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Yahoo! News Story - Boogie birdie: Animals shown to 'dance' to music

2009-05-01T04:46:00.005-07:00

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Boogie birdie: Animals shown to 'dance' to music

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Yahoo! News Story - Africans have world's greatest genetic variation

2009-05-01T04:46:00.003-07:00

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Africans have world's greatest genetic variation

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Yahoo! News Story - Mexico: 300 confirmed swine flu cases, 12 dead

2009-05-01T04:46:00.001-07:00

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Mexico: 300 confirmed swine flu cases, 12 dead

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Yahoo! News Story - Boogie birdie: Animals shown to 'dance' to music

2009-05-01T04:37:00.005-07:00

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Boogie birdie: Animals shown to 'dance' to music

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Yahoo! News Story - Justice Souter to leave 'best job' in 'worst city'

2009-05-01T04:37:00.003-07:00

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Justice Souter to leave 'best job' in 'worst city'

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Yahoo! News Story - Justice Souter to leave 'best job' in 'worst city'

2009-05-01T04:37:00.001-07:00

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Justice Souter to leave 'best job' in 'worst city'

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Critics Call WTC Tower Name Change Unpatriotic

2009-03-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

By AMY WESTFELDT, Associated Press Writer Amy Westfeldt, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 21 mins ago

NEW YORK – Even without the name, the symbolism of the Freedom Tower as an American response to the Sept. 11 terror attacks was hard to miss.

The original architect designed a twisting form he wanted to imitate the Statue of Liberty, with a spire that rose to the deliberate height of 1,776 feet to recognize the year of American independence. Politicians called the tower proof of the country's triumph over terrorism.

Former Gov. George Pataki said visitors to the iconic skyscraper "will know our determination to overcome evil" in a 2003 speech that first gave the Freedom Tower its name.

The tower — still under construction with a projected completion date of 2013 — no longer has the same architect, design or footprint on the 16-acre site. And this week, the owners of ground zero publicly parted ways with the Freedom Tower name, saying it would be more practical to market the tallest building in New York as the former north tower's name, One World Trade Center.

Critics called the name drop an unpatriotic shedding of symbolism by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Some newspaper editorials blasted the agency for years of missed deadlines and changing plans for the site.

"When you've broken your promises on everything else to do with redeveloping ground zero, it's no big deal to discard the name by which the public has come to know the iconic skyscraper at the heart of the plan," the New York Daily News wrote on Friday.

But others privately repeated fears that have plagued the building as negotiations with major corporations to take up space in the tower came and went: that the 102-story Freedom Tower's name could make it more susceptible to future attacks than a symbol of defiance against it.

"The fact is, more than 3 billion dollars of public money is invested in that building and, as a public agency, we have the responsibility to make sure it is completed and that we utilize the best strategy to make certain it is fully occupied," the agency said in a statement Friday.

Agency chairman Anthony Coscia was more critical in remarks Thursday, when the Port Authority announced its first corporate lease at the tower with a Chinese business center.

"As we market the building, we will ensure the building is presented in the best possible way," he said. One World Trade Center is "easiest for people to identify with, and frankly, we've gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."

Coscia had expressed concerns about the Freedom Tower three years earlier, saying he would never ask Port Authority employees to move into the tallest, most symbolic skyscraper being built at the site because they had survived 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks and would find it too emotionally difficult to return.

Several other government offices were located in the original trade center, and the Port Authority is trying to finalize leases with the federal and state governments that would lease half the building. No other corporate tenants have signed on. The Port Authority has agreed to lease space in another tower being built at the site.

Pataki — who named the Freedom Tower in his 2003 speech and continued to refer to it in rebuilding speeches as a symbol of America's ability to come back after Sept. 11, took offense at the loss of the Freedom Tower moniker and its replacement.

"Where One and Two World Trade Center once stood, there will be a memorial with two voids to honor the heroes we lost. In my view, those addresses should never be used again," he said.

The Daily News and New York Post published editorials backing the former governor. But The New York Times on Saturday wrote that Pataki's name for the building became "its burden," and said the Port Authority was "quietly and sensibly" using another name to market the tower to high-profile commercial tenants.

The Port Authority suggested that people could still call the building the Freedom Tower; the name has stuck despite the fact that the agency quietly stopped it on first reference years ago. The agency made One World Trade Center the building's legal name when it took over its construction in 2006, although it also acquired the trademark for the Freedom Tower name.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg — who said Friday he prefers the name Freedom Tower — said the building's true name may be left to the public.

"One of the things is we call things what we want to call them. So Avenue of Americas is a good example. It's Sixth Avenue to most people," the mayor said. "If they name this One World Trade Center, people will still call it the Freedom Tower."

How to Take Action to Reduce Global Warming

2009-02-11T23:29:00.000-08:00

The future is not somewhere we are going. It is something we are creating. Every day we do things that make some futures more probable and others less likely.^[2]

Global warming already disrupts millions of lives daily in the forms of destructive weather patterns and loss of habitat.^[3] What is already happening is only the tip of the melting iceberg, for it is our children and grandchildren who may suffer most from the effects of global warming. ^[4] Hundreds of millions of people may be exposed to famine, water shortages, extreme weather conditions and a 20 - 30% loss of animal and plant species if we don't reduce the rate of global warming and reduce GHG emissions.^[5] On the other hand, warmer winters means longer growing seasons in temperate and subarctic climes, sometimes allowing an additional crop to be planted and harvested each year, or simply making the existing crops more productive.^[6]^[7] This article outlines some ways that you can act to help prevent the Earth from warming further. While humankind has the ability to destroy the planet, we can also help protect and sustain it.

Reducing your carbon and greenhouse gas emissions will not only make your personal living space more sustainable but it will save you money in both the short and long term. Global warming is occurring more rapidly than it was originally expected to -- only forty years ago, ^[8] the big worry was global cooling. Even if you remain a cynic, however, and believe that the majority of scientists are wrong, you'll benefit from reduced pollution, a more healthful lifestyle and increased savings from enacting these simple activities that will not reduce the quality of your life.

Will Global Warming Help Honey Bees Dance?

2009-01-25T03:06:00.001-08:00

The report, Behavioral performance in adult honey bees is influenced by the temperature experienced during their pupal development was based on an experiment that followed the activities of three sets of bees that were artificially raised, from pupa to adult worker status, in controlled temperatures of 32^oC (or 89.6^oF), 34.5^oC (or 94.1^oF), and 36^oC (or 96.8^oF).

When the bees entered the adult foraging stage, researchers found that the bees raised under the lowest controlled temperature were poor dancers, will lesser capabilities to communicate food locations to other foragers. Additionally, they suffered from a learning disability. After two weeks of foraging, the majority of the bees abandoned the hive, either going to other hives in the area, or disappearing without researcher knowledge of their whereabouts.

Based on those facts, an initial hypothesis that increased temperatures from global warming would help produce better dancing and learning honey bees sounds credible. However, before taking that hypothetical leap, two additional facts on honey bee behavior need to be considered.

First, the researchers state that, "honey bees appear to be the only group that have achieved a high degree of homeothermy in their nests, keeping the brood combs at temperatures which, although never constant, vary within a relatively narrow window of 3^oC."

Second, the researchers state that, "First, the 40% investment in maintaining the brood temperature is a significant portion of the energy budget and attests to the importance of this activity."

Given those sets of facts, the researchers conclude, "We propose that when outside temperatures are high, fewer heater bees will be needed and a larger number of successful foragers will be produced by the higher temperature in the brood."

Do those facts and conclusions strengthen the hypothesis that global warming will help honey bees dance?

Yes and no. At face value, the experiment, and conclusions drawn from them, supports the hypothesis that global warming helps honey bees dance. Warmer weather means that more worker bees can devote their time to foraging rather than heating the hive. Warmer temperatures also suggest a greater probability of warmer hives, although that is not completely clear, given the fact that hive temperatures can swing in a +/- 3^oC range when dealing with outside temperatures.

The researchers do not address how global warming or rising temperatures might affect the honey bee food supply. Honey bees have complex dietary needs. If the temperature changes caused by global warming affect the landscape of a honey bee's territory, those changes may be harmful to honey bee health. In the end, warmer temperatures may help improve honeybee dancing, but communication inherent in those dances may well signal a flight of the honey bees to a more accommodating environment.

Climate Change in Russia: Permafrost

2009-01-25T03:04:00.002-08:00

A changing climate is changing the permafrost landscape in Russia.

Environmental changes in and around the Arctic region have been among the most pronounced changes related to climate change documented to date. The National Snow and Ice Data Center for example, continues to report on declining Arctic Sea ice trends, which are record setting in some cases.

Russia is no exception. One recent report in Polar Research shows an accelerated warming trend over Western Siberia over the years from 1966-1995. The trends continue today.

Because sixty per cent of Russian land is categorized as permafrost, a soil condition defined by temperature, a warming climate could potentially change the Russian landscape. Here are some sources examining those issues.

One series of research reports suggests that Russian warming trends will contribute to overall warming trends. Scientists have been measuring methane emissions from Peat Bogs in West Siberia, and have predicted increased emissions as areas of permafrost begin to melt.

Another series of questions deal with how changes in the permafrost landscape will influence Russia's sustainable development programs.

The map of Permafrost in Siberia shows the largest portion of land in the continuous permafrost category. (note: to retrieve a larger map, go to Arctic Environmental Atlas and add the following choices to the appropriate places on the map builder: 1. "Zoom to"="Siberia"; 2. "Theme"="Permafrost" plus check off all relevant boxes underneath the "Theme" category. Clicking on the "advanced mode" link at the bottom of the left hand column brings up more choices.; 3. Click the "refresh Map" button.; 4. Click the "larger map" link.)

Areas subject to changing permafrost conditions are of special concern because of the damage to buildings and infrastructure brought on by the changes in the soil composition beneath them. (see generally Permafrost and Changing Climate: The Russian Perspective)

Climate Change and Western Glaciers

2009-01-25T03:04:00.001-08:00

Changing climate patterns in the United States will place great stress on Western glaciers.

The Map of Western Glaciers shows the general locations for eight thousand plus documented glaciers in the area.

Examining glacial advance and retreat patterns in any specific area on the map generally shows they are determined partly by local precipitation and temperature patterns.

The Glaciers of Northern California, for example, are among the few to remain in equilibrium over the past decade. Scientists attribute the stability to increased precipitation in the region.

Glacier retreat dominates the predictions for other areas, especially the larger glacial areas along the northern border. Consider the following two areas.

Climate Change and Antarctica

2009-01-25T03:03:00.000-08:00

Climate changes in and around Antarctica have been comparatively less pronounced to date than climate induced changes around the Arctic region.

The General Circulation Models (GCMs) used for climate forecasting basically conclude polar regions will experience the most pronounced temperature increases.

Today, many of the more visible examples of changing climate patterns are found in the northern polar regions.

In its 2007 Fourth Assessment, The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that "The Arctic is very likely to warm during this century in most areas, and the annual mean warming is very likely to exceed the global mean warming." Scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center have been providing strong correlative evidence supporting the warming Arctic expectations of the IPCC. An October 2007 report on Arctic Sea Ice, for example, shows sea ice declines ranging between thirty-nine and fifty per cent in that past couple of decades, depending on which measurement tools are used.

As a large land mass surrounded by the world's oceans, Antarctic geography often is described as the polar opposite of Arctic geography. Because approximately ninety per cent of the world's ice is found on and around Antarctica, global concern about climate change and Antarctica deal with potential sea level rise associated with glacial melt.

The IPCC reports some weaknesses in the GCMs abilities to adequately forecast long term Antarctic climate trends. "A serious problem is the lack of observations against which to assess models, and for developing process knowledge, particularly over Antarctica."

Currently scientists have only an adequate understanding of the regional factors historically influencing Antarctic climate conditions. Most regional Antarctic climate studies are organized with both an ocean and an atmospheric element.

The Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the strong ocean current that encircles the continent, moving in a clockwise direction, serves as the primary ocean explanation influencing Antarctic weather patterns.

Global Warming Effects

2009-01-25T03:02:00.000-08:00

Assuming that global warming patterns will continue along their current trend lines, what types of global warming effects will people experience in their ever day lives?

The answer depends on the specific area in question, and this brief review addresses the general types of global warming effects on human, plant and wildlife populations.

One of the most obvious visible effects of global warming will be changes to plant and wildlife habitat. In any given area, many of the native plant and wildlife species have evolved to live in that specific habitat because it contain their basic survival needs such as food, water and shelter. A changing climate will cause changes to the traditional wildlife and plant habitat.

In many instances, wildlife are adaptable and able to migrate to cope with changing temperatures. Consequently, global warming will mean that people will begin seeing more of some species and less of others in their areas.

The Baltimore Oriole, for example, is the state bird of Maryland, and it is adapted to breeding in a temperate climate. A changing climate, with warmer temperatures in Maryland, suggests that the Oriole might stop migrating to Maryland, instead choosing to nest further to the north in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.

Considerable research about the global warming effects on plants and wildlife has already been undertaken. The Climate Change Atlas, for example, examines global warming effects on eastern tree and bird species.

Wildlife with below average adaptive capabilities are at considerable risk if their current habitat changes. The International Union for Nature Conservation (IUNC) recently released a report suggesting that around the world, 35% of bird species, 52% of amphibian species and 71% of warm-water reef-building coral species are at risk because of a changing climate.

Change in physical landscapes also pose problems for populations around the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) follows recent climate change and health reports saying, "Climate variability and change cause death and disease through natural disasters, such as heat waves, floods and droughts. In addition, many important diseases are highly sensitive to changing temperatures and precipitation.".

In the United States, natural disaster issues associated with climate change such as the formation of more, or more intense, hurricanes in the Eastern United States, and the melting of glaciers in the Western United States, have received considerable attention. The links in the box on the right point to articles with additional information on those topics.

The Reliability of General Circulation Models

2009-01-25T03:01:00.000-08:00

How reliable are General Circulation Models as a basis for making sound policy decisions with respect to Climate Change issues? That question grounds many political positions

Scientists also ask themselves similar questions and over time adjust their climate models because of feedback from the peer review process.

Over the course of the four decades General Circulation Models have been criticized and refined based on specific types of feedback. One of the more prominent scientific needs in any statistically based model is the need for reliable data because in many instances, data gathering techniques affect the reliability of the model. For example, if global temperatures over time around the world were recorded using different measuring techniques, that fact would decrease the reliability of any forecast.

Another variation on the data reliability theme deals with the issue of balance. The data may be gathered correctly, but could still suffer from a balance problem such as complete information for the Atlantic Ocean or atmosphere but incomplete information for Pacific Ocean or atmosphere. Uneven sampling, as it is also know, like most pollsters understand, tends to create biases in model prediction.

Scientists will tell you they consistently look to improve their data gathering techniques relying primarily on the World Meteorological Organization to set the standard for insuring the consistency of data measurement and compilation around the world.

Scientists also seek other ways to improve their research. There are more than a few ways to approach the issue of the reliability of long term climate predictions, here's one example.

The Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, conducts comparative research on climate models as a way to test both general trends in predictions across models and discover statistical problems common to all models.

A 2000 review entitled, An Overview of the Results of the Atmospheric Model Intercomparison Project, compare the results of thirty one different models from climate science programs around the world. While the bulk of the report provides analysis of the GCMs, they conclude,

"On the whole, the models provide a credible simulation for the large-scale distribution of the primary climate variables characterizing the atmospheric pressure, temperature, wind, hydrologic cycle and radiation balance, although a number of common systematic model errors are apparent".

Back in 2000, the robustness of the GCMs was still being challenged. Improved super-computer technology along with increased funding for research and ocean data collection helped climate scientists refined their Ocean Coupling Models. By 2004, The Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and Intercomparison was able to publish a comparative review of eleven of the models called, An Appraisal of Coupled Climate Model Simulations. It is a lengthy PDF file.

