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Achelousaurus

Achelousaurus is a genus of centrosaurine ceratopsid dinosaur that lived during the Late Cretaceous Period of what is now North America, about 74.2 million years ago. The first fossils of Achelousaurus were collected in Montana in 1987, by a team led by Jack Horner, with more finds made in 1989. In 1994, Achelousaurus horneri was described and named by Scott D. Sampson; the generic name means "Achelous lizard", in reference to the Greek deity Achelous, and the specific name refers to Horner. The genus is known from a few specimens consisting mainly of skull material from individuals, ranging from juveniles to adults.

A large centrosaurine, Achelousaurus supposedly was about 6 m long, with a weight of about 3 MT. As a ceratopsian, it walked on all fours, had a short tail and a large head with a hooked beak. It had a bony neck-frill at the rear of the skull, which sported a pair of long spikes, which curved towards the outside. Adult Achelousaurus had rough bosses (roundish protuberances) above the eyes and on the snout where other centrosaurines often had horns in the same positions. These bosses were covered by a thick layer of keratin, but their exact shape in life is uncertain. Some researchers hypothesize that the bosses were used in fights, with the animals butting each other's heads, as well as for display.

Within the Ceratopsia, Achelousaurus lies within the clade Pachyrostra (or "thick-snouts"). It has been suggested that it was the direct descendant of the similar genus Einiosaurus (which had spikes but no bosses) and the direct ancestor of Pachyrhinosaurus (which had larger bosses). The first two genera would be transitional forms, evolving through anagenesis from Styracosaurus. There has been debate about this theory, with later discoveries showing that Achelousaurus is closely related to Pachyrhinosaurus in the group Pachyrhinosaurini. Achelousaurus is known from the Two Medicine Formation and lived in the island continent of Laramidia. As a ceratopsian, Achelousaurus would have been a herbivore and it appears to have had a high metabolic rate, though lower than that of modern mammals and birds.

Horner's expeditions to Landslide Butte
All known Achelousaurus specimens were recovered from the Two Medicine Formation in Glacier County, Montana during excavations conducted by the Museum of the Rockies, which still houses the specimens. The discoveries came about by an accidental chain of events. In the spring of 1985, paleontologist John "Jack" R. Horner was informed that he would no longer be allowed to exploit the Willow Creek site, where he had studied the Maiasaura Egg Mountain nesting colony for six years. Having already made extensive arrangements for a new field season, he was suddenly forced to seek an alternative site. Horner had always been intrigued by the field diaries of Charles Whitney Gilmore who had reported the discovery of dinosaur eggs at Landslide Butte in 1928, but never published on them. In this locality, Gilmore had employed George Fryer Sternberg to excavate skeletons of the horned dinosaurs Brachyceratops and Styracosaurus ovatus. That summer, Horner obtained the permission of the Blackfeet Indian Tribal Council to prospect for fossils on Landslide Butte, which is part of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation; it was the first paleontological investigation there since the 1920s. In August 1985, Horner's associate Bob Makela discovered a rich fossil site on the land of the farmer Ricky Reagan, which was called the Dinosaur Ridge Quarry and contained fossils of horned dinosaurs. On 20 June 1986, Horner and Makela returned to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation and resumed work on the Dinosaur Ridge Quarry, which proved to contain, apart from eggs, more than a dozen skeletons of a horned dinosaur later named Einiosaurus. In August 1986, at a nearby site – the Canyon Bone Bed on the land of Gloria Sundquist, east of the Milk River – Horner's team discovered another Einiosaurus bone bed. Part of the discoveries made on this occasion was an additional horned dinosaur skull, specimen MOR 492, that later would be referred to (i.e., formally assigned to) Rubeosaurus, the genus name in 2010 given to Styracosaurus ovatus.

During the field season of 1987 (early July), volunteer Sidney M. Hostetter located another horned dinosaur skull near the Canyon Bone Bed, specimen MOR 485. By the end of August, it had been secured and was driven on a grain truck to the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman. On 23 June 1988, another site was discovered in the vicinity – the Blacktail Creek North. In the summer of 1989, graduate student Scott D. Sampson joined the team, wanting to study the function of the frill display structures in horned dinosaurs. At the end of June 1989, Horner, his son Jason and his head preparator Carrie Ancell discovered horned dinosaur specimen MOR 591, a subadult skull and partial postcranial skeleton, near the Blacktail Creek.

Interpretation of the collected fossils
It was initially assumed that all the horned dinosaur material recovered by the expeditions could be assigned to a single "styracosaur" species distinct from Styracosaurus albertensis, as the fossils represented a limited geological time period, then estimated at half a million years. Raymond Robert Rogers, who was studying the stratigraphy of the bone beds, referred to it as a Styracosaurus sp. (of undetermined species) in 1989. Styracosaurus ovatus – though sometimes considered an invalid nomen dubium – had already been found in the area by G. F. Sternberg and was an obvious candidate. But also the possibility was taken into account that the finds were of a species new to science. This species was informally named "Styracosaurus makeli" in honor of Bob Makela, who had died in a traffic accident just days before the discovery of specimen MOR 485. In 1990, this name, as an invalid nomen nudum, appeared in a photo caption in a book by Stephen Czerkas.

Horner, an expert on the Hadrosauridae family, had less affinity for other kinds of dinosaurs. In 1987 and 1989, horned dinosaur specialist Peter Dodson was invited to investigate the new ceratopsian finds. In 1990, the fossil material was seen by Dodson as strengthening the case for the validity of a separate Styracosaurus ovatus, to be distinguished from Styracosaurus albertensis.

Meanwhile, Horner had come to a more complex view of the situation. He still thought that the fossil material had been part of a single population but concluded that this had developed over time as a chronospecies evolving into a series of subsequent taxa. In 1992, Horner, David Varricchio, and Mark Goodwin published an article in Nature based on the six-year field study of sediments and dinosaurs from Montana. They proposed that the expeditions had uncovered three "transitional taxa" spanning the gap between the already known Styracosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus. For the moment, they declined to name these taxa. The oldest form was indicated as "Transitional Taxon A," mainly represented by skull MOR 492. Then came "Taxon B" – the many skeletons of the Dinosaur Ridge Quarry and the Canyon Bone Bed. The youngest was "Taxon C," represented by skull MOR 485 and the horned dinosaur fossils of the Blacktail Creek.

Sampson names Achelousaurus
Sampson had continued his studies of the material since 1989. In 1994, in a talk during the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, he named "Taxon C" as a new genus and species, Achelousaurus horneri. Although an abstract was published containing a sufficient description, it did not identify a holotype, a name-bearing specimen. In 1995, in a subsequent article, Sampson indicated specimen MOR 485 as the holotype specimen of Achelousaurus horneri. The generic name consists of the words Achelous, the name of a Greek mythological figure, and saurus, which is Latinized Greek for lizard. Achelous (Ἀχελῷος) is a Greek river deity and a shapeshifter who was able to transform himself into anything. During a fight with Hercules, the mythical hero, Achelous took the form of a bull, but lost the battle when one of his horns was removed. This allusion is a reference to the supposedly transitional traits of the dinosaur and the characteristic loss of horns through ontogenetic and phylogenetic development, and thus through individual change and evolution. Dodson, in 1996, praised the generic name for being original and intelligent. The specific name honors Jack Horner, for his research on the dinosaurs of the Two Medicine Formation in Montana. Sampson also named "Taxon B" as the genus Einiosaurus in the same article wherein Achelousaurus was described. He said paleontologists needed to be cautious when naming new ceratopsian genera because their intraspecific variation (i.e., variation within a species) might be mistaken for interspecific differences (between species). Until 1995, only one new genus of centrosaurine dinosaur had been named since Pachyrhinosaurus in 1950, namely Avaceratops in 1986. Achelousaurus thus holds particular importance for being one of the few ceratopsid genera named in the late twentieth century.

The holotype specimen MOR 485 was collected by Hostetter and Ray Rogers from the Landslide Butte Field Area about 40 km northwest of Cut Bank. In 1995 Sampson described it as the partial skull of an adult animal including the nasal and supraorbital (region above the eye socket) bosses (roundish protuberances instead of horns), and the parietal bones. Additionally, MOR 485 preserves some bones of the skull rear and sides, which in 2009 were listed by Tracy L. Ford as a right squamosal bone, the left squamosal, both maxillae, both lacrimal bones, both quadrate bones, both palatine bones, the braincase and the basioccipital bone. In 2015, Leonardo Maiorino reported that as part of the same specimen a fragmentary lower jaw has been catalogued as MOR 485-7-12-87-4. A right squamosal bone from another adult individual was recovered from the same Canyon Bone Bed site as MOR 485 (and catalogued under the same number), but only reported in 2010. Two other specimens were collected on the Blacktail Creek, 35 km to the south of Cut Bank and referred to Achelousaurus by Sampson in 1995. Specimen MOR 591 is a partial skull and an about 60% complete skeleton of a sub-adult specimen that includes the vertebral column, pelvis, sacrum and a femur. It also includes lower jaws, catalogued as MOR 591-7-15-89-1. Both skull and lower jaws are nearly complete, lacking only the braincase and occipital region. MOR 591 is smaller than the holotype with a skull base length of about 60 cm. Specimen MOR 571 includes a partial skull and lower jaws with associated ribs and vertebrae of an adult. The skull consists of only the parietals, and the lower jaws are limited to their upper rear bones, the surangulars and articulars. A fifth specimen is MOR 456.1, a subadult. None of the specimens were of an advanced individual age. According to Andrew McDonald and colleagues, the Achelousaurus finds represented single individuals, not bone beds.

Possible Achelousaurus finds
In addition to fossils that have been unequivocally assigned to Achelousaurus, some other material has been found of which the identity is uncertain. A centrosaurine ceratopsid specimen with bosses from the Dinosaur Park Formation (specimen TMP 2002.76.1) found in 1996 was suggested to belong to a new taxon in 2006, but may instead belong to Achelousaurus or Pachyrhinosaurus. Since it is missing the parietal bones, which are used to diagnose centrosaurines, it is not possible to assign it to any genus with confidence. In 2006, it was also proposed that Monoclonius lowei, a dubious species based on a skull (specimen CMN 8790) from the Dinosaur Park Formation, could be a sub-adult specimen of Styracosaurus, Achelousaurus or Einiosaurus, with which it is roughly contemporaneous. In addition, some indeterminate specimens from the Two Medicine Formation – such as fragmentary skull MOR 464 or snout MOR 449 – may belong to Achelousaurus or the two other roughly contemporary ceratopsids Einiosaurus and Rubeosaurus.

