- Our work
Conservation International (CI) is a US-based international conservation organisation that applies innovations in science, economics, policy and community participation to protect the Earth?s richest regions of plant and animal diversity in the biodiversity hotspots, high-biodiversity wilderness areas as well as important marine regions around the globe. CI?s vision is that we imagine a healthy prosperous world in which societies are forever committed to caring for and valuing nature for the long-term benefit of people and all life on Earth. Building upon a strong foundation of science, partnership and field demonstration, CI empowers societies to responsibly and sustainably care for nature for the well-being of humanity.
CI is committed to helping societies adopt a more sustainable approach to development ? one that considers and values nature at every turn. Some of the lead programmes with activities underway supporting human well-being and poverty reduction research, implementation, and policy analysis include:
- The Science and Knowledge Division (formerly the Center for Applied Biodiversity Science) brings together leading experts in science and technology to collect and interpret data about biodiversity, develop strategic plans for conservation, and forge partnerships in all sectors that promote conservation goals.
- The Center for Conservation and Government (CCG) assists CI?s government partners in overcoming challenges in balancing conservation with their respective development goals, economic interests, and political realities, helping leaders understand and act on the important issues facing our planet?s ecological health. (www.conservation.org/discover/centers_programs/policy/Pages/default.aspx)
- The Center for Environmental Leadership in Business (CELB) engages the private sector worldwide in creating solutions to critical global environmental problems in which industry plays a defining role (www.celb.org).
- The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) is a joint programme of l'Agence Française de Développement, Conservation International, the Global Environment Facility, the Government of Japan, the MacArthur Foundation and the World Bank. The fund is a global leader in enabling civil society to participate in and benefit from conserving some of the world's most critical ecosystems. A significant number of CEPF grants have provided the basis for improving incomes and economic well-being of poor communities (www.cepf.net).
- The Conservation Stewards Program (CSP) uses Conservation Agreements to achieve poverty reduction and improve human wellbeing while pursuing measurable conservation outcomes. Conservation Agreements are negotiated arrangements with communities in which development support is provided in exchange for contributions to conservation actions, thus reflecting a direct-incentive approach (www.conservation.org/csp).
- The Food Security Initiative is built upon the organisation?s extensive experience in promoting sustainable rural livelihoods all over the world and leading cutting edge applied research in the field. CI seeks to understand, demonstrate, enhance and leverage the role of nature in helping ensure that people have access to adequate food for a nutritious diet at all times.
- The Indigenous & Traditional Peoples Program is a key component of CI?s new strategy, well-positioned to help achieve CI?s vision for a healthy world and societies committed to caring for nature.
- Verde Ventures provides debt and equity financing to businesses that benefit healthy ecosystems and human well-being, such as agroforestry, ecotourism, sustainable harvest of wild products and marine initiatives. (www.conservation.org/sites/verdeventures/Pages/partnerlanding).
- The Population, Health and Environment programme seeks to reduce human impact and pressure on the limited natural resources in rural, biologically rich important areas and improve local conservation activities. As part of CI?s emerging institutional health security initiative, CI partners with the University of Rhode Island?s Coastal Resources Center and PATH Foundation Philippines, Inc. on the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported BALANCED Project (http://Balanced.crc.uri.edu). The Project seeks to improve the well-being of people living in critical watershed and coastal areas who depend on the ecosystem for food, income, livelihoods, and other goods and services.
CI?s scientists, field staff and policy experts are: measuring the contribution of healthy ecosystems to human well-being; assessing the implications of development decisions; putting cutting-edge, rigorously tested information in the hands of decision-makers and the public; and demonstrating through field models how economic opportunity and the stewardship of natural resources can leverage change at an international scale.
CI carries out projects aimed at linking poverty reduction and biodiversity conservation in each of the geographic areas listed below (www.conservation.org/explore/Pages/in_the_field.aspx).
CI has had a long running involvement in great ape conservation and poverty reduction projects in Africa:
? in Liberia, a western chimpanzee range state, they run the ?Green Economy? project to promote low-carbon development. This includes a field project at East Nimba Nature Reserve to demonstrate the value of ecosystem services for local people;
? in DRC CI works on training in conservation biology and supporting the Tayna Gorilla Reserve, a community-run conservation area for eastern lowland gorillas that benefits locals through ?healthcare, education and economic development programmes.? Tayna has been successful, with a radical decline in hunting and mining, and there is now a network of seven new community reserves in the area (UGADEC).


In January 2013 local, state and federal officials announced an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium linked to consumption of ground beef produced by Jouni Meats, Inc. and Gab Halal Foods. Public health investigators used DNA “fingerprints” of Salmonella bacteria obtained through diagnostic testing with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) to identify patients considered to be part of the outbreak. Collaborative investigative efforts indicated that ground beef produced by Jouni Meats, Inc. and Gab Halal Foods were the likely source of the outbreak.
A total of 22 persons infected with the outbreak strain were reported from six states: Arizona, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Among persons for whom information was available, illness onset dates ranged from December 9, 2012 to February 20, 2013. Ill persons ranged in age from 2 years to 87 years. Among 14 persons with available information, 7 ill persons were hospitalized. No deaths were reported.
Initial investigations focused on 7 ill persons in Michigan (6) and Arizona (1) who reported eating at the same restaurant before their illness began. All seven of these ill persons reported eating raw ground beef kibbeh (a dish typically made of finely ground red meat, usually beef, minced onions, and bulghur wheat) at this restaurant before becoming ill. An additional 9 ill persons were interviewed and answered questions about foods consumed and other exposures during the week before becoming ill. Although several of these ill persons reported eating beef prior to becoming ill, a likely source was not identified that linked these illnesses with the illnesses at the restaurant.
On January 24, 2013 Jouni Meats, Inc. recalled approximately 500 pounds of ground beef products. In the FSIS recall news release announcing this recall, FSIS stated that the investigation identified that raw ground beef was consumed at a restaurant. The products subject to recall are various size packages of ground beef. These products were produced between December 4, 2012 and December 9, 2012, and distributed to a restaurant in Macomb County, Michigan, and sold directly to consumers at Jouni Meats, Inc. On January 25, 2013 Gab Halal Foods recalled approximately 550 pounds of ground beef products. The products subject to recall are various size packages of ground beef wrapped in clear plastic. These products were produced between Dec. 4, 2012, and Dec. 10, 2012, and distributed to a restaurant in Macomb County, Michigan, and sold directly to consumers at Gab Halal Foods.
The causal link between our clients’ Salmonella Typhimurium infection and ground beef produced by Jouni Meats, Inc. is clear. On December 8, 2012 they ate kibbeh prepared at Ikes Restaurant in Sterling Heights, Michigan. They shared this meal with other family members, who were also diagnosed with Salmonella Typhimurium.
On March 15, 2013 the CDC issued a final notice declaring the outbreak to be over. Yet, no one has yet to trace the Salmonella Typhimurium to its source.


Technological innovations are evolving; however, fraudulent activities are equally coping with them. With fraudsters on the rise, ‘Phishing’ is the most common type of scam people have recently faced.
What is ‘Phishing’?
‘Phishing’ is a scam where an attacker impersonates to be from a reputable identity or source through emails, phone calls, texts, or other communication modes.
Through phishing, the ‘phishermen’ used to exploit personal information by creating a robust human interaction, fooling people with a web of tricks and making them fall prey to fraudulent activities.
How do phishermen act?
The person performing fraudulent activities uses people’s sympathies or convincing tricks and gets the required information. To connect with people, scammers mostly opt for malicious websites or emails as baits to deceive people into extracting their information or use malicious software to capture sensitive data from the person or an organization. Here are some of the most prominent information caught from people:
Personal questions and answers
Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
Bank or credit card details
Customer names, emails, passwords, addresses, phone numbers, etc.
Why do companies need to evade phishing?
Financial loss: The fraudsters usually target the financial accounts using ransomware attacks leading to money plundering from businesses.
Data leaks/breaches: Data breaches cost heavily on a business, as they lose important data, leading to regulatory fines, damaged equipment, etc.
Spoiling brand reputation: When a company has been exposed to cyber attacks, it will lose its brand identity with the incapability of maintaining a loyal customer base and garner a negative impact on attracting new customers.
How to safeguard your business against phishing?
Protecting your businesses against cyber criminal attacks is the need of the hour. Ensuring proper software authentications and educating workers about security threats could positively impact your business. In addition, look at some of the best practices that do not allow you to be victimized.
Beware of unwanted links: One of the crucial factors is to start teaching employees about recognizing scams through form fill-up through phones, fake websites and emails. Also, check on links or URLs before clicking on them, as they may be fraudulent even if they look authentic.
Cautious of direct contact: Scammers use direct social interactions as one of their weapons for phishing. They contact the people directly and ask for some information or OTPs by provoking the person’s desires, getting the credentials/bank statements, and exploiting them efficiently. So, it’s essential to be aware of the interactions and not share sensitive information.
Maintain good password practices: Follow specific regulations in changing passwords. For example, never use more accessible passwords, i.e., ABCD123, names, date of birth, etc. Also, should avoid replication of passwords for multiple accounts and follow the procedure of changing the passwords frequently.
Entertain secondary authentication: Second-step verification/authentication through SMS, emails, authentication apps, or hardware tokens will help prevent scams.
With dedicated managed services in play, you can easily avoid phishing threats inside your business. Also, you can rely on third-party vendors to protect your digital resources as they can provide a higher up-time and 24/7 support, reducing your workload considerably.
For more details about managed services or vendor partnering, please visit


