synthesizing photos on Flickr

Energy Technologies by Dartmouth Engineering

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Energy technologies are crucial to the future stability of human society. Research at Thayer School includes a range of projects — from biomass processing to power electronics optimization. Investigators synthesize ideas and expertise from biochemical and chemical, electrical, and materials engineering as well as physics, chemistry, and microbiology.

This image appeared in the Summer 2008 issue of Dartmouth Engineer magazine.

Photo courtesy of istockphoto.com

Palacio de Auguirre, Cartagena (1901) by A.Davey

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Palacio de Aguirre, Cartagena (Murcia), Spain

Built: 1898–1901

Architect: Víctor Beltrí (1862-1935)

Client: Camilo Aguirre, industrialist and newspaper proprietor

This opulent residence stands as a jewel of Cartagena’s late 19th-century bourgeois expansion, marrying Neo-Baroque monumentality with eclectic ornamental sophistication.

Commissioned by Camilo Aguirre, a wealthy entrepreneur whose fortune was rooted in the region’s mining boom and media influence, the palace functioned as both a family home and an architectural assertion of modern taste, cultural literacy, and upward mobility.

About Cartagena

In 1901, Cartagena was a city of strategic and symbolic importance in Spain—a historic naval stronghold undergoing a period of intense economic and urban renewal. Situated on the southeastern coast, it had long been home to the country’s principal Mediterranean naval base and shipyards.

By the turn of the 20th century, Cartagena was also at the center of a mining and industrial boom, driven by the extraction of silver, lead, and zinc from the nearby Sierra Minera. This influx of capital gave rise to a new class of bourgeois entrepreneurs, financiers, and professionals who sought to remake the city in their image: modern, cultured, and prosperous.

The construction of the Palacio de Aguirre in this context signals not only the personal ambition of its patron, Camilo Aguirre, but also the aspirations of a city eager to assert its place in the modern Spanish nation—as both a military bulwark and a symbol of civic progress, blending classical heritage with contemporary style.

Listed Status

The Palacio de Aguirre is officially designated as a Bien de Interés Cultural in the category of Monumento (Monument), which is the highest level of heritage protection in Spain. This status protects both its architectural integrity and decorative elements, including its polychrome tilework, sculptural ornamentation, and historic fabric.

Additionally, the building forms part of the Museo Regional de Arte Moderno (MURAM) and has been incorporated into the city's cultural and tourism infrastructure, further reinforcing its protected status.

🎨 Style: Historicist Eclecticism meets the Aesthetic Movement

The building synthesizes a rich variety of historicist vocabularies, from Baroque and Renaissance revival to the Aesthetic and Eastlake movements then circulating through European design discourse. Its intricate surface program reveals Beltrí’s fluency with:

•Arts & Crafts and Eastlake linearity, evident in the rhythmic scrolls, plant forms, and stylized beasts

•Spanish and Italian Baroque massing (note the heavily bracketed cornices and ornamental cresting)

•Renaissance grotesque motifs, especially in the ceramic panels

Ceramic Iconography: Pleasure, Labor, and Moral Complexity

A highlight of the façade is the vibrant polychrome tile frieze, where putti harvest grapes amid thistles and symbolic flora. This program draws directly on Roman and Renaissance precedents:

•The grape harvest invokes Bacchic fertility, but here labor is emphasized—putti are not frolicking but toiling, echoing bourgeois work ethic.

•The thistle, beneath soft flesh and ripe fruit, injects emotional and symbolic tension: a reminder of the pain beneath pleasure, or the hard reality beneath surface delight.

•Elsewhere, a putto presents a green parrot perched on a ring—a scene of exotic domesticity, but also allegory: a tamed, mimicking creature symbolizing artifice, desire, and aestheticized nature.

🐉 Scrollwork Beasts and Decorative Lineage

Surrounding these scenes, ceramic panels display scroll-and-beast motifs—hybrid zoomorphic forms emerging from foliage. These derive from:

•Roman grotesque wall painting, filtered through Renaissance revival and 19th-century pattern books.

•Possibly influenced by Moorish ornamental flattening or Japoniste abstraction, part of the wider Aesthetic Movement.

These “botanicomorphic” beasts, unreal by design, assert cultivated imagination—a hallmark of both imperial Rome and modern elite culture. Their presence signals control over the fantastical, a visual assertion of taste, intellect, and privilege.

🐝 Architectural Allegory in Relief and Iron

On the tower, relief bees and stylized botanical panels add another symbolic layer. The bee—a classical emblem of industry, order, and fertility—underscores the patron’s narrative: this is a house of productive labor, refined taste, and civilizing aspiration. Even the wrought iron balcony grilles echo Eastlake wood carving in their intricate scrollwork—nature made geometric, ornament made discipline.

A mixed-use building from the outset:

✔️ Primary Use: Family Residence

The upper floors, particularly the ornate corner rooms and formal salon spaces, were undoubtedly intended as private domestic quarters for the Aguirre family.

The architectural richness—putti, allegorical tiles, wrought iron balconies, and symbolic reliefs—aligns with the bourgeois ideal of the cultivated home, a stage for displaying wealth, refinement, and cultural legitimacy.

✔️ Secondary Use: Business and Social Functions

Camilo Aguirre was more than a rentier—he was an entrepreneur, linked to the regional press, mining interests, and finance.

Like many Spanish industrialist homes of the period, it is plausible that the ground floor or a lateral wing housed offices related to:

Aguirre’s publishing ventures (possibly editorial or administrative spaces)

Business meeting rooms for investment partnerships or civic involvement

Such arrangements were typical of urban palacetes—blending domestic life and elite professional activity in one structure.

Supporting Clues from the Architecture

The arched main door and grander-than-domestic vestibule suggest semi-public or business-related access.

The vertical zoning—more decorative and symbolic elements concentrated on upper façades—often marked a distinction between public-facing lower floors and private upper floors.

️ Afterlife: From Private Palace to Public Use

By the mid-20th century, the palace had ceased to function as a private residence.

It now houses the Museo Regional de Arte Moderno de Cartagena (MURAM)—a fitting reuse that continues the building’s role as a showcase of cultural aspiration.

Final Note

The Palacio de Aguirre is not just eclectic—it is encoded. It offers a narrative façade, in which labor and luxury, sensuality and discipline, mythology and modernity are layered into its ornament. Whether or not Camilo Aguirre grasped every classical or mythic reference, he certainly intended to project cultural legitimacy, moral rectitude, and aesthetic modernity—the values of a man made in the age of industry, but longing to be remembered in the idiom of empire.

About the Architect

Víctor Beltrí (1862–1935) was a prolific and versatile architect who played a transformative role in shaping Cartagena’s architectural identity during its late 19th- and early 20th-century boom. A Catalan by birth and trained in Barcelona, Beltrí brought to Murcia a refined blend of eclectic historicism, Modernisme, and regionalist idioms, applying them across public, religious, and residential buildings.

Here are some of his most notable surviving works, nearly all in Cartagena:

️ Casa Cervantes (1900–1901)

•One of his earliest major commissions in Cartagena, built for the industrialist José María Cervantes.

•Strongly eclectic, with Neo-Baroque and Neo-Renaissance features.

•Known for its decorative stuccowork, ironwork balconies, and elegant symmetry.

🏫 Casa Llagostera (1916)

•A more Modernista work, distinguished by elaborate ceramic tile panels and stylized floral motifs.

•Famous for its ceramic depictions of Cervantine characters (Don Quixote and Sancho Panza), referencing the owner’s name.

🏨 Grand Hotel of Cartagena (1907)

•Perhaps Beltrí’s most iconic secular work.

•A true Modernista showpiece, with a curved corner façade, domed turret, lavish iron balconies, and Art Nouveau ornament.

•Its exuberant decorative program and urban prominence make it one of Cartagena’s architectural landmarks.

⛪ Iglesia de la Caridad (restoration and dome, early 20th c.)

•Beltrí contributed to the renovation of this Baroque church, particularly the dome and lateral chapels.

•The church is the spiritual heart of Cartagena, housing the patron saint Nuestra Señora de la Caridad.

🏫 Casa Clares (1905)

•Residential and commercial building with wrought iron balconies, stucco ornament, and a carefully proportioned façade.

•A good example of Beltrí’s ability to adapt ornamental richness to smaller-scale urban commissions.

️ Casino de Cartagena (remodeling, early 20th century)

•Beltrí was responsible for major interior renovations to this 19th-century social club.

•He introduced Neo-Mudejar elements, stained glass, and eclectic interiors that blend orientalist fantasy with bourgeois refinement.

🏥 Hospital de la Caridad Expansion

•Beltrí also worked on institutional architecture, contributing to the expansion of Cartagena’s medical infrastructure.

Summary of Beltrí’s Significance

Beltrí’s legacy lies in his stylistic range: from strict academic revivalism (as in the Palacio de Aguirre) to Art Nouveau experimentation, always tailored to his patrons’ ambitions. His buildings remain among the most photographed and best-preserved examples of Cartagena’s golden age architecture.

This text is a collaboration with Chat GPT

Indonesia - Bali - Goa Lawah (Temple of the Bats) - Bats - 2 by Manfred Sommer

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Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera (/kaɪˈrɒptərə/; from the Ancient Greek: χείρ - cheir, "hand" and Ancient Greek: πτερόν - pteron, "wing" whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, can only glide for short distances. Bats do not flap their entire forelimbs, as birds do, but instead flap their spread-out digits, which are very long and covered with a thin membrane or patagium.

Bats are the second largest order of mammals (after the rodents), representing about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with about 1,240 bat species divided into two suborders: the less specialized and largely fruit-eating megabats, or flying foxes, and the highly specialized and echolocating microbats. About 70% of bat species are insectivores. Most of the rest are frugivores, or fruit eaters. A few species, such as the fish-eating bat, feed from animals other than insects, with the vampire bats being hematophagous, or feeding on blood.

Bats are present throughout most of the world, with the exception of extremely cold regions. They perform the vital ecological roles of pollinating flowers and dispersing fruit seeds; many tropical plant species depend entirely on bats for the distribution of their seeds. Bats are economically important, as they consume insect pests, reducing the need for pesticides. The smallest bat is the Kitti's hog-nosed bat, measuring 29–34 mm in length, 15 cm across the wings and 2–2.6 g in mass. It is also arguably the smallest extant species of mammal, with the Etruscan shrew being the other contender. The largest species of bat are a few species of Pteropus (fruit bats or flying foxes) and the giant golden-crowned flying fox with a weight up to 1.6 kg and wingspan up to 1.7 m.

The Mexican free-tailed bat is the fastest flying animal in horizontal flight.

ETYMOLOGY

In many languages, the word for "bat" is cognate with the word for "mouse": for example, chauve-souris ("bald-mouse") in French, murciélago ("blind mouse") in Spanish, saguzahar ("old mouse") in Basque, летучая мышь ("flying mouse") in Russian, slijepi miš ("blind mouse") in Bosnian, nahkhiir ("leather mouse") in Estonian, vlermuis (winged mouse) in Afrikaans, from the Dutch word vleermuis (from Middle Dutch "winged mouse").

An older English name for bats is flittermouse, which matches their name in other Germanic languages (for example German Fledermaus and Swedish fladdermus), related to fluttering of wings. Middle English had bakke, which may have undergone a shift from -k- to -t- influenced by Latin blatta, "moth, nocturnal insect".

CLASSIFICATION AND EVOLUTION

Bats are placental mammals. Bats were formerly thought to have been most closely related to the flying lemurs, treeshrews, and primates, but recent molecular cladistics research indicates that they actually belong to Laurasiatheria, a diverse group also containing Carnivora and Artiodactyla.

The two traditionally recognized suborders of bats are:

- Megachiroptera (megabats)

- Microchiroptera (microbats/echolocating bats)

Not all megabats are larger than microbats. The major distinctions between the two suborders are:

- Microbats use echolocation; with the exception of the genus Rousettus, megabats do not.

- Microbats lack the claw at the second finger of the forelimb.

- The ears of microbats do not close to form a ring; the edges are separated from each other at the base of the ear.

- Microbats lack underfur; they are either naked or have guard hairs.

Megabats eat fruit, nectar, or pollen. Most microbats eat insects; others may feed on fruit, nectar, pollen, fish, frogs, small mammals, or the blood of animals. Megabats have well-developed visual cortices and show good visual acuity, while microbats rely on echolocation for navigation and finding prey.

The phylogenetic relationships of the different groups of bats have been the subject of much debate. The traditional subdivision between Megachiroptera and Microchiroptera reflects the view that these groups of bats have evolved independently of each other for a long time, from a common ancestor already capable of flight. This hypothesis recognized differences between microbats and megabats and acknowledged that flight has only evolved once in mammals. Most molecular biological evidence supports the view that bats form a single or monophyletic group.

Researchers have proposed alternative views of chiropteran phylogeny and classification, but more research is needed.

In the 1980s, a hypothesis based on morphological evidence was offered that stated the Megachiroptera evolved flight separately from the Microchiroptera. The so-called flying primate hypothesis proposes that, when adaptations to flight are removed, the Megachiroptera are allied to primates by anatomical features not shared with Microchiroptera. One example is that the brains of megabats show a number of advanced characteristics that link them to primates. Although recent genetic studies strongly support the monophyly of bats, debate continues as to the meaning of available genetic and morphological evidence.

Genetic evidence indicates that megabats originated during the early Eocene and should be placed within the four major lines of microbats.

Consequently, two new suborders based on molecular data have been proposed. The new suborder of Yinpterochiroptera includes the Pteropodidae, or megabat family, as well as the families Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae, and Rhinopomatidae The other new suborder, Yangochiroptera, includes all of the remaining families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation). These two new suborders are strongly supported by statistical tests. Teeling (2005) found 100% bootstrap support in all maximum likelihood analyses for the division of Chiroptera into these two modified suborders. This conclusion is further supported by a 15-base-pair deletion in BRCA1 and a seven-base-pair deletion in PLCB4 present in all Yangochiroptera and absent in all Yinpterochiroptera. Perhaps most convincingly, a phylogenomic study by Tsagkogeorga et al (2013) showed that the two new proposed suborders were supported by analyses of thousands of genes.

The chiropteran phylogeny based on molecular evidence is controversial because microbat paraphyly implies that one of two seemingly unlikely hypotheses occurred. The first suggests that laryngeal echolocation evolved twice in Chiroptera, once in Yangochiroptera and once in the rhinolophoids. The second proposes that laryngeal echolocation had a single origin in Chiroptera, was subsequently lost in the family Pteropodidae (all megabats), and later evolved as a system of tongue-clicking in the genus Rousettus.

Analyses of the sequence of the "vocalization" gene, FoxP2, were inconclusive as to whether laryngeal echolocation was secondarily lost in the pteropodids or independently gained in the echolocating lineages. However, analyses of the "hearing" gene, Prestin, seemed to favor the independent gain in echolocating species rather than a secondary loss in the pteropodids.

In addition to Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, the names Pteropodiformes and Vespertilioniformes have also been proposed for these suborders. Under this new proposed nomenclature, the suborder Pteropodiformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Pteropus than the genus Vespertilio, while the suborder Vespertilioniformes includes all extant bat families more closely related to the genus Vespertilio than to the genus Pteropus.

Little fossil evidence is available to help map the evolution of bats, since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize very well. However, a Late Cretaceous tooth from South America resembles that of an early microchiropteran bat. Most of the oldest known, definitely identified bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats. These fossils, Icaronycteris, Archaeonycteris, Palaeochiropteryx and Hassianycteris, are from the early Eocene period, 52.5 million years ago. Archaeopteropus, formerly classified as the earliest known megachiropteran, is now classified as a microchiropteran.

Bats were formerly grouped in the superorder Archonta, along with the treeshrews (Scandentia), colugos (Dermoptera), and the primates, because of the apparent similarities between Megachiroptera and such mammals. Genetic studies have now placed bats in the superorder Laurasiatheria, along with carnivorans, pangolins, odd-toed ungulates, even-toed ungulates, and cetaceans. A recent study by Zhang et al. places Chiroptera as a sister taxon to the clade Perissodactyla (which includes horses and other odd-toed ungulates). However, the first phylogenomic analysis of bats shows that they are not sisters to Perissodactyla, instead they are sisters to a larger group that includes ungulates and carnivores.

Megabats primarily eat fruit or nectar. In New Guinea, they are likely to have evolved for some time in the absence of microbats, which has resulted in some smaller megabats of the genus Nyctimene becoming (partly) insectivorous to fill the vacant microbat ecological niche. Furthermore, some evidence indicates that the fruit bat genus Pteralopex from the Solomon Islands, and its close relative Mirimiri from Fiji, have evolved to fill some niches that were open because there are no nonvolant or nonflying mammals on those islands.

FOSSIL BATS

Fossilized remains of bats are few, as they are terrestrial and light-boned. Only an estimated 12% of the bat fossil record is complete at the genus level. Fossil remains of an Eocene bat, Icaronycteris, were found in 1960. Another Eocene bat, Onychonycteris finneyi, was found in the 52-million-year-old Green River Formation in Wyoming, United States, in 2003. This intermediate fossil has helped to resolve a long-standing disagreement regarding whether flight or echolocation developed first in bats. The shape of the rib cage, faceted infraspious fossa of the scapula, manus morphology, robust clavicle, and keeled sternum all indicated Onychonycteris was capable of powered flight. However, the well-preserved skeleton showed that the small cochlea of the inner ear did not have the morphology necessary to echolocate. O. finneyi lacked an enlarged orbical apophysis on the malleus, and a stylohyal element with an expanded paddle-like cranial tip - both of which are characteristics linked to echolocation in other prehistoric and extant bat species. Because of these absences, and the presence of characteristics necessary for flight, Onychonycteris provides strong support for the “flight first” hypothesis in the evolution of flight and echolocation in bats.

The appearance and flight movement of bats 52.5 million years ago were different from those of bats today. Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws appearing on two digits of each hand. It also had longer hind legs and shorter forearms, similar to climbing mammals that hang under branches, such as sloths and gibbons. This palm-sized bat had short, broad wings, suggesting that it could not fly as fast or as far as later bat species. Instead of flapping its wings continuously while flying, Onychonycteris likely alternated between flaps and glides while in the air. Such physical characteristics suggest that this bat did not fly as much as modern bats do, rather flying from tree to tree and spending most of its waking day climbing or hanging on the branches of trees. The distinctive features noted on the Onychonycteris fossil also support the claim that mammalian flight most likely evolved in arboreal gliders, rather than terrestrial runners. This model of flight development, commonly known as the "trees-down" theory, implies that bats attained powered flight by taking advantage of height and gravity, rather than relying on running speeds fast enough for a ground-level take off.

The mid-Eocene genus Necromantis is one of the earliest examples of bats specialised to hunt vertebrate prey, as well as one of the largest bats of its epoch. The late-Eocene Witwatia is another similarly large predatory bat, while Aegyptonycteris is among the first and largest omnivorous bat species.

The extinct bats Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon and Hassianycteris kumari are the first fossil mammals to have their colouration discovered, both of a reddish brown.

HABITATS

Flight has enabled bats to become one of the most widely distributed groups of mammals.[38] Apart from the Arctic, the Antarctic and a few isolated oceanic islands, bats exist all over the world. Bats are found in almost every habitat available on Earth. Different species select different habitats during different seasons, ranging from seasides to mountains and even deserts, but bat habitats have two basic requirements: roosts, where they spend the day or hibernate, and places for foraging. Most temperate species additionally need a relatively warm hibernation shelter. Bat roosts can be found in hollows, crevices, foliage, and even human-made structures, and include "tents" the bats construct by biting leaves.

The United States is home to an estimated 45 to 48 species of bats. The three most common species are Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat), Eptesicus fuscus (big brown bat), and Tadarida brasiliensis (Mexican free-tailed bat). The little and the big brown bats are common throughout the northern two-thirds of the country, while the Mexican free-tailed bat is the most common species in the southwest, sometimes even appearing in portions of the Southeast.

ANATOMY

WINGS

The finger bones of bats are much more flexible than those of other mammals, owing to their flattened cross-section and to low levels of minerals, such as calcium, near their tips. In 2006, Sears et al. published a study that traces the elongation of manual bat digits, a key feature required for wing development, to the upregulation of bone morphogenetic proteins (Bmps). During embryonic development, the gene controlling Bmp signaling, Bmp2, is subjected to increased expression in bat forelimbs - resulting in the extension of the offspring's manual digits. This crucial genetic alteration helps create the specialized limbs required for volant locomotion. Sears et al. (2006) also studied the relative proportion of bat forelimb digits from several extant species and compared these with a fossil of Lcaronycteris index, an early extinct species from approximately 50 million years ago. The study found no significant differences in relative digit proportion, suggesting that bat wing morphology has been conserved for over 50 million years.

The wings of bats are much thinner and consist of more bones than the wings of birds, allowing bats to maneuver more accurately than the latter, and fly with more lift and less drag. By folding the wings in toward their bodies on the upstroke, they save 35 percent energy during flight. The membranes are also delicate, ripping easily; however, the tissue of the bat's membrane is able to regrow, such that small tears can heal quickly. The surface of their wings is equipped with touch-sensitive receptors on small bumps called Merkel cells, also found on human fingertips. These sensitive areas are different in bats, as each bump has a tiny hair in the center, making it even more sensitive and allowing the bat to detect and collect information about the air flowing over its wings, and to fly more efficiently by changing the shape of its wings in response. An additional kind of receptor cell is found in the wing membrane of species that use their wings to catch prey. This receptor cell is sensitive to the stretching of the membrane. The cells are concentrated in areas of the membrane where insects hit the wings when the bats capture them.

CIRCULATORY SYSTEM

Bats seem to make use of particularly strong venomotion (rhythmic contraction of venous wall muscles). In most mammals, the walls of the veins provide mainly passive resistance (maintaining their shape as deoxygenated blood flows through them), but in bats they appear to actively support blood flow back to the heart with this pumping action.

Bats also possess a system of sphincter valves on the arterial side of the vascular network that runs along the edge of their wings. In the fully open state, these allow oxygenated blood to flow through the capillary network across the flight membrane (i.e. wing surface), but when contracted, they shunt flow directly to the veins, bypassing the wing capillaries. This is likely an important tool for thermoregulation, allowing the bats to control the amount of heat exchanged through the thin flight membrane (many other mammals use the capillary network in oversized ears for the same purpose).

OTHER

The teeth of microbats resemble insectivorans. They are very sharp to bite through the hardened armor of insects or the skin of fruit.

The tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) has the longest tongue of any mammal relative to its body size. This is beneficial to them in terms of pollination and feeding. Their long, narrow tongues can reach deep into the long cup shape of some flowers. When the tongue retracts, it coils up inside its rib cage.

Bats possess highly adapted lung systems to cope with the pressures of powered-flight. Flight is an energetically taxing aerobic activity and requires large amounts of oxygen to be sustained. In bats, the relative alveolar surface area and pulmonary capillary blood volume are significantly larger than most other small quadrupedal mammals

ECHOLOCATION

Bat echolocation is a perceptual system where ultrasonic sounds are emitted specifically to produce echoes. By comparing the outgoing pulse with the returning echoes, the brain and auditory nervous system can produce detailed images of the bat's surroundings. This allows bats to detect, localize, and even classify their prey in complete darkness. At 130 decibels in intensity, bat calls are some of the most intense, airborne animal sounds.

To clearly distinguish returning information, bats must be able to separate their calls from the echoes that they receive. Microbats use two distinct approaches.

- Low duty cycle echolocation: Bats can separate their calls and returning echoes by time. Bats that use this approach time their short calls to finish before echoes return. This is important because these bats contract their middle ear muscles when emitting a call, so they can avoid deafening themselves. The time interval between the call and echo allows them to relax these muscles, so they can clearly hear the returning echo. The delay of the returning echoes provides the bat with the ability to estimate the range to their prey.

- High duty cycle echolocation: Bats emit a continuous call and separate pulse and echo in frequency. The ears of these bats are sharply tuned to a specific frequency range. They emit calls outside of this range to avoid self-deafening. They then receive echoes back at the finely tuned frequency range by taking advantage of the Doppler shift of their motion in flight. The Doppler shift of the returning echoes yields information relating to the motion and location of the bat's prey. These bats must deal with changes in the Doppler shift due to changes in their flight speed. They have adapted to change their pulse emission frequency in relation to their flight speed so echoes still return in the optimal hearing range.

The new Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera classification of bats, supported by molecular evidence, suggests two possibilities for the evolution of echolocation. It may have been gained once in a common ancestor of all bats and was then subsequently lost in the Old World fruit bats, only to be regained in the horseshoe bats, or echolocation evolved independently in both the Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera lineages.

Two groups of moths exploit a bat sense to echolocate: tiger moths produce ultrasonic signals to warn the bats that they (the moths) are chemically protected or aposematic, other moth species produce signals to jam bat echolocation. Many moth species have a hearing organ called a tympanum, which responds to an incoming bat signal by causing the moth's flight muscles to twitch erratically, sending the moth into random evasive maneuvers.

In addition to echolocating prey, bat ears are sensitive to the fluttering of moth wings, the sounds produced by tymbalate insects, and the movement of ground-dwelling prey, such as centipedes, earwigs, etc. The complex geometry of ridges on the inner surface of bat ears helps to sharply focus not only echolocation signals, but also to passively listen for any other sound produced by the prey. These ridges can be regarded as the acoustic equivalent of a Fresnel lens, and may be seen in a large variety of unrelated animals, such as the aye-aye, lesser galago, bat-eared fox, mouse lemur, and others.

By repeated scanning, bats can mentally construct an accurate image of the environment in which they are moving and of their prey item.

OTHER SENSES

Although the eyes of most microbat species are small and poorly developed, leading to poor visual acuity, no species is blind. Microbats use vision to navigate, especially for long distances when beyond the range of echolocation, and species that are gleaners - that is, ones that attempt to swoop down from above to ambush insects, like crickets on the ground or moths up a tree, often have eyesight about as good as a rat's. Some species have been shown to be able to detect ultraviolet light, and most cave-dwelling species have developed the ability to utilize very dim light. They also have high-quality senses of smell and hearing. Bats hunt at night, reducing competition with birds, minimizing contact with certain predators, and travel large distances (up to 800 km) in their search for food.

Megabat species often have excellent eyesight as good as, if not better than, human vision. This eyesight is, unlike its microbat relations, adapted to both night and daylight vision and enables the bat to have some colour vision whereas the microbat sees in blurred shades of grey.

BEHAVIOUR

Most microbats are nocturnal and are active at twilight. A large portion of bats migrate hundreds of kilometres to winter hibernation dens, while some pass into torpor in cold weather, rousing and feeding when warm weather allows for insects to be active. Others retreat to caves for winter and hibernate for six months. Bats rarely fly in rain, as the rain interferes with their echolocation, and they are unable to locate their food.

