Computer and network surveillance

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_and_network_surveillance 

 

Main articles: Surveillance, Mass surveillance, and Global surveillance

Computer and network surveillance is the monitoring of computer activity and data stored locally on a computer or data being transferred over computer networks such as the Internet. This monitoring is often carried out covertly and may be completed by governments, corporations, criminal organizations, or individuals. It may or may not be legal and may or may not require authorization from a court or other independent government agencies. Computer and network surveillance programs are widespread today and almost all Internet traffic can be monitored.

Surveillance allows governments and other agencies to maintain social control, recognize and monitor threats or any suspicious or abnormal activity, and prevent and investigate criminal activities. With the advent of programs such as the Total Information Awareness program, technologies such as high-speed surveillance computers and biometrics software, and laws such as the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, governments now possess an unprecedented ability to monitor the activities of citizens.

Many civil rights and privacy groups, such as Reporters Without Borders, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Civil Liberties Union, have expressed concern that increasing surveillance of citizens will result in a mass surveillance society, with limited political and/or personal freedoms. Such fear has led to numerous lawsuits such as Hepting v. AT&T. The hacktivist group Anonymous has hacked into government websites in protest of what it considers "draconian surveillance".

Network surveillance

See also: Signals intelligence

The vast majority of computer surveillance involves the monitoring of personal data and traffic on the Internet. For example, in the United States, the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act mandates that all phone calls and broadband internet traffic (emails, web traffic, instant messaging, etc.) be available for unimpeded, real-time monitoring by Federal law enforcement agencies.

Packet capture (also known as "packet sniffing") is the monitoring of data traffic on a network. Data sent between computers over the Internet or between any networks takes the form of small chunks called packets, which are routed to their destination and assembled back into a complete message. A packet capture appliance intercepts these packets, so that they may be examined and analyzed. Computer technology is needed to perform traffic analysis and sift through intercepted data to look for important/useful information. Under the Communications Assistance For Law Enforcement Act, all U.S. telecommunications providers are required to install such packet capture technology so that Federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies are able to intercept all of their customers' broadband Internet and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) traffic.

There is far too much data gathered by these packet sniffers for human investigators to manually search through. Thus, automated Internet surveillance computers sift through the vast amount of intercepted Internet traffic, filtering out, and reporting to investigators those bits of information which are "interesting", for example, the use of certain words or phrases, visiting certain types of web sites, or communicating via email or chat with a certain individual or group. Billions of dollars per year are spent by agencies such as the Information Awareness Office, NSA, and the FBI, for the development, purchase, implementation, and operation of systems which intercept and analyze this data, extracting only the information that is useful to law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

Similar systems are now used by Iranian Security dept. to more easily distinguish between peaceful citizens and terrorists. All of the technology has been allegedly installed by German Siemens AG and Finnish Nokia.

The Internet's rapid development has become a primary form of communication. More people are potentially subject to Internet surveillance. There are advantages and disadvantages to network monitoring. For instance, systems described as "Web 2.0" have greatly impacted modern society. Tim O’ Reilly, who first explained the concept of "Web 2.0", stated that Web 2.0 provides communication platforms that are "user generated", with self-produced content, motivating more people to communicate with friends online. However, Internet surveillance also has a disadvantage. One researcher from Uppsala University said "Web 2.0 surveillance is directed at large user groups who help to hegemonically produce and reproduce surveillance by providing user-generated (self-produced) content. We can characterize Web 2.0 surveillance as mass self-surveillance". Surveillance companies monitor people while they are focused on work or entertainment. Yet, employers themselves also monitor their employees. They do so in order to protect the company's assets and to control public communications but most importantly, to make sure that their employees are actively working and being productive. This can emotionally affect people; this is because it can cause emotions like jealousy. A research group states "...we set out to test the prediction that feelings of jealousy lead to ‘creeping’ on a partner through Facebook, and that women are particularly likely to engage in partner monitoring in response to jealousy". The study shows that women can become jealous of other people when they are in an online group.

The virtual assistant(AI) has become a social integration into lives. Currently, virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa or Apple's Siri cannot call 911 or local services. They are constantly listening for command and recording parts of conversations that will help improve algorithms. If the law enforcement is able to be called using a virtual assistant, the law enforcement would then be able to have access to all the information saved for the device. The device is connected to the home's internet, because of this law enforcement would be the exact location of the individual calling for law enforcement. While the virtual assistance devices are popular, many debates the lack of privacy. The devices are listening to every conversation the owner is having. Even if the owner is not talking to a virtual assistant, the device is still listening to the conversation in hopes that the owner will need assistance, as well as to gather data.

Corporate surveillance

See also: Computer surveillance in the workplace

Corporate surveillance of computer activity is very common. The data collected is most often used for marketing purposes or sold to other corporations, but is also regularly shared with government agencies. It can be used as a form of business intelligence, which enables the corporation to better tailor their products and/or services to be desirable by their customers. The data can also be sold to other corporations so that they can use it for the aforementioned purpose, or it can be used for direct marketing purposes, such as targeted advertisements, where ads are targeted to the user of the search engine by analyzing their search history and emails (if they use free webmail services), which are kept in a database.

Such type of surveillance is also used to establish business purposes of monitoring, which may include the following:

• Preventing misuse of resources. Companies can discourage unproductive personal activities such as online shopping or web surfing on company time. Monitoring employee performance is one way to reduce unnecessary network traffic and reduce the consumption of network bandwidth.
• Promoting adherence to policies. Online surveillance is one means of verifying employee observance of company networking policies.
• Preventing lawsuits. Firms can be held liable for discrimination or employee harassment in the workplace. Organizations can also be involved in infringement suits through employees that distribute copyrighted material over corporate networks.
• Safeguarding records. Federal legislation requires organizations to protect personal information. Monitoring can determine the extent of compliance with company policies and programs overseeing information security. Monitoring may also deter unlawful appropriation of personal information, and potential spam or viruses.
• Safeguarding company assets. The protection of intellectual property, trade secrets, and business strategies is a major concern. The ease of information transmission and storage makes it imperative to monitor employee actions as part of a broader policy.

The second component of prevention is determining the ownership of technology resources. The ownership of the firm's networks, servers, computers, files, and e-mail should be explicitly stated. There should be a distinction between an employee's personal electronic devices, which should be limited and proscribed, and those owned by the firm.

