Tyrannosaurus BW

Tyrannosaurus scale.svg

Tyrannosaurus (pronounced /tɨˌrænɵˈsɔrəs/ or /taɪˌrænɵˈsɔrəs/, meaning 'tyrant lizard') from the Greek words τυράννος (tyrannos, meaning "tyrant") and σαύρος' (sauros, meaning "lizard"), is a genus of theropod dinosaur. The species Tyrannosaurus rex ('rex' meaning 'king' in Latin), commonly abbreviated to T. rex, is a fixture in popular culture. It lived throughout what is now western North America, with a much wider range than other tyrannosaurids. Fossils are found in a variety of rock formations dating to the last two million years of the Cretaceous Period, 67 to 65.5 million years ago.[1] It was among the last non-avian dinosaurs to exist prior to the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event.

Like other tyrannosaurids, Tyrannosaurus was a bipedal carnivore with a massive skull balanced by a long, heavy tail. Relative to the large and powerful hindlimbs, Tyrannosaurus forelimbs were small, though unusually powerful for their size, and bore two clawed digits. Although other theropods rivaled or exceeded Tyrannosaurus rex in size, it was the largest known tyrannosaurid and one of the largest known land predators, measuring up to 12.8 m (42 ft) in length,[2] up to 4 metres (13 ft) tall at the hips,[3] and up to 6.8 metric tons (7.5 short tons) in weight.[4] By far the largest carnivore in its environment, Tyrannosaurus rex may have been an apex predator, preying upon hadrosaurs and ceratopsians, although some experts have suggested it was primarily a scavenger. The debate over Tyrannosaurus as apex predator or scavenger is among the longest running debates in paleontology.

[hide]*1 Description

[edit] DescriptionEdit

[1][2]Size of various specimens compared with a human

[3][4]Size (in green) compared with selected giant theropodsTyrannosaurus rex was one of the largest land carnivores of all time; the largest complete specimen, FMNH PR2081 ("Sue"), measured 12.8 metres (42 ft) long, and was 4.0 metres (13.1 ft) tall at the hips.[3] Mass estimates have varied widely over the years, from more than 7.2 metric tons (7.9 short tons),[2] to less than 4.5 metric tons (5.0 short tons),[5][6] with most modern estimates ranging between 5.4 and 6.8 metric tons (6.0 and 7.5 short tons).[4][7][8][9] Packard et al. (2009) tested dinosaur mass estimation procedures on elephants and concluded that dinosaur estimations are flawed and produce over-estimations; thus, the weight of Tyrannosaurus could be much less than usually estimated.[10]

Although Tyrannosaurus rex was larger than the well known Jurassic theropod Allosaurus, it was slightly smaller than some other Cretaceous carnivores, such as Spinosaurus and Giganotosaurus.[11][12]

The neck of Tyrannosaurus rex formed a natural S-shaped curve like that of other theropods, but was short and muscular to support the massive head. The forelimbs had only two clawed fingers,[13] along with an additional small metacarpal representing the remnant of a third digit.[14] In contrast the hind limbs were among the longest in proportion to body size of any theropod. The tail was heavy and long, sometimes containing over forty vertebrae, in order to balance the massive head and torso. To compensate for the immense bulk of the animal, many bones throughout the skeleton were hollow, reducing its weight without significant loss of strength.[13]

[5][6]RestorationThe largest known Tyrannosaurus rex skulls measure up to 5 feet (1.5 m) in length.[15] Large fenestrae (openings) in the skull reduced weight and provided areas for muscle attachment, as in all carnivorous theropods. But in other respects Tyrannosaurus’ skull was significantly different from those of large non-tyrannosauroid theropods. It was extremely wide at the rear but had a narrow snout, allowing unusually good binocular vision.[16][17] The skull bones were massive and the nasals and some other bones were fused, preventing movement between them; but many were pneumatized (contained a "honeycomb" of tiny air spaces) which may have made the bones more flexible as well as lighter. These and other skull-strengthening features are part of the tyrannosaurid trend towards an increasingly powerful bite, which easily surpassed that of all non-tyrannosaurids.[18][19][20] The tip of the upper jaw was U-shaped (most non-tyrannosauroid carnivores had V-shaped upper jaws), which increased the amount of tissue and bone a tyrannosaur could rip out with one bite, although it also increased the stresses on the front teeth.[21][22]

[edit] ClassificationEdit

[7][8]Profile view of a skull (AMNH 5027)Tyrannosaurus is the type genus of the superfamily Tyrannosauroidea, the family Tyrannosauridae, and the subfamily Tyrannosaurinae; in other words it is the standard by which paleontologists decide whether to include other species in the same group. Other members of the tyrannosaurine subfamily include the North American Daspletosaurus and the Asian Tarbosaurus,[25][26] both of which have occasionally been synonymized with Tyrannosaurus.[22] Tyrannosaurids were once commonly thought to be descendants of earlier large theropods such as megalosaurs and carnosaurs, although more recently they were reclassified with the generally smaller coelurosaurs.[21]

In 1955, Soviet paleontologist Evgeny Maleev named a new species, Tyrannosaurus bataar, from Mongolia.[27] By 1965, this species had been renamed Tarbosaurus bataar.[28] Despite the renaming, many phylogenetic analyses have found Tarbosaurus bataar to be the sister taxon of Tyrannosaurus rex,[26] and it has often been considered an Asian species of Tyrannosaurus.[21][29][30] A recent redescription of the skull of Tarbosaurus bataar has shown that it was much narrower than that of Tyrannosaurus rex and that during a bite, the distribution of stress in the skull would have been very different, closer to that of Alioramus, another Asian tyrannosaur.[31] A related cladistic analysis found that Alioramus, not Tyrannosaurus, was the sister taxon of Tarbosaurus, which, if true, would suggest that Tarbosaurus and Tyrannosaurus should remain separate.[25]

[9][10]Reconstructed head and neck in the Naturhistorisches Museum in ViennaOther tyrannosaurid fossils found in the same formations as Tyrannosaurus rex were originally classified as separate taxa, including Aublysodon and Albertosaurus megagracilis,[22] the latter being named Dinotyrannus megagracilis in 1995.[32] However, these fossils are now universally considered to belong to juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.[33] A small but nearly complete skull from Montana, 60 centimetres (2.0 ft) long, may be an exception. This skull was originally classified as a species of Gorgosaurus (G. lancensis) by Charles W. Gilmore in 1946,[34] but was later referred to a new genus, Nanotyrannus.[35] Opinions remain divided on the validity of N. lancensis. Many paleontologists consider the skull to belong to a juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.[36] There are minor differences between the two species, including the higher number of teeth in N. lancensis, which lead some scientists to recommend keeping the two genera separate until further research or discoveries clarify the situation.[26][37]

[edit] ManospondylusEdit

[11][12]Skull of the type specimen (CM 9380) at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. This was heavily and inaccurately restored with plaster using Allosaurus as a model, and has since been disassembled.The first named fossil specimen which can be attributed to Tyrannosaurus rex consists of two partial vertebrae (one of which has been lost) found by Edward Drinker Cope in 1892. Cope believed that they belonged to an "agathaumid" (ceratopsid) dinosaur, and named them Manospondylus gigas, meaning "giant porous vertebra" in reverence to the numerous openings for blood vessels he found in the bone.[38] The M. gigas remains were later identified as those of a theropod rather than a ceratopsid, and H.F. Osborn recognized the similarity between M. gigas and Tyrannosaurus rex as early as 1917. however, due to the fragmentary nature of the Manospondylus vertebrae, Osborn did not synonymize the two genera.[39]

[edit] PaleobiologyEdit

[edit] Life historyEdit

[edit] Sexual dimorphismEdit

See also: Tyrannosaurus "x"

[edit] PostureEdit

[17][18]Outdated reconstruction (by Charles R. Knight), showing 'tripod' poseLike many bipedal dinosaurs, Tyrannosaurus rex was historically depicted as a 'living tripod', with the body at 45 degrees or less from the vertical and the tail dragging along the ground, similar to a kangaroo. This concept dates from Joseph Leidy's 1865 reconstruction of Hadrosaurus, the first to depict a dinosaur in a bipedal posture.[51] Henry Fairfield Osborn, former president of the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, who believed the creature stood upright, further reinforced the notion after unveiling the first complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton in 1915. It stood in this upright pose for nearly a century, until it was dismantled in 1992.[52] By 1970, scientists realized this pose was incorrect and could not have been maintained by a living animal, as it would have resulted in the dislocation or weakening of several joints, including the hips and the articulation between the head and the spinal column.[53] The inaccurate AMNH mount inspired similar depictions in many films and paintings (such as Rudolph Zallinger's famous mural The Age Of Reptiles in Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History)[54] until the 1990s, when films such as Jurassic Park introduced a more accurate posture to the general public. Modern representations in museums, art, and film show Tyrannosaurus rex with its body approximately parallel to the ground and tail extended behind the body to balance the head.[22]

[edit] ArmsEdit

[19][20]Closeup of forelimbWhen Tyrannosaurus rex was first discovered, the humerus was the only element of the forelimb known.[55] For the initial mounted skeleton as seen by the public in 1915, Osborn substituted longer, three-fingered forelimbs like those of Allosaurus.[39] However, a year earlier, Lawrence Lambe described the short, two-fingered forelimbs of the closely related Gorgosaurus.[56] This strongly suggested that Tyrannosaurus rex had similar forelimbs, but this hypothesis was not confirmed until the first complete Tyrannosaurus rex forelimbs were identified in 1989, belonging to MOR 555 (the "Wankel rex").[57] The remains of "Sue" also include complete forelimbs.[13] Tyrannosaurus rex arms are very small relative to overall body size, measuring only 1 metre (3.3 ft) long. However, they are not vestigial but instead show large areas for muscle attachment, indicating considerable strength. This was recognized as early as 1906 by Osborn, who speculated that the forelimbs may have been used to grasp a mate during copulation.[58] It has also been suggested that the forelimbs were used to assist the animal in rising from a prone position.[53] Another possibility is that the forelimbs held struggling prey while it was dispatched by the tyrannosaur's enormous jaws. This hypothesis may be supported by biomechanical analysis.

