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Flywheel taxi app enters Portland, lets people pay for ride with phone after hailing cab
by Taylor Soper on April 30, 2015 at 8:33 am May 26, 2015 at 2:12 pm
Portland peeps have another new option to get around town that isn't called Uber or Lyft.
Flywheel, which develops a hailing app for taxi drivers, today launched in the Rose City. The San Francisco-based startup partners with taxi companies, who can use the Flywheel app to let passengers hail and pay for rides with their smartphone.
Flywheel, which raised a $12 million funding round in November, is already operating six other U.S. cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, San Diego and Sacramento.
The company is initially partnering with Broadway Cab, which will equip its fleet with Flywheel's technology. Flywheel is offering flat-rate rides for $5.03 as part of a promotional deal (Portland's area code is 503).
Portland-based Broadway Cab and Radio Cab Portland already use Curb, another ride-hailing app.
The taxi companies now face new competition after city lawmakers last week approved a 120-day pilot program that allows transportation network companies (TNC) like Uber and Lyft to operate legally in Portland.
The new laws set no restrictions on fares for both taxi and TNC drivers, lifting a requirement that taxi companies have followed for decades. There are also no caps on the number of vehicles or permits during the 120-day period for both taxi companies and TNCs, setting up somewhat of a free-for-all environment.
The enacted regulations come after Uber tried to enter the Portland market for nearly two years. The company, which has raised $5 billion to date and offers service in more than 300 cities worldwide, started operating without regulation back in December.
Portland city officials weren't happy about the unexpected arrival and proceeded to launch a sting operation against the company's drivers. It ultimately filed a lawsuit against Uber.
On Dec. 18, Uber said it would temporarily stop operating in Portland to let the city revise its for-hire regulations. Under the agreement, the city said that if new regulations were not set in stone by April 9, it would allow Uber and other TNCs to operate with temporary regulations.
On April 9, the city requested for more time to iron out details in the regulations. Uber said it would wait until laws were in place before it launched again. Then, this past Tuesday, the council voted 3-2 to pass the final ordinance.
Speaking of Uber and Portland, David Plouffe, the former White House advisor and currently Uber's "campaign manager," will be speaking at an event later tonight in Portland with Mayor Charlie Hales. We will be covering the talk, so check back later for a report on that.
Flywheel today also announced a new feature that lets people hail a cab from the street and then use Flywheel to pay for the ride. In Portland, Seattle, and most other cities, laws prevent companies like Uber and Lyft from picking up a hailing passenger who didn't request a ride from the app.
Taylor Soper is GeekWire's managing editor, responsible for coordinating the newsroom, planning coverage, and editing stories. A native of Portland, Ore., and graduate of the University of Washington, he was previously a GeekWire staff reporter, covering beats including startups and sports technology. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.
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Filed Under: Portland Tagged With: flywheelt • taxi
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OPINION – It was a beautiful, crisp spring day.
A group of us had clambered up one of the small rises overlooking the splendid valley to witness the release of a rehabilitated bald eagle to the wild.
You could see forever, or so it seemed.
One of the people invited to the celebration was a local real estate broker.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" I said.
I was sadly disappointed in the guy and moved along the ridge closer to the magnificent bird that had been lovingly tended by Martin Tyner, a federally licensed raptor rehabilitator and man of gentle spirit who has saved the lives of wildlife big and small for half a century now.
This was rural Utah about 15 years ago. It is still, for the most part, unspoiled. Say what you will, but Southern Utah is a place of incredible beauty once you cross the city line and head out into places where the houses are few but the land rich with flowing alfalfa fields, dairy farms and a peaceful rural hum that is endearing.
You can find yourself there when you let the quiet overtake you as you count the deer grazing in the fields, await the arrival of the migrating bald eagles and breathe the clean air.
But, the story is changing, as highlighted during the recent Utah Rural Summit at Southern Utah University.
Rural Utah plays an important role in the state's economy, particularly in the area of production agriculture, the agricultural processing sector and food manufacturing, adding $21 billion to the state's economy and sustaining 80,000 jobs, according to a recent report from Utah State University economist Ruby Ward.
From alfalfa to livestock, the agricultural sector is responsible for about 15 percent of the state's sales. Add in manufacturing and the numbers show just how vital rural Utah is to the state's economy.
So, what was on the agenda at the summit?
How to move technology jobs to rural Utah and how to train the workforce to do those jobs; natural resources, public lands issues, housing shortages in rural Utah, and the opioid crisis.
But, what about improving ways to move food from the field to the table more efficiently?
What about financing for our family farmers, who are dwindling in frightening numbers, overcome by huge corporate farms that squash farmers who have worked their land for generations?
What about marketing plans, transportation issues, ecological issues that global warming and pollution have created?
The answer to salvaging rural Utah and keeping it productive is not bringing in high-tech jobs.
We have heard that nonsense for decades, that all the state has to do is recruit high-tech industry and all our dreams will come true.
Except it doesn't work that way.
Businesses that come to Utah do so for two simple reasons: They get land, utility and tax breaks and they have a workforce that has been historically underpaid. With cheap land and cheap labor the profit margin goes up. It's the perfect scenario for the various carpetbaggers who have come and gone over the years.
They pledge to remain in business for five years, invest a certain amount of money and pay above the average wage.
These companies come in, purchase their land, put up their buildings and move their executives and supervisors from the home plant to Utah, paying them enough to average out a higher weekly wage than the current scale. It works out because those hired locally are at entry-level pay. The expenses, of course, of moving, building and all give huge corporate tax breaks to the companies who put in their time then move along to the next victim, leaving the workforce high and dry.
Meanwhile, the local farmers are forced to compete with massive corporate outfits and, now, a tariff war that will remove even more jingle from their pockets.
According to an article in Utah Business, "the end of NAFTA would negatively impact $31 million annually for beef producers, $15 million annually for the dairy industry and $72 million annually for edible food manufactures" in Utah.
In the grand scheme of state budgets, that may not sound like a lot, but when you look at how small the profit margin is for the family farmer every nickel counts.
Overall, Utah's top five agricultural products are beef cattle and calves, dairy products, hogs, hay and greenhouse and nursery products.
The answer isn't to continue to push for workforce re-training and recruitment of high-tech jobs. Utah may be a gorgeous place, but you won't see Mark Zuckerberg moving his Facebook operation here any time soon, for Google to relocate here or for Bill Gates to pack up Microsoft and set up shop in Utah. There isn't an area in all of Utah that could compete with the sophisticated, culturally and socially diverse areas where those companies are headquartered.
More importantly, the workforce for these highly specialized jobs is simply not in place in Utah and no high-tech company is willing to put growth on hold for three or four years to train a workforce.
Recruiting these high-tech companies would simply result in more carpetbagging with precious few new jobs going to the locals. Those who have been schooled in the high-tech industries have, for the most part, already moved away to places where the better-paying jobs.
I'm all for education, growth, experience and advancement of technology. You wouldn't be reading this if not for the rapid changes in our lives because of these advancements.
But, that doesn't mean we don't have a pressing need for people who can repair our cars, bring electricity to our homes, fix our plumbing, build our homes and, yes, grow our food. These are all good, honest jobs done by hard-working people with a passion for what they do and a gift for doing it well.
Let's keep them in the equation.
And let's not turn their land into condos, houses and strip malls.
1) Pig farming in Utah is, in some respects, the import of animal waste from populations that consume pork to huge waste ponds in Utah. Corporate pig farming generates massive amounts of manure. Circle 4 located in Utah, in part, to escape increasing scrutiny and regulation in the South and East. Whether or not taking care of and shipping 1M pigs a year provides good jobs I'll let someone else weigh in on.
2) Alfalfa (hay) sales outside of Utah, on the other hand, is export of our scarce water. Hay is a low value crop which consumes a lot of water. For example the Escalante Valley (Enterprise area) is grossly over pumping groundwater. It's being removed at a rate far higher than natural replenishment. It is, in essence, being mined to water and export hay to the West Coast and Pacific Rim.
3) "High Tech Jobs" is a tired and overworked phrase that seems to mean different things to everyone. The bottom line for me is that Utah's population is mushrooming and agriculture and livestock is pretty much a fixed pie that won't expand to create more jobs. Our water supplies are fully allocated so there will be no expansion of agriculture. Technology is cutting jobs in agriculture through automation. Don't look here for employment growth.
4) Technology jobs are not provided only by corporate robber barons swooping in to cubiclize the locals at minimum wage. The state has a healthy tradition of home-grown tech companies providing good jobs at good wages.
Places like St George risk becoming lost, like Sun Valley, Jackson Hole, Park City, Livingston, Gardner, and others which "progressed" to the point not of extinction.
Ed, you missed big on the tech companies relocating to Utah. Not only do we have a well educated young forkforce but safety, health and low cost living. Adobe, Micron and others see this locale as very attractive.
Most importantly, Utah has responsible government with no debt. This keeps taxes low.
If cutural diversity means pan handlers, criminal immigrants and a mass Hispanic welfare problem, then I guess you're right.


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Вітковський Петро Вацлавович (нар.5 вересня 1928 р., м. Полонне Хмельницька обл. — пом. 4 серпня 2007) — Заслужений будівельник України, Почесний дорожник, Почесний громадянин м. Полонне.

Біографія
Народився 5 вересня 1928 p в Полонному. У 9 років залишився без батька, якого розстріляли в 1937 році. До війни встиг закінчити чотири класи. В 13 років став працювати в райспоживспілці на різних роботах. Після війни закінчив 7 класів і вступив до Миколаївського кораблебудівного технікуму. По завершенню навчання отримав направлення в Москву, де працював на закладці фундаменту під університет Патріса Лумумби.

