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Image Title: PARALLELS UNPARALLELED
Looking down at the intersection, parallels unparalleled ...
©2016 Fernando Lopez Arbarello - All Rights Reserved
Fine Art Photography by Fernando Lopez Arbarello
Here I am standing on the 45th parallel, halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.
I bet you're surprised that we took a long weekend to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary, and (here's the surprising part), we decided to head north! I mean it's not like we ever find an excuse to do this as often as possible or anything like that ;)
For some reason that I have never been able to explain, I have always wanted my picture taken here. What usually happens, or has at least the first 41 years of my life, is we forget it's coming up until we're already past it. Then I make some kind of comment like, 'bummer, we forgot about the sign again...maybe we'll remember on the way home this time'. Unfortunately we have a tendency to push our play time to the last possible minute and any stops outside a life threatening physical emergency on the way home are a pipe dream at best.
This time should have been no different. I followed the same script as always and was engrossed in something (cleaning my camera lens) and forgot it was coming up. All of a sudden the car slowed and pulled off, and immediately I thought oh shit... are we breaking down or being pulled over... Why else would you stop on the shoulder of an interstate highway? Hmmm maybe because your husband remembered and was thrilled that you didn't, just so he could surprise you? :)
We had a great trip taking in Lake superior, Grand Marias, and a small piece of the Pictured Rocks National Lake shore. It was an awesome day, looong and draining, but awesome.
Two modes of transportation parallel each other down New Brown Street in Duryea, Pennsylvania. Both EMDs will be paired together after working Mariotti Building Products, located about a mile up the line.
Hmmm. It seems walking around with your camera is the 2nd best way to spend a beautiful afternoon. Ok, maybe third. :D
MAX FLEISCHER
Max Fleischer (July 19, 1883 – September 11, 1972) was an American animator. He was a pioneer in the development of the animated cartoon and served as the head of Fleischer Studios. He brought such animated characters as Betty Boop, Koko the Clown, Popeye, and Superman to the movie screen and was responsible for a number of technological innovations.
Fleischer devised a concept to simplify the process of animating movement by tracing frames of live action film. His patent for the Rotoscope was granted in 1915, although Max and his brother Dave Fleischer made their first cartoon using the system in 1914. Extensive use of this technique was made in Fleischer's Out of the Inkwell series for the first five years of the series, which started in 1919 and starred Koko the Clown and Fitz the dog.
Fleischer produced his Inkwell films for the Bray Studios until 1921, when he and younger brothers Dave and Lou established Fleischer Studios (initially named "Out of the Inkwell Films") to produce animated cartoons and short subjects; Max was credited as the producer at the beginning of every cartoon as well. Koko and Fitz remained the stars of the Out of the Inkwell series, which was renamed Inkwell Imps in 1927. The Fleischer brothers also partnered with Lee DeForest, Edwin Miles Fadiman, and Hugo Riesenfeld to form Red Seal Pictures Corporation, which owned 36 theaters on the East Coast, extending as far west as Cleveland, Ohio.
Fleischer invented the "follow the bouncing ball" technique for his Song Car-Tunes series of animated singalong shorts beginning in May 1924. After a few films with unsynchronized sound (music and sound effects only), Fleischer added synchronized sound to this series, with My Old Kentucky Home (released April 13, 1926) with a dog-like character saying "Follow the ball, and join in, everybody." The sound entries in the Song Car-Tunes series — roughly 19 out of 36 short films — used the Phonofilm sound-on-film process developed by Lee DeForest. The Song Car-Tunes series would last until early 1927, just a few months before the actual start of the sound era. This was before Walt Disney's Steamboat Willie (1928), which is often mistakenly cited as the first cartoon to synchronize sound with animation. However, by late 1926, both the DeForest Phonofilm Corp. and Red Seal Pictures had filed for bankruptcy, and the Song Car-Tunes series came to an end.
In 1923, Fleischer made two 20-minute educational features explaining Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity (The Einstein Theory of Relativity) and Charles Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Both features used a combination of animated special effects and live action. Fleischer also produced Finding His Voice (1929) illustrating how sound films worked.