[edit] Soft tissueEdit

The presumed soft tissue was called into question by Thomas Kaye of the University of Washington and his co-authors in 2008. They contend that what was really inside the tyrannosaur bone was slimy biofilm created by bacteria that coated the voids once occupied by blood vessels and cells.[65] The researchers found that what previously had been identified as remnants of blood cells, because of the presence of iron, were actually framboids, microscopic mineral spheres bearing iron. They found similar spheres in a variety of other fossils from various periods, including an ammonite. In the ammonite they found the spheres in a place where the iron they contain could not have had any relationship to the presence of blood.[66] However, Schweitzer has strongly criticised Hayes' claims and maintains that she really did find blood cells, and argues that there’s no reported evidence that biofilms can produce branching, hollow tubes like those noted in her study.[67]

[edit] Skin and feathersEdit

Main article: Feathered dinosaurs

[edit] ThermoregulationEdit

Main article: Physiology of dinosaursTyrannosaurus, like most dinosaurs, was long thought to have an ectothermic ("cold-blooded") reptilian metabolism. The idea of dinosaur ectothermy was challenged by scientists like Robert T. Bakker and John Ostrom in the early years of the "Dinosaur Renaissance", beginning in the late 1960s.[70][71] Tyrannosaurus rex itself was claimed to have been endothermic ("warm-blooded"), implying a very active lifestyle.[6] Since then, several paleontologists have sought to determine the ability of Tyrannosaurus to regulate its body temperature. Histological evidence of high growth rates in young Tyrannosaurus rex, comparable to those of mammals and birds, may support the hypothesis of a high metabolism. Growth curves indicate that, as in mammals and birds, Tyrannosaurus rex growth was limited mostly to immature animals, rather than the indeterminate growth seen in most other vertebrates.[43]

Oxygen isotope ratios in fossilized bone are sometimes used to determine the temperature at which the bone was deposited, as the ratio between certain isotopes correlates with temperature. In one specimen, the isotope ratios in bones from different parts of the body indicated a temperature difference of no more than 4 to 5 °C (7 to 9 °F) between the vertebrae of the torso and the tibia of the lower leg. This small temperature range between the body core and the extremities was claimed by paleontologist Reese Barrick and geochemist William Showers to indicate that Tyrannosaurus rex maintained a constant internal body temperature (homeothermy) and that it enjoyed a metabolism somewhere between ectothermic reptiles and endothermic mammals.[72] Other scientists have pointed out that the ratio of oxygen isotopes in the fossils today does not necessarily represent the same ratio in the distant past, and may have been altered during or after fossilization (diagenesis).[73] Barrick and Showers have defended their conclusions in subsequent papers, finding similar results in another theropod dinosaur from a different continent and tens of millions of years earlier in time (Giganotosaurus).[74] Ornithischian dinosaurs also showed evidence of homeothermy, while varanid lizards from the same formation did not.[75] Even if Tyrannosaurus rex does exhibit evidence of homeothermy, it does not necessarily mean that it was endothermic. Such thermoregulation may also be explained by gigantothermy, as in some living sea turtles.[76][77]

[edit] FootprintsEdit

[edit] LocomotionEdit

[27][28]Replica of a sequence of theropod footprints attributed to Megalosaurus at OUMNH. No such sequence has yet been reported for tyrannosaurs, making gait and speed estimates difficult.There are two main issues concerning the locomotory abilities of Tyrannosaurus: how well it could turn; and what its maximum straight-line speed was likely to have been. Both are relevant to the debate about whether it was a hunter or a scavenger (see below).

[29]Femur (thigh bone)Tibia (shin bone)Metatarsals (foot bones)DewclawPhalanges (toe bones)[30]Skeletal anatomy of a T. rex right legChristiansen (1998) estimated that the leg bones of Tyrannosaurus were not significantly stronger than those of elephants, which are relatively limited in their top speed and never actually run (there is no airborne phase), and hence proposed that the dinosaur's maximum speed would have been about 11 metres per second (40 km/h; 25 mph), which is about the speed of a human sprinter. But he also noted that such estimates depend on many dubious assumptions.[85]

Farlow and colleagues (1995) have argued that a Tyrannosaurus weighing 5.4 metric tons (6.0 short tons) to 7.3 metric tons (8.0 short tons) would have been critically or even fatally injured if it had fallen while moving quickly, since its torso would have slammed into the ground at a deceleration of 6 g (six times the acceleration due to gravity, or about 60 meters/s²) and its tiny arms could not have reduced the impact.[7] However, giraffes have been known to gallop at 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph), despite the risk that they might break a leg or worse, which can be fatal even in a "safe" environment such as a zoo.[86][87] Thus it is quite possible that Tyrannosaurus also moved fast when necessary and had to accept such risks.[88][89]

[31][32]A 6-tonne chicken would have needed leg muscles making up almost 100% of its body mass for running. Realistically, T. rex had the muscles to run at about 5 meters per second (18 km/h, 11 mph)[83]A study in 2007 used computer models to estimate running speeds, based on data taken directly from fossils, and claimed that Tyrannosaurus rex had a top running speed of 8 metres per second (29 km/h; 18 mph). An average professional football (soccer) player would be slightly slower, while a human sprinter can reach 12 metres per second (43 km/h; 27 mph). Note that these computer models predict a top speed of 17.8 metres per second (64 km/h; 40 mph) for a 3-kilogram (6.6 lb) Compsognathus[91][92] (probably a juvenile individual).[93]

Those who argue that Tyrannosaurus was incapable of running estimate the top speed of Tyrannosaurus at about 17 kilometres per hour (11 mph). This is still faster than its most likely prey species, hadrosaurids and ceratopsians.[83] In addition, some advocates of the idea that Tyrannosaurus was a predator claim that tyrannosaur running speed is not important, since it may have been slow but still faster than its probable prey.[94] However, Paul and Christiansen (2000) argued that at least the later ceratopsians had upright forelimbs and the larger species may have been as fast as rhinos.[95] Healed Tyrannosaurus bite wounds on ceratopsian fossils are interpreted as evidence of attacks on living ceratopsians (see below). If the ceratopsians that lived alongside Tyrannosaurus were fast, that casts doubt on the argument that Tyrannosaurus did not have to be fast to catch its prey.[89]

[edit] Feeding strategiesEdit

Noted hadrosaur expert Jack Horner is currently the major advocate of the idea that Tyrannosaurus was exclusively a scavenger and did not engage in active hunting at all.[57][98][99] Horner has presented several arguments to support the pure scavenger hypothesis:

[33][34]Cast of the braincase at the Australian Museum, Sydney*Tyrannosaur arms are short when compared to other known predators. Horner argues that the arms were too short to make the necessary gripping force to hold on to prey.[100]

  • Tyrannosaurs had large olfactory bulbs and olfactory nerves (relative to their brain size). These suggest a highly developed sense of smell which could sniff out carcasses over great distances, as modern vultures do. Research on the olfactory bulbs of dinosaurs has shown that Tyrannosaurus had the most highly developed sense of smell of 21 sampled dinosaurs.[101] Opponents of the pure scavenger hypothesis have used the example of vultures in the opposite way, arguing that the scavenger hypothesis is implausible because the only modern pure scavengers are large gliding birds, which use their keen senses and energy-efficient gliding to cover vast areas economically.[102] However, researchers from Glasgow concluded that an ecosystem as productive as the current Serengeti would provide sufficient carrion for a large theropod scavenger, although the theropod might have had to be cold-blooded in order to get more calories from carrion than it spent on foraging (see Metabolism of dinosaurs). They also suggested that modern ecosystems like Serengeti have no large terrestrial scavengers because gliding birds now do the job much more efficiently, while large theropods did not face competition for the scavenger ecological niche from gliding birds.[103]
  • Tyrannosaur teeth could crush bone, and therefore could extract as much food (bone marrow) as possible from carcass remnants, usually the least nutritious parts. Karen Chin and colleagues have found bone fragments in coprolites (fossilized feces) that they attribute to tyrannosaurs, but point out that a tyrannosaur's teeth were not well adapted to systematically chewing bone like hyenas do to extract marrow.[104]
  • Since at least some of Tyrannosaurus's potential prey could move quickly, evidence that it walked instead of ran could indicate that it was a scavenger.[98][105] On the other hand, recent analyses suggest that Tyrannosaurus, while slower than large modern terrestrial predators, may well have been fast enough to prey on large hadrosaurs and ceratopsians.[83][94]

[35][36]The eye-sockets faced mainly forwards, giving it good binocular visionOther evidence suggests hunting behavior in Tyrannosaurus. The eye-sockets of tyrannosaurs are positioned so that the eyes would point forward, giving them binocular vision slightly better than that of modern hawks. He also pointed out that the tyrannosaur lineage had a history of steadily improving binocular vision. It is not obvious why natural selection would have favored this long-term trend if tyrannosaurs had been pure scavengers, which would not have needed the advanced depth perception that stereoscopic vision provides.[16][17] In modern animals, binocular vision is found mainly in predators.