The presence of just a few autonomous vehicles can eliminate the stop-and-go driving of the human drivers in traffic, along with the accident risk and fuel inefficiency it causes, according to new research. The finding indicates that self-driving cars and related technology may be even closer to revolutionizing traffic control than previously thought. “Our experiments show that with as few as 5 percent of vehicles being automated and carefully controlled, we can eliminate stop-and-go waves caused by human driving behavior,” said Daniel B. Work, assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a lead researcher in the study. The use of autonomous vehicles to regulate traffic flow is the next innovation in the rapidly evolving science of traffic monitoring and control, Work said. Just as fixed traffic sensors have been replaced by crowd-sourced GPS data in many navigation systems, the use of self-driving cars is poised to replace classical freeway traffic control concepts like variable speed limits.
From University of Illinois, Chicago Photo Credit John Vlahakis


A fusible link is a mechanical or electrical safety device. They are used in fire sprinkler heads to activate the sprinkler in the presence of heat. They are used in automobile electrical systems as a fuse.
A mechanical fusible link is a device consisting of two strips of metal soldered together with a fusible alloy that is designed to melt at a specific temperature, thus allowing the two pieces to separate. Mechanical fusible links are utilized as the triggering device in fire sprinkler systems and mechanical automatic door release mechanisms that close fire doors in warehouses, etc. Fire dampers in ventilation systems have fusible links so that the dampers close automatically in case of fire,limiting the spread of flame or hot gases through a building.  Some high-security safes also utilize fusible link-based relockers as a defense against torches and heat-producing tools. Mechanical fusible links come in a variety of designs and different temperature ratings.
An electrical fusible link is a type of electrical fuse that is constructed simply with a short piece of wire typically four American wire gauge (AWG) sizes smaller than the wire that is being protected. For example, an AWG 16 fusible link might be used to protect AWG 12 wiring. Electrical fusible links are common in high-current automotive applications. The wire in an electrical fusible link is encased in high-temperature fire-resistant insulation to reduce hazards when the wire melts.


Sure you heard those acronyms very often… but do you know what they really mean?
Every DBMS (Database Management System), such as Oracle, Sybase, DB2 and of course SQL Server, have their own command language. This language is the interface that allows you to take actions over a database.
These languages are command based. These commands are divided into the following groups and their syntax and functionality may vary from DBMS to DBMS. These acronyms refer to command groups or category.
SQL (Structure Query Language)
This is the globally accepted name when you refer to a language used as an interface for a DBMS. All commands groups are categorized under SQL. Each command is also known as a “SQL statement”.
DDL (Data Definition Language)
Used to create or remove objects and modify their structure in a database.
Commands: CREATE, DROP, ALTER
DML (Data Manipulation Language)
Used to manipulate data in a database. With them, you can retrieve, insert, update and delete records in a specific table.
Commands: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE
DCL (Data Control Language)
Used to administer security permissions on database objects.
Commands: GRANT, REVOKE
TCL (Transactional Control Language)
Used to manage transactions in a database.
Commands: TRANSACTION, COMMIT, ROLLBACK


This is the fourth in a series of blog posts about how we can learn about software architecture by studying and comparing it to the sport of Baseball. This series was inspired by the book Management by Baseball.
Coaches in baseball are unique in a couple of ways compared to the coaches in other sports. One of the most obvious differences is that in baseball, the coaches actually wear the team uniform. I personally cannot think of another sport where this is the case. In some other sports the coaches actually have to comply with a dress code that is vastly different than the players (I think it is the NBA that requires the coaches to wear coat and tie when they are at court side). Not only do the coaches in baseball wear the team uniform, but they are assigned a number just like the players on the field. The coach is really a part of the team.
Another key difference between coaches in baseball and coaches in other sports is that two of the coaches in baseball are actually allowed on the field of play during the game. On the first base and third base lines there are two coach’s boxes where the team can choose to have a coach positioned during the game.
There is a distinction between this and other sports that allow coaches on the sidelines (such as soccer, football and basketball). When a coach is on the sidelines in those sports, they are totally out of the field of play. A ball that leaves the field of play is dead. In baseball the foul territory where the coaches stand is still in play, so a player can catch a foul ball in the coaches box and the batter will be out. A ball can be overthrown during a play and hit a coach, interfering with the play; there are even special rules that govern when this happens – which is not very often, because the coaches are usually pretty good about getting out of the way.
The coaches in baseball are literally feet away from the action and are able to interact with the players in a deep and meaningful way. When a player reaches first base or third base safely the coach can give him encouragement and intelligence about how the pitcher is delivering the ball to the plate. This can help the player decide if this is a good time to attempt to steal a base or take only a short lead off of the bag (to avoid a pickoff move).
The third base coach is an integral part of the action when there is a man on base and there is a ball hit deep into the gap or down the lines in the outfield. As the runner on the base is rounding third a split second decision has to be made to send the runner to home or to have him hold up on third base. The player is in the worst position to make this decision, as his back is to the outfield. The third base coach is the one who makes the decision to send the runner or not. If you have ever been to a game in person, nothing is more dramatic that seeing the third base coach swing his arm wildly, followed by a close play at the plate.
So what can we as software architects learn from the coaches in baseball?
Wear the Uniform – Often times I see people make too much of a distinction between the architect and the developers who are working on a software development project. This can manifest itself in a lot of ways, and many of them are bad. The role of the architect is different than the role of the developer, but they should be seen as one cohesive team. This statement applies equally well to the designers, testers, DBAs, server tech and project managers on the team as well.
Be a part of the action – Architects are sometimes referred to as Ivory Tower dwellers. Sometimes this is meant as a joke, sometimes is a half-joke and other times it is just downright true. As an architect we should strive to be as close to the field of play as possible. The perception when you are away from the field of play is very skewed. Get out of the Ivory Tower (maybe press box is a better analogy) and get into the coach’s box.
Be a coach – One of the things that I did not note in particular when talking about the coaches is that most of them are former professional ball players themselves (I don’t think that is unique to baseball coaches). They bring with them years of experience that they can impart to the players them are coaching. Most of us who carry architect in our title were at one time developers ourselves and as a result, we carry with us many years of experience. In addition to architecting the application, we can make the team more successful by sharing our knowledge with the team.


Tag Archive: collections
Comments Off on Harnessing the Power of Natural Science Collections
The UK’s museums and botanical gardens hold exceptional and diverse natural science collections ranging from insects to dinosaurs. The estimated size of this national collection is over 150 million objects.
These collections can be used to study millions of years of change to the earth and centuries of biodiversity, supporting research across a broad range of topics from human health and food security to ecology and conservation. Currently, most of this work is undertaken in person, requiring researchers to travel or for specimens to be shipped all over the world.
Digitisation is the process of converting physical information into a digital form. It has the potential to open up collections data to unlimited numbers of scientists, researchers and artists across the world, creating a sustainable, freely accessible resource. The digitisation process can be complex and will differ depending on the type of collections and the level of information that is available. Some UK organisations have already started to digitise collections, however the total scope of the task is enormous and requires significant investment.
A new programme, Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo UK), funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, will begin to address the challenges of digitising UK collections. The first step is to understand the scale and nature of the collections of the UK digitisation community. The programme is already reaching out to collection holders to assess the type of collections, as specific methods are required to digitise different specimens.
Gallery Oldham’s natural history curator, Patricia, along with other natural history curators from Orkney in the north of the UK to Portsmouth in the south have taken part in the survey and recently have been submitting photographs for an on-line event next month. The event is for all UK natural history collection holders to be present to hear the outcomes of the scoping surveys completed last winter and discuss the next steps in the plans for a national digitisation programme. The images will be used in a short promotional film for the DiSSCo UK initiative, to promote this national digitisation programme.
Here are the images submitted by Gallery Oldham showing the diverse range of our collections:
Click here (opens in new tab) to take a look at natural science collection images submitted by other museums around the UK.