General build
Achelousaurus is estimated to have been 6 m long with a weight of 3 MT. The skull of an adult individual (holotype specimen MOR 485) was estimated to have been 1.62 m long. This puts it in the same size-range as other members of the Centrosaurinae subgroup of ceratopsians that lived during the Campanian age. It was about as large as its close relative Einiosaurus, but with a much heavier build. Achelousaurus approached the robustness of one of the largest and most heavily built horned dinosaurs known: Triceratops.

As a ceratopsid, Achelousaurus would have been a quadrupedal animal with hoofed digits and a shortened, downwards swept tail. Its very large head, which would have rested on a straight neck, had a hooked upper beak, very large nasal openings, and long tooth rows developed into dental batteries that contained hundreds of appressed and stacked individual teeth. In the tooth sockets, new teeth grew under the old ones, each position housing a column of teeth posed on top of each other. Achelousaurus had 25 to 28 such tooth positions in each maxilla (upper jaw bone).

Distinguishing traits
In 1995, when describing the species, Sampson gave a formal list of four traits that distinguish Achelousaurus from its centrosaurine relatives. Firstly, adult individuals have nasal bones with a boss on top that is relatively small and thin, and heavily covered with pits; secondly, adult individuals do not have true horns above the eye sockets but relatively large bosses with high ridges; thirdly, not yet fully grown individuals, or subadults, have true horncores (the bony part of the horns) above the eye sockets with the inward facing surface being concave; and fourthly, the parietal bones of the neck shield have a single pair of curved spikes sticking out from the rear margin to behind and to the outside.

Besides these unique characteristics, Sampson pointed out additional differences with two very closely related forms. The frill spikes of Achelousaurus are more outwards oriented than the spikes of Einiosaurus, which are medially curved; the spikes of Achelousaurus are nevertheless less directed to the outside than the comparable spikes of Pachyrhinosaurus. Achelousaurus also differs from Pachyrhinosaurus in its smaller nasal boss that does not reach the frontal bones at its rear. Apart from the skull, no features of the skeleton are known that distinguish Achelousaurus from other members of the Centrosaurinae.

Skull
Horned dinosaurs mainly differ from each other in their horns, which are located on the snout and above the eyes, and in the large skull frill, which covers the neck like a shield. Achelousaurus exhibited the build of derived ("advanced") centrosaurines, which are typified by short brow horns or bosses, combined with elaborate frill spikes. The general frill proportions are typically centrosaurine, with a wide rounded squamosal bone at the side, which expanded towards the rear. It also shares the typical frill curvature with a top surface that is convex from side to side and concave from front to rear.

Adult Achelousaurus skulls had a rugose, heavily pitted boss on the snout or nasal region, where many other ceratopsids had a horn. Such a boss is often called "pachyostotic", i.e. consisting of thickened bone. But describing it as a thick "boss" can be misleading: in fact, it forms a wide depression with a thin bone floor and irregular excavations, though it is less depressed than with Pachyrhinosaurus. The nasal boss covered about two-thirds of the top surface of the nasal bones. The boss was similar to that seen in the related genus Pachyrhinosaurus, though narrower, shorter, and less high. It covered 27% of the total skull length, was 30% longer than the nostril-eye socket distance and was about twice as long as the eye socket. Its rear edge did not reach the level of the eye socket. The nasal boss extended forward, where it fused onto the nasal and premaxilla bones (of the upper jaw) at the front of the snout, though the nasal bone itself did not fuse with the premaxilla. The boss of specimen MOR 485 furthermore had an excavation (or cavity) at its front end. The horn core that formed the boss may have developed by either becoming procurved (i.e. bent forward) during growth, like the horn of the related Einiosaurus, until it fused onto the nasal bone; or from a simple, erect horn, which later extended its base forward over the snout region, as in Pachyrhinosaurus. The nasal bone formed the top of a large bony nostril. From the rear edge of that nostril a sharp process stuck out to the front. The snout was – compared to that of Einiosaurus – relatively wide at the level of the rear nostrils. The lacrimal bone, in front of the eye socket, was thickened, mainly on the inner surface while the outer surface was featureless apart from a crater-like excavation. Adult skulls also possess large, rugose, and oval bosses on the supraorbital region above the eyes, instead of the horns of other ceratopsids. The supraorbital bosses extended from the postorbital bone forward to incorporate the triangular palpebral and prefrontal bones, and had high transverse ridges around the middle, which were thick at their base and thin towards their top. The palpebral bones strongly stood out, forming an "antorbital buttress". The fused prefrontals did not reach the nasal boss, forming a distinctive transverse saddle-shaped groove separating the nasal boss from the supraorbital bosses. This groove extended backwards, separating the supraorbital bosses from each other and forming a T-shape in top view. These bosses were similar to those of Pachyrhinosaurus, but with taller ridges and more pronounced rugosities. The long and low supraorbital horncores of the sub-adult specimen MOR 591 were similar to those of sub-adult Einiosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus. They had a concave surface on the inner side as with Pachyrhinosaurus; ridges on the postorbital bones were present that may indicate a beginning transition to bosses.

The skull roof of Achelousaurus had a midline cavity, with an opening at the top called the frontal fontanelle, a feature found in all ceratopsids, which have a "double" skull roof formed by the frontal bones folding towards each other between the brow horn bases. This cavity formed sinuses that extended below the supraorbital bosses, which were therefore relatively thin internally, being 25 mm thick from the outside to the cavity roof. This cavity appears to have partially closed over as an animal aged, with only the rear part of the fontanelle being open in the adult specimen MOR 485. Like that of all other ceratopsids, the skull of Achelousaurus had a parietosquamosal frill or "neck shield", which was formed by the parietal bones at the rear and the squamosal bones at the sides. The parietal is one of the main bones used to distinguish centrosaurine taxa from each other and resolve relationships between them, whereas the squamosal is very similar across taxa. In Achelousaurus, the squamosal bone was much shorter than the parietal. Of its inner margin the rear portion formed a step in relation to the front part, with the suture between the squamosal and the parietal showing a kink to behind at the level of the rear supratemporal fenestra, a typical centrosaurine trait. The squamosal and the jugal bone, by touching each other, excluded the quadratojugal from the edge of the lateral temporal fenestra, i.e. the opening at the rear of the skull side.

The frill of Achelousaurus had two conspicuous large spikes that were directed backwards and curved to the sides away from each other. During the 1990s, it was increasingly understood that such spikes on the parietals were not random growths but specific traits that could be used to determine the evolution of horned dinosaurs, if only it could be analyzed how they corresponded among species. Sampson, in the paper describing Achelousaurus in 1995, therefore introduced a generalized numbering system for such parietal processes, counting them from the midline to the side of the frill. This was applied to the Centrosaurinae as a whole in 1997. The large spikes of Achelousaurus correspond to "Process 3" spikes of other centrosaurines and were similar to those of Einiosaurus, though curved more to the sides, similar to Pachyrhinosaurus. They were shorter and thinner than the corresponding spikes of Styracosaurus. Between these spikes, on both sides of the central frill notch, were two small tab-like processes ("Process 2") that were directed towards the midline. Innermost "Process 1" spikes, as present in Centrosaurus, are lacking with Achelousaurus. The frill had two large paired openings, the parietal fenestrae, with a midline parietal bar between them. A linear row of rounded swellings ran along the top of the parietal bar, which may be homologous to the spikes and horns in the same area of some Pachyrhinosaurus specimens. A row of relatively small processes ran along the parietal shield margin from the "Process 3" spikes outwards, for a total per side of seven. They were largely equal in size, causing the P4 process to be reduced in comparison to the P3. These lower processes appear to have been capped by epoccipitals, bones that lined the frills of ceratopsids. In Achelousaurus these epoccipitals, which start as separate skin ossifications or osteoderms, fuse with the underlying frill bone to form spikes, at least in the third position. In 2020, it was denied that these processes were separate ossifications. In the most mature individuals, the front-most P6 and P7 processes would be less imbricated relative to each other, rotated around their longitudinal axes.

Keratin sheaths
The bosses on the skull of Achelousaurus may have been covered in a keratinous sheath in life, but their shape in a living animal is uncertain. In 2009, the paleontologist Tobin L. Hieronymus and colleagues examined correlations between skull morphology, horn, and skin features of modern horned animals, and examined the skull of centrosaurine dinosaurs for the same correlates. They proposed that the rugose bosses of Achelousaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus were covered by thick pads of cornified (or keratinized) skin, similar to the boss of modern muskoxen (Ovibos moschatus). The nasal horncore of adult Achelousaurus had an upward slant and its upper surface had correlates for a thick epidermal (outer layer of skin) pad that graded into correlates for a cornified sheath on the sides. A thick pad of epidermis may have grown from the V-shaped pitted notch at the tip of the nasal horncore. The growth direction of the nasal pad would have been towards the front. The supraorbital bosses may have had a thick pad of epidermis, which grew at a sideways angle similar to the curved horncores of Coronosaurus, as indicated by the orientation of the "fins" or ridges on the bosses. That the supraorbital bosses lacked a sulcus (or furrow) at their bases indicates that their horn pads stopped at the wrinkled edges of the bosses. The pitting might indicate a softer growing layer connecting the hard inner bone with the hard horn sheath. In addition, correlates for a rostral scale in front of the nasal boss and scale rows along the parietal midline and supraorbital-squamosal region were identified.

