Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Saturday, November 30, 2013

The Prince And The Pauper

Young children who become resentful and angry against their parents because of a punishment meted out in an effort to teach them to become responsible for themselves, often imagine themselves to have been given to the wrong parents. Their real parents, the children fantasize, would never punish them. Their real parents would be wealthy, perhaps of royal or patrician stock, and the child, had it been delivered to the right parents and not switched at birth, would be able to have anything it wanted.

Life can be so cruel, these children think, weeping in anguish over their sad lot in life.

Of course, these are momentary, childish aberrations. We get over these things. We are guided by our parents and become reasonable human beings eventually; at least most of us do. We set aside that kind of fruitless day-dreaming, and realize, as we grow older that we're unfair to our parents to value them so slightly that we would prefer to have been raised by others. And we adjust to life and make the most of it with our genetic endowments and the firm guidance of our parents. And luck.

There have been books written about just such scenarios, however, children separated at birth, by some unaccountable and unfortunate error, from their genetic parents. Taken away by others to become their own, unaware that an exchange had been made. Apart from literature tackling the subject, there have been documented instances when just such occurrences became reality. And one such occurrence was recently revealed to have taken place, in Japan.

When three brothers of a wealthy family, in adulthood and after the deaths of their parents, thought how unlike them their older brother seemed. They discussed the matter and prevailed upon him to agree to take a DNA test. And they discovered that what they had imagined was in actual fact true; their older brother didn't share any of their DNA, so obviously an error had occurred. They went back to the hospital where he had been born in Tokyo in 1953 to check records.

At the time two women had given birth to two little boys. A nurse took the babies away to bathe them, and then she exchanged the clothing that each had been wearing, and returned the babies to their mothers. But the nurse returned the babies to the wrong mothers who evidently did not themselves realize they were given the wrong babies. One of the mothers was reported to have noted later that her baby was wearing the 'wrong' clothing.

And now we know exactly why those plastic bracelets with identifying information are always placed on the ankles of newborns. In fact, anyone entering hospital for any manner of procedure is given one of those bracelets.
Man swapped at birth wins compensation
The families think the mothers believed something was wrong

The men are now 60 years of age. The child born to wealthy parents was given to a couple who lived in poverty and as a result, so did he. He lived with those parents not his genetic parents, along with siblings whom he loved. The father of the family died when the boy was only two years of age, and the family lived thereafter on welfare, barely able to cope. He he became older he studied at night school enabling him to work day shifts in a factory. And eventually he became a full-time truck driver.

He never married. He is emotionally close to his 'brothers', three other men who are not his birth brothers but with whom he lived as a child. And he contributes to their care and their upkeep. The other infant, who was the genetic offspring of the poor parents, grew up in wealth and with opportunity, attending the best schools, and ending up head of a property company. He too had three brothers, who also work for major companies.

His three younger brothers had suspected that because he didn't resemble them or their parents in any way, there might be a possibility he was not really their birth brother. And when tests confirmed that, and when they found evidence at the hospital that led them to a search to discover the whereabouts of their real brother, there was a reunion. All four men have grown fond of one another, the three younger ones telling their newfound older brother they will still have years of pleasure in one another.

"I wondered how this could have happened. I could not believe it. To be honest, I did not want to accept it. I might have had a different life. I want [the hospital] to roll back the clock to the day that I was born. As I saw pictures of my parents, I wanted to see them alive. For months, I could not hold back the tears every time I saw their pictures", said the truck driver. But he has become philosophical about what happened to him. He loved his adoptive mother and his brothers in that family and has few regrets on that account.

He and his three 'new' genetic brothers launched a lawsuit against the San-Ikukai Hospital in Sumida Ward. The Tokyo District Court ordered the hospital to pay the man 38-million yen ($393,000), a considerable sum in damages, in reflection of the accidental transfer of babies. "The links between the man and his real parents were severed and the man was forced to grow up in a poor home. The mental anguish he went through was enormous", said Judge Masatoshi Miyasaka in his ruling. 

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The Christian Science Monitor

‘The Book of Books’ displays 200 of the rarest biblical manuscripts in an illuminating tale of how the world’s most-published book came to be.

By , Staff writer

  • Ardon Bar-Hama/Courtesy of the Bible Lands Museum Jerusalem
    View Caption
Copied by Jewish scribes and Christian monks. Written on everything from tiny silver scrolls to papyrus that turned brittle with time. First published for a mass audience by Gutenberg; now available in 2,800 languages.

These are fragments of the story of how the Bible evolved from the days of ancient Israel to the days of Barnes and Noble.

Now the Bible Lands Museum in Jerusalem has launched a landmark exhibit tracing that story, drawn largely from the collection of American philanthropist Steve Green.
“The Book of Books” exhibit is notable not only for its rare manuscripts but also its unusual balance between the Jewish and Christian narratives, and the reverence with which it treats both. Aiming to enrich both communities’ understanding of how the Bible has shaped Judeo-Christian civilization, it focuses on the development of the texts of the Bible rather than the development of divergent doctrines.

“We are trying to give a sense of how, as I jokingly say, ‘our Bible’ and ‘their Bible’ spread in our society and civilization,” says Lawrence Schiffman, vice provost and professor of Judaic studies at Yeshiva University in New York, who helped shape the exhibit. “We’re able to show everybody, artistically and technically, how those texts spread through our civilization and affected our civilization, and to do that in a way that everybody appreciates and sees the commonalities.”

The exhibit is visually stunning, from a second-century Greek Septuagint on papyrus to a 1450 Gutenberg Bible leaf to an illuminated 17th -century Hebrew scroll depicting the story of Esther. IPad displays zoom in on ancient scrolls and codexes and get forensic views of nearly invisible lettering. As visitors trace the path of those who copied the Bible in myriad languages, the floors change from the sands of the Sinai to the cobblestones of Europe – the last exhibit’s last stop, where visitors can get a freshly printed page off a replica Gutenberg press and see early editions of the King James Version.

Deciphering an erased Aramaic text
Most of The Book of Books exhibit comes from the collection of Mr. Green, president of the arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby, who has been steadily acquiring an impressive array of manuscripts and artifacts.

Among Green’s most treasured pieces is the Codex Climaci Rescriptus, which features two Syriac treatises written on top of earlier Aramaic and Greek biblical texts. Green says it’s the largest remaining scripture in Palestinian Aramaic, the language closest to Jesus’s household language.
But some of the codex is not visible to the naked eye because the later writer, fishing around for a bit of parchment in the 9th  century (very expensive in those days), partially erased the earlier text before writing on top of it. Oxford University has helped to bring to light the underlying text, and now Cambridge scholars are working to decipher it.

So what motivates a successful businessman to go on a global chase not only for such fragments, but their meaning as well? 

“[The Bible] didn’t show up on a bookshelf one day – there were blood and sweat and tears to give us what we have today,” says Green by phone from his Oklahoma office, crediting those whose meticulous transcription and translation led to modern Bible versions. “If we have a greater appreciation for them, then hopefully people will be more engaged.”

He is planning to open a Bible museum in Washington, D.C., in 2017, which aims to engage the public through three avenues: the stories, history, and impact of the Bible, including on the founding of America.

Part of a broader mission
While much of the material in the Book of Books exhibit will be incorporated into the Washington museum, its current configuration is uniquely designed for a Jerusalem audience.

Though modern Israel encompasses most of the key locations of Jesus’ ministry, many Israelis grow up with little exposure to the history, beliefs, or followers of Christianity, who today make up just 2 percent of the population in Jerusalem.

Museum director Amanda Weiss recalls one Israeli student years ago asking: “If Judaism and Christianity really come from the same source, why is there such animosity and hostility and in many places hatred, fear, bigotry between Christians and Jews?”

That’s the sort of question that the museum strives to both spark and answer, and The Book of Books exhibit has provided an unique avenue for emphasizing that common roots – understood and appreciated – can produce better modern-day relations.

“I think there’s no more fitting opportunity to really understand the Bible and the development of the Bible in text – how it was codified and how it developed in Judaism and Christianity than through the Book of Books exhibition,” says Weiss, pausing near the exit of the museum to read a passage of Scripture on the wall:

Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, … that He may instruct us in his ways and that we may walk in his paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
“We can’t say it any better than the Bible can,” she says.

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Friday, November 29, 2013

Genetically Modified Food Crops

"The power of pseudoscience to generate fear must not be underestimated. Once instilled, facts rarely dissipate that fear. It's worrisome it took over a year for the journal to do the right thing."
Robert Wager, Vancouver Island University biologist

GM crops: Promise and reality    nature.com/gmcrops

The introduction of the first transgenic plant 30 years ago heralded the start of a second green revolution, providing food to the starving, profits to farmers and environmental benefits to boot. Many GM crops fulfilled the promise. But their success has been mired in controversy with many questioning their safety, their profitability and their green credentials. A polarized debate has left little room for consensus.


The journal that Dr. Wager was referring to would be the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology. It published an article that made sensational headlines around the world last year, claiming to have discovered evidence proving unequivocally that 'Frankenfoods' are hazardous to the health of living creatures. The article, written as a result of a French study claiming a steady diet of genetically modified corn caused tumours in rats was heartily embraced by all those who dread the very thought of GM foods contaminating anyone's dinner table.

The study authors claimed that rats fed a diet of Monsanto's genetically modified corn, or given water in which the herbicide Roundup was contained at levels permitted in the United States, died an earlier death due to the misadventure of having imbibed those dread bits of food or chemicals, as opposed to rats fed a standard diet.

And while the journal has now retracted the article and its controversial findings a year after its original publication, scientists who scorned the French study consider the damage done to be irreversible. Gilles-Eric Seralini of the University of Caen, feels Dr. Wager, will now be elevated on a martyr's plinth by all those who have no problems believing that genetically modified food crops present a danger to humanity.

Reason, religion and food security  - Jon Entine - June 10, 2013 - Genetic Literary Project

Being Gilles-Eric Seralini: Inside the mind of the anti-GM movement



It’s tempting to characterize this dispute as a battle between science and ideology, but that would be simplistic. Issues of risk, notions of “Nature” and “natural”—these are emotional, even religious beliefs. How we view food is deeply personal. Science can only take us so far—but it’s pretty far.
We all can appreciate why any debate over farming, food and modern technology tends toward contentious. After all, we are talking about our children and our health. The one thing we can agree on is that everyone, on all sides of this discussion, wants abundant, highly nutritious food produced with the least environmental damage.
We decided to focus the forum on global food security. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, 868 million people are undernourished. Food security has improved in recent decades, as the undernourishment rate dropped from 18.6% in 1990-1992 to 12.5%. But over the same period, population grew from 5.4 to 7.0 billion—and it’s on track to grow to 9 million over the next two to three decades. As Bill Gates once said, “The world is getting better, but it’s not getting better fast enough, and it’s not getting better for everyone.”
Global food security is a complex challenge. Agriculturally rich regions like North America, Argentina and Brazil must produce enough to make up for production deficits in Asia, Africa and even Europe. We will need 70-100% more food by 2050 to match population and prosperity growth, and it must occur in the face of more frequent extreme weather events marked by floods, droughts and heat waves.
One thing we know is that technology—including biotechnology—must play a central role, just as it did in the Green Revolution. Beginning in the late 1940s, genetic research led to the breeding of high-yield grains. Combined with the use of new fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, output soared. Since 1950, world wheat production alone has increased by more than 300%.
That said, the environmental consequences of high-yield industrial scale farming are daunting. Organic farming can play a role, but it’s at best a marginal part of the solution. Although no one believes it’s a silver bullet, the overwhelming consensus of the science and farming communities is that genetic engineering can and will be part of farmers suite of tools for addressing increasing food needs while mitigating environmental damage.
 Rats, claimed the article since retracted, fed the genetically modified diet suffered from tumours. And from severe liver and kidney damage. Transpose that scenario to the health of human beings, trusting the assurances of science and the manufacturers of GM seed and pesticides and you have a gruesome prospect for the future, with people dropping off like flies from the horrible after-effects of having consumed GM foods.

Nor did Professor Seralini stop at merely publishing the words of his dire warnings; grotesque photographs of rats with bulging tumours featured in British tabloids, about the dangers of "Frankenfoods". They had the word of the science as engineered by a long-time critic of genetically engineered food crops. And while many scientists criticized the evidence and study methods, some pointed out that the laboratory rats used in his experience were from the outset known to be susceptible to tumours.

The new editor of Food and Chemical Toxicology forwarded a letter earlier in November of 2013 to Professor Seralini giving him the option of agreeing to withdraw his article voluntarily, or the journal would retract it for him, for themselves, for science. On Thursday they did just that, stating that an "in-depth look at the raw data revealed that no definitive conclusions can be reached" from the small sample of rats studied.

Furthermore, the known high incidence of tumours in the strain of lab rats studied "cannot be excluded as the cause of their higher mortality and incidence observed in the treated groups".  The study, noted Cami Ryan at the University of Saskatchewan, has been discredited by food and feed safety agencies around the world: "Retraction seemed inevitable" she commented.

