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Now he’s alerted me to a new study and related lecture on what he and his co-authors are calling “peak farmland” — an impending stabilization of the amount of land required for food as humanity’s growth spurt plays out. While laying out several important wild cards (expanded farming of biofuels among them), Ausubel and his co-authors see a reasonable prospect for conserving, and restoring, forests and other stressed terrestrial ecosystems even as humanity exerts an ever greater influence on the planet.
The study, “Peak Farmland and the Prospects for Sparing Nature,” is by Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick and Paul E. Waggoner and will be published next year as part of a special supplement to the journal Population and Development Review, published by the Population Council.
Drawing on a host of data sets, the authors conclude that a combination of slowing population growth, moderated demand for land-intensive food (meat, for instance) and more efficient farming methods have resulted in a substantial “decoupling” of acreage and human appetites.
Here’s the optimistic opener:
Expecting that more and richer people will demand more from the land, cultivating wider fields, logging more forests, and pressing nature, comes naturally. The past half-century of disciplined and dematerializing demand and more intense and efficient land use encourage a rational hope that humanity’s pressure will not overwhelm nature.
Ausubel will describe the findings in a talk during a daylong symposium at his university on Tuesday honoring Paul Demeny, who at age 80 is stepping down as editor of the journal.
Ausubel’s prepared remarks are online. In his talk, he explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have:
[T]he main actors are parents changing population, workers changing affluence, consumers changing the diet (more or less calories, more or less meat) and also the portion of crops entering the food supply (corn can fuel people or cars), and farmers changing the crop production per hectare of cropland (yield).
The new paper builds on a long string of studies by Ausubel and the others, including the 2001 paper “How Much Will Feeding More and Wealthier People Encroach on Forests?.” Also relevant is “Restoring the Forests,” a 2000 article in Foreign Affairs co-written by Ausubel and David G. Victor (now at the University of California, San Diego)
This body of analysis is closely related to the core focus of this blog: finding ways to fit infinite human aspirations (and appetites) on a finite planet. The work presents a compelling case for concentrating agriculture through whatever hybrid mix of means — technological or traditional — that best fits particular situations, but also fostering moderation in consumption.
Here’s an excerpt from the paper’s conclusion, which notes the many wild cards that make the peak farmland scenario still only a plausible, and hardly inevitable, future:
[W]ild cards remain part of the game, both for and against land sparing. As discussed, the wild card of biofuels confounded expectations for the past 15 years. Most wild cards probably will continue to come from consumers. Will people choose to eat much more meat? If so, will it be beef, which requires more land than poultry and fish, which require less? Will people become vegetarian or even vegan? But if they become vegan, will they also choose clothing made from linen, hemp, and cotton, which require hectares? Will the average human continue to grow taller and thus require more calories? Will norms of beauty accept obesity and thus high average calories per capita? Will a global population with a median age of 40 eat less than one with a median age of 28? Will radical innovations in food production move humanity closer to landless agriculture (Ausubel 2010)? Will hunger or international investment encourage cropland expansion in Africa and South America? (Cropland may, of course, shrink in some countries while expanding in others as the global sum declines.) And will time moderate the disparities cloaked within global averages, in particular disparities of hunger and excess among regions and individuals?
Allowing for wild cards, we believe that projecting conservative values for population, affluence, consumers, and technology shows humanity peaking in the use of farmland. Over the next 50 years, the prospect is that humanity is likely to release at least 146 mHa [146 million hectares, or 563,710 square miles], one and a half times the size of Egypt, two and a half times that of France, or ten Iowas, and possibly multiples of this amount.
Notwithstanding the biofuels case, the trends of the past 15 years largely resemble those for the past 50 and 150. We see no evidence of exhaustion of the factors that allow the peaking of cropland and the subsequent restoration of nature.
In an e-mail exchange today, I asked Ausubel about another issue touched on in the paper:
Looking around the planet, it’s clear from a biodiversity standpoint that all forests — or farming pressures — are not equal. For instance, in Southeast Asia, palm oil and orangutans are having a particularly hard time co-existing. So while the overall trend is great, do you see the need for maintaining a focus on particular “hot spots,” to use a term familiar in environmental circles?
So far, I don’t see lots of evidence that conservation campaigners (you are one on ocean resources) have found a way to accept this kind of good news and/or incorporate it in their prescriptions for sustaining a rich and variegated biological sheath on Earth. If you agree, any idea why?
Indonesia is the number one place where letting the underlying trend work will not work fast enough. The list of threatened regions is quite well identified: parts of the central African forest, parts of the Amazon.
Some conservation groups have realized that the slow growth in demand for calories as well as pulp and paper are creating big chances to reserve or protect more land. In the right places, where crops are no longer profitable, some amounts of money can acquire large amounts of land for nature.
Conservation groups also ought to attend more to the ecological disaster called biofuels.
I encourage you to dig in on this paper and related work, which provides a useful guide for softening the human impact on a crowding planet. There’ll be plenty of losses, and surprises, but there are real prospects for sustaining a thriving, and peopled, orb.
6:57 p.m. | Addendum | For relevant work with somewhat different conclusions review the presentations from “Intensifying agriculture within planetary boundaries,” a session at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London last March. I’ll be adding links to other relevant analysis here.
|
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Now he’s alerted me to a new study and related lecture on what he and his co-authors are calling “peak farmland” — an impending stabilization of the amount of land required for food as humanity’s growth spurt plays out. While laying out several important wild cards (expanded farming of biofuels among them), Ausubel and his co-authors see a reasonable prospect for conserving, and restoring, forests and other stressed terrestrial ecosystems even as humanity exerts an ever greater influence on the planet.
The study, “Peak Farmland and the Prospects for Sparing Nature,” is by Ausubel, Iddo K. Wernick and Paul E. Waggoner and will be published next year as part of a special supplement to the journal Population and Development Review, published by the Population Council.
Drawing on a host of data sets, the authors conclude that a combination of slowing population growth, moderated demand for land-intensive food (meat, for instance) and more efficient farming methods have resulted in a substantial “decoupling” of acreage and human appetites.
Here’s the optimistic opener:
Expecting that more and richer people will demand more from the land, cultivating wider fields, logging more forests, and pressing nature
|
, comes naturally. The past half-century of disciplined and dematerializing demand and more intense and efficient land use encourage a rational hope that humanity’s pressure will not overwhelm nature.
Ausubel will describe the findings in a talk during a daylong symposium at his university on Tuesday honoring Paul Demeny, who at age 80 is stepping down as editor of the journal.
Ausubel’s prepared remarks are online. In his talk, he explains that while the common perception is that meeting humanity’s food needs is the task of farmers, there are many other players, including those of us who can choose what to eat and how many children to have:
[T]he main actors are parents changing population, workers changing affluence, consumers changing the diet (more or less calories, more or less meat) and also the portion of crops entering the food supply (corn can fuel people or cars), and farmers changing the crop production per hectare of cropland (yield).
The new paper builds on a long string of studies by Ausubel and the others, including the 2001 paper “How Much Will Feeding More and Wealthier People Encroach on Forests?.” Also relevant is “Restoring the Forests,” a 2000 article in Foreign Affairs co-written by Ausubel and David G. Victor (now at the University of California, San Diego)
This body of analysis is closely related to the core focus of this blog: finding ways to fit infinite human aspirations (and appetites) on a finite planet. The work presents a compelling case for concentrating agriculture through whatever hybrid mix of means — technological or traditional — that best fits particular situations, but also fostering moderation in consumption.
Here’s an excerpt from the paper’s conclusion, which notes the many wild cards that make the peak farmland scenario still only a plausible, and hardly inevitable, future:
[W]ild cards remain part of the game, both for and against land sparing. As discussed, the wild card of biofuels confounded expectations for the past 15 years. Most wild cards probably will continue to come from consumers. Will people choose to eat much more meat? If so, will it be beef, which requires more land than poultry and fish, which require less? Will people become vegetarian or even vegan? But if they become vegan, will they also choose clothing made from linen, hemp, and cotton, which require hectares? Will the average human continue to grow taller and thus require more calories? Will norms of beauty accept obesity and thus high average calories per capita? Will a global population with a median age of 40 eat less than one with a median age of 28? Will radical innovations in food production move humanity closer to landless agriculture (Ausubel 2010)? Will hunger or international investment encourage cropland expansion in Africa and South America? (Cropland may, of course, shrink in some countries while expanding in others as the global sum declines.) And will time moderate the disparities cloaked within global averages, in particular disparities of hunger and excess among regions and individuals?
Allowing for wild cards, we believe that projecting conservative values for population, affluence, consumers, and technology shows humanity peaking in the use of farmland. Over the next 50 years, the prospect is that humanity is likely to release at least 146 mHa [146 million hectares, or 563,710 square miles], one and a half times the size of Egypt, two and a half times that of France, or ten Iowas, and possibly multiples of this amount.
Notwithstanding the biofuels case, the trends of the past 15 years largely resemble those for the past 50 and 150. We see no evidence of exhaustion of the factors that allow the peaking of cropland and the subsequent restoration of nature.
In an e-mail exchange today, I asked Ausubel about another issue touched on in the paper:
Looking around the planet, it’s clear from a biodiversity standpoint that all forests — or farming pressures — are not equal. For instance, in Southeast Asia, palm oil and orangutans are having a particularly hard time co-existing. So while the overall trend is great, do you see the need for maintaining a focus on particular “hot spots,” to use a term familiar in environmental circles?
So far, I don’t see lots of evidence that conservation campaigners (you are one on ocean resources) have found a way to accept this kind of good news and/or incorporate it in their prescriptions for sustaining a rich and variegated biological sheath on Earth. If you agree, any idea why?
Indonesia is the number one place where letting the underlying trend work will not work fast enough. The list of threatened regions is quite well identified: parts of the central African forest, parts of the Amazon.
Some conservation groups have realized that the slow growth in demand for calories as well as pulp and paper are creating big chances to reserve or protect more land. In the right places, where crops are no longer profitable, some amounts of money can acquire large amounts of land for nature.
Conservation groups also ought to attend more to the ecological disaster called biofuels.
I encourage you to dig in on this paper and related work, which provides a useful guide for softening the human impact on a crowding planet. There’ll be plenty of losses, and surprises, but there are real prospects for sustaining a thriving, and peopled, orb.
6:57 p.m. | Addendum | For relevant work with somewhat different conclusions review the presentations from “Intensifying agriculture within planetary boundaries,” a session at the Planet Under Pressure conference in London last March. I’ll be adding links to other relevant analysis here.
|
Taking Play Seriously
By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
Published: February 17, 2008
On a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play -- not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library's main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice and research persuaded him of the dangerous long-term consequences of play deprivation. In a sold-out talk at the library, he and Krista Tippett, host of the public-radio program ''Speaking of Faith,'' discussed the biological and spiritual underpinnings of play. Brown called play part of the ''developmental sequencing of becoming a human primate. If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.''
The message seemed to resonate with audience members, who asked anxious questions about what seemed to be the loss of play in their children's lives. Their concern came, no doubt, from the recent deluge of eulogies to play . Educators fret that school officials are hacking away at recess to make room for an increasingly crammed curriculum. Psychologists complain that overscheduled kids have no time left for the real business of childhood: idle, creative, unstructured free play. Public health officials link insufficient playtime to a rise in childhood obesity. Parents bemoan the fact that kids don't play the way they themselves did -- or think they did. And everyone seems to worry that without the chance to play stickball or hopscotch out on the street, to play with dolls on the kitchen floor or climb trees in the woods, today's children are missing out on something essential.
The success of ''The Dangerous Book for Boys'' -- which has been on the best-seller list for the last nine months -- and its step-by-step instructions for activities like folding paper airplanes is testament to the generalized longing for play's good old days. So were the questions after Stuart Brown's library talk; one woman asked how her children will learn trust, empathy and social skills when their most frequent playing is done online. Brown told her that while video games do have some play value, a true sense of ''interpersonal nuance'' can be achieved only by a child who is engaging all five senses by playing in the three-dimensional world.
This is part of a larger conversation Americans are having about play. Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. Alarming headlines about U.S. students falling behind other countries in science and math, combined with the ever-more-intense competition to get kids into college, make parents rush to sign up their children for piano lessons and test-prep courses instead of just leaving them to improvise on their own; playtime versus r?m?uilding.
Discussions about play force us to reckon with our underlying ideas about childhood, sex differences, creativity and success. Do boys play differently than girls? Are children being damaged by staring at computer screens and video games? Are they missing something when fantasy play is populated with characters from Hollywood's imagination and not their own? Most of these issues are too vast to be addressed by a single field of study (let alone a magazine article). But the growing science of play does have much to add to the conversation. Armed with research grounded in evolutionary biology and experimental neuroscience, some scientists have shown themselves eager -- at times perhaps a little too eager -- to promote a scientific argument for play. They have spent the past few decades learning how and why play evolved in animals, generating insights that can inform our understanding of its evolution in humans too. They are studying, from an evolutionary perspective, to what extent play is a luxury that can be dispensed with when there are too many other competing claims on the growing brain, and to what extent it is central to how that brain grows in the first place.
Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury. Play, in their view, is a central part of neurological growth and development -- one important way that children build complex, skilled, responsive, socially adept and cognitively flexible brains.
Their work still leaves some questions unanswered, including questions about play's darker, more ambiguous side: is there really an evolutionary or developmental need for dangerous games, say, or for the meanness and hurt feelings that seem to attend so much child's play? Answering these and other questions could help us understand what might be lost if children play less.
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Taking Play Seriously
By ROBIN MARANTZ HENIG
Published: February 17, 2008
On a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play -- not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library's main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice and research persuaded him of the dangerous long-term consequences of play deprivation. In a sold-out talk at the library, he and Krista Tippett, host of the public-radio program ''Speaking of Faith,'' discussed the biological and spiritual underpinnings of play. Brown called play part of the ''developmental sequencing of becoming a human primate. If you look at what produces learning and memory and well-being, play is as fundamental as any
|
other aspect of life, including sleep and dreams.''
The message seemed to resonate with audience members, who asked anxious questions about what seemed to be the loss of play in their children's lives. Their concern came, no doubt, from the recent deluge of eulogies to play . Educators fret that school officials are hacking away at recess to make room for an increasingly crammed curriculum. Psychologists complain that overscheduled kids have no time left for the real business of childhood: idle, creative, unstructured free play. Public health officials link insufficient playtime to a rise in childhood obesity. Parents bemoan the fact that kids don't play the way they themselves did -- or think they did. And everyone seems to worry that without the chance to play stickball or hopscotch out on the street, to play with dolls on the kitchen floor or climb trees in the woods, today's children are missing out on something essential.
The success of ''The Dangerous Book for Boys'' -- which has been on the best-seller list for the last nine months -- and its step-by-step instructions for activities like folding paper airplanes is testament to the generalized longing for play's good old days. So were the questions after Stuart Brown's library talk; one woman asked how her children will learn trust, empathy and social skills when their most frequent playing is done online. Brown told her that while video games do have some play value, a true sense of ''interpersonal nuance'' can be achieved only by a child who is engaging all five senses by playing in the three-dimensional world.
This is part of a larger conversation Americans are having about play. Parents bobble between a nostalgia-infused yearning for their children to play and fear that time spent playing is time lost to more practical pursuits. Alarming headlines about U.S. students falling behind other countries in science and math, combined with the ever-more-intense competition to get kids into college, make parents rush to sign up their children for piano lessons and test-prep courses instead of just leaving them to improvise on their own; playtime versus r?m?uilding.
Discussions about play force us to reckon with our underlying ideas about childhood, sex differences, creativity and success. Do boys play differently than girls? Are children being damaged by staring at computer screens and video games? Are they missing something when fantasy play is populated with characters from Hollywood's imagination and not their own? Most of these issues are too vast to be addressed by a single field of study (let alone a magazine article). But the growing science of play does have much to add to the conversation. Armed with research grounded in evolutionary biology and experimental neuroscience, some scientists have shown themselves eager -- at times perhaps a little too eager -- to promote a scientific argument for play. They have spent the past few decades learning how and why play evolved in animals, generating insights that can inform our understanding of its evolution in humans too. They are studying, from an evolutionary perspective, to what extent play is a luxury that can be dispensed with when there are too many other competing claims on the growing brain, and to what extent it is central to how that brain grows in the first place.
Scientists who study play, in animals and humans alike, are developing a consensus view that play is something more than a way for restless kids to work off steam; more than a way for chubby kids to burn off calories; more than a frivolous luxury. Play, in their view, is a central part of neurological growth and development -- one important way that children build complex, skilled, responsive, socially adept and cognitively flexible brains.
Their work still leaves some questions unanswered, including questions about play's darker, more ambiguous side: is there really an evolutionary or developmental need for dangerous games, say, or for the meanness and hurt feelings that seem to attend so much child's play? Answering these and other questions could help us understand what might be lost if children play less.
|
LESSON PLANS AND TIMES MATERIALS FOR TEACHING:
The Academy Awards
The Film Industry
Film in Language Arts
Film in Social Studies/History
Film in Fine Arts
Technology in Film
Lessons on these pages are for grades 6-12, written in consultation with Bank Street College of Education. Each one is paired with a Times article.
Learning Network Features
Selected Times Articles on Film Adaptations
Resources on the Web
LESSONS ON THE ACADEMY AWARDS:
The Envelope, Please
Investigating the Cultural Context of Oscar-Winning Films in the Past and Present
And the Oscar Goes to...