Into the early sound era, Fleischer produced many technically advanced and sophisticated animated films. Several of his cartoons had soundtracks featuring live or rotoscoped images of the leading jazz performers of the time, most notably Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong and Don Redman. Fleischer's use of black performers was bold at a time when depictions of blacks were often denigrating and stereotypical.
In 1928, as film studios made the transition to sound, Fleischer revived the Song Car-Tunes series as Screen Songs, starting with the release of The Sidewalks of New York on February 5, 1929 through Paramount Pictures. Out of the Inkwell Films, Inc. was reorganized as Fleischer Studios in January 1929 following bankruptcy. During this time, Walt Disney was also gaining success with Mickey Mouse and Silly Symphonies. In August 1929, the silent Inkwell Imps series was replaced with the Talkartoon series, beginning with Noah's Lark. A year into the series, Fitz was renamed "Bimbo" and became the star of the Talkartoon series, starting with the cartoon Hot Dog (1930).
However, in August 1930, a Rubenesque poodle-human hybrid, Bimbo's girlfriend, made her screen debut in Dizzy Dishes, and quickly became Fleischer's biggest star; she would later be named Betty Boop. By 1931, Betty's floppy canine ears had evolved into hoop earrings, and she was transformed into a fully human girl (though she retained her romantic relationship with the dog for several episodes after her transmogrification). By the time of Minnie the Moocher (1932), Betty Boop was in a class of her own, and by August 1932, starting with Stopping the Show, the Talkartoon series was renamed as Betty Boop Cartoons; by now, as noted from even the opening song from Stopping the Show, Betty clearly became the self-proclaimed "Queen of the Animated Screen." Along with his standout star Boop, Fleischer had become one of the two premier animation producers; the up-and-coming Walt Disney was the other.
Fleischer cartoons were very different from Disney cartoons, in concept and in execution. The Fleischer approach was sophisticated, focused on surrealism, dark humor, adult psychological elements and sexuality. The Fleischer milieu was grittier, more urban, sometimes even sordid, often set in squalid tenement apartments with cracked, crumbling plaster and threadbare furnishings. Even the jazz music on Fleischer's soundtracks was rawer, saucier, more fitting with the unflinching Fleischer look at America's multicultural scene. But as popular as Betty Boop was for Fleischer, the Fleischer Studios would never come close to matching the huge international success of Mickey Mouse.
Fleischer would come closest through his deal securing the rights to the comic strip character Popeye the Sailor from King Features Syndicate. Popeye started out as a secondary character in 1929 in the newspaper feature Thimble Theater, and made his film debut in July, 1933, introduced in the Betty Boop short Popeye the Sailor. Popeye was an immediate hit for Fleischer, and would remain in production until 1957.
Fleischer's studio was a major operation in New York under the support of Paramount Studio. But as a recipient of Paramount cash, Fleischer was also at the mercy of Paramount's management. During the Great Depression, Paramount went through four name changes and reorganizations due to bankruptcies. These reorganizations affected the production budgets and created obstacles to Fleischer's development.
When the three-color Technicolor process became available, Paramount vetoed it based on their concerns with economic balance, giving Disney the opportunity to acquire an exclusivity to the process for four years, thus giving him the market edge on color cartoons. Two years later, Paramount approved color production for Fleischer, but he was left with the clearly inferior two-color processes of Cinecolor (red and blue) and two-strip Technicolor (red and green). The Color Classics series was introduced in 1934 as Fleischer's answer to Disney's Silly Symphonies.
These color cartoons were augmented with a Fleischer-patented three-dimensional background effect called "The Stereoptical Process," a precursor to Disney's Multiplane. This technique replaced the usual flat-plane, drawn and painted cartoon backgrounds with a circular 3-D scale-model background — a diorama — in front of which the action cels were positioned and photographed. As the character, say, hustled down a city street, the camera operator would rotate the diorama a click with each frame. The result was a constantly changing perspective of converging parallel lines that gave an amazing sense of depth. The process worked most dramatically with pans or tracking shots; for static shots, traditional drawn backgrounds sufficed. It was used to great effect in the longer format Popeye cartoons Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (1936) and Popeye the Sailor Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves (1937). These series of double-length (two-reel) cartoons were a gradual progression expressing Fleischer's desire to produce feature-length animated features. And while he had concepts for full-length features, it was not until the success of Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) that the stodgy Paramount executives realized the value of an animated feature as Fleischer had been proposing for the previous three years.
