The Simplest Things
Sometimes the simplest things are, in fact, the most profound. And the smallest changes can have the greatest impact. I believe it is possible to dramatically improve our approach to training and education with just a few simple changes. Changes simple enough that teachers can begin applying them the day they learn them.
To understand the solution, we must first recognize the problem.
The problem is that we leak.
That's right, leak. We leak information.
We very rapidly forget new facts to which we are exposed. If you want to revolutionize training and education, you must fully understand this inherent human weakness. We need to be exposed to information again and again, perhaps even hundreds of times, before we can successfully retain and recall it. This is reality folks. Don't ignore it. Deal with it.
So how do we deal with this without genetically altering humans? Here are the simple steps:
1. Clearly identify the facts you want a student to learn.
2. Provide a method to reinforce those facts over time (over multiple sleep cycles).
Folks, that is it. It is so amazingly simple that it boggles the mind. Have you seen how we actually teach and train our students? We do not do these two things well at all!
Clearly Identify the Facts
Most classes do not clearly identify the specific set of facts to learn. Instead, they take the “guess what I think is important” approach. In this approach, a professor or lecturer stands at the front of the room and drones on and on for hours and hours, over days and days. Eventually, a test is presented to the students. The students are not told exactly what is going to be on the test. Instead, the students get to guess what the instructor thinks is important.
If you guessed right, you get an A. As a result, the computer can ensure every single student masters every single fact, and it does this so quickly that to most students, it does not even feel like studying.
If you guessed wrong, you fail.
In either case, it is highly unlikely that you will remember more than one or two of the facts within thirty days of the exam.
This failure is clearly demonstrated in the game show Are you Smarter Than a 5th Grader. We don't remember what we learned in elementary school. Why? Because we leak!
It is really simple folks, if the facts are not systematically reinforced, they are most assuredly forgotten.
To fix the problem, clearly identify every fact the student should remember for the long-term. Next, give the students all of these facts in advance. Yes, all of them. If they should know 1000 things give them all 1000. Help them master all 1000. Test them on all 1000.
I know, this is extra work for the educators. They actually need to clearly identify what the students should master. We don't do this today because we think it would take too much time and energy for students to remember all of these facts. The truth is, with the proper reinforcement system in place, it will take less than five minutes a day.
Reinforce the Facts
To retain and successfully recall facts, they need to be reinforced over multiple sleep cycles. Some facts are learned quickly. They may only need to be reinforced a few times. Other facts, for whatever reason, are learned slowly. They may need to be reinforced several hundred times. The problem is, these facts are never the same for two different people. Everyone needs to be reinforcing different facts on entirely different schedules. Admittedly, this is almost impossible to do in a lecture. However, for a computerized tutor, it is remarkably simple.
A computer can be used to build a mind map for each individual student, learning exactly what facts the student knows and doesn't know. The computer can remember every time a student was exposed to a fact, on what date and at what time. The computer can remember each individual student's success in recalling and retaining each and every fact. Finally, the computer can provide a customized reinforcement plan individualized for every single student.
This is not a theory folks, it is a fact. For the last two years at Procuit we have been doing applied research on precisely this method of training. Others have been doing it even longer. It really works. However, don't take our word for it, test it on yourself. Pick something you would like to learn and implement a system of spaced repetition and reinforcement over extended periods of time.
You learn more. Faster. With less effort.
Sometimes the simplest things are, in fact, the most profound. Identify the facts you want your students to learn, all of them, and provide a customized method to reinforce them. You'll be amazed at how smart they become.
Let the knowledge revolution begin.
Tip of the Day: My research system is available to use free of charge at StudyTag.com. Try learning all of the U.S. States and Capitals, or author your own course, you can learn almost anything in five minutes a day.
My company is Procuit Inc. Visit us, if you are interested in learning more.
Training Budgets Waste or Total Waste?
If Michigan is interested in learning how to truly compete on a global scale, then we have to get dramatically smarter, about getting smarter.
Why is it that whenever the auto industry has a down-turn the first budget slashed is training? One week we want everyone to attend all of these important training seminars and the next week almost ALL of it is canceled. Why?
I have my own theory as to why training budgets are cut in this way. I propose this theory in the manner of a confession. You see, for most of the past 20 years I've been involved in some form of professional training. I have seen first hand what companies intuitively know, which is that a great deal of the money, time, and energy spent in professional training total is a TOTAL WASTE.
There, I said it, I feel better already.
Unfortunately, this also applies to most on-line training courses. The big difference between on-line training and live training in terms of results is simply that you waste less money with on-line training because you spend less for the course. Not a big win.
Here is a simple test to see how effective your training has been.
List, from memory, five facts you learned at your last all-day training course.
Thirty days after you take that on-line computer training lesson, do you remember even two things you learned?
I doubt it.
Research dating back to Ebbinghaus in 1885 shows us why. The reality is, we are great at forgetting. Perhaps it is time we start applying this research? Or, here's an idea, perhaps we can apply some of the additional research done in human cognition and memory that has been performed since 1885. We do have an additional 122 years of research we could be using. Have you ever read any of it? When I look at most professional training it is certainly clear that your trainers haven't!
Remarkably, whether teaching in schools or training in business, for the the most part, we ignore 122 years of research. We use old and wasteful training methods. Hey Detroit! Interested in learning how to slash your training budgets while achieving dramatically better training results? Want to ensure your employees actually gain and retain the skills and knowledge required to compete in the 21st century? Here is a hint.
STOP PUTTING YOUR STUPID POWERPOINT PRESENTATIONS ON-LINE INTO STUPID COMPUTER BASED TRAINING SYSTEMS.
Please stop doing that, it just makes me sick. In case you didn't notice, most people are BORED TO DEATH by PowerPoint presentations. Why do you think putting them on the Internet will suddenly make them more interesting?
There is a dramatically better way to provide training and education. Information worth learning should be properly reinforced so that it is retained and recalled long-term. Here is a thought, if you do training right, you should ACTUALLY REMEMBER WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED.
Oh, and an additional benefit of doing training right - if you change your tools and approach, most training sessions should not cost more than $10. Think Charles Shaw training: if you are paying more than $10 a bottle of training, you are paying too much. If your vendors are charging you more than that, get new vendors, or demand that they implement a better system, a system based on 122 years of research.
If Michigan is going to be competitive in the 21st Century we are going to have to have some of the most effective training and education programs on the planet. We can do this. First we have to be willing to admit that what we are currently doing is not good enough. Next, we have to change. The tools are ready. The time is right. The secrets are ready to be revealed.
Tomorrow, I'll tell you the secrets to dramatically reforming our education and training systems, including exactly what needs to change, how to change it, and where you can begin.
I Wish We Were So Stupid
From time to time I hears folks criticizing one of our wonderful Michigan businesses. I know, this is hard to believe, but it is true. To be specific, people sometimes call our businesses and their great leaders stupid. “Ford was stupid doing this,” “GM was stupid for doing that,” and “all of them are stupid for ignoring W. Edwards Deming,” and on and on. (O.K., I admit, I'm usually the one making the Deming comment.) Usually the criticism is followed with, “And you will not believe what the morons running my company just did.”
In the past, whenever I heard people complaining about how stupid Michigan companies were, I would tell them, “If you want to really experience stupid, you have work for a California company.” Over the years, while still living in Michigan, I've somehow managed to end up working for California companies. I am not exaggerating when I say that these are the absolutely most amazingly stupid companies I have ever had the pleasure of working with. In fact, in the case of Commerce One, they turned stupidity into a mind numbingly glorious singularity – burning in stupid brightness, losing literally hundreds of millions of investment dollars, shutting down profitable businesses, and driving themselves to financial ruin. If you really want to meet stupid people, I am convinced that there is no better place than Silicon Valley.
At one point I mistakenly took solace in the idea that the Michigan companies I knew were significantly smarter than the California ones. Yes, the California companies were continually doing bold, innovative, and dramatic moves, but most these moves were also colossally unforgiving and, to me anyway, quite frequently stupid. Silicon Valley companies seem to enjoy betting their entire future on some crazy innovation, a single roll of the dice. Imagine how stupid the California VCs and Angels must be to invest in these companies.
To add insult to injury. Californians seem to celebrate their stupidity. They wear it as a badge of honor to have tried a startup and failed. Their VCs actually give money to inventors and managers who failed the last time they tried a startup: they let them try again! They even fund teenagers and college students ten to fifty thousand dollars for a stupid startup idea, with no real business plan, not even a single financial projection. Some even expect them to launch a new business in only 10 weeks. Oh the insanity, the insanity, and yes, I'm talking about you, Y Combinator.
In Michigan we have a better way – slow, deliberate, cautious, ..., smart. By golly, I remember the response I received when I presented an idea for an Internet company to a Michigan VC firm in 1996. The Michigan VC said, “The Internet, well, I don't really know if that Internet is going to go anywhere.” After all, we wouldn't want to invest if we didn't really KNOW the result ahead of time, like a Treasury Bill. That's the smart way to invest.
I was happy with my opinion on how smart we all are in Michigan. Even my experience with our local VC community didn't really change that opinion, although it did begin to shake the ground a little. It wasn't until I read, On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection by Charles Darwin, that I fundamentally began to question my faith in Michigan's approach to intelligent investing. That Darwin, always challenging our faith. I couldn't help but apply his theory to business, and I was surprised at the perspective it gave.
The beauty of the theory of natural selection is that doesn't require intelligent design. That is why it is so offensive to so many people. The key concept that so intrigues me is this:
Natural selection doesn't require intelligent design.
It is not intelligent selection, it is natural selection. It is not survival of the smartest, but survival of the fittest. And sometimes, being the fittest, is simply a function of luck. When I think of Darwin in the realm of innovative startup businesses, I am inclined to believe that intelligence is overrated.
What is required for natural selection to perform its wonders for startup businesses?
A large population, selection, and time.
Here is where we may be in trouble in Michigan. We are just too darn smart. We are trying to do intelligent design on a process better suited to natural selection. Intelligent design simply isn't as good as natural selection in creating strong, new, innovative businesses and jobs. The world is changing so fast, and technology is moving fast, if you want to ride the edge of innovation you cannot wait to make intelligent investments, for by the time it is clear what investments will survive and thrive, the opportunity has passed you by, and someone else will have the thriving new business life created by the process.
Say, for a purely hypothetical example, a new piece of technology appears called XMLhttprequest. Let's call the technology, and how it is applied, Web 2.0. California, being stupid, blindly starts up and finances hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Web 2.0 companies, all in less than three years. Mostly stupid companies, with stupid ideas, and no hint as to how they will ever even make any money.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Michigan, however, is much more clever. We only startup a few, and we don't provide them with any capital. Certainly no Michigan VC gives them any money, and for goodness sake, don't even approach the Angel Groups or the MGCS with this sort of lame idea. Include these types of businesses in the 21st Century Jobs Fund? That would be stupid.
Michigan is smart. California, clearly stupid.
End of the story? Unfortunately, no. The galling thing is that, in the end, California wins. How? The power of natural selection over a large population outperforms intelligent design.
Out of these thousands of new startup companies created in California many will, through the process of natural selection, survive, adapt, and even grow. Most die. Some absolutely thrive, creating whole new industries and thousands of new jobs. At the end of a few years, California successfully employs thousands and thousands of engineers and managers in the thriving companies. Thousands more work in those that are merely surviving. These companies being to develop synergy, create new ideas (mostly stupid), and launch yet still more new businesses creating new jobs.
Michigan. Michigan in the same time frame likely creates ten to twenty Web 2.0 companies. Most get no funding and die on the drawing board. Others move to California. And the few remaining ones who are successful, well, if they have an exit strategy it likely involves selling the company and moving it to California. After all, the only people stupid enough to buy it, are in California.
Final score: California, tens of thousands of new jobs in new industries, without a single tax credit to create them. Michigan, 0.
I wish we were so stupid.
There was a time when Michigan was a lot dumber. Henry Ford stupidly wanted to sell affordable cars to everyone. The smart money kept telling him to focus on selling cars only to the rich. "Silly Henry, don't you know the farmers can't afford cars, and we don't even have any roads for people to drive on." I can hear the capital speaking even now. Oh, if only we had a few thousand people as stupid as Henry around, and a few others stupid enough to back them.
The next time you hear somebody say how stupid a Michigan company is, tell them what I say, "Yeah, and not nearly stupid enough." I mean, we wouldn't want to have created a good alternative fuel car when gas was only $1.00 a gallon – that would've been stupid.
Tip of the Day: A slightly different take on my thesis can be found in the most excellent book, Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Would you like to better understand Web 2.0? Read Tim O'Reilly's original article. It is a bit technical, and a bit old, but still quite good. My personal Web 2.0 project? StudyTag. Check it out, and maybe even learn something about the Great Lakes. Best of all, StudyTag is free. I know, I know, it is stupid to give stuff away for free.
Chrysler, Want To Make an Extra 50 Billion? Or Why Detroit Needs Open Source.
Did you know that there is an IT breakthrough hidden inside of Chrysler that in the right hands could be worth 50 billion dollars or more? I’m not talking research, I’m talking developed, deployed, and operational software. The funny thing is, Chrysler almost assuredly doesn’t even know what it has! In fact, it is likely they have already turned off and abandoned this bit of amazing IT innovation.
Don’t get me wrong. At least two Chrysler employees knew exactly what they had, but they were just lowly software engineers in an auto company. They didn't have the temperament to spin-off, raise capital, and start a new industry.
Here is what happened. An internal software initiative had already failed two or three times, and yet another team had taken seven person-years to try to do it right. Unfortunately, the resulting system was slow, buggy, and behind schedule. The project involved data collection for manufacturing plants. Not just a little data, but a great pile of data for nearly every part for almost every machine (several hundred to several thousand machines per facility.) To make it more interesting, the data being collected would be different for different machines and the data may change over time. Chrysler needed to know how many machine cycles a particular piece of tooling has made on one machine, and on another machine, how long the cycle time was, and on and on. And this was just the data collection. Once the system had the data, they needed to provide alerts on certain conditions, warnings on others, and reports and real-time views on it all. And these needed to be able to be changed in real-time.
To make a long story short, a miracle occurred, and a completely new version of the system was written by one individual in two months – put another way, 84 months worth of work was reduced to 2 months, and the results were error free. This is what an employee told me later:
"A little less than two months later, this guy tossed me the product release, I had to laugh, he emailed me the release! How could something that will fit in my email possibly accomplish even a fraction of the requirements! I chuckled under my breath, and performed the install.
Then it hit me! This was working, just like he said it would.
And, I didn’t have to code the changes for each machine; it would create what was needed from the machine specifications!
I am always the skeptic, so I presented my first challenge: O.K., smart guy, each minute on this line costs $1000.00, sure you are collecting the down time, but I want to split the cost between every “Downed” machine on the line, on a per minute basis, and at the end of the day, I want to know which machine cost me the most dollars in productivity.
The next morning, I opened my E-Mail to find a configuration file.
I had him now….he forgot to send me the new release! A quick trip by his desk left me shaking my head, I didn’t need a new release, all I needed to do was apply my new business rules to the existing system!
My friend, this is agile.
This is what development was supposed to do for us.
I threw seven man-years of code in the trash that day, and launch a great system at a fraction of the cost. Using traditional methods, I could have spent years trying to design a system just to tell me the high cost machine on my lines, I got it from this system in a single day."
Basically, Chrysler was shown by a lone consultant on a small project a totally new way to develop industrial software, a way that dramatically reduced cost and improved quality. This approach was so innovative that it could have been spun-out into an entire new software industry. Of course, that would require time, energy, and capital, and automotive companies are not software companies.
So what happened? The innovation was never developed further. All of our big automotive companies treat IT as proprietary and confidential. And, near as I can tell, all of them are continually redoing the same projects over and over and over again. The result of this secrecy policy? Well, I am sure even Sue Unger never knew this particular innovation existed. You see innovation is a delicate thing that needs to be carefully tended, most of the time it isn't even recognized as innovation by experts in the field. Make every line of software internal and highly confidential, and even you will not know about your own innovations when they happens. Innovation born. Innovation dies.
Sadly, I know of many of these stories in Michigan. Michigan has incredible talent in software engineering. We have tremendous innovation. However, because all of the software is treated as an internal secret, it dies internally and is a secret EVEN TO THE COMPANY THAT CREATED, FINANCED, AND USES IT.
The solution? In my opinion, Detroit automotive companies should seek to open source almost all of their software initiatives. Everyone needs to control a factory floor, everyone needs to meet payroll, everyone needs to manage suppliers, and frankly none of you are that good at developing software. So, when you do spend a fortune developing and deploying it, don't hide it, open source it! Let others unabashedly benefit from your investment and nurture your innovation.
Had this innovation at Chrysler been properly nurtured in an open source community, the IT costs at all of our Michigan automotive companies would have been slashed, and it would still be dropping! Not by moving to cheap offshore labor, but by eliminating most of the labor entirely. Think about it, 80 months of labor reduced to 2 months of labor. I won't even calculate the percent savings because it is too embarrassing to the industry!
Detroit, do you want to dramatically reduce your software costs? Then open source your software projects! It is probably the only way you will actually be able to benefit and leverage the innovation that is incurring inside your walls. It you are clever, or perhaps I should say if you are stupid, you might even get a piece of the 50 billion dollar non-competing industry that arises from the innovation.
We'll talk more about being that stupid tomorrow.
Tip of the Day: Two open source packages I use continually are Open Office and Firefox. Check them out.
Enough Hoopla Around Google? Not Nearly Enough!
On more than one occasion I've heard someone poo poo (poo poo is that the formal term for it?) the announcement that Google opened a large office in Michigan. Typically, their statements go something like this "We've lost 19,000 manufacturing jobs last year. Sure it is great that Google opened an office here, but what is Google going to be, a thousand jobs? What difference will that make?"
It is a good question. What difference will it make? What difference could having one of the most innovative and interesting search, advertising, and marketings companies on the planet open a large office in Michigan make? Here is an answer for you...
It could save Michigan.
Let me repeat the answer, just to make it clear.
It could save Michigan.
Google has the potential to be that important to the long-term future of Michigan. Not because of revenue generated from the thousand jobs, the pay at those jobs is not nearly high enough. Nor will Google setting up shop in Michigan convince many other companies to follow. It may convince a few, but with our shallow VC and Angel market we are certainly not positioned to be the next Silicon Valley.
No. The benefit of having one of the world's most innovative search, advertising, and marketing companies setup shop in Michigan is that finally Michigan businesses may finally begin to realize just how important Google's tools are to growing business worldwide. Michigan businesses may begin to recognize that it is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that they start using Google products and services to grow their business! Michigan businesses must dramatically improve their game in Internet marketing and selling, their future, and ours, depends on it.
I attended an event in Ann Arbor this year where a Google guest speaker was flown in from California to demonstrate Google Analytics. It was well attended. The room where it was held was packed. The only problem is if everyone in Michigan who needed to learn the information had attended it would have required Ford Field to hold the audience. Google Analytics and Google Adwords are that important! Don't you know this yet? Where were you? Every single business in Michigan can benefit greatly from a well executed Adwords strategy. These tools may be the single most important way you can grow your company, improve sales, reach new customers, and have a global impact. It is time you learned more about it.
Google is training up to 1,000 Google employees in Michigan on Google Adwords. Even better, it is the job of these people to pass that knowledge on to you! The Google office in Michigan is specifically designed to help you do a better job using Adwords.
If I was Governor I would do everything in my power to ensure that every Michigan business understands how to create and execute an Adwords campaign, and how to build a landing page for that campaign that actually converts to sales. These are the skills that will allow new businesses to grow. These are the skills that allow Michigan businesses to sell and test market anywhere in the world at very low cost, and I mean anywhere, including your own backyard. Do you want to give Michigan businesses a head start? Teach Michigan workers how to use Adwords.
In case you're wondering, no, I do not work for Google and I do not own their stock (my bad). I have, however, used their tools for years. I KNOW that they work. I know that they can turn a business around. I know that they can make the process of marketing, lead generation, and sales actually fun again. My knowledge is real and personal, and I continue to use these tools every day. Google's tools are not the end of the journey, they are just the beginning, and there are other excellent Internet tools you should be using to grow your business. However, Google is probably one of the best places to start. I suggest you start today.
Yes. Losing 19,000 manufacturing jobs hurts, a lot.
But there is also hope. Google opened a large office in Michigan. Google, the company that has been changing how businesses advertise, market, and sell for years. It is still rare to find a Michigan company that is using these tools well. If Google having an office here in Michigan can begin to change that, then yes, it is really, really important.
It could just save Michigan.
Tip of the Day: Where would I start learning this stuff if I were you? Get the Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords by Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd.
Currently selling for less than $20 on Amazon. Don't just buy it, actually read it! Then, actually do it. The best $20 you will spend this year, and don't be fooled, the book isn't really about Adwords, it is about how to implement a comprehensive Internet marketing and sales strategy.