One of the big picture statistical problems the analysts were looking at was whether or not these latest coupled models were able to provide more reliable one hundred year forecasts. They noted that one of the problems with earlier versions was their lack of reliable long term forecasts. They say,

"Coupled ocean-atmosphere GCM simulations drifted relatively quickly and steadily unless constrained by nonphysical flux adjustments (and in some cases did so even with flux adjustments). In recent years the situation has improved dramatically. This improvement was documented in the most recent IPCC assessment report and is confirmed by the results given above. Although most of the CMIP2+ models employ flux adjustments, both the flux adjusted and the non-flux adjusted models exhibit acceptably small "climate drift" for century-scale simulations."

Climate Change Science: A Brief History of General Circulation Models

2009-01-25T03:00:00.000-08:00

Scientists who study climate change are in the business of being able to predict, with some good statistical accuracy, global weather patterns in the near, medium and long term.

While there are current political disagreements on how public policy should be shaped in light of scientific research on climate change, there is little disagreement about the fact that the scientific community has vastly improved their understanding of the issue over the course of four decades worth of research.

General Circulation Models (GCMs)

The big picture understanding of climate change science starts with the building block of that science, The General Circulation Model (GMC). It is a statistical model to explain, describe and predict global weather patterns under various conditions, including increased greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. When building a General Circulation Model (GCM) climate scientists assume climate to be the product of a variety of inter-related factors.

Starting in the 1960s scientists began producing a general 'ABC' model of climate and weather. They gathered time series data on atmospheric, biosphere and cryospheric conditions around the world as a way of building the first climate models.

This basic 'ABC' General Circulation Model for weather forecasting runs along the following lines:

Global Climate = (A) Atmosphere + (B) Biosphere + (C) Cryosphere + (G) Geosphere + (O) Oceans).

Global weather patterns are a function of atmospheric, biosphere, cryospheric, geospheric and oceanic factors. The way this example model is written includes geospheric and oceanic factors (G + O), that were added to GCMs after the initial atmospheric weather based models were up and running. The simplicity of the model is found in its common sense design. For example, anyone who would want to know the cause of the past two summers of hurricane activity in the south eastern United States would want an explanation that covered all of those factors.

Climate modeling begins with these basic assumptions. However, the meat and potatoes of the work involves countless hours of theory, concept building and data gathering in order to flesh out the general factors addressed in the equation. In trying to explain the degree of sophistication of the newer models, consider how the Community Climate System Model of the National Atmospheric Research Center explains its model. "To recreate a single day of the world's climate, the model must perform 700 billion calculations."

Over the past four decades General Circulation models have gone through two updates. The first GCMs mentioned above closely resembled their weather cousins, using data similar to what weather forecasts were using around the world. Time and budgetary constraints slowed progress in GCM research. For example the early GCMs lacked any ocean concepts and data. As weather data became more reliable and available, especially from satellites, scientists were able to refine their initial models. These refinements spurred the second wave of climate research, moving the GCMs to what is known as coupled models design. These models furthered the science of global weather forecasting by coupling models about ocean activity such as currents and water temperature with models about atmospheric, biosphere, cryospheric and geospheric activity.

Models from the Canadian Climate Centre illustrate the general findings of the first round of ocean coupling models around the year 2000. First they show patterns of increased surface air temperatures at the Polar Regions. Two separate versions of the general model predictions diverged with respect to temperature increases at the lower latitudes. The first version of their model predicted asymmetrical north/south warming patterns with the Asian continent and Saharan Africa experiencing, on average, higher temperatures. The second version of their model predicts more of a symmetrical north/south warming pattern.

By April of 2005, the Canadian Climate Center was demonstrating its third version of a Coupled Global Climate Model, which went back and improved the design and data for atmospheric variables. Results from their second version are online in very well done animated maps showing changes in surface air temperature, precipitation and soil moisture through the year 2099. One generalized result they highlight is "that surface air temperature changes accelerate with time and that there is more warming over land and polar regions than over the oceans."

What is global warming?

2009-01-25T02:50:00.000-08:00

Global warming is based on a very simple hypothesis. Anthropogenic (human caused) emissions of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) contribute a layer of gasses around earth's atmoshpere. The accumulation of GHGs then blocks some of earth's emanating heat from escaping to space, causing a general heating or global warming pattern.

The global scientific and political community, under the direction of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) identifies six primary greenhouse gases

carbon dioxide (CO₂)
methane (CH₄)
nitrous oxide (N₂O)
hydroflurocarbons (HFCs)
perflourocarbons (PFCs)
sulphur hexaflouride (SF6)

Considerations about the degree to which GHGs influence climate change deal with two sets of issues.

Aggregate emissions trends estimate the volume of each of the six GHGs released into the atmosphere per year.

Of equal importance is the relative power of the various GHGs to act as atmospheric road blocks that keep heat in the atmosphere.

Scientists call this road blocking ability the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of a gas. The standard measurement unit is 1 for Carbon, and it turns out Carbon is the least effective of the GHGs in trapping earth's heat.

For comparative purposes, over a twenty year time span, Methane's GWP=56, Nitrorus Oxide's GWP=310 and the GWP of the engineered chemicals varies from 460-16,000 (see UNFCCC Global Warming Potential.

Each GHG also has a life span, or time it remains stable in the atmosphere. Whereas the numbers for carbon look somewhat benign in terms of its GWP, they start to look a bit more daunting when considered in terms of life span.

Scientists estimate that CO₂ remains stable in the atmosphere for anywhere from 50-200 years. Methane, on the other hand, remains stable only about 12 years. Nitrous Oxide's life span reaches the 120 year mark.

Finally the engineered chemicals may remain stable for anywhere from 2 to 50,000 years for Perfluoromethane.

First Submarine Designed in 1578

2008-12-26T00:16:00.000-08:00

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) made sketches of a submarine and William Bourne, a British mathematician, drew plans for a submarine in 1578. But it was only in 1620 that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch inventor, managed to build a submarine. He wrapped a wooden rowboat tightly in waterproofed leather and had air tubes with floats to the surface to provide oxygen. Of course, there were no engines yet, so the oars went through the hull at leather gaskets. He took the first trip with 12 oarsmen in the Thames River - staying submerged for 3 hours.

The first submarine used for military purposes was built in 1776 by David Bushnell (1742-1824) of the US. His "Turtle" was a one-man, wooden submarine powered by hand-turned propellers. It was used during the American Revolution against British warships. The Turtle would approach enemy ships partially submerged to attach explosives to the ships's hull. The Turtle worked well but the explosives did not.

Two rival inventors from the US developed the first true submarines in the 1890s. The US Navy purchased submarines built by John P Holland, while Russia and Japan opted for the designs of Simon Lake. Their submarines used petrol or steam engines for surface cruising and electric motors for underwater travel. They also invented torpedoes which were propelled by small electric motors, thereby introducing one of the most dangerous weapons in the world.

Submarines are also called U-boats, which is short for Unterseeboot, the German word for undersea boat.

The first nuclear-powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched in 1955. In 1958 the Nautilus made the first voyage under the polar ice pack, completing the 2945 km (1,830 miles) journey in 6 days.

The first submerged circumnavigation of earth was made in 1960 by the nuclear submarine USS Triton.

Human Head Contains 22 Bones

2008-12-19T02:29:00.000-08:00

The human head contains 22 bones, consisting the cranium and the facial bones. The cranium is formed by 8 bones: the frontal bone, two parietal bones, two temporal bones, the occipital bone in the back, the ethmoid bone behind the nose, and the sphenoid bone. The face consists of 14 bones including the maxilla (upper jaw) and mandible (lower jaw). (The skull has many little holes in its base which allow the cranial nerves to travel to their destinations.)

The cranium protects the brain, which, for an average adult male weighs about 1400 gram (49oz). The brain of Russian novelist Turgenev, weighed 2021g (71oz), Bismarck's brain weighed 1807g (64oz), while that of famous French statesman Gambetta was only 1294g (46oz). Female average brain mass is slightly less than that of males. The largest woman's brain recorded weighed 1742g (6oz). Einstein's brain was of average size.

An elephant's brain weighs 5000g (176oz or 11 lb), a whale's 10000g (352oz or 22lb). In proportion to the body, the whale has a much smaller brain than man. This seem to give man the edge, until it was discovered that the dwarf monkey has 1g of brain per 27g (0.95oz) of body, and the capuchin monkey has 1g of brain per 17,5g body, whereas man has 1 gram of brain to 44g of body.

Most scientists believe that "photographic memory" is a myth. Clever people train their brains to remember well. In fact, as humans we simply do not remember things well. Of the three beings known to be able to recognise themselves in the mirror, the orangutan, the dolphin and the human, only the latter turns around and instantly cannot remember what his/her own face looks like. (Try drawing a picture of yourself without looking in the mirror:)

The human brains consists of more than 100 billion neurons (nerve cells) through which the brain's commands are sent in the form of electric pulses. These pulses travel at more than 400 km/h (250 mph), creating enough electricity to power a lightbulb. The brain consumes more energy than any other organ, burning up a whopping one-fifth of the food we take in.

It is estimated that the mental capacity of a 100-year old human with perfect memory could be represented by computer with 10 to the power of 15 bits (one petabit). At the current rate of computer chip development, that figure can be reached in about 35 years. However, that represents just memory capacity, not the extremely complex processes of thought creation and emotions.

But consider this: for all the complexity of the brain, you still have only one thought at a time. Make it a positive thought.

Factoids
One-quarter of the brains in used to control the eye. We actually see with our brains, with the eyes basically being cameras.
You're born with 300 bones, but when you get to be an adult, you only have 206.

Nobody Knows Who Invented Spectacles

2008-12-19T02:24:00.000-08:00

Roman tragedian Seneca (4 BC–AD 65) is said to have read "all the books in Rome" by peering through a glass globe of water. A thousand years later, presbyopic monks used segments of glass spheres that could be laid against reading material to magnify the letters, basically a magnifying glass, called a "reading stone." They based their invention on the theories of the Arabic mathematician Alhazen (roughly 1000 AD). Yet, Greek philosopher Aristophanes (c. 448 BC-380 BC) knew that glass could be used as a magnifying glass. Nevertheless it was not until roughly 150 AD that Ptolemy discovered the basic rules of light diffraction and wrote extensively on the subject. (The laws of diffraction was formulated much later by Snellius, between 1600 and 1620.)

Venetian glass blowers, who had learned how to produce glass for reading stones, later constructed lenses that could be held in a frame in front of the eye instead of directly on the reading material. It was intended for use by one eye; the idea to frame two ground glasses using wood or horn, making them into a single unit was born in the 13th century.

In 1268 Roger Bacon made the first known scientific commentary on lenses for vision correction. Salvino D’Armate of Pisa and Alessandro Spina of Florence are often credited with the invention of spectacles around 1284 but there is no evidence to conclude this. The first mention of actual glasses is found in a 1289 manuscript when a member of the Popozo family wrote: "I am so debilitated by age that without the glasses known as spectacles, I would no longer be able to read or write." In 1306, a monk of Pisa mentioned in a sermon: "It is not yet 20 years since the art of making spectacles, one of the most useful arts on earth, was discovered." But nobody mentioned the inventor.

In the Middle Ages wearing spectacles signified knowledge and learning. Painters of the time often included spectacles when portraying famous persons even when depicting people who lived before the known invention of spectacles. On numerous paintings the religious teacher Sofronius Eusebius Hieronymus (340 - 420 AD) is portrayed with a lion, a skull and a pair of reading glasses. He is the patron saint of spectacle makers.

It actually is true that eating carrots can help you see better. Carrots contain Vitamin A, which feeds the chemicals that the eye shafts and cones are made of. The shafts capture black and white vision. The cones capture colour images.

The oldest known lens was found in the ruins of ancient Nineveh and was made of polished rock crystal.

In 1718, Edward Scarlett, a London optician, put arms on eyeglasses to hold them on the ears.

About one person in 30 is colour blind. More men than women are affected by colour blindness.

Healthy eyes are so sensitive to light that a candle burning in the dark can be detected 1,6km (1 mile) away. The human eye can distinguish about 10 million different colours. There currently is no machine that can achieve this remarkable feat.

70% of Earth Affected by Desertification

2008-12-19T02:06:00.001-08:00

About 3,6 billion of the world's 5.2 billion hectares of useful dryland for agriculture has suffered erosion and soil degradation. In more than 100 countries, 1 billion of the 6 billion world population is affected by desertification, forcing people to leave their farms for jobs in the cities.

Desertification is devouring more than 20,000 square miles of land worldwide every year. Desertification affects 74% of the land in North America. In Africa, more than 2.4 million acres of land (73% of its drylands) are affected by desertification.

Desertification takes place in dryland areas where the earth is especially fragile, where rainfall is nil and the climate harsh. The result is the destruction of topsoil followed by loss of the land's ability to sustain crops, livestock or human activity. The economic impact is horrendous, with a loss of more than $40 billion per year in agricultural goods and an increase in agricultural prices.

Climatic changes can trigger the desertification process, but human activities frequently are the proximate cause. Overcultivation exhausts the soil. Deforestation removes trees that hold the soil to the land. Overgrazing of livestock strips the land of grasses. According to a UN study, about 30% of earth's land - including the 70% of dryland - is affected by drought. Every day, about 33,000 people starve to death.

Desertification creates conditions that intensify wildfires and stirring winds, adding to the tremendous pressure to earth's most precious resource, water, and, of course, the animals dependant on it. According to the World Wide Fund for Nature, the world lost about 30% of its natural wealth between 1970 and 1995.

Dust from deserts and drylands is blown into cities around the world. Dust from Africa reaches Europe through the Pasat wind, and even reaches US cities. Dust particles, which are less than 2,5 millionths of a metre in size, are inhaled, causing health problems and have been shown to boost death rates.

Desertification can be stopped, but unfortunately is usually is brought to public attention when the process is well underway.

Deserts are encroaching cities. Sahara dunes tower over Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. Just 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was covered with grasses and shrubs.

70% of Earth Affected by Desertification

2008-12-19T02:06:00.000-08:00

About 3,6 billion of the world's 5.2 billion hectares of useful dryland for agriculture has suffered erosion and soil degradation. In more than 100 countries, 1 billion of the 6 billion world population is affected by desertification, forcing people to leave their farms for jobs in the cities.

Desertification can be stopped, but unfortunately is usually is brought to public attention when the process is well underway.

Deserts are encroaching cities. Sahara dunes tower over Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. Just 5,000 years ago, the Sahara was covered with grasses and shrubs.

World's highest bridge is in the Himalayans

2008-12-16T00:47:00.000-08:00

The highest bridge in the world can be found in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. The valley lies at an altitude of about 5 602 m (18,379 ft) above sea level on the India side of Kashmir. Called the Baily Bridge, it is only 30 metres (98 ft) long, and was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.

If you were thinking of the bridge that stands highest over water, then the Royal Gorge Bridge over the Arkansas River in Colorado, US is your answer. Built in 1929 for $350,000, it spans 321 m (1,053 ft) above the water.

The highest road in the world runs along the Himalayan ridge in Kashmir.

The largest bridge in the world is the 13,27 km (8,25 miles) long Trans Bay Bridge which links San Francisco to Oakland. It was built in 1936 at a cost of $77 million. The longest bridge in the world is the Pontchartrain bridge in New Orleans, USA with a total length of 38,6 km (24 miles). It was completed in 1956. The most expensive bridge is the Seto-Ohashi-Kojima bridge in Japan. At 13,22 km (8,21 miles) long, it was built in 1988 at a cost of $8.3 billion.

The world's largest natural bridge is the Rainbow Bridge, tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base of Navajo Mountain, Utah, USA. It is a natural wonder. From its base to the top of the arch, it reaches 88,4 m (290 ft) - nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty - and spans 83,8 m (275 ft) across the river. The top of the arch is 12,8 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide.

The World's busiest bridge is the Howrah bridge across the river Hooghly in Calcutta. In addition to 57000 vehicles a day it carries a huge number of pedestrians across its 457 m (1,500 ft) long 22 m (72 ft) wide span.