The popularity of Betty Boop was irreparably damaged as a result of the enforcement of the Hays Code in 1934. Her overt sexuality was downplayed, and her racy flapper attire was replaced with longer skirts and a less revealing neckline. While the production of the cartoons had become more refined with more structured stories, the level of the content was more juvenile, largely influenced by Paramount's front office, which was changing the tone of their films to reflect a more family-oriented audience by producing films more of the nature of MGM. Betty became a spinster career girl and maiden aunt character, a judgmental "good citizen" instead of the carefree, funloving Jazz Baby she had once been. As a result, she lost much of her audience appeal, and the era and musical style that she represented had already faded away with the coming of the Swing Era.
In 1937, film production at Fleischer's studio was affected by a five month strike, which kept his cartoons off theater screens through the rest of the year. The strikers represented by the Commercial Artists and Designers Union were not recognized by the IATSE, which represented the majority of the motion picture crafts. But after five months, Paramount Pictures urged Fleischer to settle. Then in March 1938, Fleischer Studios moved from New York City to Miami, Florida. The reasons were many. While it was reasoned that the relocation removed the studio from further union agitation, they were in need of additional space for the production of features. Coincidentally with the move, relations between brothers Dave and Max began deteriorating. A feud started simmering after Dave began an adulterous affair with his Miami secretary in 1938, and was followed by more personal and professional disputes.
While at Paramount, Dave Fleischer was asked by the studio to put the popular comic book and radio hero Superman into a cartoon series. Despite the high budgets that came from the series — triple the budget of typical Popeye one-reelers — Superman became the most successful cartoons in the late period of the studio. Its ultra-realistic drawing, stylish Art Deco look and magnificently intricate scoring made the Superman pilot the highwater mark of the studio's sophisticated output.
In the wake of Disney's inarguable triumph with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937, Paramount top brass finally acquiesced to Fleischer's longstanding appeals to produce feature-length animated films — and now they wanted one for a Christmas 1939 release. In order to finance the new operation, Fleischer negotiated a loan with Paramount that in essence surrendered the studio's assets for the term of the loan, 10 years.
While Gulliver's Travels (1939) did moderate box office, it did not make back all of its costs since the production ran nearly $500,000 overbudget due to the relocation, transportation of film for processing and back, and costs of training new workers. At the time, it was also reported that the escalated war in Europe just three months before cut off Paramount's foreign release potential; however, recent information indicates that the picture was released in Europe but the returns were not reported to Fleischer Studios' accounting department. At the same time, returns on Popeye cartoons were also not properly accounted. These factors contributed to the continued financial losses for Fleischer's studio. The final blow came with the ill-fated release of their second feature, Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941) two days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
On May 24, 1941, Paramount initiated takeover of Fleischer's studio. Max remained nominally in charge, but the long-simmering personal feud with his brother Dave further complicated the situation. Shortly after the release of Mr. Bug, a disgusted Dave left for California to take over as head of Columbia's Screen Gems animation unit in April 1942 — just one month prior to the renewal of Fleischer's contract. The move put Dave in breach of contract, for taking a position with a competitor while still contracted to Paramount. This breach, along with the substantial debt to Paramount, gave the bigger studio the right to take control of the smaller, forcing Max out. Paramount installed new management, among them Max's son-in-law, Seymour Kneitel. On May 25, 1942, the studio was renamed Famous Studios, and it moved back to New York within eight months.
Despite the disappointing performance of the feature films, the Superman series continued to do well. Nine episodes were completed by Fleischer Studios, with the final eight made by Famous Studios after the reorganization. Today, the Max Fleischer Superman cartoons are considered the final triumph of this great pioneer and his innovative studio.
After leaving his studio, Fleischer was brought in as head of the Animation Department for the industrial film company, The Jam Handy Organization. While there he supervised the technical and cartoon animation departments, producing training films for the Army and Navy and was also involved with research and development for the war effort. Following the war, he supervised the production of the animated adaptation of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (1948), sponsored by Montgomery Ward. Fleischer left Handy in 1954 and returned as Production Manager for the Bray Studios in New York.
