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WP Photo Sphere is a filter that allows you to display 360×180 degree panoramas. With WP Photo Sphere, your visitors will be able
to navigate through your panoramas without install any plugin.
WP Photo Sphere is based on the JavaScript library Photo Sphere Viewer.
This plugin allows you to display equirectangular panoramas, taken with a classic camera or with Photo Sphere on Android and iOS.
If you want to contact me for any reason, feel free to email me at firstname.lastname@example.com or contact me on:
- Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeremyHeleine
- GitHub: https://github.com/JeremyHeleine
- LinkedIn: https://fr.linkedin.com/pub/j%C3%A9r%C3%A9my-heleine/55/a14/64a
- Google+: https://plus.google.com/+JérémyHeleine
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremy.heleine
WP Photo Sphere is available in:
- English,
- French,
- Spanish,
- Portuguese (thanks to Pedro Mendonça),
- Turkish (thanks to Alper Demir),
- Dutch (thanks to Gideon van Melle).
- Upload the
folder to the/wp-content/plugins/
directory - Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
- Installation Instructions
- Upload the
folder to the/wp-content/plugins/
directory - Activate the plugin through the 'Plugins' menu in WordPress
- Upload the
- How to add a panorama?
Use the
Add a panorama
button to upload or choose a panorama to insert into your post. - Is it possible to read a distant panorama?
Since version 3.1, it is possible to read a distant panorama located on another website thanks to its URL. To do that, do not
indicate any ID number and use theurl
attribute. Note that this feature does not work with domains that did not enable CORS.
For example:[sphere url="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Cascading_Milky_Way.jpg"]
. - How to change the title?
The default title displayed on each WP Photo Sphere link can be changed in the options page. You can also choose to display an
unique title for a specific panorama by using thetitle
attribute. Note that the%title%
tag is also available in this
attribute. - How to change the dimensions?
By default, the dimensions are 560 x 315 pixels but you can change that in the options page (in the Settings menu).
You can also choose different dimensions for each panorama using the width and height attributes.
For example:[sphere 42 width="200" height="400"]
or[sphere 42 width="50%" height="300"]
.A maximum width can also be given with the attribute max_width. Its default value can be changed in the options page.
- How to display the navigation bar?
The navigation bar allows users to zoom, animate the panorama or view it in fullscreen. To display it, just use the
with the valueyes
:[sphere 42 navbar="yes"]
.You can choose to display it (or not) on all of your panoramas in the options page. If you display it on all of your panoramas and
want to deactivate it on one particular panorama, use thenavbar
attribute with the valueno
. - Can I change the automatic animation?
By default, panoramas are automatically animated after 2000 milliseconds, but you can change this with the
anim_after attribute. You can also deactivate the animation with the value -1. For example:
[sphere 42 anim_after="5000″] or[sphere 42 anim_after="-1"]
.You can set the animation speed with the anim_speed attribute. It accepts six units: revolutions per minute/second
(rpm/rps), degrees per minute/second (dpm/dps) or radians per minute/second (rad per minute/second). The default
speed can be set in the options page.
Example:[sphere 42 anim_speed="10rpm"]
. - Is it possible to autoload the panorama?
Since the version 1.1, you can specify, for each panorama, a special attribute:
. If you use this attribute,
the panorama will start automatically after the page has loaded. This attribute doesn't require any value, for
example:[sphere 42 autoload]
or[sphere 42 width="300" height="150" autoload]
. - How to change the levels of zoom?
Minimal and maximal levels of zoom can be personalized in the options page by changing the minimal and maximal fields of view. You can
also use themin_fov
Contributors & Developers
"WP Photo Sphere" is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.
Contributors"WP Photo Sphere" has been translated into 2 locales. Thank you to the translators for their contributions.
Translate "WP Photo Sphere" into your language.
Interested in development?
Browse the code, check out the SVN repository, or subscribe to the development log by RSS.
- New option and attribute (zoom_speed) to control the zoom speed
- New option to control the animation delay
- New units allowed for width, max width and height
- New maximum height option and attribute
- Portuguese translation updated
- New option and attributes to control the sphere quality
- New option and attribute to control the "scroll to zoom" feature
- Dutch translation updated
- Portuguese translation updated
- New: smooth user movements
- New: FOVs for cropped panoramas
- New: overlay images
- Portuguese translation updated
- New: eyes offset in VR mode (option and attribute)
- Dutch translation added
- Portuguese translation added
- Fixed: XMP data read again
- New: Vertical animation control
- New: Longitude restriction possible
- New: Cropped panoramas
- Fixed: Fullscreen on Internet Explorer
- Gyroscope support
- Virtual reality support
- Fixed: multiple panoramas on a single page
- Portuguese translation updated
- New zoom_level, long, lat, tilt_up_max, tilt_down_max attributes
- New autoload, zoom level, longitude, latitude, maximal tilt up and down angles options
- Mobile zoom (pinch to zoom)
- Fullscreen works on Chrome
- New url attribute
- New title attribute
- New min_fov and max_fov attributes
- New minimal and maximal FOV options
- The container does not take its maximal height while loading
- Portuguese translation updated
- Turkish translation added
- Equirectangular panoramas compatibility (not only Photo Sphere)
- Navigation bar
- XMP data attribute (to read them or not)
- Portuguese language available
- You can set your own animation speed
- Bug fixed
- Panoramas are now mobile compatible
- Spanish language available
- "Add a panorama" button now compatible with the visual editor
- Maximum width can be given
- Autoload after 1 second
- New library
- New "Add a panorama" button
- New anim_after attribute
- Scipts loaded only if necessary
- Nothing new, just an error in the readme file
- Autoload attribute
- First official release


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Sun-Earth Day now has its own YouTube channel, don't forget to subscribe!
This Flash-based viewer allows you to view real-time NASA satellite images of the Sun and the Earth. Near real-time images from a variety of NASA satellites and ground-based observatories are presented. Enjoy zooming and panning the images! A scale tool with the size of the Earth is also presented with the solar images.
The Sun-Earth Day team will keep you updated and informed with the latest news and events through the Sun-Earth Day podcasts subcription.
This new experiential Web site lets you explore Chaco Canyon and the Yucatan to learn about NASA research on the Sun and solar practices within a larger historical and cultural context.
Take a solar walk through time with this Flash-based Interactive Timeline.

subset: commoncrawl


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I have a rails platform that I maintain. It has a lot of different web applications built on top of it. However now a client is asking for an API so that they can keep users on their site, but take advantage of some of the automated tasks we have.
The platform is used to build insurance applications and allows for their purchase online, as well as providing ways to download documentation related to your policy.
So my question when building the API is this:
When I have to do a lot of things, like validate
, create a user
, user profile
, and policy
, pretty much at the same time. Should I make 4 separate API calls, and make the client build 4 calls on their side. OR should I have one call that excepts a lot of parameters, that validates the client and creates all 3 of those things at the same time, simplifying things for the client?
The client, in this case, gets all of the required information at the same time, so its not like there is a natural flow in their application where it pauses and they can make an API call to my platform.
Having been on the client side using many API's before, my gut is to make it as simple for the client as possible and have them make just one call. However this is leading to rather large functions
in the API, which I'm not a fan of either.
How do you suggest I tackle this?
As a note, I am not very confident in the clients ability to implement a complicated API on their side.


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The Ulysses Mission
News story originally written on June 30, 1997
"..Come, my friends, tis not too late to seek a newer world."-Tennyson in "Ulysses" The Ulysses Mission is indeed seeking a newer world, a world that is encompassed by our Sun. Ulysses is a space mission designed to explore the unknown region of space above the poles of the Sun. It is the first spacecraft to explore space at high solar latitudes. Ulysses is a joint endeavor of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The ESA provided the spacecraft and the operations team for the spacecraft. NASA launched the spacecraft on the Shuttle Discovery in October 1990. NASA is also responsible for radio communications and data management for the overall mission.
The Ulysses spacecraft flew by Jupiter in February 1992, for the gravity assist needed to place the spacecraft into its solar polar orbit. This high-latitude orbit allowed Ulysses to fly over the south pole of the Sun in 1994 and over the north pole in 1995.
The primary scientific objective of the Ulysses mission is to characterize the fields and particles of the Sun in relation to latitude, with particular emphasis on the regions above the poles. So Ulysses has been and will be investigating the solar magnetic field, solar wind plasma, and galactic cosmic rays coming from the Sun. Its instruments are geared toward studying these particular solar topics.
The phenomena being studied by the Ulysses mission are strongly influenced by the 11 year solar cycle. The primary mission which ended in September 1995, extended over half of the solar cycle. The secondary mission (or second pass around the Sun) makes coverage of the second half of a cycle possible. It is here at solar maximum that Ulysses will encounter solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and high-latitude streamers.
The Ulysses mission has already made many new findings concerning our knowledge of the Sun. For instance, our prior knowledge of the Sun suggested that the Sun had a dipolar magnetic field. In the dipolar model, field lines form closed loops except at the poles, where field lines are open and extend far into interplanetary space. Also in this model we know that field strength at the poles is twice that at the equator. But Ulysses has found that the dipolar model does not hold for the Sun. It seems that the magnetic field strength or flux is similar regardless of latitude. It is thought that immense pressure forces of the Sun take part to equally distirbute the solar magnetic flux.
The Ulysses mission is also participating in the GRB (Gamma Ray Bursts) study. Twice a day the Earth is blasted by pulses of gamma-rays. Since their discovery about 20 years ago, there have been over 100 suggested theories to explain these gamma-rays and their source. Ulysses stands as one component in an interplanetary network set up to trace the gamma-ray bursts. The network includes the Pioneer Venus Orbiter, the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory spacecraft, Russia's GRANAT mission, the Japanese Yohkoh satellite, and the Indian SROSS-C mission. Ulysses' unique trajectory around the Sun will only aid in tracing the gamma-ray bursts with further accuracy.
With the first phase of its mission successfully completed, Ulysses is now in its second orbit of the Sun. This secondary phase will be finished in December 2001.


