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Dirty bomb

A dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device is a radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives. The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the dispersal agent/conventional explosion with radioactive material, serving primarily as an area denial device against civilians. It is not to be confused with a nuclear explosion, such as a fission bomb, which produces blast effects far in excess of what is achievable by the use of conventional explosives. Unlike the cloud of radiation from a typical fission bomb, a dirty bomb's radiation can be dispersed only within a few hundred meters or a few miles of the explosion.

Dirty bombs have never been used, only tested. They are designed to disperse radioactive material over a certain area. They act through the effects of radioactive contamination on the environment and related health effects of radiation poisoning in the affected populations. The containment and decontamination of victims, as well as decontamination of the affected area require considerable time and expenses, rendering areas partly unusable and causing economic damage. Dirty bombs might be used to create mass panic as a weapon of terror.

Effect of a dirty bomb explosion
When dealing with the implications of a dirty bomb attack, there are two main areas to be addressed: the civilian impact, not only dealing with immediate casualties and long term health issues, but also the psychological effect, and the economic impact. With no prior event of a dirty bomb detonation, it is considered difficult to predict the impact. Several analyses have predicted that radiological dispersal devices will neither sicken nor kill many people.

Source: Adapted from Levi MA, Kelly HC. "Weapons of mass disruption". Sci Am. 2002 Nov;287(5):76-81.
 * Differences between dirty bombs and fission bombs

Accidents with radioactives
The effects of uncontrolled radioactive contamination have been reported several times.

One example is the radiological accident occurring in Goiânia, Brazil, between September 1987 and March 1988: Two metal scavengers broke into an abandoned radiotherapy clinic and removed a teletherapy source capsule containing powdered cesium-137 with an activity of 50 TBq. They brought it back to the home of one of the men to take it apart and sell as scrap metal. Later that day both men were showing acute signs of radiation illness with vomiting and one of the men had a swollen hand and diarrhea. A few days later one of the men punctured the 1 mm thick window of the capsule, allowing the caesium chloride powder to leak out and when realizing the powder glowed blue in the dark, brought it back home to his family and friends to show it off. After two weeks of spread by contact contamination causing an increasing number of adverse health effects, the correct diagnosis of acute radiation sickness was made at a hospital and proper precautions could be put into procedure. By this time 249 people were contaminated, 151 exhibited both external and internal contamination of which 20 people were seriously ill and five people died.

The Goiânia incident to some extent predicts the contamination pattern if it is not immediately realized that the explosion spread radioactive material, but also how fatal even very small amounts of ingested radioactive powder can be. This raises worries of terrorists using powdered alpha emitting material, that if ingested can pose a serious health risk, as in the case of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned by tea with polonium-210. "Smoky bombs" based on alpha emitters might easily be just as dangerous as beta or gamma emitting dirty bombs.

Public perception of risks
Although the exposure might be minimal, many people find radiation exposure especially frightening because it is something they cannot see or feel, and it therefore becomes an unknown source of danger. When United States Attorney General John Ashcroft on June 10, 2002, announced the arrest of José Padilla, allegedly plotting to detonate such a weapon, he said:

"[A] radioactive 'dirty bomb' ... spreads radioactive material that is highly toxic to humans and can cause mass death and injury."

This public fear of radiation also plays a big role in why the costs of a radiological dispersal device impact on a major metropolitan area (such as lower Manhattan) might be equal to or even larger than that of the 9/11 attacks. Assuming the radiation levels are not too high and the area does not need to be abandoned such as the town of Pripyat near the Chernobyl reactor, an expensive and time-consuming cleanup procedure will begin. This will mainly consist of tearing down highly contaminated buildings, digging up contaminated soil and quickly applying sticky substances to remaining surfaces so that radioactive particles adhere before radioactivity penetrates the building materials. These procedures are the current state of the art for radioactive contamination cleanup, but some experts say that a complete cleanup of external surfaces in an urban area to current decontamination limits may not be technically feasible. Loss of working hours will be vast during cleanup, but even after the radiation levels reduce to an acceptable level, there might be residual public fear of the site including possible unwillingness to conduct business as usual in the area. Tourist traffic is likely never to resume.

Dirty bombs and terrorism
Since the 9/11 attacks, the fear of terrorist groups using dirty bombs has increased, which has been frequently reported in the media. The meaning of terrorism used here, is described by the U.S. Department of Defense's definition, which is "the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological."

Constructing and obtaining material for a dirty bomb
In order for a terrorist organization to construct and detonate a dirty bomb, it must acquire radioactive material. Possible radiological dispersal device material could come from the millions of radioactive sources used worldwide in the industry, for medical purposes and in academic applications mainly for research. Of these sources, only nine reactor-produced isotopes stand out as being suitable for radiological terror: americium-241, californium-252, caesium-137, cobalt-60, iridium-192, plutonium-238, polonium-210, radium-226 and strontium-90, and even from these it is possible that radium-226 and polonium-210 do not pose a significant threat. Of these sources the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has estimated that within the U.S., approximately one source is lost, abandoned or stolen every day of the year. Within the European Union the annual estimate is 70. There exist thousands of such "orphan" sources scattered throughout the world, but of those reported lost, no more than an estimated 20 percent can be classified as potential high security concerns if used in a radiological dispersal device. Russia is believed to house thousands of orphan sources, which were lost following the collapse of the Soviet Union. A large but unknown number of these sources probably belong to the high security risk category. These include the beta-emitting strontium-90 sources used as radioisotope thermoelectric generators for beacons in lighthouses in remote areas of Russia. In December 2001, three Georgian woodcutters stumbled over such a power generator and dragged it back to their camp site to use it as a heat source. Within hours they suffered from acute radiation sickness and sought hospital treatment. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) later stated that it contained approximately 40 kCi of strontium, equivalent to the amount of radioactivity released immediately after the Chernobyl accident (though the total radioactivity release from Chernobyl was 2500 times greater at around 100 MCi ).

Although a terrorist organization might obtain radioactive material through the "black market", and there has been a steady increase in illicit trafficking of radioactive sources from 1996 to 2004, these recorded trafficking incidents mainly refer to rediscovered orphan sources without any sign of criminal activity, and it has been argued that there is no conclusive evidence for such a market. In addition to the hurdles of obtaining usable radioactive material, there are several conflicting requirements regarding the properties of the material the terrorists need to take into consideration: First, the source should be "sufficiently" radioactive to create direct radiological damage at the explosion or at least to perform societal damage or disruption. Second, the source should be transportable with enough shielding to protect the carrier, but not so much that it will be too heavy to maneuver. Third, the source should be sufficiently dispersible to effectively contaminate the area around the explosion.

Possibility of use by terrorist groups
The first attempt of radiological terror was reportedly carried out in November 1995 by a group of Chechen separatists, who buried a caesium-137 source wrapped in explosives at the Izmaylovsky Park in Moscow. A Chechen rebel leader alerted the media, the bomb was never activated, and the incident amounted to a mere publicity stunt. In December 1998, a second attempt was announced by the Chechen Security Service, who discovered a container filled with radioactive materials attached to an explosive mine. The bomb was hidden near a railway line in the suburban area Argun, ten miles east of the Chechen capital of Grozny. The same Chechen separatist group was suspected to be involved.

On 8 May 2002, José Padilla (a.k.a. Abdulla al-Muhajir) was arrested on suspicion that he was an al-Qaeda terrorist planning to detonate a dirty bomb in the U.S. This suspicion was raised by information obtained from an arrested terrorist in U.S. custody, Abu Zubaydah, who under interrogation revealed that the organization was close to constructing a dirty bomb. Although Padilla had not obtained radioactive material or explosives at the time of arrest, law enforcement authorities uncovered evidence that he was on reconnaissance for usable radioactive material and possible locations for detonation. It has been doubted whether José Padilla was preparing such an attack, and it has been claimed that the arrest was highly politically motivated, given the pre-9/11 security lapses by the CIA and FBI.

In 2006, Dhiren Barot from North London pleaded guilty of conspiring to murder people in the United Kingdom and United States using a radioactive dirty bomb. He planned to target underground car parks within the UK and buildings in the U.S. such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank buildings in Washington D.C., the New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup buildings and the Prudential Financial buildings in Newark, New Jersey. He also faces 12 other charges including, conspiracy to commit public nuisance, seven charges of making a record of information for terrorist purposes and four charges of possessing a record of information for terrorist purposes. Experts say if the plot to use the dirty bomb was carried out "it would have been unlikely to cause deaths, but was designed to affect about 500 people".

In January 2009, a leaked FBI report described the results of a search of the Maine home of James G. Cummings, a white supremacist who had been shot and killed by his wife. Investigators found four one-gallon containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium as well as literature on how to build dirty bombs and information about caesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. Officials confirmed the veracity of the report but stated that the public was never at risk.

In July 2014, ISIS militants seized 88 lb of uranium compounds from Mosul University. The material was unenriched and so could not be used to build a conventional fission bomb, but a dirty bomb is a theoretical possibility. However, uranium's relatively low radioactivity makes it a poor candidate for use in a dirty bomb.