Fleischer lost a lawsuit against Paramount in 1955 over the removal of his name from the credits of his films. While Fleischer had issues over the breach of contract, he had avoided suing to protect his son-in-law, Seymour Kneitel, who still had a position with Paramount's Famous Studios. The lawsuit was lost because the court decided that, though Fleischer's case had merit, the statute of limitations had expired. In 1958, Fleischer revived Out of the Inkwell Films, Inc. and partnered with his former animator, Hal Seeger to produce 100 color Out of the Inkwell (1960–1961) cartoons for television. Actor Larry Storch performed the voices for Koko and supporting characters Kokonut and Mean Moe.
Although the rift with his brother Dave was never resolved, Max eventually formed a friendship with his old rival Walt Disney, who welcomed Max to a reunion with former Fleischer animators who were by then employed by Disney.
Fleischer, along with his wife Essie, moved to the Motion Picture Country House in 1967. He died from heart failure on September 11, 1972, after a period of poor health. On the day of his death, Max Fleischer was cited as a great pioneer who invented an industry, and was named by Time magazine as the "Dean of Animated Cartoons."[
His son Richard Fleischer, born in 1916, entered the film industry in the 1940s, and in retirement worked on merchandising Betty Boop.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhesus_macaque
The rhesus macaque (Macaca mulatta), is one of the best-known species of Old World monkeys. It is listed as Least Concern in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in view of its wide distribution, presumed large population, and its tolerance of a broad range of habitats. Native to South, Central and Southeast Asia, troops of Macaca mulatta inhabit a great variety of habitats from grasslands to arid and forested areas, but also close to human settlements
Characteristics
The rhesus macaque is brown or grey in color and has a pink face, which is bereft of fur. Its tail is of medium length and averages between 20.7 and 22.9 cm (8.1 and 9.0 in). Adult males measure approximately 53 cm (21 in) on average and weigh about 7.7 kg (17 lb). Females are smaller, averaging 47 cm (19 in) in length and 5.3 kg (12 lb) in weight. Rhesus macaques have on average 50 vertebrae. Their intermembral index (ratio of arm length to leg length) is 89%. They have dorsal scapulae and a wide rib cage.
The rhesus macaque has 32 teeth with a dental formula of 2.1.2.3/2.1.2.3 and bilophodont molars. The upper molars have four cusps: paracone, metacone, protocone and hypocone. The lower molars also have four cusps: metaconid, protoconid, hypoconid and entoconid.
Distribution and habitat
Rhesus macaques are native to northern India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Afghanistan, Vietnam, southern China, and some neighboring areas. They have the widest geographic ranges of any nonhuman primate, occupying a great diversity of altitudes throughout Central, South and Southeast Asia. Inhabiting arid, open areas, rhesus macaques may be found in grasslands, woodlands and in mountainous regions up to 2,500 m (8,200 ft) in elevation. They are regular swimmers. Babies as young as a few days old can swim, and adults are known to swim over a half mile between islands, but are often found drowned in small groups where their drinking waters lie. Rhesus macaques are noted for their tendency to move from rural to urban areas, coming to rely on handouts or refuse from humans.[3]
The southern and the northern distributional limits for rhesus and bonnet macaques, respectively, currently run parallel to each other in the western part of India, are separated by a large gap in the center, and converge on the eastern coast of the peninsula to form a distribution overlap zone. This overlap region is characterized by the presence of mixed-species troops, with pure troops of both species sometimes occurring even in close proximity to one another. The range extension of rhesus macaque – a natural process in some areas and a direct consequence of introduction by humans in other regions – poses grave implications for the endemic and declining populations of bonnet macaques in southern India.[4]
Distribution of subspecies and populations
The name "rhesus" is reminiscent of the Greek mythological king Rhesus. However, the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Audebert, who applied the name to the species, stated: "it has no meaning".[5]