Examining and Creating Criteria for Oscar-Worthy Films
And the Winner Is...
Exploring the Role of the Academy Awards and Film in American Society
LESSONS ON THE FILM INDUSTRY:
Creating Film Festivals that Inform and Entertain Audiences
The Sundance Kids
Exploring What Makes the Independent Film Industry So Attractive to So Many
The Raid on Raters
Exploring the Current Movie Rating System
Minding the Media
Examining Ethical Questions About Media Rating Systems
The Reel World
Exploring the Appropriateness of Movies for Children
Considering the Costs of Making Movies
Fit to Be Tied (In)
Examining How Companies Target the Right Audiences
Old Hobbits Are Hard to Break
Learning About the Marketing of Motion Pictures on the Web
LESSONS ON AND WITH FILMMAKING:
Quiet on the Set!
Exploring Character and Conflict Development by Creating Short Films
Drawing Upon Successful Elements of the "Harry Potter" Series to Develop Short Films
Producing a Documentary Film Spotlighting the Everyday Sights and Sounds of a School
Creating Documentaries About Students' Everyday Lives
Through the Eyes of a Child
Creating Documentaries from the Perspectives of Adolescents
Creating Documentaries About Important Social Issues
Creating a Documentary about Rituals Related to Books
Creating Biographical Films for Current Political Candidates' Campaigns
More Power to You
Creating Documentaries About Energy Sources
Exploring the Pacific Rim by Writing Documentary Film Treatments
LESSONS USING FILM IN LANGUAGE ARTS:
Writing Movie Reviews
Screening the Silver Screen
Writing New York Times Movie Reviews
Exploring Plot Similarities in Fiction and Nonfiction Stories
Constructing Movie Sets Through Descriptive Writing
The Battle of Good and Evil on the Big Screen
A Media Studies Lesson Plan
If I Could Talk Like the Animals. . .
Teaching Personification and Narrative Writing in the Language Arts Classroom
The Sorcerers Shown
Comparing Similar Character Genres in Literature and Film
Talk About the Passion
Creating an Educational Guide to Encourage Critical Thinking about the Film "The Passion of Christ"
Creating Vocabulary-Rich Advertisements to Recognize Glover's Contribution to "Happy Feet"
Analyzing Similarities and Differences Among the Live, Film and Written Versions of Tony Award Winning Productions
LESSONS USING FILM IN SOCIAL STUDIES/HISTORY:
Tell Me Something Good
Analyzing Moviegoers' Preferences in an Economic Recession
Golden Globe as Gauge
Exploring How Hollywood Reflects the American Political and Cultural Climate
Is All Cinema Verité?
Exploring the Relationship Between Movies and Culture
Los Artistas Unidos
Exploring Questions of Diversity in the Casting of Actors for Popular Television Shows and Movies
Exploring Legislation About Violence in the Media
Making Sense of Censorship
Clarifying Rating Systems for Entertainment
Let There Be Peace
Exploring the Accomplishments of Nobel Peace Prize Recipients
A Woman's Worth
Examining the Changing Roles of Women in Cultures Around the World
LESSONS USING FILM IN FINE ARTS:
Setting the Stage from the Page
Creating Original Artwork that Transforms Text to the Big Screen
The Art of Violence
Creating Original Works of Art That Explore the Depiction of Violence
Lyrics of Hazzard
Updating Classic Music for a Movie Soundtrack
State of the Art
Identifying the Merits of a Favorite Work of Art
LESSONS ON TECHNOLOGY IN FILM:
Exploring Plausible Inventions for Make-Believe Movies
The New Fant-"Asia"
Contrasting Animated and Live-Action Filmmaking
Actors and Actresses
Screen Actors Guild
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Sundance Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
LEARNING NETWORK FEATURES:
Student Crossword: Oscar-Winning Films
News Snapshot: Best of the Bunch
News Snapshot: Hopeful Hollywood
News Snapshot: Pop + Art = Oscar?
News Snapshot: Holy Box Office, Batman!
News Snapshot: And the Nominees Are …
Times Movies Section
Times Critics' Picks
Times Reviews archive
The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made
Blog: The Carpetbagger
Interactive Graphic: The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986-2008
SELECTED TIMES ARTICLES ON FILM ADAPTATIONS:
All Right, You Try: Adaptation Isn't Easy
Article by screenwriter Stephen Schiff on the challenges of adapting source material for film, including Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," which became the Charlie Kaufman film "Adaptation."
Can a Film Do Justice to Literature?
Article about arguments over whether or not ''good literature is too substantial to fit through the lens of a camera.''
The Best Novelists, The Worst Movie Adaptations
Article about how great novels don't necessarily translate into great films.
Any Novel Can Be Shaped Into a Movie
Article on how some film adaptations, such as the one of "The English Patient," are as artistic as the novels they are based on.
Cuddling Up to Quasimodo and Friends
Article on film adaptations that are not true to their source material.
Is It Time To Trust Hollywood?
1990 essay by Molly Haskell that takes a broad look at Hollywood's history of book-to-movie adaptations.
Seen the Movie? Read the Book!
1987 essay by John Updike about adapting literature for film.
Adapting and Revising Twain's 'Huck Finn'
1986 essay by book critic Michiko Kakutani on the difficulties of adapting Twain.
2008 essay by Sophie Gee about adaptations of "Beowulf" and "Paradise Lost."
Romancing the Book…Once Again
1992 article about Hollywood's interest in literary classics.
RESOURCES ON THE WEB:
Scenarios USA holds an annual topical writing contest to pair student screenwriters in underserved communities with Hollywood filmmakers, who turn the students' stories into short films. The Scenarios USA Web site includes materials for teachers.
Teacher's Guide to Making Student Movies
From Scholastic Teaching Resources, designed for grades 3-12.
Mini Movie Makers
Resource for student filmmakers, developed by three young brothers.
MORE RESOURCES FOR TEACHING WITH THE TIMES:
Learning Network classroom resources on a wide range of topics.
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LESSON PLANS AND TIMES MATERIALS FOR TEACHING:
The Academy Awards
The Film Industry
Film in Language Arts
Film in Social Studies/History
Film in Fine Arts
Technology in Film
Lessons on these pages are for grades 6-12, written in consultation with Bank Street College of Education. Each one is paired with a Times article.
Learning Network Features
Selected Times Articles on Film Adaptations
Resources on the Web
LESSONS ON THE ACADEMY AWARDS:
The Envelope, Please
Investigating the Cultural Context of Oscar-Winning Films in the Past and Present
And the Oscar Goes to...
Examining and Creating Criteria for Oscar-Worthy Films
And the Winner Is...
Exploring the Role of the Academy Awards and Film in American Society
LESSONS ON THE FILM INDUSTRY:
Creating Film Festivals that Inform and Entertain Audiences
The Sundance Kids
Exploring What Makes the Independent Film Industry So Attractive to So Many
The Raid on Raters
Exploring the Current Movie Rating System
Minding the Media
Examining Ethical Questions About Media Rating Systems
The Reel World
Exploring the Appropriateness of Movies
|
for Children
Considering the Costs of Making Movies
Fit to Be Tied (In)
Examining How Companies Target the Right Audiences
Old Hobbits Are Hard to Break
Learning About the Marketing of Motion Pictures on the Web
LESSONS ON AND WITH FILMMAKING:
Quiet on the Set!
Exploring Character and Conflict Development by Creating Short Films
Drawing Upon Successful Elements of the "Harry Potter" Series to Develop Short Films
Producing a Documentary Film Spotlighting the Everyday Sights and Sounds of a School
Creating Documentaries About Students' Everyday Lives
Through the Eyes of a Child
Creating Documentaries from the Perspectives of Adolescents
Creating Documentaries About Important Social Issues
Creating a Documentary about Rituals Related to Books
Creating Biographical Films for Current Political Candidates' Campaigns
More Power to You
Creating Documentaries About Energy Sources
Exploring the Pacific Rim by Writing Documentary Film Treatments
LESSONS USING FILM IN LANGUAGE ARTS:
Writing Movie Reviews
Screening the Silver Screen
Writing New York Times Movie Reviews
Exploring Plot Similarities in Fiction and Nonfiction Stories
Constructing Movie Sets Through Descriptive Writing
The Battle of Good and Evil on the Big Screen
A Media Studies Lesson Plan
If I Could Talk Like the Animals. . .
Teaching Personification and Narrative Writing in the Language Arts Classroom
The Sorcerers Shown
Comparing Similar Character Genres in Literature and Film
Talk About the Passion
Creating an Educational Guide to Encourage Critical Thinking about the Film "The Passion of Christ"
Creating Vocabulary-Rich Advertisements to Recognize Glover's Contribution to "Happy Feet"
Analyzing Similarities and Differences Among the Live, Film and Written Versions of Tony Award Winning Productions
LESSONS USING FILM IN SOCIAL STUDIES/HISTORY:
Tell Me Something Good
Analyzing Moviegoers' Preferences in an Economic Recession
Golden Globe as Gauge
Exploring How Hollywood Reflects the American Political and Cultural Climate
Is All Cinema Verité?
Exploring the Relationship Between Movies and Culture
Los Artistas Unidos
Exploring Questions of Diversity in the Casting of Actors for Popular Television Shows and Movies
Exploring Legislation About Violence in the Media
Making Sense of Censorship
Clarifying Rating Systems for Entertainment
Let There Be Peace
Exploring the Accomplishments of Nobel Peace Prize Recipients
A Woman's Worth
Examining the Changing Roles of Women in Cultures Around the World
LESSONS USING FILM IN FINE ARTS:
Setting the Stage from the Page
Creating Original Artwork that Transforms Text to the Big Screen
The Art of Violence
Creating Original Works of Art That Explore the Depiction of Violence
Lyrics of Hazzard
Updating Classic Music for a Movie Soundtrack
State of the Art
Identifying the Merits of a Favorite Work of Art
LESSONS ON TECHNOLOGY IN FILM:
Exploring Plausible Inventions for Make-Believe Movies
The New Fant-"Asia"
Contrasting Animated and Live-Action Filmmaking
Actors and Actresses
Screen Actors Guild
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
Sundance Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
LEARNING NETWORK FEATURES:
Student Crossword: Oscar-Winning Films
News Snapshot: Best of the Bunch
News Snapshot: Hopeful Hollywood
News Snapshot: Pop + Art = Oscar?
News Snapshot: Holy Box Office, Batman!
News Snapshot: And the Nominees Are …
Times Movies Section
Times Critics' Picks
Times Reviews archive
The Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made
Blog: The Carpetbagger
Interactive Graphic: The Ebb and Flow of Movies: Box Office Receipts 1986-2008
SELECTED TIMES ARTICLES ON FILM ADAPTATIONS:
All Right, You Try: Adaptation Isn't Easy
Article by screenwriter Stephen Schiff on the challenges of adapting source material for film, including Susan Orlean's "The Orchid Thief," which became the Charlie Kaufman film "Adaptation."
Can a Film Do Justice to Literature?
Article about arguments over whether or not ''good literature is too substantial to fit through the lens of a camera.''
The Best Novelists, The Worst Movie Adaptations
Article about how great novels don't necessarily translate into great films.
Any Novel Can Be Shaped Into a Movie
Article on how some film adaptations, such as the one of "The English Patient," are as artistic as the novels they are based on.
Cuddling Up to Quasimodo and Friends
Article on film adaptations that are not true to their source material.
Is It Time To Trust Hollywood?
1990 essay by Molly Haskell that takes a broad look at Hollywood's history of book-to-movie adaptations.
Seen the Movie? Read the Book!
1987 essay by John Updike about adapting literature for film.
Adapting and Revising Twain's 'Huck Finn'
1986 essay by book critic Michiko Kakutani on the difficulties of adapting Twain.
2008 essay by Sophie Gee about adaptations of "Beowulf" and "Paradise Lost."
Romancing the Book…Once Again
1992 article about Hollywood's interest in literary classics.
RESOURCES ON THE WEB:
Scenarios USA holds an annual topical writing contest to pair student screenwriters in underserved communities with Hollywood filmmakers, who turn the students' stories into short films. The Scenarios USA Web site includes materials for teachers.
Teacher's Guide to Making Student Movies
From Scholastic Teaching Resources, designed for grades 3-12.
Mini Movie Makers
Resource for student filmmakers, developed by three young brothers.
MORE RESOURCES FOR TEACHING WITH THE TIMES:
Learning Network classroom resources on a wide range of topics.
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A.J. NesteBatteries at a station on a Philadelphia commuter line capture excess current when trains brake and store the power for use when a train accelerates.
A giant battery bank installed by the side of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority’s subway tracks a little over a month ago is saving about nine megawatt-hours of power a week, its manufacturer says, which is more electricity than the typical apartment-dweller uses in a year.
The battery system, which I wrote about last year, is allowing the trains to run a bit like Prius hybrids. When they slow down at a station, their motors turn into generators, converting torque into current. Before the battery bank was installed, some of that current was returned to the third rail; but if the voltage got too high, it was shunted instead into a giant electric heater under the train, which simply dissipated the energy as heat.
Now the battery captures excess current, about 3.5 to 4 kilowatt-hours per train that stops, and puts it back on the line when a train is accelerating. Sometimes it does this for several trains at once.
The battery bank is also receiving signals every four seconds from the regional grid operator and either absorbing energy or giving it back to the grid to help balance supply and demand.
Until very recently, the solar industry was mainly concerned with getting a toehold in the production of electricity at a utility-level scale. Now a New Jersey company is looking for its niche in a different field — how to handle a system that is saturated with solar energy, sometimes enough to destabilize the electric grid.
The company, Petra Solar, has a highly visible product: it is under contract to supply 200,000 panels that Public Service Electric & Gas will attached to utility poles around New Jersey. Around 75,000 are already up.
About six feet wide and four feet high, the panels make 200 watts when in full sun, and newer models will make 225 watts, the company says. On a mild day, one could almost meet the needs of an entire house in the daytime; on a hot day, four or five would run a window air conditioner.
On the top side of the panel, the side angled toward the sun, is the obvious attention-getter, the polycrystalline solar cell. What is different is the electronics bolted to the bottom, which are meant to prevent a solar power overdose. They could turn out to be crucial, according to company executives.
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A.J. NesteBatteries at a station on a Philadelphia commuter line capture excess current when trains brake and store the power for use when a train accelerates.
A giant battery bank installed by the side of the Southeast Pennsylvania Transit Authority’s subway tracks a little over a month ago is saving about nine megawatt-hours of power a week, its manufacturer says, which is more electricity than the typical apartment-dweller uses in a year.
The battery system, which I wrote about last year, is allowing the trains to run a bit like Prius hybrids. When they slow down at a station, their motors turn into generators, converting torque into current. Before the battery bank was installed, some of that current was returned to the third rail; but if the voltage got too high, it was shunted instead into a giant electric heater under the train, which simply dissipated the energy as heat.
Now the battery captures excess current, about 3.5 to 4 kilowatt-hours per train that stops, and puts it back on the line when a train is accelerating. Sometimes it does this for several trains at once.
The battery bank is also receiving signals every four seconds from the regional grid operator and either absorbing energy or giving it back to the grid
|
to help balance supply and demand.
Until very recently, the solar industry was mainly concerned with getting a toehold in the production of electricity at a utility-level scale. Now a New Jersey company is looking for its niche in a different field — how to handle a system that is saturated with solar energy, sometimes enough to destabilize the electric grid.
The company, Petra Solar, has a highly visible product: it is under contract to supply 200,000 panels that Public Service Electric & Gas will attached to utility poles around New Jersey. Around 75,000 are already up.
About six feet wide and four feet high, the panels make 200 watts when in full sun, and newer models will make 225 watts, the company says. On a mild day, one could almost meet the needs of an entire house in the daytime; on a hot day, four or five would run a window air conditioner.
On the top side of the panel, the side angled toward the sun, is the obvious attention-getter, the polycrystalline solar cell. What is different is the electronics bolted to the bottom, which are meant to prevent a solar power overdose. They could turn out to be crucial, according to company executives.
|
A few months ago we wrote about Kristianstad, Sweden, an area that now uses biomass to generate all of its heat and some of its electricity. That city pioneered use of this renewable technology, and gradually biomass evolved from a niche component of its fuel mix to the backbone of its fuel supply.
A number of rural areas in Germany and the Netherlands have undertaken similar projects. As the article noted, while biomass could be deployed in similar agricultural regions in the United States, adoption has been slow in this country.
That looks as if it might be changing.
This week the federal Department of Agriculture announced a host of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in rural America, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is touring the Midwest, seeding biomass projects as he goes.
On Friday, the departments of Agriculture and Energy announced that up to $30 million would go toward supporting research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy and “high-value biobased products” over the next three to four years.
The money is to be dispensed through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, which started accepting proposals last year.
If properly produced, biomass heat and power produce fewer emissions than fossil fuels like coal or oil because much of the material used as fuel would otherwise sit in landfill releasing methane, a potent greenhouse gas, as it rots. The use of biomass could also reduce the need to import oil. President Obama has called for a one-third reduction in the nation’s oil imports by 2025.
Biomass can include old tree cuttings, rice husks, corn stalks, manure -– almost any kind of biological farm waste. In the past these leftovers were typically left to rot. So a growing number of agricultural regions are burning them or degrading them through chemical digestion to produce biogas.
But new forms of biomass, like the algae biomass produced at the plant that Secretary Vilsack is visiting Friday afternoon, do not use agricultural leftovers; they rely on farmers or factories that grow plants specifically for use as fuel. That involves a different kind of trade-off, since those fields and farms could instead be growing food.
