Harry Partch was an American composer and instrument creator. He was one of the first twentieth century composers to work extensively and systematically with microtonal scales, writing much of his music for custom made instruments that he built himself. Partch is famous for his 43 tone scale, even though he used many different scales in his work and the number of divisions is theoretically infinite.

He began to compose at an early age, using the equal tempered chromatic scale, the tuning system most common in Western music. However, Partch grew frustrated with what he felt were imperfections of the standard system of musical tuning, believing that this system was unsuitable for reflecting the subtle melodic contours of dramatic speech.

Interested in the potential musicality of speech, Partch invented and constructed instruments that could underscore the intoning voice, and he developed musical notations that accurately instructed players as to how to play the instruments.

The compositional apex of Partch’s life came with the completion of Delusion of the Fury, a ritual theater piece that unifies musicians, dancers, and mimes into a corporeal performance. Built upon the timeless theme of life and death, Delusion of the Fury is based on two Japanese noh plays and an African folktale

Partch’s instruments have been housed in the Harry Partch Instrumentarium at Montclair State University in Montclair, New Jersey since 1999. In 2004, the instruments crossed campus into the newly constructed Alexander Kasser Theater, which provides a large studio space in the basement. Concerts by Newband and MSU’s Harry Partch Ensemble may be viewed several times a year in this concert hall.

Brook Farm was a utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. It was founded by former Unitarian minister George Ripley and his wife Sophia Ripley at the Ellis Farm in West Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1841 and was inspired in part by the ideals of Transcendentalism, a religious and cultural philosophy based in New England.

The joint stock company promised its participants a portion of the profits from the farm in exchange for performing an equal share of the work. Brook Farmers believed that by sharing the workload, ample time would be available for leisure activities and intellectual pursuits.

Life on Brook Farm was based on balancing labor and leisure while working together for the benefit of the greater community. Each member could choose to do whatever work they found most appealing and all were paid equally, including women.

Revenue for the community came from farming and selling hand made products like clothing as well as through a fee paid by the many visitors to Brook Farm. Primarily, however, the main source of income was the school, which was overseen by Mrs. Ripley. A preschool, primary school, and a college preparatory school attracted children internationally and each child was charged for their education. Adult education was also offered.

The community was never financially stable and had difficulty profiting from their agricultural pursuits. By 1844, the Brook Farmers adopted a societal model based on the socialist concepts of Charles Fourier and began publishing The Harbinger as an unofficial journal promoting Fourierism. Following his vision, the community members began building an ambitious structure called the Phalanstery.

When the uninsured building was destroyed in a fire, the community was financially devastated and never recovered. It was fully closed by 1847. Despite the experimental commune’s failure, many Brook Farmers looked back on their experience positively. Nathaniel Hawthorne was a founding member of Brook Farm, though he was not a strong adherent of the community’s ideals. He later fictionalized his experience in his novel The Blithedale Romance. After its failure, most of the buildings at Brook Farm eventually burned down and today much of the land is a cemetery.

The afterlife is the proposed continued existence of the soul, spirit or mind of a being after physical death. The major views on the afterlife derive from religion, esotericism and metaphysics. In many popular views, this continued existence often takes place in a spiritual or immaterial realm. Deceased persons are usually believed to go to a specific realm or plane of existence after death, determined by their actions during life.

In metaphysical models, theists generally believe some sort of afterlife awaits people when they die. Atheists generally do not believe that there is an afterlife. Members of some generally non theistic religions such as Buddhism, tend to believe in an afterlife but without reference to God.

Many religions, whether they believe in the soul’s existence in another world like Christianity, Islam and many pagan belief systems, or in reincarnation like many forms of Hinduism and Buddhism, believe that one’s status in the afterlife is a reward or punishment for their conduct during life.

An afterlife concept that is found among Hindus, Rosicrucians, Spiritists, and Wiccans is reincarnation, as evolving humans life after life in the physical world, that is, acquiring a superior grade of consciousness and altruism by means of successive reincarnations. This succession is conceived to lead toward an eventual liberation or spiritual rebirth as spiritual beings.

Some practitioners of eastern religions follow a different concept called metempsychosis which purposes that human beings can transmigrate into animals, vegetables, or even minerals. One consequence of the Hindu and Spiritist beliefs is that our current lives are also an afterlife. According to those beliefs, events in our current life are consequences of actions taken in previous lives, or Karma.

Some Neopagans believe in personal reincarnation, whereas some believe that the energy of one’s soul reintegrates with a continuum of such energy which is recycled into other living things as they are born.

Many Wiccans, though not all, profess a belief in an afterlife called the Summerland, a peaceful and sunny place where the souls of the newly dead are sent. Here, souls rest, recuperate from life, and reflect on the experiences they had during their lives. After a period of rest, the souls are reincarnated, and the memory of their previous lives is erased. 