According to Zimmermann’s first description of 1780, the rhesus macaque is distributed in eastern Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, as far east as the Brahmaputra Valley in peninsular India, Nepal and northern Pakistan. Today, this is known as the Indian rhesus macaque M. m. mulatta, which includes the morphologically similar M. rhesus villosus described by True in 1894 from Kashmir and M. m. mcmahoni described by Pocock in 1932 from Kootai, Pakistan. Several Chinese subspecies of rhesus macaques have been described between 1867 and 1917. The molecular differences identified among populations, however, are alone not consistent enough to conclusively define any subspecies.[6]
The Chinese subspecies can be divided in:
M. m. mulatta is found in western and central China, in the south of Yunnan and southwest of Guangxi;[7]
M. m. lasiota (Gray, 1868), the west Chinese rhesus macaque, is distributed in the west of Sichuan, northwest of Yunnan, and southeast of Qinghai;[7] it is possibly synonymous with M. m. sanctijohannis (Swinhoe, 1867), if not with M. m. mulatta.[6]
M. m. tcheliensis (Milne-Edwards, 1870), the north Chinese rhesus macaque, lives in the north of Henan, south of Shanxi and near Beijing. Some consider it as the most endangered subspecies.[8] Others consider it possibly synonymous with M. m. sanctijohannis, if not with M. m. mulatta.[6]
M. m. vestita (Milne-Edwards, 1892), the Tibetan rhesus macaque, lives in the southeast of Tibet, northwest of Yunnan (Deqing), and perhaps including Yushu;[7] it is possibly synonymous with M. m. sanctijohannis, if not with M. m. mulatta.[6]
M. m. littoralis (Elliot, 1909), the south Chinese rhesus macaque, lives in Fujian, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Guizhou, northwest of Guangdong, north of Guangxi, northeast of Yunnan, east of Sichuan and south of Shaanxi;[7] it is possibly synonymous with M. m. sanctijohannis, if not with M. m. mulatta.[6]
M. m. brevicaudus, also referred to as Pithecus brevicaudus (Elliot, 1913), lives on the Hainan Island and Wanshan Islands in Guangdong, and the islands near Hong Kong;[7] it may be synonymous with M. m. mulatta.[6]
M. m. siamica (Kloss, 1917), the Indochinese rhesus macaque, is distributed in Myanmar, in the north of Thailand and Vietnam, in Laos and in the Chinese provinces of Anhui, northwest Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, central and eastern Sichuan, and western and south-central Yunnan; possibly synonymous with M. m. sanctijohannis, if not with M. m. mulatta.[6]
Feral colonies in the United States[edit]
Main article: feral rhesus macaque
Around the spring of 1938, a colony of rhesus macaques called "the Nazuri's" was released in around Silver Springs in Florida by a tour boat operator known locally as "Colonel Tooey" to enhance his "Jungle Cruise". A traditional story that the monkeys were released for scenery enhancement in the Tarzan movies that were filmed at that location is false, as the only Tarzan movie filmed in the area, 1939's Tarzan Finds a Son! does not contain rhesus macaques.[9] In addition, various colonies of rhesus and other monkey species are speculated to be the result of zoos and wildlife parks destroyed in hurricanes, most notably Hurricane Andrew.[10]
A notable colony of rhesus macaques on Morgan Island, one of the Sea Islands in the South Carolina Lowcountry, was imported in the 1970s for use in local labs and are by all accounts thriving.[11]
Ecology and behavior
Although they are infamous as urban pests, which are quick to steal not only food, but also household items, it is not certain if the pair of jeans draped over the wall on the right is their handiwork.
Rhesus macaques are diurnal animals, and both arboreal and terrestrial. They are quadrupedal and, when on the ground, they walk digitigrade and plantigrade. They are mostly herbivorous, feeding on mainly fruit, but also eating seeds, roots, buds, bark, and cereals. They are estimated to consume around 99 different plant species in 46 families. During the monsoon season, they get much of their water from ripe and succulent fruit. Macaques living far from water sources lick dewdrops from leaves and drink rainwater accumulated in tree hollows.[12] They have also been observed eating termites, grasshoppers, ants and beetles.[13] When food is abundant, they are distributed in patches and forage throughout the day in their home ranges. They drink water when foraging and gather around streams and rivers.[14] Rhesus macaques have specialized pouch-like cheeks, allowing them to temporarily hoard their food.