Terrorist organizations may also capitalize on the fear of radiation to create weapons of mass disruption rather than weapons of mass destruction. A fearful public response may in itself accomplish the goals of a terrorist organization to gain publicity or destabilize society. Even simply stealing radioactive materials may trigger a panic reaction from the general public. Similarly, a small-scale release of radioactive materials or a threat of such a release may be considered sufficient for a terror attack. Particular concern is directed towards the medical sector and healthcare sites which are "intrinsically more vulnerable than conventional licensed nuclear sites". Opportunistic attacks may range to even kidnapping patients whose treatment involve radioactive materials. Of note is the public reaction to the Goiânia accident, in which over 100,000 people admitted themselves to monitoring, while only 49 were admitted to hospitals. Other benefits to a terrorist organization of a dirty bomb include economic disruption in the area affected, abandonment of affected assets (such a buildings, subways) due to public concern, and international publicity useful for recruitment.

Tests
Israel carried out a four-year series of tests on nuclear explosives to measure the effects were hostile forces ever to use them against Israel, Haaretz reported in 2015. According to the report, high-level radiation was measured only at the center of the explosions, while the level of dispersal of radiation by particles carried by the wind (fallout) was low. The bombs reportedly did not pose a significant danger beyond their psychological effect.

Detection and prevention
Dirty bombs may be prevented by detecting illicit radioactive materials in shipping with tools such as a Radiation Portal Monitor. Similarly, unshielded radioactive materials may be detected at checkpoints by Geiger Counters, gamma-ray detectors, and even Customs and Border Patrol (CBS) pager-sized radiation detectors. Hidden materials may also be detected by x-ray inspection and heat emitted may be picked up by infrared detectors. Such devices, however, may be circumvented by simply transporting materials across unguarded stretches of coastline or other barren border areas.

One proposed method for detecting shielded Dirty Bombs is Nanosecond Neutron Analysis (NNA). Designed originally for the detection of explosives and hazardous chemicals, NNA is also applicable to fissile materials. NNA determines what chemicals are present in an investigated device by analyzing emitted γ-emission neutrons and α-particles created from a reaction in the neutron generator. The system records the temporal and spatial displacement of the neutrons and α-particles within separate 3D regions. A prototype dirty-bomb detection device created with NNA is demonstrated to be able to detect uranium from behind a 5 cm-thick lead wall. Other radioactive material detectors include Radiation Assessment and Identification (RAID) and Sensor for Measurement and Analysis of Radiation Transients, both developed by Sandia National Laboratories. Sodium iodide scintillator based aerial radiation detection systems are capable to detect International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) defined dangerous quantities of radioactive material and have been deployed by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) Counterterrorism Bureau.

The IAEA recommends certain devices be used in tandem at country borders to prevent transfer of radioactive materials, and thus the building of dirty bombs. They define the four main goals of radiation detection instruments as detection, verification, assessment and localization, and identification as a means to escalate a potential radiological situation. The IAEA also defines the following types of instruments: Legislative and regulatory actions can also be used to prevent access to materials needed to create a dirty bomb. Examples include the 2006 U.S. Dirty Bomb Bill, the Yucca Flats proposal, and the Nunn-Lungar act. Similarly, close monitoring and restrictions of radioactive materials may provide security for materials in vulnerable private-sector applications, most notably in the medical sector where such materials are used for treatments. Suggestions for increased security include isolation of materials in remote locations and strict limitation of access.
 * Pocket-Type Instruments: these instruments provide a low-power, mobile option to detection that allows for security officers to passively scan an area for radioactive materials. These devices should be easily worn, should have an alarm threshold of three times normal radiation levels, and should have a long battery life - over 800 hours.
 * Handheld Instruments: these instruments may be used to detect all types of radiation (including neutron) and may be used to search specific targets flexibly. These instruments should aim for ease of use and speed, ideally weighing less than 2 kg and being able to make measurements in less than a second.
 * Fixed, installed instruments: these instruments provide a continuous, automatic detection system that can monitor pedestrians and vehicles that pass through. To work effectively pedestrians and vehicles should be led close to the detectors, as performance is directly related to range.

One way to mitigate a major effect of a radiological weapons may also be to educate the public on the nature of radioactive materials. As one of the major concerns of a dirty bomb is the public panic proper education may prove a viable counter-measure. Education on radiation is considered by some to be "the most neglected issue related to radiological terrorism".

Personal safety
The dangers of a dirty bomb come from the initial blast and the radioactive materials To mitigate the risk of radiation exposure, FEMA suggests the following guidelines:
 * Covering the mouth/nose with cloth to reduce risk of breathing in radioactive materials.
 * Avoiding touching materials touched by the explosion.
 * Quickly relocating inside to shield from radiation.
 * Remove and pack up clothes. Keep clothes until instructed by authorities how to dispose of them.
 * Keep radioactive dust outside.
 * Remove all dust possible by showering with soap and water.
 * Avoid taking potassium iodide, as it only prevents effects from radioactive iodine and may instead cause a dangerous reaction.

Treatment
, research is under way to find radioactive decontanimation drugs to remove radioactive elements from the body. One drug candidate under investigation is HOPO 14-1.

In popular culture

 * In the 2004 TV movie Dirty War London was struck by a dirty bomb.
 * In the 2004 stealth video game Hitman Contracts, the protagonist Agent 47 is sent to a military base in Kamchatka to kill two targets and destroy a submarine being used for dirty bomb production.
 * The crime drama television series Numb3rs has an episode that revolves around a dirty bomb (season 1, episode 10).
 * In a two-part 2011 episode of Castle, former U.S. soldiers plot to detonate a dirty bomb in New York City and frame a Syrian immigrant for the crime.
 * In the 2012 series finale of Flashpoint, an officer is poisoned by caesium from a dirty bomb and is administered Prussian blue to assist in recovery.
 * In the 2013 Indian movie Vishwaroopam, the plot revolves around a dirty bomb developed by scraping caesium from oncological equipment to trigger a blast in New York City.
 * In the 2014 movie Batman: Assault on Arkham, the Joker has a dirty bomb which he plans on detonating in Gotham.
 * In the 2016 Republican presidential debates, Ben Carson referenced dirty bombs twice when speaking on US foreign policy.
 * In the 2015 game by Splash Damage, Dirty Bomb, the game is played in a dirty bomb fallout area in London.
 * In the Madam Secretary episode "Right of the Boom", a dirty bomb is detonated at a women's education conference in Washington, D.C.
 * The American political drama web television series House of Cards has an episode that revolves around a dirty bomb (season 5, episode 7).
 * In the 2006 movie Right at Your Door, multiple dirty bombs are detonated in Los Angeles.
 * In the 2017 movie Blade Runner 2049 reference dirty bomb zone was detonated in Las Vegas.
 * In the 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human, numerous endings depict Markus, one of three playable android characters in the game, setting off a cobalt-derived dirty bomb in southern Detroit to force the retreat of authorities.
 * In the 2019 BBC drama Years and Years, Leeds and Bristol are struck by a dirty bomb in a terrorist attack.
 * In the 2020 video game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, there is a game mode in the Multiplayer mode where squads compete to collect uranium and use it to plant dirty bombs on enemy positions.

title: Dirty bomb


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Black rat

The black rat (Rattus rattus), also known as the roof rat, ship rat, or house rat, is a common long-tailed rodent of the stereotypical rat genus Rattus, in the subfamily Murinae. It likely originated in the Indian subcontinent, but is now found worldwide.

The black rat is black to light brown in colour with a lighter underside. It is a generalist omnivore and a serious pest to farmers because it feeds on a wide range of agricultural crops. It is sometimes kept as a pet. In parts of India, it is considered sacred and respected in the Karni Mata Temple in Deshnoke.

Taxonomy
Mus rattus was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the black rat.

Three subspecies were once recognized, but today are considered invalid and are now known to be actually color morphs:
 * Rattus rattus rattus – roof rat
 * Rattus rattus alexandrinus – Alexandrine rat
 * Rattus rattus frugivorous – fruit rat

Characteristics
A typical adult black rat is 12.75 to 18.25 cm long, not including a 15 to 22 cm tail, and weighs 75 to 230 g, depending on the subspecies. Despite its name, the black rat exhibits several colour forms. It is usually black to light brown in colour with a lighter underside. In England during the 1920s, several variations were bred and shown alongside domesticated brown rats. This included an unusual green-tinted variety.

Origin
Black rat bone remains dating to the Norman period were discovered in Great Britain. The black rat occurred in prehistoric Europe and in the Levant during postglacial periods. The black rat in the Mediterranean region differs genetically from its South Asian ancestor by having 38 instead of 42 chromosomes. Its closest relative is the Asian house rat (R. tanezumi) from Southeast Asia. The two diverged about 120,000 years ago in southwestern Asia. It is unclear how the rat made its way to Europe due to insufficient data, although a land route seems more likely based on the distribution of European haplogroup "A". The black rat spread throughout Europe with the Roman conquest, but declined around the 6th century, possibly due to collapse of the Roman grain trade, climate cooling, or the Justinianic Plague. A genetically different rat population of haplogroup A replaced the Roman population in the medieval times in Europe.

It is a resilient vector for many diseases because of its ability to hold so many infectious bacteria in its blood. It was formerly thought to have played a primary role in spreading bacteria contained in fleas on its body, such as the plague bacterium (Yersinia pestis) which is responsible for the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. However, recent studies have called this theory into question and instead posit humans themselves as the vector, as the movements of the epidemics and the black rat populations do not show historical or geographical correspondence. A study published in 2015 indicates that other Asiatic rodents served as plague reservoirs, from which infections spread as far west as Europe via trade routes, both overland and maritime. Although the black rat was certainly a plague vector in European ports, the spread of the plague beyond areas colonized by rats suggests that the plague was also circulated by humans after reaching Europe.

