose. A plant in my hot-house caught so many insects during the early part of April, although the weather was cold and insects scarce, that it must have been in some manner strongly attractive to them. On four leaves of a young and small plant, 8, 10, 14, and 16 minute insects, chiefly Diptera, were found in the autumn adhering to them. I neglected to examine the roots, but I hear from Dr. Hooker that they are very small, as in the case of the previously mentioned members of the same family of the Droseraceae.
The leaves arise from an almost woody axis; they [page 333] are linear, much attenuated towards their tips, and several inches in length. The upper surface is concave, the lower convex, with a narrow channel down the middle. Both surfaces, with the exception of the channel, are covered with glands, supported on pedicels and arranged in irregular longitudinal rows. These organs I shall call tentacles, from their close resemblance to those of Drosera, though they have no power of movement. Those on the same leaf differ much in length. The glands also differ in size, and are of a bright pink or of a purple colour; their upper surfaces are convex, and the lower flat or even concave, so that they resemble miniature mushrooms in appearance. They are formed of two (as I believe) layers of delicate angular cells, enclosing eight or ten larger cells with thicker, zigzag walls. Within these larger cells there are others marked by spiral lines, and apparently connected with the spiral vessels which run up the green multi-cellular pedicels. The glands secrete large drops of viscid secretion. Other glands, having the same general appearance, are found on the flower-peduncles and calyx.
Fig. 14. (Drosophyllum lusitanicum.) Part of leaf, enlarged seven times, showing lower surface.
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http://www.bookrags.com/ebooks/5765/213.html
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en
| 0.946188 | 679 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Magnesium is a critical mineral needed for a variety of normal health functions. Headaches, insomnia, irregularity, moodiness, fatigue, general sadness or a lack of motivation, and even cramps or joint pain are said to be caused by a lack of magnesium. The critical mineral is found abundantly in plants and it’s also the first that’s depleted by stress, fatigue, or too much calcium in the body. Calcium and magnesium both compete for absorption, and if one is out of balance, the other is as well. This may be one reason why excess dairy in a person’s diet leads them to experience more muscle fatigue, inflammation, nervousness or anxiety, and can even lead to constipation or worse, osteoporosis. Dairy milk may actually deplete calcium from the bones, along with other critical minerals such as magnesium, making it an unsafe source to depend on for our nutrient needs.
Luckily, magnesium is found in so many delicious plant foods, while animal foods have little to no magnesium at all. If you fill up your plate with more magnesium-rich foods that also happen to be high in plant-based calcium, you can be sure you’re giving your body what it needs through your diet. Still, some people may find that if they work out a lot or suffer other forms of stress, an additional supplement of magnesium may provide benefits.
Here are some ways to get plant-based foods rich in magnesium into your meals, along with some helpful resources, recipes and foods and/or supplements you can purchase to ensure you’re getting enough!
Magnesium is a crucial mineral that’s responsible for over 400 different reactions in your body. It affects your mood, weight, sleep health, regularity, heart beat, energy, metabolism, how you feel through the day physically, and can even affect PMS and depression. It is obtained through the soil and our food, along with fortified supplements.
It’s actually approximated that 80 percent of Americans are deficient in this important mineral due to soil depletion, poor intake of whole, nutritious foods, and a lack of plant-based foods in the diet. Stress may also affect levels, as well as other nutritional deficiencies. Magnesium helps regulate the nervous system, blood pressure, and can even go as far to help prevent heart attach, stroke, and cardiac arrest. It is also essential for maintaining regularity and can help with overall feelings of well-being. It is found abundantly in plants, much more so than animal sources.
RECOMMENDED DAILY INTAKE
Everyone needs varying levels of magnesium, with a minimum of 400 milligrams per day. Depending on how active you are or how much stress you suffer, you could need more since magnesium is quickly depleted in the body during mental or physical stress (such as exercise).Luckily, plant-based foods are packed with magnesium, making it easy to get enough. However if you’re not eating a balanced diet and finding yourself fatigued, irritable and suffering irregularity or insomnia, you may want to consider a supplement.
If you need to supplement, be aware that some forms of magnesium may make you sleepy, which include magnesium citrate and magnesium oxide, though these both aid in regularity. Some people take magnesium at night before they go to sleep to further aid sleep health and also increase regularity in the morning, along with energy and focus. A 400 milligram supplement is enough for most people who are eating enough whole, plant-based foods.
- leafy greens
- nuts (especially cashews and almonds)
- winter squash
- dried figs
- cacao and cocoa
- coffee beans
- root vegetables
RECIPES WITH MAGNESIUM
Most all plant-based recipes and foods are a great source of magnesium. Our entire recipe section is full of magnesium-rich recipes, but here are some recipes that offer exceptionally high amounts:
- Magnesium: How to Get Enough and Which Foods are Best
- 5 Awesome Sources of Plant-Based Magnesium to Give You More Energy
- Elevate Your Mood and Get Happy With These 11 Foods
- Cacao Versus Cocoa: What You Need to Know
- How to Eat Your Way to Energy: No Caffeine Needed
- How to Reduce Your Morning Cortisol and Kiss Your Stress Goodbye
- No, a Glass of Milk Won’t Help You Sleep Better. Try These Foods Instead
Not all multivitamins contain 100 percent of your daily magnesium needs. You can supplement with nutritional supplements, powders, a meal replacement product, or eat a variety of magnesium-rich foods. Here are some options:
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Protein
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Healthy Fats
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Complex Carbs/Fiber
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Vitamin A
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: B Vitamins
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Vitamin C
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Vitamin D
- Plant-Based Nutrition 101: Vitamin E
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Vitamin K
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Calcium
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Iron
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Zinc
- Plant-based Nutrition 101: Magnesium (CURRENT PAGE)
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<urn:uuid:c34819ac-9e41-4e0f-85d7-9eed4e8a9716>
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CC-MAIN-2016-26
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HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) - National Weather Service and Michigan Technological
University researchers are trying to find ways to better predict when Great
Lakes beaches will generate offshore currents that have claimed dozens of
lives in recent years.
