| Product Type | Title (and Summary) | Date | Product Number |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Homicide in the U.S. Known to Law Enforcement, 2011 Presents data on homicide trends from 1992 to 2011. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 12/30/2013 | NCJ 243035 |
| Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 Presents findings from data on homicides that occurred in the United States from 1980 through 2008. It also includes overall homicide rates for 2009 and 2010. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 11/16/2011 | NCJ 236018 |
 | Homicide Trends in the United States, 1980-2008 HOMICIDES FALL TO LOWEST RATE IN FOUR DECADES Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 11/16/2011 | NCJ 236018 |
| Homicide Trends in the United States This report contains a series of charts that describe homicide patterns and trends in the United States since 1976. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 7/1/2007 | |
| Homicide Trends in the United States: 2002 Update Outlines the primary findings from the updated section of the BJS website about homicide patterns and trends since 1976. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 11/1/2004 | NCJ 204885 |
| Homicide Trends in the United States: 2000 Update This BJS Crime Data Brief outlines the primary findings from the updated section of the BJS website about homicide patterns and trends since 1976. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series | 1/1/2003 | NCJ 197471 |
| Homicide Trends in the United States: 1998 Update This BJS Crime Data Brief outlines the primary findings of and new additions to the section of the BJS website about homicide patterns and trends since 1976. Part of the Homicide Trends in the United States Series |
Monday, 3 February 2014
Publications & Products: Homicide Trends In The United States
Monday, 13 January 2014
Candle clock
A candle clock is a thin candle with consistently spaced markings (usually with numbers), that when burned, indicate the passage of periods of time. While no longer used today, candle clocks provided an effective way to tell time indoors, at night, or on a cloudy day. A candle clock could be easily transformed into a timer by sticking a heavy nail into the candle at the mark indicating the desired interval. When the wax surrounding the nail melts, the nail clatters onto a plate below.
It is unknown where and when candle clocks were first used. The earliest reference to their use occurs in a Chinese poem by You Jiangu (520 CE). Here, the graduated candle supplied a means of determining time at night. Similar candles were used in Japan until the early 10th century.
You Jiangu's device consisted of six candles made from 72 pennyweights of wax, each being 12 inches high, of uniform thickness, and divided into 12 sections each of one inch. Each candle burned away completely in four hours, making each marking 20 minutes. The candles were placed for protection inside cases made of a wooden frame with transparent horn panels in the sides. Similar methods of measuring time were used in medieval churches and earlier, famously by King Alfred the Great of England, first by counting the number of candles of a specific size burnt, and later by use of a graduated candle.
Al-Jazari
The most sophisticated candle clocks known to date, however, were those of Al-Jazari in 1206.[1] It included a dial to display the time and, for the first time, employed a bayonet fitting, a fastening mechanism still used in modern times.[2] Donald Routledge Hill described one of al-Jazari's candle clocks as follows:
The candle, whose rate of burning was known, bore against the underside of the cap, and its wick passed through the hole. Wax collected in the indentation and could be removed periodically so that it did not interfere with steady burning. The bottom of the candle rested in a shallow dish that had a ring on its side connected through pulleys to a counterweight. As the candle burned away, the weight pushed it upward at a constant speed. The automata were operated from the dish at the bottom of the candle.[1]
References
Turner, Anthony J. The Time Museum, Volume I, Time Measuring Instruments; Part 3, Water-clocks, Sand-glasses, Fire-clocks
- Donald Routledge Hill, "Mechanical Engineering in the Medieval Near East", Scientific American, May 1991, pp. 64-9 (cf. Donald Routledge Hill, Mechanical Engineering)
- Ancient Discoveries, Episode 12: Machines of the East, History Channel, retrieved 2008-09-07
Tuesday, 17 December 2013
Count von Count Suffers From Real Arithmomania
By Adam Wears
“One friend from Sesame Street, plus one friend from Sesame Street, equals two friends from Sesame Street! Ah, ha, ha!” —Count von Count
“One friend from Sesame Street, plus one friend from Sesame Street, equals two friends from Sesame Street! Ah, ha, ha!” —Count von Count
In A Nutshell
As one of the stars of Sesame Street, jolly vampire Count von Count has been teaching children how to count for over 40 years. His obsession with counting harks back to traditional legends which state that vampires suffer from Arithmomania, a variant of OCD which causes sufferers to fixate on numbers.
The Whole Bushel
Of all the characters to appear on Sesame Street, one of the most famous is undoubtedly Count von Count. With his Bela Lugosi-esque looks, foreboding castle (complete with squeaky door), and pet bats, he’s been teaching kids to calculate responsibly ever since his first appearance on the show in 1972.
However, the Count’s love of counting isn’t just an invention of the show: It’s a key aspect of classical vampire folklore. In pre-modern times, when vampires were commonly believed to exist, it was commonplace for people to scatter poppy seeds and other types of grains (such as rice or wheat) on the floor of their houses in order to prevent themselves from becoming prey to these nightmarish bloodsuckers. This was because on entering the abode, the vampire would be compelled to count the grains, allowing time for either the occupants to escape or the sun to rise and kill the creature. As a way of pre-emptively thwarting any deceased relatives from rising from the grave, family members would sprinkle their corpses with seeds.
