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National Railway Museum

The National Railway Museum (NRM) is a museum in York, England, forming part of the Science Museum Group. The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant railway vehicles such as Mallard, Stirling Single, Duchess of Hamilton and a Japanese bullet train. In addition, the National Railway Museum holds a diverse collection of other objects, from a household recipe book used in George Stephenson's house to film showing a "never-stop railway" developed for the British Empire Exhibition. It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001.

Starting in 2019, a major site development was underway. As part of the York Central redevelopment which will divert Leeman Road, the National Railway Museum will be building a new entrance building to connect the two separate parts of the museum together. At the same time, the space around the museum was to be landscaped to provide public spaces.

In 2020, architectural practice Feilden Fowles won an international competition to create the museum's new £16.5 million Central Hall building—a key element of the museum's Vision 2025 masterplan. In January 2023, the museum's Station Hall (a Grade II listed "former goods station built between 1875–77") was closed for an estimated 18 months for "urgent structural repair" which was to include the installation of a new roof over that area.

Overview
The National Railway Museum has over 6,000 objects on display of which around 100 are locomotives or rolling stock which tell the stories for Britain's railway innovation. The collection also includes fine jewellery worn by railway queens, models of planes, boats and hovercraft, and experimental technologies such as Louis Brennan's Gyroscopic Mono-rail car.

It is the largest museum of its type in Britain, attracting 782,000 visitors during the 2018/19 financial year (the largest in the world in terms of floor area of exhibition buildings is Cité du Train in the French town of Mulhouse, although this attracts far fewer visitors than the National Railway Museum).

The National Railway Museum was established on its present site, the former York North locomotive depot, in 1975, when it took over the former British Railways collection located in Clapham and the York Railway Museum located off Queen Street, immediately to the southeast of the railway station; since then, the collection has continued to grow.

The museum is accessible on foot from York railway station. A "roadtrain" runs from the city centre (near York Minster) to the museum on Leeman Road during half-term, holidays and summer. York Park and Ride also serve the museum from the car park entrance, on Line 2 (Rawcliffe Bar-York). Admission to the museum has been free since 2001. It is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm during February half-term holiday, then Wednesday to Sunday only from 10 am to 5 pm. Since 3 January 2023, the Station Hall is closed for re-roofing, repair work and redecoration, with some of the exhibits displayed there closed. Due to reopen late 2024.

Locomotion – the National Railway Museum in Shildon, County Durham was opened in October 2004 and is operated by the NRM in conjunction with Durham County Council. It houses more of the National Collection in a new building and a historic site around the former workshop of Timothy Hackworth and in the most recent full year for which figures have been published (2011–2012), it attracted more than 210,000 visitors.

National Collection
There are approximately 280 rail vehicles in the National Collection, with around 100 being at York at any one time and the remainder divided between Locomotion at Shildon and other museums and heritage railways. The earliest are wagonway vehicles of about 1815. The permanent display includes "Palaces on Wheels", a collection of Royal Train saloons from Queen Victoria's early trains through to those used by Queen Elizabeth II up to the 1970s, among them some of the first rail vehicles to be set aside for preservation. Other key exhibits normally to be seen at York include the 1846 Furness Railway No. 3 "Coppernob" locomotive, and the more modern express passenger steam locomotives London and North Eastern Railway Class A3 No. 4472 Flying Scotsman (added to the collection in 2004), its streamlined sister Class A4 No. 4468 Mallard and London, Midland and Scottish Railway Princess Coronation Class No. 6229 Duchess of Hamilton. Flying Scotsman is among the exhibits intended for operation on the National Rail network from time to time.

The museum has imported several major vehicles for display: the Chinese Class KF7 4–8–4 locomotive donated in 1981 was built in Britain and the Wagons-Lits sleeping car donated in 1980 had been used on the Paris-London Night Ferry service. The single exception to the rule of exhibits associated with Britain is the Japanese 0 Series Shinkansen leading vehicle which was donated to the museum by the West Japan Railway Company in 2001 and which now forms part of an award-winning display, and is the only Shinkansen vehicle on exhibit outside Japan.

Rail vehicles on display are exchanged from time to time with other organisations, and examples of new-build stock from the current industry sometimes visit the museum for short periods. Other physically large exhibits are the Stockton and Darlington Railway Gaunless Bridge and several stationary winding engines used on railway inclines.

The many other two and three-dimensional elements of the collection include signalling equipment, road vehicles, ship models, posters, drawings and other artwork, tickets, nameplates, staff uniforms, clocks, watches, furniture and equipment from railway companies' hotels, refreshment rooms and offices (including company seals) and a wide range of models, some of which are operated on the museum's O scale model railway (originated in 1982).

Search Engine
The National Railway Museum holds a large open library and archive of railway related material. This includes an internationally significant collection of locomotive and rolling stock engineering drawings from railway works and independent manufacturing companies. Copies of many of these engineering drawings are sold to the heritage railway movement to assist with their new build locomotive and restoration projects. They are also sold to modellers who can use the drawing to produce accurate scale models. The library holds more than 20,000 books and 800 journals of which around 300 are active. The archive also holds a large collection of technical and test records, as well as timetables including a large number of Bradshaw timetables. The archives also hold some 1.75 million photographs covering the earliest era of photography to the modern day. These include official collections from railway companies and collections from enthusiasts like Eric Treacy and H. Gordon Tidey.

In 1999/2000 the Museum began to collect recordings of former railway staff for a National Archive of Railway Oral History. It also holds the archive of steam train recordings by Peter Handford. In 2009 The Forsythe Collection of travel and transport ephemera was acquired for the collection. Many of the museum's artworks and posters can also be viewed through Search Engine although these are now displayed in a series of temporary exhibitions in the museum's new art gallery which opened in 2011.

The Search Engine facility opened in late 2007 and is open from 10:00 to 17:30 Wednesday to Saturday. The archive and library collections can be viewed by anyone without an appointment although the website recommends pre-booking archive materials at least 24 hours in advance. The majority of its collections have been listed on its website for people to view what materials are available prior to their visit. For those people that cannot visit the museum itself there is a research service offered by the museum called Inreach.

Origins
Although there had been amateur attempts to establish a national railway museum from the late 19th century, the National Collection today results from the fusion of two long-running official initiatives. One was led by the State museums sector, evidencing pioneering technology, and the other by the railway industry, in which the key contribution came from the North Eastern Railway as successors to the historic Stockton and Darlington Railway.

What became the Science Museum collection was begun in the 1860s by the Patent Office, whose museum included such early relics as Puffing Billy, Stephenson's Rocket and Agenoria (sister locomotive to Stourbridge Lion), which was outhoused to York at an early date.

Preservation of redundant equipment by the railway companies themselves was a matter of chance. Sometimes relics were stored in company workshops and offices and some were destroyed as circumstances changed. Some were put on public display, usually at railway stations, displayed in a glass case or mounted on a plinth. Coppernob at Barrow-in-Furness, Derwent and Locomotion at Darlington and Tiny at Newton Abbot were long-lived examples of this form of display.

The first railway museums were opened at Hamar in Norway (1896) and Nuremberg in Germany (1899). These inspired talk of doing the same in Britain, both in the 1890s and again in 1908, but this came to nothing at that time. Indeed, two of the Great Western Railway's earliest broad-gauge locomotives, North Star and Lord of the Isles, which had been set aside at Swindon Works, were cut up in 1906 for lack of space and several other relics were similarly lost in subsequent years.

From 1880, J. B. Harper of the North Eastern had been collecting material much of which was exhibited on the occasion of the S.& D.R. centenary in 1925; and which then formed the basis of a museum opened at York by the London and North Eastern Railway in 1928 under the curatorship of E. M. Bywell.

The smaller exhibits were housed in the old station buildings and the rolling stock and other large exhibits in the former locomotive erecting and repair shops of the old York and North Midland Railway (demolished after the museum closed). Despite this however, the locomotives were displayed on short lengths of track acting as plinths, very much in traditional museum style. It was only when the NRM was formed that Britain acquired a rail-served railway museum where large exhibits could come and go with ease.

The collection was dominated by items from the North Eastern Railway, together with Great Northern Railway items. The other three 'Big Four' railway companies showed little interest in contributing to the LNER's initiative, though eventually one locomotive representative of each did find its way there: the Great Western's City of Truro, London and North Western Railway Columbine and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway B1 Class Gladstone.

The GWR assembled a valuable collection of small objects, mounted privately in a long corridor at Paddington station, and in 1925 it built a replica of North Star. It preserved City of Truro and Tiny in 1931 and purchased Shannon for preservation in 1946.

The LMS had its own collection of small objects at Euston. It also began to build up a collection of historic locomotives, which included Caledonian 123, Columbine, Cornwall, Hardwicke, Highland 103, Midland 118 and Pet. Three others, set aside for preservation at Crewe Works, were scrapped in a change of policy in 1932. The LMS set aside one further locomotive (Midland 158A) before it was overtaken by nationalisation. It also succeeded in preserving a collection of historic royal saloons at Wolverton and built a replica Rocket, with six replica carriages, for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway centenary in 1930, and a replica Grand Junction Railway Travelling Post Office.

The Southern Railway inherited three preserved carriages of the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway, long displayed at York and at Waterloo station, but otherwise had no policy of preserving redundant equipment. Ryde was preserved from 1934 until cut up in 1940; the only other locomotive preserved by the Southern was Boxhill in 1947. (Gladstone was preserved by the Stephenson Locomotive Society as a private initiative and much later (in 1959) donated to the British Transport Commission.)

The nationalisation of British Railways in 1948 gave the opportunity for a more consolidated approach and a report was produced by the British Transport Commission in 1951.