CreativInn aims at promoting artists from around the world as well as creative projects that could make the world better. Today, I want to talk about Boyan Slat, who, since he was a teen, has wanted to make the planet blue again.
HOW OCEAN CLEANUP IS BORN
We often associate teens with getting out of bed at 11 am, hanging out late at night and pure laziness. However, in 2011, 16-year-old Boyan Slat proved that even teens can change the world, as he devoted his life to saving the sea. In summer 2011 while diving in Greece, Boyan Slat was dismayed when he found more plastic bags than fish.
Two years later, he created The Ocean Cleanup as a tool to clean up the ocean. Although this project may seem incredibly daunting, Boyan Slat is confident that in 2018, with the help of the revolutionary technology he designed, we may have finally made a dent in getting rid of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex of primarily plastic waste in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean.
Indeed, some of the improvements from the 2015 model include but are not limited to: a floating net to gradually push the plastic material to the seashore and use of sea-currents to improve its efficiency and limit the pressure endured by the machine. Once ashore, the plastic waste will be reprocessed into sellable items to finance the project. According to Boyan Slat, the aim of this new micro-circular economy is to make the enterprise more cost-effective.
Using these creative innovations, the depth and seabed may be relatively ignored, allowing for a better set of targetable fields. Moreover, the firmness of the net – or its lack thereof – drastically improves the adaptability of the project as the path of the net will change according to the sea currents. In fact, Boyan’s genius resides in transforming the adversity of the unpredictable currents of the sea into an asset of adaptability.
PROBLEMS OF PLASTIC IN OUR WATER ENVIRONMENT
Humans now are producing nearly 300 million tons of plastic materials annually, 50% from single consumption. Eight million of those 300 million are emptied into our ocean waters yearly. Plastic materials are affordable and extremely versatile, which has made it perfect for the new “disposable” way of life of the 20th and 21st centuries.
Unfortunately, the consequences for this modern way of living are severe; around 50% of plastic materials are only used once before being discarded, likely into the sea.
As the plastic waste floats under the sun, it becomes brittle and breaks into tiny, dust-sized pieces. Once in the ocean, a fraction of this “dust” is deposited on the seashores, thus polluting them. The rest is carried off to one of five ocean gyres. A gyre is a rotational dead zone in the ocean. The trapped particles poison the water and destroy its fragile ecosystem. Furthermore, the chemical substances cause the ocean temperature to increase. It is estimated that these particles cover an area twice the size of Texas, weighing more than three million tons, mainly plastic material.
In this gargantuan area, all sea life is at risk. Choking on waste, mistaking plastic material for food and getting trapped in plastic bags are some of the problems dolphins, turtles, fishes, birds and many other sea animals must face. When they ingest vibrantly colored plastic waste, it either fills their stomachs or becomes entangled in their gills. When turtles and Cetacea inhale the dust-sized particles, they inevitably choke to death.
CLEANING UP OUR OCEANS, BOYAN SLAT’S CREATIVE SOLUTION
The goal of The Ocean Cleanup project is to extract plastic pollution from the oceans while preventing more waste from getting into ocean waters.
He used a high-school biology essay to explore the plastic material pollution issue and to address the belief that “oceans can’t be cleaned up.” This ultimately guided him to the concept of using the natural ocean currents to allow the oceans to clear themselves.
He first introduced the idea in 2012 in a TEDx Talk, which quickly went viral, and was watched millions of times. An interested public funded him while researchers, experts, and engineers stepped up to assist him in his herculean quest. In 2013, The Ocean Cleanup project was ready to take on world pollution.
As of July 2017, it has received over $31.5 million from many different sponsors, including Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff, philanthropist Peter Thiel, Julius Baer Foundation and Royal DSM. The Ocean Cleanup also collected more than 2 million USD from a crowdfunding campaign in 2014. The foundation’s head office is located at Delft in the Netherlands.
The elimination of plastic material particles is still in its formative years. Some attempts, such as Project Kaisei, have used ships with nets to capture the plastic waste for testing. The Ocean Cleanup proposes a larger-scale procedure for removing debris in or close to the gyres. This will be accomplished by using 1–2 kilometers long (0 .62–1 .24 mi ) moving floating devices, secured by an anchor at an estimated depth of 600 meters (0 .37 mi ). A strong screen underneath the floating pipe will capture and concentrate the particles. These U-shaped devices are designed to easily navigate in the North Pacific waters and transport the plastic material in a central stocking position where it can be removed and transferred to the seashore by support vessels. The initial method is set to be implemented by mid-2018 and The Ocean Cleanup estimates to have the ability to clean up 50% of the particles in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years’ time, as of full-scale deployment in 2020.
SOME DIFFICULTIES BOYAN SLAT HAS TO SOLVE
Nonetheless, it seems that The Ocean Cleanup is facing numerous obstacles.
Regardless of the massive public interest in the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They doubt whether the design will work as intended and how the nets will withstand the amazing power of the open ocean. The impact of the nets on marine life is also a troubling issue. Is fighting nets with nets really the right approach? Shouldn’t we focus more on pollution avoidance or endangered species protection? Many experts remain skeptical.
Additionally, the giant sea anchor doesn’t seem to really fit the project. The Ocean Cleanup is passive. It utilizes the ocean currents to capture and concentrate the plastic material. By suspending a large sea anchor in an intense, gradually moving water layer, the process may slow down enough to ensure that the plastic material moves quicker than the cleanup process. This would surely prove to be catastrophic as the captured plastic material would build up against the cleanup process.
Then remains the size problem. Even if Slat’s plan works and the plastic material is funneled into a center point, how will the waste be evacuated? Cleaning the Great Pacific Garbage Patch using traditional techniques like vessels and nets would take ages and cost billions.
THE CREATIVE MIND OF BOYAN SLAT
However, let’s not forget the creative mind of Boyan Slat, the mastermind behind this project. By developing incredible new designs and improving others, this innovative genius estimates that half of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch will be gone within 5 years, at minimal costs. This astounding efficiency can be attributed to these key technologies:
- By using high-density polyethylene (HDPE), an extremely durable recyclable material, the floaters’ durability has been greatly improved.
- Nets have also been replaced by a solid screen to capture the sub-surface particles while assuring the safe passing of sea life with the current. Fiber-reinforced thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), will make for a strong and long-lasting screen.
- By attaching ballast to the anchor, The Ocean Cleanup team can counteract the difference in speed between the water at the bottom of the screen and the screen itself. They may change the depth of the anchor as they wish to better the cleanup rate.
- The support vessels have also been equipped with state-of-the-art pumps and belts to guarantee the fastest possible cleaning of the Vortex.
- Finally, research has shown that this plastic can (and will) be converted into high quality, sellable products. The Ocean Cleanup project will thus be self-sustainable.
THE FUTURE OF OCEAN CLEANUP
In 2018, after much-needed refinements of the screen design, supervised by executing a series of assessments in the North Pacific, The Ocean Cleanup project will finally start the cleanup of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
The project will start with one system in mid-2018 and progressively make use of additional systems until it achieves full-scale deployment by 2020. Each system is projected to get rid of 3 tons of plastic material per week. The speed of roll-out depends on the investment capital and good results on risk tests, including the development of recycling capability on land. However, corporations have already accepted to exhibit their interest in becoming a part of the largest cleanup in history.
In 2020, after full-scale deployment in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and its predictable success, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation plans on progressively expanding this creative project to the four other gyres. This expansion will mostly be funded by the sale of the recycled plastic material and by sponsorships, from both corporations and individuals.
Although cleaning up our planet’s seas and shores may seem both ridiculous and impossible, Boyan Slat and his creative team are showing the world that not only is it feasible, it is paramount to ensure our ocean’s and their sea life’s well-being, as well as our own. They have also proved that they can — and will — overcome the hardships that’ll accompany this seemingly gargantuan task. In the end, we will all have to thank one boy’s particular genius and courage for the salvation of our blue planet.
Images by Erwin Zwart/ The Ocean Cleanup


Welcome to The David Mulhall Centre, specialists in Retained Reflex Syndrome (RRS), which is the believed root of neuro-developmental delay and many childhood and adult disorders, including Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), dyspraxia, dyslexia, Asperger’s syndrome, panic attacks, even glue ear and bedwetting.
But those are just the labelled disorders. RRS affects many more of us in a low-level way that we learn to cope with, but which undermines our whole existence. If you find writing difficult, you are poor at sports, perhaps a fussy eater, a fidget and can’t bear labels in the back of your clothes, you can bet you have RRS. Similarly, if you feel that life is a constant struggle, that you never complete tasks and are easily distracted and overwhelmed, then RRS may well be the culprit.


