Are Our Clothes Doomed for the Landfill?
We've probably all had the experience of dropping off a bag of old clothes at our local Goodwill or Salvation Army. But did you ever wonder what happens to the mound of goods in these donation piles? And those totally worn-out boots you reluctantly threw in the trash? Their fate is not so pretty.
Globally, 80% of discarded textiles are doomed for the landfill or incineration. Only 20% are actually reused or recycled.
The clothing that ends up in landfills can sit there for 200-plus years, and as it decomposes, it emits methane—a greenhouse gas more potent than carbon. Yikes. And much of what we donate gets packed, shipped, and re-sold overseas or gets dumped in landfills anyway. There's a lot of misinformation out there, so we did some digging and followed the paths that old clothes might take once they leave our hands.
Right now, less than 1% of collected clothing is recycled into new yarns and fibers. New technologies, like chemical recycling (which separates raw materials from dyes, elastics, etc. for effective use as new textiles) are in the works, but we have a long way to go until they're fully developed and put into mainstream practice. So, what can we do now to save our clothing from a landfilled end?
We're all familiar with the mantra "fewer, better things" and we know what a challenge that sounds like for anyone who likes to be on-trend. But there are so many services available now—like Le Tote and Rent the Runway—that let us keep up with each season's styles without stuffing our closets full of here-today-gone-tomorrow pieces. We can also host clothing swaps with friends and spend more time fixing some of the gently worn pieces that are already in our closets. It's actually pretty easy to sew on missing buttons, patch small holes, and learn correct washing methods to give our favorite tops and bottoms an extended shelf life.
By doubling the life of clothing from one to two years, we can help reduce emissions from clothing production and disposal by as much as 24%.
Here's some food for thought: 26% of discarded clothing was disposed of simply because we didn't want it anymore. Now, we're not telling our fashion-loving ladies to stop shopping completely. We're just suggesting that you buy thoughtfully. Think of creating your own capsule collection with timeless classics that won't ever go in or out of style. Try our 30 wears challenge. Choose garments and materials that are made to last instead of cheap synthetics like polyester, nylon, and spandex, which can take as long as 200 years to fully degrade. Seek out brands that offer lifetime repair services. Or try secondhand—it's the most sustainable way to shop.
The U.S. alone sends about 21 billion pounds of textile waste to landfills every year. And sadly, only 10-15% of donated clothing actually ends up in the secondhand market. National charities like Goodwill and the Salvation Army get more donations than they can handle, so much of it is packed up and re-sold overseas or sent to landfills. California Goodwill alone spends $7 million a year on dumping costs. So when it comes time to part with pieces in your closet, do so wisely.
Donate to local charities and thrift shops, which are more likely to put your used clothing onto their racks or make sure it goes directly to people in need.
Consider selling them yourself on websites like eBay, Poshmark, or Vinted. Take unwearable items (stained shirts, holey socks, old underwear) to local textile recycling facilities, where they'll be downcycled into things like rags, cushion filling, and insulation. San Francisco even has a citywide program in place in which people can collect unwearable items in a clear plastic bag and put them in their blue recycling bins to be downcycled.
Do your research before you go shopping and choose designers who have zero-waste goals and initiatives to use fabrics that are recyclable. You can start by checking out Remake's list of ethical and sustainable brands, featuring brands including Mara Hoffman, Patagonia and Veja. High-end designers are getting in on the game too: Stella McCartney has created a vegan silk for their collections through a partnership with biotechnology brand Bolt Threads.
Individually and collectively, we need to keep asking our favorite fashion brands what they do with their waste and what efforts they're making to become more sustainable. H&M addressed these issues with their World Recycle Week campaign with M.I.A., which claims they're recycling textiles into new fibers through their clothing collection program, but that's likely not the whole truth. The technology to do this at scale simply doesn't exist yet, which means that chances are high they're shipping most of these donations overseas.
It's our job to keep pushing them for the whole truth.
On a regional scale, we can make requests to our local governments to provide resources for responsible clothing disposal and push for improved processes, like investing in research and infrastructure for textile recycling.
Clothing landfill waste certainly isn't a problem we're going to solve overnight, but there are small steps we can take each day to pave the path towards a more sustainable fashion future. And it starts with you. Follow the journey of your clothes in our roadmap below.
Allison is a lifestyle writer and editor who regularly contributes to the Style section of the San Francisco Chronicle. Before going freelance, she was a longtime staff editor at 7×7 Magazine and will never forget the day she got to interview Vogue editor-at-large Hamish Bowles. She believes in supporting companies that are committed to both ethical and sustainable business models and is practicing what she preaches by changing the clothes in her own closet one piece at a time.


text:
Tag: Shama Bibi
Pakistani top court rejects review, setting Christian woman Asia Bibi free
January 29, 2019 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Pakistan, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
After nine years in prison for blasphemy, the Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi is free to go after the Supreme Court today, 29 January, upheld her acquittal from the death penalty conviction for blasphemy. The panel considering a review of last year's verdict by the Supreme Court – which had acquitted her based . . . Read More
'No grounds for review of Supreme Court ruling' – Asia Bibi's lawyer, who fled Pakistan
November 5, 2018 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Imran Khan, Islamic extremism, Mumtaz Qadri, Pakistan, Prophet Muhammad, Salmaan Taseer, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi, Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan
The lawyer who defended the Pakistani Christian woman Asia Bibi* against blasphemy charges and secured her acquittal at the Supreme Court says he does not expect a review of her case to take place. As part of its agreement with an Islamist political party to stop its violent protests, the . . . Read More
Pakistan court acquits 20 in case of Christian couple burnt alive
March 26, 2018 Pakistan Blasphemy, Bonded labourers, Lahore, Minorities, Pakistan, Punjab, Quran, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
An Anti-Terrorism Court (ATC) in Lahore, Pakistan, on Saturday (24 March) acquitted 20 men suspected of involvement in the murder of a Christian couple burnt alive at the kiln where they worked in November 2014 – after it was alleged that they had set fire to some pages from a Quran. . . . Read More
Death sentence for killers of Christian couple burned alive in Pakistan
November 24, 2016 Pakistan Blasphemy, Bonded labourers, Lahore, Punjab, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
Pakistani Christians mourn the death of the couple burnt alive on 4 November 2014 for setting fire to some pages from the Qur'an. An Anti-Terrorism Court in Lahore, Pakistan yesterday (23 Nov.) sentenced five men to death for the murder of a Christian couple who were burned alive in November . . . Read More
Freedom of religion or belief 'the defining issue of our time'
September 16, 2016 International Angela Merkel, Boko Haram, Canada, Copts, Egypt, India, Iraq, Islamic State, Jan Figel, Kandhamal, Myanmar, New York, North Korea, Norway, Pakistan, Religious freedom, Saudi Arabia, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi, Syria
Over 100 parliamentarians from 60 countries met this week in Berlin for a series of workshops and seminars under the title, "An Embattled Right: Protecting and Promoting Freedom of Religion of Belief". The second conference of this size after last year's meeting in New York, it was organised by the . . . Read More
Pakistan court grants bail to chief suspect in oven killings of Christian couple
April 19, 2016 Pakistan Blasphemy, Bonded labourers, Gojra, Joseph Colony, Kasur, Pakistan, Prophet Muhammad, Quran, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
A Pakistani court has granted bail to the lead suspect in the brutal 2014 killings of a young Christian couple, burned alive in a brick kiln where they worked as bonded labourers, itself illegal in Pakistan. National outrage over their deaths meant the case had moved to Pakistan's Anti-Terrorism Court . . . Read More
Pakistan's Supreme Court makes landmark judgment
October 14, 2015 Pakistan Asia Bibi, Blasphemy, Diyat, Islamabad, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, Mumtaz Qadri, Nawaz Sharif, Rawalpindi, Salmaan Taseer, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi, Sunni Tehreek
n Mumtaz Qadri was showered with rose petals by supporters for killing Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer over his criticism of the blasphemy laws.Getty Images In a landmark judgment on 7 October the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP) upheld the death sentence of Malik Mumtaz Qadri, 30, who murdered the former . . . Read More
Justice moves slowly in Pakistan
September 9, 2015 Pakistan Blasphemy, Pakistan, Punjab, Quran, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
Pakistan's Supreme Court has criticised the inaction of police in response to the November 2014 burning alive of a Christian couple, Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi, in Punjab state. Five police officers were present Muslims descended upon the couple, who had been accused of desecrating a copy of the Quran. . . . Read More
Pakistan: 106 charged with murder
May 27, 2015 Pakistan Blasphemy, Pakistan, Quran, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
Pakistan has charged 106 people with murder, more than six months after a Christian couple were beaten and burnt to death by a mob, reports the BBC. Shahzad Masih, 26, and his five-month pregnant wife Shama, 24, were accused by the mob of burning pages of a Qur'an, as reported . . . Read More
Pakistani Christian couple 'still alive' when thrown into kiln – coroner
December 23, 2014 Pakistan Bonded labourers, Gojra, Kasur, Punjab, Quran, Shahzad Masih, Shama Bibi
Christians at a church in Punjab, Pakistan; Sept. 2014 World Watch Monitor A lawyer for the state of Punjab, Pakistan has described the murder of a Christian couple by a mob of at least 500 to 600 as "brutal and barbaric". The post-mortem report on their twin deaths (first . . . Read More