Amongst other things this recommended a curator be appointed for the commission's holdings (John M. Scholes), retention of the York museum, creation of other regional museums (not carried out in the way proposed), a small relics display in the old Great Hall at Euston railway station (done on a temporary basis) and a large museum of collections elsewhere in London. For the latter, the former station at Nine Elms was originally favoured as a site, but what was eventually opened in 1961 was the Museum of British Transport in a former bus garage in Clapham. An official list of locomotives for preservation was compiled, and many were stored in sheds and works throughout the country, others being placed on loan to local authority museums. The 'Steam' Museum at Swindon still displays a large number of items from the National Collection, while the Glasgow Museum of Transport was also indebted to it, although many of the Scottish relics (including NBR K 'Glen' Class 4-4-0 No. 256 Glen Douglas currently at the successor to the Glasgow Museum of Transport, the Riverside Museum, along with the previously mentioned locomotives) no longer form part of the National Collection.

The Beeching Report recommended that British Rail should stop running museums, and a campaign was led by transport historian L. T. C. Rolt and others such as the historian Jack Simmons to create a new museum. Agreement was reached under terms in the Transport Act 1968 for B.R. to provide premises to be occupied by a National Railway Museum which would be a branch of the National Museum of Science and Industry then under Dame Margaret Weston and the first English national museum outside London – a move which was at the time criticised by Londoners.

The building provided was the former locomotive roundhouse at York North (rebuilt in the 1950s), alongside the East Coast Main Line. The old museum and that at Clapham were closed in 1973. A Sainsbury's supermarket now stands on the Clapham site. Some items were retained in the capital and formed the basis of the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Some from York were re-located to the Head of Steam museum in Darlington. Exhibits from the previous museums at York and Clapham moved to the new site were supplemented by vehicles taken from storage at Preston Park in Brighton and elsewhere and restored. Creation of the York museum was largely in the hands of its first keeper, John Coiley, his deputy Peter Semmens, John Van Riemsdijk of the Science Museum and David Jenkinson.

Growth 1975–2000
The museum was opened by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in 1975. The opening coincided with the 150th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, for which several working exhibits were provided. By comparison with the museum's predecessors coverage of ordinary passenger coaches and non-steam motive power was enhanced, but a popular new exhibit was ex-Southern Railway Merchant Navy Class No. 35029 Ellerman Lines sectioned to show the workings of a steam locomotive. The new museum received over a million visitors in its first year and was favourably received by critics.

Significant events of 1979 were the restoration of a train of appropriate vehicles to mark the centenary of on-train catering and an exhibition to mark the centenary of railway electric traction which drew attention to the museum's important collections in this area.

Also in 1979 the museum commissioned a working replica of Stephenson's Rocket for the following year's Liverpool and Manchester Railway 150th anniversary. This has since represented the museum at events around the world.

Another working replica was added to the collection for the 150th anniversary of establishment of the Great Western Railway in 1985: that of the broad gauge locomotive Iron Duke.

In 1990, The Rev. W. Awdry's Railway Series Thomas the Tank Engine books were assured a permanent place in the NRM's collection of historical railway books, due to their role in maintaining children's interests in railways. In 1991, Christopher Awdry chose to fictionalise this event in Thomas and the Great Railway Show, where Thomas (the most iconic of Awdry's characters) was made an honorary member of the NRM collection by Sir Topham Hatt and the Director of the NRM.

Concerns about the condition of the concrete roof structure on the main building brought forward major changes to the museum in 1990. To maintain a presence at York, the former York goods depot across Leeman Road, already in use as a museum store (the Peter Allen Building), was configured to display trains as if in a passenger station, and this together with the adjacent South Yard was marketed as The Great Railway Show. A further selection of exhibits formed the National Railway Museum on Tour on display for a season in the former Swindon Works.

Meanwhile, the main building was completely re-roofed and reconstructed retaining only one of the two original 1954 turntables.

It was reopened on 16 April 1992 by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent as the Great Hall giving enhanced opportunities to display large artifacts such as railway signals, a footbridge from Percy Main station and a segment from the Channel Tunnel. The former goods shed display was retained as the Station Hall.

In 1995 the museum joined forces with the University of York to create an academic research base, the Institute of Railway Studies (and Transport History). It has also since partnered with York College to create the Yorkshire Rail Academy to teach vocational skills. The museum has also provided engineering apprenticeships and participates in partnerships aimed at delivering heritage skills training.

In 1996 the Museum Garden was created incorporating a gauge ridable miniature railway. A playground was also added.

Continued concern over the condition of the remaining 1950s buildings on the site led to their replacement by The Works in 1999. This gave several functional areas: the Workshop, for maintenance of rolling stock; the Workshop Gallery, from which the public can look down on this work; a Working Railway Gallery, giving an insight into current and recent operation including a balcony overlooking York railway station hosting a set of monitors showing live feeds from the monitors at York IECC; and the Warehouse which provides an innovative open storage area, which has proved popular with both public and museum professionals.

Developments in the 21st century
In order to provide step-free access from the main hall to the Workshop Gallery, the Museum Inclinator was constructed. Besides its primary function, this also served to demonstrate the workings of a funicular railway. To that end its workings were exposed in the style of a larger open air funicular railway, rather than being concealed in the fabric of the building as is more normal for intramural lifts. It ceased working due to lack of spare parts, and with no plans for repair it was removed by August 2013.

2004 saw several major developments at the museum. Several railway anniversaries were celebrated by a major "Railfest".

Another took place from 25 to 30 May 2008 with a Sixties theme. The Locomotion museum was opened at Shildon, County Durham providing undercover collection care facilities for more rail vehicles (particularly freight wagons) from the museum's collection. In addition, the museum had a high-profile campaign, supported by the National Heritage Memorial Fund, to purchase Flying Scotsman which arrived at the Museum as the climax of Railfest.

The first stage of a new centre providing easy access to the museum's Library and Archives, called "Search Engine", opened at the end of 2007.

From 18 July to 23 August 2008, a popular new venture was the staging by York Theatre Royal at the Museum of the play of E. Nesbit's The Railway Children, awarded five stars in The Guardian. Following this success, it was repeated in 2009, from 23 July to 3 September, and the museum provided locomotives for subsequent performances at Waterloo International station and in Toronto.

Major plans under the name "NRM+" were made for refurbishing the Great Hall display, for which a preliminary Heritage Lottery Fund contribution was announced in 2009, and seeking potential partners for a further outhousing project.

There are other partnerships for development of the museum estate and the land around it (much owned by Network Rail) as "York Central" but the economic situation during 2009 put these particular plans in abeyance although a similar York Central project was launched by the city council at the beginning of 2016. The NRM+ project was cancelled in April 2011 due to lack of success in assembling the funding package. However, major changes to the displays in the Station Hall began later in 2011.

In 2012, the NRM decided to repatriate temporarily the two LNER A4 class steam locomotives, numbers 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower and 60010 Dominion of Canada from their respective North American homes at the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Exporail in Montreal, as part of the 'Mallard 75' event in 2013. The two locomotives would be on loan for up to two years, during which time the locomotives would be cosmetically restored, 60008 in BR Brunswick Green (as it appeared in 1963 on withdrawal) and 60010 as LNER 4489 in Garter Blue with its original Canadian Pacific Railway bell (as it appeared in 1939).

The same year, the NRM created an iPhone App in association with East Coast that allowed people travelling between London and Edinburgh on the East Coast Main Line through York to view objects from the collection in connection with locations on the route. It has since been removed from the App Store, and the page removed from the official NRM website.

On 8 December 2012 it was announced that an annex to the National Railway Museum would be built close to Leicester North station on the Great Central Railway.

Funding crisis point
In June 2013, the York Press reported that NRM was facing a funding crisis due to a potential 10% annual cut to the Science Museum Group's funding, an estimated real-terms 25% cut following lay-offs and disbandment of projects. The museum was considering scaling down its functions, re-introducing admissions charges or facing complete closure. However, following a campaign by local residents the Chancellor George Osborne announced a 5% cut in the museum's budget. This prompted Science Museum Group director Ian Blatchford to announce two weeks later that the museum had been doubly saved — he added that had the 10% cut taken place the Group would have chosen to close the National Media Museum in Bradford.

Policies
Criticisms of the museum which have been raised include claims that it has devoted insufficient attention to modern traction;  that it was neglecting scholarship in favour of commercialism; or that its photographic collections constitute a "black hole". The museum's response is that these criticisms do not always take into account the financial constraints under which the museum operates: its Grant in Aid from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport amounts to £6.50 per visitor which delivers less overall income than for comparable London museums. For some of its funding the museum depends on money-making events such as the Yorkshire Wheel, which operated at the museum from 2006 to 2008 and visits from Thomas the Tank Engine as chronicled in Thomas and the Great Railway Show. The museum has also suffered a few thefts of objects.

The museum can be allocated material from the railway industry by the Railway Heritage Committee. Because of the diversity of material falling potentially within the museum's collection policy and the problems of caring for it, decisions on acquisition of new items for the collection can be difficult. Previously the museum has treated rolling stock as if it were effectively still in railway service and capable of undergoing repeated heavy repairs and restoration. Since being preserved many of the museum's locomotives have operated on the main line, heritage railways or at the museum. More recently, there have been moves to less interventionist forms of conservation in some cases leading to some exhibits becoming non-operational.

The Museum's management of the protracted overhaul of LNER Class A3 4472 Flying Scotsman was heavily criticised in an internally commissioned report in 2012.

Since 1977, the Friends of the National Railway Museum have been in existence as a group to give financial and other support to the museum, such as financing the original restoration to steam of Duchess of Hamilton.

The 1990 "Great Railway Show" won the Museum of the Year award and in 2001 the museum gained the European Museum of the Year Award. It has also won White Rose awards from the Yorkshire Tourist Board, and in recognition of the several major developments in 2004 was given the Heritage Railway Association's Peter Manisty Award.