Horner's hypothesis of anagenesis
In 1992, the study by Horner et al. tried to account for the fact that within a limited geological period of time (about half a million years) there had been a quick succession of animal communities in the upper Two Medicine Formation. Normally, this would be interpreted as a series of invasions, with the new animal types replacing the old ones. But Horner noted that the newer forms often had a strong similarity to the previous types. This suggested to him that he had discovered a rare proof of evolution in action: the later fauna was basically the old one but at a more evolved stage. The various types found were not distinct species but transitional forms developed within a process of anagenesis. This conformed to the assumption, prevalent at the time, that a species should last about two to three million years. A further indication, according to Horner, was the failure to identify true autapomorphies – unique traits that prove a taxon is a separate species. The fossils instead showed a gradual change from basal (or ancestral) into more derived characters. The horned dinosaurs discovered by Horner exemplified this phenomenon. In the lowest layers of the Two Medicine Formation, 60 m below the overlaying Bearpaw Formation, "Transitional Taxon A" was present. It seemed to be identical to Styracosaurus albertensis, differing from it only in the possession of just a single pair of parietal spikes. The middle layers, 45 m below the Bearpaw, contained "Transitional Taxon B" that also had a single spike pair but differed in the form of its nasal horn that curved to the front over the anterior branches of the nasal bones. In the upper strata, 20 m below the Bearpaw, "Transitional Taxon C" had been excavated. It too had a spike pair but now the nasal horn was fused with the front branches. The upper surface of the horn was elevated and very rough. The orbital horns showed coarse ridges. Subsequently, "Taxon A" was named Stellasaurus, "Taxon B" became Einiosaurus, while "Taxon C" became Achelousaurus. In 1992, Horner et al. did not name these as species for the explicit reason that the entire evolutionary sequence was seen as representing a grade of transitional ceratopsians between Styracosaurus albertensis, known from the Judith River Formation, and the derived, hornless Pachyrhinosaurus from the Horseshoe Canyon Formation, which had the spike pair and bosses on the nose and above the eyes, as well as additional frill ornamentation. In 1997, Horner referred to the three taxa as "centrosaurine 1.", "centrosaurine 2." and "centrosaurine 3.".

Horner thought he had found the mechanism driving this evolution, elaborating on ideas he had developed even before he had investigated Landslide Butte. The animals were living on a narrow strip on the east-coast of Laramidia, bordering the Western Interior Seaway and constrained in the west by the 3 to 4 km high proto-Rocky Mountains. During the Bearpaw Transgression sea levels were rising, steadily reducing the width of their coastal habitat from about 300 km to 30 km. This led to stronger selection pressures, the severest for Achelousaurus which lived during the phase that the coastal strip was at its narrowest. The lower number of individuals that the smaller habitat could have sustained constituted a population bottleneck, making rapid evolution possible. Increased sexual selection would have induced changes in the sexual ornamentation such as spikes, horns and bosses. A reduced environmental stress by lower sea levels on the other hand, would be typified by adaptive radiation. That sexual selection had indeed been the main mechanism would be proven by the fact that young individuals of all three populations were very similar: they all had two frill spikes, a small nasal horn pointing to the front, and orbital horns in the form of slightly elevated knobs. Only in the adult phase did they begin to differ. According to Horner, this also showed that the populations were very closely related. Horner did not perform an exact cladistic analysis determining the relationship between the three populations. Such an analysis calculates which evolutionary tree implies the lowest number of evolutionary changes and therefore is the most likely. He assumed that this would result in a tree in which the types were successive branches. Such a tree would, as a consequence of the method used, never show a direct ancestor-descendant relationship. Many scientists believed such a relation could never be proven anyway. Horner disagreed: he saw the gradual morphological changes as clear proof that, in this case, the evolution of one taxon into another, without a splitting of the populations, could be directly observed. Evolutionists in general would be too hesitant to recognize this. Such a transition is called anagenesis; he posited that, if the opposite, cladogenesis, could not be proven, a scientist was free to assume an anagenetic process.

Basing himself on revised data, Sampson in 1995 estimated that the layers investigated represented a longer period of time than the initially assumed 500,000 years: after the deposition of Gilmore's Brachyceratops quarry, 860,000 years would have passed, and after the Einiosaurus beds 640,000 years, until the maximal extent of the Bearpaw transgression. He did not adopt Horner's hypothesis of anagenesis but assumed speciation took place, with the populations splitting. These time intervals were still short enough to indicate that the rate of speciation must have been high, which might have been true of all centrosaurines of the late Campanian. In 1996, Dodson raised two objections to Horner's hypothesis. Firstly, the possession of just one pair of main spikes seemed more basal than the presence of three pairs, as with Styracosaurus albertensis. This suggested to him that the Einiosaurus–Achelousaurus lineage was a separate branch within the Centrosaurinae. Secondly, he was concerned that Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus were a case of sexual dimorphism, one type being the males, the other the females. This would be suggested by the short geological time interval between the layers their fossils had been found in, which was estimated by him at about 250,000 years. But if the hypothesis were true, it would be perhaps the best example of fast evolution in the Dinosauria.

In 2010, Horner admitted that specimen TMP 2002.76.1 seemed to indicate that Achelousaurus was not descended from Einiosaurus, as it preceded both in age, and yet had a nasal boss. But he stressed that even if the lineages split off, its ancestor might have resembled Einiosaurus. Furthermore, it might still be possible that Einiosaurus was a direct descendant of Rubeosaurus. Also, the process of rapid displacements and extinctions of species could in his opinion still be elegantly explained by a westward expansion of the Bearpaw Sea.

The process of anagenesis was affirmed by John Wilson and Jack Scannella in 2016, who studied the ontogenetic changes in horned dinosaurs. They compared a small Einiosaurus specimen, MOR 456 8-8-87-1, with Achelousaurus specimen MOR 591. Both proved to be quite similar, with the main differences being a longer face in MOR 456 8-8-87-1, and a sharper supraorbital horncore in MOR 591. They concluded that Achelousaurus was likely the direct descendant of Einiosaurus. The more adult Einiosaurus individuals approached the Achelousaurus morphology. The differences between the two taxa would have been caused by heterochrony – differential changes in the speed the various traits developed during the lifetime of an individual. Since Wilson and colleagues found in 2020 that Stellasaurus (Horner's "Taxon A") was intermediate between Styracosaurus and Einiosaurus in morphology and stratigraphy, they could not discount that it was a transitional taxon within an anagenetic lineage.

Classification
In 1995, Sampson formally placed Achelousaurus in the Ceratopsidae, more precisely the Centrosaurinae. In all analyses, Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus are part of the clade Pachyrhinosaurini. By definition, Achelousaurus is a member of the clade Pachyrostra (or "thick-snouts"), in which it is united with Pachyrhinosaurus. In 2010, Gregory S. Paul assigned A. horneri to the genus Centrosaurus, as C. horneri. This has found no acceptance among other researchers, with subsequent taxonomic assessments invariably keeping the generic name Achelousaurus.

Phylogeny
Sampson felt, in 1995, that there was not enough evidence to conclude that Achelousaurus was a direct descendant of Einiosaurus. Unlike Horner, he decided to perform a cladistic analysis to establish a phylogeny. This showed an evolutionary tree wherein Achelousaurus split off between Einiosaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus, as Horner had predicted. Contrary to Horner's claim, Styracosaurus albertensis could not have been a direct ancestor, as it was a sister species of Centrosaurus in Sampson's analysis.

Subsequent studies have sought to determine the precise relationships within this part of the evolutionary tree, with conflicting results regarding the question whether Styracosaurus albertensis or Einiosaurus might have been in the direct line of ascent to Achelousaurus. In 2005, an analysis by Michael Ryan and Anthony Russell found Styracosaurus more closely related to Achelousaurus than to Centrosaurus. This was confirmed by analyses by Ryan in 2007, Nicholas Longrich in 2010, and Xu et al. in 2010. The same year Horner and Andrew T. McDonald moved Styracosaurus ovatus to its own genus, Rubeosaurus, finding it a sister species of Einiosaurus, while Styracosaurus albertensis was again located on the Centrosaurus branch. They also assigned specimen MOR 492, the basis of "Taxon A", to Rubeosaurus. In 2011, a subsequent study by Andrew T. McDonald in this respect replicated the outcome of his previous one, as did a publication by Andre Farke et al. In 2017, J.P. Wilson and Ryan further complicated the issue, concluding that MOR 492 ("Taxon A") was not referable to Rubeosaurus and announcing that yet another genus would be named for it. Wilson and colleagues moved MOR 492 to the new genus Stellasaurus in 2020, which therefore corresponds to "Taxon A". Their study found Rubeosaurus ovatus to be the sister species of Styracosaurus albertensis, and concluded Rubeosaurus to be synonymous with Styracosaurus.

Before Achelousaurus was described, Pachyrhinosaurus canadensis had been considered a solitary aberrant form among centrosaurines, set apart from them by its unusual bosses. Achelousaurus gave evolutionary context to the Canadian species, while expanding the temporal and geographical range for what came to be seen as "pachyrhinosaurs." In all analyses, Achelousaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus were sister groups. In 2008, another closely related species was named, Pachyrhinosaurus lakustai. In that study, the term "Pachyrhinosaurs" was used for the clade consisting of Achelousaurus and Pachyrhinosaurus. When Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum was described in 2012, the clade name Pachyrostra was coined, uniting the two genera; Achelousaurus is the basalmost pachyrostran. Shared derived traits (or synapomorphies) of the group are an enlarged nasal ornamentation and a change of the nasal and brow horns into bosses. At the end of the Campanian, there seems to have been a trend of pachyrostrans replacing other centrosaurines. Also in 2012, the clade Pachyrhinosaurini was named, consisting of species more closely related to Pachyrhinosaurus or Achelousaurus than to Centrosaurus. Apart from Einiosaurus and Rubeosaurus, this included Sinoceratops and Xenoceratops, according to a 2013 study.

Cladistic analyses develop gradually, reflecting new discoveries and insights. Their results can be shown in a cladogram, with the relationships found ordered in an evolutionary tree. The cladogram below shows the phylogenetic position of Achelousaurus in a cladogram from Wilson and colleagues, 2020.