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Background Patient safety is a fundamental principle of healthcare; it is a new healthcare discipline that emphasizes the reporting, analysis, and prevention of medical errors that often lead to adverse healthcare events.
Objectives The aim of this study is to aid any hospital in attaining better quality of patient care in the operating room (OR) by achieving patient safety according to the WHO safety guidelines. Specific objectives include the assessment of patient safety status in OR, the identification of hazards, and the assessment of risks that jeopardize this safety.
Materials and methods This is a descriptive observational study carried out in three ORs of a governmental hospital. The study was carried out from December 2008 through April 2009. A total of 100 patients undergoing general surgical and urological surgical procedures were selected. The data collection tools included the WHO surgical safety checklist, nonstructured interviews, patient records, anesthesia checklist, and the risk assessment matrix.
Results According to the WHO safety checklist, patients' safety was checked during three stages. During the 'sign in' stage, only 3% of all the patients had the operation site marked for surgery and an incident of a single wrong side surgery was recorded. There was a clear lack of communication between doctors and patients. During the 'time out' stage, 80% of surgeries lacked organized discussion among surgical team members for anticipated critical events. Prophylactic antibiotics were administered to 59% of patients undergoing surgeries. The 'sign out' stage was properly carried out in 100% of the procedures. Risk assessment in the 'sign in' stage showed six of 11 procedures leading to a major risk to patients. Also, in the 'time out' stage, three of eight procedures had a major risk.
Conclusion and recommendations To reach an optimal level of patient safety in the OR, it is recommended that the checklist should be implemented as part of the daily surgical routine. Identification of the hazards to which patients could be exposed and assessment of risks must be the ultimate goal in any OR.
Safety in the operating room (OR) has always been a major public health concern. It refers to the safety of both the patient and the working personnel 1. Improving patient safety is an increasing priority for surgeons and hospitals as sentinel events can be catastrophic for patients, caregivers, and institutions. Patient safety is a new healthcare discipline that emphasizes the reporting, analysis, and prevention of medical errors that often lead to adverse healthcare events. Recognizing that healthcare errors impact one in every 10 patients around the world, the WHO calls patient safety an endemic concern. Therefore, the 'Safe Surgery Saves Lives' initiative was established by the World Alliance for Patient Safety as part of the WHO efforts to reduce the number of surgical deaths across the world. The aim of this initiative is to harness political commitment and clinical will to address important safety issues, including adequate anesthetic safety practices, avoidable surgical infection, and poor communication among team members. These have proved to be common, deadly, and preventable problems in all countries and settings 2.
Accordingly, the WHO has developed guidelines for safe surgery and a first edition (2008) checklist of surgical safety standards has been developed to be applicable in all countries and health settings with a recommendation for modification according to local needs. The revised (2009) checklist was issued in some languages including Arabic. The checklist identifies crucial safety steps corresponding to the following three stages: the induction of anesthesia (sign in); before skin incision (time out); and before the patient leaves the OR (sign out). The list is associated with an implementation manual 3. The 'Safe Surgery Saves Lives' initiative in Egypt and surgical safety checklist as a tool for guidance and control of patient safety have been adopted by a few organizations including the Egyptian Group for Surgical Science and Research.
Risk assessment is a structural and systematic procedure that depends on the correct identification of the hazards and an appropriate estimation of the risks arising from them, with a view to making inter-risk comparisons for the purposes of their control or avoidance. Risk assessment in a numerical manner will help hospitals to assess their safety status and prioritize their action plan in view of their resources 4.
Hazards and risks are often misinterpreted as one term, while actually they are not the same. A hazard is something with the potential to cause harm, whereas a risk is the likelihood that illness, injury, or even death might result because of the hazard. Risk management comprises five basic steps: identifying hazards, assessing and prioritizing risks, deciding on control measures, implementing control measures, and monitoring and reviewing 5.
The ultimate objective of this study is to aid any hospital in attaining better quality of patient care in the OR by achieving patient safety according to WHO safety guidelines. Specific objectives include the assessment of patient safety status in OR, the identification of hazards, and the assessment of risks in terms of exposure of patients to surgical work, anesthesia, and nursing practices that jeopardize this safety.
The present work is a descriptive observational study carried out in three ORs in a governmental hospital.
The study was carried out in three phases, preparatory phase, data collection, and data management and analysis phases, and over a period of 6 months. According to ethical and administrative regulations, an official letter was submitted to the ethical and registration committee in the hospital under study to clarify the objectives of the study in order to insure maximum cooperation. The letter was approved by the hospital administration.
A sample of 100 patients undergoing general surgical and urological surgical procedures was selected.
The WHO surgical safety checklist (2008) was used in three ORs of a governmental hospital.
Nonstructured interviews with the surgeons and anesthesiologists were conducted to know more about the patient medical condition, any history of any chronic diseases he/she had, and special concerns in terms of patient safety.
Records were used to determine the patient's medical history and any special medical condition.
Checking the proper use of anesthesia checklist for all the patients was performed in the form of a sheet filled by junior anesthesiologists.
In terms of the patient safety checklist, the checklist used was implemented for 100 surgical encounters. Data were analyzed as frequencies and percentages of the total number of encounters.
Risk assessment of data was carried out using the risk assessment method adapted from the guideline of the Occupational and Health Unit of University of Queensland, Australia 5.
Risk assessment was performed using a matrix. The matrix rows present the severity (S) graded from 2 through 10 on two increments according to the impact of this risk on the personnel's health and the possible consequences. Columns of the matrix present the likelihood (L) graded from 2 through 10 on two increments according to the frequency of the occurrence and availability of suitable controls, masking the chance of their occurrence. Judgment of S and L was carried out on the bases of occurrence of frequencies of different items studied within the WHO patient safety checklist and occurrence of incidents during the study period taking into consideration the existing control measures. Risk (R) was calculated as R=S×L and accordingly grading and prioritizing of hazards were performed.
Guided by the WHO surgical safety checklist, the results were presented according to three stages: sign in, time out, and sign out.
During the 'sign in' stage, the patient identity and site of surgery were not confirmed by the checklist coordinator. The names of the procedure and the consent for surgery were properly done in 99 and 91% of the cases, respectively. Only 3% of all the patients had the operation site marked for surgery and an incident of a single wrong side surgery was recorded. There was a clear lack of communication between doctors and patients. The anesthesia checklist for patient safety was used properly, whereas the one for the anesthesia apparatus was used only once daily (Table 1).
During the 'time out' stage, verbal confirmation for the patient identity and site of surgery was carried out improperly in 100% of cases, whereas the name of the procedure was confirmed in 99% of cases. Eighty percent of surgeries lacked organized discussion among surgical team members for anticipated critical events. Also 77% of anesthesia patient concerns lacked sharing or communication of information from some of anesthesia team. This indicates a clear communication breakdown among OR staff members, which may be a common cause of medical errors and adverse events. Prophylactic antibiotics were administered to 59% of patients undergoing surgeries (Table 2).
Finally, the 'sign out' stage was properly performed in 100% of procedures, where the nurses recorded the name of the procedure, counted the equipment used, and labeled the specimens. Also, the surgeons wrote their key concerns for the recovery and management of patients (Table 3).
Risk assessment in the 'sign in' stage showed six of 11 procedures implying a major risk to patients. Also, in the 'time out' stage, three of eight procedures implied a major risk (Figs 1 and 2).
Safety in the OR is a very important issue in any hospital safety concerns as it does not only involve the safety of the working personnel facing occupational hazards in the OR but it also jeopardizes the patients' safety.
Application of the surgical safety checklist, 'first edition', was difficult to interpret in terms of titles of the three sections 'sign in, time out, and sign out stages'. Also, the same difficulty was encountered in answering collective questions. The current revised version overcomes these difficulties as it is more illustrative and organized 6.
According to the WHO surgical safety checklist, patients' safety was checked during three stages: the sign in stage (before the induction of anesthesia), where patient identity, site of surgery, and the name of the procedure performed were apparently known to working staff, but they were not confirmed by a single person (checklist coordinator) whose role is important in order to reduce the incidence of faulty identification errors occurring in surgeries.
Only 3% of the patients in the study had the operation site marked for their surgeries; a single incident of wrong side surgery was recorded, which was a wrong-sided vascular leg surgery. Universal protocols state that the site or sites operated on must be marked unless in case of emergencies 7.
For 9% of the patients in our study, no consent was obtained, although ordinary surgical consents are regularly obtained for all the classic routine surgical procedures, and informed consents are only obtained for research purposes. There was a clear lack of communication between the doctors and the patients in terms of the explanation of the suggested surgical procedure and clarification of the possible complications. There should be a mutual agreement between the patient and the physician on the course of the treatment. This shared decision making represents the best blending of physician expertise and patient choice 8.
Two anesthesia checklists were applied: the patient safety checklist and the anesthesia apparatus checklist. The one related to patient safety was filled properly before, during, and after the operation, whereas the one related to anesthesia apparatus was filled out once each day in the form of filling of data rather than actual checking of each item by the junior staff.
It was found that 35% of the patients in the present study had a risk of losing more than 500 ml of blood, and precautions were taken by providing blood ready for transfusion and a plan for appropriate fluid resuscitation in the majority of patients (Table 1). In a study carried out by Nisanevich et al. 9, it was found that for patients undergoing elective intra-abdominal surgery, intraoperative use of restrictive fluid management may be advantageous because it reduces postoperative morbidity and shortens hospital stay.
During the time out (before skin incision) stage, for 80% of the surgeries, there was no organized discussion among the surgical team members for the anticipated critical events and the remaining 20% surgeries were reviewed improperly (Table 2). A discussion of the anticipated critical events should be performed by the surgeon to inform all the team members of any steps that place the patient at risk for rapid blood loss, injury, or other major morbidity, but it was observed that none of this occurred; there was a clear breakdown in communication among the OR staff members. There is growing evidence that communication failures among team members are a common cause of medical errors and adverse events. A study of communication failures in the OR found that they occur in ∼30% of team exchange 10.
Only 59% of the patients undergoing surgery in our study sample were administered prophylactic antibiotics in a random manner without a clear verification for their actual need (Table 2). Antibiotics were administered either before skin incision or in the middle of surgery and sometimes they were not even administered in case of minor operations, but generally, no special strategy was followed, although the infection control protocol in the hospital studied recommends that antibiotics should be administered only if needed according to the nature of surgery and the patient's medical condition and they should be administered 30–60 min before skin incision. The main goal of surgical prophylaxis is to use antimicrobials in an evidence-based manner while minimizing the risk of adverse events and the effect of antibiotics on the patient's own flora 11.
The sign out stage was properly implemented (Table 3). Nurses in the current study recorded the names of 100% of the procedures, counted the instruments, sponges, and needles in 100% of the procedures, and whenever there was an equipment problem, it was reported immediately for correction. Also, surgeons wrote their key concerns for the recovery and management of patients and reported them verbally if needed.
In terms of risk assessment, which aims to improve the quality of the decision-making process, Fig. 1 shows that the site of the procedure and its marking as well as the risk of blood loss account for a major risk (R=8×8=64). Also, Fig. 2 shows that verbal confirmation of the patient, site of operation, and procedure performed imposed a major risk (R=8×8=64), thus confirming a clear breakdown in communication among the OR staff members, which may be an important cause of adverse events.
Therefore, the proposed risk reduction program should emphasize the presence of procedures for patient and procedure identification, surgical site marking, complete preanesthesia checkup of patients, and establishment of protective actions for unexpected incidences and availability of blood transfusion.
To achieve an optimal level of patient safety in the OR, checking of certain points using a checklist should be performed, in which some should be strictly applied by the hospital administration and others should be modified in personal work practices to ameliorate the level of patient safety in surgery.
The patient's identity, site of surgery, and the name of the procedure in order to minimize the percentage of errors of identification.
Checking the patient presurgical condition, especially known allergies and difficult airway or risk of aspiration, in a simplified manner is essential. Also, surgical site marking should be a routine procedure, as it was found that in most of the cases, the surgical sites are not marked, in order to minimize the possibility of wrong site surgery.
The importance of filling in and clarifying surgical consent to the patient or a responsible relative by increasing the level of communication between the surgeons and the patients and discussing their conditions and the possible outcomes of the surgeries.
The importance of assessing the possibility of blood loss before surgery in order to be prepared for any blood loss emergency.
There should be organized discussions between the surgical team before surgeries, as it was found that for most of the surgeries, there was no organized discussion of the patients' medical condition and the surgical procedures applied.
The application and monitoring of a clear prophylactic antibiotics policy with a defined frame and roles as it was found that a policy was formulated by the infection control, but the application of the policy was not strictly monitored.
Development of a risk management program for patient safety in the OR with defined roles, monitoring, evaluation, analysis, and continuous improvement.
The authors thank Professor Gerald Dziekan (MD, MSc), Former Head Safe Surgery, Pulse Oximetry, Care Checklists & AMR Programs, WHO Patient Safety, Switzerland, for his support and encouragement.
1. Herick RF, Wallace RB, Kohatsu NWallace RB, Last JM.Industrial hygiene.Wallace/Maxcy-Rosenau-Last Public health and preventive medicine2008.USA:The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
2. .WHO Guidelines on Hand Hygiene in Health Care First Global Patient Safety Challenge Clean Care is Safer Care2009.Geneva:WHO Press.
3. Haynes AB, Weiser TG, Berry WR, Lipsitz SR, Breizat A-HS, Dellinger EP.A surgical safety checklist to reduce morbidity and mortality in a global population.N Engl J Med2009;360:491–499.
4. Sadhra SS, Rampal KGSadhra SS, Rampal KG.Basic concepts and developments in health: risk assessment and management.Occupational health risk assessment and management1999:4th ed..Oxford (UK):Blackwell Science Ltd;2–3.
5. .Occupational Health & Safety Unit (OHS)2010.Australia:University of Queensland (UQ).
6. .Surgical safety checklist; 2012. Available at: http://www.who.org. [Accessed 13 April 2012].
7. Saufl NM.Universal protocol for preventing wrong site, wrong procedure, wrong person surgery.J PeriAnesthesia Nurs2004;19:348–351.
8. Whitney SN, McGuire AL, McCullough LB.A typology of shared decision making, informed consent, and simple consent.Ann Intern Med2004;140:54–59.
9. Nisanevich V, Felsenstein I, Almogy G, Weissman C, Einav S, Matot I.Effect of intraoperative fluid management on outcome after intraabdominal surgery.Anesthesiology2005;103:25–32.
10. Lingard L, Espin S, Whyte S, Regehr G, Baker GR, Reznick R, et al..Communication failures in the operating room: an observational classification of recurrent types and effects.Qual Saf Health Care2004;13:330–334.
11. Prtak LE, Ridgway EJ.Prophylactic antibiotics in surgery.Surgery2009;27:431–434.
The Journal Of The Egyptian Public Health Association88(2):85-89, August 2013.