The social structure of bats varies, with some leading solitary lives and others living in caves colonized by more than a million bats.[69] The fission-fusion social structure is seen among several species of bats. The term "fusion" refers to a large numbers of bats that congregate in one roosting area, and "fission" refers to breaking up and the mixing of subgroups, with individual bats switching roosts with others and often ending up in different trees and with different roostmates.

Studies also show that bats make various sounds in order to communicate with one another. Scientists in the field have listened to bats and have been able to associate certain sounds with certain behaviours that bats make after the sounds are made.

Insectivores make up 70% of bat species and locate their prey by means of echolocation. Of the remainder, most feed on fruits. Only three species sustain themselves with blood.

Some species even prey on vertebrates. The leaf-nosed bats (Phyllostomidae) of Central America and South America, and the two bulldog bat (Noctilionidae) species feed on fish. At least two species of bat are known to feed on other bats: the spectral bat, also known as the American false vampire bat, and the ghost bat of Australia. One species, the greater noctule bat, catches and eats small birds in the air.

Predators of bats include bat hawks, bat falcons and even spiders.

REPRODUCTION

Most bats have a breeding season, which is in the spring for species living in a temperate climate. Bats may have one to three litters in a season, depending on the species and on environmental conditions, such as the availability of food and roost sites. Females generally have one offspring at a time, which could be a result of the mother's need to fly to feed while pregnant. Female bats nurse their young until they are nearly adult size, because a young bat cannot forage on its own until its wings are fully developed.

Female bats use a variety of strategies to control the timing of pregnancy and the birth of young, to make delivery coincide with maximum food ability and other ecological factors. Females of some species have delayed fertilization, in which sperm is stored in the reproductive tract for several months after mating. In many such cases, mating occurs in the fall, and fertilization does not occur until the following spring. Other species exhibit delayed implantation, in which the egg is fertilized after mating, but remains free in the reproductive tract until external conditions become favorable for giving birth and caring for the offspring.

In yet another strategy, fertilization and implantation both occur, but development of the fetus is delayed until favorable conditions prevail, during the delayed development the mother still gives the fertilized egg nutrients, and oxygenated blood to keep it alive. However, this process can go for a long period of time, because of the advanced gas exchange system. All of these adaptations result in the pup being born during a time of high local production of fruit or insects.

At birth, the wings are too small to be used for flight. Young microbats become independent at the age of six to eight weeks, while megabats do not until they are four months old.

LIFE EXPECTANCY

A single bat can live over 20 years, but bat population growth is limited by the slow birth rate. Five species have been recorded living over 30 years in the wild: the brown long-eared bat (Plecotus auritus), little brown bat (Myotis lucifugus), Brandt's bat (Myotis brandti), lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis blythii) and greater horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum).

HUNTING, FEEDING AND DRINKING

Newborn bats feed solely on their mother's milk. When they are a few weeks old, bats are expected to fly and hunt on their own. It is up to them to find and catch their prey, along with satisfying their thirst.

To survive hibernation months, some species build up large reserves of body fat, both as fuel and as insulation.

HUNTING

Most bats are nocturnal creatures. Their daylight hours are spent grooming and sleeping; they hunt during the night. The means by which bats navigate while finding and catching their prey in the dark was unknown until the 1790s, when Lazzaro Spallanzani conducted a series of experiments on a group of hooded and surgically blinded bats. These bats were placed in a room in total darkness, with silk threads strung across the room. Even then, the bats were able to navigate their way through the room. Spallanzani concluded the bats were not using their eyes to fly through complete darkness, but something else.

Spallanzani decided the bats were able to catch and find their prey through the use of their ears. To prove this theory, Spallanzani plugged the ears of the bats in his experiment. To his pleasure, he found that the bats with plugged ears were not able to fly with the same amount of skill and precision as they were able to without their ears plugged. Unfortunately for Spallanzani, the twin concepts of sound waves and acoustics would not be understood for another century and he could not explain why specifically the bats were crashing into walls and the threads that he'd strung up around the room, and because of the methodology Spallanzani used, many of his test subjects died.

It was thus well known through the nineteenth century that the chiropteran ability to navigate had something to do with hearing, but how they accomplish this was not proven conclusively until the 1930s, by Donald R. Griffin, a biology student at Harvard University. Using a locally native species, the little brown bat, he discovered that bats use echolocation to locate and catch their prey. When bats fly, they produce a constant stream of high-pitched sounds. When the sound waves produced by these sounds hit an insect or other animal, the echoes bounce back to the bat, and guide them to the source.

FEEDING AND DIET

The majority of food consumed by bats includes insects, fruits and flower nectar, vertebrates and blood. Almost three-fourths of the world's bats are insect eaters. Bats consume both aerial and ground-dwelling insects. Each bat is typically able to consume one-third of its body weight in insects each night, and several hundred insects in a few hours. This means that a group of a thousand bats could eat four tons of insects each year. If bats were to become extinct, it has been calculated that the insect population would reach an alarmingly high number.

VITAMIN C

The Chiroptera as a whole are in the process of losing the ability to synthesize vitamin C: most have lost it completely. In a test of 34 bat species from six major families of bats, including major insect- and fruit-eating bat families, all were found to have lost the ability to synthesize it, and this loss may derive from a common bat ancestor, as a single mutation. However, recent results show that there are at least two species of bat, the frugivorous bat (Rousettus leschenaultii) and insectivorous bat (Hipposideros armiger), that have retained their ability to produce vitamin C.

AERIAL INSECTTIVORES

Watching a bat catch and eat an insect is difficult. The action is so fast that all one sees is a bat rapidly changing directions, and continuing on its way. Scientist Frederick A. Webster discovered how bats catch their prey. In 1960, Webster developed a high-speed camera that was able to take one thousand pictures per second. These photos revealed the fast and precise way in which bats catch insects. Occasionally, a bat will catch an insect in mid-air with its mouth, and eat it in the air. However, more often than not, a bat will use its tail membrane or wings to scoop up the insect and trap it in a sort of "bug net". Then, the bat will take the insect back to its roost. There, the bat will proceed to eat said insect, often using its tail membrane as a kind of napkin, to prevent its meal from falling to the ground. One common insect prey is Helicoverpa zea, a moth that causes major agricultural damage.

FORAGE GLEANERS

These bats typically fly down and grasp their prey off the ground with their teeth, and take it to a nearby perch to eat it. Generally, these bats do not use echolocation to locate their prey. Instead, they rely on the sounds produced by the insects. Some make unique sounds, and almost all make some noise while moving through the environment.

FRUITS AND FLOWER NECTAR

Fruit eating, or frugivory, is found in particular species from both major suborders. These bats favor fleshy and sweet fruits, but not those particularly strong smelling or colorful. They pull the fruit off the trees with their teeth, then fly back to their roosts to consume them, sucking out the juice and spitting the seeds and pulp out onto the ground.

This helps disperse the seeds of these fruit trees, which may take root and grow where the bats have left them. Over 150 types of plants depend on bats in order to reproduce.

Some Chiropterans consume nectar instead, for which they have acquired specialized adaptations. These bats possess long muzzles and long, extensible tongues covered in fine bristles that aid them in feeding on particular flowers and plants. However, because of these features, nectar-feeding bats cannot easily turn to other food sources in times of scarcity, making them more prone to extinction than any other type of bat.

Nectar feeding also aids a variety of plants, since these bats serve as pollinators: pollen gets stuck to the bats' fur while they sip the nectar, and is transferred to the next flower they visit (or dusts off in flight). Rainforests are said to benefit the most from bat pollination, because of the large variety of plants that depend on it.

VERTEBRATES

Some bats are primarily carnivorous, feeding on vertebrates. These bats typically eat a variety of animals, especially frogs, lizards, birds, and sometimes other bats.

Trachops cirrhosus, for example, is particularly skilled at catching frogs. These bats locate large groups of frogs by tracking their mating calls, then plucking them from the surface of the water with their sharp canine teeth. Another example is the greater noctule bat, which is believed to catch birds in flight.

Also, several bat species, found on all continents, feed on fish. They use echolocation to detect tiny ripples on the water's surface, swoop down and use specially enlarged claws on their hind feet to grab the fish, then take their prey to a feeding roost and consume it.

BLOOD

A few species, specifically the common, white-winged, and hairy-legged vampire bats, exclusively consume animal blood. This is referred to as hematophagy. The common vampire bat typically feeds on mammals, while the hairy-legged and white-winged vampires feed on birds instead. These species are found throughout Central and South America, as well as in Mexico and on the island of Trinidad.

DEFECATION

Bat dung, or guano, is so rich in nutrients that it is mined from caves, bagged, and used by farmers to fertilize their crops. During the U.S. Civil War, guano was used to make gunpowder.

DRINKING

In 1960, Frederic A. Webster discovered some bats' method of drinking water using a high-speed (1000 FPS) camera and flashgun. He captured one skimming just above the surface of the water, lowering its jaw to collect a small quantity of water on each pass, taking repeated passes until it drank its fill.

Other bats, such as the flying fox or fruit bat, gently skim the water's surface, then land nearby to lick the water from their chest fur.

INTERACTION WITH HUMANS

DISEASE TRANSMISSION

Bats are natural reservoirs for a large number of zoonotic pathogens, including rabies, histoplasmosis (directly and in guano), Henipavirus (i.e. Nipah virus and Hendra virus) and possibly ebola virus.

Their high mobility, broad distribution, long life spans, substantial sympatry, and social behaviour (communal roosting and fission-fusion social structure) make bats favourable hosts and vectors of disease. Compared to rodents, bats carry more zoonotic viruses per species, and each virus is shared with more (especially sympatric) species. They also seem to be highly resistant to many of the pathogens they carry, suggesting a potential commensal/mutualistic relationship or specific adaptations to the bats' immune systems. Furthermore, their interactions with humans' livestock and pets (e.g. cattle, pigs, goats), such as predation (in the case of vampire bats), an accidental encounter, or an animal scavenging a bat carcass, compound the risk of zoonotic transmission.

Among ectoparasites, bats carry fleas and mites, as well as specific parasites called bat bugs. However, they are one of the few mammalian orders that cannot host lice (most of the others are water animals). This may be due to overwhelming competition from more effective, specialized parasites, such as the bat bugs which occupy the same niche.

They are also implicated in the emergence of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), since they serve as a natural host for the type of virus involved (the genus Coronavirus, whose members typically cause mild respiratory disease in humans). A joint CAS/CSIRO team using phylogenetic analysis found that the SARS Coronavirus originated within the SARS-like Coronavirus group carried by the bat population in China. However, note that they only served as the source of the precursor virus (which "jumped" to humans and evolved into the strain responsible for SARS): bats do not carry the SARS virus itself.

RABIES

As of 2016, bats present a significant hazard in areas where the virus is endemic (such as the southern United States). They serve as the natural reservoirs for the rabies virus. For example, studies performed on Mexican free-tailed bats in Austin, Texas found an exposure rate of 45% among otherwise healthy individuals.

In the United States, bats typically constitute around a quarter of reported cases of rabies in wild animals. However, their bites account for the vast majority of cases of rabies in humans. Of the 36 cases of domestically acquired rabies recorded in the country in 1995–2010, two were caused by dog bites and four patients were infected by receiving transplants from an organ donor who had previously died of rabies. All other cases were caused by bat bites.

Rabies is considered fully preventable if the patient is administered a vaccine prior to the onset of symptoms. However, unlike raccoon or skunk bites, bat bites may go ignored or unnoticed and hence untreated. Many victims may not realize they have been bitten, because bats have very small teeth and do not always leave obvious marks. Victims may also be bitten while sleeping or intoxicated, and children, pets, and the mentally handicapped are especially vulnerable. Rabid bats are broadly distributed throughout the United States; in 2008–2010, cases were reported in every state except Alaska and Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

The most severe threat to humans and domestic animals comes from sick, downed, or dead bats, which typically have a very high infection rate (e.g. 70% for the Austin bats). Furthermore, since they may be clumsy, disoriented, and unable to fly, these stricken bats are much more likely to come into contact with humans.

Public health organizations such as the CDC generally recommend that any contact with a potentially infected animal (including any bat) be reported promptly, and those at risk of infection are treated with a post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) regimen to prevent contraction of the virus, which is near-universally fatal with very few exceptions. 30,000 PEP treatments are performed each year in the US, in large part due to contact with bats.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide fully detailed information on all aspects of bat management in North America, including how to capture a bat, what to do in case of exposure, and how to bat-proof a house humanely. In certain countries, such as the United Kingdom, it is illegal to handle bats without a license and advice should be sought from an expert organisation, such as the Bat Conservation Trust, if a trapped or injured bat is found. Where rabies is not endemic, as throughout most of Western Europe, small bats can be considered harmless. Larger bats may bite if handled.

There is evidence that bat rabies virus can infect victims purely through airborne transmission ("cryptic rabies"), without direct physical contact of the victim with the bat itself. This phenomenon has very rarely been reported, and has occurred among victims breathing virus-infected air in environments such as caves, after long exposures.

Evidence suggests that all active widespread rabies strains (i.e. those affecting most terrestrial carnivores/omnivores) evolved from strains that were originally endemic to bats. Through zoonosis, these strains mutated and "jumped" to other species. In North America, for example, this jump reportedly occurred in the mid-1600s.

WIKIPEDIA

Palencia, Benjamin (1894-1980) - 1964 Landscape with Peasants by Milton Sonn

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Oil on canvas; 43 x 59 cm.

Spanish painter. based in madrid from 1909, he was self-taught and began by copying pictures by diego velázquez and el greco in the prado. he received support from the poet juan ramón jiménez and established links with such young poets and artists as federico garcía lorca, rafael alberti, salvador dalí and luis buñuel. in 1925, when he participated in the artistas ibéricos exhibition (madrid, casón buen retiro), his work consisted of mildly abstracted landscapes and cubist still-lifes. after several lengthy spells in paris between 1926 and 1928, where he met picasso, he held a one-man exhibition at the palacio de bibliotecas y museos in madrid (1928), his unconventional choice of material—including combinations of oils, soil and sand—scandalizing both critics and visitors. his work developed towards abstraction under the influence of joan miró and was marked also by surrealism in an effort to synthesize the iberian spirit with the avant-garde.

La Fresnaye, Roger de (1885-1925) - 1913 The Conquest of the Air (Museum of Modern Art, New York City) by Milton Sonn

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Oil on canvas; 235.9 x 195.5 cm.

Roger de La Fresnaye was a French painter who synthesized lyrical color with the geometric simplifications of Cubism. From 1903 to 1909 he studied at the Académie Julian, the École des Beaux-Arts, and the Ranson Academy in Paris. In his early work he was influenced by the Symbolist paintings of Maurice Denis (who was his teacher at the Ranson Academy), but about 1910 he developed an interest in Cubism. From 1912 to 1914 he was a member of the Section d’Or, a Cubist association that met regularly at the studio of the painter Jacques Villon.

Although La Fresnaye incorporated Cubist techniques into his paintings, he retained a naturalistic style, never fully embracing the radical analysis of form employed by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. La Fresnaye’s sensitivity to color gave his Cubism an unorthodox sensuousness. He was influenced by the French painter Robert Delaunay’s Orphist style, a strain of Cubism that emphasized lyricism and color. La Fresnaye employed colorful prismatic shapes reminiscent of Orphism in works such as The Conquest of the Air (1913), but unlike Delaunay’s abstract compositions, La Fresnaye’s images are representational.

After being discharged from the French army in 1918 because he had contracted tuberculosis, La Fresnaye went to the south of France to recover. There he continued to draw and paint in watercolor; he still worked with Cubist techniques, but he increasingly emphasized color and emotion. Although his paintings did much to popularize Cubism and to broaden its influence just before World War I, he later abandoned avant-garde art and became one of France’s most influential advocates of traditional realism. During the last years of his life, he began to paint realistic works such as Portrait of Guynemer (1921–23).

How saliva affects aroma | Free educational graphics by Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library

1

These diagrams show the flow of aromatic molecules from a glass of wine as they move through the mouth and nasal passages.

When you sip a glass of wine, aromatic molecules such as fruity-smelling esters (colored dots in glass) mix with the saliva in your mouth. This interaction traps some molecules, while others pass into the throat passages (upper diagram). From there, these molecules drift upward to the olfactory region in the nasal passages, where they are perceived as fruity flavors (lower diagram). Since saliva differs in composition and flow rate from person to person, this may allow the same glass of wine to evoke different flavors for each person.

Read more in Knowable Magazine

Scientific highs and lows of cannabinoids

Hundreds of these cannabis-related chemicals now exist, both natural and synthetic, inspiring researchers in search of medical breakthroughs — and fueling a dangerous trend in recreational use

knowablemagazine.org/article/health-disease/2023/scientif...

Lea en español: Los altibajos científicos de los cannabinoides

Take a deeper dive: Selected scholarly reviews

A Delightful Trip Along the Pathway of Cannabinoid and Endocannabinoid Chemistry and Pharmacology, Annual Review of Pharmacology and Toxicology

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Knowable Magazine from Annual Reviews is a digital publication that seeks to make scientific knowledge accessible to all. Through compelling articles, beautiful graphics, engaging videos and more, Knowable Magazine explores the real-world impact of research through a journalistic lens. All content is rooted in deep reporting and undergoes a thorough fact-checking before publication.

The Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library is an initiative to create freely available, accurate and engaging graphics for teachers and students. All graphics are curated from Knowable Magazine articles and are free for classroom use.

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More Robots at Barley by Paul Backhouse

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The robots liked it so much last year, I've taken an extended group back to Barley (Pendleside, Lancashire) May Bank Holiday Model Engineering Show again this year.

These two enhanced Robie SR's are showing off their SP0256 "Narrator" speech chips. These Robies can operate in "Autonomous" mode or by 2.4Ghz radio control. As well as ultrasound and electronic compasses they have built-in "RoboCams".

Their brains are 3 Arduino UNOs linked by I2C. The master processor UNO holds command sequences, and also reads output from the 2.4GHz RX module, ultrasound units and compass. Slave 1 works the 7 segment display pairs (ultrasound feedback) with a 6-bit BCD data bus to each pair.

Slave 2 holds the speech dictionary (words constructed from allophone sound fragments) and drives the Mike Hawkins speech processor card.

Glacially eroded & striated columnar-jointed trachybasalt (Postpile Flow, Upper Pleistocene, 82 ka; Devils Postpile National Monument, California, USA) 32 by James St. John

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Glacially eroded & striated columnar-jointed trachybasalt in the Pleistocene of California, USA.

Famous localities for seeing excellent columnar jointing include Giants Causeway (Ireland), Devils Tower (Wyoming, USA), and Devils Postpile (California, USA). Columnar jointing forms as a lava flow cools and contracts, resulting in the development of shrinkage cracks. As shrinkage cracks grow, they branch at ~120º angles (as seen in plan view). Crack networks merge with other networks to form columns having a polygonal cross-section shape. Most columns are hexagonal or pentagonal in shape. A few are 3-sided, 4-sided, or 7-sided.

Devils Postpile is a trachybasalt (or basaltic trachyandesite) lava flow with well-developed columnar jointing. Erosion has toppled many of the columns into a large pile at the base of the flow. The flow represents part of the activity of the Long Valley Volcano, which is now a large caldera in the eastern Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. The Devils Postpile lava flow erupted outside the southwestern margin of the Long Valley Caldera.

The top of the flow has been eroded by glaciers. Decent glacial striations and glacial polish are present in many places.

Stratigraphy: Postpile Flow, Upper Pleistocene, 82 ka

Locality: Devils Postpile National Monument, west of town of Mammoth Lakes, eastern California, USA

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Info. synthesized from:

Huber et al. (2001) - The Story of Devils Postpile, a Land of Volcanic Fire, Glacial Ice and an Ancient River, Updated from the Original Edition.

Bailey (2004) - United States Geological Survey Professional Paper 1692.

Mahood et al. (2010) - Geological Society of America Bulletin 122: 396-407.

Mollusc-rich fossiliferous limestone (Cockburn Town Member, Grotto Beach Formation, Upper Pleistocene; near shoreline of Moon Rock Pond, San Salvador Island, Bahamas) 4 by James St. John

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Mollusc-rich fossiliferous limestone of the Grotto Beach Formation (Upper Pleistocene) near the shoreline of Moon Rock Pond, northeastern San Salvador Island, eastern Bahamas.

The fossiliferous limestone shown above is dominated by fossil bivalves and gastropods - readily recognizable species include Codakia orbicularis (tiger lucine clam), Bulla occidentalis (West Indies bubble snail), Laevicardium serratum (common egg cockle), and trochids (top snails). This is part of the Cockburn Town Member of the Grotto Beach Limestone (lower Upper Pleistocene, Sangamonian, MIS 5e, 119-131 ka).

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The surface bedrock geology of San Salvador consists entirely of Pleistocene and Holocene limestones. Thick and relatively unforgiving vegetation covers most of the island’s interior (apart from inland lakes). Because of this, the most easily-accessible rock outcrops are along the island’s shorelines.

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Stratigraphic Succession in the Bahamas:

Rice Bay Formation (Holocene, <10 ka), subdivided into two members (Hanna Bay Member over North Point Member)

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Grotto Beach Formation (lower Upper Pleistocene, 119-131 ka), subdivided into two members (Cockburn Town Member over French Bay Member)

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Owl's Hole Formation (Middle Pleistocene, ~215-220 ka & ~327-333 ka & ~398-410 ka & older)

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San Salvador’s surface bedrock can be divided into two broad lithologic categories:

1) LIMESTONES

2) PALEOSOLS

The limestones were deposited during sea level highstands (actually, only during the highest of the highstands). During such highstands (for example, right now), the San Salvador carbonate platform is partly flooded by ocean water. At such times, the “carbonate factory” is on, and abundant carbonate sediment grains are generated by shallow-water organisms living on the platform. The abundance of carbonate sediment means there will be abundant carbonate sedimentary rock formed after burial and cementation (diagenesis). These sea level highstands correspond with the climatically warm interglacials during the Pleistocene Ice Age.

Based on geochronologic dating on various Bahamas islands, and based on a modern understanding of the history of Pleistocene-Holocene global sea level changes, surficial limestones in the Bahamas are known to have been deposited at the following times (expressed in terms of marine isotope stages, “MIS” - these are the glacial-interglacial climatic cycles determined from δ18O analysis):

1) MIS 1 - the Holocene, <10 k.y. This is the current sea level highstand.

2) MIS 5e - during the Sangamonian Interglacial, in the early Late Pleistocene, from 119 to 131 k.y. (sea level peaked at ~125 k.y.)

3) MIS 7 - ~215 to 220 k.y. - late Middle Pleistocene

4) MIS 9 - ~327-333 k.y. - late Middle Pleistocene

5) MIS 11 - ~398-410 k.y. - late Middle Pleistocene

Bahamian limestones deposited during MIS 1 are called the Rice Bay Formation. Limestones deposited during MIS 5e are called the Grotto Beach Formation. Limestones deposited during MIS 7, 9, 11, and perhaps as old as MIS 13 and 15, are called the Owl’s Hole Formation. These stratigraphic units were first established on San Salvador Island (the type sections are there), but geologic work elsewhere has shown that the same stratigraphic succession also applies to the rest of the Bahamas.

During times of lowstands (= times of climatically cold glacial intervals of the Pleistocene Ice Age), weathering and pedogenesis results in the development of soils. With burial and diagenesis, these soils become paleosols. The most common paleosol type in the Bahamas is calcrete (a.k.a. caliche; a.k.a. terra rosa). Calcrete horizons cap all Pleistocene-aged stratigraphic units in the Bahamas, except where erosion has removed them. Calcretes separate all major stratigraphic units. Sometimes, calcrete-looking horizons are encountered in the field that are not true paleosols.

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Subsurface Stratigraphy of San Salvador Island:

The island’s stratigraphy below the Owl’s Hole Formation was revealed by a core drilled down ~168 meters (~550-feet) below the surface (for details, see Supko, 1977). The well site was at 3 meters above sea level near Graham’s Harbour beach, between Line Hole Settlement and Singer Bar Point (northern margin of San Salvador Island). The first 37 meters were limestones. Below that, dolostones dominate, alternating with some mixed dolostone-limestone intervals. Reddish-brown calcretes separate major units. Supko (1977) infers that the lowest rocks in the core are Upper Miocene to Lower Pliocene, based on known Bahamas Platform subsidence rates.

In light of the successful island-to-island correlations of Middle Pleistocene, Upper Pleistocene, and Holocene units throughout the Bahamas (see the Bahamas geologic literature list below), it seems reasonable to conclude that San Salvador’s subsurface dolostones may correlate well with sub-Pleistocene dolostone units exposed in the far-southeastern portions of the Bahamas Platform.

Recent field work on Mayaguana Island has resulted in the identification of Miocene, Pliocene, and Lower Pleistocene surface outcrops (see: www2.newark.ohio-state.edu/facultystaff/personal/jstjohn/...). On Mayaguana, the worked-out stratigraphy is:

- Rice Bay Formation (Holocene)

- Grotto Beach Formation (Upper Pleistocene)

- Owl’s Hole Formation (Middle Pleistocene)

- Misery Point Formation (Lower Pleistocene)

- Timber Bay Formation (Pliocene)

- Little Bay Formation (Upper Miocene)

- Mayaguana Formation (Lower Miocene)

The Timber Bay Fm. and Little Bay Fm. are completely dolomitized. The Mayaguana Fm. is ~5% dolomitized. The Misery Point Fm. is nondolomitized, but the original aragonite mineralogy is absent.

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The stratigraphic information presented here is synthesized from the Bahamian geologic literature.

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Supko, P.R. 1977. Subsurface dolomites, San Salvador, Bahamas. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 47: 1063-1077.

Bowman, P.A. & J.W. Teeter. 1982. The distribution of living and fossil Foraminifera and their use in the interpretation of the post-Pleistocene history of Little Lake, San Salvador, Bahamas. San Salvador Field Station Occasional Papers 1982(2). 21 pp.

Sanger, D.B. & J.W. Teeter. 1982. The distribution of living and fossil Ostracoda and their use in the interpretation of the post-Pleistocene history of Little Lake, San Salvador Island, Bahamas. San Salvador Field Station Occasional Papers 1982(1). 26 pp.

Gerace, D.T., R.W. Adams, J.E. Mylroie, R. Titus, E.E. Hinman, H.A. Curran & J.L. Carew. 1983. Field Guide to the Geology of San Salvador (Third Edition). 172 pp.

