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Rebecca McMahon, a Kansas State University Research and Extension Horticulture Agent for Sedgwick County, Kansas, demonstrates a slightly different method of setting up cattle panels to serve as vertical growing platforms than the method I described in my post about building a cattle panel arch.
The method she uses is to first cut the panel in half, and then tie the two pieces together at the top with metal hog rings. At the base the pieces are spread out to make an A-frame structure which fits into the raised beds used as shown in the video below. My arch trellis was placed directly on the ground as was secured by t-posts.
A DIY Tutorial: Repurposing an Old Cattle Panel
An easy DIY (do-it-yourself) vertical gardening project is the creation of an arch by bending a cattle panel into the arch shape, pounding four t-posts into the ground a little over one foot and securing the panel on both sides where each side touches the ground to these t-posts with post clips or wire.
Although you can cut up galvanized, welded cattle panels to form individual tomato cages, it is much easier to forego any cutting and simply place two 16′ panels side-by-side 18″-30″ apart to support multiple tomato plants. It's easy, it's strong, it can last for years and it takes maybe half an hour to set up. In my case, since I had some old damaged panels lying around that were once part of a horse enclosure, and a number of t-posts I got for free, this was essentially a no-cost project.
This text and picture version offers a little more information, but if you prefer a video presentation of this tutorial, you can find it at YouTube Cattle Panel Tutorial.
Over the years, gardeners have put empty plastic soda and water bottles to various uses in their gardens, but a group of urban gardening aficionados employed the collaborative open source concept of software development so prevalent on today's web to create and enhance a growing system they named the WindowFarms Project. WindowFarms are sized to fit in front of the typical household window in an urban setting. The philosophy is this : if you have a window, you can grow your own food and create your own personal "green revolution". The process was given the name R&D-I-Y, or Research & Develop It Yourself.
How It Works
The founders of Windowfarms came up with the DIY plans to tie together several plastic bottles in a vertical column fed by a drip of nutrient solution cascading down through each successive bottle to a reservoir (a larger bottle) at the bottom, which is then pumped back up to the topmost bottle using an inexpensive aquarium air pump. Basically, it's the Poor Man's Hydroponics. Below, Mayra Cimet's how-to video illustrates the construction of a version 2 Windowfarm:
Story continues with an additional video and photos…
Perhaps you have some old tires lying around waiting for the day when you find the time to dispose of them at the local dump or recycling center. Water that collects inside the tires also becomes prime breeding grounds for that irksome cloud of hungry mosquitos that always seems to appear the minute you decide to enjoy some time in your yard or garden. Not to mention that trying to get that water out of the tire well is often an exercise in futility despite your best efforts at tire flipping, throwing and bouncing (Maybe they should make this an Olympic sport).
Unless you have a pickup truck or trailer, attempting to transport the tires may necessitate a secondary trip to the local auto detailer shop to get rid of the dirt, grime and muck that will likely find its way to your car's seats or the carpet of its trunk. Not to mention any hitchhikers that you may pick up in the process, maybe a Black Widow spider or a lizard or two. To add insult to injury, you'll probably have to spend $2 – $5 apiece to dispose of these tires. But is there another solution?
Most people who haven't sent time on the farm or ranch are most likely unfamiliar with a very useful item, the standard 50″ by 16′ cattle panel, which can be purchased from farm and ranch supply companies such as Tractor Supply for approximately $25. These panels and a few t-posts allow the setting up of a temporary or permanent fence of a substantial size in very little time.
But in the vertical gardening milieu these stout, welded livestock panels can be put to other uses as well. A cattle panel can be used as a 16′ trellis, or cut in half to form two 8′ trellises, or set up as intended like a fence, but used as a 4′ high trellis 16′ long. Their flexibility allows bending the panel with both ends anchored on the ground forming an arch on which plants can grow or containers hung.
You can cut the panels using bolt cutters, a reciprocating saw with a metal cutting blade or an angle grinder with a metal cutting or diamond blade. You can cut a panel in half and use the two halves to construct an a-frame which climbing plants can readily grow up. Cut one into 8 two-foot sections, and you can assemble them into two tomato cages, or use two panels side-by-side about 30″ apart with tomato plants growing between the two.
Another use of the cattle panel is the construction of a greenhouse. Several panels are bent to form arches joined together in 50″ lengths until your greenhouse has the dimensions required. The ends are secured to a wooden plate or beam, or tied to pieces of galvanized pipe or rebar pounded into the ground, and some have even created a more elaborate setup with cinder blocks and concrete forming the base. Plastic sheeting is then draped over this framework and secured to the frame using any one of a variety of ties, clasps or screws.


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Songs of Innocence and Experience
1. Discuss Blake's use of auditory imagery in the poems, and cite one example.
2. Comment on Blake as a social critic.
3. What were (and are) the effects of Blake's mode of publishing his poems with handcrafted colored engravings?
4. Comment on Blake's use of the ballad form.
5. What are Blake's favorite images of innocence, and how does he use them?
6. Discuss Blake's use of simple sentence structure and diction in these poems. What is the overall effect of this stylistic decision? What keeps the poems themselves from being simple?
7. How does Blake portray nature? How does the conception of nature differ in the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of Experience?
8. Are Blake's poems symbolic? Explain your answer.
9. How does Blake use repetition in the Songs of Innocence and Experience?
10. How does Blake portray childhood?
11. What can you discern from these poems about Blake's views on religion?
by slowpulsegirl, September 11, 2012
By "rose" W.Blake could also mean his heart,and the worm could be some thoughts he has regarding a lover that is a temptation for him.His love for this person is secret,and he has thoughts about her when he is alone in his bed at night.The fact that from what we see this love is single sided slowly kills the speaker's heart and life.
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Walleye have exceptionally keen eyesight, even in low light conditions. This ability allows walleye to be particularly victorious predators at nighttime and at twilight and daybreak. The oldest reported age for a walleye is twenty-nine years! The heaviest published poundage for a walleye is 11.3 kg
Inhabitants of this sub-species are still present in Canada!
Walleye in North America are discovered in the Arctic south to the Great Lakes and across to the St. Lawrence River. In Canada, walleye are sighted in Quebec transverse to the Northwest Territories. Within the United States, walleye are found southward into Alabama and Arkansas and in the Mississippi River basin. Walleye have been broadly introduced outside of their native range within the U.S., including the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean drainages and in the Gulf of Mexico.
Walleye transpires in lakes, pools, back waters and runs of middle-sized to large rivers. Walleye favor large shallow lakes with elevated turbidity. Walleye are infrequently sighted in brackish water.
Adolescent walleye feed on invertebrates and small fish. Adult walleye feed mainly on fish such as yellow perch and minnows, but abundance of fish species have been found in walleye stomachs. Adults will also feed on crayfish, snails, frogs, mudpuppies and small mammals when fish and insects are in short supply. 🐟