text:
August Heinrich ist der Name folgender Personen:

* August Heinrich (Maler) (Johann August Heinrich; 1794–1822), deutscher Maler
 August Heinrich (Fossiliensammler) (1859–1926), österreichischer Arzt und Fossiliensammler
 August Heinrich (Schauspieler) (1881–1965), deutscher Schauspieler und Schriftsteller

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
from storyboard.db.api import base as api_base
from storyboard.db import models
from storyboard.plugin.user_preferences import PREFERENCE_DEFAULTS

def user_get(user_id, filter_non_public=False, session=None):
    entity = api_base.entity_get(models.User, user_id,
                                 filter_non_public=filter_non_public,
                                 session=session)

    return entity

def _build_user_query(full_name=None, email=None, openid=None):
    query = api_base.model_query(models.User)

    query = api_base.apply_query_filters(query=query,
                                         model=models.User,
                                         full_name=full_name)

    if email:
        query = query.filter(models.User.email == email)

    if openid:
        query = query.filter(models.User.openid == openid)

    return query

def user_get_all(marker=None, offset=None, limit=None,
                 filter_non_public=False, sort_field=None, sort_dir=None,
                 full_name=None, email=None, openid=None,
                 **kwargs):
    query = _build_user_query(full_name=full_name,
                              email=email,
                              openid=openid)

    query = api_base.paginate_query(query=query,
                                    model=models.User,
                                    limit=limit,
                                    marker=marker,
                                    offset=offset,
                                    sort_key=sort_field,
                                    sort_dir=sort_dir)

    users = query.all()
    if len(users) > 0 and filter_non_public:
        sample_user = users[0]
        public_fields = getattr(sample_user, "_public_fields", [])

        users = [api_base._filter_non_public_fields(user, public_fields)
                 for user in users]

    return users

def user_get_count(**kwargs):
    return api_base.entity_get_count(models.User, **kwargs)

def user_get_by_openid(openid):
    query = api_base.model_query(models.User, api_base.get_session())
    return query.filter_by(openid=openid).first()

def user_create(values):
    return api_base.entity_create(models.User, values)

def user_update(user_id, values, filter_non_public=False):
    return api_base.entity_update(models.User, user_id, values,
                                  filter_non_public=filter_non_public)

def user_get_preferences(user_id):
    preferences = api_base.entity_get_all(models.UserPreference,
                                          user_id=user_id)

    pref_dict = dict()
    for pref in preferences:
        pref_dict[pref.key] = pref.cast_value

    # Decorate with plugin defaults.
    for key in PREFERENCE_DEFAULTS:
        if key not in pref_dict:
            pref_dict[key] = PREFERENCE_DEFAULTS[key]

    return pref_dict

def user_update_preferences(user_id, preferences):
    for key in preferences:
        value = preferences[key]
        prefs = api_base.entity_get_all(models.UserPreference,
                                        user_id=user_id,
                                        key=key)

        matching_prefs = []
        if prefs:
            for p in prefs:
                if p.key == key:
                    # FIXME: We create a list here because there appears to
                    # currently be a bug which means that each preference may
                    # appear more than once per-user. We should fix that once
                    # we discover the cause.
                    matching_prefs.append(p)
        else:
            pref = None

        for pref in matching_prefs:
            # If the preference exists and it's null.
            if pref and value is None:
                api_base.entity_hard_delete(models.UserPreference, pref.id)
                continue

            # If the preference exists and has a new value.
            if pref and value is not None and pref.cast_value != value:
                pref.cast_value = value
                api_base.entity_update(
                    models.UserPreference, pref.id, dict(pref))
                continue

        # If the preference does not exist and a new value exists.
        if not matching_prefs and value is not None:
            api_base.entity_create(models.UserPreference, {
                'user_id': user_id,
                'key': key,
                'cast_value': value
            })

    return user_get_preferences(user_id)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


A months-long battle to secure back pay waged by 750 garment workers has ended only days before the national election — with the government footing the bill.
The $450,000 payout to the Pine Great (Cambodia) factory workers, whose factory owner skipped town in April, is being financed through a loan from the national budget, with payment to be made today.
Workers previously expressed concern that they would be unable to pay transportation costs so they could cast ballots if they did not receive their pay by Friday. They further vowed to protest in front of the Ministry of Social Affairs on Election Day if the wages remained unpaid.
Upon hearing the news, the out-of-pocket employees "laughed and thanked Prime Minister Hun Sen for helping them receive their wages after spending more than three months demanding" them, Keo Sokhom, a worker representative, said yesterday.
Touch Somuth, a member of a Ministry of Social Affairs committee formed to handle the dispute, said that because Pine Great's Chinese owner had fled the country, the committee had decided to try to distribute pay to all workers at the Meanchey district factory today.
Those who could not make it, he added, could pick up their money at the Ministry of Social Affairs.
While in favour of the decision to pay the workers money rightfully owed to them, Moen Tola, head of the labour program at the Community Legal Education Center, questioned the timing of the payments.
"We see political manipulation more than commitment to the sole issue," Tola said yesterday.
Rather than paying money out of the public budget, the government should set up a system where companies deposited a certain amount of money to avoid complications like those seen at Pine Great if a company became insolvent, Tola said.
Regardless of the government's motive behind the payments or how they were going about making them, Sokhom said the action secured the Pine Great workers' votes.
"We will go to vote, and we will vote for Cambodian People's Party, because they always help the workers," Sokhom said.
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Economy and Finance paid out $6.5 million to more than 7,000 workers at Yung Wah, a Gap supplier, who were owed compensation.


Opportunity !!! Commercial premises converted into a 2 bedroom apartment in Estepona center less than 300 meters away from the sea and promenade.
Setting : Town, Commercial Area, Beachside, Village, Close To Port, Close To Shops, Close To Sea, Close To Schools, Marina, Close To Marina.


text:
Q: Reverse tunnel commands through ssh? I'm looking for a way to easily send commands back to my local computer, while connected to a remote host via ssh. Is this doable via tunnelling? Both systems are UNIXen.
For instance, I am connected to a remote host and through some alias "backwards" I want to do:
user@remote $ backwards echo hi
And the local machine would execute echo hi

A: Standard SSH implementations do not provide this functionality. You will have to connect back to your local computer:
remote$ ssh "${SSH_CONNECTION%% *}" echo hi

If you are behind a NAT, you can use SSH "remote forwarding" to make the connection:
local$ ssh -R 23456:localhost:22 remote
remote$ ssh -P 23456 localhost echo hi

(With -R, "localhost:22" is the client's "localhost".)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I already had a camera by then, so I started to photograph as many interesting signals as I could find.
Most of the other rail fans I knew were mainly interested in locomotives, so it struck me that somebody ought to be pointing a camera at these signals, as the traditional semaphore variety were rapidly disappearing by then.
BT and other internet providers have made a commitment to the government to ask all of our customers to decide whether they want BT Parental Controls.There's another way to block Yahoo ads and here's how you can go about doing it. This script will allow you to remove ads in Yahoo Mail. Hope these methods to disable and remove Yahoo ads in the Yahoo Mail page worked for you.Download and install Firefox, and then install the Greasemonkey addon. Let us know in the comments section if you experience any difficulties in blocking Yahoo Mail advertisements.Here are three methods to hide Yahoo Mail ads: You wouldn't have noticed it.Yahoo itself provides a way to hide ads in Yahoo Mail.
BT Parental Controls help keep your children safe online.


