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A view of the Chrysler Building and snow-covered trees during winter storm Nemo in midtown Manhattan.
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Camera: Sony a99 | Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
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I live for snowstorms in New York City. So you can just imagine how bummed I was last winter season when we barely got any snow. Growing up in New York City, I remember quite a few blizzards and its with fond nostalgia that I always wish for at least one great snowstorm during the winter. New York City is extra beautiful when covered in a blanket of freshly fallen snow.
When I heard that winter storm Nemo (also known as the Blizzard of 2013, February snowstorm and other terms) was going to deliver some gorgeous white flakes from the sky I was more than ready for it. The photos in this set are not edited the way I would normally edit them. I just basically imported them into Lightroom and adjusted some contrast in a few cases from the RAW files. I will most likely go through the photos here plus others that I am not posting and give them the Vivienne treatment at some point. I am just floored at how incredible it was to shoot the snow with the Sony a99. I did go out of my way to protect it despite it being weather-sealed since it isn't technically my camera and since my lenses also needed protection. I must have been quite a sight in my ski-mask, enormous scarf, giant winter boots and a camera covered in plastic. :) It seemed like I had an easier time shooting in this snowstorm than in the two blizzards that I took photos in back in 2010 and 2011. I think it's because the wind was far more manageable and because I was out before the blizzard hit with full force. While the snow was heavy, the winds were easy to deal with in some respects since the gusts were few and far between.
I decided to walk from where I live on the Lower East Side all the way to Times Square since I do this particular walk frequently and know all of the spots I have always wanted to capture in the snow. I had a blast! The wind did get stronger and stronger as I got closer to Times Square and by the time I made my way home it was full-on blizzard conditions so I think I went at the optimal time. I somehow managed to take photos in the East Village, around Union Square, Chelsea (in truth, I had really hoped that the Empire State Building would be visible but it was completely hidden by the snow and lack of visibility), 5th Avenue, Midtown, the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, Bryant Park (which was absolutely ethereal in the snow) and finally Times Square.
And so, the photos here are pretty much almost straight out of the camera save for a few tweaks to levels, no fancy tinkering (but I can't wait to do so!).
--
View more of my New York City photography at my website NY Through The Lens.
View my photography profile on Google Plus: New York City photography by Vivienne Gucwa
To purchase any of my work view my site gallery for info here.
To use any of my photos commercially, simply click the link which reads "Request to license Vivienne Gucwa's photos via Getty Images". This link can be found on the bottom right corner of the page of the photo you are interested in using.
Hackney Carnival is smaller than Notting Hill and, hence, more manageable.
Last year, 60,000 turned up: this year more people are expected.
And there are twenty-six carnival groups for 2019, with lots of sound systems too.
Hackney always has dazzling outfits, as you can see here!
BCUK 2012 will be on Saturday 6th October at the Mint Hotel, a very short walk from the train station.
WE VERY MUCH WANT TO SEE YOU THERE :)
* Feel free to share the image on your flickr stream or blog *
Please join the mailing list at our website www.bcuk2012.com to keep in touch with news as it happens! Soon you'll be able to join the forum there.
There will be a discount for attendees at the hotel, so you can stay at the venue - and they have 116 twin rooms, so plenty of opportunity to find a room-mate and make the cost more manageable. Details of this will follow here and on our website.
And soon we will be announcing the details of our VERY FABULOUS after-party!!
We know that there are a lot of festive-related expenses for us all in the next few weeks. So tickets will be on sale after Christmas, on FEBRUARY 1st. Please put it in your diary! There will be various packages to choose from (attendee, stall-holder, attending the after-party, etc.)
Don't forget to join the flickr group too: www.flickr.com/groups/bcuk2012/
The Beaux Arts architecture of the New York Public Library covered in snow during winter storm Nemo.
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Camera: Sony a99 | Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
---
I live for snowstorms in New York City. So you can just imagine how bummed I was last winter season when we barely got any snow. Growing up in New York City, I remember quite a few blizzards and its with fond nostalgia that I always wish for at least one great snowstorm during the winter. New York City is extra beautiful when covered in a blanket of freshly fallen snow.
When I heard that winter storm Nemo (also known as the Blizzard of 2013, February snowstorm and other terms) was going to deliver some gorgeous white flakes from the sky I was more than ready for it. The photos in this set are not edited the way I would normally edit them. I just basically imported them into Lightroom and adjusted some contrast in a few cases from the RAW files. I will most likely go through the photos here plus others that I am not posting and give them the Vivienne treatment at some point. I am just floored at how incredible it was to shoot the snow with the Sony a99. I did go out of my way to protect it despite it being weather-sealed since it isn't technically my camera and since my lenses also needed protection. I must have been quite a sight in my ski-mask, enormous scarf, giant winter boots and a camera covered in plastic. :) It seemed like I had an easier time shooting in this snowstorm than in the two blizzards that I took photos in back in 2010 and 2011. I think it's because the wind was far more manageable and because I was out before the blizzard hit with full force. While the snow was heavy, the winds were easy to deal with in some respects since the gusts were few and far between.
I decided to walk from where I live on the Lower East Side all the way to Times Square since I do this particular walk frequently and know all of the spots I have always wanted to capture in the snow. I had a blast! The wind did get stronger and stronger as I got closer to Times Square and by the time I made my way home it was full-on blizzard conditions so I think I went at the optimal time. I somehow managed to take photos in the East Village, around Union Square, Chelsea (in truth, I had really hoped that the Empire State Building would be visible but it was completely hidden by the snow and lack of visibility), 5th Avenue, Midtown, the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, Bryant Park (which was absolutely ethereal in the snow) and finally Times Square.
And so, the photos here are pretty much almost straight out of the camera save for a few tweaks to levels, no fancy tinkering (but I can't wait to do so!).
--
View more of my New York City photography at my website NY Through The Lens.
View my photography profile on Google Plus: New York City photography by Vivienne Gucwa
To purchase any of my work view my site gallery for info here.
To use any of my photos commercially, simply click the link which reads "Request to license Vivienne Gucwa's photos via Getty Images". This link can be found on the bottom right corner of the page of the photo you are interested in using.
RealitySoSubtle 6x12 with Ilford XP2 film
Exposure 9 seconds
This is my first time using this film for pinhole. The reciprocity was fairly manageable.
Design by Shuki Kato
Fold by Travis Nolan
1 square sheet of biotope paper, 70 cm to a side. Dry-folded, no cuts or glue.
This design is fantastic. This is my second time folding it, each fold took about sixteen hours. Twenty-four teeth, and the layers were still manageable. The detail is incredible. I have been looking forward to folding this model ever since I first saw Shuki's fold. Possibly my favorite design ever.
As if the original wasn't complicated enough, I opted for the optional steps to separate fingers on the arm. It was tricky but rewarding, I think.
The ONLY editing I did to the pictures was reducing them from the size I shoot in SL (4000×3500) down to a 1024 size manageable for the blog and Flickr. There’s been no cropping, no liquifying, no adjusting contrast or color balances or any of the other Photoshop tools I use on a regular basis.
slicesoflifesl.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/sooc-the-void-par...
++++++ Form Wikipedia +++++
Kalaw (Burmese: ကလောမြို့; Shan: ၵလေႃး [ka lɔ]) is a hill town in the Shan State of Myanmar. It is located in Kalaw Township in Taunggyi District.
Kalaw
ကလောမြို့
Kalaw 21.jpg
Kalaw is located in Myanmar
Kalaw
Location in Myanmar
Coordinates: 20°38′N 96°34′E
Country Myanmar
Division Shan State
Districts Taunggyi District
Township Kalaw Township
Population (2005)
• Religions Buddhism
Time zone MST (UTC+6.30)
OverviewEdit
The town was popular with the British during colonial rule. Kalaw is the main setting of the novel "The Art of Hearing Heartbeats" by Jan-Philipp Sendker.
The hill station is located at an elevation of 1320 metres, 50 km from the Inle lake. Kalaw is famous for hiking and trekking.[1]
Kalaw Train station sign altitude.
Myanmar (Burmese pronunciation: [mjəmà]),[nb 1][8] officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar and also known as Burma, is a sovereign state in Southeast Asia. Myanmar is bordered by India and Bangladesh to its west, Thailand and Laos to its east and China to its north and northeast. To its south, about one third of Myanmar's total perimeter of 5,876 km (3,651 mi) forms an uninterrupted coastline of 1,930 km (1,200 mi) along the Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. The country's 2014 census counted the population to be 51 million people.[9] As of 2017, the population is about 54 million.[10] Myanmar is 676,578 square kilometers (261,228 square miles) in size. Its capital city is Naypyidaw, and its largest city and former capital is Yangon (Rangoon).[1] Myanmar has been a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since 1997.
Early civilisations in Myanmar included the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states in Upper Burma and the Mon kingdoms in Lower Burma.[11] In the 9th century, the Bamar people entered the upper Irrawaddy valley and, following the establishment of the Pagan Kingdom in the 1050s, the Burmese language, culture and Theravada Buddhism slowly became dominant in the country. The Pagan Kingdom fell due to the Mongol invasions and several warring states emerged. In the 16th century, reunified by the Taungoo Dynasty, the country was for a brief period the largest empire in the history of Mainland Southeast Asia.[12] The early 19th century Konbaung Dynasty ruled over an area that included modern Myanmar and briefly controlled Manipur and Assam as well. The British took over the administration of Myanmar after three Anglo-Burmese Wars in the 19th century and the country became a British colony. Myanmar was granted independence in 1948, as a democratic nation. Following a coup d'état in 1962, it became a military dictatorship.
For most of its independent years, the country has been engrossed in rampant ethnic strife and its myriad ethnic groups have been involved in one of the world's longest-running ongoing civil wars. During this time, the United Nations and several other organisations have reported consistent and systematic human rights violations in the country.[13] In 2011, the military junta was officially dissolved following a 2010 general election, and a nominally civilian government was installed. This, along with the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and political prisoners, has improved the country's human rights record and foreign relations, and has led to the easing of trade and other economic sanctions.[14] There is, however, continuing criticism of the government's treatment of ethnic minorities, its response to the ethnic insurgency, and religious clashes.[15] In the landmark 2015 election, Aung San Suu Kyi's party won a majority in both houses. However, the Burmese military remains a powerful force in politics.
Myanmar is a country rich in jade and gems, oil, natural gas and other mineral resources. In 2013, its GDP (nominal) stood at US$56.7 billion and its GDP (PPP) at US$221.5 billion.[6] The income gap in Myanmar is among the widest in the world, as a large proportion of the economy is controlled by supporters of the former military government.[16] As of 2016, Myanmar ranks 145 out of 188 countries in human development, according to the Human Development Index.[7]
Etymology
Main article: Names of Myanmar
In 1989, the military government officially changed the English translations of many names dating back to Burma's colonial period or earlier, including that of the country itself: "Burma" became "Myanmar". The renaming remains a contested issue.[17] Many political and ethnic opposition groups and countries continue to use "Burma" because they do not recognise the legitimacy of the ruling military government or its authority to rename the country.[18]
In April 2016, soon after taking office, Aung San Suu Kyi clarified that foreigners are free to use either name, "because there is nothing in the constitution of our country that says that you must use any term in particular".[19]
The country's official full name is the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar" (ပြည်ထောင်စုသမ္မတ မြန်မာနိုင်ငံတော်, Pyidaunzu Thanmăda Myăma Nainngandaw, pronounced [pjìdàʊɴzṵ θàɴməda̰ mjəmà nàɪɴŋàɴdɔ̀]). Countries that do not officially recognise that name use the long form "Union of Burma" instead.[20]
In English, the country is popularly known as either "Burma" or "Myanmar" /ˈmjɑːnˌmɑːr/ (About this sound listen).[8] Both these names are derived from the name of the majority Burmese Bamar ethnic group. Myanmar is considered to be the literary form of the name of the group, while Burma is derived from "Bamar", the colloquial form of the group's name.[17] Depending on the register used, the pronunciation would be Bama (pronounced [bəmà]) or Myamah (pronounced [mjəmà]).[17] The name Burma has been in use in English since the 18th century.
Burma continues to be used in English by the governments of many countries, such as Canada and the United Kingdom.[21][22] Official United States policy retains Burma as the country's name, although the State Department's website lists the country as "Burma (Myanmar)" and Barack Obama has referred to the country by both names.[23] The Czech Republic officially uses Myanmar, although its Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentions both Myanmar and Burma on its website.[24] The United Nations uses Myanmar, as do the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, Australia,[25] Russia, Germany,[26] China, India, Bangladesh, Norway,[27] Japan[21] and Switzerland.[28]
Most English-speaking international news media refer to the country by the name Myanmar, including the BBC,[29] CNN,[30] Al Jazeera,[31] Reuters,[32] RT (Russia Today) and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC)/Radio Australia.[33]
Myanmar is known with a name deriving from Burma as opposed to Myanmar in Spanish, Italian, Romanian, and Greek – Birmania being the local version of Burma in the Spanish language, for example. Myanmar used to be known as "Birmânia" in Portuguese, and as "Birmanie" in French.[34] As in the past, French-language media today consistently use Birmanie.,[35][36]
History
Main article: History of Myanmar
Prehistory
Main articles: Prehistory of Myanmar and Migration period of ancient Burma
Pyu city-states c. 8th century; Pagan is shown for comparison only and is not contemporary.
Archaeological evidence shows that Homo erectus lived in the region now known as Myanmar as early as 750,000 years ago, with no more erectus finds after 75,000 years ago.[37] The first evidence of Homo sapiens is dated to about 11,000 BC, in a Stone Age culture called the Anyathian with discoveries of stone tools in central Myanmar. Evidence of neolithic age domestication of plants and animals and the use of polished stone tools dating to sometime between 10,000 and 6,000 BC has been discovered in the form of cave paintings in Padah-Lin Caves.[38]
The Bronze Age arrived circa 1500 BC when people in the region were turning copper into bronze, growing rice and domesticating poultry and pigs; they were among the first people in the world to do so.[39] Human remains and artefacts from this era were discovered in Monywa District in the Sagaing Division.[40] The Iron Age began around 500 BC with the emergence of iron-working settlements in an area south of present-day Mandalay.[41] Evidence also shows the presence of rice-growing settlements of large villages and small towns that traded with their surroundings as far as China between 500 BC and 200 AD.[42] Iron Age Burmese cultures also had influences from outside sources such as India and Thailand, as seen in their funerary practices concerning child burials. This indicates some form of communication between groups in Myanmar and other places, possibly through trade.[43]
Early city-states
Main articles: Pyu city-states and Mon kingdoms
Around the second century BC the first-known city-states emerged in central Myanmar. The city-states were founded as part of the southward migration by the Tibeto-Burman-speaking Pyu city-states, the earliest inhabitants of Myanmar of whom records are extant, from present-day Yunnan.[44] The Pyu culture was heavily influenced by trade with India, importing Buddhism as well as other cultural, architectural and political concepts, which would have an enduring influence on later Burmese culture and political organisation.[45]
By the 9th century, several city-states had sprouted across the land: the Pyu in the central dry zone, Mon along the southern coastline and Arakanese along the western littoral. The balance was upset when the Pyu came under repeated attacks from Nanzhao between the 750s and the 830s. In the mid-to-late 9th century the Bamar people founded a small settlement at Bagan. It was one of several competing city-states until the late 10th century when it grew in authority and grandeur.[46]
Imperial Burma
Main articles: Pagan Kingdom, Taungoo Dynasty, and Konbaung Dynasty
See also: Ava Kingdom, Hanthawaddy Kingdom, Kingdom of Mrauk U, and Shan States
Pagodas and kyaungs in present-day Bagan, the capital of the Pagan Kingdom.
Pagan gradually grew to absorb its surrounding states until the 1050s–1060s when Anawrahta founded the Pagan Kingdom, the first ever unification of the Irrawaddy valley and its periphery. In the 12th and 13th centuries, the Pagan Empire and the Khmer Empire were two main powers in mainland Southeast Asia.[47] The Burmese language and culture gradually became dominant in the upper Irrawaddy valley, eclipsing the Pyu, Mon and Pali norms by the late 12th century.[48]
Theravada Buddhism slowly began to spread to the village level, although Tantric, Mahayana, Hinduism, and folk religion remained heavily entrenched. Pagan's rulers and wealthy built over 10,000 Buddhist temples in the Pagan capital zone alone. Repeated Mongol invasions (1277–1301) toppled the four-century-old kingdom in 1287.[48]
Temples at Mrauk U.
Pagan's collapse was followed by 250 years of political fragmentation that lasted well into the 16th century. Like the Burmans four centuries earlier, Shan migrants who arrived with the Mongol invasions stayed behind. Several competing Shan States came to dominate the entire northwestern to eastern arc surrounding the Irrawaddy valley. The valley too was beset with petty states until the late 14th century when two sizeable powers, Ava Kingdom and Hanthawaddy Kingdom, emerged. In the west, a politically fragmented Arakan was under competing influences of its stronger neighbours until the Kingdom of Mrauk U unified the Arakan coastline for the first time in 1437.
Early on, Ava fought wars of unification (1385–1424) but could never quite reassemble the lost empire. Having held off Ava, Hanthawaddy entered its golden age, and Arakan went on to become a power in its own right for the next 350 years. In contrast, constant warfare left Ava greatly weakened, and it slowly disintegrated from 1481 onward. In 1527, the Confederation of Shan States conquered Ava itself, and ruled Upper Myanmar until 1555.
Like the Pagan Empire, Ava, Hanthawaddy and the Shan states were all multi-ethnic polities. Despite the wars, cultural synchronisation continued. This period is considered a golden age for Burmese culture. Burmese literature "grew more confident, popular, and stylistically diverse", and the second generation of Burmese law codes as well as the earliest pan-Burma chronicles emerged.[49] Hanthawaddy monarchs introduced religious reforms that later spread to the rest of the country.[50] Many splendid temples of Mrauk U were built during this period.
Taungoo and colonialism
Bayinnaung's Empire in 1580.
Political unification returned in the mid-16th century, due to the efforts of Taungoo, a former vassal state of Ava. Taungoo's young, ambitious king Tabinshwehti defeated the more powerful Hanthawaddy in the Toungoo–Hanthawaddy War (1534–41). His successor Bayinnaung went on to conquer a vast swath of mainland Southeast Asia including the Shan states, Lan Na, Manipur, Mong Mao, the Ayutthaya Kingdom, Lan Xang and southern Arakan. However, the largest empire in the history of Southeast Asia unravelled soon after Bayinnaung's death in 1581, completely collapsing by 1599. Ayutthaya seized Tenasserim and Lan Na, and Portuguese mercenaries established Portuguese rule at Thanlyin (Syriam).
The dynasty regrouped and defeated the Portuguese in 1613 and Siam in 1614. It restored a smaller, more manageable kingdom, encompassing Lower Myanmar, Upper Myanmar, Shan states, Lan Na and upper Tenasserim. The Restored Toungoo kings created a legal and political framework whose basic features would continue well into the 19th century. The crown completely replaced the hereditary chieftainships with appointed governorships in the entire Irrawaddy valley, and greatly reduced the hereditary rights of Shan chiefs. Its trade and secular administrative reforms built a prosperous economy for more than 80 years. From the 1720s onward, the kingdom was beset with repeated Meithei raids into Upper Myanmar and a nagging rebellion in Lan Na. In 1740, the Mon of Lower Myanmar founded the Restored Hanthawaddy Kingdom. Hanthawaddy forces sacked Ava in 1752, ending the 266-year-old Toungoo Dynasty.
A British 1825 lithograph of Shwedagon Pagoda shows British occupation during the First Anglo-Burmese War.
After the fall of Ava, the Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War involved one resistance group under Alaungpaya defeating the Restored Hanthawaddy, and by 1759, he had reunited all of Myanmar and Manipur, and driven out the French and the British, who had provided arms to Hanthawaddy. By 1770, Alaungpaya's heirs had subdued much of Laos (1765) and fought and won the Burmese–Siamese War (1765–67) against Ayutthaya and the Sino-Burmese War (1765–69) against Qing China (1765–1769).[51]
With Burma preoccupied by the Chinese threat, Ayutthaya recovered its territories by 1770, and went on to capture Lan Na by 1776. Burma and Siam went to war until 1855, but all resulted in a stalemate, exchanging Tenasserim (to Burma) and Lan Na (to Ayutthaya). Faced with a powerful China and a resurgent Ayutthaya in the east, King Bodawpaya turned west, acquiring Arakan (1785), Manipur (1814) and Assam (1817). It was the second-largest empire in Burmese history but also one with a long ill-defined border with British India.[52]
The breadth of this empire was short lived. Burma lost Arakan, Manipur, Assam and Tenasserim to the British in the First Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826). In 1852, the British easily seized Lower Burma in the Second Anglo-Burmese War. King Mindon Min tried to modernise the kingdom, and in 1875 narrowly avoided annexation by ceding the Karenni States. The British, alarmed by the consolidation of French Indochina, annexed the remainder of the country in the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 1885.
Konbaung kings extended Restored Toungoo's administrative reforms, and achieved unprecedented levels of internal control and external expansion. For the first time in history, the Burmese language and culture came to predominate the entire Irrawaddy valley. The evolution and growth of Burmese literature and theatre continued, aided by an extremely high adult male literacy rate for the era (half of all males and 5% of females).[53] Nonetheless, the extent and pace of reforms were uneven and ultimately proved insufficient to stem the advance of British colonialism.
British Burma (1824–1948)
Main articles: British rule in Burma and Burma Campaign
Burma in British India
The landing of British forces in Mandalay after the last of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, which resulted in the abdication of the last Burmese monarch, King Thibaw Min.
British troops firing a mortar on the Mawchi road, July 1944.
The eighteenth century saw Burmese rulers, whose country had not previously been of particular interest to European traders, seek to maintain their traditional influence in the western areas of Assam, Manipur and Arakan. Pressing them, however, was the British East India Company, which was expanding its interests eastwards over the same territory. Over the next sixty years, diplomacy, raids, treaties and compromises continued until, after three Anglo-Burmese Wars (1824–1885), Britain proclaimed control over most of Burma.[54] British rule brought social, economic, cultural and administrative changes.
With the fall of Mandalay, all of Burma came under British rule, being annexed on 1 January 1886. Throughout the colonial era, many Indians arrived as soldiers, civil servants, construction workers and traders and, along with the Anglo-Burmese community, dominated commercial and civil life in Burma. Rangoon became the capital of British Burma and an important port between Calcutta and Singapore.
