text:
[No authors listed]. Genome-wide association study identifies five new schizophrenia loci. Nat Genet. 2011 Oct ; 43(10):969-76. Pubmed Abstract
[No authors listed]. Genome-wide association study identifies five new schizophrenia loci. Nat Genet. 2011 Oct ; 43(10):969-76. Pubmed Abstract
Consorting with GWAS for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder: same message, (some) different genes
On 18 September 2011, Nature Genetics published the results from the Psychiatric Genetics Consortium of two separate, large-scale GWAS analyses, for schizophrenia (Ripke et al., 2011) and for bipolar disorder (Sklar et al., 2011), and a joint analysis of both. By combining forces across several consortia who have previously published separately, we should now have some clarity and definitive answers.
For schizophrenia, the Stage 1 GWAS discovery data came from 9,394 cases and 12,462 controls from 17 studies, imputing 1,252,901 SNPs. The Stage 2 replication sample comprised 8,442 cases and 21,397 controls. Of the 136 SNPs which reached genomewide significance in Stage 1, 129 (95 percent) mapped to the MHC locus, long known to be associated with risk of schizophrenia. Of the remaining seven SNPs, five mapped to previously identified loci. In total, just 10 loci met or exceeded the criteria of genomewide significance of p <5 x 10-8 at Stage 1 and/or Stage 2. The 10 "best" SNPs identified eight loci: MIR137, TRIM26, CSM1, CNNM2, NT5C2 and TCF4 were tagged by intragenic SNPs, while the remaining two were at some distance from a known gene (343 kb from PCGEM1 and 126 kb from CCDC68). More important than the absolute significance levels, the overall odds ratios (with 95 percent confidence intervals) ranged from 1.08 (0.96-1.20) to 1.40 (1.28-1.52). These fractional increases contrast with the ~10-fold increase in risk to the first-degree relative of someone with schizophrenia (Gottesman et al., 2010).
Six of these eight loci have been reported previously, but ZNF804A, a past favorite, was noticeably absent from the "top 10" list. The main attention now will surely be on MIR137, a newly discovered locus which encodes a microRNA, mir137, known to regulate neuronal development. The authors remark that 17 predicted MIR137 targets had a SNP with a p <10-4, more than twice as many as for the control gene set (p <0.01), though this relaxed significance cutoff seems somewhat arbitrary and warrants further examination. The result for MIR137 immediately begs the questions, Does the "risk" SNP affect MIR137 function directly or indirectly, and if so, does it affect the expression of any of the putative targets identified here? These are fairly straightforward questions: positive answers are vital to the biological validation of these statistical associations. As has been the case for follow-up studies of ZNF804A, however (reviewed by Donohoe et al., 2010), unequivocal answers from GWAS "hits" can be hard to come by, not least because of the very modest relative risks that they confer. Let us hope that this is not the case for MIR137, but it is of passing note that for two of the eight replication cohorts, the direction of effect for MIR137 was in the opposite direction from the Stage 1 finding. Taken together with the odds ratios reported in the range of 1.11-1.22, the effect size for the end phenotype of schizophrenia may be challenging to validate functionally. Perhaps a relevant intermediate phenotype more proximal to the gene will prove tractable.
For bipolar disorder, Stage 1 comprised 7,481 cases versus 9,250 controls, and identified 34 promising SNPs. These were replicated in Stage 2 in an independent set of 4,496 cases and a whopping 42,422 controls: 18 of the 34 SNPs survived at p <0.05. Taking Stage 1 and 2 together confirmed the previous "hot" finding for CACNA1C (Odds ratio = 1.14) and introduced a new candidate in ODZ4 (Odds ratio = 0.88, i.e., the minor allele is presumably "protective" or under some form of selection). Previous candidates ANK3 and SYNE1 looked promising at Stage 1, but did not replicate at Stage 2.
Finally, in a combined analysis of schizophrenia plus bipolar disorder versus controls, three of the respective "top 10" loci, CACNA1C, ANK3, and the ITIH3-ITIH4 region, came out as significant overall. This is consistent with the earlier evidence from the ISC for an overlap between the polygenic index for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Purcell et al., 2009). It is also consistent with the epidemiological evidence for shared genetic risk between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (Lichtenstein et al., 2009; Gottesman et al., 2010).
What can we take from these studies? The authorship lists alone speak to the size of the collaborative effort involved and the sheer organizational task, depending on your point of view, that most of the positive findings were reported on previously could be seen as valuable "replication," or unnecessary duplication of cost and effort. Whichever way you look at it, though, just two new loci for schizophrenia and one for bipolar looks like a modest return for such a gargantuan investment. It begs the question as to whether the GWAS approach is gaining the hoped-for traction on major mental illness. Indeed, the evidence suggests that the technology tide is rapidly turning away from allelic association methods and towards rare mutation detection by copy number variation, exome, and/or whole-genome sequencing (Vacic et al., 2011; Xu et al., 2011).
Family studies are, as ever and always, of critical importance in genetics, and to distinguish between inherited and de-novo mutations. While the emphasis of GWAS has been on the impact of common, ancient allelic variation, it has become ever more obvious from both past linkage studies and from contemporary GWAS and CNV studies just how heterogeneous these conditions are, and how little note individual cases and families take of conventional DSM diagnostic boundaries. Improved genetic and other tools through which to stratify risk, define phenotypes, and predict outcomes are clearly needed. Whether such tools can be derived for GWAS data remains to be seen. It is important to remind ourselves of two things. First, case/association studies tell us something about the average impact (odds ratio, with confidence interval) of a given allele in the population studied. In these very large GWAS, this measure of impact will be approximating to the European population average. The odds ratios tell us that the impact per allele is modest. More importantly in some ways, the allele frequencies also tell us that the vast majority of allele carriers are not affected. Likewise, a high proportion of cases are not carriers. In the main, they are subtle risk modifiers rather than causal variants. That said, follow-up studies may define rare, functional genetic variants in MIR137 or CACNA1C or ANK3 that are tagged by the risk allele and that have sufficiently strong effects in a subset of cases for a causal link to be made. With this new GWAS data in hand, these sorts of questions can now be addressed.
It should also be said that there is clearly a wealth of potentially valuable information lying below the surface of the most statistically significant findings, but how to sort the true from the false associations? Should the MIR137 finding, and the targets of MIR137, be substantiated by biological analysis, then that would certainly be something well worth knowing and following up on. Network analysis by gene ontology and protein-protein interaction may yield more, but these approaches need to be approached with caution when not securely anchored from a biologically validated start point. Epistasis and pleiotropy are most likely playing a role, but even in these large sample sets, the power to determine statistical (as opposed to biological) evidence is challenging. All told, one is left thinking that more incisive findings have and will in the future come from family-based approaches, through structural studies (CNVs and chromosome translocations), and, in the near future, whole-genome sequencing of cases and relatives.
Ripke S, Sanders AR, Kendler KS, Levinson DF, Sklar P, Holmans PA, Lin DY, Duan J, Ophoff RA, Andreassen OA, Scolnick E, Cichon S, St Clair D, Corvin A, Gurling H, Werge T, Rujescu D, Blackwood DH, Pato CN, Malhotra AK, Purcell S, Dudbridge F, Neale BM, Rossin L, Visscher PM, Posthuma D, Ruderfer DM, Fanous A, Stefansson H, Steinberg S, Mowry BJ, Golimbet V, de Hert M, Jönsson EG, Bitter I, Pietiläinen OP, Collier DA, Tosato S, Agartz I, Albus M, Alexander M, Amdur RL, Amin F, Bass N, Bergen SE, Black DW, Børglum AD, Brown MA, Bruggeman R, Buccola NG, Byerley WF, Cahn W, Cantor RM, Carr VJ, Catts SV, Choudhury K, Cloninger CR, Cormican P, Craddock N, Danoy PA, Datta S, de Haan L, Demontis D, Dikeos D, Djurovic S, Donnelly P, Donohoe G, Duong L, Dwyer S, Fink-Jensen A, Freedman R, Freimer NB, Friedl M, Georgieva L, Giegling I, Gill M, Glenthøj B, Godard S, Hamshere M, Hansen M, Hansen T, Hartmann AM, Henskens FA, Hougaard DM, Hultman CM, Ingason A, Jablensky AV, Jakobsen KD, Jay M, Jürgens G, Kahn RS, Keller MC, Kenis G, Kenny E, Kim Y, Kirov GK, Konnerth H, Konte B, Krabbendam L, Krasucki R, Lasseter VK, Laurent C, Lawrence J, Lencz T, Lerer FB, Liang KY, Lichtenstein P, Lieberman JA, Linszen DH, Lönnqvist J, Loughland CM, Maclean AW, Maher BS, Maier W, Mallet J, Malloy P, Mattheisen M, Mattingsdal M, McGhee KA, McGrath JJ, McIntosh A, McLean DE, McQuillin A, Melle I, Michie PT, Milanova V, Morris DW, Mors O, Mortensen PB, Moskvina V, Muglia P, Myin-Germeys I, Nertney DA, Nestadt G, Nielsen J, Nikolov I, Nordentoft M, Norton N, Nöthen MM, O'Dushlaine CT, Olincy A, Olsen L, O'Neill FA, Orntoft TF, Owen MJ, Pantelis C, Papadimitriou G, Pato MT, Peltonen L, Petursson H, Pickard B, Pimm J, Pulver AE, Puri V, Quested D, Quinn EM, Rasmussen HB, Réthelyi JM, Ribble R, Rietschel M, Riley BP, Ruggeri M, Schall U, Schulze TG, Schwab SG, Scott RJ, Shi J, Sigurdsson E, Silverman JM, Spencer CC, Stefansson K, Strange A, Strengman E, Stroup TS, Suvisaari J, Terenius L, Thirumalai S, Thygesen JH, Timm S, Toncheva D, van den Oord E, van Os J, van Winkel R, Veldink J, Walsh D, Wang AG, Wiersma D, Wildenauer DB, Williams HJ, Williams NM, Wormley B, Zammit S, Sullivan PF, O'Donovan MC, Daly MJ, Gejman PV. Genome-wide association study identifies five new schizophrenia loci. Nat Genet . 2011 Sep 18. Abstract
Psychiatric GWAS Consortium Bipolar Disorder Working Group, Sklar P, Ripke S, Scott LJ, Andreassen OA, Cichon S, Craddock N, Edenberg HJ, Nurnberger JI Jr, Rietschel M, Blackwood D, Corvin A, Flickinger M, Guan W, Mattingsdal M, McQuillin A, Kwan P, Wienker TF, Daly M, Dudbridge F, Holmans PA, Lin D, Burmeister M, Greenwood TA, Hamshere ML, Muglia P, Smith EN, Zandi PP, Nievergelt CM, McKinney R, Shilling PD, Schork NJ, Bloss CS, Foroud T, Koller DL, Gershon ES, Liu C, Badner JA, Scheftner WA, Lawson WB, Nwulia EA, Hipolito M, Coryell W, Rice J, Byerley W, McMahon FJ, Schulze TG, Berrettini W, Lohoff FW, Potash JB, Mahon PB, McInnis MG, Zöllner S, Zhang P, Craig DW, Szelinger S, Barrett TB, Breuer R, Meier S, Strohmaier J, Witt SH, Tozzi F, Farmer A, McGuffin P, Strauss J, Xu W, Kennedy JL, Vincent JB, Matthews K, Day R, Ferreira MA, O'Dushlaine C, Perlis R, Raychaudhuri S, Ruderfer D, Hyoun PL, Smoller JW, Li J, Absher D, Thompson RC, Meng FG, Schatzberg AF, Bunney WE, Barchas JD, Jones EG, Watson SJ, Myers RM, Akil H, Boehnke M, Chambert K, Moran J, Scolnick E, Djurovic S, Melle I, Morken G, Gill M, Morris D, Quinn E, Mühleisen TW, Degenhardt FA, Mattheisen M, Schumacher J, Maier W, Steffens M, Propping P, Nöthen MM, Anjorin A, Bass N, Gurling H, Kandaswamy R, Lawrence J, McGhee K, McIntosh A, McLean AW, Muir WJ, Pickard BS, Breen G, St Clair D, Caesar S, Gordon-Smith K, Jones L, Fraser C, Green EK, Grozeva D, Jones IR, Kirov G, Moskvina V, Nikolov I, O'Donovan MC, Owen MJ, Collier DA, Elkin A, Williamson R, Young AH, Ferrier IN, Stefansson K, Stefansson H, Thornorgeirsson T, Steinberg S, Gustafsson O, Bergen SE, Nimgaonkar V, Hultman C, Landén M, Lichtenstein P, Sullivan P, Schalling M, Osby U, Backlund L, Frisén L, Langstrom N, Jamain S, Leboyer M, Etain B, Bellivier F, Petursson H, Sigur Sson E, Müller-Mysok B, Lucae S, Schwarz M, Schofield PR, Martin N, Montgomery GW, Lathrop M, Oskarsson H, Bauer M, Wright A, Mitchell PB, Hautzinger M, Reif A, Kelsoe JR, Purcell SM. Large-scale genome-wide association analysis of bipolar disorder reveals a new susceptibility locus near ODZ4. Nat Genet. 2011 Sep 18. Abstract
Lichtenstein P, Yip BH, Björk C, Pawitan Y, Cannon TD, Sullivan PF, Hultman CM. Common genetic determinants of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in Swedish families: a population-based study. Lancet . 2009 Jan 17 ; 373(9659):234-9. Abstract
Gottesman II, Laursen TM, Bertelsen A, Mortensen PB. Severe mental disorders in offspring with 2 psychiatrically ill parents. Arch Gen Psychiatry . 2010 Mar 1 ; 67(3):252-7. Abstract
Donohoe G, Morris DW, Corvin A. The psychosis susceptibility gene ZNF804A: associations, functions, and phenotypes. Schizophr Bull . 2010 Sep 1 ; 36(5):904-9. Abstract
Purcell SM, Wray NR, Stone JL, Visscher PM, O'Donovan MC, Sullivan PF, Sklar P. Common polygenic variation contributes to risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Nature . 2009 Aug 6 ; 460(7256):748-52. Abstract
Vacic V, McCarthy S, Malhotra D, Murray F, Chou HH, Peoples A, Makarov V, Yoon S, Bhandari A, Corominas R, Iakoucheva LM, Krastoshevsky O, Krause V, Larach-Walters V, Welsh DK, Craig D, Kelsoe JR, Gershon ES, Leal SM, Dell Aquila M, Morris DW, Gill M, Corvin A, Insel PA, McClellan J, King MC, Karayiorgou M, Levy DL, DeLisi LE, Sebat J. Duplications of the neuropeptide receptor gene VIPR2 confer significant risk for schizophrenia. Nature . 2011 Mar 24 ; 471(7339):499-503. Abstract
Xu B, Roos JL, Dexheimer P, Boone B, Plummer B, Levy S, Gogos JA, Karayiorgou M. Exome sequencing supports a de novo mutational paradigm for schizophrenia. Nat Genet . 2011 Jan 1 ; 43(9):864-8. Abstract
View all comments by David J. PorteousComment by: Patrick Sullivan, SRF Advisor
Submitted 26 September 2011
Posted 26 September 2011
I recommend the Primary Papers
The two papers appearing online in Nature Genetics last Sunday are truly important additions to our increasing knowledge base for these disorders. The core analyses have been presented multiple times at international meetings in the past two years.
Since then, the available sample sizes for both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have grown considerably. If the recently published data are any guide, the next round of analyses should be particularly revealing.
The PGC results and almost all of the data that were used in these reports are available by application to the controlled-access repository.
Please see the references for views of this area that contrast with those of Professor Porteous.
Sullivan P. Don't give up on GWAS. Molecular Psychiatry. 2011 Aug 9. Abstract
Kim Y, Zerwas S, Trace SE, Sullivan PF. Schizophrenia genetics: where next? Schizophr Bull. 2011;37:456-63. Abstract
View all comments by Patrick SullivanComment by: Edward Scolnick
Submitted 28 September 2011
Posted 29 September 2011
I recommend the Primary Papers
It is clear in human genetics that common variants and rare variants have frequently been detected in the same genes. Numerous examples exist in many diseases. The bashing of GWAS in schizophrenia and bipolar illness indicates, by those who make such comments, a lack of understanding of human genetics and where the field is. When these studies were initiated five years ago, next-generation sequencing was not available. Large samples of populations or trios or quartets did not exist. The international consortia have worked to collect such samples that are available for GWAS now, as well as for detailed sequencing studies. Before these studies began there was virtually nothing known about the etiology of schizophrenia and bipolar illness. The DISC1 gene translocation in the famous family was an important observation in that family. But almost a decade later there is still no convincing data that variants in Disc1 or many of its interacting proteins are involved in the pathogenesis of human schizophrenia or major mental illness.
Sequencing studies touted to be the Occam's razor for the field are beginning, and already, as in the past in this field, preemptive papers are appearing inadequately powered to draw any conclusions with certainty. Samples collected by the consortia will be critical to clarify the role of rare variants. This will take time and care so as not to set the field back into the morass it used to be. GWAS are basically modern public health epidemiology providing important clues to disease etiology. Much work is clearly needed once hits are found, just as it has been in traditional epidemiology. But in many fields, GWAS has already led to important biological insights, and it is certain it will do so in this field as well because the underlying principles of human genetics apply to this field, also. The primary problem in the field is totally inadequate funding by government organizations that consistently look for shortcuts to gain insights and new treatments, and forget how genetics has transformed cancer, immunology, autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and led to better diagnostics and treatments. The field will never understand the pathogenesis of these illnesses until the genetic architecture is deciphered. The first enzyme discovered in E. coli DNA biochemistry was a repair enzyme—not the enzyme that replicated DNA—and this was discovered through genetics. The progress in this field has been dramatic in the past five years. All doing this work realize that this is only a beginning and that there is a long hard road to full understanding. But to denigrate the beginning, which is clearly solid, makes no sense and indicates a provincialism unbecoming to a true scientist.
View all comments by Edward ScolnickComment by: Nick Craddock, Michael O'Donovan (SRF Advisor)
Submitted 11 October 2011
Posted 11 October 2011
At the start of the millennium, only two molecular genetic findings could be said with a fair amount of confidence to be etiologically relevant to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. The first of these was that deletions of chromosome 22q11 that are known to cause velo-cardio-facial syndrome also confer a substantial increase in risk of psychosis. The second was the discovery by David St Clair, Douglas Blackwood, and colleagues (St Clair et al., 1990) of a balanced translocation involving chromosomes 1 and 11 that co-segregates with a range of psychiatric phenotypes in a single large family, was clearly relevant to the etiology of illness in that family (Blackwood et al., 2001). The latter finding has led to the conjecture, based upon a translocation breakpoint analysis reported by Kirsty Millar, David Porteous, and colleagues (Millar et al., 2000), that elevated risk in that family is conferred by altered function of a gene eponymously named DISC1. Just over a decade later, what can we now say with similar degrees of confidence? The relevance of deletions of 22q11 has stood the test of time—indeed, has strengthened—through further investigation (Levinson et al., 2011, being only one example), while the relevance of DISC1 remains conjecture. That the evidence implicating this gene is no stronger than it was all those years ago provides a clear illustration of the difficulties inherent in drawing etiological inferences from extremely rare mutations regardless of their effect size.