[37][38]Restoration (based on MOR 980) with parasite infections, which might be the cause of scars seen in the skulls of several specimens that were previously explained by intraspecific attacksA skeleton of the hadrosaurid Edmontosaurus annectens has been described from Montana with healed tyrannosaur-inflicted damage on its tail vertebrae. The fact that the damage seems to have healed suggests that the Edmontosaurus survived a tyrannosaur's attack on a living target, i.e. the tyrannosaur had attempted active predation.[106] There is also evidence for an aggressive interaction between a Triceratops and a Tyrannosaurus in the form of partially healed tyrannosaur tooth marks on a Triceratops brow horn and squamosal (a bone of the neck frill); the bitten horn is also broken, with new bone growth after the break. It is not known what the exact nature of the interaction was, though: either animal could have been the aggressor.[107] When examining Sue, paleontologist Pete Larson found a broken and healed fibula and tail vertebrae, scarred facial bones and a tooth from another Tyrannosaurus embedded in a neck vertebra. If correct, these might be strong evidence for aggressive behavior between tyrannosaurs but whether it would have been competition for food and mates or active cannibalism is unclear.[108] However, further recent investigation of these purported wounds has shown that most are infections rather than injuries (or simply damage to the fossil after death) and the few injuries are too general to be indicative of intraspecific conflict.[98] A 2009 study showed that holes in the skulls of several specimens might have been caused by Trichomonas-like parasites that commonly infect avians.[109]

Some researchers argue that if Tyrannosaurus were a scavenger, another dinosaur had to be the top predator in the Amerasian Upper Cretaceous. Top prey was the larger marginocephalians and ornithopods. The other tyrannosaurids share so many characteristics that only small dromaeosaurs remain as feasible top predators. In this light, scavenger hypothesis adherents have suggested that the size and power of tyrannosaurs allowed them to steal kills from smaller predators.[105] Most paleontologists accept that Tyrannosaurus was both an active predator and a scavenger like most large carnivores.

[edit] CannibalismEdit

A study from Currie, Horner, Erickson and Longrich in 2010 has been put forward as conclusive evidence of cannibalism in the genus Tyrannosaurus.[110] They studied some Tyrannosaurus specimens with tooth marks in the bones, attributable to the same genus. The tooth marks were identified in the humerus, foot bones and metatarsals, and this was seen as evidence for opportunistic scavenging, rather than wounds caused by intraspecific combat. In a fight, they proposed it would be difficult to reach down to bite in the feet of a rival, making it more likely that the bitemarks were made in a carcass. As the bitemarks were made in body parts with relatively scantly amounts of flesh, it is suggested that the Tyrannosaurus was feeding on a cadaver in which the more fleshy parts already had been eaten up.[110] They were also open to the possibility that other tyrannosaurids practiced cannibalism.

[edit] Infectious salivaEdit

[39][40]A partial Tyrannosaurus rex tooth; the tiny serrations (on the top right part of the tooth in this photo) may have been the key to T. rex's infectious saliva.Tyrannosaurus may have had infectious saliva used to kill its prey. This theory was first proposed by William Abler.[111] Abler examined the teeth of tyrannosaurids between each tooth serration; the serrations may have held pieces of carcass with bacteria, giving Tyrannosaurus a deadly, infectious bite much like the Komodo Dragon. However, Jack Horner regards Tyrannosaurus tooth serrations as more like cubes in shape than the serrations on a Komodo monitor's teeth, which are rounded.[112]

[edit] HistoryEdit

Henry Fairfield Osborn, president of the American Museum of Natural History, named Tyrannosaurus rex in 1905. The generic name is derived from the Greek words τυράννος (tyrannos, meaning "tyrant") and σαύρος (sauros, meaning "lizard"). Osborn used the Latin word rex, meaning "king", for the specific name. The full binomial therefore translates to "tyrant lizard king," emphasizing the animal's size and perceived dominance over other species of the time.[55]

[edit] Earliest findsEdit

[41][42]Skeletal restoration by William D. Matthew from 1905, the first reconstruction of this dinosaur ever published[113]Teeth from what is now documented as a Tyrannosaurus rex were found in 1874 by A. Lakes near Golden, Colorado. In the early 1890s, J. B. Hatcher collected postcranial elements in eastern Wyoming. The fossils were believed to be from a large species of Ornithomimus (O. grandis) but are now considered Tyrannosaurus rex. Vertebral fragments found by E. D. Cope in western South Dakota in 1892 and named as Manospondylus gigas have also been recognized as belonging to Tyrannosaurus rex.[38]

[43][44]Scale model of the never-completed exhibit planned for the American Museum of Natural History by H.F. OsbornBarnum Brown, assistant curator of the American Museum of Natural History, found the first partial skeleton of Tyrannosaurus rex in eastern Wyoming in 1900. H. F. Osborn originally named this skeleton Dynamosaurus imperiosus in a paper in 1905. Brown found another partial skeleton in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana in 1902. Osborn used this holotype to describe Tyrannosaurus rex in the same paper in which D. imperiosus was described.[55] In 1906, Osborn recognized the two as synonyms, and acted as first revisor by selecting Tyrannosaurus as the valid name.[58] The original Dynamosaurus material resides in the collections of the Natural History Museum, London.[114]

[edit] Notable specimensEdit

Main article: Specimens of Tyrannosaurus

[47][48]Samson, a Tyrannosaurus rex specimen that was put up for auction on eBay in 2000 with an asking price of over USD 8 million[120]Another Tyrannosaurus, nicknamed "Stan", in honor of amateur paleontologist Stan Sacrison, was found in the Hell Creek Formation near Buffalo, South Dakota, in the spring of 1987. After 30,000 man-hours of digging and preparing, a 65% complete skeleton emerged. Stan is currently on display in the Black Hills Institute of Geological Research in Hill City, South Dakota, after an extensive world tour. This tyrannosaur, too, was found to have many bone pathologies, including broken and healed ribs, a broken (and healed) neck and a spectacular hole in the back of its head, about the size of a Tyrannosaurus tooth. Both "Stan" and "Sue" were examined by Peter Larson (ref needed).

In the summer of 2000, Jack Horner discovered five Tyrannosaurus skeletons near the Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana. One of the specimens, dubbed "C. rex," was reported to be perhaps the largest Tyrannosaurus ever found.[121]

[49][50]"Jane" specimen, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, OhioIn 2001, a 50% complete skeleton of a juvenile Tyrannosaurus was discovered in the Hell Creek Formation in Montana, by a crew from the Burpee Museum of Natural History of Rockford, Illinois. Dubbed "Jane", the find was initially considered the first known skeleton of the pygmy tyrannosaurid Nanotyrannus but subsequent research has revealed that it is more likely a juvenile Tyrannosaurus.[122] It is the most complete and best preserved juvenile example known to date. Jane has been examined by Jack Horner, Pete Larson, Robert Bakker, Greg Erickson, and several other renowned paleontologists, because of the uniqueness of her age. "Jane" is currently on exhibit at the Burpee Museum of Natural History in Rockford, Illinois.[123][124]

In a press release on 7 April 2006, Montana State University revealed that it possessed the largest Tyrannosaurus skull yet discovered. Discovered in the 1960s and only recently reconstructed, the skull measures 59 inches (150 cm) long compared to the 55.4 inches (141 cm) of "Sue's" skull, a difference of 6.5%.[125][126]

[edit] Appearances in popular cultureEdit

Main article: Tyrannosaurus in popular cultureSince it was first described in 1905, Tyrannosaurus rex has become the most widely recognized dinosaur species in popular culture. It is the only dinosaur that is commonly known to the general public by its full scientific name (binomial name) (Tyrannosaurus rex), and the scientific abbreviation T. rex has also come into wide usage.[13] Robert T. Bakker notes this in The Dinosaur Heresies and explains that a name like "Tyrannosaurus rex is just irresistible to the tongue."[6]

Species of tyrannosaurus included only T.rex. A few such as T.baataar and T.torsus but they are based on Tarbosaurus and [[http;//]. Other attributed types was T.imperator and T.amplus. T.amplus was originally http;//


Elements of essay tone

Exercise 2 Consider the essay most recently assigned to you. The negotiations between the two states came to a halt after terms of reference could not be agreed upon. The writer creates the essay using particular words.

Identify the four common academic purposes.

Elements of Essay Writing

Because focusing on audience will Elements of essay tone your writing, your process, and your finished product, you must consider the specific traits of your audience members.

Analyzing a document involves a close examination of each of the individual parts and how they work together. Rhythm is the juxtaposition of stressed and unstressed beats in a poem, and is often used to give the reader a lens through which to move through the work.

It evokes certain feelings in the reader, establishing the atmosphere or mood of the essay. Does your content reflect a comprehension of the background or history of issues and events?

You may even reconsider your outfit and sport a more casual look. The reason the writer composes the paragraph. Litotes is an understatement, in which the writer says less than he really means see Reference 2. As traditionally, it has three body paragraphs, writers use each of the rhetorical devices in each paragraph, but it is not a hard and fast rule.

Function of Tone In order to identify tone, the reader should understand its function. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations; but the noise steadily increased.

You are one of a kind, and you have the power to express that individuality by making your brand more stylish. Cite this Article A tool to create a citation to reference this article Cite this Article. They were orange trees. Tone is generally conveyed through the choice of words, or the viewpoint of a writer on a particular subject.

It reminds the readers what they have read about. Paragraphs separate ideas into logical, manageable chunks. Do you concentrate on the impact of actions or the implementation of the actions?

Notice how the synthesis paragraphs consider each source and use information from each to create a new thesis. Read a few examples below: Does your writing sound breathless or relaxed?

We learned CPR but we did it on dummies, not even real peeps. An academic evaluation communicates your opinion, and its justifications, about a document or a topic of discussion.