"It was clear from even a superficial reading that this paper was not fit for publication, and in this instance the peer review process did not work properly", noted David Spiegelhalter at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. "I suppose it is better late than never. Sadly the withdrawal of this paper will not generate the publicity garnered by its initial publication."

Through all of this, Professor Seralini is unmoved and unrepentant. The retraction, he asserts, resulted from the journal's editorial appointment of biologist Richard Goodman. Whose previous work included several years on behalf of biotechnology giant Monsanto. A fair enough observation to be sure. But hardly conclusive of a surrender of professional integrity.
 Reason, religion and food security  - Jon Entine - June 10, 2013 - Genetic Literary Project
What is agricultural genetic engineering?
The Food and Drug Administration recently addressed its role in regulating food safety and the relative riskiness of GE crops. Selective breeding turned inedible wild grains, like corn and wheat into delicious modern varieties. We’ve been doing it for thousands of years, but it is terribly imprecise.
As the FDA notes, “These genes [from traditional selective breeding] may include the gene responsible for the desired characteristic, as well as genes responsible for unwanted characteristics.” Genetic engineering, rather, can “introduce the desired characteristic without also introducing genes responsible for unwanted characteristics.”
Introduced first in the US in the mid-1990s, genetically engineered crops are now grown by more than 17 million farmers in 28 countries. Eighty-one percent of the world’s soybeans, 81% of cottonseed, 35% of corn and 30% of canola are now grown using GE seeds. In 2012, the global area of biotech crops continued to increase for the 17th year. Their commercial value worldwide exceeds $185 billion per year. In the US, the use of herbicide tolerant soybeans, cotton and corn, and pesticide-resistant Bt cotton and corn is even more pronounced.
Almost all GE crops are based on two well-established and rigorously tested technologies. First, Bt crops produce a bacterial protein known as Bacillus thuringiensis. It’s naturally occurring—and it’s widely used by organic farmers to selectively kill pest insects. Genetically engineered Bt crops simply produce their own Bt. The effects are identical to what happens on organic farms—which is what makes protests against genetically engineered Bt crops seem so bizarre to scientists. The net result is that Bt crops increase yields because farmers lose fewer crops to insect pests.
The other major GE crops are those designed to be herbicide-resistant, most commonly glyphosate, better known as Monsanto’s Roundup. Glyphosate does not bioaccumulate and breaks down rapidly in the environment. Because the weed killer is more powerful and less toxic than the chemicals that it competed with, farmers quickly adopted glyphosate—even more so after Monsanto introduced genetically engineered versions that were paired with the herbicide. The use of crops engineered for herbicide resistance reduces inputs, cost, and labor for farmers. It’s agricultural sustainability at work.
In the US, the use of herbicide tolerant soybeans, cotton and corn, and pesticide resistant Bt cotton and corn has soared since their introduction. It’s estimated that 90% of the farmers around the world that grow GE crops—roughly 15 million people—are resource-poor. The total acreage of GE crops in developing countries now exceeds that of the developed world. 
That said, the environmental consequences of high-yield industrial scale farming are daunting. Organic farming can play a role, but it’s at best a marginal part of the solution. Although no one believes it’s a silver bullet, the overwhelming consensus of the science and farming communities is that genetic engineering can and will be part of farmers suite of tools for addressing increasing food needs while mitigating environmental damage.


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Hope still for 'dead' Comet Ison

Astrophysicist Karl Battams: "This comet has confused and amazed us right from the word go..."

Comet Ison, or some part of it, may have survived its encounter with the Sun, say scientists.
The giant ball of ice and dust was initially declared dead when it failed to re-emerge from behind the star with the expected brightness.

All that could be seen was a dull smudge in space telescope images - its nucleus and tail assumed destroyed.

But recent pictures have indicated a brightening of what may be a small fragment of the comet.
Astronomers admit to being surprised and delighted, but now caution that anything could happen in the coming hours and days.

This remnant of Ison could continue to brighten, or it could simply fizzle out altogether.
"We've been following this comet for a year now and all the way it has been surprising us and confusing us," said astrophysicist Karl Battams, who operates the US space agency-funded Sungrazing Comets Project.

"It's just typical that right at the end, when we said, 'yes, it has faded out, it's died, we've lost it in the Sun', that a couple of hours later it should pop right back up again," he told BBC News.

The European Space Agency (Esa), too, which had been among the first organisations to call the death of Ison, has had to re-assess the situation. A small part of the nucleus may be intact, its experts say.
SDO There were early doubts when nothing was seen in pictures where Ison should have been (cross)
How much of the once 2km-wide hunk of dirty ice could have survived is impossible to say.

Passing just 1.2 million km above the surface of the Sun would have severely disrupted Ison. Its ices would have vaporized rapidly in temperatures over 2,000C. And the immense gravity of the star would also have pulled and squeezed on the object as it tumbled end over end.

Karl Battams said: "We would like people to give us a couple of days, just to look at more images as they come from the spacecraft, and that will allow us to assess the brightness of the object that we're seeing now, and how that brightness changes.

"That will give us an idea of maybe what the object is composed of and what it might do in the coming days and weeks."

Whatever happens next, comets are going to be a big feature in the news over the next year.
In 11 months' time, Comet Siding Spring will breeze past Mars at a distance of little more than 100,000km. And then in November 2014, Esa's Rosetta mission will attempt to place a probe on the nucleus of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Artist's impression of Philae lander An artist's impression of Esa's attempt next year to land on Comet 67P with its Philae probe

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Thursday, November 28, 2013

The "Hydrogen Highway" Pig-in-a-Poke

"The average fuel range is below the amount specified in the contract and is worse during the colder winter months, maintenance costs and time are three times higher than diesel buses, and the fuel costs/consumption is three times that of a diesel bus."
BC Transit document, 2012

news_whistler6.jpg
"Maintenance costs for a diesel bus average 64 cents per kilometre, and $1 for hydrogen bus, with those costs expected to increase to $2.28 per kilometre by he end of the five-year program as component and part warranties expire."
The Whistler Question newspaper

 hydrogenbus2.jpg

"The hydrogen buses don't run properly in the cold Whistler environment. You'd think someone would have considered that, before any cash was spent."
Ben Williams, president, Unifor Local 333, Victoria


This was British Columbia's boast, under former premier Gordon Campbell, in a deal with former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that BC and California could create a hydrogen highway along the West Coast of North America to prove to the world their green credentials. And in 2009, twenty buses complete with hydrogen power plants were delivered to the province and handed to its most famous little town nestled in the Canadian Rockies, the southern Pacific range of the Coast Mountains.
Whistler Village at dsuk
Whistler Village at dusk -- Whistler Tourism

Picturesque and perfect, a wonder to behold, a jewel of a geography, meriting a bold new initiative in living within nature's parameters. Whistler's share of this grand new plan in environmental responsibility was $16.8-million, the province pledged $1.8-million for annual "incremental costs", and the federal government allotted a generous $48-million to the audacious initiative for zero-emission, non-polluting public transit.

