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Isle

An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms.

Isle may refer to:

Geography

 * Isle (river), a river in France
 * Isle, Haute-Vienne, a commune of the Haute-Vienne département in France
 * Isle, Minnesota, a small city in the United States
 * River Isle, a river in England

Arts, entertainment, and media

 * Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and Environment (or ISLE), a journal published by Oxford University Press for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment
 * The Isle, 2017 film with Conleth Hill
 * The Isle, a 2000 South Korean film directed by Kim Ki-duk
 * Isle (album)

Other uses

 * International Society for the Linguistics of English (ISLE), a learned society of linguists

title: Isle


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Argonaut (animal)

The argonauts (genus Argonauta, the only extant genus in the family Argonautidae) are a group of pelagic octopuses. They are also called paper nautili, referring to the paper-thin eggcase that females secrete; however, as octopuses, they are only distant relatives of true nautili. Their structure lacks the gas-filled chambers present in chambered nautilus shells and is not a true cephalopod shell, but rather an evolutionary innovation unique to the genus. It is used as a brood chamber, and to trap surface air to maintain buoyancy. It was once speculated that argonauts did not manufacture their eggcases but utilized shells abandoned by other organisms, in the manner of hermit crabs. Experiments by pioneering marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power in the early 19th century disproved this hypothesis, as Villepreux-Power successfully reared argonaut young and observed their shells' development.

Argonauts are found in tropical and subtropical waters worldwide. They live in the open ocean, i.e. they are pelagic. Like most octopuses, they have a rounded body, eight limbs (arms) and no fins. However, unlike most octopuses, argonauts live close to the surface rather than on the seabed. Argonauta species are characterised by very large eyes and small webs between the arms. The funnel–mantle locking apparatus is a major diagnostic feature of this taxon. It consists of knob-like cartilages in the mantle and corresponding depressions in the funnel. Unlike the closely allied genera Ocythoe and Tremoctopus, Argonauta species lack water pores.

Of its names, "argonaut" means "sailor of the Argo". "Paper nautilus" is derived from the Greek ναυτίλος nautílos, which literally means "sailor", as paper nautili were thought to use two of their arms as sails. This is not the case, as argonauts swim by expelling water through their funnels. The chambered nautilus was later named after the argonaut, but belongs to a different cephalopod order, Nautilida.

Sexual dimorphism and reproduction
Argonauts exhibit extreme sexual dimorphism in size and lifespan. Females grow up to 10 cm and make shells up to 30 cm, while males rarely surpass 2 cm. The males only mate once in their short lifetime, whereas the females are iteroparous, capable of having offspring many times over the course of their lives. In addition, the females have been known since ancient times, while the males were only described in the late 19th century.

The males lack the dorsal tentacles used by the females to create their eggcases. The males use a modified arm, the hectocotylus, to transfer sperm to the female. For fertilization, the arm is inserted into the female's pallial cavity and then becomes detached from the male. The hectocotylus when found in females was originally described as a parasitic worm.

Eggcase
Female argonauts produce a laterally-compressed calcareous eggcase in which they reside. This "shell" has a double keel fringed by two rows of alternating tubercles. The sides are ribbed with the centre either flat or having winged protrusions. The eggcase curiously resembles the shells of extinct ammonites. It is secreted by the tips of the female's two greatly expanded dorsal tentacles (third left arms) before egg laying. After she deposits her eggs in the floating eggcase, the female takes shelter in it, often retaining the male's detached hectocotylus. She is usually found with her head and tentacles protruding from the opening, but she retreats deeper inside if disturbed. These ornate curved white eggcases are occasionally found floating on the sea, sometimes with the female argonaut clinging to it. It is not made of aragonite as most other shells are, but of calcite, with a three-layered structure and a higher proportion of magnesium carbonate (7%) than other cephalopod shells.

The eggcase contains a bubble of air that the animal captures at the surface of the water and uses for buoyancy, similarly to other shelled cephalopods, although it does not have a chambered phragmocone. Once thought to contribute to occasional mass strandings on beaches, the air bubble is under sophisticated control, evident from the behaviour of animals from which air has been removed under experimental diving conditions. This system to attain neutral buoyancy is effective only at the relatively shallow depths of the upper 10 meters of the water column. Young females with mantle lengths less than 9 millimeters are shell-less like the males, with both having been found in waters between 50 and 200 meters.

Most other octopuses lay eggs in caves; Neale Monks and C. Phil Palmer speculate that, before ammonites died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, the argonauts may have evolved to use discarded ammonite shells for their egg laying, eventually becoming able to mend the shells and perhaps make their own shells. However, this is uncertain and it is unknown whether this is the result of convergent evolution.

Argonauta argo is the largest species in the genus and also produces the largest eggcase, which may reach a length of 300 mm. The smallest species is Argonauta boettgeri, with a maximum recorded size of 67 mm.

Beak
The beaks of Argonauta species are distinctive, being characterised by a very small rostrum and a fold that runs to the lower edge or near the free corner. The rostrum is "pinched in" at the sides, making it much narrower than in other octopuses, with the exception of the closely allied monotypic genera Ocythoe and Vitreledonella. The jaw angle is curved and indistinct. Beaks have a sharp shoulder, which may or may not have posterior and anterior parts at different slopes. The hood lacks a notch and is very broad, flat, and low. The hood to crest ratio (f/g) is approximately 2–2.4. The lateral wall of the beak has no notch near the wide crest. Argonaut beaks are most similar to those of Ocythoe tuberculata and Vitreledonella richardi, but differ in "leaning back" to a greater degree than the former and having a more curved jaw angle than the latter.