Elements of an Essay

Those important questions you previously answered may now require different answers. Imagine reading one long block of text, with each idea blurring into the next. It could be persuasion, explanation, or clarification as required.To review, there are three concepts to determine before you begin writing your essay: the tone, the audience and the purpose.

How to Identify Tone in an Essay

- The Representation of Tone in The Turn of the Screw The purpose of tone is to express the author’s attitude toward elements of a story, such as characters, setting, or a situation. This literary device sets the mood of the story for the reader.

Your essay should point out the author’s choices and attempt to explain their significance. Another way to look at a literary analysis is to consider a.

In order to identify the tone, the reader should try to identify emotional meaning of the essay. Tone is the writer or the speaker's implied attitude toward his or her subject and/or the reader or audience (see Reference 1). Writers convey their attitudes in the words they choose and in the style in which they write.

It communicates the main points of the document by examining individual points and identifying how the points relate to one another. Essays can be written many different ways, but the traditional five-paragraph essay has essential elements that transcend all essay writing.

Elements of essay tone
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What types of information resources does a business usually need
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Ce este DSM – The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders

The ICD is the other commonly used manual for mental disorders. It is distinguished from the DSM in that it covers health as a whole. While the DSM is the official diagnostic system for mental disorders in the US, the ICD is used more widely in Europe and other parts of the world. The DSM-IV-TR (4th. ed.) contains, in Appendix G, an “ICD-9-CM Codes for Selected General Medical Conditions and Medication-Induced Disorders” that allows for comparisons between the DSM and the ICD manuals, which may not systematically match because revisions are not simultaneously coordinated.

While the DSM has been praised for standardizing psychiatric diagnostic categories and criteria, it has also generated controversy and criticism. Critics, including the National Institute of Mental Health, argue that the DSM represents an unscientific and subjective system. There are ongoing issues concerning the validity and reliability of the diagnostic categories; the reliance on superficial symptoms; the use of artificial dividing lines between categories and from “normality”; possible cultural bias; and medicalization of human distress. The publication of the DSM, with tightly guarded copyrights, now makes APA over $5 million a year, historically totaling over $100 million.

Uses and definition – DSM

History – DSM

The initial impetus for developing a classification of mental disorders in the United States was the need to collect statistical information. The first official attempt was the 1840 census, which used a single category: “idiocy/insanity”. Three years later, the American Statistical Association made an official protest to the U.S. House of Representatives, stating that “the most glaring and remarkable errors are found in the statements respecting nosology, prevalence of insanity, blindness, deafness, and dumbness, among the people of this nation”, pointing out that in many towns African-Americans were all marked as insane, and calling the statistics essentially useless.

DSM-I (1952)

The foreword to DSM-1 states this “categorized mental disorders in rubrics similar to those of the Armed Forces nomenclature.” An APA Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics was empowered to develop a version specifically for use in the United States, to standardize the diverse and confused usage of different documents. In 1950, the APA committee undertook a review and consultation. It circulated an adaptation of Medical 203, the VA system, and the Standard’s Nomenclature to approximately 10% of APA members. 46% replied, of which 93% approved, and after some further revisions (resulting in its being called DSM-I), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders was approved in 1951 and published in 1952. The structure and conceptual framework were the same as in Medical 203, and many passages of text were identical. The manual was 130 pages long and listed 106 mental disorders. These included several categories of “personality disturbance”, generally distinguished from “neurosis” (nervousness, egodystonic). In 1952, the APA listed homosexuality in the DSM as a sociopathic personality disturbance. Homosexuality: A Psychoanalytic Study of Male Homosexuals, a large-scale 1962 study of homosexuality, was used to justify inclusion of the disorder as a supposed pathological hidden fear of the opposite sex caused by traumatic parent–child relationships. This view was widely influential in the medical profession. In 1956, however, the psychologist Evelyn Hooker performed a study that compared the happiness and well-adjusted nature of self-identified homosexual men with heterosexual men and found no difference. Her study stunned the medical community and made her a hero to many gay men and lesbians, but homosexuality remained in the DSM until May 1974.

DSM-II (1968)

In the 1960s, there were many challenges to the concept of mental illness itself. These challenges came from psychiatrists like Thomas Szasz, who argued that mental illness was a myth used to disguise moral conflicts; from sociologists such as Erving Goffman, who said mental illness was merely another example of how society labels and controls non-conformists; from behavioural psychologists who challenged psychiatry’s fundamental reliance on unobservable phenomena; and from gay rights activists who criticised the APA’s listing of homosexuality as a mental disorder. A study published in Science by Rosenhan received much publicity and was viewed as an attack on the efficacy of psychiatric diagnosis.

Although the APA was closely involved in the next significant revision of the mental disorder section of the ICD (version 8 in 1968), it decided to go ahead with a revision of the DSM. It was published in 1968, listed 182 disorders, and was 134 pages long. It was quite similar to the DSM-I. The term “reaction” was dropped, but the term “neurosis” was retained. Both the DSM-I and the DSM-II reflected the predominant psychodynamic psychiatry, although they also included biological perspectives and concepts from Kraepelin’s system of classification. Symptoms were not specified in detail for specific disorders. Many were seen as reflections of broad underlying conflicts or maladaptive reactions to life problems, rooted in a distinction between neurosis and psychosis (roughly, anxiety/depression broadly in touch with reality, or hallucinations/delusions appearing disconnected from reality). Sociological and biological knowledge was incorporated, in a model that did not emphasize a clear boundary between normality and abnormality. The idea that personality disorders did not involve emotional distress was discarded.

An influential 1974 paper by Robert Spitzer and Joseph L. Fleiss demonstrated that the second edition of the DSM (DSM-II) was an unreliable diagnostic tool. They found that different practitioners using the DSM-II were rarely in agreement when diagnosing patients with similar problems. In reviewing previous studies of 18 major diagnostic categories, Fleiss and Spitzer concluded that “there are no diagnostic categories for which reliability is uniformly high. Reliability appears to be only satisfactory for three categories: mental deficiency, organic brain syndrome (but not its subtypes), and alcoholism. The level of reliability is no better than fair for psychosis and schizophrenia and is poor for the remaining categories”.

Seventh printing of the DSM-II, 1974

DSM-III (1980)

A new “multiaxial” system attempted to yield a picture more amenable to a statistical population census, rather than just a simple diagnosis. Spitzer argued that “mental disorders are a subset of medical disorders” but the task force decided on the DSM statement: “Each of the mental disorders is conceptualized as a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome.” The personality disorders were placed on axis II along with mental retardation.

DSM-III-R (1987)

In 1987, the DSM-III-R was published as a revision of the DSM-III, under the direction of Spitzer. Categories were renamed and reorganized, and significant changes in criteria were made. Six categories were deleted while others were added. Controversial diagnoses, such as pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder and masochistic personality disorder, were considered and discarded. “Ego-dystonic homosexuality” was also removed and was largely subsumed under “sexual disorder not otherwise specified”, which can include “persistent and marked distress about one’s sexual orientation.” Altogether, the DSM-III-R contained 292 diagnoses and was 567 pages long. Further efforts were made for the diagnoses to be purely descriptive, although the introductory text stated that for at least some disorders, “particularly the Personality Disorders, the criteria require much more inference on the part of the observer” (p. xxiii).

DSM-IV (1994)

In 1994, DSM-IV was published, listing 297 disorders in 886 pages. The task force was chaired by Allen Frances. A steering committee of 27 people was introduced, including four psychologists. The steering committee created 13 work groups of 5–16 members. Each work group had approximately 20 advisers.       The work groups conducted a 3-step process: first, each group conducted an extensive literature review of their diagnoses; then, they requested data from researchers, conducting analyses to determine which criteria required change, with instructions to be conservative; finally, they conducted multicenter field trials relating diagnoses to clinical practice. A major change from previous versions was the inclusion of a clinical significance criterion to almost half of all the categories, which required that symptoms cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”. Some personality disorder diagnoses were deleted or moved to the appendix.

DSM-IV-TR (2000)

The DSM-IV-TR characterizes a mental disorder as “a clinically significant behavioral or psychological syndrome or pattern that occurs in an individual [which] is associated with present distress… or disability… or with a significant increased risk of suffering.” It also notes that “no definition adequately specifies precise boundaries for the concept of ‘mental disorder’… different situations call for different definitions”. It states that “there is no assumption that each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries dividing it from other mental disorders or from no mental disorder” (APA, 1994 and 2000). There are attempts to adjust the wording for the upcoming DSM-V.

DSM-5 (2013)

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the DSM-5, was approved by the Board of Trustees of the APA on December 1, 2012. Published on May 18, 2013, the DSM-5 contains extensively revised diagnoses and, in some cases, broadens diagnostic definitions while narrowing definitions in other cases. The DSM-5 is the first major edition of the manual in twenty years.

Future revisions and updates

Beginning with the fifth edition, it is intended that diagnostic guidelines revisions will be added more frequently. It is notable that The DSM-5 is identified with Hindu rather than Roman numerals. Incremental updates will be identified with decimals (DSM-5.1,DSM-5.2, etc.). A new edition will be signified by whole number changes (DSM-5,DSM-6, etc.). The change reflects the intent of the APA to respond more quickly when a preponderance of research supports a specific change in the manual. The research base of mental disorders is evolving at different rates for different disorders.