2 700 languages spoken in the world

2008-12-16T00:32:00.000-08:00

The "invention" of language is not known except for references in the Bible. It is not known what language Adam and Eve spoke. The first mention of different languages is the reference to the tower of Babel when different tongues were bestowed.

The invention of writing, however, is credited to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia in the 4th millennium BC. Their descendants, the Sumero-Babylonians, developed the time system that we use today: an hour divided into 60 minutes, which are divided into 60 seconds.

Today, there are more than 2 700 different languages spoken in the world, with more than 7 000 dialects. In Indonesia alone, 365 different languages are spoken. More than 1,000 different languages are spoken in Africa. The most difficult language to learn is Basque, which is spoken in north-western Spain and south-western France. It is not related to any other language in the world. Mandarin is the most spoken language in the world, followed by English. But as home language, Spanish is the second most spoken in the world.

Why are camels called "ships of the desert?"

2008-12-16T00:31:00.001-08:00

Camels are called "ships of the desert" because of the way they move, not because of their transport capabilities. Camels sway from side to side because they move both legs on one side at the same time, elevating that side. This is called pacing, a ship-like motion which can make the rider feel sick

Why do onions make you cry?

2008-12-16T00:29:00.002-08:00

Onions, like other plants, are made of cells. The cells are divided into two sections separated by a membrane. One side of the membrane contains an enzyme which helps chemical processes occur in your body. The other side of the membrane contains molecules that contain sulfur. When you cut an onion, the contents on each side of the membrane mix and cause a chemical reaction. This reaction produces molecules such as ethylsufine which make your eyes water.
To prevent crying when you cut an onion, cut it under a running tap of cold water. The sulfur compounds dissolve in water and are rinsed down the sink before they reach your eyes. You can also put the onion in the freezer for ten minutes before you cut it. Cold temperatures slow down the reaction between the enzyme and the sulfur compounds so fewer of the burning molecules will reach your eyes.

Why is the sky blue?

2008-12-16T00:29:00.001-08:00

When sunlight travels through the atmosphere, it collides with gas molecules. These molecules scatter the light. The shorter the wavelength of light, the more it is scattered by the atmosphere. Because it has a shorter wavelength than the other colours, blue light is scattered more, ten times more than red light, for instance. That is why the sky is blue.
Why does the setting sun look reddish orange? When the sun is on the horizon, its light takes a longer path through the atmosphere to reach your eyes than when the sun is directly overhead. By the time the light of the setting sun reaches your eyes, most of the blue light has been scattered out. The light you finally see is reddish orange, the colour of white light minus blue.

Why is it called a "loo?"

2008-12-16T00:27:00.000-08:00

The British word for toilet, "loo", derives from the French "garde a l'eau!" In medieval Europe people had little conception of hygiene and threw the contents of their chamber pots out the window into the street below. In France the practice was preceded by "garde a l'eau!" ("watch out for the water!"). In England, this phrase was Anglicised, first to "gardy-loo!", then just "loo", and eventually came to mean the toilet/lavatory itself. The American word for toilet, "john", is called after the John Harington who in 1596 invented an indoor water closet for Queen Elizabeth I.

Why did Columbus and others try to sail around the world?

2008-12-16T00:26:00.000-08:00

You probably know that people native to the Americas are called "Indians" because early explorers like Christopher Columbus thought they had come across the Indian spice islands. Traders were forced to sail westward after the spice route to the East by land was blocked for Europeans by Muslim uprisings.

If blood is red, why are veins blue?

2008-12-16T00:25:00.001-08:00

Blood is bright red in its oxygenated form and a dark red in deoxygenated form. In simpler terms, it is bright red when it leaves the lungs full of oxygen and dark red when it returns to the lungs for a refill. Veins appear blue because light penetrating the skin is absorbed and reflected in high energy wavelengths back to the eye. Higher energy wavelengths are blue.

Why are there bunnies and eggs at Easter?

2008-12-16T00:24:00.000-08:00

The ancient Anglo-Saxons celebrated the return of spring with a carnival commemorating their goddess of offspring and of springtime, Eostre. The word carnival possibly originated from the Latin 'carne vale' meaning "flesh, farewell" or "meat, farewell." The offerings were rabbits and coloured eggs, bidding an end to winter.
As it happened, the pagan festival of Eostre occurred at the same time of year as the Christian observance of the Resurrection of Christ and it didn't take the Christian missionaries long to convert the Anglo-Saxons when they encountered them in the second century. The offering of rabbits and eggs eventually became the Easter bunny and Easter eggs.

Why do people kiss under the mistletoe at Christmas?

2008-12-16T00:23:00.000-08:00

In ancient myth, when the son of the Norse goddess Frigga was killed by an arrow made of mistletoe and then brought back to life, she blessed the mistletoe and bestowed a kiss on all who passed beneath it. In the 18th century, the legend was adopted as a promise to marry. At Christmas a lady standing under a mistletoe may not refuse a kiss. If she does, she cannot expect to marry the following year. So it is told.

Why is blue for boys and pink for girls?

2008-12-16T00:21:00.000-08:00

In ancient times, it was believed that certain colours could combat the evil spirits that lingered over nurseries. Because blue was associated with the heavenly spirits, boys were clothed in that colour, boys then being considered the most valuable resource to parents. Although baby girls did not have a colour associated with them, they were mostly clothed in black. It was only in the Middle Ages when pink became associated with baby girls.

Why does water not calm the tongue after eating hot spicy food?

2008-12-16T00:20:00.000-08:00

The spices in most of the hot foods that we eat are oily, and, like your elementary school science teacher taught you, oil and water don't mix. In this case, the water just rolls over the oily spices.
What can you do to calm your aching tongue? Eat bread. The bread will absorb the oily spices. A second solution is to drink milk. Milk contains a substance called "casein" which will bind to the spices and carry them away. Alcohol also dissolves oily spices.

Why does wet fabric appear darker?

2008-12-16T00:16:00.000-08:00

When fabric gets wet, light coming towards it refracts within the water, dispersing the light. In addition, the surface of the water causes incoherent light scattering. The combination of these two effects causes less light to reflect to your eyes and makes the wet fabric appear darker.

Accumulator (energy)

2008-12-07T18:29:00.001-08:00

An accumulator is an apparatus by means of which energy can be stored, such as a rechargeable battery or a hydraulic accumulator. Such devices may be electrical, fluidic or mechanical and are sometimes used to convert a small continuous power source into a short surge of energy or vice versa. Other examples of accumulators include capacitors, compulsators, steam accumulator, wave energy machines, pumped-storage hydroelectric plants.

In general usage in an electrical context the word accumulator would normally mean a lead-acid battery.

Yakult

2008-12-07T18:05:00.000-08:00

Japanese Yakult.

Chinese Yakult.

Yakult Light 65ml from Australia

Yakult (ヤクルト, Yakuruto) is a Japanese probiotic milk-like product made by fermenting a mixture of skimmed milk with a special strain of the bacteria Lactobacillus casei Shirota. Yakult Honsha Co., Ltd. (株式会社ヤクルト本社, Kabushiki-gaisha Yakuruto Honsha) (TYO: 2267) It was created by Minoru Shirota who graduated from the Medical School of Kyoto University in 1930. In 1935, he started manufacturing and selling Yakult. Official claims state that the name is derived from jahurto, an older form of jogurto, the Esperanto word for "yogurt".^[1]^[2] Since then, Yakult has also introduced a line of beverages for the Japanese market that contain Bifidobacterium breve bacteria, and has also used its lactobacilli research to develop cosmetics. More recently, the Yakult Honsha played a major role in developing the chemotherapy drug irinotecan (Camptosar, CPT-11).^[3]

Yakult also owns one of Japan's major baseball franchises, the Tokyo Yakult Swallows.

After its introduction in Japan and Taiwan, Yakult was first sold in the Western world in Brazil in 1966, due to the large number of Japanese immigrants in the country, before it was marketed elsewhere^[4]. Today, Yakult is sold in 31 countries^[5], although its bacteria cultures are provided from a mother strain from Japan regardless of production location.^{[citation needed]}

Yakult is marketed in different sizes. In Australia, Europe and Indonesia, Yakult comes in 65mL bottles. In America, Japan and the Philippines, 80 ml bottles are available. In Singapore (where it is known as 益多 yì duō), Taiwan (where it is known as 養樂多 yǎng lè duō) and mainland China (where it is known as 益力多 yì lì duō), it comes in 100 ml bottles. ^[6]^[7]^[8] In South Korea, where it is also produced, it is called yakult (hangul: 야쿠르트) and is marketed by the Korea Yakult company.

Singapore is the only country where Yakult is available in flavors (orange, grape, and apple) other than the original.

Ingredients

Standard Yakult (excludes variations such as in Yakult Light) contains ^[9]:

Sugar (sucrose) to balance sourness with sweetness.
Skim milk powder
Dextrose
Natural flavours
Live Lactobacillus casei shirota strain , 6.5 billions per 65 mL bottle (concentration of 10⁸ CFU/mL)
Water

Scientific basis

The claimed benefits are supported by an array of scientific studies according to the manufacturer website [1]. Those could range from maintenance of gut flora [2], modulation of the immune system [3], regulation of bowel habits and constipation [4] and finally effects on some gastro-intestinal infections [5].

Although the number of scientific papers is certainly large, most of them are related to in vitro and in vivo experiments, with some human clinical trials done on cohorts^[10]^[11]^[12] and with daily consumption of 40-100 billions of probiotic L. casei shirota [6], far above the single bottle concentration of approximately 6 billion.

Nutrition Facts

Standard Yakult contains 18g of sugar for every 100g, but comes in 65 mL bottles. This concentration is higher than the level defined as “HIGH” by the UK Food Standards Agency (described for concentrations of sugar above 15g per 100g)[7]. As a comparison Coca-Cola and orange juices are in the range of 10g of sugar per 100g, but with a serving size usually higher than 250 ml the total sugar quantity is higher. Based on the content of milk protein (1.4 g per 100 mL [8]), it is not classified as a flavoured fermented milk of the Codex Standard for Fermented Milks. However, based on the existence of many products like Yakult in the world market, a new category is going to be established into the current Codex Standard for Fermented Milks.

Through Nutrient profiling guidelines, current health claim regulation in European Union may forbid the use of health claim on food products that are nutritionally unbalanced, but dairy products and probiotic drinks are likely to be considered as favorable carrier because their health benefits outweigh the fact they might be high in one of the designated 'unhealthy' ingredients [9].

Lactobacillus casei

2008-12-07T18:04:00.001-08:00

Lactobacillus casei is a species of genus Lactobacillus found in the human intestine and mouth. As a lactic acid producer, it has been found to assist in the propagation of desirable bacteria. This particular species of lactobacillus is documented to have a wide pH and temperature range, and complements the growth of L. acidophilus, a producer of the enzyme amylase (a carbohydrate-digesting enzyme). It is known to improve digestion and reduce milk intolerance and constipation.

The most common application of L. casei is industrial, specifically for dairy production. However, a team of scientists from Simón Bolívar University in Caracas, Venezuela found that by using Lactobacillus casei bacteria in the natural fermentation of beans, the beans contained lower amounts of the compounds causing flatulence upon digestion.

Lactobacillus casei is typically the dominant species of non starter lactic acid bacteria (NSLAB) present in ripening Cheddar cheese and recently, the complete genome sequence of L. casei ATCC 334 has become available. L. casei is also the dominant species in naturally fermented Sicilian green olives.[1]

Some L. casei has been shown to inhibit the growth of H. pylori, while helping balance the microflora of the large intestine.[2]. Some L. casei are considered as probiotic and may be effective in alleviation of gastrointestinal pathogenic bacterial diseases.[3]. According to World Health Organization, those properties have to be demonstrated on each specific strain—including human clinical studies—to be valid [1].

Among the best documented probiotic L.casei, L. casei DN-114001 and L. casei Shirota have been extensively studied and are widely available as functional foods (see Actimel, Yakult).

In the past few years, there are many studies in the decolorization of azo dyes by lactic acid bacteria such as L. casei TISTR 1500, L. paracasei, Oenococcus oeni. With the azoreductase activity, mono-, di- azo bonds are degraded completely, and generate other aromatic compounds as intermediates.[4]

Lactobacillus bulgaricus

2008-12-07T18:02:00.000-08:00

Lactobacillus delbrueckii subspecies bulgaricus (until 1984 known as Lactobacillus bulgaricus) is one of several bacteria used for the production of yogurt. First identified in 1905 by the Bulgarian doctor Stamen Grigorov, it is named after Bulgaria. Morphologically, it is a Gram-positive rod that may appear long and filamentous. It is also non-motile, and it does not form spores. It has complex nutritional requirements, including the inability to ferment any sugar except for lactose. This bacterium is also regarded as aciduric or acidphilic, due to the fact that it requires a relatively low pH (around 5.4-4.6) in order to grow effectively.

The bacterium feeds on milk and produces lactic acid which also helps to preserve the milk. It breaks down lactose and is often helpful to sufferers of lactose intolerance, whose digestive systems lack the enzymes to break down lactose to simpler sugars. While fermenting milk, Lactobacillus bulgaricus produces acetaldehyde, which perfumes yogurt. Some of the biggest importers of the bacterium are Japan, USA and the EU.

Colonial Era of Indonesia

2008-12-07T17:56:00.000-08:00

Beginning in the sixteenth century, successive waves of Europeans—the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British—sought to dominate the spice trade at its sources in India Spice Islands' (Maluku) of Indonesia. This meant finding a way to Asia to cut out Muslim merchants who, with their Venetian outlet in the Mediterranean, monopolised spice imports to Europe. Astronomically priced at the time, spices were highly coveted not only to preserve and make poorly preserved meat palatable, but also as medicines and magic potions. and the '

The arrival of Europeans in South East Asia is often regarded as the watershed moment in its history. Other scholars consider this view untenable,^[17] arguing that European influence during the times of the early arrivals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was limited in both area and depth. This is in part due to Europe not being the most advanced or dynamic area of the world in the early fifteenth century. Rather, the major expansionist force of this time was Islam; in 1453, for example, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, while Islam continued to spread through Indonesia and the Philippines. European influence, particularly that of the Dutch, would not have its greatest impact on Indonesia until the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Portuguese

The nutmeg plant is native to Indonesia's Banda Islands. Once one of the world's most valuable commodities, it drew the first European colonial powers to Indonesia.

Europeans were, however, making technological advances. New found Portuguese expertise in navigation, ship building and weaponry allowed them to make daring expeditions of exploration and expansion. Starting with the first exploratory expeditions sent from newly-conquered Malacca in 1512, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to arrive in Indonesia, and sought to dominate the sources of valuable spices^[18] and to extend the Catholic church's missionary efforts. Initial Portuguese attempts to establish a coalition and peace treaty in 1512 with the Sunda Kingdom at Kalapa ^[19] failed due to hostilities amongst other indigenous Javan kingdoms. The Portuguese turned east to Maluku, which comprised a varied collection of principalities and kingdoms that were occasionally at war with each other but maintained significant inter-island and international trade. Through both military conquest and alliance with local rulers, they established trading posts, forts, and missions in eastern Indonesia including the islands of Ternate, Ambon, and Solor. The height of Portuguese missionary activities, however, came at the latter half of the sixteenth century, after the pace of their military conquest in the archipelago had stopped and their commercial interest in Indonesia was shifting to Japan, Macau and China as well as sugar in Brazil and the Atlantic slave trade.

