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What you'll learn in this episode: What material culture is, and how we can understand history through its lens Why people tend to save their shoes even if they don't wear them How high heels relate to women's sense of power—or powerlessness Why Colonial-era shoe and breeches buckles are still a popular jewelry material How the Colonial shoe industry can help us understand northern complicity in the slave trade  About Kimberly Alexander Dr. Kimberly Alexander teaches museum studies, material culture, American history and New Hampshire history in the History Department of the University of New Hampshire. She has held curatorial positions at several New England museums, including the MIT Museum, the Peabody Essex Museum and Strawbery Banke. Her most recent book, entitled "Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era" traces the history of early Anglo-American footwear from the 1740s through the 1790s (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018). Dr. Alexander was Andrew Oliver Research Fellow at the Massachusetts Historical Society (2016-2017) and is guest curator of “Fashioning the New England Family,” (October 2018- April 2019) at MHS. Her companion book, "Fashioning the New England Family," was published in 2019. Additional Resources: Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era  https://pwb02mw.press.jhu.edu/title/treasures-afoot  Fashioning the New England Family  https://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/5368    Photos: Treasures Afoot - book stack with c. 1780s silk satin shoe, made in Boston, MA Silver and paste stone shoe buckles, c. mid-18th century, French or English; in original 3shagreen, silk lined case. Collection of the author. Silver thread embroidery with spangles. Collection of the author. Advertisement for gold lace, 1734 James Davis, shoemaker, near Aldgate, London, c. 1760s, Courtesy Metropolitan Museum, public domain. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/112645 Transcript As an architectural historian with a relatively small shoe collection, Professor Kimberly Alexander didn't anticipate becoming an expert on Georgian shoes. But when she encountered a pair of mid-18th century shoes with a curious label, she quickly realized the potential that shoes have to help us understand history and material culture. She joined the Jewelry Journey Podcast to talk about the commonalities between shoes and jewelry, why shoes are a powerful way for women to express themselves, and how the historical shoe industry can help us understand the Colonia era in America. Read the episode transcript below.  Sharon: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Jewelry Journey Podcast. Today, while we're still talking about jewelry, we're looking at it from a different angle. My guest is Kimberly Alexander, author of “Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era.” Kimberly is a historian and Professor of Material and Museum Culture at the University of New Hampshire. We'll hear all about her own journey as well as some of the history she tells of shoes in early America. Kimberly, welcome to the program. Kimberly: Thank you so much for inviting me, Sharon. I'm very excited to talk to you today about something that's been a fairly consuming interest and passion for quite some time, so thank you.  Sharon: I'm so glad to have you, and it has been. I was just rereading your introduction and acknowledgements. You say you've been doing this for the past eight years, so that's quite a journey. Can you tell us what material culture is and how you got into this study? It's so interesting that you're a professor. Kimberly: I'd be happy to do that. Material culture, in its broadest terms, is any item, artifact, object that is created by human endeavor, by human hands. It covers a broad swath of materials, from the work of indigenous peoples with beads and ceramics to shoemakers, which is where I've spent a tremendous amount of my interest and time, but also those who produce textiles, glass, furniture, paintings. All of those would be examples of a human endeavor to create an object. If you think about the early cave paintings and petroglyphs, that's also part of a creative process which involves a human endeavor to create an object or a story. As we continue to explore these ideas of material culture, what I'm particularly interested in is the ability of material artifacts and objects to tell stories that are wrapped up in these elements of human endeavor. I think stories stay with us in ways that other types of information don't always, because we can relate to it; we can put a hook on it. We can understand something more about someone else's perspective or point of view from the study of material culture. I teach material culture and museum studies and these very much go hand-in-hand throughout public history.  My own journey was an interesting one. I completed my master's and my Ph.D. in art history with a focus in architectural history. Some people who've known me for a long time are curious as to how I got from being an architectural historian to writing a book about Georgian shoes, and it's actually not as surprising as you might think. I worked as a curator at the MIT Museum in Cambridge, where I was curator of architecture and design. From there I went to the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, and then to the Strawbery Museum in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It was at Strawbery that I worked not only with buildings, but also archeological finds and what they would tell us about the buildings themselves and human habitations. I worked with a wide of variety of different types of collections, and I found that it was more of a way that you envision the world around you. For me, if you think of a shoe as needing to support someone in their daily activities for a special event, it's not that much different to think about how a skyscraper works. We need to have a good foundation on which to build. For me, it's been a natural evolution.  The shoe that got me started on this sojourn, if you will, is the one that's on the front cover of my book. It's in the collection at the Strawbery Banke Museum. It is a mid-18th century Georgian shoe that's been quite well worn, seen a lot of damage through time and wear, but inside was pasted a simple paper label and it read, “Rideout and Davis Shoemakers near Aldgate in London.” That made me immediately wonder, “How did this shoe end up in this collection in Portsmouth, New Hampshire? What was its journey?” That's really what sent me on this eight-year—and I'm still working on it even though the book's published, so now I'm up to 10 or 11 years on this topic, but that was the question that I started with. How did people acquire shoes and why were they saved? How was this shoe saved for all this time? I found over the course of my research there's a lot more relevance even to how we organize today's lives. You might keep a pair of shoes that you wore to run a marathon or that you wore to get married or for your first job interview. You may never wear them again, but they're small, they're portable and they are infused with some fiber of you and your experience. That's what makes shoes so exciting.  Sharon: That's really interesting. I'm thinking about the parallels between that and antique jewelry. As I've been culling my own collection, I look and say, “I may never wear that again, but I bought it here and I want to keep it as a keepsake.” I was looking at a piece I bought in Cuba and thought, “I may never wear it again, but it's the only thing I've really bought from Cuba.” Kimberly: Right. Sharon: Why do people keep shoes? They're small, they're portable and they have memories, but why do they love shoes so much?  Kimberly: That is an interesting question. I had the chance to do some work with the Currier Museum in Manchester, New Hampshire, about five or six years ago. They were hosting an exhibition that originated in Brooklyn at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. “On Killer Heels” was the name of the exhibition—a fabulous show—but one of the things they did at the Currier was put out notebooks for women to write about their experiences with shoes. One notebook was “What were your best experiences?” or “What shoes do you remember?” and the other one was about shoes and feminism and wearing high heels. I went through them and eventually I hope, with the help of the Currier, to publish an article about it, because it's really quite interesting.  Women who wrote about high heels in many cases wrote about them as being part of how they perceive themselves in power. Some women did see them this way as well as something that was uncomfortable that they were forced to wear at a certain time in their lives. Other women saw them as something that was part of their role as a professional in a male-dominated world. One woman, for example, wrote that she loved her three-inch heels with her business suits because everybody could hear her coming; they knew she was on her way and people scampered to find something to do. She also said, “It put me on this eye level with men in a way that, if I wasn't wearing heels, I wouldn't be.” That was one example that I thought was really interesting. Another example from a woman of roughly the same age talked about the fact that she had foot problems and had to turn in her high heels for flats because they were uncomfortable. This is all paraphrasing, but she said, “The change-over to flats made me feel invisible, like I'd given something up. I was wearing shoes like my mother or grandmother would wear.” I don't know if I really answered your question with these few examples, but I think shoes mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. As we're moving through this Covid year-and-a-half pandemic, I think shoes have taken on an even different role again, as has fashion. People are used to their soft clothes. I was reading something recently on Instagram where somebody said, “Oh, I can't believe I have to go to a meeting in person and put on hard pants.” I think the issue of levels of comfort has changed. They were already changed; I think they changed even more in this pandemic era. But, why do women love shoes? Any number of different reasons, and I've spoken to hundreds of women because I find it a fascinating topic.  By nature, you might not know this, but I'm actually a somewhat shy person; I have a lot of social anxiety. Once I started working on shoes, I found I could always ask a question about shoes, and everybody piles on and I don't need to continue saying much more. I guess everybody has something, and in these notebooks from the Currier, there were these incredibly detailed responses to people responding to their worst experience in shoes. There was one young woman who wrote about going to this college party in her Candies, which were these wooden shoes, terribly uncomfortable, but they were all the rage as I recall. She had hot pink Candies with open toes. She just loved them and she knew she looked like a million bucks, but she ended up with the biggest blisters on her feet. I was an “I didn't care because I knew I looked great” kind of thing. There's a lot of self-image, for some people, wrapped up in something that seems as mundane as shoes.  The pair of shoes that I've kept out of my own collection and that I've carried with me—I grew up in Maryland; I'm now in New Hampshire—is a pair of Nikes from when I was on the cross-country team. I started at a private school, St. James, for my last two years of high school. I couldn't even run the length of a football field. By the end of the semester, I was running five-milers and competing competitively. Those Nikes were symbolic of something really important, and I still have them. They are falling apart, but I still have them. What people decide to collect is also really interesting in terms of what people collect and save and the stories that go with those. Sharon: That's interesting. I'm not sure I have any shoes that I've saved. I've tossed them out and I might have had a sentimental pang, but I don't think I have anything I've saved. I especially did not save from decades ago my three-inch heels, which I can't even imagine. When I see women walking on those now, I'm like, “Oh, my god, how did I ever do that?” The shoes you focus on, you focus on the Colonial Era in America. Why is that, especially because you're talking about shoes that came from London? Kimberly: What it brought up for me, when I first started looking at the labels in women's shoes from London, is that British Americans, in the time before the Revolution, there was a huge consumer culture revolution. You still conceived of yourself as British, so you wanted to be stylish as you would have been back home, not out on the periphery somewhere. So, you have these shoemakers in London who are exporting thousands and thousands of pairs of shoes to the colonies of all different types, from very, very high-end, some of which I show in my book, to examples for those who are not as—pardon the pun—well-heeled. The idea of this reliance on the market also meant there were shoes being made for everyday people and everyday wearers.  In the book, I talk a good bit about the growth of the shoe industry starting particularly in Lynn, Massachusetts, and the switch during the Revolution. There's this pivotal decade from 1760 to the 1770s where Americans start saying, “Look, don't be buying your shoes from Britain. Why are you going to be sending your money to the Crown and to British merchants and shoemakers? Why aren't you supporting your local shoemaker and local businesses and putting money in the coffers of your neighbors?” It becomes a huge political issue, and we even seen Ben Franklin talking about that during the Stamp Act controversy, where he says that Americans are going to hold onto their clothes until they can make themselves new ones. Even something that might seem as straightforward as shoes becomes highly politicized during this time period.  All of this was of tremendous interest to me, but part of the reason I selected this time period and these shoes is that they are handmade—this is all obviously before the advent of machine sewing—and it also gave me a chance to talk about women's voices, women's perspectives that had previously been unheard. We read so much about the founding fathers and a few elite women, but what about the everyday person, the everywoman, everyman? Using shoes was a way I could talk about women who we otherwise would never have heard of. We would just know when they were born and when they died and possibly that they had a child, because that's how the shoes came to us. It was sort of a reverse creating a genealogy or a biography and trying to give women a voice they didn't have, because I had an object I could work with. Sharon: Whatever you said brought to mind the fact that the pictures, the photos in here are just beautiful. I want to say the name of the book again, “Treasures Afoot: Shoe Stories from the Georgian Era” and tell everybody listening that it's a beautiful book and an easy read. It's history, but it's a very easy, interesting read, especially if you have any interest in shoes. We also talked about the fact that with jewelry, taking something like antique shoe buckles and transforming them into bracelets or other pieces of jewelry has become so popular. Why do you think that is? Kimberly: First, I do want to give a plug to my publisher. It's Johns Hopkins University Press, if any of you are interested in the book. There are over a hundred illustrations in the book, most of which have never been seen before, that were taken specifically for this project. I have a huge debt of gratitude to 30 different museum collections around the world, so thank you for bringing up the visual qualities. It was a really exciting opportunity to be able to have that many color illustrations.  Back to your question about shoe buckles, for one thing, you didn't have to have a pair of buckles for every pair of shoes; you could interchange some. Again, it goes back to things that you can save easily. You get a lot of pavé stone buckles more so than gemstones, although very, very rich people—the Victoria & Albert has a pair of shoe buckles, I think they were Russian in origin, that have actual sapphires and diamonds and rubies. I mean, wow. But what most people had would have been pavé stones that would have been set in silver or some other metal. Then they move onto leather.  One of the biggest things that happens is that there were so many buckles because you had shoe buckles for men and women. You also had breeches buckles for men, which would go at their knees for their breeches. You actually have a pretty large number of buckles which can be reused. By looking at the size, you can generally determine whether they were breeches buckles or shoe buckles, but that's often a cataloguing error that you find about what the pieces were. A small breeches buckle, for example, can be wonderfully remade into a pin if you've got the pair. They're very small. I'm sorry. We're doing this over the phone and I'm doing hand gestures— Sharon: No, no. Kimberly: At any rate, they are smaller, so they're very easy to convert into jewelry. They're easy to save. You can pick them up online everywhere from eBay to Etsy. Now, the other thing is that there was a huge Georgian revival of shoes, of course, in the 1910s and 1920s, and you start having shoes that either have attached shoe buckles or occasionally are using shoe buckles again. So, you have a wide expanse of this sort of shoe jewelry, if you will, and it's not just buckles; there were also shoe roses and flowers, things you could attach to your slippers to spiff them up. The idea of reusing these objects, the way people do with silk ribbon flowers, which appear on so many 18th century and early 20th century gowns, makes a tremendous amount of sense. I would say there are certainly as many pieces of jewelry that have been made from buckles as buckles that actually survived. Sharon: I never realized there were breeches buckles. I guess it's all lumped together in a sense. Kimberly: The breeches buckles were smaller, and they would have attached to the knee tabs for men's breeches. A man could have both breeches buckles and shoe buckles, and then occasionally you'll see trends in the 19th and 20th centuries of buckles being used as hat ornaments and things like that. The versatility, I think, is probably what has kept them around. Plus, anytime you're dealing with shoes, you're dealing with the fragility of textiles and that's a big thing. Sharon: I'll have to look more closely next time I look at what I think is a shoe buckle and say, “Oh, it's possible it's a breeches buckle.” It's interesting when you talk about the trends, because in the past few years it's been pearls. You've seen pearls in heels, and I think you have a couple of pairs of shoes where there are lots of rhinestones.  Kimberly: Yeah, if you want to take the idea of jewelry as it connects to footwear, many of the 18th century—well, 17th and 18th century—shoes were embroidered with metallic threads. You actually have real gold spun around a linen thread, which is then woven into the fabric of the shoes. You end up with this amazing amount of gold on your foot. You've got the shine—and again, this is largely elite wearers—but you have brocaded metallic threads in a shoe. Then you've got a shoe buckle. Hose and stockings often will have down the side of the leg what was known as a clock, which might be done in metallic threads. So, you also have precious metals being used as part of the textile process.  Sharon: It's interesting to me that when you describe material culture, it's such a broad subject and you homed in on shoes, and then even more specifically a certain period, the Georgian Era, the Colonial Era. Are you working on something now? What else is on your mind? Kimberly: I have a book coming out this fall based on an exhibition I was very fortunate to curate at the Massachusetts Historical Society which is called “Fashioning the New England Family.” It looks at a wide variety of textiles from the 17th century, from what is known as a buff coat, a lightweight military—well, relatively speaking—coat from the 1630s, up through pieces in the early 20th century based on their collection.  What I'm really interested in is this idea of storytelling, of reading textiles like text. What can you discern? Everything from why they were maintained to how they were made, and it's astonishing the things we've been able to uncover.  As far as shoes go, I've been looking at issues of northern complicity in the shoe trade. Around the time of the Revolution, a number of shoe manufacturers in New England basically blossom from doing several hundred pairs of shoes to doing thousands of pairs of shoes. There's one company in particular that I found during my research—I think I talk about it in the very end of my book—that started shipping thousands and thousands of shoes and I thought, “Well, that's odd in this three-year time.” As it turned out, they were selling—the coded language was “for the southern trade” or “the Indies trade”—but essentially, they were selling shoes to enslaved field workers in the South. The coded language was “coarse, sturdy, cheap,” and so on.  When I started researching where the shoes were shipped, they were being shipped to Baltimore, to Norfolk, to Charleston, in this case from Salem and Boston. There are entire towns in New England that owe their existence and their lucrative businesses to being part of the slave trade. These things are true in the textile mills as well, but I've been focusing on shoes. This is very coded language, and I've been able to locate a few pairs of shoes that were actually made for enslaved workers, and we have letters from enslaved workers who talk about how uncomfortable those northern shoes were. They preferred in some cases to go barefoot; they were that uncomfortable. So, I'm working on that now as well as another publication. Sharon: Wow! I look forward to seeing that. It sounds very interesting, and it really makes you think in terms of how they were supporting abolition and at the same time shipping the shoes down, right? Kimberly: Right. You realize just how much these are no longer separate economies. It's a national economy. They're sending cotton up from the South to the North where it's being processed into clothing and then being sent back down to the South or being sent to customers. It's really complicated and some amazing scholarship is being done in this area. Sharon: As you're talking about the shoes and how you're telling history through shoes, it makes me think about how hard it is to describe to people when you say you really love jewelry. They think you love big diamonds, but there's so much history attached to jewelry, why it was done in a certain metal and at a certain time. There's a whole journey behind it.  Kimberly: Yes, exactly. People assume I have a big shoe collection myself. I don't. I have a few pairs of shoes that I really like, and people give me shoes now. For my classes, I've gotten some really fancy designer shoes that people picked up at yard sales. I use the textiles I have and the shoes I have in my classes so that students can actually hold things, touch things, examine them and learn from them, because you can't walk into a museum and say, “Hey, let me hold onto that 1785 pair of silk pumps.” Sharon: Right. I look forward to seeing your book when it comes out. That's around the corner, and hopefully you'll come back on and tell us more about that. Thank you so much for being here today.  We will have images posted on the website. You can find us wherever you download your podcasts, and please rate us. Please join us next time, when our guest will be another jewelry industry professional who will share their experience and expertise. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you again for reading. Please leave us a rating and review so we can help others start their own jewelry journey.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-business-journey-podcast/id1552627136 (Apple Podcasts) | https://open.spotify.com/show/4oIVk1IyDWLd5vCsWjPW8N (Spotify) | https://rebeccaricephoto.com/025-transcript (Transcript) As family photographers, we have a natural busy season and a natural slow season. For me, I've found summer and winter to be slower. Everyone loves having photos done in the spring and fall, so making the most of my slower seasons has always been important to me. For anyone offering mini sessions, now is the time to be planning for those fall and Christmas sessions, which we talked about on a recent episode (listen https://rebeccaricephoto.com/2021/07/05/ep-23-prepping-for-fall-minis/ (HERE)). And, don't forget, if you're working on minis for the fall and winter, I have a great http://www.Rebeccaricephoto.com/12ideas (FREE resource) to help you decide which themes to go with! Beyond prepping for mini sessions, there's other ways to maximize your slow season, so today let's jump into 5 things you can be doing before work picks up again! These tasks will help you optimize your business so everything is running efficiently, even on your busiest days. Review your client experience.When I'm not shooting a lot, the first thing I do is review my client experience. Take the time to look over the entire process from start to finish. What is it like when they inquire with me? Am I sending emails - and what's included? How can I serve my clients better? I've talked a ton about client experience on the blog before now, so you can look through some posts about that. But really, it's just about being in my clients' shoes and making sure they're having the best possible experience with me. I want it to be easy and to reduce any questions or concerns on their end. And it doesn't end there. Think about how you can serve them well after your session (or during it!), like a cooler with water for sessions or a thank you gift of an ornament after a Christmas mini. Little things like that can go a long way! Update your workflows.Alright, so I know this is a pretty boring task, but trust me: it will make a difference in your busy seasons. Workflow will mean something different to everyone... it could be an actual workflow in Honeybook or Dubsado, or just a Trello checklist. Whatever it is, make sure you have a single system that works for every single client so you never lose track of what's going on with them or their photos. And, if you don't have a workflow already, now's the time to start one. Take a piece of paper and write EVERY single part of your experience with a client. This is a process you should review regularly. But, definitely take the time each slow season to ensure your workflows are as optimized as possible. Seriously, if you don't need something anymore, REMOVE it. And if you want to add something new in (like asking for reviews!), build out the steps to make that happen. Automate whatever you can.During your slow season, you should be looking at what you can automate and delegate when it comes to your business. Are there emails you can setup to go automatically? What about questionnaires or guides? You don't need to be the one pushing "Send". Put that CRM to use! Also take the time to look at what you can outsource. As you grow and get busier, getting help is going to be key! Trust me, it's way more affordable than you think. If someone else can do it at least 80% as well las you (or better), that task can be outsourced. Outsourcing will allow you to focus your energy where it's needed most. You can read more about my thoughts on https://rebeccaricephoto.com/2021/01/28/6-tasks-you-can-outsource-today/ (outsourcing here)! Plan ahead for the next season.A great way to help maximize your off season is to plan ahead for your next season. Right now, that would look like planning for the fall! So, take out your calendar (digital or paper) and decide what dates you're going to be shooting. This is...