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A few months ago we wrote about Kristianstad, Sweden, an area that now uses biomass to generate all of its heat and some of its electricity. That city pioneered use of this renewable technology, and gradually biomass evolved from a niche component of its fuel mix to the backbone of its fuel supply.
A number of rural areas in Germany and the Netherlands have undertaken similar projects. As the article noted, while biomass could be deployed in similar agricultural regions in the United States, adoption has been slow in this country.
That looks as if it might be changing.
This week the federal Department of Agriculture announced a host of renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in rural America, and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is touring the Midwest, seeding biomass projects as he goes.
On Friday, the departments of Agriculture and Energy announced that up to $30 million would go toward supporting research and development in advanced biofuels, bioenergy and “high-value biobased products” over the next three to four years.
The money is to be dispensed through the Biomass Research and Development Initiative, which started accepting proposals last year.
If properly produced, biomass heat and power produce fewer emissions than fossil fuels like coal or oil because much of the material used as fuel would otherwise sit in landfill releasing methane
|
, a potent greenhouse gas, as it rots. The use of biomass could also reduce the need to import oil. President Obama has called for a one-third reduction in the nation’s oil imports by 2025.
Biomass can include old tree cuttings, rice husks, corn stalks, manure -– almost any kind of biological farm waste. In the past these leftovers were typically left to rot. So a growing number of agricultural regions are burning them or degrading them through chemical digestion to produce biogas.
But new forms of biomass, like the algae biomass produced at the plant that Secretary Vilsack is visiting Friday afternoon, do not use agricultural leftovers; they rely on farmers or factories that grow plants specifically for use as fuel. That involves a different kind of trade-off, since those fields and farms could instead be growing food.
|
The thick durable sea ice that routinely cloaked much of the Arctic Ocean in colder decades in the 20th century is increasingly relegated to a few clotted places along northern Canada and Greenland, according to the latest satellite analysis of the warming region.
The following video gives you a fascinating view of one patch of sea ice through 90 days, provided by a webcam left behind by researchers who annually set up camp near the North Pole to check ocean and ice conditions up close.
The new analysis, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research on Tuesday, is the latest of many findings supporting the idea that the region has shifted to a new state in which seasonal ice, which forms in winter and melts in the summer, dominates. This is the main reason biologists have concerns for the long-term welfare of polar bears, which have a harder time sustaining their weight and reproducing when summertime ice is thin. At the same time, the shift bodes well for shippers, like the German company Beluga, that have plans to start sending goods from Asia to northern Europe through the fabled, but long impassible, Northern Sea Route over Russia.
The study, conducted by scientists from NASA, the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology estimated changes from 2003 to 2008 in the total volume and thickness of what’s called multi-year ice, the yards-thick floes that can persist through a summer (here’s some video I shot while standing on a mix of old and thinner ice in 2003), and seasonal ice, which can grow to 6 feet in thickness in winter but vanishes in summer.
For a look at how this summer’s Arctic sea-ice season may unfold, visit Sea Ice Outlook 2009, where more than a dozen groups of ice researchers are posting experimental forecasts of how the ice is likely to fare. There’s a strong consensus that the season will see much less sea ice than the average for the period monitored by satellites (from 1979 onward), but is unlikely to see the extent of open water measured in 2007.
To get a sense of how the views of Arctic experts have coalesced around a rising human influence on the region’s climate, you can scan previous stories from 2001, 2005, and 2007 on ice trends and possible causes.
|
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The thick durable sea ice that routinely cloaked much of the Arctic Ocean in colder decades in the 20th century is increasingly relegated to a few clotted places along northern Canada and Greenland, according to the latest satellite analysis of the warming region.
The following video gives you a fascinating view of one patch of sea ice through 90 days, provided by a webcam left behind by researchers who annually set up camp near the North Pole to check ocean and ice conditions up close.
The new analysis, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research on Tuesday, is the latest of many findings supporting the idea that the region has shifted to a new state in which seasonal ice, which forms in winter and melts in the summer, dominates. This is the main reason biologists have concerns for the long-term welfare of polar bears, which have a harder time sustaining their weight and reproducing when summertime ice is thin. At the same time, the shift bodes well for shippers, like the German company Beluga, that have plans to start sending goods from Asia to northern Europe through the fabled, but long impassible, Northern Sea Route over Russia.
The study, conducted by scientists from NASA, the University of Washington and the California Institute of Technology estimated changes
|
from 2003 to 2008 in the total volume and thickness of what’s called multi-year ice, the yards-thick floes that can persist through a summer (here’s some video I shot while standing on a mix of old and thinner ice in 2003), and seasonal ice, which can grow to 6 feet in thickness in winter but vanishes in summer.
For a look at how this summer’s Arctic sea-ice season may unfold, visit Sea Ice Outlook 2009, where more than a dozen groups of ice researchers are posting experimental forecasts of how the ice is likely to fare. There’s a strong consensus that the season will see much less sea ice than the average for the period monitored by satellites (from 1979 onward), but is unlikely to see the extent of open water measured in 2007.
To get a sense of how the views of Arctic experts have coalesced around a rising human influence on the region’s climate, you can scan previous stories from 2001, 2005, and 2007 on ice trends and possible causes.
|
The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one.
Stocking records and the tangled genetic patchwork of trout in the southern Rocky Mountain region suggest that efforts to replenish populations were far more extensive and began earlier than previously recognized. Between 1885 and 1953, state and federal agencies stocked more than 750 million brook trout, rainbow trout and cutthroat trout from hatcheries into streams and lakes in Colorado, the researchers found.
The study, published on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Ecology as a follow-up to a 2007 study led by the same biologist, Jessica Metcalf, yielded some findings that “may be uncomfortable,” Kevin Rogers, a researcher for Colorado’s state parks authority, said in a call with reporters.
Doug Krieger, senior aquatic biologist for the same agency, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, predicted that the study would shift the direction of conservation efforts.
A shift in the scientific landscape is not an entirely new experience for fish managers working with the cutthroat trout in the region. The 2007 study shook the very foundations of cutthroat trout recovery efforts, showing that managers had accidentally mixed a different subspecies of cutthroat trout, the Colorado cutthroat, with the rare greenback, and then stocked these hybrid strains into otherwise pure greenback streams.
The latest study, whose co-authors also include the biologist Chris Kennedy of the Fish and Wildlife Service and scientists with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Center for Ancient DNA and the University of Colorado, Boulder, shows that the last surviving greenback population lies within a four-mile stretch of a small alpine stream known as Bear Creek. The stream is about five miles southwest of Colorado Springs, on the eastern slope of Pikes Peak.
Located outside the greenback’s native range, this holdout population is probably descended from fish stocked at the Bear Creek headwaters in the 1880’s by a hotelier seeking to promote a tourist route up Pikes Peak, the researchers say.
To map out the historic distribution and range of a species whose taxonomic record is, to quote the latest study, “rife with errors,” Dr. Metcalf sampled skin, gill, muscle and bone from trout specimens collected in Colorado and New Mexico from 1857 to 1889, before the state and federal efforts to propagate and stock native trout were ramped up.
Now housed in museums including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the California Academy of Sciences, the specimens were preserved in ethanol. “The DNA was very degraded, and there wasn’t very much of it,” Dr. Metcalf said. “So this took a lot of effort and repeated sequencing for each specimen.”
Still, ethanol preservation opened a window to the past. “After the 1900’s, a lot of things were fixed in formalin, which keeps them looking the way they were when they were collected,” Dr. Metcalf said. “Before that, things were just straight up pickled” in ethanol.”
The problem for latter-day genetic sleuths is that formalin actually binds with DNA, making the latter impossible to recover. It’s not always obvious what chemicals were used for a given specimen, but the fact that some fish appeared partially decayed was a good sign these trout were preserved the old-fashioned way (in ethanol only), leaving fragments of DNA intact.
“The DNA I get out of 15,000-year-old, extremely degraded animals from Patagonia is in better shape than these ethanol-preserved fish,” she said.
Aside from presenting an approach for using pre-1900 museum specimens to provide a baseline for historic diversity, the study effectively yanks the rug out from under cutthroat trout restoration efforts and raises the stakes in a lawsuit filed last week by the Center for Biological Diversity against federal land managers.
The center claims that “rampant motorcycle use” permitted on trails running along and across Bear Creek is destroying precious habitat. “We’ve asked the forest service to close that trail to motorcycle use and move it,” the director of the organization’s endangered species program, Noah Greenwald, said in an interview.
Even after the construction of bridges and other projects designed to minimize erosion, Mr. Greenwald said, heavy trafficking of erosive soil around Bear Creek causes sediments to fill pools that are vital to cutthroat trout survival.
“It’s a really small stream,” he said. “So the pools are super-important during drought, when the stream freezes in the wintertime, and to hide from predators.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service does not plan to take immediate action around Bear Creek in response to the Metcalf research, which the agency helped finance as a member of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team. Other funds flowed from the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and Trout Unlimited.
A Fish and Wildlife Service representative told reporters on Monday that the greenback’s status would not be changed from threatened to endangered until a thorough scientific review was carried out and the public had a chance to weigh in. Separate research that the agency will use to crosscheck Dr. Metcalf’s genetic results is to be completed this fall.
Historic records indicate that Bear Creek, like many high-alpine streams made inaccessible by waterfalls and other natural barriers, once had no fish at all. When frontiersmen arrived in the area, they typically would settle near a creek, Dr. Metcalf said., “The first thing you’re going to do is stock it, so you have a good food resource right by your house all year round,” she said,
The revelation that Bear Creek is home to the last remaining greenback cutthroats underscores the importance of protecting the population, said Mr. Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.
“If we can’t protect it, if we don’t do what’s necessary to protect it, “we’re at risk of losing another one of these cutthroat trout subspecies, and that would be a real tragedy,” he said.
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The rare greenback cutthroat trout, Colorado’s state fish, is even more imperiled than scientists thought, a new study suggests. By analyzing DNA sampled from cutthroat trout specimens pickled in ethanol for 150 years, comparing it with the genes of today’s cutthroat populations, and cross-referencing more than 40,000 historic stocking records, researchers in Colorado and Australia have revealed that the fish survives not in five wild populations, but just one.
Stocking records and the tangled genetic patchwork of trout in the southern Rocky Mountain region suggest that efforts to replenish populations were far more extensive and began earlier than previously recognized. Between 1885 and 1953, state and federal agencies stocked more than 750 million brook trout, rainbow trout and cutthroat trout from hatcheries into streams and lakes in Colorado, the researchers found.
The study, published on Monday in the peer-reviewed journal Molecular Ecology as a follow-up to a 2007 study led by the same biologist, Jessica Metcalf, yielded some findings that “may be uncomfortable,” Kevin Rogers, a researcher for Colorado’s state parks authority, said in a call with
|
reporters.
Doug Krieger, senior aquatic biologist for the same agency, Colorado Parks and Wildlife, predicted that the study would shift the direction of conservation efforts.
A shift in the scientific landscape is not an entirely new experience for fish managers working with the cutthroat trout in the region. The 2007 study shook the very foundations of cutthroat trout recovery efforts, showing that managers had accidentally mixed a different subspecies of cutthroat trout, the Colorado cutthroat, with the rare greenback, and then stocked these hybrid strains into otherwise pure greenback streams.
The latest study, whose co-authors also include the biologist Chris Kennedy of the Fish and Wildlife Service and scientists with the University of Adelaide’s Australian Center for Ancient DNA and the University of Colorado, Boulder, shows that the last surviving greenback population lies within a four-mile stretch of a small alpine stream known as Bear Creek. The stream is about five miles southwest of Colorado Springs, on the eastern slope of Pikes Peak.
Located outside the greenback’s native range, this holdout population is probably descended from fish stocked at the Bear Creek headwaters in the 1880’s by a hotelier seeking to promote a tourist route up Pikes Peak, the researchers say.
To map out the historic distribution and range of a species whose taxonomic record is, to quote the latest study, “rife with errors,” Dr. Metcalf sampled skin, gill, muscle and bone from trout specimens collected in Colorado and New Mexico from 1857 to 1889, before the state and federal efforts to propagate and stock native trout were ramped up.
Now housed in museums including the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History and the California Academy of Sciences, the specimens were preserved in ethanol. “The DNA was very degraded, and there wasn’t very much of it,” Dr. Metcalf said. “So this took a lot of effort and repeated sequencing for each specimen.”
Still, ethanol preservation opened a window to the past. “After the 1900’s, a lot of things were fixed in formalin, which keeps them looking the way they were when they were collected,” Dr. Metcalf said. “Before that, things were just straight up pickled” in ethanol.”
The problem for latter-day genetic sleuths is that formalin actually binds with DNA, making the latter impossible to recover. It’s not always obvious what chemicals were used for a given specimen, but the fact that some fish appeared partially decayed was a good sign these trout were preserved the old-fashioned way (in ethanol only), leaving fragments of DNA intact.
“The DNA I get out of 15,000-year-old, extremely degraded animals from Patagonia is in better shape than these ethanol-preserved fish,” she said.
Aside from presenting an approach for using pre-1900 museum specimens to provide a baseline for historic diversity, the study effectively yanks the rug out from under cutthroat trout restoration efforts and raises the stakes in a lawsuit filed last week by the Center for Biological Diversity against federal land managers.
The center claims that “rampant motorcycle use” permitted on trails running along and across Bear Creek is destroying precious habitat. “We’ve asked the forest service to close that trail to motorcycle use and move it,” the director of the organization’s endangered species program, Noah Greenwald, said in an interview.
Even after the construction of bridges and other projects designed to minimize erosion, Mr. Greenwald said, heavy trafficking of erosive soil around Bear Creek causes sediments to fill pools that are vital to cutthroat trout survival.
“It’s a really small stream,” he said. “So the pools are super-important during drought, when the stream freezes in the wintertime, and to hide from predators.”
The Fish and Wildlife Service does not plan to take immediate action around Bear Creek in response to the Metcalf research, which the agency helped finance as a member of the Greenback Cutthroat Trout Recovery Team. Other funds flowed from the Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service and Trout Unlimited.
A Fish and Wildlife Service representative told reporters on Monday that the greenback’s status would not be changed from threatened to endangered until a thorough scientific review was carried out and the public had a chance to weigh in. Separate research that the agency will use to crosscheck Dr. Metcalf’s genetic results is to be completed this fall.
Historic records indicate that Bear Creek, like many high-alpine streams made inaccessible by waterfalls and other natural barriers, once had no fish at all. When frontiersmen arrived in the area, they typically would settle near a creek, Dr. Metcalf said., “The first thing you’re going to do is stock it, so you have a good food resource right by your house all year round,” she said,
The revelation that Bear Creek is home to the last remaining greenback cutthroats underscores the importance of protecting the population, said Mr. Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity.
“If we can’t protect it, if we don’t do what’s necessary to protect it, “we’re at risk of losing another one of these cutthroat trout subspecies, and that would be a real tragedy,” he said.
|
Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon provide the Second Sunday acrostic puzzles every second week. If you think that’s all they do, you need to read my interview with them from last year. This weekend we are treated to one of their Cryptic Crosswords.
I try to be careful writing about these puzzles because I’d rather not give too much away. Feel free to comment on any clues or answers, or to ask any questions, and we can let the conversation happen that way. If you’re new to these Cryptic shenanigans, it might be instructive to consider the first two clues, and then you’re on your own.
1 Across is “From stem to stern, tossed in the Sound (10).” The parenthetical number at the end tells us the number of letters in the answer. The trick to these puzzles is realizing that, for most clues, there are two parts that each point to the same answer. Often is it difficult to separate those parts, so you have to be on your toes. It looks as if this one might mean “from stem to stern” and there is a word meaning tossed inside another one meaning Sound.
That’s a perfectly logical parsing of the clue. It’s also wrong. Sound here means “sounds like,” so we’re looking for a single word meaning “from stem to stern” that sounds like a word or phrase meaning “tossed.” THROUGHOUT fits that description. Reread the explanation here if it doesn’t make sense right away.
The clue at 6 Across reads “Exchange hands, from right to left (4).” In this case, the answer is SWAP. It means exchange. What has swap to do with “hands from right to left”? Follow the directions in the clue to find out.
Cryptics are an acquired taste, but once you get over the hump, they’re great fun. They often benefit from solving with a friend, who might be able to look at the clues at a different angle when you’re stuck.
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Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon provide the Second Sunday acrostic puzzles every second week. If you think that’s all they do, you need to read my interview with them from last year. This weekend we are treated to one of their Cryptic Crosswords.
I try to be careful writing about these puzzles because I’d rather not give too much away. Feel free to comment on any clues or answers, or to ask any questions, and we can let the conversation happen that way. If you’re new to these Cryptic shenanigans, it might be instructive to consider the first two clues, and then you’re on your own.
1 Across is “From stem to stern, tossed in the Sound (10).” The parenthetical number at the end tells us the number of letters in the answer. The trick to these puzzles is realizing that, for most clues, there are two parts that each point to the same answer. Often is it difficult to separate those parts, so you have to be on your toes. It looks as if this one might mean “from stem to stern” and there is a word meaning tossed inside another one meaning Sound.
That’s a perfectly logical parsing of the clue. It’s also wrong. Sound here
|
means “sounds like,” so we’re looking for a single word meaning “from stem to stern” that sounds like a word or phrase meaning “tossed.” THROUGHOUT fits that description. Reread the explanation here if it doesn’t make sense right away.