However, with the publication of several GWAS and CNV papers, culminating in the two mega-analyses reported by the PGC that are the subject of this commentary, one on schizophrenia, one on bipolar disorder, together reporting a total of six novel loci, very strong evidence has accumulated for approximately 20 new loci in psychosis. The majority of these are defined by SNPs, the remainder by copy number variants, and virtually all (including the rare, relatively high-penetrance CNVs) have emerged through the application of GWAS technology to large case-control samples, not through the study of linkage or families. Have GWAS approaches proven their worth? Clearly, the genetic findings represent the tip of a very deeply submerged iceberg, and it is possible that not all will stand the test of time and additional data, although the current levels of statistical support suggest the majority will do so. Nevertheless, the findings of SNP and CNV associations (including 22q11 deletions) seem to us to provide the first real signs of progress in uncovering strongly supported findings of primary etiological relevance to these disorders. Although SNP effects are small, the experience from other complex phenotypes is that statistically robust genetic associations, even those of very small effect, can highlight biological pathways of etiological (height; Lango Allen et al., 2010) and of possible therapeutic relevance (Alzheimer's disease; Jones et al., 2010). Moreover, it would seem intuitively likely that even if capturing the total heritable component of a disorder is presently a distant goal, the greater the number of associations captured, the better will be the snapshot of the sorts of processes that contribute to a disorder, and that might therefore be manipulated in its treatment. Thus, there is evidence that building even a very incomplete picture of the sort of genes that influence risk is an excellent method of informing understanding of pathogenesis of a highly complex disorder (or set of disorders).
As in previous GWAS and CNV endeavors, the PGC studies have required a significant degree of altruism from the hundreds of investigators and clinicians who have shared their data with little hope of significant academic credit. Moreover, where ethical approval permitted, the datasets have been made virtually open source for other investigators who are not part of the study. Sadly, this generosity of spirit is not matched in the rather curmudgeonly commentary provided by David Porteous. Rather than challenging the science or conduct of the study, it appears to us that the commentary takes the easier route of damnation by faint praise, distortion, and even innuendo.
The strongest finding, that being of association to the extended MHC region, is dismissed as "long known to be associated with risk of schizophrenia." How that knowledge was acquired a long time ago is unclear, but it cannot have been based upon data. It is true that weak and inconsistent associations at the MHC locus have been reported, even predating the molecular genetic era (McGuffin et al., 1978), but not until the landmark studies of the International Schizophrenia Consortium (2009), the Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia Consortium (AbstractShi et al., 2009), and the SGENE+ Consortium (Stefansson et al., 2009) have the findings been strong enough to be described as knowledge. Porteous dismissive tone continues with the phrase "just 10 loci met .," the word "just" being a qualifier that seems designed to denigrate rather than challenge the results. Given the paucity of etiological clues, others might consider this a good yield. The observation in which the effect sizes at the detected loci are contrasted "with the ~10-fold increase in risk to the first-degree relative of someone with schizophrenia" is so fatuous it is difficult to believe its function is anything other than to insinuate in the mind of the reader the impression of failure. Yet no one remotely aware of the expectations behind GWAS would expect that the effect sizes of any common risk allele would bear any resemblance to that of family history, the latter reflecting the combined effects of many risk alleles.
Among the most important findings of the PGC schizophrenia group were those of strong evidence for association between a variant in the vicinity of a gene encoding regulatory RNA MIR137, and the subsequent finding that schizophrenia association signals were significantly enriched (P <0.01) among predicted targets of this regulatory RNA. Of course, like the other findings, there is room for the already very strong data to be further strengthened, but that finding alone opens up a whole new window in potential pathogenic mechanisms. Yet Porteous casually throws four handfuls of mud, dismissing the enrichment p <0.01 as a "relaxed significance cutoff," which "seems somewhat arbitrary," and that "warrants further examination," and commenting that "it is of passing note that for two of the eight replication cohorts, the direction of effect for MIR137 was in the opposite direction from the Stage 1 finding." If Porteous feels he has the expertise to pronounce on this analysis, it would behoove him well to choose his words more carefully. Since when is a P value of <0.01 "relaxed" when applied to a test of a single hypothesis? Can he really be unaware of the longstanding convention of regarding P <0.05 as significant in specific hypothesis testing? If he is not unaware of this, why is it generally applicable but "somewhat arbitrary" in the context of the PGC study? As for "further examination being warranted," this is true of any scientific finding, but what does he specifically mean in the context of his commentary? And why is it of "passing note" that not all samples show trends in the same direction? In the context of the well-known issues in GWAS concerning individual small samples and power, what is surprising about that? There may be simple answers to these questions, but we find it difficult to draw any other conclusion than that the choice of language is anything other than another attempt to sow seeds of doubt through innuendo rather than analysis.
The remark that "ZNF804A, a past favourite, was noticeably absent" falls well short of the standard one might expect of serious discourse. The choice of language suggests a desire to denigrate rather than analyse, and to insinuate without specific evidence that any interest in this gene should now be over. In fact, the largest study of this gene to date is that of Williams et al. (2010), which actually includes at least two-thirds of the PGC discovery dataset and is based on over 57,000 subjects, a sample almost three times as large as the mega-analysis sample of the PGC.
Porteous overall conclusion from the two studies is "whichever way you look at it, though, just two new loci for schizophrenia and one for bipolar looks like a modest return for such a gargantuan investment." This appraisal is misleading. The PGC studies were actually relatively small investments, being based on a synthesis of pre-existing data. Since the studies use existing data, there is naturally an expectation that some of the loci identified will have been previously reported as either significant or have otherwise been flagged up as of interest, while some will be new. Overall, the return on the GWAS investment is not just the six novel loci (rather than three); it is the totality of the findings, which, as noted above, currently number about 20 loci. The schizophrenia research community should also be made aware, if they are not already, that the return on these investments is not "one off"; it is cumulative. In the coming years, the component datasets will continue to generate a return in new gene discoveries (including CNVs yet to be reported by the PGC) as they are added (at essentially no cost) to other emerging GWAS datasets being generated largely through charitable support. With the returns in the bank already, one could (and we do) argue that the investment is negligible, particularly given the cost in human and economic terms of continued ignorance about these illnesses that blight so many lives.
It is true that with so little being known compared with what is yet to be known, the biological insights that can be made from the existing data are limited. This is equally true of the common and rare variants identified so far, and we are not aware of any of the "incisive findings" that Porteous claims have already come from alternative approaches, although the emergence of strong evidence for deletions at NRXN1 as a susceptibility variant for schizophrenia through meta-analysis of case-control GWAS data (one of the extra returns on the GWAS data we referred to above) deserves that description (Kirov et al., 2009). But this is not a cause for despair; in contrast to the future promises made on behalf of other as yet unproven designs, for eyes and minds that are open enough to see, the recent papers provide unambiguous evidence for a straightforward route to identifying more genes and pathways involved in the disorder. Even Porteous has partial sight of this, since he notes that "there is clearly a wealth of potentially valuable information lying below the surface of the most statistically significant findings." What he appears unable to see is "how to sort the true from the false associations?" The answer for a large number of loci is simple. Better-powered studies based upon larger sample sizes.
We would like to add a note of caution for those who too readily denigrate case-control approaches in favor of hyping other approaches, none of which are yet so well proven routes to success. We are not against those approaches; indeed, we are actively involved in them. But we are concerned that the hype surrounding sequencing, and the generation of what we think are unrealistic expectations, will make those designs vulnerable to attack from those who seem only too keen to make premature and inaccurate pronouncements of failure, who seem desperate to derive straw from nuggets of gold. If, as we believe is likely, it turns out to be quite a few years more before sequencing studies become sufficiently powered to provide large numbers of robust findings, as for GWAS, the consequence could be withdrawal of substantial government funding before those designs have had a chance to live up to their potential. That such an outcome has already largely been achieved for GWAS in some countries might be a source of rejoicing in some quarters, but it should also send out a warning to all who broadly hold the view that understanding the genetics of these disorders is central to understanding their origins, and to improving their future management.
The recent PGC papers represent an impressive, international collaboration based upon methodologies that have a proven track record in delivering important biological insights into other complex disorders, and now in psychiatry. Given the complexity of psychiatric phenotypes, we believe it is likely that a variety of approaches, paradigms, and ideas will be essential for success, including the approaches espoused by those who believe the evidence is compatible with essentially Mendelian inheritance. Inevitably, there will be sincerely held differences of opinion concerning the best way forward, and, of course, in any area of science, reasoned arguments based upon a fair assessment of the evidence are essential. Nevertheless, given there are sufficient uncertainties about what can be realistically delivered in the short term by the newer technologies, we suggest that the cause of bringing benefit to patients will most likely be better served by humility, realism, and a constructive discussion in which there is no place for belittling real achievements, for arrogance, or for dogmatic posturing.
Blackwood DH, Fordyce A, Walker MT, St Clair DM, Porteous DJ, Muir WJ. Schizophrenia and affective disorders--cosegregation with a translocation at chromosome 1q42 that directly disrupts brain-expressed genes: clinical and P300 findings in a family. Am J Hum Genet. 2001 Aug;69(2):428-33. Abstract
International Schizophrenia Consortium Common polygenic variation contributes to risk of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):748-52. Abstract
Jones L, Holmans PA, Hamshere ML, Harold D, Moskvina V, Ivanov D, et al. Genetic evidence implicates the immune system and cholesterol metabolism in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease. PLoS One. 2010 Nov 15;5(11):e13950. Erratum in: PLoS One. 2011;6(2). Abstract
Kirov G, Rujescu D, Ingason A, Collier DA, O'Donovan MC, Owen MJ. Neurexin 1 (NRXN1) deletions in schizophrenia. Schizophr Bull. 2009 Sep;35(5):851-4. Epub 2009 Aug 12. Review. Abstract
Lango Allen H, Estrada K, Lettre G, Berndt SI, Weedon MN, Rivadeneira F, et al. Hundreds of variants clustered in genomic loci and biological pathways affect human height. Nature. 2010 Oct 14;467(7317):832-8. Abstract
Levinson DF, Duan J, Oh S, Wang K, Sanders AR, Shi J, et al. Copy number variants in schizophrenia: confirmation of five previous findings and new evidence for 3q29 microdeletions and VIPR2 duplications. Am J Psychiatry. 2011 Mar;168(3):302-16. Abstract
McGuffin P, Farmer AE, Rajah SM. Histocompatability antigens and schizophrenia. Br J Psychiatry. 1978 Feb;132:149-51. Abstract
Millar JK, Wilson-Annan JC, Anderson S, Christie S, Taylor MS, Semple CA, et al. Disruption of two novel genes by a translocation co-segregating with schizophrenia. Hum Mol Genet. 2000 May 22;9(9):1415-23. Abstract
Shi J, Levinson DF, Duan J, Sanders AR, Zheng Y, Pe'er I, et al. Common variants on chromosome 6p22.1 are associated with schizophrenia. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):753-7. Abstract
St Clair D, Blackwood D, Muir W, Carothers A, Walker M, Spowart G, et al. Association within a family of a balanced autosomal translocation with major mental illness. Lancet. 1990 Jul 7;336(8706):13-6. Abstract
Stefansson H, Ophoff RA, Steinberg S, Andreassen OA, Cichon S, Rujescu D, et al Common variants conferring risk of schizophrenia. Nature. 2009 Aug 6;460(7256):744-7. Abstract
The Schizophrenia Psychiatric Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS) Consortium. Genome-wide association study identifies five new schizophrenia loci. Nat Genet. 2011 Sep 18;43(10):969-976. Abstract
Williams HJ, Norton N, Dwyer S, Moskvina V, Nikolov I, Carroll L, et al. Fine mapping of ZNF804A and genome-wide significant evidence for its involvement in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Mol Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;16(4):429-41. Abstract
View all comments by Nick Craddock
View all comments by Michael O'DonovanComment by: Todd Lencz, Anil Malhotra (SRF Advisor)
Submitted 11 October 2011
Posted 11 October 2011
It is worth re-emphasizing that efforts such as the Psychiatric GWAS Consortium do not rule out potentially important discoveries from alternative strategies such as endophenotypic approaches or examination of rare variants. Indeed, such strategies will be necessary to understand the functional mechanisms implicated by GWAS hits.
Moreover, we note that the two recently published PGC papers were not designed to exclude a role for previously identified candidate loci such as DISC1 (Hodgkinson et al., 2004), or prior GWAS findings such as rs1344706 at ZNF804A (Williams et al., 2011). For both these loci, and many others that have been proposed, meta-analysis of available samples suggest very small effect sizes (OR ~1.1), as might be expected for common variants. As noted in Supplementary Table S12 of the schizophrenia PGC paper (Ripke et al., 2011), the currently available sample size (~9,000 cases/~12,000 controls) of the discovery cohort was still underpowered to detect variants with odds ratios of 1.1, especially if they have a minor allele frequency of 20 percent or below.
An instructive example arises from the field of diabetes genetics. An association of a missense variant (rs1801282, Pro12Ala) in PPARG to type 2 diabetes was first reported in a sample of n = 91 Japanese-American patients (Deeb et al., 1998). Many subsequent studies failed to replicate the effect, and the initial large GWAS meta-analysis (involving >14,000 cases and ~18,000 controls; Zeggini et al., 2007) only detected the association at a p-value that would be considered non-significant by todays standard (p =1.7*10-6). Interestingly, the authors deemed the association to be confirmed, and the result was widely accepted within that field. Subsequent meta-analysis, involving twice as many subjects (total n = 67,000), finally obtained conventional genomewide levels of significance (p <5*10-8; Gouda et al., 2010).
Deeb SS, Fajas L, Nemoto M, Pihlajamäki J, Mykkänen L, Kuusisto J, Laakso M, Fujimoto W, Auwerx J. A Pro12Ala substitution in PPARgamma2 associated with decreased receptor activity, lower body mass index and improved insulin sensitivity. Nat Genet. 1998 Nov;20(3):284-7. Abstract
Gouda HN, Sagoo GS, Harding AH, Yates J, Sandhu MS, Higgins JP. The association between the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-gamma2 (PPARG2) Pro12Ala gene variant and type 2 diabetes mellitus: a HuGE review and meta-analysis. Am J Epidemiol. 2010 Mar 15;171(6):645-55. Abstract
Hodgkinson CA, Goldman D, Jaeger J, Persaud S, Kane JM, Lipsky RH, Malhotra AK. Disrupted in schizophrenia 1 (DISC1): association with schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and bipolar disorder. Am J Hum Genet. 2004 Nov;75(5):862-72. Abstract
Williams HJ, Norton N, Dwyer S, Moskvina V, Nikolov I, Carroll L, Georgieva L, Williams NM, Morris DW, Quinn EM, Giegling I, Ikeda M, Wood J, Lencz T, Hultman C, Lichtenstein P, Thiselton D, Maher BS; Molecular Genetics of Schizophrenia Collaboration (MGS) International Schizophrenia Consortium (ISC), SGENE-plus, GROUP, Malhotra AK, Riley B, Kendler KS, Gill M, Sullivan P, Sklar P, Purcell S, Nimgaonkar VL, Kirov G, Holmans P, Corvin A, Rujescu D, Craddock N, Owen MJ, O'Donovan MC. Fine mapping of ZNF804A and genome-wide significant evidence for its involvement in schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Mol Psychiatry. 2011 Apr;16(4):429-41. Abstract
Zeggini E, Weedon MN, Lindgren CM, Frayling TM, Elliott KS, Lango H, Timpson NJ, Perry JR, Rayner NW, Freathy RM, Barrett JC, Shields B, Morris AP, Ellard S, Groves CJ, Harries LW, Marchini JL, Owen KR, Knight B, Cardon LR, Walker M, Hitman GA, Morris AD, Doney AS; Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium (WTCCC), McCarthy MI, Hattersley AT. Replication of genome-wide association signals in UK samples reveals risk loci for type 2 diabetes. Science. 2007 Jun 1;316(5829):1336-41. Abstract
View all comments by Todd Lencz
View all comments by Anil Malhotra