Distribution and habitat
The black rat originated in India and Southeast Asia, and spread to the Near East and Egypt, and then throughout the Roman Empire, reaching Great Britain as early as the 1st century AD. Europeans subsequently spread it throughout the world. The black rat is again largely confined to warmer areas, having been supplanted by the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus) in cooler regions and urban areas. In addition to the brown rat being larger and more aggressive, the change from wooden structures and thatched roofs to bricked and tiled buildings favored the burrowing brown rats over the arboreal black rats. In addition, brown rats eat a wider variety of foods, and are more resistant to weather extremes.

Black rat populations can increase exponentially under certain circumstances, perhaps having to do with the timing of the fruiting of the bamboo plant, and cause devastation to the plantings of subsistence farmers; this phenomenon is known as mautam in parts of India.

Black rats are thought to have arrived in Australia with the First Fleet, and subsequently spread to many coastal regions in the country.

Black rats adapt to a wide range of habitats. In urban areas they are found around warehouses, residential buildings, and other human settlements. They are also found in agricultural areas, such as in barns and crop fields. In urban areas, they prefer to live in dry upper levels of buildings, so they are commonly found in wall cavities and false ceilings. In the wild, black rats live in cliffs, rocks, the ground, and trees. They are great climbers and prefer to live in palms and trees, such as pine trees. Their nests are typically spherical and made of shredded material, including sticks, leaves, other vegetation and cloth. In the absence of palms or trees, they can burrow into the ground. Black rats are also found around fences, ponds, riverbanks, streams, and reservoirs.

Behaviour and ecology
It is thought that male and female rats have similarly sized home ranges during the winter, but male rats increase the size of their home range during the breeding season. Along with differing between rats of different sex, home range also differs depending on the type of forest in which the black rat inhabits. For example, home ranges in the southern beech forests of the South Island, New Zealand appear to be much larger than the non-beech forests of the North Island. Due to the limited number of rats that are studied in home range studies, the estimated sizes of rat home ranges in different rat demographic groups are inconclusive.

Diet and foraging
Black rats are considered omnivores and eat a wide range of foods, including seeds, fruit, stems, leaves, fungi, and a variety of invertebrates and vertebrates. They are generalists, and thus not very specific in their food preferences, which is indicated by their tendency to feed on any meal provided for cows, swine, chickens, cats and dogs. They are similar to the tree squirrel in their preference of fruits and nuts. They eat about 15 g per day and drink about 15 ml per day. Their diet is high in water content. They are a threat to many natural habitats because they feed on birds and insects. They are also a threat to many farmers, since they feed on a variety of agricultural-based crops, such as cereals, sugar cane, coconuts, cocoa, oranges, and coffee beans.

The black rat displays flexibility in its foraging behaviour. It is a predatory species and adapts to different micro-habitats. It often meets and forages together in close proximity within and between sexes. It tends to forage after sunset. If the food cannot be eaten quickly, it searches for a place to carry and hoard to eat at a later time. Although it eats a broad range of foods, it is a highly selective feeder; only a restricted selection of the foods is dominating. When offered a wide diversity of foods, it eats only a small sample of each. This allows it to monitor the quality of foods that are present year round, such as leaves, as well as seasonal foods, such as herbs and insects. This method of operating on a set of foraging standards ultimately determines the final composition of its meals. Also, by sampling the available food in an area, it maintains a dynamic food supply, balance its nutrient intake, and avoids intoxication by secondary compounds.

Nesting behaviour
Through the usage of tracking devices such as radio transmitters, rats have been found to occupy dens located in trees, as well as on the ground. In Puketi Forest in the Northland Region of New Zealand, rats have been found to form dens together. Rats appear to den and forage in separate areas in their home range depending on the availability of food resources. Research shows that, in New South Wales, the black rat prefers to inhabit lower leaf litter of forest habitat. There is also an apparent correlation between the canopy height and logs and the presence of black rats. This correlation may be a result of the distribution of the abundance of prey as well as available refuges for rats to avoid predators. As found in North Head, New South Wales, there is positive correlation between rat abundance, leaf litter cover, canopy height, and litter depth. All other habitat variables showed little to no correlation. While this species' relative, the brown (Norway) rat prefers to nest near the ground of a building the black rat will prefer the upper floors and roof. Because of this habit they have been given the common name roof rat.

Diseases
Black rats (or their ectoparasites ) can carry a number of pathogens, of which bubonic plague (via the Oriental rat flea), typhus, Weil's disease, toxoplasmosis and trichinosis are the best known. It has been hypothesized that the displacement of black rats by brown rats led to the decline of the Black Death. This theory has, however, been deprecated, as the dates of these displacements do not match the increases and decreases in plague outbreaks.

Rats serve as outstanding vectors for transmittance of diseases because they can carry bacteria and viruses in their systems. A number of bacterial diseases are common to rats, and these include Streptococcus pneumoniae, Corynebacterium kutsheri, Bacillus piliformis, Pasteurella pneumotropica, and Streptobacillus moniliformis, to name a few. All of these bacteria are disease causing agents in humans. In some cases, these diseases are incurable.

Predators
The black rat is prey to cats and owls in domestic settings. In less urban settings, rats are preyed on by weasels, foxes and coyotes. These predators have little effect on the control of the black rat population because black rats are agile and fast climbers. In addition to agility, the black rat also uses its keen sense of hearing to detect danger and quickly evade mammalian and avian predators.

Damage caused
After Rattus rattus was introduced into the northern islands of New Zealand, they fed on the seedlings, adversely affecting the ecology of the islands. Even after eradication of R. rattus, the negative effects may take decades to reverse. When consuming these seabirds and seabird eggs, these rats reduce the pH of the soil. This harms plant species by reducing nutrient availability in soil, thus decreasing the probability of seed germination. For example, research conducted by Hoffman et al. indicates a large impact on 16 indigenous plant species directly preyed on by R. rattus. These plants displayed a negative correlation in germination and growth in the presence of black rats. Rats prefer to forage in forest habitats. In the Ogasawara islands, they prey on the indigenous snails and seedlings. Snails that inhabit the leaf litter of these islands showed a significant decline in population on the introduction of Rattus rattus. The black rat shows a preference for snails with larger shells (greater than 10 mm), and this led to a great decline in the population of snails with larger shells. A lack of prey refuges makes it more difficult for the snail to avoid the rat.

Complex pest
The black rat is a complex pest, defined as one that influences the environment in both harmful and beneficial ways. In many cases, after the black rat is introduced into a new area, the population size of some native species declines or goes extinct. This is because the black rat is a good generalist with a wide dietary niche and a preference for complex habitats; this causes strong competition for resources among small animals. This has led to the black rat completely displacing many native species in Madagascar, the Galapagos, and the Florida Keys. In a study by Stokes et al., habitats suitable for the native bush rat, Rattus fuscipes, of Australia are often invaded by the black rat and are eventually occupied by only the black rat. When the abundances of these two rat species were compared in different micro-habitats, both were found to be affected by micro-habitat disturbances, but the black rat was most abundant in areas of high disturbance; this indicates it has a better dispersal ability.

Despite the black rat's tendency to displace native species, it can also aid in increasing species population numbers and maintaining species diversity. The bush rat, a common vector for spore dispersal of truffles, has been extirpated from many micro-habitats of Australia. In the absence of a vector, the diversity of truffle species would be expected to decline. In a study in New South Wales, Australia it was found that, although the bush rat consumes a diversity of truffle species, the black rat consumes as much of the diverse fungi as the natives and is an effective vector for spore dispersal. Since the black rat now occupies many of the micro-habitats that were previously inhabited by the bush rat, the black rat plays an important ecological role in the dispersal of fungal spores. By eradicating the black rat populations in Australia, the diversity of fungi would decline, potentially doing more harm than good.

Control methods
Large-scale rat control programs have been taken to maintain a steady level of the invasive predators in order to conserve the native species in New Zealand such as kokako and mohua. Pesticides, such as pindone and 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate), are commonly distributed via aerial spray by helicopter as a method of mass control on islands infested with invasive rat populations. Bait, such as brodifacoum, is also used along with coloured dyes (used to deter birds from eating the baits) in order to kill and identify rats for experimental and tracking purposes. Another method to track rats is the use of wired cage traps, which are used along with bait, such as rolled oats and peanut butter, to tag and track rats to determine population sizes through methods like mark-recapture and radio-tracking. Tracking tunnels (coreflute tunnels containing an inked card) are also commonly used monitoring devices, as are chew-cards containing peanut butter. Poison control methods are effective in reducing rat populations to nonthreatening sizes, but rat populations often rebound to normal size within months. Besides their highly adaptive foraging behavior and fast reproduction, the exact mechanisms for their rebound is unclear and are still being studied.

In 2010, the Sociedad Ornitológica Puertorriqueña (Puerto Rican Bird Society) and the Ponce Yacht and Fishing Club launched a campaign to eradicate the black rat from the Isla Ratones (Mice Island) and Isla Cardona (Cardona Island) islands off the municipality of Ponce, Puerto Rico.

