User:Anthony.Sebastian/Sebastian-Sandbox-
The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.
indi
<HTML> <HEAD> <META NAME="GENERATOR" CONTENT="Adobe PageMill 2.0 Mac"> <TITLE> Indigo</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BACKGROUND="../../PIC/back.jpg" BGCOLOR="#ffffff" LINK="#000000" VLINK="#000000">
| <IMG SRC="../../PIC/chem%26artbars/art2_bar.jpg" WIDTH="30" HEIGHT="15" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3" ALIGN="BOTTOM"> [<A HREF="../../Main/art2.htm">Pigments and Binders</A>] | Indigo |
Pigment/Synonym/Code
Indigo is the common name for a blue pigment used by artists, clothing manufacturers, and others who use colors in work productions or hobbies. Indigo is the modern English name for the pigment, however, there are several names by which the ancient Greeks and Egyptians also referred to indigo; n-tinkon in Egypt and indikon in Greece. In China the pigment yielding plants were called lan coa, in Japan ai, seitai, and aibana, and in PRE-Columbian Mexico matlalli, texotli, oxoxovic, and pitzahoac. And finally, in India the word for indigo was nilah, meaning dark colored or black hue. The pigment code for indigo is 1301.
History of Artists' Use of Pigment
Indigo was made from plants until the end of the 19th century. Synthetic indigo was made available in 1897 by Badishe Anilin Soda Fabrik. The history of indigo, though, goes much further back. In 1932, Ruggli noted that indigo had been found on the bandages of mummified bodies taken from grave sites that dated as far back as 1580 BC, and in 1964, Abrams and Edelstein discovered textiles with indigo dye dated 135 AD.
<IMG SRC="../../PIC/Pigments_and_Binders/Indigo/Indigo_1" ALIGN="RIGHT" WIDTH="360" HEIGHT="235" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">
Right, early methods of preparing indigo.
Source/Preparation of Pigment
Originally, the main source of indigo was plant matter. The indigo plants were cut when they began blooming and soaked in water to ferment. The indigo would separate from the water making extraction possible. The extracted indigo in its purest form was a dark blue powder. When indigo was first imported into Europe, many people thought the substance was mined because of its physical as well as chemical characteristics: insolubility in water, diluted alkali solutions, and even acids. Before World War I, the production of indigo was primarily in Germany. After the war, factories sprung up in England, France, Switzerland, and United States, and Japan.
Chemistry of Pigment
Chemical formula: C16H10 N2O2. Some of the various chemical tests by which indigo may be identified are: sublimation test, nitric acid test, hydrosulfite test, solubility tests, and thin-layer chromatography. Indigo is characterized as having a good lightfastness (light resistance), good to moderate alcohol resistance, and low oil resistance. Indigo's chemical properties make it "...difficult to dissolve in hot ethanol, amyl alcohol, acetone, ethyl acetate, and pinene...but readily soluble in boiling aniline, nitrobenzene, naphthalene, phenol and phthalic anhydride. Further, it is heat resistant to 150 degrees Celsius...and is resistant to air and stable when exposed to hydrogen sulfide when used as an artists' pigment." <IMG SRC="../../PIC/refer.jpg" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="10" BORDER="0" NATURALSIZEFLAG="0" ALIGN="BOTTOM"> (<A HREF="../../Gloss_Refs/refer.htm#F">Fitzhugh</A>, 87).
Binders
In our pigment lab we used indigo with 3 different binders; gum arabic, linseed oil, and egg tempera. Gum arabic as a binder worked best, leaving an even consistency throughout the sample. The mixture with egg tempera as a binder dried very quickly. The sample of pigment that contained the linseed oil was very glossy and the deepest of all the other samples.
