Elephants We’ll Never Forget
In 1919 a Major Pretorius was given the task to shoot all the remaining elephants in the Addo area of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. By 1920 only 16 elephants remained and these were given sanctuary on the land of a farmer named J.T. Harvey. The elephants were viewed both as a nuisance and potential profit. Citrus farmers in this region battled them for water resources. Opportunists saw cash in their tusks. Initial efforts to fence elephants were unsuccessful and farmers were aggravated when elephants trampled through in search of food. But by 1954, thanks in part to improvements in elephant-proof fencing, the Addo Elephant National Park was thriving. Elephant population was improving and farmers had their irrigation and crops intact. Now this national park is roughly 50,000 acres (the 3rd largest national park in SA) and is home to 450 elephants and a host of other wildlife. From our limited experience of the place it seems like a beneficial situation for the wildlife, the environment, the local community, and farming. For us it was a thrilling two days driving around the park in search of animal and plant life. Here's some of what we saw.


June is Cataract Awareness Month. Did you know that cataracts are the leading cause of vision loss among adults 55 and older? In fact, more than half the people over age 65 have some degree of cataract development. A cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye, the part of the eye that focuses light and produces clear images. Inside of the eye, the lens is contained in a sealed bag or capsule. As old cells die they become trapped within the capsule. Over time, more cells die and accumulate causing the lens to cloud, making images look blurred or fuzzy. (Eye America.org)
Cataracts are caused by the breakdown of proteins within the clear lens of the eye that cause it to become cloudy and difficult to see through, effecting vision. Some of this protein breakdown is associated with oxidative stress. It is believed that the majority of oxidative stress is generated in the eye via photochemical reactions caused by exposure to sunlight although oxidative stress can be caused by neuronal dysfunction in certain conditions.
Antioxidants fight free radicals and reactive oxygen species by neutralizing them and thus causing them to lose the ability to cause oxidative stress. Antioxidants can be found in many different foods. Some examples are blueberries, raspberries and olive oil. The regular intake of these foods can be beneficial to your health and can combat oxidative stress. However, science is finding that more concentrated doses of antioxidants can be even more beneficial in combating eye disease than diet alone. The use of antioxidant supplementation may protect the eye from oxidative-stress induced damage and disease.
Hydroxytyrosol, a powerful antioxidant derived from olive byproducts, has a chemoprotective effect on retinal cells, the type of cell that is damaged by the progression of macular degeneration and possibly other eye diseases.
Pinnaclife’s Supplement Olivamine Essential, is a blend of Antioxidants, and if used in association with a healthy lifestyle can help to reduce the effects eye disease. Our supplements are available at most Hy-Vee locations. Start your journey towards good health today!


Deer more active this time of year in roadways | News
CAPE GIRARDEAU, MO (KFVS)- Troopers are warning drivers to be on the lookout for deer crossing Missouri's roadways.
Colonel Ron Replogle, superintendent of the Missouri State Highway Patrol says more deer are active this time of year especially during evening and early dawn hours.
He says that's mainly due to mating season, hunting and crop harvesting.
According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, in 2011 there were 3,563 traffic crashes involving deer in Missouri. Four people were killed and 367 injured. And, in 2011, 26.7 percent of the traffic crashes involving deer happened in urban areas.
Col. Replogle says the majority of deer-vehicle strikes occur from October-December, with the most strikes happening in November. He adds most deer strikes occur between the hours of 5 p.m. and 6:59 a.m.
Here are some tips to observe when driving this time of year:
-When you see deer, slow down and proceed with caution.
-In areas where there are streams or wooded corridors surrounded by farmland, look for more deer to cross roadways.
Copyright 2012 KFVS. All rights reserved.


America's oil and natural gas industry is committed to protecting the environment and to continuously improving its hurricane preparation and response plans. After any hurricane or tropical storm, the goal is to return to full operations as quickly and as safely as possible. For the 2012 hurricane season, the industry continues to build upon critical lessons learned from 2008's major hurricanes, Gustav and Ike, as well as other powerful storms, such as 2005's Katrina and Rita and 2004's Ivan.
API plays two primary roles for the industry in preparing for hurricanes. First, it helps the industry gain a better understanding of the environmental conditions in and around the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane or tropical storm activity and then assists industry in using that knowledge to make offshore and onshore facilities less vulnerable. Second, API collaborates with member companies, other industries and with federal, state and local governments to prepare for hurricanes and return operations as quickly and as safely as possible.
API member companies also independently work to improve preparedness for hurricanes and other natural or manmade disasters. They have, for example, reviewed and updated emergency response plans, established redundant communication paths and made pre-arrangements with suppliers to help ensure they have adequate resources during an emergency.
The API Subcommittee on Offshore Stuctures, the International Association of Drilling Contractors, and the Offshore Operators Committee, serve as a liaison to regulatory agencies, coordinate industry review of critical design standards and provide a forum for sharing lessons learned from previous hurricanes.
These combined efforts are critical since the Gulf of Mexico accounted for about 23 percent of the oil and 8 percent of total natural gas produced in the United States (approximately 82 percent of the oil supply comes from deepwater facilities), and the Gulf Coast region is home to almost half of the U.S. refining capacity.
Upstream (Exploration and Production)
During the major 2005 hurricanes, waves were higher and winds were stronger than anticipated in deeper parts of the Gulf so the industry moved away from viewing it as a uniform body of water. Evaluating the effects of those and other storms, helped scientists discover that the Central Gulf of Mexico was more prone to hurricanes because it acts as a gathering spot for warm currents that can strengthen a storm.
The revised wind, wave and water current measurements ("metocean" data) prompted API to reassess its recommended practices (RPs) for industry operations in the region.
- The upstream segment continues to integrate the updated environmental (metocean) data on how powerful storms affect conditions in the Gulf of Mexico into its offshore structure design standards. This effort led to the publication in 2008 of an update to RP 2SK, Design and Analysis of Stationkeeping Systems for Floating Structures, that provides guidance for design and operation of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit (MODU) mooring systems in the Gulf of Mexico during the hurricane season. API RP 95J, Gulf of Mexico Jack-up Operations for Hurricane Season, which recommends locating jack-up rigs on more stable areas of the sea floor, and positioning platform decks higher above the sea surface, was also updated.
API publications are available at our (Search and Order
API in the past six years also has issued a number of bulletins to help better prepare for and bring production back online after Gulf hurricanes. These include:
Production and Hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Bulletin 2TD, Guidelines for Tie-downs on Offshore Production Facilities for Hurricane Season, which is aimed at better-securing separate platform equipment.
- Bulletin 2INT-MET, Interim Guidance on Hurricane Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, which provides updated metocean data for four regions of the Gulf, including wind velocities, deepwater wave conditions, ocean current information, and surge and tidal data.
- Bulletin 2INT-DG, Interim Guidance for Design of Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which explains how to apply the updated metocean data during design.
- Bulletin 2INT-EX, Interim Guidance for Assessment of Existing Offshore Structures for Hurricane Conditions, which assists owners/operators and engineers with existing facilities.
- Bulletin 2HINS, Guidance on Post-hurricane Structural Inspection of Offshore Structures, which provides guidance on determining if a structure sustained hurricane-induced damage that affects the safety of personnel, the primary structural integrity, or its ability to perform the purpose for which it was intended.
Refineries and Pipelines
- Days in advance of a tropical storm or hurricane moving toward or near their drilling and production operations, companies will evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin the process of shutting down production.