Burmese resentment was strong and was vented in violent riots that paralysed Yangon (Rangoon) on occasion all the way until the 1930s.[55] Some of the discontent was caused by a disrespect for Burmese culture and traditions such as the British refusal to remove shoes when they entered pagodas. Buddhist monks became the vanguards of the independence movement. U Wisara, an activist monk, died in prison after a 166-day hunger strike to protest against a rule that forbade him to wear his Buddhist robes while imprisoned.[56]
Separation of British Burma from British India
On 1 April 1937, Burma became a separately administered colony of Great Britain and Ba Maw the first Prime Minister and Premier of Burma. Ba Maw was an outspoken advocate for Burmese self-rule and he opposed the participation of Great Britain, and by extension Burma, in World War II. He resigned from the Legislative Assembly and was arrested for sedition. In 1940, before Japan formally entered the Second World War, Aung San formed the Burma Independence Army in Japan.
A major battleground, Burma was devastated during World War II. By March 1942, within months after they entered the war, Japanese troops had advanced on Rangoon and the British administration had collapsed. A Burmese Executive Administration headed by Ba Maw was established by the Japanese in August 1942. Wingate's British Chindits were formed into long-range penetration groups trained to operate deep behind Japanese lines.[57] A similar American unit, Merrill's Marauders, followed the Chindits into the Burmese jungle in 1943.[58] Beginning in late 1944, allied troops launched a series of offensives that led to the end of Japanese rule in July 1945. The battles were intense with much of Burma laid waste by the fighting. Overall, the Japanese lost some 150,000 men in Burma. Only 1,700 prisoners were taken.[59]
Although many Burmese fought initially for the Japanese as part of the Burma Independence Army, many Burmese, mostly from the ethnic minorities, served in the British Burma Army.[60] The Burma National Army and the Arakan National Army fought with the Japanese from 1942 to 1944 but switched allegiance to the Allied side in 1945. Under Japanese occupation, 170,000 to 250,000 civilians died.[61]
Following World War II, Aung San negotiated the Panglong Agreement with ethnic leaders that guaranteed the independence of Myanmar as a unified state. Aung Zan Wai, Pe Khin, Bo Hmu Aung, Sir Maung Gyi, Dr. Sein Mya Maung, Myoma U Than Kywe were among the negotiators of the historical Panglong Conference negotiated with Bamar leader General Aung San and other ethnic leaders in 1947. In 1947, Aung San became Deputy Chairman of the Executive Council of Myanmar, a transitional government. But in July 1947, political rivals[62] assassinated Aung San and several cabinet members.[63]
Independence (1948–1962)
Main article: Post-independence Burma, 1948–62
British governor Hubert Elvin Rance and Sao Shwe Thaik at the flag raising ceremony on 4 January 1948 (Independence Day of Burma).
On 4 January 1948, the nation became an independent republic, named the Union of Burma, with Sao Shwe Thaik as its first President and U Nu as its first Prime Minister. Unlike most other former British colonies and overseas territories, Burma did not become a member of the Commonwealth. A bicameral parliament was formed, consisting of a Chamber of Deputies and a Chamber of Nationalities,[64] and multi-party elections were held in 1951–1952, 1956 and 1960.
The geographical area Burma encompasses today can be traced to the Panglong Agreement, which combined Burma Proper, which consisted of Lower Burma and Upper Burma, and the Frontier Areas, which had been administered separately by the British.[65]
In 1961, U Thant, then the Union of Burma's Permanent Representative to the United Nations and former Secretary to the Prime Minister, was elected Secretary-General of the United Nations, a position he held for ten years.[66] Among the Burmese to work at the UN when he was Secretary-General was a young Aung San Suu Kyi (daughter of Aung San), who went on to become winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.
When the non-Burman ethnic groups pushed for autonomy or federalism, alongside having a weak civilian government at the centre, the military leadership staged a coup d’état in 1962. Though incorporated in the 1947 Constitution, successive military governments construed the use of the term ‘federalism’ as being anti-national, anti-unity and pro-disintegration.[67]
Military rule (1962–2011)
On 2 March 1962, the military led by General Ne Win took control of Burma through a coup d'état, and the government has been under direct or indirect control by the military since then. Between 1962 and 1974, Myanmar was ruled by a revolutionary council headed by the general. Almost all aspects of society (business, media, production) were nationalised or brought under government control under the Burmese Way to Socialism,[68] which combined Soviet-style nationalisation and central planning.
A new constitution of the Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma was adopted in 1974. Until 1988, the country was ruled as a one-party system, with the General and other military officers resigning and ruling through the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP).[69] During this period, Myanmar became one of the world's most impoverished countries.[70]
Protesters gathering in central Rangoon, 1988.
There were sporadic protests against military rule during the Ne Win years and these were almost always violently suppressed. On 7 July 1962, the government broke up demonstrations at Rangoon University, killing 15 students.[68] In 1974, the military violently suppressed anti-government protests at the funeral of U Thant. Student protests in 1975, 1976, and 1977 were quickly suppressed by overwhelming force.[69]
In 1988, unrest over economic mismanagement and political oppression by the government led to widespread pro-democracy demonstrations throughout the country known as the 8888 Uprising. Security forces killed thousands of demonstrators, and General Saw Maung staged a coup d'état and formed the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC). In 1989, SLORC declared martial law after widespread protests. The military government finalised plans for People's Assembly elections on 31 May 1989.[71] SLORC changed the country's official English name from the "Socialist Republic of the Union of Burma" to the "Union of Myanmar" in 1989.
In May 1990, the government held free elections for the first time in almost 30 years and the National League for Democracy (NLD), the party of Aung San Suu Kyi, won 392 out of a total 492 seats (i.e., 80% of the seats). However, the military junta refused to cede power[72] and continued to rule the nation as SLORC until 1997, and then as the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) until its dissolution in March 2011.
Protesters in Yangon during the 2007 Saffron Revolution with a banner that reads non-violence: national movement in Burmese. In the background is Shwedagon Pagoda.
On 23 June 1997, Myanmar was admitted into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). On 27 March 2006, the military junta, which had moved the national capital from Yangon to a site near Pyinmana in November 2005, officially named the new capital Naypyidaw, meaning "city of the kings".[73]
Cyclone Nargis in southern Myanmar, May 2008.
In August 2007, an increase in the price of diesel and petrol led to the Saffron Revolution led by Buddhist monks that were dealt with harshly by the government.[74] The government cracked down on them on 26 September 2007. The crackdown was harsh, with reports of barricades at the Shwedagon Pagoda and monks killed. There were also rumours of disagreement within the Burmese armed forces, but none was confirmed. The military crackdown against unarmed protesters was widely condemned as part of the international reactions to the Saffron Revolution and led to an increase in economic sanctions against the Burmese Government.
In May 2008, Cyclone Nargis caused extensive damage in the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division.[75] It was the worst natural disaster in Burmese history with reports of an estimated 200,000 people dead or missing, damage totalled to 10 billion US dollars, and as many as 1 million left homeless.[76] In the critical days following this disaster, Myanmar's isolationist government was accused of hindering United Nations recovery efforts.[77] Humanitarian aid was requested but concerns about foreign military or intelligence presence in the country delayed the entry of United States military planes delivering medicine, food, and other supplies.[78]
In early August 2009, a conflict known as the Kokang incident broke out in Shan State in northern Myanmar. For several weeks, junta troops fought against ethnic minorities including the Han Chinese,[79] Wa, and Kachin.[80][81] During 8–12 August, the first days of the conflict, as many as 10,000 Burmese civilians fled to Yunnan province in neighbouring China.[80][81][82]
Civil wars
Main articles: Internal conflict in Myanmar, Kachin Conflict, Karen conflict, and 2015 Kokang offensive
Civil wars have been a constant feature of Myanmar's socio-political landscape since the attainment of independence in 1948. These wars are predominantly struggles for ethnic and sub-national autonomy, with the areas surrounding the ethnically Bamar central districts of the country serving as the primary geographical setting of conflict. Foreign journalists and visitors require a special travel permit to visit the areas in which Myanmar's civil wars continue.[83]
In October 2012, the ongoing conflicts in Myanmar included the Kachin conflict,[84] between the Pro-Christian Kachin Independence Army and the government;[85] a civil war between the Rohingya Muslims, and the government and non-government groups in Rakhine State;[86] and a conflict between the Shan,[87] Lahu, and Karen[88][89] minority groups, and the government in the eastern half of the country. In addition, al-Qaeda signalled an intention to become involved in Myanmar. In a video released on 3 September 2014, mainly addressed to India, the militant group's leader Ayman al-Zawahiri said al-Qaeda had not forgotten the Muslims of Myanmar and that the group was doing "what they can to rescue you".[90] In response, the military raised its level of alertness, while the Burmese Muslim Association issued a statement saying Muslims would not tolerate any threat to their motherland.[91]
Armed conflict between ethnic Chinese rebels and the Myanmar Armed Forces have resulted in the Kokang offensive in February 2015. The conflict had forced 40,000 to 50,000 civilians to flee their homes and seek shelter on the Chinese side of the border.[92] During the incident, the government of China was accused of giving military assistance to the ethnic Chinese rebels. Burmese officials have been historically "manipulated" and pressured by the Chinese government throughout Burmese modern history to create closer and binding ties with China, creating a Chinese satellite state in Southeast Asia.[93] However, uncertainties exist as clashes between Burmese troops and local insurgent groups continue.
Democratic reforms
Main article: 2011–12 Burmese political reforms
The goal of the Burmese constitutional referendum of 2008, held on 10 May 2008, is the creation of a "discipline-flourishing democracy". As part of the referendum process, the name of the country was changed from the "Union of Myanmar" to the "Republic of the Union of Myanmar", and general elections were held under the new constitution in 2010. Observer accounts of the 2010 election describe the event as mostly peaceful; however, allegations of polling station irregularities were raised, and the United Nations (UN) and a number of Western countries condemned the elections as fraudulent.[94]
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with Aung San Suu Kyi and her staff at her home in Yangon, 2012
The military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party declared victory in the 2010 elections, stating that it had been favoured by 80 percent of the votes; however, the claim was disputed by numerous pro-democracy opposition groups who asserted that the military regime had engaged in rampant fraud.[95][96] One report documented 77 percent as the official turnout rate of the election.[95] The military junta was dissolved on 30 March 2011.
Opinions differ whether the transition to liberal democracy is underway. According to some reports, the military's presence continues as the label "disciplined democracy" suggests. This label asserts that the Burmese military is allowing certain civil liberties while clandestinely institutionalising itself further into Burmese politics. Such an assertion assumes that reforms only occurred when the military was able to safeguard its own interests through the transition—here, "transition" does not refer to a transition to a liberal democracy, but transition to a quasi-military rule.[97]
Since the 2010 election, the government has embarked on a series of reforms to direct the country towards liberal democracy, a mixed economy, and reconciliation, although doubts persist about the motives that underpin such reforms. The series of reforms includes the release of pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest, the establishment of the National Human Rights Commission, the granting of general amnesties for more than 200 political prisoners, new labour laws that permit labour unions and strikes, a relaxation of press censorship, and the regulation of currency practices.[98]
The impact of the post-election reforms has been observed in numerous areas, including ASEAN's approval of Myanmar's bid for the position of ASEAN chair in 2014;[99] the visit by United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in December 2011 for the encouragement of further progress, which was the first visit by a Secretary of State in more than fifty years,[100] during which Clinton met with the Burmese president and former military commander Thein Sein, as well as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi;[101] and the participation of Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy (NLD) party in the 2012 by-elections, facilitated by the government's abolition of the laws that previously barred the NLD.[102] As of July 2013, about 100[103][104] political prisoners remain imprisoned, while conflict between the Burmese Army and local insurgent groups continues.
Map of Myanmar and its divisions, including Shan State, Kachin State, Rakhine State and Karen State.
In 1 April 2012 by-elections, the NLD won 43 of the 45 available seats; previously an illegal organisation, the NLD had not won a single seat under new constitution. The 2012 by-elections were also the first time that international representatives were allowed to monitor the voting process in Myanmar.[105]
2015 general elections
Main article: Myanmar general election, 2015
General elections were held on 8 November 2015. These were the first openly contested elections held in Myanmar since 1990. The results gave the National League for Democracy an absolute majority of seats in both chambers of the national parliament, enough to ensure that its candidate would become president, while NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi is constitutionally barred from the presidency.[106]
The new parliament convened on 1 February 2016[107] and, on 15 March 2016, Htin Kyaw was elected as the first non-military president since the military coup of 1962.[108] On 6 April 2016, Aung San Suu Kyi assumed the newly created role of State Counsellor, a role akin to a Prime Minister.
Geography
Main article: Geography of Myanmar
A map of Myanmar
Myanmar map of Köppen climate classification.
Myanmar has a total area of 678,500 square kilometres (262,000 sq mi). It lies between latitudes 9° and 29°N, and longitudes 92° and 102°E. As of February 2011, Myanmar consisted of 14 states and regions, 67 districts, 330 townships, 64 sub-townships, 377 towns, 2,914 Wards, 14,220 village tracts and 68,290 villages.
Myanmar is bordered in the northwest by the Chittagong Division of Bangladesh and the Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh states of India. Its north and northeast border is with the Tibet Autonomous Region and Yunnan province for a Sino-Myanmar border total of 2,185 km (1,358 mi). It is bounded by Laos and Thailand to the southeast. Myanmar has 1,930 km (1,200 mi) of contiguous coastline along the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea to the southwest and the south, which forms one quarter of its total perimeter.[20]
In the north, the Hengduan Mountains form the border with China. Hkakabo Razi, located in Kachin State, at an elevation of 5,881 metres (19,295 ft), is the highest point in Myanmar.[109] Many mountain ranges, such as the Rakhine Yoma, the Bago Yoma, the Shan Hills and the Tenasserim Hills exist within Myanmar, all of which run north-to-south from the Himalayas.[110]
The mountain chains divide Myanmar's three river systems, which are the Irrawaddy, Salween (Thanlwin), and the Sittaung rivers.[111] The Irrawaddy River, Myanmar's longest river, nearly 2,170 kilometres (1,348 mi) long, flows into the Gulf of Martaban. Fertile plains exist in the valleys between the mountain chains.[110] The majority of Myanmar's population lives in the Irrawaddy valley, which is situated between the Rakhine Yoma and the Shan Plateau.
Administrative divisions
Main article: Administrative divisions of Myanmar
A clickable map of Burma/Myanmar exhibiting its first-level administrative divisions.
About this image
Myanmar is divided into seven states (ပြည်နယ်) and seven regions (တိုင်းဒေသကြီး), formerly called divisions.[112] Regions are predominantly Bamar (that is, mainly inhabited by the dominant ethnic group). States, in essence, are regions that are home to particular ethnic minorities. The administrative divisions are further subdivided into districts, which are further subdivided into townships, wards, and villages.
Climate
Main article: Climate of Myanmar
The limestone landscape of Mon State.
Much of the country lies between the Tropic of Cancer and the Equator. It lies in the monsoon region of Asia, with its coastal regions receiving over 5,000 mm (196.9 in) of rain annually. Annual rainfall in the delta region is approximately 2,500 mm (98.4 in), while average annual rainfall in the Dry Zone in central Myanmar is less than 1,000 mm (39.4 in). The Northern regions of Myanmar are the coolest, with average temperatures of 21 °C (70 °F). Coastal and delta regions have an average maximum temperature of 32 °C (89.6 °F).[111]
Environment
Further information: Deforestation in Myanmar
Myanmar continues to perform badly in the global Environmental Performance Index (EPI) with an overall ranking of 153 out of 180 countries in 2016; among the worst in the South Asian region, only ahead of Bangladesh and Afghanistan. The EPI was established in 2001 by the World Economic Forum as a global gauge to measure how well individual countries perform in implementing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The environmental areas where Myanmar performs worst (ie. highest ranking) are air quality (174), health impacts of environmental issues (143) and biodiversity and habitat (142). Myanmar performs best (ie. lowest ranking) in environmental impacts of fisheries (21), but with declining fish stocks. Despite several issues, Myanmar also ranks 64 and scores very good (ie. a high percentage of 93.73%) in environmental effects of the agricultural industry because of an excellent management of the nitrogen cycle.[114][115]
Wildlife
Myanmar's slow economic growth has contributed to the preservation of much of its environment and ecosystems. Forests, including dense tropical growth and valuable teak in lower Myanmar, cover over 49% of the country, including areas of acacia, bamboo, ironwood and Magnolia champaca. Coconut and betel palm and rubber have been introduced. In the highlands of the north, oak, pine and various rhododendrons cover much of the land.[116]
Heavy logging since the new 1995 forestry law went into effect has seriously reduced forest acreage and wildlife habitat.[117] The lands along the coast support all varieties of tropical fruits and once had large areas of mangroves although much of the protective mangroves have disappeared. In much of central Myanmar (the Dry Zone), vegetation is sparse and stunted.
Typical jungle animals, particularly tigers, occur sparsely in Myanmar. In upper Myanmar, there are rhinoceros, wild water buffalo, clouded leopard, wild boars, deer, antelope, and elephants, which are also tamed or bred in captivity for use as work animals, particularly in the lumber industry. Smaller mammals are also numerous, ranging from gibbons and monkeys to flying foxes. The abundance of birds is notable with over 800 species, including parrots, myna, peafowl, red junglefowl, weaverbirds, crows, herons, and barn owl. Among reptile species there are crocodiles, geckos, cobras, Burmese pythons, and turtles. Hundreds of species of freshwater fish are wide-ranging, plentiful and are very important food sources.[118] For a list of protected areas, see List of protected areas of Myanmar.
Government and politics
Main article: Politics of Myanmar
Assembly of the Union (Pyidaungsu Hluttaw)
The constitution of Myanmar, its third since independence, was drafted by its military rulers and published in September 2008. The country is governed as a parliamentary system with a bicameral legislature (with an executive President accountable to the legislature), with 25% of the legislators appointed by the military and the rest elected in general elections.
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Has the omicron wave peaked in the U.S.?
Covid-19 cases are finally falling in the United States, welcome news after nearly two months of skyrocketing case counts driven by the highly infectious omicron variant.
“Nationally, the case numbers are coming down, which I consider an optimistic trend,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a White House Covid briefing Friday.
But the falling numbers don’t mean Americans are out of the woods.
That’s because, as cases fall, a huge number of people will still be infected: As many people who got sick as cases soared to their peak will get infected on the downward slope, said Dr. Jonathan Li, an infectious disease physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
“It’s a great sign that the slope is going down but case rates remain very high,” he said.
Friday, the seven-day average of cases in the U.S. was 743,913 cases, down 7 percent from the week before, according to NBC News data. Deaths, however, rose slightly, from an average of 1,979 on Jan. 14 to 2,131 on Friday.
According to Katriona Shea, a professor of biology at Pennsylvania State University and a member of the coordination team for the Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub, a group of institutions that pool multiple models to create pandemic projections, cases and hospitalizations are expected to peak before the end of January in most states.
Cases are already falling in parts of the Northeast, Walensky said. “We are starting to see steep declines in areas that were first peaking, so areas of the Northeast — New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut — are really starting to come down.”
Shea said that cases in the rest of the country and deaths, which lag behind cases, are expected to trail shortly after.
The big dropoff in cases in large states like New York can make the nationwide average look lower, even though cases are still rising in many states, but she expects all states to hit their peaks soon after Northeastern states.
Even so, people should not see this as a time to ease up on precautions, she said.
“People think that if the peak is at the end of January, then we’re done. But a lot of damage can be done on the other side of that peak,” Shea said.
The omicron variant now accounts for nearly 100 percent of new Covid cases in the nation, CDC data show. Although early evidence suggests this strain of the virus is less likely to cause severe disease than its predecessors, many more people are being infected than ever before, so the number of people dying will still be significant, she said.
People also shouldn’t expect a smooth decline.
“It wouldn’t be surprising if we saw a few more bumps in the road, temporary bounce backs that don’t get back at the level of the peaks we’re seeing now, but are still brief periods of increase on this general trend of a decline,” said Justin Lessler, a professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Public Health in Chapel Hill.
These brief spikes will likely be driven by lags in reporting and behavior changes, such as traveling more over holiday weekends, he said.
According to Li, although much of the decline is driven by immunity and fewer hosts for the variant to infect, behavior changes also play a vital role. If these behavior changes such as wearing masks ease up, it could blunt the speed of the decline, he said.
The latest Covid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub predictions, published Thursday, projected that by April, cases could drop to the lows seen in June 2021, before the delta wave hit.
What the models cannot predict, however, is how the virus may evolve.
“All it takes is one new variant,” Shea said. “There was no indication of omicron and there were other variants that did not take off. Omicron made a huge change and it’s definitely possible it could happen again.”
www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/covid-hospitalizations-plateau-...
COVID hospitalizations plateau in some parts of the US, while a crisis remains in others
COVID-19 cases have sharply risen again across the US and around the world, with the new Omicron variant accounting for most new cases. The winter surge has prompted many experts and officials to reemphasize the importance of masking indoors and social distancing, in addition to getting vaccinated, including booster shots.
Below, we’re gathering all the latest news and updates on coronavirus in New England and beyond.
New Zealand will move to tighter Covid-19 restrictions at the end of the day after evidence shows that omicron is circulating in the community.
The move to the “red” settings will include more mask wearing, gathering limits and increased distancing requirements at hospitality outlets, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said at a news conference Sunday in Wellington. Businesses will remain open and people can travel. Red isn’t a lockdown, she said.
“The goal at red is to slow the spread of the virus,” she said. “We have significant capacity in the system to attempt to stamp out outbreaks.”
Nine Covid cases reported previously in the South Island city of Nelson have been confirmed as omicron, which has triggered the response, Ardern explained. The cases in a single family had attended a wedding in Auckland where one guest has also tested positive, and an Air New Zealand worker on their flight is also infected.
For students in surge, a ‘new normal’ and plenty of worries
Massachusetts — still faced with record-setting COVID-19 caseloads, nearly two years into the pandemic — the 17-year-old begins each day with a high-stakes calculation: How to get to her first class on time, alongside 1,500 other students, while limiting her risk of exposure to the virus?
If she enters Worcester Technical High School too early, she will have to wait in the cafeteria with hundreds of other students, some unmasked as they eat breakfast, until the 7:10 a.m. bell that releases the crowd into the hallways. But if she waits too long to avoid the rush, she risks being tardy to class, even if she sprints upstairs to her fourth-floor classroom.
It is the first of dozens of decisions she must make as she navigates a pandemic-era school day during the Omicron surge, a routine she agreed to document this month for the Globe to help shed light on the experience of thousands of Massachusetts students. Since December, more than 100,000 positive cases of the virus have been reported among the state’s 911,000 students.
Omicron spreads to rural Alabama
New infections are climbing steeply in rural Alabama, even though the omicron surge appears to have leveled off in urban areas like Birmingham, Mobile and Montgomery, al.com reported.
