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The Shanghai Inter-City Pavilions’ Project focuses on the interesting connections and energy exchanges between people and cultures which, in nowadays globalized world, are more likely to be identified within local communities rather than in national contexts.
Shanghai in its quest to become an international city, considered by many a ‘foreign” city in China, can find its own identity through the confrontation with other places, harbors and friends, that had portrayed the contemporary status of art not in a generic way, but in the punctual and relevant projects presented in each pavilion.
So, despite this general and global tendency of amalgamation and simplification, the City Pavilions’ Project stands as a memento of independence of the extraordinary local. The individuality as an irreplaceable fragment of a bigger pictures that, with no pretentions of representing the whole, gives a glimpse of it, suggesting one of the many possible interpretations as a verse of a much more complicated poem.
The cities presented are in alphabetical order and followed by the curatorial team/organization:
Amsterdam Henk Slager, Antwerp Phillipe Pirotte, AucklandVincent Ward, Bandung Agung Jennong / Charles Esche / Defne Ayas / Davide Quadrio, Barcelona Julia Morandeira, Berlin Peter Anders, Bogota Juan Andres Gaitan, Brooklyn Cleopatra’s, Daejeon Kim Jiyon, Dakar Koyo Kouoh, Detroit Rebecca Mazzei, Diankou Qiu Zhefeng, Dusseldorf Beate Reifenscheid, Qi Yang, Istanbul Defne Ayas / Davide Quadrio, Lille Metropole Pierre Giner, Lima Jose Carlos Mariategui, Jorge Villacorta, Los Angeles Lauri Firstenberg, Mexico City, Magali Arriola, Daniela Perez, Moscow Nikolai Molok, Mumbai Diana Campbell/ Susan Hapgood, Palermo Laura Barreca / Davide Quadrio, Pittsburgh Chelsea Haines, Rhone-Alpes (Lyon) Thierry Raspail, San Francisco Chris Fitzpatrick, Sao Paulo Adriano Pedrosa, Sendai Shimizu Tamotsu / Kai Kenji, Sydney Aaron Seto / Toby Chapman / Sharon Chen as Curatorial project manager of the Sydney City Pavilion, Tehran Nina Moaddel / Benham Kamrani, Ulan Bator Uranchimeg (Orna) Tsultem, Vancouver Daina Augait.
Supervised by: the 9th Shanghai Biennale chief curator Qiu Zhijie and co-curators Boris Groys, Jens Hoffman and Johnson Chang Tsong-zung
Organized by: The Organizing Committee of Shanghai Biennale; managed by Davide Quadrio, Francesca Girelli and Huang Mi. In collaboration with Shanghai Huangpu district government.
The Shanghai Inter-City Pavilions’ Project takes place in the frame of 9th Shanghai Biennale “Reactivation”. Time: 2nd October 2012 to 31st December 2012
Visually this figure looks great, but he does gave some issues.
This Zombie "explodes" by pressing his tie, his arms & head pop off. The popping mechanism is fine, but this causes issues when putting him back together. If I push one arm in too hard the other arm pops off. The edges that hold the arms in place are not very tight and that is why the arms keep popping off.
Another issue is that the reason I push in the arms a little harder is because there are obvious gaps between his body & arms due to the popping off action. The gaps bug me so I try to get the arms as tight & close to his body as possible.
As I said, the zombie looks great but the mechanics on this zombie are not so great. If they could just make the edges tighter on the arms & fix the spacing this figure would be awesome. I give it an . . .
8.5 out of 10
Paella is a vibrant and visually appealing Spanish dish originating from the Valencia region. It is traditionally cooked in a large, shallow pan called a "paellera," which is designed to distribute heat evenly and create a crispy crust at the bottom known as "socarrat". The dish itself is a colorful medley of saffron-infused rice, meats or seafood, and vegetables, making it a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.
When displayed, paella often features a variety of ingredients arranged artfully across its surface. For seafood paella, mussels, clams, and shrimp are commonly arranged on top, while mixed paella might include chicken, chorizo, and vegetables like bell peppers and artichokes. The saffron gives the rice a distinctive yellow hue, adding to the dish's visual appeal. Fresh parsley and lemon slices are often used as garnishes, enhancing both the aroma and appearance.
The presentation of paella is deeply rooted in its traditional cooking method. It is typically served directly from the paellera, allowing guests to appreciate the dish's rustic origins and communal nature. The combination of colors, textures, and aromas creates a captivating display that invites everyone to gather around and share in the meal. Whether served at a casual outdoor gathering or a formal event, paella's visual appeal is sure to draw attention and stimulate appetite.
I wanted to build something visually interesting with the limited selection of glow in the dark elements I had, this time in 2D. The black base was necessary to hold the pieces via SNOT, and it disappears well in the dark. Having made the deer head, I thought it would be cool to make the full body... but I need a lot more GitD pieces to make that happen. It's a shame there's so few of them.
***UPDATE*** 7/2/13 Some things are meant to swim upstream. This is heading exactly that way, where it belongs. Thanks LC.
Its the most impressive Windsor style chair on the planet, like a Windsor chair taking human growth hormones and deer antler spray.
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.
The Mermaid Whistles - Lillebælt, Fredericia, Denmark. A bathing facility for visually-impaired swimmers.
24 December 2019.
Panelling, despite being visually less complex than dense engine detail, is far more laborious; everything has to fit correctly or it looks off.....quite a few panels were remade twice before I was satisfied.
The crumpling effect I achieved with a lighter and a pair of blunted snips, I would've preferred to use brass shim but I wasn't content with the strength of a CA brass-to-styrene joint
Toute reproduction sur un support imprimé ou publication sur internet devra faire l'objet d'une demande expresse auprès du service communication de la Fédération Française Handisport.
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Toute utilisation ainsi autorisée devra mentionner le crédit photo (voir nom du fichier ci-dessus : “©…” ou métadonnées de la photo dans sa taille originale).
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Contact : photos [at] handisport.org
Prominent footballers, coaches, international experts and representatives from sport organisations and clubs came together for the launch of ‘A Ball for All’ – a project to promote access to the practice of football for blind and visually impaired people.
The launch event, which was organised by Save the Dream, took place at Aspire Zone on the occasion of National Sport Day.
Run in collaboration with the Qatar Financial Centre (QFC), Sasol, under its Definitely Able initiative, Qatar Social & Cultural Centre for the Blind (QSCCB) and Aspire Zone Foundation (AZF), the event featured French ambassador to Qatar Eric Chevallier, Qatar Sports Club and former Inter Milan player Luis Jimenez and legendary international coach Bora Milutinovic.
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.
A visually impaired class member prepares her soap dish for decoration during a pottery lesson held at Croydon Visual (the working name of Croydon Voluntary Association for the Blind). Photo description: Gittè Araki is a change maker and pottery teacher. She leads a weekly class for the visually impaired at the CVAB community centre, a social hub for the blind people of Croydon. The class focuses on giving members a creative and tactile experience, whatever their level of sight or skill. Gittè inspires class members with her irrepressible enthusiasm, encouragement and individual attention. In this picture, Jean is preparing to decorate a soap dish made from rolled clay. Using limited vision, she is masking off some areas with newspaper, before applying a coloured slip glaze in order to create a striped pattern. Croydon Visual provides a wide range of services for the visually impaired community. Activities include art, yoga, skittles and dancing, in addition to practical help with independent living skills. The organisation and those who run it, touch the lives of a vast number of people. Gittè is one of many change makers who work and volunteer at CVAB.
22-year-old Azer Ćatović was born in Mostar, and has been living here for 14 years. Azer grew up with a sight defect, but by secondary school, he had become fully independent thanks to his education.
As he awaits the start of the second academic year, he spends his summer break doing running training sessions, reading, and taking walks. He does most of his running sessions on a treadmill in the fitness hall of the Center for Blind and Visually Impaired Children and Youth.
The centre was recently renovated by UNDP and offers full time support in learning and other skills like mobility, self-care, and sight exercises for the visually impaired, use of teaching aids, playing games, going out to town and attending events.
Read more: bit.ly/35fhLVw
Photos: Sulejman Omerbašić/ UNDP Bosnia and Herzegovina
The White River Badlands of South Dakota consist of a scenic landscape of differentially weathered and eroded, nonmarine sedimentary rocks of Tertiary age. The most visually-striking areas have been set aside as an American national park (Badlands).
The simplified stratigraphic succession in Badlands National Park is:
Sharps Formation (Oligocene)
Brule Formation (Oligocene)
Chadron Formation (Eocene)
Chamberlain Pass Formation (Eocene)
Fox Hills Formation (Cretaceous-Paleocene?)
Pierre Shale (Cretaceous)
The Brule and Chadron Formations make up the White River Group, which along with the overlying Sharps Formation, are the principal scenery-making units in the White River Badlands. Light-colored volcanic ash beds are present in the succession, as are numerous reddish-colored paleosol ("fossil soil") horizons. The Pierre Shale at the base of the exposed succession is a marine unit.
The White River Group weathers and erodes relatively quickly into a rugged landscape with steep slopes, little to no soil, and little to no vegetation. These are the characteristics of badlands topography - "bad" referring to its unsuitability for farming.
Nonmarine fossils are relatively common in the White River Group - principally fossil mammals and other vertebrates. Fossils in the Chadron Formation indicate a swampy, near-sea level environment. The overling Brule Formation produces fossils consistent with a grassy prairie environment. The transition from low-elevation swamp to higher-elevation prairie in this area coincides with the uplift of the Rocky Mountains during the late stages of the Laramide Orogeny.
Erosion rates in the White River Badlands indicate that the landscape started to appear about half-a-million years ago and will disappear about half-a-million years from now. The landscape has about a one million year lifespan.
The hills seen here have two distinctive paleosol horizons. The lower, thicker, yellowish-colored interval is the Yellow Mounds Paleosol, a Late Eocene ultisol. The upper, thinner, reddish-colored interval is the Interior Paleosol, a Late Eocene alfisol. The overlying rocks are the Upper Eocene Chadron Formation.
Stratigraphy: Yellow Mounds Paleosol (capping the Fox Hills Formation) and Interior Paleosol (capping the Chamberlain Pass Formation), basal White River Group, Chadronian Stage, Upper Eocene
Locality: Yellow Mounds Overlook area, White River Badlands, Badlands National Park, western South Dakota, USA
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Online pub. covering the geology of Badlands National Park:
CHELTENHAM ART GALLERY AND MUSEUM COMPETITION REPORT September 07
Invitation: An inviting, open, accessible and visually engaging intervention in the streetscape
Journey: Creating a clear, logical and inspiring circulation route
Flexibility: Clear organisational strategy allowing for the flexible use of the building
Urban Strategy/Architectural form/ Invitation:
The new extension respects the general scale of Clarence Street and at the same time gives an expression of the functions contained at the various levels of the building.
The facade is open at the base to draw passers by into the folds of the building and experience glimpses of the exhibition objects signifying the nature of the building. The public facilities including the café and shop are also at this level. The café can spill out onto the street and to the covered loggia. The loggia is contained by the activity of the education suite on the ground floor and the more protected archive and study area on the first floor. These activities benefit from protected glazed walls looking onto the street.
A double height cut into the new facade, in conjunction with a projecting glass display, signifies the location of the main entrance. This entrance route connects through the building from Clarence Street to Chester Walk creating an important link though the site to the centre of town, extending the public domain.
The façade at the second floor level is generally solid as this contains the main exhibition galleries. The façade steps up above the entrance to reflect the location of a double height gallery space.
Roof terraces at the third floor level allow staff and visitors to the meeting room/hospitality area, a view over the city. This articulation of the façade allows for controlled daylighting into the upper level of the gallery.
Journey:
The secondary space of circulation is the event of the building, as important to the overall experience of the building as the primary gallery spaces. This journey gives a sense of the unfolding experience and order of the building. The journey starts on Clarence Street with the signal and invitation proffered by the projecting glass display and continues through to the main reception in the full height foyer.
To aid orientation the vertical circulation revolves around this foyer with an open stair running parallel to the through route and a series of bridge crossings into the small galleries behind no. 51. The visual invitation to these various levels of gallery space is received in the entrance foyer.
Organisation/flexibility:
The activity of the education suite, located on the ground floor, is visible from the protected loggia. This function can be relocated to allow for public access to the ground floor of the existing library when this becomes available in the future.
The publicly accessible archive and storage area is located on the first floor. Further storage is located on the ground floor and in a basement area.
