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M-200.
Escala 1/43.
Peugeot 304 (1969-1979).
Sochaux (France).
Serie Super-Stars.
Pilen.
Hecho en España / Made in Spain.
Año 1970. (4-70)
Esta miniatura pertenece a la 1ª serie fabricada por Pilen, que se caracteriza principalmente por:
- Los faros delanteros son amarillos.
- Los pilotos traseros son verticales,
- Carece de agujero en la base.
- Caja de cartón (Super-Stars).
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M-200.
Escala 1/43.
Peugeot 304 (1969-1979).
Sochaux (France).
Pilen.
Hecho en España / Made in Spain.
Año 1977. (?)
Esta miniatura pertenece a la 2ª serie fabricada por Pilen, que se caracteriza principalmente por:
- Los faros delanteros son incoloros.
- Los pilotos traseros son horizontales,
- Tiene agujero central en la base (para el tornillo de sujeción a la peana).
- Caja de metacrilato.
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PILEN - Historia
"Pilen nació en Ibi (Alicante) a finales de los 60, creada por Pilar y Enrique Climent (de ahí Pil-En); éste ya comercializaba en compañía de sus hermanos los juguetes Clim.
Al principio fabricaron miniaturas de Fórmula 1 a escala 1:36, pero en seguida se pasaron a la 1:43 copiando moldes de las marcas Corgi, Tekno, Politoys, Mebetoys...
Obtuvieron de la casa francesa Dinky el permiso para fabricar sus modelos en España.
Sus coches tuvieron numerosas variantes (hasta cromados), distintos tipos de ruedas, etc. Se asociaron a otras marcas, como las holandesas AHC, Artec, Oto y Doorkey, la venezolana Juguinsa y la española Guiloy."
(...)
"Los fundadores de PILEN son Enrique Climent Gisbert y su esposa, Pilar.
De ahí el logotipo de la marca, formado por las primeras letras de sus nombres. Debajo, las iniciales del fundador, Enrique Climent Gisbert. [ECG]
(...)
--------------------------------
"Hacia 1962, uno de los socios fundadores de la fábrica juguetera Climent Hermanos, S.L, D. Enrique Climent Gisbert, decide abandonar la firma familiar para crear su propia empresa junto a su mujer Pilar (PIL-ar y EN-rique)."
(...)
"La primera línea de productos estará compuesta por una serie de pistolas y revólveres hechos de fundición de material zamack."
El 23 de enero de 1970 se regularizarán como sociedad anónima bajo la marca comercial PILEN."
(...)
"Poco a poco fueron abandonando la primera gama de juguetes para centrarse de manera completa en la fabricación de miniaturas de metal reproducidos a escala."
(...)
"Fue una empresa que tuvo gran protagonismo al gozar sus juguetes de mucha aceptación.
En el año 1983 cesó sus actividades (...). Desde la propia firma se auspiciaría poco después la creación de otra sociedad llamada Artec, que abrió sus actividades en el año 1988 y que (...) seguían ofreciendo unos juguetes de gran calidad (consiguieron un Molinillo de Plata el mismo año que se lanzaron al mercado como marca."
Fuentes:
"La industria juguetera en Ibi, 1905-2005", edición del Ayuntamiento de Ibi, 2005.
More info:
pilen.jimdofree.com/coches-1-43/
myspace.com/pilenmania/mixes/classic-mis-fotos-569751
foro.autoescala.net/index.php?threads/miniaturas-espa%C3%...
www.paolorampinieditore.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/AUT...
wikivisually.com/wiki/Auto_Pilen
minicarmuseum.com/database/pdf/autopilen1977.pdf
thevintagetoyadvertiser.org/tag/auto-pilen/
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Auto Pilen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Auto Pilen was a diecast line of model cars made in Ibi, Alicante, in southeastern Spain by Pilen S.A..
Models were produced from the 1970s through the mid-1990s mostly in 1:43 scale.
A majority of the castings were inherited from French Dinky. The company was started in the 1960s, diecasting items like colorful metal sailboats and key chains.
In the late 1980s. Pilen was apparently bought by AHC of the Netherlands."
(...)
"Pilen made at least 50 different models, in the most convoluted story of diecast seconds and recasts of any successful diecast manufacturer (Colleccion Auto Pilen. No date).
Dies were apparently used or copied from a variety of other companies including French Dinky, Corgi Toys, Solido, Mebetoys, Tekno, Politoys (Polistil), and possibly some Mercury models."
(...)
"Pilen's model selection appears taken (whether by direct copying from blueprints or through available dies) from a variety of other producers, especially French Dinky Toys. Some tools from Meccano s.a. were transferred from Calais to Pilen in Spain so the models made by Pilen were Dinky castings – the base plate of which had been modified from MADE IN FRANCE to MADE IN SPAIN. For example, the Talbot/Simca/Chrysler 1100 saloon, Renault 12 saloon, Mercedes 250 coupe, Ferrari P5, Citroën CX Pallas, and Matra-Simca Bagheera were French Dinky castings (Dinky Toys Encyclopaedia). Later versions of these cars, though, did not say Dinky anywhere on the base plates.
So, from 1974 until 1981, several French Dinky Toys passenger cars were made by Pilen.
Bickford says that originally there was an agreement to market the French Dinkys in Spain, but most were sold under the Pilen brand name (Bickford 2009).
The French dies were used, but of course the base plates were altered, hiding that fact. These cars were almost exactly similar to the French dies, but with Pilen's own paint finishes."
(...)
"Auto Pilen also made a line of Matchbox-sized 1/64 scale cars, but these are more rare. Besides a SEAT 131 Wagon, a SEAT Ritmo, a Renault 4F (Van), a Peugeot 504, and a Range Rover – among others – were made but little is known about them."
(...)
"Pilen maintained a close association with other Spanish toy makers also headquartered in Alicante like Joal, Guiloy, Guisval, and Mira."
(...)
"Around 1980 there was a Pilen connection with Holland OTO, which had taken over Dutch Efsi Toys.
A 1980 Auto Pilen catalog shows many of the revered Efsi vehicles like the Model T series and many Efsi trucks continued as a line Pilen 1980 (Bras 2012).
Around 1990, there was also a connection with the Dutch diecast company AHC which appears to have bought Holland Oto and thus Auto Pilen (Bickford 2009). AHC has since shared dies and traditionally Pilen stamped cars can be found in both AHC and Holland OTO labeled boxes (Bickford 2009; Johnson 1998, p. 15)."
(...)
"With the bankruptcy of Doorkey in the early 1990s, Auto Pilen disappeared.
The last new models with the Pilen name appeared at this time.
In its time, Auto-Pilen was the king of the knock-off and die-cast second. Perusal of the model lineup shows castings were copies or closely copied vehicles from several different companies (Collection Auto Pilen).
Models were precisely crafted in a professional and uniform-looking range from leftover castings that had previously been in use elsewhere. Pilen appears to have been the most successful company ever at using second hand castings – yet so very nicely reconfigured."
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_Pilen
More info:
www.gamas43.com/Dinky_SP/DinkyEsp.html
myspace.com/pilenmania/mixes/classic-dinky-espa-a-fabrica...
pilen.jimdofree.com/asociaci%C3%B3n-con-otras-marcas-i/
pilen.jimdofree.com/asociaci%C3%B3n-con-otras-marcas-ii/
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Peugeot 304
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Peugeot 304 is a small family car which was produced by the French manufacturer Peugeot from 1969 to 1980.
The 304 was introduced to the public at the Paris Motor Show in September 1969.
Production of the saloon/sedan on the Sochaux assembly lines was discontinued during the summer of 1979, while the "Break" (estate) was produced until the spring of 1980.
Peugeot, which had always been a financially prudent company, saw a gap in the midsize car market in France, Italy and the rest of Western Europe.
By using the smaller 204's midsection, development costs were minimized resulting in a higher profit margin because of the higher pricing structure in the larger, better equipped market.
The 304's main competitors on its home market came from Renault and Simca, with Citroen noticeably absent from this sector at the launch.
The 304 was a success for Peugeot and was noted for several advanced features under its Pininfarina styled exterior.
With its independent suspended front-wheel-drive drivetrain and disc brakes, it rode and handled better than most of its contemporaries, including some cars in higher price brackets.
The chassis served Peugeot well and lasted for approximately 24 years adapted to derivative models. There was a distinct upmarket feel to the 304, its handsome lines were well suited to postwar Europe's newly affluent middle classes who desired roomy, advanced and stylish cars to park in their driveways.
At about this time the Autoroutes were opening up France and car manufacturers around Europe knew that any car launched hence, would need to add an ability to travel at high speeds, in relative comfort with sure-footed handling to its lineup in order to compete. The 304 fulfilled this brief and became one of the best-selling cars in its market segment.
The car was sold until 1980 and was replaced by the Peugeot 305, which had been launched in 1977.
It was based on the Peugeot 204 with which it shared many components, the most obvious difference being the frontal styling."
(...)
-------------------
Peugeot 304
Manufacturer
Peugeot SA
PSA Group
Production
1969 – 1980
1,178,423 produced
Class
Small family car (C)
Body style
4-door saloon
4-door estate ("break")
2-door coupé
2-door convertible
2-door van ("fourgonette")
Layout
FF layout
Related
Peugeot 204
Engine
1.3 litre I4 XL3
1.3 litre I4 XL5
Dimensions
Wheelbase
2,595 mm (102.2 in) saloon
Length
4,140 mm (163 in) saloon
Width
1,570 mm (62 in) saloon
Height
1,410 mm (56 in) saloon
Curb weight
890 kg (1,960 lb) – 970 kg (2,140 lb)
Chronology
Predecessor
Peugeot 204
Successor
Peugeot 305
Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peugeot_304
More info:
Fidalgo Bay.
NTSB Final Accident Report:
"The newly built yacht Baaden was being launched stern first down the Fidalgo Marina boat ramp in Anacortes, Washington, with eight shipyard personnel on board when it capsized
after entering the water at 2050 on Sunday, May 18, 2014. The yacht was salvaged but was declared a total constructive loss, estimated at $10 million. Three shipyard personnel who were
trapped below decks for up to half an hour were treated for minor cuts and injuries at local hospitals. No pollution was reported.
New World Yacht Builders began construction of the Baaden in December 2011, working from an existing 80-foot-hull mold built in 2002 by Northern Marine. Like other large Northern
Marine yachts, the vessel was custom designed. The 80-foot mold was lengthened in the midsection and stem, the bow was given more flare, and a swim platform was added. The
resulting 85-foot vessel was designated Northern Marine model 8501 and was the first of its kind. New World described the Baaden as having commercial fishing vessel roots in an 85-foot
European-style, luxury, long-range, oceangoing expedition yacht. The builder, the buyer’s representative, and an interior design firm collaborated on the vessel design and styling. Several sister vessels built to the 80-foot-hull design were completed and are in operation.
Due to water damage to interior woodwork, machinery, and electrical systems and expenses associated with repairing the vessel, at the time of this report the Baaden was considered a total constructive loss with an estimated value of $10 million.
Launch team members inspected the launch cradles, dollies, and equipment after the incident and noted that one of the tires on the forward dolly was flat, and witnesses said they saw
bubbles coming from the forward dolly at the time of the launch. The tire likely was damaged during the initial port roll at 2037.
Probable Cause:
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of the capsizing of the yacht Baaden during its initial launch was the vessel’s low margin of stability due to the combined effects of a recording error during the final vessel weigh, which resulted in an incorrect assessment of the vessel’s center of gravity, and an overestimation of the weight of installed ballast."
www.ntsb.gov/investigations/accidentreports/pages/MAB1514...
"Animals were harmed in the making of this image"
Some years, when the weather gets cold mice get into our house. Then the trapping and search for mouseholes begins.
On Christmas Eve, I walked into my laundry room and saw something move and heard a thunk. I looked into the laundry sink and saw a mouse. I shouted for my husband to come and kill it. He did so with a meat tenderizer. Later that evening, after the children had gone to bed one ran across the floor in front of the fireplace in the family room. So we set traps in the laundry room, family room and kitchen before we went to bed.
In the morning there was one in the trap in the kitchen. I didn't think to photograph it at the time.
On Christmas Day afternoon, again in the laundry room one ran across the floor in front of me. This time I grabbed the meat tenderizer and bludgeoned it to death.
Yesterday I discovered where they were coming from. On a shelf in the garage I found a big bag of grass seed torn open and full of mouse poop. My father-in-law and I cleaned up the garage and set traps.
Yesterday afternoon I told my FIL that I would photograph it, posing as "The Farmer's Wife" if I caught one. He then said the rhyme. I then told him I hoped to catch three.
Last night before bed I checked the traps and sure enough there were mice in three of them. I bagged them up for my photography session today and reset the traps. I didn't catch any more.
I am posting a series of six images.
The striped background is Color Theory. Her tar-colored braids of hair are dripping wet. With her brushy fingers on her ballooning forearms she caresses and/or tickles her midsection. She accidentally (?) applied lipstick to her eyes.
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In downtown Livingston, Montana, on May 30th, 2010, a portion of a mural along North Main Street, on the west wall of an underpass beneath the Montana Rail Link.
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Library of Congress classification ideas:
ND2605 Mural painting and decoration, American.
N7630 Women in art.
NK1590.H43 Heart (Shape)
F739.L58 Livingston (Mont.)—Pictorial works.
Central Pier, Blackpool
Central Pier is one of three piers in the town of Blackpool, England.
The pier is central in that it is located between the other two, but it was close to the site of the now-defunct Blackpool Central railway station about 500 metres south of Blackpool Tower. Since the coastline is very straight and flat, the pier simply extends at right angles to the sea front, roughly level with the promenade.
History: The success of the North Pier prompted the formation of the Blackpool South Jetty Company one year later in 1864. The pier now known as South Pier was built 30 years later. Impressed with the construction of Blackpool Pier (North Pier), the company hired the same contractor, Richard Laidlaw and Son of Glasgow for the project. This time, however, the company used the designs of Lieutenant-Colonel John Isaac Mawson rather than those of Eugenius Birch. When the pier was opened on 30 May 1868, it was 460 metres in length, 120 metres of which was a landing jetty for use at low tide. The first manager of the pier was Robert Bickerstaffe, coxswain of the first Blackpool lifeboat. Blackpool's lifeboat station is located next to Central Pier.
From the start, the new pier's emphasis was on fun rather than the genteel relaxation provided at North Pier. In the early days fun was provided mainly by dancing facilities, but in the 20th century, roller skating was introduced along with fairground rides and amusement machines. Steamboat excursions departed from the landing jetty as they did from North Pier. The dance halls became less popular after the Second World War and the facilities were adapted into a theatre, bars and amusement arcades by the 1970s.
The pierhead theatre was modernised in 1986 and became known as "Peggy Sue's Showboat". A striking addition came in 1990 when a 33 metre high ferris wheel was erected, a half-scale reference to the Victorian attraction that had been part of the Winter Gardens complex a century earlier.
Construction: Central Pier is constructed mostly of cast iron with wooden decking. The piles on which the structure rests were driven using the screw pile method pioneered by Eugenius Birch. This involved twisting screw-tipped cast iron piles down through the sand until they hit bedrock. The materials and building techniques were similar to those used for North Pier but the structure of Central is a little more delicate in appearance.
The pier has suffered relatively little damage save for fires in 1964 and 1973 which gutted the theatre buildings. The main structural alterations have been the removal of the obsolete 120-metre low tide jetty in 1975 and the construction of the ferris wheel in 1990. The addition of the wheel required the midsection of the pier to be strengthened to cope with the extra weight. [Wikipedia]
The "John D Lietch" waiting to load Potash or coal backing into Thunder Bay Terminals.
This unique Great Lakes self-unloading bulk carrier was built by Port Weller Dry Docks, St. Catharines, Ont., as Hull #41. She was christened Canadian Century for Upper Lakes Group, Inc., Toronto, Ont., on April 15, 1967 by Mrs. G. E. Gathercole, wife of the Chairman of the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The name paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of Canada’s confederation.
At the time of her launch, the vessel was the largest capacity self-unloading vessel on the Great Lakes. Her squared hull design reduced wasted space thus increasing her tonnage, however her very tall wheelhouse and forward accommodation block gave her the distinction of being known as the “little bank building that floats.”
The Canadian Century’s original self-unloading system consisted of a single, center line conveyor belt gravity system with a 300-ton reclaimer feeding a bucket/hopper elevator system leading to a forward-mounted 250 foot discharge boom. The reclaimer consisted of 2 auger screws, each 26 feet long and 7 feet high. As they would turn, the cargo would be forced forward to the bucket elevator system. It could discharge at a rate of up to 4,000 tons per hour. Due to the technological advances in self-unloading systems, the Canadian Century’s bucket elevator system was replaced in 1975/76 with a modern loop belt elevator system capable of discharging cargo at a rate of up to 4,572 tons per hour. The discharge boom can be swung 95 degrees to port or starboard.
The vessel is powered by a Burmeister & Wain type 574 VT2F 160 diesel engine rated at 7,394 b.h.p. at 115 r.p.m. burning intermediate grade 180 fuel driving a controllable pitch propeller, giving the vessel a service speed of 14.5 knots. She is equipped with a 1,000 horsepower bowthruster. Her enormous single hold is fed by 22 hatches. She can carry 25,700 tons at maximum Seaway draft of 26 feet and is capable of carrying 31,600 tons at her maximum mid-summer draft of 29 feet 4 inches. Other capacities include 465 tons of fuel oil, 75 tons of diesel oil, 186 tons of potable water, and 17,348 tons of water ballast.
In December 2001, Canadian Century entered Port Weller Dry Docks for a mid-life refit. The $25-million (C) refit was similar to the work that the shipyard completed on Canada Steamship Lines’ CSL Tadoussac the winter before. The bow and stern sections remained intact, along with most of the main deck. The cargo hold and the rest of the midsection were replaced with a new, larger cargo hold and a one-belt self-unloading system with a flat tank top. When it returned to service in May of 2002, it not only carried more cargo, but could operate more efficiently through the increased use of technology.
The Century was built specifically to accommodate Upper Lakes Group’s first contract to carry coal for Ontario Hydro. During her first season of operation, she made 63 trips delivering coal totaling 1.7 million tons. On Dec. 8, 1967, she set a Welland Canal coal record by carrying 28,283 tons from Conneaut, Ohio, to Dofasco at Hamilton, Ont. June 18, 1969 saw the Canadian Century load a Conneaut, Ohio, record of 31,081 tons of coal for Ontario Hydro’s Lambton Generating Station at Courtright, Ont. In her early years, she would sail to Sept Isles, Que., to rendezvous with her former fleet mate Ontario Power to transfer coal loaded aboard the latter vessel at Sydney, Nova Scotia, for delivery to Nanticoke, Ont. The Canadian Century carried her first load of taconite ore pellets in 1986 when she loaded 25,427 tons at Pointe Noire, Que., for Hamilton, Ont. The vessel has carried cargoes of salt from ports such as Goderich, Ont., and Fairport, Ohio. She has also carried the odd cargo of grain products.
In her later years, the Canadian Century sailed under the management of Seaway Marine Transport, St. Catharines, Ont., a partnership of Algoma Central and Upper Lakes Group.
On March 23, 2001, the vessel was honored in the traditional Top Hat ceremony recognizing the passing of the first upbound vessel through the Welland Canal for the 2001 navigation season.
In 2002, the vessel was renamed John D. Leitch, honoring the chairman of the Upper Lakes Group. On February 25, 2011, a formal statement was issued announcing the sale of the privately owned Upper Lakes fleet and their associated interest in Seaway Marine Transport to the Algoma Central Corporation. On April 15, 2011, Algoma announced that the John D. Leitch would retain her name.
Written by George Wharton.
The SS 'Richard Montgomery' was built by the St. Johns River Shipbuilding Company in its second year of operations, and was the seventh of the 82 such ships built by that yard. Laid down on 15 March 1943, she was launched on 15 June 1943, and completed on 29 July 1943, given the official ship number 243756, and named after General Richard Montgomery, an Irish-American soldier who was killed during the American Revolutionary War.
In August 1944, on what was to be its final voyage, the ship left Hog Island, Philadelphia, where it had been loaded with 6,127 tons of munitions.
It travelled from the Delaware river to the Thames Estuary, then anchored while awaiting the formation of a convoy to travel to Cherbourg, France, which had come under Allied control on 27 July 1944 during the Battle of Normandy.
When Richard Montgomery arrived off Southend, it came under the authority of the Thames naval control at HMS Leigh located at the end of Southend Pier. The harbour master, responsible for all shipping movements in the estuary, ordered the ship to a berth off the north edge of Sheerness middle sands, an area designated as the Great Nore Anchorage.
On 20 August 1944, it dragged anchor and ran aground on a sandbank around 250 metres from the Medway Approach Channel,[5] in a depth of 24 feet (7.3 m) of water. The general dry cargo liberty ship had an average draught of 28 ft (8.5 m); however, the Montgomery was trimmed to a draught of 31 ft (9.4 m). As the tide went down, the ship broke its back on sand banks near the Isle of Sheppey about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from Sheerness and 5 miles (8 km) from Southend.
A Rochester-based stevedore company was given the job of removing the cargo, which began on 23 August 1944, using the ship's own cargo handling equipment. By the next day, the ship's hull had cracked open, causing several cargo holds at the bow end to flood. The salvage operation continued until 25 September, when the ship was finally abandoned before all the cargo had been recovered. Subsequently, the ship broke into two separate parts, roughly at the midsection.
During the inquiry following the shipwreck it was revealed that several ships moored nearby had noticed the Montgomery drifting towards the sandbank. They had attempted to signal an alert by sounding their sirens without avail, since throughout this Captain Wilkie of the Montgomery was asleep. The ship's chief officer was unable to explain why he had not alerted the captain. A Board of Inquiry concluded that the anchorage the harbour master assigned had placed the ship in jeopardy, and returned the Montgomery's captain to full duty within a week.
SS Richard Montgomery was an American Liberty ship built during World War II, one of the 2,710 used to carry cargo during the war. The ship was wrecked off the Nore in the Thames Estuary in 1944 with around 1,400 tonnes (1,500 short tons) of explosives on board which continue to be a hazard to the area.
Mulberry harbours were temporary portable harbours developed by the British during World War II to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. After the Allies successfully held beachheads following D-Day, two prefabricated harbours were taken in sections across the English Channel from Britain with the invading army and assembled off Omaha (Mulberry "A") and Gold Beach (Mulberry "B").
The Mulberry harbours were to be used until the Allies could capture a French port; initially thought to be around three months. However although Antwerp in Belgium was captured on 4 September 1944, the Port of Antwerp was not opened until 28 November as the approaches to the port were held by the Germans until the (delayed) Battle of the Scheldt was won. Two French ports were eventually available; the port of Boulogne on 14 October after Operation Wellhit and the port of Calais in November after Operation Undergo. Montgomery insisted that the First Canadian Army clear the German garrisons in Boulogne, Calais and Dunkirk (which was held until 9 May 1945) first before the Scheldt although the French ports were "resoluteld defended" and had all suffered demolitions so would not be navigable for some time. The success of Operation Dragoon meant that the southern French ports of Marseille and Toulon were available in October.
So the need for the harbour at Gold Beach lessened only about five months after D-Day. It was used for 10 months after D-Day; and over 2.5 million men, 500,000 vehicles, and 4 million tonnes of supplies were landed at Gold Beach before it was fully decommissioned. The Mulberry harbour at Omaha Beach had been severely damaged in a storm in late June 1944 and was abandoned. This one, off Shoeburyness, was damaged whilst being towed to France, and abandoned at it's current site.
A re- post on this particular image, I like how it works slightly smaller. Small things can really be beautiful. If you guys faved it before then please do again :)
Overgrown foliage on a section of the dis-used Barrington Cement works line.
Shot in low light, fading mist in the background, mid autumn 2012.
Mamiya RZ - 90mm
Agfa Optima 100 expired, but frozen before. The agfa colours :)
Great signage to warn people of Danger at this very easy midsection entry point into the King George storm Drain.
The extended-range C-130E model entered service in 1962 after it was developed as an interim long-range transport for the Military Air Transport Service. Essentially a B-model, the new designation was the result of the installation of 1,360 US gal (5,150 L) Sargent Fletcher external fuel tanks under each wing's midsection and more powerful Allison T56-A-7A turboprops. The hydraulic boost pressure to the ailerons was reduced back to 2,050 psi (14.1 MPa) as a consequence of the external tanks' weight in the middle of the wingspan. The E model also featured structural improvements, avionics upgrades and a higher gross weight. Australia took delivery of 12 C130E Hercules during 1966–67 to supplement the 12 C-130A models already in service with the RAAF. Sweden and Spain fly the TP-84T version of the C-130E fitted for aerial refueling capability.