Curran, H.A. 1984. Ichnology of Pleistocene carbonates on San Salvador, Bahamas. Journal of Paleontology 58: 312-321.

Anderson, C.B. & M.R. Boardman. 1987. Sedimentary gradients in a high-energy carbonate lagoon, Snow Bay, San Salvador, Bahamas. CCFL Bahamian Field Station Occasional Paper 1987(2). (31) pp.

1988. Bahamas Project. pp. 21-48 in First Keck Research Symposium in Geology (Abstracts Volume), Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, 14-17 April 1988.

1989. Proceedings of the Fourth Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 17-22, 1988. 381 pp.

1989. Pleistocene and Holocene carbonate systems, Bahamas. pp. 18-51 in Second Keck Research Symposium in Geology (Abstracts Volume), Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 14-16 April 1989.

Curran, H.A., J.L. Carew, J.E. Mylroie, B. White, R.J. Bain & J.W. Teeter. 1989. Pleistocene and Holocene carbonate environments on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. 28th International Geological Congress Field Trip Guidebook T175. 46 pp.

1990. The 5th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 15-19, 1990, Abstracts and Programs. 29 pp.

1991. Proceedings of the Fifth Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas. 247 pp.

1992. The 6th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 11-15, 1992, Abstracts and Program. 26 pp.

1992. Proceedings of the 4th Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas, June 7-11, 1991. 123 pp.

Boardman, M.R., C. Carney, B. White, H.A. Curran & D.T. Gerace. 1992. The geology of Columbus' landfall: a field guide to the Holcoene geology of San Salvador, Bahamas, Field trip 3 for the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America, Cincinnati, Ohio, October 26-29, 1992. Ohio Division of Geological Survey Miscellaneous Report 2. 49 pp.

Carew, J.L., J.E. Mylroie, N.E. Sealey, M. Boardman, C. Carney, B. White, H.A. Curran & D.T. Gerace. 1992. The 6th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 11-15, 1992, Field Trip Guidebook. 56 pp.

1993. Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 11-15, 1992. 222 pp.

Lawson, B.M. 1993. Shelling San Sal, an Illustrated Guide to Common Shells of San Salvador Island, Bahamas. San Salvador, Bahamas. Bahamian Field Station. 63 pp.

1994. The 7th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 16-20, 1994, Abstracts and Program. 26 pp.

1994. Proceedings of the 5th Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas, June 11-14, 1993. 107 pp.

Carew, J.L. & J.E. Mylroie. 1994. Geology and Karst of San Salvador Island, Bahamas: a Field Trip Guidebook. 32 pp.

Godfrey, P.J., R.L. Davis, R.R. Smtih & J.A. Wells. 1994. Natural History of Northeastern San Salvador Island: a "New World" Where the New World Began, Bahamian Field Station Trail Guide. 28 pp.

Hinman, G. 1994. A Teacher's Guide to the Depositional Environments on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. 64 pp.

Mylroie, J.E. & J.L. Carew. 1994. A Field Trip Guide Book of Lighthouse Cave, San Salvador Island, Bahamas. 10 pp.

1995. Proceedings of the Seventh Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, June 16-20, 1994. 134 pp.

1995. Terrestrial and shallow marine geology of the Bahamas and Bermuda. Geological Society of America Special Paper 300.

1996. The 8th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas, May 30-June 3, 1996, Abstracts and Program. 21 pp.

1996. Proceedings of the 6th Symposium on the Natural History of the Bahamas, June 9-13, 1995. 165 pp.

1997. Proceedings of the 8th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, May 30-June 3, 1996. 213 pp.

Curran, H.A., B. White & M.A. Wilson. 1997. Guide to Bahamian Ichnology: Pleistocene, Holocene, and Modern Environments. San Salvador, Bahamas. Bahamian Field Station. 61 pp.

1998. The 9th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 4-June 8, 1998, Abstracts and Program. 25 pp.

Wilson, M.A., H.A. Curran & B. White. 1998. Paleontological evidence of a brief global sea-level event during the last interglacial. Lethaia 31: 241-250.

1999. Proceedings of the 9th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 4-8, 1998. 142 pp.

2000. The 10th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 8-June 12, 2000, Abstracts and Program. 29+(1) pp.

2001. Proceedings of the 10th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 8-12, 2000. 200 pp.

Bishop, D. & B.J. Greenstein. 2001. The effects of Hurricane Floyd on the fidelity of coral life and death assemblages in San Salvador, Bahamas: does a hurricane leave a signature in the fossil record? Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 33(4): 51.

Gamble, V.C., S.J. Carpenter & L.A. Gonzalez. 2001. Using carbon and oxygen isotopic values from acroporid corals to interpret temperature fluctuations around an unconformable surface on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 33(4): 52.

Gardiner, L. 2001. Stability of Late Pleistocene reef mollusks from San Salvador Island, Bahamas. Palaios 16: 372-386.

Ogarek, S.A., C.K. Carney & M.R. Boardman. 2001. Paleoenvironmental analysis of the Holocene sediments of Pigeon Creek, San Salvador, Bahamas. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 33(4): 17.

Schmidt, D.A., C.K. Carney & M.R. Boardman. 2001. Pleistocene reef facies diagenesis within two shallowing-upward sequences at Cockburntown, San Salvador, Bahamas. Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs 33(4): 42.

2002. The 11th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 6th-June 10, 2002, Abstracts and Program. 29 pp.

2004. The 12th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 3-June 7, 2004, Abstracts and Program. 33 pp.

2004. Proceedings of the 11th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 6-10, 2002. 240 pp.

Martin, A.J. 2006. Trace Fossils of San Salvador. 80 pp.

2006. Proceedings of the 12th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 3-7, 2004. 249 pp.

2006. The 13th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 8-June 12, 2006, Abstracts and Program. 27 pp.

Mylroie, J.E. & J.L. Carew. 2008. Field Guide to the Geology and Karst Geomorphology of San Salvador Island. 88 pp.

2008. Proceedings of the 13th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 8-12, 2006. 223 pp.

2008. The 14th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 12-June 16, 2006, Abstracts and Program. 26 pp.

2010. Proceedings of the 14th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 12-16, 2008. 249 pp.

2010. The 15th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 17-June 21, 2010, Abstracts and Program. 36 pp.

2012. Proceedings of the 15th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 17-21, 2010. 183 pp.

2012. The 16th Symposium on the Geology of the Bahamas and Other Carbonate Regions, June 14-June 18, 2012, Abstracts with Program. 45 pp.

islamization by Ali Siddiqui

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Officially sanctioned histories of Sindh in Pakistan routinely describe the invasion and subsequent conquest of Sindh by Mohammad Bin Qasim in 711-13 as an event that liberated the masses of Sindh from Brahminical tyranny and oppressive caste rule, ushering in an era of unprecedented social equality that was facilitated by the introduction of Islam - a faith unparalleled in its egalitarian outlook and commitment to fairness and justice. It is also asserted that the Arab rulers of Sindh promoted education and learning on a large-scale, and that Sindh experienced a cultural renaissance that outperformed the achievements of any previous era in the land of the Indus river.

Since the glorification and preservation of the Islamic faith was supposedly the very foundational basis of Pakistan, it is hardly likely that official textbooks in Pakistan could describe the invasion by the Bin Qasim militias any differently. In a nation where even relatively innocuous violations of the country's blasphemy laws have lead to the death penalty, it not surprising that few Pakistani scholars and historians have taken on the risk of seriously investigating, let alone challenge such claims. Since so little scholarly work is available on this subject, the task of understanding the history of this period in any objective fashion is not easy. Nevertheless, it is possible to ask some reasonable questions and present sufficient circumstantial evidence that belie such official government claims concerning the Bin Qasim victory, and its impact on the people of Sindh.

The claim that Sindh during the 7th century was reeling from the hegemony of Brahminical authority is often accepted as truth simply because it has been made so frequently, and by such a variety of colonial and post-colonial historians and social scientists that few scholars have demanded any concrete evidence that might substantiate such a claim. But as the essay on the History of Social Relations in India illustrates, several 5th-7th C Gupta-period land decrees demonstrate that caste was a relatively flexible category, and that Brahmins did not enjoy social hegemony until the widespread proliferation of the agrahara villages, a practice that started towards the end of the Gupta-period in Bihar, spread very slowly in the rest of India, and took more than a few centuries to crystallize. In the neighboring regions of Punjab, Kutch, Gujarat and Rajasthan, there is little evidence that such agrahara villages ever took shape, and the history of these regions appears to be shaped as much (or more) by Rajputs, Jats, Buddhists and Jains as by Brahmins. Virtually all of Sindh's historians acknowledge that Rajputs and Jats also formed a substantial proportion of the Sindhi population at the time of the Bin Qasim invasion. The presence of Buddhists is also acknowledged, and has been verified by the discovery of Buddhist Stupas and other Buddhist artifacts in the state.

Although at the time of the Bin Qasim invasion, Sindh was ruled by a Brahmin king, just a generation earlier, Sindh had been ruled by Rajput kings who were believed to favor Buddhism. Although it is possible that Sindh's Raja Dahir lacked popularity, to suggest that Brahminical hegemony was established in a matter of just a few decades appears to strain credibility. Since the ascension of a Brahmin king could only have occurred with the tacit support of key Rajputs and other segments in society, at most one could speak of factional differences or factional rivalries amongst the elite that may have contributed to the downfall of Sindh.

(Sindhi historian G.M Syed (jailed in 1964 for his contradictory accounts of Sindh's history) however offers an altogether different interpretation, arguing instead that at the time of the invasions, Raja Dahir’s reign was marked by religious tolerance and liberal mindedness, on account of which people of various religions co-existed peacefully, where Hindus had their temples, the Parsis (Zoroastrians) their fire temples, the Buddhists their Stupas, and Arab Muslims (who had been given permission to settle along the coast) had their mosques. According to him, the primary motive for the Arab invasion of Sindh was revenge against Raja Dahir for providing shelter to Sassanian nobles/generals who had requested asylum in Sindh upon defeat in Persia. It is not inconceivable that the Umayyads feared a Sassanian counter-attack from Indian soil, and wished to preempt any possibility (real or imagined) of a Sindhi-Persian alliance that might thwart Arab expansion. The later migration of Parsis (Zoroastrians) to Gujarat and grant of asylum there would appear to bolster such a contention.)

While caste divisions may have indeed prevented Hindu society from offering united resistance to the Islamic invaders, it does not appear as though the advent of Islam actually liberated the most oppressed Jatis. According to Al-Beruni (b. Khiva, 973AD), those most discriminated in Hindu society were those associated with carrying out "unclean tasks", but it should be noted that in Sindh (and elsewhere in India), there are precisely such oppressed communities that were never converted to Islam, and continued to face discrimination at the hands of both Hindus and Muslims.

(It might also be noted that the 11-12th C Sumra rulers of Sindh were Rajput converts to Islam, as were the 13-14th C Samma rulers. After colonization, castes associated with trade and commerce such as Hindu Banias and Lohanas or their Muslim counterparts such as Memons exercised a powerful hold over cash-poor and indebted artisans and peasants. By and large, conversion to Islam did not end pre-existing caste-loyalties or eliminate differences in social rank. Also see Zarina Bhatty: "Social stratification among Muslims in India" from the book "Caste - its twentieth century avatar" by M N Srinivas, Viking, New Delhi, 1996, pp 249 - 253.)

While noting the similarities between the caste-system of India with ancient Persia, Al-Beruni, (in his descriptions of neighboring Punjab) also wrote of contact and association (even common lodgings) between the four main jatis or varnas in towns and villages, only observing that the antyajas (untouchable castes) formed eight separate guilds, and lived near (but apart from) the towns and villages. Going by his remarks, one could conclude that the antyajas suffered from an inferior status, but the social interaction that he noted between the four main castes suggests that the distance between the Brahmins or Ksahtriyas vis-a-vis the Vaishyas and Shudras was not as significant as is generally portrayed.

Al-Beruni also wrote little to suggest that Brahmins enjoyed exceptional status or power in society, but observed that on theological topics "at the utmost they (referring to the Hindus he had studied and interacted with) fight with words, but they will never stake their soul or body or their property on religious controversy." He also noted that the "Hindus have cultivated numerous branches of science and have boundless literature...". He was particularly impressed by the numerous step-wells he had seen in the country, and wrote: "In this they have attained to a very degree of art, so that our people (the Muslims), when they see them, wonder at them, and are unable to describe them, much less to construct anything like them."

Not only do Al-Beruni's descriptions of Punjab stand somewhat apart from the official characterizations of Hindu society, they raise a troubling paradox for Pakistan's official historians. Had Islam truly been a vehicle for the liberation of Hindu society from the evils of Brahminism (as is repeatedly proclaimed), how was it that three centuries after the unqualified triumph of "Islam" in Sindh, Hindu society continued to survive just next door in Punjab, and the Islamic faith was able to win few converts amongst the majority of the Hindus, and not even amongst the discriminated caste communities? And had Sindh become this great center of learning and culture after its conquest by Bin Qasim, how was it that Al-Beruni (an avowed Muslim) was studying Hindu scientific texts in Punjab, but not "Islamic" scientific texts in Sindh?

In fact, it is decidedly odd that there is virtually no archaeological evidence or surviving monuments from that era that might attest to claims of a great Arab civilization in Sindh. A British historian is supposed to have remarked: "Notwithstanding that their possession was partial and unstable, our native [British] soil teems with their [Roman] buildings, camps, roads, coins, utensils, in a manner to show completely they were master-spirits of that remote province [Britain]. But with regard to the Arab dominion in Sind, it is impossible for the traveler to wander through that land, without being struck with the absence of all record of their occupation."

This is all the more puzzling when one considers the very rich and impressive record of temples, step-wells, urban gateways, colleges and monasteries (built between the 8th and the 13th centuries) that have survived in the neighboring states of Rajasthan and Gujarat - states that successfully fended off the Arab invasions.

{In the 11th C, the Soomras, (who according to Sindhi historian, G.M. Syed were Rajputs and only nominally Muslim) took over the reins of power in Sindh, and ruled for three centuries. By then, Sindh had been freed from paying tribute to the Arab Khalifate, and monuments commissioned by the Soomras and the later Sammas have survived, though the greatest evidence of monumental building activity in Sindh emerges from after the 16th C.}

Although there are references to trade and agricultural productivity in post-conquest Sindh in the Arab records of the 9th and 10th centuries, these are not especially noteworthy, since the Arab lands were always poorer in agricultural terms, and positive references to Sindh are also to be found in the writings of Greek historians (who describe it as the most flourishing of all that the Greeks had seen), and a few centuries later, Sindh was mentioned as a rich country by Roman historians (with specific references to Patala in lower Sindh as an emporium of trade). What is more surprising is that there seems to have been an equally (or more) vigorous trade between the ports of Gujarat and the Arab ports as with Sindh after its Arab conquest.

A resolution to this apparent mystery may be found in the description of the conquest of Sindh in a Persian translation of the Chach-na'ma or Tari'kh-I Hind wa Sind, by Muhammad 'Ali bin Hamid bin Abu Bakr (Kufi, early 13th C) which reveals quite a different story. Contradicting any theory representing the arrival of Islam in the Indian subcontinent as a great social revolution, the Chach-na'ma reveals a pirate-like conquest that wreaked havoc on the local populations, transferring a considerable volume of plundered wealth such as gold, silver and jewelry, and also slaves, as tribute to the Umayyad governers. Bin Qasim and his military cohorts also profited greatly from the conquest, enriching themselves at the expense of the local population. Another history of the period, the Futuhu-l Bulda'n by Ahmad bin Yahya, bin Jabir, (892-3 AD) describes how some of the victories were achieved by the destruction (or salinization) of vital aqueducts that starved the populations of drinking water, leading to their surrender. Both documents describe the slaying of able-bodied soldiers and other townsmen, and the taking of women and children as slaves in large numbers.

With the looting of its savings of gold and silver and other assets, and the annual demands for tribute (estimated at a million dirhams annually) it is not surprising that Sindh was culturally and economically eclipsed by Gujarat and Rajasthan - its eastern neighbors who escaped such devastation. It is also interesting that references to Islam (by the victors) are made more as after-thoughts, and only after military triumphs, when the looting of wealth and taking of slaves is justified in the name of God, Islam, or the Holy Prophet. The conversion of temples to mosques also appear more as symbols of a successful military and political assault than as a religious victory per se.

What is remarkable in both these documents are some of the references to mass conversions. Conversion to Islam is offered as an option to defeated populations - and it is assumed that conversion to Islam would be taken as a token of surrender, as a willingness to pay tribute to the new authorities, and as a sign that the political suzerainty of the victors would not be challenged. Although, not everyone was required to convert, the greatest pressure to convert was applied on those considered most dangerous, and most able to resist the conquerors - i.e. on Rajputs and Jats, and on men, rather than women. The conversion of others simply followed.

This was apparently quite common during the period of Arab expansion, and led to the widely held belief that "the common people follow the religion of the ruler" - something emphasized repeatedly by Arab historian Ibn Khaldun (b, Tunis, 1332) in his "Muqaddimah - an Introduction to History". Ibn Khaldun's writings are particularly interesting because as an avowed Muslim, and defender of the sayings of the Prophet and the Quran, his descriptions of the Arab royal houses, and their origins as the Islamicized Bedouin tribes of the Arab peninsula carry a credibility and acceptance other historians may not receive. But his status as one of the pre-eminent historians of the Arab world has more to do with his questioning of exaggerated and wildly improbable claims made by historians like al-Masudi and al-Waqidi, and his intuitive awareness of what propelled royal power and prestige, and how dynasties rose and fell in the Arab world. Also of interest is the element of rationality that imbues some of his writings. Unlike the ideologues of the two-nation theory and zealous advocates of Islamic Jehad in Pakistan today, (who attempt to portray Islam as a radical and egalitarian force), Ibn Khaldun's analysis is far more revealing of Islam's role in cementing state power, in building and preserving larger and more stable empires.

Although Ibn Khaldun quotes frequently from the Quran, and there are repeated references to "such is God's Will" or "such are God's Ways", he shows little moral outrage or concern for equity or social justice when he writes about the excesses of royal conquests or royal authority. Speaking of how "the common people follow the religion of the ruler" he writes: "The ruler dominates those under him. His subjects imitate him because they see perfection in him, exactly as children imitate their parents, or students their teachers. God is wise and all-knowing". Although one may question this statement as an accurate description of why the masses accepted Islam, it does indicate that the Islamic-identified ruling class in the Arab world did not ascribe any independent agency to the masses in choosing or practicing their religion.

In the views of Ibn Khaldun dynasties arise from successfully marshalling "group feeling" which he believed originated from respect of blood ties or something akin to that. Because of the difficult conditions the Bedouins were exposed to in the desert, he saw the Bedouins as most capable of developing and harnessing "group feelings". He also noted the fearless manner in which they fought and subdued others - seeing in their "savagery", the seeds of royal power. However, he also saw the Bedouins as wild and anarchic - as all too capable of plundering the possessions of others, and destroying the civilizations of those whom they conquered, citing specifically the ruination of the civilizations of Yemen, Syria, Iraq, and the Sudan after Bedouin conquests. He thus argued that for the Bedouins to develop royal leadership, they needed the strong influence of a religion such as Islam, which he saw as being crucial to the initial success of the Arabs. It was the cohesive force of Islam that enabled the Arabs to combine strong "group feelings" with the political leadership that was necessary to win and sustain stable royal dynasties. He attributed their subsequent decline to their neglect of religion, and of losing their "group feeling" and leadership skills in the course of acquiring wealth and urban comforts.

In developing these elaborate theories on the rise and fall of dynastic rule, he acknowledges that a nation that is defeated, and comes under the rule of another quickly perishes citing the case of Persia after its Arab conquests. However, he saw nothing ethically or morally wrong in the subjugation of one nation by another. For instance, he dismissed any moral objections that might have arisen over the plight of the conquered nations of Sub-Saharan Africa, justifying their state of servitude to the Arab rulers as a consequence of their "weakness" and "lack of ability".

While Ibn Khaldun did not see the Arab conquests or the subsequent Islamization of the local populations as bringing any benefit to those who were thus defeated or subjugated, neither did he see in this any contradiction with Islamic ethics. What is implicit in his writings is that Islam was more the instrument for developing tribal leadership, and the means of cementing political control over those who shared in the "group feelings" of the ruling clans, or by extension, a means of controlling those that did not necessarily share in the "group feelings" of the ruling elites. Statements attributing a sense of "fairness" or "justice" to Islam appear more as rehetoric and as gratuitious justifications of the Arab conquests.

Thus although Ibn Khaldun makes no specific statements concerning the conquest of Sindh, his frank assessment of what happened to the civilizations of other territories that came under Bedouin attack or Arab control fits in quite well with what is described in the Chach-na'ma and the Futuhu-l Bulda'n. It is thus possible to infer from his writings that the Arab invasion and conquest of Sindh was part of a historic pattern and political trend that extended from Syria to Sindh, drowning each of the older civilizations as the Arab empires aggressively expanded their reach and control. This view of history would bring a new dimension to the discussion of what contributed to Arab successes, attributing the success to strong "group feeling" and military daring (effectively channelized by leadership derived from a common faith) - something that the materially more advanced, but sedentary urbanized civilizations could not resist.

What was probably common to all the defeated civilizations was that there were no strong bonds of communal loyalty that bound the populations. Socially fragmented - either due to religious tolerance and diversity, or due to caste/class divisions resulting from the growing specialization and differentiation of labour, (or both), it is possible that these civilizations were also riven by factional rivalries that further weakened their defences. Since these invasions swept aside Hindu, Buddhist, Manichean and Zoroastrian societies alike, this more general view of history would thus question the merit of postulations that place Brahminical hegemony or ossification of caste as unique or even primary factors in the equation.

(What is also plausible, and this is a subject that merits further investigation (see note below) is that with the decline of Buddhist rationalism, important sections of society had come to accept the role of Brahmins in providing astrological charts (janampatris), and in guiding personal and public rituals (such as hawans, mass aaratis and jagarans) that were leading society in an idealistic and impractical direction. This may have made the task of the invaders much easier. But it is important to note that the advent of Islam did not actually move society in a more rational and scientific direction. Arab rulers took great interest in Indian astrological theories themselves, and Islam developed its own body of spirit-defeating daily rituals that were in the long run more debilitating than the periodic rituals that may have become commonplace in Hindu society at that time.)

Although Ibn Khaldun's writings stress the role of Islam in the Arab successes, it is not possible to conclude from his writings (as some Islamist scholars have attempted) to claim the universality and superiority of Islam, and speak of its "natural tendency" towards raising the cultural levels of societies that adopted the faith. That Islam was more a political tool (than an inherently more advanced scientific, philosophical or cultural system) is borne out by how the Umayyads sought cultural inspiration from the very civilization they had sought to supplant and replace. This was even more the case with the Abbasids who succeeded the Umayyads. Both invited scholars (and those brought as slaves), were encouraged (or coerced) to translate scientific and philosophical texts from a variety of ancient and contemporary sources including Egyptian, Greek, Syriac, Babylonian and Indian.

It is especially important to note that there was a certain degree of separation of church and state during the reign of the Abbasids who were renowned patrons of art and scientific learning. This separation of church and state facilitated scientific investigation in Basra and Baghdad, and allowed the scholars in these courts to seek knowledge from a variety of sources.

According to Syed Sulaiman Nadvi, author of the Arab-o-Hind ke Tallukat, (and several other historians), mathematicians and philosophers from Sindh made outstanding contributions to the promotion of learning amongst the Arabs. Several physicians were called from Sindh for the treatment of the Caliphs among whom were Ganga and Manka who treated Haroon-al-Rashid. Another Sindhi doctor who made a mark was a newly converted Muslim, Saleh bin Bhahla (Bhalla). Sindhis such as Abul Ata Sindhi, Haroon bin Abdulla Multani, Abu Mohammad Mansuri (from Mansura), Mansoor Hindi, Musa bin Yakub, Saqafi, Abu Zila Sindhi and Kashajam-bin-Sindhi-bin-Shahak achieved eminence as Arabic poets and writers. Sindhi Pandits (scholars) and Veds (physicians) in Baghdad translated numerous texts from Sanskrit on mathematics, astronomy, medicine, literature and ethics into Arabic.

One must also disinguish between the role of the Quranic absolutists and the Sufi liberals, for it was the latter who made the most significant and enduring contributions to the art and culture of the nations that had come to accept Islam. As long as the Sufis were tolerated, there was a path towards progress, and Arab society was able to absorb positive elements from other cultures.

Several Arab scholars relied on Indian scientific texts in their own scholarly translations or adaptations. Noted scholars Al-Fazari (8th C) and his son Muhammad, and Ya'qub ibn Tariq are associated with translations of Sanskrit astronomical texts (Siddhanthas). Al-Kindi (b. Basra, early 9th C) wrote four mathematical texts describing the use of Indian numerals. Al-Khwarizmi (b. Khiva, d. 850) is credited with synthesizing the knowledge of the Greeks and the Hindus in mathematics, astronomy and geography during the reign of the Caliph, al-Ma'mun, (813 to 833). Others translated Indian writings on the scientific method, Chanakya's Arthashastra, the Mahabharatha, and the Panchatantra, which became popularized as Kahlila and Dimna. Widely translated into both Persian and Arabic, it was also reproduced in illustrated versions during the reign of the Abbasids.

Sindhi accountants were also popular and according to Jahez (d. 874 AD) all the 'Sarrafs' (money-changers) in Iraq were Sindhis. Sindh was also a major exporter of agricultural produce and cash crops, as well as a variety of leather goods - including colored and soft leather. The leather shoes of Mansura were particularly renowned. (cited in the Muruj-uz-Zahab, and by Imam Hanbal). Thus, Sindh had a profound influence on Arab science, culture and economic life.

But after forced Islamization, the progress of science in Sindh slowed, and the attention of Arab, Persian and Central Asian scholars turned to Punjab, Gujarat and other centres of learning in India. Hence, the claim that the introduction of Islam under the aegis of Arab invaders such as Bin Qasim was an event that heralded a radical and progressive new era of cultural growth and material prosperity for the people of Sindh, is a largely unproven claim, and in fact, almost untenable when the mass of contrary evidence (both concrete, and circumstantial) is taken into account. That it liberated the people of Sindh from unspeakable horrors is another speculation, driven more by political needs and Islamic chauvinism than by any clear and irrefutable historical evidence.

