Between Silver and Glass

The critical introduction explores my stories, as well as my influences, and ultimate desires for said stories. The stories themselves explore a variety of topics. They are stories about growing up. They are stories about being a girl. They are stories about the magical world we live in. They are the sort of stories I\u27d like to read if I ever have free time again

Dispersants: The Lesser Of Two Evils Or A Cure Worse Than The Disease?

The April 20, 2010, BP oil spill is widely regarded as the nation’s worst environmental disaster. The explosion of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig resulted in the death of eleven crewmen, and thousands of fish, sea turtles, birds, and marine mammals. The federal government estimates that 4.9 million barrels (or 205.8 million gallons) of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the rogue well. In addition to the direct effect on wildlife from the spilled oil, which includes reduced ability to regulate temperature, forage, and nest, the unprecedented application of dispersants also likely impacted wildlife. During the oil spill, BP released roughly 1.84 million gallons of dispersants into the Gulf, 1.07 million gallons to the surface and 771,000 subsea. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved these measures despite its admission that no one fully knew the environmental effects of the dispersants, particularly at such great depths or volumes. Lisa Jackson, EPA administrator, called her decision to approve BP’s subsea dispersant use the hardest decision she ever made. As days turned to weeks and the oil continued to spill, it became obvious that both BP and the government were woefully unprepared to respond to a spill of this magnitude. The horror and chaos of the oil spill put the government in the awkward position of leading the efforts to respond to the spill while relying on industry resources and expertise. This also resulted in a tug-of-war within the Obama Administration between its enforcement and regulation roles and its need to cooperate with BP in order to stop the flow of oil and recover from the spill. The use of subsea dispersants most clearly exemplified this conflict as the government’s lack of knowledge about the effects of dispersants made it almost impossible for it to fulfill its legal duty to protect the nation’s waters and wildlife from pollutants. Two U.S. federal laws, the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Endangered Species Act (ESA), contain provisions that specifically ensure that dispersant approval and use will not jeopardize imperiled wildlife and the resources on which they depend. In light of the general lack of knowledge regarding the effects of dispersants used in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the harm they may have caused, it has become evident that these two environmental laws, their implementation, or both, were inadequate to safeguard the environment and wildlife from the disaster response. This Article examines the use of dispersants in response to the BP oil spill. The authors describe the ways in which the CWA and the ESA authorize the EPA to regulate the use of dispersants and suggest how the regulation of dispersants could be strengthened. Part II discusses the development of contingency plans for oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico and the pre-spill consultation process for dispersants’ effects on wildlife. Part III describes BP’s dispersant use in response to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and recent scientific research identifying potential effects on the ocean and marine wildlife. Part IV discusses lessons learned from the oil spill and concludes that future preparedness will require better agency implementation or even legislative action

Gun Homicide Rate Down 49% Since 1993 Peak - Public Unaware

National rates of gun homicide and other violent gun crimes are strikingly lower now than during their peak in the mid-1990s, paralleling a general decline in violent crime, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of government data. Beneath the long-term trend, though, are big differences by decade: Violence plunged through the 1990s, but has declined less dramatically since 2000.Despite national attention to the issue of firearm violence, most Americans are unaware that gun crime is lower today than it was two decades ago. According to a new Pew Research Center survey, today 56% of Americans believe gun crime is higher than 20 years ago and only 12% think it is lower.This report examines trends in firearm homicide, non-fatal violent gun crime victimization and non-fatal violent crime victimization overall since 1993. Its findings on firearm crime are based mainly on analysis of data from two federal agencies. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using information from death certificates, are the source of rates, counts and trends for all firearm deaths, homicide and suicide, unless otherwise specified. The Department of Justice's National Crime Victimization Survey, a household survey conducted by the Census Bureau, supplies annual estimates of non-fatal crime victimization, including those where firearms are used, regardless of whether the crimes were reported to police. Where relevant, this report also quotes from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports

The Automated Root Exudate System (ARES): a method to apply solutes at regular intervals to soils in the field.

Root exudation is a key component of nutrient and carbon dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems. Exudation rates vary widely by plant species and environmental conditions, but our understanding of how root exudates affect soil functioning is incomplete, in part because there are few viable methods to manipulate root exudates in situ. To address this, we devised the Automated Root Exudate System (ARES), which simulates increased root exudation by applying small amounts of labile solutes at regular intervals in the field. The ARES is a gravity-fed drip irrigation system comprising a reservoir bottle connected via a timer to a micro-hose irrigation grid covering c. 1 m2; 24 drip-tips are inserted into the soil to 4-cm depth to apply solutions into the rooting zone. We installed two ARES subplots within existing litter removal and control plots in a temperate deciduous woodland. We applied either an artificial root exudate solution (RE) or a procedural control solution (CP) to each subplot for 1 min day-1 during two growing seasons. To investigate the influence of root exudation on soil carbon dynamics, we measured soil respiration monthly and soil microbial biomass at the end of each growing season. The ARES applied the solutions at a rate of c. 2 L m-2 week-1 without significantly increasing soil water content. The application of RE solution had a clear effect on soil carbon dynamics, but the response varied by litter treatment. Across two growing seasons, soil respiration was 25% higher in RE compared to CP subplots in the litter removal treatment, but not in the control plots. By contrast, we observed a significant increase in microbial biomass carbon (33%) and nitrogen (26%) in RE subplots in the control litter treatment. The ARES is an effective, low-cost method to apply experimental solutions directly into the rooting zone in the field. The installation of the systems entails minimal disturbance to the soil and little maintenance is required. Although we used ARES to apply root exudate solution, the method can be used to apply many other treatments involving solute inputs at regular intervals in a wide range of ecosystems