In psychological research, rhesus macaques have demonstrated a variety of complex cognitive abilities, including the ability to make same-different judgments, understand simple rules, and monitor their own mental states.[15] [16] They have even been shown to demonstrate self-agency,[17] an important type of self-awareness.
Group structure
Like other macaques, rhesus troops comprise a mixture of 20–200 males and females.[18] Females may outnumber the males by a ratio of 4:1. Males and females both have separate hierarchies. Females have highly stable matrilineal hierarchies in which a female’s rank is dependent on the rank of her mother. In addition, a single group may have multiple matrilineal lines existing in a hierarchy, and a female outranks any unrelated females that rank lower than her mother.[19] Rhesus macaques are unusual in that the youngest females tend to outrank their older sisters.[20] This is likely because young females are more fit and fertile. Mothers seem to prevent the older daughters from forming coalitions against her. The youngest daughter is the most dependent on the mother, and would have nothing to gain from helping her siblings in overthrowing their mother. Since each daughter had a high rank in her early years, rebelling against her mother is discouraged.[21] Juvenile male macaques also exist in matrilineal lines, but once they reach four to five years of age, they are driven out of their natal groups by the dominant male. Thus, adult males gain dominance by age and experience.[14]
In the group, macaques position themselves based on rank. The "central male subgroup" contains the two or three oldest and most dominant males which are codominant, along with females, their infants and juveniles. This subgroup occupies the center of the group and determines the movements, foraging and other routines.[14] The females of this subgroup are also the most dominant of the entire group. The farther to the periphery a subgroup is, the less dominant it is. Subgroups on the periphery of the central group are run by one dominant male which ranks lower than the central males, and maintains order in the group and communicates messages between the central and peripheral males. A subgroup of subordinate, often subadult males occupy the very edge of the groups and have the responsibility of communicating with other macaque groups and making alarm calls.[22]
Communication
Rhesus macaques interact using a variety of facial expressive, vocalizations and body postures, and gestures. Perhaps the most common facial expression the macaque makes is the "silent bared teeth" face.[23] This is made between individuals of different social ranks with the lower ranking one giving the expression to its superior. A less dominant individual will also make a "fear grimace" accompanied by a scream to appease or redirect aggression.[24] Another submissive behavior is the "present rump", where an individual raises its tail and exposes its genitals to the dominant one.[23] A dominant individual will threaten another individual standing quadrupedally making a silent "open mouth stare" accompanied by the tail sticking straight.[25] During movements, macaques will make "coos" and "grunts". These are also made during affiliative interactions and approaches before grooming.[26] When they find rare food of high quality, macaques will emit "warbles," "harmonic arches", or "chirps." When in threatening situations, macaques will emit a single loud, high-pitched sound called a "shrill bark".[27] "Screeches," "screams", "squeaks", "pant-threats", "growls", and "barks" are used during aggressive interactions.[27] Infants "gecker" to attract their mother's attention.[28]
Reproduction
Adult male macaques try to maximize their reproductive success by entering into consort pairs with females, both in and outside the breeding period. Females prefer to mate with males that will increase the survival of their young. Thus, a consort male provides resources for his female and protects her from predators. Larger, more dominant males are more likely to provide for the females. The breeding period can last up to 11 days, and a female usually mates with four males during that time. Male rhesus macaques have not been observed to fight for access to sexually receptive females, although they suffer more wounds during the mating season.[29] Female macaques first breed when they are four years old, and reach menopause at around 25 years of age.[30] When mating, a male rhesus monkey usually ejaculates less than 15 seconds after sexual penetration.[31] Male macaques generally play no role in raising the young, but do have peaceful relationships with the offspring of their consort pairs.[14]
Mothers with one or more immature daughters in addition to their infants are in contact with their infants less than those with no older immature daughters, because the mothers may pass the parenting responsibilities to her daughters. High-ranking mothers with older immature daughters also reject their infants significantly more than those without older daughters, and tend to begin mating earlier in the mating season than expected based on their dates of parturition the preceding birth season.[32] Infants farther from the center of the groups are more vulnerable to infanticide from outside groups.[14] Some mothers abuse their infants, which is believed to be the result of controlling parenting styles.[33]
