Watch This Video On YouTube Here: youtu.be/Pc0p_o7yAqM

How To Get Hard Fast - Sexual Performance Anxiety

Obtain Your Free Copy of The 3 Deadliest Myths About Erectile Dysfunction Here: bit.ly/Impotence-3DeadlyMythsOfErectileDysfunctionEbook It's hardly a news flash that exercise is very important to your overall health, but what you might not exactly have known is the fact that getting enough exercise is also an important step toward minimizing your ED symptoms. Naturally, don't be prepared to hear such things from the people who are selling you ED pills on a monthly basis. They'd just right see you not do anything to minimize your symptoms so you'll keep buying from them every month, but it's true. By itself, exercise is nearly certain not to be sufficient to totally eliminate ED, but it can help minimize your symptoms absolutely. Why Exercise Improves Your ED? At the core, erectile dysfunction is a circulatory condition. It's about blood flow. Consider it: The facts that causes your penis to be erect? Blood flowing to it. The better your circulation and the more blood that flows into the erectile tissue, the firmer and stronger your erections will be. This explains why some exercises are much better than others at reducing ED symptoms. Specifically, what you would like are cardiovascular exercises. Yes, you want to work up a sweat, but more than that, you want to do an exercise that gets your heart pumping really. People will tell you that the best way to begin is to begin modestly. To invest in, say, fifteen minutes of exercise, three to five times weekly when you're starting out. Then, as time passes, slowly increase your duration, and the number of days per week you're exercising. That's generally pretty good advice, but we want to add an additional wrinkle compared to that. For starters, Keep exercise to three days a week, but yes, build-up the length of time you may spend exercising gradually. In addition to that though, find a sport you love. Maybe it's anything. Kayaking, soccer, fencing, hiking...just make sure it's something you enjoy, and something you're passionate about. If you like to do it, and are passionate about any of it, you'll naturally be inclined to do more of it. This is the reason you don't need to bump up your exercise to more than 3 x per week. You'll be supplementing that with your brand-new sports activity. Think about this to be your "sweat equity." This is the equity you placed into living a longer, healthier life. In trade with the sweat equity, you'll get a wholesome heart and lungs, better circulation, more energy, more stamina, of course, if you have ED, you'll notice a marked decrease in your symptoms. If you don't have ED, a good exercise program won't guarantee that you'll never experience difficulties, but if so when you do, they will be much milder than they otherwise could have been. You will discover relatively few people beyond "gym rats" who wish to exercise, so consider it as an investment. That's why we used the word "sweat equity." We wish you to think of it in exactly the same conditions as financial investments you make in your own future. If you can put yourself for the reason that mindset, in case you supplement your regular physical exercise with a sport you love, you'll be more likely to stick with it, and consistency is key. Exercise, and its own overall effectiveness is only as good as your commitment to it. The only kind of exercise that is included with a caveat is bicycling. There is no doubt that it is a terrific way to get (and stay) in shape, but they have one small drawback. Studies have shown that spending a lot of time cycling can result in an increased probability of problems with your prostate gland. Additionally, it may, in at least some cases, cause numbness around the penis, which while not quite exactly like ED, will surely reduce the quality of your erections. In addition to cardio-based exercises and a regular workout routine, don't overlook the importance of stretching. You can do something like Tai Yoga or Chi, for example. Both these are excellent ways to stretch and tone the muscles, and make an outstanding addition to your overall fitness routine. The best thing about Yoga is that it's a wonderful, meditative technique, not only is it a great way to stretch. Start simply and modestly, and slowly work the right path into more advanced postures. The bottom line is simple: Exercise is not only good for your overall health, it is also best for your sexual health. If you are genuinely enthusiastic about maintaining an active sex life well past your forties, when men begin experiencing sexual difficulties typically, then you're going to want to make regular physical exercise an important part of your daily routine. Again, the most important thing here's to make certain you pick a sport that you're genuinely passionate about, because that makes it easy to stick with it. Subscribe to my channel here: youtube.com/c/BretmcopelandBlogspot

via Men's Health Channel

Hyrax minimizes exposure to predators by visiting grasslands as a group and eating quickly for only an hour each morning and afternoon.

Atrapa la suciedad y la grasa excesiva del interior de los poros gracias a las características de la arcilla blanca, la cual posee una gran capacidad de absorción de la grasa. Esta mascarilla de tipo lavado da tensión a tus poros y devuelve la firmeza a la línea de tu piel.

For Hummers I prefer perching locations with sufficient distance from the feeders to minimize the reflected red glow on the birds. I typically place natural slender tree branches a distance above the feeders. With time, the feeding birds get used to my presence and allow for close shots like this. They often land above the feeders for a last look around. This setting is above my eye level. If I can position myself with the sun at my back, I also have a good chance of showing the splendid red gorget iridescence.

IMG_2441; Broad-tailed Hummingbird

The Red Admiral is one of the few species of butterfly to overwinter in Britain as an adult. I've been mugging up on why I am still seeing an occasional Red Admiral even after some very cold days.

Apparently species like Peacock, Small Tortoiseshell, Brimstone and Comma lie "dormant". Technically this is not "hibernation" as that involves a slow down in both breathing and heart rates, plus the body temperature would also be lowered. Meanwhile, WikiWhoKnowsAlmost Everything, describes "dormancy" as a period when growth, development, and most physical activity are temporarily stopped. This minimizes metabolic activity and therefore helps conserve energy.

However, according to Butterfly Conservation, the Red Admiral doesn’t even become properly "dormant" as it becomes active on any warmer and sunnier days. So this explains why I am still occasionally seeing this particular species but no other butterfly!

One of the amazingly colourful Marine Iguanas from Suarez Point on Espanola.

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.

Espanola (Suarez Point)

Approximately a 10-12 hour trip from Santa Cruz, Española is the oldest and the southernmost island in the chain. The trip across open waters can be quite rough especially during August and September. Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. The subspecies of Marine iguana from Española are the only ones that change color during breeding season. Normally, marine iguanas are black in color, a camouflage, making it difficult for predators to differentiate between the iguanas and the black lava rocks where they live. On Española adult marine iguanas are brightly colored with a reddish tint except during mating season when their color changes to more of a greenish shade. The Hood Mockingbird is also endemic to the island. These brazen birds have no fear of man and frequently land on visitors heads and shoulders searching for food. The Hood Mockingbird is slightly larger than other mockingbirds found in the Galapagos; its beak is longer and has a more curved shape. The Hood Mockingbird is the only carnivorous one of the species feeding on a variety of insects, turtle hatchlings and sea lion placentas. Wildlife is the highlight of Española and the star of the show is the waved albatross. The island's steep cliffs serve as the perfect runways for these large birds which take off for their ocean feeding grounds near the mainland of Ecuador and Peru abandoning the island between January and March. Known as endemic to the island, Española is the waved albatross's only nesting place. Each April the males return to Española followed shortly thereafter by the females. Mating for life, their ritual begins with the male's annual dance to re-attract his mate. The performance can take up to 5 days consisting of a series of strutting, honking, and beak fencing. Once the pair is reacquainted they produce a single egg and share the responsibility of incubation. The colony remains based on Española until December when the chick is fully grown. By January most of the colony leaves the island to fish along the Humboldt Current. Young albatross do not return to Española until their 4th or 5th year when they return to seek a mate. Geographically Española is a classic example of a shield volcano, created from a single caldera in the center of the island. Over the years as the island has moved further away from the hot spot, the volcano became extinct and erosion began to occur. Española's two visitor sites offer an exceptional island visit. Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the Galapagos Islands. The variety and quantity of wildlife assures a memorable visit. Visitors find migrant, resident, and endemic wildlife including brightly colored Marine Iguanas, Española Lava Lizards, Hood Mockingbirds, Swallow Tailed Gulls, Blue Footed and Masked Boobies, Galapagos Hawks, a selection of Finch, and the Waved Albatross.Found on the western tip of Española, Punta Suarez offers great wildlife such as sea lions, sea birds and the largest marine iguanas of Galapagos. This is one of the best sites in the Galapagos. The amount of wildlife is overwhelming. Along the beach there are many sea lions and large, colorful lava lizards and marine iguanas. As you follow the trail to the cliff's edge masked boobies can be found nesting among the rock formations. After a short walk down to a beach and back up the other side blue-footed boobies are seen nesting just off the trail. The Galapagos Dove and very friendly Hood Mockingbird are commonly found in this area. The nearby bushes are frequently home to the large-cactus finch, warbler finch, small-ground finch and large-billed flycatcher. Continuing down the trail you come to the only place where waved albatross nest in the islands. Some 12,000 pairs nest on Española each year. The feeling is very dramatic and it seems like a desolate wilderness as the waves crash on the jagged cliffs below and the blowhole shoots water 50-70 feet/15-30 meters into the air. The sky above is full of sea birds including red-billed tropicbirds, American Oystercatchers, swallow-tailed gulls, and Audubon's Shearwaters.

Galapagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

My "daughter" Jane, sleeping, and realizing by the way the perfect body surface / volume / space optimization / minimization !

One of the amazingly colourful Marine Iguanas from Suarez Point on Espanola

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.

Espanola (Suarez Point)

Approximately a 10-12 hour trip from Santa Cruz, Española is the oldest and the southernmost island in the chain. The trip across open waters can be quite rough especially during August and September. Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. The subspecies of Marine iguana from Española are the only ones that change color during breeding season. Normally, marine iguanas are black in color, a camouflage, making it difficult for predators to differentiate between the iguanas and the black lava rocks where they live. On Española adult marine iguanas are brightly colored with a reddish tint except during mating season when their color changes to more of a greenish shade. The Hood Mockingbird is also endemic to the island. These brazen birds have no fear of man and frequently land on visitors heads and shoulders searching for food. The Hood Mockingbird is slightly larger than other mockingbirds found in the Galapagos; its beak is longer and has a more curved shape. The Hood Mockingbird is the only carnivorous one of the species feeding on a variety of insects, turtle hatchlings and sea lion placentas. Wildlife is the highlight of Española and the star of the show is the waved albatross. The island's steep cliffs serve as the perfect runways for these large birds which take off for their ocean feeding grounds near the mainland of Ecuador and Peru abandoning the island between January and March. Known as endemic to the island, Española is the waved albatross's only nesting place. Each April the males return to Española followed shortly thereafter by the females. Mating for life, their ritual begins with the male's annual dance to re-attract his mate. The performance can take up to 5 days consisting of a series of strutting, honking, and beak fencing. Once the pair is reacquainted they produce a single egg and share the responsibility of incubation. The colony remains based on Española until December when the chick is fully grown. By January most of the colony leaves the island to fish along the Humboldt Current. Young albatross do not return to Española until their 4th or 5th year when they return to seek a mate. Geographically Española is a classic example of a shield volcano, created from a single caldera in the center of the island. Over the years as the island has moved further away from the hot spot, the volcano became extinct and erosion began to occur. Española's two visitor sites offer an exceptional island visit. Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the Galapagos Islands. The variety and quantity of wildlife assures a memorable visit. Visitors find migrant, resident, and endemic wildlife including brightly colored Marine Iguanas, Española Lava Lizards, Hood Mockingbirds, Swallow Tailed Gulls, Blue Footed and Masked Boobies, Galapagos Hawks, a selection of Finch, and the Waved Albatross.Found on the western tip of Española, Punta Suarez offers great wildlife such as sea lions, sea birds and the largest marine iguanas of Galapagos. This is one of the best sites in the Galapagos. The amount of wildlife is overwhelming. Along the beach there are many sea lions and large, colorful lava lizards and marine iguanas. As you follow the trail to the cliff's edge masked boobies can be found nesting among the rock formations. After a short walk down to a beach and back up the other side blue-footed boobies are seen nesting just off the trail. The Galapagos Dove and very friendly Hood Mockingbird are commonly found in this area. The nearby bushes are frequently home to the large-cactus finch, warbler finch, small-ground finch and large-billed flycatcher. Continuing down the trail you come to the only place where waved albatross nest in the islands. Some 12,000 pairs nest on Española each year. The feeling is very dramatic and it seems like a desolate wilderness as the waves crash on the jagged cliffs below and the blowhole shoots water 50-70 feet/15-30 meters into the air. The sky above is full of sea birds including red-billed tropicbirds, American Oystercatchers, swallow-tailed gulls, and Audubon's Shearwaters.

Galapagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

Watch This Video On YouTube Here: youtu.be/lVOutIbVlYA

How To Get Erect And Stay Erect - What Is An Erection?

Grab Your Free Copy of The 3 Deadliest Myths About Erectile Dysfunction Here: bit.ly/Impotence-3DeadlyMythsOfErectileDysfunctionEbook It's hardly a news flash that exercise is important for your current health, but what you might not exactly have known is the fact getting enough exercise is also an important step toward minimizing your ED symptoms. Of course, don't be prepared to hear might be found from the people who are selling you ED pills on a monthly basis. They'd just as soon see you not do anything to reduce your symptoms so you'll keep buying from them on a monthly basis, but it's true. By itself, exercise is nearly certain not to be sufficient to get rid of ED totally, but it can absolutely help minimize your symptoms. Why Exercise Improves Your ED? At the core, erectile dysfunction is a circulatory condition. It's about blood flow. Think about it: The facts that causes your penis to become erect? Blood flowing to it. The better your circulation and a lot more blood that flows into your erectile tissue, the firmer and better your erections shall be. This explains why some exercises are much better than others at reducing ED symptoms. Specifically, what you would like are cardiovascular exercises. Yes, you want to work up a sweat, but more than that, you should do an exercise that really gets your heart pumping. People shall tell you that the best way to begin is to start modestly. To commit to, say, quarter-hour of exercise, three to five times weekly when you're starting out. Then, as time passes, increase your duration slowly, and the number of days per week you're exercising. That's generally very good advice, but we want to add yet another wrinkle to that. For starters, KEEP your exercise to three days a full week, but yes, gradually build up the amount of time you may spend exercising. Moreover though, find a sport you enjoy. It could be anything. Kayaking, soccer, fencing, hiking...just make sure it's something you love, and something you're interested in. If you like to do it, and are passionate about it, you'll naturally be inclined to do more of it. This is why you don't have to bump up your exercise to more than three times per week. You'll be supplementing that with your brand-new sports activity. Think about this to be your "sweat equity." This is the equity you placed into living a longer, healthier life. In exchange for the sweat equity, you'll get a healthier heart and lungs, better circulation, more energy, more stamina, and when you have ED, you'll notice a marked decrease in your symptoms. If you don't have ED, a good exercise program won't guarantee that you will never experience difficulties, but if so when you do, they will be much milder than they otherwise would have been. You will discover relatively few people beyond "gym rats" who want to exercise, so consider it as an investment. That is why we used the word "sweat equity." We wish you to think about it in exactly the same conditions as financial investments you make in your own future. If you can put yourself for the reason that mindset, and if you supplement your regular physical exercise with a sport you love, you'll be more likely to stick with it, and consistency is key. Exercise, and its overall effectiveness is only as effective as your commitment to it. The one kind of exercise that comes with a caveat is bicycling. There is no doubt that it is a terrific way to get (and stay) in form, but it includes one small drawback. Studies have shown that spending a lot of time cycling can result in an increased probability of problems with your prostate gland. It can also, in at least some cases, cause numbness around the penis, which without quite the same as ED, will surely reduce the quality of your erections. Furthermore to cardio-based exercises and a normal workout routine, don't overlook the value of stretching. You are able to do something like Tai Chi or Yoga, for example. Both of these are great ways to stretch and tone muscle tissue, and make an excellent addition to your overall fitness routine. The great thing about Yoga is that it is a wonderful, meditative technique, in addition to being a great way to stretch. Start and modestly simply, and work your way into more advanced postures slowly. The end result is simple: Exercise is not only good for your overall health, it's also good for your sexual health. If you are genuinely enthusiastic about maintaining an active sex life well past your forties, when men commence experiencing sexual difficulties typically, then you are going to want to make regular physical exercise an important part of your daily routine. Again, the main thing here is to be certain you pick a sport that you're genuinely interested in, because that means it is easy to stay with it. Subscribe to my channel here: youtube.com/c/BretmcopelandBlogspot

via Men's Health Channel

"The Cradle" is a groundbreaking office building located in Düsseldorf's Media Harbor, completed in late 2023. It stands out as a pioneering example of sustainable architecture, built on the principles of "Cradle to Cradle®" (C2C). This innovative approach focuses on designing buildings where materials can be endlessly recycled or safely returned to the biosphere, minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency throughout the building's entire lifecycle. The Cradle thus serves not just as a workspace, but as a living laboratory for circular economy in construction, aiming for a positive ecological, social, and economic impact.

Designed by HPP Architekten, The Cradle features a striking, rhombic-shaped façade made primarily of wood and glass. This distinctive V-shaped timber structure not only defines its architectural identity but also serves multiple functions: it acts as a load-bearing element, provides natural sun protection (with varying depths of recesses according to orientation), and creates individual loggias that offer views of the harbor. The building is largely constructed as a timber-hybrid, meaning most of its structure, including columns and ceilings, are made from wood sourced from sustainable European forests, significantly reducing its carbon footprint compared to conventional concrete and steel constructions.