For instance, Google Search stores identifying information for each web search. An IP address and the search phrase used are stored in a database for up to 18 months. Google also scans the content of emails of users of its Gmail webmail service in order to create targeted advertising based on what people are talking about in their personal email correspondences. Google is, by far, the largest Internet advertising agency—millions of sites place Google's advertising banners and links on their websites in order to earn money from visitors who click on the ads. Each page containing Google advertisements adds, reads, and modifies "cookies" on each visitor's computer. These cookies track the user across all of these sites and gather information about their web surfing habits, keeping track of which sites they visit, and what they do when they are on these sites. This information, along with the information from their email accounts, and search engine histories, is stored by Google to use to build a profile of the user to deliver better-targeted advertising.

The United States government often gains access to these databases, either by producing a warrant for it, or by simply asking. The Department of Homeland Security has openly stated that it uses data collected from consumer credit and direct marketing agencies for augmenting the profiles of individuals that it is monitoring.

Malicious software

Further information: Spyware, Computer virus, Trojan (computer security), Keylogger, and Backdoor (computing)

In addition to monitoring information sent over a computer network, there is also a way to examine data stored on a computer's hard drive, and to monitor the activities of a person using the computer. A surveillance program installed on a computer can search the contents of the hard drive for suspicious data, can monitor computer use, collect passwords, and/or report back activities in real-time to its operator through the Internet connection. A keylogger is an example of this type of program. Normal keylogging programs store their data on the local hard drive, but some are programmed to automatically transmit data over the network to a remote computer or Web server.

There are multiple ways of installing such software. The most common is remote installation, using a backdoor created by a computer virus or trojan. This tactic has the advantage of potentially subjecting multiple computers to surveillance. Viruses often spread to thousands or millions of computers, and leave "backdoors" which are accessible over a network connection, and enable an intruder to remotely install software and execute commands. These viruses and trojans are sometimes developed by government agencies, such as CIPAV and Magic Lantern. More often, however, viruses created by other people or spyware installed by marketing agencies can be used to gain access through the security breaches that they create.

Another method is "cracking" into the computer to gain access over a network. An attacker can then install surveillance software remotely. Servers and computers with permanent broadband connections are most vulnerable to this type of attack. Another source of security cracking is employees giving out information or users using brute force tactics to guess their password.

One can also physically place surveillance software on a computer by gaining entry to the place where the computer is stored and install it from a compact disc, floppy disk, or thumbdrive. This method shares a disadvantage with hardware devices in that it requires physical access to the computer. One well-known worm that uses this method of spreading itself is Stuxnet.

Social network analysis

One common form of surveillance is to create maps of social networks based on data from social networking sites as well as from traffic analysis information from phone call records such as those in the NSA call database, and internet traffic data gathered under CALEA. These social network "maps" are then data mined to extract useful information such as personal interests, friendships and affiliations, wants, beliefs, thoughts, and activities.

Many U.S. government agencies such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Security Agency (NSA), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are currently investing heavily in research involving social network analysis. The intelligence community believes that the biggest threat to the U.S. comes from decentralized, leaderless, geographically dispersed groups. These types of threats are most easily countered by finding important nodes in the network, and removing them. To do this requires a detailed map of the network.

Jason Ethier of Northeastern University, in his study of modern social network analysis, said the following of the Scalable Social Network Analysis Program developed by the Information Awareness Office:

The purpose of the SSNA algorithms program is to extend techniques of social network analysis to assist with distinguishing potential terrorist cells from legitimate groups of people ... In order to be successful SSNA will require information on the social interactions of the majority of people around the globe. Since the Defense Department cannot easily distinguish between peaceful citizens and terrorists, it will be necessary for them to gather data on innocent civilians as well as on potential terrorists.

— Jason Ethier

Monitoring from a distance

With only commercially available equipment, it has been shown that it is possible to monitor computers from a distance by detecting the radiation emitted by the CRT monitor. This form of computer surveillance, known as TEMPEST, involves reading electromagnetic emanations from computing devices in order to extract data from them at distances of hundreds of meters.

IBM researchers have also found that, for most computer keyboards, each key emits a slightly different noise when pressed. The differences are individually identifiable under some conditions, and so it's possible to log key strokes without actually requiring logging software to run on the associated computer.

In 2015, lawmakers in California passed a law prohibiting any investigative personnel in the state to force businesses to hand over digital communication without a warrant, calling this Electronic Communications Privacy Act. At the same time in California, state senator Jerry Hill introduced a bill making law enforcement agencies to disclose more information on their usage and information from the Stingray phone tracker device. As the law took into effect in January 2016, it will now require cities to operate with new guidelines in relation to how and when law enforcement use this device. Some legislators and those holding a public office have disagreed with this technology because of the warrantless tracking, but now if a city wants to use this device, it must be heard by a public hearing. Some cities have pulled out of using the StingRay such as Santa Clara County.

And it has also been shown, by Adi Shamir et al., that even the high frequency noise emitted by a CPU includes information about the instructions being executed.

Policeware and govware

In German-speaking countries, spyware used or made by the government is sometimes called govware. Some countries like Switzerland and Germany have a legal framework governing the use of such software. Known examples include the Swiss MiniPanzer and MegaPanzer and the German R2D2 (trojan).

Policeware is a software designed to police citizens by monitoring the discussion and interaction of its citizens. Within the U.S., Carnivore was the first incarnation of secretly installed e-mail monitoring software installed in Internet service providers' networks to log computer communication, including transmitted e-mails. Magic Lantern is another such application, this time running in a targeted computer in a trojan style and performing keystroke logging. CIPAV, deployed by the FBI, is a multi-purpose spyware/trojan.

The Clipper Chip, formerly known as MYK-78, is a small hardware chip that the government can install into phones, designed in the nineties. It was intended to secure private communication and data by reading voice messages that are encoded and decode them. The Clipper Chip was designed during the Clinton administration to, “…protect personal safety and national security against a developing information anarchy that fosters criminals, terrorists and foreign foes.” The government portrayed it as the solution to the secret codes or cryptographic keys that the age of technology created. Thus, this has raised controversy in the public, because the Clipper Chip is thought to have been the next “Big Brother” tool. This led to the failure of the Clipper proposal, even though there have been many attempts to push the agenda.

The "Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act" (CBDTPA) was a bill proposed in the United States Congress. CBDTPA was known as the "Security Systems and Standards Certification Act" (SSSCA) while in draft form and was killed in committee in 2002. Had CBDTPA become law, it would have prohibited technology that could be used to read digital content under copyright (such as music, video, and e-books) without Digital Rights Management (DRM) that prevented access to this material without the permission of the copyright holder.