Rip currents are particularly common on Lake Michigan, where the find sand
makes underwater sandbars vulnerable to washouts that can allow the
outflowing of water.
Authorities at Holland State Park in western Michigan had to pull 28 people
from the water on Aug. 3, 2011, after currents along the pier dragged
swimmers away from the Lake Michigan shore.
“We’ve had bad days before, but this was like one of those perfect storms,”
Rick Bierlein, a state park officer, told The Detroit News. “We had a
northerly wind, it was hot and people wanted to swim.”
Rip currents are most common when winds are blowing toward shore, causing
water to pile up. Researchers say the outflowing water can puncture
sandbars, pulling swimmers into deeper waters.
Michigan Tech and weather service researchers are using a variety of tools
to see how near-shore currents form and behave in an effort to make the
dangerous areas safer for the public.
Guy Meadows, director of Michigan Tech’s Great Lakes Research Center, is
using new tools to decipher the riddles of rip currents and long-shore
currents, which run parallel to beaches. The goal is to create an
early-warning system that identifies the factors that lead to dangerous
currents and gives swimmers the kind of information that might save lives,
"The ultimate goal is to be able to accurately predict the presence of
dangerous near-shore currents and, on any given day, to know where they will
be prevalent and where they won’t,” Meadows said.
Michigan Tech researchers are using a special radar developed at the
university’s research institute in Ann Arbor to track how waves move toward
a beach. They are also using satellite technology to map the bottom of Lake
Michigan near shore in certain areas to provide a baseline of information
ahead of trouble events.
So far, researchers have found that Lake Michigan by far has the largest
number of drownings and current-related incidents, human-made structures
such as piers and break-walls generate the currents that cause the most
incidents and 72 percent of incidents occur when winds are blowing toward
Besides wind and weather conditions, bad judgment plays a key role in rip
currents accidents and deaths, one expert says.
“The unfortunate reality is people do some dumb stuff,” said Bob Pratt,
executive director of education with the Great Lakes Surf Rescue Project, a
nonprofit group dedicated to reducing drowning deaths.
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Birthplace: Charlton, Hertfordshire, England
Location of death: London, England
Cause of death: unspecified
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Executive summary: Bessemer process to manufacture steel
English engineer, born on the 19th of January 1813, at Charlton, in Hertfordshire. Throughout his life he was a prolific inventor, but his name is chiefly known in connection with the Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel, by which it has been rendered famous throughout the civilized world. Though this process is now largely supplemented, and even displaced, by various rivals, at the time it was brought out it was of enormous industrial importance, since it effected a great cheapening in the price of steel, and led to that material being widely substituted for others which were inferior in almost every respect but that of cost. Bessemer's attention was drawn to the problem of steel manufacture in the course of an attempt to improve the construction of guns. Coming to the conclusion that if any advance was to be made in artillery better metal must be available, he established a small ironworks in St. Pancras, and began a series of experiments. These he carried on for two years before he evolved the essential idea of his process, which is the decarbonization of cast iron by forcing a blast of air through the mass of metal when in the molten condition. The first public announcement of the process was made at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association in 1856, and immediately attracted considerable notice. Many metallurgists were skeptical on theoretical grounds about his results, and only became convinced when they saw that his process was really able to convert melted cast iron into malleable iron in a perfectly fluid state. But though five firms applied without delay for licenses to work under his patents, success did not at once attend his efforts; indeed, after several ironmasters had put the process to practical trial and failed to get good results, it was in danger of being thrust aside and entirely forgotten. Its author, however, instead of being discouraged by this lack of success, continued his experiments, and in two years was able to turn out a product, the quality of which was not inferior to that yielded by the older methods. But when he now tried to induce makers to take up his improved system, he met with general rebuffs, and finally was driven to undertake the exploitation of the process himself. To this end he erected steelworks in Sheffield, on ground purchased with the help of friends, and began to manufacture steel. At first the output was insignificant, but gradually the magnitude of the operations was enlarged until the competition became effective, and steel traders generally became aware that the firm of Henry Bessemer & Co. was underselling them to the extent of £20 a ton. This argument to the pocket quickly had its effect, and licenses were applied for in such numbers that, in royalties for the use of his process, Bessemer received a sum in all considerably exceeding a million sterling.