A bundle of recent genetic studies have suggested modern humans had sex with Neanderthals thousands of years ago when the two populations roamed the planet alongside each other. However, the bones left behind by the two species don't bear any obvious traces of interbreeding, and a new study of monkeys in Mexico shows why we shouldn't expect them to.
Researchers examined blood samples, hair samples and measurements collected from mantled howler monkeys and black howler monkeys that were live-captured and released in Mexico and Guatemala between 1998 and 2008. The two monkey species splintered off from a common ancestor about 3 million years ago; today they live in mostly separate habitats, except for a "hybrid zone" in the state of Tabasco in southeastern Mexico, where they coexist and interbreed.
Through an analysis of genetic markers, from both mitochondrial DNA (the DNA in the cells' energy-making structures that gets passed down by mothers) and nuclear DNA, the researchers identified 128 hybrid individuals that were likely the product of several generations of interbreeding. Even so, these hybrids shared most of their genome with either one of the two species and were physically indistinguishable from the pure individuals of that species, the team found.
"The implications of these results are that physical features are not always reliable for identifying individuals of hybrid ancestry," Liliana Cortés-Ortiz, an evolutionary biologist and primatologist at the University of Michigan, said in a statement. "Therefore, it is possible that hybridization has been underestimated in the human fossil record."
Science news from NBCNews.com
The work on howler monkeys was part of the doctoral dissertation of Mary Kelaita, now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Kelaita added that the study "suggests that the lack of strong evidence for hybridization in the fossil record does not negate the role it could have played in shaping early human lineage diversity."
When scientists finally finished sequencing the Neanderthal genome in 2010, they revealed that between 1 percent and 4 percent of some modern humans' DNA came from the stocky hominids. This suggested humans had sex with Neanderthals, picking up some genes, and possibly even an immunity boost, from Neanderthals before the population disappeared about 30,000 years ago. But not all scientists are convinced the genetic evidence alone proves ancient interbreeding and a study last year found that even if humans and Neanderthals did have sex, those encounters would have rarely produced offspring.
The scientists of the new study say more work is needed to learn about interbreeding and the factors governing the expression of physical characteristics in hybrid individuals.
The research was detailed online Friday in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
- Gallery: Monkey Mug Shots
- Top 10 Mysteries of the First Humans
- Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor
© 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.