Photo: Thomas Ohlsson Photography
www.thomasohlsson.com | 500px | Facebook | Flickr | Instagram
©2014 @bgateb | photos.bgateb.com
Canon 5D3, 1/200, f/14, 24-70 f/2,8L II @ 35mm
6 PCB Einsteins.
Key: 36" octa boomed high and above, feathered into face/upper torso.
Fill: 36" octa, boomed low camera left, fills legs
Fill: Gridded 22" Kacey BD, fill midsection
Rim: Barndoors, Camera right behind subject
Background: 2 lights - 24" softboxes
Lighting Diagram here: i.imgur.com/7YBYCXW.png
Da Wikipédia, em português:
Louva-a-deus
O louva-a-deus ou cavalinho-de-deus é um insecto, da ordem Mantodea. Há cerca de 2400 espécies de louva-a-deus, a maioria das quais em ambiente tropical e subtropical. Seu nome popular decorre do fato de que, quando está pousado, o inseto lembra uma pessoa orando. Os louva-a-deus são insetos relativamente grandes, de cabeça triangular, tórax estreito com pronoto e abdómen bem desenvolvido. São predadores agressivos que caçam principalmente moscas e afídios. A caça é feita em geral de emboscada, facilitada pelas capacidades de camuflagem do louva-a-deus. Como não possuem veneno, os louva-a-deus contam com as suas pernas anteriores que são raptatórias, ou seja, modificadas como garras, para segurar a presa enquanto é consumida. A sua voracidade leva a que sejam considerados muito bem vindos pelos amantes da jardinagem e agricultura biológica, uma vez que, na ausência de pesticidas, são um fator importante no controlo de pragas de jardim. Na América do Norte ocorrem apenas três espécies de louva-a-deus, duas das quais introduzidas no início do século XX para este mesmo efeito.
O voo do louva-a-deus é algo impressionante. Remete ao voo de um caça de combate. Ele também tem a capacidade de desviar de ataques de morcegos em pleno voo executando mergulhos.
O louva-a-deus é um animal muito venerado na China, tendo inclusive estilos de Kung Fu baseados em seus movimentos.
Acasalamento:
O ritual de acasalamento dos louva-a-deus, que decorre por volta do Outono, é uma época de perigo para os machos da espécie, uma vez que a fêmea muitas vezes acaba por os matar e comer durante/depois do ato. Depois do fato consumado, a fêmea põe entre 10 a 400 ovos numa cápsula endurecida que deposita no chão, superfície plana ou enrolada numa folha. Em algumas espécies, a fêmea permanece perto da cápsula e a protege contra os predadores, em particular algumas espécies de vespa. Após a eclosão, o louva-a-deus nasce como ninfa, que é em tudo igual ao adulto excepto no tamanho menor e na ausência de asas e de órgãos reprodutores maduros.
From Wikipedia, in english:
Mantis
For other uses, see Praying mantis (disambiguation) and Mantis (disambiguation).
Mantodea
Temporal range: 145–0Ma
PreЄ
Є
O
S
D
C
P
T
J
K
Pg
N
Cretaceous–Recent
Mantis-greece-alonisos-0a.jpg
Adult female Sphodromantis viridis
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Subclass: Pterygota
Infraclass: Neoptera
Superorder: Dictyoptera
Order: Mantodea
Burmeister, 1838
Families
Acanthopidae
Amorphoscelididae
Chaeteessidae
Empusidae
Eremiaphilidae
Hymenopodidae
Iridopterygidae
Liturgusidae
Mantidae
Mantoididae
Metallyticidae
Sibyllidae
Tarachodidae
Thespidae
Toxoderidae
Synonyms
Manteodea Burmeister, 1829
Mantearia
Mantoptera
Mantodea (or mantises, mantes) is an order of insects that contains over 2,400 species and about 430 genera[1] in 15 families worldwide in temperate and tropical habitats. Most of the species are in the family Mantidae.
The English common name for the order is the mantises, or rarely (using a Latinized plural of Greek mantis), the mantes. The name mantid refers only to members of the family Mantidae, which was, historically, the only family in the Order, but with 14 additional families recognized in recent decades, this term can be confusing. The other common name, often applied to any species in the order, is "praying mantis",[2] because of the typical "prayer-like" posture with folded fore-limbs, although the eggcorn "preying mantis" is sometimes used in reference to their predatory habits.[3][4] In Europe and other regions, however, the name "praying mantis" refers to only a single species, Mantis religiosa. The closest relatives of mantises are the termites and cockroaches (order Blattodea). They are sometimes confused with phasmids (stick/leaf insects) and other elongated insects such as grasshoppers and crickets, or other insects with raptorial forelegs such as mantisflies.
Etymology:
The name mantodea is formed from the Ancient Greek words μάντις (mantis) meaning "prophet", and εἶδος (eidos) meaning "form" or "type". It was coined in 1838 by the German entomologist Hermann Burmeister.
Systematics:
The systematics of mantises have long been disputed. Mantises, along with walking sticks, were once placed in the order Orthoptera with the cockroaches (now Blattodea) and rock crawlers (now Grylloblattodea). Kristensen (1991) combined Mantodea with the cockroaches and termites into the order Dictyoptera.
Anatomy and morphology:
Mantises have two grasping, spiked forelegs ("raptorial legs") in which prey items are caught and held securely. In most insect legs, including the posterior four legs of a mantis, the coxa and trochanter combine as an inconspicuous base of the leg; in the raptorial legs however, the coxa and trochanter combine to form a segment about as long as the femur, which is a spiky part of the grasping apparatus (see illustration). Located at the base of the femur are a set of discoidal spines, usually four in number, but ranging from zero to as many as five depending on the species. These spines are preceded by a number of tooth-like tubercles, which, along with a similar series of tubercles along the tibia and the apical claw near its tip, give the foreleg of the mantis its grasp on its prey. The foreleg ends in a delicate tarsus made of between four and five segments and ending in a two-toed claw with no arolium and used as a walking appendage.[8]
The mantis thorax consists of a prothorax, a mesothorax, and a metathorax. In all species apart from the genus Mantoida, the prothorax, which bears the head and forelegs, is much longer than the other two thoracic segments. The prothorax is also flexibly articulated, allowing for a wide range of movement of the head and forelimbs while the remainder of the body remains more or less immobile. The articulation of the neck is also remarkably flexible; some species of mantis can rotate the head nearly 180 degrees.
Mantises may have a visual range of up to 20 metres. Their compound eyes may comprise up to 10,000 ommatidia. The eyes are widely spaced and laterally situated, affording a wide binocular field of vision and, at close range, precise stereoscopic vision. The dark spot on each eye is a pseudopupil. As their hunting relies heavily on vision, mantises are primarily diurnal. Many species, however, fly at night, and then may be attracted to artificial lights. Nocturnal flight is especially important to males in search of less-mobile females that they locate by detecting their pheromones. Flying at night exposes mantises to fewer bird predators than diurnal flight would. Many mantises also have an auditory thoracic organ that helps them to avoid bats by detecting their echolocation and responding evasively.[8]
Mantises can be loosely categorized as being macropterous (long-winged), brachypterous (short-winged), micropterous (vestigial-winged), or apterous (wingless). If not wingless, a mantis has two sets of wings: the outer wings, or tegmina, are usually narrow, opaque, and leathery. They function as camouflage and as a shield for the hind wings. The hind wings are much broader, more delicate, and transparent. They are the main organs of flight, if any. Brachypterous species are at most minimally capable of flight, other species not at all. The wings are mostly erected in these mantises for alarming enemies and attracting females. Even in many macropterous species the female is much heavier than the male, has much shorter wings, and rarely takes flight if she is capable of it at all.
The abdomen of all mantises consist of ten tergites with a corresponding set of nine sternites visible in males and seven visible in females. The slim abdomen of most males allows them to take flight more easily while the thicker abdomen of the females houses the reproductive machinery for generating the ootheca. The abdomen of both sexes ends in a pair of cerci.
Evolution:
One theory for the evolution of the group is that mantises evolved from proto-cockroaches, diverging from their common ancestors by the Cretaceous period, possibly from species like Raphidiomimula burmitica, a predatory cockroach with mantis-like forelegs. Possibly the earliest known modern mantis is Regiata scutra, although more common (and confirmed) is Santanmantis, a stilt-legged genus, also from the Cretaceous. Like their close termite cousins, though, mantises did not become common and diverse until the early Tertiary period.
Behavior:
Diet and predatory behavior:
Most mantises are exclusively predatory while exceptions are predominantly so. Insects form their primary prey, but the diet of a mantis changes as it grows larger. In its first instar a mantis eats small insects such as tiny flies or its own siblings. In later instars it does not or cannot profitably pursue such small prey. In the final instar as a rule the diet still includes more insects than anything else, but large species have been known to prey on small scorpions, lizards, frogs, birds, snakes, fish, and even rodents; they feed on any species small enough for them to capture, but large enough to engage their attention. For example, a large mantis feeding on a bee or bug might be pestered with impunity by jackal flies and biting midges that it would readily have eaten in its first instar. Large prey tends to increase in value with the cube of its size: a blowfly four times as long as a jackal fly represents a meal about 64 times as massive. However, the chewing action can be always triggered by picking the mantis up to deny it traction and stimulating its mandibles with food. When a female mantis is into her final growth spurt and is accumulating nutrients to make eggs, the largest available prey that she can manage is the most effective for her to concentrate on.[citation needed]
The majority of mantises are ambush predators, but some ground and bark species actively pursue their prey. For example, members of a few genera such as the ground mantids, Entella, Ligaria and Ligariella, run over dry ground seeking prey much as tiger beetles do. Species that are predominantly ambush predators camouflage themselves and spend long periods standing perfectly still. They largely wait for their prey to stray within reach, but most mantises chase tempting prey if it strays closely enough. In pure ambush mode a mantis lashes out at remarkable speed when a target does get within reach, details of the speed and mode attack varying with the species. A mantis catches prey items and grips them with grasping, spiked forelegs. The mantis usually holds its prey with one arm between the head and thorax, and the other on the abdomen. Then, if the prey does not resist, the mantis eats it alive. However, if the prey does resist, the mantis often eats it head first, some species of mantises being more prone to the behaviour than others. Unlike sucking predatory arthropods, a mantis does not liquefy prey tissues or drain its prey's body fluids, but simply slices and chews it with its mandibles as convenient, often from one end. If it should happen to have begun feeding on the midsection of the prey, it typically ends up eating first one remnant end from one foreclaw, then the rest from the other, leaving nothing but accidentally severed fragments such as limbs.[citation needed]
Chinese Mantids have been found to gain benefits in survivorship, growth, and fecundity by supplementing their diet with pollen. In replicated laboratory tests the first instar actively fed on pollen just after hatching, thereby avoiding starvation in the absence of prey. The adults fed on pollen-laden insects, attaining fecundity as high as those fed on larger numbers of insects alone.
Defense and camouflage:
Generally, mantises protect themselves by camouflage and concealment. When directly threatened, many mantis species stand tall and spread their forelegs, with their wings fanning out wide. The fanning of the wings makes the mantis seem larger and more threatening, with some species having bright colors and patterns on their hind wings and inner surfaces of their front legs for this purpose. If harassment persists, a mantis may strike with its forelegs and attempt to pinch or bite. As part of the threat display, some species also may produce a hissing sound by expelling air from the abdominal spiracles. When flying at night, at least some mantises are able to detect the echolocation sounds produced by bats, and when the frequency begins to increase rapidly, indicating an approaching bat, they stop flying horizontally and begin a descending spiral toward the safety of the ground, often preceded by an aerial loop or spin.[10][11]
Mantises, like stick insects, show rocking behaviour in which the insect makes rhythmic, repetitive side-to-side movements. Functions proposed for this behaviour include the enhancement of crypsis by means of the resemblance to vegetation moving in the wind. However, the repetitive swaying movements may be most important in allowing the insects to discriminate objects from the background by their relative movement, a visual mechanism typical of animals with simpler sight systems. Rocking movements by these generally sedentary insects may replace flying or running as a source of relative motion of objects in the visual field.[12]
Mantises are camouflaged, and most species make use of protective coloration to blend in with the foliage or substrate, both to avoid predators, and to better snare their prey. Various species have evolved to not only blend with the foliage, but to mimic it, appearing as either living or withered leaves, sticks, tree bark, blades of grass, flowers, or even stones. Some species in Africa and Australia are able to turn black after a molt following a fire in the region to blend in with the fire ravaged landscape (a type of adaptive melanism referred to as fire melanism). While mantises can bite, they have no venom. They can also slash captors with their raptorial legs (which is often preceded by a threat display wherein the mantis rears back and spreads its front legs and wings (if present), often revealing vivid colors and/or eyespots to startle a predator). Mantises are without chemical protection; many large insectivores eat mantises, including Scops owls, shrikes, bullfrogs, chameleons, and Milk Snakes.
Reproduction and life history:
Sexual cannibalism is common among most predatory species of mantises in captivity, and under some circumstances may also be observed in the field. 90% of the predatory species of mantis participate in sexual cannibalism.[13] The female may begin feeding by biting off the male’s head (as they do with regular prey), and if mating has begun, the male’s movements may become even more vigorous in its delivery of sperm. Early researchers thought that because copulatory movement is controlled by a ganglion in the abdomen, not the head, removal of the male’s head was a reproductive strategy by females to enhance fertilisation while obtaining sustenance. Later, this behavior appeared to be an artifact of intrusive laboratory observation. Whether the behavior in the field is natural, or also the result of distractions caused by the human observer, remains controversial. Mantises are highly visual organisms, and notice any disturbance occurring in the laboratory or field such as bright lights or moving scientists. Research by Liske and Davis (1984)[14] and others found (e.g. using video recorders in vacant rooms) that Chinese mantises that had been fed ad libitum (so that they were not hungry) actually displayed elaborate courtship behavior when left undisturbed. The male engages the female in courtship dance, to change her interest from feeding to mating. Courtship display has also been observed in other species, but it does not hold for all mantises.
The reason for sexual cannibalism has been debated, with some considering submissive males to be achieving a selective advantage in their ability to produce offspring. This theory is supported by a quantifiable increase in the duration of copulation among males who are cannibalized, in some cases doubling both the duration and the chance of fertilization. This is contrasted by a study where males were seen to approach hungry females with more caution, and were shown to remain mounted on hungry females for a longer time, indicating that males actively avoiding cannibalism may mate with multiple females. The same study also found that hungry females generally attracted fewer males than those who were well fed.[15] The act of dismounting is one of the most dangerous times for males during copulation, for it is at this time that females most frequently cannibalize their mates. This increase in mounting duration was thought to indicate that males are more prone to wait for an opportune time to dismount from a hungry female rather than from a satiated female that would be less likely to cannibalize her mate. Some consider this to be an indication that male submissiveness does not inherently increase male reproductive success, rather that more fit males are likely to approach a female with caution and escape.[16]
The mating season in temperate climates typically begins in autumn. To mate following courtship, the male usually leaps onto the female’s back, and clasps her thorax and wing bases with his forelegs. He then arches his abdomen to deposit and store sperm in a special chamber near the tip of the female’s abdomen. The female then lays between 10 and 400 eggs, depending on the species. Eggs are typically deposited in a frothy mass that is produced by glands in the abdomen. This froth then hardens, creating a protective capsule. The protective capsule and the egg mass is called an ootheca. Depending on the species, the ootheca can be attached to a flat surface, wrapped around a plant or even deposited in the ground. Despite the versatility and durability of the eggs, they are often preyed on, especially by several species of parasitic wasps. In a few species, the mother guards the eggs.[citation needed]
As in related insect groups, mantises go through three stages of metamorphosis: egg, nymph, and adult (mantises are among the hemimetabolic insects). The nymph and adult insect are structurally quite similar, except that the nymph is smaller and has no wings or functional genitalia. The nymphs are also sometimes colored differently from the adult, and the early stages are often mimics of ants. A mantis nymph increases in size (often changing its diet as it does so) by replacing its outer body covering with a sturdy, flexible exoskeleton and molting when needed. Molting can happen from five to ten times, depending on the species. After the final molt most species have wings, though some species are wingless or brachypterous ("short-winged"), particularly in the female sex.[citation needed]
In tropical species, the natural lifespan of a mantis in the wild is about 10–12 months, but some species kept in captivity have been sustained for 14 months. In colder areas, females die during the winter (as well as any surviving males)
Pest control uses:
Organic gardeners who avoid pesticides may encourage mantises as a form of biological pest control. During fall in temperate regions, mantis females typically deposit an ootheca on the underside of a leaf or on a twig, and in some species these are harvested commercially. If the egg case survives winter, the offspring, called nymphs, emerge in late spring or early summer. The nymphs have voracious appetites and typically cannibalize each other if they cannot find an adequate supply of aphids and other small insects. Tens of thousands of mantis egg cases are sold each year in some garden stores for this purpose. However, mantises prey on neutral and beneficial insects as well, basically eating anything they can successfully capture and devour.
Conservation status:
With one exception (the ground mantis Litaneutria minor in Canada, where it is rare — though it is common in the United States), North American mantises are not included among threatened or endangered species, though species in other parts of the world are under threat from habitat destruction. The European mantis (Mantis religiosa) is the state insect of Connecticut, but the General Statutes of Connecticut do not list any special protected status, as it is a non-native species from Europe and Africa. It became the state insect in October 1977 following a school project between Center Road School in Vernon, CT and then State Representative Chester W. Morgan of Vernon's 56th State Assembly District.
Introduced species:
Over 20 species are native to the United States, including the common Carolina Mantis, with only one native to Canada. Two species (the Chinese Mantis and the European Mantis) were deliberately introduced to serve as pest control for agriculture, and have spread widely in both countries. Additionally, there is a strong market in the exotic pet trade for mantis species from Asia, Africa and South America, and many species are bred in captivity for this purpose.
Cultural references:
One of the earliest mantis references is in the ancient Chinese dictionary Erya, which gives its attributes in poetry (representing courage and fearlessness), as well as a brief description. A later text, the Jingshi Zhenglei Daguan Bencao 經史證類大觀本草 ( Epic 史, history 證, collection 類, kinds 大觀, overall impression 本, basic 草, agriculture Annotated and Arranged by Types, Based upon the Classics and Historical Works") from 1108, is impressively correct on the construction of the egg packages, the development cycle, the anatomy and even the function of the antennae.
Western descriptions of the biology and morphology of the mantises had become relatively accurate by the 18th century. Roesel von Rosenhof accurately illustrated and described them in the Insekten-Belustigungen (Insect Entertainments). Aldous Huxley made philosophical observations about the nature of death while two mantises mated in the sight of two characters in the novel Island (the species was Gongylus gongylodes). The naturalist Gerald Durrell's autobiography My Family and Other Animals includes an account of a very evenly matched battle between a mantis and a gecko.
M. C. Escher's woodcut Dream depicts a human-sized mantis standing on a sleeping bishop.[18]
Two martial arts that had been separately developed in China have movements and fighting strategies based on those of the Mantis. As one of these arts was developed in northern China, and the other in southern parts of the country, the arts are nowadays referred to (both in English and Chinese) as 'Northern Praying Mantis' and 'Southern Praying Mantis'. Both arts are very popular in China, and have also been imported to the West in recent decades.
Mythology:
Southern African indigenous mythology refers to the mantis as a god in Khoi and San traditional myths and practices, and the word for the mantis in Afrikaans is hottentotsgot (literally, a god of the Khoi).[19][20] The word "Mantis" is also the Greek word for "prophet or seer".
The Chrysler 300 "letter series" are high-performance personal luxury cars that were built by Chrysler in the U.S. from 1955 to 1965. After the initial year, which was named 300-C, the 1956 cars were designated 300B. Successive model years given the next letter of the alphabet as a suffix (skipping "i"), reaching the 300L by 1965, after which the model was dropped.
The 300 "letter series" cars were among the vehicles that focused on performance built by domestic U.S. manufacturers after World War II, and thus can be considered one of the muscle car's ancestors, though full-sized and more expensive.
The automaker began using the 300 designations again for performance-luxury sedans, using the 300M nameplate from 1999 to 2004, and expanding the 300 series with a new V8-powered 300C, the top model of a relaunched Chrysler 300 line, a new rear-wheel drive car launched in 2004 for the 2005 model year. Unlike the first "letter series" series, the successive variants do not feature standard engines producing at least 300 hp (220 kW), except for Chrysler's current top-line 300C models.
1955 C-300
This first of the letter series cars did not bear a letter, but can retroactively be considered the '300A'. The 'C-' designation was applied to all Chrysler models; however for marketing purposes the numerical series skipped more than 225 numbers forward in sequence in order to further reinforce the 300's bhp rating. The 300 originally stood for the 300 hp (220 kW) engine. The C-300 was really a racecar aimed at the NASCAR circuits that was sold for the road for homologation purposes, with Chrysler's most powerful engine, the 331 cu in (5.4 L) FirePower "Hemi" V8, due to the hemisperic shape of the combustion chambers, fitted with twin 4-barrel carburetors, a race-profiled camshaft setup, solid valve lifters, stiffer suspension, and a performance exhaust system. By 1956 this would be the first American production car to top 355 hp (265 kW), and the letter series was for many years the most powerful car produced in the United States.
The car's "Forward Look" styling can be attributed as much to the Chrysler parts bin as designer Virgil Exner. The front clip, including the grille, was taken from the Imperial of the same year, but the rest of the car did not look like an Imperial. The midsection was from a New Yorker hardtop, with a Windsor rear quarter. Exner also included base-model Chrysler bumpers and removed many exterior elements such as back-up lights, hood ornament, side trim, and exterior mirrors. An electric clock and two-speed windshield wipers were standard. There were few options available including selection of three exterior colors (red, white and black) and only one color of tan leather interior. Power windows and power seat were available but air conditioning was not available in 1955.
Measured at 127.58 mph (205.32 km/h) in the Flying Mile, and doing well in NASCAR, the C-300 aroused interest that was not reflected in its modest sales figure of 1,725.
When the C300 competed in NASCAR, it was painted to advertise that it was the "world's fastest stock car".
[Text from Wikipedia]
AJ. The Naked Photographer (c)
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This is Part 2 of my Bambicrony Brava Bambi body review, which covers aesthetics. Part 1 is a less subjective video review covering posing ability; you can find it here.
Our model here is Anna. She is in the tan skin tone, and is on the Big Breast body.
This is the revamped body. Originally the only difference between the Big Breast and Small Breast body was the chest piece. After Bambicrony's relaunch, the BB body had been modified to look suitably more developed. The chest piece, arms, hands, and feet are unchanged, but her midsection has been completely redone, and her calves are longer making her slightly taller. I feel Bambicrony would have been wise to dub these "mature body" and "immature body", which would not only be more accurate but to also differentiate between the old version of the former.
The Bambicrony tan is glorious. It's deliciously dark, but in comparison to my other dark tan girls it's more of a neutral color with a pink tinge. It has a fairly realistic skin-like texture with added sheen. What's interesting is that her strings are brown instead of the usual white so that they are less noticeable. Very smart! Her resin is thick and she's quite heavy.
She has some wicked seamlines. The nastiest ones are on one of her inner thighs and one of her hands, which isn't so bad. The ones down the sides of her torso appear to have been lightly sanded with some success one one side. The color is even and there isn't any discoloration or blantant rub marks, which is something the old Bambicrony had issues with before their relaunch.
From Wikipedia:
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a primary disease of the myocardium (the muscle of the heart) in which a portion of the myocardium is hypertrophied (thickened) without any obvious cause.
Although HCM may be asymptomatic, affected individuals may present with symptoms ranging from mild to critical heart failure and sudden cardiac death at any point from early childhood to seniority. HCM is the leading cause of sudden cardiac death in young athletes in the United States, and the most common genetic cardiovascular disorder. One study found that the incidence of sudden cardiac death in young competitive athletes declined in the Veneto region of Italy by 89% since introduction of routine Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Screening of athletes.
Was looking through my picture collection and stumbled over these. Some of these may be restarted...
This one was a mid-size Galleon (I think ~4.5 midsections); didn't like it enough to finish it.
I was a bad, bad boy :D I got another anime figure. Yeah, that happened. In my defense, she's one of the few figures outside of certain Macross Frontier Sheryl figures that I still want. This figure is one of the last figures I admired from before I got into dolls.
Who is she? She's Tamaki Kousaka from To Heart 2. This is the Mariage [sic] figure from New Line. This one's from over 10 years ago, too. To Heart 2 had a bit of a surge in popularity around 2007. Perhaps it was a new anime at that time. I never watched it. I just remember To Heart 2 and especially Tamaki being popular. I even have a To Heart 2 doll schoolgirl uniform that my Madalaine often wears that I got in 2008. I remember another Tamaki figure in particular where she was dressed in lingerie, and there was a deluxe version that had actual fishnet stockings! But this is the Tamaki Kousaka Mariage figure, and this is a whole different... Wait, it's not wholly different from that lingerie figure? What gives? How naughty is it? Will Madalaine get upset with her Daddy again?