- As the storm gets closer, all personnel will be evacuated from the drilling rigs and platforms, and production is shut down. Drillships may relocate to a safe location. Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often will be shut down as well because storms can change direction with little notice.
- After a storm has passed and it is safe to fly, operators will initiate "flyovers" of onshore and offshore facilities to evaluate damage from the air. For onshore facilities, these "flyovers" can identify flooding, facility damage, road or other infrastructure problems, and spills. Offshore "flyovers" look for damaged drilling rigs, platform damage, spills, and possible pipeline damage.
- Many offshore drilling rigs are equipped with GPS locator systems, which allow federal officials and drilling contractors to remotely monitor the rigs' location before, during and after a hurricane. If a rig is pulled offsite by the storm, locator systems allow crews to find and recover the rig as quickly and as safely as possible.
- Once safety concerns are addressed, operators will send assessment crews to offshore facilities to physically assess the facilities for damage.
- If facilities are undamaged, and ancillary facilities, like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas, are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production. Drilling rigs will commence operations.
Despite sustaining unprecedented damage and supply outages during the 2005 and 2008 hurricanes, the industry quickly and safely brought refining and pipeline operations back online, delivering to consumers near-record levels of gasoline and record levels of distillate (diesel and heating oil) in 2008. The oil and oil-product pipelines operating on or near the Gulf of Mexico continue to review their assets and operations to minimize the potential impacts of storms and shorten the time it takes to recover. While there have been some shortages caused by hurricanes, supply disruptions have been temporary despite extensive damage to supporting infrastructure, such as electric power generation and distribution, production shut-ins and refinery shutdowns. Pipelines need a steady supply of crude oil or refined products to keep product flowing to its intended destinations.
To prepare for future severe storms, refiners and pipeline companies have
Refineries and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Worked with utilities to clarify priorities for electric power restoration critical to restarting operations and to help minimize significant disruptions to fuel distribution and delivery.
- Secured backup power generation equipment and worked with federal, state and local governments to ensure that pipelines and refineries are considered "critical" infrastructure for back-up power purposes.
- Established redundant communications systems to support continuity of operations and locate employees.
- Worked with vendors to pre-position food, water and transportation, and updated emergency plans to secure other emergency supplies and services.
- Provided additional training for employees who have participated in various exercises and drills.
- Reexamined and improved emergency response and business continuity plans.
- Strengthened onshore buildings and elevated equipment where appropriate to minimize potential flood damage.
- Worked with the states and local emergency management officials to provide documentation and credentials for employees who need access to disaster sites where access is restricted during an emergency.
- Participated in industry conferences to share best practices and improvement opportunities.
Pipelines and hurricanes (steps industry takes to prepare for and return after a storm)
- Refiners, in the hours before a large storm makes landfall, will usually evacuate all non-essential personnel and begin shutting down or reducing operations.
- Operations in areas not forecast to take a direct hit from the storm often are shut down or curtailed as a precaution because storms can change direction with little notice.
- Once safe, teams come in to assess damage. If damage or flooding has occurred, it must be repaired and dealt with before the refinery can be brought back on-line.
- Other factors that can cause delays in restarting refineries include the availability of crude oil, electricity to run the plant and water used for cooling the process units.
- Refineries are complex. It takes more than a flip of a switch to get a refinery back up and running. Once a decision has been made that it is safe to restart, it can take several days before the facility is back to full operating levels. This is because the process units and associated equipment must be returned to operation in a staged manner to ensure a safe and successful startup.
- If facilities are undamaged or necessary repairs have been made, and ancillary facilities - like pipelines that carry the oil and natural gas - are undamaged and ready to accept shipments, operators will begin restarting production.
- Pipeline operations can be impacted by storms, primarily through power outages, but also by direct damage.
- Offshore pipelines damaged require the hiring of divers, repairs and safety inspections before supplies can flow. Damaged onshore pipelines must be assessed, repaired and inspected before resuming operations.
- Without power, crude oil and petroleum products cannot be moved through pipelines. Operators routinely hold or lease back-up generators but need time to get them onsite.
- If there is no product put into pipelines because Gulf Coast/Gulf of Mexico crude or natural gas production has been curtailed, or because of refinery shutdowns, the crude and products already in the pipelines cannot be pushed out the other end.
- Wind damage to above ground tanks at storage terminals can also impact supplies into the pipeline.
: The 2008 hurricane season was very active, with 16 named storms, of which eight became hurricanes and five of those were major hurricanes. For the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, the two most serious storms of 2008 were Hurricane Ike, which made landfall in mid-September near Baytown, Texas, and Hurricane Gustav, which made landfall on September 1 in Louisiana.
Hurricane Gustav, a strong Category 2 storm, kept off-line oil and natural gas delivery systems and production platforms that had not yet been fully restored from a smaller storm two weeks earlier, and brought significant flooding as far north as Baton Rouge. Hurricane Ike, another strong Category 2 hurricane, caused significant portions of the production, processing, and pipeline infrastructure along the Gulf Coast in East Texas and Louisiana to shut down. Ike caused significant destruction to electric transmission and distribution lines, and these damages delayed the restart of major processing plants, pipelines, and refineries. As many as 3.7 million customers were without electric power following the storm, with about 2.5 million in Texas alone.
At the peak of disruptions, more than 20 percent of total U.S. refinery capacity was idled. The Minerals Management Service - now called Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE)
estimated that 2,127 of the 3,800 total oil and natural gas production platforms in the Gulf of Mexico were exposed to hurricane conditions, with winds greater than 74 miles per hour, from Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. A total of 60 platforms were destroyed as a result of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. Some platforms which had been previously reported as having extensive damage were reassessed and determined to be destroyed. The destroyed platforms produced 13,657 barrels of oil and 96.5 million cubic feet of natural gas daily or 1.05 percent of the oil and 1.3 percent of the natural gas produced daily in the Gulf of Mexico.
: The 2005 hurricane season was the most active in recorded history, shattering previous records. According to the Department of Energy, refineries in the path of hurricanes Katrina and Rita accounting for about 29 percent of U.S. refining capacity were shut down at the peak of disruptions. Offshore, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimated 22,000 of the 33,000 miles of pipelines and 3,050 of the 4,000 platforms in the Gulf were in the direct paths of the two Category 5 storms. Together the storms destroyed 115 platforms and damaged 52 others.
Even so, there was no loss of life among industry workers and contractors. An MMS report found "no accounts of spills from facilities on the federal Outer Continental Shelf that reached the shoreline; oiled birds or mammals; or involved any discoveries of oil to be collected or cleaned up".
: Hurricane Ivan was the strongest hurricane of the 2004 season and among one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes on record. It moved across the Gulf of Mexico to make landfall in Alabama. Ivan then looped across Florida and back into the Gulf, regenerating into a new tropical system, which moved into Louisiana and Texas.
The MMS estimated approximately 150 offshore facilities and 10,000 miles of pipelines were in the direct path of Ivan. Seven platforms were destroyed and 24 others damaged. The oil and natural gas industry submitted numerous damage reports to MMS, including for mobile drilling rigs, offshore platforms, producing wells, topside systems including wellheads and production and processing equipment, risers, and pipeline systems that transport oil and gas ashore from offshore facilities.