Alabama is the second-least vaccinated state in the U.S., with less than 48% of people fully vaccinated, compared with the U.S. average of almost 63%. Hardest hit in the omicron wave are counties with the lowest vaccination rates, al.com reported. The state hit a record on Thursday of 46% of tests positive for Covid-19.
Tom Cruise’s next ‘Mission: Impossible’ films are delayed over COVID
One of the biggest movies slated for 2022 — “Mission: Impossible 7″ starring Tom Cruise — is being pushed into next year in the latest blow to struggling cinemas.
The film, which had already been postponed before, will shift from September to July 2023, according to a statement from ViacomCBS Inc.’s Paramount Pictures. Although filming wrapped last year, editing and other post-production chores have been delayed by the surge of the omicron variant.
The next picture in the series, “Mission: Impossible 8,” is also moving, from July 2023 to June 2024.
What to know about cruise travel while Omicron spreads
It’s not the most carefree time to go on a cruise.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently warned all travelers, even those who are vaccinated, to avoid cruise ships. Infections are soaring during the omicron surge, with ships reporting 14,803 coronavirus cases onboard between Dec. 30 and Jan. 12. That number was below 200 in early December. Passengers and crew have told horror stories about being stuck in isolation for days, with only lukewarm room service and in-room TV to pass the time.
There is a fresh level of uncertainty to sailing now: Several cruise lines have canceled trips in the near future and longer term, and ports have been turning ships away.
Despite the CDC’s advice, travelers will still book cruises as long as they’re allowed. Here are answers to 10 common questions they may be asking at this stage of the omicron wave.
Omicron wave leaves US food banks scrambling for volunteers
Food banks across the country are experiencing a critical shortage of volunteers as the omicron variant frightens people away from their usual shifts, and companies and schools that regularly supply large groups of volunteers are canceling their participation over virus fears.
The end result in many cases has been a serious increase in spending by the food banks at a time when they are already dealing with higher food costs due to inflation and supply chain issues.
Vaccine passport protests in Europe draw thousands of people
Thousands of people gathered in European capitals Saturday to protest vaccine passports and other requirements governments have imposed in hopes of ending the coronavirus pandemic.
Demonstrations took place in Athens, Helsinki, London, Paris and Stockholm.
Marches in Paris drew hundreds of demonstrators protesting the introduction from Monday of a new COVID-19 pass. It will severely restrict the lives of those who refuse to get vaccinated by banning them from domestic flights, sports events, bars, cinemas and other leisure venues. French media reported that demonstrators also marched by the hundreds in other cities.
In Sweden, where vaccine certificates are required to attend indoor events with more than 50 people, some 3,000 demonstrators marched though central Stockholm and assembled in a main square for a protest organized by the Frihetsrorelsen - or Freedom Movement.
Omicron nears US peak even as some regions still face struggle
The omicron variant is starting to loosen its grip on the U.S. Northeast, but experts warn that it will take more time for the latest wave of Covid-19 to recede nationwide.
The strain’s fast surge and swift descent in one of the most populous parts of the U.S. echoes its trajectory in areas of Europe and South Africa, where infections skyrocketed only to come back down nearly as quickly. That’s raised hopes that while omicron has at times seemed like a replay of the worst days of the early pandemic, it will soon ebb.
However, the shape of the omicron wave may look different in various parts of the U.S., depending on vaccination rates and hospital capacity in those areas. While omicron has been milder than other variants, it has strained health-care providers across the country, and infections in children have been higher this time around.
Little evidence that COVID spreads by contact with overseas mail, China says
Chinese officials say experts have seen little to suggest that Covid-19 is spreading via non-frozen goods after a recent infection of the omicron variant in Beijing was said to be traced to overseas mail.
Experts have insufficient evidence so far on non-frozen imported goods transmitting Covid-19 to people in China, according to He Qinghua, an official with the National Health Commission, at a press conference on Saturday. Earlier this week, the Beijing Municipal Health Commission said a positive case sometimes handled international mail at work and authorities couldn’t rule out the possibility of the person getting infected through such an instance.
Further studies need to be carried out, He said. Global studies and virus control practices show the coronavirus mainly spreads through close human-to-human contact, he said.
“Humans contracting the virus via tainted goods is not the main spreading channel, but we cannot rule out such a possibility,” he added.
In the Beijing instance, samples taken from a package and some documents inside international mail received by the person tested positive for the virus.
Airlines in Europe say they are flying near-empty planes as Omicron derails travel. They say EU rules mean they can’t stop
As the Omicron variant derails travel plans around the world, airlines say strict European Union regulations are forcing them to fly near-empty flights — unnecessary and environmentally harmful flights that they argue they need to fly to save their long-term takeoff and landing slots at European airports.
Airlines must use a certain percentage of their designated slots at airports to hold on to them. But low demand during the pandemic has led airlines to fly near empty flights, often known as ghost flights, to meet the requirements. Lufthansa, a large German airline, has said it canceled 33,000 trips, or 10 percent of its winter flights, because of low demand but still anticipates needing to fly 18,000 “poorly booked” flights to secure its slots.
China’s success taming virus could make exit strategy harder
The sweeping “zero-tolerance” strategy that China has used to keep COVID-19 case numbers low and its economy functioning may, paradoxically, make it harder for the country to exit the pandemic.
Most experts say the coronavirus around the world isn’t going away and believe it could eventually become, like the flu, a persistent but generally manageable threat if enough people gain immunity through infections and vaccines.
The Fugees are the latest artists to cancel shows over the pandemic
Pandemic woes continue to disrupt the attempts of artists to resume live performances. Months after delaying their 25th anniversary reunion tour to early this year, The Fugees announced Friday that the tour would be canceled altogether, saying the pandemic made performing safely too difficult. On Thursday, Adele postponed her Las Vegas residency only a day before its debut.
In a post on Instagram, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean, and Pras Michel, who were promoting the anniversary of their Grammy Award-winning album “The Score,” said they were putting safety first.
“We want to make sure we keep our fans and ourselves healthy and safe,” the post read.
The group said that “now it may not currently be our time for revisiting this past work,” adding that it remained hopeful that “if opportunity, public safety and scheduling allow,” a future reunion tour might be possible.
Jan. 21, 2022
Passenger from Ireland charged with assault on Delta flight to New York
A belligerent Delta Air Lines passenger who refused to wear a mask during a recent eight-hour flight from Dublin to New York has been charged with assaulting and intimidating a member of the crew — one of several who tried to get him under control — as he terrorized everyone aboard throughout the trip.
Shane McInerney, 29, a Galway, Ireland, resident, threw tantrums and stubbornly went maskless on the Jan. 7 international flight despite being asked “dozens of times” by crew members to put one on, court documents say.
He also created chaos in other ways throughout the trip — including mooning people as he was escorted back to his seat, throwing a drink can at the head of another passenger, and kicking the seat of the person in front of him, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Brooklyn.
Two hours into the flight, the captain, on a break, spoke to McInerney, who took off his cap twice, put it on the captain’s head, then allegedly held his fist to the captain’s face and said: “Don’t touch me.”
As the plane was landing, when passengers and crew members were seated and wearing seat belts, McInerney defiantly stood in the aisle and refused to sit, officials said.
McInerney was charged with assaulting and intimidating a crew member on Delta Flight 45. He was released on a $20,000 bond when he appeared before a judge a week ago. His case was unsealed on Friday.
NFL ends daily COVID-19 testing for all players
The NFL is curtailing daily testing of all players, vaccinated or unvaccinated, for COVID-19.
In a memo sent to the 32 clubs and obtained by The Associated Press, the league said Friday that medical experts from the NFL and the players’ union agreed to the change. Those doctors have seen enough evidence of a decrease in positive tests in the last month to feel comfortable with dropping daily tests.
Last month, weekly testing for vaccinated players and personnel was stopped, but anyone who reported symptoms of COVID-19 or was part of targeted surveillance still was subjected to testing.
“Following consultation with our jointly retained infectious disease experts, the NFL and NFL Players Association have updated the NFL-NFLPA COVID-19 protocols to eliminate the distinction between vaccinated and unvaccinated players to determine testing cadence,” the memo said. “Effective immediately, all players and tiered staff will be subject to strategic and targeted testing.”
The league will continue symptom-based testing and screening for symptoms.
White House official says US is moving toward a time when ‘COVID won’t be a constant crisis’
The official in charge of President Biden’s coronavirus response team expressed optimism Friday about the future of the pandemic, saying the nation is “moving toward a time when COVID won’t disrupt our daily lives, where COVID won’t be a constant crisis but something we protect against and treat.”
The official, Jeff Zients, made the remark at a White House news conference as the national coronavirus caseload was on a slight downward trajectory, largely because of declines in major cities in the hard-hit Northeast. That trend also prompted Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to sound an upbeat note.
Latin America, Asia latest to get hit with Omicron surge
In Costa Rica, officials are encouraging those infected with the coronavirus to skip voting in upcoming national elections. On the other side of the world, Beijing is locking down residential communities as the country anxiously awaits the start of the Winter Olympics on Feb. 4.
In Latin America and Asia, where the omicron variant is making its latest appearance, some countries are imposing such restrictions while others are loath to place new limits on populations already exhausted by previous constraints.
Omicron quickly swept through the places it first hit, such as South Africa, the U.K. and the United States, pushing daily cases far higher than at any time during the pandemic.
The Americas reported nearly 7.2 million new COVID infections and more than 15,000 COVID-related deaths over the past week, the Pan American Health Organization said Wednesday. Coronavirus infections across the Americas almost doubled between Jan. 1 and Jan. 8, from 3.4 million cases to 6.1 million, PAHO said.
Infections are accelerating in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru, and hospitalizations are rising in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, said PAHO Director Carissa Etienne. The Caribbean islands are experiencing their steepest increase in COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic, Etienne noted.
Mass. Nurses Association calls on Baker to declare state of emergency
The Massachusetts Nurses Association has called for Governor Charlie Baker to declare a state of emergency through the end of March and establish new protections for health care workers who are exhausted by the crushing demands of the pandemic, according to a letter from the group.
Union President Katie Murphy, a registered nurse, warned in the letter Thursday that the state’s health care system is nearing a breaking point and said Baker should reinstate the provisions of his March 10, 2020, emergency declaration, made one day before the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization.
COVID hospitalizations plateau in some parts of the US, while a crisis remains in others
Fewer people in the United States are being admitted to hospitals with the coronavirus than a week ago, suggesting that the record-breaking surge in hospitalizations driven by the omicron variant could soon decline, following recent case trends. But the country remains far from the end of the omicron wave, and in many areas it could be weeks before the strain on hospitals subsides.
The number of people hospitalized with the virus nationwide and those sick enough to require intensive care remain at or near record levels. In much of the West, in parts of the Midwest and in more rural areas of the country, where omicron surges have hit later, cases and hospitalizations are still growing significantly.
FDA authorizes antiviral drug remdesivir as an outpatient therapy for people with COVID-19
Federal regulators Friday authorized the antiviral drug remdesivir for covid-19 outpatients at high risk of being hospitalized, providing a new treatment option for doctors struggling with shortages of effective drugs to counter the coronavirus.
The Food and Drug Administration said the intravenous treatment, which had been limited to patients in the hospital, could be administered to outpatients with mild-to-moderate illness.
Remdesivir, manufactured by Gilead Sciences, was among the first coronavirus treatments authorized in 2020. The drug received full agency approval later that year for people 12 and older. Treatment of younger children is permitted under an emergency use authorization, but Friday’s expansion to outpatients includes both age groups.
Arizona sues Biden to keep school anti-mask rules
Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey sued the Biden administration on Friday over its demand that the state stop sending millions in federal COVID-19 relief money to schools that don’t have mask requirements or that close due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Phoenix comes a week after the U.S. Treasury Department demanded that Ducey either restructure the $163 million program to eliminate restrictions it says undermine public health recommendations or face a repayment demand. The Treasury Department also wants changes to a $10 million program Ducey created that gives private school tuition money to parents if their children’s schools have mask mandates.
Rio de Janeiro delays Carnival parades as Omicron spreads
The world-famous Carnival festivities in Rio de Janeiro will be held in late April rather than the final weekend of February, as the number of coronavirus cases in Brazil spikes and the omicron variant spreads across the country.
“The decision was made respecting for the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil and the need, at this time, to preserve lives and join forces to drive vaccination throughout the country,” said a statement issued Friday jointly by the cities of Rio and Sao Paulo, which also delayed the start of its Carnival parades until April 21.
Earlier in the afternoon, Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes and his Sao Paulo counterpart Ricardo Nunes held a video call along with their respective health secretaries and each city’s league of samba schools that put on the parade, according to the statement.
Mass. reports 86,450 breakthrough COVID-19 cases, raising total to 6.8 percent of fully vaccinated people
Massachusetts on Friday reported 86,450 more COVID-19 cases among fully vaccinated people since last week, bringing the total since the beginning of the vaccination campaign to 348,510 cases, or 6.8 percent of all fully vaccinated people.
The data, which is typically released on Tuesdays, was reported on Friday after delays due to network connectivity issues, the Massachusetts Department of Public Health said.
Preteens may be vaccinated without parents under California bill
California would allow children age 12 and up to be vaccinated without their parents’ consent under a proposal introduced Friday by a state senator who said youngsters “deserve the right to protect themselves” against infectious disease.
Currently in California, minors ages 12 to 17 cannot be vaccinated without permission from their parents or guardians, unless the vaccine is specifically to prevent a sexually transmitted disease. Parental consent laws for vaccinations vary by state and region and a few places such as Philadelphia, San Francisco allow minors to consent to their own COVID-19 vaccines.
Wiener’s bill would lift the parental requirement for that age group for any vaccine that has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If the bill passes, California would allow the youngest age of any state to be vaccinated without parental permission.
That includes immunizations against the coronavirus, but Wiener said vaccine hesitancy and misinformation has also deterred vaccinations against measles and other contagious diseases that can then spread among youths whose parents won’t agree to have them vaccinated.
“You have parents who are blocking their kids from getting the vaccines or ... they may not be anti-vaccine but they just aren’t prioritizing it,” Wiener told reporters at a news conference at San Francisco’s Everett Middle School. “Those kids deserve the right to protect themselves.”
Mass. reports 13,935 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 102 deaths
Massachusetts on Friday reported 13,935 new confirmed coronavirus cases and said 29,322 vaccinations, including booster shots, had been administered. The Department of Public Health also reported 102 new confirmed deaths.
Why you should take COVID-19 precautions even as Omicron declines
Recent news on the Omicron-fueled coronavirus surge has been encouraging. Massachusetts cases are dropping from stratospheric heights. Coronavirus traces in Boston-area waste water, considered a harbinger of future cases, are plummeting. And some experts are predicting a lull ahead — or even the beginning of the end of the pandemic.
But don’t get too excited, experts say, emphasizing that it’s crucial for people to take precautions even as cases fall, both to protect themselves and to ensure that the steep case declines continue.
US judge blocks Biden’s vaccine mandate for federal workers
A federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary injunction Friday blocking the White House from requiring federal workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus, although the ruling came months after the White House said that 95% of federal workers were already in compliance.
The Justice Department said it would appeal the ruling.
What can Google search trends for COVID-19 symptoms tell us about the direction of the pandemic?
In what may be another encouraging sign that the surge of the Omicron variant is subsiding in Massachusetts and around the country, the volume of Google search trends for COVID-19 symptoms is declining.
Data provided by Google on trends in searches for COVID-19 symptoms showed that after rising through most of December, the number of searches for symptoms like fever, chills, and cough began to drop in the last days of 2021 in the United States and Massachusetts.
The decline in search volume for certain COVID symptoms appears to align with data from the state’s Department of Public Health that show COVID-19 cases are declining in the state. According to state data, the seven-day average of new cases is 30 percent lower than when it peaked last week. And in the United States, the seven-day average of daily cases is beginning to tick downwards after appearing to reach a peak a few days ago, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Having trouble ordering free COVID-19 rapid tests? Here’s what to do.
The government website where you can order free COVID-19 tests is up and running, and every American home is eligible to receive four at-home tests. It’s a very simple process — except when it’s not.
If you haven’t ordered your free rapid tests, visit www.covidtests.gov, click on the blue “Order Free At-Home Tests” button, and it will take you to a page on the US Postal Service’s website where you fill out your name and address. No payment is necessary, so you don’t need a credit card or health insurance information. Tests are supposed to start being mailed out the week of Jan. 24, and orders should ship within 7-12 days of placing the order, according to the website.
Changing Course: American Air tweaks meals to boost masking
American Airlines and its flight attendants agreed to change the carrier’s onboard food service to maximize the amount of time that passengers keep their face masks on.
Effective Jan. 26, the first three courses of meals in first class will be served at once, rather than separately, on some cross-country flights and routes to Europe, Asia and South America. In coach on those flights, beverages will be offered only with meal service, according to a memo sent to flight attendants Friday.
On domestic trips of 1,500 miles or more, a second beverage service will be made on-request.
The Association of Professional Flight Attendants proposed the new standards, which are temporary, to help reduce contact between flight attendants and passengers while travelers face coverings are off. Federal rules meant to limit spread of the new coronavirus require passengers to wear masks during flights unless they are eating or drinking.
Mass. employers added 222,000 jobs last year
Massachusetts employers added 20,100 jobs in December, according to data released on Friday, wrapping up a year in which they struggled to fill open positions.
Employment in the state increased by more than 222,000 jobs in 2021 but remains about 155,000 below the pre-pandemic level of February 2020. Hiring has been restrained by COVID-19 disruptions and the reluctance of many residents to jump back into the labor force.
Somerville health panel rejects indoor business vaccine mandate
Somerville’s Board of Health on Thursday voted 2-1 to reject a proposed COVID-19 vaccination requirement for indoor businesses such as restaurants, gyms, clubs, and theaters.
“I don’t feel like I’m ready to sign on to this mandate for this virus at this time,” said Dr. Brian Green, chair of the health board, during the panel’s meeting prior to the vote. “Because what we know about Omicron is that this is not going to have any effect of decreasing transmissibility in the restaurants and gyms.”
Green, however, suggested he could support such a mandate under different circumstances.
Almost a quarter of Bulgarians testing positive for COVID, country responds
Health authorities stepped up anti-infection measures in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia, and other major cities in response to a surge in new coronavirus cases driven by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
Schools are limiting in-person classes, requiring students in all grades except first through fourth to switch to distance learning. The precautions also ban mass events and require restaurants and bars to operate at half of their customer capacity. All catering and entertainment establishments have to close no later than 10 p.m., and visitors need valid health certificates to be admitted.
Bulgaria, which has the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rate in the European Union and a population of 6.5 million, reported on Friday 8,932 new virus cases and 87 deaths. The country’s test positivity rate for the virus increased to about 24 percent.
Booster shots improve protection against Omicron, CDC studies show
Three studies released Friday offered more evidence that COVID-19 vaccines are standing up to the Omicron variant, at least among people who received booster shots.
They are the first large US studies to look at vaccine protection against Omicron, health officials said.
The papers echo previous research — including studies in Germany, South Africa and the UK — indicating available vaccines are less effective against Omicron than earlier versions of the coronavirus, but also that boosters significantly improve protection.
Firefighters union pushes back against vaccination mandate for Boston’s workforce
In the latest instance of resistance to Boston’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for its city workforce, the influential firefighters union is pushing back against the new requirement with a planned news conference that will detail its objections at Florian Hall on Friday.
The Boston Firefighters Local 718 has invited its members “to stand in opposition to Mayor [Michelle] Wu’s anti-labor actions.”
“Her blatant disregard for the collective bargaining process by unilaterally revising a memorandum of agreement with an effective testing option cannot go unchecked,” read a message from the union to its members.
COVID boosters should start with most vulnerable, says WHO
The World Health Organization says that coronavirus vaccine boosters should now now be offered to people, starting with the most vulnerable, in a move away from its previous insistence that boosters were unnecessary for healthy adults and an acknowledgment that the vaccine supply is improving globally.
At a press briefing on Friday, the U.N. health agency said it was now recommending booster doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, beginning in the highest-priority groups, about four to six months after receiving the first two doses, in line with guidance from dozens of countries that embarked upon booster programs months ago.
6 Czech players test positive before Olympic training camp
Six players on the Czech Republic’s Olympic hockey team have tested positive for the coronavirus, national team coach Filip Pešán said Friday.
The six players, all unnamed, are among a group of 12 that came from the Russia-based KHL.
“It’s a complicated situation and it’s changing every hour,” Pešán said, adding none of the positive players had any symptoms.
Those who tested negative will stay in a bubble in a hotel near the team’s training facility in Prague while the positive individuals will isolate at home and join the team later, depending on negative tests.
The Czechs have named a preliminary 24-man squad for the Beijing Olympics. Anticipating possible positive coronavirus tests, Pešán has 30 substitutes available to step in.
Former Boston Bruins center David Krejci will lead the hockey team in Beijing, where the NHL won’t participate. The 35-year-old Krejci left Boston in July after 14 NHL seasons to continue his career at home in the Czech Republic.
The first part of the team is set to fly to Beijing on Thursday.
Adele postpones Las Vegas residency, citing pandemic impact
Adele has postponed a 24-date Las Vegas residency hours before it was to start, citing delivery delays and coronavirus illness in her crew.
The chart-topping British singer said she was “gutted” and promised to reschedule the shows.
In a video message posted on social media, a tearful Adele said: “I’m so sorry but my show ain’t ready.”
“We’ve tried absolutely everything that we can to pull it together in time and for it to be good enough for you but we’ve been absolutely destroyed by delivery delays and COVID,” she said, adding that “half my team are down with” the virus.
Adele had been due to perform 24 shows at Caesars Palace Hotel starting Friday following the release of her fourth album, “30.”
In a tweet, Caesars Palace said it understood fans’ disappointment but added: “Creating a show of this magnitude is incredibly complex. We fully support Adele and are confident the show she unveils at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace will be extraordinary.”
Australia records deadliest day of pandemic with 80 deaths
Australia on Friday reported its deadliest day of the pandemic with 80 coronavirus fatalities, as an outbreak of the Omicron variant continued to take a toll.
But Dominic Perrottet, premier of the most populous state, New South Wales, said a slight decrease in hospitalizations gave him some hope about the strain the outbreak is putting on the health system.
The previous record of 78 deaths was set on Tuesday. There have been just under 3,000 coronavirus deaths in Australia since the pandemic began.
New South Wales, home to Sydney, reported a record 46 deaths. They included a baby who died from COVID-19 in December, one of several historical cases that were investigated.
China mandates 3-day Olympic torch relay amid virus concerns
China is limiting the torch relay for the Winter Olympic Games to just three days amid coronavirus worries, organizers said Friday.
The flame will be displayed only in enclosed venues that are deemed “safe and controllable,” according to officials speaking at a news conference.