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While not quite the full 1.3 miles yet, Carson Valley residents will dedicate the Genoa Vista Trail on Saturday.When completed the trail will start at Carson Street in town and wind below Foothill Road to 1862 David Walley's Hot Springs Resort. The final segment between Candy Dance Lane and Carson Street was delayed by the recent frigid temperatures.The dedication is 10 a.m. Saturday at the north end of the trail closer to Candy Dance than Carson Street.The trail linking Genoa to Walley's Hot Springs Resort is part of a general plan including a trail east to the Nature Conservancy's Whit Hall."I believe the trail is one additional reason for visitors to come to Genoa. Once there, they have the opportunity to discover the rest of the Carson Valley," said Redevelopment Agency Chairman Greg Lynn. After the dedication ceremony, visitors will be encouraged to walk or bike the trail.Speakers along the trail will discuss the wildlife and history of the area, including a presentation on eagles, the shoot-out where Henry Van Sickle killed bad man Sam Brown, the Pony Express and bird habitats.The southernmost point along the trail, and the first to be developed, is named for Summerwinds Resorts Marketing Director Kaylin Pippin, who died of breast cancer in November. Candice Goetsch and Pat Riley from Walley's will be at Kaylin's Point of View to discuss Pippin's support for the trail's construction.A reception will be held at Walley's until 1 p.m., where refreshments will be served and entertainment will be provided by Doug Lubushkin in the gazebo.Parking will be available on Nixon Street, at Walley's or at Mormon Station State Historic Park in Genoa. A shuttle will be available to return residents to Genoa.Cost of the $750,000 project was funded by the Douglas County Redevelopment Agency with a $100,000 grant from Nevada State Lands, Question 1 Program, through The Nature Conservancy. The trail is the first part of a $2.2 million project that represents one of the largest nondisaster expenditures in Genoa's history.The second part is scheduled to go before Douglas County commissioners sitting as the Redevelopment Agency board on Feb. 7, Town Manager Sheryl Gonzales said.The trail is part of the Genoa Destination Project, one of a dozen Douglas County Economic Vitality projects. For more information about the dedication ceremony, contact the town of Genoa at 775-782-8696.
Use the comment form below to begin a discussion about this content.


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Best Sprinkle Medleys You Can Find
Why Sprinkle Medleys are Popular
Before you order your wholesale sprinkle mixes, you may wonder how you can even pick a favorite from our extensive collection online. Our sprinkle medleys are gorgeous blends of different colors and sprinkle sizes that can be easily included into any upcoming party theme. Save money by getting sprinkle blends already mixed to match your event colors instead of buying all the colors individually to do it yourself.
Just like our custom sprinkles, our sprinkle medleys can unleash your creativity and give you the ability to make your cupcake, cake, or cookie as beautiful as you dreamed.
We Offer Blends for All Themes
There's no shortage of mixes and blends in our sprinkle shop online. Some of our best selling mixes are:
• Birthday Cake • Comic Book • Cotton Candy • Girl Power • Havana Nights • Outer Space • Prime Time • So Fancy • Unicorn Cake
In addition to individual bottles of sprinkle mixes, we offer trio sprinkle sets matched to the most popular party themes out there. Our sprinkles can act as a perfect starter kit for your next great cupcake design!
We Offer Bulk Mixes
You can also order our sprinkle blends in bulk packaging options. We have several different bulk sprinkle bottles to ensure that you receive the exact amount that you need for cupcake or cake decorating. Whether you're a baker at home, a party store owner, or a professional baker, it's important that you have enough sprinkles so every cupcake gets its share.
At great prices, you'll be able to order as much as you need.
Check Out Our Natural Options
Those who require certain ingredients to be left out, like naturalists or vegans, can also find a variety of sprinkles in our shop. We offer natural and plant-based sprinkles to ensure that everyone with dietary restrictions can still enjoy delicious baked desserts. We even have gluten-free sprinkles.
No matter what kind of dietary restriction you adhere to, you'll find the right kind of mix with us.
Experience Delicious Flavor and Style
Our mixes are made up of various types of crunchy sprinkles like jimmies, pearls, crystals, crispies, and nonpareils. Each one contains an explosion of sweet flavor that you won't be able to get enough of. You can also rest assured that our high-quality sprinkles leave out the waxy taste and texture that party store and grocery store sprinkles often supply.
Try Our Sprinkles Today
We have colorful options for everyone. Choose your sprinkles from our retail, bulk, and wholesale packaging options and start baking today.


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Beer taps for home: dispense cold, crisp pints at home with one of these home beer dispensers
This article contains affiliate links. We may earn a small commission on items purchased through this article, but that does not affect our editorial judgement.
There's nothing so refreshing as a cold, freshly poured pint.
And with winter on it's way, bringing with it grim weather, the prospect of a home beer dispenser has become more attractive than ever. A cold, frothing pint right in the comfort of your living room? Bliss.
While in the past mini-kegs and their ilk have proven underwhelming (flat, warm beer, anyone? Thought not), modern home beer dispensers are an accomplished proposition.
From temperature control, to proper dispensing taps (akin to those in a pub), counter-top size, and handy refill systems - you won't miss the pub at all.
Did we mention the savings? We probably should mention how cost effective these machines end up being. After the initial outlay, you're cutting out the mark-up you get in any bar.
Pair up with some home-made cocktails and you're in speakeasy heaven.
This is our absolute favourite, both in terms of taste of the beer dispensed, and the ease of use. Simply install the beer keg, plug the Blade in, wait for it to cool (to a crisp 2 degrees Celsius), then pour and enjoy. The 8 litres of beer in the keg will stay frothy and drinking fresh, provided you keep the Blade switched on.
It's a quiet, discretely sized machine (two A4 sheets of paper laid side by side, and 47cm tall), compatible with many mainstream brands such as Tiger, Heineken, and Birra Moretti. No CO2 cannisters or extra equipment required, yet it yields professional pints. A joy.
The Fizzics DraftPour Beer Dispenser is as cunning a machine as we've encountered.
Successfully pitched on Shark Tank, it utilises soundwaves to transform a standard canned or bottled beer into a pub-grade draft pour. Gosh, it works - the body of the beer tastes creamier, the head foams perfectly. Especially great for Guinness.
Small, powerful, stylish. The Krups Compact Sub is similar to the Blade only smaller and better looking. Energy efficient, it chills two litres of beer to 2 degrees Celsius, keeping it fresh for 30 days. Compatible with the same mainstream brands as the Blade. Perfect for if you fancy a half pint of an evening.
Altogether cheaper is the Expondo model, which houses and cools 5 litres of beer. As a bonus, you can chose the temperature of the beer (for those of you strange sorts who like it warmer) from anywhere between the 2 and 12 degrees Celsius.
The Expondo requires CO2 canisters to work, which is both an advantage and hindrance, depending on how you look at it.
On the one hand it means the machine is compatible with a very wide range of beer brands, on the flipside you do have to replace them. That said, pub beer utilises CO2, so you could make an argument for authenticity (although we preferred the taste of the Blade).
It's a touch smaller than the Blade, too, so better for cramped kitchens. A well-priced, effective option.


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Are you looking for things to do outside with your family this summer? If you are going to be in the Wilmington, NC area, look no further than Mayfaire Township. Offering shopping, dining, residential properties, movies, hotels and an office park this "go to" location has something for everyone including outdoor events.
Upcoming events include family oriented fun at Barnes & Noble. Every Tuesday at 10 a.m. toddlers can participate in Toddler Storytime. Bring the entire family on Fridays at 7 p.m. for Family Storytime. Each Saturday at 11 a.m. there is a Special Storytime and each second Tuesday at 7 p.m. an American Girl Night. For those inspired by mystery a Magic House Night is offered each third Thursday of the month.
A community-wide event, Stuff the Bus, will be held August 5th. Communities in Schools of Cape Fear will collect school supplies at Mayfaire Town Center in front of Regal 16 Cinema on August 5-6 from 11 a.m. – 7 p.m., and again on August 7, 12-5 p.m.
University of North Carolina at Wilmington fans will enjoy UNCW Shopping Weekend August 13-14. Shops throughout Mayfaire will be offering special discounts for UNCW students.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Mayfaire Town Center is hosting a Run for the Ta-Tas on Saturday, October 1 with registration beginning at 6:30 a.m. This Chaser Run is one of a kind in the Wilmington area. Music and entertainment will be provided.
The Cape Fear Heart Walk brings thousands to walk for funds supporting lifesaving education about heart disease and stroke research. The walk will take place on October 15th in the parking lot between the Macaroni Grill and Smokey Bones on International Drive. Registration begins at 8:30 a.m.
The Coastal Carolina Auto Show allows dealerships to showcase their new and exciting models. This year's event is sponsored by StarNews Media and will be held across from Belk on October 22-23.
Mayfaire Town Center is a designation for fun and family. The convenience to the larger Wilmington and Wrightsville Beach area makes it an easy regular favorite of residents and guests. The Township also provides living, shopping and an office park area.
Enjoy living in the Mayfaire Township. There are several communities to choose from including homes such as 557 Garden Terrace Drive 205. When you are ready to view residential properties at Mayfaire, let us assist you as a Buyer's Agent. Contact us for more information.