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Hair Color Forensics
Hair Color Forensics Photo Credit: Clipart.com
DNA evidence may accurately predict an unknown suspect's hair color.
Hair color from blood samples. I'm Bob Hirshon and this is Science Update.
If you watch crime shows, you know that you can get a suspect's DNA from a strand of hair. Now, scientists in the Netherlands have shown that you can also predict a suspect's hair color from their DNA. Forensic scientist Manfred Kayser of Erasmus University Medical Center says that until now, only redheads could be reliably identified by genetic markers.
Unfortunately, the red hair color is very rare in basically all human populations. So, the practical applications, like in forensics, of that red hair color DNA test was always very limited.
For the first time, the team found a way to tell blond from brown hair using DNA, and even distinguish between different shades of those colors. So even when there's no hair at the crime scene, investigators may soon predict the hair color of an unknown suspect from sources like blood or saliva. I'm Bob Hirshon, for AAAS, the science society.
Making Sense of the Research
In ideal circumstances, DNA evidence can be used to put an individual suspect at a crime scene. However, in order to make a person-to-person match, authorities need to compare the crime scene sample to a verified sample of the suspect's DNA—for example, from a database or from a mouth swab taken at the police station.
If, however, there's no known suspect at at the start of the investigation, then DNA evidence can be used only to narrow down the possibilities. For example, a DNA sample clearly reveals the suspect's sex, and can indicate whether the suspect was biologically related to the victim. What scientists would like to move towards, however, is using DNA like a police sketch artist, to help create a picture of what the perpetrator might look like.
As you heard, scientists have been able to identify red-haired people from their DNA for some time. However, this isn't very useful in criminal investigations, since red hair is found almost exclusively in people of Northern European descent, and is rare even within that group. So the chances that your suspect will turn out to be a redhead are pretty small, and finding out that your suspect isn't a redhead eliminates very few people from consideration.
By focusing on 11 different genes with 13 hair color-related genetic markers (bits of DNA associated with a particular trait), Kayser's team developed a significantly accurate, though not perfect, way to identify more hair colors. Their technique could identify red and black hair with 90 percent accuracy, and brown or blond hair with 80 percent accuracy. Kayser suspects that it may be a little harder to tell blond from brown hair because some people have blond hair when they're younger, but darker hair as adults. Their technique could also distinguish between different shades of blond hair, and different shades of red.
Although the technique isn't 100 percent accurate, Kayser says it's certainly good enough to be included as one of many clues in an investigation. He says the test would have to be simplified to be used easily by investigative agencies. He also notes that their results apply only to hair on the head, and not hair color anywhere else on the body. His lab is also working on ways to predict eye color from DNA samples.
Now try and answer these questions:
 1. When would it be useful to predict a suspect's hair color from a DNA sample? When would it be unnecessary?
 2. Why are tests like these useful if they aren't 100 percent accurate?
 3. What are some ethical questions involved in using DNA evidence to identify unknown suspects?
For Educators
In the Science NetLinks lesson Cracking the Genetic Code, students research and write a feature article on the Human Genome Project. They come to understand what the knowledge of DNA can tell us about ourselves and other organisms and species.
In the Science NetLinks lesson Extracting DNA, students develop understanding of DNA by modeling the process of DNA extraction.
Related Resources
DNA Chips
9-12 |
Take the Case: Chain of Evidence
9-12 | Interactive
JFK Analysis
6-12 | Audio
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is no longer needed for other nodes to send traffic to it. Instead, the NKN address is the only information needed to send packets to a node or client. The role of the NKN address in NKN is similar to an IP address in the Internet. Please refer to "NKN Address Scheme" section for how nodes and clients choose NKN addresses.
The distance from NKN addresses x to y is defined as
dist(x, y) = (y — x) mod 2^m
which satisfies the following conditions:
 - dist(x, y) >= 0
 - dist(x, y) = 0 if and only if x = y
 - dist(x, z) <= dist(x, y) + dist(y, z)
 - dist(x, y) = dist(x + a, y + a)
Note that the distance metric is asymmetric such that dist(x, y) (distance from x to y) is generally not equal to dist(y, x).
Some people may ask, why does NKN define a concept of "distance" in the network? In fact, this is because with the definition of "distance", you can define the topology of the network. The network topology is extremely important for NKN. E.g:
We first define the successor and predecessor node of any NKN address x
successor(x) = argmin_y {dist(x, y) | y in all nodes}
predecessor(x) = argmin_y {dist(y, x) | y in all nodes}
Successor and predecessor of a node can be defined similarly, except that the successor and predecessor of a node cannot be itself. If node x is the successor of node y, then y is the predecessor of x.
Each node x in NKN has a few neighbors:
successor((x + 2^i) mod 2^m), 0 <= i < m
{y | x is a successor of y}
Since not all NKN addresses are assigned to nodes, some neighbors above point to the same node. It is worth mentioning that neighbors are defined to be symmetric such that if y is a neighbor of x, x is also a neighbor of y. The expected number of neighbors of a node is O(log(N)).
Clients connect to the NKN through nodes. A client at NKN address x is connected to predecessor(x). The client sends and receives data only through established connections with the node it's connected to and thus no client public IP address is needed. Clients in the NKN are similar to keys in Chord DHT (except that it's connected to its predecessor rather than successor).
Although there are other topology that may lead to a more efficient routing path, our choice has a critical advantage such that each choice of neighbor can be verified by at least one other node. Suppose a node at address x should choose A as its i-th successor node. In this case, there are no nodes between address (x + 2^i) mod 2^m and A, and A should have known this information from its predecessor. Thus A knows that itself should be a neighbor of x. If node x does not choose A as a neighbor, A is able to falsify it. Similarly, if x chooses another node between A and (x + 2^(i+1)) mod 2^m in addition to A as neighbors, A should also be able to falsify it. Verifiability is crucial to an open network that may have a nontrivial portion of malicious nodes. It greatly reduces the possibility that malicious nodes choose specific neighbors to attack the system.
If you understand the principles of DDTN topology selection, then we can further introduce the DDTN routing technology. Given an established NKN network, routing can be achieved in a greedy algorithm using only information about neighbors. When a node wants to send or relay a packet to a destination address, it sends the packet to the neighbor that has the smallest distance to the destination address. The remaining distance becomes at most half of the previous value for each relay, thus decreases exponentially or faster as the packet is being relayed. Similar to Chord DHT, the expected number of hops is O(log(N)) given uniformly distributed addresses.
If the destination address is a client rather than a node, the above routing stops as long as the packet reaches the node connected to the client. The node then relays the packet to the client through the established connection.
The route between any two node pair is verifiable. Suppose a node sending a packet to destination address D should choose its neighbor A as the next hop while it actually chose neighbor B. From the routing rule we know that dist(A, D) < dist(B, D). Then A is able to falsify the route. If the node chose a non-neighbor node as the next hop, then such route can be falsified by the actual neighbor as discussed previously. The verifiability of routing is crucial to reduce the possibility of forming routes consisting of only malicious nodes. For a practical relay path validation algorithm, please refer to "Relay Path Validation" section.
In addition to network topology and routing, NKN must consider openness in order to build a network-based public blockchain. This requires a set of NKN protocols to define the behavior of the nodes/clients, such as node/client join, node/client exit, channel keepalive messages, network stabilization mechanisms, and so on.
Since NKN is an open network, it is inevitable that nodes will join and leave the network at any time, with or without prior notification. To efficiently maintain the NKN, each node locally maintains three lists:
 1. Its successors and predecessors. At least one successor and one predecessor is needed, while keeping more nodes in the list enhances fault tolerance. (For specific principles, please refer to the NKN White Paper Ising Model Mathematical Proof and Simulation Results: _URL_ ).
 2. Its neighbors.
 3. Clients connected to it.
Nodes update these lists in response to topology changes. For efficiency, it is important that when a node or client join or leave the network, only a small portion of the other nodes (up to O(logN)) are updates. We have the following protocols that satisfy our goal in dynamic environments.
Table 1 Overview of NKN Protocol Definition
Figure 4 NKN node-join protocol flow chart
Figure 5 NKN node-exit protocol flow chart
Proof of Relay (PoR)
One of the key problems in NKN is to prove how much data a node relayed, which we define as Proof of Relay (PoR). PoR is crucial to the NKN as the amount of data being relayed is directly related to token rewards. An ideal proof should satisfy the following conditions:
 1. verifiable: anyone, involved in data transmission or not, is able to verify the proof correctly using only public information;
 2. unforgeable: no party, unless controlled all involved nodes, is able to forge a valid proof with nontrivial probability;
 3. untamperable: no party, unless controlled all involved nodes, is able to modify a valid proof with nontrivial probability.
Unlike Bitcoin and Ethereum mining, PoR is a useful proof of work: mining the data samples under transmission in an active channel. NKN achieve this by using a particular chain of signature. To improve efficiency, we use the hash of the chain to randomly select proofs in an uncontrollable but verifiable way. Moreover, we select a class of proofs that is proven to be hard to forge even for a large malicious party that has controlled a significant portion of all nodes in the network to be eligible for other benefits such as mining rewards.
One of the primary functions of the NKN is to transmit data. To be transparent to higher level applications, NKN works with network packets. Packet originates from source which can be either node or client, then relayed by relayers which can only be nodes, and finally arrives at destination which can be either node or client. The basic transmission unit in NKN is the NKN packet. The fields of a NKN packet are shown in Table 2.
Table 2 Summary of NKN Packet Fields
As can be seen from Table 2, the signature chain is part of the NKN packet and is the part of the NKN packet that may be on chain. The signature chain is a signature chain that the relay node signs in turn when forwarding the NKN packet, as shown in Figure 6. Each element in the signature chain consists of the following fields: the NKN address and public key of the relay node, the NKN address of the next relay node, and the signature(signature of the previous element on chain, relayer NKN address, next relayer NKN address) signed with relayer private key.
Figure 6 Schematic diagram of the signature chain structure
As illustrated in Figure 6, the essential feature of a signature chain is its verifiability. A signature chain is valid if and only if for each element on chain, the following conditions are satisfied:
 - The relayer NKN address matches the next relayer NKN address of the previous element.
 - The signature field is valid.
Any modifications to a signed NKN packet except the payload will invalidate the signature chain unless re-signed. Thus, a signature chain is verifiable to anyone who has access to the NKN packet (no need for the payload). A malicious party cannot tamper with or forge a signature chain without having all the private keys along the route.
A NKN packet is valid if and only if the following conditions are satisfied:
 1. Payload


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Model-Based and Trace-Based Timing Analysis
- Thursday, 27 October 2011
Symtavision (Braunschweig, Germany) has launched SymTA/S 3.0 and TraceAnalyzer 3.0, the first fully integrated versions of these system-level tools for model-based design and trace-based verification. Targeted at automotive, aerospace, automation, and other performanceand safety-critical systems, the combination of SymTA/S 3.0 and TraceAnalyzer 3.0 enables high efficiency and reliability for the dimensioning, optimization, regression-testing, and verification of controllers and networks, focusing on load, task and message latencies, system schedulability, end-to-end timing, data consistency, and other key properties that ensure system correctness.
The launch of SymTA/S 3.0 and TraceAnalyzer 3.0 creates an integrated solution delivering full, round-trip support for modeland trace-based timing analysis. Engineers can rapidly merge controller or network traces into existing SymTA/S models. They can start from traces and then change the system configuration virtually to predict the performance impact of additional tasks or messages, different scheduling strategies, or faster hardware. This integration of modeland trace-based timing analysis enables engineers to quickly iterate their designs as many times as they want, for both new developments and evolutionary extension and optimization of existing systems.