The DSM-IV is a categorical classification system. The categories are prototypes, and a patient with a close approximation to the prototype is said to have that disorder. DSM-IV states, “there is no assumption each category of mental disorder is a completely discrete entity with absolute boundaries” but isolated, low-grade and noncriterion (unlisted for a given disorder) symptoms are not given importance. Qualifiers are sometimes used, for example mild, moderate or severe forms of a disorder. For nearly half the disorders, symptoms must be sufficient to cause “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning”, although DSM-IV-TR removed the distress criterion from tic disorders and several of the paraphilias due to their egosyntonic nature. Each category of disorder has a numeric code taken from the ICD coding system, used for health service (including insurance) administrative purposes.

Multi-axial system

Axis II: Personality disorders and mental retardation

Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental factors contributing to the disorder

The DSM-IV does not specifically cite its sources, but there are four volumes of “sourcebooks” intended to be APA’s documentation of the guideline development process and supporting evidence, including literature reviews, data analyses and field trials. The Sourcebooks have been said to provide important insights into the character and quality of the decisions that led to the production of DSM-IV, and hence the scientific credibility of contemporary psychiatric classification.

Reliability and validity concerns

The revisions of the DSM from the 3rd Edition forward have been mainly concerned with diagnostic reliability—the degree to which different diagnosticians agree on a diagnosis. It was argued that a science of psychiatry can only advance if diagnosis is reliable. If clinicians and researchers frequently disagree about a diagnosis with a patient, then research into the causes and effective treatments of those disorders cannot advance. Hence, diagnostic reliability was a major concern of DSM-III. When the diagnostic reliability problem was thought to be solved, subsequent editions of the DSM were concerned mainly with “tweaking” the diagnostic criteria. Unfortunately, neither the issue of reliability or validity was settled. However, most psychiatric education post DSM-III focused on issues of treatment—especially drug treatment—and less on diagnostic concerns. In fact, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., Director of the NIMH, stated in 2013 that the agency would no longer fund research projects that rely exclusively on DSM criteria due to its lack of validity. Field trials of DSM-5 brought the debate of reliability back into the limelight as some disorders showed poor reliability. For example, major depressive disorder, a common mental illness, had a poor reliability kappa statistic of 0.28, indicating that clinicians frequently disagreed on this diagnosis in the same patients. The most reliable diagnosis was major neurocognitive disorder with a kappa of 0.78.

Superficial symptoms

The DSM’s focus on superficial symptoms is claimed to be largely a result of necessity (assuming such a manual is nevertheless produced), since there is no agreement on a more explanatory classification system. Reviewers note, however, that this approach is undermining research, including in genetics, because it results in the grouping of individuals who have very little in common except superficial criteria as per DSM or ICD diagnosis.

Despite the lack of consensus on underlying causation, advocates for specific psychopathological paradigms have nonetheless faulted the current diagnostic scheme for not incorporating evidence-based models or findings from other areas of science. A recent example is evolutionary psychologists’ criticism that the DSM does not differentiate between genuine cognitive malfunctions and those induced by psychological adaptations, a key distinction within evolutionary psychology, but one widely challenged within general psychology. Another example is a strong operationalist viewpoint, which contends that reliance on operational definitions, as purported by the DSM, necessitates that intuitive concepts such as depression be replaced by specific measurable concepts before they are scientifically meaningful. One critic states of psychologists that “Instead of replacing ‘metaphysical’ terms such as ‘desire’ and ‘purpose’, they used it to legitimize them by giving them operational definitions…the initial, quite radical operationalist ideas eventually came to serve as little more than a ‘reassurance fetish’ (Koch 1992) for mainstream methodological practice.”

A 2013 review published in the European Archives of Psychiatry and Clinical Neuroscience states “that psychiatry targets the phenomena of consciousness, which, unlike somatic symptoms and signs, cannot be grasped on the analogy with material thing-like objects.” As an example of the problem of the superficial characterization of psychiatric signs and symptoms, the authors gave the example of a patient saying they “feel depressed, sad, or down”, showing that such a statement could indicate various underlying experiences: “not only depressed mood but also, for instance, irritation, anger, loss of meaning, varieties of fatigue, ambivalence, ruminations of different kinds, hyper-reflectivity, thought pressure, psychological anxiety, varieties of depersonalization, and even voices with negative content, and so forth.” The structured interview comes with “danger of over confidence in the face value of the answers, as if a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ truly confirmed or denied the diagnostic criterion at issue.” The authors gave an example: A patient who was being administered the Structured Clinical Interview for the DSM-IV Axis I Disorders denied thought insertion, but during a “conversational, phenomenological interview”, a semi-structured interview tailored to the patient, the same patient admitted to experiencing thought insertion, along with a delusional elaboration.          The authors suggested 2 reasons for this discrepancy: either the patient did not “recognize his own experience in the rather blunt, implicitly either/or formulation of the structured-interview question”, or the experience did not “fully articulate itself” until the patient started talking about his experiences.

Dividing lines

In addition, it is argued that the current approach based on exceeding a threshold of symptoms does not adequately take into account the context in which a person is living, and to what extent there is internal disorder of an individual versus a psychological response to adverse situations. The DSM does include a step (“Axis IV”) for outlining “Psychosocial and environmental factors contributing to the disorder” once someone is diagnosed with that particular disorder.

Because an individual’s degree of impairment is often not correlated with symptom counts, and can stem from various individual and social factors, the DSM’s standard of distress or disability can often produce false positives. On the other hand, individuals who do not meet symptom counts may nevertheless experience comparable distress or disability in their life.

Cultural bias

Some psychiatrists also argue that current diagnostic standards rely on an exaggerated interpretation of neurophysiological findings and so understate the scientific importance of social-psychological variables. Advocating a more culturally sensitive approach to psychology, critics such as Carl Bell and Marcello Maviglia contend that the cultural and ethnic diversity of individuals is often discounted by researchers and service providers. In addition, current diagnostic guidelines have been criticized as having a fundamentally Euro-American outlook. Although these guidelines have been widely implemented, opponents argue that even when a diagnostic criteria set is accepted across different cultures, it does not necessarily indicate that the underlying constructs have any validity within those cultures; even reliable application can only demonstrate consistency, not legitimacy. Cross-cultural psychiatrist Arthur Kleinman contends that the Western bias is ironically illustrated in the introduction of cultural factors to the DSM-IV: the fact that disorders or concepts from non-Western or non-mainstream cultures are described as “culture-bound”, whereas standard psychiatric diagnoses are given no cultural qualification whatsoever, is to Kleinman revelatory of an underlying assumption that Western cultural phenomena are universal. Kleinman’s negative view toward the culture-bound syndrome is largely shared by other cross-cultural critics, common responses included both disappointment over the large number of documented non-Western mental disorders still left out, and frustration that even those included were often misinterpreted or misrepresented. Many mainstream psychiatrists have also been dissatisfied with these new culture-bound diagnoses, although not for the same reasons. Robert Spitzer, a lead architect of the DSM-III, has held the opinion that the addition of cultural formulations was an attempt to placate cultural critics, and that they lack any scientific motivation or support. Spitzer also posits that the new culture-bound diagnoses are rarely used in practice, maintaining that the standard diagnoses apply regardless of the culture involved. In general, the mainstream psychiatric opinion remains that if a diagnostic category is valid, cross-cultural factors are either irrelevant or are only significant to specific symptom presentations. One of the results was the development of the Azibo Nosology by Daudi Ajani Ya Azibo as an alternative to the DSM to treat African and African American patients.

Medicalization and financial conflicts of interest

It has also been alleged that the way the categories of the DSM are structured, as well as the substantial expansion of the number of categories, are representative of an increasing medicalization of human nature, which may be attributed to disease mongering by psychiatrists and pharmaceutical companies, the power and influence of the latter having grown dramatically in recent decades. Of the authors who selected and defined the DSM-IV psychiatric disorders, roughly half have had financial relationships with the pharmaceutical industry at one time, raising the prospect of a direct conflict of interest. The same article concludes that the connections between panel members and the drug companies were particularly strong in those diagnoses where drugs are the first line of treatment, such as schizophrenia and mood disorders, where 100% of the panel members had financial ties with the pharmaceutical industry. In 2005, then APA President Steven Sharfstein released a statement in which he conceded that psychiatrists had “allowed the biopsychosocial model to become the bio-bio-bio model”.

However, although the number of identified diagnoses has increased by more than 300% (from 106 in DSM-I to 365 in DSM-IV-TR), psychiatrists such as Zimmerman and Spitzer argue it almost entirely represents greater specification of the forms of pathology, thereby allowing better grouping of more similar patients. However, William Glasser refers to the DSM as “phony diagnostic categories”, arguing that “it was developed to help psychiatrists – to help them make money”. In addition, the publishing of the DSM, with tightly guarded copyrights, has in itself earned over $100 million for the APA.

Clients and survivors

A client is a person who accesses psychiatric services and may have been given a diagnosis from the DSM, while a survivor self-identifies as a person who has endured a psychiatric intervention and the mental health system (which may have involved involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment). Some individuals are relieved to find that they have a recognized condition that they can apply a name to and this has led to many people self-diagnosing. Others, however, question the accuracy of the diagnosis, or feel they have been given a “label” that invites social stigma and discrimination (the terms “mentalism” and “sanism” have been used to describe such discriminatory treatment).

Diagnoses can become internalized and affect an individual’s self-identity, and some psychotherapists have found that the healing process can be inhibited and symptoms can worsen as a result. Some members of the psychiatric survivors movement (more broadly the consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement) actively campaign against their diagnoses, or the assumed implications, and/or against the DSM system in general. Additionally, it has been noted that the DSM often uses definitions and terminology that are inconsistent with a recovery model, and such content can erroneously imply excess psychopathology (e.g. multiple “comorbid” diagnoses) or chronicity.