The temporary gallery, including the existing Arts and Crafts Gallery, occupies the whole of the second floor of both the new extension and the existing and revamped 1989 building. This allows for maximum flexibility in the use of the gallery and facilitates a natural connection in to the existing galleries in the library building.
Whilst not part of the competition site, the ground floor of No. 51 is ideal for use as the café and this has been included in the proposals. It is noted that No. 51 is to be used for artist’s studios. In this context it has been considered a possibility, while providing a new staircase for the new gallery that this could also double up as the stair for the artist’s studios. This would allow for the removal of the rather haphazard existing stair to create more useful studio space. This is, of course, subject to listed building approval.
Materials/services/sustainability:
It is important that the whole design contributes to the sustainable agenda. This includes:
street spaces (loggia) to encourage a range of informal activities
an efficient building form to reduce the amount of heat loss from the envelope
controlled daylighting to appropriate areas to reduce energy requirements
solar shading to south facing glazing
use of natural and renewable materials
habitable roof and rainwater harvesting
The façade is to be constructed of Bath stone laid in random ashlar courses. This stone façade turns into the building and forms one wall of the main public staircase culminating in the lift tower. This together with the stone flooring gives the appropriate signals to the public route through the building and up into the gallery. The internal walls will be a natural lime render in the circulation routes. Painted timber panels will be utilised in the exhibition spaces to allow for flexibility of hanging artworks.
To achieve a sustainable design to meet BREEAM excellent rating, it is proposed to use both natural and renewable materials. Prefabricated, cross laminated timber panels are proposed for floors walls and roof structure. These are from a renewable resource, eliminate site wastage and allow for ease of fixing for art works.
An accessible green roof is proposed for part of the new roofscape in conjunction with rainwater harvesting.
Due to the deep plan and the nature of the exhibits, the gallery will require constant artificial illumination. It is proposed to use a combined heat and power plant to replace the existing gas boilers in the roof space of the 1989 building. This will supply the electricity for the lighting system and the waste heat will be used for warm air space heating.
Accommodation:
From our interpretation of the brief and the answers to questions the following accommodation has been provided:
Gallery space (ground, 1st and 2nd floor)
Picture gallery (1st floor)100 m2
Arts and crafts Gallery200 m2
Temporary gallery300 m2
display (ground and 1st) 30 m2
display existing building (gf)35 m2
Education (ground floor)
Education suite69 m2
Education store50 m2
Museum take-away collection45 m2
Education toilets
Open archive/study (1st floor)150 m2
Storage
Basement240 m2
1st floor160 m2
Temporary exhibition store (gf)40 m2
Offices/workshops
Workshop/office (ground floor)50 m2
Conservation workshop(1st floor) 30 m2
Additional offices (3rd floor)2 x 25 m2
Reception (ground floor)
Café (ground floor no 51)70 m2
Shop (ground floor)46 m2
Toilets (ground floor)
Meeting room (3rd or 4th floor)60 m2
Corporate hospitality (3rd or 4th floor)60 m2
Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned his Monona Terrace design as a way of visually linking the Capitol Square with Lake Monona, gracefully inviting the eye to roam down what's now MLK Jr. Blvd to the lake beyond. That's also the way the way the adaptation of his design was presented to the public when the current Monona Terrace was presented to the public. The architectural renderings showed a view from the Square that included the lake.
That was misleading, because as everyone knows now, Monona Terrace blocks the view of the lake from the Square. That's because Wright's original design was bumped up. The renderings in the proposal were misleading because of their point of view. (Several years ago I took this photo, which does show the lake, from the observation deck of the Capitol dome.)
We rely on architectural renderings to form judgments of development projects in the planning stage, and yet the renderings are often misleading -- whether intentionally so or because of wishful thinking is often hard to tell. Bird's eye views like this are only part of the problem, as Joe Tarr discusses in the cover story of the current Isthmus, From Vision to Reality: Computer renderings are shaping Madison development. Can we trust them?
Check out the story. It's an important topic. Architectural renderings play a major role in the many debates about development that occur in Madison. The better we understand the rendering process, the more informed our debates will be.
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.
Schoolhouse Quilters' Guild of Cumberland Maryland
Name of Panel" Reaching for the Stars"
Dream Theme: Science
Did you enjoy this project? "We all enjoyed this project. We had Dan Oates, coordinator of SCIVIS (Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students) to speak to the group.
What could the next IFC project be? "How about a "garden" theme where everyone would send in fabric/fiber representations of plants - they could be arranged in a 'botanical fiber garden'! You could assign each participant a plant to represent - each plant could have a little tag telling about it and giving it's name."
Techniques & Materials Used: Machine Applique and Machine Quilting
Whats the story behind your panel? "When we were thinking about participating in the Dream Rocket project, one of our members told us that the students from the School for the Blind in Rommey, WV (a town in our reagon) had been participating in SCIVIS (Space Camp for Interested Visually Impaired Students) for the twenty years it's been in existance. SCIVIS began when a blind adult was turned away from Space Camp in Huntsville because of her blindness. Now for one week each year, Space Camp is transformed into a place where blind and visually impaired kids can come together and participate in a mock space mission. They come from all over the world and all over the US. They form life long friendships as they interact toward the common goal of the mission with other children who have similiar challenges in their lives. Our panel celebrates SCIVIS and it's positive effect on blind and visually impaired students."
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★What IS THE INTERNATIONAL FIBER COLLABORATIVE?
As the leading voice for collaborative public art projects around the world, the International Fiber Collaborative is dedicated to promoting understanding and appreciation of contemporary art & craft through educational experiences. We are committed to developing vital education programs that elevate, expand, modernize and enhance the image of collaboration and education today.
★WHAT IS THE DREAM ROCKET PROJECT?
The Dream Rocket Team is collecting nearly 8,000 artworks from participants around the globe. The artwork will be assembled together to create a massive cover in which will wrap a 37 story Saturn V Moon Rocket at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama. We will also be displaying submitted artwork in dozens of national venues prior to the wrapping of the Saturn V. Additionally, we are posting images of submitted artwork & their stories on our Website, Flickr, and Facebook.The Dream Rocket project uses the Saturn V Moon Rocket as a symbolism of universal values of the human spirit. Optimism, hope,
caring for our natural resources, scientific exploration, and harnessing technological advancements for a better quality of life while safeguarding our communities, are all common desires across national and international boundaries. Participants are able to express and learn about these values through this creative collaboration. With the completion of each artwork, participants are asked to write an essay explaining their artwork, and the dream theme in which they chose.
★How can I Participate & Have my Artwork Displayed?
The Dream Rocket project would like to challenge you to ‘Dare to Dream’. To dream about your future and the future of our world through dream themes such as health, community, conservation, science, technology, space, peace, and so on. We would like you to use your selected Dream Theme to express, explore, and create your vision on your section of the wrap. We hope that you are able to express and learn through this creative collaboration. With the completion of each artwork, you are asked to write a brief essay explaining your artwork, and the dream theme in which you chose.
“The Saturn V is the ideal icon to represent a big dream. This rocket was designed and built as a collaboration of nearly half-a-million people and allowed our human species to venture beyond our world and stand on ANOTHER - SURELY one of the biggest dreams of all time. ENABLING THE DREAMS of young people to touch this mighty rocket sends a powerful message in conjunction with creating an educational curriculum to engage students to embrace the power of learning through many important subjects”
-Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium, New York
★I VALUE THE ARTS!!!!
The International Fiber Collaborative is able to share the power of a collaboration and art, thanks to the support of generous individual donors. We welcome any amount of donations and remember the International Fiber Collaborative is exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, making this gift tax deductible.
Donate Today at: www.thedreamrocket.com/support-the-dream-rocket
See our Online Flickr Photo Album at: www.flickr.com/photos/thedreamrocket/
★★★SIGN UP AT WWW.THEDREAMROCKET.COM
visually, it doesn't look like much more than a brass bowl... but as soon as the wooden pedstal is put in use... a soft, resonating tone starts building
100 West Pender Street, Vancouver, BC.
Description of Historic Place:
The Sun Tower, built in 1911-12 and originally known as the World Building, is located at 100 West Pender Street in the Victory Square area of Vancouver. It is an impressive 17 storey commercial building, designed in an eclectic combination of architectural styles. It is the anchor of a group of visually-related commercial buildings extending south along Beatty Street.
Heritage Value:
The heritage value of the Sun Tower is found in its distinctive landmark architecture, its association with Louis D. Taylor and the Vancouver World and Sun newspapers, and its role in the expansion of the City's business district to this eastern fringe of downtown.
The architectural value is seen in its elaborate version of the Edwardian Commercial style and its innovative construction. An eight storey, L-shaped base runs 100 feet along Pender Street, 120 feet south on Beatty Street, and 110 feet along the former Canadian Pacific Railway spur line; it is surmounted by a nine storey hexagonal tower capped by a distinctive Beaux-Arts dome and cupola. The architect was the talented and prolific William Tuff Whiteway. Nine sculpted terra cotta caryatids below the cornice were designed and created by renowned Vancouver sculptor Charles Marega. Impressive details are found throughout, from the curved marble staircase seen from the entrance to the brass key plates on the office doors.
The structure comprises a steel frame with brick-and-terra cotta cladding. The contractor was J. Coughlan and Sons, a prominent local firm that was responsible for many steel-framed buildings at the time. When completed in 1912, the World Building (as it was then known) claimed to be the tallest building in the British Empire. It remains a highly visible landmark. The architectural arrangement of a 'mounted tower' has value for predating the same arrangement at the famed Woolworth Building in New York (1911-13) and the Smith Building in Seattle (1914).
The building has value because it was commissioned by publisher and populist politician Louis D. Taylor, who bought the World newspaper in 1905. Taylor served as Mayor of Vancouver for eight terms between 1910 and 1932. As famous as Taylor was for his successes, he was equally renowned for his failures. He lost the newspaper and the building in 1915, largely because of the success of his political enemies, but also because the paper was over-financed and perhaps in part because it was located outside the urban commercial core.
Subsequent owners also add to the building's value. The US-based Bekins Moving and Storage Company owned it for a dozen years from 1924. The illuminated Bekins sign on the dome was a familiar Vancouver sight. An ancillary four storey warehouse was located across the street at 137 West Pender. The Sun newspaper, which took ownership and occupancy in 1937, emphasized the building's landmark status by installing neon signage and a large, illuminated globe on the exterior. Despite having moved to South Granville in 1964, the Sun left its legacy in the building's name and with the urban memories of rumbling presses in the basement, clattering typewriters above, and lively debates among familiar Vancouver newspapermen. Since that time the building has been used for rental offices, including a number of key Vancouver businesses among its tenants.
The historic building also has heritage value for its location in a marginal part of the downtown and for stimulating the development of a new business district along Pender Street. Despite a construction boom at the time, most of the adjacent buildings were warehouses and residential hotels, with only a few office buildings and other higher-end uses. The building has urban design value for anchoring the neighbourhood, as well as for terminating the impressive wall of masonry buildings along Beatty Street.
Source: City of Vancouver Heritage Conservation Program
Character-Defining Elements:
Key elements which define the heritage character of the Sun Tower include:
- Its prominent corner location at Beatty and Pender Streets
- Its role as a dual anchor to a business district (along Pender Street) and an important streetscape of masonry-clad warehouse structures (along Beatty Street)
- Its eight storey, L-shaped base surmounted by a nine storey hexagonal tower and capped by a distinctive Beaux-Arts dome and cupola
- The many exterior architectural features, particularly along the Pender and Beatty Street elevations, which define its Edwardian Commercial style, including (from bottom to top) the ground-floor terra cotta arches, pilasters, and columns; the rusticated brick treatment of the next four floors, featuring square-headed windows in pairs, with stone sills; the ornamental terra cotta arches and pilasters above that; the nine terra cotta caryatids; the brick walls, pilasters, paired windows, and stone sills of the two-stage hexagonal tower; the cornices; the hexagonal dome, with its copper roof, pedimented dormers, and ornate oculi; and the cupola, with its open arches and square dome
- The one-over-one wood sash windows
- The location of the main entrance on the corner of the building, including its curved, marble staircase and brass railing
- The east elevation (facing the lane and railway spur line), with its plain brick walls, rhythm of 'punched' windows, metal tie rods in the brick facade, fire escapes on the base and tower, and the loading bay
- Those interior features that have been identified, including the marble staircase that wraps around the elevator core, with marble treads, cast-iron balusters, and tile wainscoting; the cast-iron newel posts; the multi-coloured geometric floor tiles; and the brass key plates, inscribed with a 'W', on the doors.