text:
My company head says that I must write all , i.e. ALL my code within Try-catch statements. Now, I can understand the 'better be safe than sorry' approach here, but isn't it too chicken-hearted to think that there will be an exception when the Labels are created, form's position is set. has there been instances where Exceptions in Such simple operations.
Sign up
- Anybody can ask a question
- Anybody can answer
- The best answers are voted up and rise to the top
Well, this is a little overdone and just leads to noisy code. What are the benefits of having all the code (each method e.g.) written with a try catch handler? It just tells you there's an error to be fixed in most of the cases. Often times, the exception can and should be avoided in the first place.
A look on the stack trace is mostly sufficient to reveal the cause in your code, even if the faulting method does not perform the catch itself. There're times when developers corrupt stack-traces in exceptions, but that's far more often the case when you have lots and lots of exception handlers. Like anything: A little is good, but too much of it is poison.
Exception handling is indeed pretty simple:
Catch Exceptions
If you think about it, then there's most always just one place which is good to handle an occuring exception. And thus the handler should be in that place.
Many exceptions shouldn't even be thrown in the first place, so don't build your control structures around exception handling, rather try to avoid the possible occurence of exceptions whenever and wherever possible.
Remember to crash early when things go (unrepairably) wrong. Putting all the code in try-catch statements is absurd, but don't forget to report and log ALL exceptions.
Absolutely yes! There's always a way for things to go wrong that you didn't foresee. And "chicken-hearted" is a ridiculous expression to use in this context; software development is not about proving your machismo through ignoring potential problems.
What is a valid question is whether it's useful for exceptions to be caught at the point where your coding standards say they have to. Your statement reads like you have to have try/catch block around every method body, and that is indeed absurd because you often cannot immediately do something useful with an exception, and that's actually the whole point of exceptions: that you can choose to let them propagate up the call stack to be dealt with at the appropriate point.
I would turn this the other way around. Yes, as a general rule exception handling is a good thing, but can you actually handle every possible exception in a sensible manner at the point where it is caught? Sometimes, particularly if you are not writing mission-critical software, it is better to simply crash and burn in some half-way-controlled manner when things go horribly wrong.
If you cannot be 100% certain that you can handle every single exception that might possibly be caught, you are probably better off writing some sort of general exception handler, wrapping the program's main loop in it - the exact mechanics of how to do that obviously depends on what language you are working in. There, log as much detail about the exception as you can, save program state (somewhere other than to whatever data store the user is currently working against - remember, it may all be corrupted at this point), and so on. Then, rethrow the exception and let the OS handle it however it sees fit. In this catch-all exception handler, be prepared for catastrophic failure. Then, when the program is restarted, look to see if this state is in any way useful, and restore what can be salvaged if it is; and possibly offer the user to send a bug report back to you.
Overall, using try/catch that much is deprecated, because catch block is so expensive from the point of resources. Try/catch usage reminds me of risk management. Risk management has two dimensions:
Now, if you go out of your house, a piano falling on your head somewhere while is so unlikelihood to happen (maybe 0.001%), but can kill you.
Exception handling is like that. Try block is not expensive. But catch block is really expensive, because it needs to create a table of stack trace, and doing other stuff. Therefore in making a decision about try/catch blocks, you should consider how many times you probably hit catch block. If among 10,000 usages, you only hit it 1 time, then use it. But if it's a form, and the user probably doesn't fill it correctly 50% times, then you should avoid putting a try/catch block into action there.
In places where the probability of exception occurrence is high, it's recommended to use
you should write:
You should use try-catch when appropriate, but please oh please don't catch all exceptions and not even log it. At that point it's code smell and shoddy work.
I personally can't stand exceptions, they are VERY, VERY, VERY hard to handle correctly. And trying to uncorrupt the corrupt data is VERY, VERY, VERY hard!
If you don't call every function like:
There is no way you'll clean up correctly on every exit point. Exceptions are HARD!
The only good thing about exceptions is that if you don't catch them, the app crashes on unexpected behavior.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Many special functions including the gamma function have a duplication formula of some sorts. In the case of the gamma function it reads:
Gamma(2z) = Gamma(z) Gamma(z+1/2) 22z-1/Gamma(1/2)
On the other hand, there is no algebraic relation between Gamma(2z) and Gamma(z) by themselves, meaning that is there is no nonzero polynomial f(x,y) such that f(Gamma(2z),Gamma(z))=0 for all complex z. I can prove this by chasing poles and their order.
However, I'd be interested in a (simple) argument which shows that the following similar statement is true (which I believe it is):
There is no (nonzero) polynomial f(x,y) such that f((2n)!, n!)=0 for all integers n≥0.
Any ideas? Thank you!


