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Dan Dare

Dan Dare is a  British science fiction comic hero, created by illustrator Frank Hampson who also wrote the first stories. Dare appeared in the Eagle comic series Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future from 1950 to 1967 (and subsequently in reprints), and dramatised seven times a week on Radio Luxembourg (1951–1956).

The stories were set in the late 1990s, but the dialogue and manner of the characters is reminiscent of British war films of the 1950s. Dan Dare has been described as "Biggles in Space" and as the British equivalent of Buck Rogers. Dan Dare was distinguished by its long, complex storylines, snappy dialogue and meticulously illustrated comic-strip artwork by Hampson and other artists, including Harold Johns, Don Harley, Bruce Cornwell, Greta Tomlinson, Frank Bellamy, and Keith Watson.

Dan Dare returned in new strips in 2000 AD in 1977 until 1979 and in the relaunched Eagle in 1982 until 1994. The most recent mainstream story was a Dan Dare mini-series published by Titan Comics in 2017. It was written by Peter Milligan and is a completely new interpretation of Dan Dare, who is struggling to adapt to a peaceful life after the Mekon was defeated. Since October 2003, Dare's adventures have also continued in Spaceship Away, a mail-order magazine created by Rod Barzilay. Its mission statement is to continue the original Dare's adventures where the original Eagle left off, in a style as close to that of the classic strip as possible. To that end, Barzilay originally hired former Eagle artist Keith Watson, and following Watson's death Don Harley, both of whom had drawn Dare in the 1960s, to work on the strips which are written very much in the style of the Fifties stories.

Eagle

Dan Dare appeared on the cover of the first issue of the weekly comic strip magazine, Eagle, on 14 April 1950. There were two large colour pages of his story per issue. The artwork was of a high quality, the product of artists in a studio called the Old Bakehouse in Churchtown, Southport, Lancashire. The Eagle's founder, the Rev John Marcus Harston Morris, was vicar of the Southport church of St James at the time. It had scale models of spaceships, and models in costume as reference for the artists. Occasionally, Eagle incorporated "centrefolds" of the fictional spaceships, such as Dan's ship the Anastasia, reminiscent of cutaway drawings of aircraft in aviation magazines or even in Eagle itself. The storylines were long and complex, sometimes lasting more than a year. Later, artwork was produced at a studio in Hampson's house in Epsom, Surrey, where his production line techniques were continued.

Attention was paid to scientific plausibility, the promising young writer Arthur C. Clarke (later a science fiction luminary) acting as science and plot adviser for the first six months of strips. The stories were set mostly on planets of the Solar System presumed to have extraterrestrial life and alien inhabitants, common in science fiction before space probes of the 1960s proved the most likely worlds were lifeless. The first story begins with Dan Dare as pilot of the first successful flight to Venus.

Hampson's working habits twice caused him to suffer serious breakdowns in health, leaving his assistants to continue the series. The first occurred after two episodes of "Marooned on Mercury" (1952), which was taken over by Harold Johns, from scripts by Samaritans founder and clergyman Rev. Chad Varah, who had known Marcus Morris in Southport. Hampson returned to start the following story, "Operation Saturn" (1953), but suffered a relapse after 20 weeks. Principal art was taken over by new chief assistant Don Harley, who completed the story and its successor, "Prisoners of Space" (the only series to feature extensive work by an artist outside the studio, finishes being provided by Desmond Walduck).

Hampson returned full-time in 1955, starting "The Man from Nowhere" trilogy, which took Dan and his companions outside the Solar System for the first time.

The quality of the strip and its popularity remained high throughout the 1950s. In the late fifties Eagle's new owners objected to the cost of the studio and the complexity of the stories. The conflict caused Hampson to leave the strip in 1959, in the middle of a long plot that saw Dan searching an alien planet for his long-lost father. Production fell to Frank Bellamy, whose modern three-dimensional style contrasted with Hampson's, despite efforts to smooth the transition by alternating the two pages of the weekly strip between Bellamy and the team of Don Harley and Keith Watson, and freelance artist Bruce Cornwell, who had been part of Hampson's studio at the beginning.

Characters
Dan Dare was surrounded by a varying cast, initially:
 * Dan Dare (full name Colonel Daniel McGregor Dare) was chief pilot of the Interplanet Space Fleet. He was born in Manchester, England, in 1967 and educated at Rossall School. Although not a super-hero, he sometimes pulled off exceptional piloting and often proved extraordinarily lucky. He excelled at jujutsu, but he most often found non-violent solutions to predicaments. He was bound by a sense of honour, never lied, and would rather die than break his word.
 * His lean-faced character was recognisable by the outer tips of his eyebrows, which were wavy. His uniform looked like a typical British Army type (Frank Hampson used his own World War II army uniform as a model), though a lighter green. In place of British rank insignia it had coloured stripes and circles on the shoulderboards. His cap badge was a vertical, antique rocketship in a circle with one five-pointed star on either side. Initially, Dare had been intended to be portrayed as a chaplain.

 * Digby (Albert Fitzwilliam Digby) was Dan's Wigan-born batman. Rotund and sometimes bumbling, he provided comic relief. He was fiercely loyal and the only character apart from Dan to appear in every story. His favourite recreation was sleeping and he was fond of traditional English food. His nearest relative was his Aunt Anastasia, after whom Dan named his spaceship.
 * Sir Hubert Guest, Controller of the Space Fleet, sent Dan on missions, and occasionally joined him. He was a veteran pilot, having been on the first mission to the Moon and led the first mission to Mars. He was based on Hampson's father.
 * Professor Peabody (Prof. Jocelyn Mabel Peabody), the only major female, was the brains behind many of the team's most inventive plans.
 * Hank Hogan and Pierre Lafayette, stereotypically American and French, were two of the Fleet's best pilots and an inseparable double-act. Pierre was primarily a pilot, Hank more a mechanic.
 * Sondar was a Treen, a reptilian inhabitant of northern Venus. Originally a servant of the Mekon, he reformed after Dan spared his life during a traumatic episode that also caused his first experience of strong emotion, which the Treens suppressed. He became governor of northern Venus when the planet was placed under UN rule at the end of the first story, but nevertheless joined Dan on later adventures. He was also a talented spacecraft designer, and designed Dan's personal spaceship.
 * The Mekon, super-intelligent ruler of the Treens, was Dan's archenemy. He escaped at the end of each story to return with an even more inventive scheme for the conquest of Earth.
 * Christopher 'Flamer' Spry, freckle-faced student at 'Astral' space academy, who accompanies Dan Dare on many later missions. Flamer was based on Hampson's son, Peter Hampson. No forename for 'Flamer' was ever given in the comic strip itself.
 * Lex O'Malley, bearded Irish submarine commander, who accompanies Dan Dare on later missions.

With the exception of Digby, all the supporting cast were dropped after 1961, although Guest, O'Malley, Hogan and Sondar made occasional reappearances. In 1963, Keith Watson and writer David Motton were allowed to introduce a new supporting cast, who remained with the series throughout the rest of its run:
 * Colonel Wilf Banger, handlebar moustache, pilot and designer, an impulsive and volatile character. Banger designed and built the Tempus Frangit.
 * Technician Nutter Cobb, red-haired, broken-nosed. Banger's assistant, a Digby to his Dare.
 * Major Shillitoe Spence, balding, pencil moustache. A prim, fussy administrator.
 * Xel, first encountered in Operation Time Trap in 1963. Xel is another enemy in the mould of the Mekon. Having stowed away with Dare at the end of his first appearance, in the next story Xel allies with the Mekon but the two fall out. Xel would make regular appearances through the 60s before being finally captured.

Vehicles
Spacecraft of various designs were presented as the product of inhabitants of various planets. The vehicle most identified with Dan was the winged Anastasia. Designed by Sondar, it employed both Venusian and Earth space drives. Later, an alien ship was adopted and renamed the Zyl-bat. There was also an experimental time-travelling ship called Tempus Frangit (Latin: it breaks time or time breaks).