The "SIGN!" building, completed in 2010, is a distinctive high-rise office tower located in Düsseldorf's Media Harbor, immediately recognizable for its sleek, modern design. Standing at approximately 75 meters (247 feet) with 19 floors, it was designed by the renowned architect Helmut Jahn (Murphy/Jahn Architects), known for his innovative use of glass and steel. The building's striking exterior is characterized by a rounded rectangular floor plan and a unique, scale-shaped glass facade, weighing 453 tons, which not only gives it a prominent visual identity but also plays a role in its elaborate energy concept.

Beyond its striking aesthetics, SIGN! is a testament to sophisticated engineering and functional design. The building's core elements, such as elevators and staircases, are deliberately positioned on the exterior of the oval structure, allowing for column-free and highly flexible office spaces on each floor. A highlight of the building is its "Sky-Lobby" on the 20th floor, offering a breathtaking 360-degree panoramic view of the Media Harbor and Düsseldorf skyline, serving as a versatile space for events and conferences. SIGN! is a notable addition to the Media Harbor's collection of architectural landmarks, embodying the area's transition into a vibrant business and creative hub.

The Düsseldorf Media Harbor, also known as MedienHafen, is a striking example of urban regeneration, transforming a former industrial port into a vibrant hub of modern architecture, media, and creative businesses. Located on the Rhine River, it's a popular destination for both locals and tourists, known for its dynamic atmosphere, stylish restaurants, bars, and a bustling nightlife. The area successfully blends its industrial heritage, retaining original quay walls and bollards, with a cutting-edge urban landscape.

The Media Harbor is a showcase of impressive contemporary architecture, featuring works by internationally renowned architects such as Frank O. Gehry, Steven Holl, David Chipperfield, and Helmut Jahn. The most iconic structures are undoubtedly the three "Gehry Buildings" (Neuer Zollhof), with their distinctively warped and tilted facades in brick, mirrored, and white finishes. These architectural masterpieces, alongside other notable buildings like the Stadttor (City Gate) and the multi-colored Colorium, have made the Media Harbor a significant landmark and a draw for architecture enthusiasts.

Two of the amazingly colourful Marine Iguanas from Suarez Point on Espanola with a Blue Footed Booby in the background.

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.

Blue Footed Booby

The natural breeding habitat of the Blue-footed Booby (Sula nebouxii) is tropical and subtropical islands off the Pacific Ocean, most famously, the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador. The name “booby” comes from the Spanish term bobo, which means "Stupid" or "Fool"/"Clown". This is because the Blue-footed Booby is clumsy on the land. Like other seabirds, they can be very tame. The Blue-footed Booby is on average 81 cm (32”) long and weighs 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lb), with the females slightly larger than the males. It has long pointed wings and a wedge shaped tail. They have strong, thick necks. The booby's eyes are placed on either side of their bill and oriented towards the front. They have excellent binocular vision. The Blue-footed Booby's eyes are yellow. The male has more yellow on its iris than the female does. The Blue-footed Booby has permanently closed nostrils specialized for diving. They breathe through the corners of their mouths. Their feet range from a pale turquoise to a deep aquamarine. Males and younger birds have lighter feet than females do. Blue-footed Boobies are distributed among the continental coasts of the eastern Pacific Ocean to the Galapagos Islands and California. The Blue-footed Booby is strictly a marine bird. Their only need for land is to breed, which they do along rocky coasts. The courtship of the Blue-footed Booby consists of the male flaunting his blue feet and dancing to impress the female. During the dance, the male will spread his wings and stamp his feet on the ground. The Blue-footed Booby is a monogamous animal although they do have the potential to be bigamous. They reunite at their breeding grounds. The breeding cycle of the booby is every 8 to 9 months. When mating, the female parades and the male points his head and tail high to the sky and his wings are back to show off to the female. The male blue-footed booby also makes a high-piping whistle noise. Males do a dance to attract the females. The dance includes the males lifting their blue feet high and throwing their heads up. The blue-footed booby is not a seasonally reproducing species. They are opportunistic in their breeding. The female Blue-footed Booby lays two or three eggs. Both male and female take turns incubating the eggs, while the non-sitting bird keeps a watch. Since the Blue-footed Booby does not have a brooding patch (a patch of bare skin on the underbelly) it uses its feet to keep the eggs warm. The chicks cannot control their body temperature up until about one month old. Eggs are laid about 5 days apart. Blue-foots are one of only two species of booby that raise more than one chick. This may be because of the males specialized diving in shallow waters. They must be fed frequently, so the adults constantly hunt for fish. The chicks feed off the regurgitated fish in the adult's mouth. If the parent Blue-footed Booby does not have enough food for all of the chicks, it will only feed the biggest chick, ensuring that at least one will survive. Boobies may use and defend two or three nesting sites until they develop a preference a few weeks before the eggs are laid. Usually 2 to 3 eggs are laid and 1 to 2 chicks are hatched. The incubation period is 41–45 days. They nest on bare black lava in a small dip in the ground. The female will turn to face the sun throughout the day so the nest is surrounded by excretion. These nests are done in large colonies. The male and female share quite a bit of their responsibilities. The male will provide food for the young in the first part of their life because of his specialized diving and the female will take over when the demand is higher. The Blue-footed Booby's diet consists entirely of fish. Blue-footed Boobies are specialized fish eaters feeding on school fish like sardines, anchovies, mackerel, and flying fish. They also feed on squid and offal. It dives into the ocean, sometimes from a great height, and swims underwater in pursuit of its prey. It hunts singly, in pairs or in larger flocks. They travel in parties of 12 or so to areas of water with large schools of small fish. When the lead bird sees a fish shoal in the water, it will signal the rest of the group and they will all dive together to catch the fish. Surprisingly, individuals do not eat with the hunting group, preferring to eat on their own, usually in the early morning or late afternoon. When they spot a school they will all dive in unison. They will point their bodies down like a torpedo and dive into the water. Plunge diving can be done from heights of 33-100ft and even up to 330 ft (100 m). These birds hit the water around 60 mph (97 km/h) and can go to depths of 82 ft (25 m) below the water surface. The prey is usually eaten while the bird is still under water. Males and females fish differently which could contribute to the reasons that blue foots, unlike other boobies raise more than one young. The male is smaller and the tail is larger for its body which enables the male to fish in shallow areas instead of just deep waters. The tail can flatten out easier enabling him to change direction in the shallow water. The female is larger and can carry more food. The food is then regurgitated to the young. The males feed the young for the first part of the incubation period. This is done because the males can bring back food quicker than the female. When the demand for more food takes over the female provides the food to the young. Blue-foots will make raucous or polysyllabic grunts or shouts and thin whistle noise. The males of the species have been known to throw up their head and whistle at a female flying by. Their ritual displays are also a form of communication.

Espanola (Suarez Point)

Approximately a 10-12 hour trip from Santa Cruz, Española is the oldest and the southernmost island in the chain. The trip across open waters can be quite rough especially during August and September. Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. The subspecies of Marine iguana from Española are the only ones that change color during breeding season. Normally, marine iguanas are black in color, a camouflage, making it difficult for predators to differentiate between the iguanas and the black lava rocks where they live. On Española adult marine iguanas are brightly colored with a reddish tint except during mating season when their color changes to more of a greenish shade. The Hood Mockingbird is also endemic to the island. These brazen birds have no fear of man and frequently land on visitors heads and shoulders searching for food. The Hood Mockingbird is slightly larger than other mockingbirds found in the Galapagos; its beak is longer and has a more curved shape. The Hood Mockingbird is the only carnivorous one of the species feeding on a variety of insects, turtle hatchlings and sea lion placentas. Wildlife is the highlight of Española and the star of the show is the waved albatross. The island's steep cliffs serve as the perfect runways for these large birds which take off for their ocean feeding grounds near the mainland of Ecuador and Peru abandoning the island between January and March. Known as endemic to the island, Española is the waved albatross's only nesting place. Each April the males return to Española followed shortly thereafter by the females. Mating for life, their ritual begins with the male's annual dance to re-attract his mate. The performance can take up to 5 days consisting of a series of strutting, honking, and beak fencing. Once the pair is reacquainted they produce a single egg and share the responsibility of incubation. The colony remains based on Española until December when the chick is fully grown. By January most of the colony leaves the island to fish along the Humboldt Current. Young albatross do not return to Española until their 4th or 5th year when they return to seek a mate. Geographically Española is a classic example of a shield volcano, created from a single caldera in the center of the island. Over the years as the island has moved further away from the hot spot, the volcano became extinct and erosion began to occur. Española's two visitor sites offer an exceptional island visit. Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the Galapagos Islands. The variety and quantity of wildlife assures a memorable visit. Visitors find migrant, resident, and endemic wildlife including brightly colored Marine Iguanas, Española Lava Lizards, Hood Mockingbirds, Swallow Tailed Gulls, Blue Footed and Masked Boobies, Galapagos Hawks, a selection of Finch, and the Waved Albatross.Found on the western tip of Española, Punta Suarez offers great wildlife such as sea lions, sea birds and the largest marine iguanas of Galapagos. This is one of the best sites in the Galapagos. The amount of wildlife is overwhelming. Along the beach there are many sea lions and large, colorful lava lizards and marine iguanas. As you follow the trail to the cliff's edge masked boobies can be found nesting among the rock formations. After a short walk down to a beach and back up the other side blue-footed boobies are seen nesting just off the trail. The Galapagos Dove and very friendly Hood Mockingbird are commonly found in this area. The nearby bushes are frequently home to the large-cactus finch, warbler finch, small-ground finch and large-billed flycatcher. Continuing down the trail you come to the only place where waved albatross nest in the islands. Some 12,000 pairs nest on Española each year. The feeling is very dramatic and it seems like a desolate wilderness as the waves crash on the jagged cliffs below and the blowhole shoots water 50-70 feet/15-30 meters into the air. The sky above is full of sea birds including red-billed tropicbirds, American Oystercatchers, swallow-tailed gulls, and Audubon's Shearwaters.

Galapagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

NOTE TO LOCAL FRIENDS: Fish Creek Provincial Park is now closed to vehicle access.

"“We are asking all Albertans to assist us by complying with the public access restriction and to stay home during this critical time.

If you have plans to travel to a provincial park or provincial recreation area, please rethink your plans. We all need to do our part to help minimize the spread of COVID-19 among vulnerable Albertans ....” Minister of Environment and Parks, Jason Nixon. STAY HOME!

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These 10 photos are the last few that were taken on Day 11 of our 13-day trip to South Texas one year ago (March 2019). Some of the photos were drive-by photos taken through the windscreen or side window glass. I have messed around with them and just cannot try any more. These happen to be the ones I took with my Nikon, not the Canon, so they provide the GPS locations, which is why I am posting them. The next photos to be posted are from Day 12 and there are not many.

In the extremely difficult and stressful time that we are all in now, please do remember to be patient and to be kind and thankful to everyone who still has to work, especially Health Care workers - my daughter is one of them, and she said that she is overly stressed and exhausted, partly because of families and visitors who lose their temper over restrictions that have been put in place in the hospital.

About a week ago, I finally made a trip to a couple of stores, that I really didn't want to do. I knew that if there were a lot of people, I would instead turn around and go home. I needed food and I did buy an extra one of various items - but no hoarding. The cashier at the food store told me that one of the younger cashiers had been in tears because of being yelled at by some customers. At the drug store, the young woman cashier told me that she was so stressed out, again partly because of angry, yelling customers, that she was about to burst into tears. We had a talk, as there was no one waiting behind me in line, and I made sure to thank her for meticulously sanitizing the work space at the till. A few kind words can make all the difference, people! There were no line-ups at either store, for which I was extremely thankful. I know I do need to be very careful myself - I have 3 of the risk factors; age, high blood pressure, and the most concerning being a chronic cough that I have had for maybe 10 or so years, which sometimes turns into a coughing fit where I can't breath. Went through all sorts of tests but no one could find a cause. So, here I am, still coughing! The last thing I would want is the Coronavirus cough on top of it! Stay safe and well, everyone!!

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CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 16 March 2020: 74 confirmed cases in Alberta, 342 in Canada. 4 deaths in Canada - so far, all have been in British Columbia.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 17 March 2020: 97 confirmed cases in Alberta, 447 cases in Canada. 70 confirmed cases in the Calgary Zone. 7 deaths in Canada.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 18 March 2020: 119 confirmed cases in Alberta, 83 confirmed cases in Calgary Zone, 591 in Canada. 8 deaths in Canada.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 19 March 2020: 146 confirmed cases in Alberta, 101 confirmed cases in Calgary Zone, 736 in Canada. 9 deaths in Canada, 1 death in Alberta.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 20 March 2020: 195 (up from 146!) confirmed cases in Alberta, 101 confirmed cases in Calgary Zone, 846 in Canada. 10 deaths in Canada, 1 death in Alberta.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 22 March 2020: 259 (up from 226) confirmed cases in Alberta, 1,302 (up from 1,048) in Canada. 19 deaths in Canada, 1 death in Alberta.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 23 March 2020: 301 (up from 259) confirmed cases in Alberta, 1,432 (up from 1,302) in Canada. 20 deaths in Canada, 1 death in Alberta.

CORONAVIRUS UPDATE, 27 March 2020: 542 (up from 486) confirmed cases in Alberta, 4,074 (up from 4,018) in Canada. 337 in the Calgary Zone (1 death). 39 deaths in Canada, 2 deaths in Alberta. Completed tests (as of March 27) in Alberta 38,215 - 419 positive.

www.alberta.ca/coronavirus-info-for-albertans.aspx

24 March 2020: "14 people sick at Calgary care centre (the McKenzie Towne Continuing Care Centre) where woman died of COVID-19."

calgary.ctvnews.ca/14-people-sick-at-calgary-care-centre-...

National Parks in Canada have now been shut down.

All Alberta provincial parks and public lands are now closed.

Olympics 2020 in Japan has been postponed to 2021.

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Saturday, 28 March 2020: our temperature early afternoon is -3C (windchill -7C). Sunrise is at 7:19 am, and sunset is at 8:04 pm. Very overcast today.

On Day 11, the first place we went to was the Birding and Nature Centre, on South Padre Island. The afternoon before, we had spent two hours there, but our "proper" visit was for three hours in the morning of Day 11. Such a great place!

www.spibirding.com/

Simply amazing artist! "The South Padre Island Convention Center boasts one of only 100 Wyland Whaling Wall murals. The mural titled "Orcas of the Gulf of Mexico," depicts life-sized killer whales and is number 53 of Wyland's Whaling Walls series."

This is a list of Whaling Walls, which are large outdoor murals by the artist Robert Wyland, featuring images of life-size gray whales, breaching humpback whales, blue whales, and other sea life. Whaling Walls (a pun on the Wailing Wall) are created by invitation of the communities, institutions, and building owners of the structures on which they are painted. The one hundredth and possibly final Whaling Wall was painted in Beijing in 2008" From Wikipedia.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Whaling_Walls

Someone told us about a different location, and a short drive south from the Centre took us to around W Sheepshead St and Laguna Blvd, where we saw a Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Monarch butterflies, and a Green Anole (lizard).

We had our picnic lunch at the nearby Convention Centre, which is near the Birding and Nature Centre, and then looked for a Yellow-throated Warbler from the rear patio at the Centre. Amazingly, we did see it, along with a Black-and-white Warbler and a Wilson's Warbler. Not easy trying to photograph these fast-moving little birds that get hidden among the branches.

Driving north again, we called in at a beach that was part of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge, where we could enjoy seeing the ocean waves and Laughing Gulls. This was our last stop before returning to our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express & Suites, Brownsville.

The next day, 30 March 2019, we had to drive from Brownsville to Houston, where we stayed for one night at La Quinta Inn & Suites Houston. The following day, we flew from Bush Intl Airport back to Calgary. What a fantastic holiday we had!

This snow leopard, named Enif, lives at Banham Zoo in Norfolk. She arrived in 2006 from Tama Zoo in Japan.

The snow leopard is well adapted to its harsh environment. Its fur camouflages the cat against rocky terrain and protects it from cold temperatures. Their dense fur, 2 in. (50 mm) long on their back and sides and almost 5 in. (122 mm) long on their belly, is grey and dotted with black rosettes but white on the belly. Thick fur also covers the cat's wide paws, this minimizes heat loss. The paws also act as natural snowshoes helping distribute their weight over soft snow.

Snow leopards have short powerful legs and are tremendous jumpers, able to leap as far as 50 ft. (15.25 m), or approximately 6 times their body length. They have a stocky body, and an extremely long, bushy tail which they use for balancing and as blanket, curling it over the face to stay warm. Its short muzzle and small ears also help the animal conserve heat. While other big cats have golden eyes, the snow leopard's eyes are grey or green. Also, unlike other big cats, the snow leopard cannot roar. Male snow leopards are larger than females, but they have a similar appearance. On average, a snow leopard's length is between 30 to 59 in. (75 to 150 cm), plus a tail that's 31 to 41 in. (80 to 105 cm) long. The average snow leopard weighs between 49 to 121 lb. (22 to 55 kg). A large male may reach 165 lb. (75 kg), while a small female may weigh under 55 lb. (25 kg).