text: AMD vs. Intel? Are the i5s and i7s so much better than the AM3+ to justify a huge price difference? So far I am leaning toward the AMD line. I've had great luck with both brands. My Phenom was great and my servers all have 2 Xeons, which are pretty amazing as well.


text:
Please enter a maximum of 5 recipients. Use ; to separate more than one email address.
The Commission said the Harburg refinery assets in the Hamburg region would be likely to close if there were no deal to buy them, which would significantly reduce production capacity in the European Economic Area, leading to higher prices for consumers of many oil-based products.
Nynas has received approval from the European Commission to take over
production and responsibility for the base oil plant and
associated production units at Shell's Harburg refinery in
Hamburg, Germany, the company said on Monday.
The takeover of the first part of the refinery assets is targeted for
January 1, 2014.
The new production plant will be a core site for Nynas with
an annual production of specialty oils up to 350,000 tons. This
represents a 40% increase in the company's supply
capability of naphthenic specialty oils. With the takeover of
the Harburg production facilities, Nynas will in the first
phase take on approximately 90 Shell employees. This number
will grow to 220 after two years.
"We signed this deal with Shell in 2011 and we are now
satisfied that we have received the approval by the European Commission. The addition of
Harburg to Nynas supply system is an important step forward in
Nynas' growth strategy," said Staffan Lennström, CEO of
"We will increase volumes of all products in our current range
of naphthenic specialty oils," he continued. "With the new
capacity we can reinforce our delivery performance and quickly
meet the growing demand from our customers around the
"Over the next 24 months Harburg will be converted into a
world class, stand-alone specialty oil refinery. The high safety
performance and professionalism demonstrated by the Harburg
organisation and the welcoming attitude from the region have
been important for taking this step."
From the beginning of next year, Nynas will start operating the
base oil unit and associated refining facilities, i.e. bitumen assets,
tank farms and jetties on the southern part. Approximately 90
people will be employed by Nynas from the start of phase 1.
In preparation for phase 2, a hydrogen production plant will
be built and operated by a third party supplier and Nynas will
modify plants for further specialty oils production in the
northern part.
After the conversion project, Nynas will take over all
the operations of the new stand-alone specialty oils refinery.
With this agreement, Nynas will not take over any customers,
sales or marketing assets from Shell.
All comments are subject to editorial review.
All fields are compulsory.
Dear Willem,the catcracker, one crude distiller and several smaller units were already shut down this spring.Kind regards, Gabriel
Willem Bosch
Dear Hydrocarbon processing Customerservice,As a retired employee of Shell, I have read your article with great interest as I have worked in the Harburg refinery in the eighties.Question: Will Shell apart from the base oil unit and bitumen assets willl also sell all the other parts of the refinery, like catcracker, platformer and thermal cracker units? Or will these units be shutdown?Many thanks for your information.Your sincerely,Willem Bosch
Sign-up for the Free Daily HP Enewsletter!
A searchable database of project activity in the global hydrocarbon processing industry
Engineers and designers are highly skilled individuals. Forcing them to enter design changes using tables, forms and spreadsheets is unproductive and uneconomical, and it increases the likelihood of human error—this is the way that most instrumentation software systems currently work. For too long, software vendors have denied engineers and designers the simple practicality of a graphical visual engineering interface with "drag and drop" capability and inbuilt intelligence, ensuring changes are automatically replicated into all the associated data and databases.
Is 2016 the peak for US gasoline demand?
Too soon to tell
July 2016