Online presence
The National Railway Museum website offers a facility for visitors to plan their visit to the museum in advance. The museum also has a policy of improving access to its collections via its website. It has uploaded some of the recordings from the National Archive of Railway History to its website. The museum's archives and library service Search Engine is increasingly making its collection accessible online by providing catalogues and lists for researchers to search before visiting and adding low resolution copies of its drawing online. The library collection can be searched through the University of York library catalogue. All of the museum's rolling stock and a large amount of other material has also been added to the website.

The National Railway Museum also has a presence on a number of other websites. Copies of many of its posters, photographs and artworks can be ordered through the Science and Society Picture Library. The National Railway Museum has a presence on the National Preservation forums. Members and Readers are able to talk and comment directly to members of the staff. Providing both feedback and constructive criticism, a valuable source of information for the museum. Members of staff can usually answer questions when they are not busy and are part of the National Railway Museum group. National Railway Museum staff also publish a blog via WordPress.com where staff write stories about events behind the scenes in the museum such as conservation work or preparation for major events.

Locomotives
These are a few of the Museum's locomotives (listed by operational state, and then by date the design was introduced).
 * Operational steam locomotives
 * SR Schools class 4–4–0 No. 925 Cheltenham. Currently working on the Mid Hants Railway. Boiler certification expires in 2022.
 * LNER Class A3 4–6–2 60103 Flying Scotsman. Overhaul started in 2006 by the NRM. After an external review the restoration was taken over by Riley and Son and completed in 2016. Withdrawn from traffic in early 2022, it was overhauled and brought back into steam in time for its 100th birthday in 2023.

 * Steam locomotives under overhaul/stored
 * SR Lord Nelson Class 4–6–0 No. 850 Lord Nelson. Currently working on the Mid Hants Railway. Boiler certification expired in 2016.
 * SR N15 Class 4–6–0 No. 30777 Sir Lamiel. Currently undergoing overhaul at the Great Central Railway. Withdrawn from service in 2017 after boiler ticket expired and undergoing mainline standard overhaul.
 * Great Central Railway O4 Class 2–8–0 No. 63601. Currently on the Great Central Railway. Withdrawn in 2012 for overhaul.
 * British Railways Standard Class 7 "Britannia" 4–6–2 70013 Oliver Cromwell. Overhauled at the Great Central Railway (Loughborough) between 2004 and 2008. Boiler certificate expired in December 2018. Currently based at Loughborough undergoing mainline standard overhaul.

 * Steam locomotives on static display
 * Stephenson's 0–2–2 Rocket. Two replicas are also in the York collection, one built for operation (rebuilt 2019) and one sectioned. The original was with the parent body, the Science Museum in London, until 2018.
 * NER No. 66 Aerolite. On static display in York since 1934.
 * GWR 4000 Class 4–6–0 4003 Lode Star. Returned to the NRM in November 2015 from the Museum of the Great Western Railway, Swindon as part of an exchange of locomotives in preparation for Swindon 175 in 2016.
 * LMS Stanier Class 5 4-6-0 5000. On static display.
 * LNWR Class G2 ("Super D") 0–8–0 No. 49395. Currently at Locomotion, Shildon on static display.
 * LNER Class A4 4–6–2 4468 Mallard. Restored to steam for a time from 1986; now on static display. Unlikely to run again due to exhibit popularity, the internals of the locomotive being in considerable disrepair, and the fact that all the other A4s in the UK have been restored to working order.
 * SR Class Q1 0–6–0 No. C1. On static display. However it is possible it will return to the Bluebell Railway, where it was based for many years, to be returned to service.
 * BR Standard Class 9F 2–10–0 92220 Evening Star, the last steam locomotive built for British Railways. On static display and not expected to return to working order due to class being barred from running on the national network. Returned to York in 2010 after a two-year loan to the Museum of the Great Western Railway, Swindon.
 * LMS Princess Coronation Class 4–6–2 6229 Duchess of Hamilton. Returned to the NRM in 2009 after being re-streamlined, it was at first displayed in an exhibit, Streamlined: Styling an era.

 * Steam locomotives located away from York
 * GWR 3700 Class 4–4–0 3440 City of Truro. Loaned to the Museum of the Great Western Railway in November 2015 as part of an exchange of locomotives in preparation for Swindon 175 in 2016.
 * GWR 6000 Class 4–6–0 6000 King George V. Loaned to the Museum of the Great Western Railway in November 2015 as part of an exchange of locomotives in preparation for Swindon 175 in 2016.
 * LNER Class V2 2–6–2 4771 Green Arrow. After many years of being a popular operation engine, her boiler certificate was due to expire Spring 2008, but failed beforehand on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. In need of extensive repairs to her one-piece three cylinder block, consideration being made to potential future overhaul. Currently at Doncaster Museum and Art Gallery

title: National Railway Museum


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Glutathione peroxidase

Glutathione peroxidase (GPx) is the general name of an enzyme family with peroxidase activity whose main biological role is to protect the organism from oxidative damage. The biochemical function of glutathione peroxidase is to reduce lipid hydroperoxides to their corresponding alcohols and to reduce free hydrogen peroxide to water.

Isozymes
Several isozymes are encoded by different genes, which vary in cellular location and substrate specificity. Glutathione peroxidase 1 (GPx1) is the most abundant version, found in the cytoplasm of nearly all mammalian tissues, whose preferred substrate is hydrogen peroxide. Glutathione peroxidase 4 (GPx4) has a high preference for lipid hydroperoxides; it is expressed in nearly every mammalian cell, though at much lower levels. Glutathione peroxidase 2 is an intestinal and extracellular enzyme, while glutathione peroxidase 3 is extracellular, especially abundant in plasma. So far, eight different isoforms of glutathione peroxidase (GPx1-8) have been identified in humans.

Reaction
The main reaction that glutathione peroxidase catalyzes is:
 * 2GSH + H2O2 → GS–SG + 2H2O

where GSH represents reduced monomeric glutathione, and GS–SG represents glutathione disulfide. The mechanism involves oxidation of the selenol of a selenocysteine residue by hydrogen peroxide. This process gives the derivative with a selenenic acid (RSeOH) group. The selenenic acid is then converted back to the selenol by a two step process that begins with reaction with GSH to form the GS-SeR and water. A second GSH molecule reduces the GS-SeR intermediate back to the selenol, releasing GS-SG as the by-product. A simplified representation is shown below:
 * RSeH +  H2O2   →  RSeOH  +  H2O
 * RSeOH +  GSH   →  GS-SeR  +  H2O
 * GS-SeR +  GSH   →  GS-SG  +  RSeH

Glutathione reductase then reduces the oxidized glutathione to complete the cycle:
 * GS–SG +  NADPH  +  H+ →   2 GSH  +  NADP+.

Structure
Mammalian GPx1, GPx2, GPx3, and GPx4 have been shown to be selenium-containing enzymes, whereas GPx6 is a selenoprotein in humans with cysteine-containing homologues in rodents. GPx1, GPx2, and GPx3 are homotetrameric proteins, whereas GPx4 has a monomeric structure. As the integrity of the cellular and subcellular membranes depends heavily on glutathione peroxidase, its antioxidative protective system itself depends heavily on the presence of selenium.

Animal models
Mice genetically engineered to lack glutathione peroxidase 1 (Gpx1−/− mice) are grossly phenotypically normal and have normal lifespans, indicating this enzyme is not critical for life. However, Gpx1−/− mice develop cataracts at an early age and exhibit defects in muscle satellite cell proliferation. Gpx1 −/− mice showed up to 16 dB higher auditory brainstem response (ABR) thresholds than control mice. After 110 dB noise exposure for one hour, Gpx1 −/− mice had up to 15 dB greater noise-induced hearing loss compared with control mice. "

Mice with knockouts for GPX3 (GPX3−/−) or GPX2 (GPX2−/−) also develop normally

However, glutathione peroxidase 4 knockout mice die during early embryonic development. Some evidence, though, indicates reduced levels of glutathione peroxidase 4 can increase life expectancy in mice.

The bovine erythrocyte enzyme has a molecular weight of 84 kDa.

Discovery
Glutathione peroxidase was discovered in 1957 by Gordon C. Mills.

Methods for determining glutathione peroxidase activity
Activity of glutathione peroxidase is measured spectrophotometrically using several methods. A direct assay by linking the peroxidase reaction with glutathione reductase with measurement of the conversion of NADPH to NADP is widely used. The other approach is measuring residual GSH in the reaction with Ellman's reagent. Based on this, several procedures for measuring glutathione peroxidase activity were developed using various hydroperoxides as substrates for reduction, e.g. cumene hydroperoxide, tert-butyl hydroperoxide and hydrogen peroxide.

The other methods include the use of CUPRAC reagent with spectrophotometric detection of the reaction product or o-phtalaldehyde as a fluorescent reagent.

Clinical significance
It has been shown that low levels of glutathione peroxidase as measured in the serum may be a contributing factor to vitiligo. Lower plasma glutathione peroxide levels were also observed in patients with type 2 diabetes with macroalbuminuria and this was correlated to the stage of diabetic nephropathy. In one study, the activity of glutathione peroxidase along with other antioxidant enzymes such as superoxide dismutase and catalase was not associated with coronary heart disease risk in women. Glutathione peroxidase activity was found to be much lower in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. One study has suggested that glutathione peroxidase and superoxide dismutase polymorphisms play a role in the development of celiac disease.

The activity of this enzyme has been reported to be decreased in case of copper deficiency in the liver and plasma.

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

title: Glutathione peroxidase


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Talk:Dynamics

I suggest add a definition of dynamic web page

Okay, when it was called Forte, the definition at the bottom (manufacturer of photographic materials) was okay. Now it's been changed, it's broken! --Bbtommy.

