Great Balls Of Fire Research Articles

Great Balls of FIRE

Context. Despite the nearly hundred gravitational-wave detections reported by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration, the question of the cosmological origin of merging binary black holes (BBHs) remains open. The two main formation channels generally considered are from isolated field binaries or via dynamical assembly in dense star clusters. Aims. Here we focus on understanding the dynamical formation of merging BBHs within massive clusters in galaxies of different masses. Methods. To this end, we applied a new framework to consistently model the formation and evolution of massive star clusters in zoom-in cosmological simulations of galaxies. Each simulation, taken from the FIRE project, provides a realistic star formation environment, with a unique star formation history, that hosts realistic giant molecular clouds that constitute the birthplace of star clusters. Combined with the code for star cluster evolution CMC, we are able to produce populations of dynamically formed merging BBHs across cosmic time in different environments. Results. As the most massive star clusters preferentially form in dense massive clouds of gas, we find that, despite their low metallicities favouring the creation of black holes, low-mass galaxies contain few massive clusters and therefore make a limited contribution to the global production of dynamically formed merging BBHs. Furthermore, we find that massive clusters can host hierarchical BBH mergers with clear, identifiable physical properties. Looking at the evolution of the BBH merger rate in different galaxies, we find strong correlations between BBH mergers and the most extreme episodes of star formation. Finally, we discuss the implications for future LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA gravitational wave observations.

Great balls of FIRE – I. The formation of star clusters across cosmic time in a Milky Way-mass galaxy

ABSTRACT The properties of young star clusters formed within a galaxy are thought to vary in different interstellar medium conditions, but the details of this mapping from galactic to cluster scales are poorly understood due to the large dynamic range involved in galaxy and star cluster formation. We introduce a new method for modelling cluster formation in galaxy simulations: mapping giant molecular clouds (GMCs) formed self-consistently in a FIRE-2 magnetohydrodynamic galaxy simulation on to a cluster population according to a GMC-scale cluster formation model calibrated to higher resolution simulations, obtaining detailed properties of the galaxy’s star clusters in mass, metallicity, space, and time. We find $\sim 10{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ of all stars formed in the galaxy originate in gravitationally bound clusters overall, and this fraction increases in regions with elevated Σgas and ΣSFR, because such regions host denser GMCs with higher star formation efficiency. These quantities vary systematically over the history of the galaxy, driving variations in cluster formation. The mass function of bound clusters varies – no single Schechter-like or power-law distribution applies at all times. In the most extreme episodes, clusters as massive as 7 × 106 M⊙ form in massive, dense clouds with high star formation efficiency. The initial mass–radius relation of young star clusters is consistent with an environmentally dependent 3D density that increases with Σgas and ΣSFR. The model does not reproduce the age and metallicity statistics of old ($\gt 11\rm Gyr$) globular clusters found in the Milky Way, possibly because it forms stars more slowly at z > 3.

The Brown Commons in the Time of Pandemic

The Brown Commons in the Time of Pandemic

Great balls of fire: activation and signalling of inflammatory caspases.

Innate immune responses are tightly regulated by various pathways to control infections and maintain homeostasis. One of these pathways, the inflammasome pathway, activates a family of cysteine proteases called inflammatory caspases. They orchestrate an immune response by cleaving specific cellular substrates. Canonical inflammasomes activate caspase-1, whereas non-canonical inflammasomes activate caspase-4 and -5 in humans and caspase-11 in mice. Caspases are highly specific enzymes that select their substrates through diverse mechanisms. During inflammation, caspase activity is responsible for the secretion of inflammatory cytokines and the execution of a form of lytic and inflammatory cell death called pyroptosis. This review aims to bring together our current knowledge of the biochemical processes behind inflammatory caspase activation, substrate specificity, and substrate signalling.