Get ready for Comet PANSTARRS — 2013's first naked-eye comet
Comet PANSTARRS promises to be the brightest comet in six years when it peaks in March.
February 26, 2013
Luis Argerich from Buenos Aires, Argentina, captured Comet PANSTARRS in the sky above Mercedes, Argentina, on February 11, 2013. The comet shone at magnitude 4.5 to the left of an Iridium flare.
I’m here today to talk about what promises to be the brightest comet during the first half of 2013 and likely one of the brightest comets of the 21st century — so far. Comet PANSTARRS (C/2011 L4) will peak in March and remain bright well into April. If predictions hold, it should be an easy naked-eye object and will look great through binoculars for several weeks.
Astronomers discovered this comet June 6, 2011. As the fourth new comet detected during the first half of June that year, it received the designation “C/2011 L4.” And because researchers first spotted the object on images taken through the 1.8-meter Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System on Haleakala in Hawaii, it received the instrument’s acronym, PANSTARRS, as a secondary name. Astronomers credit this scope with more than two dozen comet discoveries, so the “C/2011 L4” designation is more precise even though it’s much easier to say “PANSTARRS.”
The comet is making its first trip through the inner solar system. Its journey began eons ago when a star or interstellar cloud passed within a light-year or two of the Sun. This close encounter jostled the so-called Oort Cloud, a vast reservoir of icy objects that lies up to a light-year from the Sun and probably holds a trillion comets. PANSTARRS has been heading toward the Sun ever since.
For complete coverage of Comet PANSTARRS, visit www.astronomy.com/panstarrs.
Southern Hemisphere observers had the best comet views during February. But by early March, PANSTARRS veers sharply northward and gradually becomes visible in the evening sky for Northern Hemisphere observers. The earliest views should come around March 6 or 7, when it appears a degree above the western horizon 30 minutes after sunset. Each following day, the comet climbs a degree or two higher, which dramatically improves its visibility.
It comes closest to the Sun (a position called “perihelion”) the evening of March 9, when it lies just 28 million miles (45 million kilometers) from our star. It then appears 7° high in the west 30 minutes after sunset. If predictions hold true — never a sure thing when it comes to comets making their first trip through the inner solar system — the comet will be a superb object through binoculars and probably an impressive naked-eye sight. Astronomers expect it to reach magnitude 0 or 1 at perihelion, although no one would be too surprised if it ends up one or two magnitudes brighter or dimmer.
From perihelion to the end of March, the comet moves almost due north through Pisces and Andromeda while its brightness drops by about a magnitude every five days. In the admittedly unlikely event that the tail of PANSTARRS stretches 10° or more March 13, it will pass behind a two-day-old crescent Moon. The comet should glow around 4th magnitude in early April, which would make the extended object visible only through binoculars or a telescope. It passes 2° west of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) on the 3rd, then crosses into Cassiopeia on the 9th. During the third week of April, the comet fades to 6th magnitude and is visible all night for those at mid-northern latitudes, where it appears highest before dawn.
If Comet PANSTARRS lives up to expectations, it should show two tails emanating from a round glow. The photograph at right shows Comet Hale-Bopp from 1997. Although PANSTARRS likely won’t get as bright as Hale-Bopp was, it lets us see the major components of a comet.
If Comet PANSTARRS lives up to expectations, it should show two tails emanating from a round glow. Although PANSTARRS likely won’t get as bright as 1997's Comet Hale-Bopp (pictured) did, it lets us see the major components of a comet. // Tony Hallas
The circular head, known as the “coma,” masks the comet’s nucleus. The nucleus is a ball of ice and dust that typically measures a mile or two across. As sunlight hits the nucleus, the ices boil off, and the process liberates dust particles. This cloud of gas and dust forms the coma, which can span a million miles or more. Sunlight removes electrons from the ejected gas molecules, causing then to glow with a bluish color. The solar wind carries this gas away from the comet, creating a straight bluish gas tail. The ejected dust gets pushed away from the Sun more gently, so it forms a curving tail. The dust particles simply reflect sunlight, so the dust tail has a white to pale-yellow color. Although Comet McNaught didn’t show much of a gas tail when it achieved fame in 2007, it more than made up for it with a 30°-long curving dust tail.
Will PANSTARRS rival Hale-Bopp or McNaught? The best way to find out is to plan a few observing sessions for this March and April. Even if PANSTARRS falls short of greatness, goodness is a fine attribute when it comes to comets. And remember that 2013 isn’t over yet. November and December should provide exceptional views of Comet ISON (C/2012 S1), which could be 100 times brighter than PANSTARRS. I’ll be back later this year with more details on viewing Comet ISON.
Expand your observing with these online tools from Astronomy magazine
- Special Coverage: Find everything you need to know about Comet PANSTARRS in Astronomy.com's Year of the Comet section.
- StarDome: Locate Comet C/2011 L4 (PANSTARRS) in your night sky with our interactive star chart. To ensure the comet is displayed, click on the "Display..." drop-down menu under Options (lower right) and make sure "Comets" has a check mark next to it. Then click the "Show Names..." drop-down menu and make sure "Comets" is checked there, too.
Images: Submit images of Comet PANSTARRS to our Online Reader Gallery.
Discussion: Ask questions and share your observations in our Reader Forums.
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January 16 is the 16th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. There are 349 days remaining (350 in leap years).
- 27 BC - Octavian Caesar given the title Augustus by the Roman Senate.
- 929 - Emir Abd-ar-rahman III of Cordoba declares himself caliph, thereby establishing the Caliphate of Cordoba.
- 1362 - A great storm tide in the North Sea destroys the German island of Strand and the city of Rungholt.
- 1412 - Medici family made official bankers of the Papacy.
- 1456 - Painter Filippo Lippi elopes with Lucrezia Buti, a young nun from the convent of Saint Margherita .
- 1492 - The first grammar of a modern language, in Spanish, is presented to Queen Isabella.
- 1547 - Ivan the Terrible becomes Tsar of Russia.
- 1556 - Philip II becomes King of Spain.
- 1572 - The Duke of Norfolk is tried for treason for his part in the Ridolfi plot to restore Catholicism in England.
- 1581 - English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism.
- 1605 - The first edition of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (Book One of Don Quixote) by Miguel de Cervantes was published in Madrid.
- 1761 - British capture Pondicherry, India from the French.
- 1777 - Vermont declares its independence from New York.
- 1780 - American Revolution: Battle of Cape St. Vincent.
- 1795 - French occupy Utrecht, Netherlands.
- 1809 - Peninsular War: The British defeat the French at the Battle of La Coruña.
- 1847 - John C. Fremont is appointed Governor of the new California Territory.
- 1883 - The Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act, establishing the United States Civil service, is passed.
- 1900 - The United States Senate accepts the Anglo-German treaty of 1899 in which the United Kingdom renounced its claims to the Samoan islands.
- 1909 - Ernest Shackleton's expedition finds the magnetic South Pole.
- 1917 - German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann sends the Zimmermann Telegram to Mexico, proposing a German-Mexican alliance against the United States
- 1919 - Temperance movement: The 18th Amendment, authorizing Prohibition, was passed by the Congress of the United States. It went into effect one year later, on January 16th, 1920.
- 1938 - Benny Goodman plays Carnegie Hall.
- 1945 - Adolf Hitler moves into his underground bunker, the so-called Führerbunker.
- 1956 - President Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt vows to reconquer Palestine.
- 1957 - The Cavern Club opens in Liverpool.
- 1961 - Mickey Mantle becomes the highest paid baseball player by signing a $75,000 contract.
- 1964 - The first musical version of Hello, Dolly! opens at New York City's St. James Theatre.
- 1966 - The Metropolitan Opera House opens at Lincoln Center in New York City.
- 1969 - Czech student Jan Palach commits suicide by self-immolation in Prague, in protest against the Soviets' crushing of the Prague Spring the year before.
- 1970 - Buckminster Fuller receives the Gold Medal award from the American Institute of Architects.
- 1970 - Curt Flood files suit, stating that major league baseball had violated the American anti-trust laws.
- 1977 - The Marx Brothers were inducted into the Motion Picture Hall of Fame .
- 1979 - The Shah of Iran flees Iran with his family and relocates to Egypt.
- 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the Worldwide Church of God (the Church of God in Philadelphia Era) died.
- 1988 - Sports commentator Jimmy 'the Greek' Snyder is fired by CBS a day after publicly stating that African Americans had been bred to produce stronger offspring during slavery.
- 1991 - US serial killer Aileen Wuornos confesses to the murders of six men.
- 1992 - El Salvador officials and rebel leaders sign the Chapultepec Peace Accords in Mexico City that ends a 12-year civil war that claimed at least 75,000.
- 1997 - Ennis Cosby, the only son of actor Bill Cosby, is killed by a gunman while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California.
- 1998 - NASA announces that John Glenn will return to space when Space Shuttle Discovery blasts off in October 1998.
- 2000 - In Sacramento, California a commercial truck carrying evaporated milk is driven into the state capitol building killing the driver.
- 2001 - Congolese President Laurent-Désiré Kabila is assassinated by one of his own bodyguards.
- 2002 - A student shoots 6 people at the Appalachian School of Law . Three of those shot die.
- 2002 - John Ashcroft announces that so-called "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh would be tried in the United States.
- 2002 - The UN Security Council unanimously establishes an arms embargo and the freezing of assets of Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaida, and the remaining members of the Taliban.
- 2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia takes off for mission STS-107 which will be its final one. Columbia disintegrates 16 days later on re-entry.
- 2004 - Goatse.cx is shut down by the Christmas Island Registry
- 2005 - Adriana Iliescu gives birth at age 66 and becomes the oldest woman in the world to do so.
- 1245 - Edmund Crouchback, 1st Earl of Lancaster (d. 1296)
- 1821 - John C. Breckenridge, Kentucky Senator 1861-1861, Confederate General (d. 1875)
- 1838 - Franz Brentano, German philosopher and psychologist (d. 1917)
- 1874 - Robert W. Service, poet (d. 1958)
- 1881 - Sir Arthur Percy Morris Fleming , radio pioneer
- 1886 - John Hamilton , American actor (d. 1958)
- 1898 - Margaret Booth, film editor (d. 2002)
- 1901 - Frank Zamboni, inventor (d. 1988)
- 1901 - Fulgencio Batista, Cuban leader (d. 1973)
- 1902 - Eric Liddell, Scottish runner (d. 1945)
- 1907 - Paul Nitze, American government official (d. 2004)
- 1908 - Ethel Merman, American actress, singer (d. 1984)
- 1910 - Dizzy Dean, Baseball Hall of Famer (d. 1974)
- 1912 - Franz Tumler , Austrian narrator (d. 1998)
- 1917 - Buddy Lester , American actor (d. 2002)
- 1918 - Stirling Silliphant , writer, producer (d. 1996)
- 1921 - Francesco Scavullo, photographer (d. 2004)
- 1922 - Ernesto Bonino, Italian singer
- 1924 - Katy Jurado, actress (d. 2002)
- 1928 - William Kennedy, author
- 1931 - Johannes Rau, President of Germany
- 1932 - Dian Fossey, zoologist (d. 1985)
- 1934 - Marilyn Horne, American mezzo-soprano
- 1935 - Udo Lattek , football coach
- 1935 - A.J. Foyt, automobile racer
- 1943 - Brian Ferneyhough, composer
- 1944 - Jim Stafford , singer
- 1944 - Ronnie Milsap, country music singer
- 1946 - Kabir Bedi, actor
- 1946 - Ronnie Milsap, singer
- 1946 - Katia Ricciarelli , opera singer
- 1947 - Laura Schlessinger, psychiatrist, radio talk show host
- 1948 - John Carpenter, director
- 1948 - Dalvanius, New Zealand entertainer (d. 2002)
- 1948 - Cliff Thorburn, Canadian snooker player
- 1950 - Debbie Allen, actress, dancer, choreographer
- 1950 - Caroline Munro , actress
- 1954 - Nancy Richards-Akers , novelist (d. 1999)
- 1958 - Anatoli Boukreev, Russian climber (d. 1997)
- 1959 - Sade, singer
- 1969 - Roy Jones Jr., boxer
- 1974 - Kate Moss, supermodel
- 1977 - Jeff Foster, professional basketball player
- 1979 - Aaliyah, singer (d. 2001)
- 1980 - Albert Pujols, baseball player
- 1980 - Michelle Wild, Hungarian pornstar
- 1747 - Barthold Heinrich Brockes, German poet (b. 1680)
- 1794 - Edward Gibbon, historian (b. 1737)
- 1806 - William Pitt the Younger, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1759)
- 1876 - Edmund H. Sears , composer
- 1917 - George Dewey, Admiral (b. 1837)
- 1936 - Albert Fish, serial killer (electrocuted) (b. 1870)
- 1942 - Carole Lombard, actress (b. 1908)
- 1957 - Arturo Toscanini, conductor (b. 1867)
- 1962 - Ivan Meštrović, sculptor (b. 1883)
- 1972 - Ross Bagdasarian, actor, songwriter
- 1979 - Ted Cassidy, American actor
- 1981 - Bernard Lee, British actor
- 1982 - Red Smith , sports columnist
- 1983 - Meyer Lansky, gangster
- 1986 - Herbert W. Armstrong, evangelist, author, publisher
- 1988 - Ballard Berkeley , British actor
- 1989 - Trey Wilson , American actor
- 1995 - Eric Mottram - poet, teacher, critic, editor (b. 1924)
- 1998 - Emil Sitka , American actor
- 2001 - Laurent-Desire Kabila, president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (assassinated; death officially confirmed on January 18)
- 2002 - Michael Bilandic, mayor of Chicago (b. 1923)
- 2002 - Eddie Meduza
- 2002 - Bobo Olson, American boxer
- 2002 - Ron Taylor, American actor (b. 1952)
- 2004 - Kalevi Sorsa, former Finnish prime minister (b. 1930)
- 2005 - Marjorie Williams, Washington Post columnist and contributing editor for Vanity Fair (b. 1958)
Holidays and observances
January 15 - January 17 - December 16 - February 16 -- listing of all days
|Top Encyclopedia Articles