 * This page was never called "forte". However, forte was once a redirect to here. It isn't any longer. I'll move the info at the bottom to forte (I'm assuming this is what you mean - if not you'll have to fix it). --Camembert

 * Okay, cheers! --Bbtommy

What is DYNAMIC+? - -Oniony 12:27, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

hi this page really helped me in knowing another term for volume in musical term - ukelelele —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.127.209.130 (talk) 23:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Which of these things is the maths one? When a maths person says that the study dynamics, which of these things do they mean? 89.148.73.45 (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2019 (UTC)

 * ... 204.18.46.150 (talk) 16:02, 19 August 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Dynamics


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Ex situ conservation

Ex situ conservation (lit. 'off-site conservation') is the process of protecting an endangered species, variety, or breed of plant or animal outside its natural habitat. For example, by removing part of the population from a threatened habitat and placing it in a new location, an artificial environment which is similar to the natural habitat of the respective animal and within the care of humans, such as a zoological park or wildlife sanctuary. The degree to which humans control or modify the natural dynamics of the managed population varies widely, and this may include alteration of living environments, reproductive patterns, access to resources, and protection from predation and mortality.

Ex situ management can occur within or outside a species' natural geographic range. Individuals maintained ex situ exist outside an ecological niche. This means that they are not under the same selection pressures as wild populations, and they may undergo artificial selection if maintained ex situ for multiple generations.

Agricultural biodiversity is also conserved in ex situ collections. This is primarily in the form of gene banks where samples are stored in order to conserve the genetic resources of major crop plants and their wild relatives.

Botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums
Botanical gardens, zoos, and aquariums are the most conventional methods of ex situ conservation. Also in ex situ conservation, all of which house whole, protected specimens for breeding and reintroduction into the wild when necessary and possible. These facilities provide not only housing and care for specimens of endangered species, but also have an educational value. They inform the public of the threatened status of endangered species and of those factors which cause the threat, with the hope of creating public interest in stopping and reversing those factors which jeopardize a species' survival in the first place. They are the most publicly visited ex situ conservation sites, with the WZCS (World Zoo Conservation Strategy) estimating that the 1,100 organized zoos in the world receive more than 600 million visitors annually. Globally there is an estimated total of 2,107 aquaria and zoos in 125 countries. Additionally many private collectors or other not-for-profit groups hold animals and they engage in conservation or reintroduction efforts. Similarly there are approximately 2,000 botanical gardens in 148 counties cultivating or storing an estimated 80,000 taxa of plants.

Cryopreservation
Plant cryopreservation consist of the storage of seeds, pollen, tissue, or embryos in liquid nitrogen. This method can be used for virtually indefinite storage of material without deterioration over a much greater time-period relative to all other methods of ex situ conservation. Cryopreservation is also used for the conservation of livestock genetics through cryoconservation of animal genetic resources. Technical limitations prevent the cryopreservation of many species, but cryobiology is a field of active research, and many studies concerning plants are underway.

Seed banking
The storage of seeds in a temperature and moisture controlled environment. This technique is used for taxa with orthodox seeds that tolerate desiccation. Seed bank facilities vary from sealed boxes to climate controlled walk-in freezers or vaults. Taxa with recalcitrant seeds that do not tolerate desiccation are typically not held in seed banks for extended periods of time.

Field gene banking
An extensive open-air planting used maintain genetic diversity of wild, agricultural, or forestry species. Typically species that are either difficult or impossible to conserve in seed banks are conserved in field gene banks. Field gene banks may also be used grow and select progeny of species stored by other ex situ techniques.

Cultivation collections
Plants under horticultural care in a constructed landscape, typically a botanic garden or arboreta. This technique is similar to a field gene bank in that plants are maintained in the ambient environment, but the collections are typically not as genetically diverse or extensive. These collections are susceptible to hybridization, artificial selection, genetic drift, and disease transmission. Species that cannot be conserved by other ex situ techniques are often included in cultivated collections.

Inter situ
Plants are under horticulture care, but the environment is managed to near natural conditions. This occurs with either restored or semi-natural environments. This technique is primarily used for taxa that are rare or in areas where habitat has been severely degraded.

Tissue culture (storage and propagation)
Somatic tissue can be stored in vitro for short periods of time. This is done in a light and temperature controlled environment that regulates the growth of cells. As an ex situ conservation technique tissue culture is primary used for clonal propagation of vegetative tissue or immature seeds. This allows for the proliferation of clonal plants from a relatively small amount of parent tissue.

Techniques for animals

Endangered animal species and breeds are preserved using similar techniques. Animal species can be preserved in genebanks, which consist of cryogenic facilities used to store living sperm, eggs, or embryos. For example, the Zoological Society of San Diego has established a "frozen zoo" to store such samples using cryopreservation techniques from more than 355 species, including mammals, reptiles, and birds.

A potential technique for aiding in reproduction of endangered species is interspecific pregnancy, implanting embryos of an endangered species into the womb of a female of a related species, carrying it to term. It has been carried out for the Spanish ibex.

Genetic management of captive populations
Captive populations are subject to problems such as inbreeding depression, loss of genetic diversity and adaptations to captivity. It is important to manage captive populations in a way that minimizes these issues so that the individuals to be introduced will resemble the original founders as closely as possible, which will increase the chances of successful reintroductions. During the initial growth phase, the population size is rapidly expanded until a target population size is reached. The target population size is the number of individuals that are required to maintain appropriate levels of genetic diversity, which is generally considered to be 90% of the current genetic diversity after 100 years. The number of individuals required to meet this goal varies based on potential growth rate, effective size, current genetic diversity, and generation time. Once the target population size is reached, the focus shifts to maintaining the population and avoiding genetic issues within the captive population.

Minimizing mean kinship
Managing populations based on minimizing mean kinship values is often an effective way to increase genetic diversity and to avoid inbreeding within captive populations. Kinship is the probability that two alleles will be identical by descent when one allele is taken randomly from each mating individual. The mean kinship value is the average kinship value between a given individual and every other member of the population. Mean kinship values can help determine which individuals should be mated. In choosing individuals for breeding, it is important to choose individuals with the lowest mean kinship values because these individuals are least related to the rest of the population and have the least common alleles. This ensures that rarer alleles are passed on, which helps to increase genetic diversity. It is also important to avoid mating two individuals with very different mean kinship values because such pairings propagate both the rare alleles that are present in the individual with the low mean kinship value as well as the common alleles that are present in the individual with the high mean kinship value. This genetic management technique requires that ancestry is known, so in circumstances where ancestry is unknown, it might be necessary to use molecular genetics such as microsatellite data to help resolve unknowns.

Avoiding loss of genetic diversity
Genetic diversity is often lost within captive populations due to the founder effect and subsequent small population sizes. Minimizing the loss of genetic diversity within the captive population is an important component of ex situ conservation and is critical for successful reintroductions and the long term success of the species, since more diverse populations have higher adaptive potential. The loss of genetic diversity due to the founder effect can be minimized by ensuring that the founder population is large enough and genetically representative of the wild population. This is often difficult because removing large numbers of individuals from the wild populations may further reduce the genetic diversity of a species that is already of conservation concern. An alternative to this is collecting sperm from wild individuals and using this via artificial insemination to bring in fresh genetic material. Maximizing the captive population size and the effective population size can decrease the loss of genetic diversity by minimizing the random loss of alleles due to genetic drift. Minimizing the number of generations in captivity is another effective method for reducing the loss of genetic diversity in captive populations.

Avoiding adaptations to captivity
Selection favors different traits in captive populations than it does in wild populations, so this may result in adaptations that are beneficial in captivity but are deleterious in the wild. This reduces the success of re-introductions, so it is important to manage captive populations in order to reduce adaptations to captivity. Adaptations to captivity can be reduced by minimizing the number of generations in captivity and by maximizing the number of migrants from wild populations. Minimizing selection on captive populations by creating an environment that is similar to their natural environment is another method of reducing adaptations to captivity, but it is important to find a balance between an environment that minimizes adaptation to captivity and an environment that permits adequate reproduction. Adaptations to captivity can also be reduced by managing the captive population as a series of population fragments. In this management strategy, the captive population is split into several sub-populations or fragments which are maintained separately. Smaller populations have lower adaptive potentials, so the population fragments are less likely to accumulate adaptations associated with captivity. The fragments are maintained separately until inbreeding becomes a concern. Immigrants are then exchanged between the fragments to reduce inbreeding, and then the fragments are managed separately again.

Managing genetic disorders
Genetic disorders are often an issue within captive populations due to the fact that the populations are usually established from a small number of founders. In large, outbreeding populations, the frequencies of most deleterious alleles are relatively low, but when a population undergoes a bottleneck during the founding of a captive population, previously rare alleles may survive and increase in number. Further inbreeding within the captive population may also increase the likelihood that deleterious alleles will be expressed due to increasing homozygosity within the population. The high occurrence of genetic disorders within a captive population can threaten both the survival of the captive population and its eventual reintroduction back into the wild. If the genetic disorder is dominant, it may be possible to eliminate the disease completely in a single generation by avoiding breeding of the affected individuals. However, if the genetic disorder is recessive, it may not be possible to completely eliminate the allele due to its presence in unaffected heterozygotes. In this case, the best option is to attempt to minimize the frequency of the allele by selectively choosing mating pairs. In the process of eliminating genetic disorders, it is important to consider that when certain individuals are prevented from breeding, alleles and therefore genetic diversity are removed from the population; if these alleles are not present in other individuals, they may be lost completely. Preventing certain individuals from the breeding also reduces the effective population size, which is associated with problems such as the loss of genetic diversity and increased inbreeding.

Examples
Showy Indian clover, Trifolium amoenum, is an example of a species that was thought to be extinct, but was rediscovered in 1993 in the form of a single plant at a site in western Sonoma County. Seeds were harvested and the species grown in ex situ facilities.

The Wollemi pine is another example of a plant that is being preserved via ex situ conservation, as they are being grown in nurseries to be sold to the general public.

The Orange-bellied parrot, with a wild population of 14 birds as of early February 2017, are being bred in a captive breeding program. The captive population consists of around 300 birds.

Drawbacks
Ex situ conservation, while helpful in humankind's efforts to sustain and protect our environment, is rarely enough to save a species from extinction. It is to be used as a last resort, or as a supplement to in situ conservation because it cannot recreate the habitat as a whole: the entire genetic variation of a species, its symbiotic counterparts, or those elements which, over time, might help a species adapt to its changing surroundings. Instead, ex situ conservation removes the species from its natural ecological contexts, preserving it under semi-isolated conditions whereby natural evolution and adaptation processes are either temporarily halted or altered by introducing the specimen to an unnatural habitat. In the case of cryogenic storage methods, the preserved specimen's adaptation processes are (quite literally) frozen altogether. The downside to this is that, when re-released, the species may lack the genetic adaptations and mutations which would allow it to thrive in its ever-changing natural habitat.

Furthermore, ex situ conservation techniques are often costly, with cryogenic storage being economically infeasible in most cases since species stored in this manner cannot provide a profit but instead slowly drain the financial resources of the government or organization determined to operate them. Seedbanks are ineffective for certain plant genera with recalcitrant seeds that do not remain fertile for long periods of time. Diseases and pests foreign to the species, to which the species has no natural defense, may also cripple crops of protected plants in ex situ plantations and in animals living in ex situ breeding grounds. These factors, combined with the specific environmental needs of many species, some of which are nearly impossible to recreate by man, make ex situ conservation impossible for a great number of the world's endangered flora and fauna.

title: Ex situ conservation


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Our American Cousin

Our American Cousin is a three-act play by English playwright Tom Taylor. It is a farce featuring awkward, boorish American Asa Trenchard, who is introduced to his aristocratic English relatives when he goes to England to claim the family estate. The play premiered with great success at Laura Keene's Theatre in New York City in 1858, with Laura Keene in the cast, the title character played by Joseph Jefferson, and Edward Askew Sothern playing Lord Dundreary. The play's long-running London production in 1861 was also successful.

The play quickly rose to great renown during its first few years and remained very popular throughout the second half of the 19th century. Despite achieving critical and audience acclaim throughout its production history, Our American Cousin is best known as the play that U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was attending in Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. when he was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a Confederate sympathizer who attempted to time the sound of his gunshot with the audience's laughter on a particularly famous line.

Theatrical acclaim and "Lord Dundreary"
Among Our American Cousin's cast was British actor Edward Askew Sothern, playing Lord Dundreary, a caricature of a brainless English nobleman. Sothern had already achieved fame on the New York stage in the play Camille in 1856, and had been reluctant to take on the role because he felt that it was too small and unimportant.

Our American Cousin premiered in New York on October 15, 1858. After several weeks of performances, Sothern began portraying the role more broadly, as a lisping, skipping, eccentric, weak-minded fop prone to nonsensical references to sayings of his "bwother" Sam. His ad-libs were a sensation, earning good notices for his physical comedy and spawning much imitation and mockery in both the United States and England. Sothern gradually expanded the role, adding gags and business until it became the central figure of the play. The most famous scene involved Dundreary reading a letter from his even sillier brother. The play ran for 150 nights, which was very successful for a New York run at the time.

Sothern made his London debut when the play opened at the Haymarket Theatre on 11 November 1861. Reviews were mixed. The Morning Post praised Sothern, but said that the play could scarcely be said to be worthy of his talents; The Athenaeum found the piece humorous and outrageous, and Sothern's performance "certainly the funniest thing in the world ... a vile caricature of an inane nobleman, intensely ignorant, and extremely indolent"; The Era thought the play "a hasty work, manufactured to suit the American market ... a sort of dramatic curiosity". The play closed on 21 December 1861 after 36 performances; after this inauspicious start it was revived at the same theatre on 27 January 1862 and ran uninterruptedly until 23 December for 314 successive performances. Sothern successfully revived the play many times, making Dundreary by far his most famous role.

"Dundrearyisms", twisted aphorisms in the style of Lord Dundreary (e.g. "birds of a feather gather no moss"), enjoyed a brief vogue. And the character's style of beard – long, bushy sideburns – gave the English language the word dundrearies. In his autobiography, writer George Robert Sims recalled that "we went Dundreary mad in '61. The shop windows were filled with Dundreary scarves, and Brother Sam scarves, and there were Dundreary collars and Dundreary shirts, and Dundrearyisms were on every lip."

It was not long before the success of this play inspired an imitation, Charles Gayler's Our Female American Cousin, which opened in New York City in January 1859. None of the characters from the original play appeared in this comedy. A number of sequel plays to Our American Cousin were written, all featuring several characters from the original, and focusing on the Lord Dundreary character. The first was Gayler's Our American Cousin at Home, or, Lord Dundreary Abroad, which premiered in Buffalo, New York, in November 1860, and had its New York City debut the following May. Later sequels included Henry James Byron's Dundreary Married and Done For, and John Oxenford's Brother Sam (1862; revived in 1865), a play about Dundreary's brother.

Principal roles and original cast

 * Asa Trenchard (a rustic American) – Joseph Jefferson
 * Sir Edward Trenchard (a baronet) – Edwin Varrey
 * Florence Trenchard (his daughter) – Laura Keene
 * Mary Meredith (a poor cousin) – Sara Stevens
 * Lord Dundreary (an idiotic English nobleman) – E.A. Sothern
 * Mr. Coyle (a businessman) – J.G. Burnett
 * Abel Murcott (his clerk) – C.W. Couldock
 * Lt. Harry Vernon (of the Royal Navy) – M. Levick
 * Mr. Binny (a butler) – Mr. Peters
 * Mrs. Mountchessington – Mary Wells
 * Augusta (her daughter) – E. Germon
 * Georgina (another daughter) – Mrs. Sothern

Act I
In the drawing room at Trenchard Manor, the servants remark on their employer's poor financial circumstances. Florence Trenchard, an aristocratic young beauty, loves Lieutenant Harry Vernon of the Royal Navy, but she is unable to marry him until he progresses to a higher rank. She receives a letter from her brother Ned, who is currently in the United States. Ned has met some rustic cousins from a branch of the family that had immigrated to America two centuries earlier. They relay to Ned that great-uncle Mark Trenchard had, after angrily disinheriting his children and leaving England years ago, found these cousins in Brattleboro, Vermont. He had moved in with them and eventually made Asa, one of the sons, heir to his property in England. Asa is now sailing to England to claim the estate.

Asa is noisy, coarse, and vulgar, but honestly forthright and colourful. The English Trenchards are alternately amused and appalled by this Vermont cousin. Richard Coyle, agent of the estate, meets with Sir Edward Trenchard (Florence's father) and tells the baronet that the family faces bankruptcy unless they can repay a debt to Coyle. Coyle is concealing the evidence that the loan had been repaid long ago by Sir Edward's late father. Coyle suggests that the loan would be satisfied if he may marry Florence, who detests him. Meanwhile, Asa and the butler, Binny, try to understand each other's unfamiliar ways, as Asa tries to understand what the purpose of a shower might be, dousing himself while fully clothed.

Act II
Mrs. Mountchessington is staying at Trenchard Manor. She advises Augusta, her daughter, to be attentive to the presumably wealthy Vermont "savage". Meanwhile, her other daughter Georgina is courting an imbecilic nobleman named Dundreary by pretending to be ill. Florence's old tutor, the unhappy alcoholic Abel Murcott, warns her that Coyle intends to marry her. Asa overhears this and offers Florence his help. Murcott is Coyle's clerk and has found proof that Florence's late grandfather paid off the loan to Coyle.

Florence and Asa visit her cousin, Mary Meredith. Mary is the granddaughter of old Mark Trenchard, who left his estate to Asa. Mary is very poor and has been raised as a humble dairy maid. Asa does not care about her social status and is attracted to her. Florence has not been able to bring herself to tell Mary that her grandfather's fortune had been left to Asa. Florence tells Asa that she loves Harry, who needs a good assignment to a ship. Asa uses his country wile to persuade Dundreary to help Harry get a ship. Meanwhile, Coyle has been up to no good, and the bailiffs arrive at Trenchard Manor.

Act III
At her dairy farm, Asa tells Mary about her grandfather in America, but he fibs about the end of the tale: He says that old Mark Trenchard changed his mind about disinheriting his English children and burned his will. Asa promptly burns the will himself, under the pretext of lighting a cigar. Florence discovers this and points it out to Mary, saying: "It means that he is a true hero, and he loves you, you little rogue." Meanwhile, Mrs. Mountchessington still hopes that Asa will propose to Augusta. When Asa tells them that Mark Trenchard had left Mary his fortune, Augusta and Mrs. Mountchessington are quite rude, but Asa stands up for himself.

Asa proposes to Mary and is happily accepted. He then sneaks into Coyle's office with Murcott and retrieves the paper that shows that the debt was paid. Asa confronts Coyle and insists that Coyle must pay off Sir Edward's other debts, with his doubtless ill-gotten gains, and also apologize to Florence for trying to force her into marriage. He also demands Coyle's resignation as the steward of Trenchard Manor, making Murcott steward instead. Murcott is so pleased that he vows to stop drinking. Coyle has no choice but to do all this. Florence marries Harry, Dundreary marries Georgina, and Augusta marries an old beau. Even the servants marry.

Lincoln assassination

The play's April 14, 1865, performance at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., became the most infamous in the play's history as the site of Abraham Lincoln's murder by John Wilkes Booth. The cast modified a line of the play in honor of the president: when the heroine asked for a seat protected from the draft, the reply – a pun on draft evasion scripted as, "Well, you're not the only one that wants to escape the draft" – was delivered instead as, "The draft has already been stopped by order of the President!" Halfway through Act III, Scene 2, the character of Asa Trenchard, played that night by Harry Hawk, utters this line, considered one of the play's funniest, to Mrs. Mountchessington:

"Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal – you sockdologizing old man-trap!"