Of course, patents of such obvious value did not escape criticism, and invalidity was freely urged against them on various grounds. But Bessemer was fortunate enough to maintain them intact without litigation, though he found it advisable to buy up the rights of one patentee, while in another case he was freed from anxiety by the patent being allowed to lapse in 1859 through non-payment of fees. At the outset he had found great difficulty in making steel by his process -- in his first licenses to the trade iron alone was mentioned. Experiments he made with South Wales iron were failures because the product was devoid of malleability; Mr. Goransson, a Swedish ironmaster, using the purer charcoal pig iron of that country, was the first to make good steel by the process, and even he was successful only after many attempts. His results prompted Bessemer to try the purer iron obtained from Cumberland hematite, but even with this he did not meet with much success, until Robert Mushet showed that the addition of a certain quantity of spiegeleisen had the effect of removing the difficulties. Whether or not Mushet's patents could have been sustained, the value of his procedure was shown by its general adoption in conjunction with the Bessemer method of conversion. At the same time it is only fair to say that whatever may have been the conveniences of Mushet's plan, it was not absolutely essential; this Bessemer proved in 1865, by exhibiting a series of samples of steel made by his own process alone. The pecuniary rewards of Bessemer's great invention came to him with comparative quickness; but it was not until 1879 that the Royal Society admitted him as a fellow and the government honored him with a knighthood. Bessemer died at Denmark Hill, London, on the 15th of March 1898.
Among Bessemer's numerous other inventions, not one of which attained a tithe of the success or importance of the steel process, were movable dies for embossed stamps, a gold paint, sugar machinery, and a ship which was to save her passengers from the miseries of mal de mer. This last had her saloon mounted in such a way as to be free to swing relatively to the boat herself, and the idea was that this saloon should always be maintained steady and level, no matter how rough the sea. For this purpose hydraulic mechanism of Bessemer's design was arranged under the control of an attendant, whose duty it was to keep watch on a spirit-level, and counteract by proper manipulation of the apparatus any deviation from the horizontal that might manifest itself on the floor of the saloon owing to the rolling of the vessel. A boat, called the Bessemer, was built on this plan in 1875 and put on the cross-Channel service to Calais, but the mechanism of the swinging saloon was not found effective in practice and was ultimately removed.
An Autobiography was published in 1905.
Wife: (m. 1834, d. 1897)
Royal Society (1879)
Knight of the British Empire (26-Jun-1879)
National Inventors Hall of Fame
Bribery Fürth, Germany (c. 1850), acquitted
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Copyright ©2014 Soylent Communications
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Lyndon Baines Johnson was the thirty-sixth US President (1963-69) and the first President elected from a Southern state since before the Civil War. He succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of John Kennedy on November 22,1963.
Born August 27, 1908, near Johnson City, Texas, he was the son of Sam Ealy Johnson Jr., a struggling Texas farmer. The senior Johnson had also served for five terms as a Texas legislator. Lyndon's mother made her children's education a top priority, and it is said that she had a great influence on her famous son. Lyndon Johnson went to the public schools in Johnson City, Texas. Upon graduating, Lyndon headed out west to "find himself," at various points picking fruit, washing cars, and working in restaurants. Three years later, he went on to college and received a BS degree in Education from Southwest Texas State Teacher's College. After graduating, he taught school.
He had just begun his second year teaching when in 1931, Democratic Congressman Richard Kleberg asked him to come to Washington as his congressional aid. During the next two terms, Lyndon began to develop a network of political contacts in Washington. It was also during this time that on November 17, l934, he married Claudia Alta Taylor, who he called "Lady Bird." She was an affectionate and gentile Southern woman who was her husband's helpmate and confidant, though, unlike Eleanor Roosevelt, she remained quietly in the background. Her warmth earned her much respect and affection from the American people.
In 1935, when Lyndon was twenty-seven, Franklin Roosevelt appointed him the head of the National Youth Administration in Texas, a position he held until 1937. This youth group sought to bring the importance of education to the young of Texas and train them for meaningful employment. Johnson was in awe of Franklin Roosevelt and became enamored with his liberal reforms. During his own presidency, he would look back on the Roosevelt administration and use it as a model.
In 1937, Lyndon Johnson was elected to the United States House of Representatives, where he continued the liberal reform actions proposed by Franklin Roosevelt. Later in his life he would move politically to the right and show a more conservative side, but as a young man, Lyndon was a liberal. He left Congress for a short time in 1941 and 1942 to serve a term of active duty in the Navy, where he was stationed in the Pacific until Roosevelt recalled all members of Congress to Washington.
After the war, Lyndon Johnson's politics grew more conservative, to the point where he even voted against Civil Rights legislation. In 1948 he ran for the Senate, barely winning. The election was so close that his opponent challenged the results in the Texas courts, but Johnson prevailed. In 1953 he became the Senate Democratic Leader, and the following year he was reelected to his Senate seat. When he returned to Washington this time, it was as the Senate Majority Leader, a post he continued to hold through the next six years, in spite of a serious heart attack in 1955.
As the Majority Leader, Lyndon perfected the art of politics that he'd learned from his father, Sam. He was an excellent listener and could compromise when the situation required it. He established friendships with many Senators on both sides of the aisle, which served him well in his years as President. The former liberal was able to hold the conservative Southern leaders together. He was also a friend of Eisenhower, though many in his own party disliked the warm relationship between the Democrat, Johnson, and the Republican President.
Johnson wanted to run for the presidency in 1960, but purposely held back, counting upon a second ballot. When John Kennedy took the nomination on the first ballot and offered Lyndon the Vice Presidential slot, Johnson accepted. It was assumed that the Senator from Massachusetts had the North in his hands. He needed Johnson to help win the South. That year the Democrats won the White House with one of the narrowest victories in any Presidential campaign in United States history.
Johnson was named by Kennedy to head the Committee on Equal Employment Opportunities. This gave Johnson a chance to use the skills that enabled him to work with African American leaders and other minorities. As Vice President he also had the chance to undertake missions abroad that broadened his knowledge of foreign policy.