The clue at 6 Across reads “Exchange hands, from right to left (4).” In this case, the answer is SWAP. It means exchange. What has swap to do with “hands from right to left”? Follow the directions in the clue to find out.
Cryptics are an acquired taste, but once you get over the hump, they’re great fun. They often benefit from solving with a friend, who might be able to look at the clues at a different angle when you’re stuck.
|
The Energy Information Administration has released “World Shale Gas Resources,” an important commissioned report providing an assessment of how much natural gas is locked in shale deposits in 14 regions around the world. (Here’s its overview of shale gas in the United States.) Here’s a map of the surveyed regions:
The report includes some pretty remarkable numbers from countries that currently have limited domestic gas options, including China and quite a few western European nations that have been held somewhat hostage by Russia. Its publication comes in sync with a disturbing article in The Times noting how much crop production, including tropical staples such as cassava, is being diverted to making biofuels.
I sent the following query to a batch of people immersed in assessing and/or developing the world’s energy menu but it’s a query for you, as well, of course (I’ve tweaked it to remove some e-mail shorthand):
I would greatly appreciate some reflection from you on the new shale gas assessment from EIA (global estimates for areas that have been surveyed) against the trends for food crops, including cassava, going to make fuels, as reported today by Elisabeth Rosenthal in The Times.
I’ve seen some fresh analysis saying this new shale report completely ices the case that gas is now (more than was already clear) a fundamental game changer.
The figures for China help explain why a team of Chinese gas experts, as I was told not long ago by folks at Oklahoma State University, has been there studying extraction technologies.
There are strong new hints that gas can play a much bigger role in energy for transport (for example LNG for big trucks) and that it will (and should?) outcompete nuclear, coal and renewables for electricity (at least in the US).
Can it compete with the political influence of big agriculture here, and, any time soon, with coal in China?
Jesse Ausubel long ago also noted that natural gas is a far better bet to link with carbon capture (through “zero emission power plant” technology), if you think carbon capture and sequestration is a serious prospect down the line.
So is this it?
One thing I note in that E.I.A. report is the big blank spots in assessed regions, many of which (like much of sub-Saharan Africa, of course) are also regions locked in deep energy poverty. How does this gas push relate to ending energy poverty in such places?
The first reply came from Ausubel, a Rockefeller University scholar who long ago predicted the ascendancy of gas as part of humanity’s move away from carbon and toward hydrogen. He stressed that more conventional gas deposits are already changing the energy game:
While the shale gas matters a lot for the overall outlook and industry confidence, my money remains on the “clean” deep gas, both offshore and continental, as the bigger source of supply delivered over the long run. Discoveries and technologies keep appearing. See [this link] – a rig for 3,000 meters of water and 10,000 meters of seafloor, delivered.
Google the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields off Israel.
I sent him this followup question:
Between the clean gas and the shale options, though, is it fair to say this is “The Gas Age”? Are we going to move off the “coal rung” of Loren Eiseley’s heat ladder more quickly?
Yes, we live in a world of Methane Abundance. Recognition is diffusing.
|
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The Energy Information Administration has released “World Shale Gas Resources,” an important commissioned report providing an assessment of how much natural gas is locked in shale deposits in 14 regions around the world. (Here’s its overview of shale gas in the United States.) Here’s a map of the surveyed regions:
The report includes some pretty remarkable numbers from countries that currently have limited domestic gas options, including China and quite a few western European nations that have been held somewhat hostage by Russia. Its publication comes in sync with a disturbing article in The Times noting how much crop production, including tropical staples such as cassava, is being diverted to making biofuels.
I sent the following query to a batch of people immersed in assessing and/or developing the world’s energy menu but it’s a query for you, as well, of course (I’ve tweaked it to remove some e-mail shorthand):
I would greatly appreciate some reflection from you on the new shale gas assessment from EIA (global estimates for areas that have been surveyed) against the trends for food crops, including cassava, going to make fuels, as reported today by Elisabeth Rosenthal in The Times.
I’ve seen some fresh analysis saying this new shale report completely ices the case
|
that gas is now (more than was already clear) a fundamental game changer.
The figures for China help explain why a team of Chinese gas experts, as I was told not long ago by folks at Oklahoma State University, has been there studying extraction technologies.
There are strong new hints that gas can play a much bigger role in energy for transport (for example LNG for big trucks) and that it will (and should?) outcompete nuclear, coal and renewables for electricity (at least in the US).
Can it compete with the political influence of big agriculture here, and, any time soon, with coal in China?
Jesse Ausubel long ago also noted that natural gas is a far better bet to link with carbon capture (through “zero emission power plant” technology), if you think carbon capture and sequestration is a serious prospect down the line.
So is this it?
One thing I note in that E.I.A. report is the big blank spots in assessed regions, many of which (like much of sub-Saharan Africa, of course) are also regions locked in deep energy poverty. How does this gas push relate to ending energy poverty in such places?
The first reply came from Ausubel, a Rockefeller University scholar who long ago predicted the ascendancy of gas as part of humanity’s move away from carbon and toward hydrogen. He stressed that more conventional gas deposits are already changing the energy game:
While the shale gas matters a lot for the overall outlook and industry confidence, my money remains on the “clean” deep gas, both offshore and continental, as the bigger source of supply delivered over the long run. Discoveries and technologies keep appearing. See [this link] – a rig for 3,000 meters of water and 10,000 meters of seafloor, delivered.
Google the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields off Israel.
I sent him this followup question:
Between the clean gas and the shale options, though, is it fair to say this is “The Gas Age”? Are we going to move off the “coal rung” of Loren Eiseley’s heat ladder more quickly?
Yes, we live in a world of Methane Abundance. Recognition is diffusing.
|
Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In a violent denouement to the enormous set-piece battles of Second Bull Run and Antietam in the summer of 1862, that fall cavalry clashes raged across Northern Virginia. In dozens of farm villages and crossroads communities, roving bands of Union and Confederate horsemen engaged in a series of brief and often bloody skirmishes. One such fight took place near the hamlet of Little Washington on Nov. 8, 1862.
The action began when a squadron of Union Army regulars collided with an enemy picket composed of a Georgia lieutenant and 10 of his men. The Yankees charged the outnumbered rebels, but the rebels “gallantly met the onset, falling back slowly to a narrow lane, stubbornly contesting the ground,” reported an unidentified Confederate in a pamphlet published during the war. The mingled sounds of battle were heard by the main body of Georgia troops at their nearby camp, who hurriedly formed a column and rode to the relief of their endangered comrades. Among the first to saddle up was one of Georgia’s most admired horse soldiers, Will Delony.
Raw aggression coursed through the veins of this beau idéal of a Southern cavalryman. “His full brown or mahogany beard and high massive forehead, intellectual face and eagle eyes, marked him as a man among men, resembling the finer full-bearded engravings I have seen of Stonewall Jackson,” noted one Georgian soldier, Wiley C. Howard.
That day Delony was to prove himself worthy of such a comparison. Indeed, what occurred next was “one of the bloodiest little fights that the history of our great struggle for right and liberty will ever record,” Howard wrote.
The unidentified Confederate observer reported that “Delony, putting spurs to his horse, left the column behind and dashed up into the melee, and hand to hand with his own boys, nearly all of whom had been cut down, was delivering his blows right and left.” Howard remembered that Delony “was fighting like a mad boar with a whole pack of curs about him, having his bridle hand dreadfully hacked, his head gashed and side thrust.”
The bluecoats called on him to surrender, but Delony barked back at the federals to lay down their own arms instead: “Surrender! By God! I am the best man!” and felled one enemy soldier with a blow of his sword.
Suddenly Delony was attacked by another saber-swinging federal. “His new antagonist’s blows were dexterously dealt, and an instant parry saved his head; a quick, heavy blow, partially warded off, fell broadside and deadened his sword arm, causing it to fall by his side,” Howard reported. But just then the column of Georgians thundered upon the scene, led by Pvt. Jimmie Clanton, mounted “on a little keen black charger.” He made a beeline for the federal cavalryman, who was raising his sword to send the vulnerable Delony to his maker. Clanton, “with upraised gleaming sabre, arrests the fatal blow by cleaving the confident antagonist’s head in twain, and half raising it for another stroke, a pistol shot sends the noble lad, too, reeling from his saddle dangerously wounded.”
The rebel column tore into the Yankees. The unidentified Confederate reported that the federals “began to yield and give ground, when a body of our dismounted men gained their flanks.” He added, “Here our artillery came dashing up and completed the success and sent them scampering down the road at a most inconvenient speed.”
The next day in camp, Delony sat on a log in camp with his head and hand bandaged. Howard recalled that he “showed me a small metallic flask, which he carried in his inside coat pocket, near the region of the heart and lungs, which showed an entire saber point thrust nearly a quarter of an inch wide clear through the metal.” Delony remarked “that he had sometimes felt that he would hate for his wife, in case he fell in battle, to know that it was there; but, with a humorous smile said he now thought it a good idea for every man to have one on him at the vulnerable spot where the cold steel struck with such force.”
Neither Howard nor Delony mentioned if the flask was full or empty before the enemy saber pierced it. Chances are Delony had taken a deep draught before the fight; his habitual drinking had prompted several officers to express concern to Delony’s colonel, Thomas R.R. Cobb. Delony’s fondness of the flask disturbed Cobb very much. “I don’t know what to do about it,” he confessed in a letter to his wife.
No evidence exists that Delony drank before he joined the military. An honor graduate from the University of Georgia and a successful attorney in Athens, he raised a cavalry company known as the Georgia Troopers in 1861. The rank and file elected him captain, a common practice in the volunteer army. Delony and his men then joined the “Georgia Legion,” a force of artillery, cavalry and infantry designed loosely around a Roman legion and organized by Colonel Cobb, a popular and charismatic leader (in fact, the unit became better known as “Cobb’s Legion”).
The concept of a legion proved impractical, and it was not used as such during the war. The cavalry from Cobb’s Legion served with Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, where Delony proved himself a caring leader. Howard exclaimed, “How his men loved him, and how he stood by them, contending always for their rights and looking after their comforts, when others would treat them indifferently! His heart and purse were ever open to their needs.”
As he showed that day in Little Washington, Delony was at his very best in combat. He could always be found in the hottest part of a battle, and inspired the ranks by his deeds. “He was a game fighter and dared to attempt anything,” Howard said, “even though it seemed impossible to others.”
Howard recalled Delony’s actions on June 9, 1863, at Brandy Station — the largest cavalry battle of the war. By this time Delony had advanced to lieutenant colonel, and Pierce M.B. Young had replaced Cobb as colonel. At one point during the engagement, the Georgians charged federal cavalry, “and soon their splendid line was all broken and each man of us was fencing and fighting for the time his individual foe, the fiery and impetuous onslaught of the Southron was too much for the steady courage of the Northman, and quick and fast as the blows fell and the cold steel slashed, the most of the enemy were making to their rear.”
Howard observed Delony “smiting Yankees right and left as he charged along in advance. He sat on his charger grandly, his fine physique and full mahogany beard flowing, he looked a very Titan war god, flushed with the exuberance and exhilaration of victory. He called to me to rally with others of his old company about him and on he led us pressing the retreating foe.”
On they charged until caught in devastating cross-fire by dismounted federals. Colonel Young ordered Delony to withdraw. “But,” Howard wrote, “shaking his head and lion-like beard Delony said, ‘Young, let’s charge them,’ and in two or three minutes five horses fell and a number of our men had been shot. By this time, however, the enemy’s whole line in sight were giving way and on we went, those not unhorsed or crippled. So fierce and fast was the fighting, we had not time to accept surrender offered by many Yankees — just rode on and left them behind.”
Several weeks later, in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg Campaign, Delony led a similar charge mounted on his bay, Marion. This time he went up against Union forces led by the newly minted brigadier general George Armstrong Custer in a cavalry fight at Hunterstown on July 2, 1863. Federal lead struck Marion, and the horse toppled onto Delony. He extricated himself with great difficulty and barely managed to escape the enemy.
His luck ran out at the Battle of Jack’s Shop, in Virginia, on Sept. 22, 1863. A Minié ball struck Delony in the left thigh, and, in a Gettysburg repeat, his horse was also hit and fell on top of him. This time, though, he could not get away and fell into federal hands. Transported to nearby Culpeper for a brief stay, he was then carried by ambulance to Washington. He was admitted to Stanton General Hospital and given a bed in a ward full of Union boys, where he befriended one of convalescing soldiers, John A. Wright of the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Delony’s wound turned gangrenous. On Oct. 2, 1863, surgeons informed that his condition was mortal. Wright recalled that Delony then asked him to read from the Bible. “The 14th Chapter of John was selected, and the reader began: ‘Let not your heart be troubled…’” Delony broke down. “‘Oh, I could die in peace, I could died in peace,’ he sobbed, ‘if only I were home with my wife and children. But it is so hard to die away from home and among strangers.”
Delony was transferred to another hospital later that day, and died that night. He was 38 years old. Union authorities buried his remains in a numbered grave in the hospital cemetery. They were later disinterred and returned to his family in Athens.
Wright survived the war and became a minister, perhaps the last man touched directly by the charismatic Delony.
Sources: Ulysses R. Brooks, “Stories of the Confederacy”; Wiley C. Howard, “Sketch of Cobb Legion Cavalry and Some Incidents and Scenes Remembered”; William B. McCash, “Thomas R.R. Cobb: The Making of a Southern Nationalist”; William G. Delony military service record, National Archives and Records Service; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; George F. Price, “Across the Continent With the Fifth Cavalry”; John F. Stegeman, “These Men She Gave: Civil War Diary of Athens, Georgia”; Robert L. Stewart, “History of the One Hundred and Fortieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers”; Francis S. Reader, “Some Pioneers of Washington County, Pa.: A Family History.”
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His new book, “African American Faces of the Civil War,” was published in August. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.
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Disunion follows the Civil War as it unfolded.
In a violent denouement to the enormous set-piece battles of Second Bull Run and Antietam in the summer of 1862, that fall cavalry clashes raged across Northern Virginia. In dozens of farm villages and crossroads communities, roving bands of Union and Confederate horsemen engaged in a series of brief and often bloody skirmishes. One such fight took place near the hamlet of Little Washington on Nov. 8, 1862.
The action began when a squadron of Union Army regulars collided with an enemy picket composed of a Georgia lieutenant and 10 of his men. The Yankees charged the outnumbered rebels, but the rebels “gallantly met the onset, falling back slowly to a narrow lane, stubbornly contesting the ground,” reported an unidentified Confederate in a pamphlet published during the war. The mingled sounds of battle were heard by the main body of Georgia troops at their nearby camp, who hurriedly formed a column and rode to the relief of their endangered comrades. Among the first to saddle up was one of Georgia’s most admired horse soldiers, Will Delony.
Raw aggression coursed through the veins of this beau idéal of a Southern cavalry
|
man. “His full brown or mahogany beard and high massive forehead, intellectual face and eagle eyes, marked him as a man among men, resembling the finer full-bearded engravings I have seen of Stonewall Jackson,” noted one Georgian soldier, Wiley C. Howard.
That day Delony was to prove himself worthy of such a comparison. Indeed, what occurred next was “one of the bloodiest little fights that the history of our great struggle for right and liberty will ever record,” Howard wrote.
The unidentified Confederate observer reported that “Delony, putting spurs to his horse, left the column behind and dashed up into the melee, and hand to hand with his own boys, nearly all of whom had been cut down, was delivering his blows right and left.” Howard remembered that Delony “was fighting like a mad boar with a whole pack of curs about him, having his bridle hand dreadfully hacked, his head gashed and side thrust.”
The bluecoats called on him to surrender, but Delony barked back at the federals to lay down their own arms instead: “Surrender! By God! I am the best man!” and felled one enemy soldier with a blow of his sword.
Suddenly Delony was attacked by another saber-swinging federal. “His new antagonist’s blows were dexterously dealt, and an instant parry saved his head; a quick, heavy blow, partially warded off, fell broadside and deadened his sword arm, causing it to fall by his side,” Howard reported. But just then the column of Georgians thundered upon the scene, led by Pvt. Jimmie Clanton, mounted “on a little keen black charger.” He made a beeline for the federal cavalryman, who was raising his sword to send the vulnerable Delony to his maker. Clanton, “with upraised gleaming sabre, arrests the fatal blow by cleaving the confident antagonist’s head in twain, and half raising it for another stroke, a pistol shot sends the noble lad, too, reeling from his saddle dangerously wounded.”
The rebel column tore into the Yankees. The unidentified Confederate reported that the federals “began to yield and give ground, when a body of our dismounted men gained their flanks.” He added, “Here our artillery came dashing up and completed the success and sent them scampering down the road at a most inconvenient speed.”
The next day in camp, Delony sat on a log in camp with his head and hand bandaged. Howard recalled that he “showed me a small metallic flask, which he carried in his inside coat pocket, near the region of the heart and lungs, which showed an entire saber point thrust nearly a quarter of an inch wide clear through the metal.” Delony remarked “that he had sometimes felt that he would hate for his wife, in case he fell in battle, to know that it was there; but, with a humorous smile said he now thought it a good idea for every man to have one on him at the vulnerable spot where the cold steel struck with such force.”
Neither Howard nor Delony mentioned if the flask was full or empty before the enemy saber pierced it. Chances are Delony had taken a deep draught before the fight; his habitual drinking had prompted several officers to express concern to Delony’s colonel, Thomas R.R. Cobb. Delony’s fondness of the flask disturbed Cobb very much. “I don’t know what to do about it,” he confessed in a letter to his wife.