The Portuguese presence in Indonesia was reduced to Solor, Flores and Timor in modern day Nusa Tenggara, following defeat in 1575 at Ternate at the hands of indigenous Ternateans, Dutch conquests in Ambon, north Maluku and Banda, and a general failure to maintain control of trade in the region.^[20] In comparison with the original Portuguese ambition to dominate Asian trade, their influences on Indonesian culture are small: the romantic keroncong guitar ballads; a number of Indonesian words which reflect Portuguese’s role as the 'lingua franca' of the archipelago alongside Malay; and many family names in eastern Indonesia such as da Costa, Dias, de Fretes, Gonsalves, etc. The most significant impacts of the Portuguese arrival were the disruption and disorganisation of the trade network mostly as a result of their conquest of Malacca, and the first significant plantings of Christianity in Indonesia. There have continued to be Christian communities in eastern Indonesia through to the present, which has contributed to a sense of shared interest with Europeans, particularly among the Ambonese.^[21]

Dutch East-India Company

The logo of the Amsterdam Chamber of the Dutch East-India Company (VOC).

An early 18th century Dutch map from a time when only the north coastal ports of Java were well known to the Dutch

In 1602, the Dutch parliament awarded the VOC a monopoly on trade and colonial activities in the region at a time before the company controlled any territory in Java. In 1619, the VOC conquered the West Javan city of Jayakarta, where they founded the city of Batavia (present-day Jakarta). The VOC became deeply involved in the internal politics of Java in this period, and fought in a number of wars involving the leaders of Mataram and Banten (Bantam).

The Dutch followed the Portuguese aspirations, courage, brutality and strategies but brought better organisation, weapons, ships, and superior financial backing. Although they failed to gain complete control of the Indonesian spice trade, they had much more success than the previous Portuguese efforts. They exploited the factionalisation of the small kingdoms in Java that had replaced Majapahit, establishing a permanent foothold in Java, from which grew a land-based colonial empire which became one of the world's richest colonial possessions.^[22]

Dutch state rule

Batavian (Jakarta) tea factory in the 1860s

After the VOC was dissolved in 1800 following bankruptcy,^[18] and after a short British rule under Thomas Stamford Raffles, the Dutch state took over the VOC possessions in 1816. A Javanese uprising was crushed in the Java War of 1825-1830. After 1830 a system of forced cultivations and indentured labour was introduced on Java, the Cultivation System (in Dutch: cultuurstelsel). This system brought the Dutch and their Indonesian collaborators enormous wealth. The cultivation system tied peasants to their land, forcing them to work in government-owned plantations for 60 days of the year. The system was abolished in a more liberal period after 1870. In 1901 the Dutch adopted what they called the Ethical Policy, which included somewhat increased investment in indigenous education, and modest political reforms.

For most of the colonial period, Dutch control over its territories in the Indonesian archipelago was tenuous. It was only in the early 20th century, three centuries after the first Dutch trading post, that the full extent of the colonial territory was established and direct colonial rule exerted across what would become the boundaries of the modern Indonesian state.^[23] Portuguese Timor, now East Timor, remained under Portuguese rule until 1975 when it was invaded by Indonesia. The Indonesian government declared the territory an Indonesian province but relinquished it in 1999.

Annexation of West Irian

2008-12-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

At the time of independence, the Dutch retained control over the western half of New Guinea, and permitted steps toward self-government and a declaration of independence on December 1, 1961. After negotiations with the Dutch on the incorporation of the territory into Indonesia failed, an Indonesian paratroop invasion December 18 preceded armed clashes between Indonesian and Dutch troops in 1961 and 1962. In 1962 the United States pressured the Netherlands into secret talks with Indonesia which in August 1962 produced the New York Agreement, and Indonesia assumed administrative responsibility for West Irian on May 1, 1963.

Rejecting United Nations supervision, the Indonesian government under Suharto decided to settle the question of West Irian, the former Dutch New Guinea, in their favor. Rather than a referendum of all residents of West Irian as had been agreed under Sukarno, an "Act of Free Choice" was conducted 1969 in which 1,025 Papuan representatives of local councils were selected by the Indonesians. After training in Indonesian language they were warned to vote in favor of Indonesian integration with the group unanimously voting for integration with Indonesia. A subsequent UN General Assembly resolution confirmed the transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia.

West Irian was renamed Irian Jaya ('glorious Irian') in 1973. Opposition to Indonesian administration of Irian Jaya (later known as Papua) gave rise to small-scale guerrilla activity in the years following Jakarta's assumption of control.

Pythagoras Tree

2008-12-06T23:12:00.000-08:00

The Pythagoras tree is a plane fractal Pythagoras because each triple of touching squares encloses a right triangle, in a configuration traditionally used to depict the Pythagorean theorem. constructed from squares. It is named after

If the largest square has a size of 1×1, the entire Pythagoras tree fits snugly inside a box of size 6×4. The finer details of the tree resemble the Lévy C curve.

Construction

The construction of the Pythagoras tree begins with a square. Upon this square are constructed two squares, each scaled down by a linear factor of ½√2, such that the corners of the squares coincide pairwise. The same procedure is then applied recursively to the two smaller squares, ad infinitum. The illustration below shows the first few iterations in the construction process.


Order 0	Order 1	Order 2	Order 3

Area

Iteration n in the construction adds 2ⁿ squares of size (½√2)ⁿ, for a total area of 1. Thus the area of the tree might seem to grow without bound in the limit n→∞. However, some of the squares overlap starting at the order 5 iteration, and the tree actually has a finite area because it fits inside a 6×4 box.

It can be shown easily that the area A of the Pythagoras tree must be in the range 5 < A <>A.

Uses

It is possible that the Pythagoras tree would make very useful fractal antennas with only minor tweaking. This assumption is based on its very high Hausdorff dimension

Pink Cliffs

2008-12-06T23:03:00.000-08:00

The Pink Cliffs are a series of highly-dissected cliffs, approximately 35 mi (56 km) long, along the southeast edge of the Paunsaugunt Plateau in southwestern Utah in the United States. The cliffs form unique rock formations and are largely protected as part of Bryce Canyon National Park.

Grand Canyon (A), Chocolate Cliffs (B), Vermilion Cliffs (C), White Cliffs (D), Zion Canyon (E), Gray Cliffs (F), Pink Cliffs (G), Bryce Canyon (H)

Geologically the cliffs are pink- and red-colored Claron Formation limestones, forming the upper riser of the Grand Staircase which descends southward to the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Hoodoo formation in the Pink Cliffs

Democrats: Obama Needs Hands-on Economic Approach

2008-12-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

AP – President-elect Barack Obama listens to a question at a news conference in Chicago, Wednesday, Dec. 3, …

WASHINGTON – Democrats are growing impatient with President-elect Barack Obama's refusal to inject himself in the major economic crises confronting the country. Obama has sidestepped some policy questions by saying there is only one president at a time. But the dodge is wearing thin. "He's going to have to be more assertive than he's been," House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., told consumer advocates Thursday.

Frank, who has been dealing with both the bailout of the financial industry and a proposed rescue of Detroit automakers, said Obama needs to play a more significant role on economic issues.

"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, he says we only have one president at a time," Frank said. "I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."

Obama has maintained one of the most public images of any president-elect. He has held half a dozen press conferences, where he has entertained question after question about the economy, the mortgage crisis, and the flailing auto industry. He called for passage of extended unemployment benefits — which has passed — and even a stimulus package if possible before Jan. 20. But he has stayed away from trying to dictate remedies for the toughest problems Congress is confronting: the auto industry's troubles and how to spend the $700 billion bailout.

Frank's remarks came as the Bush administration considers whether it needs the second half of the $700 billion of the Troubled Asset Relief Program aimed at helping the financial sector before Obama takes office on Jan. 20.

An Obama official said the Bush administration reached out to the transition team about tapping into the money. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Obama's transition team urged the administration to talk to bipartisan congressional leaders and assemble a meeting between the White House and Congress. The official said the Obama team offered to participate in a bipartisan meeting if it would be helpful.

Earlier this week, Obama was asked whether he worried that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson might begin spending the next installment of the money before he assumes the presidency. Obama demurred.

"Until Secretary Paulson indicates publicly that he's drawing down the second tranche, the second half of the TARP money, it would be speculation on my part to suggest that that money's going to be used up," he told reporters at a Chicago news conference Wednesday.

Obama did stress that a significant component of the fund should be used to reduce the number of foreclosures. But he did not specify a particular remedy.

He also declined to take a stand in a debate over the source of money for an auto loan package. The dispute has divided Democrats and hindered progress on assistance for the industry. At issue is whether to take money from the $700 billion designated for the financial sector or to take it from a previously approved loan aimed at manufacturing more energy efficient cars.

"I think it's premature to get into that issue," Obama said at the conference.

Presidents-elect typically spend the transition period assembling their cabinets, their White House staff and preparing to take the reins of power. But this transition is occurring at an extraordinary time, with bad economic news mounting by the day and with one of the country's major industries begging for a hand to keep from collapsing.

Two Democratic senators involved in trying to salvage the auto companies have said Obama could help move the process along and should become more engaged.

"The Obama team has to step up," Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the lead negotiators, said Nov. 21 in Hartford, Conn. "In the minds of the people, this is the Obama administration. I don't think we can wait until January 20."

Two days later, Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, a point man in helping his state's main industry, called on Obama to help resolve the dispute over money for the auto loan package.

"It would be very helpful if the president-elect would become more involved in resolving the issue over the source of the funds," he said. "I want him to offer his assistance. He is a person who can really bring people together."

Frank, shrewd and quick-witted, also poked fun at Obama's calls for a "post-partisan" governing environment in Washington. Frank predicted that regulatory legislation aimed at preventing abuses related to subprime mortgages and credit cards stood a much better chance next year, when Democrats have greater majorities in the House and Senate.

"It is a grave mistake to assume that parties are irrelevant to this process," he said. "My one difference with the president-elect, about whom I am very enthusiastic, is when he talks about being post-partisan.

"Having lived with this very right wing Republican group that runs the House most of the time, the notion of trying to deal with them as if we could be post-partisan gives me post-partisan depression," Frank said.

Diamphidia

2008-11-28T05:14:00.000-08:00

Diamphidia or Bushman arrow-poison beetle, is an African genus of beetles belonging to the Colorado potato beetle family of Chrysomelidae, the larvae and pupae of which hold a toxic principle used by Bushmen as an arrow poison.^[1]^[2]

Diamphidia nigro-ornata

Discovery

The Swedish explorer, Hendrik Jacob Wikar who travelled in Southern Africa in 1773-1779 seems to have been the first to report on the "poisonous worms", but Hans Schinz was the first scientist to give a detailed description of the process by which poison was used by the Bushmen.

Species

Species in the genus Diamphidia include:

This section is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding this section.

Ecology

Diamphidia nigro-ornata larva

Diamphidia nigro-ornata cocoon

Feeding habits

The adults and larvae of Diamphidia nigro-ornata feed on Commiphora angolensis Engler, while Diamphidia vittatipennis use Commiphora africana (A.Rich.) Engler as a food plant.

Life cycle

Adult females of Diamphidia femoralis Gerstaecker and Diamphidia nigro-ornata Stål lay their eggs on the stems of Commiphora species and coat the eggs with their faeces which harden into a protective covering. As the larval instars develop, the pellets of their own faeces remain attached to their backs and posteriors.^[3] The final instar sheds this faecal coat when entering the soil to pupate. The same behaviour is found in Blepharida, a Flea Beetle and Polyclada, the African Leaf Beetle.^[3] The Diamphidia larvae burrow down for a depth of up to 1 metre in the sand under the food plant, where they may lie dormant for several years before going through a very rapid pupal phase.

Parasites

Diamphidia is parasitised by a carabid Lebistina beetle, the larva of which attaches itself to a mature Diamphidia larva, clinging to it until the Diamphidia has formed its cocoon, enclosing both host and parasite, and then feeding on its host's soft tissue.

Toxicology

The Lebistina larvae are more toxic than their hosts and are preferred by San hunters for arrow poison.^[1]

Diamphotoxin, the poisonous principle in Diamphidia is a highly labile, low molecular weight compound which is bound to a protein protecting it from inactivation. It causes an increased permeability of cell walls, which, while not affecting normal ionic flow between cells, allows easy access to all small ions, thereby fatally disrupting normal cellular ionic levels.Although it has no neurotoxic effect, it produces a lethal haemolytic effect, and may reduce haemoglobin levels by as much as 75%, leading to haemoglobinuria.

2008-11-28T05:06:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama’s Chief Speech Writer at work on his victory speech for the New Hampshire primary election in a hotel lobby. (Jacob Silberberg for The New York Times)

CHICAGO – President-elect Barack Obama’s wordsmith is moving to the West Wing.

In his latest round of White House staff announcements, Mr. Obama said Wednesday that he was naming Jon Favreau as his director of speechwriting. Mr. Favreau, 27, has had a hand in practically every speech that the president-elect has delivered over the last four years, following Mr. Obama from his Senate office to the presidential campaign.

While legend has it that Mr. Obama writes his own speeches longhand on a legal pad, a better historical account will show that he offers input and Mr. Favreau crafts them.

Mr. Favreau, a 2003 graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., began his writing career for Senator John Kerry’s presidential campaign. He is moving from Chicago to Washington.

Asian Beetle Spells Death for Maples So Dear

2008-11-28T05:02:00.000-08:00

WORCESTER, Mass. — People who live in this city’s Greendale neighborhood love the maples that shade their streets in summer and turn beautiful colors in fall. But most of the maples in Greendale are now painted with red dots, indicating that they will be chopped down as early as nextmonth because of an infestation of Asian long-horned beetles that is plaguing thousands of Worcester’s trees.

Stephan Savoia/Associated Press

The Asian long-horned beetle.

When a tornado devastated Worcester in 1953, maples were planted as replacement trees. “Norway maples were readily available back then,” said Brian Breveleri, the city’s urban forester. “And they were popular because they could weather the cold.”

But when Worcester plants new trees this time around, it will vary the type. A tree inventory, completed in 2006, showed that 80 percent of its street trees were maples, which the beetles find irresistible. The city should ideally have about half as many maples.

“Tree diversity helps prevent pests from gaining a foothold,” said Mike Bohne, forest health group leader for the United States Forest Service. “It also makes it so that a community does not lose its entire urban canopy if there is an infestation.”

Asian long-horned beetles, native to China, have also turned up in Illinois, New Jersey and New York, where the federal government has spent $268 million to control them over the last 11 years. Worcester will receive about $70 million from the Agriculture Department over the next two years for its eradication efforts. The discovery of the beetle in New England has raised fears about its threat to the region’s fall foliage and the maple syrup industry, if the infestation spreads farther north.

Only about a third of communities in the Northeast have completed tree inventories, according to the estimates of John Parry, a forester with the Urban Forestry Program for New England and New York. Nationally, Mr. Parry said, the figure is probably lower.

Worcester had the foresight to inventory earlier than most — in 1986 — but it stopped short at that time of making the changes the inventory showed were necessary.

“If Worcester had had the money and expertise to diversify plantings after the 1986 inventory showed there were too many maples,” said David Bloniarz, a scientist with the Forest Service, “things wouldn’t have been so bad today.”

Ithaca, N.Y., doubled its tree diversity after completing an inventory in 1997, said its urban forester, Andy Hilman. Ithaca went from having 200 tree varieties to more than 450, he said.

Ithaca has been a testing ground for new technology developed by the Forest Service that helps inventory takers determine whether pests are responsible for a tree’s abnormal appearance. They enter any symptoms they spot, like small holes in a tree, into a hand-held computer and it tells them which pests could be responsible.

A team of professional inventory takers hired by Worcester failed to notice the beetles in 2006, Mr. Bohne said.

“If they’d had that pest detection software when they did the Worcester inventory,” Mr. Hilman said, “and if they had noticed small holes and sawdust piles, then that could have led to earlier detection.”

With the software improving, cities throughout the country look to tree inventories as having the potential to save millions of dollars. And many are recruiting local volunteers to do such inventories, an option that foresters endorse because it means more people are trained to look for signs of pests.

“In most cases the Asian long-horned beetle was first detected by residents,” said Keith Cline, program manager with the Urban and Community Forestry Program.

In Worcester, Donna Massie, a resident of Greendale, first noticed the beetle this summer and reported it to the authorities. Ms. Massie is eager to help with eradication efforts, but other residents are angry that the beetle went undetected for so long.