Shy and reclusive, and rarely seen in the wild, snow leopards inhabit steep, rugged terrain with rocky outcrops throughout the high mountain ranges of the Himalayas and the southern Siberian mountains in Russia. They can also be found in the Tibetan Plateau and across a range that stretches from China to the mountains of Central Asia. In the summer, the snow leopards live above the tree line from 8,900 to 19,700 ft. (2,700 to 6,000 m), but in the winter they descend to forests between 3,900 to 6,600 (1,220 to 2,000 m). While they are adapted to traverse rocky terrain and snow, snow leopards will follow trails made by people and animals if they are available. They require an enormous amount of space to roam, male leopards need up to 80 square miles, while females have ranges of up to 48 square miles. They can travel over 25 miles in a single night.

Snow leopards' prey upon the blue sheep (bharal) of Tibet and the Himalayas, as well as the mountain ibex found over most of the rest of their range. Though these powerful predators can kill animals three times their weight, they also eat smaller fare, such as marmots, hares, and game birds. Snow leopards do not hunt adult yaks or humans. Usually they are solitary hunters, but pairs have been known to hunt together. One Indian snow leopard, protected and observed in a national park, is reported to have consumed five blue sheep, nine Tibetan woolly hares, 25 marmots, five domestic goats, one domestic sheep, and 15 birds in a single year.

Snow leopards' mate in late winter. The female finds a rocky den, which she lines with fur from her belly. After a 90 to100 day gestation, she gives birth to 1 to 5 black-spotted cubs. Like domestic kittens, snow leopard cubs are blind at birth. Cubs are weaned by 10 weeks of age and remain with their mother for up to 18 to 22 months. At that point, the young cats travel great distances to seek their new home. Scientists believe this trait naturally reduces the chance of inbreeding. In the wild, most cats live between 15 and 18 years, but snow leopards live about 25 years in captivity.

Despite a range of over 772,200 sq. miles (2 million km2), scientist estimate that there may only be between 3,920 and 6,390 snow leopards left in the wild. As an apex predator, adult snow leopards are not hunted by other animals. Cubs may be eaten by birds of prey, but only humans hunt the adult cat for its fur and body parts. It is also killed to protect livestock. Humans also hunt the leopard's prey, forcing the animal to encroach on human settlements to find food.

The snow leopard was on the endangered species list from 1972 until 2017. The IUCN Red List now categorizes the snow leopard as 'Vulnerable'.

♥eBODY Curvy (not illustrated on Poster)

♥eBODY Classic

♥Alice

♥Star

♥Tonic Fine

♥Tonic Curvy

♥Tonic Minimizer

♥Perky

♥Legacy

♥Altamura

♥Belleza Freya

♥Belleza Isis

♥Belleza Venus

♥Maitreya

♥Slink Hourglass

♥Slink Physique

♥ NEW RELEASE ♥

Trinity Knotted Halter

April 2020

Inworld Here: maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Cevedale/99/18/315

Marketplace Here: marketplace.secondlife.com/p/GH-Trinity-Knotted-Silk-Halt...

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. The two surviving species of camel are the dromedary, or one-humped camel (C. dromedarius), which inhabits the Middle East and the Horn of Africa; and the bactrian, or two-humped camel (C. bactrianus), which inhabits Central Asia. Both species have been domesticated; they provide milk, meat, hair for textiles or goods such as felted pouches, and are working animals with tasks ranging from human transport to bearing loads.

The term "camel" is derived via Latin and Greek (camelus and κάμηλος kamēlos respectively) from Hebrew or Phoenician gāmāl.

"Camel" is also used more broadly to describe any of the six camel-like mammals in the family Camelidae: the two true camels and the four New World camelids: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña of South America.

BIOLOGY

The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult camel stands 1.85 m at the shoulder and 2.15 m at the hump. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h. Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg.

The male dromedary camel has in its throat an organ called a dulla, a large, inflatable sac he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.

ECOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL ADAPTIONS

Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.

Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg camel can drink 200 L of water in three minutes.

Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C by sunset, before they cool off at night again. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight to sweating, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.

When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.

The camels' thick coats insulate them from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C. Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.

Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their transparent third eyelid. The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.

The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel feces are so dry that they do not require drying when the Bedouins use them to fuel fires.

Camels' immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These "heavy-chain-only" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs.

GENETICS

The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotime consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m at the shoulder and 2.32 m tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg and can carry around 400 to 450 kg, which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can. According to molecular data, the New World and Old World camelids diverged 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can still hybridize and produce fertile offspring. The cama is a camel–llama hybrid bred by scientists who wanted to see how closely related the parent species were. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama has ears halfway between the length of camel and llama ears, no hump, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. According to cama breeder Lulu Skidmore, cama have "the fleece of the llamas" and "the strength and patience of the camel". Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.

EVOLUTION

The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene.

The direct ancestor of all modern camels, Procamelus, existed in the upper Miocone and lower Pliocene. Around 3–5 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America via the Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals, and to Asia via the Bering land bridge. Surprising finds of fossil Paracamelus on Ellesmere Island beginning in 2006 in the high Canadian Arctic indicate the dromedary is descended from a larger, boreal browser whose hump may have evolved as an adaptation in a cold climate. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet tall.

The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia.

DOMESTICATION

Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of Native Americans from Asia into North America, 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. The only wild camels left are the Bactrian camels of the Gobi Desert.

Like the horse, before their extinction in their native land, camels spread across the Bering land bridge, moving the opposite direction from the Asian immigration to America, to survive in the Old World and eventually be domesticated and spread globally by humans.

Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia and southern Arabia, around 3,000 BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.

Discussions concerning camel domestication in Mesopotamia are often related to mentions of camels in the Hebrew Bible. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J for instance mentions that "In accord with patriarchal traditions, cylinder seals from Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia showed riders seated upon camels."

Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that the bactrian camel was domesticated by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, then moving into Mesopotamia, and suggests that mentions of camels "in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel." while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan.

Recent excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This garnered considerable media coverage as it was described as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Esau were written after this time.

The existence of camels in Mesopotamia but not in Israel is not a new idea. According to an article in Time Magazine, the historian Richard Bulliet wrote in his 1975 book "The Camel and the Wheel" that "the occasional mention of camels in patriarchal narratives does not mean that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that period." The archaeologist William F. Albright writing even earlier saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism. The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes that "The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant signifies a crucial juncture in the history of the region; it substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112-116; Jasmin 2005). This, together with the depiction of camels in the Patriarchal narrative, has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558-584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century BCE)" and concludes that "Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region - attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I - raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade."

MILITARY USES

By at least 1200 BC, the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500–100 BC, Bactrian camels attained military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC, the military Arabian saddle appeared, which improved the saddle design again slightly.

Camel cavalries have been used in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into modern-day Border Security Force of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF has planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first use of camel cavalries was in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.

In the East Roman Empire, the Romans used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom they recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close ranges (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra.

19th and 20th CENTURIES

The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, which was stationed in California in the late 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.

France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.

In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.

In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.

The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.

Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region.

The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.

The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.

FOOD USES

DAIRY

Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal in and of itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month. Camel milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and immunoglobulins; compared to cow's milk, it is lower in fat and lactose, and higher in potassium, iron, and vitamin C. Bedouins believe the curative powers of camel milk are enhanced if the camel's diet consists of certain desert plants. Camel milk can readily be made into a drinkable yogurt, as well as butter or cheese, though the yields for cheese tend to be low.

Camel milk cannot be made into butter by the traditional churning method. It can be made if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant. The sale of camel cheese is limited owing to the small output of the few dairies producing camel cheese and the absence of camel cheese in local (West African) markets. Cheese imports from countries that traditionally breed camels are difficult to obtain due to restrictions on dairy imports from these regions.

Additionally, camel milk has been made into ice cream in a Netherlands camel farm.

MEAT

A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg, while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg. The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg. The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains "white and sickly fat", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes more tender the more it is cooked. The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. In Syria and Egypt, there are specialist camel butchers.

Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The ancient Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel.[31] Camel meat is still eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals. Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs.

A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.

RELIGION

ISLAM

Camel meat is halal for Muslims. However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat.

Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haraam for a Muslim to perform salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of shaytan.

According to Suni ahadith collected by Bukhari and Muslim, Muhammad ordered a certain group of people to drink camel milk and urine as a medicine. However, according to Abū Ḥanīfa, the drinking of camel urine, while not forbidden (ḥaram), is disliked (makrūh) in Islam.

Camel urine is sold as traditional medicine in shops in Saudi Arabia. The Sunni scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid's IslamQA.info recommends camel urine as beneficial to curing certain diseases and to human health and cited Ahadith and scientific studies as justification. King Abdulaziz University researcher Dr. Faten Abdel-Rajman Khorshid has claimed that cancer and other diseases could be treated with camel urine as recommended by the Prophet. The United Arab Emirates "Arab Science and Technology Foundation" reported that cancer could be treated with camel urine. Camel urine was also prescribed as a treatment by Zaghloul El-Naggar, a religious scholar. Camel urine is the only urine which is permitted to be drunk according to the Hanbali madhhab of Sunni Islam. The World Health Organization said that camel urine consumption may be a factor in the spread of the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Times writer Ahmad al-Sayyed wrote that various afflictions are dealt with camel urine by people. Dandruff, scalp ailments, hair, sores, and wounds were recommended to be treated with camel urine by Ibn Sina. Arab American University Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology Bashar Saad (PhD) along with Omar Said (PhD) wrote that medicinal use of camel urine is approved of and promoted by Islam since it was recommended by the prophet. A test on mice found that cytotoxic effects similar to cyclophosphamide were induced on bone marrow by camel urine. Besides for consumption as a medicinal drink, camel urine is believed to help treat hair. Bites from insects were warded off with camel urine, which also served as a shampoo. Camel urine is also used to help treat asthma, infections, treat hair, sores, hair growth and boost libido.

Several Sunni Ahadith mention drinking camel urine. Some Shia criticized Wahhabis for camel urine treatment. Shia scholars also recommend the medicinal use of camel urine. Shia Hadith on Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq reported that shortness of breath (asthma) was treated with camel urine. Shia Marja Ayatollah Sistani said that for medicinal purposes only, sheep, cow, and camel urine can be drunk.

JUDAISM

According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves:

Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof: the camel, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.

— Leviticus 11:4

DISTRIBUTION ANDNUMBERS

There are around 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia (which has the largest camel herd in the world) and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.

The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The only truly wild Bactrian camels, of which there are less than one thousand, are thought to inhabit the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia.

The largest population of feral camels is in Australia. There are around 700,000 feral dromedary camels in central parts of Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.

A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwest United States after having been imported in the 1800s as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and imported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.

WIKIPEDIA

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www.eaue.de/winuwd/47.htm Abstract:

Vienna waste management policy has taken important steps towards the installation of separated collection systems since the beginning of the 1990s. Although the effects of separate collection had been underestimated for a long time, new strategies in the field of waste minimization and recycling have been implemented with considerable success. For example in 1994 (and for the first time) the quantity of household mixed waste did not increase in the City of Vienna. The following years, however, again showed an increase in municipal solid waste. In 1998 the increase in mixed household waste was once again nearly stopped but the quantity of recyclable waste continued to rise. The combination of recycling, incineration, and dumping practices is still aiming at the best possible ecological standards. The new policy is a remarkable achievement for the following reasons:

waste minimization principles have become an essential part of waste management;

waste management is focusing on the best ecological standards;

special attention is given to the limitation of waste dumping;

rapid progress has been made with organic waste and waste-to-energy systems;

the exploitation of material flow is regarded as an activity of increasing importance.

Concept and aims

For far too long the management of the economy has been marked by a narrow focus on the production of goods, their supply and consumption, while waste management has been dealt with secondarily and in isolation. Waste management has previously not been regarded as an operational tool that is able to influence the flow of materials and substances. Now, in order to achieve a sustainable waste policy, the principles of waste management have to be re-examined and upgraded. The aim should be to establish ecological products and services for each waste fraction. In 1998 Vienna’s waste volume in terms of mixed household waste did not keep growing as it had during previous years. This was the result of a waste management policy that started to tackle the different types of waste with new approaches. A basic principle of ecological waste management is the requirement that any waste that can neither be avoided nor recycled must be pre-treated in such a way that it is not a future environmental burden nor does it cause major costs in terms of monitoring and supervision of permanent disposal sites.

In 1999 the Vienna waste concept included the following strategies for waste minimization:

analysis of further potentials for waste-avoidance;

further exploitation of re-use of waste, including the splitting of mixed waste

and the improvement of separated collection practices,

setting up of new information and consultancy activities;

new purchasing policy for waste-reduction;

intensification of cooperation with industries in order to promote a sustainable economy.

The minimization strategies work with the following principles:

continuous analysis of the potential for a closed-cycle policy for each waste fraction;

further extension of the separated collection systems;

measures for increasing the acceptance of recycled products;

new pricing policy for landfill sites;

incineration should be less costly than dumping;

incinerated waste should be less costly than ordinary waste;

extension of the district heating distribution network;

the reutilization of construction and demolition waste should be optimized by new control instruments like an excavation database, a balancing policy of excavation and refilling, and inclusion of environmental standards in the public building sector.

Implementation

Vienna waste management initiatives have generally concentrated on waste-prevention (KLIP-Program) and on other special fields such as maintenance, reuse and education, as well as on recovering organic and building waste. Vienna has been able to show substantial improvements in these areas.

Waste Prevention

Waste prevention programs emphasize PR campaigns supported by various publications that for example explain how and where appliances can be repaired or where products and services can be rented. Further information illustrates how things can be reused and how wastes can better be handled. A next step is to develop information concerning specific waste prevention techniques for application in private households.

In 1995 the City launched the Viennese Climate Protection Program (KLIP) to develop guidelines for a climate protection action plan. This process involved more than 300 people from over 150 departments in Vienna’s administration as well as municipal services and external organizations.

Prioritizing feasibility, KLIP has developed 35 different measures regarding energy, traffic, and procurement and waste management efforts. Altogether these are expected to result in a reduction of 25% in carbon dioxide emissions per capita per year. While the ambitious Climate Alliance goal of a 50% reduction is desirable, it can not practically be achieved by the year 2010: Vienna has already reduced its annual emissions to about 5.4 tons of carbon dioxide per capita (compared to Frankfurt with its 13.8 !), and therefor does not have the same large opportunities for further reductions as other large European cities.

To move away from “end of the pipe” technologies and toward precautionary and preventive strategies, Vienna launched the project for environmentally sound public procurement (ÖKOKAUF WIEN). Introduced in 1998 with the help of about 200 experts, this project has developed criteria for procurement in areas such as construction, house-keeping and cleaning, electrical appliances, paper and printing services, food services, and water and lighting systems.

Also important is the Vienna EcoBusiness Plan that deals with the implementation of environmental initiatives through working with professional consultants to assist environmental initiatives in private companies and institutions. This Plan involves four special prevention and waste management programs: EMAS, Ecoprofit, Companies in the Climate Alliance, and Eco-Label Tourism.

Organic waste management

Organic waste management had already been established in Vienna by 1956, when the first organic waste composting plant went into operation. However, in 1981 this policy had to be abandoned as the compost -- which was produced from residual waste -- had become too polluted. Nevertheless, the idea was again pursued when separate collection systems were introduced.

After organic waste bin prototypes proved to be promising, the City of Vienna started research into a suitable method of composting. Between 1988 and 1990 developments concentrated on de-composting processes, and on the quality of finished products. In addition, possibilities for using artificially aerated de-composting systems were tested.

The new Lobau composting plant is located in an open area of 5.2 hectares. The process of de-composting takes between six and ten months, through which the waste is converted into humus. This resulting compost is mainly used at municipally-owned agricultural sites or distributed to Vienna residents for use in their gardens. In 1998 nearly 26,000 tons of first class compost were produced and sent on to farms and gardens. A second plant was developed at Schafflerhof in 1993 to manage the increasing volume of separately collected organic waste.

The basic policy of Viennese organic waste management is to produce first class compost with the lowest possible content of heavy metals and other impurities. It must be guaranteed that the compost is suitable for applications in organic farming.

Waste-to-energy policy and the Vienna incineration systems

At present there are three plants in Austria licensed to burn household wastes. There are two plants in Vienna, which in 1998 incinerated a total volume of 430,400 tons compared to a total waste quantity of 872,000 tons.

Waste-to-energy production covered 21.9% of Vienna’s district heating requirements (Spittelau, Flötzersteig, and EbS). The district heating network is 800 km in total length and it provides heating for more than 180,000 households and an additional 4,000 industrial customers.

The waste-treatment company Entsorgungsbetriebe Simmering (EbS) was founded in the 1970s in the 11th District of Vienna. Simmering processes 75,000 tons of hazardous waste per year and operates two rotary kilns for incinerating such wastes, with a combined capacity of 70,000 tons per year. Daily between 3,000 and 4,000 cubic meters of sewage sludge from Vienna’s main treatment plant are thickened to a dry matter with a water content of 35% and then incinerated at a temperature of 850° C in three fluidized bed kilns. Instead of using fuel oil to burn the sewage sludge, a special waste (organic liquids that are processed from non-recyclable packaging wastes) is burned as this has a higher thermal value. As the plants are equipped with flue gas purification and other automatically controlled systems, the level of dioxin does not exceed the values permissible under law. Activated carbon filters have also been installed and have been in operation since 1992 for the further removal of dioxins.

