Harry Kellar was an American magician who presented large stage shows during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Kellar was a predecessor of Harry Houdini and a successor of Robert Heller and Isaiah Hughes, under whom he apprenticed, he was referred to as the "Dean of American Magicians" and performed extensively on five continents. One of his most memorable stage illusions was the levitation of a girl advertised as the "Levitation of Princess Karnac", copied from an illusion invented by John Nevil Maskelyne, bought by Harry Blackstone, Sr, he was a longtime customer of the Martinka Magic Company, which built many of his illusions and sets, including the "Blue Room". As is the case with most magicians, there is little of Kellar's early life, his real name was Heinrich Keller and he was born to German immigrants in Erie, Pennsylvania. He was sometimes called Henry, but changed it to Harry; as a child, Kellar was known to play chicken with passing trains. Kellar apprenticed under a druggist and experimented with various chemical mixtures.

On one occasion, Kellar blew a hole in the floor of his employer's drugstore. Rather than confront the wrath of his parents, Kellar became a vagabond, he was only ten years old at the time. Kellar was befriended by a British-born minister of religion from upstate New York, he offered to adopt Kellar and pay for his education if he would study to become a minister. One evening Kellar saw the performance of a traveling magician, "The Fakir of Ava", the stage name of Isiaiah Harris Hughes, after the show, Kellar "immediately got the urge to go on the stage", he told Houdini that, "I became restless, bought books on magic and left my friend and benefactor". While working on a farm in Buffalo, New York, Kellar answered an ad in the newspaper, placed by Hughes, looking for an assistant. Kellar was hired and, at the age of sixteen, gave his first solo performance in Michigan. Two years Keller tried again with better results, but, as he was in poor financial condition, his early career consisted of borrowing equipment for the show and avoiding creditors.

In 1869, Kellar began working with "The Davenport Brothers and Fay", a group of stage spiritualists made up of Ira Erastus Davenport, William Henry Davenport and William Fay. Kellar spent several years working with them, until 1873, when he and Fay parted ways with the Davenports and embarked on a "world tour" through Central and South America. In Mexico, they were able to make $10,000. In 1875, the tour ended in Rio de Janeiro with an appearance before Emperor Dom Pedro II. On their way to a tour in England, the ship Kellar and Fay were sailing on, sank in the Bay of Biscay. Lost in the wreckage were Keller's equipment and clothing, along with the ship's cargo of gold, silver, and uncut diamonds. After the shipwreck, Keller was left with only the clothes on his back and a diamond ring he was wearing. Afterwards, his bankers in New York cabled him telling him. Desperate for money, Kellar sold his ring and parted ways with Fay, who left to rejoin the Davenports. After visiting John Nevil Maskelyne's and George Alfred Cooke's theater, called the Egyptian Hall, Keller was inspired and liked the idea of performing in one spot.

He loved the illusions Maskelyne and Cook performed but it was Buatier de Kolta playing there, who performed'The Vanishing Birdcage', a trick that Kellar decided he must have and spent his remaining money to buy it from him. Kellar borrowed $500 from Junius Spencer Morgan, returned to the United States to try to retrieve his funds from a bank transaction he had initiated when he was in Brazil. Knowing that mail from Brazil was slow, he was able to recover all of the $3,500. With the money, Kellar started a "troupe" based on Masekylne's and Cooke's in England going so far as naming his theater the Egyptian Hall. In 1878, Kellar returned to England and invested $12,000 into purchasing new equipment, including a version Maskelyne's whist-playing automaton "Psycho". After a disappointing tour in South America, Kellar cancelled his remaining shows and returned to New York. Shortly before arriving, Kellar was told of the death of magician Robert Heller; the New York Sun accused Kellar of violating Heller's personality rights, saying that "Heller is scarcely dead before we read of'Kellar the Wizard'."

The article goes on to say, "Of course'Kellar' aims to profit by the reputation that Heller left, by adopting a close imitation of Heller's name. This is not an uncommon practice." Kellar attempted to prove that his name had always been Keller with an "e" and that he had changed it years to try to avoid being confused with Heller. He pointed out that Heller had changed his name from William Henry Palmer; the public was still unreceptive to him, causing Kellar to cancel his upcoming shows in the United States and return to Brazil. After another world tour in 1882, Kellar was performing again in Melbourne and met a fan, Eva Lydia Medley, who came backstage to get his autograph. Kellar promised to send letters from his travels, they exchanged letters for the next five years. Kellar started his version of Egyptian Hall in December 1884, after renting out an old Masonic temple on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After 264 performances, Kellar closed the theater on June 24, 1885. Shortly after Kellar left, the theater burned down.

While Kellar was performing in America, Medley arrived a few weeks before his appear

Chlamydia trachomatis known as chlamydia, is a bacterium that causes chlamydia, which can manifest in various ways, including: trachoma, lymphogranuloma venereum, nongonococcal urethritis, salpingitis, pelvic inflammatory disease. C. trachomatis is the most common infectious cause of blindness and the most common sexually transmitted bacterium. Different types of C. trachomatis cause different diseases. The most common strains cause disease in the genital tract, while other strains cause disease in the eye or lymph nodes. Like other Chlamydia species, the C. trachomatis life cycle consists of two morphologically distinct life stages: elementary bodies and reticulate bodies. Elementary bodies are spore-like and infectious, whereas reticulate bodies are the replicative stage and are seen only within host cells. Chlamydia trachomatis is a gram-negative bacterium. Over the course of the C. trachomatis life cycle, the bacteria take on two distinct forms. Elementary bodies are 200 to 400 nanometers across, are surrounded by a rigid cell wall that allows them to survive outside of a host cell.

This form can initiate a new infection. Reticulate bodies are 600 to 1500 nanometers across, are found only within host cells. Neither form is motile; the C. trachomatis genome is smaller than that of many other bacteria at 1.04 megabases, encoding 900 genes. Several important metabolic functions are not encoded in the C. trachomatis genome, instead, are scavenged from the host cell. In addition to the chromosome that contains most of the genome, nearly all C. trachomatis strains carry a 7.5 kilobase plasmid that contains 8 genes. The role of this plasmid is unknown, though strains without the plasmid have been isolated, suggesting it is not required for survival of the bacterium. Like other Chlamydia species, C. trachomatis has a life cycle consisting of two morphologically distinct forms. First, C. trachomatis attaches to a new host cell as a small spore-like form called the elementary body. The elementary body enters. Within the inclusion, C. trachomatis transforms into a larger, more metabolically active form called the reticulate body.

The reticulate body modifies the inclusion, making it a more hospitable environment for rapid replication of the bacteria, which occurs over the following 30 to 72 hours. The massive number of intracellular bacteria transition back to resistant elementary bodies, before causing the cell to rupture and being released into the environment; these new elementary bodies are shed in the semen or released from epithelial cells of the female genital tract, attach to new host cells. C. trachomatis are bacteria in the genus Chlamydia, a group of obligate intracellular parasites of eukaryotic cells. Chlamydial cells cannot carry out energy metabolism and they lack biosynthetic pathways. C. Trachomatis strains are divided into three biovars based on the type of disease they cause; these are further subdivided into several serovars based on the surface antigens recognized by the immune system. Serovars A through C cause trachoma, the world's leading cause of preventable infectious blindness. Serovars D through K infect the genital tract, causing pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancies, infertility.

Serovars L1 through L3 cause an invasive infection of the lymph nodes near the genitals, called lymphogranuloma venereum. C. Trachomatis is thought to have diverged from other Chlamydia species around 6 million years ago; this genus contains a total of nine species: C. trachomatis, C. muridarum, C. pneumoniae, C. pecorum, C. suis, C. abortus, C. felis, C. caviae, C. psittaci. The closest relative to C. trachomatis is C. muridarum. C. trachomatis along with C. pneumoniae have been found to infect humans to a greater extent. C. trachomatis infects human beings. C. pneumoniae is found to infect horses and frogs. Some of the other species can have a considerable impact on human health due to their known zoonotic transmission. Clinical signs and symptoms of C. trachomatis infection in the genitalia present as the chlamydia infection and is indistinguishable from a gonorrhea infection. Both are common causes of multiple other conditions including pelvic inflammatory disease and urethritis. C. Trachomatis is the single most important infectious agent associated with blindness, it affects the eyes in the form of inclusion conjunctivitis and is responsible for about 19% of adult cases of conjunctivitis.

C. Trachomatis in the lungs presents as the chlamydia pneumoniae respiratory infection and can affect all ages. Elementary bodies are present in the semen of infected men and vaginal secretions of infected women; when they come into contact with a new host cell, the elementary bodies bind to the cell via interaction between adhesins on their surface and several host receptor proteins and heparan sulfate proteoglycans. Once attached, the bacteria inject various effector proteins into the host cell using a type three secretion system; these effectors trigger the host cell to take up the elementary bodies and prevent the cell from triggering apoptosis. Within 6 to 8 hours after infection, the elementary bodies transition to reticulate bodies and a number of new effectors are synthesized; these effectors include a number of proteins that modify the inclusion membrane, called Inc proteins, as well as proteins that redirect host vesicles to the inclusion. 8 to 16 hours after infection, another set of effectors are synthesized, driving acquisition of nutrients from the host cell.

At this stage, the reticulate bodies begin to divi

The Biggest Loser: Second Chances is the eighth season of the NBC reality television series The Biggest Loser. The contestants competed to win a $250,000 prize, awarded to Danny Cahill, the contestant with the highest percentage of weight lost; this season premiered on NBC on Tuesday, September 15, 2009. The season's theme meant that each of the candidates had met with heartbreak and tragedy during their lifetime. Among notable stories, Shay Sorrells grew up in foster care while her mother unsuccessfully struggled with heroin addiction, while Abby Rike lost her husband and children in a head-on collision caused by a speeding driver. Amanda Arlauskas became a contestant after winning a public vote against Erinn Egbert held during the Season 7 live finale. Contestant Daniel Wright was a contestant in Season 7, has returned to "finish what started". Another change to the format this year is that the two trainers will work with all contestants rather than splitting the contestants into two camps and creating an imagined competition between the two trainers.

In the fifth week, when teams are changed to blue and black, Jillian leads black while Bob leads blue. In the eighth week, the contestants are competing as individuals and Bob and Jillian are once again training the contestants together; the complete sixteen contestant cast list was revealed by NBC on August 20, 2009. Contestants are listed in chronological order of elimination. Winners $250,000 Winner $100,000 Winner Standings Week's Biggest Loser Week's Biggest Loser & Immunity Immunity Eliminated at the FinaleBMI Underweight Normal Overweight Obese Class I Obese Class II Obese Class III * Allen had a one-pound advantage in Week 9. So his percentage of weight loss counted as 4.35%. Bold denotes whom has the overall highest percentage of weight loss as of that week Immunity? Immunity, vote not revealed X No elimination due to total immunity X Below yellow line, unable to vote X Not in elimination, unable to vote? Vote not revealed Eliminated or not in house X Below red line, automatically eliminated Valid vote cast X Below yellow line, America Votes Last person eliminated before the finale $250,000 winner Notes In week 2, the contestants completed a weight-loss challenge that allowed them to avoid elimination.

In week 9, Daniel fell below the red line, as a result, was automatically eliminated. First aired September 15, 2009 Before arriving on the Biggest Loser Ranch, the contestants are given a challenge: a footrace along the last mile of the Biggest Loser Marathon from Season 7; the winner would receive immunity for himself and the person s/he would choose as his or her partner. Daniel Wright is brought to the race separate from the other contestants and introduced as a surprise to them. Daniel wins the race, Allen came in 2nd, Amanda came in 3rd, Rebecca 4th, Dina and Rudy both came in 5/6th, Abby came in 7th, Antoine 8th, Liz 9th Alexandra in 10th, Júlio 11th, Danny 12th, Sean 13th, Shay came in 14th, Coach MO 15th and Tracey came in 16th though she would have been fourth or third but she ran out of energy so she collapsed, and Tracey and Mozziz are hospitalized following the challenge. Tracey does not return until the second week. Back at the ranch, the contestants share their stories before picking teams.

Daniel, winning the race, has first choice of teammates and chooses Shay as his partner, granting her immunity as well for the first week. The other contestants pick teammates in the order of finish; the contestants weigh in for the first time. The weights are a shock including trainers Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper; the initial weigh-in featured three Biggest Loser records: the greatest number of contestants having initial weights exceeding 400 pounds and the heaviest female and heaviest contestant overall. The contestants visit several doctors, including Dr. Huizenga, who talks to them about their health, explaining their health problems in grim terms, he informs 29-year-old Sean. The contestants go through two workouts, with both Bob and Jillian working with all contestants, rather than dividing the gym. At the second weigh-in, Coach Mo represents the Purple Team by himself and is the contestant with the second largest percentage of weight lost; the Black Team fall below the yellow line. By the time this episode aired, Alexandra has lost 60 pounds.

She plans to weigh 180 pounds at the finale. She reveals that she had a crush on someone at the ranch, but will not tell who until the finale, it was revealed that she is dating fellow contestant Antoine. First aired September 22, 2009 Alison offers the participants a challenge – if the group can lose a combined total of 150 pounds all of them can stay for at least one more week; the challenge will be difficult because Tracey, although returning to the show, is medically limited from participating in most activities and the second week has been the most challenging, with contestants losing far l