This section provides a short description of all the major objects in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.
Parisappears in Paris Spleen - The majority of the poems within this collection are in this setting, especially the poorer areas of the city.
Natureappears in The Artist's Confiteor - This frustrates a man who cannot capture it wholly.
Roomappears in The Double Room - The narrator dreams up this beautiful place.
Statue of Venusappears in The Fool and Venus - A jester stares at this in a park.
Public Parksappears in The Widows - These are described as the shady retreats that are the gathering places of those crippled by life.
This section contains 273 words|
(approx. 1 page at 300 words per page)


This section provides a short description of all the major characters in the book. This can be printed out as a study guide for students, used as a "key" for leading a class discussion, or you can jump to the quiz/homework section to find worksheets that incorporate these descriptions into a variety of question formats.
Muhammad Bilal - This character is the son of a farmer who is stolen from Africa and sold as a slave.
Lizzy - This character is a slave on the Live Oaks plantation in South Carolina who never has a freedom dream.
Elijah Lewis - This character is intelligent and forward thinking and dreams of making enough money to help his family hold onto the Glory Field.
Luvenia Lewis - This character is tall and dark-skinned. He/she has ideas of his/her own and does not want to move to Curry Island with his/her...
This section contains 570 words|
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page)


Rainbow smelt, leefish, freshwater smelt, frost fish, ice fish, candy fish - there seems to be no shortage of references for these tasty, shimmering, torpedo-like creatures.
What there does seem to be these days, however, is a shortage of smelt altogether.
Interestingly, fishermen on both Lake Champlain and Lake George are reporting a significant reduction in the number of smelt caught through the ice this year.
It is a phenomenon that began a few years ago, actually, and one biologists have difficulty understanding.
On one thing biologists agree: both lakes are continually evolving, changing with the introduction of new fish and aquatic species as well as the impacts of human intervention.
Vermont Fisheries Biologist Bernie Pientka said a number of factors seem to be influencing the smelt population in Lake Champlain.
While the lake still holds a healthy population of rainbow smelt, a change in habitat along with the introduction of non-native fish like alewives has impacted where smelt congregate and where they've traditionally been caught, Pientka said.
The physical size of Lake Champlain smelt is also changing, he said, making it more difficult to achieve large catches of the fish like those seen in year's past.
In the late 1990s, studies of smelt conducted through trawling surveys showed a reduction in the overall age of smelt in the lake, Pientka said.
"We used to see a lot of four or five-year-olds, now for some reason, we are seeing more one, two and three-year-olds," he said. "The larger fish now average just five or six inches long."
While fishermen tend to blame the alewife infestation with reducing smelt populations in Lake Champlain, biologists still discount this theory, saying the fish has not been around long enough to impact smelt.
Lake Champlain Fisheries Biologist Lance Durfey said that while ice fishing catches appear to be down in recent winters, it does not appear to be caused by a "crash" in the smelt population.


As everybody knows, sometimes studying Phrasal verbs
is not an easy task, does it? When I was a student, it was really hard (for me
) learning and realizing what phrasal verbs were about. I bought a Dictionary about phrasal verbs, I would use them in class with my Professors & classmates, English native speakers and so on. But then, I noticed that there were some very common and very useful Phrasal verbs
to study as well as keeping in mind during an English conversation. This is my list:
(Most of these phrasal verbs have several meanings, so make sure you remember them all!)
1. Add up
a- To be added together and equal the expected or correct total.
Example: “We added up the apples: there were 12″
b-To make sense : to seem to be logical or true.
Example: “Her story didn’t add up, I think she was lying, it didn’t make sense”
2. Blow up
a- To fill (something) with air or gas
Example: “Please could you blow up those balloons?”
b- To explode or to cause (something, such as a bomb) to explode.
Example: “The building was blown up by a bomb”
c- To become very angry.
Example: “When I said I couldn’t go to her party, she blew up”
3. Bring up
a- To take care of and teach (a child who is growing up).
Example: “Their grandparents brought them up because their parents were always travelling”
b- To mention (something) when talking : to start to talk about (something).
Example: “Don’t bring up the fight again, please!”
4. Call off
a- To stop doing or planning to do (something) .
Example: “Maria called off the wedding, she decided she didn’t love him”
b- To cause or tell (a person or animal) to stop attacking, chasing, etc.
Example: “Call off your dog! He’s attacking my cat”
5. Carry on
a- To continue to do what you have been doing
Example: “Sorry I interrupted, carry on talking!”
b- To behave or speak in an excited or foolish way.
Example: “The little boy was carrying on: shouting and kicking all day long”
6. Come across
a- To seem to have a particular quality or character : to make a particular impression.
Example: “Julia came across as a bit bossy”
b- To be expressed to someone.
Example: “I tried to sound happy but it came across as over-excited”
c- To meet or find (something or someone) by chance.
Example: “Luis was leaving the fruit shop and he came across Tom, what a coincidence”
7. Come up with
a- To get or think of (something that is needed or wanted).
Example: “We finally came up with a solution to the problem!”
8. Fall apart
(Oh, listen to the song "Emotions" by Bee Gees & Samantha Sang)
a- To break into parts in usually a sudden and unexpected way,
Example: “My cake fell apart when I tried to cut it”
b- To become unable to live in a normal way because you are experiencing a lot of confusion or emotional pain
Example: “After the divorce, she fell apart”
9. Get along
a- To be or remain friendly
Example: “We’re not together anymore, but we get along great”
b- To make progress while doing something.
Example: “How are you getting along at playing the guitar?”
c- To leave a place
Example: “It was lovely to see you, but my friend has to get along, she has class”
d- To become old.
Example: “Her grandma is getting along; she’s almost 99″
10. Get away
a- To go away from a place.
Example: “I can0t wait to get away from the city”
b- To avoid being caught : to escape
Example: “The thieves managed to get away in a stolen car”
c- To not be criticized or punished for (something).
Example: “Yvonne is always lying, I can’t understand how she gets away with it”TO BE CONTINUED


A single application of Rootgrow will support a plant for its entire lifetime.
How do mycorrhizal fungi benefit plants?
In its simplest sense mycorrhizal fungi do everything plant roots do, just better.
When new plants are planted with Rootgrow it takes only 2-4 weeks under normal conditions for these fungi to start benefiting plants. In that time they attach themselves to the plant's root system and grow out rapidly into the soil, searching for nutrients and water. They essentially become part of the plant's own root system.
The benefits to plants are; Better nutrient uptake. These fungi are so much thinner and finer than the plant's own roots they can therefore find nutrients in the soil far more efficiently than the plant's own coarse roots. They are especially good at finding nutrients responsible for flowering and fruiting such as Phosphorus and Potassium. As they can explore a much greater amount of soil than the plant's own roots they are also far more likely to find trace elements and the rare nutrients that all plants need to grow well.
Mycorrhizal fungi are an essential part of a plant's ability to combat drought. Leaves and stems have developed mechanisms to combat drought such as silver leaves, waxy leaves and hairy leaves but these adaptations on their own aren't enough if the plant doesn't have its friendly fungal partner on its roots.
Mycorrhizal fungi hold onto water in soils like a sponge.
Establishment in difficult soils
Mycorrhizal fungi will enable plants to establish and thrive even in difficult soils. In poor sandy soils the mycorrhizal fungi will be able to find scarce nutrients and hold onto water. In clay soils these fungi will be able to unlock nutrients from the soil acting like a clay breaker.
How much do I need?
As a quick guideline, the amount of rootgrow needed usually works out to approximately 10% of the value of the plants purchased. i.e. spend £100 on plants and you will need 1x 360gram pouch to treat all of them.
For grass seed, you will approximately require 10 to 15 per cent of the volume (i.e. a 2.5kg bag of grass would required 250g-375g of rootgrow)
Available in a variety of sizes.
The 360g GEL variant is designed to treat bare rooted plants ONLY. Use on plants such as hedging, fruit canes, roses and trees.
It is a two step process, mixing sachet of powder to create the gel and then add rootgrow and dip roots into solution. One pouch will treat up to 150 bare root whips.


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WHAT IS A DEPRESSIVE DISORDER?
A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people who suffer from depression .
TYPES OF DEPRESSION
Depressive disorders come in different forms, just as is the case with other illnesses such as heart disease. This pamphlet briefly describes three of the most common types of depressive disorders. However, within these types there are variations in the number of symptoms, their severity, and persistence.
Major depression is manifested by a combination of symptoms that interfere with the ability to work, study, sleep, eat, and enjoy once pleasurable activities. Such a disabling episode of depression may occur only once but more commonly occurs several times in a lifetime.
A less severe type of depression, dysthymia, involves long-term, chronic symptoms that do not disable, but keep one from functioning well or from feeling good. Many people with dysthymia also experience major depressive episodes at some time in their lives.
Another type of depression is bipolar disorder, also called manic-depressive illness. Not nearly as prevalent as other forms of depressive disorders, bipolar disorder is characterized by cycling mood changes: severe highs (mania) and lows (depression). Sometimes the mood switches are dramatic and rapid, but most often they are gradual. When in the depressed cycle, an individual can have any or all of the symptoms of a depressive disorder. When in the manic cycle, the individual may be overactive, overtalkative, and have a great deal of energy. Mania often affects thinking, judgment, and social behavior in ways that cause serious problems and embarrassment. For example, the individual in a manic phase may feel elated, full of grand schemes that might range from unwise business decisions to romantic sprees. Mania, left untreated, may worsen to a psychotic state.
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Screen Printer/Stencil Preparer
Screen printers set up and operate power-driven or hand-operated screen printing machines to create images.
Duties & Tasks
Screen printers may perform the following tasks:
- prepare stencils to be printed by handcutting, photographic or electronic methods
- choose, mix and match coloured inks and load ink into printing machines
- load paper, fabric, plastic or other material onto printing machines, making sure that objects to be printed are lined up correctly and, if there is more than one colour, that the colours are properly aligned
- control machines and check the quality of printing
- keep records of work completed
- put the stencils onto a mesh fabric-printing screen and operate the printing machine, then dry the printed items by loading them into drying racks or dryers using hot air or ultraviolet light
- unload printed items from drying racks and stack them
- remove waste, clean and maintain machines, and maintain and care for equipment including cameras and lenses, screens, stops and filters.
- enjoy practical and manual work
- good eyesight (may be corrected) with normal colour vision
- good hand-eye coordination
- good problem-solving skills.