text:
I was watching an old episode of The Simpsons with Dr. Marvin Monroe. I was reminded of an expression which I could swear was from an episode of The Simpsons, but I cannot find any references to it. I'm not sure about the whole quote, but the ending is definitely part of it (I'm certain it was uttered by a male.)
It's true, I'm a sexaholic; I'm addicted to sexahol.
Googling just various combinations of the end with other qualifiers comes up with nothing whatsoever, so I'm baffled because I did not just spontaneously invent the quote. I also tried the two most likely alternatives, Futurama and Family Guy, but still nothing.
Does anyone know what show/episode this quote is from?


text:
using 3g mobile broadband on a ps3 without a 3g wireless router.. im using a three mobile huawei E169G 3g usb modem(dongle),
im pretty sure this will work with all 3g and adsl modems(if your sick of having to change the ethernet cable back and over on the adsl modem)!!
Works On windows 7 also!
sorry about the bad quility, here are the instructions if you cant see them —
Here I'm going to show you how to share your 3g internet connection with your ps3/xbox 360 without having to buy a 3g wireless Wire-less router (€300) with the use of your pc/laptop and an Ethernet cable! I'm going use ps3 as an example. Its very easy to do but a lot of people don't have a clue and go ahead and pay for the router !!!
Ok first of all you need a Ethernet cable (supplied with the ps3 system) and connect it from your pc/laptop to your ps3, then you'll need to connect to the internet. Now go to control panel and click " view network status and tasks" then click "view status" and then "properties"…….
Now you need to click the "sharing tab in the top right hand corner.
Then tick the box that says "allow other network users to connect through this computers internet connection" if prompted for a password enter it or contact your computers administer. After putting in the password click "ok"
Note: if a text box appears telling you that you can only share the connection when "you" are logged in just click ok.
Now disconnect from the internet and reconnect, and you should be good to go this end!
Now head over to your ps3 and go to network settings and click internet connection settings, now choose the "easy" for the setting method and press right on the d-pad of your controller and wait a few seconds, when the next screen pops up choose "automatic" so it will find your IP address by itself, and click right again! Now you can choose the next settings yourself or you can just keep clicking right until you come to the last screen and press x, now test the connection and you should be good to go, just sign in to PSN and your online !!
Duration : 0:1:11