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The New York Times, By Annie Lowrey and Robert Pear –
July 28, 2012: In the Inland Empire, an economically depressed region in Southern California, President Obama's health care law is expected to extend insurance coverage to more than 300,000 people by 2014. But coverage will not necessarily translate into care: Local health experts doubt there will be enough doctors to meet the area's needs. There are not enough now.
Other places around the country, including the Mississippi Delta, Detroit and suburban Phoenix, face similar problems. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that in 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed. And that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care.
Even without the health care law, the shortfall of doctors in 2025 would still exceed 100,000.
Health experts, including many who support the law, say there is little that the government or the medical profession will be able to do to close the gap by 2014, when the law begins extending coverage to about 30 million Americans. It typically takes a decade to train a doctor.
"We have a shortage of every kind of doctor, except for plastic surgeons and dermatologists," said Dr. G. Richard Olds, the dean of the new medical school at the University of California, Riverside, founded in part to address the region's doctor shortage. "We'll have a 5,000-physician shortage in 10 years, no matter what anybody does."
Experts describe a doctor shortage as an "invisible problem." Patients still get care, but the process is often slow and difficult. In Riverside, it has left residents driving long distances to doctors, languishing on waiting lists, overusing emergency rooms and even forgoing care.
"It results in delayed care and higher levels of acuity," said Dustin Corcoran, the chief executive of the California Medical Association, which represents 35,000 physicians. People "access the health care system through the emergency department, rather than establishing a relationship with a primary care physician who might keep them from getting sicker."
In the Inland Empire, encompassing the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino, the shortage of doctors is already severe. The population of Riverside County swelled 42 percent in the 2000s, gaining more than 644,000 people. It has continued to grow despite the collapse of one of the country's biggest property bubbles and a jobless rate of 11.8 percent in the Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario metro area.
But the growth in the number of physicians has lagged, in no small part because the area has trouble attracting doctors, who might make more money and prefer living in nearby Orange County or Los Angeles.
A government council has recommended that a given region have 60 to 80 primary care doctors per 100,000 residents, and 85 to 105 specialists. The Inland Empire has about 40 primary care doctors and 70 specialists per 100,000 residents — the worst shortage in California, in both cases.
Moreover, across the country, fewer than half of primary care clinicians were accepting new Medicaid patients as of 2008, making it hard for the poor to find care even when they are eligible for Medicaid. The expansion of Medicaid accounts for more than one-third of the overall growth in coverage in President Obama's health care law.
Providers say they are bracing for the surge of the newly insured into an already strained system.
Temetry Lindsey, the chief executive of Inland Behavioral & Health Services, which provides medical care to about 12,000 area residents, many of them low income, said she was speeding patient-processing systems, packing doctors' schedules tighter and seeking to hire more physicians.
"We know we are going to be overrun at some point," Ms. Lindsey said, estimating that the clinics would see new demand from 10,000 to 25,000 residents by 2014. She added that hiring new doctors had proved a struggle, in part because of the "stigma" of working in this part of California.
Across the country, a factor increasing demand, along with expansion of coverage in the law and simple population growth, is the aging of the baby boom generation. Medicare officials predict that enrollment will surge to 73.2 million in 2025, up 44 percent from 50.7 million this year.
"Older Americans require significantly more health care," said Dr. Darrell G. Kirch, the president of the Association of American Medical Colleges. "Older individuals are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, requiring more intensive, coordinated care."
The pool of doctors has not kept pace, and will not, health experts said. Medical school enrollment is increasing, but not as fast as the population. The number of training positions for medical school graduates is lagging. Younger doctors are on average working fewer hours than their predecessors. And about a third of the country's doctors are 55 or older, and nearing retirement.
Physician compensation is also an issue. The proportion of medical students choosing to enter primary care has declined in the past 15 years, as average earnings for primary care doctors and specialists, like orthopedic surgeons and radiologists, have diverged. A study by the Medical Group Management Association found that in 2010, primary care doctors made about $200,000 a year. Specialists often made twice as much.
The Obama administration has sought to ease the shortage. The health care law increases Medicaid's primary care payment rates in 2013 and 2014. It also includes money to train new primary care doctors, reward them for working in underserved communities and strengthen community health centers.
But the provisions within the law are expected to increase the number of primary care doctors by perhaps 3,000 in the coming decade. Communities around the country need about 45,000.
Many health experts in California said that while they welcomed the expansion of coverage, they expected that the state simply would not be ready for the new demand. "It's going to be necessary to use the resources that we have smarter" in light of the doctor shortages, said Dr. Mark D. Smith, who heads the California HealthCare Foundation, a nonprofit group.
Dr. Smith said building more walk-in clinics, allowing nurses to provide more care and encouraging doctors to work in teams would all be part of the answer. Mr. Corcoran of the California Medical Association also said the state would need to stop cutting Medicaid payment rates; instead, it needed to increase them to make seeing those patients economically feasible for doctors.
More doctors might be part of the answer as well. The U.C. Riverside medical school is hoping to enroll its first students in August 2013, and is planning a number of policies to encourage its graduates to stay in the area and practice primary care.
But Dr. Olds said changing how doctors provided care would be more important than minting new doctors. "I'm only adding 22 new students to this equation," he said. "That's not enough to put a dent in a 5,000-doctor shortage."
Source: The John & Rusty Report via Word & Brown


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Image 1/1 |
Copyright © Gunter Marx Stock Photos. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED by the Copyright Holder. 5941x3973 / 10.9MB
Image is copyrighted. No image reproduction and rights are granted to Client, until Gunter Marx Stock Photos has received full payment of invoice, outlining copyright license and usage fee.
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Stallion Responsive Theme version 8.4: added over 70 new color schemes!
Stallion Responsive is not just a WordPress Theme that's SEO friendly, it's an entire WordPress SEO package of built-in plugins and SEO features taking WordPress to the next level in Post Panda SEO and Google performance metrics with advanced SEO measures to help take full advantage of the Google Hummingbird algorithm.
Hummingbird is the Google search algorithm that understands human natural language patterns better than ever before: long tail keyword SERPs with a human touch and Stallion Responsive v8 includes multiple features to take advantage of Google: no other WordPress theme or SEO plugin has these Hummingbird features.
Tested to WordPress Version 4.8.*. Note: It's tested every day on dozens of my WordPress sites including this one, if a WordPress automatic update breaks the theme it would take most of my network out including this website. The fact you are reading this means Stallion Responsive is working in the latest version of WordPress.
Hummingbird WordPress SEO
A couple of examples of natural language or conversational searches would be:
What is the Stallion Responsive Theme WordPress SEO Package?
How can Stallion Responsive SEO help my business?
Question like search phrases using natural language and Google has improved it's algorithm (called Hummingbird) and the Stallion Responsive keyword phrases (one of many WP SEO package features) can be used to target these types of natural language SERPs. It's a cool SEO feature which took months to code and takes just as long to implement on a large website (2018+ Google SEO is not easy).
No other WordPress Theme offers this level of SEO features and options in one easy to use WordPress package.
This website is devoted to describing what has taken yours truly (David Law AKA: SEO Dave) over 10 years to develop to Stallion Responsive version 8.
Download the Stallion Responsive SEO Theme Package
Want to jump right in, download the full Stallion Responsive Theme V8.4 Zip file (that's the main SEO package) and the full Stallion Responsive Child Theme V8.4 Zip file (includes thousands of header and banner images) and test in Demo mode: in Demo mode all options are available, but the options reset to defaults roughly every 500 pageviews.
The SEO package is that good I'm giving you full access to everything so you can see for yourself. Go kick the tires, if you don't like what you see don't buy a Stallion Responsive License, if you like it buy a Stallion ID for $30 USD using the "Buy Now" button on the left menu (on every page of this website) or via the Buy Now button below and enter the Transaction ID on the main Stallion Theme Options page: yes the zip files above are the full SEO product, all you need is a Transaction ID to turn off Demo mode.
Best Way to Install Stallion Responsive
Many WordPress users are not familiar with WordPress Child themes, child themes add the ability to include extra features to a main parent theme allowing you to gain even more flexibility over WordPress. The Stallion Responsive SEO package relies heavily on a child theme (it's free), it contains hundreds of images you can use as thumbnails, headers and banners within your WordPress powered website.First we install the Stallion Responsive Theme
Under your WordPress Dashboard go to "Appearance >> Themes" : "Add New" – "Upload" : Select the "stallion-responsive-8.4.zip" file from your computer and install.Do NOT activate Stallion Responsive yet.
Next we install the Stallion Responsive Child Theme
Under "Appearance >> Themes" : "Add New" – "Upload" : Select the "stallion-responsive-child-8.4.zip" file from your computer and install.Activate the Stallion Responsive Child Theme
By installing and activating the free child theme you gain access to hundreds of free header images, banner images and thumbnails.
So Many WordPress Theme Options
Stallion is built on multiple options pages giving you full control over almost every aspect of a site. This does mean there's a learning curve to get the most out of Stallion, but if you want the best you can't expect it to be a simple install and everything works exactly how YOU want it.
That being said there are sensible SEO and performance defaults that with a few clicks of the mouse produces a site not unlike the one you are on now (this site runs under Stallion Responsive). On the main Stallion Options page there are instructions how to quickly setup a site for best SEO and performance: it's literally two clicks of the mouse away.
Choose from 12 layouts, 112 color schemes (new schemes are easy to create, there's a built in feature for creating them), hundreds of header, banner and thumbnail images, featured slider, accordion navigation menu, social media options (Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pintrest, Linkedin, Stumbleupon, Reddit etc…), Google analytics integration, performance metrics, advanced SEO settings and so much more.
Literally hundreds of theme options giving you full control over how your WordPress powered site looks and behaves including AdSense Responsive Beta Ad Unit code that has a better performance metric (loads faster) than what Google AdSense supplies by default!
Stallion Responsive Tutorials
This website is devoted to exploring the SEO capabilities of the Stallion Responsive WordPress SEO Package, below are some of the Stallion tutorials. Many of the package features are described within this websites posts, for example the extensive WordPress SEO Tutorial references Stallion Responsive a LOT.
- Stallion Responsive Tutorials
- AdSense Tutorial
- Chitika Tutorial
- InfoLinks Ads Tutorial
- Kontera Ads Tutorial
- SEO Advanced Options
- Stallion SEO Super Comments
- Stallion Comment Form Titles
- Cloak Affiliate Links Tutorial
- WPRobot Autoblog SEO
- Massive Passive Profits SEO
- WordPress SEO Plugin Theme Support
- WordPress SEO Plugin Warnings
- Stallion Layout Options
- WordPress Navigation Menu with Images
- WordPress Custom Menu Manager
- Stallion Header Images
- Stallion Featured Slideshow
- Stallion Social Network Tutorial
- WordPress Google Authorship
- Stallion Theme Widgets
- WordPress Custom Menu Widget
- WordPress Recent and Popular Posts Widget
- Responsive Theme Single Posts Widget
- Stallion Responsive WordPress Widget Cache
- WordPress Gravatar
- Stallion Responsive Theme Color Scheme CSS Creator Fonts
- Stallion Theme Update Tutorial
Responsive WordPress Theme
Stallion Responsive has been created with both responsiveness to mobile devices and Google's new performance metrics (the new post Panda SEO) in mind. Run this site through the Free Google Pagespeed Insights Tool. Now run your site or any other site running a WordPress SEO Theme through the tool and compare, below are screenshots for this websites home page.
Stallion Responsive Pagespeed Insights Mobile Results 92/100
Stallion Responsive Pagespeed Insights Desktop Results 98/100
The results will vary based on how good the connection is from Google Pagespeed Insights Tool and the webserver (this site runs on a cheap Godaddy Virtualserver with just 2GB of memory). Also Google is making changes to their Pagespeed metrics on a monthly basis (it's a new Google metric), what is good today might be an issue 3 months from now.
David Law