In 1890, Reginald Brabazon, 12th Earl of Meath, was invited by a clergyman acquaintance to address the young men of his congregation. The boys had been lured by the promise of â€śa half-crown spread for a pennyâ€ť and the vicar was anxious to find a speaker who might be interesting enough to hold their attention. In an age before the phenomenon of the teenager was recognised, he was having trouble connecting with his youthful audience. After tea and cakes, the Earl decided he would entertain them with tales he had himself enjoyed, of the men who had been awarded the Victoria Cross during the Indian Mutiny. His choice of subject was spot on; the boys were enthralled but it soon became clear that, not only had they never heard about the Indian Mutiny, but nor did they know anything about India.
Lord Meath was appalled. After enquiring with the local schoolmaster he discovered that most pupilsâ€™ knowledge of history did not extend beyond Henry VIII. Â How, he queried, â€ścould one expect to make patriotic citizens of boys whose knowledge of the Empire stopped four centuries and more before their own time? They knew nothing of Great Britainâ€™s relations with India, with America, or the later swelling Imperial note which resounded through the world, to make Britain not only the greatest political fact but the greatest political fact in the farthest-flung Empire the world has ever seen.â€ť
Meath, an ardent Imperialist wanted the nationâ€™s youth to share his enthusiasm, and, after discovering the situation was similar around the country, made it his personal crusade to educate and disseminate the idea of Empire to a rising generation. Setting up an office in his home, funding his campaign with an annual budget of ÂŁ5000 provided by his wealthy wife and working with two secretaries, he set to work, lobbying high profile M.Ps. By 1896, he was proposing an Empire Day, first adopted by the province of Ontario the following year.
Meath suggested May 24th, the birthday of Queen Victoria, as the most suitable day to celebrate. It would be a public holiday for all school children around Britain, â€świth the exception of a couple of hours in the morning, to be spent in exercises of a patriotic and agreeable nature and in listening to lectures and recitations on subjects of an Imperial nature.â€ť
The official adoption of Empire Day around the world was gradual. In 1905, Australia recognised the May 24th celebration. In 1916, when Britain was in the tightest grip of war and a reinforcement of national patriotism was called for, King George V officially sanctioned the observance of Empire Day by ordering the Union Jack to be flown from public buildings on that day. Lord Meath however had been encouraging it far longer, though not everyone was as enthused about the idea as he was. Â An opinion piece in The Bystander from 1913 had a cynical tone: â€śEmpire Day is over and thousands of little Englanders have once more been reminded there is such an institution as the British Empire. Presumably it is with a view to blaring this fact into their ears that the excellent Lord Meath keeps the celebration so noisily going.â€ť In 1922, the Government of India also officially adopted Empire Day though again, it had been celebrated in that country since 1907.
Once established in the mother country, Empire Day was a major event. In 1928, The Sphere magazine reported that 5,000,000 children took part, and in Hyde Park, 100,000 attended a celebration in Hyde Park where they were led in patriotic singing by Dame Clara Butt and the massed marching bands of the Guards played â€śappropriate songsâ€ť. Children in towns and villages around the country would enjoy their day off school, many dressing up in costume, sometimes to take part in a pageant of British history. Invariably, among the fancy dress costumes, there would always be at least one Britannia.
Through our eyes, looking back to over a hundred years ago, with the British Empire a dim and distant memory even for the older generation, Empire Day, with its meetings, songs and lectures sit uncomfortably with our current views and concerns over our Imperialist past and the growth of nationalism in the post-Brexit era. Subliminal brainwashing and patriotic jingoism? Or a celebration of the bonds between nations in an Empire where the sun never set? Lord Meath certainly believed it was the latter, and the movementâ€™s motto; â€śResponsibility. Duty. Sympathy. Self-Sacrificeâ€ť indicated there were worthy motives behind the pomp and pageantry of Empire Day. Lord Meath died in October 1929, long before the Second World War and the final dismantling of the Empire he had done so much to promote. In its place, the Commonwealth, founded in 1949 and with King George VI, and now our present Queen as Head. With its programme of initiatives to promote peace, development and justice, the Commonwealth, currently with 53 member states, is a force for good. Commonwealth Day is held in the second week of March, and is therefore further disconnected from the Empire Day in which it is rooted. Nevertheless, pride and participation in the concept of Empire was an integral part of being British in the first half of the twentieth century and on this day a century ago, children across the world would have been looking forward to a day off school.


Hematoxylin staining of paraffin sections.
In plant histology this staining is appropriate for paraffin sections through samples fixed with Navashin. This fixative is a mixture of 1 % chrome trioxide, 37 % formaldehyde and 100% glacial acetic acid in the following proportions 70:28:7 ml.
Steps of the staining protocol.
- Deparaffinize (3 baths of xylol) and hydrate to water using a grade ethanol series, 3 min by step with gently agitation: ethanol 100 2x; ethanol 90; ethanol 70 then distilled water.
- Immerse sections in filtered Harris hematoxylin for 12 to 15 min, according to the kind of specimen and age of the stain.
- Wash in tap water the in distilled water.Mount coverslips with Eukitt or Histokitt
- Optional: 30 sec staining before mounting in a fresh solution of red ruthenium (1:5000) to reveal pectic substances of cell walls.
Principle of hematoxylin stain
This is an example of indirect staining.Hematoxylin is a natural dye extracted from the heartwood of the tropical tree logwood, Haematoxylin campechianum anditself does not stain tissues. It needs to be oxidized to form hematein, the active staining reagent. Oxidation may be obtained by atmospheric oxygen (keep the solutions in an open bottle) or by adding metal alums (the most common is ferric ammonium sulfate) or iodate to the dye solution. The commercial hematoxylin of Harris is ready for use as hematein.
Hematoxylin is a good nuclear stain and heterochromatin as well as chromosomes appear strongly stained. It is also useful for mitosis counting in a section.
Example : staining of longitudinal paraffin sections 8 microns thick through a primary root tip of Zea mays
The two micrographs below show different steps of mitosis in the meristematic region.
Quiescent center (CQ), and the meristem with mitosis (white arrows). mec : calyptrogen.


