text:
In 2005, Mercury rolled out one of its more successful cars, the midsize four-door sedan Mercury Milan. Lauded with industry awards from J.D. Power and Associates and Consumer Reports, the Milan sold well during its brief yet significant run of six years.
In 1935, Henry Ford's son, Edsel Ford, set out to design and manufacture a more entry-level luxurious type of Ford-inspired car that he originally wanted to call the Falcon. Ultimately opting for the name Mercury, derived from the Roman "messenger of the gods," the first Mercury cars were known for their speed and affordability.
Reaching the market in 1939, the Mercury 8 came equipped with a then-impressive 95 hp V-8 engine and sold at the low price of $900, which when adjusted for inflation, amounts to only $15,000. Selling over 65,000 models during its inaugural year, the Mercury line got off to a rousing start.
But once the ill-fated Ford Edsel arrived on the scene in the late 1950s, the Mercury name found it difficult to carve out its own prosperous niche—wedged in between the hugely unsuccessful Edsel and the more respected Lincoln. With consumers unsure as to where the Mercury fit, the line struggled but still managed to engineer some of the more notable models of the 1960s and 1970s: the Turnpike Cruiser, Park Lane, Marquis, and Cougar.
Officially wheeled out in 2006 as Ford's replacement for the discontinued Mercury Sable, the Mercury Milan is built on an identical front-wheel drive platform. Very close in design to the Ford Fusion, the Milan takes an unexpected turn towards a more refined vehicle interior, offering buyers additional options for its class, plus a Premium model with even more passenger perks.
Aimed at younger buyers, both the standard Mercury Milan trim and its slightly upscale Premium model come with the choice of either a 160 hp, four-cylinder engine or a 221 hp V-6 engine. The four-cylinder marries a five-speed manual transmission or a five-speed automatic, while the V-6 only comes as a six-speed automatic.
The luxury and sport-inspired base model of the Mercury Milan from 2006 has its share of high-end features: cruise control, keyless entry, a six-way power driver's seat, split folding rear seats coupled with full power accessories, and a premium stereo system with six speakers and MP3 capability. The Premier models come with a tad more, including 17-inch aluminum wheels and leather seating with optional packages that offer automatic climate control and heated seats.
This sporty style mixed with the always-enticing affordability factor makes the Mercury Milan one of the more prized cars in its class, and it enjoys healthy sales.
For the highly-competitive mid-size sedan category, the 2011 Mercury Milan holds its own, delivering some nice new features for its farewell, most notably rain-sensing windshield wipers, a rear spoiler, sport-tuned suspension, and an HD radio. Standard base amenities include an eight-way power driver's seat, a leather-wrapped tilt/telescoping steering wheel with auxiliary controls, and satellite radio. It offers other options such as a sunroof and iPod and Bluetooth integration. Leather upholstery, a blind-spot warning system, a rear camera, and the choice of either 17- or 18-inch alloy wheels can be found in the Premier level package.
With an estimated EPA fuel economy rating of 22/31 mpg city/highway, the baseline Mercury Milan has a 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine under its hood that produces 175 horsepower and 172 lb-ft of torque. At the Premier level, consumers get a more powerful engine but slightly less in terms of fuel economy. With its 3.0-liter V-6, generating 240 hp and 223 lb-ft of torque, drivers of this model can expect 22/29 mpg city/highway.
Standard safety features cover both trims and include vehicular stability control, anti-lock disc brakes, and front-seat/side curtain airbags.
During its run from 2005 to 2011, there have been some fairly significant changes to the Mercury Milan model cycle.
Following its initial year in 2007, curtain airbags, front side airbags, and anti-lock brakes all came standard rather than optional, while at the Premier level, all-wheel drive, fold-down passenger seats, and traction control were offered to the buying public. The 2008 Mercury Milan adds a few features to its slowly growing list: voice-activated control for cell phones/MP3 players and a rear detection system. It would be another two years, however, before the Milan got what could best be called an overhaul in terms of its powertrain and body design both inside and out.
Addressing the issue of power in 2010, a 175 hp, 2.5-liter, four-cylinder engine took the place of the previous 2.3-liter, 160 hp, four-cylinder, while the Premium's 3.0-liter V-6 engine got a respectable 'boost' from 221 hp up to 240 hp.
That same year, Mercury introduced its Milan Hybrid. Powered by an Atkinson cycle gasoline engine matched with a 106 hp AC synchronous electric motor, the Mercury Hybrid has an EPA rating of 36/49 mpg city/highway.
As of 2010/2011, the Ford Motor Company eliminated the Mercury line.
2011 Mercury Milan
Hybrid, Midsize, Sedan
During the demise of the Mercury brand, Ford announced it would end production of the 2011 Mercury Milan at the end of the year.
2010 Mercury Milan
Though not a complete ground-up redesign, the 2010 Milan is heavily updated and features a new interior, new sheetmetal, and a new four-cylinder engine. Its 3.0-liter V-6 carries over, but the engine has been revised to make more power to be more competitive. The new Milan Hybrid is Mercury's second such model and of course is also the most fuel-efficient.
2009 Mercury Milan
Midsize, Sedan
2008 Mercury Milan
The 2008 Mercury Milan is definitely an eye-catching car design.
2007 Mercury Milan
The 2007 Mercury Milan is described as different, unique, special, and one-of-a-kind, as it stands far apart from its peers.
2006 Mercury Milan


text:
This weekend, two of the most protracted refugee situations in Africa will finally come to an end. On Saturday, cessation clauses will enter into force for refugees from Liberia and Angola on the basis that these countries have both enjoyed many years of peace and stability after bitter civil wars.
"This means people who fled the two countries and remain abroad will no longer be regarded as refugees by UNHCR and host governments," UNHCR spokesman, Adrian Edwards, told journalists in Geneva on Friday. "We are working with the governments of origin and of asylum to find solutions for those refugees who wish either to return home or to remain in their host countries due to strong ties there. Voluntary returns will continue to be assisted while possibilities for local integration and/or an alternative legal status are also being discussed," he added.
In Liberia, the ending of refugee status will apply to people who left the country during the two civil wars that tore apart the country between 1989 and 2003, killing more than 250,000 people and forcing some 750,000 to flee their homes and find shelter elsewhere in Liberia or abroad.
Voluntary repatriation to Liberia was launched in 2004, since when UNHCR has helped almost 135,000 people return, including more than 8,500 this year. This is higher than the figures for 2010 (1,278) and 2011 (1,762), and appears to have been prompted by the announcement in January that refugee status would end on June 30. Many others have gone back to Liberia on their own accord, mostly from other West Africa countries.
A further 16,641 Liberian refugees have registered to return home and will be repatriated by UNHCR in the coming weeks. The refugees are returning mainly from Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea and Nigeria. Smaller groups are also coming back from the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal and Sierra Leone. Most have been repatriated by air or land routes.
Liberian refugees who wish to remain in the country of asylum will have to meet the necessary legal requirements of that country. UNHCR and its government partners have worked to ensure that they have the necessary documents, including permits to reside and work in the country of residence as well as Liberian passports.
Thanks to the ECOWAS Protocol on Freedom of Movement all ECOWAS citizens, including former Liberian refugees, have the right to reside and establish themselves as well as work in any ECOWAS country.
UNHCR is also supporting integration for these people through livelihood projects and training and is ensuring they have access to education and health facilities. About 12,300 Liberians in exile for more than 20 years recently reconfirmed their desire to locally integrate.
Edwards said that in Angola, the ending of refugee status will apply to those who fled that country during the 1965-75 war of independence from Portugal and the subsequent civil war, which ended in 2002.
Last year, UNHCR and the government of Angola launched a new organized return programme for Angolan refugees in neighbouring countries. "Nearly 23,000 Angolans have returned to their country since this programme began, including more than 17,000 who have repatriated to Angola's Uige and Zaire provinces from the west and south-east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo [DRC]," Edwards said, adding that a final convoy had left the DRC capital, Kinshasa, carrying more than 1,000 people and was due to reach Angola today.
The repatriation programme has been ramped up in recent weeks in DRC and other countries, such as Namibia (2,465 returns this year), Zambia (755), Botswana and Republic of Congo, but has been hampered by logistical problems, funding issues and bad weather conditions, which have damaged bridges and made road conditions difficult.
A further 26,000 Angolan refugees have confirmed their intention to return home from the DRC. Although organized returns will close on June 30, UNHCR will continue to assist return for those who want to go back.
The refugee agency is also discussing with host countries local integration options for people who do not wish to return to Angola. In the DRC some 51,000 people have said they do not want to repatriate and they have been invited to register with the DRC government's National Refugee Commission, with a deadline of today. The Zambian government has offered to locally integrate up to 10,000 Angolan refugees, with international support.
UNHCR has, meanwhile, been supporting projects in both countries aimed at easing the reintegration of the returnees. In Liberia, returnees have been given cash grants to help them get to their places of origin and to help rebuild their lives. Some people have attended UNHCR supported skills training programmes.
Refugees with protection concerns about returning to Liberia or Angola have the option to ask for an exemption to cessation. If approved by the authorities in their host country, they will maintain their refugee status.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Life Goes On
The former face of the franchise was in South Beach with his bench coach and the long-time pitching guru was the manager, but life went on last night at U.S. Cellular Field on the South Side of Chicago.
I'm in full agreement with Jerry Seinfeld's theory that we root for the jersey–the team–regardless of who is wearing it. Last evening at the Cell, the fans in attendance had lost their popular manager after a season we all want to forget, but they were still there rooting for their beloved Pale Hose. And, specifically, they were there to honor one of their favorites, Mark Buehrle, with a standing ovation and multiple curtain calls in what might have been his last appearance in a Sox uniform.
Buehrle, who along with Paul Konerko has represented the franchise with as much class as any players in the club's history, was his typical consistent self in the 2-1 victory. He reached the 200-inning mark for the 11th year in a row as he won his 13th game of the season and 161st of his career–all with the Sox. And, of course, we will always savor his no-hitter, the perfect game, his All-Star appearances, his clutch World Series save in Game 3 and the ultra-competitive approach he demonstrated on the mound at all times.