For the most part, the official histories of Sindh are sustainable only as illusions and myths. A deeply troubling and unstated implication behind such one-sided rhetoric is that the people of Sindh were impotent in fighting off local tyrants themselves, and needed the assistance of external agents to "liberate" them. In addition, there is the underlying assumption that the indigenous people of Sindh were incapable of producing anything of civilizational value on their own, and that the cultural and philosophical systems produced internally were inadequate, and needed to be replaced by those of outsiders. Not only can such assertions be damaging to a nation's self-esteem, these are precisely the sort of ideas that sustained colonial rule.

But since genuine decolonization was hardly on the minds of Pakistan's creators, such notions have gone largely unchallenged. Instead, the logic of the two-nation theory and partition has demanded the propagation of accentuated polemics - howsoever improbable, and howsoever damaging to the psyche of the Pakistani people themselves. Although it is unlikely that the history of Sindh will ever be presented in a truthful and accurate manner by the present ruling elites of Pakistan, ordinary Sindhis may well ask that if the introduction of Islam in Sindh were truly beneficial for the ordinary masses, (supposedly ushering in an era of expanded access to education and learning), how is it that the rural masses of Sindh rank as amongst the most illiterate and most oppressed in the world today? Isn't it ironic how the average literacy in neighboring Rajasthan (one of India's less developed states, with a primarily Hindu population) exceeds 61%, far ahead of Pakistan's currently projected literacy of 45% {Of course, the comparison with India's more industrialized state of Gujarat or agriculturally prosperous Punjab (both with 70% literacy) would make things look still worse.}

Today, Sindh, which was home to one of the world's earliest settled civilizations - i.e. the civilization of Harappa and Mohenjodaro is in a state of cultural and economic crisis - heavily dependant financially on repatriations from the Gulf oil kingdoms, struggling under the weight of a colonial past, and dictatorial present. Internecine religious wars bleed the state constantly, even as it suffers internal discrimination at the hands of the Punjabi military elite. Reclaiming its true history could be the first step it takes towards liberating itself not only from the shackles of its colonial past, but also from the false glorification of invasions and conquests that drained it of its wealth and brought it few tangible returns in exchange.

A more objective and dispassionate examination of the historical record may reveal that rather than Sindh being "liberated" and "civilized" by the Arab invaders, it was in fact, the other way around. Sindh helped educate and civilize the new Arab kingdoms, who in turn helped carry the knowledge of India to Europe. Instead of seeing its pre-Islamic history with contempt or disdain, Sindh (and the rest of present day Pakistan) might do better by acknowledging the positive aspects of the intellectual and cultural traditions that had developed prior to Islamic rule and played such an important role in shaping the civilizations of the Arab and Western worlds.

References:

Chacha Na'ma, Futuh-I Bulda'n (Translations/Excerpts from Arabic/Persian texts chronicling the invasion and conquest of Sindh)

Elliot and Dowson. The History of India as told by its own historians. New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1996, vol. II

Futuhu-l Bulda'n by Ahmad bin Yahya, bin Jabir, d. 279 A.H., 892-3 CE. (In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 7, pp. 14-31.)

Alberuni's India (Sachau E. C., translator). New Delhi: Low Price Publications, 1993.

Arab-o-Hind ke Talluqat, by Sulaiman Nadvi.

Ibn Khaldun: The Muqaddimah (An Introduction to History) trans. Franz Rosenthal, edited and abridged by N. J. Dawood; Bollingen Series, Princeton

Ancient Trade in Pakistan, by Mortimer Wheeler, Pakistan Quarterly, Vol VII #1957

Die philosophischen Abhandlungen des al-Kindi, Munster, 1897, H. Suter:

Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber, H. Suter:

Sindh on the Threshold of 21st century, Iqbal Tareen - ((Editorial published in special issue of Sindh Monitor during Tenth Annual Convention of Sindhi Association of North America on July 4, 1994)

Sindhudesh - G. M. Syed

Istanbul | Blue Mosque | Sultan Ahmed Mosque | Blue Hour by Wazari Wazir

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The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultanahmet Camii) is an historical mosque in Istanbul. The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior. It was built from 1609 to 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. While still used as a mosque, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque has also become a popular tourist attraction.

The design of the Sultan Ahmed Mosque is the culmination of two centuries of both Ottoman mosque and Byzantine church development. It incorporates some Byzantine elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect has ably synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour. It has one main dome, six minarets, and other eight secondary domes.

- Wikipedia -

The Magic of Signs and Patterns in North African Art by Hughes Songe

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North Africa, or the Maghrib, comprises Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Art of the Maghrib is distinguished by a mystical quality drawing on the region’s symbols and signs that originate in pre-Islamic Berber motifs and a rich Islamic heritage introduced to the region by Arabs in the seventh century. From the Fezzan and Tassili petroglyphs in Libya and Algeria to the Neolithic paintings of Morocco, North African artists have a large reservoir of art that continues to influence their work. One example of such influence is found in the engravings of Tunisian artist Gouider Triki (born 1949) with suggestions of the supernatural found in ancient rock paintings.Artists also make use of traditional signs and symbols as a metaphor for colonial policies that imposed foreign languages and cultures and the subsequent curtailment of liberties in the postcolonial era. An imaginative discourse of signs often undercuts, disrupts, and subverts the rational dictum of language that has become a forbidden medium for free expression. For example, letters take on new meaning in the work of Algerian artist Rachid Koraïchi (born 1947), who draws on poetry in an illegible Arabic script using reverse mirror imagery; having fled persecution in his native Algeria, Koraïchi turns the alphabet into a symbol of protest. Koraïchi and other North African artists explore the formal dimension of signs, symbols, and the Berber alphabet, Islamic art and architecture flourished in the Maghrib, where some of the earliest examples are found in Fez, Qairouan, Meknas, and Algiers. With the exception of Morocco, and to a lesser extent Tunisia and Algeria, by the mid-sixteenth century Islamic art centers were concentrated in non-Arab countries. In the twentieth century, Moroccan artisans continued to preserve traditional crafts with distinctive Andalusian influences. The Moroccan craftsman is referred to respectfully as mu’alim, or master artisan; his skills are valued by modern artists who borrow freely from traditional crafts, reformulating old techniques and incorporating them into their work.invoking their aesthetic qualities, using them in structural compositions or expanding on their mystical properties by synthesizing new symbols from old forms.Traditionally, symbols and signs are found in pottery, textiles, carved or painted wood, leather works, jewelry, amulets, and tattoos. Algeria’s Kabyle women paint with their fingers on pottery and upon the walls of their village homes; many of their shapes and symbols have a marked resemblance to Neolithic pottery found in the region. Believed to carry healing qualities or to embody magical attributes that guard against misfortune and the evil eye, these signs and symbols assume new forms and meanings in contemporary art. By combining signs with magical numbers or stylizing traditional symbols, contemporary artists tap the unconscious to create abstract work that references the past and present. On several visits to North Africa, German artist Paul Klee was inspired by these mystical shapes and incorporated signs, number, and letters into his work; his interpretation of line and color would in turn influence several Maghribi artists.

www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/nasp/hd_nasp.htm

Blue Mosque Interior - 7 by Keith Watson Photography

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The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish: Sultan Ahmet Camii) is a historic mosque in Istanbul. The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior.

It was built from 1609 to 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Its Külliye contains a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. While still used as a mosque, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque has also become a popular tourist attraction.

The Sultan Ahmed Mosque has one main dome, six minarets, and eight secondary domes. The design is the culmination of two centuries of both Ottoman mosque development. It incorporates some Byzantine elements of the neighboring Hagia Sophia with traditional Islamic architecture and is considered to be the last great mosque of the classical period. The architect, Sedefkâr Mehmed Aga, synthesized the ideas of his master Sinan, aiming for overwhelming size, majesty and splendour.

At its lower levels and at every pier, the interior of the mosque is lined with more than 20,000 handmade ceramic tiles, made at Iznik (the ancient Nicaea) in more than fifty different tulip designs. The tiles at lower levels are traditional in design, while at gallery level their design becomes flamboyant with representations of flowers, fruit and cypresses. More than 200 stained glass windows with intricate designs admit natural light, today assisted by chandeliers.

Forbidden Planet (MGM, 1956). Color Photo (8" X 10"). by Morbius19

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Opening scene

It is late in the 22nd Century. United Planet cruiser C57D a year out from Earth base on the way to Altair for a special mission. Commander J.J Adams (Leslie Neilsen) orders the crew to the deceleration booths as the ship drops from light speed to normal space.

Adams orders pilot Jerry Farman (Jack Kelly) to lay in a course for the fourth planet. The captain then briefs the crew that they are at their destination, and that they are to look for survivors from the Bellerophon expedition 20 years earlier.

As they orbit the planet looking for signs of life, the ship is scanned by a radar facility some 20 square miles in area. Morbius (Walter Pigeon) contacts the ship from the planet asking why the ship is here. Morbius goes on to explain he requires nothing, no rescue is required and he can't guarantee the safety of the ship or its crew.

Adams confirms that Morbius was a member of the original crew, but is puzzled at the cryptic warning Morbius realizes the ship is going to land regardless, and gives the pilot coordinates in a desert region of the planet. The ship lands and security details deploy. Within minutes a high speed dust cloud approaches the ship. Adams realizes it is a vehicle, and as it arrives the driver is discovered to be a robot (Robby). Robby welcomes the crew to Altair 4 and invites members of the crew to Morbious residence.

Adams, Farman and Doc Ostrow (Warren Stevens) arrive at the residence and are greeted by Morbius. They sit down to a meal prepared by Robbys food synthesizer and Morbius shows the visitors Robbys other abilities, including his unwavering obedience. Morbius then gives Robby a blaster with orders to shoot Adams. Robby refuses and goes into a mechanical mind lock, disabling him till the order is changed.

Morbius then shows the men the defense system of the house (A series of steel shutters). When questioned, Morbius admits that the Belleraphon crew is dead, Morbius and his wife being the only original survivors. Morbius's wife has also died, but months after the others and from natural causes. Morbius goes on to explain many of the crew were torn limb from limb by a strange creature or force living on the planet. The Belleraphon herself was destroyed when the final three surviving members tried to take off for Earth.

Adams wonders why this force has remained dormant all these years and never attacked Morbius. As discussions continue, a young woman Altaira (Anne Francis) introduces herself as Morbius daughter. Farman takes an immediate interest in Altaira, and begins to flirt with her . Altaira then shows the men her ability to control wild animals by petting a wild tiger. During this display the ship checks in on the safety of the away party. Adams explains he will need to check in with Earth for further orders and begins preparations for sending a signal. Because of the power needed the ship will be disabled for up to 10 days. Morbius is mortified by this extended period and offers Robby's services in building the communication facility

The next day Robby arrives at ship as the crew unloads the engine to power the transmitter. To lighten the tense moment the commander instructs the crane driver to pick up Cookie (Earl Holliman) and move him out of the way. Quinn interrupts the practical joke to report that the assembly is complete and they can transmit in the morning.

Meanwhile Cookie goes looking for Robby and organizes for the robot to synthesize some bourbon. Robby takes a sample and tells Cookie he can have 60 gallons ready the next morning for him.

Farman continues to court Altair by teaching her how to kiss, and the health benefits of kissing. Adams interrupts the exercise, and is clearly annoyed with a mix of jealous. He then explains to Altair that the clothes she wears are inappropriate around his crew. Altair tries to argue till Adams looses patience and order Altair to leave the area.

That night, Altair, still furious, explains to her father what occurred. Altair takes Adams advice to heart and orders Robby to run up a less revealing dress. Meanwhile back at the ship two security guards think they hear breathing in the darkness but see nothing.

Inside the ship, one of the crew half asleep sees the inner hatch opened and some material moved around. Next morning the Captain holds court on the events of the night before. Quinn advises the captain that most of the missing and damaged equipment can be replaced except for the Clystron monitor. Angry the Capt and Doc go back to Morbius to confront him about what has occurred.

Morbius is unavailable, so the two men settle in to wait. Outside Adams sees Altair swimming and goes to speak to her. Thinking she is naked, Adams becomes flustered and unsettled till he realizes she wants him to see her new dress. Altair asks why Adams wont kiss her like everyone else has. He gives in and plants one on her. Behind them a tiger emerges from the forest and attacks Altair, Adams reacts by shooting it. Altair is badly troubled by the incident, the tiger had been her friend, but she can't understand why acted as if she was an enemy.

Returning to the house, Doc and Adams accidently open Morbius office. They find a series of strange drawings but no sign of Morbius. He appears through a secret door and is outraged at the intrusion. Adams explains the damage done to the ship the previous night and his concern that Morbius was behind the attack.

Morbius admits it is time for explanations. He goes on to tell them about a race of creatures that lived on the planet called the Krell. In the past they had visited Earth, which explains why there are Earth animals on the planet. Morbius believes the Krell civilization collapsed in a single night, right on the verge of their greatest discovery. Today 2000 centuries later, nothing of their cities exists above ground.

Morbius then takes them on a tour of the Krell underground installation. Morbius first shows them a device for projecting their knowledge; he explains how he began to piece together information. Then an education device that projects images formed in the mind. Finally he explains what the Krell were expected to do, and how much lower human intelligence is in comparison.

Doc tries the intelligence tester but is confused when it does not register as high as Morbius. Morbius then explains it can also boost intelligence, and that the captain of the Belleraphon died using it. Morbius himself was badly injured but when he recovered his IQ had doubled.

Adams questions why all the equipment looks brand new. It is explained that all the machines left on the planet are self repairing and Morbius takes them on a tour of the rest of the installation. First they inspect a giant air vent that leads to the core of the planet. There are 400 other such shafts in the area and 9200 thermal reactors spread through the facilities 8000 cubic miles.

Later that night the crew has completed the security arrangements and tests the force field fence. Cookie asks permission to go outside the fence. He meets Robby who gives him the 60 gallons of bourbon. Outside, something hits the fence and shorts it out. The security team checks the breach but finds nothing. A series of foot like depressions begin forming leading to the ship. Something unseen enters the ship. A scream echos through the compound.

Back at the Morbius residence he argues that only he should be allowed to control the flow of Krell technology back to Earth. In the middle of the discussion, Adams is paged and told that the Chief Quinn has been murdered. Adams breaks of his discussions and heads back to the ship.

Later that night Doc finds the footprints and makes a cast. The foot makes no evolutionary sense. It seems to have elements of a four footed and biped creature; also it seems a predator and herbivore. Adams questions Cookie who was with the robot during the test and decides the robot was not responsible.

The next day at the funeral for Chief Morbius again warns him of impending doom facing the ship and crew. Adams considers this a challenge and spends the day fortifying the position around the ship. After testing the weapons and satisfied all that could be done has, the radar station suddenly reports movement in the distance moving slowly towards the ship.

No one sees anything despite the weapons being under radar fire control. The controller confirms a direct hit, but the object is still moving towards the ship. Suddenly something hits the force field fence, and a huge monster appears outlined in the energy flux. The crew open fire, but seem to do little good. A number of men move forward but a quickly killed.

Morbious wakes hearing the screams of Altair. Shes had a dream mimicking the attack that has just occurred. As Morbious is waking the creature in the force field disappears. Doc theories that the creature is made of some sort of energy, renewing itself second by second.

Adams takes Doc in the tractor to visit Morbius intending to evacuate him from the planet. He leaves orders for the ship to be readied for lift off. If he and Doc dont get back, the ship is to leave without them. They also want to try and break into Morbious office and take the brain booster test.

They are met at the door by Robby, who disarms them. Altair appears and countermands the orders given to Robby by her father. Seeing a chance Doc sneaks into the office. Altair argues with Adams about trying to make Morbius return home, she ultimately declares her love for him.

Robby appears carrying the injured Doc. Struggling to speak and heavy pain, Doc explains that the Krell succeeded in their great experiment. However they forgot about the sub conscious monsters they would release. Monsters from the id.

Morbius sees the dead body of Doc, and makes a series of ugly comments. His daughter reminds him that Doc is dead. Morbius lack of care convinces Altair she is better off going with Adams. Morbius tries to talk Adams out of taking Altair.

Adams demands an explanation of the id. Morbius realizes he is the source of the creature killing everyone. The machine the Krell built was able to release his inner beast, the sub conscious monster dwelling deep inside his ancestral mind.

Robby interrupts the debate to report something approaching the house. Morbius triggers the defensive shields of the house, which the creature begins to destroy. Morbius then orders Robby to destroy the creature, however Robby short circuits. Adams explained that it was useless; Robby knew it was Morbius self.

Adams, Altair and Morbius retreat to the Krell lab and sealed themselves in by sealing a special indestructible door. Adams convinces Morbius that he is really the monster, and that Morbius can not actually control his subconscious desires.

The group watch as the creature beings the slow process of burning through the door. Panicked Morbius implores Altair to say it is not so. Suddenly the full realization comes, and he understands that he could endanger or even kill Altair.

As the creature breaks through Morbius rushes forward and denies its existence. Suddenly the creature disappears but Morbius is mortally wounded. With his dying breath he instructs Adams to trigger a self destruct mechanism linked to the reactors of the great machine. The ship and crew have 24 hours to get as far away from the planet as possible

The next day we see the ship deep in space. Robby and Altair are onboard watching as the planet brightens and is destroyed. Adams assures Altair that her fathers memory will shine like a beacon.

Indonesia - Sulawesi - Tanah Toraja - Bourbon Vanilla - 316 by Manfred Sommer

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Vanilla is a flavor derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), translates simply as "little pod". Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s.

Initial attempts to cultivate vanilla outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the vanilla orchid and its natural pollinator, the local species of Melipona bee. Pollination is required to set the fruit from which the flavoring is derived. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a slave who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered at the age of 12 that the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant.

Three major species of vanilla currently are grown globally, all of which derive from a species originally found in Mesoamerica, including parts of modern-day Mexico. The various subspecies are Vanilla planifolia (syn. V. fragrans), grown on Madagascar, Réunion, and other tropical areas along the Indian Ocean; V. tahitensis, grown in the South Pacific; and V. pompona, found in the West Indies, and Central and South America. The majority of the world's vanilla is the V. planifolia species, more commonly known as Bourbon vanilla (after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, which is produced in Madagascar and neighboring islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in Indonesia. Leptotes bicolor is used in the same way in South America.

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because growing the vanilla seed pods is labor-intensive. Despite the expense, vanilla is highly valued for its flavor, which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate"; he called its complex floral aroma a "peculiar bouquet". As a result, vanilla is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume manufacture and aromatherapy.

HISTORY

The Totonac people, who inhabit the East Coast of Mexico in the present-day state of Veracruz, were the first to cultivate vanilla. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew.

In the 15th century, Aztecs invading from the central highlands of Mexico conquered the Totonacs, and soon developed a taste for the vanilla pods. They named the fruit tlilxochitl, or "black flower", after the matured fruit, which shrivels and turns black shortly after it is picked. Subjugated by the Aztecs, the Totonacs paid tribute by sending vanilla fruit to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

Until the mid-19th century, Mexico was the chief producer of vanilla. In 1819, however, French entrepreneurs shipped vanilla fruits to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius in hopes of producing vanilla there. After Edmond Albius discovered how to pollinate the flowers quickly by hand, the pods began to thrive. Soon, the tropical orchids were sent from Réunion Island to the Comoros Islands Seychelles and Madagascar, along with instructions for pollinating them. By 1898, Madagascar, Réunion, and the Comoros Islands produced 200 metric tons of vanilla beans, about 80% of world production. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Indonesia is currently responsible for the vast majority of the world's Bourbon vanilla production and 58% of the world total vanilla fruit production.

The market price of vanilla rose dramatically in the late 1970s after a tropical cyclone ravaged key croplands. Prices remained high through the early 1980s despite the introduction of Indonesian vanilla. In the mid-1980s, the cartel that had controlled vanilla prices and distribution since its creation in 1930 disbanded. Prices dropped 70% over the next few years, to nearly US$20 per kilogram; prices rose sharply again after tropical cyclone Hudah struck Madagascar in April 2000. The cyclone, political instability, and poor weather in the third year drove vanilla prices to an astonishing US$500 per kilogram in 2004, bringing new countries into the vanilla industry. A good crop, coupled with decreased demand caused by the production of imitation vanilla, pushed the market price down to the $40 per kilogram range in the middle of 2005. By 2010, prices were down to US$20/per kilo.

Madagascar (especially the fertile Sava region) accounts for much of the global production of vanilla. Mexico, once the leading producer of natural vanilla with an annual yield of 500 tons, produced only 10 tons of vanilla in 2006. An estimated 95% of "vanilla" products are artificially flavored with vanillin derived from lignin instead of vanilla fruits.

ETYMOLOGY

Vanilla was completely unknown in the Old World before Cortés. Spanish explorers arriving on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the early 16th century gave vanilla its current name. Spanish and Portuguese sailors and explorers brought vanilla into Africa and Asia later that century. They called it vainilla, or "little pod". The word vanilla entered the English language in 1754, when the botanist Philip Miller wrote about the genus in his Gardener’s Dictionary. Vainilla is from the diminutive of vaina, from the Latin vagina (sheath) to describe the shape of the pods.

BIOLOGY

VANILLA ORCHID

The main species harvested for vanilla is Vanilla planifolia. Although it is native to Mexico, it is now widely grown throughout the tropics. Indonesia and Madagascar are the world's largest producers. Additional sources include Vanilla pompona and Vanilla tahitiensis (grown in Niue and Tahiti), although the vanillin content of these species is much less than Vanilla planifolia.

Vanilla grows as a vine, climbing up an existing tree (also called a tutor), pole, or other support. It can be grown in a wood (on trees), in a plantation (on trees or poles), or in a "shader", in increasing orders of productivity. Its growth environment is referred to as its terroir, and includes not only the adjacent plants, but also the climate, geography, and local geology. Left alone, it will grow as high as possible on the support, with few flowers. Every year, growers fold the higher parts of the plant downward so the plant stays at heights accessible by a standing human. This also greatly stimulates flowering.

The distinctively flavored compounds are found in the fruit, which results from the pollination of the flower. These seed pods are roughly a third of an inch by six inches, and brownish red to black when ripe. Inside of these pods are an oily liquid full of tiny seeds. One flower produces one fruit. V. planifolia flowers are hermaphroditic: They carry both male (anther) and female (stigma) organs; however, to avoid self-pollination, a membrane separates those organs. The flowers can be naturally pollinated only by bees of the Melipona genus found in Mexico (abeja de monte or mountain bee). This bee provided Mexico with a 300-year-long monopoly on vanilla production, from the time it was first discovered by Europeans. The first vanilla orchid to flower in Europe was in the London collection of the Honourable Charles Greville in 1806. Cuttings from that plant went to Netherlands and Paris, from which the French first transplanted the vines to their overseas colonies. The vines would grow, but would not fruit outside Mexico. Growers tried to bring this bee into other growing locales, to no avail. The only way to produce fruits without the bees is artificial pollination. And today, even in Mexico, hand pollination is used extensively.

In 1836, botanist Charles François Antoine Morren was drinking coffee on a patio in Papantla (in Veracruz, Mexico) and noticed black bees flying around the vanilla flowers next to his table. He watched their actions closely as they would land and work their way under a flap inside the flower, transferring pollen in the process. Within hours, the flowers closed and several days later, Morren noticed vanilla pods beginning to form. Morren immediately began experimenting with hand pollination. A few years later in 1841, a simple and efficient artificial hand-pollination method was developed by a 12-year-old slave named Edmond Albius on Réunion, a method still used today. Using a beveled sliver of bamboo, an agricultural worker lifts the membrane separating the anther and the stigma, then, using the thumb, transfers the pollinia from the anther to the stigma. The flower, self-pollinated, will then produce a fruit. The vanilla flower lasts about one day, sometimes less, so growers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers, a labor-intensive task.

The fruit, a seed capsule, if left on the plant, will ripen and open at the end; as it dries, the phenolic compounds crystallize, giving the fruits a diamond-dusted appearance, which the French call givre (hoarfrost). It will then release the distinctive vanilla smell. The fruit contains tiny, black seeds. In dishes prepared with whole natural vanilla, these seeds are recognizable as black specks. Both the pod and the seeds are used in cooking.

Like other orchids' seeds, vanilla seeds will not germinate without the presence of certain mycorrhizal fungi. Instead, growers reproduce the plant by cutting: they remove sections of the vine with six or more leaf nodes, a root opposite each leaf. The two lower leaves are removed, and this area is buried in loose soil at the base of a support. The remaining upper roots will cling to the support, and often grow down into the soil. Growth is rapid under good conditions.

CULTIVARS

Bourbon vanilla or Bourbon-Madagascar vanilla, produced from V. planifolia plants introduced from the Americas, is the term used for vanilla from Indian Ocean islands such as Madagascar, the Comoros, and Réunion, formerly the Île Bourbon. It is also used to describe the distinctive vanilla flavor derived from V. planifolia grown successfully in tropical countries such as India.

Mexican vanilla, made from the native V. planifolia, is produced in much less quantity and marketed as the vanilla from the land of its origin. Vanilla sold in tourist markets around Mexico is sometimes not actual vanilla extract, but is mixed with an extract of the tonka bean, which contains coumarin. Tonka bean extract smells and tastes like vanilla, but coumarin has been shown to cause liver damage in lab animals and is banned in food in the US by the Food and Drug Administration since 1954.

Tahitian vanilla is the name for vanilla from French Polynesia, made with the V. tahitiensis strain. Genetic analysis shows this species is possibly a cultivar from a hybrid-cross of V. planifolia and V. odorata. The species was introduced by French Admiral François Alphonse Hamelin to French Polynesia from the Philippines, where it was introduced from Guatemala by the Manila Galleon trade.

West Indian vanilla is made from V. pompona grown in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

The term French vanilla is often used to designate preparations with a strong vanilla aroma, containing vanilla grains and sometimes also containing eggs (especially egg yolks). The appellation originates from the French style of making vanilla ice cream with a custard base, using vanilla pods, cream, and egg yolks. Inclusion of vanilla varietals from any of the former French dependencies or overseas France noted for their exports may in fact be a part of the flavoring, though it may often be coincidental. Alternatively, French vanilla is taken to refer to a vanilla-custard flavor. Syrup labeled as French vanilla may include custard, hazelnut, caramel or butterscotch flavors in addition to vanilla.

CHEMISTRY

Vanilla essence comes in two forms. Real seedpod extract is an extremely complicated mixture of several hundred different compounds, including vanillin, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, furfural, hexanoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, eugenol, methyl cinnamate, and isobutyric acid. Synthetic essence consists of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol.

The chemical compound vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) is a major contributor to the characteristic flavor and aroma of real vanilla, but hundreds of compounds contribute to a complex flavor that vanillin can only approximate. Another minor component of vanilla extract is piperonal (heliotropin). Vanillin was first isolated from vanilla pods by Gobley in 1858. By 1874, it had been obtained from glycosides of pine tree sap, temporarily causing a depression in the natural vanilla industry. Vanillin can be easily synthesized from various raw materials, but the majority of food grade (>99% pure) vanillin is made from guaiacol.