Occupants:
Vancouver World – 1912-1917
Bekins Moving and Storage - 1924-1937
Vancouver Sun – 1937-1965
Geological Survey of Canada – 1968-1996
Navarik Corp. – 2001-2005
India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva Dilip Sinha (front left) presented WIPO Director General Francis Gurry (front right) on June 30, 2014 with his country's instrument of ratification to the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled. India is the first nation to ratify the Marrakesh Treaty, which comes into force after 20 ratifications or accessions.
Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Emmanuel Berrod. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
The Nystagmus Network Open Day was held in Reading on the 7th May 2016. Over 170 people attended the event to hear about the work at the charity and latest research into the condition.
State government of Andhra Pradesh does not have any special privilege to students who are visually challenged. Although they do have text books in braille when it comes to taking public common test they are at par with normal kids (no braille). Although they are exempt from certain exercises like diagrams and map pointing they have to answer all other question like anyone else.
The school takes the help of volunteers ( scribe) for the students to appear for the exam.
Story 1/5 Scribing in progress. www.flickr.com/groups/hpc/discuss/72157615184431603/
A visually striking plate, and Duffy’s third dish which paired a 118°poached-then-chilled-then-carmelized only on one side sea scallop with variations of tapioca (puffed and dusted with hibiscus salt, hibiscus-soaked tapioca chip and licorice-y Sambuca soaked tapioca balls), hibiscus (salt and beet-red hibiscus syrup) with toasted goats milk puree and licorice-flavoured elements (shaved fennel bulb, stalk, fronds and hoja santa leaves). Duffy explained that his use of the chewy tapioca balls (the type found in bubble tea) was not just for texture, but utilizing the unique component as a carrier of licorice-y Sambuca in a chilled scallop plate.
The reindeer or caribou (Rangifer tarandus) is a species of deer with circumpolar distribution, native to Arctic, subarctic, tundra, boreal, and mountainous regions of Northern Europe, Siberia, and North America. It is the only representative of the genus Rangifer. More recent studies suggest the splitting of reindeer and caribou into six distinct species over their range.
Reindeer occur in both migratory and sedentary populations, and their herd sizes vary greatly in different regions. The tundra subspecies are adapted for extreme cold, and some are adapted for long-distance migration.
Reindeer vary greatly in size and color from the smallest, the Svalbard reindeer (R. (t.) platyrhynchus), to the largest, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni). Although reindeer are quite numerous, some species and subspecies are in decline and considered vulnerable. They are unique among deer (Cervidae) in that females may have antlers, although the prevalence of antlered females varies by species and subspecies.
Reindeer are the only successfully semi-domesticated deer on a large scale in the world. Both wild and domestic reindeer have been an important source of food, clothing, and shelter for Arctic people from prehistorical times. They are still herded and hunted today. In some traditional Christmas legends, Santa Claus's reindeer pull a sleigh through the night sky to help Santa Claus deliver gifts to good children on Christmas Eve.
Description
Names follow international convention before the recent revision[9] (see Taxonomy below). Reindeer/caribou (Rangifer) vary in size from the smallest, the Svalbard reindeer (R. (t.) platyrhynchus), to the largest, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni). They also vary in coat color and antler architecture.
The North American range of caribou extends from Alaska through the Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut throughout the tundra, taiga and boreal forest and south through the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Of the eight subspecies classified by Harding (2022) into the Arctic caribou (R. arcticus), the migratory mainland barren-ground caribou of Arctic Alaska and Canada (R. t. arcticus), summer in tundra and winter in taiga, a transitional forest zone between boreal forest and tundra; the nomadic Peary caribou (R. t. pearyi) lives in the polar desert of the High Arctic Archipelago and Grant's caribou (R. t. granti) lives in the western end of the Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent islands; the other four subspecies, Osborn's caribou (R. t. osborni), Stone's caribou (R. t. stonei), the Rocky Mountain caribou (R. t. fortidens) and the Selkirk Mountains caribou (R. t. montanus) are all montane. The extinct insular Queen Charlotte Islands caribou (R. t. dawsoni), lived on Graham Island in Haida Gwaii (formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands).
The boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou), lives in the boreal forest of northeastern Canada: the Labrador or Ungava caribou of northern Quebec and northern Labrador (R. t. caboti), and the Newfoundland caribou of Newfoundland (R. t. terranovae) have been found to be genetically in the woodland caribou lineage.
In Eurasia, both wild and domestic reindeer are distributed across the tundra and into the taiga. Eurasian mountain reindeer (R. t. tarandus) are close to North American caribou genetically and visually, but with sufficient differences to warrant division into two species. The unique, insular Svalbard reindeer inhabits the Svalbard Archipelago. The Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) is spottily distributed in the coniferous forest zones from Finland to east of Lake Baikal: the Siberian forest reindeer (R. t. valentinae, formerly called the Busk Mountains reindeer (R. t. buskensis) by American taxonomists) occupies the Altai and Ural Mountains.
Male ("bull") and female ("cow") reindeer can grow antlers annually, although the proportion of females that grow antlers varies greatly between populations. Antlers are typically larger on males. Antler architecture varies by species and subspecies and, together with pelage differences, can often be used to distinguish between species and subspecies (see illustrations in Geist, 1991 and Geist, 1998).
Status
About 25,000 mountain reindeer (R. t. tarandus) still live in the mountains of Norway, notably in Hardangervidda. In Sweden there are approximately 250,000 reindeer in herds managed by Sami villages. Russia manages 19 herds of Siberian tundra reindeer (R. t. sibiricus) that total about 940,000. The Taimyr herd of Siberian tundra reindeer is the largest wild reindeer herd in the world, varying between 400,000 and 1,000,000; it is a metapopulation consisting of several subpopulations — some of which are phenotypically different — with different migration routes and calving areas. The Kamchatkan reindeer (R. t. phylarchus), a forest subspecies, formerly included reindeer west of the Sea of Okhotsk which, however, are indistinguishable genetically from the Jano-Indigirka, East Siberian taiga and Chukotka populations of R. t. sibiricus. Siberian tundra reindeer herds have been in decline but are stable or increasing since 2000.
Insular (island) reindeer, classified as the Novaya Zemlya reindeer (R. t. pearsoni) occupy several island groups: the Novaya Zemlya Archipelago (about 5,000 animals at last count, but most of these are either domestic reindeer or domestic-wild hybrids), the New Siberia Archipelago (about 10,000 to 15,000), and Wrangel Island (200 to 300 feral domestic reindeer).
What was once the second largest herd is the migratory Labrador caribou (R. t. caboti)[9] George River herd in Canada, with former variations between 28,000 and 385,000. As of January 2018, there are fewer than 9,000 animals estimated to be left in the George River herd, as reported by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The New York Times reported in April 2018 of the disappearance of the only herd of southern mountain woodland caribou in the contiguous United States, with an expert calling it "functionally extinct" after the herd's size dwindled to a mere three animals. After the last individual, a female, was translocated to a wildlife rehabilitation center in Canada, caribou were considered extirpated from the contiguous United States. The Committee on Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) classified both the Southern Mountain population DU9 (R. t. montanus) and the Central Mountain population DU8 (R. t. fortidens) as Endangered and the Northern Mountain population DU7 (R. t. osborni) as Threatened.
Some species and subspecies are rare and three subspecies have already become extinct: the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou (R. t. dawsoni) from western Canada, the Sakhalin reindeer (R. t. setoni) from Sakhalin and the East Greenland caribou from eastern Greenland, although some authorities believe that the latter, R. t. eogroenlandicus Degerbøl, 1957, is a junior synonym of the Peary caribou Historically, the range of the sedentary boreal woodland caribou covered more than half of Canada and into the northern states of the contiguous United States from Maine to Washington. Boreal woodland caribou have disappeared from most of their original southern range and were designated as Threatened in 2002 by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC). Environment Canada reported in 2011 that there were approximately 34,000 boreal woodland caribou in 51 ranges remaining in Canada (Environment Canada, 2011b), although those numbers included montane populations classified by Harding (2022) into subspecies of the Arctic caribou. Siberian tundra reindeer herds are also in decline, and Rangifer as a whole is considered to be Vulnerable by the IUCN.
Naming
Charles Hamilton Smith is credited with the name Rangifer for the reindeer genus, which Albertus Magnus used in his De animalibus, fol. Liber 22, Cap. 268: "Dicitur Rangyfer quasi ramifer". This word may go back to the Sámi word raingo. Carl Linnaeus chose the word tarandus as the specific epithet, making reference to Ulisse Aldrovandi's Quadrupedum omnium bisulcorum historia fol. 859–863, Cap. 30: De Tarando (1621). However, Aldrovandi and Conrad Gessner thought that rangifer and tarandus were two separate animals, In any case, the tarandos name goes back to Aristotle and Theophrastus.
The use of the terms reindeer and caribou for essentially the same animal can cause confusion, but the International Union for Conservation of Nature clearly delineates the issue: "Reindeer is the European name for the species of Rangifer, while in North America, Rangifer species are known as Caribou." The word reindeer is an anglicized version of the Old Norse words hreinn (“reindeer”) and dýr (“animal”) and has nothing to do with reins. The word caribou comes through French, from the Mi'kmaq qalipu, meaning "snow shoveler", and refers to its habit of pawing through the snow for food.
Because of its importance to many cultures, Rangifer and some of its species and subspecies have names in many languages. Inuvaluit of the western Canadian Arctic and Inuit of the eastern Canadian Arctic, who speak different dialects of Inuktitut, both call the barren-ground caribou tuktu. The Wekʼèezhìi people, a Dene (Athapascan) group, call the Arctic caribou ekwǫ̀ and the boreal woodland caribou tǫdzı. The Gwichʼin (also a Dene group) have over 24 distinct caribou-related words.
Reindeer are also called tuttu by the Greenlandic Inuit and hreindýr, sometimes rein, by the Icelanders.
Evolution
The "glacial-interglacial cycles of the upper Pleistocene had a major influence on the evolution" of Rangifer species and other Arctic and sub-Arctic species. Isolation of tundra-adapted species Rangifer in Last Glacial Maximum refugia during the last glacial – the Wisconsin glaciation in North America and the Weichselian glaciation in Eurasia – shaped "intraspecific genetic variability" particularly between the North American and Eurasian parts of the Arctic.
Reindeer/caribou (Rangifer) are in the subfamily Odocoileinae, along with roe deer (Capreolus), Eurasian elk/moose (Alces), and water deer (Hydropotes). These antlered cervids split from the horned ruminants Bos (cattle and yaks), Ovis (sheep) and Capra (goats) about 36 million years ago. The Eurasian clade of Odocoileinae (Capreolini, Hydropotini and Alcini) split from the New World tribes of Capreolinae (Odocoileini and Rangiferini) in the Late Miocene, 8.7–9.6 million years ago. Rangifer “evolved as a mountain deer, ...exploiting the subalpine and alpine meadows...”. Rangifer originated in the Late Pliocene and diversified in the Early Pleistocene, a 2+ million-year period of multiple glacier advances and retreats. Several named Rangifer fossils in Eurasia and North America predate the evolution of modern tundra reindeer.
Archaeologists distinguish “modern” tundra reindeer and barren-ground caribou from primitive forms — living and extinct — that did not have adaptations to extreme cold and to long distance migration. They include a broad, high muzzle to increase the volume of the nasal cavity to warm and moisten the air before it enters the throat and lungs, bez tines set close to the brow tines, distinctive coat patterns, short legs and other adaptations for running long distances, and multiple behaviors suited to tundra, but not to forest (such as synchronized calving and aggregation during rutting and post-calving). As well, many genes, including those for vitamin D metabolism, fat metabolism, retinal development, circadian rhythm, and tolerance to cold temperatures, are found in tundra caribou that are lacking or rudimentary in forest types. For this reason, forest-adapted reindeer and caribou could not survive in tundra or polar deserts. The oldest undoubted Rangifer fossil is from Omsk, Russia, dated to 2.1-1.8 Ma. The oldest North American Rangifer fossil is from the Yukon, 1.6 million years before present (BP). A fossil skull fragment from Süßenborn, Germany, R. arcticus stadelmanni, (which is probably misnamed) with “rather thin and cylinder-shaped” antlers, dates to the Middle Pleistocene (Günz) Period, 680,000-620,000 BP. Rangifer fossils become increasingly frequent in circumpolar deposits beginning with the Riss glaciations, the second youngest of the Pleistocene Epoch, roughly 300,000–130,000 BP. By the 4-Würm period (110,000–70,000 to 12,000–10,000 BP), its European range was extensive, supplying a major food source for prehistoric Europeans. North American fossils outside of Beringia that predate the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) are of Rancholabrean age (240,000–11,000 years BP) and occur along the fringes of the Rocky Mountain and Laurentide ice sheets as far south as northern Alabama; and in Sangamonian deposits (~100,000 years BP) from western Canada.