Well, to start with, Tamaki is wearing a long, flowing white dress that is adorned with roses, ribbons, and other accessories. She's even wearing very classy arm-length gloves. Tamaki also has a small necklace and a real fabric veil that clips onto her head with a small metal piece that goes around her head. The design is simple but elegant and classy. There is plenty of detail in the pleats of the gown, and it trails behind her gracefully as if she's walking forward down the aisle and just taking a quick moment to turn her head and look at her mom before taking her wedding vows. She also comes with a separate bouquet of roses that you have to put in her hands.
The inner workings of this figure are that of a real bridezilla :D Seriously, she's sweet, but there is A LOT going on behind the scenes. Her clothes are actually four or five parts. I discovered the intricacies of this while unpacking her in order to clear her of her plastic wrapping. It's impossible to do without partially undressing her, so I saw some of what her dress could do in order to get her ready to be displayed. The simplest part is the long lower portion of the dress. It actually functions as the base of the figure if you choose to use it. The figure comes with a traditional base, but it can't be used in the full dress configuration. It will push the rest of the figure up too high. The upper skirt portion of the dress falls into the lower dress portion, and gravity holds it together. The body of the figure is very well supported by the upper skirt, though there is a little wiggle room for fine tuning. This upper skirt appears to want to split in two sections, but I was only able to get one section separated. Perhaps the fact that it's been together for over a decade made it settle in too well. Getting one side separated was enough to get the plastic out, though. The big rose on the front pops in and out and acts as kind of a staple to help keep the upper skirt closed. The corset portion of the dress appears to be removable, but I did not try. I did not need to do so in order to remove the plastic. The petal-looking wrap around portion actually comes off super easily and shows that the top of the corset does not cover Tamaki's breasts all the way. This was the second part that came off when I was undoing her plastic wrapping. I think her head is supposed to pop off, but I couldn't get it to easily pop off, and I didn't want to force it. There was a plastic wrap that had a hole in it that her neck went through. I just tore it instead of risking breaking her neck.
Underneath the covering of the dress is Tamaki's body and other clothing details. She has lovely legs and high heels. The heels have little inserts in them that settle between the base of the shoe and the heel. These inserts have little holes for the stand should you choose to display Tamaki in short skirt form. Tamaki's panties are removable and are unusually pretty despite being rather basic. I don't know what it is. Her panties are just super pretty. They have a little clip on one side which assists with removal. There are no graphic details down below, but there are seams where her legs meet her pelvis. I'm not sure what these seams are for. The legs don't seem to be removable. The seams are not visible with the panties on, so it's not all bad. Like I said about the corset, it appears to be removable, but I didn't try. I'm sure she has a lovely midsection, though. Unlike down below, her breasts are very much detailed. Full color and wouldn't look out of place in the frozen food aisle if you know what I mean :D But above all that is the blushing bride! She's such a cute bride, too. She has the signature Tamaki hairstyle, her eyes are wide and loving, her nose is tiny and cute, and she's smiling on her wedding day which is always a plus.
Tamaki is a 1/6 scale figure! I have long given though to pairing her up with my Momoko Dramatic Bride doll. I think I will one day. My Dramatic Bride doll, Stella, has been single for far too long. But being 1/6 scale with all of this wedding gown, she takes up a lot of space in full gown configuration. I'm currently keeping her in front of my Wonder Woman painting that you may have seen in the background of my pics. (Not these pics.)
So, after all of the details about how it's possible to undress Ms. Tamaki, could it be possible that this figure might get Madalaine's seal of approval? Well, yes! It is possible! While I may switch her to short skirt mode from time to time, that's the only change I plan to make to her appearance. I have absolutely no interest in depicting Ms. Tamaki on her wedding night :D I got her in order to have her dressed as a bride, and I'm perfectly happy with her that way. If I wanted to look at a topless, pretty much naked figure, I'd look at my Luashia figure :D (Sorry, Madalaine!) Though I do have to wonder what was going on in the To Heart franchise over in Japan if they released a figure like this. I could have sworn the To Heart 1 anime that actually did come to the USA was a G/PG show.
I've been slowly rebuilding my old sets from when I was a kid and I felt like the OG design wasn't as good a representation of the source material as it could have been. As a general rule, when I update ships I tend to try to only use contemporaneous parts and to keep the general look and feel. That rule went out the window here lol. By the end the only original components were the wings, back part of the midsection, central column of the neck, and the general shape of the cockpit.
I started by redoing the engines, which required redesigning almost the entire midsection. Then I started greebling the wings, which made them not shut or open all the way, so I had to raise the connections up by a stud on each side while rounding them off so they could still open fully. Then I realized the neck was totally wrong, so I rebuilt that using a bunch of techniques that are of questionable legality. That left only the cockpit, which was the right general shape, but lacked detail, wasn't centered axially, and needed some color-blocking. Then I went back and redid the weapons and details along the leading edge of the main wing....
All in all the work of a few days.
HMS Cavalier is a retired C-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was laid down by J. Samuel White and Company at East Cowes on 28 March 1943, launched on 7 April 1944, and commissioned on 22 November 1944. She served in World War II and in various commissions in the Far East until she was decommissioned in 1972. After decommissioning she was preserved as a museum ship and currently resides at Chatham Historic Dockyard.
Construction
Cavalier was one of 96 War Emergency Programme destroyers ordered between 1940 and 1942. She was one of the first ships to be built with the forward and aft portions of her hull welded, with the midsection riveted to ensure strength. The new process gave the ship additional speed. In 1970 a 64-mile race was arranged between Cavalier and the frigate Rapid, which had the same hull form and machinery. Cavalier beat Rapid by 30 yards (27 m) after Rapid lifted a safety valve, reaching an average speed of 31.8 knots (58.9 km/h).
Service history
Cavalier returning to Portsmouth in 1946
After commissioning she joined the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, part of the Home Fleet, and took part in a number of operations off Norway. Most notably in February 1945 she was despatched with the destroyers Myngs and Scorpion[5] to reinforce a convoy from the Kola Inlet in Russia, which had suffered attacks from enemy aircraft and U-boats, and had subsequently been scattered by a violent storm. She and the other escorts reformed the convoy, and returned to Britain with the loss of only three of the thirty-four ships. This action earned Cavalier a battle honour.
Later in 1945 Cavalier was despatched to the Far East, where she provided naval gunfire support during the Battle of Surabaya. In February 1946 she went to Bombay to help quell the Royal Indian Navy Mutiny. After some time in the British Pacific Fleet she was paid off in May 1946 and was placed in reserve at Portsmouth.
Cavalier returned to service in 1957 after a modernisation, which included removing some of her torpedo tubes in favour of Squid anti-submarine mortars. She was again sent to the Far East, and joined the 8th Destroyer Squadron in Singapore. In December 1962 she transported 180 troops from Singapore to Brunei to help suppress a rebellion that became part of the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation. After disembarking the troops she remained in Brunei as a communications centre for several days until other Royal Navy ships arrived to relieve her.
Cavalier was decommissioned in 1972 along with HMS Wellington (moored in London), and is the last surviving British destroyer of World War 2 still in the UK.
After decommissioning[edit]
After decommissioning at Chatham Dockyard, she was laid up in Portsmouth. As a unique survivor, after a five-year campaign led by Lord Louis Mountbatten, the ship was purchased by the Cavalier Trust for £65,000 and handed over on Trafalgar Day 1977 in Portsmouth. By selling the ship to the Trust, the UK Government and the Royal Navy severed all formal connection and responsibility for the ship. A special warrant was issued that allows her to retain the prefix "HMS" (Her Majesty's Ship) and fly the White Ensign, a privilege normally only enjoyed by commissioned ships of the Royal Navy. A similar privilege is enjoyed by another museum ship, the cruiser Belfast.
Moved to Southampton, Cavalier opened as a museum and memorial ship in August 1982. This was not commercially successful, and in October 1983 the ship was moved to Brighton, where she formed the centrepiece of a newly built yacht marina.
In 1987, the ship was brought to the River Tyne to form the centrepiece of a national shipbuilding exhibition centre planned by South Tyneside Metropolitan Borough Council in the former shipyard of Hawthorn Leslie and Company, builders of many similar destroyers. The plans for the museum came to nothing, and the borough council, faced with annual maintenance costs of £30,000 and a hardening of public opinion against unnecessary expenditure, resolved to sell the ship and wind up the venture in 1996. The ship sat in a dry dock (owing to a previous list) in a rusting condition, awaiting a buyer or scrapping in situ.
After the reforming of the Cavalier Trust, and a debate in Parliament, in 1998 Cavalier was bought by Chatham Historic Dockyard for display as a museum ship. Arriving on 23 May 1998, Cavalier now resides in No. 2 dry-dock.
On 14 November 2007, Cavalier was officially designated as a war memorial to the 142 Royal Navy destroyers sunk during World War II and the 11,000 men killed on those ships. The unveiling of a bronze monument created by the artist Kenneth Potts was conducted by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The monument is adjacent to the ship at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham, Kent.
In the summer of 2009 the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust made available accommodation on board the ship for youth groups who wish to stay on board and experience life on board a Royal Naval Destroyer.
In September 2010, Cavalier fired the first full broadside from a ship flying the White Ensign since a firing by the destroyer London in December 1981. This was due to the work of the heritage naval gun crew who restored all three 4.5-in guns back to working condition in conjunction with the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust.
In April 2014 Cavalier was added to Google Maps Business View (formerly Google Business Photos) by CInsideMedia Ltd, in celebration of the 70th anniversary of her launch. The tour, which includes Cavalier's engine and gear room, was enhanced with interactive audio hotspots to enable visitors with accessibility issues to explore the ship.
wikipedia
THE Fabbri mansion, at 11 East 62d Street, sold for $21 million last month, but that's not the only noteworthy thing about the house. The 1900 double-width mansion is miraculously intact -- not just the sumptuous entertaining rooms but the servants' rooms, the bathrooms, the kitchen and even the stove. The government of Japan bought the house for its permanent representative to the United Nations, and what remains to be seen is how it will strike a balance between the history of the house and actually using it.
In 1900 Margaret Vanderbilt Shepard, granddaughter of Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, built two double-width houses for her two daughters, 5 East 66th Street for Maria and William Schieffelin, who was in the pharmaceutical business, and 11 East 62d for Edith and Ernesto Fabbri, head of the Society of Italian Immigrants. (Mr. Fabbri's father was a New York merchant who had been born in Italy.)
Perhaps it was the daughters who chose the architects: the prominent firm of Hunt & Hunt designed the Schieffelin house, but the Fabbri house was designed by the relatively unknown firm of Haydel & Shepard. Abner Haydel and Augustus Shepard had one advantage: Augustus Shepard was Edith Fabbri's cousin.
Haydel & Shepard designed one of the most exuberant Beaux-Arts houses in New York, with a double-height midsection framed by giant pilasters, lavishly detailed French windows, large dormers and elaborate chimney stacks projecting well beyond the roof line.
In 1901 the magazine Architectural Review praised the building as ''a decidedly delicate and consistent structure with detail well placed and gracefully conceived.''
Original plans show the 45 1/2-foot-wide house with seven principal bedrooms and nine servants' bedrooms. The 1910 census recorded Ernesto and Edith Fabbri in the house with a daughter and Ernesto's brother, Alexandro, along with 11 servants, including two Swedish cooks, an English butler, two English footmen, a Finnish lady's maid and an Italian valet.
A listing in the Social Register for the Fabbris suggest that after they moved into 11 East 62d they were abroad much of the time. By 1911 they had moved to Paris, and in 1912 they sold the house that had been built for them only 12 years before.
The new purchasers were Charles Steele, a partner at J. P. Morgan & Company, and his wife, Nannie. Beginning in 1919, Mr. Steele gave at least $400,000 to help establish the St. Thomas Choir School. He and his wife were able to get along more modestly than the Fabbris -- the 1925 census found them alone in the house, with no live-in servants.
It may be that the Fabbris had become disenchanted with their high-style house. In 1914 they came back to the United States and began work on a new house, at 7 East 95th Street, completed in 1916. Now the House of the Redeemer, an Episcopal religious retreat, 7 East 95th was almost as grand as 11 East 62d, but it was Italian to 11 East 62d's French. Augustus Shepard was still in practice, but for their second house the Fabbris used Grosvenor Atterbury as architect.
The Steeles died in the 1930's -- Mr. Steele left an estate of more than $30 million -- and in 1941 the house was taken in foreclosure by the Bowery Savings Bank. In 1943 it was purchased by the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation, which tests aptitudes. Thousands of people have taken its unusual battery of tests, which include tweezer dexterity and ideaphoria -- how quickly one can come up with ideas -- in the imposing rooms of the Fabbri house.
THE foundation put the house on the market in 1997 for $30 million, and last month the government of Japan bought it for $9 million less. Sharon Baum at the Corcoran Group was the exclusive broker for the owners; Jed Garfield, at Leslie J. Garfield & Company, represented Japan.
Motohide Yoshikawa, minister and head of administration for the Japanese Mission to the United Nations, said that Japan had purchased the house to serve as the residence of Yukio Satoh, its ambassador to the United Nations. Ambassador Satoh lives in a Park Avenue apartment house where ''the space is just too small to give receptions,'' Mr. Yoshikawa said.
John Foreman, a vice president at the Halstead Property Company who both showed the house and wrote a book on the Vanderbilt family houses, ''The Vanderbilts and the Gilded Age'' (St. Martin's Press, 1991, co-written with Robbe Pierce Stimson), called it ''a trophy house and a trophy sale.''
Mr. Foreman said that Ms. Baum had showed him the house ''just before she showed Donald Trump.'' The building, he said, is ''a time capsule, unutterably beautiful and incredibly intact.'' Big town houses commonly have some major rooms intact, but Mr. Foreman said that even the service spaces of the Fabbri house survive.
''The pantry has rolling cabinet doors, unpainted oak, the leather-studded door to dining room,'' he said. ''The kitchen has the tiles, the stove. I walked around gasping -- the bathrooms are fabulous antiques with all the original stuff: big, really big sinks, glass towel bars two and half inches thick, tubs that all of us can get into -- all the brokers and all the customers, everyone.''
Mr. Foreman said that he thought he had a sale when he showed the house to a Mexican developer looking for a condominium conversion but that the developer thought it was ''too beautiful to divide.''
WHAT would be in jeopardy in a modernization, he said, are ''the humbler things, the service spaces, everything that would be lost if they knocked down the walls on the upper floors, if they got a modern kitchen, if they dropped the ceilings to install central air-conditioning -- those are things anyone would expect when you pay $21 million.''
The building is in the Upper East Side Historic District, which regulates changes to a building's exterior.
Mr. Yoshikawa said his government is very keen on the historic character of the house but has not yet retained an architect and has no fixed plans. ''Our basic stance,'' he said, ''is to preserve the original house as much as possible.''
First look at the Disney Princess Designer Collection Jasmine Doll. She was released in October 2011, and I got her from eBay shortly afterwards, so It's been more than a year and a half since I got this doll. But I have not yet deboxed her, and this the first time I am doing a full photoshoot of her. I will photograph her boxed, during her deboxing, and fully deboxed.
My Designer Jasmine doll is a limited edition doll that was produced and sold exclusively by the Disney Store, and is numbered 5645 of 6000. She is based on the heroine from the Disney animated feature Aladdin (1992). She comes in an acrylic case with a built-in doll stand, with a base that has a golden filigree design, and a golden metallic nameplate. There is also a cardboard cover for the case that I have not photographed here.
She is 11 1/2'' tall, and has the same body as the other Designer Princess dolls, with jointed neck, shoulders, elbows, wrists, waist, hips and knees (internal). She has rubber legs and fixed ankles, with feet angled for high heels.
She has jet black, 12'' long hair tied into a floor length pony tail. There are two golden elastic hairties in the upper and middle part of the ponytail, and the lower portion of her hair has loose curls. It is very soft and shiny. There were a few stray hairs, but I left them alone and did not comb it, as I thought her hair was neat enough as it was out of the box. She has light brown skin, and a unique face sculpt that is very pretty and movie accurate. She has large dark brown almond shaped eyes that are glancing towards her right. She has light blue-green eye shadow, and thick black eyebrows. She has rooted eyelashes, that are tapered in length from short to long, then at the ends there are very long curved antenna like lashes. She has a small straight nose, full dark purple lips in with a closed mouth smile. She has very pale red rouge on her cheeks.
Her three piece gown is made of bright blue-green satin and light blue organza. Her bodice is cropped short to reveal her midsection (including her belly button), and consists of light blue organza embedded with golden gems, draped over her upper arms, and gemmed blue-green satin lower and back sections. Her blue-green satin skirt is floor length and is figure hugging, flairing out at the bottom. It is hemmed and there is a light blue polyester lining. There is a very wide overskirt of the double layered light blue satin. I is open in front, but can be wrapped around to completely cover her inner skirt, or can be folded to reveal her inner skirt.
She is wearing light blue-green high heeled shoes, which match the color of her skirt.
Her accessories include earrings, a chain belt with pendant and Aladdin's lamp. The earrings are large golden triangles with gold colored gems. Her belt is made of fine gold chain, with a large round jeweled pendant just below her waist that gathers the strands of the chain together, the remainder of which fall almost to the floor. In her right hand is a golden lamp that is bejeweled with yellow gems. The top of the lamp is removable (it is held in place with rubber bands, which I left in place).
There were no real surprises revealed by deboxing her, although it was nice to see the full extent of her overskirt. I was also glad to take her out of her awkward head pose, which was a common problem among the Designer Princesses. One thing I didn't like was that her top was a little too short, and revealed her waist joint (that enables her to spin her upper body around 360 degrees). Tugging on her top didn't move it enough to hide the joint in the front. As a consequence, her waist joint moved very freely, and her upper body tended to turn whenever she was handled, aided by her long hair. Also her long luxurious hair is very heavy, so tends to pull her backwards slightly when she is posed on the display stand. Designer Rapunzel has a similar problem. Her very wide floor length overskirt and floor length hair make it difficult to rebox her neatly, which is a common problem with the Designer dolls with very wide floor length skirts.
Come to the Dark Side—We Have Chocolate!* Remember, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the chocolate. Just what you need to maintain order in the break room in your spacecraft—a Sith Lord! The other members of the crew will surrender helplessly to the power of the candy coated covering the dark and delicious substance made from the fermented dried seed nibs of the tropical Theobroma cacao tree—or else. And then you can end this destructive conflict and bring order to the galaxy!
Serves as a coin bank too! Place a coin in the slot and turn the knob, to enjoy! (Coins are not required to dispense candy) Globe is made of washable clear plastic, with matching durable plastic base and character topper. Dispenser comes with two fun size (1.06 oz) starter packs of M&M's candy.
And that’s not all—for the lucky winner there’s also a bonus 12.6 ounce bag of milk chocolate m&m’s® included with the dispenser. Invented in 1941 by a Martian** these extra tasty performance enhancing anti-oxidant pellets will melt in your mouth but not in your hand.
*Caution: Overindulgence in chocolate may cause inflation around the midsection, increased tendencies toward evil and heavy, labored breathing.
** Forrest Edward Mars (1904-1999) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mars,_Sr.
Alien Villainess: "Quickly Human! Build me a means of laying waste to Lego City! I have a planet to conquer and some fried chicken to bring back! And make sure it's something to defeat my enemy,"Intergalactic Girl"! She can be such a pest!"
Me: "Geez! Alright already! Never get between an Alien Queen,her goal to conquer the galaxy,and her insatiable taste for fried chicken!"
Lol,This is the secondary "phase" of The Alien Villainess's "spider/crab walker" WIP.I re-did it by adding arms with Hero Factory pieces along with a midsection piece from one of the old "Power Miners" sets.
Enjoy for now!
BTR-112U Cockroach IFV/SPAAG
(Doubles up as SPAAG w/ SAM)
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An armoured personnel carrier utilized by the UT Enforcer Corps starting 2033.
The advanced 20 ton APC utilizes a dual 57mm laser autocannon system along with Igla anti-air missiles. It multipurposes as a SPAAG, the cannons can be used against any type of unit. AP rounds can be loaded for anti-armour purposes.
It is equipped with it's own radar system and an advanced targeting computer.
It's armour is heavy and the vehicle is slower compared to others of it's kind, but it is worth it. It uses armour similar to the Ogre MBT.
Basic armour shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section as it's first tier.
The second tier is the Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor). It severely reduces the blow from kinetic projectiles. They are in the form of blocks on the turret and body or as ERA plates underneath steel outer covering. It results in much better protection than simple steel armour.
It utilizes a state-of-the-art infrared missile/projectile detection and elimination system, it is visible on the midsection as a sphere with a large red diode.
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Cost: 2800 GC Credits (Tier 5)
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TTB-50 Petersburg IFV
TTB-20 "Peterburj" (Petersburg) IFV
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An armoured personnel carrier utilized by the UT Enforcer Corps since 1960. It has been renovated to fit modern needs. This is the 2033 variant.
It uses a 25mm main laser autocannon as it's main weapon. It employs twin guided missile pods/TLS that can be used against both air and armour units.
It's armour is lighter than the Cockroach, and it is faster. It uses the same type of armor, a lighter version.
Basic armour shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section as it's first tier.
The second tier is the Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor). It severely reduces the blow from kinetic projectiles. They are in the form of blocks on the turret and body or as ERA plates underneath steel outer covering. It results in much better protection than simple steel armour.
It utilizes a state-of-the-art infrared missile/projectile detection and elimination system. Third tier.
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GC Cost: 2000 Credits (Tier 5)
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BTR-100 Seagull APC
The BTR-100 is a very heavily armoured APC. It's main focus is to transport infantry units to their destination in safety. It excels in amphibious landings.
It's slow, but it provides much more protection to it's occupants than most other APCs.
Boasts a 25mm laser cannon and a reloadable ATGM missile. New variants also include a micro TLS on the very top, most effective vs air targets and infantry.
Basic armour shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section as it's first tier.
The second tier is the Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor). It severely reduces the blow from kinetic projectiles. They are in the form of blocks on the turret and body or as ERA plates underneath steel outer covering. It results in much better protection than simple steel armour.
It utilizes a state-of-the-art infrared missile/projectile detection and elimination system. Third tier.
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GC Cost: 2000 Credits (Tier 5)
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BTR-104 Pelican Heavy IFV
BTR-90 Bronnetransportyor "Ubiitsa" (Bronnetransportyor - Armoured Transporter) (Ubiitsa - Assassin)
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A superheavy APC. Designed to be a hybrid between a light tank and an APC, based on the BTR-100 chassis.
It is armed with a 50mm main railgun, twin side mounted 20mm laser AA/Anti-personnel autocannons, ATGM, turret mounted remote-controlled 20mm laser autocannon and a coaxial MG. Also, it has it's own air search radar, so the tank can venture on it's own and still use it's autocannons accurately up to a 3 kilometer radius.
It's ATGM is effective up to 1 km, and is used on both enemy armoured vehicles and low flying targets such as helicopters.
Basic armour shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section as it's first tier.
The second tier is the Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor). It severely reduces the blow from kinetic projectiles. They are in the form of blocks on the turret and body or as ERA plates underneath steel outer covering. It results in much better protection than simple steel armour.
It utilizes a state-of-the-art infrared missile/projectile detection and elimination system. Third tier.
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Cost: 4,000 GC Credits (Tier 5)
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BMP-PT2 Zverh Light Tank
A light tank with transport ability. It is a very advanced machine designed for urban warfare. It can hold up to 4 passengers. Fit for nearly any role.
It is armed with a 60mm main railgun, twin side mounted 20mm laser AA/Anti-personnel autocannons, ATGM, 20mm laser turret and a coaxial MG. Also, it has it's own air search radar, so the tank can venture on it's own and still use it's autocannons accurately up to a 3 kilometer radius.
It's ATGM is effective up to 1 km, and is used on both enemy armoured vehicles and low flying targets such as helicopters.
As with most UT tanks, it features a three-tier protection system.
The first tier is the composite armour. It consists of basic armour shell with an insert of alternating layers of aluminum and plastics and a controlled deformation section.
The second tier is the Kontakt-5 ERA (explosive reactive armor). It severely reduces the blow from kinetic projectiles. They are in the form of blocks on the turret and body or as ERA plates underneath steel outer covering. It results in much better protection than simple steel armour as featured on many other non-UT tanks.
The third tier is a Shtora countermeasures suite. This system includes two IR "dazzlers" on the front of the turret in the shape of blocks, four Laser warning receivers, two 3D6 aerosol grenade discharging systems and a computerized control system. The Shtora-1 warns the tank's crew when the tank has been 'painted' by a weapon-guidance laser and automatically activates the aerosol grenade launchers, effectively jamming the incoming missile. The aerosol grenades are used to mask the tank from laser rangefinders and designators as well as the optics of other weapons systems.
For passive guidance rocket systems, IR dazzlers create a blinding field of infrared light, "blinding" the rocket as it's IR isn't visible anymore.