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Research shows that children who get everything they want grow up to be greedy, materialistic, self-centered adults. However, parents can raise their children to focus instead on internal life goals, such as learning, developing relationships and helping others.
In December, join us as we offer tips for parents on how to avoid overindulging children and learning when 'enough is enough. Overindulgence


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Everything you always wanted to know about cancer, sex, and the mandatory Human Papilloma Vaccine
- January 24, 2013
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HPV has been found in a variety of human cancers, such as cancer of the mouth, tongue, tonsil, esophagus, lung, breast, liver, colon, lymphoma, and in skin cancers and in healthy skin. Evidence suggests that cancer could be a communicable and/or a sexually transmitted disease. How effective is it then to forcibly inoculate young women?
By Alan Cantwell, M.D.
Is cancer a sexually transmitted disease (STD)? A generation ago physicians insisted that cancer was not contagious or infectious, and couldn't be transmitted by coughing, sneezing, or any kind of physical contact.
Now all this has changed. Public health authorities are pushing for a mandatory vaccine called Gardasil for girls as young as 11 years of age to prevent infection with the human papilloma virus (HPV)—the sexually transmitted virus believed to cause cancer of the cervix (the lower portion of the uterus).
Why haven't physicians informed the public about the sex connection to cancer? What do doctors really know about HPV and its cancer risk to women, particularly 11 year-old girls? Is the proposed mandatory HPV vaccine just another way to make drug companies richer? And is the vaccine proven to prevent cervical cancer?
There are about 100 types or "strains" of HPV, more commonly known as "the wart virus." A few dozen types can be passed sexually to infect the genital and anal area of both sexes. Only a small number of HPV strains are involved in cervical cancer, with "type 16" causing half the cases.
HPV is the most common STD in the U.S. At least 50% of sexually active people get HPV some time in their lives; and the virus is highly prevalent in sexually active men. An estimated 6.2 million Americans are newly infected with HPV every year.
The Vaccine
Manufactured by Merck and Co., Gardasil is a series of three shots given over a period of six months at a cost of $380—the most expensive vaccine ever made. The vaccine is promoted as a prevention of cervical cancer, pre-cancerous genital lesions, and genital warts due to HPV.
In reality, the vaccine only protects against the four types of HPV that cause 70% of the cervical cancers. Thus, nearly one out of three cancers will not be prevented. Gardasil does not treat existing HPV infections, and it doesn't work for women exposed to the virus before getting the vaccine. The vaccine is currently approved for females from age 11 to 26 years of age, and it is not recommended for pregnant women.
In order for the immunity to continue, booster shots are recommended every 5 years. Most significantly, the vaccine does not take the place of routine cervical cancer screening tests, such as the Pap test, which costs about $50.
Cervical Cancer in Women
Cervical cancer in the U.S. is a rare and preventable disease. Despite the vaccine hoopla, the rates for cervical cancer in the U.S. have been steadily declining since 1975, not as the result of a decrease in sexual partners, but as a result of the efficacy of continuing cancer screening by use of the Pap smear test.
Each year roughly 12,000 American women are diagnosed with cervical cancer; and 4,000 die from it. It is important to recognize that infection with HPV is very common, but cervical cancer is rare. Ten times as many women die of breast cancer, and twice as many die of leukemia. It is not cancer, but AIDS, that is the leading killer of African-American women. More than one million Americans are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Among those groups who are at statistically high risk for dying from cervical cancer are southern black women, Hispanic women living along the Texas-Mexican border, white women in Appalachia and the rural Northeast, and Vietnamese immigrants. These groups are also more likely to be poor and unable to afford quality medical care.
Vaccine makers would like the public to believe that HPV is spread only through sex. However, studies suggest HPV is common in little girls. HPV can infect a newborn passing through the birth canal of an infected mother, or by close contact of a child with another, either by sexual or non-sexual contact.
The possibility that HPV infection is acquired early in life via the mouth or even the respiratory tract cannot be ruled out. There is also likelihood that HPV can be spread through blood. HPV has been commonly found in the urine of young girls, as well as in semen.
HPV in Men
Most sexually active men carry HPV. The virus is the cause of penile warts, and HPV infection can lead to an increased risk for penile and anal cancer. Although millions of men carry HPV on their skin, it is rare for men to get penile and anal cancer. Only one man in 100,000 will die of penile cancer; and it is predicted that anal cancer will kill 690 American men in 2007. (More than a half-million Americans have already died of AIDS.) However, penile cancer is much more common in parts of Africa and South America, where it accounts for up to 10% of cancers in men.
Several hundred men with penile cancer were studied in a 1990 Finnish experiment, along with their spouses. Only two of the wives were found to have cervical cancer. Amazingly, the incidence was the same for a similar-size group of women whose husbands did not have penile cancer. The study concluded:
The incidence of condylomas (genital warts) has increased during the recent decades, while that of carcinomas of the penis and uterine cervix has decreased. The results of this study did not support the hypothesis that wives of men with penile cancer incur an increased risk of carcinoma of the cervix uteri. Although there is much evidence from a large number of studies that human papilloma virus (HPV) has a role in the etiology of cervical cancer, our study suggests that HPV associated with genital malignancies has a low infectivity or that these cancers have multifactor etiology.
Despite this study, sexual partners of patients with anogenital cancer should be carefully examined for cancer.
There is no way for a woman to be sure that a man is or isn't infected with HPV. Many penile warts cannot be detected without a special examination, and many men carry HPV on "normal" skin. The most important thing any woman can do to decrease her risk of acquiring cancer of the cervix is to undergo regular Pap testing. Physicians also advise women to limit their numbers of sexual partners, and to delay the onset of sexual activity.
Unfortunately, condoms do not prevent HPV infection. Condoms protect against certain transmitted diseases like HIV infection, but they do not lower the risk for cervical cancer. However, studies indicate circumcision helps protect men from HPV and their wives from cervical cancer. Circumcision is now also recommended in third-world countries as a way to lower the risk of HIV as well.
Acquiring an STD does not necessarily indicate a person is "promiscuous." The more lottery tickets you buy the more likely you are to win the lottery. Similarly, the more sexual partners the more likely one is to contract an STD.
The word "promiscuous" is often tossed around in a demeaning way, and the word is rarely defined. My dermatology professor used to say a promiscuous person is someone who has had more sexual partners than you have. A promiscuous person is often regarded as having "casual sex." But a virus (or any other sexually transmitted infectious agent) doesn't care if the sex is casual or not casual.
Cervical Cancer and Bacteria
There is evidence that HPV alone does not cause cervical cancer and that other "co-factors" are necessary. HPV vaccine makers downplay this research.
Because HPV infection rarely leads to cancer, some investigators suspect that cervical cancer must have a multi-factor etiology. Back in the 1980s many physicians thought the "herpes simplex virus-2" was the cause of cervical cancer. Nowadays, some think it is still a significant factor in some cases. In the U.S., 25% of the general population is infected with HSV-2.
In a recent development, it has been found that bacteria and yeast organisms present in the vagina can make a difference in testing for HPV infection. Apparently the detection of HPV DNA is influenced by the composition of vaginal non-viral microbes prevalent at the time of testing.
The question of whether infectious "cancer bacteria" are implicated in cancer is something that I have studied throughout my professional career. There is a century of research linking bacteria to cancer (and more recently to AIDS), but unfortunately this has been entirely ignored by the cancer establishment and by virologists. I wrote about this cancer microbe research in my three books, AIDS: The Mystery and the Solution (1984), The Cancer Microbe (1990) and in Four Women Against Cancer (2005). These cancer-associated bacteria (which also have a virus-like growth stage) have been demonstrated in breast cancer, prostate cancer, various forms of lymphoma, Kaposi's sarcoma (the "gay cancer" of AIDS) and in AIDS-damaged tissue at autopsy, and in other chronic diseases (Google: cancer bacteria or cancer microbe for details).
Years ago my friend and mentor Virginia Livingston, M.D. wrote in her book, Cancer: A New Breakthrough (1972), that care should be taken in the sexual arena. She advised people "to not have physical relations except with your mate" because of her research showing that cancer was a disease caused by infectious bacteria. At the time her words were considered absolute nonsense and totally out of touch with the sexual mores of the 70s, and Livingston was widely accused of being a quack by her colleagues. When she attempted to boost the immune system of cancer patients with vaccines made from the patient's own bacteria, she was harassed by the medical authorities. Now Livingston's old "heresy" promoting cancer as an infection is the current vogue of virologists and vaccine makers.
A recent Italian study stressed the importance of vaginal bacteria as a possible co-factor in cancer. Ureaplasma urealyticum is a "mycoplasma-like" (virus-like) bacterium generally ignored by cancer researchers. The Italian scientists wrote: "The presence of a high Ureaplasma urealyticum level seems to be a cofactor of HPV infection, a necessary cause of precancerous lesions of the uterine cervix."