In science
The rhesus macaque is well known to science. Due to its relatively easy upkeep in captivity, wide availability and closeness to humans anatomically and physiologically, it has been used extensively in medical and biological research on human and animal health-related topics. It has given its name to the rhesus factor, one of the elements of a person's blood group, by the discoverers of the factor, Karl Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener. The rhesus macaque was also used in the well-known experiments on maternal deprivation carried out in the 1950s by controversial comparative psychologist Harry Harlow. Other medical breakthroughs facilitated by the use of the rhesus macaque include:
development of the rabies, smallpox, and polio vaccines
creation of drugs to manage HIV/AIDS
understanding of the female reproductive cycle and development of the embryo and the propagation of embryonic stem cells.[34]
The U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, and NASA launched rhesus macaques into outer space during the 1950s and 1960s, and the Soviet/Russian space program launched them into space as recently as 1997 on the Bion missions. One of these primates ("Able"), which was launched on a suborbital spaceflight in 1959, was one of the two first living beings (along with "Miss Baker" on the same mission) to travel in space and return alive.[citation needed]
On October 25, 1994, the rhesus macaque became the first cloned primate with the birth of Tetra. January 2001 saw the birth of ANDi, the first transgenic primate; ANDi carries foreign genes originally from a jellyfish.[citation needed]
Though most studies of the rhesus macaque are from various locations in northern India, some knowledge of the natural behavior of the species comes from studies carried out on a colony established by the Caribbean Primate Research Center of the University of Puerto Rico on the island of Cayo Santiago, off Puerto Rico.[citation needed] There are no predators on the island, and humans are not permitted to land except as part of the research programmes. The colony is provisioned to some extent, but about half of its food comes from natural foraging.
Rhesus macaques, like many macaques, carry the Herpes B virus. This virus does not typically harm the monkey but is very dangerous to humans in the rare event that it jumps species, for example in the 1997 death of Yerkes National Primate Research Center researcher Elizabeth Griffin.[35][36][37]
Sequencing the genome
Genomic information
NCBI genome ID 215
Ploidy diploid
Genome size 3,097.37 Mb
Number of chromosomes 21 pairs
Year of completion 2007
Work on the genome of the rhesus macaque was completed in 2007, making the species the second nonhuman primate to have its genome sequenced.[38] Humans and macaques apparently share about 93% of their DNA sequence and shared a common ancestor roughly 25 million years ago.[39] The rhesus macaque has 21 pairs of chromosomes.[40]
Comparison of rhesus macaques, chimpanzees and humans revealed the structure of ancestral primate genomes, positive selection pressure and lineage-specific expansions and contractions of gene families.
"The goal is to reconstruct the history of every gene in the human genome," said Evan Eichler, University of Washington, Seattle. DNA from different branches of the primate tree will allow us "to trace back the evolutionary changes that occurred at various time points, leading from the common ancestors of the primate clade to Homo sapiens," said Bruce Lahn, University of Chicago.[41]
After the human and chimpanzee genomes were sequenced and compared, it was usually impossible to tell whether differences were the result of the human or chimpanzee gene changing from the common ancestor. After the rhesus macaque genome was sequenced, three genes could be compared. If two genes were the same, they are presumed to be the original gene.[42]
The chimpanzee and human genome diverged 6 million years ago. They have 98% identity and many conserved regulatory regions. Comparing the macaque and human genomes, which diverged 25 million years ago and had 93% identity, further identified evolutionary pressure and gene function.
Like the chimpanzee, changes were on the level of gene rearrangements rather than single mutations. There were frequent insertions, deletions, changes in the order and number of genes, and segmental duplications near gaps, centromeres and telomeres. So macaque, chimpanzee, and human chromosomes are mosaics of each other.
Surprisingly, some normal gene sequences in healthy macaques and chimpanzees cause profound disease in humans. For example, the normal sequence of phenylalanine hydroxylase in macaques and chimpanzees is the mutated sequence responsible for phenylketonuria in humans. So humans must have been under evolutionary pressure to adopt a different mechanism.
Some gene families are conserved or under evolutionary pressure and expansion in all three primate species, while some are under expansion uniquely in human, chimpanzee or macaque.