There were land and air vehicles – in the first stories, cars conform to styling of the time, while some flying machines were based on the design of helicopters of the mid-twentieth century. Also of note was Lex O'Malley's ship, the Poseidon, a versatile craft that could operate as a jetfoil as well as a submarine.

London Transport used overhead monorails and helibuses in early stories. Ground transport cars were also drawn with gyroscopes and single wheels.

Venusian vehicles were depicted as being technologically more advanced than those of Earth. South of the Flamebelt the Therons had applied their technology to peaceful agricultural purposes including dedicated agricultural land and flying machines. North of the Flamebelt the Treens perfected low friction/low energy consumption means of transport including vacuum tube transport (Electrosenders) for long distance travel.

Spaceports
There is evidence that the Spacefleet spaceport on Earth is west of Formby in Lancashire on a semicircle of land built into the Irish Sea by landfill.

Spacesuits
Spacefleet spacesuits had a corselet plate like on Siebe Gorman standard diving suits. Their suit had no life-support backpack; the life-support gear was between two layers of the helmet.

All or most Dan Dare comic pictures were drawn from models or posed humans. As a result, the Spacefleet spacesuits in space hang in folds like the boilersuit in which the models posed and show no sign of gas pressure. After the first Venus war, Spacefleet spacesuits had propulsor backpacks copied from a Treen or Theron design.

Some other spacesuits such as Blasco's have life-support backpacks.

1960s
In 1960 artwork was taken over by Frank Bellamy, Don Harley, Keith Watson, Gerald Palmer, with Bruce Cornwell, and the look changed, with the colourful, rounded rocket ships replaced by angular silver craft, and changes to the space suits and insignia. The changes were never wholeheartedly taken up, however, and the look was erratic from then on. In 1962 the strip was removed from the front to the inside of the comic, in black and white, and was drawn by Keith Watson. Over the remaining years the strip varied in format and quality, eventually returning to the front page in colour, until it ended in 1967 with Dan retiring to become Space Fleet controller. Strips from the 1950s were reprinted until 1969, when Eagle merged with Lion. For a while the reprints continued in black and white in Lion.

2000 AD
In 1977, Dan Dare appeared again in the first issue of 2000 AD (26 February 1977). The first installment, scripted by Ken Armstrong and Pat Mills, had the character revived from suspended animation after two hundred years to find himself in a different world. The Mekon had also survived but otherwise the cast was different, as was the tone of the strip (heavily influenced by the punk movement, as was much of 2000 AD) and the personality of the title character. Written by Kelvin Gosnell and then Steve Moore, the strip was initially illustrated by Massimo Belardinelli, whose Dare owed nothing to the original apart from the wavy eyebrows. After 23 issues in this format the strip took a break for a month and then returned in a revamped format with a more realistic style, written by Gerry Finley-Day and Jack Adrian (Chris Lowder) and illustrated by Dave Gibbons. Dare was now launched on a deep space mission, much in the style of Star Trek but with technology designs very much influenced by Star Wars. In a series of episodic adventures, Dare encountered various threats, including an extended multi-episode adventure uniting slave races in opposition to the "Star Slayers" – the oppressive race controlling that region. The overall mission had a surprisingly downbeat ending, leaving a space-suited Dare the only survivor, adrift in space on wreckage.

The strip was rested for 14 issues, returning early in 1979 in 2000 AD's 100th issue. The amnesiac Dare is rescued from space by the Mekon and indoctrinated into the Mekon's army before eventually recovering his memory. Now penned by Tom Tully but still drawn by Dave Gibbons, this re-imagining of Dare casts him almost as a superhero with a colourful tight-fitting uniform provided by the Mekon. Dare escapes to a planet that is home to an amphibian-like race, which claims he is their Chosen One. There he receives a semi-mystical glove that can shoot energy beams but is unable to prevent the Mekon from acquiring the mystical Crystal of Life. On his return to Earth, he and his Treen companion Sondar find themselves branded traitors and found guilty of helping the Mekon to steal the Crystal. This story arc concluded with the pair escaping the Earth authorities and going on the run to try to clear their names by tracking down the Mekon and recovering the Crystal, establishing the format for the next story arc. Despite promises that Dare and Sondar would be back, the 2000 AD Dan Dare strip "Attack on Eternium" ended here in prog 126 (18 August 1979).

In 1997, to celebrate their 20th anniversary, 2000 AD published two issues with additional free comics, the first a reprint of the first issue of 2000 AD, which starred Dan Dare. The second free comic was a speculative issue called 3000 AD which contained strips partially based on the first issue of 2000 AD. One strip was entitled "The Return of Dan Dare", which also featured the return of the Mekon.

New Eagle
In 1982 Eagle was re-launched, with Dan Dare again its flagship strip. The new character was the great-great-great-grandson of the original hero—the only surviving character from the original strip being the Mekon. The initial artist was Gerry Embleton, who drew Dan to resemble the original exactly, but he was quickly replaced by Ian Kennedy, who gave the hero a younger look and blond hair.

The opening Dan Dare story was an epic, lasting 18 months, written by Pat Mills and John Wagner. It opened with a flashback to the unseen final defeat of the Mekon by the original Dan, after which he was sealed inside an artificial asteroid and exiled into space. Centuries later he was accidentally freed and returned to conquer Earth. A few years later the descendant of his sworn enemy returned from space to find Earth under Treen rule and set out to free the planet. His new cast included Lt Helen Scott, leader of the Earth Resistance, and Valdon, a renegade Treen similar to the earlier Sondar. One controversial aspect of the strip was a lengthy flashback which retconned the original Dan to be a veteran of the Second World War and to have travelled through time to the era in which his adventures in the original Eagle took place—an attempt to explain why a hero in the age of space travel had a 1950s outlook on life.

After this initial storyline other writers were used and different supporting characters came and went, including Professor Pinkerton, a female scientist similar to Professor Peabody, and a new Digby (again, a descendant of the original). The Mekon was generally the foe in alternate stories.

In 1987 the strip became more like a space opera, with increasing violence. Now drawn by John Gillatt, Dan took on a tough-guy look. He led space commandos and packed a hi-tech gun reminiscent of that carried by Judge Dredd.

The original strip, featuring the original characters of the 1950s Eagle, was revived in 1989, with artist Keith Watson providing the artwork for the initial run of stories. Watson had been part of the Dan Dare team from 1958 to 1960 and was sole artist on Dan Dare from 1962 to 1967. The artwork for the final stories was provided by David Pugh. The new Eagle ended in 1994.

Revolver
In 1990, a strip entitled Dare, written by Grant Morrison and drawn by Rian Hughes, was serialised in Revolver. It presented bleak and cynical characters and was a not-too-subtle satire of 1980s British politics, from the perspective of the defeated left wing of the Labour Party. Spacefleet had been privatised, the Treens were subjected to racist abuse in urban ghettos, Digby was unemployed, Professor Peabody committed suicide, and Dare's mentor Sir Hubert Guest betrayed Dare to the Mekon and his quisling British Prime Minister, Gloria Monday (whose appearance and demeanour appear modelled on Margaret Thatcher). Ultimately, Dare destroys London, the Mekon and himself through a smuggled nuclear weapon. The last episode appeared in Crisis, following Revolver's cancellation. This version was not popular.

The Planet
In 1996, The Planet published its first and only issue. Inside was a new and unfinished Dan Dare story, "Remembrance", drawn by Sydney Jordan featuring a slightly older Dare and apparently set some years after the original Eagle strips.