Decline in population
Eradication projects have eliminated black rats from Lundy in the Bristol Channel (2006) and from the Shiant Islands in the Outer Hebrides (2016). Populations probably survive on other islands (e.g. Inchcolm) and in localised areas of the British mainland. Recent National Biodiversity Network data show populations around the U.K., particularly in ports and port towns.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Black rat


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User talk:Ptolmis~enwiki

Hi, ( ptolmis )|! How're ( klopadrt )| and ( barnigt )| doing? Give my regards to ( alksntrs )|. -phma

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Xanana Gusmão

José Alexandre "Xanana" Gusmão (born 20 June 1946) is an East Timorese politician. He has served as the 6th prime minister of East Timor since 2023, previously serving in that position from 2007 to 2015. A former rebel, he also served as East Timor's first president since its re-establishment of independence, from 2002 to 2007.

Early life and career
Gusmão was born in Manatuto, in what was then Portuguese Timor, to parents of mixed Portuguese-Timorese ancestry, both of whom were school teachers. His family were assimilados. He attended a Jesuit high school just outside Dili. After leaving high-school for financial reasons in 1961, at the age of 15, he held a variety of unskilled jobs, while continuing his education at night school. In 1965, at the age of 19, he met Emilia Batista, who was later to become his wife. His nickname, "Xanana", was taken from the name of the American rock and roll band "Sha Na Na", (which is pronounced the same as "Xanana" which is spelled according to Portuguese and Tetum spelling rules) who in turn were named after a lyric from the doo-wop song "Get a Job" written and recorded in 1957 by the Silhouettes.

In 1966, Gusmão obtained a position with the public service, which allowed him to continue his education. This was interrupted in 1968 when Gusmão was recruited by the Portuguese Army for national service. He served for three years, rising to the rank of corporal. During this time, he married Emilia Batista, with whom he had a son Eugenio, and a daughter Zenilda. He has since divorced Emilia, and in 2000, he married Australian Kirsty Sword, with whom he had three sons: Alexandre, Kay Olok and Daniel. In 1971, Gusmão completed his national service, his son was born, and he became involved with a nationalist organisation headed by José Ramos-Horta. For the next three years he was actively involved in peaceful protests directed at the colonial system.

It was in 1974 that a coup in Portugal resulted in the beginning of decolonisation for Portuguese Timor, and shortly afterwards the Governor Mário Lemos Pires announced plans to grant the colony independence. Plans were drawn up to hold general elections with a view to independence in 1978. During most of 1975 a bitter internal struggle occurred between two rival factions in Portuguese Timor. Gusmão became deeply involved with the Fretilin faction, and as a result he was arrested and imprisoned by the rival faction the Timorese Democratic Union (UDT) in mid-1975. Taking advantage of the internal disorder, and with an eye to absorbing the colony, Indonesia immediately began a campaign of destabilisation, and frequent raids into Portuguese Timor were staged from Indonesian West Timor. By late 1975 the Fretilin faction had gained control of Portuguese Timor and Gusmão was released from prison. He was given the position of Press Secretary within the Fretilin organisation. On 28 November 1975, Fretilin declared the independence of Portuguese Timor as "The Democratic Republic of East Timor", and Gusmão was responsible for filming the ceremony. Nine days later, Indonesia invaded East Timor. At the time Gusmão was visiting friends outside of Dili and he witnessed the invasion from the hills. For the next few days he searched for his family.

Indonesian occupation
After the appointment of the Provisional Government of East Timor by Indonesia, Gusmão became heavily involved in resistance activities. Gusmão was largely responsible for the level of organisation that evolved in the resistance, which ultimately led to its success. The early days featured Gusmão walking from village to village to obtain support and recruits. In 1977, Gusmão was the aide-de-camp to Fretilin political commissar Abel Larisina and organised supplies for civilians at the resistance base at Matebian. In November 1978, the base was destroyed by the Indonesians. But after Fretilin suffered some major setbacks in the early 1980s, including a failed 1984 coup attempt against Gusmão led by four senior Falintil officers, including Mauk Moruk, Gusmão left Fretilin and supported various centrist coalitions, eventually becoming a leading opponent of Fretilin. In March 1981, a secret national conference in Lacluta elected him head of Falintil, succeeding the slain Nicolau dos Reis Lobatos.

In 1988, Gusmão became leader of the newly formed National Council of Resistance (CNRT). To avoid being seen as partisan, Gusmão left Fretilin for this. Under his leadership, FALINTIL relied more on clandestine underground networks and used small groups to attack Indonesian targets. By the mid-1980s, he was a major leader. During the early 1990s, Gusmão became deeply involved in diplomacy and media management, and was instrumental in alerting the world to the massacre in Dili that occurred in Santa Cruz on 12 November 1991. Gusmão was interviewed by many major media channels and obtained worldwide attention. As a result of his high profile, Gusmão became a prime target of the Indonesian government. Indonesian troops (TNI) attempted to capture Gusmão in the Same and Ainaro area on 14 November 1990 with Operasi Senyum ("Operation Smile"). Four days earlier, a woman had been captured who testified during interrogation that the rebel leader was staying at a nearby mountain. Xanana Gusmão, however, probably escaped one night before the attack. After the attack, in which twelve battalions and four helicopters were deployed, the military claimed to have found about 100 fighters. Also found was a container with Gusmão's documents, a video camera and his typewriter. Among the documents were letters from the Pope and Bishop Carlos Belo. According to a traditional Timorese legend, some warriors were able to transform themselves into dogs to escape their captors. Picking up on this myth, the legend spread that Gusmão could also turn into a white dog and thus run around the village unnoticed while the Indonesian soldiers were looking for him.

In November 1992, a campaign for his capture Gusmão was finally successful in a large-scale operation by the Indonesian military with Gusmão apprehanded in a tunnel under the family home of Aliança Araújo in Lahane near Dili and taken to Bali. In May 1993, Gusmão was tried, convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment by the Indonesian government. He was found guilty under Article 108 of the Indonesian Penal Code (rebellion), Law no. 12 of 1951 (illegal possession of firearms) and Article 106 (attempting to separate part of the territory of Indonesia). He spoke in his own defence and he was appointed with defence lawyers before the commencement of his trial. The sentence was commuted to 20 years by the Indonesian President Suharto in August 1993. He was taken to Jakarta's maximum security prison, Cipinang. Although not released until late 1999, Gusmão successfully led the resistance from within prison with the help of Kirsty Sword. Prior to his release, the United Kingdom offered Gusmão political asylum to ensure his safety. The Xanana Room at the British Embassy in Jakarta commemorates this today. By the time of his release, he was regularly visited by United Nations representatives, and dignitaries such as Nelson Mandela.

Transition to independence
On 30 August 1999, a referendum was held in East Timor and an overwhelming majority voted for independence. The Indonesian military commenced a campaign of terror as a result, with terrible consequences. Although the Indonesian government denied ordering this offensive, they were widely condemned for failing to prevent it. As a result of overwhelming diplomatic pressure from the United Nations, promoted by Portugal since the late 1970s and also by the United States and Australia in the 1990s, a UN-sanctioned, Australian-led international peace-keeping force (INTERFET) entered East Timor. Upon his return to his native East Timor, he began a campaign of reconciliation and rebuilding. In 1999, Xanana Gusmão was elected speaker of the National Consultative Council (NCC), a kind of transitional parliament during the UN administration of East Timor. On October 23, 2000, Gusmão also became spokesman for the subsequent National Council (NC). Gusmão was appointed to a senior role in the UN administration that governed East Timor until 20 May 2002. During this time he continually campaigned for unity and peace within East Timor, and was generally regarded as the de facto leader of the emerging nation. Elections were held in late 2001 and Gusmão, endorsed by nine parties but not by Fretilin, ran as an independent and was comfortably elected leader.

Gusmão eventually won the presidential election on April 14, 2002 with 82.7% against his opponent Francisco Xavier do Amaral and the first president of East Timor when it became formally independent on 20 May 2002. Gusmão has published an autobiography with selected writings entitled To Resist Is to Win. He is the main narrator of the film A Hero's Journey/Where the Sun Rises, a 2006 documentary about him and East Timor. According to director Grace Phan, it's an "intimate insight into the personal transformation" of the man who helped shape and liberate East Timor.

Independent East Timor
On 21 June 2006, Gusmão called for Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri to resign or else he would, as allegations that Alkatiri had ordered a hit squad to threaten and kill his political opponents led to a large backlash. Senior members of the Fretilin party met on 25 June to discuss Alkatiri's future as the Prime Minister, amidst a protest involving thousands of people calling for Alkatiri to resign instead of Gusmão. Despite receiving a vote of confidence from his party, Alkatiri resigned on 26 June 2006 to end the uncertainty. In announcing this he said, "I declare I am ready to resign my position as prime minister of the government...so as to avoid the resignation of His Excellency the President of the Republic [Xanana Gusmão]." The 'hit squad' accusations against Alkatiri were subsequently rejected by a UN Commission, which also criticised Gusmão for making inflammatory statements during the crisis.

Gusmão declined to run for another term in the April 2007 presidential election. In March 2007 he said that he would lead the new National Congress for Timorese Reconstruction (CNRT) into the parliamentary election planned to be held later in the year, and said that he would be willing to become prime minister if his party won the election. He was succeeded as president by José Ramos-Horta on 20 May 2007. The CNRT placed second in the June 2007 parliamentary election, behind Fretilin, taking 24.10% of the vote and 18 seats. He won a seat in parliament as the first name on the CNRT's candidate list. The CNRT allied with other parties to form a coalition that would hold a majority of seats in parliament. After weeks of dispute between this coalition and Fretilin over who should form the government, Ramos-Horta announced on 6 August that the CNRT-led coalition would form the government and that Gusmão would become Prime Minister on 8 August. Gusmão was sworn in at the presidential palace in Dili on 8 August.