For example, cholesterol pathways are conserved in all three species (and other primate species). In all three species, immune response genes are under positive selection, and genes of T cell-mediated immunity, signal transduction, cell adhesion, and membrane proteins generally. Genes for keratin, which produce hair shafts, were rapidly evolving in all three species, possibly because of climate change or mate selection. The X chromosome has three times more rearrangements than other chromosomes. The macaque gained 1,358 genes by duplication.
Triangulation of human, chimpanzee and macaque sequences showed expansion of gene families in each species.
The PKFP gene, important in sugar (fructose) metabolism, is expanded in macaques, possibly because of their high-fruit diet. So are genes for the olfactory receptor, cytochrome P450 (which degrades toxins), and CCL3L1-CCL4 (associated in humans with HIV susceptibility).
Immune genes are expanded in macaques, relative to all four great ape species. The macaque genome has 33 major histocompatibility genes, three times that of human. This has clinical significance because the macaque is used as an experimental model of the human immune system.
In humans, the preferentially expressed antigen of melanoma (PRAME) gene family is expanded. It is actively expressed in cancers, but normally is testis-specific, possibly involved in spermatogenesis. The PRAME family has 26 members on human chromosome 1. In the macaque, it has eight, and has been very simple and stable for millions of years. The PRAME family arose in translocations in the common mouse-primate ancestor 85 million years ago, and is expanded on mouse chromosome 4.
DNA microarrays are used in macaque research. For example, Michael Katze of University of Washington, Seattle, infected macaques with 1918 and modern influenzas. The DNA microarray showed the macaque genomic response to human influenza on a cellular level in each tissue. Both viruses stimulated innate immune system inflammation, but the 1918 flu stimulated stronger and more persistent inflammation, causing extensive tissue damage, and it did not stimulate the interferon-1 pathway. The DNA response showed a transition from innate to adaptive immune response over seven days.[43][44]
The full sequence and annotation of the Macaque genome is available on the Ensembl genome browser.
"Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind."
In Kansas for a music academy. Everyone is so incredibly talented and here I am taking pictures on the bus ride there. The landscapes are gorgeous here and I was lucky enough to capture this one as we drove past.
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FROSTBURG (CM-5)
The Connection Machine (CM-5) was built by the Thinking Machine Corporation located in Cambridge Massachusetts. The CM-5 system named FROSTBURG was first installed by the agency in 1991 and used until 1997. It was the first massively parallel processing supercomputer purchased by the National Security Agency. The original computer system was configured with 3 cabinets and 256 CPN's (Cypress Processor nodes). A single CPN is equal to 1 CPU (central processing unit) in a home computer except that a CPN can process data at a much faster rate. In 1993 FROSTBURG was upgraded with an additional 256 CPN's bringing the total to 512. The system cost approximately $25M. FROSTBURG had a total of 500 billion words of storage capacity (500 Giga-words). This system was used to perform higher level math calculations. FROSTBURG could perform perform 65 billion calculations per second.FROSTBURG could take a job and break it into 512 pieces and work on each piece simultaneously making it much faster to complete its work. The light panels you see were used for checking CPN usage and running diagnostics on the machine.
CM-5 SPECIFICATIONS
a) 512 PN's (Processor Nodes) 256 CYPRESS & 256 VIKING nodes.
b) The CYPRESS nodes contained eight million words of memory for each PN. The VIKING nodes contained two million words of memory for each PN. Each word of memory had a 32-bit word size.
c) Each processor had local memory, vector execution memory interface units and a network interface.
d) Each processor had the capability to perform 128 million floating point operations per second (MFLOPS). A total of 65.5 billion floating point operations per second (BFLOPS).
e) CMost operating system was an enhanced version of UNIX, optimized to support parallel computation, communication, and I/O.
f) The system could be partitioned into groups divisible by 8 (8, 16, 24, 32, 64, 128, 256).
Source en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Frostburg-nsa-description.jpg
Just one tiny section of a highway of American Coots -- against a backdrop of Interstate 80 at Davis, California. There were hundreds upon hundreds, we couldn't count them all. Photographed at Yolo Bypass wildlife area, near Sacramento (February 2014).
Very wheaty and light but has a bit of body for a beer you can see through. Would not repeat. Bring back Ugly Sweater!