On November 22, l963, Lyndon Johnson was in the motorcade in Dallas, Texas behind President and Mrs. Kennedy when shots rang out. John Kennedy was dead, and Lyndon Johnson became the fourth Vice President to ascend to the office of Chief Executive after an assassination. Johnson took the Oath of Office aboard Air Force One with Mrs. Kennedy and Lady Bird on either side of him. The picture of Lyndon Johnson's swearing in next to the blood stained wife of a martyred President is one of the most famous in history.
Johnson termed his domestic program the "Great Society," and his term as President was one of the most fruitful legislative eras in United States history. President Johnson had the largest push of legislation since FDR. Before he left office, Congress had implemented 226 of his 252 legislative requests, upholding his reputation as a man who could get things done. Among his better known programs was his War on Poverty and a strong Civil Rights Act in 1964. Later he would go on to pass Medicare, which provided health services to the elderly and the disabled. He also established the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). One of the most important acts was The Voting Rights Act of 1965, which suspended the literacy requirements that were often used to keep blacks from registering to vote. Also, In 1964, he prodded Congress into enacting an 11 billion dollar tax cut.
In 1964 he and his running mate Hubert Humphrey ran a very quiet election compared to that of the staunch "father of conservatism" Barry Goldwater of Arizona. Goldwater warned against American continuation in a war that was undeclared and not even legislated to be called a war. In 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution which gave Johnson authority to take any action necessary to protect US troops. Vietnam was one of Johnson's largest priorities, and even before Kennedy was buried, he ordered more military troops into Vietnam and an escalation of the action. Many say this was to build the economy through a wartime increase of manufacturing in the defense Industries. It was for Lyndon Johnson a costly war that would lead him to many sleepless nights. In a stubborn attempt to win the war, Johnson escalated it to the heights never dreamed of when Dwight Eisenhower first sent a team of advisors into the area.
Lyndon Johnson's presidency was tarnished by increasingly strident public opposition to his policies in Southeast Asia. Because of the increasing criticism over our involvement in Vietnam; he did not seek reelection in 1968. Johnson was a tired man. There had been race riots in most of the major cities. Anti-war demonstrations that had begun as peace parades had grown to battles between police and young people. The Lyndon Johnson who made the announcement that he would not be running for reelection appeared to the country as a broken man.
Johnson had hopes that his Vice President would win the election for President, but Hubert Humphrey lost to Richard Nixon that year. Lyndon Johnson retired to his beloved ranch in Texas where he wrote his memoirs and supervised the building of his Presidential Library and a school of government at the University of Texas at Austin. The Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas is named for him. On January 22, 1973, just five days before the Treaty ending the Vietnam War was signed, Lyndon Baines Johnson died in Texas, of a heart attack.
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Saugerties is a town in Ulster County, New York, USA. The population was 19,482 at the 2010 census. The Town of Saugerties contains the Village of Saugerties in the northeast corner of Ulster County. Part of the town is inside Catskill Park.
U.S. Route 9W and New York State Route 32 pass through the town, converging at the center of the village and overlapping to the south. These routes parallel the New York State Thruway (Interstate 87), which passes through the town just west of the village.
In the 1650s Barent Cornelis Volge operated a sawmill on the Sawyer's Kill, supplying lumber for the manor of Rensselaerswick. The name Saugerties means "Little Sawyer" in Dutch. He had secured a title from the Esopus Sachem to this lands sometime before 1663. Volge likely left the area at the outbreak of the first Esopus War in 1658. The "footpath to Albany" was not laid out until 1670. In April 1677 Governor Edmund Andros purchased land of from the Esopus Indian Kaelcop, chief of the Amorgarickakan tribe for the price of a piece of cloth, a blanket, some coarse fiber, a loaf of bread, and a shirt. The Mynderse House was built by John Persen, formerly of Kingston, an early mill owner, around 1685.
In October 1710, 300 families who had emigrated to England from the Palatine region of Germany established camps on the east and west side of the Hudson. The camp on the west side of the river became known as West Camp in the Town of Saugerties. They were sent by the British government to manufacture naval stores for Her Majesty's fleet. The villages at West Camp were called Elizabethtown, Georgetown, and Newtown. Sawmills were established on the Esopus Creek. In 1998 a monument commemorating their arrival was erected on the lawn of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in West Camp.
Sometime before 1730 the Katsbaan area northeast of the village was settled by Dutch farmers from Kingston and Palatines from the "camps". In 1732 they built a stone Dutch Reformed Church.
During the American Revolution, a British Squadron lay at anchor at Saugerties from October 18–22, 1777, while raiding parties burned Clermont and Belvedere, across the Hudson River. These were the estates of Margaret Beekman Livingston and her son, Chancellor Livingaton. The British also burned sloops, near the Esopus Creek, and several homes and barns. While here British General Vaughan learned of Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga on October 17. On October 22, 1777, the British fleet had left from the Mid-Hudson Valley, never to return.
The town was organized from the town of Kingston on April 5, 1811. At that time the hamlet of Saugerties contained twenty-one houses.
Henry Barclay (1778-1857), was an importer from Manhattan who with his wife, Catherine (1782-1851) came to Saugerties about 1825. Barclay, who had business relationships with Robert L. Livingston, had a dam constructed on the Esopus Creek near today’s 9W bridge. Around 1828 he established the Ulster Iron Works to produce bar and hoop iron. It had a capacity for manufacturing about 6,000 tons annually. and employed about 300 hands working rpund the clock shifts. In 1830 Henry Barclay built a paper mill powered by water from the Esopus Creek, which at that location had a fall of thirty-one feet. Barclay imported skilled workers and engineers from England to man his mills.