This treatment process is currently regarded as an exemplary model.

Results and Impacts

The Vienna waste collection system has installed approximately 200, 000 containers for household waste. For special collections there are 153,600 containers in use of which 77,900 are for paper, 43,400 are for organics, 17,600 are for glass, 8,500 are for plastics, and 6,200 are for metals.

With regard to organic waste, the City of Vienna has made rapid progress in implementing its ordinances. The 43,400 containers for organic waste have been installed at more than 16,000 locations across the city. In 1988 the organic waste project started with only 726 containers. On average there are 162 containers per square kilometer of developed urban area.

In Vienna the average distance to the nearest container is less than 60 meters and in highly built up districts the system is even better with an average distance of less than 20 meters to the nearest organic bin. There is no extra levy on organic wastes. In 1998 the volume of collected organic waste amounted to 90,000 tons.

In the waste-to-energy sector the City of Vienna can also rely on a progressive infrastructure for district heating. In 1998 70.2% of district heating was produced by combined power and heat systems, 21.9% came from waste incineration and only 7.9% from the regional power grid (Verbundnetz). This policy led to a savings of 70% of primary energy sources -- which is equivalent to about 271 million kilograms of heating oil. The savings in CO2 emissions is 873,000 tons per annum.

In 1998 49% of the waste was incinerated, 40% of the waste recycled, and 11% of the waste land-filled.

Actors and Structures

Department No. 48 of the Vienna municipal authority is responsible for waste management policy as well as urban clean-ups and the waste collection fleet. In 1998 the authority had a staff of 3,377.

The incineration plants at Spittelau and Flötzersteig are operated by Fernwärme Wien GmbH, a private company which originated from the municipal utilities and whose core business is district-heating. The plants are owned by the City of Vienna. The incineration plant for special waste is operated by the private company Simmering GmbH.

Source of Information

Personal communication with Dipl.-Ing. Helmut Löffler, Senatsrat Wien, 1999.

Spet, Gerhardt 1995: Das Wiener Abfallwirtschaftskonzept.

Spet, Gerhardt 1998: Das Wiener Abfallwirtschaftskonzept: Abfallentwicklung - Überblick - Ausblick, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 5-8.

Lukesch, Heinz 1995: Die Wiener Abfallverbrennungssysteme, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 14-19.

Stanke, Herbert 1995: Der Wiener Weg der Rauchgasreinigung nach Abfallverbrennungsanlagen, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 20-23.

Gilnreiner, Gerhard 1995: Deponien der Zukunft - Modelle und Visionen, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 26-28.

Rogalski, Wojciech 1995: Theorie und Praxis einer modernen Bioabfallwirtschaft oder die Möglichkeit, Kreisläufe zu schliessen, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 33-37.

Zika, Adalbert 1995: Strom aus Deponiegas, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 38-42.

Redl, Walter 1995: im Bereich der Wiederverwertung Ein Beispiel aus Wien, in: Perspektiven, Nr.1, S. 43-47.

Löffler, Helmut 1995: Improvement of Air Quality by Waste Incineration in Vienna, in: EA.UE, (ed.), Urban Environmental Improvements in Vienna’s 7th District. Conference of Central European Metropoles, Berlin, pp. 32-38.

Krobath, Phillip 1999: Fernwärme Wien GmbH - Chemistry & Environment,: private communications.

Engler, Carola 1999: Entsorgungsbetriebe Simmering - Public Relations.: private communications.

Municipal Department 22, 1999: News on Vienna’s environmental and urban technologies - Environmental protection: The City of Vienna’s climate protection program, pp. 13-16.

Contact:

Name:Löffler

Firstname:Helmut

Telefon:++43 / 1 / 4000 88 211

Telefax:++43 / 1 / 4000 88 215

Address:Helmut Löffler

Head of the Department for

Environmental Protection

Leiter der Magistratsabteilung

MA 22 Umweltschutz

A - 1082 Wien

A konfetti rose shot inside my homemade light box using a tripod and remote shutter release to minimize shutter shake.

Here's the link to how I created the light box:

flickr.com/photos/jeffclow/318985211/

I photographed this with my Nikon D80 paired with the 18-200 mm Nikkor lens..... and with the aperture set at f22.

This portrait of a miner was done underground at the depth of 400 meters in the oldest gold mine in the world - Berezovskaya Shakhta. Miner distracted from his work and delivered to the appointed location. item posing was minimized.

From the Ellicott City photo-shoot. I had seen pics of her from Otakon 2010 in this costume. Glad to have finally seen it in person as she did she did a helluva lot of work (check out the jesters' heads hanging from her neck piece. Nice!

Cosplayer: Ellie

UPDATE: Dust-Bunny's Harley was featured in Part 3 of Uproxx's It's "Harley Quinn Month." :-D

Treat Yo' Self: MOST EXPENSIVEST (Full Episode)

Right click link. Select "Open in New Window

www.youtube.com/watch?v=02GLW30OeLc

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Pimping my 2018 calendar:

www.zazzle.com/2018_elements_of_abstraction_v_1_calendar-...

Happy Holidays / Happy New Year 2018

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGD9i718kBU

The new Ida off shoulder top dress in 6 bright patterns, with tan capri pants.

Maitreya Petite & Lara · Altamura · Belleza Isis· Slink Hourglass

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Some background:

After the space-worthy conversion of the CVS-101 Prometheus and the SLV-111 Daedalus carriers, these ships were docked with the SDF-1 Macross and it became clear that this new gigantic vessel required a specialized unit with a heavy armament for medium range defense.

The resulting Space Defense Robot (SDR) Phalanx was tailored to this task. Development of the Phalanx began in a hurry, during the already ongoing Space War I in July 2009. Its systems and structural elements were, to save time and minimize development risks, taken over from a pre-war Destroid standard mass production model. The "Type 04" biped chassis from 2001 was common to several Destroid types, including the Tomahawk medium battle robot and the Defender anti-aircraft robot. The main frame from the waist down included a common module which consolidated the thermonuclear reactor and ambulatory OverTechnology system, and for the Phalanx it was combined with a new, jettisonable torso that was suited to space operations and could also act as a rescue capsule with modest independent propulsion. Thanks to this dedicated mission profile, the Phalanx was the best adapted Destroid to space operations, with the best zero-G maneuverability of any Destroid type during Space War I.

However, Phalanx production only reached limited numbers, due to the type’s high grade of specialization and its inherent vulnerability in close combat - the Phalanx’ combat operation capability decreases substantially once the missile ordnance had been exhausted. Beyond the initial production on Earth, roughly 20 more Phalanx Destroids were also built aboard the SDF-1 Macross shipboard factories, and many of these were later updated from the Mk. XII to the Mk. XIII standard. Post-Space War I, Phalanx Destroids were deployed as part of defense forces on various military bases and used in the ground attack role as long-range infantry support artillery units, fighting from the second line of battle. Nevertheless, the Phalanx remained a stopgap solution and was quickly followed by the more versatile Destroid "Nimrod" SDR-04-Mk. XIV.

Technical Data:

Equipment Type: Space Defense Robot/heavy artillery

Accommodation: One pilot

Government: U.N. Spacy

Manufacturer: Macross Onboard Factories

Introduction: December 2009

Dimensions:

Height 12.05 meters overall (11.27 m w/o searchlight array)

Length 5.1 meters

Width 10.8 meters.

Mass: 47.2 metric tons

Powerplant:

1x Kranss-Maffai MT828 thermonuclear reactor, developing 2800 shp;

Auxillary Shinnakasu Industry CT 03 miniature thermonuclear generator, output rated at 970 kW.

Propulsion:

Biped, with limited zero-G maneuverability through many low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hooks/handles all over the hull.

Armament:

2x Howard SHIN-SHM-10 Derringer short-range high-maneuverability self-guided missile pods, one per arm, with 22 missiles each (missiles stored in two rows behind each other).

Production Notes:

The rather obscure Destroid Phalanx made its media debut in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Episode 27, and it's actually the only occasion where it appears. Original mecha designer is/was Miyatake Kazutaka.

The kit and its assembly:

I have been pushing this build away from the workbench for a long time. I was – after building two conversions - missing a canonical Destroid Phalanx in my Macross mecha collection, and since I had one stashed away (you never know…) I tackled this project now. The kit is Bandai’s re-issue of Imai’s 1982 1:100 kit, a vintage “Matryoshka” construction (= build one element from two halves, place it between two more halves, etc.) which does not make the assembly process easy.

The kit was basically built OOB, but “under the hood” it received some mechanical mods and improvements. These primarily include scratched joints for the arms/launcher pods and the hip. The pods remained detachable through an internal styrene tube construction. An important improvement for the “04 chassis” is a completely now hip joint arrangement because the Phalanx’ OOB posture is pretty stiff, with the legs and feet facing straight forward. The mecha model is just supposed to just stand upright and with the model’s OOB joint options it is really hard to create a vivid poise at all, so that a 3rd dimension improves the posing options a lot. Furthermore, the bolts that hold the legs are prone to break off, even more so because the kit is from the 1st generation of mecha kits without vinyl caps and just a very tight joint fit to hold the appendages in place. My solution was the implantation of a new hip “bone”, made from plastic-coated steel wire, which is stiff in itself but can be bent in two dimensions. The thighs had to be modified accordingly, since the wire is much thinner than the original bolts, and it needs a rigid attachment point. Resulting gaps around the hip joints were filled with bits of paper tissue drenched in white glue.

Other visual improvements include launch tubes inside of the missile pods. These were made from thin plastic drinking straw material, they fill the (rather ugly and well-visible) blank space between the warheads. Additionally, the hollow “heels” were filled on their insides with putty.

While the kit itself is a pretty simple affair, fit is mediocre, and you have to expect PSR almost everywhere. A direly weak spot area is the shank’s rear: there’s a recession with a seam running right through, and there are side walls missing in the section, too. I tried to mend this through putty and decals.

Painting and markings:

Since I wanted to stick to the authentic OOB livery, I gave the model an overall basic color, a greenish-grey, dull beige (RAL 1019) from the rattle can. The canonical Phalanx also features some dark contrast highlights all over the hull, and these were created with RAL 7013 (Revell 46), an olive drab tone that looks, in contrast to the light beige, almost like a dull brown on the model. The box art suggests a very dark grey, but I found that this would not work too well with the overall light beige tone.

Strangely, the characteristic white trim on the lower legs that many Destroids carry was in this boxing provided with the decal sheet – other Destroid kits require them to be painted manually!

Otherwise there's hardly any other color on the Phalanx’ hull. The missile pod exhausts as well as the launcher interior were painted with steel metallizer (Humbrol 27003) and treated with graphite for a shiny finish, the inside of the launcher covers and the missile tips became bright red (Revell 332). The bellows in the knees became anthracite (Revell 06), later dry-brushed with a reddish brown.

Quite a challenge were the three search lights in the “head unit”, because they consist of massive molded opaque styrene. I simulated glass and depth through a bright silver base, with vertical stripes in thinned white and medium grey and a coat with white translucent paint on top of that. Finally, extra artificial light reflexes were added with opaque white paint and, finally, everything was sealed with glossy varnish, which also adds some visual depth.

The model was thoroughly weathered with a black-and-brown watercolor washing and a generous dry-brushing treatment with Hemp 168 (RAF Hemp). The decals came next, taken from the OOB sheet, the Bugs Bunny artwork on the lower right leg is a typical individual detail of many Destroids, taken from a WWII USAAF P-47D.

After some additional weathering with watercolors and some graphite rubbing around the many edges for a worn and beaten look, the model received an overall coat with acrylic matt varnish. After final assembly of the model’s elements, soot stains were added around the missile launchers’ openings as well as to the small thrusters, again with grinded graphite, and some mineral pigments were dusted onto the model with a soft, big brush, esp. around the lower areas.

A build that took some time because of the mediocre fit of the kit and the mechanical mods it IMHO requires. But I am quite happy with the outcome, “just a Destroid” in its gritty heavy ordnance look, and the dull beige suits the Phalanx well.

"The Cradle" is a groundbreaking office building located in Düsseldorf's Media Harbor, completed in late 2023. It stands out as a pioneering example of sustainable architecture, built on the principles of "Cradle to Cradle®" (C2C). This innovative approach focuses on designing buildings where materials can be endlessly recycled or safely returned to the biosphere, minimizing waste and maximizing resource efficiency throughout the building's entire lifecycle. The Cradle thus serves not just as a workspace, but as a living laboratory for circular economy in construction, aiming for a positive ecological, social, and economic impact.

Designed by HPP Architekten, The Cradle features a striking, rhombic-shaped façade made primarily of wood and glass. This distinctive V-shaped timber structure not only defines its architectural identity but also serves multiple functions: it acts as a load-bearing element, provides natural sun protection (with varying depths of recesses according to orientation), and creates individual loggias that offer views of the harbor. The building is largely constructed as a timber-hybrid, meaning most of its structure, including columns and ceilings, are made from wood sourced from sustainable European forests, significantly reducing its carbon footprint compared to conventional concrete and steel constructions.

The "SIGN!" building, completed in 2010, is a distinctive high-rise office tower located in Düsseldorf's Media Harbor, immediately recognizable for its sleek, modern design. Standing at approximately 75 meters (247 feet) with 19 floors, it was designed by the renowned architect Helmut Jahn (Murphy/Jahn Architects), known for his innovative use of glass and steel. The building's striking exterior is characterized by a rounded rectangular floor plan and a unique, scale-shaped glass facade, weighing 453 tons, which not only gives it a prominent visual identity but also plays a role in its elaborate energy concept.

Beyond its striking aesthetics, SIGN! is a testament to sophisticated engineering and functional design. The building's core elements, such as elevators and staircases, are deliberately positioned on the exterior of the oval structure, allowing for column-free and highly flexible office spaces on each floor. A highlight of the building is its "Sky-Lobby" on the 20th floor, offering a breathtaking 360-degree panoramic view of the Media Harbor and Düsseldorf skyline, serving as a versatile space for events and conferences. SIGN! is a notable addition to the Media Harbor's collection of architectural landmarks, embodying the area's transition into a vibrant business and creative hub.

The Düsseldorf Media Harbor, also known as MedienHafen, is a striking example of urban regeneration, transforming a former industrial port into a vibrant hub of modern architecture, media, and creative businesses. Located on the Rhine River, it's a popular destination for both locals and tourists, known for its dynamic atmosphere, stylish restaurants, bars, and a bustling nightlife. The area successfully blends its industrial heritage, retaining original quay walls and bollards, with a cutting-edge urban landscape.

The Media Harbor is a showcase of impressive contemporary architecture, featuring works by internationally renowned architects such as Frank O. Gehry, Steven Holl, David Chipperfield, and Helmut Jahn. The most iconic structures are undoubtedly the three "Gehry Buildings" (Neuer Zollhof), with their distinctively warped and tilted facades in brick, mirrored, and white finishes. These architectural masterpieces, alongside other notable buildings like the Stadttor (City Gate) and the multi-colored Colorium, have made the Media Harbor a significant landmark and a draw for architecture enthusiasts.

Some background:

After the space-worthy conversion of the CVS-101 Prometheus and the SLV-111 Daedalus carriers, these ships were docked with the SDF-1 Macross and it became clear that this new gigantic vessel required a specialized unit with a heavy armament for medium range defense.

The resulting Space Defense Robot (SDR) Phalanx was tailored to this task. Development of the Phalanx began in a hurry, during the already ongoing Space War I in July 2009. Its systems and structural elements were, to save time and minimize development risks, taken over from a pre-war Destroid standard mass production model. The "Type 04" biped chassis from 2001 was common to several Destroid types, including the Tomahawk medium battle robot and the Defender anti-aircraft robot. The main frame from the waist down included a common module which consolidated the thermonuclear reactor and ambulatory OverTechnology system, and for the Phalanx it was combined with a new, jettisonable torso that was suited to space operations and could also act as a rescue capsule with modest independent propulsion. Thanks to this dedicated mission profile, the Phalanx was the best adapted Destroid to space operations, with the best zero-G maneuverability of any Destroid type during Space War I.

However, Phalanx production only reached limited numbers, due to the type’s high grade of specialization and its inherent vulnerability in close combat - the Phalanx’ combat operation capability decreases substantially once the missile ordnance had been exhausted. Beyond the initial production on Earth, roughly 20 more Phalanx Destroids were also built aboard the SDF-1 Macross shipboard factories, and many of these were later updated from the Mk. XII to the Mk. XIII standard. Post-Space War I, Phalanx Destroids were deployed as part of defense forces on various military bases and used in the ground attack role as long-range infantry support artillery units, fighting from the second line of battle. Nevertheless, the Phalanx remained a stopgap solution and was quickly followed by the more versatile Destroid "Nimrod" SDR-04-Mk. XIV.

Technical Data:

Equipment Type: Space Defense Robot/heavy artillery

Accommodation: One pilot

Government: U.N. Spacy

Manufacturer: Macross Onboard Factories

Introduction: December 2009

Dimensions:

Height 12.05 meters overall (11.27 m w/o searchlight array)

Length 5.1 meters

Width 10.8 meters.