text:
An Open Apology to @Metaphore
I had this edited because it was pretty ugly, and towards two great members of the community who didn't deserve having their names dragged through the mud. This was basically A Thread I created when I over-reacted to @Metaphore and @LazyZombie entering a contest thus giving them both the same IPs on their entries. I was tired and only had 3 hours of sleep the night before and A thread I made accusing @Metaphore of sockpuppeting @lazyzombie.
While the evidence was pretty damning, I still should have contacted them before asking the community's help on it, but once you get it in your mind you're being scammed you just build and things start too look like something it isn't. Also, running on such little sleep makes you crazy. Truefax. Anyways, I'm having this thread so others can learn from my mistake and we can continue to keep things civil always. Also so you guys can have something to hang over my head in the future. Enjoy.
62 Answers answer
It seems quite obvious from looking at how the 2 accounts post and vote for each other that it's the same person. /educated speculation
I hope this doesn't bitter you too much about being generous.
Speaking for the non-scamming side of the community: We love and appreciate you and all you do @cowboydann.
Regardless of what happens I don't think DW chat should be invite only.
If this is true (which certainly seems to be the case after investigating: multiple associations even outside the world of woot), then @cowboydann has all the right to feel the way he does. What he does takes more patience and hardwork than we all know, and he does it for no gain to himself. He does it for the community! @Metaphore and @lazyzombie should be ashamed. People suck.
@moosezilla: Agreed.
I want to apologize FOR lazyzombie/ metaphor because I know he/she doesn't have the balls to own up to it. I know allot of us are as disappointed as you are in their behavior.
Please know that your generosity and efforts are greatly appreciated by us all!
Once again, no good deed goes unpunished.
In the end, I got royally burned with the traveling BOC I started here, way back when. It was only through the kindness & pity of some of my fellow deals members that renewed my faith in the Community. And they were nice enough not to say "I told you so."
It seemed like such a fun idea when we started: http://deals.woot.com/questions/details/ba0ba2e6-639b-491a-b374-6378ffa16ee5/so-done-with-mystery-boxes#174
Yay, a posse! And seconded with @moosezilla.
And yes, that is cheap and sleazy; no, dann, you're not being whiney.
Crap, gotta run. Off to work.
Oh, posse, do we get a dance number or something? Thriller!
I think you are right.
Only 8 wooters voted against http://deals.woot.com/deals/details/95642557-9502-4218-8463-8fb844252d9f/3d-glasses-blue-red-lenses#19 and 2 of them were your suspects.
I hope s\he privately messages you, apologies, and your prize is kept for the next CD endeavor.
I know I'm not part of the Chat crowd (no time!) but would you mind if I chime in here before you get the Tar and Feathers out? I do have a TON of experience in rooting out trolls/sockpuppets on message boards, it was part of my "job" on two rather large websites.
Matching IP addresses (or IRC "masks" as you call them) ARE a piece of evidence, but as they say, sometimes the devil is in the details... I did a little digging this morning and learned a couple of things.
Did you know that Metaphore has a brother? (It has been mentioned here.) And I'm pretty sure they are both gamers. Also found other postings on the big wide web where BOTH of those usernames have posted together. Based on what I have read I believe they are Brother/Sister and both live in the same house. I REALLY don't want to post links to the "evidence", but it is out there in plain sight for anyone who wants to dig a little deeper.
If you know anything about IP addresses (which is what IRC chat "masks" are based on) you will know that 2 computers in the same house will have the same IP address. My Hubby and Son also frequent several of the same websites that I belong to and at one time all 3 of us were posting from the same house, looking very much like I had 3 accounts. Luckily I was an Admin on the site in question and had no problems explaining the situation.
I hope you will take the time to reach out to Metaphore and ask for an explaination before a guilty verdict is passed down, and please keep in mind that not everyone has their user settings set to receive an email when they are mentioned! I do, and even then I don't always get notified! @cowboydann if you would like a link to the other website, drop me a PM and I will give it to you. :-)
what about THIS That's right just 20 days ago you were bravoing (is that a word?) @lazyzombie. What's your angle here @cowboydann? Are you a shill for the shills?
I've clearly been watching too much Matlock lately.
@lavikinga: That sounded like an awesome idea! What happened?
@lavikinga: I didn't participate in the Offal offerings, but I'm curious as to how you got burned by it? Never got a box sent back to you? Something else?
@jimeezlady Good insights. Thanks for expanding my short-sightedness... What you have described seems plausible but some of cowboydann points about the timing of the posts do seem questionable.
@jimeezlady: It is just real suspicious that they both closed out in the last minutes, For the most part lazyzombie only said 3-4 words at a time, and looking at the chat longs. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt.
It just gets really weird when you see months of only upvoting one person, and things like that.
Shoot I forgot I was editing my posts, I would have typed faster to beat the clock.
The prizes are currently in the holding pen, the mask isn't banned from DWChat, I'd like to hope it is a big misunderstanding, but like I said, when you see long trending patterns of voting together, and exlusive upvotes towards (and nobody else other than yourself) it gets really suspicious. I don't know what I'm doing yet, and I wont until I hear from one of the two.
I'd really like to hope this is all my imagination running wild, but I don't know. I just don't see how it can't be scamming free swag...If an apology is owed, I will create another question with a big apology, and I expect everyone backing me here to have my back at that question and help make it twice as popular as this thread.
Sorry people are trying to take advantage of your good nature. :(
@magic cave: As I recall, and I was part of the original Traveling BOC, that is exactly what happened. Someone got the BOC but didn't send it on. We were able to restart the BOC, it's not like we all don't have a bunch of C around, and so it continued but it was a disappointment that it stopped.
@jimeezlady: I was going to suggest this as a possibility that it could either be brother/sister or a roommate. If that is the case then it could explain having similar tastes and voting for similar deal and upvoting each others respective deals. My brother is on here (tho far less active) and I have upvoted the few deals he has posted so I believe that could be happening.
I really hope that is the case. I felt lucky enough being home on a giveaway night for once that may have even been the last and it was a lot of fun in the room. I really hope someone didn't take advantage of CBD's unbelievable generosity because it would really leave a sour taste on what I thought was a fun night for all.
@raider9924: I'm really hoping for siblings, it was bounced around in woot chat a little bit before I made the post. Gonna have to wait. I'm going to get ready for work, so I might not be too active over here for another 9 hours
@jimeezlady: I agree that they may be brother/sister, husband/wife, etc.. A few years ago, my roommate and I would be sitting next to each other but on our laptops talking in a chat room we frequented. Perhaps a PM to them would help solve this issue?
@cowboydann: Next time one per household and at the discretion of CD. After all it is your game your prizes. Your time, your creativeness and your money.
I personally would not blame you if you error on the side of caution.
And no I am not one of the 'take turns for BOC crowd'.
@cowboydann: I think I've found your answer. Looks like @lazyzombie is probably the unnamed boyfriend in question.
Is any one surprised that there are selfish, anti-social types in this world?
We all suffer for these "precious" few. I'd hope that the mods will act to ban this person. Plus all the fake accounts that serial proxy downvotes. It breaks and weakens a great community.
@magic cave: @dupedyetagain: The last link in the chain of Offal#1 received the box and never completed the chain by forwarding it on. I guess Life's circumstances got in the way.
What bothered me more than my family saying "I told you so," both of us were very active here, I had hoped, at the very least, for an explanation, apology, something, ANY thing. Nothing was ever said. Live and learn.
On the bright side, I think the second box that was going out with a different list of people made it through to the very end of the game and the original sender.
@lavikinga: That's a bummer, for sure. At least it only happened at the very end—it sounds like everyone else had a good time with it.
@zuiquan: So that seems to be the case, Thanks for figuring it out. I knew something was up but I couldn't tell what. While I still feel it was a little underhanded to not disclose such information. I would have much rather them follow @Jezebelseven's lead and enter herself only instead of herself and her man, but it is what it is. Anyways, Upon further examination I did notice that LazyZombie did not enter the black triangle code, which leads me to believe it is legit. I don't want woot mods to delete the question, Instead I asked them to change the name to an Open apology to @Metaphore.
There was no rule against being opportunistic, but I'll definitely have to make more rules next time. Also I apologize for the language and namecalling. As I said, I was running on 3 hours of sleep and lost my head and didn't keep it civil. Add me on steam And I'll get you your games when I get home. Hope you'll accept this apology and hope to see you two in future wootchats.
@cowboydann: Still, one aught to declare something like that in future games. Glad you've gotten things unsnarled. Please don't let this dissuade any future good-deed-doings. It's been fun seeing you run around with your hair a-fire! ;)
after reading this it scares me what could be figured out by this group based on my big fat internet mouth ....
@djbowman: Hey hey hey....I take offense to that statement! We do not do anything like that around here!
P.S.: Your new furniture looks great from your front yard! ;)
@raider9924: P.S.: Your new furniture looks great from the tree in your back yard! ;)
Fixed your post.
@djbowman: I like to think someone bored has very detailed files on us.
ps. How's my foil hat looking? I made it myself you know. (And of course you already knew that.)
*sadly lowers burning pitchfork; heads back home kicking rocks.
@wootfast: The part that hurts most is know I disappoint you. Sorry.
Since this is a community issue, I changed the tag from "shill" to "community" to help more accurately represent the situation.
i am glad ppl weren't actually being jerks. (presumably.)
i was bugging @gatzby about deciphering things, but the community went & done it without us!
@cowboydann: i know you mentioned in chat that you might start pooling $$$ somehow for prizes. maybe an approach like that might deter such concerns down the road?
(i'd just hate to see community-driven games disappear....it's different when you guyez do it of your own accord, you know?)
Damn, you're telling me I bought the $5 rake and $5 shovel for nothing! How am I going to explain this torch to my boss now!
as an added challenge I started a thread about my big fat internet mouth. I wonder if anyone else has been as forthcoming as I have...
@rockytrh - No tree sorry
@pemberducky: Yeah, that was just a fun idea I was toying around with. The most Likely Scenario would be have people Pay 8 Dollars towards the shipping of their DOC (that still leaves 3 dollars shipipng and prizes for me to put in them) And that's the most realistic scenario right now. I still need to toy around with some other ideas, but that's where it's looking if I wanted to do a game next month.
I figure that would be fair, It's what wooters are used to paying for a BOC and I don't think I've put out a "DOC" that has disappointed yet.
First of let me start off by defending myself. I started coming here when Metaphore showed me the website back in November 2010 when I was invited to her place for thanksgiving. After that, sparks flew between us (we met on WoW) and I moved from Chicago to Spokane and we began living together. I totally wooed her one day when I bought and gifted her a 4 pack of Albino rhino and Adequate Gift wine, while convincing her that we should move in together. (If you want evidence of different addresses I can provide them.) I pretty much check out Woot! a couple times a day for deals and things to buy, primarily shirts. We now have a large collection of the shirts and its pretty much all we wear around here. I mean I'm wearing the Forbidden planet/Futurama shirt right now. (Continued)
Occasionally I get the idea to pop a deal up here and there, some to be funny, like the Weezer "Crab" song , others because "hey this seems like a pretty neat deal" (Chipotle, which Meta then informed me would probably be taken down as it wasn't a proper deal, as it wasn't the day of the coupon.) But all in all I'm not much of a deal.wooter like she is. I'm probably pretty passive especially to the forums(they can be addicting), but I do browse a bit, especially for pizza deals. I have held a black triangle once or twice but I'm not much of a presence, except for that clutch jewelry.com contest win (chicks like hearts.) Why we vote on each other's stuff is pretty simple, because we are a considerate couple to each other. We like supporting each other, if this is wrong, then I'll stop doing it in the future. I simply wasn't aware if this was a policy or not. (Continued)
As for the games, if people are that upset about it, I'm willing to forfeit my games (not that I have much of a choice.) Meta told me about the giveaway probably an hour or two before hand and it seemed interesting so I hopped into chat and decided "sure why not, I doubt I'll win anything." It seemed to me that there were a lot more games than people. I mean people ended up with 3-4 games anyway, so it didn't seem like a big deal that we were both winning a couple games here and there. At the end it seemed like CBD was begging people to take them.
Now about the venom being spewed on this, I absolutely dislike it. I'm attempting to refrain from name calling and I'm trying to take the upper moral ground on this. But the look on metas face when I got home from class today made me assume that there was an angry mob out front about to burn her at the stake; it left me a bit fuming. When a community of peers turns on you it really hurts, a sinking feeling in my chest can attest to that.
I love everything Woot! When 10 (Pacific) rolls around I check out the new deal, even though I know it's probably just another Dyson, just like everyone else does. I'm an annoyingly huge Kidfoot fan, and I can't get that "pizza's the greatest" song out of my head. I'd personally hate that a simple misunderstanding like this would hurt my views on woot and the woot community and vice versa. Although I must admit it certainly already has, right when I was starting to get interested in the community after a neat night last night. (Apologize for the random French and random convo starters last night.)
TL;DR We are different people, The community can have the games I won back, although It was the thing I was looking forward to most today. Venom being spewed, feelings hurt. Haircuts, waffles.
If you want evidence that we are different people. Just request what you want and I can deliver it
Sorry about the spam.
@lazyzombie: :::hands on hips::: Do you two have any idea how much you worried everybody?
Gotta like a man who woos a girl with Woot wine!
I owe you both a bigger apology than I can fit in here, I'd like invite you to come back to chat tonight when I get home from work. I would like to talk to you for a few minutes over private message. Needless to say the whole situation was handled wrong, We're actually a very welcoming community,(the woot addicts that actually want to spend more time with woot people) and hate ourselves. Based on the evidence we had at the time, and the whole fact that none of it made any sense, I jumped the gun. Hindsight says I had your email and should have done that instead, but I wasn't thinking straight last night. I just saw two people who were very quiet and entering submissions seconds apart from each other, and the same HostMask. I hate to think I may have driven someone away from not only our chat but the entire woot community. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would like to apologize, but please come in, lets chat for a while.
Running out of room.
Anyways, You deserve a lot more, but I just can't say it here. Things are busy at work today, but please consider stopping by tonight. I'd really like it if we could talk for a little bit. I get home at 8:30 Woot Time and like I said I'm sure I wont be the only one apologizing tonight. Sorry again for any hurt feelings, pain I had caused. The games are yours to keep, you don't have to forfeit anything.
Hope to talk to you soon.
@lazyzombie: Being fairly new to the DWC (only been a few times and only started this month) I could understand the few words spoken...I go the other way, do not speak much but when I do say a lot in 1 line. I guessed and hoped it was 2 different but connected people which in the end it was. I do agree that it was a bit surprising that people jumped to the conclusion seemingly early into the questioning.....but I can understand how it happened:
1. For CBD, stress and lack of sleep does funny things to you. He noticed something and ran with it when maybe he should have slept on it (it happens).
2. As you stated you support your g/f, which is great, the other guys supported CBD in the same manor, someone who they consider a friend. Instead of stepping back and thinking they defended their friend looking out for who they know. From playing full contract sports I fully get that. @wootfast said it best which is how those scenes play out.


text:
Private Eye: Who is your girl crush or bromance?
We ask Blake Lively, Eva Mendes, Jessica Biel, and more.
Many women have an eye for beauty. "I met Julia Roberts for 30 seconds, and it was unforgettable for me," said Audrey Tautou. Katharine McPhee admires Megan Fox: "Physically speaking, she's just perfect." Men go for similar interests or simple proximity. Nick Cannon named Will Smith as his crush: "We work out together in the gym." Jimmy Fallon claimed that he has fielded advances from a fellow talk-show host: "Regis Philbin wants to start a bromance with me. We've got a lot in common—we both like Dean Martin DVDs. I'm down if he wants to do it."
Even Hollywood icon Lauren Bacall confessed to marveling at someone: "Penélope Cruz. I love her!"