Upon Barclay's death in 1851, the mill was taken over by the Sheffield Company. The Sheffield Paper Mills, of I.B. Sheffield, manufactured writing paper. There were two buildings. They were rebuilt in 1860 by Messrs. White & Sheffield, and again rebuilt in 1868-9. The mills produced two and a half tons daily, and employed about 130 people. William Sheffield built the Clovelea mansion around 1880. In 1888 Martin Cantine built a paper mill on the North side of the dam, and in 1903, the Cantine Company bought out the Sheffield mill. The Cantine mill closed in 1975. Part of the complex has been renovated as senior citizen housing.
The village was incorporated in 1831 as "Ulster," and changed its name to "Saugerties" in 1855.
In 1832, bluestone was quarried in nearby Toodlum (now Veteran).At one time, 2,000 men were employed in quarrying, dressing and shipping about one and a half million dollars’ worth of blue stone annually from Glasco, Malden, and Saugerties. Blue stone was used for curbing, paving, doorsills and windowsills: much of it in New York City. The Ulster White Lead Company at Glenerie produced nine hundred tons of lead each year.
St. Mary of the Snow Roman Catholic Church was founded around 1833. Henry Barclay was a major contributor to the church for his workers. The basement of the church served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Like Trinity Episcopal Church, St. Mary’s has stained glass windows designed and installed by Louis Comfort Tiffany.
By 1870, the population of the town of Saugerties was about 4000.
The ice industry thrived during the 1880′s to 1900′s. Icehouses were located in Glasco and Malden. Ice was also harvested on the Upper Esopus and on the Sawyerkill. The brick industry also developed in Glasco.
In the early hours of November 9, 1879, the steamer Ansonia of the Saugerties Line ran against the Lighthouse dock on its return trip from New York, smashing the paddle wheel. A tug from Kingston hauled the steamer off the flats, and it was taken to New York City for repairs. In 1889 Robert A. Snyder, John and George Seaman, Henry L. Finger, and James and William Maxwell started the "Saugerties and New York Steamboat Company". In 1892, the steamerboats M. Martin and Tremper arrived at Saugerties at the same time, and collided near the lighthouse as each tried to get to the dock first. The steamboat Saugerties burned to the waterline in 1903 and the charred remains were scuttled in the cove north of the Lighthouse. It's remains can sometimes be seen at very low tides.
In 1890 the Orpheum Theater was built by John Cooper Davis. It was a center for movies, basketball, Vaudeville acts and roller skating. Lucille Ball and Burns and Allen performed at the Orpheum.
In 1906 Poultney Bigelow, editor and co-owner of the New York Evening Post, built Bigelow Hall in Malden. In April 1910 the Esopus Creek flooded the village of Saugerties.
The Hudson Valley Garlic Festival was established in 1989 by Pat Reppert of Shale Hill Farm and Herb Gardens. In 1992 the Kiwanis Club of Saugerties took over sponsorship of the Festival and moved it "Cantine Field" where now the Festival is held every September. It attracts about 50,000 people within a three day weekend.
In 1994, Saugerties was the home of the Woodstock '94 music festival, held on the 25th anniversary of the original Woodstock Festival. Saugerties is just east of the town of Woodstock, New York. The original festival was held some southwest of the town of Woodstock (on Max Yasgur's farm in Bethel, New York), while the 1999 festival in Rome, NY was away from Woodstock.
HITS("Horseshows In The Sun"), opened in 2003. They occupy of land and have a 10 ring, Olympic-status horse show facility in central Saugerties.
In 2005 the Esopus Bend Conservancy formed and acquired over with a little more than of the shoreline on the upper Esopus
In 2014, Saugerties was home to the Hudson Music Project- which notoriously became known as the "Mudson Project". After 2 days of music and other festivities, the festival came to an abrupt halt on the third and final day as rain and mud infested the concert and camp areas. Hundreds were left without food and water when their cars became stuck in the ubiquitous muck that dominated the camp ground. Many campers stayed and continued to party through the night when the rain subsided.
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Carol O'Cleireacain, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Right now, when a big rainstorm hits D.C., the sewer system is overwhelmed, and raw sewage flows right into our waterways and then on to the Chesapeake Bay. Older parts of the city have pipes carrying both storm water and sewage — a legacy of the federal government, which ran the system until the 1970s.
Under a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency, D.C. Water has begun the Clean Rivers Project, building huge underground tunnels to store the storm water and raw sewage until it can be sent for treatment. The project will cost $2.6 billion through 2025 and will virtually eliminate sewage discharge into Rock Creek and the Anacostia and Potomac rivers.
No one can doubt how important this is, or how much cleaner water benefits the city and the entire region. The question is, can we create a fair and efficient way to pay for it? DC Water is financing the project through long-term bonds, which are paid back from fees customers will have to pay. The federal government has supported the project, but future contributions are not predictable.
Even with D.C. Water's smart management, the financing of this project raises some concerns.
The present approach puts the burden on District residents and property owners. Loading all of the costs on them could be risky. Projections show water and sewer bills will increase sharply. They will grow much faster than income; and, for the District s poorest residents, more than double as a share of their income.
We need, instead, to get all those who benefit from the region's cleaner water to pay a fair share. That includes the suburbs and the federal government. Quite simply, the current, fragmented, efforts do not match the scale of the problem.