The Arena active countermeasures suite consist of a computer, incoming projectile warning sensors, and shrapnel launchers all around the tank hull. It detects an incoming projectile, and sends out a stream of shrapnel to meet the incoming projectile. It destroys the projectile while leaving the armour intact.
Powered by a hybrid diesel/electric engine. Fast, has good suspension, and is able to submerge completely into water without leaks.
The tanks are also fitted with nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) protection equipment. It includes a mine disabling kit. The EMT-7 electromagnetic-counter mine system is installed: the EMT-7 emits an electromagnetic pulse to disable magnetic mines and disrupt electronics before the tank reaches them. The Nakidka signature reduction suite is also equipped. Nakidka is designed to reduce the probabilities of an object to be detected by Infrared, Thermal, Radar-Thermal, and Radar bands.
All tanks are installed with night vision and infrared cameras, with direct feed into screens inside the tank.
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Cost: 8,000 GC Credits (Tier 5)
Central Pier, Blackpool
Central Pier is one of three piers in the town of Blackpool, England.
The pier is central in that it is located between the other two, but it was close to the site of the now-defunct Blackpool Central railway station about 500 metres south of Blackpool Tower. Since the coastline is very straight and flat, the pier simply extends at right angles to the sea front, roughly level with the promenade.
History: The success of the North Pier prompted the formation of the Blackpool South Jetty Company one year later in 1864. The pier now known as South Pier was built 30 years later. Impressed with the construction of Blackpool Pier (North Pier), the company hired the same contractor, Richard Laidlaw and Son of Glasgow for the project. This time, however, the company used the designs of Lieutenant-Colonel John Isaac Mawson rather than those of Eugenius Birch. When the pier was opened on 30 May 1868, it was 460 metres in length, 120 metres of which was a landing jetty for use at low tide. The first manager of the pier was Robert Bickerstaffe, coxswain of the first Blackpool lifeboat. Blackpool's lifeboat station is located next to Central Pier.
From the start, the new pier's emphasis was on fun rather than the genteel relaxation provided at North Pier. In the early days fun was provided mainly by dancing facilities, but in the 20th century, roller skating was introduced along with fairground rides and amusement machines. Steamboat excursions departed from the landing jetty as they did from North Pier. The dance halls became less popular after the Second World War and the facilities were adapted into a theatre, bars and amusement arcades by the 1970s.
The pierhead theatre was modernised in 1986 and became known as "Peggy Sue's Showboat". A striking addition came in 1990 when a 33 metre high ferris wheel was erected, a half-scale reference to the Victorian attraction that had been part of the Winter Gardens complex a century earlier.
Construction: Central Pier is constructed mostly of cast iron with wooden decking. The piles on which the structure rests were driven using the screw pile method pioneered by Eugenius Birch. This involved twisting screw-tipped cast iron piles down through the sand until they hit bedrock. The materials and building techniques were similar to those used for North Pier but the structure of Central is a little more delicate in appearance.
The pier has suffered relatively little damage save for fires in 1964 and 1973 which gutted the theatre buildings. The main structural alterations have been the removal of the obsolete 120-metre low tide jetty in 1975 and the construction of the ferris wheel in 1990. The addition of the wheel required the midsection of the pier to be strengthened to cope with the extra weight. [Wikipedia]
The "John D Lietch" loading Potash at Thunder Bay Terminals.
This unique Great Lakes self-unloading bulk carrier was built by Port Weller Dry Docks, St. Catharines, Ont., as Hull #41. She was christened Canadian Century for Upper Lakes Group, Inc., Toronto, Ont., on April 15, 1967 by Mrs. G. E. Gathercole, wife of the Chairman of the Hydro Electric Power Commission of Ontario. The name paid tribute to the 100th anniversary of Canada’s confederation.
At the time of her launch, the vessel was the largest capacity self-unloading vessel on the Great Lakes. Her squared hull design reduced wasted space thus increasing her tonnage, however her very tall wheelhouse and forward accommodation block gave her the distinction of being known as the “little bank building that floats.”
The Canadian Century’s original self-unloading system consisted of a single, center line conveyor belt gravity system with a 300-ton reclaimer feeding a bucket/hopper elevator system leading to a forward-mounted 250 foot discharge boom. The reclaimer consisted of 2 auger screws, each 26 feet long and 7 feet high. As they would turn, the cargo would be forced forward to the bucket elevator system. It could discharge at a rate of up to 4,000 tons per hour. Due to the technological advances in self-unloading systems, the Canadian Century’s bucket elevator system was replaced in 1975/76 with a modern loop belt elevator system capable of discharging cargo at a rate of up to 4,572 tons per hour. The discharge boom can be swung 95 degrees to port or starboard.
The vessel is powered by a Burmeister & Wain type 574 VT2F 160 diesel engine rated at 7,394 b.h.p. at 115 r.p.m. burning intermediate grade 180 fuel driving a controllable pitch propeller, giving the vessel a service speed of 14.5 knots. She is equipped with a 1,000 horsepower bowthruster. Her enormous single hold is fed by 22 hatches. She can carry 25,700 tons at maximum Seaway draft of 26 feet and is capable of carrying 31,600 tons at her maximum mid-summer draft of 29 feet 4 inches. Other capacities include 465 tons of fuel oil, 75 tons of diesel oil, 186 tons of potable water, and 17,348 tons of water ballast.
In December 2001, Canadian Century entered Port Weller Dry Docks for a mid-life refit. The $25-million (C) refit was similar to the work that the shipyard completed on Canada Steamship Lines’ CSL Tadoussac the winter before. The bow and stern sections remained intact, along with most of the main deck. The cargo hold and the rest of the midsection were replaced with a new, larger cargo hold and a one-belt self-unloading system with a flat tank top. When it returned to service in May of 2002, it not only carried more cargo, but could operate more efficiently through the increased use of technology.
The Century was built specifically to accommodate Upper Lakes Group’s first contract to carry coal for Ontario Hydro. During her first season of operation, she made 63 trips delivering coal totaling 1.7 million tons. On Dec. 8, 1967, she set a Welland Canal coal record by carrying 28,283 tons from Conneaut, Ohio, to Dofasco at Hamilton, Ont. June 18, 1969 saw the Canadian Century load a Conneaut, Ohio, record of 31,081 tons of coal for Ontario Hydro’s Lambton Generating Station at Courtright, Ont. In her early years, she would sail to Sept Isles, Que., to rendezvous with her former fleet mate Ontario Power to transfer coal loaded aboard the latter vessel at Sydney, Nova Scotia, for delivery to Nanticoke, Ont. The Canadian Century carried her first load of taconite ore pellets in 1986 when she loaded 25,427 tons at Pointe Noire, Que., for Hamilton, Ont. The vessel has carried cargoes of salt from ports such as Goderich, Ont., and Fairport, Ohio. She has also carried the odd cargo of grain products.
In her later years, the Canadian Century sailed under the management of Seaway Marine Transport, St. Catharines, Ont., a partnership of Algoma Central and Upper Lakes Group.
On March 23, 2001, the vessel was honored in the traditional Top Hat ceremony recognizing the passing of the first upbound vessel through the Welland Canal for the 2001 navigation season.
In 2002, the vessel was renamed John D. Leitch, honoring the chairman of the Upper Lakes Group. On February 25, 2011, a formal statement was issued announcing the sale of the privately owned Upper Lakes fleet and their associated interest in Seaway Marine Transport to the Algoma Central Corporation. On April 15, 2011, Algoma announced that the John D. Leitch would retain her name.
Written by George Wharton.
RB67, 65mm, f4, PlusX, motel bathroom, Vivitar 283 on a long sync cord and one of the most gorgeous women I have every photographed. Kristi was an incredible model and good friend. This was a portfolio shot.
Strobe is taped to the wall in the bathroom and I used a 50' sync cord to fire it. Aimed at the ceiling, I had two sheets of typing paper over the head, bowed out a bit to get some more spread. Directly between the strobe and the model is a 2ftx1ft piece of difusion to block the light hitting her midsection and give the light from the ceiling the power to be the main.
EDIT: Photoshop: Minimal photoshop. Increased contrast slightly, retouched out dust spots, painted highlights minimal.
Here aremy three TVC Mandos. Early Season 1, a late Season 1I made using the Mines of Mandalore figure as a base, but then gave a dark grey cape to and swapped out the right thigh armor. I do need to see if I can customize the original left leg to leave off the knee pad, but I'm fine with it being there for now.And last the Mines of Mandalore figure, but with a plastic cape as at this scale I'm not as huge fan of soft goods.
Much like my refresher of the Black Series Mando from season 1, I bought the TVC Mines of Mandalore figure as I found that it was still the original mold from back in 2019, but with new and improved ankle articulation.
Well, considering the 2019 figure is what made me abandon 3.75 inch collecting, I figured I'd see if I could kitbash an improvement into this older figure and you know, I like it!
What I did was swap the legs from the knee down. Easy enough and if that was all i did I would be pleased, but in addition to that I swapped the hands to the black and orange gloves, and even swapped the belt and bandolier as I wanted the hip armor to match the new knee pad. It did require repainting that little flap that hangs below the belt buckle and back of the belt to match that grey-ish midsection this version of Mando sports. I also added the black cape from the first TVC Beskar Mando as in the show this cape often appears as just black. I then swapped the helmet as I felt the gunmetal color they used was just too dark and the dirt application way too sparse. I then removed that easy to scrape brown paint from his rifle grip and repainted it with some more robust paint.
In the end I think this is huge improvement over the initial release and I'm quite happy with how this turned out.
2023's SHIPtember build is (I think) complete!
A chunkier and generally bigger build than last year's cruiser Aegirocassis, this is my first ever minifig-scale SHIP and a departure from previous build strategies on a number of fronts:
- For the first time I tumbled to the idea of building the vessel in sections and snapping the sections together afterwards, so the crew section, spinal midsection and engine block were all built separately. I've heard of other people doing this before, but it's always gone against all my childhood instincts to build it in one piece and build it strong.
I tell you, though: it was a lot more manageable only having to manipulate a piece of the whole to put it together. From now on, unless there are other considerations, this is how I build SHIPs.
- As stated earlier, it's minifig scale, and by far the largest minifig-scale space construction I have yet built. There's a lot of fun to be had building a really large minifig-scale ship, but I'd always felt unable to produce a sufficiently interesting interior and if you're building at 'fig scale you really have to. This didn't need or get a really spectacular interior compartment, but baby steps.
- It's a civilian vessel. The "LCS" in the name I eventually settled on stands for "Light Container Ship"; I envisage this as being a spacegoing equivalent to a long-haul big rig as opposed to a giant commercial freighter; something that can haul 1-2 standard shipping containers (not included) held in magnetic clamps beneath the central spine. Previous SHIPs have all been decidedly military or at least explorer-type vessels, as well as being microscale they've been loaded with at least a few notable gun emplacements; this one is completely unarmed. It still follows my typical naming conventions, though, because I've named it after an animal, a stellar object or a mythological creature. Two of those at once, in fact.
- It didn't even use all of my blue, light bley and trans yellow, though it did come close. I'm contemplating building a little spacegoing Trans Am to go along with the spacegoing truck, for a real Smokey and the Bandit flavour....
Clocking in at 103 studs and thus beating out last year's submission by a single stud, the build is done.
Various angles to show off some of the features as well as the classic side view poster shot. Enjoy.
The S. S. Palo Alto at Seacliff Beach in Aptos, California. Made of cement, until recently she was used as a fishing pier but has now been closed due to deterioration. This is a 15 second exposure though a 9-stop neutral density filter and a polarizer.
The S. S. Palo Alto ("The Cement Boat") is the most famous concrete ship on the west coast. The Palo Alto was built as an oil tanker by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company in Oakland, California and launched May 29, 1919. She is the sister ship of the S. S. Peralta.
The Palo Alto remained docked in San Fransisco Bay for over ten years until she was purchased by the Seacliff Amusement Company of Nevada and towed to Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, California. The ship was grounded in the bay and connected to the shore by a long pier. An arcade, dining room, dance hall and even a swimming pool were built on the ship.
Unfortunately, the Seacliff Amusement Company went out of business two years later under the financial crunch of the Great Depression. Then, in winter, a storm cracked the ship across her midsection. The Palo Alto was stripped of all salvagable metal and fixtures and turned into a fishing pier.
You know, if it weren't for the yellow tape, you might get the feeling that Payless was still open. This is looking westward toward the demolished midsection. Taken June 2004.
Maize (/meɪz/ MAYZ; Zea mays subsp. mays, from Spanish: maíz after Taino: mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits.
Maize has become a staple food in many parts of the world, with the total production of maize surpassing that of wheat or rice. In addition to being consumed directly by humans (often in the form of masa), maize is also used for corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and corn syrup. The six major types of maize are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn.[5] Sugar-rich varieties called sweet corn are usually grown for human consumption as kernels, while field corn varieties are used for animal feed, various corn-based human food uses (including grinding into cornmeal or masa, pressing into corn oil, and fermentation and distillation into alcoholic beverages like bourbon whiskey), and as chemical feedstocks. Maize is also used in making ethanol and other biofuels.
Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain. In 2014, total world production was 1.04 billion tonnes. Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States alone in 2014. Genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. Subsidies in the United States help to account for its high level of cultivation of maize and its position as the largest producer in the world.
HISTORY
PRE-COLUMBIAN DEVELOPMENT
Maize is a cultigen; human intervention is required for it to propagate. Whether or not the kernels fall off the cob on their own is a key piece of evidence used in archaeology to distinguish domesticated maize from its naturally-propagating teosinte ancestor. Genetic evidence can also be used to determine when various lineages split.
Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico. Recent research in the early 21st century has modified this view somewhat; scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication.
An influential 2002 study by Matsuoka et al. has demonstrated that, rather than the multiple independent domestications model, all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. The study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths. This is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands.
Archaeologist Dolores Piperno has said:
A large corpus of data indicates that [maize] was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP [5600 BC] and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP [5000–4000 BC].
— Dolores Piperno, The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the New World Tropics: Patterns, Process, and New Developments
Since then, even earlier dates have been published.
According to a genetic study by Embrapa, corn cultivation was introduced in South America from Mexico, in two great waves: the first, more than 6000 years ago, spread through the Andes. Evidence of cultivation in Peru has been found dating to about 6700 years ago. The second wave, about 2000 years ago, through the lowlands of South America.
The earliest maize plants grew only small, 25-millimetre-long (1 in) corn cobs, and only one per plant. In Jackson Spielvogel's view, many centuries of artificial selection (rather than the current view that maize was exploited by interplanting with teosinte) by the indigenous people of the Americas resulted in the development of maize plants capable of growing several cobs per plant, which were usually several centimetres/inches long each. The Olmec and Maya cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica; they cooked, ground and processed it through nixtamalization. It was believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. Research of the 21st century has established even earlier dates. The region developed a trade network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops.
Mapuches of south-central Chile cultivated maize along with quinoa and potatoes in pre-Hispanic times; however, potato was the staple food of most Mapuches, "specially in the southern and coastal [Mapuche] territories where maize did not reach maturity". Before the expansion of the Inca Empire maize was traded and transported as far south as 40°19' S in Melinquina, Lácar Department. In that location maize remains were found inside pottery dated to 730 ± 80 BP and 920 ± 60 BP. Probably this maize was brought across the Andes from Chile. The presence of maize in Guaitecas Archipelago (43°55' S), the southernmost outpost of pre-Hispanic agriculture, is reported by early Spanish explorers. However the Spanish may have misidentified the plant.
COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize, and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe and introduced it to other countries. Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for communion bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation and be transformed into the body of Christ. Some Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, they would weaken and risk turning into Indians. "In the view of Europeans, it was the food they ate, even more than the environment in which they lived, that gave Amerindians and Spaniards both their distinctive physical characteristics and their characteristic personalities." Despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize. Archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well.
Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates. It was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbus's voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. Widespread cultivation most likely began in southern Spain in 1525, after which it quickly spread to the rest of the Spanish Empire including its territories in Italy (and, from there, to other Italian states). Maize had many advantages over wheat and barley; it yielded two and a half times the food energy per unit cultivated area, could be harvested in successive years from the same plot of land, and grew in wildly varying altitudes and climates, from relatively dry regions with only 250 mm (10 in) of annual rainfall to damp regions with over 5,000 mm (200 in). By the 17th century it was a common peasant food in Southwestern Europe, including Portugal, Spain, southern France, and Italy. By the 18th century, it was the chief food of the southern French and Italian peasantry, especially in the form of polenta in Italy.
Names
The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant, mahiz. It is known by other names around the world.
The word "corn" outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple. In the United States,[30] Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize; this usage started as a shortening of "Indian corn". "Indian corn" primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans), but can refer more specifically to multicolored "flint corn" used for decoration.
In places outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn often refers to maize in culinary contexts. The narrower meaning is usually indicated by some additional word, as in sweet corn, sweetcorn, corn on the cob, baby corn, the puffed confection known as popcorn and the breakfast cereal known as corn flakes.
In Southern Africa, maize is commonly called mielie (Afrikaans) or mealie (English), words derived from the Portuguese word for maize, milho.
Maize is preferred in formal, scientific, and international usage because it refers specifically to this one grain, unlike corn, which has a complex variety of meanings that vary by context and geographic region. Maize is used by agricultural bodies and research institutes such as the FAO and CSIRO. National agricultural and industry associations often include the word maize in their name even in English-speaking countries where the local, informal word is something other than maize; for example, the Maize Association of Australia, the Indian Maize Development Association, the Kenya Maize Consortium and Maize Breeders Network, the National Maize Association of Nigeria, the Zimbabwe Seed Maize Association.
STRUCTURE AND PHYSIOLOGY
The maize plant is often 3 m (10 ft) in height, though some natural strains can grow 13 m (43 ft). The stem is commonly composed of 20 internodes of 18 cm (7 in) length. The leaves arise from the nodes, alternately on opposite sides on the stalk. A leaf, which grows from each node, is generally 9 cm (3+1⁄2 in) in width and 120 cm (3 ft 11 in) in length.
Ears develop above a few of the leaves in the midsection of the plant, between the stem and leaf sheath, elongating by around 3 mm (1⁄8 in) per day, to a length of 18 cm (7 in) with 60 cm (24 in) being the maximum alleged in the subspecies. They are female inflorescences, tightly enveloped by several layers of ear leaves commonly called husks. Certain varieties of maize have been bred to produce many additional developed ears. These are the source of the "baby corn" used as a vegetable in Asian cuisine.
The apex of the stem ends in the tassel, an inflorescence of male flowers. When the tassel is mature and conditions are suitably warm and dry, anthers on the tassel dehisce and release pollen. Maize pollen is anemophilous (dispersed by wind), and because of its large settling velocity, most pollen falls within a few meters of the tassel.
Elongated stigmas, called silks, emerge from the whorl of husk leaves at the end of the ear. They are often pale yellow and 18 cm (7 in) in length, like tufts of hair in appearance. At the end of each is a carpel, which may develop into a "kernel" if fertilized by a pollen grain. The pericarp of the fruit is fused with the seed coat referred to as "caryopsis", typical of the grasses, and the entire kernel is often referred to as the "seed". The cob is close to a multiple fruit in structure, except that the individual fruits (the kernels) never fuse into a single mass. The grains are about the size of peas, and adhere in regular rows around a white, pithy substance, which forms the ear. The maximum size of kernels is reputedly 2.5 cm (1 in). An ear commonly holds 600 kernels. They are of various colors: blackish, bluish-gray, purple, green, red, white and yellow. When ground into flour, maize yields more flour with much less bran than wheat does. It lacks the protein gluten of wheat and, therefore, makes baked goods with poor rising capability. A genetic variant that accumulates more sugar and less starch in the ear is consumed as a vegetable and is called sweet corn. Young ears can be consumed raw, with the cob and silk, but as the plant matures (usually during the summer months), the cob becomes tougher and the silk dries to inedibility. By the end of the growing season, the kernels dry out and become difficult to chew without cooking them tender first in boiling water.
Planting density affects multiple aspects of maize. Modern farming techniques in developed countries usually rely on dense planting, which produces one ear per stalk. Stands of silage maize are yet denser,[citation needed] and achieve a lower percentage of ears and more plant matter.
Maize is a facultative short-day plant and flowers in a certain number of growing degree days > 10 °C (50 °F) in the environment to which it is adapted. The magnitude of the influence that long nights have on the number of days that must pass before maize flowers is genetically prescribed and regulated by the phytochrome system.
Photoperiodicity can be eccentric in tropical cultivars such that the long days characteristic of higher latitudes allow the plants to grow so tall that they do not have enough time to produce seed before being killed by frost. These attributes, however, may prove useful in using tropical maize for biofuels.
Immature maize shoots accumulate a powerful antibiotic substance, 2,4-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-1,4-benzoxazin-3-one (DIMBOA). DIMBOA is a member of a group of hydroxamic acids (also known as benzoxazinoids) that serve as a natural defense against a wide range of pests, including insects, pathogenic fungi and bacteria. DIMBOA is also found in related grasses, particularly wheat. A maize mutant (bx) lacking DIMBOA is highly susceptible to attack by aphids and fungi. DIMBOA is also responsible for the relative resistance of immature maize to the European corn borer (family Crambidae). As maize matures, DIMBOA levels and resistance to the corn borer decline.
Because of its shallow roots, maize is susceptible to droughts, intolerant of nutrient-deficient soils, and prone to be uprooted by severe winds.
While yellow maizes derive their color from lutein and zeaxanthin, in red-colored maizes, the kernel coloration is due to anthocyanins and phlobaphenes. These latter substances are synthesized in the flavonoids synthetic pathway from polymerization of flavan-4-ols by the expression of maize pericarp color1 (p1) gene which encodes an R2R3 myb-like transcriptional activator of the A1 gene encoding for the dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (reducing dihydroflavonols into flavan-4-ols) while another gene (Suppressor of Pericarp Pigmentation 1 or SPP1) acts as a suppressor. The p1 gene encodes an Myb-homologous transcriptional activator of genes required for biosynthesis of red phlobaphene pigments, while the P1-wr allele specifies colorless kernel pericarp and red cobs, and unstable factor for orange1 (Ufo1) modifies P1-wr expression to confer pigmentation in kernel pericarp, as well as vegetative tissues, which normally do not accumulate significant amounts of phlobaphene pigments. The maize P gene encodes a Myb homolog that recognizes the sequence CCT/AACC, in sharp contrast with the C/TAACGG bound by vertebrate Myb proteins.
The ear leaf is the leaf most closely associated with a particular developing ear. This leaf and above contribute 70%[57] to 75% to 90% of grain fill. Therefore fungicide application is most important in that region in most disease environments.
ABNORMAL FLOWERS
Maize flowers may sometimes exhibit mutations that lead to the formation of female flowers in the tassel. These mutations, ts4 and Ts6, prohibit the development of the stamen while simultaneously promoting pistil development. This may cause inflorescences containing both male and female flowers, or hermaphrodite flowers.
GENETICS
Maize is an annual grass in the family Gramineae, which includes such plants as wheat, rye, barley, rice, sorghum, and sugarcane. There are two major species of the genus Zea (out of six total): Zea mays (maize) and Zea diploperennis, which is a perennial type of teosinte. The annual teosinte variety called Zea mays mexicana is the closest botanical relative to maize. It still grows in the wild as an annual in Mexico and Guatemala.
Many forms of maize are used for food, sometimes classified as various subspecies related to the amount of starch each has:
Flour corn: Zea mays var. amylacea
Popcorn: Zea mays var. everta
Dent corn : Zea mays var. indentata
Flint corn: Zea mays var. indurata
Sweet corn: Zea mays var. saccharata and Zea mays var. rugosa
Waxy corn: Zea mays var. ceratina
Amylomaize: Zea mays
Pod corn: Zea mays var. tunicata Larrañaga ex A. St. Hil.
Striped maize: Zea mays var. japonica
This system has been replaced (though not entirely displaced) over the last 60 years by multivariable classifications based on ever more data. Agronomic data were supplemented by botanical traits for a robust initial classification, then genetic, cytological, protein and DNA evidence was added. Now, the categories are forms (little used), races, racial complexes, and recently branches.
Maize is a diploid with 20 chromosomes (n=10). The combined length of the chromosomes is 1500 cM. Some of the maize chromosomes have what are known as "chromosomal knobs": highly repetitive heterochromatic domains that stain darkly. Individual knobs are polymorphic among strains of both maize and teosinte.
Barbara McClintock used these knob markers to validate her transposon theory of "jumping genes", for which she won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Maize is still an important model organism for genetics and developmental biology today.
The centromeres have two types of structural components, both of which are found only in the centromeres: Large arrays of CentC, a short satellite DNA; and a few of a family of retrotransposons. The B chromosome, unlike the others, contains an additional repeat which extends into neighboring areas of the chromosome. Centromeres can accidentally shrink during division and still function, although it is thought this will fail if it shrinks below a few hundred kilobase. Kinetochores contain RNA originating from centromeres. Centromere regions can become inactive, and can continue in that state if the chromosome still has another active one.
The Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center, funded by the USDA Agricultural Research Service and located in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a stock center of maize mutants. The total collection has nearly 80,000 samples. The bulk of the collection consists of several hundred named genes, plus additional gene combinations and other heritable variants. There are about 1000 chromosomal aberrations (e.g., translocations and inversions) and stocks with abnormal chromosome numbers (e.g., tetraploids). Genetic data describing the maize mutant stocks as well as myriad other data about maize genetics can be accessed at MaizeGDB, the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database.
In 2005, the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) formed a consortium to sequence the B73 maize genome. The resulting DNA sequence data was deposited immediately into GenBank, a public repository for genome-sequence data. Sequences and genome annotations have also been made available throughout the project's lifetime at the project's official site.
Primary sequencing of the maize genome was completed in 2008. On November 20, 2009, the consortium published results of its sequencing effort in Science. The genome, 85% of which is composed of transposons, was found to contain 32,540 genes (By comparison, the human genome contains about 2.9 billion bases and 26,000 genes). Much of the maize genome has been duplicated and reshuffled by helitrons—group of rolling circle transposons.
In Z. mays and various other angiosperms the MADS-box motif is involved in floral development. Early study in several angiosperm models including Z. mays was the beginning of research into the molecular evolution of floral structure in general, as well as their role in nonflowering plants.
EVOLUTION
As with many plants and animals, Z. mays has a positive correlation between effective population size and the magnitude of selection pressure. Z. m. having an EPS of ~650,000, it clusters with others of about the same EPS, and has 79% of its amino acid sites under selection.
Recombination is a significant source of diversity in Z. mays. (Note that this finding supersedes previous studies which showed no such correlation.)
This recombination/diversity effect is seen throughout plants but is also found to not occur – or not as strongly – in regions of high gene density. This is likely the reason that domesticated Z. mays has not seen as much of an increase in diversity within areas of higher density as in regions of lower density, although there is more evidence in other plants.
Some lines of maize have undergone ancient polyploidy events, starting 11m years ago. Over that time ~72% of polyploid duplicated genes have been retained, which is higher than other plants with older polyploidy events. Thus maize may be due to lose more duplicate genes as time goes along, similar to the course followed by the genomes of other plants. If so - if gene loss has merely not occurred yet - that could explain the lack of observed positive selection and lower negative selection which are observed in otherwise similar plants, i.e. also naturally outcrossing and with similar effective population sizes.
Ploidy does not appear to influence EPS or magnitude of selection effect in maize.
BREEDING
Maize reproduces sexually each year. This randomly selects half the genes from a given plant to propagate to the next generation, meaning that desirable traits found in the crop (like high yield or good nutrition) can be lost in subsequent generations unless certain techniques are used.
Maize breeding in prehistory resulted in large plants producing large ears. Modern breeding began with individuals who selected highly productive varieties in their fields and then sold seed to other farmers. James L. Reid was one of the earliest and most successful developing Reid's Yellow Dent in the 1860s. These early efforts were based on mass selection. Later breeding efforts included ear to row selection (C. G. Hopkins c. 1896), hybrids made from selected inbred lines (G. H. Shull, 1909), and the highly successful double cross hybrids using four inbred lines (D. F. Jones c. 1918, 1922). University supported breeding programs were especially important in developing and introducing modern hybrids. By the 1930s, companies such as Pioneer devoted to production of hybrid maize had begun to influence long-term development. Internationally important seed banks such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the US bank at the Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign maintain germplasm important for future crop development.
Since the 1940s the best strains of maize have been first-generation hybrids made from inbred strains that have been optimized for specific traits, such as yield, nutrition, drought, pest and disease tolerance. Both conventional cross-breeding and genetic modification have succeeded in increasing output and reducing the need for cropland, pesticides, water and fertilizer. There is conflicting evidence to support the hypothesis that maize yield potential has increased over the past few decades. This suggests that changes in yield potential are associated with leaf angle, lodging resistance, tolerance of high plant density, disease/pest tolerance, and other agronomic traits rather than increase of yield potential per individual plant.
Tropical landraces remain an important and underutilized source of resistance alleles for for disease and for herbivores. Notable discoveries of rare alleles for this purpose were made by Dao et al 2014 and Sood et al 2014.
GLOBAL PROGRAM
CIMMYT operates a conventional breeding program to provide optimized strains. The program began in the 1980s. Hybrid seeds are distributed in Africa by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project.
GENETIC MODIFICATION
Genetically modified (GM) maize was one of the 26 GM crops grown commercially in 2016. The vast majority of this is Bt maize. Grown since 1997 in the United States and Canada, 92% of the US maize crop was genetically modified in 2016 and 33% of the worldwide maize crop was GM in 2016. As of 2011, Herbicide-tolerant maize varieties were grown in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, El Salvador, the European Union, Honduras, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Insect-resistant maize was grown in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, the European Union, Honduras, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, and Uruguay.
In September 2000, up to $50 million worth of food products were recalled due to the presence of Starlink genetically modified corn, which had been approved only for animal consumption and had not been approved for human consumption, and was subsequently withdrawn from the market.
ORIGIN
Maize is the domesticated variant of teosinte. The two plants have dissimilar appearance, maize having a single tall stalk with multiple leaves and teosinte being a short, bushy plant. The difference between the two is largely controlled by differences in just two genes, called grassy tillers-1 (gt1, A0A317YEZ1) and teosinte branched-1 (tb1, Q93WI2).
Several theories had been proposed about the specific origin of maize in Mesoamerica:
It is a direct domestication of a Mexican annual teosinte, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley in south-eastern Mexico, with up to 12% of its genetic material obtained from Zea mays ssp. mexicana through introgression.
It has been derived from hybridization between a small domesticated maize (a slightly changed form of a wild maize) and a teosinte of section Luxuriantes, either Z. luxurians or Z. diploperennis.
It has undergone two or more domestications either of a wild maize or of a teosinte. (The term "teosinte" describes all species and subspecies in the genus Zea, excluding Zea mays ssp. mays.)
It has evolved from a hybridization of Z. diploperennis by Tripsacum dactyloides.
In the late 1930s, Paul Mangelsdorf suggested that domesticated maize was the result of a hybridization event between an unknown wild maize and a species of Tripsacum, a related genus. This theory about the origin of maize has been refuted by modern genetic testing, which refutes Mangelsdorf's model and the fourth listed above.
The teosinte origin theory was proposed by the Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov in 1931 and the later American Nobel Prize-winner George Beadle in 1932.: 10 It is supported experimentally and by recent studies of the plants' genomes. Teosinte and maize can cross-breed and produce fertile offspring. A number of questions remain concerning the species, among them:
how the immense diversity of the species of sect. Zea originated,
how the tiny archaeological specimens of 3500–2700 BC could have been selected from a teosinte, and
how domestication could have proceeded without leaving remains of teosinte or maize with teosintoid traits earlier than the earliest known until recently, dating from ca. 1100 BC.
The domestication of maize is of particular interest to researchers—archaeologists, geneticists, ethnobotanists, geographers, etc. The process is thought by some to have started 7,500 to 12,000 years ago. Research from the 1950s to 1970s originally focused on the hypothesis that maize domestication occurred in the highlands between the states of Oaxaca and Jalisco, because the oldest archaeological remains of maize known at the time were found there.
Connection with 'parviglumis' subspecies
Genetic studies, published in 2004 by John Doebley, identified Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley in Mexico's southwestern highlands, and also known as Balsas teosinte, as being the crop wild relative that is genetically most similar to modern maize. This was confirmed by further studies, which refined this hypothesis somewhat. Archaeobotanical studies, published in 2009, point to the middle part of the Balsas River valley as the likely location of early domestication; this river is not very long, so these locations are not very distant. Stone milling tools with maize residue have been found in an 8,700 year old layer of deposits in a cave not far from Iguala, Guerrero.
Doebley was part of the team that first published, in 2002, that maize had been domesticated only once, about 9,000 years ago, and then spread throughout the Americas.
A primitive corn was being grown in southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America 7,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of early maize ears, found at Guila Naquitz Cave in the Oaxaca Valley, date back roughly 6,250 years; the oldest ears from caves near Tehuacan, Puebla, 5,450 B.P.
Maize pollen dated to 7,300 B.P. from San Andres, Tabasco, on the Caribbean coast has also been recovered.
As maize was introduced to new cultures, new uses were developed and new varieties selected to better serve in those preparations. Maize was the staple food, or a major staple – along with squash, Andean region potato, quinoa, beans, and amaranth – of most pre-Columbian North American, Mesoamerican, South American, and Caribbean cultures. The Mesoamerican civilization, in particular, was deeply interrelated with maize. Its traditions and rituals involved all aspects of maize cultivation – from the planting to the food preparation. Maize formed the Mesoamerican people's identity.
It is unknown what precipitated its domestication, because the edible portion of the wild variety is too small, and hard to obtain, to be eaten directly, as each kernel is enclosed in a very hard bivalve shell.
In 1939, George Beadle demonstrated that the kernels of teosinte are readily "popped" for human consumption, like modern popcorn.[91] Some have argued it would have taken too many generations of selective breeding to produce large, compressed ears for efficient cultivation. However, studies of the hybrids readily made by intercrossing teosinte and modern maize suggest this objection is not well founded.
SPREADING TO THE NORTH
Around 4,500 ago, maize began to spread to the north; it was first cultivated in what is now the United States at several sites in New Mexico and Arizona, about 4,100 ago.
During the first millennium AD, maize cultivation spread more widely in the areas north. In particular, the large-scale adoption of maize agriculture and consumption in eastern North America took place about A.D. 900. Native Americans cleared large forest and grassland areas for the new crop.
In 2005, research by the USDA Forest Service suggested that the rise in maize cultivation 500 to 1,000 years ago in what is now the southeastern United States corresponded with a decline of freshwater mussels, which are very sensitive to environmental changes.
CULTIVATION
PLANTING
Because it is cold-intolerant, in the temperate zones maize must be planted in the spring. Its root system is generally shallow, so the plant is dependent on soil moisture. As a plant that uses C4 carbon fixation, maize is a considerably more water-efficient crop than plants that use C3 carbon fixation such as alfalfa and soybeans. Maize is most sensitive to drought at the time of silk emergence, when the flowers are ready for pollination. In the United States, a good harvest was traditionally predicted if the maize was "knee-high by the Fourth of July", although modern hybrids generally exceed this growth rate. Maize used for silage is harvested while the plant is green and the fruit immature. Sweet corn is harvested in the "milk stage", after pollination but before starch has formed, between late summer and early to mid-autumn. Field maize is left in the field until very late in the autumn to thoroughly dry the grain, and may, in fact, sometimes not be harvested until winter or even early spring. The importance of sufficient soil moisture is shown in many parts of Africa, where periodic drought regularly causes maize crop failure and consequent famine. Although it is grown mainly in wet, hot climates, it has been said to thrive in cold, hot, dry or wet conditions, meaning that it is an extremely versatile crop.
Maize was planted by the Native Americans in hills, in a complex system known to some as the Three Sisters. Maize provided support for beans, and the beans provided nitrogen derived from nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria which live on the roots of beans and other legumes; and squashes provided ground cover to stop weeds and inhibit evaporation by providing shade over the soil. This method was replaced by single species hill planting where each hill 60–120 cm (2 ft 0 in–3 ft 11 in) apart was planted with three or four seeds, a method still used by home gardeners. A later technique was "checked maize", where hills were placed
1 m (40 in) apart in each direction, allowing cultivators to run through the field in two directions. In more arid lands, this was altered and seeds were planted in the bottom of 10–12 cm (4–4+1⁄2 in) deep furrows to collect water. Modern technique plants maize in rows which allows for cultivation while the plant is young, although the hill technique is still used in the maize fields of some Native American reservations. When maize is planted in rows, it also allows for planting of other crops between these rows to make more efficient use of land space.
In most regions today, maize grown in residential gardens is still often planted manually with a hoe, whereas maize grown commercially is no longer planted manually but rather is planted with a planter. In North America, fields are often planted in a two-crop rotation with a nitrogen-fixing crop, often alfalfa in cooler climates and soybeans in regions with longer summers. Sometimes a third crop, winter wheat, is added to the rotation.
Many of the maize varieties grown in the United States and Canada are hybrids. Often the varieties have been genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate or to provide protection against natural pests. Glyphosate is an herbicide which kills all plants except those with genetic tolerance. This genetic tolerance is very rarely found in nature.
In the midwestern United States, low-till or no-till farming techniques are usually used. In low-till, fields are covered once, maybe twice, with a tillage implement either ahead of crop planting or after the previous harvest. The fields are planted and fertilized. Weeds are controlled through the use of herbicides, and no cultivation tillage is done during the growing season. This technique reduces moisture evaporation from the soil, and thus provides more moisture for the crop. The technologies mentioned in the previous paragraph enable low-till and no-till farming. Weeds compete with the crop for moisture and nutrients, making them undesirable.
HARVESTING
Before the 20th century, all maize harvesting was by manual labour, by grazing, or by some combination of those. Whether the ears were hand-picked and the stover was grazed, or the whole plant was cut, gathered, and shocked, people and livestock did all the work. Between the 1890s and the 1970s, the technology of maize harvesting expanded greatly. Today, all such technologies, from entirely manual harvesting to entirely mechanized, are still in use to some degree, as appropriate to each farm's needs, although the thoroughly mechanized versions predominate, as they offer the lowest unit costs when scaled to large farm operations. For small farms, their unit cost can be too high, as their higher fixed cost cannot be amortized over as many units.[citation needed]
Before World War II, most maize in North America was harvested by hand. This involved a large number of workers and associated social events (husking or shucking bees). From the 1890s onward, some machinery became available to partially mechanize the processes, such as one- and two-row mechanical pickers (picking the ear, leaving the stover) and corn binders, which are reaper-binders designed specifically for maize (for example, Video on YouTube). The latter produce sheaves that can be shocked. By hand or mechanical picker, the entire ear is harvested, which then requires a separate operation of a maize sheller to remove the kernels from the ear. Whole ears of maize were often stored in corn cribs, and these whole ears are a sufficient form for some livestock feeding use. Today corn cribs with whole ears, and corn binders, are less common because most modern farms harvest the grain from the field with a combine and store it in bins. The combine with a corn head (with points and snap rolls instead of a reel) does not cut the stalk; it simply pulls the stalk down. The stalk continues downward and is crumpled into a mangled pile on the ground, where it usually is left to become organic matter for the soil. The ear of maize is too large to pass between slots in a plate as the snap rolls pull the stalk away, leaving only the ear and husk to enter the machinery. The combine separates the husk and the cob, keeping only the kernels.
When maize is a silage crop, the entire plant is usually chopped at once with a forage harvester (chopper) and ensiled in silos or polymer wrappers. Ensiling of sheaves cut by a corn binder was formerly common in some regions but has become uncommon. For storing grain in bins, the moisture of the grain must be sufficiently low to avoid spoiling. If the moisture content of the harvested grain is too high, grain dryers are used to reduce the moisture content by blowing heated air through the grain. This can require large amounts of energy in the form of combustible gases (propane or natural gas) and electricity to power the blowers.
PRODUCTION
Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain. In 2018, total world production was 1.15 billion tonnes, led by the United States with 34.2% of the total (table). China produced 22.4% of the global total.
UNITED STATES
In 2016, maize production was forecast to be over 380 million metric tons (15 billion bushels), an increase of 11% over 2014 American production. Based on conditions as of August 2016, the expected yield would be the highest ever for the United States. The area of harvested maize was forecast to be 35 million hectares (87 million acres), an increase of 7% over 2015. Maize is especially popular in Midwestern states such as Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois; in the latter, it was named the state's official grain in 2017.
STORAGE
Drying is vital to prevent or at least reduce mycotoxin contamination. Aspergillus and Fusarium spp. are the most common mycotoxin sources, but there are others. Altogether maize contaminants are so common, and this crop is so economically important, that maize mycotoxins are among the most important in agriculture in general.
USES
HUMAN FOOD
Maize and cornmeal (ground dried maize) constitute a staple food in many regions of the world. Maize is used to produce cornstarch, a common ingredient in home cooking and many industrialized food products. Maize starch can be hydrolyzed and enzymatically treated to produce syrups, particularly high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener; and also fermented and distilled to produce grain alcohol. Grain alcohol from maize is traditionally the source of Bourbon whiskey. Corn flour is used to make cornbread and other baked products.
In prehistoric times Mesoamerican women used a metate to process maize into ground cornmeal, allowing the preparation of foods that were more calorie dense than popcorn. After ceramic vessels were invented the Olmec people began to cook maize together with beans, improving the nutritional value of the staple meal. Although maize naturally contains niacin, an important nutrient, it was not bioavailable without the process of nixtamalization. The Maya used nixtamal meal to make varieties of porridges and tamales. The process was later used in the cuisine of the American South to prepare corn for grits and hominy.
Maize is a staple of Mexican cuisine. Masa (cornmeal treated with limewater) is the main ingredient for tortillas, atole and many other dishes of Central American food. It is the main ingredient of corn tortilla, tamales, pozole, atole and all the dishes based on them, like tacos, quesadillas, chilaquiles, enchiladas, tostadas and many more. In Mexico the fungus of maize, known as huitlacoche, is considered a delicacy.
Coarse maize meal is made into a thick porridge in many cultures: from the polenta of Italy, the angu of Brazil, the mămăligă of Romania, to cornmeal mush in the US (or hominy grits in the South) or the food called mieliepap in South Africa and sadza, nshima, ugali and other names in other parts of Africa. Introduced into Africa by the Portuguese in the 16th century, maize has become Africa's most important staple food crop. These are commonly eaten in the Southeastern United States, foods handed down from Native Americans, who called the dish sagamite.
Maize can also be harvested and consumed in the unripe state, when the kernels are fully grown but still soft. Unripe maize must usually be cooked to become palatable; this may be done by simply boiling or roasting the whole ears and eating the kernels right off the cob. Sweet corn, a genetic variety that is high in sugars and low in starch, is usually consumed in the unripe state. Such corn on the cob is a common dish in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Cyprus, some parts of South America, and the Balkans, but virtually unheard of in some European countries. Corn on the cob was hawked on the streets of early 19th-century New York City by poor, barefoot "Hot Corn Girls", who were thus the precursors of hot dog carts, churro wagons, and fruit stands seen on the streets of big cities today.
Within the United States, the usage of maize for human consumption constitutes only around 1/40th of the amount grown in the country. In the United States and Canada, maize is mostly grown to feed livestock, as forage, silage (made by fermentation of chopped green cornstalks), or grain. Maize meal is also a significant ingredient of some commercial animal food products.
NUTRITIONAL VALUE
Raw, yellow, sweet maize kernels are composed of 76% water, 19% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and 1% fat (table). In a 100-gram serving, maize kernels provide 86 calories and are a good source (10–19% of the Daily Value) of the B vitamins, thiamin, niacin (but see Pellagra warning below), pantothenic acid (B5) and folate (right table for raw, uncooked kernels, USDA Nutrient Database). In moderate amounts, they also supply dietary fiber and the essential minerals, magnesium and phosphorus whereas other nutrients are in low amounts (table).
Maize has suboptimal amounts of the essential amino acids tryptophan and lysine, which accounts for its lower status as a protein source. However, the proteins of beans and legumes complement those of maize.
FEED AND FODDER FOR LIVESTOCK
Maize is a major source of both grain feed and fodder for livestock. It is fed to the livestock in various ways. When it is used as a grain crop, the dried kernels are used as feed. They are often kept on the cob for storage in a corn crib, or they may be shelled off for storage in a grain bin. The farm that consumes the feed may produce it, purchase it on the market, or some of both. When the grain is used for feed, the rest of the plant (the corn stover) can be used later as fodder, bedding (litter), or soil amendment. When the whole maize plant (grain plus stalks and leaves) is used for fodder, it is usually chopped all at once and ensilaged, as digestibility and palatability are higher in the ensilaged form than in the dried form. Maize silage is one of the most valuable forages for ruminants. Before the advent of widespread ensilaging, it was traditional to gather the corn into shocks after harvesting, where it dried further. With or without a subsequent move to the cover of a barn, it was then stored for weeks to several months until fed to the livestock. Today ensilaging can occur not only in siloes but also in silage wrappers. However, in the tropics, maize can be harvested year-round and fed as green forage to the animals.
CHEMICALS
Starch from maize can also be made into plastics, fabrics, adhesives, and many other chemical products.
The corn steep liquor, a plentiful watery byproduct of maize wet milling process, is widely used in the biochemical industry and research as a culture medium to grow many kinds of microorganisms.
Chrysanthemin is found in purple corn and is used as a food coloring.
BIO-FUEL
"Feed maize" is being used increasingly for heating; specialized corn stoves (similar to wood stoves) are available and use either feed maize or wood pellets to generate heat. Maize cobs are also used as a biomass fuel source. Maize is relatively cheap and home-heating furnaces have been developed which use maize kernels as a fuel. They feature a large hopper that feeds the uniformly sized maize kernels (or wood pellets or cherry pits) into the fire.[citation needed]
Maize is increasingly used as a feedstock for the production of ethanol fuel.[120] When considering where to construct an ethanol plant, one of the site selection criteria is to ensure there is locally available feedstock. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline to decrease the amount of pollutants emitted when used to fuel motor vehicles. High fuel prices in mid-2007 led to higher demand for ethanol, which in turn led to higher prices paid to farmers for maize. This led to the 2007 harvest being one of the most profitable maize crops in modern history for farmers. Because of the relationship between fuel and maize, prices paid for the crop now tend to track the price of oil.
The price of food is affected to a certain degree by the use of maize for biofuel production. The cost of transportation, production, and marketing are a large portion (80%) of the price of food in the United States. Higher energy costs affect these costs, especially transportation. The increase in food prices the consumer has been seeing is mainly due to the higher energy cost. The effect of biofuel production on other food crop prices is indirect. Use of maize for biofuel production increases the demand, and therefore price of maize. This, in turn, results in farm acreage being diverted from other food crops to maize production. This reduces the supply of the other food crops and increases their prices.
Maize is widely used in Germany as a feedstock for biogas plants. Here the maize is harvested, shredded then placed in silage clamps from which it is fed into the biogas plants. This process makes use of the whole plant rather than simply using the kernels as in the production of fuel ethanol.
A biomass gasification power plant in Strem near Güssing, Burgenland, Austria, began in 2005. Research is being done to make diesel out of the biogas by the Fischer Tropsch method.
Increasingly, ethanol is being used at low concentrations (10% or less) as an additive in gasoline (gasohol) for motor fuels to increase the octane rating, lower pollutants, and reduce petroleum use (what is nowadays also known as "biofuels" and has been generating an intense debate regarding the human beings' necessity of new sources of energy, on the one hand, and the need to maintain, in regions such as Latin America, the food habits and culture which has been the essence of civilizations such as the one originated in Mesoamerica; the entry, January 2008, of maize among the commercial agreements of NAFTA has increased this debate, considering the bad labor conditions of workers in the fields, and mainly the fact that NAFTA "opened the doors to the import of maize from the United States, where the farmers who grow it receive multimillion-dollar subsidies and other government supports. ... According to OXFAM UK, after NAFTA went into effect, the price of maize in Mexico fell 70% between 1994 and 2001. The number of farm jobs dropped as well: from 8.1 million in 1993 to 6.8 million in 2002. Many of those who found themselves without work were small-scale maize growers."). However, introduction in the northern latitudes of the US of tropical maize for biofuels, and not for human or animal consumption, may potentially alleviate this.
COMMODITY
Maize is bought and sold by investors and price speculators as a tradable commodity using corn futures contracts. These "futures" are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) under ticker symbol C. They are delivered every year in March, May, July, September, and December.
Ornamental and other uses
Some forms of the plant are occasionally grown for ornamental use in the garden. For this purpose, variegated and colored leaf forms as well as those with colorful ears are used.
Corncobs can be hollowed out and treated to make inexpensive smoking pipes, first manufactured in the United States in 1869.
An unusual use for maize is to create a "corn maze" (or "maize maze") as a tourist attraction. The idea of a maize maze was introduced by the American Maze Company who created a maze in Pennsylvania in 1993. Traditional mazes are most commonly grown using yew hedges, but these take several years to mature. The rapid growth of a field of maize allows a maze to be laid out using GPS at the start of a growing season and for the maize to grow tall enough to obstruct a visitor's line of sight by the start of the summer. In Canada and the US, these are popular in many farming communities.
Maize kernels can be used in place of sand in a sandboxlike enclosure for children's play.
Stigmas from female maize flowers, popularly called corn silk, are sold as herbal supplements.
Maize is used as a fish bait, called "dough balls". It is particularly popular in Europe for coarse fishing.
Additionally, feed corn is sometimes used by hunters to bait animals such as deer or wild hogs.