TRANSCRIPT: As you know, if you've been listening along, after each guest episode, I reflect a bit about what we discussed, trying to figure out how to relate the information or ideas to retirement life or preparation for retirement. Today is no different. Last week I talked with Joseph Hogue, who discovered early in his 9-5 career that he didn't really want to spend the next 30+ years doing a job that he hated. It wasn't so much that he didn't want to work; he simply wanted to do work that he enjoyed. So he set about figuring out how to ensure that this happened. If you haven't listened to Joseph yet, please go back and listen to that episode, either now or after this episode. He's got a lot of interesting information to share. This episode is primarily for people who want to do something – they're looking to fill up some of their time with a productive activity that may eventually lead to an income, however meagre it may be. Joseph's main advice was “Just Get Started”. The longer you wait, the less likely you are to do anything and the more you think about what you're going to do, the less likely you are to do it. So just get out there, find a hobby and do something! Before I go too much farther, I want to say that I know not everyone wants a side business, and not everyone wants to earn money from their hobbies. That's okay! You still need to get started – some of you will be wondering what to do with yourself all day every day when you're retired. So Joseph's advice of “just get started” is true for you too. This is something that I am attracted to – the idea of “just do it”. Me and Nike, right? Seriously, though, that's the only way to accomplish anything in life. And starting a hobby is a great time-consumer. Of course, you'll want to make sure it's something you're interested in, because ultimately you'll be spending time at it at least every couple of days. So spend a bit of time now thinking about what you enjoy doing. Do you like to write? Maybe you can start a blog, writing about the Netflix shows you've seen lately, or maybe you're a great gardener and you can share tips about what it takes to make the plants grow. I know that's something I need to read about! Joseph's suggestion was to start a YouTube channel. I think that's a marvellous idea, because YouTube is certainly one of the major search engines these days, right? You can find videos on just about anything. It doesn't matter whether you want to make money at it or not; if you want to, you can, but it's not a necessity. There are YouTube channels and blogs out there for any topic or idea you can think of. Joseph's point was that regardless of whether you start out aiming to monetize whatever you're doing, at some point you'll be able to make money at it. And why not do that, if you can? Who's going to turn down a little extra cash? If you REALLY don't want the money and someone is trying to force you to take it, you can always give it to charity. Another great idea for either a blog or YouTube is a journal of your life – just record what you do each day. It'll be a great keepsake for your grandkids. I wish I had some stories about my grandparents' lives, because I didn't really know them very well. I was quite young when they all passed away and they lived in a different part of the country, so we didn't visit often. So, how do you figure out what to do and if it fits into your post-retirement life? I guess first you have to decide if you're really interested in pursuing a hobby that can turn into a side business. I'm going to assume that you are, because there's no point in taking this topic any further if you aren't. Then you have to figure out what it is you're interested enough in to want to pursue so doggedly, because to be quite frank, having your own business isn't for the faint of heart. This should be a real passion, or at least something that you are willing to do every day for a while. Do you like to collect singing fish on...