We need DC Water and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments to bring together the federal government, the District, the states of Maryland and Virginia and their local jurisdictions to sort out a more rational system to pay for improved water quality. No one wants the Chesapeake Bay clean-up to fail.
Carol O'Cleireacain is the author of a new Brookings Institution report about DC Water. Her commentary came to us through WAMU's Public Insight Network. It's a way for people to share their stories with us and for us to reach out for input on upcoming stories. Learn more about the Public Insight Network, and contribute your own commentary.
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Consortia Flesh Out Visions for Common Tests
Documents offer clues on how standards might be translated for tests
Common academic standards, adopted by nearly every state, lay out big shifts in expectations for teachers and students in mathematics and English/language arts. Now a new set of documents edges closer to offering a vision of how those standards might look in the classroom and on tests.
The documents were released this month by the two groups of states that are designing tests for the new standards. One group, the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium, or SBAC, released “content maps and specifications” in English/language arts. The other, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or PARCC, unveiled “content frameworks” in both subjects.
Both documents serve to explicate the standards, highlighting key concepts or progressions of learning. PARCC’ s focuses on identifying the ideas that should be stressed and how they could be grouped together, and SBAC’s describes the ways students should be able to prove they mastered the standards.
The documents can guide teachers and curriculum designers, but they also provide early signals to test-makers, who are eagerly awaiting the chance to bid on building the assessments, which are financed with $360 million in federal Race to the Top grants. Requests for proposals have not been issued yet, although SMARTER Balanced recently issued one seeking bids for the writing of detailed instructions for test-item development.
PARCC’s frameworks are open for public feedback until Aug. 31. The first of two comment periods for the SMARTER Balanced specifications ends Aug. 29. SBAC plans to release draft math content specifications later this month.
Consortia officials said that member states collaborated on the papers and had them reviewed by outside groups of teachers and other experts. Both consortia view the new documents as an important first plank in a bridge that begins with the standards and is built out by an array of entities—including states, school districts, teachers, nonprofits, and private-sector vendors—with instructional materials, professional development, test blueprints, and, finally, assessments.
“Many districts are already working on new curricula, and [the frameworks] can be a tool to help them do that,” said Laura Slover, PARCC’s senior vice president.
Joe Willhoft, the executive director of the SMARTER Balanced consortium, said its content specifications serve as “somewhat of a distillation of the standards [and] loose definitions of what the test will look like.”
Barbara A. Kapinus, a senior policy analyst with the National Education Association who reviewed the PARCC content frameworks, said the documents could be useful for individual teachers as they plan how to teach the standards, but also in building learning communities of teachers.
“Some of us can look at the standards and picture what our classroom would look like for a year, but a lot of people can’t,” she said. “I think it’s exciting. [With the content frameworks], I can see pulling teachers together to develop more specific units of study, filling in the texts students might read. Not just isolated lesson plans, but units of study, with ideas that connect to one another. Then they can share online all the things they’re doing. That’s a powerful kind of professional development.”
The documents are similar in ways that reflect key emphases in the standards, educators in the curriculum and assessment world noted. For instance, both highlight the importance of having text become progressively more complex, and tilt more heavily toward informational readings, as students progress through the grades.
But PARCC’s frameworks offer more of an “instructional focus,” describing the teaching needed to make students successful, while the SMARTER Balanced group’s specifications dwell more on the “evidence of learning” that will be required of students on a test, said Pat Roschewski, the director of assessment in Nebraska, which has not adopted the common standards or joined either assessment consortium.
“Both are very important, and both are needed,” she said. “Both provide information that states, teachers, and vendors will find useful.”
Some educators had expressed worry that the common-standards initiative, led by organizations of governors and chief state school officers, was moving from standards to tests without attending to the vast middle stretch that could flesh out the standards with instructional tools and other resources. They saw the new documents as helping to fill that vacuum.
“For a while, I was concerned that we were spending big dollars [to develop] tests [for common standards] without having that conversation about the universe of expected learnings for students,” said Michael W. Stetter, who oversees testing in Delaware. “But these [PARCC] content frameworks certainly help do that. I’m feeling better and better about this process.”
Delaware, which participates in both assessment consortia, revised its own curriculum frameworks to reflect the common standards after it adopted the standards last summer, Mr. Stetter said. Now the state is working on using teacher training to change instructional practices.
Documents such as the content frameworks “show the hand of the consortium,” Mr. Stetter said, providing additional, important signals of each group’s approach to the standards and tests. “Things like this will help us make a decision about which of the two consortia is better aligned to our goals.”
Out of Order?
Both the partnership’s content frameworks and the SMARTER Balanced group’s content specifications “serve as a steppingstone” to the development of test blueprints, which will yield details of how each assessment system will measure the standards, said Douglas J. McRae, a retired assessment designer based in California.
But Mr. McRae, who helped shape California’s testing system, said he is concerned that content frameworks and similar documents are being created by the same people who are planning the assessments, and at the same time as the test design is being shaped. Unless the test design follows curriculum frameworks, instructional materials, and professional development, Mr. McRae said, an instructional system risks being shaped by the test, rather than vice-versa.
“In effect, this is building a formal ‘teaching to the test’ component into overall standards-based-reform systems,” Mr. McRae wrote in an email.
Ms. Slover of PARCC noted that teams made up of experts in content, curriculum, and assessment, from states, districts, and schools, crafted the frameworks. That kind of coordination is necessary to create an aligned system, she said.
“States’ priorities are to measure common standards with great fidelity,” she said. “So the way to get to that is to have the content of the standards drive the assessment and the decisions you make about assessment.”