text:
I know I have made pasta before--fresh pasta, pumpkin pasta, and whole wheat pasta. But last weekend my younger brother came for a visit and schooled me in the ways of egg-free pasta, and I realized that I was making things way too complicated. I was operating under the notion that the egg in fresh pasta needed to be replaced, but it really doesn't. Keep it simple, man. Making pasta is also fun for the kids. That is Son #2's hand in the pic above, helping me make lasagna noodles.
Makes 1 lb
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup semolina flour
- dash of salt
- 1 tbsp olive oil (optional)
- about 1/2 cup water
1. Put flours and salt in a food processor fitted with the blade attachment and process briefly to mix.
2. With motor running (around speed 6-8), drizzle in oil and then the water. You will notice that the flour will resemble fine bread crumbs as the liquid is added, then coarse bread crumbs, then it will begin to bunch together. When it does this, it is ready.
3. Remove dough from processor and knead briefly until smooth. Pass through your pasta machine as per its instructions, dusting with semolina flour as needed.
1. If you dough is too wet, you can work in more semolina as you pass it though the roller.
2. Drying the pasta for 20-30 mins after it is cut makes it more durable and less mushy, and is essential if you want to store the pasta in the fridge to be used later. Hang the pasta on a cupboard door while you get the water boiling.
3. Fresh pasta does not take long to cook--just a minute or so once the water comes back to a boil.
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Easy Fresh Vegan Pasta
I know I have made pasta before--fresh pasta, pumpkin pasta, and whole wheat pasta. But last weekend my younger brother came for a visit and schooled me in the ways of egg-free pasta, and I realized that I was making things way too complicated. I was operating under the notion that the egg in fresh pasta needed to be replaced, but it really doesn't. Keep it simple, man. Making pasta is also fun for the kids. That is Son #2's hand in the pic above, helping me make lasagna noodles.
35 comments:
- Sara Thompson said...
I have a question about using these noodles for lasagna. I recently made fresh 100% semolina noodle for my lasagna. I made them, layered it, then put in fridge for the next day. After cooked, etc, the noodles had disappeared! Only a little on the edges. What did I do wrong? I've used fresh noodles way in the past, so I know that it wasn't not cooking them. Should I have let them dry out a little? Major bummer to do all of the work and have it come out awful! Any suggestions or BTDT's would help. Thanks!
- August 1, 2009 at 9:57 PM
- DJ said...
making fresh pasta always seems so labour-intensive to me - but it does look good...
- August 2, 2009 at 4:03 AM
- Glauce said...
Oh, yeah, most of the original italian pasta don't have eggs at all!
- August 2, 2009 at 5:54 AM
- Anonymous said...
In your "Fresh Vegan Pasta" recipe, you said you needed gluten (in lieu of egg) to keep it from getting "mushy" and "pasty". What's changed?
- August 2, 2009 at 10:36 AM
- Julie said...
THANK you for this! Never would have thought to hang the pasta over the cupboard door ... what a fabulous idea! My grandmother always put them on a tray with flour, which works fine but gets a little gooey in the water.
Love your blog ... thank you!
- August 2, 2009 at 7:17 PM
- karaxcupcake said...
thanks for this recipe. my family is italian and every christmas they make homemade raviolis. i haven't participated since i went vegan 11 years ago...but hopefully i can use this to make my own cruelty free alternative!!
- August 2, 2009 at 7:33 PM
- Millie said...
WoW this is great , I will try it. Thank you. I also hope you received my free coupon for the olive oil. I sent it yesterday to your email box. Its good for a year. I will be picking one bottle up every week for the rest of the year. Its a great free item. Enjoy.
- August 3, 2009 at 8:25 AM
- Jen said...
Do you have a recommendation for a good pasta machine? Thanks!
- August 3, 2009 at 9:05 AM
- GloryBug said...
Funny, I just made pasta last night, too. But all I used was flour, salt and water. And I didn't measure anything. I used my breadmaker to knead it (I don't have a processor), and then used my pasta machine to roll it very thin. I used it to make pot-stickers, which is essentially just another form of pasta. Your pasta machine looks much shinier than mine!
My dad makes homemade pasta all the time with eggs, and it stinks while it's cooking. But he makes a veggie sauce, so we just bring our own veggie noodles.
- August 3, 2009 at 1:25 PM
- Vegan Dad said...
I have the KitchenAid pasta roller and cutter. They are made in Italy and seem pretty much like other Italian made pasta machines out there.
- August 3, 2009 at 10:14 PM
- Vegan Dad said...
Good question. When I first made fresh pasta I overcooked it, but I thought the problem was a lack of protein from an egg. So, I replaced it with gluten. The gluten, however, gives a scratchy feel in your throat. Now I have found that the semolina flour provides enough protein and that drying the pasta gives it better durability.
- August 3, 2009 at 10:18 PM
- Vegan Dad said...
I had a similar problem the first time I made lasagna with fresh noodles. I have seen recipes that ask that you cook the noodles first, then dunk them in an ice bath. That sounds like way too much work. I have had good luck with drying the pasta for about 30 mins, then making sure the lasagna is nice a saucy to cook the noodles.
- August 3, 2009 at 10:22 PM
- Anonymous said...
Hello Everyone,
Check out the new forum made only for vegetarians. Where you can discuss A to Z of vegetarianism.
A place to to discuss about vegetarian stuff, raw food list, general health, physical fitness, dietary and weight issues, science and technology. Take part in burning issues like green conservation and know more about this. Want to know about more books, music, TV shows and stuff regarding vegetarianism? Just come and join http://www.uncleveggie.com. The newbie with a difference.
Good news for teenagers also!! Take part in discussions about interesting vegetarian recepies, books, lifestyle, whatever you want. Don't worry, trespassers are not allowed:)
So folks what are you you thinking? "lets go green !"
You are most welcome to:
- August 4, 2009 at 4:51 AM
- Rachwins said...
Oh I'm so excited about finding this recipe, I've been, like you, overcomplicating things for months trying to find the perfect fresh pasta!
- August 4, 2009 at 3:37 PM
- Vegan Epicurean said...
Great looking pasta! I have a very similar recipe but use sprouted whole wheat pastry flour and semolina.
Your blog always makes me want to get into the kitchen and cook. Maybe you will inspire my husband to venture into the kitchen. Wait, that must have been a dream. I am awake now.
Thanks for the inspiration.
- August 5, 2009 at 6:28 PM
- Andréa N. said...
Thank you for posting this! Easy recipes are always welcome. My husband and I made spaghetti last night following your recipe. Fantastic result. Delicious. Here's a picture: http://twitpic.com/dctsc
- August 10, 2009 at 8:24 AM
- Crystal said...
I love this vegan pasta recipe. My family is Italian and I make my own spaghetti sauces and I've been experimenting with fresh pastas. My dilemma has been time. I would like to be able to make the pasta on Sunday and keep it for use during the week. How long will this recipe keep in the fridge? and furthermore, how should I store fresh pasta in the fridge?
- August 25, 2009 at 10:08 AM
- Vegan Dad said...
It keeps about a week in the fridge (and freezes nicely). After drying, place in a bag in the fridge, removing as much air as you can.
- August 28, 2009 at 9:48 AM
- kristin said...
ahhh i'm so glad i found this! i just invested in a pasta machine and my first attempt at eggless dough went OK, but not great, so i'm thrilled to have some exact measurements for next time. i used spelt flour and it was really good, much less dense than the dried spelt flour pastas at the store.
- August 29, 2009 at 2:37 PM
- Shein said...
Thanks a lot for sharing this recipe I have been looking of better ways to do this and it is very unfortunate that I saw this thread!
- January 15, 2010 at 1:54 PM
- Oz Budget Beauty said...
You mention that gluten leaves your throat scratchy, therefore you use semolina..? As the mother of a coeliac, I'm confused by your statement. Semolina is simply a more coarse wheat flour than what you'd normally use for a cake - therefore, it's got just as much gluten in it as regular flour..?
- March 13, 2010 at 12:50 AM
- diann said...
From what I've been reading 00 flour makes the best pasta and is more authentic.
- March 11, 2011 at 12:24 AM
- K-bobo said...
Hey - it's really great to see an easy vegan pasta recipe up online for everyone! Most people I meet seem to think that fresh pasta has to be made with eggs which is crazy because the stuff you buy in packets is typically vegan.
I make my own vegan spaghetti sometimes, this is one of my recipes: http://gormandizewithus.blogspot.com/2011/07/basil-spaghetti-with-roasted-tomato.html
- July 23, 2011 at 3:37 AM
- Diana Silianovska said...
I also make fresh vegan pasta but drying it is a really good tip, never occurred to me :) thanks!
- September 6, 2011 at 6:22 AM
- Susan Bivens said...
I'm really curious to try this recipe tomorrow. I make fresh pasta a lot and have been trying to get back to more vegan eating. I've tried using semolina in the past with it being to firm of a result. I'm also going to use Tipo 00 for my reg flour...I'm hoping that the semolina will help with the mush I've encountered in the past from not using egg.
Thanks for sharing!
- February 27, 2012 at 2:33 PM
- Susan Bivens said...
So impressed! Made this last night and it turned out fantastic! Thanks again! Looking forward to trying some of your other pasta recipes soon!
- February 29, 2012 at 12:52 PM
- Anneka said...
i just made this and its amazing! Who needs eggs? I even posted about it here.
- December 28, 2012 at 9:47 PM
- Nicole Brown said...
I'm busy setting up a site in SA called My Kind of Thing, where we post things we have found that are kinder to the world (recipes, products, restaurants, hotels...)...can I post your recipe their and attribute you?
- January 10, 2013 at 11:29 AM
- Miranda Ijiyemi said...
Where do you find semolina flour? Is it possible to only use regular or ww flour?
- February 13, 2014 at 4:29 PM
- Mobile Runner said...
I just made this, but put some cracked black pepper, garlic powder, and paprika in the dough. SUPER easy to work with. Instead of a food processor I used my kitchen-aid with the wisk attachment. Put all the dry ingredients in and then poured the water and oil in VERY slowly until it came together. Without the egg, I think Semolina is the key. I went half semolina and half AP (as the recipe says) and it worked out very well.
- March 28, 2014 at 11:08 AM
- Adrianne Sturtevant said...
Thank you for this recipe! I used it to make a vegan pumpkin ravioli and it turned out wonderfully!
- November 23, 2014 at 6:37 AM
- alexveg said...
Just wondering, did you mean an actual food processor or a kitchen aid mixer? I have 2 processors, neither of which have any numbered settings other than pulse, on, and off, so I want to make sure before going into this to make tortellini. Ive had so many horrible homemade pasta vetures that I want to make sure I get any questions answered before I do it. Thanks so much!!
- December 1, 2014 at 7:18 AM
- Leslie Lim said...
First time I commented in a blog! I really enjoy it. You have an awesome post. Please do more articles like this. I'm gonna come back surely. God bless.
- July 25, 2015 at 3:17 AM
- Silvia Jacinto said...
Time is gold. We should treasure every second of it so that in time we will not regret anything because we only live ones.I have read your article and i was glad and inspired. Thanks for it, Cheers!
Visit my site if you have time, Enjoy.
- August 4, 2015 at 10:06 PM
- hospitality management courses in kolkata said...
I came across your blog while looking for some recipes with noodles and liked a lot. How amazing! I will keep an eye on your post.
- April 7, 2016 at 3:38 AM