Transcript: As protests heat up, the Channel Zero Network has some reminders on how to stay safe while out in the streets. Bring buddies and don't let them out of the range of your voice. Write a legal aid number on your body so you can get help if you get arrested. Be sure to know your buddies legal names and birthdays. You'll need these to help find them if they're arrested. When moving around, walk don't run. Stick together. Turn off your phone while out in the street to avoid surveillance of your location and so as not to have your unlocked phone taken by the authorities or other bad actors. Try your best not to stick out in a crowd. Cover up tattoos with clothing or body paint. Cops will use footage from the protest to try to identify you. Wear clothes that are good for moving quickly. Avoid wearing jewelry and wear closed toe shoes. Wear your mask at all times, even if you're talking to someone in order to guard yourself against surveillance, covid 19, pepper spray, and tear gas. Avoid wearing contact lenses. Bring goggles of some kind in case of tear gas or pepper spray. Consider wearing bike helmets as police often cause head injuries with batons and other weapons. Don't take photos or video of people doing anything illegal or with their face uncovered. Whenever possible, film the cops, not the protesters. ONLY PUT WATER IN YOUR EYES. Don't use milk or baking soda or anything else.Clean water is the safest thing to use at a protest. If possible, bring a water bottle to drink from and a water bottle to flush out eyes of any comrades who are maced or tear-gassed. And white comrades are encouraged to follow the lead of black and brown comrades, as they bear the brunt of state brutality. Follow Unicorn Riot and Channel Zero Network member It's Going Down for ongoing updates. The Channel Zero Network sends y'all solidarity. Stay safe out there and never stop fighting for a better world.