PRODUCTION

GENERAL GUIDELINES

In general, quality vanilla will only come from good vines and through careful production methods. Commercial vanilla production can be performed under open field and "greenhouse" operations. Both production systems share the following similarities:

Plant height and number of years before producing the first grains

Shade necessities

Amount of organic matter needed

A tree or frame to grow around (bamboo, coconut or Erythrina lanceolata)

Labor intensity (pollination and harvest activities)

Vanilla grows best in a hot, humid climate from sea level to an elevation of 1500 m. The ideal climate has moderate rainfall, 1500–3000 mm, evenly distributed through 10 months of the year. Optimum temperatures for cultivation are 15–30 °C during the day and 15–20 °C during the night. Ideal humidity is around 80%, and under normal greenhouse conditions, it can be achieved by an evaporative cooler. However, since greenhouse vanilla is grown near the equator and under polymer (HDPE) netting (shading of 50%), this humidity can be achieved by the environment. Most successful vanilla growing and processing is done in the region within 10 to 20° of the equator.

Soils for vanilla cultivation should be loose, with high organic matter content and loamy texture. They must be well drained, and a slight slope helps in this condition. Soil pH has not been well documented, but some researchers have indicated an optimum soil pH of around 5.3. Mulch is very important for proper growth of the vine, and a considerable portion of mulch should be placed in the base of the vine. Fertilization varies with soil conditions, but general recommendations are: 40 to 60 g of N, 20 to 30 g of P2O5 and 60 to 100 g of K2O should be applied to each plant per year besides organic manures, such as vermicompost, oil cakes, poultry manure and wood ash. Foliar applications are also good for vanilla, and a solution of 1% NPK (17:17:17) can be sprayed on the plant once a month. Vanilla requires organic matter, so three or four applications of mulch a year are adequate for the plant.

PROPAGATION, PREPARATION AND TYPE OF STOCK

Dissemination of vanilla can be achieved either by stem cutting or by tissue culture. For stem cutting, a progeny garden needs to be established. Recommendations for establishing this garden vary, but in general, trenches of 60 cm in width, 45 cm in depth and 60 cm spacing for each plant are necessary. All plants need to grow under 50% shade, as well as the rest of the crop. Mulching the trenches with coconut husk and micro irrigation provide an ideal microclimate for vegetative growth. Cuttings between 60 and 120 cm should be selected for planting in the field or greenhouse. Cuttings below 60 to 120 cm need to be rooted and raised in a separate nursery before planting. Planting material should always come from unflowered portions of the vine. Wilting of the cuttings before planting provides better conditions for root initiation and establishment.

Before planting the cuttings, trees to support the vine must be planted at least three months before sowing the cuttings. Pits of 30 x 30 x 30 cm are dug 30 cm away from the tree and filled with farm yard manure (vermicompost), sand and top soil mixed well. An average of 2000 cuttings can be planted per hectare. One important consideration is that when planting the cuttings from the base, four leaves should be pruned and the pruned basal point must be pressed into the soil in a way such that the nodes are in close contact with the soil, and are placed at a depth of 15 to 20 cm. The top portion of the cutting is tied to the tree using natural fibers such as banana or hemp.

TISSUE CULTURE

Tissue culture was first used as a means of creating vanilla plants during the 1980s at Tamil Nadu University. This was the part of the first project to grow V. planifolia in India. At that time, a shortage of vanilla planting stock was occurring in India. The approach was inspired by the work going on to tissue culture other flowering plants. Several methods have been proposed for vanilla tissue culture, but all of them begin from axillary buds of the vanilla vine. In vitro multiplication has also been achieved through culture of callus masses, protocorns, root tips and stem nodes. Description of any of these processes can be obtained from the references listed before, but all of them are successful in generation of new vanilla plants that first need to be grown up to a height of at least 30 cm before they can be planted in the field or greenhouse.

SCHEDULING CONSIDERATIONS

In the tropics, the ideal time for planting vanilla is from September to November, when the weather is neither too rainy nor too dry, but this recommendation varies with growing conditions. Cuttings take one to eight weeks to establish roots, and show initial signs of growth from one of the leaf axils. A thick mulch of leaves should be provided immediately after planting as an additional source of organic matter. Three years are required for cuttings to grow enough to produce flowers and subsequent pods. As with most orchids, the blossoms grow along stems branching from the main vine. The buds, growing along the 15 to 25 cm stems, bloom and mature in sequence, each at a different interval.

POLLINATION

Flowering normally occurs every spring, and without pollination, the blossom wilts and falls, and no vanilla bean can grow. Each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening. In the wild, very few natural pollinators exist, with most pollination being carried out by bees of the genus Melipona.[citation needed] These pollinators do not exist outside the orchid's home range, and even within that range, vanilla orchids have only a 1% chance of successful pollination. As a result, all vanilla grown today is pollinated by hand. A small splinter of wood or a grass stem is used to lift the rostellum or move the flap upward, so the overhanging anther can be pressed against the stigma and self-pollinate the vine. Generally, one flower per raceme opens per day, so the raceme may be in flower for over 20 days. A healthy vine should produce about 50 to 100 beans per year, but growers are careful to pollinate only five or six flowers from the 20 on each raceme. The first flowers that open per vine should be pollinated, so the beans are similar in age. These agronomic practices facilitate harvest and increases bean quality. It takes the fruits five to six weeks to develop, but it takes around six months for the bean to mature. Over-pollination will result in diseases and inferior bean quality. A vine remains productive between 12 and 14 years.

PEST AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Most diseases come from the uncharacteristic growing conditions of vanilla. Therefore, conditions such as excess water, insufficient drainage, heavy mulch, overpollination and too much shade favor disease development. Vanilla is susceptible to many fungal and viral diseases. Fusarium, Sclerotium, Phytophthora, and Colletrotrichum species cause rots of root, stem, leaf, bean and shoot apex. These diseases can be controlled by spraying Bordeaux mixture (1%), carbendazim (0.2%) and copper oxychloride (0.2%).

Biological control of the spread of such diseases can be managed by applying to the soil Trichoderma (0.5 kg) per plant in the rhizosphere) and foliar application of pseudomonads (0.2%). Mosaic virus, leaf curl and cymbidium mosaic potex virus are the common viral diseases. These diseases are transmitted through the sap, so affected plants must be destroyed. The insect pests of vanilla include beetles and weevils that attack the flower, caterpillars, snakes and slugs that damage the tender parts of shoot, flower buds and immature fruit, and grasshoppers that affect cutting shoot tips. If organic agriculture is practiced, insecticides are avoided, and mechanical measures are adopted for pest management. Most of these practices are implemented under greenhouse cultivation, since such field conditions are very difficult to achieve.

ARTIFICIAL VANILLA

Most artificial vanilla products contain vanillin, which can be produced synthetically from lignin, a natural polymer found in wood. Most synthetic vanillin is a byproduct from the pulp used in papermaking, in which the lignin is broken down using sulfites or sulfates. However, vanillin is only one of 171 identified aromatic components of real vanilla fruits.

The orchid species Leptotes bicolor is used as a natural vanilla replacement in Paraguay and southern Brazil.

NONPLANT VANILLA FLAVORING

In the United States, castoreum, the exudate from the castor sacs of mature beavers, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a food additive, often referenced simply as a "natural flavoring" in the product's list of ingredients. It is used in both food and beverages, especially as vanilla and raspberry flavoring. It is also used to flavor some cigarettes and in perfume-making.

STAGES OF PRODUCTION

HARVEST

The vanilla fruit grows quickly on the vine, but is not ready for harvest until maturity - approximately six months. Harvesting vanilla fruits is as labor-intensive as pollinating the blossoms. Immature dark green pods are not harvested. Pale yellow discoloration that commences at the distal end of the fruits is an indication of the maturity of pods. Each fruit ripens at its own time, requiring a daily harvest. To ensure the finest flavor from every fruit, each individual pod must be picked by hand just as it begins to split on the end. Overmatured fruits are likely to split, causing a reduction in market value. Its commercial value is fixed based on the length and appearance of the pod.

If the fruit is more than 15 cm in length, it belongs to first-quality product. The largest fruits greater than 16 cm and up to as much as 21 cm are usually reserved for the gourmet vanilla market, for sale to top chefs and restaurants. If the fruits are between 10 and 15 cm long, pods are under the second-quality category, and fruits less than 10 cm in length are under the third-quality category. Each fruit contains thousands of tiny black vanilla seeds. Vanilla fruit yield depends on the care and management given to the hanging and fruiting vines. Any practice directed to stimulate aerial root production has a direct effect on vine productivity. A five-year-old vine can produce between 1.5 and 3 kg pods, and this production can increase up to 6 kg after a few years. The harvested green fruit can be commercialized as such or cured to get a better market price.

CURING

Several methods exist in the market for curing vanilla; nevertheless, all of them consist of four basic steps: killing, sweating, slow-drying, and conditioning of the beans.

KILLING

The vegetative tissue of the vanilla pod is killed to stop the vegetative growth of the pods and disrupt the cells and tissue of the fruits, which initiates enzymatic reactions responsible for the aroma. The method of killing varies, but may be accomplished by heating in hot water, freezing, or scratching, or killing by heating in an oven or exposing the beans to direct sunlight. The different methods give different profiles of enzymatic activity.

Testing has shown mechanical disruption of fruit tissues can cause curing processes,[40] including the degeneration of glucovanillin to vanillin, so the reasoning goes that disrupting the tissues and cells of the fruit allow enzymes and enzyme substrates to interact.

Hot-water killing may consist of dipping the pods in hot water (63–65 °C) for three minutes, or at 80 °C for 10 seconds. In scratch killing, fruits are scratched along their length. Frozen or quick-frozen fruits must be thawed again for the subsequent sweating stage. Tied in bundles and rolled in blankets, fruits may be placed in an oven at 60 °C for 36 to 48 hours. Exposing the fruits to sunlight until they turn brown is a method originating in Mexico that was practiced by the Aztecs.

SWEATING

Sweating is a hydrolytic and oxidative process. Traditionally, it consists of keeping fruits, for seven to 10 days, densely stacked and insulated in wool or other cloth. This retains a temperature of 45–65 °C and high humidity. Daily exposure to the sun may also be used, or dipping the fruits in hot water. The fruits are brown and have attained much of the characteristic vanilla flavor and aroma by the end of this process, but still retain a 60-70% moisture content by weight.

DRYING

Reduction of the beans to 25–30% moisture by weight, to prevent rotting and to lock the aroma in the pods, is always achieved by some exposure of the beans to air, and usually (and traditionally) intermittent shade and sunlight. Fruits may be laid out in the sun during the mornings and returned to their boxes in the afternoons, or spread on a wooden rack in a room for three to four weeks, sometimes with periods of sun exposure. Drying is the most problematic of the curing stages; unevenness in the drying process can lead to the loss of vanillin content of some fruits by the time the others are cured.

CONDITIONING

Conditioning is performed by storing the pods for five to six months in closed boxes, where the fragrance develops. The processed fruits are sorted, graded, bundled, and wrapped in paraffin paper and preserved for the development of desired bean qualities, especially flavor and aroma. The cured vanilla fruits contain an average of 2.5% vanillin.

GRADING

Once fully cured, the vanilla fruits are sorted by quality and graded.

Several vanilla fruit grading systems are in use. Each country which produces vanilla has its own grading system, and individual vendors, in turn, sometimes use their own criteria for describing the quality of the fruits they offer for sale.

In general, vanilla fruit grade is based on the length, appearance (color, sheen, presence of any splits, presence of blemishes), and moisture content of the fruit. Whole, dark, plump and oily pods that are visually attractive, with no blemishes, and that have a higher moisture content are graded most highly. Such pods are particularly prized by chefs for their appearance and can be featured in gourmet dishes. Beans that show localized signs of disease or other physical defects are cut to remove the blemishes; the shorter fragments left are called “cuts” and are assigned lower grades, as are fruits with lower moisture contents. Lower-grade fruits tend to be favored for uses in which the appearance is not as important, such as in the production of vanilla flavoring extract and in the fragrance industry.

Higher-grade fruits command higher prices in the market. However, because grade is so dependent on visual appearance and moisture content, fruits with the highest grade do not necessarily contain the highest concentration of characteristic flavor molecules such as vanillin, and are not necessarily the most flavorful.

USAGE

CULINARY USES

There are four main commercial preparations of natural vanilla:

- whole pod

- powder (ground pods, kept pure or blended with sugar, starch, or other ingredients)

- extract (in alcoholic or occasionally glycerol solution; both pure and imitation forms of vanilla contain at least 35% alcohol)

- vanilla sugar, a pre-packaged mix of sugar and vanilla extract

Vanilla flavoring in food may be achieved by adding vanilla extract or by cooking vanilla pods in the liquid preparation. A stronger aroma may be attained if the pods are split in two, exposing more of a pod's surface area to the liquid. In this case, the pods' seeds are mixed into the preparation. Natural vanilla gives a brown or yellow color to preparations, depending on the concentration. Good-quality vanilla has a strong aromatic flavor, but food with small amounts of low-quality vanilla or artificial vanilla-like flavorings are far more common, since true vanilla is much more expensive.

A major use of vanilla is in flavoring ice cream. The most common flavor of ice cream is vanilla, and thus most people consider it to be the "default" flavor. By analogy, the term "vanilla" is sometimes used as a synonym for "plain". Although vanilla is a prized flavoring agent on its own, it is also used to enhance the flavor of other substances, to which its own flavor is often complementary, such as chocolate, custard, caramel, coffee, cakes, and others.

The food industry uses methyl and ethyl vanillin. Ethyl vanillin is more expensive, but has a stronger note. Cook's Illustrated ran several taste tests pitting vanilla against vanillin in baked goods and other applications, and, to the consternation of the magazine editors, tasters could not differentiate the flavor of vanillin from vanilla; however, for the case of vanilla ice cream, natural vanilla won out. A more recent and thorough test by the same group produced a more interesting variety of results; namely, high-quality artificial vanilla flavoring is best for cookies, while high-quality real vanilla is very slightly better for cakes and significantly better for unheated or lightly heated foods.

It was once believed that the liquid extracted from vanilla pods had medical properties, helping with various stomach ailments.

WIKIPEDIA

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Atacamaites (Late Miocene, 7.83 Ma; Atacama Desert, Chile) 2 by James St. John

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Atacamaites are black-colored impact splash glasses recovered from the Atacama Desert in Chile, South America. They've been interpreted as being deposited relatively close to the impact site, which is currently undiscovered. Many impact splash glasses are given the generic name "tektite", but that term appears to be restricted to objects deposited far from an impact site. Both proximal and distal impact glasses form when a meteoroid or asteroid collides with Earth. The impact event pulverizes, ejects, heats, and melts target rocks. As the material falls back to Earth, rapid cooling of the melt results in glass.

Atacamaite morphology ranges from bulbous to elongated to raindrop-shaped to dumbbell-shaped to irregular. Compositionally, they are close to dacite, a type of volcanic rock. Atacamaite chemistry shows that they also consist of some meteoritic material. The impacting object was probably a group IIAB iron (the other types of meteorites are stony and stony-iron). Fission-track dating indicates the impact occurred during the Late Miocene, about 7.83 million years ago.

Locality: Atacamaite Strewn Field, east of the town of Paposo & south-southeast of the town of Antofagasta, Atacama Desert, northern Chile

---------------------------------------------

Much info. synthesized from:

Gattacceca et al. (2021) - A 650 km2 Miocene strewnfield of splash-form impact glasses in the Atacama Desert, Chile. Earth and Planetary Letters 569(117049). 10 pp.

Indonesia - Sulawesi - Tanah Toraja - Bourbon Vanilla - 317 by Manfred Sommer

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Vanilla is a flavor derived from orchids of the genus Vanilla, primarily from the Mexican species, flat-leaved vanilla (V. planifolia). The word vanilla, derived from the diminutive of the Spanish word vaina (vaina itself meaning sheath or pod), translates simply as "little pod". Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican people cultivated the vine of the vanilla orchid, called tlilxochitl by the Aztecs. Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés is credited with introducing both vanilla and chocolate to Europe in the 1520s.

Initial attempts to cultivate vanilla outside Mexico and Central America proved futile because of the symbiotic relationship between the vanilla orchid and its natural pollinator, the local species of Melipona bee. Pollination is required to set the fruit from which the flavoring is derived. In 1837, Belgian botanist Charles François Antoine Morren discovered this fact and pioneered a method of artificially pollinating the plant. The method proved financially unworkable and was not deployed commercially. In 1841, Edmond Albius, a slave who lived on the French island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, discovered at the age of 12 that the plant could be hand-pollinated. Hand-pollination allowed global cultivation of the plant.

Three major species of vanilla currently are grown globally, all of which derive from a species originally found in Mesoamerica, including parts of modern-day Mexico. The various subspecies are Vanilla planifolia (syn. V. fragrans), grown on Madagascar, Réunion, and other tropical areas along the Indian Ocean; V. tahitensis, grown in the South Pacific; and V. pompona, found in the West Indies, and Central and South America. The majority of the world's vanilla is the V. planifolia species, more commonly known as Bourbon vanilla (after the former name of Réunion, Île Bourbon) or Madagascar vanilla, which is produced in Madagascar and neighboring islands in the southwestern Indian Ocean, and in Indonesia. Leptotes bicolor is used in the same way in South America.

Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because growing the vanilla seed pods is labor-intensive. Despite the expense, vanilla is highly valued for its flavor, which author Frederic Rosengarten, Jr. described in The Book of Spices as "pure, spicy, and delicate"; he called its complex floral aroma a "peculiar bouquet". As a result, vanilla is widely used in both commercial and domestic baking, perfume manufacture and aromatherapy.

HISTORY

The Totonac people, who inhabit the East Coast of Mexico in the present-day state of Veracruz, were the first to cultivate vanilla. According to Totonac mythology, the tropical orchid was born when Princess Xanat, forbidden by her father from marrying a mortal, fled to the forest with her lover. The lovers were captured and beheaded. Where their blood touched the ground, the vine of the tropical orchid grew.

In the 15th century, Aztecs invading from the central highlands of Mexico conquered the Totonacs, and soon developed a taste for the vanilla pods. They named the fruit tlilxochitl, or "black flower", after the matured fruit, which shrivels and turns black shortly after it is picked. Subjugated by the Aztecs, the Totonacs paid tribute by sending vanilla fruit to the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan.

Until the mid-19th century, Mexico was the chief producer of vanilla. In 1819, however, French entrepreneurs shipped vanilla fruits to the islands of Réunion and Mauritius in hopes of producing vanilla there. After Edmond Albius discovered how to pollinate the flowers quickly by hand, the pods began to thrive. Soon, the tropical orchids were sent from Réunion Island to the Comoros Islands Seychelles and Madagascar, along with instructions for pollinating them. By 1898, Madagascar, Réunion, and the Comoros Islands produced 200 metric tons of vanilla beans, about 80% of world production. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Indonesia is currently responsible for the vast majority of the world's Bourbon vanilla production and 58% of the world total vanilla fruit production.

The market price of vanilla rose dramatically in the late 1970s after a tropical cyclone ravaged key croplands. Prices remained high through the early 1980s despite the introduction of Indonesian vanilla. In the mid-1980s, the cartel that had controlled vanilla prices and distribution since its creation in 1930 disbanded. Prices dropped 70% over the next few years, to nearly US$20 per kilogram; prices rose sharply again after tropical cyclone Hudah struck Madagascar in April 2000. The cyclone, political instability, and poor weather in the third year drove vanilla prices to an astonishing US$500 per kilogram in 2004, bringing new countries into the vanilla industry. A good crop, coupled with decreased demand caused by the production of imitation vanilla, pushed the market price down to the $40 per kilogram range in the middle of 2005. By 2010, prices were down to US$20/per kilo.

Madagascar (especially the fertile Sava region) accounts for much of the global production of vanilla. Mexico, once the leading producer of natural vanilla with an annual yield of 500 tons, produced only 10 tons of vanilla in 2006. An estimated 95% of "vanilla" products are artificially flavored with vanillin derived from lignin instead of vanilla fruits.

ETYMOLOGY

Vanilla was completely unknown in the Old World before Cortés. Spanish explorers arriving on the Gulf Coast of Mexico in the early 16th century gave vanilla its current name. Spanish and Portuguese sailors and explorers brought vanilla into Africa and Asia later that century. They called it vainilla, or "little pod". The word vanilla entered the English language in 1754, when the botanist Philip Miller wrote about the genus in his Gardener’s Dictionary. Vainilla is from the diminutive of vaina, from the Latin vagina (sheath) to describe the shape of the pods.

BIOLOGY

VANILLA ORCHID

The main species harvested for vanilla is Vanilla planifolia. Although it is native to Mexico, it is now widely grown throughout the tropics. Indonesia and Madagascar are the world's largest producers. Additional sources include Vanilla pompona and Vanilla tahitiensis (grown in Niue and Tahiti), although the vanillin content of these species is much less than Vanilla planifolia.

Vanilla grows as a vine, climbing up an existing tree (also called a tutor), pole, or other support. It can be grown in a wood (on trees), in a plantation (on trees or poles), or in a "shader", in increasing orders of productivity. Its growth environment is referred to as its terroir, and includes not only the adjacent plants, but also the climate, geography, and local geology. Left alone, it will grow as high as possible on the support, with few flowers. Every year, growers fold the higher parts of the plant downward so the plant stays at heights accessible by a standing human. This also greatly stimulates flowering.

The distinctively flavored compounds are found in the fruit, which results from the pollination of the flower. These seed pods are roughly a third of an inch by six inches, and brownish red to black when ripe. Inside of these pods are an oily liquid full of tiny seeds. One flower produces one fruit. V. planifolia flowers are hermaphroditic: They carry both male (anther) and female (stigma) organs; however, to avoid self-pollination, a membrane separates those organs. The flowers can be naturally pollinated only by bees of the Melipona genus found in Mexico (abeja de monte or mountain bee). This bee provided Mexico with a 300-year-long monopoly on vanilla production, from the time it was first discovered by Europeans. The first vanilla orchid to flower in Europe was in the London collection of the Honourable Charles Greville in 1806. Cuttings from that plant went to Netherlands and Paris, from which the French first transplanted the vines to their overseas colonies. The vines would grow, but would not fruit outside Mexico. Growers tried to bring this bee into other growing locales, to no avail. The only way to produce fruits without the bees is artificial pollination. And today, even in Mexico, hand pollination is used extensively.

In 1836, botanist Charles François Antoine Morren was drinking coffee on a patio in Papantla (in Veracruz, Mexico) and noticed black bees flying around the vanilla flowers next to his table. He watched their actions closely as they would land and work their way under a flap inside the flower, transferring pollen in the process. Within hours, the flowers closed and several days later, Morren noticed vanilla pods beginning to form. Morren immediately began experimenting with hand pollination. A few years later in 1841, a simple and efficient artificial hand-pollination method was developed by a 12-year-old slave named Edmond Albius on Réunion, a method still used today. Using a beveled sliver of bamboo, an agricultural worker lifts the membrane separating the anther and the stigma, then, using the thumb, transfers the pollinia from the anther to the stigma. The flower, self-pollinated, will then produce a fruit. The vanilla flower lasts about one day, sometimes less, so growers have to inspect their plantations every day for open flowers, a labor-intensive task.

The fruit, a seed capsule, if left on the plant, will ripen and open at the end; as it dries, the phenolic compounds crystallize, giving the fruits a diamond-dusted appearance, which the French call givre (hoarfrost). It will then release the distinctive vanilla smell. The fruit contains tiny, black seeds. In dishes prepared with whole natural vanilla, these seeds are recognizable as black specks. Both the pod and the seeds are used in cooking.

Like other orchids' seeds, vanilla seeds will not germinate without the presence of certain mycorrhizal fungi. Instead, growers reproduce the plant by cutting: they remove sections of the vine with six or more leaf nodes, a root opposite each leaf. The two lower leaves are removed, and this area is buried in loose soil at the base of a support. The remaining upper roots will cling to the support, and often grow down into the soil. Growth is rapid under good conditions.

CULTIVARS

Bourbon vanilla or Bourbon-Madagascar vanilla, produced from V. planifolia plants introduced from the Americas, is the term used for vanilla from Indian Ocean islands such as Madagascar, the Comoros, and Réunion, formerly the Île Bourbon. It is also used to describe the distinctive vanilla flavor derived from V. planifolia grown successfully in tropical countries such as India.

Mexican vanilla, made from the native V. planifolia, is produced in much less quantity and marketed as the vanilla from the land of its origin. Vanilla sold in tourist markets around Mexico is sometimes not actual vanilla extract, but is mixed with an extract of the tonka bean, which contains coumarin. Tonka bean extract smells and tastes like vanilla, but coumarin has been shown to cause liver damage in lab animals and is banned in food in the US by the Food and Drug Administration since 1954.

Tahitian vanilla is the name for vanilla from French Polynesia, made with the V. tahitiensis strain. Genetic analysis shows this species is possibly a cultivar from a hybrid-cross of V. planifolia and V. odorata. The species was introduced by French Admiral François Alphonse Hamelin to French Polynesia from the Philippines, where it was introduced from Guatemala by the Manila Galleon trade.

West Indian vanilla is made from V. pompona grown in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

The term French vanilla is often used to designate preparations with a strong vanilla aroma, containing vanilla grains and sometimes also containing eggs (especially egg yolks). The appellation originates from the French style of making vanilla ice cream with a custard base, using vanilla pods, cream, and egg yolks. Inclusion of vanilla varietals from any of the former French dependencies or overseas France noted for their exports may in fact be a part of the flavoring, though it may often be coincidental. Alternatively, French vanilla is taken to refer to a vanilla-custard flavor. Syrup labeled as French vanilla may include custard, hazelnut, caramel or butterscotch flavors in addition to vanilla.

CHEMISTRY

Vanilla essence comes in two forms. Real seedpod extract is an extremely complicated mixture of several hundred different compounds, including vanillin, acetaldehyde, acetic acid, furfural, hexanoic acid, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde, eugenol, methyl cinnamate, and isobutyric acid. Synthetic essence consists of a solution of synthetic vanillin in ethanol.

The chemical compound vanillin (4-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde) is a major contributor to the characteristic flavor and aroma of real vanilla, but hundreds of compounds contribute to a complex flavor that vanillin can only approximate. Another minor component of vanilla extract is piperonal (heliotropin). Vanillin was first isolated from vanilla pods by Gobley in 1858. By 1874, it had been obtained from glycosides of pine tree sap, temporarily causing a depression in the natural vanilla industry. Vanillin can be easily synthesized from various raw materials, but the majority of food grade (>99% pure) vanillin is made from guaiacol.