To serve as a test run before all public transit everywhere finally transitioned.

The buses came in at a whopping $2-million each, four times what regular diesel buses cost, twice the amount of hybrid-powered models (which are also prone to breakdowns). The data produced by BC Transit made available through a provincial Freedom of Information Act request, state that each of those wonder buses in Whistler requires one kind of repair after another for every three thousand kilometres of service, as compared to diesel buses' requirements of maintenance every 5,000 kilometres.

The buses operate on fuel cells, creating a chemical reaction turning hydrogen into energy, emitting water instead of polluting carbon exhaust. One of the problems is that the technology balks in cold weather conditions, which Whistler has an abundance of, every winter without fail; consider its environment, after all.... Freezing water tanks make it difficult and sometimes impossible to start an engine. Little annoyances like that crop up, unanticipated, but why not?

As for the environmental friendliness of it all, the low-cost, the efficiency and cleaner air, well, it's rather compromised since there are no manufacturers of commercial quantities of hydrogen in Western Canada. Plans at the outset of the five-year test-run that eventually local production facilities would be created never materialized. And so, every ten days or so, a diesel-operated fleet of trucks delivers the required hydrogen right across Canada, the distance from Quebec where the hydrogen is produced, to British Columbia.

"Depending on what the fleet is replaced with, it's a little premature to comment on whether I'll be disappointed in seeing the hydrogen buses leave or not", astutely and rather diplomatically commented Whistler's mayor. At least relations between the town council and the union representing bus drivers will improve; the drivers are somewhat disgruntled over the nuisance factor of coping with the balky buses.

But the experiment is over, the five-year $89.5-million transit pilot project in Whistler: "The largest hydrogen fuel cell bus fleet and largest fuelling station in the world", is ratcheting down. BC Transit is unwilling to keep flinging unrewarded funding into the project.

Rest in peace.

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The Clarion Project

Syrian Women Targeted in War for Rape, Kidnapping

Wed, November 27, 2013
A Syrian woman grieves. (Photo: © Reuters)
A Syrian woman grieves. (Photo: © Reuters)
A new report issued by a human rights group on “International Day to End Violence Against Women” says Syria’s civil war "created a context ripe for violence against women, including sexual violence."

The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network names the deliberate use of kidnapping and rape of women and girls, especially during “raids, at check points and within detention facilities”  as a means to pressure and humiliate family members and take revenge. Women -- with their children -- have also been used in the conflict as human shields.

Abuses against women have been a "deliberate tactic to defeat the other party from a symbolic and psychological perspective, making women desirable targets as the conflict rages on," the report says.
The report cites particularly horrific instances of abuse culled from cases documented inside seven provinces in Syria as well as in Damascus.

One such case was that of a nine-year-old girl, who was raped in front of her family by government forces in the Baba Amr district of the central Homs province in March 2012.

Another case quotes a teenager, a 19-year-old named Aida from Tartus, a town in the coastal region, who was held in detention for four months, from October 2012 to January 2013.

One of times she was raped occurred the day before a court hearing. She was assaulted by three government soldiers. The report documents Aida’s case in her own words:
"The interrogator left me in the room and came back with three personnel who took turns raping me. I fiercely resisted the first but when the second started, I became more terrified and couldn't resist," she said.

"When the third started, I totally collapsed. I was bleeding all the time. As the last one finished, I fell on the ground. Ten minutes later, the prison doctor came in and took me to the bathroom where he gave me an injection to enable me to stand before the judge."

Although the reports says 6,000 cases of rape have occurred since the beginning of the conflict, the actual number is believed to be at significantly higher, since many cases go unreported due to the stigma A Syria girl is led inside a truck to be raped by government troops. (See full video below.)A Syria girl is led inside a truck to be raped by government troops. (See full video below.)such crimes carry in Syrian society.

The report states that, “Syrian women exposed to sexual abuses subsequently found themselves victimized not only by the crime itself, but also by enduring the silence that surrounds the crime and the social pressure related to it.”




The result of reporting such a crime in Syrian society can lead to honor killing (of the victim), divorce or further abuse from family members. Many women, whose abuse has become public, have fled their communities, exposing themselves to even more danger in the worn-torn country. Abuses have also been documented in refugee camps.

Regime forces are said to have perpetrated 70 percent of the crimes against women, with rebel forces guilty of the the rest. Rape by government forces is a common tactic used in conflicts when the opposition forces comes from within the society and rely on civilian support, according to prominent journalist Lauren Wolfe, an expert on rape in areas of war and the director of Women Under Siege, a organization that has documented sexual violence in Syria for the last year

The London-based Syrian Network for Human Rights, cites 25 cases of women being kidnapped and held hostage for use in prisoner exchanges or "to pressure their male relatives to surrender." 
Sema Nasar, of the Syrian Network, collected first-hand testimonies from Syrian women during from January to June of 2013.

To date, 120,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict. Figures from the first two years of the conflict show that 5,400 women were detained during those years, the whereabouts of many remain unknown.

Further, in many of those cases, women have been "detained indefinitely without being presented to the judge, with no access to lawyers or family, and exposed to torture and ill treatment."

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Ison: Critical time for ‘comet of the century’

Soho image Comet Ison is seen approaching the Sun at bottom-right in this Soho image
Astronomers are anxiously waiting to see if a comet survives its encounter with the Sun.
Comet Ison will reach its closest approach to our star at approximately 18:35 GMT on Thursday.
It has been billed as a potential "comet of the century", but the Sun's heat and gravitational tug could destroy it before it has a chance to light up the skies.

Some scientists believe it is already starting to buckle under the onslaught.

Prof Tim O'Brien, associate director of the UK's Jodrell Bank Observatory, said: "It's like throwing a snowball into fire. It's going to be tough for it to survive.

"But luckily, it's a big object and it moves fast, so it won't spend too much time close to the Sun. There is a lot of uncertainty."

Comet Ison came from the Oort Cloud, a mysterious, icy region at the furthest reaches of our Solar System.

It has been hurtling towards the Sun, travelling at more than a million kilometres an hour.