Surveillance as an aid to censorship

See also: Internet censorship and Internet censorship circumvention

Surveillance and censorship are different. Surveillance can be performed without censorship, but it is harder to engage in censorship without some forms of surveillance. And even when surveillance does not lead directly to censorship, the widespread knowledge or belief that a person, their computer, or their use of the Internet is under surveillance can lead to self-censorship.

In March 2013 Reporters Without Borders issued a Special report on Internet surveillance that examines the use of technology that monitors online activity and intercepts electronic communication in order to arrest journalists, citizen-journalists, and dissidents. The report includes a list of "State Enemies of the Internet", Bahrain, China, Iran, Syria, and Vietnam, countries whose governments are involved in active, intrusive surveillance of news providers, resulting in grave violations of freedom of information and human rights. Computer and network surveillance is on the increase in these countries. The report also includes a second list of "Corporate Enemies of the Internet", Amesys (France), Blue Coat Systems (U.S.), Gamma (UK and Germany), Hacking Team (Italy), and Trovicor (Germany), companies that sell products that are liable to be used by governments to violate human rights and freedom of information. Neither list is exhaustive and they are likely to be expanded in the future.

Protection of sources is no longer just a matter of journalistic ethics. Journalists should equip themselves with a "digital survival kit" if they are exchanging sensitive information online, storing it on a computer hard-drive or mobile phone. Individuals associated with high-profile rights organizations, dissident groups, protest groups, or reform groups are urged to take extra precautions to protect their online identities.

Cultural imperialism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism 

 

A jaguar hunter and his son, natives of the Chaco Boreal. The father continues to wear the traditional clothing of his region while the son has already adopted Western clothing.

Cultural imperialism (sometimes referred to as cultural colonialism) comprises the cultural dimensions of imperialism. The word "imperialism" often describes practices in which a social entity engages culture (including language, traditions, rituals, political and economic structures, and ways of life) to create and maintain unequal relationships between social groups. Cultural Imperialism often uses violence as a method of implementation, and the system is often part of the legitimization process of conquest.

Cultural imperialism may take various forms, such as an attitude, a formal policy, or military action - insofar as each of these reinforces cultural hegemony. Research on the topic occurs scholarly disciplines, and is especially prevalent in communication and media studies, education, foreign policy, history, international relations, linguistics, literature, post-colonialism,science, sociology, social theory, and sports.

Background and definitions

Indigenous children who have been taken from their parents and placed in a Western-style residential school, which aimed to eliminate Indigenous language and culture and replace it with English language and Christian beliefs.

Although the Oxford English Dictionary has a 1921 reference to the "cultural imperialism of the Russians", John Tomlinson, in his book on the subject, writes that the term emerged in the 1960s and has been a focus of research since at least the 1970s. Terms such as "media imperialism", "structural imperialism", "cultural dependency and domination", "cultural synchronization", "electronic colonialism", "ideological imperialism", and "economic imperialism" have all been used to describe the same basic notion of cultural imperialism.

The term refers largely to the exercise of power in a cultural relationship in which the principles, ideas, practices, and values of a powerful, invading society are imposed upon indigenous cultures in the occupied areas. The process is often used to describe examples of when the compulsory practices of the cultural traditions of the imperial social group are implemented upon a conquered social group.

Cultural imperialism has been called a process that intends to transition the “cultural symbols of the invading communities from ‘foreign’ to ‘natural,’‘domestic,’” comments Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera. The process of Cultural Conquest often involves three discrete and sequential phases:

People in new space	Objective
(1) Merchants Also termed “explorers” e.g., Lewis and Clark	Encounter resources E.g., minerals, trade routes, spices, furs, communities to tax or conscript, fertile agricultural zones, strategic geography, etc.
(2) Military An invasion force	Control resources Implement martial law so that the metropolitan may exploit resources; establish “Fort” cities, e.g., Fort Lauderdale, Fort Worth etc. that facilitate metropolitan settlement.
(3) Politicians Socialize the space into a new province of the metropolitan	Social engineering Acculturize the space into a region of the metropolitan through saturation of symbol, legend, and myth. Establish laws and norms that promote the metropolitan (invading system) as dominant culture and prohibit or criminalize other systems; offer citizenship to conquered peoples in exchange for submission to metropolitan cultural norms and abandonment of original or other (in the case of immigrants) social tendencies.

(Herlihy-Mera, Jeffrey. 2018. After American Studies: Rethinking the Legacies of Transnational Exceptionalism. Routledge. p. 24)

While the third phase continues "in perpetuity," cultural imperialism tends to be “gradual, contested (and continues to be contested), and is by nature incomplete. The partial and imperfect configuration of this ontology takes an implicit conceptualization of reality and attempts—and often fails—to elide other forms of collective existence.” In order to achieve that end, cultural engineering projects strive to “isolate residents within constructed spheres of symbols” such that they (eventually, in some cases after several generations) abandon other cultures and identify with the new symbols. “The broader intended outcome of these interventions might be described as a common recognition of possession of the land itself (on behalf of the organizations publishing and financing the images).”

For Herbert Schiller, cultural imperialism refers to the American Empire's "coercive and persuasive agencies, and their capacity to promote and universalize an American ‘way of life’ in other countries without any reciprocation of influence." According to Schiller, cultural imperialism “pressured, forced and bribed” societies to integrate with the U.S.’s expansive capitalist model but also incorporated them with attraction and persuasion by winning “the mutual consent, even solicitation of the indigenous rulers.” He continues remarks that it is:

the sum processes by which a society is brought into the modern [U.S.-centered] world system and how its dominating stratum is attracted, pressured, forced, and sometimes bribed into shaping social institutions to correspond to, or even promote, the values and structures of the dominating centres of the system. The public media are the foremost example of operating enterprises that are used in the penetrative process. For penetration on a significant scale the media themselves must be captured by the dominating/penetrating power. This occurs largely through the commercialization of broadcasting.

The historical contexts, iterations, complexities, and politics of Schiller's foundational and substantive theorization of cultural imperialism in international communication and media studies are discussed in detail by political economy of communication researchers Richard Maxwell, Vincent Mosco, Graham Murdock, and Tanner Mirrlees.

Downing and Sreberny-Mohammadi state: "Cultural imperialism signifies the dimensions of the process that go beyond economic exploitation or military force. In the history of colonialism, (i.e., the form of imperialism in which the government of the colony is run directly by foreigners), the educational and media systems of many Third World countries have been set up as replicas of those in Britain, France, or the United States and carry their values. Western advertising has made further inroads, as have architectural and fashion styles. Subtly but powerfully, the message has often been insinuated that Western cultures are superior to the cultures of the Third World."