Great balls of fire

The source of ball lightning has been a mystery for centuries. Are we any closer to an explanation, asks Eric Canan

Great Balls of Fire: A probabilistic approach to quantify the hazard related to ballistics — A case study at La Fossa volcano, Vulcano Island, Italy

We present a probabilistic approach to quantify the hazard posed by volcanic ballistic projectiles (VBP) and their potential impact on the built environment. A model named Great Balls of Fire (GBF) is introduced to describe ballistic trajectories of VBPs accounting for a variable drag coefficient and topography. It relies on input parameters easily identifiable in the field and is designed to model large numbers of VBPs stochastically. Associated functions come with the GBF code to post-process model outputs into a comprehensive probabilistic hazard assessment for VBP impacts. Outcomes include probability maps to exceed given thresholds of kinetic energies at impact, hazard curves and probabilistic isoenergy maps. Probabilities are calculated either on equally-sized pixels or zones of interest.The approach is calibrated, validated and applied to La Fossa volcano, Vulcano Island (Italy). We constructed a generic eruption scenario based on stratigraphic studies and numerical inversions of the 1888–1890 long-lasting Vulcanian cycle of La Fossa. Results suggest a ~10−2% probability of occurrence of VBP impacts with kinetic energies ≤104 J at the touristic locality of Porto. In parallel, the vulnerability to roof perforation was estimated by combining field observations and published literature, allowing for a first estimate of the potential impact of VBPs during future Vulcanian eruptions. Results indicate a high physical vulnerability to the VBP hazard, and, consequently, half of the building stock having a ≥2.5×10−3% probability of roof perforation.

Private Dispute Resolution in International Business: Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration, (3rd revised ed.), by Klaus Peter Berger

Private Dispute Resolution in International Business: Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration , (3rd revised ed.), by Klaus Peter Berger, Kluwer Law International, 2015, includes Case Study (Volume I) (159 pp), Interactive USB Card , and Handbook (Volume II). Rock & Roll Hall of Famer Jerry Lee Lewis’ 1957 song Great Balls of Fire !1 reflects this reviewer’s impression of Professor Klaus Peter Berger pounding the keyboards of three separate laptop computers during his ‘Comparison of Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration’2 at his ‘brain-rattling’ 2014 Cologne Academies for which the Private Dispute Resolution in International Business ( PDRIB ) beta-test version was used. After reviewing the PDRIB third edition, this reviewer can only affirm his initial Cologne Academies impression of highly effective and fun learning and add ‘Chapeau!’ to the author and his 2015 redesign team.3 PDRIB third edition’s main focus—the advocacy skills required from practitioners to be successful in international business negotiation, mediation, or arbitration—is innovatively advanced through the interactive multi-media realization of its three goals, which go beyond reading for maximum learning efficiency. 1. Update and revise ‘the text of the Handbook to take into account … recent developments in the law and practice of ADR in international business’. 2. ‘Improve user friendliness of the Handbook, which now serves a dual purpose. [It] continues to function as a complement to the Case Study in that it contains Answers to the Questions posed in the Case Study at the end of each Scenario’ and ‘may now be also used … as a stand-alone reference manual for international ADR’ due to ‘a new and comprehensive Table of Contents and a much more detailed [Subject] Index’. 3. ‘Improve the usability and graphical interface of the digital content … a switch … from DVD to USB technology [with] case-related documents contained on the USB Card … revised or rewritten … to adapt them to the standards of contemporary international ADR practice’.4 Part I of this review summarizes the PDRIB third edition. Part II assesses how well the above goals are achieved. Part III examines the third edition’s place within international legal scholarship and why it is … [↵][1]* Principal, PhilRay-IDR, ; Senior Counsel (Retired 2012), Siemens AG, Erlangen, Germany; Adjunct Professor, Georgia State University Law School (1989–1991); University of Erlangen-Nurnberg Law School, Erlangen, Germany (1996–97); Chairman, State Bar of Georgia’s Drafting Committee, Georgia International Transactions Arbitration Code of 1988. phil{at}philray-idr.com [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1

A Strongly Emitting Liquid‐Crystalline Derivative of Y3N@C80: Bright and Long‐Lived Near‐IR Luminescence from a Charge Transfer State

Great balls of fire: C60 and Y3 N@C80 were connected to the same oligo(phenyleneethynylene) unit to investigate their structural and photophysical properties. NMR investigations revealed a fulleroid structure for the Y3 N@C80 derivative, and both dyads gave rise to columnar phases with core-shell cylinders. The black and gray spheres represent the fullerene core units of the Y3 N@C80 derivative, which is an ideal candidate to be involved in energy and electron transfer processes.