PRODUCTION

GENERAL GUIDELINES

In general, quality vanilla will only come from good vines and through careful production methods. Commercial vanilla production can be performed under open field and "greenhouse" operations. Both production systems share the following similarities:

Plant height and number of years before producing the first grains

Shade necessities

Amount of organic matter needed

A tree or frame to grow around (bamboo, coconut or Erythrina lanceolata)

Labor intensity (pollination and harvest activities)

Vanilla grows best in a hot, humid climate from sea level to an elevation of 1500 m. The ideal climate has moderate rainfall, 1500–3000 mm, evenly distributed through 10 months of the year. Optimum temperatures for cultivation are 15–30 °C during the day and 15–20 °C during the night. Ideal humidity is around 80%, and under normal greenhouse conditions, it can be achieved by an evaporative cooler. However, since greenhouse vanilla is grown near the equator and under polymer (HDPE) netting (shading of 50%), this humidity can be achieved by the environment. Most successful vanilla growing and processing is done in the region within 10 to 20° of the equator.

Soils for vanilla cultivation should be loose, with high organic matter content and loamy texture. They must be well drained, and a slight slope helps in this condition. Soil pH has not been well documented, but some researchers have indicated an optimum soil pH of around 5.3. Mulch is very important for proper growth of the vine, and a considerable portion of mulch should be placed in the base of the vine. Fertilization varies with soil conditions, but general recommendations are: 40 to 60 g of N, 20 to 30 g of P2O5 and 60 to 100 g of K2O should be applied to each plant per year besides organic manures, such as vermicompost, oil cakes, poultry manure and wood ash. Foliar applications are also good for vanilla, and a solution of 1% NPK (17:17:17) can be sprayed on the plant once a month. Vanilla requires organic matter, so three or four applications of mulch a year are adequate for the plant.

PROPAGATION, PREPARATION AND TYPE OF STOCK

Dissemination of vanilla can be achieved either by stem cutting or by tissue culture. For stem cutting, a progeny garden needs to be established. Recommendations for establishing this garden vary, but in general, trenches of 60 cm in width, 45 cm in depth and 60 cm spacing for each plant are necessary. All plants need to grow under 50% shade, as well as the rest of the crop. Mulching the trenches with coconut husk and micro irrigation provide an ideal microclimate for vegetative growth. Cuttings between 60 and 120 cm should be selected for planting in the field or greenhouse. Cuttings below 60 to 120 cm need to be rooted and raised in a separate nursery before planting. Planting material should always come from unflowered portions of the vine. Wilting of the cuttings before planting provides better conditions for root initiation and establishment.

Before planting the cuttings, trees to support the vine must be planted at least three months before sowing the cuttings. Pits of 30 x 30 x 30 cm are dug 30 cm away from the tree and filled with farm yard manure (vermicompost), sand and top soil mixed well. An average of 2000 cuttings can be planted per hectare. One important consideration is that when planting the cuttings from the base, four leaves should be pruned and the pruned basal point must be pressed into the soil in a way such that the nodes are in close contact with the soil, and are placed at a depth of 15 to 20 cm. The top portion of the cutting is tied to the tree using natural fibers such as banana or hemp.

TISSUE CULTURE

Tissue culture was first used as a means of creating vanilla plants during the 1980s at Tamil Nadu University. This was the part of the first project to grow V. planifolia in India. At that time, a shortage of vanilla planting stock was occurring in India. The approach was inspired by the work going on to tissue culture other flowering plants. Several methods have been proposed for vanilla tissue culture, but all of them begin from axillary buds of the vanilla vine. In vitro multiplication has also been achieved through culture of callus masses, protocorns, root tips and stem nodes. Description of any of these processes can be obtained from the references listed before, but all of them are successful in generation of new vanilla plants that first need to be grown up to a height of at least 30 cm before they can be planted in the field or greenhouse.

SCHEDULING CONSIDERATIONS

In the tropics, the ideal time for planting vanilla is from September to November, when the weather is neither too rainy nor too dry, but this recommendation varies with growing conditions. Cuttings take one to eight weeks to establish roots, and show initial signs of growth from one of the leaf axils. A thick mulch of leaves should be provided immediately after planting as an additional source of organic matter. Three years are required for cuttings to grow enough to produce flowers and subsequent pods. As with most orchids, the blossoms grow along stems branching from the main vine. The buds, growing along the 15 to 25 cm stems, bloom and mature in sequence, each at a different interval.

POLLINATION

Flowering normally occurs every spring, and without pollination, the blossom wilts and falls, and no vanilla bean can grow. Each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening. In the wild, very few natural pollinators exist, with most pollination being carried out by bees of the genus Melipona.[citation needed] These pollinators do not exist outside the orchid's home range, and even within that range, vanilla orchids have only a 1% chance of successful pollination. As a result, all vanilla grown today is pollinated by hand. A small splinter of wood or a grass stem is used to lift the rostellum or move the flap upward, so the overhanging anther can be pressed against the stigma and self-pollinate the vine. Generally, one flower per raceme opens per day, so the raceme may be in flower for over 20 days. A healthy vine should produce about 50 to 100 beans per year, but growers are careful to pollinate only five or six flowers from the 20 on each raceme. The first flowers that open per vine should be pollinated, so the beans are similar in age. These agronomic practices facilitate harvest and increases bean quality. It takes the fruits five to six weeks to develop, but it takes around six months for the bean to mature. Over-pollination will result in diseases and inferior bean quality. A vine remains productive between 12 and 14 years.

PEST AND DISEASE MANAGEMENT

Most diseases come from the uncharacteristic growing conditions of vanilla. Therefore, conditions such as excess water, insufficient drainage, heavy mulch, overpollination and too much shade favor disease development. Vanilla is susceptible to many fungal and viral diseases. Fusarium, Sclerotium, Phytophthora, and Colletrotrichum species cause rots of root, stem, leaf, bean and shoot apex. These diseases can be controlled by spraying Bordeaux mixture (1%), carbendazim (0.2%) and copper oxychloride (0.2%).

Biological control of the spread of such diseases can be managed by applying to the soil Trichoderma (0.5 kg) per plant in the rhizosphere) and foliar application of pseudomonads (0.2%). Mosaic virus, leaf curl and cymbidium mosaic potex virus are the common viral diseases. These diseases are transmitted through the sap, so affected plants must be destroyed. The insect pests of vanilla include beetles and weevils that attack the flower, caterpillars, snakes and slugs that damage the tender parts of shoot, flower buds and immature fruit, and grasshoppers that affect cutting shoot tips. If organic agriculture is practiced, insecticides are avoided, and mechanical measures are adopted for pest management. Most of these practices are implemented under greenhouse cultivation, since such field conditions are very difficult to achieve.

ARTIFICIAL VANILLA

Most artificial vanilla products contain vanillin, which can be produced synthetically from lignin, a natural polymer found in wood. Most synthetic vanillin is a byproduct from the pulp used in papermaking, in which the lignin is broken down using sulfites or sulfates. However, vanillin is only one of 171 identified aromatic components of real vanilla fruits.

The orchid species Leptotes bicolor is used as a natural vanilla replacement in Paraguay and southern Brazil.

NONPLANT VANILLA FLAVORING

In the United States, castoreum, the exudate from the castor sacs of mature beavers, has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a food additive, often referenced simply as a "natural flavoring" in the product's list of ingredients. It is used in both food and beverages, especially as vanilla and raspberry flavoring. It is also used to flavor some cigarettes and in perfume-making.

STAGES OF PRODUCTION

HARVEST

The vanilla fruit grows quickly on the vine, but is not ready for harvest until maturity - approximately six months. Harvesting vanilla fruits is as labor-intensive as pollinating the blossoms. Immature dark green pods are not harvested. Pale yellow discoloration that commences at the distal end of the fruits is an indication of the maturity of pods. Each fruit ripens at its own time, requiring a daily harvest. To ensure the finest flavor from every fruit, each individual pod must be picked by hand just as it begins to split on the end. Overmatured fruits are likely to split, causing a reduction in market value. Its commercial value is fixed based on the length and appearance of the pod.

If the fruit is more than 15 cm in length, it belongs to first-quality product. The largest fruits greater than 16 cm and up to as much as 21 cm are usually reserved for the gourmet vanilla market, for sale to top chefs and restaurants. If the fruits are between 10 and 15 cm long, pods are under the second-quality category, and fruits less than 10 cm in length are under the third-quality category. Each fruit contains thousands of tiny black vanilla seeds. Vanilla fruit yield depends on the care and management given to the hanging and fruiting vines. Any practice directed to stimulate aerial root production has a direct effect on vine productivity. A five-year-old vine can produce between 1.5 and 3 kg pods, and this production can increase up to 6 kg after a few years. The harvested green fruit can be commercialized as such or cured to get a better market price.

CURING

Several methods exist in the market for curing vanilla; nevertheless, all of them consist of four basic steps: killing, sweating, slow-drying, and conditioning of the beans.

KILLING

The vegetative tissue of the vanilla pod is killed to stop the vegetative growth of the pods and disrupt the cells and tissue of the fruits, which initiates enzymatic reactions responsible for the aroma. The method of killing varies, but may be accomplished by heating in hot water, freezing, or scratching, or killing by heating in an oven or exposing the beans to direct sunlight. The different methods give different profiles of enzymatic activity.

Testing has shown mechanical disruption of fruit tissues can cause curing processes,[40] including the degeneration of glucovanillin to vanillin, so the reasoning goes that disrupting the tissues and cells of the fruit allow enzymes and enzyme substrates to interact.

Hot-water killing may consist of dipping the pods in hot water (63–65 °C) for three minutes, or at 80 °C for 10 seconds. In scratch killing, fruits are scratched along their length. Frozen or quick-frozen fruits must be thawed again for the subsequent sweating stage. Tied in bundles and rolled in blankets, fruits may be placed in an oven at 60 °C for 36 to 48 hours. Exposing the fruits to sunlight until they turn brown is a method originating in Mexico that was practiced by the Aztecs.

SWEATING

Sweating is a hydrolytic and oxidative process. Traditionally, it consists of keeping fruits, for seven to 10 days, densely stacked and insulated in wool or other cloth. This retains a temperature of 45–65 °C and high humidity. Daily exposure to the sun may also be used, or dipping the fruits in hot water. The fruits are brown and have attained much of the characteristic vanilla flavor and aroma by the end of this process, but still retain a 60-70% moisture content by weight.

DRYING

Reduction of the beans to 25–30% moisture by weight, to prevent rotting and to lock the aroma in the pods, is always achieved by some exposure of the beans to air, and usually (and traditionally) intermittent shade and sunlight. Fruits may be laid out in the sun during the mornings and returned to their boxes in the afternoons, or spread on a wooden rack in a room for three to four weeks, sometimes with periods of sun exposure. Drying is the most problematic of the curing stages; unevenness in the drying process can lead to the loss of vanillin content of some fruits by the time the others are cured.

CONDITIONING

Conditioning is performed by storing the pods for five to six months in closed boxes, where the fragrance develops. The processed fruits are sorted, graded, bundled, and wrapped in paraffin paper and preserved for the development of desired bean qualities, especially flavor and aroma. The cured vanilla fruits contain an average of 2.5% vanillin.

GRADING

Once fully cured, the vanilla fruits are sorted by quality and graded.

Several vanilla fruit grading systems are in use. Each country which produces vanilla has its own grading system, and individual vendors, in turn, sometimes use their own criteria for describing the quality of the fruits they offer for sale.

In general, vanilla fruit grade is based on the length, appearance (color, sheen, presence of any splits, presence of blemishes), and moisture content of the fruit. Whole, dark, plump and oily pods that are visually attractive, with no blemishes, and that have a higher moisture content are graded most highly. Such pods are particularly prized by chefs for their appearance and can be featured in gourmet dishes. Beans that show localized signs of disease or other physical defects are cut to remove the blemishes; the shorter fragments left are called “cuts” and are assigned lower grades, as are fruits with lower moisture contents. Lower-grade fruits tend to be favored for uses in which the appearance is not as important, such as in the production of vanilla flavoring extract and in the fragrance industry.

Higher-grade fruits command higher prices in the market. However, because grade is so dependent on visual appearance and moisture content, fruits with the highest grade do not necessarily contain the highest concentration of characteristic flavor molecules such as vanillin, and are not necessarily the most flavorful.

USAGE

CULINARY USES

There are four main commercial preparations of natural vanilla:

- whole pod

- powder (ground pods, kept pure or blended with sugar, starch, or other ingredients)

- extract (in alcoholic or occasionally glycerol solution; both pure and imitation forms of vanilla contain at least 35% alcohol)

- vanilla sugar, a pre-packaged mix of sugar and vanilla extract

Vanilla flavoring in food may be achieved by adding vanilla extract or by cooking vanilla pods in the liquid preparation. A stronger aroma may be attained if the pods are split in two, exposing more of a pod's surface area to the liquid. In this case, the pods' seeds are mixed into the preparation. Natural vanilla gives a brown or yellow color to preparations, depending on the concentration. Good-quality vanilla has a strong aromatic flavor, but food with small amounts of low-quality vanilla or artificial vanilla-like flavorings are far more common, since true vanilla is much more expensive.

A major use of vanilla is in flavoring ice cream. The most common flavor of ice cream is vanilla, and thus most people consider it to be the "default" flavor. By analogy, the term "vanilla" is sometimes used as a synonym for "plain". Although vanilla is a prized flavoring agent on its own, it is also used to enhance the flavor of other substances, to which its own flavor is often complementary, such as chocolate, custard, caramel, coffee, cakes, and others.

The food industry uses methyl and ethyl vanillin. Ethyl vanillin is more expensive, but has a stronger note. Cook's Illustrated ran several taste tests pitting vanilla against vanillin in baked goods and other applications, and, to the consternation of the magazine editors, tasters could not differentiate the flavor of vanillin from vanilla; however, for the case of vanilla ice cream, natural vanilla won out. A more recent and thorough test by the same group produced a more interesting variety of results; namely, high-quality artificial vanilla flavoring is best for cookies, while high-quality real vanilla is very slightly better for cakes and significantly better for unheated or lightly heated foods.

It was once believed that the liquid extracted from vanilla pods had medical properties, helping with various stomach ailments.

WIKIPEDIA

Himeji Tenshukaku by oldoinyo

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Himeji.

Synthesized IRG-->RGB cross-sampled image from a single exposure. Converted camera, Steinheil 50mm lens, Tiffen #12 filter. Worked up in Pixelbender and Photoshop.

How ground-source and water-source heat pumps work | Free educational graphic by Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library

1

Ground-source and water-source heat pumps differ from air-source pumps by capturing heat from the ground or from bodies of water. This graphic shows how ground-source and water-source heat pumps work.

Read more in Knowable Magazine

How heat pumps of the 1800s are becoming the technology of the future

Innovative thinking has done away with problems that long dogged the electric devices — and both scientists and environmentalists are excited about the possibilities

knowablemagazine.org/article/technology/2023/heat-pumps-b...

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Knowable Magazine from Annual Reviews is a digital publication that seeks to make scientific knowledge accessible to all. Through compelling articles, beautiful graphics, engaging videos and more, Knowable Magazine explores the real-world impact of research through a journalistic lens. All content is rooted in deep reporting and undergoes a thorough fact-checking before publication.

The Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library is an initiative to create freely available, accurate and engaging graphics for teachers and students. All graphics are curated from Knowable Magazine articles and are free for classroom use.

Knowable Magazine is an editorially independent initiative produced by Annual Reviews, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.

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Boccioni, Umberto (1882-1916) - 1912 Horizontal Volumes (Private Collection) by Milton Sonn

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Oil on canvas.

A native of Reggio Calabria, Boccioni studied art through the Scuola Libera del Nudo at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, beginning in 1901. He also studied design with a sign painter in Rome. Together with his friend Gino Severini, he became a student of Giacomo Balla, a divisionist painter. In 1906, Boccioni studied Impressionist and Post-Impressionist styles in Paris. During the late 1906 and early 1907, he shortly took drawing classes at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. In 1901, Boccioni first visited the Famiglia Artistica, a society for artists in Milan. After moving there in 1907, he became acquainted with fellow Futurists, including the famous poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti. The two artists would later join with others in writing manifestos on Futurism.

Boccioni became the main theorist of the artistic movement. He also decided to be a sculptor after he visited various studios in Paris, in 1912, among which those of Braque, Archipenko, Brancusi, Raymond Duchamp-Villon and, probably, Medardo Rosso. While in 1912 he exhibited some paintings together with other Italian futurists at the Bernheim-Jeun, in 1913 he returned to show his sculptures at the Gallerie La Boetie: all related to the elaboration of what Boccioni had seen in Paris, they in their turn probably influenced the cubist sculptors, especially Duchamp-Villon.

In 1914, he published Pittura e scultura futuriste (dinamismo plastico) explaining the aesthetics of the group: “While the impressionists make a table to give one particular moment and subordinate the life of the table to its resemblance to this moment, we synthesize every moment (time, place, form, color-tone) and thus build the table.” He exhibited in London, together with the group, in 1912 (Sackville Gallery) and 1914 (Doré Gallery): the two exhibitions made a deep impression on a number of young English artists, in particular C.R.W. Nevinson, who joined the movement: others aligned themselves instead to its British equivalent, Vorticism, led by Wyndham Lewis.

Mobilized in the declaration of war, Boccioni was assigned to an artillery regiment at Sorte, near Verona. On 16 August 1916, Boccioni was thrown from his horse during a cavalry training exercise and was trampled. He died the following day, age thirty-three.

Maison avec coffre-fort - (4) by Bas 1953

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Urbex Benelux -

The villa concept lived and lives on in the haciendas of Latin America and the estancias of Brazil and Argentina. The oldest are original Portuguese and Spanish Colonial architecture; followed after independences in the Americas from Spain and Portugal, by the Spanish Colonial Revival style with regional variations. In the 20th century International Style villas were designed by Roberto Burle Marx, Oscar Niemeyer, Luis Barragán, and other architects developing a unique Euro-Latin synthesized aesthetic.

Mount St. Helens Pre-1980 Experience for Microsoft Flight Simulator X - The morning of May 18, 1980. One minute to oblivion by Steven Rosenow

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A lifelong dream of mine has finally been achieved. That dream is to faithfully recreate the look of Mount St. Helens in Microsoft Flight Simulator X on the morning of May 18, 1980.

Special thanks to the USGS for providing the background data for this. In one of these captures, I replicated the famous Harry Glicken photo taken on the morning of May 17, 1980. And in another, a replication of Mount St. Helens from Bear Meadow, where the famous Gary Rosenquist sequence was captured.

To recreate the look of the peak, a special method of interpolating to the terrain model of an aerial photograph commissioned for the USGS taken by the Washington State Department of Transportation.This aerial had a one meter per pixel resolution, which provides ample details of the bulge, crater, and north flank. To simulate the rest of the peak, digital synthesizing of aerial photographs taken both May 17, 1980 and during the eruption of May 18, as well as an aerial image taken in June, 1980, sourced from USGS Earth Explorer, were done. These photos had to be digitally manipulated to match the DEM.

Severini, Gino (1883-1966) - 1915-16 Dancer (Pallant House Gallery, Paris, France) by Milton Sonn

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Oil on canvas; 93.3 x 74 cm.

Gino Severini was an Italian painter who synthesized the styles of Futurism and Cubism.

Severini began his painting career in 1900 as a student of Giacomo Balla, an Italian pointillist painter who later became a prominent Futurist. Stimulated by Balla’s account of the new painting in France, Severini moved to Paris in 1906 and met leading members of the French avant-garde, such as the Cubist painters Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso and the writer Guillaume Apollinaire. Severini continued to work in the pointillist manner—an approach that entailed applying dots of contrasting colors according to principles of optical science—until 1910, when he signed the Futurist painters’ manifesto.

The Futurists wanted to revitalize Italian art (and, as a consequence, all of Italian culture) by depicting the speed and dynamism of modern life. Severini shared this artistic interest, but his work did not contain the political overtones typical of Futurism. Whereas Futurists typically painted moving cars or machines, Severini usually portrayed the human figure as the source of energetic motion in his paintings. He was especially fond of painting nightclub scenes in which he evoked the sensations of movement and sound by filling the picture with rhythmic forms and cheerful, flickering colors. In Dynamic Hieroglyph of the Bal Tabarin (1912), he retained the nightlife theme but incorporated the Cubist technique of collage (real sequins are fixed to the dancers’ dresses) and such nonsensical elements as a realistic nude riding a pair of scissors.

Only briefly, in wartime works such as Red Cross Train Passing a Village (1914), did Severini paint subjects that conformed to the Futurist glorification of war and mechanized power. Over the next few years, he turned increasingly to an idiosyncratic form of Cubism that retained decorative elements of pointillism and Futurism, as seen in the abstract painting Spherical Expansion of Light (Centrifugal) (1914).

About 1916 Severini embraced a more rigorous and formal approach to composition; instead of deconstructing forms, he wanted to bring geometric order to his paintings. His works from this period were usually still lifes executed in a Synthetic Cubist manner, which entailed constructing a composition out of fragments of objects. In portraits such as Maternity (1916), he also began to experiment with a Neoclassical figurative style, a conservative approach that he embraced more fully in the 1920s. Severini published a book, Du cubisme au classicisme (1921; “From Cubism to Classicism”), in which he discussed his theories about the rules of composition and proportion. Later in his career he created many decorative panels, frescoes, and mosaics, and he became involved in set and costume design for the theater. The artist’s autobiography, Tutta la vita di un pittore (“The Life of a Painter”), was published in 1946.

Quartz-gold hydrothermal vein rock (Neoarchean, 2.67 Ga; Hollinger Mine, Timmins, Ontario, Canada) 1 by James St. John

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Quartz-gold hydrothermal vein rock (gold ore) from the Precambrian of Ontario, Canada.

This high-grade gold ore sample is from the famous Hollinger Mine in Timmins, Ontario, one of the richest gold mines on Earth. The whitish-gray material is quartz and the buttery, metallic-lustered material is native gold (Au). Occasional, very small pyrite crystals are present. Not sure what the blackish material is (it’s actually very dark brown) - other minerals reported from the quartz-gold veins in the area include ankerite, albite feldspar, pyrite and other sulfides, scheelite, tourmaline, and various tellurides. Several gold mines in the Timmins area, called the Porcupine Gold Camp, targeted auriferous rocks in and immediately adjacent to a hydrothermal vein system about 5 x 2 kilometers in areal extent. The vein system and its host rocks are Late Archean in age, between 2.8 and 2.6 billion years old.

The gold occurrence at the Hollinger Mine site was discovered in 1909 by Benjamin Hollinger as he removed vegetation from a mound on his claim - this exposed a vein with native gold. Mining occurred from 1909 to 1968. After a half-decade of inactivity, operations resumed at Hollinger in 1973. Gold mining continues today, after several corporate ownership changes in recent decades. The current operator of the Hollinger Mine is a company called Newmont. Remote-controlled, automated drilling equipment is currently used at the site.

The gold-bearing hydrothermal vein system in the Hollinger Mine area occurs in a northeast-southwest striking shear zone that has intensely deformed the vein’s host rocks. The stratigraphy of the area’s host rocks includes three major units (from youngest to oldest):

Porcupine Group

Tisdale Group

Deloro Group

The Porcupine Group is a ~3 kilometer thick succession of metamorphosed siliciclastic sedimentary rocks, including turbidites and coarse-grained fluvial deposits. The Tisdale Group is a ~4 kilometer thick succession of 2.703 billion year old ultramafic to intermediate volcanic rocks, including komatiites, basalts, and alkaline dacitic volcaniclastics. The Deloro Group is a ~4.5 to 5 kilometer thick succession of 2.725 billion year old mafic to felsic to alkaline volcanics, plus some iron formation. These rocks have been subjected to regional greenschist-facies metamorphism and structural folding - this occurred during an Archean mountain-building event (orogeny). Various igneous intrusions are also present. Diabase dikes cut, and therefore postdate, the quartz-gold veins. The diabase dikes are ~2.633 Ga, but that date has significant error bars. Albitite dikes in the Porcupine Gold Camp cut and are cut by the gold veins. Emplacement of the albitite dikes occurred at 2.673 Ga. Molybdenite samples from vein rocks at nearby mines date to 2.670-2.672 Ga. These ages are likely good approximate dates for emplacement of the gold veins - albitite dike intrusions apparently generated hydrothermal activity and gold mineralization.

Most gold at the Hollinger Mine (about 95%) comes from altered wall rocks adjacent to the quartz veins. It principally occurs as micron-scale blebs of native gold within pyrite masses. Macroscopic native gold in the veins themselves contributes about 5% of the mine’s gold production. Both vein gold and wall rock gold is naturally mixed with silver (Ag), plus traces of other elements such as iron (Fe) and copper (Cu). Hollinger Mine’s gold is about 10 weight percent silver.

Geologic unit: Hollinger-McIntyre-Coniaurum-Vipond-Moneta-Crown Gold-Quartz Vein System, Abitibi Greenstone Belt, Superior Province, Canadian Shield, Neoarchean, ~2.67 Ga

Locality: unrecorded site at the Hollinger Mine, eastern side of the town of Timmins, Porcupine Gold Camp (Porcupine Mining District), eastern Ontario, southeastern Canada (vicinity of 48º 28’ 15.85” North latitude, 81º 19’ 06.21” West longitude)

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Info. mostly synthesized from:

Brisbin (2000) - World class intrusion-related Archean vein gold deposits of the Porcupine Gold Camp, Timmins, Ontario. pp. 19-35 in Geology and Ore Deposits: the Great Basin and Beyond Symposium Proceedings.

MacDonald & Piercey (2019) - Geology, lithogeochemistry, and significance of porphyry intrusions associated with gold mineralization within the Timmins-Porcupine gold camp, Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 56: 399-418.

Wood (1991) - The Hollinger-McIntyre Gold-Quartz Vein System, Timmins, Ontario: Geologic Characteristics, Fluid Properties and Light Stable Isotope Geochemistry. Ontario Geological Survey Open File Report 5756. 289 pp.

How toxic stress affects health | Free educational graphic by Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library

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Trauma and excessive adversity during childhood affect the body in several measurable ways, collectively termed “toxic stress.” These include changes to stress hormone regulation, neurodevelopment and immune function. Many of these effects occur at the level of gene activity and are carried into adulthood thanks to chemical (epigenetic) changes that switch genes on and off. Toxic stress can affect behavior and psychology, as well as increase the risk for physical conditions such as inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases.