Потім на Далекому Сході будував порт Находка. Через 4 роки переїхав назад у Полонне. Будував житлові будинки, школи, цехи фарфорового заводу, Понінківського картонно-паперового комбінату, щебеневого заводу, районний Будинок культури. Трудився майстром, виконробом, головним інженером, начальником.

З 1966 року займався будівництвом і ремонтом доріг Полонщини . Перша асфальтована дорога була прокладена до Понінки і Буртина, перший місток — через річку Дружню. Далі були дороги до Лодзянівки, Котюржинець, Прислуча, Котелянки, Варварівки, Бражинець, Онацьковець, Кустовець, Білецького, Микулина, Шкарівки, Сасанівки, Новолабуня, Грицева, Яблунівки Шепетівського району.

Відзнаки
За самовіддану працю Петро Вацлавович отримав звання Заслужений будівельник України. Він Почесний громадянин Полонного, Почесний дорожник, ветеран праці, неодноразово був занесений на районну Дошку пошани. На його честь названа вулиця в місті Полонному.

Примітки

Література
 Про відзначення нагородами України працівників підприємств і організацій автомобільного транспорту та дорожнього господарства: указ Президента України № 1171/98 від 22.10.1998 р. — Електрон. дані. — Режим доступу: URL : http://zakon2.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/1171/98 .
 Дупелич С. Щоб шляхи вели всіх до щастя: пам'яті земляка// Новий шлях.- 2012.- 31 лип.
 Славетні земляки// Полонне. Минуле і сучасне.- Полонне,2008.- С. 243—244.
 Україна транспортна/Автор-упоряд. В. В. Долгов. — К., 2005. — С. 164.
 Полонська ЦБС
 Полонський райавтодор

Уродженці Полонного
Заслужені будівельники України
Почесні громадяни Полонного

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Durable, midweight jeans built for a more active lifestyle made of an easy-wearing 71% organic cotton/29% COOLMAX® T400® polyester mechanical stretch denim fabric that wicks moisture.
Your pants should move as freely as your plans so we designed the Performance Regular Fit Jeans with a durable, midweight fabric blend that stretches to keep you moving smoothly about your day. They're made of an easy-wearing 71% organic cotton/29% COOLMAX® T400® polyester mechanical stretch denim and dyed with an innovative process to minimize water and energy use, and carbon dioxide emissions compared to conventional dyeing processes. The COOLMAX® increases mobility and moisture management for morning bike commutes or after-work skate sessions, and a DWR (durable water repellent) finish sheds moisture. Featuring classic 5-pocket styling and a regular rise, they have a zip fly, an antique-nickel shank-button closure, double-needle belt loops and antique-nickel piton rivets throughout. Cut to sit on the waist and best for athletic and muscular body types, the relaxed fit has a bit of extra room in the hips, seat and thighs, then flows straight down to the ankle. They have two front pockets with printed twill pocket bags, a small coin pocket on the right hip and two rear pockets. Lower portions of the rear pockets are reinforced for durability, and pocket-edge seams are bound for a stronger and cleaner finish. And they're Fair Trade Certified™ sewn, which means the people who made them earned a premium for their labor. Inseam is 32".


Nineteen young ladies have been nominated for this year's 2015-16 Basketball Homecoming Queen. Who will make up the court? Find out tomorrow night at the homecoming game as the Wildcats take on Larue County as the JV game begins at 5:30 with the varsity immediately following. Homecoming festivities will be between games, not at halftime of the varsity game as first reported.


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Mock Turtle
Frog Prince
Zodiac West
Zodiac East
Zodiac Celtic
Zodiac Element
Gifts for Stylish Women
Fashion's Changing Relationship with Nature
Fashion and nature have always been intrinsically interlinked. From the elements and the weather to wildlife and plants, the connection between the natural world and fashion design is something that's impossible to deny. The correlation between the two was perfectly illustrated in a recent V&A exhibition. The 2019 exhibit, 'Fashioned By Nature' placed historical and modern designs alongside taxidermy and plant and animal fibres, encouraging visitors to examine the complex relationship between nature and fashion and think about the source of their clothes. As the exhibit proves, the relationship between the two powerful forces of nature and style has changed and developed over time.
The elements have always had an impact on the way we dress - but not always from an aesthetic perspective. Before fashion trends were influenced by cultural references and a desire to represent our individuality to the world, the clothes we wore were often dictated by our habitats. From the fur insulated parkas of Inuit tribes in the Arctic to the light-coloured barely-there tunics and wide-brimmed hats of the Ancient Greeks, the style has historically had the primary purpose of protecting us from the harsh elements that surround us.
For modern designers, the elements have been a source of creativity rather than necessity. Flames have been a recurrent motif of Prada's collections and innovative designer Iris Van Herpen used 3D printing technology to create 'The Ice Dress'. Our own Fire and Ice collection is inspired by the beauty of the natural world and in particular the power and intricacies of fire and ice. The natural geometry of ice formations sparked the idea for both the Ice Flow and Icicle ranges whilst Flaming Heart is a homage to the burning passion and volatile nature of both love and fire.
Historically, animals not only inspired the design of the clothes we adorned ourselves with but formed part, if not all of the materials used. Furs and skins have always been a status symbol. Not only did they represent a level of wealth, but in some cases, they represented courage and strength - the animal skins worn by Roman soldiers were indicative of the battles they had won and the exotic lands they had conquered. Many of these included every part of the beast, including its head, something we captured in our Dionysus leopard pendant.
Today, many designers find more creative ways to incorporate wildlife into their collections. Designers like Alexander McQueen have used nature as a cornerstone reference throughout their work - most notably he used snake print as a recurrent theme in his Plato's Atlantis collection. In the Simon Harrison Fire & Ice collection, snakes are not used for their prints, but are included as a symbol of protection. The intricate piece made up of Swarovski crystals can be worn as both a necklace and a bracelet.
Insects have also been featured in fashionable styles and accessories over the years, wealthy and fashion-forward Victorians would often sport accessories made of live beetles. They would wear them around their necks in small cages, or some would even sew them to their garments for maximum impact. Insects also feature in the Simon Harrison collection, but they certainly aren't alive. Our Ladybird pieces evoke the carefree feeling of a summer's day and are also a symbol of luck.
As nature constantly evolves, so too does it's relationship with fashion and style. Whilst now it's influence may be more figurative than literal, it is no less forceful.
Crystal Snake Necklace - Red
Daedalus Bracelet
Frog Prince Brooch - Black
Ice Flow Crystal Pyramid Necklace
Dionysus Leopard Bracelet
Kahlo Necklace - Blue Ombre
Simon Harrison
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Truly Iconic
Cosmic DNA
Legend of Dionysus
Fashion and Nature
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Overbooked Flight Compensation
Denied Boarding Compensation
SAS Flight Delay Compensation
Claim Compensation for Your SAS Delayed Flight.
Have you experienced a delay or cancellation on a SAS flight? According to EU Regulation 261/2004, you may be entitled to compensation of up to €600 from the airline.
Claiming SAS delayed flight compensation can be very time-consuming and stressful, unfortunately. The claiming process will ask you to complete forms, make phone calls, and engage in a ceaseless email correspondence with the airline. Often carriers will simply reject the delay claim.
At SkyRefund we can help you receive compensation for your SAS delay without any hassle.
Check My Compensation
Our mission is to protect air passengers' rights and to help them receive their SAS flight compensation without any hassle or risk. With our compensation calculator, you can easily check the amount you are entitled to. You only need to type in your flight number and date of travel. That's it.
Our legal professionals will take it from there and will ensure that you receive what is yours. What is more, we work on a "No Win, No Fee" basis so we don't get paid unless SAS sends you your compensation.
There's only onegood thingabout a delay
You can get up to €600 in compensation
How much compensation are you entitled to for your SAS delay?
The length of your journey and the duration of your disruption will determine the size of your SAS flight delay compensation.
Passengers can claim €250 for delays or cancellations of flights with a span of less than 1,500 km. For flights ranging between 1,500 and 3,500 km passengers may be eligible for €400. This is also the maximum compensation amount that can be claimed for flight delays or cancellations for flights between EU members. Finally, passengers may be entitled to a claim of up to €600 for flights over 3,500 km.
Less than 1500 km Between 1500 & 3500 km More than 3500 km
When Can You Claim Flight Delay or Cancellation Compensation?
Passengers are entitled to compensation for their delayed or cancelled SAS flights in the following cases:
SAS Flight Delay
There are two important considerations in order to be able to claim EU flight compensation.
First of all, your flight needs to have been heavily delayed. Heavy delays are those that arrived at their final destination with a delay of over 3 hours.
Please note that a prolonged delay before your departure would not automatically entitle you to a SAS delay refund. In some cases, the flight crew can make up for some of the delay during the flight and arrive with a delay shorter than 3 hours.
In addition, your flight delay should not be the result of any extraordinary circumstances. In most cases, these would be any events that cause an unavoidable delay. The most common cases of extraordinary circumstances include:
Bad weather conditions (for example low visibility, strong headwinds)
Air traffic control restrictions
Bird strikes
Union and airport strikes
Does this mean that you cannot claim for your SAS weather delay? It's complicated.
In general, bad weather is beyond the airline's capabilities to prevent. But while under certain conditions some aircraft may not be capable of flight, others would be able to take off without incurring a delay. In addition, weather conditions can change quickly and in the space of an hour they can differ enough in order to preclude or allow a flight.
That's the circumstances around each flight should be analysed on a case by case basis-- something SkyRefund's experts excel at.
SAS Cancelled Flight Compensation
In case of an SAS flight cancellation, your claim eligibility is determined by the time frame in which the airline informed you of the disruption.
If you were notified of the cancelled flight between 7 and 14 days before departure and your alternate flight reached its final destination more than 4 hours behind schedule, you can claim SAS cancelled flight compensation.
In most cases, however, airlines will inform you of your flight cancellation rather late, leaving you with little time to amend your plans. This is why if SAS informed you of the cancellation less than 7 days before takeoff, the conditions for claiming compensation will be less stringent. You need to have reached your final destination with an overall delay of over 2 hours in order to be eligible for a refund.
As with SAS flight delays, claiming compensation also depends on the presence of extraordinary circumstances. For example, if your flight was cancelled due to bad weather you may not be entitled to compensation. And as with delays, conditions will have to be evaluated for each case individually.
But remember: whatever the reasons for your cancelled flight, SAS Scandinavian Airlines should offer you a choice between a full refund of the ticket cost and an alternate flight to your final destination.
Is My Flight Eligible?
Denied Boarding
If SAS denied you boarding, you can choose between the following:
A full ticket refund and a return flight to your starting point of departure (in the case of connecting flights)
An alternate flight to your final destination
In addition, you can claim compensation from SAS for denied boarding. The amount you can claim will vary between €250 and €600 depending on the distance of your journey.
SAS Missed Connection Compensation
If your trip featured connecting flights and an SAS flight delay resulted in a missed connection, you could be entitled to compensation. The flight requirements for claiming are almost identical as if you had a single flight:
Your delay duration exceeds 3 hours.
There were no extraordinary circumstances
Your flights were on the same booking.
If your tickets are on the same booking, even though your trip may include one or more connections, it is interpreted as a single journey. If any one of your flights is late, your arrival at your final destination is delayed and therefore you can claim compensation for your SAS missed connection.
The easiest way to find out if your tickets are on the same booking is to check if your tickets are issued under the same reservation number.
Submit Compensation Claim
Scandinavian Airlines System, commonly referred to as SAS, is the flag carrier of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The airline's main hubs are Copenhagen Airport (CPH), Oslo Airport (OSL) and Stockholm Arlanda Airport (ARN). SAS is a founding member of Star Alliance.
SAS was formed in 1946 and in 1954 it became the first airline to successfully complete a transpolar route from Copenhagen to Los Angeles (making use of two stops along the way). Soon after, SAS began transpolar flights to Tokyo via Anchorage, Alaska and the pioneering nature of these flights resulted in a publicity windfall for the airline.
Since then SAS has become a leader in airline innovation and the company introduced the first airline to offer in-flight entertainment and in 1969— the first one to employ a female pilot. More recently, they have introduced sustained efforts to decrease their carbon footprint.
Today SAS is the largest airline in Scandinavia. In 2017 it served more than 28 million passengers.
SAS Rankings
The leading airline review website Skytrax has assigned SAS an aggregate rating of 5/10 based on the airline's overall comfort and value for money.
While SAS has a reputation for punctuality, nearly 30% of all SAS flights experience a delay and the average delay duration is 39 minutes according to flight data provider FlightStats.
Luggage and Fare Information
SAS offers four different fare plans for your trip. The Go Light allows bringing a piece of hand luggage with you to the cabin but no checked-in bags. If you choose SAS Go instead you could check-in one piece of luggage that weighs no more than 23 kg. SAS Plus offers you to check-in two pieces of luggage and with SAS Business on a flight to or from the USA or Asia, you could bring two suitcases of up to 32kg.
Sky Refund
©2020 SkyRefund. All Rights Reserved.