Comet Ison

  • Discovered on 21 September 2012 by Vitali Nevski and Artyom Novichonok
  • A so-called "sungrazer", it approaches our star at a distance of just 1.2 million km from the surface
  • Ison brushes past the Sun on 28 November; the heat at "perihelion" is expected to exceed 2,000C
  • The encounter could cause Ison to break up completely, but if it survives, the comet could put on a bright display in the sky during December
Now it is entering the most perilous stage of its epic journey.

It will pass the Sun at a distance of just 1.2 million km, effectively grazing its surface.

Prof Mark Bailey, from Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland, said: "It's going to be exposed to the worst that the Sun can throw at it.

"It will be getting exposed to more and more intense solar heat, and that will start to sublimate the ices (turning them into gas) at an increasing rate."

The Sun's intense gravitational field produces tidal forces that will also have a major effect on the comet.

Scientists fear it could follow the path of Comet Lovejoy, which broke apart after it passed near the Sun in 2011. Or it could run out of fuel and fizzle out. It is hoped Ison's large size could protect it.
Comet Ison   Damian Peach This photo of Ison was taken by Damian Peach with a 20cm telescope on 15 November
 
Astronomers estimate that its nucleus could be several kilometres in diameter, helping it to withstand the solar assault.

If it does remain largely intact, the heat from the Sun will excite the dust and gas in its core, allowing it to blaze a trail across the night skies. But whether it really will be a "comet of the century" is unclear.

"If it survives, the best chance of seeing it will be in early December," explained Dr Robert Massey from the Royal Astronomical Society.

"I very much doubt Ison is going to be the sort of object where you go out in the morning, just before sunrise, and see this amazingly spectacular thing across the night sky.

"It's much more likely, at the optimistic end, that it's visible with the naked eye, and with binoculars - you could see the comet's head and a nice long tail coming from that."

There has been some debate already about whether Ison is starting to break up, and telescopes such as the Esa/Nasa Soho Sun-observing satellite will be trained on the star during the approach.

"There is a lot of uncertainty, but it's going to be exciting to watch," added Prof O'Brien.

Graphic showing path of comet Ison 1-17 Dec

Northern Hemisphere, Looking East-South-east

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Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Abysmal Social Welfare

"There was no attempt to hide [the numbers]. The numbers that weren't published were those children who died tragically of natural causes.
"It's not another enquiry we need. We've actually had the enquiries, and now we're implementing the results of those enquiries."
Dave Hancock, Alberta Minister of Human Services

"Having a death reported to you is not the same as doing an investigation about how that death happened and how it can be stopped.
"The fact of the matter is the Children's Advocate has done two reports so far. It's just not good enough."
Rachel Notley, NDP critic
The provincial government of Alberta had created a Child and Youth Advocate in 2012 to look into the deaths of foster children. "We did that because I worked in the family justice system and I worked in child welfare, and I am a concerned Albertan just as every other Albertan is", responded Alberta's Premier Alison Redford when it was revealed by a journalistic investigation that 145 children have died during their time in government care, since 1999.

The disparity between the government figures of 56 deaths occurring over that time frame and the actual number of children who had died by hanging, malnutrition, hypothermia, head trauma, drowning, disease, fire and stabbing, has astonished Albertans, and left them asking questions through their political representatives.

They want to know how it is possible that vulnerable children taken into institutional care have overdosed, been asphyxiated, died in car crashes, or through the result of sudden infant death syndrome. Of those children with brief, sad lives, a third left life as infants, another third were teenagers, and most of the children were of aboriginal origin.

Amazingly, the investigation uncovered a fairly uncomfortable fact, that the government is absent a mechanism to track recommendations resulting from autopsies or investigations into the deaths, whose purpose obviously is to improve the dismal record on foster child safety.  The public would like to know why all deaths were not reported.

More critically, assurances are wanted that children now in care are receiving the treatment that they need to allow them to grow into functioning, capable, well-adjusted adults.

The journalistic investigation had been instigated by a four-year legal fight between the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald newspapers with the government, to release relevant information, which the government refused to do until ordered by the province's privacy commissioner.

The Alberta legislature was informed during Monday's Question Period that the refusal to release the requested information had a direct and distinct purpose; to ensure privacy for the individuals and families involved. And to prevent harm coming to people generally connected both with those in foster care and those attempting to foster them.

And lest those in other provinces succumb to an attitude of disbelief and disgust at the treatment meted out to children in need, and largely from aboriginal communities in Alberta, it should be pointed out, and it has been, that children in need in other provinces, including Ontario, have been failed by the system just as spectacularly.

Though the entire subject of inadequate care of aboriginal children is also fraught with the reality that it is, all too often, their immediate families that have initially failed in providing adequate care for their young, that the governments which take it upon themselves to rescue these children from dysfunction and give them other opportunities have themselves too often failed.

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Marcos Rodriguez Pantoja: Did this man live with wolves?

Marcos Joven
Stories abound of humans brought up by wild animals, but often they are pure fiction. It's rare to find someone who re-entered society after living in the company of animals and is able to talk cogently about his experiences - including, apparently, sharing food with a family of wolves.

The first time Marcos Rodriguez Pantoja sat in front of a bowl of soup, he didn't know what to do. He looked carefully, cupped his hand and plunged it into the bowl. The contact with the boiling liquid made him jump and the plate ended up in little pieces on the floor.

It was 1965 and he was 19, but he hadn't sat down at a table to eat since he was a small child. He had been living for up to 12 years alone in the mountains with only wolves, goats, snakes and other animals for company.

When he was little - about six or seven, he estimates - his father sold him to a farmer, who took him to the Sierra Morena mountains, to help out an ageing goatherd.

Born to be wild

Rochom P'ngieng
  • Rochom P'ngieng (pictured): Found naked and walking on all fours in north-east Cambodia in 2007 - thought to have spent 18 years in jungle
  • John Ssebunya: Lived from the age of two in Ugandan jungle and is said to have been brought up by monkeys - was found in 1991, aged 14
  • Vicente Cau Cau: Found in southern Chile in 1948, when he was about 10 years old - believed to have lived among pumas
  • Victor of Aveyron: Found in France in 1799 - Dr Jean Marc Gaspard Itard failed to teach him to speak, as seen in the 1970 film, L'Enfant Sauvage
Soon the old man died and Marcos was left alone.
Having suffered years of beatings from his stepmother, he preferred the solitude of the mountains to the thought of human company, and made no attempt to leave.

What little the goatherd had taught him before he died was enough for him not to go hungry. He learned to hunt rabbits and partridges with traps made of sticks and leaves.