Poststructuralism

Within the realm of poststructuralist and postcolonial theory, cultural imperialism can be seen as the cultural legacy of Western colonialism, or forms of social action contributing to the continuation of Western hegemony. To some outside of the realm of this discourse, the term is critiqued as being unclear, unfocused, and/or contradictory in nature.

The work of French philosopher and social theorist Michel Foucault has heavily influenced use of the term cultural imperialism, particularly his philosophical interpretation of power and his concept of governmentality. Following an interpretation of power similar to that of Machiavelli, Foucault defines power as immaterial, as a "certain type of relation between individuals" that has to do with complex strategic social positions that relate to the subject's ability to control its environment and influence those around itself. According to Foucault, power is intimately tied with his conception of truth. "Truth", as he defines it, is a "system of ordered procedures for the production, regulation, distribution, circulation, and operation of statements" which has a "circular relation" with systems of power. Therefore, inherent in systems of power, is always "truth", which is culturally specific, inseparable from ideology which often coincides with various forms of hegemony. Cultural imperialism may be an example of this.

Foucault's interpretation of governance is also very important in constructing theories of transnational power structure. In his lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault often defines governmentality as the broad art of "governing", which goes beyond the traditional conception of governance in terms of state mandates, and into other realms such as governing "a household, souls, children, a province, a convent, a religious order, a family". This relates directly back to Machiavelli's treatise on how to retain political power at any cost, The Prince, and Foucault's aforementioned conceptions of truth and power. (i.e. various subjectivities are created through power relations that are culturally specific, which lead to various forms of culturally specific governmentality such as neoliberal governmentality.)

Post-Colonialism

Edward Saïd is a founding figure of postcolonialism, established with the book Orientalism (1978), a humanist critique of The Enlightenment, which criticises Western knowledge of "The East"—specifically the English and the French constructions of what is and what is not "Oriental". Whereby said "knowledge" then led to cultural tendencies towards a binary opposition of the Orient vs. the Occident, wherein one concept is defined in opposition to the other concept, and from which they emerge as of unequal value. In Culture and Imperialism (1993), the sequel to Orientalism, Saïd proposes that, despite the formal end of the "age of empire" after the Second World War (1939–45), colonial imperialism left a cultural legacy to the (previously) colonised peoples, which remains in their contemporary civilisations; and that said American cultural imperialism is very influential in the international systems of power.

In "Can the Subaltern Speak?" Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak critiques common representations in the West of the Sati, as being controlled by authors other than the participants (specifically English colonizers and Hindu leaders). Because of this, Spivak argues that the subaltern, referring to the communities that participate in the Sati, are not able to represent themselves through their own voice. Spivak says that cultural imperialism has the power to disqualify or erase the knowledge and mode of education of certain populations that are low on the social hierarchy.

In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Spivak argues that Western philosophy has a history of not only exclusion of the subaltern from discourse, but also does not allow them to occupy the space of a fully human subject.

Contemporary ideas and debate

Cultural imperialism can refer to either the forced acculturation of a subject population, or to the voluntary embracing of a foreign culture by individuals who do so of their own free will. Since these are two very different referents, the validity of the term has been called into question.

Cultural influence can be seen by the "receiving" culture as either a threat to or an enrichment of its cultural identity. It seems therefore useful to distinguish between cultural imperialism as an (active or passive) attitude of superiority, and the position of a culture or group that seeks to complement its own cultural production, considered partly deficient, with imported products.

The imported products or services can themselves represent, or be associated with, certain values (such as consumerism). According to one argument, the "receiving" culture does not necessarily perceive this link, but instead absorbs the foreign culture passively through the use of the foreign goods and services. Due to its somewhat concealed, but very potent nature, this hypothetical idea is described by some experts as "banal imperialism." For example, it is argued that while "American companies are accused of wanting to control 95 percent of the world's consumers", "cultural imperialism involves much more than simple consumer goods; it involved the dissemination of American principles such as freedom and democracy", a process which "may sound appealing" but which "masks a frightening truth: many cultures around the world are disappearing due to the overwhelming influence of corporate and cultural America".

Some believe that the newly globalised economy of the late 20th and early 21st century has facilitated this process through the use of new information technology. This kind of cultural imperialism is derived from what is called "soft power". The theory of electronic colonialism extends the issue to global cultural issues and the impact of major multi-media conglomerates, ranging from Paramount, WarnerMedia, AT&T, Disney, News Corp, to Google and Microsoft with the focus on the hegemonic power of these mainly United States-based communication giants.

Cultural diversity

One of the reasons often given for opposing any form of cultural imperialism, voluntary or otherwise, is the preservation of cultural diversity, a goal seen by some as analogous to the preservation of ecological diversity. Proponents of this idea argue either that such diversity is valuable in itself, to preserve human historical heritage and knowledge, or instrumentally valuable because it makes available more ways of solving problems and responding to catastrophes, natural or otherwise.

Ideas relating to African colonisation

Of all the areas of the world that scholars have claimed to be adversely affected by imperialism, Africa is probably the most notable. In the expansive "age of imperialism" of the nineteenth century, scholars have argued that European colonisation in Africa has led to the elimination of many various cultures, worldviews, and epistemologies, particularly through neocolonisation of public education. This, arguably has led to uneven development, and further informal forms of social control having to do with culture and imperialism. A variety of factors, scholars argue, lead to the elimination of cultures, worldviews, and epistemologies, such as "de-linguicization" (replacing native African languages with European ones), devaluing ontologies that are not explicitly individualistic, and at times going as far as to not only define Western culture itself as science, but that non-Western approaches to science, the Arts, indigenous culture, etc. are not even knowledge. One scholar, Ali A. Abdi, claims that imperialism inherently "involve[s] extensively interactive regimes and heavy contexts of identity deformation, misrecognition, loss of self-esteem, and individual and social doubt in self-efficacy." Therefore, all imperialism would always, already be cultural.

Ties to neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is often critiqued by sociologists, anthropologists, and cultural studies scholars as being culturally imperialistic. Critics of neoliberalism, at times, claim that it is the newly predominant form of imperialism. Other scholars, such as Elizabeth Dunn and Julia Elyachar have claimed that neoliberalism requires and creates its own form of governmentality.

In Dunn's work, Privatizing Poland, she argues that the expansion of the multinational corporation, Gerber, into Poland in the 1990s imposed Western, neoliberal governmentality, ideologies, and epistemologies upon the post-soviet persons hired. Cultural conflicts occurred most notably the company's inherent individualistic policies, such as promoting competition among workers rather than cooperation, and in its strong opposition to what the company owners claimed was bribery.