No evidence exists that Delony drank before he joined the military. An honor graduate from the University of Georgia and a successful attorney in Athens, he raised a cavalry company known as the Georgia Troopers in 1861. The rank and file elected him captain, a common practice in the volunteer army. Delony and his men then joined the “Georgia Legion,” a force of artillery, cavalry and infantry designed loosely around a Roman legion and organized by Colonel Cobb, a popular and charismatic leader (in fact, the unit became better known as “Cobb’s Legion”).
The concept of a legion proved impractical, and it was not used as such during the war. The cavalry from Cobb’s Legion served with Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, where Delony proved himself a caring leader. Howard exclaimed, “How his men loved him, and how he stood by them, contending always for their rights and looking after their comforts, when others would treat them indifferently! His heart and purse were ever open to their needs.”
As he showed that day in Little Washington, Delony was at his very best in combat. He could always be found in the hottest part of a battle, and inspired the ranks by his deeds. “He was a game fighter and dared to attempt anything,” Howard said, “even though it seemed impossible to others.”
Howard recalled Delony’s actions on June 9, 1863, at Brandy Station — the largest cavalry battle of the war. By this time Delony had advanced to lieutenant colonel, and Pierce M.B. Young had replaced Cobb as colonel. At one point during the engagement, the Georgians charged federal cavalry, “and soon their splendid line was all broken and each man of us was fencing and fighting for the time his individual foe, the fiery and impetuous onslaught of the Southron was too much for the steady courage of the Northman, and quick and fast as the blows fell and the cold steel slashed, the most of the enemy were making to their rear.”
Howard observed Delony “smiting Yankees right and left as he charged along in advance. He sat on his charger grandly, his fine physique and full mahogany beard flowing, he looked a very Titan war god, flushed with the exuberance and exhilaration of victory. He called to me to rally with others of his old company about him and on he led us pressing the retreating foe.”
On they charged until caught in devastating cross-fire by dismounted federals. Colonel Young ordered Delony to withdraw. “But,” Howard wrote, “shaking his head and lion-like beard Delony said, ‘Young, let’s charge them,’ and in two or three minutes five horses fell and a number of our men had been shot. By this time, however, the enemy’s whole line in sight were giving way and on we went, those not unhorsed or crippled. So fierce and fast was the fighting, we had not time to accept surrender offered by many Yankees — just rode on and left them behind.”
Several weeks later, in Pennsylvania during the Gettysburg Campaign, Delony led a similar charge mounted on his bay, Marion. This time he went up against Union forces led by the newly minted brigadier general George Armstrong Custer in a cavalry fight at Hunterstown on July 2, 1863. Federal lead struck Marion, and the horse toppled onto Delony. He extricated himself with great difficulty and barely managed to escape the enemy.
His luck ran out at the Battle of Jack’s Shop, in Virginia, on Sept. 22, 1863. A Minié ball struck Delony in the left thigh, and, in a Gettysburg repeat, his horse was also hit and fell on top of him. This time, though, he could not get away and fell into federal hands. Transported to nearby Culpeper for a brief stay, he was then carried by ambulance to Washington. He was admitted to Stanton General Hospital and given a bed in a ward full of Union boys, where he befriended one of convalescing soldiers, John A. Wright of the 140th Pennsylvania Infantry.
Delony’s wound turned gangrenous. On Oct. 2, 1863, surgeons informed that his condition was mortal. Wright recalled that Delony then asked him to read from the Bible. “The 14th Chapter of John was selected, and the reader began: ‘Let not your heart be troubled…’” Delony broke down. “‘Oh, I could die in peace, I could died in peace,’ he sobbed, ‘if only I were home with my wife and children. But it is so hard to die away from home and among strangers.”
Delony was transferred to another hospital later that day, and died that night. He was 38 years old. Union authorities buried his remains in a numbered grave in the hospital cemetery. They were later disinterred and returned to his family in Athens.
Wright survived the war and became a minister, perhaps the last man touched directly by the charismatic Delony.
Sources: Ulysses R. Brooks, “Stories of the Confederacy”; Wiley C. Howard, “Sketch of Cobb Legion Cavalry and Some Incidents and Scenes Remembered”; William B. McCash, “Thomas R.R. Cobb: The Making of a Southern Nationalist”; William G. Delony military service record, National Archives and Records Service; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies; George F. Price, “Across the Continent With the Fifth Cavalry”; John F. Stegeman, “These Men She Gave: Civil War Diary of Athens, Georgia”; Robert L. Stewart, “History of the One Hundred and Fortieth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers”; Francis S. Reader, “Some Pioneers of Washington County, Pa.: A Family History.”
Ronald S. Coddington is the author of “Faces of the Civil War” and “Faces of the Confederacy.” His new book, “African American Faces of the Civil War,” was published in August. He writes “Faces of War,” a column for the Civil War News.
|
According to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, cleanup crews working near the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, “dumped soil and leaves contaminated with radioactive fallout into rivers.”
CROOKED CLEANUP (1): Radioactive waste dumped into rivers during decontamination work in Fukushima http://t.co/vZ7BFMC9
A team of journalists who observed the decontamination work in the region last month added: “Water sprayed on contaminated buildings has been allowed to drain back into the environment. And supervisors have instructed workers to ignore rules on proper collection and disposal of the radioactive waste.”
Workers were apparently aware that they were breaking rules, the paper reported:
From Dec. 11 to 18, four Asahi reporters spent 130 hours observing work at various locations in Fukushima Prefecture. At 13 locations in Naraha, Iitate and Tamura, workers were seen simply dumping collected soil and leaves as well as water used for cleaning rather than securing them for proper disposal. Photographs were taken at 11 of those locations.
The reporters also talked to about 20 workers who said they were following the instructions of employees of the contracted companies or their subcontractors in dumping the materials. A common response of the workers was that the decontamination work could never be completed if they adhered to the strict rules.
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According to Japan’s Asahi Shimbun, cleanup crews working near the ruined Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, “dumped soil and leaves contaminated with radioactive fallout into rivers.”
CROOKED CLEANUP (1): Radioactive waste dumped into rivers during decontamination work in Fukushima http://t.co/vZ7BFMC9
A team of journalists who observed the decontamination work in the region last month added: “Water sprayed on contaminated buildings has been allowed to drain back into the environment. And supervisors have instructed workers to ignore rules on proper collection and disposal of the radioactive waste.”
Workers were apparently aware that they were breaking rules, the paper reported:
From Dec. 11 to 18, four Asahi reporters spent 130 hours observing work at various locations in Fukushima Prefecture. At 13 locations in Naraha, Iitate and Tamura, workers were seen simply dumping collected soil and leaves as well as water used for cleaning rather than securing them for proper disposal. Photographs were taken at 11 of those locations.
The reporters also talked to about 20 workers who said they were following the instructions of employees of the contracted companies or their subcontractors in dumping the materials.
|
A common response of the workers was that the decontamination work could never be completed if they adhered to the strict rules.
|
Eleven years ago today, Al Gore, for one important moment, was the most powerful man in our republic. The day before, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, halted the partial recount of presidential ballots in Florida that Gore had requested. But that did not mean the 2000 presidential election was over. George W. Bush could not declare victory until Gore conceded defeat.
This is our protocol in every presidential election, whether the results are clear on election night or weeks later. Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners. The first signal that this consent is granted comes with the losing candidate’s concession. At this moment, following a hard-fought election where passions have run high, the concession begins the process of reuniting an intensely divided country. Yet this vital service to the nation provided by losing presidential candidates is seldom appreciated.
It may seem unthinkable that Gore would not have conceded, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, yet he had supporters who urged him to push on and further challenge the legitimacy of the results. He had, after all, won the national popular vote.
In many countries, losing candidates do not peacefully accept defeat, and their obstinacy leads to political chaos, riots and sometimes civil war. Gore understood the risks to America from a prolonged dispute over an unresolved election.
Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners.
So, on Dec. 13, 2000, Gore choose to begin a process of healing. He did not merely concede, he gave a remarkably upbeat and friendly concession speech and quoted an earlier losing candidate, Stephen Douglas, who pledged to Abraham Lincoln upon losing the 1860 presidential election, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.”
Most presidential elections are close, with roughly half having been won with 51 percent or less of the popular vote. This even division in our partisan alignment means supporters of either party have a reasonable expectation of victory, so defeat can come as a shock. Despite this, from our first losing presidential candidate, Thomas Jefferson in 1796 (George Washington won the first two presidential elections unopposed), to our most recent, John McCain, America has been blessed with men who have set aside crushing personal disappointment and embraced their responsibility to help maintain national unity.
In a society that worships winners, unsuccessful presidential candidates are considered losers, no matter how successful they were before and after the election. As John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee in 1924 and a brilliant constitutional lawyer, put it after his losing candidacy was vilified, “I believe I have been a fair success in life except as a candidate for president.”
It is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past.
Winning the presidency does not guarantee the winner will leave a great mark upon history; the office has certainly had its share of non-entities. Many losing candidates, though, helped bring into being political dynamics that still define our politics. Men like Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern have created, transformed and realigned our political parties. Losing campaigns typically are the first to break barriers and expand participation. These include the first Catholic to be nominated for president, as well as the first woman and the first Jew to be named as vice presidential nominees.
Whether breaking barriers or introducing new policies, it is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past. Andrew Jackson is an American icon, yet it was his nemesis Clay who more clearly understood that America’s future was as an industrial power, not a bucolic republic of yeoman farmers. The Democrat Bryan was considered a radical, yet the reforms he advocated — creating the Federal Reserve, enacting pure food and drug laws, granting women the right to vote and enacting a federal income tax — all became law within years of his candidacies. Adlai Stevenson first raised the idea of a nuclear test ban during his 1956 campaign, while Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, which analysts at the time thought had “discredited conservatism,” famously laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan to be elected 16 years later.
Despite their belief that voters made the wrong choice, our losing presidential candidates have been almost unfailingly gracious, and suffered the wounds of defeat with good humor. Sometimes that humor is self-effacing, as when Goldwater lamented that America “is a great country where anybody can grow up to become president — except me.” And sometimes the humor is pointed, as when Adlai Stevenson was told his erudite campaigns against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 had educated the country and he replied, “But a lot of people flunked the course!”
Whether the election on Nov. 6, 2012, is a landslide or a nail-biter, and whether the victor is President Obama or his Republican opponent, the loser will have the same power that Gore wielded in 2000 and will be confronted with the same choice every losing candidate has had to make in the wake of defeat: bring America together or widen our divisions. Let’s hope that he or she will serve the national interest and recognize that while he lost an election, history may yet judge his political legacy a success. As Al Gore said in his concession speech in 2000, “defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
Scott Farris is the author of “Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation.”
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Eleven years ago today, Al Gore, for one important moment, was the most powerful man in our republic. The day before, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 vote, halted the partial recount of presidential ballots in Florida that Gore had requested. But that did not mean the 2000 presidential election was over. George W. Bush could not declare victory until Gore conceded defeat.
This is our protocol in every presidential election, whether the results are clear on election night or weeks later. Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners. The first signal that this consent is granted comes with the losing candidate’s concession. At this moment, following a hard-fought election where passions have run high, the concession begins the process of reuniting an intensely divided country. Yet this vital service to the nation provided by losing presidential candidates is seldom appreciated.
It may seem unthinkable that Gore would not have conceded, particularly in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision, yet he had supporters who urged him to push on and further challenge the legitimacy of the results. He had, after all, won the national popular vote.
In many countries, losing candidates do not peacefully accept defeat, and their obst
|
inacy leads to political chaos, riots and sometimes civil war. Gore understood the risks to America from a prolonged dispute over an unresolved election.
Our democratic political system works only when the losers give their consent to be governed by the winners.
So, on Dec. 13, 2000, Gore choose to begin a process of healing. He did not merely concede, he gave a remarkably upbeat and friendly concession speech and quoted an earlier losing candidate, Stephen Douglas, who pledged to Abraham Lincoln upon losing the 1860 presidential election, “Partisan feeling must yield to patriotism. I’m with you, Mr. President, and God bless you.”
Most presidential elections are close, with roughly half having been won with 51 percent or less of the popular vote. This even division in our partisan alignment means supporters of either party have a reasonable expectation of victory, so defeat can come as a shock. Despite this, from our first losing presidential candidate, Thomas Jefferson in 1796 (George Washington won the first two presidential elections unopposed), to our most recent, John McCain, America has been blessed with men who have set aside crushing personal disappointment and embraced their responsibility to help maintain national unity.
In a society that worships winners, unsuccessful presidential candidates are considered losers, no matter how successful they were before and after the election. As John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee in 1924 and a brilliant constitutional lawyer, put it after his losing candidacy was vilified, “I believe I have been a fair success in life except as a candidate for president.”
It is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past.
Winning the presidency does not guarantee the winner will leave a great mark upon history; the office has certainly had its share of non-entities. Many losing candidates, though, helped bring into being political dynamics that still define our politics. Men like Henry Clay, William Jennings Bryan, Thomas Dewey, Barry Goldwater and George McGovern have created, transformed and realigned our political parties. Losing campaigns typically are the first to break barriers and expand participation. These include the first Catholic to be nominated for president, as well as the first woman and the first Jew to be named as vice presidential nominees.
Whether breaking barriers or introducing new policies, it is often the losing candidate who is prophetic, while time proves that it was the winning candidate who was stuck in the past. Andrew Jackson is an American icon, yet it was his nemesis Clay who more clearly understood that America’s future was as an industrial power, not a bucolic republic of yeoman farmers. The Democrat Bryan was considered a radical, yet the reforms he advocated — creating the Federal Reserve, enacting pure food and drug laws, granting women the right to vote and enacting a federal income tax — all became law within years of his candidacies. Adlai Stevenson first raised the idea of a nuclear test ban during his 1956 campaign, while Goldwater’s 1964 campaign, which analysts at the time thought had “discredited conservatism,” famously laid the groundwork for Ronald Reagan to be elected 16 years later.
Despite their belief that voters made the wrong choice, our losing presidential candidates have been almost unfailingly gracious, and suffered the wounds of defeat with good humor. Sometimes that humor is self-effacing, as when Goldwater lamented that America “is a great country where anybody can grow up to become president — except me.” And sometimes the humor is pointed, as when Adlai Stevenson was told his erudite campaigns against Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956 had educated the country and he replied, “But a lot of people flunked the course!”
Whether the election on Nov. 6, 2012, is a landslide or a nail-biter, and whether the victor is President Obama or his Republican opponent, the loser will have the same power that Gore wielded in 2000 and will be confronted with the same choice every losing candidate has had to make in the wake of defeat: bring America together or widen our divisions. Let’s hope that he or she will serve the national interest and recognize that while he lost an election, history may yet judge his political legacy a success. As Al Gore said in his concession speech in 2000, “defeat might serve as well as victory to shape the soul and let the glory out.”
Scott Farris is the author of “Almost President: The Men Who Lost the Race But Changed the Nation.”
|
Developed in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education for grades 6-12.
THE COURSE OF THE WAR, 2003-PRESENT
Reflecting on Five Years of War in Iraq(3/19/2008)
The Voice of a New Generation
Examining Iraqi Youth Perspectives (3/5/2008)
A Fresh Start?
Discussing the Implications of a Resignation at the Department of Defense (11/9/2006)
Exploring the Ups and Downs During Three Years of War in Iraq (4/20/2006)
Same News, Different Stories
Evaluating Breaking News of Al-Zarqawi's Death (6/9/2006)
Examining New Developments in the Iraq War (11/10/2004)
Examining Controversies of International Humanitarian Law (10/22/2004)
Justice for Whom?
Assessing the Reasons to Bring Saddam Hussein to Trial (7/5/2004)
Taking Stock of Iraq
Learning About and Teaching Important Information on Iraq’s Transition (6/28/2004)
Abuse of Power
Examining and Reacting to the Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners in American Custody (5/6/2004)
The Captive's Audience
Analyzing the Capture of Deposed Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein (12/15/2003)
Examining How Close (or Far) Coalition Forces Are from Achieving Their Goals (4/11/2003)
Weathering the War
Exploring How Weather and Topography Have Shaped Military Operations (3/26/2003)
DEBATE ABOUT THE WAR, 2002-PRESENT
Instability in Iraq
Analyzing the Debate on the Future of United States Involvement in Iraq (12/6/2006)
Exit to the Left
Exploring Community Reactions to the Iraq War (9/18/2006)
Weighing the War
Debating For and Against the War in Iraq (9/22/2004)
The Aftermath of War
Debating the Pros and Cons of U.S. Policy in Iraq (10/29/2003)
For Whom Does the Bell Toll?
Gauging Public Opinion about Death During War (4/9/2003)
Exploring Feelings About Invading Iraq Through Creative Writing (3/21/2003)
Acts of Defiance?
Contemplating War in Iraq (3/19/2003)
Europe's Last Resort
Understanding the European Union’s Position on the Use of Force in Iraq (2/19/2003)
Enacting a Meeting of the United Nations Security Council (1/29/2003)
And Then What Happened, Inspector?