UNITED STATES USAGE BREAKDOWN
The breakdown of usage of the 12.1-billion-bushel (307-million-tonne) 2008 US maize crop was as follows, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report by the USDA.In the US since 2009/2010, maize feedstock use for ethanol production has somewhat exceeded direct use for livestock feed; maize use for fuel ethanol was 5,130 million bushels (130 million tonnes) in the 2013/2014 marketing year.A fraction of the maize feedstock dry matter used for ethanol production is usefully recovered as DDGS (dried distillers grains with solubles). In the 2010/2011 marketing year, about 29.1 million tonnes of DDGS were fed to US livestock and poultry. Because starch utilization in fermentation for ethanol production leaves other grain constituents more concentrated in the residue, the feed value per kg of DDGS, with regard to ruminant-metabolizable energy and protein, exceeds that of the grain. Feed value for monogastric animals, such as swine and poultry, is somewhat lower than for ruminants.
HAZARDS
PELLAGRA
When maize was first introduced into farming systems other than those used by traditional native-American peoples, it was generally welcomed with enthusiasm for its productivity. However, a widespread problem of malnutrition soon arose wherever maize was introduced as a staple food. This was a mystery, since these types of malnutrition were not normally seen among the indigenous Americans, for whom maize was the principal staple food.
It was eventually discovered that the indigenous Americans had learned to soak maize in alkali — water (the process now known as nixtamalization) — made with ashes and lime (calcium oxide) since at least 1200–1500 BC by Mesoamericans. They did this to liberate the corn hulls, but (unbeknownst to natives or colonists) it coincidentally liberates the B-vitamin niacin, the lack of which was the underlying cause of the condition known as pellagra.
Maize was introduced into the diet of non-indigenous Americans without the necessary cultural knowledge acquired over thousands of years in the Americas. In the late 19th century, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in parts of the southern US, as medical researchers debated two theories for its origin: the deficiency theory (which was eventually shown to be true) said that pellagra was due to a deficiency of some nutrient, and the germ theory said that pellagra was caused by a germ transmitted by stable flies. A third theory, promoted by the eugenicist Charles Davenport, held that people only contracted pellagra if they were susceptible to it due to certain "constitutional, inheritable" traits of the affected individual.
Once alkali processing and dietary variety were understood and applied, pellagra disappeared in the developed world. The development of high lysine maize and the promotion of a more balanced diet have also contributed to its demise. Pellagra still exists today in food-poor areas and refugee camps where people survive on donated maize.
ALLERGY
Maize contains lipid transfer protein, an indigestible protein that survives cooking. This protein has been linked to a rare and understudied allergy to maize in humans. The allergic reaction can cause skin rash, swelling or itching of mucous membranes, diarrhea, vomiting, asthma and, in severe cases, anaphylaxis. It is unclear how common this allergy is in the general population.
MYCOTOXINS
Fungicide application does not reduce fungal growth or mycotoxin dramatically, although it can be a part of a successful reduction strategy. Among the most common toxins are those produced by Aspergillus and Fusarium spp. The most common toxins are aflatoxins, fumonisins, zearalenone, and ochratoxin A. Bt maize discourages insect vectors and by so doing it dramatically reduces concentrations of fumonisins, significantly reduces aflatoxins, but only mildly reduces others.
ART
Maize has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Maize was represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.
In the United States, maize ears along with tobacco leaves are carved into the capitals of columns in the United States Capitol building. Maize itself is sometimes used for temporary architectural detailing when the intent is to celebrate the fall season, local agricultural productivity and culture. Bundles of dried maize stalks are often displayed along with pumpkins, gourds and straw in autumnal displays outside homes and businesses. A well-known example of architectural use is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, which uses cobs and ears of colored maize to implement a mural design that is recycled annually. Another well-known example is the Field of Corn sculpture in Dublin, Ohio, where hundreds of concrete ears of corn stand in a grassy field.
A maize stalk with two ripe ears is depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 1 lipa coin, minted since 1993.
WIKIPEDIA
Maize (/meɪz/ MAYZ; Zea mays subsp. mays, from Spanish: maíz after Taino: mahiz), also known as corn (North American and Australian English), is a cereal grain first domesticated by indigenous peoples in southern Mexico about 10,000 years ago. The leafy stalk of the plant produces pollen inflorescences and separate ovuliferous inflorescences called ears that yield kernels or seeds, which are fruits.
Maize has become a staple food in many parts of the world, with the total production of maize surpassing that of wheat or rice. In addition to being consumed directly by humans (often in the form of masa), maize is also used for corn ethanol, animal feed and other maize products, such as corn starch and corn syrup. The six major types of maize are dent corn, flint corn, pod corn, popcorn, flour corn, and sweet corn.[5] Sugar-rich varieties called sweet corn are usually grown for human consumption as kernels, while field corn varieties are used for animal feed, various corn-based human food uses (including grinding into cornmeal or masa, pressing into corn oil, and fermentation and distillation into alcoholic beverages like bourbon whiskey), and as chemical feedstocks. Maize is also used in making ethanol and other biofuels.
Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain. In 2014, total world production was 1.04 billion tonnes. Maize is the most widely grown grain crop throughout the Americas, with 361 million metric tons grown in the United States alone in 2014. Genetically modified maize made up 85% of the maize planted in the United States in 2009. Subsidies in the United States help to account for its high level of cultivation of maize and its position as the largest producer in the world.
HISTORY
PRE-COLUMBIAN DEVELOPMENT
Maize is a cultigen; human intervention is required for it to propagate. Whether or not the kernels fall off the cob on their own is a key piece of evidence used in archaeology to distinguish domesticated maize from its naturally-propagating teosinte ancestor. Genetic evidence can also be used to determine when various lineages split.
Most historians believe maize was domesticated in the Tehuacán Valley of Mexico. Recent research in the early 21st century has modified this view somewhat; scholars now indicate the adjacent Balsas River Valley of south-central Mexico as the center of domestication.
An influential 2002 study by Matsuoka et al. has demonstrated that, rather than the multiple independent domestications model, all maize arose from a single domestication in southern Mexico about 9,000 years ago. The study also demonstrated that the oldest surviving maize types are those of the Mexican highlands. Later, maize spread from this region over the Americas along two major paths. This is consistent with a model based on the archaeological record suggesting that maize diversified in the highlands of Mexico before spreading to the lowlands.
Archaeologist Dolores Piperno has said:
A large corpus of data indicates that [maize] was dispersed into lower Central America by 7600 BP [5600 BC] and had moved into the inter-Andean valleys of Colombia between 7000 and 6000 BP [5000–4000 BC].
— Dolores Piperno, The Origins of Plant Cultivation and Domestication in the New World Tropics: Patterns, Process, and New Developments
Since then, even earlier dates have been published.
According to a genetic study by Embrapa, corn cultivation was introduced in South America from Mexico, in two great waves: the first, more than 6000 years ago, spread through the Andes. Evidence of cultivation in Peru has been found dating to about 6700 years ago. The second wave, about 2000 years ago, through the lowlands of South America.
The earliest maize plants grew only small, 25-millimetre-long (1 in) corn cobs, and only one per plant. In Jackson Spielvogel's view, many centuries of artificial selection (rather than the current view that maize was exploited by interplanting with teosinte) by the indigenous people of the Americas resulted in the development of maize plants capable of growing several cobs per plant, which were usually several centimetres/inches long each. The Olmec and Maya cultivated maize in numerous varieties throughout Mesoamerica; they cooked, ground and processed it through nixtamalization. It was believed that beginning about 2500 BC, the crop spread through much of the Americas. Research of the 21st century has established even earlier dates. The region developed a trade network based on surplus and varieties of maize crops.
Mapuches of south-central Chile cultivated maize along with quinoa and potatoes in pre-Hispanic times; however, potato was the staple food of most Mapuches, "specially in the southern and coastal [Mapuche] territories where maize did not reach maturity". Before the expansion of the Inca Empire maize was traded and transported as far south as 40°19' S in Melinquina, Lácar Department. In that location maize remains were found inside pottery dated to 730 ± 80 BP and 920 ± 60 BP. Probably this maize was brought across the Andes from Chile. The presence of maize in Guaitecas Archipelago (43°55' S), the southernmost outpost of pre-Hispanic agriculture, is reported by early Spanish explorers. However the Spanish may have misidentified the plant.
COLUMBIAN EXCHANGE
After the arrival of Europeans in 1492, Spanish settlers consumed maize, and explorers and traders carried it back to Europe and introduced it to other countries. Spanish settlers far preferred wheat bread to maize, cassava, or potatoes. Maize flour could not be substituted for wheat for communion bread, since in Christian belief only wheat could undergo transubstantiation and be transformed into the body of Christ. Some Spaniards worried that by eating indigenous foods, which they did not consider nutritious, they would weaken and risk turning into Indians. "In the view of Europeans, it was the food they ate, even more than the environment in which they lived, that gave Amerindians and Spaniards both their distinctive physical characteristics and their characteristic personalities." Despite these worries, Spaniards did consume maize. Archeological evidence from Florida sites indicate they cultivated it as well.
Maize spread to the rest of the world because of its ability to grow in diverse climates. It was cultivated in Spain just a few decades after Columbus's voyages and then spread to Italy, West Africa and elsewhere. Widespread cultivation most likely began in southern Spain in 1525, after which it quickly spread to the rest of the Spanish Empire including its territories in Italy (and, from there, to other Italian states). Maize had many advantages over wheat and barley; it yielded two and a half times the food energy per unit cultivated area, could be harvested in successive years from the same plot of land, and grew in wildly varying altitudes and climates, from relatively dry regions with only 250 mm (10 in) of annual rainfall to damp regions with over 5,000 mm (200 in). By the 17th century it was a common peasant food in Southwestern Europe, including Portugal, Spain, southern France, and Italy. By the 18th century, it was the chief food of the southern French and Italian peasantry, especially in the form of polenta in Italy.
Names
The word maize derives from the Spanish form of the indigenous Taíno word for the plant, mahiz. It is known by other names around the world.
The word "corn" outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand refers to any cereal crop, its meaning understood to vary geographically to refer to the local staple. In the United States,[30] Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn primarily means maize; this usage started as a shortening of "Indian corn". "Indian corn" primarily means maize (the staple grain of indigenous Americans), but can refer more specifically to multicolored "flint corn" used for decoration.
In places outside the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, corn often refers to maize in culinary contexts. The narrower meaning is usually indicated by some additional word, as in sweet corn, sweetcorn, corn on the cob, baby corn, the puffed confection known as popcorn and the breakfast cereal known as corn flakes.
In Southern Africa, maize is commonly called mielie (Afrikaans) or mealie (English), words derived from the Portuguese word for maize, milho.
Maize is preferred in formal, scientific, and international usage because it refers specifically to this one grain, unlike corn, which has a complex variety of meanings that vary by context and geographic region. Maize is used by agricultural bodies and research institutes such as the FAO and CSIRO. National agricultural and industry associations often include the word maize in their name even in English-speaking countries where the local, informal word is something other than maize; for example, the Maize Association of Australia, the Indian Maize Development Association, the Kenya Maize Consortium and Maize Breeders Network, the National Maize Association of Nigeria, the Zimbabwe Seed Maize Association.
STRUCTURE AND PHYSIOLOGY
The maize plant is often 3 m (10 ft) in height, though some natural strains can grow 13 m (43 ft). The stem is commonly composed of 20 internodes of 18 cm (7 in) length. The leaves arise from the nodes, alternately on opposite sides on the stalk. A leaf, which grows from each node, is generally 9 cm (3+1⁄2 in) in width and 120 cm (3 ft 11 in) in length.
Ears develop above a few of the leaves in the midsection of the plant, between the stem and leaf sheath, elongating by around 3 mm (1⁄8 in) per day, to a length of 18 cm (7 in) with 60 cm (24 in) being the maximum alleged in the subspecies. They are female inflorescences, tightly enveloped by several layers of ear leaves commonly called husks. Certain varieties of maize have been bred to produce many additional developed ears. These are the source of the "baby corn" used as a vegetable in Asian cuisine.
The apex of the stem ends in the tassel, an inflorescence of male flowers. When the tassel is mature and conditions are suitably warm and dry, anthers on the tassel dehisce and release pollen. Maize pollen is anemophilous (dispersed by wind), and because of its large settling velocity, most pollen falls within a few meters of the tassel.
Elongated stigmas, called silks, emerge from the whorl of husk leaves at the end of the ear. They are often pale yellow and 18 cm (7 in) in length, like tufts of hair in appearance. At the end of each is a carpel, which may develop into a "kernel" if fertilized by a pollen grain. The pericarp of the fruit is fused with the seed coat referred to as "caryopsis", typical of the grasses, and the entire kernel is often referred to as the "seed". The cob is close to a multiple fruit in structure, except that the individual fruits (the kernels) never fuse into a single mass. The grains are about the size of peas, and adhere in regular rows around a white, pithy substance, which forms the ear. The maximum size of kernels is reputedly 2.5 cm (1 in). An ear commonly holds 600 kernels. They are of various colors: blackish, bluish-gray, purple, green, red, white and yellow. When ground into flour, maize yields more flour with much less bran than wheat does. It lacks the protein gluten of wheat and, therefore, makes baked goods with poor rising capability. A genetic variant that accumulates more sugar and less starch in the ear is consumed as a vegetable and is called sweet corn. Young ears can be consumed raw, with the cob and silk, but as the plant matures (usually during the summer months), the cob becomes tougher and the silk dries to inedibility. By the end of the growing season, the kernels dry out and become difficult to chew without cooking them tender first in boiling water.
Planting density affects multiple aspects of maize. Modern farming techniques in developed countries usually rely on dense planting, which produces one ear per stalk. Stands of silage maize are yet denser,[citation needed] and achieve a lower percentage of ears and more plant matter.
Maize is a facultative short-day plant and flowers in a certain number of growing degree days > 10 °C (50 °F) in the environment to which it is adapted. The magnitude of the influence that long nights have on the number of days that must pass before maize flowers is genetically prescribed and regulated by the phytochrome system.
Photoperiodicity can be eccentric in tropical cultivars such that the long days characteristic of higher latitudes allow the plants to grow so tall that they do not have enough time to produce seed before being killed by frost. These attributes, however, may prove useful in using tropical maize for biofuels.
Immature maize shoots accumulate a powerful antibiotic substance, 2,4-dihydroxy-7-methoxy-1,4-benzoxazin-3-one (DIMBOA). DIMBOA is a member of a group of hydroxamic acids (also known as benzoxazinoids) that serve as a natural defense against a wide range of pests, including insects, pathogenic fungi and bacteria. DIMBOA is also found in related grasses, particularly wheat. A maize mutant (bx) lacking DIMBOA is highly susceptible to attack by aphids and fungi. DIMBOA is also responsible for the relative resistance of immature maize to the European corn borer (family Crambidae). As maize matures, DIMBOA levels and resistance to the corn borer decline.
Because of its shallow roots, maize is susceptible to droughts, intolerant of nutrient-deficient soils, and prone to be uprooted by severe winds.
While yellow maizes derive their color from lutein and zeaxanthin, in red-colored maizes, the kernel coloration is due to anthocyanins and phlobaphenes. These latter substances are synthesized in the flavonoids synthetic pathway from polymerization of flavan-4-ols by the expression of maize pericarp color1 (p1) gene which encodes an R2R3 myb-like transcriptional activator of the A1 gene encoding for the dihydroflavonol 4-reductase (reducing dihydroflavonols into flavan-4-ols) while another gene (Suppressor of Pericarp Pigmentation 1 or SPP1) acts as a suppressor. The p1 gene encodes an Myb-homologous transcriptional activator of genes required for biosynthesis of red phlobaphene pigments, while the P1-wr allele specifies colorless kernel pericarp and red cobs, and unstable factor for orange1 (Ufo1) modifies P1-wr expression to confer pigmentation in kernel pericarp, as well as vegetative tissues, which normally do not accumulate significant amounts of phlobaphene pigments. The maize P gene encodes a Myb homolog that recognizes the sequence CCT/AACC, in sharp contrast with the C/TAACGG bound by vertebrate Myb proteins.
The ear leaf is the leaf most closely associated with a particular developing ear. This leaf and above contribute 70%[57] to 75% to 90% of grain fill. Therefore fungicide application is most important in that region in most disease environments.
ABNORMAL FLOWERS
Maize flowers may sometimes exhibit mutations that lead to the formation of female flowers in the tassel. These mutations, ts4 and Ts6, prohibit the development of the stamen while simultaneously promoting pistil development. This may cause inflorescences containing both male and female flowers, or hermaphrodite flowers.
GENETICS
Maize is an annual grass in the family Gramineae, which includes such plants as wheat, rye, barley, rice, sorghum, and sugarcane. There are two major species of the genus Zea (out of six total): Zea mays (maize) and Zea diploperennis, which is a perennial type of teosinte. The annual teosinte variety called Zea mays mexicana is the closest botanical relative to maize. It still grows in the wild as an annual in Mexico and Guatemala.
Many forms of maize are used for food, sometimes classified as various subspecies related to the amount of starch each has:
Flour corn: Zea mays var. amylacea
Popcorn: Zea mays var. everta
Dent corn : Zea mays var. indentata
Flint corn: Zea mays var. indurata
Sweet corn: Zea mays var. saccharata and Zea mays var. rugosa
Waxy corn: Zea mays var. ceratina
Amylomaize: Zea mays
Pod corn: Zea mays var. tunicata Larrañaga ex A. St. Hil.
Striped maize: Zea mays var. japonica
This system has been replaced (though not entirely displaced) over the last 60 years by multivariable classifications based on ever more data. Agronomic data were supplemented by botanical traits for a robust initial classification, then genetic, cytological, protein and DNA evidence was added. Now, the categories are forms (little used), races, racial complexes, and recently branches.
Maize is a diploid with 20 chromosomes (n=10). The combined length of the chromosomes is 1500 cM. Some of the maize chromosomes have what are known as "chromosomal knobs": highly repetitive heterochromatic domains that stain darkly. Individual knobs are polymorphic among strains of both maize and teosinte.
Barbara McClintock used these knob markers to validate her transposon theory of "jumping genes", for which she won the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Maize is still an important model organism for genetics and developmental biology today.
The centromeres have two types of structural components, both of which are found only in the centromeres: Large arrays of CentC, a short satellite DNA; and a few of a family of retrotransposons. The B chromosome, unlike the others, contains an additional repeat which extends into neighboring areas of the chromosome. Centromeres can accidentally shrink during division and still function, although it is thought this will fail if it shrinks below a few hundred kilobase. Kinetochores contain RNA originating from centromeres. Centromere regions can become inactive, and can continue in that state if the chromosome still has another active one.
The Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center, funded by the USDA Agricultural Research Service and located in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is a stock center of maize mutants. The total collection has nearly 80,000 samples. The bulk of the collection consists of several hundred named genes, plus additional gene combinations and other heritable variants. There are about 1000 chromosomal aberrations (e.g., translocations and inversions) and stocks with abnormal chromosome numbers (e.g., tetraploids). Genetic data describing the maize mutant stocks as well as myriad other data about maize genetics can be accessed at MaizeGDB, the Maize Genetics and Genomics Database.
In 2005, the US National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) formed a consortium to sequence the B73 maize genome. The resulting DNA sequence data was deposited immediately into GenBank, a public repository for genome-sequence data. Sequences and genome annotations have also been made available throughout the project's lifetime at the project's official site.
Primary sequencing of the maize genome was completed in 2008. On November 20, 2009, the consortium published results of its sequencing effort in Science. The genome, 85% of which is composed of transposons, was found to contain 32,540 genes (By comparison, the human genome contains about 2.9 billion bases and 26,000 genes). Much of the maize genome has been duplicated and reshuffled by helitrons—group of rolling circle transposons.
In Z. mays and various other angiosperms the MADS-box motif is involved in floral development. Early study in several angiosperm models including Z. mays was the beginning of research into the molecular evolution of floral structure in general, as well as their role in nonflowering plants.
EVOLUTION
As with many plants and animals, Z. mays has a positive correlation between effective population size and the magnitude of selection pressure. Z. m. having an EPS of ~650,000, it clusters with others of about the same EPS, and has 79% of its amino acid sites under selection.
Recombination is a significant source of diversity in Z. mays. (Note that this finding supersedes previous studies which showed no such correlation.)
This recombination/diversity effect is seen throughout plants but is also found to not occur – or not as strongly – in regions of high gene density. This is likely the reason that domesticated Z. mays has not seen as much of an increase in diversity within areas of higher density as in regions of lower density, although there is more evidence in other plants.
Some lines of maize have undergone ancient polyploidy events, starting 11m years ago. Over that time ~72% of polyploid duplicated genes have been retained, which is higher than other plants with older polyploidy events. Thus maize may be due to lose more duplicate genes as time goes along, similar to the course followed by the genomes of other plants. If so - if gene loss has merely not occurred yet - that could explain the lack of observed positive selection and lower negative selection which are observed in otherwise similar plants, i.e. also naturally outcrossing and with similar effective population sizes.
Ploidy does not appear to influence EPS or magnitude of selection effect in maize.
BREEDING
Maize reproduces sexually each year. This randomly selects half the genes from a given plant to propagate to the next generation, meaning that desirable traits found in the crop (like high yield or good nutrition) can be lost in subsequent generations unless certain techniques are used.
Maize breeding in prehistory resulted in large plants producing large ears. Modern breeding began with individuals who selected highly productive varieties in their fields and then sold seed to other farmers. James L. Reid was one of the earliest and most successful developing Reid's Yellow Dent in the 1860s. These early efforts were based on mass selection. Later breeding efforts included ear to row selection (C. G. Hopkins c. 1896), hybrids made from selected inbred lines (G. H. Shull, 1909), and the highly successful double cross hybrids using four inbred lines (D. F. Jones c. 1918, 1922). University supported breeding programs were especially important in developing and introducing modern hybrids. By the 1930s, companies such as Pioneer devoted to production of hybrid maize had begun to influence long-term development. Internationally important seed banks such as the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and the US bank at the Maize Genetics Cooperation Stock Center University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign maintain germplasm important for future crop development.
Since the 1940s the best strains of maize have been first-generation hybrids made from inbred strains that have been optimized for specific traits, such as yield, nutrition, drought, pest and disease tolerance. Both conventional cross-breeding and genetic modification have succeeded in increasing output and reducing the need for cropland, pesticides, water and fertilizer. There is conflicting evidence to support the hypothesis that maize yield potential has increased over the past few decades. This suggests that changes in yield potential are associated with leaf angle, lodging resistance, tolerance of high plant density, disease/pest tolerance, and other agronomic traits rather than increase of yield potential per individual plant.
Tropical landraces remain an important and underutilized source of resistance alleles for for disease and for herbivores. Notable discoveries of rare alleles for this purpose were made by Dao et al 2014 and Sood et al 2014.
GLOBAL PROGRAM
CIMMYT operates a conventional breeding program to provide optimized strains. The program began in the 1980s. Hybrid seeds are distributed in Africa by the Drought Tolerant Maize for Africa project.
GENETIC MODIFICATION
Genetically modified (GM) maize was one of the 26 GM crops grown commercially in 2016. The vast majority of this is Bt maize. Grown since 1997 in the United States and Canada, 92% of the US maize crop was genetically modified in 2016 and 33% of the worldwide maize crop was GM in 2016. As of 2011, Herbicide-tolerant maize varieties were grown in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, El Salvador, the European Union, Honduras, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, the Russian Federation, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. Insect-resistant maize was grown in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, the European Union, Honduras, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United States, and Uruguay.
In September 2000, up to $50 million worth of food products were recalled due to the presence of Starlink genetically modified corn, which had been approved only for animal consumption and had not been approved for human consumption, and was subsequently withdrawn from the market.
ORIGIN
Maize is the domesticated variant of teosinte. The two plants have dissimilar appearance, maize having a single tall stalk with multiple leaves and teosinte being a short, bushy plant. The difference between the two is largely controlled by differences in just two genes, called grassy tillers-1 (gt1, A0A317YEZ1) and teosinte branched-1 (tb1, Q93WI2).
Several theories had been proposed about the specific origin of maize in Mesoamerica:
It is a direct domestication of a Mexican annual teosinte, Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley in south-eastern Mexico, with up to 12% of its genetic material obtained from Zea mays ssp. mexicana through introgression.
It has been derived from hybridization between a small domesticated maize (a slightly changed form of a wild maize) and a teosinte of section Luxuriantes, either Z. luxurians or Z. diploperennis.
It has undergone two or more domestications either of a wild maize or of a teosinte. (The term "teosinte" describes all species and subspecies in the genus Zea, excluding Zea mays ssp. mays.)
It has evolved from a hybridization of Z. diploperennis by Tripsacum dactyloides.
In the late 1930s, Paul Mangelsdorf suggested that domesticated maize was the result of a hybridization event between an unknown wild maize and a species of Tripsacum, a related genus. This theory about the origin of maize has been refuted by modern genetic testing, which refutes Mangelsdorf's model and the fourth listed above.
