text: Got alot of interest on this so ill try and post what i can remember about doing the upgrade. For starters heres a pick. The forks i used were off of a YZ426f, came with triple clamps, brake caliper and then picked up an excel wheel all for 250 bucks! Put in a heavier weight oil and then the heaviest springs i could find for the forks, new seals of course. The main two issues i remember having(did this last winter) were i had to machine the stock yamaha steering stem down about .010" for one of the bmw steering bearings, the other one fit like a glove! Also i had to trim the inside of the fairing so i could swing the forks without rubbing anything on the inside, and i also think i had to do somethin for the fork stops to work also. But let me know if you have any more questions and ill try and get some better picks once i wash my bike, its covered in a pile of mud right now! But i measured the weight difference of the two it was about 15lbs savings, the new ones were a bit longer then that dakar forks, but handles like a new bike now, and the front end feels so light and no more bottoming out!


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How to Crochet a Flared Collar
You can make a crocheted traditional flared collar, which features pointed ends like a standard shirt collar. This crocheted flared collar is typically used on cardigans, pullovers with crew necks, or polo-style sweaters with front openings and plackets.
Join the yarn with a slip stitch in the top right-hand corner of the right front neck edge. Chain (ch) 1.
Be sure to have the right side of the sweater facing you.
Single crochet (sc) from the right front neck edge around to the top left-hand corner stitch of the left front neck edge, turn.
Create even single crochet stitches.
Chain 1 and then work 2 single crochets in the first single crochet stitch.
Single crochet in each stitch across, ending with 2 single crochets in the last stitch, turn.
Work the extra stitch at both edges of the collar to add the flare to it.
Repeat Steps 3 and 4 until the collar reaches 3 inches deep.
Or crochet until it reaches your desired depth.
Fasten off at the end of the last row.
Your flared collar is complete!

subset: commoncrawl


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Meals are served at Wesley Community Senior Center, 1615 S. Roberts St. Breakfast is served from 8 to 8:30 a.m. Lunch is served at noon. There is a $3 charge. Meals are for seniors, 55 and older.
Seniors and visitors planning to have lunch at the center are asked to call 806-372-7960 by 9 a.m. daily.
Wednesday - Breakfast: Milk, cereal, bananas. Lunch: Milk, taco salad, rice, beans, pears. Snack: Grape juice, Goldfish crackers, fruit cocktails.
Thursday - Breakfast: Milk, pancakes with syrup, strawberries. Lunch: Milk, hamburgers, lettuce, tomatoes, tator tots, pineapple. Snack: Apple juice, crispy tortilla chips, bean dip, apple slices.
Friday - Breakfast: Milk, sausage, homemade biscuits, seasonal fresh fruit. Lunch: Milk, corn dogs, french fries, peaches. Snack: Milk, Go-Gurt yogurt, graham crackers.
Monday - Breakfast: Milk, oatmeal, toast, oranges. Lunch: Milk, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, bread, green beans, pears. Snack: Iced water, celery, carrots, ranch dressing, cheese crackers.
Tuesday - Breakfast: Milk, eggs, toast, oranges. Lunch: Milk, fish sticks, broccoli and cheese, bread, peaches. Snack: Milk, sugar cookies, pineapple.
Lunch at Polk Street Silver Grill inside Amarillo Senior Community Center, 1200 S. Polk St., is from 11 a.m. to 12:45 p.m. Monday through Friday.
It is $5.50 for members and $7.50 for guests.


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Tag Archives: Cinncinnati Reds
Preview of Giants Vs Tigers World Series Game 1
Neither the Cincinnati Reds nor the St. Louis Cardinals were able to put away the San Francisco Giants when they had the chance. The American League champion Detroit Tigers get their opportunity beginning Wednesday, when they take on the National League champion Giants in Game 1 of the World Series at AT&T Park. San Francisco was on the verge of being swept by Cincinnati in the best-of-five NL Division Series before rallying to win the final three contests. St. Louis captured three of the first four games of the NL Championship Series before the Giants went on to become the 12th team in major league history – and fifth NL club – to overcome a 3-1 series deficit as they won the franchise's 22nd NL pennant. San Francisco's starting pitchers were outstanding during the comeback, allowing only one run in 20 1/3 innings over the final three NLCS games. The Giants, who are appearing in their 19th overall World Series, fifth since moving from New York to San Francisco and second in three years, will face a Tigers team that has been resting since completing a four-game sweep of the New York Yankees in the ALCS on Thursday.
Detroit is making its 11th trip to the Fall Classic and first since 2006, when it lost to the St. Louis Cadinals. The Tigers have not won a championship since defeating the San Diego Padres in 1984. Manager Jim Leyland, whose roster includes reigning AL MVP and Cy Young Award winner Justin Verlander and 2012 Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera, said ALCS MVP Delmon Young will play left field in Game 1 with no designated hitter in the NL park. Young, who appeared in left field in only 31 regular-season games, batted .353 (6-for-17) with two home runs and six RBIs in the ALCS, recording the game-winning RBI in all four contests. San Francisco's Marco Scutaro was named the NLCS MVP as he went 14-for-28 (.500) after hitting only .150 (3-for-20) in the NLDS. Scutaro, who was acquired from the Colorado Rockies on July 26, tied the LCS record with his 14 hits while setting an LCS mark with six multi-hit performances.
TV: 8:07 p.m. ET, FOX


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So I got this idea in my head that some honey might help her. I went inside and dipped a toothpick into a jar of (yes, organic local unfiltered) honey and set it in front of her. It worked. She drank for quite a while.
Then she wandered over to the edge of the stairs, and later she was gone.


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Mediterranean diet's benefits confirmed
The Mediterranean diet has long been touted as healthy. Now a study released Monday of the effects of a diet rich in olive oil, nuts, vegetables, fruits and fish confirms that.
The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that the diet can reduce the risk of stroke and other cardiovascular diseases by 30 percent.
Such a diet may seem like common sense, but researchers say the findings are significant because of the study's size and scientific rigor. It followed more than 7,400 people at risk of heart disease for nearly five years and measured the effects of the Mediterranean diet against a group that was assigned a low-fat diet.
"This study backs up what we thought we knew with science, and the results were pretty dramatic," said Dr. Rita Redberg, a UCSF cardiologist specializing in heart disease in women. "If this were a pill, people would be clamoring for it."
Redberg, who was not involved with the study, said one of the diet's main benefits is that it's not only heart-healthy, but it also promotes a way of eating that people can follow for a lifetime rather than just a few months. "This is a diet that's pretty doable, particularly for people living in Northern California, where we certainly have access to plenty of fruits and vegetables and grains," she said.
High-risk group
The study, which was conducted in Spain, involved people between 55 and 80 who did not have heart disease but were at risk of developing cardiovascular problems because of various factors, such as being overweight, smoking, having a family history of the disease, or having high blood pressure or high cholesterol.
Participants were assigned to one of three groups. People in two of the groups were required to follow a Mediterranean diet - in other words, meals rich in vegetables, fruit, fish and legumes. Those in the Mediterranean diet groups were instructed to add at least 4 tablespoons a day of extra-virgin olive oil to their daily diet. Those in the other group supplemented their meals with a combined ounce of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts each day.
Participants in the control group, which was being compared against the groups eating the Mediterranean diet, were encouraged to lower their fat intake by eating lean meats and low-fat dairy products. Midway through the study, its authors said, they intervened to offer more specific guidance about what the participants should eat and how to prepare their foods.
Clear results
The results were so clear that the study was ended early. The two groups assigned to the Mediterranean diet had fairly similar results, with 3.4 percent of the group that ate extra nuts suffering major cardiovascular problems, compared with 3.8 percent in the olive-oil group.
Meanwhile, 4.4 percent of participants in the control group had major cardiovascular problems. Reduced stroke risk, rather than lower heart attack risk, accounted for most of the difference between the Mediterranean groups and the low-fat group.
While the findings were heralded by many in the health care community, not everyone was impressed.
Dr. Dean Ornish, UCSF professor and president of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, criticized the study, contending that the control group was not monitored carefully enough and wasn't assigned a truly low-fat diet.
"A Mediterranean diet is a healthier diet than what most people are eating," Ornish said. "The problem is they claim (the study) was comparing it to a low-fat diet, and it wasn't."
Ornish said the American Heart Association recommends a diet with fewer than 30 percent of calories coming from fat, but the control group's levels edged closer to 40 percent. Ornish, who promotes his own heart-healthy diet, urges people trying to reverse the effects of heart disease to cut that figure to as low as 10 percent.
Easy to follow
Dr. Cesar Molina, co-founder of the South Asian Heart Center at El Camino Hospital in Mountain View, said the study promotes a diet that people can easily follow.
"You just have two fists of cooked vegetables per day; one fist - or the size of a tennis ball - serving of fruit each day," he said. He advised people to make olive oil their primary choice of dietary oil and have about 12 nuts daily - preferably walnuts, because they are a source of the healthful omega-3 fatty acid.
The study noted that some authors had financial ties to food, wine and other industry groups, and foods were supplied by olive oil and nut producers in Spain, as well as the California Walnut Commission.
Dennis Balint, chief executive officer of the California Walnut Commission, said walnut growers represented by his group provided a daily half-ounce of walnuts to the group that supplemented the Mediterranean diet with nuts.
Balint said he was surprised by the magnitude of the study's results, but not that the diet with nuts proved healthful. "Every nut has its strong suit. Our strong suit is the fact that walnuts have plant-based omega-3," he said.
To read the New England Journal of Medicine study, visit: http://bit.ly/15eTGGq
Victoria Colliver is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: email@example.com