A schematic shows how childhood trauma leads to toxic stress.

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Read more in Knowable Magazine

Unseen scars of childhood trauma

Twenty years of research have established the connection between adverse childhood experiences and long-term health. Now researchers are looking for ways to measure the biology behind the correlation and try to reverse it.

knowablemagazine.org/article/mind/2021/unseen-scars-child...

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Knowable Magazine from Annual Reviews is a digital publication that seeks to make scientific knowledge accessible to all. Through compelling articles, beautiful graphics, engaging videos and more, Knowable Magazine explores the real-world impact of research through a journalistic lens. All content is rooted in deep reporting and undergoes a thorough fact-checking before publication.

The Knowable Magazine Science Graphics Library is an initiative to create freely available, accurate and engaging graphics for teachers and students. All graphics are curated from Knowable Magazine articles and are free for classroom use.

Knowable Magazine is an editorially independent initiative produced by Annual Reviews, a nonprofit publisher dedicated to synthesizing and integrating knowledge for the progress of science and the benefit of society.

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We love to hear how teachers are using our graphics. Contact us: knowablemagazine.org/contact-us

This graphic is available for free for in-classroom use. Contact us to arrange permission for any other use: knowablemagazine.org/contact-us

Georgia O'Keefe by Martin Beek

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Georgia O'Keefe is an artist I first became aware of when I visited America in 1982, she is not so well known in Europe. However in U.S.A. her art has taken on a great status and reproductions of her work are very common. Most of her paintings are small in scale, indeed the only O'Keefe on display at Chicago's Art Institute that I did not photograph was her huge panoramic view through clouds...this to me seemed less successful than the more intimate and smaller works. Her paintings are for the most part flatly painted with little in the way of impasto or surface texture, one could even say the paint application has something of a detached graphic like poster quality. Perhaps she is best known for her paintings in and around Taos New Mexico, she paints these landscapes very well and each image seems very well composed and full of taught power. Her paintings are indeed an American assertion that their art can be different and not reliant upon European Academic traditions. she seemed well aware of the art movements around her, and there are aspects of her work in Dove or Hartley and perhaps Marin. Her work shows the clear influence of photography upon painting in their tonality. Her best works have an almost hypnotic spiritual power, and her art was an enormous influence upon my first paintings of the American west. It was good to see so many together at Chicago's Art Institute. I do hope you enjoy this group, sadly I can add no more until I return to another american art gallery.

Georgia Totto O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 – March 6, 1986) Born near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art from the 1920s.She received widespread recognition for her technical contributions, as well as for challenging the boundaries of modern American artistic style. She is chiefly known for paintings of flowers, rocks, shells, animal bones, and landscapes in which she synthesized abstraction and representation. Her paintings present crisply contoured forms that are replete with subtle tonal transitions of varying colors. She often transformed her subject matter into powerful abstract images. New York Times critic Jed Perl in 2004 described her paintings as both "bold and hermetic, immediately appealing and unnervingly impassive." (Wikipedia)

Fluorite (Denton Mine, near Cave-in-Rock, Illinois, USA) 2 by James St. John

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Fluorite from Illinois, USA.

A mineral is a naturally-occurring, solid, inorganic, crystalline substance having a fairly definite chemical composition and having fairly definite physical properties. At its simplest, a mineral is a naturally-occurring solid chemical. Currently, there are about 5400 named and described minerals - about 200 of them are common and about 20 of them are very common. Mineral classification is based on anion chemistry. Major categories of minerals are: elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, phosphates, and silicates.

The halides are the "salt minerals", and have one or more of the following anions: Cl-, F-, I-, Br-.

Fluorite is a calcium fluoride mineral (CaF2). The most diagnostic physical property of fluorite is its hardness (H≡4). Fluorite typically forms cubic crystals and, when broken, displays four cleavage planes (also quite diagnostic). When broken under controlled conditions, the broken pieces of fluorite form double pyramids. Fluorite is a good example of a mineral that can be any color. Common fluorite colors include clear, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, and brown. The stereotypical color for fluorite is purple. Purple is the color fluorite "should be". A mineral collector doesn't have fluorite unless it's a purple fluorite (!).

Fluorite occurs in association with some active volcanoes. HF emitted from volcanoes can react with Ca-bearing rocks to form fluorite crystals. Many hydrothermal veins contain fluorite. Much fluorite occurs in the vicinity of southern Illinois (Mississippi Valley-type deposits).

The fluorite specimen shown above is from a Mississippi Valley-type deposit in southern Illinois. Commonly abbreviated "MVT", Mississippi Valley-type deposits are named for a series of mineral deposits that occur in non-deformed platform sedimentary rocks along the Upper Mississippi River Valley, USA. Many specific minerals occur in MVT deposits, but are dominated by galena, sphalerite, barite, and fluorite. These minerals occur in caves and karst, paleokarst structures, in collapse fabrics, in pull-apart structures, etc. MVT deposits in America are mined as important, large sources of lead ore and zinc ore. The classic areas for MVT deposits are southern Illinois, the tristate area of Oklahoma-Missouri-Kansas, northern Kentucky, southwestern Wisconsin, and southeastern Missouri. The minerals are hydrothermal in origin and were precipitated from basinal brines that were flushed out to the edges of large sedimentary basins (e.g., the Illinois Basin and the Black Warrior Basin). In basin edge areas, the brines came into contact with Mississippian-aged carbonate rocks (limestone and dolostone), which caused mineralization. The brines were 15% to 25% salinity with temperatures of 50 to 200 degrees Celsius (commonly 100 to 150 degrees C). MVT mineralization usually occurs in limestone and dolostone but can also be hosted in shales, siltstones, sandstones, and conglomerates. Gangue minerals include pyrite, marcasite, calcite, aragonite, dolomite, siderite, and quartz. Up to 40 or 50 pulses of brine fluids are recorded in banding of mineral suites in MVT deposits (for example, sphalerite coatings in veins have a stratigraphy - each layer represents a pulse event). Each pulse of water was probably expelled rapidly - overpressurization and friction likely caused the water to heat up. Some bitumen (crystallized organic matter) can occur, which is an indication of the basinal origin of the brines. The presence of asphalt-bitumen indicates some hydrocarbon migration occurred. Some petroleum inclusions are found within fluorite crystals and petroleum scum occurs on fluorite crystals. MVT deposits are associated with oil fields and the temperature of mineral precipitation matches the petroleum window. The brines may simply have accompanied hydrocarbon fluids as they migrated updip.

The high temperatures of these basin periphery deposits wasn't necessarily influenced by igneous hydrothermal activity. Hot fluids can occur in basins that are deep enough for the geothermal gradient to be ~100 to 150 degrees Celsius. If a permeable conduit horizon is present in a succession of interbedded siliciclastic sedimentary rocks, migration of hot, deep basinal brines may be quick enough to get MVT deposit conditions at basin margins.

MVT deposits occur in the Upper Mississippi Valley of America as well as in northern Africa, Scandinavia, northwestern Canada, at scattered sites in Europe, and at some sites in the American Cordillera. Some of these occurrences are in deformed host rocks. MVT deposits have little to no precious metals - maybe a little copper (Cu). Mineralization is usually associated with limestone or dolostone in fracture fillings and vugs. Little host rock alteration has occurred - usually only dolomitization of limestones.

The age of the host rocks in the Mississippi Valley area varies - it ranges from Cambrian to Mississippian. Dating of mineralization has been difficult, but published ages indicate a near-latest Paleozoic to Mesozoic timing.

MVT deposits in the Upper Mississippi River area are often divided into three subtypes based on the dominant mineral: 1) lead-rich (galena dominated); 2) zinc-rich (sphalerite dominated); and 3) fluorite-rich.

The fluorite specimen shown here is from the Illinois-Kentucky Fluorspar District ("fluorspar" is a very old name for fluorite), which is an MVT fluoritic subtype. Fluorite and fluorite-rich rocks are mined for the fluorine, which is principally used by the chemical industry to make HF - hydrofluoric acid. Fluorite mineralization in this district occurred at about 277 Ma, during the Early Permian, according to one published study (Chesley et al., 1994). Another study concluded that fluorite mineralization was much later, during the Late Jurassic (see Symons, 1994).

Locality: Denton Mine, near the town of Cave-in-Rock, Hardin County, far-southern Illinois, USA

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Photo gallery of fluorite:

www.mindat.org/gallery.php?min=1576

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Some info. on Mississippi Valley-type deposits was synthesized from:

Chesley et al. (1994) - Direct dating of Mississippi Valley-type mineralization: use of Sm-Nd in fluorite. Economic Geology 89: 1192-1199.

Symons (1994) - Paleomagnetism and the Late Jurassic genesis of the Illinois-Kentucky fluorspar deposits. Economic Geology 89: 438-449.

Rakovan (2006) - Mississippi Valley-type deposits. Rocks & Minerals 81(January/February 2006): 69-71.

Fisher et al. (2013) - Fluorite in Mississippi Valley-type deposits. Rocks & Minerals 88(January/February 2013): 20-47.

China - Xian - Terracotta Army - Horse Chariot - 6 by Manfred Sommer

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The Terracotta Army or the "Terracotta Warriors and Horses" is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.The figures, dating from approximately the late third century BCE, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi'an, Shaanxi province. The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The figures include warriors, chariots and horses. Estimates from 2007 were that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army held more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang's mausoleum. Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians.

BACKGROUND

The Terracotta Army was discovered on 29 March 1974 to the east of Xi'an in Shaanxi province by farmers digging a water well approximately 1.6 kilometres east of the Qin Emperor's tomb mound at Mount Li (Lishan), a region riddled with underground springs and watercourses. For centuries, occasional reports mentioned pieces of terracotta figures and fragments of the Qin necropolis – roofing tiles, bricks and chunks of masonry. This discovery prompted Chinese archaeologists to investigate, revealing the largest pottery figurine group ever found in China.

NECROPROLIS

In addition to the warriors, an entire necropolis built for the emperor was found surrounding the first emperor's tomb mound. The earthen tomb mound is located at the foot of Mount Li and built in a pyramidal shape with Qin Shi Huang’s necropolis complex constructed as a microcosm of his imperial palace or compound.

It consists of several offices, halls, stables, and other structures placed around the tomb mound, which is surrounded by two solidly built rammed earth walls with gateway entrances. Up to 5 metres of reddish, sandy soil had accumulated over the site in the two millennia following its construction, but archaeologists found evidence of earlier disturbances at the site. During the excavations near the Mount Li burial mound, archaeologists found several graves dating from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, where diggers had apparently struck terracotta fragments. These were discarded as worthless and used along with soil to back fill the excavations.

HISTORY

According to the writings of historian Sima Qian (145–90 BCE), work on the mausoleum began in 246 BCE soon after Emperor Qin (then aged 13) ascended the throne. The project eventually involved 700,000 workers. Geographer Li Daoyuan, writing six centuries after the First Emperor's death, recorded in Shui Jing Zhu that Mount Li was a favoured location due to its auspicious geology, "famed for its jade mines, its northern side was rich in gold, and its southern side rich in beautiful jade; the First Emperor, covetous of its fine reputation, therefore chose to be buried there". Sima Qian, in his most noted work, Shiji, finished a century after the mausoleum's completion, wrote that the First Emperor was buried with palaces, towers, officials, valuable artifacts and wondrous objects. According to this account, 100 rivers had their flow simulated by mercury, and above them the ceiling was decorated with heavenly bodies below which were the features of the land. Some translations of this passage refer to "models" or "imitations," however those words were not used in the original text, which makes no mention of the terracotta army.

High levels of mercury were found in the soil of the tomb mound, giving credence to Sima Qian's account.

Later historical accounts suggested that the tomb had been looted by Xiang Yu, a contender for the throne after the death of the first emperor, however, there are indications that the tomb may not have been plundered.

CONSTRUCTION

The terracotta army figures were manufactured in workshops by government laborers and local craftsmen using local materials. Heads, arms, legs, and torsos were created separately and then assembled. Eight face moulds were most likely used, with clay added after assembly to provide individual facial features.

It is believed that the warriors' legs were made in much the same way that terracotta drainage pipes were manufactured at the time. This would classify the process as assembly line production, with specific parts manufactured and assembled after being fired, as opposed to crafting one solid piece and subsequently firing it. In those times of tight imperial control, each workshop was required to inscribe its name on items produced to ensure quality control. This has aided modern historians in verifying which workshops were commandeered to make tiles and other mundane items for the terracotta army. Upon completion, the terracotta figures were placed in the pits in precise military formation according to rank and duty.

The terracotta figures are life-sized. They vary in height, uniform, and hairstyle in accordance with rank. Most originally held real weapons such as spears, swords, or crossbows. Originally, the figures were also painted with bright pigments, variously coloured pink, red, green, blue, black, brown, white and lilac. The coloured lacquer finish, individual facial features, and weapons used in producing these figures increased the figures' realism. Most of the original weapons were looted shortly after the creation of the army, or have rotted away, while the colour coating flaked off or greatly faded.

THE TOMB

The tomb appears to be a hermetically-sealed space the size of a football pitch. The tomb remains unopened, given concerns about preserving its artifacts. For example, after their excavation, the painted surface present on some terracotta figures began to flake and fade. The lacquer covering the paint can curl in fifteen seconds once exposed to Xi'an's dry air and can flake off in just four minutes. There is speculation of a possible Hellenistic link to these sculptures, due to the lack of life-sized and realistic sculptures prior to the Qin dynasty according to some scholars.

EXCAVATION SITE

PITS

Four main pits approximately 7 metres deep have been excavated. These are located approximately 1.5 kilometres east of the burial mound. The soldiers within were laid out as if to protect the tomb from the east, where all the Qin Emperor's conquered states lay.

PIT ONE

Pit one, which is 230 metres long and 62 metres wide,contains the main army of more than 6,000 figures. Pit one has 11corridors, most of which are more than 3 metres wide and paved with small bricks with a wooden ceiling supported by large beams and posts. This design was also used for the tombs of nobles and would have resembled palace hallways when built. The wooden ceilings were covered with reed mats and layers of clay for waterproofing, and then mounded with more soil raising them about 2 to 3 metres above the surrounding ground level when completed.

OTHERS

Pit two has cavalry and infantry units as well as war chariots and is thought to represent a military guard. Pit three is the command post, with high-ranking officers and a war chariot. Pit four is empty, perhaps left unfinished by its builders.

Some of the figures in pit one and two show fire damage, while remains of burnt ceiling rafters have also been found.

These, together with the missing weapons, have been taken as evidence of the reported looting by Xiang Yu and the subsequent burning of the site, which is thought to have caused the roof to collapse and crush the army figures below. The terracotta figures currently on display have been restored from the fragments.Other pits that formed the necropolis also have been excavated. These pits lie within and outside the walls surrounding the tomb mound. They variously contain bronze carriages, terracotta figures of entertainers such as acrobats and strongmen, officials, stone armour suits, burials sites of horses, rare animals and labourers, as well as bronze cranes and ducks set in an underground park.

WEAPONRY

Weapons such as swords, spears, battle-axes, scimitars, shields, crossbows, and arrowheads were found in the pits. Some of these weapons, such as the swords are sharp and were coated with a 10–15 micrometre layer of chromium dioxide and kept the swords rust-free for 2,000 years. The swords contain an alloy of copper, tin, and other elements including nickel, magnesium, and cobalt. Some carry inscriptions that date manufacture between 245 and 228 BCE, indicating they were used as weapons before their burials.

An important element of the army is the chariot, of which four types were found. In battle the fighting chariots form pairs at the head of a unit of infantry. The principal weapon of the charioteers was the ge or dagger-axe, an L-shaped bronze blade mounted on a long shaft used for sweeping and hooking at the enemy. Infantrymen also carried ge on shorter shafts, ji or halberds and spears and lances. For close fighting and defence, both charioteers and infantrymen carried double-edged straight swords. The archers carried crossbows, with sophisticated trigger mechanisms, capable of firing arrows farther than 800 metres.

EXHIBITIONS

A collection of 120 objects from the mausoleum and 20 terracotta warriors were displayed at the British Museum in London as its special exhibition "The First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army" from 13 September 2007 to April 2008. This exhibition made 2008 the British Museum's most successful year and made the British Museum the United Kingdom's top cultural attraction between 2007 and 2008. The exhibition brought the most visitors to the museum since the King Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. It was reported that the initial batch of tickets sold out so fast that the museum extended its opening hours until midnight on Thursdays to Sundays. According to The Times, many people had to be turned away, despite the extended hours. During the day of events to mark the Chinese New Year, the crush was so intense that the gates to the museum had to be shut. The Terracotta Army has been described as the only other set of historic artifacts (along with the remnants of wreck of the RMS Titanic) that can draw a crowd by the name alone.

Warriors and other artifacts were exhibited to the public at the Forum de Barcelona in Barcelona between 9 May and 26 September 2004. It was their most successful exhibition ever. The same exhibition was presented at the Fundación Canal de Isabel II in Madrid between October 2004 and January 2005, their most successful ever. From December 2009 to May 2010 the exhibition was shown in the Centro Cultural La Moneda in Santiago de Chile.

The exhibition traveled to North America and visited museums such as the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, Bowers Museum in Santa Ana, California, Houston Museum of Natural Science, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, National Geographic Society Museum in Washington, D.C. and the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. Subsequently the exhibition traveled to Sweden and was hosted in the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities between 28 August 2010 and 20 January 2011. An exhibition entitled 'The First Emperor – China's Entombed Warriors', presenting 120 artifacts was hosted at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, between 2 December 2010 and 13 March 2011. An exhibition entitled "L'Empereur guerrier de Chine et son armée de terre cuite" ("The Warrior-Emperor of China and his terracotta army"), featuring artifacts including statues from the mausoleum, was hosted by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from 11 February 2011 to 26 June 2011. In Italy, from July 2008 to November 16, 2008, five of the warriors of the terracotta army were exposed in Turin at the Museum of Antiquities, and from 16 April 2010 to 5 September 2010 were exposed nine warriors in Milan, at the Royal Palace, at the exhibition entitled "The Two Empires". The group consisted of a horse, a counselor, an archer and 6 Lancers. The "Treasures of Ancient China" exhibition, showcasing two terracotta soldiers and other artifacts, including the Longmen Grottoes Buddhist statues, was held between 19 February 2011 and 7 November 2011 in four locations in India: National Museum of New Delhi, Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai, Salar Jung Museum in Hyderabad and National Library of India in Kolkata.

Soldiers and related items were on display from March 15, 2013, to November 17, 2013, at the Historical Museum of Bern.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

In 2007, scientists at Stanford University and the Advanced Light Source facility in Berkeley, California reported that powder diffraction experiments combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and micro-X-ray fluorescence analysis showed that the process of producing Terracotta figures colored with Chinese purple dye consisting of barium copper silicate was derived from the knowledge gained by Taoist alchemists in their attempts to synthesize jade ornaments.

Since 2006, an international team of researchers at the UCL Institute of Archaeology have been using analytical chemistry techniques to uncover more details about the production techniques employed in the creation of the Terracotta Army. Using X-ray fluorescence spectrometry of 40,000 bronze arrowheads bundled in groups of 100, the researchers reported that the arrowheads within a single bundle formed a relatively tight cluster that was different from other bundles. In addition, the presence or absence of metal impurities was consistent within bundles. Based on the arrows’ chemical compositions, the researchers concluded that a cellular manufacturing system similar to the one used in a modern Toyota factory, as opposed to a continuous assembly line in the early days of automobile industry, was employed.

Grinding and polishing marks visible under a scanning electron microscope provide evidence for the earliest industrial use of lathes for polishing.

Vintage Sony Worldband Radio Receiver With Box, Model ICF-SW30, FM Stereo-SW-MW PLL Synthesized Receiver, Made In Taiwan, Circa 1993 - 1995 by Joe Haupt

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b749b88975702ef2b7b1549ed602af22 by Daniel Nacach

This composite image of the Tycho supernova remnant combines infrared and X-ray observations obtained with NASA's Spitzer and Chandra space observatories, respectively, and the Calar Alto observatory, Spain. It shows the scene more than four centuries after the brilliant star explosion witnessed by Tycho Brahe and other astronomers of that era. The explosion has left a blazing hot cloud of expanding debris (green and yellow). The location of the blast's outer shock wave can be seen as a blue sphere of ultra-energetic electrons. Newly synthesized dust in the ejected material and heated pre-existing dust from the area around the supernova radiate at infrared wavelengths of 24 microns (red). Foreground and background stars in the image are white.

Lather Bee Rich Soaps by Marko Prljic

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"Authenticity is the guiding principle in all of Lather Bee Rich’s creations. Ingredients are all natural, not synthesized or chemical. No newfangled soap experimentation is being performed in the soap’s manufacture.Instead the soap is made using authentic recipes from the 1920. For each of the six scents, names and photos of Lather Bee Rich’s actual ancestors were incorporated. Blazing Betty, Corky’s Cute Patoote, Dapper Dan, Dollface Darla, Lusty Lu-Lu and Papa Bob were authentic people with stories to tell and foibles to enjoy.

As the use of tin was prevalent in the early 20th century, tin soap tins were custom made to package the soap. Not only does the use of tin lend authentic credibility to the packaging design, tin is a strong environmental choice for the 21st century. It is endlessly re-usable and recyclable and at the end of its lifecycle it naturally biodegrades to its iron mineral components. Lather Bee Rich is a beautiful product carefully handmade and gorgeously packaged to capture the luxurious decadence of a former time."

Designed by Canada based El Designo.

DIA DE LOS MUERTOS by Dan Freund

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This photo will be published in the 2010 Yale University "Multi-Faith Calendar"

See Large

“Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.”

Vladimir Nabokov

history of event

Dia de los Muertos at Hollywood Forever cemetery was originally envisioned for the purpose of providing an authentic venue, in which this ancient tradition could be genuinely observed, celebrated and preserved. Tyler Cassity and Deisy Marquez conceived this festival of life as a platform which would synthesize creativity for the means of remembering the departed spirits of our lives. This event has provided a gateway for those who wish to re-acquaint themselves with their deeply rooted traditions and profoundly engage with one of the most devotional celebrations for the continuous cycle of life.

At the heart of this sacred event are the meticulously individually crafted altars and spiritual shrines. These dazzling private tributes and offerings which provide a linkage between ancient traditions and modern customs chronicle the perpetual relation between faith, family and history. Representing and understanding the vitality of this ancient custom, Celine Mares conceptualized the necessity of incorporating this enigmatic mystical custom to thrive within the realms of the Forever cemetery.

Interwoven into this effective visionary ensemble lies the creative commitments of dedicated program directors, who have continuously maintained and strengthened the core foundation of this uniquely inspired event through providing a linkage and emerging bond with the many culturally mindful artisans from our diverse community.

In the spirit of the goddess Mictecacihuatl, known as the “Lady of the Dead,” and Samhain, the Celtic day feast of the dead, Hollywood Forever has engrained and developed a much desired and appreciated emotionally driven chord with its surrounding community. On the eve of the 8 th year anniversary of this benevolent observance Tyler, Daisy, Celine and the program directors continue along with countless committed volunteers and artisans to call upon the living to engage and summons the spirits of our lives who shaped, inspired and left their prints engraved in our souls. By providing our community with a genuine setting to learn the importance and significance of this celebration, the original objectives of the founders have been realized and internationally recognized by “tens” of thousands of new and returning faithful visitors who have been continuously welcomed as guests and interactive participants to this annual and growing community based festivity.

Hippos. Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana wildlife. Africa. 2011 by Isaac Wells

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Hippopotamuses love water, which is why the Greeks named them the "river horse." Hippos spend up to 16 hours a day submerged in rivers and lakes to keep their massive bodies cool under the hot African sun. Hippos are graceful in water, good swimmers, and can hold their breath underwater for up to five minutes. However, they are often large enough to simply walk or stand on the lake floor, or lie in the shallows. Their eyes and nostrils are located high on their heads, which allows them to see and breathe while mostly submerged. Hippos also bask on the shoreline and secrete an oily red substance, which gave rise to the myth that they sweat blood. The liquid is actually a skin moistener and sunblock that may also provide protection against germs. At sunset, hippopotamuses leave the water and travel overland to graze. They may travel 6 miles (10 kilometers) in a night, along single-file pathways, to consume some 80 pounds (35 kilograms) of grass. Considering their enormous size, a hippo's food intake is relatively low. If threatened on land hippos may run for the water—they can match a human's speed for short distances. Hippo calves weigh nearly 100 pounds (45 kilograms) at birth and can suckle on land or underwater by closing their ears and nostrils. Each female has only one calf every two years. Soon after birth, mother and young join schools that provide some protection against crocodiles, lions, and hyenas. Hippos once had a broader distribution but now live in eastern central and southern sub-Saharan Africa, where their populations are in decline. A partially submerged hippopotamus tries to keep cool in the hot African sun. The hippopotamus (Hippopotamus amphibius), or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" (ἱπποπόταμος), is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae (the other is the Pygmy Hippopotamus.) After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest extant artiodactyl. Despite their physical resemblance to pigs and other terrestrial even-toed ungulates, their closest living relatives are cetaceans (whales, porpoises, etc.) from which they diverged about 55 million years ago. The common ancestor of whales and hippos split from other even-toed ungulates around 60 million years ago. The earliest known hippopotamus fossils, belonging to the genus Kenyapotamus in Africa, date to around 16 million years ago.