Science Objects are two hour on-line interactive inquiry-based content modules that help teachers better understand the science content they teach. This Science Object is the first of three Science Objects in the Heredity and Variation SciPack. It explores the historical perspective and experiments of Mendel.
Sexual reproduction results in the continuity of species accompanied with a great deal of variation in physical traits. One familiar observation is that offspring are very much like their parents but still show some variation— differing somewhat from their parents and from one another. People have long been curious about heredity, using even the most primitive understanding of inheritance to cultivate desirable traits in domesticated species. In the 1800s, Gregor Mendel took his observations of heredity and variation to new heights through carefully designed and executed breeding experiments that generated repeatable inheritance patterns. Mendel developed a model for explaining the patterns he observed, describing discrete units or “particles,” which both segregate and assort independently of one another during inheritance. This model offered a foundational explanation for how variation is generated through sexual reproduction. Although Mendel’s model over-simplified how traits are inherited and expressed, it set the stage for the discoveries of chromosomes and genes from which contemporary genetics grew.
[hide full abstract]
- Explain how domestication of plants and animals produced an early understanding of inheritance.
- Use Mendel’s model to explain patterns of inheritance represented in graphic form (for example, data tables, histograms, etc.).
- Identify the conditions required for an inheritance pattern to be explained correctly by Mendel’s model.
- Use data representing patterns of inheritance to support the idea that some observable traits are defined by discrete units of inheritance that segregate and assort independently of one another during inheritance.