DSM-5 critiques

Psychiatrist Allen Frances has been critical of proposed revisions to the DSM-5. In a 2012 New York Times editorial, Frances warned that if this DSM version is issued unamended by the APA, it will “medicalize normality and result in a glut of unnecessary and harmful drug prescription.” In a December 2, 2012 blog post in Psychology Today, Frances lists the ten “most potentially harmful changes” to DSM-5:

-Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, for temper tantrums

-Major Depressive Disorder, includes normal grief

-Minor Neurocognitive Disorder, for normal forgetting in old age

-Adult Attention Deficit Disorder, encouraging psychiatric prescriptions of stimulants

-Binge Eating Disorder, for excessive eating

-First time drug users will be lumped in with addicts

-Behavioral Addictions, making a “mental disorder of everything we like to do a lot.”

-Generalized Anxiety Disorder, includes everyday worries

-Post-traumatic stress disorder, changes opening “the gate even further to the already existing problem of misdiagnosis of PTSD in forensic settings.”

-are they more like theoretical constructs or more like diseases

-how to reach an agreed definition

-whether the DSM-5 should take a cautious or conservative approach

-the role of practical rather than scientific considerations

-the issue of use by clinicians or researchers

-whether an entirely different diagnostic system is required.

In 2011, psychologist Brent Robbins co-authored a national letter for the Society for Humanistic Psychology that has brought thousands into the public debate about the DSM. Approximately 14,000 individuals and mental health professionals have signed a petition in support of the letter. Thirteen other American Psychological Association divisions have endorsed the petition. Robbins has noted that under the new guidelines, certain responses to grief could be labeled as pathological disorders, instead of being recognized as being normal human experiences.

The DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013,

Section I

Section I describes DSM-5 chapter organization, its change from the multiaxial system, and Section III’s dimensional assessments. The DSM-5 deleted the chapter that includes “disorders usually first diagnosed in infancy, childhood, or adolescence” opting to list them in other chapters. A note under Anxiety Disorders says that the “sequential order” of at least some DSM-5 chapters has significance that reflects the relationships between diagnoses.

Section II: diagnostic criteria and codes

Neurodevelopmental disorders

-“Mental retardation” has a new name: “intellectual disability (intellectual developmental disorder).”

-Phonological disorder and stuttering are now called communication disorders—which include language disorder, speech sound disorder, childhood-onset fluency disorder, and a new condition characterized by impaired social verbal and nonverbal communication called social (pragmatic) communication disorder.

-Autism spectrum disorder incorporates Asperger disorder, childhood disintegrative disorder, and pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS) – see Diagnosis of Asperger syndrome#DSM-5 changes.

-A new sub-category, motor disorders, encompasses developmental coordination disorder, stereotypic movement disorder, and the tic disorders including Tourette syndrome.

Schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders

-All subtypes of schizophrenia were removed from the DSM-5 (paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, undifferentiated, and residual).

-A major mood episode is required for schizoaffective disorder (for a majority of the disorder’s duration after criterion A [related to delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech or behavior, and negative symptoms such as avolition] is met).

-Criteria for delusional disorder changed, and it is no longer separate from shared delusional disorder.

-Catatonia in all contexts requires 3 of a total of 12 symptoms. Catatonia may be a specifier for depressive, bipolar, and psychotic disorders; part of another medical condition; or of another specified diagnosis.

Bipolar and related disorders

-New specifier “with mixed features” can be applied to bipolar I disorder, bipolar II disorder, bipolar disorder NED (not elsewhere defined, previously called “NOS”, not otherwise specified) and MDD.

-Allows other specified bipolar and related disorder for particular conditions.

-Anxiety symptoms are a specifier ( called “anxious distress”) added to bipolar disorder and to depressive disorders (but are not part of the bipolar diagnostic criteria).

Depressive disorders

-The bereavement exclusion in DSM-IV was removed from depressive disorders in DSM-5.

-New disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) for children up to age 18 years.

-Premenstrual dysphoric disorder moved from an appendix for further study, and became a disorder.

-Specifiers were added for mixed symptoms and for anxiety, along with guidance to physicians for suicidality.

-The term dysthymia now also would be called persistent depressive disorder.

Anxiety disorders

-For the various forms of phobias and anxiety disorders, DSM-5 removes the requirement that the subject (formerly, over 18 years old) “must recognize that their fear and anxiety are excessive or unreasonable”. Also, the duration of at least 6 months now applies to everyone (not only to children).

-Panic attack became a specifier for all DSM-5 disorders.

-Panic disorder and agoraphobia became two separate disorders.

-Specific types of phobias became specifiers but are otherwise unchanged.

Obsessive-compulsive and related disorders

-A new chapter on obsessive-compulsive and related disorders includes four new disorders: excoriation (skin-picking) disorder, hoarding disorder, substance-/medication-induced obsessive-compulsive and related disorder, and obsessive-compulsive and related disorder due to another medical condition.

-Trichotillomania (hair-pulling disorder) moved from “impulse-control disorders not elsewhere classified” in DSM-IV, to an obsessive-compulsive disorder in DSM-5.

-A specifier was expanded (and added to body dysmorphic disorder and hoarding disorder) to allow for good or fair insight, poor insight, and “absent insight/delusional” (i.e., complete conviction that obsessive-compulsive disorder beliefs are true).

-Criteria were added to body dysmorphic disorder to describe repetitive behaviors or mental acts that may arise with perceived defects or flaws in physical appearance.

-The DSM-IV specifier “with obsessive-compulsive symptoms” moved from anxiety disorders to this new category for obsessive-compulsive and related disorders.

-There are two new diagnoses: other specified obsessive-compulsive and related disorder, which can include body-focused repetitive behavior disorder (behaviors like nail biting, lip biting, and cheek chewing, other than hair pulling and skin picking) or obsessional jealousy; and unspecified obsessive-compulsive and related disorder.

Trauma- and stressor-related disorders

-Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is now included in a new section titled “Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders.”

-Separate criteria were added for children six years old or younger.

Dissociative disorders

-Depersonalization disorder is now called depersonalization/derealization disorder.

-Dissociative fugue became a specifier for dissociative amnesia.

-The criteria for dissociative identity disorder were expanded to include “possession-form phenomena and functional neurological symptoms”. It is made clear that “transitions in identity may be observable by others or self-reported”. Criterion B was also modified for people who experience gaps in recall of everyday events (not only trauma).

Somatic symptom and related disorders

-Somatoform disorders are now called somatic symptom and related disorders.

-Diagnoses of somatization disorder, hypochondriasis, pain disorder, and undifferentiated somatoform disorder were deleted.

-Patients that present with chronic pain can now be diagnosed with the mental illness somatic symptom disorder with predominant pain; or psychological factors that affect other medical conditions; or with an adjustment disorder.

-Somatization disorder and undifferentiated somatoform disorder were combined to become somatic symptom disorder, a diagnosis which no longer requires a specific number of somatic symptoms.

-Somatic symptom and related disorders are defined by positive symptoms, and the use of medically unexplained symptoms is minimized, except in the cases of conversion disorder and pseudocyesis (false pregnancy).

-A new diagnosis is psychological factors affecting other medical conditions. This was formerly found in the DSM-IV chapter “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention”.

-Criteria for conversion disorder (functional neurological symptom disorder) were changed.

Feeding and eating disorders

-Criteria for pica and rumination disorder were changed and can now refer to people of any age.

-Binge eating disorder graduated from DSM-IV’s “Appendix B — Criteria Sets and Axes Provided for Further Study” into a proper diagnosis.

-Requirements for bulimia nervosa and binge eating disorder were changed from “at least twice weekly for 6 months to at least once weekly over the last 3 months”.

-The criteria for anorexia nervosa were changed; there is no longer a requirement of amenorrhea.

-“Feeding disorder of infancy or early childhood”, a rarely used diagnosis in DSM-IV, was renamed to avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder, and criteria were expanded.

Sleep–wake disorders

-“Sleep disorders related to another mental disorder, and sleep disorders related to a general medical condition” were deleted.

-Primary insomnia became insomnia disorder, and narcolepsy is separate from other hypersomnolence.

-There are now three breathing-related sleep disorders: obstructive sleep apnea hypopnea, central sleep apnea, and sleep-related hypoventilation.

-Circadian rhythm sleep–wake disorders were expanded to include advanced sleep phase syndrome, irregular sleep–wake type, and non-24-hour sleep–wake type. Jet lag was removed.

-Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder and restless legs syndrome are each a disorder, instead of both being listed under “dyssomnia not otherwise specified” in DSM-IV.

Sexual dysfunctions

-DSM-5 has sex-specific sexual dysfunctions.

-Sexual aversion disorder was deleted.

-Subtypes for all disorders include only “lifelong versus acquired” and “generalized versus situational” (one subtype was deleted from DSM-IV).

-Two subtypes were deleted: “sexual dysfunction due to a general medical condition” and “due to psychological versus combined factors”.

Gender dysphoria

-Subtypes of gender identity disorder based on sexual orientation were deleted.

-Among other wording changes, criterion A and criterion B (cross-gender identification, and aversion toward one’s gender) were combined. Along with these changes comes the creation of a separate gender dysphoria in children as well as one for adults and adolescents. The grouping has been moved out of the sexual disorders category and into its own. The name change was made in part due to stigmatization of the term “disorder” and the relatively common use of “gender dysphoria” in the GID literature and among specialists in the area. The creation of a specific diagnosis for children reflects the lesser ability of children to have insight into what they are experiencing and ability to express it in the event that they have insight.

Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders

Some of these disorders were formerly part of the chapter on early diagnosis, oppositional defiant disorder; conduct disorder; and disruptive behavior disorder not otherwise specified became other specified and unspecified disruptive disorder, impulse-control disorder, and conduct disorders.Intermittent explosive disorder, pyromania, and kleptomania moved to this chapter from the DSM-IV chapter “Impulse-Control Disorders Not Otherwise Specified”.