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- Inhabitat – Sustainable Design Innovation, Eco Architecture, Green Building - _URL_ -
Students Develop Radar Device to Help Blind People "See"
Posted By Brit Liggett On June 4, 2010 @ 10:40 am In Design for Health,green gadgets,green technology,humanitarian design | 3 Comments
Students in Israel at the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed new technology that allows blind people to "see" objects around them through a simple radar system. The device consists of a computer, two video cameras and a scanning light source that audibly alerts the individual of objects that are close in proximity. The system scans surrounding objects and their distance from two points, much like the human eyes. Currently, vision impaired people need either a sensor cane or a guide dog in order to walk freely, both of which take up the use of one hand. This invention could prove to change all of that.
The number of visually impaired people in the world is estimated as between 40 and 45 million. Previously there has been no effective replacement for the cane or guide dog. Many types of canes have been developed, some with sophisticated sensor technology and others that simply allow people to feel objects in their path. However, they only sense objects on ground level and they require constant action on the part of the user. Guide dogs are effective, but have disadvantages of their own. One of the largest is that they are partially color blind and can't tell the difference between colored street signs, which could be a deadly disadvantage in an urban environment.
This new radar technology senses objects in a person's normal field of vision. It will even sense overhead objects and anything to either side of the individual. The invention was unveiled at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering conference at Ben-Gurion University and was developed by Elad Kuperberg and Einav Tasa, with the supervision of Professor Shlomi Arnon. "This optical radar device is not only user friendly, but unlike the other solutions it allows the blind to have the use of both of their hands," said Professor Arnon about the system. A smart and intuitive solution for a big problem, this new technology could revolutionize the lives of the vision impaired.
Via Science Daily
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Does Anti-Drug Advertising Work?
54 Pages Posted: 11 Nov 2003
Date Written: July 1999
This paper examines whether a national anti-drug advertising campaign is associated with a change in adolescents' drug use behavior. Specifically, the primary objective of the paper is to investigate the relationship between adolescents' recall of exposure to anti-drug advertising and their probability of trying marijuana, cocaine and crack, as well as their volume of drug use given trial. We use a version of an attribute-based discrete choice framework based upon work by Hanemann (1984) to generate a model of drug use behavior, and estimate the model using a modified sequential probit framework. We estimate the model using data from the Partnership for a Drug-Free America (PDFA) Partnership Attitude Tracking Survey (PATS) over the years 1987 through 1990. Since PDFA advertising did not begin until after the first set of data were collected, we had a form of "natural experiment" where we could first address the factors influencing drug use on a control group (respondents interviewed prior to the commencement of PDFA advertising). We were then able to test hypotheses about the effectiveness of anti-drug advertising over the first three years of the program (_PHONE_).
The results support the hypothesis that anti-drug advertising lowers the probability of both marijuana and cocaine/crack trial by adolescents. Specifically, the results suggest that the cumulative impact of anti-drug advertising was to lower the probability of marijuana trial by 9.25% and cocaine trial by 3.6% at the individual level in year three of the program (1990). However, our results suggest that recall of anti-drug advertising did not generally affect adolescents' decisions regarding how much marijuana or cocaine/crack to use for those already using these drugs. Thus, although we find strong evidence suggesting that anti-drug advertising is associated with decreased drug trial, our results suggest that its impact on the volume of consumption of harder drugs by existing drug users is minimal.
JEL Classification: L3, M2, M3
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation


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Swordfish offers many health benefits, especially for people who are following low-carbohydrate, high-protein diets. Their color ranges from brown to blue-gray. Sawfish and Sawsharks are two of the most unique looking fish in the world. Thank you, that was very interesting. The longest swordfish ever caught was 14.9 ft (4.55 m) long and weighed 1,430 lbs (650 kg). Swordfish is usually three metres long, but some individuals can be more than four metres in length. He has more than ten years of diverse experience as a Zoologist and Environmental Biologist. They live for up to nine years and reach sexual maturity between two and three years of age. Sawfish belong to the Ray family, and Sawsharks are, well, Sharks. Empower Her. Relevance. Despite their large body size, marlins are exceptionally agile swimmers with speeds up to 110 kilometres per hour. They reach sexual maturity between one and two years and have shorter life spans than swordfish, living up to 4 years. How to Tell the Difference Between Bull Shark & Great White, Comparison and Contrast of Whales and Dolphins. Therefore, they … Sailfish, by contrast, can grow up to three metres – but this is for an important reason…. Favorite Answer. What do you think about these two unique looking fish? It is scientifically known as Xiphias gladius, belong to the Family: Xiphiidae of the Order: Perciformes, and there is only one species of swordfish in the world. Marlins, with their long spear-like bill and strong dorsal fins belong to the family Istiophoridae. Like the swordfish, they are found through the world's warm and temperate oceans. Its name comes from a dorsal fin that runs almost the length of the body and, when extended, is significantly higher than the width of the body. It is named after its bill which looks like a sword. They feed on smaller fish like sardines and anchovies and also prefer squid and octopus when available. What Is the Difference Between a Sailfish & a Swordfish. What Is the Difference Between a Bottle-Nosed Dolphin & a Porpoise? The Istiophoridae and Xiphiidae families encompass the 12 species of billfish including swordfish and sailfish, commonly referred to as the billfish family. You have corrected this article This article has been corrected by You and other Voluntroves This article has been corrected by Voluntroves $ Close Captcha. The Great Barrier Reef - The Mecca of Black M... 7 min read. Bringing entertaining and digestible content loved by our readers, we are aimed at the dive community and its industry. Related posts. They are pelagic, living in the open ocean, near the water surface or in deep water but never at the bottom or in coastal areas. Anonymous. They are the fastest fish in the ocean, much faster than swordfish, and have been clocked at more than 68 miles per hour. The Benefits of Swordfish. The Sawshark is indeed a shark, while the Sawfish is a ray - still a cartilaginous fish, but not a shark. Sawshark's teeth alternate between large and small, and there's a single pair of barbs near the middle of their snout. It is not a laterally flattened body but round-shaped. At just four years, their maximum lifespan is less than half that of swordfish. These two groups of fish are widespread around the world. Swordfish is usually three metres long, but some individuals can be more than four metres in length. Sailfish have both teeth and scales. Sailfish are the two described species of the Genus: Istiophorus (Atlantic sailfish and Indo-Pacific sailfish). The snouts are actually very different on these two fish. Its common name is believed to have been derived from a sailor's marlinspike. These naturally oily fish are common as grilled steaks with marinades or herbs. Sailfish (Istiophorus albicans) are smaller than swordfish, reaching lengths of up to 10 feet and 220 pounds. The largest marlin species can grow more than 16.4 feet (5 meters) long and weigh as much as 1,480 pounds (670 kilograms). Marlins are blessed with long lives (>25 years in wild), and they reach the sexual maturity at two to four years of age. Naveen is a Doctoral Student in Agroforestry, former Research Scientist and an Environmental Officer. The pectoral fins are not clearly visible due to their large body size. one saws wood whilethe other fences with the fencing team. Sailfish range throughout the warm and temperate regions of the world's oceans, and prefer temperatures between 21°C and 28°C. Using sudden lateral movements, Sawfish can use their saw to cut other fish in half! They are able to survive in water temperatures as low as 50 degrees F. Swordfish can reach sizes of up to 1200 pounds and 15 feet in length. © 2020 WILD SKY MEDIA. What Is the Difference Between Midas & Red Devil Cichlids? They're both lightning quick and have bills that look like they'd pierce a dingy. Depending on the species, marlins reach different body sizes ranging around 5 – 6 metres of length and 600 – 800 kilograms of weights. They're most commonly found around South Africa, Australia, Japan, and the northwestern Caribbean. Female swordfish are bigger than males. However, they do not exceed 3 metres in length, and the maximum bodyweight is usually 90 kilograms. Apart from Narrow Sawfish, an inhabitant of the Atlantic ocean, all other species of Sawfish live in the Indo-Pacific. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. PART OF WILD SKY MEDIA | FAMILY & PARENTING, Rhode Island Sea Grant Fact Sheet - Swordfish, The Difference Between a Scorpion Fish and Lionfish.
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The Sexist
How Feminists Ruined Menstruation, and Other Insights of a Dude Psychologist
Jesse Bering is "curious about the... immediate, subjective experiences of girls who are faced inexplicably with the fact that their uterine linings are literally falling out of their vaginas," he writes in his Scientific American column. There's just one thing standing in the way of Bering gaining an intimate knowledge of a girl's first uterine-dumping: Feminism. "There's a smattering of empirical studies on girls' firsthand experiences with menses, most coming with a rather heavy-handed feminist slant," he writes. Leave it to this dude "research psychologist" (the kind who, for the record, refers to an elderly woman as a "spirited old ape before me") to cut through all of that bullshit to tell us what women really think of their first periods.
Bering's stunning conclusion: Vaginal blood brings either (a) shame or (b) nonchalant acceptance, depending upon which culture you are vaginally bleeding in! Incidentally, feminists have also observed this phenomenon, but they are wrong and he is right, for some reason. Bering explains it all:
This curious air of embarrassment, secrecy and shame surrounding menarche is a recurring theme in the empirical literature, and in fact this negative view of menstruation displays a surprising cross-cultural regularity. Even in some African nations where the first menses is publicly celebrated and the girl is doted on with special attention and gifts (perfumes, dresses, pajamas, towels), adolescent females are often deeply uncomfortable with their new biological state of affairs. A Zambian woman interviewed by York University psychologist Ayse Uskul described how embarrassed she'd been that her menstruation had become public and pointed out how she'd in fact shied away from all the attention being showered on her by her relatives.
Such anecdotes would appear to pose some serious problems for traditional feminist theories, which tend to argue that Western negative attitudes toward everything from menstruation to vaginas at large are simply the result of cultural constructions. "How society officially views and treats menarche does not mean that the girl who is having her first menstruation will experience the event in the same positive way," says Uskul. Communal ostracism of menstruating girls is also fairly common. One woman from South East Asia said that she decided to become an atheist when she was told that she couldn't participate in any religious rituals or even enter the temple while having her period. But there are also a handful of societies in which menarche is more or less shrugged off as just one of those things and public menstrual bleeding seems to stir up about as much awkwardness as a sneeze. Among the Kayapo of the Amazon, for instance, there is no such thing as makeshift sanitary protection or hygienic napkins; rather, the word there for menstruation is translated literally as "stripe down the leg."
Let's slow this down for a second and follow Bering's reasoning here:
(a) Menstruation brings shame to women in a variety of cultures.
(b) Even in Zambia, where women are publicly celebrated with towels and stuff on the event of their first bleed, one Zambian woman was nevertheless embarrassed by the public attention to the inner workings of her vagina.
(c) The nuanced experience of this single Zambian woman—who illustrates how both "positive" and "negative" cultural responses to menstruation turn women's bodies into public property —apparently threatens to debunk all feminist work claiming that the shame associated with menstruation is culturally constructed.
(d) Uhhh, also, there are a few cultures where menstruation is neither punished nor celebrated and everyone is pretty much nonchalant about it, so I guess the feminists were right that reactions to menstruation actually may be culturally constructed, but I'm not going to admit that because feminists annoy me. Heh, women. What do they know about this shit?
Bering's column touches on some hugely interesting research on menstruation, even if he then uses it to bash feminists and conclude with this baseless attribution of menstruation shame to evolutionary forces: "I've often wondered if the tremendous reservation that most parents have in communicating with their children about sex has the ironic consequence of making their children more curious about it—a curiosity that translates into earlier and more frequent sexual activity," Bering writes. "And that makes me wonder if there weren't (and aren't) perhaps some natural selection pressures at work here, forces favoring parental modesty over candor in the sex education of children." And it makes me wonder if there aren't some natural selection forces favoring mansplaining over research in the field of evolutionary psychology. Get Bering on it!
Photo via amy b, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0
 - Jeff Fecke
 You're welcome, ladies. I mean, how would women even know about menstuation if not for we smart men and our big boy brains?
 - kza
 I don't think this is something a guy can understand. I myself how an involuntary bodily function can possibly produce shame.
 - Kit-Kat
 I'm not a research scientist, but it would seem to me that society does not always view menarche in a single, monolithic, "official" way. Even in my very Western upbringing, getting your first period was a mixed experience: it was a little scary (because even if you know what is happening, there's still the whole bleeding-from-your-vagina thing), kind of uncomfortable (cramps, putting in tampons, etc.), and potentially embarrassing if you stained your clothes or a pad fell out of your backpack and one of the oh-so-enlightened teenage boys in your class saw it and made a big deal out of it--but it also meant that you were growing up, becoming a woman, somehow initiated into something. So it's not that hard to imagine that even in a culture that officially celebrates it, a girl might still feel uncomfortable having so much attention drawn to her private bodily processes. Let's face it--the last time someone paid that much attention to you genitals, you were potty-training.
 - Jess
 kza, you're being sarcastic, right? About guys not being able to understand how someone could possibly be ashamed of an involuntary bodily function, like wet dreams or premature ejaculation?
 - Marty
 This seems like a good time to play a game of Evolutionary Psychology Bingo!:
 - Melissa
 That last bit about how natural selection favors parents who don't want to talk to their kids about sex because that, in turn, increases sexual activity...oh boy. That was the best part.
 - Ryan
 This is the voyage of Jesse Bering: To go where no mansplainer has gone before!
 - Elizabeth
 Thank you, Amanda Hess, for this brilliant take-down. As they say over at Shakesvill, I would totally do your taxes. I spend a great deal of my time talking about the cultural construction of menstruation, and it makes me deliriously happy to have other smart ladies join me.
 (And thanks, Marty, for EvoPsych bingo! This will come in handy.)
 - Stassa
 Not a helpful observation in any way, but the word menarche makes me giggle. A lot. But I guess it's shame - good ole fashioned feminist shame.
 - Laura
 Wow, not only is he mansplaining to the max, but he's actually using feminist scholarship to do so.
 - Laura
 Menstruation: so obscure!
 - firefly
 There is more "shame", then when a culture views a woman's body more as public property, or worse, a period as a shameful thing. There is less shame if a culture doesn't endorse negative views on periods, but women are individual, so some will still be annoyed by their periods, depending on how they feel.
 - Nancy
 I love Evolutionary Psychology bingo!
 - kza
 How is ejaculation durimg my sleep shameful? People feel shame to easily. When I was younger and with a girl and I couldn't get it up, yeah maybe then I'd be embarrased but I'm older now who cares I can't control it.
 - queen of carrot flowers
 I think firefly's got a good point. Talking about vaginas is really taboo most of the time (y'can't say anything even close to it on TV, for example, so we're subjected to va-jay-jay, down there, and the like). When they are discussed, it's generally either in the context of sex or periods, and often the two are seen as mutually exclusive. The vagina is totally gross and I can't have sex with it one week a month! Plug it up!
 - Pingback: Saturday Surfing One Day Early | Society for Menstrual Cycle Research
 - Jess
 When I was younger and with a girl and I couldn't get it up, yeah maybe then I'd be embarrased but I'm older now who cares I can't control it.
 You realize that the people discussed in the article who are feeling shame about an involuntary bodily function are probably 12, right? I just think it's pretty classless to pass judgment on young girls for feeling embarrassed about something that they've been told is shameful, just because you're a big smart adult now -- even when you admit that when you were younger, you might have felt similarly.
 - kza
 Oops. Good point. Nevermind.
 - Madeleine
 Is it just me, or did the whole pretext