During the ensuing laughter, Booth, a famous actor and Confederate sympathizer who was not a member of the play's cast, entered Lincoln's box and fatally shot him in the back of the head. Familiar with the play, Booth had chosen that moment in the hope that the audience's laughter would mask the sound of his gunshot. Booth then leapt from Lincoln's box onto the stage and made his escape through the back of the theater to a horse he had left waiting in the alley. That night, the remainder of the play was suspended. To this day, Our American Cousin has never been restaged at Ford's Theatre.

Popular culture
In 1862 Charles Kingsley wrote a parody, the "Great Hippocampus Question", in the style of Lord Dundreary, and incorporated parts of this in The Water-Babies published in 1863.

In the 1950 film All About Eve, Bill Sampson says to Margo Channing, "I've always denied the legend that you were in 'Our American Cousin' the night Lincoln was shot."

Our American Cousin was adapted for the radio anthology program On Stage in 1953. In a move that earned him a rebuke from CBS management, director, producer, and actor Elliott Lewis aired it in the same hour as his show Crime Classics' episode "The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln".

In a brief scene in the 2000 film Bedazzled, the main character Elliot is reincarnated as Lincoln after wishing he was president. At the theater, Elliot recognizes the name of the play, realizes he is about to be murdered, and tries to leave. As an excuse, he says that he has already seen the play, but is informed that is impossible, because it is "an entirely new play." In reality, the play was six and a half years old at the time of the assassination and Lincoln had actually already seen the play before (and didn't like it).

Eric W. Sawyer's 2008 opera Our American Cousin presents a fictionalized version of the night of Lincoln's assassination from the point of view of the actors in the cast of Taylor's play.

title: Our American Cousin


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Science Museum Group

The Science Museum Group (SMG) consists of five British museums:

 * The Science Museum in South Kensington, London
 * The Science and Industry Museum in Manchester
 * The National Railway Museum in York
 * The Locomotion Museum (formerly the National Railway Museum Shildon) in County Durham
 * The National Science and Media Museum (formerly the National Media Museum and the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television) in Bradford

Items in the SMG collection that are not on display are usually stored at the National Collections Centre in Swindon, Wiltshire.

History
The origins of SMG lie in the internationalisation and optimism of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which enabled the foundation of the South Kensington Museum in 1857.

The term "National Museum of Science and Industry" had been in use as the Science Museum's subtitle since the early 1920s. Prior to 1 April 2012 the group was known as the National Museum of Science and Industry (NMSI).

The National Science and Media Museum, formerly the National Media Museum, was established by the Science Museum in 1983. The Science Museum was run directly by HM Government until 1984, when the Board of Trustees was established and NMSI was then adopted as a corporate title for the entire organisation. At this point NMSI became a non-departmental public body under the auspices of the sponsoring government department, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

From January 2012 the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester became part of the Science Museum Group.

From 2017 Locomotion, The National Railway Museum at Shildon, became part of the Science Museum Group.

In 2010 the Science Museum, London opened its climate science gallery Atmosphere which, as at April 2021, has been visited by over 5 million people. In 2021 the Science Museum, London also opened a temporary exhibition 'Our Future Planet' which explores the science of carbon capture. Environmental campaigners criticized the decision of SMG to appoint Shell as a major sponsor of this exhibition.

Throughout 2021 SMG is hosting Climate Talks which are a series of online talks, Q&As and events exploring problems arising from climate change. In October 2021, the SMG announced that a new climate change gallery to be opened in 2023 at the Science Museum would be sponsored by an arm of coal producer Adani Group.

SMG continues to work to reduce carbon emissions from operations, recruitment and supply chain, and by using resources efficiently. On 15 April 2021 SMG announced that it expects to achieve overall Net Zero/Carbon Neutrality by 2033.

Collection
The collection includes: Over 380,000 of the items in the Science Museum Group's collections are available to view online at its Search Our Collection web page.
 * Alan Turing's Pilot ACE computer
 * Flying Scotsman
 * Charles Babbage's drawing and models
 * Dorothy Hodgkin's model of penicillin
 * Tim Peake's Soyuz TMA-19M spaceship
 * Helen Sharman's space suit
 * Winifred Penn-Gaskell's collection of stamp cards and covers
 * Richard Arkwright's water frame spinning machine

Chairman and Directors
The chairman of the group is Dame Mary Archer who was appointed by Prime Minister David Cameron for the four-year term from 2015 from 2018. Dame Mary Archer was reappointed as Chairman 2019–2022 in January 2018.

The following have been directors of the National Museum of Science and Industry, the Science Museum and the Science Museum Group:

 * Dame Margaret Weston DBE FMA (1973–1986)
 * Sir Neil Cossons OBE FSA FMA (1986–2000)
 * Dr Lindsay Sharp (2000–2005)
 * Prof. Martin Earwicker FREng (2006–2007)

The following have separately been directors of the NMSI:

 * Prof. Martin Earwicker FREng (2007–2009)
 * Molly Jackson (2009)
 * Andrew Scott CBE (2009–2010)
 * Ian Blatchford (2010–)

title: Science Museum Group


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Michael Wittmann

Michael Wittmann (22 April 1914 –8 August 1944) was a German Waffen-SS tank commander during the Second World War. He is known for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a Tiger I tank, Wittmann destroyed up to 14 tanks, 15 personnel carriers and two anti-tank guns within 15 minutes before the loss of his own tank.

Wittmann became a cult figure after the war thanks to his accomplishments as a "panzer ace" (a highly decorated tank commander), part of the portrayal of the Waffen-SS in popular culture. Historians have mixed opinions about his tactical performance in battle. Some praised his actions at Villers-Bocage, while many others found his abilities lacking, and the praise for his tank kills overstated.

Although the number is disputed, he is credited with destroying 135 to 138 enemy tanks. It must be noted that German tank kills were recorded as a unit. When he was presented with the Oak leaves to his Knights Cross by Hitler on 2 February 1944 his total was 117 tanks.

Early life and World War II
Michael Wittmann was born in the village of Vogelthal, near Dietfurt in Bavaria's Upper Palatinate, on 22 April 1914. He enlisted in the German Army (Heer) in 1934 after the Nazi seizure of power. Wittmann joined the Schutzstaffel (SS) in October 1936 and was assigned to the regiment, later division, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) on 5 April 1937. A year later, he participated in the annexation of Austria, the occupation of Sudetenland, and joined the Nazi Party.

Eastern Front
Wittmann's unit was transferred to the Eastern Front in the spring of 1941 for Operation Barbarossa, the planned invasion of the Soviet Union. He was assigned to SS Panzer Regiment 1, a tank unit, where he commanded a StuG III assault gun/tank destroyer as well as a Panzer III medium tank. By 1943, he commanded a Tiger I tank, and had become a platoon leader in the heavy company by the time Operation Citadel and the Battle of Kursk took place. Attached to the LSSAH, Wittmann's platoon of four Tigers reinforced the division's reconnaissance battalion to screen the division's left flank. On their first day in battle at Kursk, Wittmann and his crew scored eight tanks and seven anti-tank guns destroyed. At one point, his tank survived a collision with a burning T-34.

In November 1943, Wittmann, still serving in Leibstandarte’s heavy company, was involved in armored counterattacks against the Russians around Zhitomir. On their first day in action against the Soviets, Wittman’s crew destroyed ten T-34s and five anti-tank guns. “By early January 1944 his combined total of destroyed tanks would rise to sixty-six.”

On 14 January 1944, Wittmann was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. The presentation was made by his divisional commander, SS-Oberführer Theodor Wisch, who nominated him for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves. Wittmann was awarded the Oak Leaves on 30 January for the destruction of 117 tanks, making him the 380th member of the German armed forces to receive it. He received the award from Adolf Hitler, who presented it to him at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in Rastenburg, on 2 February 1944.

Normandy
In April 1944, the LSSAH's Tiger Company was transferred to SS Heavy Panzer Battalion 101. This battalion was assigned to the I SS Panzer Corps as a corps asset, and was never permanently attached to any division or regiment. Wittmann was appointed commander of the battalion's second company, and held the rank of SS-Obersturmführer. On 7 June, the day after the Allied Invasion of Normandy began, the battalion was ordered to move from Beauvais to Normandy. The move, covering 165 km (105 miles), took five days to complete.

Due to the Anglo-American advance south from Gold and Omaha Beaches, the German 352nd Infantry Division began to buckle. As the division withdrew south, it opened a 12 km (a 7.5-mile) gap in the front line near Caumont-l'Éventé. Sepp Dietrich, commander of 1st SS Panzer Corps, ordered Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, his only reserve, to position itself behind the Panzer Lehr Division and SS Division Hitlerjugend. From this position, the battalion could protect the developing open left flank. Anticipating the importance the British would assign to the high ground near Villers-Bocage, Wittmann's company was positioned near the town. It arrived late on 12 June. Nominally composed of 12 tanks, his company was 50 per cent understrength with only six tanks due to losses and mechanical failures on the hundred-mile road march from the assembly area at Beauvais.

The next morning, lead elements of the British 7th Armoured Division entered Villers-Bocage. Their objective was to exploit the gap in the front line, seize Villers-Bocage, and capture the nearby ridge (Point 213) in an attempt to force a German withdrawal. Wittman had not expected them to arrive so soon and had no time to assemble his company. "Instead I had to act quickly, as I had to assume that the enemy had already spotted me and would destroy me where I stood." Having ordered the rest of the company to hold its ground, he set off with one tank.