In Elyachar's work, Markets of Dispossession, she focuses on ways in which, in Cairo, NGOs along with INGOs and the state promoted neoliberal governmentality through schemas of economic development that relied upon "youth microentrepreneurs." Youth microentrepreneurs would receive small loans to build their own businesses, similar to the way that microfinance supposedly operates. Elyachar argues though, that these programs not only were a failure, but that they shifted cultural opinions of value (personal and cultural) in a way that favoured Western ways of thinking and being.

Ties to development studies

Often, methods of promoting development and social justice are critiqued as being imperialistic in a cultural sense. For example, Chandra Mohanty has critiqued Western feminism, claiming that it has created a misrepresentation of the "third world woman" as being completely powerless, unable to resist male dominance. Thus, this leads to the often critiqued narrative of the "white man" saving the "brown woman" from the "brown man." Other, more radical critiques of development studies, have to do with the field of study itself. Some scholars even question the intentions of those developing the field of study, claiming that efforts to "develop" the Global South were never about the South itself. Instead, these efforts, it is argued, were made in order to advance Western development and reinforce Western hegemony.

Ties to media effects studies

The core of cultural imperialism thesis is integrated with the political-economy traditional approach in media effects research. Critics of cultural imperialism commonly claim that non-Western cultures, particularly from the Third World, will forsake their traditional values and lose their cultural identities when they are solely exposed to Western media. Nonetheless, Michael B. Salwen, in his book Critical Studies in Mass Communication (1991), claims that cross-consideration and integration of empirical findings on cultural imperialist influences is very critical in terms of understanding mass media in the international sphere. He recognises both of contradictory contexts on cultural imperialist impacts. The first context is where cultural imperialism imposes socio-political disruptions on developing nations. Western media can distort images of foreign cultures and provoke personal and social conflicts to developing nations in some cases. Another context is that peoples in developing nations resist to foreign media and preserve their cultural attitudes. Although he admits that outward manifestations of Western culture may be adopted, but the fundamental values and behaviours remain still. Furthermore, positive effects might occur when male-dominated cultures adopt the "liberation" of women with exposure to Western media and it stimulates ample exchange of cultural exchange.

Criticisms of "cultural imperialism theory"

Critics of scholars who discuss cultural imperialism have a number of critiques. Cultural imperialism is a term that is only used in discussions where cultural relativism and constructivism are generally taken as true. (One cannot critique promoting Western values if one believes that said values are absolutely correct. Similarly, one cannot argue that Western epistemology is unjustly promoted in non-Western societies if one believes that those epistemologies are absolutely correct.) Therefore, those who disagree with cultural relativism and/or constructivism may critique the employment of the term, cultural imperialism on those terms.

John Tomlinson provides a critique of cultural imperialism theory and reveals major problems in the way in which the idea of cultural, as opposed to economic or political, imperialism is formulated. In his book Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction, he delves into the much debated "media imperialism" theory. Summarizing research on the Third World's reception of American television shows, he challenges the cultural imperialism argument, conveying his doubts about the degree to which US shows in developing nations actually carry US values and improve the profits of US companies. Tomlinson suggests that cultural imperialism is growing in some respects, but local transformation and interpretations of imported media products propose that cultural diversification is not at an end in global society. He explains that one of the fundamental conceptual mistakes of cultural imperialism is to take for granted that the distribution of cultural goods can be considered as cultural dominance. He thus supports his argument highly criticising the concept that Americanization is occurring through global overflow of American television products. He points to a myriad of examples of television networks who have managed to dominate their domestic markets and that domestic programs generally top the ratings. He also doubts the concept that cultural agents are passive receivers of information. He states that movement between cultural/geographical areas always involves translation, mutation, adaptation, and the creation of hybridity.

Other key critiques are that the term is not defined well, and employs further terms that are not defined well, and therefore lacks explanatory power, that cultural imperialism is hard to measure, and that the theory of a legacy of colonialism is not always true.

Rothkopf on dealing with cultural dominance

David Rothkopf, managing director of Kissinger Associates and an adjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University (who also served as a senior U.S. Commerce Department official in the Clinton Administration), wrote about cultural imperialism in his provocatively titled In Praise of Cultural Imperialism? in the summer 1997 issue of Foreign Policy magazine. Rothkopf says that the United States should embrace "cultural imperialism" as in its self-interest. But his definition of cultural imperialism stresses spreading the values of tolerance and openness to cultural change in order to avoid war and conflict between cultures as well as expanding accepted technological and legal standards to provide free traders with enough security to do business with more countries. Rothkopf's definition almost exclusively involves allowing individuals in other nations to accept or reject foreign cultural influences. He also mentions, but only in passing, the use of the English language and consumption of news and popular music and film as cultural dominance that he supports. Rothkopf additionally makes the point that globalisation and the Internet are accelerating the process of cultural influence.

Culture is sometimes used by the organisers of society—politicians, theologians, academics, and families—to impose and ensure order, the rudiments of which change over time as need dictates. One need only look at the 20th century's genocides. In each one, leaders used culture as a political front to fuel the passions of their armies and other minions and to justify their actions among their people.

Rothkopf then cites genocide and massacres in Armenia, Russia, the Holocaust, Cambodia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Rwanda and East Timor as examples of culture (in some cases expressed in the ideology of "political culture" or religion) being misused to justify violence. He also acknowledges that cultural imperialism in the past has been guilty of forcefully eliminating the cultures of natives in the Americas and in Africa, or through use of the Inquisition, "and during the expansion of virtually every empire.".The most important way to deal with cultural influence in any nation, according to Rothkopf, is to promote tolerance and allow, or even promote, cultural diversities that are compatible with tolerance and to eliminate those cultural differences that cause violent conflict:

Successful multicultural societies, be they nations, federations, or other conglomerations of closely interrelated states, discern those aspects of culture that do not threaten union, stability, or prosperity (such as food, holidays, rituals, and music) and allow them to flourish. But they counteract or eradicate the more subversive elements of culture (exclusionary aspects of religion, language, and political/ideological beliefs). History shows that bridging cultural gaps successfully and serving as a home to diverse peoples requires certain social structures, laws, and institutions that transcend culture. Furthermore, the history of a number of ongoing experiments in multiculturalism, such as in the European Union, India, South Africa, Canada and the United States, suggests that workable, if not perfected, integrative models exist. Each is built on the idea that tolerance is crucial to social well-being, and each at times has been threatened by both intolerance and a heightened emphasis on cultural distinctions. The greater public good warrants eliminating those cultural characteristics that promote conflict or prevent harmony, even as less-divisive, more personally observed cultural distinctions are celebrated and preserved.