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"Nashville" is headed to a new network.
CMT has ordered a fifth season of the country music drama — which centers on country music stars played by Connie Britton and Hayden Panettiere — after ABC canceled it in May after four seasons.
"CMT heard the fans. The wave of love and appreciation they have unleashed for 'Nashville' has been overwhelming," Brian Philips, president of CMT, said in a statement. "'Nashville' is a perfect addition to our evolving line-up of big music specials, documentaries, and original series. We see our fans and ourselves in this show and we will treasure it like no other network. 'Nashville' belongs on CMT."
Series star Charles Esten will celebrate the news in Nashville with CMT host Cody Alan and other cast members. However, no cast list was included in the CMT announcement.
Fans who watch the series online take note: Hulu will continue to stream episodes of "Nashville" the day after they air on CMT. Production, of course, will stay in Nashville with Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz at the helm.
"'Nashville' has long been a fan favorite show on Hulu and we are so proud to continue to make new episodes available for fans to stream the day after they air," Craig Erwich, SVP and head of content at Hulu, said in a statement. "We look forward to bringing even more episodes of this acclaimed series to its passionate and devoted audience."
Producers Lionsgate and ABC Studios were also involved in brokering the new deal.
"CMT and Hulu are the perfect combination for our iconic and beloved series 'Nashville' and we want to thank the incredible fans for their unwavering support--#Nashies, you helped make this possible," Kevin Beggs, chairman of the Lionsgate Television Group, said in a statement. "We also want to extend our appreciation to the State of Tennessee, City of Nashville, and Ryman Hospitality for their unending support. They have been a key ingredient to the continued success of this show and we're thrilled to extend our partnership for a fifth season."
The season four finale, "Maybe You'll Appreciate Me Someday," tied up a few loose ends: evil teenage daughter Maddie realized her weird older friend was creepy and reunited with her mom, Rayna, dad, Deacon, and little sister, Daphne; Gunnar and Scarlett were about to split but ended their final show together with a big, romantic kiss; Will stood up to his homophobic bully and got back together with his ex; the truth came out about Layla's manipulation and she got what was coming to her. But it also left one incredibly gigantic thread hanging.
After Juliette confessed her struggle with drugs and depression and the circumstances that lead to Jeff Fordham's accident, she was on a private jet, heading back to Nashville to reunite with her baby daddy, Avery. In the closing moments of the episode, we saw Avery waiting at the airport, only to be told that Juliette's jet was missing.
Is Juliette alive?! Will she and Avery live happily ever after?! Apparently, we'll find out in season five of "Nashville" when it premieres on CMT.
Why Nashville's Cliffhanger Ending Was Disrespectful to Fans
Is Nashville Being Revived by CMT?
How Does Nashville Compare to the Best and Worst TV Finales of All Time?


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You are viewing: History - War
more info
The D-Day period In June 1944 will be remembered by many as a time of personal tragedy and loss, but despite the trauma and sadness, D-Day is remembered as the beginning of the end of war in Europe.
Once home to 3,000 people, TARRANT RUSHTON airfield in Dorset played a vital role during the second world war; Halifax bombers flying secret missions deep into Occupied Europe.
© 1996 - 2016 (DL2) Dalaric Ltd & The Yetties


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Placitas, NM 87043
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Placitas, NM 87043
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The button below labeled Lands Of Liberman Grevey Properties for Sale will show you ALL the Homes currently 'listed' for sale here in Lands Of Liberman Grevey. We here at The Romero Team can help you find your dream home that may not even be listed on the Multiple Listing Service. We can unlock Lands Of Liberman Grevey's secret homes inventory for you! Ask us HOW? For Homeowners and Home Sellers here in Lands Of Liberman Grevey we offer FREE periodic Market Reports via E-Mail (specific to your home) and FREE customized Home Value Reports (CMA) for your Lands Of Liberman Grevey property . We have provided the most up to date Albuquerque and Santa Fe Area Real Estate Sales Data for you. Take a look around or SIGN UP for Albuquerque and Santa Fe Area Real Estate - FREE Monthly Video Reports delivered to your E-Mail inbox or call us at 505-750-0030.
There are currently 2 Sales for sale in Lands Of Liberman Grevey. The average price for Lands Of Liberman Grevey properties is $95,000which is 0% higher than all Sales within a 20 mile radius. The highest priced property in Lands Of Liberman Grevey is $110,000 while the lowest priced Sale is listed at $80,000. Most of the properties available in Lands Of Liberman Grevey are Sales . Compared to last month, the average price of real estate in the area has gone up 100%.
Type anything you want here and we will see what we can find in the property descriptions. Maybe a name of a golf course you want to live by or a term like fixer upper.


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Kristen Wiig fancies dramatic roles
Kristen Wiig has said that despite her success in comedy she's always wanted to take on more dramatic roles.
The Saturday Night Live star and Bridesmaids co-writer and actress said that her true passion is being funny.
Kristen, 40, told Elle that it was " not necessarily a bad thing" to be ensconced in the world of comedy.
"But," she added, "I've always wanted to do dramatic stuff, to write and direct, do a lot of different things."
Kristen, who is enjoying a more dramatic role in forthcoming film The Skeleton Twins, said: "Comedy is where my heart lies, but there's also something really satisfying about being able to step away with a small crew, become a character and get to know her for a few months at a time."
In her new film, Welcome To Me, Kirsten plays a woman with a borderline personality disorder who wins the lottery, stops taking her medication and starts a TV talk show.
" I'd never read a character like that," she told the August issue of the mag. "I got to a scene where it read, 'She's fully naked,' and I remember thinking, 'If I do this movie, I have to do this scene, because it's really important to this script'."
PA Media


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Hi Guys,
Im printing some VDP 4x6 postcards.
I have a static background image that I have to merge with a multipage PDF with transparent object and text created from Photoshop.
I created my Master page using impose and save it as PDF (no big deal). Then I created my imposed Cut & Stack PDF from the multipage document using the same template to match the position of the Master.
I loaded the Master into FreeForms assigning all the properties needed for printing and preview it on screen....it looks perfect.
The problem is when I assign the same properties to the multipage VDP PDF and using the Master for the static background the transparent object leave a white box and the background is not visible at all.
I tried several things:
Optimize RGB transparency
Composite Overprint
Remove white PPT background
I mean...everything I can think of.
Can you guys help me?
I have a Xerox 770 with Fiery EX770 and Fiery Graphic Art Package ver.1 System 10


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DC UNIVERSE ONLINE Switches to Free-to-Play Model in October
DCUO Switches to Free to Play in Oct.
Starting in late October, massively multiplayer online game DC Universe Online will be free to play, with both the game available to download for free and an option to play without any monthly subscription cost.The introduction of the free-to-play business model adds three levels of access to the game: free, premium and legendary. Free players can access all current gameplay, create two characters and join a league. "Premium" players are any who have spent at least $5 on the game before, and can utilize "additional character slots, additional inventory slots, and higher cash limits." "Legendary" access costs $14.99 a month, and includes all downloadable content packs. Further details on each tier are here. DC Universe Online debuted in January of this year, with a retail price of $59.99 for the PlayStation 3 version and $49.99 for the PC version, along with a $14.99 a month subscription free. DC Comics is currently releasing a twice-monthly tie-in series, DC Universe Online Legends, written by comics veteran Marv Wolfman. Got a comment? There's lots of conversation on Newsarama's FACEBOOK and TWITTER!
Twitter activity Tweets by @Newsarama