HPV In Many Human Cancers
In addition to anogenital cancers, HPV has been found in head and neck cancers, the sixth most common form of cancer in the U.S. A PubMed Internet search of HPV in other cancers indicates that HPV has been found in a variety of human cancers, such as cancer of the mouth, tongue, tonsil, esophagus, lung, breast, liver, colon, lymphoma, and in skin cancers and in healthy skin. Evidence suggests that cancer could be a communicable and/or a sexually transmitted disease.
This view is at odds with what the medical profession has been telling people—that is, until recently. However, the infectious nature of cancer is exactly what cancer microbe researchers have been proclaiming since the late nineteenth century, as reported in my book, The Cancer Microbe. The finding of ubiquitous viruses also suggests there is some unrecognized relationship between bacteria in cancer and the widespread presence of various viruses in cancer.
Hidden Dangers of Vaccines
It is becoming more and more impossible to sue for damages in the event of a serious vaccine-induced reaction. Vaccine manufacturers are now protected by a tort liability shield granting them immunity from potential liability in the event of a declared public health emergency. The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act, signed by George W. Bush in December 2005, removed the right to a jury trial for persons injured by a covered vaccine. No vaccine is 100% safe, as the following brief survey shows:
- Vaccines can easily become contaminated with viruses, bacteria and mycoplasma. During the flu season in 2004 almost half of that year's flu vaccine supply was withdrawn from the market due to bacterial contamination.
- During the mandatory polio vaccine programs in the 1950s, half the U.S. population was infected with a cancer-causing monkey virus (simian virus 40) that accidentally contaminated the polio vaccine.
- During the "swine flu" scare of February 1976, millions of Americans were urged to take a vaccine against it. The swine flu pandemic never happened, but the extensive vaccine program was halted in January 1977 after 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a serious polio-like syndrome, occurred in vaccine recipients. There were 25 deaths from the syndrome and the federal government had to eventually pay out $90 million dollars in damages from the lawsuits.
- A few physicians believe that the HIV/AIDS epidemic originated exclusively in gay men due to the contamination of the experimental hepatitis B vaccine (also made by Merck and Co.), which was inoculated into thousands of gay male volunteers prior to the outbreak of AIDS and the "introduction" of HIV into that population in 1979 (see, Cantwell, Queer Blood).
- Vaccines have also been reported to be surreptitiously laced with anti-fertility drugs and administered to childbearing women in third world countries. Millions of Mexican, Nicaraguan, and Filipino women were duped into taking tetanus vaccines, some of which contained a female hormone (hCG) capable of causing miscarriage and sterilization. In 1995, a Catholic human rights organization called Human Life International accused the World Health Organization of promoting a Canadian-made tetanus vaccine containing the pregnancy hormone hCG (see my article, "Vexing over vaccines," paranoiamagazine.com).
- Side effects of Gardasil already include several post-vaccination cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, as reported on the National Vaccine Information Center website.
Is the HPV vaccine proven effective?
Conflict of interest: it was discovered that his Chief of Staff was on the board of Merck. Update this paragraph?
[On Feb 2, 2007, Governor Rick Perry of Texas issued an executive order requiring all 11 and 12 year-old girls to receive the new HPV vaccine. Perry claims, "Never before have we had an opportunity to prevent cancer with a simple vaccine." This actually is not true. Merck's hepatitis B vaccine, used since the 1980s, was heralded as a vaccine to prevent liver cancer. However, each year more deaths from liver cancer are reported. ]In an adolescent girl, the development of cervical cancer can take a half-century or longer to develop. The only way to prove the vaccine is effective is to determine the actual cancer rate over a very long period of time. Because the HPV vaccine maker recommends that Pap tests be done regularly during these decades, how will it be possible to determine that the vaccine "alone" is effective?
Furthermore, there is no current plan to vaccinate men for HPV. It seems premature to mandate a vaccine for all females and ignore the male half of the population.
There has been a backlash against the lobbying efforts of Merck to push for mandatory vaccination in Texas. Time will tell whether the vaccine will indeed be mandatory for all young American women, and whether all eligible women will be able to afford it and to receive it.
It seems reasonable to educate the population regarding HPV infection and the risk for cancer, and to guarantee vaccine safety and medical care for possible vaccine injuries before the vaccine is injected into millions of American women.
©2007, Alan Cantwell, M.D. Dr. Cantwell, a retired dermatologist, is the author of The Cancer Microbe: The Hidden Killer in Cancer, AIDS, and Other Immune Diseases, and Four Women Against Cancer: Bacteria, Cancer and the Origin of Life, both published by Aries Rising Press, PO Box 29532, Los Angeles, CA 90029 (www.ariesrisingpress.com). His books are available from Amazon.com and Book Clearing House at 1-800-431-1579. Email: [email protected]
Bodaghi S, Wood LV, Roby G, Ryder C, Steinberg SM, Zheng ZM. Could human papillomaviruses be spread through blood? J Clin Microbiol. 2005 Nov;43(11):5428-34.
Dunne EF, Nielson CM, Stone KM, Markowitz LE, Giuliano AR. Prevalence of HPV infection among men: A systematic review of the literature. J Infect Dis. 2006 Oct 15;194(8):1044-57. Epub 2006 Sep 12.
Castellsague X, Diaz M, de Sanjose S, Munoz N, Herrero R,Franceschi S, PeelingRW, Ashley R, Smith JS, Snijders PJ, Meijer CJ, Bosch FX; International Agency for Research on Cancer Multicenter Cervical Cancer Study Group. Worldwide human papillomavirus etiology of cervical adenocarcinoma and its cofactors: implications for screening and prevention. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2006 Mar 1;98(5):303-15.
Lukic A, Canzio C, Patella A, Giovagnoli M, Cipriani P, Frega A,Moscarini M. Determination of cervicovaginal microorganisms in women with abnormal cervical cytology: the role of Ureaplasma urealyticum. Anticancer Res. 2006 Nov-Dec;26(6C):4843-9.
Maiche AG, Pyrhonen S. Risk of cervical cancer among wives of men with carcinoma of the penis. Acta Oncol. 1990;29(5):569-71.
McNicol P, Paraskevas M, Guijon F. Variability of polymerase chain reaction-based detection of human papillomavirus DNA is associated with the composition of vaginal microbial flora. J Med Virol.1994 Jun;43(2):194-200.
Powell J, Strauss S, Gray J, Wojnarowska F. Genital carriage of human papilloma virus (HPV) DNA in prepubertal girls with and without vulval disease. Pediatr Dermatol. 2003 May-Jun;20(3):191-4.
Rosemberg SK, Herman G, Elfont E. Sexually transmitted papilloma viral infection in the male. VII. Is cancer of penis sexually transmitted? Urology. 1991 May;37(5):437-40.
Syrjanen S, Puranen M. Human papillomavirus infections in children: the potential role of maternal transmission. Crit Rev Oral Biol Med. 2000;11(2):259-74.


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The new Seagate IronWolf and IronWolf Pro 16TB NAS drives are now available for pre-order. These are 3.5″ single disk NAS drives. The Pro drives have a 300TB/year workload rating and a 250MB/s data transfer speed, while the standard Iron Wolf drives are rated for 180TB/year and a 210MB/s data transfer speed.
Combine 8 of these drives with a Synology DiskStation DS1819+ 8-Bay NAS box and you'll have a whopping 128TB of storage in a very fast and relatively compact network drive. With drive sizes like this, bring on the 100MP+ cameras!
The IronWolf Pro runs $629, while the standard IronWolf drive is priced at $579. You can pre-order the new Seagate 16TB drives here at B&H Photo.


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Victorian 14kt Natural Pearl Fleur de Lys Pin/Pendant
Tax excluded. Shipping calculated at checkout
In French, fleur-de-lys means "lily flower." Decorative ornaments that resemble the fleur-de-lys have appeared in artwork from the earliest human civilizations. It has consistently been used as a royal emblem, though different cultures have interpreted its meaning in various ways.
This particular Fleur de lys pin/pendant from the Victorian (ca1880) era is simply marvelous! Crafted in 14kt rosy yellow gold, the entire front surface of the piece is covered in a wonderful design of natural seed pearls. The pearls, which vary in size, have a beautiful luster and look wonderful paired against the gold setting. The back of the piece reveals a bar pin as well as a small swing-down bail, allowing it to be worn as either a pin or a pendant. This classically beautiful piece is very refined and would look wonderful pinned in place or worn on a gold chain. A must for any collection!
Measurements: As a pendant, the piece hangs 1 5/8" long, is 1 1/8" wide and slightly less than 1/4" at its thickest point.
Condition: The overall condition of the piece is excellent. Besides normal surface wear, there is no apparent damage to the gold. The bail and bar pin are both secure and in good working condition.
Main Stone: Natural Pearl
Metals & Materials: Yellow Gold and Gold
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Jump-Start Your Road Trip Dream
- Jump-Start Your Road Trip Dream Carol White
As "Boomer in Chief" of the National Association of Baby Boomer Women, Anne is passionate about educating, empowering and enriching the lives of Baby Boomer Women, as we now begin to age beyond our middle years and enthusiastically launch ourselves into life's next stage – which most people call old age. We Boomers know aging doesn't have to diminish us. We still have a lot to offer the world, and we continue to be ready and willing to enthusiastically participate.
Actively involved with a number of Boomer-focused organizations and committees, Anne keeps a steady finger on the pulse of this still-spirited generation, with the goal of helping us all to enjoy life, stay healthy and continue to live lives that are rich in every sense of the word. Beyond that, Anne is dedicated to helping facilitate the positive interaction between Baby Boomers and the hard-working younger generations who are readying themselves to "take the world's reins" and continue our efforts to move society in a positive direction.