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Brief SummaryRead full entry
A. alba is a large evergreen coniferous tree generally growing to 40–50 m (98–130 feet) tall and with a trunk diameter of up to 1.5 m (over 4.5 feet). It occurs at altitudes of 300-1,700 m (mainly over 500 m). Leaves are needle-like, flattened, 1.8–3 cm long and 2 mm wide by 0.5 mm thick, glossy dark green above, and with two greenish-white bands of stomata below. Leaftips are usually slightly notched at the tip. Cones are 9–17 cm long and 3–4 cm broad, with about 150-200 scales, each scale with an exserted bract and two winged seeds. As is characteristic of the genus, the cones disintegrate when mature to release the seeds.
A. alba is dominant in some forest stands in the Alps, or may co-occur with spruce (Picea sp.), or with hardwoods, commonly beech (Fagus sp.). It is closely related to Bulgarian fir (A. borisiiregis) of the Balkan Peninsula, and Sicilian fir (A. nebrodensis) in Sicily; it differs from these and other related Euro-Mediterranean firs in the sparser foliage. Some botanists treat Bulgarian and Sicilian firs as varieties of A. alba (var. acutifolia and var. nebrodensis, respectively).
The wood is white, leading to the species name "alba," but soft, somewhat weak, and tending to decay quickly. However, silver fir is important for pulpwood and construction use (often plywood) in Europe. Silver fir previously had widespread use as a Christmas tree, and may be the species immortalized in Hans Christian Anderson's famous fairy tale, The Little Fir Tree (recited in this YouTube clip). In recent years, however, silver fir has largely been replaced by other species (such as Norway spruce, Picea abies, which is more economically cultivated, or Nordmann fir, A. nordmanniana, which has denser, more attractive foliage). Resin extracted from the bark and leaves is used to make turpentine, varnishes, and various medicinal and cosmetic products, including perfumes, bath oils, and air fresheners. The resin has been used as an antiseptic, diuretic, expectorant, vasoconstrictor, and is a common ingredient in cough remedies.
A. alba is sensitive to pollution and climate change, and is considered a good environmental indicator. It listed as a threatened species in the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, although is rated as "least concern."
(Gymnosperm Database 2011 Harlow et al. 1991, IUCN 2011, PFAF 2011, Walentowski et al. 2005, Wikipedia 2011)