Developing Interactive Scenarios about the United Nations Inspections in Iraq (12/4/2002)
To Inspect or Not to Inspect, That Is the Question
Exploring the Points of View of Those Involved in the Decision Whether to Allow U.N. Inspectors into Iraq (11/13/2002)
Exploring the Potential of United States Military Action Against Iraq (8/28/2002)
IRAQ AND DEMOCRACY
Exploring United States Interventions in the Middle East (4/29/2002)
A Good Government Is Hard to Build
Understanding Issues in Iraq's Government-Building Through a Student Simulation (3/30/2005)
And Now, the News from Iraq
Researching the Iraqi Election to Create a Television News Hour (1/31/2005)
Intimidation of a Nation
Analyzing Threats to the Scheduled Elections in Iraq (12/22/2004)
Operation Iraqi Democracy
Exploring International Models of Government (6/29/2004)
Assessing the Iraqi Interim Constitution's Purpose and Viability (3/10/2004)
By the People, For the People
Examining Key Elements of Democracy as the System Is Introduced in Iraq (6/23/2003)
A Tale of Two Wars
Comparing and Contrasting Vietnam and Iraq (10/30/2006)
Exploring the Endings and Consequences of Major Conflicts in Modern World History (12/16/2005)
Dictating the Future
Learning from the History of Overthrown Governments to Assess the Future of Iraq (5/26/2004)
Intervene or Interfere?
Exploring Forty Years of United States Intervention in Foreign Affairs (4/7/2003)
Changing of the Guard
Examining the Role of the United States in Democratic Transitions Around the World (4/28/2003)
Examining the Development of American Foreign Policy (3/17/2003)
Exploring the Evolution of Weapons Technology (11/14/2002)
Drums of War
Exploring How Historical Events Repeat Themselves (10/14/2002)
Exploring How Politics Shapes American War Policy (9/23/2002)
The Tug of War
Exploring the Rationale Behind Potential Future Military Strikes in the War Against Terrorism (1/9/2002)
IRAQ AND THE MEDIA
All the News That's Fit to Blog
Gathering First-Hand News Accounts through Web Logs
Imagining the Life of a War Correspondent in Iraq
That's News to Me
Examining the Escalating Violence in Iraq through Reporting (4/14/2004)
Learning to Write Persuasive Editorials about Current News (7/24/2003)
Exploring Marketing Strategies During Wartime (3/27/2003)
Interviewing Veterans to Help Create Need-Based Programs (5/25/2007)
Commemorating American Soldiers Who Have Lost Their Lives in Iraq (1/3/2007)
Reflecting on the Lives of Soldiers and Their Families (10/27/2005)
Gathering First-Hand Reports of a Soldier's Experience Far from Home (3/5/2003)
Test what you know about the war in Iraq by playing this interactive News Quiz. Each question relates to an article published in The New York Times from 2003-2007.
Explore recent New York Times graphics, videos and photographs about the war in Iraq.
Interactive Feature: Faces of the Dead (Ongoing)
Interactive Timeline: Iraq 5 Years In (3/19/2008)
Slideshow: A Tale of Three Cities (6/20/2008)
Interactive Graphic: Baghdad Neighborhoods (9/9/2007)
Video: Bush Addresses U.S. Troops in Iraq (9/2007)
Op-Chart: Benchmarks for Iraq (9/3/2007)
Photographs: 82nd Airborne Division (5/22/2007)
Video: A Search for Missing Soldiers (5/22/2007)
BAGHDAD BUREAU BLOG
"Iraq From the Inside" by reading a blog written by Times reporters in Baghdad.
Each News Snapshot features a Times photo and related article along with a 6-question student worksheet and a teacher answer key. The Snapshots below, about the war in Iraq, were published from March 2003 on.
The Reach of War
The Solace of Soccer
Serving the Country
War, What Is It Good For?
A Vote for Freedom
A Grand New Flag
Rehearsing for the Real Thing
American Friends, American Foes
A Message of Hope
A Nation at War
MORE FROM NYTIMES.COM
Visit NYTimes.com's The Reach of War special for the latest news and editorials from The New York Times.
FROM THE LEARNING NETWORK ARCHIVE
In response to Operation Desert Fox in 1998, The Learning Network created the special feature
Timeline: U.S. Intervention in Iraq - 1991 to 1998. In it, you'll find historical New York Times articles from that time period, lesson plans and a brief Web guide.
MORE ISSUES IN DEPTH TOPICS
Learning Network classroom resources on a wide range of topics.
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Developed in partnership with The Bank Street College of Education for grades 6-12.
THE COURSE OF THE WAR, 2003-PRESENT
Reflecting on Five Years of War in Iraq(3/19/2008)
The Voice of a New Generation
Examining Iraqi Youth Perspectives (3/5/2008)
A Fresh Start?
Discussing the Implications of a Resignation at the Department of Defense (11/9/2006)
Exploring the Ups and Downs During Three Years of War in Iraq (4/20/2006)
Same News, Different Stories
Evaluating Breaking News of Al-Zarqawi's Death (6/9/2006)
Examining New Developments in the Iraq War (11/10/2004)
Examining Controversies of International Humanitarian Law (10/22/2004)
Justice for Whom?
Assessing the Reasons to Bring Saddam Hussein to Trial (7/5/2004)
Taking Stock of Iraq
Learning About and Teaching Important Information on Iraq’s Transition (6/28/200
|
4)
Abuse of Power
Examining and Reacting to the Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners in American Custody (5/6/2004)
The Captive's Audience
Analyzing the Capture of Deposed Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein (12/15/2003)
Examining How Close (or Far) Coalition Forces Are from Achieving Their Goals (4/11/2003)
Weathering the War
Exploring How Weather and Topography Have Shaped Military Operations (3/26/2003)
DEBATE ABOUT THE WAR, 2002-PRESENT
Instability in Iraq
Analyzing the Debate on the Future of United States Involvement in Iraq (12/6/2006)
Exit to the Left
Exploring Community Reactions to the Iraq War (9/18/2006)
Weighing the War
Debating For and Against the War in Iraq (9/22/2004)
The Aftermath of War
Debating the Pros and Cons of U.S. Policy in Iraq (10/29/2003)
For Whom Does the Bell Toll?
Gauging Public Opinion about Death During War (4/9/2003)
Exploring Feelings About Invading Iraq Through Creative Writing (3/21/2003)
Acts of Defiance?
Contemplating War in Iraq (3/19/2003)
Europe's Last Resort
Understanding the European Union’s Position on the Use of Force in Iraq (2/19/2003)
Enacting a Meeting of the United Nations Security Council (1/29/2003)
And Then What Happened, Inspector?
Developing Interactive Scenarios about the United Nations Inspections in Iraq (12/4/2002)
To Inspect or Not to Inspect, That Is the Question
Exploring the Points of View of Those Involved in the Decision Whether to Allow U.N. Inspectors into Iraq (11/13/2002)
Exploring the Potential of United States Military Action Against Iraq (8/28/2002)
IRAQ AND DEMOCRACY
Exploring United States Interventions in the Middle East (4/29/2002)
A Good Government Is Hard to Build
Understanding Issues in Iraq's Government-Building Through a Student Simulation (3/30/2005)
And Now, the News from Iraq
Researching the Iraqi Election to Create a Television News Hour (1/31/2005)
Intimidation of a Nation
Analyzing Threats to the Scheduled Elections in Iraq (12/22/2004)
Operation Iraqi Democracy
Exploring International Models of Government (6/29/2004)
Assessing the Iraqi Interim Constitution's Purpose and Viability (3/10/2004)
By the People, For the People
Examining Key Elements of Democracy as the System Is Introduced in Iraq (6/23/2003)
A Tale of Two Wars
Comparing and Contrasting Vietnam and Iraq (10/30/2006)
Exploring the Endings and Consequences of Major Conflicts in Modern World History (12/16/2005)
Dictating the Future
Learning from the History of Overthrown Governments to Assess the Future of Iraq (5/26/2004)
Intervene or Interfere?
Exploring Forty Years of United States Intervention in Foreign Affairs (4/7/2003)
Changing of the Guard
Examining the Role of the United States in Democratic Transitions Around the World (4/28/2003)
Examining the Development of American Foreign Policy (3/17/2003)
Exploring the Evolution of Weapons Technology (11/14/2002)
Drums of War
Exploring How Historical Events Repeat Themselves (10/14/2002)
Exploring How Politics Shapes American War Policy (9/23/2002)
The Tug of War
Exploring the Rationale Behind Potential Future Military Strikes in the War Against Terrorism (1/9/2002)
IRAQ AND THE MEDIA
All the News That's Fit to Blog
Gathering First-Hand News Accounts through Web Logs
Imagining the Life of a War Correspondent in Iraq
That's News to Me
Examining the Escalating Violence in Iraq through Reporting (4/14/2004)
Learning to Write Persuasive Editorials about Current News (7/24/2003)
Exploring Marketing Strategies During Wartime (3/27/2003)
Interviewing Veterans to Help Create Need-Based Programs (5/25/2007)
Commemorating American Soldiers Who Have Lost Their Lives in Iraq (1/3/2007)
Reflecting on the Lives of Soldiers and Their Families (10/27/2005)
Gathering First-Hand Reports of a Soldier's Experience Far from Home (3/5/2003)
Test what you know about the war in Iraq by playing this interactive News Quiz. Each question relates to an article published in The New York Times from 2003-2007.
Explore recent New York Times graphics, videos and photographs about the war in Iraq.
Interactive Feature: Faces of the Dead (Ongoing)
Interactive Timeline: Iraq 5 Years In (3/19/2008)
Slideshow: A Tale of Three Cities (6/20/2008)
Interactive Graphic: Baghdad Neighborhoods (9/9/2007)
Video: Bush Addresses U.S. Troops in Iraq (9/2007)
Op-Chart: Benchmarks for Iraq (9/3/2007)
Photographs: 82nd Airborne Division (5/22/2007)
Video: A Search for Missing Soldiers (5/22/2007)
BAGHDAD BUREAU BLOG
"Iraq From the Inside" by reading a blog written by Times reporters in Baghdad.
Each News Snapshot features a Times photo and related article along with a 6-question student worksheet and a teacher answer key. The Snapshots below, about the war in Iraq, were published from March 2003 on.
The Reach of War
The Solace of Soccer
Serving the Country
War, What Is It Good For?
A Vote for Freedom
A Grand New Flag
Rehearsing for the Real Thing
American Friends, American Foes
A Message of Hope
A Nation at War
MORE FROM NYTIMES.COM
Visit NYTimes.com's The Reach of War special for the latest news and editorials from The New York Times.
FROM THE LEARNING NETWORK ARCHIVE
In response to Operation Desert Fox in 1998, The Learning Network created the special feature
Timeline: U.S. Intervention in Iraq - 1991 to 1998. In it, you'll find historical New York Times articles from that time period, lesson plans and a brief Web guide.
MORE ISSUES IN DEPTH TOPICS
Learning Network classroom resources on a wide range of topics.
|
Note: This lesson was originally published on an older version of The Learning Network; the link to the related Times article will take you to a page on the old site.
Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
Overview of Lesson Plan: In this lesson, students use prototypical fantasy themes to create an original role-playing game and cast of characters based on their own community.
Rachel McClain, The New York Times Learning Network
Suggested Time Allowance: 45 minutes
1. Explore the importance of characters in Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games.
2. Learn about the new movie “Dungeons and Dragons” by reading and discussing the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R.”
3. As a class, create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community.
4. In groups, create character profiles for the game.
5. Write a dialogue between two of the characters from the game.
Resources / Materials:
-copies of the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R” (one per student)
Activities / Procedures:
1. WARM-UP/DO NOW: In their journals, students respond to the following prompt (written on the board prior to class): “If you could choose to be a character from any book or movie, who would you choose and why? How does your chosen character impact the plot and the other characters in the book or movie?” After 5-10 minutes, have some students read their journals aloud. As a class, discuss Dungeons and Dragons and how it offers people the opportunity to role-play fantastical and magical characters. Discuss the appeal of this and other role-playing games.
2. As a class, read the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R,” focusing on the following questions:
a. What is Dungeons and Dragons?
b. According to the article, what are some archetypes upon which Dungeons and Dragons is based?
c. How does A.O. Scott describe the special effects in the movie?
d. According to the article, why was the movie shot in Prague?
e. Which line of dialogue does A.O. Scott cite to show the low quality of the script? Why do you think he chose this line?
f. What is the main conflict in the plot of the film?
g. What phrase is used to advertise the film? How does A.O. Scott use this phrase to criticize the film?
3. Create a class role-playing game set in a mythical city that parallels the real one in which the students live. Have the class choose a name for their mythical city and create a map, including at least five key locations where action might take place(examples are a pizza shop, a school, a forest, etc.). The class should also brainstorm possible characters that might be included in the game, keeping in mind the types of characters usually found in such games (examples are an Evil Sorcerer Mayor, or the Wizard of the Pizza Shop). Avoid a sensitive situation by having students create prototypical characters and not ones based directly on actual people in the community. Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4. Each group creates a character profile of one of the characters discussed in class. The profile should consist of a brief description of the character, the character’s strengths and weaknesses, and an illustration of the character complete with the character’s mode of dress and special weapons or other articles that might assist him or her throughout the game.
4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Write a dialogue between two of the characters created by your class. Use a prototypical fantasy game conflict (such as the battle over the rod in the “Dungeons and Dragons” movie,) and set it in one of the key locations chosen in class. Keep in mind A.O. Scott’s criticism of the dialogue in the movie Dungeons and Dragons, and try to make your dialogue more realistic and compelling than the examples from the article.
Further Questions for Discussion:
– What do you think A.O. Scott is trying to achieve by using parentheses throughout the article?
– What is the overall tone of A.O. Scott’s review? How does he reveal his opinion of the movie?
– Do you think that role-playing games are a healthy outlet for the imagination? Do you think such games can have a negative effect on a person? How?
– Do you play or know people who play interactive role-playing games over the Internet? Do you think this is more or less exciting than playing these games on a board with a live group of people all in the same room?
– Are there certain modes of dress or behaviors that accompany being a player of games such as Dungeons and Dragons? Do the players of these games develop distinct social groups? If so, why do you think this is the case?
Evaluation / Assessment:
Students will be evaluated on completion of the journal entry, participation in class discussions, creation of a character profile, and completion of a dialogue between two of the characters created in class.
virtual, fantasy, sci-fi, jargon, grok, tedium, adherents, sorcery, murky, clotted, understatement, provocation, vexation, mages, antagonists, pontificate, raiment, conviction, plucky, mayhem
1. With a partner, perform the dialogue you wrote for homework for the class. Prepare the appropriate costumes and props based upon the profiles created for each character.
2. Movies based on books often do not live up to the expectations and imaginations of readers. This is especially true for movies based on fantasy books where elements like magical spells and mythical creatures are commonplace. Based on A.O. Scott’s criticism of the “Dungeons and Dragons” film, predict whether the Harry Potter film, expected to be released within the year, will impress or disappoint movie-goers who have already read the book.
3. Read a fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Write a movie pitch for a film version of the novel. Describe who you would cast the main roles and why, and how you would successfully recreate the fantasy world depicted by Tolkien on screen.
4. It is often difficult to differentiate between the literary genres of fantasy, science fiction, legend, and myth. Create a dictionary of terms defining each genre and explaining how each one differs from the others.
-Research fantastical creatures from different cultures. Create a poster with an illustration and short description of each creature, including the culture from which it originates. (Some examples of fantastic and/or mythical creatures from various cultures are the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Big Foot, and Aswang.)
-Compare and contrast the themes and characters found in Arthurian and other Medieval legends (such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Beowulf) to those in Dungeons and Dragons. Create a chart displaying your findings.
Journalism- See the movie “Dungeons and Dragons” and write your own movie review. Refer to A.O. Scott’s review by supporting or refuting his claims regarding the film.
Mathematics- The Dungeons and Dragons game uses numerical values to assess a character’s strengths and weaknesses. These values are initially chosen by rolling special dice with differing numbers of sides. Learn about how this process works and create a chart showing the various attributes chosen by this method, and the average number expected for each attribute when dice are rolled.
Social Studies- As A.O. Scott mentions in the article, an entire sub-culture has developed around fantasy and role-playing games. Research this culture and write a short (2-3 page) essay describing its development and characteristics since the introduction of Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970’s.
Other Information on the Web:
DnDMovie.com (more. http://www.dndmovie.com/) features updated news, photos, cast information, and more.
Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.seednd.com/) is the official movie site from New Line.
Academic Content Standards:
Language Arts Standard 1- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Uses a variety of prewriting strategies; Uses a variety of strategies to draft and revise written work; Evaluates own and others’ writing; Uses style and structure appropriate for specific audiences and purposes; Writes narrative accounts; Writes in response to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’6-8’, ’1’)
Language Arts Standard 6- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Knows the defining characteristics of a variety of literary forms and genres; Identifies specific questions of personal importance and seeks to answer them through literature; Understands the effects of the author’s style on a literary text; Understands that people respond differently to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’6-8’, ’6’)
Language Arts Standard 1- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Uses a variety of prewriting strategies; Uses a variety of strategies to draft and revise written work; Uses a variety of strategiesto edit and publish written work; Evaluates own and others’ writing; Writes compositions that fulfill different purposes; Writes fictional, biographical, autobiographical, and observational narrative compositions; Writes descriptive compositions; Writes in response to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’9-12’, ’1’)
Language Arts Standard 6- Demonstrates competencein the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Knows the defining characteristics of a variety of literaryforms and genres; Understands historical and cultural influences on literary works; Relates personal response to the text with that seemingly intended by the author
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’9-12’, ’6’)
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Note: This lesson was originally published on an older version of The Learning Network; the link to the related Times article will take you to a page on the old site.
Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
Overview of Lesson Plan: In this lesson, students use prototypical fantasy themes to create an original role-playing game and cast of characters based on their own community.