Feeding and defense
Feeding mostly occurs during the day. Argonauts use tentacles to grab prey and drag it toward the mouth. It then bites the prey to inject it with venom from the salivary gland. They feed on small crustaceans, molluscs, jellyfish and salps. If the prey is shelled, the argonaut uses its radula to drill into the organism, then inject the toxin.

Argonauts are capable of altering their color. They can blend in with their surroundings to avoid predators. They also produce ink, which is ejected when the animal is being attacked. This ink paralyzes the olfaction of the attacker, providing time for the argonaut to escape. The female is also able to pull back the web covering of her shell, making a silvery flash, which may deter a predator from attacking.

Argonauts are preyed upon by tunas, billfishes, and dolphins. Shells and remains of argonauts have been recorded from the stomachs of Alepisaurus ferox and Coryphaena hippurus.

Male argonauts have been observed residing inside aggregate salps (Pegea socia), although little is known about this relationship.

Classification
The genus Argonauta contains up to seven extant species. Several extinct species are also known.

Four extant species are widely considered valid:

 * Argonauta argo Linnaeus, 1758
 * Argonauta hians Lightfoot, 1786
 * Argonauta nodosus Lightfoot, 1786
 * Argonauta nouryi Lorois, 1852

Several additional taxa are either treated as valid species or regarded as nomina dubia:

 * Argonauta boettgeri Maltzan, 1881
 * Argonauta cornutus Conrad, 1854
 * Argonauta pacificus Dall, 1871

A number of extinct species have also been described:

 * †Argonauta absyrtus Martill & Barker, 2006
 * †Argonauta biarmata Ponzi, 1876
 * †Argonauta itoigawai Tomida, 1983
 * †Argonauta joanneus Hilber, 1915
 * †Argonauta oweri Fleming, 1945
 * †Argonauta sismondai Bellardi, 1872
 * †Argonauta tokunagai Yokoyama, 1913

The extinct species Obinautilus awaensis was originally assigned to Argonauta, but has since been transferred to the genus Obinautilus.

Dubious or uncertain taxa
The following taxa associated with the family Argonautidae are of uncertain taxonomic status:

In design
The argonaut was the inspiration for a number of classical and modern art and decorative forms including use on pottery and architectural elements. Some early examples are found in Bronze Age Minoan art from Crete. A variation known as the double argonaut design was also found in Minoan jewelry. This design was also transposed and adapted in both gold and glass in contemporary Mycenaean contexts, as seen both at Mycenae and the Tholos at Volo.

In literature and etymology

 * Argonauts are featured in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas, noted for their ability to use their tentacles as sails, though this is a widespread myth.
 * A female argonaut is also described in Marianne Moore's poem "The Paper Nautilus".
 * "Argonauta" is the name of a chapter in Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea.
 * Paper nautiluses were caught in The Swiss Family Robinson novel.
 * Argonauts gave their name to an Arabidopsis thaliana mutation and by extension to Argonaute proteins.

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

title: Argonaut (animal)


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Talk:Argonaut (animal)

The males lack the dorsal tentacles used by the females to create their egg cases. The males have a modified arm called a "hectocotylus" that is used for sperm transfer to the female. So how many tentacles does it have? If males lack the dorsal tentacles then does that mean males have 6? Or if I add the hectocotylus then is there 7?--Gbleem 19:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Articles Names
I would suggest that all the Argonaut species be moved to articles bearing their scientific names, with the "common names" being redirects. I have never heard anyone refer to the species using any of the common names; they are always referred to using the latin names or are simply called "paper nautilus" or "argonaut". Mgiganteus1 21:10, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
 * Check out CephBase. - UtherSRG (talk) 01:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * I know about CephBase. My point is that these common names are simply ones that have appeared in a publication at some point.  Most of them are very rarely (if ever) used.  I'd like to think I am pretty familiar with the individual species, but if someone were to say "Muddy Argonaut" I would have to ask them what species they were referring to. Sure, I could probably guess that it's A. hians based on the colour of the shell, but I have never seen the name used anywhere.  The same goes for all the others, with the exception of Greater Argonaut, which appears here and there. Mgiganteus1 06:17, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
 * It is policy to put an article under the common name if one exists, with a redirect from the scientific name. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:35, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Dimorphism

 * that males were described after the females is not sexual dimorphism. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.36.61.204 (talk) 19:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

shell created for egg laying?
It sounds from the wording as though the shell is created specifically for laying eggs. Is this the case? If so, what is the lifestyle of a female without a shell? Do the same buoyancy issues not apply? — kwami (talk) 08:19, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Etymology
"The animal has no connection to the heroes, the Argonauts, in Greek Mythology. Their name comes from their ship, Argo, named after its builder, Argus." and

"Of its names, "argonaut" means "sailor of the Argo.”[3] "

Cross Reference (talk) 18:57, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

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James L. Halperin

James L. Halperin (born October 31, 1952) is an American businessman and author, who is the co-founder and co-chairman of Heritage Auctions, now the largest American auction house with 2022 sales in excess of $1.45 billion. In 1985 Halperin authored a text on grading coins, How to Grade U.S. Coins, upon which the grading standards of the grading services PCGS and NGC were ultimately based. He is the author of two futurist fiction books, The Truth Machine (1996) and The First Immortal (1997), which were in 2001 both chosen by PC Magazine in a survey put out to their online newsletter subscribers, as possible responses for the top 17 science/technology fiction books of the previous 20 years. In the 1980s he and his businesses were investigated by federal agencies (including the Federal Trade Commission), which investigation was settled by signing consent decrees and agreeing to pay a substantial fine.