Mass: 47.2 metric tons

Powerplant:

1x Kranss-Maffai MT828 thermonuclear reactor, developing 2800 shp;

Auxillary Shinnakasu Industry CT 03 miniature thermonuclear generator, output rated at 970 kW.

Propulsion:

Biped, with limited zero-G maneuverability through many low-thrust vernier thrusters beneath multipurpose hooks/handles all over the hull.

Armament:

2x Howard SHIN-SHM-10 Derringer short-range high-maneuverability self-guided missile pods, one per arm, with 22 missiles each (missiles stored in two rows behind each other).

Production Notes:

The rather obscure Destroid Phalanx made its media debut in Super Dimension Fortress Macross, Episode 27, and it's actually the only occasion where it appears. Original mecha designer is/was Miyatake Kazutaka.

The kit and its assembly:

I have been pushing this build away from the workbench for a long time. I was – after building two conversions - missing a canonical Destroid Phalanx in my Macross mecha collection, and since I had one stashed away (you never know…) I tackled this project now. The kit is Bandai’s re-issue of Imai’s 1982 1:100 kit, a vintage “Matryoshka” construction (= build one element from two halves, place it between two more halves, etc.) which does not make the assembly process easy.

The kit was basically built OOB, but “under the hood” it received some mechanical mods and improvements. These primarily include scratched joints for the arms/launcher pods and the hip. The pods remained detachable through an internal styrene tube construction. An important improvement for the “04 chassis” is a completely now hip joint arrangement because the Phalanx’ OOB posture is pretty stiff, with the legs and feet facing straight forward. The mecha model is just supposed to just stand upright and with the model’s OOB joint options it is really hard to create a vivid poise at all, so that a 3rd dimension improves the posing options a lot. Furthermore, the bolts that hold the legs are prone to break off, even more so because the kit is from the 1st generation of mecha kits without vinyl caps and just a very tight joint fit to hold the appendages in place. My solution was the implantation of a new hip “bone”, made from plastic-coated steel wire, which is stiff in itself but can be bent in two dimensions. The thighs had to be modified accordingly, since the wire is much thinner than the original bolts, and it needs a rigid attachment point. Resulting gaps around the hip joints were filled with bits of paper tissue drenched in white glue.

Other visual improvements include launch tubes inside of the missile pods. These were made from thin plastic drinking straw material, they fill the (rather ugly and well-visible) blank space between the warheads. Additionally, the hollow “heels” were filled on their insides with putty.

While the kit itself is a pretty simple affair, fit is mediocre, and you have to expect PSR almost everywhere. A direly weak spot area is the shank’s rear: there’s a recession with a seam running right through, and there are side walls missing in the section, too. I tried to mend this through putty and decals.

Painting and markings:

Since I wanted to stick to the authentic OOB livery, I gave the model an overall basic color, a greenish-grey, dull beige (RAL 1019) from the rattle can. The canonical Phalanx also features some dark contrast highlights all over the hull, and these were created with RAL 7013 (Revell 46), an olive drab tone that looks, in contrast to the light beige, almost like a dull brown on the model. The box art suggests a very dark grey, but I found that this would not work too well with the overall light beige tone.

Strangely, the characteristic white trim on the lower legs that many Destroids carry was in this boxing provided with the decal sheet – other Destroid kits require them to be painted manually!

Otherwise there's hardly any other color on the Phalanx’ hull. The missile pod exhausts as well as the launcher interior were painted with steel metallizer (Humbrol 27003) and treated with graphite for a shiny finish, the inside of the launcher covers and the missile tips became bright red (Revell 332). The bellows in the knees became anthracite (Revell 06), later dry-brushed with a reddish brown.

Quite a challenge were the three search lights in the “head unit”, because they consist of massive molded opaque styrene. I simulated glass and depth through a bright silver base, with vertical stripes in thinned white and medium grey and a coat with white translucent paint on top of that. Finally, extra artificial light reflexes were added with opaque white paint and, finally, everything was sealed with glossy varnish, which also adds some visual depth.

The model was thoroughly weathered with a black-and-brown watercolor washing and a generous dry-brushing treatment with Hemp 168 (RAF Hemp). The decals came next, taken from the OOB sheet, the Bugs Bunny artwork on the lower right leg is a typical individual detail of many Destroids, taken from a WWII USAAF P-47D.

After some additional weathering with watercolors and some graphite rubbing around the many edges for a worn and beaten look, the model received an overall coat with acrylic matt varnish. After final assembly of the model’s elements, soot stains were added around the missile launchers’ openings as well as to the small thrusters, again with grinded graphite, and some mineral pigments were dusted onto the model with a soft, big brush, esp. around the lower areas.

A build that took some time because of the mediocre fit of the kit and the mechanical mods it IMHO requires. But I am quite happy with the outcome, “just a Destroid” in its gritty heavy ordnance look, and the dull beige suits the Phalanx well.

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One of the massive Marine Iguanas on Isabella

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.

Only in Galagapagos! The sign says, "Beware, Iguana's crossing"!

Isabella

Shaped like a sea horse, Isabela is the largest of the the islands in the Galapagos, more than 4 times larger than Santa Cruz the next largest. Isabela is 80 miles (100 km) in length and though it is remarkably beautiful it is not one of the most visited islands in the chain. Its visitor sites are far apart making them accessible only to faster boats or those with longer itineraries. One of the youngest islands, Isabela is located on the western edge of the archipelago near the Galapagos hot spot. At approximately 1 million years old, the island was formed by the merger of 6 shield volcanoes - Alcedo, Cerro Azul, Darwin, Ecuador, Sierra Negra and Wolf. Five of the six volcanoes are still active (the exception is Ecuador) making it one of the most volcanically active places on earth. Visitors cruising past Elizabeth Bay on the west coast can see evidence of this activity in the fumaroles rising from Volcan Chico on Sierra Negra. Two of Isabela's volcanoes lie directly on the equator - Ecuador and Volcan Wolf. Volcan Wolf is the youngest of Isabela's volcanoes and at 5,600ft (1707 m) the highest point in the Galapagos. Isabela is known for its geology, providing visitors with excellent examples of the geologic occurrences that have created the Galapagos Islands including uplifts at Urbina Bay and the Bolivar Channel, Tuft cones at Tagus Cove, and Pulmace on Alcedo. Isabela is also interesting for its flora and fauna. The young island does not follow the vegetation zones of the other islands. The relatively new lava fields and surrounding soils have not developed the sufficient nutrients required to support the varied life zones found on other islands. Another obvious difference occurs on Volcan Wolf and Cerro Azul, these volcanoes loft above the cloud cover and are arid on top. Isabela's rich animal, bird, and marine life is beyond compare. Isabela is home to more wild tortoises than all the other islands. Isabela's large size and notable topography created barriers for the slow moving tortoises; apparently the creatures were unable to cross lava flows and other obstacles, causing several different sub-species of tortoise to develop. Today tortoises roam free in the calderas of Alcedo, Wolf, Cerro Azul, Darwin and Sierra Negra. Alcedo Tortoises spend most of their life wallowing in the mud at the volcano crater. The mud offers moisture, insulation and protects their exposed flesh from mosquitoes, ticks and other insects. The giant tortoises have a mediocre heat control system requiring them to seek the coolness of the mud during the heat of the day and the extra insulation during the cool of the night. On the west coast of Isabela the nutrient rich Cromwell Current upwelling creating a feeding ground for fish, whales, dolphin and birds. These waters have long been known as the best place to see whales in the Galapagos. Some 16 species of whales have been identified in the area including humpbacks, sperms, sei, minkes and orcas. During the 19th century whalers hunted in these waters until the giant creatures were near extinction. The steep cliffs of Tagus Cove bare the names of many of the whaling ships and whalers which hunted in these waters. Birders will be delighted with the offerings of Isabela. Galapagos Penguins and flightless cormorants also feed from the Cromwell Current upwelling. These endemic birds nest along the coast of Isabela and neighboring Fernandina. The mangrove finch, Galapagos Hawk, brown pelican, pink flamingo and blue heron are among the birds who make their home on Isabela. A colorful part to any tour located on the western shore of Isabela, Punta Moreno is often the first or last stopping point on the island (depending on the direction the boat is heading). Punta Moreno is a place where the forces of the Galapagos have joined to create a work of art. The tour starts with a panga ride along the beautiful rocky shores where Galapagos penguins and shore birds are frequently seen. After a dry landing the path traverses through jagged black lava rock. As the swirling black lava flow gave way to form craters, crystal tide pools formed-some surrounded by mangroves. This is a magnet for small blue lagoons, pink flamingos, blue herons, and Bahama pintail ducks. Brown pelican can be seen nesting in the green leaves of the mangroves. You can walk to the edge of the lava to look straight down on these pools including the occasional green sea turtle, white-tipped shark and puffer fish. This idyllic setting has suffered from the presence of introduced species. Feral dogs in the area are known to attack sea Lions and marine iguanas.

Galapagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. The two surviving species of camel are the dromedary, or one-humped camel (C. dromedarius), which inhabits the Middle East and the Horn of Africa; and the bactrian, or two-humped camel (C. bactrianus), which inhabits Central Asia. Both species have been domesticated; they provide milk, meat, hair for textiles or goods such as felted pouches, and are working animals with tasks ranging from human transport to bearing loads.

The term "camel" is derived via Latin and Greek (camelus and κάμηλος kamēlos respectively) from Hebrew or Phoenician gāmāl.

"Camel" is also used more broadly to describe any of the six camel-like mammals in the family Camelidae: the two true camels and the four New World camelids: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña of South America.

BIOLOGY

The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult camel stands 1.85 m at the shoulder and 2.15 m at the hump. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h. Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg.

The male dromedary camel has in its throat an organ called a dulla, a large, inflatable sac he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.

ECOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL ADAPTIONS

Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.

Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg camel can drink 200 L of water in three minutes.

Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C by sunset, before they cool off at night again. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight to sweating, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.

When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.

The camels' thick coats insulate them from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C. Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.

Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their transparent third eyelid. The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.

The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel feces are so dry that they do not require drying when the Bedouins use them to fuel fires.

Camels' immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These "heavy-chain-only" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs.

GENETICS

The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotime consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m at the shoulder and 2.32 m tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg and can carry around 400 to 450 kg, which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can. According to molecular data, the New World and Old World camelids diverged 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can still hybridize and produce fertile offspring. The cama is a camel–llama hybrid bred by scientists who wanted to see how closely related the parent species were. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama has ears halfway between the length of camel and llama ears, no hump, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. According to cama breeder Lulu Skidmore, cama have "the fleece of the llamas" and "the strength and patience of the camel". Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.

EVOLUTION

The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene.

The direct ancestor of all modern camels, Procamelus, existed in the upper Miocone and lower Pliocene. Around 3–5 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America via the Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals, and to Asia via the Bering land bridge. Surprising finds of fossil Paracamelus on Ellesmere Island beginning in 2006 in the high Canadian Arctic indicate the dromedary is descended from a larger, boreal browser whose hump may have evolved as an adaptation in a cold climate. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet tall.

The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia.

DOMESTICATION

Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of Native Americans from Asia into North America, 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. The only wild camels left are the Bactrian camels of the Gobi Desert.

Like the horse, before their extinction in their native land, camels spread across the Bering land bridge, moving the opposite direction from the Asian immigration to America, to survive in the Old World and eventually be domesticated and spread globally by humans.

Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia and southern Arabia, around 3,000 BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.

Discussions concerning camel domestication in Mesopotamia are often related to mentions of camels in the Hebrew Bible. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J for instance mentions that "In accord with patriarchal traditions, cylinder seals from Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia showed riders seated upon camels."

Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that the bactrian camel was domesticated by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, then moving into Mesopotamia, and suggests that mentions of camels "in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel." while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan.

Recent excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This garnered considerable media coverage as it was described as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Esau were written after this time.

The existence of camels in Mesopotamia but not in Israel is not a new idea. According to an article in Time Magazine, the historian Richard Bulliet wrote in his 1975 book "The Camel and the Wheel" that "the occasional mention of camels in patriarchal narratives does not mean that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that period." The archaeologist William F. Albright writing even earlier saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism. The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes that "The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant signifies a crucial juncture in the history of the region; it substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112-116; Jasmin 2005). This, together with the depiction of camels in the Patriarchal narrative, has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558-584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century BCE)" and concludes that "Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region - attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I - raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade."

MILITARY USES

By at least 1200 BC, the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500–100 BC, Bactrian camels attained military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC, the military Arabian saddle appeared, which improved the saddle design again slightly.

Camel cavalries have been used in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into modern-day Border Security Force of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF has planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first use of camel cavalries was in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.

In the East Roman Empire, the Romans used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom they recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close ranges (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra.

19th and 20th CENTURIES

The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, which was stationed in California in the late 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.

France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.

In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.

In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.

The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.

Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region.

The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.

The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.

FOOD USES

DAIRY

Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal in and of itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month. Camel milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and immunoglobulins; compared to cow's milk, it is lower in fat and lactose, and higher in potassium, iron, and vitamin C. Bedouins believe the curative powers of camel milk are enhanced if the camel's diet consists of certain desert plants. Camel milk can readily be made into a drinkable yogurt, as well as butter or cheese, though the yields for cheese tend to be low.

Camel milk cannot be made into butter by the traditional churning method. It can be made if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant. The sale of camel cheese is limited owing to the small output of the few dairies producing camel cheese and the absence of camel cheese in local (West African) markets. Cheese imports from countries that traditionally breed camels are difficult to obtain due to restrictions on dairy imports from these regions.

Additionally, camel milk has been made into ice cream in a Netherlands camel farm.

MEAT

A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg, while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg. The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg. The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains "white and sickly fat", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes more tender the more it is cooked. The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. In Syria and Egypt, there are specialist camel butchers.

Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The ancient Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel.[31] Camel meat is still eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals. Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs.

A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.

RELIGION

ISLAM

Camel meat is halal for Muslims. However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat.

Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haraam for a Muslim to perform salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of shaytan.

According to Suni ahadith collected by Bukhari and Muslim, Muhammad ordered a certain group of people to drink camel milk and urine as a medicine. However, according to Abū Ḥanīfa, the drinking of camel urine, while not forbidden (ḥaram), is disliked (makrūh) in Islam.

Camel urine is sold as traditional medicine in shops in Saudi Arabia. The Sunni scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid's IslamQA.info recommends camel urine as beneficial to curing certain diseases and to human health and cited Ahadith and scientific studies as justification. King Abdulaziz University researcher Dr. Faten Abdel-Rajman Khorshid has claimed that cancer and other diseases could be treated with camel urine as recommended by the Prophet. The United Arab Emirates "Arab Science and Technology Foundation" reported that cancer could be treated with camel urine. Camel urine was also prescribed as a treatment by Zaghloul El-Naggar, a religious scholar. Camel urine is the only urine which is permitted to be drunk according to the Hanbali madhhab of Sunni Islam. The World Health Organization said that camel urine consumption may be a factor in the spread of the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Times writer Ahmad al-Sayyed wrote that various afflictions are dealt with camel urine by people. Dandruff, scalp ailments, hair, sores, and wounds were recommended to be treated with camel urine by Ibn Sina. Arab American University Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology Bashar Saad (PhD) along with Omar Said (PhD) wrote that medicinal use of camel urine is approved of and promoted by Islam since it was recommended by the prophet. A test on mice found that cytotoxic effects similar to cyclophosphamide were induced on bone marrow by camel urine. Besides for consumption as a medicinal drink, camel urine is believed to help treat hair. Bites from insects were warded off with camel urine, which also served as a shampoo. Camel urine is also used to help treat asthma, infections, treat hair, sores, hair growth and boost libido.

Several Sunni Ahadith mention drinking camel urine. Some Shia criticized Wahhabis for camel urine treatment. Shia scholars also recommend the medicinal use of camel urine. Shia Hadith on Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq reported that shortness of breath (asthma) was treated with camel urine. Shia Marja Ayatollah Sistani said that for medicinal purposes only, sheep, cow, and camel urine can be drunk.

JUDAISM

According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves:

Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof: the camel, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.

— Leviticus 11:4

DISTRIBUTION ANDNUMBERS

There are around 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia (which has the largest camel herd in the world) and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.

The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The only truly wild Bactrian camels, of which there are less than one thousand, are thought to inhabit the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia.

The largest population of feral camels is in Australia. There are around 700,000 feral dromedary camels in central parts of Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.

A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwest United States after having been imported in the 1800s as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and imported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.

WIKIPEDIA

Welcome to Part 4 of this series of photographs where my goal was to capture the sequence of changes in appearance of the Moon for the 2nd half of the 2016 Strawberry Moon cycle. To me, this photograph shows the terminator (i.e., the boundary between light and dark regions) in the "classic" location.

When I woke up on this morning, I checked out the weather forecast, saw that the forecast was for clear skies, stumbled out of bed, and poked my head outside to check out the validity of the forecast. The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecast was indeed correct, but I could also see that there was a bank of mist rising from the lake and rolling in towards our apartments. I therefore assembled the required camera gear with all possible speed and headed outside. All up, I considered myself very fortunate because the mist stayed away just long enough to get this and several other photographs of the Moon before the mist rolled over my location where it stayed until well after Sunrise.