Virgin Comics
In 2007–2008 Virgin Comics published a 7-issue Dan Dare mini-series written by Garth Ennis, with art by Gary Erskine. Virgin's founder and chairman Richard Branson is a fan of the character. The series is set several years after the original strips. Space Fleet has collapsed along with the UN due to nuclear war between China and America; Britain survived due to defensive shields made by Professor Peabody, and has become a world power again as a result, with the Royal Navy taking Space Fleet's role. Peabody is the Home Secretary to a prime minister modelled on Tony Blair, who has sold Earth's defence out to The Mekon out of fear of overwhelming odds. Dare, assisted by Digby (who sacrifices himself in battle) leads a spirited defence of both Earth and his honourable principles.

Spaceship Away
Launched in October 2003, Spaceship Away magazine was originally created in order to get "The Phoenix Mission" (a 1950s style story by Rod Barzilay with art by Keith Watson and Don Harley) into publication, with the agreement of the Dan Dare Corporation. Response was good enough to warrant the magazine's continuation following that strip's conclusion, initially with "Green Nemesis" (again by Barzilay and Don Harley, with later chapters drawn by David Pugh and Tim Booth). Other stories have since followed.

Despite a fairly small circulation (it is available only via mail order, through its own website, or in a select few comic shops), Spaceship Away continues to appear three times a year as of 2022.

Titan Comics
In 2017–18 a four-issue mini-series by Peter Milligan and Alberto Foche was published by Titan Comics.

Radio Luxembourg serial
The New Adventures of Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future aired five times a week on Radio Luxembourg for five years from 2 July 1951. Dan's voice was Noel Johnson, who also played Dick Barton on BBC radio. Each episode started with the command "Spaceships Away!". The 15-minute show was sponsored by Horlicks and on 3 March 1952, the 106th episode of Dan Dare was heard that Monday night with different episodes on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 7:15pm. Although the dramatisation was recorded on wax discs for broadcast, the original discs were lost or destroyed. Until recently no copies had ever been recovered but in late 2011 two episodes were found as part of the Lost Shows Appeal, orchestrated by missing episode hunter Charles Norton. The recovered shows were "Under Sentence of Death" (episode 76), aired on 21 January 1952, and "The Lost World On Mars" (episode 53), aired on 19 March 1953.

Radio Madrid serial
"Diego Valor" Spanish adaptation of Dan Dare from 1954

BBC adaptation
From 19 April – 10 May 1990, BBC Radio 4 aired a four-part adaptation of Voyage to Venus, dramatised by Nick McCarty and directed by Glyn Dearman. The cast included Mick Ford (Col. Dan Dare), Donald Gee (Digby), Richard Pearce (the Mekon), Terence Alexander (Sir Hubert Guest), Zelah Clarke (Prof. Peabody), William Roberts (Hank Hogan), Sean Barrett (Pierre Lafayette), John Moffatt (Kalon), Shirley Dixon (Mrs. Digby), Ben Onwukwe (Volstar), David Goudge (Sondar), Margaret Courtenay (Aunt Anastasia), Brian Miller (Urtag), David King (Dapon).

B7 Media adaptation
In September 2015, B7 Media secured the rights to produce a new Dan Dare audio drama series from the Dan Dare Corporation. The lead writers were Richard Kurti and Bev Doyle, with Andrew Mark Sewell as director and Simon Moorhead as producer; John Freeman served as creative consultant. The first volume, released in 2016, starred Ed Stoppard as Dan Dare, Geoff McGivern as Digby, Heida Reed as Professor Peabody, Michael Cochrane as Sir Hubert, Raad Rawi as the Mekon and Bijan Daneshmand as Sondar; Volume 2 was released in 2017. Both volumes were produced in association with Big Finish Productions. BBC Radio 4 Extra began airing the B7 episodes in August 2018.

Television
In the 1980s, a series of live-action adverts for Mobil motor oil featured Dan and Digby in comedic situations, trying to get their rockets to go faster. The dialogue was straight from wartime upper class RAF officers' slang.

In 2002, Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future became a computer-generated TV series produced first by Netter Digital then by Foundation Imaging, running to twenty-six 22-minute episodes. The series drew on several comic book incarnations. It started on Nicktoons UK on 5 November 2005 at 6.30 pm. Two abortive attempts had been made to make a live-action series, in 1981 and 1991. James Fox and Robert Bathurst were reportedly lined up to play Dare respectively. In 1991, a short pilot starring Bathurst as Dare and Geoffrey Hughes as Digby was made. Parts of it were broadcast in an ITV documentary, Future Perfect.

Film
In 2010, Variety announced that Warner Bros. was planning to produce a Dan Dare movie starring Sam Worthington in the title role.

Computer games
During the 1980s Dan Dare starred in three computer games for the Commodore 64/128, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC and Atari computers. The first was a different game on each system; the second and third were shoot'em-ups. All three were based on the 1950s strip rather than the contemporary comics:
 * Dan Dare: Pilot of the Future (1986, Electronic Arts, re-released by Ricochet)
 * Dan Dare II: The Mekon's Revenge (1988, Virgin Games, re-released by Ricochet)
 * Dan Dare III: The Escape (1990, Virgin Games)

Console video games
The protagonist human character from the Gaiares science fiction space shooter starfighter combat game released in Japan in 1990 was changed from an original character called Dan Diaz to the legendary sci-fi hero Dan Dare in the English translated western version.

Music
Pink Floyd founder Syd Barrett wrote Dan Dare into his song "Astronomy Domine", from the band's debut album The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, with the line "Stairway scare, Dan Dare, who's there?".

British electronic dance group Fluke mentioned Dan Dare in their song "Absurd", "Dan Dare's sitting there, scared by the killer teddy bears".

David Bowie's song "D.J." contains the somewhat obscure lyric: "I feel like Dan Dare lies down".

Elton John recorded "Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future)" for his 1975 album Rock of the Westies.

Les Barker's album Dogologues includes a monologue "Dan Dare".

British punk rock group The Mekons included their song "Dan Dare" on their 1979 album The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen, and recorded it again for their 2004 album Punk Rock. The album Below the Waste by the Art of Noise opened with the song "Dan Dare".

The relaunch of the Eagle Magazine in 1982 saw a free single giveaway of a track called Dan Dare by the group Loose Talk.

Characters inspired by Dan Dare
Characters inspired by or based on Dan Dare have appeared throughout British popular culture. One example is Wing Commander Leyton in British Summertime by Paul Cornell, which juxtaposes the utopian future portrayed in the original comics with the Britain of today.

In the 1980s, Private Eye published Dan Dire, Pilot of The Future?. Dire was based on politician Neil Kinnock, the question being whether he'd ever become prime minister. Dire's enemy was the Maggon, a combination of the Mekon and Margaret Thatcher.

Radio DJ and Comedian Kenny Everett's character Captain Kremmen was inspired by Dan Dare.

A porcine pastiche, Ham Dare: Pig of the Future, written by Lew Stringer and with art by Malcolm Douglas, appeared in Oink! comic.

Marvel Comics created a Dan Dare-esque character in their Captain Britain line in the 1980s. The character was Roy Risk, one of the British heroes killed by The Fury.

In Jonathan Hickman's Avengers series, the character Smasher's secret identity is astronomer Isabel 'Izzy' Dare whose dying elderly grandfather alludes to Izzy as inheriting a destiny from him. He hand her a business card that expresses a deep friendship with Captain America. The card reveals the grandfather's name as Dan. In the trade hardcover for Avengers, Izzy's last name is changed to Kane, meaning her grandfather is Marvel's Captain Terror.

In his Afterword to Ministry of Space, Warren Ellis lists Dan Dare as one of the inspirations for the story, in which Britain forges an ambitious space programme in the decades following World War II. Sir John Dashwood, the central character of Ministry of Space, is a cynical version of Dan Dare himself.

Captain Jack Harkness, the Doctor Who and Torchwood character, has several similarities to Dan Dare. The script for the episode "The Empty Child" in which Captain Jack makes his first appearance describes him as having "the jawline of Dan Dare, the smile of a bastard".