Function of skull ornamentation
In 1995, Sampson noted that earlier studies had found that the horns and frills of ceratopsians most likely had a function in intraspecific display and combat, and that these features would therefore have resulted from sexual selection for successful mating. Likewise, in 1997 Horner concluded that such ornamentation was used by males to establish dominance and that females would have preferred well-equipped males as their offspring would then inherit these traits, conferring a reproduction benefit. Dodson thought that in the Centrosaurinae in general the display value of the frill had been reduced compared to the nasal and supraorbital ornamentation. Sampson in 1995 rejected the possibility that the difference in skull ornamentation between Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus represented sexual dimorphism, for three reasons. Firstly, the extensive Einiosaurus bone beds did not contain any specimens with bosses, as would have been expected if one of the sexes had them. Secondly, Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus are found in strata of a different age. Thirdly, in a situation of sexual dimorphism usually only one of the sexes shows exaggerated secondary sexual characters. Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus however, each have developed a distinct set of such traits.

Hieronymus, in 2009, concluded that the nasal and supraorbital bosses were used for butting or ramming the head or the flank of a rival. The bone structure indicates that the bosses were covered by cornified pads as in modern muskoxen, suggesting dominance fights similar to those of members of the Caprinae subfamily. In the latter group, an evolutionary transition can be observed, where the originally straight horns become more robust, padded, and increasingly curved downwards. The evolution from horncores into bosses in Centrosaurinae would likewise have reflected a change in fighting technique, from clashing to high-energy head-butting. Head-butting would have been an expensive and risky behavior. Opponents would have engaged this way only after assessing each other's strengths visually. For this reason, Hieronymus considered it unlikely that the bosses served for species recognition as this was already guaranteed by the innate species-specific display rituals preceding a real – instead of a ritual – fight. The bosses would have evolved for actual combat, part of a social selection in which individuals competed for scarce resources such as mates, food and breeding grounds.

Previously it had been suggested that the fusion of the first three neck vertebrae, such as seen in the mature specimen MOR 571, might have been a paleopathology, an instance of the disease spondyloarthropathy, but in 1997 it was concluded that it was more likely a normal ontogenetic trait, the vertebrae growing together to form a so-called "syncervical" to support the heavy head. All three main known specimens have syncervicals consisting of three fused neck vertebrae; the trait could have been inherited from a smaller ancestor using a stiffer neck for burrowing or food acquisition.

Social behavior
It has been claimed that ceratopsian dinosaurs were herding animals, due to the large number of known bone beds containing multiple members of the same ceratopsian species. In 2010, Hunt and Farke pointed out that this was mainly true for centrosaurine ceratopsians. Horner assumed that the horned dinosaurs at Landslide Butte lived in herds which had been killed by drought or disease. Dodson concluded that the fact that the Achelousaurus bone beds were monospecific (containing only one species) confirmed the existence of herds.

Metabolism
There has long been debate about the thermoregulation of dinosaurs, centered around whether they were ectotherms ("cold-blooded") or endotherms ("warm-blooded"). Mammals and birds are homeothermic endotherms, which generate their own body heat and have a high metabolism, whereas reptiles are heterothermic ectotherms, which receive most of their body heat from their surroundings. A 1996 study examined the oxygen isotopes from bone phosphates of animals from the Two Medicine Formation, including the juvenile Achelousaurus specimen MOR 591. δ18O values of phosphate in vertebrate bones depend on the δ18O values in their body water and the temperature when the bones were deposited, making it possible to measure fluctuations in temperature for each bone of an individual when they were deposited. The study analyzed seasonal variations in the body temperature and differences in temperature between skeletal regions, to determine whether the dinosaurs maintained their temperature seasonally. A varanid lizard fossil sampled for the study showed isotopic variation consistent with it being an heterothermic ectotherm. The variation of the dinosaurs, including Achelousaurus, was consistent with them being homeothermic endotherms. The metabolic rate of these dinosaurs was likely not as high as that of modern mammals and birds, and they may have been intermediate endotherms.

Paleoenvironment
Achelousaurus is known from the Two Medicine Formation, which preserves coastal sediments dating from the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous Period, between 83 and 74 million years ago. Achelousaurus specimens are found in the highest levels of the formation, probably closer to the end of that timeframe, 74 million years ago.

The Two Medicine Formation is typified by a warm semiarid climate. Its layers were deposed on the east coast of the Laramidia island continent (which consisted of western North America). The high cordillera in the west, combined with predominantly western winds, would have caused a rain shadow, limiting annual rainfall. Rain would mainly have fallen during the summer, when convection storms flooded the landscape. The climate would thus also have been very seasonal, with a long dry season and a short wet season. Vegetation would have been sparse and a little varied. In such conditions, horned dinosaurs would have been dependent on oxbow lakes for a continuous supply of water and food – the main river channels tending to run dry earlier – and perished in them during severe droughts when the animals concentrated around the last watering holes, causing bone beds to form. The brown paleosol in which the horned dinosaurs were found – a mixture of clay and coalified wood fragments – resembles that of modern seasonally dry swamps. The surrounding vegetation might have consisted of about 25 m high conifer trees. Achelousaurus ate much smaller plants, though: a 2013 study determined that ceratopsid herbivores on Laramidia were restricted to feeding on vegetation with a height of 1 m or lower.

More or less contemporary dinosaur genera of the area included Prosaurolophus, Scolosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, Einiosaurus and tyrannosaurids of uncertain classification. As proven by tooth marks, horned dinosaur fossils in the Landslide Butte Field Area had been scavenged by a large theropod predator, which Rogers suggested were Albertosaurus.

The exact composition of the fauna Achelousaurus was part of is uncertain, as its fossils have not been discovered in direct association with other taxa. Its intermediate anagenetic position suggests that Achelousaurus shared its habitat with forms roughly found in the middle or at the end of the time range of its formation. As with horned dinosaurs, Horner assumed he had found transitional taxa in other dinosaur groups of the Two Medicine Formation. One of these was a form in between Lambeosaurus and Hypacrosaurus; in 1994 he would name it Hypacrosaurus stebingeri. Today, Hypacrosaurus stebingeri is no longer seen as having evolved through anagenesis because autapomorphies of the species have been identified. Horner saw some pachycephalosaur skulls as indicative for a taxon in between Stegoceras and Pachycephalosaurus; these have not been consistently referred to a new genus. Finally, Horner thought there was a taxon present that was transitional between Daspletosaurus and Tyrannosaurus. In 2017, tyrannosaurid remains from the Two Medicine Formation were named as a new species of Daspletosaurus: Daspletosaurus horneri. The 2017 study considered it plausible that D. horneri was a direct descendant of D. torosus in a process of anagenesis, but rejected the possibility that D. horneri was the ancestor of Tyrannosaurus.

Other ceratopsians from the Two Medicine Formation include Einiosaurus and Stellasaurus. In addition, remains of other indeterminate and dubious centrosaurines, including Brachyceratops, are known from the formation and though they may represent younger stages of the three valid genera, this is not possible to demonstrate. Whereas Horner assumed that Einiosaurus and Achelousaurus were separate in time, in 2010 Donald M. Henderson considered it possible that at least their descendants or ancestors were overlapping or sympatric and thus would have competed for food sources unless there had been niche partitioning. The skull of Achelousaurus was more than twice as strong than that of Einiosaurus in its bending strength and torsion resistance. This might have indicated a difference in diet to avoid competition. The bite strength of Achelousaurus, measured as an ultimate tensile strength, was 30.5 newtons per square millimeter (N/mm2) at the maxillary tooth row and 18 N/mm2 at the beak. Wilson and colleagues found that since the Two Medicine centrosaurines were separated stratigraphically, they were therefore possibly not contemporaneous. However, in 2021 a study by Wilson and Scannella pointed out that specimen MOR 591 was of a younger individual age than the Einiosaurus skull MOR 456 8-8-87-1, but of the same size. If MOR 591 could indeed be referred to Achelousaurus, this might indicate this genus reached its adult size more quickly.

The indeterminate specimen TMP 2002.76.1 is from the Dinosaur Park Formation and, if it belongs to Achelousaurus, the genus would be the stratigraphically oldest known pachyrhinosaurine taxon. Achelousaurus would then also be the only Campanian ceratopsid known from more than one formation. Both animals occur right below the marine shales of the Bearpaw Formation, but due to longitudinal differences, TMP 2002.76.1 is about 500,000 years older than the Achelousaurus fossils from the Two Medicine Formation.

title: Achelousaurus


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Medco Health Solutions

Medco Health Solutions, Inc. was an American Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM) company. Medco provided pharmacy services to private and public employers, health plans, labor unions, government agencies, and individuals served by Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans.

Medco was a member of the S&P 500 and ranked number 34 on the 2011 Fortune 500 list, with 2011 revenues of more than $70 billion. From 2008 to 2012, the company was ranked first on Fortune magazine's World's Most Admired Companies list in the Healthcare: Pharmacy and Other Services category.

It was acquired by Express Scripts in April 2012.

History
Medco was founded as National Pharmacies in 1983. In 1984, after an IPO, National Pharmacies became Medco Containment Services, LLC. In 1993, Medco Containment was acquired by Merck & Co., Inc. and became Merck-Medco.

On October 2, 2001, UnitedHealth Group, Merck-Medco,and Accenture launched Xceleron Health LLC, a company created to deliver consulting and business acceleration services to emerging technology-based companies in the healthcare industry.

In 2002, Merck & Co announced plans to spin off Merck-Medco. In August 2003, Medco Health Solutions, Inc. became an independent company. On August 28, 2005, Medco Health Solutions contributed $5,000 to the Southwestern Oklahoma State University College of Pharmacy Scholarship Fund.

In October 2005, Medco was selected as the finalist of a three-year pharmacy benefit contract for the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) Self-Funded Health Plans to begin July 1, 2006.

In March 2008, Medco launched a collaboration with Sweden's (then) government-operated retail pharmacy authority, Apoteket, to develop and deliver the first automated electronic prescription review system to improve clinical and financial outcomes for Swedish patients and the country's healthcare system.

In 2009, Medco established the Medco Research Institute – an evidence-based research organization.

In April 2012, it was acquired by Express Scripts.

Lawsuit
In 2004, Medco settled a lawsuit brought by 20 states alleging that they failed to disclose incentives they received from drug companies and improperly switched or pressured doctors to switch patient's medication that added costs to their health plans. They agreed to pay $29.3 million.