Great balls of fire

Great balls of fire

Great Balls of Fire?

Metallic nodules found in the Siyalk II settlement and in Iron Age III tombs in Luristan, Iran, were identified by the excavators as meteorites. However, these identifications must be questioned. The Siyalk nodules could be of telluric origin. The four Luristan specimens are identified as pyrite nodules. It is suggested that such nodules were used for fire-making, although other functions such as a use as sling balls are not to be excluded either.

Great Balls of Fire

A 40-year-old patient who had suffered from abdominal pain since childhood was treated with several remedies since 1998, but no improvement held. On retaking her case in February 2005 I finally perceived the simillimum. Looking through the case notes of the preceding seven years this remedy picture was present throughout. I had shown “fidelity in recording” but my bias towards repertorisation had on this occasion caused me to miss the full “image of the disease”. Her complaints were strongly abdominal, and the materia medica has no recorded abdominal symptoms for this remedy. I was only able to arrive at the correct remedy by following Aphorism 83 to the letter and by adopting Rajan Sankaran's method of taking the case - that is, to trust the energy in the patient's chief complaint to lead us to the deep level where mind and body speak the same language.

Case 91

HomeRadiologyVol. 237, No. 1 PreviousNext ArticlesDiagnosis PleaseCase 91Malai Muttarak, Wilfred C. G. PehMalai Muttarak, Wilfred C. G. PehAuthor Affiliations1From the Department of Radiology, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai, Thailand (M.M.); and Programme Office, Singapore Health Services, 7 Hospital Drive, #02-09, Singapore 169611 (W.C.G.P.). Received December 3, 2003; revision requested February 12, 2004; revision received March 5; accepted March 23Address correspondence to W.C.G.P. (e-mail: [email protected]).Malai MuttarakWilfred C. G. PehPublished Online:Oct 1 2005https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2371031850MoreSectionsFull textPDF ToolsImage ViewerAdd to favoritesCiteTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked In Article HistoryPublished in print: Oct 2005 FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsRecommended Articles Spectrum of Extratesticular and Testicular Pathologic Conditions at Scrotal MR ImagingRadioGraphics2018Volume: 38Issue: 3pp. 806-830Role of Imaging in the Evaluation of Male InfertilityRadioGraphics2017Volume: 37Issue: 3pp. 837-854Fibrous PseudotumorRadioGraphics2021Volume: 41Issue: 3pp. E73-E74Pathologic Conditions at Imaging of the Spermatic CordRadioGraphics2022Volume: 42Issue: 3pp. 741-758US of the Inguinal Canal: Comprehensive Review of Pathologic Processes with CT and MR Imaging CorrelationRadioGraphics2016Volume: 36Issue: 7pp. 2028-2048See More RSNA Education Exhibits Testicular Torsion Mimics: A Review of Alternative Testicular Pathologies That Resemble TorsionDigital Posters2018Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire: The Pivotal Role of Doppler in Evaluating the Acute ScrotumDigital Posters2019Absent/Abnormal/Reduced Flow in Testis: Thinking Beyond TorsionDigital Posters2018 RSNA Case Collection Testicular torsionRSNA Case Collection2020Testicular SeminomaRSNA Case Collection2020Testicular HematomaRSNA Case Collection2020 Vol. 237, No. 1 Metrics Altmetric Score PDF download