Early life
Halperin was born on October 31, 1952, in Boston, Massachusetts, to a lower-middle-class Jewish family. At the age of 13, Halperin created a fraudulent mail-order advertising business, which took out ads in magazines looking for people who would pay to join his nonexistent sales network. This scheme drew the attention of the United States Postal Inspection Service. Halperin would end up avoiding charges in exchange for returning $100,000 of the ill-gotten money. At age 16, as a Summer project in 1969 Halperin opened a stamp & coin shop in Cochituate, Massachusetts. The business was almost immediately somewhat profitable. He graduated from Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1970, then attended Harvard College between 1970 and 1971 where he studied psychology and later philosophy. After three semesters, Halperin dropped out to pursue a full-time career in numismatics, and founded New England Rare Coin Galleries (NERCG) in Framingham, Massachusetts.

Career
In 1976 he established a rare coin fund for investors, New England Rare Coin Fund (NERCF) which raised $367,500 for Halperin to invest in rare coins. The Fund was successfully liquidated in April 1980 via public auction, realizing $2,158,450. Every $15,000 unit-holder received over $69,000 after fees on a 3.5-year investment with the 360% profit taxable at capital gain rate. In 1982, he sold part of NERCG to a former employee, Dana Willis; Willis's company went bankrupt in 1987, after the FTC charged Willis with fraud for overvaluing coins and selling them at inflated prices. During the period Willis was allegedly engaged in fraud, he paid Halperin around $1 million in consulting fees. Halperin later returned some of the money, denied involvement in Willis's wrongdoing, and claimed that the money he got from Willis was part of the terms of his sale.

In 1982, Halperin entered into a 50-50 business partnership with renowned numismatist-turned-businessman Steve Ivy and settled in Dallas, Texas. Halperin and Ivy still co-direct Heritage Auctions of Dallas, which advertises itself as the world's largest rare coin company and largest American auction house, with annual sales above $1.45 billion as of 2022.

In 1984, Halperin founded the coin grading agency Numismatic Certification Institute. NCI went out of business shortly after the FTC found in 1989 that Halperin was giving inflated grades to coins. The overvalued coins were marketed through a Heritage Auctions-backed company named Certified Rare Coin Galleries, which used infomercials to sell silver and gold U.S. coins for more than twice their actual value. Heritage Auctions agreed to pay $1.2 million in restitution, though Halperin continues to insist that most of the coin grades he gave during those times were valid and would still hold up today.

A profile on Halperin appeared in Forbes in 2004, to which Halperin posted an annotated (clarified and/or corrected in footnotes) version on Heritage's website.

In 2019, Halperin, along with Zac Gieg, the founder and owner of Just Press Play Video Games, and video game collector Rich Lecce, purchased a copy of Super Mario Bros from Nintendo's test market launch in 1985 from his Heritage Auctions auction house for $100,150, which at the time set a new auction world record for a graded video game.

Personal life
Halperin also endows The Halperin Foundation, which supports health, arts and education-related charities.

He has been married to his wife Gayle since 1984 and they have two sons, David (born 1991) and Michael (1995-2023).

His niece is Molly DeWolf Swenson, American Idol Season 10 contestant and co-founder of RYOT (sold to Huffington Post / AOL in 2016).

In the course of researching for and writing The First Immortal, Halperin signed up to be cryopreserved. His parents also signed up and were cryopreserved by the Cryonics Institute in 2014 and 2020.

title: James L. Halperin


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Evie (singer)

Evelyn Tornquist Karlsson (born Evelyn Tornquist on March 29, 1956 ), mononymously known as Evie, is an American contemporary Christian music singer who was known in the late 1970s and early 1980s for songs such as "Mirror", "Step into the Sunshine" and "Four Foot Eleven".

Born in the United States to Norwegian immigrants, Evie began her singing career as a young teenager while visiting her parents' homeland. She released her English language debut album at 16 in 1972, and went on to release more than 30 albums, including several in various Scandinavian languages. Evie was recognized as the Dove Award recipient of Female Vocalist of the Year for 1977 and 1978.

In November 1978, she become the first gospel artist to achieve a gold album in Australia for Gentle Moments.

She married Swedish pastor and musician Pelle Karlsson in 1979 and retired from performing music in 1981 to pursue other avenues of ministry, such as Sky Angel. Evie later became a mentor to Christian musician Rebecca St. James, joining her for an event series geared toward helping girls and women apply biblical principles in the 21st century.

Evie was officially inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame on February 22, 2005, and was one of the inaugural inductees to the Christian Music Hall of Fame.

Three of her albums were nominated for Grammy Award for best Contemporary Gospel performance: Mirror (1978), Come On, Ring Those Bells (1979), Never the Same (1980).

Discography

 * Evie Sings Gospel (1971)
 * Evie på svenska (1972)
 * Everything Is Beautiful (1972)
 * A Song for Everyone (1973)
 * Evie (1974)
 * Du skulle vara med i sången (1975)
 * Evie Again (1975)
 * Gentle Moments (1976)
 * Mirror (1977)
 * Come On, Ring Those Bells (1977)
 * A Little Song of Joy for My Little Friends (1978)
 * Never the Same (1979) - AUS No. 95
 * Teach Us Your Way (1980)
 * Unfailing Love (1981)
 * Hymns (1983)
 * Restoration (1983)
 * Christmas: A Happy Time (1984)
 * When All Is Said and Done (1986)
 * Celebrate the Family (1990)
 * Songs for His Family (1996)
 * Kingdom Connection (2002)
 * Songs from the Hymn Book (2013)

 * Compilations
 * Evie Favorites Volume 1 (1980)
 * Complete - Volume 2 (1982)
 * Loving Promises (1985)
 * Christmas Memories (1987)
 * Special Christmas Delivery (1995)
 * Day By Day (1996)
 * Our Recollections (1996)
 * Come On Ring Those Bells (2004)
 * Give Them All to Jesus (2005)

title: Evie (singer)


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Baron Greystoke

Baron Greystoke (or Greystock) is a title that has been created twice in the Peerage of England. It was first created when John de Greystok was summoned to Parliament in 1295.