Cultural dominance can also be seen in the 1930s in Australia where the Aboriginal Assimilation Policy acted as an attempt to wipe out the Native Australian people. The British settlers tried to biologically alter the skin colour of the Australian Aboriginal people through mixed breeding with white people. The policy also made attempts to forcefully conform the Aborigines to western ideas of dress and education.

In history

Although the term was popularised in the 1960s, and was used by its original proponents to refer to cultural hegemonies in a post-colonial world, cultural imperialism has also been used to refer to times further in the past.

Ancient Greece

The Ancient Greeks are known for spreading their culture around the Mediterranean and Near East through trade and conquest. During the Archaic Period, the burgeoning Greek city-states established settlements and colonies across the Mediterranean Sea, especially in Sicily and southern Italy, influencing the Etruscan and Roman peoples of the region. In the late fourth century BC, Alexander the Great conquered Persian and Indian territories all the way to the Indus River Valley and Punjab, spreading Greek pagan religion, art, and science along the way. This resulted in the rise of Hellenistic kingdoms and cities across Egypt, the Near East, Central Asia, and Northwest India where Greek culture fused with the cultures of the indigenous peoples. The Greek influence prevailed even longer in science and literature, where medieval Muslim scholars in the Middle East studied the writings of Aristotle for scientific learning.

Ancient Rome

The Roman Empire was also an early example of cultural imperialism.

Early Rome, in its conquest of Italy, assimilated the people of Etruria by replacing the Etruscan language with Latin, which led to the demise of that language and many aspects of Etruscan civilisation.

Cultural Romanization was imposed on many parts of Rome's empire by "many regions receiving Roman culture unwillingly, as a form of cultural imperialism." For example, when Greece was conquered by the Roman armies, Rome set about altering the culture of Greece to conform with Roman ideals. For instance, the Greek habit of stripping naked, in public, for exercise, was looked on askance by Roman writers, who considered the practice to be a cause of the Greeks' effeminacy and enslavement. The Roman example has been linked to modern instances of European imperialism in African countries, bridging the two instances with Slavoj Zizek's discussions of 'empty signifiers'.

The Pax Romana was secured in the empire, in part, by the "forced acculturation of the culturally diverse populations that Rome had conquered."

British Empire

British worldwide expansion in the 18th and 19th centuries was an economic and political phenomenon. However, "there was also a strong social and cultural dimension to it, which Rudyard Kipling termed the 'white man's burden'." One of the ways this was carried out was by religious proselytising, by, amongst others, the London Missionary Society, which was "an agent of British cultural imperialism." Another way, was by the imposition of educational material on the colonies for an "imperial curriculum". Robin A. Butlin writes, "The promotion of empire through books, illustrative materials, and educational syllabuses was widespread, part of an education policy geared to cultural imperialism". This was also true of science and technology in the empire. Douglas M. Peers and Nandini Gooptu note that "Most scholars of colonial science in India now prefer to stress the ways in which science and technology worked in the service of colonialism, as both a 'tool of empire' in the practical sense and as a vehicle for cultural imperialism. In other words, science developed in India in ways that reflected colonial priorities, tending to benefit Europeans at the expense of Indians, while remaining dependent on and subservient to scientific authorities in the colonial metropolis."

The analysis of cultural imperialism carried out by Edward Said drew principally from a study of the British Empire. According to Danilo Raponi, the cultural imperialism of the British in the 19th century had a much wider effect than only in the British Empire. He writes, "To paraphrase Said, I see cultural imperialism as a complex cultural hegemony of a country, Great Britain, that in the 19th century had no rivals in terms of its ability to project its power across the world and to influence the cultural, political and commercial affairs of most countries. It is the 'cultural hegemony' of a country whose power to export the most fundamental ideas and concepts at the basis of its understanding of 'civilisation' knew practically no bounds." In this, for example, Raponi includes Italy.

Other pre-Second World War examples

The New Cambridge Modern History writes about the cultural imperialism of Napoleonic France. Napoleon used the Institut de France "as an instrument for transmuting French universalism into cultural imperialism." Members of the Institute (who included Napoleon), descended upon Egypt in 1798. "Upon arrival they organised themselves into an Institute of Cairo. The Rosetta Stone is their most famous find. The science of Egyptology is their legacy."

After the First World War, Germans were worried about the extent of French influence in the annexed Rhineland, with the French occupation of the Ruhr Valley in 1923. An early use of the term appeared in an essay by Paul Ruhlmann (as "Peter Hartmann") at that date, entitled French Cultural Imperialism on the Rhine.

Ties to North American Colonisation

Keeping in line with the trends of international imperialistic endeavours, the expansion of Canadian and American territory in the 19th century saw cultural imperialism employed as a means of control over indigenous populations. This, when used in conjunction of more traditional forms of ethnic cleansing and genocide in the United States, saw devastating, lasting effects on indigenous communities.

In 2017 Canada celebrated its 150-year anniversary of the confederating of three British colonies. As Catherine Murton Stoehr points out in Origins, a publication organised by the history departments of Ohio State University and Miami University, the occasion came with remembrance of Canada's treatment of First Nations people.

A mere 9 years after the 1867 signing of confederation Canada passed "The Indian Act", a separate and not equal form of government especially for First Nations. The Indian Act remains in place today, confining and constraining Indigenous jurisdiction in every area of life, in direct contravention of the nation's founding treaties with indigenous nations.

Numerous policies focused on indigenous persons came into effect shortly thereafter. Most notable is the use of residential schools across Canada as a means to remove indigenous persons from their culture and instill in them the beliefs and values of the majorised colonial hegemony. The policies of these schools, as described by Ward Churchill in his book Kill the Indian, Save the Man, were to forcefully assimilate students who were often removed with force from their families. These schools forbid students from using their native languages and participating in their own cultural practices.

Residential schools were largely run by Christian churches, operating in conjunction with Christian missions with minimal government oversight.

The book, Stolen Lives: The Indigenous peoples of Canada and the Indian Residentials Schools, describes this form of operation:

The government provided little leadership, and the clergy in charge were left to decide what to teach and how to teach it. Their priority was to impart the teachings of their church or order—not to provide a good education that could help students in their post-graduation lives.