For every three purchases, each for EGP 40 or more (or its equivalent in other currencies) you will get one chance to enter the draw.
Don't miss out on this opportunity! Use your ""Shabab" Visa Electron Card as often as you can to increase your chances of winning and being one of the 15 lucky winners.
3. Only Arab Bank Shabab VISA Electron cards are eligible.
4. Only Arab Bank Shabab Customers are eligible to enter this draw.
5. Every 3 transactions on point of sale will qualify the cardholder to one chance. Each transaction must be EGP 40 or more (or equivalent in other currencies). The transactions must be made during the campaign period. Maximum allowed entries per customer are 20.
6. ATM cash withdrawal transactions do not qualify as chances to enter the draw.
7. There will be 3 draws throughout the year, 15 Prizes for each draw each prize worth of EGP 5,000 (Prizes amounts are subject to taxes as per the applicable laws).
8. Winners will be notified /contacted by phone, email, or any other way of communication based on the contact details available to the Bank.
9. The cash prize cannot be credited to any other account other than the winners account under any circumstances.
11. The net amount of cash prize after deducting taxes will be credited to the customer's account.
12. Arab Bank reserves the right to decide the winners based on the most accurate information available at the time of decision in coordination with the concerned governmental parties. Arab Bank's decision will be considered final and neither correspondence nor discussion concerning the draw decision shall be entertained.
*Terms and conditions of product and campaign apply.


text:
Il ciclo della Terra morente è una serie di narrativa fantasy scritta da Jack Vance e composta da quattro libri pubblicati tra il 1950 e il 1984. Il contenuto varia dalla raccolta di storie brevi a romanzi formati dall'unione di storie brevi precedentemente pubblicate.

Il primo libro della serie Il crepuscolo della Terra (The Dying Earth) è arrivato al sedicesimo posto su 33 in un sondaggio del 1987 tra gli abbonati di Locus per le migliori storie fantasy di tutti i tempi, sebbene fosse stata venduta come una collezione e l'ISFDB la definisca "una serie di storie debolmente connesse".

Ambientazione
Le storie del ciclo sono ambientate in un futuro remoto in un momento in cui la Luna è scomparsa e il Sole è quasi completamente esaurito, la sua luce spesso si affievolisce minacciando di spegnersi per sempre, prima di tornare a brillare fiocamente.

La Terra è generalmente deserta e fredda, infestata da vari mostri (spesso creati da un mago delle ere precedenti) e da strane piante e animali, punteggiato qua e là dalle rovine di civiltà antiche, e da città che ospitano le civiltà superstiti. La popolazione umana è in via di costante diminuzione ed è in gran parte sopraffatta da un'attitudine fatalista. In gran parte vive in edifici costruiti molto tempo prima, in vari stati di degradazione, squallore o lussuria. Molte persone usano tecnologie o magie create nelle ere passate di cui non comprendono più il funzionamento. La linea di distinzione tra la tecnologia creata dalla magia e quella creata dalla scienza è confusa e viene suggerito che alla fin fine magia e tecnologia sono indistinguibili. I personaggi delle storie sono consapevoli di vivere su una "Terra morente" e spesso fanno riferimenti noncuranti e nichilistici sul fatto che al pianeta non resta più molto da vivere, dando per scontato che ben presto il Sole si esaurirà, anche se non viene mai indicato quanto esattamente resta alla Terra da vivere, potrebbero essere solo decadi o magari ancora migliaia o milioni di anni.

Molti delle persone più importanti di Ascolais sono stregoni che usano magie memorizzate sotto forma di lunghe formule rituali. Una volta lanciati, gli incantesimi sono immediatamente dimenticati, e per lanciare nuovamente un incantesimo il mago deve memorizzarlo un'altra volta. A causa di ciò anche i maghi più bravi possono memorizzare e preparare solo una manciata di incantesimi. I maghi si affidano anche a reliquie magiche e ad abilità e talenti mondani per proteggersi. Delle migliaia di incantesimi scoperti nel corso della storia umana, solo un centinaio sono ancora ricordati. Uno dei personaggi, Pandelume implica che quello che gli abitanti della Terra morente chiamano "magia" ha un'origine scientifica e molti incantesimi sono stati inventati sulla base dell'applicazione della matematica e della scienza.

Personaggi

Cugel Autosoprannominatosi "l'astuto", Cugel è il classico antieroe vanciano. Sebbene si vanti di essere un esteta e si ritenga superiore a chi lo circonda, nelle sue azioni è un bugiardo, imbroglione, ladro impenitente, codardo senza vergogna, ciarlatano, egoista, avido e così via. Spesso tenta di sfruttare chi lo circonda, ma altrettanto spesso è a sua volta la vittima di un imbroglio. Il soprannome "l'astuto" è almeno in parte un titolo ironico. Nonostante si vanti di essere un seduttore di donne, in un racconto ne scambia una con dei banditi in cambio d un salvacondotto, in un altro racconto ne abbandona un'altra ad annegare e non fa niente per tentare di evitare la distruzione del suo villaggio. Tratta comunque così anche gli uomini. Per esempio con la complicità di un prete inganna cinquanta pellegrini nel compiere un futile pellegrinaggio, in modo da poter essere accompagnato nell'attraversamento di un pericoloso deserto. Solo quindici sopravviveranno al viaggio. D'altra parte mostra una genuina preoccupazione per il più altruista dei pellegrini, cosa che sorprende anche lui.

Guyal Guyal of Sfere è un giovane e ricco uomo famoso tra la sua gente per continuare a porre una serie infinita di domande, a causa di un "vuoto" nella sua mente che lo spinge a cercare la conoscenza. Infine suo padre gli concede un incantesimo di protezione così che possa cercare il mitico Museo dell'Uomo e porre le sue domande al suo leggendario curatore che tutto conosce.

Mazirian Un mago avido e senza cuore che non si arresta di fronte a niente per ottenere quanto più potere e conoscenza magica può. Sebbene Mazirian, come Turjan sia capace di creare la vita artificiale, le sue creazioni mancano di intelligenza umana. Imprigiona Turjan per obbligarlo a rivelare i suoi segreti.

Ulan Dhor Ulan è uno stregone e spadaccino, nipote del Principe Kandive. Parte per la città di Ampridatvir per recuperare delle antiche tavolette che si suppone contengano antiche conoscenze e magie.

Elai Elai è una ragazza che aiuta Ulan Dhor quando questi raggiunge Ampridatvir. Appartiene agli adoratori di Cazdal vestiti di grigio. Ulan le rivela la verità sulla città e lei gli fa da guida e compagna. Non riesce comunque a vedere chi veste di verde.

Kandive Il Principe Kandive il dorato, è il decadente e indolente monarca della città di Kaiin. È anche uno stregone di considerevole potere da cui Mazirian ruba il segreto di una vita innaturalmente lunga. La sua età è sconosciuta. Kandive finanzia la spedizione di suo nipote, Ulan Dhor.

Pandelume Pandelume è un potente stregone che risiede nel reame di Embelyon. Pandelume conosce molti segreti altrimenti persi alla conoscenza umana all'epoca di Turjan, tra cui quello di creare la vita artificiale, tutti gli incantesimi che siano mai stati creati e tutte le scienze come la matematica. Comunque non è né perfetto, né infallibile, la sua creazione T'sais è difettosa e gli occorre l'aiuto di Turjan per recuperare una reliquia magica che gli serve per sconfiggere un vecchio nemico. Sebbene possieda un corpo fisico, Pandelume non viene mai visto dagli altri personaggi, apparentemente il solo vederlo può causare pazzia o morte.

Shierl Shierl è la figlia del castellano dei Saponidi. Quando questi forzano Guyal a scegliere la più bella donna di Saponce, come parte di una punizione in tre parti, questi sceglie Shierl, inavvertitamente condannandola ad essere sacrificata al demone Blikdak insieme a lui. Mentre l'esercito Saponide li scorta fino al Museo dell'Uomo Guyal e Shierl si innamorano.

Luoghi
Ampridatvir Una città antica, come Kaiin, dagli edifici in rovina, sebbene molta della sua tecnologia sia ancora utilizzabile, come nastri di trasporto per i pedoni e ascensori che usano l'antigravità. La città è stata nel passato la sede di un'avanzata civilizzazione i cui bisogni erano soddisfatti dalla magia e dalla tecnologia, governata dal mago Rogol Domedonfors. Comunque a causa dei contrasti interni tra gli adoratori del dio Pansiu e quelli del dio Cazdal la città è caduta in declino. Prima di morire Rogol creò due tavolette che se combinate fornirebbero il segreto del suo potere, consegnandone una al capo di ciascuna setta. Gli abitanti vivono sotto una maledizione. Gli adoratori di Pansiu vestono di verde e non vedono le persone che vestono di grigio, mentre gli adoratori di Cazdal vestono grigio e non vedono chi veste di verde. In conseguenza di ciò le due fazioni sono completamente inconsapevoli dell'esistenza della fazione rivale. Tradizionalmente i cercatori di gloria vestono di rosso e tentano di recuperare la tavoletta mancante alla propria fazione, senza realizzare che ciò li renderà visibili a tutti e li condanna a essere uccisi da un attaccante per loro invisibile. Le persone razionalizzano ciò pensando che chi indossa il rosso viene ucciso da un fantasma invisibile.

Ascolais Una terra coperta di foreste dove risiedono Turjan, Mazirian e molti altri maghi e strane creature. Parte di essa è governata da Kandive.

Embelyon Embelyon è un reame che esiste in un luogo separato da quella della Terra Morente, potrebbe essere in un sistema solare differente o in un altro piano di esistenza. Vi dimora Pandelume che possiede ancora molti degli incantesimi e delle conoscenze che le civiltà umane hanno dimenticato. È descritto come una terra fantastica con molte piante ed animali alieni, coperta da un cielo dai colori cangianti e prismatici.

Kaiin Kaiin è una città ai confini di Ascolais governata dal Principe Kandive il dorato. La città, vecchia di migliaia di anni è in rovina e solo alcuni edifici sono ancora abitabili. Nonostante questo le poche persone rimanenti sono relativamente erudite e sofisticate, sebbene Kandive li derida come un popolo decadente che cerca solo modi stravaganti di passare il tempo.