The book In the Light of Truth, offers new insight concerning the process of reincarnation. The human spirit is understood to have repeated earth lives and experiences all of which are necessary for its eventual return to the spiritual realm. There, man began his journey as an unconscious spirit seed. Urged by his wish for self consciousness, he descended into the world of matter to gain experiences essential for his development, just as a seed falls to the earth in order to grow and mature. As a single earth life cannot provide the full range of experiences, a human spirit generally reincarnates many times upon the earth among different peoples and cultures.

Christian Science teaches that the after death state consists of a form of spiritual development whereby the experience of the deceased is in proportion to their ability to avail of the unlimited love of God. Consequently, a person dying in a state of sin would experience God’s love as suffering, while someone who passed on in a state of spiritualized consciousness would experience a corresponding level of happiness.

There is no concept of eternal punishment in Christian Science. Hell and heaven are both states of thought that correspond to the presence, or absence, of self centredness that characterise the individual undergoing the experience of death. A person who seems to die does not go anywhere. One simply adjusts to another level of consciousness which is inaccessible to those they have left behind.

The ultimate, and inevitable, goal of all of us is the experience of divine love. Death is not necessary for the experience of heaven. It can be experienced here and now to the extent that one’s thought is elevated to a spiritual level. Indeed, Christian Science teaches that death itself is an illusion, and that it will be ultimately conquered through good.

Human development theory is a theory that merges older ideas from ecological economics, sustainable development, welfare economics, and feminist economics. It seeks to avoid the overt normative politics of most so called “green economics” by justifying its premise strictly in ecology, economics and sound social science, and by working within a context of globalization.

Like ecological economics it focuses on measuring well being and detecting uneconomic growth that comes at the expense of human health. However, it goes further in seeking not only to measure but to optimize well being by some explicit modelling of how social capital and instructional capital can be deployed to optimize the overall value of human capital in an economy, which is itself part of an ecology. The role of individual capital within that ecology, and the adaptation of the individual to live well within it, is a major focus of these theories.

The most notable proponent of human development theory is Amartya Sen, who asked, in Development as Freedom, “what is the relationship between our wealth and our ability to live as we would like?”

This question cannot be answered strictly from an energy, feminist, family, environmental health, peace, social justice, or ecological well being point of view, although all of these may be factors in our happiness. If tolerances of any of these points of view are violated seriously, it would seem impossible to be happy at all.

Accordingly, human development theory is a major synthesis that is probably not confined within the bounds of conventional economics or political science, nor even the political economy that relates the two.

A mouse is a small animal that belongs to one of numerous species of rodents. The best known mouse species is the common house mouse. It is also a popular pet. The American white footed mouse and the deer mouse also sometimes live in houses.

Although mice may live up to two and a half years in the lab, the average mouse in the wild lives only about four months, primarily owing to heavy predation. Cats, wild dogs, foxes, birds of prey, snakes and even certain kinds of insects have been known to prey heavily upon mice. Nevertheless, because of its remarkable adaptability to almost any environment, and its ability to live with humans, the mouse is regarded to be the second most successful mammalian genus living on Earth today after humans.

The word mouse and the word muscle are related. Muscle stems from musculus meaning small mouse, possibly because of a similarity in shape. The word mouse is a cognate of Sanskrit mus meaning to steal, which is also cognate with mys in Old Greek and mus in Latin.

All species of mice are native to Eurasia and Africa, where they range from lowlands to mountaintops. The five species in the subgenus Pyromys are found in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, and mainland Southeast Asia. Much of their range originally consisted of open grasslands or grassy patches in forests.

Mice are common experimental animals in biology and psychology primarily because they are mammals. They are the most commonly used mammalian model organism, more common than rats. The mouse genome has been sequenced, and virtually all mouse genes have human homologs. They can also be manipulated in ways that would be considered unethical to do with humans. A knockout mouse is a genetically engineered mouse that has had one or more of its genes made inoperable through a gene knockout.

There are other reasons for why mice are used in laboratory research. Mice are small, inexpensive, easily maintained, and can reproduce quickly. Several generations of mice can be observed in a relatively short period of time. Mice are generally very docile if raised from birth and given sufficient human contact. However, certain strains have been known to be quite temperamental. Mice have the same organs in the same places, just different proportions.

Eucalyptus regnans, also known as the Tasmanian Oak, is a species of eucalypt native to southeastern Australia. It is the tallest of all flowering plants. The tallest measured living specimen, named Centurion, stands 320 feet tall in Tasmania. Sixteen living trees in Tasmania have been reliably measured in excess of 295 feet.

The tallest specimens encountered by early European settlers are now dead as a result of fire, logging and advanced age. Old records of logged trees make varied claims of extreme heights, but these are difficult to verify today.

In 1872, the Inspector of State Forests, William Ferguson, reported trees in great number and exceptional size in areas where loggers had not yet reached. He wrote of one fallen specimen in the Watts River watershed measuring 435 feet with a trunk 18 feet in diameter, forming a bridge across a deep ravine.