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Land and Poverty Conference 2018: Land Governance in an Interconnected World March 19-23, 2018
Library highlights
The Land and Poverty conference will present the latest research and practice on the diversity of reforms, interventions, and innovations in the land sector around the world. The 2018 conference theme will be: Land Governance in an Interconnected World
Read more
Global Online Access to Legal Information (GOALI) launched 6 March 2018
Library highlights
Launch of a new programme providing access to legal research and training in developing countries.
Read more
Article Just published : A framework for Scaling Sustainable Land Management options
Library highlights
Improvements in land use and management are needed at a global scale to tackle inter‐connected global challenges of population growth, poverty, migration, climate change, biodiversity loss, and degrading land and water resources. There are hundreds of technical options for improving the…
Read more
Brazil may be the Owner of 20% of the World's Water Supply but it is still Very Thirsty
Library highlights
Water resource management needs to be improved to meet the growing demand for drinking water and for water used in the agricultural and energy sectors.
Read more
2030: Smart engagement with business. GREAT Insights Magazine - Volume 5, Issue 5. October/November 2016.
Library highlights
Engaging the private sector has become a common motto for the development community. This, in itself, is a major evolution, as private forces have too long been dismissed, when not chastised, by many development actors! It is now well recognised that the vast majority of employment is provided by…
Read more
IOM Data Highlight Migrants' Vulnerability
Library highlights
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) released data showing that 71% of migrants on Mediterranean routes to Europe experience "exploitation and practices which may amount to human trafficking." IOM's data analyze the scale of abuse, exploitation and trafficking experienced by migrants…
Read more
African Soil Seminar Discusses Follow Up and Review of Sustainable Development Agendas
Library highlights
The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) highlighted ongoing efforts to leverage private funding for large-scale land restoration, through the newly launched LDN Fund, a public-private funding mechanism. Simone Quatrini, Global Mechanism of the UNCCD, said more than 100 countries so far…
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Global Rise of Cities Poses Challenge to Sustainable Urban Development
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The World Economic Forum releases report on Harnessing Public-Private Cooperation to Deliver the New Urban Agenda · A-to-Z guide on the implementation of sustainable urban development and housing solutions following the adoption of the New Urban Agenda at the Habitat III conference in October 2016 ·…
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Turning the tide- The politics of irregular migration in the Sahel and Libya
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This online report analyses the relationship between irregular migration and conflict and stability in Mali, Niger and Libya. Studying the human smuggling networks that operate within and across these three countries provides insights into the transnational dynamics of irregular migration as well as…
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How businesses measure their impacts on nature: A gap analysis-a publication from CISL
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May 2017 – This CISL working paper identifies that investors and companies alike want to create long-term value by mitigating risks and improving their impact on the natural environment. This paper concludes that to achieve this there is a need for useful, simple and commonly accepted impact metrics…
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Rewiring the Economy: Ten tasks, ten years - a publication from CISL
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July 2015, updated June 2016 – Rewiring the Economy is CISL's ten-year plan to lay the foundations of a sustainable economy. It is built on ten interconnected tasks, delivered by three key groups of leaders: business, government and finance. These tasks are not unique to the plan. Rather, Rewiring…
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Businesses Are Making Money by Reforesting the Planet showcased in a new report titled "The Business of Planting Trees: A Growing Investment Opportunity"
Library highlights
In recent years, hundreds of companies have entered the restoration industry. They represent a wide range of business models that deliver financial returns for investors while restoring forests and agricultural lands. This report profiles 14 businesses that are part of an emerging restoration…
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New article: Synergies between Land Degradation Neutrality goals and existing market-based instruments
Library highlights
Since the concept of the Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) emerged in global policy discourse, a key point of contention has been the development of market-based instruments to promote the LDN agenda. Much of this discussion has focused on the use of LDN-specific offset mechanisms and private-public…
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New Publication: Voices from the Land: Restoring Soils and Enriching Lives
Library highlights
Through the remarkable stories of people who decided to fight back rather than become another statistic tracking poverty, conflict or forced migration, it reveals the cost-effective results that can be achieved locally and scaled up globally when the right partners come together.
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"A windy day, fair and clear. Many of the Gros Ventres- or Big Bellies-and Wetersoons came to see us and hear the council. The wind being so violently hard from the S.W. prevented our going into council. Indeed the chiefs of the Mandans from the lower village could not cross. We made up the presents, and entertained several of the curious chiefs who wished to see the boat, which was very curious to them, viewing it as great medicine [whatever is mysterious or unintelligible is called great medicine]-as they also viewed my black servant.
The Black Cat, great chief of the Mandans, Captain Lewis, and myself, with an interpreter, walked up the river about 1 1/2 miles. Our views were to examine the situation and timber for a fort. We found the situation good but the timber scarce; or at least, small timber such as would not answer us. We consulted the grand chief in respect to the other chiefs of the different villages. He gave the names of 12. George Drouilliard caught 2 beaver above our camp last night. We had several presents from the women of corn, boiled hominy, soft corn, &c. I presented a jar [earthen jar, glazed] to the chief's wife, who received it with much pleasure."
The Journals Lewis and Clark
The University of Virginia
[Via Plep]


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Can't keep Darrelle Revis down; Bucs cornerback named Sporting News' Comeback Player of the Year
Was it a risk? Of course it was. But the good money was on Darrelle Revis.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers' cornerback, fully recovered from a torn ACL that abruptly ended his 2012 season and his tenure as a New York Jet, is Sporting News' 2013 Comeback Player of the Year.
MORE: Offensive Player of the Year | Defensive Player of the Year | Rookie of the Year
His return wasn't as miraculous as Adrian Peterson's, which still hails as one of the most astounding recoveries in the history of sport. But Revis' bounce back was impressive, nonetheless.
On Sept. 23, 2012, he lay on the field writhing in pain. On a Monday morning that next month, he was on an operating table.
He told nj.com back then: "People might look at this as a setback but right now I'm not even focused on that. I gotta do everything I can, everything happens for a reason. This is something that happened in my career and you can't take that second back."
Time moved on, and so did Revis, signing a six-year, $96 million deal that included the Bucs letting go of draft picks to get him. At the first defensive snap of the season, Revis was back in action.
MORE: Coach of the Year | Coordinator of the Year
It was uncertain whether he'd be the same. Before the injury, he was the best cornerback in the NFL. All he did this year was make the Pro Bowl for the fifth time. That accomplishment came despite playing under the stressful conditions brought on by ex-Bucs' coach Greg Schiano. Revis remains high-impact player and vital cog in the Bucs' secondary.
Lauded as as a shut-down corner, he played in a zone system and finished the season with 50 tackles, two interceptions and 11 passes defended. After missing 14 games, that was plenty good enough.


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Sunday, October 5, 2008
StoryTelling Mini Conference
Date: 2 - 9 November 2008
Duration: 60 minutes
Facilitators: Cristina Costa, Tom Wambeke, Nellie Deutsch, and Richard Green (Guest)
Venue: WiZi and Connecting Online
Do you think of stories when you look at a photo, a video, or listen to music? Does the topic interest you as a tool for instruction and learning or are you just curious? In any case, for whatever reason you may have, you are invited to join this storytelling mini conference.
We will have a live storytelling event on WiZiQ or Elluminate. Please refer to the main page of Connecting Online for further discussions on the topic.
Please add your name if you are interested in joining and , ask questions and/or add comments here.
Posted by Doris Molero at 8:07 AM 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: doris3m, efluniversity, nellie, sepdec08, storytelling, urbe, writingmatrix
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A104/A105 – Ebook Economics & Trends > 2:15 PM – 4:00 PM
Erik Adams, Electronic Resource Librarian, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton
Elizabeth Altman, Web Services Coordinator, California State University, Northridge
Doris Small Helfer, Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities Librarian, Oviatt Library, California State University, Northridge
Steve Kutay, Digital Services Librarian, California State University, Northridge
Mary Woodley, Collection Development Coordinator, California State University, Northridge
Gerry McKiernan, Science & Technology Librarian, Iowa State University
Increasingly, libraries are clearing stacks to make way for flexible spaces suited to portable personal technology and replacing print holdings with electronic collections. The session begins with a case study of replacing annually purchased reference books with electronic books, includes an analysis of the economics, review of availability of materials, and a brief look at the difficulties of creating specialized ebooks to fill in gaps. The CSU group share the results of a survey to assess the use of e-reader and tablet devices, their adoption by students and faculty, as well as how frequently and in what environments they are being used for conducting research and completing course assignments. McKiernan looks at the current landscape for digital textbooks; the vendors, platforms and initiatives happening in this space; funding options; predictions; and more!


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*Available in the Asian section of most supermarkets
**Steam or microwave 5 cups of washed baby spinach for 2 minutes
In a large saute pan, heat the oil over moderate heat. Add the shallots and cook, stirring occasionally, until beginning to brown, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the curry paste and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken broth, coconut milk, 1/2 teaspoon salt and simmer until reduced to 2 cups, about 5 minutes.
Season the halibut with 1/4 teaspoon salt. Arrange the fish in the pan and gently shake the pan so the fish is coated with the sauce. Cover and cook until the fish flakes easily with a fork, about 7 minutes.
Arrange a pile of steamed spinach in the bottom of 4 soup plates. Top with the fish fillets. Stir the cilantro, scallions, and lime juice into the sauce and season, to taste, with salt and pepper. Ladle the sauce over the fish and serve with rice.


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SAN DIEGO, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Eight U.S. Navy personnel who took part in earthquake relief efforts in Japan are suing Tokyo Electric Power Co. in U.S. federal court over radiation exposure.
The sailors accuse Tepco, owner of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant damaged in the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami, of downplaying health threats created by radiation leaks, the BBC reported Friday.
In their lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, they are each seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages, the BBC said. They also seek to have Tepco set up a $100 million fund to pay their medical expenses.
Tepco told the BBC it had received notice it was being sued but couldn't comment because it hadn't received the actual complaint.
Tepco faces billions of dollars in compensation claims related to the damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.


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Photo Manager Deluxe
Introductory video
Find out about the Photo Manager Deluxe interface and its tools and features.
Import photos
Use the Import Wizard to transfer photos and videos from a digital camera or another connected device to the program, e.g. from an external hard drive or mobile device.
View and manage photos
There are different options available in MAGIX Photo Manager Deluxe for viewing your photos. With a range of options for managing your photos, organizing your collection is easy. Here's a brief overview of all the options the program offers.
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You can enhance photos in various ways and apply image effects to them. For instance, use automatic coloration, red eye correction or captions. We'll show you all of the most important options.
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Present your photos and videos as slideshows with background music. You can trim the start and end points of your video clips in preparation for your slideshow. You can print your photos on your home printer if you prefer having physical copies.
Export and burn photos
You can export individual photos or entire albums from your collection in MAGIX Photo Manager Deluxe or burn them to CD. This video will give you an idea of how the process works.