Count von Count’s trademark habit of counting everything that he encounters in Sesame Street—including bats, ducks, and apples—is simply a nod back to these legends, albeit one in a more child-friendly form.
Even more surprisingly, this obsession to count is a real disorder. Known as arithmomania, it’s closely associated with sufferers of obsessive compulsive disorder. According to the (surprisingly) sparse amount of research into this condition, it causes sufferers who are faced with a set of numbers or objects to endlessly add, subtract, multiply, and divide them. How little research? One paper, two papers, three papers . . . was that thunder and lightning we just heard?
Show Me The Proof
Wednesday, 11 December 2013
The bird and the bees
Forget about man and his dog. A small brown bird called the honeyguide lays claim to one of the oldest relationships between humans and animals, says Mark D Anderson.
SPOTTING THE HONEYS. The male greater honeyguide is identified by its pink bill, black throat and white ear patches. The female has no bold facial markings and she has a blackish bill.
In the old days, people would follow a honeyguide to a wild bee nest, where they would smoke out the bees and rob the nest. The bird’s reward for leading humans to honey would be a feast of beeswax and bee larvae. Scientists suggest that this relationship goes back to prehistoric times when we all still had to forage for our sugar fix. In modern times, honeyguides are still so tuned in to human behaviour that they will even attempt to guide boats and motor vehicles to bee nests.The honeyguide is the only bird species able to digest beeswax, and it has a tough skin to protect it against bee stings.
Honey, I’m here…
If you’re in the bush and notice a small brown bird chattering away to attract your attention and then flying ahead of you, only to land on a nearby bush, you may well have met a greater honeyguide (the one species in South Africa known to interact with humans in this way). Once the bird has got your attention, it will flick its tail, fly to the next bush and wait for you to follow, gradually leading you to a bee nest.
Honey hex
In African folklore there’s a belief that if you fail to reward the honeyguide, it will bring misfortune upon your head, and next time it will show you the way to a black mamba instead of a sweet treat.
Honey who?
In Kenya, the Boran people still actively use the honeyguide to find honey. The Boran are, however, gradually being excluded from game reserves, leading some scientists to argue that people following this tradition should be allowed to collect wild honey just to keep this ancient relationship going.
Honeyguides and honey badgers
There is a popular fallacy that honey badgers (and perhaps baboons and mongooses) are also guided to beehives by greater honeyguides. The idea came from early traveller and naturalist Anders Sparrman, who wrote about this in 1785 based on what he had been told. But in the more than 200 years since, no biologist or naturalist has observed this behaviour. So keep your camera and notebook handy – you could be the first person to document teamwork between this bird and an animal other than humans.
References:
SPOTTING THE HONEYS. The male greater honeyguide is identified by its pink bill, black throat and white ear patches. The female has no bold facial markings and she has a blackish bill.
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Piciformes |
| Family: | Indicatoridae Swainson, 1837 |
In the old days, people would follow a honeyguide to a wild bee nest, where they would smoke out the bees and rob the nest. The bird’s reward for leading humans to honey would be a feast of beeswax and bee larvae. Scientists suggest that this relationship goes back to prehistoric times when we all still had to forage for our sugar fix. In modern times, honeyguides are still so tuned in to human behaviour that they will even attempt to guide boats and motor vehicles to bee nests.The honeyguide is the only bird species able to digest beeswax, and it has a tough skin to protect it against bee stings.
Honey, I’m here…
If you’re in the bush and notice a small brown bird chattering away to attract your attention and then flying ahead of you, only to land on a nearby bush, you may well have met a greater honeyguide (the one species in South Africa known to interact with humans in this way). Once the bird has got your attention, it will flick its tail, fly to the next bush and wait for you to follow, gradually leading you to a bee nest.
Honey hex
In African folklore there’s a belief that if you fail to reward the honeyguide, it will bring misfortune upon your head, and next time it will show you the way to a black mamba instead of a sweet treat.
Honey who?
In Kenya, the Boran people still actively use the honeyguide to find honey. The Boran are, however, gradually being excluded from game reserves, leading some scientists to argue that people following this tradition should be allowed to collect wild honey just to keep this ancient relationship going.
Honeyguides and honey badgers
There is a popular fallacy that honey badgers (and perhaps baboons and mongooses) are also guided to beehives by greater honeyguides. The idea came from early traveller and naturalist Anders Sparrman, who wrote about this in 1785 based on what he had been told. But in the more than 200 years since, no biologist or naturalist has observed this behaviour. So keep your camera and notebook handy – you could be the first person to document teamwork between this bird and an animal other than humans.
References:
- Friedmann, Herbert (1955). The Honeyguides. U.S. National Museum (Bulletin 208).