Case 82

HomeRadiologyVol. 234, No. 1 PreviousNext Diagnosis PleaseCase 82Sinchun Hwang, David R. Aronoff, John C. LeonidasSinchun Hwang, David R. Aronoff, John C. LeonidasAuthor Affiliations1From the Department of Radiology, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, 270–05 76th Ave, New Hyde Park, NY 11040. Received April 9, 2003; revision requested June 20; final revision received September 23; accepted October 2. Address correspondence to S.H. (e-mail: [email protected]).Sinchun HwangDavid R. AronoffJohn C. LeonidasPublished Online:Jan 1 2005https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2333030507MoreSectionsFull textPDF ToolsImage ViewerAdd to favoritesCiteTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked In Article HistoryPublished in print: Jan 2005 FiguresReferencesRelatedDetailsRecommended Articles Role of Imaging in the Evaluation of Male InfertilityRadioGraphics2017Volume: 37Issue: 3pp. 837-854Absent, Abnormal, or Reduced Flow in the Testis: Thinking Beyond TorsionRadioGraphics2020Volume: 40Issue: 2pp. 529-530Spectrum of Extratesticular and Testicular Pathologic Conditions at Scrotal MR ImagingRadioGraphics2018Volume: 38Issue: 3pp. 806-830Pathologic Conditions at Imaging of the Spermatic CordRadioGraphics2022Volume: 42Issue: 3pp. 741-758US of the Inguinal Canal: Comprehensive Review of Pathologic Processes with CT and MR Imaging CorrelationRadioGraphics2016Volume: 36Issue: 7pp. 2028-2048See More RSNA Education Exhibits Testicular Torsion Mimics: A Review of Alternative Testicular Pathologies That Resemble TorsionDigital Posters2018Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire: The Pivotal Role of Doppler in Evaluating the Acute ScrotumDigital Posters2019Absent/Abnormal/Reduced Flow in Testis: Thinking Beyond TorsionDigital Posters2018 RSNA Case Collection Testicular torsionRSNA Case Collection2020Testicular SeminomaRSNA Case Collection2020Testicular epidermoid cystRSNA Case Collection2020 Vol. 234, No. 1 Metrics Altmetric Score PDF download

Insights and Interpretations: Studies in Celebration of the Eighty-Fifth Anniversary of the Index of Christian Art ed. by Colum Hourihane (review)

REVIEWS 240 tion rather than passive spectatorship (195). Green spaces provide relief from a perceived health threat—sometimes made real by the plague—but, inversely, they provide sites for perceived moral deviance. Williams concludes ultimately that the matter is one of “striking a balance” where “the desire to preserve and blend greenery with the urban fabric becomes increasingly self-conscious” (209). The final section of the collected essays treats morality. Except for Tim Harris ’s chapter on the “Perceptions of the Crowd in Later Stuart London,” which outlines how the London (political) crowd “could be both loathed and revered, hated and loved, by the same people”—a phenomenon he identifies as a “schizophrenic attitude”—the contributions to morality theorize more generally about the city. Peter Lake argues in his essay (“From Troynouvant to Heliogabulus ’s Rome and Back: ‘Order’ and Its Others in the London of John Stow”) for an inverse or “underside of order” as means of seeing “what, even as they praised the place, frightened and alarmed contemporaries about London” (220). Lake catalogs deftly those perceptions of the city that are simultaneously positive and alarming, ultimately concluding that they represent the “logical, moral, and rhetorical consequences of that lack of an unambiguously positive contemporary language for the description and praise of commercial wealth” (247). The scenes of Nigel Smith’s contribution (“‘Making Fire’: Conflagration and Religious Controversy in Seventeenth-Century London”) are less ambiguous , even as they cut rapidly between brief sections titled “Heresy and Hollywood ,” “Apocalypse and the Fire-Engine,” “From History to Prophecy: Writing Fire,” “Retribution, Division and the Great Fire of 1655,” “Goodness Gracious , Great Balls of Fire,” “Urban Fire Interpreted,” and, finally, “Firespeak.” The argument is clear, easily understood, and provocatively depicted: fire poses a physical, moral, and apocalyptic threat to the city. Smith documents an argument —citing the Great Fire of 1666 and William Finch’s apocalyptic pamphlet A Third Great and Terrible Fire, Fire, Fire (1655)—that maintains that because London is the “site of the most intense change, be it social, political, or religious, fire becomes the leitmotif of both civilization and the fear that civilization will end in annihilation” (292). Indeed, the essays in Merritt’s edited collection of early modern London are wide-ranging, covering the span from Stow’s nostalgia to an anticipated apocalypse, but they provide an informative and well-documented look of individual mental worlds in relation to the city, of its perceptions and portrayals. ROBERTO ALVAREZ, English, Cornell University Insights and Interpretations: Studies in Celebration of the Eighty-Fifth Anniversary of the Index of Christian Art, Index of Christian Art Occasional Papers 5, ed. Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art / Princeton University Press 2002) xvii + 236, 101 b/w ill. This book, a collection of essays by the staff of the Index of Christian Art and by visiting scholars and researchers, is in celebration of the eighty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Index. The essays are all largely iconographical in their approach and together they encompass the entire medieval period, although there is a strong emphasis on late medieval art. Each and every study draws heavily from the Index’s rich files and demonstrates the wealth of infor- REVIEWS 241 mation the archive can provide. Indeed, the Index of Christian Art stands as the largest archive of medieval Christian art in the world. Besides its home at Princeton and the four hard copies in the Vatican, Utrecht, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., the Index is also available to institutions and universities online , a fact that has dramatically increased its number of users. The first essay in the book is by Colum Hourihane, the current director of the Index. This article discusses the fundamental role the Index played in the early development of iconographical studies. Hourihane places the Index and its founder, Charles Rufus Morey, as the fixed corner stone in a fluid scholarly triangle that included the great iconographers Erwin Panofsky and Henri van der Waal. Hourihane’s contribution is a very important one for all those with an interest in iconography and the history of its development. Nevertheless, this article is not solely concerned with historiography and he goes on...