A R. t. pearyi-sized caribou occupied Greenland before and after the LGM and persisted in a relict enclave in northeastern Greenland until it went extinct about 1900 (see discussion of R. t. eogroenlandicus below). Archaeological excavations showed that larger barren-ground-sized caribou appeared in western Greenland about 4,000 years ago.
The late Valerius Geist (1998) dates the Eurasian reindeer radiation dates to the large Riss glaciation (347,000 to 128,000 years ago), based on the Norwegian-Svalbard split 225,000 years ago. Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) likely evolved from Cervus [Rangifer] geuttardi Desmarest, 1822, a reindeer that adapted to forest habitats in Eastern Europe as forests expanded during an interglacial period before the LGM (the Würmian or Weichsel glaciation);. The fossil species geuttardi was later replaced by R. constantini, which was adapted for grasslands, in a second immigration 19,000–20,000 years ago when the LGM turned its forest habitats into tundra, while fennicus survived in isolation in southwestern Europe. R. constantini was then replaced by modern tundra/barren-ground caribou adapted to extreme cold, probably in Beringia, before dispersing west (R. t. tarandus in the Scandinavian mountains and R. t. sibiricus across Siberia) and east (R. t. arcticus in the North American Barrenlands) when rising seas isolated them. Likewise in North America, DNA analysis shows that woodland caribou (R. caribou) diverged from primitive ancestors of tundra/barren-ground caribou not during the LGM, 26,000–19,000 years ago, as previously assumed, but in the Middle Pleistocene around 357,000 years ago. At that time, modern tundra caribou had not even evolved. Woodland caribou are likely more related to extinct North American forest caribou than to barren-ground caribou. For example, the extinct caribou Torontoceros [Rangifer] hypogaeus, had features (robust and short pedicles, smooth antler surface, and high position of second tine) that relate it to forest caribou.
Humans started hunting reindeer in both the Mesolithic and Neolithic Periods, and humans are today the main predator in many areas. Norway and Greenland have unbroken traditions of hunting wild reindeer from the Last Glacial Period until the present day. In the non-forested mountains of central Norway, such as Jotunheimen, it is still possible to find remains of stone-built trapping pits, guiding fences and bow rests, built especially for hunting reindeer. These can, with some certainty, be dated to the Migration Period, although it is not unlikely that they have been in use since the Stone Age.
Cave paintings by ancient Europeans include both tundra and forest types of reindeer.
A 2022 study of ancient environmental DNA from the Early Pleistocene (2 million years ago) Kap Kobenhavn Formation of northern Greenland identified preserved DNA fragments of Rangifer, identified as basal but potentially ancestral to modern reindeer. This suggests that reindeer have inhabited Greenland since at least the Early Pleistocene. Around this time, northern Greenland was 11–19 °C warmer than the Holocene, with a boreal forest hosting a species assemblage with no modern analogue. These are among the oldest DNA fragments ever sequenced.
Taxonomy
Carl Linnaeus in 1758 named the Eurasian tundra species Cervus tarandus, the genus Rangifer being credited to Smith, 1827.
Rangifer has had a convoluted history because of the similarity in antler architecture (brow tines asymmetrical and often palmate, bez tines, a back tine sometimes branched, and branched at the distal end, often palmate). Because of individual variability, early taxonomists were unable to discern consistent patterns among populations, nor could they, examining collections in Europe, appreciate the difference in habitats and the differing function they imposed on antler architecture. For example, woodland caribou males, rutting in boreal forest where only a few females can be found, collect harems and defend them against other males, for which they have short, straight, strong, much-branched antlers, beams flattened in cross-section, designed for combat — and not too large, so as not to impede them in forested winter ranges. By contrast, modern tundra caribou (see Evolution above) have synchronized calving as a predator-avoidance strategy, which requires large rutting aggregations. Males cannot defend a harem because, while he was busy fighting, they would disappear into the mass of the herd. Males therefore tend individual females; their fights are infrequent and brief. Their antlers are thin, beams round in cross-section, sweep back and then forward with a cluster of branches at the top; these are designed more for visual stimulation of the females. Their bez tines are set low, just above the brow tine, which is vertically flattened to protect the eyes while the buck "threshes" low brush, a courtship display. The low bez tines help the wide flat brow tines dig craters in the hard-packed tundra snow for forage, for which reason brow tines are often called "shovels" in North America and "ice tines" in Europe. The differences in antler architecture reflect fundamental differences in ecology and behavior, and in turn deep divisions in ancestry that were not apparent to the early taxonomists.
Similarly, working on museum collections where skins were often faded and in poor states of preservation, early taxonomists could not readily perceive differences in coat patterns that are consistent within a subspecies, but variable among them. Geist calls these "nuptial" characteristics: sexually selected characters that are highly conserved and diagnostic among subspecies.
Towards the end of the 19th century, national museums began sending out biological exploration expeditions and collections accumulated. Taxonomists, usually working for the museums began naming subspecies more rigorously, based on statistical differences in detailed cranial, dental and skeletal measurements than antlers and pelage, supplemented by better knowledge of differences in ecology and behavior. From 1898 to 1937, mammalogists named 12 new species (other than barren-ground and woodland, which had been named earlier) of caribou in Canada and Alaska, and three new species and nine new subspecies in Eurasia, each properly described according to the evolving rules of zoological nomenclature, with type localities designated and type specimens deposited in museums.
In the mid-20th century, as definitions of "species" evolved, mammalogists in Europe and North America made all Rangifer species conspecific with R. tarandus, and synonymized most of the subspecies. Banfield's often-cited A Revision of the Reindeer and Caribou, Genus Rangifer (1961), eliminated R. t. caboti (the Labrador caribou), R. t. osborni (Osborn's caribou — from British Columbia) and R. t. terranovae (the Newfoundland caribou) as invalid and included only barren-ground caribou, renamed as R. t. groenlandicus (formerly R. arcticus) and woodland caribou as R. t. caribou. However, Banfield made multiple errors, eliciting a scathing review by Ian McTaggart-Cowan in 1962 Most authorities continued to consider all or most subspecies valid; some were quite distinct. In his chapter in the authoritative 2005 reference work Mammal Species of the World, referenced by the American Society of Mammalogists, English zoologist Peter Grubb agreed with Valerius Geist, a specialist on large mammals, that these subspecies were valid (i.e., before the recent revision): In North America, R. t. caboti, R. t. caribou, R. t. dawsoni, R. t. groenlandicus, R. t. osborni, R. t. pearyi, and R. t. terranovae; and in Eurasia, R. t. tarandus, R. t. buskensis (called R. t. valentinae in Europe; see below), R. t. phylarchus, R. t. pearsoni, R. t. sibiricus and R. t. platyrhynchus. These subspecies were retained in the 2011 replacement work Handbook of Mammals of the World Vol. 2: Hoofed Mammals.[8] Most Russian authors also recognized R. t. angustirostris, a forest reindeer from east of Lake Baikal.
However, since 1991, many genetic studies have revealed deep divergence between modern tundra reindeer and woodland caribou. Geist (2007) and others continued arguing that the woodland caribou was incorrectly classified, noting that "true woodland caribou, the uniformly dark, small-maned type with the frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers", is "scattered thinly along the southern rim of North American caribou distribution". He affirms that the "true woodland caribou is very rare, in very great difficulties and requires the most urgent of attention."
In 2011, noting that the former classifications of Rangifer tarandus, either with prevailing taxonomy on subspecies, designations based on ecotypes, or natural population groupings, failed to capture "the variability of caribou across their range in Canada" needed for effective subspecies conservation and management, COSEWIC developed Designatable Unit (DU) attribution, an adaptation of "evolutionary significant units". The 12 designatable units for caribou in Canada (that is, excluding Alaska and Greenland) based on ecology, behavior and, importantly, genetics (but excluding morphology and archaeology) essentially followed the previously-named subspecies distributions, without naming them as such, plus some ecotypes. Ecotypes are not phylogenetically based and cannot substitute for taxonomy.
Meanwhile, genetic data continued to accumulate, revealing sufficiently deep divisions to easily separate Rangifer back into six previously named species and to resurrect several previously named subspecies. Molecular data showed that the Greenland caribou (R. t. groenlandicus) and the Svalbard reindeer (R. t. platyrhynchus), although not closely related to each other, were the most genetically divergent among Rangifer clades; that modern (see Evolution above) Eurasian tundra reindeer (R. t. tarandus and R. t. sibiricus) and North American barren-ground caribou (R. t. arcticus), although sharing ancestry, were separable at the subspecies level; that Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) clustered well apart from both wild and domestic tundra reindeer and that boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou) were separable from all others. Meanwhile, archaeological evidence was accumulating that Eurasian forest reindeer descended from an extinct forest-adapted reindeer and not from tundra reindeer; since they do not share a direct common ancestor, they cannot be conspecific. Similarly, woodland caribou diverged from the ancestors of Arctic caribou before modern barren-ground caribou had evolved, and were more likely related to extinct North American forest reindeer. Lacking a direct shared ancestor, barren-ground and woodland caribou cannot be conspecific.
Molecular data also revealed that the four western Canadian montane ecotypes are not woodland caribou: they share a common ancestor with modern barren-ground caribou/tundra reindeer, but distantly, having diverged > 60,000 years ago — before the modern ecotypes had evolved their cold- and darkness-adapted physiologies and mass-migration and aggregation behaviors (see Evolution above). Before Banfield (1961), taxonomists using cranial, dental and skeletal measurements had unequivocally allied these western montane ecotypes with barren-ground caribou, naming them (as in Osgood 1909[85] Murie, 1935 and Anderson 1946, among others) R. t. stonei, R. t. montanus, R. t. fortidens and R. t. osborni, respectively, and this phylogeny was confirmed by genetic analysis.
DNA also revealed three unnamed clades that, based on genetic distance, genetic divergence and shared vs. private haplotypes and alleles, together with ecological and behavioral differences, may justify separation at the subspecies level: the Atlantic-Gaspésie caribou (COSEWIC DU11), an eastern montane ecotype of the boreal woodland caribou, and the Baffin Island caribou. Neither one of these clades has yet been formally described or named.
Jenkins et al. (2012) said that "[Baffin Island] caribou are unique compared to other Barrenground herds, as they do not overwinter in forested habitat, nor do all caribou undertake long seasonal migrations to calving areas." It also shares a mtDNA haplotype with Labrador caribou, in the North American lineage (i.e., woodland caribou). Røed et al. (1991) had noted:
Among Baffin Island caribou the TFL2 allele was the most common allele (p=0.521), while this allele was absent, or present in very low frequencies, in other caribou populations , including the Canadian barren-ground caribou from the Beverly herd. A large genetic difference between Baffin Island caribou and the Beverly herd was also indicated by eight alleles found in the Beverly herd which were absent from the Baffin Island samples.
Jenkins et al. (2018) also reported genetic distinctiveness of Baffin Island caribou from all other barren-ground caribou; its genetic signature was not found on the mainland or on other islands; nor were Beverly herd (the nearest mainly barren-ground caribou) alleles present in Baffin Island caribou, evidence of reproductive isolation.
These advances in Rangifer genetics were brought together with previous morphological-based descriptions, ecology, behavior and archaeology to propose a new revision of the genus.
The scientific name Tarandus rangifer buskensis Millais, 1915 (the Busk Mountains reindeer) was selected as the senior synonym to R. t. valentinae Flerov, 1933, in Mammal Species of the World but Russian authors do not recognize Millais and Millais' articles in a hunting travelogue, The Gun at Home and Abroad, seem short of a taxonomic authority.