PANNA: OP’s in Children, Failed Court Order on Pesticides, Community Monitoring of Pesticides and more
See PANUPS updates service, for complete information.
Hazardous Language Barrier: Over two thousand farmworkers in Hawaii cannot read warning labels on harmful pesticides, according to a study conducted by the National Agriculture Statistics Service field office. Over 40% of them speak Ilocano from their native Phillipines, not English. Other workers speak only Tagalog, Chinese, or Spanish. Since the labels are printed only in English, the workers can't follow safety precautions when using dangerous pesticide chemicals--a common situation around the world. Pacific Business News reported the story.
Irresponsible Businesses: Although a federal judge in Seattle ruled over two years ago that Washington retailers must post warnings to their customers regarding the risks to salmon and other aquatic life posed by pesticides, the retail business community has not been complying with the order, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claims it has no authority to enforce the rule. Due to pressure from the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides, Washington Toxics Coalition and other concerned groups, EPA is now handing out signs to some home and garden stores that sell pesticides so they can post warnings. All pesticides with the ingredients malathion, carbaryl, 2,4-D, diazinon, diuron, triclopyr, or trifluralin must carry the warning. Read more in the Seattle Post Intelligencer.
Poisonous pyrethroids: A UC Berkeley study reveals that an entire class of pesticides -- pyrethroids -- has contaminated Northern California streams and waterways, wiping out "crustaceans and insects vital to ecosystems," according to the Los Angeles Times. The state Department of Pesticide Regulations will be notifying pyrethroid manufacturers that their products will be re-evaluated, and that some bans may be imposed. "This is a shot across the bow to the manufacturers that we found a reason for concern and you need to provide us with data to either eliminate the concern, reformulate your products or consider taking them off the market," said Mary-Ann Warmerdam, Department Director.
Community Empowered: Residents of Lindsey, California, presented evidence of dangerous pesticide drift in the air around their homes in a press conference on July 17. Lindsey is one of several rural San Joaquin Valley communities that have suffered multiple pesticide exposure incidents in recent years. Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR), a statewide coalition that coordinates the Safe Air For Everyone campaign, helped organize a poll on pesticide exposure with Valley groups. The Lindsey study is part of a collaboration between community group El Quinto Sol, Commonweal, CPR and Pesticide Action Network. Residents collected data using the "Drift Catcher," an air monitoring device developed by PAN senior scientist Dr. Susan Kegley. Read the results of the Lindsey Drift Catcher report. Fresno TV station KFSN has the story.
PANUPS is a weekly email news service providing resource guides and reporting on pesticide issues that don't always get coverage by the mainstream media. It's produced by Pesticide Action Network North America, a non-profit and non-governmental organization working to advance sustainable alternatives to pesticides worldwide.


Issue | Canada engages in a new approach to resolve specific claims made by First Nations.
Synopsis | The Specific Claims Tribunal Act established an administrative tribunal with the authority to make binding decisions on claims and to award monetary compensation up to $150 million per claim. Claims over $150 million will be dealt with through a specially mandated Cabinet process.
Timing | Under the Specific Claims Tribunal Act, certain claims will be eligible for filing with the Specific Claims Tribunal as of 16 October 2011.
Federal policy divides Aboriginal land claims into two broad categories: specific claims and comprehensive claims. Specific claims arise from the alleged non-fulfillment of historic treaties between First Nations and the Crown, or improper administration of First Nations lands and other assets by the Crown. Comprehensive claims are based on the assertion of continuing Aboriginal rights and title that have not been dealt with by treaty or other legal means. This overview focuses on the specific claims process.
Between April 2010 and April 2011, 18 specific claims were settled at a total value of approximately $666 million. The monetary value of the claims settled in this period ranged from $134,283 to $231.4 million. As of 5 April 2011, 503 specific claims remain in the federal inventory of claims under assessment or in negotiations.1
Over the past several years, the federal specific claims process has been the subject of legal and policy reform initiatives intended to reduce the backlog of outstanding claims. In response to a 2006 report of the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples, which highlighted the need for reforms to the specific claims process in several areas, the federal government launched Specific Claims: Justice at Last – Canada’s Specific Claims Action Plan in June 2007. The reforms proposed in the action plan included an independent tribunal to make binding decisions on claims that cannot be resolved by negotiations, dedicated funding for specific claims settlements, and practical measures to improve the processing of both small and large claims.2
|Location of Specific Claims Under Assessment or in Negotiations (as of 5 April 2011)|
|Source: Figure prepared by the Library of Parliament using data obtained from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada.|
The Specific Claims Tribunal Act was introduced in the House of Commons on 27 November 2007 and came into force on 16 October 2008. The Act creates the Specific Claims Tribunal, an administrative tribunal composed of Superior Court judges with authority to make binding decisions on claims and to award monetary compensation up to a maximum of $150 million per claim.
The Act stipulates that a First Nation may file a claim with the tribunal if the claim has been previously filed with the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, and if:
In effect, the Specific Claims Tribunal Act introduces three-year timelines for the assessment and negotiation of specific claims. As a result of these timelines, certain cases will become eligible for filing with the tribunal as of 16 October 2011.
With this deadline in view, the Specific Claims Tribunal is currently preparing for the commencement of operations. Between November 2009 and November 2010, several Superior Court judges were appointed to the tribunal, and Justice Harry Slade was appointed as its chairperson. Draft Rules of Practice and Procedure were made public in June 2010 and are currently under review by the Department of Justice. The tribunal’s first annual report, dated 30 September 2010, provides a synopsis of work undertaken to that date and of anticipated activities through the current and following fiscal years.3
The introduction of the Specific Claims Tribunal Act in November 2007 was accompanied by the signing of a political agreement between the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. The political agreement provides for additional discussion on improvements in the resolution of specific claims not directly addressed in the legislation, including matters related to claims that exceed the monetary cap of $150 million. The development of a Cabinet process to address claims over $150 million is ongoing.
© Library of Parliament 2011


History of the Jigsaw Puzzle
Its generally agreed that London print shop owner and map maker, John Spilsbury created the first jigsaw puzzle, about 1760. He mounted a map onto mahogany, and cut along the borders of the countries, as a way to teach children about geography.
Early puzzles were called dissections. The introduction of the treadle saw in 1880, saw the name change to the now familiar jigsaw puzzle.
Jigsaw puzzles remained primarily a teaching tool until they moved into the adult market, about 1907. By 1908 a full blown craze had developed starting in the Eastern United States. The golden age of jigsaw puzzles started in the 1920's peaking in 1933. The onset of the Great Depression in 1929 caused people to spend more time at home, and completing a jigsaw puzzle gave a feeling of accomplishment. Something that was hard to come by at that time. This was also the first time that puzzles were used for advertising purposes - a tooth brush company was the first to supply free puzzles for druggists to give to toothbrush buyers. Other commercial enterprises soon jumped on the band wagon - what better way to advertise , than have someone spend hours assembling a picture of the product.
In the early days puzzles made of wood or plywood were expensive - costing as much as a weeks wages for the average worker. Each piece was cut individually. Early puzzles did not interlock and a careless bump or sneeze could undo an entire evenings work. The 1930's saw the development of mass produced die-cut cardboard puzzles, cut on giant industrial presses by companies such as Parker Brothers and Milton Bradley. Libraries and drugstores then started offering puzzle rentals at 25 cents for 3 days.
Small run cardboard puzzles were still not economically feasible, primarily due to equipment costs. A flourishing business still exists for hand cut personal and custom puzzles, as is evidenced by the numerous web sites that offer this service. These mainly use photographs glued to plywood and are cut with either scroll saws or water jets.
Colour photocopiers and recent developments in ink jet printer technology, have reduced printing costs, thereby replacing the necessity for photographic enlargements. The huge industrial press problem was solved with the advent of our roller press. Pressures required are enormous. The 308 piece puzzle requires 150 tons of pressure to cut 60 point chipboard. This pressure is achieved over the entire die surface by applying pressure one small area at a time.
© 2005 Graffiti Graphics Ltd.