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Summer House family farm supplies fresh-cut flowers | TribLIVE.com
Summer House family farm supplies fresh-cut flowers
Shirley McMarlin
Thu., April 25, 2019 11:30 a.m. | Thursday, April 25, 2019 11:30 a.m.
Andrea Moffatt/Little Story Studio
Fresh-cut flowers from The Summer House Flower Co. in Murrysville.
Steve and Mary Beth McConahey, owners of The Summer House Flower Co. in Murrysville, sell their organically grown blooms at the Ligonier Country Market in 2018.
The Summer House Flower Co. is based on a 10-acre family farm in Murrysville.
Shirley McMarlin | Tribune-Review
The Summer House Flower Co. is based on a 10-acre family farm in Murrysville. Owner Mary Beth McConahey, with her daughter Matilda, 3, starts seedlings for The Summer House Flower Co. in her Greensburg basement.
Mary Beth McConahey tends to flower seedlings in her Greensburg basement. The young plants will be transplanted in The Summer House Flower Co. fields in Murrysville.
The Summer House Flower Co. in Murrysville deals in locally grown, specialty cut flowers.
With a PhD in political science, Mary Beth McConahey never thought she'd end up as a commercial flower grower.
And when she did become a flower grower, she thought the growing itself would be the hardest thing.
It turns out that she was wrong on both counts, but that hasn't necessarily been a bad thing.
The Greensburg resident and her husband Steve McConahey are owners of The Summer House Flower Co., a small farm from which they've been selling fresh-cut, specialty flowers for a couple of years.
They're also busy professionals with two young children — Amos, 8, and Matilda, 3. Mary Beth is assistant director of the Center for Political and Economic Thought and a lecturer in politics at Saint Vincent College. Steve sells insurance and provides accounting services from his office in Murrysville.
An epiphany
Mary Beth grew up on the 10-acre Summer House property, and her widowed father still lives there. She says she always had a love of gardening and flowers, but never thought it would be more than a hobby.
Then she and Steve had a kind of joint epiphany about 2½ years ago.
"We had jobs, kids, a house, a nice life, but we just looked at each other and said, 'Is this it?'" she says.
In a blog on the Summer House website, she explains, "Starting a successful business, being our own bosses, and controlling our own destiny has always been our dream (duh, isn't it everyone's?)" — but she was surprised when Steve took to the flower farm idea so quickly.
Gardening, she says, has always helped her deal with anxiety, especially through her pregnancies, and she also wanted to teach her children the joys of digging in the dirt, breathing fresh air and — perhaps most importantly — experiencing life firsthand instead of through the screen of an electronic device.
So, they tilled a 60-by-60-foot plot and started planting. Gradually, Mary Beth says, "we've added auxiliary plots all over the place."
Starting with tulips and daffodils, they cultivate flowers that bloom from spring to fall — and not just the run-of-the-mill varieties you see in front yards or big box stores. Think everything from anemones to peonies to zinnias in heirloom and other unusual varieties.
Thousands of plants are started in the McConahey's spacious basement, to be transplanted when the danger of frost is past.
Planted with care
Via the website, they offer jars of seasonal flowers (from $20), subscriptions for weekly, biweekly or monthly delivery (from $115) and specialty arrangements and buckets of blooms for weddings, funerals and other special events.
Last year, they sold 20 subscriptions, and Mary Beth says they have the capacity for about 50. They deliver in an area stretching from Plum and Murrysville to Ligonier.
"Each bloom has been planted, tended, and harvested with meticulous care — and by our own hands," the website says, using organic growing methods.
"I won't use anything on the flowers that I won't stick my hands in," Mary Beth says.
The result, she says, is a product far superior to the commercially farmed bouquet people are used to grabbing last-minute at the grocery store.
Most large-scale flower farms are in South American and Africa and use horticultural chemicals that allow blooms to withstand travel but often strip them of fragrance, she says. They may have been out of water for a week before they make it from airport to store and back into a vase.
"The flower trade is a dirty business," she says.
So that means selling Summer House flowers is easy, right? Mary Beth says she thought that at the beginning.
"I was prepared that the farming part of it was going to be hard," she says. "Once I grew them, I thought they would just sell themselves — but that wasn't the case. The failure was mine — in business, there are no shortcuts to success."
She'd like to change the view of cut flowers as an occasional extravagance, to one of an "everyday luxury" that adds necesssary joy to life.
"I want people to think of flowers as something that makes a difference in your home and makes your day better," she says.
One day, she says, she would like the farm itself to be "a full-blown, old-fashioned, immersive flower market," but it could take a while to get there.
She says she's gleaning tips for selling from the online flower growing community and relying on social media and friends to spread the word.
She and Steve had a booth last summer at the Ligonier Country Market. This year, they'll be selling at the Greensburg Night Market on May 30.
"It should be peak peony season," she says. "We'll have blush, cream, peach, all the romantic colors." Not to mention the heavenly scent.
One friend who has become a customer is Julie Ankrum of Greensburg, who receives a weekly jar of seasonal flowers from spring to fall, and recently bought a subscription for a 95-year-old friend who lives at Redstone Highlands in Greensburg.
"It's hard to find really nice, fresh-cut flowers in Greensburg," Ankrum says. "I love the surprise of what's coming next, because it's whatever is in bloom that week.
"It's crazy how it puts me in a good mood when I walk in the house and see them," she says. "I have a daughter in college. I think when she gets out of school, I might treat myself to another subscription, so I have two coming every week."
Details: summerhouseflowers.com
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Shirley at 724-836-5750, [email protected] or via Twitter .
Categories: Lifestyles | Home Garden
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Диамастигосис ( — «избивание плетью») — соревнования юношей в выносливости при порке бичом. Порка проводилась ежегодно на  в течение целого дня. Плутарх сообщает: «Мальчиков в Спарте пороли бичом на алтаре Артемиды Орфии в течение целого дня, и они нередко погибали под ударами. Мальчики гордо и весело соревновались, кто из них дольше и достойнее перенесёт побои; победившего славили, и он становился знаменитым. Это соревнование называли "диамастигосис", и происходило оно каждый год».