The scientific name groenlandicus is fraught with problems. Edwards (1743) illustrated and claimed to have seen a male specimen (“head of perfect horns...”) from Greenland and said that a Captain Craycott had brought a live pair from Greenland to England in 1738. He named it Capra groenlandicus, Greenland reindeer. Linnaeus, in the 12th edition of Systema naturae, gave grœnlandicus as a synonym for Cervus tarandus. Borowski disagreed (and again changed the spelling), saying Cervus grönlandicus was morphologically distinct from Eurasian tundra reindeer. Baird placed it under the genus Rangifer as R. grœnlandicus. It went back and forth as a full species or subspecies of the barren-ground caribou (R. arcticus) or a subspecies of the tundra reindeer (R. tarandus), but always as the Greenland reindeer/caribou. Taxonomists consistently documented morphological differences between Greenland and other caribou/reindeer in cranial measurements, dentition, antler architecture, etc. Then Banfield (1961) in his famously flawed revision, gave the name groenlandicus to all the barren-ground caribou in North America, Greenland included, because groenlandicus pre-dates Richardson’s R. arctus,. However, because genetic data shows the Greenland caribou to be the most distantly related of any caribou to all the others (genetic distance, FST = 44%, whereas most cervid (deer family) species have a genetic distance of 2% to 5%)--as well as behavioral and morphological differences—a recent revision returned it to species status as R. groenlandicus. Although it has been assumed that the larger caribou that appeared in Greenland 4,000 years ago originated from Baffin Island (itself unique; see Taxonomy above), a reconstruction of LGM glacial retreat and caribou advance (Yannic et al. 2013) shows colonization by NAL lineage caribou more likely. Their PCA and tree diagrams show Greenland caribou clustering outside of the Beringian-Eurasian lineage.
The scientific name R. t. granti has a very interesting history. Allen (1902) named it as a distinct species, R. granti, from the "western end of Alaska Peninsula, opposite Popoff Island" and noting that:
Rangifer granti is a representative of the Barren Ground group of Caribou, which includes R. arcticus of the Arctic Coast and R. granlandicus of Greenland. It is not closely related to R. stonei of the Kenai Peninsula, from which it differs not only in its very much smaller size, but in important cranial characters and in coloration. ...The external and cranial differences between R. granti and the various forms of the Woodland Caribou are so great in almost every respect that no detailed comparison is necessary. ...According to Mr. Stone, Rangifer granti inhabits the " barren land of Alaska Peninsula, ranging well up into the mountains in summer, but descending to the lower levels in winter, generally feeding on the low flat lands near the coast and in the foothills...As regards cranial characters no comparison is necessary with R. montanus or with any of the woodland forms."
Osgood and Murie (1935), agreeing with granti's close relationship with the barren-ground caribou, brought it under R. arcticus as a subspecies, R. t. granti. Anderson (1946) and Banfield (1961), based on statistical analysis of cranial, dental and other characters, agreed. But Banfield (1961) also synonymized Alaska's large R. stonei with other mountain caribou of British Columbia and the Yukon as invalid subspecies of woodland caribou, then R. t. caribou. This left the small, migratory barren-ground caribou of Alaska and the Yukon, including the Porcupine caribou herd, without a name, which Banfield rectified in his 1974 Mammals of Canada by extending to them the name "granti". The late Valerius Geist (1998), in the only error in his whole illustrious career, re-analyzed Banfield's data with additional specimens found in an unpublished report he cites as "Skal, 1982", but was "not able to find diagnostic features that could segregate this form from the western barren ground type." But Skal 1982 had included specimens from the eastern end of the Alaska Peninsula and the Kenai Peninsula, the range of the larger Stone's caribou. Later, geneticists comparing barren-ground caribou of Alaska with those of mainland Canada found little difference and they all became the former R. t. groenlandicus (now R. t. arcticus). R. t. granti was lost in the oblivion of invalid taxonomy until Alaskan researchers sampled some small, pale caribou from the western end of the Alaska Peninsula, their range enclosing the type locality designated by Allen (1902) and found them to be genetically distinct from all other caribou in Alaska. Thus, granti was rediscovered, its range restricted to that originally described.
Stone's caribou (R. t. stonei), a large montane type, was described from the Kenai Peninsula (where, apparently, it was never common except in years of great abundance), the eastern end of the Alaska Peninsula, and mountains throughout southern and eastern Alaska. It was placed under R. arcticus as a subspecies, R. t. stonei, and later synonymised as noted above. The same genetic analyses mentioned above for R. t. granti resulted in resurrecting R. t. stonei as well.
The Sakhalin reindeer (R. t. setoni), endemic to Sakhalin, was described as Rangifer tarandus setoni Flerov, 1933, but Banfield (1961) brought it under R. t. fennicus as a junior synonym. The wild reindeer on the island are apparently extinct, having been replaced by domestic reindeer.
Some of the Rangifer species and subspecies may be further divided by ecotype depending on several behavioral factors – predominant habitat use (northern, tundra, mountain, forest, boreal forest, forest-dwelling, woodland, woodland (boreal), woodland (migratory) or woodland (mountain), spacing (dispersed or aggregated) and migration patterns (sedentary or migratory). North American examples of this are the Torngat Mountain population DU10, an ecotype of R. t. caboti; a recently discovered and unnamed clade between the Mackenzie River and Great Bear Lake of Beringian-Eurasian lineage, an ecotype of R. t. osborni; the Atlantic-Gaspésie population DU11, an eastern montane ecotype of the boreal woodland caribou (R. t. caribou); the Baffin Island caribou, an ecotype of the barren-ground caribou (R. t. arcticus); and the Dolphin-Union “herd”, another ecotype of R. t. arcticus. The last three of these likely qualify as subspecies, but they have not yet been formally described or named.
Physical characteristics
Naming in this and following sections follows the taxonomy in the authoritative 2011 reference work Handbook of Mammals of the World Vol. 2: Hoofed Mammals.
Antlers
In most cervid species, only males grow antlers; the reindeer is the only cervid species in which females also grow them normally. Androgens play an essential role in the antler formation of cervids. The antlerogenic genes in reindeer have more sensitivity to androgens in comparison with other cervids.
There is considerable variation among species and subspecies in the size of the antlers (e.g., they are rather small and spindly in the northernmost species and subspecies), but on average the bull's antlers are the second largest of any extant deer, after those of the male moose. In the largest subspecies, the antlers of large bulls can range up to 100 cm (39 in) in width and 135 cm (53 in) in beam length. They have the largest antlers relative to body size among living deer species.[116] Antler size measured in number of points reflects the nutritional status of the reindeer and climate variation of its environment. The number of points on male reindeer increases from birth to 5 years of age and remains relatively constant from then on. "In male caribou, antler mass (but not the number of tines) varies in concert with body mass." While antlers of male woodland caribou are typically smaller than those of male barren-ground caribou, they can be over 1 m (3 ft 3 in) across. They are flattened in cross-section, compact and relatively dense.[36] Geist describes them as frontally emphasized, flat-beamed antlers. Woodland caribou antlers are thicker and broader than those of the barren-ground caribou and their legs and heads are longer. Quebec-Labrador male caribou antlers can be significantly larger and wider than other woodland caribou. Central barren-ground male caribou antlers are perhaps the most diverse in configuration and can grow to be very high and wide. Osborn's caribou antlers are typically the most massive, with the largest circumference measurements.
The antlers' main beams begin at the brow "extending posterior over the shoulders and bowing so that the tips point forward. The prominent, palmate brow tines extend forward, over the face." The antlers typically have two separate groups of points, lower and upper.
Antlers begin to grow on male reindeer in March or April and on female reindeer in May or June. This process is called antlerogenesis. Antlers grow very quickly every year on the bulls. As the antlers grow, they are covered in thick velvet, filled with blood vessels and spongy in texture. The antler velvet of the barren-ground caribou and the boreal woodland caribou is dark chocolate brown. The velvet that covers growing antlers is a highly vascularised skin. This velvet is dark brown on woodland or barren-ground caribou and slate-grey on Peary caribou and the Dolphin-Union caribou herd. Velvet lumps in March can develop into a rack measuring more than a meter in length (3 ft) by August.
A R. tarandus skull
When the antler growth is fully grown and hardened, the velvet is shed or rubbed off. To the Inuit, for whom the caribou is a "culturally important keystone species", the months are named after landmarks in the caribou life cycle. For example, amiraijaut in the Igloolik region is "when velvet falls off caribou antlers."
Male reindeer use their antlers to compete with other males during the mating season. Butler (1986) showed that the social requirements of caribou females during the rut determines the mating strategies of males and, consequently, the form of male antlers. In describing woodland caribou, which have a harem-defense mating system, SARA wrote, "During the rut, males engage in frequent and furious sparring battles with their antlers. Large males with large antlers do most of the mating." Reindeer continue to migrate until the bulls have spent their back fat. By contrast, barren-ground caribou males tend individual females and their fights are brief and much less intense; consequently, their antlers are long, and thin, round in cross-section and less branched and are designed more for show (or sexual attraction) than fighting.
In late autumn or early winter after the rut, male reindeer lose their antlers, growing a new pair the next summer with a larger rack than the previous year. Female reindeer keep their antlers until they calve. In the Scandinavian and Arctic Circle populations, old bulls' antlers fall off in late December, young bulls' antlers fall off in the early spring, and cows' antlers fall off in the summer.
When male reindeer shed their antlers in early to mid-winter, the antlered cows acquire the highest ranks in the feeding hierarchy, gaining access to the best forage areas. These cows are healthier than those without antlers. Calves whose mothers do not have antlers are more prone to disease and have a significantly higher mortality. Cows in good nutritional condition, for example, during a mild winter with good winter range quality, may grow new antlers earlier as antler growth requires high intake.
A R. t. platyrhynchus skull
According to a respected Igloolik elder, Noah Piugaattuk, who was one of the last outpost camp leaders, caribou (tuktu) antlers
...get detached every year...Young males lose the velvet from the antlers much more quickly than female caribou even though they are not fully mature. They start to work with their antlers just as soon as the velvet starts to fall off. The young males engage in fights with their antlers towards autumn...soon after the velvet had fallen off they will be red, as they start to get bleached their colour changes...When the velvet starts to fall off the antler is red because the antler is made from blood. The antler is the blood that has hardened; in fact, the core of the antler is still bloody when the velvet starts to fall off, at least close to the base.
— Elder Noah Piugaattuk of Igloolik cited in "Tuktu — Caribou" (2002) "Canada's Polar Life"
According to the Igloolik Oral History Project (IOHP), "Caribou antlers provided the Inuit with a myriad of implements, from snow knives and shovels to drying racks and seal-hunting tools. A complex set of terms describes each part of the antler and relates it to its various uses". Currently, the larger racks of antlers are used by Inuit as materials for carving. Iqaluit-based Jackoposie Oopakak's 1989 carving, entitled Nunali, which means "place where people live", and which is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Canada, includes a massive set of caribou antlers on which he has intricately carved the miniaturized world of the Inuit where "Arctic birds, caribou, polar bears, seals, and whales are interspersed with human activities of fishing, hunting, cleaning skins, stretching boots, and travelling by dog sled and kayak...from the base of the antlers to the tip of each branch".
Pelt
The color of the fur varies considerably, both between individuals and depending on season and species. Northern populations, which usually are relatively small, are whiter, while southern populations, which typically are relatively large, are darker. This can be seen well in North America, where the northernmost subspecies, the Peary caribou, is the whitest and smallest subspecies of the continent, while the Selkirk Mountains caribou (Southern Mountain population DU9) is the darkest and nearly the largest, only exceeded in size by Osborn's caribou (Northern Mountain population DU7).
The coat has two layers of fur: a dense woolly undercoat and a longer-haired overcoat consisting of hollow, air-filled hairs. Fur is the primary insulation factor that allows reindeer to regulate their core body temperature in relation to their environment, the thermogradient, even if the temperature rises to 38 °C (100 °F). In 1913, Dugmore noted how the woodland caribou swim so high out of the water, unlike any other mammal, because their hollow, "air-filled, quill-like hair" acts as a supporting "life jacket".
A darker belly color may be caused by two mutations of MC1R. They appear to be more common in domestic reindeer herds.