No public transit routes would be disturbed and normal life would continue for the 20 million residents of the capital, where a handful of new COVID-19 cases have been recorded over recent days.
Beijing’s Deputy Sports Director Yang Haibin said safety was the “top priority,” with the pandemic, venue preparations and the possibility of forest fires in Beijing’s cold, dry climate all factored in.
The relay will run Feb. 2-4, taking in the three competition areas of downtown Beijing, the suburb of Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou in the neighboring province of Hebei.
The Games have already been impacted on a scale similar to that experienced by Tokyo during last year’s Summer Olympics.
Preteens may be vaxed without parents under California bill
California would allow children age 12 and up to be vaccinated without their parents’ consent, the youngest age of any state, under a proposal late Thursday by a state senator.
Alabama allows such decisions at age 14, Oregon at 15, Rhode Island, and South Carolina at 16, according to Senator Scott Wiener, a Democrat from San Francisco who is proposing the change. Only Washington, D.C., has a lower limit, at age 11.
Wiener argued that California already allows those 12 and up to consent to the Hepatitis B and Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, and to treatment for sexually transmitted infections, substance abuse, and mental health disorders.
“Giving young people the autonomy to receive life-saving vaccines, regardless of their parents’ beliefs or work schedules, is essential for their physical and mental health,” he said. “It’s unconscionable for teens to be blocked from the vaccine because a parent either refuses or cannot take their child to a vaccination site.”
Currently in California, minors ages 12 to 17 cannot be vaccinated without permission from their parents or guardian, unless the vaccine is specifically to prevent a sexually transmitted disease.
Wiener’s bill would lift the parental requirement for that age group for any vaccine that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That includes immunizations against the coronavirus, but Wiener said vaccine hesitancy and misinformation has also deterred vaccinations against measles and other contagious diseases that can then spread among youths whose parents won’t agree to have them vaccinated.
Austria takes big step toward COVID vaccine mandate for adults
Austria’s lower house of Parliament voted Thursday to make COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for almost everyone 18 and older, putting the nation on the path to be the first in Europe with such a wide-reaching mandate.
The law would take effect Feb. 1. The bill must still pass in the upper house and be signed by the president, Alexander Van der Bellen, but both are considered formalities at this point.
While Austria’s bill is the first of its kind, other European nations are pushing large segments of their populations to get vaccinated. Italy has made vaccines mandatory for those older than 50, with fines for those who do not comply, and Greece has mandated vaccines for those 60 and older. Other European countries have made vaccine passports compulsory for certain activities.
Under the Austrian law, people who are pregnant or cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons and those who have recently recovered from COVID-19 will be exempt.
Once the law goes into effect, all households will be notified. The government said it would begin routine checks of vaccination status in mid-March, including during traffic checks.
Once the vaccine checks begin, people who can’t immediately produce proof of vaccination will be reported to authorities and can be fined up to 600 euros ($685). If people contest their fine, it can increase to 3,600 euros (about $4,000).
The law is set to last until 2024. Austria’s current rate of vaccination is 75%, similar to that of France and of Italy, and new cases are averaging 17,846 a day, according to a New York Times database.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, opponent of vaccine and mask mandates, tests positive for coronavirus
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, R, who has challenged the Biden administration’s efforts to mandate vaccines, reportedly tested positive for the coronavirus, his office confirmed.
“He remains working diligently for the people of Texas from home,” spokesman Alejandro Garcia said in a statement.
Paxton’s office did not answer questions about whether he was vaccinated or when he was infected.
Social media posts showed him attending a rally for former president Donald Trump over the weekend.
The attorney general, whom Trump endorsed, filed a lawsuit this month to challenge the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate efforts.
Paxton has staunchly opposed attempts by President Biden to make coronavirus vaccines compulsory for health-care workers in facilities that receive Medicare and Medicaid funds, for troops in the Texas National Guard, and for staff members at Head Start programs. He has also fought requirements for parents, teachers, and children to wear masks at schools.
Jan. 20, 2022
About 1.5 percent of Beijing Olympics arrivals have COVID
About 1.5% of athletes and others entering Beijing for the Winter Olympics are testing positive for Covid, with all of the infections caught within five days of arrival, according to the International Olympics Committee’s Covid-19 support team. There have been no signs of transmission within the closed-loop bubble established by the organizers, and just 0.02% of those screened inside the area have tested positive.
The results show that early identification of infections and mitigation measures designed to stop their transmission is an effective alternative to quarantine requirements, the organizers said.
Japan eyes more quasi-emergency measures, Yomiuri says
Japan’s government may expand a state of quasi-emergency to eight more prefectures, covering 24 of the country’s 47 regions in total, the Yomiuri newspaper reported without attribution. The expansion would include Osaka and its vicinity.
An official decision on the measure, which allows local governments to place restrictions on businesses, will be made as early as Jan. 25, the newspaper said. It also reported that the government is looking to extend existing measures in three prefectures -- Okinawa, Hiroshima, Yamaguchi -- by two weeks.
San Francisco coronavirus cases fall rapidly
San Francisco’s infections are falling rapidly from a peak a week and half ago, the city’s department of health said Thursday. The seven-day average of cases dropped to about 1,705 per day as of Jan. 12 from 2,164 on Jan. 9, while hospitalizations are also expected to peak in the next few days at a level that’s within the health system’s capacity.
Mayor London Breed said the city’s response to the omicron-fueled surge demonstrates it can handle large outbreaks while keeping schools and the economy open.
“We know that this virus will be with us for the foreseeable future, but we have the tools in place and the experience managing Covid to not let it completely upend our lives,” she said in a statement.
Mass. reports dip in new public school coronavirus cases with 28,151 among students and 4,758 among staff
For the first time since early December, coronavirus cases among both students and staff in Massachusetts public school have decreased, according to data released Thursday.
State education leaders reported 28,151 new cases among public school students and 4,758 among staff members for the week that ended Wednesday.
The 32,909 total cases were 15,505 fewer, or about 32 percent less, than those reported last week. The decrease in school cases comes as data shows that cases statewide have peaked after an Omicron-fueled surge.
14,384 confirmed cases and 86 deaths. See today’s COVID-19 data from Mass.
Massachusetts on Thursday reported 14,384 new confirmed coronavirus cases and said 31,190 vaccinations, including booster shots, had been administered. The Department of Public Health also reported 86 new confirmed deaths.
The state also reported that 3,144 patients were hospitalized for COVID-19. The seven-day percent positivity was 15.03 percent.
Nearly half of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Massachusetts are ‘incidental’ cases, new state data show
New state data show 51 percent of COVID hospitalizations in Massachusetts on Tuesday were patients who were seriously ill from the virus, while 49 percent of patients were admitted for other reasons but happened to test positive upon admission.
The state launched its new method of reporting primary vs. incidental COVID-19 hospitalizations on Thursday, reporting that on Jan. 18, 1,624 people were in the hospital primarily because they were seriously sick with the virus while 1,563 patients had tested positive for COVID-19 while being hospitalized for other reasons.
Some experts predict a lull but say COVID could have more tricks up its sleeve
The surge fueled by the Omicron variant will likely fade in the weeks ahead in the United States, experts say, and encouraging case declines have already emerged in Massachusetts and other states in the Northeast.
But what comes after that? Some experts are expecting a lull in the pandemic followed by a decline in the severity of future waves. But many also warn that it’s hard to predict where the pandemic will go next — and a new variant could throw everything into doubt.
COVID-19 cases have peaked in Massachusetts
The latest wave of COVID-19 in Massachusetts has crested, with the number of new cases dropping precipitously since last week, prompting even the most wary prognosticators to see a flicker at the end of the tunnel.
The data indicate Massachusetts is headed toward a respite, and the United States also will see cases decline, said Dr. Jacob Lemieux, an infectious disease specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital. But he cautioned that “every expectation with this virus comes with a caveat because it’s always making us look silly.”
Biden’s team says it’s on alert for Omicron disruptions in China
The Biden administration is monitoring real-time data obtained from businesses operating in China to determine whether outbreaks of the Omicron variant of coronavirus pose a risk to US supply chains, an administration official said.
It’s too early to tell whether there will be any impact on the American economy from the variant’s spread in China or from aggressive efforts by officials there to stamp it out, the official said.
The official asked not to be identified discussing the administration’s efforts because the data is not public.
Free rapid tests are about to roll out in the US. In other countries, they’re already part of daily life.
The US government is just beginning to roll out free antigen home tests. A website for ordering launched this week, with the first batches - four per household - scheduled for delivery later this month. But while up to now home tests have been expensive and hard to find in much of America, in other countries - Britain, Singapore and India among them - rapid self-tests have been widely accessible for some time. And people have incorporated them into their everyday lives.
Whereas the Biden administration announced it is buying 1 billion rapid tests, Britain’s National Health Service has already distributed 1.7 billion free home tests (in a country of 67 million) over the past nine months. With packs of seven available by home delivery and at pharmacies, people have boxes in their kitchen, next to the daily bread, ready to go.
Coronavirus levels in Boston-area waste water continue to plunge
In another encouraging sign that Omicron may be loosening its grip on the state, the amount of coronavirus detected in Eastern Massachusetts waste water has continued its dizzying decline in recent days, according to data released Thursday by the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority.
The numbers have dropped to less than a quarter of their Omicron-fueled peaks early this month, though they are remain higher than they were during last winter’s surge.
Plane heading to London returns to Miami over maskless passenger
An American Airlines flight to London returned to Miami after a passenger refused to follow the federal requirement to wear a face mask, according to the airline.
The airline called Miami police, and officers escorted a woman off the plane at Miami International Airport Wednesday evening without incident. A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police Department said American Airlines staff dealt “administratively” with the passenger.
The Cambridge startup tracking COVID in America’s wastewater
When talking with Mariana Matus and Newsha Ghaeli about poop, it can veer into the philosophical.
“The behavior of a city is imprinted in its sewage,” Ghaeli said. “It’s like the fingerprints of our health.”
Their company, Biobot Analytics, has met the pandemic moment. What started as a research idea at MIT, focusing on how wastewater data can help mitigate the spread of disease, has turned into something bigger. Now, it’s a fast-growing startup — with over 65 employees and millions in funding — that has contracted with over 700 towns, across every state in the country, to study their sewage and help policy makers predict how bad the coronavirus could get in their communities.
NBC will not send announcers to Beijing for Winter Olympics
NBC will not be sending its announcers and most hosts to the Beijing Olympics due to continued concerns about rising COVID-19 cases worldwide and China’s strict policy about those who test positive.
It will be the second straight Games for which the broadcast teams will work mostly out of NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, rather than the host city.
MBTA patron refuses to wear mask, hits Transit police officer in face, officials say
A 29-year-old Sturbridge man was arrested Tuesday for allegedly striking a Transit police officer after refusing to don a mask to ride the T at North Station, officials said.
In a statement, MBTA Transit Police identified the man as Rutul Jaiswal.
Police were called to the North Station Commuter Rail around 9:45 a.m. because Jaiswal had allegedly refused “to wear a mask while attempting to travel on the MBTA,” the release said.
36 percent lower risk of hospitalization from Omicron found in Denmark
The risk of ending up hospitalized after a COVID-19 infection is 36 percent lower for people who were exposed to the Omicron than the Delta variant, according to a new study from health authorities in Denmark.
The study in the Nordic nation, which has one of the world’s most ambitious programs for testing and variant screening, showed that 0.6 percent of those infected with the new variant were admitted to hospital, compared with 1.5 percent of those who tested positive for Delta.
US jobless claims rise to 286,000, highest since October
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose to the highest level in three months as the fast-spreading Omicron variant disrupted the job market.
Jobless claims rose for the third straight week — by 55,000 to 286,000, highest since mid-October, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out weekly volatility, rose by 20,000 to 231,000, highest since late November.
A surge in COVID-19 cases has set back what had been a strong comeback from last year’s short but devastating coronavirus recession. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, had fallen mostly steadily for about a year and late last year dipped below the pre-pandemic average of around 220,000 a week.
‘It’s been a desperate call’: Substitute teachers in high demand as districts grapple with teaching shortages
With Massachusetts school districts facing debilitating teacher shortages due to COVID-19, substitutes are among the staff members sorely needed but in scant supply. In an attempt to keep classrooms covered, school systems across the region are desperately trying to find anyone to fill in as the most recent surge of the virus pummels the teaching population.
As incentives, districts like Woburn and Brockton recently announced pay hikes to recruit more substitutes. Since the onset of the pandemic, both Boston and Cambridge have waived the requirement for substitute teachers to have a bachelor’s degree; Cambridge now requires at least one year of professional experience working with students, said spokesperson Sujata Wycoff, and Boston requires unlicensed candidates to pass an online course, according to the current job listing.
New Mexico is short on substitute teachers. The governor asked the National Guard and state employees for help
As school districts across the country scramble to find substitute teachers to fill in for instructors out sick with COVID, New Mexico is tapping into unconventional resources for help: the National Guard and state employees.
The initiative, which Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham, D, said is the first in the nation, encourages government workers and National Guard members to volunteer to become licensed substitute teachers, Lujan Grisham announced Wednesday.
“Our schools are a critical source of stability for kids — we know they learn better in the classroom and thrive among their peers,” Lujan Grisham said in a news release. " . . . The state stands ready to help keep kids in the classroom, parents able to go to work, and teachers able to fully focus on the critical work they do every single day.”
Government employees and National Guard members who volunteer will be placed on administrative leave or active duty status and receive their normal salaries.
Employers across various industries are reeling from staff shortages as the Omicron variant spreads throughout the country. Hospitals, grocery stores, and airlines are all struggling to keep up with demands as employees call out because they are sick or need to quarantine after being exposed to the virus.
Staff shortages at schools have been a primary concern for government officials, who worry about how a third year of instability will impact students. Some school districts have taken creative steps to keep students in classrooms and operations running. Superintendents in Texas and Michigan have asked parents to volunteer as substitutes. In Vermont, school board members have filled in as custodial workers, and in Georgia, a school principal has been helping out in the cafeteria. In Delaware, a charter school offered to pay parents $700 to take their children to school and pick them up at the end of the day.
Dutch artists protest COVID lockdown of cultural venues by hosting approved haircuts at shut-down museums
Some of the Netherlands’ most celebrated museums, concert halls, and art centers opened their doors Wednesday to host hairdressers, nail artists, and fitness instructors, in playful protest against what they see as inconsistencies in the country’s coronavirus protocols.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said last week that businesses such as beauty salons and fitness centers would be allowed to resume operations after a strict lockdown that was imposed in mid-December. But cultural venues such as theaters and galleries would remain shut for at least another week, he said.
That proved a step too far for performance artists Sanne Wallis de Vries and Diederik Ebbinge, who organized the Hair Salon Theater initiative to bring hairdressers and nail artists to still-shuttered cultural venues on Wednesday.
The Dutch cultural sector has been flexible and adaptive, the organizers said in a statement, but believed that the “dire situation” facing the arts should be highlighted. They asked for a plan for reopening the sector and noted that few infections had been linked to arts groups over the pandemic, suggesting that it was possible to resume cultural life carefully.
The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam was among the several dozen cultural venues that partnered with the Hair Salon Theater initiative. Customers who reserved seats ahead of time were able to get $38 haircuts or $34 Van Gogh-themed manicures while sitting amid the impressionist master’s portraits. (Masking and social distancing were mandatory.)
New Zealand says it won’t use lockdowns when Omicron spreads
New Zealand is among the few remaining countries to have avoided any outbreaks of the Omicron variant — but Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Thursday an outbreak was inevitable and the nation would tighten restrictions as soon as one was detected.
But she also said that New Zealand would not impose the lockdowns that it has used previously, including for the Delta variant.
“This stage of the pandemic is different to what we have dealt with before. Omicron is more transmissible,” Ardern said. “That is going to make it harder to keep it out, but it will also make it more challenging to control once it arrives. But just like before, when COVID changes, we change.”
Ardern said that within 24 to 48 hours of Omicron being detected in the community, the nation would move into its “red” setting. That would allow businesses to remain open and domestic travel to continue, but would require schoolchildren to wear masks and limit crowds to 100 people.
Why are men more likely to die of COVID? It’s complicated
It’s one of the most well-known takeaways of the pandemic: Men die of COVID-19 more often than women do.
Early on, some scientists suspected the reason was primarily biological, and that sex-based treatments for men — like estrogen injections or androgen blockers — could help reduce their risk of dying.
But a new study analyzing sex differences in COVID-19 deaths over time in the United States suggests that the picture is much more complicated.
While men overall died at a higher rate than women, the trends varied widely over time and by state, the study found. That suggests that social factors — like job types, behavioral patterns, and underlying health issues — played a big role in the apparent sex differences, researchers said.
NBC will not send announcers to Beijing for Winter Games
NBC will not be sending its announcers and most hosts to the Beijing Olympics due to continued concerns about rising COVID-19 cases worldwide and China’s strict policy about those who test positive.
It will be the second straight Games for which the broadcast teams will work mostly out of NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut, rather than the host city.
“Something significant has changed virtually every day for the last three months, forcing us to adjust our plan numerous times. And I expect that to continue as well as the challenge of doing the Olympics,” said Molly Solomon, the head of NBC’s Olympics production unit.
Video: Houston hospital turns to virtual ICUs to fight Covid surge (CNBC)
“With COVID’s changing conditions and China’s zero-tolerance policy, it’s just added a layer of complexity to all of this, so we need to make sure we can provide the same quality experience to the American viewers. That’s why we are split between the two cities.”
NBC Sports spokesman Greg Hughes said in a phone interview the network no longer plans to send announcing teams for Alpine skiing, figure skating, and snowboarding to China. Those had been among the handful of announcers expected to travel, but NBC’s plans changed over the past couple of weeks.
“Our plans will continue to evolve based on the conditions, and we’re going to stay flexible as we move through this,” Hughes said.
NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel is one of 250 people the network already has in Beijing. Most of those are technical staff.
US hospitals brace as deadlines loom from a vaccine mandate
Health care workers in two dozen states must be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus by March 15 after a Supreme Court decision last week, a ruling that has left some already understaffed hospital systems bracing to possibly lose workers just as the highly contagious Omicron variant is inundating them with patients.
The new guidance was issued Friday by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services after the court upheld President Biden’s vaccine mandate for health care workers. It will affect about 10 million people at about 76,000 health care facilities participating in the Medicaid and Medicare program, including hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Experts say mandates are effective in persuading more people to become vaccinated, which they say is essential to helping prevent the spread of the virus. And Biden has continued to push for more vaccinations and testing, reiterating that schools should remain open and the time for lockdowns was over.
“We’re moving toward a time when COVID-19 won’t disrupt our daily lives,” Biden said at a news conference Wednesday. He called a recent Supreme Court decision to block a vaccination-or-testing mandate for large private employers “a mistake.”
The CDC’s guidance Friday meant that health care workers in 24 states where vaccine mandates were not yet in effect must receive at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine within 30 days and must be fully vaccinated by March 15, a spokesperson for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said.
The states affected are Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wyoming. For these states, the federal vaccine requirement had been blocked by a lower court.
The guidance does not yet apply to Texas, where a preliminary injunction still prevents such requirements.
The Supreme Court’s decision does not affect timelines already in place for the other 25 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, where health care workers must by fully vaccinated by Feb. 28, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
New Jersey mandates booster shots for hospital, nursing home, and prison employees
Employees of New Jersey hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and jails will be required to be fully vaccinated against the coronavirus — with a booster — or risk losing their jobs, Governor Philip D. Murphy announced on Wednesday.
Workers at most medical facilities in the state were already required to be vaccinated by Feb. 28 under President Biden’s mandate for health care workers at entities receiving federal money, which recently withstood a Supreme Court challenge.
But Murphy’s requirement goes further, mandating health care workers to get booster shots as well, and it represents a significant shift for the state’s prison and jail system, where staffing levels are already strained and vaccination is well below the statewide rate.
Murphy, a Democrat who was sworn in to a second term on Tuesday, had given workers the option to satisfy the state’s earlier vaccination requirement by getting regularly tested for the coronavirus.
“Testing out will no longer be an option,” Murphy said outside a testing site in South Jersey. “We are no longer going to look past those who continue to put their colleagues, and, perhaps, I think, even more importantly, those who are their responsibility, in danger of COVID. That has to stop.”
When her "bad hair" came around again, . . . as it did every year, she frantically purchased a strange cure-all from a homeless person who lived a few streets away. Despite the great results and the newly manageable locks, it attracted large "buzzers" looking for materials to build a nest.
86 frame bokeh panorama. This sucker is over 300 megapixels, but here's a more manageable large view: www.flickr.com/photos/seanmolin/8042578241/sizes/o/in/pho...
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Comparing four 12'' Rapunzel play dolls by the Disney Store, released from 2012 through 2014. From left to right are the 2012 and 2013 Classic Rapunzel dolls, the 2013 Singing Rapunzel Doll, and finally the 2014 Rapunzel Classic 12'' Doll.
The best outfit by far is the 2014 one, which is more detailed and movie accurate than any of the others. It approaches the detail and accuracy of the original 2010 Rapunzel doll, or the current Parks doll. Although the 2012 doll has a fuller skirt, it doesn't keep its shape very well, and lacks the decoration and center panel of the other dolls, and the colors are all wrong. The 2013 doll has a similar outfit to the 2014, but lacks various details, such as the long sleeves, the floral decorations on center panel and the border of the outer skirt, and the deeper purple color of the skirt. The singing doll has both the wrong colors and is the bodice is the most simplified of all these four dolls.
All these dolls share that same face sculpt, but the face paint has been progressively improved over the years. The 2014 doll has a much warmer and prettier face than the others. The 2013 dolls have almost identical faces, except for pinker lips on the singing doll. The 2012 doll had a very awkward looking face, with eyes that looked to both glancing to her upper right, and staring straight ahead at the same time. Her lips formed a very unnatural looking smirk.
All the dolls have very long blonde hair that is straight and smooth, with a sideways bang over her forehead. However the 2012 had the longest hair, at about 12 inches, the other three dolls had 11 inch hair that didn't quite reach the floor. The swoosh bang was too severe in the 2013 dolls; it looks better in the 2012 and 2014 dolls. The 2012 and 2013 Classic dolls have excellent hair that was straight and smooth right out of the box, with very little combing needed to straighten out some strays. The 2013 singing doll and 2014 classic doll have hair that isn't quite so shiny and neat. The 2014 doll's hair got a little frizzy when I combed out the tangles. From the front, I think the 2014 doll has the best looking hair, as the the bang doesn't hide her face at all, and isn't too hardened by hair product. The 2014 doll has hair that is a littler darker in color than the other three dolls.
The 2013 and 2014 dolls have the same body, with fully articulated arms, but rubber legs and fixed angled feet. The 2012 doll has the problematic hard plastic legs with external knee joints and ball jointed ankles. She comes with flat soled purple shoes. The other dolls are barefoot, as was the movie character.