Rachel McClain, The New York Times Learning Network
Suggested Time Allowance: 45 minutes
1. Explore the importance of characters in Dungeons and Dragons and other role-playing games.
2. Learn about the new movie “Dungeons and Dragons” by reading and discussing the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R.”
3. As a class, create the outline for a role-playing game based on their own community.
4. In groups, create character profiles for the game.
5. Write a dialogue between two of the characters from the game.
Resources / Materials:
-copies of the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R” (one per student)
Activities / Procedures:
1. WARM-
|
UP/DO NOW: In their journals, students respond to the following prompt (written on the board prior to class): “If you could choose to be a character from any book or movie, who would you choose and why? How does your chosen character impact the plot and the other characters in the book or movie?” After 5-10 minutes, have some students read their journals aloud. As a class, discuss Dungeons and Dragons and how it offers people the opportunity to role-play fantastical and magical characters. Discuss the appeal of this and other role-playing games.
2. As a class, read the article “‘Dungeons and Dragons’: After D and D, You May Need R and R,” focusing on the following questions:
a. What is Dungeons and Dragons?
b. According to the article, what are some archetypes upon which Dungeons and Dragons is based?
c. How does A.O. Scott describe the special effects in the movie?
d. According to the article, why was the movie shot in Prague?
e. Which line of dialogue does A.O. Scott cite to show the low quality of the script? Why do you think he chose this line?
f. What is the main conflict in the plot of the film?
g. What phrase is used to advertise the film? How does A.O. Scott use this phrase to criticize the film?
3. Create a class role-playing game set in a mythical city that parallels the real one in which the students live. Have the class choose a name for their mythical city and create a map, including at least five key locations where action might take place(examples are a pizza shop, a school, a forest, etc.). The class should also brainstorm possible characters that might be included in the game, keeping in mind the types of characters usually found in such games (examples are an Evil Sorcerer Mayor, or the Wizard of the Pizza Shop). Avoid a sensitive situation by having students create prototypical characters and not ones based directly on actual people in the community. Divide the class into groups of 3 or 4. Each group creates a character profile of one of the characters discussed in class. The profile should consist of a brief description of the character, the character’s strengths and weaknesses, and an illustration of the character complete with the character’s mode of dress and special weapons or other articles that might assist him or her throughout the game.
4. WRAP-UP/HOMEWORK: Write a dialogue between two of the characters created by your class. Use a prototypical fantasy game conflict (such as the battle over the rod in the “Dungeons and Dragons” movie,) and set it in one of the key locations chosen in class. Keep in mind A.O. Scott’s criticism of the dialogue in the movie Dungeons and Dragons, and try to make your dialogue more realistic and compelling than the examples from the article.
Further Questions for Discussion:
– What do you think A.O. Scott is trying to achieve by using parentheses throughout the article?
– What is the overall tone of A.O. Scott’s review? How does he reveal his opinion of the movie?
– Do you think that role-playing games are a healthy outlet for the imagination? Do you think such games can have a negative effect on a person? How?
– Do you play or know people who play interactive role-playing games over the Internet? Do you think this is more or less exciting than playing these games on a board with a live group of people all in the same room?
– Are there certain modes of dress or behaviors that accompany being a player of games such as Dungeons and Dragons? Do the players of these games develop distinct social groups? If so, why do you think this is the case?
Evaluation / Assessment:
Students will be evaluated on completion of the journal entry, participation in class discussions, creation of a character profile, and completion of a dialogue between two of the characters created in class.
virtual, fantasy, sci-fi, jargon, grok, tedium, adherents, sorcery, murky, clotted, understatement, provocation, vexation, mages, antagonists, pontificate, raiment, conviction, plucky, mayhem
1. With a partner, perform the dialogue you wrote for homework for the class. Prepare the appropriate costumes and props based upon the profiles created for each character.
2. Movies based on books often do not live up to the expectations and imaginations of readers. This is especially true for movies based on fantasy books where elements like magical spells and mythical creatures are commonplace. Based on A.O. Scott’s criticism of the “Dungeons and Dragons” film, predict whether the Harry Potter film, expected to be released within the year, will impress or disappoint movie-goers who have already read the book.
3. Read a fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien. Write a movie pitch for a film version of the novel. Describe who you would cast the main roles and why, and how you would successfully recreate the fantasy world depicted by Tolkien on screen.
4. It is often difficult to differentiate between the literary genres of fantasy, science fiction, legend, and myth. Create a dictionary of terms defining each genre and explaining how each one differs from the others.
-Research fantastical creatures from different cultures. Create a poster with an illustration and short description of each creature, including the culture from which it originates. (Some examples of fantastic and/or mythical creatures from various cultures are the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, Big Foot, and Aswang.)
-Compare and contrast the themes and characters found in Arthurian and other Medieval legends (such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Beowulf) to those in Dungeons and Dragons. Create a chart displaying your findings.
Journalism- See the movie “Dungeons and Dragons” and write your own movie review. Refer to A.O. Scott’s review by supporting or refuting his claims regarding the film.
Mathematics- The Dungeons and Dragons game uses numerical values to assess a character’s strengths and weaknesses. These values are initially chosen by rolling special dice with differing numbers of sides. Learn about how this process works and create a chart showing the various attributes chosen by this method, and the average number expected for each attribute when dice are rolled.
Social Studies- As A.O. Scott mentions in the article, an entire sub-culture has developed around fantasy and role-playing games. Research this culture and write a short (2-3 page) essay describing its development and characteristics since the introduction of Dungeons and Dragons in the 1970’s.
Other Information on the Web:
DnDMovie.com (more. http://www.dndmovie.com/) features updated news, photos, cast information, and more.
Dungeons and Dragons (http://www.seednd.com/) is the official movie site from New Line.
Academic Content Standards:
Language Arts Standard 1- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Uses a variety of prewriting strategies; Uses a variety of strategies to draft and revise written work; Evaluates own and others’ writing; Uses style and structure appropriate for specific audiences and purposes; Writes narrative accounts; Writes in response to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’6-8’, ’1’)
Language Arts Standard 6- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Knows the defining characteristics of a variety of literary forms and genres; Identifies specific questions of personal importance and seeks to answer them through literature; Understands the effects of the author’s style on a literary text; Understands that people respond differently to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’6-8’, ’6’)
Language Arts Standard 1- Demonstrates competence in the general skills and strategies of the writing process. Benchmarks: Uses a variety of prewriting strategies; Uses a variety of strategies to draft and revise written work; Uses a variety of strategiesto edit and publish written work; Evaluates own and others’ writing; Writes compositions that fulfill different purposes; Writes fictional, biographical, autobiographical, and observational narrative compositions; Writes descriptive compositions; Writes in response to literature
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’9-12’, ’1’)
Language Arts Standard 6- Demonstrates competencein the general skills and strategies for reading a variety of literary texts. Benchmarks: Knows the defining characteristics of a variety of literaryforms and genres; Understands historical and cultural influences on literary works; Relates personal response to the text with that seemingly intended by the author
(CTSS – ‘english’, ’9-12’, ’6’)
|
Jane Brody on health and aging.
Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.
Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.
But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:
Jane Brody speaks about hypertension.
¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.
¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.
¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.
¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.
Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.
Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.
Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.
“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”
But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.
“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.
The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.
¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.
¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.
¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.
According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.
One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.
After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.
But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.
Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.
Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.
“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.
How to Measure Your Blood Pressure
Mistaken readings, which can occur in doctors’ offices as well as at home, can result in misdiagnosis of hypertension and improper treatment. Dr. Samuel J. Mann, of Weill Cornell Medical College, suggests these guidelines to reduce the risk of errors:
¶ Use an automatic monitor rather than a manual one, and check the accuracy of your home monitor at the doctor’s office.
¶ Use a monitor with an arm cuff, not a wrist or finger cuff, and use a large cuff if you have a large arm.
¶ Sit quietly for a few minutes, without talking, after putting on the cuff and before checking your pressure.
¶ Check your pressure in one arm only, and take three readings (not more) one or two minutes apart.
¶ Measure your blood pressure no more than twice a week unless you have severe hypertension or are changing medications.
¶ Check your pressure at random, ordinary times of the day, not just when you think it is high.
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Jane Brody on health and aging.
Since the start of the 21st century, Americans have made great progress in controlling high blood pressure, though it remains a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes, congestive heart failure and kidney disease.
Now 48 percent of the more than 76 million adults with hypertension have it under control, up from 29 percent in 2000.
But that means more than half, including many receiving treatment, have blood pressure that remains too high to be healthy. (A normal blood pressure is lower than 120 over 80.) With a plethora of drugs available to normalize blood pressure, why are so many people still at increased risk of disease, disability and premature death? Hypertension experts offer a few common, and correctable, reasons:
Jane Brody speaks about hypertension.
¶ About 20 percent of affected adults don’t know they have high blood pressure, perhaps because they never or rarely see a doctor who checks their pressure.
¶ Of the 80 percent who are aware of their condition, some don’t appreciate how serious it can be and fail to get treated, even when their doctors say they should.
¶ Some who have been treated develop bothersome side
|
effects, causing them to abandon therapy or to use it haphazardly.
¶ Many others do little to change lifestyle factors, like obesity, lack of exercise and a high-salt diet, that can make hypertension harder to control.
Dr. Samuel J. Mann, a hypertension specialist and professor of clinical medicine at Weill-Cornell Medical College, adds another factor that may be the most important. Of the 71 percent of people with hypertension who are currently being treated, too many are taking the wrong drugs or the wrong dosages of the right ones.
Dr. Mann, author of “Hypertension and You: Old Drugs, New Drugs, and the Right Drugs for Your High Blood Pressure,” says that doctors should take into account the underlying causes of each patient’s blood pressure problem and the side effects that may prompt patients to abandon therapy. He has found that when treatment is tailored to the individual, nearly all cases of high blood pressure can be brought and kept under control with available drugs.
Plus, he said in an interview, it can be done with minimal, if any, side effects and at a reasonable cost.
“For most people, no new drugs need to be developed,” Dr. Mann said. “What we need, in terms of medication, is already out there. We just need to use it better.”
But many doctors who are generalists do not understand the “intricacies and nuances” of the dozens of available medications to determine which is appropriate to a certain patient.
“Prescribing the same medication to patient after patient just does not cut it,” Dr. Mann wrote in his book.
The trick to prescribing the best treatment for each patient is to first determine which of three mechanisms, or combination of mechanisms, is responsible for a patient’s hypertension, he said.
¶ Salt-sensitive hypertension, more common in older people and African-Americans, responds well to diuretics and calcium channel blockers.
¶ Hypertension driven by the kidney hormone renin responds best to ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, as well as direct renin inhibitors and beta-blockers.
¶ Neurogenic hypertension is a product of the sympathetic nervous system and is best treated with beta-blockers, alpha-blockers and drugs like clonidine.
According to Dr. Mann, neurogenic hypertension results from repressed emotions. He has found that many patients with it suffered trauma early in life or abuse. They seem calm and content on the surface but continually suppress their distress, he said.
One of Dr. Mann’s patients had had high blood pressure since her late 20s that remained well-controlled by the three drugs her family doctor prescribed. Then in her 40s, periodic checks showed it was often too high. When taking more of the prescribed medication did not result in lasting control, she sought Dr. Mann’s help.
After a thorough work-up, he said she had a textbook case of neurogenic hypertension, was taking too much medication and needed different drugs. Her condition soon became far better managed, with side effects she could easily tolerate, and she no longer feared she would die young of a heart attack or stroke.
But most patients should not have to consult a specialist. They can be well-treated by an internist or family physician who approaches the condition systematically, Dr. Mann said. Patients should be started on low doses of one or more drugs, including a diuretic; the dosage or number of drugs can be slowly increased as needed to achieve a normal pressure.
Specialists, he said, are most useful for treating the 10 percent to 15 percent of patients with so-called resistant hypertension that remains uncontrolled despite treatment with three drugs, including a diuretic, and for those whose treatment is effective but causing distressing side effects.
Hypertension sometimes fails to respond to routine care, he noted, because it results from an underlying medical problem that needs to be addressed.
“Some patients are on a lot of blood pressure drugs — four or five — who probably don’t need so many, and if they do, the question is why,” Dr. Mann said.
How to Measure Your Blood Pressure
Mistaken readings, which can occur in doctors’ offices as well as at home, can result in misdiagnosis of hypertension and improper treatment. Dr. Samuel J. Mann, of Weill Cornell Medical College, suggests these guidelines to reduce the risk of errors:
¶ Use an automatic monitor rather than a manual one, and check the accuracy of your home monitor at the doctor’s office.
¶ Use a monitor with an arm cuff, not a wrist or finger cuff, and use a large cuff if you have a large arm.
¶ Sit quietly for a few minutes, without talking, after putting on the cuff and before checking your pressure.
¶ Check your pressure in one arm only, and take three readings (not more) one or two minutes apart.
¶ Measure your blood pressure no more than twice a week unless you have severe hypertension or are changing medications.
¶ Check your pressure at random, ordinary times of the day, not just when you think it is high.
|
Soon he came upon a peasant singing and scything. ‘You there, varlet,’ said Shrek. ‘Why so blithe?’” – William Steig, “Shrek”
“Shrek” inspired me to let the words fly around my children. Nope, I’m not talking about the movie “Shrek”, but about William Steig’s wonderful picture book “Shrek.” And I’m not talking about using curse words around my children, but about using a more sophisticated vocabulary in ordinary conversation.
The vocabulary in “Shrek” is extravagant. It’s so baroque that I did some research to find out why Steig had included phrases like “shady copse,” “churlish knave,” “rosy wens,” and “fusty fens.” Had he picked words at random from a dictionary and challenged himself to work them into his story? Did he have pet underused words that he was determined to bring back into favor? (I myself have waged a losing campaign to popularize “chirk.”)
Or had it been the product of a bet? Dr. Seuss wrote his masterpiece “Green Eggs and Ham” using just 50 different words, after his publisher, Bennett Cerf, bet him $50 that he couldn’t compose a book with such a limited vocabulary. (The words? A, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.)
But while I couldn’t find an explanation for Steig’s flamboyant vocabulary, I was inspired by his example — and by my daughters’ unquestioning acceptance of his range — to use more sophisticated vocabulary when talking to children. It made me realize that I’d unconsciously been simplifying my language, even though my daughters were perfectly able to handle words like “nacreous,” “nonplussed,” “ambivalent” and “palanquin.”
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: If we can express ourselves precisely, we can think precisely, and I want my children to be able to think as precisely as possible. Plus, it was hilarious to hear a 2-year-old use the word “unwieldy.”
Do you tailor your vocabulary to your children’s age? (Special case: do you use curse words in front of them?)
|
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Soon he came upon a peasant singing and scything. ‘You there, varlet,’ said Shrek. ‘Why so blithe?’” – William Steig, “Shrek”
“Shrek” inspired me to let the words fly around my children. Nope, I’m not talking about the movie “Shrek”, but about William Steig’s wonderful picture book “Shrek.” And I’m not talking about using curse words around my children, but about using a more sophisticated vocabulary in ordinary conversation.
The vocabulary in “Shrek” is extravagant. It’s so baroque that I did some research to find out why Steig had included phrases like “shady copse,” “churlish knave,” “rosy wens,” and “fusty fens.” Had he picked words at random from a dictionary and challenged himself to work them into his story? Did he have pet underused words that he was determined to bring back into favor? (I myself have waged a losing campaign to popularize “chirk.”)
Or had it been the product of a bet? Dr. Seuss wrote his masterpiece “Green Eggs and Ham” using just 50 different words, after his publisher, Bennett Cerf,
|
bet him $50 that he couldn’t compose a book with such a limited vocabulary. (The words? A, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.)
But while I couldn’t find an explanation for Steig’s flamboyant vocabulary, I was inspired by his example — and by my daughters’ unquestioning acceptance of his range — to use more sophisticated vocabulary when talking to children. It made me realize that I’d unconsciously been simplifying my language, even though my daughters were perfectly able to handle words like “nacreous,” “nonplussed,” “ambivalent” and “palanquin.”
It’s a Secret of Adulthood: If we can express ourselves precisely, we can think precisely, and I want my children to be able to think as precisely as possible. Plus, it was hilarious to hear a 2-year-old use the word “unwieldy.”
Do you tailor your vocabulary to your children’s age? (Special case: do you use curse words in front of them?)
|
The coming Congressional debate over fiscal policy is sure to feature a wide array of proposals, some of which would hit certain taxpayers harder than others.
But one idea being floated by Congressional negotiators, as described in an article by The New York Times’s Jonathan Weisman on Thursday, is hard to defend from the standpoint of rational public policy making.
Its arithmetic could require that the 300,000th dollar of income was taxed at a rate of about 50 percent – even while the three millionth dollar of income, or the three billionth, was taxed at a lower 35 percent rate instead.
The math behind these calculations is not all that complicated. It’s just a matter of understanding how marginal tax rates work.
Take an American who earns $400,000 a year in taxable income. (This is roughly the threshold at which a taxpayer reaches the top 1 percent of households.)
The top marginal federal income tax rate is now 35 percent, and kicks in at earnings above $388,350.
Someone making $400,000 is above the $388,350 threshold. Does this mean that she’d be taxed at a 35 percent rate on all $400,000 of income, meaning that she’d owe the government $140,000?
Not under current law. Instead, only a small fraction of the taxpayer’s income – the $11,650 she earns after she’s already reached $388,350 – is taxed at the top 35 percent rate.