Great balls of fire. Star formation: a Web supplement.

Eons before Jerry Lee Lewis recorded his ground-shaking 1957 tune “Great Balls of Fire,” human beings were pondering the stars. Lewis's single (released, aptly enough, by Sun Records) revolutionized popular music and set three generations jumping and gyrating. Astrophysicists and astronomers have had their share of hits, too. Yet they are still learning the dance by which the real balls of fire in the night sky came into being. Did luminous matter in the universe start with a single star or with a cluster of stars? Did later stars come into being through variants on a common theme (such as the collapse of molecular clouds) or in a seething mosh pit of disparate forces and mechanisms? No one knows. Still, progress is being made. In the past few years, advances in computing power and numerical techniques, as well as millions of stellar observations have improved our understanding of the mechanisms needed to initiate star formation, the physical and chemical environment in which stars form, and the evolution and clustering of stars in space and time over the history of the universe. This special section synthesizes and reviews what scientists have recently learned about star formation and what this knowledge can teach us about our solar system, other planetary systems, galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and large-scale luminous structure in the universe. In perhaps the simplest scenario, a star of a few solar masses forms in isolation from other stars. Ward-Thompson (p. [76][1]) reviews the first two stages of such stellar development, from the formation of a gravitationally bound core in a cloud dominated by molecular hydrogen to the collapse of this core under self-gravity. The trickiest part is getting the core to collapse to form a protostar despite interference from turbulence and magnetic fields. Recent simulations by Abel et al. (p. 93 and the accompanying Perspective by Rees, p. [51][2]) and others suggest that a much more massive single star may have been the first luminous object in the universe to form by the collapse of a molecular cloud. Pudritz (p. 68) reviews the formation of clusters of stars. Many experts think most stars form in clusters rather than singly, so that effects such as stellar winds and shock waves from nearby supernovae need to be considered in star-formation scenarios. Pudritz argues that the first stars formed in such turbulent cluster environments. The argument for simplicity gained force recently when astronomers synthesized data on the initial mass function; the spatial distribution of stars of a specific mass range in a given volume of space. Kroupa (p. [82][3]) reviews the initial mass function for stars in a wide range of masses. He shows that all of them, regardless of their age or environment, have similar initial mass functions. This unexpected uniformity suggests that all stars form by some common mechanism. To round out the section, News writer Robert Irion describes how two very different residents of the cosmic menagerie may shed light on broader processes of star formation. Brown dwarfs and other very-low-mass dim objects of uncertain origin are showing unexpected similarities to their more conspicuous stellar cousins. At the other end of the size and age scales lurk the ancient Population III stars; huge masses of pristine hydrogen and helium whose sheer simplicity may help astrophysicists unscramble their secrets. There's more. An online supplement to this issue ([www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/starformation/index.shtml][4]) includes links to previous Science reviews, articles, and special issues related to star formation, as well as to a wide variety of other Web resources. Star-formation researchers may still be waiting for the great hit single that will set their field ablaze, but Science readers don't have to wait. Ladies and gentlemen, let's rock and roll. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1067354 [2]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1065713 [3]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1067524 [4]: http://www.sciencemag.org/feature/data/starformation/index.shtml

Padgett the Collaborator

Over the past thirty years, Ron Padgett has created a unique body of poetry, prose poems, translations, and essays. By the late 1960s, Padgett had begun to assimilate strategies from a combination of earlier French and American poets - in particular, the manic prose poems of Max Jacob, the Cubist precision of Pierre Reverdy, the cafe conversation lines of Guillaume Apollinaire, as well as the feisty, urban immediacy of Frank O'Hara, and the veering into-themselves-disappearing narratives of Kenneth Koch (with whom Padgett studied at Columbia University). For many years now, along with several other New York City based poets of his generation, Padgett has been referred to as a second-generation New York School poet. While such a labeling was not inappropriate in the 1970s, at this point it is inaccurate. suspect that it is mainly based on Padgett's first book (Great Balls of Fire, 1969; reprinted in 1990), in which the French and O'Hara/Koch influence is the strongest. However, by the late 1970s, in such collections as Toujours l'amour and Triangles in the Afternoon, Padgett became Padgett. With his 1992 translation of Blaise Cendrars' Complete Poems and his own New & Selected Poems, it is clear that he is a major figure in contemporary American letters. Literary influence aside, Padgett's writing is amply grounded in popular culture. No one in American poetry, for example, has made more use of the comic strip and animated cartoon than Padgett. He accounts for the amount of memorabilia in his poetry in the following way: I ascribe it to having grown up in a prospering, consumerist America in the 1940s and 1950s with parents who had just edged upward from poverty into the middle class and who very much enjoyed the entertainments and objects they could thus afford. My mother loved popular music and movies. She and went to hundreds of movies together, movies of all kinds, and she was very nice about taking me to cartoon festivals. Also, both she and my father provided an endless supply of comic books, my favorite reading matter. read very little children's literature as a child. Aside from the fact that my parents were bootleggers, my upbringing was quite 'normal': toys, baseball, movies, cars, with their attendant vocabularies (such as, respectively: Slinky, frozen rope, You're dern tootin', overdrive). Padgett's poetry ripples with immediacy - it is a poetry of primary colors, as it were, calling to mind the thing-grounded work of W. C. Williams. Relative to Williams, Padgett is more garrulous and much more humorous. His lines are peppered with off-stage remarks, exclamations (By gum, Bgawk, Yipes, Yaba-dabba-dooo), and sudden soliloquacious excursions that just as quickly swerve into something else, or go up in smoke: in one poem, George Frederick Handel is set on fire; in another, Papa Bear's coffee cup explodes; in another, Mr. Bushwanger's glasses fall to the floor and burst into flame. This Spike Jones atmosphere is modulated by an austere, existential probing, and a keen sense of the liquid boundary between being and not being at all. Let me ground these initial remarks by quoting and responding to a complete poem. Here is to (from Triangles in the Afternoon, 1979): Ode to Poland It is embarrassingly true that you don't begin to die until you begin to live, embarrassing because it is a truism uttered by big fat idiots. am a thin person, myself, seeing the golden sunlight of sunset radiant against red bricks that appear quite ordinary too, lifting me out of my shoes and into some real or imaginary sense of the Eternal as turn into the New First Avenue Bakery where the girl is saying, At home our manners have to be perfect, have to set the table just so, the light on the buildings set just so and Intellect extending its puny arms toward some greatness of cognition - only to have the proverbial bully of Mystery kick sand in its face. …

Great balls of fire

Great balls of fire

Great balls of fire! George Plasketes

Great Balls of Firel: Film Biography Lacking Killer Instinct (1989) Orion Home Video Director: Jim McBride Soundtrack (1989) Polygram /839516.

Auroras of September 4 and 10, 1937

Douglas F. Manning of Alexandria Bay, New York, reported: “We had quite an active display of the aurora last night, September 4, 1937, around 9 p.m., Eastern Standard Time. A low greenish glow with sharply defined rays.” A later phase was observed at Lynn, Massachusetts, by Mrs. Anna P. Ricker, who, in a letter dated September 10, 1937, makes the following statement: “I was awakened about 3 a.m., September 5, 1937, and went to my window and saw these two great balls of fire about three feet in circumference to the naked eye and very close together; from each one several rays of light shot upwards, and these appeared three times in succession and from then on great waves of light at short intervals in a circular motion. These waves were about three or four feet wide and twice as long and in perfect dimension.