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Sexy Photos of Will Smith + 23-Year-Old Actress Margot Robbie Leak
Will Smith and wife Jada Pinkett Smith have put out mixed messages about their marriage over the years, suggesting that things might be "open" and that they are their own people outside of the institution.
Rumors about divorce have plagued them in the past. Now, a new scandal threatens the union, as supposed sexy photos of the actor and rapper and his 23-year-old 'Focus' co-star Margot Robbie have leaked.
The twosome apparently got cozy in a photo booth at a party in New Orleans on Oct. 25.
Smith, 45, and Robbie, who is from Australia, were said to be getting salacious in the photo booth, with the actress flashing her bra as Smith lifted his shirt and pressed his bare chest against hers.
A spectator said, "He wasn't acting like a married man; he gave no signs that he was in a committed relationship…What kind of married man would go into a photo booth with a sexy 23-year-old girl and start to undress?"
In the past, Pinkett Smith has said that her husband is his own man and should do whatever he wants as long as he can look himself in the mirror after. The same applies to her. She has also said that the marriage is "grown," not open, so these photos certainly raise questions about the state of their marriage.
Regarding the photos, the source also said, "Once they pulled the curtain back to take the pictures, they let their inhibitions run wild, laughing, hugging and nuzzling each other in the dark." Robbie was apparently giving the actor directions on how to pose. She suggested he act gangsta. Cue the eye roll.
It begs the question: If it was dark, and there was the normal photo booth curtain, how did the witness "see" all of this?
Still, the insider said, "They were hanging all over each other, laughing like they were a new couple in love. Will had just gotten done working for the day, so he definitely wasn't intoxicated in any way — he knew what he was doing."
While that's a serious leap for the witness to make, it was said that Smith and Robbie left the party and were gone for the rest of the night, with Will's assistant turning up later to retrieve the sexy photos from the booth.
The photos are set to appear in the new issue of Star, out tomorrow (Nov. 7).