text:
Our Publications
- Aspen
- Atlanta
- Chicago
- Dallas
- The Hamptons
- Hawai'i
- Houston
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- New York
- Orange County
- San Diego
- San Francisco
- Scottsdale
- Washington, D.C.
Performance Art
THE PARTY Taking over two floors of Neiman Marcus, S.D. Opera co-chairs Teresa and Harry Hixson hosted an evening of bubbles, baubles, bites and beneficence. THE SCENE Butterflies dripped from the ceiling and orange was declared the new neutral as models catwalked fashions from the likes of Gucci, Escada, Alexander McQueen and Zac Posen. Sipping on Champagne, guests compared favorite moments from the 2013 opera season and saluted the Student Ticket Initiative, which underwrites tickets for local university students. THE HIGHLIGHTS The Prado provided delicate nibbles in shades of coral and orange, the evening's signature hue: Forked shrimp cocktail with avocado mousse and lobster BLTs served on spoons disappeared as quickly as the mango-splashed Operatinis from Panache Productions. In between stylist consultations and jaunts to the dressing room, guests sat for mini manis featuring summer shades in the Deborah Lippman nail polish collection. Photography by J.Dixx


text:
The Adventure Protection Package from Touratech includes the two items we consider to be the most important protection for your BMW R1200GS Water cooled whether it's on the street or in the dirt. The kit comes complete with a set of engine crash bars to protect your vulnerable cylinder heads and an Expedition skid plate to protect the underside of your liquid-cooled boxer engine.
Click the links below for the individual specifications and more detailed description of each part of the R1200GS Adventure Protection Package.
Expedition Skid Plate, 045-5135


text:
Redirected from Owls
this wiki
- "Owls are magical creatures most often used for delivering post and parcels in the wizarding world. They are known for their speed and discretion and can find recipients without an address."
- —Description.[src]
Owls are birds of prey. They belong to the families of Strigidae (typical owls) and Tytonidae (Barn Owls), and there are at least 200 species. They normally feed on small mammals, insects, fish, and other birds. They do not make nests, instead sheltering inside trees, ground burrows, caves, and barns, or using other birds' old nests. Owls do not live in flocks, but the term for a group of owls is a parliament. The study of owls is a branch of ornithology. Owls also appear to understand English and are able to communicate with wizards.
Normally, most owls are nocturnal, and owls generally keep to themselves, but in the wizarding world they serve many needed functions and have many sorts of personalities.
Postal workers
Owls are enlisted to aid communication between wizards. Letters, parcels, and Howlers are all delivered by owls. Soft, hair-like edges on an owl's flight feathers reduce the noise of flight, coupled with their natural camouflage, making them ideal for delivering letters.[2]
Owls must be trained to carry letters. Owls have a natural affinity to magic (unlike pigs, which are thouroughly non-magical), and are thus able to locate the recipient of a letter without an address. Because owls are able to locate any witch or wizard for whom a letter is addressed, those who do not wish to be contacted must cast Repelling, Disguising, or Masking spells, of which a wide variety exists.
Owls are used for commercial purposes, such as the Owl Post Office in Hogsmeade, and delivering newspapers and magazines such as the Daily Prophet and The Quibbler. The Ministry of Magic formerly used owls for interdepartmental memos, but switched to enchanted paper aeroplanes because owls made too much mess with their droppings and shed feathers.
Postal owls all have different jobs, but it is the duty of a Scops Owl for local deliveries only, as they are small and weak fliers.
The smallest owl is the Elf Owl (Micrathene whitneyi), which lacks the feathers for silent flying. The Pygmy Owl (Glaucidium passerinum) is slightly larger than the Elf Owl, but with serrated feathers. The Eurasian Eagle Owl (Bubo bubo) has curvy feathers on its brow and ears; this is possibly the species of the "hawk-like owl" which was part of the Lovegood family. The Snowy Owl (Nyctea scandiaca) is native to the Arctic.
List of species
Known owls
- Hedwig - Snowy Owl, companion to Harry Potter[2]
- Errol - a very old Great Grey Owl owned by the Weasley family
- Hermes - Western Screech Owl, belongs to Percy Weasley[3]
- Pigwidgeon also known as "Pig" - Scops Owl, owned by Ron Weasley[1]
- Hawk-like (possibly Eagle) owl - presumably companion to the Lovegoods
- Draco Malfoy's Eagle Owl - companion to Draco Malfoy and/or his family.
- Longbottom family's Barn Owl
- Termeritus Shanks's Snowy Owl
- Brodwin - belonged to the Prime Minister.
- The numerous post owls from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
- The numerous post owls from the Owl Post Office in Hogsmeade
- The members of the Egyptian Owl Union
See also
- List of known letters
- Eeylops Owl Emporium
- wikipedia:Owl
Behind the scenes
- During the production of the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, an attempt was made to train bats to carry letters, but this was abandoned because bats urinate during flight.
- It took trainers three months to train owls to carry letters for the films.
- In April 2009, a falconer whose owls starred in the Harry Potter films admitted a string of animal cruelty offences.[4]
- In many legends, owls represent death. But in other legends, like those of Ancient Greece, owls are a symbol of wisdom. In India, owls are birds of ill omen.
- In reality, the Brown Owl and the Tawny Owl are the same species (Strix aluco), but the Harry Potter books treat them as different types of owl.
- In an issue of The Quibbler seen in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, an advertisement offering Owl-training can be seen, suggesting this is a business in the Wizarding World.
- At some point following the publication of the Harry Potter books, there was a series of media reports regarding an upswing the popularity of owls as pets, allegedly as a result of people having read about them in the books. Author J. K. Rowling stated on her official website "If it is true that anybody has been influenced by my books to think that an owl would be happiest shut in a small cage and kept in a house, I would like to take this opportunity to say as forcefully as I can: please don't."[5]
- In the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, there are many owls trying to bring Harry Hogwarts letters. In the book, Harry first learns that owls carry letters when Rubeus Hagrid uses one in the Hut on the rock.
- It is unknown if, like humans, some owls are born with magical abilities, or if there is any other special rquirement for an owl to be trained as a delivery owl.
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (First appearance)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (film)
- Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (film)
- Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (film)
- Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (film)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film)
- Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (film)
- Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (video game)
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (Appears in portrait(s))
- Quidditch Through the Ages (Mentioned only)
- Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Book
- LEGO Harry Potter: Building the Magical World
- LEGO Harry Potter: Characters of the Magical World
- The Queen's Handbag
- The Wizarding World of Harry Potter
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4
- LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7
- Harry Potter for Kinect
- Pottermore
- Harry Potter Trading Card Game
- Harry Potter LEGO Sets
- Harry Potter: The Character Vault
- Harry Potter: The Creature Vault
Notes and references


text:
I'll be at Intervention7 this September!
We STILL seem to have a RANDOM ARCHIVE GLITCH where clicking on the next comic will take you to the next comic page, but oddly display a comic from a totally different date. Hitting Refresh sometimes helps.
Comic for Monday 08/11/08
So the creatures in the Black Rook Caverns were arbitrarily first written as lizard-men, but after the salamanders, I thought things were going to overly reptile. And for some dumb reason these last minute replacements (The Forest-Yeti) appears to be a hybrid between Bun-bun and the Rat Creature from Jeff Smith's Bone ("Stupid, stupid Rabbit Creatures!") I'm simply acknowledging it. And trembling in fear.


text:
Dear Lori,
I am writing to express my appreciation to all the officials and volunteers who helped to make Veterans Day at the fair a success.
That includes your paper, which publicized and covered the events very well. I especially enjoyed the band concert and the closing ceremony with Taps played excellently.
It was also bittersweet seeing the honors given to a dwindling number of World War II Veterans. My War - The Korean War - just passed the 60th anniversary of the truce agreement, so our group of veterans is getting up there in age as well.
We need to honor and support all of our veterans in whatever ways we can devise which are necessary and helpful. There are too many with unaddressed problems who need our help.
The present active duty service members and veterans of our more recent wars deserve no less than our full support. Veterans Day at the Fair was one way to express that support.
Lt. J. Winter
Comet Forward
Osan-Ni, Korea - 1954
Location, ST | website.com


text:
Flower Girl Dresses
Find flower girl dresses to suit any wedding ceremony at Sophia's Style. We offer an amazing collection of affordable designer flower girl dresses. Shop for affordable flower girls dresses designed to save you money but looking like you spent a fortune. Also shop for Flower Girl Headpieces, Petticoats and Slips and Girls Dress Shoes.
Shop Flower Girl Dresses by Size
Shop Flower Girl Dresses by Style
Calla Collection Big Girls Mint Floral Lace Junior Bridesmaid Dress 8-12
Our Price: $39.99
Calla Collection Little Girls Mint Floral Lace Flower Girl Dress 2T-6X
Our Price: $39.99
Calla Collection Little Girls Green Floral Lace Flower Girl Dress 2T-6X
Our Price: $39.99
Quick Tips for Flower Girls Dresses and Baby Flower Girl Dresses
Quick Tips for Flower Girls Dresses Sizing: The exact garment measurements are included in the full description of each flower girl dress ensuring the perfect fit for your little girl. Please see our girls size chart. If you do not purchase the correct flower girl dress size you may return it unworn, in the original condition with tags still attached.
Girls Undergarments: Add fullness, comfort and style with our Girls Petticoats and Slips. Our soft slips come in a variety of lengths, sizes and fullness. Add matching bloomers to cover her panties or diaper.
Flower Girl Accessories: Complete the look with our complete line of Girls Accessories including cute headpieces, classic shoes and stylish gloves.
Shopping for flower girls dresses is fast and fun at Sophias Style. Find cheap flower girl dresses that look like they cost a fortune. Add Flower Girls Headpieces and Girls Shoes and she is dressed for the wedding.


text:
Birchfield Library
Visit our new website
This webpage has now been replaced by information on the new Library of Birmingham website. Please visit our Birchfield Library webpage for the latest information on news and events.
Online Library Catalogue
To search the catalogue click Online Library Catalogue
To renew and reserve online click Login to the Online Catalogue
Aston, Birmingham
West Midlands
0121 464 4202


text:
Benjamin Domenech: Talking Obamacare on TheBlaze TV
March 8, 2013
On Real News from The Blaze, Heartland Institute Research Fellow Benjamin Domenech explains the latest Congressional Budget Office report on the fiscal ramifications of Obamacare. He also reacts to the news that Gov. John Kasich of Ohio wants to implement the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare.