Canada > Ontario > Mississauga : 60k Earth History Trail
by vegvet

The way points of this running / walking route:

Current Humankind starts journey backward in time meeting up with ancestors.

The Tasmanian's Tale illustrates the identical ancestors point starting from which all living people trace exactly the same set of ancestors back in time. Eve's Tale touches upon coalescent theory, Mitochondrial Eve, Y-chromosomal Adam and polymorphism. The story ends with a speculation that the ABO blood group system in humans and chimps are examples of trans-specific polymorphism; a type-B human may actually be more closely related to type-B chimp than type-B human is related to type-A human, from the perspective of the genes (or alleles) responsible for the antigens. The Ergast's Tale recounts how a mutated form of the FOXP2 gene could have allowed Homo ergaster to acquire language. The Handyman's Tale explains how Homo habilis acquired high 'brain to body mass ratio', at the same time introducing logarithmic scale and scatterplot as tools for scientific studies. Little Foot's Tale examines how hominid first learned to walk on two legs.

6mya - Rendezvous 1 - Chimpanzees and Bonobos join.

Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:[2] Common Chimpanzee, Pan troglodytes (West and Central Africa) Bonobo, Pan paniscus (forests of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) Chimpanzees are members of the Hominidae family, along with gorillas, humans, and orangutans. Chimpanzees split from human evolution about 6 million years ago and the two chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives to humans, all being members of the Hominini tribe (along with extinct species of Hominina subtribe). Chimpanzees are the only known members of the Panina subtribe. The two Pan species split only about one million years ago.

7mya - Rendezvous 2 - Gorillas join.

The Gorilla's Tale considers human's changing attitude towards the great apes, ending with a discussion on racism, speciesism and the Great Ape Project. The closest relatives of gorillas are chimpanzees and humans, all of the Hominidae having diverged from a common ancestor about 7 million years ago.[8] Human genes differ only 1.6% on average from their corresponding gorilla genes in their sequence, but there is further difference in how many copies each gene has.[9] Until recently there was considered to be a single gorilla species, with three subspecies: the Western Lowland Gorilla, the Eastern Lowland Gorilla and the Mountain Gorilla.[10][11] There is now agreement that there are two species with two subspecies each. More recently it has been claimed that a third subspecies exists in one of the species. The separate species and subspecies developed from a single type of gorilla during the Ice Age, when their forest habitats shrank and became isolated from each other.[4] Primatologists continue to explore the relationships between various gorilla populations.[10] The species and subspecies listed here are the ones upon which most scientists agree

14mya - Rendezvous 3 - Orangutans join. Last 'great apes' to join.

The Orangutan's Tale introduces the principle of parsimony and its use in construction of family tree (cladogram) of species. Orangutan is the last of the great apes to join the pilgrimage. Orangutans are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping nests each night from branches and foliage. They are generally not aggressive and live a mostly solitary life foraging for food. They are the largest living arboreal animals with longer arms than other great apes. Their hair is typically reddish-brown, instead of the brown or black hair typical of other great apes. Native to Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are currently found only in rainforests on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, though fossils have been found in Java, the Thai-Malay Peninsula, Vietnam and China. There are only two surviving species, both of which are endangered: the Bornean Orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) and the critically endangered Sumatran Orangutan (Pongo abelii). The subfamily Ponginae also includes the extinct genera Gigantopithecus and Sivapithecus. The word "orangutan" comes from the Malay words "orang" (man) and "(h)utan" (forest); hence, "man of the forest".

18mya - Rendezvous 4 - Gibbons join.

The Gibbon's Tale further elaborates on neighbor-joining, parsimony and textual criticism techniques used to construct cladograms. When simple principle of parsimony proves inadequate to handle 'long branch attraction' problems caused by convergence and reversion, the phylogenetic tree (phylogram) and computational phylogenetic methods such as maximum likelihood analysis are introduced. The tale ends with yet another example of trans-specific polymorphism: sexual dimorphism; the sex-determining SRY has never been in female bodies long since gibbons and humans diverged. This serves to highlight the fact that different phylogenetic trees can be created by tracing different sets of genes; the one mainstream 'species tree' is nothing more than a summary of multitude of gene trees, a 'majority vote' among gene trees. Gibbon is the last ape to join the pilgrimage.

25mya - Rendezvous 5 - Old world monkeys join. 'Drooping nose' Primates.

Old World monkeys, being in the same Catarrhini clade as apes, are closer cousins to apes than to New World monkeys. Old World monkeys are sometimes called the 'tailed apes'. The Old World monkeys or Cercopithecidae are a group of primates, falling in the superfamily Cercopithecoidea in the clade Catarrhini. The Old World monkeys are native to Africa and Asia today, inhabiting a range of environments from tropical rain forest to savanna, shrubland, and mountainous terrain, and are also known from Europe in the fossil record. However, a (possibly introduced) free-roaming group of monkeys still survives in Gibraltar (Europe) to this day. Old World monkeys include many of the most familiar species of non-human primates such as baboons and macaques.

40mya - Rendezvous 6 - New world monkeys join.

The Howler Monkey's Tale calls attention to the critical role of gene duplication in evolution. While our remote vertebrate ancestors possessed trichromatic vision, our nocturnal, warm-blooded, mammalian ancestors lost one of three cones in the retina at the time of dinosaurs. This is why fish, reptiles and birds are trichromatic while all mammals with the exception of apes and New World monkeys are strictly handicapped dichromats. Because color vision is of paramount importance to diurnal animals that eat ripe fruits, apes and New World monkeys regained tri-color vision independently via chromosomal translocation. In apes, trichromacy resulted from true duplication of the opsin gene. New World monkeys first achieved trichromacy in its female population by producing two alleles (green and red) for the same locus for the opsin gene on the X-chromosome, an example of polymorphism. Its males, with only one copy of the X-chromosome, remained dichromats with either a green or a red opsin, an example of heterozygote advantage. Howler monkeys, a type of New World monkey, took this one step further and achieved trichromacy for both sexes when its X-chromosome gained two loci to house both the green allele and the red allele. New World monkeys are the last simians (also known as 'higher primates' or anthropoids) to join the pilgrimage.

58mya - Rendezvous 7 - Tarsiers join. Last 'dry nosed' Primate to join.

Tarsier is the last haplorrhine to join the pilgrimage. A nocturnal animals, the tarsier has two enormous eyes each as large as its brain. Unlike other nocturnal mammals, however, tarsier eyes do not contain tapetum lucidum which reflects light from the back of the eye for a second exposure on the retina to maximize light capture. From this we can infer that the common ancestor of all haplorrhine must have been a diurnal animal which shed the tapetum lucidum to eliminate blurry images caused by reflected light. When the tarsier became a nocturnal animal, it enlarged its eyes to compensate for the lack of tapetum lucidum.

63mya - Rendezvous 8 - Lemurs and bushbabies join.

65mya, K-T Event (5th and Last Major) Extinction wiped out 35% of all species including dinosaurs.

Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event (End Cretaceous or K-T extinction) - 70 to 65 Ma at the Cretaceous.Maastrichtian-Paleogene.Danian transition interval.[5] The K–T event is now called the Cretaceous–Paleogene (or K–Pg) extinction event by many researchers. About 17% of all families, 50% of all genera[6] and 75% of species went extinct.[2] In the seas it reduced the percentage of sessile animals to about 33%. The boundary event was severe with a significant amount of variability in the rate of extinction between and among different clads. Mammals and birds emerged as domininant land vertebrates in the age of new life.

70mya - Rendezvous 9 - Colugus and tree shrews (non-primate mammals) join.

The Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event occurred at 65 million years ago, due to both large scale volcanic activities in the Deccan traps over a period of time, and the final asteroid impact event which created the Chicxulub Crater. The sudden temperature change and sunlight reduction caused massive disruptions to Earth's ecosystem. As a result, all dinosaurs except the birds, as well as numerous other species went extinct. The disappearance of dinosaurs made it possible for many different species of shrew-like, nocturnal insectivores to evolve into hippos, lions, elephants, etc. to fill the new ecological voids, an example of evolutionary radiation. One of these shrew-like creatures was the concestor of the current pilgrimage party and the new joiners, the colugos and tree shrews. The tree shrews resemble the squirrels. The colugos resemble flying squirrels. In both cases, the resemblance is only superficial, due to convergence; the squirrels are rodents and will meet us further down the pilgrimage. At the present, scientists are not yet sure about the exact relationships among the tree shrews, the colugos and us. Dawkins provisionally accepts the view that they join forces first, before meeting the pilgrimage party. This would place our concestor 9 at a time before K-T boundary which marked the extinction of the dinosaurs. The Colugo's Tale warns us that even though the general structure of the family tree is sound, some of the details could change as more evidences become known.

75mya - Rendezvous 10 - Rodents and Rabbitkind join.

85mya - Rendezvous 11 - Laurasiatheres join. Dogs, horses, deer, bats, moles & whales.

95mya - Rendezvous 12 - Xenarthrans join. 'Strange vertebral joints' unite this group of Armadillos, sloths and anteaters.

105mya Rendezvous 13 - Afrotheres join as the last placental mammals

140mya - Rendezvous 14 - Marsupials join.

180mya - Rendezvous 15 - Monotremes join as the last mammals.

The monotremes are the last of the mammals to join us, and we meet a concestor for the first time in the then-contiguous supercontinent of Pangea. The monotremes consititutes only a few genera: Platypus, Short-beaked Echidna and Long-beaked echidna. They are mammals and have typical mammalian features such as warm-bloodedness, hair and milk production. But they resemble reptiles and birds in their possession of the cloaca and their egg-laying mode of reproduction. The Duckbill's Tale warns us about the fallacy of labeling a half-mammal and half-reptile animal such as the duckbill platypus as primitive. The platypus has exactly the same time to evolve as the rest of mammals, even if it does resemble our concestor 15 on the surface. In fact, it has evolved a highly developed form of electroreception served by 40,000 electric sensors, and 60,000 mechanical push rods, both on its large bill to aid it in search of crustaceans in the mud. In human, the brain dedicates disproportionally large amount of cells to the two hands as illustrated by the Penfield brain map, or Penfield homunculus. When the same somatotopic map is drawn for platypus brain, the bill is served by equally prominent percentage of the brain.

RiverGrove Community Centre

2.5k - Rest stop; Refreshments; Washrooms

Triassic–Jurassic (3rd Major) extinction event (End Triassic) - 205 Mya

at the Triassic-Jurassic transition. About 23% of all families and 48% of all genera (20% of marine families and 55% of marine genera) went extinct.[6] Most non-dinosaurian archosaurs, most therapsids, and most of the large amphibians were eliminated, leaving dinosaurs with little terrestrial competition. Non-dinosaurian archosaurs continued to dominate aquatic environments, while non-archosaurian diapsids continued to dominate marine environments. The Temnospondyl lineage of large amphibians also survived until the Cretaceous in Australia

Permian–Triassic (3rd Major) extinction event (End Permian) - 251 Ma

the Permian-Triassic transition. Earth's largest extinction killed 57% of all families and 83% of all genera[6] (53% of marine families, 84% of marine genera, about 96% of all marine species and an estimated 70% of land species) including insects.[7] The evidence of plants is less clear, but new taxa became dominant after the extinction.[8] The "Great Dying" had enormous evolutionary significance: on land, it ended the primacy of mammal-like reptiles. The recovery of vertebrates took 30 million years,[9] but the vacant niches created the opportunity for archosaurs to become ascendant. In the seas, the percentage of animals that were sessile dropped from 67% to 50%. The whole late Permian was a difficult time for at least marine life, even before the "Great Dying".

310mya- Rendezvouz 16 - Sauropsids (non-mammal chordates) join.

The pilgrims are about to join their reptile cousins, after marching for 130 million unbroken years from the last mammal concestor 15 who looks like a shrew to the reptile concestor 16 who looks like a lizard. In these 130 million years, mammal-like reptiles flourished, even before dinosaurs roamed the Earth. But like the 99 percent of all species that ever existed, all branches of mammal-like reptiles are now extinct, so they cannot join us in our pilgrimage. The term reptile is not a true clade name, as it fails to include birds which share a common ancestry. The terms reptile and fish are known as grades which only make sense scientifically when used in the now-discredited theory of progressive evolution (Orthogenesis). Progressive evolution proposes that species evolve independently, in a parallel, progressive direction from fish grade through amphibian grade via reptile grade towards mammal grade. From a cladistic point of view, turtles, lizards, snakes, crocodiles, dinosaurs and birds are all members of the clade Sauropsids which is what Dawkins adapts instead of the term reptile. Dinosaurs, unfortunately as extinct species, cannot join us. But their only surviving descendants, the birds, take their place in the pilgrimage. The Galapagos Finch's Tale addresses a surprising question: why doesn't evolution go much faster than it does? Studies on Galapagos finches show that the Medium Ground-finch (Geospiza fortis) could grow to be as large as the Large Ground-finch (Geospiza magnirostris), if 23 consecutive drought years put pressure on birds to grow larger beaks to better handle bigger and tougher seeds. But such extreme evolutionary speed is not observed in nature, given the geological time life has had on Earth. This is mostly because the rate of evolution follows major trends over geological timescale, while short-term pressures tend to cancel out one another. The Peacock's Tale is the quintessential illustration of sexual selection; the peacock's tail is the ultimate example of non-utilitarian phenotype which appears to be an anomaly in natural selection, as it is a hindrance to peacock's survival in its natural habitat. These arbitrary spurts of evolution can be explained by sexual selection, a special case of natural selection. The runaway explosion of the extravagant tail is created by lockstep dimorphic selections of male's genes for pretty tails and of female's genes for preferring such tails. The preference for pretty tails, in turns, is rooted in their use by males as tokens of underlying fitness; an advertisement of health. Sexual selection often complements other natural selection forces, and helps explain why human became bipedal to free the two hands for tool making and wielding, attained a larger brain with artistic abilities, and shed body hair to advertise lack of ectoparasites during the course of human evolution. The Dodo's Tale illustrates how evolution optimizes genes for the present environment, how it has no foresight, and how it marches blindly sometimes to the detriment of the species. The dodo, originally a flying pigeon related to the Rodrigues Solitaire, reached the remote island of Mauritius and shed its flying powers due to the lack of competition and natural predators to become a Flightless bird. The reallocation of resources away from building of massive breast muscles for flying allowed the dodo to flourish, but ultimately lead to their extinction when European sailors and their carnivorous pets finally arrived. The Elephant Bird's Tale demonstrates how enigmatic distributions of genetically close species in completely separate continents can be explained and corroborated by evidences of continental drift and seafloor spreading. The tale recounts the diaspora of a large group of flightless ratite birds from the then unbroken Gondwana; Moa ended up in New Zealand, rhea in South America, emu in Australia, cassowary in New Guinea, kiwi in New Zealand by island hopping, and ostrich in Africa by way of Asia and Europe. Radioactive dating of and magnetic striping studies on continuously formed crust around rifts such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge allow Paleobiogeographers to piece back a coherent story of these birds' dispersion based on both phylogenetic tree and plate tectonics.

340mya- Rendezvouz 17 - Amphibians join.

Mammals and reptiles (the amniotes) join the amphibians to meet the ancestor of all land vertebrates with four feet, the tetrapod. Amphibians include frogs, toads, salamanders, newts and caecilians. While amniotes either give live births or lay waterproof eggs, the amphibians retain the ancestral practice of laying eggs in water. Unlike the waterproof skin of amniotes, the amphibian skin allows body water to evaporate through it, restricting amphibians to land areas with access to fresh water. The Salamander's Tale uses examples of ring species to illustrate how a continuous series of interbreeding animals in the spatial dimension is conceptually equivalent to that in the time dimension. The Ensatina salamanders in the Central Valley in California form a continuous ring (actually a horseshoe shape) around the valley. Any two neighboring population of Ensatina around the horseshoe can interbreed, but the plain Ensatina eschscholtzii on the western end of the horseshoe cannot interbreed with the large blotched Ensatina klauberi on the eastern end. Larus gulls form another ring species which starts at Herring Gull in Great Britain and ends at Lesser Black-backed Gull in north-western Europe. Dawkins likens both ring species in space to the ring in time that unites humans and chimpanzees via generations of ancestors over 6 million years, with concestor 1 in the midpoint. The Narrowmouth's Tale shows how speciation may still continue via parapatric speciation, when two closely related toad species meet again after initial geographical isolation. Gastrophryne olivacea (Great Plains narrowmouth toad) and Gastrophryne carolinensis (Eastern narrowmouth toad) are closely related and can interbreed when their habitats overlap. But reinforcement, a selection process which increases reproductive isolation via character displacement, causes both species to differentiate their mating calls from each other by shifting pitch and duration in opposite directions; the more the two populations overlap, the more distinct their mating calls become. The Axolotl's Tale is about metamorphosis, a biological process which turns juveniles or larvae into drastically dissimilar adult forms for reproduction, and about pedomorphosis, another process which enables juveniles of some species to become sexually-mature without ever developing into their usual adult forms. Species which undergo metamorphosis include butterflies, barnacles and salamanders. Species which exhibit neoteny, a type of pedomorphosis, include human, ostrich, pekingese and axolotl. A text book example of neoteny, the axolotls are members of the Tiger Salamander complex, yet they become sexually-mature in larva form, remaining aquatic and gilled. With a treatment of thyroxine, it is possible to induce an axolotl to develop into a salamander, demonstrating that axolotl genome still retains information on its lost adult form. On the other hand, newt, a type of salamander, first develops from tadpole into land-based salamander, but later reverts back to its juvenile tadpole form, and returns to the water to reproduce. The axolotl's tale reminds us that paedomorphosis often allows species to break out of an evolutionary dead end by sudden changes.

Streetsville Memorial Park

Rest Stop; Refreshments; Washrooms

Beginning of Late Devonian (2nd Major) extinction - 360-375 Ma

the Devonian-Carboniferous transition. At the end of the Frasnian Age in the later part(s) of the Devonian Period, a prolonged series of extinctions eliminated about 19% of all families, 50% of all genera[6] and 70% of all species.[citation needed] This extinction event lasted perhaps as long as 20 MY, and there is evidence for a series of extinction pulses within this period.

End of Late Devonian (2nd Major) extinction - 360-375 Ma

417mya- Rendezvous 18 - Lungfish join.

425mya- Rendezvous 19 - Coelocanths join.

440mya- Rendezvous 20 - Ray finned fish join.

Ordovician–Silurian extinction event (End Ordovician) - 440-450 Ma

the Ordovician-Silurian transition. Two events occurred that killed off 27% of all families and 57% of all genera.[6] Together they are ranked by many scientists as the second largest of the five major extinctions in Earth's history in terms of percentage of genera that went extinct.

End of Ordovician–Silurian (1st Major) extinction event (End Ordovician) - 440-450 Ma

460mya- Rendezvous 21 - Sharks, Rays and Chimaera fish join.

Cartilaginous fishes chondrichthyan including sharks, rays and chimaeras join the pilgrimage in the Middle Ordovician. The newcomers have no bones. Instead, they are supported by a cartilaginous skeleton that never ossifies, in contrast to bony fishes. Their skin is covered in dermal denticles, tiny scale-like protrusions, from which teeth may have evolved. Interestingly, sharks lack a swim bladder for buoyancy, and instead rely on swimming constantly, retaining urea in their blood, and having large livers with plenty of oil to remain afloat. The Carcharocles megalodon from the Miocene is described as a predator more terrifying than the Great White Shark, as it was three times the size. The strange Chimaera has strange gill covers, has no dermal denticles, and swims using their pectoral fins. Dawkins explains that concestor 21 is ancestor to all gnathostomes, animals with lower jaws, a structure which evolved from the gill arches.

Barbertown Road

Rest stop; Refreshments; Washrooms in Portico Church across the road.

530mya- Rendezvous 22 - Lampreys and Hagfish join.

Get your passport stamped here

560mya- Rendezvous 23 - Lancelets join.

565mya- Rendezvous 24 - Seasquirts join.

A Sea squirt resemble a sedentary bag of sea water anchored to a rock. It feeds on food particles strained from water. Anatomically, the sea squirt looks very different to the joining pilgrimage of all vertebrates and protochordates, that is, until its larvae are examined. The sea squirt larva looks and swims like a tadpole. it possesses a notochord and a dorsal nerve tube, and moves by undulating its post-anal tail from side to side. Vertebrates may have branched off from ancient sea squirt larvae via neoteny, in a process reminiscent of The Axolotl's Tale. But recent DNA analysis on larvacea favors Darwin's initial interpretation, that one branch of ancient tadpole-like protochordates evolved a new metamorphosis stage to turn into sedentary sea squirts.

570mya- Rendezvous 25 - Ambulacrarians join.

Ambulacraria is a clade of invertebrates which includes echinoderms, hemichordates, and Xenoturbellida; a member of this group is called an ambulacrarian. This superphylum is largely identical to the superphylum Deuterostomia, except the phylum Chordata is not found in Ambulacraria. The three living phyla, with representative organisms, are: Phylum Echinodermata (sea stars, sea urchins, brittle stars, sea cucumbers, feather stars, sea lilies, etc.) Phylum Hemichordata (acorn worms, Pterobranchia, and possibly graptolites) Phylum Xenoturbellida (two species of worm-like animals) Fossil taxa that may lie on the stem lineage: ?Superphylum Ambulacraria# unranked clade Cambroernida unranked clade = Eldoniida † Herpetogaster Caron, Conway Morris & Shu, 2010[1] - with one species: † Herpetogaster collinsi Caron, Conway Morris & Shu, 2010[1]

590mya- Rendezvous 26 - Protosomes join.

The current pilgrimage, known as deuterostomes, is joined by a much larger group of animals, the protostomes, to meet the ancestor of almost all organisms in the kingdom Animalia, a worm. Just a single class in the joining sub-kingdom of protostomia, the Insecta, represents three quarter of all animal species on Earth. The great divide between protostomes (meaning 'mouth first') and deuterostomes (meaning 'mouth second') was devised by comparative embryologists based on the way animal embryos diverge after gastrulation where the blastula (a hollow ball of cells) indents to form a cup. In the sub-kingdom of protostomia, the indentation eventually becomes the mouth. In deuterostomia which includes humans, the indentation eventually becomes the anus; the mouth is formed later. An extremely large variety of animal phyla constitute protostomia, including annelid worms (e.g. garden earthworms), flatworms (e.g. tapeworms and flukes), molluscs (e.g. snails, oysters, ammonites and octopuses), and arthropods (e.g. insects, crustaceans, spiders and centipedes). Unlike the species, classes and genera of animals from the pilgrimage prior to this rendezvous point, joining animals from different phyla have no obvious relationship to one another based on traditional anatomy. But modern molecular rangefinding has allowed molecular taxonomists to organize all phyla in the pilgrimage into a hierarchy, with the worm as the concestor of all animals in Bilateria who are bilaterally symmetrical, with left and right side, a dorsal and a ventral side, and a head and a tail end. The Ragworm's Tale talks about the evolution of left-right symmetry in bilaterians. The Brine Shrimp's Tale discusses the possibility of chordates having a back-swimming ancestor. The Leaf Cutter's Tale The Grasshopper's Tale talks about the futility of discriminating between races. The Fruit Fly's Tale introduces Hox genes. The Rotifer's Tale The Barnacle's Tale The Velvet Worm's Tale talks about the Cambrian explosion.

Hewicks Meadows

Rest Stop; Refreshment

630mya - Rendezvous 27 - Aceolomorph flatworms join

Acoelomorphs resemble flatworms in many respects, but have a simpler anatomy, even beyond the absence of a gut. Like flatworms, they have no circulatory or respiratory systems, but they also lack an excretory system. They have no true brain or ganglia, simply a network of nerves beneath the epidermis, although the nerves are slightly more concentrated towards the forward end of the animal. The sensory organs include a statocyst and, in some cases, very primitive pigment-spot ocelli capable of detecting light.[5] They are simultaneous hermaphrodites, but have no gonads, and no ducts associated with the female reproductive system. Instead, gametes are produced from the mesenchymal cells that fill the body between the epidermis and the digestive vacuole.[5]

Get your passport stamped here

680mya- Rendezvous 28 - Cnidarians join.

The Jellyfish's Tale The Polypifer's Tale Fossil cnidarians have been found in rocks formed about 580 million years ago, and other fossils show that corals may have been present shortly before 490 million years ago and diversified a few million years later. Fossils of cnidarians that do not build mineralized structures are very rare. Scientists currently think that cnidarians, ctenophores and bilaterians are more closely related to calcareous sponges than these are to other sponges, and that anthozoans are the evolutionary "aunts" or "sisters" of other cnidarians, and the most closely related to bilaterians. Recent analyses have concluded that cnidarians, although considered more "primitive" than bilaterians, have a wider range of genes.

730mya- Rendezvous 29 - Ctenophores join

Ctenophores form an animal phylum that is more complex than sponges, about as complex as cnidarians (jellyfish, sea anemones, etc.), and less complex than bilaterians, which include almost all other animals. Unlike sponges, both ctenophores and cnidarians have: cells bound by inter-cell connections and carpet-like basement membranes; muscles; nervous systems; and some have sensory organs. Ctenophores are distinguished from all other animals by having colloblasts that capture prey by squirting glue on them, although a few ctenophore species lack them.[1][2]

780mya- Rendezvouz 30 - Placozoans join.

Rest Stop; Refreshment; Checkpoint - Get your passport stamped here.

800mya- Rendezvous 31 - Sponges join.

Sponges are animals of the phylum Porifera (meaning "pore bearer"; pronounced /pɒˈrɪfərə/). Their bodies consist of jelly-like mesohyl sandwiched between two thin layers of cells. While all animals have unspecialized cells that can transform into specialized cells, sponges are unique in having some specialized cells that can transform into other types, often migrating between the main cell layers and the mesohyl in the process. Sponges do not have nervous, digestive or circulatory systems. Instead, most rely on maintaining a constant water flow through their bodies to obtain food and oxygen and to remove wastes, and the shapes of their bodies are adapted to maximize the efficiency of the water flow. All are sessile aquatic animals and, although there are freshwater species, the great majority are marine (salt water) species, ranging from tidal zones to depths exceeding 8,800 metres (5.5 mi).

900mya- Rendezvous 30 - Choanoflagellates (non-animal eucaryotes) join.

The choanoflagellates are a group of free-living unicellular and colonial flagellate eukaryotes considered to be the closest living relatives of the animals. As the name suggests, choanoflagellates (collared flagellates) have a distinctive cell morphology characterized by an ovoid or spherical cell body 3-10 µm in diameter with a single apical flagellum surrounded by a collar of 30-40 microvilli (see figure). Movement of the flagellum creates water currents that can propel free-swimming choanoflagellates through the water column and trap bacteria and detritus against the collar of microvilli where these foodstuffs are engulfed. This feeding provides a critical link within the global carbon cycle, linking trophic levels. In addition to their critical ecological roles, choanoflagellates are of particular interest to evolutionary biologists studying the origins of multicellularity in animals. As the closest living relatives of animals, choanoflagellates serve as a useful model for reconstructions of the last unicellular ancestor of animals.

One billion years ago was Neoproterozoic era (the Tonian period, to be precise). Other than unicellular fungi, bacteria, archeans, and a few multicellular algae and possible primitive metazoans, there was no life during the Tonian period. These primitive organisms probably inhabited the land immediately around water sources. In general, oxygen levels were lower in the Tonian than during the subsequent Cryogenian and Ediacaran, making the evolution of complex life difficult. Microbes gathered into large, thick colonies called microbial mats. These microbial mats have no modern-day analogues, as any exposed mats today would quickly be devoured by animals. Early life was most probably single celled. Multicellularity has evolved independently dozens of times in the history of Earth, for example in plants and animals[1]. Multicellularity exists in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes, and first appeared several billion years ago in cyanobacteria. In order to reproduce, true multicellular organisms must solve the problem of regenerating a whole organism from germ cells (i.e. sperm and egg cells), an issue that is studied in developmental biology. Therefore, the development of sexual reproduction in unicellular organisms during the Mesoproterozoic is thought to have precipitated the development and rise of multicellular life Age estimates prior to this time are tentative. To continue to go back in time from here to the beginning of life on earth according to the scale we have been using so far would require another 35.5k taking you all the way to Queens Quay via Mississauga and Lakeshore Roads

End of Ancestor's Trail Hike

Enjoy a barbeque lunch with ROM and UTM representative to discuss evolutionary biology and geology.

2 billion years ago

The origin of the eukaryotic cell was a milestone in the evolution of life, since they include all complex cells and almost all multi-cellular organisms. The timing of this series of events is hard to determine; Knoll (2006) suggests they developed approximately 1.6–2.1 billion years ago. Some acritarchs are known from at least 1650 million years ago, and the possible alga Grypania has been found as far back as 2100 million years ago.[6]

3 billion years ago

3.6 billion years ago Beginning of life

The current model of the evolution of the first living organisms is that these were some form of prokaryotes, which may have evolved out of protobionts. The eukaryotes are generally thought to have evolved later in the history of life.[15] However, some authors have questioned this conclusion, arguing that the current set of prokaryotic species may have evolved from more complex eukaryotic ancestors through a process of simplification.[16][17][18] Others have argued that the three domains of life arose simultaneously, from a set of varied cells that formed a single a gene pool.[19] This controversy was summarized in 2005:[20] There is no consensus among biologists concerning the position of the eukaryotes in the overall scheme of cell evolution. Current opinions on the origin and position of eukaryotes span a broad spectrum including the views that eukaryotes arose first in evolution and that prokaryotes descend from them, that eukaryotes arose contemporaneously with eubacteria and archeabacteria and hence represent a primary line of descent of equal age and rank as the prokaryotes, that eukaryotes arose through a symbiotic event entailing an endosymbiotic origin of the nucleus, that eukaryotes arose without endosymbiosis, and that eukaryotes arose through a symbiotic event entailing a simultaneous endosymbiotic origin of the flagellum and the nucleus, in addition to many other models, which have been reviewed and summarized elsewhere.

Journey to the beginning of the EARTH

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Partium[1] (from Latin partium, the genitive of pars "part, portion") or Részek (in Hungarian) was a historical and geographical region in the Kingdom of Hungary during the early modern and modern periods. It consisted of the eastern and northern parts of Hungary proper.[note 1] At times, it included Miskolc, and Kassa (today Košice, Slovakia) (see map).

Partium, depicted in the darker colour, and the Principality of Transylvania, 1570

In 1526, after the Battle of Mohács, the Kingdom of Hungary was overrun by the Ottomans, but effectively split into 3 parts in 1541 when the Ottomans captured Buda. The Habsburgs got a foothold in the north and west (Royal Hungary), with the new capital Pressburg (Pozsony, today's Bratislava). King John I of Hungary from the Zápolya house, the former voivode of Transylvania and the wealthiest and the most powerful landlord after Mohács, secured the eastern part of the Kingdom (referred as Eastern Hungarian Kingdom by Hungarian scholars) with the help of the Ottomans. On 29 February 1528, the sultan assented to an alliance with Zápolya and gave written assurance of his support.

From 1541 or 1542, the house of Zápolya also controlled the region that after 1571 became known as Partium.

In 1570, John II Sigismund Zápolya, son of John I Zápolya renounced his claim as King of Hungary (1540-1570) in favour of Maximilian II of Habsburg, who also claimed the title since 1563. Instead John II Sigismund Zápolya remained Prince of Transylvania between 1570 and 1571.

In 1570, by the Treaty of Speyer (Spires), John II Sigismund, John I's son, abdicated as king of Hungary, and a new dukedom was invented for him: "Joannes, serenissimi olim Joannis regis Hungariae, Dalmatiae, Croatiae etc. filius, Dei gratia princeps Transsylvaniae ac partium regni Hungariae" (imperial prince), from which derives the name Partium.

This treaty, like the earlier Nagyvárad accord, endorsed the principle of a united Hungary. Partium and Transylvania were entrusted to John II Sigismund, but under the title of imperial prince. As mentioned above, the Zápolya held Partium before, but the treaty allowed them to do this without fear that the Habsburgs would contest the house of Zápolya's lordship. In a sense, Zápolya traded title for territory.

The Eastern Hungarian Kingdom ceased to exist, and became simply the Principality of Transylvania. All rulings after 1570 as King of Hungary refer to the territory known as "Royal Hungary", and as Prince refer to the Principality of Transylvania which included Partium.

Principality of Transylvania under Gabriel Bethlen, including the seven Partium counties ceded to him at the Peace of Nikolsburg in 1621: Ugocsa, Bereg, Zemplén, Borsod, Szabolcs, Szatmár and Abaúj.

For some decades during the 17th century Partium was part of the Principality of Transylvania, and consequently a part of the Ottoman Empire.[2] On 5 September 1619, the prince of Transylvania, Gabriel Bethlen captured Kassa (now Košice) in Partium Abaúj County with the assistance of the future George I Rákóczi in another anti-Habsburg insurrection. By the Peace of Nikolsburg in 1621, the Habsburgs restored the religious toleration agreement of 1606 and recognized Transylvanian rule over seven stated Partium counties: Ugocsa, Bereg, Zemplén, Borsod, Szabolcs, Szatmár and Abaúj.[3]

These were returned to Habsburg Royal Hungary at Bethlen's death in 1629, but were once again seized by Transylvanian prince George I Rákóczi in 1644 and formally ceded by Habsburg Royal Hungary to Transylvania at the Treaty of Linz (1645).[4]

Geographic extentEdit

Initially Partium consisted of the counties of Máramaros, Közép-Szolnok, Kraszna, and Bihar, as well as the Kővárvidék. The Banate of Severin and eastern Zaránd, that were already part of John II Sigismund’s realm, were also included in what was named Partium. These territories were ruled by Transylvania, but were not formally part of the Principality (later Grand Principality) of Transylvania, and so the name Partium was coined.

All of Transylvania was at the time under permanent threat of being overrun by both Habsburgs and Ottomans. Partium was taken by the Ottoman troops in 1660, but was back in Transylvanian possession by the end of the century, when the latter was absorbed in the Habsburgs' domain in 1687 (de facto) / 1699 (by treaty with the Ottomans).

In the 18th century, the name was used to describe a smaller area, consisting of Közép-Szolnok, Kraszna, the Kővárvidék, and a rump Zaránd, but was not itself an official subdivision.

In 1867, at the Ausgleich, the Partium territories were incorporated into the Transleithanian part of Austria-Hungary. (See comitatus system.)

Present day locationEdit

With the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the end of World War I, Partium was split, under to the terms of the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, among the successor states of the former Kingdom of Hungary: about 60% became part of Romania, about 20% - part of Hungary, and about 20% - part of Czechoslovakia. The latter part, known as Carpathian Ruthenia, was ceded to Soviet Union after World War II and since 1991 belongs to Ukraine.

The flag of Partium voted by the Council for Autonomy in Partium (PAT) in 2015

The Romanian part roughly corresponds to the Crişana and partly Banat regions of Romania. The Hungarian part corresponds to the Hajdú-Bihar county, and small parts of the Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg and Békés counties of Hungary. The Ukrainian part corresponds to the Northern Maramuresh (geographic region) of the Zakarpattia Oblast, Ukraine.

In present-day Hungarian usage Partium chiefly refers to the part of the region that lies in Romania.

Autonomy initiativesEdit

With the support of Hungarian People's Party of Transylvania, which advocates territorial autonomy for Partium,[5][6] the Council for Autonomy in Partium was created in 2013.[7] The Council approved a new flag for Partium in 2015 composed of a Patriarchal cross and Árpád stripes, both traditional symbols of the Hungarian nation featured on the coat of arms of Hungary.

  1. ^ During the early modern period, Hungary was divided and Transylvania, despite being part of the Lands of the Hungarian Crown, was recognized as a distinct polity. The reunification of Transylvania and "Hungary proper" happened in 1868.


transform your life, one meal at a time

April 27, 2017

Story by Bavani, Photos by Amanda Antilla

As I sit across the table from Martin Ronquillo and Norton Gumbo, the co-founders of the iOS application, Meal Prep by Papaya, their enthusiasm and energy are apparent.  I can’t help but step into their world for a moment to see it through their eyes.  Ronquillo, 24, a true blue “Tater” who was raised in Star is a Boise State University graduate and Gumbo, 20, originally from Michigan, is a senior at Boise State.

Ronquillo’s exposure to technology began as early as his junior in high school.  He started initially freelancing as a web developer and then realized his passion of being able to create things of value to others.  He prides himself in being self-taught and observes that “in this exciting era of technology, with the ease of accessibility to open source technology, even those without much experience will be able to develop an app provided they are willing to put in the time to learn.” Together, Ronquillo and Gumbo bring to the table a powerful combination of knowledge and skills, Ronquillo with his business degree and Gumbo with his computer science degree.  They agree, “You really don’t need one degree or the other.  All the knowledge is out there and readily available at your fingertips.  You should feel free to question and challenge preconceived notions.”

The Meal Prep by Papaya application uses the details of a user such as the gender, weight, and height to calculate an individual’s calorie requirements and provide a suggestion for macros (which are nutritional requirements).  A meal plan is then recommended using an in-app recipe database created using the expertise of nutritionists, dietitians, and free recipe websites.  The app currently has nearly 4,800 registered users.

Ronquillo shares that the motivation of the app concept stems from his personal struggle for 8 years to lose weight.  He came to the realization that yo-yo dieting does not work and was at his heaviest and lowest point when he discovered meal planning.  Something resonated.  What started off as breakfast planning turned into planning all his meals ahead of time by coming up with detailed grocery lists and cooking on Sundays for the week ahead.

On the other hand, Gumbo notes, “I didn’t have the same experience as Martin.  I was always fit and ate healthy, somewhat.  But I know that nutrition can make a big change in your daily life.  I like knowing that I can help people feel better about themselves and accomplish their goals.”

One might even call it serendipitous how Ronquillo and Gumbo met.  Working for the same startup company in the spring of 2015, they first met in Salt Lake City during a work meeting at the company’s Airbnb accommodation.  Noticing that Gumbo was the only one of his colleagues who was utilizing the groceries provided to prepare his meals, Ronquillo started an ‘off the record’ interview with questions about the types of meals and the regularity of preparation.  Venture College had taught him the importance of researching customers’ needs before developing a product.

By this time, Ronquillo had already lost 55 pounds and was determined to find a way to “help people eat better.”  During the summer of that year, coincidentally, Ronquillo and Gumbo changed their residences and found that they lived in close proximity. Entering the Boise State Innovation Scramble in 2016, they furthered their research and development exploration.  After pitching the idea at Venture College, they started developing the app during the summer of 2016 using web technology.  They switched to native technology in September that year when they had 1,000 users.

While Ronquillo and Gumbo realize that it is not too difficult to get people to try using the app, their challenge lies in ensuring continuity with their users.  This was overcome by using feedback received to continuously upgrade features and increase the app’s user-friendly elements.  Gumbo believes that “pushing through the hurdles and staying open is the key to success.”

Sharing wisdom from their experience, Gumbo says, “Just know that it’s going to be rough.  Even though we are self-motivated by the concept, and we believe in it, there are days when we are overwhelmed with the work and simply feel knocked down.  A lot of it is just persistence and listening to feedback and not having a single notion of what you want because that may not be the right answer.”

Ronquillo reflects, “Failure isn’t failure.  Failure is a lesson. The setbacks that make it seem like we are ‘failing’ are signs that some change is needed.  Ultimately, what I would tell a younger version of myself to do would be just set a goal and start.  Things align themselves.  Once you have the goal and you set it in motion, you start seeing the opportunities to get there.  Often times it almost feels like luck. But I am a believer that a large part of what luck is you believing that you are lucky then going out and actually doing the things that will allow you to be lucky.”

Gumbo and Ronquillo are excited to discover what opportunities the future holds for them.  In the meantime, they are investing their blood, sweat, and tears to grow their company, increase the number of users and launch the Android version of the app.  They are committed to doing whatever it takes to help improve the quality of people’s lives.  This is their ultimate gratification.

Visit to learn more and get started!


Thomas Paine. By: Auguste Milliere.

There are myriad examples of individuals coming to the United States to enjoy extraordinary success. Some have come to call that the “American Dream.” Perhaps nobody better embodies the American Dream than Thomas Paine, the famous pamphleteer of the late 1700s.

Paine was born in England in 1737 and he did not enjoy extraordinary success while in England. Gordon Wood, Revolutionary Characters: What Made the Founders Different, 208. He bounced between jobs with no notable success. Id. In fact, Gordon Wood concludes that Paine had lived “close to the bottom of English society.” Id. at 209.

Then, in 1774, he moved to the New World and almost immediately, he was writing newspaper articles. Id. Soon thereafter, in January 1776, he wrote Common Sense, the famous pamphlet that some argue would change the course of America’s progress. Id. The pamphlet would go on to sell 150,000 copies at a time when “most pamphlets sold in the hundreds or a few thousand at best.” Id.

Gordon Wood concludes that Paine’s comfort and success in America was attributable to his time spent living toward the bottom of English society, and that those years “primed him to think like an American.” Id. This seemed to be true, as Common Sense became so widespread in American society that it was deemed a “work of genius,” making Paine a celebrity. Id.

Paine’s success in those tumultuous years perhaps best embody the American Dream as he came from a modest life, with nothing but his skill to persuade, and became a revered figure, synonymous with the Revolution. Saving the broader question of what the American Dream truly is for another time, Paine’s success and legacy have endured over the past two centuries, a privilege reserved for few.

The only question is why. The American Dream, at its best, remembers and celebrates those who make significant contributions to American society, for the betterment and improvement of all American lives. That remembrance and celebration occurs, generally, regardless of race, gender, or any trait.

Thomas Paine, as well as the other figures of the Revolution, would be pleased to know that their hard work and dedication has been cherished. He forms one piece of the puzzle that is America’s collection of ideals and accomplishments. With any luck, all individuals who achieve the American Dream will have a place in that puzzle.


Medical Engineering Association is a non-Governmental organization that was created with the purpose of helping in the development of society on levels such as: social, medical and academic. This association focuses especially on scientific research in various domains and subjects with the purpose of achieving breakthroughs in areas at the border line between different fields and disciplines that offer an interdisciplinary approach to the medical problems and also with the intention of creating social programs.

With regards to the social direction of our organization:  MEA organises humanitarian health and aid programs, trying to be part of the development of society in order to increase life’s quality. Through its activities, MEA wants to raise the awarness of the population concerning the main diseases that affect our lives relentlessly day by day, by informing the population about how to protect against these diseases, how to prevent them and how to treat different diseases. We also organize charity activities to offer a new chance for those persons who are in difficult situations; to offer a better environment for the people who live in inappropriate conditions.

In a world that nowadays is in a continuous development and change, science has a great impact on the life quality of humans but also in many fields of activity. While trying to solve the medical aspects, there are a lot of directives MEA wants to follow, amongst these we find: research, scientific meetings and scientific projects. As far as research projects are concerned we try to find solutions for medical problems with the help of interdisciplinary teams. The members of these teams, and not only of these teams but of the entire organizations are and can be: students, specialists such as engineers (from all kind of fields related to medicine), physicians, chemists, biologists, mathematicians, physicists, and people interested in the area of medical engineering. In order to have a high quality research activity, and scientific activity, MEA facilitates the access to the following laboratories, in collaboration with the University “Politehnica” of Timisoara:

LOPIFO (Manufacturing laboratory for implant devices, ortheses and prosthetic devices);
HTEC KELLER (NCC machines laboratory);
Manufacturing laboratory - Rapid Prototyping Fabrication;
Manufacturing laboratory - CNC Machining and EDM fabrication;
Modelling and design laboratory;
Medical imaging laboratory;
CIDUCOS (Testing laboratory);
Medical investigations laboratory;
Motion analysis laboratory.

Through scientific meetings, MEA tries to bring together all the students and all the individuals who are interested in a specific field, for instance biomechanics or medical optics, in order to create a general view. Nevertheless, MEA offers the possibility of taking part at plenty of other scientific activities: intensive lectures, workshops, internships, summer schools, exchange programs, congresses, conferences, symposiums, which comes complementary as a good way of acquiring knowledge in a specific area and as a way of opening the opportunity towards life-long learning.

In order to achieve all the purposes MEA has established, we look forward to having you part of our interdisciplinary team and partners.


This Day in History (9-Feb-1895) – The sport of volleyball is created in Massachusetts

William G. Morgan, joined as director of Physical Education at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Holyoke, Massachusetts, USA. In this role he had the opportunity to establish, develop and direct a vast programme of exercises and sport classes for male adults. He came to realise that he needed a certain type of competitive recreational game in order to vary his programme. Basketball, a sport that was beginning to develop, seemed to suit young people, but it was necessary to find a less violent and less intense alternative for the older members. He decided to blend elements of basketball, baseball, tennis, handball and German game of Faustball  to create a game for his classes of businessmen which would demand less physical contact than basketball. He created the game of mintonette. Morgan borrowed the net from tennis, and raised it 6 feet 6 inches above the floor, just above the average man’s head.

Early in 1896 a conference was organized at the YMCA College in Springfield, bringing together all the YMCA Directors of Physical Education where Morgan was invited to make a demonstration of his game in the new college stadium. Morgan explained that the new game was designed for gymnasia or exercise halls, but could also be played in open air. An unlimited number of players could participate, the object of the game being to keep the ball in movement over a high net, from one side to the other. The name Volleyball came when a spectator commented that the game involved much “volleying” the ball back and forth over the net and game was renamed Volleyball.

In 1964, Volleyball was introduced to the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The beach volleyball was introduced in 1996 Atlanta Olympics. As per the data was provided by each of the International Sports Federations; on the estimates of participants in the sport worldwide (based on 2002 figures) ; volleyball ranks no. 1 with almost 1 billion  players. Volleyball is one of the big five international sports, and the FIVB (Federation Internationale De Volleyball), with its 220 affiliated national federations, is the largest international sporting federation in the world.

This Day in History (25-Dec-1651) – Massachusetts General Court ordered a five shilling fine for “observing any such day as Christmas”

Puritanism was a religious reform movement in the late 16th and 17th centuries that sought to “purify” the Church of England of remnants of the Roman Catholic “popery”. They had firm views on religious holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Scripture did not name any holiday except the Sabbath, they argued, and the very concept of “holy days” implied that some days were not holy. “They for whom all days are holy can have no holiday,” was a common Puritan maxim.

Puritans did not like Christmas as it did not originate as a Christian holiday. The upper classes in ancient Rome celebrated Dec. 25 as the birthday of the sun god Mithra. The date fell right in the middle of Saturnalia, a monthlong holiday dedicated to food, drink, and revelry.  Pope Julius I is said to have chosen that day to celebrate Christ’s birth as a way of co-opting the pagan rituals. Beyond that, the Puritans considered it historically inaccurate to place the Messiah’s arrival on Dec. 25. They thought Jesus had been born sometime in September. Also during Christmas, as a ritual, the rich people offer drinks to poor causing them into bawdy drunkenness. Such decadence never impressed religious purists. “Men dishonor Christ more in the 12 days of Christmas,” wrote the 16th-century clergyman Hugh Latimer, “than in all the 12 months besides.”

Puritans in the English Parliament eliminated Christmas as a national holiday in 1645, amid widespread anti-Christmas sentiment. Settlers in New England (six states in Northeast part of USA including Massachusetts) went even further, outlawing Christmas celebrations entirely. Anyone caught shirking their work duties or feasting on Christmas day was forced to pay a significant penalty of five shillings. Christmas returned to England in 1660, but in New England it remained banned until the 1680s. Christmas Day was formally declared a federal holiday in US by President Ulysses S. Grant in 1870.

This Day in History (28-Jul-1945) – Plane crashes into Empire State Building

The B-25 Mitchell bomber, with Colonel William Smith as a pilot and two more personnel aboard, was flying from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to LaGuardia Airport in New York City. As it came into the metropolitan area on that Saturday morning, the fog was particularly thick. Air-traffic controllers instructed the plane to fly to Newark Airport instead. The last transmission from the LaGuardia tower to the plane was a foreboding warning: “From where I’m sitting, I can’t see the top of the Empire State Building.” Confronted with dense fog, pilot dropped the bomber low to regain visibility, where Smith found himself in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by skyscrapers. At first, the bomber was headed directly for the New York Central Building but at the last minute, Smith was able to bank west and miss it. Unfortunately, this put him in line for another skyscraper. Smith managed to miss several skyscrapers until he was headed for the Empire State Building. At the last minute, Smith tried to get the bomber to climb and twist away, but it was too late. At 9:49 a.m., the ten-ton, B-25 bomber smashed into the north side of the Empire State Building, near the 79th floor.

Upon impact, the plane’s jet fuel exploded, filling the interior of the building with flames all the way down to the 75th floor and sending flames out of the hole the plane had ripped open in the building’s side. One engine from the plane went straight through the building and landed in a penthouse apartment across the street. Other plane parts ended up embedded in and on top of nearby buildings. The other engine snapped an elevator cable while at least one woman was riding in the elevator car. The emergency auto brake saved the woman from crashing to the bottom, but the engine fell down the shaft and landed on top of it. Quick-thinking rescuers pulled the woman from the elevator, saving her life. Since it was a Saturday, fewer workers than normal were in the building. Only 11 people in the building were killed, some suffering burns from the fiery jet fuel and others after being thrown out of the building. The three people on the plane were also killed. An 18 foot by 20 foot hole was left in the side of the Empire State Building.  However its structural integrity was not affected.

This Day in History (24-May-1830) – “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” is published

The nursery rhyme, ‘Mary had a little lamb’ was first published by the Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon, as an original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale on May 24, 1830, and was inspired by an actual incident.

As a young girl, Mary Sawyer (later Mrs. Mary Tyler) kept a pet lamb, which she took to school one day at the suggestion of her brother. A commotion naturally ensued. Visiting school that morning was a young man by the name of John Roulstone, a nephew of the Reverend Lemuel Capen, who was then settled in Sterling. The young man was very much pleased with the incident of the lamb; and the next day he rode across the fields on horseback to the little old schoolhouse and handed Mary a slip of paper which had written upon it the three original stanzas of the poem.

The Redstone School built in 1798, believed to be the school house mentioned in the rhyme, is now located in Sudbury, Massachusetts. In Sterling, Massachusetts, a statue representing Mary’s Little Lamb stands in the town center. The rhyme is also famous for being the very first thing recorded by Thomas Edison on his newly invented phonograph in 1877.  It was the first instance of recorded verse. In 1927 Edison re-enacted the recording which still survives.

It was reported in a 1902 edition of the New York Times Book Review that when Dr Lowell Mason introduced singing into Boston schools in 1827 he asked noted writers to contribute songs and rhymes, and one of the contributors was Sarah Josepha Hale (1788–1879), who supplied ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’.


On Sunday night’s “60 Minutes,” a panel of Michigan voters spent 20 minutes discussing their political differences on screen. It was a moving segment and a powerful one, but it wasn’t all that novel if you’ve been paying attention to the political divide over the past year. The power came not really from what the panelists were saying but who the moderator was: Oprah Winfrey.

Listening, asking, speaking without judgment, trying to find common ground — it was a superb performance by Oprah, and I use the word “performance” advisedly. She was dazzling in exactly the way that Oprah could always be dazzling, finding a tone appropriate for the moment without being heavy-handed.

If any figure in the United States bears watching over the next couple of years as our political culture continues the radical transformation that led to the election of Donald Trump, it’s Oprah. I believe she’s uniquely positioned, should she wish to commit herself, to seek the Democratic nomination for president and challenge Trump in 2020.

If you think that Trump can be beaten by a two-term governor of a Midwestern state with really good ideas about health care, or by a senator who really attracts young people, think again. The idea that a relatively conventional elected official will differentiate herself from Trump by dint of her seriousness or that an unconventional elected official can out-populist Trump is crazy.

It goes beyond that. He’s rich and she’s rich, but she made her $3 billion herself and with no controversy. She is, in herself, the embodiment of the American Dream. He got famous from TV, and so did she, but she became vastly more famous and vastly more successful at it.

She went from Oscar-nominated actress to queen of tabloid TV. Then, sensing a cultural shift, in 1993 she dropped the bleak stuff and turned her show into a parade of the positive, with happy celebrity interactions and relentless guidance toward self-actualization (“be your best self”). Her cultural standing broadened and deepened when she assumed the mantle of book-publishing savior with her monthly novel selection. Then she became a magazine mogul. Then she became the manager of an entire cable network named for her.

Click the link below to read the full article.


Meet Des Moines Cast Member George Worthington!

We're so proud to introduce you to our Des Moines, Iowa cast of storytellers! The show is on Friday, March 31st at the Temple Theater in Des Moines. Let's get to know Des Moines storyteller, George Worthington.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I lived in Minneapolis for the first ten years of my life, then moved to the Chicago area because my father was assigned a different sales territory.  I attended public high school, then two years at Indiana University.  I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up, so I joined the Navy and spent two years aboard a destroyer in the Atlantic fleet.  When I got out, I went to work for my father, selling agricultural products.  I met my wife at a party neither one of us had wanted to go to, and we were married a year later.  We moved to Des Moines in 1971 to be closer to the center of my sales territory, and began raising our family: two daughters and a son.  I learned to fly airplanes and logged about 600 hours of flight time which I enjoyed greatly.  I play guitar and I enjoy writing.  I retired in 2008 and I now have more time to enjoy my children and five grandchildren.  In 2016, my wife and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary by taking a cruise down the Danube River.

How has mental illness affected your life?

Mental illness has affected my life by making it difficult for me to function in society.  I have struggled with clinical depression all of my life.  As a young child my parents used to ask me “What’s wrong with you?”  As I got older, the episodes became more frequent and darker.  I couldn’t function for days at a time.  I disappointed the people I love by not being emotionally available or physically able to participate in the normal stuff of life.

I want to be a part of This Is My Brave in order to help de-stigmatize mental illness.  I believe that it can be conquered, in part, by talking about it and helping society to understand what it is and how it affects us.  I also believe that we should advocate for additional medical research into illnesses that affect the brain.  Many diseases have large powerful campaigns that funnel millions of dollars into research.  We deserve no less.

What inspires you to get or stay mentally healthy?

I’m inspired to stay mentally healthy because the alternative is a toxic, corrosive state of being that no one should have to endure.

What do you hope the audience takes away from the show?

I hope that members of the audience will become more comfortable with using the term mental illness.  I hope they will see that we are fairly ordinary people.  I have a mental illness and I could be your neighbor, your co-worker, or your cable guy.  I hope that members of the audience will leave the show with the belief that mental illness can be just as devastating, just as deadly, and more uncontrollable than many of the other, more well-known diseases that can afflict any of us.

The show is now sold out but don't worry all the stories will be available on our youtube channel ( We can't wait for you to hear George and his cast mates share their powerful stories.


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Letter From Insured's Receiver Noting Intent to Assert Claims Constituted Notice of Circumstances

April 2012

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, applying Florida law, has granted summary judgment in favor of a receiver of an insured, holding that a letter sent to the insurer during the policy period of a claims-made-and-reported directors and officers liability policy that advised of the receiver's intention to assert claims for breach of fiduciary duty against the insured constituted proper notice of circumstances under the policy, such that a later-filed complaint was deemed a claim first made under the policy. Fla. Dep't of Fin. Svcs. v. Nat'l Union Fire Ins. Co., 2012 WL 760606 (N.D. Fla. Mar. 7, 2012).

The plaintiff petitioned a Florida Circuit Court to be the receiver of the insured.  Shortly thereafter, it provided the insured's D&O carrier with a "general liability notice of occurrence/claim" form notifying the carrier that receivership proceedings had been initiated against the insured.  Several weeks later, the receiver sent a letter to the carrier, in which the receiver stated its "intention to assert claims against former officers, directors and shareholders [of the insured] for wrongful acts" and that "[t]his letter shall also serve as a notice of circumstances which may reasonably be expected to give rise to a claim being made against any and all [insureds]."  The letter was sent to the carrier during the policy period of the policy at issue.  The receiver later filed a complaint alleging breach of fiduciary duty after the policy period ended.  The carrier denied coverage, contending that the complaint was filed after the policy period expired.  The receiver filed a declaratory judgment action, seeking a declaration that the receivership petition, the claim form and the letter to the carrier constituted "claims" under the policy or a notice of circumstances such that the complaint fell within the policy's coverage.

The court first rejected the receiver's contention that the petition for receivership constituted a claim.  The court noted that, while "claim" is defined to include a demand for non-monetary relief, "the petition for receivership does not allege that wrongful acts occurred" as required by the terms of the policy.  The court further held that the claim form sent to the carrier "does not raise a claim for a wrongful act."

Addressing the letter sent by the receiver to the carrier, the court determined that the "letter is not a claim as defined by the policy . . . . [as i]t makes no present demand for any action from [the carrier], such as tendering the policy limit."  The court, however, stated that the letter satisfied the policy's notice of circumstances provision.  The court noted that "the letter specifically states that it is giving 'notice of circumstances' pursuant to Paragraph 7 of the policy.  It expresses [the receiver's] intention to assert claims resulting in injuries in excess of $5 million.  The letter identifies a list of wrongful acts committed by officers and/or directors for which it may seek relief."  The court also rejected the carrier's argument that the letter was "boilerplate" and did not identify the required "full particulars" of the potential claim, stating that "[b]y its very nature, a notice of circumstances will be less specific than an actual claim."  Accordingly, the court granted the receiver's summary judgment motion.


A giant neuron was found wrapped around the entire brain circumference

For the first time, scientists have detected a giant neuron wrapped around the entire brain circumference of a mouse, and it is so closely connected across both hemispheres that it could finally explain the origins of consciousness.

Using a new imaging technique, the team detected the giant neuron emanating from one of the best-connected regions of the brain, and said it could be to coordinate signals from different areas to create a conscious thought.

This newly discovered neuron is one of the three that has been detected for the first time in a mammalian brain, and the new imaging technique could help us determine if similar structures have gone unnoticed in our own brain since centuries.

At a recent meeting of brain research through the advancement of innovative neurotechnology initiative in Maryland, a team at the Allen Institute for Brain Science described how the three neurons extend across both hemispheres of the brain, and the larger one wraps around the circumference of the organ like a “crown of thorns.”

Principal Investigator Christof Koch told Nature’s Sara Reardon that he had never seen neurons in the two brain regions before.

Curiously, the three giant neurons come from a part of the brain that has shown intriguing connections to human consciousness in the past – the claustrum, a thin layer of gray matter that could be the most connected structure in the entire brain, based on the volume.

This relatively small area is hidden between the inner surface of the neocortex at the center of the brain communicating with almost all regions of the cortex to achieve many higher cognitive functions such as language, long-term planning and advanced sensory tasks such as vision and hearing.

“Advanced brain imaging techniques that examine the white matter fibers circulating to and from the claustrum reveal that it is a large neural central station,” Koch wrote for Scientific American in 2014. “Almost all regions of the cortex send fibers to the cloister. “

The claustrum is so closely related to several crucial areas in the brain that Francis Crick renamed this double DNA helix a “consciousness driver” in a 2005 paper co-authored with Koch.

They suggested that he link all our external and internal perceptions into one unifying experience, as a conductor synchronizes an orchestra, and strange medical cases in recent years have reinforced this suggestion.

In 2014, a 54-year-old woman was admitted to the Medical Faculty Associates of George Washington University in Washington, DC, for treatment for epilepsy.

This involved gently probing different areas of her brain with electrodes in order to refine the potential source of her epileptic seizures, but when the team began to stimulate the woman’s claustrum, she discovered that she could actually ‘disconnect’ his consciousness.

Helen Thomson reported for New Scientist at the time:

“When the team touched the area with high frequency electrical impulses, the woman lost consciousness, she stopped understanding and stared into space, she did not respond to auditory or visual commands and her breathing slowed down. As soon as the stimulation stopped, she immediately regained consciousness without remembering the event. The same thing happened every time the area was stimulated during the two days of experiments. “

According to Koch, who was not involved in the study, this type of abrupt and specific stopping and starting of consciousness had never been seen before.

Another experiment in 2015 examined the effects of claustrum injury on the awareness of 171 combat veterans with traumatic brain injury.

They found that claustral damage was associated with the duration, but not the frequency, of unconsciousness, suggesting that it could play an important role in the activation and deactivation of conscious thought, but another region could be involved in its maintenance.

And now, Koch and his team have discovered extended neurons in the mouse brain emanating from this mysterious region.

In order to map neurons, researchers usually need to inject individual nerve cells with a dye, cut the brain into thin sections, and then trace the path of the neuron by hand.

This is a surprisingly rudimentary technique for a neuroscientist, and since they must destroy the brain in the process, it can not be done regularly on human organs.

Koch and his team wanted to develop a less invasive technique and design mice that could have specific genes in their claustral neurons activated by a specific drug.

“When the researchers fed the mice a small amount of medication, only a handful of neurons got enough to activate these genes,” says Reardon in Nature.

“This resulted in the production of a green fluorescent protein that spread throughout the neuron.” The team then took 10,000 transverse images of the mouse brain, and used a computer program to create a 3D reconstruction of the brain. only three bright cells. “

We need to keep in mind that just because these new giant neurons are connected to the claustrum does not mean that Koch’s hypothesis on consciousness is correct – we are far from proving it.

It is also important to note that these neurons have only been detected in mice so far, and the research has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, so we have to wait for further confirmation before we can really study this discovery for what it means for humans.

But this discovery is an intriguing piece of the puzzle that could help make sense of this crucial but enigmatic region of the brain, and how it might relate to the human experience of conscious thought.