“It seems to me that Worcester just drags its feet,” said Donald Huard, 58, a handyman who lives on an affected street. “And now look; the problem is so big it’s really going to change our landscape.”

Ms. Massie, 53, is trying to get her neighbors to stay positive and informed through her Web site, asianlonghornedbeetleitems.com, which also sells beetle-themed goods like lacquered frozen beetles in wooden boxes and beetle Christmas ornaments. She plans to give half her proceeds to the city for replanting.

“Some people blame the government for catching the problem after the beetles already had time to spread,” she said. “But, really, it’s the beetle’s fault, and we’re all responsible, so the best thing to do now is to get educated and deal with the situation before it gets even bigger.”

ecause of an infestation of Asian long-horned beetles that is plaguing thousands of Worcester’s trees

New Smokeless Tobacco Worries Experts

2008-11-28T05:01:00.000-08:00

Camel Snus, the latest smokeless tobacco product to hit the American market, is not your grandfather’s chaw.

Paul Hansen for The New York Times

Snus originated in Sweden. Each single-serve pouch can contain as much as eight milligrams of nicotine.

Available in three flavors and packaged in attractive tins, Snus does not have to be spit out and therefore can be used just about anywhere -- “at a concert, right in front of security guards,” “on a jet from Miami to L.A.,” or at an “overpriced tapas restaurant,” a promotional brochure suggests.

And Snus delivers a powerful dose of nicotine: eight milligrams in each pouch, a spokesman for the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, which manufacturers Snus, acknowledged on Wednesday. A pouch amounts to a single dose.

That’s far more nicotine per gram than is present other popular chewing tobacco products, according to some researchers, who are concerned that Snus may turn out to be both carcinogenic and highly addictive.

Chewing tobacco regularly increases the risk of developing oral cancers; recent studies have associated heavy use with increased odds of pancreatic cancer, as well. The European Union banned sales of an earlier formulation of Snus in 1992 after a World Health Organization study determined the product could cause cancer. Snus is still sold in Sweden, where it originated, and in Norway.

Health officials in West Virginia analyzed a version of Snus marketed earlier this year in parts of the United States and found it contained five milligrams of nicotine per gram of tobacco, or about two milligrams per pouch serving, said Robert Anderson, deputy director of the prevention research center at West Virginia University.

Since then, he said, the amount of tobacco and the concentration of nicotine in each pouch appear to have increased. “The nicotine in these products doesn’t happen by accident,” Mr. Anderson said.

The latest packaging does contain more tobacco, 0.6 grams per pouch instead of 0.4 grams, and therefore more nicotine, according to R.J. Reynolds spokesman David Howard.

The disclosure dismayed some public health officials.

“It’s so high in nicotine that the probability of becoming addicted to it with utilization of just one tin is going to be very high,” said Bruce W. Adkins, director of the division of tobacco prevention of the West Virginia Bureau for Public Health in Charleston, W.Va.

R.J. Reynolds is hoping Snus will appeal to adult tobacco users because it “meets societal expectations as well,” Mr. Howard said. “There is no second-hand smoke, no spitting.”

But by providing users a nicotine fix without lighting up, Snus may tempt consumers to ignore initiatives designed to reduce tobacco use, such as indoor smoking bans, experts said.

Since Snus can be used discreetly, it may also appeal to teenagers, Mr. Anderson said. “The surreptitious aspects of it will be very obvious to them.”

Century Later, Gold Coin Reflects Sculptor’s Vision

2008-11-28T04:58:00.000-08:00

WEST POINT, N.Y. — With the push of a button and some 60 tons of pressure, a blank gold disc was converted into an ultra-high-relief coin at the branch of the United States Mint here Monday, and a century-old vision for America’s coinage was finally fully realized.

Librado Romero/ The New York Times

Edmund C. Moy, director of the mint, with the $20 gold coin, below, struck on Monday.

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Producing the $20 coins, initially conceived by the American sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens in 1907, has been a personal goal of the mint’s director, Edmund C. Moy, since he was appointed in 2006. “Saint-Gaudens was a bit of a poet and wanted to tell a story,” Mr. Moy said at a ceremony Monday at the branch, where the new coin was first struck. “Liberty has visited America and is now marching into the rest of the world, led by enlightenment. America’s best days are ahead.”

In President Theodore Roosevelt’s opinion, those ideals weren’t embodied by existing coins, and he commissioned his friend Saint-Gaudens to come up with fresh designs.

His vision for the coin, known as a double eagle (it was twice the value of the $10 coin known as the eagle), was hailed by Roosevelt and others as a classical masterpiece. A full figure representing Liberty strides toward the viewer, torch raised, hair flowing and robes billowing, one foot on a promontory while the sun rises over the Capitol dome behind her. The reverse shows an eagle in flight over a blazing sun. The coin’s mastery lay chiefly in two trademarks of the sculptor’s style, typical of his medals: the comparatively high relief and the graceful incorporation of lettering in the design.

But one crucial person was not enamored: Charles Barber, chief engraver of the United States Mint at the time and a designer himself of several coins then in circulation — those Roosevelt and much of the public so disliked. According to Alison Frankel’s 2006 book, “Double Eagle,” Barber fought for his turf and did little to smooth the way for Saint-Gaudens’s designs.

Barber’s main critique was that the coin’s exceptionally high relief made production impossibly slow and difficult, and he had a point. In early tests up to 11 strikes per coin were required to bring out all the details. A variation using a smaller but thicker blank had to be abandoned because such a change would need Congressional approval.

Barber then remade the coin in a considerably flatter version that would work for high-volume production. The following year, 1908, Congress insisted that the motto “In God We Trust” be added. Roosevelt, a religious man, considered it inappropriate to put the name of God on money, and had told Saint-Gaudens (who died in August 1907 before production began) to omit it. The motto was inserted, somewhat incongruously, on the coin’s reverse, between the sun and its rays. This version circulated until 1933, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of his response to the Depression, banned hoarding of gold.

Today, the 1907 ultra-high relief $20 trial pieces are highly prized by collectors, not only for their beauty but also for their rarity. Fewer than two dozen survive, and they command six- and seven-figure prices. A circulated flat-relief version, containing a little less than an ounce of gold, typically sells for $800 to $1,200.

The double eagle is still generally considered the most beautiful American coin ever made. “We haven’t been as thoughtful with all our coin designs in the modern era,” Mr. Moy said after the ceremony, adding that he hoped to introduce modern coins that were beautiful, high-tech and uniquely American.

In the 1980s the mint began prod

Terbitkan Entri

ucing gold bullion coins that revived the flat-relief design on one side, in one-ounce sizes and smaller, for investors.

The newest coins, slightly more than an inch in diameter, use the smaller, thicker blanks rejected in 1907, are dated MMIX (2009), and contain exactly an ounce of 24-karat gold. The original coins were larger in size and contained 22-karat gold, hard enough to withstand circulation, but Mr. Moy, said modern investors prefer pure gold, which also has the benefit of being soft enough to turn into ultra-high relief coins.

The first $20 coin will be placed in the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution. The rest, which will be produced for only a year, go on sale to collectors and investors in January, at a price still to be determined, based largely on the current bullion price of gold. (On Monday afternoon it was about $824 an ounce in New York.)

Though the new coin is largely faithful to Saint-Gaudens’s vision, in one respect it won’t resemble the original: the reverse still reads “In God We Trust.”

Guilty Verdict in Cyberbullying Case Provokes Many Questions Over Online Identity

2008-11-28T04:57:00.000-08:00

The defendant in the case, a Missouri woman, was convicted by a federal jury in Los Angeles on three misdemeanor counts of computer fraud for having misrepresented herself on the popular social network MySpace. The woman, Lori Drew, posed as a teenage boy in using the account to send first friendly and then menacing messages to Megan Meier, 13, who killed herself shortly after receiving a message in October 2006 that said in part, “The world would be a better place without you.”

MySpace’s terms of service require users to submit “truthful and accurate” registration information. Ms. Drew’s creation of a phony profile amounted to “unauthorized access” to the site, prosecutors said, a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, which until now has been used almost exclusively to prosecute hacker crimes.

While the Internet’s anonymity was used in this case as a cloak to bully Megan, other users say they have perfectly good reasons to construct false identities online, if only to help protect against the theft of personal information, for example.

“It will be interesting to see if issues of safety and security will eventually trump the hallmark ideology of free, largely anonymous or pseudonymous participation in cyberspace,” said Sameer Hinduja, a professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University.

Andrew M. Grossman, senior legal policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation, said the possibility of being prosecuted for online misrepresentation, while remote, should worry users nonetheless.

“If this verdict stands,” Mr. Grossman said, “it means that every site on the Internet gets to define the criminal law. That’s a radical change. What used to be small-stakes contracts become high-stakes criminal prohibitions.”

The judge in the Los Angeles case, George H. Wu, is to hear motions next month for its dismissal. Ms. Drew’s defense asserts among other things, as it did at trial, that she never read MySpace’s terms of service in detail.

“The reality, recognized by almost everyone, is that the vast majority of Internet users do not read Web site terms of service carefully or at all,” said Phil Malone, director of the Cyberlaw Clinic at Harvard Law School.

Representatives of MySpace declined to make any executives available for interviews about the case. In a statement, the site said that it did not tolerate cyberbullying and would continue to work with industry experts to raise awareness of the “harm it can potentially cause.”

Mr. Hinduja, who writes for the research site CyberBullying.us, said there had been a handful of cases involving teenagers who were “driven to suicide in part because of cyberbullying by peers.” What drew the greatest attention to Megan’s death, he said, was that it involved the actions of an adult, Ms. Drew, now 49, whose daughter’s friendship with Megan had soured.

It remains easy to create a fraudulent account on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, though a witness at Ms. Drew’s trial, Jae Sung, a MySpace vice president for customer care, said “impostor profiles” were deleted when they were flagged by users or discovered by the Web site’s employees.

A number of corporations are competing to develop age verification software for Web sites. But relying on technology to confirm a user’s identity is not without drawbacks. There are legitimate reasons to hide one’s name and other information online, be it concern about identity theft or a need for comfort when asking for advice or help.

“We’ve been telling our kids to lie about ID information for a long time now,” said Danah Boyd, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, at Harvard.

Ms. Boyd said forms of digital street outreach were needed.

“There are lots of kids hurting badly online,” she said. “And guess what? They’re hurting badly offline, too. Because it’s more visible online, people are blaming technology rather than trying to solve the underlying problems of the kids that are hurting.”

e woman, Lori Drew, posed as a teenage boy in using the account to send first friendly and then menacing messages to

2008-11-02T01:31:00.000-07:00

The Wright brothers, Orville (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were two Americans who are generally credited^[1]^[2]^[3] with inventing and building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on 17 December 1903. In the two years afterward, the brothers developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. Although not the first to build and fly experimental aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent aircraft controls that made fixed wing flight possible.

The brothers' fundamental breakthrough was their invention of "three axis-control", which enabled the pilot to steer the aircraft effectively and to maintain its equilibrium.^[4] This method became standard and remains standard on fixed wing aircraft of all kinds.^[5]^[6] From the beginning of their aeronautical work, the Wright brothers focused on unlocking the secrets of control to conquer "the flying problem", rather than developing more powerful engines as some other experimenters did. Their careful wind tunnel tests produced better aeronautical data than any before, enabling them to design and build wings and propellers more effective than any before.^[7]^[8] Their U.S. patent 821,393 claims the invention of a system of aerodynamic control that manipulates a flying machine's surfaces.^[9]

They gained the mechanical skills essential for their success by working for years in their shop with printing presses, bicycles, motors, and other machinery. Their work with bicycles in particular influenced their belief that an unstable vehicle like a flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice.^[10] Their bicycle shop employee Charlie Taylor became an important part of the team, building their first aircraft engine in close collaboration with the brothers.

The Wright brothers' status as inventors of the airplane has been subject to counter-claims by various parties. Much controversy persists over the many competing claims of early aviators.

Childhood

Orville, April 1876

Wilbur, April 1876

The Wright brothers were two of seven children born to Milton Wright (1828–1917) and Susan Catherine Koerner (1831–1889). Wilbur Wright was born near Millville, Indiana in 1867; Orville in Dayton, Ohio in 1871. The brothers never married. The other Wright siblings were named Reuchlin (1861–1920), Lorin (1862–1939), Katharine (1874–1929), and twins Otis and Ida (born 1870, died in infancy). In elementary school, Orville was given to mischief and was once expelled.^[11] In 1878 their father, who traveled often as a bishop in the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, brought home a toy "helicopter" for his two younger sons. The device was based on an invention of French aeronautical pioneer Alphonse Penaud. Made of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to twirl its rotor, it was about a foot long. Wilbur and Orville played with it until it broke, then built their own. In later years, they pointed to their experience with the toy as the initial spark of their interest in flying.^[12]

Early career and research

Wright brothers' home at 7 Hawthorn Street, Dayton about 1900. Wilbur and Orville built the covered wrap-around porch in the 1890s.

Both brothers attended high school, but did not receive diplomas. The family's abrupt move in 1884 from Richmond, Indiana to Dayton (where the family had lived during the 1870s) prevented Wilbur from receiving his diploma after finishing four years of high school.

In the winter of 1885-86 Wilbur was accidentally struck in the face by a hockey stick while playing an ice-skating game with friends, resulting in the loss of his front teeth. He had been vigorous and athletic until then, and although his injuries did not appear especially severe, he became withdrawn, and did not attend Yale as planned. Had he enrolled, his career might have taken a very different path than the extraordinary one he eventually followed with Orville. Instead, he spent the next few years largely housebound, caring for his mother who was terminally ill with tuberculosis and reading extensively in his father's library. He ably assisted his father during times of controversy within the Brethren Church^[13] but also expressed unease over his own lack of ambition.^[14]

Orville dropped out of high school after his junior year to start a printing business in 1889, having designed and built his own printing press with Wilbur's help. Wilbur shook off the lingering depression caused by his accident and joined the print shop, serving as editor while Orville was publisher of the weekly newspaper the West Side News, followed for only a few months by the daily Evening Item. One of their clients for printing jobs was Orville's friend and classmate in high school, Paul Laurence Dunbar, who rose to international acclaim as a ground-breaking African-American poet and writer. The Wrights printed the Dayton Tattler, a weekly newspaper that Dunbar edited for a brief period.^[15]

Capitalizing on the national bicycle craze, the brothers opened a repair and sales shop in 1892 (the Wright Cycle Exchange, later the Wright Cycle Company) and began manufacturing their own brand in 1896. They used this endeavor to fund their growing interest in flight. In the early or mid-1890s they saw newspaper or magazine articles and probably photographs of the dramatic glides by Otto Lilienthal in Germany. The year 1896 brought three important aeronautical events. In May, Smithsonian Institution Secretary Samuel Langley successfully flew an unmanned steam-powered model aircraft. In the summer, Chicago engineer and aviation authority Octave Chanute^[16] These events lodged in the consciousness of the brothers. In May 1899 Wilbur wrote a letter to the Smithsonian Institution requesting information and publications about aeronautics.^[17] Drawing on the work of Sir George Cayley, Chanute, Lilienthal, Leonardo da Vinci, and Langley, they began their mechanical aeronautical experimentation that year. brought together several men who tested various types of gliders over the sand dunes along the shore of Lake Michigan. In August, Lilienthal was killed in the plunge of his glider.