At approximately 09:00, Wittmann's Tiger emerged from cover onto the main road, Route Nationale 175, and engaged the rearmost British tanks positioned on Point 213, destroying them. Wittmann then moved towards Villers-Bocage, shooting several unarmed transport vehicles parked along the roadside; the carriers burst into flames as their fuel tanks were ruptured by machine gun and high explosive fire. Moving into the eastern end of the town, he engaged several light tanks, followed by medium tanks. Alerted to Wittmann's actions, light tanks in the middle of the town quickly got off the road, while medium tanks were brought forward. Wittmann, meanwhile, had destroyed another British tank and two artillery observation post (OP) tanks, followed by a scout car and a half-track.

Accounts differ slightly as to what happened next. Historians record that, after destroying the OP tanks, Wittmann duelled briefly without success with a Sherman Firefly before withdrawing. His Tiger is then reported to have continued eastwards to the outskirts of the town before being disabled by an anti-tank gun. However, Wittmann said his tank was disabled by an anti-tank gun in the town centre.

In less than 15 minutes, 13 or 14 tanks, two anti-tank guns, and 13 to 15 transport vehicles had been destroyed by Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, the majority or all attributed to Wittmann. He played no further role in the Battle of Villers-Bocage. For his actions during the battle, Wittmann was promoted to SS-Hauptsturmführer, and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords.

The German propaganda machine swiftly credited Wittmann, by then a household name in Germany, with all the British tanks destroyed at Villers-Bocage. He recorded a radio message on the evening of 13 June, describing the battle and claiming that later counter-attacks had destroyed a British armoured regiment and an infantry battalion. Doctored images were produced; three joined-together photographs, published in the German army magazine Signal, gave a false impression of the scale of destruction in the town. The propaganda campaign was given credence in Germany and abroad, leaving the British convinced that the Battle of Villers-Bocage had been a disaster. In fact, its results were less clear-cut. The Waffen-SS may have fought with distinction during the Battle of Kursk but could not match the army's success, hence Sepp Dietrich's attempts to manufacture a hero out of Wittmann.

Death

On 8 August 1944, Anglo-Canadian forces launched Operation Totalize. Under the cover of darkness, British and Canadian tanks and troops seized the tactically important high ground near the town of Saint-Aignan-de-Cramesnil. Here they paused, awaiting an aerial bombardment that would signal the next phase of the attack. Unaware of the reason the Allied forces had halted, SS Hitlerjugend Division Commander Kurt Meyer ordered a counterattack to recapture the high ground.

Wittmann led a group of seven Tiger tanks from Heavy SS-Panzer Battalion 101, supported by additional tanks and infantry. His group of Tigers crossed open terrain towards the high ground. They were ambushed by Allied tanks from two sides. On the right or northeast, British tanks from "A" Squadron 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry and "B" Squadron 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps were positioned in woods. To the left or west, "A" Squadron Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment was located at a chateau courtyard broadside to the attack, where they had knocked firing positions through the stone walls. The attack collapsed as the Canadian tanks destroyed two Tiger tanks, two Panzer IVs and two self-propelled guns in Wittman's force, while British tank fire destroyed three other Tigers. During the ambush, anti-tank shells fired from Canadian tanks penetrated the upper hull of Wittmann's tank, igniting the ammunition. The resulting fire engulfed the tank and blew off the turret. The destroyed tank's dead crew members were buried in an unmarked grave. In 1983, the German war graves commission located the burial site. Wittmann and his crew were reinterred together at the La Cambe German war cemetery in France.

In 2008 a documentary in the Battlefield Mysteries series examined the final battle. A historian, Norm Christie, interviewed participants; Rad Walters, Joe Ekins and Ken Tout, and from their testimony and the two German accounts pieced the final battle together. The Tigers left the cover of a hedge near Cintheaux at 12:30 in two prongs; one in the middle of the field with the other—including Wittman—moving more slowly on the right. The British 75mm armed tanks engaged the lead Tiger (Iriohn) hitting it in the transmission, bogies or track and it started going in circles trying to withdraw. Joe Ekins' tank hit the second Tiger on the right side and knocked it out. As the crew escaped and brought out their wounded, they watched another Tiger north of them go up in flames (Kisters). Iriohn partly withdrew but could not get away and was hit by Ekins—"the one that was mulling around." Wittmann signalled "Pull back!" He did not realize that a group of the Sherbrookes were immediately to his right, and in a volley they knocked out the two Tigers beside the road. The commander of the second Tiger recalled the position of Wittmann's tank and specifically the skewed turret. The tank blew up shortly afterwards. Hans Hoflinger in a following Tiger was also attacked by enfilading fire from Sherman Fireflies with powerful 17-pound guns, and had to abandon his tank. He saw the fire and explosion in Wittmann's tank, and that the turret was displaced to the right and tilted down to the front somewhat. None of his crew had gotten out. Survivors from Dollinger's tank passed by the wreck of Wittmann's tank shortly afterwards.

Speculation surrounding death
For such a junior officer, an unusual amount of speculation has surrounded Wittmann's death, both as to its cause and the party responsible. Agte states that "the English" could have possibly placed a bounty on him. This is contradicted by Allied records and the testimony of Allied troops involved that he was not singled out during the battle.

After the war, claims were made by or for the following units as being responsible for Wittmann's death: the 1st Polish Armoured Division, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, the 144th Regiment Royal Armoured Corps, and the RAF Second Tactical Air Force.

Nazi propaganda reported that Allied aircraft struck Wittmann's tank, stating that he had fallen in combat to the "dreaded fighter-bombers". In a post-war account, French civilian Serge Varin, who took the only known photograph of the destroyed tank, claimed that he found an unexploded rocket nearby and that he saw no other penetration holes in the tank. Historian Brian Reid dismisses this contention as relevant RAF logs make no claim of engaging tanks in the area at that time. This position is supported by the men of Wittmann's unit who stated they did not come under air attack, and by British and Canadian tank crews who also dismissed any involvement by aircraft.

In a 1985 issue of After the Battle Magazine, Les Taylor, a wartime member of the 1st Northamptonshire Yeomanry, claimed that fellow yeoman Joe Ekins was responsible for the destruction of Wittmann's tank. Veteran and historian Ken Tout, a member of the same unit, published a similar account crediting Ekins. This became, for a time, the widely accepted version of events. According to Hart, Ekins's unit was positioned in a wood on the right flank of the advancing Tiger tanks. At approximately 12:47, they engaged them, halting the attack, and killing Wittmann.

Reid discusses the possibility that A Squadron of the Sherbrooke Fusilier Regiment, 2nd Canadian Armoured Brigade, positioned on the left flank of the advancing German tanks, was responsible instead. Commanded by Sydney Valpy Radley-Walters, the squadron's six 75 mm Shermans and two 17-pounder Sherman Fireflies were situated on the grounds of a chateau at Gaumesnil. The unit had created firing holes in the property's walls and, based on verbal testimony, engaged the advancing German tanks, including Tigers. The British tanks were between 1000 m and 1200 m away from the German line of advance, whereas the Canadian squadron was less than 150 m (500 feet) away behind a stone wall. Reid argues that due to the Canadians' proximity to the Germans, and the firing angle which precisely coincides with the tank round's entry hole in the Tiger, their troops more than likely destroyed Wittmann's tank. Reid supports this with H. Holfinger's account of the engagement. Holfinger was in a Tiger approximately 250 m behind Wittmann and he said Wittmann's Tiger was destroyed at 12:55. Ekins's crew was credited with the destruction of 3 Tigers at 12:40, 12:47 and 12:52, Wittmann's tank being allegedly the one destroyed at 12:47. Considering Holfinger's account, Reid concludes that the Tiger destroyed at 12:47 could not be that of Wittmann; he also notes that the circumstances surrounding the fate of the Tiger destroyed at 12:52 exclude the possibility that it could have been Wittmann's.

Assessment as a tank commander
Some historians and authors of the late twentieth-century found Wittmann's actions at Villers-Bocage impressive, describing his attack as "one of the most amazing engagements in the history of armoured warfare" (Hastings), "one of the most devastating single-handed actions of the war" (D'Este), and "one of the most devastating ambushes in British military history" (Beevor). Historian Stephen Badsey has stated that the ambush Wittmann launched has cast a shadow over the period between D-Day and 13 June in historical accounts.

With an unverified record of 130 tanks destroyed, Wittmann has been credited as being the top tank ace of the war. Others have noted Wittmann may have been Germany's top tank ace, although Kurt Knispel might have surpassed his tally.

Jim Storr, writing in The Human Face of War, notes that Wittman's attack on the British regiment at Bocage went beyond just a bad day of tanks losses for the British. He claims that the shock of losses to the British regiment had operational and strategic effect for the operation. Trigg says that in twenty or so minutes, Wittmann and his Tiger basically ended Operation Perch.

With his action in particular at Villers Bocage, A.D. Harvey, writing in Military History, compared him to Sergeant Alvin York, the famed American soldier of the First World War; both single-handedly destroyed large amounts of the enemy. Harvey noted that with a total of 138 tanks and 132 armoured vehicles destroyed, this tally made him the most successful tank commander in military history.

German tank commander and historian is not as impressed. In analyzing Wittmann's actions at Villers-Bocage, he called into question his tactical ability. Schneider states: "a competent tank company commander does not accumulate so many serious mistakes". He highlights how Wittmann gathered his forces in a sunken lane with a broken-down tank at the head of the column, thereby hampering his unit's mobility. The solitary advance into Villers-Bocage was heavily criticized as it breached "all the rules". No intelligence was obtained, and there was no "centre of gravity" or "concentration of forces" in the attack. Schneider argues that due to Wittmann's rash actions: "the bulk of the 2nd Company and Mobius 1st Company came up against an enemy who had gone onto the defensive". He calls Wittmann's "carefree" advance into British-occupied positions "pure folly", and says "such over hastiness was uncalled for." He concludes that had a properly prepared assault been launched involving the rest of his company, and the 1st Company, far greater results could have been achieved. Finally, Schneider opines that: "thoughtlessness of this kind was to cost [Wittmann] his life ... during an attack casually launched in open country with an exposed flank."