History
John son of William de Greystok was summoned to Parliament by Edward I of England. In 1296 John's cousin Gilbert Fitzwilliam, descendant of John's aunt Joan de Graystock, died, and Gilbert's younger brother and heir, Ralph Fitzwilliam, did homage for Gilbert's lands and entered thereon. In August 1297 John obtained licence to enfeoff Ralph Fitzwilliam with the manor and whole Barony of Greystok, and with other manors and advowsons including his part of Morpeth, in fee simple, upon condition that Ralph should found a college in the church at Greystoke. Ralph, whose family were lords of Grimthorpe in the soke of Pocklington, Yorkshire, was then preparing to go abroad in the King's service, and in April 1298 he in return demised the feudal barony of Greystok and other manors for life to John (who thenceforward held them from Ralph as Ralph's sub-tenant), with reversion to Ralph. In 1300 Ralph made some provision for John's brother William Greystok.

Following the death of John de Greystok in 1306, the Barony of Greystok reverted to Ralph FitzWilliam in fulfilment of the arrangements made eight years previously, and Ralph, who was summoned to Parliament from 1295 to 1315, made homage and received royal assent to enter upon the barony in October 1306. In 1315 he founded a chantry at the conventual church of Tynemouth, under the aegis and seal of St Albans Abbey, for the soul of John de Greystok "quondam baronis de Graistok cognati sui" (i.e., "sometime baron of Graystok, his kinsman"), and for his own soul, the abbey's award to him describing Ralph Fitzwilliam as Baro de Graystok and bearing his seal.

Ralph Fitzwilliam (who married Marjory de Bolebec) died in 1316, and their son Robert FitzRalph (who married Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Nevill of Scotton, Lincolnshire) died in the following year, leaving as his heir his son Ralph FitzRobert. This younger Ralph received Parliamentary summons in the name of Ralph de Greystock, and so became the first of the Fitzwilliam (Lords of Grymthorp) lineage to carry the Greystock name and title (1321). The arms of Greystock as Barruly argent and azure, three chaplets of roses gules were originally those of Grymthorp, and as such were borne by Ralph Fitzwilliam at the Siege of Caerlaverock, and serve to identify his tomb effigy rescued from Neasham Priory, but were retained and quartered with the former Greystock arms by his successors.

The barony went into abeyance in 1569, after it had passed into the Dacre family in 1487 through the marriage of Thomas Dacre, 2nd Baron Dacre to Elizabeth de Greystoke, 6th Baroness Greystoke.

Barons Greystoke, first creation (1295)

 * John de Greystoke, 1st Baron Greystoke (1264–1306)

Barons Greystoke, second creation (1321)

 * Ralph de Greystoke, 1st Baron Greystoke (1299–1323)
 * William de Greystoke, 2nd Baron Greystoke (1320–1358)
 * Ralph de Greystoke, 3rd Baron Greystoke (1352–1417)
 * John de Greystoke, 4th Baron Greystoke (1390–1436)
 * Ralph de Greystoke, 5th Baron Greystoke (1414–1487)
 * Elizabeth de Greystoke, 6th Baroness Greystoke suo jure (10 July 1471 – 14 August 1516)
 * William Dacre, 7th Baron Greystoke (1500–1563)
 * Thomas Dacre, 8th Baron Greystoke (c. 1526–1566)
 * George Dacre, 9th Baron Greystoke (1561–1569) (abeyant)

title: Baron Greystoke


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User:Isomorphic/bragsheet

Face it, we all like getting recognition for what we do. So here's what I've done. Enjoy!