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For discussion of Electric Universe and Plasma Cosmology. The ideas and opinions expressed on this forum do not necessarily reflect those of T-Bolts Group Inc or The Thunderbolts Project(TM)
Peter Thiel has reportedly put $100,000 of his own funds into the scheme
The Harvard project will modify elephant cells using frozen mammoth DNA
The claims were made in a new book about resurrecting the woolly mammoth
The enormous beasts went extinct more than 10,000 years ago
By Harry Pettit For Mailonline
Published: 12:47 EDT, 30 June 2017 | Updated: 12:47 EDT, 30 June 2017
The billionaire founder of Paypal has funded an ambitious project to resurrect the woolly mammoth, reports suggest.
Peter Thiel, who is worth $2.7billion (£2.1 billion), has reportedly put $100,000 (£77,000) of his own funds into a scheme that will modify elephant cells using DNA recovered from the bodies of frozen mammoths.
The ancient beasts went extinct more than 10,000 years ago, with scientists unsure whether human hunting or climate change finished them off.
'De-extincting' the mammoth has become a realistic prospect because of revolutionary gene editing techniques that allow the precise selection and insertion of DNA from specimens frozen over millennia in Siberian ice.
The most widely used technique, known as CRISPR/Cas9, has transformed genetic engineering since it was first demonstrated in 2012.
The system allows the 'cut and paste' manipulation of strands of DNA with a precision not seen before.
Using this technique, scientists could cut and paste preserved mammoth DNA into Asian elephants to create and elephant-mammoth hybrid.
Now Mr Thiel is said to have backed a top Harvard team attempting to bring the enormous mammals back to life.
The claims were published in a book called 'Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to Revive One of History's Most Iconic Extinct Creatures', by American author Ben Mezrich.
'Just remember: It's only science fiction until we remove the fiction, then it becomes real,' one scientist told Mr Mezrich, according to MIT Technology Review.
Mr Mezrich, who wrote a book about the founding of Facebook that was adapted into the critically-acclaimed film The Social Network, claimed Mr Thiel was having breakfast with Church when he asked to fund the 'craziest thing' he was working on.
Mr Thiel chose the mammoth, turning down an anti-ageing scheme and an artificial intelligence project, according to the author.
This is not the first time that the Harvard team has found its ambitious mammoth project in the spotlight this year.
- Mammoths went extinct more than 10,000 years ago, with scientists unsure whether human hunting or climate change finished them off. Now Mr Thiel is said to have backed a top Harvard team attempting to bring the enormous mammals back to life
In February, the group announced that the scheme would take just two more years to produce the 'nearest possible thing to a mammoth' that could be created.
The final beast would be a hybrid between an Asian elephant and a mammoth.
It would be created from the DNA extracted from frozen mammoth carcasses retrieved from permafrost.
If the Harvard University scientists succeed it will mark a turning point in plans to revive mammoths – by programming their genes into an Asian elephant.
The bundle of cells would have genes for mammoth features such as shaggy long hair, thick layers of fat, and blood that is perfectly suited to flowing in sub zero conditions.
The scientists have ambitious plans to grow it within an artificial womb rather than recruit a female elephant as a surrogate mother.
Since starting the project in 2015, the researchers have increased the number of 'edits' where mammoth DNA has been spliced into the elephant genome from 15 to 45.
The Harvard University scientists plan to use CRISPR gene technology to splice the preserved DNA of a frozen mammoth carcass with the DNA of an Asian elephant
Professor George Church, who heads the Harvard team, said: 'We're working on ways to evaluate the impact of all these edits and are basically trying to establish embryogenesis in the lab.
'The list of edits affects things that contribute to the success of elephants in cold environments.
'We already know about ones to do with small ears, sub-cutaneous fat, hair and blood, but there are others that seem to be positively selected.'
He added: 'Our aim is to produce a hybrid elephant/mammoth embryo. Actually, it would be more like an elephant with a number of mammoth traits.
'We're not there yet, but it could happen in a couple of years.'
The woolly mammoth roamed across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America during the last Ice Age and vanished around 10,000 years ago.
- Lyuba, the world's most well-preserved mammoth, went on display at the Natural History museum in 2014
Their closest living relative is the Asian, rather than the African, elephant.
'De-extincting' the mammoth has become a realistic prospect because of revolutionary gene editing techniques that allow the precise selection and insertion of DNA from specimens frozen over millennia in Siberian ice.
The most widely used technique, known as CRISPR/Cas9, has transformed genetic engineering since it was first demonstrated in 2012.
The system allows the 'cut and paste' manipulation of strands of DNA with a precision not seen before.
Using this technique, scientists could cut and paste preserved mammoth DNA into Asian elephants to create and elephant-mammoth hybrid.
The woolly mammoth roamed the icy tundra of Europe and North America for 140,000 years, disappearing at the end of the Pleistocene period, 10,000 years ago.
They are one of the best understood prehistoric animals known to science because their remains are often not fossilised but frozen and preserved.
Males were around 12 feet (3.5m) tall, while the females were slightly smaller.
Curved tusks were up to 16 feet (5m) long and their underbellies boasted a coat of shaggy hair up to 3 feet (1m) long.
Tiny ears and short tails prevented vital body heat being lost.
Their trunks had 'two fingers' at the end to help them pluck grass, twigs and other vegetation.
They get their name from the Russian 'mammut', or earth mole, as it was believed the animals lived underground and died on contact with light – explaining why they were always found dead and half-buried.
Their bones were once believed to have belonged to extinct races of giants.
Woolly mammoths and modern-day elephants are closely related, sharing 99.4 per cent of their genes.
The two species took separate evolutionary paths six million years ago, at about the same time humans and chimpanzees went their own way.
Woolly mammoths co-existed with early humans, who hunted them for food and used their bones and tusks for making weapons and art.
Should we bring back the extinct woolly mammoth?
allynh wrote:Jupiter is "hollow"? Yikes! I want to hear more.
By Ben GuarinoThe Washington Post
FILE - In this Friday, May 25, 2012 file photo, children stand near a life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur model as it moves and growls in an interactive display at Field Station Dinosaurs in Secaucus, N.J.
FILE - In this Friday, May 25, 2012 file photo, children stand near a life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur model as it moves and growls in an interactive display at Field Station Dinosaurs in Secaucus, N.J. Mel Evans AP
Fifty years ago, if you'd asked the dinosaur experts, they would have told you that Tyrannosaurus rex was a speed freak - a giant predator that could outrun racehorses. The paleontologists would have pointed to its 3-meter hind limbs, leggy for even a big dinosaur, and described the creature as sprinting after prey at speeds of 40 mph.
But a better understanding of physics kneecapped the swift T. rex concept. Scientists, rather than looking at the bones alone, began to gauge dinosaur locomotion via models of skeletons and muscles. The picture that came into focus was a slower beast: T. rex, although no less of a predator, was certainly less fleet of foot.
A new report, published Monday in the journal PeerJ, refined just how fast the dino could go. T. rex wasn't much of a runner, the study authors say. In fact, it couldn't run at all. Instead, the animal speed-walked.
Thanks to its wide stride, T. rex would reach about 12 mph at its quickest hustle. "Most of us would have difficulty jogging to keep up," said paleontologist Phillip L. Manning, director of the Mace Brown Museum of Natural History at the College of Charleston, S.C. (Not that you'd want a dinosaur with 8-inch-long teeth as a walking buddy.)
Previous estimates of T. rex's maximum pace ignored weight loads on the animal's bones. The new study took those into account, Manning said, and the result was "a bit like putting a governor on an engine." The scientists asked the model T. rex to move as fast as it could. At a run, the model indicated that T. rex's bones would snap because its legs would buckle under its weight.
Unable to break into a sprint, it must have stepped its way through the Cretaceous Period.
But that doesn't mean a 7-ton T. rex, at a full-bore walk, was anything less than terrifying. Elephants also don't run, which is to say they never have all four feet off the ground, and have been reliably clocked at about 10 mph. That's fast enough to leave a lasting impression. "The joy of an elephant charging you, trust me," Manning said, "it's one of those trouser-filling moments."
John Hutchinson, an expert on evolutionary biomechanics at the University of London's Royal Veterinary College who has also estimated T. rex speeds, called this work a "very sophisticated computer simulation." The max estimate of 12 mph was in line with the low end of previous tyrannosaurus models.
But like all computer simulations, this one came with certain assumptions baked in, Hutchinson noted. The study authors assumed that the animal's muscles were optimized to be as strong as they could, figuring that bone strength was the T. rex's weak point. Hutchinson said he was uneasy about that assumption, noting that "we don't understand the principles that govern speed limits in living animals."
Manning acknowledged that the model could be improved: It gave a conservative estimate and did not account for features such as elastic tendons, which could bump up the T. rex's top speed.
At this point, Hutchinson said, such a consensus has built around T. rex behavior that the dinosaur "is quickly running out of questions" for scientists to answer. The locomotion of other dinosaurs presents more interesting scenarios, in his view. He is investigating how the earliest dinosaurs moved - animals the size of house cats that would have had to scamper away from giant land crocodiles or end up as lunch.
Manning is also curious about other dinosaur species, particularly the biggest of the bunch. "It's modeling a house walking across the plain," he said. "It is quite exciting."
In the Bay of Naples, Europe's most notorious giant is showing signs of reawakening from its long slumber.
Campi Flegrei, a name that aptly translates as "burning fields", is a supervolcano. It consists of a vast and complex network of underground chambers that formed hundreds of thousands of years ago, stretching from the outskirts of Naples to underneath the Mediterranean Sea. About half a million people live in Campi Flegrei's seven-mile-long caldera, which was formed by vast eruptions 200,000, 39,000, 35,000 and 12,000 years ago.
The past 500 years have been fairly peaceful ones for Campi Flegrei. There have been no eruptions at all since 1538, and that was a comparatively small event that resulted in the formation of the "New Mountain", Monte Nuovo. But recent events suggest that this period of quiescence may be coming to an end.
Read more on the plans to drill into the Campi Flegrei volcano
The volcano that scientists can't find
The terrifying tsumani that hit Britain
An acceleration of processes causing deformation and heating within the caldera saw the Italian government raise the volcano's threat level in December 2016. Fears are growing that magma deep inside Campi Flegrei could be reaching the "critical degassing pressure", where a sudden large-scale release of volcanic gases could abruptly inject heat into surrounding hydrothermal fluids and rocks. When this happens on a significant scale, it can cause catastrophic rock failure within the volcano, triggering an eruption. In line with this, a study published in May 2017 found evidence that the supervolcano has been building towards an eruption for decades.
But the difficult question is not if, but when, and just how big an event this would be.
View over Bay of Naples (Credit: iStock)
The Bay of Naples was formed thanks to several enormous volcanic explosions (Credit: iStock)
"Campi Flegrei is in a critical state," says Antonio Costa of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Bologna, who is part of a team monitoring the supervolcano. "In probabilistic terms, we expect something called a 'violent Strombolian eruption'. This is relatively small-scale to a supereruption. However, it's not easy to say if there will definitely be an eruption in the coming years. Campi Flegrei has not erupted during the timescale that it's been under observation, so we don't know entirely what to expect."
A violent Strombolian eruption would blast molten rock and volcanic gases a few thousand feet into the atmosphere. It would surely be a major event, potentially requiring the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people. But in the context of Campi Flegrei's past, it would be minor.
The volcano's most notorious supereruption was the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption, which occurred some 39,000 years ago. It punched an estimated 300 cubic kilometres of molten rock 70km up into the stratosphere, along with an estimated 450,000 tons of sulphur dioxide. The ash cloud was carried as far as central Russia, some 2,000km away.
The eruption occurred at a time when much of Europe was already going through a lengthy glacial period, and the consequences are thought to have devastated much of the continent for centuries.
The huge quantity of sulphur dioxide released would have created a volcanic winter
Entire swathes of land, including Italy, the Mediterranean coast and the entirety of eastern Europe, were left covered in up to 20cm of ash. This would have destroyed vegetation and created a vast desert. Much of Russia was immersed in 5cm of ash, enough to disrupt plant life for decades or more.
"We know from chemical analysis that the ash contained fluorine, which has a strong impact on vegetation, and it would have produced a disease called fluorosis in animals," Costa says. "This would have had a knock-on impact on humans."
In addition, the huge quantity of sulphur dioxide released would have created a volcanic winter. Sulphur dioxide backscatters the Sun's radiation in the upper atmosphere, preventing it from reaching the ground. The 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption, one of the biggest of the 20th Century, did exactly this, temporarily lowering the global temperature by around 0.6C. But the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption may have had a far greater impact, with some scientists estimating that it decreased temperatures in Europe by as much as 4C, drastically altering the climate for many years.
The timing of this huge eruption is suspicious, because many archaeologists believe that 39,000 years ago is roughly when our cousins the Neanderthals died out in Europe. It has long been speculated that the eruption triggered extreme environmental conditions across Europe, contributing to the extinction of the Neanderthals, at least in some regions.
However, while the impact on the Neanderthals was surely significant, many scientists now believe it is unlikely that this single event was cataclysmic enough to wipe them out. Archaeological evidence suggests that Neanderthals persisted in parts of western Europe for some 10,000 years after the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption. This may be because of the way the ash dispersed.