Collected editions
Most of the 1950s and 1960s strips were reprinted by Hawk Books between 1987 and 1995:
 * 1) Pilot of the Future
 * 2) The Red Moon Mystery and Marooned on Mercury
 * 3) Operation Saturn
 * 4) Prisoners of Space
 * 5) The Man from Nowhere
 * 6) Rogue Planet
 * 7) Reign of the Robots and The Ship That Lived
 * 8) The Phantom Fleet
 * 9) Terra Nova trilogy
 * 10) Project Nimbus
 * 11) Solid Space Mystery
 * 12) The Final Volume

Stories left out were :
 * Operation Earthsavers (v13, 10–23)
 * The Evil One (v13, 24–32)
 * Operation Fireball (v13, 33–42)
 * The Web of Fear (v13, 43–52)
 * Operation Dark Star (v14, 1–9)
 * Operation Time Trap (v14, 10–38)
 * The Wandering World (v14, 39 – v15, 13)
 * The Big City Caper (v15, 14–22)
 * The Singing Scourge (v16, 30 – v17, 6)
 * Give Me The Moon (v17, 7–26)

In 2004, Titan Books began collecting the series from the beginning of the Hampson run in dust-jacketed hardback editions. Collected thus far:

 * Voyage to Venus Part 1 (96 pages, April 2004, ISBN 1-84023-644-2)
 * Voyage to Venus Part 2 (96 pages, September 2004, ISBN 1-84023-841-0)
 * The Red Moon Mystery (96 pages, October 2004, ISBN 1-84023-666-3)
 * Marooned on Mercury (96 pages, January 2005, ISBN 1-84023-847-X)
 * Operation Saturn Part 1 (96 pages, April 2005, ISBN 1-84023-809-7)
 * Operation Saturn Part 2 (96 pages, July 2005, ISBN 1-84576-088-3)
 * Prisoners of Space (112 pages, November 2005, ISBN 1-84576-151-0)
 * The Man From Nowhere (96 pages, April 2007, ISBN 1-84576-412-9)
 * Rogue Planet (144 pages, August 2007, ISBN 1-84576-413-7)
 * Reign of the Robots (112 pages, April 2008, ISBN 1-84576-414-5)
 * Phantom Fleet (104 pages, March 2009, ISBN 1-84856-127-X)
 * Safari in Space (96 pages, January 2010, ISBN 1-84856-372-8)
 * Trip to Trouble (96 pages, November 2010, ISBN 1-84856-366-3)
 * Mission of the Earthmen (November 2017), includes The Solid Space Mystery
 * The Earth Stealers(May 2018), includes "The Platinum Planet"
 * The Evil One (24 September 2019). (New artists, black & white).

The Morrison/Hughes Revolver series has been collected by Fleetway in 1991 as Dare: The Controversial Memoir of Dan Dare (ISBN 1853862118).

The 2007 series had the first three issues collected into one hardback volume, released in April 2008 (ISBN 0981520022), but the whole series was collected into a single volume by Virgin Comics later in the year, with Dynamite Entertainment also making hardcovers and softcovers available early in 2009:

 * Dan Dare (208 pages, hardcover, Virgin Comics, September 2008, ISBN 0-9814808-3-7, Dynamite Entertainment, February 2009, ISBN 1-60690-027-7, March 2009, ISBN 1-60690-054-4, softcover, September 2009, ISBN 1-60690-055-2)

A collection of stories from 2000 AD was published in November 2015.
 * Dan Dare: The 2000 AD Years, vol. 1 (320 pages, hardcover, Rebellion Developments, November 2015, ISBN 1-78108-349-5)
 * Dan Dare The 2000 AD Years, vol. 2 (320 pages, hardcover, Rebellion Developments, November 2016, ISBN 9781781084601)

title: Dan Dare


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Kidnapping

In criminal law, kidnapping is the unlawful abduction and confinement of a person against their will. Kidnapping is typically but not necessarily accomplished by use of force or fear; i.e., it also usually involves menace/assault or/and battery; but it is still kidnapping without those additional elements, or if a person is enticed to enter the vehicle or dwelling willingly. Motives for kidnappings vary. Criminal gangs and insurgent groups may engage in kidnappings for economic reasons, to exert territorial control, to generate support, or as bargaining leverage.

Kidnapping of a child is known as child abduction, which is a separate legal category. Kidnapping may be done to demand a ransom in exchange for releasing the victim, or for other illegal purposes. Kidnapping can be accompanied by bodily injury, which elevates the crime to aggravated kidnapping.

Motives
There are varied motives for kidnapping. They particularly across perpetrators, such as individuals, enslavers, cults, criminal gangs, and insurgent groups.

The kidnapping of adults is often for ransom or to force someone to withdraw money from an ATM, but may also be for sexual assault. Kidnapping of children is usually done by one parent or others. Children have also been kidnapped for the commission of sexual assault.

In the past, and presently in some parts of the world (such as southern Sudan), kidnapping is a common means used to obtain slaves and money through ransom. In the 19th century, kidnapping in the form of shanghaiing (or "pressganging") men supplied merchant ships with sailors, whom the law considered unfree labour.

Mexican gangs are estimated to have made up to $250 million in kidnappings from Central American migrants.

Kidnapping has been identified as one source by which terrorist organizations have been known to obtain funding.

According to a 2022 study by political scientist Danielle Gilbert, armed groups in Colombia engage in ransom kidnappings as a way to maintain the armed groups' local systems of taxation. The groups resort to ransom kidnappings to punish tax evasion and incentivize inhabitants not to shirk. A 2024 study argued that insurgent groups are more likely to engage in kidnappings "under two conditions: to generate support and reinstate bargaining capacity when organizations suffer military losses on the battlefield and to enforce loyalties and display strength when organizations face violent competition from other non-state actors."

Bride kidnapping is a term often applied loosely, to include any bride "abducted" against the will of her parents, even if she is willing to marry the "abductor". It still is traditional amongst certain nomadic peoples of Central Asia. It has seen a resurgence in Kyrgyzstan since the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent erosion of women's rights.

Express kidnapping is a method of abduction used in some countries, mainly from Latin America, where a small ransom, that a company or family can easily pay, is demanded. Express kidnapping is also used for an immediate ransom in which the victim is taken to an ATM and forced to give the captor money.

Tiger kidnapping occurs when a person is kidnapped, and the captor forces them to commit a crime such as robbery or murder. The victim is held hostage until the captor's demands are met. The term originates from the usually long preceding observation, like a tiger does when stalking prey. This is a method which has been used by the Real Irish Republican Army and the Continuity Irish Republican Army.

Kidnapping has sometimes been used by the family and friends of a cult member as a method to remove them from the cult and begin a deprogramming process to change their allegiance away from the group.

Australia
In Australia, kidnapping is a criminal offence, as defined by either the State Crimes Act or the Commonwealth Criminal Code. It is a serious indictable offence, and is punishable by up to 14 – 25 years imprisonment.

Canada
Kidnapping that does not result in a homicide is a hybrid offence that comes with a maximum possible penalty of life imprisonment (18 months if tried summarily). A murder that results from kidnapping is classified as 1st-degree, with a sentence of life imprisonment that results from conviction (the mandatory penalty for murder under Canadian law).

Mexico
The General Law to Prevent and Punish Crimes of Kidnapping establishes a prison sentence of 20–40 years for an individual convicted of holding another person as a hostage. The prison term increases to 25–45 years if the kidnapping occurred with violence against the victims, and then increases to 25–50 years if the kidnapping was committed by members of public safety. If the kidnapping results in homicide, the prison sentence will be from 40 to 70 years.