IntroductionKiribati (kĭrˌĭbăsˈ) [key], officially Republic of Kiribati (2005 est. pop. 103,000), 342 sq mi (886 sq km), consisting of 33 islands scattered across 2,400 mi (3,860 km) of the Pacific Ocean near the equator. It includes 8 of the 11 Line Islands, including Kiritimati (formerly Christmas Island), as well as the Gilbert and Phoenix groups and Banaba (formerly Ocean Island). Tarawa is the capital. The population is nearly all Micronesian, with about 30% concentrated on Tarawa. English is the official language, and Kiribati, a Micronesian language, is also spoken. Some 50% of the inhabitants are Roman Catholic, while 40% are Protestant.
Fishing and the growing of coconuts, taro, breadfruit, and sweet potatoes form the basis of the mainly subsistence economy. The mining of Banaba's once thick phosphate deposits ended in 1979. Copra, coconuts, seaweed, and fish are the chief exports; foodstuffs, machinery and equipment, manufactured goods, and fuel are imported. Australia, Japan, Fiji, and the Unites States are the main trading partners.
A member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the nation is a republic governed under the constitution of 1979. The president, who is both head of state and head of government, is elected by popular vote for a four-year term and is eligible for two more terms. The unicameral House of Parliament has 42 members, most elected by popular vote, who serve four-year terms. Administratively the country is divided into three units (the Gilbert, Line, and Phoenix islands), and subdivided into six districts. There are also 21 island councils, one for each of the inhabited islands.
Sections in this article:
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
See more Encyclopedia articles on: Pacific Islands Political Geography


MCP Spelling Workout Homeschool Bundle Level A (Grade 1)
Spelling Workout Primary Levels have a high phonics base and the upper grades study word origins and vocabulary. Spelling practice is provided through riddles, puzzles, interactive activities and reviews, and reinforces what has been previously learned. This program uses a test-study method. Your child will first take a pre-test of words not introduced and then, under your direction, will self-correct the test, rewriting correctly any missed word. The spelling words will be studied as your child works throughout the practice exercises, and then a final test will be given. This bundle includes: Student Edition, Teacher's Edition, & Parent Guide.


Did you know that many gadgets in your home suck up energy – and your hard-earned dollars – even when they are turned off? De-fang these "energy vampires" and you'll lower your monthly energy bills.
What is a "vampire appliance" and how is it sucking up money?
Many electronic devices use what is called "standby power" when they're turned off--as long as they are plugged in. That way, you don't have to wait the few seconds it takes for the device to "power up" when you turn it on. But that "Instant-On" convenience wastes a ton of energy and dollars.
First clue that an appliance is an energy vampire--if it has a glowing LED light or lit clock, it's using energy even when it's turned off:
- DVD players
- Video game consoles
- Microwave ovens
- Computers (laptops especially)
- Music systems
- Rechargeable appliances such as hand-held vacuums and tools
Other unplugable energy wasters: phone and battery chargers. Do you leave the charger plugged into the wall even when your phone is not attached? That vacant charger is costing you money. Read: "Top 5 Energy-Sucking Vampire Appliances".
Also, check out this standby energy chart to see which devices use the most energy when not in use.
Just how much these "energy vampires" are costing you?
Federal regulations have cut back on the amount of electricity “vampire appliances” can consume, but they still account for as much as 5 – 10% of the electricity used in the average home. In other words, $0.05 to $0.10 out of every dollar spent on electricity could be eliminated, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
One TV can waste about $150 a year in standby energy (depending on the type and age of the TV); many video game consoles another $25 a year. Multiply those TVs, DVD players and other appliances and the dollars really add up!
What's the easiest way to eliminate these unnecessary energy costs?
The cheapest option is to just unplug the suckers. When you turn off your TV, video game player or other electronic device or appliance, unplug it from the electric outlet. That keeps the device from continuing to draw power. Simplify unplugging appliances by bundling them on a power strip. This is a smart practice anyway, because the power strip protects sensitive electronics from power surges and outages. And with the touch of a button all of the devices on the power strip will be disconnected from the power supply.
Best of all, look into purchasing "smart power strips". These reduce your power usage by automatically shutting down power to products that go into standby mode. There are even some smart power strips that included infrared motion detectors that turn off appliances when nobody is in the room. These will cost around $80 per power strip, but will pay off with the energy you save.
Finally, when purchasing new appliances and electronics, be sure they are ENERGY STAR®- qualified products.
For more money-saving tips and info on discounts and incentives on energy-saving products and services, visit PSOklahoma.com/save
This post is sponsored by PSO.


Fun Learning with Printable Flash Cards
Here you will find our selection of free printable flash cards for preschool learning (and beyond!). Flash cards are a great way for kids to learn the basic elements and memorize them through short repeat sessions. You’ll find helping them learn their first abc, animal names and numbers incredibly rewarding.
A few minutes here, a few minutes there, whether at home, traveling, in the park or at Auntie’s it’s learning on the go. These lovely cards turn learning into playing (… but we also love decorating kids’ rooms by sticking them on the wall or putting them in picture frames.)
We’ve made all our printable flash cards here free for everybody and of course you can print them as many times as you like!
Alphabet Flash Cards
Helping the little one’s first learning fun and sweet!
Vocabulary Flash Cards
Learning new words and concepts is great fun!
Number & Math Flash Cards
Various flash cards for all your math activities.
Shapes & Colors Flash Cards
Try combining abstract shapes and pretty colors with various colorful activities.
We have a growing selection of children’s resources for preschool, homeschool & classroom learning activities. Please check back soon to see what’s new. Thank you!
We’d also love to hear from parents and teachers with suggestions.


On a trip to Ireland a few years ago, I was struck by a number of faces among the crowds. They were children with the tell-tale look of Down syndrome.
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What struck me was the realization that I hardly ever see these young faces out on the street in the United States.
A fascinating probe by the Associated Press suggests the reason. Gene testing of parental carriers is leading to the birth of fewer and fewer children with inherited diseases in the United States. Other conditions such as Down syndrome, which uses prenatal testing of the fetus, are also apparently being screened out in greater numbers.
By encouraging genetic testing for potential parents of European background, fewer and fewer children in the U.S. are being born with cystic fibrosis. Aggressive programs to offer genetic testing to a subset of Jewish ancestry has, over the last decade, resulted in a situation in which only about a dozen new cases of fatal Tay-Sachs Disease occur each year in babies in the United States. Experts believe that wider testing of parents may produce in the years to come a sharp decline in the number of children born with sickle cell disease and Fragile X syndrome, a leading cause of cognitive impairment in boys.
Reducing the burden of disease is obviously a good thing. But genetic testing of parents, and, as is now happening with increasing frequency, embryos, raises some difficult ethical challenges as well.
In many cases, genetic testing of parents may discourage them from trying to have a child but, in situations where there is risk but not certainty, some parents will try to conceive. Then, aware of the risk, they pursue further prenatal testing, and end any pregnancy in which a fetus could be affected.
Destroying an embryo is obviously a difficult ethical and personal choice. Not as obvious are two other ethical challenges that more and more testing creates: The impact on those with genetic disabilities and their families and the likely expansion of genetic testing to more and more conditions in the years to come.
As some families with a Down syndrome child have noted, fewer kids with Down may mean fewer public programs, fewer resources in schools and for housing and less political clout. If some genetic diseases begin to fade away, will society’s willingness to provide support for the diminishing numbers of those born with such diseases fade as well? And are we headed to a time when parents who choose not to be genetically tested find themselves condemned as morally irresponsible parents?
There may be broad agreement that getting rid of a disease like Tay-Sachs, which produces a slow, miserable and inevitable death, usually by age 4, morally justifies aggressive genetic testing and even decisions to abort pregnancies where the fetus has the disease. But, could the same ethical consensus be brought to bear concerning conditions such as deafness or dwarfism, which also have a genetic component?
And what about using genetic testing on parents to pick out those at high risk for passing on conditions such as breast cancer, depression, Alzheimer’s or addiction — conditions that involve genetic risks but that may not appear until mid-life or later and for which therapies may well be found in the future?
And at the far extreme will companies be free to tout genetic testing of would-be parents simply to try and make matches that would result in a "better" baby?
As with many scientific advances, the good they do comes with some very hard dilemmas for you and me.
Arthur Caplan is director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.
© 2013 msnbc.com. Reprints