Here is my ranking of these four Rapunzel dolls, with their best features mentioned:
1. 2014 Classic Rapunzel. Best outfit by far and prettiest face, big overall improvement over 2013 dolls.
2. 2013 Classic Rapunzel. Very nice hair, big overall improvement over 2012 doll.
3. 2013 Singing Rapunzel. Very nice hair, but plain outfit.
4. 2012 Classic Rapunzel. Longest and most manageable hair, fullest skirt, but needs a petticoat to keep it full.
Foliage and flower buds opening together. Early berries loved by the birds. I bought it in Woolworths many years ago, when I first moved to Boscombe and I cut it back every year to keep it manageable.
Here we are again at the start of the ninth Monarch’s Way walk, 6 miles from Chedworth Roman Villa to North Cerney. This time Deborah (who took the selfie), Alison, Rod and me were joined again by Steven, Melanie and Louise and it was Alasdair’s first walk with us.
We are walking a 111 mile section of this long distance path over two years in manageable sections and raising funds for Grassroots Suicide Prevention. The tenth walk is planned for next weekend and the remaining 10 will take place in 2023.
It has been so enjoyable to walk in company with our friends in some beautiful Cotswold countryside.
And yes, that’s me with my arm in plaster, I managed climbing over stiles ok! Just over a week to go until it comes off.
66735 waiting to move in a T3 possession once the track workers have cut the adjacent line into manageable sections to be lifted onto the empty wagons
“Searching is half the fun: life is much more manageable when thought of as a scavenger hunt as opposed to a surprise party.” ~ Jimmy Buffet
Spotted this cow moose and her yearling feeding near Soda Butte Creek early one morning as we were driving in to the park from Cooke City. They were not far off the road, so I was able to roll down my window down, snap a few shots, and go on without disturbing them. As you can see, we had a dusting of fresh snow on this morning which was a nice addition to the spring landscape :-)
10 days to go until vacation....3 days to go until I find out what is going to happen with my job....needless to say, a stressful week between dealing with work related matters and finalizing all our vacation plans, so I will try to keep up with everyone as best I can....have a great Tuesday, and as always, thanks for stopping by to visit!!!!
© Darlene Bushue - All of my images are protected by copyright and may not be used on any site, blog, or forum without my permission.
Superbly preserved in the surrounding limestone outcrops are fossil remains of prehistoric Australian animals from the last 25 million years. They include marsupial lions, carnovorous kangaroos, huge flightless birds, pythons, platypuses, turtles, crocodiles, and bats.
Riversleigh is one of the most significant fossil deposits in the world and the richest known fossil mammal deposit in Australia. In 1994, Riversleigh, along with Naracoorte in South Australia, were jointly inscribed on the World Heritage List as one World Heritage Area called the Australain Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte). Although, nearly 2000km separate these two sites, they both provide separate evidence of key stages in the evolution of Australia's mammal fauna and are outstanding for their extreme diversity and quality of preservation of their fossils.
A pocket of fossil rich limestone - one of the hundreds scattered over the 40sq. km of Riversleigh - is preserved in the bluff and within the fallen rocks on the slopes at this site. D site was the first fossil rich site found at Riversleigh. Millions of years ago the limestone in this bluff was mud at the bottom of a large rainforest lake. It contains a 25 million-year-old collection of creatures that lived in and around a large lake in the rainforest. Fossils from over 40 different kinds of animals have been recovered from D site.
Most of the vertebrate material visible at D Site represents aquatic vertebraes, such as 5m long crocodiles and 2m lungfish which lived with huge turtles. A few large mammals such as a giant wombat-like marsupial, an ancestor of the Tasmanian tiger and a marsupial lion as well as small possums and bandicoots have also been found.
An abundance of large bird bones belonging to a 2.5m tall flightless bird called a dromomithid, were also found, suggesting that these birds foraged in and along the edge of the lake. Huge pythons up to 8m long with girths slightly smaller than a dinner plate were also found. Tiny bones, remains of large colonies of bats which lives in the caves overlooking the lake have been preserved in a small pocket of limestone, called the Microsite, near D Site.
The fossils at D Site stand ghostly white against the weathered grey limestone. Sometimes these show up as sections through bones or teeth, much like the profile of sliced cucumber. In other cases, the bones and teeth actually protrude from the eroding limestone. The fossils are less obvious in freshly quarried limestone surfaces because, like the fossils, the unweathered RIversleigh limestone is a generally creamy-white colour.
The Riversleigh limestone that has protected and preserved these rainforest creatures for more than 25 million years is extremely hard. Hammers and chisels were initially used to free the fossils but this was a slow and inefficient method. Explosives are now used to break the rock into large but manageable blocks for transport to laboratories in Sydney and the Riversleigh Fossil Centre at Mount Isa. There, the blocks are treated with acetic acid, which dissolves the limestone without attacking the fossils. All material is the property of the Queensland Museum and after the material is studied it is sent to the Queensland Museum for safekeeping.
Scientific investigation began in 1963 and continues today. A group of palaeontologists from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum conducts studies at Riversleigh each year, coordinating scientific research and activities in the area. There are more than 60 specialists working on Riversleigh fossils.
The fossils at Riversleigh are outstanding for their quality of preservation. This came about because the spring fed pools and lakes, once present in Riversleigh's ancient forest, contained a high concentration of dissolved calcium carbonate. The high concentration of calcium carbonate in the water, enabled bonding of materials within the water. When any animal or skeletal remains of settled on the bottom of the lake, they were quietly coated and buried in the limestone sediments. Once the calcium carbonate (limey mud) dried out, hardened, and turned to rock, it then became limestone.
The surface of the lakes and pools may have looked like solid ground, as surface evaporation cause the limestone to cement together with a fragile crust of leaves and other debris. Animals seeking water sometimes fell through these crusts and drowned. They then sank to the bottom where crocodiles, turtles, and other scavenging animals would eat their fill, leaving the remains on the muddy bottom. As the limey muds with their entombed remains steadily accumulated, chemicals in the groundwater flowing through the sediment gradually altered the composition of the bones and teeth, literally turning them to stone. These freshwater springs, which once fed the pools and lakes at Riversleigh, are still present today and are the sources of the rivers and creeks at Lawn Hill Gorge. Air bubbles from the springs can often be seen rising to the water surface as you canoe through Lawn Hill Gorge. The fossilisation process continues today in both Lawn Hill Creek and the Gregory River.
More than 60, 000 fossil specimens of more than 300 kinds of animals have been recovered from the entire Riversleigh section. These have provided palaeontologists with a record of the history of the earth and how animals of today have evolved from their ancestors of 25 million years ago. They provide and insight into which animals have changed and how they have evolved over time, and which animals have become extinct. For instance, some ancient animals, unable to adapt to environmental pressures, disappeared while others retreated and now their descendants only exist in smaller areas. The musky rat-kangaroo, an example of one such animal, is found only in a few areas of Queensland's Wet Tropics.
Descendants of other ancient Riversleigh animals today live only in deserts (marsupial moles) and even snowy alpine areas (mountain pygmy-possum). Other descendants include the big red kangaroos and agile wallabies, the mouse-sized marsupial planigaales and dunnarts, mice, bats, emus, and galahs, and around rivers and waterholes, frogs, goannas, pythons, long necked turtles and freshwater crocodiles.
The Waanyi People, the traditional owners of this country, lived in the Riversleigh area for tens of thousands of years and have adapted to considerable climate changes during this period. Tools andmidden shell remains have been located in the area revealing their traditional lifestyles. The Riversleigh are was rich in food, materials, and medical resources, enabling the Waanyi people to comfortably and successfully reside here.
World heritage is a term applied to sites of outstanding universal cultural or natural significance. World heritage sites are so outstanding that they are important to all people of the world. Heritage is out legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass onto future generations. World heritage is a means of protecting out heritage places. There are currently (November 2000) 14 properties listed in Australia including the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, and the Wet Tropics of Queensland.
The Australian Government is committed to protecting places of outstanding natural and cultural heritage within our country. It takes its obligation very seriously to identify, conserve, present, and transmit its heritage places to future generations. It is also committed to maintaining its involvement in the international World Heritage community and will continue to play a leading role in supporting and developing the universal value of these places.
Riversleigh, as a part of Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, is managed on a day-to-day basis by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Management of the World Heritage property is coordinated through a partnership between the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments, Waanyi people and the wider community. The Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage Ministerial Council coordinates government policies relating to funding, research, presentation, and protection of Riversleigh.
Source: Queensland Government (Environmental Protection Agency: Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service)
The ferret (Mustela furo) is a small, domesticated species belonging to the family Mustelidae. The ferret is most likely a domesticated form of the wild European polecat (Mustela putorius), evidenced by their interfertility. Physically, ferrets resemble other mustelids because of their long, slender bodies. Including their tail, the average length of a ferret is about 50 cm (20 in); they weigh between 0.7 and 2.0 kg (1.5 and 4.4 lb); and their fur can be black, brown, white, or a mixture of those colours. The species is sexually dimorphic, with males being considerably larger than females.
Ferrets may have been domesticated since ancient times, but there is widespread disagreement because of the sparseness of written accounts and the inconsistency of those which survive. Contemporary scholarship agrees that ferrets were bred for sport, hunting rabbits in a practice known as rabbiting. In North America, the ferret has become an increasingly prominent choice of household pet, with over five million in the United States alone. The legality of ferret ownership varies by location. In New Zealand and some other countries, restrictions apply due to the damage done to native fauna by feral colonies of polecat–ferret hybrids. The ferret has also served as a fruitful research animal, contributing to research in neuroscience and infectious disease, especially influenza.
The domestic ferret is often confused with the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes), a species native to North America.[1]
Etymology
The name "ferret" is derived from the Latin furittus, meaning "little thief", a likely reference to the common ferret penchant for secreting away small items.[2] In Old English (Anglo-Saxon), the animal was called mearþ. The word fyret seems to appear in Middle English in the 14th century from the Latin, with the modern spelling of "ferret" by the 16th century.[3]
The Greek word ἴκτις íktis, Latinized as ictis occurs in a play written by Aristophanes, The Acharnians, in 425 BC. Whether this was a reference to ferrets, polecats, or the similar Egyptian mongoose is uncertain.[3]
A male ferret is called a hob; a female ferret is a jill. A spayed female is a sprite, a neutered male is a gib, and a vasectomised male is known as a hoblet. Ferrets under one year old are known as kits. A group of ferrets is known as a "business",[4] or historically as a "busyness". Other purported collective nouns, including "besyness", "fesynes", "fesnyng" and "feamyng", appear in some dictionaries, but are almost certainly ghost words.[5]
Biology
Skull of a ferret
Characteristics
Ferret profile
Ferrets have a typical mustelid body-shape, being long and slender. Their average length is about 50 cm (20 in) including a 13 cm (5.1 in) tail. Their pelage has various colorations including brown, black, white or mixed. They weigh between 0.7 and 2.0 kg (1.5 and 4.4 lb) and are sexually dimorphic as the males are substantially larger than females. The average gestation period is 42 days and females may have two or three litters each year. The litter size is usually between three and seven kits which are weaned after three to six weeks and become independent at three months. They become sexually mature at approximately 6 months and the average life span is 7 to 10 years.[6][7] Ferrets are induced ovulators.[8]
Behavior
Ferrets spend 14–18 hours a day asleep and are most active around the hours of dawn and dusk, meaning they are crepuscular.[9] If they are caged, they should be taken out daily to exercise and satisfy their curiosity; they need at least an hour and a place to play.[10] Unlike their polecat ancestors, which are solitary animals, most ferrets will live happily in social groups. They are territorial, like to burrow, and prefer to sleep in an enclosed area.[11]
Like many other mustelids, ferrets have scent glands near their anus, the secretions from which are used in scent marking. Ferrets can recognize individuals from these anal gland secretions, as well as the sex of unfamiliar individuals.[12] Ferrets may also use urine marking for sex and individual recognition.[13]
As with skunks, ferrets can release their anal gland secretions when startled or scared, but the smell is much less potent and dissipates rapidly. Most pet ferrets in the US are sold descented (with the anal glands removed).[14] In many other parts of the world, including the UK and other European countries, de-scenting is considered an unnecessary mutilation.
If excited, they may perform a behavior called the "weasel war dance", characterized by frenzied sideways hops, leaps and bumping into nearby objects. Despite its common name, it is not aggressive but is a joyful invitation to play. It is often accompanied by a unique soft clucking noise, commonly referred to as "dooking".[15] When scared, ferrets will hiss; when upset, they squeak softly.[16]
Diet
Ferrets are obligate carnivores.[17] The natural diet of their wild ancestors consisted of whole small prey, including meat, organs, bones, skin, feathers and fur.[18] Ferrets have short digestive systems and a quick metabolism, so they need to eat frequently. Prepared dry foods consisting almost entirely of meat (including high-grade cat food, although specialized ferret food is increasingly available and preferable)[19] provide the most nutritional value. Some ferret owners feed pre-killed or live prey (such as mice and rabbits) to their ferrets to more closely mimic their natural diet.[20][21] Ferret digestive tracts lack a cecum and the animal is largely unable to digest plant matter.[22] Before much was known about ferret physiology, many breeders and pet stores recommended food like fruit in the ferret diet, but it is now known that such foods are inappropriate, and may in fact have negative consequences for ferret health. Ferrets imprint on their food at around six months old. This can make introducing new foods to an older ferret a challenge, and even simply changing brands of kibble may meet with resistance from a ferret that has never eaten the food as a kit. It is therefore advisable to expose young ferrets to as many different types and flavors of appropriate food as possible.[23]
Dentition
Ferret dentition
Ferrets have four types of teeth (the number includes maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower) teeth) with a dental formula of
3.1.4.1
3.1.4.2
:
Twelve small incisor teeth (only 2–3 mm [3⁄32–1⁄8 in] long) located between the canines in the front of the mouth. These are used for grooming.
Four canines used for killing prey.
Twelve premolar teeth that the ferret uses to chew food—located at the sides of the mouth, directly behind the canines. The ferret uses these teeth to cut through flesh, using them in a scissors action to cut the meat into digestible chunks.
Six molars (two on top and four on the bottom) at the far back of the mouth are used to crush food.
Health
Male ferret
Ferrets are known to suffer from several distinct health problems. Among the most common are cancers affecting the adrenal glands, pancreas and lymphatic system.
Adrenal disease, a growth of the adrenal glands that can be either hyperplasia or cancer, is most often diagnosed by signs like unusual hair loss, increased aggression, and difficulty urinating or defecating. Treatment options include surgery to excise the affected glands, melatonin or deslorelin implants, and hormone therapy. The causes of adrenal disease speculated to include unnatural light cycles, diets based around processed ferret foods, and prepubescent neutering. It has also been suggested that there may be a hereditary component to adrenal disease.[24]
Insulinoma, a type of cancer of the islet cells of the pancreas, is the most common form of cancer in ferrets. It is most common in ferrets between the ages of 4 and 5 years old.[25]
Lymphoma is the most common malignancy in ferrets. Ferret lymphosarcoma occurs in two forms—juvenile lymphosarcoma, a fast-growing type that affects ferrets younger than two years, and adult lymphosarcoma, a slower-growing form that affects ferrets four to seven years old.[26]
Viral diseases include canine distemper, influenza and ferret systemic coronavirus.[27][28][29]
A high proportion of ferrets with white markings which form coat patterns known as a blaze, badger, or panda coat, such as a stripe extending from their face down the back of their head to their shoulder blades, or a fully white head, have a congenital deafness (partial or total) which is similar to Waardenburg syndrome in humans.[30] Ferrets without white markings, but with premature graying of the coat, are also more likely to have some deafness than ferrets with solid coat colors which do not show this trait.[31] Most albino ferrets are not deaf; if deafness does occur in an albino ferret, this may be due to an underlying white coat pattern which is obscured by the albinism.[30]
Health problems can occur in unspayed females when not being used for breeding.[32] Similar to domestic cats, ferrets can also suffer from hairballs and dental problems. Ferrets will also often chew on and swallow foreign objects which can lead to bowel obstruction.[33]
History of domestication
Women hunting rabbits with a ferret in the 14th-century Queen Mary Psalter
In common with most domestic animals, the original reason for ferrets being domesticated by human beings is uncertain, but it may have involved hunting. According to phylogenetic studies, the ferret was domesticated from the European polecat (Mustela putorius), and likely descends from a North African lineage of the species.[34] Analysis of mitochondrial DNA suggests that ferrets were domesticated around 2,500 years ago. It has been claimed that the ancient Egyptians were the first to domesticate ferrets, but as no mummified remains of a ferret have yet been found, nor any hieroglyph of a ferret, and no polecat now occurs wild in the area, that idea seems unlikely.[35] The American Society of Mammalogists classifies M. furo as a distinct species.[36]
Ferrets were probably used by the Romans for hunting.[37][38] Genghis Khan, ruler of the Mongol Empire, is recorded as using ferrets in a gigantic hunt in 1221 that aimed to purge an entire region of wild animals.[3]
Colonies of feral ferrets have established themselves in areas where there is no competition from similarly sized predators, such as in the Shetland Islands and in remote regions in New Zealand. Where ferrets coexist with polecats, hybridization is common. It has been claimed that New Zealand has the world's largest feral population of ferret–polecat hybrids.[39] In 1877, farmers in New Zealand demanded that ferrets be introduced into the country to control the rabbit population, which was also introduced by humans. Five ferrets were imported in 1879, and in 1882–1883, 32 shipments of ferrets were made from London, totaling 1,217 animals. Only 678 landed, and 198 were sent from Melbourne, Australia. On the voyage, the ferrets were mated with the European polecat, creating a number of hybrids that were capable of surviving in the wild. In 1884 and 1886, close to 4,000 ferrets and ferret hybrids, 3,099 weasels and 137 stoats were turned loose.[40] Concern was raised that these animals would eventually prey on indigenous wildlife once rabbit populations dropped, and this is exactly what happened to New Zealand's bird species which previously had had no mammalian predators.
Ferreting
Main article: Rabbiting
Muzzled ferret flushing a rat, as illustrated in Harding's Ferret Facts and Fancies (1915)
For millennia, the main use of ferrets was for hunting, or "ferreting". With their long, lean build and inquisitive nature, ferrets are very well equipped for getting down holes and chasing rodents, rabbits and moles out of their burrows. The Roman historians Pliny and Strabo record that Caesar Augustus sent "viverrae" from Libya to the Balearic Islands to control rabbit plagues there in 6 BC; it is speculated that "viverrae" could refer to ferrets, mongooses, or polecats.[3][41][42] In England, in 1390, a law was enacted restricting the use of ferrets for hunting to the relatively wealthy:
it is ordained that no manner of layman which hath not lands to the value of forty shillings a year shall from henceforth keep any greyhound or other dog to hunt, nor shall he use ferrets, nets, heys, harepipes nor cords, nor other engines for to take or destroy deer, hares, nor conies, nor other gentlemen's game, under pain of twelve months' imprisonment.[43]
Ferrets were first introduced into the American continents in the 17th century, and were used extensively from 1860 until the start of World War II to protect grain stores in the American West from rodents. They are still used for hunting in some countries, including the United Kingdom, where rabbits are considered a pest by farmers.[44] The practice is illegal in several countries where it is feared that ferrets could unbalance the ecology. In 2009 in Finland, where ferreting was previously unknown, the city of Helsinki began to use ferrets to restrict the city's rabbit population to a manageable level. Ferreting was chosen because in populated areas it is considered to be safer and less ecologically damaging than shooting the rabbits.
As pets
A ferret in a war dance jump
In the United States, ferrets were relatively rare pets until the 1980s. A government study by the California State Bird and Mammal Conservation Program estimated that by 1996 about 800,000 domestic ferrets were being kept as pets in the United States.[45]
Regulation
Australia: It is illegal to keep ferrets as pets in Queensland and the Northern Territory;[46] in the Australian Capital Territory a licence is required.[47]
Brazil: Ferrets are allowed only if they are given a microchip identification tag and sterilized.
New Zealand: It has been illegal to sell, distribute or breed ferrets in New Zealand since 2002 unless certain conditions are met.[48]
United States: Ferrets were once banned in many US states, but most of these laws were rescinded in the 1980s and 1990s as they became popular pets.
Illegal: Ferrets are illegal in California under Fish and Game Code Section 2118;[49] and the California Code of Regulations,[50] although it is not illegal for veterinarians in the state to treat ferrets kept as pets. "Ferrets are strictly prohibited as pets under Hawaii law because they are potential carriers of the rabies virus";[51] the territory of Puerto Rico has a similar law.[52] Ferrets are restricted by some municipalities, such as New York City,[52] which renewed its ban in 2015.[53][54] They are also prohibited on many military bases.[52] A permit to own a ferret is needed in other areas, including Rhode Island.[55] Illinois and Georgia do not require a permit to merely possess a ferret, but a permit is required to breed ferrets.[56][57] It was once illegal to own ferrets in Dallas, Texas,[58] but the current Dallas City Code for Animals includes regulations for the vaccination of ferrets.[59] Pet ferrets are legal in Wisconsin, however legality varies by municipality. The city of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, for example, classifies ferrets as a wild animal and subsequently prohibits them from being kept within the city limits. Also, an import permit from the state department of agriculture is required to bring one into the state.[60] Under common law, ferrets are deemed "wild animals" subject to strict liability for injuries they cause, but in several states statutory law has overruled the common law, deeming ferrets "domestic".[61]
Japan: In Hokkaido prefecture, ferrets must be registered with the local government.[62] In other prefectures, no restrictions apply.
Other uses
Ferrets are an important experimental animal model for human influenza,[63][64] and have been used to study the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) virus.[65] Smith, Andrews, Laidlaw (1933) inoculated ferrets intra-nasally with human naso-pharyngeal washes, which produced a form of influenza that spread to other cage mates. The human influenza virus (Influenza type A) was transmitted from an infected ferret to a junior investigator, from whom it was subsequently re-isolated.
Ferrets have been used in many broad areas of research, such as the study of pathogenesis and treatment in a variety of human disease, these including studies into cardiovascular disease, nutrition, respiratory diseases such as SARS and human influenza, airway physiology,[66] cystic fibrosis and gastrointestinal disease.