The Wright brothers always presented a unified image to the public, sharing equally in the credit for their invention. Biographers note, however, that Wilbur took the initiative in 1899–1900, writing of "my" machine and "my" plans before Orville became deeply involved when the first person singular became the plural "we" and "our". Author James Tobin asserts, "it is impossible to imagine Orville, bright as he was, supplying the driving force that started their work and kept it going from the back room of a store in Ohio to conferences with capitalists, presidents, and kings. Will did that. He was the leader, from the beginning to the end."^[18]

Ideas about control

Despite Lilienthal's fate, the brothers favored his strategy: to practice gliding in order to master the art of control before attempting motor-driven flight. The death of British aeronaut Percy Pilcher in another hang gliding crash in 1899 only reinforced their opinion that a reliable method of pilot control was the key to successful—and safe—flight. At the outset of their experiments they regarded control as the unsolved third part of "the flying problem". They believed sufficiently promising knowledge of the other two issues—wings and engines—already existed.^[19] The Wright brothers thus differed sharply from more experienced practitioners of the day, notably Ader, Maxim Langley who built powerful engines, attached them to airframes equipped with unproven control devices, and expected to take to the air with no previous flying experience. Though agreeing with Lilienthal's idea of practice, the Wrights saw that his method of balance and control—shifting his body weight—was fatally inadequate.^[20] They were determined to find something better. and

Wright 1899 kite: front and side views, with control sticks. Wing-warping is shown in lower view. (Wright Brothers drawing in Library of Congress)

Based on observation, Wilbur concluded that birds changed the angle of the ends of their wings to make their bodies roll right or left.^[21] The brothers decided this would also be a good way for a flying machine to turn—to "bank" or "lean" into the turn just like a bird—and just like a person riding a bicycle, an experience with which they were thoroughly familiar. Equally important, they hoped this method would enable recovery when the wind tilted the machine to one side (lateral balance). They puzzled over how to achieve the same effect with man-made wings and eventually discovered wing-warping when Wilbur idly twisted a long inner tube box at the bicycle shop.^[22]

Other aeronautical investigators regarded flight as if it were not so different from surface locomotion, except the surface would be elevated. They thought in terms of a ship's rudder for steering, while the flying machine remained essentially level in the air, as did a train or an automobile or a ship at the surface. The idea of deliberately leaning, or rolling, to one side either seemed undesirable or did not enter their thinking.^[23] Some of these other investigators, including Langley and Chanute, sought the elusive ideal of "inherent stability", believing the pilot of a flying machine would not be able to react quickly enough to wind disturbances to use mechanical controls effectively. The Wright brothers, on the other hand, wanted the pilot to have absolute control.^[24] For that reason, their early designs made no concessions toward built-in stability (such as dihedral anhedral (drooping) wings, which are inherently unstable, but less susceptible to upset by gusty sidewinds. wings). They deliberately designed their 1903 first powered flyer with

Flights

Toward flight

In July 1899 Wilbur put wing-warping to the test by building and flying a five-foot box kite in the approximate shape of a biplane. When the wings were warped, or twisted, one end would receive more lift and rise, starting a turn in the direction of the lower end. Warping was controlled by four lines attached to the kite. The lines led to two sticks held by the kite flyer, who tilted them in opposite directions to twist the wings and make the kite bank left or right.

In 1900 the brothers journeyed to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to begin their manned gliding experiments. Wilbur chose the location based on a reply to his first letter to Octave Chanute, whose suggestions included the Atlantic coast for regular breezes and a soft sandy landing surface. Wilbur also requested and scrutinized U.S. Weather Bureau data, and selected Kitty Hawk after writing to the government meteorologist stationed there. The location, although remote, was closer to Dayton than other places Chanute had suggested, including California and Florida. The spot also gave them privacy from reporters, who had turned the 1896 Chanute experiments at Lake Michigan into something of a circus. Chanute visited them in camp each season from 1901 to 1903 and saw gliding experiments, but not the powered flights. The trip from Dayton required a train ride to Cincinnati; change trains for an overnight ride to Old Point Comfort, Virginia (near Newport News); ferryboat to Norfolk; train to Elizabeth City, North Carolina; and boat ride to Kitty Hawk on the Outer Banks.

The gliders

The Wrights based the design of their first full-size glider on the work of their recent predecessors, chiefly the Chanute-Herring biplane hang glider ("double-decker," as the Wrights called it), which flew well in the 1896 experiments near Chicago; and aeronautical data on lift that Lilienthal had published. The Wrights designed the wings with camber, a curvature of the top surface. The brothers did not discover this principle, but took advantage of it. The better lift of a cambered surface compared to a flat one was first discussed scientifically by Sir George Cayley. Lilienthal, whose work the Wrights carefully studied, used cambered wings in his gliders, proving in flight the advantage over flat surfaces. The wooden uprights between the wings of the Wright glider were braced by wires in their own adaptation of Chanute's modified "Pratt truss," a bridge-building design he used in his 1896 glider. The Wrights mounted the horizontal elevator in front of the wings rather than behind, apparently believing this feature would help avoid a nosedive and crash like the one that killed Lilienthal.^[25] (Later, when Santos-Dumont flew his 14-bis in Paris in 1906, the French dubbed the tail-first arrangement a "canard", due to the supposed resemblance to a duck in flight.) Wilbur incorrectly believed a tail was not necessary,^[26] and their first two gliders did not have one. According to some Wright biographers, Wilbur probably did all the gliding until 1902, perhaps to exercise his authority as older brother and to protect Orville from harm.^[27]^[28]

Glider Vital Statistics^[29]
	Wingspan	Wing area	Chord	Camber	Aspect ratio	Length	Weight
1900	17 ft 6 in	165 sq ft (15 m²)	5 ft (2 m)	1/20	3.5	11 ft 6 in	52 lb
1901	22 ft (7 m)	290 sq ft (27 m²)	7 ft	1/12,*1/19	3	14 ft	98 lb
1902	32 ft 1 in	305 sq ft (28 m²)	5 ft	1/20-1/24	6.5	17 ft	112 lb

* (This airfoil caused severe pitch problems; the Wrights modified the camber on-site.)

1900 Glider

The brothers flew the glider only a few days in the early autumn of 1900 at Kitty Hawk. In the first tests, probably Oct. 3, Wilbur was aboard while the glider flew as a kite not far above the ground with men below holding tether ropes.^[30] Most of the kite tests were unpiloted with sandbags or chains (and even a local boy) as onboard ballast.

The 1900 glider. No photo was taken with a pilot aboard.

They tested wing-warping using control ropes from the ground. The glider was also tested unmanned while suspended from a small homemade tower. Wilbur (but not Orville) made about a dozen free glides on only a single day. For those tests, the brothers trekked four miles (6 km) south to the Kill Devil Hills, a group of sand dunes up to 100 feet (30 m) high (where they made camp in each of the next three years). Although the glider's lift was less than expected (causing most tests to be unmanned), the brothers were encouraged because the craft's front elevator worked well and they had no accidents. However, the small number of free glides meant they were not able to give wing-warping a true test.

The pilot lay flat on the lower wing, as planned, to reduce aerodynamic drag. As a glide ended, the pilot was supposed to lower himself to a vertical position through an opening in the wing and land on his feet with his arms wrapped over the framework. Within a few glides, however, they discovered the pilot could remain prone on the wing, headfirst, without undue danger when landing. They made all their flights in that position for the next five years.

1901 Glider

Orville at Kitty Hawk with the 1901 glider, its nose pointed skyward; it had no tail.

Hoping to improve lift, they built the 1901 glider with a much larger wing area and made 50 to 100 flights in July and August for distances of 20 to 400 feet (120 m).^[31] The glider stalled a few times, but the parachute effect of the forward elevator allowed Wilbur to make a safe flat or "pancake" landing, instead of a nose-dive. These incidents wedded the Wrights even more strongly to the canard design, which they did not give up until 1910. The glider, however, delivered two major disappointments. It produced only about one-third the lift calculated and sometimes failed to respond properly to wing-warping, turning opposite the direction intended—a problem later known as adverse yaw. On the trip home after their second season, Wilbur, stung with disappointment, remarked to Orville that man would fly, but not in their lifetimes.

The poor lift of the gliders led the Wrights to question the accuracy of Lilienthal's data, as well as the "Smeaton coefficient" of air pressure, which had been used for over 100 years and was part of the accepted equation for lift.

The Lift Equation
L = lift in pounds k = coefficient of air pressure (Smeaton coefficient) S = total area of lifting surface in square feet V = velocity (headwind plus ground speed) in miles per hour C_L = coefficient of lift (varies with wing shape)

Replica of the Wright brothers' wind tunnel at the Virginia Air and Space Center.

The Wrights—and Lilienthal—used the equation to calculate the amount of lift that wings of various sizes would produce. Based on measurements of lift and wind during the 1901 glider's kite and free flights, Wilbur believed (correctly, as tests later showed) that the Smeaton number was very close to 0.0033, not the traditionally used 60% larger 0.0054, which would exaggerate predicted lift.

Back home, furiously pedaling a strange-looking bicycle on neighborhood streets, they conducted makeshift open-air tests with a miniature Lilienthal airfoil and a counter-acting flat plate, which were both attached to a freely rotating third bicycle wheel mounted horizontally in front of the handlebars. Because the third wheel rotated against the airfoil instead of remaining motionless as the calculations predicted, the Wrights confirmed their suspicion that published data on lift were unreliable, and they decided to expand their investigation. They also realized that trial-and-error with different wings on full-size gliders was too costly and time-consuming. Putting aside the three-wheel bicycle, they built a six-foot wind tunnel in their shop and conducted systematic tests on miniature wings from October to December 1901. The "balances" they devised and mounted inside the tunnel to hold the wings looked crude, made of bicycle spokes and scrap metal, but were "as critical to the ultimate success of the Wright brothers as were the gliders."^[32] The devices allowed the brothers to balance lift against drag and accurately calculate the performance of each wing.^[33] They could also see which wings worked well as they looked through the viewing window in the top of the tunnel. Prior to beginning their wind tunnel experiments, Wilbur, at Chanute's invitation, traveled to Chicago to give a speech to the Western Society of Engineers on September 18, 1901. Wilbur's speech consisted of detailed accounts of his and Orville's glider experiments at Kitty Hawk up to the fall of 1901 and was complemented by a lantern slide show of photographs. Wilbur's speech was the first public account of the brothers' experiments.

1902 Glider

A Big Improvement
At left, 1901 glider flown by Wilbur (left) and Orville. At right, 1902 glider flown by Wilbur (right) and Dan Tate, their helper. Dramatic improvement in performance is apparent. The 1901 glider flies at a steep angle of attack due to poor lift and high drag. In contrast, the 1902 glider flies at a much flatter angle and holds up its tether lines almost vertically, clearly demonstrating a much better lift-to-drag ratio.

Lilienthal had made "whirling arm" tests on only a few wing shapes, and the Wrights mistakenly assumed the data would apply to their wings, which had a different shape. The Wrights took a huge step forward and made basic wind tunnel tests on 200 wings of many shapes and airfoil curves, followed by detailed tests on 38 of them. The tests, according to biographer Howard, "were the most crucial and fruitful aeronautical experiments ever conducted in so short a time with so few materials and at so little expense".^[34] A key discovery was the benefit of longer narrower wings: in aeronautical terms, wings with a larger aspect ratio (wingspan divided by chord—the wing's front-to-back dimension). Such shapes offered much better lift-to-drag ratio than the broader wings the brothers had tried so far.

With this knowledge, and a more accurate Smeaton number, the Wrights designed their 1902 glider. Using another crucial discovery from the wind tunnel, they made the airfoil flatter, reducing the camber (the depth of the wing's curvature divided by its chord). The 1901 wings had significantly greater curvature, a highly inefficient feature the Wrights copied directly from Lilienthal. Fully confident in their new wind tunnel results, the Wrights discarded Lilienthal's data, now basing their designs on their own calculations.

Wilbur Wright pilots the 1902 glider over the Kill Devil Hills, 10 October 1902. The single rear rudder is steerable; it replaced the original fixed double rudder. photo taken by Lorin Wright.

With characteristic caution, the brothers first flew the 1902 glider as an unmanned kite, as they had done with their two previous versions. Rewarding their wind tunnel work, the glider produced the expected lift. It also had a new structural feature: a fixed, rear vertical rudder, which the brothers hoped would eliminate turning problems.

By 1902 they realized that wing-warping created "differential drag" at the wingtips. Greater lift at one end of the wing also increased drag, which slowed that end of the wing, making the aircraft swivel — or "yaw" — so the nose pointed away from the turn. That was how the tailless 1901 glider behaved.

The improved wing design enabled consistently longer glides, and the rear rudder prevented adverse yaw—so effectively that it introduced a new problem. Sometimes when the pilot attempted to level off from a turn, the glider failed to respond to corrective wing-warping and persisted into a tighter turn. The glider would slide toward the lower wing, which hit the ground, spinning the aircraft around. The Wrights called this "well digging"; modern aviators refer to a "ground loop".

Orville apparently visualized that the fixed rudder resisted the effect of corrective wing-warping when attempting to level off from a turn. He wrote in his diary that on the night of 2 October, "I studied out a new vertical rudder". The brothers then decided to make the rear rudder movable to solve the problem.^[35] They hinged the rudder and connected it to the pilot's warping "cradle", so a single movement by the pilot simultaneously controlled wing-warping and rudder deflection. Tests while gliding proved that the trailing edge of the rudder should be turned away from whichever end of the wings had more drag (and lift) due to warping. The opposing pressure produced by turning the rudder enabled corrective wing-warping to reliably restore level flight after a turn or a wind disturbance. Furthermore, when the glider banked into a turn, rudder pressure overcame the effect of differential drag and pointed the nose of the aircraft in the direction of the turn, eliminating adverse yaw.

In short, the Wrights discovered the true purpose of the movable vertical rudder. Its role was not to change the direction of flight, but rather, to aim or align the aircraft correctly during banking turns and when leveling off from turns and wind disturbances. The actual turn — the change in direction — was done with roll control using wing-warping. The principles remained the same when ailerons superseded wing-warping.

Wilbur making a turn 24 October 1902 with the movable rudder.

With their new method the Wrights achieved true control in turns for the first time on 8 October 1902, a major milestone. During September and October they made between 700 and 1,000 glides, the longest lasting 26 seconds and covering 622.5 feet (189.7 m). Hundreds of well-controlled glides after they made the rudder steerable convinced them they were ready to build a powered flying machine.

Thus did three axis-control evolve: wing-warping for roll (lateral motion), forward elevator for pitch (up and down) and rear rudder for yaw (side to side). On 23 March 1903 the Wrights applied for their famous patent for a "Flying Machine", based on their successful 1902 glider. Some aviation historians believe that applying the system of three-axis flight control on the 1902 glider was equal to, or even more significant, than the addition of power to the 1903 Flyer. Peter Jakab of the Smithsonian asserts that perfection of the 1902 glider essentially represents invention of the airplane.^[36]^[37]

Adding power

First flight of the Wright Flyer I, 17 December 1903, Orville piloting, Wilbur running at wingtip. Photo by John T. Daniels of the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, using Orville's tripod-mounted camera

In 1903, the brothers built the powered Wright Flyer I, using their preferred material for construction, spruce, a strong and lightweight wood. They also designed and carved their own wooden propellers, and had a purpose-built gasoline engine fabricated in their bicycle shop. They thought propeller design would be a simple matter and intended to adapt data from shipbuilding. However, their library research disclosed no established formulas for either marine or air propellers, and they found themselves with no sure starting point. They discussed and argued the question, sometimes heatedly, until they concluded that an aeronautical propeller is essentially a wing rotating in the vertical plane.^[38] On that basis, they used data from more wind tunnel tests to design their propellers. The finished blades were just over eight feet long, made of three laminations of glued spruce. The Wrights decided on twin "pusher" propellers (counter-rotating to cancel torque), which would act on a greater quantity of air than a single relatively slow propeller and not disturb airflow over the leading edge of the wings.