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SEATTLE — For weeks, the nation has been reliving George Floyd's death in a Minneapolis courtroom. As the trial of former officer Derek Chauvin continues, the region grapples with another police killing of an unarmed Black man.
But since Floyd's death last summer, demands for racial justice and police reform are being answered across the country.
"What we saw was an overwhelming tidal wave of response and people immediately taking action," said Sakara Remmu, founder of Washington Black Lives Matter Alliance.
Thousands of Washingtonians contacted elected officials, demanding police accountability and reform.
This month, nine police accountability bills were passed in the state.
"Our work really began in earnest 40 years ago, if you're talking about the community's effort to actually have the legislature in the state of Washington not just say they care about Black and brown lives, but actually take action to protect Black and brown lives," said Remmu.
Other reform efforts are underway after a voter-approved initiative in 2018. Aimed at establishing higher training requirements and police accountability standards, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission (WSCJTC) has been working with stakeholders to create and adopt new officer training requirements.
Among the required training mandates is a curriculum on the historical intersection of race and policing.
"If you don't come to grips, or at least understand your history, you're bound to repeat it," said Dr. Daudi Abe, a consultant for the new curriculum.
A Seattle-based professor, Dr. Abe is training instructors who will teach the curriculum to recruits.
"It's been emotional. It really has. There was a point in this process I was drawn to tears because it's that important," said Abe. "We could be talking about life and death in a certain situation. That pressure has not been lost on me, and I can only hope that this makes a difference."
Future police recruits will be required to take the eight-hour course, broken down into four sessions. The commission also plans to provide training to veteran officers.
"The idea is to have students go through the timeline before class – as you see, it's massive and spans centuries," said Abe. "The surprise I imagine will probably come with how far back it goes and aligns with the foundations of the country."
Among the curriculum requirements:
- Learning about the historical intersection of race and policing
- The experience of Black Americans then and now: the institution of slavery through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, mass incarceration, the role and impacts of police in schools, the ongoing influence of race relations, strategies to reconcile past injustice, and the importance of fair and impartial policing
- Understanding how culture and differences in experiences, histories, and social norms impact community perceptions of law enforcement and employing cultural humility skills, with the goal of learning about respectful and effective approaches with communities of color
- Learning to build more positive relationships with specific communities within areas officers serve by understanding how biases, stereotypes, and a lack of understanding about varying cultural norms negatively impact police interactions with the public
Training instructors are asked to give honest feedback on the curriculum.
"What we were being introduced to, when we first seen it, was totally against police, defunding police," said Port of Seattle Police Officer Leland Allan. "Going over it and having it explained to me, now it just has more language, information that we can now put on paper. But we have been teaching de-escalation, cultural responsive policing, interactive policing."
He believes having difficult conversations on race is a step forward to addressing problems.
"We're not going to erase racism. It is what it is. But talking about it, understanding what it is, having a game plan for it is just as powerful as not talking about it and shoving it under the rug as if it's going to pass and go away. Because it's going to rear its ugly head at some point in time," said Allen.
But some activists have little faith the training will result in meaningful change. Remmu says forms of cultural competency are already required in departments and yet Black and brown people are still killed by law enforcement at an exponential rate.
"White supremacy in the minds of people will always add a layer of justification for behavior that harms Black and brown bodies, that is an internal process. That is why policy is important. Because if I were waiting on the cultural competency, or good intentions of people, particularly white people, we would still be slaves today. This is why we have policy, to force things to happen," said Remmu.
However, she is encouraged by recent bills passed in the state and ongoing reform efforts.
"There is a sense of relief that we will at least have more avenues that are legally defined, that are statewide, that are mandated, to hold officers accountable and prevent them from doing harm to our lives to begin with."


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Annihilation: A Novel (The Southern Reach Series #1) (Paperback)
The Southern Reach Trilogy begins with Annihilation, the Nebula Award-winning novel that "reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world" (Kim Stanley Robinson).
Area X has been cut off from the rest of the continent for decades. Nature has reclaimed the last vestiges of human civilization. The first expedition returned with reports of a pristine, Edenic landscape; the second expedition ended in mass suicide; the third expedition in a hail of gunfire as its members turned on one another. The members of the eleventh expedition returned as shadows of their former selves, and within weeks, all had died of cancer. In Annihilation, the first volume of Jeff VanderMeer's Southern Reach trilogy, we join the twelfth expedition.
The group is made up of four women: an anthropologist; a surveyor; a psychologist, the de facto leader; and our narrator, a biologist. Their mission is to map the terrain, record all observations of their surroundings and of one another, and, above all, avoid being contaminated by Area X itself.
They arrive expecting the unexpected, and Area X delivers—they discover a massive topographic anomaly and life forms that surpass understanding—but it's the surprises that came across the border with them and the secrets the expedition members are keeping from one another that change everything.
About the Author
Jeff VanderMeer is the author of Hummingbird Salamander, the Borne novels (Borne, The Strange Bird, and Dead Astronauts), and The Southern Reach Trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), the first volume of which won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland. He speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change as well as urban rewilding. He lives in Tallahassee, Florida, on the edge of a ravine, with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, and their cat, Neo.
Praise For…
"I'm loving The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Creepy and fascinating." —Stephen King
"VanderMeer's dreamy narrative, shot through with echoes of Lovecraft, Orwell, and Kafka, is compulsively readable." —Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
"Chilling." —Julie Bosman, New York Times
"VanderMeer masterfully conjures up an atmosphere of both metaphysical dread and visceral tension . . . Annihilation is a novel in which facts are undermined and doubt instilled at almost every turn. It's about science as a way of not only thinking but feeling, rather than science as a means of becoming certain about the world. . . . Ingenious." —Laura Miller, Salon
"A clear triumph for Vandermeer . . . a compelling, elegant, and existential story . . . The solitary voice of its post-humanist narrator is both deeply flawed and deeply trustworthy—a difficult and excellent balance in a novel whose world is built seamlessly and whose symbols are rich and dark." —Lydia Millet, LA Times
"A book about an intelligent, deadly fungus makes for an enthralling read—trust us." —Tara Wanda Merrigan, GQ
"[An] altogether fantastic book . . . Annihilation is a book meant for gulping--for going in head-first and not coming up for air until you hit the back cover." —Jason Sheehan, NPR Books
"Successfully creepy, an old-style gothic horror novel set in a not-too-distant future. The best bits turn your mind inside out." —Sara Sklaroff, The Washington Post
"If J.J. Abrams-style by-the-numbers stories of shadowy organizations and science magic have let you down one too many times, then Annihilation will be more like a revelation. VanderMeer peels back the skin of the everyday, and gives you a glimpse of a world where science really is stretching the bounds of our knowledge—sometimes to the point where we can't ever be the same . . . [Annihilation] will make you believe in the power of science mysteries again." —Annalee Nevitz, io9
"Fans of the Lost TV series . . . this one is for you." —Molly Driscoll, Christian Science Monitor
"What frightens you? According to many psychologists, our most widely shared phobia is the fear of falling. Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation taps into that bottomless terror . . . VanderMeer ups the book's eeriness quotient with the smoothest of skill, the subtlest of grace. His prose makes the horrific beautiful." —Nisi Shawl, Seattle Times
"Much of the flora and fauna seem familiar, but that's what's so fascinating about the carnage that VanderMeer sets loose. He has created a science fiction story about a world much like our own." —John Domini, Miami Herald
"Annihilation feels akin to isolated sci-fi terrors of Alien . . . teases and terrifies and fascinates." —Kevin Nguyen, Grantland
"The plot moves quickly and has all the fantastic elements you'd ever want--biological contaminants, peculiar creatures, mysterious deaths--but it's the novel's unbearable dread that lingers with me days after I've finished it." —Justin Alvarez, The Paris Review
"It's been a long time since a book filled me with this kind of palpable, wondrous disquiet, a feeling that started on the first page and that I'm not sure I've yet shaken." —Matt Bell, author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods
"A tense and chilling psychological thriller about an unraveling expedition and the strangeness within us. A little Kubrick, a lot Lovecraft, the novel builds with an unbearable tension and a claustrophobic dread that linger long afterward. I loved it." —Lauren Beukes, author of The Shining Girls
"One of those books where it all comes together--the story and the prose and the ideas, all braided into a triple helix that gives rise to something vibrant and alive. Something that grows, word-by-word, into powerful, tangled vines that creep into your mind and take hold of it. Annihilation is brilliant and atmospheric, a novel that has the force of myth." —Charles Yu, author of How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe
"In much of Jeff VanderMeer's work, a kind of radiance lies beating beneath the surface of the words. Here in Annihilation, it shines through with warm blazing incandescence. This is one of a grand writer's finest and most dazzling books." —Peter Straub, author of Lost Boy, Lost Girl
"A dazzling book . . . haunted and haunting." —Kelly Link, author of Magic for Beginners
"The great thing about Annihilation is the strange, elusive, and paranoid world that it creates . . . I can't wait for the next one." —Brian Evenson, author of Last Days
"This swift surreal suspense novel reads as if Verne or Wellsian adventurers exploring a mysterious island had warped through into a Kafkaesque nightmare world. The reader will want to stay trapped with the Biologist to find the answers to Area X's mysteries." —Kim Stanley Robinson, author of the Mars trilogy
"After their high-risk expedition disintegrates, it's every scientist for herself in this wonderfully creepy blend of horror and science fiction . . . Speculative fiction at its most transfixing." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A gripping fantasy thriller, Annihilation is thoroughly suspenseful. In a manner similar to H. G. Wells's in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1896), VanderMeer weaves together an otherworldly tale of the supernatural and the half-human. Delightfully, this page-turner is the first in a trilogy." —Heather Paulson, ALA Booklist (starred review)