If this was the last time we'll cheer for Buehrle as a member of the Sox, it will be unfortunate and we will miss him. But life goes on.


text:
To all the Spotify doubters
"Today we updated the Spotify music catalogue with over 10,000 new albums being added. There are some great new releases like the latest from Animal Collective and Antony & The Johnsons as well all sorts of older albums in every genre imaginable.
We've been asked many times to publish an entire list of the additions we make to the catalogue so I've added an Excel file to this post that lists everything in the update. The format may not be the best and some of the names may be a little messy due to the transfer to Excel but we wanted to pass the information on right away, we'll work on a better way to deliver this information in the future."
Still country limits but quite a few great things are on that list that we can enjoy.


text:
Mayor's Office
UNL Women's Basketball Coach Connie Yori will speak at the Kickoff Rally for Bike to Work, Lincoln! at 8 a.m. Friday May 13 on Centennial Mall. Yori, an avid bicyclist, also will read a proclamation signed by Mayor Chris Beutler declaring May 16 through 20 as Bike to Work Week in Lincoln.
Bikers will meet at 7:30 a.m. Friday at one of the five bike shop locations listed below and bike as a group to Centennial Mall for exhibits and free refreshments from Great Harvest Bread Company, Scooters and Pepsi. (UNL participants will meet at the 14th Street entrance of Campus Rec Outdoor Adventures.) The rain date for the rally is Monday, May 16.
Those who sign up to bike to work or school at least once during the week will receive a free cinch bag full of information and coupons (while supplies last) and will be entered in a drawing for prizes. Registration sites are:
Bike to Work, Lincoln! also will include a free Ice Cream Social from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Friday, May 20 at Antelope Park, northwest of the Auld Recreation Center. The event features ice cream from the UNL Dairy Store, live music and prize drawings.
StarTran is offering free rides May 16 through 20 for those using the new Bike and Bus option. Bikers can try out the new bike racks on the buses at the Kickoff Rally and Ice Cream Social.
Bikers are strongly encouraged to wear helmets. The City also reminds residents that it is illegal to ride a bike on sidewalks in downtown and other congested districts. More information and a downloadable flyer are available at lincoln.ne.gov.


text:
Isaac Asimov: a checklist of works published in the United States, March 1939--May 1972
Kent State University Press, 1972 - Literary Criticism - 98 pages
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37 pages matching June in this book
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text:
Highly concentrated glycerin (like out stuff) along with nitric and sulfuric acid and you get an extremely unstable form of nitroglycerin.This is the stuff that killed Alfred Nobel's brother in the process of developing a stable explosive.
I've said it time and again, before adding ANYTHING to a concentrated glycerin please read the MSDS on it to see the compatibility issues.
** Biodiesel Glycerine Soap - The Guide
- on 5 continents helping people make & sell soap from the Biodiesel Glycerine.
what about using septic tank bacteria/enzymes to consume the glycerin?
just wonder if anyone has tried using them?
Today I tried spreading some on my BD waste water drain area..the water isn't a problem but trapped oil in the water is..might seem off topic but some BD can also be trapped in the glycerin..this causes the same type of problem..areas that don't decompose very well. they might take a long time which for me is a problem..
and what about having too much glycerin? I think in all of last winter's heating season we used about 80 gallons of glycerin..about 8 batches of biodiesel worth..or about 1/10th that I need to get rid of..
'84 bluebird school bus, DD8.2L turbo( 4/2011, the bus tranny has died.. 8.23.11 bus driven to scrap yard )
2006 Jeep Liberty CRD - the wife's
99 dodge 2500 5.9l 24v..-mine
everything run B100 when its warm enough
For those that do a water pre-wash, has anyone been able to make firelogs out of the glycerine? I made some with sawdust, but they don't seem to burn particularly well.
yes I prewash.
I haven't noticed any problems burning the glycerin sawdust logs.
I just wrap the glycerin/sawdust up in newspaper and toss an burning fire.
'84 bluebird school bus, DD8.2L turbo( 4/2011, the bus tranny has died.. 8.23.11 bus driven to scrap yard )
2006 Jeep Liberty CRD - the wife's
99 dodge 2500 5.9l 24v..-mine
everything run B100 when its warm enough
How many gallons of 30/1 are applied per acre ??
Would the local Co-Op or fertiliser company have an interest in using as a treatmenet for
lawns, fields and pastures ??
we sell as degreaser in 55 gallon drums to a local company using it on a wash line,
wanting to pursue personal soaps as well
1999 K3500 Dually with a new AMG 6.5TD turned up a bit by John Kennedy
Chevy DMax Totaled thanks to a 20 year old in a Mustang
Mercedes 300CDT
John Deere
On B99.?
I've dumping it down the drain which I suppose has the same effect as what Graydon refered to in his post but it's a hassle since I have to carry down to the basement from the garage - the only part of making BD that I truely dred.
Hoping I can find an organization that can use it and would come pick it - almost a wet dream!
Dana Knight "dckfly"
Boulder, CO
Chevy Silverado Duramax
3 VW TDI (wife and friends)
Do you have any friends with greenhouses? Placed in cubies glycerol makes perfect thermal mass.
You have to have anhydrous conditions to make nitroglycerin... including fuming nitric acid.
If you use a dilute aqueous solution of both glycerin and Nitric acid you should be pretty safe.
I have been feeding some of mine to my cattle. First I tried it demethed for 3 weeks, then I tried it without demething it,since cows are basicly anirobic digesters anyway, and produce vast quanities of methane gas daily. I feed grain screenings, and Hay or grass. plus free access to glycerin. visually inspecting the cow pies showed much better and more complete digestion of the grain and hay when feeding glycerin that was not demethed. I would tend to suspect texastonys nails more so than the methanol.but that is individual choice. could also have been many other factors that played on the cows passing. [did she have a smile on her face, like death by chocalate.
Not a clue. He just sprays it on the fields as he goes. He goes through about 300 gallons on 3-5 acres. Not sure if co-op would want it or not. We've used it as fertilizer for about 75 gallons now and as I said, our fields are a foot taller than the neighbors
2001 Dodge Cummins
2006 VW Jetta TDI
both on B100
Has anybody used demethed glycerin to enhance compost piles? I have a pile of lawn clippings I'm tempted to try it on.
When I first started producing on a homebrew level I would compost the methanol-laden glycerol byproduct in wood chips and other organic matter produced by our landscape operation. It seemed to work fine but as our production picked up over time we saw our compost pile becoming more sticky and saturated. I didnt know much about compost but sensed that this was way over balanced and wasn't working. When it rained I would notice glycerol running down the hill. yuk!
Then I read the "Best Practices Manual" produced by Penn State and it became important for me to explore other methods for "responsile disposal". (http://pubs.cas.psu.edu/FreePubs/pdfs/agrs103.pdf)
We tried several different things including the Turk Burner, making Glycerine Logs (fail) , and even boiling out the methanol in a seperate Appleseed with a vent pipe to the atmosphere before composting. This is inheirently dangerous and not good for the environment.
THE BEST SCENERIO I have experienced was when I had the support of local small-scale commercial producers that have helped me dispose of my glycerol responsibly. For instance, I've managed farm-scale biodiesel operations in SoCal and WNC that produced on average 100-150 gallons of gylcerol by product per week. In both cases the local producers would gladly take my refilled methanol barrels of glycerol and reclaim the methanol for themselves. After that they'd lump the glycerine with their own bulk amount from their production that was later sold by the pound.
I didn't get any of the reclaimed methanol and I didn't get any $ of the sales for the glycerol, but you know what? I was totally happy with the deal. NO headache for compost turning and peace of mind for responsible disposal. This, my friend, was a real "win win" because it benfitted both parties. Did I just coin the phrase "Fair Trade Glycerol". In addition, I was able to buy my chemicals there on occassion.
Back to the topic of composting, its clear that alot of runoff can occur when you over saturate your pile. This can happen quickly, especially when you already have the oily mess of food scraps you strained out from your oil to deal with. In addition, contaminating ground water is a real concern if you land apply glycerol. I think the above scenerio is ideal when it is available because for most entry level homebrewers methanol reclaimation is an advanced topic. Most don't want to make (or need that much) bar soap. Most don't have cattle to feed it out to either.
The most common methods in the homebrew community, I believe, for glycerol disposal are land applying, boiling off, burning, down the drain, and stockpiling. Each of these has inheirent safety, health, and environmental issues. Therefore I think the topic of "Responsible Glycerol Disposal" is important as the topic of "Fuel Quality" for biodiesel homebrewers. And I think the small scale commercial producers that are sympathetic might can help.
Good Luck Everyone,
I've gone down a similar road. I tried composting but it became quickly obvious that was not a good or long term solution. I then started disposing ot if down the drain (to water treatment not the creek)which I was some what OK with since, as I understand it, the methanol aids the sewage break down process and glycerin is biodegradable. The process of getting it down the drain was a large pain in the ass so I came here to find an alternative. This discussion is very well timed for that reason. I got an idea from the responses and called the University of Colorados Biodiesel program. They make BD for their bus fleet and make degreaser and cleaning products from the bi-product which they sell to fund the program. They want my glycerin and I am happy to give it to them. The fact that the university makes money off my bi-product that's helps fund their program is a bonus!
Graydon, thanks for kicking off this topic and thanks to all who contributed. As I said, very well timed.
Dana Knight "dckfly"
Boulder, CO
Chevy Silverado Duramax
3 VW TDI (wife and friends)
I agree with dckfly and thank graydon for starting this thread. I really hope it continues. To me this seems to be the "sticky wicket" or however you spell it for biodiesel brewers. BTW I loved the comment made by dckfly stating "I've dumping it down the drain which I suppose has the same effect as what Graydon refered to in his post but it's a hassle since I have to carry down to the basement from the garage - the only part of making BD that I truely dred."
I love honest answers.
The Penn State Manual states on page 19 "Suffice it to say that responsible glycerol
disposal is a major sticking point for small-scale producers"
Here is a link to something that I have found interesting and would like to more about:
Does anyone know more about this?