"After the eruption, Neanderthal archaeological sites are found only in France and Spain," Costa says. "This is probably because these two areas were not affected by the eruption at all, because the wind was blowing towards the east."
Map of eastern Europe (Credit: iStock)
Much of eastern Europe was covered in a layer of ash from the eruptions (Credit: iStock)
There is even an argument that the eruption could have benefited the Neanderthals, by delaying the arrival in Europe of modern humans, who would have competed with them for resources. "To reach western Europe, modern humans would have had to cross the Middle East and the vast desert created by the eruption," says Costa. "It would have taken many hundreds of years for this land mass to recover."
For now, it is unclear how much damage Campi Flegrei's last major eruption did. But it is far from the only supervolcano on the planet. Earth's geological history is a catalogue of apocalyptic-looking volcanic events.
In south-west Colorado, there is a vast canyon approximately 100km wide and one kilometre deep. It serves as the legacy of one of the most explosive single events in the planet's history. La Garita Caldera was formed by an eruption nearly 28 million years ago, which expelled 5,000 cubic kilometres of molten rock.
Fortunately for us, the tectonic plates in the area have since rearranged themselves, so a repeat event is impossible. But approximately 75,000 years ago in Indonesia, an eruption of similar scale occurred, and the supervolcano responsible remains active.
Situated in the midst of a mountain range in northern Sumatra, the tranquillity and natural beauty of Lake Toba makes it a popular tourist location. But this lake is actually an enormous caldera, a footprint of the most extreme climatic event in human history.
The colossal scale of the eruption means that volcanic gases from Toba are thought to have been ejected through both hemispheres of the Earth's atmosphere, causing them to circulate all around the world
"The Toba eruption was frankly as big as any in the past tens of millions of years," says Clive Oppenheimer of the University of Cambridge, who studies some of Earth's biggest volcanos. "It's a particularly prominent one, because it's within the timeframe of modern humans, and the timing is quite critical, because it occurs around the time that humans come out of Africa and spread across Asia."
But exactly what effect this had on the human race has been the subject of much controversy.
Volcanic eruption (Credit: iStock)
Eruptions like those at Campi Flegrei may have helped wipe out Neanderthals in Europe (Credit: iStock)
In the 1990s, volcanologists discovered large ash deposits from Toba in marine sediments scattered across the Indian Ocean. The ash contained a chemical signature that could be traced back 75,000 years. Later studies found similar ash in the South China Sea, Arabian Sea and even in Lake Malawi, some 7,000km away from Toba.
The colossal scale of the eruption means that volcanic gases from Toba are thought to have been ejected through both hemispheres of the Earth's atmosphere, causing them to circulate all around the world. But exactly which gases were emitted from Toba, and in what quantities, is crucial to knowing its impact on the climate and understanding what happened next. So far back in time, this is not straightforward.
"There's an ice core in Greenland where they have a chemical record of how global temperatures went up and down over the past 125,000 years," says archaeologist Sacha Jones of the University of Cambridge, who has spent many years researching Toba. "Distinct layers of ice are laid down each year, and people have measured how much sulphate is in these layers. There is a large peak of sulphate, which seems to correspond to the timeframe of Toba."
Most of the ash from Toba is believed to have fallen in the ocean, where it would have had only minimal effects on land-dwelling species like humans
If the Toba eruption did indeed send vast quantities of sulphur dioxide around the world, scientists have predicted it may have sparked a volcanic winter, which blackened the skies and lasted some 6,000 years. In line with this, geneticists studying patterns in human mitochondrial DNA in the early 1990s, identified what appears to be a population bottleneck, which occurred somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago. Many were quick to make the link to Toba.
But not everyone is so convinced.
"Over the last 10 or so years, people have become more sceptical that Toba almost killed off Homo sapiens," Oppenheimer says. "Magmas can dissolve and hold things like carbon dioxide and water and sulphur in different amounts, depending on the volcano. And chemical analysis of ash from Toba has found that its magma can't actually hold very much sulphur."
There is also something suspicious in the archaeological record. Indonesia, Malaysia and India are thought to have been blanketed in at least 5cm of ash from Toba, which undoubtedly affected vegetation and caused mass floods. Yet archaeological studies of ash deposits appear to show that humans were remarkably resilient to the environmental changes.
"The main signs of human activity around this time are stone tools, such as hand axes and flint tips," says Jones, who has excavated sites in the Jurreru Valley in Andhra Pradesh, India. "When we excavated deposits above, through and below the Toba ash layer, we didn't really see much change at all in these Stone Age technologies before and after the eruption, which suggests that it didn't really cause any mass extinction."
Airplane and dark clouds (Credit: Getty Images)
A supervolcano is likely to cause severe disruption to air travel (Credit: Getty Images)
The key factor may be that most of the ash from Toba is believed to have fallen in the ocean, where it would have had only minimal effects on land-dwelling species like humans. However, Jones believes that the impact was still extremely severe for some communities.
"Toba was an incredibly large eruption, so it will have had some massive effects in particular areas," she says."The whole Pacific region in the immediate vicinity is very diverse, with lots of micro-climates. There's rainforest, desert, mountains, and people in certain areas may have suffered more than others."
But what of Toba's future? Geologists and geophysicists who study the volcano remain concerned about its magma chamber, which could be reawakened if the Sumatra fault line, which bisects the island and runs through Mount Toba, became active.
If it did, the only solution would be mass evacuation. But we do not even know how much warning we would receive.
If Yellowstone erupted again, some scientists think it would have more devastating consequences than Toba
Located underneath Yellowstone National Park in the US, the Yellowstone supervolcano is one of the most actively monitored places on the globe. A variety of instruments, including seismometers to detect chains of earthquakes, GPS sensors to record how the ground swells and shifts, and even satellite images to detect pressure changes in the magma chamber, are all used to look for any noticeable trends in behaviour.
Yellowstone has had three supereruptions in the past 2.1 million years. The first remains one of the largest of all time, producing 2,500 times the volume of ash as the 1980 Mount St Helens eruption. If Yellowstone erupted again, some scientists think it would have more devastating consequences than Toba, because the majority of the ash would fall on land rather than in the sea.
"The last eruption of Yellowstone would potentially have put ash across both American continents," says David Pyle at the University of Oxford. "If you take a continental land mass and you suddenly cover it with 10cm of volcanic ash, all the organic matter and trees will lose their leaves and probably die. Animals will take in chemicals which are toxic to them. The ground will suddenly be much brighter than before, so a lot of the incoming solar radiation might simply be reflected back into the atmosphere, resulting in a lengthy drought."
With water supplies clogged, electricity transmission lines failing and a complete disruption in ground transport, there would be an immediate crisis.
Hot pool at Yellowstone (Credit: iStock)
If Yellowstone's supervolcano exploded, it could devastate the West Coast of the US (Credit: iStock)
"If Yellowstone, Campi Flegrei or Toba exploded, there would be huge economic impact across the globe, because of the way the world economy works now," Oppenheimer says. "We saw that after the relatively small Icelandic eruption [Eyjafjallajökull] in 2010. It affected supply chains for Volkswagen, because parts were coming from Japan. Global aviation could be affected for decades. If a lot of sulphur dioxide was released, this could precipitate monsoons and climate shifts, which could affect global food security."
This would all be very problematic, but scientists are sceptical that a single explosive event like this could actually wipe out humanity.
Instead, volcanologists say that another type of volcanic event may pose a much greater threat to our existence.
Over the past 500 million years, all of the five largest mass extinctions in the fossil record have coincided with huge lava eruptions. These eruptions did not happen as single events, but as continuous outpourings going on for hundreds of thousands of years. They are known as flood lavas, and are caused by rising plumes of hot material from deep inside the Earth.
The most violent flood lava eruptions are thought to be associated with continental drift. Only 11 have taken place in the past 250 million years, each shaping vast mountain ranges, plateaus or volcanic formations. One such flood lava event took place 66 million years ago and created a huge expanse of volcanic rock called the Deccan Traps, in west-central India. These eruptions may have contributed to the mass extinction that took place at this time, by releasing cocktails of gases that slowly acidified the oceans and altered the climate.
While the world's volcanic hotspots are supremely well-monitored, we have no idea quite what to expect or how much warning we would receive
The trouble is, nobody knows when the next flood lava event will occur. "We expect another flood lava event sometime in the next 50 million years, but I don't think anyone's got any idea where and when," Pyle says.
Whether we are predicting the next supervolcano eruption or the next flood lava event, the problem is the same. The former has not been observed in recorded human history, while the last major flood lava eruptions occurred 10 million years ago in southern Canada, many millions of years before our species walked the planet. As such, while the world's volcanic hotspots are supremely well-monitored, we have no idea quite what to expect or how much warning we would receive before an event of such scale. Our tiny snapshot of monitoring time is dwarfed by volcanic cycles that can last millions of years.
We have no real idea where we are on these cycles. It is entirely possible that nothing will happen in our lifetimes, or even in the next hundred thousand years. There is only one certainty about these eruptions: they will, eventually, happen.
It weighed 69 tons.
Ed YongAug 8, 2017
In 2013, an old Argentinian shepherd named Aureliano Hernandez found a fossilized bone protruding from a rock at the farm where he worked. The remains of giant dinosaurs festoon Argentina's landscape, and knowing the strict rules that govern such fossils, the farm's owners—the Mayo family—contacted local paleontologists. By the time the team arrived, Hernandez had passed away. He never knew that as one of his final acts, he had discovered the largest dinosaur ever known.
The fossil he had found was so big that it took two weeks to unearth it. It was a thigh bone, and the largest ever found—eight feet from end to end. There are photos of paleontologists lying next to it for scale, and they look like bemused pixies, their bodies and imaginations dwarfed by what they had found.
A. Otero
The bone clearly belonged to a sauropod—a long-necked dinosaur like Brontosaurus, Diplodocus, and Brachiosaurus. Specifically, it was one of the titanosaurs—the last-surviving group of sauropods, and likely the biggest of them. But even known titanosaurs didn't have thighs that big. Team leaders Luis Carballido and Diego Pol from the Egidio Feruglio Paleontology Museum (MEF) estimated that the bone's owner would have stood 130 feet from nose to tail, and tipped the scales at 77 tons. Speaking to journalists, they compared it to 14 elephants, a seven-story building, and two trucks (with trailers) parked end to end.
News of the new titan spread quickly. Last January, a cast of the sauropod went on display at the American Museum of Natural History, while legendary naturalist David Attenborough released a documentary about its discovery. And now, Carballido and his team have finally published an official scientific description of the dinosaur. They've also given it a name—Patagotitan mayorum. The first half refers to the Patagonian region where the dinosaur was found. The second half honors the Mayo family who kindly welcomed the scientists onto their land and into their kitchen.
After careful analysis, the team think that Patagotitan is slightly smaller than they previously thought—69 tons or so. But even after that downsizing, it's still twice as heavy as more familiar giants like Brachiosaurus and Apatosaurus, and 10 percent bigger than the previous record-holder—another Argentinian titanosaur called Argentinosaurus. For now, it's the biggest dinosaur for which we have accurate measurements, and perhaps the biggest land animal that ever lived.
"We have a decent idea how well the various methods for estimating dinosaur body mass work, and they tend to agree well enough most of the time," says John Hutchinson from the Royal Veterinary College. "Even taking into account the uncertainty of those methods, Patagotitan comes out as a 60- to 80-ton behemoth. And nothing else we know of yet comes very close."
Patagotitan cast, in a hangar. D. Pol.
Patagotitan lived during the Cretaceous period around 101 million years ago. And for some reason, it frequented the area that eventually became the Mayo family's farm. Carballido and Pol's team returned to the site more than a dozen times, disinterring every fossil they could find. In the process, they built a road and partially removed a hill. Eventually, they recovered bones from at least six Patagotitan individuals. And their bones reveal that they were in their prime—young, still growing, and not yet at their full adult size.
Carballido thinks that these individuals all died at different times, but he has no idea why they all died in this one place. He found the teeth of many meat-eating dinosaurs around the site, but he doubts any predator could have tackled such gargantuan prey. "They were too strong," he says. "It would have been too risky for a carnivore." Whatever their reasons, their attraction to this one place meant that Carballido's team eventually uncovered more than 200 Patagotitan bones, covering most of the animal's skeleton. "The most amazing moment for us was realizing that the dinosaur is not only large, but also more complete than any other titanosaur," Carballido says.
It's ironic that scientists have found very little of the largest animals to have walked the land. We only know that Argentinosaurus existed based on a few handfuls of bones—some vertebrae, ribs, and leg bones, most of which are incomplete. Puertasaurus, another contender for the record books, is known from just four vertebrae. There are near-complete skeletons for some titanosaurs like Futalognkosaurus, but these were smaller species that weighed in at just 50 tons or so. The true colossi of the dinosaurs are hard to come by.
As science writer Brian Switek once wrote, this means that "prehistoric creatures ballyhooed as 'the biggest ever' upon discovery have a tendency to shrink by time of publication." Ultrasaurus, which was supposedly the biggest dinosaur during my childhood, turned out to be a mish-mash of other species. Bruhathkayosaurus, a possible Indian titanosaur, was claimed to be bigger than Argentinosaurus, but based on some poorly described fossils that were lost in a monsoon flood. And Amphicoelias is the most ludicrous supergiant of all—a sauropod that's "known" from a fragment of a single vertebra, which was either lost or destroyed a century ago.