"The animals guided me as to what to eat. Whatever they ate, I ate," he says. "The wild boars ate tubers buried under the soil. They found them because they smelled them. When they were digging the soil looking for them, I threw a stone at them - they would run away and then I would steal the tubers."

Marcos says he established a special bond with some animals. Many will find it hard to believe this story, about his relationship with a family of wolves:
"One day I went into a cave and started to play with wolf cubs that lived there and I fell asleep. Later, the mother brought food for them and I woke up.
"She saw me and looked fiercely at me. The wolf started to rip the meat apart. A cub got close to me and I tried to steal his food, because I was hungry as well. The mother pawed at me. I backed off.
"After feeding her pups she threw me a piece of meat. I didn't want to touch it because I thought she was going to attack me, but she was pushing the meat with her nose. I took it, ate it, and thought she was going to bite me, but she put her tongue out, and started to lick me. After that, I was one of the family."

Marcos also says he had a snake as a companion.
"She lived with me in a cave that was part of an abandoned mine. I made a nest for her and gave her milk from the goats. She followed me everywhere and protected me," he says.

These relationships kept loneliness at bay, Marcos says. He was only lonely when he could not hear animals - and in such cases he would imitate their call. He can still reproduce the sound of the deer, the fox, the aguililla (booted eagle) and other animals.

"Once they answered, I would be able to sleep because I knew they hadn't abandoned me," he says.

Marcos was 19 years old when Spanish police found him
Bit by bit, sounds and growls replaced words. Marcos stopped speaking - until, one day, he was found by the Guardia Civil, and taken by force to the small village of Fuencaliente, at the foot of the mountains.
 
His father was brought to identify him.
"I felt nothing when I saw him," Marcos says.
"He only asked me one thing: 'Where is your jacket?' As if I would still be wearing the jacket I had when I left!"

Marcos is a great talker, a storyteller who knows exactly when to pause, when to make a noise, or hiss, to increase the dramatic tension of his tale.

But how true is it? Can men and wolves actually be "friends" or snakes "faithful guardians"?
Wolves

"What happens is that Marcos does not tell us what happened, but what he believes happened," says Gabriel Janer Manila, Spanish writer and anthropologist at the University of the Balearic Islands, who wrote his thesis on Marcos's case, and 30 years later published a novel about his life.
 
"But that's what we all do - to present our take on the facts," he says.
"When Marcos sees a snake and gives her milk, and then the snake comes back, he says she's his friend. The snake is not his 'friend'. She is following him because he gives her milk. He says, 'She protects me' because that is what he believes has happened."

This way of interpreting the facts, his imagination and intelligence was what enabled him to survive in the solitude of the mountains, says Janer Manila.

It was thanks to Janer Manila that Marcos's story became widely known.
He listened to Marcos and filmed him 10 years after he had returned from the mountains.
"My first impression was one of amazement. He was a nice young man wanting to communicate with people, despite his limitations," Janer Manila recalls.

Is it possible to recover?

Howling wolf
Gabriel Janer Manila, anthropologist: "Marcos broke his link with society at a crucial time. A child needs to receive the necessary stimulus to grow up in all senses: in intelligence, affectivity, imagination… Marcos couldn't receive them and that's why some aspects of his personality are blocked, because of marginalisation. He could have relationships that are more or less pleasant, he can be more or less happy, but he will never recover."

Hector Rifa Burrull, psychologist, Oviedo University, Spain, who treated the feral child of Cambodia: "It depends on what were his needs and at what time he had suffered them. There is no set of instructions for recovery; in any case, what is needed is to promote communication and mutual empathy. These are the preconditions for any learning process, and this objective requires a lot of time and specialised dedication."

"But at first, when I heard it, I did not believe him. I thought, 'It cannot be.' But the story was so consistent and so well told, and also, every time I asked him about it he would tell me the story using the same words. So I said to myself, I will have to check all this."

Janer Manila travelled to the places he had named and talked to the people he had mentioned.
Some people corroborated parts of the story.

"I talked to people who had engaged with him when he was found, with people who welcomed him in their homes, with the employee who bathed him for the first time, with a seminarian who took care of him... All these people highlighted his wild character, his ignorance of the social world and his inability to follow the rules of a game. The account matched what Marcos had told me," says Janer Manila.

"And when I saw him telling his story later," he says in reference to the interviews Marcos gave after the 2010 premiere of a film inspired by his life, "it hadn't changed."

Marcos describes his return to society as the scariest moment in his life.
"I didn't know where to go; I just wanted to escape to the mountains," he says.

Everything was traumatic, from his first visit to the barbershop - when he thought the barber would cut his throat with his razor - to the fights he had with nuns in Madrid, who tried to make him sleep in a bed.

"A trooper... was passing along the bank of the river, near Chandour, about noon, when he saw a large female wolf leave her den, followed by three whelps and a little boy," begins one of Sleeman's six cases.

"The boy went on all fours, and seemed to be on the best possible terms with the old dam and the three whelps, and the mother seemed to guard all four with equal care."

But Sleeman portrays wolf children as "dumb, savage, filthy and wretched," says Dr Daniel Karlin in his introduction to The Jungle Books (Penguin, 1987). Kipling made Mowgli the exact opposite.
This habit took him a long time to acquire. 

"Once he rented a small apartment and he showed it to me," says Janer Manila. "The bedroom had no bed or furniture, there were blankets all over the floor along with lots of wrinkled sheets of magazine and newspapers, as if there had been an animal there. When I saw that, I asked him if he wouldn't be better sleeping in a bed? And he said: 'No.'"

What most disturbed Marcos most of all was the noise and the hustle and bustle of human communities.

"I could not cope with so much noise… the cars… and people going back and forwards like ants. But at least ants all go in the same direction! People went everywhere! I was scared of crossing the road!" he says.

The nuns of Madrid taught him some lessons.
"They taught me to eat properly and they put a piece of wood in my back to help me walk straight because I was all crooked from walking in the mountains," he says. Also, he remembers, they put him in a wheelchair for a while, because he couldn't walk after they cut all the calluses on his feet.

What followed was a journey from one job to another, and a brief stint in the military.
People regularly took advantage of Marcos's naivety, and he ended up living in miserable conditions in Malaga, until a chance encounter with a retired police officer, who invited him to live in Rante, a small village near Orense in Spain's north-western region of Galicia.

Inside Marcos's home Inside Marcos's home
 
Now in his late 60s, Marcos bears few grudges, but he does wonder why, after forcing him to come down from the mountains, the state didn't prepare him properly for life in society.

"When I got out of there, the first thing they should have done is send me to a school, teach me to talk and how to behave in the world," he says. "What was the point of making me first do communion and military service? So I could learn to shoot and kill people?" he asks, with a rare note of anger in his voice.