This is because the tax rates are applied on a marginal basis. For every dollar that a taxpayer earns up to $8,700, she owes the federal government 10 cents in taxes — regardless of how much money she makes thereafter.
The government then taxes 15 cents of every dollar once the taxpayer reaches $8,701 in income, and continuing until she has earned $35,350. There are several more steps in the scale until the taxpayer reaches the top marginal rate.
Because tax rates are applied in this way, a taxpayer making $400,000 would owe about $117,000 in federal taxes, or about 29 percent of her earnings — rather than $140,000 if all her income had been taxed at the 35 percent rate.
Under the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article, that would change.
“One possible change would tax the entire salary earned by those making more than a certain level — $400,000 or so — at the top rate of 35 percent rather than allowing them to pay lower rates before they reach the target, as is the standard formula,” he reports.
In other words, under this proposal, the taxpayer making $400,000 would in fact pay 35 percent in overall income taxes and would owe $140,000 — about $23,000 more than she does currently.
The question is when the government would collect the additional $23,000 of taxes.
The most theoretically extreme case is if the government collected all of the additional taxes when the taxpayer made her 400,000th dollar of income exactly. That is, the taxpayer would owe about $117,000 in taxes if she made $399,999, but $140,000 if she made $400,000 instead. Thus, that one additional dollar of income would cost the taxpayer about $23,000 in taxes.
Of course, the government might never see the money, since the taxpayer might do everything in her power to avoid crossing the $400,000 threshold.
Here’s the problem: the government would now want to collect 35 percent of the taxpayer’s overall income, when it had been billing her at a lower rate on almost all the income she had earned so far.
If the government simply started collecting 35 percent of every dollar she earned above a certain threshold, it would have no way to make up for the lower rates it had been charging her previously.
Instead, it needs to make up the deficit somewhere to collect that additional $23,000 of taxes. It can only accomplish that by making the tax rate greater than 35 percent on at least some of the income that she has received.
For example, the taxpayer might be asked to pay additional taxes on the $150,000 of earnings between $250,000 and $400,000. To collect the extra $23,000, the government would need to tax this income at a rate of about 15 percent — in addition to the marginal tax rates that are already applied under current law, which now range between 33 and 35 percent.
Thus, the taxpayer would owe close to 50 percent in federal income taxes on earnings between $250,000 and $400,000. (If state taxes and Medicare taxes are also considered, her marginal tax rate could be close to 60 percent in some states.)
Perhaps you think that someone earning $300,000 or $400,000 should be taxed much more than they are now. There is still a perversity introduced by this proposal.
Specifically, after the taxpayer had hit her 400,000th dollar of income, her marginal tax rate would then decline. Rather than owing 50 cents for each dollar earned, she’d be back to a 35 percent rate instead.
Suppose that the taxpayer is considering taking on a part-time job that would make her an additional $50,000 in income. If the taxpayer had already earned $3,000,000 in income from her main job, then she would be able to keep 65 percent of the additional income from her side gig, owing 35 percent or $17,500 in taxes.
But if the taxpayer had “only” made $300,000 from her main job, she would get to keep only about $25,000 of earnings from her second job, owing the other $25,000 to the government. Faced with this steep tax rate, the taxpayer might decline the second job, meaning that the government would never collect the additional revenues from her earnings.
This is what’s known as a “tax bubble”: when someone earning less income might be taxed at a higher marginal rate than someone making more.
Tax bubbles have existed at various times in the federal tax code, such as from 1986 through 1990. They also exist in some state tax codes. But the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article would create an especially steep one.
To be clear, the people subjected to the tax bubble would be reasonably well off. An average family making $50,000 a year would not pay any additional taxes because of it, nor would its incentives be distorted in any substantial way.
Also to be clear: many of the people writing about tax policy, from academic economists to yours truly, make incomes that are considerably above the national average.
Nonetheless, the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article would place its heaviest tax burden on the somewhat wealthy as opposed to the very wealthy, particularly as it is being proposed as an alternative to raising the top marginal rate.
If the tax bubble were implemented, but the tax code were otherwise unchanged, then someone making $400,000 would owe $140,000 in federal income taxes, $23,000 more than she does now, increasing her overall tax rate to 35 percent from about 29 percent.
Someone making $4 million would owe $1.4 million in taxes, also reflecting a $23,000 increase. But the increase would be minimal on a percentage basis, since it comes from a larger pool of income. Their overall tax rate would rise to 35.0 percent from 34.4 percent.
If, instead, the top two marginal tax rates were increased to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, as they were under the Clinton administration, then someone making $400,000 would owe about $124,000 in federal income taxes – or about 31 percent of her income. This would reflect a tax increase, but less than under the tax bubble proposal.
However, the government would collect more taxes from the $4 million earner. Someone making that much would owe $1.55 million if the Clinton-era rates were restored, with their tax rate rising to 38.7 percent from 34.4 percent.
Either policy would reflect a tax increase – whatever semantics the Congress might use to describe it. It’s a question of which taxpayers would bear more of the burden.
It’s also a question of whether the tax increase would make the tax code more efficient or less so. One might favor a flatter schedule of marginal tax rates or a steeper one. All taxes have the potential to discourage work. But smoother increases in marginal tax rates, as
under current law, create less economic friction, and fewer deadweight losses, then those with a number of peaks and valleys. It is hard to see the economic rationale for creating a bubble in the middle of the tax code.
|
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The coming Congressional debate over fiscal policy is sure to feature a wide array of proposals, some of which would hit certain taxpayers harder than others.
But one idea being floated by Congressional negotiators, as described in an article by The New York Times’s Jonathan Weisman on Thursday, is hard to defend from the standpoint of rational public policy making.
Its arithmetic could require that the 300,000th dollar of income was taxed at a rate of about 50 percent – even while the three millionth dollar of income, or the three billionth, was taxed at a lower 35 percent rate instead.
The math behind these calculations is not all that complicated. It’s just a matter of understanding how marginal tax rates work.
Take an American who earns $400,000 a year in taxable income. (This is roughly the threshold at which a taxpayer reaches the top 1 percent of households.)
The top marginal federal income tax rate is now 35 percent, and kicks in at earnings above $388,350.
Someone making $400,000 is above the $388,350 threshold. Does this mean that she’d be taxed at
|
a 35 percent rate on all $400,000 of income, meaning that she’d owe the government $140,000?
Not under current law. Instead, only a small fraction of the taxpayer’s income – the $11,650 she earns after she’s already reached $388,350 – is taxed at the top 35 percent rate.
This is because the tax rates are applied on a marginal basis. For every dollar that a taxpayer earns up to $8,700, she owes the federal government 10 cents in taxes — regardless of how much money she makes thereafter.
The government then taxes 15 cents of every dollar once the taxpayer reaches $8,701 in income, and continuing until she has earned $35,350. There are several more steps in the scale until the taxpayer reaches the top marginal rate.
Because tax rates are applied in this way, a taxpayer making $400,000 would owe about $117,000 in federal taxes, or about 29 percent of her earnings — rather than $140,000 if all her income had been taxed at the 35 percent rate.
Under the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article, that would change.
“One possible change would tax the entire salary earned by those making more than a certain level — $400,000 or so — at the top rate of 35 percent rather than allowing them to pay lower rates before they reach the target, as is the standard formula,” he reports.
In other words, under this proposal, the taxpayer making $400,000 would in fact pay 35 percent in overall income taxes and would owe $140,000 — about $23,000 more than she does currently.
The question is when the government would collect the additional $23,000 of taxes.
The most theoretically extreme case is if the government collected all of the additional taxes when the taxpayer made her 400,000th dollar of income exactly. That is, the taxpayer would owe about $117,000 in taxes if she made $399,999, but $140,000 if she made $400,000 instead. Thus, that one additional dollar of income would cost the taxpayer about $23,000 in taxes.
Of course, the government might never see the money, since the taxpayer might do everything in her power to avoid crossing the $400,000 threshold.
Here’s the problem: the government would now want to collect 35 percent of the taxpayer’s overall income, when it had been billing her at a lower rate on almost all the income she had earned so far.
If the government simply started collecting 35 percent of every dollar she earned above a certain threshold, it would have no way to make up for the lower rates it had been charging her previously.
Instead, it needs to make up the deficit somewhere to collect that additional $23,000 of taxes. It can only accomplish that by making the tax rate greater than 35 percent on at least some of the income that she has received.
For example, the taxpayer might be asked to pay additional taxes on the $150,000 of earnings between $250,000 and $400,000. To collect the extra $23,000, the government would need to tax this income at a rate of about 15 percent — in addition to the marginal tax rates that are already applied under current law, which now range between 33 and 35 percent.
Thus, the taxpayer would owe close to 50 percent in federal income taxes on earnings between $250,000 and $400,000. (If state taxes and Medicare taxes are also considered, her marginal tax rate could be close to 60 percent in some states.)
Perhaps you think that someone earning $300,000 or $400,000 should be taxed much more than they are now. There is still a perversity introduced by this proposal.
Specifically, after the taxpayer had hit her 400,000th dollar of income, her marginal tax rate would then decline. Rather than owing 50 cents for each dollar earned, she’d be back to a 35 percent rate instead.
Suppose that the taxpayer is considering taking on a part-time job that would make her an additional $50,000 in income. If the taxpayer had already earned $3,000,000 in income from her main job, then she would be able to keep 65 percent of the additional income from her side gig, owing 35 percent or $17,500 in taxes.
But if the taxpayer had “only” made $300,000 from her main job, she would get to keep only about $25,000 of earnings from her second job, owing the other $25,000 to the government. Faced with this steep tax rate, the taxpayer might decline the second job, meaning that the government would never collect the additional revenues from her earnings.
This is what’s known as a “tax bubble”: when someone earning less income might be taxed at a higher marginal rate than someone making more.
Tax bubbles have existed at various times in the federal tax code, such as from 1986 through 1990. They also exist in some state tax codes. But the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article would create an especially steep one.
To be clear, the people subjected to the tax bubble would be reasonably well off. An average family making $50,000 a year would not pay any additional taxes because of it, nor would its incentives be distorted in any substantial way.
Also to be clear: many of the people writing about tax policy, from academic economists to yours truly, make incomes that are considerably above the national average.
Nonetheless, the proposal described in Mr. Weisman’s article would place its heaviest tax burden on the somewhat wealthy as opposed to the very wealthy, particularly as it is being proposed as an alternative to raising the top marginal rate.
If the tax bubble were implemented, but the tax code were otherwise unchanged, then someone making $400,000 would owe $140,000 in federal income taxes, $23,000 more than she does now, increasing her overall tax rate to 35 percent from about 29 percent.
Someone making $4 million would owe $1.4 million in taxes, also reflecting a $23,000 increase. But the increase would be minimal on a percentage basis, since it comes from a larger pool of income. Their overall tax rate would rise to 35.0 percent from 34.4 percent.
If, instead, the top two marginal tax rates were increased to 36 percent and 39.6 percent, as they were under the Clinton administration, then someone making $400,000 would owe about $124,000 in federal income taxes – or about 31 percent of her income. This would reflect a tax increase, but less than under the tax bubble proposal.
However, the government would collect more taxes from the $4 million earner. Someone making that much would owe $1.55 million if the Clinton-era rates were restored, with their tax rate rising to 38.7 percent from 34.4 percent.
Either policy would reflect a tax increase – whatever semantics the Congress might use to describe it. It’s a question of which taxpayers would bear more of the burden.
It’s also a question of whether the tax increase would make the tax code more efficient or less so. One might favor a flatter schedule of marginal tax rates or a steeper one. All taxes have the potential to discourage work. But smoother increases in marginal tax rates, as
under current law, create less economic friction, and fewer deadweight losses, then those with a number of peaks and valleys. It is hard to see the economic rationale for creating a bubble in the middle of the tax code.
|
Scientists have designed a brain implant that sharpened decision making and restored lost mental capacity in monkeys, providing the first demonstration in primates of the sort of brain prosthesis that could eventually help people with damage from dementia, strokes or other brain injuries.
The device, though years away from commercial development, gives researchers a model for how to support and enhance fairly advanced mental skills in the frontal cortex of the brain, the seat of thinking and planning.
The new report appeared Thursday in The Journal of Neural Engineering.
In just the past decade, scientists have developed brain implants that improve vision or allow disabled people to use their thoughts to control prosthetic limbs or move computer cursors. The new paper, led by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California, describes a device that improves brain function internally, by fine-tuning communication among neurons.
Previous studies have shown that a neural implant can do this for memory in rodents, but the new report extends that work significantly, experts said — into brains that are much closer to those of humans.
In the study, researchers at Wake Forest trained five rhesus monkeys to play a picture-matching game. The monkeys saw an image on a large screen — of a toy, a person, a mountain range — and tried to select the same image from a larger group of images that appeared on the same screen a little while later. The monkeys got a treat for every correct answer.
After two years of practice, the animals developed some mastery, getting about 75 percent of the easier matches correct and 40 percent of the harder ones, markedly better than chance guessing.
The monkeys were implanted with a tiny probe with two sensors; it was threaded through the forehead and into two neighboring layers of the cerebral cortex, the thin outer covering of the brain.
The two layers, called L-2/3 and L-5, are known to communicate with each other during decision making of the sort that the monkeys were doing when playing the matching game.
The device recorded the crackle of firing neurons during the animals’ choices and transmitted it to a computer. Researchers at U.S.C., led by Theodore Berger, analyzed this neural signal, and determined its pattern when the monkeys made correct choices.
To test the device, the team relayed this “correct” signal into the monkeys’ brains when they were in the middle of choosing a possible picture match, and it improved their performance by about 10 percent.
The researchers then impaired the monkeys’ performance deliberately, by dosing them with cocaine. Their scores promptly fell by 20 percent.
“But when you turn on the stimulator, they don’t make those errors; in fact, they do a little better than normal,” said Robert E. Hampson of Wake Forest, a study author.
His co-authors were Sam A. Deadwyler, Ioan Opris and Lucas Santos, all of Wake Forest; Dr. Berger, Vasilis Marmarelis and Dong Song of U.S.C.; and Greg A. Gerhardt of the University of Kentucky.
The technology used in the study could easily be contained on an implantable chip, Dr. Deadwyler said, and it is possible to envision a system that could help people with brain damage.
“The whole idea is that the device would generate an output pattern that bypasses the damaged area, providing an alternative connection” in the brain, he said.
Many hurdles remain. Decision making, like memory, is a multifaceted process that involves many neural circuits, depending on the decision being made.
A device focused on just one circuit is likely to be very limited. But not long ago, even a simple neural prosthesis would have seemed like science fiction.
|
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|
Scientists have designed a brain implant that sharpened decision making and restored lost mental capacity in monkeys, providing the first demonstration in primates of the sort of brain prosthesis that could eventually help people with damage from dementia, strokes or other brain injuries.
The device, though years away from commercial development, gives researchers a model for how to support and enhance fairly advanced mental skills in the frontal cortex of the brain, the seat of thinking and planning.
The new report appeared Thursday in The Journal of Neural Engineering.
In just the past decade, scientists have developed brain implants that improve vision or allow disabled people to use their thoughts to control prosthetic limbs or move computer cursors. The new paper, led by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and the University of Southern California, describes a device that improves brain function internally, by fine-tuning communication among neurons.
Previous studies have shown that a neural implant can do this for memory in rodents, but the new report extends that work significantly, experts said — into brains that are much closer to those of humans.
In the study, researchers at Wake Forest trained five rhesus monkeys to play a picture-matching game. The monkeys saw an image on a large screen — of a toy, a person, a mountain range — and tried to select the
|
same image from a larger group of images that appeared on the same screen a little while later. The monkeys got a treat for every correct answer.
After two years of practice, the animals developed some mastery, getting about 75 percent of the easier matches correct and 40 percent of the harder ones, markedly better than chance guessing.
The monkeys were implanted with a tiny probe with two sensors; it was threaded through the forehead and into two neighboring layers of the cerebral cortex, the thin outer covering of the brain.
The two layers, called L-2/3 and L-5, are known to communicate with each other during decision making of the sort that the monkeys were doing when playing the matching game.
The device recorded the crackle of firing neurons during the animals’ choices and transmitted it to a computer. Researchers at U.S.C., led by Theodore Berger, analyzed this neural signal, and determined its pattern when the monkeys made correct choices.
To test the device, the team relayed this “correct” signal into the monkeys’ brains when they were in the middle of choosing a possible picture match, and it improved their performance by about 10 percent.
The researchers then impaired the monkeys’ performance deliberately, by dosing them with cocaine. Their scores promptly fell by 20 percent.
“But when you turn on the stimulator, they don’t make those errors; in fact, they do a little better than normal,” said Robert E. Hampson of Wake Forest, a study author.
His co-authors were Sam A. Deadwyler, Ioan Opris and Lucas Santos, all of Wake Forest; Dr. Berger, Vasilis Marmarelis and Dong Song of U.S.C.; and Greg A. Gerhardt of the University of Kentucky.
The technology used in the study could easily be contained on an implantable chip, Dr. Deadwyler said, and it is possible to envision a system that could help people with brain damage.
“The whole idea is that the device would generate an output pattern that bypasses the damaged area, providing an alternative connection” in the brain, he said.
Many hurdles remain. Decision making, like memory, is a multifaceted process that involves many neural circuits, depending on the decision being made.
A device focused on just one circuit is likely to be very limited. But not long ago, even a simple neural prosthesis would have seemed like science fiction.
|
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