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These small and responsive sensors from Sharp are great way to quickly detect the presence of nearby objects. The available versions offer three different sensing ranges:
- GP2Y0D805Z0F: 0.5 cm to 5 cm
- GP2Y0D810Z0F: 2 cm to 10 cm
- GP2Y0D815Z0F: 0.5 cm to 15 cm
There are a few millimeters of hysteresis around the maximum range threshold and no hysteresis at the minimum range threshold. Note that these sensors will only tell you if there is an object within the detection range along their lines of sight; they will not tell you how far away the object is.
With a detection distances up to 150 mm and a typical sampling rate of almost 400 Hz, these sensors provides attractive alternatives to shorter-range LED-phototransistor reflectance pairs and longer-range but slower sensors such as the Sharp GP2Y0A41SK0F analog distance sensor. The output, Vo, is driven low when the sensor detects an object; otherwise, the output is high.
Please note that this sensor requires external components and has a non-standard 1.5 mm pitch, which can make it difficult to integrate into projects based on a 0.1″ pitch. We offer a carrier board for this sensor that makes it much easier to use by including these required components and providing a 0.1″-pitch, three-pin interface: ground, power, and digital output. The carrier board is available with these sensors pre-installed:
- with the 5 cm GP2Y0D805Z0F
- with the 10 cm GP2Y0D810Z0F
- with the 15 cm GP2Y0D815Z0F
Alternatively, you can order the carrier board without any sensor and solder one in yourself. The pictures below show our bare carrier board (left) and the carrier board with the Sharp digital distance sensor installed (right).
Some example applications include:
- break-beam sensor or photogate alternative
- non-contact bumper or obstacle detector
- a counter or timer of objects as they pass by
- Operating voltage: 2.7 V to 6.2 V
- Average current consumption: 5 mA (typical)
- Distance measuring range
- GP2Y0D805Z0F: 0.5 cm to 5 cm (0.2″ to 2″)
- GP2Y0D810Z0F: 2 cm to 10 cm (0.8″ to 4″)
- GP2Y0D815Z0F: 0.5 cm to 5 cm (0.2″ to 6″)
- Output type: digital signal (low when detecting an object, high otherwise)
- Steady state update period: 2.56 ms typical (3.77 ms max)
- Package size: 13.6 mm × 7 mm × 7.96 mm (0.53″ × 0.27″ × 0.31″)
- Weight: 0.8 g (0.03 oz)
Alternative Sharp distance sensors
We carry several analog Sharp distance sensors as well: the Sharp GP2Y0A51SK0F 2 – 15 cm, the Sharp GP2Y0A41SK0F 4 – 30 cm, the Sharp GP2Y0A21YK0F 10 – 80 cm, and the Sharp GP2Y0A02YK0F 20 – 150 cm. These analog distance sensors have longer minimum detection distances and much slower response times than the GP2Y0D805, GP2Y0D810, and GP2Y0D815, but they can see farther and report the distance to the detected object rather than simply if an object is detected.
We also carry the newer Sharp GP2Y0A60SZ analog distance sensor (10 – 150 cm), which outperforms the other analog Sharp distance sensors in almost all respects, offering a low minimum detection distance, high maximum detection distance, wide 3 V output voltage differential, high 60 Hz sampling rate, operation down to 2.7 V, and optional enable control, all in a smaller package.
Note: This sensor requires external components, which are not included. Please see the datasheet or our carrier board for Sharp GP2Y0D815Z0F, GP2Y0D810Z0F, and GP2Y0D805Z0F sensors or for details.


So I am using a for loop to pull the specific chars from the key string. Whenever I use a key with the letter "a" or "A", the loop stops. I am using the for loop to pull the char and index with a simple function like this:
_TAG_ lowerindex 97
string k = argv[1];
for (int j = 0; j < strlen(k); j++)
 k[j] = k[j] - lowerindex;
My guess is that the way I am doing this will return 0 when I get to a letter 'a', but shouldn't it just give it that value '0' to use later rather than terminating the loop?
You've hit on the cause, so bonus points for debugging it enough to isolate the issue! Now the explanation. Look at the for loop:
On each pass, it calculates strlen(k) and checks that j is less than that. Now, think about what happens when an 'a' is processed. It is converted to binary 0, which happens to also be the end of string marker. So, the next time strlen(k) is calculated, it is changed to the length where that 'a' appeared and the loop ends.
There is a workaround for this, which happens to be more efficient. Set another var equal to strlen(k) as part of the initialization. It means that the calculation is only done once at the start of the loop and will remain intact throughout the run of the loop no matter what is done to k.
 for (int j = 0, sl = strlen(k); j < sl; j++)
Oh, if you plan to use strlen(k) later, then you should actually set the var earlier so that it exists after the loop. ;-)
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text:
|Touch the Sun|
In this activity, students design and build scientific instruments to study the Sun using inexpensive, everyday materials. Precision in construction and measurement are emphasized, as well as re-design to improve the quality of data. Activity theme areas include instrumentation, observation, and satellite engineering. The activities are aligned with National Science and Mathematic Education Standards.
Intended for grade levels:
Type of resource:
No specific technical requirements, just a browser required
Cost / Copyright:
Cost information is not known
Copyright and other restrictions information is unknown.
DLESE Catalog ID: NASA-ESERevSProd165
Resource contact / Creator / Publisher:


What are you worth?
What are you worth?
New graduates often bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm to practice. Good patient care and scheduling can make them valuable hospital team members
Nov 01, 2007
Most veterinary medical graduates care more about the chance to diagnose and treat patients than the size of their paycheck. Still, salaries matter, especially when today's former students are saddled with an educational debt load of $100,000 or more.
Yet the way new graduates view salary is often quite different from practice owners. For owners, it is not about how much money associates need to retire their educational lo ans. From their perspective, salary decisions are a function of practice finances. Medicine and money have to support each other in practice. Trying to find the middle ground between the salaries new graduates want and what a practice owner can afford often causes misunderstanding and frustration on both sides.
Balance sheet
Here is a financial reality that practice owners must juggle: Close to 50 cents of every dollar collected in a veterinary hospital goes to staff and doctor compensation.
On the flip side, healthcare services that you and the other doctors provide are the primary source of practice revenue. This revenue needs to cover your salary and benefits and that of the team members who support you. There needs to be enough revenue left to buy supplies, pay the utility bills, cover maintenance and replacement costs, retire practice debt, pay the rent, provide a return on investment and build a reserve fund for emergencies.
Veterinary hospitals have different cost structures, but in general, most practices can afford to pay an associate doctor between 18 percent and 21 percent of the gross production. That means if an associate veterinarian generates $200,000 in annual revenue, the owner can afford to pay that person between $36,000 and $42,000 a year.
American Veterinary Medical Association statistics show 2006 starting salaries range from $45,546 to $55,031, substantially more than what most new associate doctors are worth in terms of the revenue they generate during their first practice year. This means that practice owners end up subsidizing new associates while they gain clinical competency on the job. Put yourself in a practice owner's shoes. How would you feel about hiring a new associate at a premium?
Practice owners offer competitive salaries to attract and keep good doctors. They are willing to take an initial loss on their investment and recognize that an associate's first year amounts to a clinical residency. They know that associates need this time to gain experience and increase their medical mastery. Practice owners count on the fact that their associates will grow and develop and soon be able to generate sufficient revenue to make the numbers work. The sooner that happens, the more relieved they will be.
Bringing in money
What factors impact doctor revenue? The answer depends on three things:
 - Number of patients
 - Services performed for each patient
 - Fees charged
A veterinarian can generate increased revenue by seeing more patients, providing them with comprehensive care and charging appropriately for all services rendered.
Know standards of care
More than 80 percent of patient visits in a companion-animal practice involve wellness care. Therefore, one of the easiest things a new associate can do to get up to speed and increase his or her value to a practice is to take the time to learn what preventive healthcare services the medical team believes is best for patients. Ask what vaccinations the medical team recommends for dogs, cats and other species. What preventive tests (fecals/heartworm tests/senior wellness screens) do they provide? What parasite protection products do they recommend? At what oral health grade do they recommend dental prophies? What body-condition scores trigger medical interventions?
Just taking the time to find out what the standards of care are and following them allows associates to use their exam rooms more productively to benefit their patients and the practice. Providing good preventive care gives associates a way to impact the health of more animals than anything else they do, and it is an area that allows most new veterinarians to shine.
Karyn Gavzer, MBA, CVPM, is a veterinary business consultant and nationally known writer and speaker. She is a certified veterinary practice manager, an adjunct instructor for the American Animal Hospital Association and a founding member of the Association of Veterinary Practice Management Consultants and Advisors. She can be reached at


text:
Location: Fruit and Nut ResearchTitle: Nematode management in pecans) Author
Submitted to: Pecan Grower
Publication Type: Trade Journal
Publication Acceptance Date: 4/1/2013
Publication Date: 5/9/2013
Citation: Nyczepir, A.P., Wood, B.W. 2013. Nematode management in pecans. Pecan Grower. 24(4):46-47,50-52. Interpretive Summary:
Technical Abstract: In 2002, the pecan root-knot nematode (Meloidogyne partityla = PRKN) was found on pecan in the southeastern U.S. and was associated with stressed trees exhibiting dead branches in the upper canopy and (or) typical mouse ear (ME) associated foliar symptoms. This research evaluates the host susceptibility of certain common pecan seedling rootstocks for resistance or tolerance to PRKN. All nine open pollinated pecan rootstocks tested (i.e., 'Apache', 'Caddo', 'Moneymaker', 'Pawnee', 'Schley', 'Stuart', and 'Wichita' including two commercial pecan rootstocks 'Curtis' and 'Elliott') were good hosts (susceptible) to the PRKN. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that the PRKN is pathogenic (i.e., causes a reduction in tree growth) toward these two primary commercial pecan rootstocks under field conditions. However, all five commercial peach rootstocks tested (i.e., Guardian®, 'Lovell', 'Halford', 'Flordaguard' and 'Nemaguard') are nonhosts (i.e., highly resistant) to PRKN. Interplanting pecan and peach trees in a commercial orchard environment does not appear to intensify PRKN soil population density between these two crops. The findings of this research indicate that the PRKN is a potentially economically important pathogen to the pecan industry in the southeastern U.S. and that the search for an IPM management strategy (i.e., biological, chemical, etc.) for control of this nematode pest on pecan is warranted.


text:
To build a curriculum on positive deviance journalism for reporters and editors, and provide mentors to newsrooms helping them develop editorial strategies that look for positive trends in health data.
The Solutions Journalism Network seeks to broaden the role of journalism: it should not just uncover society's ills, but also report on responses to those problems. Founded by writers of the New York Times "Fixes" column, the Network works with newsrooms looking to include regular coverage of how communities, individuals and institutions are addressing challenges – and what society can learn from such efforts. Using this framework, the Solutions Journalism Network will collaborate with partner newsrooms and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation to scan data sets for "positive deviance" in the health sector— examples of promising health results that could lead to important stories. For example, journalists in a city with large black/white disparities in preterm birth rates could identify cities that have reduced this gap, and report on how the gains were achieved. Expert coaching will help newsrooms find, vet, develop and write these stories.