Because they share many anatomical and physiological features with humans, ferrets are extensively used as experimental subjects in biomedical research, in fields such as virology, reproductive physiology, anatomy, endocrinology and neuroscience.[67]
In the UK, ferret racing is often a feature of rural fairs or festivals, with people placing small bets on ferrets that run set routes through pipes and wire mesh. Although financial bets are placed, the event is primarily for entertainment purposes as opposed to 'serious' betting sports such as horse or greyhound racing.[68][69]
A very small experimental study of ferrets found that a nasal spray effectively blocked the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.[70]
Terminology and coloring
Typical ferret coloration, known as a sable or polecat-colored ferret
Most ferrets are either albinos, with white fur and pink eyes, or display the typical dark masked sable coloration of their wild polecat ancestors. In recent years fancy breeders have produced a wide variety of colors and patterns. Color refers to the color of the ferret's guard hairs, undercoat, eyes and nose; pattern refers to the concentration and distribution of color on the body, mask and nose, as well as white markings on the head or feet when present. Some national organizations, such as the American Ferret Association, have attempted to classify these variations in their showing standards.[71]
There are four basic colors. The sable (including chocolate and dark brown), albino, dark-eyed white (DEW, also known as black-eyed white or BEW) and silver. All the other colors of a ferret are variations on one of these four categories.
Waardenburg-like coloring
White or albino ferret
Ferrets with a white stripe on their face or a fully white head, primarily blazes, badgers and pandas, almost certainly carry a congenital defect which shares some similarities to Waardenburg syndrome. This causes, among other things, a cranial deformation in the womb which broadens the skull, white face markings, and also partial or total deafness. It is estimated as many as 75 percent of ferrets with these Waardenburg-like colorings are deaf.
White ferrets were favored in the Middle Ages for the ease in seeing them in thick undergrowth. Leonardo da Vinci's painting Lady with an Ermine is likely mislabelled; the animal is probably a ferret, not a stoat (for which "ermine" is an alternative name for the animal in its white winter coat). Similarly, the ermine portrait of Queen Elizabeth I shows her with her pet ferret, which has been decorated with painted-on heraldic ermine spots.
The Ferreter's Tapestry is a 15th-century tapestry from Burgundy, France, now part of the Burrell Collection housed in the Glasgow Museum and Art Galleries. It shows a group of peasants hunting rabbits with nets and white ferrets. This image was reproduced in Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400–1500, by Jacqueline Herald, Bell & Hyman.[72]
Gaston Phoebus' Book of the Hunt was written in approximately 1389 to explain how to hunt different kinds of animals, including how to use ferrets to hunt rabbits. Illustrations show how multicolored ferrets that were fitted with muzzles were used to chase rabbits out of their warrens and into waiting nets.
Import restrictions
Australia – Ferrets cannot be imported into Australia. A report drafted in August 2000 seems to be the only effort made to date to change the situation.[73]
Canada – Ferrets brought from anywhere except the US require a Permit to Import from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Animal Health Office. Ferrets from the US require only a vaccination certificate signed by a veterinarian. Ferrets under three months old are not subject to any import restrictions.[74]
European Union – As of July 2004, dogs, cats and ferrets can travel freely within the European Union under the pet passport scheme. To cross a border within the EU, ferrets require at minimum an EU PETS passport and an identification microchip (though some countries will accept a tattoo instead). Vaccinations are required; most countries require a rabies vaccine, and some require a distemper vaccine and treatment for ticks and fleas 24 to 48 hours before entry. Ferrets occasionally need to be quarantined before entering the country. PETS travel information is available from any EU veterinarian or on government websites.
New Zealand – New Zealand has banned the import of ferrets into the country.[75]
United Kingdom – The UK accepts ferrets under the EU's PETS travel scheme. Ferrets must be microchipped, vaccinated against rabies, and documented. They must be treated for ticks and tapeworms 24 to 48 hours before entry. They must also arrive via an authorized route. Ferrets arriving from outside the EU may be subject to a six-month quarantine
Montan University
Object ID: 57328 Franz Josef Street 18
Cadastral Community: Leoben. The Montanuniversität Leoben arose from the k.k. Montanlehranstalt (teaching institution), which was founded in 1835 by Archduke Johann and opened in 1840 in Vordernberg. In 1849 it was transferred to Leoben. The neo-Baroque "old building" of the Montanuniversität at the given address was put into operation in autumn 1910.
The Montanuniversität Leoben (MU Leoben, Montanuni, MUL) is a technical university and Austria's only university for mining and metallurgy.
The special features of the Alma Mater Leobiensis include the interdisciplinary interwoven fields of study and the strong inner cohesion, which is also a consequence of its manageable size and the old miner traditions. Together with Graz University of Technology and Vienna University of Technology, the small MU Leoben forms the Austrian Universities of Technology (TU Austria) network with approximately 42,000 students, total assets of € 460 million and 8,800 employees.
History
The Montanuniversität was founded on November 4, 1840 by Archduke Johann in Vordernberg as "Steiermärkisch-Ständische Montanlehranstalt (Styrian Corporative Montan Teaching Institution)". One of the first teachers and first director was the mining specialist Peter Tunner. This one managed to enforce the state takeover of the school and the relocation to the nearby district town of Leoben, where the operation was taken into on 1 November 1849.
1904 took place with imperial resolution the renaming into "Montanistic university" and the conferment of the right of doctorate - whereby it was equated to the technical high schools. 1934 followed an organizational merger with the Graz University of Technology, which, however, had a slump in the study numbers result. It was therefore repealed in 1937. From 1955, the traditional fields of study mining and metallurgy were supplemented by other subjects. In 1975, based on the University Organization Act followed he renaming into "Montanuniversität Leoben (MUL)".
The still-in-use neo-Baroque "old building" of Montanuni was on October 22, 1910, including in the presence of the k.k. Minister of Public Works, August Ritt (1852-1934), put into operation. The recent additions date back to 1970 and were officially opened on November 4, 2009, after 15 months of rebuilding and renovation work. Especially due to the high number of first-semester students in recent years, there was an urgent need for larger auditoriums. The university sports center also got its own premises.
Research in Leoben is based on the value added chain from raw materials to basic and construction materials to the finished component or system. The core areas of mining, metallurgy and materials are supplemented by cross-sectional areas such as basic science subjects, environmental technology and business administration and economics. In doing so, close cooperations are maintained with industrial partners.
Montanuniversität
Objekt ID: 57328 Franz Josef-Straße 18
Katastralgemeinde: Leoben. Die Montanuniversität Leoben ging aus der k.k. Montanlehranstalt hervor, die im Jahre 1835 von Erzherzog Johann begründet und 1840 in Vordernberg eröffnet wurde. 1849 wurde sie nach Leoben verlegt. Das neobarocke „alte Gebäude“ der Montanuniversität an der angegebenen Adresse wurde im Herbst 1910 in Betrieb genommen.
Die Montanuniversität Leoben (MU Leoben, Montanuni, MUL) ist eine Technische Universität und Österreichs einzige Hochschule für Berg- und Hüttenwesen.
Zu den Besonderheiten der Alma Mater Leobiensis zählen die interdisziplinär verwobenen Studienrichtungen und der starke innere Zusammenhalt, was auch eine Folge ihrer überschaubaren Größe und der alten Knappen-Traditionen ist. Die kleine MU Leoben bildet mit der TU Graz und der TU Wien den Verbund Austrian Universities of Technologie (TU Austria) mit ca 42.000 Studierenden, 460 Mio. € Bilanzsumme und 8.800 Mitarbeitern.
Geschichte
Die Montanuniversität wurde am 4. November 1840 von Erzherzog Johann in Vordernberg als „Steiermärkisch-Ständische Montanlehranstalt“ gegründet. Einer der ersten Lehrenden und erster Direktor war der Bergbaufachmann Peter Tunner. Diesem gelang es, die staatliche Übernahme der Schule und die Verlegung in die nahe Bezirksstadt Leoben durchzusetzen, wo der Betrieb am 1. November 1849 aufgenommen wurde.
1904 erfolgte mit kaiserlicher Entschließung die Umbenennung in „Montanistische Hochschule“ und die Verleihung des Promotionsrechts - womit sie den technischen Hochschulen gleichgestellt war. 1934 erfolgte ein organisatorischer Zusammenschluss mit der TU Graz, welcher jedoch einen Einbruch bei den Studienzahlen zur Folge hatte. Er wurde daher 1937 wieder aufgehoben. Ab 1955 wurden die traditionellen Studienrichtungen Bergwesen und Hüttenwesen durch weitere Fachgebiete ergänzt. 1975 erfolgte auf Basis des Universitätsorganisationsgesetzes die Umbenennung in „Montanuniversität Leoben (MUL)“.
Das heute noch in Verwendung stehende neobarocke „alte Gebäude“ der Montanuni wurde am 22. Oktober 1910, unter anderem im Beisein des k.k. Ministers für öffentliche Arbeiten, August Ritt (1852–1934), in Betrieb genommen. Die Zubauten aus der jüngeren Zeit stammen aus dem Jahr 1970 und wurden am 4. November 2009 nach 15 Monaten der Umbau- und Renovierungsarbeiten feierlich eröffnet. Besonders durch die in den letzten Jahren stark gestiegene Anzahl an Erstsemestrigen, bestand der dringende Bedarf nach vergrößerten Hörsälen. Dabei bekam auch das Universitätssportzentrum eigene Räumlichkeiten.
Die Forschung in Leoben orientiert sich an der Wertschöpfungskette von den Rohstoffen über Grund- und Werkstoffe bis zum fertigen Bauteil bzw. System. Die Kernbereiche Mining, Metallurgy und Materials werden ergänzt durch Querschnittsbereiche wie die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagenfächer, die Umwelttechnik sowie die Betriebs- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Dabei werden enge Kooperationen mit Industriepartnern gepflegt.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montanuniversit%C3%A4t_Leoben
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_denkmalgesch%C3%BCtzten_O...
The ONLY editing I did to the pictures was reducing them from the size I shoot in SL (4000×3500) down to a 1024 size manageable for the blog and Flickr. There’s been no cropping, no liquifying, no adjusting contrast or color balances or any of the other Photoshop tools I use on a regular basis.
slicesoflifesl.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/sooc-the-void-par...
It looked to be a good day for a hike in the foothills east of the Rocky Mountains, except for some wind. Snow was patchy on the trail in the lower reaches, but still manageable with just our boots. Once past the junction with Prairie Link Trail, we had to don our spikes to continue. A kilometre from the summit, however, the ridge had been swept free of snow, and we were back with just our boots without spikes. The same winds that kept the snow off the ridge top returned to pester and annoy us, cooling us down. We walked just over 18 km's, gaining just over 800 m's, and taking 5 1/4 hours to so.
Superbly preserved in the surrounding limestone outcrops are fossil remains of prehistoric Australian animals from the last 25 million years. They include marsupial lions, carnovorous kangaroos, huge flightless birds, pythons, platypuses, turtles, crocodiles, and bats.
Riversleigh is one of the most significant fossil deposits in the world and the richest known fossil mammal deposit in Australia. In 1994, Riversleigh, along with Naracoorte in South Australia, were jointly inscribed on the World Heritage List as one World Heritage Area called the Australain Fossil Mammal Sites (Riversleigh/Naracoorte). Although, nearly 2000km separate these two sites, they both provide separate evidence of key stages in the evolution of Australia's mammal fauna and are outstanding for their extreme diversity and quality of preservation of their fossils.
A pocket of fossil rich limestone - one of the hundreds scattered over the 40sq. km of Riversleigh - is preserved in the bluff and within the fallen rocks on the slopes at this site. D site was the first fossil rich site found at Riversleigh. Millions of years ago the limestone in this bluff was mud at the bottom of a large rainforest lake. It contains a 25 million-year-old collection of creatures that lived in and around a large lake in the rainforest. Fossils from over 40 different kinds of animals have been recovered from D site.
Most of the vertebrate material visible at D Site represents aquatic vertebraes, such as 5m long crocodiles and 2m lungfish which lived with huge turtles. A few large mammals such as a giant wombat-like marsupial, an ancestor of the Tasmanian tiger and a marsupial lion as well as small possums and bandicoots have also been found.
An abundance of large bird bones belonging to a 2.5m tall flightless bird called a dromomithid, were also found, suggesting that these birds foraged in and along the edge of the lake. Huge pythons up to 8m long with girths slightly smaller than a dinner plate were also found. Tiny bones, remains of large colonies of bats which lives in the caves overlooking the lake have been preserved in a small pocket of limestone, called the Microsite, near D Site.
The fossils at D Site stand ghostly white against the weathered grey limestone. Sometimes these show up as sections through bones or teeth, much like the profile of sliced cucumber. In other cases, the bones and teeth actually protrude from the eroding limestone. The fossils are less obvious in freshly quarried limestone surfaces because, like the fossils, the unweathered RIversleigh limestone is a generally creamy-white colour.
The Riversleigh limestone that has protected and preserved these rainforest creatures for more than 25 million years is extremely hard. Hammers and chisels were initially used to free the fossils but this was a slow and inefficient method. Explosives are now used to break the rock into large but manageable blocks for transport to laboratories in Sydney and the Riversleigh Fossil Centre at Mount Isa. There, the blocks are treated with acetic acid, which dissolves the limestone without attacking the fossils. All material is the property of the Queensland Museum and after the material is studied it is sent to the Queensland Museum for safekeeping.
Scientific investigation began in 1963 and continues today. A group of palaeontologists from the University of New South Wales and the Australian Museum conducts studies at Riversleigh each year, coordinating scientific research and activities in the area. There are more than 60 specialists working on Riversleigh fossils.
The fossils at Riversleigh are outstanding for their quality of preservation. This came about because the spring fed pools and lakes, once present in Riversleigh's ancient forest, contained a high concentration of dissolved calcium carbonate. The high concentration of calcium carbonate in the water, enabled bonding of materials within the water. When any animal or skeletal remains of settled on the bottom of the lake, they were quietly coated and buried in the limestone sediments. Once the calcium carbonate (limey mud) dried out, hardened, and turned to rock, it then became limestone.
The surface of the lakes and pools may have looked like solid ground, as surface evaporation cause the limestone to cement together with a fragile crust of leaves and other debris. Animals seeking water sometimes fell through these crusts and drowned. They then sank to the bottom where crocodiles, turtles, and other scavenging animals would eat their fill, leaving the remains on the muddy bottom. As the limey muds with their entombed remains steadily accumulated, chemicals in the groundwater flowing through the sediment gradually altered the composition of the bones and teeth, literally turning them to stone. These freshwater springs, which once fed the pools and lakes at Riversleigh, are still present today and are the sources of the rivers and creeks at Lawn Hill Gorge. Air bubbles from the springs can often be seen rising to the water surface as you canoe through Lawn Hill Gorge. The fossilisation process continues today in both Lawn Hill Creek and the Gregory River.
More than 60, 000 fossil specimens of more than 300 kinds of animals have been recovered from the entire Riversleigh section. These have provided palaeontologists with a record of the history of the earth and how animals of today have evolved from their ancestors of 25 million years ago. They provide and insight into which animals have changed and how they have evolved over time, and which animals have become extinct. For instance, some ancient animals, unable to adapt to environmental pressures, disappeared while others retreated and now their descendants only exist in smaller areas. The musky rat-kangaroo, an example of one such animal, is found only in a few areas of Queensland's Wet Tropics.
Descendants of other ancient Riversleigh animals today live only in deserts (marsupial moles) and even snowy alpine areas (mountain pygmy-possum). Other descendants include the big red kangaroos and agile wallabies, the mouse-sized marsupial planigaales and dunnarts, mice, bats, emus, and galahs, and around rivers and waterholes, frogs, goannas, pythons, long necked turtles and freshwater crocodiles.
The Waanyi People, the traditional owners of this country, lived in the Riversleigh area for tens of thousands of years and have adapted to considerable climate changes during this period. Tools andmidden shell remains have been located in the area revealing their traditional lifestyles. The Riversleigh are was rich in food, materials, and medical resources, enabling the Waanyi people to comfortably and successfully reside here.
World heritage is a term applied to sites of outstanding universal cultural or natural significance. World heritage sites are so outstanding that they are important to all people of the world. Heritage is out legacy from the past, what we live with today, and what we pass onto future generations. World heritage is a means of protecting out heritage places. There are currently (November 2000) 14 properties listed in Australia including the Great Barrier Reef, Kakadu National Park, and the Wet Tropics of Queensland.
The Australian Government is committed to protecting places of outstanding natural and cultural heritage within our country. It takes its obligation very seriously to identify, conserve, present, and transmit its heritage places to future generations. It is also committed to maintaining its involvement in the international World Heritage community and will continue to play a leading role in supporting and developing the universal value of these places.
Riversleigh, as a part of Boodjamulla (Lawn Hill) National Park, is managed on a day-to-day basis by the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. Management of the World Heritage property is coordinated through a partnership between the Commonwealth and Queensland Governments, Waanyi people and the wider community. The Australian Fossil Mammal Sites World Heritage Ministerial Council coordinates government policies relating to funding, research, presentation, and protection of Riversleigh.
Source: Queensland Government (Environmental Protection Agency: Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service)
I am delighted with the new 500mm f/5.6 PF. It's smaller, lighter and much more manageable than the f/4 version.
In wildlife photography, it's invaluable to avoid wasting time fighting with the tripod and gimbal head setup. In the meantime, the animal may have gone or changed position. I could take this picture with the heron's head in a perfect light. With the f/4 lens, I would have been too slow.
My feeling is that it makes the f/4 lens a niche product. The f/4 aperture is very useful, but you pay a high price for this only benefit.
© All Rights Reserved Shepherd Eaton 2012
After getting kicked out of the historical home that became the first building of her private academy, we walked the campus and found a cool ivy covered building. This was in a semi secluded area that reduced the wind to a manageable 20 mph. :)
Strobist: SB900 in a FourSquare camera left. Triggered with RadioPoppers.
Contact print of my first roll of Film Ferrania P30. There are definite issues with either exposure or development, however, the images that are correctly exposed have punchy but manageable contrast. I really like it and look forward to trying it again.
Film stock: Film Ferrania P30
ISO: 80
Format: 135
Camera: Pentax P30
Lenses: various
Filters: Orange, Red, Green, Blue (1st 6 complete images)
Developer: 510-Pyro 1:500 semi stand, 60min @20degC
Digitised: digital camera
Here’s a self-portrait of me taken at sunset yesterday evening… rejoicing and celebrating the return of our cloudy season!
I can’t remember when last I’ve seen (and photographed) clouds and light as sweet as this… the light was already good when I arrived at the beach… and it just kept getting better and better by the minute! In fact… it was so good that I filled an entire 4 gig memory card in the space of less than an hour!!
I must apologize to all my contacts whose photos haven’t received any comments from me recently… it’s not that I’m not looking at them… it’s just that I don’t have enough time in any day to view and comment on all the new images that really appeal to me.
I now have just under 1,600 contacts… many of them are no longer active on Flickr… but some of them are very active… posting at least a dozen photos per day! I spent close to four hours this morning… viewing every single photo in the 37 pages of new thumbnails in my “contacts’ latest photos” page! If I’d attempted to leave a worthy comment on every worthy photo that I saw this morning… I’d probably still be busy commenting tomorrow!
I’m not quite sure what I should do now… should I simply add all the most worthy images to my "favourites" without commenting on them… just so that you can see that I visited your stream and liked your photo? Or should I trim down my contacts list to a more manageable size (say 200 contacts)… and only keep the contacts whose photos really impress and inspire me? Or should I just ignore (view, but not comment on) any image which does not impress or inspire me in any way? Or should I… as a last resort… simply copy/paste a standard comment on every photo that I like?
I really don’t know what I should do… does anyone else suffer from the same problem? If so… how do you handle it?
Hope everyone has a great Monday and week ahead!
Nikon D300, Sigma 10-20mm at 17mm, aperture of f13, with a 1/60th second exposure.
Click here to check out my Vertorama tutorial.
Urban Explore: I have a new job in Werribee. Until now i have commuted to Melbourne's CBD mostly by bike from my home in Oakleigh. That is a 40 something km round trip and pretty manageable. I thought i would find a way to ride to Werribee. It is very difficult to find a way through, having to road jam pretty much all the way from Footscray to the start of the Federation Trail. It turns out that the trip is about 130km round trip from my house, so it is highly unlikely that i will be bike commuting in the near future. There were however some nice surprises on the trip
"La vie en Rose" expression is quite fitting for day 173, not only was I wearing my pink jersey, but only two weeks after my broken scapula, I was riding my bike. Did 75km yesterday with the gang, and felt great. They were doing 120, but I turned around after 37km, deciding it would be wise for a first outing not to push too much. It was a little soar, but manageable.
Had my first physio on Monday, and the therapist was very happy with his assessment, partly crediting my quick recovery to having done yoga prior to accident. Still need another 4 weeks of recovery to regain my full strengths, but things are looking up, and much better mood than day 164 selfie.
173/366
some might say The Duchess of Argyll was a rather naughty girl. when her second husband divorced her, he whittled down the rather large number of co-respondents to a more manageable 88. she named her step-mother as his co-respondent.
the Duchess was the subject of the most famous Polaroid in history. @ least, the Duchess was the one identifiable subject of the most famous Polaroid in history. the second subject was male, nude, and standing. the Duchess was kneeling. they were in a bathroom.
i must say, the Duchess looks a tad peeved, but relatively unrepentant. if she haled me from a passing car and invited me back to her humble abode for a hot bath and some afternoon tea, i'd probably take her up on her offer.
Comparing the three most recently released mermaid Ariel 12'' dolls by the Disney Store. From left to right they are the 2012 Classic Ariel, the 2013 Ariel from the Little Mermaid Deluxe Doll Gift Set, and the 2013 Classic Ariel. They are standing side by side, supported by Kaiser doll stands (not included with the dolls).
The Gift Set Ariel has the head and face of the 2013 doll, and similar hair (straighter and without ending in gelled curls), but the rest of her is almost identical to the 2012 doll. So it is appropriate that she is in the middle of the trio.
The 2013 Classic Ariel mermaid doll has many differences from the 2012 model, and is a greatly improved doll. She is both more attractive and more movie accurate. The major changes are to her head and face, her hair, her tail and her legs. There is a minor change to her shell bra. The only features that haven't changed are her torso and arms. I think that overall, she is the best doll in the new class of Classic Princess dolls from the Disney Store. That is fitting, as this is the year of the Diamond Edition release of her movie, The Little Mermaid.
Her head has been redesigned to be rounder than the previous models, thus more accurate by the shape alone. Her forehead is lower, her cheeks are fuller and her cheekbones are more prominent. Her cute button nose, open mouth smile and small angular chin seem to be same as the previous model. So her head is not as long, and her face is not as flat.