The hippopotamus is semi-aquatic, inhabiting rivers, lakes and mangrove swamps, where territorial bulls preside over a stretch of river and groups of 5 to 30 females and young. During the day they remain cool by staying in the water or mud; reproduction and childbirth both occur in water. They emerge at dusk to graze on grass. While hippopotamuses rest near each other in the water, grazing is a solitary activity and hippos are not territorial on land. Hippos are recognizable by their barrel-shaped torso, enormous mouth and teeth, nearly hairless body, stubby legs and tremendous size. It is the third largest land mammal by weight (between 1½ and 3 tonnes), behind the white rhinoceros (1½ to 3½ tonnes) and the three species of elephant (3 to 9 tonnes). The hippopotamus is one of the largest quadrupeds and despite its stocky shape and short legs, it can easily outrun a human. Hippos have been clocked at 30 km/h (19 mph) over short distances. The hippopotamus is one of the most aggressive creatures in the world and is often regarded as one of the most dangerous animals in Africa. They are still threatened by habitat loss and poaching for their meat and ivory canine teeth. There is also a colony of non-zoo hippos in Colombia introduced by Pablo Escobar. The most recent theory of the origins of Hippopotamidae suggests that hippos and whales shared a common semi-aquatic ancestor that branched off from other artiodactyls around 60 million years ago.[13][15] This hypothesized ancestral group likely split into two branches around 54 million years ago.[12] One branch would evolve into cetaceans, possibly beginning about 52 million years ago with the proto-whale Pakicetus and other early whale ancestors collectively known as Archaeoceti, which eventually underwent aquatic adaptation into the completely aquatic cetaceans.[17] The other branch became the anthracotheres, a large family of four-legged beasts, the earliest of whom in the late Eocene would have resembled skinny hippopotamuses with comparatively small and narrow heads. All branches of the anthracotheres, except that which evolved into Hippopotamidae, became extinct during the Pliocene without leaving any descendants.[15]

A rough evolutionary lineage can be traced from Eocene and Oligocene species: Anthracotherium and Elomeryx to the Miocene Merycopotamus and Libycosaurus and the very latest anthracotheres in the Pliocene.[18] Merycopotamus, Libycosaurus and all hippopotamids can be considered to form a clade, with Libycosaurus being more closely related to hippos. Their common ancestor would have lived in the Miocene, about 20 million years ago. Hippopotamids are therefore deeply nested within the family Anthracotheriidae. The Hippopotamidae are believed to have evolved in Africa; the oldest known hippopotamid is the genus Kenyapotamus which lived in Africa from 16 to 8 million years ago. While hippopotamid species spread across Asia and Europe, no hippopotamuses have ever been discovered in the Americas, although various anthracothere genera emigrated into North America during the early Oligocene. From 7.5 to 1.8 million years ago an ancestor to the modern hippopotamus, Archaeopotamus, lived in Africa and the Middle East.[19]

While the fossil record of hippos is still poorly understood, the two modern genera, Hippopotamus and Choeropsis (sometimes Hexaprotodon), may have diverged as far back as 8 million years ago. Taxonomists disagree whether or not the modern Pygmy Hippopotamus is a member of Hexaprotodon —an apparently paraphyletic genus also embracing many extinct Asian hippopotamuses that is more closely related to Hippopotamus, or Choeropsis —an older and basal genus.[18][19]

[edit]Extinct species

Three species of Malagasy Hippopotamus became extinct during the Holocene on Madagascar, one of them within the past 1,000 years. The Malagasy Hippos were smaller than the modern hippopotamus, likely through the process of insular dwarfism.[20] There is fossil evidence that many Malagasy Hippos were hunted by humans, a likely factor in their eventual extinction.[20] Isolated members of Malagasy Hippopotamus may have survived in remote pockets; in 1976, villagers described a living animal called the Kilopilopitsofy, which may have been a Malagasy Hippopotamus.[21]

Two species of Hippopotamus, the European Hippopotamus (H. antiquus) and H. gorgops ranged throughout continental Europe and the British Isles. Both species became extinct before the last glaciation. Ancestors of European Hippos found their way to many islands of the Mediterranean during the Pleistocene.[22] Both species were larger than the modern hippopotamus, averaging about 1 meter (3.3 feet) longer. The Pleistocene also saw a number of dwarf species evolve on several Mediterranean islands including Crete (H. creutzburgi), Cyprus (H. minor), Malta (H. melitensis) and Sicily (H. pentlandi). Of these, the Cyprus Dwarf Hippopotamus, survived until the end of the Pleistocene or early Holocene. Evidence from an archaeological site Aetokremnos, continues to cause debate on whether or not the species was encountered, and was driven to extinction, by man. Hippopotamuses are among the largest living mammals; only elephants and some rhinoceroses and whales are heavier. They can live in the water or on land. Their specific gravity allows them to sink and walk or run along the bottom of a river. Hippos are considered megafauna, but unlike all other African megafauna, hippos have adapted for a semi-aquatic life in freshwater lakes and rivers.[9]:3 A hippo's lifespan is typically 40–50 years.[6]:277 Donna the Hippo, 60, was the oldest living hippo in captivity. She lived at the Mesker Park Zoo in Evansville, Indiana, USA[24][25] until her death on August 1, 2012. The oldest hippo ever recorded was called Tanga; she lived in Munich, Germany, and died in 1995 at the age of 61.[26]

Because of their enormous size, hippopotamuses are difficult to weigh in the wild. Most estimates of the weight come from culling operations that were carried out in the 1960s. The average weights for adult males ranged between 1,500–1,800 kg (3,300–4,000 lb). Females are smaller than their male counterparts, with average weights measuring between 1,300–1,500 kg (2,900–3,300 lb).[9]:12 Older males can get much larger, reaching at least 3,200 kg (7,100 lb) with a few exceptional specimens exceeding 3,600 kg (7,900 lb).[27][28] The heaviest known hippopotamus weighed approximately 4,500 kg (9,900 lb).[29] Male hippos appear to continue growing throughout their lives; females reach a maximum weight at around age 25.[30]

Hippos measure 3.3 to 5.2 meters (11 to 17 ft) long, including a tail of about 56 centimeters (22 in) in length and average about 1.5 meters (5 ft) tall at the shoulder.[31][32] The range of hippopotamus sizes overlaps with the range of the white rhinoceros; use of different metrics makes it unclear which is the largest land animal after elephants. Even though they are bulky animals, hippopotamuses can run faster than a human on land. Estimates of their running speed vary from 30 km/h (18 mph) to 40 km/h (25 mph), or even 50 km/h (30 mph). The hippo can maintain these higher speeds for only a few hundred meters. Despite being semi-aquatic and having webbed feet, an adult hippo is not a particularly good swimmer nor can it float. It is rarely found in deep water; when it is, the animal moves by porpoise-like leaps from the bottom. The eyes, ears, and nostrils of hippos are placed high on the roof of the skull. This allows them to be in the water with most of their body submerged in the waters and mud of tropical rivers to stay cool and prevent sunburn. Their skeletal structure is graviportal, adapted to carrying the animals' enormous weight. Hippopotamuses have small legs (relative to other megafauna) because the water in which they live reduces the weight burden. Unlike most other semi-aquatic animals, the hippopotamus has very little hair.[6]:260 The skin is 6 in (15 cm) thick,[33] providing it great protection against conspecifics and predators. The animals's upper parts are purplish-gray to blue-black while the under parts and areas around the eyes and ears can be brownish-pink.[6]:260 The testes of the males descend only partially and a scrotum is not present. In addition, the penis retracts into the body when not erect. The genitals of the female are unusual in that the vagina is ridged and two large diverticula protrude from the vulval vestibule. The function of these is unknown.[9]:28–29

The hippo's jaw is powered by a large masseter and a well developed digastric; the latter loops up behind the former to the hyoid.[6]:259 The jaw hinge is located far back enough to allow the animal to open its mouth at almost 180°.[9]:17 On the National Geographic Channel television program, "Dangerous Encounters with Brady Barr", Dr. Brady Barr measured the bite force of an adult female hippo at 8100 N (1821 lbf); Barr also attempted to measure the bite pressure of an adult male hippo, but had to abandon the attempt due to the male's aggressiveness.[34] Hippopotamus teeth sharpen themselves as they grind together. The lower canines and lower incisors are enlarged, especially in males, and grow continuously. The incisors can reach 40 cm (16 in) while the canines reach up to 50 cm (20 in).[33]

Their skin secretes a natural sunscreen substance which is red-colored. The secretion is sometimes referred to as "blood sweat," but is neither blood nor sweat. This secretion is initially colorless and turns red-orange within minutes, eventually becoming brown. Two distinct pigments have been identified in the secretions, one red (hipposudoric acid) and one orange (norhipposudoric acid). The two pigments are highly acidic compounds. Both pigments inhibit the growth of disease-causing bacteria; as well, the light absorption of both pigments peaks in the ultraviolet range, creating a sunscreen effect. All hippos, even those with different diets, secrete the pigments, so it does not appear that food is the source of the pigments. Instead, the animals may synthesize the pigments from precursors such as the amino acid tyrosine. Hippopotamus amphibius was widespread in North Africa and Europe during the Eemian[36] and late Pleistocene until about 30,000 years ago. The species was common in Egypt's Nile region during antiquity but has since been extirpated. Pliny the Elder writes that, in his time, the best location in Egypt for capturing this animal was in the Saite nome;[37] the animal could still be found along the Damietta branch after the Arab Conquest in 639. Hippos are still found in the rivers and lakes of the northern Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya, north through to Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan, west from Ghana to Gambia, and also in Southern Africa (Botswana, Republic of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique). Genetic evidence suggests that common hippos in Africa experienced a marked population expansion during or after the Pleistocene Epoch, attributed to an increase in water bodies at the end of the era. These findings have important conservation implications as hippo populations across the continent are currently threatened by loss of access to fresh water.[10] Hippos are also subject to unregulated hunting and poaching. In May 2006 the hippopotamus was identified as a vulnerable species on the IUCN Red List drawn up by the World Conservation Union (IUCN), with an estimated population of between 125,000 and 150,000 hippos, a decline of between 7% and 20% since the IUCN's 1996 study. Zambia (40,000) and Tanzania (20,000–30,000) possess the largest populations.[1]

The hippo population declined most dramatically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[38] The population in Virunga National Park had dropped to 800 or 900 from around 29,000 in the mid 1970s.[39] The decline is attributed to the disruptions caused by the Second Congo War.[39] The poachers are believed to be former Hutu rebels, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, and local militia groups.[39] Reasons for poaching include the belief that hippos are harmful to society, and also for money.[40] The sale of hippo meat is illegal, but black-market sales are difficult for Virunga National Park officers to track. Invasive potential

In the late 1980s, Pablo Escobar kept four hippos in a private menagerie at his residence in Hacienda Napoles, 100 km east of Medellín, Colombia, after buying them in New Orleans. They were deemed too difficult to seize and move after Escobar's fall, and hence left on the untended estate. By 2007, the animals had multiplied to 16 and had taken to roaming the area for food in the nearby Magdalena River.[41] In 2009, two adults and one calf escaped the herd, and after attacking humans and killing cattle, one of the adults (called "Pepe") was killed by hunters under authorization of the local authorities.[42][43] It is unknown what kind of effects the presence of hippos might have on the ecosystem in Colombia. According to experts interviewed by W Radio Colombia, the animals could survive in the Colombian jungles. It is believed that the lack of control from the Colombian government, which is not used to dealing with this species, could result in human fatalities. Hippos spend most of their days wallowing in the water or the mud, with the other members of their pod. The water serves to keep their body temperature down, and to keep their skin from drying out. With the exception of eating, most of hippopotamuses' lives —from childbirth, fighting with other hippos, to reproduction— occur in the water. Hippos leave the water at dusk and travel inland, sometimes up to 8 kilometers (5 mi), to graze on short grass, their main source of food. They spend four to five hours grazing and can consume 68 kilograms (150 lb) of grass each night.[44] Like almost any herbivore, they will consume many other plants if presented with them, but their diet in nature consists almost entirely of grass, with only minimal consumption of aquatic plants.[45] Hippos have (rarely) been filmed eating carrion, usually close to the water. There are other reports of meat-eating, and even cannibalism and predation.[46] The stomach anatomy of a hippo is not suited to carnivory, and meat-eating is likely caused by aberrant behavior or nutritional stress.[9]:84

The diet of hippos consists mostly of terrestrial grasses, even though they spend most of their time in the water. Most of their defecation occurs in the water, creating allochthonous deposits of organic matter along the river beds. These deposits have an unclear ecological function.[45] Because of their size and their habit of taking the same paths to feed, hippos can have a significant impact on the land they walk across, both by keeping the land clear of vegetation and depressing the ground. Over prolonged periods hippos can divert the paths of swamps and channels.[47]

Adult hippos move at speeds up to 8 km/h (5 mph) in water. Adult hippos typically resurface to breathe every three to five minutes. The young have to breathe every two to three minutes.[9]:4 The process of surfacing and breathing is automatic, and even a hippo sleeping underwater will rise and breathe without waking. A hippo closes its nostrils when it submerges into the water. As with fish and turtles on a coral reef, hippo occasionally visit cleaning stations and signal by wide-open mouth their readiness for being cleaned of parasites by certain species of fish. This situation is an example of mutualism in which the hippo benefits from the cleansing while the fish receive food.[ Studying the interaction of male and female hippopotamuses has long been complicated by the fact that hippos are not sexually dimorphic and thus females and young males are almost indistinguishable in the field.[49] Although hippos like to lie close to each other, they do not seem to form social bonds except between mothers and daughters, and are not social animals. The reason they huddle close together is unknown.[9]:49

Hippopotamuses are territorial only in water, where a bull presides over a small stretch of river, on average 250 meters in length, and containing ten females. The largest pods can contain over 100 hippos.[9]:50 Other bachelors are allowed in a bull's stretch, as long as they behave submissively toward the bull. The territories of hippos exist to establish mating rights. Within the pods, the hippos tend to segregate by gender. Bachelors will lounge near other bachelors, females with other females, and the bull on his own. When hippos emerge from the water to graze, they do so individually.[9]:4

Hippopotamuses appear to communicate verbally, through grunts and bellows, and it is thought that they may practice echolocation, but the purpose of these vocalizations is currently unknown. Hippos have the unique ability to hold their head partially above the water and send out a cry that travels through both water and air; hippos above and under water will respond.[ Female hippos reach sexual maturity at five to six years of age and have a gestation period of 8 months. A study of endocrine systems revealed that female hippopotamuses may begin puberty as early as 3 or 4 years of age.[51] Males reach maturity at around 7.5 years. A study of hippopotamus reproductive behavior in Uganda showed that peak conceptions occurred during the end of the wet season in the summer, and peak births occurred toward the beginning of the wet season in late winter. This is because of the female's estrous cycle; as with most large mammals, male hippopotamus spermatozoa is active year round. Studies of hippos in Zambia and South Africa also showed evidence of births occurring at the start of the wet season.[9]:60–61 After becoming pregnant, a female hippopotamus will typically not begin ovulation again for 17 months.[51]

Mating occurs in the water with the female submerged for most of the encounter,[9]:63 her head emerging periodically to draw breath. Baby hippos are born underwater at a weight between 25 and 45 kg (60–110 lb) and an average length of around 127 cm (50 in) and must swim to the surface to take their first breath. A mother typically gives birth to only one hippo, although twins also occur. The young often rest on their mothers' backs when in water that is too deep for them, and they swim underwater to suckle. They also will suckle on land when the mother leaves the water. Weaning starts between six and eight months after birth and most calves are fully weaned after a year.[9]:64 Like many other large mammals, hippos are described as K-strategists, in this case typically producing just one large, well-developed infant every couple of years (rather than large numbers of small, poorly developed young several times per year as is common among small mammals such as rodents. Hippopotamuses are by nature very aggressive animals, especially when young calves are present. Frequent targets of their aggression include crocodiles, which often inhabit the same river habitat as hippos. Nile crocodiles, lions and spotted hyenas are known to prey on young hippos.[53] Hippos are very aggressive towards humans, whom they commonly attack whether in boats or on land with no apparent provocation.[54] They are widely considered to be one of the most dangerous large animals in Africa.[55][56]

To mark territory, hippos spin their tails while defecating to distribute their excrement over a greater area.[57] Likely for the same reason, hippos are retromingent – that is, they urinate backwards.[58] When in combat, male hippos use their incisors to block each others attacks, and their lower canines to inflict damage.[6]:260 Hippos rarely kill each other, even in territorial challenges. Usually a territorial bull and a challenging bachelor will stop fighting when it is clear that one hippo is stronger. When hippos become overpopulated, or when a habitat starts to shrink, bulls will sometimes attempt to kill infants, but this behavior is not common under normal conditions.[52] Some incidents of hippo cannibalism have been documented, but it is believed to be the behavior of distressed or sick hippos, and not healthy behavior. The earliest evidence of human interaction with hippos comes from butchery cut marks upon hippo bones at Bouri Formation dated around 160,000 years ago.[59] Later rock paintings and engravings showing hippos being hunted have been found in the mountains of the central Sahara dated 4,000–5,000 years ago near Djanet in the Tassili n'Ajjer Mountains.[9]:1 The ancient Egyptians recognized the hippo as a ferocious denizen of the Nile.

The hippopotamus was also known to the Greeks and Romans. The Greek historian Herodotus described the hippopotamus in The Histories (written circa 440 BC) and the Roman Historian Pliny the Elder wrote about the hippopotamus in his encyclopedia Naturalis Historia (written circa 77 AD).[37][60] Hippopotamus was one of the many exotic animals brought to fight gladiators in Rome by the emperor Philip I the Arab to commemorate Rome's 1000 years anniversary in 248 AD. Silver coins with hippo's image were minted that year.[citation needed]

Zulu warriors preferred to be as brave as a hippopotamus, since even lions were not considered as brave. "In 1888, Captain Baden-Powell was part of a column searching for the Zulu chief Dinizulu, who was leading the Usutu people in revolt against the British colonists. The column was joined by John Dunn, a white Zulu chief, who led an impi (army) of 2000 Zulu warriors to join the British." [61]

The words of the Zulu anthem sounded like this:

"Een-gonyama Gonyama! "Invooboo! Yah-bo! Yah-bo! Invooboo!"

"John Dunn was at the head of his impi. [Baden Powell] asked him to translate the Zulu anthem his men had been singing. Dunn laughed and replied: "He is a lion. Yes, he is better than a lion—he is a hippopotamus. Hippopotamuses have long been popular zoo animals. The first zoo hippo in modern history was Obaysch who arrived at the London Zoo on May 25, 1850, where he attracted up to 10,000 visitors a day and inspired a popular song, the Hippopotamus Polka.[63] Hippos have remained popular zoo animals since Obaysch, and generally breed well in captivity. Their birth rates are lower than in the wild, but this is attributed to zoos' not wanting to breed as many hippos as possible, since hippos are large and relatively expensive animals to maintain.[9]:129[63]

Like many zoo animals, hippos were traditionally displayed in concrete exhibits. In the case of hippos, they usually had a pool of water and patch of grass. In the 1980s, zoo designers increasingly designed exhibits that reflected the animals' native habitats. The best known of these, the Toledo Zoo Hippoquarium, features a 360,000 gallon pool for hippos.[64] In 1987, researchers were able to tape, for the first time, an underwater birth (as in the wild) at the Toledo Zoo. The exhibit was so popular that the hippos became the logo of the Toledo Zoo. A red hippo represented the Ancient Egyptian god Set; the thigh is the 'phallic leg of set' symbolic of virility. Set's consort Tawaret was also seen as part hippo.[66] The hippopotamus-headed Tawaret was a goddess of protection in pregnancy and childbirth, because ancient Egyptians recognized the protective nature of a female hippopotamus toward her young.[67] The Ijo people wore masks of aquatic animals like the hippo when practicing their water spirit cults.[68] The Behemoth from the Book of Job, 40:15–24 is also thought to be based on a hippo.[69]

Hippos have been the subjects of various African folktales. According to a Bushmen story; when the Creator assigned each animal their place in nature, the hippos wanted to live in the water, but were refused out of fear that they might eat all the fish. After begging and pleading, the hippos were finally allowed to live in the water on the conditions that they would eat grass instead of fish and would fling their dung so that it can be inspected for fish bones.[70] In a Ndebele tale, the hippo originally had long, beautiful hair but was set on fire by a jealous hare and had to jump into a nearby pool. The hippo lost most of his hair and was too embarrassed to leave the water.[70]

Ever since Obaysch inspired the Hippopotamus Polka, hippos have been popular animals in Western culture for their rotund appearance that many consider comical.[63] Stories of hippos like Huberta who became a celebrity in South Africa in the 1930s for trekking across the country;[71] or the tale of Owen and Mzee, a hippo and tortoise who developed an intimate bond; have amused people who have bought hippo books, merchandise, and many a stuffed hippo toy.[72][73] Hippos were mentioned in the novelty Christmas song "I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas" that became a hit for child star Gayla Peevey in 1953.[74] They also feature in the songs "The Hippopotamus" and "Hippo Encore" by Flanders and Swann, with the famous refrain Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud. They even inspired a popular board game, Hungry Hungry Hippos. Hippos have also been popular cartoon characters, where their rotund frame is used for humorous effect. The Disney film Fantasia featured a ballerina hippopotamus dancing to the opera, La Gioconda.[38] Other cartoon hippos have included Hanna-Barbera's Peter Potamus, the book and TV series George and Martha, Flavio and Marita on the Animaniacs, Pat of the French duo Pat et Stanley, The Backyardigan's Tasha, and Gloria and Moto-Moto from the Madagascar franchise. A Sesame Street cartoon from the early 1970s features a hippo who lives in the country and likes it quiet, while being disturbed when the mouse who likes it loud moves in with her.[citation needed]

The hippopotamus characters "Happy Hippos" were created in 1988 by the French designer Andre Roche [77] based in Munich, to be hidden in the "Kinder Surprise egg" of the Italian chocolate company Ferrero SpA. These characters were not placid like real hippos[contradiction] but rather cute and lively, and had such a success that they reappeared several times in different products of this company in the following years, increasing their popularity worldwide each time.[citation needed] The Nintendo Company published in the years 2001 and 2007 Game Boy adventures of them. In the game of chess, the hippopotamus lends its name to the Hippopotamus Defense, an opening system, which is generally considered weak.The River Horse is a popular outdoor sculpture at George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Botswana, Moremi National Park, Moremi Game reserve, private Reserve, Farm, chobe National park, Chobe Game Reserve, Zambia, Zambezi River, Livingstone, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Tanzania, Wildlife Conservation Project, Maramba River Lodge, South Africa, Krugger National Park. art beach blue bw california canada canon china city concert de england europe family festival film flower flowers food france friends green instagramapp iphoneography italy japan live london music nature new newyork night nikon nyc paris park party people photography portrait red sky snow square squareformat street summer sunset travel trip uk usa vacation water wedding white winter

Mei Yin-Ng | MEI-BE WHATever by dance_new_amsterdam

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Photo by StevenSchreiber

Artists in Residence: SPLICE

Daniel Clifton/Mei Yin-Ng | MEI-BE WHATever

December 3-6

Performance Times: Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8:00pm, Sunday matinee at 3:00pm

Ticket Prices: $17, ($12 members, $14 students)

Multi-media savvy artists Clifton and Ng present two world premieres.

*There will be a preview of this performance Tuesday, November 17 at 12:15pm in DNA’s 2nd Floor Gallery. A brief Q&A session will follow.

Daniel Clifton presents (Currently Untitled)

Choreographed by Daniel Clifton

Performed by Daniel Clifton, Sarah Holcman, Christopher Lancaster, and Kathryn Logan

Live music performed and composed collaboratively by Daniel Clifton, Sarah Holcman, Christopher Lancaster, and Kathryn Logan

Written collaboratively by Daniel Clifton, Sarah Holcman, and Kathryn Logan

“I have wondered why it is that some people are less affected and torn by the verities of life and death than others. Una’s death cut the earth from under Samuel’s feet and opened his defended keep and let in old age. On the other hand Liza, who surely loved her family as deeply as did her husband, was not destroyed or warped. Her life continued evenly. She felt sorrow but survived it.” John Steinbeck East of Eden

Daniel Clifton’s residency was made possible, in part, by a generous gift from Joanna Fields.

Daniel Clifton, based in Brooklyn, NY, is from Niceville, FL, where he spent many years writing and playing music in punk and jazz bands. His dances have been presented at Dancenow/NYC, Dance Off, Hollins University, Florida State University, The Kitchen, FAUT BRULER POUR BRILLER/YOU GOT TO BURN TO SHINE, The A.W.A.R.D. Show!, ADF, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Dancespace, North Carolina School of the Arts, and WAX. Clifton has taught at DNA, Lehman College, Hollins University, Sarah Lawrence College, North Carolina School of the Arts, the American Dance Festival and the Korean Dance Festival. Clifton has danced for Tere O’Connor Dance, Martha Clarke, nicholas leichter dance. While in New York City he has also worked with Julia Ritter Performance Group, photographer Tony Jones, visual artist Tunga, comedian Pam Ann, and the New York Historical Society. Clifton earned his MFA in Dance from Hollins University/ADF and his BFA in Dance from Florida State University.

* * * * *

Mei-Yin Ng / MEI-BE WHATever presents Mentallic (Mental+ Metallic)

Choreographed by Mei-Yin Ng in collaboration with the dancers

Performed by Kelly Buwalda, Cassandra Taylor, Kathleen Kelley, Mei-Yin Ng, and more

Soundscape Designed & Performed by Matt Rocker

Video Design by Zbyszek Bzymek

Mentallic (Mental+ Metallic) utilizes the phantom limb syndrome as an initial site of conceptual research into body/mind connection and its interpretation of sensation, including the sensuousness of longing and the simultaneous space of illusion and physical reality. Dancers' movements synthesize with live and recorded video images and sounds producing "live dance cinema" where the realms of physical and the psyche interact in constant dialogue.

This performance is made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency with additional support from New York Foundation for the Arts.

MEI-BE WHATever sustains an ongoing collaborative laboratory for the investigation of new dance/art ideas, processes and forms that challenges the concept of dance and seeks a wider dance/art and public audience. The company creates mixed-discipline works that fuse contemporary dance with various forms of media, including video (live and recorded) and specially-designed sounds or soundscapes. Staging a variety of multi-media events, MEI-BE WHATever explores the ever-changing relationship between the body and the technology, the real and the virtual world.

Founded in 2003 by Mei-Yin Ng (Artistic Director/Choreographer), the company has been presented internationally at Leap Festival 05 in Liverpool, UK; IFFC Festival in Barcelona, Spain; SESC Festival of Arts in Sao Paulo, Brazil; International Choreographer’s Platform in Almada, Portugal; Festival de la Cite, and Lausanne, Switzerland among others. MEI-BE WHATever has performed domestically in the USA at venues such as PS122, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Movement Research at the Judson Church, La Mama and Joyce SoHo. Ms. Ng was a selected participant in the 2004 Multimedia Forum of the Monaco Dance Forum, the 2007 5th Pointe to Point Asia-Europe Dance Forum, an Artist in Residence of the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, a recipient of a 2004 NYFA Choreography Fellowship, 2009 NYFA Interdisciplinary Fellowship and 2009 NYSCA Individual Artist Program.

DNA’s Artist in Residence (AIR) program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA); National Endowment for the Arts and New York State Council on the Arts.

Forbidden Planet (MGM, R-1970s). (8" X 10"). by Morbius19

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One of the most impressive and influential science fiction movies ever filmed, Forbidden Planet is, by any measure, a landmark picture. With an outstanding cast, an intelligent script - based, in part, on William Shakespeare's The Tempest - and exceptional special effects, the movie can be enjoyed on a variety of levels, and has remained a favorite for more than half a century.

Forbidden Planet (MGM, 1956).