Heat exchange
Blood moving into the legs is cooled by blood returning to the body in a countercurrent heat exchange (CCHE), a highly efficient means of minimizing heat loss through the skin's surface. In the CCHE mechanism, in cold weather, blood vessels are closely knotted and intertwined with arteries to the skin and appendages that carry warm blood with veins returning to the body that carry cold blood causing the warm arterial blood to exchange heat with the cold venous blood. In this way, their legs for example are kept cool, maintaining the core body temperature nearly 30 °C (54 °F) higher with less heat lost to the environment. Heat is thus recycled instead of being dissipated. The "heart does not have to pump blood as rapidly in order to maintain a constant body core temperature and thus, metabolic rate." CCHE is present in animals like reindeer, fox and moose living in extreme conditions of cold or hot weather as a mechanism for retaining the heat in (or out of) the body. These are countercurrent exchange systems with the same fluid, usually blood, in a circuit, used for both directions of flow.
Reindeer have specialized counter-current vascular heat exchange in their nasal passages. Temperature gradient along the nasal mucosa is under physiological control. Incoming cold air is warmed by body heat before entering the lungs and water is condensed from the expired air and captured before the reindeer's breath is exhaled, then used to moisten dry incoming air and possibly be absorbed into the blood through the mucous membranes. Like moose, caribou have specialized noses featuring nasal turbinate bones that dramatically increase the surface area within the nostrils.
Hooves
The reindeer has large feet with crescent-shaped cloven hooves for walking in snow or swamps. According to the Species at Risk Public Registry (SARA), woodland
"Caribou have large feet with four toes. In addition to two small ones, called "dew claws," they have two large, crescent-shaped toes that support most of their weight and serve as shovels when digging for food under snow. These large concave hooves offer stable support on wet, soggy ground and on crusty snow. The pads of the hoof change from a thick, fleshy shape in the summer to become hard and thin in the winter months, reducing the animal's exposure to the cold ground. Additional winter protection comes from the long hair between the "toes"; it covers the pads so the caribou walks only on the horny rim of the hooves."
— SARA 2014
Reindeer hooves adapt to the season: in the summer, when the tundra is soft and wet, the footpads become sponge-like and provide extra traction. In the winter, the pads shrink and tighten, exposing the rim of the hoof, which cuts into the ice and crusted snow to keep it from slipping. This also enables them to dig down (an activity known as "cratering") through the snow to their favourite food, a lichen known as reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina).
Size
The females (or "cows" as they are often called) usually measure 162–205 cm (64–81 in) in length and weigh 80–120 kg (180–260 lb). The males (or "bulls" as they are often called) are typically larger (to an extent which varies between the different species and subspecies), measuring 180–214 cm (71–84 in) in length and usually weighing 159–182 kg (351–401 lb). Exceptionally large bulls have weighed as much as 318 kg (701 lb). Weight varies drastically between the seasons, with bulls losing as much as 40% of their pre-rut weight.
The shoulder height is usually 85 to 150 cm (33 to 59 in), and the tail is 14 to 20 cm (5.5 to 7.9 in) long.
The reindeer from Svalbard are the smallest of all. They are also relatively short-legged and may have a shoulder height of as little as 80 cm (31 in), thereby following Allen's rule.
Clicking sound
The knees of many species and subspecies of reindeer are adapted to produce a clicking sound as they walk. The sounds originate in the tendons of the knees and may be audible from several hundred meters away. The frequency of the knee-clicks is one of a range of signals that establish relative positions on a dominance scale among reindeer. "Specifically, loud knee-clicking is discovered to be an honest signal of body size, providing an exceptional example of the potential for non-vocal acoustic communication in mammals." The clicking sound made by reindeer as they walk is caused by small tendons slipping over bone protuberances (sesamoid bones) in their feet. The sound is made when a reindeer is walking or running, occurring when the full weight of the foot is on the ground or just after it is relieved of the weight.
Eyes
A study by researchers from University College London in 2011 revealed that reindeer can see light with wavelengths as short as 320 nm (i.e. in the ultraviolet range), considerably below the human threshold of 400 nm. It is thought that this ability helps them to survive in the Arctic, because many objects that blend into the landscape in light visible to humans, such as urine and fur, produce sharp contrasts in ultraviolet. It has been proposed that UV flashes on power lines are responsible for reindeer avoiding power lines because "...in darkness these animals see power lines not as dim, passive structures but, rather, as lines of flickering light stretching across the terrain."
In 2023, researchers studying reindeer living in Cairngorms National Park, Scotland, suggested that UV visual sensitivity in reindeer helps them detect UV-absorbing lichens against a background of UV-reflecting snows.
The tapetum lucidum of Arctic reindeer eyes changes in color from gold in summer to blue in winter to improve their vision during times of continuous darkness, and perhaps enable them to better spot predators.
Biology and behaviors
Reindeer have developed adaptations for optimal metabolic efficiency during warm months as well as for during cold months. The body composition of reindeer varies highly with the seasons. Of particular interest is the body composition and diet of breeding and non-breeding females between the seasons. Breeding females have more body mass than non-breeding females between the months of March and September with a difference of around 10 kg (22 lb) more than non-breeding females. From November to December, non-breeding females have more body mass than breeding females, as non-breeding females are able to focus their energies towards storage during colder months rather than lactation and reproduction. Body masses of both breeding and non-breeding females peaks in September. During the months of March through April, breeding females have more fat mass than the non-breeding females with a difference of almost 3 kg (6.6 lb). After this, however, non-breeding females on average have a higher body fat mass than do breeding females.
The environmental variations play a large part in reindeer nutrition, as winter nutrition is crucial to adult and neonatal survival rates. Lichens are a staple during the winter months as they are a readily available food source, which reduces the reliance on stored body reserves. Lichens are a crucial part of the reindeer diet; however, they are less prevalent in the diet of pregnant reindeer compared to non-pregnant individuals. The amount of lichen in a diet is found more in non-pregnant adult diets than pregnant individuals due to the lack of nutritional value. Although lichens are high in carbohydrates, they are lacking in essential proteins that vascular plants provide. The amount of lichen in a diet decreases in latitude, which results in nutritional stress being higher in areas with low lichen abundance.
In a study of seasonal light-dark cycles on sleep patterns of female reindeer, researchers performed non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) on reindeer kept in a stable at the UiT The Arctic University of Norway. The EEG recordings showed that: the more time reindeer spend ruminating, the less time they spend in non-rapid eye movement sleep (NREM sleep); and reindeer's brainwaves during rumination resemble the brainwaves present during NREM sleep. These results suggest that, by reducing the time requirement for NREM sleep, reindeer are able to spend more time feeding during the summer months, when food is abundant.
Reproduction and life cycle
Reindeer mate in late September to early November, and the gestation period is about 228–234 days. During the mating season, bulls battle for access to cows. Two bulls will lock each other's antlers together and try to push each other away. The most dominant bulls can collect as many as 15–20 cows to mate with. A bull will stop eating during this time and lose much of his body fat reserves.
To calve, "females travel to isolated, relatively predator-free areas such as islands in lakes, peatlands, lake-shores, or tundra." As females select the habitat for the birth of their calves, they are warier than males. Dugmore noted that, in their seasonal migrations, the herd follows a female for that reason. Newborns weigh on average 6 kg (13 lb).[148] In May or June, the calves are born. After 45 days, the calves are able to graze and forage, but continue suckling until the following autumn when they become independent from their mothers.
Bulls live four years less than the cows, whose maximum longevity is about 17 years. Cows with a normal body size and who have had sufficient summer nutrition can begin breeding anytime between the ages of 1 and 3 years. When a cow has undergone nutritional stress, it is possible for her to not reproduce for the year. Dominant bulls, those with larger body size and antler racks, inseminate more than one cow a season.
Social structure, migration and range
Some populations of North American caribou; for example, many herds in the barren-ground caribou subspecies and some woodland caribou in Ungava and northern Labrador, migrate the farthest of any terrestrial mammal, traveling up to 5,000 km (3,000 mi) a year, and covering 1,000,000 km2 (400,000 sq mi). Other North American populations, the boreal woodland caribou for example, are largely sedentary. The European populations are known to have shorter migrations. Island populations, such as the Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard reindeer and the Peary caribou, make local movements both within and among islands. Migrating reindeer can be negatively affected by parasite loads. Severely infected individuals are weak and probably have shortened lifespans, but parasite levels vary between populations. Infections create an effect known as culling: infected migrating animals are less likely to complete the migration.
Normally travelling about 19–55 km (12–34 mi) a day while migrating, the caribou can run at speeds of 60–80 km/h (37–50 mph).[2] Young calves can already outrun an Olympic sprinter when only 1 day old. During the spring migration, smaller herds will group together to form larger herds of 50,000 to 500,000 animals, but during autumn migrations, the groups become smaller and the reindeer begin to mate. During winter, reindeer travel to forested areas to forage under the snow. By spring, groups leave their winter grounds to go to the calving grounds. A reindeer can swim easily and quickly, normally at about 6.5 km/h (4.0 mph) but, if necessary, at 10 km/h (6.2 mph) and migrating herds will not hesitate to swim across a large lake or broad river.
The barren-ground caribou form large herds and undertake lengthy seasonal migrations from winter feeding grounds in taiga to spring calving grounds and summer range in the tundra. The migrations of the Porcupine herd of barren-ground caribou are among the longest of any mammal. Greenland caribou, found in southwestern Greenland, are "mixed migrators" and many individuals do not migrate; those that do migrate less than 60 km. Unlike the individual-tending mating system, aggregated rutting, synchronized calving and aggregated post-calving of barren-ground caribou, Greenland caribou have a harem-defense mating system and dispersed calving and they do not aggregate.
Although most wild tundra reindeer migrate between their winter range in taiga and summer range in tundra, some ecotypes or herds are more or less sedentary. Novaya Zemlya reindeer (R. t. pearsoni) formerly wintered on the mainland and migrated across the ice to the islands for summer, but only a few now migrate. Finnish forest reindeer (R. t. fennicus) were formerly distributed in most of the coniferous forest zones south of the tree line, including some mountains, but are now spottily distributed within this zone.
As an adaptation to their Arctic environment, they have lost their circadian rhythm.
Distribution and habitat
Originally, the reindeer was found in Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Greenland, Russia, Mongolia and northern China north of the 50th latitude. In North America, it was found in Canada, Alaska, and the northern contiguous United States from Maine to Washington. In the 19th century, it was still present in southern Idaho. Even in historical times, it probably occurred naturally in Ireland, and it is believed to have lived in Scotland until the 12th century, when the last reindeer were hunted in Orkney. During the Late Pleistocene Epoch, reindeer occurred further south in North America, such as in Nevada, Tennessee, and Alabama, and as far south as Spain in Europe Today, wild reindeer have disappeared from these areas, especially from the southern parts, where it vanished almost everywhere. Large populations of wild reindeer are still found in Norway, Finland, Siberia, Greenland, Alaska and Canada.
According to Grubb (2005), Rangifer is "circumboreal in the tundra and taiga" from "Svalbard, Norway, Finland, Russia, Alaska (USA) and Canada including most Arctic islands, and Greenland, south to northern Mongolia, China (Inner Mongolia), Sakhalin Island, and USA (northern Idaho and Great Lakes region)." Reindeer were introduced to, and are feral in, "Iceland, Kerguelen Islands, South Georgia Island, Pribilof Islands, St. Matthew Island": a free-ranging semi-domesticated herd is also present in Scotland.
There is strong regional variation in Rangifer herd size. There are large population differences among individual herds and the size of individual herds has varied greatly since 1970. The largest of all herds (in Taimyr, Russia) has varied between 400,000 and 1,000,000; the second largest herd (at the George River in Canada) has varied between 28,000 and 385,000.
While Rangifer is a widespread and numerous genus in the northern Holarctic, being present in both tundra and taiga (boreal forest), by 2013, many herds had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be. Caribou and reindeer numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range. This global decline is linked to climate change for northern migratory herds and industrial disturbance of habitat for non-migratory herds. Barren-ground caribou are susceptible to the effects of climate change due to a mismatch in the phenological process between the availability of food during the calving period.
In November 2016, it was reported that more than 81,000 reindeer in Russia had died as a result of climate change. Longer autumns, leading to increased amounts of freezing rain, created a few inches of ice over lichen, causing many reindeer to starve to death.
Diet.
Reindeer are ruminants, having a four-chambered stomach. They mainly eat lichens in winter, especially reindeer lichen (Cladonia rangiferina); they are the only large mammal able to metabolize lichen owing to specialised bacteria and protozoa in their gut. They are also the only animals (except for some gastropods) in which the enzyme lichenase, which breaks down lichenin to glucose, has been found. However, they also eat the leaves of willows and birches, as well as sedges and grasses.