Tell Time Like Early Navigators
Flash back to the 15th century with this model of the very first star dials used by navigators to tell time. This ancient tool still works accurately, because is based on the North Star, which is almost directly on the axis of the Earth’s axis of rotation and always appears in the same position in the sky.
Simply set the middle wheel to the month, hold the dial upside down, and sight the North Star through the center hole. Move the top of the dial’s arm to align with the uppermost stars of the Big Dipper, and read the time on the inner dial where the arm crosses the hour mark. The reverse side is outlines of the major constellations. Pewter finishes; comes with instructions.


From the time of Aristotle (384-322 BC) until the late 1500’s, gravity was believed to act differently on different objects.
- Drop a metal bar and a feather at the same time… which one hits the ground first?
- Obviously, common sense will tell you that the bar will hit first, while the feather slowly flutters to the ground.
- In Aristotle’s view, this was because the bar was being pulled harder (and faster) by gravity because of its physical properties.
- Because everyone sees this when they drop different objects, it wasn’t questioned for almost 2000 years.
Galileo Galilei was the first major scientist to refute (prove wrong) Aristotle’s theories.
- In his famous (at least to Physicists!) experiment, Galileo went to the top of the leaning tower of Pisa and dropped a wooden ball and a lead ball, both the same size, but different masses.
- They both hit the ground at the same time, even though Aristotle would say that the heavier metal ball should hit first.
- Galileo had shown that the different rates at which some objects fall is due to air resistance, a type of friction.
- Get rid of friction (air resistance) and all objects will fall at the same rate.
- Galileo said that the acceleration of any object (in the absence of air resistance) is the same.
- To this day we follow the model that Galileo created.
ag = g = 9.81m/s2
ag = g = acceleration due to gravity
Since gravity is just an acceleration like any other, it can be used in any of the formulas that we have used so far.
- Just be careful about using the correct sign (positive or negative) depending on the problem.
Examples of Calculations with Gravity
Example 1: A ball is thrown up into the air at an initial velocity of 56.3m/s. Determine its velocity after 4.52s have passed.
In the question the velocity upwards is positive, and I’ll keep it that way. That just means that I have to make sure that I use gravity as a negative number, since gravity always acts down.
vf = vi + at
= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(4.52s)
vf = 12.0 m/s
This value is still positive, but smaller. The ball is slowing down as it rises into the air.
Example 2: I throw a ball down off the top of a cliff so that it leaves my hand at 12m/s. Determine how fast is it going 3.47 seconds later.
In this question I gave a downward velocity as positive. I might as well stick with this, but that means I have defined down as positive. That means gravity will be positive as well.vf = vi + at
= 12m/s + (9.81m/s2)(3.47s)
vf = 46 m/s
Here the number is getting bigger. It’s positive, but in this question I’ve defined down as positive, so it’s speeding up in the positive direction.
Example 3: I throw up a ball at 56.3 m/s again. Determine how fast is it going after 8.0s.
We’re defining up as positive again.
vf = vi + at
= 56.3m/s + (-9.81m/s2)(8.0s)
vf = -22 m/s
Why did I get a negative answer?
- The ball reached its maximum height, where it stopped, and then started to fall down.
- Falling down means a negative velocity.
There’s a few rules that you have to keep track of. Let’s look at the way an object thrown up into the air moves.
As the ball is going up…
- It starts at the bottom at the maximum speed.
- As it rises, it slows down.
- It finally reaches it’s maximum height, where for a moment its velocity is zero.
- This is exactly half ways through the flight time.
As the ball is coming down…
- The ball begins to speed up, but downwards.
- When it reaches the same height that it started from, it will be going at the same speed as it was originally moving at.
- It takes just as long to go up as it takes to come down.
Example 4: I throw my ball up into the (again) at a velocity of 56.3 m/s.
a) Determine how much time does it take to reach its maximum height.
- It reaches its maximum height when its velocity is zero. We’ll use that as the final velocity.
- Also, if we define up as positive, we need to remember to define down (like gravity) as negative.
a = (vf - vi) / t
t = (vf - vi) / a
= (0 - 56.3m/s) / -9.81m/s2
t = 5.74s
b) Determine how high it goes.
- It’s best to try to avoid using the number you calculated in part (a), since if you made a mistake, this answer will be wrong also.
- If you can’t avoid it, then go ahead and use it.
vf2 = vi2 + 2ad
d = (vf2 = vi2) / 2a
= (0 - 56.32) / 2(-9.81m/s2)
d = 1.62e2 m
c) Determine how fast is it going when it reaches my hand again.
- Ignoring air resistance, it will be going as fast coming down as it was going up.
You might have heard people in movies say how many "gee’s" they were feeling.
- All this means is that they are comparing the acceleration they are feeling to regular gravity.
- So, right now, you are experiencing 1g… regular gravity.
- During lift-off the astronauts in the space shuttle experience about 4g’s.
- That works out to about 39m/s2.
- Gravity on the moon is about 1.7m/s2 = 0.17g


Body Composition Tests
December 19, 2011
The tests and measurements described in this fact sheet provide detailed measurements of fat and lean body mass. Repeated measurements can be helpful in monitoring body shape changes associated with lipodystrophy (see Fact Sheet 553) or with wasting syndrome (see Fact Sheet 519).
Some of these measurements are used to determine if someone is overweight. Excess weight is associated with a higher risk of heart disease. Low weight, including an unintended weight loss of 5% or more, may also be a sign of health problems (see Fact Sheet 519).
There are pluses and minuses for each method. Some have to do with cost. Also, a trained technician can often make a big difference in measurements. Try to use the same technique and technician if you are tracking changes over time.
This word just means measuring the body. Anthropometry is the simplest technology. It involves using a tape measure to take key readings, such as biceps, thigh, waist, and hips. A trained technician is very important for this method.
Calipers (a metal tool) are used to "pinch" body tissue in several places. The measurements are compared to standards. People doing the measurement should be trained so that the measurements are standardized.
Divide your waist measurement (at the narrowest point) by your hip measurement (at the widest point.)In general, a healthy waist to hip ratio is below 0.9 for men and below 0.8 for women. These may not hold true for people with HIV who have fat accumulation around the waist.
In general, a waist size over 40" for men or over 35" for women is associated with greater health risk.
In BIA, a person is weighed. Age, height, gender and weight or other physical characteristics such as body type, physical activity level, ethnicity, etc. are entered in a computer. While the person is lying down, electrodes are attached to various parts of the body and a small electric signal is circulated. This signal cannot be felt.
BIA measures the resistance (impedance) to the signal as it travels through the body muscle and fat. The more muscle a person has, the more water their body can hold. The greater the amount of water in a person's body, the easier it is for the current to pass through it. Higher fat levels result in more resistance to the current. Fat tissue is about 10% - 20% water, while fat-free mass (which includes muscle, bone, and water outside muscles) averages 70% - 75% water.
BIA values depend on a person's age. Normally you can get an analysis of your results when the test is done.
This is a calculation based on your weight and height. The formula is:
(weight in kilograms) divided by (height in meters squared; or multiplied by itself). To convert pounds to kilograms, divide by 2.2. To convert height to meters, first convert height to inches (12 x feet, plus extra inches). Then divide by 39.4.
For example, let's say that someone weighing 165 pounds is 5' 8" tall.
BMI result categories are:
For more information and a convenient BMI calculator that uses pounds and inches, see the web site "Calculate your BMI" at http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/
Tomography means looking at slices of the body. CAT scanning uses x-rays to do this. It is helpful in calculating the ratio of fat within the abdomen compared to fat under the skin. The equipment is expensive.
This x-ray technique divides the body into fat-free (lean) mass, bone mineral content, and fat. Different amounts of the x-ray energy are absorbed by different types of tissue. DEXA scans are very accurate but can be expensive due to the cost of the machine. DEXA scans are also used to measure bone density (see Fact Sheet 557.)
This technique uses a magnetic field to create an image of the body. The image shows the location and amount of fat. This is very expensive due to the cost of the machine and reading the scans.
This method determines body volume. First the person is weighed dry. Then they are immersed in water in a tank and weighed again. Bone and muscle are more dense than water, and fat is less dense than water. A person with more bone and muscle will weigh more in water than a person with less bone and muscle. The volume of the body is calculated and body density and body fat percentage are calculated.
This technique may underestimate the body fat percentage of athletes, and overestimate body fat in elderly people.
Body composition measurements can be helpful, over time, in tracking changes due to HIV or its treatments. The different techniques have pluses and minuses in terms of reliability, cost, and availability. If you are concerned about your body shape and composition, be sure to ask your health care provider to record baseline readings before you start treatment.
This article was provided by AIDS InfoNet. Visit AIDS InfoNet's website to find out more about their activities and publications.