On 11 February 2008, a motorcade containing Gusmão came under gunfire one hour after President José Ramos-Horta was shot in the stomach. Gusmão's residence was also occupied by rebels. According to the Associated Press, the incidents raised the possibility of a coup attempt; they have also described as possible assassination attempts and kidnap attempts.

In the 2012 parliamentary elections in East Timor, Gusmão succeeded in re-entering parliament. With the CNRT as the strongest party, he also leads the new government as Prime Minister and Minister of Defence. Alfredo Pires took over as Minister of Petroleum and Natural Resources. Again, Gusmão renounced his seat in parliament.

At the beginning of 2015, Gusmão announced his intention to reshuffle the government and also to resign early himself. On 5 February, he informed his coalition partners that he intended to propose former Health Minister Rui Araújo as his successor and resigned by writing to President Taur Matan Ruak. The President accepted his resignation and appointed Araújo to form a new government. The handover of office took place on 16 February. In the new government, Gusmão is "Consultative Minister" and Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment. In the 2017 parliamentary elections in East Timor, Gusmão succeeded in entering parliament as the CNRT's list leader. However, the CNRT suffered heavy losses and came a close second behind Fretilin. On 4 August 2017, Gusmão announced his resignation as CNRT party leader. However, this resignation was not accepted at the extraordinary party congress and was later simply ignored. The CNRT went into opposition, which is why Gusmão lost his ministerial post. He also renounced his seat in parliament after the first day of the session.

In the border disputes between Australia and East Timor, Gusmão worked as East Timor's chief negotiator. After the successful conclusion of the new Timor Sea border treaty on 6 March 2018, he received a triumphant reception and a heroes welcome from thousands of East Timorese on his return to Dili. In the 2018 general elections, Gusmão represented the CNRT in the Alliance for Change and Progress (AMP) trio and entered parliament at number one on the list. However, he renounced his mandate already for the first session on 13 June. On 5 July, Gusmão was appointed Minister of State of the Council of the Prime Minister and Minister of Planning and Strategic Investment by President Francisco Guterres. Due to the conflict with the President of the Republic over the appointment of CNRT ministers, Gusmão stayed away from the scheduled dates of his swearing-in ceremony and eventually renounced his position in the VIII Government. However, he continued to have responsibility for the Maritime Boundaries Office and continued negotiations with Australia until 2022. On 18 December 2019, Gusmão was also appointed by Cabinet as the Blue Economy Representative.

In the 2022 East Timor presidential elections, Gusmão ran Ramos-Horta as the CNRT candidate. Gusmão played a central role in the election campaign, pushing Ramos-Horta into the background. In the event of an election, Gusmão announced that Ramos-Horta would dissolve parliament and call early elections. Ramos-Horta was more cautious about the matter and instead announced that he wanted to hold talks with all parties. On 20 May 2022, Ramos-Horta took up his second term as President.

In October 2022, several families in Dili's Aimeti Laran and Becusi Craic neighbourhoods were to be evicted from their homes. The landowner had enforced this in court, while the families justified their right to live there by saying they had been living there for decades. A team from the District Court and the National Police had already removed the belongings of seven families in Becusi Craic when Xanana Gusmão intervened with media attention. He ordered the police officers to carry the families' belongings back into the houses and waited until they had finished the job. As a result, Judge Zulmira Auxiliadora Barros da Silva, who had ordered the evictions, was publicly defamed. The events became known as the "Aimeti Laran case" and the "Becussi Craic". In April 2023, the Conselho Superior da Magistratura Judicial (CSMJ) issued a press release expressing regret for the judge's "campaign of professional disparagement" and criticising the "total obstruction" of the execution of the sentence with the media present. The CSMJ concluded that the judge had acted correctly, declared its solidarity with the judicial officials involved and insisted on the sovereignty of the judiciary.

In the 2023 East Timorese parliamentary election, the CNRT won 41% of the votes and gained 31 seats out of 65 in the National Parliament. On 1 July 2023, Gusmao was sworn in as prime minister after his party's victory in the parliamentary election.

Awards

In 1999, Gusmão was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

In 2000, he was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize for being a "courageous and principled leader for the independence of the East Timorese people".

Also in 2000, he won the first Gwangju Prize for Human Rights, created to honour "individuals, groups or institutions in Korea and abroad that have contributed in promoting and advancing human rights, democracy and peace through their work."

In 2002, he was awarded the North–South Prize by the Council of Europe.

Gusmão is an Eminent Member of the Sérgio Vieira de Mello Foundation.

Honours

 * 🇮🇩 Indonesia: First Class Adipurna of the Star of the Republic of Indonesia (10 October 2014)
 * 🇳🇿 New Zealand: Honorary Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (6 July 2000)
 * 🇵🇹 Portugal:
 * Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (14 February 2006)
 * Grand Cross of the Order of Liberty (9 June 1993)
 * 🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George (2003)

title: Xanana Gusmão


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Tell Abu Hureyra

Tell Abu Hureyra (تل أبو هريرة) is a prehistoric archaeological site in the Upper Euphrates valley in Syria. The tell was inhabited between 13,300 and 7,800 cal. BP in two main phases: Abu Hureyra 1, dated to the Epipalaeolithic, was a village of sedentary hunter-gatherers; Abu Hureyra 2, dated to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, was home to some of the world's first farmers. This almost continuous sequence of occupation through the Neolithic Revolution has made Abu Hureyra one of the most important sites in the study of the origins of agriculture.

The site is significant because the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra started out as hunter-gatherers but gradually moved to farming, making them the earliest known farmers in the world. Cultivation started at the beginning of the Younger Dryas period at Abu Hureyra. Evidence uncovered at Abu Hureyra suggests that rye was the first cereal crop to be systematically cultivated. In light of this, it is now believed that the first systematic cultivation of cereal crops was around 13,000 years ago.

During the Late Glacial Interstadial, Abu Hureyra site experienced climatic change. Due to lake level changes and aridity, the vegetation expanded into lower areas of the fields. Abu Hureyra accumulated vegetation that consisted of grasses, oaks, and Pistacia atlantica trees. The climate changed from warm and dry months to abruptly cold and dry months.

History of research
The site was excavated as a rescue operation before it was flooded by Lake Assad, the reservoir of the Tabqa Dam which was being built at that time. The site was excavated by Andrew M. T. Moore in 1972 and 1973. It was limited to only two seasons of fieldwork. Despite the limited time frame, a large amount of material was recovered and studied over the following decades. It was one of the first archaeological sites to use modern methods of excavation such as "flotation", which preserved even the tiniest and most fragile plant remains. A preliminary report was published in 1983 and a final report in 2000.

Since around 2012 Moore and others have published several papers reporting on meltglass, nanodiamonds, microspherules, and charcoal and high concentrations of iridium, platinum, nickel, and cobalt from the site of Abu Hureyra, which they attribute to an impact event that destroyed the village around 10,800 BC. However, this impact hypothesis has been comprehensively refuted by experts in archaeology, astronomy, and impact science.

Location and description
Abu Hureyra is a tell, or ancient settlement mound, in modern-day Raqqa Governorate in northern Syria. It is on a plateau near the south bank of the Euphrates, 120 km east of Aleppo. The tell is a massive accumulation of collapsed houses, debris, and lost objects accumulated over the course of the habitation of the ancient village. The mound is nearly 500 m across, 8 m deep, and contained over 1000000 m3 of archaeological deposits. Today the tell is inaccessible, submerged beneath the waters of Lake Assad.

First occupation
The village of Abu Hureyra had two separate periods of occupation: An Epipalaeolithic settlement and a Neolithic settlement. The Epipaleolithic, or Natufian, settlement was established c. 13,500 years ago. During the first settlement, the village consisted of small round huts, cut into the soft sandstone of the terrace. The roofs were supported with wooden posts, and roofed with brushwood and reeds. Huts contained underground storage areas for food. The houses that they lived in were subterranean pit dwellings. The inhabitants are probably most accurately described as "hunter-collectors", as they didn't only forage for immediate consumption, but built up stores for longterm food security. They settled down around their larder to protect it from animals and other humans. From the distribution of wild food plant remains found at Abu Hureyra it seems that they lived there year-round. The population was small, housing a few hundred people at most—but perhaps the largest collection of people permanently living in one place anywhere at that time.

The inhabitants of Abu Hureyra obtained food by hunting, fishing, and gathering of wild plants. Gazelle was hunted primarily during the summer, when vast herds passed by the village during their annual migration. These would probably be hunted communally, as mass killings also required mass processing of meat, skin, and other parts of the animal. The huge amount of food obtained in a short period was a reason for settling down permanently: it was too heavy to carry and would need to be kept protected from weather and pests.

Other prey included large wild animals such as onager, sheep, and cattle, and smaller animals such as hare, fox, and birds, which were hunted throughout the year. Different plant species were collected, from three different eco-zones within walking distance (river, forest, and steppe). Plant foods were also harvested from "wild gardens" with species gathered including wild cereal grasses such as einkorn wheat, emmer wheat, and two varieties of rye. Several large stone tools for grinding grain were found at the site.

Abu Hureyra 1 had a variety of crops that made up the system. Their resources consisted of 41% Rumex and Polygonum, 43% rye and einkorn, and the remaining 16% lentils.

Depopulation
After 1,300 years the hunter-gatherers of the first occupation mostly abandoned Abu Hureyra, probably because of the Younger Dryas, an intense and relatively abrupt return to glacial climate conditions which lasted over 1,000 years, or because of the purported impact event. The drought disrupted the migration of the gazelle and destroyed forageable plant food sources. The inhabitants might have moved to Mureybet, less than 50 km to the northeast on the other side of the Euphrates, which expanded dramatically at this time.

Second occupation
In comparison to Abu Hureyra 1, Abu Hureyra 2 had a different accumulation of resources, consisting of 25% Rumex/Polygonum, 3.7% rye/einkorn, 29% barley, 23.5% emmer, 9.4% wheat-free threshing, and 9.4% lentils.

It is from the early part of the Younger Dryas that the first indirect evidence of agriculture was detected in the excavations at Abu Hureyra, although the cereals themselves were still of the wild variety. It was during the intentional sowing of cereals in more favourable refuges like Mureybet that these first farmers developed domesticated strains during the centuries of drought and cold of the Younger Dryas. When the climate abated about 9500 BCE they spread all over the Middle East with this new bio-technology, and Abu Hureyra grew to a large village eventually with several thousand people. The second occupation grew domesticated varieties of rye, wheat and barley, and kept sheep as livestock. The hunting of gazelle decreased sharply, probably due to overexploitation that eventually left them extinct in the Middle East. At Abu Hureyra they were replaced by meat from domesticated animals. The second occupation lasted for about 2,000 years.

Transition from foraging to farming
Some evidence has been found for cultivation of rye from 11050 BCE in the sudden rise of pollen from weed plants that typically infest newly disturbed soil. Peter Akkermans and Glenn Schwartz found this claim about epipaleolithic rye, "difficult to reconcile with the absence of cultivated cereals at Abu Hureyra and elsewhere for thousands of years afterwards". It could have been an early experiment that didn't survive and continue. It has been suggested that drier climate conditions resulting from the beginning of the Younger Dryas caused wild cereals to become scarce, leading people to begin cultivation as a means of securing a food supply. Results of recent analysis of the rye grains from this level suggest that they may actually have been domesticated during the Epipalaeolithic. It is speculated that the permanent population of the first occupation was fewer than 200 individuals. These individuals occupied several tens of square kilometers, a rich resource base of several different ecosystems. On this land they hunted, harvested food and wood, made charcoal, and may have cultivated cereals and grains for food and fuel.

The first domesticated morphologic cereals came about at the Abu Hureyra site around 10,000 years ago.

Agriculture
The village of Abu Hureyra had impressive agricultural advances for the time period. The rapid growth of farming led to the development of two different domesticated forms of wheat, barley, rye, lentils, and more due in part to a sudden cool period in the area. The cool period affected the supply of wild animals such as gazelle, which at the time was their main source of protein. Since their food supply became scarce it was critical that they find a way to provide for the population, this led to extensive agricultural efforts as well as the domestication of sheep and goats to provide a steady protein source. Another helpful factor was the ability to grow legumes, which fix nitrogen levels in the soil. This improved the fertility of the soil and allowed for the crop plants to flourish.

This massive increase in agriculture had a cost. Those who lived in the village of Abu Hureyra experienced several injuries and skeletal abnormalities. These injuries mostly came from the way the crops were harvested. In order to harvest the crops the people of Abu Hureyra would kneel for several hours on end. The act of kneeling for long durations would put the individuals at risk for injuring the big toes, hips, and lower back. There was cartilage damage in the toe that was so severe the metatarsal bones would rub together. In addition to this injury another common injury was for the last dorsal vertebra to be damaged, crushed, or out of alignment due to the pressure used during the grinding of grains. These skeletal abnormalities also can be found on the teeth of the Abu Hureyra people. Since the grain was stone ground many flakes of stone would still be left in the grain which over time would wear down the teeth. In rare cases women would have large grooves in their front teeth which suggests they used their mouth as a third hand while weaving baskets. This dates basket weaving as far back as 6500 BC and the fact so few women had these grooves shows that basket weaving was a rare skill to have. These baskets were extremely important to the success of the agriculture because the baskets were used to collect or spread seeds, and were also used to collect or distribute water.

title: Tell Abu Hureyra


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Tommy Cooper

Thomas Frederick Cooper (19 March 1921 – 15 April 1984) was a Welsh prop comedian and magician. As an entertainer, his appearance was large and lumbering at 6 ft, and he habitually wore a red fez when performing. He served in the British Army for seven years, before developing his conjuring skills and becoming a member of The Magic Circle. Although he spent time on tour performing his magical act, which specialised on magic tricks that appeared to fail, he rose to international prominence when his career moved into television, with programmes for London Weekend Television and Thames Television.

By the end of the 1970s, Cooper was smoking and drinking heavily, which affected his career and his health, effectively ending offers to front new programmes and relegating him to performing as a guest star on other entertainment shows. On 15 April 1984, Cooper died at the age of 63 after suffering a heart attack on live television.

Early life
Thomas Frederick Cooper was born on 19 March 1921 at 19, Llwyn-On Street in Caerphilly, Glamorgan. He was delivered by the woman who owned the house in which the family were lodging. His parents were Thomas H. Cooper, a Welsh recruiting sergeant in the British Army and later coal miner, and Catherine Gertrude (née Wright), Thomas's English wife from Crediton, Devon.

To change from his mining role in Caerphilly, that could have had implications for his health, his father accepted the offer of a new job and the family moved to Exeter, Devon, when Cooper was three. It was in Exeter that he acquired the West Country accent that became part of his act. As an adult and on a visit to Wales to visit the house where he was born, Cooper was asked if he considered himself to be a Welshman, to which he answered, "Well yes, my father's Welsh... and my mother's from Devon. Actually I was in Caerphilly and left here when I was about a year old, I was getting very serious with a girl", much to the amusement of the BBC interviewer and himself.

When he was eight years old an aunt bought him a magic set and he spent hours perfecting the tricks. In the 1960s his brother David (born 1930) opened D. & Z. Cooper's Magic Shop at 249 High Street in Slough, Buckinghamshire. The shop later moved to Eastbourne, East Sussex and was run by David's daughter Sabrina. After leaving school, Cooper became a shipwright in Southampton, Hampshire. In 1940 he was called up as a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards, serving for seven years. He joined Montgomery's Desert Rats in Egypt. Cooper became a member of a Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes (NAAFI) entertainment party, and developed an act around his magic tricks interspersed with comedy. One evening in Cairo, during a sketch in which he was supposed to be in a costume that required a pith helmet, having forgotten the prop Cooper reached out and borrowed a fez from a passing waiter, which got huge laughs. He wore a fez when performing after that, the prop later being described as "an icon of 20th-century comedy".

Development of the act
Cooper was demobilised after seven years of military service and took up show business on Christmas Eve 1947. He later developed a popular monologue about his military experience as "Cooper the Trooper". He worked in variety theatres around the country and at many night spots in London, performing as many as 52 shows in one week.

Cooper developed his conjuring skills and became a member of The Magic Circle, but there are various stories about how and when he developed his delivery of "failed" magic tricks:

 * He was performing to his shipbuilding colleagues when everything went wrong, but he noticed that the failed tricks got laughs.
 * He started making "mistakes" on purpose when he was in the Army.
 * His tricks went wrong at a post-war audition, but the panel thoroughly enjoyed them anyway.

To keep the audience on their toes Cooper threw in an occasional trick that worked when it was least expected.

Career
Cooper was influenced by Laurel and Hardy, Will Hay, Max Miller, Bob Hope, and Robert Orben.

In 1947 Cooper was booked by Miff Ferrie, a musician, to appear in a show starring the sand dance act Marqueeze and the Dance of the Seven Veils. This was followed by a European tour and work in pantomime, and concluded with a season at the Windmill Theatre. Ferrie remained Cooper's sole agent for 37 years, until Cooper's death in 1984.

Cooper rapidly became a top-liner in variety with his turn as the conjurer whose tricks never succeeded, but it was his television work that raised him to national prominence. After his debut on the BBC talent show New to You in March 1948 he began starring in his own shows, and was popular with audiences for nearly 40 years, notably through his work with London Weekend Television from 1968 to 1972 and with Thames Television from 1973 to 1980. Thanks to his many television shows during the mid-1970s he was one of the most recognisable comedians in the world.

John Fisher writes in his biography of Cooper: "Everyone agrees that he was mean. Quite simply he was acknowledged as the tightest man in show business, with a pathological dread of reaching into his pocket." One of Cooper's stunts was to pay the exact taxi fare and when leaving the cab slip something into the taxi driver's pocket, saying, "Have a drink on me." That something would turn out to be a tea bag.

By the mid-1970s alcohol had started to erode Cooper's professionalism and club owners complained that he turned up late or rushed through his show in five minutes. In addition he suffered from chronic indigestion, lumbago, sciatica, bronchitis and severe circulation problems in his legs. When Cooper realised the extent of his maladies he cut down on his drinking, and the energy and confidence returned to his act. However, he never stopped drinking and could be fallible: on an otherwise triumphant appearance with Michael Parkinson he forgot to set the safety catch on the guillotine illusion into which he had cajoled Parkinson, and only a last-minute intervention by the floor manager saved Parkinson from serious injury or worse.

Cooper was a heavy cigar smoker (up to 40 a day) as well as an excessive drinker. Cooper suffered a heart attack on 22 April 1977 while performing a show in Rome. Three months later he was back on television in Night Out at the London Casino.