Wilbur made a March 1903 entry in his notebook indicating the prototype propeller was 66% efficient. Modern wind tunnel tests on reproduction 1903 propellers show they were more than 75% efficient under the conditions of the first flights, and actually had a peak efficiency of 82%. This is a remarkable achievement, considering that modern wooden propellers have a maximum efficiency of 85%.^[39]

While the early engines used by the Wright brothers are thought to no longer exist, a later example, serial number 17 from circa 1910, is on display at the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

The Wrights wrote to several engine manufacturers, but none met their need for a sufficiently lightweight powerplant. They turned to their shop mechanic, Charlie Taylor, who built an engine in just six weeks in close consultation with the brothers. To keep the weight low enough, the engine block was cast from aluminum, a rare practice for the time. The Wright/Taylor engine was a primitive version of modern fuel-injection systems, having no carburetor or fuel pump. Gasoline was gravity-fed into the crankcase through a rubber tube from the fuel tank mounted on a wing strut.

The propeller drive chains, resembling those of bicycles, were actually supplied by a manufacturer of heavy-duty automobile chain-drives.^[40] The Flyer cost less than a thousand dollars to construct, this in contrast to the 50,000 plus dollars given to Samuel Langley for his man-carrying Great Aerodrome. The Flyer had a wingspan of 40 feet (12 m), weighed 625 pounds (283 kg), and sported a 12 hp (9 kW), 170 pound (77 kg) engine.

In camp at Kill Devil Hills, they suffered weeks of delays caused by broken propeller shafts during engine tests. After the shafts were replaced (requiring two trips back to Dayton), Wilbur won a coin toss and made a three-second flight attempt on December 14, 1903, stalling after takeoff and causing minor damage to the Flyer. In a message to their family, Wilbur referred to the trial as having "only partial success", stating "the power is ample, and but for a trifling error due to lack of experience with this machine and this method of starting, the machine would undoubtedly have flown beautifully."^[41] Following repairs, the Wrights finally took to the air on 17 December 1903, making two flights each from level ground into a freezing headwind gusting to 27 miles (43 km) an hour. The first flight, by Orville, of 120 feet (36.5 m) in 12 seconds, at a speed of only 6.8 mph over the ground, was recorded in a famous photograph. The next two flights covered approximately 175 and 200 feet (60 m), by Wilbur and Orville respectively. Their altitude was about 10 ft above the ground.^[42] Here is Orville Wright's account of the final flight of the day:

Wilbur started the fourth and last flight at just about 12 o'clock. The first few hundred feet were up and down, as before, but by the time three hundred feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when out about eight hundred feet the machine began pitching again, and, in one of its darts downward, struck the ground. The distance over the ground was measured to be 852 feet (260 m); the time of the flight was 59 seconds. The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all. We estimated that the machine could be put in condition for flight again in about a day or two. ^[43]

Orville's notebook entry of December 17, 1903.

The flights were witnessed by five people: Adam Etheridge, John Daniels and Will Dough of the coastal lifesaving crew; area businessman W.C. Brinkley; and Johnny Moore, a boy from the village, making these arguably the first public flights. A telegraph operator relaying a message to their father leaked the news against the brothers' wishes, and highly inaccurate reports ran in several newspapers the next day.^[44] Nevertheless the sheer fact that the flights were reported in so many newspapers and that the telegram was addressed to their father authenticated the brothers claim in many eyes. The press and public reasoning that two brothers wouldn't lie to their father publicly and so close to the failures of the elderly Professor Langley.

After the men hauled the Flyer back from its fourth flight, a powerful gust of wind flipped it over several times, despite the crew's attempt to hold it down. Severely damaged, the airplane never flew again. The brothers shipped it home, and years later Orville restored it, lending it to several U.S. locations for display, then to a British museum (see Smithsonian dispute below), before it was finally installed in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. in 1948.

Trouble establishing legitimacy

In 1904 the brothers built the Flyer II and set up an airfield at Huffman Prairie, a cow pasture eight miles (13 km) northeast of Dayton which bank president Torrance Huffman let them use rent-free. They invited reporters to their first flight attempt of the year on 23 May on the condition that no photographs be taken. Engine troubles and slack winds prevented any flying, and they could manage only a very short hop a few days later with fewer reporters present. Some scholars of the Wrights speculate the brothers may have intentionally failed to fly in order to disinterest reporters in their experiments.^[45] Whether that is true is not known, but after their poor showing local newspapers virtually ignored them for the next year and a half.

Orville in flight over Huffman Prairie in Wright Flyer II. Flight #85, approximately 1,760 feet (536 m) in 40 1/5 seconds, 16 November 1904.

The Wrights were glad to be free from the distraction of reporters. The absence of newsmen also reduced the chance of competitors learning their methods. After the Kitty Hawk powered flights, the Wrights made a decision to begin withdrawing from the bicycle business so they could devote themselves to creating and marketing a practical airplane.^[46] The decision was financially risky, since they were neither wealthy nor government-funded (unlike other experimenters such as Ader, Maxim, Langley and Santos-Dumont). They did not have the luxury of giving away their invention; it was to be their livelihood. Thus, their secrecy intensified, encouraged by advice from their patent attorney, Henry Toulmin, not to reveal details of their machine.

At Huffman Prairie, lighter winds and lower air density than in Kitty Hawk (due to Ohio's higher altitude and higher temperatures) made takeoffs very difficult, and they had to use a much longer starting rail, stretching to hundreds of feet, compared to the 60-foot (18 m) rail at Kitty Hawk. During the spring and summer they suffered many hard landings, real crackups, repeated Flyer damage, and bodily bumps and bruises. On 13 August, making an unassisted takeoff, Wilbur finally exceeded their best Kitty Hawk effort with a flight of 1,300 feet (400 m).

Wilbur flying almost four circles of Huffman Prairie, about 2 and 3/4 miles in 5 minutes 4 seconds; flight #82, November 9, 1904.

Then they decided to use a weight-powered catapult to make takeoffs easier and tried it for the first time on 7 September. On 20 September 1904, Wilbur flew the first complete circle in history by a manned heavier-than-air powered machine, covering 4,080 feet (1,244 m) in about a minute and a half. Their two best flights were 9 November by Wilbur and 1 December by Orville, each exceeding five minutes and covering nearly three miles in almost four circles. By the end of the year the brothers had accumulated about 50 minutes in the air in 105 flights over the rather soggy 85 acre pasture, which, remarkably, is virtually unchanged today from its original condition and is now part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, adjacent to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Despite progress in 1904, the Flyer was still frequently out of control.^[47] The Wrights scrapped the battered and much-repaired airplane, but saved the engine, and in 1905 built a new Flyer III, which included an important design change. The brothers installed a separate control for the rear rudder instead of linking the rudder to the wing-warping "cradle" as before. Each of the three axes—pitch, roll and yaw—now had its own independent control. Nevertheless, this Flyer offered the same marginal performance as the first two. Its maiden flight was June 23 and the first several flights were no longer than 10 seconds.^[48] After Orville suffered a bone-jarring and potentially fatal crash on July 14, they rebuilt the Flyer with the forward elevator and rear rudder both enlarged and placed several feet farther away from the wings.

Wright Flyer III piloted by Orville over Huffman Prairie, 4 October 1905. Flight #46, covering 20 and 3/4 miles in 33 minutes 17 seconds; last photographed flight of the year.

These modifications greatly improved stability and control, setting the stage for a series of six dramatic "long flights" ranging from 17 to 38 minutes and 11 to 24 miles (39 km) around the three-quarter mile course over Huffman Prairie between 26 September and 5 October. Wilbur made the last and longest flight, 24.5 miles (39.4 km) in 38 minutes and 3 seconds, ending with a safe landing when the fuel ran out. The flight was seen by a number of people, including several invited friends, their father Milton, and neighboring farmers.^[49] Reporters showed up the next day (only their second appearance at the field since May the previous year), but the brothers declined to fly. The long flights convinced the Wrights they had achieved their goal of creating a flying machine of "practical utility" which they could offer to sell.

The only photos of the flights of 1904-1905 were taken by the brothers. (A few photos were damaged in the Great Dayton Flood of 1913, but most survived intact.) In 1904 Ohio beekeeping businessman Amos Root, a technology enthusiast, saw a few flights including the first circle. Articles he wrote for his beekeeping magazine were the only published eyewitness reports of the Huffman Prairie flights, except for the unimpressive early hop local newsmen saw. Root offered a report to Scientific American magazine, but the editor turned it down. As a result, the news was not widely known outside of Ohio, and was often met with skepticism. The Paris edition of the Herald Tribune headlined a 1906 article on the Wrights "FLYERS OR LIARS?"

In years to come Dayton newspapers would proudly celebrate the hometown Wright brothers as national heroes, but the local reporters somehow missed one of the most important stories in history as it was happening a few miles from their doorstep. James M. Cox, publisher at that time of the Dayton Daily News (later governor of Ohio and Democratic presidential nominee in 1920), expressed the attitude of newspapermen—and the public—in those days when he admitted years later, "Frankly, none of us believed it."^[50] A few newspapers published articles about the long flights, but no reporters or photographers had been there. The lack of splashy eyewitness press coverage was a major reason for disbelief in Washington, D.C. and Europe and in journals like Scientific American, whose editors doubted the "alleged experiments" and asked how U.S. newspapers, "alert as they are, allowed these sensational performances to escape their notice."^[51]

The Wright brothers were certainly complicit in the lack of attention they received. Fearful of competitors stealing their ideas, and still without a patent, they flew on only one more day after 5 October. From then on, they refused to fly anywhere unless they had a firm contract to sell their aircraft. They wrote to the U.S. government, then to Britain, France and Germany with an offer to sell a flying machine, but were rebuffed because they insisted on a signed contract before giving a demonstration. They were unwilling even to show their photographs of the airborne Flyer. The American military, having recently spent $50,000 on the Langley Aerodrome—a product of the nation's foremost scientist—only to see it plunge twice into the Potomac River "like a handful of mortar," was particularly unreceptive to the claims of two unknown bicycle makers from Ohio.^[52]Alberto Santos-Dumont and American Glenn Curtiss entered the limelight. Thus, doubted or scorned, the Wright brothers continued their work in semi-obscurity, while other aviation pioneers like Brazilian

The Wright brothers made no flights at all in 1906 and 1907 while they pursued fitful negotiations with the U.S. and European governments. After finally signing contracts with a French company and the U.S. Army, they went back to Kitty Hawk in May 1908 with the 1905 Flyer, modified with seats for pilot and passenger, and began practicing for their all-important demonstration flights. Their contracts required them to be able to carry a passenger. After tests with sandbags in the passenger seat, Charlie Furnas, a helper from Dayton, became the first fixed-wing aircraft passenger on a few short flights 14 May. For safety, and as a promise to their father, Wilbur and Orville did not fly together. Later that day after flying solo seven minutes, Wilbur suffered his worst crash when, still not well-acquainted with the two upright control levers, he apparently pushed one the wrong way and slammed the Flyer into the sand between 40 and 50 miles an hour. He emerged with bruises and a cut nose, but the accident ended the practice flights—and the airplane's flying career.

The patent

Their 1903 patent application, which they wrote themselves, was rejected. In early 1904 they hired Ohio patent attorney Henry Toulmin, and on 22 May 1906 they were granted U.S. Patent 821393^[53] for a "Flying Machine".

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office archive

The patent illustrated a non-powered flying machine—namely, the 1902 glider. The patent's importance lies in its claim of a new and useful method of controlling a flying machine, powered or not. The technique of wing-warping is described, but the patent explicitly states that other methods instead of wing-warping could be used for adjusting the outer portions of a machine's wings to different angles on the right and left sides to achieve lateral (roll) control. The concept of varying the angle presented to the air near the wingtips, by any suitable method, is central to the patent. The broad protection intended by this language succeeded when the Wrights won patent infringement lawsuits against Glenn Curtiss and other early aviators who devised ailerons to emulate lateral control described in the patent and demonstrated by the Wrights in their 1908 public flights. U.S. courts decided that ailerons were also covered by the patent, but European court decisions were less definitive—see Patent War section below. The patent also describes the steerable rear vertical rudder and its innovative use in combination with wing-warping, enabling the airplane to make a coordinated turn, a technique that prevents hazardous adverse yaw, the problem Wilbur had when trying to turn the 1901 glider. Finally, the patent describes the forward elevator, used for ascending and descending.

Public showing

Orville demonstrating the flyer to the U.S. Army, Fort Myer, Virginia September 1908. Photo: by C.H. Claudy.

The brothers' contracts with the U.S. Army and a French syndicate depended on successful public flight demonstrations that met certain conditions. The brothers had to divide their efforts. Wilbur sailed for Europe; Orville would fly near Washington, D.C.

Facing deep skepticism in the French aeronautical community and outright scorn by some newspapers that called him a "bluffeur", Wilbur began official public demonstrations on 8 August 1908 at the Hunaudières horse racing track near the town of Le Mans, France. His first flight lasted only one minute 45 seconds, but his ability to effortlessly make banking turns and fly a circle amazed and stunned onlookers, including several pioneer French aviators, among them Louis Bleriot. In the following days Wilbur made a series of technically challenging flights including figure-eights, demonstrating his skills as a pilot and the capability of his flying machine, which far surpassed those of all other pilot pioneers.

The French public was thrilled by Wilbur's feats and flocked to the field by the thousands. The Wright brothers catapulted to world fame overnight. Former doubters issued apologies and effusive praise. "L'Aérophile" editor Georges Besançon wrote that the flights "have completely dissipated all doubts. Not one of the former detractors of the Wrights dare question, today, the previous experiments of the men who were truly the first to fly..."^[54] Leading French aviation promoter Ernest Archdeacon wrote, "For a long time, the Wright brothers have been accused in Europe of bluff... They are today hallowed in France, and I feel an intense pleasure...to make amends."^[55]

On 7 October 1908, Edith Berg, the wife of the brothers' European business agent, became the first American woman airplane passenger when she flew with Wilbur—one of many passengers who rode with him that autumn.^[56]

Orville followed his brother's success by demonstrating another nearly identical flyer to the United States Army at Fort Myer, Virginia, starting on 3 September 1908. On 9 September he made the first hour-long flight, enduring 62 minutes and 15 seconds.

Fort Myer crash. photo by C.H. Claudy

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Fatal fall of Wright airship

On 17 September Army lieutenant Thomas Selfridge rode along as his passenger, serving as an official observer. A few minutes into the flight at an altitude of about 100 feet (30 m), a propeller split and shattered, sending the aircraft out of control. Selfridge suffered a fractured skull in the crash and died that evening in the nearby Army hospital, becoming the first fatality of an airplane crash. Orville was badly injured, suffering a broken left leg and four broken ribs. Twelve years later, after he suffered increasingly severe pains, X-rays revealed the accident had also caused three hip bone fractures and a dislocated hip.^[57] The brothers' sister Katharine, a school teacher, rushed from Dayton to Virginia and stayed by Orville's side for the seven weeks of his hospitalization. She helped negotiate a one-year extension of the Army contract. A friend visiting Orville in the hospital asked, "Has it got your nerve?" "Nerve?" repeated Orville, slightly puzzled. "Oh, do you mean will I be afraid to fly again? The only thing I'm afraid of is that I can't get well soon enough to finish those tests next year."^[58] Deeply shocked by the accident, Wilbur determined to make even more impressive flight demonstrations; in the ensuing days and weeks he set new records for altitude and duration. In January 1909 Orville and Katharine joined him in France, and for a time they were the three most famous people in the world, sought after by royalty, the rich, reporters and the public. The kings of England, Spain and Italy came to see Wilbur fly.

Wright Model A Flyer flown by Wilbur 1908-09 and launching derrick, France, 1909

The Wrights traveled to Pau, in the south of France, where Wilbur made many more public flights, giving rides to a procession of officers, journalists and statesmen—and his sister Katharine on 15 February. He trained two French pilots, then transferred the airplane to the French company. In April the Wrights went to Italy where Wilbur assembled another Flyer, giving demonstrations and training more pilots. A cameraman climbed aboard and made the first motion picture from an airplane.