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Report of a new method for directly measuring the atomic structure of nanomaterials was published today in the journal Nature. By taking measurements at 69 different angles and combining the data collected from each individual shadow into a 3-D reconstruction of the interior of the nanoparticle, the researchers can directly see local structures in 3-D at atomic-scale resolution.
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) researchers are now able to peer deep within the world's tiniest structures to create three-dimensional images of individual atoms and their positions. Their research, published March 22 in the journal Nature, presents a new method for directly measuring the atomic structure of nanomaterials.
"This is the first experiment where we can directly see local structures in three dimensions at atomic-scale resolution — that's never been done before," said Jianwei (John) Miao, a professor of physics and astronomy and a researcher with the California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI) at UCLA.
Miao and his colleagues used a scanning transmission electron microscope to sweep a narrow beam of high-energy electrons over a tiny gold particle only 10 nanometers in diameter (almost 1,000 times smaller than a red blood cell). The nanoparticle contained tens of thousands of individual gold atoms, each about a million times smaller than the width of a human hair. These atoms interact with the electrons passing through the sample, casting shadows that hold information about the nanoparticle's interior structure onto a detector below the microscope.
Miao's team discovered that by taking measurements at 69 different angles, they could combine the data gleaned from each individual shadow into a 3-D reconstruction of the interior of the nanoparticle. Using this method, which is known as electron tomography, Miao's team was able to directly see individual atoms and how they were positioned inside the specific gold nanoparticle.
Presently, X-ray crystallography is the primary method for visualizing 3-D molecular structures at atomic resolutions. However, this method involves measuring many nearly identical samples and averaging the results. X-ray crystallography typically takes an average across trillions of molecules, which causes some information to get lost in the process, Miao said.
"It is like averaging together everyone on Earth to get an idea of what a human being looks like — you completely miss the unique characteristics of each individual," he said.
X-ray crystallography is a powerful technique for revealing the structure of perfect crystals, which are materials with an unbroken honeycomb of perfectly spaced atoms lined up as neatly as books on a shelf. Yet most structures existing in nature are non-crystalline, with structures far less ordered than their crystalline counterparts — picture a rock concert mosh pit rather than soldiers on parade.
"Our current technology is mainly based on crystal structures because we have ways to analyze them," Miao said. "But for non-crystalline structures, no direct experiments have seen atomic structures in three dimensions before."
Probing non-crystalline materials is important because even small variations in structure can greatly alter the electronic properties of a material, Miao noted. The ability to closely examine the inside of a semiconductor, for example, might reveal hidden internal flaws that could affect its performance.
"The three-dimensional atomic resolution of non-crystalline structures remains a major unresolved problem in the physical sciences," he said.
Miao and his colleagues haven't quite cracked the non-crystalline conundrum, but they have shown they can image a structure that isn't perfectly crystalline at a resolution of 2.4 angstroms (the average size of a gold atom is 2.8 angstroms). The gold nanoparticle they measured for their paper turned out to be composed of several different crystal grains, each forming a puzzle piece with atoms aligned in subtly different patterns. A nanostructure with hidden crystalline segments and boundaries inside will behave differently from one made of a single continuous crystal — but other techniques would have been unable to visualize them in three dimensions, Miao said.
Miao's team also found that the small golden blob they studied was in fact shaped like a multi-faceted gem, though slightly squashed on one side from resting on a flat stage inside the gigantic microscope — another small detail that might have been averaged away when using more traditional methods.
This project was inspired by Miao's earlier research, which involved finding ways to minimize the radiation dose administered to patients during CT scans. During a scan, patients must be X-rayed at a variety of angles, and those measurements are combined to give doctors a picture of what's inside the body. Miao found a mathematically more efficient way to obtain similar high-resolution images while taking scans at fewer angles. He later realized that this discovery could benefit scientists probing the insides of nanostructures, not just doctors on the lookout for tumors or fractures.
Nanostructures, like patients, can be damaged if too many scans are administered. A constant bombardment of high-energy electrons can cause the atoms in nanoparticles to be rearranged and the particle itself to change shape. By bringing his medical discovery to his work in materials science and nanoscience, Miao was able to invent a new way to peer inside the field's tiniest structures.
The discovery made by Miao's team may lead to improvements in resolution and image quality for tomography research across many fields, including the study of biological samples.
Reference: "Electron tomography at 2.4-ångström resolution" by M. C. Scott, Chien-Chun Chen, Matthew Mecklenburg, Chun Zhu, Rui Xu, Peter Ercius, Ulrich Dahmen, B. C. Regan and Jianwei Miao, 21 March 2012, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/nature10934
This research was conducted at CNSI's Electron Imaging Center for NanoMachines and funded by UC Discovery/Tomosoft Technologies. Tomosoft Technologies is a start-up company based on Miao's work.
Other UCLA co-authors included Chris Regan, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy and a CNSI researcher; graduate students Mary Scott, Chien-Chun Chen, Matthew Mecklenburg and Chun Zhu; and postdoctoral scholar Rui Xu. In particular, Chen and Scott played an important role in this work. Peter Ercius and Ulrich Dahmen from the National Center for Electron Microscopy at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are also co-authors.


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This part of the documentation is not meant for end users of Coppermine, but only for developers. There is no support for this section, it comes as-is.
End users who wish to modify their copy of coppermine are encouraged to stick to these guidelines as well.
As Coppermine is a team effort, the team members who contribute code need to make sure that the code remains easy to read, understand and maintain. That's why there is a set of rules defined on this page that should be taken into account when working with the coppermine core code. Although this part of the documentation is aimed at dev team members, users who plan to contribute their code in any form are requested to respect the rules as well if possible (i.e. if you understand them fully).
The coding guidelines on this page are not set in stone - if you (as a dev team member) find during development that one of the guidelines needs review or change, start a thread on the dev board for discussion.
$pic_title = 'My picture'; $album = 'lastup'; $update_time = true;Good Example:
$pic_title = 'My picture'; $album = 'lastup'; $update_time = true;
$foo = array('one', 'two', 'three'); $bar = array( 'one' => 1, 'two' => 3, 'three' => 3 ); $multi = array('first' => 'one', 'second' => array('2'), 'third' => array('foo' => 'bar', 'hello' => 'world'));Good Examples:
$foo = array( 'one', 'two', 'three', ); $bar = array( 'one' => 1, 'two' => 2, 'three' => 3, ); $multi = array( 'first' => 'one', 'second' => array('2'), // Since it is just one value in array, it can be declared in same line 'third' => array( 'foo' => 'bar', 'hello' => 'world', ), );
$foo_array["bla"] = "whatever";Good:
$foo_array['bla'] = 'whatever';
$bla_array['foo Bar'] = 'some string';Good:
$bla_array['foo_bar'] = 'some string';
These include if, for, while, switch.
if ($foo = 'bar') { echo 'Hello world'; }Bad example:
if ($foo = 'bar') { echo 'Hello world'; }Good example:
if ($foo = 'bar') { echo 'Hello world'; }Good example:
if ($foo = 'bar') { echo 'Hello world'; }
<?php function fooFunction($arg1, $arg2 = '') { if (condition) { statement; } return $val; } ?>
When more than one line of HTML needs to be printed, the heredoc syntax should be used instead of ending the PHP processing and starting it later.
// PHP content here if ($foo == $bar) { print <<< EOT
Hello {$bla}
 EOT; }
// PHP content here if ($foo == $bar) { ?>
Hello <?php echo $bla; ?>
 <?php }
To echo line breaks to the HTML output, use the heredoc syntax or use the variable $LINEBREAK instead of hardcoding line breaks into the code.
Remember to make the variable $LINEBREAK global inside functions.
echo '
Hello world
' . $LINEBREAK; echo '
foo bar
'; }
echo "
Hello world
\n"; echo '
foo bar
'; }
Deprecated HTML tags like  mustn't be introduced into Coppermine unless there is a valid, documented reason to do so.
The popular tags  and  are considered to be deprecated tags as well. Because of their popularity, browsers will probably support them for a long time. However, there are better alternatives. For , the replacement tag is . For , the replacement tag is . If possible, the replacement tags should be used both in HTML output generated by Coppermine as well as the documentation.
The core rules on this page have been sketched by Dr. Tarique Sani as a subset of the PEAR coding guidelines. HTML output and database sections are based on a thread created by Unknown W. Brackets from Simplemachines.
Bad example | Good example |
Click on the words next to the radio buttons to see the difference! |