Her face is similar to last years, but with many small changes. Her eye molds appears to be the same shape, but the corners of her eyes are more rounded, so overall the eyes are slightly smaller but rounder. Her big round blue green eyes are wide open, and glancing to her right. They are darker, the pupils are significantly larger, and the glance is more severe than the 2012 doll. It makes for a more lively and adorable expression. She has four short thick curving black lashes over each eye, in the same pattern as last year, and black eyeliner under them that is thicker and darker than before. She has silver eyeshadow as before, but the thick eyeliner partially obscures the eyeshadow. Her rust colored eyebrows a little thicker and darker than last year, and are closer to her eyes. The rouge on her cheeks are much darker than last year, when it was barely visible, if it was there at all. Her mouth is the same, but her lips are a dark pink (as opposed to last year's pastel pink), and her upper lip is painted thinner, and her lower lip is painted fuller. Her face is very beautiful, youthful, lively and much more movie accurate than before.
Her waist length red hair is mostly straight and soft, but it ends in large stiff curls. The area around her face is also stiffened with gel to keep it off her face, which works very well to make her face much more open than the 2012 doll. Her volume of hair is much less than before. Her hair is much more manageable, neater, and movie accurate than before. But her part is still on the wrong side of her head, and the large curving front bangs of the movie character are still missing from this doll.
Her tail is a dark blue green color, with green glitter forming a scale pattern that is fetching. However her upper and lower fins are made of light blue green tulle that looks much less realistic and movie accurate than the 2012 model. It is based on the tail and fins of the 2011 Classic Ariel, but with the glitter in a scale pattern, rather than being sprayed on. Her purple shell bra is very similar to the 2012 model, but is a little darker and a little more accurate than before. It also seems to fit better.
Her body is fully articulated in the arms, but now has the rubber legs of 2011 and earlier dolls, which has internal knee joints and fixed angled feet. Her hip joints allow her to sit down with her legs together and her back straight up, unlike the 2012 doll with the fully articulated but defective legs. Her angled rubber feet also make her about 1/4 inch shorter than the 2012 doll. I'd say that the rubber legs are definitely a big improvement for Ariel over the fully articulated hard plastic legs of 2012.
The packaging for the dolls is much improved. The box art has been completely redesigned, with beautiful decorations unique to each Princess (actually for each movie), and a cameo of the animated movie character. The boxes are the same height and width, but are 1/2'' flatter, making them smaller and lighter.
The 2013 Disney Princess Classic Doll Collection, released on June 10, 2013. They consist of 11-12'' articulated dolls of the 11 official Disney Princesses, from Snow White to Merida, as well as Princes, Villains and Sidekicks. I now have all 11 Princesses, Queen Elinor, Charlotte and Gaston. I will photograph them boxed, during deboxing and fully deboxed. I will also post reviews and comparative photos.
Classic Disney Princess Ariel Doll - 12''
US Disney Store
Released online June 10, 2013.
Purchased online June 13, 2013.
Received June 24, 2013.
$14.95 (was on sale for $10 at time of purchase).
The Little Mermaid Deluxe Doll Gift
Contains exclusive versions of Vanessa, Ursula, Ariel as Mermaid, Prince Eric, and King Triton. Also included are small figures of Ariel's friends Scuttle, Flounder and Sebastian.
US Disney Store
Released in selected stores June 20, 2013.
Purchased in store June 21, 2013.
$79.95
As with my previous SOOC (Straight Out Of the Camera) exercises, the ONLY editing I did was to reduce the size from the snapshot in SL (4000×3500) down to a 1024 size manageable for the blog and Flickr. There’s been no cropping, adjustments, or texturizing.
slicesoflifesl.wordpress.com/2014/04/29/sooc-insanity-par...
After a great breakfast at a small cafe we took the Scenic Drive into Capitol Reef National Park. It's mostly a paved road until the very end but still manageable. We spent a few hours exploring the area. When we left Capitol Reef we decided to look for something new. I read about the Notom Road, east of the park, so we decided to check it out. Good decision. We went in about 12 miles before the road got rougher. Great scenery - it is the back side of the Waterpocket Fold - another area we need to check out. We then drove through some really desolate landscape before coming to the Hite Overlook. Great view of the Colorado River in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area. After this we were going to visit some Indian ruins but took a wrong turn somewhere so we just headed to Cortez, CO for the evening. Good day.
I took these photos in April 2018 in south eastern Utah.
film. 5th roll. sooc. Yep, thats me and Roger.
I sit up at night. There's a familiar feeling pulling at the back of my throat. It slowly starts to lay its tendrils down into my chest, gently tugging as it goes. There is a warmth in the trail it has left behind, but it isnt a comforting warmth. Instead, this is almost an ache. A dull pain. A reminder of the emptiness that lays here, beneath the skin. It couldnt harm me before, when I was full of love. When my heart was bursting and my head was foggy. The scars hadnt formed back then. There was no space for the thing to come. So it left me alone, but it knew. It knew my love was temporary. It knew there would be time enough later to come back for me. And it did. At first all I saw was the darkness. It enveloped me, cutting off my sight. I rolled and I spun and I fell and I smashed time and again. I felt the ground beneath me move. I knew the bottom of the hole was coming. My mind screamed at me to stop. This was a demon I had battled before and bruised and bloody I had won. And when I remembered that I stopped falling. I caught myself before I hit the end. The storm felt more manageable. Gradually the light returned and it was such a glorious sight I ignored any other feeling. I learnt how to walk again. And one day I felt strong enough to run. But thats when I first noticed it. This new foe. For I didnt realise that once a door is opened it will always be there. You never forget. And the room that you had awoken and then run from wants to feel life again. It calls you. Like a dull ache in the back of your neck you long for something unnamed. A shadow in the mirror.
wow, as i'm typing this it's only been 2011 for nine minutes now.
i usually don't care at all about new years (i mean, it's just a way of marking time, and really... what's time anyway?), but this year has meant so much to me.
today was one of the worst days i've had all year. not because of anything that happened (it was a pretty uneventful day actually) but because of how i felt. long story short, i realized just how much photography meant to me. i'm not going to say that photography makes me automatically feel better, but it sure as hell helps. one of my worst days all year, and after editing a few pictures and seeing comments i got on flickr/looking at everyone's finished 365s (ohmygod, everyone's finale pictures are so freakin good. i'm going to comment on all of them tomorrow. i'm so happy for everyone. skjfhskafh. <3) i felt worlds better. i guess, in short, photography makes everything so much more manageable for me. it's not a cure or a fix. i mean, i'll have to deal with this for the rest of my life, i get that. but photography reminds me that there is hope. god i sound crazy melodramatic, but it's true. years ago i thought that there was no hope. i mean, if humans are essentially going to become obsolete, what's the point, right? but that's the thing. this right now is the point. this right now is all there is. finding something you love and doing what you love is the fucking point. will it matter if you were a photographer or a musician or a great mom or a teacher years and years from now? no. eventually the whole world will forget about all of us, but that's okay. that's how it's supposed to be. because we get to be these incredible human beings who are capable of feeling so passionately. yeah, we're able to feel pain and hurt in ways that can feel worse than death. but no matter how sad you are right now and no matter what the reason is you're hurting so much right now, you were happy once in your life. and that's the thing. we forget how happy we can be. i just hope that when i'm feeling like i do, when i'm feeling like it's physically impossible to be happy, i just want to remember that at one point i was happy. you were happy. no matter how dark the world can seem, your life is the longest fucking thing you'll ever experience, and in all that time you'll eventually be happy again. i mean, just think about all that time. it's just logical. it's hard for me to think this clearly a lot of the time, so i just want to write this down somewhere. this new years, i just want to remember that there's always going to be hope. stay here.
haha, holy crap. sometimes i just need to learn to shut up... sorry guys... i ramble so much.
BOX DATE: None
APPROXIMATE RELEASE DATE: 2009
MANUFACTURER: M.G.A.
DOLLS IN LINE: Avery, Sophina
BODY TYPE: 2009; painted bow panties; flat hands; specialized neck articulation; bend & snap legs
HEAD MOLD: 2009; pierced ears
SPECIAL FEATURES: Switchable head
IMPORTANT NOTES: Sophina was also sold with an extra head.
PERSONAL FUN FACT: I admit that I spend an absurd amount of time researching dolls. Moxie Girlz in particular were a topic I delved DEEP into. Due to their very generic packaging and the lack of interest in them from other collectors, it was especially tricky putting together my own guide. That being said, I was VERY thorough and I know a ton about them. So I was naturally taken aback when a Sophina doll I'd never encountered before popped up online. Colleen and I had been in the process of updating my Moxie Girlz collection video for Youtube in 2021. We decided to organize the video by character so my all my shelves wouldn't be emptied on the same day (it's overwhelming). After filming one of the segments, I popped onto eBay to look up Moxie Girlz. One of the new listings happened to be for this Magic Hair Sophina and her spare head. "Who the heck is this doll?" I thought to myself. I could tell even from a quick glance she was legitimate. But I already documented every other Magic Hair line. I was familiar with them all...so I was stumped. I double checked all my pages in my guide, and as I suspected I had not included this lady. I realized she was very difficult to find photos of online. But I did manage to figure out which Avery went with her. I'm not implying that she's rare, she just isn't available for sale or pictured in people's personal photos frequently (that happens more often than you'd think). I was immediately intrigued by this doll I had somehow missed in 2014 when I started my research. Since she was so cheap, complete, and had the awesome extra head, we bought her. Based on her outfit and flat hands, I had a suspicion she was from either 2009 or 2010. Here "ELE" stamp on the back confirmed she was sold in 2009. The reason I have this lady labeled as "EZ Brush" is because there is another 2009 Magic Hair doll...whom I also have. Both 2009 Magic Hair gals are sold with spare heads and the same sort of gimmicks. While their outfits vary, the packaging gives no sort of differentiation...except with an "EZ Brush" hair tag. This is MGA's code for saran hair. Many Moxie Girlz have nylon tresses, which were troublesome for kids to maintain. The "EZ Brush" branding was to show that the dolls had more manageable hair to play with, as a way to encourage parents to buy the dolls (I presume anyways). Since I wanted a way to distinguish the two versions of Sophina (and maybe Avery one day if I get her), I thought including "EZ Brush" in the name would be a solution. Her saran hair is absolutely gorgeous and "ez" to brush as MGA claims. Of course, my gal had factory color gel gooped into her hair when she arrived, so she needed a spa day. I would have given her the complimentary boil wash and bath anyways, but Sophie was in desperate need of some TLC. Even if the doll didn't seem so "exotic" because I was previously unaware of her existence, I still would have coveted her for my collection. I'm a sucker for all hair gimmick dolls, and I love the way early Moxie Girlz are styled!
My fleet was almost 120 buses when these photos were taken. It would max out at 130 a few years later. Today the fleet is much smaller and a bit more manageable.
Okay! It’s been a while. I typed this up a loooong time ago meaning to share it with you guys. A lot (one or two :P) people have complimented me on the interesting write ups I do for photos sometimes. So I decided to write a story about one very unique and exciting weekend in my life this past summer and put it on Flickr. Anyways, without any further ado…
If you’re the kind of person that comments on photos in their contacts photostreams and hopes they get a comment back on their latest flower macro shot, then I suggest you move on. But if you’re the kind of person who likes to hear stories full of action, adventure, near-death experiences, hot babes, and the like, then stay where you are and hear the story I have to tell! I believe it will be well worth your time :-)
Me and two of my friends from the school cross country team, Taylor and Anthony, decided to organize our very own camping trip before the summer ended and the daily grind of school began. We came to the conclusion that Rimrock Lake in central Washington would be the perfect location for all the amazing adventures we were sure to have. We bought all our food, borrowed equipment from the parents, and headed out Friday morning in my ’98 Chevy with 40 dollars in each of our wallets to pay for gas and emergencies.
The first day we did the typical, set up camp, swam in the near freezing glacial stream, explored the forest, chopped down a couple of trees for LOLs, and some other things that I wouldn’t want my mother to know about ;)
The sunset that night actually turned out to be really good, and since I had brought the tripod and my mom’s DSLR along, we were shooting up nature like there was no tomorrow. You can check out some of those photos below if you’d like… That night we stayed up in our tent till early morning talking about girls (OF COURSE, we’re three teenage guys for crying out loud!), and after we were certain that the noises we heard outside our tent weren’t the squirrel attack that we all feared, we slept until our stomachs woke us the next morning.
Saturday started out with Cocoa Puffs, Gatorade, and a two-mile hike upstream to brush our teeth. By then it was actually 1 in the afternoon because we had slept in for so long, so we headed back to camp to chow down on some more food and relax a little. We soon realized that we NEEDED some Lil Wayne (Well, they did. I could care less :P), and our stereo was in need of some batteries. Our trip to the local store gave us enough batteries to last us for an all-day Lil Weezy marathon and put a 15 dollar dent in our wallets.
Okay, now comes the interesting part.
As we were driving back from the store, we saw the huge rock face on the eastern side of the lake that we had driven by so many times before.
Taylor - “Dude, we should climb that and take photos of the sunset from the top, that would be sick.”
Anthony – “Are you kidding me?! That thing’s like sheer rock CLIFF. There’s no way we could climb that beast!”
Me – “Hold on, see that line of trees to the top? That means it’s not as steep as the rest of the mountain, maybe we could climb up along there. As long as we don’t go too far left where it starts to turn into cliff again…”
We knew that it would be a long climb to the top, because what we discovered when we started our climb is that it was roughly a 100% grade most of the way up. So even though it was only 4:30, we gathered our gear together (I was in charge of the towel, a flashlight, the camera, and the peanut butter), and stuffed it all into our spike bags. We parked our car off to the side of the tree line, slightly on the cliff side, so we could head up at an angle and know for sure that we’ll hit where we wanted to be on the mountain. And off we went on our journey, each of us sporting a t-shirt and sneakers; Anthony and Taylor had some basketball shorts on; I had on my swimsuit.
The first part started off in a huge ascent, way steeper than any trail I had ever hiked. This quickly plateaud, though, and we were back hiking on the flat. After 5 minutes of trailblazing, the plateau dropped down before it started the actual climb up the mountain. At the bottom of the drop was a road, which, needless to say, was a huge smack in the face for us. But it also confused us at the same time because we hadn’t seen the entrance from the main road. Without much of an alternative option, we headed down the road a bit towards the trees, thankful for the path, but still a little perplexed.
We came to a part of the hill that was slightly clearer than the rest, and decided to cut back into the mountain. The climb was even steeper than the beginning slope, and progress was slow. It was a half climb/crawl to the tree line, which made its beginnings near a rockslide. We decided to stick close to the edge of the rockslide and use the trees as support on our climb. Apparently some deer had had the same thought process as us, because we would often find trails that started a promising climb toward the top, before slowly dwindling away back into nothing. At last, after 30 minutes on the loose rocks, we reached the top of the rockslide. (A picture looking down from the rock slide in the comments below). We were about a quarter of the way there.
The next section of terrain was a mixture of loose rocks, saplings, and giant boulders, as we quickly yet carefully clambered our way step by step up the unforgiving slope. Another half hour passed, and we were starting to realize that maybe it wasn’t the climb that was going to give us the most difficulty, but the descent…
Putting that thought aside for now since we had already climbed so far, another 15 minutes found us at the top of the steep rise that most of the mountain consisted of, but we were far from done. The next section of mountain was made up of hundreds of dead and decomposing trees, an obstacle course of vegetation that had us hopping from log to log. Thousands of “white puffy things” as we liked to call them, surrounded us as we headed upwards. The ascent was now walkable, but the precarious nature of each footfall and handhold on the branches above kept us on our toes, sometimes literally. The climb seemed to never end, and we had thoughts of abandoning our sunset photoshoot for a safe climb back home. We even considered staying the night at the top, since we had brought warm clothes and a blanket and it was doubtful any animals lived at the top of this rock wall in the middle of the forest.
That’s when it happened, finally, at the edge of our patience, the sky opened up and we were at the top. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! we cried, joyful that we had accomplished our goal, and that we were still alive. We started walking towards the other side of the mountain because we knew that was where the rock cliff (and the awesome view) was. Then we saw it, to the left, jutting out from the mountain towards the heavens, was a knoll that stood above everything else in the forest. The sight was comparable to seeing the edge of Pride Rock, and knowing that on the other side was an amazing view of the Pride Lands. In reckless abandon, we sprinted over to this unbelievable sight and climbed the final 20 meters to the top.
The view was incredible. Giant rock formations that had towered over us down at camp now looked like small cutouts from the mountain ranges that surrounded us. Rimrock Lake, which had taken us 30 minutes just to drive around, was easily all within view; and Clear Lake five miles away could be seen as well. We could hardly believe our eyes; we had never before seen anything more amazing then what lay before us at that moment. The American flag colored kite we found hidden among the rocks only made the location even more mystical.
Despite the incredible view, it was freezing at the top with the wind, and the temperature had started to drop for nightfall. I was impervious to the cold, I was in THE ZONE. I had the tripod out and I was using every exposure trick I knew in order to get sharp, properly exposed photos. Anthony and Taylor weren’t as tolerant as I was. We had saved our location on Taylor’s Garmin Forerunner 405 watch as we left the truck, but now that we had turned the watch back on to get us back home the right way, the arrow was telling us to make a beeline straight for the cliff, and instant death.
I could hear them in the background moaning about how our lives were over and how we’re never going to get off this mountain alive (although I knew they were just kidding). At last, the message that no photographer wants to see popped up on my screen: Memory Card Full. I had gotten what I had came here for, though, and we started heading back down the mountain, certain that no sane person would wait around for sunset and then attempt to climb back down in the dark.
There was a trail leading off to our right, so we followed it back down into the dense vegetation. The side of the hill shielded us from the wind, and we quickly warmed back up zigzagging through the trees down the mountain. Eventually the enclosure of the forest opened up to a meadow and gave us a sense of where we were. To our right and ahead of us, was sheer cliff. We had gone too far right, and were now on the part of the mountain where the only way down was a 300 foot vertical drop.
We cut back into the forest at a 45 degree angle, hoping to reach a part of the descent that was more manageable. After a while, the slow climb of the forest ended and we were back on our butts crawling down the mountain.
At first, there were lots of trees to use as handholds and progress was steady. But after a while, the foliage started to dwindle away, and we were left with a steep hillside of loose rocks. We did what we could, and crawled down the steep decline with the utmost of caution. Sometimes, our vigilance would fail us, and we would send a large rock rolling down towards the person below us. Cries of “Rock!” and “Heads!” could be heard every couple of minutes. Sometimes the rock would roll away, or stop. Other times the person below wasn’t so lucky…
We weren’t entirely certain where we were, or what we were heading for, but we knew that each step brought us closer to the flat ground below. After an hour of descending, we heard a cry from Anthony, who was in the lead.
“What is it?” we asked
“Oh, you don’t want to know…” came the reply.
Shifting his weight to one side, Anthony picked up a stone and hurled it down below us.
“1, 2, 3, 4, 5…” we counted.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, we heard the distant sound of rock hitting rock. This instantly told us that when we thought we were climbing down to safety, we were actually climbing straight into the mouth of the cliff. My thoughts raced. I knew that the right side of the mountain was entirely cliff, as was the backside. Our only hope to make it back down the mountain in one piece was to either backtrack to the forest on top, or shimmy left along the beginnings of the cliff towards climbable terrain. Unfortunately, time was against us, sunset had started; and although we couldn’t see where the sun was in the sky, the clouds had started to burst into color. I made an executive decision and sent us left, thinking that we had to traverse the ravine that I had seen from above and, earlier that day, below. That would put us in a more favorable position then the life-threatening one we were in now.
Shimmying along the steep slope was slow and tedious work. Fatigue had been getting to us for a while, and we grew more and more weary as the day wore on. Lucky for us, we were 3 teens who had been running once to twice a day everyday for the past 12 weeks, and not a bunch of fat nerds who wanted to climb a mountain to lose weight.
Nerves were high, and every exclamation, good or bad, had a strong effect on our emotions. We worked together to figure out climbing patterns and hand holds. At last, we had crossed over the ravine and were looking over to the other side.
What we saw was not pleasant, though. Instead of the familiar tree line and rockslide that we had expected, we saw another ravine; and this one even closer to the vertical drop of the cliff. Climbing up was not an option, the crossover to whatever lay on the other side only grew steeper the farther up the eye followed it. With no other choice, we climbed whichever way we could in order to get left.
Our side-stepping process brought us dangerously close to the edge, but sheer determination and adrenaline kept us going. Eventually, we reached the point where we had to pick a route to crossover to the other side of the ravine (and hopefully safety). After clinging to the side of the cliff for life that was now very dear to us, we had reached a point that we had all worked so hard to get to. Only one undermining obstacle lay in front of us now, we could not spot a safe place to crossover, we were stuck.
Anthony, had been our main trailblazer for most of the trip, and he saw no way that we would be able to clamber across without freestyle rock climbing, and putting our lives on the line with each step. I couldn’t believe it. There HAD to be a way. Let me give it a shot, I told Anthony. He solemnly stepped aside in order to let me pass. I climbed over towards a promising looking rock and groped around on the other side. Below me, and one step to the right, was a fall that would have certainly ended my life without a second thought. Wind whipped us around, and the forest at the base of the mountain could be seen 200 feet below. The trees looked smaller from up above then they did on flat ground, it looked so far down that I wasn’t sure if we would even be able to make it off the steep part of the mountain before dark.
The rock was mostly smooth and you couldn’t see its other side. I reached over, but couldn’t find any obvious handholds on its upper half. I reached below mid-waist, but its contours didn’t change. That’s when my hand slipped into a single handhold close to the side I was on. If you have ever went rock climbing at the gym and grabbed on to one of those rocks that were so obviously made just for your fingers to grip, then you know what this handhold felt like. It was seemingly a helping hand from God himself, it was so perfect.
Staying as close as possible to the rock, and making sure I had a secure grip on the handhold, I “swung” myself across the gap, and over to the other side of the precarious cliff. After finding a secure place to camp for a couple of minutes, I instructed Anthony and Taylor how to best approach the rock and swing themselves over to the other side too. Anthony had been put in charge of the largest bag, and needed me to reach over the gap and grab hold of it so its momentum didn’t swing him off the cliff. When Anthony had safely crossed over, Taylor took his turn. After a few minutes of effort to find a comfortable position to swing over, he made it across as well.
The other side was closer to what we wanted to see. Although there were still a few technical drops that we had to maneuver down, we could see that the rocks flattened out all the way to the bottom. If I remember correctly, we had to grab a strong sapling and drop down to a small foot ledge. After that, we grabbed onto a rock hold and chiseled our feet into the side of the cliff, next to a very sturdy sapling, and made a mini “faith-drop” to another ledge below us. Finally, after swinging around another strong, young tree to the rocks below, we were on relatively safe ground.
Just in time too, as daylight had nearly faded and the blue hour was taking over. Five minutes of climbing on our butts got us to a part that was actually hikeable. We broke out the flashlights and the emotions all flooded out. Never before could I ever remember feeling so relieved, and such a strong feeling of companionship with my fellow teammates. I was so thankful for every little thing they had done, and what we had just been through was heavy on my mind. It was a strange feeling, full of pride, relief, confidence, and immeasurable trust.
