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theparanormalperiodical · 3 years ago

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A few weeks back, Japan’s ‘killing stone’ split open. Let’s talk about that.

Japanese horror films are world renowned for their artistic prowess, intricate stories and folkloric-inspiration. But no one really talks about the latter. From my research for previous blogposts, I’ve fallen down many a rabbit hole and gotten lost in ancient stories that inspired our favourite scary movies, like The Ring and The Grudge.

So, when I saw that a paranormal Japanese legend had hit the press, last week, I knew what today’s blog would be about.

Turns out, the ‘killing stone’ - or Sessho-seki - has split in half, releasing the demon spirit of Tamamo-no-Mae after 1000 years.

dun dun duuh

Of course, what’s really happened here is that the volanic rock has been splitting over several years due to weathering. And its lethal name? Probably because of the poisonous gases it emits.

And science, yeah, is cool, right. But today we’re talking about some spooky shizz.

Let’s get started.

*snaps latex glove*

The legend of Tamamo-no-Mae

I was about to say that our story starts sometime between the 14th or 16th century - with the Muromachi period, where Tamamo gets her first mention. But we actually need to go all the way back about 3400 years (*m3nt4l m4th5*) to the Shang dynasty in China. Well, right to the end of it: when the last king, King Zhou, shacked up with a woman named Daji. But according to legend, a fox spirit killed and impersonated her.

Fox spirits are entities from Chinese (and East Asian) mythology. These foxes are mischievous tricksters with magical powers. And most of the time, they can disguise themselves as beautiful women. Transforming into Daji, therefore, wasn’t too much of a challenge.

But this fox spirit caused hell of a lot of trouble when it brought on a ‘reign of terror’, resulting in a rebellion that ended the Shang dynasty. After this, it hot-footed it to ancient India to become another partner of a royal figure, influencing him to execute thousands of men. After its second defeat, it returned to China (8th century BC) to play out the same pattern of impersonate, marry and create chaos.

Now we’re in the 14th century AD. 2200 years later (?), the fox heads on over to Japan for the first time, appearing as Tamamo-no-Mae. She was clever, beautiful and Emperor Toba’s favourite partner. But after he became ill, an astrologer was brought in to diagnose the problem. The astrologer sniffed the fox out pretty easily. So, the emperor asked some warriors to kill the fox in the town of Nasu.

When the deed was done, the spirit embedded itself in a nearby rock, becoming Sessho-seki.

A Buddhist monk visited the rock a few hundred years later, exorcising the spirit and claiming it was now at peace.

So, what is it about magical foxes?

Turns out, foxes and humans used to live quite close together, back in ancient Japan. They used to believe that any fox - or kitsune - can shapeshift into human form, and that they possess paranormal abilities that increase as they age.

Kitsune liked to possess young women by entering them beneath their fingernails on through their breasts (yeah, no idea how, either). Much like spirit possession in other cultures, you could be exorcised by a priest.

Today, people can suffer from kitsunetsuki, where they believe they are possessed by a fox. They crave rice, sweet beans, aren’t interested in anything, are restless and can’t keep eye contact.

But its not just in Japan or East Asia that foxes are associated with supernatural powers.

According to Native American legends, foxes are born tricksters that were able to remove their fur and become women. The Celts thought they were cunning, sly creatures. In Scandinavian mythology it is even believed that foxes created the Northern Lights.

If you liked this post, let me know by liking, reblogging or following this blog!

#killing stone #japanese folklore #east asian folklore #fox spirits #spirits #fox #foxes #demons #ghosts #legends #myths #horror films #folklore #scary movie #ghost stories #true ghost stories #real ghost stories

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minkookiecore · 4 years ago

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🐥🌌🐰

ASTROPHILE

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

A lover of the stars.

Jungkook is a pink alien from Euphoria, a planet millions of light-years from Earth where beings of all colors and shapes have coexisted since different species made it their home.

His species is draconian, which includes a large group of oviparous beings with humanoid bodies, semi-webbed fingers, and long and strong tails with spikes. Some of them may have scales but the distribution, quantity, and hardness of these vary in each individual.

There are rumors that this species is lethal due to the ability to emit fire, but in reality, they are only capable of emitting an intense reddish fuchsia breath when agitated to distract other predators.

As for Jungkook, little patches of soft iridescent scales take place here and there on his pinkish skin, while he has more resistant and darker scales from the base of his neck, that run along the length of his back until they transform into the spikes of his tail.

The interspecies coexistence in Euphoria had begun no more than 40 years ago. Humans and many other species decided to move to Euphoria since the milky way was decaying.

Euphoria is a small planet that has seven moons, a sun, and a sky painted in shades of fuchsia and purple.

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

Jimin is one of the remaining humans on earth, a young man with a pure and genuine heart. He gave up his place in the 1311PJM spaceship five years ago so that an elderly mother could reunite with her children.

space travel was not so accessible and priority was given to the young and capable ones, so the elderly or ill were left on earth as there was no place nor resources to take everyone to Euphoria.

Jimin loved the stars, since he was a small child he dreamed of being surrounded by them, imagining the ethereal beauty that books described and the old movies could not capture.

Sadly, the Earth's sky is polluted and full of dense gases that make it impossible to glimpse stars in the night sky, even so, Jimin usually goes out every night in hopes of catching a glow among the darkness.

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

Jimin had met Jungkook just over two years ago, the Alien had come to earth on a rescue mission and he thought Jimin was on his spaceship's passenger list.

He wasn't.

The human had seen a decent amount of aliens, however when he laid his eyes on the draconian he was spellbound, his skin was an opalescent light pink while his hair was a more vibrant, lively hue. Jimin could swear that Jungkook was the most beautiful being he had ever seen, his lilac eyes seemed to be full of small sparkles that had him wondering if stars shine with the same intensity of his gaze.

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

Since that first meeting, the two had met a handful of times, taking advantage of every space mission Jungkook had.

The alien had acquired the habit of bring with him small rocks and stones from Euphoria and photos of some stars he had seen during his journey, therefore Jimin had accumulated a large collection of stones and a wall full of photos of stars and constellations.

They kept in touch while millions of light-years away, thanks to an old computer that Jimin had found in one of the abandoned buildings and a basic chat program that Jungkook had managed to get hold of.

The messages sometimes lasted weeks or months to reach the other, the signal between planets and galaxies was definitely not the best.

Last time Jimin had received a message from Jungkook had been three months ago, the content had been simple but life-changing, "Do you want to be my lifelong partner?", it read on the greenish screen.

It may seem rushed on his part, but as soon as he read those words he didn't hesitate to type a "yes, I do". Since then he has received no signal, no response, no nothing from jungkook, and the yearning became unbearable every time he laid his eyes on the dusty screen.

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

Just when Jimin was losing hope of hearing from Jungkook again, head filled with worried thoughts about the pink being's well-being, he glimpsed the familiar 0197JJK spaceship in the smoky sky.

It turns out that the alien had been so moved by Jimin's answer that he had immediately gone to file a petition on the intergalactic committee. Since interspecies relations were encouraged in Euphoria they had accepted Jimin's rescue without many hindrances, so Jungkook headed straight for his spaceship, forgetting to send a reply to who is now his partner.

As customary, the Euphorian didn't arrive empty-handed, this time he brought Jimin a Rhodium ring, with a crescent moon and a small opal that looked just like Euphoria, a symbol of the beginning of their life together.

─ ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─

This is part of a monster bingo in twt and although the characters and worlds are different, this idea was strongly inspired by Portent's fic: ''Bring me the stars ''

I highly recommend it if you enjoy reading about stars!

Go read it and leave a nice comment for the author: D

I also want to clarify that I am not a writer and English is not my language, so sorry if there are errors / inconsistencies.

#jikook #kookmin

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ladybugoflove · 4 years ago

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Vṛkṣāyurveda

so adhd possessed me like a demon and I've done nothing but read ancient books (er, eng translations of them) on Vṛkṣāyurveda, aka arborial/ tree medicine. Like, deadass every waking moment of the past few days lmao. If you want to take a look, Brihat Samhita (ch. 55) is where I started, and still my favorite. Lokopakara is my second fav, but all vedas on the topic are full of informational gems.

While these techniques were recorded thousands of years ago, they are still practiced by rural farmers in India. For example, Debal Deb, one of few people preserving traditional varieties of rice, still uses Vṛkṣāyurveda practices (such as soaking seeds in cow urine before sowing).

Anyways, so ya'll who don't want to read hundreds of pages of information (as if this isn't a wall of text adhsjd sorry), I plucked my favorite practices and listed them below in my own words (along with why I think these methods work, because I haven't dove into research papers yet)~

Soak seeds in ankola oil and slesmataka fruit 100 times before planting in ground (presumably drying seeds between each soak), then pour coconut water on the soil where it was planted to encourage rapid growth and fruiting

Fruit trees take several years to produce fruit, but this method claims to encourage fruiting immediately/ within the first growing season. While I don't know anything about ankola/ alangium nor slesmataka/ cordia fruits, I do know that coconut water encourages root growth, so effectively that you can grow entire plants from only their leaves using coconut water!

Turn a tree with bitter fruits into a tree with sweet fruits: Scrape the bark off (amount not indicated), then rub the tree with a mixture of barley, licorice & jaggery. Then, pour some milk & water at the roots.

I'm not sure how this works, but my guess is it works similarly to this method of turning a bitter almond tree into a sweet one; a non-lethal injury to the tree might stop the production of a bitter-tasting chemical (method is from another old text, St. Basil's Hexaemeron).

Store seeds with sweet flag (acorus calamus) to protect them from pests

You can also use sweet flag to treat lice!

There are a lot of ingredients you can use to smoke/ fumigate trees, such as using banana leaves, frankincense, gugal, even substances such as animal bones and cow dung.

Obviously, smoke will stun and/ or deter pests, allowing it to grow without interference, but I also think it's successful because of antimicrobal properties. Burning medicinal plants (like white sage) not only cleans the air spiritually, but kills airbourne bacteria. Charring wood also emits antimicrobal gases (and liquids) that are used in agriculture, to sprout seeds, as a fertilizer, etc.

Kunapajala, fermented animal flesh and products with a sugary substance (sugar cane juice, jaggery, honey, and/ or fruits).

I mean. KNF (korean natural farming) is based on this so *gestures vaguely*

Use your cow for everything. Rub manure on bark, on the roots, amend the soil with it. Sprinkle seeds with cow's milk before drying them. Make a fertilizer called panchagarya, 100% from fermented cow products.

Farmers know manure (not just from farm animals, but from humans too) is great for soil, washing tools and hands in milk before handling plants can reduce the transmission of certain viruses + lactic acid, but I'm stumped about the ghee/ clarified butter.

I think the list I made is too long already, but def check out some Vedic texts! There are cooler thinks like changing the colours of fruit (I remember seeing blue, red, and gold), that are interesting to learn about, even if I'm skeptical about them actually working as claimed.

#pina.posts #indigenous agricultural practices #traditional farming

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gretamclaughlin · 4 years ago

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Saving Ecosystems to Save Ourselves

I left off speaking about the decrease in biodiversity worldwide and efforts to reverse this trend, specifically the species and ecosystem approaches. The most recent content surrounds aquatic biodiversity loss as well as modern agriculture and issues with food security, which often relate to decreases in biodiversity. Industrialized farming methods to feed a growing population often harm the environment, and we must search for new ways to feed billions of people. As in many cases, human activity is damaging the earth, and we exploit resources in an unsustainable manner, affecting ourselves and other organisms.

Humans are degrading valuable aquatic habitats, which then harms marine and freshwater species. As humans continue to create coastal developments, pollute, and emit greenhouse gases, oceans’ conditions worsen. For example, through coral bleaching, the number of warm-water coral reefs, which are centers of biodiversity, is decreasing rapidly. Increases in ocean acidification, temperature, and overall pollution affect the ocean’s services and food webs. Perhaps most significantly, human activity is killing phytoplankton. This organism is not only an important food source for many species, but it also produces a significant percentage of the oxygen on earth and absorbs CO2, thus mitigating the effects of emissions. In addition, with growing food insecurity, some people are pointing to phytoplankton as an alternative food source (Moore-Ede 2017). Therefore, reducing the phytoplankton population might be even more detrimental to future generations than it was first thought to be; we are actively destroying our food. Although we may not see the impact of our actions at first, harming organisms like phytoplankton has major effects on ocean ecosystems, the biosphere, and our ability to live on earth in the future. It is essential to emphasize the consequences for humans if we destroy oceans to gain more support for action against climate degradation. This human-centered approach may cause more people to back environmental initiatives.

The film Albatross highlights the consequences of human activity regarding waste. As a result of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, many birds have ingested a lethal amount of plastic. The visuals are heartbreaking, and the filmmaker does an excellent job appealing to emotions and pointing out how devastating human actions are. Many parts appear dystopian. Watching films like these make viewers reflect on their role in such tragedies.

Overfishing is a significant issue, and humans are depleting the world’s fisheries through unsustainable exploitation. The rise of industrial fishing has dually increased the number of fish caught and the use of harmful equipment. For example, trawlers destroy habitats on the ocean floor, and nets kill a significant number of bycatch, sea turtles, and dolphins. I believe it is important to use these “cute” organisms to promote saving the oceans (species approach). More people are attracted to saving sea turtles and dolphins than just an ordinary fish. Therefore, if we encourage them to work to save their preferred organisms, the effects of legislation and grassroots efforts can also help less known/less liked organisms, thus helping entire ecosystems. Those trying to save the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge used this tactic to emphasize the effect of drilling on polar bears to gain more support against exploiting the refuge.

In a previous blog post, I spoke about the rise of industrial fishing in Senegal, specifically the impact of foreign fishing boats. They depleted Senegal’s resources and escalated food insecurity. To make matters worse, most of the fish are being turned into fishmeal, so the Senegalese cannot even eat the fish taken from them. Efforts to expel foreign entities from their waters have not been very effective, and the Senegalese government is taking more aggressive measures, such as the implementation of highly trained combative forces, to curb this issue. Regardless, it will take a long time before fish populations return to previous levels.

The aquatic biodiversity situation is disheartening because international laws and treaties can only do so much. The high seas are largely unregulated, and treaties mostly rely on pure faith that other governments will do the right thing. Any strategies, like sanctions, to enforce these policies are unlikely to be employed when it comes to environmental laws. It makes me wonder if there is any hope for saving the world’s ecosystems. After all, it is a global effort to preserve biodiversity, and many nations frankly do not care enough to make real change.

Food insecurity is increasing, especially in developing nations, and environmental degradation intensifies the issue. As a result, many impoverished people cannot access food, which affects their health. People suffer from brain damage and illnesses due to malnutrition. The U.S. faces issues with food deserts, and the poor cannot access affordable, healthy food. People experience “overnutrition,” leading to obesity, diabetes, and other related illnesses. In the area surrounding Rose Hill, there are few grocery stores that stock inexpensive and fresh fruits and vegetables, and you are more likely to find a fast food restaurant than a healthy eatery. If you travel to the Upper West Side, you will find Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, and farmers markets galore because the area is wealthier. It is unfair because everyone should be afforded a healthy lifestyle. In the U.S. and globally, there is an issue of food justice, and people cannot access basic necessities because of the money they have.

As a result of the Green Revolution, food production has increased over the last century, which has been integral in sustaining the growing global population. Despite higher crop yields, the expansion of industrialized agriculture has hidden costs from environmental and health consequences. This “revolution” ushered in a period of dependence on genetically modified foods, chemicals, and technology, and it has resulted in high water usage and high outputs of emissions from energy usage, cultivation, and animal husbandry. As prices are driven down through government subsidies and technological advancements, more Americans eat meat than in the past. This has disastrous effects, and agriculture as a whole makes up a significant percentage of U.S. water use and emissions. Additionally, according to the Center for Health Journalism, the growth hormones and antibiotics prevalent in many American animal products have been linked to increasingly early puberty in girls (Rosenberg 2016). While many European countries have taken more precautionary approaches to food additives, the U.S. has decided to move forward with them (Germinal Organic 2018). This phenomenon brings about a complicated question: should we continue to modify food to feed the world? It seems like we have few other options to prevent mass hunger, despite potentially adverse health effects. At least, this is what companies tell us. In response to industrialized agriculture, there have been calls to lean on organic agriculture, which does not use synthetic pesticides, inorganic fertilizers, or genetically engineered seed varieties. Although industrialized agriculture may seem like a solution now, it appears that it will not be one long-term. We need to begin experimenting with other farming methods that do not degrade the environment to create a future for everyone on earth.

Immediate steps must be taken to prevent the widespread destruction of earth’s ecosystems. Although international treaties cannot be enforced on the same level as federal laws, they can be important in countries taking steps to prevent overfishing and aquatic degradation in general. Such policies cause nations to reflect on their actions and change how they view the environment. Citizens of participating countries also have standards to hold their government to, which is crucial for grassroots organizing. The expansion of marine protected areas through treaties, which have had significant benefits in promoting the growth of populations and biodiversity, is integral in creating focused approaches to preserving the ocean.

Regarding fishing, governments need to become more active in preventing exploitation, which will have future health and environmental benefits. Ending subsidies to commercial fishing companies will decrease exploitation. Governments can direct subsidies to sustainable fishing efforts or fishing subsidies can be removed as a whole. After all, I am unsure if there is truly sustainable fishing when it disrupts natural ecosystems. Governments also must intervene by setting fishing seasons, quotas for species, and standards for fishing equipment to prevent habitat loss and the deaths of organisms not meant to be caught. More people will have access to fishing by instituting more catch-share systems, and it will be less exploitative as well. Aquaculture also needs to be regulated, and fish farmers should reduce the amount of antibiotics and pesticides they use. People “voting with their wallets” will be important when it comes to this because it is difficult for the government to regulate foreign fish imports. Certainly, authorities should enforce these efforts, and governments should institute programs to train people to monitor fishing. After all, when Senegal introduced its restrictions, foreign boats ignored them because of the lack of law enforcement. Quasi-military forces and protocols might be necessary. If we do not save the environment, we do not save ourselves.

Governments must institute mandates and subsidies that promote sustainable farming practices. Many of these should lean on traditional methods, such as requiring farmers to plant polycultures, which will lessen the need for fertilizer and water and prevent all the crops from being wiped out by a single disease. Further efforts to prevent agrobiodiversity will also be important in diversifying and strengthening our food security. Additionally, promoting organic agriculture will benefit people’s health and the environment, and subsidizing this farming method will lower prices and enable people in poverty to access cleaner food. As mentioned in a previous blog post, the U.S. government’s current subsidizing of mainstream food has caused it to be more accessible than healthier options. This has created an unhealthy and overweight population. If grassroots organizations can gain support to reduce the prices of organic food, they will be more successful in petitioning federal and state governments to change how they use their money. People can also pressure companies to provide healthier options; if it seems like a good economic opportunity, corporations will listen to customers.

Soil conservation is also important, and organic fertilizers and standards for agroforestry, terracing, strip-cropping, and more will prevent soil erosion and maintain soil fertility. However, farmers are unlikely to implement these methods on their own because they can seem costly at first. Why would one reduce the crops they grow for the soil? There must be free, local programs run by local governments and grassroots organizations that educate farmers on the importance of soil fertility and sustainability efforts. These programs should highlight the long-term benefits of soil conservation efforts and how current farming practices will ultimately lead to economic loss.

Urban gardens, which grassroots organizations often implement, can help with food deserts and promote biophilia. In Newark, NJ, the Greater Newark Conservancy runs education programs on agriculture and provides inexpensive plots for people to grow food (Greater Newark Conservancy, n.d.). These programs get people outside and better their health in the process by providing organic food. In addition, connecting people with nature causes them to care more for the environment, and urban gardening programs will generate greater support for green causes, which helps further the goals of grassroots organizations in communities and in the government.

As I often speak about, Fordham must divest from Aramark, which uses unsustainable practices to get its food. This is something that the Climate Impact Initiative is actively working on. Most Aramark food is not fresh and must be stored in freezers for long periods, wasting energy. In addition, although Aramark claims to use local food, more stringent standards need to be placed to make more of the food come from closer by and support local, organic farms, which helps with the environmental cost of food transportation and cultivation. Fordham should also lean on its environmental history to expand its gardens and increase the number of fresh fruits and vegetables available. These can be sold to students, staff, and the community, and profits can be reinvested in the garden itself.

People must take personal responsibility for their consumption of foods and attempt to eat vegetarian more often or completely switch their diets to vegetarianism. Meat consumption is entirely unsustainable, and if more people stop eating meat, we can save animals’ lives and the environment. I recently became a vegetarian, and although it has been difficult, it gets easier with time. More than anything, I am angry that I did not begin eating like this earlier because I have always had the means to do so. This is another aspect of why we need to have healthier, fresh food available to impoverished people—they will be able to eat vegetarian too.

We must all take accountability for the consequences of our actions on earth’s ecosystems. Current agricultural and fishing practices have made eating completely unsustainable, and many of our activities often have a cascade effect on food webs. We must change how we obtain food now in order to save the human race’s ability to live in the future.

Word Count: 2147

Question: How can we institute full-cost pricing in agriculture while ensuring that those who are less well-off can afford healthy food?

Diagrams:

What it takes to make a quarter-pound hamburger

U.S. meat consumption per person in pounds

Much of New York City lacks access to healthy food

The disgusting state of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

Works Cited:

Moore Ede, Piers. 2017. “Could Marine Phytoplankton Be The Future Of Human Nutrition?” Published April 20, 2017. https://www.spiritofchange.org/could-marine-phytoplankton-be-the-future-of-human-nutrition/.

Rosenberg, Martha. 2016. “Precocious puberty in girls is increasing and alarming.” Published June 20, 2016. https://centerforhealthjournalism.org/2016/06/22/precocious-puberty-girls-increasing-and-alarming.

Germinal Organic. 2018. “EU Versus US: A Closer Look at Food Standards.” Published February 20, 2018. http://www.germinalorganic.com/2018/02/eu-versus-us-a-closer-look-at-food-standards/.

Greater Newark Conservancy. n.d. “Join Plot It Fresh.” Accessed April 12, 2021. https://www.citybloom.org/programs/urban-agriculture/plot-it-fresh/registration.html.

#agriculture #food justice #environment #nyc #brooklyn #environmentalism #fordham

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kuramirocket · 4 years ago

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Are gas emissions at Yellowstone dangerous? You may ask this question while walking along the boardwalks of Yellowstone National Park's geyser basins, where you'll see billowing white gas plumes or wrinkle your nose at a stinky rotten egg smell. In fact, it's a question that has been considered by scientists and visitors to the area for more than a century.

In 1897, geologist Thomas Jaggar (who would later go on to found the Hawaii Volcano Observatory) led a field party to visit Death Gulch, a small, steep ravine in a remote hot springs area in what is now Yellowstone National Park. Here, the deaths of numerous bears, elk, rodents and insects had been reported. The group came across eight new bear carcasses during their visit to Death Gulch, and Jaggar surmised that their deaths had been caused by exposure to poisonous levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) gases.

Over a hundred years later, in 2004, five dead bison were discovered in Yellowstone's Norris Geyser Basin. Strangely, the bison lacked markings on their bodies that would suggest they were attacked by predators. Based on the position of their bodies, it appeared that the animals had died suddenly and as a group. Similar to the events at Death Gulch, park scientists concluded that their deaths were likely caused by buildup of lethal levels of carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide gases at the ground level, where the animals were grazing.

The gases emitted from Yellowstone's hydrothermal areas are composed mostly of water vapor, a harmless gas. However, other gases that are poisonous to people and animals when present in certain concentrations are also found within these emissions. Carbon dioxide is a colorless and odorless gas, while hydrogen sulfide is colorless, flammable and has the distinctive rotten-egg smell that many people notice in the geyser basins. Both gases are heavier than air. In most circumstances, wind will dilute carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide to low concentrations that do not threaten the health of people and animals. In certain very stable atmospheric conditions, though, these relatively heavy gases can accumulate in low-lying areas and pose a serious hazard. This was likely the case in 2004, when the dead bison were found in Norris Geyser Basin after an unusually cold and still night. These specific circumstances likely allowed gases to build up near the ground surface to concentrations that were lethal to the grazing animals.

Under most weather conditions, visitors will not be bothered by the gas emissions that are an integral part of Yellowstone's fascinating hydrothermal areas. However, as recommended by the National Park Service, people should remain aware of potential gas hazards when exploring these areas and leave immediately if feeling sick. Even though there is no record of any human deaths due to exposure to gases at Yellowstone, the lessons of Death Gulch and the Norris bison provide warnings that should be heeded.

Source

#yellowstone #yellowstone national park #tw: dead animal #bear #bison #rat #chemistry #geology #death gulch #info #information

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lukesfrag · 2 years ago

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Name: Elliot Williams

Alias:

Baby boy (as fondly called by Joel)

El (affectionately referred to as such by Dina)

The Killer (earned this title from the Wolves)

Age:

6 (during the events of "Left Behind" and Part I)

10-11 (at the start of Part II)

19 (in Part II)

20 (during the Santa Barbara chapter)

Gender: Male

Species: Human

Nationality: American

Occupation: Jackson patrolman

Affiliations:

U.S. military (attended preparatory school in the past)

Informal association with the Fireflies

Strong ties to the Jackson community

Also connected with the Wellspring community

Appearance: Elliot is a tall, blond young man with piercing blue eyes. In his early childhood, he was quite short with long hair, often tied in a ponytail. During his teenage years, he sported a short curtains haircut, a slit cut on his right eyebrow, and a striking black flower tattoo on his right arm. A year later, he grew a mustache and let his hair cascade down.

Height:

115 cm (3'9) as a child

140 cm (4'7) during his early teenage years

179 cm (5'10) as an adult

Hair Color: Light Blonde

Eye Color: Blue

Relationships:

Anna† (mother, deceased)

Joel Miller† (adoptive father, deceased)

Riley Abel† (past love interest, deceased)

Cat (former girlfriend)

Dina (wife)

DJ Williams (daughter)

Personality: Despite growing up in a world where modern standards and values have crumbled, Elliot possesses a naturally sweet and kind disposition. He exudes innocence and is often tinged with a hint of fearfulness, uncomfortable with the idea of resorting to violence or profanity. This starkly contrasts with Joel's cautious, somber, and cynical outlook on post-pandemic life. Elliot's approach to conflict resolution is a testament to his gentle nature; he once offered an apology to a soldier before incapacitating him, preferring non-lethal means.

Beneath his meek exterior, Elliot harbors a sharp intellect and a witty demeanor. He's willing to go to great lengths to ensure both his and Joel's survival, demonstrating a keen survival instinct and resourcefulness. Having spent his childhood confined to a quarantine zone, Elliot possesses an insatiable curiosity about the outside world. He's particularly enamored with collecting items from others, including music, movies, books, motorcycles, and video games. He recalls a childhood coloring book experience, where he found gnomes cute but was frightened by fairies. His love for collecting often clashes with Joel's stoic demeanor.

Furthermore, Elliot has been known to easily become irritated, a trait exacerbated by his struggles with IED (Intermittent Explosive Disorder).

In later years, Elliot's character has evolved, becoming more mature and less talkative while retaining his sense of humor. However, the traumatic experience of witnessing Joel's death at the hands of Aidan's group left deep scars. In Seattle, a noticeable transformation occurred as Elliot became increasingly aggressive and vengeful, allowing his thirst for revenge to cloud his judgment. This ultimately led to decisions like prioritizing the pursuit of Aidan over helping Tommy and resorting to brutal methods when torturing Nora and Manny. Even a year later, he continues to grapple with PTSD stemming from Joel's death. When finally presented with the opportunity to avenge Joel, Elliot executes Aidan, only to realize that his relentless quest for revenge has alienated everyone he once loved.