Annotated bibliography 1986-1990

The following compilation represents the third installment of Oral Tradition's ongoing annotated bibliography of scholarship relevant to the field. This addition, covering the years 1986-1990, maintains the goals of the first two installments: 1) to update John Miles Foley's original bibliography, Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research (Garland 1985), which provided an annotated listing of scholarship on the Parry-Lord theory of oral composition up until 1982, and 2) to expand the scope of the bibliography into other fields related to the study of oral traditions. The initial year of this installment also marks the beginning of Oral Tradition itself, and all articles published in the journal from 1986-1990 are herein annotated.Not

NLRP3-inflammasome activating DAMPs stimulate an inflammatory response in glia in the absence of priming which contributes to brain inflammation after injury

Inflammation in the absence of infection (sterile inflammation) contributes to acute injury and chronic disease. Cerebral ischemia is a devastating condition in which the primary injury is caused by reduced blood supply and is therefore sterile. The cytokine interleukin-1β (IL-1β) is a key contributor to ischemic brain injury and central inflammatory responses. The release of IL-1β is regulated by the protease caspase-1, and its activating complex, the inflammasome. Of the known inflammasomes the best characterized, and one that is perceived to sense sterile injury is formed by a pattern recognition receptor called NOD-like receptor pyrin domain containing three (NLRP3). A key feature of NLRP3-inflammasome dependent responses in vitro in macrophages is the requirement of an initial priming stimulus by a pathogen (PAMP), or damage associated molecular pattern (DAMP) respectively. We sought to determine the inflammatory responses of NLRP3-activating DAMPs on brain derived mixed glial cells in the absence of an initial priming stimulus in vitro. In cultured mouse mixed glia the DAMPs ATP, monosodium urate, and calcium pyrophosphate dehydrate crystals had no effect on the expression of IL-1α or IL-1β and induced release only when the cells were primed with a PAMP. In the absence of priming, these DAMPs did however induce inflammation via the production of IL-6 and CXCL1, and the release of the lysosomal protease cathepsin B. Furthermore, the acute phase protein serum amyloid A (SAA) acted as a priming stimulus on glial cells resulting in levels of IL-1 expression comparable to those induced by the PAMP lipopolysaccharide. In vivo, after cerebral ischemia, IL-1 production contributed to increased IL-6 and CXCL1 since these cytokines were profoundly reduced in the ischemic hemispheres from IL-1α/β double KO mice, although injury-induced cytokine responses were not abolished. Thus, DAMPs augment brain inflammation by directly stimulating production of glial derived inflammatory mediators. This is markedly enhanced by DAMP-induced IL-1-release-dependent responses that require a sterile endogenous priming stimulus such as SAA

Strigolactone biosynthesis and signaling in plant development.

Strigolactones (SLs), first identified for their role in parasitic and symbiotic interactions in the rhizosphere, constitute the most recently discovered group of plant hormones. They are best known for their role in shoot branching but, more recently, roles for SLs in other aspects of plant development have emerged. In the last five years, insights into the SL biosynthetic pathway have also been revealed and several key components of the SL signaling pathway have been identified. Here, and in the accompanying poster, we summarize our current understanding of the SL pathway and discuss how this pathway regulates plant development

Sud4science, de l'acquisition d'un grand corpus de SMS en français à l'analyse de l'écriture SMS

International audienceThis article describes the sud4science project (www.sud4science.org). Firstly, the authors present the acquisition phase of both SMS data and questionnaire data. Secondly, they explain anonymisation techniques, transcoding and optional annotation phases. Finally, they propose preliminary (socio-) linguistic analyses of scriptural usage of SMS writing, and they also indicate those that are planned in the foreseeable future.Dans le cadre de cet article, on expose le déroulement du projet sud4science (www.sud4science.org). En premier lieu, on décrit la phase d'acquisition des données en provenance des SMS et du questionnaire, avant d'aborder les étapes successives d'anonymisation, de transcodage et d'annotation optionnelle. Ensuite, on présente les analyses (socio-)linguistiques des pratiques scripturales de l'écriture SMS (eSMS) qui ont débuté, ainsi que celles prévues à court et à moyen terme