Even when you have a good skeleton, it can be hard to estimate the mass of a sauropod, says Charlotte Brassey from Manchester Metropolitan University. "They were so unusual, with long, slender necks and tails, and an air-filled skeleton, that we have no convincing analogues in the modern animal kingdom," she says. "And by virtue of being extremely large, we need to extrapolate our understanding of how animals function far beyond the upper limits of living land animals, such as elephants. The more we need to extrapolate, the less confidence we have in our reconstructions."
Jorge Gonzalez
To deal with these uncertainties, Carballido and Pol's team used two separate methods to work out how heavy Paragotitan was. First, they used an equation that estimates an animal's mass based on the circumference of its femur (thigh bone) and humerus (upper arm bone). "These are the two most important bones for moving the animal," and the most likely to reflect its actual weight, says Carballido. The equation gave an estimate of 69 tons, with a range of 52 to 86.
Second, the team fleshed out a three-dimensional model of Patagotitan's skeleton, and calculated its volume to then estimate its mass. As it often does, that technique gave a similar but slightly smaller range—45 to 77 tons.
These are wide ranges. But crucially, they're bigger than similar ranges, estimated for other dinosaurs using the same methods. There are some exceptions, but Carballido doesn't think much of them. For example, one team estimated that Argentinosaurus weighed somewhere between 66 and 97 tons, based on one badly preserved femur. "It's difficult to measure the circumference of that bone because most of it was reconstructed with plaster," says Carballido, "so we can't accurately know its weight."
By comparing their new discovery to the bones of other sauropod species, the Argentinian team could reconstruct the group's evolutionary history. They think that sauropods were stable in size for much of their history, with most species weighing between 12 and 20 tons. But at some point, one group of titanosaurs—the lognkosaurs—became exceptionally huge, tripling their mass and reaching the 38-to-60-ton bracket. This was the group that gave rise to Argentinosaurus and Patagotitan.
It's not clear why these animals became so big, although flowering plants became very diverse at roughly the same time, and the climate became warmer. Brassey also wants to know how these animals became so huge. "Did they modify the shape of their skeleton, or the way in which they grew?" she wonders. "Did their metabolism change? Or did they alter their behaviour? Or all of the above?"
Also: How big could they possibly get? "Maybe someone can find a bigger one," says Carballido. "But I feel like maybe this is the limit."
Will Dunham
The Field Museum in Chicago said on Wednesday it will take down and remount the 40-1/2-foot-long (12.3-meter) Tyrannosaurus nicknamed Sue, perhaps the world's most famous dinosaur fossil, in a way that embodies the latest understanding of this ferocious Cretaceous Period predator.
The big T. rex will move to a new exhibition space in the museum, while a cast of the skeleton of the largest-known dinosaur, Patagotitan mayorum, will take the spot Sue now occupies in the museum's Stanley Field Hall.
Patagotitan, a long-necked, four-legged plant-eater that was 122 feet (37.2 meters) long and weighed 70 tons, lived in Argentina 100 million years ago, more than 30 million years before T. rex stalked western North America. The biggest land animal on record, it was a member of a dinosaur group called titanosaurs.
The museum next spring will unveil the fiberglass Patagotitan skeleton, which is being cast from fossils of seven Patagotitan individuals, and for two years will display some of the genuine fossils, including an 8-foot (2.4 meter) thighbone.
Named for the woman who discovered the fossils in South Dakota in 1990, Sue is the largest, most complete and best-preserved Tyrannosaurus rex ever unearthed. The museum bought the fossils at auction for $8.4 million.
Sue will be taken down in February and put up again with noteworthy changes in anatomy and stance in its new exhibition hall in spring 2019, museum scientists said.
"We are making several adjustments to the skeleton to reflect new and improved knowledge," said paleontologist Pete Makovicky, the museum's associate curator of dinosaurs.
The most striking change, Makovicky said, will be the addition of gastralia, bones resembling an additional set of ribs spanning the belly that may have provided structural support to help the dinosaur breathe. Adding these bones will illustrate just how massive Sue was and that it boasted a bulging belly, he added.
The scientists concluded that the bone mounted as Sue's wishbone was misidentified in 2000 and they will replace it with the dinosaur's actual wishbone, or furcula, the fused collar bones typical of meat-eating dinosaurs and their evolutionary descendants the birds.
They also will adjust the ribs to produce a slimmer, less barrel-shaped chest, and arrange the right leg so Sue is not crouching as much.
"Often when you do something as expensive as mounting a vertebrate fossil skeleton for display you only get one shot at it. I'm happy we're going to fix and update this incredible fossil," said paleontologist Bill Simpson, who heads the museum's geological collections.
Makovicky noted the accumulation of knowledge about T. rex and its cousins since 2000.
"We now know more about tyrannosaur lifespans -- around 30 years; how they grew -- very fast as teenagers; and using computer models of Sue we revised their body mass upward to 9 or more tons, from 5 to 7 tons," Makovicky said.
Ongoing research is examining the molecular composition of cartilage preserved in T. rex bones, and recent studies have shown it possessed the most powerful bite of any land animal ever, Makovicky added.
When the Patagotitan skeleton is mounted, visitors will be able to walk underneath it and touch it. Its head will reach the museum's second-floor balcony nearly 30 feet (9 meters) up. Another Patagotitan skeleton is displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.
The museum said a $16.5 million gift from the Kenneth C. Griffin Charitable Fund, established by the founder and chief executive of hedge fund firm Citadel LLC, enabled it to carry out Sue's makeover and add the Patagotitan. The changes coincide with the museum's 125th anniversary in 2018.
Reporting by Will Dunham; Editing by Sandra Maler
Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
By SHANNON HALL OCT. 10, 2017
The Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, a large hot spring known for its vibrant coloration. Beneath the park is a powerful supervolcano which drives the spring and other geological activity. Marie-Louise Mandl/EyeEm, via Getty Images
Beneath Yellowstone National Park lies a supervolcano, a behemoth far more powerful than your average volcano. It has the ability to expel more than 1,000 cubic kilometers of rock and ash at once — 250,000 times more material than erupted from Mount St. Helens in 1980, which killed 57 people. That could blanket most of the United States in a thick layer of ash and even plunge the Earth into a volcanic winter.
Yellowstone's last supereruption occurred 631,000 years ago. And it's not the planet's only buried supervolcano. Scientists suspect that a supereruption scars the planet every 100,000 years, causing many to ask when we can next expect such an explosive planet-changing event.
To answer that question, scientists are seeking lessons from Yellowstone's past. And the results have been surprising. They show that the forces that drive these rare and violent events can move much more rapidly than volcanologists previously anticipated.
The early evidence, presented at a recent volcanology conference, shows that Yellowstone's most recent supereruption was sparked when new magma moved into the system only decades before the eruption. Previous estimates assumed that the geological process that led to the event took millenniums to occur.
To reach that conclusion, Hannah Shamloo, a graduate student at Arizona State University, and her colleagues spent weeks at Yellowstone's Lava Creek Tuff — a fossilized ash deposit from its last supereruption. There, they hauled rocks under the heat of the sun to gather samples, occasionally suspending their work when a bison or a bear roamed nearby.
Ms. Shamloo later analyzed trace crystals in the volcanic leftovers, allowing her to pin down changes before the supervolcano's eruption. Each crystal once resided within the vast, seething ocean of magma deep underground. As the crystals grew outward, layer upon layer, they recorded changes in temperature, pressure and water content beneath the volcano, much like a set of tree rings.
"We expected that there might be processes happening over thousands of years preceding the eruption," said Christy Till, a geologist at Arizona State, and Ms. Shamloo's dissertation adviser. Instead, the outer rims of the crystals revealed a clear uptick in temperature and a change in composition that occurred on a rapid time scale. That could mean the supereruption transpired only decades after an injection of fresh magma beneath the volcano.
The time scale is the blink of an eye, geologically speaking. It's even shorter than a previous study that found that another ancient supervolcano beneath California's Long Valley caldera awoke hundreds of years before its eruption. As such, scientists are just now starting to realize that the conditions that lead to supereruptions might emerge within a human lifetime.
"It's shocking how little time is required to take a volcanic system from being quiet and sitting there to the edge of an eruption," said Ms. Shamloo, though she warned that there's more work to do before scientists can verify a precise time scale.
Dr. Kari Cooper, a geochemist at the University of California, Davis who was not involved in the research, said Ms. Shamloo and Dr. Till's research offered more insights into the time frames of supereruptions, although she is not yet convinced that scientists can pin down the precise trigger of the last Yellowstone event. Geologists must now figure out what kick-starts the rapid movements leading up to supereruptions.
"It's one thing to think about this slow gradual buildup — it's another thing to think about how you mobilize 1,000 cubic kilometers of magma in a decade," she said.
As the research advances, scientists hope they will be able to spot future supereruptions in the making. The odds of Yellowstone, or any other supervolcano, erupting anytime soon are small. But understanding the largest eruptions can only help scientists better understand, and therefore forecast, the entire spectrum of volcanic eruptions — something that Dr. Cooper thinks will be possible in a matter of decades.
Correction: October 11, 2017
An earlier version of a home page headline for this article misstated the location of a supervolcano that drives geological activity. It is beneath Yellowstone National Park, not Yosemite.
Credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Grand Prismatic hot spring in Yellowstone National Park.
Beneath the beautiful Yellowstone National Park lies a supervolcano, a hidden a force of nature that has the potential to blanket the United States in ash and send the world into a volcanic winter.
While scientists have studied Yellowstone's supervolcano extensively, the fact of the matter is there's not much we can do about it if/when the supervolcano erupts again. Albeit, that hasn't stopped NASA from trying to engineer a solution to the next supervolcano eruption.
What scientists have relied upon is that when Yellowstone's supervolcano begins to rumble and its magma chambers begin to fill, we would have centuries to prepare for the devastating eruption. However, recent studies find that the speed at which the volcano can fill its magma chamber and erupt is on the order of a few decades. That means Yellowstone supervolcano could go from its usual activity like today to erupting in 2030's.
Unraveling Yellowstone's Past Eruptions
How did scientists unravel the timing of the latest Yellowstone supervolcano eruption? As the magma chambers filled, portions of the magma were cool enough to solidify into rock. While they solidified or lithified, the minerals grew over time, creating bands of progressively younger mineral around older mineral.
Scientists inspected the bands of these minerals and what they found is the last few bands of mineral formation recorded a sudden spike in temperature on the order of decades before mineral lithification stopped. Hence, the rapid increase in temperature on the order of decades represents the time required for a sudden injection of magma and release through an eruption.
Highlighted areas are where ash beds have been identified from previous Yellowstone supervolcano eruptions.
That's a scary thought for anyone that intends to understand and plan for action in response to the Yellowstone supervolcano eruption. To put the eruption into perspective, the volcano has the ability to spew 1,000 cubic kilometers of ash and rock into the air, which is approximately 250,000 times more than the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. This amount of rock and ash would cover most of the United States and could send the entire Earth into a volcanic winter. This event, similar to the large asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs, sends enough dust into the atmosphere that it blots out the sun, potentially for years.
Thankfully, there are no signs of imminent danger, with the last Yellowstone supervolcano eruption occurring 631,000 years ago. However, it's important for scientists to continue to study and understand the telltale signs of a volcanic eruption, particularly on this scale. Scientists will become better at predicting a future eruption. This will, hopefully, give Americans enough time to prepare as much as possible for what will be a catastrophic natural disaster.
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text:
Tricky question.
My Dream changes often.
Right now, I'd have to say yes.
I'm working towards running my 1st half marathon. I think I might have mentioned that before.
I've wanted to be a runner for years.
For years I've been afraid to even try. Once or twice I did try. But then game up after a week or two. It was easier to give up than to all out fail.
I'm sure I've mentioned this before. One of my best friends ran her 1st Half Marathon in January of 2012. I went to Disney Land to cheer her across the finish. Only that didn't happen. Don't like your fingers while you're at Disney Land.
Anyway, I remember telling her over and over how she was crazy. How I'd never be able to do it. Ever. How I wouldn't even try. There was no way I'd be able to run 1 mile, let alone 13.1.
In April, when they announced the 2nd Annual Tinker Bell Half Marathon at Disney Land, she messaged me. She told me next year I'd be crossing the finish line WITH her, instead of just being (sort of) at the finish line to meet her.
The words that came to my mind?
Fuck. I better start running.
And I did.
And it was hard.
Really hard.
I could barely run a mile and a half in 30 minutes. My average minutes per mile were hovering around 18 or 19.
But I kept on.
It got a little easier as time went on. As I remained dedicated to running 3 times a week.
Now, when I go out for a 30 minute run I get about 2.4 miles in.
My longest run to date is 11 miles. It was really, really, (fucking) hard. Well, not the whole thing. Just the last 2 miles. They were brutal. But I finished them.
My minutes per mile are about 12 to 13 now. Not fast, but much better when I started.
I'm proud of myself.
I even cranked up that dream a notch. My 1st half marathon will be the Disney Wine & Dine at Disney World this November 10th.
Living my dream and feeling better than I ever have.
Go me.
This is me and Carly after our 1st 5K together in August of 2012. She came up from Arizona to run in The Color Run with me. She really loves me.
Day 6 of BlogFEST 2012 hosted by Corinne Rodrigues of Everyday Gyaan. Of course it's not to late to join us!!