Powers:

Immunity: Elliot possesses an extraordinary immunity to a wide array of threats, rendering him impervious to diseases, viruses, Cordyceps infections, sleeping pills, tranquilizing gases, and even radiation. This unique resistance stems from a peculiar mutation in his brain, which manifested after his initial infection. He remains immune to bites and spores emitted by the infected and can even heal others afflicted by the infection using his blood. Intriguingly, the infected do not recognize him as one of their own, relentlessly attempting to eliminate him. The potential to study his immunity further hints at the possibility of developing a cure or countermeasure for the infection.

Enhanced Regeneration: Following a bite, Elliot's cellular mitosis has escalated to such an extent that he can regenerate from virtually any wound, including severed limbs.

Enhanced Agility: Elliot boasts exceptional agility, allowing him to deftly evade attacks with ease.

Enhanced Speed: His speed surpasses that of ordinary humans, endowing him with remarkable swiftness.

Enhanced Stamina: In addition to his agility and speed, Elliot demonstrates an impressive level of stamina, enabling him to engage in combat for extended periods without displaying signs of fatigue.

Listening Mode: Similar to Joel, Elliot can employ his acute sense of hearing to efficiently locate enemies.

CQC Mastery: Elliot is a master of Close-Quarters Combat (CQC), proficient in combat techniques and tactics employed by military personnel and law enforcement officers. These tactics involve rapid transitions between armed and hand-to-hand combat when engaging enemy forces. His repertoire includes the use of various weapons such as carbines, submachine guns, shotguns, pistols, knives, and bayonets.

MCMAP Mastery: Elliot has achieved mastery in the Marine Corps Martial Arts Program (MCMAP), a versatile combat system developed by the United States Marine Corps. MCMAP emphasizes adaptability, allowing practitioners to choose the appropriate level of force, ranging from minimal restraint to lethal measures. It equips him to handle a wide range of situations, from nonviolent compliance to dealing with aggressive subjects.

Krav Maga Mastery: Elliot is a complete master of Krav Maga, a martial art developed for the Israel Defense Forces that combines techniques from boxing, wrestling, judo, aikido, and karate. It prioritizes swift and aggressive combat techniques, targeting vulnerable areas of the body.

Savate Mastery: Elliot's mastery extends to savate, also known as French kickboxing. This combat sport combines elements of English boxing with graceful kicking techniques, making it a formidable fighting style.

Systema Mastery: Elliot is a master of Systema, a Russian martial art emphasizing a straight-edge approach that encourages fighters to shed ego, fear, and tension during combat. His training encompasses various aspects, including hand-to-hand combat, grappling, knife fighting, and firearms proficiency.

Special Ops Mastery: Innately super-humanly skilled in all forms of special operations, Elliot excels in Mercenary Works, Counterintelligence, Black Propaganda, Counterterrorism, Guerrilla Warfare, Direct Action, Counterinsurgency, Assassination, Close Target Reconnaissance, Unconventional Warfare, and more. His expertise may stem from advanced training, mental conditioning, or even supernatural abilities. With a combination of exceptional intellect and physical prowess, Elliot can devise innovative and potentially unbeatable methods for executing special operations. His abilities encompass reconnaissance, surveillance in hostile environments, training and development of foreign military and security forces, offensive actions, sabotage, demolition, and hostage rescue.

Trivia:

Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED): Elliot grapples with Intermittent Explosive Disorder, a condition characterized by sudden, intense outbursts of anger or aggression.

Eclectic Interests: Despite the harsh post-apocalyptic world, Elliot maintains a range of interests that reflect his diverse personality. He's a fan of gnomes, dinosaurs, outer space, and motorcycles, showcasing his multifaceted tastes.

Evolving Relationship with Firearms: Interestingly, Elliot's relationship with firearms has undergone a transformation. Once fearful of them in his childhood, he later developed a strong fondness for guns.

Hobbies: Elliot finds solace and joy in a myriad of hobbies, including listening to music, watching movies, reading books, rigorous weight training, capturing moments through photography, expressing his creativity through drawing and painting, and immersing himself in the world of video games (he also has a PS Vita). Kill Bill is his favorite movie.

Alternate Career Paths: In a world untouched by the zombie apocalypse, Elliot's passion for photography and painting might have led him to pursue a career as a photographer or painter. Additionally, his adventurous spirit suggests he might have enjoyed skateboarding.

Musical Tastes: Crystal Castles claims the title of Elliot's favorite band, a testament to his unique musical tastes. The song "Transgender" by Crystal Castles would be a song that would suit his character. Tyler, the Creator also has a place in his tastes.

Voice Actor:

Luiza Caspary (Kid)

Alexandre Marconato (Adult)

#Elliot Williams (Lukesfrag)#OC #oc stuff #original character

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thecomicsnexus · 6 years ago

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The Secret Origin of the Doom Patrol!

Secret Origins Annual #1. September, 1987. By Paul Kupperberg, Roy Thomas, John Byrne and Ron Harris.

For the first time in over two years, Cliff Steele – the Robotman, returns to the old Midway City headquarters of the Doom Patrol. As he enters the two-story brownstone, the mansions' security systems interrogate him at length in order to determine his identity. Cliff answers a series of questions and relates the origin of the original Doom Patrol members.

The Chief The founder of the Doom Patrol was Dr. Niles Caulder. Caulder was a brilliant scientist who had been hired to develop a serum to increase a person's life span indefinitely. While working on the project, Caulder discovered that his mysterious benefactor was actually a villain named General Immortus. Caulder betrayed Immortus and as a result, the aging criminal attacked Caulder crippling him. Fearing that Immortus would never stop until he was dead, he decided to form a team of heroic misfits to fight Immortus. This team became the first incarnation of the Doom Patrol.

Elasti-Girl Rita Farr was a glamorous Hollywood actress. She was also an accomplished stuntwoman and Olympic level swimmer. During filming of one of her movies, Rita exposed herself to volcanic island gases that changed her body chemistry granting her the ability to alter her size at will. Rita joined the Doom Patrol as Elasti-Girl

Negative Man Larry Trainor was a civilian test pilot who had been hired to fly an experimental orbital fighter jet into the upper atmosphere. While piloting the jet, Larry was exposed to intense solar flare radiation. The radiation bonded Larry's body to a disembodied energy form known as the Negative Man. Caulder discovered Trainor and invited him to become a founding member of the Doom Patrol.

The Doom Patrol routinely fought a strange amalgamation of villains including the Brotherhood of Evil, the alien Garguax, the bizarre Animal-Vegetable-Mineral Man, and Caulder's nemesis – General Immortus. The Doom Patrol met their end at the hands of another foe named Captain Zahl. Zahl trapped the heroes on a small island where he blackmailed them into sacrificing their own lives to save the lives of fourteen people in a small New England fishing village.

The new team Months after the destruction of the original Doom Patrol, Dr. Will Magnus – creator of the Metal Men, discovered Cliff Steele's robotic remains. He designed a new body for him, and set him off to investigate rumors of a new Doom Patrol team.

Celsius Arani Caulder claimed that she was the wife of the late Niles Caulder. Years before the formation of the Doom Patrol, Niles traveled to Calcutta, India where he met the sickly Arani. He saved her life by giving her a sample of the Immortality Elixir he had developed for General Immortus. The elixir saved Caulder's life and stimulated her latent metahuman super powers. Arani learned that the Chief had died and sought to put together a new Doom Patrol in order to investigate the nature of his death.

Tempest Joshua Clay was a troublesome young man from Midway City. When he was eighteen-years-old, he enlisted in the Army medical corps and served during the Vietnam War. The horrors of war helped to prompt the release of his own metahuman powers and Josh soon joined the new Doom Patrol as Tempest.

Negative Woman Valentina Vostok was a Russian pilot, who had defected from the USSR aboard an experimental fighter jet. Her plane crashed down into the ocean near the same region where the first Doom Patrol had died. The energy being that once bonded to Larry Trainor freed itself and bonded with Valentina turning her into a Negative Woman.

Robotman continues to provide a detailed dossier on the Doom Patrol's history. Suddenly, government agents burst into the house and try to arrest him. Robotman easily tosses them aside and vacates the house. He learns that his old teammate, Valentina, is now working with the Federal government and has been monitoring his actions since first setting foot inside the old DP headquarters.

The Secret Origin of Captain Comet

In 1931, John and Martha Blake give birth to a son named Adam. Moments later, a comet streaks across the Midwestern sky. John jokingly comments that the comet represents a sign of good fortune. Little does he know how true his statement will become. The comet emits low-level waves of radiation, which triggers a mutagenic alteration in Adam Blake's body. As such, Adam began to develop incredible mental physical attributes as he grows.

His mental skills continue to sharpen well into his teenage years, and he develops expert talents in nearly everything he tries. By the time he reaches college, he has evolved into a physical powerhouse with telepathic and telekinetic capabilities.

At college, Adam meets a science professor named Emery Zackro. Zackro is a scientific genius who has secretly developed the world's first one-man space rocket. He tests Adam's talents at length and deduces that Adam is a mutant, born with physical and mental capabilities 100,000 years ahead of his time. He offers Adam a position as an assistant working in the science hall.

One evening, enemy agents, who had learned of Zackro's work, break into the science hall in an effort to steal the solar reducer technology. Adam fights with the men and uses his telekinetic abilities to deflect the bullets fired from their guns. Zackro eventually returns to the lab, and realizes that he must forever safeguard Adam's talents from the world, lest unscrupulous enterprising men should attempt to exploit him for their own ends.

In 1951, a global catastrophe takes place, forcing Adam to reveal himself to the public. A space-faring alien race known as the, Astur, had traveled to Earth in the hopes of terra-forming the planet, making it inhabitable for their kind. To this end, they send several large spinning tops to the planet's surface. The Astur cannot survive in an oxygen-rich environment, and the tops labor to siphon away the planet's oxygen.

Calling himself Captain Comet for the very first time, Adam dons a space suit and oxygen tank and intercepts one of the tops. He rips into the side of it and discovers that the machines are operated via remote control. He borrows Professor Zackro's spaceship, the Cometeer, and travels to the far side of Earth's moon where he discovers the Astur mother ship. On board the ship, Adam encounters a solitary alien pilot, named Harun. Like Adam, Harun possesses an advanced intellect and the two decide to settle their differences through a contest of strategy. Adam ultimately won their mental duel, and Harun takes his own life. Captain Comet finds the computer station operating the lethal tops and reverses the controls, returning all of the stolen oxygen to the planet.

Captain Comet returns to Earth and reports that the planet is now safe from the alien threat. Reports of his deeds reach every major newspaper and radio program across the globe and Captain Comet becomes an international hero.

From DC Wikia

Let’s start with Doom Patrol’s origin. I feel like it would have been better to start fresh with this team, post-crisis, but I also understand they had quite a cult following then. They were, after all, DC’s X-Men.

The story helps us figure out the new origin stories for these heroes, they do seem to have kept the previous continuity with slight changes. It is odd that John Byrne was part of this, not only because he had his hands full with two Superman titles at the time, but because he ended up rebooting the Doom Patrol 20 years later.

On the second story... it is a good origin story, but kind of places Captain Comet during the time when there were no heroes around (after the JSA and before Superman, as there was no “silver age” in this continuity). Now, I remember this character interacting with other current characters, so now I am intrigued to know if someone messed up, or if his origin was retconned by Zero Hour/Infinite Crisis.

I give the issue a score of 8.25.

#secret origins #doom patrol #captain comer #1987 #dc #comics #review #modern age

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lil-emotion777 · 3 years ago

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Vaccines/Covid Tests and Masks Are Bad!

Vaccinations Don’t Stop Disease

-Coronavirus is a common flu

-Survival rate is 99.8%

-Covid-19 Vaccine doesn’t cure

-Is not a national emergency

-Vaccines are a lethal emergency

Theory: The vaccines cause coronavirus activation, immune destruction and graphene mind control.

Vaccine Injury Data Flawed

-Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS)-Reports only 1% of all injuries

-Many doctors don’t know about this system and don’t report incidents

-Vaccines have killed 45,000 + people

-Only passed for emergency use and not FDA approved

-Vaccine injuries are being hidden from the public and social media platforms

-Vaccines increase one's risk of death

Covid-19 Vaccine Ingredients

-Graphene (Lethal substance)

-Ethylene (Carcinogen)

-Spike Proteins (Genetically engineered)

-Parasites

-Hydrogel (Toxic- can’t be removed from the body easily)

Mask Health Effects

-Dental cavities (lack of saliva)

-Respiratory issues (suffocation)

-Breathing in graphene oxide

-Recycling bacterial air

Mask’s Don’t Stop Disease

-Masks can be penetrated by aerosol particles

-Masks don’t protect particles 0.06 in size (The size of Coronavirus particles)

-Masks increase chances of getting sick

Masks Emit High Levels of CO2

Carbon Dioxide: The Long Term Killer

-For small increases in carbon dioxide in the inhaled air, this disease-promoting effect has been proven with the creation of headaches, irritation of the respiratory tract up to asthma as well as an increase in blood pressure and heart rate with vascular damage and, finally, neuropathological and cardiovascular consequences” (Prescher, 2021).

-Long term carbon dioxide exposure even at small amounts is dangerous

-Moisture in masks increases breathing resistance

-Breathing against bigger resistance caused by the masks also leads to intensified exhaustion with a rise in heart rate and increased CO2 production” (Prescher, 2021).

-Over 50% of the mask wearers studied had at least mild depressive feelings” (Prescher, 2021).

Low Oxygen Levels of Masks

-A drop in blood oxygen partial pressure (PaO2) with the effect of an accompanying increase in heart rate (p < 0.05) [15,23,29,30,34] as well as an increase in respiratory rate (p < 0.05) [15,21,23,35,36] have been proven” (Prescher, 2021).

-In a recent intervention study conducted on eight subjects, measurements of the gas content for oxygen (measured in O2 Vol%) and carbon dioxide (measured in CO2 ppm) in the air under a mask showed a lower oxygen availability even at rest than without a mask” (Prescher, 2021).

-Even slightly but persistently increased heart rates encourage oxidative stress with endothelial dysfunction, via increased inflammatory messengers, and finally, the stimulation of arteriosclerosis of the blood vessels has been proven” (Prescher, 2021).

--Therefore, the dead space amassed by the mask causes a relative reduction in the gas exchange volume available to the lungs per breath by 37% [60]” (Prescher, 2021). ~N95 mask

Low Oxygen Triggers Cancer

-Cancer is a result of low oxygen levels

-Oxygen treatments have been proven to

treat cancer

We Breathe Our Own Toxins

-Mask wearing exposes us to breathing 250 toxic gases

-Just a few are: Nitrogen oxide, hydrogen sulfide,

isoprene and acetone

-Three of these are carcinogenic

-Exposure to these substances can cause: heart failure, respiratory failure and basic headaches.

-Some substances are unidentifiable by smell and some are not

-Long term exposure to any of these substances is dangerous

Moisture In Masks

-Increase risk of infection

-Allows bacteria and fungi to grow

-Pathogens increase with mask wearing

-Germs attach to the mask

-Infectious agents inside and out of mask

-Suppressed Immune Response

Psychological Effects of Masks

-Depressive moods

-Insecurity, isolation and numbness

-Disrupt social interaction

-Creates mixed emotion signals

-More inclined to risky behavior

-Increased panic attacks

#covid-19 #bioweapon wakeup masks

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science-criticaltheory · 6 years ago

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Where Extreme Heat and Humidity Will Hit the Hardest by Tim Radford

Irrigating cabbages in China’s Gansu province. (Vmenkov / Wikimedia Commons)

By the close of the century, the two-fisted assault of extreme heat and humidity could make the North China plain a deadly zone.

As water vapour rises from irrigated farmland, in heat extremes which are likely if humans go on burning ever-greater quantities of fossil fuels, then air temperatures and moisture conditions could become such that outdoor workers could no longer cool by perspiration.

In such circumstances no normal healthy person could survive more than six hours. And since 400 million people already live on the North China plain, by 2070 the consequences of ever-greater temperatures could be devastating, according to new research in the journal Nature Communications.

Simultaneously, a second study in a separate journal confirms that by 2080 excess deaths from extremes of heat will have risen in the tropics, subtropics and even the temperate zones.

In three of Australia’s great cities, deaths from heat waves will have risen by more than 470%.

“Future heatwaves in particular will be more frequent, more intense and will last much longer”

The warning for China – which already emits more greenhouse gases than any other nation – is based on what meteorologists call “wet bulb” temperature, the combination of heat and humidity. When this climbs towards the natural body temperatures of humans and other mammals, conditions become dangerous. The North China plain covers 400,000 square kilometres of fertile floodplain irrigated by three great rivers.

The alarm is sounded by Elfatih Eltahir and a colleague at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US.

Professor Eltahir first identified the additional hazard of humidity in extremes of heat with a simulation of close-of-the-century temperatures that pinpointed the Gulf region, between Iran and the Arabian peninsula, as the zone where temperatures could become lethal. But the worst extremes would be over water.

A second examination of likely conditions under what climate scientists call the “business-as-usual” scenario, in which nations go on burning fossil fuels and emitting greenhouse gases in ever-increasing quantities, pinpointed Asia as the continent most at risk of lethal heat extremes for the greatest numbers of people.

The latest study is a refinement of the projections, and is based on evidence from the most recent three decades. Warming in the North China region has been double the global average – 0.24°C per decade compared to 0.13°C for the rest of the world. In 2013 there were extremes of heat that lasted for up to 50 days, and maximum temperatures topped 38°C (around the accepted limit for humans).

Irrigation key

And the potential lethal factor for the region is likely to be irrigation: rainfall in the north is low, and evaporation from the soil moisture adds around another 0.5°C to local temperatures. Water vapour is itself a greenhouse gas.

“This spot is just going to be the hottest spot for deadly heat waves in the future, especially under climate change,” said Professor Eltahir.

That extremes of heat combined with higher hazards from humidity are already on the increase, and will continue with ever-greater ratios of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, is firmly established. A second international study, in the Public Library of Science journal PLOS Medicine, looks at the risks for more than 400 communities in 20 countries for the decades 2031 to 2100, and once again it is based on a business-as-usual scenario, and data from recent decades.

If the world goes on warming according to the gloomiest predictions, the levels of heat-related excess mortality, the statistician’s phrase for death by heatstroke or heat exhaustion, then deaths in Colombia will by 2080 have risen by 2,000%. Even in Moldova, the sample country with the lowest risk, they will have risen by 150%. In Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne, the hazard will have soared by 470%.

Inexorable rise

That heat can kill has been known for decades, and the tens of thousands of extra deaths during heatwaves in Europe in 2003, and Russia in 2010, were harsh reminders. More extremes of temperature are inevitable.

Research of this kind is intended to encourage thinking about ways in which health authorities and city bosses could act to reduce the hazard. But for a global problem, a global solution could be the surest answer.

“Future heatwaves in particular will be more frequent, more intense and will last much longer,” said Yuming Guo of Monash University in Australia, who led the research.

“If we cannot find a way to mitigate climate change (reduce the heatwave days) and help people adapt to heat waves, there will be a big increase of heatwave-related deaths in the future, particularly in poor countries located around the equator.”

#extreme heat #irrigation #heat lethaltiy

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rohanlal11 · 4 years ago

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Smoke: Silent Killer In Fire

Most of the indoor fire deaths are not caused by burns, but by inhalation of smoke. These killing fumes have more tricks up its sleeve.

Smoke inhalation’s symptoms aren’t as obvious as those of a major burn, so many people think they are fine as long as they get out of a house fire before suffering skin injury. However, people who breathe in smoke during a fire can have life-threatening consequences even if they have no other injuries. Smoke inhalation is even compared to the feeling of drowning. Exposure to hot gaseous products can cause serious respiratory complications. Smoke leads to disorientation and clouds your vision, making escape difficult.

Along with inhaling smoky air, the person trapped may breathe in harmful, toxic chemicals from items burned in the fire’s path adding to the suffocation. A major component adding fuel to this menace are wires and cables.

Majority of the wires and cables used in any residential or commercial building in India are offered with PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride) insulation.

PVC when subjected to heat and fumes burns rapidly emitting dark and toxic smoke. As a product of combustion, PVC emits deadly chlorine gases which have pungent irritating odours and are classified as pulmonary irritants. These emissions further increase when commercial grade PVC material is used in the cable.

Hence, the Indian standards for wires and cables have the inclusion of PVC variants based on the fire performance characteristics viz., Flame Retardant (FR) and FR-LSH (Flame Retardant Low Smoke & Halogen).

Flame Retardant (FR) is the property of insulation or sheath material of a wire or a cable to slowdown the ignition process and prevent the flame propagation.

This material has two characteristics viz., Limited Oxygen Index (LOI) and Limited Temperature Index (LTI) supporting the fundamental FR requirements.

Limited Oxygen Index (LOI): It is the measure of the minimum percentage of oxygen required to support the combustion. In FR PVC this level is 29% minimum.

Limited Temperature Index (LTI): It is the minimum temperature at which the material supports combustion in air containing 21% of oxygen under controlled conditions. In FR PVC this requirement is 250°C at 21% oxygen.

However, FR PVC material is not supported with any measure to control the emission of dark and toxic smoke which is equally lethal.

The wires and cables offered with FR-LSH PVC materials have reduced smoke and toxic gas emission levels along with the above two characteristics viz., LOI and LTI.

As per the Indian standard for wires and cables, the maximum smoke and halogen acid gas emission permitted for FR-LSH PVC material is 60% and 20% respectively.

Fire Smoke - A silent killer, has been identified as the primary cause of death for victims of indoor fires.

We are now a global village, which means we need to be better prepared to deal with any adversity to protect ourselves and at the same time, the nation. With this responsibility, we have to necessarily review our infrastructure safety. Fire safety should be our top most priority for all developments specially for all the public buildings, schools, colleges, hospitals, malls theatres, etc., which are generally cramped up with people. Considering the impact of thick dark smoke during a fire hazard, it is a high time that we switch to products that emit low smoke and are non-toxic in nature.

No one can prevent every fire from starting. But you can surely reduce the risk of the lives of your loved ones.

#HeatResistantWires #TopCableCompaniesinTheWorld #CableManufacturingCompany

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zeedesertfox · 8 years ago

Video

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For @aveanexalea , since he requested it and it was on my vote list.

Back in the early portion of the cold war, US air planners and air defence controllers had a major problem. In the day and age of a single modern bomber being able to take out an entire city, or multiple in a single mission, the US had to guarantee that to the best of their ability to be able to take down as many soviet bombers as possible, preferably all of them, in the event of an atomic conflict.

From past experience, they knew that the “bomber would always get through”, especially when used in mass bomber swarms, or combat boxes, as was the US term. (More of a specific bomber formation doctrine, but eh). Conventional Anti-aircraft measures could and would down some of the bombers, but a large volume would get through. Any Soviet bombers escaping air defences would more than likely result in destroyed US cities and the millions of preventable casualties that would follow.

This was unacceptable. The USAF, taking a page from their Army comrades, decided to go nuclear. The US army’s doctrine was to use atomic munitions to vaporize soviet armoured divisions if they were able to roll through any conventional weapons, for the defence of Western Europe. The USAF decided that an atomic device air-burst in the middle of a soviet bomber formation would do just the trick.

New developments in US Atomics research had allowed for the development of sealed pit devices. “A weapon “boosted” by tritium and deuterium gas would use much less fissile material to produce a large explosion. Right before the moment of detonation, these hydrogen gases would be released into the weapon’s core. When the core imploded, the gases would fuse, release neutrons, multiply the number of fissions, and greatly increase the yield. And because the fissile core would be hollow and thin, a lesser amount of explosives would be needed to implode it. As a result, boosted weapons could be light and small.“

Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. (New York: The Penguin Press, 2013), Pg. 103.

This new development allowed for more powerful weapons in smaller packages.

This allowed the Air-2 Genie to pack the punch it required.

The Air-2 Genie represented the first sealed-pit weapon to enter US stockpile. With conventional air-to air weapons proving inadequate, and the threat of a single Soviet aircraft wreaking havoc on the mainland US, the USAF deemed the safest option for the downing of US bombers was the detonation of small atomic devices over the skies of the mainland United States, Alaska, and Canada.

This “view was endorsed in March 1955 by James R. Killian, the president of MIT, who headed a top secret panel on the threat of surprise attack”. - “The Genie would be carried by Air Force fighter-interceptors. It had a small, 1.5-kiloton warhead and a solid-fueled rocket engine. Unlike conventional air defense weapons, it didn’t need a direct hit to eliminate a target. And it could prove equally useful against a single Soviet bomber or a large formation of them”.

-Ibid.

The Genie was to be fired upon contact with a Soviet bomber. The sooner the better for the sake of the US, as will be explained in detail below.

The on board fire computer would calculate the distance to the bomber, or bombers, and set the on board timer for the Air-2 Genie. After launch, the US fighter would bank hard and roll out and away from the projected device initiation point. Initiation of the device would occur once the timer ran out. The rocket would speed towards the hostile aircraft at Mach 3.3 powered by a solid fueled Thiokol SR49 rocket motor. Primary kill effects were caused surprisingly enough not by blast or heat, which, despite the low yield of 1.5 kilotons, were still effective out to a great distance. The Fireball would consume any aircraft within a hundred yards, yet the most effective killing agent of this device was the prompt radiation released. Even a bad miss could still kill, given that the lethal envelope of the prompt radiation had a radius of about a mile with “the “probability of kill” (PK) within that envelope [found] to be 92 percent”.

“The Soviet aircrew’s death from radiation might take as long as five minutes—a delay that made it even more important to fire the Genie as far as possible from urban areas. Detonated at a high altitude, the weapon produced little fallout and didn’t lift any debris from the ground to form a mushroom cloud. After the bright white flash, a circular cloud drifted from the point of detonation, forming an immense smoke ring in the sky”.

-Ibid.

The discussion of permission to fire these devices was brought up, and how a request to fire the devices may be delayed to the point where several US cities may well have gone up in smoke. In response to these concerns, the use of these devices were pre-delegated to the USAF, by Eisenhower in April 1956, with the actual order coming into effect in December.

In effect, the USAF was able to fire atomic air-to-air rockets at any target that was deemed ‘hostile’. While the joint chief's of staff demanded that these devices were to be locked up in storage igloos, and never to be flown over the United States except in war time. Presumably, the reality of this was that a large volume of air interceptors were on the deck ready to jet in the event of a conflict. At first warning of the DEW line, Mid-Canada line or the Pine-tree Line, the aircraft would be armed, with Genies extracted from their storage sheds, with the air interceptors, now armed with atomic rockets, sent to intercept the soviet waves of bombers.

To prove the device safe in use, the USAF conducted Operation Plumbbob on 19 July 1957. This proved to be the only live firing of a Air-2 Genie missile, which initiated somewhere between 18,500 and 20,000 ft (5,600 and 6,100 m) above mean sea level. (Sources vary). A group of five USAF officers volunteered to stand hatless in their light summer uniforms underneath the blast to prove that the weapon was safe for use over populated areas. They were photographed by Department of Defense photographer George Yoshitake who stood there with them. Gamma and neutron doses received by observers on the ground were negligible. Doses received by aircrew were highest for the fliers assigned to penetrate the airburst cloud ten minutes after explosion.

Source

As shown in the video above, with the description just above, “The officers wore summer uniforms and no protective gear. A photograph, taken at the moment of detonation, shows that two of the men instinctively ducked, two shielded their eyes, and one stared upward, looking straight at the blast. “It glowed for an instant like a newborn sun,” Time magazine reported, “then faded into a rosy, doughnut-shaped cloud.”

Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. (New York: The Penguin Press, 2013), Pg. 105.

Problems arise.

Inevitably , problems began to arise. Given that sealed-pit weapons were quite new, with this model of weapon being the first in stockpiles, how safe were they? This was a bit of an unknown, one that needed to be found out when thousands of these devices would be put on airfields and storage facility's across the country, many within city limits.

The U.S. government was quite public about the Genie missile. “When atomic bombs were first transferred to SAC bases in French Morocco, the French government wasn’t told about the weapons. But the deployment of Genies at air bases throughout the United States was announced in an Air Force press release.”

“The possibility of any nuclear explosion occurring as a result of an accident involving either impact or fire is virtually nonexistent,” Secretary of Defense Wilson assured the public”. His press release reported “that someone standing on the ground directly beneath the high-altitude detonation of a Genie would be exposed to less radiation than “a hundredth of a dose received in a standard (medical) X-ray.”

-Ibid

However, it should be noted that “His press release about the Genie didn’t mention the risk of plutonium contamination”, not from an airburst anti-bomber detonation, but from an accidental surface burst.

“The risks of plutonium exposure were becoming more apparent in the mid-1950s. Although the alpha particles emitted by plutonium are too weak to penetrate human skin, they can destroy lung tissue when plutonium dust is inhaled. Anyone within a few hundred feet of a weapon accident spreading plutonium can inhale a swiftly lethal dose. Cancers of the lung, liver, lymph nodes, and bone can be caused by the inhalation of minute amounts. And the fallout from such an accident may contaminate a large area for a long time. Plutonium has a half-life of about twenty-four thousand years. It remains hazardous throughout that period, and plutonium dust is hard to clean up. “The problem of decontaminating the site of [an] accident may be insurmountable,” a classified Los Alamos report noted a month after the Genie’s onepoint safety test, “and it may have to be ‘written off’ permanently.” “.

Understandably, this would drive the civilian members in charge of safety quite quickly to protest, with the very thought of having to inform the public that a section, or perhaps all of a major US city would be uninhabitable for an extremely extended period being almost unthinkable.

There was heavy debate actually among those in the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), as to whether use a plutonium, or uranium-235 base for the fission products in the genie devices.

“In one respect, uranium-235 seemed to be safer. It has a half-life of about seven hundred million years—but emits radiation at a much lower rate than plutonium, greatly reducing the inhalation hazard. And yet a Genie with a uranium core had its own risks. Norris Bradbury, the director of Los Alamos, warned the AEC that such a core was “probably not safe against one-point detonation.” In effect, shrapnel, or a stray bullet, or what have you from an aircraft crash, or sabotage, or whatever incident may well cause the device to, quite frankly, initiate. Heck, even a fire could cause it.

In short, using uranium as the base fission product, the Genies would fail the one-point safety test, and could be set off very easily. Using Uranium as the base fission product, “Impact tests revealed that when the Genie was armed, it didn’t need a firing signal to detonate. The Genie could produce a nuclear explosion just by hitting the ground”.

Ibid-Pg 107 Understandably, “given the choice between an accident that might cause a nuclear explosion and one that might send a cloud of plutonium over an American city, the Air Force preferred the latter. Handmade, emergency capability Genies were rushed into production, with cores that contained plutonium”.

Ibid.-Pg 105

Even with the one-point safety test proven, there was still the potential for complications. “The one-point safety tests at Nevada Test Site had provided encouraging results, and yet the behavior of a nuclear weapon in an “abnormal environment”—like that of a fuel fire ignited by a plane crash—was still poorly understood. During a fire, the high explosives of a weapon might burn; they might detonate; or they might burn and then detonate. And different weapons might respond differently to the same fire, based on the type, weight, and configuration of their high explosives. For firefighting purposes, each weapon was assigned a “time factor”—the amount of time you had, once a weapon was engulfed in flames, either to put out the fire or to get at least a thousand feet away from it. The time factor for the Genie was three minutes”.

Ibid.- Pg 109

Heck, there was concern that the fire may even start the standard detonation process.

“The heat of a fire might start the thermal batteries, release high-voltage electricity into the X-unit, and then set off the bomb. To eliminate that risk, heat-sensitive fuses were added to every sealed-pit weapon. At a temperature of 300 degrees Fahrenheit, the fuses would blow, melting the connections between the batteries and the arming system. It was a straightforward, time-honored way to interrupt an electrical circuit, and it promised to ensure that a high temperature wouldn’t trigger the detonators”.

Ibid. In 1977, a study was completed that reported that “despite being the oldest sealed-pit weapon in the stockpile, vulnerable to lightning, and fitted with an outdated accelerometer, the Genie was still being loaded onto fighter planes”.

Ibid. Pg. 223

In the end, over 3000 Genie’s were produced, being used by both the USAF from 1957 to 1985, and the R.C.A.F. from 1965 to 1984.

Here, have this for your troubles.

Sources-

Wiki, for basic info-

Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.

#history #cold war #genie #air-2 genie #nuclear #rocket #jet age #nuclear tipped air to air missile #long post #effort post #vote process #vote result post

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sciencespies · 5 years ago

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Exoplanets: tantalising search for life beyond the solar system

https://sciencespies.com/space/exoplanets-tantalising-search-for-life-beyond-the-solar-system/

Exoplanets: tantalising search for life beyond the solar system

An artist’s impression of the exoplanet 55 Cancri e, a so-called Super Earth in a solar system some 40 light years away from Earth.

This year’s Nobel Prize for Physics honoured Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz, Swiss astronomers who proved the existence of a planet orbiting a star far beyond the Earth’s solar system.

Their find set off a series of so-called exoplanet discoveries, often with features that are nothing like the nine planets circling our sun.

Here is a backgrounder on the search for far-away planets that could support some form of life—though not necessarily as we now understand it.

What’s an exoplanet?

Any planet outside our solar system is considered an exoplanet.

Although their existence had long been theorised in both research labs and in popular culture—think “Star Wars”—until 1995 no one had been able to prove one existed.

By setting their telescopic sights on the Sun-like star 51 Pegasi, part of the Pegasus constellation, Mayor and Queloz found it was wobbling—the light it emitted was blue as it moved toward them and red as it moved away.

That proved something was circling the star, even though they couldn’t see it directly, being some 50 light years from Earth.

Nonetheless they could confirm the planet was gaseous and as big as Jupiter, yet very close to its star—it had a four-day orbit—and very hot, confounding theories on what types of celestial bodies would revolve where.

“We thought other systems would be similar to our own,” Ulf Danielsson of the Nobel Committee for Physics said in presenting the award Tuesday.

“We were wrong.”

How many are out there?

Today there are 4,057 confirmed exoplanets, according to the NASA Exoplanet Archive, and at least as many likely candidates.

The vast majority are far bigger than those of our solar system: there are more than a thousand so-called ice giants, around 1,000 gas giants, and “super Earths” with masses many times higher than the rock we call home.

There are only around 350 smaller terrestrial planets with Earth-like mass, and of those only a handful in a “temperate” zone that would allow for the presence of liquid water—the key ingredient for life as we know it.

But these are just the planets scientists have detected: several studies have estimated that there could be a trillion exoplanets in our galaxy alone.

Ultimately, there could be as many exoplanets in the universe as there are stars.

A view of the southern skies over the ESO 3.6-metre telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile with images of the stars Proxima Centauri (lower-right) and the double star Alpha Centauri AB (lower-left) from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

How to find them?

There are several ways to find planets that cannot be directly observed, often because the light from their suns is so bright, relatively speaking, that it blocks out smaller objects nearby.

WOBBLE WATCHING – This involves looking for changes in the colour spectrum emitted by a star due to the gravitational pull of one or more invisible planets.

If these patterns are regular and cyclical, corresponding to a tiny wobble in the star, chances are they are caused by a planet. Nearly 18 percent of exoplanets have been found this way.

SHADOW SEARCHING – When a planet passes directly between its star and an observer—an astronomer peering through a telescope, or a satellite in space—it dims the star’s light by a tiny but measurable amount.

This “transit” method has been the most successful so far—NASA’s Kepler spacecraft used it to find thousands of candidate planets from 2009 to 2013, and around 80 percent of all exoplanets have been found this way.

More recently, NASA’s TESS satellite was launched in 2018, able to analyse much brighter stars for smaller planets, and the European CHEOPS satellite, which aims to better analyse known exoplanets, is set for launch in the coming weeks.

PICTURE PRODUCING – Snapping a picture of an exoplanet in front of its star is akin to trying to photograph a microscopic speck of dust on a glowing lightbulb. But by removing the blinding glare of the star, astronomers can capture an image, a method called direct imaging.

Only just more than one percent of distant planets have been detected this way.

BEAM BENDING – In this technique, light from a distant star is bent and focused by gravity as an orbiting planet passes between the star and Earth.

Called gravitational micro-lensing, the gravity of the planet and star focus light rays of the distant planet on an observer in the same way that a magnifying glass focuses the sun’s light onto a tiny, bright spot. Only a handful of exoplanets have been found using this method.

What conditions might support life?

Of the exoplanets found to date, only a handful are in a “temperate” zone in relation to their star: not so hot that water evaporates, not so cold that it freezes solid.

Life on Earth is also unimaginable without an atmosphere, containing in our case the oxygen organisms need to survive. An atmosphere also protects animal species in particular from damaging high-energy radiation from a star’s ultraviolet and X-rays.