Pages I've originated or rewritten from scratch
A deliberately eclectic collection. I started these pages and in most cases wrote at least a couple paragraphs of information. While some of them are now substantially rewritten by others, I still watch all of them and contribute occasionally.
 * Star Wars Customizable Card Game
 * Nyckelharpa
 * Open source intelligence
 * HMS Dorsetshire
 * Correspondence
 * Professor Challenger
 * Tupac Katari
 * Tupac Katari Guerrilla Army
 * Mike Resnick
 * Edwin R. Thiele
 * Nadia Boulanger
 * Archibald MacLeish
 * Luther H. Evans
 * Vince Gill
 * Sergeant Major
 * Hénon map
 * Lili Boulanger - translated from the Spanish Wikipedia.
 * La venganza sera terrible - partially translated from Spanish Wikipedia.
 * Pappy Boyington
 * Henry Hunt
 * The Kingston Trio - I can't believe there wasn't a page for them. For shame!
 * Auditorium Building, Chicago - featured on Did You Know on March 29, 2004. :-)
 * Marimekko
 * Benjamin C. Thompson
 * Land reclamation
 * Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations
 * Inman Report
 * Maritime Commission - copied and wikified from a US govt. website.
 * Treaties of Tilsit
 * H. Craig Severance
 * The Association
 * Ferdinand Peck
 * Harry M. Daugherty
 * Sympathetic string
 * Peter Lombard
 * Box-counting dimension
 * close air support
 * Valentine Strasser
 * Sexy Sadie - translated from the Spanish Wikipedia.
 * military courtesy - just a stub for now.
 * Juan Miguel Aguilera - translated from the Spanish Wikipedia.
 * Eugenio Calabi
 * Tadatoshi Akiba
 * From the Screen To Your Stereo
 * SS Stephen Hopkins
 * United States federal academies
 * Frank Sherwood Rowland - sad stub for a Nobel laureate.
 * Eduard Limonov
 * List of Russian authors (I needed somewhere to list Limonov, didn't I?)
 * Elwyn Berlekamp
 * Paddy Roy Bates
 * Contemporary a cappella
 * Domingo Santos
 * José de Espronceda
 * Chaldean Catholic Church
 * Social planner
 * Gabby Gabreski - In my life, I've gotten two celebrity autographs. One was from James Doohan.  The other was from Gabby Gabreski.  Yes, I'm a nerd.
 * Josef Strzygowski
 * RTKL
 * Kura-Araxes culture
 * Circassians
 * Rioni River
 * Tigranes
 * Betty La Fea
 * Government of Maryland - My one and only featured article. Much of the work was done by someone else, but I helped.
 * Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia
 * Tamaz Nadareishvili
 * J. Michael Bishop
 * John Toll
 * John S. Toll
 * Alexander Patch
 * air interdiction
 * Lyndall Urwick
 * William Phelps Eno
 * Michiko Kakutani
 * Khanjar
 * Boris B. Piotrovsky
 * Dominance (game theory)
 * Shizuo Kakutani
 * Košljun

Some other pages to which I've contributed significantly
(not a complete list):
 * Temasek
 * standard deviation
 * Sun Belt Conference
 * Selling out (although I've now given up trying to keep this article NPOV and balanced)
 * Library of Congress
 * Auction (mostly as User:129.2.217.134)
 * NOAA Corps
 * Dagestan
 * Terrorism
 * Paramilitary
 * Winner's curse
 * Orbit (mathematics)
 * Assassin (game)
 * Game theory
 * purchasing power parity
 * Bobby Ray Inman (Oddly, I heard about him in an architecture class.)
 * Vickrey auction
 * Bagratids
 * Thales
 * Bid shading

A few favorite contributions
A few additions and edits which, while not necessarilly major, I'm particularly pleased with.
 * Curt Schilling - added a professional baseball player's contributions to the gaming world. This sort of connection is what makes Wikipedia so cool.
 * William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition - tracking down which Putnam Fellows should have articles, and which ones already have them, and adding the appropriate links (still working on this.) I've written articles for a couple of them that seemed especially deserving. Many of them are currently professors at various universities.  It's a fun project - sort of a "where are they now" thing :-)
 * Tadatoshi Akiba - I was tracking down former Ph.D. students of the mathematician John Milnor, and I find... the mayor of Hiroshima? How cool is that?  I just had to write an article on this mathematician turned politician.
 * Academia - I have made precisely zero edits to this article. The contribution I'm proud of is nominating it for article of the week.  It was one of the few articles to go all the way from stub to being a featured article.

title: User:Isomorphic/bragsheet


text:
User talk:Darnel

Welcome
Hello, welcome to Wikipedia.

You might find these links helpful in creating new pages or helping with the above tasks: How to edit a page, How to write a great article, Naming conventions, Manual of Style. You should read our policies at some point too.

If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

 * If you made any edits before you got an account, you might be interested in assigning those to your username.

 * You can sign your name using three tildes, like this: . If you use four, you can add a datestamp too.

 * If you ever think a page or image should be deleted, please list it at the votes for deletion page. There is also a votes for undeletion page if you want to retrieve something that you think should not have been deleted.

Again, welcome! - UtherSRG 04:13, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Nice edit to Gilbert Gottfried! Thanks for the help -- I drew a blank, and your description of him is far superior to mine. :-) Welcome to Wikipedia, and if I can ever be of any assistance, please do let me know. Jwrosenzweig 23:13, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for the compliment; you're welcome. Darnel --- Hi Darnel. Your edits as an IP have now been reattributed to you. Regards  — Kate Turner | Talk 10:21, 2004 Sep 4 (UTC)

title: User talk:Darnel


text:
Patch clamp

The patch clamp technique is a laboratory technique in electrophysiology used to study ionic currents in individual isolated living cells, tissue sections, or patches of cell membrane. The technique is especially useful in the study of excitable cells such as neurons, cardiomyocytes, muscle fibers, and pancreatic beta cells, and can also be applied to the study of bacterial ion channels in specially prepared giant spheroplasts.

Patch clamping can be performed using the voltage clamp technique. In this case, the voltage across the cell membrane is controlled by the experimenter and the resulting currents are recorded. Alternatively, the current clamp technique can be used. In this case, the current passing across the membrane is controlled by the experimenter and the resulting changes in voltage are recorded, generally in the form of action potentials.

Erwin Neher and Bert Sakmann developed the patch clamp in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This discovery made it possible to record the currents of single ion channel molecules for the first time, which improved understanding of the involvement of channels in fundamental cell processes such as action potentials and nerve activity. Neher and Sakmann received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1991 for this work.

Set-up
During a patch clamp recording, a hollow glass tube known as a micropipette or patch pipette filled with an electrolyte solution and a recording electrode connected to an amplifier is brought into contact with the membrane of an isolated cell. Another electrode is placed in a bath surrounding the cell or tissue as a reference ground electrode. An electrical circuit can be formed between the recording and reference electrode with the cell of interest in between.

The solution filling the patch pipette might match the ionic composition of the bath solution, as in the case of cell-attached recording, or match the cytoplasm, for whole-cell recording. The solution in the bath solution may match the physiological extracellular solution, the cytoplasm, or be entirely non-physiological, depending on the experiment to be performed. The researcher can also change the content of the bath solution (or less commonly the pipette solution) by adding ions or drugs to study the ion channels under different conditions.

Depending on what the researcher is trying to measure, the diameter of the pipette tip used may vary, but it is usually in the micrometer range. This small size is used to enclose a cell membrane surface area or "patch" that often contains just one or a few ion channel molecules. This type of electrode is distinct from the "sharp microelectrode" used to puncture cells in traditional intracellular recordings, in that it is sealed onto the surface of the cell membrane, rather than inserted through it.

In some experiments, the micropipette tip is heated in a microforge to produce a smooth surface that assists in forming a high resistance seal with the cell membrane. To obtain this high resistance seal, the micropipette is pressed against a cell membrane and suction is applied. A portion of the cell membrane is suctioned into the pipette, creating an omega-shaped area of membrane which, if formed properly, creates a resistance in the 10–100 gigaohms range, called a "gigaohm seal" or "gigaseal". The high resistance of this seal makes it possible to isolate electronically the currents measured across the membrane patch with little competing noise, as well as providing some mechanical stability to the recording.

Recording
Many patch clamp amplifiers do not use true voltage clamp circuitry, but instead are differential amplifiers that use the bath electrode to set the zero current (ground) level. This allows a researcher to keep the voltage constant while observing changes in current. To make these recordings, the patch pipette is compared to the ground electrode. Current is then injected into the system to maintain a constant, set voltage. The current that is needed to clamp the voltage is opposite in sign and equal in magnitude to the current through the membrane.

Alternatively, the cell can be current clamped in whole-cell mode, keeping current constant while observing changes in membrane voltage.

Tissue sectioning
Accurate tissue sectioning with compresstome vibratome or microtomes is essential, in addition to patch clamp methods. By supplying thin, uniform tissue slices, these devices provide optimal electrode implantation. To prepare tissues for patch clamp studies in a way that ensures accurate and dependable recordings, researchers can select between using vibratomes for softer tissues and microtomes for tougher structures. Leica Biosystems, Carl Zeiss AG are the notable producer of these devices.

Variations
Several variations of the basic technique can be applied, depending on what the researcher wants to study. The inside-out and outside-out techniques are called "excised patch" techniques, because the patch is excised (removed) from the main body of the cell. Cell-attached and both excised patch techniques are used to study the behavior of individual ion channels in the section of membrane attached to the electrode.

Whole-cell patch and perforated patch allow the researcher to study the electrical behavior of the entire cell, instead of single channel currents. The whole-cell patch, which enables low-resistance electrical access to the inside of a cell, has now largely replaced high-resistance microelectrode recording techniques to record currents across the entire cell membrane.

Cell-attached patch
For this method, the pipette is sealed onto the cell membrane to obtain a gigaseal (a seal with electrical resistance on the order of a gigaohm), while ensuring that the cell membrane remains intact. This allows the recording of currents through single, or a few, ion channels contained in the patch of membrane captured by the pipette. By only attaching to the exterior of the cell membrane, there is very little disturbance of the cell structure. Also, by not disrupting the interior of the cell, any intracellular mechanisms normally influencing the channel will still be able to function as they would physiologically. Using this method it is also relatively easy to obtain the right configuration, and once obtained it is fairly stable.

For ligand-gated ion channels or channels that are modulated by metabotropic receptors, the neurotransmitter or drug being studied is usually included in the pipette solution, where it can interact with what used to be the external surface of the membrane. The resulting channel activity can be attributed to the drug being used, although it is usually not possible to then change the drug concentration inside the pipette. The technique is thus limited to one point in a dose response curve per patch. Therefore, the dose response is accomplished using several cells and patches. However, voltage-gated ion channels can be clamped successively at different membrane potentials in a single patch. This results in channel activation as a function of voltage, and a complete I-V (current-voltage) curve can be established in only one patch. Another potential drawback of this technique is that, just as the intracellular pathways of the cell are not disturbed, they cannot be directly modified either.

Inside-out patch
In the inside-out method, a patch of the membrane is attached to the patch pipette, detached from the rest of the cell, and the cytosolic surface of the membrane is exposed to the external media, or bath. One advantage of this method is that the experimenter has access to the intracellular surface of the membrane via the bath and can change the chemical composition of what the inside surface of the membrane is exposed to. This is useful when an experimenter wishes to manipulate the environment at the intracellular surface of single ion channels. For example, channels that are activated by intracellular ligands can then be studied through a range of ligand concentrations.

To achieve the inside-out configuration, the pipette is attached to the cell membrane as in the cell-attached mode, forming a gigaseal, and is then retracted to break off a patch of membrane from the rest of the cell. Pulling off a membrane patch often results initially in the formation of a vesicle of membrane in the pipette tip, because the ends of the patch membrane fuse together quickly after excision. The outer face of the vesicle must then be broken open to enter into inside-out mode; this may be done by briefly taking the membrane through the bath solution/air interface, by exposure to a low Ca2+ solution, or by momentarily making contact with a droplet of paraffin or a piece of cured silicone polymer.

Whole-cell recording or whole-cell patch
Whole-cell recordings involve recording currents through multiple channels simultaneously, over a large region of the cell membrane. The electrode is left in place on the cell, as in cell-attached recordings, but more suction is applied to rupture the membrane patch, thus providing access from the interior of the pipette to the intracellular space of the cell. This provides a means to administer and study how treatments (e.g. drugs) can affect cells in real time. Once the pipette is attached to the cell membrane, there are two methods of breaking the patch. The first is by applying more suction. The amount and duration of this suction depends on the type of cell and size of the pipette. The other method requires a large current pulse to be sent through the pipette. How much current is applied and the duration of the pulse also depend on the type of cell. For some types of cells, it is convenient to apply both methods simultaneously to break the patch.

The advantage of whole-cell patch clamp recording over sharp electrode technique recording is that the larger opening at the tip of the patch clamp electrode provides lower resistance and thus better electrical access to the inside of the cell. A disadvantage of this technique is that because the volume of the electrode is larger than the volume of the cell, the soluble contents of the cell's interior will slowly be replaced by the contents of the electrode. This is referred to as the electrode "dialyzing" the cell's contents. After a while, any properties of the cell that depend on soluble intracellular contents will be altered. The pipette solution used usually approximates the high-potassium environment of the interior of the cell to minimize any changes this may cause. There is often a period at the beginning of a whole-cell recording when one can take measurements before the cell has been dialyzed.

Outside-out patch
The name "outside-out" emphasizes both this technique's complementar-ity to the inside-out technique, and the fact that it places the external rather than intracellular surface of the cell membrane on the outside of the patch of membrane, in relation to the patch electrode.

The formation of an outside-out patch begins with a whole-cell recording configuration. After the whole-cell configuration is formed, the electrode is slowly withdrawn from the cell, allowing a bulb of membrane to bleb out from the cell. When the electrode is pulled far enough away, this bleb will detach from the cell and reform as a convex membrane on the end of the electrode (like a ball open at the electrode tip), with the original outside of the membrane facing outward from the electrode. As the image at the right shows, this means that the fluid inside the pipette will be simulating the intracellular fluid, while a researcher is free to move the pipette and the bleb with its channels to another bath of solution. While multiple channels can exist in a bleb of membrane, single channel recordings are also possible in this conformation if the bleb of detached membrane is small and only contains one channel.

Outside-out patching gives the experimenter the opportunity to examine the properties of an ion channel when it is isolated from the cell and exposed successively to different solutions on the extracellular surface of the membrane. The experimenter can perfuse the same patch with a variety of solutions in a relatively short amount of time, and if the channel is activated by a neurotransmitter or drug from the extracellular face, a dose-response curve can then be obtained. This ability to measure current through exactly the same piece of membrane in different solutions is the distinct advantage of the outside-out patch relative to the cell-attached method. On the other hand, it is more difficult to accomplish. The longer formation process involves more steps that could fail and results in a lower frequency of usable patches.

Perforated patch
This variation of the patch clamp method is very similar to the whole-cell configuration. The main difference lies in the fact that when the experimenter forms the gigaohm seal, suction is not used to rupture the patch membrane. Instead, the electrode solution contains small amounts of an antifungal or antibiotic agent, such as amphothericin-B, nystatin, or gramicidin, which diffuses into the membrane patch and forms small pores in the membrane, providing electrical access to the cell interior. When comparing the whole-cell and perforated patch methods, one can think of the whole-cell patch as an open door, in which there is complete exchange between molecules in the pipette solution and the cytoplasm. The perforated patch can be likened to a screen door that only allows the exchange of certain molecules from the pipette solution to the cytoplasm of the cell.

Advantages of the perforated patch method, relative to whole-cell recordings, include the properties of the antibiotic pores, that allow equilibration only of small monovalent ions between the patch pipette and the cytosol, but not of larger molecules that cannot permeate through the pores. This property maintains endogenous levels of divalent ions such as Ca2+ and signaling molecules such as cAMP. Consequently, one can have recordings of the entire cell, as in whole-cell patch clamping, while retaining most intracellular signaling mechanisms, as in cell-attached recordings. As a result, there is reduced current rundown, and stable perforated patch recordings can last longer than one hour. Disadvantages include a higher access resistance, relative to whole-cell, due to the partial membrane occupying the tip of the electrode. This may decrease current resolution and increase recording noise. It can also take a significant amount of time for the antibiotic to perforate the membrane (about 15 minutes for amphothericin-B, and even longer for gramicidin and nystatin). The membrane under the electrode tip is weakened by the perforations formed by the antibiotic and can rupture. If the patch ruptures, the recording is then in whole-cell mode, with antibiotic contaminating the inside of the cell.

Loose patch
A loose patch clamp is different from the other techniques discussed here in that it employs a loose seal (low electrical resistance) rather than the tight gigaseal used in the conventional technique. This technique was used as early as the year 1961, as described in a paper by Strickholm on the impedance of a muscle cell's surface, but received little attention until being brought up again and given a name by Almers, Stanfield, and Stühmer in 1982, after patch clamp had been established as a major tool of electrophysiology.

To achieve a loose patch clamp on a cell membrane, the pipette is moved slowly towards the cell, until the electrical resistance of the contact between the cell and the pipette increases to a few times greater resistance than that of the electrode alone. The closer the pipette gets to the membrane, the greater the resistance of the pipette tip becomes, but if too close a seal is formed, and it could become difficult to remove the pipette without damaging the cell. For the loose patch technique, the pipette does not get close enough to the membrane to form a gigaseal or a permanent connection, nor to pierce the cell membrane. The cell membrane stays intact, and the lack of a tight seal creates a small gap through which ions can pass outside the cell without entering the pipette.