Reindeer are osteophagous; they are known to gnaw and partly consume shed antlers as a dietary supplement and in some extreme cases will cannibalise each other's antlers before shedding. There is also some evidence to suggest that on occasion, especially in the spring when they are nutritionally stressed, they will feed on small rodents (such as lemmings), fish (such as the Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus)), and bird eggs. Reindeer herded by the Chukchis have been known to devour mushrooms enthusiastically in late summer.
During the Arctic summer, when there is continuous daylight, reindeer change their sleeping pattern from one synchronised with the sun to an ultradian pattern, in which they sleep when they need to digest food.
Predators.
A variety of predators prey heavily on reindeer, including overhunting by people in some areas, which contributes to the decline of populations.
Golden eagles prey on calves and are the most prolific hunter on the calving grounds. Wolverines will take newborn calves or birthing cows, as well as (less commonly) infirm adults.
Brown bears and polar bears prey on reindeer of all ages but, like wolverines, are most likely to attack weaker animals, such as calves and sick reindeer, since healthy adult reindeer can usually outpace a bear. The gray wolf is the most effective natural predator of adult reindeer and sometimes takes large numbers, especially during the winter. Some gray wolf packs, as well as individual grizzly bears in Canada, may follow and live off of a particular reindeer herd year-round.
In 2020, scientists on Svalbard witnessed, and were able to film for the first time, a polar bear attack reindeer, driving one into the ocean, where the polar bear caught up with and killed it. The same bear successfully repeated this hunting technique the next day. On Svalbard, reindeer remains account for 27.3% in polar bear scats, suggesting that they "may be a significant part of the polar bear's diet in that area".
Additionally, as carrion, reindeer may be scavenged opportunistically by red and Arctic foxes, various species of eagles, hawks and falcons, and common ravens.
Bloodsucking insects, such as mosquitoes, black flies, and especially the reindeer warble fly or reindeer botfly (Hypoderma tarandi) and the reindeer nose botfly (Cephenemyia trompe), are a plague to reindeer during the summer and can cause enough stress to inhibit feeding and calving behaviors. An adult reindeer will lose perhaps about 1 L (0.22 imp gal; 0.26 US gal) of blood to biting insects for every week it spends in the tundra. The population numbers of some of these predators is influenced by the migration of reindeer. Tormenting insects keep caribou on the move, searching for windy areas like hilltops and mountain ridges, rock reefs, lakeshore and forest openings, or snow patches that offer respite from the buzzing horde. Gathering in large herds is another strategy that caribou use to block insects.
Reindeer are good swimmers and, in one case, the entire body of a reindeer was found in the stomach of a Greenland shark (Somniosus microcephalus), a species found in the far North Atlantic.
Other threats
White-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) commonly carry meningeal worm or brainworm (Parelaphostrongylus tenuis), a nematode parasite that causes reindeer, moose (Alces alces), elk (Cervus canadensis), and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) to develop fatal neurological symptoms which include a loss of fear of humans. White-tailed deer that carry this worm are partially immune to it.
Changes in climate and habitat beginning in the 20th century have expanded range overlap between white-tailed deer and caribou, increasing the frequency of infection within the reindeer population. This increase in infection is a concern for wildlife managers. Human activities, such as "clear-cutting forestry practices, forest fires, and the clearing for agriculture, roadways, railways, and power lines," favor the conversion of habitats into the preferred habitat of the white-tailed deer – "open forest interspersed with meadows, clearings, grasslands, and riparian flatlands." Towards the end of the Soviet Union, there was increasingly open admission from the Soviet government that reindeer numbers were being negatively affected by human activity, and that this must be remediated especially by supporting reindeer breeding by native herders.
Conservation
Current status
While overall widespread and numerous, some reindeer species and subspecies are rare and three subspecies have already become extinct. As of 2015, the IUCN has classified the reindeer as Vulnerable due to an observed population decline of 40% over the last +25 years. According to IUCN, Rangifer tarandus as a species is not endangered because of its overall large population and its widespread range.
In North America, the Queen Charlotte Islands caribou and the East Greenland caribou both became extinct in the early 20th century, the Peary caribou is designated as Endangered, the boreal woodland caribou is designated as Threatened and some individual populations are endangered as well. While the barren-ground caribou is not designated as Threatened, many individual herds — including some of the largest — are declining and there is much concern at the local level. Grant's caribou, a small, pale subspecies endemic to the western end of the Alaska Peninsula and the adjacent islands, has not been assessed as to its conservation status.
The status of the Dolphin-Union "herd" was upgraded to Endangered in 2017. In NWT, Dolphin-Union caribou were listed as Special Concern under the NWT Species at Risk (NWT) Act (2013).
Both the Selkirk Mountains caribou (Southern Mountain population DU9) and the Rocky Mountain caribou (Central Mountain population DU8) are classified as Endangered in Canada in regions such as southeastern British Columbia at the Canada–United States border, along the Columbia and Kootenay Rivers and around Kootenay Lake. Rocky Mountain caribou are extirpated from Banff National Park, but a small population remains in Jasper National Park and in mountain ranges to the northwest into British Columbia. Montane caribou are now considered extirpated in the contiguous United States, including Washington and Idaho. Osborn's caribou (Northern Mountain population DU7) is classified as Threatened in Canada.
In Eurasia, the Sakhalin reindeer is extinct (and has been replaced by domestic reindeer) and reindeer on most of the Novaya Zemlya islands have also been replaced by domestic reindeer, although some wild reindeer still persist on the northern islands. Many Siberian tundra reindeer herds have declined, some dangerously, but the Taymir herd remains strong and in total about 940,000 wild Siberian tundra reindeer were estimated in 2010.
There is strong regional variation in Rangifer herd size. By 2013, many caribou herds in North America had "unusually low numbers" and their winter ranges in particular were smaller than they used to be. Caribou numbers have fluctuated historically, but many herds are in decline across their range. There are many factors contributing to the decline in numbers.
Boreal woodland caribou
Ongoing human development of their habitat has caused populations of boreal woodland caribou to disappear from their original southern range. In particular, boreal woodland caribou were extirpated in many areas of eastern North America in the beginning of the 20th century.
Primary School: Sahdulahpur Chandni Panchayat- Karanpura, Block- Hajipur, Bihat, India:
6 years old Annu ( Visually impaired) studies in her first standard class in government primary school Sahdulapur Chandini, May 16, 2013. As part of the School Sanitation and Hygiene Education (SSHE) programme being implemented in partnership with Department of Education, Government of Bihar, UNICEF Bihar is supporting the construction of inclusive, child-friendly water and sanitation facilities in schools, with a focus on addressing needs of ‘differently abled children’. UNICEF India/2013/Prashanth Vishwanathan.
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Immerse yourself in sound. Visually striking, the Pantheone I speaker is as ingenious as it is beautiful, filling a space with perfect acoustics whilst simultaneously co-existing with its surroundings.
Visually impaired athlete and her guide. The guide from these olympics onwards will also receive a medal, a guide must not pass the finish line before the athlete. Womens T12 200 metre final. Runner: EL HANNOUNI Assia of France, her guide is SIMOUNET Gautier. The time 24.46 seconds a new WORLD RECORD!
The Olympic Stadium in Olympic Park in Stratford, London, England was the centrepiece of the 2012 London Olympics, the last stop in the 2012 Olympics torch relay, and the venue of the athletic events as well as the opening and closing ceremonies. It was the central venue of the 2012 London Paralympics.
It is located at Marshgate Lane in London's Stratford district in the Lower Lea Valley. The stadium has a capacity of 80,000, making it the third-largest stadium in England behind Wembley Stadium and Twickenham Stadium.
The stadium's track and field arena is excavated out of the soft clay found on the site, around which is permanent seating for 25,000, built using concrete "rakers". The natural slope of the land is incorporated into the design, with warm-up and changing areas dug into a semi-basement position at the lower end. Spectators enter the stadium via a podium level, which is level with the top of the permanent seating bowl. A demountable lightweight steel and concrete upper tier is built up from this "bowl" to accommodate a further 55,000 spectators.
The stadium is made up of different tiers; during the games the stadium was able to hold 80,000 spectators. The base tier, which will be permanent and allow for 25,000 seats, is a sunken elliptical bowl that is made up of low-carbon-dioxide concrete; this contains 40 percent less embodied carbon than conventional concrete. The foundation of the base level is 5,000 piles reaching up to 20 metres deep. From there, there is a mixture of driven cast in situ piles, continuous flight auger piles, and vibro concrete columns. The second tier, which holds 55,000 seats, is 315 metres long, 256 metres wide, and 60 metres high. The stadium is built using nearly four times less steel, approximately 10,700 tons, in the structure than that of the Olympic Stadium in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. In addition to the minimal use of steel, which makes it 75 percent lighter, the stadium also uses high-yield large diameter pipes which were surplus on completion of North Sea Gas pipeline projects, recycled granite, and many of the building products were transported using trains and barges rather than by lorry.
A group of five performers from Brazil, Tribo de Jah - a reggae band formed at the Maranhão School for the blind - performed on June 18, 2013 at the end of the first day of the WIPO Diplomatic Conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, held from June 17 to 28, 2013. The diplomatic conference aims to conclude a new international treaty to improve access to books for blind, visually impaired, and other print disabled people by establishing an enabling legal framework to facilitate the production of accessible formats and their exchange across borders.
Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Emmanuel Berrod. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
Bangkok's most unmissable attraction is of course the Grand Palace, and most specifically the temple complex of Wat Phra Kaew (Temple of the Emerald Buddha), famed for it's riot of coloured and gilded ornament, paintings and sculptures; quite simply, so visually stunning there is nothing quite like it anywhere else!
The Palace and Temple complex were begun in 1782, the year the capital was moved to Bangkok, and parts of the palace buildings betray 18th century European influence combined with traditional Thai style, such as the breathtaking gilt spires on the roof. Most of the interiors of the Palace itself are off limits to visitors since, although no longer the main residence of the Thai monarchy, it is frequently used for state functions and ceremonies.
The Wat Phra Kaew complex however is the greatest draw, famed for it's stunning architecture and the famous 'Yaksha' guardian figures that flank all the main entrances to the complex. These towering figures, with their rich colours and tapering crowns, represent demonic characters from the mythological epic the 'Ramakien', and are identifiable as distinct individuals, all here serving a benign, protective role.
The Ramakien is also the subject for a stunning sequence of wall paintings within the cloister that encirlces the entire site, illustrating in minute detail the battles of the heroic monkey warriors, led by the monkey god Hanuman, against the demonic armies and kingdoms of Tosakan.
The Temple of the Emerald Buddha itself forms the largest structure and contains the venerated (though small) Buddha image. The complex contains several other iconic buildings clad in sumptuous decor, most notably the library or 'mondop' with it's gilt spire along with the great golden stupa.
The temple complex is technically a royal chapel rather than a working monastery like most Thai temples as it has no resident monks (the sheer volume of visitors leaves little room for anyone else anyway!).
We made two visits here on separate days; our first was with a group and far too rushed, we missed elements we'd wanted to see and the light was poor for photography, so we returned 2 days later with as much time and sunlight as we could want, which was well worth the effort!
What is an outliner?
An outliner is simply a hierarchical editor that allows logical organisation of information visually showing a heirarchy of parent, child relationships. Outliners work because it is thought the heirarchy storage is somegthing that humans grok. [0]
Why do I need one?
The reason I need the outliner is simple. I need to be able to link blocks of information, links, text entries, images all in some form of hierarchy. I simply can't do this with the current set of blocks I have and hence the post, "Playing with blocks on the floor" [1].
For any particular post I need some way of having say a text entry with the Entry block. Then at some time in the future I may add say 3 more comments related to that entry, a photo and several link blocks. All this can be acheived if I create an outlining block that acts as a skeleton that I can add extra blocks to.
In essence the Outliner block is really just a connector that points to a parent and/or a child block. At the same time have a one to one relationship with an Entry, Link, Image block.
Above picture
The above picture shows that I can add various blocks together. The key bit is with a Outline block it holds together this structure. Think of the Outline block as just a connector on a block allowing them to be connected. The Outliner allows you to connect blocks together.
Just what I want.
More about Outliners?
Outliners are the child idea of Doug Englebart [2] and has been continued extensivly by Dave Winer [3]. During the course of this write up I was listening to Dave on Outliners [3] and reading various references to Outliners [4], Dave Winer explaining outlining & programming [5], Doug Englebart [6] and Dave Winer meeting Doug Englebart in 2000 [7].
