The Disquieted Heart and the Lighted Path: LeVar Burton’s Dedication Day Speech

This Saturday past brought with it an electric sort of chill, the kind fueled by a driving breeze that lifts your jacket, steals past your socks and up your legs, worms its way through gaps in scarves and gloves, and leaves you feeling naked and afraid and alive in ways that no one else can see. The kind of wind that whisks away complicity and surety, leaving you with nothing but a burning compulsion to do something that will reignite your humanity, your belief in goodness, your claim to a kind life. For those who attended, the Dedication Day ceremony in the National Cemetery trembled with the same terrible power. This year, there was something dreadfully eerie about coming together to honor men slain in the struggle to prove that a nation “conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” could endure terrible division and betrayal between its countrymen. The speechmaking, no matter its tenor, could not escape the gravity of the question on everyone’s mind: what does the future hold for America, and how can we make sure it won’t undo the already unfinished work for which our forefathers died? [excerpt

“The Colored Soldiers”—The Poem You Never Knew Existed

I’m a poetry guy. When I expect to have some free time, I tend to carry a small book of poems somewhere on my person. I also have eclectic tastes, so the subject and the substance of my little pocket anthologies changes. This summer, while at home from Gettysburg National Military Park, I pulled a book off the shelf—War Poems, from the Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets series. I found plenty of what you might expect to find in such a book—Lord Tennyson, Wilfred Owen, Randall Jarrell. The subjects were classic—the “wild charge” of the Light Brigade, the “froth-corrupted lungs” of gassed men on the Western Front, the callous “hose” that washes out the wet scraps of the tragic turret gunner. Most of the poems I had already read before, so I was doubly surprised to find—in an anthology of war poems spread across the full breadth of both the Western and Eastern traditions of war verse—Paul Laurence Dunbar’s “The Colored Soldiers,” published posthumously in 1913 [excerpt]

Initial neuromuscular performance in older women influences response to explosive resistance training

The purpose of the study was to identify both demographic and neuromuscular traits that characterize successful or unsuccessful adaptation to resistance training in older women. Twelve, older women underwent electrically evoked muscle twitches for the knee extensors; and performed maximal, voluntary, isometric knee extensions, followed by eight weeks of resistance training. Prior to training nonresponders had 67% higher twitch peak torque than responders (0.29 ± 0.05 vs. 0.18 ± 0.06 Nm·kg−1 respectively), 64% higher twitch rate of torque development (RTD) (3.96 ± 0.47 vs. 2.42 ± 0.62 Nm·s−1·kg−1), 51% higher voluntary peak torque (1.86 ± 0.40 vs. 1.23 ± 0.33 Nm·kg−1), 101% greater RTD (9.43 ± 1.52 vs. 4.70 ± 2.40 Nm·s−1·kg−1), 86% greater impulse (0.13 ± 0.01 vs. 0.07 ± 0.03 Nm·s·kg−1) and 27% faster motor time (80 ± 13 vs. 109 ± 34 ms), (all P \u3c 0.05). Following training, responders showed an 11% increase in twitch peak torque over baseline (0.18 ± 0.06 to 0.20 ± 0.05 Nm·kg−1), 15% increase in voluntary peak torque (1.23 ± 0.33 to 1.41 ± 0.36 Nm·kg−1), 47% increase in RTD (4.70 ± 2.40 to 6.93 ± 2.02 Nm·s−1·kg−1), 43% increase in impulse (0.07 ± 0.03 to 0.10 ± 0.04 Nm·s·kg−1), and 26% increase in rate of EMG rise (886 ± 214 to 1116 ± 102 % pEMG·s−1) (all P \u3c 0.05). Initially higher muscle mass and contractility, coupled with greater neural drive, likely explains why older women with good muscle performance seem to have a lower capacity for improvement than women with low initial levels of performance

Striking the Balance: Bringing Peace to the Battlefield of Preservation

Most Gettysburg residents took note this past winter when the Appalachian Brewing Company’s branch restaurant near the Lutheran Seminary closed. The Civil War Trust bought the land for its historical value; the structure and an adjacent hotel surround the Mary Thompson House, General Lee’s Headquarters during the battle. From the moment of purchase, the plan had been to demolish the buildings, sow grass, and transfer the four-acre lot to the National Park Service as a prized addition to the park. Most onlookers probably think that the tale is told as soon as the land is bought, cleared, and promised to the park. However, that thinking only pans out in a vacuum. In reality, the results of this purchase—as with any large purchase of land in a community—cannot be foreseen. Too many different actors are involved in and affected by something as simple as the demolition of a couple of businesses and the placing of a conservation easement on a property. And for those who stand to be affected by this purchase, controversy is pervasive and understandable [excerpt]

Bankers acceptances

Acceptances ; Money market

Influence of cell cycle phase on calcification in the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi

Calcification of the cosmopolitan coccolithophore species Emiliania huxleyi was investigated in relation to the cell division cycle with the use of batch cultures. With a 12 : 12 h light : dark cycle, the population was synchronised to undergo division as a cohort, simultaneously passing through the G1 (assimilation), S (DNA replication), and G2+M (cell division and mitosis) phases. Cell division was followed with the use of quantitative DNA staining and flow cytometry. Simultaneously, carbon-14 (14C) assimilation in organic and inorganic carbon as well as cell abundance, size, and organic nitrogen content were measured at 2-h intervals. In additional experiments, changes in calcification and cell cycle stages were investigated in nitrogen-, phosphorus-, and light-limited cultures. Calcification occurred only during the G1 cell cycle phase, as seen by the very tight correlation between the percentage of cells in G1 and calcification during the dark period. When growth was limited by nitrogen, cells decreased in size, remained in the G1 phase, and showed a moderate increase in the cell-specific calcite content. Limitation of growth by phosphorus, however, caused a significant increase in cell size and a dramatic increase in cellular calcite. Light limitation, by slowing the growth rate, prolonged the time cells spent in the G1 phase with a corresponding increase in the cellular calcite content. These results help explain the differing responses of coccolithophorid growth to nitrogen, phosphorus, and light limitation