Historian Sönke Neitzel describes Wittmann as the "supposedly successful" tank commander of World War II and attests to "hero worshipping" around Wittmann. According to Neitzel, numbers of successes, by highly decorated tank commanders, should be read with caution as it is rarely possible to determine reliably, in the heat of battle, how many tanks were destroyed by whom.

Historian Steven Zaloga credits Wittmann with around 135 tank kills and points out that he achieved 120 of these in 1943, operating a Tiger I tank on the Eastern Front. Having advantages both in firepower and in armor, the Tiger I was "nearly invulnerable in a frontal engagement" against any of the Soviet tanks of that time, and Wittmann thus could destroy opposing tanks from a safe distance. Zaloga concludes that "Most of the 'tank aces' of World War II were simply lucky enough to have an invulnerable tank with a powerful gun." German documents from 1944 state that Allied technology had caught up with the Tiger I and "no longer can it prance around, oblivious to the laws of tank tactics". Zaloga believes that Wittmann's fate reflected that new reality: after his transfer to France, his crew only lasted two months, and was destroyed either by a British medium tank, the up-gunned Sherman Firefly, or a standard 75mm-equipped Sherman. The 75mm's armour piercing round was more than enough to have penetrated his Tiger's thin rear upper deck armour from less than 150 m (500 feet) and all of the Sherbrooke-Fusilier's records were lost shortly after the battle when an American aircraft negligently bombed the vehicle that contained these documents.

Writing in 2013, British historian John Buckley criticised the accounts which many historians continue to provide of the fighting around Villers-Bocage. Buckley argued that by wrongly attributing the entire German success to Wittmann, "many historians through to today continue to repackage unquestioningly Nazi propaganda".

Awards

 * Iron Cross (1939) 2nd Class (12 July 1941) & 1st Class (8 September 1941)
 * Panzer Badge in Silver
 * Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords
 * Knight's Cross on 14 January 1944
 * Oak Leaves on 30 January 1944
 * Swords on 22 June 1944

In popular culture
Wittmann is often featured in books on the battles in Normandy. Several websites are dedicated to him, along with books by authors such as Patrick Agte and Franz Kurowski. The former is an author and publisher affiliated with the pro-Waffen-SS revisionist history group HIAG, while the latter is a prolific author who lauded decorated Waffen-SS men.

Cult status
Wittmann became a cult figure after the war thanks to his accomplishments as a "panzer ace" (a highly decorated tank commander) in the portrayal of the Waffen-SS in popular culture. Historian Stephen Hart said that "the Wittmann legend [has] become well-established" and "continues to stimulate huge public interest". Military historian Steven Zaloga refers to Wittmann as "the hero of all Nazi fanboys". He discusses the popular perception of a tank-versus-tank engagement as an "armoured joust"—two opponents facing each other—with the "more valiant or better-armed the eventual victor". Zaloga contends that the perception is nothing but "romantic nonsense". According to him, most successful tank commanders were "bushwhackers", having a battlefield advantage rather than a technical one: a tank crew that could engage its opponent before the latter spotted it often came out on top.

Wittmann is featured by Kurowski in his 1992 book Panzer Aces, an ahistorical and hagiographic account of the combat careers of highly decorated Nazi tank commanders. Smelser and Davies describe Kurowski's version of the war on the Eastern Front as "well-nigh chivalrous", with German troops "showing concerns for the Russian wounded, despite the many atrocities" of the Soviets against the Germans. In one of Kurowski's accounts, Wittmann takes out eighteen tanks in a single engagement, for which Sepp Dietrich, the commanding officer, presents him with an Iron Cross and inquires whether Wittmann has a request. Without hesitation, Wittmann asks for assistance for a wounded Russian soldier he has spotted. Many similar acts of "humanity" are present in the book, amounting to a distorted image of the German fighting men.

title: Michael Wittmann


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In-situ conservation

In situ conservation is the on-site conservation or the conservation of genetic resources in natural populations of plant or animal species, such as forest genetic resources in natural populations of tree species. This process protects the inhabitants and ensures the sustainability of the environment and ecosystem.

Its converse is ex situ conservation, where threatened species are moved to another location. These can include places like seed libraries, gene banks and more where they are protected through human intervention.

Nature reserves
Nature reserves (or biosphere reserves) cover very large areas, often more than 5000 km2. They are used to protect species for a long time. There are 3 different classifications for these reserves:

 * Strict Natural Areas
 * Managed Natural Areas
 * Wilderness Areas

Strict natural areas are creates to protect the state of nature in a given region. It is not made for the purpose of protecting any species within its limits. managed natural areas alternatively are made specifically for the purpose of protecting a certain species or community that is at the point it may be at risk being in a strict natural area. This is a more controlled environment that is created to be the most optimal habitat for the species concerned to thrive. Finally, a wilderness area serves a dual purpose of providing a protection for the natural region as well as providing recreational opportunities for patrons (excluding motorized transport)

National parks
A national park is an area dedicated for the conservation of wildlife along with its environment. A national park is an area which is used to conserve scenery, natural and historical objects. It is usually a small reserve covering an area of about 100 to 500 square kilometers. Within biosphere reserves, one or more national parks may also exist.

Wildlife sanctuaries
Wildlife sanctuaries can provide a higher quality of life for animals who are moved there. These animals are placed in specialized habitats that allows for more species-specific behaviors to take place. Wildlife sanctuaries are often used for animals that have been in zoos, circuses, laboratories and more for a long time, and then live the rest of their lives with greater autonomy in these habitats.

Biodiversity hotspots
Several international organizations focus their conservation work on areas designated as biodiversity hotspots.

According to Conservation International, to qualify as a biodiversity hotspot a region must meet two strict criteria: Biodiversity hotspots make up 1.4% of the earth's land area, yet they contain more than half of our planets species.
 * it must contain at least 1,500 species of vascular plants (∆ 0.5% of the world's total) as endemics,
 * it has to have lost at least 70% of its original habitat.

Gene sanctuary
A gene sanctuary is an area where plants are conserved. It includes both biosphere reserves as well as national parks. Biosphere reserves are developed to be both a place for biodiversity conservation as well as sustainable development. The concept was first developed in the 1970s and include a core, buffer and transition zones. These zones act together to harmonize the conservation and development aspects of the biosphere.

Since 2004, and 30 years following the invention of the biosphere reserve concept, there have been about 459 conservation areas developed in 97 countries.

Benefits
One benefit of in situ conservation is that it maintains recovering populations in the environment where they have developed their distinctive properties. Another benefit is that this strategy helps ensure the ongoing processes of evolution and adaptation within their environments. As a last resort, ex situ conservation may be used on some or all of the population, when in situ conservation is too difficult, or impossible. The species gets adjusted to the natural disasters like drought, floods, forest fires and this method is very cheap and convenient.

Reserves
Wildlife and livestock conservation involves the protection of wildlife habitats. Sufficiently large reserves must be maintained to enable the target species to exist in large numbers. The population size must be sufficient to enable the necessary genetic diversity to survive, so that it has a good chance of continuing to adapt and evolve over time. This reserve size can be calculated for target species by examining the population density in naturally occurring situations. The reserves must then be protected from intrusion or destruction by man, and against other catastrophes.

Agriculture
In agriculture, in situ conservation techniques are an effective way to improve, maintain, and use traditional or native varieties of agricultural crops. Such methodologies link the positive output of scientific research with farmers' experience and field work.

First, the accessions of a variety stored at a germplasm bank and those of the same variety multiplied by farmers are jointly tested in the producers field and in the laboratory, under different situations and stresses. Thus, the scientific knowledge about the production characteristics of the native varieties is enhanced. Later, the best tested accessions are crossed, mixed, and multiplied under replicable situations. At last, these improved accessions are supplied to the producers. Thus, farmers are enabled to crop improved selections of their own varieties, instead of being lured to substitute their own varieties with commercial ones or to abandon their crop. This technique of conservation of agricultural biodiversity is more successful in marginal areas, where commercial varieties are not expedient, due to climate and soil fertility constraints, or where the taste and cooking characteristics of traditional varieties compensate for their lower yields.

In India
About 4% of the total geographical area of India is used for in situ conservation.

There are 18 biosphere reserves in India, including Nanda Devi in Uttarakhand, Nokrek in Meghalaya, Manas National Park in Assam and Sundarban in West Bengal.

There are 106 national parks in India, including The Kaziranga National Park which conserves The one-horned rhino, Periyar National Park conserving the tiger and elephant, and Ranthambore National Park conserving the tiger.

There are 551 wildlife sanctuaries in India.

Biodiversity hotspots include the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, the Indo-Burma region and the Sundaland.

India has set up its first gene sanctuary in the Garo Hills of Meghalaya for wild relatives of citrus. Efforts are also being made to set up gene sanctuaries for banana, sugarcane, rice and mango.

Community reserves were established as a type of protected area in India in the Wildlife Protection Amendment Act 2002, to provide legal support to community or privately owned reserves which cannot be designated as national park or wildlife sanctuary.

Sacred groves are tracts of forest set aside where all the trees and wildlife within are venerated and given total protection.

In China
China has up to 2538 nature reserves which cover 15% of the entire country.

The majority of in situ conservation areas are concentrated in the regions of Tibet, Qinghai and Xinjiang. These provinces, all in western China, take up about 56% of the nature reserves in the country.

Eastern and southern China contain 90% of the country's population, and in these areas there are few nature reserves. In these regions, nature reserves actively compete with human development projects to support a growing demand for infrastructure. One consequence of this competing development has been the movement of the South China tiger out of its natural habitat.

In eastern and southern China many natural landscapes that remain undeveloped are fragmented; however nature reserves may provide crucial refuge for key species as well as ecosystem services.

title: In-situ conservation