It has long been believed that while many species of eucalyptus successfully survived severe bushfires, forests of Eucalyptus regnans are highly susceptible to destruction by fire. While the process of recovery of most eucalyptus forests is rapid, in the case of Eucalyptus regnans, the recovery of a forest after a severe fire might require the total regrowth from seed of the devastated area, taking perhaps 200 years or more.

Although its status as a species is secure, old growth forests of Eucalyptus regnans are particularly susceptible to destruction by forestry. For this reason stands of very old and very tall trees exist only in pockets. Very few such stands of trees fall within those areas that have been listed as National Park or World Heritage environments. Most lie within areas controlled by state forestry management authorities and their heritage value is balanced against the commercial value of harvesting and then planting fast growing and more productive monoculture timber crops on these comparatively well watered and fertile areas.

Great controversy surrounds the logging of old growth Eucalyptus regnans in its natural range in both Victoria and Tasmania. Aside from its symbolic significance as the largest eucalypt of all, Eucalyptus regnans has value to conservationists and provides essential habitat to important birds and mammals. In a land of vast, arid plains and desert, the contrasting lush fertility of forest is particularly dear to nature lovers.

Conlon Nancarrow was a US born composer who lived and worked in Mexico for most of his life. He is best remembered for the pieces he wrote for the player piano. He was one of the first composers to use musical instruments as mechanical machines, making them play far beyond human performance ability. He lived most of his life in relative isolation. Today, he is remembered as one of the most original and unusual composers of the 20th century.

In 1947, buoyed by an inheritance, Nancarrow bought a custom built, manual punching machine to enable him to punch piano rolls. The machine was an adaptation of one used in the commercial production of rolls, and using it was very hard work, and very slow. He also adapted the player pianos, increasing their dynamic range by tinkering with their mechanism, and covering the hammers with leather and metal so as to produce a more percussive sound. 

Nancarrow’s first pieces combined the harmonic language and melodic motifs of early jazz pianists like Art Tatum with extraordinarily complicated metrical schemes. The first five rolls he made are called the Boogie Woogie Suite and are probably the most jazzy of all his works. Later works tend to be more abstract, with no obvious references to any music apart from Nancarrow’s.

Many of these later pieces are canons in augmentation or diminution or prolation canons. While most canons using this device, such as those by Johann Sebastian Bach, have the tempos of the various parts in quite simple ratios, like 2:1, Nancarrow’s canons are in far more complicated ratios. The Study No. 40, for example, has its parts in the ratio e:pi, while the Study No. 37 has twelve individual melodic lines, each one moving at a different tempo.

His music has a mathematical beauty and elegance that happily coexists with musical expressiveness and a puckish sense of humor. Nancarrow did not see a clear delineation between the two approaches and he never worried about it. This natural, organic esthetic is one of his most relevant contributions to 20th century music. Another important contribution relates to a kind of semiological extrapolation. On the one hand, his music can be heard as symbols, with their often recognized analogical correspondences.

The complete contents of Nancarrow’s studio, including the player piano rolls, the instruments, the libraries, and other documents and objects, are now in the Paul Sacher Foundation in Basel.

Mizuna is a Japanese name used for similar varieties of mustard greens with jagged or frilly dandelion like leaves and a sweet, mild, earthy flavor. Mizuna has been cultivated in Japan since ancient times, but most likely originated in China.

It is a vigorous grower producing numerous stalks bearing dark green, deeply cut and fringed leaves. They have a fresh, crisp taste and can be used on their own or cooked with meat. The Japanese are fond of them pickled. Mizuna is highly resistant to cold and is grown extensively during the winter months.

The vegetable averages 14″ to 16″ in height with leaves that are green and yellow, smooth in texture and somewhat feathery in shape. It is available as a mature green or as a baby version that is smaller in size and more tender in texture. As a salad green mizuna can be steamed, boiled, stir fried or used to complement other greens mixed together for a salad, especially Red Asian Mustard greens. When cooked it shrinks to about half its size so it takes a large amount to make a cooked vegetable dish containing only mizuna. 

The taste has been described as a mild peppery flavor, slightly spicy, but less so than arugula. Mizuna makes an excellent salad green, and is frequently found in mesclun. It is also used in stir-frys, soups, and nabemono.

Not only is it good to eat, it’s also quite decorative, with glossy, serrated, dark green leaves and narrow white stalks, looking good in flower beds and as edging. It is vigorous, adaptable and easy to grow in most soils. The usual sowing time is from early to late summer, but it can be sown in late spring or early summer, when it may have a tendency to bolt. Another alternative is to sow in early autumn for transplanting under cover.

Mizuna is nutritious and contains vitamin C, folic acid, and antioxidants. And like other brassica vegetables, it contains glucosinolates, which may inhibit the development of certain cancers. Glucosinolates are the compounds that give brassicas, like Brussels sprouts and cabbage, their bitter flavor.