Brenda Priddy runs an international photo syndicate, Brenda Priddy & Co. Her business card reads “Automotive Spy Photography.” “People claim that we do industrial espionage,” she says, “but we do it all from public areas and without breaking any laws. Basically we spend hours and hours doing surveillance and stakeouts, hoping to catch sight of a future car.” This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Automakers take myriad measures to protect forthcoming models. They cloak vehicles during transport. They create “mules,” cars with updated running gear hidden under the body of a current model. And they use camouflage—darkened trim, grafted prosthetics, black vinyl patches, or arresting paint patterns. “If you catch an action shot of our vehicles driving, you won’t be able to catch a clear shot of a feature line on the exterior,” says Corey Davis, who, as General Motors’ former quality audit supervisor for pre-production operations, was responsible for camouflage inspection. The subterfuge may seem absurd, but for automakers the stakes are huge. Not only are they working to prevent their intellectual property from being appropriated by their competitors, they’re also defending their current products, especially those that remain unsold. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/how-new-car-models-end-up-unmasked-11232011.html

The Fish Barcode of Life Initiative (FISH-BOL), is a global effort to coordinate an assembly of a standardised reference sequence library for all fish species, one that is derived from voucher specimens with authoritative taxonomic identifications. The benefits of barcoding fishes include facilitating species identification for all potential users, including taxonomists; highlighting specimens that represent a range expansion of known species; flagging previously unrecognized species; and perhaps most importantly, enabling identifications where traditional methods are not applicable. See map showing major fisheries regions of the Food and Agriculture Organization, United Nations (FAO) at: http://www.fishbol.org/

U.S. Route 6 (US 6), also called the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, a name that honors an American Civil War veterans association, is a main route of the U.S. Highway system, running east-northeast from Bishop, California to Provincetown, Massachusetts. Until 1964, it continued south from Bishop to Long Beach, California, and was a transcontinental route. After U.S. Route 20, it is the second-longest U.S. highway in the United States and the longest continuous highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_6

The University of Pittsburgh owns one of the rare, complete sets of John James Audubon’s Birds of America. It is considered to be the single most valuable set of volumes in the collections of the University Library System (ULS). Only 120 complete sets are known to exist. While Audubon was creating Birds of America, he was also working on a companion publication, namely, his Ornithological Biography. Both of these sets were acquired by William M. Darlington in the mid-nineteenth century and later donated, as part of his extensive library, to the University of Pittsburgh. The Darlington Digital Library http://digital.library.pitt.edu/d/darlington/ includes significant historical materials, such as rare books, maps, atlases, illustrations, and manuscripts, the ULS charted an ambitious course to digitize a large portion of Mr. Darlington’s collection, including the Birds of America.
http://digital.library.pitt.edu/a/audubon/

A ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first compartment of the stomach, principally through bacterial actions, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again. The process of rechewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called "ruminating". There are about 150 species of ruminants which include both domestic and wild species. Ruminating mammals include cattle, goats, sheep, giraffes, bison, moose, elk, yaks, water buffalo, deer, camels, alpacas, llamas, antelope, pronghorn, and nilgai. Taxonomically, the suborder Ruminantia includes all those species except the camels, llamas, and alpacas, which are Tylopoda. Therefore, the term 'ruminant' is not synonymous with Ruminantia. The word "ruminant" comes from the Latin ruminare, which means "to chew over again". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruminant
The most significant gesture in business and in life is a handshake. In many cultures it is the unspoken message that accompanies our words. A handshake often takes place when you meet someone new, when you are greeting someone you haven't seen in a while, when you leave a party or meeting, when you offer congratulations or when you agree on a contract or working arrangement. Historians agree that the handshake was most likely developed several hundred years ago in England as a method to communicate that you were empty-handed and unarmed during a meeting. Weapons were often concealed in the left sleeve so shaking was done with the left hand. As more people began to travel without weapons it became common to shake with the right hand. http://ezinearticles.com/?Shaking-Hands-Throughout-History-and-Around-the-World&id=715550
Lucy King's work proved that beehive "fences" can keep elephants out of African farmers' fields or compounds. The animals are scared of bees, which can sting them inside their trunks, and flee when they hear buzzing. Dr King received the Unep/CMS Thesis Prize at the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) meeting in Norway.
Working in Kenya, she and her team showed that more than 90% of elephants will flee when they hear the sounds of buzzing bees. Subsequently, they also found that elephants produce a special rumble to warn their fellows of the danger.
They used the findings to construct barriers where beehives are woven into a fence, keeping the elephants away from places where people live and grow food. A two-year pilot project involving 34 farms showed that elephants trying to go through the fences would shake them, disturbing the bees. Later, the fences were adopted by farming communities in three Kenyan districts - who also made increased amounts of money from selling honey. "Dr Lucy King has designed a constructive solution that considers the needs of migratory animals but also the economic benefits to the local communities linked to species conservation," said CMS executive secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. The elephants run away from bees - and from the lands that people have settled. As Africa's population grows, competition for space between people and elephants is becoming more serious, and there are fatalities on both sides. The same is true in parts of Asia. Sri Lanka alone sees the deaths of an estimated 60 people and 200 elephants each year from conflict.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15836079

Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn New York Historical Society
November 11, 2011 - Apr 15 2012 Exhibition will travel; venues to be determined
The exhibition explores the enormous transformations in the world’s politics and culture between the 1763 triumph of the British Empire in the Seven Years' War and the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Responding to growing public interest in the history of other cultures, Revolution! compares three globally influential revolutions in America, France and Haiti. The story of the 18th-century Atlantic revolutions is explained as a global narrative. Find address of museum and hours open at: http://www.nyhistory.org/exhibitions/revolution-the-atlantic-world-reborn
Browse the collection of the Patricia D. Klingenstein Library at: http://www.nyhistory.org/library

Q. Well, Doctor, what have we got--a Republic or a Monarchy? A. A Republic, if you can keep it.
The response is attributed to Benjamin Franklin--at the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, when queried as he left Independence Hall on the final day of deliberation--in the notes of Dr James McHenry, one of Maryland's delegates to the convention. http://www.bartleby.com/73/1593.html

Law enforcement’s use of cell phones and GPS devices to track an individual’s movements brings into sharp relief the challenge of reconciling technology, privacy, and law. Beyond the Constitution, a miscellany of statutes and cases may apply to these tracking activities. One such statute is the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA), P.L. 99-508, 100 Stat. 1848 (1986), which protects individual privacy and governs the methods by which law enforcement may retrieve electronic communications information for investigative purposes, including pen registers, trap and trace devices, wiretaps, and tracking devices. The primary debate surrounding cell phone and GPS tracking is not whether they are permitted by statute but rather what legal standard should apply: probable cause, reasonable suspicion, or something less. Legislation has been introduced in the 112th Congress that proposes to update, clarify, or, in some instances, strengthen the privacy interests protected under the law and give law enforcement a clearer framework for obtaining crucial crime-fighting information. Read Governmental Tracking of Cell Phones and Vehicles: The Confluence of Privacy, Technology, and Law by Richard M. Thompson December 1, 2011 Congressional Research Service 7-5700 www.crs.gov R42109 at: https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/intel/R42109.pdf

Dec. 6 in History 1884: The Washington Monument in Washington, D.C., is completed.
http://www.siftingsherald.com/mobiletopstories/x1904671249/Morning-Minutes-Dec-6