In Rante, where Marcos has been living for about 15 years, everyone knows him and treats him with respect.
Listen to Marcos Rodriguez Pantoja speak to Outlook on the BBC World Service

His home is a small house, with slightly cave-like low ceilings, packed with memorabilia - photos of his moments of fame, drawings and a curious collection of cigarette lighters. The tiny patio is full of flowers and plants. 

In the corner of the room there is a piano and a guitar. Marcos learned how to play them by ear and he doesn't play badly at all.

He tells me he had a few girlfriends in the past, but nowadays he is single. He has many friends, though, and people who love him and help him.

He no longer works. He gets a half-pension for an injury he sustained while working on a building site - but whenever he can, he lends a hand at Rante's only bar.

"Marcos is a very good person, a bit childish but a very nice guy. He is always here," says Maite, the owner.

Does he ever contemplate returning to the Sierra Morena?
Marcos and fellow villagers Marcos entertains his neighbours in the Galician village of Rante
 
"I thought about it many times. But I'm used to this life now and there are so many things that I didn't have there, like music for instance, or women. Women are one good reason to stay here," he says.
"Now I am accustomed to it, I'll remain where I am."

Marcos's story is the subject of a documentary by Spanish director Gerardo Olivares, whose film Among Wolves (Entrelobos) was premiered in 2010. He is planning to release it commercially next year.

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South Africa outrage at rape scene school exam question

BBC News online -- 27 November 2013
"No means no" written on the back of woman during a "slut walk" in South Africa There are more than 60,000 incidents of rape reported in South Africa each year
South Africans have been outraged by a question in the national school-leavers' drama exam which asked students to direct a rape scene.

They were asked to describe how they would get an actor to maximise the horror of the rape of a baby, using a broomstick and loaf of bread as props.

Anti-rape activists and the author of the play, Lara Foot Newton, have said the question was "insensitive".

South Africa has one of the highest rates of sexual violence in the world.
Ms Foot Newton's award-winning play Baby Tshepang is based on the actual rape of a nine-month old by her mother's boyfriend.

Rape In South Africa

  • South Africa has one of the highest incidence of rape in the world
  • 1 in 4 men admit to rape
  • More than 64,000 cases of rape were reported to police last year
  • In most instances the rapist and victim are known to each other
Based on reports by the Medical Research Council, South African Police Service

South Africa's Education Department has defended the question's inclusion in the paper, sat by students on Monday.

"Nowhere is it expected of the candidate to have to literally describe the actual act of raping a nine-month-old baby," it said in a statement.

It was aimed at assessing the pupils' concept of using metaphor as a theatrical technique, it said.

But some students were disturbed by the question.

"Everyone was in shock that we were asked such a question. It was so gruesome and we were not sure how to answer it," South Africa' Times newspaper quotes a Durban pupil as saying.

The local Witness newspaper reports that many student it interviewed were too embarrassed to repeat what they had written in their answers.

"While drama is all encompassing, we never expected such a question or topic. This is sickening to say the least," one pupil, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the paper.

"How does a 17-year-old describe the rape of a baby? We have been forced to imagine the unimaginable."

Another pupil said one of her friends was most upset as she had a younger sister who had been sexually abused.

Rape trauma counsellor, Michelle Smith, agreed it was "incredibly insensitive to the thousands of children who are being sexually abused daily".

"You cannot put something like this in an exam paper and call it raising awareness," the Witness quoted her as saying.

Ms Foot Newton told South Africa's ENCA TV that the questions was "insensitive to the play".
"I think it's [also] inappropriate for a drama student to have to answer that kind of question at that level," she said.

Eureka Olivier, from the child rights advocacy group Bobbi Bear, said she was "absolutely disgusted".

"What are we teaching our children by having such a question in an exam paper?" she told the Witness.

The internal moderators for the exam paper said it was a "valid and fair" question.

"The rape of babies is a relevant societal issue. In technical terms it is also asking the learner to present how the horror of the act can be conveyed, theatrically, to an audience," the moderators said in a statement.

"This is not to create hysteria, but to sensitise an audience to the horror and, at best, to have them walk out of the theatre determined to prevent such horrific and brutal acts from being perpetrated."
More than 60,000 people are raped each year in South Africa and experts say most rapes happen in poor communities, carried out by people known to the victim.

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PA Caught Digging at Ancient Hasmonean Fortress

The fortress, an important site in the Maccabee revolts which Hanukkah commemorates, is located in 'Area A' not under Israeli control.

By Ari Yashar, Arutz Sheva Staff
First Publish: 11/27/2013, 12:31 PM

PA Digging at the Hasmonean Fortress
PA Digging at the Hasmonean Fortress
Kfar Etzion Field School
 
Tour guides from the Kfar Etzion Field School this week discovered that the Palestinian Authority (PA) has been digging at Beit Betzi, a Hasmonean fortress located between Bethlehem and the Herodion in "Area A." The Hasmonean revolt against the Greek empire is commemorated in the holiday of Hanukkah that begins Wednesday night.

Following the Oslo Accords the site, one of the only existing discoveries from the days of the Hasmoneans, was transfered to PA control.

News of PA digs at the site is particularly of concern given the organization's penchant for rewriting history. In 2011, amid renewed PA digs in Shechem, which the Bible records was bought by Jacob (Yaakov), Hamdan Taha, director of the PA's Department of Antiquities, said the dig would help in “writing or rewriting the history of Palestine.”

The Field School guides discovered the archaeological digging during a trip taken in advance of a walking tour planned for December 6 during Hanukkah. The Field School said Israeli groups have not traveled the area in roughly 20 years.

Given the lack of a mandate for rule and for IDF involvement in Area A, the School said "all that's left is to hope that the findings will be dealt with according to the great importance the site has to the Jewish people."

The Hasmoneans successfully forced the occupying Greek Empire out of Israel and established their own dynasty over 2,000 years ago. Their revolt, sparked by Greek decrees outlawing Judaism, lead to the purification and rededication of the Second Temple in Jerusalem.

Regarding the site, representatives from the School explained that Judah Maccabee, a key leader in the uprising, died three years after the Temple was purified. Following his death "the Hellenist Jews together with the Greek army returned to rule over Judea and the gains accomplished by the Hasmonean revolt nearly fell completely. The recovery from this hard setback happened in the Judean desert between Bethlehem and Tekoa at the hill named Beit Betzi."

At the ruins remains of a magnificent fortress from the Hasmonean and Early Roman period were found. According to Dr. David Amit's research in the 1980s the site played a critical role in the Hasmonean struggle against Greek forces.