Примечания

Литература

Спарта
Побои


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Q: Notify parallel workers within matlab I'm using the parallel toolbox of matlab. Does anyone knows a way to inform parallel workers to update a global variable?
Thanks for any advice!

A: The parallel workers are separate MATLAB processes, and do not share global state either with each other, or with the MATLAB client process. You ''can'' declare and use global data on workers (although you are not permitted to place a global declaration directly in the body of an spmd block or a parfor loop), but this is not ideal since you'll need to take extra steps to ensure that the workers have the correct values.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Zim Commemorates World Food Day as Hunger Looms
Nothando Sibanda
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says chronic hunger remains highest in sub-Saharan Africa, where one in four people are malnourished. (File photo)
LUPANE - MATABELELAND NORTH — International food aid agencies say they will continue providing assistance to communities facing food shortages, but urge Zimbabwe to do more to produce enough food for all its people.
Addressing a World Food Day commemoration at Tshongokwe Irrigation Scheme in Lupane, Matabeleland North Province, Tomson Phiri of the World Food Programme said Lupane is a good example of how rural communities can run sustainable food programmes.
Mr. Phiri said the irrigation scheme is a good example of a well-managed agricultural project in the country, which produces a lot of food for the local community and surrounding areas.
At the same event, David Phiri of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), said Zimbabwe also needs to provide food that is more healthful in order to combat malnutrition, noting that malnutrition is devastating some communities and comes in many different forms.
The FAO says almost 842 million people worldwide are chronically undernourished, adding that unsustainable models of development are degrading the natural environment, threatening ecosystems and biodiversity that will be needed for our future food supply.
Tshongogwe Irrigation Scheme farmers also attended the World Food Day commemorations. One of them, Micah Tshuma, said he is doing well, despite a number of challenges, such as bad roads that make it difficult to access markets.
The commemoration ran under the theme "Healthy People Depend on Healthy Food Systems."
The United Nations and the Zimbabwe government say at least 2.2 million people will need food aid in the country by March 2014.
Report Filed By Nothando Sibanda