text © Don Davis
The first V-2 and the dawn of the Space Age
The developments leading to rockets capable of lifting spacecraft have their origins in weapons development. Technology is available, as is much of everything, to destroy or to build. The use of rockets to explore space later became the means of understanding many things formally unknown to us, giving us the insight to ask more questions of the Universe. A historic benchmark on our path to this knowledge was the first successful flight of the 'V-2' rocket on October 3, 1942, the day the rocket graduated from a firework to a vehicle.
Because of a vivid recollection
which Krafft Eriche personally shared with me of that first successful
V-2 launch, while we attended the Apollo 17 launch cruise, I felt
inspired to learn what I could of that great moment. Such an event
is a tangible expression of many underlying causes and trends,
and a brief sketch of some of these is given as the background
to this technological milestone, which approached the atomic bomb
itself as the most significant invention of the Second World War.
In this presentation of the first successful flight of the V-2 and its historic background, the written accounts of the participants were used whenever possible, particularly the detailed recollections of Dornberger and Von Braun which appeared in 'The Coming Of The Space Age' edited by Arthur C. Clarke. Where Dornberger and Von Braun's accounts differ I defer to Von Braun.
& Von Braun
The romance of big rockets excited
the imaginations of several important Germans who realized what
could be done with enough resources. In a society rebounding from
losing the 'War To End All Wars', rockets were adopted as a cause
by many young enthusiasts in the wake of circulation of ideas
of space travel in literature. The publication of Hermann Oberth's
1923 book 'The Rocket In Interplanetary Space' marks an early
Post Tsilkovsky conceptual elaboration of the potential of Rocketry.
Fritz Lang's 1928 Frau Im Mond ('Girl on the Moon') had appeared in theaters as among the last of the silent movies. This influential film introduced to the screen many of the elements familiar to space enthusiasts such as the stage rocket, and the effects of acceleration and weightlessness. The most enduring legacy of this film was the dramatic device of the countdown of the last seconds before the ignition of the rocket. This was later adopted as practice for actual launches as well as for nuclear bomb tests! Oberth was sought out as technical advisor on the film, and he tried unsuccessfully to build a liquid fuel rocket for the premier of the movie.
German Rocket enthusiasts, with networking between them facilitated by Willy Ley, actually built small but functioning liquid fuel rockets which relied on combining fuel elements through complex plumbing to create a controlled combustion. This is fundamentally different from the ancient powder filled tubes invented by the Chinese in the early 1200's. One of these new rockets climbed over 1000 feet in October 1931. The next year the German Army showed interest in their work with Captain Walter Dornberger, head of powder rocket development, visiting their facilities. In 1929 Dornberger had been assigned the task, by Army Ordinance development, of developing a rocket capable of greater range than Germany's legendary 'Paris Gun' which lobbed shells 65 miles during the World War. What Dornberger saw led to his offer to key personnel to work for him in an Army development program. Among these young tinkerers was Wernher Von Braun, most gifted of that generation of German rocketeers.
After spirited debate some of them took the offer, seen as an opportunity to perform the kind of Research and Development they had only dreamed of with the pocket money previously available. After years of doing work in garages it must have seemed miraculous to see buildings, test stands, and manufacturing plants spring up to support their needs. They were defining the essentials of a new technology, as other individuals in other countries were doing, except that one country's government generously funded the crucial research and development and the others didn't. Although obviously a tool for war at its inception, the potential for other uses later on must have been a factor in the motivations in at least some of these people. Rockets were not specified as forbidden by the treaty Germany was bound by following it's defeat in the first World War, so pouring money into developing such vehicles could proceed without raising international alarm. Within a few years working liquid fuel rockets were being fired from test stands. The many failures were dealt with and the art of rocketry began to mature. The versatility and inventiveness of the rocket team was shown in January 1935 when Major Von Richthofen, a cousin of the famous ace, paid the facilities a visit to express curiosity about using rockets to propel aircraft. Within 6 months a Heinkel fighter plane was modified to carry a rocket engine which was operated by the pilot. This was test fired on a stand for Von Richthofen, who was greatly impressed with the speed with which the work had been carried out as much as it's success. Thereafter money poured into the place, the larger scale of the operation causing the facility to be moved to Peenemunde, an isolated peninsula of land from which significant work could be done without attracting undue attention.
By mid 1937 most of the old rocket crowd had been gathered into Dornberger's group, of which Von Braun was the most important in the overseeing of the work. Von Braun and the other technicians had to join the National Socialist party in order to continue their work, although ironically the Nazi party was largely hostile to intellectual and academic interests. Among the prominent people the gifted engineer Arthur Rudolph was rare in apparently being an enthusiastic Nazi, joining the party early in its ascendancy. Dornberger used his diplomatic and political abilities to protect Von Braun and the others from the predatory bureaucrats lurking in the Nazi government. A few other influential visionaries saw to it the program was nursed through periods of wavering support. Many military development projects were under way in Germany at the time, often redundant but a few truly important. A few of these, such as the deployment of Jet fighters, were subject to irrational delays often initiated by Hitler himself. Adolf Hitler tended to mistrust new technologies evolving since his World War I career, and was slow to grasp their advantages. At times he even seemed to let omens he saw in dreams affect his priorities. By the late 30s the process of rocket development had attracted some influential fans, including Army Supreme Commander Field Marshall Von Brauchitsch, and most importantly the powerful Minister of Armaments Albert Speer. In 1939 Hitler cut off funding for big rockets, however Speer and Von Brauchitsch arranged for hefty production contracts for Peenemunde to keep the facility busy. Speer continued to arrange covert funding for large rockets in what became a 'pet project' for him during the early crucial years of development.
In a sheltered supportive environment the Peenemunde Group labored to quickly develop a large military rocket. Besides having a range considerably greater than that of the shells from the Paris Gun, a design constraint was that the missile had to be able to fit through existing railway tunnels. The final design for their big rocket, initially called the A-4, was a 46 foot long behemoth which could hurl a one ton warhead up to 200 miles. It's smooth aerodynamic shape and streamlined fins had the exotic look of a visitor from the future. Engineers and various ranks of workers of very different status, such as university professors, specialist prisoners of war, and soldiers worked on the project. In those days people had jobs as 'computers', almost all women. These rows of slide-rule wielding ladies at their desks in one building were called the 'measurement girls'. One group of these 'computers' used so much paper to display trajectory data they were nicknamed the 'wallpaper girls'. Recruitments of competent people was done through universities and through a unique device of creating a specialized 'battalion' of personnel with scientific and technical skills drawn from the general military population. Among the people suddenly finding themselves ordered to Peenemunde was a tank platoon leader who had fought from Dunkirk to the suburbs of Moscow, Krafft Ehriche. In the spring of 1940 Wernher Von Braun was approached by an aid of Reichsfueher SS Heinrich Himmler who urged that he join the SS. After getting Dornbergers advice, Von Braun finally wrote his consent and was promptly appointed a Lieutenant, with yearly promotions.
The year 1942 was an especially
crucial year of World War II. Hitler's conquests had made him
the ephemeral master of Europe. Germany's penetration of Russia
was reaching it's peak, with Stalingrad becoming the focus of
vast resources for devastating attacks by the Germans and unrelenting
defense by the Soviets. The two armored Colossi of Western and
Eastern Europe were locked in a death struggle, as vast as the
rest of the Second World War put together. Some German technical
advancements which could have changed history for the worse if
fully exploited fell victim to fundamental weaknesses in the mentality
of the Nazi ruling elite and the wartime disruption of industrial
production. Jet and rocket propulsion were being tried in fighter
aircraft, but the jets underwent years of delay to satisfy Hitler's
irrational whims. The tiny Komet rocket fighters, admittedly fast
and deadly, were woefully brief in their powered flight after
which they helplessly glided to a touchdown on a ski like skid.
A few of the Komets would blow up suddenly in flight for no apparent
On June 13, 1942 the first full scale test flight of an A-4 was attempted. After rising for one second the thrust stopped, causing the giant projectile to settle back to Earth, the fins crumpling as it tumbled on it's side. Smacking into the concrete, the fuel filled body burst like a great water balloon then flashed violently into a billowing inferno. Number 2 was launched August 16, and rose majestically until it spun out of control and exploded about 45 seconds into the flight, about 8 miles high. Unfortunately a lot of VIPs were witnesses to that failure. The pressure was on. The midsection of the missile was strengthened, and ongoing design improvements were incorporated into the next flight vehicle. By this time a 'do-or-die' sentiment made everyone especially careful, knowing the hazards of being an expensive exotic government program unable to produce results in wartime.
The turning point came on the third try.
The morning of October 3,
1942 was clear and beautiful at the Peenemunde complex. Atop
one of the camouflage draped buildings Captain Walter Dornberger
stood with a microphone in one hand, his powerful binoculars in
the other. Near him a small television apparatus provided a tiny
pale picture of the A-4, which was hidden from direct view by
a tree covered low hill. The benevolence written into his features
was starkly highlighted in the bright sun with lines of worry.
This was probably going to be the critical demonstration of the
worthiness of the idea he and his gathered talent had long slaved
for. Next to Dornberger stood his lifelong friend, Colonel Leo
Zanssen. Both men had no love for the Nazis and as a military
commander of Peenemunde Zanssen had assisted Dornberger in keeping
the Party types at arm's length.
The paved facilities around them gave away in the distance to green marshlands and coastal forests. A red brick cathedral stood above the green hills, clear in the sunlight. Nearby other observers were taking their places. On the isolated launch pad stood the results of everyone's best work, eagerly watched through periscopes by engineers in their nearby concrete buildings, others watching through closed circuit television. Further away, among and atop the buildings, every vantage point was swarming with spectators, There were many people 'in the know' but not really supposed to be there. Tinny voices on loudspeakers barked out the status of the various systems, and engineers were queried on how their part of the process was going. A voice over the loudspeaker called out "X minus three, Counting off".
Swinging his binoculars sideways, Dornberger spied Wernher Von Braun among a small group atop a nearby building. Apart from them sat a pair of professional observers, both peering through special binocular periscopes and giving their own accounts of what they were witnessing, each with a secretary taking down what they independently said. White vapor poured from the Oxygen tank valve near the base of the rocket, with a band of frost encircling the location of the oxygen tank itself well above the middle of the vehicle. The access platforms were moved away, leaving the massive projectile standing alone as Man's newest challenge to the sky. The tall rocket displayed the graceful tapering contours dictated by the extremes of physical forces it would experience, a vision of the future.
"X minus one" barked the announcer. The Pennemunde Minute, legendary for it's subjectively great length, had begun. The preparations were over, and the situation was in the hands of the kind of fate people have long prayed to in hopes of influencing it as they stand helplessly by. Dornberger forced himself to stare at the television image of the rocket and not at his watch. A green smoke trail appeared as a flare signaling 10 seconds left was fired. The wind changed it's shape only slightly. "Ignition" was loudly announced as sparks sprayed from the engine nozzle and quickly turned into a violent column of flame roaring against the concrete. Cables fell away from the rocket, smoke billowed around it and the missile was then operating under it's own battery power. The announcement "Cleared" was made as the final buildup of thrust carried it's force past that needed to lift the 13.5 ton vehicle. Slowly, magnificently, the pointed tip of the A-4 rose above the smoke and into the view of everyone.
Dornberger saw it seemingly emerge from the treetops through his binoculars, gleaming in the Sun against first the distant green scenery then the blue sky, unleashing a column of bright flame as long as the rocket itself. It rose steadily along it's intended path, straight and true with no spinning. Five seconds after ignition, the thunder of the launch reached the buildings, the waves felt as well as heard while rippling through everything. The roar filled the skies and rolled over the forest and across the oceans beyond. Higher and faster the rocket climbed, becoming lighter as fuel was spent, the continuous engine thrust acting against less weight every moment. Slowly the missile began it's programmed tilt in it's path to achieve the desired 45 degree angle for maximum range. The rocket's roar began to change into a sputtering of slowly lowering tone, with other local noises gradually emerging from the din.
seconds elapsed since the flight began were counted out continuously
on the loudspeaker, but other speakers gave information, such
as a 'measuring tone' of a slowly changing pitch broadcast from
the rocket which gave an audible indication of the speed the vehicle
was traveling due to the sensitivity of the receiver to the 'Doppler'
shift of the rocket's transmitter. The tone was changing from
a low humming to a piercing trill as the speed built up. During
the otherwise monotonous counting, occasional flight milestones
were announced, such as "Sonic velocity". Now supersonic
speed had been reached! Through the binoculars the rocket, shortened
by perspective, spouted it's orange flame brightly against the
dark blue heavens. A half minute had passed, and double the speed
of sound was reached. The rocket now flew higher than any mountain
on Earth. Just after 40 seconds into the flight a vapor trail
appeared, with alarmed murmurs from the crowd expressing fears
that the rocket had exploded. An announcer reassured everyone
what they saw was simply the oxygen vent opening.
Now that this rocket had lasted longer than it's predecessor, each moment was spent in new territory. Other voices expressed fears the rocket was flying erratically when what they observed was actually the initially straight vapor trail being stretched about by swift high altitude winds. Until that moment only meteors had left trails at such altitudes. At the 54 second mark the engine cut off was announced, and through binoculars only the glowing vanes along the inner edges of the rear fins were seen as a tiny white speck at the base of still climbing rocket.
The A-4 was sailing higher than any human being would go for another 18 years. If one could accompany the missile the sky above would be jet black, with brighter stars and a diagonal line of planets visible in the same sky as the brilliant morning Sun. The distance to the horizon would be a thousand miles and growing, with the curvature of the Earth obvious. A fuzzy envelope of luminous air would separate the dark blue seas and lushly forested coastlines below from the eternal empty vastness above. With practically all the air left behind, the rocket arced in a graceful mathematical path unhindered by wind resistance in a sterile vacuum environment. Unfiltered sunlight harshly illuminated one side of the projectile, outlining in crisp shadows every dent and rivet along its length. A painting of a woman sitting on a V-2 looked out from between the fins of the missile towards the actual crescent Moon high in the southwestern sky. As the A-4 reached the peak of its arc it skimmed the realm of the rest of the universe.
Dornberger at last put down his binoculars, drawing his breath slowly. It had worked! A decade of work had made a huge mark on History! Turning to Zanssen, who was tearfully laughing, they shook hands, yelled, and gleefully embraced like victorious schoolboys at the end of an important ball game. Atop and between buildings people were shaking hands, clapping, and even dancing. Dornberger descended from his vantage point and grabbed a vehicle, weaving his way through the jubilant confusion. Spying Von Braun, he pulled him into the car and careened to the launch site to join the people gathering there. The scene at the smoldering pad was chaos as everyone babbled their impressions to the senior staff present. The flame's effects on the firing area was worse than expected but would be planned around the next time. By now the rocket was in it's fourth minute of flight, falling with great speed.
Dornberger hushed everyone up to hear the end of the flight take place. The tone broadcast from the rocket still sounded, but the 3000 mile per hour speed of the missile was about to be quickly slowed by one third as it re-entered the dense atmosphere, and the danger of overheating and breakup haunted him as a moment of truth no less than the actual launch. Then, a few seconds short of 5 minutes of flight, the measuring tone abruptly began lowering as the speed dropped during the atmospheric descent, with the word "Impact" cutting off the tone. Now it was an unqualified success! A dye capsule in the rocket would reveal it's location to a search plane. The impact point was some 124 miles distant, with an altitude of nearly half that having been reached.
Professor Hermann Oberth ran out of a building and clasped hands with Dornberger with congratulations while exclaiming "This is something only the Germans could achieve!" The crescent Moon with a lady sitting on it painted on the fin was in honor of the film 'Frau im Mond', for which Oberth was technical advisor. Dornberger replied to Oberth "The day on which we had been privileged to take the first step into space must also be a day of success and rejoicing for you, and that the congratulations must go to you for showing us the way". At the foot of the building Dornberger had witnessed the launch from an engineer had just placed a large boulder with the words "A great weight has fallen from my shoulders" painted on it. That evening a small celebration was held in the officer's club with many key workers on the project addressed by Dornberger, who clearly saw past the immediate use this invention would be put as he said:
"The history of technology will record that for the first time a machine of human construction, a 5.5 ton missile, covered a distance of 120 miles with a deflection of only two and a half miles from the target. Your names, my friends and colleagues, are associated with this achievement"..."Our self steering rocket has reached heights never touched by any man-made machine. Since the tilt was not carried to completion our rocket today reached a height of nearly 60 miles. We have thus broken the world height record of 25 miles previously held by the shell fired from the now almost legendary Paris Gun. The following points may be deemed of decisive significance in the history of technology: We have invaded space with our rocket and for the first time-mark this well-have used space as a bridge between two points on the Earth: We have proved rocket propulsion practicable for space travel. To land, sea, and air may now be added infinite space as a medium of future intercontinental traffic. This third day of October, 1942, is the first of a new era in transportation, that of space travel..." The lecture then turned to the need to develop and deploy the new weapon as soon as possible.
In some ways that day became the peak experience of the Rocket Team's German days. Never again would the accomplishments of Peenemunde seem to offer so much potential, nor would the wartime environment again be so friendly towards realizing their dreams. But the power of that day's triumph radiated forth like the sound of a shot in the night.When Speer mentioned the success of the test to Adolf Hitler, the Fuehrer at last took an interest in the project. A meeting between Hitler, Dornberger, and Von Braun took place on July 17, 1943.
In the three quarters of a year since
that first successful A-4 flight the War had taken disastrous
turns for Germany. Early in 1943, after running the gauntlet of
the fortunes of war, dwindling supplies and the freezing weather,
the remnants of the army trying to take Stalingrad hobbled through
the snow in long tattered lined into surrender. This event, perhaps
the most intensely concentrated battle in history, marked the
pivotal turnaround in the war with Russia. The recent surrender
of the famed Afrika Corps during the loss of North Africa was
another alarming loss of territory under German control. The Battle
of Kursk, both the largest tank and air battles in history, was
about to grind away the last hopes by Germany to regain the initiative
in the East. The walls were slowly closing in on the Reich, and
drastic new weapons seemed more inviting.
As Von Braun and Dornberger waited for their audience, they kept reviewing what would be said. Finally they were admitted to Hitler's presence with pomp and ceremonial announcements. The Fuehrer stepped forwards, from the first moment appearing not quite so 'bigger than life' as he once was. To Dornberger the strain of the recent years on Hitler's appearance showed alarmingly, with an appearance of weariness and a stooped posture the main differences noted from his 1939 meeting. The man who had been able to project a Messiah like persona before millions was turning into the reclusive over medicated tyrant of his last days. Accompanying the harried dictator were Speer and other top officials with their aides.
Von Braun knew his presentation well, leaping into an enthusiastic description of the workings of the rocket and it's effects upon impact. At this point Hitler interrupted, and cautioned that a very sensitive fuse would be needed to assure the warhead didn't bury itself to excessive depth before exploding, thus limiting it's effect. Hitler was never shy on offering his opinion on anything. The rest of the lecture went well, and at the proper moment the lights were dimmed and a color film of the October 3 test was shown. The vision of this streamlined leviathan hurling itself skyward upon a pillar of fire transfixed Adolf Hitler. As the rocket roared to life on the screen the fires of the previous decades reawakened in his piercing blue eyes. It was as if the deliverance he yearned for was being revealed to him, and sudden hope animated his further intrigued inquiries. His desperate imagination brought significance beyond rationality to what this weapon could mean to the war. Amid an obsessive tirade on the need to build more destructive weapons of this type, he paused for a moment and reflected "Europe and the World will be too small from now on to contain a war. With such weapons humanity will be unable to endure it."
Hitler than gave the A-4 weapon the highest priority, at least in his mood of the moment. When Von Braun returned to Peenemunde, a check on Hitler's concerns of delayed detonation upon impact proved them to be valid! Hitler had a knack for inspired intuition but often trusted it in inappropriate domains. A funding crisis in the program was initiated by a dream Hitler supposedly had suggesting the V-2 would be a failure. Similarly reasoned decisions fatally delayed the appearance of German jet fighters and imprudently cut back on arms production while operating under optimistic war scenarios. In the mean time Germany began fighting a grim 'delaying action' war, especially against the Russians. Although the Germans would inflict lopsided casualties on the Russians, desperation increased as the territory under German control steadily dwindled. In the meantime Allied bombing increasingly disrupted the industries needed to quickly bring about the dreams of the engineers. Only a few projects went anywhere, such as a primitive cruise missile called Vengeance Weapon 1 or 'V-1' by the Propaganda Ministry and of course the forerunner of the ballistic missile the A-4 renamed by Goebbels the 'V-2'.
The Olympian days of German rocket development were over. It was time to turn the missile into a weapon. Long gone were the days of public exposure to ideas of space travel in Germany. In the meantime German news media had been forbidden to use the word 'rocket' at all, and every copy of Lang's film Frau im Mond within German reach was quietly confiscated and destroyed. With success at Peenemunde came interest from the dreaded Heinrich Himmler, with his overtures followed by heavy-handed measures to move the SS into the rocket game. In a meeting called by Himmler in February 1944 at his East Prussian headquarters, Von Braun found himself being invited to join the inner staff of the man he described as being "as mild mannered a villain as ever cut a throat". In his polite delivery Himmler assured him of greater access to the Fuehrer and the end of delays caused by Army red tape. Von Braun quickly reiterated his loyalty and admiration for Dornberger, emphasizing the delays were primarily due to technical and not organizational causes. Von Braun then faced down Himmler, telling him that the V-2 was like a fragile growing flower which needs sunshine, a gentle gardener, and a measured amount of manure. What Himmler was proposing, he then said, was like a jet of liquefied manure which could kill the little flower! .
Two weeks later Von Braun and others were arrested by the Gestapo, facing a treason charge which in wartime Germany was courting a death sentence. Although they were evidently spared the brutality most others similarly charged went through in the hands of the SS, they were indeed being taught a lesson! After two weeks they were rescued by Dornberger successfully appealing to Speer and even Hitler for his rescue, on the grounds that without Von Braun there would be no V-2. By this time, however, the introduction of such a weapon was of declining importance to the outcome of the war.
Continuous high priority status
may have led to the missile being available close to a year earlier.
Allied bombing and shrinking frontiers steadily pinched off necessary
supplies for this and other new weapons. In a way the very pursuit
of the V-2 project sapped the efforts of rocket specialists who
might have developed better air defense methods which, along with
the jet fighters properly deployed, may well have defeated the
allied air offensives. Speer later actually regretted his going
out of his way to push the V-2 rockets, each one of which used
nearly enough resources to build a fighter plane. It was yet another
fatal error in the conduct of the war which saved the world from
a German plunder based slave empire. Within Hitler's shrinking
realm, suffering beyond precedent continued, largely due to the
activities of the dreaded SS carrying out Hitlers dark agenda.
In the wake of a devastating air raid on Peenemunde in August 18-19, 1943, rocket production shifted to the dank realms of the new massive underground facility near Nordhausen in the Hartz Mountains. The failed attempt to kill Hitler on July 20, 1944 caused a violent purge of German Army officers including the head of Army armaments Friedrich Fromm, who had the misfortune of being the commanding officer of Lt. Col. Klaus Von Stauffenberg, the man who left the briefcase bomb in the conference room. Himmler assumed the imprisoned Fromm's duties, and the leadership of the Rocket program soon passed from the best of Germany's Prussian military tradition, represented by Dornberger, to it's worst represented by the man Himmler soon appointed to run the rocket program.
SS Major Hans Kammler was a favorite 'rising star' in the SS and things got really ugly under his influence. Kammler was an icily calculating man whose ambition was matched only by his cruelty. His grim career included the demolition of the ruins left by the bloody suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, and the overall architectural layout of the Auschwitz death camp including the fabrication of the gas chambers and crematoria. His new project was the 'Mittlework' V-2 factory tunneled within the Mountains. Kammler would gather a work force by the expedient method of mass arrests, boasting openly about the 'protective custody' his workers toiled under. Early in one morning he awakened officers by firing a machine gun, yelling that if he couldn't sleep no one else would! In the deteriorating conditions of the later months of the war he assembled a sizable slave empire, and desperate projects were undertaken with no regard to the human cost. A few of the Peenemunde group who were assigned to work with him were later to regret that association, most notably Arthur Rudolph. This brilliant engineer, after his work on Apollo's leviathan Saturn V rocket a generation later, would be hounded by reports of his working at the 'Mittelwork' plant.
While searching for specialists in various
critical fields among those caught up in the SS roundups, Von
Braun once visited the Buchenwald concentration camp and transferred
prisoners from there to 'Mittlework', which he twice visited to
evaluate their work force. He called for for more French prisoners
to be sent there. This technically made Von Braun guilty of the
war crime of using slave labor. It is also fair to note that Von
Braun is known to have tried to be protective of people working
for him. Thousands nevertheless died at Mittlework under hellish
conditions. Kammler and his underlings worked masses of people
to death in dank noisy tunnels. Shafts being tunneled by prisoners
using hand tools often collapsed, burying in one case hundreds.
Explosions killed more, with subsequent manufacturing improvements
geared towards efficiency rather than safety. Under Kammler's
direction over 1300 rockets would strike England, 518 on London.
In February 28, 1945 Kammler placed a pilot inside a 'Natter', a small piloted missile. This man, Luftwaffe Lieutenant Lothar Sieber, became the first person to be launched vertically in a rocket. The honor was a brief one. After climbing 330 feet, the cockpit bubble tore loose, in some accounts abruptly decapitating the pilot. At 1600 feet the Natter faltered and dived, ending this inglorious debut for manned vertical rocket flight. In the end, Kammler plunged to the depths of depravity, shooting groups of prisoners himself just for the hell of it. Once over 200 inmates fell victim to one of his blood orgies. Finally he retreated to his special train, the 'Vengeance Express' and issued a flurry of orders fewer people each day could hear much less respond to. Probably realizing his diminishing career potential, Dornberger heard that Kammler finally ordered an aid to shoot him before the approaching Russians could capture him. Another story has him meeting his end in Czechoslovakia in an April gunfight with partisans. His boss Himmler, after years of a pampered life, had an especially brutal awakening. Within Himmler's SS empire Hitler's darkest visions were realized as several groups, especially the Jews, Russian prisoners of war, and the Gypsies were worked to death, starved, and murdered by the millions in secluded concentration camps. The collective list of death and POW camp victims of the above categories probably approaches 10 million, about 6 million of that number Jews, which Hitler vowed to exterminate above all others. Shunned in his pathetic diplomatic overtures to the West, Himmler, once among the most feared men in Europe, spent his last days hiding until his capture and suicide.
On April 30, with the walls of his underground bunker shuddering from Russian shells, Hitler shot himself in the temple while biting on a poison vial, his new bride Eva Braun at his side. The blanket wrapped bodies of the newlyweds were carried upstairs and lowered into a shell crater outside the bunker's conical roofed emergency exit. Cans of precious gasoline were poured over them, then ignited with a tossed blazing rag. The battle taking place around the small Viking funeral thundered among the burned out facades of once gleaming edifices, like the rumblings of fierce thunderstorms among jagged peaks. The small gasoline fireball briefly flared, then after initially retreating the small group of officers stepped forward from the shelter entrance to face the pyre and raise their right arms in a final Nazi salute. As the bodies burned before them, the city of Berlin blazed from one end to the other. The sparks rolled skywards in twisting forms as if a malevolent demon was glimpsed in its retreat from its Earthly incarnation.
The bulk of the Peenemunde group migrated amid the chaos of collapse toward the Americans and away from the Russians. The story of the archiving of their engineering data and the exodus Westward, culminating in the surrender to the Americans and their subsequent adventures essentially continuing their previous work, has been well described elsewhere. They were fortunately regarded as valuable by the country the group knew they had the best chance to continue their work in.
Many of the Peenemunde group ended up crafting the near mythical behemoths of the Apollo program, the greatest peacetime project in history. The German rocketeers were able to finally fulfill their lifelong dreams with the spectacular Saturn rockets which carried men to the Moon. In two developmental 'windows of opportunity' a generation and an ocean apart, two very different charismatic leaders important in world history, Adolf Hitler and John F. Kennedy, sponsored the vital work which in one case began, and in the other matured, the means to spread human presence far beyond the reach of those who came before.
In both of these efforts substantially the same German rocket team worked themselves into the right place and the right time to assume a pivotal role in fulfilling a grand vision. The accomplishment of the Moon landings will beam forth like a lighthouse across the ages as a noble use of a great nations scientific and technological prowess.
Books referenced for this account:
Clarke: The Coming Of the Space Age. Meredith Press, 1967
Ordway, Sharpe: The Rocket team. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1979
Speer: Inside the Third Reich. Macmillian Company, 1981
Piszkiewicz: Wernher Von Braun The Man Who Sold The Moon
Yves Bon : Planet Dora