text: DMM) systems. Funded by NERC, grant number: NE/P017231/1 "Space Weather Impact on Ground-based Systems (SWIGS)". These data consist of measurements of the Earth's natural magnetic field and the field created by GIC at the underline site (BUDU). The database will include.xyz files with the DMM data and one document with metadata. See Hübert, J., Beggan, C. D., Richardson, G. S., Martyn, T., & Thomson, A. W. P. (2020). Differential magnetometer measurements of geomagnetically induced currents in a complex high voltage network. Space Weather, 18, e2019SW002421. doi: 10.1029/2019SW002421 for further details.


text:
Consider the polarity of the ions released when the water decomposed.
Which gas collected at the cathode? Why?
(Oxygen. Oxygen ions are positive and the cathode is negative.
were there more hydrogen bubbles than oxygen bubbles? (Water
contains twice as many hydrogen atoms as oxygen atoms.)
did the chlorine gas generated in step 10 come from?
(Ions of chlorine that had formed when table salt (NaCl) was
dissolved in water.)
In addition to generating free chlorine gas, how
might adding a "pinch" of salt affect the decomposition of water?
(The salt would make the water more conductive and therefore
increase the rate of electrolysis.)


text:
Philippa Ryan, Scientist, British Museum
Archaeobotany is the study of ancient plant remains, and I joined the field team at Amara West in Sudan earlier this year to collect samples for archaeobotanical analysis. Charred plant materials were retrieved on-site from sediments through dry-sieving and flotation. These samples were subsequently brought back to the British Museum for further sorting and identification.
At the moment I am analysing the charred seeds and fruits with Caroline Cartwright, who is also analysing the wood charcoal. The macroscopic plant remains are analysed using both a stereo microscope and a SEM (scanning electron microscope). Charred remains found so far include cereal grains (wheat and barley) and crop-processing waste, fruits such as figs and a wide range of wild plants.
I am also processing sediment samples to extract phytoliths (microscopic plant remains), which are formed when soluble silica taken up in groundwater by plants is deposited within and between certain plant cells. These silicified cells are found within many different plant families such as grasses (which include cereals), sedges and palms.
Phytoliths are difficult to identify, but have the advantage of surviving in both charred and non-charred contexts, so we can learn about the presence and use of plants in areas where seeds and grains don't survive.
At the moment, I am processing sediments to extract phytoliths, which includes the removal of carbonates, clays, organics, other remaining non-siliceous material through heavy liquid flotation, and finally mounting dried phytoliths onto slides. Phytoliths are then identified and counted using an optical (light) microscope.
Analysis of these different types of plant remains helps us learn about the past uses of plants at Amara West in day-to-day life, such as for food, fuel and animal fodder. I am also looking at the distributions of seeds and phytoliths across the site to examine locations of plant based activities such as food processing, as well as whether there are any differences in diet between poorer and richer households, or across the history of the site.
Plant remains can also help to provide information about the nearby vegetation, for instance the types of grasses, wetland plants and trees that grew near the ancient town.


text:
But while it might seem like several half-liter bottles of water will be enough, don't forget that when SHTF, every person in your group will need at least a gallon of water daily.
Always double-check if your food rations and water supply are equal so you won't be at risk of starving to death or dying of thirst.
Aside from brushing up on various survival skills like hunting and food preservation, you also need to know the ins and outs of a good water storage system. One good way to do this is by storing water for long-term use in 55-gallon barrels.
Below are some tips for storing water in 55-gallon drums:
- Where to purchase the 55-gallon drums – You can purchase sturdy 55-gallon drums from online stores. However, don't risk buying used ones, unless you personally know or trust the seller. Remember, you'll be storing water in these drums, and it's better to get new ones to ensure their cleanliness.
- What you'll need for this project – Before you start this project, gather the following materials: Black permanent marker, black plastic sheets (at least 3.5 mils thick), bleach, bung wrench, reinforced duct tape (e.g., Gorilla tape), scissors, siphon hose, soap, and a teaspoon.
- How to clean and disinfect the drums – Start by washing the inside of each drum with dish-washing soap and water. Put enough soap in some water to get the inside of the drums soapy, but make sure you don't put in too much that it becomes a hassle to rinse. Roll the drum around so every inch of the container is coated in soapy water, and flip the drum so the top gets cleaned as well. Rinse each drum properly. Once you empty out each drum, fill them all again with water, roll them around, then rinse them to remove all the soap. Sanitize the drums using a mixture of a teaspoon of unscented chlorine bleach in a quart of water. Roll the drum around again to sanitize every inch of the container. Wait 30 seconds, then pour the solution out of the drum. Air-dry each drum before filling them up, or you can rinse them again with treated city water.
- How to properly fill the drums – Make sure you use a drinking-safe water hose when filling the drums with water. While tap water treated by the city doesn't need extra treatment, capture water, well water, or other water from an untreated source must be treated. When storing untreated water, or water that hasn't been chlorinated by a local city water provider, use water treatment drops as instructed. You can also substitute two tablespoons of fragrant-free liquid chlorine bleach to each 55-gallon drum of water. If you don't have liquid bleach, add four to six percent sodium hypochlorite (pool shock) to the water. (Related: Do you have a safe source of water for a SHTF situation? Top 5 water purification mistakes.)
- How to store the 55-gallon drums – Don't store the drums right on top of concrete, which can heat up and release chemicals that can be absorbed by the drums. Prevent this by putting the drums on top of some 2×4s to keep them off the concrete. Get the drums in position before you fill them up because they'll be incredibly hard to move once they're full. Screw the bung nuts into the fill holes, but make sure they tighten smoothly without crossing the threads. With the bung nut wrench, tighten the bung nuts to seal the water and protect it from outside contaminants. Using the black marker, include some notes down the side of the water drums such as when the water was stored, if they contain additives, and if the water is potable or not. Consider putting some rope between the 2×4s to prevent the barrels from tipping over. You can also cover the barrels with a black plastic liner to prevent direct sunlight from hitting the drums. Covering them with black plastic liner is also crucial for operations security (OPSEC). If the drums are hidden, it will discourage anyone from targeting your water supply when SHTF. Secure the sheets with some sturdy thumbtacks for furniture. Use reinforced duct tape to put backing in areas on the plastic sheet where thumbtacks were driven through so the plastic sheet doesn't tear. Hang the sheets around the area where the drums are stored, then circle back to secure the plastic sheet at the bottom.
- How to siphon water from the drums – To siphon water, place your bucket or water container near the drum so the siphon hose slopes downward. Insert the siphon end with the copper valve into the barrel and the bare, plastic end into your bucket. Keep the siphon end fully submerged in the water then shake the hose in a vertical, up-and-down motion. Wait a few seconds and when the water flows on its own, you can stop shaking the siphon.
Remember that aside from gear and food rations, water is also crucial to your survival when SHTF. Start storing water for long-term use today so you don't have to worry about having enough water once you find yourself in a disaster scenario.
You can read more articles about safe water storage for when SHTF at Preparedness.news.


Child Dependency
General Statute 7B-101 (9) defines a dependent child as and juvenile needing assistance or placement because the child has no parent, guardian, or custodian responsible for his or her care or supervision, or the child's parent, guardian, or custodian is not able to provide for the child's care or supervision due to physical or mental incapacity and the absence of an appropriate alternative child-care arrangement.