Optical characteristics: Looking through the microscope<IMG SRC= "../../PIC/Pigments_and_Binders/Indigo/Indigo_egg" ALIGN="RIGHT" WIDTH= "175" HEIGHT="148" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">
In the microscope lab we examined the characteristics of the different pigment/binder mixtures using 10X and 4X magnification objectives. The indigo/gum arabic mixture had a uniform consistency. The pigment became more transluscent as it reached the edge of the sample. Yellowish red dots were found among the blue. The indigo/linseed oil mixture was not homogeneous but randomly scattered. The indigo/ egg tempera mixture had large gaps between the sample.
<FONT SIZE=-1>Above, indigo with egg tempera</FONT> <FONT SIZE=-1> as a binder, as seen through </FONT> <FONT SIZE=-1>an objective with 20x magnification.</FONT>
Health Issues
Pigment hazards vary according to the chemical makeup of the pigment. "Inhalation is the route by which exposure is most likely. Processes during which pigments could be inhaled included: working with raw powdered pigment; using dusty chalks or pastels; sanding or chipping paints; air-brushing or spraying paints; and heating or torching paints until pigments fume. Natural dyes, such as indigo, are the least toxic. Only a small percentage of the synthetic pigments have been studied for toxicity or long- term hazards, of these, few are toxic." <IMG SRC="../../PIC/refer.jpg" WIDTH="8" HEIGHT="10" BORDER="0" NATURALSIZEFLAG="0" ALIGN="BOTTOM"> (<A HREF="../../Gloss_Refs/refer.htm#R">Rossol</A>, Monona)
Links to other Web sites
this link to: <A HREF="http://www.sni.net/ecolor/indigo.html">www.sni.net/ecolor/indigo.html</A>
Below, Indigo, 1998 Pigment Lab.
<IMG SRC="../../PIC/Pigments_and_Binders/Indigo/Indigo_group" ALIGN= "RIGHT" WIDTH="265" HEIGHT="178" NATURALSIZEFLAG="3">
.
Jason Wilson , Meredith Arthur, 1998.
</BODY> </HTML>
Articles that I started and continued to develop [test format]
Legend:
(Approved)
(Status 1 [developed]) 
(Status 2 [developing])
(Status 3 [stub])
(External)
- Alcmaeon: Please do not use this term in your topic list, because there is no single article for it. Please substitute a more precise term. See Alcmaeon (disambiguation) for a list of available, more precise, topics. Please add a new usage if needed.
Alfred Russel Wallace: (1823 – 1913) British explorer and naturalist, discovered the principle of natural selection independently of Darwin. [e]- Allostasis and allostatic load: The physiological adaptation process to perturbing stressors, which acting long-term may cause chronic illness. [e]
- Biological networks: Networks having no human designer, having emerged from nature by organic evolutionary processes, its foundational system a biological cell, the cell a computationally-enabled information-processing bio-computer, designed basically to live and reproduce itself, self-assembling and self-organizing, autonomous, capable of cooperating with other cells to generate multicellular structures that can intelligently design other networks. [e]
- Biology's next microscope: Mathematics: A scientific discussion about the mutual interaction between mathematics and biology. [e]
- Carl Linnaeus: (1707–1778) Established principles for classifying plants and animals into the groupings we know as species and genera. [e]
Chloroplast: The green organelles found in many higher plant cells and protists. Internal thylakoid membranes contain chlorophyll where photosynthesis takes place. [e]- Cognitive science: The scientific study either of mind or intelligence and includes parts of cognitive psychology, linguistics and computer science. [e]
- Dmitri Mendeleev: Russian chemist (1834–1907) who devised the periodic table of elements in 1869. [e]
- Emergence (Biology): The exhibition of novel collective phenomena in living systems stemming from a complex organization of their many constituent parts. [e]
le
Language Evolution (book synopsis)
- About this article: This article, a book synopsis, adapts for Citizendium the article entitled:
- Language Evolution
- originally published by Szabolcs Számadó and Eörs Szathmáry in PLoS Biology 2(10):e346.[1] It synopsizes and comments on the book:
- Christiansen, MH; Kirby, S (2003). Language evolution. Oxford University Press: Oxford. 416 pp. ISBN 0-19-924483-9 | Google Books online preview.