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And now for your familiar dose of trivia about the Moon when this photograph was taken ... This photograph shows the Moon at 26.6% full and a distance of 367,165km from Earth. I have a number of iOS apps that can supply this sort of information and so much more - e.g., Moon+ by CDV Concepts, Moon Phase+ by Peter Smith, etc.

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For the other photographs in this "Strawberry Moon 2016" series that have been posted on Flickr, please see ...

www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/27770588552/

www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/28182512165/

www.flickr.com/photos/momentsforzen/27702762064/

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[ Location - Barton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia. ]

Photography notes ...

The photograph was taken using the following hardware configuration ...

(Year of manufacture indicated in braces where known.)

- Hasselblad 500C/M body (1994).

- Hasselblad CFV-50c Digital Back for Hasselblad V mount camera

- Hasselblad Focusing Screen for the CFV-50c digital back, with focussing prism and crop markings.

- Hasselblad 45 Degree Viewfinder PME-45 42297 (2001).

- Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lens - Sonnar CF 250mm f/5.6 Superachromat lens (1987).

- FotodioX B60 Lens Hood for Select Hasselblad Telephoto CF Lenses

Photographs of the Moon in the night sky are a little out of the ordinary, and I think that close attention to technique makes a significant difference in the results that are obtained. Following are some notes on this subject.

- As per the rest of the Hasselblad Carl Zeiss lenses that I have used, the focus at the widest aperture (i.e., f/5.6 for this lens) is a little "soft". I therefore chose to stay clear of this setting.

- There is continuous relative motion between the Earth and the Moon, so the shortest possible shutter speed will produce the sharpest results. I therefore set the shutter speed to 1/500s.

- My experience with the CFV-50c digital back has been that the sensor noise is manageable for ISO values of 1600 and below. Obviously, lower ISO values are preferable. Keeping the aperture and shutter speed preferences in mind, I was able to use an ISO value f 400 for this photograph.

- A feature of this Superachromat lens is that allowance has been made for variations in focus settings as a function of temperature and other environmental variables. This means that the photographer can set the focus to positions beyond the the standard infinite marking. I have experimented with this aspect of the lens on other nights and found that the sharpest focus for objects in the night sky are obtained using a setting towards the clockwise margin of the infinite label rather than dead centre of this label.

- In terms of minimizing vibrations of the camera when the exposure was taken, I set the camera up on a tripod, used the pre-shot mirror lockup feature of the Hasselblad 500C/M body, and triggered the exposure using a shutter release cable.

In summary, I acquired the photograph (8272 x 6200 pixels) with an ISO of 400, exposure time of 1/500th second, and aperture of f/11.

Post-processing ...

Finder - Removed the CF card from the camera digital back and placed it in a Lexar 25-in-1 USB card reader. Then used Finder on my MacBook Air to download the raw image file (3FR extension) from the card.

Lightroom - Imported the 3FR image.

Lightroom - Used the Map module to add the location details to the EXIF header.

Lightroom - Then applied various lighting and color adjustments in the Develop module.

Lightroom - Saved the basic adjustments carried out in the Develop module as preset 20160724-001.

Lightroom - Exported the image as a JPG file with 8272 x 6200 pixels from the Library module.

PhotoSync - Copied the JPEG file to my iPad Mini for the final processing steps and posting to social media.

BigPhoto - Cropped the image and saved it as an image with 800 x 800 pixels.

BigPhoto - Resized the image by a factor of x4 and saved it as an image with 3200 x 3200 pixels.

Photoshop Fix - Used the spot Healing tool to retouch a number of sensor noise spots in the background regions.

Photoshop Express - Applied Noise Reduction and Clarity adjustments. Converted the image to Black and White (B&W). Saved the image.

Photoshop Fix - Used the spot Healing tool to retouch a number of sensor noise spots in the background regions that showed up after the adjustments were made in Photoshop Express.

Exif Editor - Copied the EXIF data from the Lightroom output image to the final image.

Same image as previous, rendered in B+W. The grey-scale image emphasizes texture a bit more, and minimizes the impact of the bright-blue sky.

This portrait of a miner was done underground at the depth of 400 meters in the oldest gold mine in the world - Berezovskaya Shakhta. Miner distracted from his work and delivered to the appointed location. item posing was minimized.

A camel is an even-toed ungulate within the genus Camelus, bearing distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. The two surviving species of camel are the dromedary, or one-humped camel (C. dromedarius), which inhabits the Middle East and the Horn of Africa; and the bactrian, or two-humped camel (C. bactrianus), which inhabits Central Asia. Both species have been domesticated; they provide milk, meat, hair for textiles or goods such as felted pouches, and are working animals with tasks ranging from human transport to bearing loads.

The term "camel" is derived via Latin and Greek (camelus and κάμηλος kamēlos respectively) from Hebrew or Phoenician gāmāl.

"Camel" is also used more broadly to describe any of the six camel-like mammals in the family Camelidae: the two true camels and the four New World camelids: the llama, alpaca, guanaco, and vicuña of South America.

BIOLOGY

The average life expectancy of a camel is 40 to 50 years. A full-grown adult camel stands 1.85 m at the shoulder and 2.15 m at the hump. Camels can run at up to 65 km/h in short bursts and sustain speeds of up to 40 km/h. Bactrian camels weigh 300 to 1,000 kg and dromedaries 300 to 600 kg.

The male dromedary camel has in its throat an organ called a dulla, a large, inflatable sac he extrudes from his mouth when in rut to assert dominance and attract females. It resembles a long, swollen, pink tongue hanging out of the side of its mouth. Camels mate by having both male and female sitting on the ground, with the male mounting from behind. The male usually ejaculates three or four times within a single mating session. Camelids are the only ungulates to mate in a sitting position.

ECOLOGICAL AND BEHAVIORAL ADAPTIONS

Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.

Camels have a series of physiological adaptations that allow them to withstand long periods of time without any external source of water. Unlike other mammals, their red blood cells are oval rather than circular in shape. This facilitates the flow of red blood cells during dehydration and makes them better at withstanding high osmotic variation without rupturing when drinking large amounts of water: a 600 kg camel can drink 200 L of water in three minutes.

Camels are able to withstand changes in body temperature and water consumption that would kill most other animals. Their temperature ranges from 34 °C at dawn and steadily increases to 40 °C by sunset, before they cool off at night again. Maintaining the brain temperature within certain limits is critical for animals; to assist this, camels have a rete mirabile, a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other which utilizes countercurrent blood flow to cool blood flowing to the brain. Camels rarely sweat, even when ambient temperatures reach 49 °C Any sweat that does occur evaporates at the skin level rather than at the surface of their coat; the heat of vaporization therefore comes from body heat rather than ambient heat. Camels can withstand losing 25% of their body weight to sweating, whereas most other mammals can withstand only about 12–14% dehydration before cardiac failure results from circulatory disturbance.

When the camel exhales, water vapor becomes trapped in their nostrils and is reabsorbed into the body as a means to conserve water. Camels eating green herbage can ingest sufficient moisture in milder conditions to maintain their bodies' hydrated state without the need for drinking.

The camels' thick coats insulate them from the intense heat radiated from desert sand; a shorn camel must sweat 50% more to avoid overheating. During the summer the coat becomes lighter in color, reflecting light as well as helping avoid sunburn. The camel's long legs help by keeping its body farther from the ground, which can heat up to 70 °C. Dromedaries have a pad of thick tissue over the sternum called the pedestal. When the animal lies down in a sternal recumbent position, the pedestal raises the body from the hot surface and allows cooling air to pass under the body.

Camels' mouths have a thick leathery lining, allowing them to chew thorny desert plants. Long eyelashes and ear hairs, together with nostrils that can close, form a barrier against sand. If sand gets lodged in their eyes, they can dislodge it using their transparent third eyelid. The camels' gait and widened feet help them move without sinking into the sand.

The kidneys and intestines of a camel are very efficient at reabsorbing water. Camel urine comes out as a thick syrup, and camel feces are so dry that they do not require drying when the Bedouins use them to fuel fires.

Camels' immune system differs from those of other mammals. Normally, the Y-shaped antibody molecules consist of two heavy (or long) chains along the length of the Y, and two light (or short) chains at each tip of the Y. Camels, in addition to these, also have antibodies made of only two heavy chains, a trait that makes them smaller and more durable. These "heavy-chain-only" antibodies, discovered in 1993, are thought to have developed 50 million years ago, after camelids split from ruminants and pigs.

GENETICS

The karyotypes of different camelid species have been studied earlier by many groups, but no agreement on chromosome nomenclature of camelids has been reached. A 2007 study flow sorted camel chromosomes, building on the fact that camels have 37 pairs of chromosomes (2n=74), and found that the karyotime consisted of one metacentric, three submetacentric, and 32 acrocentric autosomes. The Y is a small metacentric chromosome, while the X is a large metacentric chromosome.The hybrid camel, a hybrid between Bactrian and dromedary camels, has one hump, though it has an indentation 4–12 cm deep that divides the front from the back. The hybrid is 2.15 m at the shoulder and 2.32 m tall at the hump. It weighs an average of 650 kg and can carry around 400 to 450 kg, which is more than either the dromedary or Bactrian can. According to molecular data, the New World and Old World camelids diverged 11 million years ago. In spite of this, these species can still hybridize and produce fertile offspring. The cama is a camel–llama hybrid bred by scientists who wanted to see how closely related the parent species were. Scientists collected semen from a camel via an artificial vagina and inseminated a llama after stimulating ovulation with gonadotrophin injections. The cama has ears halfway between the length of camel and llama ears, no hump, longer legs than the llama, and partially cloven hooves. According to cama breeder Lulu Skidmore, cama have "the fleece of the llamas" and "the strength and patience of the camel". Like the mule, camas are sterile, despite both parents having the same number of chromosomes.

EVOLUTION

The earliest known camel, called Protylopus, lived in North America 40 to 50 million years ago (during the Eocene). It was about the size of a rabbit and lived in the open woodlands of what is now South Dakota. By 35 million years ago, the Poebrotherium was the size of a goat and had many more traits similar to camels and llamas. The hoofed Stenomylus, which walked on the tips of its toes, also existed around this time, and the long-necked Aepycamelus evolved in the Miocene.

The direct ancestor of all modern camels, Procamelus, existed in the upper Miocone and lower Pliocene. Around 3–5 million years ago, the North American Camelidae spread to South America via the Isthmus of Panama, where they gave rise to guanacos and related animals, and to Asia via the Bering land bridge. Surprising finds of fossil Paracamelus on Ellesmere Island beginning in 2006 in the high Canadian Arctic indicate the dromedary is descended from a larger, boreal browser whose hump may have evolved as an adaptation in a cold climate. This creature is estimated to have stood around nine feet tall.

The last camel native to North America was Camelops hesternus, which vanished along with horses, short-faced bears, mammoths and mastodons, ground sloths, sabertooth cats, and many other megafauna, coinciding with the migration of humans from Asia.

DOMESTICATION

Most camels surviving today are domesticated. Along with many other megafauna in North America, the original wild camels were wiped out during the spread of Native Americans from Asia into North America, 12,000 to 10,000 years ago. The only wild camels left are the Bactrian camels of the Gobi Desert.

Like the horse, before their extinction in their native land, camels spread across the Bering land bridge, moving the opposite direction from the Asian immigration to America, to survive in the Old World and eventually be domesticated and spread globally by humans.

Dromedaries may have first been domesticated by humans in Somalia and southern Arabia, around 3,000 BC, the Bactrian in central Asia around 2,500 BC, as at Shar-i Sokhta (also known as the Burnt City), Iran.

Discussions concerning camel domestication in Mesopotamia are often related to mentions of camels in the Hebrew Bible. The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia: E-J for instance mentions that "In accord with patriarchal traditions, cylinder seals from Middle Bronze Age Mesopotamia showed riders seated upon camels."

Martin Heide's 2010 work on the domestication of the camel tentatively concludes that the bactrian camel was domesticated by at least the middle of the third millennium somewhere east of the Zagros Mountains, then moving into Mesopotamia, and suggests that mentions of camels "in the patriarchal narratives may refer, at least in some places, to the Bactrian camel." while noting that the camel is not mentioned in relationship to Canaan.

Recent excavations in the Timna Valley by Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef discovered what may be the earliest domestic camel bones found in Israel or even outside the Arabian peninsula, dating to around 930 BCE. This garnered considerable media coverage as it was described as evidence that the stories of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Esau were written after this time.

The existence of camels in Mesopotamia but not in Israel is not a new idea. According to an article in Time Magazine, the historian Richard Bulliet wrote in his 1975 book "The Camel and the Wheel" that "the occasional mention of camels in patriarchal narratives does not mean that the domestic camels were common in the Holy Land at that period." The archaeologist William F. Albright writing even earlier saw camels in the Bible as an anachronism. The official report by Sapir-Hen and Ben-Joseph notes that "The introduction of the dromedary camel (Camelus dromedarius) as a pack animal to the southern Levant signifies a crucial juncture in the history of the region; it substantially facilitated trade across the vast deserts of Arabia, promoting both economic and social change (e.g., Kohler 1984; Borowski 1998: 112-116; Jasmin 2005). This, together with the depiction of camels in the Patriarchal narrative, has generated extensive discussion regarding the date of the earliest domestic camel in the southern Levant (and beyond) (e.g., Albright 1949: 207; Epstein 1971: 558-584; Bulliet 1975; Zarins 1989; Köhler-Rollefson 1993; Uerpmann and Uerpmann 2002; Jasmin 2005; 2006; Heide 2010; Rosen and Saidel 2010; Grigson 2012). Most scholars today agree that the dromedary was exploited as a pack animal sometime in the early Iron Age (not before the 12th century BCE)" and concludes that "Current data from copper smelting sites of the Aravah Valley enable us to pinpoint the introduction of domestic camels to the southern Levant more precisely based on stratigraphic contexts associated with an extensive suite of radiocarbon dates. The data indicate that this event occurred not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE and most probably during this time. The coincidence of this event with a major reorganization of the copper industry of the region - attributed to the results of the campaign of Pharaoh Shoshenq I - raises the possibility that the two were connected, and that camels were introduced as part of the efforts to improve efficiency by facilitating trade."

MILITARY USES

By at least 1200 BC, the first camel saddles had appeared, and Bactrian camels could be ridden. The first saddle was positioned to the back of the camel, and control of the Bactrian camel was exercised by means of a stick. However, between 500–100 BC, Bactrian camels attained military use. New saddles, which were inflexible and bent, were put over the humps and divided the rider's weight over the animal. In the seventh century BC, the military Arabian saddle appeared, which improved the saddle design again slightly.

Camel cavalries have been used in wars throughout Africa, the Middle East, and into modern-day Border Security Force of India (though as of July 2012, the BSF has planned the replacement of camels with ATVs). The first use of camel cavalries was in the Battle of Qarqar in 853 BC. Armies have also used camels as freight animals instead of horses and mules.

In the East Roman Empire, the Romans used auxiliary forces known as dromedarii, whom they recruited in desert provinces. The camels were used mostly in combat because of their ability to scare off horses at close ranges (horses are afraid of the camels' scent), a quality famously employed by the Achaemenid Persians when fighting Lydia in the Battle of Thymbra.

19th and 20th CENTURIES

The United States Army established the U.S. Camel Corps, which was stationed in California in the late 19th century. One may still see stables at the Benicia Arsenal in Benicia, California, where they nowadays serve as the Benicia Historical Museum. Though the experimental use of camels was seen as a success (John B. Floyd, Secretary of War in 1858, recommended that funds be allocated towards obtaining a thousand more camels), the outbreak of the American Civil War saw the end of the Camel Corps: Texas became part of the Confederacy, and most of the camels were left to wander away into the desert.

France created a méhariste camel corps in 1912 as part of the Armée d'Afrique in the Sahara in order to exercise greater control over the camel-riding Tuareg and Arab insurgents, as previous efforts to defeat them on foot had failed. The camel-mounted units remained in service until the end of French rule over Algeria in 1962.

In 1916, the British created the Imperial Camel Corps. It was originally used to fight the Senussi, but was later used in the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I. The Imperial Camel Corps comprised infantrymen mounted on camels for movement across desert, though they dismounted at battle sites and fought on foot. After July 1918, the Corps began to become run down, receiving no new reinforcements, and was formally disbanded in 1919.

In World War I, the British Army also created the Egyptian Camel Transport Corps, which consisted of a group of Egyptian camel drivers and their camels. The Corps supported British war operations in Sinai, Palestine, and Syria by transporting supplies to the troops.

The Somaliland Camel Corps was created by colonial authorities in British Somaliland in 1912; it was disbanded in 1944.

Bactrian camels were used by Romanian forces during World War II in the Caucasian region.

The Bikaner Camel Corps of British India fought alongside the British Indian Army in World Wars I and II.

The Tropas Nómadas (Nomad Troops) were an auxiliary regiment of Sahrawi tribesmen serving in the colonial army in Spanish Sahara (today Western Sahara). Operational from the 1930s until the end of the Spanish presence in the territory in 1975, the Tropas Nómadas were equipped with small arms and led by Spanish officers. The unit guarded outposts and sometimes conducted patrols on camelback.