But without a definitive understanding as to how life emerged on Earth, it is possible that living creatures elsewhere in the universe could survive and thrive in gases, chemicals or temperatures that would be lethal for us.

Scientists are now evaluating potential chemical combinations that might indicate alien life—which might be nothing like we know it.

Explore further

Exoplanets 101: Looking for life beyond our Solar System

Citation: Exoplanets: tantalising search for life beyond the solar system (2019, October 8) retrieved 8 October 2019 from https://phys.org/news/2019-10-exoplanets-tantalising-life-solar.html

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#Space

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rylanbbrp461 · 6 years ago

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Commercial Air Duct Cleaning services: 11 Thing You're Forgetting To Do

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leftpress · 8 years ago

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Night of the gas: Bhopal India

Reddebrek | Jan 8 2017

Article on the worst industrial disaster in the world, the gas leak at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal India. The leak, caused by non existent safety operations would kill or mutilate over 25,000 people and continues to poison the area and the population to this day.

It's 18 years since the world's worst industrial accident at a transnational corporation's pesticide plant in Bhopal, India - but the poor are being poisoned by it to this day. Meanwhile the Indian Government is sitting on funds intended for compensation and clean-up. Luke David tells a shameful tale.

Most people were at home sleeping when the tank burst out of the earth and stood shuddering on its end, emitting a stream of deadly fumes into the night. The gases came into their houses without warning. They woke choking, their eyes and mouths burning. Nobody knew what had happened. Then came shouts of 'gas!' and 'run away!' People tumbled out of their houses but the gas was waiting for them. It rolled in thick clouds along the narrow lanes, which in some places were little more than a metre wide. The street lamps shed a tobacco-brown light. No insects circled around them - they were already dead.

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As families picked up their toddlers and fled, the alleys were filled with stampedes. Cows and dogs ran with their owners. People fell and were trampled. Children were wrenched from their mothers' arms and lost, never to be found.

It was 2 December 1984 and a pesticide factory owned by an American multinational - the Union Carbide Corporation - had leaked 27 tonnes of toxic chemicals into the slums of Bhopal, central India. Ignoring advice by its own experts, Union Carbide built the factory in the middle of densely populated neighbourhoods. In contravention of US safety standards, a huge quantity of lethal methylisocyanate (MIC) was stored on site. The tank holding the MIC was not kept, as the safety manual required, at zero degrees Celsius. The plant's safety systems were dismantled and not working. Water leaked into the giant MIC tank and set off a violent chemical reaction.

Nobody knows exactly how many died but we can form an idea from the 7,000 burial shrouds that were bought over the next three days. This number does not take into account the hundreds of people who were unaccounted for, or the families who had no-one left to bury or cremate them.

The death toll from long-term health problems now stands at 25,000 - and a further 25,000 people in the slums around the factory continue to be poisoned by the chemicals that have been left behind. Women in this community reach their menopause at 30. Children are born with deformities and girls do not menstruate until they are 18. Pigeon chests, webbed feet and growth retardation are frightening realities.

Great piles of chemicals litter the grounds of the former Union Carbide plant, leaching their deadly toxins into the water and poisoning people slowly. No birds sing inside the site, but children play there all the same, among some of the deadliest poisons in existence. Cows and goats graze on pasture contaminated by 26 years of chemical dumping.

Here and there lie piles of reddish-brown rocks, some the size of boulders. These are lumps of Sevin, which has a low ignition point. If it catches light it releases the same gas that killed so many in 1984. Over the last two years there have been several massive fires inside the plant's grounds and some of the Sevin has caught light. Last year fire swept over several hectares and damaged 22 houses in the neighbouring slums. Just as in the 1984 disaster, residents smelt 'burning chillies', their eyes and noses stung, their lungs burned. Some said they were unable to scream because they could only choke and cough.

This time nobody died - but the poor are being poisoned nonetheless. Each rainy season the abandoned chemicals - among them organophosphates and heavy metals - leach into the ground and contaminate the water. A report by Greenpeace International found mercury at between 20,000 and 6,000,000 times the expected levels all over the factory's grounds.

People who have moved into the surrounding slums years after the disaster have the same symptoms as the survivors of the tragedy of 1984. They complain of abdominal pain, skin lesions, dizziness, vomiting, constipation, indigestion and burning sensations in the chest and stomach. The majority of children in the worst-affected areas are born seriously underweight and weak, with discoloured skin. Women don't lactate properly and some stop completely within a month of giving birth. The water they drink is laced with 12 deadly chemicals in concentrations up to 600 times greater than the US Environmental Protection Agency's standard for safety.

Reshma Bi has been ill since the day she was born. Grossly deformed, she cannot walk because her spine is twisted. Her hunched back sticks out for all to see that she is a child of the gas. After Reshma, her mother Kamrunnisa gave birth to another child, who choked on her own vomit and died. On the night of the gas she lost three of her children, who all died in the most horrific way.

Mamta Bai lives in one of the hovels next to the plant. There is a water tank outside her home but it is contaminated with toxins so she walks for two hours every day to collect water from another source. 'Every year one person in my family falls sick,' she says. 'My sister has bad chest pains and my mother has recently been in hospital because of very bad aches and pains all over her body. In the summer months we get a stench that comes from the factory.'

Social worker Dr Ghazala Aftab Ahmed miscarried a few days after the fateful night. The poison remained in her body and was passed on to her next child. Khushnoor ('Happy Light') was born in 1990 and developed problems with her kidneys when she was two years old. In 1993 Dr Ghazala and her husband Aftab had to borrow $3,000 to pay for Khushnoor to have a life-saving operation. Compensation didn't even pay for the flight to Bombay.

Nearly all the 550,000 people who claimed compensation from Union Carbide were given the equivalent of about $500 - or 7.5 cents a day for the 18 years of their misery. If someone was killed on the night of the gas their families were paid on average $1,250 - or 19 cents a day for 18 years.

The Indian Government refused Kaneeza Bi compensation for her husband's death: She has three sons and a daughter. 'My son woke me up on the night of the gas,' she recalls.

'We ran towards the park and I lost two of my children in the rush. We found them two days later, but my husband was found unconscious on the street. His stomach had blown up like a balloon and his eyes were red and he couldn't open them. He suffered severe breathing problems ever since the gas and died from a heart attack last year, brought on by his breathing problems.' She only received $4 a month for four years as compensation for her own health problems. 'There is nobody to look after me now my husband is dead,' she says.

Mohammed Idris has received no compensation, though his life has been destroyed. He cannot work or walk for more than five minutes because he becomes breathless. He was recently hospitalized for a month and had to wear an oxygen mask day and night. His wife Aneesa Bi has also been in hospital because of pains in the chest, headaches, vertigo and swelling of her stomach. Mohammed weighs just 34 kilos and cannot eat much because of his sickness - and because he doesn't have enough money for food. He lives with his wife and six children in a tiny two-room hovel in a neighbourhood close to the plant.

Zahid Hafing is another of the victims who has not had any compensation. 'I have never had clear eyesight since that night,' he says. 'Once a month my hands and feet start getting stiff. I get a high temperature and throw up and my eyes hurt. Sometimes I cough so much I feel my life is about to come to an end. At first the Government agreed to give me 7,000 rupees ($140) over four years but they cancelled it because they said I wasn't born when the tragedy happened.' Zahid was eight years old on the night of the gas.

Union Carbide paid $470 million after settling out of court with the Indian Government. To this day only $166 million of it has been given to the people of Bhopal. The rest sits in a bank account in Delhi.

Despite a number of reports and scientific studies, only $8,300 has been spent on providing a fresh source of water for the slum dwellers. Water tanks have been provided for 2,000 people, but these are only ever half-full and the water inside is far from clean.

The Chief Minister of the local Madhya Pradesh Government declines to comment on why the factory has not been cleaned up. He also cannot say when the 25,000 slum dwellers will get access to clean water.

The man allegedly responsible for the gas leak, Warren Anderson, former chief executive of Union Carbide, has never stood trial. He relaxes in his million-dollar house in New York State, still managing to evade the courts, despite a request for his extradition from Bhopal-magistrates to the US Government. He is charged with culpable homicide and, if found guilty, could serve up to 20 years in prison.

Last July the Indian Government appealed to the Supreme Court to reduce the charges against him from culpable homicide to negligence.[1] If you think this seems an odd response to the contempt he and Union Carbide have shown the Indian justice system, then you should know the following. The new owner of Union Carbide is American giant Dow Chemical, which is one of India's largest foreign investors. Reducing the charges would have effectively extinguished the case against Warren Anderson and absolved Dow from the responsibility for cleaning up the factory, thus wooing Dow's foreign investment.

A further point to consider when judging the Government's record on Bhopal is its proposal to use $150 million of the original compensation payment. They wanted to spend this on the richer nongas-affected areas of Bhopal, populated mainly by wealthy Hindus - presumably to gain votes for the ruling Hindu nationalist party, the BJP - at the expense of the poor and disenfranchised gas victims. If it were not for mass demonstrations by the victims last July, both of these proposals would, no doubt, have become reality.

Campaigners and volunteers continue to work tirelessly -18 years after the disaster - to help the gas victims secure medical treatment and compensation. Yet for all the campaigning there is little sign of real action in the courts or, more importantly, on the ground.

by Luke David

New Internationalist magazine, December 2002