Democracy was defined as a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience. This description embedded the concept of democracy within social life. However, it was recognized that broad diversity across society makes it challenging to create a sense of connection to any particular ideal. Therefore, democratic societies must have a type of education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.
It is believed that education could bring about common values and that the role of the school is to provide students with opportunities for collaborative communication and investigation. These opportunities characterize the way that students engage in “democratic living” and develop common goals and understandings, as well as the behaviors needed to pursue justice, equity, and social change. It was said that students working together on common problems, establishing the rules by which their classrooms will be governed, testing and evaluating ideas for the improvement of classroom life and learning, and participating in the construction of objectives for their own learning.
Social Life Applied in School
Researchers also insisted that measures be developed and utilized to determine the value of various models of social life when applied in schools. He noted that there are both positive and negative models of social living, and suggested two standards for considering the value of these. First, we must examine the number and variety of shared interests within the example. Second, we should assess the interactions within and beyond the model. It was warned against creating ideal models without applying them to actual societies, or schools when we are using metrics to examine models of democratic education. In other words, we cannot create democratic school models that are impractical or impossible. At the same time, we need ways to measure school models in order to define and describe exactly what distinguishes them from other types of schooling.
The First New Tech High School
The first New Tech high school was founded in 1996 with the goal of preparing students more effectively for post secondary education and careers. Within a few years, interest in the high school led to the founding of the New Tech Network (NTN), an organization responsible for scaling up the school model. In order to facilitate school development, NTN utilizes a Learning Organization Framework, which incorporates the use of data to inform short-term decision-making with the creation of aligned learning structures, shared and emerging leadership, and progressive school culture to inform long-term decision-making. NTN provides support to districts and schools during the implementation process through onsite instructional coaching and leadership development, as well as ongoing professional development institutes.
Three Design Features of New Tech School
The NT school model consists of three design features engaging teaching via project-based learning (PBL) as the primary instructional approach, empowering and egalitarian school culture, and integrated technology. NT schools utilize a project-based learning instructional approach with an emphasis on rigorous and relevant projects, and links to the schools’ local community. In addition, NT schools develop an empowering culture of trust, respect, and responsibility where students and teachers have exceptional ownership of the learning experience and their school environment. Finally, NT schools use integrated technology, including a one-to-one computing ratio, internet access, and a learning management system, which allow all students to be self-directed learners and all teachers to be effective facilitators of learning.
Within the state where this study was conducted, districts sought the NT model as a response to perceptions of declining economic opportunity within rural and urban communities and small towns, as well as out of the desire to offer a more innovative education to students across the state. The state legislature facilitated growth of the model by offering grants to cover the cost of adoption and implementation. Although the NT model had originally been conceived to accommodate about 400 students per school, expansion to this state challenged NTN to broaden its implementation guidelines. For instance, rural schools often had enrollment between 400 and 600 students so that adopting the model for the whole school made more sense than implementing it with two-thirds of students.
All in all, the NT high schools in this state implemented the model in one of three ways: whole school, autonomous school, and small learning community. Autonomous schools operate like magnet programs that draw students from across their school districts to a campus separate from the local high schools, and small learning communities function as specialized programs located within the walls of a district high school. As described above, whole-school implementations typically include around 600 students, or the entire student body, while autonomous schools and small learning communities serve about 400 students, or 100 per grade level. As usual, please check out the circular saw, the best drill bits and the best Router Tools if you intend to work with wood or other material at the same condition, thank you.