Transcript“As a nation, we've got to put in place a public health system that includes disease preparedness, so that we're ready for whatever is the next shock. And that all of us, no matter who we are, what social-economic status, what race, ethnicity, what job we have, that we don't have to go through this again. It's in our hands. We can do it. And it is within our reach to be able to end these sorts of unacceptable wealth and health disparities.” - Dr. Helene GayleIn today’s episode, co-hosts Dr. Celine Gounder and Ron Klain speak with Dr. Helene Gayle, CEO of the Chicago Community Trust, and Dr. Aletha Maybank, the Chief Equity Officer at the American Medical Association, about the health and wealth gaps that exist in poorer communities in the US, and how COVID-19 has widened these gaps, leaving members of these communities more vulnerable to the effects of COVID-19. They also discuss how racial stereotypes are affecting many people’s abilities to follow public health guidelines, such as the use of face masks. Finally, they discuss how, in order to move past these stereotypes and biases, we need good data, and policies informed by this data, as cases of COVID-19 are likely being underreported in communities of color, leading to a lack of help in areas that need it most.Listener Q&A: Is it possible to safely reopen the country before herd immunity or a vaccine? What can we expect from the second wave of COVID-19 cases when social distancing measures are lifted, and what can we learn from prior pandemics to prepare?This podcast was created by Just Human Productions. We're powered and distributed by Simplecast. We're supported, in part, by listeners like you.#SARSCoV2 #COVID19 #COVID #coronavirus

I this episode I explore gamification as a remedy to the crisis of engagement in vanlife. Music: Road Trip (https://soundcloud.com/user-427503922/road-trip)by Lane Petrosenko featuring Racquel Deveau (CC BY-NC 3.0) User-427503922 – Road-trip Soundcloud Lead Image: Dolomites (https://flic.kr/p/SFY5rC) by Louise Feige (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) Sound Effects: Regular Game Sound Effects 28 (https://freesound.org/s/219975/ ) by B Lamerichs (CCby0) Regular Game Sound Effects 20 (https://freesound.org/s/219983/ ) by B Lamerichs (CCby0)NC-ND 2.0) Sound Effect; Typewriter (http://soundbible.com/827-Typewriter.html ) By tamskp (CC BY 3.0) My Blog: communication-generation.com/ Transcript: As we have explored previously, Vanlifers, in a tradition traced from the transcendentalist’s trough to the #vanlifers suffer from a crisis of engagement in what mainstream society is offering them. You already know about gamification, because of flyby rewards systems. LinkedIn prompts us to complete profiles and a big balloon shows 80% complete. But whatever I do I can never actually reach 100% because the more data LinkedIn has the more money they can extract trough advertising. I instead gave the SuperBetter resilience building gamified platform a try as an elixir to this crisis of engagement. Resilience is the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult obstacles. Dounds good to. The founder Jane McGonigal sees gamification as a means of building collective intelligence to improve the quality of human life and combat social ills. I’m in. I signed up, modified my avatar and I choose a chellenge. I then had to choose a realistic but challenging Epic Win - something that is hard right now and will involve some degree of difficulty to achieve. I typed in “Enjoy Life”. Supper Better then used almost all the available game like mechanics and elements to help. Quests built confidence and optimism by providing practical concrete steps. Future boosts provided incremental rewards. Power-ups provided the strength and energy to achieve quests. I killed bad guys which were the thoughts, habits, and situations I wanted to avoid. I found Allies to encourage my progress. M progress bars which measure my current physical, mental, emotional and social resilience went up and I earned badges. I faced tougher challenges without giving up and my resilience grew further both in my life and on the screen. I relish challenges and have become stronger, happier, and more connected to the positive people I surround myself with. I’m focusing less on outcomes and goals and enjoying the moment and each small victory. Gamification and resilience can work together to help individuals and society achieve hard-earned wins. Can gamification can work in countering the malaise of contemporary society and the crisis of engagement from which the #vanlifers have long suffered?

Session 6 Applying to medical school as an international applicant can be a huge obstacle to overcome. But why is it so hard? That's what we will cover in today show. But first, did you know that we do the recordings of this podcast  live on Facebook at 3pm Eastern on most weekdays? Check out our Facebook page and like the page to be notified. Also check us out on YouTube and all our other episodes on MedEd Media. [00:25] What If You're Attending Undergrad Here in the U.S.? The number one schools typically like to see is that your prereqs are done at a U.S. school. That's the first barrier to entry. But what if you're an international student here already in the States and taking your undergrad at a U.S. school. You would still not be considered a non international student since you did your undergrad here. The "international" comes into play based on your residency status, not necessarily where you did your undergrad. So even if you did your undergrad at a U.S. school, you're still considered an international student. [01:15] A Challenge in Translating the Transcript As an international student, if you have your grades from overseas, how are the schools going to be able to translate your transcripts to the U.S. systems? That being said, there are still a couple of huge obstacles. "There are lots of things that come into play for international students which makes it a little bit harder." [02:02] Are You Going to Stay? A lot of schools are public schools which are typically supported by the state. The state wants to train citizens and residents of that state so they hopefully stay in that state and practice in that state. They hope they'd contribute to the taxes and the economy in that state. But an international student is not guaranteed to do that. They may come to the states, get their undergrad degree and medical school education. And then they may go back home to whatever country they're from to practice medicine with a U.S. education. Although a lot of international students want to stay here in the U.S. to practice medicine in. [03:03]  Money Issues Medical school is expensive. Typically, students pay for that expense with federal student loans. Federal student loans are only eligible to permanent residents or citizens of the U.S. "International students do not qualify for federal loans." So when you're applying to medical schools in the U.S., you need to prove to the medical school that you have the funds to pay for it. You need to prove that you're not going to go and stiff the school with a big, fat bill for your tuition. [03:58] Postgrad Training Required Another big thing students worry about is whether or not you're going to go on and be a productive physician and get a residency slot after medical school. And go on and get your postgraduate training. "The weird thing about medicine is that you can't practice medicine without doing postgraduate training." Lawyers can go out law as soon as they graduate law school or dentists can practice dentistry as soon as they graduate dental school. Doctors, however, can't go out and practice medicine until they've done (depending on the state) at least one year of postgraduate training and typically three years of postgraduate training. [04:52] Visa Issues International students need to be able to get work visas to be able to stay in the States post-graduation since they're no longer on a student visa. They need a work visa to stay in the States and practice. Typically the hospital that accepts them or where they match at is the one that sponsors a visa. I've seen plenty of horror stories from student residents that are stuck in whatever country they're from. They can't get back to the States to start their residency even though they've matched. There are visa issues that come up and the hospital now is losing man hours because the resident is stuck in another country due to visa issues. "A medical school doesn't want to have one of their graduates have issues with visas." With our current administration, there are lots of visa issues. With this travel ban, a lot of physicians in some of those countries that were blocked couldn't get back here to do their training. [06:42] Schools Maintaining Good Standing Schools want to be able to brag that they have great stats. They want their students go and complete great residencies. And if you're an international student graduate who now has an issue getting into a residency due to visa issues or whatever it is, it looks bad on the school. So they don't want that to reflect on them. [07:37] Canadian Friendly U.S. Medical Schools There are lots of issues when it comes to international students coming to the states. It's not impossible, however. Canada has the closest system to the U.S., education-wise and practice-wise. A lot of schools actually consider Canadian undergraduate citizens as U.S. citizens. They will look at you as resident for purposes of acceptance. Obviously, it would be different for tuition purposes. There are some schools that are very friendly to Canadians. Michigan State's College of Osteopathic Medicine is one of them. I'm also working with a student right now who's in Canada. She has got an interview at Michigan State University and another in Virginia. "There are schools that are Canadian-friendly. It may not be international friendly but they may be Canadian friendly." So if you're in Canada, you need to separate and figure out which schools are Canadian-friendly versus which schools are international-friendly versus which schools aren't friendly to either. There's a lot of work on your end to figure that out. [09:38] Getting In Through an MD/PhD It doesn't mean you can get here in the U.S. It just means that there are more obstacles in your way. An MD/PhD is typically is easier but I wouldn't recommend it if you are an international student just because. You really still need to be interested in that MD/PhD path when it comes to applying and interviewing. It's going to come out anyway whether or not it's really what you want to do or should do. [10:19] Do Great! Also keep in mind that you need as good stats as you can get to make sure you're competitive. You have to put yourself on another level compared to U.S. graduates. You really need to have topnotch stats to get in. If you're on an early journey, get good grades. Get a good MCAT score and get everything else you need for a nice application. Tell a great story in your personal statement and extracurriculars. If you have any questions, give me a call at 617-410-6747. Links: MedEd Media Medical School HQ Facebook page Medical School HQ YouTube channel The episodes in this podcast are actually recorded live on Facebook at 3pm Eastern on most weekdays. Check out our Facebook page. Like the page to be notified. Also check us out on YouTube.