Vol. 31, Issue 01, Page 6
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There are many complications of diabetes that require clinical care by a physician or other healthcare professional. Some of the most common include:
- Kidney Disease
- Nerve Problems
- Foot Problems
- Eye Problems
What are the clinical complications associated with diabetes?
Clinical complications associated with diabetes may include:
Cardiovascular disease, in many cases, is caused by atherosclerosis -- an excess build-up of plaque on the inner wall of a large blood vessel, which restricts the flow of blood.
- Heart disease is the leading cause of diabetes-related deaths
- Heart disease and stroke are 2 to 4 times more common in persons with diabetes
- Persons with diabetes have heart disease death rates nearly 2 to 4 times higher than in persons without diabetes
High blood pressure affects 60-65 percent of people with diabetes.
Periodontal (gum) disease occurs with greater frequency in persons with diabetes. Periodontal disease occurs among 30 percent of people 19 years old or older with type 1 diabetes.
Retinopathy or glaucoma (eye disease or blindness)
Blindness due to diabetic retinopathy is a more important cause of visual impairment in younger-onset people than in older-onset people. Males with younger-onset diabetes develop retinopathy more rapidly than females with younger-onset diabetes.
Diabetic retinopathy causes from 12,000 to 24,000 new cases of blindness each year.
Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness among adults 20-74 years of age.
Renal disease (kidney/urinary tract disease)
Ten to twenty-one percent of all people with diabetes develop kidney disease.
Diabetes is the leading cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), a condition in which the patient requires dialysis or a kidney transplant in order to live.
According to the latest recorded statistics from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), in 1995, 98,872 persons with diabetes underwent dialysis or transplantation.
Neuropathy (nerve disease)
Approximately 60-70 percent of people with diabetes have mild to severe forms of diabetic nerve damage.
Severe forms of diabetic nerve disease are the major contributing cause of lower-extremity amputations.
More than half the amputations in the US occur among people with diabetes.
Diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA)
DKA is one of the most serious outcomes of poorly controlled diabetes, and primarily occurs in people with type 1 diabetes. DKA is marked by high blood glucose levels along with ketones in the urine. DKA is responsible for about 10 percent of diabetes-related deaths in individuals with diabetes under age 45.
Preventing diabetes complications
People with diabetes must stay alert for symptoms that can lead to clinical complications. The best way to do this is:
- Get regular checkups -- finding problems early is the best way to keep complications from becoming serious
- Keep appointments with your physician -- even when you are feeling well
- Be aware of symptoms and warning signs of potential problems, including:
- vision problems (blurriness, spots)
- pale skin color
- obesity (more than 20 pounds overweight)
- numbness or tingling feelings in hands or feet
- repeated infections or slow healing of wounds
- chest pain
- vaginal itching
- constant headaches
- Keep blood-sugar levels close to normal
- Control weight
- Eat a healthy, well-balanced diet
- Get regular exercise
- Check your feet every day for even minor cuts or blisters
- Do not smoke
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Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush. Only eight days earlier, the United States Supreme Court had unanimously decided the closely related case of Bush v. Palm Beach County Canvassing Board, 531 U.S. 70 (2000), and only three days earlier, had preliminarily halted the recount that was occurring in Florida.
In a per curiam decision, the Court ruled that the Florida Supreme Court’s method for recounting ballots was a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The Court also ruled that no alternative method could be established within the time limits set by the State of Florida. Three concurring justices also asserted that the Florida Supreme Court had violated Article II, § 1, cl. 2 of the Constitution, by misinterpreting Florida election law that had been enacted by the Florida Legislature.
In 2008 Hilary Clinton lost crucial delegates when Florida decided to hold its primary early in contravention of Democratic party rules. An unhappy Democratic National Committee stripped Florida of all of its votes, rendering Clinton’s overwhelming victory over Barack Obama meaningless.
Now in 2012 Florida does the same for the Republican primaries:
“When Florida voters choose their candidate for the Republican presidential nomination on Tuesday, they’ll do so as the fourth state in the process. The cost: half their delegates to the GOP convention.
. . . officials figure it’s worth a penalty for their state to maintain a relevant voice in nominating candidates for the White House.
“I’d much rather have a say in the nomination process as opposed to the coronation process,” Florida Senate President Mike Haridopolos said.”
So why does Florida flout the rules of both the Democratic and Republican parties? Why does those in charge of running the state choose maverick methods to influence national elections?
The answer it seems, at least astrologically, are the problems with the documents that mark the dates of the transfer of ownership of Florida land from country to country.
Florida’s history is morass of overlapping claims and occupations.
For thousands of years before Europeans came to this peninsula, a succession of native peoples lived here with very different ideas about owning land. They had names like Calusas, Tequestas, Temucuans, and Apalachees. One estimate suggests that there were “as many as 350,000” living here before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.
Spain and France established settlements in Florida with varying degrees of success. A combination of weather, famine and troubles with the indigenous population made establishment of permanent colonies problematic for both the Spanish and the French.
Britain occupied Florida from 1763 to 1783. Great Britain gained control of Florida and other territory diplomatically in 1763 through the Peace of Paris. Spain received both East and West Florida after Britain’s defeat by the American colonies and the subsequent Treaty of Versailles in 1783, continuing the division into East and West Florida. They offered land grants to anyone who settled in the colonies, and many Americans moved to them.