In 2005, Medco Health Solutions agreed to pay the United States $155 million plus interest to settle allegations that it accepted kickbacks from drug makers and submitted false claims to the government. There was no admission of guilt or finding of wrongdoing in either settlement.

Acquisitions
In 2005, Medco acquired Accredo Health for $2.2 billion, a specialty pharmaceutical company. In 2007, Medco acquired diabetes care supplier PolyMedica. In 2010, Medco acquired DNA Direct, a genetic testing services company.

In September 2010, Medco acquired United BioSource Corporation, a company that assesses safety risks and the value of medications when they reach the market.

In April 2008, Medco acquired a majority interest in Europa Apotheek, a privately held company based in the Netherlands that provided mail-order and specialty pharmacy services in Germany. In December 2009, Europa Apotheek Venlo acquired shop-apotheke.com – one of Germany's online OTC and healthcare product sites.

In August 2009, Medco formed a joint venture with United Drug plc, a pan-European healthcare leader, to provide home-based pharmacy care services in the United Kingdom for patients covered by the country's National Health Service. In October 2011, Medco bought out United Drug Plc's half of their British home care joint venture the companies began in 2009.

In June 2010, Medco and Celesio AG announced a European joint venture for patients with chronic and complex conditions. In September 2011, Medco took full ownership of the venture.

In April 2012, Medco Health Solutions was acquired by Express Scripts.

Pharmacies
Medco Pharmacy operated 10 mail-order pharmacies and partners with a nationwide network of approximately 60,000 retail pharmacies. Medco's automated pharmacies were located in Las Vegas, Indianapolis, and Willingboro, NJ, and together had the capacity to fill more than three million prescriptions per week.

Medco's mail-order business generated $26 billion in 2011 net revenues and was one of the largest pharmacy operations in the United States. In 2011, 113 million of the 757.7 million prescriptions Medco filled were processed through its mail-order pharmacies. In 2011, nearly 10.5 million of the new prescriptions Medco managed were ePrescriptions.

Medco held 42 U.S. patents for patient data management, front-end pharmacy technology and automated pharmacy technology, and 56 international patents for automated pharmacy-dispensing technology.

Customers can also purchase their medications online and have them delivered.

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

title: Medco Health Solutions


text:
Talk:Linton, Cambridgeshire

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title: Talk:Linton, Cambridgeshire


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User talk:Funman13ozz

IM working on a big essay, if you have any corrections, write them at the BOTTOM of the page and tell me which paragraph/sentence. Thanx

The obvious route could be to launch into this essay full speed, comparing and contrasting every detail of everything, but you will not understand a word of it, because you will not know the history, or even basic guidelines of the religion. Shinto is a polytheistic religion that believes that any natural object in its completely natural state could be a Kami, or god/spirit. You do not actually have to believe in the Kami to be Shinto; you only need to follow the basic rituals, which are the four affirmations, as follows: tradition and family, the main mechanism that traditions are passed by, so one family's Shinto could be different from the one next door. Love of nature, natural objects hold the Kami, as long as they are undisturbed by people. The only unnatural place that the Kami go is the shrines, and that is only because of the torii, gates to the immortal world of the Kami. The next is physical cleanliness, to be clean (pure is used more often) is the basis of Shinto. Evil acts, unlike Islam, "sins" per se, are not looked down upon; they only make you feel "dirty" or impure. Last is the Matsuri, the name for any festival dedicated to the Kami. There are many of these each year, some equivalent to the Day of the Dead or Halloween. Shinto was founded in around 700 B.C.E. and was made Japan's national religion much later. It lost this status after WWII. Islam is a monotheistic religion that focuses on the common God of Abraham, called Allah by Muslims. They believe that Allah sent a final prophet after the rest, who were not divine; this final prophet was Mohammad, who spread Islam to be what it is today. Muslims believe in the five pillars of faith. Firstly, there is profession of faith, which entails that you must openly practice Islam to fulfill your life. Second is prayer five times a day, prayer is practiced by facing toward Mecca, the holy city, and if you are in Mecca face toward the Kaaba (Ka'bah), a large cube from paradise. The next is Almsgiving, which is the belief that all people are equal and they should share the same wealth, so you give alms to the poor. Fourth is fasting during the month of Ramadan, a holy month in the Muslim calendar. During Ramadan, Muslims do not eat all day until the evening when they have bread and water, and then about an hour later they have a small meal. Last is Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Every Muslim must make this journey once in their life, unless poverty or lifelong disease. Islam was founded by Mohammad, and he defended the religion against those who did not agree with it. Most people think they have an idea as to the religion because of the extremists you hear about on the news, etc. but really, the extremists are just extending their belief in the "sixth" pillar, Jihad. Mohammad told his followers there is always an inner war against the infidels (non-Muslim people). Islam was not a popular religion at first, but after Mohammad started to spread the religion, it grew to be one of the biggest religions existing. The basic rules of the religion are similar, as they both have a strict guide for prayer. Shinto depicts that you must follow all the prayer rituals when you pray, which pertain of the four affirmations, physical cleanliness being a strong ritual. Shinto has no ritual for any actual prayer, but they thank for their food before a meal by saying "itadakimasu" ("I will humbly receive this food"), though this is more to the animal that lost its life to make the food than to the person who prepared it. There is also a ritual cleansing to be done in the mouth of a stream, so you are at one with the Kami. Islam has a ritual cleansing to be done before each prayer session called Wudu, (ritual ablution) which entails washing your hands, teeth, face, nose, arms, hair, ears, and feet three times in a certain order. When there is no water you can use sand to clean yourself. If you use water you are cleansed of all past sins and do not need to perform Wudu before the next prayer unless you do something that requires it. Using sand is only a temporary cleanlisness that must be repeated before next prayer. Sin is not a large issue in Shinto, because there is no evil that a human can do, only uncleanliness that you clean only for personal satisfaction. In Islam sins (dhanb ذنب) are taken very seriously as an offense to Allah, and some, including murder, theft, adultery, and in sometimes apostasy can be punishable by law in an Islamic state. Others are left up to Allah to punish. Both Shinto and Islam have holidays during the year, though holidays in Shinto follow the steriotype of being happy or joyous occasions, while Islamic ........thats all I have, more later

title: User talk:Funman13ozz


text:
Deerfoot Trail

Deerfoot Trail is a 46.4 km freeway segment of Highway 2 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. It stretches the entire length of the city from south to north and links suburbs to downtown via Memorial Drive and 17 Avenue SE. The freeway begins south of Calgary where it splits from Macleod Trail, crosses the Bow River into city limits, and reaches the Stoney Trail ring road. Crisscrossing twice more with the river, it intersects Glenmore Trail and Memorial Drive; the former is a major east–west expressway while the latter is a freeway spur into downtown. In north Calgary, it crosses Highway 1 and passes Calgary International Airport before ending at a second interchange with Stoney Trail. Highway 2 becomes the Queen Elizabeth II Highway as it continues north into Rocky View County towards Red Deer and Edmonton.

Originally called Blackfoot Trail Freeway upon the opening of the first section in 1971, it was renamed in 1974 to honour Deerfoot, a late-19th-century Siksika Nation (Blackfoot) long-distance runner known for his exceptional speed. Subsequent sections opened in 1975, 1980, 1982 and 2003. Deerfoot was not entirely a freeway until 2005 when the final of four at-grade intersections in southeast Calgary was converted to an interchange. Well known for its frequent rush hour congestion and collisions, traffic levels have steadily increased as Calgary's population has tripled to over 1.3 million since 1971. The mostly six-lane freeway is Alberta's busiest road with volume reaching nearly 160,000 vehicles per day at Memorial Drive in 2022, twice that for which it was designed. The province of Alberta has been fiscally responsible for the road since 2000 but now seeks to offload maintenance and future improvement costs to the city of Calgary. The two parties remain at odds over who should operate the road in the long-term but completed a joint study in 2021 that offered long and short-term recommendations. In 2023, Aecon began a $615 million project which will add lanes in both directions, twin the Ivor Strong Bridge, and reconfigure various interchanges. All work is planned to be complete by 2027.

Overview
As a segment of Highway 2, Deerfoot Trail is a core route of the National Highway System and a key international corridor. It is also part of Calgary's Primary Goods Movement Network and is identified as a skeletal road in the city's Transportation Plan, a limited-access route important for long distance travellers, and is the only route that stretches the entire length of the city from north to south. From its split with Highway 2A (Macleod Trail) near the hamlet of De Winton in the south, it runs north to Stoney Trail at Calgary's northern city limit where it becomes the Queen Elizabeth II Highway. The freeway roughly bisects the city, though it lies entirely east of Centre Street which officially marks the boundary between the east and west side of the city. From its southern terminus until Memorial Drive, Deerfoot approximates the course of the Bow River. Initially the freeway is on the east side, then crosses to the west bank, and finally back to the east before the river and Memorial Drive veer west at Inglewood towards downtown. Most of the road's northern half parallels Nose Creek, a tributary of the Bow.

Deerfoot is a divided freeway for its entire 46.4-kilometre length, ranging from four to eight lanes wide. The northbound and southbound lanes are separated by an approximately 15 m wide depressed grass median near De Winton, which narrows and becomes a combination of Jersey and constant-slope barriers through most of south Calgary before returning to grass of varying widths from 17 Avenue SE to the north terminus. In north Calgary the grass median is supplemented by 10.75 km of high-tension cable barriers (HTCB) that were added in 2007, virtually eliminating the risk of serious median collisions. It was the first major HTCB installation in Canada. The freeway has a posted speed limit of 110 km/h from its origin at Highway 2A until just after the first Bow River crossing, after which the limit is reduced to 100 km/h for the next 34 km through most of Calgary until Beddington Trail in the northeast where the limit returns to 110 km/h. The entire route is paved with asphalt, except for a 12 km concrete section in south Calgary.