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The Importance and Practical Application of Autophagy in Human Health
Ryan Drake
Lake Forest, Illinois 60045
*This author wrote the paper as a part of BIOL485:Senior Seminar: The Nobel Prizes" under the direction of Dr. Maine.
When we consider the important roles various parts of our cells have, it is often the classic organelles that come to mind—nuclei and DNA storage, mitochondria and energy production, endoplasmic reticulum and molecular transport, and the various others. Our recognition of their importance is not misplaced in the least, for without these structures our cells would cease to function. However, research over the past few decades, facilitated by advancements in technology and techniques, have uncovered other equally important cellular structures on which the cell relies upon for its maintained health and function. One such structure is the autophagosome, a small vesicle-like structure that engulfs damaged organelles and other cytoplasmic material for the transport to the lysosome for digestion.
A large amount of today's research on autophagy is pioneered by Noboru Mizushima, a nominee for the 2015 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology. Mizushima was first intrigued by autophagy when he read an article about newly identified autophagy genes with unique amino-acid sequences ("Autophagy: Noboru Mizushima Interview - Special Topic of Autophagy," 2009). Inspired, he joined Dr. Yoshinori Ohsumi, the author of the article, in researching the molecular mechanism and physiological role of autophagy in yeast and mammals. Once there, Mizushima began to explore the physiological roles of autophagy. At its most basal level, autophagy is a mechanism by which other organic material is recycled. However, this design is modified in different cases to suit various functions. Mizushima categorizes autophagy into groups (microautophagy, macroautophagy, and chaperone-mediated autophagy) that each have specialized methods for delivering certain molecules to the lysosome (Mizushima, Levine, Cuervo, & Klionsky, 2008). These specialized autosomes can be distributed to various parts of the body depending on their function. For example, autophagy in the liver is stimulated by amino acids and autophagy in the muscles is instead stimulated by insulin (Naito, Kuma, & Mizushima, 2013).
The importance of autophagy lies in its various roles. Autosome activity is governed by a multitude of genes that are specific to certain parts of the body. The basal regulators in this process are the autophagy-related (ATG) genes, which determine how selective autosomes are and the amount of activity expressed at any point in time (Mizushima et al., 2008). Mizushima explains that given the destructive potential of autophagy, regulation of this process is necessary in order to prevent damage. In one of his experiments, Mizushima found that autophagy is stimulated during starvation, leading to the breakdown of organic molecules into their constituent amino acids (Sahani, Itakura, & Mizushima, 2014). The SQSTM1 gene is upregulated by the availability of these amino acids, and SQSTM1 protein, which has an inhibitory effect on autophagy, is synthesized. While starvation induces autophagy, the autophagy pathway itself produces a negative-feedback loop in what is suggested to be a self-regulatory process to avoid excess self-digestion.
Autophagy is necessary for the proper cellular function, and knowledge of its physiological roles can be applicable to medical research. One of the potential applications for autophagy that Mizushima suggests is its use against tumor cells in cancer patients. He states that an ATG gene knockout can upregulate autophagy and stimulate apoptosis (Mizushima et al., 2008). Autophagosomes that target tumor cells could theoretically be stimulated through such a gene knockout, and a natural autoimmune response would destroy the tumorous cells. In another study by Mizushima, it was discovered that static encephalopathy was linked with autophagy suppression (Saitsu et al., 2013). Patients with encephalopathy expressed a mutation in the autophagy gene WDR45, which resulted in defective production of autophagosomes. Some neurodegenerative diseases are caused by the build-up of ubiquitin plaques in the brain (i.e. Alzheimer's disease), which might normally be prevented through autophagy recycling. A treatment restoring autophagy might be effective in reversing neurodegeneration, though the means for accomplishing this would have to be investigated.
History of autophagy
A core component of the autophagic pathway is the fusion of the autophagosome to the lysosome, where the ingested molecules are then degraded by hydrolytic enzymes. Discovering the lysosome was the first step in understanding the role autophagy occupies, and was done by Christian de Duve, a Nobel Prize winner, once the electron microscope was commercially available (Appelmans, Wattiaux, & de Duve, 1955). The lysozyme's name was given based upon the hydrolytic enzymes presence within the newly discovered granules (de Duve, Pressman, Gianetto, Wattiaux, & Appelmans, 1955). Around the same time, Hruban et al. discovered that cellular material can be sequestered into lysosomes in a processes they called focal cytoplasmic degradation (FCD) (1963). de Duve renamed this process "autophagy" when he realized that it was an integral part of lysosome function (Deter, Baudhuin, & de Duve, 1967). From this evidence, de Duve correctly implied the autosome-lysosome role in digesting injured cell matter, facilitating reuse of cellular components, and facilitating cell death (de Duve, 1963).
Introduction to autophagy
There are currently three recognized forms of autophagy: micro-, macro-, and chaperone-mediated autophagy (Mizushima et al., 2008). Microautophagy refers to the sequestration of cytosolic components directly by lysosomes through invaginations in their limiting membrane, but this process has not been observed in multicellular eukaryotes. Macroautophagy involves the sequestration of material into a double-membrane autophagosome and its transfer to a lysosome for degradation. Finally, chaperone-mediated autophagy involves direct translocation of unfolded substrate proteins across the lysosome membrane with the use of the protein chaperone hsc70 and integral membrane receptor LAMP-2A (Mizushima et al., 2008). However, for the purposes of this essay, only the importance of macroautophagy will be discussed since the majority of Noboru Mizushima's research is concerned with this form.
Autophagosomes are first generated as single membrane structures called autophagosome precoursers (Mizushima, Ohsumi, & Yoshimori, 2002). It is not yet fully understood from where these young autophagosomes are derived in eukaryotes, but research in yeast cells show that a structure near the vacuole called the pre-autophagosome structure (PAS) generates them. A combination of Apg12- Apg5•Apg16 protein complex and LC3 proteins initiate the elongation of the membrane as it isolates and engulfs the target molecule, forming the autophagosome. It is then recruited to the lysosome, where the two membranes fuse and the ingested molecules are released into the lysosome for degradation. The material ingested by the autophagosome may or not be damaged, since macroautophagy has lately been found to play a role in a variety of maintenance activities, including starvation response, cell death, and disease prevention (Mizushima et al., 2008, 2002).
Functions of autophagy
(I) Response to starvation
Recent research indicates that autophagy is upregulated as a response to starvation (Mizushima et al., 2008, 2002; Sahani et al., 2014; Tekirdag, Korkmaz, Ozturk, Agami, & Gozuacik, 2013). Because consistent protein synthesis and metabolic rate is necessary for overall cellular health, macroautophagy is used in the recycling of unnecessary material to increase the availability of amino acids. This is beneficial in the case of short-term starvation when further nutrient intake is expected in the near-future. Sahani, Itakura, and Mizushima has produced evidence that de novo amino acid production is indeed used in protein synthesis following short-term starvation (2014). Because this process is inherently destructive to the cell, a regulatory system would be necessary to prevent excessive damage that would result in cell death. Tekirdag et al. has identified one of possible ways autophagic activity can be downregulated (2013). miRNAs have been implicated in the suppressive targeting of ATG proteins necessary for autophagy, and one of these, MIR181A, directly restricts ATG5 expression and attenuates autophagy. Thus, it is clear that autophagy functions to temporarily supply the cell with an emergency supply of amino acids during starvation.
(II) Cell death
Just as it is important to maintain cellular health, the occasional death of specific cells is needed for the proper function of the organism. During embryonic development, for example, apoptosis is used in the formation of different organs and structures. Apoptosis is typically regulated through various types of signaling pathways, but Denton et al. has shown that mid-gut disintegration during Drosophila metamorphosis is autophagy-mediated (2009). Though in vitro research suggests the involvement autophagy may have in programmed cell death, this study was the first to demonstrate it naturally in vivo.
Research also suggests that autophagy is involved in the control and suppression of tumor cells. Some ATG genes such as atg4c exert tumor suppression effects, implying that tumor regulation may be signaled at certain steps of the autophagy pathway (Mizushima et al., 2008). Mutations in genes that regulate autophagy thus appear to promote tumor generation. For example, the deletion of beclin 1 is observed in 40–70% of human breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer (Mizushima et al., 2008). Therefore, it is apparent that autophagy plays an important role in promoting cell death in scenarios that benefit the organism's health.
(III) Disease mitigation
One of the most important functions autophagy has is the prevention of many types of illnesses and disease. Through either engulfing bacteria and virons for lysosome delivery or removing particulates that would be toxic in high amounts, autophagy can directly mitigate disease. Xenophagy refers to a specialized form of autophagy in which autophagosomes specifically target foreign bodies such as bacteria or virons (Mizushima et al., 2008). In some cases, autophagy is used to bolster the immune response. For example, autophages are needed to traffic viral RNA to the endosomal toll-like receptor TLR7 and activation of type I interferon signaling (Mizushima et al., 2008).
Because diseases like encephalopathy andAlzheimer's are associated with the buildup of ubiquinated protein and other material, autophagy may play an important role in preventing the development of these illnesses. Saitsu et al. discovered that a mutation in WDR45, a gene responsible in part for autophagy activity, is found in patients with encephalopathy (2013). This study provides a link between the subsequent loss of autophagy to this disease. Likewise, research suggests that the deletion of Atg5 and Pik3c3 genes, also necessary for autophagy function, is implicated in the development of age-related cataracts (Morishita et al., 2013). Since autophagy removes damaged particulate from the cell, the accelerated onset of cataracts is likely due to the unrestricted buildup of these damaging molecules.
Current and future work
Macroautophagy research has potential application towards the development of various health treatments. Saitsu et al.'s demonstration that mutations in WIPI4 inhibit autophagy (2013) suggests the importance further research can have on encephalopathy and other neurodegenerative treatments. However, restoration of autophagy through treatment may not always lead to medical success, for an inhibition of macroautophagy itself does not always cause illness, rather that it might be merely correlated with it (Morishita et al., 2013). Thus it is important that the mechanisms influencing autophagy be further investigated in order to understand the connections autophagy has with various illnesses.
Recently, more experiments on autophagy have been directed towards understanding the factors influencing autophagy. Dutta et al. showed that autophagy improves mitochondrial function and protects the cell from oxidative damage (2013). The accumulation of ubiquinated proteins (which create toxic oxygen species) following antimycin A (AMA) treatment is reversed when autophagy is induced by rapamycin. In this case, the damage caused by oxidative stress can be reversed by inducing autophagy. While this information is indicative that autophagy-inducing treatments can be beneficial, Mizushima explains that tumorous cells can be dependent upon autophagy to prevent their own apoptosis (Mizushima et al., 2008). To prevent cellular damage, these cells must employ feedback mechanisms to maintain homeostasis. As previously discussed, Tekirdag et al. discovered that the miRNA MIR181A is involved in one of these mechanisms (2013). This miRNA works in overexpression to inhibit starvation and rapamycin-induced autophagy. Larson had found that the miR- 181 family of miRNAs are downregulated in myeloid leukemia (2010), which in light of Tekirdag et al.'s new information may suggest that enhanced autophagy and leukemia viability may correlate. Vakana et al. has also demonstrated interesting results correlating leukemic cell health with autophagy. They determined that several signaling pathways support the health of leukemic cells. Fusion tyrosine kinase BCR-ABL is a hallmark fusion gene present in abnormal leukemic chromosomes and is an important inducer of several signaling cascades, one of which includes the mTOR pathway that promotes BCR-ABL expression via mRNA translation (Vakana, Sassano, & Platanias, 2014). Experimentally inhibiting mTORC2 and mTORC1 with OSI-027 expressed inhibitory effects on leukemic cells, but because mTOR is a negative regulator of autophagy, OSI-027 treatment upregulated autophagy and only produced limited apoptosis. However, directly inhibiting autophagy with chloroquine and mTOR with OSI-027 together fully induced apoptosis (Vakana et al., 2014). The authors suggest that autophagy inhibition must be used alongside with mTOR inhibition to promote leukemic cell apoptosis (Vakana et al., 2014).
Because the cellular processes involving macroautophagy are still not fully understood, research should be encouraged in order to potentially discover new treatment options for debilitating diseases like leukemia. Mizushima specializes in autophagy because of it can be applied to a variety of scientific fields, and thus further research can be done any of them. In particular, autophagy research can be applied to diseases like Alzheimer's and various forms of cancer, which are rising in prevalence. Thus, I consider these diseases to be worth targeting in future research. In the following section, I suggest a few experiments that can be applied to combating these types of diseases and improving health.
(I) Elimination of β-amyloid plaques via macroautophagy
The buildup of β-amyloids (Aβ) contribute to plaque formation in the brain, leading to Alzheimer's disease. Protein fragments such as Aβs would theoretically be consumed by autophagosomes and then digested, but a study by Yu et al. showed that autophagy is induced in Alzheimer's-afflicted mice, but autophagosomes unnaturally build up (2005). They hypothesize that the formation of lysosomes from these autophagic vacuoles is inhibited. To investigate the cause of this inhibition, APP/PS1 mutant mice, which exhibit Aβ-buildup, should be used in the same manner of Yu et al. as a model organism. Fortunado et al. show that autolysosome fusion is impaired by a depletion in the membrane protein Lamp-2 (2009). Differences in membrane proteins in AD and control mice would be explored in addition to possible defects in their corresponding regulatory genes. Any observed reductions in proteins or differential expression of related genes could indicate a cause of impaired autophagosome-lysosome fusion.
(II) Non-invasive induction of apoptosis in leukemic cells
Tekirdag et al. showed that miRNAs are downregulated in leukemic cells (2013), which would correlate with an increase in autophagic activity. Because autophagy prolongs cellular health, inhibition of autophagy would eventually lead to apoptosis. Engineered ATG-knockout mice can be induced with leukemia to investigate whether or not a loss of autophagy in leukemic cells induces apoptosis. According to Tang et al., several herpes simplex viruses inhibit the Beclin-1 protein necessary for autophagy regulation (2012). If apoptosis is observed in the knock-out mice, engineering a herpes simplex virus or some other vector to target leukemic cells can be used to non-invasively inhibit autophagy. This type of treatment could be used in conjunction with typical radiation or chemotherapy to potentially enhance results.
(III) Retrovirus inhibition through autophagy upregulation
Retroviruses reproduce by parasitizing a host cell and forcing it to produce viral proteins using a reverse-transcripted code of DNA. Some retroviruses like hepatitis and HIV are of great concern to medical industries and improved methods of treatment are desired. Since autophagosomes are used in the isolation of viral genetic material, it may be possible to use autophagy to remove retrovirus RNA or reverse transcriptase from the cell. Inhibition of mTOR signaling may be one option to determine if an upregulation of autophagy retards the viral infection. Autophagy enhancer drugs, like carbamazepine and others described by Chu et al. (2014), may also achieve similar effects.
(IV) Autophagy as a mechanism for cardiovascular health
There is growing support that autophagy is an important mechanism outside of debris removal. Since autophagy leads to the breakdown of unneeded molecules into useful components (i.e. proteins → free amino acids), autophagy may play an important role in nutrient metabolism. Ouimet et al. (2011) shows that autophagy is stimulated in the presence of low- density lipoproteins, facilitating the breakdown of lipid droplets from atheroscleric plaques. Furthermore, mTOR inhibitors have been found to prevent development of atherosclerosis, attenuate plaque progression, and reduce cholesterol content mouse models (Ouimet et al., 2011). Therefore, it seems likely that autophagy can function to promote cardiovascular health. If autophagy helps remove excess lipids from circulation, then the heart would be subjected to less stress and the likelihood for the development of heart disease would be reduced. Furthermore, since autophagy is important for increasing the availability of amino acids in muscle tissue (Naito et al., 2013), heart health should be improved in this regard as well. An experiment similar to Ouimet et al.'s but with a focus on the progression of heart disease would discern whether or not autophagy can improve heart health.
More and more research is indicating that autophagy, once considered a simple maintenance pathway, serves important roles in preventing metabolic dysfunction and illness. Its function can vary slightly in different systems throughout the body, and thus autophagy has great potential to be foundational in future treatments in the medical field. Although Noboru Mizushima did not win the Nobel Prize for 2015, his continued contributions to medicinal research still are widely recognized and demonstrates the usefulness of autophagy in various fields of research. To improve our understanding of autophagy for therapeutic purposes, it is necessary to support further research on the various regulatory pathways and other factors influencing its activity. This is all the more important because autophagy can sometimes be a double-edged sword, and may be counter- effective, such as in the case of tumor cells, when designing plans for therapy. There are still many questions left unanswered, and it will necessary to be persistent in our research to overcome the issues preventing our full understanding of the functional pathways of autophagy.
Appelmans, F., Wattiaux, R., & de Duve, C. (1955). Tissue fractionation studies. 5. The association of acid phosphatase with a special class of cytoplasmic granules in rat liver. Biochemical Journal, 59(3), 438–445.
Autophagy: Noboru Mizushima Interview - Special Topic of Autophagy. (2009). Retrieved August 11, 2014, from http://archive.sciencewatch.com/ana/st/autophagy/ 09augSTAutoMizu/
Chu, A., Perlmutter, D., & Wang, Y. (2014). Capitalizing on the Autophagic Response for Treatment of Liver Disease Caused by Alpha-1-Antitrypsin Deficiency and Other Genetic Diseases. BioMed Research International, 2014, 459823. doi:10.1155/2014/459823
De Duve, C. (1963). General properties of lysosomes. In Ciba Foundation Symposium-Lysosomes, 1–35.
De Duve, C., Pressman, B. C., Gianetto, R., Wattiaux, R., & Appelmans, F. (1955). Tissue fractionation studies. 6. Intracellular distribution patterns of enzymes in rat-liver tissue. Biochemical Journal, 60(4), 604–617.
Denton, D., Shravage, B., Simin, R., Mills, K., Berry, D. L., Baehrecke, E. H., & Kumar, S. (2009). Autophagy, not apoptosis, is essential for midgut cell death in Drosophila. Current Biology: CB, 19(20), 1741–6. doi:10.1016/j. cub.2009.08.042
Deter, R., Baudhuin, P., & de Duve, C. (1967). Participation of lysosomes in cellular autophagy induced in rat liver by glucagon. The Journal of Cell Biology, 35(2).
Dutta, D., Xu, J., Kim, J., Dunn, W. A., & Leeuwenburgh, C. (2013). Upregulated autophagy protects cardiomyocytes from oxidative stress-induced toxicity. Autophagy, 9(3), 328–344.
Fortunato, F., Bürgers, H., Bergmann, F., Rieger, P., Büchler, M. W., Kroemer, G., & Werner, J. (2009). Impaired autolysosome formation correlates with Lamp-2 depletion: role of apoptosis, autophagy, and necrosis in pancreatitis. Gastroenterology, 137(1), 350–60, 360.e1– 5. doi:10.1053/j.gastro.2009.04.003
Hruban, Z., Spargo, B., & Swift, H. (1963). Focal cytoplasmic degradation. The American Journal of Pathology and Zoology, 42(6), 657–683.
Larson, R. (2010). Micro-RNAs and copy number changes: new levels of gene regulation in acute myeloid leukemia. Chemico-Biological Interactions, 184(1-2), 21–25. doi:10.1016/j.cbi.2009.10.002.MicroRNAs
Mizushima, N., Levine, B., Cuervo, A. M., & Klionsky, D. J. (2008). Autophagy fights disease through cellular self- digestion. Nature, 451(7182), 1069–1075. doi:10.1038/ nature06639
Mizushima, N., Ohsumi, Y., & Yoshimori, T. (2002). Autophagosome formation in mammalian cells. Cell Structure and Function, 27(6), 421–429.
Morishita, H., Eguchi, S., Kimura, H., Sasaki, J., Sakamaki, Y., Robinson, M. L., … Mizushima, N. (2013). Deletion of autophagy-related 5 (Atg5) and Pik3c3 genes in the lens causes cataract independent of programmed organelle degradation. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 288(16), 11436–11447.
Naito, T., Kuma, A., & Mizushima, N. (2013). Differential contribution of insulin and amino acids to the mTORC1- autophagy pathway in the liver and muscle. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 288(29), 21074–21081.
Ouimet, M., Franklin, V., Mak, E., Liao, X., Tabas, I., & Marcel, Y. L. (2011). Autophagy regulates cholesterol efflux from macrophage foam cells via lysosomal acid lipase. Cell Metabolism, 13(6), 655–67. doi:10.1016/j. cmet.2011.03.023
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Ryan Drake '15 is majoring in biology and environmental studies. He worked as an intern on several conservation-related projects while at Lake Forest College, including reforestation in Costa Rica, invasive marine invertebrate detection in Canada, and forest succession and nutrient turnover analysis in North Carolina. He also spent a semester abroad in New Zealand where he studied marine biology. He intends to pursue graduate studies for a career in natural resource and wildlife conservation with a focus on marine systems.