Reviews for Piece = Part = Portion : Fractions = Decimals = Percents
Booklist Reviews 2003 December #2
Gr. 3-5. Notable for its clean design, this brightly illustrated book introduces the idea that fractions, decimals, and percents are different ways of saying the same thing. An introduction is followed by a picture of a single gym shoe and the explanatory words, "1/2 of a pair of shoes," ".50," and "50%." The next 14 double-page spreads follow the same pattern: a large, sharply defined photo and large-print text that defines the picture in terms of its subject along with three ways of expressing it numerically. But while "1/10 of your toes" (smartly illustrated with a big toe poking through the hole in a sock) is ".10" or "10%," some of the decimal numbers and percentages are rounded-off approximations: "1/7 of a week" is not exactly" .14" or "14%" of a week. If that's close enough for a teacher's purposes, then this attractive book will fit the bill. However, those who value the precision of mathematics will be disappointed that Gifford chose to use inexact equivalencies without at least mentioning the useful concepts of rounding and approximation. This is, nevertheless, a promising first book for Gifford, an elementary-school teacher, and another striking visual interpretation from Thaler, the photographer who illustrated George Levenson's Pumpkin Circle (2002). ((Reviewed December 15, 2003)) Copyright 2003 Booklist Reviews
Horn Book Guide Reviews 2004 Spring
After a compact but clear and thorough explanation of the relationship among fractions, decimals, and percentages, Gifford gives examples: ""1/12 of a dozen eggs / .08 / 8%,"" etc. Each example faces a large, striking photo of the featured object, bordered by solid color bars for a neat graphic effect. The examples (""1/10 of your toes""; ""1/3 of a traffic light"") are well chosen and original. Copyright 2004 Horn Book Guide Reviews.
Kirkus Reviews 2003 September #1
Math classes in the upper elementary grades and middle school are the logical audience for this deceptively simple work that shows the correlation between numerical amounts expressed as fractions, decimals, and percentages. Each left-hand page uses the repeating pattern of a fraction, a few descriptive words in colored type, and then the corresponding decimal and percentage. Right-hand pages show an attractive photograph of the object under discussion against bright borders. Some of the examples are easy to comprehend (3/4 of a sandwich, .75, and 75%) and others are more complex (1/12 of a dozen eggs, .08, and 8%). A juicy piece of pizza on the front cover is complemented by the rest of the pizza on the back cover, and the concept of a whole (1 whole pizza, 1.00, 100%) is the concluding spread. This clever idea will work best when introduced to students by a mathematically literate adult. (author's note) (Picture book/nonfiction. 8-13) Copyright Kirkus 2003 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
School Library Journal Reviews 2003 November
Gr 3-5-The striking photography in this book will not only whet an occasional appetite, but also satisfy the need for a visual treatment of the topic. Opposite three written representations of the same portion-a fraction, a decimal, and a percent-Thaler contributes clear, close-up illustrations. The large photographs framed in bands of bold color draw the eye from the matching numeral equivalents. While the examples include the tried-and-true pieces of pie and pizza and quarter of a dollar, Gifford relates more unusual divisions of a whole to illustrate other fractions: 1/7 of a week and 1/11 of a soccer team offer a fresh look at other portions. This simple text, paired with large vibrant art, provides a startlingly clear mathematical perspective.-Mary Elam, Forman Elementary School, Plano, TX Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.