By Dr. Perry Kendall
Provincial Health Officer
Aug. 14, 2012
VICTORIA - As summer vacations come to an end, and we begin to look forward to the fall, it is a good time to start thinking about how to best protect ourselves and our loved ones from illnesses like influenza.
The Public Health Agency of Canada estimates that between 2,000 and 8,000 Canadians die every year from influenza and its complications.
British Columbia provides the flu shot for free each year to those considered at higher risk of developing influenza complications, or those who care for them. That list includes:
- People over age 65 and their caregivers.
- Children and adults with chronic health conditions and their household contacts.
- Health-care workers.
- Emergency responders.
- Healthy children aged six months-five years.
- Household contacts and caregivers of children aged zero-five years.
- Pregnant women who will be in their third trimester during the influenza season.
- Residents of nursing homes and other chronic-care facilities.
- Aboriginal peoples.
- People who are very obese (those with a body mass index of 40 or greater)
Even if you are not considered a person of high risk, if you regularly interact with or work around someone who is, I strongly encourage you to get vaccinated for their sake. High-risk populations can suffer severe consequences from influenza, including death. Bacterial pneumonia, an infection of the lungs, is the most common complication from influenza, especially in elderly people. It can also lead to more complications for people who have heart, lung or other health conditions.
For these reasons, it is especially important that health-care workers get their flu shot each year, and I would like to acknowledge and thank those health-care workers who do get vaccinated.
As a physician myself, I know how important it is to protect patients. All of the major professional health care bodies, such as the College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia, support vaccination of health-care workers. Unfortunately, each year throughout B.C., fewer than 50 per cent of health-care workers get immunized against influenza. This rate is too low - patients deserve better. Some jurisdictions in the United States have managed to achieve 95 per cent coverage of health-care workers. There is significant evidence in long-term care facilities that high health-care worker influenza vaccine coverage results in diminished illness and fewer deaths. Getting the flu shot should be considered standard patient safety practice for all health-care workers who come into contact with patients - as important as following effective hand hygiene practices, staying home when ill or wearing a mask in the operating room.
I would like to briefly address the concerns that some people have about the vaccine, as each year far fewer people get vaccinated than we in the public health community would like to see. The flu vaccine is extremely safe. It is not possible to contract the flu from getting a flu shot, because the publicly funded vaccines use only killed - inactive - virus particles. There is also no risk of developing conditions like autism from the flu vaccine (or any vaccine, for that matter). It is far safer to get the vaccine than to get sick - especially if you or someone you love is considered high risk.
Vaccines have been one of the most important medical advances of the modern era and have been responsible for wiping out (or nearly eliminating) once common illnesses, such as smallpox. This year, if you are eligible for a free flu shot, I encourage you to get immunized. If you care for vulnerable people, I especially urge you to get immunized, and if you are a health-care worker providing care to patients, the National Advisory Committee on Immunization considers influenza immunization an essential component of the standard of care. Finally, if you are a parent, ensure that your child's other vaccinations are up-to-date. Vaccines are safe and effective. They reduce illness and save lives.