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May 24, 2015 / kirk alexander
One of Arthur C. Clarke's most famous quotes is "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Now, if we examine this idea in it's most literal sense it is a pretty solid observation about the nature of technology. After all, it is true that I understand how a smart phone works about as well as a medieval peasant understands how alchemy was supposed to work. However, we can also look at that idea in a more literary way, since Clarke was a science fiction writer and we could easily interpret him as saying that fully imagined science fiction and fantasy are interchangeable on some basic level. In that context I don't think that Clarke's maxim works nearly as well, because there is a real difference between works of art that have a technological tone and works of art that have a magical tone.
We can see both sides of this coin if we look at Fantastic Voyage, a movie from the early 1960s about a team of scientists who get shrunk down to a microscopic size so they can enter a comatose man's body and perform emergency brain surgery from the inside of his skull. This is the sort of fanciful story that could easily be told in a 'magical' way, in that the science behind this movie's premise is not actually that scientific. The idea of a shrink ray seems pretty far fetched even today, so I can only imagine how crazy this movie would have seemed when it first came out fifty years ago.
Actually, it's undeniable that the film does give into magical thinking in many respects: Fantastic Voyage's depiction of the inside of a human body is so abstract that it's obviously medically inaccurate. I don't know much about biology, but even I know enough about human anatomy to know that our body isn't divided into "lava lamp goo" and "swamp" sections - but the crew sees both of those neighborhoods out of their porthole window as their submarine is swept along their patient's veins by his blood flow.
At the same time Fantastic Voyage's story could be told with a heavy emphasis on its scientific plausibility. In fact, that seems to be Fantastic Voyage's intention, since the movie kicks off with an opening blurb about how we're about to enter into a futuristic time where man might walk on the moon, and who knows, maybe one day we'll be able to shove nuclear powered submarines into people's ear holes... The decision to tie one obviously possible development in with an obviously impossible development is a giant warning flag that this movie is going to take itself a bit too seriously. If you're trying to convince the audience that what they are about to see is medically inevitable then you obviously aren't going to push your premise to it's most enjoyable extremes because those will inevitably be scientifically ridiculous.
Indeed, Fantastic Voyage has a clinical tone that utterly belies its basic silliness. It takes its time setting up every far fetched plot development, meticulously showing us the process by which the crew enters the ship, by which the ship is shrunk, by which the ship is inserted into a needle, by which the ship is inserted into the dying man, and so on. The only reason why the filmmakers would take this approach is if they thought they could persuade the audience that they were seeing the future in action, as if being narratively thorough was the same thing as being technically correct.
It's kind of a shame, really, because if you could get rid of all that unnecessary build up and empty jargon you'd be left with a true camp classic. Fantastic Voyage's visual style combines the clean cut chrome look of classic 50's pulp sci-fi with the swinging day-glo patterns of the hippie era. In theory that would make it seem hilariously dated, since both of those styles have long since devolved into kitsch, but unfortunately the filmmakers don't have the sense to mine laughs out of the contrast between the square jawed military men who are monitoring the ship's progress from the knobs-and-colored-lights-on-squar- boxes control room and the ship itself, which is often floating around in the middle of psychedelic Andy Warhol-esque environments. The end result is something that feels uneven when it should be comical; its deadpan sincerity is just well executed enough that it squashes any potential ironic laughter without providing anything better in its place.
Ultimately I think that Fantastic Voyage has the same problem that a lot of sci-fi movies with half assed scripts do - it's full of technobabble when it should full of either techno or babble. If it was actually constructed around sound scientific principles it might be boring but it could potentially be educational; if it gave into it's silliest impulses it would feel more juvenile but it would also be more fun; instead it tried to split the difference by putting a thin veneer of respectability on top of a fundamentally goofy story, thus keeping it from satisfying either master. Fantastic Voyage's filmmakers should have picked either science or magic and stuck with it, but they didn't and the movie suffered as a result.
I understand what Clarke is trying to express with his maxim. He's not totally wrong; we should be as awed by modern machines as more primitive cultures were awed by religious hokum. But there is a reason why we take amazing technologies for granted - it's because when something consistently works there's no reason to stop and think about why or how it works. That's what it ultimately comes down to - workability. Technology delivers on it's promises and magic doesn't. And when an artist conflates the two, they risk creating a work of art that can't deliver on it's promises either. Fantastic Voyage promised its audience that it would be fantastic, and in fact I can see how it could have been fantastic, but it ended up being such a muddle of half baked ideas and images that averaged out to being sort of acceptable. I didn't sign up for an Acceptable Journey.
Ah well - maybe the sequel will be better. I hear that we might go to the moon someday, and a movie about that could be pretty neat.
Winner: Draw
Fantastic Voyage on IMDB
May 24, 2015 / kirk alexander/ Comment
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island / ...