Saponce Saponce è la città abitata dai saponidi, un popolo governato da antiche tradizioni. Le loro credenze sono basate sulla premessa che poiché il passato è un'epoca più gloriosa e civilizzata del presente, devono rispettare le tradizioni antiche senza porsi domande. È una società dalle regole sociali estremamente rigide e complesse, con punizioni ridicolmente complicate, solitamente torture letali, per gli stranieri che inconsapevolmente non le rispettano.

Creature
Chun l'inevitabile in originale Chun the Unavoidable, una misteriosa entità che vive nelle rovine a nord di Kain. Chun uccide e ruba gli occhi di chi cerca di derubarlo, inseguendo instancabilmente i suoi nemici.
Deodand Umanoidi dall'aspetto di piacenti uomini muscolosi, ma dalla pelle nera priva di lucentezza . Sono creature forti, carnivore e dagli istinti omicidi, ma sono vulnerabili alla magia che perciò temono.
Gaun Creature rozzamente umanoidi che infestano di notte le strade di Ampridatvir, catturando e mangiano ogni essere umano che riescono a catturare. Sono grandi, forti e poco intelligenti con la pelle pallida, gambe pelose, denti aguzzi e braccia lunghe un paio di metri.
Oast Creature dall'aspetto di umani molto alti con capelli biondi e occhi azzurri, ma non molto più intelligenti del bestiame. Le tribù a nord di Ascolais li usano come cibo, bestie da monta e da soma.
Twk-Men Piccoli uomini dalla pelle blu che cavalcano libellule. Sono utili fonti di informazioni, ma possono essere anche corrotti per mentire ad altri. Solitamente sono pagati con sale, che bramano per ragioni ignote.

Origini
Vance scrisse le prime di queste storie mentre serviva nella Marina mercantile degli Stati Uniti d'America durante la seconda guerra mondiale. Alla fine degli anni quaranta diverse di queste storie furono pubblicate su rivista.

Secondo Sam Merwin, i primi articoli che Vance propose alle riviste negli anni quaranta erano stati pesantemente influenzati dallo stile di James Branch Cabell. Lin Carter annota diversi esempi di influenze di Cabell sui primi lavori di Vance e suggerisce che questi primi esperimenti sullo stile di Cabell si siano evoluti nei racconti di questo ciclo

Libri
Vance scrisse quattro raccolte di racconti.
 Il crepuscolo della Terra (The Dying Earth, 1950, pubblicata anche come Mazirian the Magician): è un'antologia di racconti inediti.
 Turjan di Miir (Turjan of Miir)
 Il mago Mazirian (Mazirian the Magician)
 Tsais (T'sais)
 Lian il viandante (Liane the Wayfarer, noto anche come The Loom of Darkness)
 Ulan Dhor (Ulan Dhor Ends a Dream, noto anche come Ulan Dhor)
 Guyal di Sfer (Guyal of Sfere)
 Le avventure di Cugel l'astuto (The Eyes of the Overworld, 1966, pubblicato anche come Cugel the Clever), un romanzo formato dall'unione di sei storie di cui cinque precedentemente pubblicate, incentrate sulla figura di Cugel l'astuto.
 Il sopramondo (The Overworld), già pubblicata in Fantasy & Science Fiction, dicembre 1965
 Cil (Cil, 1966)
 Le montagne di Magnatz (The Mountains of Magnatz), già pubblicata in Fantasy & Science Fiction, febbraio 1966
 Pharesm lo stregone (The Sorcerer Pharesm), già pubblicata in Fantasy & Science Fiction, aprile 1966
  I pellegrini (The Pilgrims), da F&SF, giugno 1966
 La grotta nella foresta (The Cave in the Forest, originariamente la prima metà di The Manse of Iucounu)
 La dimora di Iucounu (The Manse of Iucounu), già pubblicata in Fantasy & Science Fiction, luglio 1966
 La saga di Cugel (Cugel's Saga, 1983, pubblicato anche come Cugel: The Skybreak Spatterlight). Come il precedente composto da racconti collegati fra loro incentrati sulle avventure di Cugel l'astuto, ma con una struttura meno episodica del precedente.
 Flutic, la prima parte del primo capitolo è stata pubblicata separatamente nell'antologia italiana Fantasy (marzo 1996) e ripubblicata in inglese come Coup de Grace and Other Stories, un campione della Vance Integral Edition
 La locanda delle lampade blu (The Inn of Blue Lamps)
 A bordo della Galante (Aboard the Galante)
 Lausicaa
 L'oceano dei sospiri (The Ocean of Sighs)
 Le colonne (The Columns)
 Faucelme
 Sui moli (On the Docks)
 La carovana (The Caravan)
 Le diciassette vergini (The Seventeen Virgins), da F&SF ottobre 1974
 La borsa dei sogni (The Bagful of Dreams), da Flashing Swords! 4: Barbarians and Black Magicians, a cura di Lin Carter, 1977
 I quattro maghi (The Four Wizards)
 La sprizzaluce (Spatterlight)
 Rhialto il meraviglioso (Rhialto the Marvellous, 1984). Collezione di storie correlate fra di loro più un saggio, con una prefazione che descrive lo stato generale del mondo nel XXI eone.
 Premessa (Foreword), con una lista dei personaggi
 La Murthe (The Murthe)
 Il cristallo di Punta Eclisse (Fader's Waft)
 Le pietre ioun (Morreion), già pubblicato nell'antologia Flashing Swords! #1, a cura di Lin Carter, 1973

Altri autori
Alcuni seguiti sono stati scritti da altri autori, con l'autorizzazione di Vance.

Il primo racconto pubblicato di Michael Shea, A Quest for Simbilis (1974), fu un seguito autorizzato al Eyes of the Overlord. Comunque quando Vance riprese in mano la sua ambientazione con La saga di Cugel proseguì in maniera diversa la storia.

L'antologia Songs of the Dying Earth (a cura di George R. R. Martin e Gardner Dozois, 2009), pubblicata in Italia divisa in tre volumi nella collana Urania: Storie dal crepuscolo di un mondo/1, Storie dal crepuscolo di un mondo/2 e La terra al tramonto è composta da racconti brevi di diversi scrittori ambientati nella Terra morente. Al termine di ogni racconto c'è una postfazione dell'autore del racconto che commenta la sua opinione sull'opera di Vance. Jeff VanderMeer successivamente espanse il suo racconto contenuto nell'antologia (The Final Quest of the Wizard Sarnod) nel racconto The Three Quests of the Wizard Sarnod.

Nel 2010 Michael Shea scrisse un'altra storia autorizzata appartenente al ciclo, con Cugel come uno dei personaggi, Hew the Tintmaster, pubblicato nell'antologia Swords & Dark Magic: The New Sword and Sorcery, (a cura di Jonathan Strahan e Lou Anders, 2010).

Edizioni italiane
In italiano il primo volume è stato pubblicato in tre edizioni differenti, la prima volta da solo e le altre due insieme al secondo. Il terzo e quarto volume sono stati pubblicati separatamente:
 Il crepuscolo della Terra (The Dying Earth), traduzione di Laura Virgili, collana Cosmo 127, Ponzoni Editore, 1963.
 Crepuscolo di un mondo, contiene La terra morente (The Dying Earth) e Le avventure di Cugel l'astuto (The Eyes of Overworld), traduzione di Maria Teresa Aquilano e Roberta Rambelli, collana Orizzonti, Fanucci Editore, 1974.
 La terra morente, contiene La terra morente (The Dying Earth) e Cugel l'astuto (The Eyes of Overworld), traduzione di Gianluigi Zuddas, collana Cosmo Oro, Editrice Nord, 1994.
 La saga di Cugel (Cugel's Saga), traduzione di Maria Agnese Grimaldi, collana Il libro d'oro, Fanucci Editore, 1989, ISBN 88-347-0100-3.
 Rhialto il meraviglioso (Rhialto the Marvellous), traduzione di Gianluigi Zuddas, collana Il libro d'oro, Fanucci Editore, 1986.

Influenza
L'influenza del ciclo è stata tale che ha dato il suo nome all'omonimo genere, pur non essendo stata la prima opera di questo tipo.

Giochi di ruolo
Gary Gygax, uno degli autori del gioco di ruolo Dungeons and Dragons era un appassionato dei romanzi di Jack Vance e incorporò molti aspetti della serie della Terra morente nel gioco. Il sistema magico di Dungeons and Dragons per cui un mago può memorizzare un numero limitato di incantesimi, che dimentica immediatamente dopo averli lanciati è basato sulla magia come descritta nella Terra morente. Alcuni degli incantesimi del gioco, come il "raggio prismatico", o degli oggetti magici, come le "pietre ioun" sono basati su incantesimi o oggetti che compaiono nelle storie. Il nome di Vecna, una divinità della magia in Dungeons & Dragons, è l'anagramma di "Vance".

Il gioco di ruolo Talislanta (1987) di Stephan Michael Sechi venne ispirato dai lavori di Jack Vance e la prima edizione de The Chronicles of Talislanta è a lui dedicata.

La Pelgrane Press ha pubblicato il gioco di ruolo The Dying Earth Role Playing Game, ambientato ufficialmente nella Terra morente e l'ha supportato con alcuni numeri della rivista The Excellent Prismatic Spray (così battezzata dal nome di un incantesimo).