The teosinte origin theory was proposed by the Russian botanist Nikolai Ivanovich Vavilov in 1931 and the later American Nobel Prize-winner George Beadle in 1932.: 10 It is supported experimentally and by recent studies of the plants' genomes. Teosinte and maize can cross-breed and produce fertile offspring. A number of questions remain concerning the species, among them:
how the immense diversity of the species of sect. Zea originated,
how the tiny archaeological specimens of 3500–2700 BC could have been selected from a teosinte, and
how domestication could have proceeded without leaving remains of teosinte or maize with teosintoid traits earlier than the earliest known until recently, dating from ca. 1100 BC.
The domestication of maize is of particular interest to researchers—archaeologists, geneticists, ethnobotanists, geographers, etc. The process is thought by some to have started 7,500 to 12,000 years ago. Research from the 1950s to 1970s originally focused on the hypothesis that maize domestication occurred in the highlands between the states of Oaxaca and Jalisco, because the oldest archaeological remains of maize known at the time were found there.
Connection with 'parviglumis' subspecies
Genetic studies, published in 2004 by John Doebley, identified Zea mays ssp. parviglumis, native to the Balsas River valley in Mexico's southwestern highlands, and also known as Balsas teosinte, as being the crop wild relative that is genetically most similar to modern maize. This was confirmed by further studies, which refined this hypothesis somewhat. Archaeobotanical studies, published in 2009, point to the middle part of the Balsas River valley as the likely location of early domestication; this river is not very long, so these locations are not very distant. Stone milling tools with maize residue have been found in an 8,700 year old layer of deposits in a cave not far from Iguala, Guerrero.
Doebley was part of the team that first published, in 2002, that maize had been domesticated only once, about 9,000 years ago, and then spread throughout the Americas.
A primitive corn was being grown in southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America 7,000 years ago. Archaeological remains of early maize ears, found at Guila Naquitz Cave in the Oaxaca Valley, date back roughly 6,250 years; the oldest ears from caves near Tehuacan, Puebla, 5,450 B.P.
Maize pollen dated to 7,300 B.P. from San Andres, Tabasco, on the Caribbean coast has also been recovered.
As maize was introduced to new cultures, new uses were developed and new varieties selected to better serve in those preparations. Maize was the staple food, or a major staple – along with squash, Andean region potato, quinoa, beans, and amaranth – of most pre-Columbian North American, Mesoamerican, South American, and Caribbean cultures. The Mesoamerican civilization, in particular, was deeply interrelated with maize. Its traditions and rituals involved all aspects of maize cultivation – from the planting to the food preparation. Maize formed the Mesoamerican people's identity.
It is unknown what precipitated its domestication, because the edible portion of the wild variety is too small, and hard to obtain, to be eaten directly, as each kernel is enclosed in a very hard bivalve shell.
In 1939, George Beadle demonstrated that the kernels of teosinte are readily "popped" for human consumption, like modern popcorn.[91] Some have argued it would have taken too many generations of selective breeding to produce large, compressed ears for efficient cultivation. However, studies of the hybrids readily made by intercrossing teosinte and modern maize suggest this objection is not well founded.
SPREADING TO THE NORTH
Around 4,500 ago, maize began to spread to the north; it was first cultivated in what is now the United States at several sites in New Mexico and Arizona, about 4,100 ago.
During the first millennium AD, maize cultivation spread more widely in the areas north. In particular, the large-scale adoption of maize agriculture and consumption in eastern North America took place about A.D. 900. Native Americans cleared large forest and grassland areas for the new crop.
In 2005, research by the USDA Forest Service suggested that the rise in maize cultivation 500 to 1,000 years ago in what is now the southeastern United States corresponded with a decline of freshwater mussels, which are very sensitive to environmental changes.
CULTIVATION
PLANTING
Because it is cold-intolerant, in the temperate zones maize must be planted in the spring. Its root system is generally shallow, so the plant is dependent on soil moisture. As a plant that uses C4 carbon fixation, maize is a considerably more water-efficient crop than plants that use C3 carbon fixation such as alfalfa and soybeans. Maize is most sensitive to drought at the time of silk emergence, when the flowers are ready for pollination. In the United States, a good harvest was traditionally predicted if the maize was "knee-high by the Fourth of July", although modern hybrids generally exceed this growth rate. Maize used for silage is harvested while the plant is green and the fruit immature. Sweet corn is harvested in the "milk stage", after pollination but before starch has formed, between late summer and early to mid-autumn. Field maize is left in the field until very late in the autumn to thoroughly dry the grain, and may, in fact, sometimes not be harvested until winter or even early spring. The importance of sufficient soil moisture is shown in many parts of Africa, where periodic drought regularly causes maize crop failure and consequent famine. Although it is grown mainly in wet, hot climates, it has been said to thrive in cold, hot, dry or wet conditions, meaning that it is an extremely versatile crop.
Maize was planted by the Native Americans in hills, in a complex system known to some as the Three Sisters. Maize provided support for beans, and the beans provided nitrogen derived from nitrogen-fixing rhizobia bacteria which live on the roots of beans and other legumes; and squashes provided ground cover to stop weeds and inhibit evaporation by providing shade over the soil. This method was replaced by single species hill planting where each hill 60–120 cm (2 ft 0 in–3 ft 11 in) apart was planted with three or four seeds, a method still used by home gardeners. A later technique was "checked maize", where hills were placed
1 m (40 in) apart in each direction, allowing cultivators to run through the field in two directions. In more arid lands, this was altered and seeds were planted in the bottom of 10–12 cm (4–4+1⁄2 in) deep furrows to collect water. Modern technique plants maize in rows which allows for cultivation while the plant is young, although the hill technique is still used in the maize fields of some Native American reservations. When maize is planted in rows, it also allows for planting of other crops between these rows to make more efficient use of land space.
In most regions today, maize grown in residential gardens is still often planted manually with a hoe, whereas maize grown commercially is no longer planted manually but rather is planted with a planter. In North America, fields are often planted in a two-crop rotation with a nitrogen-fixing crop, often alfalfa in cooler climates and soybeans in regions with longer summers. Sometimes a third crop, winter wheat, is added to the rotation.
Many of the maize varieties grown in the United States and Canada are hybrids. Often the varieties have been genetically modified to tolerate glyphosate or to provide protection against natural pests. Glyphosate is an herbicide which kills all plants except those with genetic tolerance. This genetic tolerance is very rarely found in nature.
In the midwestern United States, low-till or no-till farming techniques are usually used. In low-till, fields are covered once, maybe twice, with a tillage implement either ahead of crop planting or after the previous harvest. The fields are planted and fertilized. Weeds are controlled through the use of herbicides, and no cultivation tillage is done during the growing season. This technique reduces moisture evaporation from the soil, and thus provides more moisture for the crop. The technologies mentioned in the previous paragraph enable low-till and no-till farming. Weeds compete with the crop for moisture and nutrients, making them undesirable.
HARVESTING
Before the 20th century, all maize harvesting was by manual labour, by grazing, or by some combination of those. Whether the ears were hand-picked and the stover was grazed, or the whole plant was cut, gathered, and shocked, people and livestock did all the work. Between the 1890s and the 1970s, the technology of maize harvesting expanded greatly. Today, all such technologies, from entirely manual harvesting to entirely mechanized, are still in use to some degree, as appropriate to each farm's needs, although the thoroughly mechanized versions predominate, as they offer the lowest unit costs when scaled to large farm operations. For small farms, their unit cost can be too high, as their higher fixed cost cannot be amortized over as many units.[citation needed]
Before World War II, most maize in North America was harvested by hand. This involved a large number of workers and associated social events (husking or shucking bees). From the 1890s onward, some machinery became available to partially mechanize the processes, such as one- and two-row mechanical pickers (picking the ear, leaving the stover) and corn binders, which are reaper-binders designed specifically for maize (for example, Video on YouTube). The latter produce sheaves that can be shocked. By hand or mechanical picker, the entire ear is harvested, which then requires a separate operation of a maize sheller to remove the kernels from the ear. Whole ears of maize were often stored in corn cribs, and these whole ears are a sufficient form for some livestock feeding use. Today corn cribs with whole ears, and corn binders, are less common because most modern farms harvest the grain from the field with a combine and store it in bins. The combine with a corn head (with points and snap rolls instead of a reel) does not cut the stalk; it simply pulls the stalk down. The stalk continues downward and is crumpled into a mangled pile on the ground, where it usually is left to become organic matter for the soil. The ear of maize is too large to pass between slots in a plate as the snap rolls pull the stalk away, leaving only the ear and husk to enter the machinery. The combine separates the husk and the cob, keeping only the kernels.
When maize is a silage crop, the entire plant is usually chopped at once with a forage harvester (chopper) and ensiled in silos or polymer wrappers. Ensiling of sheaves cut by a corn binder was formerly common in some regions but has become uncommon. For storing grain in bins, the moisture of the grain must be sufficiently low to avoid spoiling. If the moisture content of the harvested grain is too high, grain dryers are used to reduce the moisture content by blowing heated air through the grain. This can require large amounts of energy in the form of combustible gases (propane or natural gas) and electricity to power the blowers.
PRODUCTION
Maize is widely cultivated throughout the world, and a greater weight of maize is produced each year than any other grain. In 2018, total world production was 1.15 billion tonnes, led by the United States with 34.2% of the total (table). China produced 22.4% of the global total.
UNITED STATES
In 2016, maize production was forecast to be over 380 million metric tons (15 billion bushels), an increase of 11% over 2014 American production. Based on conditions as of August 2016, the expected yield would be the highest ever for the United States. The area of harvested maize was forecast to be 35 million hectares (87 million acres), an increase of 7% over 2015. Maize is especially popular in Midwestern states such as Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois; in the latter, it was named the state's official grain in 2017.
STORAGE
Drying is vital to prevent or at least reduce mycotoxin contamination. Aspergillus and Fusarium spp. are the most common mycotoxin sources, but there are others. Altogether maize contaminants are so common, and this crop is so economically important, that maize mycotoxins are among the most important in agriculture in general.
USES
HUMAN FOOD
Maize and cornmeal (ground dried maize) constitute a staple food in many regions of the world. Maize is used to produce cornstarch, a common ingredient in home cooking and many industrialized food products. Maize starch can be hydrolyzed and enzymatically treated to produce syrups, particularly high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener; and also fermented and distilled to produce grain alcohol. Grain alcohol from maize is traditionally the source of Bourbon whiskey. Corn flour is used to make cornbread and other baked products.
In prehistoric times Mesoamerican women used a metate to process maize into ground cornmeal, allowing the preparation of foods that were more calorie dense than popcorn. After ceramic vessels were invented the Olmec people began to cook maize together with beans, improving the nutritional value of the staple meal. Although maize naturally contains niacin, an important nutrient, it was not bioavailable without the process of nixtamalization. The Maya used nixtamal meal to make varieties of porridges and tamales. The process was later used in the cuisine of the American South to prepare corn for grits and hominy.
Maize is a staple of Mexican cuisine. Masa (cornmeal treated with limewater) is the main ingredient for tortillas, atole and many other dishes of Central American food. It is the main ingredient of corn tortilla, tamales, pozole, atole and all the dishes based on them, like tacos, quesadillas, chilaquiles, enchiladas, tostadas and many more. In Mexico the fungus of maize, known as huitlacoche, is considered a delicacy.
Coarse maize meal is made into a thick porridge in many cultures: from the polenta of Italy, the angu of Brazil, the mămăligă of Romania, to cornmeal mush in the US (or hominy grits in the South) or the food called mieliepap in South Africa and sadza, nshima, ugali and other names in other parts of Africa. Introduced into Africa by the Portuguese in the 16th century, maize has become Africa's most important staple food crop. These are commonly eaten in the Southeastern United States, foods handed down from Native Americans, who called the dish sagamite.
Maize can also be harvested and consumed in the unripe state, when the kernels are fully grown but still soft. Unripe maize must usually be cooked to become palatable; this may be done by simply boiling or roasting the whole ears and eating the kernels right off the cob. Sweet corn, a genetic variety that is high in sugars and low in starch, is usually consumed in the unripe state. Such corn on the cob is a common dish in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Cyprus, some parts of South America, and the Balkans, but virtually unheard of in some European countries. Corn on the cob was hawked on the streets of early 19th-century New York City by poor, barefoot "Hot Corn Girls", who were thus the precursors of hot dog carts, churro wagons, and fruit stands seen on the streets of big cities today.
Within the United States, the usage of maize for human consumption constitutes only around 1/40th of the amount grown in the country. In the United States and Canada, maize is mostly grown to feed livestock, as forage, silage (made by fermentation of chopped green cornstalks), or grain. Maize meal is also a significant ingredient of some commercial animal food products.
NUTRITIONAL VALUE
Raw, yellow, sweet maize kernels are composed of 76% water, 19% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and 1% fat (table). In a 100-gram serving, maize kernels provide 86 calories and are a good source (10–19% of the Daily Value) of the B vitamins, thiamin, niacin (but see Pellagra warning below), pantothenic acid (B5) and folate (right table for raw, uncooked kernels, USDA Nutrient Database). In moderate amounts, they also supply dietary fiber and the essential minerals, magnesium and phosphorus whereas other nutrients are in low amounts (table).
Maize has suboptimal amounts of the essential amino acids tryptophan and lysine, which accounts for its lower status as a protein source. However, the proteins of beans and legumes complement those of maize.
FEED AND FODDER FOR LIVESTOCK
Maize is a major source of both grain feed and fodder for livestock. It is fed to the livestock in various ways. When it is used as a grain crop, the dried kernels are used as feed. They are often kept on the cob for storage in a corn crib, or they may be shelled off for storage in a grain bin. The farm that consumes the feed may produce it, purchase it on the market, or some of both. When the grain is used for feed, the rest of the plant (the corn stover) can be used later as fodder, bedding (litter), or soil amendment. When the whole maize plant (grain plus stalks and leaves) is used for fodder, it is usually chopped all at once and ensilaged, as digestibility and palatability are higher in the ensilaged form than in the dried form. Maize silage is one of the most valuable forages for ruminants. Before the advent of widespread ensilaging, it was traditional to gather the corn into shocks after harvesting, where it dried further. With or without a subsequent move to the cover of a barn, it was then stored for weeks to several months until fed to the livestock. Today ensilaging can occur not only in siloes but also in silage wrappers. However, in the tropics, maize can be harvested year-round and fed as green forage to the animals.
CHEMICALS
Starch from maize can also be made into plastics, fabrics, adhesives, and many other chemical products.
The corn steep liquor, a plentiful watery byproduct of maize wet milling process, is widely used in the biochemical industry and research as a culture medium to grow many kinds of microorganisms.
Chrysanthemin is found in purple corn and is used as a food coloring.
BIO-FUEL
"Feed maize" is being used increasingly for heating; specialized corn stoves (similar to wood stoves) are available and use either feed maize or wood pellets to generate heat. Maize cobs are also used as a biomass fuel source. Maize is relatively cheap and home-heating furnaces have been developed which use maize kernels as a fuel. They feature a large hopper that feeds the uniformly sized maize kernels (or wood pellets or cherry pits) into the fire.[citation needed]
Maize is increasingly used as a feedstock for the production of ethanol fuel.[120] When considering where to construct an ethanol plant, one of the site selection criteria is to ensure there is locally available feedstock. Ethanol is mixed with gasoline to decrease the amount of pollutants emitted when used to fuel motor vehicles. High fuel prices in mid-2007 led to higher demand for ethanol, which in turn led to higher prices paid to farmers for maize. This led to the 2007 harvest being one of the most profitable maize crops in modern history for farmers. Because of the relationship between fuel and maize, prices paid for the crop now tend to track the price of oil.
The price of food is affected to a certain degree by the use of maize for biofuel production. The cost of transportation, production, and marketing are a large portion (80%) of the price of food in the United States. Higher energy costs affect these costs, especially transportation. The increase in food prices the consumer has been seeing is mainly due to the higher energy cost. The effect of biofuel production on other food crop prices is indirect. Use of maize for biofuel production increases the demand, and therefore price of maize. This, in turn, results in farm acreage being diverted from other food crops to maize production. This reduces the supply of the other food crops and increases their prices.
Maize is widely used in Germany as a feedstock for biogas plants. Here the maize is harvested, shredded then placed in silage clamps from which it is fed into the biogas plants. This process makes use of the whole plant rather than simply using the kernels as in the production of fuel ethanol.
A biomass gasification power plant in Strem near Güssing, Burgenland, Austria, began in 2005. Research is being done to make diesel out of the biogas by the Fischer Tropsch method.
Increasingly, ethanol is being used at low concentrations (10% or less) as an additive in gasoline (gasohol) for motor fuels to increase the octane rating, lower pollutants, and reduce petroleum use (what is nowadays also known as "biofuels" and has been generating an intense debate regarding the human beings' necessity of new sources of energy, on the one hand, and the need to maintain, in regions such as Latin America, the food habits and culture which has been the essence of civilizations such as the one originated in Mesoamerica; the entry, January 2008, of maize among the commercial agreements of NAFTA has increased this debate, considering the bad labor conditions of workers in the fields, and mainly the fact that NAFTA "opened the doors to the import of maize from the United States, where the farmers who grow it receive multimillion-dollar subsidies and other government supports. ... According to OXFAM UK, after NAFTA went into effect, the price of maize in Mexico fell 70% between 1994 and 2001. The number of farm jobs dropped as well: from 8.1 million in 1993 to 6.8 million in 2002. Many of those who found themselves without work were small-scale maize growers."). However, introduction in the northern latitudes of the US of tropical maize for biofuels, and not for human or animal consumption, may potentially alleviate this.
COMMODITY
Maize is bought and sold by investors and price speculators as a tradable commodity using corn futures contracts. These "futures" are traded on the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) under ticker symbol C. They are delivered every year in March, May, July, September, and December.
Ornamental and other uses
Some forms of the plant are occasionally grown for ornamental use in the garden. For this purpose, variegated and colored leaf forms as well as those with colorful ears are used.
Corncobs can be hollowed out and treated to make inexpensive smoking pipes, first manufactured in the United States in 1869.
An unusual use for maize is to create a "corn maze" (or "maize maze") as a tourist attraction. The idea of a maize maze was introduced by the American Maze Company who created a maze in Pennsylvania in 1993. Traditional mazes are most commonly grown using yew hedges, but these take several years to mature. The rapid growth of a field of maize allows a maze to be laid out using GPS at the start of a growing season and for the maize to grow tall enough to obstruct a visitor's line of sight by the start of the summer. In Canada and the US, these are popular in many farming communities.
Maize kernels can be used in place of sand in a sandboxlike enclosure for children's play.
Stigmas from female maize flowers, popularly called corn silk, are sold as herbal supplements.
Maize is used as a fish bait, called "dough balls". It is particularly popular in Europe for coarse fishing.
Additionally, feed corn is sometimes used by hunters to bait animals such as deer or wild hogs.
UNITED STATES USAGE BREAKDOWN
The breakdown of usage of the 12.1-billion-bushel (307-million-tonne) 2008 US maize crop was as follows, according to the World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report by the USDA.In the US since 2009/2010, maize feedstock use for ethanol production has somewhat exceeded direct use for livestock feed; maize use for fuel ethanol was 5,130 million bushels (130 million tonnes) in the 2013/2014 marketing year.A fraction of the maize feedstock dry matter used for ethanol production is usefully recovered as DDGS (dried distillers grains with solubles). In the 2010/2011 marketing year, about 29.1 million tonnes of DDGS were fed to US livestock and poultry. Because starch utilization in fermentation for ethanol production leaves other grain constituents more concentrated in the residue, the feed value per kg of DDGS, with regard to ruminant-metabolizable energy and protein, exceeds that of the grain. Feed value for monogastric animals, such as swine and poultry, is somewhat lower than for ruminants.
HAZARDS
PELLAGRA
When maize was first introduced into farming systems other than those used by traditional native-American peoples, it was generally welcomed with enthusiasm for its productivity. However, a widespread problem of malnutrition soon arose wherever maize was introduced as a staple food. This was a mystery, since these types of malnutrition were not normally seen among the indigenous Americans, for whom maize was the principal staple food.
It was eventually discovered that the indigenous Americans had learned to soak maize in alkali — water (the process now known as nixtamalization) — made with ashes and lime (calcium oxide) since at least 1200–1500 BC by Mesoamericans. They did this to liberate the corn hulls, but (unbeknownst to natives or colonists) it coincidentally liberates the B-vitamin niacin, the lack of which was the underlying cause of the condition known as pellagra.
Maize was introduced into the diet of non-indigenous Americans without the necessary cultural knowledge acquired over thousands of years in the Americas. In the late 19th century, pellagra reached epidemic proportions in parts of the southern US, as medical researchers debated two theories for its origin: the deficiency theory (which was eventually shown to be true) said that pellagra was due to a deficiency of some nutrient, and the germ theory said that pellagra was caused by a germ transmitted by stable flies. A third theory, promoted by the eugenicist Charles Davenport, held that people only contracted pellagra if they were susceptible to it due to certain "constitutional, inheritable" traits of the affected individual.
Once alkali processing and dietary variety were understood and applied, pellagra disappeared in the developed world. The development of high lysine maize and the promotion of a more balanced diet have also contributed to its demise. Pellagra still exists today in food-poor areas and refugee camps where people survive on donated maize.
ALLERGY
Maize contains lipid transfer protein, an indigestible protein that survives cooking. This protein has been linked to a rare and understudied allergy to maize in humans. The allergic reaction can cause skin rash, swelling or itching of mucous membranes, diarrhea, vomiting, asthma and, in severe cases, anaphylaxis. It is unclear how common this allergy is in the general population.
MYCOTOXINS
Fungicide application does not reduce fungal growth or mycotoxin dramatically, although it can be a part of a successful reduction strategy. Among the most common toxins are those produced by Aspergillus and Fusarium spp. The most common toxins are aflatoxins, fumonisins, zearalenone, and ochratoxin A. Bt maize discourages insect vectors and by so doing it dramatically reduces concentrations of fumonisins, significantly reduces aflatoxins, but only mildly reduces others.
ART
Maize has been an essential crop in the Andes since the pre-Columbian era. The Moche culture from Northern Peru made ceramics from earth, water, and fire. This pottery was a sacred substance, formed in significant shapes and used to represent important themes. Maize was represented anthropomorphically as well as naturally.
In the United States, maize ears along with tobacco leaves are carved into the capitals of columns in the United States Capitol building. Maize itself is sometimes used for temporary architectural detailing when the intent is to celebrate the fall season, local agricultural productivity and culture. Bundles of dried maize stalks are often displayed along with pumpkins, gourds and straw in autumnal displays outside homes and businesses. A well-known example of architectural use is the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, which uses cobs and ears of colored maize to implement a mural design that is recycled annually. Another well-known example is the Field of Corn sculpture in Dublin, Ohio, where hundreds of concrete ears of corn stand in a grassy field.
A maize stalk with two ripe ears is depicted on the reverse of the Croatian 1 lipa coin, minted since 1993.
WIKIPEDIA
• Telspleem: An omnivore of neutral disposition that can be found on Virslagly as a common and archetypical form of wildlife. It dwells in most regions across the planet but prefers environments that are somewhat less barren than the average Virslagly climate. The Telspleem is a squishy, typically slouched creature that one might easily mistake to be slow and dumb based on its appearance, but which is in actuality craftier than most and rather inexplicably fleet–footed. Their fully–grown specimens ranging between three and five feet tall, Telspleems have stout, squarish torsos, two standard arms, four (deceptively) short and thick legs with feet to match, and very long necks that jut horizontally from the front–tops of their bodies and arc upwards so that the head ends up being positioned at a fairly typical angle regardless. Their eyes are very outwardly complex, visually consisting of rows of "stripes", and their mouths are composed of several "flaps" that rather messily slurp and suck up food material. Telspleems also have singular horn–like structures atop their skulls which are actually neural accessory organs similar to those of the local humanoids, the Hexpultis. Compared to the "horns" of a Hexpultis, the Telspleem's cranial protrusion serves a lesser function, semi–superfluously enhancing existing senses rather than being essential for key mental abilities.
The most obvious candidate for this creature's most defining physical trait, however, is not any of the above, but instead its immensely long, winding, slender tail which generally totals 15–20 feet in length and is usually held up in a networked "knot" behind the Telspleem's main body. This tail has a weighted, buzz–producing noisemaker at its end and is very maneuverable and powerful, being able to act as both a striking "whip" and as a constrictive weapon.
Telspleem durability values range from 500–800.