The pulling power of chaos
Our Science Essay ponders the riddle of the wandering stars. Starting with Poincaré, complex maths i
What is the most efficient way to get a space probe to its target? When Apollo 11 went to the moon in 1969 it followed a conventional Hohmann transfer orbit. Imagine an egg-shaped outline, with the earth at the bottom. As the spacecraft comes up the left-hand side, it burns fuel to accelerate, and swings into orbit around the moon.
This was the quickest route – aside from the impractical one of flying straight out by burning fuel the whole time – and, in a manned mission, speed was of the essence. However, we now know that when efficient use of fuel is the main objective, and time is unimportant, less direct routes can be much better. When Nasa sent the Cassini probe to Saturn, it first went inwards in the solar system, undergoing two close encounters with Venus. Then it swung back past the earth and on to Jupiter before making a sharp turn to meet Saturn.
Trajectories such as this exploit the slingshot effect, in which the spacecraft steals energy from a planet. The tiny spacecraft speeds up considerably, pulled towards the planet by gravity; the massive planet slows down very slightly, but not enough to notice. Yet there is another, subtler effect of orbital dynamics which is also being used to get spacecraft to their targets using as little fuel as possible: chaos.
The technique was first used in 1991. A Japanese space probe, Hiten, had been surveying the moon. Having completed its mission and returned to orbit the earth, it had pretty much run out of fuel. Edward Belbruno, an orbital analyst at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles, came up with an idea that sounded impossible. He wanted to extend its useful life and enhance its scientific value by sending it back to the moon. Then it would visit the moon’s Trojan points – the points in space 60 degrees ahead of and behind the moon in its orbit where gravity and centrifugal forces cancel each other out. There it could search for cosmic dust that might have become trapped.
It sounded crazy, but Belbruno knew a way to do it. Mathematicians and physicists had realised that the motion of bodies under gravity can be chaotic – highly irregular, despite obeying entirely deterministic laws. Chaotic orbits are sensitive to very small disturbances. Normally, this feature is seen as an obstacle to prediction, but Belbruno realised that it could be used to advantage. Very small changes in position or speed, which use very little fuel,
can cause large changes to the trajectory. That makes it easy to redirect the spacecraft in a fuel-efficient, though possibly slow, manner.
One place where chaotic orbits can arise is somewhere called the “L1 Lagrange point” between the earth and the moon, where the net gravitational force is zero (essentially, objects are “suspended” between the two bodies because of the forces generated by each). Belbruno designed a new orbit that took Hiten close to the L1 point, where a short, carefully calculated burst of its rockets would loop it out to where he wanted it to go. He faxed his proposals, unsolicited, to the Japanese team; they loved the idea. When the probe arrived at L1, it found there was no more dust than you’d expect; after a few years orbiting the moon, Hiten was crashed into its surface in 1993. Still, it had ushered in a new era of space travel. A similar trick was used for Nasa’s Genesis mission to bring back samples of the solar wind.
The first Oscar
Our fascination with the planets goes back to prehistoric times, when human eyes watched the star-spangled splendour of the night sky and human minds were awed by the cosmic spectacle. Countless stars moved across the sky, pinpricks of light on a gigantic, rotating velvet-black bowl.
A few of those pinpricks of light, however, did not obey the rules. They went walkabout. The Greeks called them planetes – wanderers; we call them planets. Their paths are complicated and sometimes loop back on themselves. It is not surprising that the ancients attributed their movements to the caprices of supernatural beings.
Ptolemy, a Roman who lived in Egypt around AD120, began the lengthy process of taming the solar system, proposing that we live in an earth-centred universe in which everything revolves around humanity in complex combinations of circles supported by giant crystal spheres. Around 1300, the Persian Islamic philosopher Najm al-Katibi proposed a heliocentric (sun-centred) theory, but changed his mind. The big breakthrough came in 1543 when Nicolaus Copernicus published On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres. He was clearly influenced by al-Katibi, but he went further, setting out an explicitly heliocentric system. Among its implications was the novel thought that human beings were not at the centre of things. To the Christian Church, this suggestion was contrary to doctrine, and explicit heliocentrism was heresy.
The riddle of the wandering stars was finally answered in 1609 by Johannes Kepler, an assistant to the astronomer Tycho Brahe. When his employer died unexpectedly, Kepler took over as court mathematician to Emperor Rudolph II. His main role was casting imperial horoscopes, but he also had time to analyse the orbit of Mars. For years, he tried without success to fit the planet’s orbit to an egg-shaped curve, sharper at one end than the other. In 1605 he decided to try an ellipse, equally rounded at both ends. He discovered that this shape fitted the observations, and declared: “Ah, what a foolish bird I have been!”
In 1609, Kepler published A New Astronomy, stating two basic laws of planetary motion. First law: all planets move in ellipses with the sun as a focus. Second law: a planet moves along its orbit in such a manner that it sweeps out equal areas in equal times. In 1619 he returned to planetary orbits in The Harmony of the World. The book contained many curious ideas – for example, that planets emit musical sounds as they roll round the sun. But it also contained his third law: the squares of the time taken for planets to orbit are proportional to the cubes of their distances from the sun.
This work led to one of the greatest scientific discoveries of all time. In his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy of 1687, Isaac Newton proved that Kepler’s three laws are equivalent to a single universal law of gravitation. Two bodies attract each other with a force that is proportional to their mass and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Newton’s law of gravity had a huge advantage over Kepler’s ellipses: it applies to any system of bodies, however many there might be. The price to be paid is the way the law prescribes the orbits – not as geometric shapes, but as solutions of a mathematical equation. The problem is to solve it.
Newton achieved that for two bodies – a planet plus the sun – and the answer is what Kepler had already discovered: the bodies move around their common centre of gravity in elliptical orbits. But some questions involve more than two bodies. If you want to predict the motion of the moon with high precision, you have to include both the sun and the earth in your equations. So, fresh from Newton’s success with the motion of two bodies under gravity, mathematicians and physicists moved on to three bodies. Their initial optimism rapidly dissipated; the three-body problem turned out to be very different from the two-body problem. In fact, it defied solution.
Only in the late 19th century did its true complexity become apparent, however, when Henri Poincaré tried to win a scientific prize. The 60th birthday of Oscar II, king of Norway and Sweden, happened in 1889. The Norwegian mathematician Gösta Mittag-Leffler persuaded the king to mark the occasion by announcing a prize for calculating the motion of any number of bodies under gravity and finding out whether the solar system is stable.
Poincaré decided to start with the simplest case: two bodies (say the sun and a planet) moving in perfect circles, with the third body being a dust particle of negligible mass. Even that version proved too ambitious and he failed to solve it, but he made so much progress that he was awarded the prize anyway.
In particular, Poincaré proved that sometimes the orbit of the dust particle became extraordinarily messy. He deduced this from some highly original ideas that made it possible to infer features of the solutions without actually solving the equations, saying: “One is struck by the complexity of this figure that I am not even attempting to draw.” We now recognise Poincaré’s discovery as a sign that the dynamics of such a system are chaotic. The equations are not random, but their solutions can be very irregular, sharing features with properly random processes. This idea is colloquially known as chaos theory, and it all goes back to Poincaré and his Oscar award.
Well, that’s the story that historians of mathematics used to tell. Around 1990, however, June Barrow-Green found a copy of Poincaré’s prize-winning memoir in the depths of the Mittag-Leffler Institute in Sweden. She realised that when he submitted his work he had overlooked the chaotic solutions. He spotted the error before the memoir was published, and paid to have the original version destroyed and a corrected version printed. His initial oversight lay undiscovered for a century.
Building on Poincaré’s discovery, we now know that the three-body problem does not have simple solutions. Even so, vast progress has been made on the many-body problem in special cases; for example, when all of the bodies have the same mass. This is seldom a realistic assumption in celestial mechanics, but it is sensible for some models of elementary particles, such as electrons. In 1993, Cristopher Moore at the Sante Fe Institute found a solution to the three-body problem in which the bodies play follow-my-leader along the same orbit. Even more surprising is the shape of the orbit – a figure of eight.
Stranger than imagination
In 2000, the Spanish mathematician Carles Simó used a computer to show that this configuration is stable: it persists after small disturbances. Indeed, it remains stable even when the three masses are slightly different, so, somewhere in the universe, there might be three stars of almost identical mass, chasing each other along a figure-of-eight path.
The same year, Douglas Heggie of Edinburgh University estimated that the number of such triple stars lies somewhere between one per galaxy and one per universe. The figure-of-eight orbit is a planetary dance in which the bodies return to the same positions but swap their identities, each occupying the location that the body in front of it has vacated. This kind of orbit is called a choreography. Using a computer, Simó has found a huge number of choreographies, which can involve a large number of bodies.
The solar system is, was, and will be, far stranger than we imagine. Consider the comet Oterma. A century ago, Oterma’s orbit was well outside that of Jupiter. After a close encounter with the giant planet, its orbit shifted inside that of Jupiter. After another close encounter,
it switched back to outside again. We can confidently predict that Oterma will continue to switch orbits in this way every few decades, not because it breaks Newton’s law, but because it obeys it. Oterma’s gyrations are a far cry from Kepler’s tidy ellipses. The explanation is straight out of science fiction. In Pandora’s Star, Peter Hamilton portrays a future where people travel to planets encircling distant stars by train, running the railway lines through a wormhole, a short cut through space-time.
In his Lensman series, Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith came up with the hyperspatial tube, which malevolent aliens used to invade human worlds from the fourth dimension. Although we don’t have wormholes or aliens from the fourth dimension, the planets and moons of the solar system are tied together by a network of multidimensional mathematical tubes that provide energy-efficient routes from one world to another. If we could visualise the ever-changing gravitational landscape that controls the planets, we would see these tubes, swirling along with the planets as they orbit the sun.
Oterma’s orbit lies inside two tubes, which meet near Jupiter at a Lagrange point. One tube lies inside Jupiter’s orbit, the other outside.
At the Lagrange point the comet can switch tubes, or not, depending on chaotic effects of Jovian and solar gravity; once inside a tube, however, Oterma is stuck there until the tube returns to the junction. Like a train that has to stay on the rails, but can change its route to another set of rails if someone switches the points, Oterma has some freedom to change its itinerary, but not a lot.
As such, the way to plan an efficient mission profile is to work out which tubes are relevant to your choice of destination. Then you route your spacecraft along the inside of the first inbound tube, and when it gets to the associated Lagrange point you fire a quick burst on the motors to redirect it along the most suitable outbound tube. That tube naturally flows into the corresponding inbound tube of the next switching point . . . and so it goes on.
Plans for future tubular space missions are already being drawn up. In 2000, Wang Sang Koon, Martin Lo, Jerrold Marsden and Shane Ross used the tube technique to plot what they described as a “Petit Grand Tour” – an energy-efficient route – around the moons of Jupiter, ending in orbit around Europa. In 2005, Michael Dellnitz, Oliver Junge, Marcus Post and Bianca Thiere used tubes to plan an energy-efficient mission from the earth to Venus.
Their route would use one-third of the fuel required by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express mission, which has observed Venus since 2006.
Past, present, future The influence of tubes may go further. Dellnitz has discovered evidence of a natural system of tubes connecting Jupiter to each of the inner planets. This remarkable structure, known as the Interplanetary Superhighway, hints that Jupiter, long known to be the dominant planet of the solar system, also plays the role of a celestial Grand Central Station. In the past, its tubes may well have organised the formation of the entire solar system, determining the spacings of the inner planets.
So, is the solar system stable? The answer is a definite “maybe”. Two research groups, run by Jack Wisdom of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Jacques Laskar of the Observatoire de Paris, have pioneered highly accurate computational methods to understand the probable future of the solar system. Wisdom’s group has found that Pluto behaves chaotically over timescales of several hundred million years.
In 1999, Norman Murray of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics and Matthew Holman of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory discovered that the orbit of Uranus can also change chaotically, so that it occasionally gets close to Saturn, with the possibility that Uranus would then be ejected from the solar system. However, it will probably take about one quintillion years for this to happen. (The sun will blow up into a red giant much sooner, about five billion years from now. The earth will move outwards and might just escape being engulfed, even though tidal interactions will probably pull it into the sun. In any case, our planet’s oceans will boil away long before that. And, anyway, the typical lifetime of a species is no more than five million years.)
It’s not just the future that is chaotic; the same methods can be used to investigate the solar system’s past. In 1993, Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona realised that the early solar system must have been far more dynamic than had been assumed. As the planets were condensing from the primal gas cloud surrounding the sun, there came a time when Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were nearly complete. Among them circulated huge numbers of rocky and icy “planetesimals”, small bodies about ten kilometres across. Many of these were ejected into the wider solar system, reducing the energy of the four giant planets. Neptune migrated outwards. So did Uranus and Saturn. Jupiter, the big loser in the energy stakes, moved inwards.
So, our solar system’s apparently stable plan arose through an intricate dance of the giants, in which they threw the smallest bodies at each other in a riot of chaos.
Is the solar system stable? Probably not, but don’t worry: we won’t be around to find out.
Ian Stewart is emeritus professor of mathematics at the University of Warwick. His latest book is “17 Equations That Changed the World” (Profile, £15.99)
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• Incubation: 18-20 days
• Clutch Size: 4 eggs
• Young Fledge: 16-21 days after hatching
• Typical Foods: insects, aquatic invertebrates and seeds
Female red phalaropes are stunning -- they are a rich chestnut color with a dark crown and white face. However, virtually all Ohio birds are in drab non-breeding plumage.
Habitat and Habits
This species prefers the open waters of Lake Erie. It is most typically found along stone jetties and breakwalls in sheltered harbors. The flight call is similar to that of the red-necked phalarope, but generally higher pitched.
Reproduction and Care of the Young
Breeding takes place in Alaska and northern Canada. Nests are hollows in the ground of marshy tundra. The male raises the young.