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Encouraging children to form an emotional attachment to nature may be key to protecting our planet's future.
Guest Post by Jill Suttie
This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.
We read it in the news every day. From climate change to overfishing to deforestation, it seems that we are on the brink of a natural disaster on an epic scale. If we cannot do something to reverse these trends, we will surely make our planet uninhabitable.
But how do we encourage people—especially our kids—to care more and take action?
Social scientists are beginning to look for answers to this question with some promising results. Research indicates that motivating people to care takes more than just reciting facts and making doomsday predictions. Instead, it requires promoting compassionate concern for our natural world, which comes from early contact with nature, empathy for our fellow creatures, and a sense of wonder and fascination.
Specifically, scientists are starting to uncover how to encourage that compassionate concern in children, so that it will translate into pro-environmental behavior down the road—and this research comes not a moment too soon.
Why disaster talk doesn't move us (and what does)
Painting a disastrous portrait of the earth's future often causes us to simply check out. The idea of destruction on such a massive scale can either be too difficult to contemplate or seem too out of our control to motivate action—especially action inconvenient to us, like walking to work or bringing our own bags to the grocery store.
Psychological biases also play a role. When a problem seems distant or abstract, it can easily be pushed aside by more pressing, immediate concerns, like schoolwork or relationship worries.
But scientists have learned that there is a way to overcome these deterrents: developing a compassionate relationship with the natural world. Research suggests that the desire to conserve is intricately tied to our connection to nature—or the degree to which we enjoy spending time in nature, empathize with our fellow creatures, and feel a sense of oneness with nature. That emotional connection increases our sense of personal responsibility toward nature and makes us want to do more to preserve it.
For example, one study by Cynthia Frantz and F. Stephan Mayer looked at the relationship between electricity use and emotional connection to nature in dorm residents at Oberlin College. Students filled out the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) and other measures of self-nature connectedness, and scores were aggregated and compared to dorm electricity use.
Results showed that dorms with higher average connection to nature scores used less electricity than those with lower scores, and this difference was even more pronounced when students were given direct feedback on their electricity use over time. But dorms whose residents on average scored higher on valuing nature and supporting environmental protection measures did not use less electricity, suggesting that having an emotional connection to nature is uniquely powerful in predicting behavior.
In another study, it was students' implicit feelings about nature that mattered the most. Students from Nanjing University in China took an Implicit Associations Test (IAT), which measured their automatic, unconscious feelings about things associated with built environments (i.e., cars, streets, buildings) versus natural environments (animals, birds, trees). They also filled out the CNS and were asked about their deliberate environmental behaviors—such as how much water they use when washing, or how often they ride a bike or walk to school rather than drive. Afterward, the students were offered a gift of tasty wafers and then asked if they wanted a plastic bag to carry them. Whether or not students asked for the bag was used as a proxy measure of spontaneous environmental behavior.
Why kids need to get outside
Many kids today are suffering from what Richard Louv calls "nature deficit disorder" because they spend so little time there—especially kids in cities, where green spaces may be few and far between. Besides having an impact on kids' health and well-being, this lack of contact with nature may also impact their compassionate caring for the environment.
Researchers at Cornell University found that, when children before the age of 11 spend time in nature—hiking, camping, hunting, or fishing, for example—they grow up into adults who care more about the environment than those who didn't have that early exposure. That caring also translates into more pro-environmental behavior in adulthood, which suggests that getting kids out in nature is important if we want them to become our future environmentalists.
Environmental programs in schools are one way to do this. In one study, researchers measured 9-10 year olds and 11-13 year olds on their connection to nature (using the Inclusion of the Self in Nature Scale, or INS), then followed them through a four-day environmental education program focused on water. The program involved lessons about water and immersive, sensory-laden experiences with water, such as walking barefoot through a creek and catching and releasing wildlife in the creek.
After the program, the kids were measured again on connection to nature and compared to a group of same-aged kids who hadn't gone through the program. Results showed that the younger children initially had higher INS scores than the older kids, but the education program increased INS in both age groups. In particular, the researchers cited the immersion activities as critical to these effects. However, only the younger kids maintained the increases in INS four weeks later, suggesting that these kinds of programs should perhaps target younger students.
Indeed, another study looking at 14-19 year olds showed that participating in a one-day environmental education program on global climate change that did not include immersive experiences in nature had very little impact on connection to nature scores.
One possible reason that spending time in nature increases children's connection to it is that the experience feels good in some way. Research on adults has found that spending time in nature helps with what's called attention restoration—helping the brain to recover from sensory and cognitive overload, which reduces stress and improves later performance on cognitive tasks.
At least one study with children suggests attention restoration plays a role in their enjoyment of nature, too, and leads to caring more about it. Researchers found that children in schools with schoolyards that had more natural elements reported higher levels of restoration, leading to more positive environmental attitudes. And those increased pro-nature attitudes, in turn, were tied to more pro-environmental behavior.
How to boost connection to nature
Still, researchers don't know exactly what it is about being in nature that impacts environmental concern and action, though many agree that emotional engagement is critical. So, how can we augment that engagement in our children?
Mindfulness may be one potential avenue. At least one study with adults has found a link between mindfulness, connection to nature, and well-being, while another found that mindfulness is associated with "green behavior." Perhaps mindfulness allows people—and would allow kids—to pay attention to nature and appreciate it more fully.
One recent study randomly assigned undergraduate college students participating in a three-day nature trip to perform meditation (with formal practices in the mornings) or not (a control group). Before and after the trip, students were measured on their connection to nature. Compared to the control group, those who'd been in the meditation group reported greater increases in self-nature connection as well as more spontaneous recollections of trip memories emphasizing nature (rather than other aspects of the trip, such as social interactions).
This implies that mindfulness meditation may indeed help increase emotional connection to nature, perhaps by helping people be more present for outdoor experiences or by decreasing their sense of separation from nature. Though research on children is sparse, at least one study found that a program for middle school kids pairing mindfulness meditation and tai chi seemed to increase their connection to nature.
Another potential strategy for helping kids care more about nature may be to develop their empathy for animals. In at least one study with adults, instructing people to take the perspective of an animal being harmed by pollution increased environmental concern more than instructing them to be objective. Another study found that anthropomorphizing nature—assigning human-like qualities to objects in nature—increased college students' connection to nature, which in turn impacted their willingness to engage in conservation behaviors and promote them to others.
Luckily, children naturally seem to identify with animals and nature from a young age. But parents can further encourage their love of animals by introducing them to wildlife in their area, bringing a pet into the home, or reading them stories where animals or natural objects are featured as sympathetic characters.
Though engaging kids socially and emotionally with nature may be helpful, we clearly still have more to learn about what makes kids want to protect the environment. Much of the research on this is fairly preliminary, and we are only just starting to understand how to nudge our kids in that direction.
Plus, we may need to consider cultural differences more carefully. At least one study found that people from less individualistic/more collectivist cultures are more likely to be influenced by social norms rather than individual concern when it comes to environmental action. This suggests that, in addition to augmenting our kids' connection to nature, we may need to emphasize society's role in influencing behavior, focusing on shared values and community efforts to protect the natural environment—especially for kids from more collectivist cultures.
Still, it seems that we would do no harm by simply making sure our kids get outside. Many studies have found that children, like adults, receive psychological and physical benefits from being exposed to nature, including better attention, self-discipline, and cognitive development, and decreased levels of stress. And helping kids to develop more mindfulness or empathy skills wouldn't hurt either, given the research showing their positive impacts on kids.
If our kids also end up turning out the lights more or growing up to be environmentalists, all the better—for our planet and everyone who lives on it.


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Cross Country Skiing on Drummond Island
Cross country skiers can enjoy outdoor beauty and serenity during the winter on groomed ski trails, catching glimpses of deer, fox, coyote, rabbits and a variety of birds who call Drummond Island their home.
Drummond Island Resort Trail
Drummond Island Resort grooms 15 miles of trails on our own private property for classic-style skiing. They also have top-of-the-line rental skis for adults and children that are available to our guests free of charge.
There's also opportunities for snow shoeing during the winter. Drummond Island Resort has several sets of Iverson traditional-style snowshoes available for rent, but for guests they are free. There is no better way to see undisturbed winter scenes on the island than on a set of snowshoes. With a little cooperation outside, we hope to have a rink cleared behind The Lodge for skaters. Again, snowshoes and ice skates are available to our guests free of charge.
For more information visit the Drummond Island Resort website >>>>
Rainbow Trail
The Rainbow Trail was developed in 2002 by the Drummond Island Cross Country Club as a nature trail with groomed cross country skiing in the winter (only skiing, no snowshoeing) and walking, hiking and birding in the non winter seasons.
Located on state land on the west side of the Maxton Cross Road just south of Maxton Road, this trail is 5.0 miles long. Laid out over rolling terrain, through open spaces and hardwood forest, the main trail has a series of seven loops off of the "Main Street" and back to it again. There are three short trail segments that serve to interconnect the loops, making it easier to return to the trailhead for shorter excursions or provide variety for extended trips.
The trailhead is located on Maxton Cross Road, 0.2 miles south of the intersection of Maxton Cross Road and Maxton Road. Parking is available at the trailhead. Bathroom facilities are not available at the trail but are available at nearby Four Corners and The DI Resort and Conference Center.
For more information visit the Drummond Island Cross Country Club website >>>>
Heritage Trail
The Heritage Trail, located at the DI Township Park, is a hiking and snowshoe trail. It provides a unique experience for; birding, hiking or geocaching in the warmer months and snowshoeing, over terrain not suitable for skiing, in winter. Trail use is FREE.
The Lower Level leads you through beautiful woodlands to the Potagannissing shoreline. The Upper Levels wind along and up on to the top of unique limestone ledges and shallow caves.
There is a great variety of landscape for a trail of this size, (approximately 3 miles) and a drop of over 50 feet in elevation from the upper to the lower levels of the trail.
The majority of the trail can be hiked or snow shoed easily by the novice but the upper levels of the trail require some moderate ability to traverse very uneven terrain.
For more information visit the Drummond Island Cross Country Club website >>>>