FOOD USES

DAIRY

Camel milk is a staple food of desert nomad tribes and is sometimes considered a meal in and of itself; a nomad can live on only camel milk for almost a month. Camel milk is rich in vitamins, minerals, proteins, and immunoglobulins; compared to cow's milk, it is lower in fat and lactose, and higher in potassium, iron, and vitamin C. Bedouins believe the curative powers of camel milk are enhanced if the camel's diet consists of certain desert plants. Camel milk can readily be made into a drinkable yogurt, as well as butter or cheese, though the yields for cheese tend to be low.

Camel milk cannot be made into butter by the traditional churning method. It can be made if it is soured first, churned, and a clarifying agent is then added. Until recently, camel milk could not be made into camel cheese because rennet was unable to coagulate the milk proteins to allow the collection of curds. Developing less wasteful uses of the milk, the FAO commissioned Professor J.P. Ramet of the École Nationale Supérieure d'Agronomie et des Industries Alimentaires, who was able to produce curdling by the addition of calcium phosphate and vegetable rennet. The cheese produced from this process has low levels of cholesterol and is easy to digest, even for the lactose intolerant. The sale of camel cheese is limited owing to the small output of the few dairies producing camel cheese and the absence of camel cheese in local (West African) markets. Cheese imports from countries that traditionally breed camels are difficult to obtain due to restrictions on dairy imports from these regions.

Additionally, camel milk has been made into ice cream in a Netherlands camel farm.

MEAT

A camel carcass can provide a substantial amount of meat. The male dromedary carcass can weigh 300–400 kg, while the carcass of a male Bactrian can weigh up to 650 kg. The carcass of a female dromedary weighs less than the male, ranging between 250 and 350 kg. The brisket, ribs and loin are among the preferred parts, and the hump is considered a delicacy. The hump contains "white and sickly fat", which can be used to make the khli (preserved meat) of mutton, beef, or camel. Camel meat is reported to taste like coarse beef, but older camels can prove to be very tough, although camel meat becomes more tender the more it is cooked. The Abu Dhabi Officers' Club serves a camel burger mixed with beef or lamb fat in order to improve the texture and taste. In Karachi, Pakistan, some restaurants prepare nihari from camel meat. In Syria and Egypt, there are specialist camel butchers.

Camel meat has been eaten for centuries. It has been recorded by ancient Greek writers as an available dish at banquets in ancient Persia, usually roasted whole. The ancient Roman emperor Heliogabalus enjoyed camel's heel.[31] Camel meat is still eaten in certain regions, including Eritrea, Somalia, Djibouti, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan, and other arid regions where alternative forms of protein may be limited or where camel meat has had a long cultural history. Camel blood is also consumable, as is the case among pastoralists in northern Kenya, where camel blood is drunk with milk and acts as a key source of iron, vitamin D, salts and minerals. Camel meat is also occasionally found in Australian cuisine: for example, a camel lasagna is available in Alice Springs.

A 2005 report issued jointly by the Saudi Ministry of Health and the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details cases of human bubonic plague resulting from the ingestion of raw camel liver.

RELIGION

ISLAM

Camel meat is halal for Muslims. However, according to some Islamic schools of thought, a state of impurity is brought on by the consumption of it. Consequently, these schools hold that Muslims must perform wudhu (ablution) before the next time they pray after eating camel meat.

Also, some Islamic schools of thought consider it haraam for a Muslim to perform salat in places where camels lie, as it is said to be a dwelling place of shaytan.

According to Suni ahadith collected by Bukhari and Muslim, Muhammad ordered a certain group of people to drink camel milk and urine as a medicine. However, according to Abū Ḥanīfa, the drinking of camel urine, while not forbidden (ḥaram), is disliked (makrūh) in Islam.

Camel urine is sold as traditional medicine in shops in Saudi Arabia. The Sunni scholar Muhammad Al-Munajjid's IslamQA.info recommends camel urine as beneficial to curing certain diseases and to human health and cited Ahadith and scientific studies as justification. King Abdulaziz University researcher Dr. Faten Abdel-Rajman Khorshid has claimed that cancer and other diseases could be treated with camel urine as recommended by the Prophet. The United Arab Emirates "Arab Science and Technology Foundation" reported that cancer could be treated with camel urine. Camel urine was also prescribed as a treatment by Zaghloul El-Naggar, a religious scholar. Camel urine is the only urine which is permitted to be drunk according to the Hanbali madhhab of Sunni Islam. The World Health Organization said that camel urine consumption may be a factor in the spread of the MERS virus in Saudi Arabia. The Gulf Times writer Ahmad al-Sayyed wrote that various afflictions are dealt with camel urine by people. Dandruff, scalp ailments, hair, sores, and wounds were recommended to be treated with camel urine by Ibn Sina. Arab American University Professor of Cell Biology and Immunology Bashar Saad (PhD) along with Omar Said (PhD) wrote that medicinal use of camel urine is approved of and promoted by Islam since it was recommended by the prophet. A test on mice found that cytotoxic effects similar to cyclophosphamide were induced on bone marrow by camel urine. Besides for consumption as a medicinal drink, camel urine is believed to help treat hair. Bites from insects were warded off with camel urine, which also served as a shampoo. Camel urine is also used to help treat asthma, infections, treat hair, sores, hair growth and boost libido.

Several Sunni Ahadith mention drinking camel urine. Some Shia criticized Wahhabis for camel urine treatment. Shia scholars also recommend the medicinal use of camel urine. Shia Hadith on Imam Ja'far al-Sadiq reported that shortness of breath (asthma) was treated with camel urine. Shia Marja Ayatollah Sistani said that for medicinal purposes only, sheep, cow, and camel urine can be drunk.

JUDAISM

According to Jewish tradition, camel meat and milk are not kosher. Camels possess only one of the two kosher criteria; although they chew their cud, they do not possess cloven hooves:

Nevertheless these shall ye not eat of them that only chew the cud, or of them that only part the hoof: the camel, because he cheweth the cud but parteth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.

— Leviticus 11:4

DISTRIBUTION ANDNUMBERS

There are around 14 million camels alive as of 2010, with 90% being dromedaries. Dromedaries alive today are domesticated animals (mostly living in the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, Maghreb, Middle East and South Asia). The Horn region alone has the largest concentration of camels in the world, where the dromedaries constitute an important part of local nomadic life. They provide nomadic people in Somalia (which has the largest camel herd in the world) and Ethiopia with milk, food, and transportation.

The Bactrian camel is, as of 2010, reduced to an estimated 1.4 million animals, most of which are domesticated. The only truly wild Bactrian camels, of which there are less than one thousand, are thought to inhabit the Gobi Desert in China and Mongolia.

The largest population of feral camels is in Australia. There are around 700,000 feral dromedary camels in central parts of Australia, descended from those introduced as a method of transport in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This population is growing about 8% per year. Representatives of the Australian government have culled more than 100,000 of the animals in part because the camels use too much of the limited resources needed by sheep farmers.

A small population of introduced camels, dromedaries and Bactrians, wandered through Southwest United States after having been imported in the 1800s as part of the U.S. Camel Corps experiment. When the project ended, they were used as draft animals in mines and escaped or were released. Twenty-five U.S. camels were bought and imported to Canada during the Cariboo Gold Rush.

WIKIPEDIA

This portrait of a miner was done underground at the depth of 400 meters in the oldest gold mine in the world - Berezovskaya Shakhta. Miner distracted from his work and delivered to the appointed location. item posing was minimized.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based on historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star was the first jet fighter used operationally by the United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) during World War II. Designed and built by Lockheed in 1943 and delivered just 143 days from the start of design, production models were flying, and two pre-production models did see very limited service in Italy just before the end of World War II. The XP-80 had a conventional all-metal airframe, with a slim low wing and tricycle landing gear. Like most early jets designed during World War II—and before the Allies captured German research data that confirmed the speed advantages of swept-wings—the XP-80 had straight wings similar to previous propeller-driven fighters, but they were relatively thin to minimize drag at high speed.

For the Luftwaffe the F-80E had become obsolete, and to reduce the number of operational aircraft types, the remaining German aircraft, a total of 34, were in 1965 passed through to the Türk Hava Kuvvetleri (Turkish air force) as part of international NATO military support, where they remained in service until 1974 and were replaced by third generation F-4E Phantom II fighter jets.

General characteristics:

Crew: 1

Length: 36 ft 9 1/2 in (11.23 m)

Wingspan: 37 ft 6 in (11.44 m) over tip tanks

Height: 13 ft 5 1/4 in (4.10 m)

Wing area: 241.3 sq ft (22,52 m²)

Empty weight: 10,681 lb (4.845 kg)

Max. takeoff weight: 18,464 lb (8.375 kg)

Zero-lift drag coefficient: 0.0134

Frontal area: 32 sq ft (3.0 m²)

Powerplant:

1× Allison J33-A-39 centrifugal compressor turbojet with 4,600 lbf (20 kN) dry thrust

and 27.0 kN (6,070 lbf) thrust with afterburning

Performance:

Maximum speed: 1,060 km/h (660 mph, 570 kn)

Cruise speed: 439 mph (707 km/h, 381 kn)

Range: 825 mi (1,328 km, 717 nmi)

Ferry range: 1,380 mi (2,220 km, 1,200 nmi)

Service ceiling: 50,900 ft (15,500 m)

Rate of climb: 7,980 ft/min (40.5 m/s)

Time to altitude: 20,000 ft (6,100 m) in 4 minutes 50 seconds

Lift-to-drag: 17.7

Wing loading: 51.3 lb/sq ft (250 kg/m²)

Thrust/weight: 0.249 dry

0.328 with afterburner

Armament:

4× 0.79 in (20 mm) M24 cannon (190 rpg)

2x wing tip auxiliary tanks with 225 US gal (187 imp gal; 850 l) each

Underwing hardpoints for a total ordnance load of 4,800 lb (2.200 kg), including

2× 1,000 lb (454 kg) bombs, up to 4× pods with nineteen unguided Mighty Mouse FFARs each,

and/or up to 8× 5” (127 mm) HVAR unguided air-to-ground rockets

The kit and its assembly:

The idea of a swept-wing F-80 had been lingering on my idea list for a while, and I actually tried this stunt before in the form of a heavily modified F-94. The recent “Fifties” group build at whatifmodellers.com and a similar build by fellow forum member mat revived the interest in this topic – and inspired by mat’s creation, based on a T-33 fuselage, I decided to use the opportunity and add my personal interpretation of the idea.

Having suitable donor parts at hand was another decisive factor to start this build: I had a Heller T-33 in store, which had already been (ab)used as a donor bank for other projects, and which could now find a good use. I also had an F-80 canopy left over (from an Airfix kit), and my plan was to use Saab J29 wings (from a Matchbox kit) because of their limited sweep angle that would match the post-WWII era well.

Work started with the fuselage; it required a completely new cockpit interior because these parts had already gone elsewhere. I found a cockpit tub with its dashboard from an Italeri F4U, and with some trimming it could be mounted into the reduced cockpit opening, above the OOB front landing gear well. The T-33’s rear seat was faired of with styrene sheet and later PSRed away. The standard nose cone from the Heller T-33 was used, but I added gun ports for the new/different cannon armament.

For a different look with an afterburner engine I modified the tail section under the stabilizers, which was retained because of its characteristic shape. A generous section from the tail was cut away and replaced with the leftover jet pipe from an Italeri (R)F-84F, slightly longer and wider and decorated with innards from a Matchbox Mystère IV. This change is rather subtle but changes the F-80 profile and appears like a compromise between the F-80 and F-94 arrangements.

The T-33 wings were clipped down to the connection lower fuselage part. This ventral plate with integral main landing gear wells was mounted onto the T-33 hull and then the Saab 29 wings were dry-fitted to check their position along the fuselage and to define the main landing gear wells, which had to be cut into them to match their counterparts from the aircraft’s belly.

Their exact position was eventually fixed when the new swept stabilizers, taken from a Hobby Boss F-86, were mounted to the tail. They match well with the swept wings, and for an odd look I kept their dihedral.

The fin was eventually replaced, too – mat’s build retained the original F-80 fin, but with all other surfaces swept I found that the fin had to reflect this, too. So, I implanted a shortened Italeri (R)F-84F fin onto the original base, blended with some PSR into the rest of the tail.

With all aerodynamic surfaces in place it was time for fine-tuning, and to give the aircraft a simpler look I removed the dog teeth from the late Tunnan's outer wings, even though I retained the small LERXs. The wing tips were cut down a little and tip tanks (probably drop tanks from a Hobby Boss F-5E) added – without them the aircraft looked like a juvenile Saab 32!

The landing gear was mostly taken over from the Heller T-33, I just added small consoles for the main landing gear struts to ensure a proper stance, because the new wings and the respective attachment points were deeper. I also had to scratch some landing gear covers because the T-33 donor kit was missing them. The canopy was PSRed over the new opening and a new ejection seat tailored to fit into the F4U cockpit.

A final addition was a pair of pods with unguided FFARs. AFAIK the Luftwaffe did not use such weapons, but they’d make thematically sense on a Fifties anti-bomber interceptor - and I had a suitable pair left over from a Matchbox Mystère IV kit, complete with small pylons.

Painting and markings:

Since the time frame was defined by the Fifties, early Luftwaffe fighters had to carry a bare metal finish, with relatively few decorations. For the F-80E I gave the model an overall base coat with White Aluminum from a Dupli Color rattle can, a very nice and bright silver tone that comes IMHO close to NMF. Panels were post-shaded with Revell 99 (Aluminum) and 91 (Iron Metallic). An anti-glare panel in front of the windscreen was painted in the Luftwaffe tone RAL 6014, Gelboliv (Revell 42).

For some color highlights I gave the tip tanks bright red (Feuerrot, RAL 3000; Revell 330) outer halves, while the inner halves were painted black to avoid reflections that could distract the pilot (seen on a real Luftwaffe T-33 from the late Fifties). For an even more individual touch I added light blue (Tamiya X-14, Sky Blue) highlights on the nose and the fin, reflecting the squadron’s color code which is also carried within the unit emblem – the Tamiya paint came closest to the respective decal (see below).

The cockpit interior was painted with zinc chromate green primer (I used Humbrol 80, which is brighter than the tone should be, but it adds contrast to the black dials on the dashboard), the landing gear wells were painted with a mix of Humbrol 80 and 81, for a more yellowish hue. The landing gear struts became grey, dry-brushed with silver, while the inside of the ventral air brakes were painted in Feuerrot, too.

Then the model received an overall washing with black ink to emphasize the recessed panel lines, plus additional panel shading with Matt Aluminum Metallizer (Humbrol 27001), plus a light rubbing treatment with grinded graphite that emphasized the (few leftover) raised panel lines and also added a dark metallic shine to the silver base. Some of the lost panel lines were simulated with simple pencil strokes, too.

The decals/markings primarily came from an AirDoc aftermarket sheet for late Fifties Luftwaffe F-84Fs. The tactical code (“BB-xxx” was then assigned to the WaSLw 10 as unit code, but this soon changed to a similar but different format that told about the unit’s task as well as the specific unit and squadron within it; this was replaced once more by a simple xx+yy code that was only connected to a specific aircraft with no unit reference anymore, and this format is still in use today) was puzzled together from single letters/digits from the same decal set. Some additional markings like the red band on the fuselage had to be scratched, but most stencils came from an all-bare-metal Luftwaffe F-84F.

After some more detail painting the model was sealed with semi-gloss acrylic paint, just the anti-glare panel and the di-electric fairings on the nose and the fin tip became matt.

A thorough kitbashing build, but the result looks quite plausible, if not elegant? The slightly swept wings suit the F-80 with its organic fuselage shape well, even though they reveal the designs rather baroque shape. There’s a sense of obsolescence about the F-80E, despite its modern features? The Luftwaffe markings work well on the aircraft, too, and with the red and blue highlights the machine looks more attractive despite its simple NMF livery than expected.

A combine harvests a ripe crop of wheat near Lake Elwell and Lothair, Montana.

They are like leviathans swimming in an ocean of wheat; large mechanized animals devouring every golden strand of wheat in sight. They belch large plumes of dust; a reminder that it is now harvest time here in north central Montana.

This is where industry and nature collide. Having grown up on a farm in southern Wisconsin I was more accustomed to the more rustic aspects of agriculture. Small farms, small tractors, and men and their boys raising food in the midst of America's bread basket. But here, as I stand on a hill watching sometimes five, six, and even seven beasts at a time gathering the wheat in the fields, I am now realizing that there must be a much more corporate element to harvesting the food we eat.

I do not mean to minimize the beauty of it all. There is something oddly captivating as you watch these large green and red combines performing their dance. The sun is slung low over a horizon clouded with the dust and fumes kicked up by the constant movement of the combines. It casts a creamy hue of amber over everything in sight.

I drove for a hundred of miles or more in these parts and the scene was the same. Aside from the men and women operating the combines and driving the trucks and trailers over the field, I was one of the few people for miles around. And as I stood there just before dusk on this quiet Saturday evening I wondered...there can't possibly be enough grain bins and elevators in the entire state of Montana to store it. Where on Earth does all of the grain go?

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© 2010 Todd Klassy. All Rights Reserved.

Palestine Sunbird was posing again for me at 5.02 pm with very little light. This used to be a problem, but not with my new toy !