By 1980 his drinking meant that Thames Television would not give him another starring series, and Cooper's Half Hour was his last. He did continue to appear as a guest on other television shows, however, and worked with Eric Sykes on two Thames productions in 1982.

Death
On 15 April 1984, Cooper collapsed from a heart attack in front of 12 million viewers, midway through his act on the London Weekend Television variety show Live from Her Majesty's, transmitted live from Her Majesty's Theatre in Westminster, London. An assistant had helped him put on a cloak for his sketch, while Jimmy Tarbuck, the host, was hiding behind the stage curtains waiting to pass him different props that he would then appear to pull from inside his gown. His last words seemed to be "Thank you, love," to the assistant seconds before collapsing. The assistant smiled at him as he slumped down, believing that it was part of the act. Likewise, the audience laughed as he fell backwards, as a hand (possibly Tarbuck's hand) briefly appeared from behind the curtain to reach out towards Cooper.

As Cooper lay dying on the floor, the audience continued to laugh at him believing it was part of the act. Around this time, Jimmy Tarbuck, Alasdair MacMillan (the director of the television production), and the crew behind the curtain who witnessed the incident realised that what was happening to him was not part of the act. The laughter from the audience began to die down as they realised Cooper was unable to get back up.

In the wings, show producer David Bell asked Cooper's son if the fall was part of the act. He replied that his father had a bad back, and would be unable to get back up if he fell on purpose. After it became apparent that Cooper was in trouble, Alasdair MacMillan cued the orchestra to play music for an unscripted commercial break (noticeable because of several seconds of blank screen while LWT's master control contacted regional stations to start transmitting advertisements) and Tarbuck's manager tried to pull Cooper back through the curtains.

It was decided to continue with the show. Dustin Gee and Les Dennis were the act that had to follow Cooper and performed in the limited space in front of the curtains. Two stools were positioned either side of the protrusion from behind the curtain where Cooper had collapsed, whilst efforts were being made to revive him. The following act, Howard Keel, performed as Cooper was moved (evident by the twitching of the curtains as he sang and the disappearance of the protrusion as he finished performing). After another commercial break, the curtain was removed, and he was taken by ambulance to Westminster Hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival. His death was not officially reported until the next morning, although the incident was the leading item on the news programme that followed the show.

Cooper's funeral was held at Mortlake Crematorium in London, and his son scattered his ashes in the back garden, over his father's favourite daffodils. There are memorials to Cooper, his wife Gwen, and their son Thomas, on his wife's family grave at Ocklynge Cemetery, Eastbourne, East Sussex.

The video of Cooper's heart attack on stage has been uploaded to numerous video-sharing websites. YouTube drew criticism from a number of sources when footage of the incident was posted on the website in May 2009. John Beyer of the pressure group Mediawatch-UK said: "This is very poor taste. That the broadcasters have not repeated the incident shows they have a respect for him and I think that ought to apply also on YouTube." On 28 December 2011, segments of the Live from Her Majesty's clip, including Cooper collapsing on stage, were included in the Channel 4 programme The Untold Tommy Cooper.

Personal life
Cooper married Gwen Henty in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 24 February 1947. She died in 2002. They had two children: Thomas, who was born in 1956, became an actor under the name Thomas Henty and died in 1988; and Victoria.

From 1967 until his death, Cooper also had a relationship with his personal assistant, Mary Fieldhouse, who wrote about it in her book, For the Love of Tommy (1986).

Cooper's will was proved via probate on 29 August 1984, at £327,272.

On Christmas Day 2018, the documentary Tommy Cooper: In His Own Words was broadcast on Channel 5. The programme featured Cooper's daughter, Vicky, who gave her first television interview following years of abstaining "because of the grief".

Legacy and honours

A statue of Cooper was unveiled in his birthplace, Caerphilly, in 2008 by Sir Anthony Hopkins, who is patron of the Tommy Cooper Society. The statue, which cost £45,000, was sculpted by James Done. In 2009, for Red Nose Day, a charity Red Nose was put on the statue, but the nose was stolen.

Cooper was a member of the Grand Order of Water Rats.

In a 2005 poll, The Comedians' Comedian, comedians and comedy insiders voted Cooper the sixth greatest comedy act ever. He has been cited as an influence by Jason Manford and John Lydon. Jerome Flynn has toured with his own tribute show to Cooper called Just Like That.

In February 2007 The Independent reported that Andy Harries, a producer of The Queen, was working on a dramatisation of the last week of Cooper's life. Harries described Cooper's death as "extraordinary" in that the whole thing was broadcast live on national television. The film subsequently went into production over six years later as a television drama for ITV. From a screenplay by Simon Nye, Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This was directed by Benjamin Caron and the title role was played by David Threlfall. It was broadcast 21 April 2014.

In 2010 Cooper was portrayed by Clive Mantle in a stage show, Jus' Like That! A Night Out with Tommy Cooper, at the Edinburgh Festival. To train for the role Mantle mastered many of Cooper's magic tricks, studying under Geoffrey Durham for several months.

In 2012 the British Heart Foundation ran a series of advertisements featuring Cooper to raise awareness of heart conditions. These included posters bearing his image together with radio commercials featuring classic Cooper jokes.

Being Tommy Cooper, a new play written by Tom Green and starring Damian Williams, was produced by Franklin Productions and toured the UK in 2013.

In 2014, with the support of The Tommy Cooper Estate and Cooper's daughter Victoria, a new tribute show, ''Just Like That! The Tommy Cooper Show'', commemorating 30 years since the comedian's death was produced by Hambledon Productions. The production moved to the Museum of Comedy in Bloomsbury, London, from September 2014 and continues to tour extensively throughout the UK.

In May 2016, a blue plaque in memory of Cooper was unveiled at his former home in Barrowgate Road, Chiswick. It was announced in August that the Victoria and Albert Museum had acquired 116 boxes of Cooper's papers and props, including his "gag file", in which the museum said he had used a system to store his jokes alphabetically "with the meticulousness of an archivist".

On 5 March 2021, BBC One aired the 30-minute documentary Tommy Cooper at the BBC, looking at his best performances, including his appearance on the Parkinson show where he almost killed Michael Parkinson with a trick guillotine. The programme, which celebrated the centenary of his birth, was presented by Sir Lenny Henry.

Recordings

 * "Don't Jump Off the Roof Dad" (1961), words and music by Cy Coben, single, Palette Records PG 9019 (reached Number 40 in the UK Singles Chart)
 * "Ginger" – 7" single
 * "Happy Tommy" – 7" single
 * "Just Like That" 7" single
 * "Masters of Comedy" – CD
 * "No Arms Will Ever Hold You" – 7" single
 * "Sweet Words of Love" – 7" single
 * "Tommy Cooper Very Best Of" – CD, DVD
 * "Walkin' Home From School" – 7" single
 * "We'll Meet Again" – 7" single

title: Tommy Cooper


text:
Ménière's disease

Ménière's disease (MD) is a disease of the inner ear that is characterized by potentially severe and incapacitating episodes of vertigo, tinnitus, hearing loss, and a feeling of fullness in the ear. Typically, only one ear is affected initially, but over time, both ears may become involved. Episodes generally last from 20 minutes to a few hours. The time between episodes varies. The hearing loss and ringing in the ears can become constant over time.

The cause of Ménière's disease is unclear, but likely involves both genetic and environmental factors. A number of theories exist for why it occurs, including constrictions in blood vessels, viral infections, and autoimmune reactions. About 10% of cases run in families. Symptoms are believed to occur as the result of increased fluid buildup in the labyrinth of the inner ear. Diagnosis is based on the symptoms and a hearing test. Other conditions that may produce similar symptoms include vestibular migraine and transient ischemic attack.

No cure is known. Attacks are often treated with medications to help with the nausea and anxiety. Measures to prevent attacks are overall poorly supported by the evidence. A low-salt diet, diuretics, and corticosteroids may be tried. Physical therapy may help with balance and counselling may help with anxiety. Injections into the ear or surgery may also be tried if other measures are not effective, but are associated with risks. The use of tympanostomy tubes (ventilation tubes) to improve vertigo and hearing in people with Ménière's disease is not supported by definitive evidence.

Ménière's disease was identified in the early 1800s by Prosper Menière. It affects between 0.3 and 1.9 per 1,000 people. It typically starts in people 40 to 60 years old. Females are more commonly affected than males. After 5 to 15 years of symptoms, the episodes of the world spinning sometimes stop and the person is left with loss of balance, poor hearing in the affected ear, and ringing or other sounds in the affected ear or ears.

Signs and symptoms
Ménière's is characterized by recurrent episodes of vertigo, fluctuating hearing loss, and tinnitus; episodes may be preceded by a headache and a feeling of fullness in the ears. People may also experience additional symptoms related to irregular reactions of the autonomic nervous system. These symptoms are not symptoms of Ménière's disease per se, but rather are side effects resulting from failure of the organ of hearing and balance, and include nausea, vomiting, and sweating, which are typically symptoms of vertigo, and not of Ménière's. This includes a sensation of being pushed sharply to the floor from behind. Sudden falls without loss of consciousness (drop attacks) may be experienced by some people.

Causes
The cause of Ménière's disease is unclear, but likely involves both genetic and environmental factors. A number of theories exist including constrictions in blood vessels, viral infections, and autoimmune reactions.

Mechanism
The initial triggers of Ménière's disease are not fully understood, with a variety of potential inflammatory causes that lead to endolymphatic hydrops, a distension of the endolymphatic spaces in the inner ear. Endolymphatic hydrops (EH) is strongly associated with developing Ménière's disease, but not everyone with EH develops Ménière's disease: "The relationship between endolymphatic hydrops and Meniere's disease is not a simple, ideal correlation."