- Short, Lester, and Jennifer Horne (2002). Toucans, Barbets and Honeyguides. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-854666-1.
- YouTube Video: HONEY GUIDE BIRD Guiding ratel/honey badger to a beehive
- YouTube Video: Honey Guide Bird (Amazing Partnership) Guiding humans to Beehive
- YouTube Video: BBC Talking to Strangers: honey birds
- YouTube Video: Lesser Honeyguide (Indicator minor)
Tuesday, 10 December 2013
THE GREAT GREEN WALL OF AFRICA
The Great Green Wall initiative is a pan-African proposal to “green” the continent from west to east in order to battle desertification. It aims at tackling poverty and the degradation of soils in the Sahel-Saharan region, focusing on a strip of land of 15 km (9 mi) wide and 7,500 km (4,750 mi) long from Dakar to Djibouti.
Populations in Sahelian Africa are among the poorest and most vulnerable to climatic variability and land degradation. They depend heavily on healthy ecosystems for rainfed agriculture, fisheries, and livestock management to sustain their livelihoods. These constitute the primary sectors of employment in the region and generate at least 40 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in most of the countries. Additionally, the ecosystem provides much needed livelihood products, such as fuelwood and bushmeat. Unfortunately, increasing population pressures on food, fodder, and fuelwood in a vulnerable environment have deteriorating impacts on natural resources, notably vegetation cover. Climate variability along with frequent droughts and poorly managed land and water resources have caused rivers and lakes to dry up and contribute to increased soil erosion.
The vision of a great green wall to combat ecological degradation was conceived in 2005 by the former President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, and the idea was strongly supported by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal. The vision evolved into an integrated ecosystem management approach in January 2007, when the African Union adopted declaration 137 VIII, approving the “Decision on the Implementation of the Green Wall for the Sahara Initiative”. In June 2010, Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan signed a convention in Ndjamena, Chad, to create the Great Green Wall (GGW) Agency and nominate a secretary to further develop the initiative.
The participating countries hope that by linking national-level efforts across borders, they will tackle policy, investment, and institutional barriers that exacerbate the effects of climate change and variability, leading to desertification and deterioration of the environment and natural resources and the risk of conflicts between communities. International Colloquiums are held to discuss possible barriers as well as share available knowledge on the vegetal species, systems of development, and GGW monitoring updates1.
The GEF emulates the spirit of collaboration by allowing participating GGW countries to prioritize which projects they want to implement, in conjunction with GEF agencies and their partners. They may “develop one or several projects in the context of this program and assign some or all of their financial allocations to the Great Green Wall[1]”.
Progress is apparent especially in the Zinder region of Niger, where tree density has significantly improved since the mid-1980s. GEF CEO Monique Barbut attributes the success to working with farmers to find technical solutions, particularly long-term land and financial solutions, in order to save the trees. This form of natural regeneration benefits local communities and the global environment alike by increasing crop yield, improving soil fertility, reducing land erosion, improving fodder availability, diversifying income, cutting wood collection time for women, strengthening resilience to climate change, increasing biodiversity, and much more.
The Global Environmental Facility (GEF) has granted $100.8 million[2] to the GGW participating countries to expand sustainable land and water management (SLWM) and adaptation in targeted landscapes and in climate vulnerable areas in West African and Sahelian countries. Each country will design a project based on national-level priorities for GEF and LDCF resources. The projects will support the following activities
- Expand investment in SLWM technologies to help communities adapt production systems to climate variability, generate income and livelihoods, secure global public goods (such as retention of greenhouse gases, nitrogen fixation, groundwater recharge and biodiversity), and reduce impacts from erosion, drought, and flooding.
- Improve land-use planning, such as at watershed scale (i.e. Nigeria) or local levels (i.e. grazing reserves).
- Improve and apply the information base: climate and water monitoring network improvements, ICT (information communication technology) innovations, institutional cooperation within and across countries, and evidence based policy development
UPDATES:
The Great Green Wall of the Sahel, still in the planning stages, will span Africa from Senegal to Djibouti in order to reverse desertification of the Sahel eco-system, and will look much like this image of a local re-forestation initiative in Chad.
The initiative will be ongoing, and has garnered the support of several international organisations including the UK's Royal Botanic Gardens, the World Bank, the African Union, and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation. Together they have pledged $3 billion and the expertise of their botanists for its advancement.
"Examples of success [so far] include more than 50,000 acres of trees planted in Senegal,” says Ryan Schleeter at National Geographic. "Most of these are the acacia species Senegalia senegal, which has economic value for the commodity it produces, gum arabic. (Gum arabic is primarily used as a food additive.) A small portion of the trees are also fruit-bearing, which, when mature, will help combat the high levels of malnutrition in the country’s rural interior.”
Even more dramatic is the project’s potential social impact, says Schleeter. By providing better quality land and more opportunities to earn an income from cultivating it, the Great Green Wall will open up thousands of job opportunities to the local population.
References:
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