Alberta Transportation, the branch of the Alberta government who operate and maintain all highways in the province, signed a contract with Carmacks Enterprises for maintenance of Deerfoot Trail from Stoney Trail in south Calgary to the northern city limit. The province intends to return control of the freeway to the city, but it is desirable for the city to avoid the significant maintenance and rehabilitation costs associated with the freeway and have the road remain under provincial control for as long as possible. Former Calgary mayor Rod Sykes said, "I wouldn’t take on the problems of the Deerfoot if I were at City Hall now."

South Calgary
Deerfoot Trail begins as a rural freeway near De Winton where two lanes fork to the northeast from Macleod Trail and descend across Dunbow Road toward the Bow River. It crosses the river on twin 236 m bridges constructed over an environmentally sensitive area of the valley. Rising from the river, the freeway enters Calgary limits and its southern suburban neighbourhoods of Cranston and Seton to which access is provided by a partial cloverleaf interchange. A major junction at the Stoney Trail ring road immediately follows, with signage recommending that traffic destined for the International Airport, Edmonton, and Medicine Hat use eastbound Stoney Trail as a bypass. Continuing north as an eight lane freeway, Deerfoot passes between the communities of McKenzie Lake and McKenzie Towne, crossing 130 Avenue SE to the south terminus of Barlow Trail. It then reduces to six lanes, curving to the west through the neighbourhoods of Douglasdale and Douglasglen across the Bow River on the Ivor Strong Bridge, named after John Ivor Strong who served as Chief Commissioner for Calgary until 1971. Immediately after the river, Deerfoot merges with the major routes of Anderson Road and Bow Bottom Trail, often a point of congestion at rush hour. In both directions, traffic through the outdated interchange is reduced from three lanes to two. The freeway curves north along the river's west bank to cross Southland Drive, paralleling Blackfoot Trail near the community of Acadia. North of Acadia, the freeway bisects a large area of commercial development for several kilometres before reaching a major interchange at Glenmore Trail. The interchange is generally identified as the second of two major congestion points on Deerfoot in south Calgary, the so called "Glenmore squeeze", where traffic is reduced to two lanes each way over Glenmore. Deerfoot turns sharply to the east and again crosses the Bow River on the Calf Robe Bridge, named after a Siksika Nation elder. Veering back to the north, it follows the river's east bank across Peigan Trail to a partial cloverleaf interchange at 17 Avenue SE, passing the neighbourhoods of Dover and Southview. Deerfoot meets Memorial Drive, a major freeway spur into downtown, near Pearce Estate Wetland, Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo and the Max Bell Centre, and continues into north Calgary while the Bow River turns west towards downtown.

North Calgary
In north Calgary, the freeway climbs along the east side of Nose Creek, a tributary of the Bow River. From Memorial Drive, it passes the Vista Heights neighbourhood to 16 Avenue NE (Highway 1/Trans-Canada Highway); this section has been largely unchanged since its completion in 1975. The six lane freeway enters light commercial development north of 32 Avenue NE and passes McKnight Boulevard, providing access to airport-related light industrial areas as well as Nose Hill Park, which is visible to the west.. Access to Huntington Hills and Deerfoot Mall are then provided by an interchange at 64 Avenue NE. Beddington Trail splits to the northwest from Deerfoot, following Nose Creek into a large residential area of north Calgary that includes the neighbourhoods of Country Hills, Panorama Hills, and Hidden Valley. The speed limit on Deerfoot increases to 110 km/h as development tapers in an increasingly rural area of north Calgary. After West Nose Creek Park, an interchange with Airport Trail serves as the primary access for Calgary International Airport, and to the west, the neighbourhood of Harvest Hills via 96 Avenue NE. North of Airport Trail, the freeway curves northeast through light commercial areas across Country Hills Boulevard and ends at an interchange with Stoney Trail. It continues north to Airdrie as the Queen Elizabeth II Highway.

Traffic and collisions
Deerfoot Trail is Alberta's busiest highway by a significant margin over Glenmore Trail, with peak daily congestion lasting as many as four hours. Its most travelled stretch is between Memorial Drive and 16 Avenue NE (Trans-Canada Highway) as traffic from Calgary's northern and eastern suburbs converge to travel via Memorial Drive into downtown, in addition to traffic transiting the city and other intra-city trips. The freeway was designed to carry approximately 65,000 vehicles per day but carried 173,500 vehicles between Memorial Drive and Highway 1 in 2019.

In late 2013, the southeastern segment of Stoney Trail was opened to traffic. In conjunction with the northeast portion which opened in 2009, it formed a full eastern bypass of Calgary providing an alternate route for traffic transiting the city. Traffic levels on Deerfoot Trail decreased in the year following the opening, but have since risen to pre-Stoney levels. In a 2016 study, Calgary ranked tenth in traffic congestion among major Canadian cities, with drivers spending nearly 16 hours of the year in standstill traffic.

The excessive volume of traffic on Deerfoot Trail is a contributing factor to the 10,000 collisions recorded between 2002 and 2007, including 24 fatalities. Constable Jeff Klatt of the Calgary Police Service stated that there is a "consensus among police officers that it’s dangerous to do traffic stops" on Deerfoot Trail. A 1993 incident in which a stolen vehicle struck and killed a police officer on Deerfoot was the catalyst for the Calgary Police Service's acquisition of a helicopter. 2013 statistics confirmed that Deerfoot Trail had more crashes and traffic jams than any other road in Calgary. Deerfoot has many entrances and exits in close proximity which exacerbates problems, but some have attributed a portion of the congestion to driver error. Constable Jim Lebedeff of the Calgary Police Service stated, "a lot of people don’t understand, or don’t want to understand, how to merge properly." 30% of respondents to a 2016 poll stated that the main reason they avoid Deerfoot Trail is because they do not feel safe on the freeway.

In 2015, plans for improvements to Deerfoot Trail near Southland Drive were cancelled and a study was initiated to determine the best course of action to begin improving the freeway. The Calf Robe Bridge is also prone to collisions as its concrete deck becomes slick in cold weather, and large curves precede and follow the bridge. A 1996 crash on the bridge claimed the life of a teenager when her northbound car struck the rear of a fire truck parked in the left shoulder attending to an accident in the southbound lanes. Poor visibility due to the curve prior to the bridge was a contributing factor in a successful lawsuit by the girl's family against Calgary.

Interchanges
The freeway features 21 interchanges of varying design. The most recent interchanges to be constructed at the north and south ends of the freeway are more consistently of the partial cloverleaf type, a design highly used in Alberta as it is a desirable compromise between cost and capacity. The two interchanges with Stoney Trail are cloverstack interchanges, where high capacity directional flyovers carry traffic turning left for movements with more traffic, and loop ramps service lesser used left turn movements. Older and less efficient designs are used at Deerfoot's intersections with both Glenmore Trail and Highway 1. The junction with Glenmore is an incomplete cloverleaf interchange; traffic northbound on Deerfoot does not have direct access to westbound Glenmore and one must first exit to the east, proceed through a traffic light behind Calgary Auto Mall, and enter Glenmore Trail from the north side. At Highway 1, a split diamond interchange significantly slows east-west traffic even outside of peak hours, because all left turn movements must pass through three sets of traffic lights. This outdated interchange was Calgary's most dangerous road junction in 2011, with 234 crashes recorded.

Predecessor highways
Prior to the completion of Deerfoot Trail, the historic alignment of Highway 2 in south Calgary was along Macleod Trail as an extension of 4 Street, parallel to a branch of the Canadian Pacific Railway from Calgary to Macleod. Macleod Trail has since been designated Highway 2A, on a routing largely the same as the original. It is now a busy expressway connecting Midnapore and other southwestern suburbs to downtown. The southernmost portion of the route from Highway 22X to De Winton would continue to serve as Highway 2 until completion of a Deerfoot Trail extension from its then southernmost point at the neighbourhood of Cranston to De Winton in 2003.

In north Calgary, Highway 2 was originally composed of four present-day routes: Edmonton Trail, 41 Avenue, 48 Avenue, and Barlow Trail. Edmonton Trail is now a busy urban street on the west bank of Nose Creek through the neighbourhood of Highland Park, but its alignment in the 1920s had it curving to the northeast across the creek along present-day 41 Avenue to 48 Avenue where it continued east past the airport to Barlow Trail and north to Edmonton as Highway 1, later renamed to Highway 2.

By the 1960s, Highway 2 had been realigned to follow Macleod Trail until turning east at Glenmore Trail before continuing north on Blackfoot Trail, veering to the northeast, and crossing the Bow River to join Barlow Trail to the north city limit. The former Edmonton Trail was re-signed as Highway 2A. As the airport continued to expand, 48 Avenue was reduced to an airport service road after the construction of McKnight Boulevard. Long after the completion and opening of Deerfoot Trail and its signing as Highway 2, the segment of Barlow Trail north of McKnight Blvd was closed in 2011 to allow construction of a new 14000 ft runway at Calgary International Airport.

Early plans and construction
Due to its quickly rising population in the 1960s, Calgary initiated planning for the construction of an extensive freeway and expressway network that included numerous north–south and east–west routes. Many of these routes were ultimately not developed into freeways, but a 1967 transportation study planned for a major north–south freeway running along the west side of the Calgary Airport across the Bow River into Inglewood, remaining west of the Bow River through present-day Fish Creek Provincial Park. Initially called the Blackfoot Trail Freeway, the first segment stretched from the northern city boundary (then near Deerfoot's present-day split with Beddington Trail) to 16 Avenue NE, opening in 1971. It was named after a historic route that approximated the location of present-day Memorial Drive across Nose Creek, between Barlow Trail and the community of St. George's Heights, now the location of the Wilder Institute/Calgary Zoo. This trail appears on Calgary maps as early as 1891.

In 1974, signs were unveiled renaming the road after a Siksika Nation long-distance runner nicknamed Deerfoot. Several namesakes had been considered, including James Gladstone, Old Sun, and Walking Buffalo. In 1884, Deerfoot became known in the Calgary area as a great talent and won races against runners from as far away as Europe. Controversy arose when Deerfoot won a race but his opponent was credited with the victory. At a rematch to settle the dispute, the same result occurred. Unhappy with the result, his attitude began to change; he committed theft from a cabin, and was later the subject of a massive manhunt. He spent time in and out of police custody for various crimes, before dying of tuberculosis while in prison for assault. He had reportedly been receiving medical treatment for the disease since his arrival to the prison.