Pakistan
In Pakistan, there are two kinds of kidnapping: Kidnapping from Pakistan and kidnapping from lawful guardianship. Penal Code 360 states that whoever conveys any person beyond the limits of Pakistan without the consent of that person or of some person legally authorized to consent on behalf of that person is said to kidnap that person from Pakistan. Penal Code 363 states that whoever kidnaps any person from Pakistan or lawful guardianship shall be punished with imprisonment of either description of a term which may extend to seven years and shall also be liable to a fine. Kidnapping with a motive of murder, hurt, slavery, or to the lust of any person shall be punished with imprisonment for life with rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to a fine.

Netherlands
Article 282 prohibits hostaging (and 'kidnapping' is a kind of 'hostaging'). Part 1 of Article 282 allows sentencing kidnappers to maximum imprisonment of 8 years or a fine of the fifth category. Part 2 allows maximum imprisonment of 9 years or a fine of the fifth category if there are serious injuries. Part 3 allows maximum imprisonment of 12 years or a fine of the fifth category if the victim has been killed. Part 4 allows sentencing people that collaborate with kidnapping (such as proposing or make available a location where the victim hostaged). Part 1, 2 and 3 will apply also to them.

United Kingdom
Kidnapping is an offence under the common law of England and Wales. Lord Brandon said in 1984 R v D:

"First, the nature of the offence is an attack on, and infringement of, the personal liberty of an individual. Secondly, the offence contains four ingredients as follows: (1) the taking or carrying away of one person by another; (2) by force or fraud; (3) without the consent of the person so taken or carried away; and (4) without lawful excuse."

In all cases of kidnapping of children, where it is alleged that a child has been kidnapped, it is the absence of the consent of that child which is material. This is the case regardless of the age of the child. A very small child will not have the understanding or intelligence to consent. This means that absence of consent will be a necessary inference from the age of the child. It is a question of fact for the jury whether an older child has sufficient understanding and intelligence to consent. Lord Brandon said: "I should not expect a jury to find at all frequently that a child under fourteen had sufficient understanding and intelligence to give its consent." If the child (being capable of doing so) did consent to being taken or carried away, the fact that the person having custody or care and control of that child did not consent to that child being taken or carried away is immaterial. If, on the other hand, the child did not consent, the consent of the person having custody or care and control of the child may support a defence of lawful excuse. It is known as Gillick competence.

Regarding restriction on prosecution, no prosecution may be instituted, except by or with the consent of the Director of Public Prosecutions, for an offence of kidnapping if it was committed against a child under the age of sixteen and by a person connected with the child, within the meaning of section 1 of the Child Abduction Act 1984. Kidnapping is an indictable-only offence. Kidnapping is punishable with imprisonment or fine at the discretion of the court. There is no limit on the fine or the term of imprisonment that may be imposed provided the sentence is not inordinate.

A parent should only be prosecuted for kidnapping their own child "in exceptional cases, where the conduct of the parent concerned is so bad that an ordinary right-thinking person would immediately and without hesitation regard it as criminal in nature".

United States
Law in the United States follows from English common law. Following the highly publicized 1932 Lindbergh kidnapping, Congress passed the Federal Kidnapping Act, which authorized the FBI to investigate kidnapping at a time when the Bureau was expanding in size and authority. The fact that a kidnapped victim may have been taken across state lines brings the crime within the ambit of federal criminal law.

Most states recognize different types of kidnapping and punish according to such factors as the location, duration, method, manner and purpose of the offense. There are several deterrents to kidnapping in the United States of America. Among these are:

 * 1) The extreme logistical challenges involved in successfully exchanging the money for the return of the victim without being apprehended or surveilled.
 * 2) Harsh punishment. Convicted kidnappers face lengthy prison terms. If a victim is brought across state lines, federal charges can be laid as well.
 * 3) Good cooperation and information sharing between law enforcement agencies, and tools for spreading information to the public (such as the AMBER Alert system).

One notorious failed example of kidnap for ransom was the 1976 Chowchilla bus kidnapping, in which 26 children were abducted with the intention of bringing in a $5 million ransom. The children and driver escaped from an underground van without the aid of law enforcement. According to the Department of Justice, kidnapping makes up 2% of all reported violent crimes against juveniles.

From the 1990s on, the New York divorce coercion gang was involved in the kidnapping and torture of Jewish husbands in New York City and New Jersey for the purpose of forcing them to grant gittin (religious divorces) to their wives. They were finally apprehended on October 9, 2013, in connection with a foiled kidnapping plot.

According to a 2003 Domestic Violence Report in Colorado, out of a survey of 189 incidents, most people (usually white females) are taken from their homes or residence by a present or former spouse or significant other. They are usually taken by force, not by weapon, and usually the victims are not injured when they are freed.

In 2009, Phoenix, Arizona reported over 300 cases of kidnapping, although subsequent investigation found that the Phoenix police falsified data. If true, this would have been the highest rate of any U.S. city and second in the world only to Mexico City. A rise in kidnappings in the southwestern United States in general has been attributed to misclassification by local police, lack of a unified standard, desire for Federal grants, or the Mexican Drug War.

In 2010, the United States was ranked sixth in the world (by absolute numbers, not per capita) for kidnapping for ransom, according to the available statistics (after Colombia, Italy, Lebanon, Peru, and the Philippines).

In 2009, the Los Angeles Times named Phoenix, Arizona, as America's kidnapping capital, reporting that every year hundreds of ransom kidnappings occur there, virtually all within the underworld associated with human and drug smuggling from Mexico, and often done as a way of collecting unpaid debts. However, a later audit by the U.S. Department of Justice Inspector General found only 59 federally reportable kidnappings in 2008, compared to the over 300 claimed on grant applications.

During the year 1999 in the United States, 203,900 children were reported as the victims of family abductions and 58,200 of non-family abductions. However, only 115 were the result of "stereotypical" kidnaps (by someone unknown or of slight acquaintance to the child, held permanently or for ransom).

Countries with the highest rates
Kidnapping for ransom is a common occurrence in various parts of the world today. In 2018, the United Nations found Pakistan and England had the highest amount of kidnappings while New Zealand had the highest rate among the 70 countries for which data is available. As of 2007, that title belonged to Iraq with possibly 1,500 foreigners kidnapped. In 2004, it was Mexico, and in 2001, it was Colombia. Reports suggest a world total of 12,500–25,500 per year with 3,600 per year in Colombia and 3,000 per year in Mexico around the year 2000. However, by 2016, the number of kidnappings in Colombia had declined to 205 and it continues to decline.

In 2021, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that the United States was the country with most kidnappings, totaling 56,652.

Mexican numbers are hard to confirm because of fears of police involvement in kidnapping. According to Pax Christi, a Catholic peace movement, "Kidnapping seems to flourish particularly in fragile states and conflict countries, as politically motivated militias, organized crime and the drugs mafia fill the vacuum left by government".

Since 2019, the risk of kidnapping has risen worldwide, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This increase is mostly seen in kidnappings for ransom. This factors from a variety of aspects, including socioeconomic disparities, insufficient resources, and flawed judicial systems. Another impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on kidnappers is the economic strain that it had put many families through. This pressured kidnappers to increase kidnappings as well as ransom demands. After 2022, the diminishing effects of COVID-19 have led many countries to welcome back in-person interactions, travel and tourism. The connection between increased tourism and kidnapping is reflected through the rise of global kidnapping rates from 2019 to 2021-2023. The highest recorded ransom demand in 2021 was $77.3 million while in 2019, it was $28.7 million. Between those two years, the average global ransom demand increased 43% while the median global ransom demand increased by 6%. In Sub-Saharan Africa, regions such as Congo (DRC), Nigeria, and South Africa are likely to maintain higher levels of kidnappings due to ongoing effects of religious extremist groups, recent genocides, and civil wars. While there is no hard evidence of which country had the most kidnappings in 2021, the American region (which includes Mexico) maintains its position as the region with the second highest kidnapping rates.