Note

Collegamenti esterni

Terra Morente
Terra Morente
Terra Morente


text:
<!DOCTYPE html>

	<link href="js/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"type="text/css">
	<link href="css/moncss.css" rel="stylesheet"type="text/css">

	<title>Comparison of layout engines (ECMAScript) - Object object</title>
	<meta charset="utf-8">

Comparison of layout engines (ECMAScript) - Object object

			<fieldset>

					<form action="" method="post">
						<legend style="color:red;font-weight: bold;font-style:italic;text-align: center;" >Formulaire</legend>

								propertyIsEnumerable(V) :

 <input type="radio" name="FeaturepropertyIsEnumerable(V)" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeaturepropertyIsEnumerable(V)" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeaturepropertyIsEnumerable(V)" value = "non">Partial

								Called as function :
 <input id="0" type="text" name="Feature">

								new Object([value]) :

 <input type="radio" name="Featurenew Object([value])" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="Featurenew Object([value])" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="Featurenew Object([value])" value = "non">Partial

								prototype :

 <input type="radio" name="Featureprototype" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="Featureprototype" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="Featureprototype" value = "non">Partial

								Called as constructor :
 <input id="1" type="text" name="Feature">

								hasOwnProperty(V) :

 <input type="radio" name="FeaturehasOwnProperty(V)" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeaturehasOwnProperty(V)" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeaturehasOwnProperty(V)" value = "non">Partial

								isPrototypeOf(V) :

 <input type="radio" name="FeatureisPrototypeOf(V)" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeatureisPrototypeOf(V)" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeatureisPrototypeOf(V)" value = "non">Partial

								Properties :
 <input id="2" type="text" name="Feature">

								Properties of prototype :
 <input id="3" type="text" name="Feature">

								toString() :

 <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoString()" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoString()" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoString()" value = "non">Partial

								toLocaleString() :

 <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoLocaleString()" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoLocaleString()" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeaturetoLocaleString()" value = "non">Partial

								Object([value]) :

 <input type="radio" name="FeatureObject([value])" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeatureObject([value])" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeatureObject([value])" value = "non">Partial

								valueOf() :

 <input type="radio" name="FeaturevalueOf()" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="FeaturevalueOf()" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="FeaturevalueOf()" value = "non">Partial

								constructor :

 <input type="radio" name="Featureconstructor" value="oui">Yes <input type="radio" name="Featureconstructor" value = "non">No <input type="radio" name="Featureconstructor" value = "non">Partial

<input type="submit" class="btn btn-info" value="Ajouter un produit" />
					</form>