After their return to the U.S., the brothers and Katharine were invited to the White House where President Taft bestowed awards upon them. Dayton followed up with a lavish two-day homecoming celebration. In July 1909 Orville, with Wilbur assisting, completed the proving flights for the U.S. Army, meeting the requirements of a two-seater able to fly with a passenger for an hour at an average of speed of 40 miles an hour (64 km/h) and land undamaged. They sold the aircraft to the Army's Aeronautical Division, U.S. Signal Corps for $30,000 (which included a $5,000 bonus for exceeding the speed specification). Wilbur climaxed an extraordinary year in early October when he flew at New York City's Hudson-Fulton celebrations, circling the Statue of Liberty and making a 33-minute flight up and down the Hudson River alongside Manhattan in view of up to one million New Yorkers. These flights solidly established the fame of the Wright brothers in America.

Family flights

On 25 May 1910 back at Huffman Prairie, Orville piloted two unique flights. First, he took off on a six-minute flight with Wilbur as his passenger, the only time the Wright brothers ever flew together. They received permission from their father to make the flight. They had always promised Milton they would never fly together to avoid the chance of a double tragedy and to ensure one brother would remain to continue their experiments. Next, Orville took his 82-year old father on a nearly seven-minute flight, the first and only one of Milton Wright's life. The airplane rose to about 350 feet (107 m) while the elderly Wright called to his son, "Higher, Orville, higher!"^[59]

The patent war

In 1908, the brothers warned Glenn Curtiss not to infringe their patent by profiting from flying or selling aircraft that used ailerons. Curtiss refused to pay license fees to the Wrights and sold a plane to the Aeronautic Society of New York in 1909. The Wrights filed a lawsuit, beginning a years-long legal conflict. They also sued foreign aviators who flew at U.S. exhibitions, including the leading French aviator Louis Paulhan. The brothers' licensed European companies, which owned foreign patents the Wrights had received, sued manufacturers in their countries. The European lawsuits were only partly successful. Despite a pro-Wright ruling in France, legal maneuvering dragged on until the patent expired in 1917. A German court ruled the patent not valid due to prior disclosure in speeches by Wilbur Wright in 1901 and Octave Chanute in 1903. In the U.S. the Wrights made an agreement with the Aero Club of America to license airshows which the Club approved, freeing participating pilots from a legal threat. Promoters of approved shows paid fees to the Wrights.^[60] The Wright brothers won their initial case against Curtiss in February 1913, but the decision was appealed.

From 1910 until his death from typhoid fever in 1912, Wilbur took the leading role in the patent struggle, traveling incessantly to consult with lawyers and testify in what he felt was a moral cause, particularly against Curtiss, who was creating a large company to manufacture aircraft. The Wrights' preoccupation with the legal issue hindered their development of new aircraft designs, and by 1911 Wright aircraft were considered inferior to those made by other firms in Europe. Indeed, aviation development in the US was suppressed to such an extent that when the U.S. entered World War I no acceptable American-designed aircraft were available, and the U.S. forces were compelled to use French machines. Orville and Katharine Wright believed Curtiss was partly responsible for Wilbur's premature death, which occurred in the wake of his exhausting travels and the stress of the legal battle.

In January 1914, a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the verdict in favor of the Wrights against the Curtiss company, which continued to avoid penalties through legal tactics. Orville apparently felt vindicated by the decision, and much to the frustration of company executives, he did not push vigorously for further legal action to ensure a manufacturing monopoly. In fact, he was planning to sell the company. In 1917, with World War I underway, the U.S. government pressured the industry to form a cross-licensing organization, the Manufacturers Aircraft Association, to which member companies paid a blanket fee for the use of aviation patents, including the original and subsequent Wright patents. The Wright-Martin company (successor to the Wright company) and the Curtiss company (which held a number of its own patents) each received a $2 million payment. The "patent war" ended, although side issues lingered in the courts until the 1920s. In a twist of irony, the Wright Aeronautical Corporation (another successor) and the Curtiss Aeroplane company merged in 1929 to form the Curtiss-Wright corporation, which remains in business today producing high-tech components for the aerospace industry.

The lawsuits damaged the public image of the Wright brothers, who were generally regarded before this as heroes. Critics said the brothers were greedy and unfair, and compared their actions unfavorably to European inventors, who worked more openly. Supporters said the brothers were protecting their interests and were justified in expecting fair compensation for the years of work leading to their successful invention. Their ten-year friendship with Octave Chanute, already strained by tension over how much credit, if any, he might deserve for their success, collapsed after he publicly criticized their actions.

In business

The Wright Company was incorporated on 22 November 1909. The brothers sold their patents to the company for $100,000 and also received one-third of the shares in a million dollar stock issue and a 10 percent royalty on every airplane sold.^[61] With Wilbur as president and Orville as vice president, the company set up an airplane factory in Dayton and a flying school/test flight field at Huffman Prairie; the headquarters office was in New York City.

In mid-1910 the Wrights changed the design of their airplane, moving the horizontal elevator from the front to the back and adding wheels. It had become apparent by then that a rear elevator would make the airplane easier to control, especially as higher speeds grew more common. This aircraft was designated the "Model B", although the original canard design was never referred to as the "Model A" by the Wrights.

There were not many customers for aircraft, so in the spring of 1910 the Wrights hired and trained a team of salaried exhibition pilots to show off their machines and win prize money for the company — despite Wilbur's disdain for what he called "the mountebank business". The team debuted at the Indianapolis Speedway on June 13. Before the year was over, pilots Ralph Johnstone and Arch Hoxsey died in air show crashes, and in November 1911 the brothers disbanded the team on which nine men had served (four other former team members died in crashes afterward).^[62]

The Wright Company transported the first known commercial air cargo on 7 November 1910 by flying two bolts of dress silk 65 miles (105 km) from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio for the Moorehouse-Marten Department Store, which paid a $5,000 fee. Company pilot Phil Parmelee made the flight—which was more an exercise in advertising than a simple delivery—in an hour and six minutes with the cargo strapped in the passenger's seat. The silk was cut into small pieces and sold as souvenirs.

Between 1910 and 1916 the Wright Company flying school at Huffman Prairie trained 115 pilots who were instructed by Orville and his assistants. Several trainees became famous, including Henry "Hap" Arnold, who rose to Five-Star General, commanded U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II, and became first head of the U.S. Air Force; Calbraith Perry Rodgers, who made the first coast-to-coast flight in 1911 (with many stops and crashes) in a Wright Model EX named the "Vin Fiz" after the sponsor's soft drink; and Eddie Stinson, founder of the Stinson Aircraft Company.

The Smithsonian feud

Samuel P. Langley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution from 1887 until his death in 1906, experimented for years with model flying machines and successfully flew unmanned powered model aircraft in 1896 and 1903. Two tests of his manned full-size motor-driven Aerodrome in October and December 1903, however, were complete failures. Nevertheless, the Smithsonian later proudly displayed the Aerodrome in its museum as the first heavier-than-air craft "capable" of manned powered flight, relegating the Wright brothers' invention to secondary status and ironically triggering a decades-long feud with Orville Wright, whose brother had received help from the Smithsonian when beginning his own quest for flight.

Glenn Curtiss or an assistant coaxes the structurally modified Langley Aerodrome into the air above the surface of Keuka Lake near Hammondsport, N.Y., September 17, 1914.

The Smithsonian based its claim for the Aerodrome on short test flights Glenn Curtiss and his team made with it in 1914. The Smithsonian allowed Curtiss, in an unsavory alliance, to make major modifications to the craft before attempting to fly it.^[63] The Smithsonian hoped to salvage Langley's aeronautical reputation by proving the Aerodrome could fly; Curtiss wanted to prove the same thing to defeat the Wrights' patent lawsuits against him. The tests had no effect on the patent battle, but the Smithsonian made the most of them, honoring the Aerodrome in its museum and publications. The Institution did not reveal the extensive Curtiss modifications, but Orville Wright learned of them from his brother Lorin and a close friend, Griffith Brewer, who both witnessed and photographed some of the tests.^[64]

Orville repeatedly objected to misrepresentation of the Aerodrome, but the Smithsonian was unyielding. Orville responded by loaning the restored 1903 Kitty Hawk Flyer to the London Science Museum in 1928, refusing to donate it to the Smithsonian while the Institution "perverted" the history of the flying machine.^[65] Subsequently Orville would never see his airplane again as he would die before its return to the United States. Charles Lindbergh attempted to mediate the dispute, to no avail. In 1942, after years of bad publicity, and encouraged by Wright biographer Fred Kelly, the Smithsonian finally relented by publishing, for the first time, a list of the Aerodrome modifications and recanting misleading statements it had made about the 1914 tests.^[66] Orville then privately requested the British museum to return the Flyer, but the airplane remained in protective storage for the duration of World War II and finally came home after Orville's death.

On 23 November 1948 the executors of Orville's estate signed an agreement for the Smithsonian to purchase the Flyer for one dollar. At the insistence of the executors, the agreement also included strict conditions for display of the airplane.

Wright Flyer at the National Air and Space Museum

The agreement reads, in part, "Neither the Smithsonian Institution or its successors, nor any museum or other agency, bureau or facilities administered for the United States of America by the Smithsonian Institution or its successors shall publish or permit to be displayed a statement or label in connection with or in respect of any aircraft model or design of earlier date than the 1903 Wright Aeroplane, claiming in effect that such aircraft was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight."^[67] If this agreement is not fulfilled, the Flyer can be reclaimed by the heir of the Wright brothers. Some aviation buffs, particularly those who promote the legacy of Gustave Whitehead, now accuse the Smithsonian of refusing to investigate claims of earlier flights.^[68]After a ceremony in the Smithsonian museum, the Flyer went on public display on 17 December 1948, the 45th anniversary of the only day it was flown successfully.

The Wright brothers' nephew Milton (Lorin's son), who had seen gliders and the Flyer under construction in the bicycle shop when he was a boy, gave a brief speech and formally transferred the airplane to the Smithsonian, which displayed it with the accompanying label:

The original Wright brothers aeroplane The world's first power-driven heavier-than-air machine in which man made free, controlled, and sustained flight Invented and built by Wilbur and Orville Wright Flown by them at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina December 17, 1903 By original scientific research the Wright brothers discovered the principles of human flight As inventors, builders, and flyers they further developed the aeroplane, taught man to fly, and opened the era of aviation

Last years

Wilbur Wright

Neither brother married. Wilbur once quipped ^[69] that he "could not support a wife and a flying machine". He became ill on a trip to Boston in April 1912. After returning to Dayton, he was diagnosed with typhoid fever. He died, age 45, in the Wright family home on 30 May.^[70] His father Milton wrote about Wilbur in his diary: "A short life, full of consequences. An unfailing intellect, imperturbable temper, great self-reliance and as great modesty, seeing the right clearly, pursuing it steadfastly, he lived and died."^[71]

Orville Wright

Orville succeeded to the presidency of the Wright company upon Wilbur's death. Sharing Wilbur's distaste for business but not his brother's executive skills, Orville sold the company in 1915. He, Katharine and their father Milton moved to a mansion, Hawthorn Hill, Oakwood, Ohio, which the newly wealthy family built. Milton died in his sleep in 1917. Orville made his last flight as a pilot in 1918. He retired from business and became an elder statesman of aviation, serving on various official boards and committees, including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), predecessor agency to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Katharine married a former Oberlin classmate in 1926, which greatly upset Orville. He refused to attend the wedding or even communicate with her. He finally agreed to see her, apparently at Lorin's insistence, just before she died of pneumonia in 1929.

On 19 April 1944, the second production Lockheed Constellation, piloted by Howard Hughes and TWA president Jack Frye, flew from Burbank, California to Washington D.C. in 6 hours and 57 minutes. On the return trip, the aircraft stopped at Wright Field to give Orville Wright his last airplane flight, more than 40 years after his historic first flight. He may even have briefly handled the controls. He commented that the wingspan of the Constellation was longer than the distance of his first flight.^[72]

Orville died in 1948 after his second heart attack, having lived from the horse-and-buggy age to the dawn of supersonic flight. Both brothers are buried at the family plot at Woodland Cemetery, Dayton, Ohio.^[73]

Legacy

The Flyer I is now on display in the National Air and Space Museum, a division of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. (See The Smithsonian Issue).

The Flyer III, the only fixed-wing aircraft designated a National Historic Landmark, was dismantled after the 1905 flights. It was reassembled with a two-man upright configuration & new control arrangement and flown at Kitty Hawk in May 1908. The aircraft was restored back to its 1905 prone single pilot design in the late 1940s with the help of Orville. It is on display at Dayton, Ohio in the John W. Berry Sr., Wright Brothers Aviation Center at Carillon Historical Park. The display space for the aircraft was designed by Orville Wright.

Orville instructed that, upon his death, The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, rather than the Smithsonian Institution, should receive his collection of airfoils and devices. The Franklin Institute was the first scientific organization to give the Wright brothers credit and ranking for achieving sustained powered flight. Today, The Franklin Institute Science Museum holds the largest collection of artifacts from the Wright brothers' workshop.

Competing claims

Numerous claims before the Wrights aspire to the title of first powered, manned, controlled, and self-sustaining heavier than air flight, or variations of this classification—see First flying machine for details. Several claims actually were made after the Wrights' first successful flights, and attempt to discount the achievement due to one or more of the following technical reasons: the takeoff rail, the lack of wheels, ground effect, the need for a headwind, and, beginning in 1904, the use of a catapult. Such criticisms are based on the fact that the Wright Flyer did not operate exactly the way people, then and now, expect of fixed-wing aircraft.

The Flyer certainly did not incorporate all the elements and conveniences of a modern airplane, such as wheels. Criticism, however, while faulting the Flyer on the points listed above, often pays less attention to an additional but essential fact: the Flyer, especially by 1905, was the first heavier-than-air, manned, powered, winged machine to fly successfully under full control, using aerodynamic principles developed by the Wright brothers and applied since then on all practical airplanes. That achievement defines the Wright brothers, in the view of many people, as the inventors of the airplane.

The Wright brothers' 17 December 1903 flight is recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, the standard setting and record-keeping body for aeronautics and astronautics, as "the first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight".^[74]

Individual control arrangements

Wilbur and Orville devised slightly different flight controls in the airplanes they built separately in France and the U.S. for their 1908 public demonstrations. The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum refers to "The Wilbur Method" and "The Orville Method". In Wilbur's method, the roll and yaw controls were combined on the same lever at the pilot's right hand. A forward-backward movement controlled the rudder, while a sideways or left-and-right motion controlled wing-warping. In the Orville Method, moving the stick controlled wing-warping, while a knob atop the stick controlled the rudder. In both methods the left-hand lever operated the forward elevator to control pitch. Wilbur trained French and Italian pilots using his method, and Orville trained German pilots while in Germany in 1909 for the Wright GmBh as well as American pilots at the Wright Company flight school using his method.

Ohio/North Carolina rivalry

North Carolina 50 State Quarter features the famous first flight photo of the 1903 Wright Flyer I at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Ohio 50 State Quarter Wright Flyer III built and flown in Ohio, in another famous photo from Huffman Prairie features the 1905

The U.S. states of Ohio and North Carolina both take credit for the Wright brothers and their world-changing inventions — Ohio because the brothers developed and built their design in Dayton, and North Carolina because Kitty Hawk was the site of the first flight. With a spirit of friendly rivalry, Ohio adopted the slogan "Birthplace of Aviation" (later "Birthplace of Aviation Pioneers", recognizing not only the Wrights, but also John Glenn and Neil Armstrong, both Ohio natives), while North Carolina has adopted the slogan "First In Flight".

Each state features these phrases on their standard-issue state automobile license plates, and both states also included an image of a Wright Flyer on their respective 50 state quarters designs.^[75]^[76]

The site of the first flights in North Carolina is preserved as Wright Brothers National Memorial, while their Ohio facilities are part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. As the positions of both states can be factually defended, and each played a significant role in the history of flight, neither state truly has an exclusive claim to the Wrights' accomplishment. While speaking at a presentation at the National Museum of the United States Air Force in Dayton, Neil Armstrong joked that there is enough credit for both states: North Carolina provided the right winds and soft landing material and Dayton provided the know-how, resources and engineering.

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