At iso 1600 and shutter speed of 1/400 at f/8.0, the noise level was acceptable and easily minimized in Photoshop. I believe the result is not bad at all :)

enjoy .....

Thank you for taking time to comment on my picture and/or adding it as a favorite, I really appreciate it !!

I've done very little wildflower photography during the past two summers; drought has minimized the bloom. With a return to a wetter situation - it rained here five times in June, and once so far in July - flowers are more abundant, so I hiked a trail recently with a macro mindset.

This lovely, low-growing prairie flower is parasitic on sages and other composites. I found it near Eagle Butte, in Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan (Canada). Don't use this image on websites, blogs, or other media without explicit permission © 2018 James R. Page - all rights reserved.

ballhead creep :( Might go back in to this and try to minimize when I have some time.

History

After the closure of illicit whisky stills around the loch, Inchfad became the home of a registered distillery. A canal was built to minimize the distance that the raw materials for the whisky had to be man handled. Inchfad was taken over by the MacFarlanes in the early 18th century, who ran a government distillery until the mid 19th century, and their descendants run the boatyard at Balmaha nearby, as well as the islandâs mail service. Other owners have included the Dukes of Montrose, and Charles Collins, founder of the publishing dynasty.

The island was bought in 1944 by an English couple called Davison, who set about restoring the farm to working condition. Everything was brought up by train from the Wirral, including livestock. After they succeeded, they sold the island, and set off in a converted fishing vessel, which was wrecked off Portland Bill drowning Frank Davison. His widow Ann Davison later wrote an autobiography called Home was an Island about their life on Inchmurrin and Inchfad. In 1953 Ann Davison then went on to sail the Atlantic single handed and was the first woman to accomplish this. She spent her later life in the US.

The island changed hands several times after that. The current owners purchased the island back in 1994.

Shot taken from the east side of Loch Lomond looking west to Inchfad island

Slowly dialing this bike in a year later, even thought I’ve barely ridden it in 2016.

Changes / New Components:

- First off, a new medium-sized saddlebag by Waxwing Bag Company / www.flickr.com/photos/23997564@N08/ . Stay tuned for more photos— it’s pretty great.

- Re-wired the lighting as to minimize wire-exposure and make things not such a PITA if I need to remove fenders, etc… www.flickr.com/photos/jkopera/albums/72157669638550475

- Switched the front derailleur to a Shimano Ultegra triple derailleur: it has a beefier shifting plate than the double and just does a better job with the large range between chainrings.

- Switched back to VO Zeppelin fenders. They just look right with this bike, and, out of VO’s excellent offerings, offer the most clearance for 42 mm tires.

- Compass Babyshoe Pass tires. So far, so good. I miss my Hetres, but the casing is just too fragile for my weight + gravel, which has been a complaint from a lot of other heavier riders I know.

- Replaced the bottom bracket from 118 mm spindle-length to 110 mm to improve chainline. Shifting is much crisper and there’s less grindy-grindy when I’m in the lowest or highest gear. Feel less bad about cross-chaining. BB is still VO grand-cru. Would love to get a SKF but I’ve already dumped enough money into this bike, and I’m not doing enough riding such that I’ll have to worry about the BB crapping out anytime soon like happened to www.flickr.com/photos/23997564@N08/

- Got rid of my Shimano Ultegra STI / Brifters and now have Suntour Superbe downtube shifters courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/ejasongibbs. Perhaps it was the crappy chainline with my old BB, or who knows what, but the indexing was always very finicky and shifting sloppy. Much happier with the shifting now, although it’s still a far reach to the downtube. Keeps all the mechanics of the bike simpler as well. May convert these to bar-end shifters using Rivendell’s silver bar-end pods.

- Installed Tektro TRP RRL brake levers. These things are absolutely wonderful and worth the eBay splurge direct-from-Taiwan-which-was-very-sadly-a-lot-cheaper-than-my-LBS-could-order-them-for. Don’t look too shabby either.

- Leather chainstay protector from VO. Ended up being same price as crappy silver replica plastic ones on eBay. Feels dandy-ish, but has already protected my paint.

- VO Grand-Cru rando bars. Jury is out on these— I love my Nitto Noodles but they’re very wide (48 cm) and when I’m tired that doesn’t work too well with low-trail, so I’m trying these. I would love it if Compass Cycle actually started catering to bigger / heavier riders and made their rando-bars in a 46 or 48 mm hood-to-hood width.

- Berthoud Mente Saddle. Not noticing a real difference in comfort, yet, between it and my VO #3, but also have yet to take it on a long ride. Looks damn nice on the bike, though. Two major complaints so far, though: Really short rail length… I want this a little farther back, and I have one heck of a set-back seat post. also, the angle of rails with respect to saddle means that, to have this saddle at level and/or tipped back, my seatpost is near the end of its adjustable range. The VO #3, while it has its own issues, has much more room for adjustment.

- Trying out the Newbaum’s cotton bar tape. Jury is still out.

With the new saddle / bars, though, I’m needing to adjust stem length again— pain in the butt with a quill stem, but worth it to be able to adjust stem height on the fly and not be locked into too-low steer tube height (as was the problem on my last bike).

One of the amazingly colourful Marine Iguanas from Suarez Point on Espanola

Marine Iguana

The Marine Iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) is an iguana found only on the Galapagos Islands that has the ability, unique among modern lizards, to live and forage in the sea. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago, and is sometimes called the Galapagos Marine Iguana. It mainly lives on the rocky Galapagos shore, but can also be spotted in marshes and mangrove beaches. On his visit to the islands, Charles Darwin was revolted by the animals' appearance, writing “The black Lava rocks on the beach are frequented by large (2-3 ft), disgusting clumsy Lizards. They are as black as the porous rocks over which they crawl & seek their prey from the Sea. I call them 'imps of darkness'. They assuredly well become the land they inhabit.” In fact, Amblyrhynchus cristatus is not always black; the young have a lighter coloured dorsal stripe, and some adult specimens are grey. The reason for the sombre tones is that the species must rapidly absorb heat to minimize the period of lethargy after emerging from the water. They feed almost exclusively on marine algae, expelling the excess salt from nasal glands while basking in the sun, and the coating of salt can make their faces appear white. In adult males, coloration varies with the season. Breeding-season adult males on the southern islands are the most colorful and will acquire reddish and teal-green colors, while on Santa Cruz they are brick red and black, and on Fernandina they are brick red and dull greenish. Another difference between the iguanas is size, which is different depending on the island the individual iguana inhabits. The iguanas living on the islands of Fernandina and Isabela (named for the famous rulers of Spain) are the largest found anywhere in the Galápagos. On the other end of the spectrum, the smallest iguanas are found on the island on Genovesa. Adult males are approximately 1.3 m long, females 0.6 m, males weigh up to 1.5 kg. On land, the marine iguana is rather a clumsy animal, but in the water it is a graceful swimmer, using its powerful tail to propel itself. As an exothermic animal, the marine iguana can spend only a limited time in the cold sea, where it dives for algae. However, by swimming only in the shallow waters around the island they are able to survive single dives of up to half an hour at depths of more than 15 m. After these dives, they return to their territory to bask in the sun and warm up again. When cold, the iguana is unable to move effectively, making them vulnerable to predation, so they become highly aggressive before heating up (since they are unable to run away they try to bite attackers in this state). During the breeding season, males become highly territorial. The males assemble large groups of females to mate with, and guard them against other male iguanas. However, at other times the species is only aggressive when cold. Marine iguanas have also been found to change their size to adapt to varying food conditions. During El Niño conditions when the algae that the iguanas feed on was scarce for a period of two years, some were found to decrease their length by as much as 20%. When food conditions returned to normal, the iguanas returned to their pre-famine size. It is speculated that the bones of the iguanas actually shorten as a shrinkage of connective tissue could only account for a 10% length change. Researchers theorize that land and marine iguanas evolved from a common ancestor since arriving on the islands from South America, presumably by driftwood. It is thought that the ancestral species inhabited a part of the volcanic archipelago that is now submerged. A second school of thought holds that the Marine iguana may have evolved from a now extinct family of seagoing reptiles. Its generic name, Amblyrhynchus, is a combination of two Greek words, Ambly- from Amblus meaning "blunt" and rhynchus meaning "snout". Its specific name is the Latin word cristatus meaning "crested," and refers to the low crest of spines along the animal's back. Amblyrhynchus is a monotypic genus in that Amblyrhynchus cristatus is the only species which belongs to it at this point in time. This species is completely protected under the laws of Ecuador. El Niño effects cause periodic declines in population, with high mortality, and the marine iguana is threatened by predation by exotic species. The total population size is unknown, but is, according to IUCN, at least 50,000, and estimates from the Charles Darwin Research Station are in the hundreds of thousands. The marine iguanas have not evolved to combat newer predators. Therefore, cats and dogs eat both the young iguanas and dogs will kill adults due to the iguanas' slow reflex times and tameness. Dogs are especially common around human settlements and can cause tremendous predation. Cats are also common in towns, but they also occur in numbers in remote areas where they take a toll on iguanas.

Espanola (Suarez Point)

Approximately a 10-12 hour trip from Santa Cruz, Española is the oldest and the southernmost island in the chain. The trip across open waters can be quite rough especially during August and September. Española's remote location helped make it a unique jewel with a large number of endemic creatures. Secluded from the other islands, wildlife on Española adapted to the island's environment and natural resources. The subspecies of Marine iguana from Española are the only ones that change color during breeding season. Normally, marine iguanas are black in color, a camouflage, making it difficult for predators to differentiate between the iguanas and the black lava rocks where they live. On Española adult marine iguanas are brightly colored with a reddish tint except during mating season when their color changes to more of a greenish shade. The Hood Mockingbird is also endemic to the island. These brazen birds have no fear of man and frequently land on visitors heads and shoulders searching for food. The Hood Mockingbird is slightly larger than other mockingbirds found in the Galapagos; its beak is longer and has a more curved shape. The Hood Mockingbird is the only carnivorous one of the species feeding on a variety of insects, turtle hatchlings and sea lion placentas. Wildlife is the highlight of Española and the star of the show is the waved albatross. The island's steep cliffs serve as the perfect runways for these large birds which take off for their ocean feeding grounds near the mainland of Ecuador and Peru abandoning the island between January and March. Known as endemic to the island, Española is the waved albatross's only nesting place. Each April the males return to Española followed shortly thereafter by the females. Mating for life, their ritual begins with the male's annual dance to re-attract his mate. The performance can take up to 5 days consisting of a series of strutting, honking, and beak fencing. Once the pair is reacquainted they produce a single egg and share the responsibility of incubation. The colony remains based on Española until December when the chick is fully grown. By January most of the colony leaves the island to fish along the Humboldt Current. Young albatross do not return to Española until their 4th or 5th year when they return to seek a mate. Geographically Española is a classic example of a shield volcano, created from a single caldera in the center of the island. Over the years as the island has moved further away from the hot spot, the volcano became extinct and erosion began to occur. Española's two visitor sites offer an exceptional island visit. Punta Suarez is one of the highlights of the Galapagos Islands. The variety and quantity of wildlife assures a memorable visit. Visitors find migrant, resident, and endemic wildlife including brightly colored Marine Iguanas, Española Lava Lizards, Hood Mockingbirds, Swallow Tailed Gulls, Blue Footed and Masked Boobies, Galapagos Hawks, a selection of Finch, and the Waved Albatross.Found on the western tip of Española, Punta Suarez offers great wildlife such as sea lions, sea birds and the largest marine iguanas of Galapagos. This is one of the best sites in the Galapagos. The amount of wildlife is overwhelming. Along the beach there are many sea lions and large, colorful lava lizards and marine iguanas. As you follow the trail to the cliff's edge masked boobies can be found nesting among the rock formations. After a short walk down to a beach and back up the other side blue-footed boobies are seen nesting just off the trail. The Galapagos Dove and very friendly Hood Mockingbird are commonly found in this area. The nearby bushes are frequently home to the large-cactus finch, warbler finch, small-ground finch and large-billed flycatcher. Continuing down the trail you come to the only place where waved albatross nest in the islands. Some 12,000 pairs nest on Española each year. The feeling is very dramatic and it seems like a desolate wilderness as the waves crash on the jagged cliffs below and the blowhole shoots water 50-70 feet/15-30 meters into the air. The sky above is full of sea birds including red-billed tropicbirds, American Oystercatchers, swallow-tailed gulls, and Audubon's Shearwaters.

Galapagos Islands

The Galápagos Islands (official name: Archipiélago de Colón; other Spanish names: Islas de Colón or Islas Galápagos) are an archipelago of volcanic islands distributed around the equator in the Pacific Ocean, some 900 km west of Ecuador. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site: wildlife is its most notable feature. Because of the only very recent arrival of man the majority of the wildlife has no fear of humans and will allow visitors to walk right up them, often having to step over Iguanas or Sea Lions.The Galápagos islands and its surrounding waters are part of a province, a national park, and a biological marine reserve. The principal language on the islands is Spanish. The islands have a population of around 40,000, which is a 40-fold expansion in 50 years. The islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied by Charles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.

The client originally wanted a Superion, and somehow we shifted towards a Cybertronian style/theme set of Aerialbots. I wanted to minimize extra parts, however - I prefer great proportions and size over a few less pieces. Superion is fully transformable. He stands approximately 15 inches tall. He is fully articulated as well : waist, hips, thighs, double knee joints, ball jointed ankles, ratcheting shoulders, upper arms, head, and fingers. He contains 2 bright 3mm yellow LED bulbs in his visor. I took some creative artistic freedom in changing some of the aspects of Superion, such as his face now has a battle mask. I wanted the entire team, as well as Superion to look as though they are a set; sticking to a limited color pallette including : black, white, silver, red and light blue. Other colors were used only to accent the character(s) He also has a large rifle/gun (as if he'd really need it)

Here are links to the individual Aerialbot Galleries :

Fireflight >> www.flickr.com/photos/accardi1/sets/72157649052066427/

Slingshot >> www.flickr.com/photos/accardi1/sets/72157650009516775/

Silverbolt >> www.flickr.com/photos/accardi1/sets/72157649146588777/

Skydive >> www.flickr.com/photos/accardi1/sets/72157649334894122/

Air Raid >> www.flickr.com/photos/accardi1/sets/72157637604620533/

Well, it looks like Western efforts to deter Putin have been unable to stop him. As such, tens of thousands of innocent people are likely to die in the coming days.

The Russians do not attempt to minimize civilian casualties and therefore the death toll will be quite large. The lethality of modern weapons is much greater than those of WWII, the last time there was combat on this scale in Europe.

The next few weeks (after the start) are going to be a blood bath on the scale the world hasn’t seen in decades. I suspect the Ukraine will be defeated as a military force in rather short order, as the Russians have huge advantages on a large, modern and mobile battle field.

Expect Russian Spetsnaz, to carry out political/opposition assassinations of Ukrainians to create chaos and undermine the current Ukrainian government.

However, the occupation of Ukraine is likely to be a long and bloody affair for both the Russians and the remaining Ukraine people. We could see more than a million killed there over the next few years.

The West can never recognize this occupation, if democracy means anything to them and the rest of the world and so we are likely to enter a long cold war like period in Europe and the “Western style” democracies. Putin will not live forever, but once started, I don’t see things changing until he is dead or has been removed from power in Russia.

It is going to be a dangerous and unstable period because of that, as he will have no option but to escalate things to stay in power, when things get bogged down.

It is a very sad state of affairs when the current Putin leaning GOP can’t be troubled to say anything but supportive things about Putin. (Trump, Tucker Carlson and former Sec of State Pompeo all could only say positive things and praise for Putin in these last few days. Really sickening.)

I personally don’t support the idea of sending US troops to fight in the Ukraine, but we do need to stand against this kind of aggression by Putin against his neighbors. It reminds me a lot of the situation in Europe in the late 1930 before WWII, when Hitler used his locally superior military power to swallow up, the Ruhr land, Austria, Czechoslovakia and Poland, finally leading to WWII.

Regardless of what Putin chooses to do in the Ukraine, he must be stopped here.

Closer to home, things are getting much better around here in the SF Bay Area, I expect the COVID in door mask mandates to be lifted in the next few weeks and with over 90% of the local folks vaccinated and tens of thousands of “unvaccinated but recently recovered” folks COVID will not have an easy time spreading here.

We are down below our highs of the delta variant surge last fall and so I expect March and the coming spring will look pretty good here locally.

Lets hope we will have a world worth enjoying it in.

This portrait of a miner was done underground at the depth of 400 meters in the oldest gold mine in the world - Berezovskaya Shakhta. Miner distracted from his work and delivered to the appointed location. item posing was minimized.

How to Walk In Heels Like A Pro And Minimize The Pain (Male to Female Transgender / Crossdressing Tips)

dragqueen.silicone-breast.com/2016/11/26/how-to-walk-in-h...

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When Marilyn Monroe said: “Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world,” we’re fairly certain she was talking about heels. But if you can’t walk in said heels? Well, that essentially "Transgender" negates any potential conquests, whether you’re in the boardroom or the bar. Accordi

bathroom reno, minimized expenses by retaining existing fixtures and flooring, retiled around tub and shower, added granite,frameless glass for shower, chic wallpaper and glass tile for maximal impact.