			</fieldset>


text:
Forest Research and Outreach
Written by University of California Cooperative Extension Forestry
Multiyear Drought Caused Massive Forest Die-off in Sierra Nevada
Author: Lorena Anderson
Published on: July 5, 2019
Reposted from UC Merced News
The scope of the tree deaths is evident when viewed as part of the larger forest.
The most extreme drought event in hundreds of years caused a catastrophic die-off of the Sierra Nevada's mature trees in 2015-2016.
A study published today in Nature Geoscience details how UC Merced Professor Roger Bales and his colleague Professor Michael Goulden from UC Irvine tracked the progress of the devastation caused by years of dry conditions combined with abnormally warm temperatures.
The researchers warn that matters are expected to get worse as global mean temperatures increase.
"Parts of the Sierra Nevada reached a 'tipping point' in 2015, where annual precipitation plus stored subsurface water were not enough to meet the water demand of the forest," Bales said.
The trees in California's mixed-conifer mountain forests have roots that can draw water from as deep as 5 to 15 meters down, which has historically protected the trees against even the worst multi-year droughts.
But the severity of California's 2012-2015 dry-spell "exceeded this safety margin," the researchers said. When forest stands exhausted the subsurface moisture, they became vulnerable to attack by pests, leading to widespread tree death.
From 2012 to 2015, the entire state experienced a crippling drought, but it was especially severe in the southern Sierra Nevada. The four-year period was the driest in the past century, combined with below-average precipitation and above-average warmth extending year after year.
"This forest die-off can be viewed as a 'perfect storm' — the intersection of four years of low precipitation, hotter temperatures than in past droughts, and a heavily overstocked forest from centuries of fire suppression," Bales said.
Trees faced an epic drought from 2012 through 2015, which scientists say will happen more frequently as the climate warms.
The research was supported by National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Observations by the U.S. Forest Service Aerial Detection Survey showed that many tree stands suffered complete loss of mature conifers. Pines were especially hard hit by an infestation of bark beetles.
Sierra Nevada Research Institute Director Bales, Distinguished Professor of Engineering with the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering in the School of Engineering, and Earth System Science Professor Goulden examined tree communities at a variety of elevations and latitudes in the sprawling mountain range using field and remote-sensing observations.
A post-drought survey found that tree mortality was greatest near 3,800 feet of elevation, with nearly 80 percent loss in 2016.
The study outlines a key factor in the die-off: A period of unusually dense vegetation coinciding with a prolonged drought and warmer-than-usual temperatures. The heat and proximity of trees and plants to one another caused accelerated evapotranspiration — moisture evaporating from leaves and rising up in the sky as water vapor. This caused the trees to draw even more water from the ground.
"We expect climate change to further amplify evapotranspiration and ground moisture overdraft (when more water is taken out of the soil than is replaced by precipitation) during drought," Goulden said. "This effect could result in a 15 percent to 20 percent increase in tree death for each additional degree of warming."
With their improved understanding of the contributions of factors such as elevation, vegetation density, heat, precipitation and soil water amounts, the researchers said they now have a framework to diagnose and predict forest die-offs brought on by drought.
"Using readily available data, we can now predict where in mountain forests multi-year droughts are likely to have the greatest impact, and the threshold at which those impacts are expected to occur," Bales said.
Tags: bark beetles (6), drought (10), Michael Goulden (1), Roger Bales (1), tree mortality (7)
Thinning Forests, Prescribed Fire Before Drought Reduced Tree Loss
Author: Kat Kerlin
Treatments May Reduce Loss in Future Droughts and Bark Beetle Epidemics
Reposted from UC Davis News
Dead and dying trees dot the landscape in the Sierra Nevada during the region's recent drought. (USDA Forest Service)
Thinning forests and conducting prescribed burns may help preserve trees in future droughts and bark beetle epidemics expected under climate change, suggests a study from the University of California, Davis.
The study, published in the journal Ecological Applications, found that thinning and prescribed fire treatments reduced the number of trees that died during the bark beetle epidemic and drought that killed more than 129 million trees across the Sierra Nevada between 2012-2016.
"By thinning forests, we can reduce water stress and make forests more resilient to drought and climate change," said the study's lead author, Christina Restaino, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis in the Department of Environmental Science and Policy when the study was conducted.
Bark beetles dig in. (Getty)
The study also indicated that current rates of treatment are not sufficient to reduce the impacts of hotter droughts and large-scale bark beetle outbreaks. Expanding the use of managed fire under moderate fire-weather conditions, along with strategic thinning and prescribed burn treatments, may increase resilience across the forest, the researchers said.
"There are currently too many straws in the cup," said Restiano. "Denser forests use more water. We're learning that fuel treatments used to reduce fire risk have multiple benefits. Forests that are more open and less dense are stronger in the face of insect outbreaks, too."
Treatment helps
For the study, researchers collected plot data in 2017 at 10 pairs of treated and untreated sites stretching from Eldorado National Forest to Sierra National Forest in the central and southern Sierra Nevada. They compared the effects of pre-drought thinning and prescribed burn treatments at those sites for four major species: ponderosa pine, sugar pine, white fir and incense cedar.
Treated areas generally had lower stand densities, bigger tree diameters and more pines, which were historically dominant.
Ponderosa pine experienced the greatest mortality of the species studied (40 percent) during the drought and beetle outbreak. But its mortality was significantly lower in treated stands. In untreated areas, the chance any one tree would die was about 45 percent. In treated stands, that chance went down to 30 percent.
Both ponderosa and sugar pine trees died more in places where their diameters were larger, suggesting insects may prefer larger trees, especially when the trees are stressed. The study demonstrates that removing smaller trees through thinning and prescribed burns can help reduce the stress in larger trees, which restoration efforts prioritize.
Be proactive
"It's important to be proactive," said coauthor Derek Young, a postdoctoral researcher in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences. "This is not the kind of thing to start only when the drought starts. It has to be done beforehand."
The study also notes that forest managers in the Sierra Nevada might consider cultivating a broader variety of species to buffer against insects and disease, as well as shifting from pines to more resilient hardwood species, like oaks and madrone – a transition underway in other semi-arid and Mediterranean climates.
Funding was provided for the study by the USDA Forest Service Forest Health Protection program, the USDA Forest Service Pacific Southwest Region, and the US Geological Survey Southwest Climate Science Center.
Tags: bark beetles (6), Christina Restaino (1), Derek Young (2), drought (10), effectiveness (1), fire (5), forest (6), fuels reduction (3), thinning (2)
Replanting the Sierra Nevada after an ecological catastrophe
Author: Jeannette Warnert
Reposted from UCANR News
Given California's changing climate, should Sierra Nevada residents replant pine trees after so many died during the 2010-2016 drought? The short answer is yes, says Susie Kocher, UC Cooperative Extension forestry advisor.
"We have every reason to believe that pines will continue to be an important part of mixed conifer forests in the Sierras," Kocher said.
Dead trees can be seen in the foreground and on the distant mountain side. (Click on photos for higher resolution.)
Kocher spoke at a meeting for UC Master Gardeners, volunteers who provide landscape advice to the public in California. Questions have been coming in to Master Gardener hotlines from mountain residents wondering what to do after unprecedented tree loses in the last few years.
Most California forests are suffering from severe overcrowding due to 100 years of aggressive fire suppression and selective harvesting of the largest and most resilient trees. They were then subjected to five years of drought.
"There were just too many stems in the ground," Kocher said. "The drought was very warm, so trees needed more water, but got less. These were optimal conditions for bark beetles."
Western pine beetle is a native pest that attacks larger ponderosa pine and Coulter pine trees weakened by disease, fire, injury or water stress. Bark beetles are tree species specific, so other beetles target other species of trees in California's mixed conifer forests. Typically, bark beetles bore through tree bark and create long winding tunnels in the phloem. An aggregating pheromone attracts additional bark beetles to the tree, and heavily attacked trees invariably die.
Healthy pine trees can fight off bark beetle attack by secreting pitch. Trees weakened by drought are unable to fend off an attack. In this photo, a pine beetle is stuck in pitch that oozed from the tree.
Evidence of bark beetle attack are exit holes on the outside, left, and winding galleries under the bark.
During the drought, 102 million Sierra Nevada trees died from bark beetle attack or simply lack of water; 68 million of those died in 2016 alone. But after the abundant rainfall in the 2016-17 season, the bark beetle population seems to have crashed.
Landowners with 20 acres or more may be eligible for a state cost-sharing program to remove trees, reduce the fire hazard and replant new seedlings. Landowners in mountain communities who wish to revitalize their properties can contact local UC Master Gardeners for recovery advice.
UC Master Gardeners are plant enthusiasts who have passed an intense training program presented by UC academics. They participate in continuing education annually to update and maintain their knowledge. More than 60 Master Gardeners from Mariposa, Madera and Fresno counties gathered in Oakhurst in October to learn from UC scientists how to work with mountain homeowners whose towering trees have died. Similar training sessions, all funded by a grant from UC Agriculture and Natural Resources, were held in El Dorado and Tuolumne counties in June.
UCCE specialist Jodi Axelson points out bark beetle damage.
"There is life after beetles," said Jodi Axelson, UC Cooperative Extension forestry specialist at UC Berkeley.
"Eco systems are stretched, and then they come back," she said. "You must remember the time scale of forest change is long and pines have been a major species in the Sierra Nevada for at least 28,000 years. As long as there have been pines, there have been bark beetles."
The scientists suggest that people who own forestland take a step back and assess the landscape after their dead trees have been removed.
"We're seeing a lot of young cedar and white fir surviving the drought. Oaks seems to be doing really well," Kocher said.
She suggests landowners thin young trees so available sun and soil moisture are focused on the healthiest trees. Water seedlings that are receiving more sun than before to reduce stress. Planting native conifers is the best option. Due to climate change, she recommends choosing trees from a slightly lower elevation to hedge against warmer temperatures in the future.
Pines are adapted to the California forest, but may need help to regenerate. When the ground is moist in the late fall or spring, plant seedlings 10 to 14 feet apart. New trees should be planted well away from homes to maintain defensible space and at least 10 feet from power lines.
"Please don't set them up for future torture," Kocher said. "That's just sad."
UCCE forestry advisor Susie Kocher, center, speaks during a field trip to a forest where many trees were killed by bark beetles.
To help the new trees become established, cover the ground around the tree, but not touching the bark, with two or three inches of mulch and irrigate weekly during the dry season for the first few years.
Questions about special circumstances may be directed to local UC Master Gardeners. Find the local program here: http://mg.ucanr.edu/FindUs/
Pouch fungus is evidence of a bark beetle kill. The beetles carry fungus into the cambial layer of the tree on their bodies. On recently killed trees, small white conks, the fungus' fruiting body, issues from bark beetle tunnels.
UC Master Gardeners learn from experts about replanting conifer forests.
Tags: bark beetles (6), forest health (7), Jodi Axelson (1), Master Gardeners (2), Susie Kocher (14), tree mortality (7)
The Bug Collection: A Brief Tour of the Essig Museum of Entomology
Author: Pat Joseph
Reprinted from California Magazine, UC Berkeley Alumni Association
Pete Oboyski worries about bugs eating his bugs.
Scratch that. The collections manager at the Essig Museum of Entomology, Oboyski worries about insects eating his insects—specifically, a family of beetles known as dermestids, which, should they make their way in, could reduce the museum's 6-million-plus specimens to powdery ruin. As any self-respecting entomologist will tell you, true bugs are only a subset of the much larger taxonomic class of Insecta. Indeed, Oboyski's ilk tend to be a bit pedantic on that point. "Bugs" is a colloquialism they'd squash if they could.
The dermestidae, often called skin beetles, eat skin, just as the name suggests. They also eat hair, hide, fur, feathers, and meat—basically, everything but bone. And while museum curators dread the damage the ubiquitous arthropods and their larvae can do, they also make use of them.
Oboyski points at one wall of the bunker-like space that houses the Essig. On the other side of the wall is Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. "The vertebrate people keep a colony of dermestids just on the other side of that wall there, to clean carcasses. They like them because they do such a thorough job of it, removing every last speck of flesh." He says it's the same colony they've had since the museum started in the early 1900s. "They use a variety that's a little too large to get into my cases, fortunately, which is the only reason I can sleep at night."
The tightly constructed, glass-topped wooden cases in which insects are mounted on pins are the entomologist's stock in trade. The Essig holds thousands of them, all slotted in racks on track shelving that can be moved by hand cranks. It's a vast bug library filled with row after row of meticulously preserved specimens, all organized by order, family, genus, species, and subspecies. Everything in the collection is of the phylum Arthropoda—many in class Insecta,but no few Arachnida.
Something you generally won't find in the Essig is any living insects, although on this particular day Oboyski was making an exception, hatching some Australian walking sticks in a terrarium. Most of the time, live bugs are verboten, and Pete has lights and pheromone traps set up to catch any of the little buggers that might sneak in.
"If you had told me 50 years ago that we were going to sequence DNA from these specimens, I would have said, 'What are you talking about?' Now we do it all the time. … So that's my attitude in terms of preserving these … because I have no idea what they're going to be used for in the future."
One of the largest university collections in North America, the Essig's regional emphasis is primarily on California, but it also expands to the Pacific Rim, including the islands of the central Pacific. Oboyski, a moth specialist who earned his Berkeley Ph.D. in 2011, has identified nine new species himself—seven from Hawaii, and two from Tahiti. The museum's namesake, Professor E.O. Essig (1884–1964), author of the seminal text Insects of Western North America, was chiefly an aphid man. (Aphids, incidentally, are true bugs, part of the order Hermiptera, which, like all the other true bugs, have mouthparts adapted for sucking juices from plants … or, in the case of bed bugs, blood from people.) Essig was one of the leaders of the California Insect Survey, which grew the collection considerably in the 1930s.
"Museum" is a bit of a misnomer in this case. The Essig is strictly a research collection, made available to scientists for all manner of legitimate study, but only open to the general public a few times a year: on Cal Day, Darwin Day, and, this year, Homecoming. That said, education and outreach are a part of the Essig's charter. Schoolchildren often visit on tours, and when they do, Oboyski will show off what he calls the "Oh, my!" collection. These are the stars of the insect world: the glorious blue morpho butterflies, bizarre walking sticks, and the giant rhinoceros and Atlas beetles, which look like they could topple walls. Indeed, pound for pound, these macrobeetles are among the strongest animals in the world.
But the oohs and aahs and occasional shrieks elicited by these specimens are only a small part of the collection's value. More important is the research role they play, perhaps especially in terms of documenting ecological change over time. To the disinterested, the Essig may seem like a mausoleum, better digitized and discarded. (And in fact, digitization is underway, in part through volunteer and crowdsourcing efforts, with about 10 percent completed so far.) But to Oboyski, the physical collection itself is a vast storehouse of information that is constantly being mined in new ways.
Think about it, he says; we now have CT scans that allow us to scan the internal anatomy. We can look at stable isotopes to study their diets and how they've interacted with the environment. We can grind them up and extract DNA.