-Criteria for conduct disorder are unchanged for the most part from DSM-IV. A specifier was added for people with limited “prosocial emotion”, showing callous and unemotional traits.

-People over the disorder’s minimum age of 6 may be diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder without outbursts of physical aggression. Criteria were added for frequency and to specify “impulsive and/or anger based in nature, and must cause marked distress, cause impairment in occupational or interpersonal functioning, or be associated with negative financial or legal consequences”.

Substance-related and addictive disorders

-Gambling disorder and tobacco use disorder are new.

-Substance abuse and substance dependence from DSM-IV-TR have been combined into single substance use disorders specific to each substance of abuse within a new “addictions and related disorders” category. “Recurrent legal problems” was deleted and “craving or a strong desire or urge to use a substance” was added to the criteria. The threshold of the number of criteria that must be met was changed. Severity from mild to severe is based on the number of criteria endorsed. Criteria for cannabis and caffeine withdrawal were added. New specifiers were added for early and sustained remission along with new specifiers for “in a controlled environment” and “on maintenance therapy”.

DSM-5 substance dependencies include:

-303.90 Alcohol dependence

-304.00 Opioid dependence

-304.10 Sedative, hypnotic, or anxiolytic dependence (including benzodiazepine dependence and barbiturate dependence)

-304.20 Cocaine dependence

-304.30 Cannabis dependence

-304.40 Amphetamine dependence (or amphetamine-like)

-304.50 Hallucinogen dependence

-304.60 Inhalant dependence

-304.80 Polysubstance dependence

-304.90 Phencyclidine (or phencyclidine-like) dependence

-304.90 Other (or unknown) substance dependence

-305.10 Nicotine dependence

Neurocognitive disorders

-Dementia and amnestic disorder became major or mild neurocognitive disorder (major NCD, or mild NCD). DSM-5 has a new list of neurocognitive domains. “New separate criteria are now presented” for major or mild NCD due to various conditions. Substance/medication-induced NCD and unspecified NCD are new diagnoses.

Paraphilic disorders

-New specifiers “in a controlled environment” and “in remission” were added to criteria for all paraphilic disorders.

-A distinction is made between paraphilic behaviors, or paraphilias, and paraphilic disorders. All criteria sets were changed to add the word disorder to all of the paraphilias, for example, pedophilic disorder is listed instead of pedophilia. There is no change in the basic diagnostic structure since DSM-III-R; however, people now must meet both qualitative (criterion A) and negative consequences (criterion B) criteria to be diagnosed with a paraphilic disorder. Otherwise they have a paraphilia (and no diagnosis).

Personality disorders

-Personality disorder previously belonged to a different axis than almost all other disorders, but is now in one axis with all mental and other medical diagnoses. However, the same ten types of personality disorder are retained.

Section III: emerging measures and models

Alternative DSM-5 model for personality disorders

Conditions for further study

-Attenuated psychosis syndrome

-Depressive episodes with short-duration hypomania

-Persistent complex bereavement disorder

-Caffeine use disorder

-Internet gaming disorder

-Neurobehavioral disorder associated with prenatal alcohol exposure

-Suicidal behavior disorder

-Non-suicidal self-injury

Development – DSM–5

In 1999, a DSM–5 Research Planning Conference; sponsored jointly by APA and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), was held to set the research priorities. Research Planning Work Groups produced “white papers” on the research needed to inform and shape the DSM-5 and the resulting work and recommendations were reported in an APA monograph and peer-reviewed literature. There were six workgroups, each focusing on a broad topic: Nomenclature, Neuroscience and Genetics, Developmental Issues and Diagnosis, Personality and Relational Disorders, Mental Disorders and Disability, and Cross-Cultural Issues. Three additional white papers were also due by 2004 concerning gender issues, diagnostic issues in the geriatric population, and mental disorders in infants and young children. The white papers have been followed by a series of conferences to produce recommendations relating to specific disorders and issues, with attendance limited to 25 invited researchers.

Revisions and updates to DSM-5

Beginning with the fifth edition, it is intended that diagnostic guidelines revisions will be added incrementally. The DSM-5 is identified with Arabic rather than Roman numerals, marking a change in how future updates will be created. Incremental updates will be identified with decimals (DSM-5.1,DSM-5.2, etc.), until a new edition is written. The change reflects the intent of the APA to respond more quickly when a preponderance of research supports a specific change in the manual. The research base of mental disorders is evolving at different rates for different disorders.

Robert Spitzer, the head of the DSM-III task force, has publicly criticized the APA for mandating that DSM-5 task force members sign a nondisclosure agreement, effectively conducting the whole process in secret: “When I first heard about this agreement, I just went bonkers. Transparency is necessary if the document is to have credibility, and, in time, you’re going to have people complaining all over the place that they didn’t have the opportunity to challenge anything.” Allen Frances, chair of the DSM-IV task force, expressed a similar concern.

Although the APA has since instituted a disclosure policy for DSM-5 task force members, many still believe the Association has not gone far enough in its efforts to be transparent and to protect against industry influence. In a 2009 Point/Counterpoint article, Lisa Cosgrove, PhD and Harold J. Bursztajn, MD noted that “the fact that 70% of the task force members have reported direct industry ties—an increase of almost 14% over the percentage of DSM-IV task force members who had industry ties—shows that disclosure policies alone, especially those that rely on an honor system, are not enough and that more specific safeguards are needed.”

David Kupfer, chair of the DSM-5 task force, and Darrel A. Regier, MD, MPH, vice chair of the task force, whose industry ties are disclosed with those of the task force, countered that “collaborative relationships among government, academia, and industry are vital to the current and future development of pharmacological treatments for mental disorders.” They asserted that the development of DSM-5 is the “most inclusive and transparent developmental process in the 60-year history of DSM.” The developments to this new version can be viewed on the APA website. Public input was requested for the first time in the history of the manual. During periods of public comment, members of the public could sign up at the DSM-5 website and provide feedback on the various proposed changes.

In June 2009, Allen Frances issued strongly worded criticisms of the processes leading to DSM-5 and the risk of “serious, subtle, (…) ubiquitous” and “dangerous” unintended consequences such as new “false ‘epidemics'”. He writes that “the work on DSM-V has displayed the most unhappy combination of soaring ambition and weak methodology” and is concerned about the task force’s “inexplicably closed and secretive process”. His and Spitzer’s concerns about the contract that the APA drew up for consultants to sign, agreeing not to discuss drafts of the fifth edition beyond the task force and committees, have also been aired and debated.

The appointment, in May 2008, of two of the taskforce members, Kenneth Zucker and Ray Blanchard, led to an internet petition to remove them. According to MSNBC, “The petition accuses Zucker of having engaged in ‘junk science’ and promoting ‘hurtful theories’ during his career, especially advocating the idea that children who are unambiguously male or female anatomically, but seem confused about their gender identity, can be treated by encouraging gender expression in line with their anatomy.” According to The Gay City News, “Dr. Ray Blanchard, a psychiatry professor at the University of Toronto, is deemed offensive for his theories that some types of transsexuality are paraphilias, or sexual urges. In this model, transsexuality is not an essential aspect of the individual, but a misdirected sexual impulse.” Blanchard responded, “Naturally, it’s very disappointing to me there seems to be so much misinformation about me on the Internet. [They didn’t distort] my views, they completely reversed my views.” Zucker “rejects the junk-science charge, saying there ‘has to be an empirical basis to modify anything’ in the DSM. As for hurting people, ‘in my own career, my primary motivation in working with children, adolescents and families is to help them with the distress and suffering they are experiencing, whatever the reasons they are having these struggles. I want to help people feel better about themselves, not hurt them.'”

In 2011, psychologist Brent Robbins co-authored a national letter for the Society for Humanistic Psychology that brought thousands into the public debate about the DSM. Approximately 13,000 individuals and mental health professionals signed a petition in support of the letter. Thirteen other American Psychological Association divisions endorsed the petition. In a November 2011 article about the debate in the San Francisco Chronicle, Robbins notes that under the new guidelines, certain responses to grief could be labeled as pathological disorders, instead of being recognized as being normal human experiences. In 2012, a footnote was added to the draft text which explains the distinction between grief and depression.

The DSM-5 has been criticized for purportedly saying nothing about the biological underpinnings of mental disorders. A book-long appraisal of the DSM-5, with contributions from philosophers, historians and anthropologists, was published in 2015.

Borderline personality disorder controversy

In 2003, the Treatment and Research Advancements National Association for Personality Disorders (TARA-APD) campaigned to change the name and designation of borderline personality disorder in DSM-5. The paper How Advocacy is Bringing BPD into the Light reported that “the name BPD is confusing, imparts no relevant or descriptive information, and reinforces existing stigma.” Instead, it proposed the name “emotional regulation disorder” or “emotional dysregulation disorder.” There was also discussion about changing borderline personality disorder, an Axis II diagnosis (personality disorders and mental retardation), to an Axis I diagnosis (clinical disorders).

More radical criticisms

Some authors believe that the problem is not simply of a few criteria to be deleted or modified. For example, a Kuhnian reformulation of the diagnostic debate suggested that apparently trivial problems of the DSM, like the extremely high rates of comorbidity, might fruitfully be analysed as Kuhnian anomalies leading the DSM system to a scientific crisis. As a consequence, a radical rethinking of the concept of mental disorder was proposed, addressing its constructive nature. Based on similar views, several revolutionary approaches were proposed, ranging from dimensional diagnosis to various forms of etiopathogenetic diagnosis.