Chlorine manufacturers that still use a 19th-century technology have been largely overlooked in the national debate over whether the Bush administration has become aggressive enough in combating mercury emissions, an international group said yesterday.
Oceana, a group formed three years ago to track worldwide efforts to protect the seas, said chlorine plants that don't use a more modern mercury-free technology spew twice the mercury of some coal-fired power plants and should share some blame for fish consumption advisories in the Great Lakes as well as advisories against eating too much tuna from oceans.
There are far more power plants, though. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that power plants are responsible for about two-thirds of America's airborne mercury, a dangerous toxin that can cause problems with brain and nervous-system development among children.
While Oceana agrees the primary focus should be on power plants, it said chlorine makers should not be given a free pass if they have not converted to a mercury-free technology.
Ninety percent of the chlorine made in the United States is manufactured with the cleaner process. The other 10 percent is made by nine manufacturers that haven't embraced it, including Ashta Chemicals Inc. of Ashtabula, Ohio, the group said. Ashta is Ohio's single-largest source of mercury emissions and the nation's fifth-largest mercury emitter. Ohio, which has more coal-fired power plants than most states, is second only to Texas in mercury emissions, U.S. EPA records show.
An Ashta spokesman was not available yesterday. But Zoe Lipman of the National Wildlife Federation, a group often critical of state and federal regulators, praised the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency for negotiating improvements at Ashta. In September, the agency announced a $1.54 million settlement that will prevent the release of 1,320 pounds of mercury annually from Ashta.
Although not mercury-free technology, the improvements will be "an important step forward," Ms. Lipman said.
Also yesterday, several groups claimed 12 of Ohio's 21 largest power plants increased annual emissions of sulfur dioxide between 1995 and 2004 and eight of them increased their annual emissions of smog-forming nitrogen oxide during that period.
But Jack Shaner, an Ohio Environmental Council spokesman, noted that FirstEnergy Corp.'s coal-fired Bay Shore power plant in Oregon posted reductions.
Contact Tom Henry at:


March 30, 2011 by Valerie Elkins
The short answer is keizu. The longer answer is not so easy. There several reasons why it is difficult for those of Japanese ancestry living outside of Japan to trace their lineage. One of the main reasons is a lack of understanding of the language. I am not going to sugar coat it, learning Japanese is hard, BUT learning how to pronounce it is not.
There are 5 basic vowel sounds in Japanese. They are always pronounced the same unlike in English! Vowel lengths are all uniformly short:
|a||as in ‘father’|
|e||as in ‘bet’|
|i||as in ‘beet’|
|u||as in ‘boot’|
|o||as in ‘boat’|
You do not need to know everything in Japanese but learning some genealogical terms is helpful.
Glossary of Japanese genealogical terms to begin building your vocabulary.
- koseki ~ household register, includes everyone in a household under the head of house (who usually was male)
- koseki tohon ~ certified copy which recorded everything from the original record.
- koseki shohon ~ certified copy which recorded only parts from the original.
- joseki ~ expired register in which all persons originally entered have been removed because of death, change of residence, etc. A joseki file is ordinarily available for 80 years after its expiration.
- kaisei genkoseki ~ revised koseki
- honseki ~ permanent residence or registered address (i.e. person may move to Tokyo but their records remain in hometown city hall).
- genseki ~ another name for honseki
- kakocho ~ Buddist death register
- kaimyo ~ Buddist name given to deceased person and recorded in kakocho.
- homyo ~ Buddist name given to living converts, similar to homyo.
- kuni ~ country or nation
- ken ~ prefecture
- shi ~ city
- gun ~ county
- to ~ metropolitan prefecture (Tokyo-to). Similar to ken.
- do ~ urban prefecture (Hokkaido). Similar to ken.
- fu ~ urban prefecture (Kyoto-fu, Osaka-fu) similar to ken.
- ku ~ ward in some large cities (Sapparo, Sendai, Tokyo) divided in to town (cho).
- cho ~ town
- aza ~unorganized district
- machi ~ town within a city (cho) or ward (ku), town within a county (gun).
- chome ~ smaller division of a town (cho) in some neighborhoods.
- mura or son ~ village within a county (gun).
- koshu or hittousha or stainushi ~ head of household, the head of the family
- zen koshu ~ former head of household
- otto ~ husband
- tsuma ~ wife
- chichi or fu ~ father
- haha or bo ~ mother
- sofu ~ grandfather
- sobo ~ grandmother
- otoko or dan or nan ~ male, man, son
- onna or jo ~ female, woman, daughter
- ani or kei or kyou ~ older brother
- otouto or tei ~ younger brother
- ane or shi ~ older sister
- imouto or mai ~ younger sister
- mago or son ~ grandchild
- himago or souson ~ great-grandchild
- oi ~ nephew
- mei ~ niece
- youshi ~ adopted child or son
- youjo ~ adopted daughter
- muko youshi ~ a man without sons may adopt his eldest daughter’s husband as his own son and the young man will take his wife’s surname and be listed on her family’s koseki
- seimei or shime ~ full name, family name
- shussei or shusshou ~ birth
- shibou ~ deceased
- nen or toshi ~ year
- gatsu, getsu or tsuki ~ month
- hi or nichi or ka ~ day
- ji or toki ~ hour, time
- sai or toshi ~ age
- issei ~ person born in Japan and later immigrate elsewhere
- nisei ~ child/generation of issei and born outside of Japan
- sansei ~ child/generation of nisei and born outside of Japan
- yonsei ~ child/generation of sansei and born outside of Japan
- gosei ~ child/generation of yonsei and born outside of Japan
There is another Japanese term you really need to know. It is ganbatte which means ‘hang in there’ or ‘do your best’ and either one is will work.
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Can you imagine eating grasshoppers "more savoury than shrimp?" It's easy if you try. Costa Rican scientists at the National Biodiversity Institute are researching insect farming for purposes of food production. It makes sense: insects are high in protein, low in carbs, and produce very high quality fats including omega 3s. And insects can learn to eat a wide range of cheap feed -- even algal carcases left over from the production of algal biofuels!
At the institute, Costa Rican scientists mingle with Bhutan mycology expert Ugyen Yangchen and Elisabeth Zannou, an entomologist from Benin.
Costa Rica and Benin share historical ties, as many slaves were taken from the western African country to Central America during the colonial era.
“Benin knows a lot about insect consumption and Bhutan about eating mushrooms, while Costa Rica is bringing its experience in managing biodiversity,” Marianella Feoli, who manages the foundation coordinating the research program, told AFP.
In Benin, termites, grasshoppers and crickets, as well as butterfly and moth larvae are a common part of people’s diet, explained Zumbado, who traveled with his colleagues to explore the phenomenon in the coastal country.
“In other countries, gourmet restaurants serve insects,” he noted. _ImpactLab
If Obama is US President for much longer, humans will have to learn to eat lower on the food chain. Elections have consequences.
Labels: eating bugs, food, food production


On the suggestion that the gonococcus was one of the organisms susceptible to sulfanilamide, it was decided to treat gonorrheal vaginitis in children by oral administration of sulfanilamide in further search for a simple and effective method of handling this therapeutic problem. After encouraging results had been obtained in cases of vaginitis, sulfanilamide was applied to the treatment of gonorrheal urethritis in boys and of gonorrheal conjunctivitis.
This report summarizes the results of treatment with sulfanilamide in 9 cases of conjunctivitis, in 5 cases of urethritis in boys and in 22 cases of vaginitis in girls since May 1937.
Diagnosis of gonococcic infection was made on the basis of the finding of gram-negative intracellular diplococci, morphologically typical of gonococci, in smears from the eyes, urethra or vagina. Gonococcic complement fixation tests made on admission were positive in about two thirds of the patients. Cultures for gonococci were not available to