When we reached the truck, we saw that the campers in the RVs we had parked near were all gathered around a campfire, despite the burn ban. We decided to go into their camp and ask for some water. Secretly, we actually had plenty of water left, and just wanted to brag of our adventures and maybe show off some pictures. Although we accidentally surprised the party of campers at first, they were more than happy to hear our story and give us each a large Albertsons water bottle for the road. We discovered that the campers were actually local, and lived in the Tri-Cities as well.
The drive back to camp was nearly surreal. We had been through so much ever since that afternoon. Each of us felt as if we were whole new people, changed by our experiences and the challenges we had been through. After gulping down some food, we quickly found our way back to the tent, and despite the hard ground, I was out cold within minutes of my head hitting the pillow. Taylor, I’m sure, stayed awake for a while, thinking of everything we had been through, before dozing off. Anthony couldn’t fall asleep for 2 more hours, the events of the day running through his mind over and over until exhaustion overtook him and he too fell asleep.
The next day we packed up our belongings and headed back home; unsure of what the “real world” would bring us after what we had done. But one thing we knew for sure, whatever it was, we could handle it. Together.
This weekend was a friend's wedding, Bon Iver concert, and hanging out in our hometown.
It was lovely overall.
HBM folks!
Lower Lewis Falls, Lewis River, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Washington
When Eric and I got down to the river we immediately noticed how powerful the flow of the water had become from the recent rains. Here I was trying to capture a feeling of ruggedness while showing off the strong ripples and rolling waves coming our way. I also liked trying to capture the bubbles and foam from the falls that kept rushing past us. The force of the water was strong but still manageable, so we prodded on with our tripods making nice walking sticks. It was a great challenge to capture the essence of the falls with the ruggedness of the river. It was fun hanging with a great photographer.
Snow in Madison Square Park in midtown Manhattan during winter storm Nemo.
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Camera: Sony a99 | Lens: 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
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I live for snowstorms in New York City. So you can just imagine how bummed I was last winter season when we barely got any snow. Growing up in New York City, I remember quite a few blizzards and its with fond nostalgia that I always wish for at least one great snowstorm during the winter. New York City is extra beautiful when covered in a blanket of freshly fallen snow.
When I heard that winter storm Nemo (also known as the Blizzard of 2013, February snowstorm and other terms) was going to deliver some gorgeous white flakes from the sky I was more than ready for it. The photos in this set are not edited the way I would normally edit them. I just basically imported them into Lightroom and adjusted some contrast in a few cases from the RAW files. I will most likely go through the photos here plus others that I am not posting and give them the Vivienne treatment at some point. I am just floored at how incredible it was to shoot the snow with the Sony a99. I did go out of my way to protect it despite it being weather-sealed since it isn't technically my camera and since my lenses also needed protection. I must have been quite a sight in my ski-mask, enormous scarf, giant winter boots and a camera covered in plastic. :) It seemed like I had an easier time shooting in this snowstorm than in the two blizzards that I took photos in back in 2010 and 2011. I think it's because the wind was far more manageable and because I was out before the blizzard hit with full force. While the snow was heavy, the winds were easy to deal with in some respects since the gusts were few and far between.
I decided to walk from where I live on the Lower East Side all the way to Times Square since I do this particular walk frequently and know all of the spots I have always wanted to capture in the snow. I had a blast! The wind did get stronger and stronger as I got closer to Times Square and by the time I made my way home it was full-on blizzard conditions so I think I went at the optimal time. I somehow managed to take photos in the East Village, around Union Square, Chelsea (in truth, I had really hoped that the Empire State Building would be visible but it was completely hidden by the snow and lack of visibility), 5th Avenue, Midtown, the New York Public Library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, Bryant Park (which was absolutely ethereal in the snow) and finally Times Square.
And so, the photos here are pretty much almost straight out of the camera save for a few tweaks to levels, no fancy tinkering (but I can't wait to do so!).
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View more of my New York City photography at my website NY Through The Lens.
View my photography profile on Google Plus: New York City photography by Vivienne Gucwa
To purchase any of my work view my site gallery for info here.
To use any of my photos commercially, simply click the link which reads "Request to license Vivienne Gucwa's photos via Getty Images". This link can be found on the bottom right corner of the page of the photo you are interested in using.
1 - 6. (See 'tension lever' Flickr album for full details).
Sometimes known as 'Bâton de commandement', 'bâton percé' or 'perforated baton'. The top example comes from La Madeleine, downriver from Lascaux and initial prehistory site from the 1860s, and then from the abris Cap Blanc - known for its panoramic horse bas relief - not far away, and up a tributary of the 'Vesera' river, with the last two (as far as I understand) from Le Morin - a site in Pessac-sur-Dordogne known for its evidence for domesticated dogs. All are from the collection at the Musée d'Aquitaine in Bordeaux. None of the above are decorated. All are Magdalénien, so from the end of the ice age between 17 and 12,000 ybp. The objects are carved/adapted from Reindeer antler. Elsewhere, decorated examples exist, with subjects ranging from carvings of reindeer to phallus and geometry. Examples with two adjacent holes also exist. The objects are relatively common and their function is much debated...
Arrows cut from saplings may need straitening to assure a reliable trajectory. The hole is obviously too big to help with such a simple task. Larger spears would hardly need such a time consuming tool with a 'v' in a tree more likely to have been scuffed by attention.
The idea that the object was ornamental for rituel seems odd as the point is oft curved, making the 'drama' of a situation a little limp.
The idea that the hole was used to help when weaving a rope or cord needs developing - with alternatives of 'y''s of wood being more flexible should a procedure need to be restarted at a halfway point. Attempts to turn details of the outside edge of the baton into useful artefacts for string making also seem too dependent on selected examples of batons and ignor the imprecision of the hubbub of forms.
The idea that it was a 'super wedge' for blocking cord so that bags and produce might be lifted from the ground seems only to add an unnecessary complication when contrasted with a combination of knots, wedges, frames and cracks.
The idea that they were sardines for tents seems to be interesting but for the fact that they are never found with a sharp end, with 'ticks' of wood being easier to create and dispose.
The idea that they were spear throwers seems to go against the skill-set and calibration of known spear throwers and does not explain models with two holes or the hapless variety of sizes and shapes.
The idea that they were handles for a sling shot does not explain why some have two holes or why the long end often appears as broken.
The idea that they were large pins for clothing is interesting - but for the fact that decorative belts, buttons and elegant pins seem to be either more ornamental, more comfortable of more practical.
Ideas that they were used in astronomy need to be explained (why not mask with wood, which can be wider and easy to burn a hole in), as do ideas that the object might somehow help when making fire ... How?
The idea that they were sex toys picks up on the fact that they are often from the category 'phallic' and are varied in size, but fails to explain why many are decorated with reindeer or why so many have unhygienic broken ends. Prehistoric sexual amulets do exist of vulvas and phallus and were overt and exercised with confidence.
The idea that they were objects of art seems to be an example of contemporary time wasting. Some were decorated, offering them an ornamental finish...
Whilst Images of wild horses with bits in their mouths do seem to appear from time to time during the paleolithic, it is easier to explain the images of bits as being from rope rather than from two rope-joined perforated battons.
A function must justify the time it takes to carve such a hole in reindeer antler (a very tough and fibrous medium) and the desire to appropriate the object with ornamentation - even if the above examples show that the ornamentation was at the discretion of the clan and in no way a ritual and cultural 'obligation'. Once an object exists a second use may be assigned - a way of maximizing the capacity of materials that must at some point be packed up and carried around. Any secondary appropriations should not be viewed to mask the main function.
Today, camping can be cold. In the Magdalénien the cold could get ... very cold. The Solutréen was simply worse - in fact as bad as the end of the Gravettien. Man did not develop the thick fur of the woolly mammoth or woolly rhino or have the heat-clever dense pelt of a wolf, bear, cave lion or reindeer. What man did have were strategies to use these elements for his own needs, with evidence of leather working (for example the Abri Peyrony lissoirs) from as early as 50,000 ybp. Leathers and furs might line cloths and huts to turn the ice age from a vision of panic and frozen inability into one of opportunity and warm conversation.
Man was a hunter gatherer, but within that idea, there is much debate about how much he moved or was semi sedentary (arguments about 'simple' versus 'complex' visions of hunter gathering). Even with food storage, man will have moved camp - if only to distance the clan from vermin and predators who, with time, add hominid camps to their models of reality. When a clan decides to move, he must pack up his possessions. Leather and fur take time to tan, cut and waterproof, and, as with many objects, they were natural, but were not disposable. Today we roll up a tent made of materials that are measured in microns. In the ice age, some of the best possessions will have appeared like loft insulation. First you tap the fur, the pelt, the cloak and the trousers. You may sponge with moss. Things will hang and dry before being rolled for travel. Poles of dogwood, leather cooking bags, bags of flints and ocre, totems, rugs and blankets all need to be prepared for movement. The thick pelts roll and strap using cords of horse hair, tendon, leather strip and fibrous plants. The cords were certainly strong, but getting the rolled-up camp to compress down into a manageable package can not have been easy - and this is where the 'perforated battons' come in. Think of them as a lever that pivots an attached rope. The 'fulcrum' end is not pointed, as it should not pierce the pelt. These ends are often found to be shattered, as, over time, they took the force to lock tight the cord. The hole is large enough to then receive the tie or pin from the other side (possibly held tight in position to a tree). The models of perforated batons with two adjacent holes (not pictured) take more time to make, but have obvious advantages and innovations. Once the two ends of rope are locked tight into the hole of the lever, the reindeer antler is strong enough to hold the strain and assure that the material that is transported is tightly bound and secure from the elements - for example, strapped to and carried aloft on the long dogwood poles. There are possible variations using knots of consecutive loops and pegs that may allow the 'tension-lever' to be used again and again (see associated picture). Whatever the version, the grain of wood may here be less adapted than the fibrous antler for taking the strain.
You might also imagine that when the huts are finished on the new camp-site or abris, the 'perforated lever' becomes the 'door close', with rope in the hole pulling the leather door and the long length jarred between wood frame elements. All huts look alike to a young child and some may choose to decorate their tension-lever/door handles so as to define the activity inside. Let's say phallus motifs for an 'adult' hut, reindeer for an 'eating' hut and geometric for a general hut. When in the new camp, at first, the child does not always remember which hut is which, so will always look at the carving before pulling the wedge-handle and entering. But, that day, the weather was mild and he will stay outside and help stretch and pin some small pelts using his own small 'tension-lever' some pegs and knotted loops of chord. His mother is not far away, and she is using her lever to pull strings of leather through a line of perforations to help her to stitch together two pieces of leather. She used goose grease to reduce the friction. A friend from the solstice is spending a year with the clan and that afternoon, he has used his tension lever to help him to stretch a net to catch first birds and then fish.
AJM 22.02.17
The photos were taken through glass and enhanced to show form and surface texture. (Original images JM).
+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
Towards the end of WWII, large, piston-engined flying boats had been used exctensively in th bepatrol and bomber role, but with the advent of the new jet engine technology, engineers in several countries started to explore the new propulsion type's potential in different areas - including seaborne usage.
Towards the end of WWII and the far-stretched conflict theatre in the Pacific, the flying boat as well as float planes still had a large appeal due to their independence from airfields. This offered a lot of tactical flexibility. On the other side, the jet engine promised (much) higher speeds, but with the relative higher weight of early jet-driven aircraft (more fuel was needed, and more engines, as thrust was relatively low) a seaborne type would also avoid the need for a prepared and long airstrip to operate.
The United Kingdom was one nation that looked seriously into this kind of aircraft, and Saunders Roe presented in 1943 the proposals for a plane that should actually make it to the hardware stage: the SR.1/A, which made its maiden flight in 1947. The Soviet union also undertook some studies, but fighters remained just proposals. Eventually OKB Beriev would produce several sea-borne, jet-powered patrol bombers (e .g. the R-1 experimental plane, and later the Be-10 flying boat), which actually entered service.
In the USA, studies for a jet-powered fighter fyling boat gained momentum during the final stages of WWII. Convair developed the 'Skate' for the US Navy, a heavy night fighter, and Boeing designed a competitive concept. In parallel, and towards the end of the forties, heavier flying boats for maritime patrol were requested by the Navy - and with them a lighter, single-seat fighter that could escort them, or be used as an interceptor to defend improvised forward maritime bases. Using this type as a fast, ship-borne reconnaicssance aircraft was also envisioned.
This fighter was to be capable of a similar performance to land-based fighters in this class, like the F-80 or the F-86. The dsuccessful evelopment of the SR.A/1 in the UK had been keenly observed, and the concept of a jet-powered flying boat fighter appeared feasible and appealing.
One company to respond to the USN request was Curtiss, who already had experience with float planes like the Model 82 (SOC) and the Model 97 (SC 'Seahawk') - both rather pathfinder aircraft than true combat types, though. Curtiss designed its Model 101 around two J47-GE-11 jet engines, each rated at 2.359 kN (5.200 lbf) of thrust.
The Model 101's layout was rather concentional, with a deep, single step boat hull that would house a huge amount of fuel for the requested long range escort capability. The J47-GE-11-engines (the same which powered the B-47 bomber) were placed in nacelles, at the highest point of the gull wings.
As an innovative step, the Model 101 featured swept wings - the first time ever that this was tried on a flying boat. On the tips of the wings with a 35° sweep, slats and large flaps, fixed stabilizer floats were mounted. The large fin was swepts as well, and the horizontal stabilizers were placed as a T-tail high on the fin, clear of any jet turbulence or spray water.
The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit under a bubble canopy, which offered good view, even though the massive engine nacelles blocked much of the side and rearward field of view.
The Model 101 was armed with four 20 mm (0.79 in) M3 autocannons in the nose section, with 200 RPG. An A-1CM gunsight which used an AN/APG-30 radar to automatically compute the range of a target was housed in a small radome in the nose tip. Under its inner wings, just outside of the engines, hardpoints allowed an external ordnance of up to 4.000 lb (1.816 kg), including bombs of up to 1.000 lb calibre, eight HVAR missiles, drop tanks or even two torpedos.
Curtiss received a go-ahead and two prototypes were built during 1948. First taxi runsd tok place in late 1947, the maiden flight of prototype #01 was on February 6th 1948, the second aircraft followed only three weeks later on 1st of March 1948 - and the tests were soon halted. Both aircraft suffered from severe purpoising at 80% of the take-off speed, and this problem almost resulted in the loss of prototype #01. This was a new problem, as such high take-off speeds had never before been encountered on water, and the phenomenon was called the 'hydro-dynamic instability barrier': essentially it was unstable aquaplaning.
First attempts to solve the problem were elevator compensation and tailplane incidence angle adjustments. This helped, but the aircraft remained unstable during take-off and landing - it was not before November 1948 that modifications were made to the planing bottom of prototype #02.
This brought the purpoising to a manageable level, but did not fully cure it. Disaster struck on February 12th 1949, when the still unmodified first prototype was lost in a starting accident: the aircraft started purpoising during take-off, hit a wave with the left side stabilizer swimmer, suddenly veered off towards the left, pitching down with the nose and toppling over at more than 120mph, ripping off the left wing and the whole tail section. Miracuously, test pilot Simon Pritchard escaped alive from the sinking wreck (even though heavily injured), but the XFC-1 #01 had to be written off and any high speed ground tests were suspended..
Flight tests were resumed in June 1949 after a bottom step venting system had been introduced, and this measure finally cured the instability problem. In the meantime, two more airframes had been built: one with more powerful J47-GE-23 engines (with 2.631 kN/5.800 lbf each, these were introduced to the other two prototypes during 1950, too) and another one for static tests.
Further trials followed during 1950 and in early 1951 the re-engined machine #02 even became supersonic in a dive. While the Model 101 (which received the USN designation XFC-1 and was christened 'Oceanhawk') was up to the original specifications it was clear that it could not compete with land-based aircraft - essentially, it offered a similar performance to the land-based F-86, but the XFC-1 needed two engines for that, was much less agile and still needed a complex infratsructure to operate properly. Its independence from land bases was still its biggest selling point, though, so the development was kept up.
At that time, the USN issued a specification for a supersonic flying boat, and NACA understook a study that a Mach 2 aircraft would be feasible until 1955. This rendered the Oceanhawk more or less obsolete, as it could not keep up with this requirement, and the XFC-1 program was finally closed in 1953. Eventually, the Convair XF2Y Sea Dart would be the next (and final) step on the way to a seaborne jet fighter.
Anyway, the remaining two XFC-1 prototypes were not scrapped but allocated to the USN's test squadrons. Prototype #02 and #03 were handed over as UFC-1 to Air Development Squadron VX-4 "Evaluaters" at Point Mugu, California, together with the static airframe #04 which was used for spares. Both aircraft were used as chase planes, observation platforms and target tugs. Machine #02, for instance, took part in the evaluation program of the Martin P6M SeaMaster flying boat in 1955, and was then modified for several tests with hydroski installations under the fuselage. On the other side, machine #03 was used in the development of remote drone and target tug control equipment, being re-designated DFC-1.
After serving in these second line roles, both aircraft were finally scrapped in 1965 and replaced by land-based types.
General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 14.11 m (46 ft 6 1/3 in)
Wingspan: 12.46 m (40 ft 9 1/2 in)
Height: 4.10 m (13 ft 5 1/4 in)
Empty weight: 9.265 kg (20.408 lb)
Loaded weight: 16.080 kg (35.418 lb)
Powerplant:
2× J47-GE-23 engines, rated at 2.631 kN/5.800 lbf each
Performance
Maximum speed: 932km/h (577mph/503nm) at sea level
Range: 2.092 km (1296 ml)
Service ceiling: 13.450 m (44.040 ft)
Armament
4× 20 mm (0.79 in) M3 autocannons with 200 RPG.
Eight underwing hardpoints for a total external ordnance of up to 4.000 lb (1.816 kg), including bombs of up to 1.000 lb calibre, eight HVAR missiles, drop tanks or two torpedos.
The kit and its assembly:
This model is a complete fantasy aircraft, inspired by a TV documentation about sea plane projects in the USA and USSR after WWII. Among others, the Martin P6M SeaMaster and the Saro SR.1/A made an appearance, and I wondered how an escort fighter for the P6M would have looked like in USN service? Well, let's build one...
Making a flying boat is pretty tricky, and the whole thing was built from scratch and with lots of putty.
Basically, the following went into it, all 1:72 unless stated otherwise:
● Fuselage and cockpit from a Hobby Boss F-86E
● Floating bottom is the lower half of a Matchbox Heinkel He 115 swimmer
● Wings come from another Hobby Boss F-86E, but this time a Batch 30 aircraft with extended wing tips
● Vertical stabilizer comes from an Academy MiG-21F
● Horizontal stabilizers come from a 1:100 Tamiya Il-28 bomber
● Stabilzer swimmers come from a vintage box scale Revell Convair Tradewind kit
● Engine intakes and exhausts are resin parts from Pavla, replacements for a Hasegawa B-47 kit
● A massive beaching trolley, which actually belongs to the A-Model Kh-20M missile kit
Assembly went from fuselage over the wing roots, the improvised engine nacelles, outer wings and stabilizer swimmers, step by step. I had a vague idea of what the aircraft should look like, but the design more or less evolved, depending from what I had at hand.
For instance, the Il-28 stabilizers were late additions, as the original F-86 parts turned out to be much too small for the massive aircraft.
The cockpit was taken OOB, just a pilot figure was added and the canopy cut into two pieces, so that it could be displayed in an open position.
Around the hull, small mooring hooks made from wire were added, gun nozzles made from hollow needles, as well as some antennae, since the whole kit was rather bleak and simple.
The trolley was puzzled together from the parts supllied with A-Model's Kh-20M (AS-3 'Kangaroo') kit, but was modified (e. g. with different wheels) and adapted to the flying boat's hull. It fits perfectly in shape and design, though!
Painting and markings:
Nothing fancy, as a jet-powered flying boat fighter is unique enough. Design benchmark was again the P6M, and AFAIK these aircraft were painted in just two tones: FS16081, a very dark grey, with white undersides and a wavy waterline. They were definitively not blue of any sort, as one might think in the first place.
I started with the lower side - white is always difficult to apply, and in order to avoid any trouble I used stpray paint from a rattle can and used a very light grey instead of pure white. The latter has two benefits: it covers the surface much better than white, and the contrast is not so harsh - the grey still leaves 'room' for some dry-brushing with white.
Next step was the dark grey - I used Humbrol's 32, which is FS36081 and looks very good. Dry-brushing with Humbrol 79 (Dark Blue Grey) was used for some counter-shading, and after a black ink wash I also painted some panel lines with a mix of black and matt varnish onto the hull. That turned out to be a little much, but finally, when the decals were applied (wild mix from various aftermarket sheets and the scrap box), the overall impression became much better.
The trolley was simply painted in yellow and makes a nice contrast to the dark aircraft on top of it.
Both aircraft and trolley were additionally weathered with some dry-brushed rust and grinded graphite, and finally received a coat of matt varnish.
The Purple Martins (members of the Swallow family) are back at our local lake this spring, with their fast flight and aerial acrobatics as they search for mosquitos and other aquatic insects. I managed a few shots (when I could get the birds in the viewfinder for an instant) at high shutter speeds and manageable ISO settings. Have a great week!
I haven't posted much lately because of family visite this past week. It's been great seeing everybody, including this little guy here, the newest addition to the clan. It's been a full house, with lots of laughter and food and practice at family photography candids.
This image was captured while I was handholding my Pentax 645Z medium format camera with 55mm lens under low-light conditions. It's larger than a regular SLR, but manageable. I used the burst method to ensure at least one clear shot, and I'm surprised the baby didn't wake from the sound of the shutter, although he's used to a noisy atmosphere. Nothing really bothers this kid except a dirty diaper and hunger. He doesn't really even cry when he's sleepy and needs a nap, and thankfully, doesn't cry when I hold him ;)
Copyright Rebecca L. Latson, all rights reserved.
I borrowed a 5d mk3 over the weekend and I have to say what a great camera. This was taken today in poor light at ISO1000 and heavily cropped but still great detail and manageable noise.
The ONLY editing I did to the pictures was reducing them from the size I shoot in SL (4000×3500) down to a 1024 size manageable for the blog and Flickr. There’s been no cropping, no liquifying, no adjusting contrast or color balances or any of the other Photoshop tools I use on a regular basis.
slicesoflifesl.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/sooc-the-void-par...
As Sarah was able to give me a lift home, we went in the opposite direction to all the buses heading home for the night, as overall, Carlton Road is a lot more manageable to drive down in the peaks than Mansfield Road.... With that in mind, the camera was seeing a lot of use along the way!!
425 heads down Carlton Road out of service en route to Parliament Street Garage.