Pirates
Kidnapping on the high seas in connection with piracy has been increasing. It was reported that 661 crewmembers were taken hostage and 12 kidnapped in the first nine months of 2009. The IMB Piracy Reporting Centre recorded that 141 crew members were taken hostage and 83 were kidnapped in 2018.

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

title: Kidnapping


text:
Margites

The Margites (Μαργίτης) is a comic mock-epic ascribed to Homer that is largely lost. From references to the work that survived, it is known that its central character is an exceedingly stupid man named Margites (from ancient Greek μάργος, margos, "raving, mad; lustful"), who was so dense he did not know which parent had given birth to him. His name gave rise to the recherché adjective margitomanēs (μαργιτομανής), "mad as Margites", used by Philodemus.

It was commonly attributed to Homer, as by Aristotle (Poetics 13.92): "His Margites indeed provides an analogy: as are the Iliad and Odyssey to our tragedies, so is the Margites to our comedies"; but the work, among a mixed genre of works loosely labelled "Homerica" in antiquity, was attributed to Pigres, a Greek poet of Halicarnassus, in the massive medieval Greek encyclopaedia called the Suda. Harpocration also writes that it is attributed to Homer. Basil of Caesarea writes that the work is attributed to Homer but he states that he is unsure regarding this attribution.

It is written in mixed hexameter and iambic lines, an oddity characteristic also of the Batrachomyomachia (likewise attributed to Pigres), which inserts a pentameter line after each hexameter of the Iliad as a curious literary game.

Margites was famous in the ancient world, but only these following lines are transmitted in medieval sources:

 * Him, then, the Gods made neither a delver nor a ploughman,
 * Nor in any other way wise; he failed every art.
 * as quoted by Aristotle

 * He knew many things, but he knew them badly ...
 * as quoted by Plato

 * There came to Colophon an old man and divine singer,
 * a servant of the Muses and of far-shooting Apollo.
 * In his dear hands he held a sweet-toned lyre ...
 * as quoted by Atilius Fortunatianus

 * The fox knows many a wile;
 * but the hedgehog's one trick can beat them all.
 * as quoted by Zenobius (attributed simply to "Homer")

A few additional fragments (P.Oxy 2309, 3693 and 3694) were found among the Oxyrhynchus papyruses and published in volume II of Iambi et Elegi Graeci ante Alexandrum cantati by M. L. West.

Due to the Margites character, the Greeks used the word to describe fool and useless people. Demosthenes called Alexander the Great Margites in order to insult and degrade him.

title: Margites


text:
Oder-Spree

Oder-Spree is a Kreis (district) in the eastern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring are (from north clockwise) the district Märkisch-Oderland, the district-free city Frankfurt (Oder), Poland, the districts Spree-Neiße and Dahme-Spreewald, and the Bundesland Berlin.

Geography
The district is named after the two major rivers in the district - the Spree river forms a large bend within the district; the Oder river constitutes the eastern border.

History
The district was created in 1993 by merging the districts Eisenhüttenstadt, Beeskow and Fürstenwalde, and the district-free city Eisenhüttenstadt.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms shows symbols for the three former districts which make up the district. In the top left quarter is the coat of arms of the Bishops of Lebus, who had their seat in Fürstenwalde. The second quarter shows the checkered bar of the Cistercian Order as the symbol of the Abbey of Neuzelle, who until 1817 owned most of the territory which later became the district Eisenhüttenstadt. The two quarters in the bottom symbolize the former district Beeskow. The three knives in the left are the symbol of the Lords of Strehla, the deer antler the symbol of the Lords of Biberstein, who in 1317 succeeded the Lords of Strehla as the Lords of Beeskow and Storkow.

Towns and municipalities
The capital of the district is Beeskow, but Fürstenwalde is the biggest town, with a population of 31,000 people.

title: Oder-Spree


text:
Max Delbrück

Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück (September 4, 1906 – March 9, 1981) was a German–American biophysicist who participated in launching the molecular biology research program in the late 1930s. He stimulated physical scientists' interest into biology, especially as to basic research to physically explain genes, mysterious at the time. Formed in 1945 and led by Delbrück along with Salvador Luria and Alfred Hershey, the Phage Group made substantial headway unraveling important aspects of genetics. The three shared the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". He was the first physicist to predict what is now called Delbrück scattering.

Early and personal life
Delbrück was born in Berlin, German Empire. His mother was granddaughter of Justus von Liebig, an eminent chemist, while his father Hans Delbrück was a history professor at the University of Berlin. In 1937, Delbrück left Nazi Germany for America—first California, then Tennessee—becoming a US citizen in 1945. In 1941, he married Mary Bruce. They had four children.

Delbrück's brother Justus, a lawyer, as well as his sister Emmi Bonhoeffer were active along with his brothers-in-law Klaus Bonhoeffer and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in resistance to Nazism. Found guilty by the People's Court for roles in the July 20, 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler, Dietrich and Klaus were executed in 1945 by the RSHA. Justus died in Soviet custody that same year. His son, Tobias Delbruck is a professor at the Institute of Neuroinformatics at the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich. Professor Tobias Delbruck is also one of the pioneers in the domain of event cameras, now increasingly being deployed in dynamic vision systems.

Education
Delbrück studied astrophysics, shifting towards theoretical physics, at the University of Göttingen. After completing his Ph.D. there in 1930, he traveled through England, Denmark, and Switzerland. He met Wolfgang Pauli and Niels Bohr, who interested him in biology.

Career and research

Delbrück returned to Berlin in 1932 as an assistant to Lise Meitner, who was collaborating with Otto Hahn on irradiation of uranium with neutrons. Delbrück wrote a few papers, including one in 1933 on gamma rays' scattering by a Coulomb field's polarization of a vacuum. Though theoretically tenable, his conclusion was misplaced, whereas Hans Bethe some 20 years later confirmed the phenomenon and named it "Delbrück scattering".

In 1935, Delbrück published a collaboration with Nikolay Timofeev-Ressovsky and Karl Zimmer the major work, Über die Natur der Genmutation und der Genstruktur. It was considered to be a major advance in understanding the nature of gene mutation and gene structure. The work was a keystone in the formation of molecular genetics. It was also an inspirational starting point for Erwin Schrödinger's thinking, a course of lectures in 1943,  and the eventual writing of the book ''What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell''.

In 1937, he attained a fellowship from Rockefeller Foundation—which was launching the molecular biology research program—to research genetics of the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, in California Institute of Technology's biology department, where Delbrück could blend interests in biochemistry and genetics. While at Caltech, Delbrück researched bacteria and their viruses (bacteriophages or phages). In 1939, with Emory L. Ellis, he coauthored "The growth of bacteriophage",  a paper reporting that the viruses reproduce in one step, not exponentially as do cellular organisms.