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References
[0] As heard in Dave Winers Interview on ITConversations, "Behind the Mic" with Doug Kaye, 1:09:05, 31.6 mb, recorded in 27/OCT/2004.
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail260.html
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[1] Bootload image on flickr, 2007MAR231514, "Playing with blocks on the floor"http://flickr.com/photos/bootload/431100768/
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[2] Wikipedia, Doug Englebart, "Wikipedia entry on Doug Englebart"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Engelbart
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[3] ITConversations, Dave Winer, "Behind the Mic with Doug Kaye, 1:09:05, 31.6 mb, recorded in 27/OCT/2004"
http://www.itconversations.com/shows/detail260.html
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[4] Google search, "dave winer & outliner"
http://www.google.com/search?q=dave+winer+outliners
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[5] Dave Winer, Outliners & Programmers, "Dave explains a bit of his history with outliners"
http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[6] Doug Englebart, "Dougs website, Bootstrap Institute"
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
[7] Dave Winer meeting Doug Englebart, "Dinner with Doug Engelbart Friday, October 6, 2000"
http://davenet.smallpicture.com/2000/10/06/dinnerWithDougEngelbart.html
[Accessed Friday, March 30 2007]
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.
Visually we see only what wants to impose our experiences, memories and our learned us.
So we see at this day on German roads, people with headscarves and assozieren, it must be a Muslim. Here my grandmother has always worn headscarves. Des protection from the cold wind for.
We see only what we want to see. We look at the surface.
We get a first impression. And our thoughts play us tricks. We judge. We judge strangers. We judge people that we do not know.
Will a man leave with you. Whoever does not judge, but only considered.
Whoever does not judge and just observed. Whoever does not judge and allows only the kind thoughts. The lives better. It has a higher quality of life.
every day You live better with kind thoughts.
We affect what we see. We must not judge. We must not let the negative thoughts. Our thoughts are free. Manage them in a positive and beautiful direction.
Do you want to run forever with thoughts about how:
One is that a fat ass. That should not attract but.
The much too small. The is much too large.
Too thick. Too thin. Not my taste.
If you keep thinking about other, so sneak often thought in your head and unsettle you. Such as: When I think about others who then also think about me? Cases also an opinion about me?
It is uncertain, and uncertainty always leads to fears and anxieties lead to negative thoughts, to envy, hatred and in some cases, to violence.
Always remember, you can not know what other think. Stay with yourself. Think positive. Go through your life positively. You will feel that it is better you. A convertible. A great change in which many should take an example.
Excuse my English, it is not perfect. But who is that already. ♥
German:
Optik
Optisch sehen wir nur das, was unsere Erfahrungen, Erinnerungen und unser Gelerntes uns aufzwingen will.
So sehen wir heut zu Tage auf den deutschen Straßen, Menschen mit Kopftüchern und assozieren, es muss ein Muslime sein. Dabei hat meine Oma auch immer Kopftücher getragen. Des Schutzes vor dem kalten Wind wegen.
Wir sehen nur das, was wir sehen wollen. Wir schauen auf die Oberfläche.
Wir verschaffen uns einen ersten Eindruck. Und unsere Gedanken spielen uns Streiche. Wir urteilen. Wir urteilen über fremde Menschen. Wir urteilen über Menschen, die wir nicht kennen.
Bleibt doch bei euch. Wer nicht urteilt, sondern nur betrachtet.
Wer nicht urteilt und nur beobachtet. Wer nicht urteilt und nur die freundlichen Gedanken zulässt. Der lebt besser. Man hat eine höhere Lebensqualität.
Man lebt jeden Tag besser mit freundlichen Gedanken.
Wir beeinflussen was wir sehen. Wir müssen nicht urteilen. Wir müssen nicht die negativen Gedanken zu lassen. Unsere Gedanken sind frei. Steuere sie in eine positive und schöne Richtung.
Möchtest du ewig mit Gedanken umher laufen, wie:
Man ist das ein fetter Arsch. Das sollte sie aber nicht anziehen.
Die ist viel zu klein. Die ist viel zu groß.
Zu dick. Zu dünn. Nicht mein Geschmack.
Wenn du so über andere denkst, so schleichen sich oftmals Gedanken in deinen Kopf und verunsichern dich. Wie zum Beispiel: Wenn ich das über andere denke, denken die dann das auch über mich? Fällen die auch ein Urteil über mich?
Man wird unsicherer und Unsicherheit führt immer zu Ängsten und Ängste führen zu negativen Gedanken, zu Neid, zu Hass und in einigen Fällen zu Gewalt.
Denke immer daran, du kannst nicht wissen, was andere Denken. Bleibe bei dir selber. Denke positiv. Gehe positiv durch dein Leben. Du wirst spüren, dass es dir so besser geht. Ein Wandel. Ein großer Wandel an dem sich viele ein Beispiel nehmen sollten.
Illustration: Teresa Robertson (www.teresa-robertson.co.uk). Acknowledgement: Royal National Institute for the Blind UK for permission to adapt original illustration.
Published in:
Community Eye Health Journal Vol. 26 No. 81 2013 www.cehjournal.org
Community Eye Health Journal Vol. 16 No. 45 2003 www.cehjournal.org
WIPO Director General Francis Gurry (center) congratulates Turkey's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva Selim Kulneralp (right), who presided over a key negotiating committee at the WIPO Diplomatic Conference in Marrakesh, on adoption by the committee of the substantive provisions of the treaty. This paves the way for adoption of the treaty on access to published works by the blind, visually impaired and print disabled in plenary session on June 27, 2013 and signing on June 28, 2013.
Copyright: WIPO. Photo: Emmanuel Berrod. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 IGO License.
A group of visually impaired people assist each other as they use their canes as they cross the road, October 11th, 2007, amidst heavey traffic in down-town Nairobi, Kenya. Most of the road-users in the City are either too busy or careless to respect the Zebra-crossing and other road-signs without giving attention to people with special needs who use the roads as well. PHOTO/STEPHEN MUDIARI
Marilyn Rushton, a well-known Burnaby citizen, is awarded with the province’s newest honour, the Medal of Good Citizenship.
Rushton is honoured for her for inspirational life of service to the visually impaired community, her contributions to families with blind and visually impaired children, and her energetic support for the musical community.
Learn more: news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2016IGR0025-001407
One of the more.. visually interesting (and meme filled) anime series that I can think of is none other than Jojo's Bizarre Adventures, which if I'm being completely honest I still don't actually know anything relevant about. I was first introduced to the series when the fighting game came out in the arcade and on the original Playstation. From what I can gather, the series revolves around the fight between the generations of the Joestar family who battle against their immortal supernatural foe, Dio Brando and his forces of darkness using various weapons, Stand abilities (symbiotically bonded magical beings) and of course, EPIC POSING. In fact, the only thing I'm 100 percent certain about in this blurb I just wrote is that there is EPIC POSING.
Well, just after my return to Ontario, I was able to purchase one of these for $20 CAD - presenting the Medicos Super Action Statue JoJo's Bizzare Adventures: Battle Tendency Joseph Joestar figure. Purchased for the purposes of epic posing.
The Jojo series is set in multiple time periods, with the prequel (Battle Tendancy) featuring a Joseph Joestar, the second Jojo and grandfather to the current Jojo (Jotaro), in his prime. Not that I would have minded a middle aged version with a beard and Hermit Purple effects, but this is what I happened upon. What's more interesting is that this my first Medicos product, who make the Super Action Statue series of figures. Unshockingly, the only time I've ever heard their name come up is when Jojo figures are being sold.. but what IS shocking is that apparently they make more than just Jojo figures. Joseph has a MSRP of 6,800 yen, and was popular enough to warrant three releases (2013, 2015, and 2019), along with a repaint with a different head in 2015.
The set comes with the figure, two headsculpts (neutral expression, angry expression with headband), crossbow with drawstring pulled/unpulled effects, a loose bolo, sledgehammer, a variety of posing/weapon holding hands, and a dynamic stand.
The Medicos body (or at least Joseph) seems to be more in line with a true 1/12 scale as compared to Figuarts.... or Joseph is like 7 ft. tall. Either or, I'm OK with it. I'm not sure if there is a base Medicos body, but if there is a one, the Jojo line doed a pretty damn good job at hiding it. Of course, the character designs in the series are so outlandish that there should be no surprise that finding common parts is difficult, though what is easy to see is that the characters all share the same workout regime. Sculptors definitely captured the distinct look of Joseph, down to the eyes and lips that are very much the signature look of the designs. Fabric detailing is pretty much all I could ask for, and the detailing on the muscles is great only to be surpassed by the excellent work done on the hair. Not a dull spot on either sculpt hair wise no matter where you look on that manly mullet of his.
Of course, articulation is the name of the game, and Joseph isn't a slouch either. He features toe, full ankle, double jointed knees, thigh swivel, hips, waist, mid torso, shoulder pivot and rotate with independent joint for shoulder collapse/chest expand, bicep swivel, double jointed elbows, wrist, neck, and head. After some fiddling around with the figure, the only real thing on my wish list was that the hips would allow for further range of motion in the hips, particularly movement of knee towards the body. Neck/head articulation is limited due to the luscious head of hair Joseph has. Otherwise, between the various hands he's got and the ability to move, well, Joseph has all your Voguing needs covered.
Paint is kind of where things fall somewhat apart here.. sort of. For the most part the paint is pretty good. Quality is solid throughout most of the base body, with in my opinion missing paint on the blue part where the knee connecs to the lower leg. Flesh tones are a bit muddy when it comes to texture, most likey the result of a high number of coats needed. Work on the face and hair is surprisingly sharp given the small size, especially the highlights of the eyes. The finer details, however, go a bit into poor quality, most evident with the masking and paint of the fingers and the smaller accents such as the gold on the knuckles, belt buckles, and so on. Bad as it is, however, it thankfully never reaches early 2000s Playarts level of bad, as you can still make out the well detailed fingers and other fine areas, whereas Play Arts would have just dumped a blob of paint on and hoped for the best. Decal work is also pretty good overall, with no real complaints from me.
The overall build is quite good. No issues with warped parts, misaligned joints or limb length, joint strength. Maybe it's just my eyes, but to me it seems like Joseph is made from the same stuff they make NECA, McFarlane, and other North American figures from, just with much, much better QC. I mention this because the plastic seems softer compared to the stuff on my Figuarts, and would be unable to support the finer details use as the meshwork on Endgame Widow's suit. I suspect that material choices might play into the overall price point as well, because sad as it is 6,900 yen is relatively cheap for something like this. Furthermore, while the crossbow and sledgehammer and functional and generally good to look at, upon closer inspection you'll notice some warping and general softness of details.
So overall, a pretty good figure that isn't as crisp looking as Figma or Figuarts, but is able to hold its own due to the very good articulation. The Jojo universe is filled with all sorts of very visually striking characters, and despite my general unfamiliarity of with the property, even I have my favourites. It'll be interesting to see if I run into any of these in the future at a price point that makes me warm and fuzzy, because I really don't see them available for sale that often.
But you can bet if it's on my way somewhere, I'll be there to buy it.
The original tactile paving was developed by Seiichi Miyake in 1965. The paving was first introduced in a street in Okayama city, Japan, in 1967. Its use gradually spread in Japan and then around the world.
Tactile paving (also called truncated domes, detectable warnings, Tactile Ground Surface Indicators) is a system of textured ground surface indicators found on many footpaths and train station platforms to assist blind and vision impaired pedestrians.
Tactile warnings provide a distinctive surface pattern of "truncated domes" or cones (which are small domes or cones that have had their tops cut off, or truncated) detectable by long cane or underfoot which are used to alert people with vision impairments of their approach to streets and hazardous drop-offs. People who are blind or visually impaired are alerted of impending danger from vehicle impact or a grade change.
The above text is from Wikipedia
But for everything that you wanted to know about tactile paving but were afraid to ask, look at this Australian site
The National Disabled Veterans TEE Tournament is the brainchild of several employees of the Iowa City VA Medical Center, along with two visually impaired Iowa Veterans. These visionaries created the TEE Tournament, an acronym standing for TRAINING, EXPOSURE and EXPERIENCE. In 2008, it became one of six VA national rehabilitation programs for Veterans. The event expanded to include not only blind Veterans, but amputees, wheelchairbound Veterans, and those with other life changing disabilities. It takes place each year in Iowa City.