In the early 1990s, researchers, including Itzhaki, found evidence suggesting that as we age, the herpes virus begins moving from its hideout near the bottom of the skull directly into the brain (possibly because our immune systems lose some bite). Indeed, one Journal of Pathology study found the virus in a high proportion of postmortem brain samples taken from people who'd died in their later decades, while it was absent in those from people who'd died in youth or middle age.
What effect does the virus have when it reaches your brain? The short answer: That depends. In certain people it seems to do much less damage than in others; just as some of us never develop cold sores, some of us can have the herpes virus inside our brains without any horribly ill effects. But Itzhaki believes that in other people—specifically those who carry APOE e4, a gene form, or allele, strongly linked to Alzheimer's—the virus is not only reactivated by triggers like stress or a weakened immune system, but also actually begins to create the proteins that form the plaques and tangles presumed to be responsible for Alzheimer's.
If you're looking for evidence, Itzhaki can show you a stack of it. In two studies, for example, she and several colleagues took brain samples from 109 deceased people—61 of whom had had Alzheimer's, 48 of whom hadn't—to search for any correlation between herpes, APOE e4, and Alzheimer's.
Their results: People who had both the APOE e4 gene and the herpes virus in their brains were 15 times more likely to have Alzheimer's than people who had neither. (The researchers also found, intriguingly, that people who suffered from recurrent cold sores were almost six times as likely to have the APOE e4 gene as those who didn't get cold sores.)
A decade later, Dr. Federoff, then working at the University of Rochester, administered the herpes virus to four different groups of mice, each of which had a different variation or absence of the APOE gene. He found that in mice with the specific APOE e4 variation, the virus was slower to become dormant than it was in mice with APOE e2, APOE e3, or no APOE gene, suggesting that the virus could be replicating faster in the e4 mice. "The results definitely suggest there's something different about having APOE e4," says Dr. Federoff.
Still other research shows the direct impact of HSV-1 itself. In 2007, a study by Itzhaki and Wozniak found that infecting lab samples of brain cells with the virus caused a buildup of the protein (beta amyloid) that's the primary component of the plaque clogging the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The same study also found a similar result in the brains of mice that had been infected with HSV-1.
Then there was January's study in the Journal of Pathology. In it, Itzhaki and Wozniak looked at brain samples from 11 deceased people; six had had Alzheimer's and five hadn't. While both groups had plaques (not surprisingly, the Alzheimer's group had far more) and evidence of the herpes virus in their brains, there was a crucial difference in the concentration of the virus: In the Alzheimer's patients, 72 percent of the virus's DNA was found in the plaques, compared with only 24 percent that was found in the plaques of the non-Alzheimer's brains. Not surprisingly, all but one of the Alzheimer's sufferers also carried the APOE e4 gene, compared with none of the samples from the non-Alzheimer's people.
Wozniak is confident that these last two studies point to the same conclusion: "The results strongly suggest that HSV-1 is a major cause of amyloid plaques—and probably of Alzheimer's disease."
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Giant squids, once believed to be mythical creatures, are squid of the Architeuthidae family, represented by as many as eight species of the genus Architeuthis.
They are deep-ocean dwelling squid that can grow to a tremendous size: recent estimates put the maximum size at 10 m (34 ft) for males and 13 m (44 ft) for females from caudal fin to the tip of the two long tentacles (second only to the Colossal Squid at an estimated 14 m, one of the largest living organisms).
For more information about the topic Giant squid, read the full article at Wikipedia.org, or see the following related articles:
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Scientists know that many chemicals including PAHs can cross the placenta, but they don’t understand how they may interfere with a fetus’ developing brain.
In the sensitive process of brain development, Bellinger said, there are a lot of things that can go wrong.
“Things are changing very rapidly and they're supposed to happen in a particular way, in a particular sequence,” he said. “It's almost like a choreography of events that go into building a brain.” This choreography is made up of hundreds of “performers,” each taking instructions from chemical signals. Pollutants introduce noise to this process, like static over a radio station.
Also, PAHs may affect the fetus’ DNA directly. When a mother breathes in PAHs, those chemicals are changed into byproducts in the bloodstream that can cross the placental boundary and bind directly to a fetus’ DNA, explained Susan Edwards, a graduate student at the Imperial College in London, and the lead author on the Poland study.
The four-point drop in IQs linked to the air pollutants in New York City and Krakow is fairly subtle; parents and teachers wouldn’t notice it because most children would fall within normal ranges.
Nevertheless, “is a three or point IQ-point decrement important? You bet,” said Lanphear, whose research has focused on lead exposure and children’s neurodevelopment.
He said one recent analysis found that for every dollar invested in reducing lead exposure, society would realize a $17 to $220 benefit. “The bulk of the benefit was from increased lifetime earnings by enhancing children's intellectual abilities,” he said.
“At some point, we will cease blaming parents and teachers for children's failure to learn or thrive in academics and focus our attention on reducing their exposure to widespread neurotoxicants,” Lanphear said.
The good news, Perera said, is that levels of PAHs are declining in New York City. Using data from the women’s backpacks, researchers reported that airborne levels dropped by more than 50 percent between 1998 and 2006.
Bellinger said while steps should be taken to reduce children’s exposure to pollutants, other factors remain more important for their cognitive development.
“An important point is that while these exposures are associated with health outcomes, they aren't the major determinants. How parents interact with their children, and the kinds of stimulation they provide, explains a lot more,” he said.
Living in New York City’s Washington Heights, Baldwin, 30, now has five children between the ages of 10 and two. She wore the air-monitoring backpack in 1999 when she was in the third trimester of her pregnancy with her oldest child, Patience.
Like the other children in the group, Patience has been monitored by the team of scientists since she was born. When Baldwin gave birth, a Columbia University researcher was at the hospital to collect the newborn’s cord blood for testing. Her daughter had her first IQ test as part of the study when she was two and has undergone an array of other tests since then, including a recent CT scan of her brain.
There is no evidence that the PAHs affected her daughter’s IQ. Baldwin said the girl has thrived in school and has no learning problems, although she has moderate asthma. She does not know whether her exposure to PAHs during the pregnancy was classified as high or low.
Baldwin said her role in the study has made her “hyper aware” of the risks of pollutants and pesticides. One of her sons was diagnosed with lead poisoning when he was a toddler; he apparently was exposed from peeling paint.
But she tries not to think about what effects her various exposures during her pregnancies might have had on her children. “I don’t like to dwell on something I cannot change,” Baldwin said.


This is the most populous area of Nicaragua. It is home to beautiful lakes and some of the world's only freshwater sharks.
With sandy beaches fronted by a long row of young cone-shaped volcanoes (some of which are active), Nicaragua features beach and resort communities. This area also features an array of colonial architecture and artifacts. The temperatures in the region remain fairly constant throughout the year with November to April being the dry season and May to October representing the rainy season.
The North-Central Highlands, or Amerrique Mountains, is less populated than the Pacific Lowlands and features a rugged terrain of forested mountains with deep valleys. This region gradually slopes to the Caribbean Lowlands. The North-Central Highlands boasts an abundance of wildlife as well as mild temperatures that are cooler than the Pacific Lowlands. This area experiences a longer and wetter rainy season.
The Caribbean Lowlands are a large rainforest region with several large rivers. It is an area that is sparsely populated. It features a predominately tropical climate with high temperatures and high humidity.
Nicaraguan is multiethnic with a great diversity of art, cuisine and music. Nicaraguan culture on the Pacific side evidences a largely European influence, while on the Caribbean Coast there exists a very clear and lasting British influence. On the Pacific side, the cuisine and main staples revolve around fruits and corn, while on the Caribbean coastal region, cuisine and main staples revolve around seafood and the coconut. The most common dish is the gallo pinto, a blend of rice and beans.
There is a tremendous range of attractions in Nicaragua including the capital city of Managua, which features Spanish colonial architecture. One can also visit the Masaya Volcano National Park, Xilo Crater Lake, churches of Leon, ruins of Leon Viego, a conquistador buriel site, and Granada, a favourite of tourist destinations. Nicaragua provides the opportunity for Escondido River boat tours, rainforest eco-tours, fabulous diving among the coral reefs of the Corn Islands, and sightseeing at Bluefields, a coastal town that is the center for reggae music. The opportunities for adventure, discovery, and rejuvenation are endless.


Using Taskset for Priority Tasks
Unless you're using a really old machine or cheap netbook, almost any system you touch with Linux these days is going to be a multiprocessor system. Any server machine deployed within the past five years should have at least two CPUs, and most desktops released in the past three years have at least two cores. For a number of reasons, you might want to "pin" some tasks so they run exclusively on a single CPU or set of CPUs.A tisket, a tasket, be sure to use the open source server tool taskset for priority tasks.
Whether you want to ensure resources for a process, ensure that a process doesn't hog all system resources or improve a process that doesn't scale well to multiple CPUs, you can use
taskset to assign a task to specific CPUs. It's pretty simple.
taskset, you "bond" a process to a CPU. Let's say you want to run Google Chrome on one CPU. You'd run something like this:
taskset 0x00000001 google-chrome
Now Chrome will be limited to CPU 0 (0x00000001 is the "mask" for CPU 0). If you wanted to assign it to two CPUs, you would use
taskset 0x00000003 instead. Or you could use the
-c option and specify the CPUs by numerical ranges. See the taskset man page for more on that.
To see what processors a task is assigned to, try running
taskset -p XXXX, where XXXX is the process ID (PID). If you're on a two-core system, for example, and haven't set the affinity, it will return 3. If you've assigned it to both cores/CPUs, then it will return 3. I don't make the syntax, I just write about it ...
Is this going to speed up your system or be worth doing with all tasks? Nope. It is, however, something you can try to experiment with when you're having performance problems or having issues with a process/application causing problems with the rest of the system. I'd recommend testing it out on your desktop or test systems before attempting it in a production environment -- but with the right combination, you might be able to solve some system problems in short order.
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier is a freelance writer and editor with more than 10 years covering IT. Formerly the openSUSE Community Manager for Novell, Brockmeier has written for Linux Magazine, Sys Admin, Linux Pro Magazine, IBM developerWorks, Linux.com, CIO.com, Linux Weekly News, ZDNet, and many other publications. You can reach Zonker at email@example.com and follow him on Twitter.


1 in 4 in U.S. Starts Drinking Before Turning 21: Report
MONDAY, Nov. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Underage drinking in the United States remains a serious public health issue, a new federal government report shows.
The analysis of data gathered between 2008 and 2010 from the U.S. National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that more than 26 percent of 12- to 20-year-olds reported drinking in the month before they were surveyed, and nearly 9 percent said they bought their own alcohol the last time they drank.
The purchase and consumption of alcohol by anyone under age 21 is prohibited in the United States.
There has been progress in reducing the amount of underage drinking in recent years, particularly among those under 18 years of age. However, rates of underage drinking are still unacceptably high, according to the report released Nov. 20 by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
"Underage drinking should not be a normal part of growing up. It's a serious and persistent public health problem that puts our young people and our communities in danger," SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde said in an agency news release.
"Even though drinking is often glamorized, the truth is that underage drinking can lead to poor academic performance, sexual assault, injury and even death," she noted.
Rates of underage drinking were highest in Vermont (37 percent) and lowest in Utah (14.3 percent). Five other states in the Northeast were among the 10 states with the highest rates of underage drinking: Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York and Rhode Island.
New York also had one of the highest rates of underage youth illegally buying alcohol (15 percent). States with the lowest rates of underage youth buying alcohol included New Mexico (2.5 percent), Idaho (2.6 percent) and Oregon (2.6 percent).
Southern states had some of the lowest rates of underage drinking (Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and West Virginia) and some of the highest rates of underage youth illegally purchasing alcohol (Alabama, Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and North Carolina), the investigators found.
The U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has more about underage drinking.
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