Manager of the Field School Yaron Rozental noted that while "national agreements left the ancient site in Area A out of Israeli control, there is no reason to lose the cultural tradition of our people from the days of the Macabbean revolt."

Rozental continued, saying "I call on the national authorities to do everything so that the information contained in the layers of the ancient site will stay a part of the cultural heritage of humanity."

Previously the Field School found what appears to be a castle from King David's time (roughly 3,000 years ago), the discovery of which authorities apparently have been trying to keep secret given its location in a PA controlled area.
PA Digging at Beit Betzi in "Area A" Kfar Etzion Field School

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The Day the Earth Smiled with planets annotated

The Day the Earth Smiled (with planets annotated)

November 14, 2013
On July 19, 2013, in an event celebrated the world over, NASA's Cassini spacecraft slipped into Saturn's shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings -- and, in the background, our home planet, Earth. With the sun's powerful and potentially damaging rays eclipsed by Saturn itself, Cassini's onboard cameras were able to take advantage of this unique viewing geometry. They acquired a panoramic mosaic of the Saturn system that allows scientists to see details in the rings and throughout the system as they are backlit by the sun. This mosaic is special as it marks the third time our home planet was imaged from the outer solar system; the second time it was imaged by Cassini from Saturn's orbit; and the first time ever that inhabitants of Earth were made aware in advance that their photo would be taken from such a great distance. With both Cassini's wide-angle and narrow-angle cameras aimed at Saturn, Cassini was able to capture 323 images in just over four hours. This final mosaic uses 141 of those wide-angle images. Images taken using the red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide-angle camera were combined and mosaicked together to create this natural-color view. A brightened version with contrast and color enhanced, a version with just the planets annotated, and an unannotated version are also available. This image spans about 404,880 miles (651,591 kilometers) across. The outermost ring shown here is Saturn's E ring, the core of which is situated about 149,000 miles (240,000 kilometers) from Saturn. The geysers erupting from the south polar terrain of the moon Enceladus supply the fine icy particles that comprise the E ring; diffraction by sunlight gives the ring its blue color. Enceladus (313 miles, or 504 kilometers, across) and the extended plume formed by its jets are visible, embedded in the E ring on the left side of the mosaic. At the 12 o'clock position and a bit inward from the E ring lies the barely discernible ring created by the tiny, Cassini-discovered moon, Pallene (3 miles, or 4 kilometers, across).
 
 
(For more on structures like Pallene's ring, see Moon-made Rings). The next narrow and easily seen ring inward is the G ring. Interior to the G ring, near the 11 o'clock position, one can barely see the more diffuse ring created by the co-orbital moons, Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across) and Epimetheus (70 miles, or 113 kilometers, across). Farther inward, we see the very bright F ring closely encircling the main rings of Saturn. Following the outermost E ring counter-clockwise from Enceladus, the moon Tethys (662 miles, or 1,066 kilometers, across) appears as a large yellow orb just outside of the E ring. Tethys is positioned on the illuminated side of Saturn; its icy surface is shining brightly from yellow sunlight reflected by Saturn. Continuing to about the 2 o'clock position is a dark pixel just outside of the G ring; this dark pixel is Saturn's Death Star moon, Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers, across). Mimas appears, upon close inspection, as a very thin crescent because Cassini is looking mostly at its non-illuminated face. The moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus and Epimetheus are also visible in the mosaic near Saturn's bright narrow F ring. Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers, across) is visible as a faint black dot just inside the F ring and at the 9 o'clock position. On the opposite side of the rings, just outside the F ring, Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers, across) can be seen as a bright white dot. Pandora and Prometheus are shepherd moons and gravitational interactions between the ring and the moons keep the F ring narrowly confined. At the 11 o'clock position in between the F ring and the G ring, Janus (111 miles, or 179 kilometers, across) appears as a faint black dot. Janus and Prometheus are dark for the same reason Mimas is mostly dark: we are looking at their non-illuminated sides in this mosaic. Midway between the F ring and the G ring, at about the 8 o'clock position, is a single bright pixel, Epimetheus. Looking more closely at Enceladus, Mimas and Tethys, especially in the brightened version of the mosaic, one can see these moons casting shadows through the E ring like a telephone pole might cast a shadow through a fog. In the non-brightened version of the mosaic, one can see bright clumps of ring material orbiting within the Encke gap near the outer edge of the main rings and immediately to the lower left of the globe of Saturn. Also, in the dark B ring within the main rings, at the 9 o'clock position, one can see the faint outlines of two spoke features, first sighted by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in the early 1980s and extensively studied by Cassini. Finally, in the lower right of the mosaic, in between the bright blue E ring and the faint but defined G ring, is the pale blue dot of our planet, Earth. Look closely and you can see the moon protruding from the Earth's lower right. (For a higher resolution view of the Earth and moon taken during this campaign, see One Special Day in the Life of Planet Earth.) Earth's twin, Venus, appears as a bright white dot in the upper left quadrant of the mosaic, also between the G and E rings. Mars also appears as a faint red dot embedded in the outer edge of the E ring, above and to the left of Venus. For ease of visibility, Earth, Venus, Mars, Enceladus, Epimetheus and Pandora were all brightened by a factor of eight and a half relative to Saturn. Tethys was brightened by a factor of four. In total, 809 background stars are visible and were brightened by a factor ranging from six, for the brightest stars, to 16, for the faintest. The faint outer rings (from the G ring to the E ring) were also brightened relative to the already bright main rings by factors ranging from two to eight, with the lower-phase-angle (and therefore fainter) regions of these rings brightened the most. The brightened version of the mosaic was further brightened and contrast-enhanced all over to accommodate print applications and a wide range of computer-screen viewing conditions. Some ring features -- such as full rings traced out by tiny moons -- do not appear in this version of the mosaic because they require extreme computer enhancement, which would adversely affect the rest of the mosaic. This version was processed for balance and beauty. This view looks toward the unlit side of the rings from about 17 degrees below the ring plane. Cassini was approximately 746,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from Saturn when the images in this mosaic were taken. Image scale on Saturn is about 45 miles (72 kilometers) per pixel. This mosaic was made from pictures taken over a span of more than four hours while the planets, moons and stars were all moving relative to Cassini. Thus, due to spacecraft motion, these objects in the locations shown here were not in these specific places over the entire duration of the imaging campaign. Note also that Venus appears far from Earth, as does Mars, because they were on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed and assembled at JPL. The imaging team is based at the Space Science Institute, Boulder, Colo. For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov or http://www.nasa.gov/cassini . The Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org . Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

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