A ban in the 1866s by the French Academy of Sciences on publications about the origin of human language must have been one of the strangest bans in the history of sciences. Yet it was highly effective. After the ban, scientists and interested laymen had to wait for more than a century to hold a textbook on language evolution in their hands. Language Evolution, a compilation of essays by a diverse group of respected researchers, is amongst the first books that try to tackle what is arguably one of the hardest scientific problems. The editors set themselves the ambitious target of creating an up-to-date book about this emerging field, and they have to be congratulated for their efforts. Linguists, cognitive scientists, behavioural ecologists, and theoretical biologists all offer their view on the origin of human language and, refreshingly, do not shy from pointing out the real or assumed weaknesses of the other approaches.
One of the main themes of the book is the evolutionary approach and the importance of biological structures and properties that were co-opted in the development of language (pre-adaptations). In one essay, Michael Studdert-Kenedy and Louis Goldstein propose that speech, as a motor function, draws on phylogenetically ancient mammalian oral capacities for sucking, licking, swallowing, and chewing. Thus, our hominid ancestors adopted an apparatus already divided neuroanatomically into discrete components. Complementing this evidence, Marc Hauser and Tecumseh Fitch compare human speech production and perception with that of nonhuman species. They conclude that many traits that were formerly thought to have evolved specifically for speech (such as having a descended larynx or categorical perception) are also present in other species.
But perhaps the most interesting idea about pre-adaptation comes from the work of neuroscientist Michael Arbib on ‘mirror’ neurons in monkeys. These neurons are a subset of the grasp-related premotor neurons that discharge not only, as other premotor neurons do, when the monkey executes a certain class of actions, but also when the monkey observes more or less similarly meaningful hand movements made by the experimenter (or by another monkey). The area in which these grasp-related neurons are found is analogous with the Broca's area in human brains, which is involved in assessing the syntax of words. This observation serves as the basis for the mirror-system hypothesis, which postulates that Broca's area in humans evolved from a basic mechanism not originally related to communication but rather from the mirror system for grasping in the common ancestor of monkey and human. As a result, the mirror system provides a possible ‘neural link’ in the evolution of human language.
There is still much debate about the selection pressures that led to the evolution of language. Observing the overabundance of potential selective scenarios for why language evolved, the linguist Derek Bickerton voices his scepticism: ‘The fact that these and similar explanations flourish side by side tells one immediately not enough constraints are being used to limit possible explanations.’ One frequent source of confusion, he notes, is equating language with speech by not distinguishing between modality, lexicon, and structure. Hauser and Fitch share Bickerton's scepticism and urge scientists to rely more on the traditional comparative approach, which was always the strength of Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Primatologist Robin Dunbar, who originally proposed that grooming (group bonding) could have provided the stimulus for language, dismisses two other possible scenarios — hunting and tool-making — as potential ecological contexts for the evolution of human language. Gestural origins are also dismissed in his theory, because gestural languages do not seem to develop spontaneously and also require a line-of-sight contact making them useless at night.
Interestingly, Steven Pinker rules out both Dunbar's theory of grooming and Geoffrey Miller's theory of sexual selection, whereas Bickerton rules out grooming, gossip, mating contract, and Machiavellian intelligence as likely contexts for the origin of human language.
Also under fire in the book is the idea that the human brain is somehow equipped at birth with a ‘universal grammar’ out of which all human languages later develop. Several authors try to provide alternatives to innate predispositions, such as the importance of function to categorization (Michael Tomasello) and the importance of cultural transmission to the structure of language (Simon Kirby and Morton Christiansen). Arbib explicitly questions the traditional Chomskyan theory of innate linguistic predispositions and argues that what humans have and had in the past is ‘language readiness’ rather than a fixed universal grammar.
Neuroscientist Terrence Deacon also puts an alternative theory forward. According to Deacon, many of the language universals reflect semiotic constraints inherent in the requirements for producing symbolic reference rather than innate predispositions. Thus, neither evolved innate predispositions nor culturally evolved and transmitted regularities can be considered as the ultimate source of language universals. He draws a parallel with mathematical operations (addition, subtraction, etc.) and with prime numbers. Symbolic reference, he argues, is constrained by the structure it refers to.
The editors claim, in the light of this diversity, that ‘this book is intended to bring together, for the first time, all the major perspectives on language evolution’. We have two concerns with this aim. First, two books of the same organization and scope have been published in the past six years based on the material from language evolution conferences (Hurford et al. 1998; Knight et al. 2000). Although this first concern might be just splitting hairs, the second is more substantial: several crucial aspects of language evolution are not represented at all or are just touched superficially.
One of these missing themes is the selective advantage of early language. As discussed, many of the contributors express their scepticism towards the selective scenarios found in the literature — and indeed towards such constructions in general — but there is no review and no balanced evaluation of these selective scenarios. Since one of the key questions of language evolution is the selective advantage of early language, the lack of such a review is a major weakness. A balanced account could have been presented even if the editors and most of the contributors are frustrated by the plethora of selective scenarios.
Related to the possible selective advantage of language is the issue of genetic background. Although there is mention of the so-called FOX genes—some mutations of which are associated with language disorders—there is no detailed discussion of our current knowledge of genetics related to language.
Another lightly treated theme is the neural basis of language and language evolution. Understandably it is one of the most difficult issues concerning human language, and no one expects the editors or any of the contributors to come up with an answer to all the questions. What is missing again is a good survey outlining the problems and the current findings of the field.
The weaknesses of the book come from its structure and organization. The editors, instead of outlining a structure and asking specialists to contribute to that structure, appear to have let every contributor write freely about their current ideas and current research without regard to the bigger picture. This definitely shows the interests of the contributors and outlines the current state of the art; it leaves gaps, however, in the coverage of crucial topics related to the evolution of human language.
References specified in parentheses
- Hurford JR, Studdert-Kennedy M, Knight C (1998) Approaches to the evolution of language: Social and cognitive bases. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 452 p. | Google Books online preview.
- Knight C, Studdert-Kennedy M, Hurford JR (2000) The evolutionary emergence of language: Social function and the origins of linguistic form. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 438 p. | Google Books online preview.
Notes indicated by superscripts
- ↑ This article represents a permissible (Creative Commons Attribution License) adaption and modification of an article by Szabolcs Számadó and Eörs Szathmáry published in the open-access journal, PLoS Biology 2(10):e346 in 2004, under the full title: Language Evolution.
- Published: October 12, 2004
- Copyright: © 2004 Szabolcs Számadó and Eörs Szathmáry. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: szathmary@colbud.hu
- Szabolcs Számadó and Eörs Szathmáry are at the Collegium Budapest (Institute for Advanced Study), Budapest, Hungary.
Darwin on language
In February 1837—even before he sailed on the Beagle— Charles Darwin wrote to his sister Caroline, discussing the linguist Sir John Herschel’s idea that modern languages were descended from a common ancestor. If this were really the case, it cast doubt on the Biblical chronology of the world: “[E]veryone has yet thought that the six thousand odd years has been the right period but Sir J. thinks that a far greater number must have passed since the Chinese [and] the Caucasian languages separated from one stock” [1- Darwin Correspondence Project (1837) Letter 346].
test-epigraph
|
quote |
Thus we see..the hype. All new subscribers to these publications are eligible for a seven-day free trial so you can access all the latest healthcare reform news at no
|
We have a new continent to explore and will need maps at every scale to find our way. |
Thus we see..the hype. All new subscribers to these publications are eligible for a seven-day free trial so you can access all the latest healthcare reform news at no
How to change font size
To change the font size on a block of text, wrap it in
<span style="font-size:1.1em">
and:
</span>
Example at 1.5em: Smaller text.