• Phiortrask: An avian of small–to–medium size native to Namyufefe. Phiortrasks stand upright at about three feet and have durability values of 400–600. They are omnivores, more specifically describable as equal–opportunity eaters with tendencies of resourceful scavenging, whose main populations are naturally situated on and around mesas and prairies, two types of terrain that can be found in adjacency at many locations across Namyufefe's planetary landscape. The Phiortrask has an appearance that can semi–paradoxically be described as both "scruffy" and "majestic". Its body is largely covered in feathers of various, but predominantly "hot", colors and frizzy, uneven orientation. It has a moderate wingspan, with its pair of wings occupying the entire shoulder space in terms of their origin points; as a result, the Phiortrask's arms originate midway down the length of its body as opposed to just below the head. While such a limb arrangement would likely disorient most other beings, the Phiortrask has naturally adapted to it and is able to make ample use of its arms.
As for the wings, while the Phiortrask can indeed fly, its ability to do so is limited. It requires rest after a relatively short period of aviation, and has a seemingly irrational aversion to extreme heights, meaning that it is generally unwilling to ascend too high into the air; the bird's self–imposed "limit" on elevation appears to be somewhere near 500 feet. The mating, egg–birthing and childrearing methods and patterns of this creature are comparable to those of most other avians.
The simple Hernolalls occasionally eat (or try to eat) Phiortrasks and seldom otherwise interact with them, while the much more advanced Yunstoxars, who dominate Namyufefe, are much more appreciative of the rugged birds and have domesticated many of them, keeping some as pets while training and utilizing others as short–distance delivery carriers. The likeness of the Phiortrask has become a common, general–purpose symbol seen throughout Yunstoxar society and culture (to a greater extent than any other animal–based symbol), and through that race's presence in many colonies throughout the Prime Galaxy, the creature's image has come to be recognized by numerous members of other races.
• Gaiggoot: A brutish, bulky and cold–blooded creature from Olsuclund, most commonly found dwelling in moderately–elevated settings and existing more or less consistently across all regions of the planet's geographical map. Gaiggoots are slow tripodal beasts with strong and muscular but rather short arms, bladed shoulders and heads that are almost seamless with the upper–fronts of their bodies, for they have no necks of any description. While having only a single large eyeball, they have multiple pupils, giving them a wide range of vision both spatially and in terms of the light spectrum. The Gaiggoot is herbivorous, but is highly prone to (often irrationally) violent outbursts toward other beings that it perceives as threats, whether or not they actually pose any; it is highly territorial and, in a way, "paranoid" of creatures besides its own kind. Commencement of hostility is usually "announced" by a warning gesture consisting of the creature slamming its hands/fists together several times. Conversely, Gaiggoots get along very well with each other most of the time, and despite solitude being their "default" mode of living, it is far from unheard of to find small packs of them living together.
A Gaiggoot's most notable uncommon ability lies in its feet and their immense gripping power which allows the animal to climb up very steep inclines and across jagged series of rocks with relative safety and stability. Even if it does fall, it will usually manage to literally land on its feet and be cushioned by their strength, though landing on any other part of its body after a significant drop is more often than not fatal.
The nearly–consistent durability value of the Gaiggoot is 1,200, and it stands between five and six feet tall on average. It can live for up to eight decades, giving it the longest lifespan of any creature native to Olsuclund due to the short one of the planet's humanoid race, the Favredians.
• Bethraether: A now–"lost" animal of great caliber and majesty that could be found on Ultavnah and presumably (and hopefully) still dwells on that planet which is cut off from contact with all others for what will probably amount to eternity. Like the Drajelaos and the other inhabitants and general features of Ultavnah, the Bethraether is a very large and powerful creature, though even it pales in comparison to the aforementioned Drajelaos, which were created with the specific intent that they be the most powerful of all mortals, humanoid and otherwise. As of the only scientific census of Ultavnah's properties ever taken, Bethraethers are/were similar in population to Drajelaos, numbering near but under one million as a total estimate and being on neutral terms with the giant humanoids. The Bethraether is classified as a mammal, though it was noted when categorizing it that the creature only barely met the qualifications for being able to be called such and was considered quite nonstandard in form and appearance for a mortal beast.
Measuring approximately twenty feet tall, the animal walks on four short legs attached to a "base" that is similar in shape and size to what constitutes the main overall bodies of many lesser quadrupeds and, in the Bethraether's case, supports a tall, lean midsection. On the back of the upper dorsal is a hump of muscle sporting a small number of large and thick quills, and atop the whole midsection is a neckless, almost perfectly dome–shaped head. The Bethraether's facial area is yellowish–to–reddish in pigment, and sports three eyes, the middle of which is distinctly different from the ones to either of its sides, being smaller and simpler. The reason for this strange optical arrangement is unknown, for the methods that would otherwise have allowed this peculiarity and the function, if any, behind it were not developed until long after Ultavnah was rendered inaccessible. The Bethraether's most "signature" feature of all, and one whose purpose is knowable, is entailed by its arms, or rather their "sub–appendages". Attached by carbonic rods to either of the creature's forearms (which themselves have an unusually decorative, gauntlet–like appearance for belonging to a mortal creature) are long, bladed poles of likewise carbonic composition. These natural accessories, which are not present in newborn Bethraethers but develop very quickly following birth, are used not only as weapons but also as more general tools for tasks such as reaching.
The typical Bethraether's durability value was estimated at 3,500. As an inhabitant of Ultavnah, this being's entire body has a moderately strong resistance to heat and burning.
• Honbonky: A vicious predatory mammal living on Barserinv that is the closest thing to a truly threatening natural foe that the Kierraplip race has to deal with. The Honbonky is fairly large, and the ratio of its size to that of other creatures of comparable nature is similar to that of a Kierraplip's size to the average humanoid's. It has a very unique body structure; its four long legs are attached to the corners of its very large head, from the bottom of which hangs a small and simple torso with a small and simple pair of arms that are used mainly for trivial manual tasks, the monster's mouth and large feet being its main utilities when attacking. Honbonkies are very fast and can chase their intended victims for miles on end with great stamina and tenacity. They are capable of lunging significant distances, though performing such a leap seems to take a lot of energy out of the Honbonky in question, the post–landing recovery time lasting several seconds; thus, while giving chase, the creatures will generally only attempt to lunge at their prey if confident that they will successfully catch them then and there by doing so. Other unusual features of the Honbonky include a large, protruding snout with a pair of long, tube–like parts that serve as "nostrils" dangling from it as well as an extra, extra–sharp tooth jutting from the bottom of said nose and overlaying the creature's main mouth. The level of threat posed by these beasts to the Kierraplips and other more peaceful animals on Barserinv is mitigated by several factors: their low population, their severe lack of cooperation with other specimens when they are present, their sub–par intelligence and their moderate lack of motivational direction when unable to find prey (in contrast to their tenacity when it is in sight).
The Honbonky's mean durability value is 900. Overall, it is comparable in many ways to the Krinchu of Terramos, also located in the Alpha Octant, though it is considered marginally less "evil" than that creature and, unlike the Krinchu, has never needed to be "quelled" or "purged" due to its aforementioned "shortcomings" as a threat.
• Zelrofience: An angel found in both Neo–Skyhold and Paradise and created by EldaChusii, being constructed specifically and exclusively by the face of "The Guardian". It is the most powerful type of being spawned from any aspect of the Heavenly Lord of Tolerance. The Zelrofience is a highly unique creature with many unusual attributes, and it is widely placed among the higher tiers in unofficial hierarchical rankings of Heavenly beings. It has two distinct components or "bodies", one extra–corporeal and the other extra–extra–corporeal, that together comprise an overall entity similar in perceivable nature to that of a mortal person piloting a vehicular machine, though the Zelrofience's existence predates all humanoid–made forms of such technology within the Nava–Verse. What could easily, and quasi–erroneously, be considered the angel's "main" or "true" body consists centrally of a massive eyeball–like sphere, two meters in diameter almost exactly, and peripherally of various tentacle–like appendages, including a pair that function essentially as the creature's "arms" and a bundle of five on which it may shamble about on the ground, them being its "legs". The Zelrofience's "other body" consists of a unique frame–like apparatus, sometimes called an "Overcarriage" (unofficial name), that connects to and securely fastens the eyeball–esque body via both physical grips and anchors and magical bonds. The name "Overcarriage" is considered a derivative of "Oversoul", the official name of a similar "sub–body" belonging to Bestamiak and to which the Zelrofience's "vehicle" has been likened. The angel's nature has also been compared to that of yet another Heavenly Lord, Vaynmizs, and his power source, Qual.
The two components that comprise the Zelrofience are intrinsically linked and drawn to one another, and if separated, they will actively and intelligently seek to reunite, for they are next–to–powerless without each other compared to what they can do together while the angel is in its complete state; truly, the "total" form of this being is far greater than the sum of its parts. When in its complete state, the Zelrofience boasts a greater number of distinct abilities than any other non–Archangel. The "eyeball" body's main power is telekinesis of a strength equal to roughly 1/3 that of Junt'Vubis (the single most powerful telekinetic being in the Nava–Verse), while the "Overcarriage" possesses a level of Rainbow Energy–based firepower that no non–magical machine with its physical form could possibly match. When both are together, not only are the base abilities of either amplified significantly in raw strength, but the complete Zelrofience gains access to multiple combinational techniques utilizing the powers of both its components in direct conjunction. On the whole, it is essentially a flying, psychic tank that only the most advanced and recently–created of humanoid–made war machines could even hope to match.
Zelrofiences have additional potential roles outside of combat, and additional abilities to facilitate these duties, such as absorbing, storing and transferring additional Rainbow Energy into and out of themselves and mending damaged structures with a special repair beam that is emitted from the "pupil" of the "eyeball". They are fully sentient and fluent in all common languages, and speak telepathically in a voice that is calm and soothing at all times, and would never be raised even if one of the angels were to make a furious death threat (which would obviously never happen, given its particularly wise and stoic nature even by angelic standards).
The durability value of a Zelrofience whose components are fully synchronized is nearly 4,000. The durability of either body when separated from the other is closer to 1,000.
• Movalorrt: A rare and particularly insidious demon, often considered to be one of the most despicable varieties of all due to the prolonged suffering that many of its victims are subjected to and to which most would consider death preferable. The Movalorrt is a truly rogue being, lacking allegiance to or association with Satan, Meth Stoph, Genome, Lord Reson or any other higher demonic power, and its general place of origin within the Underworld, assuming there even is a specific spatial plane designated as its place of spawning, is unknown. It is, however, known that this demon is able to travel to and from (as well as throughout) the mortal realm far more freely than almost any other known Hellish entity… though exactly how it does this is also unknown. Movalorrts are sentient and capable of speech, though their overall intellect level seems to be below that of a majority of mortal humanoids and they seldom have anything to say beyond wicked cackling. They are average in size compared to mortal humanoids – between four and five feet – but have comparatively immense strength and resilience almost on par with that of humanoid Archfiends, the demon's durability value being estimated at around 3,000.
The Movalorrt is a wholly corporeal and mostly organic demon. Its form is that of a hideous, grinning, many–armed humanoid with necrotic flesh and legs that are permanently, bloodily stitched together and dangle with unsettling stillness as the monster hovers from place to place. The two pairs of arms oriented near the front of its body are standard in form and hand structure, while the other pair of pairs, growing from the fiend's upper dorsal area, have appendages that are far more ghastly in both appearance and function: massive, blood–red scissors/clippers and oversized syringes filled with glowing green liquid, respectively. These instruments, the syringes in particular, serve as the Movalorrt's tools for inflicting harm, and are also the only non–organic parts of its body. While the "clippers" are generally used in a fairly standard manner and have no "special" properties beyond simply being powerful instruments of cutting, the syringes constitute a far more complex and disturbing weapon, as elaborated upon below.
Movalorrt attacks, like the demons themselves, are rare, with the average number reported annually rounding down to nine. When one of these monsters attacks a person, its intention is not necessarily to kill the victim. Rather, its very specific goal is to inject that specific person with one or both of their syringes. The scissor–like weapons are rarely implemented during such attacks, and when they are, it is usually against others who attempt to stop the demon from injecting its target rather than the actual target. They are never deliberately used on the main target with the specific intention of killing them, and conversely, "interfering" parties besides the target are never deliberately injected. There have been several separate eyewitness reports of attacking Movalorrts uttering intelligible words and phrases, usually of "Out of the way!" or "Resistance is futile!"–type sentiments. Once it has successfully administered its "shot", the Movalorrt will flee the scene, dashing away for a short distance before disappearing, presumably back to the Underworld or outer space, in a flashing burst of Infernal Energy and usually cackling as it does so. Once the demon has resolved to attack someone and initiated its assault on them, it will not relent nor flee until it has either succeeded in its goal or been killed. While it is uncertain, it is more likely than not that Movalorrts' victims are chosen on a random whim.
The effects of what has been termed "Movalorrt Toxin" are various and variable, seemingly randomly so, and cannot be stopped from taking effect once it has been injected into a person. The following have all been verifiably witnessed in multiple victims:
• Near–instant and seemingly painless death with no visible physical atrophy.
• A much slower and agonizing death caused by extreme inflammation and swelling throughout all parts of the body.
• A coma that lasts no less than one year and no more than a decade; if cared for and kept safe for its duration, the victim may eventually make a full recovery.
• Varying degrees of general brain damage.
• A permanent semi–vegetative state, similar to the effects of a lobotomy.
• An extended bout of extreme pain, more severe than what seems to be felt during the fatal "swelling" effect, which has no visible physical symptoms and eventually goes away after anywhere from a few hours to a few days. This is actually considered one of the least horrible results of Movalorrt Toxin injection due to its short–term nature.
• Rapid, progressive necrotic decay of one or more limbs, starting at and spreading upwards from the extremities. If the affected areas are not amputated, the decay will eventually consume the whole body, resulting in the most painful death that any effect of Movalorrt Toxin can bring about.
• Permanent, inexplicable chronic depression, often leading to eventual suicide.
• A complete wiping of all memories, including much of the basic knowledge learned in early life, basically resetting the victim's mind to what it was during their infancy.
• General insanity, turning the victim into a demented lunatic.
• Horrific hallucinations catering to the victim's particular fears; usually has an end result similar to the previous effect.
• Perpetual severe illness (with typical symptoms such as fever, vomiting, etc.) that can be treated indefinitely but will never cease causing various complications.
• A short coma, followed by the victim awakening as a murderous, rabid lunatic that will attack almost anyone and everyone they see, as if their mind has been replaced with that of a vicious animal.
…Among other possibilities, some of which have only ever been observed once. Needless to say, the effects of Movalorrt Toxin are invariably malign, with some of them entailing fates far worse than the average death. On related notes, the back ends of the Movalorrt's syringes seem to exist in pocket dimensions from which the vials may be replenished with an endless supply of toxin, and which spot on one's body any injection is made into does not seem to affect what the toxin's effects will be, even if the spot pierced does not lead into the bloodstream at all. The amount of toxin doesn't seem to matter, either; among known cases where both syringes and their contents were used, the ratio of "lesser" symptoms to more extreme effects has been similar to that among known cases in which the victim received only one "dose" or Movalorrt Toxin. Once a Movalorrt has gotten its needle into its target, the injection process takes less than two seconds; it is unknown what would happen if someone was injected with less than one vial's worth of the demon's toxin.
The Movalorrt is considered similar to the dream–invading Sybruchar in the sense that both demons seemingly wander the universe in search of people to attack and often leave their surviving victims with permanent mental or spiritual damage. Despite being somewhat more mundane in its methods (compared to the Sybruchar), the Movalorrt has managed to remain just as elusive and mysterious a beast as its unofficial "counterpart". While several of them have been killed, no Movalorrt has ever been captured alive or otherwise questioned, and all specimens that have been killed were slain in battle before they could poison their targets; in every single case where a Movalorrt has successfully made an injection, it has subsequently been just as successful in making its escape. The exact nature of the demon's apparent ability to travel throughout the Nava–Verse and between its realms with relative ease is unclear, unlike with the Sybruchar, as sightings of it in the Underworld are few and fleeting while sightings in outer space are nonexistent. Sightings of more than one specimen together are just as rare as the former; it is highly unlikely that the total number of Movalorrts exceeds three digits… and thank goodness for that!
Note the door handles.
From Flickr photographer extraodinaire Emilio Guerra's photostream.
Tribeca, Manhattan.
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The Western Union Building (1928-30), designed by Ralph Walker, one of New York's foremost architects of the period, is a recognized achievement in modernistic skyscraper design. The building is characteristic of a group of communications buildings designed by Walker in the late 1920s, primarily for the telephone companies, in which he developed a distinctive design approach related to the contemporary Art Deco style. The design of the Western Union Building was influenced by the work of the German and Dutch Expressionist architects, and drew upon Walker's well-defined design theory emphasizing harmony and unity. The integrated aesthetic of form, material, and ornamentation incorporates such elements as patterned brickwork, dramatic entrances, faceted wall planes and trim, and complex and asymmetrical massing. The innovative, cliff-like form of the Western Union Building departs from the shape of the site and includes a low screen that conforms to the Hudson Street lot line. The exterior brick walls are carefully articulated in a textured, curtain-like manner, parting as proscenium-like openings at the ground story. The building was among the first to have a graded brick color scheme, from dark at the bottom to light at the upper stories, which was "a pleasing exaggeration of the natural play of light." Commissioned by Newcomb Carlton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, the new headquarters building allowed the consolidation of all operations in one location, "the largest telegraph building in the world"; the modernistic design helped to reestablish a corporate identity for Western Union after its dominance by the American Telephone & Telegraph Company. The Western Union Building remains in use as a communications center, housing both equipment and offices..
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With the design of the Western Union Building, described at the time of its construction as representing the modern American style of architecture, Walker moved beyond the model of the Barclay-Vesey Building, with its complex ornamental program, toward the expressionistic vocabulary of the later communications buildings..
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The building stands apart from the other buildings in the series in its exclusive use of brick for ornamentation of both the exterior of the building and the public interior spaces of the first story..
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The design of the Western Union Building is remarkably integrated -- the forms, the materials, and the ornament -- and demonstrates Walker's achievement of harmony and unity in skyscraper design..
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The massing of the Western Union Building belies the dictates of the building's irregularly• shaped lot; apparently Walker was responding to Lewis Mumford's criticism of the 'awry' shape of the Barclay-Vesey Building due to its filling the entire irregular site. Walker later wrote of the lasting effects of Mumford's comments and his 'early appreciation that the shape of the lot did not necessarily control the form of the building' and stated that 'a building could take its own form regardless of the land below.'20 He employed this idea in the form of the Western Union Building, and developed an inventive massing solution which departs considerably from the footprint of the lot. At the Hudson Street end of the block, three slabs, which rise sheerly to the first setbacks, meet the angled Hudson Street lot line behind a two-story screen -- a series of opening enframements -- that serves as a traditional base for the main facade. The massed piers of the screen ground the soaring corner piers 6 of the two northern slabs. The architect explained that the adoption of this unusual scheme was due to 'the superior massing of rectangular forms and through the powerful verticals rising, without interruption, at the corners of each setbaCk.'" With highly visible, vertically articulated facades on all four sides, the Western Union Building, 'a huge red rock projecting out of the city,'" is solid and cliff-like, suggesting an interest in the natural and irregular forms of palisades and cliffs as shapes to be replicated in building masses. Upon close inspection, the building is a complex and sculpted form, with greater irregularity at the Hudson Street end of the building; in contrast, the stepped massing of the West Broadway end of the building is relatively straightforward and symmetrical. with the setbacks extending along most of the long north and south facades. A low tower, which rises only slightly above a central slab, unites the mass of the building." The brick exterior walls of the Western Union Building can be likened to curtains which part at the major openings at the street level. The contemporary critic Paul T. Frankl wrote of such 'brick tapestries hung from the sky,' 'mosaics of colored stone or tinted brick' which emphasized the natural beauty of the material and were free from unnecessary detail." Incorporated into the curtain-like treatment of the brick exterior walls of the Western Union Building are elements which emphasize the complex massing of the building, a graded color scheme, distinctive curtainframed proscenium-like openings, and patterned and sculptural brickwork at the base and parapets..
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These aspects of the design appear to be particularly influenced by the brick designs of the German and Dutch Expressionists in which the ornament is ingrained -- the brick itself introduces decoration -- and the exuberant use of brick creates variety in color and textural richness.25 The expressive articulation of the brick wall of the upper facade of the building gives a vertical emphasis to the building's large bulk. The complex massing of the building as a whole is echoed in the use of highly modeled piers at street level and buttresses at the upper setbacks which have the forms of setback skyscrapers. The patterns of aiternating wide and narrow piers on the Hudson Street facade and flat and modeled piers on the other facades establish a rhythm and provide richness in the design. The long south and north facades are relieved by paired bays with no fenestration which front stairwells. These strong vertical elements extend through several upper levels and as projections above the setbacks, visually blending one level into the next. The original design of the parapet walls of the setbacks -- articulated with vertical patterns, faceted forms, and irregular edges -- also led the eye upward.26 Walker explained that the client's desire for individuality in the Western Union Building prompted the graded color scheme of brick; the building was among the first buildings in which brick was used in this manner.27 The shaded brick, from dark at the base to light at the top, was much discussed in the architectural and general press, and was described as "a pleasing exaggeration of the natural play of light upon the upper portions of the building."28 The graded scheme was developed through the use of an extended palette of "tapestry brick," related shades of brick produced in a kiln-run due to the natural variation in clays and kiln temperatures. This concept and the term "tapestry brick," widely used in the 1920s, had been popularized by Louis Sullivan who recognized that the eye sees the close range of colors as harmonized, enriched tones." Nineteen shades of brick create the graded color scheme of the Western Union Building; this effect, which has been obscured by soiling and repointing, was variously described at the time of construction as being in a number of ranges of shades -- from reddish brown to light salmon and in bright sunlight reminiscent of the Indian pueblo, and from deep red to light orange, as well as from deep rose red at the base, to rose pink at midsection, to a light delicate yellowish pink at the top -attesting to the fact that the rich tones appeared differently under changing conditions. Two or three shades were used at the patterned areas of the building, the darker shades adding life to the lighter tone of the general field at the top, and the lighter shades serving the same purpose in the lower stories.30 The brick curtain walls of the upper facades part near the street level as a series of large, proscenium-like openings, where the "curtain" appears to be drawn back in a corbelled arched form. These openings, perhaps prompted by Walker's interest in the set designs of Joseph Urban and in the theatrical lighting, draped openings, and enveloping interiors of theaters, are 7 remarkably similar to that of a drawn stage or proscenium curtain. Faceted, fan-like brick forms above these openings suggest a pleated valence.31 This shouldered arched sha pe with a serrated curve, in a number of variations, is used repeatedly on the exterior of the building, as well as for openings in the first floor interior, and is the predominant design motif of the building. The void described by the arch has the form of a setback skyscraper, a design motif frequently found in the detailing of Art Deco skyscrapers..
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All ornament on the exterior of the building, except for the bronze window and door frames and friezes, is executed in brick.32 "1 believe in ornamentation, especially when it enhances individuality, but there must above everything else be unity and harmony" asserted Walker in 1930.33 He favored the use of brick to produce ornament over terra cotta, which could produce an effect "like frosting on a plum pudding,"34 and stone, which could change in appearance in a relatively short time, although he continued to use the latter in limited amounts. The brick ornamentation on the Western Union Building is concentrated around the street-level openings of the building -below basketwork bands above the second-story windows at the upper edge of the implied base -and at the setback parapets. The patterned spandrels and parapet walls (most now removed) of the setbacks "gave a play of light and shade when seen from the street, and [would] eventually serve to make more pleasant the idle moments of clerks in adjoining high buildings"3S and created an irregular horizontal line; these designs were more robust and irregUlar in shape at the upper two setbacks. The carefully-detailed articulation of the upper areas of the building culminated in the faceted form of the upper walls and parapet of the tower..
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The design of the Western Union Building first floor interior, unexpectedly executed in the same brick of the exterior, illustrates the extent of Walker's emphasis on unity and harmony in design..
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In addition to the materials, other elements of the exterior design appear on the interior, including the expressionistic brick patterning of chevrons and low-relief forms, the shouldered arch form of the exterior openings which is repeated as interior doorways, the faceted bronze trim, and the incorporation of the set-back skyscraper form in the design of doors and the mail box..
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- From the 1991 NYCLPC Landmark Designation Report
Such is my life lately. At least the "bed" in the exam room was comfortable.
You know what is strange? When I came to Flickr, I was always working out and my apartment was always so hot so I took a lot of shirtless pics. That sort of became a trademark of mine - to be shirtless. Then I purposely took shirtless pictures. My audience seemed to like them.
Then I got lazy and gained some gained some weight in my midsection. I wasn't happy about it.
Now I'm being told to gain weight by my doctors.
I ate half an ice cream cake in one day, a pint of ice cream three days in a row, tons of other fattening foods, calorie packed drinks, and the list goes on...
Guess what? I haven't gained an ounce in ten days. No joke.
Year 5 - Upload 60
One Year Ago Today - No Photo
Two Years Ago Today - No Photo
Three Years Ago Today - No Photo
Four Years Ago Today - This was the most time consuming picture I ever made.