Should one want a comprehensive view of the family structure and unit, it would be best to look at both in their historical context. Initially, most families were polygamous. Typically, there would be one husband with several wives generating a substantial number of children to continue the paternal line. Obviously, the male served as a strong authoritarian figure, while his female counterparts tended to be submissive. In certain locales, male children eventually gained authority over their mothers far before the age of what is currently held as legal adulthood. Collectivist moral codes, and the ethics derived from them, served as guiding lights for all family members with the happiness of any one individual rendered irrelevant; though perhaps exceptions would be made for the dominant male.
In contemporary America, family matters are unimaginably complicated as they are relative toward the family at hand. Statistics, thankfully, are able to draw a fairly sketchy, but serviceable estimation of the facts on the ground. Roughly half of children reside in single parent households, while one third are born to parents who are not married. The number of unmarried mothers is headed well north of 10,000,000, and a total of 2,000,000 children are now being raised by non heterosexuals. Over 1,600,000 minors live with adopted parents, and the number adopted each year is climbing above 100,000. One in three lesbian households have children, and one in five male gay households are in the same boat. Additionally, one in twenty five children do not even live with their parents.
Maybe father and mother alike do not know best. Here's hoping that grandma, or grandpa, does.
Whether society at large accepts these tough but truthful facts is an immensely interesting question. As the subject of family impacts all segments of society, if it opts against doing so, one of the grandest acts of mass delusion and hypocrisy would take place. Unfortunately, any given society is not immune to such foolishness. In the United States, much of the electorate chooses to brush over or ignore and deny what are simple realities. This is reflected in the so-called family values movement, which rams Tinseltown’s aforementioned content across the airwaves, through the mail service, and into voting booths during election season. Despite this, there are millions upon millions of others who acknowledge things as they are and continue moving forward. Such a great variance of opinion is what keeps the American political pendulum swinging back and forth year after year, with no end visible on the horizon. The very touchy topic of why some accept or reject contemporary family ultimately depends upon the individual. Many apply their own religious beliefs to the equation, while others are shaped by their life experiences.


Writing An Acceptable Use Policy For Your School
A helpful guide to creating an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for a school's use of services provided by the Internet. The author notes that an AUP is the most important document a school will create since it states the terms, conditions, and rules of Internet use determined by a school or district. Topics include: What is an AUP; Why Establish an AUP; Objectives of an AUP; Components; Distribution; Samples (web based); Resources (web based). Additional coverage is given to writing policy statements and consent forms, and maintaining copyrights, netiquette, privacy, and user responsibility.
Books & Booklets; Internet Resources
Administration & Leadership
Administrator, Teacher, Board Member / Trustee


|Title||ABC in Dixie: a plantation alphabet (V) |
|Author||Bonte, Louise Quarles; Bonte, George Willard, 1873- |
|Publisher Location||England--London |
|Publication Date||ca. 1900 |
|Image Production Process||Relief prints|
|Notes||Relief illustrations, color printed in Bavaria.|
An alphabet book with rhymes written in imitation of southern Black English of the 19th century and illustrations that depict a variety of stereotyped plantation characters.
"V is fer Victor who b'longed ter Mars Lee en after de wah went up No'th en wuz free." [V is for Victor who belonged to Mars Lee and after the war went up North and was free.] The illustration depicts a man wearing patched clothing and shoes, and carrying a knapsack and walking stick. His clothing and unsmiling demeanor are in stark contrast to the nicer clothes and grins of the other former slaves depicted in the book who decided to remain and work on the plantation after the war and emancipation.
|Contextual Notes||Right after the Civil War, books were published that attempted to refute the "immorality" of slavery. These books were often illustrated with photographs of former slaves dressed in outlandish costumes looking happy and content. Texts purported to document the kind and reasonable treatment of slaves in the South. All of these books relied on racial stereotypes. Racial stereotypes persisted in the United States long after the Civil War and these children's books were also especially popular in England. At about this same time, silent movies were showing white actors in blackface and featuring minstrel shows.|
George Willard Bonte was an artist well-known for his portraits and Louise Quarles Bonte was an artist well-known for her miniatures.
|Subjects (LCSH)||African Americans -- Southern States -- Caricatures and cartoons |
|Category||Discrimination and bigotry|
|Digital Collection||Children's Historical Literature Collection |
|Digital ID Number||CHL1127 |
|Repository||University of Washington Libraries, Special Collections Division |
|Repository Collection||Children's Historical Literature Collection. PE1155.B59 1900z |
|Physical Description|| p.: illustrated; 28.5 x 24 cm. |
|Digital Reproduction Information||Photographed from original book in TIFF format using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi/EOS 400D, resized and enhanced using Adobe Photoshop, and imported as JPEG2000 using Contentdm's software JPEG2000 Extension. 2009. |
|Exhibit Checklist||Exhibit checklist L.139 |


How The Kumbh Mela Crowds Are Counted
Date 2013/2/7 18:04:40 | Topic: Hindu Press International
ALLAHABAD, INDIA, February 2, 2013 (India Real Time): The Kumbh Mela is frequently billed as the world's largest religious gathering. It is almost certainly true. But how can we know for sure? The two men with the challenge of counting up to an estimated 80 million people are divided on how to do it. They also come up with different numbers. They are Devesh Chaturvedi, the commissioner of Allahabad, and Alok Sharma, the inspector general of police in the city, which is hosting the Hindu festival.
The Commissioner reckons the number of pilgrims passing through the Kumbh Mela site on the banks of the Ganga between Jan. 14 and March 10 will end up somewhere between 60 to 80 million. Both men use different techniques for counting but agree neither method is scientific or water tight. Mr. Sharma is more conservative and estimates the final total will be around 40 to 60 million.
"We use thumb rules," says Mr. Sharma. His team positions counters at the entry points to the Mela area, which leads to the bathing ghats (banks). They calculate the maximum crowd capacity of 100 meters of road based on the assumption that each pilgrim will take up 1.5 square feet of ground. Then they measure the speed of the crowd by timing how long it takes a police officer to move 600 meters with the throng. "The pace of crowd keeps changing depending on the density," the Inspector General adds. Once they know how long it has taken the policeman to walk 600 meters they can work out how big a crowd has covered the same distance and how many people have passed. Vehicles arriving along the entry roads around Allahabad are counted manually and trains with up to 8,000 passengers each are also added to the total.
Mr. Chaturvedi has a different approach to the enormous population count. From a series of watch towers across the 14 sectors of the Mela site head-counters try to keep a tab on the number of pilgrims below. "It's not the most scientific way of doing it," Mr Chaturvedi says. "But that is the only estimate available to us." This year for the first time the Mela is also being tracked using satellite imagery. "Based on the color of the images they are going to tell what is the density of human beings," Mr. Chaturvedi says. Using calculations based on the average stay of pilgrims and photographs taken at different times of day, the Commissioner hopes it will provide a more accurate count.
Mr. Chaturvedi says that the biggest crowd so far, on the first day of the festival, was 8 million while Mr. Sharma puts it at between 1.5 million and 1.8 million.


Jupiter, in Roman mythology, the supreme god. Though principally a sky god in charge of all atmospheric conditions, he had many special functions. In his most important temple, on the Capitoline Hill, he was worshiped as god of the state and was called Optimus Maximus (The Best and Greatest). He directed the course of human affairs, and revealed future events by producing omens in the heavens. White, the color of the light of day, was sacred to Jupiter. His priests wore white robes, white animals were sacrificed to him, and white horses drew his chariot.
Jupiter was identified with the Greek god Zeus, and many of the early stories about him correspond to those told of Zeus.Jupiter was the supreme Roman god.