Although Delbrück's Rockefeller Foundation fellowship expired in 1939, the Foundation matched him up with Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where from 1940 to 1947 he taught physics, yet had his laboratory in the biology department. In 1941, Delbrück met Salvador Luria of Indiana University who began visiting Vanderbilt. In 1942, Delbrück and Luria published on bacterial resistance to virus infection mediated by random mutation. Alfred Hershey of Washington University in St. Louis began visiting in 1943. The Luria–Delbrück experiment, also called the Fluctuation Test, demonstrated that Darwin's theory of natural selection acting on random mutations applies to bacteria as well as to more complex organisms. The 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to both scientists in part for this work. To put this work in its historical perspective, Lamarck in 1801 first presented his theory of Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics, which stated that if an organism changes during life in order to adapt to its environment (for example stretches its neck to reach for tall trees), those changes are passed on to its offspring. He also said that evolution happens according to a predetermined plan. Darwin published his theory of evolution in his 1859 book On the Origin of Species with compelling evidence contradicting Lamarck. Darwin said that evolution is not predetermined but that there are inherent variations in all organisms, and that those variations that confer increased fitness are selected by the environment and passed on to the offspring. In the feud between Lamarck and Darwin, Darwin talked of pre-existing changes, but the nature of these changes was not known and had to await the science of genetics by Gregor Mendel's experiments on pea plants published in 1866. Support for Darwin's theory was provided when Thomas Hunt Morgan discovered that a mutated white-eyed fruit fly among red-eyed flies was able to reproduce true white-eyed offspring. The most elegant and convincing support for Darwin's ideas, however, was provided by the Luria-Delbruck experiment,  which showed that mutations conferring resistance of the bacterium E. coli to T1 bacteriophage (virus) existed in the population prior to exposure to T1 and were not induced by adding T1. In other words, mutations are random events that occur whether or not they prove to be useful, while selection (for T1 resistance upon challenge with T1 in this case) provides the direction in evolution by retaining those mutations that are advantageous, discarding those that are harmful (T1 sensitivity in this case). This experiment dealt a blow to Lamarckian inheritance and set the stage for tremendous advances in genetics and molecular biology, launching a tsunami of research that eventually led to the discovery of DNA as the hereditary material and to cracking the genetic code. Of course, by then Avery, along with McCloud (and earlier, McCarty) was well on the way to showing the genetic capability of DNA.

In 1945, Delbrück, Luria, and Hershey set up a course in bacteriophage genetics at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York. This Phage Group spurred molecular biology's early development. Delbrück received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, shared with Luria and Hershey "for their discoveries concerning the replication mechanism and the genetic structure of viruses". The committee also noted that "The honour in the first place goes to Delbrück who transformed bacteriophage research from vague empiricism to an exact science. He analyzed and defined the conditions for precise measurement of the biological effects. Together with Luria he elaborated the quantitative methods and established the statistical criteria for evaluation which made the subsequent penetrating studies possible. Delbrück's and Luria's forte is perhaps mainly theoretical analysis, whereas Hershey above all is an eminently skillful experimenter. The three of them supplement each other well also in these respects." That year, Delbrück and Luria were also awarded by Columbia University the Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize. In late 1947, as Vanderbilt lacked the resources to keep him, Delbrück had returned to Caltech as a professor of biology, and remained there for the rest of his career. Meanwhile, he set up University of Cologne's institute for molecular genetics.

Awards and honours
In addition to the Nobel Prize, Delbrück was elected a Foreign Member of the Royal Society (ForMemRS) in 1967. He was elected an EMBO Member in 1970. The Max Delbruck Prize, formerly known as the biological physics prize, is awarded by the American Physical Society and named in his honour. The Max Delbrück Center, in Berlin, Germany, national research center for molecular medicine of the Helmholtz Association also bears his name.

Later life and legacy
Delbrück helped spur physical scientists' interest in biology. His inferences on genes' susceptibility to mutation was relied on by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in his 1944 book What Is Life?, which conjectured genes were an "aperiodic crystal" storing codescript and influenced crystallographer Rosalind Franklin and biologists Francis Crick and James D. Watson in their 1953 identification of cellular DNA's molecular structure as a double helix. In 1977, he retired from Caltech, remaining a Professor of Biology emeritus. He became interested in the behavioral sciences and spent some unfruitful effort on mold behavior in the 1960s.

Max Delbrück died, at age 74, on the evening of Monday, March 9, 1981, at Huntington Memorial Hospital in Pasadena, California. On August 26 to 27, 2006—the year Delbrück would have turned 100—family and friends gathered at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to reminisce on his life and work. Although Delbrück held some anti-reductionist views; he conjectured that ultimately a paradox—akin perhaps to the waveparticle duality of physics—would be revealed about life. His view however, was later refuted upon the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA.

title: Max Delbrück


text:
Talk:Satanic panic

Wiki Education assignment: Language in Advertising
— Assignment last updated by Endless82 (talk) 23:12, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

QAnon
I first wanted to simply make a case here rather than directly undoing Vintage's most recent edit to the article, which removed the reference to QAnon from the intro. Then I looked over it again and decided to undo the edit (without it being tagged as a revert, since I absolutly assume good faith by Vintage). Let me very briefly explain my reasoning. QAnon is not so much "one form" out of many, but by far the most widespread, most influential, and most pernicious narrative these days -- pernicious being an apt description considering the many cases of intimidation, slander, and outright violence associated with the movement. Given its prominence, mentioning QAnon in the introduction ought not to be seen as shoehorning, and is supported by one of the references in the same section. Trigaranus (talk) 17:39, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

 * Per article content, there is no reason to have it in the WP:LEAD, reasonably covered by "anti-government conspiracy theories." See also MOS:DATED. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 20:16, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
 * It's also shoehorning because (if you have third-party scholarly sourcing for it and not just WP:SYNTH) QAnon is not a classic example of a Satanic Panic. AllGloryToTheHypnotoad (talk) 21:42, 21 June 2023 (UTC)

No mention of "the finders" and automatic dismissal of claims
The information released in 2019 by the FBI about "the finders" group clearly shows evidence of ritual abuse, CIA involvement or not.

Even the List of satanic ritual abuse allegations page says "Many but not all of those imprisoned have been released," implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes.

Also, how this article is written seems to imply that not only was there not sufficient evidence of this type of abuse in the 1980's, but that it has never happened, cannot happen and that any possible allegation of this type of abuse is automatically false and logically part of the 80s' "moral panic" or the result of "false memories." JH2903 (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

 * The Order of the Nine Angles has performed Satanic child abuse, but they are a marginal fringe group among Satanists. Most Satanists don't believe it is wise to break the law. tgeorgescu (talk) 19:47, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * right, but this article says that it doesn't happen at all. that's the problem. JH2903 (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Mutatis mutandis, see rule 34. Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people. But there are disturbed individuals who do think that. The Church of Satan does not teach them to harm other people, nor to break the law. But the problem with that church is that it is a money-making machine (for its leaders). tgeorgescu (talk) 00:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * None of that has anything to do with what you're replying to.
 * "Most Satanists don't think that their purpose in life is to harm other people." Yep, they leave such sadistic beliefs to the Christians. Dimadick (talk) 15:33, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * It happens. This article insists it doesn't. JH2903 (talk) 13:25, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * No it argues that all the major and most public cases were. It is about the moral panic. Slatersteven (talk) 13:29, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * if that was the case then all phrasings of "ritual abuse" wouldn't redirect to this page JH2903 (talk) 15:39, 8 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Then you need to make the case there, not here. Slatersteven (talk) 10:01, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

" implying that some are still in prison because they're actually guilty of the crimes." How does the topic of unfairly jailed people imply that they have committed any crimes? They were convenient scapegoats. Dimadick (talk) 15:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