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Home » Rock Climbing » Access & Conservation »
Tremadog Renaissance 2018
Posted by Elfyn Jones on 06/02/2018
Champagne celebration - from Eric to the new owners, Jo and Gareth.
It's all happening at Tremadog this year, Tremfest is back and the really big news is that after nearly 40 years of serving teas and chip butties to climbers at his Bwlch y Moch café, well known Welsh mountaineer Eric Jones has finally decided to take a well-earned retirement. But fear not, as the new owners Gareth Streatfield and his partner Jo, have exciting plans to continue to welcome climbers to Tremadog.
"Tremfest 2018" April 21st
Yes...put that date in your diary now, April 21st is the day you can help to look after the most important crags that are owned and managed by the BMC on behalf of all climbers. Crags need looking after and every year paths and routes become overgrown, steps become eroded, trees fall down and ditches and culverts become blocked. Sadly litter can also be a problem, mainly wind-blown from residential areas and being a roadside crag, from passing cars.
So every couple of years the BMC access team, supported by a group of enthusiastic volunteers organise "Tremfest" to get climbers involved in caring for their crags while having a great time. The aim is to do as much practical work as possible and then local climbers can point you in the direction of overgrown and forgotten classic routes that need a spot of cleaning before enjoying an evening talk with some free (yep free!) beer. More details on this to come. Oh and don't forget the amazing free prize draw – no one goes away without winning something!
All change at the cafe!
But the really major news is that Eric Jones and his wife Ann have finally decided to retire after providing nearly 39 years of amazing service to climbers, bikers and visitors to Bwlch y Moch café. Eric is undoubtedly the most well know Welsh mountaineer of all time, with some notable ascents, many of them solo including the Bonatti Pillar in 1969, first British solo ascent of the North Faces of the Matterhorn in 1972 and then the 1938 route on the Eiger in 1981. In addition to his mountaineering exploits, Eric is also a notable sky diver and base jumper, possibly doing the first ever Eiger base jump and followed later by base jumping from Cerro Torre in Patagonia. In 1991 he was one of team that did the first balloon crossing over Everest. He also very nearly became the first Briton to climb Everest without oxygen – he was with Rheinold Messner and Peter Habler during their first oxygen-less ascent in 1978 but frostbite meant he had to turn back close to the summit. A very humble and unassuming man, Eric has been a great support and inspiration to climbers and to the BMC at Tremadog and we all owe a very big debt of gratitude to this remarkable man. At 81 years of age (!!), he continues to climb, ski, sky-dive and ride a bloody great big motorbike around Snowdonia!
And as humble as always, this is what Eric had to say, "Many thanks for the kind words and also appreciation for your custom and friendship over the years. I shall now ride my bike into the sunset!!"
From the BMC and on behalf of all climbers, a very big thank you to Eric and may your retirement be long, fun and adventurous!
The new order commeth!
As Eric retires, the café, campsite and car park has been taken over by Gareth Streatfield and his partner Jo who have already made a few minor changes but are keen to continue in the same vein to support climbers at Tremadog, as Eric and Ann did. The BMC is looking forward to work with them (see above for Tremfest!) and welcomes them to Tremadog.
The new owners want to introduce themselves to climbers and sent the following to the BMC :
Jo was born and raised in Stoke on Trent and after starting as a clerk in a solicitors became a Barrister in 1997 working both criminal defence and prosecution. Jo enjoys making big metal flowers in her spare time and hopefully see some at the cafe soon!
Gareth was born in Cardiff and then moved to North Wales when 4 to Gwyddelwern. (Next village to Bryn Saith Marchog where Eric grew up!) and attended Brynhyfryd high school (same one as Eric!) Left at 16 to join RAF as engineer and spent over 23 years working a variety of roles from fast jets to heavy lift helicopters. Then spent 7 years as a secondary school teacher at Thomas Telford School in Shropshire teaching Design Technology and Computer Programming. Not a climber (yet!) but prefers to spend time on the water windsurfing/surfing.
Why are we doing this??!!!
After many years of public service and long hours/days we are hoping to start a new adventure (having met on a campsite in Wales ourselves 5 years ago!!) to have a go at creating a great space for others to enjoy and support their activities in a fantastic/beautiful location.
So – go along to say hello to Gareth and Jo and support their adventure and to help keep this important climbing treasure to go from strength to strength.
And remember, Tremfest 2018 - put it in your diary, April 21st!
tremadog
Wild Welsh Adventure: BMC International Summer Climbing Meet 2019
Our International Meets are week-long gatherings of climbers from all over the world, with the aim to showcase the uniqueness of British climbing and connect climbers from across the globe. Find out a bit more about them from local hosts and international attendees below!
Tremadog Rockfall: Big changes
The classic VS climbs, Shadrach and the Brothers at Craig Bwlch y Moch are sadly no more. As previously reported, some very loose dangerous blocks were identified on these routes. After a thorough inspection, the BMC had no option but to commission a professional rock-engineering company to remove the blocks. Further works remain to be done and the area remains unstable - keep clear until the works are completed!
British Lead and Speed Climbing Championships 2019
Let's get pumped up! The second of our major National Championships featuring both the BLCC and BSCC is scheduled to take place at the Beacon Climbing Centre in North Wales on 21-22 September 2019. Find out what you need to do to join.


The insurance sector, which is considered to be fairly traditional and resistant to change, is currently being overtaken by a macro trend of digital transformation. This is causing institutions with hundreds of years of tradition to rethink their insurance business models, by identifying modules within their own value chain that need to be transformed or reinvented with the help of technology and data usage. InsurTech represents a macro trend destined to take on an ever-growing relevance in a world which tends toward hyperconnectivity and the infiltration of technology into all aspects of society. The insurance business will become more InsurTech-oriented, and technology will have a decisive role in reaching strategic goals. This applies to insurance companies, reinsurers, intermediaries and newcomers. During 2015, InsurTech startups received around $2.5 billion in funding, according to LTP.
The number of innovative initiatives is growing exponentially, raising interest for all phases of the customer journey and all steps in the insurance value chain. This reveals a very crowded map of innovations that were introduced by the incumbents of the insurance sector or by startups. The innovations can be divided into seven macro areas: awareness, choice, acquisition, use, recommendation, Internet of Things (IoT) and peer-to-peer (P2P). One of the main challenges for analysts, incumbents, startups and investors is identifying the degree of relevance that these innovations represent for the insurance sector.
1 Profitability: Impact which an innovation may have on the level of profitability of the insurance portfolio, acting on the loss ratio level or on the cost level without an increase of volumes.
2 Proximity: Contribution for creating improved relationship that is based on numerous touchpoints during the customer journey. Bain's international research reveals that the customer satisfaction (measured with the Net Promoter Score approach) of those clients that have interacted directly with the insurance company is markedly superior to those who have not. Obviously, there is a predictable relationship between satisfied clients and their economic effects.
3 Persistence: The reach of the new initiative in terms of renewal rate increase, and thus of stabilization of the insurance portfolio.
4 Productivity: Evaluation of the contribution that a certain InsurTech approach can have at the top-line insurance level in terms of new client acquisition, cross-selling or additional fee collection for services.
These considerations refer to a specific innovation initiative and are not absolute. On the contrary, they should be customized to each specific market, line of business, and client segment. In a similar manner, an insurance company has to make these considerations by taking into account both the contribution brought toward the achievement of strategic priorities and the coherence with its distribution approach.
I am convinced that evaluating InsurTech opportunities based on this pragmatic approach clarifies the rationale behind each innovation initiative. It facilitates the prioritization of initiatives and ultimately helps focus investors' and innovators' efforts.
• Profitability: From this perspective, the experience of the Italian insurance market in motor telematics (which is the most advanced market at an international level, with a 16% penetration for private use vehicles) shows how this approach is able to generate actual value for the insurance bottom line by acting on risk selection and the claims management process.
• Proximity: Nowadays, within the connected car line of business, there are dozens of different services based on data collected from black boxes—services which the insurance company offers to the final client. By focusing instead on health insurance business, the Chinese insurer Ping An has built an initiative based on connected health that recently raised a round a financing of $500 million, with an evaluation of $3 billion.
• Persistence: The experience of Discovery Holding in the field of protection has shown relevance when it comes to reducing the lapse rate by using the Vitality approach—which works by identifying and rewarding healthy behaviors.
• Productivity: The data recorded by sensors represents a great opportunity for getting to know customers and to send personalized offers at the best moment possible. This potential, which is yet to be explored, is precisely the driver that helped create the startup Neosurance, recently awarded the IoT Newcomer award at the Insurance IoT Europe Summit.
These insurance approaches suggest the use of sensors for data collection for different business lines. This data refers to the status of an insured risk, and to the telematics for remote transmission and informatics management, alongside the insurance value chain of the collected data. These approaches represent a great opportunity for connecting the insurance sector with its own clients and their risks.
Italy is today one of the most advanced ecosystems of connected insurance, encompassing 4,9 million auto insurance contracts, which include a box provided by the company, and almost 50,000 home insurance contracts, which are characterized by the use of sensors communicating with the company. In this context, the Connected Insurance Observatory was born: a think tank dedicated to spreading the culture of insurance innovation. I put together the Observatory at the beginning of 2016 with the support of the Italian National Association of Insurance Companies (ANIA). The Observatory has made it possible to unite 30 primary Italian and international insurance groups and some 15 other interested players to bring a contribution to the InsurTech story in the making.
Tags: #Technology, #distribution, #autonomous cars, #italy, #digital, #Connected Cars, #Autonomous Vehicles, #InsurTech, #Digitalization.