Date: October - December, 2005, California Agriculture journal
Media Advisory: Testing times follow two cases of mad cow disease
While only two cases of mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE) have been confirmed in the United States since late 2003, they set off a national debate over how and to what degree American cattle should be tested for BSE. The current issue of the University of California’s peer-reviewed California Agriculture journal focuses on the policy implications of the U.S. cases of the fatal bovine disease.
“Critical questions facing the U.S. policy establishment include which tests to use, how many cattle to test, which cows to test, whether to decentralize testing sites, and in particular, whether or not to allow testing on farms,” writes Kate O’Neill, associate professor in the UC Berkeley Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, in the October-December 2005 issue.
In peer-reviewed studies, O’Neill analyzes U.S. regulatory policies regarding testing cattle for BSE, while UC Davis researchers describe a new DNA-based test to detect bovine contamination of cattle feed. In an editorial overview, leaders of the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Bennie Osburn (dean) and Donald Klingborg (associate dean), discuss how University of California scientists are contributing to efforts to better understand, monitor and control BSE. Related news coverage explores recent BSE-related policy and research.
BSE is spread among cattle via feed contaminated with rendered ruminant animals infected by similar diseases. This practice was widespread in the United Kingdom — where BSE devastated the cattle industry during the 1990s — but is less common in the United States. BSE has been identified in cattle from about two-dozen nations around the world, albeit at much lower levels than those found in the United Kingdom. Scientists linked consumption of BSE-infected beef to variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a new form of an extremely rare but fatal brain disease in humans.
In 2004, the USDA vastly expanded BSE testing rates, with the majority of the program voluntary. To date the USDA has tested nearly 500,000 cattle for BSE. Critics of the current testing policy note that about 36 million cattle are slaughtered in the United States each year, making current levels insufficient. They also have called for disclosure of geographic location, age and disease status of sampled cattle. But proponents argue that the low levels of BSE found in the United States do not warrant the huge expense of a significantly expanded testing program.


"Capacitor Plague" is the colloquial term for a vast range of electrolytic capacitor failures, most often used when several capacitors on a circuit board are bulging or have burst. The following photo shows the cooked acidic residue that sprayed out from several capacitors hiding under the mechanical part of one of my DVD players.
In my case, the residue had been cooked onto the backplane and corroded several surface mount components. This cheap DVD player is a write-off. I could probably fix it, but it would be more trouble than it's worth.
Capacitor plague is common on older motherboards and video cards, as well as in other chintzy consumer electronics. When it happens, there's usually a hiss or a pop from the device. If you catch it (and clean up the electrolyte using flux cleaner or high-grade isopropyl alcohol if any leaked) before it ruins something else, you can usually buy and solder in replacement capacitors of equal value. Remember, though, that many capacitors are polarity sensitive.
Electronics repair tips:
- If polarity is marked on a component (by a colored band down the side of a capacitor or a band around the positive end of a diode), mark the positive terminal on the board before removing the component. I usually just put a black dot near the positive terminal on the solder side of the board using a permanent marker.
- Avoid confusion of parts by replacing only one failed component at a time.
- Use a grounded work mat and a wrist strap to avoid a static discharge that could damage the part you're working on.


Racial segregation in the USA, which was enshrined in law until 1964, refers to the so-called racial segregation, especially of white and black people, whereby Asian and Latinx people were also affected. This was based on the assumption of white supremacy over blacks and people of color. These divisions took place in all areas of life, such as education, medical care, occupations, and voting rights. For example, there were benches and drinking fountains in parks that Black people were not allowed to use. Beginning in the mid-1950s, the Civil Rights Movement campaigned to repeal the discrimination against black people that was enshrined in law. Civil rights activist Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) played a key role in this.