Two weeks ago we talked about securing an income in retirement. Today I'm going to look in-depth at unsecured income, or what ordinary people call Income Drawdown.   Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sponsor Message This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I'm doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I'm very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they're up to at 7im.co.uk Income Drawdown The difference between secured and unsecured drawdown is essentially about who takes the risk. With a secured income you have someone else guaranteeing to provide you with the specified income, and it is up to them to do whatever is necessary to meet their obligations. With unsecured income drawdown, you are in control, and on your own head be it. If you run out of money, too bad. If you still have too much money left when you die, then you haven't spent enough! The investment risk, the withdrawal rate, the asset mix, is all down to you. So this week I want to look at the mechanics of income drawdown, and then next week, I'm bringing back friend of the show Abraham Okusanya to give us a steer as to how to withdraw money and how to invest for retirement. In this session you will learn: That Income Drawdown is not just about pensions Why the Pensions Freedoms of 2015 are so important How income tax works in pension drawdown Why death benefits should always be front of mind when planning your drawdown strategy Why it is worth checking ahead of time whether your own pensions are flexible Why consolidation of your pensions makes life easier And why you should be very careful doing so Why you should check your expression of wishes on your pensions   Transcript As always there is a transcript available for the entire show. you can get it by clicking the huge blue button below: [Coming Soon]   Share the love If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. Just click the button below:

Regular listeners will know that just a couple of days ago I released by 200th episode, where I was interviewed by the one and only Mark Schaefer. Well today, I'm returning the favour (well, to be honest, he's the one doing all the favours) and talking to him about his new book, KNOWN.   Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sponsor Message This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I'm doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I'm very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they're up to at 7im.co.uk Becoming KNOWN For those who don't know, Mark Schaefer is one of the leading lights in the online marketing space. Now that's a busy space, but his enduring wisdom marks him out as someone who not only gets how to do the whole online marketing thing, but who can teach it effectively, without resorting to peppy motivational lines. His premise about becoming KNOWN applies to anyone with a message they need to be heard, a business or cause to promote, or who wants to improve their own standing in any sphere of life. He's also one of the sweetest guys very generous with his time and expertise, and I'm so glad I decided to bring him on. Resources Mark's Website: Businesses Grow Book: KNOWN (Amazon affiliate link) Workbook: KNOWN Personal Branding Workbook (ditto) Mark on Twitter: @markwschaefer Video: Pete as the Easter Bunny KNOWN Case Study: Antonio Centaro KNOWN Case Study: Zander Zon Book: Peter Drucker - Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Amazon affiliate link) Transcript As always there is a transcript available for the entire show. you can get it by clicking the huge blue button below: [Coming Soon] Competition For the chance to win one of five copies of Mark's book KNOWN, please leave a comment below telling me why you think becoming KNOWN will help your cause/business/career/whatever. I'll choose my favourites to receive a book. Share the love If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. Just click the button below:

The first MeaningfulMoney was back in November 2012, and today I hit another big milestone of 200 episodes. And this week, for something a little different, I'm delighted to welcome Mark Schaefer, who hijacks my show for his own purposes...   Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sponsor Message This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I'm doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I'm very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they're up to at 7im.co.uk Celebrating Session 200 Long-time listeners will remember Session 100, when I brought in my daughters, then aged 15 and 12, to ask a bunch of questions. It was giggly fun, but not rich, insightful content. This time Mark Schaefer, educator, consultant and author of six books including his most recent, KNOWN, asks some much more insightful questions than Ellie & Kate Matthew(!), including a bunch of questions asked by YOU! I'm grateful to Mark for helping me out with this episode. Stay tuned for an extra special episode on Friday this week when I turn the tables on Mark and interview him about KNOWN, which features MeaningfulMoney as a case study. Resources Mark's Website: Businesses Grow Book: KNOWN Mark on Twitter: @markwschaefer Transcript As always there is a transcript available for the entire show. you can get it by clicking the huge blue button below: [Coming Soon] Share the love If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. Just click the button below:

It's a new season, and we're going to be looking at The Great Transition. What do I mean by this? I mean the transition between saving money for the future, and spending for the now. I mean the reduction in reliance on working to live, and instead living on your own means. Yes, I'm talking about retirement. But what is retirement anyway?   Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sponsor Message This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I'm doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I'm very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they're up to at 7im.co.uk What is retirement? We're going to look at the whole subject of retirement in some depth, as you'd expect, including bringing in some expert guests to help me cover some parts of it. I want to look at the concept and the process of retirement, and while doing podcasts as usual, I'll also be releasing some video content to help demonstrate some of the things I'm talking about. We've lots to cover, so let's crack on… Resources Podcast: Season 4, Episode 10 - The Great Transition Podcast: Season 4, Episode 9 - How Much Is Enough? Podcast: Session 154 - How Much Is Enough? Website: Check your state pension Transcript As always there is a transcript available for the entire show. you can get it by clicking the huge blue button below: [Coming Soon] Share the love If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. Just click the button below:

As we near the end of Season Four, where we've covered the ins and outs, the hows and the whys of Building Wealth, we need to turn our mind to the reason for it all; the great transition to financial freedom, or, if you like, retirement.   Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Play in new window | Download Sponsor Message This podcast is brought to you with the help of Seven Investment Management, a firm of investment managers based in London. They specialise in multi-asset investing, bringing institutional investing techniques to ordinary people like you and me. 7IM put their name to my show and to my site because they believe in what I'm doing, trying to get decent, easy-to-understand financial information out to the world. I'm very grateful to them for their support. You can see what they're up to at 7im.co.uk The Great Transition Having spent all this time talking about building wealth, we're now looking to start spending it. That's the subject of Season Five of The MeaningfulMoney podcast coming up in a couple of weeks, but in today's episode, I want to pave the way… In this session, you'll discover: The reasons why retirement is no longer a line in the sand What that means for you Why you should keep reassessing your progress towards your goals Why you should keep reassessing your goals tin light of your progress Why it's important to keep your head down Why you should probably avoid lifetstyling What on earth lifestyling actually is Transcript As always there is a transcript available for the entire show. you can get it by clicking the yuge blue button below: [Coming Soon] Join the conversation I love to read and respond to your comments, so please do join in and share. Question: What has been the biggest thing you've learned or enjoyed in Season Four: Building Wealth?  Share the love If this show is of any use to you, it would help me massively if you would take the time to leave me a review on iTunes. This has a huge impact on keeping me near the top of the rankings, which in turns helps more people to find the show and to subscribe. Just click the button below:

In this episode, you’re going to learn about a fascinating time in history when England had its security world shattered when a man waltzed into town and promptly easily picked the previously unpickable type of lock securing most of the valuables in the country. This is the story of the “Great Lock Controversy of 1851” [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the [...] The post Podcast Episode #404: Hobbs and His Locks, and the End appeared first on Today I Found Out.

In this episode, you’re going to learn about paw preferences in cats and dogs, as well as methods for figuring out whether your cat is right or left pawed. [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the episode: Nora the Piano Playing Cat Don’t miss future episodes of this podcast, subscribe here: iTunes | RSS/XML You can also find more episodes by going [...] The post Podcast Episode #362: Right and Left Pawed appeared first on Today I Found Out.

In this episode, you’re going to learn if there is any truth to the idea that the way a horse’s legs are depicted in equestrian statues indicates how the rider died. [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the episode, if you’re curious to learn more about the myth that drained water spins in opposite directions depending on which hemisphere you’re in, you [...] The post Podcast Episode #355: The Truth About Equestrian Statues appeared first on Today I Found Out.

In this episode, you’re going to learn about a bizarre medical condition where those who suffer from it have difficulty “seeing” faces, and in the extreme case, the individuals can’t even recognize their own face in the mirror or in pictures. [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the episode, if you’re curious whether you’re on the “Facial Blindness” spectrum, you can take [...] The post Podcast Episode #339: Faces appeared first on Today I Found Out.

In this episode, you’re going to learn about the surprisingly young age Brenda Lee was when she recorded one of the most famous Christmas songs of all time… and how it completely flopped initially.  You’re also going to learn a lot of other interesting facts about “Little Miss Dynamite,” Brenda Lee. [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the episode, you can see [...] The post Podcast Episode #297: Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree appeared first on Today I Found Out.

In this episode, you’re going to learn what the song the “Purple People Eater” and arguably the most famous scream of all time, used in over 200 major motion pictures (the Wilhelm Scream), have in common. [TRANSCRIPT] As mentioned in the episode, if you’re interested in getting your phone to do the Wilhelm Scream anytime it’s tossed, you can get [...] The post Podcast Episode #199: The Most Famous Scream of All Time appeared first on Today I Found Out.

Transcript -- As with many consumer experiences, our interaction with, and consumption of music has changed.

Transcript: As examples of fine tuning in nature, consider the strength of the nuclear forces that hold the atom and the nucleus together. If the weak nuclear force were much stronger than it is, the big bang would have cooked all the hydrogen into helium rather than just a fraction of it with the result that in the present day universe there could be no water and no long-lived stable stars. If the weak nuclear force had been much weaker, early neutrons would not decay into protons and there would be no hydrogen at all. The strong nuclear force that binds the atom’s nucleus, if it were only two percent stronger, no protons would have formed early in the universe. Diprotons would have formed instead. There would therefore have been no stable atoms, and stars with diprotons in them would have burned a billion times faster than stars in our universe. If the strong nuclear force had been five percent weaker, the deuteron would not be bound, and stellar fusion would have been impossible. What all this means is that if either of the nuclear forces had been slightly different, the universe would have been physically reasonable but not a place where long-lived stars, biology, or life would have been possible.

Transcript: As a follow up to the Pioneer Plaque, the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft, which have also left the solar system, carried a phonograph record, a twelve-inch gold disc containing samples of the world’s music, spoken greetings in many of the world’s languages, and images of various kinds digitized and placed on the record. The arbitrary selection of musical choices was of course the selection of a small set of people. Some people might argue. For instance, the record was made before rap even existed. So, it’s an arbitrary cultural selection to decide which part of human endeavors to represent. Maybe more fundamentally, it’s an illustration of the transience of technology. The record that was attached to the leg of the voyager spacecraft is of course an old style LP, a technology that is obsolete even on Earth, so we must view both the Pioneer and the Voyager experiments not as realistic attempts to communicate with aliens but as representations of our own culture, maybe to make us feel better about ourselves.