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Mineral oil hydrocarbons: EFSA publishes opinion on these complex compounds
6 June 2012
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has published a scientific opinion on human exposure through the diet to a diverse group of mixtures known as 'mineral oil hydrocarbons' (MOH). The potential human health impact of MOH varies widely; so-called 'aromatic' MOH may act as genotoxic carcinogens (that is they may damage DNA, the genetic material of cells, as well as cause cancer), while some 'saturated' MOH can accumulate in human tissue and may cause adverse effects in the liver. The opinion identifies some potential concerns in relation to exposure to MOH through food. However, EFSA's experts stress there are several uncertainties regarding the chemical composition of MOH mixtures to which humans are exposed and also the wide range of sources of human exposure. Furthermore, on the basis of new information on the lack of toxicological relevance for humans of previous animal studies, the temporary Acceptable Daily Intakes (ADIs) of some 'saturated' MOH present in specific food products warrant revision.
MOH comprise a diverse group of mixtures of hydrocarbons containing thousands of chemical compounds of different structures and size, derived mainly from crude oil but also produced synthetically from coal, natural gas and biomass. The chemical composition of most MOH mixtures is unknown and usually varies from batch to batch; specifications are often expressed in terms of viscosity, or 'thickness', as related to the applications of the products and not in terms of chemical composition. These highly complex mixtures have a wide variety of industrial and domestic uses. There are several possible sources of MOH in food: mainly food packaging materials, food additives, processing aids and environmental contaminants such as lubricants.
Experts on EFSA's Panel on Contaminants in the Food Chain (CONTAM) identified two main types of MOH relevant for food safety: saturated and aromatic hydrocarbons. The CONTAM Panel carried out an assessment of consumer exposure to MOH, including 'background' or low-level presence in food. From the available data, low levels of saturated MOH were present in all the food groups included with some high levels found in 'Bread and rolls' and 'Grains for human consumption' due to their use, respectively, as release/non-sticking agents and spraying agents (used to make grains shiny). The presence of both saturated and aromatic MOH (though data are more limited for the latter) in dry foods including 'pudding' dessert mixes and noodles may be partially attributed to the use of recycled paper/cardboard packaging. Exposure to saturated MOH through the diet was higher among younger consumers than for adults and the elderly.
In terms of the risk associated with exposure to MOH in food, the CONTAM Panel concluded there may be a potential concern for some consumers: specifically, customers who are brand loyal or who often buy the same food product from the same shop may be exposed on a regular basis to food with higher levels of MOH.
Although the establishment of new health-based guidance values for MOH products used as food additives was outside the scope of this opinion, the CONTAM Panel concluded that the opinion provides a suitable basis for revising the temporary group ADI of some lowand medium-viscosity MOH intended for food use. These MOH products were evaluated by the former Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) and by the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) and are currently being reviewed by JECFA. Recent information considered for this opinion indicated that the accumulation of saturated MOH in the lymph nodes found in the gut of laboratory animals is less relevant for human health than was thought at the time this temporary group ADI was set. The CONTAM Panel considers the revision of the ADIs for high-viscosity MOH a low priority.
With regard to the risk associated with exposure to aromatic MOH, which are both genotoxic and carcinogenic, the CONTAM Panel was not able to express this in quantitative terms because of insufficient information both on exposure and toxicology. In view of the carcinogenic properties of this type of MOH the Panel considered exposure to this type of MOH as being of potential concern.
EFSA's opinion also makes a series of recommendations for improving methods of analysis and data collection and monitoring, as well as indications for possible future priorities of scientific research on MOH.
EFSA's Panel on Food Contact Materials, Enzymes, Flavourings and Processing Aids provided support for the sections of the opinion dealing with the presence of MOH in food contact materials and exposure from foods packed in recycled paper.
Notes to editors:
The Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) is the amount of a substance that people can ingest on a daily basis during their whole life without any appreciable risk to health.
The Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) was the former scientific committee of the European Union before EFSA was established in 2002.
The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) provides independent scientific expert advice to the Codex Alimentarius Commission and its specialist Committees.
In 2009, EFSA's Panel on Food Additives and Nutrient Sources added to Food published a scientific opinion on the safety of high-viscosity white mineral oils (HVMO) when used as food additives, establishing a Acceptable Daily Intake (ADI) of 12 mg/kg bodyweight/day.


Question: Is Okay Formal Or Informal?
Is OK or OK?
In correct spelling/ grammar, the word should be capitalized "OK".
I've experienced this problem myself.
"Okay" is just another way of spelling the word, which is OK to use.
There are also other forms of the same word like "O.K" or "O.K." and those are also acceptable, but are used rarely in everyday life..
What is an example of informal English?
Is Okay polite?
Most people don't spell it out, so "ok" is OK! If you want to be polite and sincere, write "ok, thanks!" Or "ok, thank you very much. "
Is Nevermind rude?
Never mind isn't rude on its own, but you do want to be sure you are using the right tone of voice when you say it. If you say "never mind" rudely, then it's obviously going to come across badly. There are so many different ways that you could use "never mind" in a situation.
How do you say yes in a cute way?
Creative Ways to Say "Yes"Okey-dokey!I'm at your behest.Aye aye, captain!I was born for this!That would be a Y-E-S!You just stole the words out of my mouth.Right on, brother/sister.Definitely not NO.More items…•
How do you say OK in English?
30 Different Ways to Say OK in EnglishGreen light.Agree to.Go.Yep.Certify.Moderate.Respectable.Pleasing.More items…
Is Okay formal?
So, what's the bottom line? Both "okay" and "ok" are acceptable spellings in formal writing; which one you should use simply comes down to your preferred style guide (or, if you aren't tied to one, your personal preference).
Is Alright formal?
People are often surprised to learn that alright is not an accepted spelling of all right. Although the one-word spelling of alright is seen in informal writing, teachers and editors will always consider it incorrect. To use the expression with impunity, it is best to spell it as two words: all right.
What is OK short for?
Roger Thomas is correct in that OK is short for oll korrect, but it is not of military origin. It started as a comical abbreviation during a fad in New England in the 1830s. Others were OW (oll wright), KY (know yuse, or no use), and NS ('nuff said).
Is OK informal?
Is saying OK rude?
More words in general sound more polite Gretchen McCulloch, an internet linguist and author of the upcoming book Because Internet, said OK is not inherently rude but the length of a reply matters. "Anything that's shorter can sound curter, anything that's longer can sound more polite," McCulloch said.
What is the reply of Nevermind?
e.g. "I don't understand you" "Never mind – it wasn't important anyway". If someone does something wrong and says "sorry" to you, you can say in response "It's OK", "Don't worry" or "Never mind" in a friendly way.
How do you say nevermind nicely?
Synonyms fordon't bother.don't concern yourself.drop it.ignore doesn't matter.let it go.nothing.stop.
Is nevermind a negative word?
What other words can I use instead of okay?
Is OK a sentence?
In English, yes, no and okay are common pro-sentences. … Pro-sentences are sometimes seen as grammatical interjections, since they are capable of very limited syntactical relations.
Is KK rude?
How do you say OK in email?
That sounds great, thank you!Great Plan, looking forward do it!Okay that sounds great to me, let me know if anything changes in the mean time.Perfect! Thank you for your work on this!Okay that sounds great! See you then!Okay, that works for me. Thanks again!Okay, thank you for letting me know.Okay, I agree.More items…


a nearby surface of the same object that is in direct light. Previous games often ignored this, so crevices and depressions were either completely dark or looked as brightly lit as the other parts of the object.
Other types of ambient occlusion found in newer games include high-definition ambient occlusion (HDAO) and horizon-based ambient occlusion (HBAO). These are still variations on the same idea-that where a pixel exists relative to other pixels determines how light falls on it, how it bounces that light, and what type of light it is (direct or reflected.)
Without Ambient Occlusion
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
With Ambient Occlusion
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
The circled areas in this DirectX 11 SDK example show how high-definition ambient occlusion (HDAO) produces more realistic details. Notice the increased depth, sharper lines, and greater shadowing.
Above is an HDAO sample from the DirectX SDK. Note the internal shadowing made possible in the lower screen by using this ambient occlusion technique. It is relatively subtle, but the overall scene seems more realistic when you're running the application in full-screen mode. In the top shot, HDAO is disabled; the bottom one has HDAO enabled.
With DirectX 11, a new technique is emerging called contact hardening. If you think about how real-world shadows behave, you'll realize that a shadow doesn't look the same along its full length. Close to the object-say, at the base of a lamp post or tree-the line between shadow and light is sharply delineated (the "hard" in contact hardening.) The farther away from the object, the shadow is more diffuse. That's because farther away, light seeps into the shadow area from the surrounding environment. Contact hardening shadows using Direct 11 graphics emulate this look. Right now, the only game using contact hardening shadows is STALKER: Call of Pripyat (below).
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
In this DirectX 11 SDK sample, shadows have harder edges near the object and softer edges farther away, as in real life.
Postprocessing Effects
Making graphical magic after the image is rendered
Postprocessing is where effects are applied to the 3D image after the frame is rendered. The term postprocessing comes from the film industry, where effects are added to movies after the movie is actually shot.
Postprocessing is really a catch-all for special effects that are generated, typically with shader programs, and aren't necessarily part of an existing graphics API. Of course, the GPU itself needs to be programmable.
Adding effects to rendered frames first began to show up with DX9 games. We've seen increasing use of postprocessing effects in DX10 and now, DX11 titles. A wide variety of postprocessing effects are possible; examples include depth of field, heat distortion, wet distortion, bokeh, dynamic blur, and film grain.
Some of these effects can be used to add realism to a scene. Heat distortion above a fire or hot desert sand is a good example of that. Other effects actually make the game less realistic, but more cinematic. Examples of these include depth of field, film grain, and bokeh effects. (Bokeh is the blurriness you see in out-of-focus areas of a photograph. The quality of the bokeh is one of the parameters used to rate the quality of a camera lens.)
Without Bokeh
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
With Bokeh
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
In Just Cause 2, you'll see bokeh effects when you use an Nvidia graphics card.
We've all seen these effects in movies and television, but rarely experience them in real life. Game developers add these effects to make their games seem more like big-screen movies. This makes sense in some games, like the over-the-top action of the recently released Just Cause 2, which emulate big-budget action movies in their overall feel. If you have an Nvidia-based graphics card running with the PC version of Just Cause 2, you'll see bokeh effects in action.
The use of bokeh helps to focus the player's attention on whatever is nearby. Clever shader-program writing can give developers granular control over the effect, as we see in the AMD Ladybug depth-of-field demo (downloadable from the AMD developer website.) This demo gives the user control over aperture settings, as if they were shooting with a camera. Stopping the camera down results in a soft blurry background behind the sharply focused image. Opening up the aperture brings the background into better focus.
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
In AMD's ladybug demo, you can control aperture settings to change the background's focus.
The game Borderlands (below) uses depth of field to focus your attention on whatever you're aiming at with your weapon.
Programmable shaders took a big step forward with DirectX 11. Previously, if a programmer wanted to add multiple effects to a scene, the shader program became large and unwieldy. Now they can call in shader routines as needed, allowing for more efficient writing of shader programs and more efficient use of effects.
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
What DirectX 11 Is, and What It Means To YouS
Borderlands uses depth of field to focus your eye on an object you're aiming at. In the screen on top, everything is in focus, but when the player takes aim, only the target in the foreground is in focus, as seen in the screen on the bottom.
The Performance Impact
How does all this graphics goodness affect frame rates?
If we set the wayback machine to a couple of years ago, we'd relive the disappointment we all experienced with the first DirectX 10 games. Visual effects added only marginally to image quality, but the performance hit was huge. What's the impact of these spiffy new DirectX 11 features? Also, what's the impact of postprocessing effects? Obviously, adding more shader programs can impact performance, but how much?
We tested performance with hardware tessellation using the Unigine Heaven 2.0 synthetic benchmark (which uses a real game engine) and STALKER: Call of Pripyat. Call of Pripyat was also used to test performance with SSAO, HBAO, and HDAO.
The performance of Nvidia's GTX 480's tessellation engine looks pretty awesome relative to AMD's part in a benchmark like Heaven, but as we can see from Call of Pripyat, the impact of tessellation on real games is less clear. There just aren't enough titles yet that make heavy use of hardware tessellation to determine which GPU is superior. Subjective experiences differ; Metro 2033's performance, for example, seems to give the edge to Nvidia, though we don't have hard numbers to back this up. On the other hand, Aliens vs. Predator is a smooth experience on both AMD and Nvidia's latest cards.
Just Cause 2 supports two interesting GPU postprocessing features if you're running an Nvidia-based card: bokeh and water simulation. Thus, we tested the GTX 480's performance with and without those features using the game's Concrete Jungle built-in benchmark.
As you can see, enabling these features incurs a performance cost. But that cost is a few percentage points, rather than the 75–80 percent decrease we saw moving from DX9 to DX10.
Final Thoughts
In the past, comparisons regarding performance versus visual features revolved around antialiasing and anisotropic filtering. DirectX 10 added some new tricks to the game developer's arsenal, but came with a severe performance penalty. DirectX 11's new features can affect performance, but the new generation of graphics cards enables you to run with much better visual fidelity while maintaining reasonable performance.
It takes time for developers to take advantage of new features. The good news is that the uptake on DirectX 11–capable GPUs has been one of the most rapid in recent history. We are starting to see increasing use of capabilities that first began showing up with DirectX 9-finally. For example, it's hard to find a current-generation game that doesn't take advantage of the postprocessing effects made possible with programmable shaders. Developers continue to experiment with postprocessing effects, as we've seen with the bokeh setting in Just Cause 2. And features like film grain and depth of field are commonplace. Newer titles bring new effects, such as emulating color filters seen in big-budget movies and TV shows.
Good tools will be the key to seeing new features take hold. One reason postprocessing has become so common is that graphics programmers have developed tools similar in concept to Photoshop filters, which allows artists to easily implement them in the art pipeline. It will be some time before similar tools are readily available for newer, DX11-capable hardware.
Then there's the multiplatform question. Larger game publishers are leery of pushing high-end, PC-exclusive features if they're shipping big-budget titles across multiple platforms, including game consoles that may not support tessellation or other features. While the PC has made something of a comeback in the gaming arena, putting additional developer resources into PC-exclusive abilities is still something of an afterthought.
Still, we are seeing new games emerge that take full advantage of new graphics possibilities. Eastern Europe seems to be an emerging haven for bleeding-edge development of PC games, if the STALKER series, Cryostasis, and Metro 2033 are any indication. And even console-oriented titles, like Dirt 2,