Note: 'px' sizes on text should be avoided: this site makes use of scalable text sized in 'em's, and fonts sized using 'px' cannot be scaled by some browsers. So, instead of "font-size:12px;" (for example), say instead "font-size:1.1em;".
Further note: <font> tags were deprecated in the HTML specifications eleven years ago (as of 2008), and should be avoided. Some editors may insert them; these should be removed and replaced with the alternative code format above. For example the old style:
<font size="12px">
would become:
<span style="font-size:1.1em;">
(remembering also, of course, the injunction not to use pixels).
Howto
I Anthony.Sebastian, copied this section from Bruce Tindall's User Page and plan to add my own 'how-to's'. Anthony.Sebastian 23:28, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
I Bruce Tindall stole from Aleta Curry the idea of keeping helpful hints for myself (and anyone else who wants to use them) here so I won't forget how to do certain things in CZ.
CZ:How to has a lot of how-to info.
CZ:Naming Conventions is just that.
For wikilinks the order is: [[Real name of article | What you want displayed]]. For links to external websites the order is the same but the syntax is slightly different: [http://real.name/of.website What you want displayed] (no vertical bar, single set of brackets).
To insert footnotes in an article, put the text of the footnote between <ref> and </ref>. That will create the superscript number. But also, at the bottom of the article, where you want the text of the footnotes to appear, put ==Notes== (or References or Footnotes or whatever you want the heading to be), and on the next line, put <references/> (note that forward slash after the keyword).
To display wiki markup keywords literally, and suppress their interpretation (i.e., to "macro-quote" them, in SAS Macro parlance), use the keyword <nowiki> .
To browse a list of all templates, click on "Special pages" in the left-hand column, then select the "Templates" namespace.
- You might find this useful too: CZ:Templates. Templates are organised by function.
This explains how Definition Templates work: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1374.0.html .
The suggested subdivisions of "gazetteer" geography articles can be found at http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/CZ:Geography_Workgroup/Gazetteer .
To alphabetize: Sometimes, in the list of articles in the "Live" category or another category, an article will not appear in the correct alphabetical order specified by the "abc=" field of the checklist. To force re-alphabetization, make a meaningless change (like adding a blank space) to the main article, and remove any "Categories:" specifications from the bottom of the main article. Thanks to Chris Day and Matt Innis for discovering these fixes and posting them in the Technical forum in early May 2008.
To make xxx redirect to yyy: Create page xxx, and in it, put the single line #REDIRECT [[yyy]] .
To go to the redirect page for "Whatever" rather than to what it redirects you to, go to en.citizendium.org/wiki?title=Whatever&redirect=no
To suggest a rename: in the Talk page, put {{Rename}} .
To report duplicate articles: in the Talk page, put {{duplicate|Foo}} , where "Foo" is the title of the other article.
To move a page and its subpages, do what Chris Day says at User Talk: Bruce M.Tindall#moves . This is apparently a simplified new process that showed up in late 2008.
Masterlists are explained here.
"Transclusion/translcuding", a word whose meaning cannot be found by looking in either M-W Unabridged or the OED, is sort of explained here, as are the very poorly chosen keywords that implement it (such as "includeonly" versus "onlyinclude"). Hocus pocus abracadabra wiki-wiki-woo.
Useful stuff plagiarized from Howard Berkowitz's user page:
Disambiguation page: {{dabhdr|foo}} {{r|foo-meaning-1}} {{r|foo-meaning-2}} {{disambig}}
Table: {| class="wikitable" <center>'''Title if used DNS'''</center> |- ! Column 1 Header ! Column 2 Header ! Column 3 Header |- | Row 1, Column 1 | Row 1, Column 2 | Row 1, Column 3 |- | Row 2, Column 1 | Row 2, Column 2 | Row 2, Column 3 |- | Row 3, Column 1 | Row 3, Column 2 | Row 3, Column 3 |}
- ↑ xx
- ↑ Bray D. (2003) Molecular Networks: The Top-Down View. Science 301:1864-1865.