Transcript: As an analogy for the Drake equation where independent probabilities combine to reduce an initially large number to a small number, consider the following hypothetical situation. Imagine the number of students in a large university, say, forty thousand. Now imagine what fraction of those students are women. It’ll be roughly fifty percent which brings you down to twenty thousand. Imagine the fraction of those that are econ majors. That's probably about one percent given the large number of majors at a university. At this point you reduce the number to two hundred. Imagine the fraction of those women who are economics majors who have red hair. It’s perhaps one-tenth. Two hundred goes down to twenty. Imagine the fraction of those red haired women who are economics majors who at any given time are in class. That's probably about ten percent, and twenty has been reduced to two. And imagine the fraction at any given time that are reading a magazine. Maybe it’s ten percent or twenty percent, but at this point you are down essentially to one person or less. So it’s possible starting from forty thousand to reduce yourself to essentially nobody who satisfies all the conditions of being a woman, an economics major, having red hair, sitting in class, and reading a magazine. However, if the starting number was larger, say, perhaps the total number of students in the United States, more like twenty million, then each of the numbers has to be multiplied by five hundred, and at this point it is possible, however rare, that there are people who satisfy all of those contingent probabilities. This is the issue of the Drake equation where starting with a huge number of potential sites for life, even if all the joint probabilities of reaching intelligent, communicable civilizations are combined together, it still may be possible that the outcome occurs.

Transcript: As an example of the advantages of relativistic space travel, or travel close to the velocity of light, consider a hypothetical journey to a star that's five lightyears distant. Several hundred stars are this close or closer. At the limit of modern chemical rockets, a speed of five one-thousandths of a percent of the velocity of light, the roundtrip journey would take a hundred thousand years. At one-tenth the velocity of light, the limit of an ion engine or a solar sail, the trip would take fifty years. At a half the velocity of light, the trip would take ten years as seen from the Earth and only eight years as seen from someone traveling on the spacecraft. At ninety percent of the velocity of light, the trip would take six years or two and a half years as seen by someone traveling on the spacecraft. And at 99.9 percent of the velocity of light, due to relativistic effects, as seen from the Earth the trip would take five years, but as seen by somebody traveling on the spacecraft, the roundtrip would only take a few months. These are the advantages of relativistic travel which also lead to the twin paradox where twins separated, and one traveling at relativistic speed to the stars would age far less than the twin that remained home on Earth.

Transcript: As theorists in physics attempt to unify gravity with our ideas of matter, they’ve come up with a series of theories called superstring theories or brane theories, brane in this case being spelt b-r-a-n-e. In these theories, we replace the idea of particles with the idea of one dimensional strings. All the properties of particles result from the many modes of interaction, oscillation, vibration, and creation and annihilation of tiny little strings. These are microscopic entities far smaller than the nucleus of an atom. All of the properties of normal particles including their mass are derived quantities from the behavior of these superstrings. In many of these theories, theorists have to consider multi-dimensional space, beyond the three dimensions we are familiar with. Some of the theories have six dimensions, others have ten, even eleven. The theories are utterly speculative. The mathematics is fiendishly difficult, but there are many clever people working in this subject and time will tell whether they are headed towards the ultimate theory of matter.

Transcript: As we trace events in the universe back toward the big bang, the first important epoch reached is a time about three hundred thousand years after the big bang. The universe by this time has cooled to a temperature of about three thousand Kelvin like the photosphere of a cool star. The density of matter and radiation has become low enough that photons no longer routinely interact with the charged particles that are there, protons and electrons. This has two fundamental consequences for the universe. First, the photons start to travel freely without interacting with matter. This is the era of decoupling. Photons decouple from matter, and it’s the era at which we see the cosmic microwave background radiation. Those photons have been flowing freely through the universe for eleven billion years since. The universe becomes transparent at this point. The second consequence is that protons and electrons combine to form stable neutral hydrogen atoms. This is called recombination. The two physical processes are connected.

Transcript: As an analogy for the difficulty of measuring distances in the universe, consider a terrestrial situation. You’re standing on the roof of a building. You can measure the roof with a tape measure. That’s as direct as measuring the distance to planets with radar. To measure distances in the nearby streets you roughly know what the size of people are, so you use the people as distance indicators for measurements within a mile or so. Over distances of some miles you can probably use the size of buildings as a distance indicator, and going to the horizon, the appearance of the mountains gives you a rough idea of distance although you cannot resolve the individual trees on those mountains. And the presence of smog in the atmosphere, like obscuration in the Milky Way, could lead you to misestimate the distance. In all of these situations, systematic errors can arise, yet distance is fundamental to astronomy because without distance we cannot calculate the size, the mass, the luminosity, or the age of anything in the universe.

Transcript: As was first seen nearly a hundred years ago, when luminosities and effective temperatures are gathered for hundreds of stars near the Sun, the result is not a scatter plot. Most stars in the H-R diagram lie on a diagonal line or track that runs from hot, luminous, and blue stars in the upper left corner down to cool, faint, and red stars in the lower right corner. Stars with these properties are called main sequence stars. The main sequence runs across the H-R diagram, and it represents all stars that get their energy from the fusion of hydrogen into helium.

Transcript: As a way of exploring stellar properties and understanding how stars work, in the early twentieth century two astronomers, the Danish astronomer Ejnar Hertzsprung and the American astronomer and Henry Norris Russell, experimented with plotting spectral class for stars against their luminosity. They saw patterns in the ways stars appeared in this plot which led them towards an idea of how stars work. This is called the H-R diagram or the Hertzprung-Russell diagram, and it’s a key tool of stellar astronomy. In a typical H-R diagram the y-axis is luminosity, which runs from about 106 solar luminosities, or an absolute magnitude of -10, down to about 10-4 solar luminosities, an absolute magnitude of plus 15. The x-axis is temperature, photospheric temperature, or spectral class running from O stars, traditionally plotted on the left side, at temperatures of forty thousand Kelvin down to N stars with temperatures of twenty-five hundred Kelvin.

Transcript: As the temperature of a gas is raised, the microscopic motions of the atoms and molecules increase. As the velocities of the atoms and molecules increase, they collide harder and harder. At a temperature of several thousand Kelvin, the atoms or molecules collide with sufficient energy to liberate electrons from the atoms. This process continues until eventually all electrons have been liberated, and the gas consists of a sea of nuclei with surrounding electrons, all in violent collisions. This is called a plasma. The process of liberating electrons by violent collisions is called ionization. The gas at the surface of the sun is partly ionized, and deeper into the sun, where the temperature is higher, the gas is fully ionized. Most of the gaseous material of the universe in fact, whether in the form of stars or the intergalactic medium, is highly ionized.

Transcript -- As a benchmark figure of modernity, Goethe maintained an intriguing relationship with the Romantics, from early support and engagement to eventual dismissal and vitriolic attack.

Transcript -- As one of the young hopefuls for 2012, Colleen Kerr has been practising judo for 12 years and clarifies how important nutrition is in a weight categorised sport