In December 1974, Premier Peter Lougheed reiterated his opposition to the planned routing for the southern portion of Deerfoot Trail, which would take the freeway along the west side of the Bow River through Fish Creek Park. Lougheed acknowledged that diverting the freeway to the east would be significantly more expensive, but was firm on protecting and preserving Fish Creek as an urban park. The revised alignment took the freeway approximately 1 km east of the river through present-day Douglasdale, McKenzie Towne, and McKenzie Lake. Bow Bottom Trail, a major arterial road, was built in the wide right of way that had been reserved for Deerfoot Trail.

A second section extending the road further south to 17 Avenue SE opened on 20 January 1975, at a cost of $35 million. The new pavement continued south alongside Nose Creek and was originally to carry on straight across the river into Inglewood, but residents of the neighbourhood fought adamantly against construction of the freeway in their community. City Hall conceded, resulting in the present-day alignment that keeps the freeway east of the Bow River as it passes downtown.

Completion
On 2 December 1980, an extension of Deerfoot Trail south to Glenmore Trail was opened, able to handle up to 80,000 vehicles per day. It was advertised as an alternative north–south route to the nearby Blackfoot Trail. Construction of the $70 million 6.5 km extension took more than two years, and was described as "badly needed" by mayor Ralph Klein. The new concrete road included the Calf Robe Bridge over the Bow River and an interchange at 43 Avenue SE, now called Peigan Trail. The next section, then intended to be the final segment, extended Deerfoot to Highway 22X (now Stoney Trail) on the altered alignment east of the river. It opened on 22 November 1982 at a cost of $165 million. It featured interchanges at Southland Drive and Anderson Road/Bow Bottom Trail. A second crossing of the Bow River on the Ivor Strong Bridge took Deerfoot to an at-grade intersection with 24 Street, and a signalized intersection at Barlow Trail which had been extended south from Glenmore Trail as part of the Deerfoot project.

Highway 2 was realigned in Calgary to follow Macleod Trail north to Anderson Road, then east on Anderson Road to the new interchange at Deerfoot Trail where it turned north to follow Deerfoot to the city limit near the airport. Plans to add a third level flyover at Memorial Drive by 1987 did not come to fruition. The original configuration of the interchange was modified in 1983 to add a loop ramp for traffic turning northbound onto Deerfoot Trail from eastbound Memorial. A new ramp was also constructed for traffic turning west onto Memorial from northbound Deerfoot, passing underneath eastbound Memorial before joining westbound Memorial from the left.

The province took over responsibility from the City of Calgary in 2000 to upgrade the route to a freeway and render the CANAMEX Corridor a contiguous route through the city, after which they intended to return the road to the city. In 2003, a $100 million extension was completed extending Deerfoot Trail from its junction with Highway 22X to its present terminus near De Winton. During planning, the segment had been temporarily designated as Highway 2X. Prior to the 10 km project, Deerfoot was effectively disconnected from the rest of Highway 2. Traffic continuing south to Fort Macleod proceeded west on a two lane bridge carrying Highway 22X over the Bow River, before turning south onto Macleod Trail, which was then designated as Highway 2. The section of Highway 22X over the river became Stoney Trail (Highway 201) in 2013, and a second bridge was completed in 2007 to carry the westbound lanes, while the original bridge built in 1974 carries the eastbound lanes.

Interchanges were constructed at Barlow Trail, 130 Avenue SE, McKenzie Towne Boulevard, Cranston Avenue, and Dunbow Road between 2000 and 2004. The last set of traffic lights was removed in 2005 upon completion of the interchange at Douglasdale Boulevard, making the entire length of Deerfoot Trail a freeway.

Since completion
In an effort to reduce head-on collisions caused by vehicles crossing over the grass median in north Calgary, the installation of high tension cable barriers was completed in the first half of 2007. In 2009, modifications were made to the interchange of Peigan, Barlow, and Deerfoot Trails, built in 1979. The existing westbound to southbound ramp left little distance for traffic to merge, causing bottlenecks. The ramp was modified to first curve north and then loop back underneath itself, extending the merge distance before the three southbound lanes crossed Ogden Road and then the Bow River. In November 2009, construction of a major interchange at the northern terminus of Deerfoot Trail was completed, connecting it to the northeast and northwest sections of Stoney Trail.

In August 2013, 96 Avenue NE was extended to the east across West Nose Creek and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks to meet the existing interchange at Deerfoot Trail and Airport Trail. It provided an alternative to Beddington Trail and Country Hills Boulveard for access to the neighbourhood of Harvest Hills. The project included a controversial $470,000 piece of public art, a 17 m tall blue ring called "Travelling Light" that lies on the north side of 96 Avenue between the railway and Nose Creek. Highly visible from Deerfoot, the ring received national attention and was called "awful" and "terrible" by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, and "an example of bureaucracy run amok" by Councillor Jyoti Gondek. The mostly negative feedback prompted Calgary to review its allocation of funds to public art on infrastructure projects. As part of Stoney Trail construction in 2013, Deerfoot Trail was upgraded between the most southerly Bow River crossing north and McKenzie Lake Boulevard. It was widened to six through lanes from Stoney Trail to the Bow River at Calgary's southern limit, and elevated directional ramps were added to the major interchange at Deerfoot and Stoney Trail to support significantly higher traffic levels. A braided ramp was constructed northbound between Cranston Avenue and Stoney Trail, preventing northbound traffic exiting to eastbound Stoney Trail from conflicting with Auburn Bay and Cranston traffic merging onto northbound Deerfoot Trail.

Future
In March 2017, construction of a partial cloverleaf interchange was approved in south Calgary at 212 Avenue SE, between the Bow River and 192 Avenue. Calgary paid for the project initially, and will later be repaid by Alberta and Brookfield Residential, who are developing the neighbourhood in the vicinity of the interchange. Prior to a firm commitment for a portion of the funding by Brookfield, Alberta had been reluctant to front the estimated $50 million in funding required for the project, though the city of Calgary had offered to pay for it in the interim as long as the money was paid back by the province. The city had also considered contributing $20 million in tandem with Brookfield, with the province paying for the remaining $30 million. City councillor Shane Keating stated in August 2016 that development of the Seton neighbourhood will be hampered until the 212 Avenue interchange is completed.

A study was completed by Alberta in 2007 to determine the best course of action for upgrades to the incomplete interchange of Glenmore Trail and Deerfoot Trail. The interchange carries 130,000 vehicles per day on Deerfoot Trail and 100,000 vehicles on Glenmore making it one of the busiest interchanges in Alberta, but there is no direct access for traffic turning from northbound Deerfoot to westbound Glenmore. Stage 1 of the proposed improvements would not remedy this problem, but rather correct a pinch point on Deerfoot Trail by constructing a new three lane bridge to carry the northbound lanes over Glenmore. Deerfoot Trail would then be three lanes each way through the interchange. Ultimately, a large cloverstack interchange is planned with left-turn movements handled by third-level directional flyovers providing free-flowing access to and from Deerfoot Trail. The proposed ultimate configuration would require acquisition of land from adjacent properties for the construction of the flyovers and other modifications to Glenmore Trail.

The planning study also calls for the construction of a new bridge alongside the existing Calf Robe Bridge, as part of a local-express system between Peigan and Glenmore Trails. Glenmore Trail would be widened to as many as 10 lanes between Blackfoot and Deerfoot Trails, along with modifications of the interchange at Blackfoot Trail, and the addition of braided ramps to facilitate the new flyovers.

Alberta Transportation and the city of Calgary began a study in 2016 to develop short-term and long-term plans for Deerfoot Trail. Almost the entire length of the freeway is being assessed, though changes are not anticipated for the two major interchanges at Stoney Trail, completed in 2009 and 2013. The study aimed to address Deerfoot's problems overall, as opposed to localized solutions that could simply shift traffic bottlenecks to another section of the freeway. Five short-term options were presented in May 2017; they included a braided ramp in south Calgary between Southland Drive and Anderson Road, a jughandle intersection at 32 Avenue NE and 12 Street NE, left turn restrictions on McKnight Boulveard east of Deerfoot, and a pair of new northbound on-ramps between McKnight Boulevard and Airport Trail. All possibilities for improvement were considered, including high-occupancy vehicle lanes. Despite the initial fixes presented by the study, Alberta Transportation did not include any of the proposed projects on the list of unfunded capital projects. In 2017, the City of Calgary began work to construct a 2-lane bridge for bus rapid transit over Deerfoot Trail south of 17 Avenue SE. As part of Calgary Transit's developing network of bus-only routes, the new bridge does not interchange with Deerfoot Trail and was completed in late 2018.

In March 2019, Transportation Minister Brian Mason announced plans for $478 million worth of improvements to a 21 km stretch of Deerfoot between Beddington Trail in the north and Anderson Road in the south. The United Conservative Party later reduced this commitment to a total of $210 million. The joint Deerfoot Trail study was completed in early 2021, summarizing the short and long-term improvement options that had been presented throughout the study period. Work began in 2023 to widen and improve the freeway by adding a fourth lane in both directions for most of the freeway length, interchange improvements, and bridge widening.

title: Deerfoot Trail


text:
User:Gseryakov

 * I am an old programmer
 * I was born in Moscow and live in NJ
 * I graduated from MIPT (FOPF-84)
 * I passed Landau Theoretical Minimum Exams. Well, not all of them. Well, not exactly these exams. But for almost all practical reasons these are Theoretical Minimum Exams:
 * II (Classical field theory)
 * III (Quantum mechanics)
 * V (Statistical Physics)
 * VIII (Electrodynamics of Continuous Media)
 * IX (Statistical Physics II)
 * X (Physical Kinetics)
 * My Erdos number is 8

title: User:Gseryakov


text: User talk:69.177.187.204

title: User talk:69.177.187.204


text:
Two-level game theory

Two-level game theory is a political model, derived from game theory, that illustrates the domestic-international interactions between states. It was originally, introduced in 1988 by Robert D. Putnam, in his publication "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games".

Putnam had been involved in research around the G7 summits between 1976 and 1979. However, at the fourth summit, held in Bonn in 1978, he observed a qualitative shift in how the negotiations worked. He noted that attending countries agreed to adopt policies in contrast to what they might have in the absence of their international counterparts. However, the agreement was only viable due to strong domestic influence - within each international government - in favour of implementing the agreement internationally. This culminated in international policy co-ordination as a result of the entanglement of international and domestic agendas.

The Model
The model views international negotiations between states as consisting of simultaneous negotiations at two levels.

 * Level 1: The international level (between governments), and
 * Level 2: The intranational level (domestic).

At the international level, the national government (i.e., chief negotiator) seeks an agreement, with an opposing country, relating to topics of concern. At the domestic level, societal actors pressure the chief negotiator for favourable policies. The chief negotiator absorbs the concern of societal actors and builds coalitions with them. Simultaneously, the chief negotiator then seeks to maximise the domestic concerns, yet minimise the impact of any contrary views from the opposing country.

Win-Sets
At the international level, countries will approach negotiations with a defined set of objectives. It is expected that chief negotiators of both states arrive at a range of outcomes where their objectives overlap. However, before committing to this, the chief negotiator must seek approval from domestic actors. This ratification can be in the form of both formal voting requirements or informal methods, such as public opinion polls. Due to a potential difference in domestic concerns, the full range of agreement outcomes at the international level may not necessarily be approved. As such, the possible agreement outcomes at the international level that are accepted by domestic interest groups is defined as a state's "win-set". International agreements only occur when there is an overlap between the win-sets of the states involved in the international negotiations.

Win-set size plays an important role in determining the success of negotiations at the international level. Naturally, the larger the win-set, the more likely the win-sets will overlap, potentially leading to successful negotiations. Conversely, negotiations are more likely to fail when opposing state's win-sets are smaller. The perceived win-set size, however, is just as important as the actual win-set size. If a state's win-set size is perceived to be large, the opposing state will, therefore, have greater bargaining power. Alternatively, if a state's win-set is perceived to be rather small, this can lead to them attaining an advantage in negotiations, whereby they can influence the opposing state to concede more in order for negotiations to be a success.

Paris Agreement
In the context of climate change, all countries are negatively affected. But, when compared to the costs of steps taken to mitigate this, the majority of states benefit from the actions of a minority of large contributors. This lop-sided costs-to-benefits creates an incentive for some states to neglect their responsibilities and free-ride on the actions taken by others. As a classic case of the Prisoner's Dilemma, states are therefore more incentivised to do nothing, rather than contributing to mitigating climate change. This unequal burden-sharing has led to varying conceptions between states of what is fair under the Paris Agreement, resulting in both small and large countries utilising their negotiating assets to arrive at an agreement. However, as with any two-level game, domestic forces have influence on a state's win-set, which impacts the ability to negotiate an outcome at the international level. A recent example of this is the United States withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, which was supported by many Republicans as well as domestic interest groups aligned with the Trump Administration.

Falklands War
In the period leading to the Falklands War, Anglo-Argentine negotiations resulted in several tentative agreements. The failure of domestic political forces to ratify these agreements meant the win-sets of the two countries did not overlap.

title: Two-level game theory


text:
User talk:Scipantheist

Welcome to the Wikipedia
I noticed you were new, and wanted to share some links I thought useful:

 * Tutorial
 * Help desk
 * Foundation issues
 * Policy Library

For more information click  here . You can sign your name by typing 4 tildes, like this: ~.

Sam Spade 00:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Polymers
Welcome to Wikipedia! I saw your post on polyethylene. You might want to check out Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chemistry - at the bottom of the page there was a little discussion about polymers. Just follow the links to the list they are talking about. Feel free to lend a hand with the articles! HappyCamper 03:21, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Iroquois
Iroquois Confederacy certainly sounds intriguing. We would all certainly appreciate if you would expand the relevant articles. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 04:43, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Scipantheist


text:
Talk:David Kirby (journalist)

Kirby's telephone consults
David Kirby is selling videos and telephone conversations about vaccination and thimerosal. It could be argued that there is a bit of a conflict of interest here--his sales will do significantly better if more concern is stirred up about thimerosal. I also wonder about the ethics of an individual with no formal medical training giving medical advice. (And charging for it.) I'm not quite sure how to address it. I don't want to overstate the matter, but I don't think it should be ignored. --TenOfAllTrades (talk/contrib) 00:09, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Forgive me if I am doing this incorrectly. Selling his phone time is not the only thing questionable about Kirby.

Kirby says (on a Yahoo! group board) that he has sold the rights to the story to someone in Hollywood. The more dramatic he can make the case for widespread mercury poisoning, the better a movie sounds. The more dramatically he can portray "good guys and bad guys" the easier it is to sell the "story" of "Evidence of Harm". If you read Michael Fitzpatrick's review of the book on the British medical Journal's website you can see some serious criticism of how the information is slanted in the book to sound more dramatic. The book also contains factual errors, one of which Mr. Kirby admits to openly and says he'll have fixed in the paperback version. Others he hasn't admitted to, at least not that I know of. It appears that "ombudsman" only wanted to tell one side of the story when he started this wiki page. I am concerned over how a large part of Kirby's career, that as a gay rights advocate was not mentioned at all in his bio. Many of the parents who are very deep into the "Evidence of Harm" theory are also very religious and anti-all-vaccines. It would appear that Mr. Kirby has chosen not to talk about his activities as a gay rights promoter because of that. Though that is only speculation, his behavior seems very odd, and in my opinion, calculated to sell books and to sell the movie rights.

Never mind the science, which is in some cases, quite twisted and distorted to support the "autism=mercury poisoning" theory. I hope that the wiki article doesn't end up promoting falsehoods so that Mr. Kirby can push his own material advantage. User: autismdiva

Choosing not to talk about parts of his resume unrelated to the subject matter of his book (evidence of harm from vaccines) is hardly "odd" ... most professionals have long resumes/vitas which they selectively target to highlight their expertise in the particular area they are covering, ignoring the rest. And trying to sell movie rights to a book is not a COI, it is an accomplishment (remember The Insider?) to leverage their investigative journalism work to a much wider audience. What source for statement: "Many of the parents are very religious and anti-vaccine"? religion is not the subject of Kirby's book. Improves (talk) 05:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)user: improves

Lack of NPOV
The Strange Bedfellows section is badly in need of editing, as it makes several unreferenced assertions and is clearly not NPOV. - DaveSeidel 10:59, 31 May 2005 (UTC) Sorry about that, I didn't understand at first that this was a long quote. Hopefully this is clearer now on the page. - DaveSeidel 00:57, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I'd say it's still a rather NPOV page. I see almost no criticism of Kirby, save for the following phrase: "Kirby was apparently portrayed as biased and as siding with delusional conspiracy theorists", which is written to be a sideways compliment; if it was a PORTRAYL, it was probably false, and it was merely an APPARENT portrayl, well... obviously he CAN'T be biased or side with delusional conspiracy theories! And a paragraph that seems only to serve as a vehicle to provide a quote to attack the "left-wing" is so very POV ... I just can't see any relevance in that quote to the issue at hand whatsoever. If someone else has better ideas than I about how to make it NPOV, please do. I expect that if I wander back in a few days and nobody's done anything, I may just start hatcheting away some of the slant I see... Thsgrn 06:58, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Won an award-- Should this should be mentioned?
http://www.ire.org/history/pr/2005IREawards.html IRE, (founded in 1975 by investigative reporters and editors, is a nonprofit professional organization dedicated to training and supporting journalists who pursue investigative stories and operates the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting, a joint program of IRE and the Missouri School of Journalism. The IRE awards, called certificates, are divided into 15 categories based on market or circulation size, most for print, broadcast and online media. David Kirby won the 2005 book award for Evidence of Harm: Mercury in Vaccines and the Autism Epidemic — A Medical Controversy. "Autism, rare in the past, is exploding in the United States, and Kirby investigates whether one of the causes is thimerisol, a vaccine preservative that contains mercury, a neurotoxin. Through careful and meticulous reporting, Kirby tells the story of stonewalling, denial and cover-up by federal regulators, medical groups and the pharmaceutical industry."

Not mentioning this recognition gives the false impression that all reviews were/are as negative as the one included, which they are not. (There are other positive reviews, but IRE is an objective source) IRE Awards judges comments are positive and informative would balance out the only review referenced, a negative one. Here are full judges' comments from IRE's press release: "Autism, rare in the past, is exploding in the United States, where it is now found in one in 166 children. Attention-deficit disorder also has skyrocketed. And 1 in 6 children today has a learning disability. David Kirby investigated whether one of the causes of these childhood afflictions is thimerisol, a vaccine preservative that contains mercury, a well-documented neurotoxin. In the 1990s, the mercury-containing additive was injected into children far in excess of federal safety levels. Kirby told the story of stonewalling, denial and cover-up by federal regulators, medical groups and the pharmaceutical industry. And he documents covert efforts by some of those same powerful forces — along with the U.S. Congress — to grant blanket immunity for drug companies that put mercury in vaccines. Like so many scientific controversies involving complex science and big business, the topic is controversial. Kirby's careful and meticulous reporting is exemplary in its balance, accuracy and documentation." Improves (talk) 05:05, 27 February 2011 (UTC)improves

I'm also a bit puzzled that you settled for one negative review--I saw a number of positive reviews when the book first came out.MinorityView (talk) 18:49, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

 * Ideally, we'd provide a cross-section of prominent reviews to describe the book's immediate reception, as well as some perspective on how well the claims in the book have weathered the test of time. If you have more sources for reviews, that would be ideal. MastCell Talk 19:24, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

Death
David Kirby died on the 16th of April but the only source so far mentioning his death is an anti-vaccine website so until reliable sources are found we cannot add his date of death to the article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 22:13, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:David Kirby (journalist)


text:
Wampas

Wampas may refer to:

 * Wampa, a fictional animal
 * Les Wampas, a French punk rock/psychobilly band
 * WAMPAS Baby Stars, a list of movie stars

title: Wampas


text: User talk:209.20.133.85

title: User talk:209.20.133.85