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HIGH BEAM
FOREIGN TRAVEL
VIBRANT COMMUNITIES
VAGABOND FICTION
Hacks at home & abroad
misLEADING ADVICE
Bulgaria's monthly quiz
Where in Bulgaria are you?
Joke of the month
Fun in Bulgaria
DREAMS, an excerpt
by Momchil Nikolov; translated from the Bulgarian by Ekaterina Petrova and Miglena Petrova
This current issue presents texts by the 2013 Sozopol Fiction Seminars fellows Momchil Nikolov and Natalie Bakopoulos
Momchil Nikolov was born on 16 September 1970. He graduated in medicine, but for the past 15 years has primarily devoted himself to writing. He has published eight books: Travelers, Short Stories, Fragments of a Room, Mad Doris, Hash Oil, The Top Floor, The Spherical Fish and Machinery for Love. All of Momchil Nikolov's books have gone through multiple reprints and enjoy wide popularity among readers and critics. He has won numerous literary awards, including the most prestigious prize in Bulgaria, the Helicon Prize, for The Spherical Fish. In addition to literature, he also writes screenplays.
The Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and Vagabond, Bulgaria's English Monthly, cooperate in order to enrich the English language with translations of contemporary Bulgarian writers. Every year we give you the chance to read the work of a dozen young and sometimes not-so-young Bulgarian writers that the EKF considers original, refreshing and valuable. Some of them have been translated in English for the first time. The EKF has decided to make the selection of authors' work and to ensure they get first-class English translation, and we at Vagabond are only too happy to get them published in a quality magazine.
Enjoy our fiction pages.
People still believe in the Devil and hope to see him in the whites of the convulsing epileptic's eyes. This time, though, something is not right. I don't know what, I just feel it. I get up. A plump man wearing glasses and a plaid jacket is helping me.
"Thanks," I say, "I'll be fine… It's just a regular seizure."
"No comprende," the man smiles.
A punk kid stands up and silently points at the plastic seat. His baby face is unusually kind.
I nod at him and slump into the free seat. All my muscles ache, the usual weakness and feeling of emptiness. An elegant lady is sitting on my right, dressed in a light brown suit.
"La bolsa, hombre," the man in the plaid suit says to me. He points at a large blue bag.
I shrug, unable to understand.
"La bolsa," the man repeats and picks up the bag.
Most of the passengers are looking at him. The rest are looking at me. The man comes over and sets the bag down in front of me.
"It's not mine," I reply, sliding it towards him with my foot.
"No, no," he protests, sliding it towards me with his foot. "Your bag."
A speech in Spanish follows, of which I understand nothing. One thing is clear, however – the man is absolutely convinced that the bag is mine. And I am absolutely convinced that it is not.
"The bag is yours, I am sure. You have drop it down," adds the woman in the light brown suit sitting next to me.
"I don't understand…I do not remember…nothing."
I have a terrible headache. I'm confused. I can't figure out why these people aren't speaking Bulgarian. What's going on?
"Proxima parrada Tarragona," a pleasant female voice comes over the loudspeakers of the car.
We pull into a station. People waiting, tiled walls, lots of billboards, graffiti. Everything is in Spanish. I feel my throat tighten. Where am I?
I briefly nurse the hope that I am dreaming, but everything looks too real to be a dream. The car soaked with the smell of a big exhausted city, the tunnel we're passing through, the people staring at me and the dark blue bag, hanging with its all-too-real weight in my right hand. The train stops at the next station, the third one after I have discovered that things are somehow happening in Spanish. I take a deep breath and get off. The punk kid with the baby face is in front of me. Across his broad back, an enormous x-ray picture of a hand is stamped on his grayish-black T-shirt. I follow the hand; a long stuffy corridor, the smell of trains, brakes and sweat, "No smoking" signs on the walls, cigarette butts on the floor, graffiti, the train pulling away, the people's faces in the cars, their last glances at me before they disappear into the tunnel: a young girl with big headphones and big eyes looks at me emptily, the gentleman in the plaid suit, the pretty lady in the brown suit. The train goes deeper into the tunnel, I keep on following the X-rayed hand. An escalator, smooth movement, the light is getting brighter, I feel warm air coming from above and several seconds later, I find myself in a large, crowded foyer. There are only a few steps left to the surface.
Upstairs the sun is shining. The air is warm and damp, though it is still early morning. I find myself in a smallish square. In its centre there is a colorful mosaic – a black circle full of spherical white, blue and yellow spots. It looks like a big, strange face, an alien artwork. I look around – six and seven-storey old buildings with well-kept façades and small iron balconies. On one of them, an old woman is smoking and reading her morning paper. Her cigarette holder is long, her newspaper is as big as a bed sheet. A few feet away from her – a metal Chinese dragon on the wall, holding a large lantern.
Nothing looks familiar. I have no idea where I am. I have no idea how I got here.
Every inch is filled with new information but I can't put any of it in order. I simply don't know where this place is, everything is piling up, snapshots of an unknown city. I pass by something that must be a bird market – dozens of different-sized birdcages – canaries, parrots, white doves, black doves, small colorful roosters, bird food, sharp screams, and a seller with a floor-length, brightly colored dress. In the middle of all that, Lord knows why, there stands an enormous mirror. I look in the mirror. To my horror, I don't recognise what I see.
The man I see has platinum blonde hair, a pierced nose and two silver earrings. On his shoulder there is a tattoo of a large Chinese dragon. It looks like Chinese dragons are a hot trend in this city because there is another giant dragon, this time orange, on the sleeveless light-blue shirt I'm wearing.
Someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around – a guy who looks to be around twenty, dressed in a bright green T-shirt. He slips a small piece of green paper into my hands.
"Come down to our place," he starts in English, "Clean rooms, air-conditioned, with a bathroom and TV, free wi-fi, and the staff speaks English. And also, if you stay longer, we'll give you a discount."
I look at the green piece of paper. It says Hostel Marenostrum, followed by the address – Sant Pau, 208001 Barcelona.
"It's not expensive," the guy continues. "It's 25 euros a night, less than 200 feet away, right next to the metro station, across from the National Theatre, the room overlooks the Plaza de la Boqueria and it has a terrace as well, which is really nice at night, when the street artists…"
I'm not listening to him. I drop the bag to the ground and slump down next to it. I grab my head with my hands and squeeze it as hard as I can… "Are you feeling sick?" I hear the guy's voice… "Are you feeling sick…?"
I may have screamed, I don't know.
When I come to, the guy is already gone. I keep sitting by the bag and staring at the entrance to the covered market, which is straight in front of me. The passers-by, obviously used to such sights, walk by me in silence. About ten minutes later, two Scandinavian-looking chicks come up to me and stop. They're carrying a cardboard box filled with cans of Red Bull. One of them waves her hand in front of my face.
"Bad trip, huh?" the girl smiles at me.
"Very bad," I assure her. "The worst I've ever had."
"It'll pass," she tries to sound reassuring. Then she takes a can of Red Bull out of the box. "Here, drink this and you'll feel better."
I take it.
"Thanks," I say. "You're an angel."
The girls laugh out loud.
"There's a little party at Los Alamos tonight. Wanna come?" the taller chick asks with a blinding smile.
"It'll be nice," the girl insists.
I open the can of Red Bull and almost down it in a single gulp.
"Where's Los Alamos?"
Several seconds of tense silence follow.
"Are you kidding me?"
"No, I've never been there…"
The girls look at each other. They exchange some words in Swedish, Norwegian, or whatever language it is they speak in their icy country. Then, they look back at me. The taller one starts talking again, her words coming out slowly, I guess she's trying to avoid any misunderstanding.
"I think I've seen you at Los Alamos before. The bartender introduced us, remember?"
The two girls look at me expectantly.
"Linda and Marta," the blonde continues patiently. "The sisters from Malmö."
"Aha," I say, barely able to cover up my complete ignorance on the topic. "From Malmö… I think I remember now… Malmö… and how's life in Malmö?"
The shorter of the two girls pulls her sister's arm – nothing's going to come out of this, this guy here is either pretending to be nuts or his brain is so badly fried that he really has gone nuts. The tall blonde, though, doesn't give up. She takes her small backpack off and opens it. She takes out a camera and after flipping through the display, she hands it to me.
"Look at this."
It's just a regular picture, nothing special about it – Linda, Marta, some unfamiliar girl with beautiful Slavic features, and me. The stranger has her arms wrapped around me and her lips pressed against my cheek, while for some reason I'm grabbing Linda's breasts. We're sitting on high bar stools at a dark wooden bar, while the strange girl is standing behind it. I notice the blurry rows of brightly colored bottles and the neon sign that reads "Los Alamos." We all look pretty happy in the picture.
Linda is staring at me quizzically. I'm doing the same.
"Okay," I say, finally. "I'll come… Though I really don't remember much…"
The two of them nod sympathetically. Then Marta hands me another Red Bull.
"You'll be fine."
Linda sticks her hand into her backpack again and gives me some kind of flyer.
"Here, in case you really don't remember where Los Alamos is…"
I take a look at the flyer. It's decorated with a clumsy crayon drawing of a woman, vaguely reminiscent of Da Vinci's Mona Lisa. The difference is that the woman on the flyer has fiery orange hair, her eyes have been poked out and she has a beard. At the bottom right of the drawing, it says "Los Alamos," to the left – "Every night" and above it – "Escudelleres, 12 Barcelona 08002."
"There'll be some of Pancho's absinthe again." Marta gives me a wink.
"Thanks," I say. "I'll be there."
The girls leave and I'm on my own again. I look down at the drawing on the flyer. It looks familiar. I slip it into my pocket and get up.
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Greek ambassador on …
ON COMMUNISM, ANTI-COMMUNISM AND WHAT COMES AFTER
One of Bulgaria's to…
IRENA JOTEVA: THE ART OF STAYING RELEVANT IN CHANGING TIMES
Irena Joteva, Managi…
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