The research was presented at the February 15 meeting of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative in Bethesda, Maryland.

» Medical » A giant neuron was found wrapped around the entire brain circumference


Agree to the BRAIN TRAIN Rules and Regulations

The BRAIN TRAIN High School Entrance Review Guide

  1. Students who are absent on the first day will automatically be dropped out. Introductions are made during the first day, and if a student misses this, his succeeding days are very much affected. This is why BRAIN TRAIN refuses the enrolment of any student who intends to be absent during the first day.
  2. NEVER lend or give away your BRAIN TRAIN review manual. BRAIN TRAIN’s materials are all copyrighted, and we are very serious in catching and penalizing offenders (In case you witness someone lending or giving out his BRAIN TRAIN materials, please report the incident to us immediately; we will gladly compensate you for your concern)
  3. Only students with complete attendance will be allowed to take the Simulations. Those with absences will only be allowed to take the exam AFTER attending make-up classes (which could be in another venue in another town).
  4. BRAIN TRAIN reserves the right to drop out a student who has missed at least six (6) hours of his BRAIN TRAIN lessons.
  5. Tardy students will not be accepted in class if they are late by 15 minutes or more. He may, however, wait to attend the next period.
  6. Five minutes before classes begin, parents/guardians are no longer allowed to be within the classroom vicinity. During classes, parents are NOT allowed to disturb the ongoing class. They may discuss with the review assistant or call the office. They may also send a letter, or arrange a scheduled meeting with a teacher. Teachers’ schedules during the review period are very tight.
  7. All deficiencies (review fee balance, ID picture, and signed review course agreement) should have been settled by the second meeting at the latest. BRAIN TRAIN reserves the right to drop out a student who would not comply.
  8. Always refer to the review schedule as BRAIN TRAIN tries to really adhere to it, thus classes will be postponed only under extreme circumstances (e.g. strong typhoon). In such cases, BRAIN TRAIN students and parents will be notified via text message AND e-mail. If no text message OR email from BRAIN TRAIN is received, it is safe to assume that classes will push through.
  9. If there is a scheduled class on a holiday, it will push through unless otherwise announced.
  10. BRAIN TRAIN office hours (Los Baños and Sta. Rosa offices) are 8:00 am-12:00 noon and 1:00-5:00 pm, Mondays to Saturdays (BRAIN TRAIN partner schools might NOT be open on Saturdays). Please call or visit us only during these times.
  11. BRAIN TRAIN does NOT guarantee that all of its students will pass his chosen high school. Be suspicious of any review center that makes outrageous promises. Remember that the best schools have a limited number of slots, thus getting a high score is no guarantee of getting admitted (only the ones with the highest  scores will be admitted). However, BRAIN TRAIN guarantees that its determined students will have a huge advantage over non-BRAIN TRAIN students.

  12. BRAIN TRAIN does NOT claim that the questions tackled during the review are the ones that will actually appear in his high school entrance tests; that would have been leakage. This is why BRAIN TRAIN teachers will keep on telling students NOT to focus on the questions on the manual but rather on the concepts, as there are a hundred ways of asking questions based on only one concept. Principles, application, and comprehension will be emphasized, NOT memorization. Students who focus solely on our review questions (not the principles behind them) will surely find the actual test very difficult (they will be startled at the entirely “new” questions).

  13. Preliminary and Final (UPRHS and PSHS) Simulations will be administered to assess a student’s readiness and chances of passing his entrance examinations, as well as to give him a feel of an entrance test environment.
  14. Two (or three, for the PSHS Review) student assessment reports will be given to parents (check out the review schedule for the release date). This will be either claimed personally or received via email, depending on the preference of the parents (as indicated in the assessment report claim stub). BRAIN TRAIN will text, call, or email parents for any unclaimed assessment reports. It is important for parents to see their child’s assessment report as early as possible for them to immediately recognize their child’s strengths and weaknesses.

  2. NEVER write your answers on your review manual. Instead, write your answers on your notebooks for you to preserve handouts for reviewing at home. Remember to write the title of the test or exercise, and during checking, write the correct answer beside every wrong answer. This will then serve as your own answer key.
  3. Remember that this is just a review, so expect that several topics that will be discussed here have already been taught at your respective schools. It would be very futile for us to discuss “advance lessons that will not appear in your high school entrance tests.
  4. The fact that this is just a review is also the reason why in most cases, you will be asked to answer a Practice Test first BEFORE the teacher discusses the lessons. The Practice Tests gauge how much you have learned from your respective schools, and to later on refresh and clarify your forgotten or confusing school lessons.

WARNING: Despite the availability of BRAIN TRAIN make-up classes, we DISCOURAGE students from abusing this privilege and being absent from their regular classes for trivial reasons (vacations, outings, etc.). Although each BRAIN TRAIN teacher tries to make his lectures and discussions uniform for all classes, inevitable circumstances (such as the students’ collective aptitude and discipline, etc.) usually make each lecture and discussion different from one class to another. Thus, a student attending make-up classes might not understand parts of the discussion, or might find that the lessons are advance or delayed as compared with the lessons in his
regular section.
Step 1: Check (on your class schedule) the date when you were absent. List down all the subjects, reviewer numbers, or topics you missed.
Step 2: Visit and go to Schedules and Venues > Detailed Schedules > High School Entrance Review 2018. Click the links of the schedules of other batches to download them. Look for all that you missed in these schedules (take time to study each section as the schedule of each section may differ greatly from
those of other sections of the same batch). Choose the venue, section, and schedule that is suited for you.
Step 3: Obtain a Make-up Form from any BRAIN TRAIN staff (NOT from a teacher). Fill out the make-up slip properly. There is NO need for you to call up BRAIN TRAIN and ask for permission to attend make-up classes.
Step 4: Arrive at least 15 minutes early on your chosen venue and schedule and notify any BRAIN TRAIN staff (NOT teacher) that you will be taking make-up classes and in which section. Ask to be assisted in looking for a seat, etc. Do NOT be late or do NOT arrive just in time, as this will disrupt the students of the regular class.
Step 5: After each class, take the initiative to ask the teacher to sign your Make-up Form before he goes out. Do NOT expect the teacher to remind you to do this. Failure to get his signature is equivalent to NOT having taken the makeup classes yet.


English (United Kingdom)  Russian (CIS)

E-ISSN 2310-3450

Publication frequency – issued 2 times a year.
Issued from 2013.

Publishing Ethics

  • Data fabrication and falsification:

Data fabrication means that the researcher did not actually perform the study but instead made up data. Data falsification means that the researcher did the experiment, but then changed some of the data. Both of these practices make people distrust scientists. If the public is mistrustful of science, then it will be less willing to provide funding support.

  • Plagiarism:

Taking the ideas and work of others without giving them credit is unfair and dishonest. Copying even from one sentence from someone else’s manuscript, or even one of your own that has previously been published, without proper citation is considered plagiarism—use your own words instead.

  • Multiple submissions:

  • Redundant publications (or ‘salami’ publications):

This means publishing many very similar manuscripts based on the same experiment. It can make readers less likely to pay attention to your manuscripts.

  • Improper author contribution or attribution:

All of the listed authors must have made a significant scientific contribution to the research in the manuscript and have approved all its claims. Do not forget to list everyone who made a significant scientific contribution, including students and laboratory technicians.


Week Eleven!

Nearly there, but the end is still elusive.

The animator letters project

A really inspirational site. Take some time to read through these letters. There is a wealth of wisdom and inspiration within.

Animation Workflow tips and tricks

One of the things I’ve learned since I’ve been working in the animation industry is the importance of having a good workflow. Anything that you can do to minimize repetitive tasks or accessing of menu items will speed you up.

A nice little post with some good information. A couple of items are somewhat out of date now (ie Autotangent script). But the rest is timeless.

Viewing free hotkeys

This is a bit of an asside, but I thought it was a neat trick that some might not know. A quick way to see which hotkeys are unmapped and open for use. Chuck some scripts on those keys! :)

Using body language

Body language is the non-verbal movements we make as a part of how we communicate, from waving hands to involuntary twitching of facial muscles.

Body language is essential for getting across the feeling of a character. It’s subtle and the difference between a puppet and convicing performance. Here is some useful information to get into your polishing.

Flat = Funny. Depth = Dramatic

A big part of what makes us feel like we should laugh at a scene or take it seriously is the visual cues that are used within the sequence. So one of the easiest ways to ensure the audience reacts to your story in the intended way is to use the right kind of visual language.

A cool write up from a storyboarding perspective on the visual language of comedy and drama. Some good framing and story advice.

Contrast in Animation

Contrast is obviously not one of the original principles of animation, but it can be found in many of them. Lets explore some of them.

A short write up on constrast in animation, and…

How do animators use contrast?

Contrast. Working as an animator you hear that word a lot. It is far-reaching umbrella term that influences every other animation mechanic, and thus to crop up in conversation frequently when animators converge to dork out on the fundamentals of making things move. Contrast is our friend. Let’s get better acquainted!

…a slightly longer one!