The financial association of DSM-5 panel members with industry continues to be a concern for financial conflict of interest. Of the DSM-5 task force members, 69% report having ties to the pharmaceutical industry, an increase from the 57% of DSM-IV task force members.

British Psychological Society response

The British Psychological Society stated in its June 2011 response that it had “more concerns than plaudits”. It criticized proposed diagnoses as “clearly based largely on social norms, with ‘symptoms’ that all rely on subjective judgements… not value-free, but rather reflect[ing] current normative social expectations”, noting doubts over the reliability, validity, and value of existing criteria, that personality disorders were not normed on the general population, and that “not otherwise specified” categories covered a “huge” 30% of all personality disorders.

It also expressed a major concern that “clients and the general public are negatively affected by the continued and continuous medicalisation of their natural and normal responses to their experiences… which demand helping responses, but which do not reflect illnesses so much as normal individual variation”.

The Society suggested as its primary specific recommendation, a change from using “diagnostic frameworks” to a description based on an individual’s specific experienced problems, and that mental disorders are better explored as part of a spectrum shared with normality:

[We recommend] a revision of the way mental distress is thought about, starting with recognition of the overwhelming evidence that it is on a spectrum with ‘normal’ experience, and that psychosocial factors such as poverty, unemployment and trauma are the most strongly-evidenced causal factors. Rather than applying preordained diagnostic categories to clinical populations, we believe that any classification system should begin from the bottom up – starting with specific experiences, problems or ‘symptoms’ or ‘complaints’… We would like to see the base unit of measurement as specific problems (e.g. hearing voices, feelings of anxiety etc.)? These would be more helpful too in terms of epidemiology.

– British Psychological Society June 2011 response.

NIMH – National Institute of Mental Health

National Institute of Mental Health director Thomas R. Insel, MD, wrote in an April 29, 2013 blog post:

Insel also discussed an NIMH effort to develop a new classification system, Research Domain Criteria (RDoC), currently for research purposes only. Insel’s post sparked a flurry of reaction, some of which might be termed sensationalistic, with headlines such as “Goodbye to the DSM-V”, “Federal institute for mental health abandons controversial ‘bible’ of psychiatry”, “National Institute of Mental Health abandoning the DSM”, and “Psychiatry divided as mental health ‘bible’ denounced.” Other responses provided a more nuanced analysis of the NIMH Director’s post.

In May 2013, Insel, on behalf of NIMH, issued a joint statement with Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD, president of the American Psychiatric Association, that emphasized that DSM-5 “… represents the best information currently available for clinical diagnosis of mental disorders. Patients, families, and insurers can be confident that effective treatments are available and that the DSM is the key resource for delivering the best available care. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) has not changed its position on DSM-5.” Insel and Lieberman say that DSM-5 and RDoC “represent complementary, not competing, frameworks” for characterizing diseases and disorders. However, epistemologists of psychiatry tend to see the RDoC project as a putative revolutionary system that in the long run will try to replace the DSM, its expected early effect being a liberalization of the research criteria, with an increasing number of research centers adopting the RDoC definitions.

Sursa:  Wikipedia


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KULENOVIC  C o l l e c t i o n - Painting

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Guido Reni
Italian ( 1575 - 1642 )
“ Messias from Nasaret “
Oil on canvas

Guido Reni (4 November 1575 - 18 August 1642)
was an Italian painter of high-baroque style.
Born in Bologna into a family of musicians, Guido Reni
was the son of Daniele Reni and Ginevra de' Pozzi.
As a child of nine, he was apprenticed under
the Bolognese studio of Denis Calvaert. Soon after,
he was joined in that studio by Albany and Domenichino.
He may also have trained with a painter by the name of
Ferrantini. When Reni was about twenty years old,
the three Calvaert pupils migrated to the rising rival studio,
named Accademia degli Incamminati
led by Lodovico Carracci. They went on to form the
nucleus of a prolific and successful school of Bolognese
painters who followed Annibale Carracci to Rome.
Like many other Bolognese painters, Reni's painting
was thematic and eclectic in style.


We are new in Solar industry business and after doing lot of research and being environment friendly we determine it is time to inform the people about the renewable energy system which can help them to reduce carbon foot print and help saves lot of money. Our team is a small group of individuals who focusses on reducing carbon foot print and contributing towards the environment. All team members have lot of experience and expertise in construction field and worked with different contractors and tradesmen. Our team member personally get involved in whole process from giving estimate to installing the system by itself.


7.7 The Half-Earth Solution

If it’s true that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is unstoppable and our major coastal cities drown, humans can rebuild cities inland. If it’s true that the scorching of the American Southwest will be irreversible, humans can move out of Nevada into Utah. If it’s true that it is going to be impossible to grow food in Syria, humans can migrate from Syria into Europe.

We humans have the distinct ability to adapt ourselves quickly to any environment on Earth. Other species don’t. They don’t wear clothes, they don’t have air-conditioners, they don’t have heaters and when they choose to move to a suitable habitat, they encounter man-made obstacles such as roads and cities that impede them. As a result, many wild animals have already gone extinct. But there is still much that we can do to restore the integrity of ecosystems and help Life flourish on this planet.

A few years ago, Prof. E. O. Wilson enunciated “Wilson’s law”[96]:

“If we save the living environment, the biodiversity that we have left today, we will also automatically save the physical environment. If we only save the physical environment, then we will ultimately lose both.”

That law has been emblazoned on our Climate Healers web site ever since. From that law, we derived our core guiding principle:

Compassion for all Creation is Infinitely Sustainable!

Prof. E. O. Wilson just published his 32nd book entitled, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life[97], which makes an eloquent case for half the Earth to be set aside as a permanent preserve for the benefit of the 20-100 million other species on the planet so that they have a chance to recover from the depredations of our Caterpillar phase. Prof. E. O. Wilson has asked that this Half-Earth preserve should be in the form of contiguous North-South corridors so that species can migrate freely in response to changing climactic conditions. Human passages through these corridors should be designed with respect for the well being of wildlife. Just think of highway crossings on pillars within these wildlife corridors, instead of our current practice, expecting wild animals to cross our highways at their peril.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Prof. E. O. Wilson sounded a note of optimism[98]:

“Large parts of Nature are still intact — the Amazon region, the Congo Basin, New Guinea. There are also patches of the industrialized world where Nature could be restored and strung together to create corridors for wildlife. In the oceans, we need to stop fishing in the open sea and let life there recover. If we halted those fisheries, marine life would increase rapidly. The oceans are part of that 50 percent.

Now, this proposal does not mean moving anybody out. It means creating something equivalent to the U.N.’s World Heritage sites that could be regarded as the priceless assets of humanity. That’s why I’ve made so bold a step as to offer this maxim: Do no further harm to the rest of life. If we can agree on that, everything else will follow. It’s actually going to be a lot easier than people think.”

In a world that is rapidly transitioning to veganism, this bold Half-Earth proposal is feasible to implement. In that vegan world, most of the 45% of the land area of the Earth that is currently being used for Animal Agriculture will be freed for “re-wilding” [99]. In a world where equality is structurally guaranteed, surely there would be plenty of volunteers to help shepherd this re-wilding! Just imagine 60 million SAI sanctuaries spread throughout the Earth and you will have a vision of the Eden that Prof. E. O. Wilson envisions. Such an Eden can and must be regenerated!

Prof. E. O. Wilson estimates that if the Half-Earth solution is implemented, then we can preserve 85% of the species extant today and limit the long-term extinction to about 15%. That would make this Sixth Great Mass Extinction event[100] to be the least damaging compared to the other five Great Mass Extinction events in the Earth’s history.

[96] Wilson’s law was first reported on the New York Times Dot Earth blog: http://nyti.ms/1OFzxiv

[97] E. O. Wilson, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life, Liveright, March 2016, ISBN-13: 978-1631490828. http://amzn.to/1Rfrzwb

[98] http://nyti.ms/1LTxntX

[99] Monbiot promotes re-wilding here: http://bit.ly/1IcyF70

[100] Kolbert, Elizabeth, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History,  Henry Holt & Co, 2014, ISBN-13: 978-0805092998, http://amzn.to/1sw6xVq

Sailesh Rao


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Byzantine Empire (4th century – 1453)

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The history of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire is described by Byzantinist August Heisenberg as the history of "the Christianized Roman empire of the Greek nation".[13] The division of the empire into East and West and the subsequent collapse of the Western Roman Empire were developments that constantly accentuated the position of the Greeks in the empire and eventually allowed them to become identified with it altogether.

Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire, alternatively known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the predominantly Greek-speaking eastern half continuation and remainder of the Roman Empire during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

Byzantine Empire

Basileia Rhōmaiōn; Latin: Imperium Romanum), or Romania (Ῥωμανία), and to themselves as "Romans". Byzantine Greece. The history of Byzantine Greece mainly coincides with the Eastern Roman or Byzantine Empire.

Byzantine Greece

Roman Greece[edit] Greece was a typical eastern province of the Roman Empire. The Romans sent colonists there and contributed new buildings to its cities, especially in the Agora of Athens, where the Agrippeia of Marcus Agrippa, the Library of Titus Flavius Pantaenus, and the Tower of the Winds, among others, were built. Romans tended to be philhellenic and Greeks were generally loyal to Rome. Economic prosperity. Artistic revival.

The fourth crusade. Fourth Crusade. The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was originally intended to conquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt.

Fourth Crusade

File:LatinEmpire2.png. Frankokratia. The Greek and Latin states in southern Greece, ca. 1214.

Frankish states in Greece[edit] Gallery[edit] Venetian map of Negroponte (Chalkis) See also[edit] References[edit] Sources[edit] External links[edit]