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Aubrie Williams is an improviser on Philly Improv Theater's house team King Friday and her own sketch group, Local Holiday Miracle.
How and why did you get into comedy?
I saw my first improv show st UCB when I was 18, and was so impressed at how this piece could be created from just a one word suggestion. I continued to love watching improv from then on, but was scared to death to try it. I was a theater major, so inevitably we had to do some improv in classes — and I bet if you took my pulse on those days, my heart rate was equivalent to someone about to jump out of a plane. Long story short, I decided to face my fears when an improv class was offered at Temple. I quickly realized that the fear was irrational and that I now got to have playtime as an adult, which was awesome. I even started my college improv club cause I didnt want the fun to end after class did. Improv also acted as my gateway drug into sketch comedy.
How would you describe your style as a comedian? What influences and factors do you think contribute to that?
I guess in comedy I draw from what I like watching and find the funniest, which makes some of what I do a product of all of my influences. Stella, Tina Fey, David Cross, UCB, Gilda Radnor and anyone ever involved in a Christopher Guest movie are some of my biggest influences.
Do you have a favorite show or venue you like to perform at? What about it makes it fun or special for you?
I'm quite partial to the Shubin, cause it kind of feels like home now. I had my fist improv show there in '07, and now between class shows, Sketch Up or Shut Up, and King Friday, Ive gotten to spend a good amount of time up there. It's intimate and you get to see a lot of familiar faces. It's like the "Cheers" of BYOB comedy venues.
As for shows, there are tons of great ones that happen monthly, but I'll try and narrow it down. I'm going to say Sketch Up or Shut Up. It is always great because you get to see what everyone's been up to between shows and see how an audience reacts to what you've been working on.
Do you have a single favorite moment in Philly comedy or one that stands out?
For me, it was this past July at DCM (Del Close Marathon) '12 in NYC. It was my first DCM, and I got to see Philly represent improv hard in a city where there is so much of it going on, and that was a great feeling. It was also my first time performing in NYC, and to get to do that with King Friday on the UCB stage (two hours before the original UCB performed on the same stage) was pretty freakin' awesome and lots of fun.
Do you have any sort of creative process that you use with your writing or your performance? Or a sort of method that you use to develop comedic material?
It's funny because every time I tell a non-improviser that I have improv rehearsal, they always respond with, "How do you rehearse improv? Isn't it all made up?" With improv, it's important to stay in practice cause the more that you do it, the more comfortable you get in doing it, and from there I think you definitely get better at it. Also, with a group, you can really build a group mind through being around each other a lot so it's very important to have steady rehearsals. I also like to take different workshops and revisit old notes and reread Improvise by Mick Napier and The Small Cute Book of Improv by Jill Bernard.
What is it about sketch and improv that draws you to it?
If I had to sum it up, probably the people and the laughter. It is a great community filled with so much talent, and everyone seems to be constantly inspiring each other. I love that. Also, I enjoy laughing, and if you've ever witnessed me as an audience member, I bet you know this.
Do you have any favorite performers in the Philly scene? Why are they your favorites?
Rare Bird Show was the first Philly improv group I had ever seen, and I was so impressed. Everytime I watch them they make me want to work harder as an improviser. I am very much loving The Amie & Kristen Show and Grimmachio. Both duos are always so on and connected and present. You can learn a lot from watching great improv. Man, this is tough. I also love watching all of the PHIT House Teams (YAY to house team night for letting me do this all in one night!), BWP and Cubed who do amazing premise based improv, Whipsuit, Horner & Davis, Medic, Stranger Danger, Rosen & Milkshake, Passiones … to name a few, haha.
For sketch, I love Secret Pants, Meg & Rob, The Feeko Brothers, Camp Woods, Bare Hug, Hate Speech Comittee. Again, tough question cause there is so much awesome going on. I have many favorites.
Do you have any bad experiences doing comedy that you can share? A particularly bad bombing or even an entire show gone haywire?
I think my first show with King Friday I was having way too much fun watching them perform that I literally had a moment where I was like, "Oh crap, I'm performing too. Get out there." I also laughed so hard on the sidelines that I missed out on a few key details. I have since worked on not doing either of those things.
What do you think the Philly comedy scene needs to continue to grow?
I think It is at a great, promising place right now. People are really dedicated and working hard, and there seems to be a constant interest from new people in joining the comedy community as well. It's great to see so many new faces popping up onstage all of the time, and different combos of people from various disciplines of comedy joining forces and starting new groups and projects. I think if it stays on this track, and I have no doubt it will, that we will be taking over the world in no time. Muahahahaha.
Do you have any personal goals for the future as you continue to perform comedy?
I would like to do more festivals and such for both sketch and improv. With improv, I would like to continue to study and also study different forms and genres, and keep performing consistently. Just get more and more comfortable and more and more brave. I think I have in the past few months, but I know I can oush myself even further. With sketch, I would like also to perform more, but I'd like to film more sketches as well. We just shot our 1st one and had a blast, so I'd like to do way more of that for sure! I also play guitar and ukulele, and have joined forces with some other lovely ladies who do the same, so I'd like to eventually get up on stage and perform some musical comedy!


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text:
Pierzynski gets first rest
ARLINGTON -- For the first time in six games this season, A.J. Pierzynski was not behind the plate as the Rangers' catcher, a role that went to backup Geovany Soto instead.
Manager Ron Washington said it was time to give the 36-year-old Pierzynski a rest, though Pierzynski hits left-handed and the Rangers were facing righty Jered Weaver. Pierzynski also caught Sunday night starter Yu Darvish's almost-perfect game on Tuesday.
"He caught everybody, caught every game up to this point, and yesterday was a lot of pitches," Washington said.
Soto, though, caught nearly all of Darvish's starts after arriving from the Cubs in a trade-deadline deal. Darvish compiled a 2.35 ERA and a 5-1 record over his final eight starts, all with Soto catching.
That battery could be less common this season.
"A.J. is the starting catcher," Washington said. "When Soto plays, I'll let him know. He's going to play, but you'll see A.J. get most of the time."