This link may be a side topic, but I think what is clear is that there needs to be an "Appleseed way" to deal with glycerol or, like I suggested, an infrastructure from the small scale commercial producers to assist homebrewers with their responsible glycerin disposal.
please let the comments continue.
I live in a tri-level so I have to go up and down two flights of stairs across nice oak floors and some carpet. Rarely do I complete the job without at least spilling or tracking some in the house. Does NOT make the wife happy! She is very happy with my new disposal arrangement.
Dana Knight "dckfly"
Boulder, CO
Chevy Silverado Duramax
3 VW TDI (wife and friends)
i see. well maybe the part about "the only part of making BD that I truely dred"rings true with me because i feel good about my fuel making but not necessarily the byproduct disposing.
When it makes sense in an area, like handing it to a producer, that is wha tencourages me to keep going. Otherwise, land applying, after what I know now, is sketchy. I'm just saying.
This is a bit like adding water to the methoxide mix, because water is in used in the biodiesel process for washing. Order is important. Waste treatment is a staged process, and while methanol is useful in some (typically the last) stages, it can be detrimental to the earlier ones.
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell
Check your local sanimax or other, that picks up oil. We have a sanimax container here at our shop and they said we can put in veg oil, glycerin, and BioDiesel. The glycerin and BD help with refinning the oil they said. They will even empty my totes full of glycerin if I want them to. (I dont, Its more heat in the cold winters here) This is what we were told but it may be different elsware. The majority of oil that gets picked up here gets made into fuel.
Metal Fabrication and BioDiesel Products. Dry Wash Towers,Processors,Home Heating,Centrifuges,Steel Drum Cone
I spoke to glycerinburners.com a few weeks ago.
They're kind of hard to get in contact with (we played phone tag for a few weeks), but he has a glycerin burner that will burn 100% glycerin. You don't have to blend the glycerin with other oils either to burn it like you do with some others on the market.
BioLyle (Lyle Rudensey in Seattle) knows a guy in his area that bought one & loves it. He said it was kind of tricky to get it all set up right, but once it was set up, it burns the glycerin really, really well.
The guy at glycerinburners.com said that it does put out a lot of heat and if I remember right their minimum size burner handles 500,000 BTU.
But, it's definitely an option if you need a lot of heat & have a lot of glycerin on hand.
Thank you for the info. and attention to that post, Graydon. Seems this unit wouldn't be a practical remedy for homebrewers. But for larger scale producer, yes. I'd love to hear data feedback from someone using this unit.
What is clear is that the small scale homebrewers need a practical remedy for disposing of their glycerol responsibly. I'd like to suggest that a thread also be started on "How Do You Dispose Of your Wash Water" as well and see what people are doing. To me this is another sticking point.
Heres one more interesting quote from the Penn State Manual pg 19 under the heading "By-Product handling and Disposing"
-"The answer to the question "What do you do with the
glycerol and wash water?" is a moving target. Rules and
recommendations regarding legal and environmentally
responsible by-product disposal are likely to change over
time as research is carried out, and the regulatory agencies
consider the applications of the law."
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text:
Volver 2010
More posts
- Excellent 2010 Volver Single Vineyard Tempranillo. Did I mention that Temptanillo is my favorite red wine?!
- Strong but not bitter. Good with steak. A heavier wine. Excellent.
- Best $12 wine ever
- Great wine for the price hard to find. Full bodied, fruit forward, with so. Each spice and sweet tabbaco on the finish. Just enough tannins to make this a well balanced wine. 10 bucks
- Great wine. 4 of 5


text:
This essay was originally written for Q Ideas, as part of a series connected to the new bookVeneer: Living Deeply in a Surface Society by Tim Willard and Jason Locy. They asked me to consider how the idea of "veneer" played out in the world of science.
My grandfather, a North Florida farmer, never believed that men had landed on the moon. He considered it an outrageous claim, plainly contradicted by common sense, and suspected that the whole project was an elaborate fiction to raise federal taxes. He held these beliefs privately for the most part, and never had the Internet to connect him with other similar-minded people. He held to a conspiracy theory, but it was fairly benign (believing it didn't harm anyone), and it was not fed by an echo chamber of paranoid websites. He didn't try to justify his belief with spurious evidence or distorted science. He knew what he knew.
In recent times, conspiracy theories have grown less benign, more prone to amplification, and more prone to take on the veneer of scientific respectability. Two cases illustrate the point:
CASE 1: Claims about the link between childhood vaccines and autism have circulated for some time, yet scientists have been unable to detect such a connection. In January of this year, a controversial study that had claimed to find a tentative link between childhood vaccines and autism, and which had given rise to conspiracy theories about the medical establishment, was shown to be the result of outright fraud and falsified data. Vaccines were (again) shown to be safe enough to warrant widespread use in immunizing children against childhood diseases, and highly-publicized claims that components of those vaccines cause autism in young children were conclusively debunked.
The discovery of fraud did not quell the fear-mongering of activist groups of parents, many of whom still refuse to get their youngsters vaccinated. That decision puts their own children, and other children, at increased risk of death from preventable diseases.
CASE 2: At the end of 1996, scientists were so certain that the HIV virus caused the condition called AIDS that they began giving patients anti-retroviral therapy (ART) intended to keep the HIV virus from replicating. The result came to be known as the "Lazarus effect", as AIDS patients at death's door began to come forth, and to go back to their jobs.
That didn't convince South African President Thabo Mbeki, who refused to believe in the HIV/AIDS connection(he believed the science to reflect poorly on African morality and values). In the year 2000, his government invited dissenting scientists to sit on important government health panels. Those panels recommended against a large-scale national anti-AIDS campaign, despite an international scientific consensus that it would save lives. Recently, a study from the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes claims that at least 365,000 extra South African deaths can be blamed on the fallacious viewpoint Mbeki adopted.
It's classic conspiracy theory stuff. An article in the New Scientist describes what denialist movements have in common:
All set themselves up as courageous underdogs fighting a corrupt elite engaged in a conspiracy to suppress the truth or foist a malicious lie on ordinary people. This conspiracy is usually claimed to be promoting a sinister agenda: the nanny state, takeover of the world economy, government power over individuals, financial gain, atheism.
Neither the political right nor the left is free from conspiracy theories. On the right, for example, "birthers" (still) claim that Barak Obama's election was illegitimate because of a fraudulent birth certificate. On the left, conspiracy theories usually involve evil corporations colluding to take over the world economy, market unscrupulous products, kill children with high-fructose corn syrup, dump pollution on us all, or that religious elites are trying to institute an American theocracy. And "Truthers" believe the 9/11 terrorist attacks were masterminded by George W. Bush or a close associate.
Jigsaw Puzzles and Card Houses
Denialism (a word first used in connection with conspiracy theorists who tried to cast doubt on the historicity of the German genocides of WWII) tries to veneer over its irrationality with a paradoxical appeal to science, but without doing the hard work of convincing scientists of an argument. Conspiracy theorists and denialists short-cut the scientific process by relying on anecdote, and by cherry-picking the small number of contrarian scientists and dissenting scientific articles, or by creating their own "science." They claim that a handful of doubters or a small number of published papers with contrary results undermine the validity of conclusions most scientists would agree with.
So HIV/AIDs denialists, like the vaccine alarmists, trumpet the work of a handful of dissenters, many of whom did real research in the past but whose recent, more ideological work fails to get published because it can't pass peer review. They see this inability to get published as a sign of persecution and lockout orchestrated by the establishment, rather than a reflection of the quality of their work. They might even accuse the editors of "groupthink" for failing to recognize the brilliance of the dissenters.
Conspiracy theorists look at science as a post-modern exercise of power, instead of as society's best-faith effort to find coherent explanations for natural observations. The Economist newspaper puts it this way:
In any complex scientific picture of the world there will be gaps, misperceptions and mistakes. Whether your impression is dominated by the whole or the holes will depend on your attitude to the project at hand. You might say that some see a jigsaw where others see a house of cards. Jigsaw types have in mind an overall picture and are open to bits being taken out, moved around or abandoned should they not fit. Those who see houses of cards think that if any piece is removed, the whole lot falls down. …[A]cademic scientists are jigsaw types, dissenters from their view house-of-cards-ists.
Nothing is more frustrating for a credentialed scientist to present their research to general non-academic audience, and then to find themselves facing off during the Q-and-A with a blogger who says "I've done a lot of research on the Internet about this question, and I think your science is a house of cards."
Deep Science
I'm not arguing that an appeal to scientific credentials should resolve debates (it shouldn't). I'm saying that there are deep and shallow ways to answer questions with science.
To do scientific research is to study the world deeply, to understand the history of and relationships among scientific ideas, to develop questions and (crucially) to design experiments to uncover answers that satisfy not only yourself but a community of skeptical peers. To do science that is believable (or "credible") one must generally have spent years in formal training and in the workplace demonstrating competence in gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data.
Scientific research is not "looking things up on the Internet," considering "both sides" of a controversy, and then "forming an opinion." Science is done by a community which trusts that open communication, decentralized testing of ideas, and relentless questioning will lead us to understand the world more accurately. Science makes progress on the strength of conflict and argument, not by seeking out compatible views.
Science involves a great deal of humility, because most new ideas, even clever ones, turn out to be wrong. Science is predisposed to disbelief. Just because someone says they have a new idea, or they've got a new result from an experiment, does not mean their peers believe them. Even so-called "peer reviewed" research must stand the test of time to be credible. The original study on vaccines and autism cited above (now known to be fraudulent) got through peer review, but it did not withstand subsequent challenges.
The paradoxical things about non-scientists who profess "skepticism" about whether HIV causes AIDS or about the safety of childhood vaccines is that they are so staggeringly unskeptical about the claims of people who agree with them. They are willing to believe that almost all the experts are being duped. It's faux-skepticism.
In a society where science is highly respected, denialism and conspiracy theories of all kinds are attempts to get power for nothing. Without investing in the hard work of advancing credible, persuasive arguments, denialists of every stripe tend to use the rhetoric of science to convince non-experts of the validity of ideas that can't hold their own in the truly skeptical worlds of science. When we fail to take the scientific enterprise seriously, or when we misappropriate its language and (limited) authority for our own pet causes, we are covering our beliefs in veneer.


text:
DDSA needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 69 designs submitted by 22 freelance designers.
DDS Agency
DDS Agency is an independent SEO startup. We're concerned with a simple, elegant, bold design that stands out without sacrificing professionalism. We sell ourselves as experienced; a small group of pros in our 40s as opposed to younger, less-seasoned techies.
Business professionals looking for a company to help them get ranking on the 'net. SEO customers come from a wide range of industries. There is often a trust problem in the SEO industry so we want to make sure we look serious.
You can see our prototype website here: http://ddsagency.clickresponse.net/wordpress (NO "www" in the url, please.) We do not want a redesign so please make the colors work with the existing site.
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


text:
It's the kind of news that Americans waiting for holiday spending bills to arrive don't want to hear: "Even with increasing energy production in the U.S., declining fuel consumption, and improving fuel efficiency, Americans may still face rising gasoline prices in 2013."
The quote comes from Gregg Laskoski, one of the senior petroleum analysts at GasBuddy.com. That's the fuel price spotting service used by several million smartphone users to report the highest and lowest gasoline and diesel prices they encounter.
PHOTOS: Best car values for fuel economy
GasBuddy's 2013 forecast hedges its bets on whether America's fuel bills will indeed be higher or lower this year, citing a number of factors that could cause prices to rise or fall. Among them are the following:
- The value of the U.S. dollar over the course of the year: "When the dollar loses value, crude oil climbs higher and Americans pay more for gasoline."
- Uncertainty over the level of U.S. fuel exports in 2013: "As of January 2013, the Energy Information Administration reports that exports have risen 217% in the last 10 years, most recently rising to nearly three million barrels per day. The amount of products exported amounts to over 16% of what Americans consume everyday."
- The effects of hurricanes that may threaten fuel infrastructure along the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard: "Hurricane season has brought significant harm to oil infrastructure in the last decade, and while hurricanes are not guaranteed to impact such facilities, such an event could interrupt notable infrastructure."
- The dependability of the nation's refineries after several problems in 2012: "We'll also see whether refineries have sufficiently addressed the weaknesses that were exposed last year."
Despite the caveats, GasBuddy sees the median price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. starting out at around $3.29 a gallon in January before rising to an early peak of $3.95 a gallon in April.


text:
The father of one of our employees used to say that he was born 100 or 200 years too late. He wanted to be a pioneer, to paddle a canoe for Lewis and Clark or work on the first transcontinental railroad.
After his wife died, he was confounded by the mysteries of the microwave, the TV remote and the answering machine. So one day when he threatened to set up his camp stove in the kitchen, our employee said to him, "It's not too late, Dad. Be a pioneer. Learn how to use the microwave."
Sometimes we need a nudge like that in agriculture.
Today most farmers use computers, the internet, cell phones, smart phones, perhaps even PDAs like tablets or notebooks. But when it comes to Social Media, many still lag behind. That may mean they are missing great opportunities to interact with and educate the public, not to mention promote their farms and their products.
Let me ask a simple question to see how Social Media Savvy (SMS) you are. What do the 2010 Person of the Year and the 2010 Word of the Year have in common? Here's a hint: the Person of the Year is Mark Zuckerberg and the Word of the Year is crackberry. If you knew the answer even before the hint, congratulations, you are SMS. If even the hint has you scratching your head, you may need some help getting comfortable in this relatively new world of Social Media. But first, let me answer the question — Mark Zuckerberg is the founder and CEO of Facebook and a crackberry is someone who is addicted to his or her smart phone.
I don't know if I'm a crackberry or not. Certainly I've never done what one farmer does who flips his steering wheel forward on the tractor and lets the GPS navigation take over as he sits back and Tweets. And another admitted on a national TV program that he's glad his church has poor cell phone reception; otherwise he'd Tweet through the entire sermon.
While I may not qualify as a bona fide crackberry, my comments about Social Media are serious. As Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), one of my jobs is to be a spokesperson for agriculture. I'm learning more and more each day that I must use Social Media to do that most effectively. I'm learning this from my children, age nine and five.
My daughter, who is in the fourth grade, recently came home explaining how much she loved a new application she used on an ipad in class and asked when she could have her own Facebook page. Suddenly I realized that Social Media is here to stay.
Being used successfully
I admire many ag groups and individuals in Virginia who are using Social Media so successfully. When I judged the Excellence in Agriculture Contest at the Virginia Farm Bureau convention in November, our state winner stood out because of their successful usage of Social Media. Their names are Chris and Jennie Simms, and they use Facebook, Twitter and other social sites constantly and have their own blog at www.agtually.com. Just recently at the American Farm Bureau Convention in Atlanta, they went on to win first place in the nation.
Their blog provides an avenue for sharing the positive stories of agriculture and rural life, while also addressing some of the common misconceptions about agriculture. Chris says, "With less than two percent of the U.S. population involved in farming, we have to take our stories directly to the consumer." For them, a blog provides the perfect outlet for sharing these stories.
Recently he wrote, "In a nation where 79 percent of the adult population 18 years and older is using online media sources for communication, research and shopping, it is imperative that we in the agriculture community do a better job of reaching the public through all online avenues. Whether it is a blog, Facebook or Twitter, social media is quickly becoming the primary means for connecting with the public."
Chris and Jennie have found that Facebook provides an avenue to the general public while Twitter provides an avenue to more industry people. "The key to utilizing social media is to develop your network," he says. His advice: Start with friends, family and current customers and grow from there and be sure to include your Facebook and Twitter addresses on all of your promotional materials.
Steve and Jordan Berryman, a young farm couple in Surry County, say they have seen a positive increase in business for their seasonal vegetable and agritourism operation as a result of utilizing Facebook to stay connected with their customers. They post daily updates on what is happening on the farm and what vegetables are available for sale at their stand each day.
Jo and Rob Pendergraph of Mankintowne Specialty Growers in Powhatan, Va., use Facebook in their wholesale business. They post updates about what is in season each week, then chefs at restaurants, clubs and caterers e-mail their orders. They combine new technology to promote their products with old-fashioned customer service as they deliver each order personally.
As in any frontier, the boundaries are being pushed back every day as new forms of media come onboard. And sometimes farmers adapt new concepts to unique agricultural applications. Take Agcaching, for example.
The Simms and the Berrymans both participate in this take-off on Geocaching, a high-tech treasure-hunting game played worldwide by adventure seekers equipped with GPS devices. The basic idea is to locate hidden containers — geocaches — outdoors and then share your experiences online. Since geocaching takes people to new places they wouldn't ordinarily visit, the Simms saw Agcaching as a way to highlight the diversity, history and important of Virginia's largest industry, agriculture.
"Every weekend since we put it on the geocache website someone has been out to find it," Simms said. "People have also been purchasing produce while at the farm, promoting agritourism and becoming more exposed to farms," Chris said. The Berrymans also found that when people came to the farm to find the AgCache, they purchased products and enjoyed some of the agritourism features while there.
Is this your great-grandmother's farm? No. In fact, if she's still alive show her this column and see how many words would baffle her: online, smart phone, geocaching, crackberry. She may remember when radio was new and the USDA used it to communicate market prices and weather information to farmers, however. Tell her it's the same thing, just the 2011 way to make farming more profitable and to communicate its significance to the non-farm public. Chances are she'll support you 100 percent. (And maybe learn how to download a new application in the process.)


text:
We often see new home designs at Inhabitat that incorporate advanced technologies, reduce energy use and provide a healthy and safe living environment, but we really enjoy seeing home designs that have been vetted in competitions such as the Lifecycle Building Challenge. This annual competition, in its 2nd year and sponsored by well-known organizations such as the EPA, AIA, Building Reuse Association, Southface, and West Coast Green, is a challenge to design buildings with several points in mind: incorporate local building materials, consider the whole lifecycle of building materials, reduce the overall embodied energy and greenhouse gas emissions from materials, use innovative and creative strategies, and reduce environmental and economic costs. The 2008 winner of this contest for Best Residential Design was the Spoorhouse, by Benno van Noort of Van Noort Designs, LLC.
The competition called for entries that considered the full lifecycle of a home, seeking designs that utilize re-used building materials and have the ability to be dis-mantled and recycled again. The Spoorhouse not only satisfies this requirement in its basic construction– ISO containers– but is equipped with plenty of eco components, including soy-based insulation, floor heating and cooling, integrated whole-house ventilation, and water conservation technologies.
Additional modifications and design elements can be added, including active solar systems (both photovoltaic and solar hot water), foam-flush toilets, grey-water processing, or rainwater recovery. The home is 1,500 sq feet, the average size of a 1970's home, and the basic model starts at $245,000 ($160 per sq foot). The homes go as high as $375,000 with all the green design elements included, and none of the designs include land, site work, or delivery of the home.
The exterior of the home is constructed of steel, concrete and cementous material, which are non-flammable and can withstand the impact of storms and other natural disasters. Interior fixtures are either screwed in or bolted on, rather than being nailed or glued, to ease dis-assembly and recovery of materials. Rigid insulation is also used versus spray insulation foam for the same reason.
Benno van Noort's Spoorhouse will come with a wide range of options that are classified into three categories: Eco, Basic, and Custom. All the homes will qualify for both LEED for Homes (depending on site selection) and EnergyStar for Homes. Spoorhouse's website details all building materials and options.


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Step by step solution of a 6x6 "difficult"
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Thu Sep 22, 2011 12:12 am
Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Re: Step by step solution of a 6x6 "difficult"
Step by step solution of a 6x6 "difficult".
(This is a retransmision of the topic with larger graphics and enhanced resolution).
This topic is mainly oriented to "help" beginners and some "medium" players to finish puzzles like this one that in fact only requires simple analysis (however only about the 30% of the active puzzlers got the solution). For this example I will use the saturday Aug 06, 2011, 6x6 difficult puzzle (Puzzle id: 333856):
I will use pairs of numbers (in small size in the lower part of the cell) when those are the final candidates for those cells, in black and big size (in the center of the cell) for the final solution for that cell, and I will use colors in the different steps (and when in the left side of the cages to show the different options discussed). The small numbered ellipses refer to the steps along the procedure.
Different methods may be followed, but perhaps a good strategy is determining the "big" products and the "small" additive cages.
Step 1. The cage "96x" in B4-B5-C5, since 96 = 3 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2 x 2, has the only possible combination 6-4-4 so we fill the cage with those numbers.
The cage "7+" in E4-D5-E5 could have these four combinations: 1-1-5, 2-2-3, 3-3-1 (with a duplicated number) and 1-2-4 (all different). The 1-1-5 (numbers in blue) is not a valid option because no number (from 1 to 6) could be located in A5. The 2-2-3 (numbers in red) is not a valid option because no number (from 1 to 6) could be located in F5. Obviously the 1-2-4 is not valid due to 4's in cage "96x" so we write 3-3-1 as the solution.
Step 2. We can place now a 2 in F5 and a 5 in A5 (in green) considering A1 and F1.
Let's now consider the cage "0-" in D2-E2-E3. This is an "even" cage with a sum that runs from 4 to 12 and a "higher" number of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. But 1-1-2 is not possible (1 in E5), 1-2-3 not possible (3's in E4 and D5); 4-2-2 or 4-1-3 are not valid since no 4 is possible inside the cage (observe that 4's must be either in D1 or E1 and D6 or E6 so simultaneously "erasing" columns D and E, or alternatively, either in A2 or A3 and F2 or F3 so simultaneously "erasing" rows 2 and 3); with a 5 as the higher number (total of 10 inside the cage), the pairs 2-3 (3's in E4 and D5) or 1-4 (just discussed) are not posible. Then the higher number will be a 6, but 3-3 and 2-4 are not possible inside so the other two numbers are 1 and 5. Then we conclude that a 1 is in D2 and the pair 5-6 in E2-E3.
Considering A1 we place a 2 in E6 and a 4 in E1. And now the 4 of row 6 goes to D6 (and since a 6 cann't go inside the cage "7+" in D3-D4 due to the 1 in D2) we write a 6 in D1.
Step 3 (numbers in violet color). The 6 of row 6 must go to C6 and the 5 to B6. Now the 5 required in the cage "30x" in B2-C2-B3 (30 = 2 x 3 x 5) goes to C2 and the pair B2-B3 is 2-3 since 1-6 is not possible (6 in B5). Then B1 =1 and C1 = 3. Also E3 = 5 and E2 = 6.
The final steps 4 and 5 complete the puzzle:
Step 4 (numbers in orange color). "7+" in D3-D4 is 2-5 so D4 = 5, D3 = 2; "1-" in C3-C4 is 1-2 so C4 = 2 and C3 = 1. Also B3 = 3 and B2 = 2. Considering A6, F2 = 3 and A2 = 4.
Step 5 (numbers in green color). Considering the 4 in B4, F3 = 4 and A3 must be 6. And finally A4 = 1 (due to F6) and F4 = 6 (also in opposition to A3 = 6).
Conclusions: We knew that the total addition value of the inner part was 53 (see my topic on this subject, "Why in a 4x4 numbers in corners are those in inner area (1)"), the addition of the four corners plus 2 lines in this puzzle, that is, 2 + 5 + 3 + 1 + 2 x 21 = 11 + 42, or simply in this case the total puzzle minus the border, 6 x 21 - 2 - 14 - 5 - 15 - 1 - 17 - 3 - 16 = 126 - 73 = 53. In these conditions, once the cages "96x", "7+" and "0-" have been defined in the inner area, the sum of cages "30x" and "1-" equals 13 (53 - 14 - 7 - 12 - 7) so (see my topic "The use of maximums and minimums in the sum of cages") since the minimum value of "1-" is 3 (1-2) the maximum value of "30x" would be 10 and the combination 5-1-6 impossible. The conclusion that the cage "30x" is 5-2-3 could have been raised a little befote, however it has not been necessary to take this into consideration (or to break into prime factors the "144x" that is directly given, etc.), or going to any complex calculation for this puzzle. It is quite like solving a "sudoku". And here is the official solution:
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Stories from the far side of research
BioPunk: Stories from the far side of research, is a newly published collection of short stories and commentaries exploring the human issues surrounding biomedical research. Fourteen authors explore themes such as programmable memories, fatherless reproduction, nanotech implants, amphibian-powered scar treatment, full body modification and brain-scanning lie detectors, with accompanying commentary from scientists and ethicists actually working in these fields today.
In this extract, Adam Marek tells a tale of chimeric animals and inter-species breeding.
An industrial evolution
'I am jostling for position, trying to find a view in the gaps between elbows and bodies. I cannot miss it. This moment. Ellie gasps and grunts and groans. One of the surgeons shifts, and then… there it is. Pulled from her roughly, it seems to me, its orange fur dark and slicked down against its tiny frame. The world has just become a different place. Another genie is out of the bottle.'
Caspar Stak, BlackWindow, June 2024 Issue.
Even though the road from Kapas to Perjan Tungul is now so smooth that the bus glides with barely a bump, ten minutes into our journey a man in the back row gets travelsick and lays a Duty Free carrier bag on the floor to cover it. I spend the next four hours with a t-shirt tied round my face, my headphones in, and my eyes closed.
I arrive just after three in the afternoon, and am surprised to see here a big café with parasols, cushions on the chairs, waiters in white shirts, a fountain, and a bar made entirely from glass with an enormous fruit and flower arrangement in the centre. This is not the Sumatra I remember.
To step out of the bus, I must break through a wall of heat. It seems to roar in my ears. Eleanor has arrived on an earlier bus, and is sitting on her suitcase in the shade of a palm tree. Three young boys crowd her knees. All four are talking and laughing.
It has been twenty years since I saw her, and even though she has aged considerably during her exile in Canada, she is instantly recognisable: the conspiratorial hunch and sideways tilt of the head, the nodding, the emphatic hand ringing. Like her beloved orangutans, she is thick in body and long in limb. Her hair a comb-shy tangle of white weeds.
I can delay this moment no longer.
Eleanor doesn't notice me, or doesn't appear to, until I'm right by her side when, making a demonic shape of her face, she says to the children, 'This is one of the most evil men in the world. Don't even look at him. It will bring you nothing but misery.'
The boat we take is a public transit, holding about twenty people, and depositing them one or two at a time on the jetties that poke out of the riverbanks like a parade of eager tongues. Banau Batong is the last stop, more than an hour on from the penultimate drop off, and we are the only ones travelling there. Eleanor sits in the front of the boat, chatting with the captain, he letting her steer where the brown river runs straight. She has one leg crossed over the other, and has let her sandals slip off. The soles of her feet are leather, her toenails turquoise.
I sit at the back, in the panel of sunshine, growing giddy on the nostalgic pleasure of petrol fumes, enjoying the sun against my closed eyelids, listening to the engine, the water sloshing against the hull, and the few bird calls. When I made this journey, aged 23, I was enthusiastically pointing my phone this way and that, trying to film the gaudy sunbirds that flashed between the trees, and the crocs that crossed the river like zippers. I had wanted to capture the sounds, so I could spend time back at my desk in England describing faithfully the thrum of life, intoxicating in its richness, an aural assault from ten thousand throats and stridulating insect legs. Now, the sense of loneliness here is so eerie, I give up the sun to move to the front of the boat and sit on the cushioned bench close to the captain and Eleanor.
'It was a good idea to take the scenic route,' I say.
Eleanor nods.
'It's so quiet though,' I say, 'isn't it?'
Eleanor raises her eyebrows. She has the most remarkable eyes. Amber, flecked with gold. A toad's eyes. Quite beautiful.
'I barely recognise it,' I continue. 'It must be even stranger for you.'
She licks her lips. 'Strange is what used to make this place special. Now it's…'
She stares at the ripples we leave behind us, maybe searching for the right word, but doesn't find it.
The Banau Batong base camp is surrounded by a moat. A slimy green mosquito nursery. A man is painting the wooden drawbridge that crosses it white. On the end of the bridge closest to us, there is an orangutan. This limp-limbed wookie is the first I've seen in twenty years, but unlike any I've ever seen.
The orang is standing upright, leaning on the wooden rail looking down into the moat. He is wearing a pair of cut off denim shorts, and a baggy yellow t-shirt that has a bib of berry stains and is stretched long around the neck. He has on a red baseball cap with the Banau Batong company logo – two black B's placed back to back, like a butterfly.
'Is it safe to cross?' I call to the man, pointing at the orang.
The man seems puzzled. He gestures with a sweep of his paintbrush in the air that it's okay to go.
Eleanor has already taken the initiative and is walking towards the ape with a kind of droopy body posture and her head flopped down, chin almost on her chest. The man stops painting to watch as she gets closer. The orang turns his glassy black eyes to her, then gives an eerily human upwards nod in greeting, and holds his fist out towards her.
Eleanor is confused. She looks across at the man, who smiles and comes over to demonstrate what we should do. He holds out his own fist and gently knocks knuckles with the orang.
'This is Homer,' he says.
Homer, we are soon to see, is not unusual here.
Base camp is a village of wooden cabins on short stilts, home to almost sixty workers and their families. When we arrive, most of them are out on the plantation, and the place feels deserted, but there are three old men on foldaway seats watching a Brazil versus Argentina match on a huge screen on the side of the largest building. Above them looms a water tower, and painted on its side is a cartoon orangutan face.
We are met hereby Adhi Perkasa, the Banau Batong Manager. He wears chinos, a pink polo shirt, white leather shoes and a white flat cap. I am relieved that his English is quite good, and that he seems pleased to see us. He gives me a two-handed handshake, and then kisses Eleanor on the cheek – it leads me to suspect that he doesn't realise who she is.
It is now 6pm, and the humidity has turned the air to soup. Grey-brown clouds churn above us. There is nothing I want more than for them to break so I can stand here and rinse off the last 48 hours. They rumble, teasingly.
Adhi takes us to the cabins where we'll be staying, on the way explaining that he has worked at Banau Batong since he was sixteen, working his way up through the ranks of harvesters and supervisor levels. He is now 29 and manages the whole plantation, an area of more than 90,000 hectares. This is the third largest oil palm plantation in Sumatra.
'A big responsibility,' I say. He raps on his chest with the side of his thumb, and gives a confident wink.
Two young girls, both wearing baggy dresses cut from the same floral fabric, run to him and stretch up to slap his slightly protuberant belly. He pinches both of their noses, and then reaches into his pocket and takes out two hard-boiled sweets in plastic wrappers.
'How many orangutans do you have here?' Eleanor asks.
Adhi looks confused. 'These are not orangutans,' he says, ruffling the girls' hair. 'These are our children.' He pauses a moment before breaking into a big laugh that exposes the whole cavern of his mouth and all of his bright teeth.
Eleanor and I have our own cabin with adjoining rooms. The rooms are small, but surprisingly well kitted-out. I have a big plush bed, and the curtains match the bedspread – a tasteful pattern of overlapping orange, white and red circles. When Banau Batong was still a rainforest reserve, I had to share a shed with two volunteers and a pink tarantula, and I slept on a stinky camp bed.
'There's an insectocutor!' I note with delight. 'I was dreading getting eaten alive again.'
'We look after you,' Adhi says.
Eleanor and I are to share a bathroom that is sandwiched between our rooms. I notice that neither door to the bathroom has a lock.
'We'll have to whistle when we're in there,' I say.
'I can't whistle,' Eleanor says. 'But if you open the door while I'm in there, I'll scream.'
Adhi loves this. 'She'll scream,' he says, thumping me on the chest with the back of his hand. Even as he leaves us alone to unpack, he is still laughing about this. 'She scream!'
We eat dinner in a big dining hall with the workers and their families. I'd been hoping there would be lots of orangutans at the base camp, but Adhi tells us Homer is the only ape that lives away from the main colony, a kind of mascot.
'I take him from poachers when he was a baby,' Adhi says. 'My father was a boxer. He teaches me.'
Adhi's father was one of fourteen people killed trying to control a fire that ripped through part of Banau Batong ten years ago. High up on the wall behind the serving counter, there's a memorial collage of these people made from leaves and seeds.
The residents of Banau Batong bash elbows as they eat, talking over the top of each other. Their children sit on the tables, under the tables, run between the tables. The air conditioning in this room is set high and I am now kicking myself for not bringing a jumper.
I wish that I spoke a little of the language. My ignorance excludes me from most of the conversations. Eleanor's tongue finds the words she hasn't spoken for fifteen years as if it were only fifteen days.
Dinner is fried tofu with sticky rice, shredded cucumber and a spicy peanut sauce.
'You like it?' Adhi asks.
'It's actually really good,' I say. He smiles and pats me on the back. When I've finished, he says I should follow him to the kitchen. Here, the larder shelves are stacked with hundreds of plastic gallon-bottles of dark red palm oil, all bearing the Banau Batong label – the same cartoon orangutan that is painted on the water tower.
'We have this in England, too,' I say. 'You can't eat or wash without using something that has this in the ingredients.'
Adhi looks genuinely moved by this.
On the first night, Eleanor and I slump in canvas deck chairs beside a fire in a metal drum. Above us is the big screen, which is now showing tennis. The clouds continue to rumble overhead but do not break. My eyes are stinging because I sprayed too much mosquito repellent on my face. It makes every sip of beer taste a little bit like lemon, and a little bit like poison. The repellent was not even necessary, as I've now noticed insectocutors, like blue lanterns, on every post around the moat.
'I was surprised when my editor said you'd agreed to come back,' I say. 'Pleasantly surprised, I mean.'
'I nearly didn't.'
'Well, I'm glad you did.'
She stares at me, maybe wondering if I'm being serious.
'My little girl begged me not to come,' I say. 'She's inherited a fear of planes from her mum.'
'I didn't know you had children,' Eleanor says.
'Just Hattie, she's eight.'
'That's nice.'
'How is Michael?'
She shrugs.
'How long has it been?' I ask.
'Even when I left a voicemail about my cancer he wouldn't call.'
'I didn't know. Is it… one of the bad ones?'
'I've already had it chopped off,' she says, indelicately flipping her remaining boob up from underneath. 'They caught it in time.'
'I'm so sorry.'
'Cancer's one thing you're not responsible for.'
We don't say anything else for a long time, but just sit there and listen to a far away radio playing the Rolling Stones' Paint it Black, and to the riot of cicadas – about the only wildlife that remains here in profusion. I'm exhausted after the two days' travelling, but I don't want to leave Eleanor out here alone. She sits there for so long, unmoving, that eventually I can't bear it any longer. I'm about to say that I have to go to bed when she starts snoring. I crouch beside her and gently shake her arm. She wakes with a violent start, horrified to see my face so close.
The storm breaks during the night. Thunder and rain make a warzone of my dreams, and I wake exhausted.
Breakfast is rice with curried vegetables and a fried egg on top. Eleanor and I shovel the food into our mouths, both of us eager to get our first glimpse of the plantation, and especially the apes. Adhi takes us in a brand-new chilli-red jeep. He proudly strokes the cream leather upholstery and the glossy walnut dash. 'It's a work of art,' I say, and this pleases him. The road through the plantation is so straight and flat that he has all the control of the jeep he needs with just one finger on the steering wheel.
The scale of the plantation is terrifying. We drive for maybe an hour before we reach the area where harvesting is happening today, a whole hour of exactly the same view, unchanging, identical tree after identical tree, perfectly spaced apart. It has a hypnotic effect, which seems to dilate time and make this journey torturous.
Finally, mercifully, I see an orangutan dragging a palm leaf across the orange dirt. 'I see one!' I call out, the way I used to call out 'I see the sea!' on trips to the beach. And then there are more. Lots more. Dozens of them.
'Exactly how many orangs do you have here?' Eleanor asks as Adhi stops the jeep.
'Exactly is not possible to say,' he says. 'Maybe, in whole plantation, seven, eight hundred.'
Eleanor's mouth drops open. At the peak of her orangutan reserve, she had around 90 apes, and they were spread over an area half the size of Greater London. Here, in tens times the number, and all working within a square mile, the sight is overwhelming. Beneath the canopy of palm fronds, the air is filled with the sound of their soft-hoot conversations and the hum of the buzz scythes that they wield. These industrious orange apes lurch to and fro, a sense of orderliness to their activities. There is co-ordination, co-operation. This is a factory floor, a production line, each ape engaged in his or her task but mindful of its neighbours, constantly reassuring each other with nods and an incredible array of elastic expressions.
The orangs all wear clothes, even the young ones clinging to their mothers' stomachs while they work, T-shirts at least – most of them orange and bearing the Banau Batong logo. It's easy to tell how old the orangs are, relative to each other, from the colour of their t-shirts. The older the ape, the more the sun has bleached the dye.
They all walk upright, lumbering in a kind of drunken way that makes the hairs on the back of my arms stand up because most of them are carrying highly dangerous tools.
Adhi makes a 'give me' gesture, and the orang nearest us gives up his buzz scythe. This is a seven-foot pole with a wicked-sharp sickle on the end that vibrates when a button on the handle is pressed.
'When my grandfather worked in the plantation,' he says, 'he had a long pole with flat blade and he have to jab jab jab at each leaf to prune the tree, then jab jab jab, ten times for each fruit. It takes him fifteen minutes to harvest one tree. Now…'
He gives the buzz scythe back to the orang and makes a gesture, clapping his fingers against his thumb.
'How many sign words do they know?' Eleanor asks.
Adhi shrugs. 'We have signs for everything we need to say.'
The orang responds by going at the tree with quick, accurate pulling motions, hooking the scythe round the thick stem of each leaf and pruning it away to reveal the red fruit balls that sprout from the top of the trunk like monstrous half-metre raspberries. The ape chops seven leaves in 30 seconds, then severs the short stem of the first fruit. While we have watched this, another orang has come over to stand at the base of the tree. It seems to practice the act of catching a couple of times in the air, and when the actual fruit topples, it clutches the heavy ball against its chest, wrapping its impossibly long arms around it, then sets the fruit gently on the ground and waits for the next one to fall.
'Before apes,' Adhi says, 'the workers let fruit hit the ground. They get bruised. We lose many fruit this way. Now, all is perfect.' He grins proudly and pinches his thumb and forefinger together to make a loop. The universal symbol of perfection.
Working together, these two apes strip the tree down to a bare nub, pile the six fruits in one of the many trailers, and stack the discarded pine fronds in a cage, all within about three minutes. Adhi says the trucks take the fruits to a processing factory at the northern edge of the plantation.
'Are they engineered to be like this?' I ask. 'You know, so dextrous?'
Adhi doesn't understand, but Eleanor interprets, and he responds in English that they are 'normal apes'.
'At the centre,' Eleanor says, 'we always had to be careful about the behaviours the orangs picked up from us, so they could still act like wild apes when we released them onto the reserve. The orangs were always inquisitive about what we were doing, but these apes here, this is…'
'It's amazing,' I say.
Eleanor looks sour. 'Is that what you're going to write in your article, that this place is AMAZING?
'We don't teach them,' Adhi says, 'they teach each other.'
'Monkey see monkey do,' I say, and Adhi laughs.
'Those cutting tools look very dangerous,' Eleanor says. 'How do you ensure the orangutans' safety?'
'We have ape hospital,' Adhi says.
Eleanor and I both want to see where the orangutans live – Ape Town, as Adhi calls it – but he insists that there isn't enough time, and the apes won't be there now anyway. He promises to take us there tomorrow. I sleep most of the drive back, and wake to a fire-gold sunset so beautiful I send my wife and daughter a picture, along with one of the shots I took of an orang with a buzz scythe, and one of my tired face, with the message, 'Perfect sunset. Clever monkey. I am miserable without you.'
After a long hot shower, I go to the dining hall for dinner. Eleanor is already there with Adhi. Tonight, dinner is a prawn curry that is so hot I sniff all the way through it. A teenage girl sitting beside me takes a hard-bound sketchbook from her canvas bag, and a little hand-stitched roll of pencils. She draws me in profile, licking the tip of her finger to smudge the soluble graphite, and complains whenever I turn my head and talk. I am a disobedient model for maybe fifteen minutes, during which I discover that her name is Ndari, she was born in Banau Batong, that her father was also one of the men killed in the great fire of 2034, and her ambition is to work on a ship. Nothing specific. Just any kind of work on a ship. Her drawing is not flattering, but her sketches of the orangutans are something else. I ask if I can buy one, a portrait of an old female that must have taken her hours. She tears it out of the book and refuses payment. So wrapped up am I in this sketch and questioning Ndari about her terrific gift that I miss the beginning of an argument between Eleanor and Adhi. I only become aware of it when I see at the edge of my vision Eleanor waving a dirty spoon at him in a threatening manner.
'Come in my office,' Adhi says to her. 'I'll show you my prizes.'
'I don't want to go in your office,' she says. 'They're obviously idiots. You've not saved anything. You've ruined them.'
'To be fair,' I say, picking up the gist of the conversation, 'these apes were never purely wild. Most of them will be descended from your apes, won't they?'
Eleanor flushes white. I realise too late that maybe I shouldn't have said that.
'What?'Adhi says. 'You're Ellie Lundgren?' He laughs out loud, claps his hands together, addresses the rest of our table in Indonesian, points at her. There is laughter that spreads infectiously. Her surname passes from mouth to mouth. Soon it seems the whole room is in hysterics, wiping coffee from their chins with the backs of their hands. It is a loud and ugly sound that drives Eleanor from the room, slamming the door shut behind her.
I leave shortly afterwards. Heading back to my cabin, I see Eleanor outside with Homer the orangutan, helping him fill a tin cup from a tap on the side of the building. The news is on the big screen, shining blue light onto them, but no one is watching it. This TV stays on all day and all night, the fire that never goes out.
I know I should go and apologise, but this moment doesn't feel like the right one.
Back in my cabin, I try making some notes but cannot concentrate, so I stop and put my head on the pillow, leaving the lamp on. After an hour or so of restlessness, I hear Eleanor brushing her teeth in the bathroom. I get up and knock on the door.
'I'm sorry,' I say to the closed door. 'You know, the whole reason I agreed to do this article was to try to make up for whatever part I played in how everything went before. I guess I'm failing at that.'
The bathroom door opens, and Eleanor is wearing a tight-fitting long-sleeved t-shirt tucked into some kind of long-johns, which are tucked into her socks. She has a toothbrush clamped in her mouth, and a little white foam on her knuckles.
'This really isn't all about you,' she says. Flecks of foam fly in my direction.
'Why did you agree to come back?' I ask.
'It was a mistake.'
The door behind her opens and Homer stands there looking into the cabin, silhouetted by the bright light outside. His shaggy fur makes a brilliant orange aura. 'Off you shoo you big brute,' she says, but he is reluctant and takes some physical pushing.
I tell her to lock her door, and she scoffs at this.
'These aren't the apes you used to know,' I say.
A few minutes later, when I'm lying in bed, I hear the click of her door lock.
We have to set out for Ape Town at 4 am. Adhi says that at 7 am, all the trucks arrive to take the orangs out to whichever part of the plantation they'll be working.
'Today we see your babies Ellie,' Adhi says, making his characteristic belly laugh that after 36 hours here is grating.
'Be kind,' I tell him, and he smiles, holding up his hands and bowing his head a little in deference.
Again the drive is long, ninety minutes through dismal monoculture. Every hour I spend here, the monotony of it depletes me a little more. My eyes ache for variety.
In my imagination, Ape Town would be a shanty town, reeking of garbage, the apes bundled together in nests they'd crudely constructed from the detritus of the palm oil industry. As we reach the outskirts, I realise how wrong I am.
The sun is just rising, and against the yellow sky are hundreds of cabins on stilts in long straight lines. Row after row of them. Adhi drives slowly through this grid of open-front cabins. Eleanor and I wind down our windows and hear the most extraordinary sound, the accumulated sleep noises of 800 apes. It's like purring, like an old engine, like something bubbling up from underground.
In each of the cabins, sleeping orangs are heaped together. It is impossible to say how many are in each one, so enfolded are they, but I would guess at about four or five. Sleepy faces turn towards us. They make enormous yawns, stretch their long arms, shuffle for comfort and settle again.
'There are males there too,' Eleanor whispers.
'They all sleep like this,' Adhi says.
I ask what the significance of this is, and Eleanor says that in the wild, orangs didn't form groups. Young apes stayed with their mothers for eight years until maturity, but the males were absent wanderers, seeking the company of females only to mate, occasionally fighting with another male for territory.
'What about the senior males?' Eleanor asks.
'No top apes,' Adhi says. 'Listen, you will hear.'
We're all quiet for a moment. From far away, we hear a series of drawn-out throaty calls. This, I come to understand, is a recording of an alpha male. The sound inhibits the release of hormones in the males, keeping them subservient to this facsimile ape, and even stops their wide cheek flanges from developing. This is not a trait that has been engineered into these clones. Adhi is simply utilising a natural tendency within the apes.
'There's nowhere for them to climb,' Eleanor says.
'They don't like to climb so much.'
'You've got a hell of a set up here,' I say.
With her fingertips, Eleanor rubs her temples, her eyes, and then her whole face with both hands.
The hospital is a big wooden building at the edge of Ape Town. Like the base camp, it is surrounded by a moat and connected to the mainland by a drawbridge.
A young woman wearing khaki shorts, white linen shirt and green wellington boots comes out to greet us. Her hand is soft and sticky. She looks harassed, but happy to see us. Her name is Mariana. Originally from Brazil, she has worked at the Banau Batong ape hospital for two years now, managing a team of just two nurses. She shows us round the four wide rooms that comprise the treatment centre. This place reminds me of a children's A&E department. Plastic boxes of toys are stacked up against the walls. Simple clouds are painted on the ceiling. Hanging in canvas sorters designed for shoes are vacuum-sealed packs of medical paraphernalia – bandaging, scissors, plastic devices the purpose of which I cannot guess. The whole place smells of pine.
On the day that we visit, there are seventeen orangs in the hospital with a mixture of maladies and injuries all the way from flu to severed limbs. On a blanket on the floor of one room is a young male ape called Lennie who flicks through a children's board book with his one long arm. The other arm terminates before the elbow in a bulge of bandage.
A female ape totters through the doorway (again walking on two feet – I've yet to see a single dragged knuckle) and holds out her arms to demand a hug, which Mariana readily gives her. 'This is Bonnie,' Mariana says. 'She's going to be a mommie, aren't you Bonnie?'
Eleanor gasps, and kneels down to hold Bonnie's hand. I feel silly for not noticing the ape's enormous pregnancy bulge right away.
'She's so young,' Eleanor says.
'She's eleven. We find eleven to thirteen is about average here,' Mariana says.
'My goodness, and how long in between births?'
'Usually three years.'
'Three?' Eleanor says.
'Why the speed up?' I ask. When Banau Batong was seized by officials, and Eleanor dragged in front of the ethics panel, she insisted she'd had to breach the conditions of her cloning permit, and risk her own life, because of the eight-year gap between orangutan pregnancies. If she hadn't, the last few orangs would have died nearly two decades ago. This is a fact.
'We're not sure,' Mariana says, 'but it may be because they don't have to face the same challenges that a true wild ape would have.'
'Do you have any young ones here,' Eleanor asks.
'Oh yes,' Mariana smiles. 'Our nursery is through here.'
Eleanor comes to life in the nursery, as soon as she sees the little ones, three of them, sat on a fleece jumper in a wooden crate together. And they are impossibly cute. Their big black eyes and their dopey wide grins. Their wild orange hair that sticks up all over the place. Their lovely fat bellies. Their comical inquisitiveness. Cute in a way that makes human babies look boring. They are utterly adorable, and even I am down on my knees holding out a finger for one of the three to grip.
Eleanor coos over them, blowing their faces, and they love it, closing their eyes and wobbling. Eleanor asks Mariana a stream of questions about their care, about their mothers, about how long they spend socialising with mature apes, their diet, weight and whatnot, but I barely listen because one of these gorgeous little things has crawled onto my lap and is hugging me and I am giggling, enchanted.
We eat wedges of pineapple for lunch, flatbread and tall glasses of rice milk. Afterwards, Eleanor stays inside while Adhi and I walk the perimeter of the moat. We absently begin kicking an orange forward whenever we come to it again, and soon we organize ourselves into taking turns, passing it from one to the other.
I ask him about the future of the Banau Batong project. The ape population here now outnumbers the human population eight to one. It's hugely successful. Where does he go from here?
'Forty years ago, there were seven thousand orangutan in Sumatra,' he says. 'Now about eight hundred. We have a long way to go.'
'So Ape Town will continue to grow, with more orangs working in the plantation every year?'
'It is early days,' he says. 'But apes make good economy. They eat small. They like work. They make no complaint. What we have here, other places can have. Everyone profits.'
'Franchising?' I say.
Adhi smiles and raps the side of his thumb against his chest.
When we've finished a full loop of the moat, and Adhi has kicked the orange into the water, it is time to go. Eleanor and Mariana are outside. They have all three baby chimps in a half-barrel filled with soapy water, and are making hats and beards on the babies with bubbles. The orangs' fur is flattened against their bodies. One of the apes slaps both hands into the water, sloshing a wave over the edge and right into Eleanor's lap. She giggles. She is sparkling with joy.
I stand and watch them from a distance for a few moments before going over.
'You're not coming back, are you?' I say.
Eleanor shakes her head.
'These apes are barely apes any more. Someone has to teach them how to be wild again,' she says. 'They need me here.'
She picks up one of the babies, wraps it in a towel and cuddles it against her belly, resting the side of her face on the top of its head and rocking slightly. Deep down, I suspected she might stay. I hoped she would. I've always blamed myself for everything that happened here. This was my chance to make amends.
I stare at them, enjoying this sight for a few minutes, before noticing that Adhi has an expression of discomfort on his face. He is scratching the back of his head.
'I'm sorry, Ellie,' he says. 'But you cannot stay here.'
Eleanor looks up at him. She withers, loosening her grip on the chimp ever so slightly.
'What's the problem?' I say. 'You couldn't get a better orangutan expert anywhere in the world.'
'We don't need an expert. We don't want wild apes. They are good now. Everything works.'
Eleanor hides her face against the baby orang. None of us speaks. We look at the ground. And then, I see she is shaking slightly, sobbing. Despite all my intentions to make things right, I brought Eleanor back here after twenty years to break her heart all over again. She was right about me.
Caspar Stak, BlackWindow, 25th Anniversary Issue, August 2044.
Adam Marek
Read the accompanying commentary on the science behind this story by Professor Bruce Whitelaw of The Roslin Institute, Edinburgh.
Adam Marek is an award-winning short story writer. He won the 2011 Arts Foundation Short Story Fellowship, and was shortlisted for the inaugural Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. His first story collection Instruction Manual for Swallowing (Comma, 2007) was nominated for the Frank O'Connor Prize. His stories have appeared in many magazines, including: Prospect and The Sunday Times Magazine, and in many anthologies including Lemistry, Litmus and The New Uncanny from Comma Press, The New Hero from Stoneskin Press, and The Best British Short Stories 2011. His second collection, The Stone Thrower, was published earlier this year.
This article was originally published in the book BioPunk: Stories from the Far Side of Research, supported by the Wellcome Trust and available now.


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Specialty Fertilizer Products (SFP) says its new additive for dry and liquid nitrogen fertilizer, called NutriSphere-N, increases nitrogen-use efficiency through the entire growing season.
According to the company, NutriSphere-N helps prevent nitrogen losses caused by leaching and volatilization by "creating an active shield that manages nitrogen in the soil. This shield prevents the action of urease in volatilization and slows nitrification reactions, which lead to nitrate leaching, and allows the plant better access to stable forms of nitrogen throughout the growing season." The company adds that naturally occurring soil bacteria and enzymes are not destroyed in this process.
SFP reports that, in university research trials, corn applied with urea in combination with NutriSphere-N produced an average yield increase of 13 bu./acre compared to corn applied with conventional urea fertilizer.
NutriSphere-N is available for urea and liquid nitrogen fertilizers. It is a biodegradable and water-soluble polymer that is environmentally safe.
For more information, contact Specialty Fertilizer Products, 134 Cherry Hill Dr., Belton, MO 64012, 888/446-4769, or visit www.nutrisphere-n.com


text:
Oakridge® Shingles featuring Artisan Colors
This is a Special Order Product, call 512-759-3688 for more details
Store Information:HOME DEPOT 8439
Oakridge® shingles have a warm, inviting look in popular colors for a step up from traditional three-tab shingles. And now Owens Corning® Roofing has expanded the Oakridge color palette with a collection of new Artisan Colors that provide a unique blend of artistry and craftsmanship that will give your home a look that is anything but ordinary and are backed with a Limited Lifetime Warranty*/† (for as long as you own your home).
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Robert Campbell needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 169 designs submitted by 53 freelance designers.
"14clouds", "14clouds.com" or "14 Clouds", not sure yet - you decide!
I'm a programmer who got tired of working on other people's stuff. I started this company to build really cool web apps for small businesses, who are used to being abused by massive internationals. I'm using a powerful language (Clojure, a Lisp for the JVM) and a rebel database (CouchDB) to make me more productive and keep things flexible.
We're targeting small to mid-sized businesses who are used buying enterprise software through resellers (CRMs, ERPs, etc). They're forced to install this expensive software on their own infrastructure and work through the partners/resellers for support/maintenance/customization issues.
Our company is building hosted (hence the cloud) software to target these companies. Our initial product is a web store which integrates with their enterprise accounting system.
The only requirement is that the logo is acceptable within the corporate world; I don't want anything that would raise eyebrows when a CIO passes the CEO our product brief, so nothing cute/childish/cartoony/etc.
I guess just keep in mind our core product: lightweight hosted web apps for small businesses. Otherwise I'm looking to you guys for all the creativity.
FYI, the 14 in "14clouds.com" is the atomic number of silicon:
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.


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Ocean Career Exploration and Nautical Science
Must have completed 9th grade and turn 15 by June 1st
Think you want to be a marine biologist? How about an oceanographer? Maybe you prefer marine technology specialist? You can explore these marine scientific career options and more during our two-week O.C.E.A.N.S. program. Learn about jobs in different fields of marine science, including technology and engineering. Work as part of a team to engineer a working remotely operated vehicle and investigate the importance of ROVs for ocean exploration. Discover the latest news from the field of marine biotechnology. Gain first-hand experience using a variety of field equipment to collect data and monitor the marine environment. Participate in a full day research cruise and learn how to use aboard ship equipment and instrumentation. You'll be amazed by the career options marine science has for you.
Field excursions include:
Six-hour research cruise on the ocean; a trip to an undeveloped barrier island, field trips to beach, marshes, fouling station, rocky intertidal zone, sea turtle hospital, marine technology program, aquaculture lab, Center for Marine Science, and other marine facilities.
Highlights include:
- Build a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) and complete an underwater mission; interact with UNCW research scientists; explore a variety of marine habitats while performing a comparative biological study; do transect analysis while snorkeling; conduct field research using Vernier LabQuest hand-held computers, plot marine debris and perform a beach profile using GPS, analyze phytoplankton and chlorophyll data for a NOAA sponsored program, analyze side scan sonar and CTD probe data, participate in marine animal dissections, study wave formation with boogie board oceanography; take a surf lesson; and more…
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Deciding to go to camp OCEANS was one of the best decisions I've made because I got to experience UNCW and Wilmington myself. Camp helped me decide that UNCW will be my number one choice when I apply this fall. Thanks again! -Morgan
Program Dates and Tuition
Day of Week:
Sunday - Friday (two week program)
Friday pick-up/final presentation at 12:30 p.m.
Staff / Student Ratio:
UNCW Campus
Summer 2019 Dates:
July 21 - August 2
Residential Tuition:
Program Application & Registration
You must register by 5:00 p.m. the Wednesday before your program is to begin.
Before completing your application, please review the Cancellation Policy | PDF and the expected MarineQuest Student Code of Conduct | PDF.
To complete the teacher recommendation, please have your teacher click here to submit their recommendation.
Please Note: A completed application does not register you for your program. All applications will first be reviewed by the MarineQuest Staff and upon acceptance, you will receive an e-mail explaining the next step in the registration process.
MarineQuest Airline Information | PDF
The MarineQuest staff is more than happy to pick-up and drop-off students at Wilmington International Airport at no cost. An airline request form is required (see above link for more details).
Residential FAQ's
- Linens are provided - DO NOT bring sheets, pillows, and blankets.
- Laundry facilities are available at no cost - bring detergent
- No electronic equipment (including cell phones) is allowed.
- You will receive a Welcome Packet with detailed information on what to bring after registering.
Still have questions? Check out our FAQ page.
• Note that prices, content, dates, and times are subject to change without notice.
• Questions? Call 910.962.2640 or send an e-mail to email@example.com.
• Website and program content © UNCW MarineQuest


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The Pratt school district's Walter Pedigo Building, completed in 1956, and incorporated into the new Pratt High School built in 2008, was the starting point of a short facilities tour by the Board of Education on Monday night.
As constructed, the Pedigo Building was a "house of glass," according to Bryan Pixler, a career and technical education teacher, who pointed out needs for updating. Large areas of glass provide plenty of natural light, but windows are old and not energy efficient. Functioning windows are no longer necessary for ventilation in wood, welding and auto mechanics shops, which have updated HVAC systems.
Liberty Middle School Principal Tony Helfrich took over the tour at the LMS auditorium, where he pointed out stage curtains that are torn and rotting, and house lights that need to be upgraded. He described the auditorium as "definitely a selling point for our district," when interviewing candidates for teaching positions. He also pointed out the student elevator, which doesn't always work smoothly and is slated for replacement in the summer, and carpeting in the office, hallways and classrooms, with seams showing varying degrees of wear.
Information and impressions gathered from the tour, which last month focused on the maintenance building, will be used as the Board develops a three-year strategic plan for the district. The plan will cover four areas: culture of the district, student achievement, facilities and health, safety and wellness of students and staff, according to Superintendent Suzan Patton.
She summarized results from a parent survey that has been available on the district's website, and as a printed copy for anyone who requested it.
"I'm very pleased with the results," Patton commented, although noting that the survey reached "a very limited audience."
At least 160 people completed the survey, and most feel good about the education their children are receiving. They noted the importance of technology and use of social media as a way of receiving information. Respect for teachers was rated at 90 percent.
Topping the list of Board of Education priorities, as ranked by survey respondents, was quality of teacher performance, followed by preparation of students for college, vocational training and/or employment, continuous upgrades of computers, iPads and other technology and upkeep and maintenance of school facilities.
Drawing on her experience as a classroom teacher, Patton assigned homework to board members, telling them they would need a good working knowledge of survey results when they meet to begin to develop a plan.
Curriculum director David Schmidt reported that the district had met the deadline for submitting to Kansas State Department of Education a plan for evaluating teachers. It will rely heavily on administrators' observations, as before, but also include peer review, data from state assessment tests and local performance data.
Patton mentioned several bills being debated in the Kansas Legislature that are of concern to educators. SB 176, which creates a Coalition of Innovative School Districts, is admirable in its intent, she said, but only 10 percent of the state's districts can participate, and they are exempted from most regulations governing schools.
Both the House and the Senate are considering bills that would reduce the number of items school boards must negotiate with teachers. The Kansas Association of School Boards favors the bill, but Patton wanted to be on record for continuing to work with teachers and maintaining what she believes is a good relationship among administrators, the Board of Education and teachers.
"We need to keep a really sharp eye on what's going on in Topeka," said Mark Fincham, governmental relations representative for the board.