 * Here we go again.
 * Look, no one is denying that child abuse happens. Sometimes, child abuse happens by members of a religion or a cult. But that's not what this article is about.
 * This article is about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s where people were making up wild accusations of ritualistic child abuse by nebulous "Satanists," not associated with any organized religion or cult. It was a moral panic, originated by false claims and perpetuated by improper coaching of children by the investigators so that they lied, believing that's what the adults wanted them to say. The entire point of the moral panic was that Satanists are everywhere, hiding in plain sight, in every town across the globe, abusing your children to gain magical powers. Which is patently bonkers.
 * We keep getting people wandering in here about cases where some group of teens killed another kid and everyone screamed "Satanism!" then demanding we call "Satanic ritual abuse" real. Or, in this case, an actual cult abusing its members (O9A), then conflating that with this broad conspiracy theory.
 * But the two points people keep missing are thus:
 * 1. This conspiracy theory revolves around the idea that there is a global Satanic conspiracy that is dedicated to abusing children.
 * 2. That the abuse is ritualistic, meaning the abuse serves a function of the religious beliefs by the perpetrators. (See also: Blood libel.)
 * Even 09A fails the meet the second criteria. Those kids were just plain abused, not for ritual purposes, not to "glorify Satan," or anything else the Satanic Panic claimed. O9A just thinks rape is a good way to undermine society and assert their dominance. It's not ritualistic, it's just cruel for cruelty's sake.
 * And now, most of the Blood Libel inspired conspiracy theories promoted by the Satanic Panic have morphed into Pizzagate and QAnon. It's the same moral panic, right down to the "global Satanist conspiracy to sexually abuse your children for ritualistic purposes." Just updated for modern politics.
 * So no, we don't need to alter the article. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 13:23, 9 July 2023 (UTC)
 * if this was just about a phenomenon in the 80s-00s and not general accusations of ritual abuse then phrasings of ritual abuse, satanic abuse etc wouldn't redirect here implying that any accusation is part of this specific moral panic.
 * as for your comments about the order of the nine angels, it says very clearly in that page that they're a satanist group so i don't know why you brought it up along with so called "blood libel" and didn't mention the main point i made about the finders. JH2903 (talk) 17:51, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * That first point is just not going to fly. Having redirects to help people find the article does not imply every possible accusation is valid.
 * If you can't follow why I brought up blood libel, then you need to reread that article and then this one. The entire Satanic Panic is a rehash of blood libel in a new form. O9A is a "Satanist" group, and they abuse children. But it's not ritual abuse in a religious context, it's just child abuse, same as what Catholic priests have been found guilty of for decades. The children abused by Catholic priests aren't doing it for the glorification of God, they're just predators using their position of authority to target kids. There's no religious or ritual component to it. That is the key to the Satanic Panic: the idea that these children are abused as part of religious rituals for magical effects. And that's just classic blood libel, the same anti-Semitic accusation that Jews were abducting kids to drink their blood & gain magical powers through their ritual execution/abuse.
 * As to the Finders, I didn't engage with that topic because our article already handles it. They weren't even prosecuted because there's no actual evidence that would hold up in court. The kids may have been neglected, and the adults were weird, but there was no direct evidence of child abuse, much less ritual child abuse (aka a focal point of this article). The FBI just dumped everything they had on the group in 2019, and people did what they do, finding imagined patterns that fit their preconceived notions.
 * The problem here is you are conflating "a child was abused in this group" with "evidence the group as a whole abuses kids for religious/ritual effect." The two things are not equivalent. O9A is the closest you can get, and even that doesn't fit what the Satanic Panic claimed was happening. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:23, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * the implication that the rate of sexual abuse by catholic priests is particularly high compared to any other position isn't true
 * you wouldn't recognise SRA if you saw it in a room covered with inverted pentagrams and people drinking blood JH2903 (talk) 18:33, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * So, yeah, you're just here to POV-push. Take your white knighting elsewhere. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 18:46, 15 July 2023 (UTC)
 * "people drinking blood" Why are you changing the topic to the vampire lifestyle and the subculture's habitual hematophagy?Dimadick (talk) 03:51, 16 July 2023 (UTC)
 * Because he's literally repeating anti-Semitic blood libel claims. Never fails with these conspiracists, they always fall back on the classics. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 11:30, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Remember we are all bound by wp:npa, no matter how dodgy a claim is. Slatersteven (talk) 11:32, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Bennett Braun has died.
This article might be useful for a few more cites. —  The Hand That Feeds You :Bite 16:08, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

 * See the article Bennett Braun. — The Anome (talk) 08:12, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Satanic panic


text:
Elbe-Elster

Elbe-Elster is a Kreis (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are Teltow-Fläming, Dahme-Spreewald, Oberspreewald-Lausitz, Meißen, Nordsachsen and Wittenberg. The district has a partnership with the Märkischer Kreis.

History
The district was established in 1993 by merging the former districts (Kreise) of Finsterwalde, Bad Liebenwerda and Herzberg.

Geography
The district is named after two rivers - the Elbe river forms the western border with Saxony, the Black Elster (Schwarze Elster) is a tributary of the Elbe and runs through the district. The district is part of the Lusatia region. The fens along the Black Elster are a habitat of several rare animals, like common kingfishers, beavers and Eurasian otters.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms was granted in 1995. The lion in the bottom left derives from the county of Meissen (see Saxony), to which the southern area of the district belonged historically. The black bars derive from the Saxony-Wittenberg county as the area around Bad Liebenwerda belonged there in the past. The red bars derive from the oldest coat of arms of Brandenburg, and the bull is the symbol for the Lower Lusatia area were the district is located.

title: Elbe-Elster


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Oberspreewald-Lausitz

Oberspreewald-Lausitz (Wokrejs Górne Błota-Łužyca, Wokrjes Hornje Błóta-Łužica ) is a Kreis (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the north clockwise) Dahme-Spreewald, Spree-Neiße, the districts Bautzen and Meissen in Saxony, and the district Elbe-Elster.

Geography
The Spree river runs through the district; along its banks there is the Spreewald, a wooded area and habitat of several rare animals. The district is part of the historic region of Lusatia.

History
The district was formed in 1993 by merging the previous districts of Calau and Senftenberg and a small part of the district Bad Liebenwerda.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms shows a red bull as the symbol of the Lower Lusatia region, representing the former district Calau. The city wall in the bottom part is an old symbol of the Upper Lusatia region, and also represents the former district Senftenberg. The shield with a lion is the symbol of the county of Meißen, representing the municipalities of the former district Bad Liebenwerda which were included into the district.

title: Oberspreewald-Lausitz


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Blender (disambiguation)

A blender is a kitchen appliance for chopping, mixing or liquefying food.

Blender may also refer to:

Music

 * Blender (band), a Swedish dansband
 * The Blenders, an American vocal quartet
 * Blender (Collective Soul album), 2000
 * Blender (The Murmurs album), 1998
 * ’’Blender” a song by 5 Seconds Of Summer from 5SOS5
 * "Blender" a song by Yello from the 1995 album 'Baby

People

 * Everton Blender (born 1954) Everton Dennis Williams, Jamaican reggae singer and producer
 * Jr Blender, German producer and songwriter
 * Neil Blender (born 1963), American skateboarder, skate company owner, and artist

Other uses

 * Blender, Germany, a municipality in Lower Saxony, Germany
 * Blender (mountain), Bavaria, Germany
 * Blender (magazine), an American music magazine 1994–2009
 * Blender (software), a free and open-source software program for 3D modeling, animation, and rendering
 * The Blender Foundation, a nonprofit organization responsible for the development of Blender

title: Blender (disambiguation)


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Spree-Neiße

Spree-Neiße (Wokrejs Sprjewja-Nysa, ) is a Kreis (district) in the southern part of Brandenburg, Germany. Neighboring districts are (from the south clockwise) the districts Niederschlesischer Oberlausitzkreis and Kamenz in Saxony, the districts Oberspreewald-Lausitz, Dahme-Spreewald and Oder-Spree. The district-free city Cottbus is surrounded by the district. To the east is Poland.

Geography
The district is located in the region of Lusatia. The Spree river runs through the district, while the Lusatian Neisse river forms the eastern border, which is at the same time the border of Poland.

History
The district was created in 1993 by merging the previous districts Cottbus-Land, Forst, Guben and Spremberg.

Coat of arms
The coat of arms shows four fields each representing one of the previous districts. The crayfish in the topleft symbolizes Cottbus-Land, and is also present in the coat of arms of the city of Cottbus. The lion in the topright is the symbol of the Kingdom of Bohemia, as Spremberg was owned by the Bohemian kings. The deer antler in the bottomright symbolizes Forst, and was taken from the coat of arms of the Lords of Biberstein. The crown in the bottomleft represents the kings of Bohemia again, but this time symbolizing Guben.

title: Spree-Neiße