IRCAN’S SCIENTIFIC GOALS
When the data on epidemiology and pathophysiology are analyzed, aging is usually perceived as a process that results from the combined influence of constitutional or so-called « genetic » factors, life-style associated factors and external events. Gerontobiology looks into all the specific medical and biological features of aging on the scale of the human body and develops concepts such as « harmonious » aging, « vulnerable » and « hypercatabolic » states, illustrating the highly heterogeneous characteristics of the aging process. The extreme heterogeneity of aging can be illustrated for a given age by a residual life-expectancy that varies considerably from one individual to another and by the onset, or not, of degenerative disorders, especially cardiovascular and neurological diseases, bone and joint disorders, diabetes and also neoplasms, pathologies in which constitutional determinants and other external factors play a role as they do in aging.
The concept of cell aging, or senescence, differs from the aging of an organism as a whole and its features can be observed in primary somatic cell cultures. After a certain number of divisions the cell cycle permanently shuts down and a senescent phenotype is observed in which major changes have taken place both in the cells themselves and in their genetic expression program. This is known as replicative senescence and is caused by the unrelenting shortening of the DNA that forms the end of the chromosomes (or telomeres) each time the cell divides. The erosion of the telomeres is paced by the cell cycle and can be considered as a mechanism that acts as a “mitotic clock”; the cells count the number of divisions rather than chronological time. If this counting mechanism is deregulated to compensate for the shortening of the telomeric DNA, due to the up-regulation of telomerase reverse transcriptase or other alternative mechanisms that lengthen the DNA (a mechanism known as ALT for example) the cells end up by becoming immortal, which is what usually happens in cancer. A noteworthy comment here is that Elisabeth Blackburn, Carole Greider and Jack Scoztack, were awarded the Noble prize for Medicine in 2009 for their work in this area, showing the medical community’s awareness of the importance of these phenomena.
More generally, the destiny of a cell in a eukaryotic organism obeys precisely set rules of homeostasis when it is proliferating, differentiating or during apoptosis and senescence. However, all the factors that are required to regulate each of these stages are coded by a set of identical genetic material in each cell, which is identically reproduced each time the cell divides. This is why a special mechanism known as DDR (short for DNA damage response) is required to maintain the integrity of the genome and fine-tune the structure of the DNA. This structure, chromatin, ensures that specific gene expression programs are expressed at each stage of the cell cycle and each cell state. The mechanisms involved are often known as “epigenetic”, although they do not always involve inheritance of the chromatin state. Studying the DNA damage response and chromatin is one of the most promising avenues of research in terms of the biology of aging, because time, together with constitutional and environmental factors, has a direct influence on the integrity of the DNA in the chromosomes (mutations) and their chromatin organization (epimutation). The characteristic heterogeneity of the aging of the body is probably directly related to chromatin regulation mechanisms and many degenerative disorders are largely influenced, if not directly caused, by genetic or epigenetic dysfunctions.
Amongst these disorders, malignancy is also heterogeneous and is one of the best-known deregulations of cell proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis and senescence. Surprisingly, senescence protects the cells against malignancy. In agreement with the increase in the incidence of cancer with age, cell senescence can also facilitate the development of cancer, making the relationship between aging and cancer even more complex.
As in all the physiological mechanisms of homeostasis, the regulation and balance between ageing and cancer in superior eukaryotes and in humans in particular, is extremely complex. On the scale of the cell, accumulated DNA damage seems to be a common cause of aging and the development of cancer, but the p53-dependent adaptive response illustrates the phenomenon of antagonistic pleiotropy, because increasing the anti-tumoral cell response leads to premature ageing. On the scale of an organism, the inhibition of the IGF-1 and GH dependent channels induces a reduction in cell metabolism, whilst protecting against oxidative stress, aging and the development of malignancies.
From this work, it emerges that aging is a way for the body to attempt to escape from cancer, but the attempt remains vain because cell damage builds up as time goes on. Cell senescence may thus prevent us from dying of cancer young, whilst ageing our body which, in return, increases the likelihood of malignancy as we get older.
Going into more detail of the understanding of these multiple interconnections requires synergy between many areas of molecular, cellular or biomedical experimental biology or biology more generally dedicated to the study of systems modeling ageing and cancer.
This is the goal that IRCAN (Institute of Research on Cancer and Aging in Nice) has set for itself.
The research carried out at IRCAN involves major areas of basic research in biology, public health (oncology, geriatrics, age-related disorders such as diabetes, renal failure, neurodegenerative and cardiovascular disease) and sustainable development to improve our understanding of the body’s response to environmental stress.


This shape would appear to be a rectangular prism.
The lateral area (area of every side except top and bottom) is given by the formula:
LA = ph (perimeter of the base multiplied by the height)
The surface area is then found by adding the LA to the areas of the Bases (top and bottom).
SA = LA + 2B
In your figure:
LA = 18 times 3 = 54 square cm
SA = 54 + 2(14) = 82 square cm
The volume of a right rectangular prism is given by the formula:
V = LWH (length times width times height)
In your case,
V = 7 X 2 X 3 = 42 cubic cm.
Well, on the offchance you can't understand masters' explanation; the easiest way to get the area is just to say: Total surface area = Sum of the areas of each face.
So you've six faces, all rectangles. The area of a rectangle is obtained by just multiplying the two sides.
So, say, the face at the top is 7x2 = 14.
And the face at the bottom will be the same = 14.
The face in front is 7x3=21
As is the one at the back = 21.
The other face you can see is 3x2 = 6.
And the corresponding one that you can't see =6 also.
So the sum of the four squares is 14+14+21+21+6+6 = 82.
The Surface Area is found by adding the areas of all the faces or more simply, if the base is "l" by "w" and the height is "h", then the surface area is given by:
SA = 2(lw + hl + hw)
Another method I already gave you in my earlier post.


Sensitization is the word used to describe an allergic reaction that develops after repeat exposure to an allergen. Often, the first time a body is exposed to a substance it does not seem to know what to do with it and basically just observes it. However, in subsequent exposures, it apparently recognizes the substance, and if it deems the material a dangerous intruder, it mounts an attack (immune response) against it.
Occasionally, sensitization occurs after one small exposure, but more often it occurs after a single high dose or large surface area exposure, or after prolonged, repeat exposures over either small or large surface areas. This is why products such as hair dyes and relaxers recommend that you patch test a small area of skin every single time you plan to use the product.
Symptoms of sensitization to ingredients in hair care products can include development of a painful, pimply rash, scaly, itchy atopic dermatitis, contact dermatitis, eczema, inflammation and itchy, flaky scalp. Systemic and/or anaphylactic reactions are unlikely given the typical quantity of any ingredient in a hair product and the relatively small area of exposure, but they are not entirely unheard of.
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But Keller and her colleagues say their research proves otherwise.
Keller has studied the Chicxulub site and other impact-crater sites around the world for the past decade. She believes that the asteroid impact behind Chicxulub coincided with a "time of massive volcanism, which led to greenhouse warming."
Keller says those three eventsthe Chicxulub asteroid impact, volcanism, and climate change"led to high biotic stress and caused the decline of many tropical species populations," but not mass extinctions. That die-off didn't occur until later. However, Keller does believe that the initial confluence of volcanic activity, global warming, and the Chicxulub asteroid impact ultimately contributed to the mass extinction.
Key to Keller's assertions is a 20-inch-thick (50-centimeter-thick) layer of limestone found between the K-T boundary and the impact breccia, or molten lava and rocky debris, laid down when the Chicxulub asteroid collided with Earth.
Keller and her colleagues believe that the thickness of the limestone layera type of sedimentary rock characteristically formed under large bodies of water like oceans, seas, and lakesindicates that it accumulated in the crater over some 300,000 years after the impact. As proof, Keller points to fossils of microscopic organisms called foraminifera and fossil burrows present in the limestone layer.
According to Keller, those fossils indicate the sediment was deposited after the asteroid impact but before the period of mass extinction that marked the end of the Cretaceous.
Many other scientists disagree with that interpretation, however. They say the layer of fossil-rich limestone was deposited quickly as backwash and infill caused by a huge tsunami that followed the Chicxulub asteroid's impact with Earth. The layer, they say, did not take 300,000 years to accumulate.
In her defense, Keller says the quick-accumulation theory is unsupported by evidence that would have been found during her analysis of core samples gathered at Chicxulub and 45 localities in northeast Mexico.
But Alan Hildebrand, a proponent of the quick-accumulation theory, says the burrows were "made by organisms digging after the fireball layer was deposited."
Thomas R. Holtz, Jr., a vertebrate paleontologist at the University of Maryland in College Park, supports the view that the limestone was quickly laid down as crater infill. He said he is not surprised that Cretaceous fossils were found in the limestone layer.
"If an asteroid clobbered the Eastern seaboard of the U.S. today, I would expect that most of the infilling would be Chevys and Hondas and shopping malls and houses and cows and McDonald's burger wrappers," Holtz said. "Only a tiny bit might be mastodons and Clovis points and Miocene whales." In other words, the crater would quickly fill with objects common on Earth at the time of impact.
So where do researchers in the Keller camp look next for the possible K-T crater? Keller says she's unsure, although "some scientists have suggested it could be a structure called Shiva, in India. We have no convincing evidence so far that this is the case."
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