After settler attacks on Indian towns, Seminole Indians based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish. The United States Army led increasingly frequent incursions into Spanish territory, including the 1817–1818 campaign against the Seminole Indians by Andrew Jackson that became known as the First Seminole War. Following the war, the United States effectively controlled East Florida. In 1819, by terms of the Adams-Onís Treaty, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in exchange for the American renunciation of any claims on Texas.
The Adams-Onís Treaty was signed in Washington on February 22, 1819, and ratified by Spain October 24, 1820, and entered into force February 22, 1821. It terminated April 14, 1903, by a treaty of July 3, 1902. The treaty was named for John Quincy Adams of the United States and Louis de Onís of Spain.
But because of the length of time it took to get the treaty ratified it had to undergo a second ratification process.
Additionally, the Adams-Onis treaty had problems in its construction.
Certain treaties, upon ratification, have some or all of the obligations they contain become immediately incorporated into US law. These treaty obligations are termed self-executing treaty obligations.3 If self- execution status is not intended (an instance of “non-self-execution” status), the obligations will pass into US law only if the government passes “implementing” legislation.4 The final determination as to whether US treaty obligations are self-executing or non-self-executing is ultimately the responsibility of the US judiciary.5
The distinction between self-executing and non-self-executing treaty obligations first arose in a legal interpretation of the US Constitution by Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1829 case of Foster v. Neilson.6 In this case, the Supreme Court found a provision of a treaty between the US and Spain to be non-self-executing.7 Following that judgment, divergent judicial trends developed within the American judiciary, leading to a period of prolonged confusion.8 However, the Supreme Court recently clarified this important aspect of US treaty law in the 2008 case of Medellín v. Texas.
Spain gave United States the land, but it was up to the United States to make Florida a state. This did not happen until 25 years later. In the meantime:
. . some previous Spanish land grants were declared valid. Special land commissions and judicial tribunals were established to determine the validity of each Spanish land grant. All other land was owned by the U.S. until ownership was transferred in some manner.
Who owned what was quite a question for some time. At one point “the state sold some 2,753,380 acres more than it had.” Until about 1870 “land in the Florida Keys was difficult to legally own with complete assurance of ownership.”
Astrologically, whenever there is a problem with the establishment of ownership of land there is usually some defect in the “natal” chart of the transfer of the property.In the chart of the Adams-Onis Treaty is interesting to see that most of the planets are grouped in either the zodiac sign of Aquarius or Pisces. The Aquarian grouping, representing the American public, since the United States natal chart features an Aquarian moon, are unaspected to other planets except themselves.
Unaspected planets having no other zodiac sign to modify them, act like wild horses in the chart. Anything can happen. As we know from Florida’s history, anything does.
The second grouping of planets which includes the Sun, Saturn, Chiron and Pluto sextiles Venus but is in challenge aspect to Neptune and Uranus who appear to act as co-rulers of the chart. Uranus brings unexpected events and Neptune brings confusion. Could a Sun be more debilitated, being in a weak sign, hampered by Saturn, weakened by Chiron and twisted by Pluto and challenged by the co-rulers of the chart?When Florida was officially declared a state, the planets were aligned in what can only be described as synchronicity. Again four planets are in Aquarius, and the Sun is in Pisces. Mars, the planet of trouble, sits in the same sign and in between the chart rulers of the Treaty chart. Chiron, the planet that shows were something is wrong, in now opposite the Statehood Sun where in the Treaty Chart it sits with the Sun. In a very real way, the Statehood chart is a redo of the afflicted Treaty chart.
So it any wonder that the Treaty of July 3, 1902, the Treaty of Friendship and General Relations abrogated, that is nullified, all previous treaties between the United States and Spain? But where does this leave Florida? Even though the Supreme Court in the 2008 case of Medellin v. Texas pronounced that treaty obligations are self executing, curing whatever defect the Adams-Onis Treaty may have had, that treaty is still nullified. So is Florida a state?
At least one jurist, William Pena Wells, believes not and he says so in his twenty page brief.
Under this logic, the U. S. ownership of Florida is nullified. Florida, therefore it is an occupied territory, not a state, and it can not act with the authority of a state. It is understandable then why there is so much confusion around electoral votes and primaries. The dated documents that establish Florida as a legal entity are no longer valid, leaving Florida to run without constraints through the political and legal processes of the United States.
Florida flag graphic published under a Creative Commons license from user afmcva as described on Photobucket.
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Magnesium as a stress-protectant for industrial strains of saccharomyces cerevisiae
During brewery fermentations, individual yeast cells may be confronted with a variety of environmental stresses that impair yeast growth and fermentative metabolism. An understanding of the stress physiology of industrial yeasts is therefore important in order to counteract deleterious effects of stress on fermentation and, ultimately, product quality. The present study describes the influence of magnesium ions in preventing cell death caused by temperature shock and ethanol toxicity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strains employed in brewing, distilling, and wine fermentations. Results obtained show that, by increasing the extracellular availability of magnesium ions, physiological protection may be conferred on temperature- and ethanol-stressed yeast cells with respect to culture viability and growth. This practical approach is envisaged to offer benefits to alcoholic fermentation processes in terms of enhancing the viability of the yeasts employed. It is proposed that magnesium prevents stress-induced damage to yeast cells by protecting the structural and functional integrity of the plasma membrane.
Walker, G. 1998. Magnesium as a stress-protectant for industrial strains of saccharomyces cerevisiae. Journal of the American Society of Brewing Chemists. 56(3): pp.109-113. [Online] Available from doi: 10.1094/ASBCJ-56-0109
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| 0.88465 | 276 | 2.53125 | 3 |
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