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Circles of Light
Janeen K. Grohsmeyer, adapted from the story, "Circles of Light: The Flaming Chalice"
In the dark nights and the darker days of World War II, guns blazed all over Europe and airplanes dropped death from the sky. Many people tried to escape from the war. These people were called refugees.
Some Unitarians in the United States decided to help the refugees and formed the Unitarian Service Committee. The committee members went to Europe to try to bring refugees safely out of the war. But the refugees came from many different countries. They spoke many different languages, like German, or Yiddish, or French, or Italian, or Polish, or Hungarian. Most of the refugees did not speak English. Most of the Unitarian committee members spoke only English. How could the Unitarians explain they were there to help? It was difficult for the refugees to understand them.
Dr. Charles Joy was in charge of the committee. He knew that the Unitarians needed a symbol everyone could recognize, no matter what language they spoke. It would have to be a picture, a symbol with no words. That way, anyone could understand the message: "We are here to help you."
Dr. Joy asked an artist named Hans Deutsch for help. Maybe an artist could draw the right kind of picture that could be a symbol for the Unitarians. The two men met in Portugal. Mr. Deutsch understood why a picture would be helpful. He had come from Austria. But now he was a refugee, because of the war. In Portugal, people speak Portuguese. Mr. Deutsch was used to speaking German.
Mr. Deutsch made a drawing of a chalice with a flame, surrounded by a circle. He showed it to Dr. Joy. The symbol really worked. Soon refugees all over Europe began to see this symbol wherever the Unitarian Service Committee went to find and help them. When refugees saw the picture of a chalice, a flame, and a circle around the chalice that looked like it was protecting it, they knew they could trust the committee members. They did not need to speak English, or even know how to read, to understand the symbol. The picture gave the message of hope, freedom, and love that the refugees were looking for.
After the war was over, Unitarians began using the flaming chalice and its circle as a symbol in worship. Later, the Universalists joined the Unitarians to form the Unitarian Universalist Association and people started to draw the symbol with two circles, instead of one. One circle is for the Unitarians and one circle is for the Universalists. The circles are so close together that they overlap. The circles are connected, just as Unitarian Universalists believe that all of us are connected to one another.
The chalice is not in the exact middle of the circle. It is almost like the chalice has moved over to let something else come into the circle. This reminds us that as Unitarian Universalists, we always leave room for other ideas and other ways. There is always room for more in Unitarian Universalism.
We, as Unitarian Universalists, have all kinds of chalices. We light a chalice on Sunday morning in worship, and at other times when we gather in our faith home together. Some family homes use chalices during meals or on special occasions. Chalices come in lots of different shapes, sizes, and colors, just like Unitarian Universalists.
The flaming chalice is a faith symbol for the Unitarian Universalists. It is a symbol of learning, caring, and love. It is a symbol of hope, freedom, and light. It is our faith home symbol.
This work is made possible by the generosity of individual donors and congregations. Please consider making a donation today.
Last updated on Friday, May 17, 2013.
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text:
Beavers have thick brown fur and a distinctive flattened, paddle-like tail that can be 9-10 inches long and 6 inches wide. (Ryan Somma/Flickr)
The beaver is a large, brown, semi-aquatic mammal with a distinctive flattened, paddle-like tail. It lives in lakes, streams and forested wetlands throughout the Chesapeake Bay watershed.
Thick, glossy brown fur
Large, scaly, flattened, paddle-like tail that can be 9-10 inches long and 6 inches wide
Large, chestnut brown front teeth
Rounded head and small, rounded ears
Head and body grow to 25-30 inches long
Usually weighs 30-60 pounds
Lives in forested wetlands and tree-lined streams, rivers, ponds and lakes
Semi-aquatic, meaning it spends time both on land and in the water
Builds lodges of sticks and mud on islands, river banks and shorelines. Within their lodges, beavers live in colonies that include an adult male and female and their young.
Some beavers live in burrows within river banks
To protect their lodges, beavers build dams across streams to flood the area and create deep, quiet ponds. These ponds also allow beavers to safely transport food and logs through the water.
Primarily nocturnal, but occasionally active in late afternoon
Found throughout the entire Chesapeake Bay watershed
Eats mostly tree bark and leaves
Red maples, willows, alders, shadbush and redosier dogwoods are some of its favorite foods
Has a specialized digestive tract that allows it to digest tree bark
Also eats bay grasses such as pondweeds and the roots and rhizomes of aquatic plants such as lilies and sedges
Stores branches and stems in its lodge to eat during winter
Adults have few predators
Owls, hawks and otters may prey upon young
Humans hunt beavers for their fur
Reproduction and Life Cycle:
Each colony has only one breeding female
Adult pairs are monogamous, keeping the same mate for life
Adults begin breeding between 2-3 years old
Beavers have one litter per year
Adults mate in January and February
After four months, an average of 2-4 young (called kits) are born. At birth they are covered in thick fur, weigh about one pound and have open eyes.
Kits can swim within a week of birth and are weaned within 2-3 months
When they are two years old, yearlings (young born the previous spring) are driven out or leave their lodge
Can live 11 years in the wild
The largest rodent in North America
Teeth continue to grow throughout their lives
Regularly cuts down trees to eat and to repair dams and lodges. A beaver can chew down a small tree in just a few minutes.
Ponds formed by beaver dams are important habitat for fish and waterfowl
Their webbed feet and rudder-like tail allow beavers to swim about six miles per hour
Large tail makes a loud sound when a beaver dives underwater
Able to close its mouth behind its front teeth so it can carry logs and sticks underwater
Can be confused with muskrats and nutria. Beavers are the largest of the three animals and have distinctive flattened paddle-like tails.
Once treasured for its fur, which was used as a windand rain-proof fabric for stylish hats. This caused beaver populations to become depleted until just a few pockets remained. In the early 1900s, hunting and logging regulations were put in place to help beavers recover.
Sources and Additional Information:
Chesapeake Bay: Nature of the Estuary, A Field Guide by Christopher P. White