In a The New York Times op-ed, Gabrielle Scrimshaw describes her grandparents being forced to send her mother to one of these schools or risk imprisonment. After hiding her mother on "school pick up day" so as to avoid sending their daughter to institutions whose abuse was well known at the time (mid-20th century). Scrimshaw's mother was left with limited options for further education she says and is today illiterate as a result.

Scrimshaw explains "Seven generations of my ancestors went through these schools. Each new family member enrolled meant a compounding of abuse and a steady loss of identity, culture and hope. My mother was the last generation. the experience left her broken, and like so many, she turned to substances to numb these pains."

A report, republished by CBC News, estimates nearly 6,000 children died in the care of these schools.

The colonisation of native peoples in North America remains active today despite the closing of the majority of residential schools. This form of cultural imperialism continues in the use of Native Americans as mascots for schools and athletic teams. Jason Edward Black, a professor and chair in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, describes how the use of Native Americans as mascots furthers the colonial attitudes of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Indigenous groups, along with cultural studies scholars, view the Native mascots as hegemonic devices–commodification tools–that advance a contemporary manifest destiny by marketing Native culture as Euromerican identity.

In Deciphering Pocahontas, Kent Ono and Derek Buescher wrote: "Euro-American culture has made a habit of appropriating, and redefining what is 'distinctive' and constitutive of Native Americans."

Nazi colonialism

Cultural imperialism has also been used in connection with the expansion of German influence under the Nazis in the middle of the twentieth century. Alan Steinweis and Daniel Rogers note that even before the Nazis came to power, "Already in the Weimar Republic, German academic specialists on eastern Europe had contributed through their publications and teaching to the legitimization of German territorial revanchism and cultural imperialism. These scholars operated primarily in the disciplines of history, economics, geography, and literature."

In the area of music, Michael Kater writes that during the WWII German occupation of France, Hans Rosbaud, a German conductor based by the Nazi regime in Strasbourg, became "at least nominally, a servant of Nazi cultural imperialism directed against the French."

In Italy during the war, Germany pursued "a European cultural front that gravitates around German culture". The Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels set up the European Union of Writers, "one of Goebbels's most ambitious projects for Nazi cultural hegemony. Presumably a means of gathering authors from Germany, Italy, and the occupied countries to plan the literary life of the new Europe, the union soon emerged as a vehicle of German cultural imperialism."

For other parts of Europe, Robert Gerwarth, writing about cultural imperialism and Reinhard Heydrich, states that the "Nazis' Germanization project was based on a historically unprecedented programme of racial stock-taking, theft, expulsion and murder." Also, "The full integration of the [Czech] Protectorate into this New Order required the complete Germanization of the Protectorate's cultural life and the eradication of indigenous Czech and Jewish culture."

The actions by Nazi Germany reflect on the notion of race and culture playing a significant role in imperialism. The idea that there is a distinction between the Germans and the Jews has created the illusion of Germans believing they were superior to the Jewish inferiors, the notion of us/them and self/others.

Americanization

Main article: Americanization

Further information: American imperialism

The terms "McDonaldization", "Disneyization" and "Cocacolonization" have been coined to describe the spread of Western cultural influence.

There are many countries affected by the US and their pop-culture. For example, the film industry in Nigeria referred to as "Nollywood" being the second largest as it produces more films annually than the United States, their films are shown across Africa. Another term that describes the spread of Western cultural influence is "Hollywoodization" it is when American culture is promoted through Hollywood films which can culturally affect the viewers of Hollywood films.

Hibernation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibernation

Northern bat hibernating in Norway

 

Bats hibernating in a silver mine

Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most commonly occurs during winter months.

Although traditionally reserved for "deep" hibernators such as rodents, the term has been redefined to include animals such as bears and is now applied based on active metabolic suppression rather than any absolute decline in body temperature. Many experts believe that the processes of daily torpor and hibernation form a continuum and utilise similar mechanisms. The equivalent during the summer months is aestivation.

Hibernation functions to conserve energy when sufficient food is not available. To achieve this energy saving, an endothermic animal decreases its metabolic rate and thereby its body temperature. Hibernation may last days, weeks, or months—depending on the species, ambient temperature, time of year, and the individual's body-condition. Before entering hibernation, animals need to store enough energy to last through the duration of their dormant period, possibly as long as an entire winter. Larger species become hyperphagic, eating a large amount of food and storing the energy in fat deposits. In many small species, food caching replaces eating and becoming fat.

Some species of mammals hibernate while gestating young, which are born either while the mother hibernates or shortly afterwards. For example, female black bears go into hibernation during the winter months in order to give birth to their offspring. The pregnant mothers significantly increase their body mass prior to hibernation, and this increase is further reflected in the weight of the offspring. The fat accumulation enables them to provide a sufficiently warm and nurturing environment for their newborns. During hibernation, they subsequently lose 15–27% of their pre-hibernation weight by using their stored fats for energy.

Ectothermic animals also undergo periods of metabolic suppression and dormancy, which in many invertebrates is referred to as diapause. Some researchers and members of the public use the term brumate to describe winter dormancy of reptiles, but the more general term hibernation is believed adequate to refer to any winter dormancy. Many insects, such as the wasp Polistes exclamans, exhibit periods of dormancy which have often been referred to as hibernation, despite their ectothermy. Botanists may use the term "seed hibernation" to refer to a form of seed dormancy.

Mammals

There is a variety of definitions for terms that describe hibernation in mammals, and different mammal clades hibernate differently. The following subsections discuss the terms obligate and facultative hibernation. The last two sections point out in particular primates, none of whom were thought to hibernate until recently, and bears, whose winter torpor had been contested as not being "true hibernation" during the late 20th century, since it is dissimilar from hibernation seen in rodents.

Obligate hibernation

Groundhog gathering nesting material for its warm burrow in preparation for hibernation

Obligate hibernators are animals that spontaneously, and annually, enter hibernation regardless of ambient temperature and access to food. Obligate hibernators include many species of ground squirrels, other rodents, mouse lemurs, European hedgehogs and other insectivores, monotremes, and marsupials. These species undergo what has been traditionally called "hibernation": a physiological state wherein the body temperature drops to near ambient temperature, and heart and respiration rates slow drastically.

The typical winter season for obligate hibernators is characterized by periods of torpor interrupted by periodic, euthermic arousals, during which body temperatures and heart rates are restored to more typical levels. The cause and purpose of these arousals is still not clear; the question of why hibernators may return periodically to normal body temperatures has plagued researchers for decades, and while there is still no clear-cut explanation, there are multiple hypotheses on the topic. One favored hypothesis is that hibernators build a "sleep debt" during hibernation, and so must occasionally warm up to sleep. This has been supported by evidence in the Arctic ground squirrel. Other theories postulate that brief periods of high body temperature during hibernation allow the animal to restore its available energy sources or to initiate an immune response.

Hibernating Arctic ground squirrels may exhibit abdominal temperatures as low as −2.9 °C (26.8 °F), maintaining sub-zero abdominal temperatures for more than three weeks at a time, although the temperatures at the head and neck remain at 0 °C (32 °F) or above.

Facultative hibernation

Facultative hibernators enter hibernation only when either cold-stressed, food-deprived, or both, unlike obligate hibernators, who enter hibernation based on seasonal timing cues rather than as a response to stressors from the environment.

A good example of the differences between these two types of hibernation can be seen in prairie dogs. The white-tailed prairie dog is an obligate hibernator, while the closely related black-tailed prairie dog is a facultative hibernator.

Primates

While hibernation has long been studied in rodents (namely ground squirrels) no primate or tropical mammal was known to hibernate until the discovery of hibernation in the fat-tailed dwarf lemur of Madagascar, which hibernates in tree holes for seven months of the year. Malagasy winter temperatures sometimes rise to over 30 °C (86 °F), so hibernation is not exclusively an adaptation to low ambient temperatures.

The hibernation of this lemur is strongly dependent on the thermal behaviour of its tree hole: If the hole is poorly insulated, the lemur's body temperature fluctuates widely, passively following the ambient temperature; if well insulated, the body temperature stays fairly constant and the animal undergoes regular spells of arousal. Dausmann found that hypometabolism in hibernating animals is not necessarily coupled with low body temperature.

Bears

Black bear mother and cubs "denning"

Historically it was unclear whether or not bears truly hibernate, since they experience only a modest decline in body temperature (3–5 °C) compared with the much larger decreases (often 32 °C or more) seen in other hibernators. Many researchers thought that their deep sleep was not comparable with true, deep hibernation, but this theory was refuted by research in 2011 on captive black bears and again in 2016 in a study on brown bears.

Hibernating bears are able to recycle their proteins and urine, allowing them to stop urinating for months and to avoid muscle atrophy. They stay hydrated with the metabolic fat that is produced in sufficient quantities to satisfy the water needs of the bear. They also do not eat or drink while hibernating, but live off their stored fat. Despite long-term inactivity and lack of food intake, hibernating bears are believed to maintain their bone mass and do not suffer from osteoporosis. They also increase the availability of certain essential amino acids in the muscle, as well as regulate the transcription of a suite of genes that limit muscle wasting. A study by G. Edgar Folk, Jill M. Hunt and Mary A. Folk compared EKG of typical hibernators to three different bear species with respect to season, activity and dormancy, and found that the reduced relaxation (QT) interval of small hibernators was the same for the three bear species. They also found the QT interval changed for both typical hibernators and the bears from summer to winter. This 1977 study was one of the first evidences used to show that bears are hibernators.

In a 2016 study, wildlife veterinarian and associate professor at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Alina L. Evans, researched 14 brown bears over three winters. Their movement, heart rate, heart rate variability, body temperature, physical activity, ambient temperature, and snow depth were measured to identify the drivers of the start and end of hibernation for bears. This study built the first chronology of both ecological and physiological events from before the start to the end of hibernation in the field. This research found that bears would enter their den when snow arrived and ambient temperature dropped to 0 °C. However, physical activity, heart rate, and body temperature started to drop slowly even several weeks before this. Once in their dens, the bears' heart rate variability dropped dramatically, indirectly suggesting metabolic suppression is related to their hibernation. Two months before the end of hibernation, the bears' body temperature starts to rise, unrelated to heart rate variability but rather driven by the ambient temperature. The heart rate variability only increases around three weeks before arousal and the bears only leave their den once outside temperatures are at their lower critical temperature. These findings suggest that bears are thermoconforming and bear hibernation is driven by environmental cues, but arousal is driven by physiological cues.

Birds

Ancient people believed that swallows hibernated, and ornithologist Gilbert White documented anecdotal evidence in his 1789 book The Natural History of Selborne that indicated the belief was still current in his time. It is now understood that the vast majority of bird species typically do not hibernate, instead utilizing torpor. One known exception is the common poorwill (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii), for which hibernation was first documented by Edmund Jaeger.

Dormancy and freezing in ectotherms

Main article: Cryopreservation § Freeze tolerance in animals

Because they cannot actively down-regulate their body temperature or metabolic rate, ectothermic animals (including fish, reptiles, and amphibians) cannot hibernate. They can experience decreased metabolic rates associated with colder environments or low oxygen availability (hypoxia) and exhibit dormancy (known as brumation). It was once thought that basking sharks settled to the floor of the North Sea and became dormant, but research by David Sims in 2003 dispelled this hypothesis, showing that the sharks traveled long distances throughout the seasons, tracking the areas with the highest quantity of plankton. Epaulette sharks have been documented to be able to survive for three hours without oxygen and at temperatures of up to 26 °C (79 °F) as a means to survive in their shoreline habitat, where water and oxygen levels vary with the tide. Other animals able to survive long periods with very little or no oxygen include goldfish, red-eared sliders, wood frogs, and bar-headed geese. The ability to survive hypoxic or anoxic conditions is not closely related to endotherm hibernation.

Some animals can literally survive winter by freezing. For example, some fish, amphibians, and reptiles can naturally freeze and then "wake" up in the spring. These species have evolved freeze tolerance mechanism such as antifreeze proteins.

Hibernation induction trigger

Hibernation induction trigger (HIT) is somewhat of a misnomer. Although research in the 1990s hinted at the ability to induce torpor in animals by injection of blood taken from a hibernating animal, further research has been unable to reproduce this phenomenon. Despite the inability to induce torpor, there are substances in the blood of hibernators that can lend protection to organs for possible transplant. Researchers were able to prolong the life of an isolated pig's heart with an HIT. This may have potentially important implications for organ transplant, as it could allow organs to survive for up to 18 hours outside the human body. This would be a great improvement from the current 6 hours.

The supposed HIT is a mixture derived from blood serum, including at least one opioid-like substance. DADLE is an opioid that in some experiments has been shown to have similar functional properties.

In humans

See also: Suspended animation

Researchers have studied how to induce hibernation in humans. The ability to hibernate would be useful for a number of reasons, such as saving the lives of seriously ill or injured people by temporarily putting them in a state of hibernation until treatment can be given. For space travel, human hibernation is also under consideration, such as for missions to Mars.

Anthropologists are also studying whether hibernation was possible in early hominid species.