A significant advantage of the loose seal is that the pipette that is used can be repeatedly removed from the membrane after recording, and the membrane will remain intact. This allows repeated measurements in a variety of locations on the same cell without destroying the integrity of the membrane. This flexibility has been especially useful to researchers for studying muscle cells as they contract under real physiological conditions, obtaining recordings quickly, and doing so without resorting to drastic measures to stop the muscle fibers from contracting. A major disadvantage is that the resistance between the pipette and the membrane is greatly reduced, allowing current to leak through the seal, and significantly reducing the resolution of small currents. This leakage can be partially corrected for, however, which offers the opportunity to compare and contrast recordings made from different areas on the cell of interest. Given this, it has been estimated that the loose patch technique can resolve currents smaller than 1 mA/cm2.

Patch-Seq
A combination of cellular imaging, RNA sequencing and patch clamp this method is used to fully characterize neurons across multiple modalities. As neural tissues are one of the most transcriptomically diverse populations of cells, classifying neurons into cell types in order to understand the circuits they form is a major challenge for neuroscientists. Combining classical classification methods with single cell RNA-sequencing post-hoc has proved to be difficult and slow. By combining multiple data modalities such as electrophysiology, sequencing and microscopy, Patch-seq allows for neurons to be characterized in multiple ways simultaneously. It currently suffers from low throughput relative to other sequencing methods mainly due to the manual labor involved in achieving a successful patch-clamp recording on a neuron. Investigations are currently underway to automate patch-clamp technology which will improve the throughput of patch-seq as well.

Automatic patch clamping
Automated patch clamp systems have been developed in order to collect large amounts of data inexpensively in a shorter period of time. Such systems typically include a single-use microfluidic device, either an injection molded or a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) cast chip, to capture a cell or cells, and an integrated electrode.

In one form of such an automated system, a pressure differential is used to force the cells being studied to be drawn towards the pipette opening until they form a gigaseal. Then, by briefly exposing the pipette tip to the atmosphere, the portion of the membrane protruding from the pipette bursts, and the membrane is now in the inside-out conformation, at the tip of the pipette. In a completely automated system, the pipette and the membrane patch can then be rapidly moved through a series of different test solutions, allowing different test compounds to be applied to the intracellular side of the membrane during recording.

title: Patch clamp


text:
Currency tracking

The term currency tracking may refer to more than one article:
 * Currency bill tracking, the process of tracking the retail movements of banknotes
 * Fixed exchange rate system, a system of currency value management, by tracking another currency or currencies
 * Crawling peg, another system of currency value management, by tracking a basket of currencies

title: Currency tracking


text:
Talk:Eastern gray squirrel

New Sections
I created new sections titled "Diseases" and "Ecosystems" to add some more context to the article. Ahhinckson (talk) 17:51, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

 * I also edited to the section "displacement of red squirrels" 4theloveofAH (talk) 22:17, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Poor focus to this article and missing core info
I see there is a related article on the grey squirrel in Europe. Is this article just a copy of that one? The focus as written is heavily on the grey squirrel as an invasive species and pest, with very little about the species in its native habitat. What is its role in the ecology of the forests of the eastern US? I suggest the info about the grey squirrel outside its native range be moved to the article about that topic, and beef up the article about the species as native. 2600:6C5E:517F:FAFA:EC5D:1A4C:180D:3FB9 (talk) 14:04, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

 * hello, which section are you referring to ? 4theloveofAH (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Diet and Habitat
I have added some more context onto these two sections Ahhinckson (talk) 20:57, 19 November 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 February 2023
The third paragraph under the habitat subsection of the behavior section has several instances of unnecessary capitalization- change "Eastern gray Squirrels" to "Eastern gray squirrels". Change "Den" to "den". Change "Covers like Canopy and Midstory Trees are used by Squirrels to hide from prey such as Hawks and Owls" to "Covers like canopy and midstory trees are used by squirrels to hide from predators such as hawks and owls". The last error also refers to hawks and owls as prey, which they are not when speaking about squirrels. FireflyBuffet (talk) 20:17, 15 February 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ — hike395 (talk) 05:30, 16 February 2023 (UTC)

Squirrel helping with Harvest
"However, Eastern Gray Squirrels have had a positive impact on human life. For example, they helped Native Americans access food. In some states like Mississippi, they have helped harvest 2.5 million dollars in crops annually, which helped Mississippi gain 12.5 million dollars." The linked Source is talking about the squirrels being harvested, not helping with the Harvest. 2A02:8109:B80:1EFC:F4AB:6483:B14B:6B46 (talk) 20:44, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Removed. Thank you for pointing that out. Meters (talk) 21:48, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Seagull eating eastern Grey (black) squirrel
there is a video circulating online of a seagull eating a black squirrel whole, which is pretty amazing. Can this be added to this page? 98.157.245.189 (talk) 17:57, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

 * While this certainly would be a valuable addition to any page, it would be best suited to the article on Gulls (I believe it was a herring gull in that specific video). Hwamplero (talk) 01:32, 5 February 2024 (UTC)

Page organization issues
This page is poorly organized. The same information is relayed in more than one section and could be consolidated. There needs to be a “Reproduction” section, which I will be adding shortly. When viewed on a mobile device, the “Characteristics" section has numerous photos stacked on top of each other before you get to any of the text. If all of these photos are needed in the article a gallery section should be established at the bottom of the page to accommodate them. Down time (talk) 19:47, 7 February 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Eastern gray squirrel