"If you had told me 50 years ago that we were going to sequence DNA from these specimens, I would have said, 'What are you talking about?' Now we do it all the time. Fifty years from now, I have no idea what people are going to be doing. … So that's my attitude in terms of preserving these. I want to preserve them as pristinely as possible for as long as possible, because I have no idea what they're going to be used for in the future."
In the meantime, for those who get heebie-jeebies just thinking about bugs, it's probably good to remember that insects are crucially important to us in myriad ways, both "good" and "bad." Insects pollinate our crops and also sometimes destroy them. They control disease but also spread it. When ecosystems are in balance, insects check each other's populations. And even those destructive skin beetles perform a crucial service: They are natural recyclers, part of life's great dust-to-dust cycle.
To give a sense of how wondrous and important the insect world is to California, and to Berkeley researchers, we asked Pete Oboyski to introduce us to a dozen or so species from the Essig's vast collection, beginning with the cutest of all, the ladybugs—which, at the risk of being pedantic, we have to point out are not really bugs at all.
The Lady Bug
The convergent ladybug, or more properly, convergent lady beetle (Hippodamia convergens),is a familiar sight in the Berkeley Hills, where large clusters of them often overwinter or carpet the forest floor. H. convergens is commercially gathered from large aggregations found in the Sierra Nevada for use as biological control—particularly of aphids, which are the beetle's primary food source. Oboyski says agriculture has changed the behavior of these beetles over time. Before water was diverted for agriculture, he explains, the aphid populations would naturally decline in the summer as vegetation dried up. In response, the lady beetles would move up into the hills. Now they tend to stay all season due to an abundance of food. "We've completely changed the dynamics of these beetles to a large part because of agriculture, which is supporting things they feed on."
The Crane Fly
The ubiquitous crane flies (Tipulidae) are doubtless among the most misunderstood insects found in our homes. Many of us mistake them for giant mosquitoes; others believe the flies prey on the mosquitoes, calling the flies "mosquito hawks" and "mosquito eaters." In reality, says Oboyski, "they don't feed at all as adults. And they don't live long. But they're food for an amazing number of vertebrate animals—bats and birds and lizards and anything else that can catch one will eat it. So while [the crane flies] come out in abundance, like all those baby sea turtles heading for the ocean, only a couple of them actually survive to reproduce."
The Glassy-Winged Sharpshooter
The glassy-winged sharpshooter (Homalodisca vitripennis) is a large leafhopper native to the American southeast. It is of special concern in California because the species carries a plant pathogen in its system that triggers a grapevine blight called Pierce's disease. The invasive H. vitripennis also made its way to Tahiti where, lacking any predators, the population exploded, leading to something called "the rain effect." Oboyski explains, "They're sapsuckers, so they're drinking lots and lots of sugar water to get little bits of nitrogen, which they really need to build proteins. But most of that sap is just water, and so they need to pee." In Tahiti, the sugar-water excrement coming from the trees was often so thick that it was like a rain shower. Luckily, researchers from UC Riverside were able to introduce a parasitic wasp to rein in what locals had taken to calling the "pissing fly."
The Bedbug
Probably no household pest is quite as repugnant to us as the bedbug (Cimicidae), which feeds on our blood at night. Not so long ago, Oboyski notes, bedbugs were just a fact of everyday life. "It wasn't until World War II and the chemical revolution and DDT that we were on the verge of chemically controlling them, and they disappeared for a few decades." Now, however, they're resistant to DDT and other chemicals and are making their resurgence, much to the alarm of hotels and their guests. "I get calls from people who want to sue a hotel because they found bedbugs in their room. And the bedbugs are completely harmless. They aren't carrying any disease; there's just this connotation of being unhygienic. Whereas mosquitoes actually do carry diseases—but would anyone sue a hotel because they got bit by a mosquito? Probably not."
The Tarantula Hawk
When it comes time for the female tarantula hawk, the giant in the family of so-called spider wasps (Pompilidae), to lay its egg, it engages in an epic struggle with a tarantula. They're pretty evenly matched, observes Oboyski, and the stakes couldn't be higher. "If the wasp loses, it gets eaten; but if it wins, it paralyzes the spider with its sting, drags it off and buries it, and then lays its egg in [the spider]." As the larva develops, it feeds on the tarantula, carefully avoiding the host's vital organs so as not to kill it off. Although tarantula hawks are considered fairly docile, their sting is said to be extraordinarily painful. Arizona-based entomologist Justin Schmidt, best known for his "sting pain index," calls the sensation "instantaneous, electrifying, excruciating, and totally debilitating." Schmidt's advice: Lie down and scream.
The Gall Wasp
On the other end of the size spectrum, the diminutive gall wasp (Cynipidae) grows its larvae in a plant growth called a gall. "Each gall is very specific to the wasp that laid it," explains Oboyski. "It's the plant that grows the tissue, but somehow the wasp is telling the plant to grow this exact shape for [the wasp's] larvae. Along with the egg, they're introducing some enzymes that are turning on genes inside the plant." But the story doesn't end there. "As if that's not enough, there are other wasps that want to lay their eggs there, too. So now you have interlopers. And then there are things like parasitic wasps that know there's some nice squishy larvae in there, and they insert a tube into the gall and lay their eggs inside those larvae. Then there are hyperparasitoids that lay their eggs inside the larvae that are inside the other larvae. And then there are things that feed on the galls outside. So a whole community arises from this tiny little wasp that caused the plant to swell up."
The Carpenter Bee
Like termites, carpenter bees also burrow into wood. The valley carpenter bees (Xylocopa varipuncta) are named for California's Central Valley and are the state's largest native bees. Unlike honeybees, which were brought to the Americas from Europe, carpenter bees don't generally sting. Like honeybees, they're good pollinators. Due to the much-publicized colony collapse disorder, in which vast numbers of worker bees simply vanish from a honeybee colony, Oboyski says there has been a spike of interest in native pollinators. "We're not sure what's going to happen with honeybees, so the thinking is we'd better hedge our bets and see how we can get our native bees to provide the same services."
The Africanized Bee
Another bee that has had a lot of media attention is the Africanized bee, or "killer bee," although less so lately. Oboyski says the Africanized bees are now hybridizing with our European honeybees, with mostly positive results, allaying earlier hysteria about wild swarms of killer bees attacking school children. "This fear that we're now going to have this more aggressive bee here is probably true, but the Africanized genes are mellowed out by the European genes." What's more, he says, "the Africanized bees also bring resistance to some pests, like the mites that feed on the European bees. So it's actually improving their health."
As for colony collapse disorder, Oboyski says it's still a bit of a mystery. "The leading suspects now are these neonicotinoid pesticides that [the bees] seem to be very sensitive to. But in my opinion, it's not likely to be a single factor at play. It's a species we've been managing intensely for a very long time. … They're boxed up one night in an almond orchard in California, and they wake up the next day in an apple orchard in Michigan, and it's very stressful. Neonicotinoids may just be the last straw.
"But there's been some really entertaining ideas of what happened to the bees. I remember someone saying they'd been taken up by the Rapture. They were pointing to the fact [the bees] disappear. It's not like you see a bunch of dead bees around. To me, that's not surprising because, you know, they're food. If there's a dead bee somewhere, something's going to eat it."
The Bark Beetle
California pine forests are being laid to waste as tens of millions of trees succumb to an epidemic of bark beetles, including mountain pine beetles and other relatives of the Scolytidaefamily of weevils. It may sound like an alien invasion, but it's not. Says Oboyski, "The bark beetles that are causing the problems are actually native here, and it's not that they've changed over the years. It's the way we've managed landscapes that has changed," particularly in terms of clearcutting and fire suppression. Those practices, he says, have resulted in large monocultural stands and old decadent trees that are more susceptible to pest invasion than a "young, vigorous forest that's constantly refreshed by fires." And, of course, drought has been an aggravating factor. "These beetles only attack stressed trees. If the tree is healthy, they get 'pitched' out by the tarry sap they produce. But in a stressed tree that's attacked by lots of beetles at the same time, there's not enough pressure behind that pitch to push the beetles out."
The Termite
Bark beetles only infest live trees, whereas termites (Termitoidae) come in long after the tree is dead. And unlike the bark beetles, which aren't feeding on the tree but rather using it to make their nests, termites are actually eating it. To accomplish that, however, they need help. "Termites can't actually digest wood themselves, but they have this gut fauna inside that can actually convert the lignin of the plant into digestible food." The symbionts reside in the parts of the termites' gut that get shed when they molt, adds Oboyski. "That means every time that they molt, they lose their ability to digest wood. So they have to do a fecal transfer to get them back again. So they will feed on the feces of other termites to get those bacteria back."
The Xerces Blue
The Xerces blue (Glaucopsyche xerces), like the California Golden Bear, no longer exists. Endemic to the erstwhile dunes of San Francisco's Sunset District, the powder-blue gossamer-winged butterfly was presumably done in by urban development. Showing the Xerces at the Essig, Oboyski says, "It's rare to be able to document extinctions in the insect world, but this is one we're fairly certain about." He calls this butterfly the "poster child of invertebrate extinction." The Xerces blues were part of a family of little blue butterflies, some of which "have ridiculous relationships with ants. The ants actually take them into their colonies and feed them and take care of them." It seems the caterpillars release pheromones that smell like the ants. The last known Xerces blue was netted by Berkeley alumnus and later UC Davis entomologist W. Harry Lange '33, in the Presidio on March 23, 1941. "I always thought there would be more," he lamented later. "I was wrong."
Tags: bark beetles (6), collections (1), Entomology (2), Pete Oboyski (1)
Music professor receives patent to help fight bark beetles ravaging Western forests
Author: Scott Rappaport
Reposted from University of California News
UC Santa Cruz music professor David Dunn has joined forces with two forest scientists from Northern Arizona University to combat an insect infestation that is killing millions of trees throughout the West.
UC Santa Cruz music professor David Dunn listening to bark beetles.
Credit: Courtesy of David Dunn
They are applying the results of nearly a decade of acoustic research in an unconventional collaborative effort to stop bark beetles from tunneling through the living tissue of weakened, drought-stressed pine trees.
The trio has now received a patent for a device that uses sound as a targeted sonic weapon to disrupt the feeding, communication, reproduction, and various other essential behaviors of the insects.
Dunn explained how this research came about.
Various bark beetles.
"When massive tree death started occurring in Northern New Mexico where I was living, I became curious if there were sounds associated with such a large amount of biological activity," said Dunn.
"At that time there was still the assumption that this was the result of a local bark beetle infestation due to drought conditions. Since then, we have come to realize that this was not just a local outbreak but one of many outbreaks across all of the western states and Canadian provinces that has been driven by climate change conditions. Many scientists think that we are experiencing the largest insect infestation of North America in the fossil record of the Earth," he added.
Dunn spent a few weeks thinking about how to listen to the interior of trees and soon came up with a simple listening device that cost less than $10 to build. Designing unique and inexpensive devices in order to listen to sound had long been a part of his artistic work.
Dunn created a large sound composition, representing the incredible diversity of sounds made by bark beetles, that was released as a CD.
"After making hundreds of hours of recordings inside hundreds of trees, I made a large sound composition that represented the incredible diversity of sounds made by a couple of species of bark beetles and their changing responses to the life cycle of tree hosts that they invade," said Dunn. "This was released as a CD (The Sound of Light in Trees) that garnered a lot of attention from both the sound, art, and music community, as well as various scientists involved in bio-acoustic research."
"After that interest emerged, I was approached by my future colleagues at Northern Arizona University who not only wanted to replicate what I had done, but to collaborate on how to push this research further. These further results led to the device and protocol that we have just patented."
Dunn noted that it is very unusual for a scientific patent to be awarded to an artist and added that there are very few examples of concrete results from collaborations between artists and scientists.
Sound playback into a tree.
"My contribution to the project mostly concerned the technical design aspects of the audio, electronic circuit designs, and the novel sound gathering techniques," Dunn explained. "In a very real sense, this represented a kind of reverse "tech transfer" from the arts to the sciences. Historically, it has usually been the other way around."
"We have now entered into a period of common interests between art and science largely driven by the commonality of digital tools," Dunn added.
"Artists are now just as involved in designing such tools as the scientific community and often create software and instrumentation in order to facilitate their creative visions that may ultimately be of even greater value to scientific research. I think that this was one of those instances and a couple of fortuitous events conspired to allow something interesting to happen."
David Dunn at work in his Environmental Sound Lab.
Dunn observed that one important aspect of art/science collaborations is the peculiar ability of artists to trust their imagination over their rational faculty.
"Most of the best scientists I know have fantastic and expansive imaginative capacities but often have to strategically mask those skills in order to operate within disciplinary and professional constraints," said Dunn. "I personally believe that science must be a deeply rigorous enterprise, but it is not an either/or issue. It is the balance between the rational and imaginative that will ultimately solve the most serious problems that threaten us."
"Artists can sometimes ask the pithy or embarrassing question that needs to be asked, or cuts across disciplinary constraints, or politics, without paying a professional price. As Gregory Bateson, a former faculty member of UC Santa Cruz put it: 'rigor alone is paralytic death, imagination alone is insanity.'"
Dunn said that he and his colleagues at Northern Arizona University — Richard Hofstetter and Reagan McGuire — hope to produce a range of products as a result of their patent to combat bark beetles, as well as other insects related to them.
He added that scaling up the device to be effective in saving large forests might be possible through the use of local wireless or FM broadcast to protect select areas of forest, depending on how cheaply they can produce an effective system that can be applied to individual trees.
"One major obstacle is the issue of how to miniaturize the analog circuits and sample playback," said Dunn. "One of my brilliant graduate students, David Kant in music, has been working on putting all of this into digital form and has largely succeeded. If we can solve that problem and come up with viable output transducers, amplification, and solar power solutions, it's very doable."
Tags: art (1), bark beetles (6), David Dunn (1), patent (1), sound (1), tree mortality (7)
Next 5 stories > Last story >>
The Survivors: Sugar Pine Trees and the Future Forest
Plant Diversity a Casualty of High-Severity Wildfires
Grazing for fire fuels management
First known cases of sudden oak death detected in Del Norte County
UC Berkeley, former Gov. Jerry Brown partner with China to spur climate action
Very good overview of this...
Very interesting study! Thanks for...
Scott Stephens (15)
Susie Kocher (14)
Lenya Quinn-Davidson (12)
Kelly Research and Outreach Lab
Oak Woodland Management
Oak Conservation
The Forest Steward - applying science to the management of forests
Woody Biomass
Richard B Standiford: Very good overview of this...
Richard B Standiford: Very interesting study! Thanks for...
• wildfire • Climate Change • Scott Stephens • Susie Kocher • Lenya Quinn-Davidson • prescribed fire • UC Berkeley • drought • Sierra Nevada • California • California Naturalist • forest health • tree mortality • bark beetles • forest