Additionally, in fully developed Ménière's disease, the balance system (vestibular system) and the hearing system (cochlea) of the inner ear are affected, but some cases occur where EH affects only one of the two systems enough to cause symptoms. The corresponding subtypes of the disease are called vestibular Ménière's disease, showing symptoms of vertigo, and cochlear Ménière's disease, showing symptoms of hearing loss and tinnitus.

The mechanism of Ménière's disease is not fully explained by EH, but fully developed EH may mechanically and chemically interfere with the sensory cells for balance and hearing, which can lead to temporary dysfunction and even to death of the sensory cells, which in turn can cause the typical symptoms of MD – vertigo, hearing loss, and tinnitus.

An estimated 30% of people with Ménière's disease have Eustachian tube dysfunction.

Diagnosis

The diagnostic criteria as of 2015 define definite MD and probable MD as:

Definite Probable
 * 1) Two or more spontaneous episodes of vertigo, each lasting 20 minutes to 12 hours
 * 2) Audiometrically documented low- to medium-frequency sensorineural hearing loss in the affected ear on at least one occasion before, during, or after one of the episodes of vertigo
 * 3) Fluctuating aural symptoms (hearing, tinnitus, or fullness) in the affected ear
 * 4) Not better accounted for by another vestibular diagnosis
 * 1) Two or more episodes of vertigo or dizziness, each lasting 20 minutes to 24 hours
 * 2) Fluctuating aural symptoms (hearing, tinnitus, or fullness) in the reported ear
 * 3) Not better accounted for by another vestibular diagnosis

A common and important symptom of MD is hypersensitivity to sounds. This hypersensitivity is easily diagnosed by measuring the loudness discomfort levels (LDLs).

Symptoms of MD overlap with migraine-associated vertigo (MAV) in many ways, but when hearing loss develops in MAV, it is usually in both ears, and this is rare in MD, and hearing loss generally does not progress in MAV as it does in MD.

People who have had a transient ischemic attack (TIA) or stroke can present with symptoms similar to MD, and in people at risk magnetic resonance imaging should be conducted to exclude TIA or stroke.

Other vestibular conditions that should be excluded include vestibular paroxysmia, recurrent unilateral vestibulopathy, vestibular schwannoma, or a tumor of the endolymphatic sac.

Management
No cure for Ménière's disease is known, but medications, diet, physical therapy, and counseling, and some surgical approaches can be used to manage it. More than 85% of patients with Ménière's disease get better from changes in lifestyle, medical treatment, or minimally invasive surgical procedures. Those procedures include intratympanic steroid therapy, intratympanic gentamicin therapy or endolymphatic sac surgery.

Medications
During MD episodes, medications to reduce nausea are used, as are drugs to reduce the anxiety caused by vertigo. For longer-term treatment to stop progression, the evidence base is weak for all treatments. Although a causal relation between allergy and Ménière's disease is uncertain, medication to control allergies may be helpful. To assist with vertigo and balance problems, glycopyrrolate has been found to be a useful vestibular suppressant in patients with Ménière's disease.

Diuretics, such as the thiazide-like diuretic chlortalidone, are widely used to manage MD on the theory that it reduces fluid buildup (pressure) in the ear. Based on evidence from multiple but small clinical trials, diuretics appear to be useful for reducing the frequency of episodes of dizziness but do not seem to prevent hearing loss.

In cases where hearing loss and continuing severe episodes of vertigo occur, a chemical labyrinthectomy, in which a medication such as gentamicin is injected into the middle ear and kills parts of the vestibular apparatus, may be prescribed. This treatment has the risk of worsening hearing loss.

Diet
People with MD are often advised to reduce their sodium intake. Reducing salt intake, however, has not been well studied. Based on the assumption that MD is similar in nature to a migraine, some advise eliminating "migraine triggers" such as caffeine, but the evidence for this is weak. There is no high-quality evidence that changing diet by restricting salt, caffeine or alcohol improves symptoms.

Physical therapy
While use of physical therapy early after the onset of MD is probably not useful due to the fluctuating disease course, physical therapy to help retraining of the balance system appears to be useful to reduce both subjective and objective deficits in balance over the longer term.

Counseling
The psychological distress caused by the vertigo and hearing loss may worsen the condition in some people. Counseling may be useful to manage the distress, as may education and relaxation techniques.

Surgery
If symptoms do not improve with less invasive approaches and for cases where the condition is uncontrolled or persistent and affecting both ears, surgery may be considered.

Endolymphatic sac surgery
Surgery to decompress the endolymphatic sac is one surgical approach that is sometimes suggested. Three methods of surgical endolymphatic sac decompression are sometimes suggested – simple decompression, insertion of a shunt, or removal of the sac. There is some very weak evidence that all three methods may be useful for reducing dizziness, but that the level of evidence supporting these surgical procedures is low with further higher quality investigations being suggested. There is a risk in these types of surgical procedures that the shunts used in these surgeries are at risk of becoming displaced or misplaced. For those with severe cases who are eligible for endolymphatic sac decompression, a 2014 systematic review reported that in at least 75% of people, EL sac decompression was effective at controlling vertigo in the short term (>1 year of follow-up) and long term (>24 months).

Ventilation tubes
Surgical implantation of eustachian tubes (ventilation tubes) is not strongly supported by medical studies. There are some tentative evidence of benefit from tympanostomy tubes for improvement in the unsteadiness associated with the disease, conclusions about how effective this surgery is and the potential for side effects and harms is not clear.

Other surgical interventions
Destructive surgeries such as vestibular nerve labyrinthectomy are irreversible and involve removing entire functionality of most, if not all, of the affected ear; as of 2013, almost no evidence existed with which to judge whether these surgeries are effective. The inner ear itself can be surgically removed via labyrinthectomy, although hearing is always completely lost in the affected ear with this operation. The surgeon can also cut the nerve to the balance portion of the inner ear in a vestibular neurectomy. The hearing is often mostly preserved; however, the surgery involves cutting open into the lining of the brain, and a hospital stay of a few days for monitoring is required.

Poorly supported

 * As of 2014, betahistine is often used as it is inexpensive and safe; but evidence does not justify its use in Ménière's disease.
 * Transtympanic micropressure pulses were investigated in two systematic reviews. Neither found evidence to justify this technique.
 * Intratympanic steroids were investigated in three systematic reviews. The data were found to be insufficient to decide if this therapy has positive effects.
 * Evidence does not support the use of alternative medicine such as acupuncture or herbal supplements.

Prognosis
Ménière's disease usually starts confined to one ear; it extends to both ears in about 30% of cases. People may start out with only one symptom, but in Ménière's disease all three appear with time. Hearing loss usually fluctuates in the beginning stages and becomes more permanent in later stages. Ménière's disease has a course of 5–15 years, and people generally end up with mild disequilibrium, tinnitus, and moderate hearing loss in one ear. As of 2020, there has been no recent major breakthrough in the pathogenesis research of Ménière's disease.

Epidemiology
From 3 to 11% of diagnosed dizziness in neuro-otological clinics are due to Ménière's disease. The annual incidence rate is estimated to be about 15 cases per 100,000 people and the prevalence rate is about 218 per 100,000, and around 15% of people with Ménière's disease are older than 65. In around 9% of cases, a relative also had Ménière's disease, indicating a genetic predisposition in some cases.

The odds of Ménière's disease are greater for people of white ethnicity, with severe obesity, and women. Several conditions are often comorbid with Ménière's disease, including arthritis, psoriasis, gastroesophageal reflux disease, irritable bowel syndrome, and migraine.

History
The condition is named after the French physician Prosper Menière, who in an 1861 article described the main symptoms and was the first to suggest a single disorder for all of the symptoms, in the combined organ of balance and hearing in the inner ear.

The American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery Committee on Hearing and Equilibrium set criteria for diagnosing MD, as well as defining two subcategories – cochlear (without vertigo) and vestibular (without deafness).

In 1972, the academy defined criteria for diagnosing MD as:
 * 1) Fluctuating, progressive, sensorineural deafness
 * 2) Episodic, characteristic definitive spells of vertigo lasting 20 minutes to 24 hours with no unconsciousness, vestibular nystagmus always present.
 * 3) Tinnitus (ringing in the ears, from mild to severe) is accompanied often by ear pain and a feeling of fullness in the affected ear; usually, the tinnitus is more severe before a spell of vertigo and lessens after the vertigo attack.
 * 4) Attacks are characterized by periods of remission and exacerbation.

In 1985, this list changed to alter wording, such as changing "deafness" to "hearing loss associated with tinnitus, characteristically of low frequencies" and requiring more than one attack of vertigo to diagnose. Finally in 1995, the list was again altered to allow for degrees of the disease:
 * 1) Certain – Definite disease with histopathological confirmation
 * 2) Definite – Requires two or more definitive episodes of vertigo with hearing loss plus tinnitus and/or aural fullness
 * 3) Probable – Only one definitive episode of vertigo and the other symptoms and signs
 * 4) Possible – Definitive vertigo with no associated hearing loss

In 2015, the International Classification for Vestibular Disorders Committee of the Barany Society published consensus diagnostic criteria in collaboration with the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, the European Academy of Otology and Neurootology, the Japan Society for Equilibrium Research, and the Korean Balance Society.

title: Ménière's disease